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I took some paternity leave last week as we have a brand new little girl to add to our growing brood and spent much of the time enjoying unseasonably warm weather at the park with my two year old. The Apple iPhone, it is fair to say, has a 100% market share of the parents taking their kids to our local park. Indeed I stuck out like a sore thumb trying to master the Motorola Backflip I had been lent for the week (as a joke because I had asked for something “manly” and “manly” it isn’t).

The combination of such an impressive display of domination and my daughter beetling around got me thinking and ultimately got me pretty excited to return to work.

I have pretty much made all of my living since graduating from university in the early 1990’s selling mobile phones. I haven’t always sold mobile phones, mind, and have flirted with selling other things, but I never made much of a living at it. So my house, my car, my clothes and my bike and those of my family I owe in no small measure to my efforts selling phones.

Because I lived and worked in Europe until June 2007 most of those phones (including the first one sold on January 17th 1993) have been made by Nokia. The rest were made by Sony Ericsson and laterally Samsung, LG and RiM. Back in the early days we sold a lot of Motorola bricks and flips but not much since the late ‘90’s (Pink RAZRs aside). Back in Europe Motorola is considered to be American for “Cr*p”, and I wouldn’t have been seen dead with one. Frankly we felt sorry for all you Americans having to pay for incoming calls, on useless handsets that couldn’t text or surf the web properly. 

But then in the week I arrived in the US, Apple brought out the iPhone and changed just about everything, not only about the US market, but the world market as well. A mobile phone salesman moving to America in the first week of July 2007 must rank as the best timed career move since Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best as the drummer for the Beatles.

Everything interesting, everything exciting, everything ground breaking that is happening in the mobile field right now is happening in and for the US market. Every new launch and every new innovation is happening here first and then being exported overseas with a film industry style time lag. Not one of the players which is really shaking up the market was doing much three years ago when I got my opportunity.

The iPhone hadn’t launched, Google only searched and HTC had only just started to sell phones under its own label…and then only Windows Mobile…because there was only Windows Mobile. In the last year the launch of the Palm Pre and Web OS, the explosion of Android devices, and the pitched battle between the carriers for data market share has made the US market the best place to be in the mobile world, and the launches anticipated in the next twelve weeks alone will take the whole game to another level.

I literally cannot wait to get my hands on the Samsung Galaxy S. I haven’t felt this way about a phone since the Nokia N97.

So sitting in the sandpit at my local park watching my daughter master the steps up to the slide and the other parents master their schedules on their iPhones I felt overwhelmingly fortunate in life and in my career, and to my amazement when I looked down at my hands, and checked Noah’s latest tweet, I saw that I was using a Motorola phone and it wasn’t so bad after all. In fact it was actually quite good.

Check out BestBuy Mobile for other cellular news, videos, and How To’s

 

Drugstores are trying to bolster their presence in the in-store clinic market, even though the concept has thus far not been a particularly profitable one. The WSJ reports that CVS Caremark may double its number of MinuteClinic retail operations over the next five years.

The company has no plans to forge financial partnerships with medical providers, but instead prefers “collaborative” non-financial ties, MinuteClinic President Andrew Sussman tells the paper. Bloomberg quotes Gabelli analyst Jeff Jonas as saying that CVS has trimmed its losses on its MinuteClinics from the five cents a share that they were costing the chain two yeas ago.

Meantime, Walgreens’ Take Care Clinic has recently said it’s in “deep discussions” with possible hospital system partners. Joint ventures, franchises and other business models are all on the table, as long as the arrangement is a “winning situation” for both sides, Take Care Chief Executive Peter Miller tells the WSJ.

CVS and Walgreens dominate the in-clinic market, with a 72% share of the business, according to a report released last year. The WSJ says operators are attempting to find a way to “overcome the seasonal nature of the business, which has caused some companies to shut clinics outside of flu season.”

Indices:

• DJIA: up 48 points to 11,068.
• NASDAQ: Up 24 points to 2490.
• S&P 500: Up 7 points to 1204.

Today’s biggest gainers on the S&P 500:

• Teradyne Inc (TER): $12.14 / +6.21%
• SanDisk Corp (SNDK): $38.03 / +5.76%
• Dell Inc (DELL): 16.61 / +5.66%

Today’s biggest losers on the S&P 500:

• Phillip Morris Intl Inc (PM): $51.05 / -2.69%
• Unitedhealth Group Inc (UNH): $31.30 / -2.67%
• Bank of NY Mellon Corp (BK): $31.68 / -2.43%

Commodities:

• Oil: Up 2.2% or $1.88 to $85.93 a barrel.
• Gold: Up 0.5% or $5.50 to $1158.90 an ounce.
• Silver: Up 1.2% or $0.23 to $18.48 an ounce.

