PeterB's Comments

What if Steve Jobs Hadn’t Returned to Apple in 1997?

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:04:22 -0500

What if? Maybe NeXT would have become a major successful company, and my NeXT stock (ex option) would have gone to $200, instead of merely becoming worth $10. And I could easily loan my daughter the money to buy a house...

Energy Storage is Not Needed for Renewables Integration

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:07:15 -0500

At least for California, the current hydro capacity (which provides something like 20% of the electricity) could be converted to pumped storage with relatively minor costs. The current water storage has to be enough for several months, while the storage needs for solar is just a few days (judging by my one-house-location solar system), and probably not a lot more for wind. Further, the combination of solar (highest in summer) and hydro (rains in winter) would work well. We can even get closer to restoring the pre-damming natural river flows (mostly in spring), and maybe help the fish populations recover.

VoIP Sales Top $20 Billion in First Half, More Growth to Come

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:10:04 -0500

I continue not to understand why VOIP discussions never mention the solution I and my US-based kids use. The landline is local only (<$20/mo), and calls further than that are via a local number to a VOIP provider, 1.9c/min to any number in the US, no monthly fee, low rates to Europe (2.5c/min to UK, 5c/min to Czech Rep). Our cell phones use the same provider for all non US calls, same rates. Emergency 911 service is normal, no special issues (we had to use it a week ago), 1-800 type calls are normal, etc. Our total phone costs are <1/3 of the lowest rate I could find before.

Google Redefines GPS Navigation Landscape

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:10:13 -0400

I don't want your phone next to your ear at all when you are driving! In many states it would be illegal anyway. Get a mounting thingy so it is in a convenient consistent place for both functions.

On Oct 29 09:48 AM bmesco1 wrote:

> I want my GPS device anchored to my car so I know where to glance
> at it. I don't want it next to my ear.

Adobe Blinks First in Flash Battle with Apple

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:13:36 -0400

Curious. The NeXT computer used a form of Adobe's PDF for the display, and the current MAC operating system is largely derived from the operating system used on that machine (a Unix variant). Old allies fall apart!

Can AT&T Handle the iPhone?

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:57:07 -0400

T-Mobile picking up the iPhone would only require a small phone fix (since they are also GSM), and maybe the rush from unhappy AT&T customers would help pay to upgrade their service. I cannot imagine buying a GSM phone without a SIM card (for cheap calls when visiting relatives etc. in Europe), but my T-Mobile service would presumably be better....

AT&T, Apple Can't Win Fight Against VoIP

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:02:52 -0400

I have not used Truphone, but Tel3 provides a VOIP service that we use for all international calls on both my cell phone (T-Mobile) and my wife's cell phone (Verizon), as well as our landline, and get rates about the same as Skype, and pretty good service. Our phone bill totals about 1/3 of what it did before. Namibia is not on our frequent-call list, but Canada, the UK, Czech Republic, Spain and Germany are.

Does Amazon Need to Be So Highly Regulated?

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:53:06 -0400

I for one am glad that my local water supply is regulated, since it protects me from the kind of cholera epidemics that used to devastate the populations of major cities like London just 150 years ago. And that the sewage system treats the outflow from me and my neighbors. Especially those upstream.
And I am glad that the local governments collect taxes to pay for the education of the future workers who will keep the economy going, so I can continue to get Social Security and my other retirement investments will continue to have value.
Of course it would be nice if such things could be provided free, but that is quite unrealistic. My relatives and friends who work in schools and government agencies, and their colleagues, need food and shelter too.
Now that Internet commerce, which has mostly so far escaped the normal taxation methods, has become a significant fraction of all commerce, there must be some method to replace the taxes so lost.
The intellectual underpinning of the American Revolution was largely based on the avoidance of taxation without representation, a principle well established in Britain at the time, but not extended to the colonies. It's success was followed by a revolt, "Shays Rebellion", based on economic problems, finally leading to the Constitutional Convention, to establish a stronger government.
Fortunately for most of us, probably even John100.

Will Amazon Insert Ads into Kindle E-Books?

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:57:25 -0400

Many paperback books have lists of similar or related books (for example by the same author) on the back few pages. Skipping them is trivial (you have finished the book, anyway), but could be useful if you are looking for another such book. An unobtrusive ad in a Kindle book would be not much different

Why I'm Buying Micron- Part II

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:09:15 -0400

Puzzled:- "Thursday after the close Micron reported May quarter EPS of $(0.36), above our $(0.53) and the Street’s $(0.43) estimate "

I will trade you $0.36 for your choice of $0.53 or $0.43 as many times as you like.

Apple Can Keep Secrets Even Without Steve Jobs

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:14:14 -0400

When Steve Jobs (and I) worked at NeXT the joke around the company was that the ship leaked from the top. So I laughed at your headline.

