I knew that as soon as I started carrying around a cellphone, I was sacrificing a measure of privacy - just because that makes it possible to triangulate the signal and figure out where I am at all times.
Still, there's always the trade-off of the pros vs. the cons of using a given technology. And for me, the cellphone clearly has so many benefits, I'm willing to give up that ability to locate me. (Since I know it works that way, I can opt not to carry the phone if I actually care about a company tracking my location. In other cases, it might be an advantage that I can be tracked.... like emergency situations where I want help to find me quickly.)
As for phones listening in on you all the time? I don't think there's much evidence that they do, on the whole? There have been hacks used by the NSA or FBI to turn certain makes and models of phones into listening devices. But those are targeted at specific people, at specific times. The providers wouldn't WANT all the cellphones constantly collecting voice data anyway since that would clog up their bandwidth and stop paying customers from making and taking calls reliably. And usually, my cell is in my pants pocket where the mic is going to only pick up very muffled sounds. (Listen to what you usually hear when someone accidentally butt-dials you? It's normally more background noise than anything else.)
Devices like Alexa don't offer enough upsides, by contrast. They're more of a "gee whiz" gadget, the way I see it. Anything they can do, I was already doing with my cellphone itself and a voice assistant like Siri. Except now, it's just a dedicated omnidirectional mic and speaker that stays powered up and listening all the time, covering several rooms of the house. And over broadband, they CAN receive audio from the mic pretty much at-will, and most people will be none the wiser.
I waited a while before buying it, largely because of a number of poor reviews from folks complaining about cheaters. I finally dove in and bought a copy, since it was still one of the top rated and played games in the last part of 2017.
I can't say I was clearly/obviously affected by cheating players, but I DID get the overall sense that the developers are just kicking back and enjoying all the money rolling in, vs. putting a lot of work into continuing to improve the game. I mean, the fact that it's still only been called a "beta" this whole time? It has to be almost unprecedented how many copies have been sold at "retail like pricing" for a game that's not even officially released as a v1.0?
I've found I'm just not particularly good at the game, so I don't make it to the end, regardless of being shot at by a cheater. After a while though, the game just lost my interest. You're always playing in the same VR "world", whereas most 3D shooters have additional maps that keep them visually interesting and entertaining from a strategy viewpoint, for much longer.
When I read the original article, I get the idea that a lot of it is based on this one disaster relief blanket maker's tale of woe, discovering that they were booted out as the preferred provider of their recycled blankets made from worn out clothing material. I can't help but wonder if there's more to their story than what they reveal here, since they stated the Chinese product being purchased instead is still 50 cents per blanket more expensive than what they were selling. Don't these things generally get contracted out to the lowest bidder?
Maybe their recycled blankets weren't as durable as the new Chinese ones? Or maybe they weren't as warm or comfortable?
Additionally, I agree with another Slashdot poster who found it rather hard to believe that all over the entire world, we've actually reached a point where concerns about fashion trump any interest or need for cheap, used clothing? Here in America, I find that at least in my circle of friends (including the people I communicate with via social media), few of us are fashion conscious at all. I have a couple of female friends who are, but more of them actually tell me they just want clothing that lasts. They hate spending large amounts of time picking out clothes that fit well and look good on them, only to have their favorite selections wear out and need replacing again after a year or two. The guys I know pretty much all just have a need for "business casual" clothing plus comfortable, casual wear for weekends and days off work. It's all about buying what's reasonably priced while fitting the category they're seeking. "Fast fashion" has no role to play there.
This is just one more battle that's being focused on myopically, while losing sight of the big picture.
The whole problem boils down to a need to differentiate between the infrastructure and the services being provided via that infrastructure.
What would make the most sense and be in the best national interest is to let Federal government control the infrastructure itself. Whether we're talking cellular towers or wireless spectrum allocations or plain old copper wire, coaxial or fiber - give Federal government responsibility for providing good infrastructure using any and all of those methods, to ensure adequate broadband options for all citizens, no matter where you live.
DON'T let government regulate or operate the services that go over those pathways though. Make them equally accessible to any business that applies for the proper permits to use them, and then leave them all alone to conduct their business as they see fit.
I see they placed a ban on washing cars, but I thought almost all of the commercial car washes recycled their water already? Unless you're only banning people washing them at home using a hose -- this doesn't seem like it will accomplish much?
