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OT: how much oil is coming out of Iraq
Pre-war production was (allegedly) 2.6 million barrels (tough to know how much was routed black market around the UN). Current production is (allegedly), give or take, 2.4-2.5 million barrels (and rising). As to how much of that production is left over after internal consumption vs. how much pre-war, dunno.
Unless trends reverse in Iraq and violence (and sabotage) against pipelines and production facilities goes back up, it seems inevitable that foreign majors will begin serious CapEx spending on new production facilities this year and that production will continue to climb. The rosy notion posited by some that production will be north of 6 million barrels by 2012 seems to me more like a "best case scenario," one with fairly short odds. On the flip side, it also seems like a short odds bet to think in a couple years more, Iraq won't be producing significantly more oil than pre-war.
True, Susie
But this amounts to the worst form of whining, sniveling, and crying. And as Tom Hanks once said ... crying? crying?? There's no crying in baseball !!!!!
Seriously, if Hank wants to throw a childish hissy fit, maybe he ought to throw it at his manager, coaches, training staff, and Wang himself. Get in shape, stay in shape, play the game. Honestly, the amount of self-centered, egotistical whining in sports these days is an embarrassment. I feel sorry for the Yankee greats of yesteryear, and how embarrassed they must be. Can you imagine Whitey Ford, or any of the great Yankee pitchers bitching because they had to run the bases?
Bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth
WiHD:
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20080327/149596
"Why not adopt Little League rules ..."
Great idea. Hey while we're at it, why don't we just throw out all the "old" baseball rules and make up a bunch of new ones. For starters, let's get rid of spring training. For cryin' out loud, you see how many guys get hurt during spring training? And the club owners don't make squat from the ticket sales. Not worth the risk. Next, do away with running the bases. Sheesh. A-Rod yanks a hammy, Pujols screws up his calf. Guys getting paid $20 million a year have got to be protected from such dangerous activities as ... running.
As you suggest, make it like Little League when you can designate a runner to stand by home plate and run for the batter as soon as the ball is struck. Perfect!
And pitching. Do away with making players pitch. Have you seen how many guys blow out their arms b/c they're ... pitching?!! Sheesh, think of how much owner money is flushed down the toilet on pitchers who are on the DL or out for the year. What a waste. I say let's do it like Little League -- Coach Pitch!! I mean, heck, some lousy bullpen coach blows out his arm, who cares?! Better still, why don't we just set up batting machines out there. Make 'em remote control. Let the pitcher press a button from the dugout and choose the pitch.
Now THAT would be some 21st century baseball!
Hank was in a snit
b/c Wang hurt himself running around the bases, which Steinbrenner figures wouldn't have happened had he been in a game governed by the AL's designated hitter rule.
"not necessarily a cap"
ATT's promo materials clearly state:
"with download speeds up to 1.4 Mbps."
Believe me, when ATT tells you they're capping network speeds, they mean it. Sure, there are the random outliers getting slightly above the cap or temporary burst speed. But you've got a better chance of winning your local lottery than being that one in a million account.
My comment didn't have anything to do with how a capped at 1.4 Mbps rate will compare to EDGE, nor what value there is in GPS, etc., etc., of course. Merely that it always pays to read the fine print when Apple turns on the RDF.
Another classy NY day
Mets fire Randolph at 3:15 a.m. Steinbrenner opens his yap and out comes this comment ...
"“The National League needs to join the 21st century. They need to grow up and join the 21st century. ... it’s about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s.”
As if there's some kind of Steinbrenner family contest to see who can rack up the most jackass comments in a lifetime.
iPhone speeds approaching Wi-Fi?
Not exactly:
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/16/atandt-to-limit-iphone-3g-speeds-to-1-4-mbps
good question, Tex
"Do you really see Apple and Google as enemies in this space? Their revenues just don't seem to be coming out of the same dish. They aren't natural competitors, I don't think."
True that Google's revenue model isn't the same as Apple's. But Google's highest interest is going to be in making its own web-apps reign supreme on its own platform, and to use its platform to advance and give primacy to Google search and its own revenue streams. Apple's interest is diametrically opposed with respect to web-apps, particularly now that we've seen it jump in the deep end with MobileMe.
It's hard to imagine that at some point, Apple isn't going to wind up having deal with the "open" vs. "closed/proprietary" issue in the media. How it handles that will, IMO, have a sizable impact on whether it succeeds in grabbing iPod-like market share. For better or worse, I think an ever larger chunk of the media, tech opinion leaders, and even general public, has a real distaste for the consequences of the desktop platform having going down that path with Microsoft. It seems to me Apple would do well to spend a little less time focusing on bathroom escorts, and a lot more time on communicating effectively with the iPhone developer community.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/running_to_the_boys_room_in_hot_pursuit_of_iphone_news_0
http://blogs.oreilly.com/iphone/2008/06/a-broken-system.html
(hopefully someone at Apple is reading the comments section)
More iPhone tidbits
Read-only documents and spreadsheets?
