[MyAppleMenu] Nov 16, 2009

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
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**** It's Back To The iPhone <http://www.southtownstar.com/business/harmening/1882739,111509harmeningcol.article>
Jim Harmening, Southtown Star

**** Was Apple Really More Profitable Selling Cell Phones Than Nokia In Q3? <http://pixobebo.com/index.php/pixonomy/newslinks/was_apple_really_more_profitable_selling_cell_phones_than_nokia_in_q3/>
PixoBebo

Strategic Analytics report was based on an analysis of Apple’s financial numbers, which include the ever misunderstood subscription accounting, which is mostly iPhone revenue, or, as Apple reported, it would be about $2.85 billion in Adjusted Net Income (which includes iPhone’s subscription accounting).

Face it, Joe. Man up. You got it wrong and you’re afraid to admit it. Only Apple really knows how much profit the iPhone brought in last quarter, but all accounts except yours put Apple’s iPhone profits above Nokia’s cell phone profits.

**** Priority To Help Two Recover <http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_455095.html>
Leow Si Wan, Straits Times

Helping the two patients - who are at the heart of a drug blunder at KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) - to recover is the 'top priority' now, said health minister Khaw Boon Wan on Monday.

**** Tweetie 2 For Apple's iPhone Takes Twitter To A Whole New Level <http://www.nydailynews.com/tech_guide/2009/11/15/2009-11-15_tweetie_2.html>
Matt Marrone, New York Daily News

**** Are Apple's App Store Policies Ruining Everything? <http://news.google.com/news/url?fd=R&sa=T&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.infoworld.com%2Ft%2Fmobile-applications%2Fare-apples-app-store-policies-ruining-everything-353&usg=AFQjCNG5KBLhMWU51sTn68qG8sDaYkm1Pw>
Paul Venezia, InfoWorld

Many iPhone developers are worked up over Apple's application review process. It's not perfect, but it's there for a reason.



The Tomorrow Weblog
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**** At Checkout, More Ways To Avoid Cash Or Plastic <http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=349f7b95b5b5447764ae8b7be7af65ee>
Claire Cain Miller, New York Times

Instead of leather wallets, consumers could some day carry virtual wallets, with their credit card and bank information stored on remote computers.



MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** How Memoirs Took Over The Literary World <http://www.salon.com/books/must_read/2009/11/15/memoir/index.html>
Laura Miller, Salon

Has the memoir become the "central form" of our culture, as Ben Yagoda insists in his breezy new consideration of the form, "Memoir: A History"? Do I detect hackles rising from coast to coast at the mere suggestion?

**** Linguistic Currency <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091116/mlinko>
Ange Mlinko, The Nation

The equivalence between English and wealth is much more than a metaphor, actually.

**** Presence Of Mind <http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n22/michael-wood/presence-of-mind>
Michael Wood, London Review Of Books

Roland Barthes died almost 30 years ago, on 26 March 1980, but his works continue to engage new and old readers with remarkable consistency.

The persistence of Barthes’s reputation might seem surprising, since his writing is so varied, topical, at times wilfully ephemeral. He was suspicious of monuments – ‘tombs die too,’ he says in a fine phrase in his mourning notes – and didn’t want to be one. He wrote with amusement, and without false modesty, about his own passing ‘notoriety’. But then the surprise lasts only as long as we are not thinking very hard. Monuments may or may not endure, but they are not looked at very closely; and fragile-seeming gestures, songs, jokes, metaphors, teasing sentences, often have long lives in the intimacy of many minds. It’s easy, and usually rash, to use the word ‘unforgettable’, or even ‘memorable’, since we can forget anything. But then what we hang on to becomes all the more remarkable, and Barthes, like Cole Porter, was the author of phrases and rhythms that for some of us will not go away until we do.

**** Exercise <http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2009/11/23/091123po_poem_longenbach>
James Longenbach, New Yorker

**** Sad Verso Of The Sunny ____ <http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2009/11/23/091123po_poem_waldner>
Liz Waldner, New Yorker

**** Indianapolis (Highway 74) <http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/11/23/091123fi_fiction_shepard>
Sam Shepard, New Yorker

**** Poem Of The Week: Stone Poems By Douglas Skrief <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/nov/16/poem-of-the-week-douglas-skrief?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theguardian%2Fbooks%2Frss+%28Books%29>
Carol Rumens, Guardian

Skrief's nature poems sidestep the 'egotistical sublime' by allowing nature to speak.



SingaporeSurf
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**** Not As Simple As It Seems <http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC091116-0000026/Not-as-simple-as-it-seems>
Lim Bee Khim, Ministry Of Trade And Industry, Today

The key to raising wages of Singaporeans does not lie in tightening the supply of foreign labour, but in upgrading the capabilities of our workers so that they can take on jobs that less-skilled workers elsewhere cannot.

