At first, the google engineer cheered, knowing he or she had contributed to the world. It felt good knowing their contribution would save eons of man years of productivity that would have otherwise been wasted. They gladly marked their name down in wikipedia right beside bill gates. (more…)

A college friend of mine randomly decided that nutritional guidelines were bullshit. At the time, he was deliriously lost in a pipe dream of being rich before 30. This may or may not have been the same time frame when he bought a house in California and rented it out to too many roommates at once. The theory was, California real estate value was only going upward - so buy, have some other fools pay the mortgage, and then sell for complete profit. My friend was the extremely frugal sort, and a nerd, like myself. He examined his RichBy30.xls spreadsheet and tried to cut as many corners as he could expense wise. One evening, knee-deep in RichBy30.xls data, my friend decided he didn't believe in nutritional advice - all his…

A friend confides in me that they don't feel as if their job is a 'career', because they didn't need a degree for the career path they've been on for nearly 15 years. No degree, not management, not 'career'. I respond that if a career means endless promotion resulting in management positions, then I never want to have a career. --- Early 2003. I've recently broken up with a long time girlfriend, feeling as if I've been asleep for the previous four years of life - missing everything important. I sit in a daze, watching our country invade the middle east with non-stop televised live footage of the war at hand, this is a first. "Shock and Awe", indeed. I've been listening to a lot of the Matthew Good solo…

See, this is why the erosion of privacy and data convergence worry me. Sometime in the future, I will skype video conference my doctor for my yearly physical. It will be convenient, because I won't have to wait in a waiting room for an hour for my appointment. Bonus: No blood draws or treadmill tests, because my fitbit 5000 health tracker gizmo will tell my physician everything she needs to know. My doctor will inquire about my health, and I will, as always, say everything is fine. Unsatisfied, my doctor will grill me with further questions, testing my lying skills from differing angles. I will, as always, masterfully weave a magnificent tale of 'truth' about how healthy I've been eating and how I exercise all the time (thinking about exercise…