.....and that my friend, is why I'm terrified of the Future.

I read. I read a lot. And while the contextual quality of my choices might not be on par with War and Peace, it doesn't change the fact that I spend a good portion of my day soaking up information. If one was to follow the vast majority of my web-surfing, my technophilia would be apparent to even the most casual observer. I care about all things computer related, be it solid state hard drives, new graphics cards, or alternate OSs, and I honestly feel as a generation (ours and the ones following us), technology is so infused into every aspect of our lives, that it has become an external appendage to our natural bodies.

We use technology in such a natural way, we don't really stop to consider the ramifications of our usage in the eyes of the casual observer, the uninformed, and especially the technophobe. I'm speaking of the proverbial "The Man" here, as he has evolved in my mind over the last decade, from the upper class suit who kept the working man down (or so I've been told), to the law author and politician, who's goal is to control the use and activities of the every growing technology.

The Man terrifies me, but not because I think "he's evil, and that in general, government should stay out of my buisiness, but rather because I feel that when it comes to the cognition of technologies, and how they should be used, the current establishment falls short.

People are making laws regulating topics that they have absolutely no understanding of. I'll go ahead and dredge up Sen. Ted Stevens "The internet is a series of tubes..." analogy, made excruciatingly painful by the simple fact that he was, at the time, the Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Today I found an article that scares me almost as much. Apparently there is a British judge that admitted to not understanding what exactly a "Web Site" was, among other things, and then relied on the prosecution to provide a viable definition. I don't know, if I were the one being prosecuted, if i would be overjoyed, or incredulous to find out that my judge did not even possess the base knowledge to make a good decision upon.

Basically what it's boiling down to is that the current governmental body is creating laws and policies that are directly effecting me and my interests for the first time ever. What's worse is they're making uninformed decisions based on misleading information, and in many cases, just plain incorrect and in many cases inaccurate information.

Good night, and Good Luck.

~M.