Striking at the Heart of American Exceptionalism...

The lead of this article riveted me, as it channels one of my deepest concerns:

Americans have long taken pride in their willingness to bet it all on a dream. But that risk-taking spirit appears to be fading.

Three long-running trends suggest the U.S. economy has turned soft on risk: Companies add jobs more slowly, even in good times. Investors put less money into new ventures. And, more broadly, Americans start fewer businesses and are less inclined to change jobs or move for new opportunities.

The changes reflect broader, more permanent shifts, including an aging population and the new dominance of large corporations in many industries. They also may help explain the increasingly sluggish economic recoveries after the past three recessions, experts said.

"The U.S. has succeeded in part because of its dynamism, its high pace of job creation and destruction, and its high pace of churning of workers," said John Haltiwanger, a University of Maryland economist who has studied the decline in American entrepreneurship. "The pessimistic view is we've lost our mojo."

Companies that gamble on new ideas are more likely to fail, but also more likely to hit it big. Entrepreneurs face long odds, but those that achieve success create jobs for many others.

As important, say economists, are small acts of risk-taking: workers who quit their jobs to find better ones, companies that expand payrolls and families that move from sluggish economic regions to ones with low unemployment rates.

Multiplied across the U.S. economy, these acts of faith and ambition help speed money, talent and resources to where they are needed.

The article goes on to explore many facets of the issue.  It cites many possible causes, some of them close to what I believe the main culprit is: the ever-growing web of regulations, taxes, licensing, and general bureaucratic friction that impedes U.S. entrepreneurs today.  Back in the '70s and '80s I started several small businesses.  Were conditions then as they are today, I don't think I'd have started any of them.

American exceptionalism, on several fronts, used to be quite obvious to the entire world.  American business exceptionalism was the most obvious of all.  Not so much any more, I'm afraid – and very much headed the opposite way...

A Better Imaging Sensor?

If this is as good as the article implies, these new graphene-based image sensors are going to make a big splash: sensitivity 1,000 times better than current sensors, broad and flat frequency response, and five times cheaper.  Sounds like a winner to me!

Hexagonal Grids...

Here's an interesting discussion about using hexagonal grids in software games, though the results are more generally useful.  The authors have worked through details like coordinate systems, distances, rotations, etc.

To Catch a Thief...

Journalist Bridget Johnson talks about her pre-journalism career as a “loss prevention” operative – one of the people who detect and stop shoplifters.  This was much more interesting than I expected it to be, and includes a discussion of loss prevention at Tower Records (a now-defunct chain of music stores that started in California).

The Rise and Fall of WinTel...

Take a close look at the chart below (from this article), which shows the market share of operating systems as measured by the number of “computing platforms” (personal computers, laptops, tablets, smart phones, etc.) that use them.  Note that this same graph using a metric of operating system revenue or profit would look very, very different (for instance, Android would be zero, since it's free).  There's also something else odd here: Linux is missing except for Android.

One thing that jumped out at me is very personal: this chart almost exactly captures the range of time of my own interest and involvement with personal computing platforms: I first built a “personal computer” in 1974, just one year before the beginning of this chart.  That year would have been 100% “other”, because the only commercial personal computers were offerings like the MITS Altair; brands that never took off.  Most personal computers then were home-built, as my first few were.

The big story here is the rise and fall of “WinTel” (Intel chips running Windows).  I'm not sure precisely how these WinTel numbers were generated, but they must include MS-DOS computers as well, because Windows certainly didn't have significant market share in 1985, let alone 50% (Windows really didn't take off until the release of Windows 3.0/3.1 in 1990).  But this is a quibble - rename it “Microsoft and Intel” and it's clear.  Two or three years ago, the WinTel share slipped below 50% again, for the first time in nearly 30 years.  In the technology world, that's an extraordinary run.  Furthermore, if this graph were in operating system revenue instead of device count, WinTel would still be over 50%.  Amazing!

But the device count for Android and Apple matter.  Android is entirely smartphone and tablet, and the Apple count is dominated by IOS (its operating system for portable devices).  The Mac OS/X count is tiny by comparison.  All these devices require applications, and the ecosystem of application developers is rapidly growing for portable devices.  I'm not sure the traditional application development world is shrinking – I suspect, in fact, that it's still growing.  It's just that the portable device application development world is growing much faster yet.  Why does this matter?  The success of those applications is what really drives the operating system penetration.  Apple and Android are perceived as “sexy” platforms to write for right now, and Windows is perceived by most developers as “legacy” and, well, stodgy.

Don't Ever Talk to the Police...

Great advice, presented in an engaging fashion. If you've never delved into this before, you'll likely be surprised...

On a related note: my own experience with juries is limited to the several times I've been in a jury pool (but never selected), and the six months I once spent as the U.S. Navy's “liaison” to the courts near Bremerton, Washington.  Those experiences leave me with just one clear thought: if I'm innocent, I don't ever want to be tried by a jury in the U.S.  I'd much rather take my chances with the judge...