**** SPH Bid Wastefully Expensive? <http://www.todayonline.com/Comment/EDC091116-0000021/SPH-bid-wastefully-expensive?>
Conrad Raj, Today

In their eagerness to become major property players, did media group Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) overpay for a mall now being developed by the Housing and Development Board at Clementi Town Centre? According to several analysts, they certainly did, and as a result, have downgraded the stock.

**** High Taxi Fares Killing The Golden Goose <http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/OnlineStory/STIStory_454744.html>
Jack Chew, Straits Times

Privately owned taxis do not require a layer of management and its associated costs.

The same comparison can be made for wet markets and pay television.

**** Every CPF Life Member Will Enjoy The Same Interest Rate <http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_454810.html>
Lo Tak Wah, Central Provident Fund Board, Straits Times

It is not meaningful to compare CPF Life with other annuity schemes as they are designed on different premises. We would also like to assure Mr Nathan and all Central Provident Fund members that the same mortality experience will apply to all four CPF Life plans.

**** Give Courts More Sentencing Discretion <http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_454812.html>
Alvin Chen, Straits Times

Leaving this issue to prosecutorial discretion is only a stop-gap measure, which may, in the long run, undermine a fundamental principle of the legal system that there should be congruency between the law and its administration.

**** Fundamentals To Singapore’s Progress <http://trulysingapore.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/fundamentals-to-spores-progress/>
Yours Truly Singapore

While stability is not a luxury we take for granted, it is also not an excuse upon which authoritarianism can be justified.

**** Plan To Ensure Singaporeans Are Our Leading Investors <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/11/16/nation/5118085&sec=nation>
The Star

Singaporeans comprise the largest number of visitors to the country and now, Malaysia wants them to be the No. 1 in investments as well.

**** Foreigners Drive Up The Price Of Housing. <http://singaporeanskeptic.blogspot.com/2009/11/foreigners-drive-up-price-of-housing.html>
Singaporean Skeptic

NS is bull-shit. You are not protecting the land, you are more like the security guard who is there to protect the rich.

**** Foreigners After Non-prime Homes <http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_454988.html>
Joyce Teo, Straits Times

Foreign property investors are venturing out of traditional prime areas to snap up homes in other parts of the island.

**** Bring On The Daisies, and Those Acts Of Kindness <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/world/asia/16iht-spore.html?_r=1>
Seth Mydans, New York Times

While 21 national leaders gathered behind tight security this weekend to address the region’s problems, some Singaporeans were out in the rain-washed streets handing out yellow daisies in the latest government campaign to improve the national character.

**** What’s Not Good About Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) <http://www.salary.sg/2009/whats-not-good-about-supplementary-retirement-scheme-srs/>
Salary.sg

We calculated: if you instead invest the $11,475 and achieve a mere 0.31% return per year, you will make slightly more than what you would have got from the SRS tax saving.

**** ASEAN Group To Remove Tariffs <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125833808964149849.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_world>
Reuben Carder, Wall Street Journal

Six major members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will remove tariffs on cross-border transactions of goods on Jan. 1 next year in a move toward broader trade liberalization across the region, the 10-member bloc said in a statement.

**** ERP Rates At 31 Gantries To Be Reduced For Year-end School Holidays <http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1018512/1/.html>
Channel NewsAsia

**** IMF Would Never Make Such A Claim <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2ffca37e-d24f-11de-a0f0-00144feabdc0.html>
Derek Tonkin, Network Myanmar, Financial Times

**** The Ugly Singaporean <http://degreed.blogspot.com/2009/11/ugly-singaporean.html>
Simplicity

Go round the system. Help the system. Beat the system. Change the system. Outsmart the system. But don't forsake the system that propelled an island from nothing in a short 44 years.

**** Payment If Can't Be Rehired <http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_455064.html>
Straits Times

Employers should offer a one-off Employment Assistance Payment (EAP) if they are unable to find suitable jobs for eligible older workers when the new law kicks in in 2012. This is to tide these employees over a period of time while they look for an alternative job. The amount of payment should be based on certain principles set in the draft tripartite guidelines for re-employment of older workers released on Monday.

**** Singapore Private Home Sales Plunge In Oct - Govt <http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSSIN37459220091116>
Kevin Lim, Reuters

Sales of uncompleted private homes in Singapore plunged 29 percent in October from September, falling below the 1,000 unit level for the first time since January as government measures to cool the property market took effect.

**** CPF Interest Rate Still At 2.5% <http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_455115.html>
Zakir Hussain, Straits Times

The CPF Board said on Monday that its computed rate - derived from rates of major local banks for the period between Aug 1 and Oct 31 this year - works out to 0.42 per cent a year. But the higher rate of 2.5 per cent will be paid as that is the minimum specified under the CPF Act.