As you know, South Carolina is under a massive flooding crisis. As of Monday morning October 5, nine people have died. As much as 25 inches of rain has fallen in some neighborhoods and towns. According to Governor Nikki Haley, her state is at a 1,000 year level of rain. That’s no understatement, and social media is capturing these floods.
Twitter has been instrumental in reporting this weather phenomena. Meteorologist Jim Cantore tweeted about a low pressure system that’s causing the massive rains. One of the hardest hit areas is Columbia, the state capital and largest city. The University of South Carolina, located in downtown Columbia, tweeted about open health centers to tend to the sick and port-a-pottys available just in case power and plumbing were out. Ordinary citizens have taken pictures of homes and neighborhoods being flooded. There’s even a picture tweet of deer swimming toward higher ground. A drone captured the devastation of one eastern South Carolina town and the bad choices people can make in floods, like driving into lots of still water. In Lugoff, South Carolina, a video captures a wall of water emptying into neighborhood. In Summerville, South Carolina, another social media video captures local firefighters rescuing a women, her three children and their pet. In Charleston, people are seen wading through flooded waters. And on You Tube, the National Weather Service put out a video urging driving safety in such conditions, telling motorists to, “Turn around, don’t drown”.
On Facebook, family and friends in affected areas are communicating their safety and well being to others. And government officials are using social media urging people not to even be on the roads. Social media is also being used by non-profits and charities informing people of how they can help. What modern technology and social media are doing is bringing the story home through personal experience. It’s also a powerful tool in bringing critical information and safety precautions. How can social media help you?
The new Forbes 400 list is out. This list shows the 400 richest people in the US. The rich are getting richer. In order to make this list, you have to be worth at least $1.7 billion. Techies dominate this billionaire’s list…again.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates takes the top spot for the twenty-second year in a row. He’s worth an unbelievable $76 billion. Investor Warren Buffet came in second. The third biggest billionaire in the US is Larry Ellison. He’s the executive chairman, CEO, and co-founder of computer hardware and software giant Oracle. Ellison comes in at 47.5 billion dollars. Slightly behind him is Internet retail Amazon kingpin Jeff Bezos at $47 billion. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg comes in seventh. He’s worth slightly over $40 billion and counting. Year after year, search engine and all-around tech giant Google is voted one of the most valuable and respected companies around today. Maybe that’s why it’s leader Larry Page is the 10th richest man in America. He’s worth an estimated 33 and a third billion dollars. Page’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, comes behind him at #11, worth $32.6 billion. Snapchat CEO Evan Speigal is the youngest person on Fortune 400 list. At 25 years of age, he’s worth 2.1 billion dollars. Needless to say, techies make a huge chunk in the billionaire’s list.
If you ever doubted how important computer technology is to our world today, take a look at this list. Most of these are innovators who saw a need and went with it. Look at where their hard work and innovation took them. So for every person in the computer tech industry, there’s hope that you and I can make this list one day. Just ask Even Speigal. So if there’s anyone in jr. high, high school or college reading this, Bill Gates is right. Be careful of how you treat nerds and geeks; you might be working for us one day. Who would you like to see make the Forbes billionaires list?
I’ve written several articles about the lack of diversity in tech based companies across the country. Even Apple CEO Tim Cook has addressed this issue in recent interviews. One social media outlet takes action.
Twitter makes a commitment to be the most diverse online company there is. Twitter set diversity based goals for 2016. These goals include increasing women in tech roles to 16%, increasing women in leadership roles to 25%, increasing underrepresented minority groups (primarily Latino and African-American) tech roles to 9% and increasing underrepresented minority leadership to 6%. They’ve built alliances and partnerships to make this happen. They partner with organizations like Management Leaders of Tomorrow, dedicated to teaching leadership skills to teens from all walks of life. They recruit, and do so often, at HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). They use hiring and recruiting techniques to attract a more diverse work force. They use social media sites to ensure job descriptions, postings, and interviews appeal to candidates from all walks of life. They list postings where underrepresented groups can see them. They sponsor women to attend tech conferences. They team up with schools to teach girls as young as middle school (ages 11-14) how to code. That’s just some of their innovations.
Don’t expect a quick fix to the lack of diversity in the tech world. It took years for lack of diversity to develop. It will take years to improve. Very few want to hear that, but this is a long process. I like what Twitter is doing to reach out to young people, and get them interested in science and technology. ?The youth are the greatest investment the tech world can ever have. This may sound cliche, but they’re our future and as they the youth go, so does our future. Diversity will take years to build, but we must start somewhere. Isn’t this a good start?