Sure... but the same argument ALWAYS gets made with older technology. I used to work for a manufacturing business that would never let go of some of their high speed 132 column dot-matrix line printers. Everyone who saw them cried, "Ancient tech! Obsolete! Get rid of it!" But the reality was, I.T. staff weren't clueless. They tried to "upgrade" those many times before, but discovered reasons it was better to keep the status quo. (Among other things, the company relied on multi-part forms because there was a whole procedure in place where a driver received a certain colored copy of the form while one was filed in the office, and another went to the customer as a receipt. I believe a fourth copy was used in-house by other people picking or handling the order. When one of these printers was switched with a laser printer, you had to rewrite the software to print 4 copies of each page AND to print some sort of easy-to-see header to identify who it was intended for - since it wasn't going to be printing on 4 different colored sheets of paper. Papers got lost in the shuffle since they weren't on continuous, tear-off type forms anymore. Page formatting errors were struggled with since the laser didn't always print on pages quite the way the line printers did. And they even lost the advantage they had before where someone could write a quick note in pen on the top of a multi-part form and have it transferred to the other 3 sheets by default.)
Newer isn't always better, and often? Even when it is, it brings a lot of extra problems to solve or unexpected issues. Still - from the manufacturer's viewpoint, "obsolete" is pretty much defined as a product they haven't sold in a few years or more. At the 5 year mark, you probably have no more warranty coverage, even if you purchased one of those "3 year extended warranties". In most accounting circles, owning the hardware that long means they depreciated it to 0 value. And ultimately - you can't argue that you didn't get some decent use out of a product like a CPU that's been in service for 5 full years. At that point, it was your fault for making a poor initial purchasing decision if you didn't....
The death of the local ISP really came about only because broadband technology leapfrogged the cost of analog modems. It put all the small ISPs at an immediate disadvantage because none of them had the funds to just toss out their whole investment in 56K modem banks and analog lines, offering a high speed alternative they could deliver to people's doorsteps.
I had personal friends who ran local ISPs out of their homes back in those days, and the only real "bridge" technology from the modem to broadband as we all know it today was ISDN service. (It still ran over existing copper wires and your ISP didn't have to make a huge investment in hardware to purchase ISDN adapters or modems that could link to one the customer purchased.)
But almost as quickly as they could re-invest their savings or profits into ISDN gear, those 64K or 128K connection speeds were obsoleted by the big guys (cable companies, AT&T, Verizon, etc.) who started selling their FAR faster service alternatives that required their whole back-end infrastructure, lines, and other intermediate equipment to function. What was a "mom and pop" ISP really supposed to do? In some cases, they might be able to negotiate with one of the big providers to be some kind of reseller -- but then they were generally stuck charging more for service than what customers paid to bypass them as middle men.
So they did the only thing that made any financial sense... sold out to the big guys, who basically only bought them to take over their customer base.
Common Core is pretty terrible. I don't really think the Paris Accord ever meant much beyond nations stroking each other's egos and making feel-good promises they won't deliver on. Definitely not a fan of "min. wage" legislation, on the whole. (Just eliminate ALL laws trying to dictate what someone wants to offer for a particular job or task and let the chips fall where they may. If, indeed, it turns out like the naysayers sometimes warn, where everybody is reduced to earning 10 cents per hour? Ok -- that means deflation will occur when stores can't sell enough of even the most basic things because the sticker prices don't accurately reflect a realistic portion of a total wage for customers. Your $2.50 loaf of bread will become a 2 or 3 cent loaf of bread.) And net neutrality? It's a whole lot of hand-wringing about very little.
But sure.... in most of these cases, I'd rather see individual states given the power to handle these options as they see fit. The biggest downside is that when they suffer economic failure - they tend to come crying back to the Federal govt. for financial assistance.
I agree. That's certainly how they'd handle a recall in a "worst case" scenario. They're not going to offer to give you brand new CPUs in exchange for obsolete ones over 5 years old. Heck, they can argue that if you used it that long, you fully got your money's worth out of it, regardless of the current issue.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. But I wouldn't be surprised if we wind up with a "mixed" situation, where server class Xeon processors, primarily used in Enterprise cloud environments, qualify for replacement under some kind of exchange program -- while they conclude software patches are sufficient for desktop processors.
