20% thought we had been farther than the Moon. Some were indignant on learning the truth: “What do we use the space shuttle for, if not to go to the Moon?!” I can only guess that some students imagined the International Space Station as a remote outpost, certainly beyond the Moon, and likely strategically located next to a wormhole.
20% of physics students, at this university level, thought that humanity had traveled beyond the Moon? And some thought that we routinely use the shuttle to travel to the moon...
Well humanity has traveled "beyond" the moon, thats what happens as your orbit and pass over the far/dark side. Perhaps the physics students were being literal, X km above the lunar surface is X km "beyond" the moon for X > 0.:-)
If the ship sinks, and you have a life raft, you stand some chance of rescue. The ocean is vast, but it’s a two-dimensional vastness teeming with human activity
Since we are currently at the dawn of space travel and looking 500 years ahead, lets look 500 years into the past with respect to seafaring and their exploration and colonization of their new world. Seafarers of that day did not stand a chance if their vessel sunk, they did not have the survival equipment we have today, they did not have all the other traffic and human activity in the "area". Hell, if one of Columbus' ships had sunk at night the crew would probably have been doomed desperate sailing with two other ships.
500 years ago people could be found to make the voyage to the Americas despite the misery and risks of the voyage. Today there would probably no shortage of informed people to go on a physically and emotionally miserable, and a very risky, voyage to the moon or mars. Now consider 500 years from now. While the physics of a voyage to mars may be the same the technology available to address comfort and risk will be vastly improved. Even with relatively spartan amenities for exploration and colonization that will be no shortage of informed volunteers. A spartan existence certainly did not prevent colonization of and movement into the frontier of the americas.
Approximately how far have humans traveled from the surface of the Earth in your lifetime? [e.g., since 1980 or so]
52% thought humans had been as far as the Moon since the 1980s,... I can only guess that some students imagined the International Space Station as a remote outpost
That is a questionable interpretation. It would seem more plausible that the students simply get their decades mixed up and thought Apollo happened in the 80s rather than the 70s (last landing 1972?).
The less roadblocks you have to development, the faster that cash comes in.
Actually its the more customers you have. The hardware/platform that developers target is chosen by the customers, not the developer's convenience and preferences.
That said, what roadblocks to develop for iOS? A Mac, a device and $99 a year to publish on the app store? To be honest that is an extremely low barrier to entry.
good enough for nuclear reactors... sounds like an industrial strength, secure platform that might actually be adopted by governments, enterprise companies, medical, etc.
not sure how it will be marketed to education and gaming though, except by showing nice 3d framerates
Seriously, how is this modded -1? QNX is all about special purpose dedicated applications. If the military needed a specialized tablet QNX may very well be the OS of choice, perhaps RIM the supplier. Likely, no. Plausible, yes. Similar story for specialized tablets for medical use, say something rated to be used in an operating room (note that this is more about the hardware than software, an iPad probably can't be sterilized without inadvertently destroying the electronics) to control equipment, display data, etc. Again, likely, no - GE or Siemens would probably license QNX and do the hardware themselves. Plausible, yes.
I last booted QNX something like 10 years ago...back then it was realtime, unix based (I think?), and relatively promising. I remember it was even more responsive than Linux (which was was more responsive than Windows)... Anyone have experience programming for QNX? If it's "just another unix" shouldn't porting to it be straightforward?
QNX is a real-time operating system. For programmer convenience some things are unix-like. However unlike Linux and other unix implementations
QNX is a *hard* real-time OS, you are guaranteed that things will happen within certain timeframes. QNX is targeting embedded environments, in particular environments that require incredible reliability - for example military and aerospace. QNX is exactly the sort of thing you use when you are building a mars rover.
Another post made me think of a very generous interpretation of the original quote. Perhaps the author meant to type "nano" rather than "touch". An iPod nano-like device would be a more realistic target.