Futures:

• Futures are mixed but a lot of sectors are up.
• Energy posting solid gains in crude oil, natural gas, and heating oil.
• Cotton falling along with wheat, pork bellies, rough rice, and live cattle.

 

Here’s what you need to know before you break for lunch today:

• Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has come out bullish on the recovery is his testimony before Congress today, but said that state and municipal debt levels need to be monitored. Chairman Bernanke also noted high unemployment and a weak housing market as other potential drags on the recovery.

• JP Morgan’s earnings have come in above estimates, with the firm making $3.3 billion, even though its put away $7 billion to cover bad consumer loans. In other banking news, Lehman Brothers is asking for $110 million back in a tax overpay it made in 1999 and 2000.

• Oil is trading higher after the release of a U.S. Energy Information Agency report showing that stockpiles of crude oil are down by 2.2 billion barrels. OPEC sees oil falling to between $70 and $80 a barrel in the next few months.

• Iranian President Ahmadinejad has spoken out against the U.S. government’s push for sanctions against the country saying that America should accept it as a power, according to Platts Oil.

• Simon Property really wants to buy General Growth Properties and John Paulson might jump into the mix.

And here is some of today’s key economic data:

• (US) MBA Mortgage Applications w/e Apr 9th: -9.6% v -11.0% prior
• (BR) Brazil Feb Retail Sales M/M: 1.6% v 0.6%e; Y/Y: 12.3% v 10.4%e
• (RU) Russia Mar Producer Prices M/M: 1.8% v 0.9%e; Y/Y: 19.2% v 12.4%e
• (US) Mar Consumer Price Index M/M: 0.1% v 0.1%e; CPI Ex Food&Energy M/M: 0.0% v 0.1%e; CPI NSA: 217.63 v 217.714
• (US) Mar Advanced Retail Sales: 1.6% v 1.2%e; Ex Autos: 0.6% v 0.5%
• (US) Feb Business Inventories: 0.5% v 0.4%e
• (US) DOE weekly crude inventories: Crude: -2.2M v +1.4Me; Gasoline: -1.04M v -1Me; Distillate: +1.1M v +1Me; Utilization:85.6% v 84.6%e

All prices taken at 12:00 EST.

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BREAKING! It’s another up day. The market is on cruise control.

So now the only question is, really: when do we hit pre-Lehman levels? Raymond James’ Jeff Saut has been calling for it for a long time, and every day he sounds less and less crazy.

The market closed at 1251.70 on September 12, 2008, the last trading day before Lehman’s bankruptcy. The Dow’s pre-Lehman close was 11,421.

At this rate, we’ll be there in a few days.

Join the conversation about this story »

Los Angeles Angels closer Brian Fuentes(notes) has been placed on the 15-day disabled list due to back stiffness. Details here via the Orange County Register:

Fuentes hadn’t pitched since Opening Night and hadn’t even played catch for a few days after feeling the stiffness in his side/back while working out last week — not that he had missed out on a lot of save
opportunities.

Because he hasn’t pitched since April 5, the move is retroactive and
Fuentes will be eligible to come off the DL next Wednesday.

Fernando Rodney(notes) steps into the closer role in the interim.

Rodney shut the door 37 times for Detroit last season, and he recorded only one blown save, despite the ugly ratios (4.40 ERA, 1.47 WHIP). He’s 25 percent-owned in Yahoo! leagues at the moment. Rodney is a sketchy option, sure, but he’s a closer again, at least for one week. Do what must be done. He’s followed in the Angels’ bullpen hierarchy by Kevin Jepsen(notes) and Scot Shields(notes).

—

Photo via US Presswire 

Due to the collapse of aid from the Soviet Union and U.S. sanctions in the early 1990’s, Cuba moved from a centrally-planned, fossil-fuel based agriculture sector to a locally-organized organic urban agriculture system, writes Solutions journal. However, with lessening tensions and growing trade with the U.S., there are new concerns that Cuba’s model of self-sufficient green agricultural production will be scrapped.  

Farmers and agronomists responded to economic isolation by localizing food production, which has now taken off across Cuba’s urban areas. In fact, urban farms in “vacant lots in the capital, Havana, and a network of producers across the country” now provide 80 percent of the country with local, organic produce and helped turn Cuba into an “unintentional leader of the green movement,” says Solutions. CBS News adds that most urban farms where organic produce is grown are walking distance from residents.

