GM plants hit by UAW pickets - Sep. 24, 2007

GM plants hit by UAW pickets - Sep. 24, 2007


My take on this may be surprising. The strike is good news. It means the union has decided to accept the massive concessions it must make to keep GM viable.

The key is contained in the quote below from the article cited above.

"'David Healy, analyst with Burnham Securities, said he believes GM could take a strike of up to a month without a significant problem.

"It's sort of an odd thing, the first thing that happens with an automaker in case of a strike is their cash increases, as their payroll stops, and they still keep collecting cash for the cars that have been shipped," said Healy.

He believes the two sides are close enough that the strike will be a short one.

"Days, not weeks or months, that would be my guess," he said.'''

As we can see, the union, about to make unprecedented concessions, has decided that they must demonstrate a display of strength and/or recklessness to placate their members before collapsing in the negotiations.

In addition, they need to bring GM reasonably close to devastating losses to give time for the reality of the situation to percolate through the reptile brands of union members and bubble up into their cerebral cortexes. In other words, union members need to be able to demonstrate anger and rage for awhile so they can feel a little better and also, having gotten these emotions out of their system, so they can think about what it really means---to both union members and retirees---if they destroy GM. Not that they lack that capability.

Toshiba to demonstrate prototype of new 'SpursEngine' processor

Toshiba to demonstrate prototype of new 'SpursEngine' processor

quote from the article:

"Notebook PCs integrating SpursEngine will be used in the world's first public demonstration of the processor's capabilities in 3D image processing and manipulation: real-time transformations of hair styles and makeup that instantaneously recognize and process changes in position, angle, and facial expression, and render them as computer graphics....SpursEngine, a co-processor that works in cooperation with a host CPU, fuses Cell/B.E.'s high performance multi-core technology with Toshiba's advanced image processing technology to perform stream processing of video sources--image recognition and processing--at the increasingly sophisticated level required by new generations of digital consumer products."

What interests me about these this article is not the SpursEngine, the new Toshiba chip, but the fact that it is integrated with the Cell/B.E.---the same chip that is at the core of the PlayStation 3.

While there may be other examples, this is the first example I know of the the revolutionary Cell/B.E. that is the core of the Sony PlayStation 3 being utilized for another (non-PlayStation) application. This powerful computer chip---jointly developed by IBM, Sony Group and Toshiba---was initially developed for the PlayStation 3 but the idea was that would be utilized for other applications as well.

This is an incredibly powerful chip that in some ways is analogous to a supercomputer (if I remember correctly). However, utilizing the full power is quite difficult and, as far as I know, no game maker has yet come close to doing so. As I recall, there are nine cells in the core of the chip. Each cell is somewhat akin to a separate microprocessor. What gives the system so much power potentially is the fact that each cell utilizes its own separate memory.

Unfortunately, this is also what makes the chip so incredibly difficult to program. The chip can be used in an easier, more conventional programming fashion without utilizing this great power, but then the results end up being somewhat mediocre. Mediocre is the description of all of the games made for PlayStation 3 so far ,and the reason is the failure of any group of programmers to fully utilize the power of the Cell/B.E..

However, it looks like a breakthrough has occurred in the utilization of the Cell/B.E. Although the Toshiba product does not utilize all the cells, it utilizes four of them according to this news story. The key question in regards to PlayStation 3 would be whether Toshiba would share with Sony the programming expertise it developed during the course of this project. If they did so, Sony would then share the expertise with all potential game makers. My understanding is that this means they would essentially make the knowledge public. Whether Toshiba would do this or not I do not know.

Armor: SAS Supacat

Armor: SAS Supacat


Interesting vehicle being purchased by the British, mainly for the SAS. Designed to hold four people, it is almost completely open on top, reminiscent of the old Jeep. However, it is heavily armored on the bottom against IED's. Kind of clashes with my view of the SAS; I don't think of them driving vehicles.

Web Site Designed to Supply Creative Solutions

The web site would have restricted submission categories for scientists, engineers, technicians, and the general public. In terms of supplying solutions, however, all categories would be accessible to anyone who visited the web site.

Before supplying solutions, each "problem solver" visiting the web site would be tested and given a provisional score in reference to his or her conative profile. Then pairs of problem solvers would be created to bring together sets of desirable strengths. For example, each person with a low QuickStart rating would be paired with someone with a high QuickStart rating. (QuickStart is the conative is trait that is heavily connected with creativity.)