Here is a fascinating article. Amazon wants to get into the alcoholic beverage delivery business. Looking at the stock market and other issues lately, many will probably flock to this service.
Thanks to Amazon‘s Prime Now, you can now get your beer, wine, even hard liquor delivered just within two hours after you order it. For now, this service is available in the Seattle area. Internationally, London has been offering this service since June. The Prime Now service is available in nine US cities, including parts of Seattle, New York City and San Francisco. The service is only available to Amazon Prime Members, in which you have to pay $99 a year for. On top of that, if you want your booze in one hour, you’ll have to pay an additional $7.99. Two hour deliveries are free. One can only take advantage of this through the Amazon Prime Now mobile app. Amazon isn’t the only one delivering same day alcohol. Online startups like Minibar and Drizly offer same day alcohol delivery service. Drizly even offers their services in Seattle. Right off the bat, Amazon Prime Now has competition in Seattle. Speaking of major US cities, Amazon refused to mention which cities could be next to get their alcohol delivery.
I think I can be of assistance. If New York and San Francisco are Amazon’s top delivery services, then you should start there. I’m sure they’re a lot of traders on the NYSE that could use this service right now. I’m happy Seattle has competition to keep them in check. I can only hope other cities do too. Can your city benefit from Amazon alcohol delivery? Or should your city avoid the delivery service?
Disclaimer: We at Computer Geeks do not necessarily approve or condemn this service. However, if you do choose to use such services, please do so legally and responsibly. Don’t become a statistic!
In the last several weeks, the Ashley Madison hacking scandal has dominated the headlines. Now, the hackers speak out.
They call themselves the Impact Team and they talked about their incredible hack via email to Motherboardvice.com. So far they dumped 10GB of customer information, 20GB of internal data, and made a third break-in as well. Over 38 million customers of the adulterous website has been affected. The Impact Team start out by insisting they didn’t blackmail anybody. They claim Ashley Madison’s parent company Avid Life Media did the blackmailing. They say the hook up site’s security was so bad that nobody was watching. In the Impact Team’s arsenal are employee documents, user pictures, user messages and chats. They accuse Avid Media Life of making $100 million a year in fraud. The Impact Team says Avid Media goes beyond promoting adultery. They say Avid Life exploit their customers like drug dealers exploit their addicts. We haven’t heard the last of the Impact Team. Their mission is to go after any company or any powerful person who profits from destroying others. They even talked about going after corrupt politicians. They picked a great time to do so. Let me just say, if they do go after corrupt politicians, they’ve got a lot of work to do.
My eighth grade language arts teacher used to say, “Life is the sum of all your choices”. That’s playing out right before our eyes. Some may ask, “How is Ashley Madison profiting from destroying others?” That’s what extramarital affairs do. They destroy the people committing them. They destroy ?spouses. They destroy children. They break up households. They cause emotional wounds that may never heal. I‘ve read stories where adulterous affairs led to murder and/or suicide. And for a company to profit off this kind of pain and suffering is disgraceful. Is the Impact Team justified for hacking Ashley Madison?
The stock market is taking a beating. Yesterday alone, the NYSE lost 357 points. That’s more than two percent of it’s entire worth. One investor warns tech companies and stockholders this could only be the beginning.
Venture capital investor Bill Gurley went on a tweet campaign warning tech companies worth over a billion dollars to prepare for hard economic times ahead. Yesterday, Gurley tweeted about the nosedive tech stocks have taken in the last several weeks. Some have lost a quarter or even half of what their numbers were just a few months ago. It’s not just American stocks. Gurley warned global stocks are compressing. Look at China, the world’s second biggest economy. Gurley goes on to say we’re nearing the end of the cycle where growth is more important than profitability. And this is at a time when many, like Uber, put growth ahead of profits, even at the expense of profits. Gurley didn’t just start sounding the alarm. Last year, he warned of tech bubbles bursting all over the world. He even predicted 2015 would be the year of ‘dead unicorns’. It’s not like this hasn’t happened before. In 2008, an investment firm called Sequoia released a slideshow called R.I.P. Good Times. Their slideshow foretold a coming crisis. Look at what happened later that year.
We at Computer Geeks are not doom and gloom profits by any means. But when you hear predictions like Gurley’s and listen to other well respected financial experts say prepare for the worst, we may want to take such warnings seriously. When we see China’s economy in free fall and Greece President Alexis Tsipris resign over his country’s financial woes, we might want to take heed. Maybe nothing will come of this. Maybe these predictions will turn out wrong. In fact, I hope they do. But isn’t it better to be forewarned before something happens than be caught uninformed and unprepared?
