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Good point. This is an example of a common problem of understanding management. Who is responsible for Apple's success? What part of Apple's success is due to Tim Cook being CEO?

An extremely important contribution of Steve Jobs was making sure nothing flawed was released. The iPhone 4 was released with antenna problems on June 24, 2010. It was a mistake someone with experience with radio frequency transmission would easily have understood. Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011, and was not managing long before that. Tim Cook officially became CEO of Apple on August 24, 2011.

Since then, management of Apple has apparently become far more sloppy, For example: iPhone X Is Everything Wrong With Tim Cook's Apple

Here are problems mentioned in that article:

1) Announced before being ready.

2) "Stop and ask what real world problems the iPhone X answers. There are a lot of cute answers but on a practical sense the iPhone X offers very little on top of the iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus, which in turn are only incremental bumps over last year's models."

3) Product confusion: "Now it takes a ridiculous amount of research and comparison to find the iPhone that may suit your needs, and there is not a single device that offers all of features in a single package - every iPhone has some form of limitation and restriction designed into it."

To me, that looks like poor overall management. There is sloppiness that didn't exist when Steve Jobs was in control. Steve Jobs was far from perfect; he had wacky ideas about health care, for example: Steve Jobs 'regretted trying to beat cancer with alternative medicine for so long'.

Jobs was known for delivering an excellent customer experience. That's what made Apple different from competitors.

This settlement is 45 minutes outside of Phoenix, a city of population 1.6 million. And growing. Rapidly. All the critics here who are chorussing "oh, Gates is so stupid, he doesn't know that Arizona is uninhabitable" are silly: we already know it's possible because 1.6 million people already live there.

At one point Detroit had 1.6 million people. That’s not a selling point.

This settlement is 45 minutes outside of Phoenix, a city of population 1.6 million. And growing. Rapidly. All the critics here who are chorussing "oh, Gates is so stupid, he doesn't know that Arizona is uninhabitable" are silly: we already know it's possible because 1.6 million people already live there.

He merely needs to make a suburb that's somewhat more attractive than the other suburbs currently being built. And he can sell this to, not new people who had never thought of moving to Arizona, but some of the 81,000 people moving to the Phoenix area every year.

From https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

"In England, there were 163 wind turbine accidents that killed 14 people in 2011. Wind produced about 15 billion kWhrs that year, so using a capacity factor of 25%, that translates to about 1,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced (the world produces 15 trillion kWhrs per year from all sources)."

and

"We in the United States actually care more about this kind of thing than most other countries, so our numbers are the lowest in the world. The global averages in energy-related deaths are significantly higher than in America, with coal at 100,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs (China is the worst), natural gas at 4,000 deaths, biomass at 24,000, solar at 440, and wind at 150. Using the worst-case scenarios from Chernobyl and Fukushima brings nuclear up to a whopping 90 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced, still the lowest of any energy source."

Here's some stuff discussing Target's ability to identify customers who are expecting. This is, apparently, big business.

"...A new study, published in Geophysical Research Letters and undertaken by the University of Florida analyzed tidal and climate data for the southeastern seaboard of the United States. They found that between the years 2011 and 2015 sea level rose more than six times faster in the southeast United States as compared to global average sea level rise...... Sea level rise in south Florida has accelerated over the past 10 years, studies show. A 2016 University of Miami study found that the average rate of sea level rise was about 3 millimeters a year before 2006, and then rose to 9 millimeters a year on average after 2006......" https://www.forbes.com/sites/t...

This is a long post that I typed in somewhat of a rush, so I've probably made a few grammatical and factual errors, and missed a few things that didn't support my argument enough, but the overall message should hold up well. If you read nothing else in this, at least read the last few paragraphs.

You obviously haven't looked at that site beyond the colors you see when you land on the home page have you? If you drill down the specific figures you'll see that there are actually large differences between the US and Scandinavian countries; Scandinavian countries have higher tax, higher government spending, better fiscal health and lower "labor freedom".

Take another look at those figures. The tax burden in three of those countries is similar to the US, with Finland scoring higher. But that's a moot point. Remember, you're trying to argue that the US is more laissez-faire than them, so I need you to try thinking from a more nuanced perspective: Property rights, and everything from business freedom to everything to the right of that are what matter in this regard, and if you pay attention, they're all on par with the US.

Or better yet, select all four Nordic countries to see their averages, and then compare them to the US. Not a massive difference. Anyways, this is splitting hairs at this point, your original assertion that these problems are caused by laissez-faire capitalism is incredibly stupid given we have no such thing here.

Not in the US no, but given what large companies over there are able to get away with compared to most other western countries there's clearly a lack of oversight.

