Tech Review

This somewhat boring article by Michael P. Orsi did get me thinking about the issue of anonymous blogging. I don't blog anonymously, but sometimes I wish I did. I can certainly see its advantages: I'd feel freer to criticize my two major employers, my jokes would shade a deeper blue, and I could flood my in-box with smitten ladies by claiming a picture of Tyson as my own (I do get a lot of "I need a friend" offers, however).

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Stop the madness!

We know that everyone hates them, but have you also considered that they waste resources by unnecessarily using:

1. Paper for the envelope, stamps, to produce the extra copies, and for the check itself.
2. Gasoline to transport both the rebate and the check.
3. The time I spend filling out the infernal things.

Not only that, the company has to purchase extra P.O. boxes, hire staff just to sort out and open the envelopes and handle the payment. It also probably loses a few customers by angering them both during the process and after some inevitably don't receive their rebate. Don't their workers have anything better to do than listen to rebate complaints (more wasted time and money)? Are they counting on people forgetting to send the rebates? Am I missing something? Does this make sense to you?

One of the more curious types of people are those who think that whatever they like should be provided by the government for free. As a teacher, I often encounter these well-intentioned and children-loving, but naive persons. I've met several teachers, for instance, who think that the government should provide trips to the beach (I live in Los Angeles) because "It's a shame that some kids don't get to go."

"Well, probably most of the world, including most Americans in the mid-West, don't get to go the beach. Are they all deprived? And how will the beach make them any better people?" I remember thinking.

One might as well say, "I really like my new Nikes. They help me run better. If everybody had some, everybody would run better. They should be given to everybody." or "I read in Men's Health that whole grains are better for you. The government should place a bag of Cheerios on everybody's doorstep every day (and milk, of course. I can't eat them strait out of the box)."

Excuse the semblance to Ron Paul and I know you heard something like this from your father when you were nine, but the problem with the "Give everybody what I like" approach to policy is simply that doing things for people atrophies their ability to do things for themselves. If Hillary Clinton sent a gardener to everybody's house once a week in order to beautify lawns, I'm sure some would get done that otherwise wouldn't, but many who did their own lawns would stop and those that helped their sick neighbor mow the grass would instead squeeze in another football game.

What about the person who has no money, friends, or garden clippers? I suppose living in a big-boy world means that some people might have messy lawns. But just like one would rather see one hundred guilty men go free so that one innocent man doesn't go to jail, I'd rather see one person with overgrown weeds than see a whole society infantilized.

So, I'm reading my PC Magazine and in between the 1&1 ads and I come across this article by Dan Costa. Let's look at Dan's governing priorities:

Six Tech-Savvy Things the Next President Should Promise
07.11.07

By Dan Costa
Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani recently fumbled answering one of the dumbest questions asked since "boxers or briefs?" Campaigning in Alabama, he was asked, "What is the price of a gallon of milk?" He was off by a buck or two, thus failing a tiresome common-citizen test. But far more important questions need to be posed. Let's start with asking our future leaders about how affordable PCs, broadband Internet connectivity, and other information technologies are transforming the lives of every American.

Pretty good so far. All of these things are low-cost, of course, without the help of the government. In fact, that's probably why they've gone down in price so much.

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