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| Feel free to use the typed-in code for yourself, dear reader, I'm not using it. |
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| On 9/28 Facebook closed at $21.66, down 5.25% from the previous Friday. |
Based on the likely outlook for capital-markets activity and Goldman [Sach]'s ability to continue growing its book value, it is easy to conclude that the shares could rise at least 25% within a year.From Friday's close of $113.68, Barron's foresees GS popping to about $142. That target doesn't seem particularly aggressive in that it is well short of Goldman Sachs' peak in 2011:
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| Braden celebrates the perfect game with his grandmother. |
“Arm yourself or get out,” he told CBS Sacramento. “It’s the wild west. The boys in blue, they’re outgunned.”Most people who live in Stockton aren't millionaires like Dallas Braden and cannot up and leave. (The inability to move from bad neighborhoods is one of the causes of poverty, argues Megan McArdle.)
Despite Stockton’s lack of glamor, Braden has long lived and commuted to Oakland from his home there. But in recent weeks, the city’s infamous crime problem forced Braden to reconsider. He says his grandmother was robbed and he himself was nearly carjacked by a man who tried to forcibly pull him out of his vehicle. Braden was livid during and after the [anti-violence] meeting, stopping to vent more of his frustration with the media in the video clip above.
The situation is so bad that Stockton’s famous son has decided that he can’t stay there any longer.
“I’m out of here because I’ve been lied to my entire life here, and I hate to see these people get lied to like this,” Braden said. “I’ve already put my home on the market. I’m out.”
Simply dissolving the city and selling all assets to pay creditors isn't an option, since we have to continue providing services to residents. [snip]Stockton will require extraordinary leadership to get back on a sound financial footing and still provide basic services to its 300,000 residents. With the flight of prominent residents like Dallas Braden, the task is nigh impossible. © 2012 Stephen Yuen
We are the 10th-most violent city in America. Rates of violence are increasing by double digits, with our murder rate on track to surpass last year's record of 58 murders. We have the second-lowest police staffing levels in the country for a large city, and often Stockton Police can respond only to "in-progress" crimes. Oakland, a nearby city with similar crime challenges, has 44% more police officers per capita. With high poverty rates and gang activity, we cannot turn our back on public safety due to creditor pressure.
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| Elisabeth, UCC-Belmont, slices the roast. |
Tomato chunks have a thick outer wall of plant material around a watery interior....the tomato insulates its interior water, keeping it hot. It's a tiny edible thermos.But wait, that's not all. When bitten, the tomato's liquid bursts through all at once, magnifying the sensation of heat.
Most vegetables are inefficient heat-delivery systems. They're mostly solid all the way through, which means you have to mash them up to spread that inner heat around your mouth. But a tomato's liquid interior doesn't need slow chewing and mashing. As soon as a tooth punctures it, it explodes its insides all over the interior of your mouth, flame-thrower style.
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| Ready in 30 min with a pressure cooker. |
Goldman cites a well-capitalized corporate America that’s flush with cash, with gross non-financial cash rising by 55% since 2007. The looming expiration of tax cuts implies that dividends will be taxed as ordinary income, meaning at a rate of up to 43.4% from today’s 15% level. With the rates set to rise, Goldman says it sees increased potential for liquidity events [i.e, special payouts to shareholders] ahead of the change.This makes sense. Most companies do try to act in the best interests of their shareholders, which include the decision-makers in boardrooms and executives suites. If you're fortunate enough to hold some dividend-paying stocks, count on some extra cash in time for Christmas. © 2012 Stephen Yuen
If Mark Zuckerberg has just a fraction of Jobs-like genius--which I think he does possess--then Facebook is cooking up a few (pleasant) surprises that no one outside the company is expecting. If the price falls to $25 I'll be interested, and at $20 I'm definitely a buyer.But I didn't buy FB, even when it dropped to $17.55. I've had to adjust my sights downward because of a lowered growth outlook, caused specifically by FB's inability to glean advertising dollars from consumers' shift to mobile. Barron's said today that Facebook shares are worth $15:
At its current quote [$22.86 at Friday's close], Facebook trades at 47 times projected 2012 profit of 48 cents a share and 36 times estimated 2013 earnings of 63 cents. Compare that with Google and Apple, two proven technology growth stories, which both trade for about 16 times estimated 2012 earnings. Facebook is valued at $61 billion, or $53 billion excluding its estimated $8 billion in cash. That's more than 10 times estimated 2012 revenue of $5 billion. Google trades for half that valuation.If the above explanation is confusing, just focus on the two numbers circled in the "Current Year" column:
What are the shares worth? Perhaps only $15. That would be roughly 24 times projected 2013 profit and six times estimated 2013 revenue of $6 billion, still no bargain price. Wall Street's consensus estimate for 2013 shows earnings rising 31%, to 63 cents a share.
