One Citizen's blog

What Price Market Share?

onecitizen — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 06:43:33 +0000

Without a doubt, the big AAPL news of the week has concerned the announcement that Steve Jobs is taking a medical leave of absence (not accidentally timed to take advantage of MLK day to reduce/avoid a huge market selloff). Companies can have good CEOs and bad CEOs, but the COS (Cult of Steve) is so strong that this second medical “vacation” has prompted all sorts of “can Apple survive” chatter both on the interwebs and on the older kind of tubes, the TV kind.

While I think that Tim Cook will do just fine, both in the interim and when Jobs eventually steps aside, Steve’s guiding vision for Apple cannot be overstated. Design of individual devices aside, one key aspect of the Steve Jobs Apple has been to prioritize quality above quantity, to prefer to make awesome computers (Macs, Mac Pros, Macbooks, etc) that get 10% market share, compared to pumping out a piece of shit frankensoft hodgepodge of bloatware and inconsistent-quality hardware with a monopolistic market share. Apple has generally itself avoided being an early adopter; instead of debuting a piece of technology ahead of its ~~peers~~ ~~competitors~~ losers, Jobs prefers to let other companies suffer through the development stage and then release a far superior and better-conceived device.

In light of the above, I think this note today, that (based on revenue) Apple is now the world’s largest mobile phone vendor, is especially interesting given the timing of Steve’s absence. Does this mean that, for the iPhone at least, Apple can no longer be content to sit back and enjoy strong margins on 10% of the market? Or, with Steve possibly out of the picture, will Cook et al have the discipline to “stay true” to the Apple brand and avoid “slumming”? I actually don’t think this is a problem since the cost of a Blackberry + iPod is comparable to an iPhone, unlike the false choice of cheap PC vs expensive MacBook, but I do have to think that becoming the dominant “cell phone” maker could lead to unforeseen difficulties down the road… I just wish I were smart enough to figure out what those are/might be.What’s next after the iPad?

[Disclaimer: Long AAPL]

Death of Democracy

onecitizen — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:54:25 +0000

Last week a St Thomas cabbie laughed at me when I was moaning about having to go home to California, and he had a good point – there are many nice things about SoCal, and the Golden State in general. We have great weather, a stunning coastline with equally majestic mountain ranges, inspiring Redwood groves, fertile soil, the global center of technology (Silicon Valley) and entertainment (Hollywood), and the best public university system in the world.

So why then is CA’s state budget in the crapper? I think there are a couple reasons, both of which are legislatively self-inflicted, and both of which sound like good ideas on the surface but instead serve to destroy democratic representation. Firstly, a two-thirds majority is required to pass state legislation. Sounds like a good idea, right? Well, instead it means that small group legislators can hold the entire state hostage, a tyranny of the minority where a budget supported by a majority is held in limbo.

This is bad, but pales in comparison the what I view as the main problem: ballot initiatives. Again, allowing the people of California to be directly involved in governance is a great idea – that’s pure democracy, right? Instead, it’s a mess, and one reason why our founding fathers went with representative democracy.

There are two big problems with ballot initiatives. First, the referenda are confusing and necessitate the reduction of complex issues down to a simple yes/no vote. In order to make an educated decision, each individual citizen must attempt to be an expert on the subject at hand, be it clean energy technology, education reform, tax law reform, etc. Would we want all Americans to vote on which design NASA should adopt for the new Shuttle replacement, or to decide our foreign policy towards North Korea? Could we trust the entire American voting populace to educate themselves on the ramifications of a change to affirmative action? No, we elect people to study an issue and then make an informed decision.

The second, and to my mind more insidious problem with ballot initiatives is that they completely circumvent any kind of campaign finance regulation. There’s no point in trying to limit the degree to which lobbyists can pay/influence a particular legislator if they can just pay for their own ballot initiative – why both buying a legislator when you can buy a law directly? We had two examples of this in last week’s election, Props 16 and 17 (luckily they both failed), which were very clear power grabs by PG&E and Mercury Insurance, the kind of which could never be achieved if the companies had to lobby the entire legislature. Technically there are limits as to how advertising for a ballot initiative can be paid for, and you’re not supposed to pay people to collect the requisite signatures to get an initiative on the ballot, but these have not been adequately enforced. So, in the end, it’s not “one person, one vote”, it’s “one million dollars, one vote”.

