Amazing that the hosts of the NBC Today show (Katie Couric and Brian Gumbel) could be this clueless about the Internet, but in fairness to them, this show segment was recorded in 1994…
Category Archives: Technology
Morse code vs. text messaging
Morse code vs. text messaging (Hat Tip to Peggy Davies :-)):
Assorted Links (10/13/2010)
Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading lately:
Christien Meindertsma: How pig parts make the world turn | Video on TED.com
ted.com
“TED Talks Christien Meindertsma, author of “Pig 05049” looks at the astonishing afterlife of the ordinary pig, parts of which make their way into at least 185 non-pork products, from bullets to artificial hearts.”
Google to map inflation using web data
ft.com
“Data could provide an alternative to official statistics.”
Higher Taxes Mean I’ll Work Less
nytimes.com
“A personal case study looks at some of the ways higher taxes may affect the earnings of high-income taxpayers.”
Review & Outlook: The 2010 Spending Record
online.wsj.com
“The Wall Street Journal on the 21.4% federal spending increase in two years.”
Boehner’s ‘Plan B’ for ObamaCare
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, Main Street columnist William McGurn writes that congressional hearings can be used to sell market-friendly fixes.”
Europe the Intolerant
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, James Kirchick writes that the continent’s progressive image is a fabrication of the American liberal mind.”
NFL vs. ‘TV Everywhere’
online.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Business World columnist Holman Jenkins, Jr. says that TV’s fight to preserve its power in the face of digital ubiquity may be a lost cause.”
Book Review: Roosevelt’s Purge
online.wsj.com
“Jonathan Karl reviews Susan Dunn’s Roosevelt’s Purge: How FDR Fought to Change the Democratic Party.”
Irwin on France’s role in the Great Depression
cafehayek.com
“In the latest EconTalk, Doug Irwin argues that France played a much larger role than previously thought in causing the Great Depression. We talk about how the gold standard worked and how French monetary policy forced deflation on the rest of the world.”
The Decline of Cursing
online.wsj.com
“Bad words, once glorious, have been emptied of meaning by common use, argues Jan Morris in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.”
The Weekend Interview with Scott Rasmussen: America’s Insurgent Pollster
online.wsj.com
“In the Wall Street Journal, OpinionJournal columnist John Fund interviews Scott Rasmussen, who says that understanding the tea party is essential to predicting what the country’s political scene will look like.”
Paul Johnson – The Quest For God – The ReAL Book Review
torenewamerica.com
I really like Gerard Reed’s book reviews; here’s one about British historian Paul Johnson’s new book entitled “The Quest for God”. I first became aware of Paul Johnson more than 20 years ago, when I became deeply influenced by Paul Johnson’s essay entitled “The Heartless Lovers of Humankind” (see http://www.fortfreedom.org/h11.htm).
The Fed Compounds Its Mistakes
online.wsj.com
“In The Wall Street Journal, Carnegie-Mellon University economist Allan H. Meltzer says the Federal Reserve shouldn’t deliberately use inflation to reduce unemployment.”
Diamond, Mortensen, Pissarides Share 2010 Nobel Economic Prize
bloomberg.com
“Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides shared the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for their work on the efficiency of recruitment and wage formation as well as labor-market regulation.”
Four Lions: The Absurdity of Terror
www.thepublicdiscourse.com
“In the British film Four Lions, five Muslim men from Sheffield, England—four from immigrant families along with an English convert—seek to break out of their ho-hum average-ness by doing something which they think will launch them into hero status in their community.They plot a terrorist attack in the name of “jihad” in the U.K. In this farcical film, black satire meets terror-jihad and it is a match made almost in heaven. The would-be jihadists, however, end their lives only in tragedy, not in paradise.”
The MBA Oath
www.tutor2u.net
“At a time when capitalism, free markets, corporate greed, (WallStreet 2), bankers’ bonuses, is making headlines, here is the MBA Oath. The oath is a voluntary pledge for graduating MBAs and current MBAs to “create value responsibly and ethically’.”
Joe Queenan on Jimmy Carter’s Addiction to Writing Books
online.wsj.com
“The American people wanted Jimmy Carter out of office in the worst way, and to this day they are paying the price. If we had to do it all over again, I think a lot of people would vote to amend the Constitution and allow presidents to run for five, six—as many terms as they wanted. That wouldn’t leave them much spare time to write books.”
Crash test: 1959 Chevy Bel Air versus a 2009 Chevy Malibu
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety conducted a unique crash test to demonstrate the advances in motor vehicle safety over the last 50 years (hat tip to my Baylor colleague J.T. Rose, for pointing this video out to me):
Don Tapscott on Growing Up Digital
Hat tip to Geoff Riley, who summarizes Don Tapscott’s 27 minute video below in the following manner (see “Don Tapscott on Generation Net”): “I really enjoy listening to Don Tapscott, I feel that he is someone who gets to the heart of the big changes that are unfolding as a generations bathed in bits – the net generation – moves from extended adolescence into the world of work, politics, business, society and community.”
Assorted Links (7/19/2010)
Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading lately:
David Cameron: A Staunch and Self-Confident Ally – WSJ.com
online.wsj.com
“British Prime Minister David Cameron writes in The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. and Britain have a clear common agenda: succeeding in Afghanistan, securing economic growth and fighting protectionism.”
You Don’t Have to Pay for Cable TV
www.moneytalksnews.com
“The average cable subscription costs $900 a year, but you can radically reduce that amount and still watch everything you want.”
Leeds: Chew on this: There is no surplus fairy for Social Security
www.statesman.com
Here’s the bottom line from Sandy Leeds’ editorial, published in today’s Austin American Statesman:
“The bottom line is that we’re in trouble. Social Security is woefully underfunded and Medicare is an even larger problem. This is going to increase the amount that we’re going to have to borrow from investors – and there’s no certainty that investors will always be willing to lend to us. Most importantly, we’re never going to solve these problems until the electorate understands the issues and starts to pressure our elected officials into making the hard (but right) decisions. We’re not doing anyone any favors by convincing them that we have “built up a big trust fund.””
Economics One: New Data Show the Debt Problem Is Spending (not Taxes) and Obamacare Worsens the Problem
johnbtaylorsblog.blogspot.com
Quoting from Stanford Professor John Taylor’s Blog (Economics One): “Everyone now seems to agree that the exploding federal debt is a serious problem that must be addressed. But how? The following … charts provide some data to help answer that question.”
Review & Outlook: A Climate Absolution? – WSJ.com
online.wsj.com
“A Wall Street Journal editorial says the global warming alarmists still won’t separate science from politics.”
www.boston.com
Here’s what we have to look forward to as Obamacare starts to come “on line” (Massachusetts passed so-called Romneycare in 2006, and Obamacare structurally closely resembles Romneycare, only on a national as opposed to individual state level)… “The relentlessly rising cost of health insurance is prompting some small Massachusetts companies to drop coverage for their workers and encourage them to sign up for state-subsidized care instead, a trend that, some analysts say, could eventually weigh heavily on the state’s already-stressed budgets”.
Studying a Suicide Cluster at Foxconn – The Numbers Guy – WSJ
blogs.wsj.com
“To analyze whether a recent spate of suicides at a set of Chinese manufacturing facilities represents an unusual outbreak, it helps to make the right comparisons.”