The Humancentipad

South Park can be very blue but if often hits at the core of many things. Last year before Steve Jobs died it had a hilarious show in which one of south parks main characters was taped between two other unfortunate apple users because they failed to read the ULA (that legal notice you click so Apple will let you use its products). ULA are usually very long, not written in plain English and nobody reads them. One of the things Apple likes to do is hire lawyers. I heard rumors they have their own building in the Apple campus because there are so many of them.

Steve Jobs reportedly said he would spend his last dime suing Google out of existence. Steve Jobs may be dead but just like in the book DEAMON about a software pioneer who used a system to manipulate the world after his death. Steve Jobs may have unleashed his own Daemon in the form of an army of lawyers in Apple to make all our lives hell. It seems sad that a computer company need lawyers more than engineers.

Not Single Computer Market

Apple wants you to believe the PC is dead. Apple has great marketing and sales abilities but just because somebody tell you something it is not true. When a salesman keep hammering a point then you know he is bending the truth or just plain lying. Does an Ipad replace a PC, yes for certain functions such as browsing the internet casually, viewing videos and casual data entry. If you go into any office you will see desktops and laptops. Students working on term papers are using laptops. Serious work does not happen on a tablet. I have four monitors on my desktop providing me with increasable productivity gains, a laptop would not be able to do that.

The PC is not dead but it is evolving. Windows 8 is proof of that. Apple may have some land in Florida it wants you to buy its a little wet but its very expensive that why they are so profitable. I have a very nice rooted nook, it a lot cheaper than an Ipad, has full access to android market place. Its seven inch screen is perfect for bed. There are rumours that apple will introduce a eight inch tablet to compete with the Amazon fire. Is Apple finally seeing that the market does have competition.

History repeats itself

I usually talk about technology on this Blog, but today I'm going to the Economy but it has direct links to technology. The second world war had its start in the financial crash of the late twenties. The Nazi party grew out of the destruction of the German economy in the great depression. A lot of angry people and some terrible people (Nazis) who used it to blame the rich aka the Jewish population in Germany. They were a false target since many rich Germans were not Jewish and many Jewish Europeans were very poor.

America did a much better way of handling the thirties through huge social projects. This gave its population a chance to vent its anger with a job and a way forward. Britain too had social programs. We saw the formation of Unions to balance the power of Gilded Age super barons.

We are now in the biggest recession since the thirties and we are seeing some of the same tensions in Europe and the United States. The problems in Greece are similar to Germany in the thirties. There are some very different causes this time round though key similarity is that there is rising disparity between the super rich and the middle class. Financial obligations that people are refusing to withstand.

Unions are ineffective in a Globalized economy and they have hurt themselves with unrealistic work practices and demands on business in global market. Unions are pretty much regulated to service and public sector industries that are not subject to globalization (though we are seeing outsourcing).

We are seeing some of the same tensions between the super rich and a middle class that is seeing economic erosion of wages. Financial Companies and Conservatives have budded up with religion to control a large portion of the US heart land minds and wills. Built huge propaganda machines (Fox News and talk radio) to push their agenda.

In Europe they have a different problem in they've created huge social support benefits that they cannot afford. As the money dries up the coffers of European government the social programs will suffer. A large group who have become dependent upon government benefits will riot as they have in Greece as those funds disappear.

At the heart of these problems is globalization and the erosion of the middle class. But rather than meet at the middle we see politicians using class warfare on both side to further divide the populous. It may seem easier for politicians to blame somebody else than to address the true problems.

We discourage our politicians from making hard decisions because elections are less about performance but rather than getting elected through money (pathetic attack advertisements). The problem is that if we don't address the issues at the center of the problem and deffer from class warfare to a joint solution. The problems will mount and more people will get hurt.

So what technology got to do with this, in many ways it the cause, globalization has its heart in technology, companies can downsize because of increased automation. But technology can also be the solution through the exchange of information, more efficient food distribution and information/knowledge sharing.

The long tail, bell curve edge

I realized at school that I was not in the highest part of the social bell curve I was in the part where it tapers off. My tastes are very geeky, but I've often felt that I could see trends a little ahead of the curve. I was the first student in my high school with a computer, I was the first person in my office with a DVR, the first person in my office with a ROKU.

So when I read an article on the New York Times yesterday that people under 35 are watching less cable/broadcast TV and people older than 35 are watching more. It surprised me. A few years ago I stopped watching TV except when I was spending time with my wife. I'm a lot older than 35. Broadcast/cable TV even a DVR just seems like such an inefficient way to get what I wanted to watch. My viewing experience is much more like going into a library where I choose what I want when I want it rather than the old broadcast model where you choose.

So the question for broadcasters is am I an outlier or am I ahead of the curve. In ten years will television view drop of 50% or will a small part of the population stop watching cable.

Only time will tell. Or is Nielsen data used to source the NY times article not completely factual. Is the TV on and we are really doing something else and the new metric for TV watching be not that the TV is on but what percentage of the time are we focused on it.