Technology – Page 11 – Outrun Change

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 2/25

A few articles on technology, energy, and publishing that are worth a read and a brief comment.

Publishing

2/10 – Megan McArdle at Bloomberg View – You Want Advice? Don’t Ask Journalists – Journalism as a career path is going through savage turmoil. Want to write in-depth about an industry or topic? She suggests going to work in that industry and find some writing do to there. Then you can go back to journalism if a great opportunity surfaces or your new industry collapses.

Education

2/11 – Chronicle of Higher Education – Meet the New, Self-Appointed MOOC Accreditors: Google and Instagram –

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Transportation costs dropped 95% in the 1800s

There are a lot of data points on travel cost and travel time during the first half of the 1800s mentioned by Allen Guelzo in his fantastic book, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President.

Here is the most amazing part:

Overall drop in cost to transport freight with canals, steamboats, and railroads (location 641):

95%

I want to accumulate some of these tidbits since I’m amazed at the radical change created by technology.

Transportation time and cost

Consider:

Travel by stagecoach: Continue reading “Transportation costs dropped 95% in the 1800s”

More good stuff on the open frontier – 1/17

A few articles on technology, energy, and publishing that are worth a read and a brief comment. Efforts for soft landing to recover a first stage came amazingly close to success.

Worlds far away I’ll never visit

1/9 – Wired – Why the Silk Road Trial Matters – Some background on the upcoming trial of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged mastermind behind Silk Road, which is allegedly one of the first dark markets to sell all sorts of illegal stuff.

Since that is a world I’ll never get within a few light years of, following the case is only way I’ll get hints of what is that planet is like.

Space

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontier – 1/17”

Knowledge is the source of value and wealth

Gotta’ question for you – How much does the economy weigh? (Cross posted from Attestation Update.)

Can’t answer?

Okay. How ‘bout this – Does much does the economy weight today versus 1950?

Before you answer, consider that I just counted 220 books on the bookshelves in my office. I currently have 195 books on my Kindle.

Now, how much does the economy weight today compared to 60 years ago?

Continue reading “Knowledge is the source of value and wealth”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 1/6

More articles on the open frontiers of technology and private space flight. But first, some downsides of tech misuse and letting the world pass you by.

Downside of tech revolution and change

Not everything is getting better. There is abuse of technology along with quantitative and qualitative decay:

1/2 – Schneier on Security – Doxing as an Attack – New terms you didn’t want to know, but really ought to: doxing –

Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 1/6”

The wide open frontier of technology

Just like the wide open frontier of the American west after the Civil War, the technology world today provides tremendous opportunities.

Need to post something upbeat today after posting about the foolishness of IFRS accounting rules and a hit piece editorial on the Bakken.

11/12 – Seth Godin – An end of radio – Continue reading “The wide open frontier of technology”

Would you rather be in the middle class today or the richest man in the world in 1836?

If it was possible to choose, would you prefer to live life in the middle class, struggling to get by in a lousy economy with an uncertain retirement, or would you rather live the life of Nathan Rothschild, who was the richest man on the planet when he departed this life in 1836?

John Kay discusses this idea in his article, Precise inflation figures ignore evolutions in product quality and consumer choice.

Mr. Kay points out that Mr. Rothschild was richer than either John D Rockefeller or Bill Gates. He was the second richest man in all of history.

Before you say you’d rather live his life than yours, consider this:

Continue reading “Would you rather be in the middle class today or the richest man in the world in 1836?”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 11/18

A few articles on the open frontiers of technology, energy, space and publishing that are worth a read and a brief comment.

About those low energy prices – #4

11/15 – Dickinson Press – Bakken keeps booming: Despite low prices, companies continue to invest in Oil Patch – Estimates attributed to “state officials” suggest that crude oil prices would have to drop to $42 per barrel to bring most production in the state to a halt. The impact of that price would be far more devastating to OPEC and Russia than the U.S. industry.

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Good news from the open frontier of space travel

After a rough week on the frontier of private space travel, some good news: a huge investment by Google and a probe landed on a comet.

11/11 – Space.com – Google Leases NASA’s Moffet Field, Historic Hangar for $1.2 Billion – and 11/11 – CNN – Google leases massive Navy blimp hangar –

Continue reading “Good news from the open frontier of space travel”

More good stuff on surveillance – 11/14

Here is my fifteenth list of good stuff on our surveillance society. A few articles of interest:

11/14 – Wall Street Journal – Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program – Devices on Planes that Mimic Cellphone Towers Used to Track Criminals, but Also Sift Through Thousands of Other Phones –

The same technology used to identify and track terrorists in battle zones is being used on U.S. citizens. The Department of Justice in running a program through the US Marshall Service that puts a detector in a small plane and flies over an area.

Continue reading “More good stuff on surveillance – 11/14”

Space travel is rocket science

Two disasters in one week naturally leads us to wondering if private space exploration is safe.

Well, no.

It is rocket science.

And it isn’t safe.

But it is wonderful and will be safe enough soon enough.

11/1 – Marginal Revolution – Space Tourism Still Not Ready for Flight – Continue reading “Space travel *is* rocket science”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 10/25

A few of the articles on the open frontiers of energy, education, and technology that caught my interest.

Technology

10/6 – The Freeman – Who’s Afraid of the Workers’ Revolution – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 10/25”

Paperback books and e-books; more on the dispute between Hachette and Amazon

Guess what? Lowering the price on something means you can sell more of it and make more money.

That applies to paperbacks when they first came out and it applies to e-books today. Well, it actually applies to practically everything.

Know what else? Anyone who wants to publish a book can do so. Anyone. For astoundingly low cost. The publishing frontier is wide open. Thank you Amazon.

In August, Amazon sent an e-mail to people using their Kindle Direct Publishing service. (By the way, if you aren’t already a best seller and want to ever get your book published, you really, really ought to go the e-book route with KDP. It is awesome.)

Back to the e-mail.

Since it went out to tens or hundreds of thousands of people, I will take the liberty to quote it.

Some history: Continue reading “Paperback books and e-books; more on the dispute between Hachette and Amazon”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – drone edition

The frontier of drone technology is wide open. A few articles that stretch my understanding of this amazing world we live in. Some cool pictures this time.

(photo of harbor patrol boat by James Ulvog)

10/6 – Wired – The Navy’s Developing Little Autonomous Boats to Defend Its Ships – The Navy successfully tested the swarming abilities of autonomous harbor patrol boats. An operator can tell small boats like these what ships to defend and what to attack:

(photo by James Ulvog of harbor patrol boats on exercise)

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More good stuff on the open frontiers – 9/25

Just like the wild west in the late 1800s, the frontiers of energy and technology are wide open. Here’s a few of the articles that stretched my understanding of this amazing world we live in. Just brief comments from me.

Energy

9/14 – Wall Street Journal – Russell Gold – Fracking Gives U.S. Energy Boom Plenty of Room to Run – Current Top Gas Well Produces Five Times as Much as Record Setter a Decade Ago– What was an amazing gas well ten years ago has been topped by a factor of five.

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