Archive for the 'Corporate America' category

Foreign Cars made in America

Feb 10 2009 Published by under American Consumer, Cars, Changing scene, Corporate America

I was having a discussion about cars with a fellow colleague. We were talking about buying a new car and what to buy. The age old question of foreign vs. American made came up. The long standing assumption was made that a foreign built car was built better and would have less problems. I then pointed out that Honda and Toyotas have been built in the United States for years. This was quite a surprise to the new car buyer.

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I then did a quick search on the internet to see which foreign auto makers are manufacturing or assembling motor vehicles with in the United States. And even I was surprised at the number of foreign auto makers that now have plants in the United States and the volume they are producing. Some 5 million cars a year.

  • Toyota, Texas and Mississippi, 1.3 Million cas per year
  • Honda, Ohio and Indiana, 1.0 million car per year
  • Nissan, Tennessee
  • BMW, South Carolina, 150 thousand cars per year
  • Kia, Georgia, Plant under construction
  • Hyundai, Alabama
  • Volkswangon, in the planning stages

So the question is are foreign cars that are made in America “Foreign”? Or are they American?

No responses yet

Who is watching your Vudu?

Jan 16 2009 Published by under American Consumer, Corporate America, Dumb Americans

On the Vudu website is this quote:

“Unlike other services that rely on large server farms to deliver content, as more VUDU Boxes are installed, the network will become even more efficient and require less of each box.”

So what does the mean? It means your Vudu set top box serves up content and uses your internet connection to deliver the content. Did you get that! That means you are providing the electricity, the hard drive space, and the network bandwidth so other Vudu owners can watch content.

Wow… did you know you were providing a service to other Vudu owners when you bought your Vudu set top box? This is call a peer-to-peer network. Other software out there, call BitTorrent, is used by hobbyist to share and download very large files. Peer-to-peer networking is also known as a bandwidth hogs. I would not want several Vudu users on the same provider in my network neighborhood.

Other services like Hulu, Sling and Netflix, use large distributed server farms to send out content. They pay for the hosting services to house the server farms not you. They pay for the badwidth to connect there server to the internet, not you.

So the Vudu service sound great upfront but is the price, Vudu using your resources, too high? Or will the dumb American consumer just march forward and not care?

One response so far

Wrap rage

Jan 07 2009 Published by under American Consumer, Corporate America, Dumb Americans

I think “Wrap Rage” started with the dam cellophane wrapped CD jewel case from 1982. I could never get the plastic zip strip to work. They would always break off before they did anything. Leaving you frustrated as you tried desperately to get the cellophane plastic wrap off the jewel case and your new CD out.

Today we have even more “Wrap Rage”. Have you ever tried to get a product out of a clamshell plastic package, or a Childs toy that has been wire tied into a box with 10 or 20 metal wire ties?


The manufactures clams the packaging it for our benefit. The wire ties secure the product in the package but still allow you, the consumer, to see, touch and try the product all without removing the product from the package or box. This kind of packaging is also be used to promote the “try me” feature. This feature is where you can try part of the toy or product while it remains in the package.

The plastic clamshell packaging ensures that all the pieces remain in the package, and cannot be touch but are clearly visible. The clamshell packaging also protects the product form being tampered with. But what protects my finger from being cut on the sharp stiff plastic as I remove the product from the packaging?

There are even several special tools to help you with you WRAP RAGE. Here is another wrap rage tool for freeing your purchase form it’s plastic safe. And yet another one, but this one is a single task wrap rage tool. There is a tool for everything. You just need to know where to get it. Sasme thing if there is a problem, ingenuity comes to the rescue and the capitalist entrepreneur will get the product to market.

Some of this is kind of understandable when products are put on display at a retail store. But if you are buying the product through an online source, mail order or catalog do you need all this fancy packaging. Why not just a simple box, plastic bag or pouch. Plus simpler and less packaging is environment responsible. One company who is leading the charge in this area is Amazon.com. so relief is on the way.

No responses yet

Personal airbags

Dec 12 2008 Published by under American Consumer, Cars, Corporate America, Geek stuff

When I was watching the “Speed Racer Movie” they had these very cleaver devices that formed around the driver and filled with foam when the driver was in imminent danger. This would happen when the driver was involved in a crash. So the race drivers bounce to safety encased in giant foam filed orbs that put Detroit’s airbags to shame. I understand that these device are not real and it was just a movie but the concept does have some merit.

Detroit keeps adding more airbags too our cars. First we started with the airbag in the steering wheel. The front seat passenger airbag then side airbags, and now auto makers are putting airbags everywhere. They are even testing external airbags. Look at the photo below. This test vehicle must have ten or more airbags. Wow that is a lot of safety. In a crash it must feel like a bomb going off when the all deploy.