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| Foster City at 10:40 a.m. |
The accomplishments of Neal Armstrong and the other Apollo astronauts grow more astonishing as their deeds fade in time, and sometimes I wonder what happened to the civilization that produced them. R.I.P.
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| Chronicle photo |
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| Hard to miss a turn with Apple's Maps |
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| Google Maps has more detail. |
The criticism poured in world-wide as users of the new maps found misplaced labels for businesses and landmarks, cities with missing roads and erroneous features like a fractured river in Ann Arbor, Mich. A search for the Golden Gate Bridge yielded a marker roughly four miles away in San Francisco.Apple has a history of gauging just how much inconvenience its customers are willing to tolerate without jeopardizing sales of its latest offering. I suspect this controversy will blow over as well, especially as Apple Maps is improved in later versions of the operating system.
Come February, the only options for drivers will be signing up for FasTrak, opening a pay-as-you-go license plate account, or making a one-time payment before the transit district mails a bill. [snip]I'm all for government operating more efficiently, even if that means some jobs will be lost. In this case, however, efficiency means a significantly degraded service, a service which everyone must use because there are no feasible alternatives. Drivers who don't wish to open an account, prepay a toll, or mail in a check have no choice. It's the bureaucrats' bridge, not ours. © 2012 Stephen Yuen
All-electronic tolling was approved in 2011 as a way to help close a projected $89 million five-year shortfall, a number that [spokeswoman Mary] Currie said Tuesday had been reduced to $66 million after changes were made to workers' pension and health care plans.
Implementation of the program will cost $3.2 million and is expected to save the district $19 million over an eight-year-period by eliminating toll workers, Currie said.
When you look at what people are consuming, you don't see the gross material deprivation that really used to characterize being poor, like lack of hot water, regularly having no food in the house, shivering yourself to sleep in the cold, or wearing patched (or worse, unpatched) clothes. Younger poor people quite frequently have things that older non-poor people consider nonessential luxuries, like cable or satellite television, expensive sneakers, and high-end cellular phones.Every middle-class person knows someone who is technically "poor" as measured by income, but who drives a better car, wears nicer clothes, or has a more exciting night life than one's own. It's tempting to subscribe to the viewpoint that success or failure in life is their own fault:
...poor people are not so much lacking in money, as lacking in the self-discipline to spend their money wisely. This view is reinforced by the fact that a lot of immigrants do arrive here with even less than the native poor, often don't qualify for supplemental benefits that cushion the deprivation of the native poor, and nonetheless after a generation or two end up quite prosperous.And yet we also know hard-working individuals of character who have fallen on hard times through no "fault" of their own. The catalyst that began the descent could be a divorce, the loss of a job, caring for a sick parent, the death of a breadwinner, or poor health. It seems impossible to craft a wise poverty program that will address each of the "eight million stories in the naked city".
People with impulse control problems, mental illness, drug and alcohol addictions, are very, very disproportionately likely to end up poor.....So even though these people remain a minority in poor neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods nonetheless have a lot more of them than more affluent communities...It's hard to see how we will ever have enough resources to make most bad neighborhoods safe, especially given local government budget constraints.
More importantly, poor people have to put up with it, because they have a limited number of other neighborhoods to choose from, most of which have the same constellation of problems. If a gang moves into a middle class neighborhood and starts terrorizing the residents, either the cops take care of it, or the middle class people move. If it happens in a poor neighborhood, well, where are you going to go?
A big part of the problem, experts and industry executives say, is that most Americans have older routers whose maximum theoretical speed is 54 mbps. Those provide "real world" speeds far below the fastest wired broadband speeds offered.Too Many Users
Jim Waddle, a 47-year-old molecular biologist in Dallas, ran into trouble with his AT&T Internet once his family—including a wife and three kids—grew to have five computers, five iPhones, three iPads, an Apple TV and two high-definition TVs.
On a typical evening, he could be engaged in remote sessions from his labs while his wife accessed medical records, his son did online gaming, and his other two children watched iTunes shows off the Apple TV or clips off YouTube. "The connection was dropped all the time; it was driving me crazy," Mr. Waddle said. He fixed the problem by buying about $400 of Apple Inc. devices that enhance the in-home wireless connection.
