My Sorrow is like that of a thousand drowning kittens...

Dear Google.

I used to love you. I thought of you as our knight in shining white and rainbow Armour. I was convinced that some day I would be fighting as a Google paladin, against the the rebel scum of apple-soft. But no. I must revoke my loyalty as well as my love. I'm sure you will point to all the good things you've done, an that this is nothing in comparison... But thats not the point. Our hero must be unfaltering in it's dedication to justice and good. As such, this tress pass against one of the revolutionizing forces of the web (torrenting) has taken away your place of honor. For this reason, and to this end, I am transitioning to linux based open source software. For your misdeeds I will being to use a different mail client. For this affront to decency and personal power I am going to stop using google reader, and switch to another rss reader. For your betrayal this will be the last blog post I write in blogger until this wrong is righted. Good bye my love. I hope you will consider what I have said. There is still time to correct your mistake.

Still hopeful,

-The Baron

PS. now for some pictures of how I used to personify google: pic 1, pic 2, pic 3

pps. Everyone, please spam @google about this on twitter and every other service you know how.

Capturing not only our World, but our Era.

Who is sexy, cute, with a voice like exotic silk, a brilliant artist, and officially my favorite musician? None other then the illustrious pogo. Now I'm straight, but for this man I would turn. Is it the Australian accent? Nope. Is it his incredible talents? Nope. Its the fact that he's opted for crowd sourcing the funding for his next GRAND SCALE project of remixing human cultures into enjoyable videos and music. Is it working? see for yourself. He's passed 137% of his financing needs. Would you like to know more?

-The Baron

On Better Online Payment Systems

E-commerce is everywhere. Amazon was the first to become really profitable, and there are tons of companies that operate exclusively online. I think there is room for more, but the problem is that it is still too hard to pay for stuff online. When you walk into a store how hard is to pay for something? You literally just hand it over. If it's cash you get your change. The most complicated way to pay for something would be a debit card. All of a sudden you have to type in a PIN. Still not that hard.
Online you have to register at the site, then you have to fill out all your personal information, then a credit card number (with billing address). God forbid you should need to get something shipped somewhere because that adds a whole extra step.
Paypal makes it easier. You just sign in and your account gets charged, but it suffers from flaws as well. First of all it's centralized, which is scary should it go down. There's a reason why we have multiple banks. Second, it's takes for freaking ever to transfer cash into your paypal account. 5-7 days per transfer. WTF? Credit cards are easier to use, but what if you just want to pay for something in (the electronic equivalent) of cash? Finally Paypal isn't supported by everyone and they still charge sellers to use the service.

What we need is some new system that allows for easier payments for stuff online, that isn't centralized. Something like INTERAC but for the internet. Imagine it being effortless to pay for stuff online? Just enter your username and password and click pay.
An simpler online payment system would really vitalize the internet. It gives people an alternative way to support themselves without resorting to ads or sponsorship.