Quote of the Day -- On Being Nice

In this modern age of computers and cell phones and now a coronavirus pandemic.

Hold doors for strangers.

Let people cut in front of you in traffic.

Say good morning, please, thank you, excuse me, and I'm sorry.

Be patient with sales clerks.

Smile at passersby, as often as we are provided the opportunity.

Don't stand idly by and live in a world where unconditional kindness is absent or invisible. 

Join in showing kindness to someone who may not necessarily deserve it, but who needs it. 

We all need it. 

Find your own way to swing the pendulum in the direction of kindness. 

Be kind to strangers, as well as to friends and family who may seem like strangers these days, today and every day.

-- Written, I'm told, by one Alexis Barclay I'm told. Edited here by me.

Go. Enjoy. 

Be happy.

Be nice.

The world needs that. Heck, you and I need that.

Always.

You Must Read This Article

If you only read one piece this year on technology and what it is, where it's going and where it may or may not go and take us, you should read this.

Will Democracy Survive Big Data 

and Artificial Intelligence

It has far, far more in it than I could ever describe here.

It is both fascinating and alarming, at once.

Governments will no way be able to keep up with technology. Heck, they're already far, far behind. 

I would like--heck, I want--every member of our national, US Congress to read this, let alone our state legislators and office holders.

All the things called for in the article would have to be done by government, of course. It would have to be done by far-seeing, responsible legislators.

I don't see it happening.

I'd love to be wrong.

God help us all.

Links:

Elon Musk issues a stark warning about A.I.

Elon Musk's Billion-Dollar Crusade

 to Stop the A.I. Apocalypse

Elon Musk Says AI Is a Greater Threat Than North Korea

Elon Musk Warns: Regulators Must Be Proactive On AI

Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence 

could end mankind

Bill Gates is worried about artificial intelligence too

Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates 

Warn About Artificial Intelligence

What Should Happen With the Mission Mall Site

Here it is as it stands right this moment. Still. It is still and it is still basically an ugly lot.

What should happen with it?

What should happen with this now-eyesore is that it should be given up, sold, I suppose, to the city for some reasonable fee and made into a park. It should be made into a city park. It would be a fantastic entrance into the small city, and it would enhance the entire area around it.

What should have happened, years ago, is that the mall should never have been torn down and leveled into the, again, eyesore it is now and has become and that it has been for some time. Even without hindsight it should have been known it shouldn't have been leveled and wasted. It needed upgrading, improving, but it fit the site, it was not ugly, it wasn't an ugly mall, it wasn't run that run down and vacated.

No doubt the developer got greedy. He no doubt thought this would somehow be a great idea and make him loads more money.

Man, was he wrong.

Sure, the 2008 financial collapse brought this mess on, too, but the whole notion of leveling a functional and again, not completely unattractive shopping center just so someone could, hopefully, make boodles more money was short-sighted and just downright greedy.

Now?

Now Walmart has backed out of the plans to locate in what the developer thought was going to be an upcoming, new center. Good luck finding another large tenant now. I feel certain there are and were plenty, plenty of Mission residents who didn't want the Walmart/Roeland Park customers coming down the hill to this site, anyway.

Another point, have you seen the latest reports on retail this week? Where retail is headed, it seems clear?

Retail collapse: The 23 biggest chains 

closing stores this year

"Retailers Are Running Out Of Time"

Cramer warns the collapse 

of department stores 

cannot be dismissed

Retail Collapsing Nationwide - 

Massive Layoffs

Heck, even Walmart is hurting.

With 269 Stores Closing, 

Is this the Beginning of the End 

for Walmart?

And here's why.

Online Sales Soar while 

Brick-and-Mortar Stores Crumble

So yes, this is what should happen. Turn it over. Make it into a park. They could even call it Mission  Gateway Park.

It won't but that's what should happen.

Technology Today - Incredible

You should see this technology, this new robot from Boston Dynamics. Forget walking, the thing can jump. It can and does jump stairs, if it so wishes.

Boston Dynamics' Newest Robot Moves Like a Donkey on Rollerblades

This is, at once, fascinating and beautiful and wondrous and terrifying. Humankind will clearly rush, headlong into AI, artificial intelligence, in spite of the best, brightest minds of our time, warning us.

Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and 

Bill Gates Warn About Artificial Intelligence

Stephen Hawking warns artificial 

intelligence could end mankind 

Whither next?

I don't think anyone can say.

If I Did Advertising/Marketing For Yellow Cab

Seems everyone wants to get into the Yellow Cab, "I need a ride" business.

