As most of you reading this know, I am a techno guy. I've always loved science; I used to build model rockets, and read Scientific American when I was in High School. I designed and coded the software for this blog. I make my living in the software industry. But science and technology are a double-edged sword when you count on them, and sometimes cause more problems than they fix.

The big story yesterday was the stock market crash (and rebound) that took everyone's breath away. It fell 1000 points in less than 30 minutes, and then rebounded for a 300 point loss. The common wisdom is that it was news from Greece that caused the drop. However, further review seems to indicate it might have been triggered by a typo:

Automated trades, selling off stocks, dropped the DOW by 1000 points. This is progress?... Robots running Wall St.? On the plus side, all that technology is allowing the NASDAQ to roll back all those trades created by the mistake. Not sure if the traders that made a few bucks in that 20 minutes are going to be happy about that.

Even the high tech gear available for finding oil beneath a sea bed, and drilling down to extract it wasn't good enough to prevent one of the worst environmental disasters of our lifetime. The shutoff valve didn't work and nothing else is really helping to staunch the oil flow, so they're resorting to the high-tech solution of dropping a 100 ton concrete and steel box on it:

So if it captures 85%, that means that 15% will still escape, and 15% of 200,000 gallons/day works out to... (*click click*... carry the 2...) oh yeah - 30,000 GALLONS OF OIL / DAY! Hey, that's a great solution there.

But these little setbacks aren't going to stop the inexorable march of science to find solutions for things that REALLY matter, like.. oh, I don't know... how about creating mind-reading bots so we don't have to do those soul-draining manual tasks like pushing the buttons on the TV remote:

Of course, that first line says it all - the U.S. is always trying to militarize the technology. The Japanese make it into commercial products that make their country wealthy, and we turn it into a weapon that sucks our treasury and our souls dry. It will only be a matter of time before "thought crime" becomes a reality, and hackers learn to hack into those supposed "secure communications".

So what can we do to help the tech companies here compete with Japan and keep some of those consumer dollars here at home? Perhaps by stealing their talent? An interesting wrinkle in the immigration reform debate revolves around HIB visas:

Yeah? Well tech workers disagree with the Tech industry. There are plenty of us around in need of work. You should hire us - we speak English and don't have paperwork problems.

Otherwise, that mind-reading bot will be talking to your brain with an Indian accent, right before it malfunctions and short-circuits your microwave.