Net Neutrality will die, so let’s take the profit out of killing it.

The U.S. Federal Communication Commission, under the leadership of chairman Ajit Pai, will next week set in motion the end of Net Neutrality in the USA. This is an unfortunate situation that will cause lots of news stories to be written in the days ahead, but I’m pretty sure the fix is in and this change is going to happen. No matter how many protesters merge on their local Verizon store, no matter how many impassioned editorials are written, it’s going to happen. The real question is what can be done in response to take the profit out of killing it?  I have a plan.

The concept of Net […]

By |November 22nd, 2017|2017, Government, Internet, Privacy and Security|133 Comments
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Amazon is Becoming the New Microsoft

Sorry for again having taken too long to return to work. Or in this case the better term might be to recover.  Eye surgery on November 2nd did not go well so I am still blind. In fact blinder than ever. We’ll try again on November 27th after I’m fully recovered from a drug side effect that nearly killed me. But I’m not dead yet!

My last column was about the recent tipping point signifying that cloud computing is guaranteed to replace personal computing over the next three years. This column is about the slugfest to determine what company’s public cloud is most likely to prevail. I reckon it […]

By |November 17th, 2017|2017, cloud computing, Companies, strategy, Uncategorized|53 Comments
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We’ve Reached the Cloud Computing Tipping Point

The past couple weeks have been a huge adventure for my family and me as we ran from the Santa Rosa fires. We spent the first week on the Mendocino coast where there are no computer stores. You can get a computer fixed, but can’t buy a new one in Gualala, Mendocino, or Ft. Bragg. So I bought an ancient IBM ThinkPad from MacDaddy Computer Repair only to learn that it wouldn’t produce text I could read. Hence the delay in filing this column — the first of two on the current state of cloud computing. The second column will appear sometime before Thursday when I have scheduled cataract surgery on both eyes. Provided nothing goes horribly wrong I should be back […]

By |October 30th, 2017|2017, cloud computing|108 Comments
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I have no boils

This is probably the last picture ever taken of our house in Santa Rosa, California. The time was 11:30PM Sunday and a neighbor had just pounded on our door. Fifty mph winds had been blowing all day but nobody expected fire. Yet the glow you see is from burning houses behind and beside ours. They, too, are gone.

We left with what clothes we could grab. I forgot my computer. I’m still blind and awaiting surgery so Mary Alyce drove one car and we left the other to burn.

By 8AM we were on the Mendocino coast with crappy Internet service and this iPhone. But we were all safe.

Certainly I’d been stupidly feeling a bit sorry for myself, but that ends […]

By |October 13th, 2017|2017, Breaking News, Family, Privacy and Security|162 Comments
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The Google Lunar X-Prize wasn’t extended, it was ENDED

Google recently extended its Google Lunar X-Prize deadline to March 31, 2018, apparently giving the five remaining teams a little longer to vie for the $20 million top prize. But there’s a mystery here that suggests two vying reasons for the change — one sincere and the other cynical. The final answer may turn out to be a combination of both.

The Google Lunar X-Prize was announced in 2007, giving teams five years to put their landers on the Moon and drive around, sending back live HD video of the action. Though 30 teams eventually signed-up, none of them made it to the Moon by 2012. Or 2013, […]

By |August 25th, 2017|2017, competition, space, Uncategorized|58 Comments
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