You know what people NEED in a browser? Compatibility with every web site they visit and flexibility to install extensions or plug-ins that make it a more useful tool for them!
Speed is always a good thing, but it's got to be viewed as relative to the capability of the product. Right now, with Edge not supporting extensions or plug-ins, it's not even if the same league as the browsers it compares speeds with.
I don't know anyone using Windows 10 who doesn't view Edge as the lightweight default browser you ignore except for the times Windows wants to open it to render something that was generated by clicking on an option in Windows itself.
That's what I heard too. I'd honestly like some more of a scientific explanation for the claims so off-handedly thrown out there in the topic heading here?
Picking on Trump's comment aside (and honestly, I'm pretty sure he said that in jest).... what's the reasoning for climate change causing these low temperatures and snowfall along the East coast? Last I checked, the record low temperatures in Washington DC for NYE was set way back in 1912 or some-such. As cold as it was at the end of 2017, it wasn't record-breaking or anything.
For what it's worth though? I never understood why so many companies ARE so receptive to hiring back people who quit (or were let go)? The only answer I'd expect to the "Would you hire them back?" question would be a definitive "No!" If the employee was worth keeping to begin with, then the company should have made the effort to retain them!
(Exceptions here would be places that actually explained that they WANTED to keep the person but even a generous counter-offer was rejected.)
I've worked for several companies where employees most of us viewed as "poor" or "slackers" were let go, or quit, only to be re-hired a year later. I view that as management failure. (Lazy way out is to bring someone back who you don't have to train again, even if they kind of suck at their job.)
Well, true -- except Capitalism is only as adversarial by nature as any other organized, competitive activity we humans engage in. Take sporting events, for a great example. They're adversarial by nature too, including getting large groups of spectators all riled up to cheer for one side (and to occasionally "boo'" the other side), regardless of how well the individual athletes on either team are actually playing. But the whole thing works quite well 99.9% of the time because it's agreed upon that there are a whole series of rules to the game that must be followed. Referees are employed to police the teams' behavior and to impose penalties when a player breaks one of those rules.
Capitalism is, arguably, the "most optimal system" of any we've actually seen in action - BECAUSE it leverages people's motivation to try harder and to do more in order to get rewarded.
It hasn't really been my experience that the elderly really are that content with their lives? I look at people like my wife's mom, who currently lives with us. Ever since she lost enough eyesight and motor skills to be dangerous behind the wheel and had her drivers' license taken away, she doesn't want to venture outside anymore. She's still old-fashioned enough in her ways so if I, as the "man of the house", suggest we all go out for dinner or to a store, she'll agree and go along with us. But otherwise, she always chooses not to. Her day consists of sleeping a lot and watching a lot of game shows on television, plus a little talking on her phone to any of her relatives or friends she can reach.
I experienced the same thing with my grandfather on my mom's side of the family. As soon as he had some health problems, he went into a depression and funk that he never really got back out of.
I do know exceptions to this rule... older folks who just seem overly positive and oblivious to things that would otherwise bring them down. But I view that as more of a defense mechanism than a true state of contentment and peace? They seem a little "out of touch" to people who observe them for long enough.
IMO, the bigger question is, "Are you actually DOING things that you like doing, or things that give a sense of accomplishment for completing?" Social media isn't really a bad thing, in and of itself, and neither are smartphones. But the danger is that you can get sucked into doing a lot of living vicariously through others instead of doing things for yourself. Keeping up with all of the "news" can be addictive and burn a lot of free time that you could have invested in actually doing some home improvement project, fixing up your car, or any number of other activities.
Yes.... just barely 5 miles from a small municipal airport. And sure, I could drive a little bit the opposite direction of it and find a place to fly that's outside that 5 mile range. But the point here is, I'd usually want to do videography of things in my own small town. There's not much of anything video-worthy out that other direction, outside of town.
I'd be subject to far more restrictions if i lived closer to any of the nearby cities, because closer to the DC metro area you've got airports and "no fly zones" everywhere. Heck, you can't fly a drone, period, inside DC itself, last I checked. (The DC Best Buy stores will happily still sell you one though.)
First? Yeah, I agree that this drone operator was being irresponsible. You shouldn't really be able to accidentally crash into a helicopter or airplane with one, IMO. That only happens when you're flying one way out of line of sight range and probably only when you fly in airspace that's fairly busy.
