Pointless Yammering: attenpting this with word as an html editor

and it failed, so now I am fixing the links.... again

Toys,
yet another area being destroyed by walmart, or at least that’s what the
nytimes (free reg, blah blah) would have you believe. Personally I think its big media and not walmart that is killing the toy industry. Some time ago toys were innovative fun, that allowed kids to expand their imagination and explore whole new fictional worlds. No longer. Now they are all electronic: press this button to make it glow, that button to make it talk. This toy draws for you, that one sings for you, the other makes candy. Its no wonder that FAO Schwartz, once the purveryor of unusual and amazing one of a kind toys, went bankrupt trying to compete with
ToysRus. Hell, Toys R Us is now up for sale too, even they could not make a living selling mass toys to the masses. In truth, with marketing and advertising telling kids what they want and pushing parents to buy “THIS AND ONLY THIS” toy, the natural successor to the toy sales kingdom will be major stores that sell the one popular toy, and make most of their living with other products. Kinda like Target and Walmart. So in my humble opinion, it is not Target and Walmart that are destroying the Toy industry, it is TV and marketing that are forcing an evolution, for which Target and Walmart of the fittest of the pack. There is one upside. Specialty stores, that have truly special toys will become profitable again. As the market thins and toys are reduced to the 30 or so that are popular being sold at major chains, the corner toy store with the model airplanes, wood trains, china dolls and amazing odds and ends will again pull stand out from the crowd and make money, jut not millions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/23/business/23toys.html?adxnnl=1&8hpib=&adxnnlx=1109163866-UqecCTnCtMLmBdoZHzj2bg

A minor note in the war for retirement. I ‘linked’ (with varying degrees of success) to something on this subject in the past. Here is an article on how that war is being fought and why.

http://nytimes.com/2005/02/23/politics/23social.html?hp&ex=1109221200&en=9fc1fd2c9ca9a83a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Interesting footnote in the history of money making more money. I read about these guys some time ago, and the article back then said a similar thing to this article but from the other side. It said that the only way this company will do well is if it can get people to sign on and trade through it, which only happens if they have people to trade with already signed on. This article says that “trade begets
trade” making this a growing position…. If it grows.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/23/business/23place.html

Got a cold? Ever had the flu? This might be worse. The last time there was a bird flu pandemic (1918) LOTS of people were unhappy…well, mostly not so much unhappy as simply dead. I can’t seem to find it right now but somewhere out there on the web is an article on how the current form of bird flu has some very un-flu-like symptoms like diarrhea and bloody stool, making early diagnosis harder. Who thinks (like me) that no one is going to be prepared should this thing actually start human hopping round the globe? Three articles for your perusal

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4289637.stm

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=azasfozX01xw&refer=asia

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7024

Sean Connery seems to not be the best neighbor in the world. Wonder if its true….

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4289747.stm

A few things: 1) I should really group these articles according to subject. 2) is it my imagination or has the far east still not recovered from the LAST time word leaked out and the bottom fell from the Japanese banks that owned lots of land making all of east Asia work hard to recover from money gone up in a puff of nothing ness? 3) this might be the first in a long line of warning signs that the US is sliding out of the world leadership spot just as England, France, Spain and Rome before it…. Or it could be like the 40^th such hint that will be noted in 100 years when we look back and smack our foreheads and say WTF?

http://www.reuters.com/financeNewsArticle.jhtml?type=bondsNews&storyID=7711847

YOU MUST ENJOY THAT um… THING … YOU ARE EATING! New research…. Quick, forget everything you knew and start again based on this. Does this mean that if I enjoy it, ice cream is good for me? Not quite.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2005/02/22/forgetting_to_enjoy_food_may_be_unhealthy/

Really cool new bit of software. But can it understand my pointless yammering or will that set it back in its learning? What if it goes web crawling and hits a huge set of leat speak sites…. Will that really mess it up?

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7054

Cool new toy, just one thing, I have not a single Bluetooth enabled device.

http://www.abe-hk.com/english/products/cassette/cassette.htm

HAHAHAHAHA,
bout time someone smacked them for bad business practices. They will fight it, but they shouldn’t. they should use this as a PR coup. Stand up, say “sorry” and then both stop the practice and declaire a sale on all ink cartridges for the next week…. People will buy up ink like crazy, lose it all before they need it, and have
good feelings towards HP. But no, they will fight and fight…

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=581&e=1&u=/nm/20050222/tc_nm/tech_hp_printers_dc

If this works it will make chips a LOT cheaper. I hope it works out.

http://viterbi.usc.edu/news/news/2005/2005_02_14_error.htm

Ah, one of my favorite discussions: Pollution and the environment. Our lovely President (honor to the office, even if you don’t like the office holder.) is hell bent
on making current energy companies more profitable. Time and again a sitting president or congress has tried to use protectionism instead of open market competitiveness or research/development/advancement to give US companies an edge. Once upon a time the US was a world leader in international shipping. Then east Asian shipping companies started showing up with newer ships that cut cost and time to move goods world wide. In an attempt to help existing US companies compete the government made high tarrifs for anyone bringing goods into the US on non-US ships. It didn’t work, and now America has less than 3% of world wide shipping business. Had the government given low interest loans to ship owners and shipyards to help upgrade their systems, had America simply stayed out of it and allowed market forces to work their way through and remove the dead wood allowing the stronger US shippers to expand and buy new equipment…. Had the aliens showed up at that time and given everyone wings. Well now we do it again, tis time with coal burning power plants. Rather than clean them up NOW, we allow them to wallow and we will pay for it tomorrow. Note the last link, for the discover magazine, it talks
about mercury poisoning, and guess what puts out more mercury then any other source… you got it, coal fired power plants.

Pointless Yammering

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

attenpting this with word as an html editor

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