Our savings are hurting banks

by Eddie~S

Bank Deposits increase Sharply
[Via Calculated Risk]

From Scott Reckard at the LA Times: Bank deposits soar despite rock-bottom interest rates

Americans are pumping money into bank accounts at a blistering pace this year, sending deposits to record levels near $10 trillion …

In the last three months, accounts at U.S. commercial banks have increased $429 billion, or 10%, almost double the increase for all of last year.
…
The large amount of cash only adds to expenses such as paying for deposit insurance premiums. … [banks] have slashed interest payments to discourage customers. Wells Fargo & Co. … halved its payments on one-year certificates of deposits to 0.1%; Citigroup … dropped its payment to a paltry 0.3%.
…

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People are scared and saving money at record levels. This actually increases the costs for banks. They are lowering interest rates to discourage new accounts. At this rate, pretty soon, they will be no better than putting it in a mattress.

Why I like Mark Cuban

The Most Patriotic Thing You Can Do
[Via Blog Maverick]

Bust your ass and get rich.

Make a boatload of money. Pay your taxes. Lots of taxes. Hire people. Train people. Pay people. Spend money on rent, equipment, services. Pay more taxes.

When you make a shitload of money. Do something positive with it. If you are smart enough to make it, you will be smart enough to know where to put it to work.

I don’t care what anyone says. Being rich is a good thing. Not just in the obvious sense of benefiting you and your family, but in the broader sense.  Profits are not a zero sum game. The more you make the more of a financial impact you can have.

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Particularly for this one paragraph:

So be Patriotic. Go out there and get rich. Get so obnoxiously rich that when that tax bill comes , your first thought will be to choke on how big a check you have to write. Your 2nd thought will be “what a great problem to have”, and your 3rd should be a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you.

As he states, the government does waste money. In a perfect world, life would be wonderful and taxes would be unknown. The only perfect world though is found in the minds of those who believe in Heaven, not here on Earth.

If we hope to get out of this depression as soon as possible, we have to use ll the tools available to us, including strong government support provided by taxes.

It IS the most patriotic thing you can do.

Fun times at the Presidential Job Approval Center

Gallup has a great site called Presidential Job Approval Center which has an interactive graphing function of the longterm trends of Presidential job approval – click the historical trends tab.

Thus we can get this one:

The dotted line is overall approval. The light blue lowest line is Carter’s approval among Democrats. The two upper lines follow Clinton’s – the darker line – and Obama’s – the shorter, blue line – approval among Democrats.

As you can see, the last Democrat to run for reelection and win – Clinton – had almost exactly the same job approval rating as Obama does with those likeliest to vote for him. As opposed to Carter who lost his reelection bid.

Clinton and Obama have almost exactly the same job approval numbers with independents. The big difference between Clinton and Obama is with Republicans who really, really do not like Obama’s time in the White House.

But these are unlikely to vote for him anyway. So he needs to get independents and Democrats excited about him and he should have about the same chance as Clinton did for reelection.

Oh, and one final thing, Obama’s job approval overall, including all Americans, is about the same as Reagan’s was at the same point.

The next decade will likely be worse for American workers

by NTLam

The Lost Decade for American Workers
[Via Big Think]

Just about everyone realizes how bad the economy has been over the last few years. What most people don’t realize is that for most Americans the economy began to stagnate well before the financial crisis. While per capita income in the U.S. grew through the start of the financial crisis, in practice almost all that growth in income went to top earners. But for average Americans economic conditions have been stagnant for the last decade.

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Since its peak in 1999, the median income has fallen almost $3800. And this was also a decade where families were required to spend even more of their income on health insurance. We now have 7% of Americans making less than the poverty level, at a time when virtually all the income increase over the last decade went to the top 5%.

I’ve talked about this before but it can not be said enough. Since 1980, Americans have not seen their income rise in lock step with GDP as happened in the previous years.

And the small amount of increase has almost all gone to top 5%. The average American has not seen much increase in pay. Over a 30 year period.

This, to me, represents a structural problem; one that will not be solved anytime soon.

More jobs will help but it is unlikely that that the forces in place will do much to stop this stagnation of wages. For the first time in American history, Americans will be making less than their parents.

What will alter this?

TechCrunch pretty much gone

Paul Carr leaves TechCrunch. Can MG Siegler be far behind?
[Via Dave Winer's linkblog feed]

Paul Carr leaves TechCrunch. Can MG Siegler be far behind?

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I’ve written about how Huffington is taking AOL’s properties and simply destroying them. Here are just the three I read a lot: Engadget, Cinematical and Techcrunch.

