Among the problems with the cinema.
You cannot really see or hear the movie. Compared to the experience at home in an age in which almost everyone has a 720i monitor of some kind and stereo, at least, sound, the essential presentation of a motion picture in a theater is sub-optimal. Some of the sixteen audio channels are often simply missing, the screen is lifeless and dark and the opening forty minutes of insulting previews are enough to make you sacrifice your substantial investment in admission.
The actual room has all of the usual quirks. Cell phones, chatting and so on as you have read hundreds of times before. Now, in some houses, you have the staff sheepishly intervening constantly and futilely to enforce the house rules against such behavior. This is not an improvement.
Admission must be made comparable to the price of the DVD in three months. Why pay $25 to go to some invariably drab, uncomfortable place when I can see the picture in a few months in the comfort of my own home, or the home of another film weirdo, actually see and hear the damn thing repeatedly for about $20.
With the potential, relative ease and present quality of streaming, the cinema cannot compete.
The seating is, for the most part, less sticky at home.
The catering at Cinema Angrystan is simply better than that at any existing cinema in the world, bar none. It is entirely oriented to my personal tastes, and often enough those of my guests. It is even better than the four dollars of fast food for fifteen dollars at the diner-N-movie complex. With a specific venue in mind, occasionally a choice of beers are on offer and you can taste the difference between them.
Although guests sometimes complain, I don’t have to wear my trousers or shoes.
Your correspondent is one of those people for whom 3D causes headaches. Although a sucker for the new generation of superhero movies, on the whole, soulless blockbusters are simply frustrating. No need to go to see those.
I am not even tempted to try those thirty-dollar-ticket joints. For one thing they tend to be in a part of town where my car is likely to be pulled over just on principle.
Among the problems with the Fiat 500
The car is good, or so they say. No conspicuous problems in the major logs of car problems. Even some of the dealers are non-evil. It’s pricey, but it is a more-or-less premium item. However you can get a bigger car with better fuel economy for the money. It is not yet cool over here.
Within the universe which is the arbiter of automotive coolness, both the 500 and the Abarth 500 are in the Sub-Zero section of the Cool Wall.
In America the first two television ads are the following:
With which the problem is attempting to generate an emotional appeal based on memories of a car that, effectively, never existed here. The entire scenario is peculiar and this remix of an old Elvis Presley song is grating and only serves to remind the audience how annoying their grandparents were.
If you want to present the car as retrolicous, please do so. However, it is not a product of days gone by, it is new, now with old-school Eurodesign and blah, blah, blah.
The focus of the ad is the action, not the car. Evidently these are clips from a music video during which you can’t really see the car either. Is “J-Lo” still a commodity? This ad has a very strong female appeal.
In America, two types of people don’t want to buy cars marketed to women.
- Women
- Men
This limits your marketing results dramatically. Look at the Mustang and the Jeep CJ and Wrangler. Both sell overwhelmingly, over seventy percent, to women. The marketing never concedes this. It is perfectly fine to actually target women for marketing purposes, but not so blatantly. In contrast the Ford Flex and Honda CR-V, allegedly quintessential Mom-mobiles, sell in similar percentages to men.
I find myself wondering just how many folks were putting on their trousers to go to the Fiat dealer in lieu of watching the crappy football games that Sunday when this ad appeared then they went to the ‘fridge for another beer.
All is not lost. The Abarth 500 is just around the corner. It was announced yesterday. Let’s look at the marketing.
This is an excellent short film. I can feel her implausibly warm breath as she whispers in his ear. Of course, I am presently in mad love with an Italian woman so I might take this differently. The first time I saw the ad, I managed to ignore the car. I would have done the set-up as a stand-alone, with this edit as a follow up.
However. The product is characterized as female. This is death. Especially in the shadow of the previous material.
Now let’s talk about inventory.
I thought the car was more successful than it is because I see at least one every day. I am told a disproportionate portion of these cars have been delivered through the local dealer. Therefore, I am seeing them because the car is very popular in this town. Inventories are building up.
The vast majority of cars sold thus far have been delivered with manual transmissions. This is a stick-uptake rate not seen since automatics were optional. The appeal of the car is a Euro driving experience, and a major part of that is three pedals. Dealers are beginning to push current inventory and that means automatics. People are walking away.
In the present market where people are, on the whole, buying cars only where their present vehicle is in dire straights, Fiat is turning casual buyers away because you must purchase from inventory and inventory must be automatic. Why automatic? People don’t buy cars with manual transmissions, that’s why. The dealer knows best. Not the manufacturer and certainly not the customer.
This is why the Fiat is stalling. I’d get two manual testers on every lot and butch up and Euro up the marketing, but what do I know.
