Idle Rambling About Apple, Amazon -- Nothing About The Bakken -- At Least Not Much Except In Passing -- July 29, 2016

Bezos is where Jobs was: neither seemed interested in financial statements, quarterly reports, revenue, and net income from quarter to quarter. Both of these guys, it seemed, were/are focused on their customers.

This story over at Quartz is a great example.

As it always does, Amazon punctuated its latest results with flashy tidbits that don’t give you any insight into performance. Amazon’s wireless Alexa speaker now has “over 1,900 third party skills.” Its on-demand “Dash” ordering button added 50 new brands, including Campbell’s Soup and Play-Doh. AmazonFresh, the company’s grocery delivery service, debuted in London. And Amazon Studios, its video production arm, earned 16 Emmy nominations.

But investors don’t care about these things. What they care about is Amazon Web Services and Amazon Prime, and on the latter the company refused to engage. During Thursday’s earnings call, CFO Brian Olsavsky repeatedly dodged inquiries on Prime’s metrics. Instead, he praised Amazon’s second-annual Prime Day (“a great day for customers globally”) and nodded vaguely to the program’s strength (“we are seeing great acceptance of Prime, and usage of Prime benefits”).

Understanding Prime has become increasingly vital to understanding Amazon writ large. Bezos made clear earlier this year that Prime is a priority, writing in his letter to shareholders, “We want Prime to be such a good value, you’d be irresponsible not to be a member.”

After Jobs moved to the heavenly cloud, Apple seemed to be more interested in quarterly financial reports and less interested in "gee whiz" excitement of its products. Apple has seemed to move into a "value" story, not a "growth" story. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Of course that will all change when the Apple EV is announced and delivered.

Amazon on the other hand seems to still be in a "growth" stage, always looking for innovative ways to improve their customers' experience. And not particularly concerned about their bottom line. Amazon continues to put its money back into the company.

Yes, the quarterly numbers at Amazon are incredibly impressive, but it's the way they talk about their company that impresses me.

That's what it was like in the early days in the Bakken Boom. We didn't hear much about "bottom lines" and costs to complete wells. The emphasis was on the excitement of what the Bakken could become. But now, the quarterly conference calls have pretty much turned into MBA discussions of operating cash flow and not much about the excitement of the Bakken.

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Amazon Prime

Some time ago I posted that I accidentally signed up for Prime. I clicked on the wrong button and couldn't "back out." I suppose I could have talked to Amazon and got out of Prime, but the more I used it, the more impressed I became.

I no longer wait to add products to "my cart" to get free shipping. I order things when I want. And they generally show up in two days. The video streaming is incredible. And my hunch is there is a whole lot more to Prime of which I am unaware. 

One of my "problems" with Apple is that their products last "forever." I know folks update their iPhones every year or so, but I don't have a smart phone. I'm talking about their iPads and their laptop/desktop computers. My iPad is a second generation iPad -- it is several years old and does everything I need it to do. I really, really want to upgrade to a newer iPad but to date, there is just no compelling reason. Same with my MacBook Air -- a few years old, and it seems brand new.

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Ayurvedic and Ogive and Operon

Okay, so here's a new word for me: ayurvedic. From Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Gene: An Intimate History.

From google/wiki: Ayurvedic medicine -- also known as Ayurveda -- is one of the world's oldest holistic (whole-body) healing systems. It was developed thousands of years ago in India. It is based on the belief that health and wellness depend on a delicate balance between the mind, body, and spirit.

And now a second new word from the same book: ogive. Ogive is a pointed or Gothic arch. In biology it means a "cumulative frequency graph." We usually referred to them as "S-shaped" graphs in Biology 101.  

Years ago I understood an operon but somewhere along the way, I forgot.  From Mukherjee, page 175:

Surprisingly, all the genes dedicated to a particular metabolic pathway were physically present next to each other on the bacterial chromosome -- like library books stacked by subject -- and they were induced simultaneously in cells. The metabolic alteration produced a profound genetic alteration in a cell. It wasn't just a cutlery switch; the whole dinner service was altered in a single swoop. A functional circuit of genes was switched on and off, as of operated by a common spool or master switch. Jacques Mono called one such gene module an operon. 

The author then goes on to talk about how a repressor protein keeps the operon in a "locked" position, much like a photoelectric cell or a smoke alarm system.  

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A Book For Aunt Laura

Original Post

 
For The Glory: Eric Liddell's Journey From Olympic Champion to Modern Martyr, Duncan Hamilton, c. 2016.

It takes off where Chariots of Fire ended.  

Updates

October 8, 2106: in this week's issue of London Review of Books has a long essay on Emil Zatopek, another runner and the subject of two new books:

Today We Die A Little: The Rise and Fall of Emil Zatopek, Olympic Legend, by Richard Askwith

Endurance: The Extraordinary life and Times of Emil Zatopek, by Rick Broadbent