Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The first signs of a dystopian society?

Via the Guardian -- a Scottsdale Arizona gun club offering families to pose with Santa and guns.

When members of society are popularly and broadly accepting incoherent and widely disparate ideas as functionally logical and moral, I think we're headed towards dystopia.

In this particular case, safety (by way of violence) is aligned and given parity to peace on Earth and goodwill to men.  The case can also be made that these people have no idea what peace and goodwill to men, actually means.  To them, it might be more of a case of shoot first, ask questions later.


Breaking News: SANTA DEAD.
December 25th, 2011 Scottsdale AZ

Santa was shot and killed while delivering presents to a family of five in Scottsdale, near Phoenix Arizona. Bob Roberts, father of three and owner of a dozen automatic guns, insisted he was legally protecting his presents, when he shot Santa.  Roberts was awakened in the middle of the night, by sounds of an intruder.  Fearful of his presents being stolen, he immediately grabbed his AK-47 replica, and shot at a shadow of a fat man, "It was breaking and entering.  I have a right to defend my presents.  He (Santa) never told us that he was coming."

Police and paramedics were called to the scene by neighbors who heard gunshots followed by screams from children.  Santa was declared dead on the scene, with at least a dozen gun shells lying around the floor of the Roberts home.  Police say that a full investigation will be conducted, but that they believe Roberts was legally in his right to shoot Santa for breaking and entering while leaving a wrapped iPad and other gifts.

Santa Claus is survived by a wife and a team of elves and flying reindeer.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Nielsen: Android still growing in the US.

Android grew from 39% to 43% market share for Q3-2011, taking market share away from RIM and Windows, while iOS holding its own at 28% for two quarters.  No surprise that Android is taking market share away from RIM and Microsoft.  Android phones have the highest download speeds, as they're the only 4G phones, and are the fastest HSPA+ phones out there -- a fact that won't change until some time next year.


Notes:

  • Q4-2010 Nielsen numbers here.
  • Q1-2011 Nielsen numbers here.
  • Q2-2011 Nielsen numbers here.
  • Q3-2011 Nielsen numbers here.

The injustices of PAC-12 Commissioner Larry Scott against USC.

The 5 injustices Mr. Scott has inflicted on USC in 2011:

  1. Reprimanded Matt Barkley for out-of context comments about Vontaze Burfict.  Then, as if to insult Barkley, Burfict didn't receive any punishment for getting caught by the cameras, during the ASU-USC game pointing fingers (taunting) at Barkley at the line of scrimmage.
  2. Cut USC off from playing for the PAC-12 championship, even though no player on the team was around when Reggie Bush was at USC, thereby granting a 6-6 UCLA squad that just lost to USC 0-50, the opportunity to play for the conference championship.
  3. By cutting USC off from playing for the PAC-12 championship, prevented Barkley from playing in front of a national audience, the weekend before the Heisman ballots were collected.
  4. Changed out the referees during the off-season, only to end up with referees who would end up discussing before a game how they would target one USC player (with prejudice) -- notable on a late 4th quarter call that would alter the outcome of the game.  Later, Mr. Scott followed up that injustice by giving that player a 1/2 game suspension.  This, despite these types of hits allowed in the SEC.
  5. Even after changing out the referees, bad calls continued to plague USC (and the PAC-12 in general).

Open letter to news websites...

If you switch to a Facebook-only commenting system, I'm leaving you for good.  I encourage others to follow suit.

USA Today, you've just disappeared from my Google News section.  Also, I've logged out from USA Today, so that you won't be able to track me anymore, if I accidentally get routed to your website.

Sorry, but I don't condone the use of Facebook, let alone the anti-competitive practice of using a closed commenting ecosystem that requires the use of a service that I do not wish to join.

German - US bond yields with a side of Greek.

My my, how much can change in a single month, let alone two weeks.  The US now has lower bond yields -- no quantitative easing needed -- than Germany.  Today's current yields represent a 61 basis point change within two weeks, just before Germany tried to auction off new 10 year bonds.

Meanwhile, the Greek 10 year yield has jumped 380 basis points in two weeks, about to rise above 32%.

Below, don't be fooled by the similarity of the two lines.  The US-Greek spread is increasing as fast as the Greek yield is increasing, which is to say that US 10 year bonds have fluctuated very mildly by comparison.

At some point, a psychological barrier will be breached, and Greece will end up in a disorderly default that, apparently many economists are predicting will lead to the double-dip recession.  Which is somewhat amusing, at least insofar that Greece has been desperately slashing spending, to no avail.  This seems to have been lost on conservative US politicians and their austerity theory.

Another thing that has seemingly escaped the conservative economic theory: the ECB's rate cutting, after this past April's hike on interest rates -- so much for those fears of headline inflation, mostly due to volatile commodities.  You don't so much hear the conservative cry of a fear of inflation these days, but they remain unapologetic over the matter of chasing the wrong theory.


Monday, November 28, 2011

10 year Greek bond nearing 31% yield.

