The Mills

So, this site looks the same as it has for a while, right? But now it’s on a new server!

For a long time now, I’ve been relying on the kindness of a friend of mine (Thank you James!) to host my web site for me. However, now that AT&T has changed the terms of service on at least one of their consumer dsl plans to allow web site hosting, we’ve made the jump. I am now hosting this site on my own machine!

What really gave the impetus is that I’m working on creating a home task list using dotProject, and I’d forgotten the master MySQL database password. Rather than resetting it for him (how tacky!) or calling again to ask, I decided to just move the site to my own machine where I can reset the password when I need to.

I may rely on James for backup storage in the future, but now I can avoid sticky situations [like the one where I created a pseudo-hacker site on his machine for a class project, but forgot to tell him, and then James panicked, thinking I'm not a hacker, and then... yeah. Like that. ]

I believe this.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeWHmehAH28

It’s why I can never vote for a wealth-distribution scheme (or cantidate).  I don’t have the right to take someone else’s rightfully achieved goods or wealth – even if I think the trade plied to get those goods is yucky (like porn, tobacco grower, etc.).  Since I don’t have the right, I can’t give that right to the government – not even with a group of others, because none of them have the right, either.

Contrast this with defense.  I can delegate the right to defend me to the government, because I have the right already.  Collectively, a group of us can also do so, because each of us individually has that right.

So somebody (who will remain nameless) sent me an invite to the Tagged! website yesterday. Not knowing what it is, I went to the site to investigate. In the terms of service, I found the following:

‘As a Member, you will be provided with a variety of services, as described on the Tagged website (the “Services”), including the ability to earn points for referring friends to the Tagged website.’

That’s all I need to see. I don’t need to join any site which encourages others to monetize their relationships – I grew up with family who thought Multi-Level Marketing was a great idea, and I’m firmly opposed to any organization that tells people to utilize their relationships for cash or points.

This is not to say I won’t invite people to something whimsical, like some of the Facebook apps (Knighthood, anyone?). But those are purely fun – no real world awards/rewards.

I guess I’m just a crochety old man.