Tesla has the (current) checkmate of the supercharger network. I know that likely won't be free to the M/3, but I assure you it does a great job of squelching range anxiety
A newspaper here did a series in the summer of their auto section editor taking a roadtrip in a Tesla up the coastline along the supercharger network.
While there are more every day, he still had to meticulously plan his stops around available ones. Once, he had to turn back because he thought an 80% charge could get him to reach the next one, but he underestimated the amount of hills. Luckily the battery usage readout showed he did not have range and was able to turn back. He frequently spoke of the inconvenience of having to wait long periods of time at what is essentially no different from a gas station. Most people on trips don't like having to stop for extended periods every time they need to refuel - hence his rush on the one charge job, and the lack of range.
So what exactly does the super charger network buy you over the existing network of millions of gas stations (serious question)? I never, ever have to put thought into where the gas stations will be prior to leaving on a drive, nor have to plan long breaks at them.
Sorry, this argument is so ridiculous it reminds me of religious fundamentalists, who are so entrenched in their own ideology they lose sight of rationality.
In a single payer system, the doctor still provides and bills for services, same as in a private system, and eliminates all sorts of ridiculous problems like hospitals only treating you if you subscribe to a particular brand of insurance. In fact, I would think it gives every doctor more incentive to treat you, as they aren't focused at all on whether they're going to get paid by you.
Capitalism and private ownership are great, no one is arguing you there - but it has definite limits, and now you're just arguing things that are clearly, demonstrably, not smart.
Personally, I feel it is unfair that the elderly in the USA get Medicare and Social Security when everyone else does not
The most ridiculous part of this is that the elderly are the group that consumes the majority of health care services, and thus the US is bearing the majority of the brunt of an entirely public health care system anyways. I have a feeling this is why health care spending is so much higher in the US than other countries.Why not just cover the generally-freak accidents of people in their youth for the small incremental cost?
Health care is one industry, much like policing or firefighting, that is makes no sense to not run as a public program. It will undoubtedly take the US another 20-30 years to figure this out. Oh, and the excessive health care spending doesn't translate into results, at least if we go by life expectancy.
I think it's been proven that in the hands of the poor and unfortunate, Islamic text is like poison. If it was any other hate literature we would point to it as part of the contributing problem.
I'm no Christian, but at least with the bible the message to the poor seems to be a lot different in regards to what you should do... I think we can objectively call one out as a better moral role model for people, if that's possible to say about a religion.
I'll add to this - the best MBAs are usually (I dare say nearly always) who go back later in life. Usually it's after starting or working your way up a large business, through great leadership, then all of a sudden they realize they don't know how to handle the day to day of a hundred people reporting to them, hence the need for training which is an MBA.
It's a lot like Law that way I think - if you get the education before having some real world miles under your belt, you just become an egotistical asshole.
More evidence for my hypothesis that MBA managers are driving the American economy into the ground. Contrast him with Steve Jobs who was not an MBA.
Sorry, I disagree and especially with the comment below about MBAs being worthless. Both of you simply misunderstand what it is for - it is an education in business administration which frankly has nothing to do with the entrepreneurial and leadership skills of someone like Elon Musk. They are simply trained in how to manage business of a large size in today's economic climate.
I definitely agree having an MBA or not has absolutely no bearing on whether you're a good leader like Elon Musk, nor do I think it's good having one long term in the CEO seat, because as your quote states, they mostly manage to status quo. I guarantee although Musk isn't an MBA, he does hire them to run parts of his businesses.
It's unfortunate MBAs get that perception, though it may be well earned since management positions can have a real adverse effect on a lot of people's lives when poorly filled. But really, it's just a technical skill set like any other, accounting for example - we wouldn't automatically expect accountants to be wizard CEOs of billion dollar companies.
Take for example, Mars. I think we will find life there...
If we consider intelligence to be an imaginary concept, a word invented by people to explain their decision algorithms, then it raises some interesting questions about about what is possible in the universe.
