The Supreme Court & the Individual Mandate

As has been widely reported, and is now being analyzed at length, the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act (otherwise dubbed Obamacare) this morning. The administration had claimed that it was Constitutional with three separate arguments: the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Taxation Power (“lay and collect Taxes”.) Chief Justice Roberts, in delivering the opinion of the court, wrote that the law wasn’t supported by either of the first two, but was, in fact, Constitutional under the Taxation Power of Congress in the Constitution.

Although the Congress stated that it wasn’t a tax in writing the law, the Court sensibly saw past this language as a political decision to get the law passed. The expansion of Medicaid was struck down by the Court. Expect considerable discussion about overturning Obamacare from the right, and expanding it to Medicare from the left from here to the election this fall, and beyond. Let the games begin!

Managing Expectations

Today Apple rolled out a raft of hardware and software at their World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco (WWDC.) The company showed new Macbook Pros, a new Macbook Air, released a new Mac Pro, and demoed their next OS, Mountain Lion, as well as the next iteration of their mobile OS, iOS 6. Some computer commentators have said that the retina display Macbook Pro is a year to 2 years ahead of any PC laptop.

In the OS department, Apple showed their new Maps feature and updated Siri personal assistant software with increased capabilities. One figure was dropped on the crowd which is stunning when you compare it to the 901 million active Facebook users (as of April 2012)….Apple has 400 million CREDIT CARDS of users! Contemplate that for a moment!

Despite this large rollout of products, both soft and hard, Wall Street was ‘disappointed.’ Being a financial whiz is crucial to success on Wall Street, let there be no doubt of that. With that in mind, though, it might serve analysts in good stead to have some real world experience in companies that provide ACTUAL goods and services to our vaunted free market. Even better, if some of these folks had the experience of managing a company on pure, positive cash flow, they would REALLY understand American business. Main Street must be doing a collective face palm right now!

What I Learned On the Way to Look Up Something Else

When I was younger, the editor of our hometown newspaper wrote a couple of regular columns himself. He was a brilliant, interesting man, to be sure. His main column was S.A.’s, a play on both the word ‘essays’ and his initials. It was generally a topical column that any brilliant news editor might produce.

The other column he wrote, which appeared somewhat less regularly, was “Things I Learned On the Way to Look Up Something Else.” If you were around, looking up information in pre-internet days, did that ever happen to you? It certainly happened to me, and my personal database is considerably richer as a result. A confession: I do love the internet, and almost everything associated with it. Even though I do love the web, all the search engines like Google, Bing, and whatever else (if anything) people use really limit, if they don’t completely eliminate, learning other facts ‘on the way to look up something else.’

You don’t have to be an absolute generalist to appreciate the loss of richness in our learning that has occurred as a result of the lightning fast and digitally accurate searches for those crucial facts we are seeking when we do a modern day search. While I don’t advocate…or even personally want…to turn the clock back to the so-called ‘good old days’ before we had the wonders of computerized search, I do recommend cracking a non-fiction book from time to time. You may be surprised what interesting and useful information you’ll pick up leafing through them!

Self Driving Cars? How About You?

You may have seen the news that Nevada has ok’ed licensing for Google to test one of their self-driving cars. This is both exciting and disconcerting, and raises as many new issues as it resolves. If perfected, the self-driving car will be a boon to those who aren’t able to drive. I have a couple of relatives who have lost sufficient sight as to be unable to drive now, and are always scrounging for rides to purchase groceries, necessities, and to make it to medical appointments. Self-driving cabs could be an interesting addition to major cities…although in addition to costing jobs, we would lose some colorful entertainment in the person of those often interesting cabbies.

The issue has already come up regarding insurance. If the car crashes, is the human passenger responsible? The company that provides it? The software designer? This will make for some interesting litigation as all of these details get sorted out over the course of years…just as every other area covered by insurance has been.

Here’s a thought though…who or what drives YOU? Do others drive you, are you self-driven like the Google car, or does a burning idea drive you to bring it to fruition? If it’s the former, it might be good to give some thought to making some changes in your life to roll with #2 or #3. You might not become another Google, but you will still go a lot further and faster down the road when it’s YOU at the wheel!

Sometimes the 2 Percent Outlier Happens

Sometimes, life throws a really interesting one at you. When you and others have carefully assessed a situation, and calculated the three possible outcomes and the likelihood of each…occasionally a 4th one turns out to be that one that no one even remotely considered…that 2% outlier that ‘never happens.’ The moral of this little post…like the Boy Scouts, ‘Be Prepared,’ even if it’s for that 2% outcome no one saw coming.