The iPod Touch only has 256MB of RAM in the 3rd & 4th gen, 128 in the others. iOS takes up a good chunk (roughly 80MB). I see someone has edited the wikipedia page on the iPT to directly contradict this. If you read iFixit's teardowns they confirm my information.
256 is what I recalled but I went to wikipedia and double checked, apparently I caught the page immediately before it was corrected.:-)
From wikipedia, Apple has included only 256MB of RAM in even the latest model of the iPod Touch.
Minutes ago wikipedia was showing 512 for the 4th gen, and the error was fixed between my post and yours.:-)
18:30, 18 October 2011 12.70.47.254 (talk) (38,640 bytes) (Models: changed ipod 4th gen from 512meg ram to 256meg. the iphone 4 has 512 not ipod 4th gen. This is also stated by the url that is attached to that sentence.)
This would be a bad idea for the US military as everybody else in the world is better at soccer.
Humor aside, I think the US military has considered this line of thought and their prototype is baseball/softball sized. As a special bonus this size can be easily mistaken for a grenade so its likely to generate some activity in the area it lands.
High number of video streams, megapixels, battery life, re-projection, data management.... It's not a easy problem.
And its something the military has already built and is evaluating. Fewer camera though. The device only needs to be on for a limited time, when its thrown somewhere of interest and for a few minutes thereafter. A sensor can determine which was is up and turn off cameras pointing into the immediate ground, the laptop with the troops could give priority to the cameras pointing horizontally or slightly upwards, etc.
Yea, all you'd have to do is throw it into a bunker, then go into said bunker to retrieve the ball, come back out of the bunker, plug the ball into a computer and look at the pictures. Then you'll know exactly what was in that bunker you were just in. Revolutionary I tell ya.
Years ago a cable tv documentary on robotics was showing a softball sized spherical device with multiple cameras (far fewer than the student's device though) that the military was developing. The idea was to just throw it over an obstacle, into a window or door, etc in an area of interest. The imagery was wirelessly transmitted to a laptop the troops were carrying. Of course this ball was not maneuverable. There were other small robots being testing that could be thrown, tossed onto a roof, through a window or door, and then driven via the cameras by one of the troops.
Enemies will know it's a camera and try to destroy it.
Nope. They will assume it is a grenade and act accordingly. During WW2 a US destroyer and a Japanese submarine nearly collided. The sub was so close the destroyer could not lower its guns far enough, of course the sub crew had no such problem with its deck gun. As the sub's deck gun was being manned sailors on the destroyer noticed a bucket of potatoes that had been brought up to be peeled. They grabbed the bucket and tossed potatoes at the deck gun crew. The guys on the sub immediately began chasing the potatoes around and kicking them overboard, obviously thinking they were grenades.
Keep in mind that the brain *interprets* what you see. It sometimes "interprets" things in the image to be what would be most relevant or important. A grenade at your feet being more important than a potato.
A spherical camera in the baseball to softball size is highly likely to be interpreted as a grenade when it lands unexpectedly in your bunker.
Yeah, that's why NJ and NY, and CA and MA, the highest taxed states in the country, are full of the richest people and most profitable corporations in the country.
California's success is due to its policies and investments during the 1950s and 60s, its more recent policies have been undoing these former gains. In other words California is like a kid who inherited grandpa's fortune and is squandering it.
I did a google and found the following article. What follows is a very small sampling of the article.
A quote that directly supports my point.
"LegalZoom.com Inc. said in April that it's about to leave Hollywood/Los Angeles after a lengthy dispute over city taxes. A company official said: “With this business tax, the economic costs don’t justify staying here. Physical location is not important to us as an Internet business... the Austin American-Statesman reported that 35 of the company's 400 employees asked to move to Austin — many more than expected — and that made a big difference in the decision to select Austin, according to Mike Wilson, vice president of operations. Now they're getting settled in Austin, with some buying homes for the first time. Wilson said: "We never expected that many people would want to relocate. . . . We take that as a sign that we made the right decision.”"
Another online company relocating "overnight".
