So I was reading James Morrow’s The Wine of Violence and when I got to “Will the Journal of Evolution publish it? Publish, it, hell, they’ll make me an editor” (p25), I stopped, puzzled for a moment. Then it hit me. To Francis, the character whose thoughts those are, becoming an editor means status and …
Category: business
business
Nov 19
from Joel Bakan’s The New Corporation
“There are no limits in the [Paris] accord on continued exploration and drilling or on tar sands exploration (which experts say could alone defeat Paris targets), pipeline construction, or hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). The accord contains no legally binding emission targets, no timeline for emission reductions, no enforcement mechanisms, no concrete regulatory proposals, and no plans …
Nov 10
re outdoor advertising – EXCELLENT POINT
“But there are other loopholes on French pavements. In Lille, as in Paris, shops are considered private spaces, and not subject to local advertising rules. So all kinds of shopfronts – from chemists to hairdressers and tech shops to trainer emporiums – can put up screens just behind their windows, beaming digital video into the …
Aug 05
Smartphones and Pictograms: A Regression to the Primitive
Given the size of smartphones, one is reduced to using one or two digits to create a message (compared to the ability to use all ten digits when using a laptop/keyboard). That probably explains the increase in the use of pictograms: touching a happy face from a menu of emoticons is easier than inputting the …
Jul 15
The Evil of Touchpads: Menus
I recently rented a cottage on the Bruce Peninsula and found myself infuriated by the tiny device to control the smart tv: to search for a specific movie in Netflix, you had to swipe across and across and across, back and forth, to move the cursor along the alphabet arranged in a long 26-characterer single …
Jun 10
IT, AI, and Us
Like thousands of people, I recently received a message from Google: On May 30, you may lose access to apps that are using less secure sign-in technology To help keep your account secure, Google will no longer support the use of third-party apps or devices which ask you to sign in to your Google Account …
Sep 29
Business, Responsibility, and the Environment
The following is the introduction to Chapter 10, Business and the Environment, of my business ethics text, Ethical Issues in Business 2e, Peg Tittle (Broadview Press, 2016). I post it here, motivated by the recent astounding meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet, and the reports that the Alaska glaciers are melting 100 times faster than …
Apr 02
New and Improved
‘New and improved’ is not just a bit of harmless puffery; it’s a two-party addiction. Stupid consumers must have and stupid companies must produce – new and improved stuff. And it hurts third parties. Such as the animals who are used to test a product every time it changes, every time it becomes new and …
Jan 15
Change the way we do business
Looking back at the last fifty years, we see protests against deception and injustice: the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, feminism, the gay rights movement, environmentalism, the animal rights movement, the Occupy movement. What’s left? What should be the current generation’s crusade? Big Business. Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Media. “In 2011, …
Jun 05
Business in Denial
‘We’re just providing what the market, what people, demand.’ ‘The customer is squarely in the driver’s seat.’ Yeah right. Gosh, shucks, don’t-look-at-me. One, I doubt that’s true. I mean, if people really wanted your product, you wouldn’t (have to) spend millions on advertising, advertising to persuade them to buy it. Supply isn’t (just) following demand; …
fiction