Take your missile example, or anything you see around you - if intelligence does not exist, the molecules on this planet have been able to self-arrange into some fantastically complex structures, without an external interference. Even if "intelligence" does exist - our planet is a proof of a very generalized way of looking at what happened on this planet. Over enough time, molecules can self organize into very large intricate structures displaying such complex behaviour we call it intelligence. What if entire planets, or entire galaxies, were also already organized this way and challenge what we call "intelligence"?
who are so entrenched in the mentality that "everyone" wants to be forced to drive
I don't think that at all, however I know I want to drive, and I do think the majority is with me (in my city). Why should we cater to some group of hipsters who want to live within and rarely leave a few city blocks in a downtown core? They'll probably find driving cool again in a few years, when I don't know, they have a family.
Most people, including me, appreciate those parking spaces and so no wonder you are greeted with concern about your proposals.
I would rather we didn't make this gamble. I would rather we "bite the bullet" now. Take the hit, make sacrifices to our lifestyle and go hell-bent for long-term sustainable renewables.
And I would rather take that gamble. Judging by our consumer demands, I'm in the clear majority. So what do you do?
this is just scum sucker scam way of maximizing profits at the cost of the patient and his insurance.
This is why the single payer system, and the negotiating leverage that comes with either allowing a product into market or not, result in a far, far better system for a country overall.
Oh the poor, defenseless coal, gas and oil industry. Those poor companies, operating at thin margins with little resources, in far away countries that are nothing but desert, and god-forsaken tar sands. Yes, we must help those poor folk defend their livelihood from big business! Think of their children!
I get your point, but you fail to acknowledge the biggest beneficiaries of the industry - the people. In places where things aren't extremely corrupt (Saudi Arabia, and perhaps the US...) and the money ends up concentrated in few hands, the people can't turn down what comes with it: many high paying jobs, well-funded social services, and low taxes. The comfort that comes from having energy and the wealth provided by it's sale, provide what the people want. And you would want it too, so I find the argument the entire industry is inherently evil... misguided.
Basically Uber cant palm off it's responsibilities or liabilities in a shrink wrap contract.
This simply isn't true. Australia operates under contract law, and unless a term is illegal or "unconscionable" to the public, they will not alter that. There are many ways lawyers can arrange this agreement to severely limit Uber's liability. For example, they could force both parties using the app to agree to terms limiting the right to sue to a certain jurisdiction friendly to them.
under Australian law if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, its a duck
This is not a proper use of this analogy. The contract defines the terms of the relationship, and unless they are breaching that, is valid. This is why contract staff can exist and they aren't called employees, even though they "quack like one".
Why is it a crime for me to charge someone $40 to take them to the airport in my car?
The government is saving your butt here - if you were to cause an accident and injure your passenger, they would sue you. Since your insurance company would deny your claim (you don't have commercial insurance), the passenger would very likely take your house, savings, etc. in court.
After they finish the interrogation they intentionally delete it so you can't use it in your defense. They've proven that a jury will more likely believe a police officer stating that you confessed than a video of you actually confessing! So they destroy the audio/video!
What crazy jurisdiction do you live in??
I've never seen this ever. That would never make it past a set of appeal judges - what possible interaction with police nowadays, inside a police station, would not be videotaped? I've never seen a judge that would go "Oh, ok" if police described obtaining a confession in an interrogation room and it wasn't recorded. I don't know a lawyer on earth who couldn't argue there is reasonable doubt there. A verbal confession would be enough for reasonable and probable cause, maybe even a preponderance of evidence, but never beyond a reasonable doubt.
1. Organisations that don't value skill and experience and instead only want to hire young (== cheap) people
Yeah, you may think that's the reason companies hire younger folks, but it's not. I hire in IT and more often than not take the young (cheap) people.
