Karen Santorum, Rick Santorum’s Wife, Says “Campaign Is ‘God’s Will” I understand that some people believe in God or some other spiritual force. My relationship with God would be best described as “its complicated”. There is a lot we do not understand about the Universe and our own existence, such as “How did the Universe … Continue reading
Latest Entries
Tales from Rotterdam or how I met a Princess and killed the Computer Division of Philips
How I killed Europe’s Largest Computer Company In 1973 I took a train to Appledorn,the Netherlands. The CEO of Philips asked me to give him my opinion about the viability of his company’s Computer Division. Philips at that time was one of the leading electronic companies in the world and extremely important in Holland where … Continue reading
Life Blues: My reaction to Outlaw Blues by Jonathan Taplin
In reading Outlaw Blues by Jonathan Taplin, I realized how easily my life could have gone in a different direction. Maybe, if I liked the music better, I would have become part of the rock music scene. My management and leadership skills might have taken me on a path similar to Jonathan and eventually my creative side might have emerged as it did for him. I had a similar experience reading Holy Beggars by Aryae Coopersmith whom I recently met. In reading Aryae’s book, I realized that I could have easily continued to explore the spiritual side of myself and may have ended up in Israel as a Rabbi. But I fell in love with technology. By 1966, I was working at the Langley Porter Institute, UCSF Medical School, designing equipment for brainwave bio feedback. From that point on, I had a continuing connection to technology. Now I am back to studying music. Jonathan is a Professor at USC. Continue reading
Hong Kong and Me: How I became the highest compensated advisor in the world (for a little while)
Here I am in Hong Kong some 49 years after I first arrived here. I wrote about that experience recently here. In looking for photos to use with this post, I found some that were taken in 1963 by a family that actually traveled on the President Cleveland,the ship on which I worked. I … Continue reading
Rewired not Retired
It is not about being retired but as my wife, Deborah says, it is about being rewired. I have to confess that I find it personally a bit confusing. As I often joke, I no longer enjoy what I am good at doing and I am not good at doing what I enjoy. This is actually a true statement. The expectation for the last third of life is changing with more and more seniors being both physically and mentally fit. Continue reading
How I got the iPad right in 1994 but was wrong about the Information Furnace
Now before you think this post is all about how insightful I was, and I was, it is really about how things turned out differently than I thought and wanted. It really is about a failure to implement a vision and an exploration of the possibility that things could have ended up differently.
In that very same article (again 1994), I coined the term i-pad (see the Article). Sixteen years later, Apple announced the iPad on Jan. 27th, 2010. Coincidentally, it happened to be my 65th birthday. Continue reading
Rotterdam 1969-1974: The Thoraxcenter
Towards the end of 1968, I accepted a position at the Thoraxcenter in Rotterdam. My task was to create and run the computer dept. It was actually two depts. One was part of the medical school at Erasmus University and the other was part of the Dijkzigt University Medical Center. Accepting the position was both … Continue reading
Promise we make to our future selves
We make trade offs all the time between what we would want now and what we will want later. Human beings have a pretty good ability to project into the future. But I am also interested in the relationship and obligation of our future self to who were are now and what that means for our future self. Continue reading
Obama, I am willing to run as your Vice President but only if you listen
Dear Barack, the person that I wish would be come president is the man I voted for in 2008, you. But you turned out not to be the person I thought you were. Some how you thought you could play the political game and win. You thought you were a giant but you even a … Continue reading
These are the good old days for Apple and not just because Jobs has passed
Companies like products, have life cycles. Apple is very unusual because it was able to reinvent itself. In particular, Apple went from being a niche PC player with a relatively small market share to the leader in revolutionizing music (iPod), the cell phone (iPhone) and creating and leading the tablet market (iPad). But each of … Continue reading
Two Thirds Done 