Actually this is rapidly changing. In fact, China just started a big crackdown:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/t...

So in terms of *buying*, using a certain methodology shows house affordability has been stable since the 90s (well after the policies I'm criticizing had been enacted). On the other hand rent has increased dramatically, especially for those in the lower 3rd of incomes [pewtrusts.org]. And no, wages haven't grown [pewtrusts.org] to fill that gap [pewtrusts.org].

Rents are an interesting case right now because we've seen a culture shift recently where people prefer to rent so that they can move easier if they find a new job somewhere else. But this is a good effect to have, because it shows that people are more easily able to find higher paying jobs: Since the people who do this tend to have higher incomes, we've been seeing a lot of people pay higher rents than they do for mortgages. This may or may not be a long-term trend (it only happened recently, and most probably will die down during the next recession, but nobody has a magic ball, least of all me) but it has nothing to do with the problems associated with low income neighborhoods where rents mostly aren't impacted by this.

Speak of which, these policies you mentioned, just how laissez-faire are they?

With regard to that last chart you linked, it doesn't support your claim that well. Food has gone up 2 points since 96, and housing has gone up 4 points, but the rest don't appear to be significantly significant. 2 points is barely worth mention, 4 points is worth mention, but it's not exactly having a big impact.

Lol, there's no magic money tree, that money is coming from somewhere.

No...We're talking about cultural problems in these low income areas. Health care costs and health care spending make quite a difference here from the perspective of the consumer. For example, somebody on medicaid (which is common for this demographic) most likely isn't going to notice any difference if health care costs go up, especially for medicaid plans that don't ask for premiums, copays, or deductibles (my state, Arizona, does this.) The same is tr

Because Samsung actually makes their own products, and Apple GIVES AWAY every last bit of their research because they can't make their own.

I'm sorry but I did miss the Great Apple Giveaway that they had at Apple HQ last week where every one of their competitors go to take all the research they could carry. Basically none part of what you said is true because the secretive Apple I know isn't above suing people to prevent their research from getting out. I seem to recall them firing an engineer recently because daughter posted a video taken at Apple HQ of an iPhone X prototype. That's the secretive Apple I know.

Also, are you sure Samsung makes all of their own products? You mean for years they didn't say buy processors from Qualcomm, displays from LG, memory from Toshiba, etc.

Outsourcing manufacturing fails every, single, time. You give away your technology, teach others to make it, and then get yourself toasted as they figure out how to make it better, cheaper, faster, or just copy it so they don't have to pay for an R&D budget

Yes because Samsung has never outsourced a single product or component to another country or company, ever. Oh wait, they have. You can open any Samsung product and see this.

Oh that idiot clickbait propaganda fantasy again.

Declaring Jihad for the company whose founder bent over backwards to sell-out in Federal Court and claim that Microsoft was NOT a monopoly: https://www.forbes.com/2002/04...

You can always just never configure the "smart" features, never connect the TV to the Internet at all if you don't want to use the "smart" features. Current TVs all can function as a regular display just fine, even those super-spy Vizio TVs that had software to software in the read pixel data from a segment of the screen could be used offline.

If you want to worry about targeted advertising injection, look at your local cable provider and their set-top box. That's a much more likely source of leakage about your viewing habits and a place for ad injection/substitution without you noticing.

the only real electric vehicle producer is Tesla.

Except for, ya know, the 95% of the world outside America.

China is the world's biggest market for electric cars, and Tesla has few sales there.

Even in America, Tesla has less than half the market:
Tesla Model S: 29%
Tesla Model X: 16%
Chevy Bolt: 16%
Nissan Leaf: 15%
All others are in single digits.

It was blatantly obvious what technology you were stumping for with your lies.

Where is my "lie" in my statement of the question? Do you not agree that coal is the dominant energy source we use now and therefore any alternative should be "better" on every measure to compete? Would you not agree that along with being cheaper, "greener", and as (or more) reliable that safety should be considered? I mean beating coal on every measure is a pretty low bar, really, safety especially.

BTW, I didn't mean to give the same link twice on the "deathprint" citation. The second one was supposed to be from Forbes.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

Once we clear the coal bar, then what's next? Wind and solar are being brought up all the time as replacements. Would it not be wise to take a look and make sure that they are wise choices before jumping in with both feet? Most everyone will consider price, CO2 output, and reliability when evaluating energy but few will count the death toll of using these energy sources. If all else is equal then why would we not choose the safest energy? Even if the lives saved is a very small fraction that is something I'd think should come into play, perhaps even if there is a small cost in the other metrics. After all I thought the goal here was to save lives.

