Why the MBA? You don't need to have an MBA to develop a business plan for a small company and an MBA is definitely not necessarily a markets specialist (which is what the original poster was implying)?
One of my previous jobs was establishing high-growth/high-tech markets. Many of the potential isuers that we talked to (remember, we are talking issuers, not startups or even mezzanine-stage companies) had established successful businesses. Those with Angels were getting quite good advice via active participation in the company. Even the VC funds usually wanted to be included in the loop regarding financial decisions.
I don't want to knock the MBA, but it is essentially a sledgehammer to crack a nut. For me, what I would want to see in this particular case is basic business expertise and some qualifications and experience in the trading business.
I would disagree unless this is a specialist MBA. A lot of of the people I know who are doing analysis have some kind of CFA type background. An MBA is a bit of an alrounder which is why I wouldn't consider it so important.
MBAs can scare off VCs these days - you want relevant qualifications - this means trading or analysis. This actually goes with the SEC ticket point which I agree with. MBA expertise tends to be organised more around larger companies rather than startups. MBAs are too expensive for what they bring to have on the staff, however they may be fine to use on an advisory basis. I have heard a lot about business plans, 100 pages of BS is outdone by a few pages of relevant information, so you don't even need the MBA for that.
As for the something different, I'm hundred per cent behind you on that one. If you don't have a product differentiator, you are dead - there is only so much market and somebody bigger always has economies of scale.
Re:Other German Zeppelin Startup..
on
Zeppelin Flies Again
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually, I know a little about Cargolifter. The company had two parts, one ran the finance and was based in Frankfurt whilst the other did the manufacturing and was based in Brand (business development grants in the former DDR). They had a lot of private investors.
They were running slow, that was true, but as far back as 2000 they had plans for profit by 2005 but they needed more capital. Their own investors were a bit tired of the delays and 9/11 effectively put the dampeners on any other capital.
The collapse of Cargolifter brought to light some decidedly interesting practices inside the company which suggested that the investor's money didn't go to the right place. Whether incompetence or fraud, I have no idea.
The Zeppelin NT was flying near Frankfurt in Germany last year using a base in a field on the edge of a small town called Bad Homburg situated about 15Km outside Frankfurt. They ran short tours around the centre of the city. Being rather larger than the average blimp it is impressive to watch and relatively slow and quiet compared to conventional aircraft.
Actually they used a number of small Radio-Thermal generators to keep the thing warm. They don't generate any power, just keeps the thing from from freezing up too much overnight (especially the batteries because their ability to hold charge goes down rapidly when cold).
Ok, it is cheating but Cygwin has a very nice implementation of ssh/sshd. Sure enough, it isn't Linux underneath but it makes your system more manageable.
Of course the ironic thing is that the casting of the statue had to be outsourced to China because of insufficient donations and the absence of corporate sponsors.
I know of several old systems that used mylar film instead of paper-tape. The reasoning being that it could last longer, which was important for booting standalone controllers where a had-disk was considered too expensive.
However much spam comes from open relays in Asia, the majority of these companies seem to have a US presence.
One company was based out of eastern europe nd was offerring very cheap software, boxed too (like full XP-pro at $50). I had been spammed a few times by them and it was getting annoying so I just forwarded the Email to Microsoft. I never heard from them again.
Actually, at work I pay others to fix the bugs for me and encoiurage them to contribute fixes back to the community (you don't have to GPL fixes on an internal deployment). At home, I either wait or try to fix something myself if it is sufficiently annoying/dangerous.
In earlier times, I worked with large proprietary systems, but was able to diagnose and fix things because we had access to parts of the source code. Sure we had real 24x7 support from the vendor, but I assure you that if they don't know your application, that support isn't worth much. Later the vendor closed more of its source code and because of that we had a 24-hr outage which halted the company and cost a few mill in profit. Later, we were given source to some critical modules and the problem was never repeated.
