The Tech Slant - Page 2

*A new technology that will change the world has emerged, called CRISPR, an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat. While the mechanics of this technology are an essay all by itself, suffice to say that it is a technique that alters genes, the formula for life in DNA. Discovered by a food company that was studying a bacterium called Streptococcus thermophiles, it turns out that CRISPR has the ability to alter the genetic makeup of whatever DNA where ever it is applied. Even if CRISPR turns out unable to genetically alter human beings, it is one step closer to our ability to do so.

The backlash against GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) still rages, while disease-resistant plants that could keep populations healthy are ignored. Golden rice, which would prevent blindness in children in Third World countries, was shunned for quite some time, all due to unjustified fear of GMOs. (I wrote a very sad research paper on that topic.) CRISPR is (from my admittedly shallow understanding) another method of altering DNA to resist diseases, among other things. The question before us is whether we should use CRISPR to alter our genetic makeup, and, more importantly, to alter the DNA of our offspring to make them healthier.

If the genetic investigation indicates that your child will be autistic, and you had the ability to stop it, would you do it?”

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Egghead – for the uninitiated – was a brick and mortar retail store in your town that sold software released on floppy disks or CDs and packaged in colorful shrink-wrapped boxes.  Netscape was the first widely-used web browser; in 1996 it cost $49 and had to be installed separately.

The biggest difference between then and now is that we don’t buy or own software anymore; like beer, we only rent it.  Fortunately beer doesn’t prompt us to log into our mountain fresh account by tapping a secret code on the can before being enabled to enjoy the product we’ve paid good money for, or force us to wait while the beer is infused with updated hops, or require us to agree to ‘terms’ so one-sided as to actually be jocular – except that it is not funny.

The days of spacing out and alternating software purchases to help stay within a budget have gone the way of the floppy disk.  Monthly and/or yearly subscription fees for specialty software used for image editing, audio/video creation, publishing and developing can quickly add up to hundreds every year.  Once MS moves its Windows operating system to a subscription plan the average household can be looking at annual fees of between five hundred and a thousand dollars per year just to check email! Keep Reading

*As economies have moved forward, more and more complex arrangements, instruments, and machines have come into existence. For example, the reason we can make music earbuds so small now is because of rare earth magnets, made of praseodymium, which is mined in the U.S., China, Russia, Australia, and India. Many of the resources needed to produce the inventions of our modern society are linked around the world. As I have stated on numerous occasions, we have been in a global economy since the East India Company of 1600.

There have been several game-changers in economics, mostly two Industrial Revolutions, the revolution of the late 19^th century when machines became essential to make other machines, and the more recent tech boom. Let’s review some of the industries that tech has affected.

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*I’m so fascinated by all of the new colloquialisms, and l especially the “early adopter.”  As far as new, at least in America, we love new stuff, and old stuff is left to collectors. By the way, the prices of antiques are going down sharply. It seems the new young people have little interest in old stuff, the prized antiques of yesteryear. That antique table and chair might be better on the auction block real soon, as I do not see young people praising old stuff.

You might be able to get money from things like old baseball cards and comic books, but as America’s national pastime loses followers, (baseball is losing audience and the major league is deliberating how to change the game to attract more followers)  and fewer and fewer young people read printed material of any kind, I would bet that even your prized baseball cards and comic books are going to lose value soon. Keep Reading