Category Random Thoughts
Add Close-to-the-Customer as Stable Jobs
During the week, I’m enmeshed in writing about IoT- and IIoT-enabled solutions. For nearly every application, I ponder, “How will this generate more jobs?” The usual answer is it won’t. Several weeks ago, however, I arrived at the conclusion you don’t need to be a technical whiz or brilliant data scientist to remain gainfully employed. […]
Tomorrow’s Automats
The way we “obtain” food, is constantly evolving. Are the automats of yesteryear making a comeback?
Everyone’s working, but fewer careers.
Reading megabytes of articles, I tried to find a few morsels of optimism about the future of employment. The concept of having a career is being replaced by short stints at various companies or becoming a part of the gig economy, characterized by short-term contracts or freelance work.
Then I went on vacation to San Juan Island.
Consumer Purchasing Power is Key to Success
Last week, the Chinese e-commerce firm Pindoudou went public, making its founder Colin Huang the 13th wealthiest billionaire in China. Along with the company raising $1.6 billion through a U.S. IPO it achieved other milestones, which warrant a closer look. Founded in 2015, Pindoudou has managed to rise to the top of China’s highly competitive […]
Big Brother in the Workplace
After moving to Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, I engaged in the agonizing process of finding “meaningful” employment, either remotely or on the island. The latter was a pipe dream, so I applied for dozens (and dozens) of jobs that could be done from home in my bunny slippers. Like many “older” job seekers I […]
Threats from Within
Threats from Within: The security of connected devices, machinery, and systems
Art of Writing
Originally published December 28, 2017 on Quora Recently, I was contacted by an engineer in Bangalore, India who’d been reading my responses on Quora. He was impressed with my writing style. I was deeply flattered because my writing seems sophomoric, lacking depth. I cringe when I read The New Yorker, lamenting, “Why can’t I write […]
What’s Up with Whimsical Logos
I recently worked on a project that exposed me to a stack of hardware and software, which includes an open-source framework, called Hadoop. Curious, I looked up the company and was surprised to find their logo is a caricature of an elephant. A yellow elephant. Doug Cutting, the founder of Hadoop, named the company after […]
Pushing Pause on Technology
Visiting various websites – whether on my PC or smart phone — is starting to feel like dystopia Los Angeles from the movie Blade Runner. Static ads are intermingled with articles. Giant banners frame the tops of pages with columns of smaller ads along both sides. If I scroll to read the rest of a […]
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