There are other problems with the system, clearly, but the two items above I think have served to put California its current broke/indebted position. When California’s economy was humming along happily, the uber-rich were able to slowly chip away at the state tax system, and so slowly the margin for error was eroded. Then whenever it was evident that some kind of reform or visionary legislation might be needed, a 1/3 minority of state senators was able to hamstring the process. Thus, progress was halted, even as special interests were able to buy specific ballot initiatives. Combine this with the foolishly-short term limits (a lifetime limit of 6 years in the General Assembly and 8 years in state Senate), by the time a legislature finally figures out how to actually govern, he’s kicked out, and a new greenhorn has to learn the ropes all over again. I can’t imagine the same policy catching on in corporate America, for example Steve Jobs being booted from AAPL after 8 years? Or how about Sam Walton or Henry Ford being shown the door after less than a decade? Not happening.

Clearly the state (and nation) are increasingly polarized and reluctant to engage in any kind of legitimate debate, but that’s all the more reason to allow our legislators to actually do their job.

The Cost of a Wedding

onecitizen — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:11:26 +0000

In honor of Valentine’s Day, today’s post addresses the true cost of a lavish wedding. Several of my wife’s girlfriends have recently gotten engaged, and thus she has had the opportunity to play wedding planner and dress consultant. One friend is clearly going to have a very high-end wedding, but the other three are going to have what I would call a “more reasonable” budget.

Of course, the key here is the extreme subjectivity of what is “reasonable”. Popular wedding website TheKnot.com reports that the average wedding is now about $27,800. According to Richard Markel, president of the Association for Wedding Professionals International, the average cost of a wedding in the U.S. (in 2008) fell between $21,000 and $24,000. Clearly location matters as well, but let’s work from a conservative value of $20k.

A friend of ours got married in a very elegant $99 dress, and last year we attended a wedding where the bride’s dress was upwards of $15k. I honestly would not have known the difference, and I think that many guys would say the same. However, I’m sure that most women in attendance could tell, and most importantly the brides themselves knew the cost. The “bride-as-center-of-the-universe” is not something that I understand 100%, but from my own experience I know that I wanted my wife to be perfectly happy on her/our big day, and if happiness cost a little money, then I was pleased to pull out the checkbook.

First, the grinch-y perspective: the cost of a wedding is a decent start on a down payment on a house or condo. Alternatively, if the cost of your wedding were instead invested towards retirement, that $20,000 would grown into $160,000 (assume 8% APY over 35 years), and $8k-worth-of-dress would grow to $64,000.

On the other hand, who is to say that we can assume that the stock market will approach an 8% return? Multiple previous posts have highlighted my skepticism; accounting for inflation and taxes, honestly I think that 5% is more reasonable, if itself rather optimistic. If the kind/size cake doesn’t matter, that can save you $1,000. Make your own invitations, or select a less elegant design, hire a younger photographer, or (here’s the tricky one) invite fewer people. Want to trim some fat off the catering bill? Don’t serve meat. Don’t be cheap or leave your guests feeling mistreated, but thriftiness is making a comeback these days, and if you and your fiance(e) are on a tight budget, your friends and family will understand and support you.

This is my point; prioritize your expenses and try to save money on details that don’t matter as much to the two of you… but don’t be afraid to pay full price on the wedding elements that really matter most. Yes it’s possible that every dollar you spend now could be invested and turn into $10 in 40 years, but do you really want to postpone happiness for 40 years? Moderation, people.

Olympic Anticipation

onecitizen — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:02:08 +0000

For my entire life, the Winter Olympics have been my favorite sports season, a marvelous binge of athletic cosmopolitanism, guilt-free patriotism, and the novelty inherent to a non-annual event. As a child, every four years I would spend a 17-odd days lying on the floor of my grandparent’s living room, living and dying with the exploits of athletes whom I had never heard of before, and likely never saw again. To me, happiness was waking up to freshly-fallen snow, going sledding all day, then spending an evening of hot chocolate, popcorn, and Al Trautwig/Mike Adamle/etc.

Clearly, my nostalgic expectations for the Olympics are unfairly high, but even recognizing that I can’t help but worry about the upcoming Vancouver games. This has nothing to do with uncertainty about the US Men’s Hockey team (very young, though nearly not as young as the 1980 team), or whether the Alpine team led by Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn will again underwhelm. Nor am I talking about concerns that the sliding track is too fast , though after a Romanian luger knocked unconscious after slamming into several walls during a training run yesterday, safety worries can’t be ignored.

No, instead I am nervous about the way in which I will be allowed to consume the Olympic experience. NBC has been very vocal about the exorbitant cost they paid to secure exclusive domestic broadcast rights (negotiated back when CDO was a meaningless term that only mattered to nerds at Goldman) as an excuse for their decision to cram all the high-ratings events into the “prime-time” package. Fortunately it looks as though the “minor” sports – curling, cross-country skiing, ski jumping, etc – will gain at least some airtime on the cable options (CNBC, MSNBC, USA, and my new favorite channel, Universal Sports).

