Automaker GM announced last week that they their burn rate has been upwards of $2 billion a month, and in their current situation, could run out of cash by the middle of next year, if not earlier. They have asked the government for at least a $25 billion bailout to carry them through this economic downturn¹.

This is on top of the $25 billion loans for the “Big Three” U.S. automakers that the government approved in September to help keep the lights on². (It is important to note that they are requesting this new bailout because the other one will not come in time.)

I don’t believe they deserve this bailout, or any significant help from the government. There are three major reasons why I believe so:

1. Inability/refusal to adapt to changes in the industry and their competitors
2. Lobbying against bills for better fuel efficiency and emissions restrictions (which in part is caused by #1).
3. Lack of innovation

Those three reasons (variations on being lazy as a corporation) are why they are deservedly in their current position, and why the responsibility of getting out of this mess is theirs, not ours.

Slow to Adapt

Their downfall has been a long time coming. Their revenue year over year has been very lackluster, especially when put side by side with their competitors. Below is their revenue growth since 2004, compared with Toyota [³ ] [⁴ ]:

GM vs Toyota: Revenue Growth since 2004

Why does the chart look like this? GM’s massive costs in addition to their boring, uninnovative gas guzzler vehicles.

GM’s cost-per-car is much higher than their competitors, with the lion share going to it’s healthcare. Back in 2005, the cost of healthcare per car was $1,525 as opposed to Toyota’s $201⁵. Now, I’m not saying giving your employees benefits is bad, but the benefits costs for idle and non-efficient workers can cause these costs to skyrocket. According to the same NPR report, the utilization of their factories was at 85%, far below its competitor. In addition, it takes GM longer to produce a car than Toyota does. The writing on the wall has been there since 2005. They’ve had enough time to adjust.

Back in 2006, Toyota’s revenue grew faster due to it’s production of lighter cars and trucks, as opposed to giant gas guzzlers that GM was making⁶. As gas steadily became more and more expensive⁷, GM kept on making ridiculous fuel inefficient SUVs. Sure, the profit margins were huge ($10-17k per vehicle⁸, but when no one wants to spend $60 to fill up the tank, people will stop buying. $17k x 0 SUVs sold = $0! Simple math, yay! Meanwhile, other companies are building hybrids and smaller economical cars have been selling like hot cakes.

Lobbying against bills

I think that lobbying against better fuel efficiency and reduction in greenhouse gases is absolutely ridiculous and irresponsible. I find it abysmal that these large corporations are lobbying against something that can be proven to improve the environment and help fight this whole global warming thing and succeed in blocking or swaying legislation.

Even more ridiculous that they use arguments like this to prevent a 2007 Bill to restrict emissions:

This trial is about whether or not states have the authority to set their own fuel-economy standards. And we will argue that they don’t⁹

That’s complete bullshit. But good for them, they made a few bucks with their stupid SUVs and now they’re fucked. Congratulations, you’ve proved short term benefit is always best.

Lack of Innovation

If they didn’t spend so much time better fuel economy standards, they could have used that time to create better, lighter cars that can actually compete in the marketplace today. But no, they could sit comfortably on their fatasses letting their profit makers bring in the money. I was talking to my brother the other day (he knows a lot more about cars than I do), and he said that all of GMs brands make the same cars, just branded differently.

Thomas Friedman of the Times wrote a great Op-Ed the other day called “How to Fix a Flat“, which resonated with me a lot.

In the first paragraph, he refers to the $25 billion bailout in September. The Chrysler CEO claimed that the money was going towards a “way to enable the car companies to retool for innovation”. Are .. you … serious? What have you been doing instead of innovating? Where did all that money go?

Oh wait, right, lawyers can be very expensive.

Well, that money was well spent right? Hm, but wait you need more cash now? To what, innovate? Sounds like a well run business.

They shouldn’t get this money because it just gives them the right to continue with what their doing. I imagine it’d be hard for the government to really direct where this money is being spend and how these companies are run. Left up to the current execs, doesn’t seem like much would change.

He ends his article:

Lastly, somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he’d like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar.

Where to Go From Here

As Phillip Greenspun says, let them go bankrupt. Chapter 11 bankruptcies are made for this purpose. It allows them to file for bankruptcy while keeping the company alive but let them reorganize their business. That solution makes complete sense to me.