I'd love to spend the money and acquire great skill an experience, but most experienced folks (rightfully so) want to step in and take a leadership role, whether by conscious effort or not.. it's just based on their experience. A lot of times this won't fit with the dynamic of the team. It sucks that people are people but it's just so. Also unfortunately, is many older folks bring a lot of bad traits with them: cynicism, bad attitudes, general negativity. They often have skill sets that are highly specialized, and they've "forgotten" the skill they had when they were a junior of learning new things.
One thing its easy to find in a junior, is someone who is a decent thinker and enthusiastic. Much easier to take someone fresh like that, put them on a team of good folks as the junior, and grow a super star. It works really well.
Look to Canada for a few provinces where this is being done with success:
Alberta Serious Incident Response Team: ASIRT has jurisdiction over all sworn police officers in the Province of Alberta. Their mandate is to investigate incidents or complaints involving serious injury* or death of any person, and matters of a serious or sensitive nature, that may have resulted from the actions of a police officer.
Any time a person is killed by police results in an automatic investigation - and I've seen a number of them result in charges against police officers. Ontario looks to have done the same with the Special Investigations Unit.
I think the theme for success you will see is having a civilian agency.
I've always thought the entire approach to modern AI as being completely wrong-headed. Trying to code the system of gates/if-elses/neurons that lead to good decision making is a gargantuan task.
We should follow the model biology gave us: create a small system with two attributes: the ability to replicate and somehow (here's the trick) self-improve. Find a way to model evolution in a software system, and let the intelligence build itself. Aren't we the living example of this exact process working? Computers will just allow us to shave the timeframe down a few billion years.
I just don't understand how there wasn't enough evidence to at least take this to trial
I agree, the job of the grand jury isn't to find someone not guilty, but ultimately a validation the charges have merit. In this case, the fact we know Mike Brown fired the gun should be sufficient.
I've seen way more questionable charges fly through grand juries.
I don't own a car in the present, nor do I especially want or need to.
I've always found the smugness in this statement interesting.
Vehicles and the "free" (as in freedom to move around) national highway transportation system are one of the greatest achievements in the history of mankind. The places I am able to take myself everyday represent a massive freedom for me, and I don't want to live my entire life within a city radius unless I rent someone else's property. A wonderfully comfortable vehicle, with music streaming from a satellite, and traveling all over my country is exceedingly affordable where I live.. not sure where the downside is.
Yup, what I read from it was "handled correctly & existing systems are effective".
It's always good practice to do an incident review when something bad happens, to find gaps in existing processes and taking some time to reflect if there's any meaningful improvement that can be done.
What I don't like is that the answer is never to leave things as is. Out of an incident review, on anything from IT to White House security, there is always enormous pressure to do *something* tangible, whether that something actually helps or not.
and the infrastructure investments are not Capital intense.
I think you went way too far on this one. Yeah, maybe compared to some other mega-infrastructure projects. I think the point is, the majority of actual-cable-in-the-ground network equipment is copper and not fiber based, thus there are bandwidth limitations making it unsuitable for wide-scale video streaming use.
Even if you leave a copper last mile, that's still a hell of a lot of going out and laying cable, which is not cheap when you have to rip up and rebuild what is on top of it. How is that not capital intensive? If it wasn't, someone would have jumped all over this already.
This is very interesting. I haven't studied physics since University over ten years ago, but it still an incredibly fun field to keep an eye on.
I'd like to think that, as with most other current human endeavors, our capabilities are increasing by an order of magnitude on some consistent cycle, thanks to technology. It's sometimes hard to see just how fast we move as the human race lately. But any geek who's picked up a terabyte hard drive lately (that's the size of a credit card) and is old enough to remember their cutting edge, multi-pound 40 MB hard drive has felt the momentary starkness of our advance. Keep in mind, around the turn of the twentieth century, man had not even had a successful airplane flight - only sixty five years after that we landed on the moon.
