FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week's Best Stories-Podcast 723

FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723

Every once and a while it’s good to roll through the news and pick a few stories to talk about. Used to do this a lot back in the radio days. These days not so much. We’ll talk about it in FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723.

The Brits May Say Goodbye To FM

Radio is a good place to start. Seems the Brits are getting rid of the FM Radio Band. Listening to digital services in the UK is now over fifty percent. Meanwhile in the US, the radio industry insists on telling the world radio listening has never been higher.  I don’t believe it.

Young Adults Abandon Radio

Especially relevant is an informal survey I did recently of younger adults. I asked them if they listened to the radio. Virtually none of them have. In years.

Princess Leia On Your Smart Phone

Radio talk makes me want to talk about tech. Remember the Princess Leia hologram in the first Star Wars? The first holographic smart phone is due to hit the market this year. The Red Hydrogen One will allow you to shoot 3D video and projects a holographic display which doesn’t require special glasses to see. Another idea from Star Wars that has become real. Details in FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723.

Big Tech Makes Us Mad

When they’re not complaining about gas prices, people love to complain about social media and big tech companies. With so many of the top market cap companies in the tech world, like Amazon and FaceBook for example, people are getting worried they might be too big. Regulation is the answer, right?

Not So Fast

Big Tech Disruptors

What disrupts social media and tech companies? Artificial Intelligence and Crypto Currencies to name two. Blockchain, Smart Contacts and Community to name three more. Moreover when you combine these new ideas with robotics and a faster and more robust internet, the next big thing might not be Amazon, FaceBook, Google or Apple.

Maybe It Will Disrupt Big Government Too

If so called ‘Big Tech’ can be disrupted by this ‘crust’ of new tech ideas that give the consumer control of their identity and money, what’s the possibility for the disruption and eventual dissolution of our sclerotic government? Think about it with me in FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723.

Minnesota Where Corruption-I Mean Business As Usual-is Legal

In conclusion it’s business as usual in the land of ten thousand lakes. The 2018 Governor’s race is heating up. Retiring 1st district congressman Tim Walz just got the nod from Education Minnesota. This is a big endorsement for Democratic candidates. On the Republican side the more things change…

Attack Of The Re-Treads

Gubernatorial re-tread and wealthy banking lobbyist Tim Pawlenty has decided to forgo the Minnesota GOP’s State Convention at Duluth in the beginning of June. He says he got into the race too late. Truth is, the twenty or so rich guys in Minnetonka don’t like the grassroots political community. Find out why in FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723.

Sponsored by Water Butler Water Purification and Reliafund Payment Processors

FM-Tech-AI-Cryto-Gas-Governors-Week’s Best Stories-Podcast 723

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NFL Super Bowl Robbing Minnesota Blind-Civic Boosterism Gone Wild-Podcast 698

NFL Super Bowl Robbing Minnesota Blind-Civic Boosterism Gone Wild-Podcast 698

Minneapolis and Saint Paul is happy to be hosting the Super Bowl. Costs for the event are not at the top of the local media’s list of things to talk about. We will in NFL Super Bowl Robbing Minnesota Blind-Civic Boosterism Gone Wild-Podcast 698.

Losing Proposition

Local leaders say this big event will generate 400 million dollars of revenue. Cooler heads say that number is pie in the sky. 400 million doesn’t come close to covering the costs of the US Bank Stadium and The Super Bowl.

Who Pays?

Minneapolis is on the hook for 700 million dollars over the next thirty years with US Bank Stadium. Especially relevant is the fact that the Minnesota Vikings owners got one of the best stadium deals in the league. All they had to do was threaten to move the team to LA. So much for loving the people of Minnesota.

By All Means Kneel

Minneapolis and Saint Paul’s Super Bowl Committee agreed to most of the demands of the NFL for a Super Bowl. On the list? The NFL will pay no state, county or municipal taxes for any Super Bowl revenue. Guess who’s paying?

Evil Corporations Do Not Include The NFL

Truth is the taxpayers of Minneapolis and Saint Paul’s metro and the State of Minnesota are paying for this event. So much for evil corporations politicians like to rail about.

Pleased As Punch For The Super Bowl

Hot dish and frozen lakes are all the rage on the local TV and radio stations. The picture of the cute kid in a Vikings jersey at the Super Bowl Experience in the newspapers.

Meanwhile the NFL is making big deals in the presidential suites of all the local hotels the city and state are paying for.

Oh by the way, they get free police escorts as well.

Boosterism Gone Wild.

Legal Corruption

These days free stuff for corporations is what it’s all about. Subsidies for apartment buildings near the train lines. Subsidies for the Mall of America to build an addition. In addition, sweet deals for businesses juiced in to events like the Super Bowl abound.

The game isn’t football. The game is a legal corruption that robs citizens blind.