There's Uber and Lyft, Sidecar, Curb, Hailo and I don't know how many others (see link below). All of them want to do the same thing. That is, give us a ride, give you a ride but at a lower price for you and all because THEY DON'T HAVE ANY (or many) EMPLOYEES. They don't have steady, ongoing, official employees they have to pay wages or benefits.

Yes, isn't that a wonderful thing?

Those pesky things, employees, what with their need for wages and maybe a pension plan for when they inevitably get old and health insurance and all that.  What nerve.

And who's taking it on the chin?

Well, Yellow Cab companies and all like them, first of all, but more than that, of course, but, again, those pesky employees. Of Yellow Cab.

And that's not Yellow Cab's only problem, either. Technology will also be throwing this little, soon to be huge, problem at them, too:

Autonomous Vehicles 

Will Replace Taxi Drivers

I got to thinking about this.

If I were the owner of a large Yellow Cab franchise, I think I came up with the perfect way to "fight back", Capitalism style, with advertising. Here's what I'd do.

I'd run TV ads, at least pointing out the benefits of cabs over these "ride sharing" programs.

What benefits, you might ask? The ad would be something like this:

 Need a ride? 

 Call Yellow Cab, for all the benefits! 

 No additional "up-front" fees to "join"! 

 No membership to purchase! 

 No app to download! 

 No information (of yours) to share (with us)! 

 No information of yours sold (by us) to other companies! 

  Just one flat fee, as you know, per mile, with a friendly face at the wheel! 

 So, next time you need a ride, keep it simple and SAVE! 

 CALL YELLOW CAB!! 

Then, I'd get with my fellow Yellow Cab company operators, coast to coast, and make the ads available to them and at a terrific, low price, strength being in numbers and all. I'd also pitch the program to Labor Unions. No group understands standing together better than Unions. Heck, I'd even let my drivers and the employees unionize.

The owners of all those cabs have to know their ridership and so, profits are down. They also need to know they need to both stand together, as a group, but also have people "in their corner", so to speak and no one could do that better for them, being "in their corner", supporting them than Unions of all kinds, coast to coast.

All the cab companies better realize it's a changing, vastly changing world out there. They need to respond to it or they're going to go the way of the wagon train.

Link:

Looking for a Ride? Here's a List of Uber Alternatives

We Join Less, Get On Technology More

The future holds very little socializing, I think. At least in person. I believe we will be a nation, if not most of the industrialized world, of people looking down, into our phones, mostly, and laptops, secondarily.

First, what we're doing.

Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital

Fewer American Workers Join Labor Unions

The military's real problem: Fewer Americans are joining

Younger Generations Less Likely to Join Boy Scouts

Masons, other service groups fight membership declines

Moose, Elk Joining The Endangered

NASCAR Is In Trouble And Nobody Wants To Talk About It

There are a lot of reasons for the NFL's ratings slide

So long, televised football: Millennials are so over you

Americans becoming less religious, especially young 

U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious | Pew Research Center

And now, for the problems...

People Spend Too Much Time on Smartphones

U.S. Young Adults Admit Too Much Time on Cell Phones

Britons spend more time on tech than asleep, study suggests

Putnam, "The Strange Disappearance of Civic America."

Amount of Time Spent Playing Video Games Influences Kids' Behavior

When Tech Is a Problem Child

How parents fight back against their kids’ obsession with smartphones and social media.

Doesn't seem like it portends good things for us, as a people, as a society, as a nation. A not very united states.

Where Is All This Technology Taking Us?

Occasionally, once in a great while, I get out of "my bubble", or am forced to, and look around at the technology and apps that are available, some for home computing but most, more and more, for our cell phones.

I tell you, it's overwhelming.

It's been fun for a while. If you realize you don't just have a TV in your pocket but a full-blown computer that can do who-knows-what-all, it's been fun. It is fun. It can be fun, anyway.

But every once in a while, I realize, how much there is out there, how much computer power is in our pockets and how dizzying it all is. It seems there are apps for so much more of the minutiae of our lives than I would think anyone could or would ever imagine.

I understand why these apps have been created, too, sure. Everyone has to "make their mark" and no less so than in computing but wow. Clearly we humans are taking all these apps and our phones way too far. In my eyes, anyway.

I think it's scary and getting scarier.

Americans Spend An Alarming 4.7 Hours 

On Their Phones

And the trend of time spent on cell phones is still increasing and the younger we are, the more it's increasing.

Yeah.  This is not your grandfather's world, that's for sure. Between these developments and humankind's rush into AI, artificial intelligence, I don't like the looks of where we're heading, as a species, as a people. I think we are, it seems, all running headlong, forward and we don't have any idea where we're going, where this is all leading us.

