I run a software company. I have for over 20 years. Once in awhile, someone will ask me what my “net worth” is. I have to respond, “It depends on whether you value intellectual property”. Intellectual property, IP, would be things my software company owns or has rights to such as Galactic Civilizations or Start8 or our websites and our patents and trademarks. How much are they worth? It depends. There are a number of ways of valuing intellectual property. If the...
The time machine worked like a charm (this time anyway) and I got to spend a few hours in 2020. Things haven’t changed nearly as much as I imagined (I was hoping for Amazon delivery drones, but alas, none to be found). But my friend drove me up north and showed off a relatively new feature on his BMW: Super Cruise. Now, admittedly, I had hoped there would be self-driving cars by then but apparently they still aren’t a thing in 2020 which was a big bummer. However, most of t...
Sometimes I’ll hear someone marvel at how amazing it is that humans have been able to adapt from hunting and gathering to the information age so well in just 10,000 years. Of course “so well” is subjective. In reality, as a species, we’re struggling with it. A lot. Most of my friends who are, let’s say, economic peers of mine, suffer from a surprisingly consistent set of brain demons as I do. The brain demons giveth and taketh. I suspect many of you readi...
What do you do if your troll husband gets banned from a forum for being an obnoxious dick? Well, most people might ask their husbands what has gotten into them. Why would they put so much effort to alienate people that they would get kicked out of a forum that they’ve spent years on? But if you’re Angie Gallant and you run a site dedicated to smearing other people, you respond by putting up a fake review of the book written by the person who was the target of your husband&rsquo...
Wow! Lots of PMs and tweets regarding yesterday’s article on what would happen with the collapse of the grid . Let me first say that I make no claims to be an expert on EMP. There are a lot of people who are convinced that a reasonably strong EMP would disable modern cars. I don’t happen to agree with that view. Hopefully we’ll never find out. I’m going to assume that the most likely doomsday scenario people will likely face will be a long-term power...
About a year ago, I wrote “The lights go out: What happens if the grid goes down” . It talked about what would likely happen if the power went out and works through the first 4 weeks. In short, it’s not a pretty picture. Doomsday Scenarios Below are my opinions and just my opinions. They’re based on reading and researching these topics in my spare time out of morbid curiosity. I define a doomsday scenario as a scenario where the civil society could potentially break do...
Recently I was involved in a discussion regarding the two Boston Marathon bombers. It started off with someone expressing concern about the amount of anger and hatred being directed towards the bombers. I am dismayed and afraid about the amount of hate and vengeance for the two who planted the bombs. It is spreading the attitude of vengeance in our country. I saw a quote from Ghandi this morning which I have not verified, but it struck me as true. "An eye for an eye will make...
I’ve taken tests like this before. Very interesting to see where people end up. Here’s the test: http://www.politicalcompass.org/test Technorati Tags: Brad Wardell , Political Compass , Draginol , Ideology My result: http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=1.00&soc=-3.18
When looking for hobbies, I wanted to do something that got me off the computer. Not just because all my muscles had atrophied into an E.T. like husk…but mostly. I’ll update this with what the garden looks like now but here’s what I went with: Here we’ve got onions, lettuce, parsley, carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes. We also planted 1 little Morning glory plant…My son Alex and I “take care” of this one. here we’ve got some strawberries, black berries...
Recently there was an article on Wired that interviewed some people about how the death of Steve Jobs affected them. I was interviewed for the article and how I massively cut down my hours and started handing things off to others as I realized that I was slowly wrecking myself working such crazy hours and being away from my family. One of the smaller changes is that I now bring my dog to work. Pictured here is Stardock’s Vice President, Derek Paxton with my dog Bailey. ...
So this year I took up gardening as a hobby. And my boys wanted to have pumpkins and a few of them have already come in. The best pumpkin has already “detached” itself from the vine. I’m wondering if it’ll “stay good” until Halloween time. Anyone out there with experience in this?
Around a campfire tonight my 5 year old daughter started singing to the moon. It went something like this: I love you moon I wish you were part of my family I love you moon If I could breath in space I would run out and hug you I love you moon If you were a human I would kiss you on the cheek I love you moon I wish you could live with us or at least near the sun But I wouldn't look directly at you if you were too close to it Because it would make me go...
There’s a show on National Geographic called “Doomsday Preppers”. I’ve never watched it. But I have read a number of blogs from people on the subject and I’ve become convinced that most people, even those into “prepping”, haven’t thought through what would be the likely, and even predictable, steps our society would take as it self-destructed. The doomsday scenarios I have seen discussed revolve around one of the topics below: Economic coll...
If you’re into maps, you may want to check this one out .
What is the best way to have a civil online community? There are lots of opinions on this. My position has always been to eliminate toxic users as quickly as possible. Ban them. Debating a topic: Good. Personalizing the debate: Getting onto thin ice. Attacking people in the debate: Over the line. Over on Neowin.net, we’ve been trying to find ways to clean up the forums. News comments and forum posts there are pretty rough and much of that is, I bel...