Also, how in the world does an 'elected public servant' get into the billionaire club?
I find this AC's post psychologically fascinating. Bloomberg is one of the most famous billionaires on the planet and has been for decades. The AC's question implies he knows nothing about that but he's happy to accept the rumor and come to the firm conclusion Bloomberg is being a jerk rather than (say) reacting to one.
And please, this not a defense of Bloomberg or an attack on the AC, it's a fascination at how susceptible people are to potential propaganda (including myself).
Not sure how taxi's operate in NYC but the ones I drove here in Oz have a meter that ticks over after a fixed time or distance, whichever comes first, the fees are mandated by state law so all taxis charge the same amount for the same trip. There's also a flagfall fee just for getting in the cab, so really there's no such thing as an unprofitable trip.
Having said that the only way to make a reasonable income from a cab is to make sure a customers arse is in the seat at all times, getting a 5min job that puts you at the back of a 2hr queue is just the luck of the draw. Although I have heard that airport staff here in Melbourne are issuing "short trip" coupons to drivers who get stuck with a local job, it entitles them to come back to the front of the queue, but again that can happen at any rank and most ranks are not staffed/policed like they are at the airport. Also 5min jobs themselves are not the problem, on Friday and Saturday nights you want the 5min jobs because you know you can get another one straight away, doing that all night on your home turf is about as profitable as taxi driving gets.
Knowledge is power, power can liberate or oppress, but this knowledge is in the open, meaning nobody has distinct power advantage because of access to this knowledge alone. Besides, this isn't local knowledge, it covers the entire continent. The map is unlikely to be used directly by local farmers living hand to mouth on the family plot. Rather it will be used by governments and NGO's to make better use of infrastructure funds for irrigation channels, grain silo's, etc. Yes it will also be used by corporations, but what those corporations do with it is ultimately at the mercy of the people. You can like or loath agribusiness, but if they disappeared tomorrow 3-4 billion people would starve to death in the following 6-12 months.
The company is using the word 'server' in a business sense, not a technical one that relies on which way you look at traffic. Just like the company's advertising has a poetic definition of 'unlimited'. The user has created his own definition of 'residential', which happens to be at odds with the definition used by the terms of service, and more importantly, common knowledge. - What we are all really talking about here is "fairness", both sides are twisting words to suit themselves but it seems to me the customer is the one being "unfair" because he is twisting the definition of a "residential" internet service, which is what they sold him. IMO, he should stop being a dick, get a business account, and put that all that wasted energy into something useful.
it is looking that Dr, Paul may have a decent case for cybersquatting. We simply don't have enough information to be 100% sure.
According to TFA, the fat lady has finished singing, the umpire has determined that RP was guilty of knowingly making false squatting accusations.
Panama:
Have you considered that Hary Alderson in Vermont would be a fool to legally entangle his personal assets (such as his house) with his very public political advocacy sites?
Have you considered that registering a company (or two) in Panama might be the cheapest way to avoid the very real possibility of personal bankruptcy should the web sites be sued out of existence for some reason?
Have you considered that separating the sites into two different legal entities means that one can continue if the other goes belly up? It also means one can be a business and the other a tax deductible charity.
Have you considered that your affection for RP may be clouding your judgement?
A comprehensive mailing list for RP fanatics, and a revenue stream from advertising.
Also, in fairness to Paul (hypocrisy aside), it was his name.
While we are on the subject of "fairness" according to TFA the umpire found RP to be engaging in "reverse domain name hijacking" (knowingly making a false accusation of squatting).
I know the episode your talking about and remember the message. It's probably no coincidence that Nixon split his guts to David Frost in 1977. The FBI under J.E. Hoover had been spying on US citizens for decades, they routinely infiltrated and sabotaged non violent groups such as anti-war protesters, as an example of how absurd it became they had a huge dossier on John Lennon. I'm not an American but I was 17 at the time and watergate was a huge affair, it was clear that the kind of thing that happened at the Watergate hotel was routine, the scandal was followed by some significant legislation on what data government could collect, and under what circumstances domestic groups could be infiltrated.