The fall of the Soviet Union meant the end to external support, and green agricultural practices had to be scaled up quickly. In the early 1990’s, ”agricultural production in Cuba, dominated by sugar cane production for export, following Spanish colonial practice, shrank from 88.1 Million Metric Tonnes in 1990 to around 2.2 MMT in 1993. Supplies of corn, Cuba’s other main product and a staple of the Cuban diet, fell by 70 percent. In Havana, the average caloric intake over the same period fell from 3,052 calories per day to 2,099. Some reports suggest that many were surviving on only 1,500 calories a day.” To save Cubans from starvation, agronomists and farmers pushed for the decentralization of agriculture,  an end to collective farms.

Farmers diversified local agricultural production and explored how to combat pests without oil-based fertilizers. One practice involved mixing complementary crops naturally resistance to pests, a “technique that drew on neglected traditional practices.”  In 1992, the Asociacion Cubana de Agricultura Organica (ACAO) was formed to spread organic agricultural practices. ACAO grew to 30,000 members by 1999 and won international awards. However, the organization was viewed as increasingly independent and a threat to socialism, and was shut down by Castro.

Strangely, given that Cuba is deeply reliant on sustainable practices, sustainability is often viewed as a threat to the regime. To preserve green agricultural practices in the future, sustainability need to be made official agricultural policy. Fernando Funes Monzote, a Cuban agronomist who received his Ph.D in the Netherlands, told Solutions: “On the one hand, we need the power of the central government to defend sustainable agriculture. On the other, we need the government to cede some of its traditional powers in food production. Have the ideas of sustainability successfully permeated the regime’s thinking? If sanctions lift and we have lots of oil again, will the government continue to support our agriculture?

In the event of widening trade, it’s not clear whether the Cuban government will let the current system stand. To date, no new sustainable agriculture policy has been issued. Monzonte believes sustainability can survive only if it’s built into the revolution: “Cuba has commanded the world stage in its opposition to American capitalism. If we can convince our leaders that sustainability gives us a new platform for leadership and for renewing the revolution, I think we can succeed.”

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Image credit: Urban Habitat / Race, Poverty and the Environment / REDI

O chefe de departamento de pessoal justifica-se para o jovem porque não vai contratá-lo:
– Desculpe, mas nossa empresa só contrata homens casados.
– Mas que absurdo! Por acaso vocês acham que os solteiros são menos inteligentes e competentes?
– Não, senhor! Mas achamos que os casados estão mais acostumados a obedecer.

Google managed to create quite a sensation with its first ever Super Bowl ad. This being Google, it went about things a little differently than all of the other, multi-million dollar videos. It ran a video it had made available several months before on YouTube. In fact, it was its popularity on YouTube that spurred the search giant to use it. The c… (read more)

Never ones to let Apple’s work go untested, the jailbreak community has just put to the test Apple’s claims that the iPhone 3G (as compared to the iPhone 3GS) couldn’t handle the multitasking functionality introduced in iPhone OS 4. As it turns out.. it can — but don’t prep the torches and pitchforks just yet.

As you can see in the video above, the always-so-damned-impressive hackers were able to jailbreak iPhone OS 4.0 running on an iPhone 3G, modify a .plist file – and bam! Multi-tasking support on a 3G. Watch in wonder as they switch between calculator and settings.

Warning: Things get wordy from here on out.

Here’s the catch: calculator, settings, and any other apps that can easily be tested at this point (in other words, Apple’s apps) aren’t really suited for testing this. Third party applications — especially the more intensive ones — are going to be the real determining factor here, and those sorts of apps have to be rebuilt against the 4.0 SDK before they’ll play friendly with the new multitasking system. 4.0 apps aren’t available in the App Store for obvious reasons.

You see, the way Apple is doing multitasking is a bit tricky; outside of a few select APIs (turn-by-turn nav, audio streaming, downloading/uploading, etc.), most apps won’t actually be running in the background. When the user presses the home button, iPhone OS takes an instant snapshot of the entire application and all of its data, then stores the snapshot away. When you switch back to that application, the snapshot almost instantly springs back to life, appearing as if it had never closed. It’s win-win: the user gets ultra quick application switching, and the iPhone doesn’t have to allot resources like RAM and CPU to applications that have no reason to be running.

