This Monday there was a classic Larry Summers story. It started with an editorial in the Washington Post calling for tax reforms that would redress a fraction of the income inequality that has accumulated over the past 30 years in the US. Larry called it the Downton Abbey economy. He also scuttled the argument that […]
Seen on Google + – More Political Irony Read More »
NYTimes today has a story that underlines the pernicious consequences of the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision to allow corporations to have unlimited “Freedom of Speech” . This was done despite the fact that Corporate Free Speech does not reflect the varied views of the corporation’s employees, shareholders, suppliers and other stakeholders but rather the
Seen on Google+ – Political Irony Read More »
Seen on Google+ is first the image and then the comment: This is the underlying Cognitive Dissonance of the GOP. They are schizo and they know it. First, incurring huge deficits under Reagan and the Bushes – but now declaring all spending by government as wasteful while taking those farm subsidies, oil and business tax
Google+ Postings: GOP Cognitive Dissonance Read More »
Now this reviewer does not like to gloat but it is always a nice to see how far ahead of the Major Media Pack one can be. First the NYTimes and now Marketwatch, more than a year late, have “seen the opportunity and lead” that Windows 8 has in 2-in-1 or convertible laptops/tablets and with
At Last, Major Media Catch-up to the Windows 8 Convertible Advantage Read More »
The Good news for Apple is very Good indeed. Apple has a deal with China Mobile for selling Apple iPhones.Given that China Mobile has huge market share this should significantly impact Apple iPhone sales in China. However, the bottom line details are still a little murky depending on the contract. What is most remarkable is
Apple Good News Bad News Read More »
NYTimes Magazine online edition has been the subject of lavish praise from this reviewer of late[see the fulsome accolades for NYTimes Magazine story on a Philippines outpost against the Chinese land grab here]. But the Magazine can be too indulgent as appears to be the case in its extravagant Making a Scene production – 11
NYTimes Magazine Makes A Scene, Literally Read More »
Why I’ve all but given up on Apple and MacOS. As a photographer and graphic artist, these are words I never thought I would write. After more than two decades of being a dedicated graphics power user, someone who over that time has polished and finished tens of thousands of images and video clips while
Elegy on Apple and Macs Read More »
NYTimes is in the process of defining the Magazine format for the Web. Yes, Newsweek and others [please add your favorites in the comments below] have done some superb full-page, Magazine-like stories but the NYTimes is taking it to a new media level of excellence: As China in our century become as aggressive as Japan
NYTimes Defines the Web Magazine Read More »
Click on the poster to get more information on the protest The terms of NSA Surveillance are way too broad Ally governments like Mexico, France, japan, etc are now subject to the same scrutiny as “terror” sources. And each day there is another revelation that NSA surveillance seeps into the US on an ever broader
Protest Against NSA Surveillance Read More »
Windows 8.1 is here and this is what Windows 8.0 should have been. Like its lead in tablets and mobile phones in the the late 1990’s and 2000’s, Microsoft may be squandering in the expanded world of mobile computing a great overall Windows OS lead and new version strategy to a flawed execution. Meanwhile all
Windows 8.1: Good Strategy But Flawed Execution Read More »
The latest trend in popular Reddit censorship is automatically spam filter generated. Who ever writes the Spam Filter code must have 1984ish roots. See the latest choice for censorship: A Chicago man, following the Republican playbook, is threatening to destroy rare papers unless Harvard offers a better price. Truly a Tea Party Schooled knave!
More Reddit Censorship Read More »
The NYTimes has a stunning travel story, The Russia Left Behind, open free to the public. It is a journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow not by plane or high-speed train; but by motor car – sort of like a Route 66 trip in the USA. The Times tells us at the journey’s outset: On
Echo Trips in Russia and the USA Read More »
Reddit was featured on PBSNews Hour this last Friday highlighting the rapid rise to 80M users replacing Digg, StumbledOn and Tumblr as the new place to go for Web cognoscenti. However, Reddit has to watch out because leadership in this category is like Fashion – rapidly changing on strange whims. Meanwhile Censorship is alive and
Reddit Censorship: More Automation Read More »
Reuters started the ball rolling earlier this week saying 3 of the top 20 Microsoft shareholders raised the question of whether Bill Gates should be replaced as Chairman of Microsoft. Now Bill’s 5% holding of Microsoft stock is the largest but the 3 dissident shareholders have a combined holding that is slightly larger. And because
The End of Chairman Bill? Read More »
Reddit’s Moderation Log is a good benchmark for Popular Censorship. The Moderation log shows which articles have been removed from Reddit by either moderators’ actions or automated spam filters. It is a measure of popular censorship because the moderators who do the removals are all volunteers. Within the past half year, admission to becoming a
Reddit Censorship: NYTimes Story on Decline of Middle Class Read More »
Definitely see the 1 year later 2014 update to this report. This Google+ Post is a picture that captures the essence of the continuing story about Microsoft and the Web. This slide is very telling because it reveals once again and summarizes neatly Redmond’s attitude to the Web for nearly 20 years. Remember Bill Gates
