Gongol.com > Radio > Show Notes > August 1, 2009

The WHO Radio Wise Guys
Brian Gongol



The government's "cash for clunkers" program is reportedly out of money, and Congress is working on shoveling more dough its way. But doesn't anyone remember what happened after the automakers came out with a huge slate of incentives and discounts to encourage people to buy cars in 2001 and 2002? It depressed new-car sales for years after because people took advantage of the incentives and then put off new car purchases when the incentives faded. The same thing is going to happen to automakers all over again with this program. Sure, the program may do some good by taking less-efficient vehicles off the road...but it's also going to do harm by taking cars away from the poor and from young drivers. Older "clunkers" are often sufficiently reliable transportation for people who just need to get to and from work or school. Every government program has consequences beyond just the obvious, and it looks like these consequences might've gone completely overlooked by our politicians.

Bill Gates has gone to India, and even though some people want to over-simplify what he said there, there's very good reason to believe that his message about using technology to help raise the standard of living in that country was right on track. Simple tools like the toilet and the can opener may seem too basic to represent "technology" to us, but ask yourself two questions:

1. Could you build one (a toilet or a can opener) from scratch?
2. How much human knowledge is really contained within that simple piece of technology?

The first answer is that you almost certainly can't build a toilet or a can opener on your own. The second answer is that huge amounts of all the knowledge humanity has ever learned about sanitation and food storage are locked up in those simple tools, and we rarely give them even the most passing of consideration. So when we hear about the "no toilet, no bride" effort in India, it tells us that we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the things that "technology" in all its forms can help achieve. Its real value is in how it releases people the time and capacity to spread their ideas (human capital).

Would you believe that the iPhone has been adopted faster than electric refrigeration was in the 1920s? Strange but true. Dan is continuing to search for a way to make the iPhone work for his world, but he's probably going to (reluctantly) end up with a BlackBerry instead. The truth is, everyone has a beef with their smartphone anyway. They're far from perfect at this stage, but they're getting better rapidly.

Speaking of things that are less than perfect, we're still a long way from perfect information about everything. Consider that a paper Brian wrote about the Clayton Anti-Trust Act is one of the top results on Google for that subject.

If you're like most people and you use Adobe Flash, get it updated -- they've fixed some important security bugs. If you don't know how, visit Brian's list of program updates and follow the links.

A caller asked how Craigslist makes money. Their main source of revenue appears to be a limited range of fee-based postings. The rest are listed for free, and since the company doesn't have a lot of overhead, it doesn't need to make a lot of revenue in order to still be profitable. And, as Dan recalled, eBay has a 25% stake in the company.

Someone has claimed a patent on podcasting. We'll see how that one shakes out.

Want to know yourself better? Try the Myers-Briggs personality inventory, which may be more illustrative than you would expect.

Dan brings us news of a company called General Fusion, which (obviously) is working on nuclear fusion. This caused Brian to note his growing list of company names based on the company's age. The current trend is to make up a word to use as a company name -- the "General (fill-in-the-blank)" convention for naming companies faded a long time ago:

Keyword	Company	Year
Amalgamated	Amalgamated Copper	1899
Amalgamated	Amalgamated Bank	1923
Amalgamated	Amalgamated Motor Cycles	1937
Amalgamated	Amalgamated Life Insurance	1943
American	American National Insurance Company	1905
American	American Gas and Electric (now AEP)	1906
American	American Greetings	1906
American	American Licorice Company	1914
American	American Pop Corn Company	1914
American	American Motors Corporation	1954
American	American National Insurance Co.	1905
Associated	Associated Mutual Insurance Cooperative	1913
Associated	Associated Dry Goods	1916
Consolidated	Consolidated Gas (later ConEd)	1884
Consolidated	Nevada Consolidated Copper Company	1904
Consolidated	Consolidated Cigar Corporation	1921
Consolidated	Illinois Consolidated Telephone Company	1924
Consolidated	Consolidated Bearings	1932
Deluxe	Deluxe Corporation	1915
Federated	Federated Insurance	1904
Federated	Federated Department Stores	1929
General	General Railway Signal Company	1904
General	General Motors	1908
International	International Harvester	1902
International	International Paper	1898
National	National Cash Register (NCR)	1884
National	National Guardian Life Insurance	1920
National	National Airlines	1937
Standard	Standard Oil	1870
Union	Union Pacific	1862
Union	Union Electric Company	1902
Union	Union Carbide	1917
United	United Cash Store (now United Supermarkets)	1916
United	United Parcel Service	1930
Universal	Universal Pictures	1925

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Gongol.com -- posted 2009.08.01