Headlines

Eric Swalwell ends c White House bid, citing low fundraising, polling

Apartment rental demand soars as more millennials believe it’s cheaper than owning a home

Swamp floods chaos hits Capital, White House flooding

Food stamp population lowest in 10 years

Trump says administration ‘will no longer deal with’ British ambassador

US judge halts Trump administration’s rule requiring drug prices in TV ads

Record 60 million Hispanics in USA, 52% of population growth ...

Poll: Trump hits 50% approval rating after Independence Day

Minimum wage bill could eliminate 1.3 million jobs, CBO says

When angry, Steve Jobs was highly critical of Tim Cook, says biographer Isaacson

APPLE co-founder Wozniak: ‘Get off FACEBOOK’ ...

Poll: Plurality of likely voters support criminally prosecuting illegal aliens

Tecnology

Far too often technology, instead of making our lives simpler, adds layers of complexity, required/non-obvious learning and less privacy.  Steve Jobs would not have been happy. — Anon.

Complexity

I guess it may be a function of my little grey cells dying off, but I am increasingly revolting against the complexity that technology is forcing upon me.  Recently, my e-mail supplier switched to AOL and, in order to use this new service, I have had to learn a whole new user interface ... one that is clumsy and non-intuitive. And, to do my income taxes this past Spring, I spent too many days trying to decipher the insane complexity of our tax code. Why am I being led by the nose into these labyrinths of what idiosyncratic designers think is the proper way of doing things? And, to place their brand on their designs, old protocols are eschewed for newer but not necessarily better ones.

Part of the genius of Steve Jobs was that he frequently got the user interface right ... one that was naturally intuitive. It didn't require a user manual to understand how things worked. Now end users seldom have manuals to educate them on the ins and outs of a new gizmo ... an unfortunate homage to Jobs.  Features that may be neat to the designers, become a bear to figure out. So I have become a bit of a Luddite. I wont use a smart phone ... an old clam shell works just fine. I do use an IPad, but grit my teeth much of the time. I do not look forward to autonomous cars because I don't really believe that they will simplify my life. When something goes wrong ... and it will ... many of us will be at a loss as to how to fix things.

In a way I am not too unhappy that I may not be around for this brave new world of increasingly complex technology. Matter of fact, I am thinking about buying an old Chevy Bel Air to get around in ... and hire H&R Block to do my taxes next year.

Visionaries

Nikola Tesla

It must be in the California water ... the little of which is still around, that is ... but the Golden State seems to breed Golden Boys, such as Elon Musk and Steve Jobs ... visionaries who grab technology by the throat and make it bend to their will. Add the Evergreen State's Jeff Bezos to this cadre and you have the Three Musketeers who are changing our lives ... much faster than many of us can cotton to.

Of these three, the one who seems the most outré to me is Musk. Some of his pronouncements sound a lot like those kooks who used to be pushing cold fusion ... only he delivers often enough to keep us skeptics from saying "ah ha" ! (Example ... recently landing his returning spent SpaceX rocket on a barge.) And Musk just predicted to an enthralled audience that humans would start populating Mars in nine years (shades of JFK) ... see: CNN Article. A little nutty, no? But this guru has been saying and doing nutty things for a number of years now and ... delivering! This keeps us skeptics back on our heels.

Will Musk's auto company, Tesla, manufacture one million electric cars by 2019? Many skeptics, like myself, believe that this is a pipe dream ... particularly if our federal government doesn't keep the subsidy tax rebate tap wide open. And, I suspect that, if the Republicans win the presidency in November, some fiscal sanity might interject itself into this "evil carbon" debate ... after all, as a few sane heads recognize, it is burning carbon that produces most of the electricity that recharges Tesla's sexy status-provoking cars.

Of the other two visionaries, Jobs and Bezos, I think Bezos might have the largest long-term effect on our lives ... if, of course he can keep getting the financial markets to supply the funds to keep his Amazon enterprise going ... and he avoids having a cage match with Trump were he to become president. If Steve Jobs were still alive, I think that he might have used Apple's huge cash reserves to pull another rabbit out of his hat ... something that I doubt that the current CEO, Tim Cook, will be able to do.

