It was obvious from the get go that Putin had major dislike for Hillary and her foreign policies. If she were president there is no way that the pressure over Magnitsky and Crimea would let up.
What they were most likely aiming for is a Hillary presidency which everyone figured would happen anyway, but a Republican congress that would obstruct anything and everything in pursuit of their donor-classes' interests and right-wing ideology (i.e. Tea Party). In other words what Obama had to deal with. That's the formula for the weakest America.
I am sure their team had no idea their ops would work as well as it did and Trump eked out a popular vote loss and an EC victory. What they learned is what Barnum said: "Nobody ever went broke overestimated the stupidity of the American public."
I don't have much to add, but I will say that Chrome provides very nice developer tools for building and debugging client-side web applications. It is almost as if the people behind it had a vision or something.
Sort of related: I went to a movie yesterday (Crazy Rich Asians) and saw an ad before the movie pushing Chromebook. If you want to see floorboss-level trolling of Microsoft go see that. Oh, and the movie was pretty good too.
This is what you get by insisting on a for-profit higher educational system. I see all sorts of wild data points.
On one hand I get that making people pay for college will cause them to take it more seriously and value it more, but the idea you have to go into debt for life to get higher education is insane. It used to be mostly MDs did that but now it seems to be everyone.
At the same time, major corporations are no longer demanding degrees to grant interviews and award employment. Any degree that isn't strictly professional (medical, law, teacher, engineering) is more likely than not to turn out to be worthless.
China is producing three times the number of engineers the U.S. does (out of a 4x population) and I don't see the citizens there financially ruining themselves to do so. At the same time movement conservatives insist that anyone without a degree is doing so only through bad life choices and don't deserve any financial security in a decent living standard. They will then go on to point out how the Chinese have a great work ethic and we don't and that is why China is "winning" so vote Republican/MAGA.
Our major educational institutions have turned into basically huge investment banking firms accumulating massive assets like crazy, even while they hike their crazy tuition ever higher because of "rising costs." Harvard has endowments more than $35 Billion, and the poorest of the top ten has more than $8.5B. Can you afford to go there without a huge loan or financial assistance? Why not?
I don't know where this is all going or what should be done. Maybe voting socialist (Bernie?) will work because voting MAGA sure as hell won't. I'm just glad that I'm not in the position of having to earn a degree at this point of my life. But the way things there is ruining a generation. Maybe two or more.
Congrats, you win the "most retarded comment of the week" award. Wanna try for an encore? Maybe you can follow it up with "expensive computers aren't fast because poor people can't afford them".
I was going to respond to that comment (since it was a response I solicited) but it was so breathtakingly devoid of logic I just didn't know where to begin.
As if an expensive green choice means that no inexpensive green choices can exist. Or if that isn't the argument then what is. Seriously. I can't even
Unfortunately we are living in a world where actual results and accomplishments don't matter. Only the media theme-of-the-day matters.
Not for everybody of course. But too many people.
How else do you explain the current U.S. president? One business failure after another, one patched up scandal after another, serial divorces and everything he ever touched turned to shit and an unending stream of lawsuits. But to his supporters he is a business genius and a marvel of morality.
So it isn't surprising of course that the same culture looks at Musk who has a PR tin ear but manages to get things done that virtually nobody else could, then sees nothing but a potential scandal that will make them rich and famous by getting the scoop on it.
It is funny how Tesla cultists claim that they "care" about the environment, and somehow think that driving around in $60,000 electric vehicles is the way forward. It is totally irrational and insane.
This is about the fourth time I have seen you post this same ridiculous assertion. You probably have posted it more times that I just haven't seen. What the hell does the price of a car -- or ANY product -- have to do with its environmental rating?
Usually when I see "conservative" politicians arguing against environmental standards (such as MPG, lower toxic content, etc) one of their favorite tropes is that the regulation will cause the consumer to pay more.
Yet here you are with the argument "if it is expensive it MUST be wasteful and whomever buys it obviously doesn't care about the environment." Time and again.
It is like saying that an $95K Mercedes that gets 32MPG is worse for the environment than a 18MPG sedan that costs $19K.
Would you care to explain this? If not give it a rest. Nobody capable of rational thought is buying it.