If the question is about what to do about the impending collapse of the environment, where everyone dies, and the solution does not include nuclear power then I have to question the sanity of the people that dismiss nuclear power so quickly. If they fear nuclear power more than the extinction of humanity then they have a seriously skewed set of priorities, or are so ignorant of the safety record of nuclear power that they believe widespread use of nuclear power will lead to an extinction level event.

If we are going to discuss "lies" then I'd like to point out the lies of solar being "green". While it is certainly better than coal an honest analysis will often show it's not all that better than natural gas. If used with care and advanced technology I can expect to see natural gas beat out solar in many ways, especially in less than sunny locations like where I live. Solar when compared to wind and hydro just loses miserably in most every case. Sure, solar works great out in space but here on planet Earth solar is not all it's claimed to be. Solar even loses out in most cases to biomass, geothermal, and again natural gas. Solar should not be the first pick, or second, or even third, but the last.

Citation provided.
Annual Chinese suicide rate in the general population is 220 per million people. At Foxconn, the highest year by far was 14 people, out of just under a million workers.

As a rational person I'm sure now you will change your opinion... hahaha who am I kidding. Like most humans you'll still continue to believe what you want to be true. You'll even find some way to spin those stats.

I am *not* dead wrong. Russia has a terrible position. They're no Soviet Union. They're surrounded, where are they going to go?

Uhh, Crimea, for a start? They have Syria, too.

The US won't allow anything to happen to its captive vassal states in Europe.

I think the people of Ukraine would disagree with you on that.

The European Union is already strong enough to defend against Russia

So far, they've been strong enough to impose some sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine and the taking of Crimea. But it's kinda over... nobody believes Russia is going to just pack up and leave. Re-draw the maps: Crimea is now part of the Russian Federation.

Don't fall for the old "blame the dirty foreigners" line, it's the oldest trick in the book.

Unless the dirty foreigners are actually playing dirty. They play dirty in Ukraine, they play dirty in Syria. They play dirty on the high seas. They have vast oil wealth, hold real estate interests worldwide, and maintain the largest nuclear stockpile in the world, which Putin said (over dinner) could destroy America in a half-hour or less.

And then there's that whole internet hacking thing. If the shoe fits, wear it.

The US military has put all of its eggs into one basket. The military needs new planes and the only available new plane is the F-35. Therefore, there is only one reasonable course of action: deal with it. If the repair facilities are not up to snuff, then spend the money and do what needs to be done. There is no Plan B (or "Plane B" since we are talking about planes here).

I read both articles.

The first article makes the case that "concurrency" has been a disaster. "Concurrency" is the idea that the new plane was delivered in generations. The first F-35 planes delivered are much less capable than the final generation (the "Block 3F" plane, which is scheduled for release now, over a decade after the first F-35 flew). The first article's main outrage is that several hundred early-gen F-35 planes may never be upgraded to Block 3F; the military is seriously considering leaving them unfit for any other use than as trainers, and using the money thus freed up to just buy more newer-gen F35s.

I am not an expert on military stuff or on government procurement, so please take my opinions with a grain of salt. That said: I am not convinced that "concurrency" has been a disaster. The F-35 is truly a quantum leap in the state of the art of military aircraft; its "sensor fusion" features are dramatically more advanced than the F-22. We are just now getting the Block 3F features. Would we really have been better served by the plane remaining vaporware until 2017? Didn't the early flight hours with the F-35 give us useful information? Is there no value to having pilots training on the real aircraft? Hasn't it been useful to fly the F-35 in training exercises to see how well it actually does? I am not competent to put a price tag estimate on how much value there is in all of the above. But I did find a recent article from Forbes where someone makes the case that "concurrency" has been a net win for the F-35 program, so please read this and decide whether you buy his arguments:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2017/09/29/how-concurrency-in-building-the-f-35-fighter-has-proven-to-be-a-big-plus/#7cd2b7bc7147

By the way, I would not be in favor of a new fighter jet program being run the same way as the F-35 program was run... I think that now that the F-35 has (with great pain) demonstrated the quantum leap in fighter performance, a follow-on program should be able to be run as more of an incremental development, with less risk and drama.

The second article is about how several branches of the military are behind schedule on building maintenance facilities for the F-35, and how that is impacting readiness numbers. As I said above, my only comment on this: we have no choice but the F-35, so we just need to spend the money and fix the problem.

