Yes, usually not an effective long-term strategy. That's what you get for making a soda salesman CEO... a flavor for every demographic. Apple seems to have learned from their past - rather than create a gimped version of your product for the low end, just stay out of the low end altogether. I can't decide if the 5C is an example of them returning to past mistakes or if it was simply an ugly product without enough of a dollar savings to justify the downgrade.
I didn't know anyone with a Jr, but I did have a friend with a Tandy 1000 of some flavor. It was pretty cool, but he always had software compatibility problems.
I think people were most offended by the artificial limitations. Most computer companies were pushing their hardware to its limits in order to stay competitive, and here comes a PC with nice hardware that is artificially gimped to protect the more expensive products. It's one thing to be limited by engineering - quite another to be limited my marketing. With a typical product, you can subjectively debate the relative value - but in this case, marketing handed you a concrete, objective list of items that you were not getting for your money.
Give it a dog body and people are already in love with non-human things. Pretty soon we'll be wishing for AI to filter out computer pictures on Facebook.
I don't think that anyone would dispute that being born with a silver spoon in your mouth nearly guarantees financial success. That said, the two most successful entrepreneurs that I know personally did not start rich. One grew up in a rural area and, depending on your own background, you might consider his upbringing as poor. The other grew up quite comfortably, and his parents were both college educated - but by no means was he "rich", and he certainly hasn't inherited anything.
As to your risk angle, I'm not really sure how to respond. I thought it was obvious that I wasn't talking about physical danger.
If you poke around in the OpenTTD forums you will see where one or two of the developers apparently reached out to Sawyer through his publicist and were told that he was not happy with their project. It's not from a public source like an interview or anything like that.
I could be a victim of my own memory, but I remember it being quite under spec until they changed the spec. They didn't really remedy it until the redesign with the Super Hornet.
He was a middle manager, an employee. He was as much a peon working for a wage as the people who ride the Google buses. He didn't take any risks at all. He just rode HP's success.
Fair enough. I got defensive, but probably should have made it clear that I had no idea about Perkins's background.
I also think the comparison to Nazi Germany is ridiculous.
They tend to be willing to take significant risks that most of us don't have access to, because we don't have that kind of money.
I don't know who you are talking about. I think you must be confusing "entrepreneur" with "venture capitalist". A guy who starts his own business is the former. The specific guy I'm talking about was not rich and started in essentially the same place as me. Well educated with a family to move back in with if he hit hard times. The difference is that he went for a business education and I went to engineering school. He interned at Goldman and I interned at a manufacturer. He went out and started his own hedge fund (and failed) and I stayed in my safety zone. He stood in front of people and convinced them to invest money with him and then went on anti-anxiety medication and stood in front of the same group when he lost their money. I don't have the kind of brain he does, nor am I willing to work that hard or fail that spectacularly. And it shows - 20 years in and he's making far more money than I ever will.
pitting them against experienced pilots in F4s and other older jets
Sometimes the older jets are quite nimble performers, but lack some other quality which renders them obsolete. Maybe they have poor loiter time, low ordinance capacity, or limited range. Maybe they simply cost too much to maintain, or are unreliable. Thus they might still make excellent dog-fighting opponents on a training course where the scenario specifically evens the playing field.
There is more to a jet's war-fighting ability than simply being good in a dogfight or the ability to go really fast.
IIRC, it pisses him off. I think he has an artistic view of the original game, and he views the modified version as a (negative) alteration of his creative vision. I think he said it messed up the simplicity of the original, but I might be putting words in his mouth.:)
Nazis had some left-wing and some right-wing qualities, from an American perspective. They certainly were into government control - it's hard to go down the road of authoritarian rule without this, and it is typically considered a left-wing quality. They liked corporatism, which doesn't really fall into a right or left wing category. Certainly they played up the nationalism and superiority of the German people thing, which is pretty firmly right-wing. They were very militant, attempting to enlist civilians into military preparation and support - though one wonders if this was a pragmatic decision rather than one of ideology. Nazis force you to think of right-wing / left-wing as less of a straight line and more of a bar magnet that has been bent into a circle, with the Nazis occupying the part where the two poles meet.
I agree that this mentality is wrong, but credit where credit is due - these guys tend to be willing to take significant risks that most of us shirk away from. I know some of these entrepreneurial guys. Some are honestly too stupid to do it and go down in flames spectacularly. Some are smart but not lucky and go down in flames spectacularly. One guy I know has been at it for the 20 years that I've known him. Several times, completely reinventing himself. Now, he started out from privilege - his mom and dad were college educated and put him through school. Like me, he never had to worry about living on the street... he could just move in with Mom if he had to. But still, I have to hand it to him, he's been very persistent and willing to take some pretty mighty hits. He makes a lot more money than me as a result.