My hope reading this, is technology will allow us to expand and in ten years, be able to achieve GeV levels not remotely possible today - and I have no doubt we'll see and learn some incredibly cool things when we breach a certain energy level.
I suspect we should have avoided terms like "Dark X', in favor of something that sounds more neutral and less dramatic.
Isn't this exactly what we want?? Seriously, name one thing that is wrong with people seeing science in a dramatic, exciting perspective which draws more interest and funding?
One of the greatest motivations in human advancement has been a curiosity in the unknown, and giving it an intriguing name and surrounding it with mystery is just us doing our thing.
I can't believe I'm going to defend someone like Ballmer here, who certainly does seem to have some sort of superiority complex, and in many ways conducts himself in a way I find appalling.
But why not?! I don't think I'm anything like Ballmer but if I had two billion kicking around, damn right I would want to own a pro sports team! That has to be every little boy's dream at some point in time. If anything, this proves Ballmer (like everyone else) is just a weak little human being like you and me. And even better for him holding personal value in something like that when others will make snide comments about how it looks in you "investment portfolio".
The idea that any one person can be so productive that they deserve 1000x more reward than anyone else is absurd.
Well, I think your exaggerating the difference for all but a tiny percentage of the population, but yes, I deserve to make an order or magnitude more than a minimum wage position. Why? It has nothing to do with "effort" but rather my job requires far more skill, education and experience than any minimum wage position. Are you suggesting value be based on how much physical energy a person expends in their duties? That's ridiculous.
Secondly, if you think the vast majority of executive positions are easy jobs and don't require much work, golly then why don't you just get one? You can't and you choose to bash those who have greater skills than you.
I'm going to go further and take the devil's advocate here and defend billionaires. Name one that's a huge problem. Your typical billionaire doesn't "hoard" money and is no more a wasteful consumer than any damned citizen in the US. Most own large companies - I could "own" all the shares of Coca-Cola, I'd be a billionaire, but have I "removed" any money? No. Looks like your jealously is showing instead.
Slashdot Mirror
Tesla has the (current) checkmate of the supercharger network. I know that likely won't be free to the M/3, but I assure you it does a great job of squelching range anxiety
A newspaper here did a series in the summer of their auto section editor taking a roadtrip in a Tesla up the coastline along the supercharger network.
While there are more every day, he still had to meticulously plan his stops around available ones. Once, he had to turn back because he thought an 80% charge could get him to reach the next one, but he underestimated the amount of hills. Luckily the battery usage readout showed he did not have range and was able to turn back. He frequently spoke of the inconvenience of having to wait long periods of time at what is essentially no different from a gas station. Most people on trips don't like having to stop for extended periods every time they need to refuel - hence his rush on the one charge job, and the lack of range.
So what exactly does the super charger network buy you over the existing network of millions of gas stations (serious question)? I never, ever have to put thought into where the gas stations will be prior to leaving on a drive, nor have to plan long breaks at them.
Sorry, this argument is so ridiculous it reminds me of religious fundamentalists, who are so entrenched in their own ideology they lose sight of rationality.
In a single payer system, the doctor still provides and bills for services, same as in a private system, and eliminates all sorts of ridiculous problems like hospitals only treating you if you subscribe to a particular brand of insurance. In fact, I would think it gives every doctor more incentive to treat you, as they aren't focused at all on whether they're going to get paid by you.
Capitalism and private ownership are great, no one is arguing you there - but it has definite limits, and now you're just arguing things that are clearly, demonstrably, not smart.
Personally, I feel it is unfair that the elderly in the USA get Medicare and Social Security when everyone else does not
The most ridiculous part of this is that the elderly are the group that consumes the majority of health care services, and thus the US is bearing the majority of the brunt of an entirely public health care system anyways. I have a feeling this is why health care spending is so much higher in the US than other countries.Why not just cover the generally-freak accidents of people in their youth for the small incremental cost?
