Clearing Tabs

John Steakley - RIP.


George Bush interviewed on Facebook:

"If you see me in an airport, I hope you wave with all five fingers. But if you don't, you won't be the first. I'm a comfortable man."

The Danger of a Global Double Dip Recession Is Real

The modern world has for centuries been dominated economically, intellectually, and physically by the civilization that arose in Western Europe in the wake of the Renaissance and Reformation and spread across the Atlantic.

Will that one day be seen as a passing phenomenon doomed to ascend ever upward and then slowly fizzle out like a firework?

Hackertopia: Creating a City as a Startup

Of all the better mouse traps that need to be invented, perhaps the most important is a better city. Americans choose between soulless suburban strip malls, and expensive and congested city centers. Over the past 30 years real estate and property taxes have consumed an increasing portion of our incomes. Houses in hacker friendly cities with good school districts are frightfully expensive. The Boston metro region has median home prices of 400K, and typical San Jose home prices surpass 700K. Yet the price of building a home can be as low as 70K. This disparity hints at an opportunity.

Americans, and Hackers in particular, are on a treadmill. Productivity increases year by year, thanks to the magic of Silicon Valley. But the cost of living increases faster thanks to an out of control regulatory state. Zoning laws, the deterioration of public schools, the growth of guilds and cartels in the health care industry, rising taxes, etc have all made it harder to make ends meet.

Hackertopia is the better mousetrap. The city will provide a remarkably quality of life for an unbelievably cheap price.