You could live pretty well in Kentucky on 60k/year. I did alright (10 years ago) on that in the Philly suburbs. My wife and I lived on that exclusively for a number of years, saving 100% of her salary. Of course, we lived in a 2-bedroom apartment and didn't have shiny new cars.
More native programmers doesn't necessarily mean lower salaries - right now we import people from all over the world via the H1B visa program. Even in the recession, we brought in over 100,000 H1B folks every year. Not all comp sci, but there you go.
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. I've been in countries where I can't speak to people at all - not even numbers - and I've always been able to eat and especially get a beer. While it is true that there are far more English-illiterate people in Florida, California, and other border states - I've spent considerable amounts of time in both and always been able to buy beer! Spanish would be a convenience, but a pretty minor one and my high school Spanish instruction long flew the coop.
Introduction to computer science and algorithmic (not the same thing as "learning java 101) should not be a sub for a foreign language, but mandatory.
While I agree with this, I still would rather have subbed the instruction time I spent in Spanish and Latin with computer programming. I use programming all the time, but the languages are long gone. I didn't know what the hell "Object Oriented" meant until after college, since the language they taught us in engineering school at the time was straight C, and in high school it was COBOL, FORTRAN, and some Pascal.
It's not that I'm afraid of learning new language - hell, I took Spanish and Latin in high school. But it is a complete waste of time unless you have other speakers of the language with which to practice. Otherwise, your brain optimizes the language right out of your head and you are back to learning how to count again with your toddler watching Dora the Explorer. My wife does use her Spanish once in a while, since she works at a hospital in an poor community. But even then, they have translators and plenty of staff who are Hispanic - so it is mainly a minor convenience. She also learned her Spanish by doing language immersion in Costa Rica - not in high school.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, usually not an effective long-term strategy. That's what you get for making a soda salesman CEO... a flavor for every demographic. Apple seems to have learned from their past - rather than create a gimped version of your product for the low end, just stay out of the low end altogether. I can't decide if the 5C is an example of them returning to past mistakes or if it was simply an ugly product without enough of a dollar savings to justify the downgrade.
absolute loyalty to the owner/master
Hmmmm, maybe a cat version then :)
Yeah, we were like 10 at the time so I can pretty much only comment on game software :) IIRC, you had to have "TGA" support.
I didn't know anyone with a Jr, but I did have a friend with a Tandy 1000 of some flavor. It was pretty cool, but he always had software compatibility problems.
I think people were most offended by the artificial limitations. Most computer companies were pushing their hardware to its limits in order to stay competitive, and here comes a PC with nice hardware that is artificially gimped to protect the more expensive products. It's one thing to be limited by engineering - quite another to be limited my marketing. With a typical product, you can subjectively debate the relative value - but in this case, marketing handed you a concrete, objective list of items that you were not getting for your money.
Give it a dog body and people are already in love with non-human things. Pretty soon we'll be wishing for AI to filter out computer pictures on Facebook.
I don't think that anyone would dispute that being born with a silver spoon in your mouth nearly guarantees financial success. That said, the two most successful entrepreneurs that I know personally did not start rich. One grew up in a rural area and, depending on your own background, you might consider his upbringing as poor. The other grew up quite comfortably, and his parents were both college educated - but by no means was he "rich", and he certainly hasn't inherited anything.
As to your risk angle, I'm not really sure how to respond. I thought it was obvious that I wasn't talking about physical danger.
If you poke around in the OpenTTD forums you will see where one or two of the developers apparently reached out to Sawyer through his publicist and were told that he was not happy with their project. It's not from a public source like an interview or anything like that.
I could be a victim of my own memory, but I remember it being quite under spec until they changed the spec. They didn't really remedy it until the redesign with the Super Hornet.
He was a middle manager, an employee. He was as much a peon working for a wage as the people who ride the Google buses. He didn't take any risks at all. He just rode HP's success.
Fair enough. I got defensive, but probably should have made it clear that I had no idea about Perkins's background.
I also think the comparison to Nazi Germany is ridiculous.
They tend to be willing to take significant risks that most of us don't have access to, because we don't have that kind of money.