"Modern Living... moved to Richmond, Va., on the same day it came under new ownership... The online company specializes in children's high-end furniture, toys and gifts... “We closed and moved it here on the same day we bought it in July. It is too expensive to have employees or nexus in California versus other regions of the country.”
Rich hollywood types may live in California but they don't make their movies there.
"Twentieth Century Props went out of business as film-making has moved to lower-cost states. "
"McAfee, Inc., HQ’d in Santa Clara, made a remarkably candid admission in March 2010 when it acknowledged that it intentionally avoids hiring in California. The company has transferred entire departments elsewhere and saves about 30 to 40% every time the company hires outside of the state. Texas is one of the locations to which McAfee has moved."
"Novellus Inc. is making investment decisions not just on what California policies are now but also on what they are expected to be in the future. Novellus is closing its San Jose production facility and is shifting all work to Tualatin, Oregon, in 2010. The company said California’s budget crisis is partly to blame for the decision to move jobs out of high-cost California."
"Intel Corp., closed its Santa Clara chip factory, which Bloomberg News said "closes the books on Silicon Valley’s history as the manufacturing hub of the U.S. technology industry." Bloomberg added: "The strip between San Francisco and San Jose -- once a major fruit growing center -- was populated by the plants of Intel, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and National Semiconductor Corp. starting in the 1960s. Those factories slowly became obsolete, and were replaced by plants in Texas, Oregon, Arizona, Germany and Asia. . . . [Intel] has its most modern plants in New Mexico, Oregon, Arizona, Israel and Ireland."
"Numira Biosciences moved from Irvine to Salt Lake City. According to the Orange County Register, "CEO Michael Beeuwsaert said the major reasons for the move were 'taxes, quality of life and ability to recruit quality people.' He added, 'The tipping point was when someone from the Orange County tax (assessor) wanted to see our facility to tax every piece of equipment I had.' (It’s called the business property tax.) 'In Salt Lake City at my first networking event I met the mayor and the president of the Utah Senate, and they asked what they could do to help me. No (elected official) ever asked me that in
Its hardly the Kochs that truly consider such strategies. Look at all the companies that relocate around the US to leverage more favorable taxes and regulations. While less common at the international level keep in mind that such a move might be easier for an *internet* based business like google.
Such bullshit. They dont MOVE their companies to places with less taxes and regulations, they simply put a fucking empty mailbox there and claim it home base, while they have their corporate offices in the US.
Notice my example of companies moving from one state to another in the US. There is ample evidence that companies *will* relocate due to tax and regulatory advantages. While it is more difficult to do so internationally, my point is that it is far more plausible to do so if you are an *internet* based company. A data center is the only thing that must be in the US. While it may be extremely convenient to have other things in the US, it push comes to shove an internet based company is more mobile.
Your mailbox argument is merely a current implementation detail leveraging a current loophole. It has little bearing on an issue that will exist long after the loophole is fixed. Official headquarters and CEOs could relocate with little disruption to the overall organization, only a very *small* number of people would have to be located outside of the US to create a legitimate offshore presence if the loophole were closed. You might notice that in the particular case of google we already have a cofounder and executive who has demonstrated a global mobility.
Ah Mr. Koch. Glad to see you've joined the Slashdot community. Are you David or Charles?
Its hardly the Kochs that truly consider such strategies. Look at all the companies that relocate around the US to leverage more favorable taxes and regulations. While less common at the international level keep in mind that such a move might be easier for an *internet* based business like google.
Tax avoidance, Google, Warren Buffet, ...
on
IRS Auditing Google
·
· Score: 1
A Dollar says that Google management has major sympathies towards the Occupy [movement].
Like Warren Buffet employing various tax avoidance strategies while arguing that his taxes should be raised?
When a project loses interest it dies. That's just how these things go no? People aren't using OpenOffice (or there aren't people who are interested in contributing) and are using other suites like LibreOffice. Lifecycles happen. Death is part of those.