Also, one thing to keep in mind about the F-35: because of its unique combination of stealth, sensors, and flight range, it can do missions with fewer aircraft than 3rd-generation fighters:

One scenario called for a four-ship of F-35Bs to launch from an amphibious assault ship into a "double-digit" (examples might include S-300 or Buk-M1) surface-to-air missile and high-end fighter threat environment to hit a strategic target. While such a mission might be "marginally successful"--at best--when flown by a dozen or more aircraft like the Hornet, the four F-35Bs completed the scenario with near impunity. "It was like watching a pack of dogs going after something," Davis said.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/f-35b-stealth-fighter-how-the-us-marine-corps-could-dominate-17198

So even if it turns

Actually, the real explanation behind this anecdote might be even worse, reaching Orwellian proportions, where the government of Big Brother was even able to know the intimates dreams and nightmares of this citizens.

Constantly listening wouldn't be very efficient :
You'd need a phone that never goes into deep-sleep power saving, constantly processing sound, and probably constantly streaming the audio to the motherbase for analysis. I.e.: you'd be constantly consumer 24/7 the same level of resources as during a phone call.
That's going to be very taxing on the battery life of the smartphone.

Instead it's much more probable that Facebook only collect occasional small cue (phone use, location, who else is on the same network but also pages browsed in any browser - due to their "Like button" javacsript code - etc. tons of small details about you). By collecting all these details, Facebook is able to actually predict (a bit) what you're thinking. Facebook had so much data about your friend that they more or less managed to predict he was going to be interested into meat grinders (or general meat-related products, and grinders happened to be what they had avilable as ads at the moment).

Remember that anecdote about target accidentally predicting a teen pregnancy ? And that was at a time when statistics where the dominant form of analysis.
Nowadays Facebook and co have moved to deep neural nets and similar. They could make sense and see pattern out of tons of seemingly garbage data.
Suddenly interests for meat grinder could have become predictible (At least in this case).

A person has to wonder if a Slashdot faction commenting on this story has an "agenda."

My only agenda is to hope that Tesla succeeds, because I like the advances they have made in the state of the art. (For example, Tesla "SuperCharger" is a better charging technology than anything else available.) I don't want to see them hurting their employees, but I don't really think they need to hurt their employees to succeed.

Everyone agrees that Tesla's production process had problems and needed to improve. Tesla claims they have improved.

Here's an article about that:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidmarquet/2017/06/04/elon-musk-safety-autopilot/#5d8a4b9a7a88

According to Tesla's official blog post, they went from having a worse-than-average safety record in their factory, to having a better-than-average record. I haven't heard anything about it getting worse again, and I'm pretty sure that would be widely reported news if it happened.

Also, one of their improvements was adding a third shift, so that work would happen 24 hours a day. This greatly reduced overtime, and was welcomed by the line workers. From the blog post: "Last year, we added a third shift to reduce the overtime burden on each team member and to improve safety. We did this because our employees asked for it, and because it was the right thing to do."

Parts were stacked high in contradiction of Lean Manufacturing dogma, and in contrast with the Maryville, Ohio Honda plant he had observed, the Tesla shop floor activity was frenetic. The Honda plant, by contrast, had its assembly line running so smoothly that the workers did not appear to be breaking a sweat.

Honda has been making cars since 1963 (and motorcycles before then). They have had just a bit more time to fine-tune their operations.

Tesla has spent big money on overhauling their production process. They are planning to crank out a very large number of Model 3 cars per year, and they can't do that with a labor-intensive process. Tesla says that the Model 3 has been designed to be easy to manufacture, using lessons learned while manufacturing their other cars.

Recently Tesla shared a video of the robots making Model 3 cars: http://bgr.com/2017/10/09/tesla-model-3-elon-musk-video-production-line/

There are over a half-million Model 3 cars on pre-order. If Tesla can sort out their production line and get those cars delivered in a timely fashion, they will be heroes. If not, they will be in huge trouble and possibly will go bankrupt.

The Tesla Model S is an incredible automobile, they tell me

It really is.

and maybe the problem with it is that it is incredible that Tesla is able to sell an automobile of that sophistication for the price they charge without it all being smoke-and-mirrors of burning out its workers and fleecing its investors to contribute the labor and money to in effect give away what are effectively hand-built quarter million-dollar cars?

From what I have read, a Model S costs Tesla about $30K to make, so no, they are not giving away effectively hand-built cars, they are making a solid profit on each car sold.

The stories of 70-hour work weeks of relentless pressure are just sour grapes from slackers who deserved to be cut loose?

Tesla says that since they added the third shift (sometime in 2016) that the average number of hours worked per week is 42. Do you have newer data that contradicts this?

here are just some "bottlenecks" to be worked out? While their "body" line tooling is still being put together in some undisclosed location in Southeast Michigan?

