NYTimes: A Part-Time Life, as Hours Shrink and Shift

"Retailers are relying on part-time workers, a trend that has frustrated millions of Americans who want full-time jobs but must instead settle for reduced pay and benefits.

The widening use of part-timers has been a bane to many workers, pushing many into poverty and forcing some onto food stamps and Medicaid. And with work schedules that change week to week, workers can find it hard to arrange child care, attend college or hold a second job, according to interviews with more than 40 part-time workers.

To be sure, many people prefer to work part time —for instance, college students eager for extra spending money and older people earning money for presents during the holiday season.

But in two leading industries —retailing and hospitality —the number of part-timers who would prefer to work full-time has jumped to 3.1 million, or two-and-a-half times the 2006 level, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In retailing alone, nearly 30 percent of part-timers want full-time jobs, up from 10.6 percent in 2006. The agency found that in the retail and wholesale sector, which includes hundreds of thousands of small stores that rely heavily on full-time workers, about 3 in 10 employees work part-time.

Retailers and restaurants use so many part-timers not only because it gives them more flexibility, but because it significantly cuts payroll costs."

http://nyti.ms/Pyeplc

Nice iPad Mini Apple, but I'm keeping my Nexus 7 | ZDNet

http://www.zdnet.com/nice-ipad-mini-apple-but-im-keeping-my-nexus-7-7000006267/

This article sums it up well: against the Galaxy Nexus 7, the iPad Mini has:

LOWER screen density (163 ppi vs 216 (or 280 for Galaxy Note!)),

proprietary charging connector (prepare to buy new home, office, car charging cables),

no Google Maps,

iOS 5 Wifi problems,

No advantage expected on performance and battery life,

And for all this, costs $130 more.

Oh yeah, it's thinner and lighter than the Nexus 7. Apple is overly obsessed with thinness and lightness. Move on! Fix maps, fix Wifi, and get a display that's at least as good as your smartphone, not worse.

BlackBerry was so in love with things it did right (corporate email, physical keyboard) that they failed in innovate in other areas where they were falling down (very late to market with Wifi, higher camera resolutions).

Apple has the same exact problem. And where is BlackBerry now? In the poorhouse.

Intel: missing the forest for the trees?

http://m.seekingalpha.com/article/939621

"We find it amusing that even though Intel is facing a challenging operating environment due to the decline of the personal computer, at least it is giving noogies to AMD. We find it absolutely amusing that Intel's bottom line net income of $2.97B in Q3 2012 was comparable to AMD's top line revenue in H1 2012 of $3B. AMD preannounced another revenue decline of 10% for Q3 2012 on Thursday October 11, and it announced its second round of layoffs recently, in which it would cut up to one-fifth of its 12K employees.

In a way, we think that Intel's dominance of AMD served to weaken it, because while Intel was beating AMD worse than a government mule, it overlooked the nascent smartphone and tablet computing devices, and these products have served to sap demand for desktop PCs and even laptops."
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Ghost Cities of China

http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-of-kangbashi-a-ghost-city-in-china-2012-7?op=1

As recently as July 2012 China stated it will build 20 cities a year for the next 20 years.
Is it wise and thoughtful preparation for future population growth? Or the biggest waste of resources ever known? China keeping its cash at home? The biggest real estate bubble in the universe?

I used to travel to China extensively in the 90's and 00's. At that time, one thing was omnipresent: abandoned and empty housing and factories everywhere in China. Mostly old, although now with these Ghost Cities, a mix of old and new. No Chinese person could or would explain them to me. I think of empty apartment buildings, left standing with no air circulation, growing moldy, eroding, metals oxidizing and rusting, plastics embrittling. In a short while these buildings will not be inhabitable, if they were habitable to begin with. Mostly it seems wasteful to me. Monuments to nationalism.

I guess I missed this topic making the rounds last year. Yesterday we ran across a video of skateboarders skating on public works in Ordos city, on Vimeo. If there had been any citizens living there, they surely would have complained about "disrespectful acts." 

