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Author Archives: Nathan Lyle

Nathan has been tinkering with computers since the days of the Apple II (and still has a working one in the office). Though born in Livonia, Nathan has lived in the U.P. since he was two (his first memory is breaking into the house because his parents forgot the key) and he wouldn’t trade the snow for anything. When he’s not in front of a computer or chasing one of his four kids around, he likes to write and perform music on any instrument he can get his hands on. His interests include reading and watching science fiction, books on theoretical physics and astronomy, and artificial intelligence.

Google’s Mark of the Beast

No, it’s not a screen shot from an old Atari video game. Google has sent out stickers to hundreds of thousands of businesses, with Google’s QR code encoded with the URL to Google’s Place page, along with a healthy dose of Google branding. The way it works is that a person with a cell phone [...]

The Future of the Internet (and how to stop it)

“This extraordinary book explains the engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity—and reveals that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation—and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control.”  from [...]

Be different!

I’ve long believed that it’s GOOD to be different. When I was a teenager, my mother bought me a book with a picture of several apples and one orange on the cover, called “Dare to be Different.” I laughed when I saw it because being different had never been an issue for me. I was [...]