Timmy's in the Sandbox, Checking Bloomberg News

The AP is reporting that "A cheap laptop boasting wireless network access and a hand-crank to provide electricity is expected to start shipping in February or March to help extend technology to school-aged children worldwide." In other words, we're about to start enabling in our young kids the same sullen, narcissistic self-absorption our teenagers currently enjoy. To which Mr. Irresponsible can only say: Good job! Bring it on!

A teenager who's jacked into an iPod or staring relentlessly into the face of a PSP is a teenager who isn't mooching around for money or whining unattractively about his lowly status in life. Similarly, an eight-year-old who's busy navigating the Nicktoons site on his own crank-powered lime-green laptop is one who isn't... well, I don't actually know what it is eight-year-olds do. They're not allowed past the entrance of the PGA Tour golf course on which I have my lavish yet tasteful home, and the guards have standing orders to escort any strays to the gatehouse. (I also have certain security measures in place.) Whatever it is, though, the world will be a better place with less of it going on. Quieter, certainly, and a good deal less sticky. So here's to the forward-thinking guys and gals of the MIT Media Lab, and a tip of Mr. Irresponsible's battered brown fedora. You geeks are okay with me.