Posts by Don Jefe

It will certainly be interesting to see how Apple deals with the inevitable market and brand saturation. Historically they've always been a niche company (compared to other tech brand names) and they've entered an entirely different world of business when dealing with the broader consumer base. Your ability to ram things down people's throats declines in direct proportion to the size of the market you're serving.

Samsung has an advantage there as they're experienced players in the low margin, mass market game and have lots of other steady state sales lines to support them. Apple doesn't. They've got a huge pile of cash but unless they do something creative with it, fairly soon, they risk falling back into the pretentious niche category that still haunts them.

You can be boutique or you can be mass market, but you can't be both and that's what Apple is trying to do. I know which way I would go, but we'll see which direction they choose.

Re: Not convinced

Indeed they can't. But the Lizards seldom appear in public. They send their pet Humans into public so as not to be caught out.

Re: Change Agent

I don't think the past is gone at all. At least 99% of everything Man does is simply a refinement of previous methods: Everything is faster but the goals have remained the same.

Right now the lack of actual goals is driving all sorts of dumbassery. Conquest is over, known useful natural resources are already owned and Gods don't seem very interested in having everyone in their flock (or dead) any more. The only thing left is 'make money' but that isn't a goal, that's the end result of accomplishing goals.

Basically we're a bored civilization that is too narrow minded and risk averse to set new goals, we just keep doing the same things over and over. It leads to little tactical changes that do not mean anything in the main, just trundling along on the same endless road with slightly improved axle bearings.

Civilization as a whole is going to actually have to leave the past and expand its horizons beyond the petty, self-inflicted, problems of today. Unfortunately I don't think Man is ready to do that. They still believe money will somehow change things. It won't. We are living in a past that was defined for us over 2,000 years ago.

Re: After thought

It's kind of weird that when you commission a new building the plans include tables of salvageable materials and estimates of required recovery effort and debris disposal. The going thing right now is to design drainage and ingress/egress to the site so the pad can be kept and repurposed.

It gets really complicated, but the bank looks at those things when you're working out your credit lines and many times you can get greatly reduced interest rates by assigning salvage and post occupancy development rights to the bank and/or town. You've gone through this elaborate process to get your building designed and built and before the ground is broken you're looking at its planned demise. Kind of a letdown.

I'm not a big fan of overly specialized buildings. Traditionally they end up being massive liabilities for the town that gets stuck with a towering pile of unwanted shit and demolition costs. The last few years have seen that somewhat reduced through the post occupancy market, but it's still a big issue. California and the greater DC region are chock full of empty purpose built 'branded' buildings from the first .com and real-estate bubbles. They're too expensive to rent, too expensive to demolish so new buildings are built further out and the cycle repeats.

A drive through most US cities of any decent size is like an interactive timeline of economic prosperity and out toward the edge is where most of the money is being made today. Between there and the center of the city is all the crap we've left behind and filled with the poor and bodegas. It's stupid, sad and expensive.

Re: it would really be nice to hear

Things like this are kind of two part, but the primary component is a lack of strong management. The last couple generations of managers and execs are simply afraid to take risks based on observation, they want metrics. Humans just can't be measured like that and it would have been obvious to them had they ever had a life outside college and their first cube.

For example, you can't put a score on the less than stellar developer who is also the peacemaker between the leading egos in the group. You've got to have the guys who excel at their tasks, but you've also got to have the guys that keeps the wheels greased. You've got to have the guy who can put up with extra departmental stressors and make them go away without pissing anyone off. They might not be as good at their assigned role as some of their peers, but they are just as valuable.

Without those people in the group squabbles and problems get escalated beyond the point where a reasonable response can be expected. For example, I have zero time or interest in your problems with Bob in the Corner. If there's nobody to mollify Bob and the other person I'll just fire one of them and hire somebody else. Nobody is irreplaceable and I would rather have reduced output than be stroking egos all day.

Behind every exceptional employee or group are the people who nobody knows their names, but are actually making everything work. Too many modern managers lack the ability to identify those people and to take a chance on them. That's just dumb.

Re: *Headlines to which the answer is no.

Headlines with questions are nearly always going to be filled with that outlets editorial slant/biases. It's that way regardless of the outlet. I'm not sure when that became the norm (it is really, really moving into tabloid territory) but it has been that way for at least a few decades. I guess it is a way to let authors be creative, but it certainly doesn't add any value.

Yes. Change would happen for sure. Instead of getting a douche like Tony Blair or Bush MkII that you can complain about and get rid of you'd get a douche like Tony Blair or Bush MkII that will have you disappeared for complaining and who you can't get rid of without a big civil war.

I'm not sure you've examined the historical evidence or considered your plan from all angles. You might want to consider doing that before you execute your glorious strategy...

Re: You missed the step

I have no real preference either way, but the Apple model is superior financially. Less work, more money...

Re: lol

The EULA is in force and accepted by you when you boot the device the first time, not when you purchase the device/software. You know all those dialogue boxes where you click 'OK' and 'Accept' before you get to start setting up a new device? That's you accepting the EULA.

Re: Anti competitive?

