A business associate today gave me some advice on how to run my business, based on what he read here. I doubt if I will take most of it, but he raised an interesting idea: keeping track of the personal vs business hours I spend on the G5.

That seemed to be a solution. I spent an hour tonight whipping up a solution in pyobjc. (I would have used a database program, but my primary database program still only runs in Classic, and I didn't want to wait for Classic to fire up every time I wanted to enter a use case.)

Then I realized that, even with the records, its still only my word that backs up those documents. My word won't hold much water in a court of law, not when it's put against.. well.. anything.

If I wanted to be perfectly safe I'd hire a lawyer (or a notary I guess) to sit with a stopwatch and time how much and for what category I used the machine.

But hiring a lawyer would cause me to either charge 5-10 times as much an hour as I do now, or take a years income money in a month.

So this means society is based on trust. You have to trust that my books are correct, that how much time I report having spent has actually been spent, etc.

Trust????!!!!!! Can society truly operate with such an antique concept ruling it? Do I trust someone off the street to not hit me with an abuse charge if I fail to say "Hi"? Absolutely not. Do I trust my accountant with my end of year returns? Just barely. Do I trust someone else's lawyer enough to go over my records? I'll be watching with my lawyer every step of the way.

Other people don't worry about this - if they did then every 10 feet there would be a camera watching you, thanks to the government. Subpoena the tapes for the time/day the incident happened, and all would be proved.

In one way, it's amazing it's not an issue. Shouldn't the validity of documents be a topic always on debate? Or am I legally bound just by putting my name on a simple piece of paper and walking away - even if there is not a notary present to witness the event?

Ultimately I know I'm legally bound by anything I sign. Implicit or explicit contracts, not matter how small or how secret, must be kept. Failure to do so results in a breach of the contract, and Things Happen

Trust just seems like such an unverifiable and archaic concept to be used by an evolved society.

So, is the answer to only use the G5 for business purposes from now on? It's an idea, but I can't prove it - it's just my word against someone else's. So I keep records of the working hours I use it - still, only my word backs up those records.

Accounting is different, somewhat. An auditor can look through every receipt, and in theory could call up the business in question and ask for their information on the sale. Here again, we trust that both parties are telling the truth. What if one party is dishonest? What if both are?

I'm planning for this to be my last post on this topic. All further posts will be about hoppy bunny rabbits or other less metaphysical topics.