PeterB

Obama (Should Say) to California: Drop Dead

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.

Obama (Should Say) to California: Drop Dead

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

www.couragecampaign.or...

2010 Investing: A Tale of Two Economies

Thank you for perhaps the first article I have seen in Seeking Alpha that really addresses the long term direction of the USA and some serious directional problems. I first read "A Tale of Two Cities" when I was about 17 years old (over 50 years ago now) and it was the first book I had a strong emotional reaction to.
The data on income distribution should be a real wake-up for those who think the US economy is on the correct course. Although you only have two date points there, the distribution was getting more even for most of the 20th century, but turned around in the Reagan years, and has gone wildly askew since than, as you show. Since the deregulation that led to the recent derivatives crisis (as well as the Savings&Loan Disaster a couple of decades ago) all stem from the same period, I think the antiObama crowd might do better to think about redirecting their anger and hate to the real problems which stem from that era, not the present administration, which is at least trying to recover from a near-catastrophic economic collapse. That "would be a far far better thing than (they) have ever done...".

Will Amazon Insert Ads into Kindle E-Books?

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

Harris Interactive Reputation Survey: Corporate America Rates 'Terrible'

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!

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

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?

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!

With Nexus One, Is Google Eating Its Own Children?

"any consumers can pop in any SIM card from any carrier ". Well, I have my (contract-based) T-Mobile SIM card, and the pre-paid SIM cards I bought last time I was in the Czech Republic (Vodaphone, who own a chunk of Verizon) and the UK (some store brand, as I recall). Very handy, very cheap, and I could have done the same in Austria and Germany, except I was there for only a few days, even fewer calls. But where could I get a SIM card for Verizon? Or Sprint/Nextel? Sadly, no such competitive option exists, as far as I know.

Apple May Be on the Verge of Kneecapping the Cable Industry

I get good service from the Post Office. When I compare the prices with UPS or FEDEX, I am back there. And how come poor cable service is due to "government regulation"? Most of the little regulation there ever was was by local governments, and that was offloaded by the cable companies claiming they had competition from satellite TV, etc. so didn't need to be regulated.

Next thing, you'll be telling me my hernia is part of Obamagate!


On Dec 23 01:54 PM kohalakid wrote:

> While I'm disappointed that the author couldn't come up with even
> a slightly less objectionable word than "suck" to describe cable
> companies, I agree with his premise.
>
> But cable companies, like the Post Office, fail to give good service
> and good value for one reason...they don't have to.
>
> Without real competition and because of government regulation, the
> consumer gets bad service and bad value.
>
> And you want these same govt officials to tell you what health care
> you can get????

The iPhone Is Now the Most Popular Phone in the U.S.

The table can be used to skew the results. The author points out that a couple of iPhone versions are probably merged (3G and 3GS), apart from earlier versions, but that is not clear from the reproduced table. The Motorola RAZR V3s appear on one line, but have a host of variations. If all the RIMM phones listed were instead on one line, they would be a clear #1 at 5.3%. And any list of "the top 10 X's" where the top item is no higher than 4% should probably be a list of "the top 20 X's", or whatever, so that the "all others" do not constitute 79.5% of the total, as here.
Incidentally, my car (where I most need to use navigation) has a GPS unit, for navigation, and a radio for weather data, all accessible without taking my eyes off the road for over one second. Maybe all the people weaving around on the freeway are using their iPhones (or, of course, their Droids) to do those things?

Internet Advertising: Stopping Others from Christmas Evil

The Google results that I am most fascinated by are the ones that just piggyback on the search terms. Once I was looking for a map of the small village in the north of England where my sister-in-law lives (when not in Spain), and somehow did a plain search by mistake. I was offered (among other things) air fares to the village's airport (the nearest airport is hundreds of miles away, with no service to California), rooms in the hotels there (there are none), car rentals there (no agency for many miles!), etc. I trust Google got lots of money for such obvious nonsense! Keep my stock up. Clearly such "ads" are a warning against believing to heavily in what a search turns up.
I am not sure what your point about Amazon is. I recently wanted a new Hi-8 Video camera, so I could still work with the tapes from the one my daughter borrowed to video my latest granddaughter. Even though all video cameras now seem to be DVD-oriented, Amazon (through another supplier) offered the same model, at a reasonable price, and it is just fine. (The perfect-sized case I had found no longer seems to be around, however). As usual with an "unknown" supplier, I used a one-time credit card number offered by my usual credit card company, to avoid miss-use issues later, but it all worked well.
I suspect most of the "flaky" ads are obvious enough that only my dementia-suffering (late) mother would be taken in, but that does admittedly leave the issue there. Perhaps, among our common human flaws is the kind of gullibility that kept "LookingConf...:"'s priest in business.

2010 Investing: A Tale of Two Economies

... And didn't I read somewhere that Henry Ford (the original) had decided to pay his workers enough that they could afford to buy the cars he/they were producing? A concept that worked very well for many years, until Corporate America, and maybe especially Financial America, managed to suppress such ideas.

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

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...

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

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

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.