Issues

Most Influential Person? Steve Jobs?

Most Influential Person? Steve Jobs?

A friend and I had a conversation about the most influential person over the last two decades not too long ago. The conversation was lead off with some comment shortly after Steve Jobs passing (guess that dates the conversation a bit more then I care to recall) that he was probably the most influential person in the last twenty years to twenty five years or so. I took objection to that, and suggested that maybe it could be argued to be the case for the last decade or so (going back really to the iPod, including both the iPhone and iPad), but that really there are a LOT of other players to be considered for most influence even there, and especially if you look back as far as quarter century from 2012. What do you all think?

Gas Hike Reason

Gas Hike Reason

I am pissed! Last week, middle of the day on Tuesday a station in the smaller town I was in raised their gas prices as I was going by from $3.29 to $3.65. I let my wife and a couple of friends know that they should get gas if they were close to in need via text a little while later, anticipating that a big hike was in the works across every where. I also waited with much anticipation to see what crazy stuff was going on somewhere, whether it be a refinery fire or shutdown, escalating stances from Iran again, or just some middle eastern uprising crisis otherwise that was causing the spike. And nothing, no news at all, and though oil threatened higher on Tuesday, the next 2 days oil prices actually fell sharply downward. What the heck?

Search Engine Warnings for Questionable Sites

Search Engine Warnings for Questionable Sites

It is almost believable to be that some one is actually suggesting this kind of thinly veiled move toward censorship, but that is exactly what Evgeny Morozov is proposing. Morozov is a writer of a book and researcher that focuses on how the use of technology tends to affect the social aspects of society at large, so his opinion piece recently suggesting such a move of labeling websites that may be based more on pseudo science as such has gotten a lot of attention. Now to be sure, after reading his opinion and listening to parts of his recent interview Q, his actual idea is to label the sites actually based on science or even move them up in the page rankings.

SOPA & PIPA

SOPA & PIPA

Most of you have probably already into some internet site today that is either completely unavailable to you or more likely been altered and redirecting you to information about SOPA and PIPA. Some of us that are very in tune with the technology world and especially the behind the scenes process involved in making the internet work were looking forward to today, mostly to see who was going to join in the movement and support and who, especially among the big companies, would not. What is SOPA and PIPA and why all the fuss anyway? Good questions…

Small Business Saturday – November 26

Small Business Saturday – November 26

Just as the promotional materials for the Small Business Saturday event say, first there was Black Friday and then there was Cyber Monday… For those not in the loop this is a promotion to try to push shopping, to some at least some extent, on Saturday after Thanksgiving with small businesses. It is even implied to do so with local small businesses, which is even better. It is a good idea and something I am very much in favor of doing myself.

Gridlock, Economy, & Super Committee

Gridlock, Economy, & Super Committee

As I write this, it is starting to seem like most of the things that have been making so much of our economy here in the US, especially as it pertains to banking and Wall Street, figured out over in Europe. I will agree it seems like we have been close a couple of times before and there is certainly not an absolute, but we have gotten new technocratic governments in both Italy and Greece the seem largely on board with the changes that need to be made and we have an EU that seems largely on board with the support that it needs to offer to keep anything of a major collapse from occurring anytime in the real near future. With the strong earnings, combined with a very modest growth in the economy and very slight dip in the unemployment rates, some forecasters are starting to shoot for a positive 2011 after all. Not so fast I say…

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