Shahriar Shibley

The. volume of online commerce is increasing everyday. The question arises, whether it all coming at the expense of brick and mortar stores. Or is it coming mostly from a century old media, the mail order catalog industry? Online industry is competing against a format of retailing which was in existence for thousands of years. But, in terms of economic sensibility, how much should online retailing should expand on? Big box retailing is labor intensive. Starting from front line salespeople to warehouse employee and management, retailers have to deal with a huge payroll. But is online retailing a whole lot less labor intensive? It is true they don't need front line salespeople, but they need to support a bigger IT department and shipping operation. From customer perspective, websites gives the opportunity to see who is offering what and at what price. You can save yourself from the trouble of going to the shopping mall and walk in the Isles by ordering online. But remember someon...

Solar panels are playing a major role in powering International Space Station, space probes, communication satellites, space telescopes and rovers roaming on Mars. But here on earth, not so much. Big cities should be flooded with solar panels. All the highrises must have solar panels on the roof, batteries and inverters in the basement. The electricity generated can be consumed by the building or sold to the local grid. Imagine, if every building generated its own electricity, the amount of relief the local grid will enjoy. Imagine the amount of fossil fuel that will be saved, sparing the atmosphere of tons of green house gas. Big cities are jungles of highrises, consuming huge amount of electricity. Solar panels on a highrise can be compared to leaves on tree. As leaves produce nutrition for the tree using sunlight, solar panels can generate electricity for the building. So, bigger the building, the more solar panels (leaves) it should have. By the middle of this century, most car...