Storing all that stuff instantly and then resuming it just as quickly is the hard part. Apple gives developers very little time to pause their applications on command — and the amount of time allotted is constantly changing, based on the resources available. The more intensive the app currently running is, the less CPU/RAM is available, the less time iPhone OS gives an app to pause in hopes of getting its resources as soon as possible. If the process can’t be paused in time, the application gets shut down.

Now remember: the iPhone 3G has less CPU and RAM than the 3GS (412 Mhz CPU/128 MB Ram vs. 600 Mhz/256 MB). Less resources from the get go = less time to pause = more apps being shutdown rather than paused. Apple’s options here: let applications take longer to pause/resume on the 3G and thus break the entire smooth, invisible pausing/unpausing system they put in place, or don’t let them pause at all.

They chose the latter for the time being. Right choice? Wrong choice? That’s up to you to determine. Let me know in the comments below.

[Video via RedmondPie]

by Agence France-Presse

A pedestrian’s view of the Seine.Photo courtesy Olivier FfrenchPARIS—Parisians longing to take more leisurely strolls along the banks of the Seine may soon get their wish under a plan unveiled Wednesday by the city mayor.

Socialist Bertrand Delanoe wants to ban cars from a stretch of road near the Seine’s Left Bank and reduce traffic on the river’s Right Bank while opening up more space for strollers.

“It’s about giving Parisians more opportunities for happiness,” said Delanoe who unveiled his plan at city hall. “If we succeed in doing this, I believe it will profoundly change Paris.”

Every day, about 40,000 vehicles roar down the two-lane street on the Right Bank of the Seine, taking in scenic views of the Eiffel Tower and passing under many of the capital’s stunning bridges.

On the Left Bank, traffic is not as intense but the streets along the bank form an important link in the capital’s roadway system and shutting them down is bound to cause traffic mayhem.

Delanoe said his plan would involve reconfiguring entire traffic patterns along the Right Bank, between the Louvre museum and the Morland bridge, and setting up more bus routes.

On Wednesday, architects showed off plans for new promenades along the Seine, with wide walking paths, new sports facilities, a flower market, botanical gardens, and even a floating cafe.

Delanoe hopes his plan will be completed by 2012 at a cost of 40 million euros ($55 million).

The lanes along the Seine were built in 1967 and Delanoe has made no secret of the fact that he wanted to shut them down after his re-election as mayor in 2008.

In 2007, he slapped a 50 kilometer (30 mile) per hour speed limit to cut down traffic.

Since he was first elected as mayor in 2001, Delanoe has pushed through several projects to turn Paris into a green city, notably a new self-service bicycle rental scheme called Velib.

The city council is to vote on the Seine banks project in June.

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Chicago considers getting serious about coal pollution

Today we’ll accompany an average American, SWPL Six-pack, on his daily routine as he makes an effort to meet a number of attractive women that he sees.

It’s a Saturday. He gets up in the morning, showers, dresses and walks to the Starbucks down the block. While waiting at an intersection for the light to change, he notices an attractive girl standing next to him. He pivots to say something to her.

“I’ve got thirty seconds before the light changes to flirt with you. Ready?”

On the sidewalk in front of the Starbucks, he passes another attractive girl.

“Excuse me. Could you tell me where the nearest Starbucks is?”

In Starbucks, waiting in line, he speaks to the attractive girl standing ahead of him.

“Ever notice how fast the Starbucks barristas work in the morning? They must take a triple shot before their shift.”

Outside, holding his drink, he walks to the post office to drop off a letter. On the sidewalk an attractive girl walks toward him.

“Hi!”

At the post office, an attractive girl puts a letter in the mailbox.

“Be careful, that box sends all love letters to my address.”

Leaving the post office, he walks to a clothing store to make some purchases. On the walk over, nine attractive girls pass by him.

“Hi.”

“Hi!”

“Hi there.”

“Hey.”

“Good morning!”

“Excuse me. Where is the nearest dog grooming shop?”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Hello!”

At the store, a girl hovers around the sunglass display.

“You’ll want sunglasses that hide which guys you’re checking out. Don’t worry, you don’t make me self-conscious.”

In the lingerie section, an attractive girl rifles through bras.

“I need to buy something for Mother’s Day. Too frilly?”

Back on the sidewalk, he stops at a street vendor to buy a warm pretzel. An attractive girl is there as well.

“I know this pretzel. I think this guy shops at Costco and marks up 1,000 percent.”

He goes home to get his frisbee. He plans to meet a friend at the local park. On the way home, five more attractive girls ping his visual field.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Hi!”

“Hi.”