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| Photo from Slugyard |
The same [cellphone] towers Sprint is rigging with high-speed wireless technology to compete with Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc. are a favorite nesting spot for ospreys. The big fish-eating raptors favor high perches with a clear approach—exactly what network engineers look for when putting up cellular sites.Construction at 700 Sprint sites has been delayed. The birds are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. It's surprising that Internet companies didn't do a better job of lobbying Woodrow Wilson....
Question: Who are you going to vote for?Flashback to a post from four years ago, comparing the professions of accountancy and journalism:
Jake Tapper: The truth is, I don't vote in races I cover. After I became a reporter, I found that, after I voted absentee ballot on a race I covered, it felt like I made an investment, and it was an uncomfortable feeling. So while I believe an active voting public to be vital to our Republic and I revere voting, I don't feel as though I can do the best job I can bringing you fair and impartial coverage of politicians if I feel in any way invested in those politicians.
Now, other reporters feel differently, and I in no way judge that. I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou. This is just my personal view.
Keeping their distance and independence is a must for CPA’s if they are to maintain trust and a reputation for integrity. Some accountants violated that trust during the go-go tech boom and Enron / Worldcom scandals. In order to save the profession, accountants had to reassert the guiding principles of independence and integrity. You don’t see auditors standing up and cheering at shareholders meetings.We may or may not be better off than we were four years ago. There's no question that the state of journalism, however one measures it, is worse. © 2012 Stephen Yuen
In my idealistic youth I thought about a career in journalism. Woodward and Bernstein (of Watergate fame) were my heroes. They pursued a story that brought down an administration. Yet they didn’t make up facts; if information could not be verified, they left it out.
Today the profession of news journalism has lost its way. Opinion has leaked beyond the editorial pages to the rest of the newspaper. “Newsmen” publish unconfirmed rumors that support their stances and ignore inconvenient facts that don’t. Outside the office, they openly display their political preferences; there’s no attempt to maintain even the appearance of objectivity.
Caltrain says the "very serious" near-accident was the first of its kind in the modern history of the popular commuter line and has led to major safety changes and left two engineers on leave. [snip]At that hour Caltrain commuters disembark to shuttles that will take them to South City biotech firms. We were lucky tragedy was averted.
The station is old and, unlike most Caltrain stops, does not have a gate or crossing arms that come down to prevent passengers from crossing active tracks. Usually engineers radio each other or use headlight signals to ensure the station is clear before an express train zooms through, but that apparently didn't happen this time.
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| Union Pacific freight cars stored at SSF. |
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| SI August 27, 2012 |
The Angels' centerfielder is already the consensus pick for the player you would take first if you could pick anyone in the game.Mike Trout reminds old-timers of Yankee Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle. A fair comparison, since a player like Mantle (1 Triple Crown, 3 MVP's, 7 World Series titles) comes around once in a generation.
There never has been a position player this good this young.
His OPS+ (182), a measurement of on-base and slugging percentages adjusted for ballpark factors and league norms, blows away the previous best by anyone so young, a record set 105 years ago by Ty Cobb (167).
He is a slam dunk to win the AL's Rookie of the Year, the favorite to become the youngest MVP.
Trout is having an alltime great season for any age. He leads his league in batting average, stolen bases and runs—a triple crown of productivity that has been achieved by only three men: George Sisler in 1922, Cobb in 1909, 1911 and 1915 and Snuffy Stirnweiss in 1945 (when the big league talent pool was depleted by military service).
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| AAPL hit an all-time high today (admittedly helped by the Fed's announcement of QE3). |
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| Chronicle photo |
He could often be found practicing his Arabic, studying Middle Eastern history or rehearsing lines for musicals at Cal - in which he often played characters with a maturity beyond his years, said Austin Tichenor, a childhood friend and Berkeley classmate.John McCain:
"He had a gravitas about him, which suited him well in the foreign service, I suspect," Tichenor said. "It always tickled me to see him do official State Department speeches because he's so serious, he has his ambassador face on. But when you got him one-on-one, he was just funny."
"Chris Stevens is one of the finest people I've ever known in my life," McCain said. "He loved the Libyan people. They loved him. He and I were down there on election night and people were saying, 'Thank You America.'"
"I guarantee you the one thing Chris Stevens did not want is for us to abandon Libya."
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| Signing autographs on Saturday |
Have you heard the one about the old country preacher who had a teenage son he felt should begin to think seriously about choosing a profession? Well, if you haven't heard it, you're about to, thanks to Edward McDermott, a reader whose humorous snippets we've shared with you from time to time.