Second? I feel like right after finally taking the plunge and investing a decent sum of money into a quality drone setup myself, the laws are just starting to appear at a fast and furious pace, to regulate what I can and can't do with this thing. We've got Trump demanding FAA registrations of drones must go on again, as part of some national security bill. We've got DJI pushing the "Aeroscope" tech to all the DC big-wigs, so anyone buying their tool can intercept your RF communications with a drone in flight and grab all your telemetry and registration info. And stories are appearing about law enforcement wanting to use drones to patrol for crime (and by extension, further limit what hobbyists can do with one that might "interfere" with their uses for them).
I'm not liking where all this is headed at all. My drone flights have been for such things as taking a video survey of the condition of my roof on my house. If I'm at risk of colliding with anything, it'll be some tree or utility line I accidentally flew into... not other aircraft! Yet technically, I'm already flying in violation of the rules if I don't make an effort to report my intent to fly to a small airport in the next city over. (Realistically, I don't think I've ever seen a small plane fly over that would have come from that airport. It's just not a factor here. But the rules don't factor in common sense.... only how miles away from the nearest airport.)
I just wanted a video camera that could film from overhead and a little fun flying a modern version of your typical R/C helicopter or plane. But now, they're blowing this hobby out of proportion. It's like wanting to build and fly model rockets from the old Estes or Centuri kits and everyone eyeing you as a potential terrorist threat for launching missiles.
Once you get past his usual "puffery", using extreme-sounding adjectives in every other sentence.... there's kernel of truth behind what he said.
Amazon doesn't really need to receive government subsidies to ship items below normal cost. This shouldn't be about charging Amazon MORE than everyone else pays to ship packages, or even a suggestion that shipping prices aren't high enough across the board. But we absolutely SHOULD ask why it makes any sense to cut Amazon a special break.
By contrast, Amazon isn't really cutting customers much of a break - considering the cost of a "Prime" membership is something like $11 per month, or $99 for a year. Sure, that gets you access to the streaming movie and music content -- but the main reason "Prime" exists is to ensure you get free 2-day shipping on whatever you order.
The whole issue about pre-funding pensions? That's a big problem for the post office too, and needs to be corrected. But all the stats I ever saw indicated that even without that pre-funding requirement in place? The USPS was in the hole by millions of dollars per year. So that, by itself, won't make it profitable.
Personally, I don't find it that hard to believe that we've been visited before by other life forms? If nothing else, all of our radio and TV broadcasts we've got zipping around all over the planet probably attract some attention, if intelligent life is looking.
But back when I took enough interest in UFOs to read a lot of books and watch a lot of supposed "documentaries" on the subject? I realized that time and time again, you had people who stood to make a decent amount of money and who enjoyed the fame and attention in certain circles by telling these stories. All the fakery pollutes things to the point where someone telling a true story just gets drowned out in all the nonsense.
Some of the more interesting claims come from former military or airline pilots who were far more often in situations where they'd be able to see a UFO than the average person. (When "farmer Fred" tells you some tale of a flying saucer coming down over his field and scaring the cows - it's not quite as credible as a jet fighter pilot in the Air Force who spent thousands of hours in the sky with a plane equipped with radar systems, etc.)
But government also has a different motivation for investigating UFOs than the general public does. The government is interested in finding any military flying machines that a foreign government might be testing out as part of a secret project. If it can get people to report strange sightings in the sky, hoping to find aliens? It's going to promote that if it helps them find the next Russian spy plane or what-not.
It could turn out, in fact, that any alien life that actually visited/visits us is nothing like what we tend to expect. Maybe FTL travel isn't even something they're doing to reach us? Perhaps they're some sort of creature that lives an incredibly long time and doesn't require an atmosphere to breathe in, or even a space ship to travel in? Maybe it just floats through the vast universe like a gas until it finds something like us?
These are always loaded questions, because "better off" means so many different things to different people. But if I compare my own situation to my parents and to their parents? Well....
My grandpa had more money saved up in the bank than I can ever even imagine saving. He worked as the VP of a bank for much of his life, so he always had that mentality that you had to put away every penny you could avoid having to spend. But although I was just a little kid when I knew him, I got the impression he was never particularly happy. I think he felt more of a "duty" to be a good provider to his wife and family, and like many of us, tried to enjoy things like sports on TV or the weekly card games they organized at their house with friends. In the end, he lost most of his vision and had other health problems, causing my aunt and uncle to basically force him to go into a group home. He always hated that, and it wasn't long before the place had drained most of his life savings and then he passed away.