Greek bonds:
3 mo = 11.7% yield
6 mo = 8.2%
1 year = 311.4%
2 year = 127.9%
3 year = 83.2%
5 year = 46.4%
10 year = 30.9%
30 year = 20.2%

So it seems that bond traders have priced in a default somewhere around a year from now, eh?  That 11.7% 3 month yield sure sounds good, though.  If an investor is lucky, the EU will come out with some more short-term bailouts, thereby ensuring payback on that 3-month investment.

Any day now...?

Saturday, November 26, 2011

USC 50 --- UCLA clobbered. Barkley for Heisman!

USC demolished UCLA while shutting them out 50 -0, holding the Bruins 0-3 on 4th down conversions, including stopping the Bruins in the red zone on two attempts to score.

Sometimes you have to pinch yourself, when you think about how the three starting linebackers are all true / redshirt freshmen, and one starting wide receiver is a true sophomore while a true freshman starts at the other side.

Matt Barkley may have had his best game ever as a Trojan, setting himself up to be included in the Heisman voting.  Barkley's 424 yards passing on 35 - 42 passes, 6 touchdowns, zero interceptions and 10.1 yards per passing attempt was absolutely beautiful to watch, on his way to breaking the PAC-12 record for touchdowns in a season with 39.

If he stays one more year, he could obliterate Carson Palmer's career USC total passing yards record (11,818 yards), and Matt Leinart's career touchdown record (99 touchdowns), which is the PAC-12 record as well.

And at the end of the game, the whole crowd was chanting, "ONE MORE YEAR!"  Everyone knows that if he comes back, 2012 could result in a BCS NC game and a Heisman -- just look at all the talent on that roster!

In previous seasons, he had faded in the second half of the year, but this year, he exploded in production, and could be qualified as the best quarterback in the PAC-12 in the last 6 games of the season.

2011
Half Comp Att % Yards Yd/Att TD INT
1 152 223 68.2% 1782 8.0 16 4
2 156 223 70.0% 1747 7.8 23 3
Total 308 446 69.1 3529 7.9 39 7

2010
Half Comp Att % Yards Yd/Att TD INT
1 113 174 64.9% 1517 8.7 15 4
2 123 203 60.6% 1274 6.3 11 8
Total 236 377 62.6% 2791 7.4 26 12

2009
Half Comp Att % Yards Yd/Att TD INT
1 97 161 60.2% 1540 9.6 7 5
2 114 191 59.7 1195 6.3 8 9
Total 211 352 59.9 2735 7.8 15 14

Each season Barkley improved, but this year he didn't suffer a second-half season fade.  Good enough for a Heisman this year?

Most people think Andrew Luck will win it, but Luck has suffered a second half fade this year.  Mind you, if you look at his total for the season, he did well, but clearly, Matt Barkley outperformed Andrew Luck in the second half of the season, deep in PAC-12 competition.

2011 (Andrew Luck)
Half Comp Att % Yards Yd/Att TD INT
1 129 181 71.3% 1719 9.5 18 3
2 132 192 68.8% 1451 7.6 17 6
Total 261 373 70.0% 3170 8.5 35 9

And if you look at team scoring, you can't help but notice that Stanford faded in the second half, while USC surged, right in the middle of PAC-12 conference games, culminating in its blowout win against UCLA.  Meanwhile, Stanford scored its lowest offensive output of the entire season.  In fact, following the overtime win against USC, Stanford's offense was never the same: 38 pts ---> 30 pts ---> 31 pts ---> 28 pts.

Stanford
Half PPG
1 45.8
2 41.3
Tot 43.6
USC
Half PPG
1 30
2 41.5
Totl 35.8

I think Stanford and Andrew Luck are very good and worthy of a BCS at-large invite, but I think USC just kept getting better throughout the whole season, and ended on a very high note.  If they were allowed to play in a bowl game, it's hard to argue that they couldn't beat just about anyone in the nation.

Barkley for Heisman!

Scary mannequin.

A while back, I made a blog post on this freaky picture.



Today, I've found a sellout.woof for Able Planet noise-cancelling headphones that uses the same freaky mannequin.

Yikes.  That smile is downright unnatural, don't you think?  Just look at what happens when she wears a devil's mask.  Freaky, yes?

Friday, November 25, 2011

2011 NCAA bowl season -- some thoughts.

It's the last weekend in November, and there are few chances for teams to qualify for a bowl game beyond this week.  Today, 65 (64 if you take into account that Miami took itself out of bowl contention because of expected severe NCAA sanctions) teams are qualified to play for a bowl game.

With 35 bowl games, the bowls need 70 bowl-eligible teams, so it's no wonder that the NCAA loosened its policy to allow squads with 6 wins to play.  A decade ago, you had to have at least 6 wins, and you had to have a winning record.*  Without lowering eligibility requirements, there wouldn't be enough teams to fill the bowls.

16 teams currently have to win out to become bowl eligible.  13 of those 16 teams are currently sporting a losing record (5-6 or worse).  At best, 14 of those teams can become bowl eligible; at worst only two of those 16 teams might end up bowl eligible -- in both scenarios, because four of those 16 teams play each other, only two of them can win.

At worst, the NCAA might not have enough bowl eligible teams, and will have to use a waiver to allow teams with losing records to play in a bowl.

There are too many bowls.