Next, each pair would be presented with a list of suggested problems that particularly suited them. For example, a pair with a strong Implementor would be presented with a list of suggested mechanical problems. (Implementor is the conative trait that is most connected with the physical world three dimensions, athletes, and mechanics, etc.) Each pair could also work off the suggested list if desired.

There could be different strategies for posting solutions. They could be posted publicly and be public property (obviously none of the problems themselves could be considered proprietary information under this model). Alternately, the solutions could be posted privately to the people who posed the problems, possibly with some kind of payment involved. I suppose the payment system would up being similar to eBay, with people rating the people presenting problems for how reliable they were in being fair in paying for valid solutions. In some ways, I like the model of publicly posted solutions better. Makes the site more interesting. Or there might be both options, public or private. I suppose conceivably, solutions might be submitted privately to a trusted third-party that would give an evaluation of the solution to the problem-poser. Based on the solution evaluation, the problem poser would decide whether or not to pay the fee for the solution proposed by the problem solver .

Push a Stock Price Down So You Can Profit on the Upswing?

I've been reading a fair amount lately about companies that invest in another company with a depressed stock price and then try to make changes in the company to bring the stock price up. Nothing wrong with this.

However, I've noticed that sometimes these investor companies are invested for quite a long while before they make an aggressive move on the management. Sometimes, it seems, that a significant part of the downturn has occurred after the investor company got in. What if the investor company surreptitiously did things on purpose to cause the stock price to go down? Then they could greatly increase their holdings, having excellent insight into the "problem" (being as they caused it themselves). Then they could solve the problem and benefit from the rebound in the stock price.

Illegal, but people might be getting away with it.

Participatory Music Site

This idea is pretty far out. Increasingly, people are using the Internet to find rock groups they enjoy listening to. The Internet is then further utilized to allow these musical groups to have tours that garner them just enough money to support themselves on a low level.

In addition, the software for creating music is becoming increasingly sophisticated and powerful in terms of its effects but also increasingly easy to use. What if there was a way for users to not only find music they like on the Internet but add their own input to the music, changing it into something that fit their tastes better?

Once the user had made changes to a particular song, the web site could remember those changes and always apply them to the song when that user played it. Users could listen to each other's versions in a My Space-like community. The types of changes the user made in one song could be automatically applied to another song created by the same musical group, to make it something the user more wanted to listen to.

These types of changes could certainly be done with lyrics. There could be collaborative software for lyrics similar to Lotus Notes.

Eventually, some changes could percolate up into the groups own versions of songs. The data thus gathered could also cause the group to present songs differently in different venues, depending on the feedback of people from that geographical area.

Perhaps the process could advance to the point where a group of online users would not need to start with a musical group at all, but could create their own music according to their own taste. Obviously, the creation process would be much aided by software trying to fashion a desirable song. Perhaps people could start with templates of traditional songs not protected by copyrights. Once a desirable song had been created that was enjoyed by enough people in a particular part of the country, a group of actual musicians could learn the song and go perform it there for them.

Making TV Advertising Like the Internet

The Internet is rapidly gaining popularity as an advertising medium because ads are individually targeted to users. So Google, for example, can take into account a person's searching history when they present an ad for him or her to look at (at least, this is how I interpret the situation.)

TV on the other hand is "mass media" which is to say everyone watching a TV program sees the same ad. This could change, but it would require some modification of the technical system through which TV is currently delivered. I believe however, that these technical problems have already been solved in the pursuit of other product ideas that ended up not working (the various schemes that provided for viewer input. Do they have this on American Idol?)

For example, the cable company could build a profile of a viewer based on his or her viewing habits and then provide different ads to different people on that basis. Alternately, the cable company could link to "cookie" data accumulated by the person's Internet surfing. Presumably, this would have to be voluntarily done by people on an individual basis. It seems that some might do it nonetheless, however, in order to be able to see ads related to things they actually wanted, which would be more enjoyable (presuming they will have to see some kind of ads).

This idea is presented separately from the whole TiVo problem, which is reducing peoples viewing of ads. The fact is, ads are still sold so the idea could still be workable. Presumably, an early stage filter built into the system would be required to remove any porn-related Web surfing cookies for this to work. Some people would still feel uncomfortable about making public certain aspects of their Web surfing. For example, this could apply to politics. People who felt uncomfortable about those things would presumably not opt for the option to link to the cookie data. But the porn thing would need to be dealt with automatically, since this is supposedly the single biggest use of the Web.