My main client at the moment is a major bank. They would never touch your kind of mom and pop operation because of your inability to provide 24x7 support. A large company can more realistic support closed source, but the smaller vendor is locked out. With open source, there is less risk attached, because anyone can provide the support including the bank.
.kr isn't the killer that.cn is. What gets me is that the spam is mostly for US based corps. The corps have to be at least semi legit as they get their cash from credit-cards. Can't we just cut the bastartds off so that the spam networks lose their customers.
We do complain, everytime we have to go out to the source code or to find other patches. I mean it is so easy just to grap the XP source code and to fix it yourself.
Nobody here is going to slag RH off because if you want to maintain a distribution outside their network, there are many other places (Google, for White box Linux).
Re:I'd suggest really old maps
on
Open Maps?
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· Score: 1
It really isn't a problem. You just get a couple of known reference objects and then build a matrix to convert the coordinates. In olden times, what you would do is to get a stereo pair of photographs and used a device which allowed an operator to follow something in both photographs by hand generating coordinates. You get down the metre level quite easily (which is close to the limit for a moving civillian GPS).
What I guess happened is that Navtech didn't have a clue how to properly automate the process. They possibly tried optical recognition to create the coordinate strings from roads and it didn't work well.
It is far from immediate. During MSBlaster, Internet connections to Korea went down. No problem unless you are supposed to be working with someone there. The other issue that the zombie armies used for mass spamming are harder to detect. The actual volume from an individual machine may be small, and may go on for a while without being noticed. From a number of machines, it becomes offensive.
I guess your Internet connection didn't suffer during MSBlaster. It didn't matter that those probes were beating the hell out of a locked down firewall, it is still a bandwidth problem. As for the more recent eMail trojans, I have to use POP to my ISP so I have to get the crap before I can filter it out of my eMail.
Does this compare with size? XP is still relatively early compered with Win 2K so the patches seem to be more extensive (possibly with all that added and embedded functionality).
Not really, there seems to be a schism within Microsoft with some feeling that cleaning up the Internet pollution caused by buggy Windows installations is good neighbourliness and also good PR and the others who want their dollars at all costs. The two parts have made conflicting announcements and it seems that now the money whores have won.
I have a perfectly legit, licensed copy of Win 2K. I daren't go near the Internet without my firewall. It is those other unpatched copies of Windows that are making life so difficult for legitimate Microsoft customers. Even with my firewall, my broadband connection, my POP mailbox and the Internet connections suffer everytime a large number of hosts get hit with the latest worm/trojan/whatever. Even if I retreat onto my Linux systems, I suffer because those idiots at Microsoft consider security an optional extra.
The analogy is that however much I may look after my health, it is useful to care about one's neighbours even if only for selfish reasons.
Sure, block the pirates for functional upgrades, but either shut them all down or upgrade their security for free so that paying customers don't suffer. To create such a buggy system shows poor engineering but to withold the fix borders on criminality.
A big bank did this, only they thought it was in UAT, however it registered itself with production as wanting to collect equity trades. It did, and very well too. They realised by the end of the day that the production backoffice was only seeing a fraction of the number of trades expected. Some poor bastard then had to trawl through the UAT database pulling out trades that were really intended to go to production and put them in the right place. I heard it took a couple of weeks. This is a shame because trades usually must be settled two business days after trading.
The other ATC is at Swanwick, actually not more than seventy miles from West Drayton and located in a very pleasant small town on the river hamble between Southampton and Fareham. This will replace West Drayton completely in 2006 and is already controlling a lot of the airspace. However there were some major hiccups at Swannick when the system was first introduced in 2002.
Incorrect. Active and former security forces personnel may often get a concealed-carry permit for a handgun without problems, particularly if they had been involved insomething that makes them a target (i.e., antiterrorist activities). The fact that you have left the services usually doesn't maka a difference, so they may even give you the weapon to go with it.
