“‘At 30 I didn’t have the confidence to [start out] but at 40 I did. I just hope many more people can learn that too.’ To which I would say a hearty ‘amen’; even – or especially – at a time when 17-year-old computer geeks are being feted for their deals.”
Blue-jeans thinking. We tend to think they are all young but the age of entrepreneurs is rising, by Gillian Tett, FT Magazine, April 12, 2013

Yup.

Yup, the Internet changes things.

More information

Heh heh heh.

Even if the authorities don’t use the drone to kill that lunatic, we’ve stepped through the looking glass and there’s no going back now. So much for hope and change, Mr. Obama, you and the drone program you insist on using have just delivered a deathblow to rule of law.

Actually, this is not the first human drone target on US soil, this is:

“Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

“He also called in a Predator B drone.”
America puts on skis to step on a slippery slope, December 19, 2011

And here’s what I said about it then:

“Militarizing, or further militarizing, the civilian police is just not a good idea. If the civilian police are at war then whom else are they at war with but the civilians and citizens they’re sworn to protect? We have too much of this problem in Los Angeles unfortunately (see Mike Davis, “City of Quartz” and Steve Herbert “Policing Space”). I might be okay with this if I thought it was only going to be used for dire situations like this one in No Dak. But give police a predator drone and everything becomes a dire situation and that’s happening already if Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. Surveillance flights in North Dakota? What the hell do they need to fly surveillance flights on in North Dakota? And on whom?

“This makes me wonder how long before the police start using them in Los Angeles and other urban areas, if they aren’t already? How long before they start killing people with them? Could we please elect some people to protect us from a police state? And could the guy we thought we elected to protect us from a police state start protecting us from a police state? Yes, of course I mean Barack Obama.”

What a freaking horrible mess.

The Hackenblog started as and continues to be a promotional website for the Dr. Hackenbush and Her Orchestra novels. Two novels (Dr. Hackenbush Gets a Job and Dr. Hackenbush Gains Perspective) and a mystery novella (Storylandia 8: Dr. Hackenbush Gets Some Culture) have been published since 2010 at the Wapshott Press. So if you run out of things to read and the Reagan Administration annoyed you, too, check these books out. They’re fun.

LA Art Book Fair.

Here’s the LA Times article about it.

Opening: Thursday, January 31, 6–9 pm
Friday, February 1, 11-5 pm
Saturday, February 2, 11 am–6 pm
Sunday, February 3, 12 pm–6 pm

Oh, and there’s a Metro stop across the street from the Geffen, so

ZINES!!! Maybe I shouldn’t go to this. I might not be able to control myself.

I Have Something to Say about Aaron Swartz’s Suicide and the Special Way the US Justice Dept Hounds People to Death.

Just read it, please.

If the DOJ wants to stay out of hell, they better knock this bullshit off and go after the real scum: data miners and the companies that a) shouldn’t have our personal data and b) can’t keep it safe like Equifax, Acxiom, and their ilk. Or would that be too much work?

Rest in peace, Aaron. You poor kid…

“After years of red ink, Gov. Jerry Brown said on Thursday that California’s $96.7-billion general fund is now poised to end next year with a surplus, thanks to years of deep budget cuts and billions in new taxes approved by voters last year.”
Jerry Brown predicts California budget surplus by end of next year, by Anthony York, LAT, January 10, 2013

California goes sane and YOU are THERE.

And so is Dr. Krugman!

“As best I understand it, what’s going on in CA is a microcosm (a pretty big microcosm, actually — maybe more of a mesocosm or something?) of what’s going on at the national level. A severely depressed economy led to big deficits, because tax receipts are strongly affected by the state of the economy — indeed, are almost certainly much more cyclical than they used to be.”
California in Surplus, by Paul Krugman, NYT, January 11, 2013

He’s there and he’s sane.

Then there was this California comment at the top of Dr. K’s blog:

“Jerry did good! We voted ourselves higher taxes for schools. Not me though, I didn’t vote! It kind of makes sense that when your spending too much you cut back on spending.”

Which got me thinking (yes, scary) that we do ourselves a disservice thinking this way about our government. Our government isn’t like a family; it’s too big and too complex. The mellowest way I could think about it was that it’s like a garden where if part of your garden needs more water you get more water to give it more water, not less. You don’t let the whole thing die because you’re stupid, shortsighted, mean, and cheap. You need those tomatoes!

Oh well, hooray for us! And tomatoes!

Happy New Year, y’all!