Y'all be nice out there.

Links:

Stephen Hawking warns of an 'intelligence explosion'

Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind

Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates Warn

6 Best Google Apps for Chromebook

Google Apps for Education

Google Apps for Work – Email, Collaboration Tools And More

Google Apps | Google Developers

Google Apps Marketplace

The 100 Best iPhone Apps for 2016 | Digital Trends

Happy Ada Lovelace Day!

Ada who, you might ask?

It's one helluva story.

Ada Lovelace Day 2016 -- A Celebration Of Women In Science And Technology

Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognized as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine. As a result, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer.

Links:

Ada Lovelace Day 2016: international celebration of women in STEM

On Ada Lovelace Day, let's also celebrate 19th-century renaissance woman Agnes Clerke | Rebekah Higgitt

Ada Lovelace Day 2016: Who was Ada Lovelace and why is she still a role model for women today?

Ada Lovelace Day 2016 | Department of Biology | New York University

Entertainment Overnight -- Dance

I know people that don't dance this well.

On That Universal Basic Income??

The futurists and visionaries out in Silicon Valley who see the future coming, seem to agree with me on the need for a universal basic income one day not too far away.

Why a bunch of Silicon Valley investors are suddenly interested in universal basic income

Hint: It's about robots

And keep in mind, this is coming from the very vaulted private sector, too.

A bit from the article:

Basic income is having a moment. First Finland announced it would launch an ambitious experiment to see if it would work to give everyone in a given area is given a set amount of cash every year from the government, no strings attached. Now the Silicon Valley seed investment firm Y Combinator has announced it wants to fund a basic income experiment in the US.

YC's president, Sam Altman, announced on the YC blog that the company wants to hire a researcher to "work full-time on this project for 5 years," and supervise an experiment wherein Y Combinator will "give a basic income to a group of people in the US for a 5 year period, though we’re flexible on that and all aspects of the project."

Y Combinator — a startup incubator that counts Dropbox, Airbnb, and Reddit among its alumni — seems mostly interested in basic income as a response to technological unemployment. In the future, the reasoning goes, enough work will be automated that demand for all but the highest skilled labor will collapse, leaving a small group of programmers and capitalists with all the coconuts and most people with nothing.

I'm skeptical this is ever going to happen (Matt Yglesias makes a good case against the hypothesis here), but basic income is one way to make sure everyone survives structural employment changes in the future.

"I’m fairly confident that at some point in the future, as technology continues to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we’re going to see some version of [a basic income] at a national scale," Altman writes.

As for me, I, too am skeptical. I'm skeptical humans would be so smart---or fair and just---to set up such a system.

But there's always hope.

Note:  The article is a fascinating one, telling about different past and current attempts and experiments at what does and does not work with this and the possible ramifications. To me, it's well worth the read.

Faster Traffic, Lots of Wins

Why aren't we all doing this?

 

Ideas Worth Stealing: Easing traffic with technology, not blacktop

Why aren't all cities doing this? 

Think of the benefits.

• Less time wasted
• Less gas burned, wasted
• Less pollution
• More productivity
• Less frustration, anger, even possible road rage

Huge gains.

Can you imagine if Kansas City and all the cities and towns in the area---and state and nation---did this?

An Article Nearly Everyone At The Star Should Read

There's an excellent article---no surprise---in today's Sunday Edition of the New York Times that, as I said, virtually everyone down at our own Kansas City Star should read. It is:

A Year of Challenges in the News Business

It's mostly all about what their newspaper---and virtually every newspaper--should do given our changes to how people are reading and accessing news and what used to be newspapers now.

One of the most pointed paragraphs:

The biggest change is probably that so many of them read The Times now not just in digital form, but on a smartphone. That means that visual journalism — including video offerings — must become more central than ever. It also means that even more journalism must be presented with digital tools at the forefront, not as an afterthought.

And this:

“We have to keep asking ‘what’s the best way to tell this story?’ ” Mr. Baquet said. That means that the newsroom itself needs to change — substantially.

Here's hoping this is the direction The Star is headed.

It doesn't seem so but here's hoping. I certainly wish them well.

Today's Kansas City Star. And What's Wrong With It

I saw this morning's, today's Kansas City Star and just looking at the front page and then through it shows you, easily, quickly, precisely what's wrong with it.

If you have one, if you saw it, you know the biggest part of the entire page was one big picture. That's all.

Mind you, it was in color but that was it.

And that story?

It was a sports story.

Sports. On the front page.

You'd think that might be in---what?---the sports section? Maybe a small teaser about it on the front page and then the huge pic and story there?

Nah. It's the Kansas City Star.

