| The NYT this morning has an article about computers that I thought interesting enough to spoon your way so you don't miss it in the rush to consume Monday and move on. The report does not amount to a revolution, per se, but it does get to the issue of access. The lower the cost, of course, the broader the access ... and clearly the internet is the place to be these days.
On a separate subject I was down on the Mexican border yesterday visiting friends in mining town Phelps-Dodge turned into a horror of the imagination, an open pit for strip-mining copper (until 1972 or so, when the price went down too far to continue operations), but which local ingenuity and a great climate have turned into the weirdest little tourist trap you have ever seen. Bisbee, AZ is a scant five miles from the border and so we went down to look at "the fence."
It was like being thrown back to Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and "Achtung! Sie verlassen jetzt West Berlin!" It was ugly and it went on over the horizon of hills. Riding back I had a feeling of revulsion and embarrassment. Yet, the stories in this part of the country are fully ripe not only with tales of "coyotes" herding eager workers across the border at upwards of $5k a head, but also drug lords and drug czars battling it out at and across the border. We really need to work with the Mexican government to stop this, for the alternatives do not seem very pleasant at all.
JB |
