Studies in Failure: Success Is Not Always Guaranteed

We should celebrate growth, success, and compassion for those less fortunate than us. I reject the glorification of failure.

Steve Jobs is considered one of the greatest failures in modern history. Hear me out. Jobs is legendary for embracing his failure and coming back to soaring success, turning Apple, Inc. around and leaving behind a profitable tech giant. You’ll find a lot of stories that talk about Jobs’ failure-to-success story. Failure is not always a bad thing. Sometimes failure is a signpost on the journey to success, telling you to “turn here”. But failure has become a mythological power in the technology industry. Many tech company founders talk about learning from failure and growing out of it. I’m not convinced that happens as often as the TED-style talks present it.

Using Math to Play Games

Screen shot from the Space Aliens arcade game. You can play this on your Apple.

Math is the universal language they say.  There is some truth to that.  If aliens from another world land on our doorstep we can start tapping one, two, three and see if they respond with four, five, six.  If they do we’ll know their intentions are friendly.  If they start laughing we’ll know they are on a weekend binder and just stopped to make fun of the locals.  If they pull out rayguns and start vaporizing everyone we’ll know that counting numbers is the way to start an intergalactic war.

Using Technology to Save Money

Silicon Valley is changing the US economy

I think technology is a great thing but even the most stubborn technologist has to face the reality of what the Internet is doing to our economy.  As more companies find ways to offer products and services at lower prices through overseas and local contractors, more traditional jobs are being lost in manufacturing and retail.  When a company like Ralph Lauren closes stores and lays off employees I know the Internet is what changed the game for everyone.  The people who are making a lot of money from the Internet don’t care but I know people who have lost their jobs.  Obama’s economy is not as good as his economists pretend it is.  If you are lucky enough to find a new job it may not pay as well as the last job.

It is too late to start a grass roots movement to bring sales back to local stores or to get people to “buy American”.  Everyone is so used to using the Internet to save money that millions of people who are earning less today than they were ten years ago have no choice but to continue using the Internet to save money.  That means eventually more people will lose their jobs and more stores and more US factories will be closed.  We cannot stop the cycle.

Three Questions It Is Hard to Answer

Learn to play Cards Against Humanity

This is a fun topic.  If you have never played Cards Against Humanity you may not know what I am talking about but it’s a card game that you play with as many of your friends as you can gather together.  I have heard of as many as 20 or 30 people playing it together.  I haven’t been with a group that large but I think it’s a fun game even if you only have four or five people.

Cards Against Humanity is very easy to play.  First, you get a copy of the game.  It’s easy to buy from Amazon.  Okay, now that is out of the way the way the game works is that one person is the Card Czar.  The Card Czar deals out white cards to everyone else and then starts drawing questions.  Everyone else uses one of their cards to answer each of the questions.  Then the group votes on the best answers.

Bernie Sanders has Hillary Clinton on the Ropes

I freely admit that I do not like Hillary Clinton or her husband.  The Clintons have always seemed untrustworthy to me.  And all year long we have had to watch the news media trumpet how popular Hillary is with Democratic voters.  And yet Bernie Sanders keeps winning delegates and primaries.  I think he has a really solid chance at winning the Democratic presidential nomination.

And so where does that leave us?  It’s really starting to look like Bernie Sanders will face Donald Trump in the general election this fall.  What irony that would be.  Both the Republican and Democratic parties would be nominally led by outsiders, both of whom are said to have very little support from their establishment colleagues.

True Permanent Data Storage Has Finally Been Achieved

I previously believed that M-DISC was a permanent data storage solution. M-DISC claims its data storage can last up to 1,000 years. But now the University of Southampton has announced that it has developed 5 dimensional glass data storage with a shelf-life of about 13.8 billion years. Yes, I said 13.8 billion years. You can store data permanently on this new glass storage device.