For some projects. However for some major projects the development is really corporate sponsored. It is at times an urban myth that FOSS contributors are a bunch of individual volunteer. Sometimes the corporate employees instructed to contribute to FOSS are far more important. The corporation directing their efforts may have different motivations than individuals.
How about Mintzberg argument that MBAs over emphasize the executive aspect of management (making decisions) and de-emphasize the motivational aspects of being a manager?
The very first class of my program was in the area of Organization Behavior (OB). Leading individuals and groups, of which motivation is one aspect, is at the heart of this class. This includes recognizing that there is sometimes no universal answer, that different approaches and methods work best depending on the nature and psychology of the individuals involved.
Beyond this particular class, and in particular various strategy classes, there were occasional case studies where a project/company failed not because of problems with a product or strategy rather the problems were OB in nature. Problems with leading people. OB failures were a recurring theme throughout the program.
Regarding training people to be executives, I think that is an inherent part of an MBA program. It would seem to be one of the reasons why the MBA is an overview of the entire organization. Keep in mind that executives are not necessarily c-suite residents at fortune 500 companies. People at small companies, and especially entrepreneurs in small startups, are essentially functioning as executives.
In real life managers rarely needs to make decisions on the spot. There is time to evaluate the situation, start pilot projects, obtain feedback from them and proceed along the most promising areas.
I don't find this inconsistent with my training. For example in bother operations and marketing where "them" is respectively your people and the customers. Again, there is no universal course of action but this sort of approach is appropriate.
I got to call you on that one. An MBA is an add-on, it is not a core area of study. MBA students enter a program with various degrees, some may be business and accounting but others are scientific and engineering. I was one of the later, BS and MS in CS. I'd say about a third of my class came from scientific and engineering backgrounds. The MBA is an accountant meme is an urban myth. In my MBA program when 5 to 6 person groups (persistent, for group projects in core classes) were assigned they were careful to make sure each team had someone with an account background, teams tended to have only 1 or 2.
An MBA does not make you an expert in a field like an MS/MA may in another area of study. An MBA is more of a survey. You study all aspects of a business so that you can see the bigger picture and so that you may more effectively communicate with others outside your particular area of expertise.
Many MBAs would be thrilled to be CTO. Some geeks want to start their own company and look to an MBA to give them a broader perspective, understanding only the tech can be a recipe for disaster. How many late 70s tech startups failed because they had two Wozs and no Jobs, someone has to know how to sell things. Some of these geeks are wisely being a bit defensive, especially at small companies and/or startups. The mythical notion of being a tech guy pairing up with a business guy and each keeping to his own area is another recipe for disaster. Personally I suggest that the tech guy learn enough about business and accounting so that he can understand what the other guy is doing. I've seen friends get royally screwed by trying to focus only on the tech side. The IRS does not recognize any such division of responsibility, if you are one of the partners you are financially responsible for what all the other partners do.
My recollection is a bit fuzzy, its been decades since doing 6502 assembly on Apple IIs and C64s, but didn't 65C02 add a txy (transfer x and y registers) and possibly a few other opcodes? I'm not sure if 6510 was derived from 6502 or 65C02. If the later then C64 programmers had some opcodes Woz did not. Legal opcodes I should add.
He has not fallen. He is a supremely talented engineer and never imagined himself qualified to be an executive. His aspirations were quite different from Jobs. When Woz had a boatload of money he decided to go give back to the community and teach at a public school for a while. He still occasionally gets involved in a startup but it is usually in some engineering or scientific capacity not some kind of executive or management capacity.
Slashdot Mirror
The rest of the quote was hilarious though
20% thought we had been farther than the Moon. Some were indignant on learning the truth: “What do we use the space shuttle for, if not to go to the Moon?!” I can only guess that some students imagined the International Space Station as a remote outpost, certainly beyond the Moon, and likely strategically located next to a wormhole.
20% of physics students, at this university level, thought that humanity had traveled beyond the Moon? And some thought that we routinely use the shuttle to travel to the moon...
