Can someone provide a satisfactory answer as to why the earth’s fossil record includes evidence of so many enormous creatures? Is it higher oxygen levels? Larger landmasses?
23
Apr 07
Thoughts on Virginia Tech and tragedy in general
The Virginia Tech massacre is upsetting on many levels.
One, it is troubling to think that there are people so deranged and miserable that their preferred solution to life’s suffering is to perpetuate mortal violence on others who have done them no actual harm. Insanity can be the only rationale behind such stupidity. Insanity is stupidity, in a sense, ie. being out of touch with Reality / Truth.
Two, we have no adequate solutions for the insane / dangerously stupid. We only do something about it after something bad happens. Virginia Tech should be a wake up call that we need to get more involved in detecting these people before they kill. On the other hand, there is no real way to prevent this sort of thing. The mass murderers of the world act by violating the most basic principles of Society. There is no way to legislate against someone who is willing to violate the very concept of morality, you can only make it more difficult to do so.
Three, I am glad to see the flags at half-mast for the victims of Virginia Tech. It is a heartening symbol of respect. However, it must be difficult for the families of the victims, not only for their terrible loss, but also because the world eventually moves on and forgets, leaving them to their grief, which can never be forgotten.
18
Apr 07
Pizza Wars: Pizza Patron and Pizza Hut
There’s a pizza war brewing between two Dallas-based chains, Pizza Hut, and a much smaller and newer entrant, Pizza Patron. It is not a battle of equals, but it is interesting to see how competition plays out.
Pizza Patron markets directly to low-income Latinos with an eye toward low-end take-out pizza market, similar to Little Caesar’s Pizza, which is big in other parts of the country. Pizza Patron locates its franchises in largely Hispanic areas, serving a population that is growing more quickly (good growth prospects) than any other due to illegal immigration and higher birth rates. Marketing exclusively to Latinos is a bold move even in this age of rapid demographic change.
Pizza Patron was in the news recently with a program publicity stunt aimed squarely at Latinos called “Pizza por Pesos.” As expected, this generated outrage among some Americans and probably some mirth among the ascendant Mexican population here in Texas.
Interestingly, Pizza Patron seems to draw much of its identity from Pizza Hut. In the image above, notice how both the Pizza Hut roof / hat and the Pizza Patron chulo hat seem to share a similar shape. Also, notice the similar fonts and the similarities between the dotted “i” and the accented “o”.
The pizza business is very competitive because it’s such a simple model: cheap ingredients, simple kitchen prep, minimal retail space, and low labor costs. All this equals healthy margins if you make a good product and can market it.
Anyway, Pizza Patron advertises a $4.99 pizza. This is their hallmark. They call it “Pizza Lista”, ready pizza. This means low-income families can enjoy a quick, cheap dinner. Pizza is the ideal family food; you just call it in and pick it up. I’m guessing Pizza Hut is eager to make it difficult for competitors like Pizza Patron because these cheap prepared pizzas compete directly with them and their efforts to expand their franchises, which do really well in poor areas despite the premium price (Pizza Hut is not cheap). The other day I noticed that Pizza Hut launched a program called “Pizza Mia” here in Dallas. The approach is very similar to Pizza Lista: 3 one topping pizzas for $5.00 each. The part that I found really clever was the name: Pizza Mia. In Spanish, of course, this means My Pizza, but the best part is that Pizza Mia also sounds Italian. It’s a two for one phrase, although in researching, I noticed that several other restaurants already go by Pizza Mia, so maybe they saw the same angle and stole the idea for themselves.
It’ll be interesting to see if Pizza Patron keeps growing and how Pizza Hut addresses competition on their flank.
Franchise cost comparison:
- Pizza Patron – Franchise fee: $20,000 Basic royalty: 5% gross sales #. Total start up cost: $122,800 to $176,050.
- Pizza Hut – Franchise fee: $25,000 Start-up cost: $218,500 to $1.3 million Basic royalty: 6.5% #
Related:
18
Apr 07
Sometimes I forget myself
The last few years have been a blur. Every once in a while I’ll get a reminder that I need to stop, slow down, and pay attention. There is a world out there – full of possibility – outside the limits of any need to understand it. Life is not an unpleasant chore you need to rush through to finish.
