In general the US just has a broken view of how train infrastructures should work. The best model for a place like the US is a hub system. You designate major metros that have inter city traffic as hubs (NYC, Boston, DC, Philly) You run limited highspeed inter city trains between them. Dedicated lines for the majority/all of the trip. Once a person gets to the city they can use conventional rail to travel to surrounding areas if they so choose.
But a hub and spoke system is no less broken - if to travel from where I live (near Seattle) to my hometown of Winston-Salem (NC), I have to from the Seattle hub, to the Chicago hub, to the Washington hub, and then take slow conventional trains from Washington to Winston... I'm considerably worse off that the current situation where I change planes once (usually at DFW). (Don't fool yourself into thinking that all hubs will be connected to all other hubs. There isn't enough traffic, and managing that number of connections becomes nightmarish.)
There's a reason why, to the maximum extent practical, airlines have abandoned spoke-and-hub for direct routing.
If I could do Boston or NYC to Chicago with say 4-5 stops Same thing for Boston->NYC->DC, and be able to do it at 150mph on average, then $100/ticket 1 way would be more than reasonable, considering you'd be looking at double that for a plan ticket.
Assuming that you can get the ticket for $100, which is a completely unsupported assumption on your part.
As mentioned in one of the above posts, the key is flight time + airport time + 20% > train time between 2 cities. The 20% makes up for the fact that people will consider slightly longer for a significant savings in cost.
The problem is that you handwave that savings into existence, ignoring the billions of dollars it would cost to build such a network (current rails can't handle those speeds and aren't set up to allow for through trains), and the hundreds of millions of dollars a year that such a network will require for routine track maintenance.
You can put a train between San Francisco and Los Angeles without fighting the terrain too much.
They had one. It was never profitable despite being (at the time) one of the fastest and best maintained trains of it's day. The Japanese trains are profitable over similar routes because they carry ten times the passengers than a comparable US train ever will.
Hell, even if somebody put a high speed train between Silicon Valley and some place in low Sierra I would love to commute on that every day. If I can spend one hour on a train and live 250 miles away from my place of work, that would be awesome.
And how much are you willing to pay for the privilege? You're talking a multi billion dollar investment to handle a few thousand of riders at a point destination.
Mid-west and Eastern U.S. are prime candidates for more rails as well.
In your dreams. There aren't any point-to-point destinations in the Midwest, that avoid problematical geography, to justify the tens of billions of dollars needed to construct the line. The same thing on the East coast - outside of the Bos-Wash corridor (which has considerable troublesome geography), there simply aren't the destinations.
If we ground our aircraft for some reason or if there is a problem with a major highway it will only make sense to take a train.
And of course train tracks never get blocked or shutdown or require maintenance.
But yeah, leave it to Japan and other socialist countries to leave the world. Let's focus on 9/11, terrorism and THAT ONE with his ties to Arabs and Muslims.
We don't need any of that. We have enough ignorant people like yourself.
BUT--there is a HUGE difference between the amount of time it takes to "take in" (read) a headline and the time it takes to UNDERSTAND it.
Yes, and anyone with the experience you claim know that is because of poor headline writing, not because of the basic rules of headline writing.
No matter how many headlines I read, my brain still puts in a pause whenever I see a comma. A comma does NOT tell you exactly what is happening.
DUH. The letter 'A' doesn't tell you what it happening either. A comma is part of a structure, not a quanta of information. Read the whole sentence, as you are supposed to, then parse it.
I disagree 100%. Unless your headlines take up a whole screen's width and height (which, duh, it never will) it is NEVER a good idea to sacrifice clarity for the sake of brevity on the Web.
If the topic was sacrificing clarity, you'd have a point.
TFA summarized: "If you compare apples to oranges long enough, and invoke enough buzzwords and Professorial Authority, people will praise your new clothes alongside the Emperors".
Seriously, I've studied nuclear weapons for the better part of twenty years and I can't figure out what the hell this guy is talking about. Most of his article seems to be anti-American rhetoric, coupled with significant factual errors, and wrapped up with a finale of "I invented public key cryptography and am thus an expert on this completely unrelated topic".
You know, if the point is to raise awareness of security beyond the PGP-using geeks and nerds, what's wrong with being popular?
