Reading Slashdot
Two articles that got posted to Slashdot that I really, really liked (they both happen to come, orginally, from Wired):
The first article talks about the invention of the TV-B-Gone, a small keychain device that will power cycle any of about 200 different TVs, starting with the most popular so they turn off first. No more annoying TVs in any of the places that annoying TVs tend to be! The amount of mischief this could cause is fantastic, too… you can be sure that I’m going to buy a TV-B-Gone as soon as the guy’s webpage comes back up after getting (you guessed it) slashdotted by the Slashdot/Wired story.
The second article speaks to India leading innovation in the world. I used to know this guy who really, truly feared offshoring in software development and justified his fear with strange, mostly racist logic—including my all-time favorite, that “Indians won’t be innovators; innovation will stay here in the U.S.” That’s because Indian people cannot innovate, just like minorities can’t do well on the SAT. Both of these are examples of people not looking at root causes—India didn’t innovate because it was really frickin’ poor and minorities can’t take the SAT because of its racial slant. Boy that makes me mad!