Unfortunately if you work on outgoing business you end up using a lot of different communication utilities. It isn't just Slack, but over the past several years I got involved with companies and standards-setting bodies that use it. So if you want to be plugged into the real-time communications of that company or group, you have to use it.
But that isn't really different from other software -- on this Mac I am typing with I also have to have Skype, GoTo Meeting, WebEx, Zoom, and a few others I forget the names of until someone calls a meeting. If you ask any engineer on the call why they use it they just shrug and say "that's what our company uses."
To make matters worse many of the "your business in the cloud" type operations like Zoho try to get in the action as well. I think the Zimbra mail server (VMWare) also offers "collaboration" features that host chatrooms and IP calls. The only time I pushed back on using something is there was one from Asia that had a bad reputation for installing malware. I forget the name. I got the client to switch to WebEx for that call but who knows what the condition of their own systems are at this point.
So to answer your question: there really isn't any big technical merit between them. Yeah some work better than others. Skype really fsked themselves up but since it is Microsoft you will still have to use it. What counts is marketing and market share. No real mystery.
Numerous people at the factory, both on and off the record, have confirmed that he does sleep on that couch.
My housekeeper's husband who works there as a welder also told me this before it was widely spread news.
Some people do say that overwork is the sign of a failed business model and I believe that as well. However my guess is that someone of Elon's mindset doesn't consider that overwork. He is doing something extra-ordinary (and has already achieved many such things) and there is no question he is personally willing to personally do what it takes to make Tesla successful.
I recall many years ago (I think early 70s) listening to a radio program that announced that the richest actor in Hollywood turned out to be Fred MacMurray. The reason was that he was an early investor in Ampex.
However looking now (wikipedia, etc) I see no mention of this. Can anyone here say if that is true or if I just mis-remembered it somehow?
I do as well. Actually I drive to the site several times a month. But the reason I go is to drive my wife to the Stanford Health clinic which was built on the property and now is in the process of greatly expanding. Given that her chemo seems to have saved her life I am OK with taking the sign down to get more facility to save others in similar situation.
I do know that in the middle east at VPN can get you some jail time and a big fine. They do that not so much for politics but that it protects the royalty-owned phone carrier's profits. $15/minute is worth protecting.
I have only been to China once but then as ever I wouldn't make light of flouting their laws.
I actually happen to like and appreciate Typescript. It was easy to learn-by-doing by going through the Angular [2-6] tutorials.
As a long-time Java programmer, I don't have to give up the type checking at the IDE level that really reduces the common coding mistakes you get with plain Javascript. You just get to tryable-then-working code faster. But you don't give up any of the flexibility that Javascript gives you. And the async/await functionality makes client-side programming just so much easier.
Does anyone else feel this way? Or is it just fashionable to hate it because Microsoft had something to do with it?
Now that this is brought up, how does the Tesla power wall, solar cells, and battery operations affect Tesla's bottom line? Are these profitable profit centers?
Anyone remember the Spielberg movie AI? It wasn't very good but was germane to this topic.
In that story there were gatherings of ordinary people who set up bleachers and made a sport out of demolishing abandoned AI-based robots just for the glee of it. The destruction was made as sadistic as possible, and one memorable line was one robot waiting in the pen asked another -- "could you please turn off my pain sensors?"
When it became the protaganist's turn he starts begging to be spared. The crowd's mood turns because robots are not supposed to do that.
I am not sure exactly what to think of this topic but it made me think of that.
Anyone else besides me remember the cardboard donation collectors at supermarkets when you were a kid? I remember putting a dime in at least a few times.
Even then it was amazing to think that anything could be accomplished with a collection of dimes.
wouldn't it have been cheaper to buy a small auto plant (or even a whole company) instead of re-inventing the assembly line from scratch?
The NUMMI plant was a complete building when Tesla occupied it, operated by GM and Toyota from 1984 to about 2010. Is that what you meant?
As for the assembly line itself, it was two generations older and set up for a different type of car. Tesla's investment is not only for the car design but the process to build it.
My point was that the investor's high expectation are specifically for them to spend every dime they can get their grubby little hands on to create new tech and new infrastructure that will disrupt the market for long term profits. Not just to bank it to earn interest or dribble out dividends.
