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John C. Morley: (0:08)
Hi everyone I’m John C. Morley. The host of the JMOR TECH TALK show and inspirations for your life.
John C. Morley: (1:01)
Well Hi everyone. It is John C. Morley, serial entrepreneur, and welcome once again to another fine issue of the JMOR TECH TALK Show.
John C. Morley: (1:10)
And so today I want to share with you something really interesting.
John C. Morley: (1:15)
You know a lot is going on overseas.
John C. Morley: (1:18)
And you know we’re not sure what’s happening or you know what’s going on but I think at the end of the day a lot is happening.
John C. Morley: (1:28)
And what’s happening is starting to upset more than how can I say a few apple carts.
John C. Morley: (1:37)
I mean I think that’s probably I mean that’s probably the best way to say it, right.
John C. Morley: (1:42)
You know there is so much going on and nobody seems to know, you know, what’s happening why this is going on or, you know, why it’s not happening.
John C. Morley: (1:51)
And I think that happens because you know people just act but they don’t know why.
John C. Morley: (1:58)
And one of the most important things I want to talk with important things but I want to talk about today.
John C. Morley: (2: 02)
Why the Internet backbones are getting cut off in Russia?
John C. Morley: (2:06)
I mean this is a real serious problem.
John C. Morley: (2:09)
You know we were following this trend not too long ago that certain services were being interrupted because of you know the invasion of Ukraine from Russia with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Spotify, Netflix, and others placing at least now partial restrictions on Russian content.
John C. Morley: (2:33)
This is getting crazy.
John C. Morley: (2:37)
If not, many other things are getting blocked too in Russia.
John C. Morley: (2:40)
And what we’ve been noticing is that as this is evolving global Internet went a lot deeper than they expected.
John C. Morley: (2:50)
And two of the world’s largest internet service providers Lumen technologies and Cognitive communication said they would block Russian customers from their networks over fears that their networks could be used by the Russian government for cyberattacks against the West.
John C. Morley: (3:08)
This is just insane but my question is they’re hurting citizens so how is this gonna impact them I think not too well.
John C. Morley: (3:21)
And so, it’s only going to get worse unfortunately gentlemen before it gets better.
John C. Morley: (3:26)
And I get why they’re doing this, don’t get me wrong, it’s just we’re hurting a lot of innocent people and I and I think it’s unfair.
John C. Morley: (3:35)
And it gets unfair.
John C. Morley: (3:38)
Well, do you guys remember, you know many years ago some of you that are watching this probably don’t know what I’m talking about but there are these little round little plates or we call them something we call them CDs and yes CDs are coming back.
John C. Morley: (3:56)
Yep, compact disc sales in the US grew for the first time since 2004 last year rising by 584.2 million.
John C. Morley: (4:06)
This is according to the Record Industry Association of America.
John C. Morley: (4:10)
So, combining CD and vinyl sales in 2021 helped drive the first year of sales growth for physical music since 1996.
John C. Morley: (4:21)
CDs dominate the music industry in the 90s peaking at just around 13.2 billion annual sales in 2020.
John C. Morley: (4:30)
And that’s per Axios.
John C. Morley: (4:32)
So, CDs are going to be coming back a little bit.
John C. Morley: (4:36)
And I think they’re coming back because a lot of older generations may not know how to download it MP what 3,4 when we’ve been talking about.
John C. Morley: (4:45)
And so that’s an issue and then where do you get that thing that you put the CD in is that a CD toaster or a CD what CD player.
John C. Morley: (4:55)
And so, I think the value of not only CDs but also CD players is going to be going up because more people are finding that they were very convenient they were affordable and they didn’t require a lot of technical savvy.
John C. Morley: (5:11)
I bet that’s something that many of you didn’t expect to happen.
John C. Morley: (5:17)
So, get out your dust Buster your broom, or your air cannon blow off some of that accumulated dust on your CD player.
John C. Morley: (5:31)
And so, CDs are cheap and have dirt and I think they could be going up more price.
John C. Morley: (5:42)
Why else is there an upsurge?
John C. Morley: (5:43)
Well, this may not be important but if you buy a 4K UHD DVD player you’ll be getting a DNA converter that eclipses the best consumer leveled EACS from 10 to 15 years ago.
John C. Morley: (5:56)
So, this is pretty interesting and a lot of people are starting to realize this plus what I mentioned to you about you know seniors and older generations not wanting to download an MP what or how do you download it? or where do you go? or what’s a USB? or a USB stick? a USB drive? how do you save it? save it where? click a lot a mouse what's that?