My parents? They did ok for themselves. Both of them were teachers at the college level. For a long time, I felt they did better than I was doing - at least financially. But late in life, my dad seemed to be talked into the idea that investing in real estate was the smartest thing he could do with his money. So he tried becoming a landlord on the side after buying 3 multi family homes in the city. Pretty quickly, those turned into losing propositions. All of them needed costly maintenance like new roofs, and keeping them all occupied was a big drain on his spare time. He worked a deal out with a handyman who wanted to live there free in return for doing work on the properties. But we started realizing that guy was ripping him off too. When my dad passed away, my mom had to sell all of it off at a big loss to get out from under it. (That'll probably mean my brothers and I won't get much of an inheritance anymore.) Today, my mom has the house we grew up in all paid off and lives in it with my youngest brother (who is mentally handicapped). I think she's sometimes happy with life, but also just "tired".
My own life has been no picnic for sure, including a messy divorce that pretty much wiped me out completely and was like a "reset button" on my life. But I have a good job and have put all the pieces back together in the last 10-15 years from the "low point" I was at. We've got a pretty cool older house and we own 3 vehicles (well - the bank does, technically - since none of this is paid off in full yet). But I'm remarried and we have 3 kids between us from both of our previous marriages, and I can finally say I've reached at least "parity" with anything the older generations had.
I know I'm far behind where the "investment pros" say I should be on retirement savings. I think that's probably at least 40% to 60% of the current U.S. population right now? But you know? Looking at my grandpa and dad's results with all of that, it really tempers my interest in struggling too hard to "sock it away for a rainy day". They tried mightily and it made both of their lives less fulfilling.
I disagree. In fact, I disagree with this whole popular narrative that "rich people are assholes". The truly rich and successful often spend the last part of their lives doing philanthropy with all the money they've managed to save up. (Google's parent company, Alphabet, just had a CEO resign after saying that's one of the things he intends to do. And that's just the latest example.)
If anything, I believe all this study illustrated is the fact that people who aren't financially well off are folks who realize all the things they don't know. Often, they didn't receive a "good quality" formal education, and in any case, they may often question why other people are able to do so much better in life than they are. They don't tend to go around believing they've got "all the answers". People raised in wealthier environments, by contrast, DID receive formal educations they were told were "good quality" and they believe the tools needed to carry on the success of their parents were handed on to them. So sure, they're going to be more opinionated. They're armed with more information and what they believe are facts.
I hate the push to get something new out the door every single calendar year. On the corporate I.T. side, it's a huge time waster and hassle for I.T. staff, even if every one of those new releases was given away free. It's not just about the "big items" like new operating systems. It's all of the supplementary stuff that kills you with a thousand paper cuts. For example, we've had to start paying for the latest annual update to TeamViewer for our remote control software. Otherwise, if you decide you're "just fine staying on version X"? They start rolling out version Y and all of your users get prompts to update their clients. Once they do, your older version can't connect and remote control them anymore. It's not realistic to expect everyone you deal with to constantly reject the update prompts, so you just give in and buy the upgrade.
I think there was a time when most people got excited about new product releases, at least for the apps or OS they used regularly. But most software has hit the point of diminishing returns now. New versions not only bring bugs but hassles re-learning how to do tasks you could do just fine before things were moved around. New features are often not even relevant for the way you use the product. I mean, even with something as popular as Microsoft Office -- give somebody a copy of Office 2013 and then have them try Office 2016 on a different PC, and ask them to give you reasons the new version is noticeably improved. I'd bet money they can't find a single thing, beyond noting the need to "sign in" to use the Office 365 subscription payment model in it. (Pro tip: There ARE new features, such as the ability for multiple users collaborating on a Word document to see the changes in real-time as someone types them. But how often did you CARE about that?)
Buying a house has always been the single smartest thing I did with my earnings.
Homes aren't incredibly liquid, but they're absolutely possible to resell. Just look how many people make a good living as realtors, if you have doubts.
If you're just starting out on your own and have your very first "career job", then no. You *likely* are better off renting for a while. A home is a big commitment (just like any large purchase would be) and you don't want to become one of the statistics who signed up for a 30 year mortgage, only to find out your employer wasn't going to employ you after 2-3 years and you couldn't find equivalent pay with another company.