* - 2001-02 NCAA Post-season football handbook stated, "A deserving winning team is defined as one that wins a minimum of six games against Division I-A competition and has a record that includes more wins than losses."  In 2006, the NCAA changed bylaw 30.9.2.1.  In the following year, the 2007-08 NCAA Post-season football handbook provided that "an institution with a record of six wins and six losses may be selected for participation in a bowl game."  In 2009, the NCAA altogether eliminated language that referred to "winning" teams.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Global recession warning?

Six events in recent days seem to point to a spreading doom and gloom:

  1. 3rd quarter GDP was revised downward to 2.0%.
  2. Germany had to pull back half of its planned bond auction because of a lack of interest.
  3. As a result of the disinterest in German bonds, the German 10 year yield (2.15%) is now higher than the US' 10 year yield (1.91%), even though US debt as percentage of GDP is much higher than Germany's.
  4. Greece 10 year bond rate is above 29%.
  5. The Feds are having 31 of the biggest US banks go through a stress test, with the consideration of a prolonged recession with 13% unemployment rate, an 8% drop in GDP and a 52% drop in the stock market between Q3 2011 and Q4 2012.
  6. The Dow Industrial Index has pulled back 7.6% in less than a month.
But good news: US politicians are still planning to cut total US GDP by slashing federal spending, with or without a debt panel.

Oh wait.

Matt Barkley: why he deserves a lot of credit.


Years from now when we're talking about how he was the most under-appreciated and one of the most talented Trojans in modern history, this is how the legend will be retold:

A true freshman who was named the starter from the beginning of the season and playing in just his second college game, talked eagerly about wanting to go into the Horseshoe and having all the pressures of a match up with Ohio State, on his shoulders.

Amid 106,000 rabid fans in a sea of red and gray and down by five points midway through the fourth quarter, the Trojans began their drive with Barkley getting sacked and a false-start penalty. Now backed up to their own 5 yard line and facing 2nd and 19 in what had been an all-night long defensive struggle, the Buckeye fans were screaming and jumping for joy.

With just over 6 minutes to go in the game and 95 yards to the endzone, this true freshman did what few quarterbacks let alone a guy that was only playing in his second college game, could do. He drove the Trojans down the field, passing for 55 of them, culminating with a game-winning touchdown and a two-point conversion.

Facing adversity head on, he had gone into Columbus Ohio and had won against 15th ranked Ohio State, showing his toughness in just his second week into his college career.

But that pales in comparison to the challenge he'd face the following year.

In January 2010, his head coach and most of the team's personnel left for the NFL.  Another 5 months later, the NCAA's COI announced what would have otherwise been crippling sanctions, and one recruit - Seantrel Henderson - asked and was granted a release from his letter of intent to attend USC.  With the NCAA's version of free-agency in place, junior and senior football players were allowed to transfer to other FBS programs without having to sit out a season, and a handful left.

Most experts predicted that USC would take years to recover and would immediately be headed downhill.

But there Barkley stood, talking to reporters about how the Trojan Nation would stand tall and hold strong through the roughest patch in decades at USC.  There was never a question about staying at USC despite the severity of sanctions; there was only the hard road forward to Fight On.

And Fight On, Barkley and the Trojans did, to the best season since 2008, leaving critics with their jaws on the floor.

And if he should choose to leave USC early, let no one say that his career was incomplete without a Heisman, because no amount of awards can make up for his actions on and off the field at USC, in its darkest hours.

That's how we'll remember Matt Barkley's career.  Thanks Matt.


I had posted a slightly different version of this, as a comment to an ESPN article, earlier.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Git yer Google Thanksgiving Doodle on!

Thanksgiving is coming, and Google's got its Doodle going on.

I created my own inspired Turkey.  Click on the wing to scramble it up, or select any of the parts to change it.

Chinese construction material failure, part 2?

Everyone remembers how residential drywall from China, turned out to be a really bad deal.  Now, it appears there's issues over glazing coming from China.  In an article from the Architect's Newspaper, experts are pointing to glass manufactured in China as the primary cause in a series of tempered glass failures in buildings.
Project developers and design teams have not released the sources of the failed glass, but glass fabrication experts speculated that all of the buildings used tempered balcony glass from Chinese manufacturers as a cost-cutting measure. This glass is more likely to contain nickel sulfide inclusions, impurities that can cause breakage unless heat soaking detects imperfections, which have largely been removed from domestic glass manufacturers’ products.
The solution has been to switch to laminated glazing, which, in most cases makes more sense than tempered glazing, anyway -- if it breaks, the laminated layer will keep the glass shards in place.  But as always, building owners balk at the higher cost of laminated layers.

What owners sometimes forget however, is that a laminated layer acts as a theft-deterrent, as you cannot simply break the glazing to get inside.  If you manage to break the outer glazing layer, you now have to risk getting cut while trying to tear through the laminated layer, and break the second glazing layer.  Have you seen Urban Outfitters stores?  Some have broken glass windows -- the glazing held in place by laminated layers.



Anyway, with or without lamination, you'd have to accept the impurities causing the glazing to crack, if you allow a subcontractor to use glass from China.  Just one more black mark for the Made in China label.

Help Senator Ron Wyden stop SOPA.