If that's the point - why is so much of his output over the last few years centered around his political views and so little about computer security? Why so much pandering to the anti-Bush demographic? Why so much, quite frankly, ignorance about security in favor of pithy sound bites?
Your comment has the distinct taste of sour grapes.
As Inigo says, "I do not think that means what you think it means".
Yep, and look at the number of otherwise 'nine days wonder' people (especially criminals) who seem to rate articles on the Wikipedia mostly because they hit the front page of CNN.
It is a written rule of journalists, they economize the amount of letters in a headline. It makes sense with printed press, but at the web they should follow some different gidelines.
Economizing the number of letters in a headline is driven by several factors, all of which apply onscreen as they do on paper- like the need to minimize the time it takes for a reader to take in the headline, or the need to minimize the amount of acreage taken up by the headline. If anything a web based article is even more limited that a dead tree version because of the faster pace of web browsing and sharply limited screen acreage.
(Disclaimer: I've actually done dead tree layout work, everything from hand typesetting to computerized typesetting. I've also done headline writing, which is more difficult than you might think.)
Power companies have been pushing their efficiencies for years - as it directly affects the bottom line. If you have any ideas, feel free to polish your resume up and submit it.
The whole operation is horrendously complicated, with dozens of potential failures at each point, and no realistic means of allowing for such failures. Every step would have to function perfectly, or we've just sent another multi-billion paperweight to a dead planet.
Whatever happened to KISS?
In real world engineering it's actually KISAP - Keep It As Simple As Possible. Some complexity is almost always unavoidable.
The engineer who proposed this really needs to look into alternate fields of employment. I suggest Fecal Matter Relocation.
If you have a lighter, fully functional, and better design, feel free to submit it or your resume to the appropriate office.
As cool as this is, we've succesfully landed rovers on mars (and the moon, though not a robotic system), as well as landing non-motile craft on other planets. All used relatively simple delivery systems, and frankly, worked pretty well.
So what? This thing is much larger than anything landed anywhere before, with the exception of the manned LEM.
The Apollo system (at 40 years old) landed softly enough not to smash human beings, which can be a lot more sensitive than robots.
The Apollo capsule had an atmosphere much thicker (as in height) and much thicker (as in density) than the Mars landers have available. The Apollo LEM could use rocket braking because of the Moon's low gravity.
Mars is a stone cold bitch to land on because the atmosphere is too thin to completely rely on parachutes, and Mars' gravity is too high to rely completely on rockets.
The kit here was immersed in fresh water for much less time.
The problem isn't the unknown period of immersion. It's the unknown chemicals dissolved in the water during the period of immersion that are now soaked into the gear. But wait, it gets worse... Now that gear has been sitting outside under a tarp and exposed to the elements with condensation forming and mold growing inside for a month. That's the real problem.
With shocking disregard to their personal privacy, at least 10 people volunteered to release their entire medical records and DNA sequences in order to get their DNA decoded and analyzed.
Or, just possibly, they are rational individuals who lack the privacy fetish and extremism so common on Slashdot.
Yup. I've been saying it for years and routinely been modded down for it - Bruce is a columnist and a consultant. He succeeds not by being right, but by being popular or at least generating lots of buzz. This book is just building the brand, repeating and repackaging everything he has said a dozens times before so that they Faithful can shower him with money.
The only difference between Bruce and Billy Mays is that Billy is at least honest in what he does.
And the whole point of the article, and the grandparent, is that OSS cheerleaders don't even try to perform that analysis.
Sure, and the reality is that performing such assessments is just as much of a specialty as kernel development.
So the fuck what? That doesn't excuse being ignorant of the need.
That's not something that an open source advocate or a programmer could or should be expected to do.
An open source advocate or programmer shouldn't be expected to think rationally rather than blowing smoke and spreading FUD?
Besides, this goes both ways. A solid risk/benefit analysis is an activity that a large corporation with vast resources could easily afford to take on. Many do (hence IBM's massive investment in Linux) but others don't.
ROTFLMAO. That has to be one of the most delusional (and utterly clueless) things I've ever read. When you stop cheerleading, and actually bother to learn what the fuck you're talking about and then actually bother to think before writing... It just might occur to you that same set of circumstances yield different risk/benefit results depending on the type of corporation and their business models.
It's often easier to take the expensive dinners and lame "open source is too risky" excuses offered by well-paid salesmen from closed source outfits and forget about alternatives.
