I think I pretty much agree with your post, except this one key line: "The problem as I see it, is that it is fundamentaly easier to study business, marketing, law and economics than to study science."
I think your assumptions are true, given the current way business is taught. But business itself, doing it right, doing it well, is much more difficult, and requires a scientific approach to it. I think it is very trendy for science-majors in college to look down on their business-major counterparts (and in most cases, I agree), but remember -- its NOT the major, its the people.
I would love to see a science major jump in and run a startup venture and take it to buyout or IPO, or have a science major try to run a finance department in a fortune 500. I think most of them would discover its not so easy.
The other problem with business schools is that 80% of the classes are based around technical knowledge -- accounting, finance, basic marketing. These are the classes that most science-majors might take one or two of, and it turns them off to the 20% that really matter: Strategy & Management.
Regardless, the US has never been particularly good at math or science. Its really BUSINESS that we are good at. I mean, germans are known for engineering, not the US. Think about it.
Science isnt what made this country great, its business. Its entrepreneurship. Its the whole "Fuck you, I can do this better" mentality. This relates to science, sure. Im sorry you have such a problem with this, you must be a real joy to work with.
The same will be true of US vs China. If they invent it, we will profit from it, somehow. We have managed to import technology from more scientific nations to date, why must it stop now?
More importantly, why is everyone so fucking afraid that china is going to take over the world. They, like most of the world, are obsessed with American culture and Ideals. Just like japan was when people were scared of japan 20 years ago. Just like the french have been forever, even if our governments hate each other.
When Standard Oil bought up all the producers of oil barrels to deny their competitors access, it was performing vertical integration to remove tools needed by competitors. This is what Microsoft did.
Certainly I see your point. But you are taking it one step too far. Microsoft didnt buy ALL of the makers for unix / linux antivirus. They bought a single one.
I think your assumption/point would be correct had Microsoft purchased all of the AV databases available on the market. Then this would prevent anyone from having AV support who wasnt using a MS product. That is the only comparable situation to your case with Standard Oil.
I realize this is slashdot, and MS bashing is Standard Operating Practice (tm), but COME ON. If google makes an aquisition, its fantastic. If MS does it, its monopoly? B.S.
Well, the most obvious answer is that AOL owns Nullsoft, which makes winamp.
The less obvious answer is becuase deep down, winamp blows, unless you mean the old 2.0 version. Newer versions are bloated and pretty, and worthless -- JUST like Windows Media Player.
Try again.
Re:With a hopefully smaller burst of the bubble
on
Another Dot-com Boom?
·
· Score: 1
Warren usually buys large private companies. So... Unless you have some sort of an in with him, you wont be able to buy what he buys.
I remember reading something about the fact that he has trouble deploying the cash he needs to invest, he has so much to deploy -- he cant find enough good deals. kind of crazy.
As much as people like to believe that normal VC was like the 1999 looneybin, its not. They control the money, they control your wages. You dont get to give yourself a 10m salary increase the minute they sign the agreement.
All the VC firms learned lots of lessons in 99. Now thye control the money show, so no more "fast cars" or "fast women" unless you get the money from Angel investors or Friends/Family!
As a side note, you do realize that bloomington is in the top 10 of restaurants per capita, dont you? For some reason, everyone at IU likes to eat out. There arent many other cities in the US that beat bloomington in restaurants per capita.
I mean, just look at the square or over by the mall. 90% of what you see are restaurants. The other 10% are big box stores (sears, target, best buy now, etc...)
So bloomington isnt a great example, but I still agree with your point. Delivery is available everywhere, GP is idiot.
I think what he is saying is: What person past the age of 17 uses their fingers all that often (in the manner implied) when they have a mouth &/or genitals?
What world do you live in?
I can fire you for ANY reason. I dont need to give you anything, all I need to say is get out? I suppose your mileage may vary, but I think the average US State use an "employment at will" guidline, which means I can fire you for anything I want, except some obvious (race, sex, age, etc). I could probably even fire you for those if I dont tell you.
I think your viewpoint is interesting, mainly becuase it flies in the face of my direct experience.