John C. Morley: (6:19)
And I mean we're joking here but seriously some people don't understand how to have it downloaded or how to play their files or how to transfer them using iTunes onto their different Apple devices etc.
John C. Morley: (6:34)
It becomes a little bit of an enigma for some people so they'd rather just use a CD and not to mention a lot of cars had the ability and some still do. Well, you can put the CD in it will rip the CD basically to the digital hard drive.
John C. Morley: (6:49)
And so, when that happens you can get rid of the scene, right.
John C. Morley: (6:55)
And so, when we say ripping a CD, we’re digitizing it into a file which then can be either copied to another file or transported to another device.
John C. Morley: (7:14)
But that’s been something that the cars have had for a while and I think it’s pretty cool.
John C. Morley: (7:20)
So, we’re gonna have to see where are CDs going? but they are going definitely somewhere interesting and I think it’s gonna bring back some controversy and it’s probably going to raise the prices of CDs and the likely equipment that we used to play them.
John C. Morley: (7:39)
Well so CDs are back and just pay attention to that but you know Russia, here we go again, they are intensifying their censorship campaigns.
John C. Morley: (7:51)
They’re pressuring the giant tech companies and Adam Sen Torino from the New York Times and I want to quote “as Russia attacks Ukraine, the authorities in Moscow are intensifying a censorship campaign at home by squeezing some of the world’s biggest tech companies. Russian authorities warned Google, meta, apple, Twitter, Tick Tok, and others that they had until the end all this month to comply with the new law that requires them to set up legal entities in the country. The so-called landing law makes the companies and their employees more vulnerable to Russia’s legal system and the demands of government censors, legal experts, and civil society groups said”.
John C. Morley: (8:42)
So, I think what’s going on right now is that Russia has always been about protecting what information gets out and we know that the media does this interesting job of blocking what’s good information. Let’s take COVID for example.
John C. Morley: (9:02)
A lot of superfluous and useless information was disseminated to us about COVID.
John C. Morley: (9:09)
Some scared people some didn’t faze anyone depending on who it was but the bottom line was “they were doing it not to warn people” and I’m sorry to say this they were doing this to increase viewership, to increase people buying their paper or their magazine.
John C. Morley: (9:29)
And I know that’s not nice to say but hey it’s the truth I’m a registered journalist and also a registered biographer so I always try to print the truth but a lot of people try to print what is going to sell magazines or what’s going to sell subscriptions.
John C. Morley: (9:42)
I don’t know I think that’s important I think you can’t print stuff that’s not true or things that are leaving out the truth.
John C. Morley: (9:49)
So, I think that’s really really important ladies and gentlemen and so that’s a challenge, and as you and I are traveling to work or friends or family members.
John C. Morley: (10:02)
I’m sure this next topic is gonna hit a chord. Yes, gas prices Oh my gosh.
John C. Morley: (10:07)
So, gas prices are just soaring.
John C. Morley: (10:12)
I mean record highs for gas prices.
John C. Morley: (10:17)
The U.S ban on Russian energy products to drive oil prices to new highs in the near terms coming up.
John C. Morley: (10:25)
And there’s an organization you guys may or may not know but they’ve been around for a long time and they’re called OPEC organization for the petroleum exporting countries.
John C. Morley: (10:36)
And they are are intergovernmental organization oil demand supply market upstream, downstream, Vienna, Austria and this has been around for quite a while it was founded on September 14, 1960, in Baghdad by the first five members and since 1965 has been headquartered in Vienna, Austria.
John C. Morley: (11:01)
Although Austria is not an OPEC member state.
John C. Morley: (11:03)
That’s very interesting.
John C. Morley: (11:04)
So, what’s the main purpose of OPEC I thought you never ask.
John C. Morley: (11:08)
Well, their objective is to coordinate and unified petroleum policies among member countries to secure a fair and stable price for petroleum producers and keep efficient economic regular supply chains of petroleum to consuming nations.
John C. Morley: (11:27)
And so fair is something that I think many of us will disagree with the way gas prices are changing and you know gas prices in the US are all over the place right they’re all over the place.
John C. Morley: (11:44)
Let’s just take a look at Alaska right now.
John C. Morley: (11:48)
Alaska is coming in at $4.72 for regular, $4.88 for midgrade, 5.06 for premium, and 5.05 for diesel.
