Everything Is Broken, Quinn Norton, Medium, May 20, 2014

It’s hard to explain to regular people how much technology barely works, how much the infrastructure of our lives is held together by the IT equivalent of baling wire.

Computers, and computing, are broken.

Chicken Littles of the Right, Gavin Mueller, Jacobin, May 21, 2014 (h/t Erik Loomis)

So that trickle of piss running down James Piereson’s leg and pooling in his wingtip is another iteration of billionaire victimology, just another boring maneuver from the Reagan playbook that kids these days are totally over. Yes, after the massive heist of the financial crisis of 2008, exactly one Wall Street executive, Kareem Serageldin, is heading to jail, while thousands of victims head to homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Serageldin’s Christ-like gesture: to do 30 months for the sins of the financial elite.

Not a bad deal — and yet how they complain. They whine about being called “banksters” — the ignominy of such disrespect is enough to make the Chateau Petrús turn bitter in one’s mouth. On the other coast, tech-overlords are so intimidated by the specter of tax-raising masses that they’ll sink millions into childish fantasies of Galt Islands, while openly disdaining democracy.