For those who live in earthquake country–so, do you have your emergency kit?

Will There Be a Dick Clark of the Internet?

With the passing this morning of Dick Clark, who gave us American Bandstand, game shows, and brought in the new year from Times Square for so many years, the question arises: will there be a Dick Clark for the internet?

Dick Clark gave numerous acts their big break during the golden age of Rock and Roll. There are so many rock acts that owe him, and certainly a legion of radio personalities and tv personalities who stand on his mighty shoulders. Will there be someone that can launch so many careers producing content on the web? Is it even reasonable to compare the content produced for radio and then television with that produced to entertain on the internet?

I don’t have the answer to that last question, but I sure hope so. It’s great to look to the iTunes Store or the Android Market for apps, and apps are content as surely as music was and is for radio, but will we see a larger than life personality who genuinely loves the content (whether music, video, apps, or whatever), and wants to share it as widely as possible explode on a web based platform to spread enjoyment through that content?

In Marshall McLuhan’s ‘Understanding Media,’ which came out decades ago, he stated that radio was the only ‘hot media,’ one that really touched people. My contention is that the internet is the second ‘hot media,’ in the way it touches people through social media, multiplayer games, chat, etc.

I’ll be waiting on that great internet Dick Clark to show up and spread the love of great content across the web universe. Sure hope he gets here before too long!

Not Quite Off the Grid

As I sit here, watching the blinking light on the cable modem, reminding me of its cohorts that are dark, it brought home again how dependent (some say addicted) we have become to this always-on, connected state.

Of course, there is a backup…the cellular system, but when the big one hits (maybe not an earthquake, but a tornado, hurricane, or whatever it is elsewhere), even that will be out.

After trying in whatever way to check on family and friends, my thought is, how will we Tweet, blog, and Facebook about it all? Will this be a new corollary to PTSD when folks aren’t able to do those things? Will there be “no Internet rage,” kind of like road rage, making it necessary to avoid irate people?

I don’t have the answers, but for now…I’m blogging about this!

The iPad Heat Fakeroversy

Here we go again. The new iPad reportedly runs as warm as 116 degrees when playing graphic intensive games. This is apparently 12-13 degrees hotter than the preceding model, the iPad 2. Even the testers admit that this is warm, but not really hot.

A few users have even gotten a heat warning on-screen…although in several cases, they were using the device in direct sunlight…never a brilliant idea with any battery powered electronic device.

This reporter can testify anecdotally that he has written this on one, and survived without any burns to the lap. What will the next silly non-issue be, and when will it be breathlessly reported? Stay tuned for a minute…that’s probably as long as you will have to wait!

Your Life In (On) The Cloud

Just about everything you read in the tech press seems to point to the inevitability of the cloud. All of us will ultimately have our data on the cloud, i.e., remote servers and systems that store and retrieve our data and even applications. For some business users and for attorneys, this opens up concerns about their confidential data, and the potential ease of it slipping into the wrong hands. 

What about you or I, though? Most people have information on their computers at this point that really needs to stay private and confidential. What little privacy is left in this digital world certainly extends to information like tax returns and financial information. It seems to me that something Steve Jobs based the original iTunes store on applies to that personal data or yours and mine. When initially launched, one of the selling points of the iTunes store was ‘you download it, you own it.’ This was opposed to several other systems where you paid a certain amount a month, and had unlimited access to songs, but should you quit paying…poof…they were gone to you.

 It is my contention, and I don’t think I’m close to being a Luddite, that people will ALWAYS want to keep some of their most personal information locally, and not in the cloud. it seems the Jobs iTunes principle applies here…even with the current iteration of iTunes, you can keep songs living on your local drives… why wouldn’t you want that for your most private data? 

 Time will tell if I’m right…

Your Heart in San Francisco

It was very special to a lot of residents of the Bay Area to have Tony Bennett in the City today, singing “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” at City Hall on the 50th anniversary of the song. If you were able to attend, you had a rare treat. With rain yesterday and moving in again this evening, even the weather cooperated…it was sunny and in the 50’s. Tony added to the sunshine by serenading the City by the Bay with his signature song. Bay Area residents and even others are fond of throwing around ‘only in San Francisco,’ but in this case, it truly was one of those special moments.