The preacher decided that while his son was at school he'd try to get an inkling of which way the boy was leaning by slipping into his room and placing on a table four objects: a Bible, a silver dollar, a bottle of whiskey, and a copy of Playboy. The idea being that he'd hide behind the door of the boy's bedroom when his son came home from school and furtively watch to see which object the lad would pick up.
If it's the Bible, he reasoned, the kid was going to be a preacher like me and what a blessing that would be! If he picked up the silver dollar, the preacher thought, he's going to be a businessman and that'd be fine, too. If he picks up the bottle, the preacher flushed, he's going to be a no-good drunken bum. And -- just to think about it made the preacher shiver with foreboding -- if the boy picks up that magazine, he's going to be a skirt-chasing womanizer.
When his son got home, he casually walked into his room and dropped his books on the bed. Then, he spotted the four objects on his bedside table and studied them a moment or two. He picked up the Bible and placed it under this arm. He picked up the silver dollar and dropped it into his pocket. He uncorked the bottle and took a large swallow, while he gazed admiringly at the magazine's centerfold.
"Lord have mercy," the old preacher fumed, "he's gonna run for Congress."
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| Still happy after all those years. |
“They vett most of the people, but I told them, ‘You can’t do that with me, because I don’t know what I’m going to say,’” Eastwood recalled. [ snip]It's a tribute to the esteem with which we hold Hollywood actors and stars like Clint Eastwood in particular that we're never sure that their improv hemming-and-hawing is "real" or part of the act. (Example: one of the most well-received movies of the past 30 years, My Dinner with Andre--two men having what appears to be a casual, wide-ranging conversation over dinner--was very carefully plotted out.)
It was only after a quick nap in his hotel room a few blocks from the convention site, Eastwood said, that he mapped out his remarks — starting with his observation about politics in Hollywood, then challenging the president about the failure of his economic policies, and wrapping up by telling the public “they don’t have to worship politicians, like they were royalty or something.”
But even then, with just an hour before he appeared on stage, it still hadn’t occurred to Eastwood to use an empty chair as a stand-in for the president.
Last week authorities pulled 7,200 pounds of trash left behind by illicit marijuana growers off the steep hillsides that funnel rain and creek water into [Crystal Springs] reservoir. Among the car batteries and black plastic irrigation tubes authorities carted out by helicopter were toxic pesticides that have been banned from the United States. [snip]
Munsey said agents tearing down the gardens found pesticides methyl parathion and carbofuran, which the Environmental Protection Agency has effectively banned from use in the United States. Both chemicals are considered highly toxic to people and animals. Carbofuran poisoning, in the short term, can mean headache, sweating, nausea, diarrhea, chest pains, blurred vision, anxiety and general muscular weakness, according to the EPA.
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| Mercury News photo |
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| The moving ticker spikes, and having ticked, moves on. |
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| From Macrumors |
About 14% of U.S. companies surveyed by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor definitely plan to move some of their manufacturing back home—the latest sign of growing interest among executives in a strategy known as "reshoring." [snip]Manufacturing's rebirth could come from another direction, however. Just as the computer industry was eventually revolutionized by hobbyists tinkering in their garages, the grassroots "maker" movement is adding more enthusiasts every day. Do-it-yourself craftsmen and inventors are flocking to Maker Faires and subscribing to Make Magazine. The movement has begun to attract venture capital for companies that exploit the fruits of makers' ideas, as well as supply products to this burgeoning industry.
Among the main reasons cited for reshoring: a desire to get products to market faster and respond rapidly to customer orders; savings from reduced transportation and warehousing; improved quality and protection of intellectual property.
provides access to a wide variety of machinery and tools including milling machines and lathes, welding stations and a CNC plasma cutter, sheet metal working equipment, drill presses and band saws, industrial sewing machines, hand tools, plastic and wood working equipment including a 4' x 8' ShopBot CNC router, electronics design and fabrication facilities, Epilog laser cutters, tubing and metal bending machines, a Dimension SST 3-D printer, electrical supplies and tools, and pretty much everything you'd ever need to make just about anything.TechShop has locations in California, Michigan, and North Carolina and will soon expand to Texas and New York. It offers safety and proficiency instruction to all its members.
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| A necessity, not a luxury. |
Absentee-ballot fraud is a far bigger problem than voter-impersonation fraud—about 50 times more common, says News21—and voter-ID laws won't stop it.That result is not surprising. Just as it's a lot easier to steal over the Internet than to rob a bank, committing paper fraud rather than showing up in person and risking arrest is easier and safer for the miscreant.
