Erdos Had The Number First

Chrysler living in fantasy land, bears all at Detroit auto show

A muscle car. They have got to be out of their minds. Their PR departments talk about how americans love their muscle cars. They talk about how only Detroit can lay claim to the (dubious) heritage of
muscle cars.

I think Detroit has forgotten that the whole reason they stopped making these cars in the first place. That being 1) Japan and 2) Oil Crisis. Neither of these two things has stopped being a problem for them.

I guess maybe Detroit doesn’t car either. Their CEO’s bonuses will not be affected by the future takeover from Toyota. And besides, if Harley Davidson can be a niche player, why not GM? And everyone likes a hog, after all.

Honestly, when I heard that the MTA Union was really going to strike, I figured that the President would injunct the union from striking due to the problems that it would cause.

Taft-Hartley Act – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Considering the Dept. of Homeland Security would have an terrible time if someone blew up a bridge during the strike (since security was almost certainly lax during that time). Transit strikes also endanger a city because, should a crisis occur, the transportation system is not functional. Evacuation would be impossible.

He didn’t though, and I don’t even know if the white house has released a statement about it. I suspect they’re too wrapped up in the problems surrounding the leak of the massive and illegal surveillance program.
Too bad, they could have saved Bloomberg’s Christmas.

I really thought that software rentals were pretty much dead. But then I clicked on a hosted email add and found myself looking at IBM, renting software.

IBM – On Demand Business

The whole ASP thing came and went during the bubble. one of the biggest problems that they encountered was the fact that people really weren’t ready for it. Well, most people anyway. However, rising costs and an exploding small business segment means that maybe the coffin lid wasn’t closed as well as I thought.

A huge problem for these services is ‘what about my data’. One of the biggest deflections of this is “What about it?” People are starting to realize that their data is as safe on someone elses exchange server as it is on their own. Especially when they don’t know how to admin an email server. I’ve seen many offices where someone was the IT person, even though they didn’t know/care/desire it.

Couple these admissions of infrastructure realities with services like BaseCamp and I start to sound like a sales pitch for ASPs. With mobility and platform issues, a well run ASP starts to look more and more like a sounds solution. As always, lets look at the numbers.

Basecamp Plus, with Time Tracking sells for $49/month. MS Project, without Project server is approximate $558 per seat. You have an $80,000 dollar project that lasts six months and uses 4 staff + yourself (the PM) full time. Everyone must have full access to the project plan, though only you need to make changes. Everyone needs to submit time sheets. Two of the four staff are really subcontractors. The other two work in your office.

If you bought the whole team copies of Proj. it would cost about $2,500. You’re not going to do that, because only you need to make changes, so it’s only one copy. At this point, Basecamp is more expensive.
However, you need do whole lot more work using Project, so the hours cost makes Basecamp a winner. And now for the kicker, if you already owned project, basecamp is way more expensive but you can’t give the client easy viewing access to your project info with Project like you can with Basecamp.

I’ve gotten WAY off topic.

My point here is have a niche market right now. But, if I were a betting man, I would say that niche will only get bigger.

The Post makes it sound like experts are in disagreement with the fact that TV a la Carte will bring increased costs to consumers in the near term. The fact of the matter is, the companies that support a la Carte pricing are doing it so they can 1) Raise prices and 2) shut out competitors.

The raising prices is a layup. Few of the cable companies have had pricing power since the competition in the TV market has gotten so hot. Not only do companies compete with land-based cable companies, they also compete with at least two satellite companies that can offer (in many cases) better programming cheaper since they’ve cost structure is different.

A la Cart pricing allows for price discrimination in EVERY market because, like airline prices, no one knows what their neighbor paid.

The competition argument is weaker, since IPTV companies will soon be able to offer wider services, and they will be helped out big-time by an a la cart option. There are, however, still a lot of markets that would need major tech upgrades and capital spending to allow for this. Some companies have said that their customers would just have to use more cable boxes, but I think they’re trying to bluff the FCC into not implementing this ruling.

But no matter what, the near term outlook is not good with regard to pricing. It is important to remember that better profits for these companies does not guarantee better content or service, no matter what the providers say. The Bells have been making this argument for years, and whenever their monopoly is strengthened, the consumer is hurt.

The bad news is that I believe the a la Cart ruling is something the FCC must do. I suspect that the Internet will intervene in this market and do what it has done in other areas, mainly disrupt it. Without the a la cart ruling, IPTV will be slowed and I think that will, long term, hurt consumers more than the short term regressive effects of more expensive TV.