John C. Morley: (noon)
Alright, let’s take a look at a state that’s pretty low, North Dakota, well Nebraska is even lower at 3.89 on the low, 4.0 on the mid, 4.41 on the thigh, and 4.74 on the diesel.
John C. Morley: (12:19)
So, let’s take a look at New Jersey. So the low in New Jersey is 4.33, the mid is 4.68 and the highest is 4.86 and the diesel is 5.215.
John C. Morley: (12:32)
I have to tell you something, these are averages I went to a gas station the other day and I paid well over $5 but I said you know what ladies and gentleman, enough is enough!
John C. Morley: (12:44)
And so being an engineer, I said I wanna try something.
John C. Morley: (12:49)
I realized that you know for years we’ve always been told premium gasoline but I started to think about something and realized that this might not be as important as they are saying.
John C. Morley: (13:03)
So, I decided to take middle gas and put about the middle gas I put about 12 gallons in the car, and then I have an 18-gallon tank so I put 6 gallons of the premium and I have to tell you something. I didn’t notice Jack squat.
John C. Morley: (13:22)
Now I’m not going on the race track anytime soon so I don’t really need that gazillion octane but my car is performing just fine properly, safely and I have no issues with it, alright.
John C. Morley: (13:37)
Next time I go to the pump. I’m gonna fill up with the low grade and I’m probably going to fill up with like I don’t know maybe eight or nine of below and then I’m going to put the rest in premium.
John C. Morley: (13:48)
So, I’ll play with it. so I would just tell you to try it out because my pump bill the other day went from, let’s say over $100 to now being just around 60 bucks and I bet with this other hack I’m doing I’ll probably cut my bill down to 40 bucks.
John C. Morley: (14:09)
They say it’s not good for your engine but I have to believe that you know they're in cahoots with the people selling gas.
John C. Morley: (14:16)
So, I was very pleasantly surprised at how well my car performed after this little hack and you know I’ve had situations where I’ve had problems with gas and I always thought it was because you know it was the quality gas.
John C. Morley: (14:36)
Well, it was. it had nothing to do with whether it was low medium or high, it had to do with the fact that maybe there was water that was put in like maybe the purveyor just came with a delivery recently, and that caused a big problem.
John C. Morley: (14:49)
So, be smart about this. use this hack. try it to see if it works for you and hey it might just save some gas prices but you know the real reason why gas prices are going up is because of what’s going on with Russia.
John C. Morley: (15:05)
You know invading Ukraine and growing worries over supply disruptions from Russia and a possible delay in the Iran U.S nuclear deal amid surging global demand has pushed oil prices to know $130 a barrel.
John C. Morley: (15:23)
Prices for WTI crude surged more than $0.78 so far just this year and we’re only in March.
John C. Morley: (15:34)
A similar trend happened in the Asian Brent which gained from a low $77 a barrel in January this year to $130 a barrel.
John C. Morley: (15:45)
I mean this is insane global oil markets were already tight even before Russia.
John C. Morley: (15:51)
And now we had COVID and now it’s like what COVID? but nobody knew anything even happened but I want to tell you something about this whole thing that’s happening with Russia in Ukraine. This didn’t just spring overnight. This has been happening for years.
John C. Morley: (16:05)
So, if you want to know when did this war start. Was it many years ago?
John C. Morley: (16:16)
And I think the answer is yes.
John C. Morley: (16:18)
It started many years ago.
John C. Morley: (16:20)
So, why is Russia invading Ukraine, right?
John C. Morley: (16:26)
I think that’s what everybody wants to know.
John C. Morley: (16:33)
The reason why Russia is invading Ukraine and what does Putin want? it’s pretty simple according to them to stop the war the Russian leader wants Ukraine to recognize Crimea as part of Russia and to recognize the independence of the separatist run.
John C. Morley: (16:53)
So, I feel right now that by the fascist since 2014. So, Mr. Putin has spoken of bringing to court and I quote those who committed numerous bloody crimes against civilians”.
John C. Morley: (17:10)
He denied aiming to occupy Ukraine and he rejected a UK accusation before the war that he was plotting to install a pro-Kremlin puppet.
John C. Morley: (17:21)
One unconfirmed Intelligence Report says “he aims to split the country in two”.
