What a peach

Underwater Horizon

Fifteen years ago, all of us would have laughed at the notion that the government would assert the right to know about every phone call made by ordinary American citizens suspected of no crime—that's something that East Germany would do, not the American government. How have we gotten so comfortable with the panopticon state in little more than a decade?

y greatest fear is not that this surveillance will turn out to be more widespread.  My greatest fear is that we will find out they are spying on us, and the American public will yawn. And in some secret room, bureaucrats and politicians will note that the American public does not care, and turn to discussing how much more spying they can get away with.

Come here and work on hard problems… except the ones on our doorstep

Last night, someone told me “In California, there isn’t a conflict between being a Capitalist, and a Liberal”, with a wry grin on his face.

It is decidedly weird here. i’m staying in Castro, which is like travelling into the future. Not free from violence or persecution but a far safer and tolerant place than many I’ve encountered. Then off to downtown, stepping over the homeless, weaving between the street corner schizophrenics. After a while, you’ll encounter a faceless industrial building emblazoned with an all too familiar logo.

Inside, once you pass the checkpoint, free food, free beer on taps, somewhere between a coffeeshop and a hackerspace, a bunch of rich people on macbooks with the appropriate stickers. Then back outside to the street to watch people die on your way to a microbrewery. A long drawn out argument about scala as you avoid eye contact with the rest of the world.

Boner Zone