Forward Looking

If you want to know what the weather will be tomorrow, you can look to an app on your phone or in the paper or go online. There you will find a forecast based on the best information gleaned by specialists in the field. They pore over maps and sensor data that come in from near and far, all with the purpose of letting you know whether you should take an umbrella to work or not.

Even with all that their forecasts are hardly ironclad. That's why they hedge every statement and use percentages to qualify their outlook: "The weekend should be clear" or "Tomorrow expect a cloudy morning with a 60% chance of showers." Those kinds of statements mean that no matter what happens they are right. And it's what makes the converse also true: meteorology is the only profession where you can be wrong every day and still get paid.

Other professions are no so forgiving. If you are an analyst on Wall Street, you also examine data gathered from various sources and make a prediction. However your focus is not what's in the air but in the economy. Perhaps you are charged with predicting a company's outlook or the direction of the market. But with millions of dollars at stake as opposed to just the possibility of wet shoes, the accuracy of your forecast carries a bit more weight and consequence. 

Still, like your brothers and sisters at the weather desk, you want to give yourself some wiggle room. And so you might hedge your bet, and say earnings will be between $2.00 and $2.12, or that sales indicate that the company should have a good quarter. But if you are a professional the expectation is that you won't be too far off. Get it wrong more often than not, and you will likely be looking for a new gig. The one exception is if you are an economist: as former assistant secretary of the Treasury Edgar Fiedler said, if you ask 5 economists for a forecast you will get 5 different predictions. Six if one went to Harvard.

And yet some things are all but impossible to predict. You can make an educated guess based on current trends or market data or historical precedent. But sometimes none of it matters, and a prediction is merely a shot in the dark. Still, others watching may require you to have an outlook. And so sometimes you are forced to put pen to paper and take a stand.

That's what the happened when Shuntaro Furukawa gave his usual presentation outlining the performance of game maker Nintendo. As president of the company, his goal was to update investors on the financial highlights, the outlook for growth, and progress towards numerous goals, from licensing new titles to physical stores to collaborations with other companies. 

A key focus was on Nintendo's flagship product, the Switch. In the highly competitive videogame industry it is perhaps the most popular gaming system out there today. Not the most powerful nor most sophisticated (those titles go to Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's Playstation), its multiple versions, price and popular catalog combine to make it the platform of choice for many.

But in tech its always about the next big thing. And so while the company had a successful rollout over the past several months of a new portable version with a larger screen, that's already old news. The more important question is what are they doing for the next generation of gear? What is coming down the pike, and more importantly, when will it get here? The answer is on slide 41 of their presentation to analysts. Titled "Future Outlook," President Furukawa made it very clear that they have a plan. The slide shows that while the Nintendo DS made its debut in 2004, and the Switch in 2017, the Next Generation gaming system will come out in 20XX.

Uh, what? 20XX? That means that they have made a hard commitment to launch a new system sometime before 2100, giving themselves wiggle room of 78 years to come up with something. It's as if the weather forecast was "It'll rain sometime this year." On the other hand, it's likely a commitment they can keep. Because usually, by way of Edgar Fiedler again, he who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford predicts he will write another column next week. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Weighing In

There are lots of thing we as Americans do well. As inventors and entrepreneurs we have few peers: Apple was founded here, as was Dell and Amazon, Ford and Boeing, WalMart and Coke. Our institutions of higher learning are the envy of the world, attracting students from every country on the globe. And our entertainment industry, from music to movies to videogames, defines contemporary culture around the world. 

Still, there are other areas where we could use some help. While our doctors and nurses are stellar, the system that supports them is in dire need of an overhaul. Our understanding and acceptance of other cultures is most definitely a work in progress. We have inventive chefs and cooks exploring new tastes and recipes, but there just as many recipes for deep fried Twinkies. And it's hard to escape the fact that our political system currently is a bit on the sclerotic side. Yet to trot out the off-quoted Winston Churchill line, our version of democracy is the "worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried." Scant consolation as deadlock after deadlock means no progress on important issues, but compared to the many unpalatable alternatives it positively shines.

But in one particular area, there is little doubt about our abilities, or more correctly, lack thereof: math. Put simply, we suck at it.