More pictures of Ghost Cities here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339536/Ghost-towns-China-Satellite-images-cities-lying-completely-deserted.html

Even more pictures here (Time Magazine): http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1975397_2094492,00.html

NYT: North Koreans Say Life Has Not Improved

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/world/asia/north-koreans-say-life-has-not-improved.xml

"The lucky few who make it to Dandong are stunned by what they find: the car-choked streets, hot showers and the ability to speak out without fear. But mostly, they are overwhelmed by the array and abundance of inexpensive food. While her compatriots said they stuffed themselves with meat-filled dumplings and rice, Mrs. Kim ate only apples for the first five days. She said she had not eaten them since childhood.

"I thought our country lived well," she said, "but I was mistaken." "
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Frequently Asked Questions

https://ebooksagsettlements.com/FrequentlyAskedQuestions.aspx

I love the legal system in this country. They don't even have to admit they were wrong. But what does it matter. They got hit in the pocketbook.

" The antitrust lawsuit was filed by Attorneys General of 49 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories and commonwealths, and claims there was a conspiracy involving three of the nation's top publishers and others to fix and raise retail prices of E-books.

These three Publishers ("Settling Publishers") have agreed to settle the lawsuit. The Settling Publishers deny they have done anything wrong but have agreed to settle to avoid the cost and risk of trial. The case is in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. It is called Texas et al. v. Hachette Book Group et al., Case No.12-cv-6625. ("Et alia" is a Latin phrase that means "and others.")

This Court has preliminarily approved the proposed Settlements and will consider whether to grant final approval on February 8, 2013. (See Question 19.)

A separate case continues against two additional Publishers ("Non-Settling Publishers") and Apple, Inc. This separate case is called Texas et al. v. Penguin Group, (USA) Inc.et al., Case No. 12-cv-03394, and is scheduled to go to trial in 2013, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York."
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SwiftKey 3 typing heatmap

Swiftkey is my favorite keyboard. Wish I could have it on my iPad, especially text predictions). And, all my frequently used punctuation is accessible thru the first screen with a long press. Only wish there was a ".com" button.

SwiftKey 3 lets me see how I type! Get it for Android at http://swiftkey.net

The fall of PC's (Lenovo overtakes HP as world's top PC maker)

8% contraction per quarter. In a year, that's almost 30% down. The market is contracting faster than any PC company can reinvent themselves.

http://allthingsd.com/20121010/lenovo-overtakes-hp-as-worlds-top-pc-maker-in-q3/

Ebay

In my "spare time" I've been selling quite a bit of stuff on EBay. I've been trying to figure out what sells and what doesn't. Here are my observations so far.

There are a lot of women's clothes and accessories on EBay. I believe I am seeing some designer leather purses ($300 range) still available from several years ago (same pictures and seller). Leading me to wonder just what is the actual sales rate. How many pieces remain on offer forever? I wonder if even half the stuff on EBay ever sells?

Women's clothing is a heck of a way to make money. Seems the sweet spot for most used clothing is about $20. This is typically more than the original dept store price, even if the item was on sale. I think there's two reasons for this. One, $20 may be the most you want to spend to find out it's mislabelled (a M labelled an L), smoky or smelly, wierd or cheap fabric or color, damaged, maybe not damaged but poor design or manufacturing error (sleeves too short, length too long), obnoxious prints that are inexplicably photogenic. Two, Ross (and Marshall's?) sell most items for $20. In fact, EBay is like a huge online Ross store filled with the most amazing junk with maybe 1 or 2 "needles in a haystack."

Many sellers of women's clothing seem to be buying sale items and then reselling them on EBay. I buy a lot of Calvin Klein T's from one seller but with the Best Offer prices she accepts, and what I know these tops go for, I dont think she's making more than a few dollars a piece, if that.

I love Best Offer but the general public doesn't seem to. Auctions are what people want, to preserve the illusion that they'll be able to get the item for a "good" price. This is a trap for the seller, for if your item is not in very high demand, it may just sell for a penny. Sharper than a serpent's tooth is trekking down to the post office with a $80 item that just sold for $0.01 and a shipping fee that doesn't cover the actual shipping cost. Now I start my auctions at the absolute minimum I will accept for the piece, even tho it costs me 50 cents. Reserve pricing doesn't work, a determined seller will use their throwaway EBay account to bid up the price to find your limit. And don't even start with me about seller's "friendly bidders" that come out of nowhere once you've made a bid, to drive your price up.

Best Offer was supposed to be the "out" for Fixed price auctions. I always put a Best Offer option on my fixed price auctions, but have not gotten much response on this even with items that have a lot of watchers. The watchers will stand by and let the auction close without even trying to low ball. Many items have to be repeatedly relisted in order to sell.