“Happy Saturday!”

On the walk to the park, two more attractive girls. He pretends to throw the frisbee to them.

“Catch!”

“Catch! Ohh, too slow.”

At the park, he and his friend spend more time ogling the girls than tossing the frisbee. A throw goes astray and lands near the feet of an attractive girl.

“I had my buddy throw it near you on purpose. I’m smooooooth.”

After playing frisbee, he goes to dinner at a local cafe with his friend. An attractive girl serves them.

“I heard the waitresses here are good flirters. Ok, let’s see what you’ve got.”

Dinner ends, and his friend leaves. He goes to Whole Foods to pick up some smelly cheese and grass-fed beef for the week. On the walk to Whole Foods, three attractive girls and one incredibly ugly girl pass him.

“Hi.”

“Hi!”

“Hi.”

*silence*

Loitering in the cheese section, he notices one of his exes is there. He sidles up to an attractive girl rummaging through the assortment of goat cheeses.

“Hey, I just noticed my ex is here. Right over there. I’m going to ask you a favor. Pretend you’re flirting with me so I can make her jealous. I’ll return the favor by flirting back. Trust me, you’ll thank me.”

Back at home, cutting off a hunk of cheese and downloading new Yeah Yeah Yeahs music, he makes plans to hit the local social venue with his buddies. Once arrived, he orders drinks from the attractive girl bartender.

“Don’t think this means we have something going on.”

A few hours socializing and drinking, he has met and spoken with six attractive girls. Walking home later that night, he steps next to an attractive girl at an intersection.

“I like your hat. Very trendy right now.”

He goes home to sleep, a full day behind him.

***

The above did not actually happen. Or, more to the point, it is not an accurate depiction of a day in the life of the typical, average American man who wishes he could meet more women. The number of attractive girls he saw on that Saturday is realistic, but the number of those girls he spoke to is, woefully, not.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have the wittiest opener, or the smoothest delivery. If you open your mouth and say something as benign as “Hi” to thirty-eight attractive girls on a single Saturday, you will have rocketed yourself ahead of 99% of men who passed by those same girls and said nothing. You would have brought yourself closer to sex with at least one of those girls that wouldn’t have been the case had you walked by them silently, cursing your inaction once the moment evaporated.

Now add in a little game. You’ve just hurdled 99.9% of men who pass by those girls without muttering a word on that typical, “boring” Saturday. Are you beginning to recognize just how powerful this stuff is?

Opportunity is everywhere for those with the eyes to see.

Filed under: Escape, Game, Hope and Change, The Big City Life

American Honda Motor Co has announced a recall of approximately 1,850 2010 Acura ZDX units to inspect the inside of the dashboard surface material. According to Honda, on affected vehicles, the passenger side airbag of the 2010 ZDX crossover will not deploy properly.

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Acura ZDX.

“While no incidents have been reported, a manufacturing quality check revealed that some vehicles do not have the necessary laser-cut scoring on the underside of the dashboard surface material,” Honda said in a statement.”Without proper scoring, the passenger side frontal airbag will not deploy properly. After dealer inspection, if a ZDX is determined to have a dashboard without the proper scoring, the dashboard will be replaced.”

Owners of the affected ZDX models will be informed by mail later this month. They can also visit http://owners.acura.com/recalls or call (800) 382-2238 for more information.

2010 Acura ZDX:

– By: Stephen Calogera

Thin, thick, smoky, salty, hearty, meaty, maple, chewy or crispy. Different strokes, as they say. Nonetheless, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone – especially a Primal type – who doesn’t sing bacon’s praises. (Too bad so many CW followers eschew this fine delicacy.) Nonetheless, I wanted to address some questions dangling out there in the MDA comments and forum. Is bacon an indulgence or an acceptable stock ingredient in Primal eating? Do we need to shell out for nitrite-free? What about organic? Is there really such a thing as grass-fed pork?

A couple of weeks ago in the How Much Is Too Much post, I joked that there was no such thing as too much bacon. As much as I love my pork belly, I should clarify that the comment was tongue-in-cheek. Most folks got the jest, but it’s worth highlighting. When it comes to bacon, the fat is delectable. The protein is functional. The taste – phenomenal. The salt, however, (as a number of you pointed out) can be the problem. Although brands vary significantly, bacon generally averages around 1000 mg of sodium per 3.5 oz. serving. As I mentioned last week, I think reining in the sodium intake is a worthwhile endeavor.

