iPad

Over 3 million sold and the advertising push is still going strong for Apple's iPad:

MBA Lessons

Lesson #1:
A sales rep, an administration clerk, and the manager are walking to lunch when they find an antique oil lamp. They rub it and a Genie comes out. The Genie says, "I'll give each of you just one wish."

"Me first! Me first!" says the admin clerk. "I want to be in the Bahamas , driving a speedboat, without a care in the world." Puff! She's gone.

"Me next! Me next!" says the sales rep. "I want to be in Hawaii , relaxing on the beach with my personal masseuse,an endless supply of Pina Coladas and the love of my life." Puff! He's gone.

"OK, you're up," the Genie says to the manager. The manager says, "I want those two back in the office after lunch."

Moral of the story: Always let your boss have the first say.


Lesson #2:

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing?" The eagle answered: "Sure , why not."

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested.

All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Moral of the story: To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.


Lesson #3:

A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy."

"Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull. They're packed with nutrients."

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Moral of the story: BullShit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

America's Youth

Here are two recent articles that address the new normal for America's youth:

First the New York Times investigates why it is taking so many young adults so long to grow up:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html

The second article is from The Atlantic which examines why and how young men are falling behind their female classmates and co-workers in an article affectionately entitled "The End of Men".

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/

As a male in his 20's, I now worry more about the future of my generation and my gender...

Mindset of College Freshman

The Beloit College Mindset List was first created by the Wisconsin college in 1998 to remind professors what cultural factors have gone into shaping the lives of their students.

This years list reflects the survey done of the Class of 2014, most of whom were born in 1992!!!!!

Here are some of the highlights:

- Beethoven has always been a big drooling dog, not a classical composer. Barney is a purple dinosaur, not a deputy sheriff in Mayberry.

- Bill Clinton was elected president the year most of them were born.

- Clint Eastwood is a sensitive Oscar-winning director, not a tough-as-nails detective known as Dirty Harry.

- The Post Office has always been going broke.

- Few in the class know how to write in cursive.

- A quarter of the class has at least one immigrant parent, and the immigration debate is not a big priority…unless it involves “real” aliens from another planet.

- Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.

- Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always sat on the Supreme Court.

- The U.S, Canada, and Mexico have always agreed to trade freely.

- With increasing numbers of ramps, Braille signs, and handicapped parking spaces, the world has always been trying harder to accommodate people with disabilities.

- Second-hand smoke has always been an official carcinogen.

- DNA fingerprinting and maps of the human genome have always existed.

From:
http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2014.php
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/18/college.mindset.list/?hpt=T2

Principle versus Policy

Monday night, as a guest on the Rachel Maddow show, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a Princeton University professor, was asked about the controversy surrounding the Mosque that is being proposed near the site of Ground Zero.

What she said perfectly explained why our country and the Constitution is easy in principle and becomes exponentially more difficult in practice:

Americans have what we call a principle-policy gap. You go out and do a survey and 90 percent of Americans will tell you, they agree and support freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion. But ask them if a communist atheist should be able to hold a rally on their neighborhood street corner and they‘ll say no.

So, this is, again, why we need to recognize that as Americans, the thing that makes America unique and interesting and such a great project in world history is that we meet vulnerability not with this kind of terrorized anxiety, but instead, by actually opening ourselves up, by saying—our government, our nation is strong enough to manage dissent. We are big enough and bold enough to allow our citizens to freely assemble, to worship as they see fit, and, heck, to even—I don‘t know, zone locally. These are the kind of American precepts that we need to be holding on to in this moment.

I couldn't agree more. We show our true nature at the times that are most difficult. The freedom to assemble is fundamental to America. It should never be a question of where and when, it is absolute. If we wavier on something as fundamental as that, what's next?

The Middle-Class in America

Here are some statistics that paint a bleak picture of the middle class in America.

- 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

- 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.

- In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.

- As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.

From: http://www.businessinsider.com/22-statistics-that-prove-the-middle-class-is-being-systematically-wiped-out-of-existence-in-america-2010-7

Taxing the Rich

Everyone is talking taxes these days. Here is how the Democratic plan compares to the Republican plan (click for bigger version):




From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2010/08/11/GR2010081106717.html?sid=ST2010081200375

Sports Survey

The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association just recently released its state of sports participation in America study. Here are some of the highlights:

- Of the 3 million cheerleaders in this country, 400,000 are male. Of the 3 million wrestlers in this country, 500,000 are female.

- Nearly half of all people that play lacrosse (48 percent) have families that make $100,000 or more. The richest individual sport is scuba diving, with 50 percent of its participants making $100,000 or more.

- The most obsolete exercise machine in the country just might be the cross country ski machine. Its use is down 52.7 percent over the last nine years.

- Texas (781,000) and California (771,465) have more than double the participants playing high school sports than the No. 3 state, New York (380,870).

- Basketball related equipment sales were $342 million in 2009, which is its worst year of sales in at least the last nine years.

- The number of people participating in inline wheel sports is down 62.2 percent in the past nine years.

- Of all the fitness machines, the elliptical motion trainer has the highest percentage of participants whose annual household income exceeds $100,000 a year. Forty percent of those who use the elliptical make over $100,000.

- Water sports have not fared well over the last nine years. Over this time period, jet skiing (down 18.5 percent), wakeboarding (down 21.5 percent), scuba diving (down 36.7 percent) and water skiing (down 44.5 percent) have seen massive declines.

From: http://www.cnbc.com/id/38345716

Louis CK

One of the most popular comedians in the world is Louis CK. Here is a collection of some of his best material.

You have been warned that a good deal of the material is explicit. It is hilarious, but I wouldn't blast it on your office speakers.

http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/2010/07/video-10-hilarious-stand-up-moments-with-louis-ck/

Youngsters

They were ready to drop the gloves, that is until Mom got involved:

Apple Job Posting

My skill set will never afford me the opportunity to be a senior software engineer for Apple but I must say that company makes everything sound amazing, even their freakin job postings:

We are looking for a senior software engineer to help us create a revolutionary new feature in the very foundations of Mac OS X. We have something truly revolutionary and really exciting in progress and it is going to require your most creative and focused efforts ever.

Are you looking to help create something totally new? Something that has never been done before and will truly amaze everyone? Are you excited by the prospect that what you helped create would be used every day by millions of Apple customers? Then come and work on with the Mac OS X software engineering team to help build a new and revolutionary feature for Mac OS X.

From: http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/29/apple-job-posting-suggests-revolutionary-new-mac-os-x-feature/

Here is a look at the newest Apple store, which is in the posh Covent Garden section of downtown London:

Visualizing the Billions

Ever wondered how the Defense Budget compares to the revenue of Wal-Mart?

Or how the cost of lifting 1 billion people out of poverty compares to the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Get the answers to these questions and more in a great graphic created by the "Information is Beautiful" website: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/the-billion-dollar-o-gram-2009/

The New American Dream - Renting

Fortune Magazine has an interesting look at a growing trend in America: Families renting their home rather than owning, either by necessity or by choice:

http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/28/real_estate/housing_debate_rent-vs-buy.fortune/index.htm