It doesn't seem to have worked, I would not be at all surprised if someone found a similar dossier on the "Dixie Chicks" buried somewhere in Homeland security's basement.
As an Aussie I would like to give Letterman a pat on the back for what he's been doing with his "stooge of the day" segment, regardless of your views on gun control, the point he keeps hammering home is that all the stooges voted in direct opposition to the expressed wishes of an overwhelming majority of their constituents. Every single stooge on Letterman's show is a specific example of an individual politician doing their bit to "steal your liberty". Sure politicians should lead rather than follow the opinion polls, but when they are so out of kilter with them (in some cases taking a position opposed by over 90% of voters), they have some 'splaining to do.
Wanting to pay tax and "being fine with it" are two completely different states of mind, I don't want to pay tax but I'm fine with it because the alternative is to abandon civilization. Willingly doing something against your immediate desires in the hope that it will provide for future needs is the hallmark of an adult. If it wasn't I would stay here and chat rather than go to work....and chat.:)
Billionaires are people too, and the US seems to have quite a few who think billionaires as a group are not pulling their weight when comparing themselves to their secretary. This is precisely because they realize their wealth comes from a society made up of people just like their secretary. Their complaint is that the rules are unfair to the little guy, their proof is in their wallet.
What corporations (as opposed to billionaires) want more than anything else from government is predictability, large corporations routinely plan their investments for decades into the future. Weak, indecisive, fickle, or just plain old corrupt government makes that impossible, that's why it's financially riskier to (say) open a mine in the Congo rather than in Australia. What Apple and other multinationals are telling the US congress is that the rules make it almost mandatory to move their operations overseas if they want to stay competitive in the US market (still the world's largest in dollar terms). They are also saying that the problem can't be solved by a single nation tweaking their own rules, nor can it be solved by a race to the bottom between governments trying to attract foreign investment.
Similar "investigations" into the same corporations are taking place in the UK. I don't know who made this perennial problem into a "hot button" issue but there is a slim chance that some good could come from all the talk, after all it was wealthy merchants who "talked" the crown into signing the Magna Carta.
And the people that tell you they're fine with it are liars or up to something.
As others have said this is a projection of your own attitude onto others, an attitude toward money so deeply ingrained that the only explanation you can think of is that billions people who claim to be "fine with paying tax" are all Machiavellian liars.
Yep, you need a bit of friendly competition, like the "scrap yard challenge" type shows, build something that can perform loosely related tasks A, B, C,... Thing is you only reveal the tasks one at a time, (like real life scope creep). Of course hookers and blackjack would certainly help if the budget stretches that far.
but to think they spend time and millions of lawyer money fighting the government for the grater good is rather disingenuous
You don't have a clue what it's like to be a billionaire and even less of a clue as to what motivates them to spend money on lawyers. If it was all about financial reward then google would simply give the government everything they wanted with a minimum of fuss and pay a few PR hacks to explain why the can't "fight city hall". I don't claim to know what their motivation is, however it's obvious there's no financial reward to be had that would outweigh the costs of their self-imposed policy.
As the GP said, "they" borrow it [the money] from China who, as you say yourself, are "loaning it". Unborn children and the "future-you" don't exist so they cannot possibly lend you anything, however you can take things away from them before they arrive.
Well, if the NSA wasn't there, apparently doing the very important federal task of snooping on us, there wouldn't be public revenue going to those taxes.
So, the SG wrote a recursive tax law, but because the FG exists it must be the FG's fault?
Eventually, your kind will attempt to invade with real-world laws
It's much more likely to be a coup from within, reason being "your kind" are also humans. The bit that "your kind" haven't worked out yet is that the ability to discern the folly of humans in large groups does not imply the ability to avoid it.
We understand this. You don't.
"My kind" get the hyper-organism thing, it's not created by "my kind", it spontaneously forms whenever a human society grows past a handful of related individuals. It's only when "your kind" fully realize "your kind" are not immune that "your kind" will start to understand why society 'doesn't work'.