Key Telecom Trends: VoIP and Shift to Prepaid Wireless Plans

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:51:01 -0400

Why do articles on VOIP never mention companies offering VOIP service via a local number. We use Tel3 for such a service, call a local number from our landline for anything outside our free local zone, and get Skype-equivalent rates (or better: US 1.9c/min Ireland 1.5c/min, UK 2.5c/min, France 2c, Germany 1.5 to 3c, Italy 2 to 3c, Spain 3.3c/min etc. (Mobiles usual are significantly more). We no longer have any long-distance service on our landline, so that is cheap. From our mobile phones, we use the account for international calls at the same rates. I even used it from a pay phone at a State park (though the pay phone fee was heavy, the call itself was cheap). No monthly fee (unlike Vonage), no broadband connection needed (unlike Skype), no computer needed (except maybe to set up and check the account). Our total phone bill has dropped to about 1/4 what it was before (we were already using long-distance and international carriers cheaper than POTS), and we have many relatives and friends in Europe. Only problem is it does not do us much good from abroad, though I have used it by calling a US access number from one country to call another, saving one of the two roaming charges on the cell phone. Normally it is better to buy a local SIM card (what, you don't have a GSM phone, or it's an iPhone?) for such calls, though it took my ex-daughter-in-law, who now works for a Czech mobile company, to start me on that.

Obama (Should Say) to California: Drop Dead

Sat, 30 May 2009 17:00:24 -0400

The web site in my previous post was mangled. The URL is

www.couragecampaign.or...

Obama (Should Say) to California: Drop Dead

Sat, 30 May 2009 16:57:16 -0400

The failure of the ballot measures in California cannot purely be attributed to a refusal to pay more taxes, since the measures included future spending limitations seen as draconian by many "liberal" or left-oriented organizations. The complex measures included significant provisions anathema to each side, which probably overweighed those provisions attractive to each side, reflecting the growing extremism of politics in the state, also an apparent precursor of the same trend in national politics. As an example, I found items from two gay-rights organizations, one favoring a YES vote on most measures, the other a NO vote on most measures. See also www.couragecampaign.or... for a position listing of self-called progressive organizations, mostly opposed to the measures. Perhaps the most certain message being sent to the California political structure was to get its house in order, and actually make the budget and taxing decisions the state so sorely needs, rather than grand-standing incompatible positions, and shunting the decisions to the ballot.

Harris Interactive Reputation Survey: Corporate America Rates 'Terrible'

Thu, 21 May 2009 05:42:05 -0400

Wow!
" * Nearly all (98%) respondents believe it is important that corporations do evolve to more sustainable business practices.
* More than two-thirds (68%) believe American corporations are lagging behind companies in other countries.
* Only 16% of Americans believe that they will make these changes on their own.
* Most Americans (90%) give some consideration to sustainable business practices when purchasing a company’s products and and services."

Has anyone told Congress? Especially the Republicans there? Sounds like Obama (esp. the candidate version) has the country behind him. I am thrilled!

Amazon's Kindle 2.5 Doesn't Seem Worth the Buzz

Wed, 06 May 2009 15:48:05 -0400

Maybe as a college student, you don't see any application for a Kindle. However, maybe when you are old enough for your eyesight to be deteriorating, you will see some point in being able to read a book on an electronic device that will blow up the text to a readable level. And how would such a person, such as my late father-in-law, or my wife, handle reading a book three characters at a time on an iPod?

Yes, I agree that textbook prices are often disgustingly high, but I suspect the first publisher to offer a low-cost electronic form may force such a trend. Perhaps if you are studying Macroeconomics, you can start a new company to do that, and put the older companies on the spot, if not out of business. Incidentally, I do still refer to my old Physics textbooks from half a century ago from time to time.

High Frequency Trading Is a Zero-Sum Game: Impact on Intel, AMD

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:43:47 -0400

April 1st was nearly four weeks ago. So can one seriously think to program an FPGA to do NASDAQ's trading operations faster than a CPU? Naw, there is no way this makes sense. Yes, the I/O is a bottleneck for any computing system (just watch the disk drive light when you load or save a big spreadsheet), but it is not going to get better for an FPGA. Having more memory on the CPU itself is a better way to improve performance. I have been designing ICs for 46 years, and have programmed computers and FPGAs in passing.

How Soon Can Apple's Market Cap Surpass Microsoft's?

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:19:39 -0400

Additional note re the operating system: I think the original Mac operating system was quite different from the recent ones. I doubt if the interconnection of computers was much thought about when it was developed. I worked at NeXT Computer (during Steve Job's absence from Apple), though on hardware, not software, but that computer, one of the first to include Ethernet connections, originally 10Base-2 and later 10Base-T, ran a Unix version, which I believe became the basis for the later Mac software.

And my NeXT stock option is still around, making me long on Apple, and enjoying the major rise on that logarithmic chart!

How Soon Can Apple's Market Cap Surpass Microsoft's?

