BlakeBlog

Latin Kidnappings Come to San Jose

Already a popular pastime throughout Latin America, and growing in popularity in the Southwest US border states, kidnapping ordinary people for small amounts of money seems to have arrived in San Jose. In this specific case it seems that the kidnappers weren't that good at it, as they reportedly didn't get any money yet they released the kidnapped.

Let's hope that the San Jose PD are able to nip this in the bud, as it's extremely corrosive to the social compact. Remember, don't run around life in Condition White.

Folks Know the Stench of Death

Here's the money quote from a recent AP story about the June sales of Ford, GM, and Chrysler vehicles:

Ford is the sole U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy protection and it's the only one not receiving government loans to keep from running out of money.

Bankruptcy is unnerving enough, but buying vehicles from a company that's owned and, effectively, governed by D.C. bureaucrats is something most folks just don't want to deal with. Sure, the government will guarantee the warranty on that new GM vehicle, but expect about as much service as you get from the IRS, Medicare, et al.

People are voting with their wallets, and Ford is being rewarded for standing up to government pressure. I'm glad to see there's some common sense left out there.

The Boom Is Over?

Sebastian points to a recent news report that Ruger and Smith & Wesson stocks took a hit yesterday on an analyst report predicting that the surge in new gun sales has peaked. Anecdotally, I think the analyst report is correct. I'm seeing more guns, especially those scary black rifles, in stock in the stores and online. Full MSRP is still common, but as the manufacturers are catching up I'm seeing fewer stores able to charge above MSRP.

However, folks should look for an "echo" of the gun buying boom: All the people who've been waiting out the market until the prices drop and popular guns become available again. I think there are lots of gunnies who've put off purchases and who will be ready to pounce as availability increases and prices moderate a bit (but certainly not all the way back down to pre-election levels). I personally don't think the market will catch up until Q4.

Also, with the recent Heller decision by the Supreme Court, more people are going to be able to both legally own guns and carry them, which will provide a small increase in demand as incorporation gets settled throughout this year and next.

Note that this applies only to gun prices. Ammo prices will remain high as people continue to hoard ammo and shoot their new guns. There's both a permanent increase in the demand for ammo, and barring a global economic collapse, a permanent increase in the cost of the raw materials.

Apple WWDC Wrap-Up

Quick post to get some thoughts out there about the announcements at this week's World Wide Developer's Conference.

1. iPhone 3G S (the space in between the G and S is annoying): Great incremental improvement, and the new functionality of OS v3 will enable developers to keep the iPhone platform ahead of both Android and Palm. I especially like the Tom Tom GPS application. Kinda bummed that there isn't videoconferencing, though. The price drop is great for expanding the market. I predict continued dominance for 12-18 months.
2. Side note: I've played with a Palm Pre and it's pretty slick. I like some of the gesture-based interaction techniques, like swiping windows off the screen to close them. It also provides nice feedback when you tap by making the screen ripple like water out from the point you tapped. Palm has two challenges: don't totally botch the SDK and make sure that the OS is robust enough to handle the common number of apps that folks will open simultaneously. If they can manage those two things I think they'll have a good product that'll keep Apple honest, but they have to hang on for 12-18 months while building momentum (more developers and apps).
3. AT&T is screwing up big time. It's as if they thought that they could change the rules of the game on Apple after they got their exclusive deal. They've become lazy. Not having MMS or tethering available when a dozen other carriers do? Fail. Look for large numbers of folks to switch to another carrier as soon as the exclusivity period ends and the other carrier's network embraces a variant of GSM.
4. One thing AT&T is getting unfairly dinged on is the upgrade pricing for those folks who've only had their 3G handsets for just a little while. You folks signed a two year agreement, and you knew what the upgrade policy was. Quit whining. Conversely, if AT&T were smart they'd have offered an "upgrade insurance plan" that would let people get the subsidized rate after only 12 months instead of the current 18-24. 
5. The return of FireWire: Huzzah! The 13" unibody MacBook, now called a MacBook Pro, gains a FireWire 800 port. Lack of FireWire was a showstopper for me since all my external drives and media readers are FireWire-based. Now I have a viable choice for a laptop that isn't crippled. Support for up to 8GB of RAM is all sorts of awesome, too.
6. Snow Leopard: The pricing is spot-on (get it?), and I look forward to the functionality and improved performance. Adding full Exchange support only further weakens the allure of Microsoft Office on the Mac. Snow Leopard also leaves the PowerPC architecture behind, which means I'll be buying my first Intel-based Mac sometime between now and September.
7. Hardware price drops: Always welcomed, especially in these tough economic times. My boss at work should be very attracted by the new Air pricing. 

Overall, AT&T provided the only sour note of the whole performance. Kudos to Apple!

Shoreline Sheep

From the San Jose Mercury News, June 4th:

In e-mails and phone calls to the Mercury News this week, more than 20 people who said they attended the KISS-FM Old School Fiesta Concert on Saturday criticized Shoreline security for not more closely examining their bags or not patting them down in a search for weapons.

Six people were stabbed and there were numerous fights during the concert, which ended 15 minutes early. [...]

Aaron Siuda, a Live Nation spokesman, reissued the same one-paragraph statement released Monday, assuring people that the company takes security very seriously and blamed a few "irresponsible patrons" for "isolated fights" Saturday night.

But that kind of response doesn't satisfy Ric Mora, 54, of San Jose. He said he left the concert two hours early when some people started throwing chairs.

"I thought they would hit my wife," said Mora, who added he would prefer Shoreline use wands to check everyone who enters like at events at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton. [...]

According to Mountain View police spokeswoman Liz Wylie, [...] "But these were not your average people. We believe this was between gangs and they were looking to fight, no matter what."

So, let's see: A bunch of folks complain that security didn't strip search everyone, yet most of the violence was from fist fights and throwing chairs. The strip searches wouldn't have prevented any of the violence, but it sure would have been another erosion of everyone's liberty. Ben Franklin ("They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.") is right once again.

So Much for Saving Money

One of the fancy Philips Marathon CFL bulbs I installed in my office in February just went pop. So much for the "seven year life" that Philips claims. The warranty requires that I send the old bulb in, along with the receipt (which I do still have) and the proof of purchase (which of course I recycled back in February).

I guess I could buy another bulb and send it's proof of purchase in with the dead bulb. That way I'd have a spare on hand (which seems necessary since I now have my doubts about their reliability), but sending the dead bulb in to Philips costs nearly as much as a whole new bulb. Frustrating.