It would not be totally correct to say they were completely different. The kernel definitely was though. AIX was nothing to do with OSF/1 and couldn't pass half the validation suites even now, same for HP/UX. OSF/1 effectively being a standard of its own became useless (a bit like DECnet-OSI).
I don't know about a full release of RDB for Ultrix, but I definitely remember an SPD for RDB/Ultrix-32.
I would agree with you but luckily most places I ahve worked have attempted some form of central change control tracking bureaucracy. It may have CVS underneath, it may have something totally different.
Yes, I'm aware of the problem of 'organic code', something that was based on something from another OS that was cribbed out of a databook. However, when a change is moved from one project to another, you can still trace back by cross referencing the change that you based it on and only importing it if you know where it came from.
The real problem is device black magic. That is where, for example, you have to follow a particular sequence of instructions to get something done. Does that have to be individually tracked? Well if some idiot called Darl comes along later and says that they have the identical sequence in the same driver in their propietary Unix. The question is whether anyone could come up with independent code doesn't hack it in front of a member of the legal profession. Youz had better have a good place like the datasheet for the original reference. Interesting problem as to how that pans out when a question comes up ficve years later.
RDB definitely ran on Ultrix later (or maybe by then it was OSF/1). I agree that porting would have been an 'interesting problem' due to an innate awareness of the VMS lock manager. Very nice, but not very portable.
Slashdot Mirror
One of my previous jobs was establishing high-growth/high-tech markets. Many of the potential isuers that we talked to (remember, we are talking issuers, not startups or even mezzanine-stage companies) had established successful businesses. Those with Angels were getting quite good advice via active participation in the company. Even the VC funds usually wanted to be included in the loop regarding financial decisions.
I don't want to knock the MBA, but it is essentially a sledgehammer to crack a nut. For me, what I would want to see in this particular case is basic business expertise and some qualifications and experience in the trading business.
I would disagree unless this is a specialist MBA. A lot of of the people I know who are doing analysis have some kind of CFA type background. An MBA is a bit of an alrounder which is why I wouldn't consider it so important.
As for the something different, I'm hundred per cent behind you on that one. If you don't have a product differentiator, you are dead - there is only so much market and somebody bigger always has economies of scale.
They were running slow, that was true, but as far back as 2000 they had plans for profit by 2005 but they needed more capital. Their own investors were a bit tired of the delays and 9/11 effectively put the dampeners on any other capital.
The collapse of Cargolifter brought to light some decidedly interesting practices inside the company which suggested that the investor's money didn't go to the right place. Whether incompetence or fraud, I have no idea.
The Zeppelin NT was flying near Frankfurt in Germany last year using a base in a field on the edge of a small town called Bad Homburg situated about 15Km outside Frankfurt. They ran short tours around the centre of the city. Being rather larger than the average blimp it is impressive to watch and relatively slow and quiet compared to conventional aircraft.
Actually they used a number of small Radio-Thermal generators to keep the thing warm. They don't generate any power, just keeps the thing from from freezing up too much overnight (especially the batteries because their ability to hold charge goes down rapidly when cold).
Ok, it is cheating but Cygwin has a very nice implementation of ssh/sshd. Sure enough, it isn't Linux underneath but it makes your system more manageable.
Of course the ironic thing is that the casting of the statue had to be outsourced to China because of insufficient donations and the absence of corporate sponsors.
I know of several old systems that used mylar film instead of paper-tape. The reasoning being that it could last longer, which was important for booting standalone controllers where a had-disk was considered too expensive.
However much spam comes from open relays in Asia, the majority of these companies seem to have a US presence.
One company was based out of eastern europe nd was offerring very cheap software, boxed too (like full XP-pro at $50). I had been spammed a few times by them and it was getting annoying so I just forwarded the Email to Microsoft. I never heard from them again.
