Individualism in a collectivist society - from Wired

Momus at Wired shares some thoughts on the individual within a collectivist culture like Japan, and comes to some interesting conclusions.
I'm still not quite sure why collectivist cultures should cater better to the needs of individuals than individualistic societies do. Perhaps it's something to do with the fact that in a collectivist culture like Japan, you're never truly alone, even when you're alone. Or perhaps it's because Japan is such a group society that you need a break now and again, a place out in public where you can be alone for a few minutes between the group at the office and the group at home.

Recent Western Cape electrical outages were caused by sabotage

This is a hell of a thing. From the BBC report of this story:
Power cuts which have caused havoc in Cape Town are the result of sabotage possibly intended to influence South Africa's local polls, a minister says.
Minerals and Energy Minister Lindiwe Hendricks said there was a "curious coincidence" with Wednesday's polls.

Servers becoming fast outmoded

Nick Carr has a nice piece which predicts a decidedly unrosy future for the server industry. As he notes in the last paragraph: Ultimately, we may come to find that the server was simply a transitional technology, a stop-gap machine required as the network, or utility, model of computing matured.
The reasons, he notes, are consolidation and virtualization. As far as the latter goes, clustering (e.g. Google) would seem to be an especially attractive option for many companies.

Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree
Originally uploaded by Alhazred.

Joshua Tree. On the way to see the Integratron in Langley.

Playing Dungeons and Dragons on the beach

Playing Dungeons and Dragons on the beach
Originally uploaded by Alhazred.

With my most excellent chum Clovis, who you can barely see.

Archbishop Paul Marcinkus dead

'God's banker,' Archibishop Paul Marcinkus, has died. He is, of course, best known for the rather dubious finances of the Vatican in the early 80s. From the BBC report: Marcinkus was head of the Vatican Bank at the time of
the fraudulent collapse of Banco Ambrosiano in 1982, with which it had
close ties.

He denied any wrongdoing. Although he was sought for questioning, he was granted immunity as a Vatican employee.
Recommended reading on Marcinkus, the P3 Masonic Lodge, Pope John Paul I, etc.: In God's Name, by David Yallop.

South Africa: power shortages

In brief: Business Day (via allafrica.com) has a short analysis on the electrical outages that have been plaguing Cape Town for a while.
There is no doubt that Eskom is running out of excess power, and
that has implications for everyone in the country. The main reason for
this is that economic growth has taken off far faster than anyone
expected... with the economy powering ahead at a growth rate of 5% last
year, demand for electricity has risen far faster than anticipated.