I had no idea what you were talking about here. Google found this for me:

Over any period, the number of Linux kernel flaws will absolutely dwarf the number of flaws patched in the OpenBSD kernel.

There are consequences when choosing popularity over correctness.

Except disel emissions regulations haven't been enforced due to massive organized deception at BMW and others. The standards have no relationship to actual production functioning, and there has been little push-back except to ban diesel all together in urban areas, while letting those responsible carry on their merry ways.

How about you link to an article that doesn't use five year old data?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...
http://notrickszone.com/2017/1...
https://www.cleanenergywire.or...

The majority of CO2 reductions from Germany in the past 25 years has been from shutting down old Soviet designed power plants that Germany inherited from reunification. If there are any of these inefficient power plants left then any future shutdowns will have diminishing returns on CO2 reductions. A large part of their current zero emission electricity is from currently operating nuclear power. Shutting them down will only increase their CO2 output since nothing has a lower CO2 footprint than nuclear. Wind and hydroelectric have marginally lower CO2 output if good spots are found. Germany ran out of rivers to dam long ago, and their optimal wind locations will only last so long before their CO2 output exceeds nuclear.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/u...

I know the link I provided is from a nuclear power advocacy site, they only compiled data from other sources and funded no studies themselves.

Nicotine is addictive.

... but not particulary harmful. Nicotine addicts are way better off vaping than smoking.

Nicotine addicts are much better off not using nicotine and if they vape to get there that is fine, but many are just permanently swapping which is not ideal.

I would not rely on an op-ed from Forbes. The effects and risks of nicotine, especially to the cardiovascular system are well known. The nicotine patch for Alzheimer's in that op-ed has been in and out of the news since 1999, but so far nothing has come of it.

Nicotine is addictive.

... but not particulary harmful. Nicotine addicts are way better off vaping than smoking.

From TFS:

"Teens who vape e-cigarettes with higher nicotine levels are more likely to start smoking conventional cigarettes soon after...43 percent of the students who'd used high-nicotine e-cigarettes said they were "frequent smokers" of traditional cigarettes six months later...

Seems you missed the main point being driven here.

Over 450,000 deaths per year in America and 7 million worldwide. Cigarettes are probably the most addictive product man has ever created. It continues to reign as the #1 cause of preventable death, and yet it is a legal product.

By comparison, anything else on the entire fucking planet is "not particularly harmful". And I think it's pretty clear that e-cigarettes aren't really doing a damn thing to prevent or deter the traditional product.

Nicotine is addictive.

... but not particulary harmful. Nicotine addicts are way better off vaping than smoking.

If any of you knew how to read a 10K and actually looked into Tesla's finances, you'd realize that given their latest junk bond offering and negative cash flow, they are incapable of ever making a profit. It's losses all the way folks, until the inevitable reorg.

And yet, their stock trades at $345.10 a share, and their market cap is $57.59 billion.

Another company that doesn't make a profit: Amazon. Shorting them too? Good luck with that.

Now we know Elon Musk is against us!

Only a SITH deals in absolutes.
With us, against us, whatever. If Musk doesn't get dirty with the Chinese, someone else will, bigger and stronger like General Motors - China is the fastest growing market on Earth, get used to it. It's like if Boeing doesn't sell them airplanes, Airbus will. And if the U.S. pulls out of Korea and Japan because someone says they don't pay us enough for it, the Chinese will happily take our place. That's the planet we live on.
Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Your enemies always get strong on what you leave behind.

The police were called to the house by Jaffer's father, Wagstaffe said. When officers arrived at the house, they found Jaffer engaged in the illegal contact with the minors

Dude's father turned his ass in and the police walked in and saw him molesting his kids. This is an incredibly bad choice of examples to use in arguing for presumption of innocence.

The CEO of a mobile ad startup has been arrested and charged with sexually abusing his three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter and three other felonies.

Source.

I agree with most of what you said except that US poverty is not growing. That is a "left myth". The poverty rate is just about the same as it has been since 1965.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/t...

I'm a leftist, dumbass. The DNC organization can go die in a fire. They're right wing hacks like yourself - and I hear they have a position open for an IT worker. You have so much in common!

Speaking of which.....has anyone else noticed there hasn't been a SINGLE article on Slashdot about Imran Awan and his shenanigans as a Congressional IT staffer for some major Democrats? Is it just political bias amongst the /. editorial staff? BeauHD bends over backwards to bring us every negative thing about Trump while skipping over this equally-interesting (from the perspective of IT practices, opsec, and crime) story affecting the opposite party.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/f...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/f...