Mariner Software prepared to take the next step ...
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/15/mariner-calc-for-iphone
GPS navigation tools?
TomTom exec says they've got an iPhone version of its navigation.
WIll be a good test of Apple's locked down platform -- will Apple block TomTom from competing with Google?
http://www.macgeneration.com/news/voir/130607/interview-oui-tomtom-existe-pour-l-iphone
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/06/13/tomtom_for_iphone_lives_jobs_true_health_green_iphone_3g.html
Wow, that's hard to believe
"the Red Sox drafted Alvarez in the 14th round two weeks later, making him bonus offers that escalated to nearly a million dollars."
Something doesn't sound quite right about that. MLB has what's called "slot money" recommendations. In a nutshell, the owners collude to fix the market. (Nothing like a nice anti-trust exemption to let you use your monopoly power to fix a market). Note that in last year's (2007) draft, guys drafted at the end of the 1st round were getting bonus offers in the $1mm range, and that the last pick in the 5th round slotted at $123,300. All picks past the 5th round are not to exceed that $123,300 figure.
http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/?p=179
Regardless, it's sure a far cry from my playing days back in the stone age, when I was looking at 5th round money out of high school of $20,000 (my draft year was the first in which the #1 pick overall exceeded the $1mm mark). Minor league salary back then was fixed. Everyone got $500/mo. Didn't take a genius in math to figure if the average minor league stay was 4 years, that worked out to annual salary of $11,000. As the kindly Reds scout counseled me ... that's a lot of unairconditioned bus rides, a lot of Motel 6s and a lot of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I'd understand if a kid like you passed on our offer and went to college instead.
Flash speculation continues
http://www.iphoneatlas.com/2008/06/12/did-steve-jobs-demo-a-flash-enabled-iphone-3g
"after having 24 hours to reflect on everything ..."
MobileMe may be a goofy name, but it looks like Apple has taken a pretty big leap into the deep end of porting desktop apps to web-based apps. Will we look back in a couple years and say this was really the big news of WWDC '08 ??
I hope he gets things straightened out
... b/c he's a great person, the kind pro sports could use as many of as possible.
"I don't know what his problem is"
The problem is a loss in velocity. Which has started a cascade effect. It's not that he can't get the ball in the strike zone, it's that he's afraid to. Pitches he once had faith he could get past hitters are now off just enough that they're getting hit hard, and he's afraid. So instead he nibbles and throws just off the plate.
BTW, aside from the relatively smaller percentage of jobs where compensation is dominated by commission, there isn't anything different about setting a baseball player's salary on anticipated performance based on a skills assessment and past track record. Every person I've ever hired was hired that way, and their compensation package assembled on that basis. Why exactly should it be any different for a baseball player?
Jobs goes on the record on PA Semi
“PA Semi is going to do system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods”
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/apple-in-parallel-turning-the-pc-world-upside-down
More on Snow Leopard
ZFS will be fully read-write in the Server edition (Tex?)
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/snowleopard
An abbreviated list for the consumer version
http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard
Yep, another dirty little secret
... pioneered in the European pro cycling ranks. And for your viewing pleasure ...
http://www.eurobolic.com/index.php?main_page=steroid_videos
"nothing else particularly noteworthy"
There's another possibility ... maybe there was going to be something else noteworthy, but it got axed. The whole two bridge tagline tease campaign was never tied up with the keynote, no thematic explanation, no nothing. And when was the last time Steve gave a keynote that had no "one more thing" encore? The whole thing struck me as a bit odd, a bit out or sorts. Jobs looked unrehearsed too -- even though he's so smooth, so good in that venue, that it's hardly noticeable. And in the otherwise normally carefully scripted event, at least one of the featured guests, Apple literally had never even heard of only a week before the keynote. Who knows, maybe it's nothing. But for me, something didn't seem quite right about this one. Not so well assembled, not so well rehearsed. Didn't flow. Lacked polish. Lacked the high energy of previous keynotes. Seemed to lack the normal genuinely extraordinary enthusiasm of the Apple team.
Any thoughts on "Quicktime X"?
It's one of the headline features of Snow Leopard, presumably to be delivered at WWDC 2009. From developer threads I've glanced at elsewhere, more overdue for architectural overhaul than anything else in the Apple universe.
"disappointed with the keynote"
"basically a hardware upgrade to the phone, and nothing else particularly noteworthy."