I fear, however, that the peacock programming will be virtually unwatchable – especially for those of us on the West Coast, who will be forced to watch almost everything on a three-hour delay, despite being in the same time zone as Vancouver. The last few Games, Summer and Winter, have witnessed the submission of the Olympic Spirit to the Olympic $pirit. If it can’t be compressed into a twelve minute overproduced, self-contained, and overly-scripted segment, it’s not worth showing, according to Dick Ebersol. Perhaps envious of Fox’s lucrative and repulsive American Idol franchise, I fear we are going to be spoon-fed a three-week dose of Olympic Idol. Hopefully we’ll get at least a few bits of actual sporting events in and amongst the reality show nonsense, but I’m not terribly optimistic.

The Importance of Backups

onecitizen — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:59:03 +0000

So… due to a massive server failure, all posts prior to 2008 have been lost, probably for good. The last two years should be recoverable, but it will be a slow process, and I’m not sure if comments can be recovered. Thanks to everyone for their patience, and I hope readers will let me know if they notice any bugs or oddities.

Neat or Messy = Elephant or Donkey?

onecitizen — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:13:52 +0000

It is difficult to raise this subject without seeming to take sides or assign value, but a new paper in Journal of Political Psychology has a pretty interesting take on the idea of hard-wired philosophical inclination. Studying the rooms of 76 college students and 94 professionals, the authors noted significant correlation between neatness/room decoration style and political leaning. The idea is that distinct cognitive inclinations of liberals towards ambiguity and intellectualism, and conservatives toward order, “drive the way one leads one’s life and displays one’s life in their living and work spaces,” co-author Dana Carney, an assistant professor of management at Columbia University’s Business School in New York City. These various room elements are “behavioral residue,” says co-author Sam Gosling, associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, and notes that these findings are just the latest of several recent attempts to unearth politics in personality, the brain and DNA. Brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and even genetic tests are turning up possible clues to our political origins and behaviors.

“It’s pleasurable for liberals to think more. They gravitate toward art, to things that are not as concrete,” says Carney. “Conservatives have a need for order, for there not to be ambiguity. There you see that expressed by being more orderly, having more cleaning supplies, needing to have everything lined up and organized so that one feels one’s environment is predictable and therefore safe.”

Clearly the line isn’t as clear-cut as that, though, and it’s not surprising that people get defensive about labeled with such a broad brush. More importantly, the Carney & Gosling study isn’t the focus of this post; I present their results in light of a recent Nate Silver interview of John Ziegler, author of the Zogby poll/interview of Obama voters attempting to argue that Obama won only because the “liberal media” (don’t get me started) wanted him to win.

Short version: Ziegler is a talk-show host and as such it’s hard to tell what is an act and what is real. You have to assume that the interview is legit, though, and it’s honestly pretty shocking how rude and uncooperative Ziegler is. However, it makes more sense when (a) you read a 2004 article on him and (b) you consider that he falls into the “neat room” crowd: the world is black and white, that absolutes do exist, and that ambiguity and uncertainty are weaknesses. When Nate asks him detailed or non-stimulating questions, Ziegler becomes rude and belligerent – he doesn’t know how to handle this kind of low-ratings discussion.

The Atlantic article is very long, but good, and I recommend it highly. If nothing else it helped me make sense of the creature that is “talk radio”. To wit, talk radio is not conservative because of some big Clear Channel/Fox News conspiracy (though that doesn’t help) but because talk radio is all about profit, and what is profitable is “shock jocks” and emotional extremes. Rational discourse and moral gray areas don’t inflame passions or draw big numbers, and thus don’t produce sufficient advertising revenue … we have NPR for that. That’s not to say that a lot of “stimulating” talk radio isn’t socially destructive and inflammatory, but at least it helped me understand where it’s coming from.

Apple products that don’t work well enough for me to buy

onecitizen — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:16:42 +0000

Obviously, that’s a working title… but with the release of Apple TV Software Update 2.3 it’s as good a time as any to complain about what Apple *isn’t* doing, which is to create a piece of entertainment hardware that provides exactly what I want.

What I want:
a combination Roku/TiVo/Apple TV-without-needing-to-be-hacked/Blu-Ray player, without any DRM or HDCP nonsense, able to navigate to myp2p.eu and play those streams smoothly without chatter or hiccups.

