Author Archives: H.W. MacNaughton

About H.W. MacNaughton

Technologist and communicator. Into technology, jazz, Formula One, sci-fi and any good writing about real stuff.

Trump or Hitler, Part 3 — detailed comparison

In my other blog, I review Hitler: Ascent by Volker Ullrich. I’m now reading Downfall. I bought these books to help me understand how close to authoritarianism we in the U.S. were lurching under Trump. That may sound alarmist but the … Continue reading

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‘Trump or Hitler’ part 2

I’ve been reading Volker Ullrich’s ‘Hitler: Ascent‘ and finding it quite illuminating. The point of this tongue-in-cheek series is to point out Trump’s authoritarian parallels…remember, Hitler rose to power legally, while continuing his attacks on order, truth and social norms. … Continue reading

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‘Trump or Hitler,’ new political parlor game

I’ve been reading Volker Ullrich’s ‘Hitler: Ascent‘ and finding it quite illuminating. And it has sparked an idea – a parlor game called “Trump or Hitler?” Ask these questions of your friends and neighbors. Sure to spark some lively discourse? … Continue reading

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The Fall of America, Part 2: How the Republicans Flim-flammed the American Electorate

Yes, this is a long post. But when you are trying to illustrate how a superpower can fall, it takes some words. In the last installment I discussed how the inevitable leveling of globalization started eroding the well-being of American … Continue reading

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The Fall of America Part One: Winds of Economic of Change

Series: The inevitable weakening of American economics, the disintegration of the American political system, and the rise of a global bureaucracy. In my Pat Hayden Jones universe, the Earth and its colonies are ruled by a bureaucracy. This structure, the … Continue reading

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Dialing in on Nin, and why an SF/F guy is reading her

I’m reading Anaïs Nin this month, having started with Henry and June, her unexpurgated diary (review here), and now have read through more than half of the earlier (heavily edited) Diaries, Vol 1. One might wonder why a Sci Fi … Continue reading

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On Charlotte Shane

I wrote this a year ago. This article still gets hits so it deserves a refresh. I stopped following Ms. Shane not long after writing this and on a recent look at her Twitter stream, the issue I point out … Continue reading

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Seven magnificent use cases for Android Wear

[Edit – I had Jerry’s “run them off the road” quote on the wrong context earlier – fixed.] You know, I like the Android Central podcast. I drive a lot for my job, hours at a time, so I have … Continue reading

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The agony and ecstasy of online reviewing

Professional authors (e.g., folks who can actually live on their authorial earnings) are likely to have really good editors. The editor is known to them, there is give-and-take between author and editor, they build trust over multiple projects, and like … Continue reading

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Using Twitter, a less-than-ambitious but humanistic approach

There are a lot of folks who are really working Twitter. They’re getting to 10,000, maybe 50,000 users as fast as they can….good for them. They use auto-follow and auto-unfollow tools and plan to turn that huge twitter base into … Continue reading

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