Random Thoughts

A Historic Day For Intellectual Property

  A recent column discussed the historical context for the emergence of intellectual property as the new and most important valuation of a company.   While this point of view is becoming more main stream every day the current problem is that there is no l ...

Article - David Houle - Apr 30 2007 - 8:00am

GM, Toyota And The Federal Government- A Historical Perspective

  The news out of Detroit last week was that GM had given up the title of the world’s number one auto company to Toyota.   This was a development that had been expected, but when both companies reported first quarter sales last week, the numbers made it o ...

Article - David Houle - May 9 2007 - 12:53am

A Blast From The Past

  A newspapers function is to report the news.   It is also to sell newspapers.   As a result we the readers usually are subjected to endless articles about national and local politics, the disaster in Iraq, the latest news of the celebrity or celebrity c ...

Article - David Houle - May 22 2007 - 7:35am

A 20th Century Habit

Last week it was reported that the ratings board of the motion picture industry is now going to factor in cigarette smoking as part of the overall rating of a film.Films with excessive smoking will now certainly get a PG-13, if not an R rating.The goal is ...

Article - David Houle - Dec 30 2017 - 10:10pm

Leading Thinkers And Scientists On Energy- Dennis M. Bushnell, NASA Chief Scientist

  This column begins a new feature for this blog.   Every week or two, for the near future, I plan to have an interview with a well respected scientist or thinker on the subject of energy.   Regular readers of this blog know that I believe that facing and ...

Article - David Houle - Jun 12 2007 - 12:18am

Time Capsule For 2057

  On  Friday, June 15, 2007, a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere was lifted out of its’ underground vault near Tulsa Oklahoma.   It had been buried on June 15, 1957 to both commemorate the 50 th anniversary of Oklahoma becoming a state, and to serve as a time capsu ...

Article - David Houle - Jun 23 2007 - 9:44am

Expanding The Definition Of Life

  I have always been in the camp of those that think that there is life elsewhere in the universe.   Statistically, the universe is too vast, practically beyond human comprehension, for there not to be some form of life elsewhere.   Those that have argued ...

Article - David Houle - Jul 10 2007 - 10:33am

Made In China

  Fifteen years ago, when Americans went shopping and came across the   phrase “Made in China” it usually was on small, inexpensive trinkets, toys and souvenirs.   Ten years ago we started to see these words on apparel.   Five years ago we started to see ...

Article - David Houle - Aug 2 2007 - 12:47pm

A New Cell Phone Milestone

  In a prior column, I have written about the transformative power of the cell phone.   Currently there are more than 2.1 billion cell phone accounts in the world and more than 220 million in the US.   More people have cell phones than have computers or u ...

Article - David Houle - Aug 29 2007 - 7:31am

Grand Children And Polar Bears

  I have written here several times about the fact that the U.S. crossed a tipping point in 2006 regarding global warming.   It is now a subject that a majority of Americans have awareness of and are concerned about.   As with most large issues that are c ...

Article - David Houle - Sep 13 2007 - 10:59pm