Technology for the Journey

One of the hottest topics on social media these days is…social media.  Recent court rulings against Meta and Google’s YouTube have placed these two online heavyweights at the top of our search results – both were found liable for deliberately engineering their platforms to “maximize compulsive use.”  The addictive design was ruled a significant factor in causing anxiety and depression in a young…

After spending decades in the HDD industry, I came to believe that even the slightest loss of stored data was so catastrophic as to justify a hurried team meeting and a frantic search – using the latest high-tech tools – for the root cause. I never hesitated to buy extra storage for my own personal data so that I could always have a backup. Computer memory stores data as a string of 1’s and 0’s,…

My family and I once spent two weeks in Spain, where we explored some of the charming small towns along the Costa del Sol.  One of the must-see destinations was the Museo Picasso in the Andalucian city of Malaga.  Although I confess that I still don’t “get” Picasso, there was an unmistakable aura of historical importance in each of the many gallery rooms.  Great art is like a great brand, I…

I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but what you heard is not what I meant. This phrase, sometimes attributed to former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, nicely captures the problem we often have in communicating. Getting our ideas across to another goes far beyond just articulating them clearly – it involves a subtle combination of body language, volume, emphasis, cadence and…

It makes us uncomfortable when someone in authority changes their mind. We expect our leaders to be both knowledgeable and decisive. If your boss oscillates on key decisions, it’s difficult to work efficiently, unless of course you can somehow predict and plan for the next change (e.g., 2025 international trade policies). But decisions, both conscious and subconscious, are a big part of our daily…

You’ve probably never heard of Justin Tayler.  If you have, you may be part of his inner circle of friends.  Social media platform Facebook has a 5,000 friend limit, and Justin is renowned for having reached it.  Why the limit?  Facebook claims it’s  “…to ensure manageable connections and interactions.” I’m guessing Justin must spend a lot of time “managing” 5,000 friends Facebook is exploiting…

You’ve probably never heard of Justin Tayler.  If you have, you may be part of his inner circle of friends.  Social media platform Facebook has a 5,000 friend limit, and Justin is renowned for having reached it.  Why the limit?  Facebook claims it’s  “…to ensure manageable connections and interactions.” I’m guessing Justin must spend a lot of time “managing” 5,000 friends Facebook is exploiting…

Screenshot Our granddaughter accompanied my wife on a commercial flight to Las Vegas to attend the 90th birthday celebration of my wife’s mother.  When I received a text that they had arrived safely, it included a picture showing our 4-year old GK sitting on the edge of the pilots seat, holding the control yoke with one hand and throwing a switch with the other.  I assume the plane was powered…

Screenshot Jazz trombonist Kai Winding first recorded the song “Time Is On My Side” with his orchestra in 1963.  Jimmy Norman added some lyrics to Jerry Ragovoy’s original, and it was later covered by soul singer Irma Thomas.  Irma’s version caught the attention of a British rock band that often shopped for imported music in the Soho district.  They were attracted to the bluesy feel, the strong…

The human body is a marvelous piece of work – an intricate network of 206 bones, 900 ligaments, 4000 tendons, 100 organs, and more than 600 muscles (about 40% of the body’s total mass)  It is serviced by a vast plumbing arrangement of veins, arteries and capillaries totaling around 60,000 miles.  Input from 5 familiar sensors – taste, smell, sight, sound and touch – must be processed rapidly in…

My wife and I bought our Tesla in 2018, long before Elon Musk was rebranded as a chainsaw swinging “budget consultant”.  One of the things that stood out was the simple elegance of the interior.  Whenever friends rode in our car, their first question was always the same – “Where are all the controls?” Another visionary billionaire entrepreneur, the late Steve Jobs, would have loved it – Jobs was…

Much of my over fifty-year career has been spent in research. This is where you try risky projects which are likely to fail with the hope that one will eventually succeed and give birth to a new revenue stream. Many see research as a glamorous occupation, until there is a layoff and only those with a direct connection to the bottom line survive. Methodically searching existing sources for new…

We spend an average of 6 ½ hours every day on the World Wide Web, a portion of the Internet consisting of pages and documents connected by hyperlinks.  Over five billion people – two-thirds of the world’s population – works remotely, scrolls through information, and streams content using popular search engines and browsers to index and view web pages.  The Web we know is an enormous creature. …

My ISP has been pestering me lately, claiming that my equipment is outdated, and I am not taking full advantage of the higher data rates available on my current Internet plan. I was skeptical, as always, that this was another ploy to sell me less for more – just how bad could my 14-year-old modem/router really be? I finally caved in, and on a recent Friday morning I told my wife that our Internet…