There are two types of buyers on EBay, the snipers and the out-sniped. Luckily for seasoned buyers, even after all this time, there seems to be a steady stream of newbies to EBay that don't know that the only way to avoid bidding wars is to bid in the last 10 seconds. It's still fairly easy to be the single sniper on an auction. And if not, you learn quickly how to determine your walkaway price. The price above which you won't be sorry to see that item sell to another bidder.

eBay has sellers over a barrel. It's a safe way to buy and sell in that a private seller doesn't have to have complete strangers come over to her house, like Craigslist does. For this privilege EBay takes 10% of the purchase price plus an extra dollar as some kind of "shipping fee" fee. I don't understand the dollar fee, EBay claims to provide reduced shipping cost and free delivery confirmation, but the dollar surcharge erases that benefit. I've sold $475 worth of stuff but now owe EBay $65. Just not sure Ebay really contributed that much value to the transaction. Combine that with the drastic markdowns required in order to sell things, can the vast majority of sellers really be making money on Ebay?

Where Borrowing $105 Million Will Cost $1 Billion: Poway Schools

http://m.voiceofsandiego.org/mobile/education/article_c83343e8-ddd5-11e1-bfca-001a4bcf887a.html

Wow, just wow. I can see now our plan will be to move out of Poway School District 20 years from now. There is zero chance, in my opinion, that real estate values will quadruple 20 years from now. Salaries would have to increase to support that. And in this era of stagnant salaries and pressure from worldwide competitors with much lower costs of living, it will never, ever happen.

"The full 2,200 word statement makes no mention of capital appreciation bonds, and says little about how the borrowing would be paid back. The ballot arguments against the bond don't mention the unusually high costs involved in borrowing money that won't begin to be paid back for 20 years. The bond also had considerable cachet, thanks to a coveted endorsement from the San Diego County Taxpayers Association. Indeed, association President Lani Lutar's name was first on a list of five local dignitaries named on the ballot as supporting the bond. Lutar said had she known the full implications of the bond, she would not have recommended the association support it."
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Linkedin app is an evil battery killer

It's gotten to where I dont want to download any more apps. They all seem to be location reporting, battery sucking apps. I'm looking at you, Facebook app. And Linkedin as well.

Downloaded it yesterday and un installed it this morning. See how the idle periods in the battery graph (when the screen is off) still show lots of Awake time? I uninstalled the Linkedin app about halfway thru the graph, when I saw that my battery was at 65% at 10 in the morning!

You can see the Screen Off times now show no Awake time and the battery life stays almost flat (as one would expect when the display is off).

I just look at everything thru the web now. Forget apps. Facebook, Linkedin, most mobile websites look the same online as they do in the app. Now if Dolphin could could just release ONE version that didn't crash all the time. Just one! I'm begging you!

Ebay image hosting

Spiffing up my ebay auction pages. I'm trying to not buy anything new without selling an equivalent amount first.

HP’s 2013 Smartphone Plans: Start Thinking About One

Wow, what happened to Enterprise Services?

HP is going to have to sell something and raise some cash. On the one hand, PPS seem like a natural unit to sell off - after all, it's big enough to be a Fortune 50 company - but that doesn't align with a mobile device investment.  And if printers can really return 5 to 8 cents in revenue in 2013, how can they afford to lose that?

The bigger problem of course is that HP doesn't today own any of the control points of mobile devices - the OS (iOS/Android/Win8), or content (iTunes,Amazon,media group).  Even if HP retreats to enterprise, I don't see how a pure hardware play can be a major money maker.

2012 will be the year of selling off PPS. Some investor in China will love to have a $65 billion business to run.

From http://allthingsd.com/20121003/liveblogging-meg-whitmans-remarks-from-the-hp-analysts-meeting/

Lesjak: FY 2013 outlook: Non-GAAP EPS $3.40-$3.60.

There goes the $4 that analysts had been looking for.

This is based on an assumption that Enterprise Services Business Revenue will decline 11 percent to 13 percent across the company. With operating margins of zero to 3 percent. That's pretty huge.

