That study is hardly the final word. This study concludes that HFCS and sugar are equal when it comes to making you fat. It isn't the final word though either.
The big problem with HFCS is that it is so cheap, it gets added to everything. If every HFCS calorie was replaced with an equivalent sugar calorie, obesity would still be a raging epidemic.
The Wikipedia page on HFCS summarizes the Princeton studies well:
The set of rats on HFCS 12 hrs/day gained 48 percent more weight than a set of rats on sucrose 12 hrs/day in young males over the short term, but less in adult females over the long term. They also reported that the rats on HFCS 24 hrs/day did not gain a statistically significant amount of weight when compared to the rats on sucrose or chow only. Additionally, no differences in blood-glucose levels were observed.
Another study was conducted for 6–7 months, and fat pads were removed from the rats and weighed. Fat pads for rats on HFCS 12 hrs/day weighed significantly more than rats on chow only, but weighed less, but not significantly so, than rats on sucrose. Fat pads for rats on HFCS 24 hrs/day did not have a statistically different weight than rats on chow only. The rats fed with 24h HFCS also had higher triglyceride (TG) levels than rats fed 12h sucrose or chow only, indicating signs of metabolic syndrome. TG levels were not tested for rats fed 24h sucrose, and other studies indicate that sucrose and HFCS have similar post-metabolic profiles. The study methodology has been criticized.
The study has some pretty big flaws and I really hope somebody repeats a more rigorous version of it.
Sugar is as bad as HFCS. There's a lot of internet rage around HFCS but not a whole lot of solid evidence to support the assertion that it is much worse than sugar. Most of the raging incorrectly assumes HFCS == fructose and it simply isn't (at least for the most commonly used HFCS 55).
Facebook was the rocket that put them into orbit, but aren't they now making games for iOS and Android? The social backend is probably still Facebook though, but I imagine that would be easy enough to update if somebody topples Facebook.
I wouldn't want the people managing my investment portfolio to be stupid enough to treat Zynga like an actual thing which should be considered real and of value.
Zynga may be overvalued, but they are selling the same thing EA is - IP.
I think you can make a good analogy with TV shows. Zynga is like reality programming. Cheap to make, sometimes poorly made, but often very profitable. EA is making big, expensive shows that can be a great success (like Sopranos) or inexplicably crash and burn (too many examples of this).
I always cringe when people who are supposed to understand the fundamentals of valuation go zany and buy into utter hype
People buy stock for lots of different reasons. The people who buy for different reasons than you aren't necessarily cringe-worthy. Perhaps they are just gamblers or contrarian investors. Perhaps the fundamentals of valuation are out of date, based on antiquated ideas of how companies operate.
I think it's saying that these analysts believe Zynga will grow faster and be more profitable than EA in the semi-near future. I believe that's probably correct. EA isn't going to get much bigger and their margins just aren't that great. Zynga, on the other hand, are growing about as quickly as a company can grow and their margins have to be crazy high. That's very attractive to investors, that attracts speculators, and that builds a bubble.
Casual gamers have increased the total number of people who play games. I don't think it has decreased the number of hard core gamers that are looking for something deep. If anything, the potential audience for a big, deep game is now larger.
The only problem that I see is that is getting more and more difficult for game companies to justify charging $50 or more for a game. Only one of the games I have bought in the past year was more than $10 and I was really disappointed in that game (ModNation Racers). Cheap, but awesome (IMO) games on Apple devices and Steam sales have really lowered what I'm willing to pay for a game. $10 or under and it's a no-brainer. If the game sucks, I don't care as I'm only out a few dollars.
Ray Ozzie isn't just any employee though. He was (and still is I guess) Chief Software Architect, a position formerly held by Gates. I can't really imagine a more important position at Microsoft.
He was also the #1 advocate of cloud computing at Microsoft.
SAP, Oracle and Cisco are also quite profitable. These are Microsoft's peers. Mature, boring, profitable companies. It isn't an awful place to be.
Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter have all the energy, excitement, and best engineers. They are where the growth is and they are placing the biggest bets on the riskiest ventures. It's a turbulent space where the distance between also ran (MySpace) and dominate player (Facebook) is small.
The disruption isn't necessarily technological. It might be economic. Could they sell Office for $79 like Apple does with iWork? Could they give it away like Oracle does with OpenOffice?
If you believe in the worse-is-better doctrine, then Google Docs may one day take significant market share from Office.
Microsoft loves to talk about innovation, but when you look at just about anything they do, innovation-wise they are chasing tail lights. They only seem to innovate when they let a unit operate in isolation (as they did with XBox). That's very telling. Apple earned their smartphone marketshare by taking a giant leap past their competition and fueling the growth with effective advertising. Microsoft isn't doing either of these things.
You are exactly right. Their success is precisely what is holding them back on several fronts. Primarily, they don't want to disrupt their own business. The problem with this is that somebody else will.
Secondly, their support of legacy hardware and software is amazing. It's part of the reason they own the corporate market. It's also why that can't truly innovate. This is a great read directly from Microsoft that explains why their legacy is so crippling.
Yes, WP7 will likely do fairly well among 18-25 year old men from the suburbs.
I hate to say it, but I think Apple still has the best chance of huge growth in the smartphone market. They control the hardware and software and have a sense of style. Android might be great, but Google is letting their partners screw it up. Can you imagine the iPhone having something like a Nascar or Blockbuster app that you can't delete? Apple has it's flaws, but the crap the carriers do to Android phones is ridiculous.
I have a theory about how to succeed with gadgets - make them appeal to women. Nintendo did it with the Wii and Apple did it with the iPhone. It's amazing how bad some companies are at doing this. Dell and HP have both tried and failed comically. Remember Dell's Della site with recipes and calorie counting tools? That still makes me laugh.
I've said this before here: I think Microsoft's biggest mistake with WP7 was putting "Windows" in the name. It sounds like Windows 7 for your phone. Sounds great, right? I totally expect WP7 to succeed in the smartphone space the same way the Zune succeeded in the music player space. Succeed but not dominate.
And before digital photography came along, Kodak was insanely profitable. There are disruptive technologies all around Microsoft. At this point, they should be disrupting themselves, but like IBM 30 years ago, they are going to have an awfully difficult time doing so.
The apps aren't included, but there are a lot of them out there, they aren't very expensive, and some of them are quite good.
My wife has an iPad that I sometimes use and I think it has become the most used computer in our house. It certainly has the most paid-for software on it.
WP7 might be good, but to succeed it needs to be marketed as well as the iPhone and Android devices have been marketed. A phone is a personal accessory to lots of people. If they couldn't sell the Zune, what makes you think they can sell their phone?
Sadly, Microsoft is pretty awful at marketing and many of their partners suck at design. I mean why did they put "Windows" in the name of their phone OS? Windows Phone 7 makes it sound like it's a phone version of Windows 7. Attractive, right? Maybe for vertical markets (which admittedly is a big market).
The other problem Microsoft has is attracting developers. Apple has managed to sell their phones into a market that is very willing to spend quite a bit of money on applications. Android is much more open and will end up with a larger installed base of users, but will likely sell far fewer applications per phone. Where does Microsoft fit in?
I think I know: in the same space that RIM is in. I predict MSFT will buy RIM in 2011.
You've nailed it! Everything Microsoft is doing is reacting to the changing market, change introduced by others. Microsoft isn't able or willing to disrupt their own business. Maybe they shouldn't. There's nothing wrong with being boring and mature (Oracle and IBM make billions being boring).
What has Microsoft being doing the last couple of years? They showed some vision by investing in Facebook, but then spent months trying to buy Yahoo!? It's just bizarre.
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Yep, corn is subsidized big time. And there are sugar import tariffs (I think). Double wammy.
That study is hardly the final word. This study concludes that HFCS and sugar are equal when it comes to making you fat. It isn't the final word though either.
The big problem with HFCS is that it is so cheap, it gets added to everything. If every HFCS calorie was replaced with an equivalent sugar calorie, obesity would still be a raging epidemic.
