My email has been flooded with petitions asking me to oppose changes to the way the federal government calculates cost of living adjustments for seniors on Social Security. Frankly I’m torn. I don’t want to lose money, but I don’t want my country to go bankrupt either.  Fortuna

I was comparing notes about a book with a friend the other day and learned I’d missed a key element of the plot. I admit, I didn’t like the story and had scanned parts of it, which may account for my oversight. Then again, maybe not. New research about our plastic brains suggests

I got a letter in the mail the other day from my cell phone company. I haven’t been under contract for years and my being a free agent makes them nervous. The promotion was for a deep discount on a smart phone. I’m don’t know why smart phones are called phones at all. Mostly peo

Silicon Valley is leading with its chin again. Besides sexism (See Blog 7/25/12) and anti-union labor practices (See Blog 2/12/12), ageism is another charge to be added to the list of complaints.  Noam Scheiber’s article, “Over the Hill in Silicon Valley,” exposes the frat hous

When I was growing up my mother used to say, “Don’t do anything you’d be ashamed to see reported on the front page of the newspaper.” I took the warning seriously which may account for why my life may seem boring to others. What matters is that I sleep well. Given the dullness

Now that big data collection is here, there’s no way to put the genie back into the bottle. That’s what Craig Mundie, Senior Adviser at Microsoft thinks. He suggests people who spend time arguing about how to control data mining are looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

Some people assume privacy is a right granted by the US Constitution, but it isn’t. The word appears nowhere in the document. The Supreme Court drew inferences to that right in 1965 through provisions in the 1st, 5th, 9th and 14th amendments. However, court interpretations can chang

I have seen the future and it’s scary. Not only is NSA monitoring us but so are electronic gadgets. If we let them, they’ll control our lives, telling us it’s time for our valium, nagging us to exercise more or alerting us to some advertising special we might have missed. (“El

I’ve moaned so much about electronic devices, I’m beginning to bore myself. (See blogs 11/14/13 & 12/23/13 for examples.) Imagine, then, my surprise when I learned about two developments I actually would welcome. The first is the driverless car. I’ve heard talk of it for a c

Don’t ask me why, but when readers subscribe to my blog, the system ignores the request and sends an email asking for verification. Subscribers who fail to reply eventually write me to ask why my blogs aren’t arriving. In the past, I knew how to fix the problem. Recently, however,