So why not do something like the foam filled escape orbs of the Speed Racer movie. Enclose the driver and passengers inside of some kind of personal air bag instead of putting and airbag in every nook and cranny of the vehicle. An additional benefit of the personal airbags is the airbag would continue to protect the occupant even if they are thrown from the car.

One response so far

Apple Pushes Back

Oct 24 2008 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Corporate America, Geek stuff

MacVsVistaIn our 9/19 post Windows ad campaign we made a comment on how Microsoft should spend their money on making Vista better more reliable and instead of spending millions on making us feel better about windows Vista.

Well apple did their own commercial on the subject, who couldn’t resist. Using the I’m a PC vs. I’m Mac format. Apple poked back at Microsoft with the PC guy dividing up his money in two plies. The large of the two plies to be spent on advertising and the very small pile on Vista bug fixes. At the end of the spot PC guy puts all his money in to advertising.

MacVsVista2The next night Apple comes out with another commercial bashing Vista with the “Bake Sale” parody. In the commercial Mac eats the ten million cup cake sold by PC guy. It is short and to the point, nothing to miss here.

The question is how long can Mac continue to be the Cooool guy on the block? And will Microsoft ever win in the TV commercial arena? For my viewing pleasure I hope Microsoft continues to give Mac more material to work with because these guys at TBWA with Laurie Coots do a great job putting down the PC.

4 responses so far

MagicJack NOT

Oct 01 2008 Published by under American Consumer, Changing scene, Corporate America, Dumb Americans

Some time when it sounds too good to be true there is got to be a catch. Several years ago we switched our phone service from Verizon to Vonage and saved about $200 a month on our phone bill. The only down side was the setup (getting the ATA installed, configured) and the quality of the calls was less then Verizon. But we were saving $2,400 a year. So it was worth the problems.

Then fast forward 4 years and we hear about MagicJack for only $20 per year. WOW only pay $20 for the whole year. How does that work. Well the first down side is you need to have a PC (desktop or laptop) running to get a phone call. So if you want 24 x 7 phone service then your computer need to be ON 24 x 7. OK! We already us a computer as a DVR so that is not big deal. So let do the free trial.

Just be careful when you sign up for the free trail you are prompted for all kinds of options. Big bold type in your face ads wanting you to up for 5 years and other stuff. Any of the options negate your free trial. So I was smart and avoided all the temptations.

The next problem, after a week of testing, was when we decide to go with the service and port our existing phone number to MagicJack. The FAQs say YES but but not now, we will in the upcoming months. That was eight month ago 1/2008. And here we are in fall 2008 and you can sitll not port your number to MagicJack. Hey we do not want to change our number. I like the phone number i have, it has been mine for 20 plus years. So does all of my friends, neighbor and family.

So now we want to return the free trail. So I want to uninstall the MagicJack software. Oh surprise there is NO uninstall. Who today, in 2008, does not have an uninstaller? Someone who wants too look at your system and serve up ads on your MagicJack control panel. Just check the “end user License agreement” it is full of all kinds of stuff that you should not agree to.

So the only way to remove the software is by hand, a good reference is here at uninstallmagicjack.com. What a pain to do this all by hand.
Then we try to sent the USB adaptor back using UPS to get a tracking number and proof of delivery and that’s right they only have a PO box (UPS will not deliver to a Po box). So now the only thing I can do is send it back US mail with a return receipt. We are waiting to see is the $49.00 ever hits my credit card.

Just a word to the wise…think long and hard before you jump on something like this. It is not worth the loss of privacy to have MagicJack watching who you call and what you do on you PC and then sell that info and delivering ads to your desktop. After all it is how MagicJack make more money to offset the low cost of the service.

It is just too high of a price to pay, and it wrong wrong wrong…

2 responses so far

Windows ad campaign

Sep 19 2008 Published by under Changing scene, Corporate America, Dumb Americans, Geek stuff

A 300 million dollar ad campaign to make us all feel good about windows? It would take a heavenly miracle to make us all feel better about Windows. I see several problems with the ad campaign.

BillandJerry

First problem is me. Sorry I did not get the “Simple Life” parody of Bill and Jerry as BFF. Just blew completely by me. Maybe I would have got the parody if the ad was the full 4.5minutes that is posted on the internet. But only seeing 60 seconds at a time was not enough. Did not see the parody until I read about the ads in the news. I thought it was like a Target ad, just a little bit of mindless entertainment to build brand awareness. Oh well it must just be me, I must be one of the dumb Americans.