Congress is trying to steamroll SOPA, but (my) Senator Ron Wyden is trying to stop them.  Senator Wyden is planning to filibuster the bill in the Senate, by reading the names of everyone who signs this list to oppose SOPA.  After a few days, they are up to 50,000 people right now, with a goal of 100,000.

Just about everyone else knows that SOPA is a horrible idea, except the Congressional backers who probably have no idea what the difference is between an IP and a MAC address.  And in case you weren't paying attention, this bill would thus remake the internet into America's version of the Great Firewall of China.

Please help Senator Wyden defeat this Big Brother bill that will destroy the internet.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Adobe CS6 upgrade policy changes.

Via Protools, Adobe announced earlier this month on their blog, that when it releases CS6 next year you won't be able to upgrade from CS4 and earlier versions:
With regards to upgrades, we are changing our policy for perpetual license customers. In order to qualify for upgrade pricing when CS6 releases, customers will need to be on the latest version of our software (either CS5 or CS5.5 editions).
At the time, Adobe placed a 20% discount on all upgrade software through the end of the year, and today they announced that through November 29th, you can get a 30% discount on upgrades.  Seems plausibly reasonable, right?

But this is what bugs me about this:

Adobe previously voiced they were dropping flash support for mobile platforms altogether.  You may think that this shouldn't really affect developers since they're still supporting desktop browsing, but if you're a developer - and a lazy one at that - you'd prefer to develop an asset once, and use it for multiple platforms...scaled accordingly. If you buy CS5.5, you're not going to be using Flash; you'll end up using either XML, HTML5 or a scripting language to accomplish your Flash-like work, through some nice GUI / SDK, right?

Even with the discount, you're buying a software suite that includes one piece of software that is already irrelevant.  In the case of the Design Premium suite, I see it as 1/7th -- 14% -- of the whole suite is now worthless.  That 30% discount isn't such a great discount, when you know that come next Spring / early Summer, you'll have to pay to upgrade to CS6 with its new dynamic web creation software that replaces Flash.

And you don't have much of a choice.

Once CS6 is announced,  the retail partner channel for Adobe upgrades from earlier CS versions to CS5.5 will heat up until all boxed products are gone.

It's all about greed, as Adobe tries to push its GAAP operating profit margin back up to over 30%.  First, they are forcing people to upgrade, but second, they're pushing high-priced subscriptions.  That's 1% thinking -- a self-serving thought process that destroys jobs for the benefit of corporate officers, the board and large stockholders.

Makes me angry.

Matt Barkley for Heisman?

It has officially begun.  USC has -- finally -- made a concerted effort to push for USC quarterback Matt Barkley to be included in the Heisman discussion.  His commanding performance against Oregon in Autzen has become the launching pad for this push.

This has led some to point to similarities in Carson Palmer's 448 yard / 5 TD / 1 INT performance against Oregon in 2002.  What solidified Palmer's Heisman win was his 425 yard / 4 TD / 1 INT performance against arch-rival and a then 10-1 Notre Dame squad in the final game of the regular season.

So it would seem that in order for Barkley to gain traction, he'd have to have a commanding performance against the final game of the season against cross-town rival UCLA, one would think.

Still, it doesn't seem likely that, at this late in the season, that he'd be able to win it, though he might get an invite to NYC.

More on the debt panel super committee.

Mark Fiore's the best.  No really, the best.

Debt panel failure? You were warned.

I wrote about this debt panel poison pill, just before they voted on the compromise debt-ceiling bill:
Republicans are given a pass on responsibility once again. By talking a good public narrative but doing nothing behind closed doors, they will effectively cut Medicare, and not take the heat for cutting Medicare. In fact, they will have the capacity to blame Democrats for not agreeing to spending cuts, that triggered the Medicare cuts.
There are a number of libertarian Republicans who, to their credit, believe all of the government is too big, including the military.  So for folks like Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann, the mandatory spending cuts in the military budget is fundamentally acceptable.

And just before Thanksgiving -- will this calamity suppress consumer spending during the holiday season?

Anti-USC bias in AP top 25 college football poll?

When the 2011 week 13 AP college football top 25 poll came out, I had a mild shock that Oregon remained higher than USC.  I figured there would be some voters who felt that Oregon should be ranked slightly better than USC, even though the Trojans had just beaten the Ducks in Autzen.  Still, it was gnawing at me to figure out who these voters were that had voted Oregon above USC.

After pulling and laying out the data, it was quickly obvious that something real was going on.  Normally you'd expect most voters to place USC one or two spots above Oregon -- which is what the first chart shows (Oregon rank - USC rank = differential on each ballot).  But then you'll notice that there are quite a few outlier voters who place Oregon much higher than USC in their ballots.

Now, I know that a lot of people think Oregon is still better, but wow...three people voted Oregon nine spots or higher than USC.  What in the world is up with that,Greg Auman of the St. Petersburg Times (FL), Joe Medley of the Anniston Star (AL) and Mitch Vingle of the Charleston Gazette (WV)?

For comparison, here's a chart of how voters feel about Michigan State and Michigan, both 9-2 but Michigan State won its head-to-head match-up with Michigan. Notice how unequivocal their decision.  In fact, not a single ballot shows Michigan on top of Michigan State.


