Year: 2018

  • My 2018 in Books

    This is the fifth year that I’ve kept a running list of every book that I’ve completed for the first time and then shared that list here as the first thing I post on either the last day of the old year or the first of the new. You can see the 2017 list here,…

  • Nonprofits are the real threat to Uber and Lyft

    There is little that is technologically defensible about Uber or Lyft. Both companies combine a handful of off-the-rack features: a smart phone app, map, GPS, credit card, and a rider/driver-matching algorithm. It would not, therefore, be difficult to clone a ride-hailing competitor. For years, I’ve maintained that Uber the verb (“let’s uber there later”) will be…

  • “Bohemian Rhapsody” is fantastic: what the critics missed

    The Bottom Line: Drop everything, turn off your phones and go see “Bohemian Rhapsody” immediately. The critics are wrong. It’s fantastic.  More details: I have a pet theory that critics—subject matter experts of all sorts, really—get so into the weeds of the production of the material they critique that they lose track of why ordinary…

  • All the news that’s fit to ignore

    I missed the mid-terms last week. It was great. Don’t get me wrong: I voted early by mail, so I did my civic duty. It’s what happened after I dropped my ballot that’s interesting. Due to travel in the wilderness and no access to the internet or other media, on Tuesday, November 6, I didn’t…

  • Since when does Anthony Lane review NETFLIX “movies”?

    In the November 12 issue of The New Yorker, film critic Anthony Lane reviews both The Front Runner, a Gary Hart biopic starring Hugh Jackman, and Outlaw King, a Scottish period piece starring Chris Pine. (Link here, subscription required.) Lane is impressed with neither film. What surprised me about Lane’s Outlaw King review is that the film…

  • 2023: Why Comcast should worry

    For years I’ve thought that—while Comcast’s cable television business had a future that made polar bears wince in sympathy—its lock on the cable internet business made the company invulnerable. Sure, cord-cutting and cord-shaving are eroding cable TV. Younger people in particular, unless they are big sports fans, don’t bother to subscribe (cord-nevers). However, Comcast still…

  • Can self-driving cars save local businesses?

    In the Center’s Future of Transportation project, we’ve seen that the impending arrival of self-driving cars has implications far beyond getting people out from behind the wheel. For example, we asked our respondents if they’d be interested in special kinds of self-driving cars that featured on-the-go services like a meeting room for productivity, a living…

  • Brief Review: “The Fifth Risk” by Michael Lewis

    Lewis is such a remarkable writer that I sometimes find myself envious of his ability to forge a compelling story where there doesn’t seem to be anything. It’s useful to contrast The Fifth Risk with Bob Woodward’s Fear, which I inhaled last month. Woodward’s book ferrets out things that happened — crescendos of malevolence and arias…

  • Beware the “Words with Friends” scammers

    New predators are stalking older women via chat in online games. Here’s how to protect yourself and your family. My mother is nobody’s fool. She is also such a fan of the online Scrabble knockoff “Words with Friends” (WWF) that I might use the word addiction to describe her relationship with the game and only be…

  • Amazon’s real reason for launching “Free Dive” isn’t about ad revenue

    Late last month, the business rumor mill exploded with the story that Amazon subsidiary IMDB was to launch “Free Dive,” an ad-supported streaming video service that would be free to anybody who had an Amazon Fire TV device. Free Dive would be distinct from Amazon’s mostly ad-free Prime Video on Demand service because no Amazon…