Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Did Apple Just Become Microsoft?

By -

Let me get this out of the way up front. I have been an Apple® fan from the beginning. I’ve owned their products with my first purchase of a IIc back in the early 80′s. Yes, I have bounced back and forth between PC based brands over the years, but once the revolution at Apple took place with the return of Jobs (where truly everything changed) I began dropping anything PC based and replaced it with Apple.

Since the introduction of the iPhone®, and the improvements via iOS and Mac® based platforms I made the change to everything Apple based and haven’t looked back. I have opined many times that all one has to do to solidify whether or not the switch was worth it was to try to make the change back. For me, 10 minutes trying to do simple things without feeling I need a degree in code writing was all it took. (I know there’s a whole anti-Apple crowd so save the emails) (more…)

Marketing Moronicism

By -

I went to a Jesuit college, and I excelled at philosophy and religious studies. I naively decided to get a major in marketing, which in retrospect I consider idiotic. Unless you are entering a profession involving something that puts people at risk (engineering, medicine, etc.) my view is that college is a place to learn to think, not to learn a vocation. My marketing degree was an utter and complete waste of time. (Although I graduated in only 2 1/2 years, since I was eager to get working).

I was reminded of this when I read about a marketing success for a cereal named Shreddies. This is not sold in the U.S., but instead is in Canada, New Zealand, and Britain. Shreddies was your basic shredded wheat cereal, much like any Mini Wheats you’d find in America, but it was an old, stodgy brand. (more…)

If Ever There Was a Time to Short GOOG

By -

I’ve been noticing posters around town for a new movie coming out June 7th called The Internship. It is described thusly: “Two salesmen whose careers have been torpedoed by the digital age find their way into a coveted internship at Google, where they must compete with a group of young, tech-savvy geniuses for a shot at employment.”

0528-INTERNSHIP

As a proud contrarian, I look for signs like this, which don’t happen that often, of any concept or company that has so deeply saturated itself into the public mind that they start making freaking movies about it. Can you imagine someone doing a film about a guy starting a gig as a salesman down at the local Foot Locker?

I wouldn’t be surprised to see GOOG at a much lower price by the end of the year. This isn’t technical analysis, I realize – – – more like cultural analysis.

0528-GOOG

The last time I remember a big tech company getting a starring role in a movie was that iJob film, or whatever they called it, starring Ashton Kutcher. Apparently the movie itself was a completely embarassing bomb, but I find it more interesting that all the excitement about it and the filming of the movie itself took place when AAPL was, oh, about $700 per share. And, once the movie was actually released, well……….

0528-AAPL