Maybe you think that is foolish. Don't buy Tesla stock then. Maybe you think that is wild-eyed delusional gambling. Don't buy Tesla stock then. Maybe you think it is all one big scam. Don't buy Tesla stock then.
Obviously the major holders of Tesla stock don't think any of those things. That is what is supporting the valuation.
I notice that you didn't list 'Making a Profit' in your list.
In this category of company? No.
Tesla was founded (and not by Musk BTW) to change the game on electric vehicles. Something that no major auto maker was interested in doing until Tesla made its mark. They were not founded to squeeze out nickel and dimes to try to win at the existing automaker's game.
That's what the bears are missing. This isn't Ford's game and this isn't GM's game and it isn't Toyota's game. It is Tesla's game and those guys are the ones that are going to have to try and get in. Not the other way around which is what a lot of people seem to be insisting that's what they shoudl do.
If Telsa were putting significant amounts retained earnings on the books and paying stockholder dividends at this point I expect that a lot of the sky-high valuation they now posses would evaporate. Whatever cash they have to spend, regardless of whether they get it from operations or from loans or equity sale they should be spending in R&D for both product, technology, and manufacturing capacity.
I suppose we can expect more muskisdelusionalandoutofcash postings.
In the last Tesla thread I pointed out that, as an stockholder, what I am looking for is NOT Elon Musk's cute personality or science fantasy. Nor do I care to whig out at every little story of production problems. What I am looking for is:
Technological leadership.
Market presence.
Production leadership.
Most of all: backorders and strong forecast. None of the rest matters unless you have someone willing to buy it. Tesla has that in spades.
So Tesla is delivering. Skepticism is healthy but not to the extent that the Tesla naysayers on/. take it.
Slashdot Mirror
It was obvious from the get go that Putin had major dislike for Hillary and her foreign policies. If she were president there is no way that the pressure over Magnitsky and Crimea would let up.
What they were most likely aiming for is a Hillary presidency which everyone figured would happen anyway, but a Republican congress that would obstruct anything and everything in pursuit of their donor-classes' interests and right-wing ideology (i.e. Tea Party). In other words what Obama had to deal with. That's the formula for the weakest America.
I am sure their team had no idea their ops would work as well as it did and Trump eked out a popular vote loss and an EC victory. What they learned is what Barnum said: "Nobody ever went broke overestimated the stupidity of the American public."
I don't have much to add, but I will say that Chrome provides very nice developer tools for building and debugging client-side web applications. It is almost as if the people behind it had a vision or something.
Sort of related: I went to a movie yesterday (Crazy Rich Asians) and saw an ad before the movie pushing Chromebook. If you want to see floorboss-level trolling of Microsoft go see that. Oh, and the movie was pretty good too.
This is what you get by insisting on a for-profit higher educational system. I see all sorts of wild data points.
On one hand I get that making people pay for college will cause them to take it more seriously and value it more, but the idea you have to go into debt for life to get higher education is insane. It used to be mostly MDs did that but now it seems to be everyone.
At the same time, major corporations are no longer demanding degrees to grant interviews and award employment. Any degree that isn't strictly professional (medical, law, teacher, engineering) is more likely than not to turn out to be worthless.
China is producing three times the number of engineers the U.S. does (out of a 4x population) and I don't see the citizens there financially ruining themselves to do so. At the same time movement conservatives insist that anyone without a degree is doing so only through bad life choices and don't deserve any financial security in a decent living standard. They will then go on to point out how the Chinese have a great work ethic and we don't and that is why China is "winning" so vote Republican/MAGA.
Our major educational institutions have turned into basically huge investment banking firms accumulating massive assets like crazy, even while they hike their crazy tuition ever higher because of "rising costs." Harvard has endowments more than $35 Billion, and the poorest of the top ten has more than $8.5B. Can you afford to go there without a huge loan or financial assistance? Why not?
I don't know where this is all going or what should be done. Maybe voting socialist (Bernie?) will work because voting MAGA sure as hell won't. I'm just glad that I'm not in the position of having to earn a degree at this point of my life. But the way things there is ruining a generation. Maybe two or more.
How can anyone respect, admire, follow, or in any way support this overfed cesspool of ignorance and corruption defies science.