Contemplating Thanksgiving Dinner
I’m a sucker for Thanksgiving. As bitter and ungrateful as I appear, this day is one to take seriously. I appreciate that this day may be as religious or secular as may be appropriate for your household. It can be as family-oriented or isolationist, or more likely somewhere in between, as you can handle.
Here’s the menu so far, aside from a modestly sized roast turkey:
- macaroni and cheese, inspired by Horn & Hardart’s classic
- sweet potatoes and apples, with orange and brown sugar
- mashed potatoes in the creamy, classic southern style
- well seasoned collard greens
- dressing, or “stuffing” for you weirdos
- fresh cranberry sauce
I don’t know about bread(s). If left to my own devises cornbread and drop biscuits would be on the menu, but we are working with only two ovens. I may break down and get a slow cooker, the most conspicuous absence in my arsenal.
This time every year I think about the dream Thanksgiving dinner which I shall throw someday. This includes a proper country ham, the Baker family’s proprietary oyster dressing, an additional assortment of green vegetables, pigeon peas with pearl onions especially, and magnums of the wine I’m trying to choose right now.
Alas, another solemn, modest Thanksgiving is in order. However, feel free to invite yourself over. That too is my tradition.
See you at Central Markup this weekend?
Another tax proposal
The numbers here were far too pessimistic.
The multiple can and should be much lower. Due to the attempt to not cover the Occupy movement, we now know the line between the haves and have nots rest just below $325000.
Using the above referenced formula, with a minimum wage salary of $14514.50 per year, that multiple can be as low as 23 rather than the 150 in my ignorant proposal some months ago.
Just for fun, let’s set it to 25. That means all income beyond the sale of real property or capital gains not immediately rolled into another variety of investment after $362862.50 would be taxed at 84%. I’ll go further and propose that once you get beyond a multiple of 30, or $435435.00, those monies would be taxed federally at 115%. You want to keep money in the economy and working for something that looks like the greater good? This is it.
Remember this is tied to hours worked and the minimum wage. If you want to raise those numbers readily, you have to raise the minimum wage. Those workers are pretty much conduits for currency anyway and that money will always go immediately back into the general economy. I am not entertaining any AM-radio BS about raising the minimum wage hurting the economy, this effect has never been seen. To the contrary.
This results in a national maximum take-home pay of $9630.30 biweekly. Think you can scrape by on that?
I’m still working out the nature of what to do with professional athletes, actors, inventors and the like who may find themselves in short-term, high-wage situations. I suspect the solution lies with something not unlike a 401(k), but more ambitious.
Analysis for Sally with compassion
Start with this. We’ve all seen the image in question. It sticks to the AM radio/Rev. Moon financed think tank version of reality so closely it has attracted something of a cult-like following.
The above linked article attempts to discredit the claims of the subject of this photo, based on an analysis assuming her location is Seattle. Seattle is a pretty pricey place to do business. I have presumed this person is in a smaller town in the West, Mid-West or South. A comment to the article reveals, perhaps inaccurately, the fiscally poor 1%er attends a college in Middle Tennessee. For the following exercise, basically running the numbers again for another part of the world, that is good enough.
What I do not know is whether “Sally” lives in the town her alleged U is placed, specifically Murfreesboro TN, or the greater metropolitan area. For the purposes of this exercise I assume she is a resident of Greater Nashville and does not withstand the higher cost of living in suburban Murfreesboro for which figures are a little more difficult to find anyway.
I am being vague even with information publicly available because revealing information about someone who is not a public figure seems a little creepy.
I am following Mr. Blonde’s analysis metric for metric.
If she is taking a full load, her tuition for 18 hours is $3641. Because 90% of her tuition is somehow paid for through scholarships and the like she is paying $728.20 annually with a cost of $1325 per semester for “books”. Bringing her annual cost of University, assuming no frills, to $3378.20.
Assuming Sally is on the classic four-year plan, $13512.80
By her own admission she is not living “at home” and has a modest living arrangement. A cursory glance at Nashville’s Craigslist implies she will not get away with less then $400 even in a roommate situation. That’s $4800 per year or $19200 during school.
You find the implication she assumes automobile ownership to be beyond question. The town where she attends school has a modest public transit system which did not exist before 2007. She has a car. For the purposes of this analysis I shall assume the car is and shall remain mechanically flawless and does not require any maintenance at all. Furthermore this car is a hand-me-down from her family or is otherwise paid for and currently does not cost anything for a note.
Her auto insurance alone will cost, according to Progressive (21 year-old female currently enrolled in college in 37205 driving a ten-year-old Toyota Camry), $836 per year. Because we are dealing with a student this may or may not be rolled over into a household policy held by her parents. Perhaps even paid by them. So we’ll do math with and without the $3344 for insurance. She surely wouldn’t drive without insurance.
