Richard Leis

Month: December 2013

  • Technology Trends in 2013

    Internet In the second quarter of 2013, Akamai found that 24% of those people with internet connectivity in the United States had speeds higher than 10 Mbps, allowing them to stream audio and high definition video with relative ease. Globally, the percentage stood at 14%. Numbers are hard to come by, but of those, only…

  • Race Against the Machine by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee

    Race Against the Machine is only 5 chapters long, but it provides perhaps the most cogent explanation yet for how technology can lead to both incredible productivity gains and an increasing divide between classes.

  • Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

    Issaacson’s biography of Jobs is a fantastic book, and it confirms my suspicion that the coming decades are going to be devastating, hopeful, terrifying, and haunting, all at once, simply because we humans have yet to fully comprehend what technology has unleashed.

  • My Favorite Movies and Series in 2013

    For this list of favorites, I picked only those that came out or were updated in 2013.

  • My Favorites Books in 2013

    Most of my favorite works this year were not published in 2013; this just happens to be the year I finally got around to them.

  • New Essay: “A Haunting” on Hi

    Link to "A Haunting" essay and image of a gecko

    “So when I saw the lizard in my bathroom I decided to let it be. I certainly wasn’t going to kill it, and the other option was to carry it outside, where it was cold and I wondered what beasts might prey on it as soon as I shut the door to my apartment.”

  • Craig Mod Visits ROBOT RESTAURANT

    Craig Mod Visits ROBOT RESTAURANT Craig Mod describes eloquently and with great humor a strange new place. And, yes, ROBOT RESTAURANT is now my number one most desired place to visit in all the world.