The Market, Energy, And Political Page, Part 3, T+68 -- October 25, 2018

The next big thing: I assume folks have started seeing ads for Capital One Cafes now. This is very, very interesting. I'm not sure what it's all about, (n)or where it will lead. But I am also noticing this: the local Starbucks is now being used by those waiting for their flights from DFW. They come in with their roll-on luggage, do some work, and when it's time to board, Uber / Lyft arrives. Obviously due to TSA, etc, they need to leave a bit early but thinking a bit outside the box, one can see where this might lead. Or not. But that Capital One Cafe -- now, that's interesting.

Music and dance. What is it about "humans," that we love music and we love to dance? The music part: Steve Jobs -- was he really, really lucky or was he really that smart? A little of both, perhaps.

Folks are paying $14.99/month for Apple Music -- two nights ago my wife heard a version of "Have You Ever Seen The Rain" over the closing scenes of a particularly poignant NCIS: Miami. She wanted to download that version to her playlist and she was willing to buy it. After a bit of searching -- that's a story in and of itself -- I found the version she was looking for. It was on YouTube -- done by an indie and had less than a thousand views. But she wanted that song. I downloaded it and converted it to an MP3 (three clicks?) and she had it. The next step: moving it to her iTunes Playlist.

Let's move on.

At the YouTube site with less than a thousand views, there were four comments.

the first: "I loved that song...

the second: "I did, too.... I can't find it anywhere....

the third: "It's by Jonathan Clark. I hope it's at the iTunes store soon....

the fourth, from a company representative: "It will be available on iTunes soon."

Anyone who doesn't think companies don't have people employed to watch social media ... The internet of things, I tell you, is well beyond what most of us think.

That was Tuesday night. Last night, 24 hours later, my wife rushed into the room in which I was watching the Red Sox-Dodgers game and told me the song was now on iTunes.

She had paid her $1.29 and it was now "officially" on her playlist.

I said for $14.99/month she could have so much more .... she said she would never spend $14.99/month for music. LOL. Let's see what happens a year from now.

By the way, I hated that version and had to listen to it all night while looking for it, converting it, downloading it, moving it, etc.

Time travel. Last night I talked to my brother-in-law who lives in Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles. He called to ask me if was watching "the game." We talked, and then I mentioned that I thought Arches National Park, or more generally, the national parks in Utah were #2 among the nation's parks -- Grand Canyon, #1, followed by the parks in Utah, and then Yellowstone, #3. He said Yellowstone was still #1 or #2. Be that as it may, he said that he happened to be in Arches National Park and Moab, Utah, last week. I was, too, driving back from Montana. For all we know, we were in the park the same same day/same night. I visited the park but drove through Moab on the way home. He and his wife stayed overnight in Moab. Wow, what a great country. Both of us "500 miles" away from home and unbeknownst to both of us, probably passed each other on the highway.

The internet of things:

Broken down into its component parts the Internet of Things is four separate Internets. It is comprised of an: Internet of Me; Internet of Us; Internet of It; and, an Internet of Those. The first two categories are the sensors that will collect information about one specific person or groups of people. The latter two categories are the new sensors coming on line that won’t collect information about people at all. The Internet of It will collect information about one device and the Internet of Those about many devices.

More at Forbes, 2015. My wife is very, very afraid of IoT. I love it.

And again, it will be blockchain.