Well humanity has traveled "beyond" the moon, thats what happens as your orbit and pass over the far/dark side. Perhaps the physics students were being literal, X km above the lunar surface is X km "beyond" the moon for X > 0. :-)
If the ship sinks, and you have a life raft, you stand some chance of rescue. The ocean is vast, but it’s a two-dimensional vastness teeming with human activity
Since we are currently at the dawn of space travel and looking 500 years ahead, lets look 500 years into the past with respect to seafaring and their exploration and colonization of their new world. Seafarers of that day did not stand a chance if their vessel sunk, they did not have the survival equipment we have today, they did not have all the other traffic and human activity in the "area". Hell, if one of Columbus' ships had sunk at night the crew would probably have been doomed desperate sailing with two other ships.
500 years ago people could be found to make the voyage to the Americas despite the misery and risks of the voyage. Today there would probably no shortage of informed people to go on a physically and emotionally miserable, and a very risky, voyage to the moon or mars. Now consider 500 years from now. While the physics of a voyage to mars may be the same the technology available to address comfort and risk will be vastly improved. Even with relatively spartan amenities for exploration and colonization that will be no shortage of informed volunteers. A spartan existence certainly did not prevent colonization of and movement into the frontier of the americas.
Approximately how far have humans traveled from the surface of the Earth in your lifetime? [e.g., since 1980 or so]
... I can only guess that some students imagined the International Space Station as a remote outpost
52% thought humans had been as far as the Moon since the 1980s,
That is a questionable interpretation. It would seem more plausible that the students simply get their decades mixed up and thought Apollo happened in the 80s rather than the 70s (last landing 1972?).
The less roadblocks you have to development, the faster that cash comes in.
Actually its the more customers you have. The hardware/platform that developers target is chosen by the customers, not the developer's convenience and preferences.
That said, what roadblocks to develop for iOS? A Mac, a device and $99 a year to publish on the app store? To be honest that is an extremely low barrier to entry.
good enough for nuclear reactors ... sounds like an industrial strength, secure platform that might actually be adopted by governments, enterprise companies, medical, etc.
not sure how it will be marketed to education and gaming though, except by showing nice 3d framerates
Seriously, how is this modded -1? QNX is all about special purpose dedicated applications. If the military needed a specialized tablet QNX may very well be the OS of choice, perhaps RIM the supplier. Likely, no. Plausible, yes. Similar story for specialized tablets for medical use, say something rated to be used in an operating room (note that this is more about the hardware than software, an iPad probably can't be sterilized without inadvertently destroying the electronics) to control equipment, display data, etc. Again, likely, no - GE or Siemens would probably license QNX and do the hardware themselves. Plausible, yes.
I last booted QNX something like 10 years ago...back then it was realtime, unix based (I think?), and relatively promising. I remember it was even more responsive than Linux (which was was more responsive than Windows) ... Anyone have experience programming for QNX? If it's "just another unix" shouldn't porting to it be straightforward?
QNX is a real-time operating system. For programmer convenience some things are unix-like. However unlike Linux and other unix implementations QNX is a *hard* real-time OS, you are guaranteed that things will happen within certain timeframes. QNX is targeting embedded environments, in particular environments that require incredible reliability - for example military and aerospace. QNX is exactly the sort of thing you use when you are building a mars rover.
Another post made me think of a very generous interpretation of the original quote. Perhaps the author meant to type "nano" rather than "touch". An iPod nano-like device would be a more realistic target.
I don't really know why you need a "32-bit embedded processor with integrated FPU" for something like the iPod.
Just to be clear, iPod touch. Consider gaming, especially 3D gaming. If we were talking iPod nano then the comparison would be a bit more realistic.
I really wonder. 2.5K RAM would allow max around 2500 letters, or a single 256-color picture of 50x50 pixels.
With static text and images you can put them into the 28K FLASH. You only need RAM for things that change.