One of the building blocks of knowledge, it's hard to dispute how important it is to have this foundational skill. Like reading and writing, the ability to understand and manipulate numbers is essential. From the simplest tasks like understanding how much money is in your checkbook to the most complex of figuring out the orbits of satellites, it is as fundamental as language. While computers and calculators have made the raw number crunching part of the task almost effortless, understanding the concepts which make up the disciple, which leads to knowing which numbers to crunch, is still of paramount importance. And that is where we have some issues.

Perhaps the best example came in the 1980's, courtesy of the A&W restaurant chain. They were looking for a way to compete with McDonald's and their flagship product, the Quarter Pounder. They considered several angles to get an edge: taste, packaging and presentation were just a few. But when they weighed all the options they decided the best thing to do was appeal to that most basic of consumer hot buttons, value. Or more specifically, more product for a similar price.

And so they launched the 1/3 pound burger. It couldn't miss: bigger, juicer, more bang for your buck. Just one issue: they forgot to consider that when it comes to numbers, Americans are idiots. Focus groups showed that a large number of potential customers passed on the product for the simple reason that the Quarter Pounder has a denominator of 4, while the Third Pounder has a denominator of 3. Hence, went the logic of the "I still have checks so there must be money in my account" crowd, 1/4 pound of beef must be more than 1/3 of the same.

The company has spent the last 30 plus years grappling with this miscue, trying to figure out how to turn the page. And now they just might have an angle. On the theory that you can't fix stupid, you can only work with it, they are releasing their newest product. While there certainly have been some tweaks to fine tune ingredients and packaging, the biggest change is in in nomenclature. And so for a limited time, head to A&W and order their newest offering, the successor to the 1/3 pounder, the big, plump juicy 3/9 pound burger.

Savvy readers (or just those who got past middle school math) will note that there is no difference in size, save a new formulation of the same name. But based on logic of the prior attempt, the 3/9 just HAS to be bigger than the 1/4 version, because 9 is greater than 4. And here's the best news. Word is that while supplies may be short, if they should run out of 3/9 burger, they are prepared with a backup plan: you can request the branch manager to make you a 2/6 burger. But when that runs out, you are out of luck, and it's back to the 1/3 version. 

And you wonder why Sputnik was first.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford thinks he is pretty good at math. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. 

Talk To Me

For the fruity faithful, any Apple announcement event is a big event. It's then that users get a glimpse at the latest iterations of iPhones and iPads, updated MacBooks and faster processors. But along with the big unveilings there are also a number of smaller revelations, some of more consequence than others. For example, the last gathering highlighted the return of magnetically attached chargers, a minor yet convenient feature. And it also featured a redesigned screen with a small cutout notch at the top to allow for a webcam, a design tweak that is inconsequential to some, while a stylistic nightmare to others.

One of the more curious announcements related to the company's music service. True, the really cool kids are talking about the resurgence of vinyl and dishing the dirt about turntables and cartridges and preamps. But for most listeners the most convenient and popular way to listen to your favorite songs is through a streaming service. With cheap and ubiquitous data plans, you have the connection to be able to slide from AC/DC to Jon Batiste to BTS with ease, or to lift a phrase from the BTS hit, smooth like butter.

In that world Apple Music is merely one option out there. Like the other players in the space, it boasts a catalog of many millions of songs, the ability put together playlists, as well as options to share those playlists and favorite songs and suggestions with friends. True, Apple does have higher quality streaming and the ability to add your own personal library into the system. But for the casual user, unless you are the "Steve Jobs was a god" type, it's hardly a standout.

Which means to compete with Amazon and YouTube and the industry leader Spotify, it has to play on the one field on which Apple never really had to even set foot: price. With most of their products they can charge what they want, secure in the knowledge that there is a fan base that will pay whatever, for both technical reasons as well as cachet. But when your product isn't a true standout, then to quote another song lyric, this one from Wyclef Jean, it's all about dollar dollar bill y'all.

While all the services, including Apple's flagship service, charge around $10 a month, the announcement at their latest confab touted a version that's half that. For $4.99, you still get access to 90 million songs, the ability to select artists and albums and playlists. The difference? While you can hear whatever you want, you can't see it. The new pricing tier has no phone or computer app or interface: it's accessible only by voice.

Just as the company forced headset users away from traditional earphone jacks towards special plugs or Bluetooth by simply removing them, this forces users away from screens by taking away the option. Want to hear Frank Sinatra? Just say "Siri, Play Frank Sinatra." Want a playlist of indie hits? Say "Siri, Play Indie Hits." Taking a cue from Amazon's Echo devices, it is making voice control the only control.