Many people on slashdot holding those kind of opinions self-label as libertarian, but you're correct in that it is not part of the libertarian "platform". However like "flower power" in the 60's, the libertarian movement tends to attract people under 25 who are well-meaning but very naive about the human condition. They tend to believe all people are basically decent people and will naturally "get along withe each other" if only government would stop doing "stuff". This is simply false, without larger societies humans will revert to their natural tribalism, the alpha male in each extend family will rise (sink?) to the status of warlord. What both groups are really asking for is a self governing society, what they fail to see is that we already have one. I'm not sure what it says about the US but both movements arose and are strongest in the US.
During the late 60's, early 70's the hippies leaving the city to join communes in the country was one of the largest, if not the largest, internal US mass migrations of all time. Most of the communes fell apart quickly, people simply walked/ran away when the alpha members of the group turned it into a personality cult and started using and abusing everyone else for pleasure and profit. Very few lasted more than 2yrs, about the time it takes to truly realize that living with other people, (even like minded people), entails copious amounts of compromise + confrontation (politics).
Simply put evolution has designed our minds to live in tribal societies numbering between 100-200, all other tribes (even tribes of chimps) were universally seen as sub-human, xenophobia is still alive and kicking today because in geological terms evolution is still just playing with the idea of civilization for primates.
I don't know about anyone else but my utopia is simple, it's a tropical island with plenty of fresh water, fruit, and fish, the rest of you can get the fuck off my Island.
They are grown by cut-rate farmers....These trees are destined to fail.
Bullshit, my brother owned a wholesale nursery for almost 20yrs, the Aussie mega-drought killed it a few years ago. Plants sold in department stores and supermarkets are grown on contract, often the buyer supplies the patented seed/rootstock via a third party to the contract. At harvest time the buyer's insurance company sends out an assessor to make sure the crop is in good health. The plants leave the "farm" in excellent condition, from that point onwards they start to die unless they are properly taken care of in terms of light, temperature, and moisture. Warehouses, the insides of shipping containers, vans, etc, are normally dark, dry places, there's also a limit as to how long you can keep an outside plant displayed inside a supermarket, which (unlike the insurer) the store generally ignores until the leaves start falling off. I've found that supermarkets that sell poor quality plants also tend to sell poor quality fruit and veg, most likely for similar reasons.
Besides, buying from a local garden center is so much more of an enjoyable experience.
Agreed, but they get a lot of their stock from the same wholesalers, just like the local fruit and veg shop gets their stock from the same wholesale market the big supermarkets shop at.
Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting barefoot was superior, did you notice the guy in the video is wearing synthetic joggers?
Also, wolves, dogs and hyenas ARE persistence hunters but they generally do it tag team style, apes and lions are not built for it. The video shows them targeting a healthy bull because it's horns slow it down, but in prehistoric times the kills were more likely weaker members of the heard, ie: the young, old or sick.
There are fossils of tall hominids in Africa, the species is said to have been capable of 30mph+, it's though that it practiced persistence hunting with nothing more than a fist sized rock for a weapon, they were obviously superior at that type of hunting but died out? - Thing is there is no "silver bullet" for survival, humans survived over other hominids not because we were "experts" at anything, rather it's because we were well adapted to many forms of hunting, fishing, sheltering, gathering, territorial defense, etc, etc.
Apparently DA anointed Mark Cox as his successor when accepting some lifetime achievement award, but his real achievement is the production company, he often calls the behind the scenes talent that work with him the "heroes", he has a current series that uses his old and new footage to demonstrate the technological changes as well as changes in our understanding of the rock we live on. My dad is 80 and has started to walk like Attenborough, but nobody is immortal and you simply can't replace a beloved role model who has been with you for all of your personal eternity.
You make a good point, some individuals wake up one morning and find themselves owning a thriving business, they built it from the ground up and pride themselves on being able to competently perform any and every role (yes, in many cases these people are delusional). However....
Here's another anecdote along similar lines..