The iPod Touch only has 256MB of RAM in the 3rd & 4th gen, 128 in the others. iOS takes up a good chunk (roughly 80MB). I see someone has edited the wikipedia page on the iPT to directly contradict this. If you read iFixit's teardowns they confirm my information.
256 is what I recalled but I went to wikipedia and double checked, apparently I caught the page immediately before it was corrected. :-)
But iPod touch alternative? Seriously?
2.5K RAM vs 512M RAM
From wikipedia, Apple has included only 256MB of RAM in even the latest model of the iPod Touch.
Minutes ago wikipedia was showing 512 for the 4th gen, and the error was fixed between my post and yours. :-)
18:30, 18 October 2011 12.70.47.254 (talk) (38,640 bytes) (Models: changed ipod 4th gen from 512meg ram to 256meg. the iphone 4 has 512 not ipod 4th gen. This is also stated by the url that is attached to that sentence.)
open-source alternative to the iPod Touch
... 8-bit microcontroller with only 2.5K of RAM ...
As someone who has programmed microcontrollers and 8-bit CPUs back in the day I think this is a pretty cool device.
But iPod touch alternative? Seriously?
8-bit microcontroller vs 32-bit embedded processor with integrated FPU
2.5K RAM vs 512M RAM
28K FLASH vs 8G FLASH
This would be a bad idea for the US military as everybody else in the world is better at soccer.
Humor aside, I think the US military has considered this line of thought and their prototype is baseball/softball sized. As a special bonus this size can be easily mistaken for a grenade so its likely to generate some activity in the area it lands.
High number of video streams, megapixels, battery life, re-projection, data management.... It's not a easy problem.
And its something the military has already built and is evaluating. Fewer camera though. The device only needs to be on for a limited time, when its thrown somewhere of interest and for a few minutes thereafter. A sensor can determine which was is up and turn off cameras pointing into the immediate ground, the laptop with the troops could give priority to the cameras pointing horizontally or slightly upwards, etc.
Yea, all you'd have to do is throw it into a bunker, then go into said bunker to retrieve the ball, come back out of the bunker, plug the ball into a computer and look at the pictures. Then you'll know exactly what was in that bunker you were just in. Revolutionary I tell ya.
Years ago a cable tv documentary on robotics was showing a softball sized spherical device with multiple cameras (far fewer than the student's device though) that the military was developing. The idea was to just throw it over an obstacle, into a window or door, etc in an area of interest. The imagery was wirelessly transmitted to a laptop the troops were carrying. Of course this ball was not maneuverable. There were other small robots being testing that could be thrown, tossed onto a roof, through a window or door, and then driven via the cameras by one of the troops.
Enemies will know it's a camera and try to destroy it.
Nope. They will assume it is a grenade and act accordingly. During WW2 a US destroyer and a Japanese submarine nearly collided. The sub was so close the destroyer could not lower its guns far enough, of course the sub crew had no such problem with its deck gun. As the sub's deck gun was being manned sailors on the destroyer noticed a bucket of potatoes that had been brought up to be peeled. They grabbed the bucket and tossed potatoes at the deck gun crew. The guys on the sub immediately began chasing the potatoes around and kicking them overboard, obviously thinking they were grenades.
Keep in mind that the brain *interprets* what you see. It sometimes "interprets" things in the image to be what would be most relevant or important. A grenade at your feet being more important than a potato.
A spherical camera in the baseball to softball size is highly likely to be interpreted as a grenade when it lands unexpectedly in your bunker.
Yeah, that's why NJ and NY, and CA and MA, the highest taxed states in the country, are full of the richest people and most profitable corporations in the country.
California's success is due to its policies and investments during the 1950s and 60s, its more recent policies have been undoing these former gains. In other words California is like a kid who inherited grandpa's fortune and is squandering it.
... the Austin American-Statesman reported that 35 of the company's 400 employees asked to move to Austin — many more than expected — and that made a big difference in the decision to select Austin, according to Mike Wilson, vice president of operations. Now they're getting settled in Austin, with some buying homes for the first time. Wilson said: "We never expected that many people would want to relocate. . . . We take that as a sign that we made the right decision.”"