The Wikipedia page on HFCS summarizes the Princeton studies well:
The set of rats on HFCS 12 hrs/day gained 48 percent more weight than a set of rats on sucrose 12 hrs/day in young males over the short term, but less in adult females over the long term. They also reported that the rats on HFCS 24 hrs/day did not gain a statistically significant amount of weight when compared to the rats on sucrose or chow only. Additionally, no differences in blood-glucose levels were observed.
Another study was conducted for 6–7 months, and fat pads were removed from the rats and weighed. Fat pads for rats on HFCS 12 hrs/day weighed significantly more than rats on chow only, but weighed less, but not significantly so, than rats on sucrose. Fat pads for rats on HFCS 24 hrs/day did not have a statistically different weight than rats on chow only. The rats fed with 24h HFCS also had higher triglyceride (TG) levels than rats fed 12h sucrose or chow only, indicating signs of metabolic syndrome. TG levels were not tested for rats fed 24h sucrose, and other studies indicate that sucrose and HFCS have similar post-metabolic profiles. The study methodology has been criticized.
The study has some pretty big flaws and I really hope somebody repeats a more rigorous version of it.
Sugar is as bad as HFCS. There's a lot of internet rage around HFCS but not a whole lot of solid evidence to support the assertion that it is much worse than sugar. Most of the raging incorrectly assumes HFCS == fructose and it simply isn't (at least for the most commonly used HFCS 55).
My guess is that Microsoft's real strategy is going to revolve around litigation.
Sadly, I think you're right. When you can't innovate, litigate.
Facebook was the rocket that put them into orbit, but aren't they now making games for iOS and Android? The social backend is probably still Facebook though, but I imagine that would be easy enough to update if somebody topples Facebook.
I wouldn't want the people managing my investment portfolio to be stupid enough to treat Zynga like an actual thing which should be considered real and of value.
Zynga may be overvalued, but they are selling the same thing EA is - IP.
I think you can make a good analogy with TV shows. Zynga is like reality programming. Cheap to make, sometimes poorly made, but often very profitable. EA is making big, expensive shows that can be a great success (like Sopranos) or inexplicably crash and burn (too many examples of this).
I always cringe when people who are supposed to understand the fundamentals of valuation go zany and buy into utter hype
People buy stock for lots of different reasons. The people who buy for different reasons than you aren't necessarily cringe-worthy. Perhaps they are just gamblers or contrarian investors. Perhaps the fundamentals of valuation are out of date, based on antiquated ideas of how companies operate.
I think it's saying that these analysts believe Zynga will grow faster and be more profitable than EA in the semi-near future. I believe that's probably correct. EA isn't going to get much bigger and their margins just aren't that great. Zynga, on the other hand, are growing about as quickly as a company can grow and their margins have to be crazy high. That's very attractive to investors, that attracts speculators, and that builds a bubble.
What are your favorite games?
Casual gamers have increased the total number of people who play games. I don't think it has decreased the number of hard core gamers that are looking for something deep. If anything, the potential audience for a big, deep game is now larger.
The only problem that I see is that is getting more and more difficult for game companies to justify charging $50 or more for a game. Only one of the games I have bought in the past year was more than $10 and I was really disappointed in that game (ModNation Racers). Cheap, but awesome (IMO) games on Apple devices and Steam sales have really lowered what I'm willing to pay for a game. $10 or under and it's a no-brainer. If the game sucks, I don't care as I'm only out a few dollars.
Ray Ozzie isn't just any employee though. He was (and still is I guess) Chief Software Architect, a position formerly held by Gates. I can't really imagine a more important position at Microsoft.
He was also the #1 advocate of cloud computing at Microsoft.
Who is going to go anywhere near that now that Ozzie is gone?
The iWork family pack is $99 and can be installed on 5 computers.
SAP, Oracle and Cisco are also quite profitable. These are Microsoft's peers. Mature, boring, profitable companies. It isn't an awful place to be.
Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter have all the energy, excitement, and best engineers. They are where the growth is and they are placing the biggest bets on the riskiest ventures. It's a turbulent space where the distance between also ran (MySpace) and dominate player (Facebook) is small.
The disruption isn't necessarily technological. It might be economic. Could they sell Office for $79 like Apple does with iWork? Could they give it away like Oracle does with OpenOffice?
If you believe in the worse-is-better doctrine, then Google Docs may one day take significant market share from Office.
Microsoft loves to talk about innovation, but when you look at just about anything they do, innovation-wise they are chasing tail lights. They only seem to innovate when they let a unit operate in isolation (as they did with XBox). That's very telling. Apple earned their smartphone marketshare by taking a giant leap past their competition and fueling the growth with effective advertising. Microsoft isn't doing either of these things.
You are exactly right. Their success is precisely what is holding them back on several fronts. Primarily, they don't want to disrupt their own business. The problem with this is that somebody else will.
Secondly, their support of legacy hardware and software is amazing. It's part of the reason they own the corporate market. It's also why that can't truly innovate. This is a great read directly from Microsoft that explains why their legacy is so crippling.
Who's forgetting the history of MSFT? On what planet is WP7 their first smartphone OS?
Yes, WP7 will likely do fairly well among 18-25 year old men from the suburbs.
I hate to say it, but I think Apple still has the best chance of huge growth in the smartphone market. They control the hardware and software and have a sense of style. Android might be great, but Google is letting their partners screw it up. Can you imagine the iPhone having something like a Nascar or Blockbuster app that you can't delete? Apple has it's flaws, but the crap the carriers do to Android phones is ridiculous.
I have a theory about how to succeed with gadgets - make them appeal to women. Nintendo did it with the Wii and Apple did it with the iPhone. It's amazing how bad some companies are at doing this. Dell and HP have both tried and failed comically. Remember Dell's Della site with recipes and calorie counting tools? That still makes me laugh.
I've said this before here: I think Microsoft's biggest mistake with WP7 was putting "Windows" in the name. It sounds like Windows 7 for your phone. Sounds great, right? I totally expect WP7 to succeed in the smartphone space the same way the Zune succeeded in the music player space. Succeed but not dominate.
Really? I've heard that XBox is profitable, but just barely.
And before digital photography came along, Kodak was insanely profitable. There are disruptive technologies all around Microsoft. At this point, they should be disrupting themselves, but like IBM 30 years ago, they are going to have an awfully difficult time doing so.
Stupid question here, but why can't you upgrade it yourself?
I think they wanted Sun's patent portfolio. How long did they own it before they filed a lawsuit against Google?
The apps aren't included, but there are a lot of them out there, they aren't very expensive, and some of them are quite good.
My wife has an iPad that I sometimes use and I think it has become the most used computer in our house. It certainly has the most paid-for software on it.
WP7 might be good, but to succeed it needs to be marketed as well as the iPhone and Android devices have been marketed. A phone is a personal accessory to lots of people. If they couldn't sell the Zune, what makes you think they can sell their phone?
Sadly, Microsoft is pretty awful at marketing and many of their partners suck at design. I mean why did they put "Windows" in the name of their phone OS? Windows Phone 7 makes it sound like it's a phone version of Windows 7. Attractive, right? Maybe for vertical markets (which admittedly is a big market).
The other problem Microsoft has is attracting developers. Apple has managed to sell their phones into a market that is very willing to spend quite a bit of money on applications. Android is much more open and will end up with a larger installed base of users, but will likely sell far fewer applications per phone. Where does Microsoft fit in?
I think I know: in the same space that RIM is in. I predict MSFT will buy RIM in 2011.
You've nailed it! Everything Microsoft is doing is reacting to the changing market, change introduced by others. Microsoft isn't able or willing to disrupt their own business. Maybe they shouldn't. There's nothing wrong with being boring and mature (Oracle and IBM make billions being boring).
What has Microsoft being doing the last couple of years? They showed some vision by investing in Facebook, but then spent months trying to buy Yahoo!? It's just bizarre.