I drove taxis for a few years, the guy I worked for had one of the biggest taxi fleets in the city (Melbourne), his personal wealth was around $AU30 million, he also sat on the board of the city's taxi directorate. He was normally at the depot 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, he and his son did all the repairs and servicing of the cabs, his standard attire was a pair of oily green overalls and steel cap boots. New sales reps often wandered in and asked him where "his boss" was.
His work ethic set a great example, he worked harder and longer than anyone else in the company, consequently he knew the industry inside out and top to bottom. The only job he would no longer do was driving. Unfortunately the rest of his personality was that of a complete *arsehole, he used his depth of knowledge and experience in the industry to bully his son, his workers, other board members, the local council, basically everyone on his radar. Any driver with half a brain avoided the old man and dealt with the son for shift changeover, but if you wanted your overheating cab back on the road fast then you went to the old man with the big screwdriver hung on his right thigh like a six-shooter.
*arsehole - He was a smart, honest, hard working guy, if these traits had been weaker I suspect he would have been "top dog" in a prison somewhere. I'm now roughly the same age as he was when I knew him, the "suffer no fools" attitude has its uses but it just doesn't scale to accommodate people who firmly believe everyone else is a fool.
Ditto, I have 15yrs blue collar experience and 20+yrs white collar, never had to ask about wages during an interview. If they are unwilling to ask/tell me about remuneration upfront then I'm unwilling to talk to them any further. I prefer them to ask me what I want rather than tell me what they are offering, but the headhunting heydays of the 90's are gone forever.
The way I see it is: If you turn up to a "pig in the poke" interview, you have already told your future boss that you're desperate and/or naive.
Yep, and pre-WW2 the word "computer" meant somebody who calculated artillery tables by hand. Compiling artillery tables was a very early use for the first "real" computers.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, how in the world does an 'elected public servant' get into the billionaire club?
I find this AC's post psychologically fascinating. Bloomberg is one of the most famous billionaires on the planet and has been for decades. The AC's question implies he knows nothing about that but he's happy to accept the rumor and come to the firm conclusion Bloomberg is being a jerk rather than (say) reacting to one.
And please, this not a defense of Bloomberg or an attack on the AC, it's a fascination at how susceptible people are to potential propaganda (including myself).
Not sure how taxi's operate in NYC but the ones I drove here in Oz have a meter that ticks over after a fixed time or distance, whichever comes first, the fees are mandated by state law so all taxis charge the same amount for the same trip. There's also a flagfall fee just for getting in the cab, so really there's no such thing as an unprofitable trip.
Having said that the only way to make a reasonable income from a cab is to make sure a customers arse is in the seat at all times, getting a 5min job that puts you at the back of a 2hr queue is just the luck of the draw. Although I have heard that airport staff here in Melbourne are issuing "short trip" coupons to drivers who get stuck with a local job, it entitles them to come back to the front of the queue, but again that can happen at any rank and most ranks are not staffed/policed like they are at the airport. Also 5min jobs themselves are not the problem, on Friday and Saturday nights you want the 5min jobs because you know you can get another one straight away, doing that all night on your home turf is about as profitable as taxi driving gets.
Knowledge is power, power can liberate or oppress, but this knowledge is in the open, meaning nobody has distinct power advantage because of access to this knowledge alone. Besides, this isn't local knowledge, it covers the entire continent. The map is unlikely to be used directly by local farmers living hand to mouth on the family plot. Rather it will be used by governments and NGO's to make better use of infrastructure funds for irrigation channels, grain silo's, etc. Yes it will also be used by corporations, but what those corporations do with it is ultimately at the mercy of the people. You can like or loath agribusiness, but if they disappeared tomorrow 3-4 billion people would starve to death in the following 6-12 months.