... moved to Richmond, Va., on the same day it came under new ownership ... The online company specializes in children's high-end furniture, toys and gifts ... “We closed and moved it here on the same day we bought it in July. It is too expensive to have employees or nexus in California versus other regions of the country.”
I did a google and found the following article. What follows is a very small sampling of the article.
A quote that directly supports my point.
"LegalZoom.com Inc. said in April that it's about to leave Hollywood/Los Angeles after a lengthy dispute over city taxes. A company official said: “With this business tax, the economic costs don’t justify staying here. Physical location is not important to us as an Internet business
Another online company relocating "overnight".
"Modern Living
Rich hollywood types may live in California but they don't make their movies there.
"Twentieth Century Props went out of business as film-making has moved to lower-cost states. "
"McAfee, Inc., HQ’d in Santa Clara, made a remarkably candid admission in March 2010 when it acknowledged that it intentionally avoids hiring in California. The company has transferred entire departments elsewhere and saves about 30 to 40% every time the company hires outside of the state. Texas is one of the locations to which McAfee has moved."
"Novellus Inc. is making investment decisions not just on what California policies are now but also on what they are expected to be in the future. Novellus is closing its San Jose production facility and is shifting all work to Tualatin, Oregon, in 2010. The company said California’s budget crisis is partly to blame for the decision to move jobs out of high-cost California."
"Intel Corp., closed its Santa Clara chip factory, which Bloomberg News said "closes the books on Silicon Valley’s history as the manufacturing hub of the U.S. technology industry." Bloomberg added: "The strip between San Francisco and San Jose -- once a major fruit growing center -- was populated by the plants of Intel, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and National Semiconductor Corp. starting in the 1960s. Those factories slowly became obsolete, and were replaced by plants in Texas, Oregon, Arizona, Germany and Asia. . . . [Intel] has its most modern plants in New Mexico, Oregon, Arizona, Israel and Ireland."
"Numira Biosciences moved from Irvine to Salt Lake City. According to the Orange County Register, "CEO Michael Beeuwsaert said the major reasons for the move were 'taxes, quality of life and ability to recruit quality people.' He added, 'The tipping point was when someone from the Orange County tax (assessor) wanted to see our facility to tax every piece of equipment I had.' (It’s called the business property tax.) 'In Salt Lake City at my first networking event I met the mayor and the president of the Utah Senate, and they asked what they could do to help me. No (elected official) ever asked me that in
Its hardly the Kochs that truly consider such strategies. Look at all the companies that relocate around the US to leverage more favorable taxes and regulations. While less common at the international level keep in mind that such a move might be easier for an *internet* based business like google.
Such bullshit. They dont MOVE their companies to places with less taxes and regulations, they simply put a fucking empty mailbox there and claim it home base, while they have their corporate offices in the US.
Notice my example of companies moving from one state to another in the US. There is ample evidence that companies *will* relocate due to tax and regulatory advantages. While it is more difficult to do so internationally, my point is that it is far more plausible to do so if you are an *internet* based company. A data center is the only thing that must be in the US. While it may be extremely convenient to have other things in the US, it push comes to shove an internet based company is more mobile.
Your mailbox argument is merely a current implementation detail leveraging a current loophole. It has little bearing on an issue that will exist long after the loophole is fixed. Official headquarters and CEOs could relocate with little disruption to the overall organization, only a very *small* number of people would have to be located outside of the US to create a legitimate offshore presence if the loophole were closed. You might notice that in the particular case of google we already have a cofounder and executive who has demonstrated a global mobility.
Ah Mr. Koch. Glad to see you've joined the Slashdot community. Are you David or Charles?
Its hardly the Kochs that truly consider such strategies. Look at all the companies that relocate around the US to leverage more favorable taxes and regulations. While less common at the international level keep in mind that such a move might be easier for an *internet* based business like google.
