Posts by Don Jefe

Re: Hoodie, sunnies and cheap tablet

All that's required is to be prepared for the exam. If you can't even do that then you'll be of no use to me, or anyone else who has those jobs things to give people.

Not that doing well in school, or even going, aren't required for you to be a valuable workplace contributor, but if you do choose the university route and then can't even prepare for your primary task you're pretty worthless, degree or no. It doesn't matter what you do, but whatever it is you've got to do it to the best of your abilities or don't do it at all.

Going to Harvard, or any of the upper echelon US schools, is not an indicator of intelligence, wisdom or capabilities. If you've got the financial means to go, they'll let you in.

That's not to say all the students are stupid kids with wealthy parents, but it's not to say a lot of them aren't either. Some of the most useless people I've ever met went to Harvard, Dartmouth, Stanford and Yale. They hand out degrees to all paying customers students just like most other non-technical US universities.

Re: FUD until you see a contract with Nvidia

No. Big supplier changes like this are almost never a price issue, it doesn't matter what industry you're in. This is how product customization, distribution, preferred roadmap access and other strategic deals are negotiated.

When you get into big business, in any industry, cost is near the bottom of the list in negotiations with major vendors. There are far more valuable things to be discussed than price. Price is something that can be moved fairly easily. Getting your vendor to make a custom product for you for example, and not share it with anyone else, now that is a a big deal that is far, far more valuable than a discount.

We won't know what the ask is for a few weeks, but it won't be pricing.

Re: Pat Gelsinger

What it means is summed up nicely in the last paragraph of the article and why the news came down through Bloomberg. Google is about to ask Intel for something big.

It won't be a straight cost issue either. It'll be some feature Google wants but Intel isn't providing. Changing your vendor of a core business product is a big, big deal in any industry and when the change is between two major powerhouses in an industry the news doesn't just appear. It'll have been industry knowledge for a long time and ARM specialists would have been being headhunted for long while.

This is nothing more than old school leveraged negotiation, it's been going on since Lloyd's invented the practice. The idea is that analysts will start talking about all the implications with the goal being to make major Intel shareholders lean on management to keep Google as a customer. Keeping a customer may or may not be worth it, only Intel can decide that. Sometimes your biggest customers simply aren't worth dealing with... We'll know in a month or so what Google is wanting.

As a rule, anytime a financial news outlet is breaking news about a significant shift in anything that isn't a financial product or service then what you're dealing with is marketing, plain and simple.

Re: The cart's gotten ahead of the nag here

As far as I'm concerned any spy, assassin or high level politician who doesn't drink, too much, is a serious psychopath and should be disqualified from holding the job.

If someone is sacrificing themselves for what they perceive as the greater good, but those decisions make them so sick with grief and remorse that they attempt to dilute that with booze that makes them a normal Human. When they're all clear eyed and driven and have no debilitating psychological side effects that makes them a dangerous lunatic.

As little as I like Obama, or even Bush MkII, I have greater respect for them because both are famously worried about their impacts on others. The emotional baggage is a big part of why Bush was never at the White House and Obama drinks constantly. Cheney or Putin on the other hand are scary fuckers. Cheney only drinks socially (and not at all anymore as the child's heart he is currently using can't handle it) and Putin is a teetotaler, the decisions those guys make don't bother them at all, and that's really bad.

Re: Ugh

Verifying the intended meaning of a statement is an important thing in journalism. If you're OK with leaving something open to interpretation then you've crossed into 'news entertainment', where you're using the same shady tactics as politicians in order to elicit a response in your readership. You're deliberately leaving something open so that you can blame any misinterpretations on the reader.

I downvoted you because of your weak ass attempt at crenelating your statement with an attack on people who might disagree with you. Never play your hand that early or somebody will come along and derail any valid points you had with a sideshow about defensive commentary :)

But you're correct, it is up to the voting public to fix all this, but they probably won't. Here in the US we haven't had a chance to fix it yet. We're stuck with a system that no matter what you, legally, do, it would take a minimum of four years and two Presidents to replace everyone responsible and that's assuming a 100% turnover in government, that is highly unlikely.

It is also on the public to educate themselves about the risks that create insanely intrusive security environments. Even during the absolute worst of the IRA activities your chances of being harmed were extremely remote. Uneasy you were military or government security you were more likely to be killed by a falling shark. Here in the US we have so little terrorism that being harmed by a terrorist is less likely than Jesus showing up at the a White House for Christmas tequila shots.

The thing is though, we've dumbed down the public, given them this idea that living is basically risk free and any thing that can go wrong is preventable. We've removed any sense of individuality and self reliance to the point that school bullies are actually considered a threat you need law enforcement to deal with. Look back at the Snowden stories on this very site and read the comments wholly supporting even more aggressive surveillance of the populace. It's insanity! A huge portion of the worlds English speaking population is terrified of everything. They go to tears and therapy if they get yelled at by their boss.

Until we can restore a sense of self reliance and go back to teaching risk assessment and risk management as a core part of childhood education we're all doomed to be dragged down the the voting scared.

Also, I didn't downvote you. I was just making a point.

Re: Lesson:

Wouldn't that be nice. The problem is we've created such a climate of fear along with a couple generations of catastrophically stupid people, that if you are being private it's because you're hiding terrorists, paedos, illegal immigrants, etc... Everybody wants privacy, but they want everyone else to be wide open. It's all pretty stupid.

You're spot on about him having no defense. He really did screw himself with some of his public statements, but that's also how he'll ultimately get out of a lot of trouble. They'll say he was simply bigging himself up to increase his exposure and his level of protection. Nothing he's said is admissible in court anyway, he can position it anyway he wants.

