Dealing with badly parked cars

by thienzieyung

Parking Douche, App for Reporting Badly Parked Cars.

[Via Dave Winer's linkblog feed]

Parking Douche, App for Reporting Badly Parked Cars.

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It’s only for Android and for Moscow right now. It would be interesting to see if something similar made it in the US?

Siri understand my ‘gazpacho on ice’ perfectly

Former Apple employee claims Steve Jobs would have ‘lost his mind’ over Siri
[Via AppleInsider]

A new report quotes a former Apple employee as saying that people at the company are “embarrassed by Siri” and late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs would have “lost his mind” over the feature’s performance.

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I just tested Siri with the comment from the commercial. “Remind me to put the gazpacho on ice in one hour”.

Siri got it just fine. No problem. I wonder if Apple fiddled with the server responses to deal with this? Or whether this is another instance of Apple-haters getting headlines?

“It was the largest financial transaction in the history of the world,” says Apfel. “And we couldn’t have done it without the iPad.”

How 100 iPads saved Greece $140 billion
[Via Brainstorm Tech: Technology blogs, news and analysis from Fortune Magazine » Apple 2.0]

Apple’s tablet plays a key role in the largest debt restructuring in history

FORTUNE — I got a London call last week from a Bob Apfel, a Brooklyn neighbor (and fellow Oberlin College graduate).

“Two weeks ago,” he began. “I completed the debt restructuring of Greece.”

It was pretty bold statement, but not entirely out of character. After all, Apfel runs a company called Bondholder Communications Group that does this kind of thing.

But that wasn’t the real reason for his call. He wanted to talk about the computer network his team had created to get the job done.

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The right iPad app allows people to do things more efficiently and faster then ever before. Here is provided the right financing.

Tech CEOs say dumb things because …

Why Tech CEOs Seem So Dumb. (It’s a trick question.)
[Via Dave Winer's linkblog feed]

Why Tech CEOs Seem So Dumb. (It’s a trick question.)

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Nice to have some recent examples of really dumb things said by the 50-something leaders of tech companies.

Here is how Steve Jobs put it and he is exactly right:

“I have my own theory about why the decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft. The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The product starts valuing the great salesmen, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers. So the salespeople end up running the company.”

Thus we have the head of Time-Warner cable who does not understand Air Play and also displays his ignorance of Apple TV, something that could potentially directly compete with cable.

I would go as far as to say do not invest in any tech company whose head is not ‘of’ the company. Ballmer is a sales guy. Tim Cook is a manufacturing guy. Which one really has a firm understanding of the tech underpinnings of the company?

I’d go with the guy who really understands how the things are built over the guy who really only understands how to market and sell the thing.

Because Wall Street is neither rational nor efficient viz-a-viz Apple

How is AMZN worth 13 AAPLs?
[Via Brainstorm Tech: Technology blogs, news and analysis from Fortune Magazine » Apple 2.0]

There seems to be a growing disconnect in Wall Street’s valuations

Click to enlarge. Source: Jeffrey Forsberg

FORTUNE — I know that comparisons, as Shakespeare’s Dogberry put it, are supposed to be odorous, but this one is beginning to stink.

How can Apple (AAPL), with $110 billion in the bank, annual sales of $140 billion and earnings that nearly double every year, be valued so much lower than Amazon (AMZN), which has $6 billion in the bank, sales of $50 billion and earnings that fell 35% last quarter?

This is a question that reader Jeff Forsberg has been asking for nearly a year. On Friday he sent the chart above, an updated version of the coiled spring visual metaphor he introduced last June, when Amazon’s price-to-earnings ratio was 81 and Apple’s was 16.

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After a year, Apple, with great and increasing profits, is worth even less than Amazon, which has falling earnings. There is no good fundamental reasons for this.

Amazon is viewed as some sort of growth stock , even though it is not really growing, while Apple is viewed like a utility, even though it is growing substantially. And has been for many quarters.

The stock market is betting that Apple’s earnings will only grow roughly 12% next year. Apple earned $26 billion last year. So Wall Street is valuing  Apple to make an extra $3 billion in 2012.

Yet in the first quarter of 2012, it increases just its cash hoard by over $16 billion. In one quarter, it made 5 times more just in cash than Wall Street is now predicting it will make for the next year. It is very likely that the simple interest on its cash from 2012 will be larger than Wall Street thinks its entire earning will be.

There is no sane or fundamental reason for Apple to be where it is right now. At least in a rational and efficient market.

The stock market does not understand Apple

Back to the balance sheet
[Via asymco]

I first noted a correlation between Apple’s share price and its balance sheet a year ago. In February, when I last checked, Apple’s share price was priced nearly at 4.6 times its cash value. The stock has had a brief rally but has returned to the trend line it’s had since late 2008.

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Warren Buffett this weekend explained that Wall Street just doe not understand Apple or other 21st century companies.