The company is using the word 'server' in a business sense, not a technical one that relies on which way you look at traffic. Just like the company's advertising has a poetic definition of 'unlimited'. The user has created his own definition of 'residential', which happens to be at odds with the definition used by the terms of service, and more importantly, common knowledge. - What we are all really talking about here is "fairness", both sides are twisting words to suit themselves but it seems to me the customer is the one being "unfair" because he is twisting the definition of a "residential" internet service, which is what they sold him. IMO, he should stop being a dick, get a business account, and put that all that wasted energy into something useful.
how do you hook up a gas server to the internet?
With a tube.
it is looking that Dr, Paul may have a decent case for cybersquatting. We simply don't have enough information to be 100% sure.
According to TFA, the fat lady has finished singing, the umpire has determined that RP was guilty of knowingly making false squatting accusations.
Panama:
Have you considered that Hary Alderson in Vermont would be a fool to legally entangle his personal assets (such as his house) with his very public political advocacy sites?
Have you considered that registering a company (or two) in Panama might be the cheapest way to avoid the very real possibility of personal bankruptcy should the web sites be sued out of existence for some reason?
Have you considered that separating the sites into two different legal entities means that one can continue if the other goes belly up? It also means one can be a business and the other a tax deductible charity.
Have you considered that your affection for RP may be clouding your judgement?
Have you considered RTFA?
exactly what value did they add to it
A comprehensive mailing list for RP fanatics, and a revenue stream from advertising.
Also, in fairness to Paul (hypocrisy aside), it was his name.
While we are on the subject of "fairness" according to TFA the umpire found RP to be engaging in "reverse domain name hijacking" (knowingly making a false accusation of squatting).
I know the episode your talking about and remember the message. It's probably no coincidence that Nixon split his guts to David Frost in 1977. The FBI under J.E. Hoover had been spying on US citizens for decades, they routinely infiltrated and sabotaged non violent groups such as anti-war protesters, as an example of how absurd it became they had a huge dossier on John Lennon. I'm not an American but I was 17 at the time and watergate was a huge affair, it was clear that the kind of thing that happened at the Watergate hotel was routine, the scandal was followed by some significant legislation on what data government could collect, and under what circumstances domestic groups could be infiltrated. It doesn't seem to have worked, I would not be at all surprised if someone found a similar dossier on the "Dixie Chicks" buried somewhere in Homeland security's basement.
As an Aussie I would like to give Letterman a pat on the back for what he's been doing with his "stooge of the day" segment, regardless of your views on gun control, the point he keeps hammering home is that all the stooges voted in direct opposition to the expressed wishes of an overwhelming majority of their constituents. Every single stooge on Letterman's show is a specific example of an individual politician doing their bit to "steal your liberty". Sure politicians should lead rather than follow the opinion polls, but when they are so out of kilter with them (in some cases taking a position opposed by over 90% of voters), they have some 'splaining to do.
Wanting to pay tax and "being fine with it" are two completely different states of mind, I don't want to pay tax but I'm fine with it because the alternative is to abandon civilization. Willingly doing something against your immediate desires in the hope that it will provide for future needs is the hallmark of an adult. If it wasn't I would stay here and chat rather than go to work....and chat.
Billionaires are people too, and the US seems to have quite a few who think billionaires as a group are not pulling their weight when comparing themselves to their secretary. This is precisely because they realize their wealth comes from a society made up of people just like their secretary. Their complaint is that the rules are unfair to the little guy, their proof is in their wallet.
What corporations (as opposed to billionaires) want more than anything else from government is predictability, large corporations routinely plan their investments for decades into the future. Weak, indecisive, fickle, or just plain old corrupt government makes that impossible, that's why it's financially riskier to (say) open a mine in the Congo rather than in Australia. What Apple and other multinationals are telling the US congress is that the rules make it almost mandatory to move their operations overseas if they want to stay competitive in the US market (still the world's largest in dollar terms). They are also saying that the problem can't be solved by a single nation tweaking their own rules, nor can it be solved by a race to the bottom between governments trying to attract foreign investment.
Similar "investigations" into the same corporations are taking place in the UK. I don't know who made this perennial problem into a "hot button" issue but there is a slim chance that some good could come from all the talk, after all it was wealthy merchants who "talked" the crown into signing the Magna Carta.
