The World of Cell Phones

People in the world are becoming used to technology, even if it is a little cell phone that they can carry around. Excite.com reports taht 4.1 billion people in the world have subscriptions to cell phones. This is a a 4 billion person increase from 2002, when cell phones were just starting to get hot. I know that I didn’t get a cell phone until about that time, probably around 2003. People are now becoming more advanced and looking to future phones like iphones. The world has seen a big shift in using cell phones to communicate, especially in countries such as Africa, South America, Korea, etc. This countries are not that industrialized, but they do make up a portion of the population with cell phone subscriptions. The Susan Teltscher, who leads the ICT’s statistics division  says that

The so-called “digital divide” between rich and poor countries remained unchanged between 2002 and 2007…”In terms of consumer demand and uptake, there will probably be a little bit of slowdown in the growth, but we are not expecting any decline,” she said. “People who have a mobile phone are unlikely to give up on it.”

With cell phones, nobody will ever want to switch back or give up an “old school” phone that is connected into the wall. These have many benefits, especially in countries with less industrialized populations. People will continue to update and expanded in technological advances trying to speed up internet and ways to connect to people easier around the world. cell phones are a start and are still young.

Economy Excusing Adultery?

I just read an article on msnbc.com about an adultery website called ashleymadison.com.  It advertises adulterous opportunities to unhappily married people.  I was thinking that the economic woes we are experiencing find their way into our love lives, either halting them altogether, or creating a twitchy dissatisfaction that is only satiated by extramarital affairs.  The proprietor of the site maintains that his site is a self-esteem booster for women.  Ladies?  I would like to think that our foremothers and their huge historical strides would cringe at the idea of women reverting to sex to feel good about themselves.  Moral values are about as grounded as a lawn chair in a hurricane in the United States.  Losing one’s job, house, retirement, savings, etc. makes infadelity seem trivial.  But, why are we passing judgement on something this private?  At this time in our lives, achieving some shred of happiness should be acceptable.  Sex is noncommittal, relatively cheap compared to a gym membership or a diet change.  It is instant gratification and I bet people who are considering committing adultery have nothing to lose because they have already lost it all.  It is just interesting how an econominc armageddon affects every fascet of our conciousness and renders our once sturdy morality flaccid.  Perhaps after this maelstrom passes we will have a different definition of marriage.

Economic woes

The area o fsocial science that I have focus the majority of my studies on have been anthropology, histroy and psychology.  I know enough about sociology to get in trouble.  But political science and economics are both alien to me in how they are different from other social sciences, especially economics; when I think about economics I wonder how it is a social science, all I think about are accountents with adding machines.  Anyhow, I say this because I can not really discuss economics as a social science, I will only fall back on the other scocial sciences that I know, so let that be a warning to everyone reading this.

There is an article that I would like to point out to everybodies attention, concerning the concepts of a debt heavy capitalistic society.  The current stimulus stategy is focused on bolstering the banks, which will create a trickle down effect boosting the economy of the country and of people.  However according to Jim Rogers this will not work and the banks should be allowed to go bankrupt.  The entire idea that we can recover from a credit debt like the one we are in, by creating debt in other places, is an idea that will not work.  We are trying to have a fast safe fix, and that will not work.

History of Columbia River’s Salmon Run

“Comparing today’s salmon population on the Columbia to those back in 1850 we’re lookin at an astounding 96 percent reduction,” writes Pat Hoglund in Salmon and Steelhead Journal, winter 2009.