“Right now you may only reach 16% of your fans each week.  Reach Generator guarantees that you reach 75% of your fans…”   This is Facebook’s grand plan to show us they know how to make money?  Instead of “connecting people” or “helping us share with the people we love”…  Facebook is openly admitting to allowing advertisers the right to [...]

The kakapo is a bird that forgot how to fly.  It landed on an island with no predators.   Over many years its meals got bigger, its flights shorter.   Wings weaker.   Now when a cat chases a kakapo, the flightless  bird will climb up a tree and jump down to its death.  It still thinks it can fly…
It [...]

I love political communication.   It appeals to the idealist in me.   The social engineering part of me thrives on twisting messages to fit into mediums that will best influence people.   And right now, Greece is the place to be.   The old media is crumbling.  Based on funding from business people that used television and newspapers to [...]

Some people on the planet feel the need to bring some balance to this debate.   Not that there is much debate.   Everyone seems sure that mobile devices will conquer the planet.   Apps are growing like mushrooms.   Many with less meaningful content than an edible fungus.  This doesn’t stop marketing departments investing in mobile platforms for everything. [...]

What is Apple’s mission statement?
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices [...]

In what was probably an early example of distance learning, the rich French military man Guillaume François Antoine, hired Johan Bernulli to mentor him.   There was even a written agreement but much of the teaching happened through regular mail.   The  Marquis de l’Hôpital sent questions, Bernulli sent answers.  All went well.   Even when the student published a book based on [...]

OK, it is a sign of age.   Do you remember back when people actually tested computers for their performance?   I especially fondly remember Charlie White’s heroic efforts.   He is now high up the Mashable food chain and doesn’t “attack” Macs anymore…. heck he writes about them like everyone else.   But who does actually give Apple machines [...]

After much ballyhoo in the past, Facebook made it easy to deactivate your account….and reactivate it!   In fact when deactivating one of the choices in the multiple available is “This is temporary.  I’ll be back.”   It is so easy and fast that you could well use it instead of logging out.   There is a very minor delay [...]

Even if you haven’t read Churchill’s account, there is no way in avoiding the conclusion that it was the way the Allies handled victory in the first world war that pushed Germany into the second one.   We took their pride, divided their land and burdened them financially to an inconceivable level.   Hitler’s words appealled to desperate, bitter and [...]

Ingredients:
1. A CD with music by Eleni Karaindrou.
2. A photo album, the kind you find in the lounge usually with scenery or black and white pictures.
 
Instructions:
1. Play the music.
2. Flick through the photos.   Really slowly.  1-5 minutes on each usually is OK.
3. You can (slowly!) move your gaze across the page occasionally.
4. Think or don’t think of anything you [...]