(Yawn.) More ignorant handwaving, smoke blowing, and cheerleading.
If OSS "creeps into your product" by mistake, you won't ever have to disclose the source code you have written. You just lose the right to distribute the product with the stolen code. Remove the stolen code and continue with your usual business.
"Poison pill", "viral GPL", etc. is FUD.
Ah yes, the costs of removing your product from the market and replacing it with a new version are FUD! It's actually free! It doesn't cost anything to change your support or procedures! It's actually free! Warranty replacement? Free! Burning new CD's or firmware? Free!
Although clearly extreme and I don't agree with the opinion that no open source project can be trusted, I can't help feeling that we arrogantly dismiss the risk altogether at our peril.
It's like anything else... you have to make a risk/benefit analysis. Most people aren't very good at that
And the whole point of the article, and the grandparent, is that OSS cheerleaders don't even try to perform that analysis. All they do is handwave and blow smoke out of their USB ports and say:
All you can do is take your pick and hope for the best.
If I were a pilot, that's what would keep me from actually using a small plane to get around -- because unless my business was at the airport, I'd be stuck.
Yeah, the world is waiting for someone to get the bright idea of offering cars for hire, rent, or lease.
Google's implementation of the kill switch is a clear safety measure. For most users, and for the safety of the network, it's a good thing.
It's pretty meaningless as a network safety measure if someone can go elsewhere and download the same app. At best it lets Google disavow all knowledge.
Nope, it's all been checked and re-checked, and it's all legit.
So you claim - but noticeably absent is any discussion of it being reviewed by a tax professional.
I had to go through a lengthy financial affidavit where all of this had to be disclosed and scrutinized by accountants from both sides (my side and my ex-wife's side). It all passed the muster.
So the fuck what? Just because an accountant can add up the sums on a financial disclosure does not mean that they are familiar with tax law. In the same was a programmer conversant in one language might be able to follow code in a second language - but will miss subtle things that a programmer conversant in the second would see at a glance. Completely different specialties.
It may sound implausible, but every claim and deduction is by the books.
It doesn't sound implausible, it sounds like tax evasion - because you've already indicated that you are double dipping (claiming your house taxes in two locations), among other things.
I don't need to get audited for some screwup on behalf of the CPA that handles my taxes and paperwork
You wouldn't even recognize such a screwup, so such a claim is just meaningless bullshit puffery.
nor does he need to tarnish his spotless rating in his own community of peers.
He wouldn't be the first accountant whose self proclaimed brilliance blinded him to the avalanche coming down the hill. Once of my wife's former co-workers (when my wife was a tax professional) now flips burgers down at McDonald's because she wasn't as smart as she thought was. It's about the best job an ex-con can get.
But thanks for checking with your wife on the matter.
Try reading you ignorant fuckhead - She was a tax professional.
I ran this one past my wife, an accountant who has done tax work for a living (she's a CFO now though), and her comments can be simply summarized as "wow, that guy is fucked if he ever gets audited".
Take for example your LUG - it may be a non profit or a not-for-profit, but unless it's a recognized charity or foundation (I.E. has filed the appropriate paperwork and received approval from the IRS), your contributions to it are not tax deductible. (And she doubts a user group will qualify for 501(c)(3) exemption in the first place.)
Then there's writing off your expenses - unless you are running a business (more paperwork, properly filed), you can't write 'em off. Don't even think about the home office deduction without talking to a tax professional (which not all CPA's are).
Etc... Etc...
It sounds like your 'stellar' CPA is setting you up to potentially be liable for back taxes and a hefty fine.
There is limited desire for the first generation of a car that costs $110,000.
Yes...the demand is so very limited that they have preorders for every single car that's scheduled to roll off the assembly line till 2009.
2009 is only ten weeks away - color me unimpressed. Doubly so since the number being actually completed and delivered has steadily been only a fraction of scheduled production. Because they don't get paid for cars scheduled for delivery, but only for cars actually delivered, this is important.
Demand is not the issue at all.
Demand is vitally important - because without demand the company goes under. I wonder how many of those pre-orders have been cancelled in the last few weeks between the financial crisis and Tesla's demonstrated inability to meet it's production schedule? (More than I few I'd be willing bet, and its a certainty the VC's know.)
