The journal of technology, culture and ideas, serving up insights into the business of life since 2001.
<figure><img src="https://ofb.biz/phoenix/images/marquee/SorryDave.jpg"></figure><p>If you were a teenager in 1970 and were beginning to become skeptical of the promise of the space age, beyond &#8220;Tang instant breakfast drink&#8221; and Velcro, there&#8217;s a small chance that you saw a movie, &#8220;<a…
<figure><img src="https://ofb.biz/phoenix/images/marquee/trumpTheBoyAndTheWolf.jpg"></figure><p>Our present preoccupation with living the Boy Who Cried Wolf&#8217;s life forces me to write the same column every so often. This week&#8217;s column is brought to you courtesy of revelations about President Trump&#8217;s secret plane swap…
<figure><img src="https://ofb.biz/phoenix/images/marquee/cancelationFrustration.jpg"></figure><p>It had been a while since I purchased access to Fox Trump Channel. Given how flagrantly the president has been displaying what in any other context would be criminal insanity, I was hankering to learn how far he would go before the sycophantic channel…
<figure><img src="https://ofb.biz/phoenix/images/marquee/popeZoomerKeller.jpg"></figure><p>I am provoked by an internet presence that goes by &#8220;Redeemed Zoomer,&#8221; presumably a 20-something young man holding theologically conservative views, and similar views on Christian ethics, who is Reformed.</p>
<figure><img src="https://ofb.biz/phoenix/images/marquee/office-003-scaled.jpg"></figure><p>Some big changes are underway in the personal computing world and if you do home or office computing it behooves you to pay attention to them. In some respects they may return us to the industry we last knew in the previous millennium.</p>
<figure><img src="https://ofb.biz/phoenix/images/marquee/singingSpeaker.jpg"></figure><p>Last summer, I was given a JBL Go 3 Bluetooth speaker as a gift. My plan was to use it while swimming — perfect for listening to summer baseball. It’s really a delightful, tiny speaker for that, but not only that, which is good since the weather…
<figure><img src="https://ofb.biz/phoenix/images/marquee/weird-dollars.jpg"></figure><p>There used to be an old woman who stood every day in the center of the sidewalk on the north side of 42nd Street west of Grand Central in New York City.</p>
<figure><img src="https://ofb.biz/phoenix/images/marquee/magicLinkEnvelope.jpg"></figure>Most of us contributed to how we got here: we came up with a subpar password and we used it over and over again. Do I admit I used the same “secure” password for almost two decades?<br />
<figure><img src="https://ofb.biz/phoenix/images/marquee/summer-greenery-and-haze.jpg"></figure><p>Heat is awful, humidity makes it worse, and deathly stillness renders it just about insufferable.</p> <p>The other night my neighbor was standing on his porch. He blew a smoke ring. Next morning, it was still there, though the…
<figure><img src="https://ofb.biz/phoenix/images/marquee/LindseyGraham.jpg"></figure><p>I didn’t know him personally. He was never <em>my</em> senator. But the passing of Lindsey Graham really has struck me. The more I think about his passing &#8212; and the responses from those who long worked with him &#8212;…