just for fun

Why is this photo (of the removal of a block of ice from a Lake in Wisconsin) the illustration for an article about the jobs report?  Some kind of strange metaphor for defrosting a frozen job market?

pet peeve on GDP reporting

Why do writers regularly compare market caps and other wealth measures with GDP of countries?

It is really quite meaningless and shameless.  Now, for a market cap to equal the estimated value of a country - that would be awesome.

For the most egregious example of this, see this gem.  For a move in the right direction, see this that compared Glencore's revenues with Ukraine's GDP.

Subprime Auto Loans

Wells Fargo's announcement of a cap on its subprime auto loan business is puzzling (WF announced that subprime will make up no more than 10% of its auto portfolio).  I wonder if the real approach is more complicated - WF will tighten its underwriting standards in a way that is expected to limit growth in subprime loans.  And, to signal to competitors its expected price discipline, it stated the 10% cap (i.e., WF will draw the line around here for its underwriting standards - it is at about 10% today).

All of this could be bad news for auto sales and manufacturers (but good news for creditworthy buyers faced with a glut of unsold mid/low priced cars and hungry manufacturers).

asymco

Funny how asymcar began almost two years ago, well before breaking stories about potential Apple engagement in the automotive space.  Mr. Dediu has been consistently ahead of the curve and more thoughtful than others.  This is just another example of that pattern.

ML 350 gearshift

Complete speculation but, based on the brief snippets of information, I wonder if the gear selector played a role in the tragedy on Metro-North.

Specifically:

"Instead she walked back to the driver’s seat and climbed in. There was a pause, he said, as if she were buckling her seatbelt ... 'I just knew she was going to back up — never in my wildest dreams did I think she’d go forward.' She drove forward."

And:

"Also, Brody had only been driving the 2011 Mercedes since December".

update: Consumer Reports had some similar thoughts.

Apple and detail

Just a small note on attention to detail.

Observing the unwritten rule that watch and clock hands should be placed at the "10:10" position in photographs, Apple does the same in its illustrations of the Apple Watch.

The attention to detail is that even the digital displays adhere to the 10:10 convention (as you can see, the analog time is actually 10:09:30 so the digital display is 10:09).

Given this conscious effort, I wonder why, in some cases, Apple sets the time to 10:09:00 rather than 10:09:30?  I do not think it is carelessness.

apple watch

I wonder if Apple went with the S1 SIP to permit upgrades to the Apple Watch over time?  It would go a long way to answering questions about obsolescence and longevity.