But assuming you're going to be ok, earnings-wise, to afford what you're getting into? A house makes plenty of sense. Look at it this way: What else are you going to spend your money on? Unless you're one of the VERY few who is disciplined enough and content enough putting the bulk of your money into long-term investments you can't touch or do anything with you're going to spend it on tangible and intangible things. Most of those things will rapidly depreciate in value from the moment you bring them home and begin using them, if they're not just "entertainment" like travel, where you have ZERO to show financially for 100% of what you spent on it.
At least when you buy a home, you're buying something that you literally use every moment of every day or night when you're not at work or out and about someplace. You're also investing in the plot of land that the property sits on, which gives you some options other people don't have. Maybe you're in an area where the local government allows you to drill your own well for water? Maybe you want to use some of your land to put up rows of solar panels and drop your electricity costs to 0? Maybe you like working on cars and with your land, you have enough room to hang onto a spare car or two that's in a state of partial assembly? Or maybe it's just a safe place for your young kid(s) to play while you can keep an eye on them, without having to travel someplace first?
A given home may or may not turn out to be a "good investment" in the traditional sense that it appreciates in value over time. But you can't live in and enjoy stocks or mutual funds or even gold bars.
Additionally, when I rented, I hated the lack of privacy and control over my surroundings. I had a next door neighbor who used to constantly irritate me over little things like turning off the light that lit the stairway leading up to our units. I'd invite people over and they'd almost trip and fall, trying to get up to our place. The neighbor was convinced (incorrectly) that the light for the stairs was wired to HER circuit, so she was paying for it to stay on. That's not even mentioning the issues of having to be quieter than you might want to be, just because someone below you or next to you would complain. To me, that's no way to live if you can help it. It's certainly worth paying a few hundred bucks per month over and above what rent would cost (which is pretty much how my current mortgage payments work).
How many people do you think REALLY did that, though? I'd imagine it's not much different than the number of people who mortgage a home to have gambling money for the casino or horse racing track.
I think this last question in your post is a big key to our nation's issues....
Despite the lip service paid to encouraging people to go into skilled trades, the overall mentality is that those "blue collar" jobs are less desirable and make you a citizen of a lesser status in society than if you can finish college or a university with a "prestigious" degree.
In reality, we need FAR more people who have learned how to do quality work with plumbing installation and repair, carpentry, electrical work, roofing, flooring and HVAC work than we do more attorneys or business majors. Last time I needed some concrete work done around the house, I couldn't even find anyone in my city who claimed to have skill at repairing the concrete wall that divides my property line from my neighbor's. I was typically told, "I'm primarily skilled at doing flat work like sidewalks or driveways, but not especially good at patching up part of a vertical wall."
Overall, we're just paying far too much for a higher education. People keep focusing on how much they owe (or have the prospect of owing) on student loans, but that's just the symptom of the REAL problem; we're overcharging for and overselling the benefits of a diploma. Last I checked, nations like France had a more sensible system in place -- where you'd be steered towards learning a skilled trade if that was your area of proficiency. The people who have their heart set on being a rocket scientist or a marine biologist or a professional photographer or a lawyer? They'll still pursue that path and there will always be schools happy to take their money to try to teach them. But we need to be more realistic about teaching people the things that really make them functioning, money-making members of our society - especially when they don't really know what they want to do for a living.
He pushed for a much bigger factory in Nevada, like Tesla — a company that Faraday Future’s executives viewed as a competitor, and one that it had poached talent from — and increased the production target to multiple models and 150,000 units per year. The finance team spent weeks recalculating for this change in scope, these people say, and eventually determined the necessary investment cost would be about $3 billion.
"Once he saw that plan, he was like, ‘Well if four models and 150,000 is good, then we ought to be able to go to 5 million cars. What’s it going to take to go to 5 million cars?’” recalls one of these former employees. “That’s the kind of guy that he was, it was like, ‘Okay, but lets even think bigger. I need to be at 5 million cars by the end of 2025. In 10 years.’”
The statement, above, speaks volumes about the problems this company is having. The owner has NO clue how to build a business from the ground up, and apparently thinks funding will just "happen" because his ideas are cool.
