Thursday, November 19, 2009

Junior

The question was asked by

As you can see, Junior the league average was a distant thing for the first 11 years of his career, but for his year-by-year and his lifetime average. These last 10 years he's flirted with, and failed to meet, mediocrity most years.

The specific answer to Steve's question is, Griffey, Jr. was a lifetime .299 hitter after the 1998, his first ten seasons. He is now sitting at .285. He's taken a 14-point hit, so the damage is worse than Steve thought.

As is my wont, I have shown the dividing line between the modern and steroid eras of baseball, the start of which, and I propose a universal adoption of this standard, is the season Brady Anderson first hit 50 home runs. I don't think Anderson ever tested positive for steroids, but look at his lifetime power numbers and I think you'll agree that this is the demarcation point.

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

perspectives

Today I clicked on a CNNMoney article with the headline "Mac share grew after Windows 7 debut".  Okay, I'm thinking that's an interesting topic.  So I clicked. 

Turns out it's a regular column titled "Mac news from outside the reality distortion field."  So now I'm thinking that this is very interesting because I have Mac friends.  You know who you are.  I know who you are.  You and I both know that you are not rational.  So I figure I'll get the alternative viewpoint.  You know, the one that's an alternative to "Steve Jobs is like God, only perfecter."

Before I being reading, I see the headshot of the column's author, Philip Elmer-DeWitt. In the blurb about Mr. Elmer-DeWitt it says:

Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple – and watching Steve Jobs operate — since 1982.
And now I'm thinking, "Whoa!  We're finally going to see rational news about Apple, how fun!"

The article begins:

If Microsoft (MSFT) was hoping that the launch of Windows 7 would halt the erosion of its operating system market share — and curb further inroads by Apple (AAPL)  — there is no evidence that it's working yet.
I don't follow the OS wars very closely, so I'm thinking that this sounds reasonable.  I know MSFT has had as high as 90% of the OS market, but I figure that this mus be slipping.  I wait for the next paragraph.  I see:

...preliminary data released overnight Sunday by Net Applications show Mac OS X's Internet share growing by 2.73% in October, from 5.12% to 5.26%.
And then:

Windows' Internet presence, meanwhile, fell from 92.77% to 92.54%

Seriously?  This is from "outside the reality distortion field"?  And he's written an article about "eroding market share" and "curb[ing] further inroads". 

For reference, Dell is the #1 seller of PC's with a 13.9% market share.

Nokia is the #1 cell phone company with about 38% market share.

Coke, the #1 beverage company in the world, has about 43% maket share.

MSFT?  92.54%

Mr. Elmer-DeWitt, you are firmly within the distortion field.