As mentioned previously here, autistic people tend to interpret things as black and white, all-true or all-false, no shades of gray allowed. That’s almost certainly why many of us are drawn to working with computers, because computers “think” the same way. Nice to see someone recognizing that as a strength and putting it to good [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Business category.
“DeLorean goes electric for 2013 roll-out”
Wow, talk about Back to the Future. Though at that price, it’s more like back to the bank’s loan officer… I don’t think I’ll be indulging in this one. (They’ll either make a mint or lose their shirts, depending on how many people are rich enough — and interested enough — to buy one. But [...]
“Social net sites do wonders for crooks, spooks and bosses”
Food for thought: “Computers are making people easier to use everyday.”
“Nissan car secretly shares driver data with websites”
I started programming about thirty years ago, before I hit puberty. I don’t remember how difficult it must have been for me at that point to follow program logic or think on all the different levels that a developer has to while designing something, but I do recall the thrill I got when I figured [...]
“Waiting for Thunderbolt–one port to rule them all”
I sympathize with this fellow’s wish. I’d love to have a single really fast connector for everything, including video. I don’t know that it will ever catch on though, outside of Apple computers. I lived through the time of serial ports, parallel ports, AT connectors, PS/2 connectors, and the like. USB caught on, not because [...]
“Ten catastrophes: All-time worst tech industry executive decisions”
ZDNet has a roundup here, everything from IBM’s fateful 1980 decisions on MS-DOS to this year’s HP TouchPad debacle. I thought it was interesting, as a my-God-it’s-horrifying-but-I-can’t-look-away kind of thing.
“Reusable Printer Paper”
In 1985, the Wall Street Journal had a quote from an unnamed Xerox executive to the effect that “we’ll have a paperless office when we have a paperless bathroom.” Well, paperless bathrooms are here, but offices still use a lot of paper. In a bid to reduce that, Xerox has come up with self-erasing reusable [...]
“Financial Conspiracy Theories”
I generally ignore conspiracy theories. The more you know about history, probability, and human nature, the harder it is to seriously attribute malicious intent to things that happen by random chance, or as a result of public and well-known systems. The assassination of John F. Kennedy was (probably) a legitimate conspiracy. The claim that Kentucky [...]
“Bacterial nanowire discovery could revolutionize bioelectronics”
An exciting discovery: [...] Similar to the flexibility of artificial nano-wires, the conducting properties of the Geobacter biofilm could be manipulated by simply changing the temperature or regulating gene expression to create a new strain, for example. By adding a third electrode, the biofilm can act like a biological transistor, able to be switched on [...]
“And a Barista Will Lead Them”
Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, points out a Bloomberg article about the CEO of Starbucks Corp. urging other business leaders to suspend donations to political campaigns “until the Congress and the President return to Washington and deliver a fiscally disciplined long-term debt and deficit plan to the American people.” Other than armed revolt, that’s likely [...]