Slashdot Mirror
I knew that as soon as I started carrying around a cellphone, I was sacrificing a measure of privacy - just because that makes it possible to triangulate the signal and figure out where I am at all times.
Still, there's always the trade-off of the pros vs. the cons of using a given technology. And for me, the cellphone clearly has so many benefits, I'm willing to give up that ability to locate me. (Since I know it works that way, I can opt not to carry the phone if I actually care about a company tracking my location. In other cases, it might be an advantage that I can be tracked.... like emergency situations where I want help to find me quickly.)
As for phones listening in on you all the time? I don't think there's much evidence that they do, on the whole? There have been hacks used by the NSA or FBI to turn certain makes and models of phones into listening devices. But those are targeted at specific people, at specific times. The providers wouldn't WANT all the cellphones constantly collecting voice data anyway since that would clog up their bandwidth and stop paying customers from making and taking calls reliably. And usually, my cell is in my pants pocket where the mic is going to only pick up very muffled sounds. (Listen to what you usually hear when someone accidentally butt-dials you? It's normally more background noise than anything else.)
Devices like Alexa don't offer enough upsides, by contrast. They're more of a "gee whiz" gadget, the way I see it. Anything they can do, I was already doing with my cellphone itself and a voice assistant like Siri. Except now, it's just a dedicated omnidirectional mic and speaker that stays powered up and listening all the time, covering several rooms of the house. And over broadband, they CAN receive audio from the mic pretty much at-will, and most people will be none the wiser.
I waited a while before buying it, largely because of a number of poor reviews from folks complaining about cheaters. I finally dove in and bought a copy, since it was still one of the top rated and played games in the last part of 2017.
I can't say I was clearly/obviously affected by cheating players, but I DID get the overall sense that the developers are just kicking back and enjoying all the money rolling in, vs. putting a lot of work into continuing to improve the game. I mean, the fact that it's still only been called a "beta" this whole time? It has to be almost unprecedented how many copies have been sold at "retail like pricing" for a game that's not even officially released as a v1.0?
I've found I'm just not particularly good at the game, so I don't make it to the end, regardless of being shot at by a cheater. After a while though, the game just lost my interest. You're always playing in the same VR "world", whereas most 3D shooters have additional maps that keep them visually interesting and entertaining from a strategy viewpoint, for much longer.
When I read the original article, I get the idea that a lot of it is based on this one disaster relief blanket maker's tale of woe, discovering that they were booted out as the preferred provider of their recycled blankets made from worn out clothing material. I can't help but wonder if there's more to their story than what they reveal here, since they stated the Chinese product being purchased instead is still 50 cents per blanket more expensive than what they were selling. Don't these things generally get contracted out to the lowest bidder?
Maybe their recycled blankets weren't as durable as the new Chinese ones? Or maybe they weren't as warm or comfortable?
Additionally, I agree with another Slashdot poster who found it rather hard to believe that all over the entire world, we've actually reached a point where concerns about fashion trump any interest or need for cheap, used clothing? Here in America, I find that at least in my circle of friends (including the people I communicate with via social media), few of us are fashion conscious at all. I have a couple of female friends who are, but more of them actually tell me they just want clothing that lasts. They hate spending large amounts of time picking out clothes that fit well and look good on them, only to have their favorite selections wear out and need replacing again after a year or two. The guys I know pretty much all just have a need for "business casual" clothing plus comfortable, casual wear for weekends and days off work. It's all about buying what's reasonably priced while fitting the category they're seeking. "Fast fashion" has no role to play there.
This is just one more battle that's being focused on myopically, while losing sight of the big picture.
The whole problem boils down to a need to differentiate between the infrastructure and the services being provided via that infrastructure.
What would make the most sense and be in the best national interest is to let Federal government control the infrastructure itself. Whether we're talking cellular towers or wireless spectrum allocations or plain old copper wire, coaxial or fiber - give Federal government responsibility for providing good infrastructure using any and all of those methods, to ensure adequate broadband options for all citizens, no matter where you live.
DON'T let government regulate or operate the services that go over those pathways though. Make them equally accessible to any business that applies for the proper permits to use them, and then leave them all alone to conduct their business as they see fit.
I see they placed a ban on washing cars, but I thought almost all of the commercial car washes recycled their water already? Unless you're only banning people washing them at home using a hose -- this doesn't seem like it will accomplish much?