True. And sadly, nowhere are the consequences of 16 years of corporate sell-out in gov't more obvious than the anti-competitive state of major communications infrastructure and access in the US. To have expected Apple to have done anything more than to sign on and cash in, though, would have been unrealistic.
Having long ago consigned myself to getting bent over by ATT, I'm happily looking forward to joining the iPhone parade in July. But I'm baffled as to why video is so conspicuously absent from the iPhone. Why in the world should so many "lesser" phones (including the one I presently use, and its predecessor from a couple years ago) have had that capability but not the 2nd generation iPhone? Admittedly, I'm equally baffled as to why Apple hasn't been put on the defensive and asked about this. RDF, I guess.
More on the shell game ...
" The SMS messages are not bundled anymore"
iPhone = $200 cheaper
ATT plan = at least $360 more expensive
http://gigaom.com/2008/06/09/att-mobility-ceo-new-3g-iphone-game-changer
Keynote video
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/0806wdt546x/event/index.html
Executive summary:
* Steve continues to gets thinner
* Phil continues to get fatter
* iPhone 3G rocks
* Forstall ... makes ... me ... want ... to ... get ... out ... a ... bat ... and ... whack ... him ... into ... finishing ... a ... sentence. (Just when you think he can't possibly talk any slower ... If it seemed like the App demo dragged painfully long in the liveblogs ... trust me, it's even worse in full video. Note to Forstall: for gosh sakes, invest some time with a public speaking coach and a video camera.)
"especially rising interest rates"
Haven't heard much emphasis placed in the relationship between rates and home prices. Lotsa chatter about supply and demand relationship. But it ain't rocket science -- home prices fall as interest rates rise. That's the more important factor. Ultimately, home prices are expressed in relation to wages and interest rates. It's all about what monthly mortgage payment your wages will support. 2009 has the potential to be fugly, fugly, fugly.
"signs of capitulation"
"Signs of capitulation here - Apple suddenly needs to move much faster than they thought they would. Perhaps iPod numbers are coming down faster than we thought."
A different take: perhaps this isn't "capitulation" and a change in gameplan, but is exactly what Apple's master plan called for all along. The most crucial move in building the iPod franchise came when Apple elected to drive price down dramatically, sacrificed AUP and squeezed its own margins in order to grab dominant market share, while expanding the market. If I recall correctly, the iPod, like the iPhone, started out at $599 for the high-end model. It was when Apple hit that $199 price-point that things really exploded.
Beyond that, I think Apple's bigger concern isn't slowing iPod sales, but the limited amount of time they've got to grab share in the phone market before Android/g-Phones hit the street. I think they've known all along that they wanted to do everything possible to move at this speed on that account.
I dread having to deal with my local ATT store, but I'm looking forward to the 2nd week of July. My only regret: I suspect Apple's master plan will call for delivering a doubling of storage in advance of the holiday shopping season, and that a better camera won't be far behind. I only pray that these Rev B phones are capable of handling video iChat, which is the one major feature I think Apple is sure to deliver in the next 6-9 months.
The shell game
Cut the price of the handset by $200 and bump the cost of the 2-yr plan by $240.
"with no contract"
Now that would be news. Apple selling no-contract iPhones? With the end of revenue sharing with ATT, Apple no longer has much incentive to try and block jailbreak operations. In fact, to the contrary, Apple would have plenty of incentive to play the wink and nod game.
Buried in the fine print ...
"The new agreement between Apple and AT&T eliminates the revenue-sharing model under which AT&T shared a portion of monthly service revenue with Apple. Under the revised agreement, which is consistent with traditional equipment manufacturer-carrier arrangements, there is no revenue sharing ..."
http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=25791
A bit of silver lining for that dark cloud ...
"In the near term, AT&T anticipates that the new agreement will likely result in some pressure on margins and earnings, reflecting the costs of subsidized device pricing ..."
(translation: Apple didn't really lower the price of the iPhone, it's getting a direct cash payment for the difference from ATT)
One other piece of unwelcome news buried in that fine print ... the total cost of ATT's plans is going up by at least 17% (for the low-end plan), as they're now separating voice and data components for personal accounts, just the same as the current business account model.
So now we have ...
iPhone (8GB) => $199
iPod Touch (8GB) => $299
Interesting.
Rumor du jour: Mac Fusion
"Bridge the gap" w/Mac Fusion ...
From TUAW, regurgitated by Fortune: Apple 2.0 blog ...
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/08/rumor-mac-fusion-a-new-developer-mac
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/06/09/the-mac-fusion-rumor-bridging-the-gap
Rumor: Slingbox/AppleTV to iPhone?
Long anticipated Slingbox broadcast to iPhone to be announced?
That would be cool, cool, cool.
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/04/10/apple_tv_slingbox_lash_up_apple_corps_exit_microsoft_at_crossroads.html
"so is it your position ..."
