Sunday, October 30, 2011

Waiter, There's a Spy in My Soup!


Paranoia strikes ever more deeply these days, but this is a world-changer if ever I saw one: a drone the size of a fly that flies and yes, looks like one, too. The photo comes from something called the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Micro-Aviary.

Study it. Now go to the window overlooking your front yard and take a closer look at that pile of dog poo lying there on the grass by the curb. What if that's the mothership?

Life will never be the same, at least until they invent over-the-counter counter-drone spiders.

Thanks to Mike Reizman for the image, the pointer, and his ever-vigilant coverage of the Drone Wars.

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Jobs Death Underscores Need For Job Creation

That's all I want to say about Steve Jobs, in a nutshell.

But of course I have to add something, and there is something appropriate: listening to how younger people are responding to the words of SJ, in particular to the Stanford Commencement Speech linked below, I'm tremendously encouraged that he makes so many want to do the right thing with their lives.

Today we're hearing that note--what might be called The American Note--in the voices of strangers, people I only know from Facebook, old pals, even a curmudgeon or two.

My 25-year-old son just me wrote a spontaneous paean to going out and doing what his heart tells him to do. Curiously, mischievously, he also cited the words of Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner in yesterday's press conference: "If you look at the U.S. economy today, I'd say the biggest risk we face is institutions not taking enough risk," Geithner said at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.

Any echo of FDR's classic line after Pearl Harbor, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," was certainly intentional. But I think this is one case where we feel a convergence taking place--and by that I am by no means excluding "Occupy Wall Street" and the "Arab Spring"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc