Ryan Thomas Goodenough

Emily’s  parents have gotten quite a few new cows the last few weeks.  In the photo below, we can see Little Jim, one half of the twins that were born last week (I think he retreated from me pretty quickly to the comfort of mom, aunt, and big cousins).

In addition to Little Jim and Heidi, Cutie was born a couple weeks earlier. As you can see from the photo below, she has grown up quite fast!

My Tuesday night class, which finished this week, causes me to continually ponder the efforts that can be done try to close the “digital divide”–the technology gap that separates the developed from the developing nations. As a tribute to my last day of that class, I’m going to propose five things that can be done to close the digital divide.

1. Focus on the content, not the technology - The number of Internet users isn’t going to make the divide any smaller. If people aren’t getting the best content from websites, then the Internet has little to no value.
2. Increase government transparency - Allow citizens to track the money that their government is using. Let people understand how the money is being spent and why it is being spent. Any money that goes unaccounted for should be a signal for corruption concerns.
3. Train people - Setting someone down in front of a computer and telling them that they can now use the Internet is not enough. Teach them how to use computers, especially older individuals.
4. Encourage independent enterprise - The advent of the “brick and click” retailers allows for people all over the world to sell their locally-made goods and crafts on the global market. Encouraging people to get their products into this market will allow them to thrive on the things they have always done well without having to sacrifice natural resources or national ideals.
5. The Internet is not English - Explain to young people who have a desire to create websites that they own a piece of the Internet–everyone does. The Internet is not American or European or Japanese. Websites should be created to appeal to the audience their creators want to reach, not the audience that they think they should be trying to reach.

Odd, I definitely was expecting Spanish pop given the title and artist. Oops! It’s still sort of “pop”-ish, but this one is definitely more of a rock song than pop. Moving on…

The song has a nice, although predictable, structure. At 4:05 it doesn’t go on too long, so that’s very much welcome. It has a good screechy-piano bridge in it, which is probably what will make me listen to it a few more times. It also ends in a rather well arranged climax, so that’s a check on my list of what makes songs particularly good for me.

Not bad and I really like the fact that it wasn’t what I was expecting.

Grade: B+

Tomorrow, I turn in my last paper for grad school (Public Policy, for those of you who forget those type of things). The class is called “information technology and globalization” and I chose to do my final paper on the Internet sales tax problem (i.e. how should states go about collecting taxes on purchases that occur on websites that don’t have a physical representation in the state).

For my policy solution, I proposed that states need to do a better job educating the public about the issues involved. For instance, did you know that you should pay tax on all Internet purchases, even if the merchant doesn’t collect it? In this case, this is called a use tax. You are always required to pay use tax, but state authorities tend to only monitor use tax on large purchases (boats, cars, etc.).

Anyway, I really don’t want to talk about it too much more. Why? Because after Wednesday night (Master’s essay presentations), I’ll finally be done with classes.  Now that I think about it, I guess I’ve gone to school every fall since I started Kindergarten.

What am I supposed to do now!?

Oh that’s right–I’ve got a job to do. And golf to play. And basketball to play even more. Oh, and that whole “relaxation” thing. Ahhh…

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As reported by TUAW and MacRumors.com, AT&T is offering free Wi-Fi to iPhone owners at Barnes and Noble, Starbucks and “71,000 other locations.”  When you connect to the network, you’ll encounter a nicely designed portal where you type in your mobile number and then *poof!* you have Internet access.  This is a nice solution to know about when you really need hi-speed Internet instead of the Edge network.*

*There are rumors floating that iPhone 2.0 will be a 3G capable phone (trans: fast connection).  We’ll have to wait and see if this is true.

In early March, I decided to buy a few shares of Apple (AAPL) when it was around 127. Today, it reached 180. That’s a pretty good gain!

Unfortunately, this is sort of like the first time I went to a casino. I went to Turning Stone with $20 and walked out with $100. So, I went back a few times. And I lost a few times. Something tells me that if I invested more money in the stock market, I might actually lose money. After all, if you always had these sorts of gains, everyone would invest in the stock market without even thinking about it.