Then, after that, what's up? What else is on the front page?

What caught my eye and what likely caught the average reader's eye was a rather large title to the left declaring "The Star gains a new leader."  (For a moment, I thought it read "reader." We all know they're pretty desperate).

What got me and gets me about this is that their big news for the city is----ta daa!----all about them.

I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, does anyone besides the people at the newspaper and the person's family and friends truly care or bother themselves with who, exactly, is the publisher, new or otherwise, at the local newspaper? I know I don't. Well, not unless he or she could somehow save it all.

From there, the front page has yet another color picture, this one on the standoff by the domestic terrorists in Oregon and it takes up about 1/4 of the page.  After that, is has a small teaser about North Korea's leader possibly setting off a nuclear warhead. Something trivial like that. You can open up the paper and check that out if you want.

So of all that, what DOESN'T the front page have?

It doesn't have any local stories on local topics that are important to Mr. and Mrs. Kansas City in the area. You know, you and me.

Nothing on City Hall. Nothing on Mayor James. Nothing on any of the city's larger issues and problems. Nothing.

Of course, that's what you get when you slash your budget and lay off so many of your local reporters and writers.

What's in most of the paper?

Articles on the nation and the world that come off reporting wires like the AP.  Things you can get anywhere. Things that people do, in fact, get anywhere. Like the television and their computers.

If you don't have local stories with local problems and possible solutions and local people and stories with local color, why have a newspaper? Indeed, why GET the paper?

And that is what is wrong with any and every newspaper in this nation, if it's struggling. It adds to their problems of people turning away from these things anyway.

People are, as I said, already turning away from newspapers. Why really chase them away because you don't cover local stories and local people? You have to have good writing on interesting, even important, compelling stories that matter to the residents or there's really no reason for you to exist.

I said it here before, as the Star transitions from newsprint to the computer, as all media is, it would behoove the organization to get people with cameras out in the city---still and moving video---for local stories and local events. It would give people reason to go to their sites.

But if the printed paper cannot and does not give local writing and reporting, it only hastens the decline of the paper, it increases the numbers of people not taking or buying it and it only brings on the demise of the paper that much faster.

It seems obvious, to date, where the Kansas City Star is headed.

I don't hope or wish for it but it surely seems certain. This star is setting. And pretty quickly. Sadly.

Side note: What's both ironic and really pretty awful is that the cheap, sleazy, "yellow journalism" exhibited daily, nearly hourly over at "Tony's Kansas City" blog probably does a better job of covering local stories, especially at City Hall, and across town, than the Star.  Even with his tabloid journalism techniques, his ALL CAPITAL LETTER headlines, his repeated use of the same, tired photos for story after story, his blatant sexism and his allowing deeply racist, really ugly, even hateful people to post comments on his site, it, tragically, probably reports more local news better than the Star.

If that isn't enough to make one almost nauseous about local media, nothing will.

Quote of the Day -- On Our Future

With corporations making record profits yet hiring fewer and fewer people and in lots of cases, transitioning to robots and machines to do the work, this becomes more and more not just possible but important.

Corporate America, Running Amuck

If you've been paying attention at all to the news lately, especially about corporations and what they're doing and doing to us Americans, it's likely you've been disheartened. I know I have been. And I don't even have high expectations of them.

First there was this, from AT&T, last October, putting unfounded charges on their customers bills:

AT&T Fined $105 Million by FTC for 'Cramming' Charges

Then there was this, a few weeks ago, again from and about AT&T and the way they supply internet service:

AT&T Fined $100M for Throttling 'Unlimited Data'

It seems AT&T said if you got internet from them, you'd have "unlimited data." Trouble was, they didn't bother to tell those same customers that when they got to a certain level of data usage, their internet speed would slow. Nice, huh?

Then there was this, yesterday, from Google, also on computers:

Google Secretly Spying On Computer Users

Then there was this from Whole Foods last year:

Whole Foods Will Pay $800,000 for Price-Gouging

Finally, not to be done there, this came out yesterday, too:

Afternoon Bulletin: Whole Foods in Legal Trouble for Inflating Prices (Again)

So for anyone, anyone who thinks we can or should do with little or no government, when corporations and the wealthy can do these kinds of things to us, I say they must be crazy.

Or they're part of these corporations and doing these very same things to us all.

Kansas City Gets Some Mention from the Oval Office

Kansas City, as I said above, gets some mention this week from the Oval Office and President Obama, largely due to Google's internet speeds:


Because here's what the big internet providers and free market Capitalism are doing to us in America. They're doing the same thing to us on internet speeds and costs as the health care companies have done and are doing to us for our health care:

Americans are paying more for slower Internet

We're just not that bright.