Another question is whether or not the (very small really) demonstrated demand is sufficient to repay their existing obligations and still leave the company financially viable. Tesla wouldn't be the first company to go under because the margins and cash flow on their early deliveries were insufficient to keep the company afloat and viable, even in the face of (seemingly) high demand. (Consistently delaying production, as Tesla has, makes this even worse, as that means their float costs are going sharply up with every day.) On top of this, Tesla is already on the hook for significant warranty repairs to the vehicles already shipped...
Then there is the question of long term demand - Tesla is entering a crowded market at the top of the price curve. The key question is whether they can lower their costs sufficiently to lower their price, while still meeting their financial obligations. They've got a long way to go just in the luxury market, let alone being able to compete in the mass market. There's an old business adage, "sell to the classes, live with the masses, sell to the masses, live with the classes" that would seem to apply here.
The issue is that they cannot get loans. This means that their only way to survive is to become profitable now as opposed to take out loans that they'd fully be able to repay later.
Yes, in very simplistic terms, the issue is that they cannot get loans. But, as I show above, the real issues run much deeper and the causes are much more complex than "its just the credit crunch so they cannot get loans". The company my wife is CFO of is has no problem obtaining float capitol - but they aren't a startup and have a demonstrated performance record.
It's a dead certain they [Tesla] can't become profitable now, otherwise they wouldn't be asking for loans in the first place, or at a minimum they'd be showing that profit as a reason why they are a reasonable risk for a loan. As I demonstrate above, it is very questionable whether Tesla will be able to repay it's current obligations (even absent the credit crunch), let alone additional ones.
One thing Tesla could do in this market is to ally it self with one of the big US car makers, one of the ones that has no kind of experience in making 4-6 seat passenger cars that weigh in at below 5 metric tons
That would be exactly none of the US car makers - since all have the experience you state.
These companies must be desperate to acquire expertise and engineering talent on how to make the kind of car that will sell in times of recession and toughening environmental legislation.
Desperate to acquire a company with virtually no real experience that amounts to a tenth of the size of the engineering departments they already have on the problem? Please.
You vastly overvalue Tesla and underestimate the big car makers.
Seconded the above. At the time of the dotcom boom my uncle had a new filling machine ready for manufacture. He had orders. He just needed some additional money to build it. He tried banks, VCs, every one he could think of and drew a blank.
Will all due respect to you uncle, your understanding about how such things work is a little incomplete. Having orders isn't enough - you have to have enough orders. And a viable business plan. And be entering a viable market. Etc... etc... It's complicated, and banks/VC's aren't stupid.
Yet at the same time VC threw countless money at any proposition that ended '... and its on the internet'.
That's the conventional wisdom... But it's not true. I know of half a dozen internet ventures in that era that failed because they couldn't get funding.
Slashdot Mirror
But a hub and spoke system is no less broken - if to travel from where I live (near Seattle) to my hometown of Winston-Salem (NC), I have to from the Seattle hub, to the Chicago hub, to the Washington hub, and then take slow conventional trains from Washington to Winston... I'm considerably worse off that the current situation where I change planes once (usually at DFW). (Don't fool yourself into thinking that all hubs will be connected to all other hubs. There isn't enough traffic, and managing that number of connections becomes nightmarish.)
There's a reason why, to the maximum extent practical, airlines have abandoned spoke-and-hub for direct routing.
Assuming that you can get the ticket for $100, which is a completely unsupported assumption on your part.
The problem is that you handwave that savings into existence, ignoring the billions of dollars it would cost to build such a network (current rails can't handle those speeds and aren't set up to allow for through trains), and the hundreds of millions of dollars a year that such a network will require for routine track maintenance.
Conventional trains spend power counteracting gravity as well - in the form of overcoming friction on the wheels and axles that support the train.
They had one. It was never profitable despite being (at the time) one of the fastest and best maintained trains of it's day. The Japanese trains are profitable over similar routes because they carry ten times the passengers than a comparable US train ever will.
And how much are you willing to pay for the privilege? You're talking a multi billion dollar investment to handle a few thousand of riders at a point destination.
In your dreams. There aren't any point-to-point destinations in the Midwest, that avoid problematical geography, to justify the tens of billions of dollars needed to construct the line. The same thing on the East coast - outside of the Bos-Wash corridor (which has considerable troublesome geography), there simply aren't the destinations.
And of course train tracks never get blocked or shutdown or require maintenance.