Now, to illustrate the bias against USC, here's a chart of the net sum of voters (total USC votes for specific slot in the poll minus the total Oregon votes for that specific slot).  It's a bit schizophrenic, but basically voters tended to up-vote Oregon while continue to down-vote USC, with a few odd outliers, but the results were mixed, to be sure.


Now this is what it looks like, when you compare Michigan State and Michigan. Notice how clear the difference is, even though they're both 9-2...presumably because Michigan State won head-to-head, right? But Michigan just blew away Nebraska, while MSU lost to Nebraska.

In other words, USC should be somewhat similar to MSU, but voters don't see it that way.

The parallel seems perfect, in that USC lost to Stanford, but beat Oregon, who beat Stanford, while MSU lost to Nebraska but beat Michigan, who beat Nebraska.  Get my point?  Voters are presented with parallel situations of possible confusion, but are clearly seeing Michigan State - Michigan differently from USC- Oregon.  Not to confuse the situation any more, but at home ND lost badly to USC while whipping MSU...but USC is only one poll spot above MSU.

So why is that?  Well, for starters, USC had dropped out of the top 25 a couple times, with low expectations set up from last year's 8-5 finish and a mediocre start.  Further, as a result of the Paul Dee hypocritical bowl ban, USC fell out of the minds of many voters, with the expectation that USC would not be very good for the next several seasons.

But a funny thing happened...Lane Kiffin is actually a good coach and he's got some good recruiters too!

So AP voters...come on folks...think about your votes, eh?

And incidentally, Barkley for Heisman!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

USC beats Oregon 38 - 35. Autzen is shocked.

Did you feel it?  It was going to be a cold night with a raucous crowd, much like the USC - ND game in South Bend earlier this year, and you know how that ended up.  At the time, the win over ND was considered an upset, with most people and Las Vegas picking Notre Dame.  Well, it happened again on a cold night in front of another raucous crowd.

USC dominated for 3 quarters, let no one doubt this.  But Oregon nearly came back and tied the game at the end of regulation, except for a failed field goal with the clock showing 00:00.  Perhaps that fourth quarter fade was in part because Dion Bailey was hobbled on an apparent ankle sprain in the 4th quarter.  Or because USC fumbled the ball away on Oregon's 8 yard line, allowing Oregon to make one last drive.  Credit USC's defense though, that they were able to slow down Oregon enough and force an attempted game-tying field goal.  In years past, it would have been a complete collapse of the USC defense giving way to an Oregon touchdown.

This was not last year's defense....no 3rd and forever turned into a first down for the Ducks.  In fact, USC's defensive line looked a lot like Auburn's in the BCS NC game, when the tackles were able to get into the back field and disrupt Oregon's option decision making.

It's been a long time since Oregon lost in Autzen Stadium...September 20, 2008 to Boise State.  And the last time Oregon lost in the conference was November 7, 2009, to Stanford.  In both cases, Oregon rallied to make the game close and failed to win the game late in the fourth quarter.

In all three of these games, Oregon had more yards on offense (most of it coming in the 4th quarter) and much less time of possession than their opponents.

So can we stop the Kiffin bashing now?  Oh, I know Tennessee fans wanted nothing more than to trash Kiffin and wish him ill willl, but he's done nothing but show that he can coach and win.

USC's playing true / rs freshmen all over the field, including all three linebacker spots, while looking awfully sharp for a young team.  If Barkley does come back, he'll have the Serra duo of Robert Woods and Marqise Lee, and the sure favorite to make it to the BCS NC game next year.

Last item.  Matt Barkley threw for 323 yards with 4 touchdowns and 1 interception.  For the year he's got 3105 yards throwing, 33 TDs and 7 INTs.  Against the Ducks in Autzen, was that his Heisman moment?

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Portland Police on the Day of Action.

They blocked out road and pedestrian traffic on the upper deck and for a while, the lower deck pedestrian traffic.  And why?  Because they wanted to keep traffic clear for buses, Max and the Amtrak / rail freight operating.  Meantime, vehicular traffic has been severely backed up since 7:00 am, because police have blocked it on the Steel Bridge.



Now, if I was in charge of the Occupy Portland march, I'd take advantage of the Max free fare zone and cross the Steel Bridge via Max.

Instead, they walked around to the lower pedestrian deck to cross the Steel Bridge -- why didn't the police keep the lower deck open from the start, and redirect protesters from the very beginning?

Seems like Portland Police wasted a lot of time.  Oh well, I suppose they anticipated thousands, and not the three or four hundred folks that were intent on marching across the bridge.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Gartner says Android reaches over 50% global market share.

Oops.  Gartner's forecast back in April of this year, predicted that Android would reach 50% at the end of 2012.  Oh well, they were only off by five quarters.

Q3 2011 Android hit 52.5% in global sales, more than double (25.3%) a year ago.  Meanwhile, iOS, RIM, Symbian and of course Microsoft were all down.  Microsoft dropped below Samsung's Bada OS.  Now that's pretty bad.

Here's something worth tracking: Nokia abandoned Symbian for Windows Phone, so Microsoft should show gains in Q4-2011.  However, if the gains are minimal (or nonexistent) while Symbian continues to plummet, WP is in trouble and Nokia may be bought out.