But it begs the question: why? It's no cheaper for the company to have no screens since they are keeping that version as well. Indeed, since they are paying the same licensing fees their margins for music go down. So why do it? What are they getting out of it? There's some speculation that the hope is it will drive more traffic to them, especially in markets where voice input is popular because text input in the local language is difficult, such as India, China and Japan. And why is that desirable? Because they get more voice samples in other languages and accents to train their voice recognition software. And with voice recognition being a growing feature, a better, more accurate database means more and happier customers for all the company's services and products. In other words (no pun intended) Apple is not so much as discounting their music as paying you five bucks a month to help train their voice AI. 

As with so many ecommerce transactions these days, it's as much about selling goods as amassing data. And so the next time you want Apple to play you a song, to quote one final lyric, this by way of Jackson Brown, the next voice you hear may be your own.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is trying to use voice input when he remembers. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Jose Is Hot

We're coming down the home stretch for the 2021 hurricane season.  With a just under a month to go until the door closes on November 30, it's been a busy year with twenty named storms, seven of which have been declared major tempests. And with apologies to John Cleese, a Storm Called Wanda has just made an appearance.  With no X, Y or Z names, that means we’re moving on to the backup list, starting with Adria and Braylen: heaven help us all if we make it all the way to Will.

The quaint custom of naming Atlantic storms began in 1950 by the then US Weather Bureau. It originally followed the military radio alphabet of Able, Baker and Charlie. Then in 1953 they changed to a list of women's names, following a World War II custom wherein U.S. Army Air Corp and Navy meteorologists named Pacific cyclones after girlfriends and wives. That in itself was a practice inspired by "Storm," a 1941 novel in which a junior meteorologist names one system "Maria" after a former girlfriend. And even that had roots: reportedly, the first use of a proper name for a tropical cyclone was by an Australian forecaster in the early in the 20th century. He gave storms the names of political figures whom he disliked, enabling him to say publicly that a politician was "causing great distress and wandering aimlessly about the Pacific."

In 1978 in a bow to gender equity, cyclones added male names with hurricanes following in 1979. The U.S. Weather Service is the keeper of the flame for storms originating in the Atlantic, but the situation in the Pacific isn't so simple. While the World Meteorological Organization has a master list for large scale events, many countries also have their own naming schemes for storms originating in their waters. And so a hypothetical storm that was alphabetically the second of the season and originated near Brisbane, threatened Papua New Guinea, then veered to Mindanao before taking aim at Jakarta could be known as Billy-Buri-Butchoy-Bakung.

Then in 2012 The Weather Channel, sensing a national need (and a marketing opportunity) stepped into a perceived void, and started naming winter storms. The argument was that "President's Day Storm" and "Snowmageddon" were local monikers, and didn't convey the systematic nature of a cold event. In a press release they said it would "make communication and information sharing much easier, especially in the era of social media. For example, hash tagging a storm based on its name will provide an easy way to gather all of the latest information on an impending high-impact weather system." This according to their Winter Weather Expert at the time, Tim Nizol (Twitter bio: I love 4 seasons but snow is my passion).

But while hurricanes get the headlines and blizzards make for great video, heat waves actually are far more dangerous. Studies have shown that extreme heat kills more people than either of the other two types of weather events. For example, the Great Blizzard of 1888 pummeled the East Coast with 40+ inches of snow, shut down the Brooklyn Bridge and killed 400. Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest storms on record, devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005 and killed 1836. Contrast that with a 2003 three-week heat wave that broiled Europe with temperatures consistently at or above 100 Fahrenheit. It killed an estimated 70,000 people, with 14,803 perishing in Paris alone.

That's part of what drove Seville, Spain to announce that they will be the first city to start naming heatwaves this coming year. Mayor Juan Espadas said, "Seville and Andalusia are territories that are particularly threatened by the consequences of climate change. Naming heatwaves will help citizens know the level of risk, the level of intensity, so that they will know how to face them."

The commission in charge has created a working group to come up with criteria for classification, as well as a list of names once the mercury starts to climb. Expect the details in time for the summer season. But once it starts be prepared that the next time you hear that "Jose is hot" it will have less to do with his six-pack abs and more to do with his temperature.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is thinking of naming his naps. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.