Second I guess Bill and Jerry were trying be funny. It just did not happen, the spot was not funny. Even Bills robot dance was not funny. The Apple spots are funny, but this was not.

In my option spend the 300 million dollars on designing better software. Oh I forgot we like software that crashes and is attacked by all kinds of virus and malware. But then again we are all just a bunch of Dumb Americans, because we keep buying windows!

No responses yet

Google Chrome shine or safety

Sep 03 2008 Published by under Changing scene, Corporate America, Geek stuff, Google

IS Chrome for Google security and safety of Google’s ad revenue or is it Google’s research project for an Operating system? Or Maybe it is both.

Google_chrome
The underlying technologies of the Chrome browser are very much like a Operating System. With features like a Task Manger that displays the different processes very much like Windows OS. Google’s decision to divide and conquer processes at the browser level could be and exercise in developing a more sophisticated project to follow on in the future (like an OS).

But on the other hand is Google just protecting their own ad revenue? Is Chrome a way to guarantee their ability to server up the correct ad based on your browser history? There was nothing to stop Microsoft, FireFox or Safarii to throwing up roadblocks that prevented Google from displaying the most relevant ad. After all who is the biggest inline provider on online ads?

One additional observation, the Chrome logo looks a lot like the Milton Bradley Simon game from the late 70′s.

4 responses so far

Horsepower Race!

May 20 2008 Published by under American Consumer, Cars, Changing scene, Corporate America

horsepower

What a great time to be driving an American automobile. And your thinking… you got to be nuts, with the price of gas these days and low MPG ratings. Every fill up is $50.00 bucks plus.

My thoughts are baised on a trend that we have not seen in 40 years. Just look at the horsepower race that is going on. We have not seen cars being built with this much horsepower since the muscle cars of the 60’s and early 70’s. Detroit is building cars with 4 hundred, 5 hundred and even some with over 6 hundred horsepower.

The current top dogs being the Dodge Viper with 600 horsepower and Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 supercar with 630 horsepower. Ok their sports cars. So, you ask, what about the mid-size sedan 2009 Cadillac CTS-V with 550 horsepower, it is over the top! All of these cars have horsepower that years ago would have been considered exotic and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Just look at the Porsche 911 GT2, with 501 horsepower at almost 200 grand. You can buy the Corvette ZR1 for a little more than half of the Porsche and you get over 600 horsepower not the measly 501 the Porsche has. Or get your hands on the CTS-V, that will do a sub 4 second 0-60, for under $70,000.

Who knows what will happen in the next few years? With all the government regulations hitting for higher Mile Per Gallon ratings hitting. We might be seeing the auto manufactures dropping all these great horsepower numbers to achieve the average fleet MPG rates being regulated by the government. So you better run out and drive one of these power house now.

So even though Gas prices are high, and I mean sky high, it is still great to be driving an American car with all this horsepower.

5 responses so far

Burning our Food leads to higher food prices

Apr 01 2008 Published by under Changing scene, Corporate America, Dumb Americans, Goverment policy

May 25, 2005 a senate panel votes, unanimously, to encourage ethanol production. The Panel was lead by Senator Jim Talent (r-Mo) in a response to higher gasoline prices. The oil industry opposed the plan clamming that the wide use of such a policy would lead to higher food prices.

Then that same year, 2005, Congress instructed the Environmental Protection agency to enforce the Renewable Standards Act. Which required at least 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels be added too and blended into our existing fossil fuel by the year 2012. And so starts the process that is giving us higher food prices today.

Now jump forward to 2008 looking at two staple we all need, back in Feb 2006 corn was $2.28 per bushel just a few months ago Feb 2008 the price per bushel rose to $5.46. This is almost double the cost in just 24 months. Wheat another staple food item was $3.48 per bushel in Feb 2006; now in Feb 2008 it is $11.21/bushel.

Why is the price of basic food elements climbing so fast? Because we are burning our food crops to fuel our cars, trucks and lawn mowers. So we cause a shift in the food paradigm. We create an entirely new use and market for crops that are scarce in the world today. Maybe the crops are not scarce today in America but large parts of the world are starving. People are dying every day because they do not have any food.

FoodPrices

Then here in America, not only do we waist food, but now we burn our food crops for transportation. The rest of the world is watching and now trying to import more food crops. They just want to protect their own countries food supply. The result is again, more pressure on the food supply that results in higher prices. We are truly dumb americans.

We need to stop the push for ethanol as a renewable fuel before we all starve to death. I would rather have the option of not filling up my car at $9.00 a gallon for gasoline opposed to not being able to eat.

One response so far

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