• “I would not be at all surprised to see them be worth a lot more money 10 years from now but I would not buy either one of them.”
• “I sure as hell wouldn’t short them either.”
• “We couldn’t predict what would happen to Apple 10 years ago and we can’t predict what will happen to it 10 years from now.”
• “The chances of being way wrong in IBM (IBM) are probably less, at least for us, than the chances of being way wrong in Google or Apple.”
• “I just don’t know how to value them.”

The inability of the stock market to fairly value Apple on any fundamental sense is an easy proof of the inefficiency of the market. It is not perfect, especially with disruptive companies such as Apple.

The figure above shows the price of Apple correlates with the amount of  cash it has on hand. The important aspect of this is that there is no fundamental reason for why this should be. None. An efficient stock market should not value a company based on this measure.

Then we have this, from the same article. It looks at fundamentals and shows just how far off from expected they are for Apple:

 

The P/E ratio is supposed to be a measure of the future value of the company. Amazon has a P/E ratio of about 190. The market expects its stock price to increase a lot. Apple’s P/E ratio is about the same as a utility. The stock market does not expect Apple’s earnings in the future to grow much.

The PEG ratio is a somewhat crude measure of how efficient the market values a company. The P/E ratio should be a measure of growth. If we divide that by growth, we get the PEG ratio. A value of 1 indicates a close approximation of future growth with real growth.

Apple over the last 5 years has never been close to a ratio of 1. The market has substantially undervalued Apple and not properly predicted growth. Apple is almost ridiculously undervalued right now with a PEG ratio less than 0.2

Kindle saturated its market?

Kindle Fire shipments drop sharply as Apple’s iPad takes 68% tablet share
[Via AppleInsider]

Shipments of Android-based tablets including Amazon’s Kindle Fire saw a “steep drop” in the first quarter of 2012, allowing Apple’s iPad to grow to 68 percent of tablets shipped worldwide.

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It seems likely that all those who want a Kindle Fire already bought them and thus the sales plummeted.

Of course they will have to offer a cheaper price. But it will also be a noticeably cheaper device.

And, I think, Apple can reduce the price of its entry level iPad if it ever needs to.

The Garageband equivalent from the 80s

Virtually everything that Giorgio Moroder had in his studio can now be carried around in an iPad or even an iPhone.

Only we don’t have to switch around patch cords or have a live drummer.

Garagepad and otehr apps actually allow us to do even more without having to even know how to play the piano.

What is the female equivalent of Brogrammer?

Brogrammers “rage at gym to attract chicks, scare dicks!” and work “while receiving oral sex”
[Via Boing Boing]

In Mother Jones, an article exploring some of the sexist excesses of Silicon Valley’s male-dominant programmer culture. None of this is news to those of us (and by us, I mean women) who’ve worked there—but the article contains some hilarious/horrible anecdotes and examples. (via @clarajeffery)

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A lot of this is what happens when an industry made of of mostly men, many of whom are not skilled socially, talk out loud while in mixed company.

And they seem to fail to realize that their industry is becoming more and more mixed all the time. Acting like a bunch of fratboys may have been endearing in private with a mix of 9-1 male -female. now it is 4-1 and people are noticing.

And, apparently some men think the female equivalent of Brogrammer is  …. Hogrammer!

Wow. That is certainly not appropriate. I imagine not many women find that appealing. And this was something someone thought could be discussed openly.

I wonder what sorts of things are going on that do not make it out into the open. And it is stupid. Creating an environment that is hostile to any group simply reduces the pool of people to draw innovative creations from.

Best evidence developers on on board with Apple

WWDC 2012: June 11-15
[Via Daring Fireball]

Three years ago it sold out in a month. Two years ago it took a week. Last year it took 12 hours. So, if you want to go, I wouldn’t fuck around.

Update: Sold out in two hours, before the U.S. west coast even woke up.

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If you slept late on the West Coast, you missed it. It’s like a rock concert.

More toys for the President to play with

President Obama controls a Sphero r/c ball
[Via Boing Boing]

[Video Link] “Excuse me, give me some space to drive my ball.”

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He loved the marshmallow gun. Now he gets to play with the robot ball he can control with an iPhone. Very smart entrepreneur to get the President on camera.

You can buy the ball from Amazon.

Lots of Apple shorts meeting margin calls?

Apple profits surge 94% on sales of 35.1M iPhones, 11.8M iPads
[Via AppleInsider]

Apple on Tuesday announced its best-ever second fiscal quarter, as the company saw its earnings rise 94 percent to $11.6 billion, or $12.30 per diluted share, on quarterly revenue of $39.19 billion.

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So the stock was way down throughout the day, closing down over 11 points at 560.28.

Then the reports shwoing they crushed what the market had decided was a bad quarter. In after hours trading the stock is up over $40.

