Comment: Why Wal-Mart is key to iPhone domination

The significance of the iPhone being sold at Wal*Mart is somewhat overstated: Cell phones, as many of the comments have already pointed out, have been sold in Wal*Mart as well as other big box stores, electronics stores, and so on, including even supermarkets, for awhile now.
The irony of the iPhone vs. the iPhone marketing hype is that it IS a game-changer, but to truly change the game Apple would have to let go of a portion of the pie that it is quite happily eating: Carrier subsidies. The iPhone has the ability, because of a good interface, music, movies, and games that just work, and work properly, and the fact that it is, at heart, an iPod, one of the most successful consumer product of the last decade, to stand on it's own, without the need for carrier subsidies. If Apple just sold them unlocked to whoever wanted to buy them, people would in all likelihood buy them at full price. However, what apple has done instead is to go to carriers and say "you won't have to subsidise this very much, and it will bring new customers in. All you have to do is give us what you would have subsidised it for, or an equivalent in usage charges, and it is yours." This is the same 'ol, same 'ol, but Apple saw a way to make a buck, and that was it. Fair enough, and a nice indicator that Apple, despite their carefully groomed rebel image, are really about making money.
However, getting people to buy a phone at full price was within their grasp, and would have actually greatly strengthened their hand: Anyone, on any network (that supports GSM or UMTS) could buy one without worrying about a new contract. Carriers would be over the moon, as handset subsidies are now one the biggest costs, and would likely fall all over themselves to support their customers who were buying their own phone. Long-term, that is game changing.
Instead, Apple is playing the same as every other carrier: Selling a phone for a mere $3 less at Wal*Mart, which still requires a contract, is locked to a network. The only thing they are changing is the way they are able to profit while most handset makers, because of their own poor interfaces, buggy software, and the way they are beholden to mobile carriers, are in dire straits. Sony-Ericcson may split up, Siemens is gone, Motorola is in big trouble, and most are hurting. RIM is hurting less than some, and actually also has a different business model to most, since it sells it's e-mail services as part of it's hardware offering.
The thing I find interesting is that in MP3 players still no one touches the iPod, both in terms of sales, but also in terms of the overall experience. They have had years, and yet...
If the same plays out in the mobile phone market, that would be a game-changer. But Apple seems unwilling to do what it did in the MP3 market, which is to create a marketplace (iTunes store) in order to sell it's hardware. They don't make a significant amount of money selling songs, but they do make a very significant amount selling iPods.
Back to the mobile phone world, Apple has been greedy, trying to profit beyond hardware sales. Will they likely come out ahead? Maybe. But even if they do, they will be at the top of a heap of sh*t, a seriously flawed market, that they had the chance to change and didn't.

Link to original story that I commented on: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10129108-17.html?tag=mncol;txt

Comment: SF engineer to stand trial in hijacked network

I like to keep track of my comments on various web sites, but there is no simple tool for doing this at the moment, so I will just post them here to my blog, along with a link to the original article:

A classic case: Some tw*t says
"Terry, I'm sorry, but your performance hasn't been up to snuff."
He says "does this have anything to do with having to have someone at the left side of that bell curve?" His supervisor says "well...we do have to grade some people poorly as well as well."
"I built and run this city's entire network infrastructure! I work on weekends, and any time anything goes wrong, I am the one who can fix it! And you pay me what? $80,000 a year!"
"I'm not sure I like your attitude, Terry."
"I'm not sure I give a shit. You will not like having me as an enemy either. You will not like having no access to any of the systems I built. You will not like seeing what happens when you treat someone who is absolutely integral to the IT systems of San Francisco like an asshole."
The rest is history. Can't really blame him for being hacked off or for taking his revenge. Would have been to his advantage to have done so in a way that didn't land him in jail, but still handed his idiot managers a heap of pain.
Original Article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10129313-83.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Christmas Party

Being 41 does not, apparently, exempt one from stupid decisions. Yes, when 10 glasses of wine are drunk, it is a dead certainty that heads will hurt, and nearly as certain that stomachs will heave. And yet...yes, I drank too much at the Christmas party I went to last night. I am just about recovered (it is 10:36 pm the next day). It was at a lovely hotel called the Luton Hoo, an old country estate that was renovated at the cost of £18 million. I had a suite, paid for by someone else, which was a treat. The food was great, the company good, and the wine free.
See below for some live party footage:

And now...yes it is Nik@41!