18
Apr 07
Some jobs get in your head
Even though it’s been six years since I worked there I still dream about being a courier at Fedex. Some jobs get in your head. I don’t know if I still dream because I worked there for five years or because of the repetitive, routinized, physical nature of the work. The dreams are absurd. The most common theme is that even though I haven’t been around, my route has been waiting for me and no one really noticed that I wasn’t doing it. I’ll walk into the warehouse and there’s a truck waiting with my clipboard and crates, ready to hit the road. Everyone else is bustling around the warehouse as usual. Last night, there was a new wrinkle, my file in the check-in room was full of uncashed checks.
Even when I worked there I dreamt about it. My most common dreams involved entering an intersection and seeing Fedex packages all over the road as if spilled out of the back. Other times, I would move in my sleep as if I were picking up boxes.
Maybe our brains are designed to adapt to such situations, slowly shaping our minds to meet the physical, mental demands of our day to day activities until we become optimized for our work, in my case, as a courier. When you do physical labor and grow familiar with it, you can achieve a zen-like state of mindlessness where your subconscious mind operates your body. Maybe dreams are just the residue of these orphaned mental routines.
17
Apr 07
The network is the computer
Jeremy Allison puts it well:
There are now no interesting non-networked applications. Standalone computers are devices for watching stored video or listening to music, usually on airplanes. People doing offline email are simply working in an extreme case of a network disconnect, a rather large network latency if you will. The Internet has become the real computing environment of the next century and all programming will become network programming. This is a more challenging environment than programmers have been used to, with connection, latency and concurrency problems making our work much more interesting than it used to be on the standalone DOS box. All entertainment and communications such as television, radio and the telephone network will move onto the Internet. Poor Sun Microsystems were twenty years too early with their “the network is the computer” slogan, but they will eventually be proven right.
11
Apr 07
Grindhouse and I’m a curmudgeon
I read in a few places that Grindhouse was having problems with people not realizing that there were two movies. I did notice this when I saw it in Austin this past Easter weekend. Some people even left before the second movie started. I think the problem is that since there was little advertising for the movie nobody knew the deal and that when the credits actually started rolling for the first film, it confused people.The movies (both of them) were a lot of fun. It’s refreshing to see someone have fun with film, which Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez clearly did.
Since Austin loomed large in Grindhouse, it made me miss being there, the city where I spent so much time and created so many fundamental memories. But, I was also simultaneously annoyed. It’s like if you were a regular at a small bar or diner, paying your dues over a decade, then a bunch of happening people come in and quickly claim it as theirs and start dancing around like they own the place. This must be how the Indians felt when the white man showed up: “Hey, America is rocking! It’s fierce! Way better and less crowded than Europe. Isn’t it awesome that we discovered this place before anyone else? We are the coolest!”
09
Apr 07
The phone is the platform
In a few short years, the “smartphone” will be the de facto personal computer: connected, mobile, and fully integrated into Life. Desktops will never go away completely, but 90% of what you do will be done from your phone: email, photography, video, voice, instant messaging, music, gps and mapping, web surfing, etc. All of these things are currently possible with existing products such as the Blackberry and the Palm Treo. The smartphone platform will succeed because it frees you from your desk.
This will lead to a huge shift in business and in life. Already the boundaries are blurring between work and home life. With ready access to the Internet, workers are bringing life into the workplace and the workplace is bringing work into the rest of your life. Rules and custom will adapt to meet this new reality. Ultimately, I believe it will foster a flexibility and connectedness that will be good for both employees and business.
There is a war brewing to see who will ride the wave of society’s shift toward full mobile computing. It will be interesting to see how the landscape changes. In ten years, I think we will always be connected wirelessly through our personal communication device. It will likely still be called a ‘phone’, but it will do everything you need. It will integrate with various systems at work, in the car, at home, and everywhere else. Desktop computers may exist only as specialized devices to amplify computing power or display output. Your personal device will connect to larger screens, full keyboards and specialized input devices, as well as networked cameras, sensors, and storage. But, all your files will exist in one place and your phone will be your tether to the rest of the world.
The necessary conditions for this shift:
- Ubiquitous high-speed Internet access: Wifi, EVDO, EDGE, Ultra Wide Band, etc. networks will eventually connect everyone.
- Networked and online storage.
- Mobile apps: web 2.0 stuff like Gmail, Flickr, etc. and specialized apps built for the smartphone.
Some businesses are in better position than others to benefit.
The businesses on offense:
- Smartphone companies, primarily Research in Motion – The maker of the wildly successful Blackberry is in good position. They’re very competitive and have made it easier for developers to develop products for the Blackberry. They’ve also continued to add good features like built-in GPS, camera, and media capabilities. They’re the current 800-lb gorilla and their margins are superior since they build everything in house rather than outsourcing to third parties.