Bendable plywood...sorta.

Saw this laser-cut plywood, and I think I might have to borrow this idea...to the hilt that is.  Via Make.


____American Censorship Day: 11.16.2011____














Stop Internet Censorship -- Stop SOPA














Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Why are Conservatives supporting government intervention into Occupy encampments?

I've been pondering this curious dilemma for some time now.  Conservative comments have been flowing on the internet for weeks, demanding that governments act on local laws and intervene to break up local occupations.  Likewise, governments - following Portland's move - have cited health and safety as reasons for intervening.

But the last time I checked, Conservatives have been demanding fewer regulations and particularly less paternalism by local and federal governments.

Oh sure, people are quick to throw up the cost of repairs to the parks.  But when money has been an issue, states like California have simply closed public park access so that they wouldn't have to pay for upkeep and security.  No one is standing in the way of cities stopping their upkeep of parks that are occupied.  If toilets need to be cleaned, have the Occupy movements clean them up themselves; if trash needs to be removed, have the Occupy movements arrange to have the trash hauled themselves.  It's no different than a sovereign nation - like a native Indian tribe - assuming responsibility for its own needs.

Is it an eyesore?  Sure.  But I know for a fact, few people out of a city's entire population, will ever actually see the encampment in person; this indignation for tents in the middle of a city is feigned by ulterior bias.

What it comes down to, is that people don't want to be reminded that a society is more than your own little world that has fences to delineate borders that shall not be crossed.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Being Republican = old fart.

Via CNET's Dong Ngo, in a poll conducted by Poll Position, Republicans favor AOL for their email service.

In other words, they're conservative and don't like this newfangled thing called Gmail.  Republicans love their email served up the good old fashioned way: a series of tubes.

In the same poll, Democrats overwhelmingly use Gmail.  Side news: Democrats not afraid of new ideas.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Earth from space.

via CNET's Chris Matyszczyk, a compilation of still photographs from NASA, via the ISS. It reminds you of how precious of a gift the Earth is, with its contained atmosphere.


Occupy Portland -- a countdown to eviction.

I had to laugh.  Under the threat of being arrested and removed from Chapman and Lonsdale Parks, a group of occupiers poured some bubbly, counted down out loud to midnight, and cheered when we hit 12:00 midnight.

And the crowd of people in the surrounding blocks grew by the thousands as the midnight hour hit.  It's as big as the Pioneer Square NYE party, no kidding!  All of the surrounding sidewalks are FULL of people!

And there's even a guy with a french horn sitting on the bronze elk.

This IS Portland, folks...we're not like other cities.





Oh, and this is going to last for hours.  The Portland Police isn't going to start arresting people just because it hit midnight.  They're going to wait until the crowds die down, just as they did at Jamison Square.


Update 1:54 am: Things changed dramatically when the mounted police tried to use its horses to push out protesters.  In a quick moment, someone threw a jumping jack firework into the police, one mounted officer fell off his horse, and things very nearly exploded out of control.

The horses pulled back, then officers pulled out the guy who threw the firework, and as quickly as things escalated, they suddenly calmed down.

There are thousands of people in front of the police blocking them from entering the park, and there are nearly as many behind the officers watching the events.  There is no way this ends peacefully if the police intend to push those thousands of people out.  Tensions shot up, but the police have moved back, and the horses have cleared out of the area completely (for now).

I think they realized just how scary things might get.  There are WAY MORE protesters than police officers by a wide margin.




Update 2:24 am: The police are backtracking a block. Looks to me like the police are trying to pull the most confrontational protesters off the center area, and may attempt to cut them off from the side, blocking them from the central core.

The confrontation from earlier appears to have accomplished the opposite.  People that were starting to peel off have now come back and the crowd is in the thousands.

Update 4:20 am: The mood has changed back to a more festive atmosphere once again, and people are chanting, playing drums, and the bicycle brigade has continued going around.

This is a very surreal event.  It looks an awful lot like a transformative, transcendental moment in the movement that might ratchet up the entire Occupy movement.  OWS may be the birth of the movement, but this morning / day may be the event which becomes the framework for the whole movement.

Update 6:00 am Sunday morning: Well, no evictions.  The mayor tweeted about 5:30 am, "We are going to be as patient & as peaceful as possible."  And then in a response to someone who questioned why the Mayor wasn't letting the police enforce the rules, the Mayor tweeted that, "Police incident cmdr makes timing/tactical decisions in these situations."

As a reminder however, the Mayor was quite specific, when he said that, "on or after November 13, by authority of Portland City Code, the City will close Lownsdale and Chapman Squares."  There's a lot of leeway that the Mayor and the police.

Crowds however, have shrunk quite a bit, down to about 1000+ or so, perhaps.  Still outnumbering the police, though.

So what happens when day breaks?  There's a rally at Pioneer Square at noon, so there is a big opportunity  for the movement to make a big statement all day Sunday if it explodes at Pioneer Square.

Final update 7:00 am: And it all ends.  Protesters, spectators and police all got tired and called it a morning...to go home and go to sleep.  Some are still camping out, but no mass arrests and no confrontation.