Depending on your size, blood pressure and physical tolerance, I recommend staying somewhere below or within the 1500-2300 upper limit range. A Primal diet naturally nixes the obscene majority of sodium sources: soda, processed foods, etc. Unless you’re liberal with the salt shaker or indulge an addiction to sea vegetables each day, I think there’s room for bacon on a fairly regular basis. Personally, I often eat a few strips with an omelet in the morning, but just as often I use it as a garnish – a dash of bacon pieces in a salad, or in a scallop dish, for example.

Now for nitrites. We’ve admittedly hedged our bets on these additives in the past, but I’ll agree that shelling out for “naturally cured” bacon (or other cured products) isn’t worth the extra cost. Some folks like the taste or simply trust the use of ingredients like celery salt (which contains its own nitrates from the celery) more than a conventional product. Others buy nitrite free because the bacon tends to contain fewer additives in general or because they want to support local or organic farmers and nitrite-free is what they offer. Nonetheless, it appears to be of little consequence.

Just a quick and dirty review… We take in nitrates every day with our vegetables and, to a much smaller degree, with cured meats. Microorganisms in food and in our own digestive tracts convert some nitrates into nitrites, and some of these nitrites can then form nitrosamines, known carcinogens. Vegetables have sufficient antioxidant power that this small amount of conversion is inconsequential. As far as cured meats go, they generally only make up about a 10^th of our nitrate intake, and a serving of vegetables or vitamins C and E can further inhibit the unwanted conversion (hence the orange juice recommendation some people follow with their bacon).

When it comes to bacon (pumped but not dry cured), the USDA responded a number of decades ago to concern about nitrosamine formation during the cooking process. Sodium and potassium nitrites were capped at safer levels. Vitamin C was then added to most bacon formulas. The departments’ research suggests that these adjustments prevent nitrosamine formation in medium cooked bacon (340 degrees F, 3 minutes cook time for each side), but well done and burnt bacon still pose some risk for nitrosamine conversion. Moral of the story: if you like well done bacon and choose naturally or conventionally cured, pop some vitamin C with your meal.

Finally, how could we do a post on bacon – that savory Primal treat – (let alone include pictures) without talking sources as well. Of course, bacon is one of those fine luxuries available in any market, but why not share the love today by suggesting your favorite brands (and cooking tips if you’re so inclined). As for my own preference, I’ve never been disappointed in any of the organic and/or pastured bacon I’ve found at my local farmers’ market, but I’m not too picky when it comes to bacon. (One of my favorite quotes from Cook’s Illustrated: “Bad bacon is something of an oxymoron.”)

As always, I’d recommend finding pork that’s antibiotic and hormone-free. Check the ingredients and look for the most natural list you can get. The more commercial the product, the more likely that list contains additives you don’t need. (The specially labeled “microwave” bacon isn’t worth picking up off the shelf.) Beyond that, there are organic options and “pastured,” which usually means part pasture and part grain/other vegetarian feed. If you’re choosing between fully organic or partially pastured, it can be a toss up. There are plenty of options, however, for pastured and organic/almost organic. Check out the Eat Wild and Local Harvest sites for pastured options in your neck of the woods, and for a little entertainment have fun perusing this bacon of the month club. There’s no assurance of pastured or antibiotic-free, but how can you beat a complimentary pig nose?

Thanks for reading, and I’ll look forward to reading everyone’s comments and suggestions!

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Related posts:

1. A Quick Guide to Edible Seeds
2. Sodium Nitrite: Another Reason to Avoid Processed Meats
3. Scallops and Bacon

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

What saved Intel’s neck during the worst part of the last economic downturn was the Atom processor, the heart of netbooks that started selling well as consumers’ budgets tightened. Now that the 2008-09 dip is over, and even businesses’ budget belts are loosening, the company’s attention returns to the server side of the equation.

In Intel’s quarterly conference call yesterday evening (Betanews thanks Seeking Alpha for the transcript), CEO Paul Otellini pointed to cloud computing and virtualization as trends that are empowering a resurgence in business sales…and helping the company to overcome an apparent tapering off in consumers’ interest in netbooks.

“There are a number of things going on. The move to cloud we think is very good. Not everything will go to cloud but the shift to cloud base services is good for Intel. The shift to virtualization is good for Intel,” Otellini told a UBS analyst. “If you plot out the growth in data traffic and network traffic, and the kinds of things modern servers are doing, that growth curve is faster than the refresh rate for old versus new equipment. We see a very robust scenario for servers going forward.”

