Before we speculate on the future of print, it is necessary to review what we know of the future of digital as its nominal competitor.
As of the second week of January, 2014, Target in the U.S. was warning that a security breach had compromised the digital records of over 110 million people, to include financial information, credit card information and PINs. High-end retailer Continue reading The future of digital
Marketing Seminar Shanghai 2010
Digital Future?
Sorry to sound a Grinch, but this discussion has been recurring for 20 years, ever since Folio: magazine pronounced print dead in 1993, yet people still confuse terms hopelessly. Continue reading Digital Future?
Objectivity
Objectivity is the improbable proposition that an author either cannot tell the difference between right and wrong, or does not care. If he knows the difference and does not side with the right, he is wrong. If he does not know the difference, he has no business sharing. This is the nature of right and wrong since the beginning of time. For clarity, ask yourself whether U.S. Founding Father Tom Paine felt compelled to grant “equal time” to King George’s side. Continue reading Objectivity
Objectification of Women
A frequent complaint we hear from women’s groups is about the “objectification of women.” Wikipedia, the soporific go-to for the lazy and incurious, says, “Objectification more broadly means treating a person as a commodity or an object, without regard to their personality or dignity …. The concept of sexual objectification and, in particular, the objectification of women, is an important idea in feminist theory and psychological theories derived from feminism.” I disagree. Continue reading Objectification of Women
Plagiarism, Perverts and Permits
I understand that signatures have no contractual value in China. It is the corporate stamp that has value. That puts a premium in China’s underworld for people that can counterfeit a stamp. A stamp forgery acts in China just as a signature forgery acts in the West. In the absence of the legal body, the forgery can divert property from where it was intended. It moves the value from the owner to the forger without the owner’s knowledge. Continue reading Plagiarism, Perverts and Permits
Stealing Ideas
Unless you can present your ideas in a clear, crisp manner, you cannot prove you have any ideas. That is why plagiarism is not so much an open declaration that somebody else has ideas you like better, but a declaration that you don’t have any. Continue reading Stealing Ideas
The History of Everything
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Stephen Hawking is back in the press, this time to explain evolution without God – a daunting task, and one on which some feel Hawking fell short. Physicists can be dreadfully hard to follow.
Since I am a language guy, I feel uniquely qualified to translate some of Hawking’s more difficult musings. For example, Hawking says before the universe there was no universe. This can be represented in one complex equation: nothing ≠ something. Do I need to repeat that?
Good. We are on the same page. Now, although there was nothing, there was also something – a small particle. I am not making this up (nothing ~ something). Continue reading The History of Everything
Judgment Call
Here is a fun history question. When, since the dawn of time, has the social/economic structure of a country stop everything, look around and say, “Hey! Let’s ask the children.”?
The greatest threat to civilization
If you remember Watergate, then you recall the press of the ’70s was oriented against the government. When the press orients itself with the government, some examples in history show that they and the fearful masses turn against people that disagree (or may someday disagree) in vicious ways. The extremes are remembered as Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Hitler, each of which used the media to excoriate its detractors before the mass killing started.
The media today is becoming known for its brutal, partisan attacks Continue reading The greatest threat to civilization