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:01:42 -0400

Au contraire; thank you for using a logarithmic scale, since the ratio between the values plotted is much better represented on such a scale (a constant distance is a constant ratio), especially on values that scan a factor of about 100. I rescued a logarithmic chart of the Dow Jones index from my stockbroker, because it was the first one I had seen. Anyone dealing with financial matters had better understand Napier's invention, just as physicists, engineers, sound experts, and many others do.

On Apr 24 04:06 PM User 401648 wrote:

> Why on earth would you make the graph Y-axis logarithmic? There is
> no logical reason to do so. People who did not notice or do not understand
> log scale will completely misinterpret the data. Perhaps that is
> what you intended?

Skype for iPhone: Beginning of the End For Mobile Phone Revenue Growth?

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 05:07:39 -0400

I get VOIP service on all our cell phones as well as our landline through a service called Tel3 (tel3advantage.com), where I dial a local number, it recognizes the callerID, (or I can log in via our primary number and a password), and I get Skype-like rates to any phone anywhere. From the landline, I use it for everything beyond local calls (so my POST is local only; NB 911 works as normal), and for the cell phones all international calls. Only problem is that it is from US only, though I have called it from abroad, to call another international number, only paying the semi-exhorbitant roaming rate + Tel3, rather than the full exhorbitant rate. Quality is usually very good, and they have a try-again routine that reroutes the occasional bad one.

Some Things Change Everything: Amazon's Cloud Computing

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 04:14:28 -0400

I am intrigued by the ideas about technological revolutions, but I think there is another between the 4th and 5th, the explosion of semiconductor technology (especially the IC) between 1960 and perhaps 1985, now in a near-mature stage, perhaps topping out in the next decade. This also fits in with several lincages in the revolutions, so that the steam engine and the railways depended on the results of the first industrial revolution, and leading to heavy machinery and electricity, thence the automobile. The IC made possible the information technology age, and low-cost telecommunications (yes, the earliest computers ran on vacuum tubes and magnetic cores, I know, I used some of them).
As to the main point of the article, in some ways cloud computing is like my early computer usage, where one fed in one's deck of punched cards (or a paper tape) to a central machine, and got back the results later as a printout, but with vastly improved input and output channels.
I wonder if Amazon has the book...

Smart Grid: Powering Us Out of Recession

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 03:25:03 -0400

I don't see how ultracaps can trim the blades on windmills. And running a flashlight for an hour is far away from running even a house for a few hours.

On Mar 12 01:51 PM andychoka wrote:

> The leader in ultracaps is a small growing company named Maxwell
> Technologies (seekingalpha.com/symbo...). Ultracaps have
> become the leading method to trim blades on windmills also.

AT&T Tops Verizon - But Which Customers Are More Satisfied?

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:17:18 -0500

The AT&T iPhone works in most international locations because it is a GSM phone. T-Mobile offers the same capability with most of their phones, and has worked for me in Hong Kong, and everywhere in Europe. And one can buy a local SIM card for use in most places in Europe and save the roaming charges, which cannot be done with the iPhone (the equivalent is built in). Only in Nepal did my T-Mobile phone not work.

On Jan 29 10:49 AM brewer wrote:

> iPhone makes AT&T the clear winner. Plus, if you go on an international
> trip, the iPhone with AT&T will work anywhere, no additional
> charges. Try that with any other service.

Shakespeare on Semiconductors: Sail With the Tide

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:18:18 -0500

Your quote was misquoted by the old Intersil ("There are tides in the affairs of man...") as an advertisement for DRAMs, at a time when the company was offering an obsolete product line (32k instead of 64k, as I recall). I always thought that any engineer who knew their Shakespeare would find it as funny/sad/ironic as I did, since the company was clearly in the "omitted" group on that product line. Luckily I was working on Analog products, where we were taking the tide.

TV Habits: So Much On, So Little Actually Watched

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 21:18:51 -0400

I must be very non-typical. I do not have cable, and watch news (normally ABC), and otherwise virtually never watch anything other than from our two local PBS stations. (The third went HDTV, so until I have to get an HD adapter, they're gone). I sometimes wish I could watch the Discovery or History channel, but not often enough to subscribe to Cable.

iPhone Versus the Rest: More Evidence Smartphone Makers Are in Trouble

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:55:43 -0400

Maybe you could use the argument by which my wife and I have different cell phone service providers (I use T-Mobile, she now uses Verizon, having used the older AT&T phone technology till Cingular dropped it): Even though both of our services have significant service holes, most often one of the two will work, wherever we are!

Merrill Lynch: Nortel's Share Price Based On 'Risky Assumption'

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:23:17 -0500

Why would it be good for Nokia to dispose of their GSM division?. GSM is dominant in Europe and much of Asia, used by the huge ATT (ex Cingular) network and T-Mobile in the USA and Canada. They would be cutting themsleves off from a large part of the total market.