You seem really hung up on this accounting game. It's really simple: Apple is not constrained in any way by GAAP from offering major OS upgrades for a charge, nor from offering incremental (point) upgrades for free. On any of its computing hardware, including the iPhone.
As to whether Apple has set expectations for iPhone buyers that they're going to get major upgrades to the iPhone OS for free for life, no, I don't believe they did that. But if you'd like to provide the quote from Jobs or Apple that they did, I'll stand corrected. Is that your position?
IF Apple decided it wanted to charge for major OS upgrades to the iPhone, but deliver incremental point upgrades for free, I don't think Jobs would have any problem at all delivering that message in complete consistency with any public statement made by Apple about the iPhone to date. Just as I don't think it would be any problem at all for Apple to include supplemental Apple-created software for the iPhone (separate and apart from whatever software functionality it chos to include packaged with the iPhone for free) and charge for that. Do you think Apple is constrained from selling ANY software functionality for the iPhone?
If that rumor is true ...
... and Apple will release iChat for Windows, then I'm both really jazzed for the future, and a bit sad that it happened too late for dilleet.
"the fact that Apple said ..."
roni, your confusion stems from the false premise you've stated. What you state as "fact" is not. Apple is getting a share of the revenue collected by ATT for the wireless service and internet access. Apple is electing to treat THAT revenue as subscription revenue attached the the iPhone hardware. (Incidentally, it is NOT required by GAAP to do so, that is an election on Apple's part).
Apple can sell software for the iPhone (OS and other software) if it chooses to. And when it does, it can choose to account for it via either methodology -- although it becomes an increasing stretch to drive software sales into "subscription" mode, unless it is truly sold as a subscription, paid monthly, as ATT's wireless and data plans are. Either way, though, whether Apple chooses to charge for something or not, and how it chooses to account for it if it charges, are two entirely different things.
"imagine what Apple might pull off"
And not a moment too soon. In some respects, from this point on to the time Google gets Android dialed in and the carriers go full throttle with the "gPhone," is the race to buildup to war. Every bit of turf Apple can grab now, every key embattlement it can construct on the metaphorical high ground, will inure to its advantage when the big battle is finally joined.
Every customer Apple can get onto the iPhone now is 10 times more likely to wind up on the iPhone platform a couple years later than those who are still sitting on the sideline when iPhone and gPhones finally line up and begin the mother of all computing battles. I see no reason to believe the gPhone assault won't be every bit as withering as Microsoft's Windows assault on the Mac OS of the 80s. In fact, there is more at stake sooner, and the two combatants this time are much more mature, powerful and seasoned. Hopefully the outcome will be different this time, but I believe it will be a vicious and protracted fight.
The best possible thing that could happen for Apple at this point is that ATT decides to really go for Sprint's jugular and to do it via a big up-front subsidy discount on the iPhone. Apple can't do this itself because it wouldn't make sense to set up a competition between the iPod Touch and the iPhone, with Apple eating the cost on both ends. But if ATT did it, and paid Apple the difference, Apple wouldn't be the least bit disappointed to receive an extra $100 for people switching from iPod Touches to iPhones.
Considering Verizon's march forward and recent acquisition of AllTel, and more than a few of the monopoly dinosaurs left at ATT, you can be sure those guys are thinking about how much better life would be if they could drive Sprint out of business and cripple T-Mobile while they're at it, at least reducing the market to a duopoly.
"We've become what we once despised"
Rut-row, scooby doo. dilleet warned there might come a day when all good contrarian curmudgeons would need to abandon the Mac platform because it had become all that we once despised. But he never warned it would be ourselves we were trying to escape. Say it ain't so.
p.s. and OT: I sure hope the Israeli Transportation Minister and his minions loaded up on oil futures and shorted the hell out of the world equities markets before unloading the latest warmonger comments today.
Tex, perhaps it's a poor extrapolation
... but I think there's a sizable portion of the Mac user universe that refuses to buy Rev A in any Apple product unless they're absolutely stuck in a pinch. Given the generalized review that accompanied Rev A (wicked cool, but hamstrung by "slow" EDGE, and missing a few features), I expect there is a natural chunk of buyers who've been patiently sitting and waiting. I'm one of them. With the rounding out of the feature set (chat, MMS, GPS, etc., etc.), the opening up to 3rd party apps, and the arrival of 3G, it seems to me Apple's hit the Rev B crowd square in the middle of the bulls-eye.
Then again, maybe I'm just ... projecting.
Fake, schmake
... isn't this the time when all rational review is suspended in favor of fancy and fairytales?!!
Besides, what's the purpose of Photoshop if not to help doctor up pre-MW pics a couple times a year?