The Lay Technologist ™

It’s not groundbreaking news that products often have tiers. Whether it is cars, washing machines, or airline tickets, you have some iteration of bronze, gold, and platinum. You have the entry-level, the mid-grade, and the premium. The workhorse and the ultra-luxury model. But looks and labels don’t always tell the whole story. Sometimes when buying a product or service, you may be getting a whole lot of the same thing and not even realize it. First, a short primer on price discrimination . This is a concept in economics that, simply-put, means that a seller can get some people to dole out more money for the same thing than it can others. How is that possible? In part, this is influenced by the fact that not everyone has the same amount of money they’re willing, or able, to spend. Second, it is also a function of desire. One person who has a stronger desire for the product, may be willing to pay more for it than another person who desires the same product less. “But everyone is price...

The interaction of scarcity (actual or created) and human desire for control over our environments, which may or may not include other humans within it, leads to an apparent tendency for resources to travel down a conceptual funnel toward a gravity of concentration and thus control. At certain ideal levels of concentration, several resources can interact to make possible the creation of additional value. However, runaway concentration can lead to sequestration of resources to the point that they lose their broader usefulness for society. This visualization illustrates this idea.

Our Deepening Relationship with Our Smartphones Image credit: Wayhome Studio / Shutterstock.com Smartphones have become the center of our sensory universe. Take a look at the people around you on the train, bus, subway, or at an airport terminal, dentist's office, or even at restaurant tables with guests "eating together" -- no less. Crisp displays, sensors-galore, high speed data, and smart app developers have glued us to these devices. Not surprising, given their ability to convey to us loads of precise and up-to-date information enabling us to to make smart decisions -- think minute rain and temperature forecasts, real-time transit updates, traffic congestion data, event reminders, GPS directions, and breaking news from around the world. And the bellwether for our deepening tie to our smartphones is the Notification . The, often, multi-sensory reminder, alert, flash, vibration, melody, that tells us where we should look, what we should take into consideration, a...