I'm a leftist, dumbass. The DNC organization can go die in a fire. They're right wing hacks like yourself - and I hear they have a position open for an IT worker. You have so much in common!

Speaking of which.....has anyone else noticed there hasn't been a SINGLE article on Slashdot about Imran Awan and his shenanigans as a Congressional IT staffer for some major Democrats? Is it just political bias amongst the /. editorial staff? BeauHD bends over backwards to bring us every negative thing about Trump while skipping over this equally-interesting (from the perspective of IT practices, opsec, and crime) story affecting the opposite party.

https://www.washingtonpost.com...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/f...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/f...

After all, a complicated set of libraries is all computer languages become. And with the extent and diversity of functions and myriad of libraries needed to create programs in the future, the task will become far better suited to computer memory than humans. Better to bore a computer to death with billions of lines of code than ruin a students brain with the rote learning of millions of interrelated library functions.

Subsidies don't "encourage new technologies".

The ones you're talking about do, hence them being subsidies for new technologies.

If renewables "just die out" without subsidies, they are not competitive.

It isn't a competition so your point, false though it is, is irrelevant.

There shouldn't be any subsidies for any energy technologies.

Argument without reasoning, invalid.

There is little pollution from fossil fuels these days.

Except for all the actual pollution and it is costly.

You know, when you lie, you hurt yourself. But you also hurt the rest of us. You should pay for that injury.

And the danger of producing it is accounted for in its cost structure. So, not an argument.

Actually, it isn't. That's the point. Your assertion is invalid.

Microsoft's history is filled with abuse:

One fact about Microsoft under Satya Nadella gives a useful overall view. Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." Nadella has been CEO of Microsoft since 2014.

The management of Microsoft by Satya Nadella seems, to me and many others, UTTERLY incompetent: CNET Editor Rails Against Non-Consensual Windows Updates.

Possibly Satya Nadella was chosen as CEO of Microsoft partly because he was the least socially annoying manager.

Microsoft has a long history of being abusive to everyone, not just customers. Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book.

Ballmer was worse?

Satya Nadella is apparently not as destructive as Steve Ballmer. Ballmer was rated the worst CEO in the United States.

Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today." Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)

Bill Gates still manages Microsoft:

See the Jan. 27, 2017 Charlie Rose TV interview, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Quoting from the transcript:

08:40 Charlie Rose: How much time do you spend at Microsoft?

08:42 Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part.

Part of "R and D" at Microsoft is Windows 10 putting ads on screens while people are in their offices trying to work. The Microsoft managers who participated in that are amazingly lacking in social ability, in my opinion.

Microsoft's primary location, Seattle, is a miserable place:

Traffic: Seattle one of the worst U.S. cities for traffic congestion, tied with NYC (March 31, 2015) Quote: "An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic may not sound like much, but when it adds up over a year it becomes 89 hours." (Whoever wrote that must be accustomed to Seattle misery. An additional 23 minutes a day spent in traffic sounds HORRIBLE.)

Slow internet: Many areas of Seattle have poor internet connections. See the article, These places have the slowest Internet in the country. (June 25, 2015) Quote: "... Seattle ... CenturyLink (CTL) customers trying to access particular sites from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. will have unbearably slow speeds."

Google is also badly managed.

To me, the management of Google seems less and less competent. Wikipedia says Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google was given that position in October 24, 2015. The reorganization of Google into Alphabet was completed on October 2,

Has any American taxpayer thought about how much that bailout cost the average taxpayer,

Apparently about $75 (straight average, ignoring tax brackets).

http://www.politifact.com/trut...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

Sorry bro. Your kumbaya fantasy world isn't viable. Daily we're presented with undeniable evidence of the contempt and disdain the powers the be and all their left wing sycophants have nurtured in their hate filled hearts.

Oh noes!

Like this guy?.

Or perhaps?

Or maybe?

Or him?

Or maybe him??

I got a sense here that you don't realize what's really going on in this country is nothing new or surprising, but at least you could be honest about it being bipartisan.

Left wing shitheels coming at us one way or another Every. Single. Day.

So no, if we hadn't already picked a side we're left with no choice but to get on one;

Why? Because you're too sensitive to handle the fact that there are uncouth and vicious people in this world? Or because you're such a hypocrite you can't deal with your own?

some sort of extreme event

When it's daily it's not extreme.

You know, your glass house is very messy. Everybody can see the dirty clothes inside.

Your self-righteous advice is the sort of thing that one never sees offered to, for instance, BLM types. You accept every tenet of their accusations and every grievance they claim in silence, and you know it.

That's been happening for 50-60 years. Just ask Al Sharpton. The problem is, you deny every single grievance, refuse to recognize any validity to their accusations, and you know it.