We don't need any of that. We have enough ignorant people like yourself.
Yes, and anyone with the experience you claim know that is because of poor headline writing, not because of the basic rules of headline writing.
DUH. The letter 'A' doesn't tell you what it happening either. A comma is part of a structure, not a quanta of information. Read the whole sentence, as you are supposed to, then parse it.
If the topic was sacrificing clarity, you'd have a point.
TFA summarized: "If you compare apples to oranges long enough, and invoke enough buzzwords and Professorial Authority, people will praise your new clothes alongside the Emperors".
Seriously, I've studied nuclear weapons for the better part of twenty years and I can't figure out what the hell this guy is talking about. Most of his article seems to be anti-American rhetoric, coupled with significant factual errors, and wrapped up with a finale of "I invented public key cryptography and am thus an expert on this completely unrelated topic".
If that's the point - why is so much of his output over the last few years centered around his political views and so little about computer security? Why so much pandering to the anti-Bush demographic? Why so much, quite frankly, ignorance about security in favor of pithy sound bites?
As Inigo says, "I do not think that means what you think it means".
Yep, and look at the number of otherwise 'nine days wonder' people (especially criminals) who seem to rate articles on the Wikipedia mostly because they hit the front page of CNN.
Economizing the number of letters in a headline is driven by several factors, all of which apply onscreen as they do on paper- like the need to minimize the time it takes for a reader to take in the headline, or the need to minimize the amount of acreage taken up by the headline. If anything a web based article is even more limited that a dead tree version because of the faster pace of web browsing and sharply limited screen acreage.
(Disclaimer: I've actually done dead tree layout work, everything from hand typesetting to computerized typesetting. I've also done headline writing, which is more difficult than you might think.)
Power companies have been pushing their efficiencies for years - as it directly affects the bottom line. If you have any ideas, feel free to polish your resume up and submit it.
In real world engineering it's actually KISAP - Keep It As Simple As Possible. Some complexity is almost always unavoidable.
If you have a lighter, fully functional, and better design, feel free to submit it or your resume to the appropriate office.
So what? This thing is much larger than anything landed anywhere before, with the exception of the manned LEM.
The Apollo capsule had an atmosphere much thicker (as in height) and much thicker (as in density) than the Mars landers have available. The Apollo LEM could use rocket braking because of the Moon's low gravity.
Mars is a stone cold bitch to land on because the atmosphere is too thin to completely rely on parachutes, and Mars' gravity is too high to rely completely on rockets.
The problem isn't the unknown period of immersion. It's the unknown chemicals dissolved in the water during the period of immersion that are now soaked into the gear. But wait, it gets worse... Now that gear has been sitting outside under a tarp and exposed to the elements with condensation forming and mold growing inside for a month. That's the real problem.
Does your tinfoil hat chafe much?
Or, just possibly, they are rational individuals who lack the privacy fetish and extremism so common on Slashdot.
Yup. I've been saying it for years and routinely been modded down for it - Bruce is a columnist and a consultant. He succeeds not by being right, but by being popular or at least generating lots of buzz. This book is just building the brand, repeating and repackaging everything he has said a dozens times before so that they Faithful can shower him with money.
The only difference between Bruce and Billy Mays is that Billy is at least honest in what he does.
So the fuck what? That doesn't excuse being ignorant of the need.
An open source advocate or programmer shouldn't be expected to think rationally rather than blowing smoke and spreading FUD?
ROTFLMAO. That has to be one of the most delusional (and utterly clueless) things I've ever read. When you stop cheerleading, and actually bother to learn what the fuck you're talking about and then actually bother to think before writing... It just might occur to you that same set of circumstances yield different risk/benefit results depending on the type of corporation and their business models.
(Yawn.) More ignorant handwaving, smoke blowing, and cheerleading.
Ah yes, the costs of removing your product from the market and replacing it with a new version are FUD! It's actually free! It doesn't cost anything to change your support or procedures! It's actually free! Warranty replacement? Free! Burning new CD's or firmware? Free!
It's all FUD!
And the whole point of the article, and the grandparent, is that OSS cheerleaders don't even try to perform that analysis. All they do is handwave and blow smoke out of their USB ports and say:
Yeah, the world is waiting for someone to get the bright idea of offering cars for hire, rent, or lease.
