Blog - Rob Speed

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.

Unknown, but usually attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler

For the last three hours I have been laying in bed wide awake.

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday I’ll be in Baltimore for Otakon. Sunday morning the application I built will go live. Sunday evening I leave for Savannah to make sure everything goes smoothly. As of right now there are a few known bugs, some missing minor features and lots of unfinished testing. This is all well and good, nothing I can’t take care of in a couple days.

Of course, if it were that simple, why am I still awake?

The power in my house has been out since a short, intense rain storm Sunday afternoon cut the electricity to two-thirds of Montgomery County. Pepco, the company which supplies our power, said that we may not get electricity until Thursday — an estimate that I didn’t learn until this evening. That’s all three of the three days I have left to finish this project.

So like I said, I tried to sleep.

In the morning I’ll try Starbucks again, but it was murder on my concentration yesterday.