GlobeSt.com’s Real Estate Technology Blog
A decade ago, when I named my first wireless network Cry for Help, I was more intent on keeping technology at arm’s length than bonding with it. I didn’t understand even the basic equipment I owned and constantly worried that it would just stop working, for no apparent reason.
I thought computers devoured data for sport, to boost their AI quotient in preparation for some future robot uprising.
There’s a little publicized provision in US Postal Service rules that can protect you from your own stupidity. It gives you the chance to recall letters you sent, by accident or impulse.
You have to act fast, of course, because you can’t recall something that’s already been delivered.
I’ve never seen the Postal Service advertise this option. And none of the people I asked in an unscientific, informal survey knew they could recall something they’d mailed.
So riddle me this: At a time when the volume of First-Class mail is falling-and the Postal Service claims it needs junk mail to survive-why isn’t the Right to Recall the focus of a nationwide ad campaign? It’s the single most significant advantage postal mail has over e-mail. Continue reading ‘You’ve Got Mail–Maybe’
I once considered early adopters of technology more sophisticated than the average person. But now I think they’re just tech obsessed…or, in the ca
se of Apple enthusiasts, people with unusually large supplies of disposable income.
After my experience with betamax, MiniDiscs, LaserDiscs, recordable DVD players and other so-called next big things, I’ve grown cautious with new technologies.
I’ve never had time for patience. But I don’t have the money to be impulsive anymore.
I fell in love with digital everything when I realized the technology reduced the clutter on my desk.
With everything from documents to photos in digital formats, I can store my files neatly and easily in the random reaches of cyberspace.
As a Virgo of German ancestry, educated by nuns in Roman Catholic schools, I have triple the obsession with order as the average person.
RFID tags tags may someday allow us to breeze in and out of retail stores. But for now we have what’s left of our privacy, and the pleasure of confronting The Checkout Lane.
Retail technology is like real estate on a movie set. It looks impressive, but it’s not.
If technology is as good as I think, then why am I always so tired?
The problem isn’t lack of sleep. It’s lack of dreams.
Sometimes, technology 
fails. And when it does, it ends up in the trunk of my car.
There’s a hard drive in there, along with a keyboard, a CD-ROM drive and a cell phone. There are two motherboards—the one that originally failed as well as the defective replacement I received from the manufacturer.
The broken products are all wrapped and packaged, ready to return to the manufacturer. But here’s the problem. The same technology that allows me to track a shipment in real time by phone or Internet precludes me from scheduling return package pick-up. Continue reading ‘Just Bouncing Around’
I once listened-unwittingly-almost exclusively to the sounds of Robert Fripp. For the uninitiated, suffice to say that Fripp is a musician that takes a real commitment to like. I didn’t have it.
One of the few things on a short list of things I liked about Fripp was his use of a quote by J.G. Bennett.
Bennett was a man of many talents–a mathematician, scientist, technologist and industrial research director, better known as a philosopher and mystic. Long after the cacophony of Fripp’s music faded, Bennett’s quote lives on.
”If you have an unpleasant nature and dislike people, this is no obstacle to Work.”
Continue reading ‘If Only Technology Could Make Me…Pleasant’
The good news: Zillow dropped the unrealistically high value on my home. The bad news: Zillow dropped the unrealistically high value on my home. Continue reading ‘Maybe Honesty–or Accuracy–Isn’t as Good as They Say’
Back in the dark, dark pre-Internet days, I ran into a boy I knew from high school. The last time I’d seen him he was working in sales. So I was somewhat surprised when he told me he had become a roofer. I was even more surprised when I asked him where he learned the trade, and he told me, nonchalantly, “from a book.” Continue reading ‘Masters of Nothing’
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