- The cellular carriers: Verizon, Cingular (AT&T), and T-Mobile – Any mobile computing scenario will depend on the carriers. I think more people will move to broadband-over-cellular versus WiFi. A cellular Internet connection is persistent, more secure than WiFi, and personal. No need to find hotspots or worry about someone sniffing your WiFi traffic. It’s ideal for mobile computing and complements the current cellular voice network.
- Microsoft – Windows Mobile is rapidly becoming the default OS for commodity level smartphones like the HTC handsets. This could be the entry point for many consumers.
- Google / Yahoo! – Both Google and Yahoo! have been very supportive of mobile computing. Google has produced several applications especially for smartphones including versions of Google Maps, Google Reader, Gmail, and Google Talk. Any web company who caters to handhelds will stand to benefit.
The businesses on defense:
- GPS device manufacturers – GPS is quickly becoming a commodity product. Soon GPS chips and software will be available on all phones, cameras, video cameras, etc. Grabbing GPS coordinates will just be another basic function, like a temperature reading. Why carry multiple devices when you can have one that integrates into everything else? Companies like Garmin and TomTom are already anticipating this shift and are trying desperately to enter the smartphone market. They are unlikely to be successful.
- Apple – Apple created one of the first truly successful mobile devices, the iPod. The iPod did not succeed because it is the best device ever, it succeeded because Apple was the first serious company to really get behind downloadable music. They sensed the consumer appetite and they bet on it. I remember back in the old days when you had to find a CD player that would play mp3’s. No one really took it seriously even though people had been downloading mp3’s since 1996-1997. Apple saw the potential and moved in before anyone else. This is why they succeeded, not because they make the best products in the world. Everyone else was just asleep at the wheel after the fall of Napster. Apple is extremely vulnerable right now. They have the same problem the GPS companies have in that their bread and butter is quickly becoming just another application. When you can get your music and video on your phone or over the network why would you use Apple? The iPhone is pretty, but I think it will be a marginal success at best. Unlike with mp3 players, the smartphone market is very competitive. Apple had to ‘redefine’ the device to keep from looking like a late arrival, so they added a touch screen. While being a creative interface, it is nothing more than a gimmick. The iPhone is a toy aimed at consumers. At this point, it is not serious.
- Low-end camera makers (point and shoot) – Like with GPS and media capabilities, photography and video are becoming just embedded capabilities. The camera will just be another sensory input on your phone. Already, the high-end smartphones provide 1.5-2 megapixel cameras built-in with flash and zoom. People are becoming accustomed to taking photos and shooting them to friends or across the web.
- Handheld game makers – Most people want basic games. In a mobile setting, these games will be played on smartphones. Already several game companies like Magmic are specializing in developing games for the mobile environment.
- Satellite anything – Satellite radio, satellite internet, satellite television is too expensive to launch and too difficult to upgrade to newer hardware. It’s much easier to just expand network coverage to where 90% of the people are. As soon as cars are connected to the wireless cellular networks with access to the Internet and media, they will replace satellite-based alternatives. Satellite radio is already starting to receive competition from terrestial broadcasters in the form of HD radio. The sound quality of satellite radio is notoriously bad. Add online radio to the mix and they’re doomed. I have a feeling satellite radio subscriber numbers are heavily inflated given that I cancelled my XM radio account over a year ago and yet it still miraculously works. In light of this shift to “connected media”, the recent royalty increases for online broadcasting make sense as barriers against non-commercial players.
In conclusion, any business that is not connected to the central personal communication device (the “phone”) and to the network is vulnerable. It’s very difficult to accurately predict the future, however I believe the trend to mobile computing that started with laptops and iPods will culminate in a fully portable, connected voice, media and data device.
03
Apr 07
Good pizza, good people
My mom was in town yesterday and Jody and I had a chance to take her to dinner. I didn’t know any good places to eat near her hotel, so we drove down the road to one of our favorite places in Dallas, Sal’s Pizza. We end up eating Sal’s pizza once or twice a week because it’s very good and inexpensive and we can get it delivered to the house quickly. It’s perfect for those nights when you don’t feel like cooking or going out. Anyway, we had a good conversation with Sal and talked about travel to Italy and our respective family backgrounds. As we were finishing up the waitress came over and said everything was on the house per Sal. Sal is a class act. He’s one of those people who knows that business, like life, is all about people and relationships. If you’re ever in Dallas, I highly recommend the food there.