Archive for the 'News' Category
Amazonfail: What Happens if the Distributor (Amazon or Apple) Controls Prices
The current #Amazonfail is about them pulling all of the Macmillan books off of Amazon (the last one -if you remember – was pulling a rankings off of gay and lesbian themed books). The apparent issue is about price control. For those who find this news new, John Scalzi has a good summary of the [...]
Linkages and Trivia
Congratulations to Cherie Priest for winning the Pacific Northwest Bookseller’s Award for Boneshaker. There is an article in the Seattle Times, and here is a link to my reading recommendation for the book.
The linkage between man and machine is growing every day. I call it “The Tender Mashup” in this month’s installment of my column, [...]
2010: What we could be doing
This is the third part of my futures post series for January 2010. The first one evaluated my results for 2009. The second talked about what I think will happen in 2010. This is the “what could we do” post. There are a lot of things, but I’m going to pick four.
Reform the way we [...]
An Ordinary Futurist Predicts 2010 Events
After evaluating my predictions from last year (which were in three separate posts to start with), I decided to keep it simple. Remember that futurists have no crystal ball and I can no more tell you what a stock will be on a given day than a séance leader can. We can see trends. We [...]
Testing Last Year’s Predictions
I’m not as much of a predictive futurist as some of my friends and colleagues, and I do like to play in the space once a year – right about now. I’m going to do this in three steps. Evaluate last year’s predictions, make this year’s predictions, talk about what we need to do this [...]
Good Science News
I’m not really surprised so many people are skeptical about science. After all, what do often hear? Food A or Food B causes cancer. The glaciers are melting faster than we thought possible. Species (your favorite) is now endangered. Drug A which was supposed to be good for you just caused organ B to fail. [...]
Shiny New Wings of Creation Hardbacks
A box of books arrived for me last night. I threw it in the back of my car, thinking it held copies of Reading the Wind (which I am also expecting, but which I’ve seen), and it turned out to be the Wings of Creation hardbacks. The book design is very beautiful; the cover and the [...]
3D Printing: Are we moving into a design economy?
My latest futurismic column explores 3D printing. I’m convinced this is a wild card technology. That is, most people don’t actually see it coming, or understand its potential to change our world. Yet the current uses and capabilities are growing exponentially. If “fabbing” (as some aficionados call it) grows as fast as PC capability grew, and the [...]
Musings on the Lunar Landing Anniversary
I hope that people all over the world will stop and reflect – for at least for a moment – on the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing. It was history. For context, I’m forty-eight this year. I was an eight-year-old girl whose dad worked in aerospace in 1969 (for McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Corporation). [...]
Getting ready for a week away
I get to go be a writer for a week. When you’re balancing hats like I am (CIO/writer/futurist), getting a bit of a break to be any one of them alone for a week is a fine and rare treat. I will be on the coast in Lincoln City, Oregon, with the dog, a pile [...]