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

NFL Super Bowl Robbing Minnesota Blind-Civic Boosterism Gone Wild-Podcast 698

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Why Burning Man Still Sucks 2017-Podcast 616

Why Burning Man Still Sucks 2017-Podcast 616

In Why Burning Man Still Sucks 2017-Podcast 616. March 29th, 2017. Noon Pacific Time. Burning Man 2017 tickets on sale. Already did my ‘burner’ profile. 2 weeks ago waited on line to register for the ticket sale. Third year in a row. All out for tickets to the biggest party in the universe. Out in the Nevada desert. August 27th to September 4th.

Gonna Get My Burning Man Tickets!

Tick tock. One minute to 12 Pacific. Count it down. Here we go. This won’t take long. I won’t have to cancel the big client meeting at three in the central time zone. I’ll get on. Get my tickets. Smooth as silk. A friction free transaction. Forty-Five minutes later I’d canceled the meeting. Oops, tickets sold out. In Why Burning Man Still Sucks 2017-Podcast 616.

Scalpers

Quick Internet search. Stub Hub has tickets at double the price. Frustrated. Angry. Must have done something wrong. Maybe I should register for the STEP program like last year. Yeah. Or maybe call some ‘burners’ in Chicago. If you ingratiate yourself with the ‘burner’ community you might be able to score some tickets from someone who isn’t going to use theirs.

Jeff Bezos Party of 20? Come right in

Remember. Tickets to burning man in the general sale are 400 plus dollars and nearly 100 dollar for a vehicle pass. There’s a final sale coming up. Those tickets are 1200 dollars. What’s under my skin is the way Burning Man is sold. Over Sold and Under Delivered. Clearly there’s a lot of people who want to go and can’t get tickets. Fix it. Find out about my experience trying to buy tickets in Why Burning Man Still Sucks 2017-Podcast 616

We’re Hippies. Really rich hippies

This year Burning Man will gross 43 million dollars from ticket sales alone. They say It’s something you need to experience. A city in the desert. A culture of possibility. A network of dreamers and doers. Oh wait that’s the commercial. Reality is you’ve been waiting for 30 minutes for the kid with dreadlocks who can’t remember whether you ordered a strawberry smoothie or an emerald peanut butter…for the third time.

Not Radically Inclusive

Why Burning Man Still Sucks 2017-Podcast 616. Burning Man still sucks because if you’re wealthy enough to buy a thousand dollar ticket from some ticket reseller, which I am told Burning Man ‘doesn’t endorse’, you’re a ‘burner’. Part of a ‘radically inclusive experience’. Yeah. No. “A citizen of the worldview that is Burning Man. May it be encountered everywhere”. It won’t.

Drive a Maybach Motor Home? Coming out from Santa Rosa for the week to do some acid? Like the old days before, you know, all the corporate stuff. You’re in! Welcome Burners. And all your cash. A unique and distinctive culture awaits people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, but not us working stiffs.

Welcome To The French Revolution

Ten principles for Burning Man: Radical Inclusion, Gifting, Decommodification (which basically means no sponsors), Radical Self Reliance, Radical Self Expression (although any and all media ‘projects’ have to be pre approved), and on and on. It reads like the French Revolution’s ‘Rights of Man’ Declaration. You know the one where the peasants are crushed and everyone ends up living through Thermidor II.

Stupid Rules At The Radical Burning Man Festival

And the rules. Don’t run that noisy generator at night. If your truck is old bring plywood to catch the oil dripping from that nasty crankcase. Watch out for the undercover cops checking up to see that you’re not trafficking. Be careful of your carbon footprint. Oh by the way, Burning Man has a bigger carbon footprint on average than the dirtiest of the dirty polluters. Don’t worry about that though. Nothing to see here folks. Move along.

Burning Man is a symbol of the possibilities of Silicon Valley. That’s why I wanted to go. A temporary society built on the ‘No Rules’ Punk and Anarchist pathos. Sadly the Burning Man approach to customers is basically ‘so long suckas’. So yes. Sadly, Burning Man is in fact a symbol of the possibilities of Silicon Valley.

America We Have A Problem

Yep All this tech. We’re On It! Really good at customer service. We give you an experience. We’re here for the environment. We use cloth bags. We Care. The truth is you wait on the phone or on line for service for hours. You can’t get a seat at the Genius Bar and they’re just going to tell you to buy a new iPad. No one cares about your problem because you’re not Jeff Bezos. Steve Jobs is turning over in his grave.

I thought these burning man guys were really smart savvy artists and computer geniuses. Turns out they’re just a bunch of idiots. Despite all the tools available they can’t figure out how to create an event with a seamlessly positive experience for people from the first contact and ticket sale, to the event itself, to heading home happy after its over. And then there’s the police state thing. Customer satisfaction? Oh wait. That would be capitalism. Let’s talk about it in Why Burning Man Still Sucks 2017-Podcast 616.

Yes, I know this is sacrilege but…Sponsored by X Government Cars.

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