But I disagree that he isn't a whistleblower. He really had no other option. Whistleblower laws and rules here in the States specifically exclude sensitive information as a valid whistleblowing topic. Any if it. Whistleblower laws also don't apply to contractors, they are explicitly excluded. Even if he had gone up the chain of command he would have been breaking the law as would his overseers had they told anyone else.

So he could either sit on the info or go public. Our laws simply don't allow people to report a lot if really bad things.

Re: First decision - Split the company

It isn't about hiding your 'poor divisions'.

By spreading expenses across many different departments/projects you are increasing the value of the revenue those departments/projects produce. Overall organization revenue and margins are increased, even of the department/project has less than stellar performance.

The revenue produced by that department/project is worth more than any expenses or losses it incurs. Even if those expenses/losses exceed the profits. In other words, you can lose a lot of money by breaking out high revenue departments/projects even if they lose money.

The idea, obviously, is to grow, but if you can maintain revenue levels then it is generally foolish to get rid of that revenue generator. Lost revenue is a far, far more expensive loss than lost profits.

Re: Most

To be fair, technology from the Germans was a prize of war. Losing your technology developments and expertise are some of the downsides of losing a war. That's the way it has always worked. Had things gone differently, Germans would claim leadership in radar, encryption, space exploration, aviation and vodka.

Re: My how far NASA has fallen :(

You're right. Everybody likes to think the world has moved on since WWII, but the fact of the matter is that most of what's been done since then is either a refinement of technology for the war efforts of various countries or stack on social effects. Everything from women in non-secretarial work roles to computer processors and the EU and UN to the Internet to the outsourcing of work is a direct effect of the War.

It would be nearly impossible for such a large scale Human war to happen in today's world though. What we need is an alien invasion. Angry, advanced aliens who want to kill us, not make friends. An enemy we can unify against and get back to effective warfare and technological developments.

Re: Ominous.

There's a pretty big gap between those who think they're Libertarians, and those who actually are. More than a few people have latched onto the name simply because it sets them apart from the more insane elements of the Republican Party. The little surge in those claiming a Libertarian philosophy is largely due to the GOP losing control of its members and its message, not increased interest in Libertarian ideals.

Re: Put up or shut up

Well, yes, the same can be said of Boeing or Lockheed. Space X was designed from the very beginning to be the space focused equivalent of Boeing or Lockheed. The people in Congress who aren't so thick as to hate science have wanted a non-NASA option for many years.

Go read the Space X proposals and vision documents, the government was the one out looking for a new space specialist and were the ones encouraging Musk and his pals to create a new private sector specialist in space travel and exploration. Thankfully it was Musk who decided to do this. Plenty of people wouldn't have taken it seriously and just have taken the easy money.

Re: Ominous.

Indeed, Libertarians are a different thing altogether. I'm not certain how valid all their ideas are, but they are at least not just the two sides of the same coin like the Democrats and Republicans. We're certain the ideas from those two parties are all pretty much invalid.

But corporate subsidies are a direct result of successful capitalism. Capitalism is a concept which revolves around the management of money so that it can be acquired in greater quantities than are necessary for a functional society. It has absolutely zero, nothing to do with free markets, it is 100% the opposite of a free market environment. Everything about capitalism is hostile to a free market(s).

A free market is one which is self regulated through the unleveraged distribution of 'money'. Its only goal is to be free. Full stop. That's it and the idea is DOA the second a government imposes the collection of taxes on its citizens. But that's beside the point.

The manipulation of public resources is the ultimate expression of capitalism. Individuals/companies have acquired enough resources to be able to force the government to distribute public funds in their favor with the aim of using those resources to acquire more resources. Dictating the distribution of public resources means you've won at capitalism. It is the only way it can work.

Capitalism has worked well for me, but that means by default, it didn't work out so well for others. But it is very important not to confuse capitalism and free markets. They cannot exist in the same time and place.

Re: Put up or shut up

It's not as simple as BO not having launched anything, it's all actually quite complicated.

Space X has, from day 1, been 100% dependent on the US government for resources, technical expertise and guaranteed funding (Señor Musk borrowed the money for this endeavor, you know that right?). Space X was built, from its initial proposals onward, to be the US go-to company. Basically NASA outsourced itself. The advantages are huge for Space X, but so are their commitments. They get privileged access to US resources and expertise, but everything they do is dictated by the government. All the back rubbing and Congressional ass kissing/work offsets, are still there and will always be there. That was in the design all along.

Space X was never intended to commercialize space. Ever. Space X was intended to commercialize NASA, which they're doing a damn fine job of.

Blue Origin on the other hand is in the same class as the Bigelow project. They're aiming to make space related 'stuff' a true commodity. As such they've got different goals and operations to deal with. Ultimately BO and possibly Bigelow, will likely be vendors to Space X/NASA but will also have opportunities that Space X will never be allowed to take part in because of their deep integration with the government.

It's two different roads being travelled with two different destinations in mind. Both are equally important and valid ways of going about simplifying space travel/exploration and, in reality aren't competitors. The competition for some resources will always be there, but each business is built, from the ground up, with different goals in mind, and that's as is should be.

No, but those actively seeking out TPB, and similar, have never been the targets for the legislation that forces them to move. The people who dedicate time and resources to those activities will always be doing it. It's the casual downloaders who go to those sites just because they're easy to find and use that the legislation targets.

The casual downloaders are also the ones who tend to have money and are willing to purchase something with it if it's too much (any) hassle to get it another way. The hardcore downloader that just download stuff for its own sake were never going to be customers anyway.