Freyburg

What’s geographic arbitrage, you ask? Essentially, it amounts to leveraging contacts and skill in the big city while living in a much cheaper area. For instance, you could do a job in Toronto while living in the Crows Nest Pass.

It makes a certain amount of economic sense to get the most money possible and maximize it in a cheap area. But what the article doesn’t mention is the intangible things you miss when you’re in the middle of nowhere. I came back from a two-year stint in the boonies to Vancouver and was actually happy to hear sirens, see traffic whizzing by and talk to someone other than the same ten people over and over.

Of course, other people have different experiences. Some people prefer quieter surroundings, or find the city irritating. But I know for a fact that I’m most comfortable in a teeming metropolis.

Time was you had to crawl out from your couch or bedroom and earn a living in the real world, and (shudder) interact face to face with other human beings. Well, that paradigm has been PWNEDBYINTERNETS. Witness the dawning of the Web Hermit.

Bush and Blair were caught unawares and recorded by a still switched on mic at the G8 conference currently taking place in Russia. Apparently it’s a big deal that Bush used a swear word while he was talking to Blair. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing shocking about that; plenty of people swear, and if I had to be leader of the free world (however poorly I was doing the job) I’d be even more of a toiletmouth than I already am. What’s shocking is that Bush comes off as a fairly intelligent guy. That’s..really quite disturbing. 🙂

Known as “Azzam the American,” he’s a clear indicator that Al Qaida is reaching beyond the Middle East to recruit smart young fellers in North America and Europe. Apparently Azzam contributes heavily to getting jihadist videos and other propaganda onto the Internet.

And with that, the final sticking point between myself and some Xbox sweetness has been decided. Half Life 2 will not only have enhanced graphics, it’ll include Episodes 1 and 2, as well as Team Fortress 2 and some other neat stuff. W00t! Now if only they could find a way to graft World of Warcraft onto a console…..:)

Seems surreal to have the tweed-and-pipe set writing a really insightful article about the current movers and shakers of East Coast hip hop, but there we are.

…and rightly so. Sony’s cocksure insistence that the Playstation 3 will be snapped up solely because of its ancestry is delusional at best.

Sites as diverse as MySpace, Digg, Flickr and Facebook are giving the traditional media a run for their money. Old Media might regard these upstarts as complementary to their efforts to sedate us with visual entertainments, but according to an essay on GigaOm, they’re fighting a losing battle against an increasingly powerful set of competitors.

The Daily Telegraph has a good article detailing what the complete whorefest known as celebrity journalism, which to no-one’s great surprise ain’t exactly the most ethical patch of land in Inkville.

The similarities outweigh the differences.