There's a reason why you freak out over EVERY protest.

But too bad for you, you done made the stank yourself.

Tesla's batteries cost about $200 per kWh capacity

https://www.forbes.com/sites/p...

You are off by a factor of 2 to 3. The powerwall costs somewhere between $500 and $700 per KWH (I believe the 14 KWH powerwall retails for around $7000 -- the article is from last year) and competitors are clustered in the $500/KWH range. "No name" (to speak of) batteries from China are cheaper still, but not a LOT cheaper. Otherwise, you are correct that if the cost per KWH was $200 (ideally with a lot more than 1000 full cycles!) you are getting to where solarizing a house for full off-grid operation can be smoothly amortized and make you money over the lifetime of the hardware.

A lot depends on how the battery packs are designed -- in particular if they are designed for the actual power cells themselves to be replaced on a modular basis while preserving the inverter, the installation costs, the other electronics and chassis. If one can (at the end of 3, 5, or 10 years -- whatever one determines a "useful life" to be) just pop out the actual cells and trade them in for discounted new cells based on then current technology, one isn't really looking at a $700/KWH re-investment but rather more likely a $100/KWH or less re-investment, one that is likely to last twice as long and hold half again as much power as energy density and charge cycles may well have improved in the meantime.

Modular battery packs, in the meantime, will likely require congress to get in on the act to set standards. Otherwise Tesla will probably pull and Apple and make their battery packs non-serviceable so that they screw money out of the consumer at every turn, or arrange it so that only replacement cells from Tesla will work in their boxes. Ideally, congress would define form factors that ensure cross-compatibility from many manufacturers of the actual cells so that no matter what "box" one buys with the inverters etc in it, one can plug in any one of half a dozen competing replacement cells and be guaranteed that they will "just work". In our real non-ideal world, of course, that will never happen as long as corporate america pays for the political campaigns of all elected officials from both parties, but one can dream...

Easy to miss the fact that this article only considers US manufacturers. The body of the article seems to suggest that GM and Telstra are the only horses in the race. Not only does that exclude a great deal of manufacturers in a highly global market, it happens to exclude the leader. In fact, Renault-Nissan sells more EVs and PHEVs overall, and they also sell the most popular EV.

What about the even bigger subsidies that fossil fuels get? Why don't you mention that? Unlike you, I can back up my posts with facts. You consider Forbes a neutral source? Here you go. https://www.forbes.com/sites/u...

The company has poured a quarter of a billion dollars into cybersecurity in the last three years and today boasts a 225 person team.

Spending $225 million over 3 years isn't really that much when you consider the type and amount of personal data Equifax has on us.

JP Morgan Chase spent $500 million in 2016 alone, Bank of America spent $400 million on cyber security in 2016 although they have an unlimited cyber security budget, Citibank's cyber security budget topped $400 million and Wells Fargo spends roughly $250 million per year.

The company has poured a quarter of a billion dollars into cybersecurity in the last three years and today boasts a 225 person team.

Spending $225 million over 3 years isn't really that much when you consider the type and amount of personal data Equifax has on us.

JP Morgan Chase spent $500 million in 2016 alone, Bank of America spent $400 million on cyber security in 2016 although they have an unlimited cyber security budget, Citibank's cyber security budget topped $400 million and Wells Fargo spends roughly $250 million per year.

The company has poured a quarter of a billion dollars into cybersecurity in the last three years and today boasts a 225 person team.

Spending $225 million over 3 years isn't really that much when you consider the type and amount of personal data Equifax has on us.

JP Morgan Chase spent $500 million in 2016 alone, Bank of America spent $400 million on cyber security in 2016 although they have an unlimited cyber security budget, Citibank's cyber security budget topped $400 million and Wells Fargo spends roughly $250 million per year.

>> Despite environmentalist daydreams, gas and diesel engines will still be around and still be way most new vehicles are powered.

Yes they will still be around but they will be an increasingly expensive niche market. I'll bet that in 10 years they won't be even close to the majority of new vehicles.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/w...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/b...

>> Despite environmentalist daydreams, gas and diesel engines will still be around and still be way most new vehicles are powered.

Yes they will still be around but they will be an increasingly expensive niche market. I'll bet that in 10 years they won't be even close to the majority of new vehicles.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/w...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/b...

and 50 thousand dollars just wow.

Number of active Twitter accounts 328 million
https://www.statista.com/st...

Number of tweets per day 500 million. 7700 per second so far today.
http://www.internetlivestat......

1 billion in digital political advertising in 2016
https://www.forbes.com/site...