From http://allthingsd.com/20121004/hps-2013-smartphone-plans-start-thinking-about-one/

" "We don't have any plans to introduce a smartphone in 2013," Whitman said during HP's analyst day on Wednesday. "But we've got to begin thinking about our play here. How do we capture this segment of the personal computing market? … I believe that, five years from now, if we don't have a smartphone — or whatever the next generation of that device is — we'll be locked out of a huge segment of the population in many countries."

Tough to disagree with that assessment, given the soaring smartphone market and the dawning of the "post-PC" era.

But it's also hard not to wince at the idea of HP taking another run at the smartphone and tablet market after a failed first attempt that ended in embarrassment and more than $3.3 billion in goodwill- and inventory write-offs. As Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said, following Whitman's first smartphone comments, "While [it] makes sense strategically, we see it as a high risk move. On top of adding costs and working capital burdens to an already stressed balance sheet, there could be additional write-offs. We note that to date almost all PC OEMs have failed to gain significant traction in consumer tablets/smartphones." "

Halloween Horror Story: The Case of the Missing Pumpkin Lattes - WSJ.com

" "My world almost ended this morning when the local Starbucks told me they were out of Pumpkin Spice Latte," tweeted Jason Sizemore, 38 years old, of Lexington, Ky."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444223104578036560736681482.html

iPhone 5 Demand Overwhelming Limited Supply - John Paczkowski - Mobile - AllThingsD

Any company desiring to enter the mobile market right now, from a dead stop, would do well to ask whether it should simply be aiming for whatever is to come AFTER smartphones. Because the tsunami is now.

" As Jefferies analyst Peter Misek observes, right now there simply aren't enough iPhone 5s to go around. "Remember, there are 170 million post paid subscribers coming off contract," Misek told AllThingsD. "That's overwhelming all supply ramps. The demand here is unprecedented." "

http://allthingsd.com/20121005/still-not-enough-iphone-5s-to-go-around/

NYTimes: Officials Seek People Exposed to a Tainted Drug

With more fungal meningitis cases reported, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was important for people who had injections for back pain to come forward.

" Doctors urged anyone who had a spinal injection for pain in the last few months to contact a doctor if they became ill, particularly with symptoms that include a new or worsening headache, fever, stiff neck, sensitivity to light, nausea, slurred speech or loss of balance. The medical name for the injections is a lumbar epidural steroid injection."

http://nyti.ms/QQzaUd

Ketamine Relieves Depression By Restoring Brain Connections : Shots - Health Blog : NPR

" A healthy neuron looks like a tree in spring, he says, with lots of branches and leaves extending toward synaptic connections with other neurons. "What happens in depression is there's a shriveling of these branches and these leaves and It looks like a tree in winter. And a drug like ketamine does make the tree look like one back in spring." "

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/10/04/162299564/ketamine-relieves-depression-by-restoring-brain-connections

HP's Windows 8 tablet has a fatal flaw | PCWorld

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2010893/hps-windows-8-tablet-has-a-fatal-flaw.html

HP ought to get in and negotiate harder with their suppliers for better cost, or just suck up the cost of the higher res display. HP can't afford to look uncompetitive or look like they dont understand market needs, if they mean to dominate in mobile.

" "The integrated display resolution is below the threshold for Snap, a Windows Store interface feature that allows two Windows Store applications to be viewed simultaneously," HP's announcement says. "This feature may be enabled by attaching an external 1366 x 768 or higher resolution display.""
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Caesars Bringing Bowling, Cupcakes to the Vegas Strip - Developments - WSJ

http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2012/10/01/caesars-bringing-bowling-cupcakes-to-the-vegas-strip/

By the way, don't forget to get your room reservations for CES 2012!

" Casino operator Caesars Entertainment announced Monday that it has signed tenants for roughly 70% of the space in its 260,000-square-foot project, called the Linq, across Las Vegas Boulevard from Caesars Palace. Caesars intends to open the $550 million project in late 2013. It plans to install a 550-foot-high Ferris wheel there in 2014.

The roster of early tenants named by Caesars includes Brooklyn Bowl, a 16-lane bowling alley and live performance venue; Sprinkles Cupcakes and Sprinkles Ice Cream, a Los Angeles boutique; and Tilted Kilt, a Celtic-themed sports pub. Caesars is designing the Linq with leasing and consulting assistance from Los Angeles mall owner Caruso Affiliated, to focus on entertainment venues and rare boutique shops."
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