And the people that tell you they're fine with it are liars or up to something.
As others have said this is a projection of your own attitude onto others, an attitude toward money so deeply ingrained that the only explanation you can think of is that billions people who claim to be "fine with paying tax" are all Machiavellian liars.
Yep, you need a bit of friendly competition, like the "scrap yard challenge" type shows, build something that can perform loosely related tasks A, B, C,... Thing is you only reveal the tasks one at a time, (like real life scope creep). Of course hookers and blackjack would certainly help if the budget stretches that far.
fit with Anonymous' general philosophy
A bunch of teenagers wanking off to a Natalie Portman movie have time to form a "general philosophy"?
but to think they spend time and millions of lawyer money fighting the government for the grater good is rather disingenuous
You don't have a clue what it's like to be a billionaire and even less of a clue as to what motivates them to spend money on lawyers. If it was all about financial reward then google would simply give the government everything they wanted with a minimum of fuss and pay a few PR hacks to explain why the can't "fight city hall". I don't claim to know what their motivation is, however it's obvious there's no financial reward to be had that would outweigh the costs of their self-imposed policy.
Good plan, AFAIK they're not tracking ostriches.
As the GP said, "they" borrow it [the money] from China who, as you say yourself, are "loaning it". Unborn children and the "future-you" don't exist so they cannot possibly lend you anything, however you can take things away from them before they arrive.
Well, if the NSA wasn't there, apparently doing the very important federal task of snooping on us, there wouldn't be public revenue going to those taxes.
So, the SG wrote a recursive tax law, but because the FG exists it must be the FG's fault?
Eventually, your kind will attempt to invade with real-world laws
It's much more likely to be a coup from within, reason being "your kind" are also humans. The bit that "your kind" haven't worked out yet is that the ability to discern the folly of humans in large groups does not imply the ability to avoid it.
We understand this. You don't.
"My kind" get the hyper-organism thing, it's not created by "my kind", it spontaneously forms whenever a human society grows past a handful of related individuals. It's only when "your kind" fully realize "your kind" are not immune that "your kind" will start to understand why society 'doesn't work'.
Many people on slashdot holding those kind of opinions self-label as libertarian, but you're correct in that it is not part of the libertarian "platform". However like "flower power" in the 60's, the libertarian movement tends to attract people under 25 who are well-meaning but very naive about the human condition. They tend to believe all people are basically decent people and will naturally "get along withe each other" if only government would stop doing "stuff". This is simply false, without larger societies humans will revert to their natural tribalism, the alpha male in each extend family will rise (sink?) to the status of warlord. What both groups are really asking for is a self governing society, what they fail to see is that we already have one. I'm not sure what it says about the US but both movements arose and are strongest in the US.
During the late 60's, early 70's the hippies leaving the city to join communes in the country was one of the largest, if not the largest, internal US mass migrations of all time. Most of the communes fell apart quickly, people simply walked/ran away when the alpha members of the group turned it into a personality cult and started using and abusing everyone else for pleasure and profit. Very few lasted more than 2yrs, about the time it takes to truly realize that living with other people, (even like minded people), entails copious amounts of compromise + confrontation (politics).
Simply put evolution has designed our minds to live in tribal societies numbering between 100-200, all other tribes (even tribes of chimps) were universally seen as sub-human, xenophobia is still alive and kicking today because in geological terms evolution is still just playing with the idea of civilization for primates.
I don't know about anyone else but my utopia is simple, it's a tropical island with plenty of fresh water, fruit, and fish, the rest of you can get the fuck off my Island.
They are grown by cut-rate farmers....These trees are destined to fail.