John C. Morley: (17:27)
So, I think ladies and gentlemen this is something that’s been on Mr. Putin’s plan since 2014 and he was just waiting for the right moment to strike.
John C. Morley: (17:37)
you know COVID was kind of getting to its end and hopefully going into remission I don’t want to say COVID’S gone but I like to say it’s kind of like cancer it’s gone in remission and hopefully, it doesn’t come back but at least Putin didn’t try anything during the COVID situation but he waited till things got a little quiet and then he decided to launch this.
John C. Morley: (17:57)
So, I still don’t think it’s a good time but we’re going to have to be smart about using gas many companies including our starting this past week imposed a surcharge of $15 per service visit outside of the office or any delivery.
John C. Morley: (18:13)
And you might think that’s crazy but a lot of customers understand why it’s being done just, you know don’t put it into your price, I recommend that you actually put it in as a fuel surcharge that’s going to be important and then when it goes away it’s not part of the price, OK.
John C. Morley: (18:31)
But a lot of companies are trying to gouge consumers by putting it into the price and then they never take it away, don’t do that, that’s just below the belt.
John C. Morley: (18:40)
Well, for those of you that are in Washington state back in December.
John C. Morley: (18:48)
Mr. Inslee asked lawmakers to approve rebates for the purchase of new and used electronic vehicles with bigger benefits for low-income suit consumers and a household earning 61,000 or less annually could claim 12,500 tell to pay for a new EV priced at less than 55,000”.
John C. Morley: (19:10)
And you know this is a problem because they have decided now to get rid of this.
John C. Morley: (19:17)
So, if you are counting on those generous rebates from the state of Washington to help cover your new electric vehicle purchase well, unfortunately, you’re barking up the wrong tree. good luck! at least for the time being.
John C. Morley: (19:31)
So, the legislation wrapped up in the 2022 session, not too long ago without approving this generous suite of electric vehicle rebates proposed by governor J. Inslee.
John C. Morley: (19:45)
And however, they did approve a 25 million for Evie Rae rebate starting later this year Tory in what it’s called “overburdened communities”.
John C. Morley: (19:56)
And there’s an additional 95 million earmarked to help consumers by EVIEs but it won’t come into play until the middle of next year.
John C. Morley: (20:04)
So, law market makers did take other steps to Rev up the transition to electrification “our fundamental policy choice this year was to focus on charging infrastructure” said Senator Reuven Carlyle DCL Democrat for Seattle.
John C. Morley: (20:25)
So, legislative EVIE action included 69.5 million for developing EV charging infrastructure in Washington for rural areas multifamily housing, office Building, Schools, and other public locations.
John C. Morley: (20:39)
3 million for charging infrastructure at state-owned sites.
John C. Morley: (20:43)
8.5 million to map and forecast a plan for EV charging infrastructures and a bill that prevents homeowner associations from restricting the installation of EV charging hardware.
John C. Morley: (20:56)
That’s going to be interesting ladies and gentlemen because if they can’t restrict them, you know that’s gonna do, is gonna force the HOA’s to start having to cough up the bucks and now they’re gonna have to.
John C. Morley: (21:12)
That’s right Jack up the HOA fees.
John C. Morley: (21:14)
So, very interesting what’s going on? we will keep you posted because I think this is a very important trend that’s going on and it’s something we need to be concerned about so we talked a lot about this and we talked a lot about gas.
John C. Morley: (21:33)
I don’t want to let you know that the average national gas price according to the American automobile AAA of America.
John C. Morley: (21:45)
So, the national average is $4.32 now that’s for the low, okay.
John C. Morley: (21:53)
National retail prices, OK, have gone anywhere from 3.818 only up to 5.74 and what we’re noticing is that the highest prices.
John C. Morley: (22:11)
So, I’m in New Jersey and we’re still getting hit again this shows New Jersey to be around 4.287 to 4.464 right now.
John C. Morley: (22:21)
But I was paying over 5 because the gas station did it again. it’s by the average.
John C. Morley: (22:26)
So, the ones that are raping people are DC Connecticut, and yes Hawaii. there are capping people but I have to say California is the height that California is a 5.74, that’s high, extremely high.
John C. Morley: (22:50)
So, there are different websites you can go to learn about you know where you can get gas cheaper but try that hack that I shared with you.
John C. Morley: (22:59)
I think you’re going to find it pretty interesting and you’re going to find out that unless you’re trying to go 9 years 100 miles which is kind of illegal.
