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"Metrics. Measures. How high? How low? How fast? How slow? Ever since the dawn of humankind, we've had an innate and insatiable desire to measure and compare. We started with the Egyptian cubit and the Mediterranean traders' grain in the 3rd millennium BC. Today we have clicks per second, likes, app downloads, stars, and a zillion other ways to measure what we do. "

"It means wars. It means famines. It means raging forest fires and the death of grasslands. September 26, 2013 | Three quarters of a billion people is a lot of people. And that's how many people, within the next 22 years, will almost certainly run low on water - a necessity of life - in just the regions whose rivers are supplied with water from the glaciers in the Himalayas. "

Objective. Sociologists of technology propose that not only a technological artifact, as such, but also patterns of usage should be considered when studying the social implications of technologies. Accordingly, we explore how people's online activities are influenced by users' socioeconomic status and context of use. Methods. We analyze data from the Allensbacher Computer and Technology Analysis (ACTA) 2004 survey with uniquely detailed information about people's Internet uses and context of usage to explore this relationship. Results. Findings suggest that highstatus and low-status individuals cultivate different forms of ''Internet-in-practice.'' High-status users are much more likely to engage in so-called capital-enhancing activities online than are their less privileged counterparts. Conclusion. Results suggest differential payoffs from Internet use depending on a user's socioeconomic background. Digital inequalities might be mitigated by improving people's Internet equipment and digital experience, but they do not account for all the status differential in use.

"by Joshua Gay - Published on Jan 06, 2016 02:42 PM The world of computer hardware products is in many respects a dark and dismal place when it comes to computer user freedom: graphics processors, network controllers, and even the low-level boot systems of most computers use proprietary software. However, we know that this situation is not due to a lack of demand from users for hardware that respects them. People want this, but in the absence of options, have just resigned themselves to accepting mistreatment. "

"But costing upwards of £4,000, it may take a while for a Powerwall to pay for itself. by Sebastian Anthony - Feb 8, 2016 12:17pm CET"