Many say that if they do go bankrupt, consumers would not go near any GM car because of fears that the cars would not be under warranty, would have declining quality, etc. Again, Phillip Greenspun comes up with a pretty good solution, having the government insure their warranties instead of bailing them out.

Phillip Greenspun has been writing a lot on the topic recently. He goes through stories of him renting a GM vehicle and how terrible the quality and other related topics. Read his blog here: Phillip Greenspun

Job Loss

Now, the biggest issue with letting them go bankrupt is the massive layoffs, and the subsequent ripple effect across the nation. This is the part I haven’t really come to a conclusion to. It’s a very tricky issue. A lot of the people who would be laid off wouldn’t deserve to be. It wasn’t their fault that their company was mismanaged into the ground.

I feel like the people who would be laid off would be better off at a company that won’t be stagnant for years at a time like GM was. But in the economy, there isn’t much cash and not many places for them to go.

The loss of millions of jobs would be devastating to the already horrid economy. That would be the only reason why they should get the money, and it looks like they will because of this. It should definitely not be misinterpreted as helping out the company as it is saving the US economy from bottoming out.

President of Change

Looking forward, I believe that President Obama will bring great changes to the country. Not only is he an advocate of eliminating our dependence on foreign oil¹⁰ through alternative energy, he’s also taking a very public stance against lobbyist¹¹. Having him at least acknowledging these issues is a huge step forward in the right direction.

While this is still all just talk, I have confidence that he will follow through and that the US will be moving in the right direction once he gets into office.

1. G.M. Says U.S. Cash Is Its Best Bet [↩]
2. House Passes Stopgap Spending Bill [↩]
3. GM's 2007 10K report [↩]
4. Toyota's 2008 SEC Filing [↩]
5. GM vs. Toyota: By the Numbers [↩]
6. Toyotas profit rises, rivals GM [↩]
7. Energy Information Administration: Oil/Gas Information [↩]
8. SUV Fact Sheet [↩]
9. Automakers Challenge Vermont Emissions Law [↩]
10. Senators Introduce Legislation to Reduce Gasoline Consumption by Half a Trillion Gallons [↩]
11. Obama’s Transition Team Restricts Lobbyists’ Role [↩]

I couldn’t think of a better title. Or maybe it should’ve been…

Why I Think the iPhone is Important

But hey, it’s my blog. I do what I want.

Nonsense aside, I truly believe that the iPhone is making great strides in the mobile space. For one, I feel like it is the first smartphone that makes people want to buy one. Have you ever been that excited about a new Palm smartphone (maybe except the Centro, which came out after the iPhone)? There have been some pretty cool phones, especially HTC ones, but the exposure of those are limited to gadget freaks. As the iPhone gains popularity, the mobile platform will be more widespread and available than ever.

In addition, I feel that it is improving the state of mobile platforms not only through sheer proliferation, but also giving people a great platform to develop on.

“The big advantage Apple has with the iPhone is that they control the entire product, top to bottom. The case, the chipsets, the OS, the user interface.”…. “Google’s dependence on hardware and carrier partners puts the final product out of their control — and into the control of companies whose histories have shown them to be incompetent at design and hostile to users.”

Now, I’ve heard many people whine that this is disadvantageous to the user. Yes, you’re at the mercy of Apple. Yes, it’s a closed SDK. But the major advantage of this is that because the specs are exactly the same across all iPhones, superior applications can be made for them.

I was really excited about Android was announced. It was a great idea. It has become apparent, though, that this model is flawed. Why?

Developers working on android apps are put in a position where they need to guess and program for different physical UI scenarios (none of which actually exist in the wild, yet):

Does the target phone have physical buttons?
What is the button configuration?
Does it have a touch screen?
What about different resolutions?
What sensors do you code for? camera? accelerometer? proximity? touchpad?

[via]

As an Android developer, I feel like you have to take into account of these factors. You need to degrade gracefully, have switches for a bunch of features depending on hardware. I feel like you can make a leaner, more powerful, robust application when you know what you’re working with.

Combining a visually superior UI and a consistent development platform, iPhone and iPhone apps will become wildly popular and push the mobile environment to the next level.

Shabowza.

1. You don’t crash (yet). Thank you. That makes me happy.
2. When I move you onto my second, smaller screen, you know this. You readjust, and I appreciate that.
3. You finally understand me. When I zoom, the pictures should zoom too, not just the text. You really know my soul .

