Here, every single contract has a boilerplate clause that says if any part of the contract is illegal it was totally accidental, honest, and that little bit of illegality doesn't in any way affect the bits that ARE legal.
Basically, it's all totally legal unless you pony up for a lawyer, in which case, oopsie.
Send 'em to me. I specialize in convincing physicians that they aren't actually demigods. Some of them actually turn out fairly well, once they realize that a mere PhD might know a few things they didn't learn in that six month research fellowship they did.
Dunno... a good proportion of the highest paid CEOs seem to do exactly that. Maybe the fraud is a little more on the down low in most cases. I keep hearing how the highest paid CEOs are paid that much because they're the best.
While reading your post I got to "when I graduated I knew just enough engineering to know what I didn't know" and was just about to tell you that you must have been an unusually gifted undergraduate.
When you come out of undergrad you think you know everything. Grad school teaches you that you really don't know anything. A postdoc teaches you that nobody else does either.
Everybody wants to be a startup these days. Particularly one that goes from zero to 9 billion in a few years. Nobody cares about wild parties, mansions and jets.
Now, with a brilliant CEO like Holmes you need to pay some attention to your exit strategy, thus the independent CSO. Your guy on the inside, who is not an undergraduate dropout, says things are about to blow, so you make your exit. Modern business at it's finest.
From all reports Holmes was a fairly brilliant CEO (she could convince people to give her lots of money) and completely hopeless at the actual science. If you actually wanted to make money you'd think you'd want to switch the roles: make her CEO and appoint a CSO that reported independently directly to the board.
Yes, Google shows most of the ads on the internet. That's what I mean. Their business is advertising. Search is a product they provide in order to gather information to make their advertising more effective. Search is so expensive, I doubt it's a viable business on it's own. You could show ads and offer preferential ranking in a standalone search engine, but I don't think you'd make enough to keep the business going. Same problem journalism has: the service costs more to offer than the on-site ad revenue can bring in.
YouTube could absolutely be split off, and Nest, Waze, etc. And WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram from Facebook,
Search isn't really a business on it's own. Google's search exists in order to provide advertising revenue. But ALL Google businesses exist in order to provide advertising revenue, so breaking them up into search+ads, mobile, office suite, etc. would both reduce their monopoly vertical integration and also increase privacy.
Google already broke themselves up internally to a certain extent.
It would be interesting to hear exactly what happened. 60 minutes blocks their content in Canada so I can't watch it, but surely the whole piece isn't just a long interview with the code.org dude?
The problem is that our society is set up to glorify leaders. Who wants to be the problem solver when your brilliant solution just gets passed up to a leader who takes the credit, gets paid more, and has more freedom?
What we end up with is a whole bunch of "leaders" and a few poor suckers who got stuck being problem solvers... too few to actually solve all the problems.
Harsh? That seems pretty gentle and straightforward for a media production. Usually they don't tell you anything, and if you press they just say "we decided to go in another direction."
Modern money isn't bits of metal or paper, it's a system. That system includes banks, exchanges, and payment systems, and, importantly, a system of regulation and checks that keep the whole thing (mostly) honest.
Bitcoin is kind of like money, except it's missing most of that system. There's nobody to give your money to except shady unregulated third parties.
Many proposals for dealing with some of bitcoin's other problems involve depending even more on those shady unregulated third parties.
It's true, but a sadder trend seems to be the growing anti-intellectualism of that hostility. In the 90s you could be pretty sure that a random Slashdotter probably knew how to use a screwdriver, and might very well have a JTAG programmer on their desk. Today Slashdot is more of a political arguing forum, and technical contributions are mocked as pedantic or irrelevant.
Only the rich would be able to drive *carelessly*. In a good insurance system most people would be economically incentivized not to do stupid things like tailgate. Admittedly, people who are too rich would be able to engage in riskier behaviour regardless of the monetary hit. It's a flaw in any economic incentive system.
Slashdot Mirror
Here, every single contract has a boilerplate clause that says if any part of the contract is illegal it was totally accidental, honest, and that little bit of illegality doesn't in any way affect the bits that ARE legal.
Basically, it's all totally legal unless you pony up for a lawyer, in which case, oopsie.
Are you mad?
I just rejected a contract offer for a *volunteer* position. It had the usual section on intellectual property: we own all your shit.
If it actually said that in plain language, even as a layman's summary, can you imagine all the hassle with people objecting to the terms?
This is an insurance contract. It's written to *include* loopholes, in the issuer's favour.
So you're saying Holmes would also make an excellent board member?
