Merry Christmas 2023

 Thought You might enjoy a copy of what we sent this year.  There are two pages... so you will want to scroll down.  All the best for 2024.

The Five Biggest Changes to our Culture and Economy in My Lifetime

 

 

To deny that technology drives cultural change is deciding to keep our heads in the sand.  Every single change for good or bad creates a cultural shift that cannot be reversed.  Many people try to avoid these changes but ultimately they are left behind.  It not that we must embrace them all right away, but to ignore them is false economy.  These are the FIVE DISRUPTIVE CHANGES IN MY LIFETIME:

Post War Infrastructure Boom

After world war two, infrastructure changes that the Eisenhower administration implemented changed our lives forever.  One was the change from rail travel to air travel.  After the war air travel struggled until 1955 when more people traveled by air than by rail.  Then in 1956 the Boeing 707 passenger jet was introduced. Ten years later I traveled to Europe on a 707.  Unthinkable a decade earlier.  

In 1957 the beginning of the Interstate highway system began. Patterned after the Autobahn that Eisenhower saw in Europe during the war.  

Both of these developments have changed EVERYTHING.  We now travel freely and fast.  Sure there are people who drive back roads to certain destinations. I do some times.  But when I want to get there, I drive the interstate.  This innovation also allowed freight to shift from Train to Truck.  

There are still people who try to travel by rail for nostalgia. That is falling away. Only in certain corridors like the east coast can such travel be used well.

That all happened in the late 1950s and in ten years everything was different.  Your can point to the upheavals in the 1960s and 70s to these changes.

Personal Computers

In 1971 John Blankenbaker's Kenbak-1 was introduced as the first personal computer. Designed before microprocessors were invented, the Kenbak-1 had 256 bytes of memory and featured small and medium scale integrated circuits on a single circuit board.

The breakthrough came however in 1977 as Commodore and Apple introduced the first useful personal  computers.  In ten years the personal computer changed everything.  I had a software company, we built businesses around the personal computer.  By 1987 the ubiquitous nature of the computer dominated all innovation.  Automating everything. Power moved from mainframe to powerful distributed computer processing.  

Sure there are people who tried to do things the old way, but they soon were left on the side of the road.  The computer age was here and everything changed.

The Internet

In 1993 the world wide web was introduced.  The internet of things.  Oh it had existed in rudimentary form but the first web browser was introduced that year.  Soon there were many innovations.  Introductions of browsers, search engines and software that ran inside those browsers.  Fortunes were made and at the end of 1999 the dot com boom busted and fortunes were lost.  But.. not all of them.  In 1998 GOOGLE was born.  Now it is a giant.  I didn't invest.  I thought it would never work.  Was I wrong.  Now Google owns everything is seems.  During those formative years of the internet Amazon, Microsoft and others emerged.  Disruptive technologies that changed everything.  Sure there are people that still use the old ways... when they can find them.  Remember card decks a the public library.  The search engine of its day.  Now gone.

The Smartphone

The first smart phone, the Apple I-Phone was first introduced in 2007.  Now 16 years later it has become an essential extension nearly every person on the planet's life.  Not only as a communication device, but as a text portal, a camera and a million some useful (some not) applications.  You can go to darkest Africa, to Russia, to anywhere and you find these handhelds in every pocket.  To say that they haven't changed everything is intentional blindness.  Not all for better.  Social media has been harmful in some ways, but the capacity to talk directly to anyone on the globe using apps like Whatsapp is a miracle of a combination of technologies.  We aren't  going back.

Ai

Artificial Intelligence.  It's on everyone's mind.  This will once again change everything. It is being implemented at warp speed.  I can't even begin to list the things it can do and is already doing.  Just like with each of the earlier disruptive changes this one will eliminate jobs and create others. It will make millions of people very rich.  Many will be left  behind because they fail to embrace the change.  I certainly can see which jobs are already on the chopping block.  I can also see applications that are going to make our lives so much better.  Don't fear it.  It is the future and we are already there.  You can make a fortune learning to implement and use these new tools. That's what they are.  Tools.  I am a skilled blacksmith. Can make tools with heat, a hammer and anvil.  But why?  CNC and Robotics does it so much better.  My days are over.  Today in my work I use AI almost EVERY DAY.  It is a wonderful device.  I am more efficient and effective because of it.

Conclusion:

You don't have to be first, you can be a slow adapter, but you do need to know there are  billions in fortunes ready to be made right NOW.  Just as there was after air travel replaced trains, the interstate opened up cities across the nation, the personal computer made the adding machine useless, the internet made data and information universally available, the smart phone opened communication to a whole new level and now with AI once more we are on the verge. 

Don't miss it.

A Picture that the Facebook Community Standards people rejected

I posted this.  At once the community standards people told me it was hate speech and rebuked me severely.  

I put my picture here because it will post before the actual picture. Below. 

By the way taken in August of 2021.  No photoshop.

This is the picture they judged as hate.

Know Evil

CUBA 2023 - not what you have been told

Peggy and I just returned from Cuba.  We went because a friend of mine from Cuba encouraged it.  We used his friend Laura destination management company to line it all up.  It was easy, inexpensive and very safe.  We learned much about Cuba that we have been told in the USA that is simply not true. We had the best Guide Ever.  Renier.  I recommend him.