The Occupy Portland now has a chance to unilaterally announce that it'll vacate the parks, and move to the next step, and look good in the process.  I still think they should move to the underside of the I-5 along the Eastbank Esplanade, and make daily or weekly marches, around the waterfront.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Open letter to Netflix: Quit f'ing with us.

I've hardly touched my TV-connected DVD player in the last two years.  As odd as it may be, I really love watching movies on my bed, from my computer which is connected to a 24" LCD screen, or on my bed, with my 17.3" laptop.

But you see, you're f'ing with me, because you've been shipping a lot of discs with strict DRM controls that prevent me from playing DVDs from my computer.

STOP IT.

Or else I'm dumping you.  You're wasting my money and my time, and I'm not going to stand for this crap much longer, after having to endure all the crap you've thrown at us this past year.


Update 11-12-2011: Netflix appears to KNOW that it is shipping DRM-controlled discs.  If you ask for a new disc due to the first one being unplayable, on the second disc it does not give you an option to select "damaged disc" as an option to request a replacement.

Also, their site seems to have some issues, briefly allowing me to stream movies, even though I'm only subscribing to DVDs -- it makes one wonder if their site was hacked, or simply weakly secured???

Try this: Go to this link that appears to take you directly to Instant Watch page.  Netflix continues to track you on your Instant Watch list, even after dropping the streaming service months ago!

Big fail.

Rick Perry's senior moment.

But don't feel sorry for him, his hairdo will surely save the day.


Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Joe Paterno was WRONG, end of discussion.

Joe Paterno met his ethical (re: legal) responsibilities by passing onto his superiors, the report of a graduate assistant who witnessed former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's sexual encounter with a 10 year old.

But Paterno failed in his moral obligation, as a human being, to report this vile criminal act to the police, after administrators chose to keep the incident quiet while banning Sandusky from bringing children on campus.  As a friend related to me, PSU administrators (athletic director and senior vp for business and finance) basically condoned child rape, so long as it wasn't on their campus.

And apparently the idea of a grown man having sex with a 10 year old child didn't disturb Joe Pa enough to fire Sandusky on the spot.

All those students who are rioting and protesting at Penn State, have lost perspective.  There is zero gray area in this, there is no excuse for Joe Pa.

Bottom line, Joe Paterno was wrong, and he's lucky if the only consequence is that he was fired.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Galaxy S-II Browsermark / Sunspider test results and comparisons/

Performed a couple of tests on my T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S-II and grabbed some reference online for benchmarks:

BrowserMark (higher is better)
89567 iPhone 4S
75326 Galaxy S-II
51701 iPhone 4
37276 iPhone 3GS
32594 Nokia Lumia 800

SunSpider (lower is better - in ms)
2222 iPhone 4S
2738 Galaxy S-II
3921 iPhone 4
5785 iPhone 3GS
6790 Nokia Lumia 800

I noticed that GSM Arena and Anandtech are both showing much worse results for Galaxy S-II than what I've seen, and I've run both tests at least twice.  It appears to be one or both of two things that separate T-Mobile's Galaxy S-II from the others: the Snapdragon CPU or the Gingerbread 2.3.5.  Sprint and AT&T use Samsung Exynos CPU and Gingerbread 2.3.4, while other countries that shipped earlier this year received 2.3.3.

Look at how the internal changes of the iPhone 4S made a huge difference from the iPhone 4, and beat out my phone!

Look again at how poorly the flagship Nokia Lumia 800 performs, compared to the two-year old iPhone 3GS!

I say again: Nokia's Lumia 800 and WP7 Mango are big failures.

Top 5 Reasons why Microsoft's using a giant phone.


5. Microsoft went after the only market still available to them: Jolly Green Giants.

4. They plan to go back 30,000 years in time and bury this on the far side of the moon, in order to guide humans to choose WP7.

3. They're "Winning"!

2George Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner wasn't available.

1. The bigger the phone, the smaller the................market share.

Monday, November 7, 2011

The fastest phones this year...

Are all Androids.

Windows Phone doesn't support / have LTE, WiMax / HSPA+ 42Mbps.  Neither does the iPhone nor Blackberry.  You might see WP7.5 Mango, iPhone and Blackberry phones advertised as 4G, but that's HSDPA / HSUPA 14Mbps on AT&T and T-Mobile -- not the fastest phones on each platform.

AT&T has an LTE version of the Samsung Galaxy S-II Rocket and the HTC Vivid.
T-Mobile has HSPA+ 42Mbps Samsung Galaxy S-II and the HTC Amaze.
Sprint has 9 different WiMax phones ranging from the Samsung Galaxy S-II Epic 4G Touch to the Nexus S 4G and the HTC Evo 4G.
Verizon's got 9 LTE phones including the new Motorola Droid Razr and Samsung Droid Charge.

This may seem like a bit of a stretch, but despite the iPhone 4S popularity in the media, I think Android will rapidly suck in first-time buyers this holiday season.  I can visualize people walking into the store asking for the fastest phones, and the sales people will respond quite simply: Android.  By the end of this year, Android will have captured 50% of the US smartphone market, and all because of a simple question: what's the fastest phone?

Euro = bad(?)

This chart, via Paul Krugman's blg, makes for fascinating look at the flaws of the Euro.  GIPS stands for Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.