I don't know who you are talking about. I think you must be confusing "entrepreneur" with "venture capitalist". A guy who starts his own business is the former. The specific guy I'm talking about was not rich and started in essentially the same place as me. Well educated with a family to move back in with if he hit hard times. The difference is that he went for a business education and I went to engineering school. He interned at Goldman and I interned at a manufacturer. He went out and started his own hedge fund (and failed) and I stayed in my safety zone. He stood in front of people and convinced them to invest money with him and then went on anti-anxiety medication and stood in front of the same group when he lost their money. I don't have the kind of brain he does, nor am I willing to work that hard or fail that spectacularly. And it shows - 20 years in and he's making far more money than I ever will.
I never mentioned VCs.
The F-35 is indeed very messed up, but then so was the F-18 program back in the day. Not at this level, but you know inflation and all that... :)
F-35 has external hardpoints. So does the F-22. They can carry fuel or missiles.
pitting them against experienced pilots in F4s and other older jets
Sometimes the older jets are quite nimble performers, but lack some other quality which renders them obsolete. Maybe they have poor loiter time, low ordinance capacity, or limited range. Maybe they simply cost too much to maintain, or are unreliable. Thus they might still make excellent dog-fighting opponents on a training course where the scenario specifically evens the playing field.
There is more to a jet's war-fighting ability than simply being good in a dogfight or the ability to go really fast.
IIRC, it pisses him off. I think he has an artistic view of the original game, and he views the modified version as a (negative) alteration of his creative vision. I think he said it messed up the simplicity of the original, but I might be putting words in his mouth. :)
I prefer the NYC approach.
Nazis had some left-wing and some right-wing qualities, from an American perspective. They certainly were into government control - it's hard to go down the road of authoritarian rule without this, and it is typically considered a left-wing quality. They liked corporatism, which doesn't really fall into a right or left wing category. Certainly they played up the nationalism and superiority of the German people thing, which is pretty firmly right-wing. They were very militant, attempting to enlist civilians into military preparation and support - though one wonders if this was a pragmatic decision rather than one of ideology. Nazis force you to think of right-wing / left-wing as less of a straight line and more of a bar magnet that has been bent into a circle, with the Nazis occupying the part where the two poles meet.
I agree that this mentality is wrong, but credit where credit is due - these guys tend to be willing to take significant risks that most of us shirk away from. I know some of these entrepreneurial guys. Some are honestly too stupid to do it and go down in flames spectacularly. Some are smart but not lucky and go down in flames spectacularly. One guy I know has been at it for the 20 years that I've known him. Several times, completely reinventing himself. Now, he started out from privilege - his mom and dad were college educated and put him through school. Like me, he never had to worry about living on the street... he could just move in with Mom if he had to. But still, I have to hand it to him, he's been very persistent and willing to take some pretty mighty hits. He makes a lot more money than me as a result.
You could live pretty well in Kentucky on 60k/year. I did alright (10 years ago) on that in the Philly suburbs. My wife and I lived on that exclusively for a number of years, saving 100% of her salary. Of course, we lived in a 2-bedroom apartment and didn't have shiny new cars.
More native programmers doesn't necessarily mean lower salaries - right now we import people from all over the world via the H1B visa program. Even in the recession, we brought in over 100,000 H1B folks every year. Not all comp sci, but there you go.
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. I've been in countries where I can't speak to people at all - not even numbers - and I've always been able to eat and especially get a beer. While it is true that there are far more English-illiterate people in Florida, California, and other border states - I've spent considerable amounts of time in both and always been able to buy beer! Spanish would be a convenience, but a pretty minor one and my high school Spanish instruction long flew the coop.
Introduction to computer science and algorithmic (not the same thing as "learning java 101) should not be a sub for a foreign language, but mandatory.
While I agree with this, I still would rather have subbed the instruction time I spent in Spanish and Latin with computer programming. I use programming all the time, but the languages are long gone. I didn't know what the hell "Object Oriented" meant until after college, since the language they taught us in engineering school at the time was straight C, and in high school it was COBOL, FORTRAN, and some Pascal.
It's not that I'm afraid of learning new language - hell, I took Spanish and Latin in high school. But it is a complete waste of time unless you have other speakers of the language with which to practice. Otherwise, your brain optimizes the language right out of your head and you are back to learning how to count again with your toddler watching Dora the Explorer. My wife does use her Spanish once in a while, since she works at a hospital in an poor community. But even then, they have translators and plenty of staff who are Hispanic - so it is mainly a minor convenience. She also learned her Spanish by doing language immersion in Costa Rica - not in high school.
OK, I think we are mostly in agreement, LOL.
He didn't say it was "OK", he said it was "preferable".