Bloody Monday

For those of you who thought things couldn't possibly get any worse than they were in October, for those out there that thought December was the absolute bottom...for those who have continued to throw money at the market while telling themelves "the price is so low!"...it got worse today.

Yes, today many major companies put together a "Happy Monday" party by demolishing some 70,000 jobs in their respective areas. Based on the timing of the layoffs, the Bobs were obviously not involved. One layoff in particular caught my eye today, that of U.S. monster corporation Caterpillar's layoff of some 20,000 employees...no, that's not a typo. CAT had planned to layoff 15,000 employees as of 4Q 2008, but today upped that number to approximately 20% of their workforce. If that doesn't frighten you, you are probably already unemployed.

I was considering my own employment and mortality today after hearing this news and initially thought to myself..."Hey, if I'm going to be broke it might as well be somewhere warm like California." Only one problem: Could I even dump my house? Remember the real start of this mess? You know, the housing market? We're exacerbating the very cause of our own downturn. This cycle is nasty. Layoffs beget lower spending, and lower spending...well, we know what that means.

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The NSA has your Email

I realize Olbermann can be biased, but this story scares me to death.

Push Versus Pull - How We Get Content

Relative to television, modern computing and certainly modern networked computing is but a baby to us. We have a long way to go towards realizing the full potential of being ridiculously connected to everyone and everything. I find it interesting in this regard, when looking at the way we receive content from each of these mediums. Television has always been predominantly a "push" mechanism, where we are allowed a number of channels to pick from, and a programming director decides what to "push" to us each and every day (I would prefer they push less "Two and a Half Men" reruns). Globally networked computing however, began as a "pull" mechanism with users determining what content they required, locating it, and pulling it from the source. Just as these two medium began in opposite directions, they are now also continuing to move as such. Television has begun and continues to allow users to "pull" more staged content from pay-per-view, on-demand, and streaming sources like netflix and AppleTV. Computers and the internet on the other hand, seem directed towards providing more "push" functionality through RSS and other data feeds like FriendFeed.

Why are two pieces of technology, moving in such opposite paths? It may have something to do with the fact that each of their functionality and usages are converging. What do consumers want? Well, everything. It's obvious that devices and their functions are all on a collision course. Consumers want a device that is a phone, and a TV, and a web browser. Both TV and computer makers are obliging: As television becomes a networked computing device, and computers have conversely become a high definition DVRs. I doubt that there will ever be a device we use for everything, all the time...but I do imagine that most all devices will soon do pretty much everything.

Netbooks and Smart Phones Head Towards a Showdown - Miyagi Unimpressed

After seeing the marketing around Sony's new Vaio P and how it supposedly fits in a pocket, Engadget's Josh Topolski had a interesting thought during an interview with Jimmy Fallon of all people at this year's CES. It sure seems that while smart phones are converging towards laptop (netbook) functionality, laptops (netbooks) are converging towards smart phone functionality and form factor. This sort of begs the question, if the end game is two classes of devices similarly priced with similar functionality, why would we need both? Netbooks seem to be gaining popularity as consumers realize that they need ultra-portability, a full keyboard, and serviceable screen real estate. Smart phones are becoming ubiquitous because they can provide all the functionality once had from laptops in a form factor that can be brought with you everywhere. As the impending showdown draws nearer, it will be interesting to see which of these platforms becomes the norm, and which is relegated to niche market status.