On “free data” per se…. I find this whole so-called SOCIAL thing amusing. Now while I might be more (much more) of a private individual this “let me drop my clothes in the middle of the town square” approach of all of this (Flickr, MySpace, delicio, etc) just puzzles me.

While it may present some interesting opportunities… unless you’re a business and striving to be a business in pursuit of profit all of this online dissemination of information…. can it last? Essentially once you put your data on somebody else’s server you no longer own in some sense. Sure there’s alot available already, but how more do I want google to know? Do I want my business data sitting on Microsoft’s servers via Office Live or whatever else?

Straying off topic… people strolling into chat rooms and conversing with “people” they don’t even know — ???????????? What have we become? Yeah another totally different discussion.

People are not corrupted by power; power simply gives their corruption more opportunity to impact others, thus exposing it in people where it might previously not been obvious. There are millions of powerful people who are not corrupt, but instead you’re looking at the edge cases and proclaiming them the norm! Not smart.

“Which leads to the conclusion: power itself is the problem, irrespective of who owns it, and we should be extremely cautious when we dish it out, if at all.”

This is a classic broken conclusion of the Libertarian mindset. It simply does not logically follow from the actual data found in reality.

My conclusion: You should stick to programming and avoid politics. You’re well versed in the former, but only know just enough to make yourself dangerous in the latter.

nothing is free, harry ;)