But that’s as much flavor or color as the CEO was willing to provide about “going forward.” Usually at the end of the first calendar quarter, Intel has no problem starting to provide limited guidance about the remainder of the year, especially the third quarter leading into the holiday season. Despite repeated requests from analysts on yesterday’s call, neither Otellini nor CFO Stacy Smith would provide anything remotely approaching the definition of a forecast going into the second half of the year.

“I think we won’t talk about the second half at this point in time except to say we are putting in place sufficient capacity to handle…any demand scenario you could imagine,” Otellini told a Barclays Capital analyst. Referring to the company’s ongoing transition from the 45 nm to the 32 nm process, and how much its fabrication facilities should continue to press on assembling 45 nm parts to meet growing demand, he added, “We are assuming continued growth and units over the course of the year. We are going to be ramping 32nm as fast as possible. So the only question we have from a supply standpoint is how much 45 we keep on and what is our assembly test loading capabilities. We will put some bucks around those to make sure we have sufficient capacity.”

It’s not that consumers don’t want mobile processors. In fact, CFO Smith conceded, Intel didn’t keep as much of its 32 nm Arrandale series mobile processors on hand. What’s happening now appears to be a shift back in consumer demand away from netbooks — the life raft of the downturn — toward traditional notebook PCs. That’s bad news for Linux proponents who were looking for Intel Atom-based netbooks to be the launching ground for platforms such as MeeGo, the forthcoming merger of Intel’s Moblin with Nokia’s maemo; as well as Google’s Chrome OS, the Linux extension of its browser technologies. But it’s good for Intel overall, Smith noted, because it actually helps enable Atom production costs to come down, driving up margins for netbook sales even as those numbers subside. And, of course, it’s really good for Arrandale.

“Because of the increases we saw over the course of the quarter in demand on the new mobile platform Arrandale I wasn’t as able to get as much inventory in place as I had hoped,” said Smith. “If you look at it between dollars and units, what you see is, units are up a bit more than dollars but still not as much as I would want as we kind of move into the second quarter, and based on the strength we are seeing and the ramp of these new products. If you deconstruct the inventory between the processes, what we saw was more than 100% of the increase in inventory and more than 100% of the increase in units was on 32nm. So we got a little bit in place there. Everything else was down. As I think about Q2 my hope is I can build some inventory into the second quarter in anticipation of a second half that is higher.”

How much higher? Again, Intel won’t go there. But in some departments, you actually can’t get much higher: First quarter gross margin for Intel was a stunning 63.4%, contributing to a $2.4 billion net income quarter on $10.3 billion of revenue. This was despite a 19% drop in revenue from the Atom segment year-to-year, to $355 million. Calling the income picture for the quarter “288% annual growth” wouldn’t really be accurate; neither Intel nor anyone else is really tripling its growth per year. That incline is mostly due to coming out of the last economic pothole. As hardware analyst firm iSuppli tells us, global PC shipment numbers for Q1 2010 are likely to be 17.1% higher than for Q1 2009, but seasonality will level off that growth significantly through the spring.

So this last quarter was not really a boom, as much as the deafening ringing sound left in one’s ears after the bust wears off. That’s why Intel’s not providing much guidance besides maintaining gross margin at around 64% throughout the year, peppered with a pinch of hope that, once the dust settles, businesses realize how old their client PCs have suddenly become.

“The average fleet of notebooks is four years old out there,” remarked Otellini. “The average fleet of desktops is five years old. You are getting to the point where as CIO’s are feeling a bit better about their business it makes economic sense to swap these out just from an ongoing cost of ownership standpoint.”

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Posted by John Byrne at 11:03 a.m.

The number of liquor licenses would more than double on Chicago Park District property along the lakefront under a proposal Mayor Richard Daley introduced today.



The high-profile locations where beer, wine and liquor would be able to be sold under Daley’s plan include the North Rose Garden at Buckingham Fountain, the 63rd Street Beach House in Jackson Park and three new locations in Lincoln Park: the Montrose Beach House, the Osterman Beach House and the Diversey Grill, according to a city Web site.

Other new spots where Daley wants to allow liquor sales include the South Shore Golf Course, the Ohio Street Beach in Olive Park, Calumet Beach House in Calumet Park, Diversey Driving Range and

Miniature Golf Course, DuSable Harbor Building, the South Shore Cultural Center, the 31st Street Boathouse in Burnham Park and the 87th Street Harbor.