Congrats, you win the "most retarded comment of the week" award. Wanna try for an encore? Maybe you can follow it up with "expensive computers aren't fast because poor people can't afford them".
I was going to respond to that comment (since it was a response I solicited) but it was so breathtakingly devoid of logic I just didn't know where to begin.
As if an expensive green choice means that no inexpensive green choices can exist. Or if that isn't the argument then what is. Seriously. I can't even
"Terrible manager"
Unfortunately we are living in a world where actual results and accomplishments don't matter. Only the media theme-of-the-day matters.
Not for everybody of course. But too many people.
How else do you explain the current U.S. president? One business failure after another, one patched up scandal after another, serial divorces and everything he ever touched turned to shit and an unending stream of lawsuits. But to his supporters he is a business genius and a marvel of morality.
So it isn't surprising of course that the same culture looks at Musk who has a PR tin ear but manages to get things done that virtually nobody else could, then sees nothing but a potential scandal that will make them rich and famous by getting the scoop on it.
It is funny how Tesla cultists claim that they "care" about the environment, and somehow think that driving around in $60,000 electric vehicles is the way forward. It is totally irrational and insane.
This is about the fourth time I have seen you post this same ridiculous assertion. You probably have posted it more times that I just haven't seen. What the hell does the price of a car -- or ANY product -- have to do with its environmental rating?
Usually when I see "conservative" politicians arguing against environmental standards (such as MPG, lower toxic content, etc) one of their favorite tropes is that the regulation will cause the consumer to pay more.
Yet here you are with the argument "if it is expensive it MUST be wasteful and whomever buys it obviously doesn't care about the environment." Time and again.
It is like saying that an $95K Mercedes that gets 32MPG is worse for the environment than a 18MPG sedan that costs $19K.
Would you care to explain this? If not give it a rest. Nobody capable of rational thought is buying it.
I just don't get it.
Unfortunately if you work on outgoing business you end up using a lot of different communication utilities. It isn't just Slack, but over the past several years I got involved with companies and standards-setting bodies that use it. So if you want to be plugged into the real-time communications of that company or group, you have to use it.
But that isn't really different from other software -- on this Mac I am typing with I also have to have Skype, GoTo Meeting, WebEx, Zoom, and a few others I forget the names of until someone calls a meeting. If you ask any engineer on the call why they use it they just shrug and say "that's what our company uses."
To make matters worse many of the "your business in the cloud" type operations like Zoho try to get in the action as well. I think the Zimbra mail server (VMWare) also offers "collaboration" features that host chatrooms and IP calls. The only time I pushed back on using something is there was one from Asia that had a bad reputation for installing malware. I forget the name. I got the client to switch to WebEx for that call but who knows what the condition of their own systems are at this point.
So to answer your question: there really isn't any big technical merit between them. Yeah some work better than others. Skype really fsked themselves up but since it is Microsoft you will still have to use it. What counts is marketing and market share. No real mystery.
Numerous people at the factory, both on and off the record, have confirmed that he does sleep on that couch.
My housekeeper's husband who works there as a welder also told me this before it was widely spread news.
Some people do say that overwork is the sign of a failed business model and I believe that as well. However my guess is that someone of Elon's mindset doesn't consider that overwork. He is doing something extra-ordinary (and has already achieved many such things) and there is no question he is personally willing to personally do what it takes to make Tesla successful.
And someone wants to replace a CEO like that.
Isn't Slack based on IRC? Slack is the Latest Cool Thing you know.
I recall many years ago (I think early 70s) listening to a radio program that announced that the richest actor in Hollywood turned out to be Fred MacMurray. The reason was that he was an early investor in Ampex.
However looking now (wikipedia, etc) I see no mention of this. Can anyone here say if that is true or if I just mis-remembered it somehow?
I drive past this sign fairly regularly
I do as well. Actually I drive to the site several times a month. But the reason I go is to drive my wife to the Stanford Health clinic which was built on the property and now is in the process of greatly expanding. Given that her chemo seems to have saved her life I am OK with taking the sign down to get more facility to save others in similar situation.
And then systemd arrived.
I thought China had outlawed VPNs there.