Health care is one industry, much like policing or firefighting, that is makes no sense to not run as a public program. It will undoubtedly take the US another 20-30 years to figure this out. Oh, and the excessive health care spending doesn't translate into results, at least if we go by life expectancy.
I think it's been proven that in the hands of the poor and unfortunate, Islamic text is like poison. If it was any other hate literature we would point to it as part of the contributing problem.
I'm no Christian, but at least with the bible the message to the poor seems to be a lot different in regards to what you should do... I think we can objectively call one out as a better moral role model for people, if that's possible to say about a religion.
I'll add to this - the best MBAs are usually (I dare say nearly always) who go back later in life. Usually it's after starting or working your way up a large business, through great leadership, then all of a sudden they realize they don't know how to handle the day to day of a hundred people reporting to them, hence the need for training which is an MBA.
It's a lot like Law that way I think - if you get the education before having some real world miles under your belt, you just become an egotistical asshole.
More evidence for my hypothesis that MBA managers are driving the American economy into the ground. Contrast him with Steve Jobs who was not an MBA.
Sorry, I disagree and especially with the comment below about MBAs being worthless. Both of you simply misunderstand what it is for - it is an education in business administration which frankly has nothing to do with the entrepreneurial and leadership skills of someone like Elon Musk. They are simply trained in how to manage business of a large size in today's economic climate.
I definitely agree having an MBA or not has absolutely no bearing on whether you're a good leader like Elon Musk, nor do I think it's good having one long term in the CEO seat, because as your quote states, they mostly manage to status quo. I guarantee although Musk isn't an MBA, he does hire them to run parts of his businesses.
It's unfortunate MBAs get that perception, though it may be well earned since management positions can have a real adverse effect on a lot of people's lives when poorly filled. But really, it's just a technical skill set like any other, accounting for example - we wouldn't automatically expect accountants to be wizard CEOs of billion dollar companies.
Take for example, Mars. I think we will find life there...
If we consider intelligence to be an imaginary concept, a word invented by people to explain their decision algorithms, then it raises some interesting questions about about what is possible in the universe.
Take your missile example, or anything you see around you - if intelligence does not exist, the molecules on this planet have been able to self-arrange into some fantastically complex structures, without an external interference. Even if "intelligence" does exist - our planet is a proof of a very generalized way of looking at what happened on this planet. Over enough time, molecules can self organize into very large intricate structures displaying such complex behaviour we call it intelligence. What if entire planets, or entire galaxies, were also already organized this way and challenge what we call "intelligence"?
who are so entrenched in the mentality that "everyone" wants to be forced to drive
I don't think that at all, however I know I want to drive, and I do think the majority is with me (in my city). Why should we cater to some group of hipsters who want to live within and rarely leave a few city blocks in a downtown core? They'll probably find driving cool again in a few years, when I don't know, they have a family.
Most people, including me, appreciate those parking spaces and so no wonder you are greeted with concern about your proposals.
I would rather we didn't make this gamble. I would rather we "bite the bullet" now. Take the hit, make sacrifices to our lifestyle and go hell-bent for long-term sustainable renewables.
And I would rather take that gamble. Judging by our consumer demands, I'm in the clear majority. So what do you do?
this is just scum sucker scam way of maximizing profits at the cost of the patient and his insurance.
This is why the single payer system, and the negotiating leverage that comes with either allowing a product into market or not, result in a far, far better system for a country overall.
Oh the poor, defenseless coal, gas and oil industry. Those poor companies, operating at thin margins with little resources, in far away countries that are nothing but desert, and god-forsaken tar sands. Yes, we must help those poor folk defend their livelihood from big business! Think of their children!
I get your point, but you fail to acknowledge the biggest beneficiaries of the industry - the people. In places where things aren't extremely corrupt (Saudi Arabia, and perhaps the US...) and the money ends up concentrated in few hands, the people can't turn down what comes with it: many high paying jobs, well-funded social services, and low taxes. The comfort that comes from having energy and the wealth provided by it's sale, provide what the people want. And you would want it too, so I find the argument the entire industry is inherently evil... misguided.