Here in Indianapolis, IN, USA we burn our trash. Sounds healthy...Anyways, my point related to trash pickup. Indianapolis USED to have a privately contracted system where you chose your waste company, and they took your trash to their own sorting system to be disposed of. You paid these companies privately. They were always on time, the workers were (reasonably) friendly, and they did their job well. The trash was picked up correctly (by correctly, I mean put into the truck and not thrown all over the street).
Then they built the trash powerplant. In order to feed this burning facility, they decided to implement a system that was supposed to be like the one you described -- municipal tax based, government run. And it is. And it sucks. Badly. Granted, its not Horrible but its nothing like it used to be. The trash people come at different times, and sometimes a day before or a day after. In some parts of the city they use trucks with 1 guy who has an automated arm that picks up trash cans to put the waste into the truck. This doesnt work, and shit gets all over the place -- lawns, streets, sidewalks. Its ok, according to the government, because they also implemented a street cleaning government service too. That means there is no parking, mandatory, for a whole day once every 2 weeks on different streets while they clean up their own mess.
Needless to say, your system sounds envious. But we have something that was supposed to be like what you say, but its sucks hard asscakes.
What do you mean by "Dominance" or "Submissive" in your passage? Socio-economics? Family Politics? parenting style?
Im not so sure all the shit that applies to apes in the wild applies to humans -- we have a much larger social context that doesnt always sync with purely animal instincts.
Would you really want to piss of 40% of your client base in one swoop? Average joe doesnt care about thsi kind of crap, and he doesnt want his ISP forcing him to care either. He will cancel his account, and move to someone else, or he will drive up support calls by calling to complain about the change.
Any ISP who puts something like what you described in place is likely to lose customers in a hurry. Hotels/Airports/Coffeeshops have transient, non-recurruing customers, or the customers are there for something else other than internet, so its not as big of a deal there.
When did people come to hate businesses so much?
Guess what, all those big evil corporations who are doing such bad things in the world. You own them. If you dont, then your mom and dad do as part of their pension fund. If you dont like how they act, bring it up at a shareholder meeting.
Companies protect and return profit to their shareholders. Thats their job. Any company who really had their shareholders profits in mind would not knowlingly and willingly kill their own business for a 2 year run. Im not saying it doesnt happen, but it certainly isnt SOP.
99% of the business owners and operators in the world are people who care about their work, try their best to do whats best for them and their business (in the long term). Its quite sad that you have such a pessimistic view on businesses as a whole. Even if there is 1% of businesses who arent operating in their shareholders best interest long term, these problems can be corrected by active and participatory owners. People prefer to bitch instead of do something.
Dont be prey to false logic.
People protect their stuff.
Classic example: Free school books or books you buy. Books that have no owner, have no value, and as such, are treated like trash. Books that you own, and can sell when you want, have value to you, and you will preserve that value.
Businesses dont treat their stuff any different than you do.
Generally speaking, land that is great for farming isnt great for mining. Most farmers also lack the resources, knowledge, experience, and ability to convert their acreage into a mining outfit.
Secondly, most mining operations do not expect to operate for "a few years". The equipment, training, safety, legal, regulatory, and maintenance costs only amortize well over long term periods. This is why you see mining companies buy large chunks of land, and slowly chip away at them carefully, as to not waste.
The timber industry is interesting, and you are generally correct about it. This is why there was such a push for regulation years ago. However, comparing the timber industry to any other industry doesnt really work to well. Lets not compare apples to oranges.
The average fishery also does not operate with the mentality that you speak about. You describe that a return for a one year binge would be greater than a 20 year steady run. The likelyhood that they could capture THAT much value within one year seems unlikely to me. This is why perpetuities generally have more value than comparable annuities. Think about it. $10 forever is worth quite a bit more than $100 once. The market understands this and compensates for it.
Im no economist, but I have taken enough classes in it when I was in school and recieved a minor for such classes. Im willing to bet the same is true for you, give or take.
That said, I firmly believe you are DEAD wrong. Economic theory, as I learned it, states that those owners of the land would not overfarm it but would take care of their land to produce for decades. Such is the argument for privatization of public fishing grounds, etc. If someone owns the lake (or in this case, the land), then they wont let the fish (crops, land, etc) disappear from overfishing (overfarming). Think about it.