John C. Morley: (23:07)
Then you’re probably not gonna have any issues with that but a lot of people don’t want to do it because of the hassle of having to run your card twice because you have to stop the pump but hey if the gas station gives you a hard time will go to another gas station hey it’s your money it’s your car.
John C. Morley: (23:24)
And you know that’s it’s pretty interesting and hitting the road with the blue cruise recently is the advanced driver aid operates on some 130,000 miles of crude roadway in North America.
John C. Morley: (23:40)
And for the most part, they are saying it works well according to some of the spokespeople.
John C. Morley: (23:47)
And so, what are blue cruise basics? well the first thing, let’s cover with blue cruises and what is not it’s a technology uses hands-free driving aid. it only works on approved divided highways so-called blue zones of which there are about 130,000 miles in North America.
John C. Morley: (24:06)
So, the system can accelerate steer, and stop the vehicle as traffic and road conditions dictate.
John C. Morley: (24:13)
Simply put, think of this as a hands-free version of adaptive cruise control with lane centering.
John C. Morley: (24:19)
Now I already have that on my car and I don’t need blue cruise basics.
John C. Morley: (24:25)
So, I’m not sure what this is gonna bring to the table if it’s going to be any more robust than my car once I set it my car will either maintain the speed limit to go you know it has to let’s say go faster to maintain it because of road conditions it will slow down if the following distance becomes a lot less and makes it safe.
John C. Morley: (24:51)
But I think you know everything that’s happening in our world is supposedly trying to make our lives safer and to make communication and hope to maybe lower insurance bills, right.
John C. Morley: (25:05)
But there is so much happening in our world right now with new technologies hitting and I think also the fact of the concern of the American people, right.
John C. Morley: (25:17)
We’re not hearing COVID much anymore what COVID what but they’re somethings and I think we just have to be aware of what’s going on because things that we expect to be a certain way, might be different tomorrow.
John C. Morley: (25:38)
And why is that less that’s because our world is morphing?
John C. Morley: (25:41)
it’s changing and it’s something that is going to affect the supply chain, right.
John C. Morley: (25:53)
But when I talk to people around the world and different suppliers that we use manufacturers, when will the tech supply chain get better? and I think it’s all basically because of that ship shortage, right.
John C. Morley: (26:15)
I was talking to a local store in town that sells ink that they put in cartridges, not the manufacturing more like OEM INK.
John C. Morley: (26:30)
And so, he was telling me the reason that’s a challenge for them is that they can’t get the chips and some of the printers require that chip to work.
John C. Morley: (26:38)
And so, if we had to ask the question when will the supply chain you know kind of lack a little bit.
John C. Morley: (26:47)
Companies are scrambling to get goods in stores and distribution centers by the end of the year for holidays now.
John C. Morley: (26:57)
I mean that’s crazy, right.
John C. Morley: (27:00)
We’re now near holidays but I know some stores were putting up signs for things that weren’t even prevalent and then suddenly they did discounts at the end because their supply came like 30 months 30 days later now 30 months but it’s seeming like 30 months, isn’t it?
John C. Morley: (27:19)
So, a normal supply chain is unlikely until the greater part of 2022.
John C. Morley: (27:27)
There’s been havoc and there have been no signs of this changing but I have to tell you I have found the things that were taking me a year to get are now starting to take about three months also what I’ve noticed is that specifically in the tech space.
John C. Morley: (27:45)
If you buy a product that is designed for the enterprise because not a lot of people want it and it’s a lot more money, get a lot faster but again it’s more money.
John C. Morley: (27:57)
We have some great guests coming up.
John C. Morley: (28:00)
We have a national psychologist and expert on all types of cyber.
John C. Morley: (28:08)
Let’s say stalking and cyber behaviors and he talks about odor which will learn about and then we have another gentleman coming up from the school system and going to talk a little more about safety and security but more from the perspective of anonymous posting in anonymous social media.
John C. Morley: (28:31)
We hit it on that a little bit you know with one of our guests but I think it’s going to be a great month of March and I hope that you guys are getting great value out of the JMOR TECH TALK Show.
John C. Morley: (28:47)
There’s so much that is going on every day and we pick and choose what we feel is going to be the most important to inform you and to keep you safe and make you aware before things might cost you a fortune and cause you extra headaches that you don’t need.
John C. Morley: (29:08)
Well, it has been great and I guess we have to say goodbye as much as I don’t want to. take care everyone.