Do I embrace or support the Cuban government.  NO. But I support and want to help the people in Cuba. I did so under that travel auspices. As much as possible we with the help of our guide avoided as much as possible government restaurants, shops (there are few) or lodging places.

Here are some observations in no particular order.

Cuba is more beautiful and safe than I imagined. We have traveled much of the Caribbean and this is better

The people are wonderful and welcoming.  Many speak English, some in amazing ways. We met young men and women who were self taught and fluent.  It would have been better to be fluent in Spanish but not a problem really

The old Havana area with run down buildings is a single geography.  There are neighborhoods that have some of the most spectacular homes I have ever seen.   

As a fan of Cuban music I could not get enough.  But I listen all the time anyway.  In any case the music is great when it is fresh. We did hear some of the same tunes over and over again. 

It was cheap to travel there and everything we ate, drank or bought was cheap.  A bargain.

We ate at all kinds of restaurants and never had a bad meal.  Service was excellent at all times.  One place made us a pizza and it was superb.

The weather was in the 80s most days except the day we were scheduled to walk around Old Havana.  90s and hot.  Didn't rain much.

The Hemingway house was a highlight.  I thought it was really interesting.

If you go, be prepared to climb stairs. There are a lot of them.  

It was sad to see the vacant citrus fields where once there were millions of trees.  Citrus greening is also killing trees in Florida.  There are some newer cures for the bug that spreads the disease.  Perhaps the orchards will return. 

In the countryside everything was skinny, cats, dogs, horses and the people.  No obesity there.

The country is frozen in 1959 just like all the old cars.  There are over 50,000 still on the road.  all Pre 1959.  But they are gas guzzling pollution machines.  One day where we were the weather was just so that all the pollution from Havana came our way.  I could hardly breathe.  We were across the bay at the old fort and looking at Havana at night could see a plume of smog rising out of the city.  

The garbage problem is bad. Just piles and open fires. Just like 1960 in North Dakota.

Some things are in short supply. No supermarkets like in the USA.  Open air markets yes.  Gasoline is spotty for supply.  Long gas lines.  Some people wait all day for gas.  Electricity is unstable.  We had blackouts a couple times.  The internet which we did access was intermittent.  Didn't use the phone much with CUBACELL.  Could have with a plan from T-Mobile.  If We go back I will.

Men don't wear shorts, women wear dresses because it's cooler, but slacks and shorts for women are fine.  The women and the men are really really good looking. 

The Cuban people love their country.  Don't love the Russians.  Honor Castro brothers for what they did.  Are optimistic that things will open up.  The USA sanctions is encouraging more trade with China for basics.  Sanctions only hurt the USA. Medicine is hard to get. We aren't changing anyone's mind in Cuba.

They have a two party system just like in the USA we have the uniparty made up of Republicans and Democrats.  They have the Communist Party and the Communist party.  They don't have free and fair elections, and neither do we.

They did have a pretty tough secret police at one time, the G2.  Military Intelligence Service, or State Security. It is a very effective organization trained by the German Stassi and the Soviet KGB. My Cuban acquaintances say it is far less onerous than it was before the fall of the Soviet Union.  As in East Germany, citizens did spy on citizens.  There is far less than that now if any.  I saw very little military presence.  Some police but unarmed. No need to. People don't have guns.  Far less militaristic than most countries I have visited in Europe, like Italy.  The USA is more militaristic than Cuba, but with the thug mobs roaming the streets they have to be. 

The USA is becoming more restrictive and communistic than Cuba is and Cuba is getting freer. The people get the news and some I spoke with (remember they know English pretty well) said they see the trans, LBGT, Drag Shows, riots, corrupt cities and crime to the point that the only Cubans leaving are those desperate and poor or criminal. The estimate is the Island has lost 10,000 of its 11 Million residents in the last year.   The desire to come to the USA is much less than it used to be.

One dual citizenship Cuban American I met, Alan, has kids about to go to college.  He has seen what college in the USA does to destroy kids, he will not be sending those kids to the USA to college.  The Cuban people see the USA going down the drain.   Besides education and literacy in Cuba is better than most of Urban America.

They liked Obama because he opened things up and made it better for Cubans.  But I met many who liked Trump and thought he was a good president, for the USA.  Not so much for the Cubans.

I paid in dollars.  It was just reversed the day before I got there that you could take dollars.  I was loaded up with Euros.

It was easy to go, clearing customs and passport control.  Hard to come back. TSA is a curse.  Passport control took twice as long coming back as going.  Over an hour of standing in line.

Because I got to spend time with Cubans with no agenda, and they loved speaking English with me, I found that they love Americans but don't want too many of us there.  The term they use for Tourists and in particularly Americans is A NECESSARY EVIL.  Sure we bring money, but some don't know how to behave.  I met Germans, Russians, French, Tunisian, British, and Canadian Tourists.  Well behaved.  If Cuba opens up wide to Americans I fear for the purity of the county.

Wandering around there were a few beggars.  Not as many as Chicago. We were warned there might be pickpockets, But not that many, cause I didn't hear of any from anyone I met.

 Last the palate of Music.  There  are more songs than the dozen of so that we heard over and over again.  

All in all, a wonderful vacation. 

GO

Pictures can be seen here.