Competition from Online Platforms and the Impoverishment of Newspapers
How the Internet killed newspapers.
Read more...Category Archives: Technology and innovation
The Icepick Surgeon: Tales of Scientists Gone Rogue (or Worse)
Author Sam Kean follows the long trail of amoral scientists, and their justifications.
Read more...Artificial Intelligence Wants You (and Your Job)
Yves here. Two things about increased automation frost me. One is its stealth or main purpose as forcing planned obsolescence. So irrespective of the impact on job/labor content, any savings won’t necessarily accrue to users. Two is automation/AI serving as an excuse to shift costs and tasks onto consumers. How many times do customer service […]
Read more...As UN Human Rights Chief Urges Stricter Rules, Snowden Calls for End to Spyware Trade
An investigation revealing abuse of NSO Group’s Pegasus malware led Snowden to declare: “This is an industry that should not exist.”
Read more...When Counterculture Goes Mainstream: A Dispatch from the 2021 Bitcoin Conference
How Bitcoin hard-core loyalists see the future of their project.
Read more...Understanding the Opioid Epidemic: When Innovation Fails, or Rather Works Too Well
The opioid crisis provides a deadly example of why innovation often is simply a new-fangled form of predation.
Read more...Trump Can’t Beat Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in Court – but the Fight Might Be Worth More Than a Win
Trump is back for another misguided, erm, quixotic fight. Could he still score points?
Read more...How Intel Financialized and Lost Leadership in Semiconductor Fabrication
Intel is the poster child of how stock buybacks come at the cost of technological innovation.
Read more...Yanis Varoufakis: Techno-Feudalism Is Taking Over
Varoufakis describes techno-feudalism and speculates on where it is going.
Read more...What’s the Carbon Footprint of a Wind Turbine?
Many studies have found that the wind turbine beats fossil fuels handsomely , at least in carbon costs. But is that the whole story?
Read more...The Data Privacy Paradox and Digital Demand
Data privacy worrywarts appear to be the most promiscuous. What gives?
Read more...Quick Comment on the Dismissal of Antitrust Suits Against Facebook
Facebook looks to have done well in having two high profile antitrust suits dismissed. But they should keep the campagne on ice.
Read more...Will Tether Bring All The Cryptocurrencies Way Down?
The more you look at the cryptocurrency Tether, the less there is to like.
Read more...Nassim Nicholas Taleb Shellacks Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies
Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains why Bitcoin is not good for much except enriching early adopters and intermediaries.
Read more...How Energy Transition Models Go Wrong
Gail Tvergberg explains why oil prices are likely to remain be lower than full costs, and how that undermines the move to cleaner energy.
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