Brian Gongol
April 29, 2016
Syrian town of Aleppo now faces utter devastation
A true human disaster
Why everyone should know self-defense, case study #21
Three members of a family got attacked out of the blue in a street in Thailand
Microsoft buys into DNA-based data storage
DNA is, after all, just a means of biological data storage. Whether it can be used synthetically for the same purpose but on a very large scale? That's what Microsoft wants to figure out.
It's getting harder to sell devices
...so Apple is trying to pivot harder into service businesses
What a CEO tells you -- and how -- tells you a lot about the company
Which makes it intriguing that the Alphabet (that is, Google) team took a pass on so doing this year
April 28, 2016
Joint Chiefs chair: We don't want to go into fair fights
He wants the US Armed Forces to have "the capability and credibility to assure our allies and partners, deter aggression and overmatch any potential adversary"
Comcast is buying Dreamworks for just under $4 billion
Comcast, once just a simple cable company in Tupelo, Mississippi, has gone full-bore for content creation since becoming majority partner in NBCUniversal in 2011. The deal is being spun as a way to get stronger in "family" programming -- though Comcast carefully calls it "the highly competitive kids and family entertainment space". If it weren't "highly competitive", they might face tougher odds gaining regulatory approval. Of course, Disney bought Pixar, and arguments are made that Pixar is the better studio.
Microsoft is testing underwater data centers
Figuring that the preponderance of the world's population lives close to the ocean, they're trying to figure out how to deliver things like cloud computing without taking up valuable landside real estate
Is Yahoo proper really worth -$8 billion?
Stock markets can be terribly irrational sometimes. The tech industry is a brutal marketplace. Together, it adds up to a highly un-enviable spot for Yahoo.
The US is sending F-22 jets to Romania
That's not a recreational trip -- it's a show of force
April 27, 2016
Bill Gates on the future of energy
On this issue, at least, he's a supply-sider
Why Goldman Sachs is opening an online bank
Deposits from people who open savings accounts give them financing that makes the regulators happy
Why isn't the Porsche family intervening more at Volkswagen?
When the family business is in trouble, someone in the family either needs to step in or find someone who can. It doesn't look like that's happening at VW.
Nokia is getting into wearable tech gadgets
The one-time dominant phone maker is out of that game entirely, and now looks at wearables as a growth industry
Chatbots aren't perfect for everything
Sure, there are plenty of circumstances under which people might want to use natural language in order to interact with a firm or organization. But there are also plenty of times when the scope of what a person can actually do with such an organization are fairly narrow and the exchange is best conducted with something like an interactive contact form instead.
April 26, 2016
And the company is dependent upon iPhone sales, so that shrinks the revenues to the company
Let it not be forgotten that the disaster at Chernobyl was predominantly the result of human error, compounded by a system that couldn't handle mistakes well
Mitsubishi is in huge trouble for fuel-economy miscalculations
Potentially trailing back for 25 years
Farmers are taking out bigger loans and banks are demanding more collateral
Another sign of rough roads present and ahead for the agricultural economy
Transmitting wind power isn't easy
To get it from where it's produced to where it's consumed requires lots of transmission lines -- and there are political costs to overcome
April 25, 2016
The fact it's not unusual to do that in the Midwest is a cultural strength that becomes a business advantage. As noted here in 2010, reputations are highly valuable and much too important to risk in even the largest of Upper Midwestern cities. That keeps people generally on their best behavior.
Gannett offers to buy Tribune Publishing for $815 million
Gannett, freshly off a split from its electronic-media properties, is right back to the behavior that got it into trouble in the first place: Unbridled acquisition. The deal would include a massive pile of debt over at Tribune. Bloomberg estimates that Gannett 12% of the nation's daily newspaper circulation, and Tribune has 5%.
Literally -- the ruins of buildings that once housed the functions of the British Empire
"He's with me" versus "I'm with her"
An interesting perspective on the durability of Donald Trump's following
China shuts down iTunes and Apple bookstore
Beware any government that would shut off the flow of knowledge