Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Economics, History, Technology and Society

John D. Rockefeller

15 Comments

I usually hate stories with headlines that use the “y” word, but you are richer than he was:

You could neither listen to radio (the first commercial radio broadcast occurred in 1920) nor watch television. You could, however, afford the state-of-the-art phonograph of the era. (It wasn’t stereo, though. And – I feel certain – even today’s vinylphiles would prefer listening to music played off of a modern compact disc to listening to music played off of a 1916 phonograph record.) Obviously, you could not download music.

There really wasn’t very much in the way of movies for you to watch, even though you could afford to build your own home movie theater.

Your telephone was attached to a wall. You could not use it to Skype.

Your luxury limo was far more likely to break down while you were being chauffeured about town than is your car today to break down while you are driving yourself to your yoga class. While broken down and waiting patiently in the back seat for your chauffeur to finish fixing your limo, you could not telephone anyone to inform that person that you’ll be late for your meeting.

People take too many things for granted.

Business, Economics, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Bill Nye

5 Comments

Even some of his fans aren’t impressed with his new show. I hadn’t realized the fool was anti-nuclear, too. The Planetary Society should be ashamed to have him as its head.

[Update late morning]

Oh, good lord:

“My vagina has its own voice / Not vocal cords, a metaphorical voice / Sometimes I do a voice for my vagina,” she sings. Charming.

Then there are these super-scientific lines: “Versatile love may have some butt stuff / It’s evolution, ain’t nothing new / There’s nothing taboo about a sex stew.”

In effect, whatever was left of the manmade climate change zealot’s credibility was officially wiped out, unlike our Antarctic ice sheets. Of course, there wasn’t too much credibility left to demolish; this is a guy who once suggested climate change dissent be criminalized and said poignantly “many, many, many, many more hundreds of eggs are fertilized than become humans.”

There really are no words suitable to describe the unhinged absurdity of the segment, so here’s the video with full lyrics for you to witness for yourself. (My sincere apologies for the awfulness in advance.)

I didn’t watch.

[Afternoon update]

And then there’s this.

#Science!

[Update a few minutes later]