Busy day today as I’m playing in a golf outing for my alma mater, University School, and heading to a benefit for Hopewell this evening. They’re a long time client who I’ve mentioned in the past. If you’re looking to get involved with a great cause, feel free to register to bid on silent or live auction items, here. Anyhow, a busy Friday means having completed this newsletter on Thursday night (well, early Friday morning as I was watching the USMNT blow a meaningless game by allowing an extra time goal). Scroll on down for more Apple prices, Ferraris, loud people, jello shots, and more. Enjoy!
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Apple Prices
Last week I made mention of the possibility that Apple would be raising pricing on Macs and iPads, and yesterday it happened. Macs increased by 15-20% due to the continued shortage of and increase in prices of storage and memory. And with increased prices came a decrease in Apple share prices. It doesn’t seem that there’s any relief in the near future on this, thanks to data centers snatching up all the available memory and storage.
And while Apple’s share price dropped 6% at the news, chip maker Micron has seen its share price rise from $83 in late 2024 to over $1,000 today. Wow!
Ferris Bueller
Ferris Bueller will always be one of my favorite movies, but it’s always painful to see the 1960’s vintage Ferrari California Spyder crash through the plate glass window and crash into the woods below.
And for your truly random piece of information for the week, were you aware that the inventor of the Laffer Curve is a Clevelander?
American History
My guess is that I won’t be emptying the inbox for you next week, due to the holiday. So, in honor of our 250th birthday, how ’bout a little American history? Who knew that the first US Navy was made up of a bunch of fisherman whose jobs were eliminated by British taxes? I had no clue.
Thinking For Yourself
The Ashton team are big fans of AI for things like business process improvement and automation, allowing us to spend more time focused on the customer, and less spent doing busy work. And as we discussed during our seminar on AI for non-profits earlier this week, AI means different things to different people. But will we sometime be at the point of not being able to think for ourselves?
This piece suggests using AI not for doing chores, but for telling people what chores to do and when. And at the same time, it reminds that, when you’re uploading all of your personal info to a large language model, and providing access to photos, calendars, etc., you’re sharing a lot of data with some random company. Personally, while I’ve found some great time savers using AI for work, I can’t fathom needing to ask Claude when I should mow my lawn and how I should clean the garage. Maybe I’ve just been doing it long enough that I’ve figured it out…
Sports
Lots of different things coming through the inbox this week as it relates to the World Cup, including AI data analytics (keep in mind that all the data points are tracked by humans), cyber threats based around the event, and the world’s oldest soccer ball. Plus, while it’s not soccer-related, how about AI being used to predict injuries in professional athletes?
And on a lighter note, while Oklahoma won the College Baseball World Series on Monday night, West Virginia won the annual jello shot competition in Omaha.
Loud People
An Australian town crier has gained the title of “World’s Loudest Man” by screaming the word “now” at 122 decibels. Did he find the job, or did the job find him?
That’s all for this week. I’ll leave you with a piece on South Dakota real estate (I knew Montana and Idaho had become trendy places to live, but who knew that South Dakota was going the same way???) and another on one of my favorite foods, cheese.
Have a great weekend!
Abbey