In earlier times, I worked with large proprietary systems, but was able to diagnose and fix things because we had access to parts of the source code. Sure we had real 24x7 support from the vendor, but I assure you that if they don't know your application, that support isn't worth much. Later the vendor closed more of its source code and because of that we had a 24-hr outage which halted the company and cost a few mill in profit. Later, we were given source to some critical modules and the problem was never repeated.
My main client at the moment is a major bank. They would never touch your kind of mom and pop operation because of your inability to provide 24x7 support. A large company can more realistic support closed source, but the smaller vendor is locked out. With open source, there is less risk attached, because anyone can provide the support including the bank.
.kr isn't the killer that .cn is. What gets me is that the spam is mostly for US based corps. The corps have to be at least semi legit as they get their cash from credit-cards. Can't we just cut the bastartds off so that the spam networks lose their customers.
Nobody here is going to slag RH off because if you want to maintain a distribution outside their network, there are many other places (Google, for White box Linux).
What I guess happened is that Navtech didn't have a clue how to properly automate the process. They possibly tried optical recognition to create the coordinate strings from roads and it didn't work well.
It is far from immediate. During MSBlaster, Internet connections to Korea went down. No problem unless you are supposed to be working with someone there. The other issue that the zombie armies used for mass spamming are harder to detect. The actual volume from an individual machine may be small, and may go on for a while without being noticed. From a number of machines, it becomes offensive.
I guess your Internet connection didn't suffer during MSBlaster. It didn't matter that those probes were beating the hell out of a locked down firewall, it is still a bandwidth problem. As for the more recent eMail trojans, I have to use POP to my ISP so I have to get the crap before I can filter it out of my eMail.
Does this compare with size? XP is still relatively early compered with Win 2K so the patches seem to be more extensive (possibly with all that added and embedded functionality).
Not really, there seems to be a schism within Microsoft with some feeling that cleaning up the Internet pollution caused by buggy Windows installations is good neighbourliness and also good PR and the others who want their dollars at all costs. The two parts have made conflicting announcements and it seems that now the money whores have won.
The analogy is that however much I may look after my health, it is useful to care about one's neighbours even if only for selfish reasons.
Sure, block the pirates for functional upgrades, but either shut them all down or upgrade their security for free so that paying customers don't suffer. To create such a buggy system shows poor engineering but to withold the fix borders on criminality.
A big bank did this, only they thought it was in UAT, however it registered itself with production as wanting to collect equity trades. It did, and very well too. They realised by the end of the day that the production backoffice was only seeing a fraction of the number of trades expected. Some poor bastard then had to trawl through the UAT database pulling out trades that were really intended to go to production and put them in the right place. I heard it took a couple of weeks. This is a shame because trades usually must be settled two business days after trading.
Swanage is in Wales.
Incorrect. Active and former security forces personnel may often get a concealed-carry permit for a handgun without problems, particularly if they had been involved insomething that makes them a target (i.e., antiterrorist activities). The fact that you have left the services usually doesn't maka a difference, so they may even give you the weapon to go with it.
I don't know about a full release of RDB for Ultrix, but I definitely remember an SPD for RDB/Ultrix-32.
Yes, I'm aware of the problem of 'organic code', something that was based on something from another OS that was cribbed out of a databook. However, when a change is moved from one project to another, you can still trace back by cross referencing the change that you based it on and only importing it if you know where it came from.
The real problem is device black magic. That is where, for example, you have to follow a particular sequence of instructions to get something done. Does that have to be individually tracked? Well if some idiot called Darl comes along later and says that they have the identical sequence in the same driver in their propietary Unix. The question is whether anyone could come up with independent code doesn't hack it in front of a member of the legal profession. Youz had better have a good place like the datasheet for the original reference. Interesting problem as to how that pans out when a question comes up ficve years later.
RDB definitely ran on Ultrix later (or maybe by then it was OSF/1). I agree that porting would have been an 'interesting problem' due to an innate awareness of the VMS lock manager. Very nice, but not very portable.