Basically Uber cant palm off it's responsibilities or liabilities in a shrink wrap contract.
This simply isn't true. Australia operates under contract law, and unless a term is illegal or "unconscionable" to the public, they will not alter that. There are many ways lawyers can arrange this agreement to severely limit Uber's liability. For example, they could force both parties using the app to agree to terms limiting the right to sue to a certain jurisdiction friendly to them.
under Australian law if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, its a duck
This is not a proper use of this analogy. The contract defines the terms of the relationship, and unless they are breaching that, is valid. This is why contract staff can exist and they aren't called employees, even though they "quack like one".
Why is it a crime for me to charge someone $40 to take them to the airport in my car?
The government is saving your butt here - if you were to cause an accident and injure your passenger, they would sue you. Since your insurance company would deny your claim (you don't have commercial insurance), the passenger would very likely take your house, savings, etc. in court.
After they finish the interrogation they intentionally delete it so you can't use it in your defense. They've proven that a jury will more likely believe a police officer stating that you confessed than a video of you actually confessing! So they destroy the audio/video!
What crazy jurisdiction do you live in??
I've never seen this ever. That would never make it past a set of appeal judges - what possible interaction with police nowadays, inside a police station, would not be videotaped? I've never seen a judge that would go "Oh, ok" if police described obtaining a confession in an interrogation room and it wasn't recorded. I don't know a lawyer on earth who couldn't argue there is reasonable doubt there. A verbal confession would be enough for reasonable and probable cause, maybe even a preponderance of evidence, but never beyond a reasonable doubt.
1. Organisations that don't value skill and experience and instead only want to hire young (== cheap) people
Yeah, you may think that's the reason companies hire younger folks, but it's not. I hire in IT and more often than not take the young (cheap) people.
I'd love to spend the money and acquire great skill an experience, but most experienced folks (rightfully so) want to step in and take a leadership role, whether by conscious effort or not.. it's just based on their experience. A lot of times this won't fit with the dynamic of the team. It sucks that people are people but it's just so. Also unfortunately, is many older folks bring a lot of bad traits with them: cynicism, bad attitudes, general negativity. They often have skill sets that are highly specialized, and they've "forgotten" the skill they had when they were a junior of learning new things.
One thing its easy to find in a junior, is someone who is a decent thinker and enthusiastic. Much easier to take someone fresh like that, put them on a team of good folks as the junior, and grow a super star. It works really well.
Look to Canada for a few provinces where this is being done with success:
Alberta Serious Incident Response Team: ASIRT has jurisdiction over all sworn police officers in the Province of Alberta. Their mandate is to investigate incidents or complaints involving serious injury* or death of any person, and matters of a serious or sensitive nature, that may have resulted from the actions of a police officer.
Any time a person is killed by police results in an automatic investigation - and I've seen a number of them result in charges against police officers. Ontario looks to have done the same with the Special Investigations Unit.
I think the theme for success you will see is having a civilian agency.
Expert systems are not intelligent.
I've always thought the entire approach to modern AI as being completely wrong-headed. Trying to code the system of gates/if-elses/neurons that lead to good decision making is a gargantuan task.
We should follow the model biology gave us: create a small system with two attributes: the ability to replicate and somehow (here's the trick) self-improve. Find a way to model evolution in a software system, and let the intelligence build itself. Aren't we the living example of this exact process working? Computers will just allow us to shave the timeframe down a few billion years.
I just don't understand how there wasn't enough evidence to at least take this to trial
I agree, the job of the grand jury isn't to find someone not guilty, but ultimately a validation the charges have merit. In this case, the fact we know Mike Brown fired the gun should be sufficient.
I've seen way more questionable charges fly through grand juries.
I don't own a car in the present, nor do I especially want or need to.
I've always found the smugness in this statement interesting.