I do know that in the middle east at VPN can get you some jail time and a big fine. They do that not so much for politics but that it protects the royalty-owned phone carrier's profits. $15/minute is worth protecting.
I have only been to China once but then as ever I wouldn't make light of flouting their laws.
Let's bring back lead-based paints and gasoline.
It creates jobs you know.
I actually happen to like and appreciate Typescript. It was easy to learn-by-doing by going through the Angular [2-6] tutorials.
As a long-time Java programmer, I don't have to give up the type checking at the IDE level that really reduces the common coding mistakes you get with plain Javascript. You just get to tryable-then-working code faster. But you don't give up any of the flexibility that Javascript gives you. And the async/await functionality makes client-side programming just so much easier.
Does anyone else feel this way? Or is it just fashionable to hate it because Microsoft had something to do with it?
Now that this is brought up, how does the Tesla power wall, solar cells, and battery operations affect Tesla's bottom line? Are these profitable profit centers?
Anyone remember the Spielberg movie AI? It wasn't very good but was germane to this topic.
In that story there were gatherings of ordinary people who set up bleachers and made a sport out of demolishing abandoned AI-based robots just for the glee of it. The destruction was made as sadistic as possible, and one memorable line was one robot waiting in the pen asked another -- "could you please turn off my pain sensors?"
When it became the protaganist's turn he starts begging to be spared. The crowd's mood turns because robots are not supposed to do that.
I am not sure exactly what to think of this topic but it made me think of that.
Anyone else besides me remember the cardboard donation collectors at supermarkets when you were a kid? I remember putting a dime in at least a few times.
Even then it was amazing to think that anything could be accomplished with a collection of dimes.
wouldn't it have been cheaper to buy a small auto plant (or even a whole company) instead of re-inventing the assembly line from scratch?
The NUMMI plant was a complete building when Tesla occupied it, operated by GM and Toyota from 1984 to about 2010. Is that what you meant?
As for the assembly line itself, it was two generations older and set up for a different type of car. Tesla's investment is not only for the car design but the process to build it.
If they were concerned about the environment they wouldn't be "investing" in a company that makes $60,000 cars!
Right. Because a car's degree of compatibility with the environment can be fully determined by the price of the car.
Reality? how does it work again?
They are spending more cash than they make.
My point was that the investor's high expectation are specifically for them to spend every dime they can get their grubby little hands on to create new tech and new infrastructure that will disrupt the market for long term profits. Not just to bank it to earn interest or dribble out dividends.
Maybe you think that is foolish. Don't buy Tesla stock then. Maybe you think that is wild-eyed delusional gambling. Don't buy Tesla stock then. Maybe you think it is all one big scam. Don't buy Tesla stock then.
Obviously the major holders of Tesla stock don't think any of those things. That is what is supporting the valuation.
I notice that you didn't list 'Making a Profit' in your list.
In this category of company? No.
Tesla was founded (and not by Musk BTW) to change the game on electric vehicles. Something that no major auto maker was interested in doing until Tesla made its mark. They were not founded to squeeze out nickel and dimes to try to win at the existing automaker's game.
That's what the bears are missing. This isn't Ford's game and this isn't GM's game and it isn't Toyota's game. It is Tesla's game and those guys are the ones that are going to have to try and get in. Not the other way around which is what a lot of people seem to be insisting that's what they shoudl do.
If Telsa were putting significant amounts retained earnings on the books and paying stockholder dividends at this point I expect that a lot of the sky-high valuation they now posses would evaporate. Whatever cash they have to spend, regardless of whether they get it from operations or from loans or equity sale they should be spending in R&D for both product, technology, and manufacturing capacity.
I suppose we can expect more muskisdelusionalandoutofcash postings.
In the last Tesla thread I pointed out that, as an stockholder, what I am looking for is NOT Elon Musk's cute personality or science fantasy. Nor do I care to whig out at every little story of production problems. What I am looking for is:
Technological leadership.
Market presence.
Production leadership.
Most of all: backorders and strong forecast. None of the rest matters unless you have someone willing to buy it. Tesla has that in spades.
So Tesla is delivering. Skepticism is healthy but not to the extent that the Tesla naysayers on /. take it.
Neal Stephenson seems to have had a vision into this last century
First published 1999