Tag Archives: google

01/11/22

Austin By God Texas — Chips, Dips, Tesla, and Tech

One of the things we learned during the Pandemic’s early days before we became obsessed by lockdowns and mandates was that the United States had a great number of strategic industries in which our supply lines started in China, thereby making us vulnerable to the whims of an enemy.

Yes, I said an ENEMY.

Chief amongst these issues was CHIPS — meaning advanced logic semiconductors.

Couple of semiconductor chips waiting for the guacamole.

The issue was simple — in the event of an emergency, China could control the flow of chips to the United States and a chip shortage could have a devastating impact on the nation. Continue reading →

07/22/19

Beating the Apple Tax

The Apple Store (since 2008) and the Google Play Store (a few months later) exact a thirty percent tax on all transactions. That’s 30%! This is called the Apple Tax.

Image result for logo apple store

Folks who sell through the Apple and Google Play stores believe that is an obscenely high fee. Color your Big Red Car amongst those who hold that opinion. [Note: In this blog post, I will consider the interests and behavior of Apple/Google as one and the same for simplicity.]

Continue reading →

09/17/18

Diversity in Tech

Big Red Car here on a lovely, sunny, mild Texas day. Ahhh, on Earth as it is in Texas.

So, the tech world loves the word “diversity.” Diversity is the inclusion in a community of individuals representing multiple viewpoints based on gender, ethnicity, national origin, age, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, politics, and philosophy. Whew! [There may be more. I didn’t mention pets. There is a world of tension between cat people and dog people. I will ignore that for now.]

The tech world has done a good job of “talking the talk” as it relates to gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity/national origin. This is the self-congratulatory view of tech when they get to hold the mirror up to themselves.

Much of what tech applauds itself for is very much a work in progress. On the issue of gender, as an example, there are still VC firms which have a single female partner who has been there for half an hour. One of my pet peeves is the VC firm who preaches diversity, virtue signals its wholesale support, and who has not a single woman in its partners pic. Come on. Stop being such hypocrites.

Some would say that tech has failed miserably embracing diversity amongst age, religion, politics, and philosophy. God, they are like a gulag when it comes to age discrimination. The old folks are sent to Siberia.

Continue reading →