Technology has driven artistry to a virtual world. Technology companies spend millions of dollars on beauty. Web-developers and graphic-design specialists are paid to make what you see on a computer screen beautiful. Computer game companies use sophisticated algorithms to display high-quality projections of 3D worlds onto your computer screen. In the Baroque, Roccoco, Renaisance, and Classical eras of the world palaces, churches, and government buildings were richly adorned inside and out for everyone to see. Now our buildings usually are decorated with painted drywall inside and brick on the outside. The huge investments that history put into buildings and physical art is now routed to a virtual world that anyone who's connected can go and see.

Microsoft will have a more complete monopoly because of Apple’s new Intel machines. The dual core Intel machine 800 D processor supports native virtual machine support. This means you could really run any OS on them just fine. You could boot into OSX or boot into Windows XP. Now corporate America will be able to enjoy Apple’s slick designs with the dominant Windows XP software and suites. Apple and Microsoft will both benefit from this new union. Microsoft’s only competitor in the home and corporate PC market will be Linux. Other competitors will exist for servers but in the most profitable market Microsoft will have a more complete monopoly on operating system sales.

Eventually we will see more women programmers in the United States. I know many women computer scientists. They are often the brightest computer programmers in their classes. My friend Maria from Ukraine explained to me that in the Ukraine the computer science discipline is split evenly between men and women. This is likely to happen in the United States as more women see computing as a viable career. The ability to work from home is especially convenient for women who plan on raising children. There are many who believe that there is a fundamental difference between men and women that make women avoid programming. I readily agree that there are fundamental differences between the psychology men and women. However, I do not believe that these differences make one more likely to be a programmer than the other. As society progresses, I think the United States will mirror the trends of European countries where both men and women are programmers.

Our government's reaction to terrorists has comprimised our privacy. The CIA has an incredible system that harvests foreign communications. Voice, data, and correspondence is packed into enormous databases. This information is then translated into searchable data that is queried for answers. Where will the next terrorist attack be? Who is a terrorist? Who knows the terrorists? It is illegal for the CIA to monitor national communications. So what does it mean when President Bush authorized wire-tapping in search of terrorists. What does the Patriot Act entail. It is quite possible that your post 9/11 telephone conversations are now stored in the CIA's databases. A time stamp, your phone number, who you called, the voice recording, and a computer text translation has been recorded. When they talk about wire tapping we all assume they are listening in on six or seven guys who seem like terrorists, but the likely reality is that they can do a keyword search on many of our past phone calls, emails, and other private communications.