I also disagree with your point about "the community can't afford to allow the natural process to occur". The US Government purchases excess crops only to dump them on foreign economies. These "gifts" serve as a way for US farmers to have a built in sale point for many crops. They also serve as a great way to squash local farmers where the grain is supplied, creating a farming dependence upon grain-rich countries like the US. I wont comment as to my opinions on this, as it would certainly be offtopic to our discussion.
However, there is certainly much room for improvement, and a shakeout in the farming system can occur without much negative impact. Again, we MUST weigh any grain price fluctuations against the real gains we would see from not dumping billions to farmers who do nothing.
Real shortages are pretty much non-existant in the US when it comes to grain commodities. Even in the case where farmers with less than adequate education about crop rotation and their ability to compete without subsidies, I believe that these prices would not get to a horrible point.
The traditional argument for your point of view is that subsidies kept grain prices low so that bread was easy to get ahold of and cheap for inner city residents. I have never really understood that argument, and have never seen any good documentation or articles that describe the economic basis for such an argument.
Surely any system put in place to eliminate subsidies would not just cut them off all at once. I think a more acceptable solution, both for the farmers and for the economy, would be to phase them out over 5 or 10 years. This would allow the effects to occur gradually and wouldnt force any immediate price shocks. This also allows time for farmers to make choices knowing the future instead of forced into bankruptcy immediately, etc.
Janitors most certainly do not have full access to every part of the hospital.
Just like the do not have full access, or lets just say unmonitored access, to places like file storage, secure/clean rooms, doctors LOCKED offices, biomedical storage, etc. The list goes on. This isnt Jimmy Corp selling rubber bands. This is a hospital. THink about it.
Who has time for the simple things in life, like trolling on slashdot. I know I certainly dont.
Besides....Its a TROLL. its not like people pay attention to them. Often times my trolls are just random character strings. Sometimes these random trolls do sound like MS bashing, but who knows. I cant predict the future.
Slashdot Mirror
I think I pretty much agree with your post, except this one key line: "The problem as I see it, is that it is fundamentaly easier to study business, marketing, law and economics than to study science."
I think your assumptions are true, given the current way business is taught. But business itself, doing it right, doing it well, is much more difficult, and requires a scientific approach to it. I think it is very trendy for science-majors in college to look down on their business-major counterparts (and in most cases, I agree), but remember -- its NOT the major, its the people.
I would love to see a science major jump in and run a startup venture and take it to buyout or IPO, or have a science major try to run a finance department in a fortune 500. I think most of them would discover its not so easy.
The other problem with business schools is that 80% of the classes are based around technical knowledge -- accounting, finance, basic marketing. These are the classes that most science-majors might take one or two of, and it turns them off to the 20% that really matter: Strategy & Management.
No. I think we all got it, except that YOURS wasnt funny. At all.
Man, I detect some bitterness...
Regardless, the US has never been particularly good at math or science. Its really BUSINESS that we are good at. I mean, germans are known for engineering, not the US. Think about it.
Science isnt what made this country great, its business. Its entrepreneurship. Its the whole "Fuck you, I can do this better" mentality. This relates to science, sure. Im sorry you have such a problem with this, you must be a real joy to work with.
The same will be true of US vs China. If they invent it, we will profit from it, somehow. We have managed to import technology from more scientific nations to date, why must it stop now?
More importantly, why is everyone so fucking afraid that china is going to take over the world. They, like most of the world, are obsessed with American culture and Ideals. Just like japan was when people were scared of japan 20 years ago. Just like the french have been forever, even if our governments hate each other.
Certainly I see your point. But you are taking it one step too far. Microsoft didnt buy ALL of the makers for unix / linux antivirus. They bought a single one.
I think your assumption/point would be correct had Microsoft purchased all of the AV databases available on the market. Then this would prevent anyone from having AV support who wasnt using a MS product. That is the only comparable situation to your case with Standard Oil.
I realize this is slashdot, and MS bashing is Standard Operating Practice (tm), but COME ON. If google makes an aquisition, its fantastic. If MS does it, its monopoly? B.S.
Next Please.
Well, the most obvious answer is that AOL owns Nullsoft, which makes winamp.
The less obvious answer is becuase deep down, winamp blows, unless you mean the old 2.0 version. Newer versions are bloated and pretty, and worthless -- JUST like Windows Media Player.