PS: Laura, this does not change the way I feel about you.

Being a click-highlight guy, I was very intrigued when I read about Awesome Highlighter.

Awesome Highlighter is a company that provides a tool that enables you to go to a website and highlight information to save for later or share with your friends.

Here’s what TechCrunch had to say about the site:

Awesome Highlighter have focused on a simple task, and executed on it very well. Some of their competitors have overly complex processes that require a lot more user involvement than a simple and familiar highlighting and note making procedure.

I feel like that statement can be applied to any most genre of websites, and can explain why the successful ones succeed, the other ones go the way of the deadpool. I’ve commented on the success of Muxtape compared to other “mixtape” sites here.

Less is … less (that doesn’t mean bad!)

Creating a simple solution to a problem generally means having less of a feature set than other websites. And contrary to conventional thought, thats a good thing. I feel this is because people like to do what they want to do with the least possible resistance. One example of this happened a couple years ago at Columbia:

CU Community vs. Facebook

A few years ago, there was a website for the Columbia community aptly named CU Community (link to founders site). CU Community was a website that aimed offer a journal feature for blogging, submit news, and allow students to showcase their artwork. You could also request people to be friends to be a part of your network.

Although the CU Community and Facebook weren’t exactly the same type of website (CU Community was more of a mini-Deviant Art for students), I feel like in many of the students eyes, they were in direct competition. It was a way to connect friends on campus.

At the time, Facebook was in its original form; a simple website where you could be connected with friends. Back then, I don’t even think they had the “Wall” application yet.

For a while, the two sites were gaining popularity on campus, but eventually Facebook won out. There are many reasons for this, but one major reason is that Facebook had a clear message of “we are a social network.” Conversely, CU Community was a place where you could upload artwork, you could blog, you could create a social network with friends, but there was no real focus. There were just too many features on the website to focus on just one.

Reading

This idea of doing one thing and doing it well has been around for a long time. The Unix community has long held that ideal. From The Art of Unix Programming:

Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new features.

And more recently, 37signals wrote in their Getting Real book:

The answer is less. Do less than your competitors to beat them. Solve the simple problems…

This isn’t to say that adding features is bad. Of course not. But don’t add features if it doesn’t help solve the problem.

For the two (rss) readers of this blog (according to my feedburner), exciting z0mg 1337 soop3r h4z0r n3wZ!! THERES A NEW BWONG.NET.

Yeah, I know, I don’t care either.

But I’m going to talk about it anyway. So the other day I thought “instead of sitting on my lazy ass, maybe I’ll do something productive,” which lead to the new bwong.net. Over the years, I’ve had grandiose ideas of what bwong.net would be. I could have a lot of things like projects I’m working on, books I’ve read, pictures, videos, A WINDOW INTO MY SOUL, peanuts, music, tiny kitten, and the like. Then, I realized that was all ridiculous. Why would I need a whole complicated website for myself? I have at most 3 things that are interesting about me, and those could be summed up in 1.734 sentences.

So I opted for a simple, straight to point design (if you can even call it a design). It has all I really care to share about me on the internet, and points you to places where you can browse if you’re intruiged. The only thing that is a bit interesting about the page is the “I currently dig” thing. It has nothing to do with digg, but is kind of a weird love child between digg, twitter and my tumblr.

So I wrote a quick little script in PHP do keep these little snippets of things I’m interested in, links I’ve found, categorized with little tags. The script only took an hour or two to write and couldn’t help thinking of DHH’s post about the Immediacy of PHP. Anyway, if anyone is interested in how I did it, it might be fun to write up, but only if anyone cares.

Anyway, that’s all. Enjoy, and I don’t care what you think, I think its pretty.

Being new to Ruby on Rails, I didn’t really understand the whole session business and was caught off guard when I looked into my tmp/sessions directory. I found upwards of 20,000 Rails session files. After poking around, there are many different ways to store these sessions (and alter them) and ultimately decided I’m too lazy to change it from the default session storing.

I had found this code snippet which allows me to remove stale Rails sessions using cron. However, on Dreamhost, cron does not have an environment so you have to tweak to the following:

* * */4 * * /usr/bin/find /home/benny/ -name "ruby_sess*" -cmin +6000 -exec rm \{} \;

How do you add it? ssh into your dreamhost machine and enter the following line:

$ crontab -i