Month: January 2006

Ford on TV this AM

So I caught a few minutes of the Ford press conference this moring as I was getting ready for work. Job cuts, plant closings, big changes, new ways of designing and building cars, fewer SUVs, yadda yadda. What caught my ear, though was Bill Ford on the TV saying (more or less) “Why didn’t we make these changes sooner? We didn’t have to.”

One of the more memorable things my Systems prof told us last semester was, “Don’t boil the ocean.” If Ford really thinks they’re capable of making sweeping companywide changes in a smooth, adroit manner, they’re kidding themselves. A company that sat on its butt doing little more than raking in the profits on oversized low MPG SUVs when their competition was taking them to the cleaners is not going to be able to pull that kind of a move off. Toyota or Honda might, but the whole reason Ford is in this mess is because they are not Toyota or Honda.

One of the CNBC commentators noted that the scope of the plant cuts announced implied that Ford was cutting production capacity by about 1 million automobiles. I wonder what that’s going to do to the dealership network. Job losses due to dealership closings will not be counted in the press releases, but surely Ford will not need the same number of dealers if they’re producing so many fewer cars.

Whither Apple and the iPod?

One of the (few) benefits of working in an office that runs the Mac OS is that I’ve started paying attention to the Apple world beyond that of my iPod. So this morning, I ran across the site Apple Matters via a link from CNet. I read an interesting article about why Microsoft won’t be able to successfully take down the iPod (an argument I tend to agree with). It’s worth reading, both for the article itself and the thoughtful commentary.

For what it’s worth, it seems to me that Apple has decided they are not going to be able to unseat Microsoft in the office, so have decided to focus on ‘lifestyle’ computing instead. The iPod, building real photo and video manipulation tools into the OS, and a host of other details, all say to me that personal users are the target. And all things considered, that’s a smart move.

Whether it’s working remains to be seen. My mother told me about two weeks ago that she was thinking about buying an Apple laptop to replace her recently-deceased Windows laptop. When I asked her why, she mentioned the digital camera that she’d recently acquired and said, “Apple is suppsed to be better at that sort of thing.”

She ended up buying a Sony Vaio, though.

This Time Last Year

This Saturday, last January, was new student orientation at school. Looking back, I notice I was pretty heavily poli-blogging in January of 05; I didn’t even mention school until after the first week of classes. Considering how nervous I was about going back to school, I’m surprised I didn’t say more about it.

I’m looking forward to the start of classes & seeing my friends again. I’m a bit nervous about how well the internship & school will mix; in particular, the 4 hour night class in San Francisco after a full day’s work in San Jose is going to be a major drag. I do have the option to drop that course and take it over the summer instead, but I’m not going to make any decisions until after week 1 is over & I have a better sense for how demanding my other courses will be.

Who Says Feminists Aren’t Funny?

The Goddess Echinde has been on a roll lately despite having had Internet access issues. I found this segment particularly funny:

The third paradox I want to write about is the all-powerfulness and insignificance of feminism. Feminists, those evil, hairy and manless shrews. They are all-powerful. They have destroyed everything that we hold dear: the family, the military, the labor markets, the Western civilization. Their power is felt everywhere, though hidden from sight. Even when conservatives run this country they are really just abject slaves of feminists. Pick any crime you can think of, and feminists are the guilty party. They are even to blame for blow jobs! Scary, scary feminists! Tremble, you poor wingnuts.

But at the same time feminists are nothing! Nobody takes them seriously! They are a sorry lot, manless and ugly and nobody invited them to the prom. And they haven’t gotten laid for centuries.

Besides all that, feminism is deader than the doornail. NO! It’s all over the place, swarming upon us, drowning out the the strong voices of masculinity, weakening and corrupting the culture! Making Men into Mice! NO! Feminists are the laughing-stock everywhere. Nobody takes them seriously. Nature is not a feminist and nature can’t be denied! God is not a feminist and God can’t be denied! The feminist experiment is therefore doomed to failure but never stop fighting it, because if you do they might win!

New Terrace Setup

Apropos of my last post bemoaning how hard it is to find stuff when I shop, I actually did find some chairs and a table for the terrace when I was out on Tuesday.
It’s a bit too cold to sit outside right now, but once Spring comes this ought to be a nice place to drink a cup of coffee in the mornings. If I can get the wifi to work out there, even better.