We cost fuel assuming she drives one-half the presumed normal amount of miles, that is 6000 miles per year, and achieves fifty-percent above the fuel economy of the car I picked out for her, which would achieve 36 MPG in mixed driving, her annual fuel cost at current gas-buddy prices for Nashville ($3.169) would be $529.22 or $2116.88 for the full term.
Phone: Virgin mobile is $39/mo. So, $468/year or $1872.
I will stick with $200 per month for food. I think this is low, but I am addicted to $8/gallon chocolate milk. Sally is doing without health insurance or is otherwise covered because of those drastic changes whatshisname made, alone, to the nature of health insurance. Over these four years she has had no health issues whatsoever. $9600 for eating and health issues.
Sally’s total costs, not including clothing replacement or entertainment and ancillaries, comes to $48984.80 for the four-year plan with car insurance $45640.80 without car insurance.
Now let us assume since she was seventeen Sally has held the same tied-to-minimum-wage job. Tennessee does not have a distinct minimum wage law, so the federal $7.25 per hour is the standard. Sally does seem to be a diligent and proactive person so we shall assume she has worked her way to a 25% bonus above minimum wage over the four years of her employment. That is, $9.06 per hour.
Sally works 30 hours per week. That is, $271.80 per week or a take-home pay of $480.86 biweekly. Her income, for our purposes, is $12502.36 annually. The year she was working before entering University she dumped literally everything into a savings account. That is, she had $12502.36 in savings before the first costs for school arrived. Of course, she would not have worked for her employer enough for this employer to gift her an additional 20%, but I’m sticking to the program and not using reason. Why should I be the only one?
Counting her saving every penny she didn’t even make and her income during her school years, Sally brings in a total of $62511.80. Her implausible best case scenario cost of lodging, eating and school is $45640.80 leaving a deficit of $16871 or $351.48 per month or $281.81 if she has car insurance.
You know what? In objective reality she just might be able to pull this off. She may well be the only one. Don’t worry Sally, by the time you have a useless degree and are still working for $9.06 per hour before you pay for your health insurance the Occupy Movement will be there. If I see you on Legislative Plaza on my way to some other Sixth Street at Jefferson Street I’ll give you a hug or a much needed sandwich or something.
Sweety, work on your handwriting. I know it’s difficult in this century because my handwriting is degraded also, but … You write like a twelve year old.
An apology and request.
I beg forgiveness for the first-draft nature of my posts of late.
My time is seldom my own and I it is difficult to find the time.
These months have been challenging in new ways.
I am putting out the call for folks more financially sophisticated than I about converting a 401K to an IRA, or some other account from which I may make withdraws. Every time I attempt to Google this, I get people trying to sell me something.
I heard a new ad last night. Municipal bonds are being rolled into something someone is attempting to sell to AM-radio listeners. We’re still in serious trouble.
What you need to know about credit unions.
First and foremost, “all residents” CUs are all over the United States. Especially they are found in major metropolitan areas. I suppose my town is somewhat different, but we have nine different all-residents credit unions from which to choose. This type of credit union allows all residents of a specific area to join; typically, all the counties within their metropolitan service area.
Simply google up “all-residents credit union [your metropolitan service area]“.
or search by zip/postal code here: http://cuonline.ncua.gov/CreditUnionOnline/CU/FindCreditUnions.aspx
Although CUs tend to have fewer branches, they also tend to participate in credit union service centers. That is branches of other CUs which allow you full access to your “banking” privileges in person at their location. While no bank I may choose in Texas will allow me walk-up banking in my native Kentucky, I know of four places in my home town where I could do my banking if I really had to do so in person.
ATMs are similarly situated. You will not find an ATM on literally every block, but these are not as few as the hype imagines. The network your CU uses will have their own website. Until today, doing a little research for this, I did not know I may use the ATMs at 7-eleven locations without fees nationwide.
Mostly you will be direct-depositing your income, and aside from a little pocket money, using your free debit card. Generally I get my pocket money when I go to the grocery store, which I may do anywhere in North America. I have entered a branch of my credit union three times in three years. Once was simply to introduce a friend to the concept and she readily joined.
By using a credit union, I get my direct-deposited pay around eighteen hours earlier than my bank-using comrades. The issue this may address hasn’t really come up yet, but good to have.
For the most part, a credit union is as boring and uneventful as a bank but they don’t help themselves to as much of your money.
Two presidents, one conflict
According to the interpretation of history provided by the public schools, two people served as President of the United States during the American Civil War. I assume, perhaps improperly, one of these people was Abraham Lincoln.
I have had occasion to present the question to persons affiliated with educational institutions around here and they either giggle or deny it. Without regard to their lack of interest in the question, eleventh-grade-level U.S.-History students are asked this question explicitly on tests.
The nature of my seeing, en masse, public-school exams must remain a secret to those who do not know me in actual, meat-space life.
