Rubenerd

Sitting here on this overcast and freezing summer [sic] afternoon in Sydney, a song came on random on my Exaile playlist. While that wasn't an unusual occurrence by any stretch of the imagination, the eerie song that played reminded me of two Sch* characters, and one of them wasn't even me.

Integral

If you’ve done nothing wrong,
You’ve got nothing to fear;
If you’ve something to hide,
You shouldn’t even be here;
You’ve had your chance,
Now we’ve got the mandate;
If you’ve changed your mind,
I’m afraid it’s too late;
We’re concerned,
You’re a threat;
You’re not integral,
To the project.

Initially I thought of what Eric Schmidt said in 2006 with regards to our privacy, and what Bruce Schnieir said so beautifully in response, but hearing it back again it sounds a lot like Facebook. Or 1984, same diff. I don't use Gmail any more.

Money money money… no wait, that’s ABBA

Ironically, Facebook also just allegedly got a huge investment from Goldman Sachs, one of the numerous banking firms owned by the American taxpayer. No wait, bailed out by the American taxpayer.

Appreciate that for a second: the America taxpayer is funding Facebook. I suppose that's better than using all the money gleaned from the middle class to pay ludicrously high bonuses to executives who pulled off one of the most high profile heists in history. Compared to them, those Facebook guys are kittens. Nah, kittens still have claws. Do they?

I predict Goldman Sachs will come to appreciate their huge investment and returns on said as much as Newscorp did on their MySpace acquisition. Wait sorry, their "My_____ " acquisition, or however else you're supposed to render their new logo in Unicode glory. Glad to see big banks being more responsible ;).

Of course the irony hasn't been lost on me that I'm poking fun at a logo when I myself have a terrible one, but I don't have millions of dollars. Well, technically I do, but I'm not supposed to tell anyone about it otherwise the tax guys will come knocking asking why I haven't paid anything on it, and more importantly how many illegal things I did to get it. Hey, international waters aren't bound by the Berne Convention! Wait, are they?

You know what, you didn't read any of this. Except that Pet Shop Boys song, they're awesome. And I'm not ashamed to admit that. Yes, I took that photo above from when they went to Singapore in 2007.