Microsoft and the Web Read More »
In the NYTimes, Adam Frank, a distinguished scientist at the University of Rochester laments the decline of Science in the public – but fails to address the underlying issues and reasons for the decline of Science from the publics point of view. First and foremost, when only 26% of graduating high school students are prepared
In a week that saw the Washington Post bought out for a tenth of its value ten years ago, the NYTimes put on a quiet but virtuoso display of journalism in Sunday’s “paper”. Not one or two “must read” stories but five. Now below is a discussion of why hitting this Quinfecta is important. Meantime,
NYTimes Hits The Quinfecta Read More »
It is amazing that the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones allows the Opinions on Marketwatch to swing so far to the left. Or perhaps it is a sop to compensate for the rigid conservatism of the WSJ editorial page. Whatever, the case, Al Lewis today is right on Denmark with his note about the
Marketwatch Speaks the Truth Read More »
Bamboo Stylus works with only 5 Win8 PCs This reviewer has been praising Windows 8 for being the first PC Client OS vendor to bring full touchscreen operations to their OS . It started with Windows 7 getting partial support and then Windows 8 with full touchscreen capabilities. Now as Web devloper who does
The Windows 8 Touchscreen Fumble Read More »
This move to Windows 8 is major decision. It is taken after 3 years of work on a combination of Fedora Linux and Windows 7. In addition for the last half year I have been working extensively with Android Jelly Bean on a Nexus 7 tablet. I have had Windows 8 for slightly longer than
Move to Windows 8 Despite Love/Hate Read More »
The world of computing has been turned topsy turvy by mobile devices – light, mobile, long-battery life and most important – touch screen operable. Smartphones and tablets from Apple have lead the way; but now the Wintel Empire Strikes Back with ultrabooks , convertibles and 2-in-one PCs. But what may shape this latest twist in
This blog recently took a look at the lead Sony has in the wearable device market which is currently only a minuscule overall market. But according to Forrester, 30% of consumers are interested in wearables. All the big boys – Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung among the computing leviathans are openly or otherwise working on wearables. But
Will Sony SmartWatch 2 Win the Wearable Watch Race Read More »
The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard is a small jewel, like a remembered line of dialogue from one of Leonard’s stories. Now this reader chooses his Western’s carefully being more a Mark Twain fan than Louis Lamour. Give me the edginess and contradictions of the grasping opportunism that was Western expansion. And that is at
Elmore Leonard’s Westerns Read More »
Uncharacteristically, Apple has let a lot leak about its undelivered iWatch. Perhaps this leakage was motivated by all the Me-Too blunderbussing about iOS7. Whatever the cause, Sony is taking a riff from Samsung and extolling the virtues of its already released SmartWatch with a series of ads that say in Samsung Galaxy fashion – look what is
Will Sony Wearable Watch Win More Users? Read More »
The writing on the PC Wall is ugly with not just a 14% decline in year over year sales in 1Q2013 but 4 straight quarters of sales declines as well. This trend has hit Intel as the primary PC chipmaker doubly hard because Intel has failed to break into the mobile chip market where smartphone
Intel’s PC Comeback Read More »
Income and Wealth Inequality is about deserving and fairness. In a democratic society, income and accumulated wealth have to be unequal because effort and captured good fortune are not equally distributed. So by definition income and consequent wealth will not be even – call this expected inequality of earnings and consequent wealth. However this expected
Massive Income and Wealth Inequality in the United States Read More »
In a Coursera class Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel detailed how medical service cost growth was driving the greatest increases in Healthcare costs in US History. This was a superb course that exposed the real drivers in health care costs in the US. Bottom line. Dr. Emanuel revealed that USA Healthcare is a set of markets that
Healthcare Costs Exposed Read More »
Geoff Brandt asked the following question on Google Plus: I was having a discussion with an acquaintance of mine who is somewhat more conservative than I am. He was railing against most gov’t spending (perpetrated of course by “those Liberals in Washington”) and insisted our nation’s top priority other than defense should be to pay
On Google Plus: Austerity vs Keynesian Economic Policy Read More »
This is the best information by far on the nature of wealth in the USA and the series of problems spawned by ever-widening disparity in wealth. This has occurred before in the USA during the Gilded Age, then again in the Roaring 20’s. But World War II seemed to bring a new deal – an
The Best Explanation of Wealth in the USA Read More »
Sunday’s readers were treated to a NYTimes Editorial Board Grand Pontification. The news that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the most important global warming gas, have hit 400 parts per million for the first time in millions of years increases the pressure on President Obama to deliver on his pledges to limit this country’s greenhouse
The NYTimes Pontificates on Global Warming Read More »
In the Coursera class Behavioral Economics taught by Duke Professor Dan Ariely, all the students had to write a mid-term essay in which they described the ideas of Behavioral Economics and how the methods of the discipline could be used to solve an economic problem. Despite the fact, that most of the methods in the
An Essay for the Coursera Class: Behavioral Economics Read More »