Amazon.com

Many people believe that CEO Jeff Bezos has created a monster ... while others feel that Amazon's dog-eat-dog culture is just what was needed to propel a small on-line bookseller into the most valuable retailer in the United States ... having just recently surpassed Walmart in its stock-market valuation.

Clearly, Amazon.com has taken the Darwinian corporate culling culture developed at General Electric a number of steps further ... to the point where it's high turnover rates (half of its employees last just one year and only 15% of its employees last five years) might eventually be its undoing. The New York Times has done a very long, fascinating and in-depth article on Amazon which exposes not just its many maniacal successes but also its disturbing ugly warts ... see: New York Times Story.

The older I get, the more I believe that capitalistic success is very often predicated on a Messianic vision on the part of corporate founders ... from John D. Rockefeller to Henry Ford to Thomas Watson to Steve Jobs to Jeff Bezos. And although there might be much personal employee suffering along the way, the end result is, for a time, an "insanely" transformative company. After you have digested the above article, see if you can't somehow forgive the tyranny that many of these corporate founders have engaged in to birth their visions. I may not like it, but I can forgive it ... such is "invisible hand" of capitalism.

Apple Butter

After much travail, my son just upgraded the operating system on our Apple IPad ... and I think I might understand why Apple's stock price has been going nowhere of late. The old IPad user interface, to me, had a few problems ... but the new one is even worse. I do believe that Steve Job's defining strength at Apple was his obsession for an intuitive user experience. And I don't think that the new CEO, Tim Cook, has this same neurosis ... and this may point to a declining future for this great technical enterprise.

If users of this new IPad operating system yell AAARG! too often ... like I have ... it suggests that there is not someone corralling the system developers from making their own silly decisions as to what the user really needs or wants. This apparent loss of mojo at the company located on Infinite Loop in Cupertino, California will gradually erode its dominant position in its many marketplaces. Even the Apple Watch's tepid roll out reinforces this unfortunate trend.

What was once a crisp ripe Apple is slowly becoming apple butter.

Abandoned

There is now a recognition that boys who have been abandoned by their fathers very early in life can grow into extremely successful adults.  The examples currently being bandied about are former President, Bill Clinton; Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com; President Barack Obama; Steve Jobs of Apple Computer; and Larry Ellison of Oracle Corp.  … and I’m sure that there are probably many others.  Whatever the underlying psychology of this phenomenon turns out to be, it does seem to suggest a possible interesting future potential.

Considering the degree of fatherly desertion that is now occurring pell mell in the United States among the black and Hispanic communities … and also growing among Caucasians … it would seem to me that America should expect a barrage of hard-driving prosperous males ... maybe females too … in the not too distant future.

A Lesson in Obsolescence

The problems that are plaguing Research in Motion (see: Battered Blackberry Maker) have got me thinking about obsolescence.  Why do some products die quickly while others seem to prosper with facility?  Often the answers are not obvious.  For instance, the rapid growth of the iPhone and iPad technology can be attributed to the sexy new user interface ... using touch-screen swipes to quickly get things done.  However, this may not be the primary reason.  I had another thought tonight that I would like to pass on ... and I hope my lack of user experience on this new i-interface doesn't make me look foolish.

The classic Microsoft/PC interface which still dominates the Internet world has an Achilles heel.  That is the requirement that users constantly perform utility clean-up operations to maintain the integrity and speed of their systems -- antivirus scans and updates; registry clean-up operations; defragging of hard-discs; and purging of file clutter (temporary Internet files, shortcuts, cookies, usage-history, etc.).  One need only see the repeated TV-commercials for companies that offer these services to realize what a pain this overhead has become.  And I repeatedly run into people whose PCs have become doorstops because they haven't realized that they must perform such nagging periodic maintenance.

Now, I don't believe that this same syndrome is suffered by iPhone and iPad users (Droids too?).  If in fact this is the case, then Microsoft need quickly emulate the genius of Steve Jobs in revamping their operating system and user interface ... or in a few short years they might well walk the same plank that Research in Motion seems to be currently trodding.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to do a Registry clean-up.

"Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble"

There are a variety of gripes being voiced by the "Occupiers" of Wall Street and other cities ... from "millionaires are evil" to "legalize pot now."  However, there is one complaint that has merit and deserves some focus: "I owe $50,000 [or much more] on my college loans and I can't find a job to begin paying it back."  It is estimated that there are now close to one trillion dollars of college loans outstanding.  This is a particularly onerous burden for such graduates who majored in gender of other hyphenated studies and are all vying for the only jobs they are realistically qualified for -- that of teaching gender and other hyphenated studies courses.  And the entity that they owe this money to is (drum roll please) the federal government ... since The Barry has nationalized almost the entire student-loan industry.  Therefore, a good many of these demonstrators unknowingly hate the very one they love.

The real reason that there is this financial dislocation is that colleges and universities have, for years, been increasing tuitions and fees far beyond the rate of inflation.  And the reason that they have been able to do this is that the federal government has insinuated itself into the economics of this industry with numerous grants, student loan guarantees, and a drumbeat about the importance of a college education.  (Ignoring the fact that neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs completed college.)  Somehow, like in the health care industry, whenever the federal government meddles in things, inflation rates there go haywire.

And what have these higher-education institutions been doing with all this largess?  The have bloated up their administrations with Deans of Diversity (kind of like the job Michelle Obama had in Chicago), Directors of Sustainability, etc. ... and their pampered staffs ... as well as numerous professors of gender and other hyphenated studies.  In my opinion, this is the next bubble that is about to be pricked by the exigencies of today's economic situation.  It is difficult to imagine that all the brilliant minds in almost all of these pedagogical institutions don't realize the precariousness of their situation  ... and start shedding administrative and hyphenated professorial staffs so that they might freeze or even reduce tuitions (Princeton possibly being the small exception.)

And, when this bubble does burst, may I make a prediction?  Instead of stepping out of the way and allowing an educational-industry normalcy to get re-established, the federal government will insert itself even further to prop up this silly situation ... with something like TARP II.  Will we never learn that capitalism has its own self-healing mechanisms?

What's NeXT?

One of the premier examples of the extraordinary entrepreneurial spirit in the United States, Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. has just sadly stepped down as its CEO yesterday.  An original founder of Apple Computer in 1976 (see Apple Computer.), who pioneered the Apple 1 computer kit, the Apple II, and the Macintosh with its innovative Graphical User Interface (GUI).  Jobs was ousted in 1984 and went on to found NeXT Computer (see NeXT Computer) with enormous financial backing ... including Warren Buffet. 

The 1986-released NeXT computer was not a commercial success, primarily, in my opinion, because it did not include a floppy disc drive.  Steve Jobs, in his typical visionary way, was years ahead of his time, substituting an early version of a CD-RAM for both a mass storage device and input/output (I/O) device.  This was one of the few mistakes Jobs ever made in his technical career ... primarily because it became difficult (and expensive) to move data and applications from the rest of cyberspace onto the NeXT computer and the data-access rates of this device were snail-slow.  Today, 25 years later, CD-RAMs are often the primary hardware I/O devices on personal computers ... and mass data storage is rapidly moving off of its miniature hard discs and onto static-RAM memory (such as flash drives).  Here, Steve was just a few years too soon.

But Jobs can easily be forgiven this one technical hiccup for, after returning to Apple in 1997, he went on to lead the creation of the IPod, the IMac, the IPhone, and the IPad (with its GUI on steroids) which have fostered enormous worldwide markets for American technology.  Even the Apple Store is a technology marketing innovation which can be partially attributed to Jobs.

Now, Steve Jobs is leaving and the future of Apple Inc. is in question.  One has to echo all the kudoes being lavished on Steve Jobs.  In fact, they may not be lauditory enough.  So, when The Barry gives his early September address to the nation with the shibolith "jobs, jobs, jobs," my mind will certainly wander to that health-plagued founder of Apple.