I woke up way too early today, thinking that I would go to Paddington for a project meeting. I got to work at 7:45, and had intended to do what I did last Friday, which was park at work, and then take the bus to Newbury station, and from there the 8:30 express to Paddington. I got to work, though, and thought about priorities. The room booking system I am putting into Paddington has been seriously stressing me out. The software company that sold it to me are German, and their attitude is a rather un-Germanic lacadaisical one that drives me nuts. I wish they would just put it in for me, but instead it is up to me to decipher what they meant (their English isn't great)in the user interface, think of a better word, and then ask if it is a problem to fix it. The system is supposed to go live on Monday.
So, I decided to stay in Newbury rather than spending an hour going to Paddington, an hour there, and an hour coming back. Good choice. I have been really worried about this application and wondering what I got myself into when I volunteered to make it available for the new office, in addition to already being responsible for A/V and videoconferencing, and now conference phones and room displays as well. Finally, I feel like it is almost where it needs to be.
I got some stuff done, and then went over to the studio, where they were doing a webcast today. I haven't helped produce one for awhile, so I volunteered to do sound. It was good, because I got to be a bit useful, and make a little time to hear our CIO and my boss talk about the state of our department. No big layoffs announced, which is probably part of the reason a lot of people watched--to find out when the axe is going to fall. Our European CEO hasn't spoken one word in public since he joined in October, and there is a growing feeling that his first words will involve talk of redundancies.
I saw my former boss in the canteen. I have to admit to not being over really hating him. But now that I am not working for him can see him for what he is: A small-time nobody who surrounds himself with people that want only to do his bidding, no matter how wrong or self-serving it may be. Ok, I am even more of a nobody, but I have no regrets that I have screwed anyone or ill-treated them. Then again, he probably doesn't have those regrets, either. Self-awareness doesn't seem to be one of his stronger points.
After lunch, I got a lot done. The booking application now has all the information it needs, though there are still a couple of things that need fixing. I spoke to my boss, and he is relatively happy with me, that I am doing what needs to be done, which is good.
At 4, Darren and I went over to a nearby pub for a pint. We didn't talk at all about work, which was good.
Then I came home and had a birthday dinner and got a present (two bags of gourmet coffee), and am now drinking a glass of wine to my own happy and healthy 41st year.
I am, by the way, down to 86 kg. That took awhile, and to lose the other 17 kg that I need to be at my ideal weight will probably take awhile longer. C'est la vie. C'est la 41e année pour Nik.

Health Kick

Image by size8jeans via FlickrThis summer, during our holiday in Amalfi, Italy, I did a lot of walking up and down stairs in 35 degree celsius heat. I sweated like a pig, going through two or three shirts a day, and what really saved me was the two hours my son Christopher and I spent (literally) chilling out in the ocean. I felt, in other words, seriously out of shape. Christopher weighed me right after we got back from Italy, and I was a scale-crushing 96kg. That puts me into the 'obese' category. With my height, I shouldn't be any more than about 69kg. Anyone who knew me when I was young won't be surprised to hear that I was 54kg with the same 5'7" (171cm) frame, meaning that I was coming close to being double my weight at 18. Not good. At the time I was a pencil-knecked geek, somewhat underweight, and couldn't put on weight even when I tried. Now I was just a fat middle-aged man who sweats all over everything, huffs and puffs up and down stairs, and will never find a mistress at this rate. (just kidding)
So, when I got back to the UK, and after my mom was gone back to America, I decided to turn over a new leaf. I (re)joined the fitness club at work. When I joined, in fact, I got some extra bad news that made getting fit even more important: I am pre-hypertensive, which means that my blood pressure is higher than it should be.
So, I have gone to the fitness club pretty much every day since I joined, although it isn't open on weekends, when I either go to my wife's on one day, or go jogging. I generally ride the bike for about 40 minutes, and then do two or three weight training exercises, with one always being for the stomach.
A few weeks ago, when I had finished my workout, and felt a bit dehydrated, I bought a Lucozade Sport fitness drink. I drank it down, but then had the thought: How many calories are in this thing? I looked, and it was something like 150 Kcals per bottle. So, I had just burned 350 Kcals doing exercise, and here I was ingesting 3/7ths of that back on this sports drink!? That didn't seem to make much sense. Then I began to look at the calories on all sorts of things, and realise that I was eating really stupidly, piling on the calories for very little benefit. I already had The Doctors Calorie Fat & Carbohydrate Counter from when I tried the Atkins diet several years ago, and purchased a bit of software for my mobile phone that lets me keep track of what I am eating.
So, I have been aiming at 1800 Kcals/day minus whatever I burn off in exercise, which is about 400 Kcals at this point. However, generally I am only eating about 1200-1400 calories. It isn't a fad diet, just being aware of how many calories are in the stuff I am eating and not eating things with too many. I switched from lattes (180 kcal) to Americano (5 kcal), which, at two a day was pretty much negating all my exercise. No more muffins (240 kcals), and instead I have two boiled eggs (140 Kcals) and a piece of fruit. Instead of a pizza for lunch that I had been having (1400 kcals!!!), I have a chicken (no skin, and boiled, about 250 Kcals) salad, or fish and vegetables). By dinner time I am seriously under my goal intake of 1800 Kcals/day, so I have whatever my wife has cooked, which generally happens to be fairly healthy Japanese food. With the amount of exercise I am doing, I am still way under my goal intake.
Now, this all sounds like bullshit, and there is definitely no way that two boiled eggs are going to give a person the same satisfaction as a lovely chocolate and coconut muffin. Yes, that is true. Lovely sweet things are lovely...and sweet. And I have to say that this ultra-low calorie thing has made me somewhat irritable (yes, Adrie, that is my excuse) and given me cravings sometimes. My body doesn't want me dipping in to my (enormous) fat reserves, and is telling me to eat more. I am telling it to get stuffed: Those giant fat reserves are having a serious impact on my health.
So far, so good: I have lost about 5 kg since I started about 5 weeks ago, much more in the last 2 weeks since I have been minding my diet.

Qik Live