Germany got all the benefits of the Euro at the expense of the GIPS countries (and others), by making German goods cheaper and GIPS products more expensive.  It created a deficit in the budgets of GIPS countries.

Because the sole currency is the Euro, there is no ability to rebalance the cost differential between two nations, other than to lower the standard of living in GIPS.  That's what's going on in Greece in particular, as Germany (and others) require Greece to agree to austerity measures.

If you want to see how the US was affected by this same sort of thinking, all you have to look at, is US-China trade.  Because China exerts strong control over its currency, we might as well assume the US and China are using a single currency.  The artificially low prices of Chinese goods creates an outflow of American capital, lowering the money our government receives in taxes, while boosting China's economy and standard of living.

KORG's iKaossilator

I almost wished I had an iOS device, just so that I could mess around with this app from KORG, that allows you to create your own tunes.

It's $9.99 via iTunes store (US) /  ¥850 (Japan) / £6.99 (UK)


Friday, November 4, 2011

Sept 2011 ComScore US wireless: Android *still* growing

ComScore released September 2011 US wireless market share numbers, and Android continues to increase market share.

Top Smartphone Platforms
3 Month Avg. Ending Sep. 2011 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Jun. 2011
Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Ages 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens
Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
Jun-11 Sep-11 Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Google 40.2% 44.8% 4.6
Apple 26.6% 27.4% 0.8
RIM 23.5% 18.9% -4.6
Microsoft 5.8% 5.6% -0.2
Symbian 2.0% 1.8% -0.2

Consider that, from the month before WP7 was released in the US last November, Microsoft's US market share has declined 42% (-4.1 percentage point change), while Android's market share has increased 91% (+21.3 percentage point change).

But WP7's decline has slowed dramatically this Summer.  Is there a glimmer of hope that WP will stop bleeding and start growing, now that Mango is out, and new phones will be introduced?  Maybe.  Although it seems more likely that what WP will do, is replace RIM as the third platform.

RIM, you see, is rapidly disappearing.  In one year, will there even be a RIM?  Bloomberg noted yesterday that RIM's stock price briefly dropped below its book value (market capitalization is worth less than its total assets).

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Old Navy friends and family discount.

Why I remember back in the day (a few years ago) when you had to have the Friends and Family discount card in order to take advantage of the Friends and Family discount.  Now, anyone can take advantage of the discount by simply printing out the coupon and bringing it with them to get 30% off (ends Nov. 8).

I can always use some socks and shorts.  :D



USC-Stanford game: PAC-12 officials planned to target McDonald?

USCFootball's Dan Weber has written a choice article on inside information within the PAC-12 officiating crew from the USC-Stanford game.  Before the game, the officials had discussed among themselves about how they would target USC's TJ McDonald for hard hits.

Why would this be controversial and potentially illegal (by the NCAA's standards)?  Because simply, it demonstrates that the officiating was not unbiased.

Better watch out, Trojans...the officials are targeting you for those 15-yard penalties!

What better way of explaining  how everyone except the PAC-12 officiating crew and the folks at PAC-12 headquarters saw this finger taunting gesture by Burfict during the game?  Days after this game, the PAC-12 reprimanded Matt Barkley for comments (about the Burfict) taken out of context, but didn't mention anything of this gesture during the game.

I guess we know whose side the PAC-12 is on.  Trojans, fight on.


Endgadget's review of Nokia's Lumia 800.

There apparently are some bugs / flaws, including mysterious battery issues.  One interesting tidbit, is that even though the phone resembles Nokia's (ill-fated)  Meego N9, in reality the WP variant - Lumia 800 - saw its innards gutted in comparison to the N9.

Amusingly, there was this quote near the end of the review, worth noting:
"First, you need to establish whether you're a Windows Phone type of person. If you're thrilled by dual-core processors, extremely high-res screens, large camera sensors, customizable widgets, expandable storage, USB mass storage and other such features, then you'll be better off with Android, because that cutting edge stuff is currently absent on Redmond's OS. 
On the other other hand, if you want to be part of a carefully crafted, powerful and generally happy emerging ecosystem, then look no further."
In other words, if you like technology, Android's better.

And really, that last part about WP being a "generally happy emerging ecosystem" is akin to adding lipstick to a pig -- it's been "emerging" for a year now, and it's lost market share.

I'm still shocked that they lopped off the front-facing camera.  This phone will be obsolete before next Summer, when Microsoft adequately incorporates Skype into its mobile platform.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Check if your online accounts have been compromised.

Via Krebsonsecurity, a site (PwnedList) that you can use to see if your email addy has been compromised by hackers, checking it against compiled public lists from torrent and pastbin sites.

Use your email addy, not your username, because you may come across other folks who seemingly use the same username, but were compromised.

Of course, if you have Gmail, it's not that hard to check activity on your account.  In Gmail, in the bottom right hand corner, you can click thru to check the activity on your account.  When you click thru, it'll show the IP addresses from which your Gmail was accessed from.

Don't fret if you get addresses from locations that aren't geographically correct, because those IP traces are to your ISP's servers -- in my case, Clearwire has servers located in Idaho.

In that window showing the list of IP that were used to access your Gmail, at the bottom of the page you can set up an alarm for any suspicious activity.