Twitter was deliberately not carrying advertising supporting Trump
https://www.recode.net/2016...

I recall other incidents but ehh

No one is replacing old nuclear power plants with coal.

Germany has done just that.
https://carboncounter.wordpres...

France too.
http://instituteforenergyresea...

Sadly, so is the USA.
https://instituteforenergyrese...
https://www.vox.com/energy-and...

Or maybe the USA is replacing nuclear with natural gas.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

Japan is almost famous for replacing nuclear with coal
https://www.equaltimes.org/jap...

In the UK natural gas is replacing coal and nuclear.
https://arstechnica.com/scienc...

I just realized I covered 5 of the "Group of Seven" so let's finish this out and see what Canada and Italy are doing.

Turns out Italy shut down their nuclear a long time ago and relies largely on natural gas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Looks like Canada is neither closing or building new nuclear, demand growth has been met with natural gas and hydro.
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/art...

Also in the above article is mention of Russia, China, and South Korea. More about that here:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...

So, let's review. France, Germany, Japan, and USA have all built significant numbers of coal plants in the past few years to meet growing demand and to make up for retired nuclear. Canada, UK, USA, and Italy rely heavily on natural gas and are building more capacity, while this might not be replacing nuclear it is another fossil fuel being used instead of wind and solar. China, Russia, and South Korea are actually making significant investments in nuclear to replace fossil fuels, which is still consistent with my claim that one must choose nuclear, fossil fuels, or lights going out.

Why do you write such nonsense? Fukushima Daishi had ordinary emergency power generators, like every plant. They did not rely on external power. However, perhaps that escaped you, the emergency power generators got flooded. And for some dumb reason no one came to the idea to helicopter a few military units in.

That's just so much nonsense in one paragraph it's hard to even come up with a reply. Do you really think that no one thought to helicopter in some generators?

In your country? All other countries that introduced wind and solar show that they are very reliabel and cost effective.

Oh, you mean like how last year the German government paid wind energy producers to sit idle to prevent damage to the electrical grid?
http://dailycaller.com/2016/04...

That doesn't sound very reliable or cost effective. Seriously, do some research before you post. You are looking like a fool.

You claim corporations are basically pass through devices, and yet they are also somehow holding onto almost $2 trillion? Obviously, there is some sort of logical disconnect.

Put simply if the business isn't relying on seed or other capital investment for operations and expansion then you can't call it a "startup".

Really. So the company I work for, which was profitable from its first week of existence and bootstrapped itself up, was not a startup? Even when it was four guys working out of one of the guy's house?

Four years later, the company took some VC cash to fund some more expansion. Did it then magically become a startup after not having been one before?

I don't like your definition of a "startup". I'll stick with the CFO's definition.

OK, don't be ignorant now. If you own a home for 20 years but take out a loan to build a garage, that's not magically considered a new home loan by the bank, nor are you suddenly considered a first time buyer. The parents definition is still correct; the bottom line is your company can sustain itself.

With regards the delusions of grandeur by your CFO, "growth" alone does not define a startup. Damn near every company has "growth" listed on their 5-year plan, so perhaps we can drop the bullshit already.

Put simply if the business isn't relying on seed or other capital investment for operations and expansion then you can't call it a "startup".

Really. So the company I work for, which was profitable from its first week of existence and bootstrapped itself up, was not a startup? Even when it was four guys working out of one of the guy's house?

Four years later, the company took some VC cash to fund some more expansion. Did it then magically become a startup after not having been one before?

I don't like your definition of a "startup". I'll stick with the CFO's definition.

P.S. One thing we can all agree on: the key attribute of a startup is its ability to grow. As Graham explains, a startup is a company designed to scale very quickly.

Put simply if the business isn't relying on seed or other capital investment for operations and expansion then you can't call it a "startup".

Really. So the company I work for, which was profitable from its first week of existence and bootstrapped itself up, was not a startup? Even when it was four guys working out of one of the guy's house?

Four years later, the company took some VC cash to fund some more expansion. Did it then magically become a startup after not having been one before?

I don't like your definition of a "startup". I'll stick with the CFO's definition.

P.S. One thing we can all agree on: the key attribute of a startup is its ability to grow. As Graham explains, a startup is a company designed to scale very quickly.

the kind of cancer he had, you don't get better from.

This account suggests different.

"while the news was not good, the upside was that the form of pancreatic cancer from which Jobs suffered (a neuroendocrine islet tumor) was one of the 5% or so that are slow growing and most likely to be cured. But Jobs refused surgery after diagnosis and for nine months after, favoring instead dietary treatments and other alternative methods."