Breakdown of Fire's Cost To Make

Amazon is willing to lose a couple of bucks per device to take a leading role in the tablet space.

Kindle Fire Tear Down Analysis

Why Science Majors Change Their Minds

Insights into why merely saying "Sputnik moment" does nothing.

New York Times Article: Why Science Majors Change Their Minds

Free Books Leads Me to An Internet Kerfuffle

Those who know me well know that I like hard cover books (but only in subjects that I fancy). I know that is like admitting to driving a 1995 Buick Regal, but none the less.

Anyway, during one buy at a thrift store, the lady offered me two free hardcover books because “we cannot get rid of those hard cover books fast enough!” Wow. OK, shrill comment aside, I scrounged and picked up a beautiful, fine condition, large ENCARTA DICTIONARY. I love the old GIANT dictionaries like at the school’s library. This was kind of the modern trim version.

Sounded familiar, and had MicroSoft on the cover, so I decided to google “Encarta” and figure out the connection. I barely recalled this recent Internet kerfuffle.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/microsoft-encarta-dies-after-long-battle-with-wikipedia/

Work Style Article We Need to Read

Work Style Article We Need To Read

Entries 1 and 2 describe my career of last 15 years to a tee. Since I made the switch, only two weak-earnings years (2/15), and tons of time off to recharge and refresh.

1. Out: The Traditional Career, In: The Short-term/Multiple Careers/Multiple income stream Model
The career as we know it is dead. Just like you’ve heard many times over the last few years, “this is not your parents’ job search”, it is probably obvious that you shouldn’t expect that 40-year retirement watch either. We no longer live in a world of the “lifetime career” and nor can one job serve as a reliable source of income.

2. Out: Full-time Permanent Jobs, In: Contract/Part-time/Consulting Work
Peter Weddle, an HR executive and self-proclaimed career activist recently wrote that what is on most peoples’ minds is “an honest-to-goodness, full time permanent job,”….. “but what has changed is that the definition of an honest-to-goodness full-time permanent job now looks uncomfortably like an honest-to-goodness full-time here-today-gone-tomorrow job.”

Whole article is a good read. I would add: no pensions. Save-on-your-own is the new mantra. Less than 10% of private employment features pensions for new employees -- and government | quasi-municipal is shrinking (except for utilities), so no hope there.

Work Style Article We Need to Read

Expanding Life Expectancies

Cro-Magnum Era: 18 Years

The Renaissance: 30 Years

1850 America: 43 Years

Modern America: 78 Years

Source: Wall Street Journal

Who Is Acting Like Steve Jobs Now ?

The news of Steve Jobs resigning is so ubiquitous, there is no point in my linking to it here. What is noteworthy is that Mister Jobs mind and drive percolated at a time when America was in a state of severe economic malaise. 

About the USA's 1973 to 1975 Recession

I am looking at the local paper's Business section from yesterday (24 August 2011). The macro indicators are dour: Japan's credit rating cut, California's unemployment rate is 12% (second only to Nevada), and new-home sales are less than half the 700,000 that economists assert represents a healthy market.

This moment, at a low-rent industrial park amidst the whirring and clanking of light machining, another great mind is focused on the same task accomplished by Jobs: invention. She is unaware we are watching, typing behind her back. She senses only the vision materializing and would not read this paper if you handed it to her on a silver plater; too distracting; task at hand; damn it, get out of my shop.

I return to the aforementioned Business section. There are several obvious hints about the new treasure: baby boomers a 70,000,000 member marketing space, another big bank is cutting jobs due to shrinkage in the financial sector, and it is boom times for the data analysis industry. Subtler hints are also begging for attention in the contra treatment of the headlines I mentioned: the home is no longer a sure investment, mass layoffs mean skills and trades in transition, while big governments are weighed down in debt.

Hey lady, what is that thing you're working on?

San Diego County BioTechs Moving to Contracting Business Model

Sourcing and contracting among local biotech companies.


Contract Research Companies

Explora and more than 100 similar businesses, called contract research organizations, have sprung up in San Diego County in recent years to do the heavy lifting of drug development — running labs, formulating and manufacturing experimental treatments, and managing clinical trials for biotechnology companies.

As investment funding has slowed to a trickle in a tough economy, many biotechs slashed their internal research and development operations and became “virtual,” operating with only a handful of their own employees.

Full SignOn San Diego Article


Economics Shifts Industry Business Model

Unable to raise capital, many biotechs and medical instrument makers were forced over the past 16 months to slash their budgets, lay off employees, and look for easier and less expensive ways to carry on the process of bringing drugs and devices to market. In some cases, that has meant outsourcing research, clinical trials, and other work to overseas labs. But many San Diego life sciences companies also are turning to local consulting firms, biomedical research laboratories, and a variety of specialized service providers. Collectively, they are known as CROs, or clinical research organizations—and in San Diego, at least, they are proliferating. (CROs are alternately known as contract research organizations).

Full Xconomy Article