amerika

Such a wonderful metaphor.

You can't get any better advice than from Napalm Death:

1. Change your life.

2. You suffer (but why?).

Something in your life-arrangement is wrong. Fix it and move to something you enjoy.

They're morons not to.

Word of mouth in appreciation of a good deed or good product is the most compelling sales pitch you'll ever hear.

As society becomes more chaotic, the cops are going to get more violent and pro-active. Look at police in Brazil and other war zones. They have to be this way, and they're not universally competent, so you get the dog-shooters and zombies volunteering for these missions as well as the regular cops.

Maybe instead of blaming the tool -- the cops -- we should fix our fractured and dysfunctional society.

It's not popular to say this but: democracy is a failure.

We have constant political turmoil, constant corruption, and constant interruption by "well-intentioned" but insane government programs.

The world is constantly unstable.

Let's get away from the popularity model of government and move to the competence model.

Gizmodo? Isn't that a site by the same people who hire reporters who reveal the personal data of internet users? Not interested.

Pure pretense. They're using the NSA debacle as an excuse to pander to the trend and headline-whore.

Gosh, a lack of hierarchy means that everyone is unstable because they might get climbed over by others. Who would've guessed.

Free wi-fi? Free power? SOCIALISM!

I don't think this is America against democracy. Democracy is mob rule.

I think this surveillance was originally a good idea, since all the data's out there and the bad guys are using it. It was abused when it was turned from "listen to all traffic and see if you can find terrorists" to "use this whenever we suspect someone of anything."

“I am not, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.” - Abraham Lincoln

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/mar/29/what-di...

Sweden: not only do they have the best death metal, but they have the best icon design. It must all originate in the Futhark.

This article made my day.

The standardization/normalization of the web -- specifically, PageRank, Wikipedia, Facebook, and what's now totally recombinant "web design" -- has ruined the frontier aspect necessary for actual innovation.

It's full of Californians, increasingly expensive, and, thanks to heavy subsidies from state and parent-based funding, kind of filled with kind of useless people.

Otherwise, it's great. The climate's a bit warm but not too humid, there's lots of hippie stuff to do and you can run away to the suburbs which are more like Houston, and if you like live music -- even though most of it is boring -- you'll love swiping that card all over sixth street.

As far as tech opportunities? * cough * I'd look to Houston or DFW.

128k is enough for anyone. Especially now that we've moved to a GUI.

All civilizations must collapse eventually. Rome, Russia, Greece, and now us.

They should make these harder. We don't want too many outright incompetents voting.

I think older versions were more consistent. The newer ones show tacked-on ideas. I'm sticking with V6, despite its age and incompleteness.

Gmail used to have a single concept, and do very well at that. Someone thought up a vision for how an ideal simplified email client should work, and made that as a web application.

Then the usual cruft built up. People wanted to "add features," not realizing that doing so changes the concept of the whole. The interface became non-consistent.

In general, as companies grow, so does the cruft. Projects are no longer in the hands of a single visionary, but a committee. That committee makes demands of programmers, who graft on the new changes. These accumulate and soon inconsistency is the norm.

At that point, users flee to other projects.

And we've built a society on the notion that this kind of "stability" is best! Warning signs all around.

Similar to learned helplessness. Maybe Nietzsche wasn't so far off after all when he identified resentment as the scourge of civilization...

Intriguing. I've asked the experts:

http://www.hou2600.org/hacking/can-you-break-this-code-from-...

I know nothing about the Boards of Canada (except the soundtracks they did for "Until the Light Takes Us") but that OpenVMS prompt looks quite inviting...

You're going to have to make your peace with it and move on.

Stay away from the psychologists; they never help, because it's not in their business model.

Consider doing something different, if only because you may be totally uninspired by the path you're forcing yourself to follow.

Remember, pounding square pegs into round holes is for Baby Boomers only.