I imagine a big pop tomorrow morning.

They have not stopped trying to spy on our computers

Stop Cyber Spying
[Via EFF]

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Please read the whole thing. This is another attempt to label file sharers ‘cyber terrorists’. Then the government can sy on you without any recourse and share that information with private companies.

They claim the bill is needed to fight cyberterrorism from CHina. But it actually allows the Federal government to spy on Americans and to give that information to private organizations.

I am sure that will not be abused /snark.

The ACLU has a nice description of the bill’s problems. And the Obama Administration is not happy with it either.

It is still possible to get this stopped. COntact your Representative.

Did Google really create a required app that makes blogging via an iPhone useless?

Dear Google, whose bright idea was it to make the new Blogger CMS incompatible with the iPhone and iPad?
[Via AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth]

UPDATE: The good news is that Blogger did a last minute update overnight so that the iphone app now tells you which posts are draft and which are published.  The bad news is that the app doesn’t show you any of your posts that are already scheduled to be posted, they’re simply gone. So when you open the app – and mind you, the app is the ONLY way to mobile blog now that Blogger is requiring use of their CMS, a CMS that is not compatible with the iphone or ipad – you don’t see any posts that are already scheduled.  So you don’t know if something is set to go live or not, so you don’t know if you need to post another post immediately to fill in a gap that may or may not exist.  In other words, Google’s Blogger iphone app is totally useless. And Google has made it so that it’s the only way you can now mobile blog on Blogger.  They’ve had this app live for months – MONTHS.  And no one at Blogger or Google figured out that the app simply doesn’t show posts that are already scheduled?  Someone should be fired for this disaster.  It’s embarrassing for any company.  For Google, a leader – the leader – in technology and Web, the debacle that is the new Blogger CMS is criminal.  I can’t believe some software person actually built this, and that some boss at Google actually approved it.

———
Blogger’s new content management system no longer permits mobile blogging on the iPhone or iPad, the CMS simply doesn’t work on the iPhone or iPad at all (at first it appears to work, then freezes, goes blank, etc.)

Because who would want to blog with their cell phone or with a tablet in 2012?

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Wow. I moved away from Blogger many years ago because I thought it was way too closed a system that did not stay up on the latest.

That is why I moved to Wordpess. Now I see that Blogger has maintained its slack ways, making one of the largest bloggers using it quite unhappy and now moving to WordPress.

Not a good way to do business.

Capturing asteroids to change the world

Asteroid takeout—a one-billionaire mission to bring a 500-ton asteroid to Earth by 2025
[Via Ars Technica]

Visiting (and eventually mining) asteroids is viewed by space development advocates as an imperative stepping stone to making our way out into the solar system. One group of President Obama’s advisors, the Augustine Commission, counseled that a manned asteroid mission might bring the highest payoff per dollar spent in terms of science and essential skills for space exploration. A study was also commissioned to check the feasibility of bringing a small asteroid—on the order of 10,000kg—back to the International Space Station. It reported no showstoppers.

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The title is misleading in one fact – the asteroid will not be brought to earth orbit. It will be brought to lunar orbit where it can be mined.

The report is quite fun to read. Using a single Atlas 5 level launch vehicle or a couple of Delta IVs, the entire launch system could be put into Earth orbit. It would use a solar-electric propulsion system to move out past the moon’s orbit to the asteroid, examine and capture it, and then move the whole package into lunar orbit.

It would take about 10 years to complete the whole trip. At a cost of $2.6 billion.

The asteroid – which is mostly iron, nickel, water and a few other precious metals – can then be mined for material. Material that can be used to create more asteroid catchers.

To lift 500 tons of material into the same orbit would cost about $20 billion. This would produce the same material for $2.6 billion. About an 8-fold reduction in trying to move things to the moon from Earth.

Further work could result in a 20-fold reduction.

And that’s not all.

Because once mining is set up around the moon, all sorts of possibilities come into existence. It becomes cheaper to produce material for space from here rather than the Earth.

NASA is already looking at putting a manned outpost on the far side of the moon. The moon has some worthwhile things to mine, such as nuclear fuels like Helium-3, as well as rare earth metals . What it does not have is a lot of iron and nickel for building things.

Combine both – mining on the moon for fuel and high tech materials, and asteroid mining for building materials/water – and we might have almost everything to expand to Mars and outward.

Using a nuclear reactor, ion engines could get us from the moon to Mars in perhaps 39 days, instead of the year or so by normal means from Earth. In fact, these engines could get us beyond Mars, perhaps taking only 3 years to get to Jupiter.

And since the nuclear power is produced from the moon, there is little worry of an accident releasing radioactivity into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Having a manned mining presence near the moon would serve as a tremendously cheap way to get to Mars, instead of trying to do it all from Earth. We have the technology today to do this.

The cost to get started is minimal. Do we have the will?