Try again.
Warren usually buys large private companies. So... Unless you have some sort of an in with him, you wont be able to buy what he buys.
I remember reading something about the fact that he has trouble deploying the cash he needs to invest, he has so much to deploy -- he cant find enough good deals. kind of crazy.
Someone mod this guy up.
Watching someone get kicked in the face with math and logic is always a good time.
As much as people like to believe that normal VC was like the 1999 looneybin, its not. They control the money, they control your wages. You dont get to give yourself a 10m salary increase the minute they sign the agreement.
All the VC firms learned lots of lessons in 99. Now thye control the money show, so no more "fast cars" or "fast women" unless you get the money from Angel investors or Friends/Family!
Heh. I have just sold my first company and am starting my second. I am 1 year out of college.
Anyways, I generally agree with what you said, going VC right out of college would generally be bad news.
Vulture Capital....
As a side note, you do realize that bloomington is in the top 10 of restaurants per capita, dont you? For some reason, everyone at IU likes to eat out. There arent many other cities in the US that beat bloomington in restaurants per capita.
I mean, just look at the square or over by the mall. 90% of what you see are restaurants. The other 10% are big box stores (sears, target, best buy now, etc...)
So bloomington isnt a great example, but I still agree with your point. Delivery is available everywhere, GP is idiot.
There should also be this final line " I am a man that keeps a diary, so I must be gay."
I'll play your game, you rogue...
I think what he is saying is: What person past the age of 17 uses their fingers all that often (in the manner implied) when they have a mouth &/or genitals?
What world do you live in? I can fire you for ANY reason. I dont need to give you anything, all I need to say is get out? I suppose your mileage may vary, but I think the average US State use an "employment at will" guidline, which means I can fire you for anything I want, except some obvious (race, sex, age, etc). I could probably even fire you for those if I dont tell you.
I think your viewpoint is interesting, mainly becuase it flies in the face of my direct experience.
Here in Indianapolis, IN, USA we burn our trash. Sounds healthy...Anyways, my point related to trash pickup. Indianapolis USED to have a privately contracted system where you chose your waste company, and they took your trash to their own sorting system to be disposed of. You paid these companies privately. They were always on time, the workers were (reasonably) friendly, and they did their job well. The trash was picked up correctly (by correctly, I mean put into the truck and not thrown all over the street).
Then they built the trash powerplant. In order to feed this burning facility, they decided to implement a system that was supposed to be like the one you described -- municipal tax based, government run. And it is. And it sucks. Badly. Granted, its not Horrible but its nothing like it used to be. The trash people come at different times, and sometimes a day before or a day after. In some parts of the city they use trucks with 1 guy who has an automated arm that picks up trash cans to put the waste into the truck. This doesnt work, and shit gets all over the place -- lawns, streets, sidewalks. Its ok, according to the government, because they also implemented a street cleaning government service too. That means there is no parking, mandatory, for a whole day once every 2 weeks on different streets while they clean up their own mess.
Needless to say, your system sounds envious. But we have something that was supposed to be like what you say, but its sucks hard asscakes.
We arent monkeys (well not completely).
What do you mean by "Dominance" or "Submissive" in your passage? Socio-economics? Family Politics? parenting style?
Im not so sure all the shit that applies to apes in the wild applies to humans -- we have a much larger social context that doesnt always sync with purely animal instincts.
Thats disgusting dude. Why the hell do you let your kid drink that shit? Its nearly pure salt.
Jesus why? You can get a new keyboard for something around $10 on ebay (for most portables...)
Would you really want to piss of 40% of your client base in one swoop? Average joe doesnt care about thsi kind of crap, and he doesnt want his ISP forcing him to care either. He will cancel his account, and move to someone else, or he will drive up support calls by calling to complain about the change.
Any ISP who puts something like what you described in place is likely to lose customers in a hurry. Hotels/Airports/Coffeeshops have transient, non-recurruing customers, or the customers are there for something else other than internet, so its not as big of a deal there.