A Dollar says that Google management has major sympathies towards the Occupy [movement].
Like Warren Buffet employing various tax avoidance strategies while arguing that his taxes should be raised?
When a project loses interest it dies. That's just how these things go no? People aren't using OpenOffice (or there aren't people who are interested in contributing) and are using other suites like LibreOffice. Lifecycles happen. Death is part of those.
For some projects. However for some major projects the development is really corporate sponsored. It is at times an urban myth that FOSS contributors are a bunch of individual volunteer. Sometimes the corporate employees instructed to contribute to FOSS are far more important. The corporation directing their efforts may have different motivations than individuals.
How about Mintzberg argument that MBAs over emphasize the executive aspect of management (making decisions) and de-emphasize the motivational aspects of being a manager?
The very first class of my program was in the area of Organization Behavior (OB). Leading individuals and groups, of which motivation is one aspect, is at the heart of this class. This includes recognizing that there is sometimes no universal answer, that different approaches and methods work best depending on the nature and psychology of the individuals involved.
Beyond this particular class, and in particular various strategy classes, there were occasional case studies where a project/company failed not because of problems with a product or strategy rather the problems were OB in nature. Problems with leading people. OB failures were a recurring theme throughout the program.
Regarding training people to be executives, I think that is an inherent part of an MBA program. It would seem to be one of the reasons why the MBA is an overview of the entire organization. Keep in mind that executives are not necessarily c-suite residents at fortune 500 companies. People at small companies, and especially entrepreneurs in small startups, are essentially functioning as executives.
In real life managers rarely needs to make decisions on the spot. There is time to evaluate the situation, start pilot projects, obtain feedback from them and proceed along the most promising areas.
I don't find this inconsistent with my training. For example in bother operations and marketing where "them" is respectively your people and the customers. Again, there is no universal course of action but this sort of approach is appropriate.
... MBAs dream of being CEO ...
I got to call you on that one. An MBA is an add-on, it is not a core area of study. MBA students enter a program with various degrees, some may be business and accounting but others are scientific and engineering. I was one of the later, BS and MS in CS. I'd say about a third of my class came from scientific and engineering backgrounds. The MBA is an accountant meme is an urban myth. In my MBA program when 5 to 6 person groups (persistent, for group projects in core classes) were assigned they were careful to make sure each team had someone with an account background, teams tended to have only 1 or 2.
An MBA does not make you an expert in a field like an MS/MA may in another area of study. An MBA is more of a survey. You study all aspects of a business so that you can see the bigger picture and so that you may more effectively communicate with others outside your particular area of expertise.
Many MBAs would be thrilled to be CTO. Some geeks want to start their own company and look to an MBA to give them a broader perspective, understanding only the tech can be a recipe for disaster. How many late 70s tech startups failed because they had two Wozs and no Jobs, someone has to know how to sell things. Some of these geeks are wisely being a bit defensive, especially at small companies and/or startups. The mythical notion of being a tech guy pairing up with a business guy and each keeping to his own area is another recipe for disaster. Personally I suggest that the tech guy learn enough about business and accounting so that he can understand what the other guy is doing. I've seen friends get royally screwed by trying to focus only on the tech side. The IRS does not recognize any such division of responsibility, if you are one of the partners you are financially responsible for what all the other partners do.
My recollection is a bit fuzzy, its been decades since doing 6502 assembly on Apple IIs and C64s, but didn't 65C02 add a txy (transfer x and y registers) and possibly a few other opcodes? I'm not sure if 6510 was derived from 6502 or 65C02. If the later then C64 programmers had some opcodes Woz did not. Legal opcodes I should add.
...how the mighty have fallen
He has not fallen. He is a supremely talented engineer and never imagined himself qualified to be an executive. His aspirations were quite different from Jobs. When Woz had a boatload of money he decided to go give back to the community and teach at a public school for a while. He still occasionally gets involved in a startup but it is usually in some engineering or scientific capacity not some kind of executive or management capacity.