This shall be something of a live blog as I attempt to work out who these two people may be. My primary resource for this exercise shall be the Wikipedia. If you have no faith in Wikipedia, you have no faith in your fellow man. I am sorry for your predicament.
According to the mob-edited page the American Civil War commenced April 12, 1861 and formally ended April 9, 1865. Various surrenders and abatement were made through November 5 that year due largely to the communication issues of the time. Not being a CW buff, I did not know the final Confederate contingent surrendered to Great Britain.
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated April 15, 1865. In a previous era, and with an air of poetry, Lincoln was regarded as the last casualty of the Civil War. From the moment of Lincoln’s demise until March 4, 1869, Andrew Johnson served as the President.
On August 20, 1866 President Johnson issued a Proclamation—Declaring that Peace, Order, Tranquillity, and Civil Authority Now Exists in and Throughout the Whole of the United States of America. Alas, Lincoln and Johnson together are never an A, B, C or D.
By any plausible standard these two men were the only persons who served as President of the United States during an period which may be defined as the American Civil War.
If you count the (not entirely accurate) secession of South Carolina on December 24 1860 and the declaration of the Confederacy on the following February 4th, both events occurring after Lincoln’s election but before he assumed the Presidency, James Buchanan, Jr. could be the other President.
Professional educators occasionally read this thing. Which is the answer you are trained to anticipate?
Why Steve Jobs was important.
First, although in the public mind he was Apple, Inc. He was only the ringleader. In his own mind, his world was much larger than one company. Note his e-mail address: steve@pixar.com
Most of what Jobs’ teams have done seem less remarkable because we are living in the world which is like it is because of those devices. The GUI is not a product of nature; it was developed and honed by people.
He was the best kind of fool. The most notable thing was the personal computer itself. Yes, other items were around, but the Apple II defined the PC as we would come to know it. Take a look at an Altair 8800 some time.
Xerox thought Apple was onto something and bought in. A condition was that the Apple gang would be given an extensive tour of Xerox PARC. This tour included a demo of the Xerox 8010 Information System and its Star operating system. This system was the genesis of a whole new idea of computing. The demo was given by someone intimately familiar with the 8010, and its many, many documented flaws were concealed.
The desktop metaphor and black-on-white graphics started with the Star. The Apple corps thought they were seeing something far more sophisticated and this experience informed the later work on a new machine called the Lisa released in 1983. Like the 8010, Lisa was prohibitively expensive.
A smaller company devised the GEM OS for the Atari ST computer. This is the first PC “visual operating system”. Microsoft attempted to emulate GEM and devised Windows, shipping in December 1983. If you ever have the opportunity to see an emulation of Windows 1.0, do so. It was not much more friendly than the command line.
Meanwhile, learning from the failures of the Apple III, mostly you haven’t even heard of that one, and the Lisa, a new project which started as a $1000 box you might plug into your TV was finally released in January 1984. This device was so extraordinary most people exposed to the prototypes came away expressing fondness for the device. This was unknown in this industry at the time.
The Macintosh, for all its faults, shipped at one-third the price of the allegedly more serious devices and the interface literally changed human history. However you’re reading this, even on a hard-copy print out, is due entirely to the Macintosh.
The objective of Next Computer was to put the power of a mainframe computer on a desktop for education and science. These were also profanely expensive, and ultimately were notable only for what happened to the code.
Somewhere in here Jobs lead a team to buy Lucasfilm Animation and remaned it Pixar. Pixar’s primary gift to entertainment is the development of the technology with which animation is created. Nonetheless, I presume you know their work.
Apple purchased Next in 1997 to get their hands on that code. The deal being conditional upon the exit of the current CEO. That’s when the iMac came out with the nifty gumdrop aesthetic. All the girls loved it.
The rest you may be old enough to remember.
1999 saw the introduction of Next’s OS as an Apple product. Named, sorta, after the city where the final golden masters were developed “OS X”. For the last time, that X is actually a roman numeral. The last gumdrops were the second generation OS X machines which were utterly stable. Something no other personal computer had managed up to that time, including Apple’s own.
2001 saw the introduction of the iPod. While other such players were available, those were novelty items. iPod made the idea move. Later, iTunes and the iTunes store made the device foolproof. At the time I said the iPod was too early. Don’t listen to me.
2005 saw a switch of architecture from the Motorola family, and no one on the outside knew Moto was spinning off their CPU division at the time, to the common Intel architecture. This also allowed Macs to run Microsoft Windows on the same machine, just in case you needed it for “work”. The devices dropped in price dramatically.
Of course the iPhone followed but when it was tied to AT&T’s miserable system I knew something was wrong. When the latest OS came out that was more bling and gestures than features, I began to worry.
Now we know. Will Apple persevere without Jobs? No. They’re failing already and he was just sick.
Jobs wasn’t about innovation, but about making a device, and the world that device inhabited, move.
