Wise Guys on WHO Radio - February 6, 2016

Brian Gongol


The WHO Radio Wise Guys airs on WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa on 1040 AM or streaming online at WHORadio.com. The show airs from 1 to 2 pm Central Time on Saturday afternoons. A podcast of show highlights is also available. Leave comments and questions on the Wise Guys Facebook page or e-mail them to wiseguys@whoradio.com.


Please note: These show notes may be in various stages of completion -- ranging from brainstormed notes through to well-polished monologues. Please excuse anything that may seem rough around the edges, as it may only be a first draft of a thought and not be fully representative of what was said on the air.

In the news this week

Computers and the Internet People care about what's been "taken" from them

Microsoft's decision to reduce the amount of free storage space offered through OneDrive is making people mad. But it's still a free product!

Computers and the Internet Comcast to start charging extra to high-bandwidth broadband users

Your role in cyberwar

Computers and the Internet Twitter shuts down 125,000 accounts for promoting terrorism

They claim most were supporting ISIS/ISIL/QSIL/Daesh. The suspensions aren't necessarily a perfect idea -- there's reason to believe that by casting terrorist supporters off Twitter, the mainstream may be chasing them to places that are harder to watch. There's quite often more to the story when it comes to cyberwarfare.

Dispatches from the flying-car future

Computers and the Internet NSA worries that quantum computers will overwhelm security

And for what it's worth, they're not just a security issue. Massive changes in computing capacity and strategy could easily overturn some big business models -- like, for instance, Google's.

Brian's Big Picture

Business and Finance White House proposes $10 per barrel oil tax

And that's how you know it's nothing more than a stunt -- not a serious proposal. At $2 or $3 a barrel, directed specifically at subsidizing a next-generation energy future, virtually nobody could object. At $5 a barrel, it would be a tough sale, but might stand a chance given the right trade-offs. At $10 a barrel (when oil is barely above $30 a barrel), it's a punitive tax. Where they could easily have grabbed low-hanging fruit, the administration instead picks an unproductive fight.

Politics of technology

The tech-friendly reporting of this year's caucus results made for precise measurement of an imprecise activity. I was a precinct co-chair and deliberately posted a photo of our precinct results in the interest of transparency.

Money and technology

Computers and the Internet Google parent company Alphabet announces earnings

Alphabet had $75 billion in revenues in 2015, with $67 billion of that coming from advertising. Only $448 million in revenues came from "other bets" -- their category for Calico, Google Fiber, Google Ventures, Google X, and Nest -- and that category lost $3.5 billion. Turns out, it's expensive to lay that much fiber-optic cable. Why they don't just buy proven, profitable businesses and find ways to make them more profitable is a mystery. The "science projects" are sexy and headline-grabbing, but from an investment perspective, there may be smarter choices to be made.

Computers and the Internet Now Yahoo may be reconsidering putting itself up for sale

Verizon is being kicked around as a possible buyer

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