The only wild card in the whole dispute is in what happens to the smaller channels? Channels that have, in the past, survived because of bundling will no longer have that protection and will have to survive on their own. I don’t know how many of these will survive. The upside is that, with IPTV (again) many of these kinds of channels will be able to run much more cheaply than they can now. Perhaps this ruling will be like an asteroid: short term die-off leaving an ecosystem that is ripe for the rise of new species.

At least, that’s what I’m hoping.

The Easiest Commute Of All

A big marketing push will be made to coastal knowledge workers looking to cash out of their million-dollar split levels, move inland, and work remotely for their companies.

This paragraph is the catch. You see, only the people who are already highly successful will be able to do this. These people, since they are already successful, will be more productive in their new role. This will decrease the need for the number of employees required.
Things like this make me all excited and make me want to use words like “phase transition” to describe the fact the shift from industrial to post-industrial is still going on, but is about to enter the bad part.

Basically, what I’m saying, is that if you are not rich right now, you will never be.

The reason for this centers on the problem of productivity. Industrial output by its very nature has real limits on what any person can produce in any given time-period. Technological advantage can occur within this framework, but technological advantage normally provides incremental, rather than disruptive, effects.

Buisnessweek even talks about it, saying that

U.S. productivity is soaring while real wages decline. It’s a toxic relationship that, thanks to globalism, just might become the norm

in their article,titled Americans, Working Longer for Less, seems to refute what their other article talks about.

Looks like I should just head for the hills, and become a hermit. I suspect my wife would take issue with that choice, however…

Honestly, I don’t know who this guy is. What I do know is that

USATODAY.com – A false Wikipedia ‘biography’
his editorial in USA Today reads a tab bit whiney. Yes, a bad biography was written about him. And yes he can’t sue the bastards. This, I think, is his main beef. Clearly, he’s a guy who is used to being able to put the kabosh on someone who is saying mean things about him.

But back to wikipedia. His bio apparently was clearly just crap. Any bio involving a kenedy assassination and moving to Soviet Russia is OBVIOUSLY crap. But there’s nothing that wikipedia can do.

The problem stems from the fact that there are no controls. Wikipedia is a a Tradegy waiting to happen. They need controls, but the system is not designed to have any.

With this is sounds like Apple Computer is about to enter the living room fray. Think Secret – Road to Expo: Reborn Mac mini set to take over the living room

They will join (somewhat belatedly) the rest of the computer and media world (Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, D-Link, everybody else) in trying to put computer stuff in the living room. TVs were definitely mature tech until the flat panel came along and changed things (albeit for now).

But does The Steve really want to try to compete in this space? Look at First Mover extraordinaire and their BubbleIscious stock chart. They’re dying fer Pete’s sake and they are the master of the Tube right now.

Given the fact that content producers (as TV stations like to think of themselves) are pushing all kinds of DRM and stuff to block the kinds of tech that Apple et. al. seem to want to push, I don’t think this is a wise business move for them.

Getting Skittish About Skype

CAMPUS PARIAH
Some organizations are clamping down. Pharmaceutical giant Novartis (NVS ) in Basel, Switzerland, doesn’t let employees use Skype. Neither do Goldman Sachs (GS ) and German chemicals giant Degussa. A growing number of schools ban the technology, including Oxford University, the University of Texas, and the University of Minnesota. In September the French government recommended research personnel at universities and government labs avoid using Skype.

Ok, first pharma is a paranoid monster. They don’t let their employees use many of the instant messaging tools available.

Goldman, thanks to rule 17-4a (SEC) can’t let them use it either, because they can’t record it and store it on WORM drives for 7 years.

The fact that the French and Schools have banned skype has everything to do with economics and NOTHING to do with Skype. France Telecom has always been terrified of VOIP because they will lose their precious (and profitable) monopoly on phone services. The same with schools. Universities in the US
have a long tradition of making a boat-load of money on Long distance charging. Now, thanks to cell phones and VOIP, their cash cow is pretty lean. They’re not going to take that loss of revenue lying down.

Basically, this article is pretty much a shill for Cisco, Avaya, and SBC. “oooohh skype is insecure, don’t use it or someone could intercept it. No kidding? The same is true of ALL electronic communication. Risk is a continuum, just try to understand that Business Week.

The first manager is dead. Druckers works changed my life. It’s funny to say that and not be, in any way, ironic about it.
Peter Drucker’s Monumental Legacy

He probably changed your life, too, and you don’t even know it. As the man who Changed Management, his work has probably done more to shape modern times than most. He wrote till the end. If I, at his age, enjoy a gram of the wisdom he possessed, I would call myself hppy.