Ha ha, bravo. Not only did you detect the dripping sarcasm in my post, you one-upped it. V.2 still prefers black turtlenecks I hope?
Send 'em to me. I specialize in convincing physicians that they aren't actually demigods. Some of them actually turn out fairly well, once they realize that a mere PhD might know a few things they didn't learn in that six month research fellowship they did.
Dunno... a good proportion of the highest paid CEOs seem to do exactly that. Maybe the fraud is a little more on the down low in most cases. I keep hearing how the highest paid CEOs are paid that much because they're the best.
While reading your post I got to "when I graduated I knew just enough engineering to know what I didn't know" and was just about to tell you that you must have been an unusually gifted undergraduate.
When you come out of undergrad you think you know everything. Grad school teaches you that you really don't know anything. A postdoc teaches you that nobody else does either.
Everybody wants to be a startup these days. Particularly one that goes from zero to 9 billion in a few years. Nobody cares about wild parties, mansions and jets.
Now, with a brilliant CEO like Holmes you need to pay some attention to your exit strategy, thus the independent CSO. Your guy on the inside, who is not an undergraduate dropout, says things are about to blow, so you make your exit. Modern business at it's finest.
I think I'd replace my wait staff if they were costing me an average of $142,000 a year too.
Mostly... except at the end. Most people can't bend their fingers independently like that.
Now, the ass wiggle... that was art.
From all reports Holmes was a fairly brilliant CEO (she could convince people to give her lots of money) and completely hopeless at the actual science. If you actually wanted to make money you'd think you'd want to switch the roles: make her CEO and appoint a CSO that reported independently directly to the board.
Yes, Google shows most of the ads on the internet. That's what I mean. Their business is advertising. Search is a product they provide in order to gather information to make their advertising more effective. Search is so expensive, I doubt it's a viable business on it's own. You could show ads and offer preferential ranking in a standalone search engine, but I don't think you'd make enough to keep the business going. Same problem journalism has: the service costs more to offer than the on-site ad revenue can bring in.
YouTube could absolutely be split off, and Nest, Waze, etc. And WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram from Facebook,
Search isn't really a business on it's own. Google's search exists in order to provide advertising revenue. But ALL Google businesses exist in order to provide advertising revenue, so breaking them up into search+ads, mobile, office suite, etc. would both reduce their monopoly vertical integration and also increase privacy.
Google already broke themselves up internally to a certain extent.
The things they mention, like plastic shopping bags, ARE recyclable. Their particular process just doesn't like them.
If recycling is ever going to be really viable, processes need to be improved to deal with "contamination."
I agree with your assessment, but I think the degree of incompetence in non-public leadership is even more catastrophic.
It would be interesting to hear exactly what happened. 60 minutes blocks their content in Canada so I can't watch it, but surely the whole piece isn't just a long interview with the code.org dude?
The problem is that our society is set up to glorify leaders. Who wants to be the problem solver when your brilliant solution just gets passed up to a leader who takes the credit, gets paid more, and has more freedom?
What we end up with is a whole bunch of "leaders" and a few poor suckers who got stuck being problem solvers... too few to actually solve all the problems.
Harsh? That seems pretty gentle and straightforward for a media production. Usually they don't tell you anything, and if you press they just say "we decided to go in another direction."
Modern money isn't bits of metal or paper, it's a system. That system includes banks, exchanges, and payment systems, and, importantly, a system of regulation and checks that keep the whole thing (mostly) honest.
Bitcoin is kind of like money, except it's missing most of that system. There's nobody to give your money to except shady unregulated third parties.
Many proposals for dealing with some of bitcoin's other problems involve depending even more on those shady unregulated third parties.
It's true, but a sadder trend seems to be the growing anti-intellectualism of that hostility. In the 90s you could be pretty sure that a random Slashdotter probably knew how to use a screwdriver, and might very well have a JTAG programmer on their desk. Today Slashdot is more of a political arguing forum, and technical contributions are mocked as pedantic or irrelevant.
(calculus joke)
Absolutely. Like the iChat, BBM, text and voice services that you pay for by purchasing a phone and paying for service.
The Internet only ones, like e-mail, are supported by ISP fees.
It's *weird* that certain text messaging systems that have become popular need to support themselves via advertising.
Only the rich would be able to drive *carelessly*. In a good insurance system most people would be economically incentivized not to do stupid things like tailgate. Admittedly, people who are too rich would be able to engage in riskier behaviour regardless of the monetary hit. It's a flaw in any economic incentive system.
Income-based tickets are a great idea.
No way man. My Apple II is still chugging away just fine. If it ever does break, I've got the circuit diagram for the motherboard.