It's pretty meaningless as a network safety measure if someone can go elsewhere and download the same app. At best it lets Google disavow all knowledge.
So you claim - but noticeably absent is any discussion of it being reviewed by a tax professional.
So the fuck what? Just because an accountant can add up the sums on a financial disclosure does not mean that they are familiar with tax law. In the same was a programmer conversant in one language might be able to follow code in a second language - but will miss subtle things that a programmer conversant in the second would see at a glance. Completely different specialties.
It doesn't sound implausible, it sounds like tax evasion - because you've already indicated that you are double dipping (claiming your house taxes in two locations), among other things.
You wouldn't even recognize such a screwup, so such a claim is just meaningless bullshit puffery.
He wouldn't be the first accountant whose self proclaimed brilliance blinded him to the avalanche coming down the hill. Once of my wife's former co-workers (when my wife was a tax professional) now flips burgers down at McDonald's because she wasn't as smart as she thought was. It's about the best job an ex-con can get.
Try reading you ignorant fuckhead - She was a tax professional.
I ran this one past my wife, an accountant who has done tax work for a living (she's a CFO now though), and her comments can be simply summarized as "wow, that guy is fucked if he ever gets audited".
Take for example your LUG - it may be a non profit or a not-for-profit, but unless it's a recognized charity or foundation (I.E. has filed the appropriate paperwork and received approval from the IRS), your contributions to it are not tax deductible. (And she doubts a user group will qualify for 501(c)(3) exemption in the first place.)
Then there's writing off your expenses - unless you are running a business (more paperwork, properly filed), you can't write 'em off. Don't even think about the home office deduction without talking to a tax professional (which not all CPA's are).
Etc... Etc...
It sounds like your 'stellar' CPA is setting you up to potentially be liable for back taxes and a hefty fine.
2009 is only ten weeks away - color me unimpressed. Doubly so since the number being actually completed and delivered has steadily been only a fraction of scheduled production. Because they don't get paid for cars scheduled for delivery, but only for cars actually delivered, this is important.
Demand is vitally important - because without demand the company goes under. I wonder how many of those pre-orders have been cancelled in the last few weeks between the financial crisis and Tesla's demonstrated inability to meet it's production schedule? (More than I few I'd be willing bet, and its a certainty the VC's know.)
Another question is whether or not the (very small really) demonstrated demand is sufficient to repay their existing obligations and still leave the company financially viable. Tesla wouldn't be the first company to go under because the margins and cash flow on their early deliveries were insufficient to keep the company afloat and viable, even in the face of (seemingly) high demand. (Consistently delaying production, as Tesla has, makes this even worse, as that means their float costs are going sharply up with every day.) On top of this, Tesla is already on the hook for significant warranty repairs to the vehicles already shipped...
Then there is the question of long term demand - Tesla is entering a crowded market at the top of the price curve. The key question is whether they can lower their costs sufficiently to lower their price, while still meeting their financial obligations. They've got a long way to go just in the luxury market, let alone being able to compete in the mass market. There's an old business adage, "sell to the classes, live with the masses, sell to the masses, live with the classes" that would seem to apply here.
Yes, in very simplistic terms, the issue is that they cannot get loans. But, as I show above, the real issues run much deeper and the causes are much more complex than "its just the credit crunch so they cannot get loans". The company my wife is CFO of is has no problem obtaining float capitol - but they aren't a startup and have a demonstrated performance record.
It's a dead certain they [Tesla] can't become profitable now, otherwise they wouldn't be asking for loans in the first place, or at a minimum they'd be showing that profit as a reason why they are a reasonable risk for a loan. As I demonstrate above, it is very questionable whether Tesla will be able to repay it's current obligations (even absent the credit crunch), let alone additional ones.
That would be exactly none of the US car makers - since all have the experience you state.
Desperate to acquire a company with virtually no real experience that amounts to a tenth of the size of the engineering departments they already have on the problem? Please.
You vastly overvalue Tesla and underestimate the big car makers.
Will all due respect to you uncle, your understanding about how such things work is a little incomplete. Having orders isn't enough - you have to have enough orders. And a viable business plan. And be entering a viable market. Etc... etc... It's complicated, and banks/VC's aren't stupid.
That's the conventional wisdom... But it's not true. I know of half a dozen internet ventures in that era that failed because they couldn't get funding.