Vehicles and the "free" (as in freedom to move around) national highway transportation system are one of the greatest achievements in the history of mankind. The places I am able to take myself everyday represent a massive freedom for me, and I don't want to live my entire life within a city radius unless I rent someone else's property. A wonderfully comfortable vehicle, with music streaming from a satellite, and traveling all over my country is exceedingly affordable where I live.. not sure where the downside is.
Yup, what I read from it was "handled correctly & existing systems are effective".
It's always good practice to do an incident review when something bad happens, to find gaps in existing processes and taking some time to reflect if there's any meaningful improvement that can be done.
What I don't like is that the answer is never to leave things as is. Out of an incident review, on anything from IT to White House security, there is always enormous pressure to do *something* tangible, whether that something actually helps or not.
and the infrastructure investments are not Capital intense.
I think you went way too far on this one. Yeah, maybe compared to some other mega-infrastructure projects. I think the point is, the majority of actual-cable-in-the-ground network equipment is copper and not fiber based, thus there are bandwidth limitations making it unsuitable for wide-scale video streaming use.
Even if you leave a copper last mile, that's still a hell of a lot of going out and laying cable, which is not cheap when you have to rip up and rebuild what is on top of it. How is that not capital intensive? If it wasn't, someone would have jumped all over this already.
This is very interesting. I haven't studied physics since University over ten years ago, but it still an incredibly fun field to keep an eye on.
I'd like to think that, as with most other current human endeavors, our capabilities are increasing by an order of magnitude on some consistent cycle, thanks to technology. It's sometimes hard to see just how fast we move as the human race lately. But any geek who's picked up a terabyte hard drive lately (that's the size of a credit card) and is old enough to remember their cutting edge, multi-pound 40 MB hard drive has felt the momentary starkness of our advance. Keep in mind, around the turn of the twentieth century, man had not even had a successful airplane flight - only sixty five years after that we landed on the moon.
My hope reading this, is technology will allow us to expand and in ten years, be able to achieve GeV levels not remotely possible today - and I have no doubt we'll see and learn some incredibly cool things when we breach a certain energy level.
I suspect we should have avoided terms like "Dark X', in favor of something that sounds more neutral and less dramatic.
Isn't this exactly what we want?? Seriously, name one thing that is wrong with people seeing science in a dramatic, exciting perspective which draws more interest and funding?
One of the greatest motivations in human advancement has been a curiosity in the unknown, and giving it an intriguing name and surrounding it with mystery is just us doing our thing.
Or did he just need his own shiny like Cuban?
I can't believe I'm going to defend someone like Ballmer here, who certainly does seem to have some sort of superiority complex, and in many ways conducts himself in a way I find appalling.
But why not?! I don't think I'm anything like Ballmer but if I had two billion kicking around, damn right I would want to own a pro sports team! That has to be every little boy's dream at some point in time. If anything, this proves Ballmer (like everyone else) is just a weak little human being like you and me. And even better for him holding personal value in something like that when others will make snide comments about how it looks in you "investment portfolio".
The idea that any one person can be so productive that they deserve 1000x more reward than anyone else is absurd.
Well, I think your exaggerating the difference for all but a tiny percentage of the population, but yes, I deserve to make an order or magnitude more than a minimum wage position. Why? It has nothing to do with "effort" but rather my job requires far more skill, education and experience than any minimum wage position. Are you suggesting value be based on how much physical energy a person expends in their duties? That's ridiculous.
Secondly, if you think the vast majority of executive positions are easy jobs and don't require much work, golly then why don't you just get one? You can't and you choose to bash those who have greater skills than you.
I'm going to go further and take the devil's advocate here and defend billionaires. Name one that's a huge problem. Your typical billionaire doesn't "hoard" money and is no more a wasteful consumer than any damned citizen in the US. Most own large companies - I could "own" all the shares of Coca-Cola, I'd be a billionaire, but have I "removed" any money? No. Looks like your jealously is showing instead.