Kansas City's Google and Google's Kansas City, in the news

The story:

Google Fiber: The digital divide won't be crossed digitally

GOOGLE FIBER IN KANSAS CITY APARTMENTS

Although Google Fiber offers free Internet service (in exchange for a $300, one-time installation fee), it hasn’t done much to expand Internet access in Kansas City. A big part of the reason is that many poor people live in apartments and few landlords in poor areas have signed up for service. The green dots show apartments with Google Fiber in Kansas City. The darker areas have higher poverty rates. The red line is Troost Avenue,

Here, in the article, they have a terrific, detailed map of Kansas City showing where Google Fiber is, in what apartments and areas, with Troost as the dividing line.

Wiring a poor neighborhood for speed may be necessary to expand online access, but Kansas City's experience demonstrates it's not sufficient. Bringing more people online, at ever-faster speeds, will be somewhat harder and requires educating people one at a time on how to use computers and where to find access.

"The digital divide is not going to be closed digitally," said Michael Liimatta, president of Connecting for Good, a nonprofit working to expand online access in the Kansas City area.

Google has taken pains to reach out to a diverse section of Kansas City, running its fiber into low-income areas and sponsoring a "digital inclusion fund" to overcome gaps in connectivity. Its discount service – which offers modestly speedy connections at 5 megabits per second instead of its flagship "gigabit" service – seemed like it might broaden the web's reach to segments of the population yet to be connected.

Civic leaders and activists say it hasn't worked out that way, at least not yet.

A survey commissioned this fall by The Wall Street Journal found that just 15 percent of residents in low-income areas of Kansas City subscribe to Google Fiber, and just 5 percent are using the discount option. By comparison, more than half the homes in upper-income neighborhoods were taking Google Fiber.

It should be no surprise, really, I don't think. In the first place, it's a huge job, connecting all these people, this city. And then to try to be fair to a group, the poor, scattered all over the city? It's daunting, at least. Google doesn't exist as a charity, as a non-profit. It seems Google has made and is trying to make a good faith effort to bring truly high speed internet to those with less. I say again, hese results shouldn't be a big surprise. I give them credit for trying, first, but for more than just trying. They committed. They've done at least some of this getting the internet out to the less economicallly gifted.

It's a lot more than AT&T is doing or has ever done.

Things Learned From the Internet

The internet and communicating with more people has taught me three things, minimum. 

First, I've learned that sexism concerning women , to some--lots of, really, far too many--men doesn't exist or take place to those men when/if they don't see it and aren't aware of it.

It's the same way racism to and on and for blacks doesn't exist to so many whites in this country. If they can't see or understand it, it doesn't exist or occur. It's playing out, right now, in Ferguson, Missouri and all across the nation.

Finally I've learned that voicing a hope for a higher plane of thought, less sexism, less racism, etc., is a sure way to be labeled a "prude" or an "elitist" or a racist or "reverse racist" or untold numbers of what are deemed to be insults by the giver.


People can be stupid.

Be kind anyway.

And have a great weekend.

Kansas City and our Google in the news

Not bad news, exactly, but not great, either:

Cities Find Google Fiber Networks Giving Them Too Much Speed

Kansas City, both the one in Missouri and the smaller one in Kansas, has an unusual Internet problem — the Google Fiber network they fought to get is too fast, and nobody is really sure what to do with all that power. 

Neither city is considered a prime location for technology company start-ups, reports The New York Times, and the average household doesn't need online speeds that can run at one gigabit a second, or about 100 times faster than the average connection elsewhere in the United States.

The article goes on from there, of course, describing the situation and some ironies in all of this rather truthfully, however unfortunately but here's the really illuminating thing most people don't know and consider:

The company (Google) has expanded Fiber to Provo, Utah and Austin, Texas, and is discussing service with nine other metro areas, including Chattanooga, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Portland, Ore.

Chattanooga already has its own fiber network, Chattanooga Gig,which offers the same speeds as Google Fiber, but keeps the system under local control.

The network is already paying off. "When Volkswagen announced Chattanooga as its headquarters for North American manufacturing, and Amazon.com chose our city for their new distribution centers, it was a nice confirmation that we're on the right track," the network says on its website.

So Chattanooga, Tennessee has a lower cost internet, just as fast as the "big boys", the corporate internet that's so bloody, unreasonably and unnecessarily expensive (thank you, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, etc.) and in addition to all that, THE PEOPLES'/USERS' INFORMATION ISN'T CAPTURED AND SOLD.

Tell me again why government running things is bad?

Entertainment Overnight -- new, different

Drone over Niagara Falls, with music