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Archive for June, 2007

The Vingean Oracle

Michael Abrash once pointed out that the really brilliant science fiction authors don’t just imagine the gadget - they foresee how the gadget will change society. I’ve found this ability to envision society-sweeping changes appears in visionary writers even when they might get the exact technology wrong.
For example on The Accomplice, one […]

Olbermann on O’Reilley’s idiocy

Keith Olbermann points out how much of a hypocritical, uninformed gasbag Bill O’Reilly is. Not that you didn’t know.

Libertarian humor

I was reading the news today about Costa Rican congresswoman Evita Arguedas, who was elected for the increasingly more inappropriately-named Movimiento Libertario. It seems she’s been ostracized by party leadership because she voted against what they thought. Now, I’m no fan of Evita, but I still think the whole business is hilarious. […]

John Allison on Self-Interest

A delightful podcast with John Allison, chairman of BB&T, about why self-interest is good and how it can help you run a better company. From the EconTalk description:

John Allison, CEO of BB&T Bank, lays out his business philosophy arguing for the virtues of profits, self-interest and production. His definition of […]

TorrentSpy and user tracking

TorrentSpy has been ordered by a judge to start tracking IP information of their visitors. Whole bunch of people are horrified, suddenly concerned about their rights. The same people that I know that go to the U.S. on shopping trips, standing in line to get their fingerprints taken so that they […]

Be the first, get punished

Linden Research runs Second Life, a virtual world that I’ve mentioned before. They’re currently enmeshed in a legal situation because they denied access to a person, who then filed a lawsuit because they unlawfully confiscated his virtual property. The situation has been complicated for Linden Research by something that reads like they had […]