In fact, when the deal first happened I did not even know most of these were AOL properties when I discussed the horrid business model of the Huffington Post. I just thought the AOL News site would be affected.

The Huffington Model is another plutocratic one, where feudal lords make lots of money off of the for-free work of the journalistic serfs.

And the professionals just end up leaving, often finding another haven for their writing. What Huffington does not realize is that destroying the brand destroys much of the value. Because the audience can easily move along with the writers they have come to trust.

The Huffington Post is great for people who will do it for free. And the quality reflects that.I do not think that is a worthwhile business model in the long run.

BUt, like a plague of locusts, the plutocrats will have drained as much money out of the system as they can.

MS Windows 8 and ARM: A bug or a feature?

Microsoft again clarifies that Windows 8 tablets won’t actually run Windows apps
[Via AppleInsider]

The president of Microsoft’s Windows unit, Stephen Sinofsky, has again pointedly clarified that new ARM tablets running Windows 8 next year won’t actually run existing Windows apps for PCs.

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One of the things that I thought might differentiate a windows tablet from the iPad would have been the ability to run legacy applications. So someone who had a huge suite of application on their desktop could also run them on the tablet.

Sounds like it will not be. Sounds like people will have to wait for specific apps made just for the tablet. They will have to buy these new apps. They will have to hope that specialized applications made by niche developers are available sometime.

If someone has to wait for app to be developed specifically for the tablet, meaning there is one version for the laptop and one version for the tablet, Windows 8 becomes just like iOS. There is little advantage to the user.

So then the only thing Windows 7 can compete on is usability, something much harder, and much more personal to market.

I call it a bug.

How you hold your tablet matters

by utpal.

The Landscape Tablet Landscape
[Via Daring Fireball]

One the biggest differences between Apple’s and Microsoft’s tablet strategies.

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The article also links to a Tim Bray comment about portrait mode being better than landscape.

Taking a landscape as the dominant mode with portrait as an after thought would be a tremendously poor strategic decision.

One of the great things about the iPad is that you can pretty much use it in whichever mode makes sense. Reading a book is better in portrait. The form factor just makes sense.

Games and TV work better in landscape. Typing also makes more sense in landscape. But I can often choose the orientation that works best for me.

I find it is easier to hold the iPad with one hand when in portrait mode than landscape. So taking pictures is better when the camera is designed to be used in portrait mode.

Apple makes it very easy for the developer to create apps using both modes of orientation. If MS does not make it as easy, if mostly expects developers and customers to only use one orientation, it could be making a big mistake.

No Flash for Microsoft’s tablet

No Flash Player in Metro IE
[Via Daring Fireball]

No plugins, period. Microsoft IE lead Dean Hachamovitch:

Running Metro style IE plug-in free improves battery life as well as security, reliability, and privacy for consumers. Plug-ins were important early on in the web’s history. But the web has come a long way since then with HTML5. Providing compatibility with legacy plug-in technologies would detract from, rather than improve, the consumer experience of browsing in the Metro style UI.

There is no room in the future for Flash.

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When Apple declared Flash off limits to the iPad, it was an indication of the fascist attitude of Apple, even when Jobs explained the effect on battery life, reliability and privacy for consumers.

Now that MS has admitted the same thing, I am sure the fanbois will describe how reasonable this it.

And how far along would HTML 5 have been if Apple had not forced its usage? I’d expect not very. We have increasing HTML 5 usage because in large part of Apple.

Apple again leads the market into new and better territory – HTML 5 – while MS follows.

Then hilarity ensued

More science types on Google+
[Via Boing Boing]

Hey Google+-ers: Here’s another, different list of sciencey people for you to peruse. Unlike the last list, which included a lot of science writers and advocates, this one leans more heavily toward scientists themselves. Pretty nifty.

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5…4…3…2…1… It’s gone!

Quite funny when people have edit access to a web document. Somebody just deleted the all the information and now people are just leaving comments asking what happened.

If people are going to post documents for all to see, they have to password protect or lock them. If they want to crowdsource it and allow anyone to add an email, then there needs to be an easy way to restore.

Bad times for men – census data and median income

There have been several article today about how household income is down to very low levels. But household income kind of hides some things – like how many people are in the household have income as times have changed.

A household 40 years ago might have just had a single earner while a household today might have two or more.

So I went to the census site and looked at more of the data, especially that for individuals. The numbers go back to 1947 and are quite interesting.

Blue are male incomes, green are female incomes and yellow is the total. Household incomes are shown in red.