What is HDCP you ask? Well, if you plan on getting a new Macbook and want to use an external display, read this first:

Just got a new MacBook last week and finally found a mini Display Port -> VGA adapter so i could use my 19” external display. I rented a movie from the iTunes store yesterday and when I tried to play it on my external display, it gave me a warning/error that the display was ‘not an authorized HDCP display’ and it would not play. Plays fine on the small MacBook screen, just nothing external. To make it even worse, i tried all the movies that I have purchased from the iTunes store with the same result… NONE of them will play on anything but the MacBook’s small 13” screen. This is crazy unacceptable.

Sporting Achievements

onecitizen — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:59:12 +0000

Have to give credit to Favre-less GB wideout James Jones for providing an excellent example of “takes a licking and keeps on ticking”. Any hit that knocks your helmet off your head and 10 yards down field is impressive, and to then turn that into a TD reception does count as manly.

Jones’ quote after the game:

“It was an in route, you know, we got the right coverage that we wanted, Aaron (Rodgers) threw it. I knew I was going to get hit. I didn’t know how hard I was going to get hit. I knew I was going to get hit though. Going through my head, was just, ‘catch the ball,’ and instead of tackling me, he tried to take me out for good … I was rang for a minute. Like I said, I was just praying I was going the right direction. I was rang for a minute pretty good, I had a little stinger. But it was fine.”

In all seriousness, you have to wonder how long the NFL will ignore head injuries, and recognize that concussions pose a major threat to player health. For decades the NFL has neglected retired players worse than we ignore our own Veterans, but I think we’re just one high-profile head injury away from it becoming a BIG DEAL.

Oh yeah, and that Phelps guy got another gold. I guess 8 golds counts as manly. But even more impressive is missing the 50 meter freestyle gold by 0.01 seconds… when you’re 41! Wow.

Terrifying

onecitizen — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:51:40 +0000

We continue our series of belated postings with what-happened-to-me-last-saturday.

I went here.

Now in fairness, the spouse said that I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to, that she could go with just her sister-in-law and they’d wander about, but I ended up going along with my soon to be brother-in-law.

whoa.

The Bridal Expo that we went to was held in the city convention center, and in hindsight it had a lot in common with the poster sessions at any big science/industry meeting … imagine a huge airplane hanger filled with row upon row of different vendor booths. That sounds innocent enough, right?

For starters you have to pay $10 or $15 bucks to get in the door (they do have door prizes, so maybe that’s fair), and they greet you with “are you a bride or groom”? which is actually a funny question if you think about it, but the fallout of your answer is that they give you a nametag with “Groom” or “Bride” on it, and you’re supposed to put slap it on somewhere. Then you play plinko and other little games to win little (and demeaning) prizes before being sent off to wander up and down the rows of Photography people, Cake people, Honeymoon people, three different Mary Kay booths, Floral/decorations people, etc. In one corner of the hanger, I mean, convention center they had a stage and seating – this was the site of a bridal fashion show. It was pretty much what you might think; models strutting up and down with various outfits, girls swooning, guys sneaking off to buy a beer and rest their tired eardrums, etc.

All in all, I’m glad I went if for no other reason than I am more certain now than ever she and I are a good match and that I’m very glad she’s not like a lot of her fellow brides that I saw there. That said gentlemen, when you are faced with such a situation, make sure to (a) stay hydrated, (b) get a good night’s sleep beforehand, and (c) bring lots of $5 bills and a few ones for tips to the beleaguered barman at the beer booth.

Best $5 I ever spent was on that lukewarm Bud Light.

Reader survey: video tech

onecitizen — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:45:31 +0000

It’s a new month, and that means it’s time to hear back from the readers. Today’s topic: what do you know about the Roku? It’s kinda an iTV + Netflix thing, where for $99 you get a box that allows Netflix subscribers access to their entire ‘Watch Now’ movie database. No extra fees, no computer necessary. My take is that the aaplTV will provide new/hip/trendy things, while Netflix gives you good access to older/nonpremium films.

Other items, in list form:
(1) A recent study concludes that even with HD-DVD defeated, BluRay hasn’t immediately taken off, in no small part due to the fact that Blu-Ray players still cost a billion dollars. Duh. (But I still want one).

(2) Two more uses for AirportExpress:

(3) Finally, if you’re traveling a lot, I don’t see how/why to not get one of these. Screw the Macbook Air, you can put your whole computer in your pocket, as long as you have a host computer to boot on. 160 Gig for $129, and measures in at 12.7 cm x 8.1 cm x 1.8 cm.