All told, the mayor wants to add 13 new liquor licenses to the 12 already allowed on lakefront park district land, according to the ordinance. In 23 of the 25 spots, the ordinance seeks to restrict alcohol sales to no later than 10 p.m. Currently, liquor sales are allowed until 11 p.m. in most places.



The mayor’s plan would allow liquor sales to continue until midnight at Northerly Island. Currently, Millennium Park is the only lakefront park where alcohol can be purchased that late.



In seven parks where only beer and wine are now allowed to be sold, the Daley administration wants to allow liquor sales. Those include two spots in Lincoln Park, bringing to five the total number of places where Chicagoans can buy an alcoholic beverage in the popular North Side park.

The proposed ordinance will be sent to the City Council’s License Committee for consideration.

This morning, I spoke on a panel called “Driving Innovation Through Sustainability” at the Fortune Brainstorm Green conference. Given that the panel was held at the eye-popping hour of 8 AM, it’s testament to the topic that the room was overflowing. Or perhaps the draw was my fellow panelists – Matt Kistler, Senior Vice President of Sustainability for Walmart, Rick Rommel, Senior Vice President for Emerging Business at Best Buy and Scott Elrod, Vice President of the Hardware Systems Laboratory at the Palo Alto Research Center – and our moderator, Roger Ballentine, President of Green Strategies.

Roger started us off by saying that a sustainability agenda can act like a pair of night-vision goggles, helping corporate managers and executives find innovation where they couldn’t see it before. That certainly resonated with me – I’ve seen that pattern over and over again in the companies with which we work. In fact, I’m often asked of our partners, “Why did they need you to find an innovation that’s clearly good for their business?” I think it’s because in many ways Environmental Defense Fund provides those night-vision goggles Roger was talking about, bringing a new green lens to business as usual.

The analogy seems to work, especially when it comes to finding efficiencies within a company’s operations and even for greening a supply chain. Matt had some great examples about how that works with moving innovations “up the value chain” to Walmart suppliers and, increasingly, “down to consumers.” Rick added a great point about how moving innovation does not go in a straight line but rather a loop, especially when you start to bring in innovations in product take-backs.

Things got even more interesting when we got to talking about how to move innovations horizontally across industry sectors. Scott postulated that innovations can move even when the intellectual property is owned by one company if that company has the incentive to build market share. The kinds of barriers we see to quick adoption are generally not about intellectual property but rather basic market failures: How can companies become more aware of the innovations applicable to them? How often do companies pass up beneficial innovations simply because someone else thought of them first?

Perhaps the most interesting conversation came toward the end of the session when we explored what it takes to create a culture of innovation within a company. Can we, Rick asked, import some of the characteristics of the venture capital community – quick failures, competitive capital – into a corporate bureaucracy? Or is it more important to understand the cultural values that already exist in your company and link the sustainability agenda to the drivers you already have in place?

What would it take to bring night-vision goggles to your company?

" Quem se senta no fundo de um poço para contemplar o céu, há de achá-lo pequeno. "

Han Yu

O CEO da Renault–Nissan, o brasileiro Carlos Ghosn, veio ao seu país de origem para anunciar algumas ações e realizar palestras. Um dos temas principais de sua visita é o acordo para uso dos carros elétricos pela Prefeitura de São Paulo, e o anúncio do Logan 2011 com novo visual.

Outra tarefa que Ghosn tem aqui no Brasil é a de convencer as autoridades brasileiras a oferecer incentivos fiscais para a indrotução de carros elétricos no mercado, sendo que essa será a principal tendência no mercado automotivo em todo o mundo, e outros países já estão providenciando recursos.

Em entrevista ao jornal Valor, Ghosn foi bem direto em sua afirmação: “Sem ajuda oficial carro elétrico é inviável”. Isso porque as baterias de lítio tem um alto custo e baixa exploração, sendo os principais produtores mundiais a Argentina e o Chile, e a maior reserva do mundo fica na Bolívia, comandada por Evo Morales.

Para mostrar que estamos “dormindo no ponto”, países como EUA, Japão e França já se convenceram do futuro do mercado e ofereceram descontos para as pessoas que compram carros elétricos, mas infelizmente o Brasil parece ser um lugar onde isso não irá dar muito certo, já que com tantas dificuldades no setor elétrico (entenda-se: apagões) e a exploração do etanol, dificilmente o incentivo aos carros elétricos será uma prioridade de nosso governo.

Curiosamente, outros executivos do setor também concordam com a dificuldade da viabilização de carros elétricos em nosso país, dizendo que a exploração do etanol atrasará muito qualquer iniciativa a respeito.

Via | Blogauto