One of the few parts of the USPS that works mostly right is their partner logistics programs. If you're willing to absorb the costs of compliance with their automated systems and develop your own software for their well documented API's they're willing to work with you. Amazon may be riding big on the Sunday thing but there are thousands of businesses who get 'special' treatment from USPS.

It's sad funny, but an agency best known for being inflexible and displaying a special kind of institutionalized dumbassery has the most flexible partner programs. The USPS really wants to help and they have great programs to provide that help. They're just buried under 4,377 regulations and are difficult to find because they all use meaningless USPS jargon to define themselves. It's unfortunate.

They've got envelope designers and packaging engineers and sourcing connections and its all free. You just have to find it and be willing to deal with their insane internal machinations.

Re: Systemic problem

For many, many years IBM was granted the greatest number of patents each year in the US. Many times over what the second largest grantees. They make quite a bit of money on the licensing side, it's an important segment for them.

But you won't see scholarly journals all going open anytime soon. The entire world of scientific research and publishing is centered around keeping journals pay only.

Having your work published in a subscription journal radically increases its 'impact factor' whereas an open journal has a neutral or negative effect on the impact factor. Most research programs have a minimum 'impact factor threshold' that must be met before they can cite a paper and if a paper isn't cited enough then it quickly joins the ranks of 'stale research' that can't be cited because it is too old. In most, non-mathematical, disciplines publishing in an open journal is a desperate act that is usually only taken when paid journals rejected the paper. Everybody likes the current setup, don't hold your breath waiting for change in that department.

Re: It should be Snowden's head @ Mr. Damage

'What war'?

That'll be how the last 13 years will be recorded in history books and talked up by the politicians of that time: 'Look for yourself, there was nothing important going on back then. There were wars on 'stuff' but that was just hyperbole, we weren't really at war. The invasion of 'x' I'm currently talking up is nothing like the nothing what was happening then'.

The shitty part is that far too many people will buy into that crap. Nothing ever really changes.

Re: Conflict of Interest anyone?

It is entirely appropriate for a board member to trade shares of their companies. In fact trading in shares of their companies is how most board members are compensated for their role. The company usually provides annual travel and incidentals funds to the board but any real money is made in dabbling in company shares.

There are regulations about it all (although you have to get caught). You can't short your own companies, you can't provide non-board people with confidential information about your companies and you may be limited in the total amount of shares you hold at any given time. The last one is variable with the company and the industry and more than anything is a lawsuit prevention mechanism that prevents a single member from having too much power in the company.

Re: Unfair Comparison

Madonna has a recent film? Perhaps you are trapped in some sort of temporal anomaly and time seems to be passing extremely slowly for you. What you believe to be 1991 is in fact 2013. You're obviously fairly savvy as you have figured out how to publish a comment to what we will call the 'World Wide Web' but if I were you I would be examining the stock market. Don't buy Tyco or Enron or real-estate in Iraq, it all ends in tears.

Re: Let's join in!!

Tests of serious things, from computer systems to armadas and nuclear weapons have always been really difficult to manage things. The results won't really reflect those of a true attack as there is forewarning, but if you don't announce it there could be serious repercussions. Panicking the panicky bastards in the finance world with an unannounced test could cause billions in losses and panicking the Captain of a destroyer could start a war.

There are papers out there regarding testing and attack simulations, they get way into game theory and measuring secondary effects to extrapolate possible primary effects. They're boring as shit. At the end of the day there's general agreement that gathering some data is better than no data or causing a panic. It might very well be that a problem in an assumed effective process is identified and can be fixed.

Re: @MJI

The 3-Axis machines are fun to watch for sure! We have two room size machines with independent tooling turrets and watching them go is kind of creepy. Even though I know that everything it is doing is programmed step-by-step, it almost looks alive. The tool turret has to stay out of the way of the machine head but also be as close as possible to speed up processing so it is flying around on its own arm and 'anticipating' where it needs to be next. It is really fast and fluid and constantly looks on the edge of disaster, but it just goes.

I think the neatest part of being on the floor is how quiet it is when things are working well. The people are concentrating on their tasks and the machines are humming away in their enclosures. It's kind of surreal. It looks like it should be deafeningly loud, but it isn't.

Re: Kneel

The plane is a King Air 350iER that we own outright. It has been modified with a larger cargo door, a cargo lift and expanded cargo area (we sacrificed three seats for the modifications). The cabin is nicer than it has to be, but occasionally we do have to impress and it is just a nice option on top of a plane we had to have anyway, no reason not to make the tool enjoyable :)

It is definitely poor management to use the plane if we aren't delivering parts and engineers or picking something/somebody up. The actual operating cost for our little plane is about $2700hr with two pilots and a booze wench (she's for the engineers on their way back from a successful job). That's a lot of money, I don't care how rich you are. When we use the plane it is for show stopping emergencies that the client needs solved now, and expense really isn't the issue.

However, if I found out the salesmen who call on us or the lawyers were flying around in private planes I would be furious. The costs of those flights are going to be directly reflected on the customers (me) bill and honestly, I'm not concerned with your comfort, I'm certainly not several thousand dollars an hour concerned... I can't help but think it would be the same if the roles were reversed.