Brian Gongol
Comparing the stimulus to a cash-grab machine
It would be quite nice if someone would acknowledge that the price of the stimulus will fall on everyone who will be paying taxes in the coming years. So anything we spend now cuts into our options for future uses.
Chinese state-owned firm purchases a big share of Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto is one of the world's largest mining companies. This kind of purchase falls along lines exactly as previously forecast: Cash-rich countries like China are able to go on some pretty amazing buying sprees right now as Western countries that stretched too far and undertook too much debt find themselves in dire straits.
Microsoft issues two critical and two important updates
Air France goes with a new boring logo
What it really needs to do is resurrect its awesome 1933 winged sea-horse
The Beatles, technology, and the Soviet Union
The story of how people living under the Soviet government of the USSR were able to listen to the Beatles through a variety of tricky means (including shortwave radio and LPs scratched into discarded X-ray films) really serves as a reminder of just how important innovation and technology are to freedom -- and how people will try a lot of crazy things to get access to the forbidden. Imagine what it's like getting and sharing access to forbidden information in a world where we can turn anyone's handwriting into a computer font.
Podcast: Vertical farming
(Audio file)
Stimulus bill, if passed, will include almost $1.4 billion for rural water