Bullshit, my brother owned a wholesale nursery for almost 20yrs, the Aussie mega-drought killed it a few years ago. Plants sold in department stores and supermarkets are grown on contract, often the buyer supplies the patented seed/rootstock via a third party to the contract. At harvest time the buyer's insurance company sends out an assessor to make sure the crop is in good health. The plants leave the "farm" in excellent condition, from that point onwards they start to die unless they are properly taken care of in terms of light, temperature, and moisture. Warehouses, the insides of shipping containers, vans, etc, are normally dark, dry places, there's also a limit as to how long you can keep an outside plant displayed inside a supermarket, which (unlike the insurer) the store generally ignores until the leaves start falling off. I've found that supermarkets that sell poor quality plants also tend to sell poor quality fruit and veg, most likely for similar reasons.
Besides, buying from a local garden center is so much more of an enjoyable experience.
Agreed, but they get a lot of their stock from the same wholesalers, just like the local fruit and veg shop gets their stock from the same wholesale market the big supermarkets shop at.
Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting barefoot was superior, did you notice the guy in the video is wearing synthetic joggers? Also, wolves, dogs and hyenas ARE persistence hunters but they generally do it tag team style, apes and lions are not built for it. The video shows them targeting a healthy bull because it's horns slow it down, but in prehistoric times the kills were more likely weaker members of the heard, ie: the young, old or sick.
There are fossils of tall hominids in Africa, the species is said to have been capable of 30mph+, it's though that it practiced persistence hunting with nothing more than a fist sized rock for a weapon, they were obviously superior at that type of hunting but died out? - Thing is there is no "silver bullet" for survival, humans survived over other hominids not because we were "experts" at anything, rather it's because we were well adapted to many forms of hunting, fishing, sheltering, gathering, territorial defense, etc, etc.
Apparently DA anointed Mark Cox as his successor when accepting some lifetime achievement award, but his real achievement is the production company, he often calls the behind the scenes talent that work with him the "heroes", he has a current series that uses his old and new footage to demonstrate the technological changes as well as changes in our understanding of the rock we live on. My dad is 80 and has started to walk like Attenborough, but nobody is immortal and you simply can't replace a beloved role model who has been with you for all of your personal eternity.
You make a good point, some individuals wake up one morning and find themselves owning a thriving business, they built it from the ground up and pride themselves on being able to competently perform any and every role (yes, in many cases these people are delusional). However....
Here's another anecdote along similar lines..
I drove taxis for a few years, the guy I worked for had one of the biggest taxi fleets in the city (Melbourne), his personal wealth was around $AU30 million, he also sat on the board of the city's taxi directorate. He was normally at the depot 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, he and his son did all the repairs and servicing of the cabs, his standard attire was a pair of oily green overalls and steel cap boots. New sales reps often wandered in and asked him where "his boss" was.
His work ethic set a great example, he worked harder and longer than anyone else in the company, consequently he knew the industry inside out and top to bottom. The only job he would no longer do was driving. Unfortunately the rest of his personality was that of a complete *arsehole, he used his depth of knowledge and experience in the industry to bully his son, his workers, other board members, the local council, basically everyone on his radar. Any driver with half a brain avoided the old man and dealt with the son for shift changeover, but if you wanted your overheating cab back on the road fast then you went to the old man with the big screwdriver hung on his right thigh like a six-shooter.
*arsehole - He was a smart, honest, hard working guy, if these traits had been weaker I suspect he would have been "top dog" in a prison somewhere. I'm now roughly the same age as he was when I knew him, the "suffer no fools" attitude has its uses but it just doesn't scale to accommodate people who firmly believe everyone else is a fool.
Ditto, I have 15yrs blue collar experience and 20+yrs white collar, never had to ask about wages during an interview. If they are unwilling to ask/tell me about remuneration upfront then I'm unwilling to talk to them any further. I prefer them to ask me what I want rather than tell me what they are offering, but the headhunting heydays of the 90's are gone forever.
The way I see it is: If you turn up to a "pig in the poke" interview, you have already told your future boss that you're desperate and/or naive.
Yep, and pre-WW2 the word "computer" meant somebody who calculated artillery tables by hand. Compiling artillery tables was a very early use for the first "real" computers.
It's called persistence hunting, basically you (marathon) run down your prey, humans are superbly adapted for doing it barefoot on warm dry plains.