It's for the poor

One argument Gilroy city government floated for super Wal-Mart was the need for low cost retail and food for the working poor of Gilroy. Well our lovely city council didn't see fit to approve a shopping complex that could support a bus - they can't make it to the store.

The Dispatch: "Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Hill said she was surprised to learn that the new store won’t have bus service.

"“We certainly want our customers to reach our store,"” Hill said. "“We will speak with the developers and other retailers and see if there’s an interest in working out this problem."
....
Well, for now, shoppers and Wal-Mart employees who rely on the 17 bus will have to get off in the Gilroy Crossing Shopping Center, take a long walk and risk crossing eight lanes of busy Pacheco Pass traffic.

“It would be a lot better if it stopped in front of the store,” new Wal-Mart employee Francisca Colon said on her way to work. “You can’t cross that street. By the time you get halfway across, the light changes.”

Did they design this on Wal-Mart's behalf?
Hell no.
They did it for themselves - low wage prices and no rif-raf.

A man in way over his head.

The Dispatch: "Mayor Al Pinheiro, one of five councilmen who approved the project in 2003, is still convinced of the supercenter’s benefits.

“It helps the consumer overall because the day that Wal-Mart opens, the other stores are going to all of a sudden adjust their prices to stay competitive,” he said. “That means they may have to adjust their profit margin and not be so fat. That’s a choice that they have to make, but who says I have to be the protector of what they do in their business.”"

Do grocery stores operate with fat profit margins Mayor Al or will they cut wages?

What does it matter? Who is Al to be a protector of people's livable wages? After all, what business does a City Mayor have in getting involved with supporting a livable wage in his City? He the Mayor for Chris'Sakes!

Hyperdrive: "One game system to rule them all" - Yeah sure kid

This Xbox360 hype is laughable.

Forbes reported that XBOX cost MS 4 billion since it launched. That loss includes offsets by XBOX revenue. XBOX is tied for 2nd with the Nintendo Gamecube.

Now MS is going to market first and claiming a technical edge over the 2006 Sony PS3 so that technical claim means they'll need to push Moore's Law and thus spend more money on cutting edge hardware to ship a system today that will be competitive against the PS3 and Nintendo Revolution when they ship in 2006.

MS is going to market first and will lose hundreds on each system sold.

They will do redesigns. It is reasaonable to refresh the system design in two years - for XMAS 2007 - to boost sales and cut manufacturing costs. And it is reasonable to redesign the system chips within a year to cut costs/heat. It is laughable to think they'll redesign the XBOX to cover the hardware costs within 1 or 2 years on a 6 year product life cycle.

And MS has to recover the hardware design costs of the Xbox360 - they own (paid) for the chips designs.

CNN.com - One game system to rule them all - Sep 19, 2005: "As of June, Microsoft had sold nearly 22 million of its original Xbox consoles -- fewer than one-fourth the number of PlayStation 2 units sold by Sony. Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s GameCube is the third biggest seller in the console market.

Now Microsoft wants to get many more of its next-generation consoles to market faster, buoyed by a wider selection of titles and an improved ability to keep costs in check.

'We will wind up cost-reducing the product every year,' Todd Holmdahl, corporate vice president of the Xbox product group, said in a recent interview.

Microsoft is working to break-even on the Xbox 360 hardware in the the first year or two -- roughly the first third in its expected six to seven-year console cycle."