Always Think.

Yesterday, March 19, Apple shared their new plan to implement stock buy backs and dividends for their investors. The tech goliath has recently found its net worth climbing to almost 100 billion dollars, making it the most profitable publicly traded company in the world.

National Public Radio reported yesterday that Apple plans to move nearly 60 percent of its revenues to off shore accounts in the year. This move, NPR says, keeps Apple from having to pay out large amounts of taxes to the United States Government.

The Star Press reported that the company will pay nearly 10 billion back to its investors in the first year, but with a projected 70 to 85 billion dollars being added throughout the rest of the year, Apple can afford it.

Former CEO Steve Jobs had continually halted the possibility of a major dividend in the past. He had instead suggested using the excess of wealth to acquire companies and materials needed to continue innovating new products. The proposed plan, green lighted by the new CEO Tim Cook, marks a new business strategy for the company. Cook feels it will only strengthen bonds between the company and its investors.

“On Monday, Cook said that, with as much cash as Apple has on hand, a dividend won’t restrain the company’s options.” Reports the Star Press.

While we’re on the subject of thinking, why not take a moment to delve into the psychology of Daniel Kahneman, psychologist and the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics.

We often here of Nobel laureates and collect small tidbits of their contributions to humanity, but in Kahneman’s case, we might be encouraged to look further. In a Charlie Rose interview held Tuesday night on PBS, Kahneman sat down with Rose to share the ideas illustrated in his new book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” In Kahneman’s new book, he describes three ways in which people come to decisions and the sometimes lacking thought processes that come from them.

Collaborating with long time associate Amos Tversky beginning the 70’s, the two psychologists discovered several fascinating truths about the way people think.

*More to come.

I started to read John Paton’s dialogue, and then I stopped.

It’s hard to read, at least the first couple of pages: they’re scary. I read this and felt terrified, and then I kept reading and became enlightened.

Paton outlined the demise.

“Or worse still, mediocre journalists, wrapping themselves in the flag of long-form journalism, to deride the value of social media as a reporting tool. A tool they don’t understand or care to understand.”

Paton goes on to say that he cant believe the same mediocre journalists are complaining that 140 characters aren’t enough. He wishes he could go back and start in 140 character increments. He knows its a more efficient way to practice journalism, and that he could have done much more if he were limited to fewer words.

I hope I have a dream tonight where I see into a present time in which 140 character stories emerged as early as the 1990’s. Where would we be when it comes to getting/giving information? What kind of information would we value?

“Rome burns.” Paton said.

The newspaper model is totally broken, and we have to replace it.

Take the car I drive. After 200,000 miles, it doesn’t matter how much I love or care for my Acura Legend, it is on the decline, and it will die. It is also an it. There is no mending because cars aren’t people, and only organic things can come back from this kind of disease.

I could spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to repair my car as it ages, but eventually I will have to buy a new car, and what will I think of the money I spent trying to keep a broken car alive?

After it has burned to nothing, what is left?

Paton’s advice is to start over. He illustrates a future for the stubborn journalist, and for the enlightened journalist.

We are not the gate keepers of information anymore, but we are still journalists. It doesn’t matter if millions of people have a twitter account, it matters that we continue to expand on the real context of the story.

The only criticism I have of Paton’s words is that he doesn’t seem to see any negative side to the digital news revolution. I believe transparency is important, and I agree that we should look to those in the digital field to help us reinvent journalism as a business, but this revolution is still very new, and I am still quite afraid.

Just as easily as the internet killed print journalism, and given the increasingly rapid growth of all things digital, what is going to happen next?

"When function defines form, the results are often spectacular." -BikeExif

Once you’ve had a moment to pick your mouth up from the floor, consider the larger idea at work here.

What you see before you is a motorcycle. Sure this particular example was perfectly built, redefines the word ‘one off,’ and performs to the extent of the heavens, but it’s still just a bicycle with a motor, right?

Wrong.

This Norton 750 is different than the rest, and by the rest, I mean anything else that happens to exist currently or in the past. It is a bike that has been given a life, and a responsibility, to one specific person. I wont name the owner of the Norton, but I do applaud him.

Whoever he is, or whatever he does, doesn’t matter. What matters is that he is somebody who wanted more than what was readily available, and he took the time to shape his vision into something only he could understand.

I think this motorcycle is perfect, and I cant, or wont, imagine a world where people lose sight of what really counts. You dont have to love this Norton to understand the message it illustrates. You just have to go with your gut, ask yourself what you want, and never settle for less.

The owners name is Dan Rose.

There’s something about the phrase, ‘Always Think’, that I wanted more people to understand. This world is our world, and we all get through it in different ways. Blogs are a way for us all to get to know each other. Whether its political, scientific, or phony bologna; its a window into your world and what your thinking.

I always wanted to just walk around asking people what they were thinking of right before I walked up, but I never did. Now is the chance for me to share my thoughts, and for you all to share yours.

This blog will be used for a class assignment and for things that happen in my day to day life. I hope you will learn from it, and that I will learn you.

Comment often. Thanks.

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