I am sure he has written and said many things to AOL at this point. He is grumpy, rich and thinks AOL crossed major boundary lines that were part of their original agreement. At this point, he knows that he can either:
a) Get AOL to bow down to his rants (Charlie Sheen anyone?) and "reimplement" those boundaries. Basically he wants to stick it to the man that gave him 30 million to prove hes bigger than the man.
b) buy TC back from AOL, probably for half as much as they paid.
Inside I am sure he is thinkin this is awesome cuz either way dude walks away with 8 bajillion dollars, synonymous popularity in tech world and every chance in the world to start another uber blog/mediacompany/empire.
Plus, he can pull a Steve Jobs even if he does quit, and resurrect the company at any time he wants to after AOL buries it and Ariana becomes Co-Editor..
On top of the ridiculous sales tax bill have you seen the Babysitter bill? http://www.theunion.com/ARTICLE/20110830/BREAKINGNEWS/110839... It is a bill being considered that says that if you hire a babysitter, you've got to provide breaks every 2 hours (which means you've got to hire another babysitter), plus pay for workman's compensation and keep track of taxes.
I agree that it's a stupid bill, but don't be so sensational. The bill only applies to babysitters over 18, which are typically professional care givers (i.e., nannies).
There's nothing sensational about calling that bill ridiculous. Not everyone who is over 18 and watches children on occasion for money is a professional care giver. Most of my friends have a 20-something friend that will watch their kids for them on date-night. They prefer the 20-something friend to a much younger babysitter because of maturity and responsibility. This person has a day-job, but they don't mind watching their friends' kids from time to time.
It's perfectly acceptable. In my experience, it's better to exchange money for labor in certain cases because it helps to define an activity away from the friendship and so prevents it from becoming precedential.
After I read this article I started thinking about Kurzweil's documentary, Singularity. How much longer before we can all become immortal Cyborgs? Is singularity as near as he predicts? (notice the capital C in Cyborg. PWND.)
I agree with Mark Cuban that it will be a few years before we see a realistic alternative to our traditional distribution of content. (cable, satellite)
Large scale, streaming video on the web is so much more pricey when you look at the numbers (cost of generating 1 mill views online VS 1 mill views on a cable or satellite network)