What you can see is that male income has simply been flat the last 30 years or so. In fact, a man in 1968 made more money than a man does today. Women make twice as much as they did in 1968.

No wonder so many people, especially men, are worried.

Men today make less money than their fathers did.  The only way households have been able to maintain any living style is to have two earners in the family.

A fan in a tablet is like a two-stroke engine on a hairdryer

This Commercial Reminds Me of the Upcoming Intel-Based Windows 8 Tablets
[Via Daring Fireball]

If you’re going to put a fan in your tablet, why not go the extra step? (Via Frederik Danvig.)

Update: Via numerous DF readers, here’s an even better spot by Nissan with the same concept.

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Here is the first ad:

and here is the second:

Luckily Renault and Nissan  are in alliance with one another so we should not see any copycat lawsuits.

Whaahhh? A tablet with a Fan? One that makes to much noise?

by Ryk Neethling

‘However, Fan Noise Is Very Noticeable, as Is the Heat Coming Out of the Top Vent’
[Via Daring Fireball]

Hands-on report with a prototype iPad 3, or a Windows 8 Samsung tablet — you make the call.

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That’ll be your problem right there. The iPad has no moving parts. BUt the upcoming windows tablets need a fan to keep them cool enough to work.

With a nose that is noticeable? What a great selling point.

And what about battery life? I’m guessing that having to run a fan will shorten battery life a lot.

Possibly one of the greatest movies ever is not going to be shown in Washington State

PHD Comics Movie is coming, providing an inside view of science
[Via Ars Technica]

Earlier this year, graduate students suddenly found themselves deprived of a major source of procrastination when updates of the Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD) Comics suddenly reduced to trickles. The hiatus led to a widespread speculation that Jorge Cham, the creator of the comics, fell victim to (*gasp*) procrastinitis after advocating for the habit over many years through his worldwide speech tour titled “the Power of Procrastination.”

PhD Comics is a humorous and point-blank accurate take on the everyday struggles scientists face in grad school that are often hard to explain to people on the outside—like our parents. The comics earned their worldwide popularity soon after Jorge started writing them in 1997 for this exact reason—they finally gave us a way to laugh at ourselves for banging our heads against the lab benches and computer monitors.

While graduate students everywhere were waiting impatiently for a new comic strip, the reason for idleness was soon revealed: Jorge teamed up with some uber geeks at Caltech to produce a live-action film adaptation of his comics—the popular comic characters Cecilia, Mike Slakenerny, Tajel, and the Nameless Grad Student finally come to life, their roles played by real-world gradstudents. The long wait is now over, and the film is being released on academic campuses worldwide this Thursday, September 15th.

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Here is the trailer for Piled, Higher and Deeper.

And the CalTech location brings back fond memories. Yep, all the acting, locations, music, writing,, etc were handled by students at CalTech.

Explaining all the lawsuits between Apple, Smasung, HTC, Motorola and so on

Feature: Owning the stack: The legal war to control the smartphone platform
[Via Ars Technica]

In the last few weeks, the smartphone industry appeared to produce more lawsuits than phones. Apple briefly managed to stop the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in all of Europe, and is now going after the whole Galaxy line. Back Stateside, Google first complained that Microsoft and Apple were using “bogus patents” to target Android, then spent $12 billion for Motorola and its patent arsenal. These are big, high-stakes fights—and the last company left standing may walk away with control over nothing less than the smartphone market itself.

In the flood of stories about tactical filings and counter-filings, it’s easy to get lost in the details. But step back and it’s clear that the Smartphone Wars aren’t just a war of all against all; there’s an underlying logic to these disputes. Most companies are fighting to control one part of the hardware-software stack, then use that control to pry money free from the layers above them.

But the really big players—the Apples and Googles of the world—are fighting over the stack itself. Their combat arena: the global legal system.

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Here is their picture of the stack:

At the top are the apps, followed by the OS, followed by the hardware, followed by the network at the bottom. There are conflicts at each level – horizontal – and there are conflicts between each level (vertical).

Only a few companies are active at all levels – Apple and Google being the most successful. Their goal is to own all the levels, or at least be major players in each level. As in the Tour de France, they want the Gold jersey for overall leader, even if someone else is the sprints champion.

It’ll be interesting to see how al these suits play out, especially since there is a great chance of conflicting and contradictory decisions from al the different jurisdictions.

But the overall result will go a long way to defining just what 21st century companies will be like.

You’ll win at exercise!!

In the style of Idiocracy. We are beginning to live in that world.

AWESOME!!!