We’re all staring down the unknown the best we can right now, and it’s not easy for anyone. Over at our So, Bob podcast, which generally focuses on the unintended consequences of technology, we’re telling stories about how tech is helping people cope. We’re all going to have to deal [Keep reading]
A plane crashes and all but one of the 137 passengers die. What does the one survivor do? He writes a best-selling book called How to Survive a Plane Crash. The one word you don’t see in the manuscript? Luck. That’s survivor bias. You’re about to learn a lot more [Keep reading]
Since the 1973 oil embargo, and the nearly concurrent coining of the term “gridlock,” Americans have mused about telecommuting as the solution to many modern ills. When high-speed Internet began making its way into homes in the late 1990s, telecommuting seemed on the verge of a breakout. Why waste time [Keep reading]
(Bob’s note: As I write this story, five Washington State residents are dead and about two dozen more are sick, most of them in the same nursing and rehab center. I’m haunted by how incredibly sad and scary the Life Care Center of Kirkland must be right now. Not long [Keep reading]
Market watchers like me have long predicted a correction like this week’s Wall Street downer. Americans using the stock market to plan for retirement now have about 10% less than they did last week. That’s a crushing blow to people who need the money soon. For the rest of us….meh. [Keep reading]
Residents of Washington state’s Olympic Penninsula were given a scare Thursday night when an alarming message flashed across their TV screens in a bold, huge font: “RADIOLOGICAL HAZARD WARNING.” Local authorities — in this case, Jefferson County 9-1-1 services — quickly took to Facebook to identify the message as a [Keep reading]
The sharing economy has spawned some crazy ideas, but leaving the keys to your car IN your car and telling the world where it is might be among the most peculiar. That’s precisely how car sharing apps like Getaround, the AirBnB of rental cars, work. And while there are security [Keep reading]
One of the most ominous mysteries surrounding the massive Equifax hack in 2017 — that the stolen data does not appear to have been used for any crimes — has apparently been solved. The U.S. Justice Department said on Monday that the Chinese government was behind the notorious hack, indicting [Keep reading]
Little things mean a lot. Just ask Visa and Mastercard, which has created a reliable billion-dollar worldwide industry by charging a few extra pennies with every transaction. So as you read this story about my anger over a rogue $2.50 fee, please keep that in mind. I don’t care about [Keep reading]
I’d love to retire the concept of Gotcha Capitalism. Unfortunately, it’s going nowhere. Companies continue to use fine print, manipulation, and information advantage to screw and cheat consumers out of nickels and dimes — at a scale that nets them billions of dollars and wrecks our market economy. I recently [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan