Thursday, February 09, 2006

Entrepreneurial Spirit

Someone asked if I'd heard the latest hoo-raw about a dastardly computer virus that wipes out hard drives almost instantly. I hadn't heard this hoo-raw, but it seems like we get one or another like it about once a month. The holes in Windows are what make it light and fast, I guess.

The internet security industry exists because of evil geniuses. I wonder what it's like to be an evil genius. The evil part is easy enough, but without the genius part you just end up working for someone else. You might as well get a real job. But of course if you're evil the idea of the 9-to-5 grind probably just makes you more evil. It shoves many of the supposedly good people toward the dark side as it is.

Geniuses just see the world differently. They see opportunities, they notice phenomena, they coordinate variables the rest of us don't, and they think fast. I just can't imagine it except when I've had a good night's sleep, a good bike ride and some powerful coffee. Even then it's only for as long as these forces combine at full strength. Hardly long enough to make any solid genius moves, evil or otherwise.

Oh well. Back to work.

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