When did people come to hate businesses so much? Guess what, all those big evil corporations who are doing such bad things in the world. You own them. If you dont, then your mom and dad do as part of their pension fund. If you dont like how they act, bring it up at a shareholder meeting. Companies protect and return profit to their shareholders. Thats their job. Any company who really had their shareholders profits in mind would not knowlingly and willingly kill their own business for a 2 year run. Im not saying it doesnt happen, but it certainly isnt SOP. 99% of the business owners and operators in the world are people who care about their work, try their best to do whats best for them and their business (in the long term). Its quite sad that you have such a pessimistic view on businesses as a whole. Even if there is 1% of businesses who arent operating in their shareholders best interest long term, these problems can be corrected by active and participatory owners. People prefer to bitch instead of do something.
Dont be prey to false logic. People protect their stuff. Classic example: Free school books or books you buy. Books that have no owner, have no value, and as such, are treated like trash. Books that you own, and can sell when you want, have value to you, and you will preserve that value. Businesses dont treat their stuff any different than you do.
This is silly.
Generally speaking, land that is great for farming isnt great for mining. Most farmers also lack the resources, knowledge, experience, and ability to convert their acreage into a mining outfit.
Secondly, most mining operations do not expect to operate for "a few years". The equipment, training, safety, legal, regulatory, and maintenance costs only amortize well over long term periods. This is why you see mining companies buy large chunks of land, and slowly chip away at them carefully, as to not waste.
The timber industry is interesting, and you are generally correct about it. This is why there was such a push for regulation years ago. However, comparing the timber industry to any other industry doesnt really work to well. Lets not compare apples to oranges.
The average fishery also does not operate with the mentality that you speak about. You describe that a return for a one year binge would be greater than a 20 year steady run. The likelyhood that they could capture THAT much value within one year seems unlikely to me. This is why perpetuities generally have more value than comparable annuities. Think about it. $10 forever is worth quite a bit more than $100 once. The market understands this and compensates for it.
Im no economist, but I have taken enough classes in it when I was in school and recieved a minor for such classes. Im willing to bet the same is true for you, give or take.
That said, I firmly believe you are DEAD wrong. Economic theory, as I learned it, states that those owners of the land would not overfarm it but would take care of their land to produce for decades. Such is the argument for privatization of public fishing grounds, etc. If someone owns the lake (or in this case, the land), then they wont let the fish (crops, land, etc) disappear from overfishing (overfarming). Think about it.
I also disagree with your point about "the community can't afford to allow the natural process to occur". The US Government purchases excess crops only to dump them on foreign economies. These "gifts" serve as a way for US farmers to have a built in sale point for many crops. They also serve as a great way to squash local farmers where the grain is supplied, creating a farming dependence upon grain-rich countries like the US. I wont comment as to my opinions on this, as it would certainly be offtopic to our discussion.
However, there is certainly much room for improvement, and a shakeout in the farming system can occur without much negative impact. Again, we MUST weigh any grain price fluctuations against the real gains we would see from not dumping billions to farmers who do nothing.
Real shortages are pretty much non-existant in the US when it comes to grain commodities. Even in the case where farmers with less than adequate education about crop rotation and their ability to compete without subsidies, I believe that these prices would not get to a horrible point.
The traditional argument for your point of view is that subsidies kept grain prices low so that bread was easy to get ahold of and cheap for inner city residents. I have never really understood that argument, and have never seen any good documentation or articles that describe the economic basis for such an argument.
Surely any system put in place to eliminate subsidies would not just cut them off all at once. I think a more acceptable solution, both for the farmers and for the economy, would be to phase them out over 5 or 10 years. This would allow the effects to occur gradually and wouldnt force any immediate price shocks. This also allows time for farmers to make choices knowing the future instead of forced into bankruptcy immediately, etc.
Janitors most certainly do not have full access to every part of the hospital.
Just like the do not have full access, or lets just say unmonitored access, to places like file storage, secure/clean rooms, doctors LOCKED offices, biomedical storage, etc. The list goes on. This isnt Jimmy Corp selling rubber bands. This is a hospital. THink about it.
I automate all of my trolls.
Who has time for the simple things in life, like trolling on slashdot. I know I certainly dont.
Besides....Its a TROLL. its not like people pay attention to them. Often times my trolls are just random character strings. Sometimes these random trolls do sound like MS bashing, but who knows. I cant predict the future.