Sure ... but the same argument ALWAYS gets made with older technology. I used to work for a manufacturing business that would never let go of some of their high speed 132 column dot-matrix line printers. Everyone who saw them cried, "Ancient tech! Obsolete! Get rid of it!" But the reality was, I.T. staff weren't clueless. They tried to "upgrade" those many times before, but discovered reasons it was better to keep the status quo. (Among other things, the company relied on multi-part forms because there was a whole procedure in place where a driver received a certain colored copy of the form while one was filed in the office, and another went to the customer as a receipt. I believe a fourth copy was used in-house by other people picking or handling the order. When one of these printers was switched with a laser printer, you had to rewrite the software to print 4 copies of each page AND to print some sort of easy-to-see header to identify who it was intended for - since it wasn't going to be printing on 4 different colored sheets of paper. Papers got lost in the shuffle since they weren't on continuous, tear-off type forms anymore. Page formatting errors were struggled with since the laser didn't always print on pages quite the way the line printers did. And they even lost the advantage they had before where someone could write a quick note in pen on the top of a multi-part form and have it transferred to the other 3 sheets by default.)
Newer isn't always better, and often? Even when it is, it brings a lot of extra problems to solve or unexpected issues. Still - from the manufacturer's viewpoint, "obsolete" is pretty much defined as a product they haven't sold in a few years or more. At the 5 year mark, you probably have no more warranty coverage, even if you purchased one of those "3 year extended warranties". In most accounting circles, owning the hardware that long means they depreciated it to 0 value. And ultimately - you can't argue that you didn't get some decent use out of a product like a CPU that's been in service for 5 full years. At that point, it was your fault for making a poor initial purchasing decision if you didn't ....
The death of the local ISP really came about only because broadband technology leapfrogged the cost of analog modems. It put all the small ISPs at an immediate disadvantage because none of them had the funds to just toss out their whole investment in 56K modem banks and analog lines, offering a high speed alternative they could deliver to people's doorsteps.
I had personal friends who ran local ISPs out of their homes back in those days, and the only real "bridge" technology from the modem to broadband as we all know it today was ISDN service. (It still ran over existing copper wires and your ISP didn't have to make a huge investment in hardware to purchase ISDN adapters or modems that could link to one the customer purchased.)
But almost as quickly as they could re-invest their savings or profits into ISDN gear, those 64K or 128K connection speeds were obsoleted by the big guys (cable companies, AT&T, Verizon, etc.) who started selling their FAR faster service alternatives that required their whole back-end infrastructure, lines, and other intermediate equipment to function. What was a "mom and pop" ISP really supposed to do? In some cases, they might be able to negotiate with one of the big providers to be some kind of reseller -- but then they were generally stuck charging more for service than what customers paid to bypass them as middle men.
So they did the only thing that made any financial sense ... sold out to the big guys, who basically only bought them to take over their customer base.
Common Core is pretty terrible. I don't really think the Paris Accord ever meant much beyond nations stroking each other's egos and making feel-good promises they won't deliver on. Definitely not a fan of "min. wage" legislation, on the whole. (Just eliminate ALL laws trying to dictate what someone wants to offer for a particular job or task and let the chips fall where they may. If, indeed, it turns out like the naysayers sometimes warn, where everybody is reduced to earning 10 cents per hour? Ok -- that means deflation will occur when stores can't sell enough of even the most basic things because the sticker prices don't accurately reflect a realistic portion of a total wage for customers. Your $2.50 loaf of bread will become a 2 or 3 cent loaf of bread.) And net neutrality? It's a whole lot of hand-wringing about very little.
But sure .... in most of these cases, I'd rather see individual states given the power to handle these options as they see fit. The biggest downside is that when they suffer economic failure - they tend to come crying back to the Federal govt. for financial assistance.
I agree. That's certainly how they'd handle a recall in a "worst case" scenario. They're not going to offer to give you brand new CPUs in exchange for obsolete ones over 5 years old. Heck, they can argue that if you used it that long, you fully got your money's worth out of it, regardless of the current issue.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. But I wouldn't be surprised if we wind up with a "mixed" situation, where server class Xeon processors, primarily used in Enterprise cloud environments, qualify for replacement under some kind of exchange program -- while they conclude software patches are sufficient for desktop processors.
You know what people NEED in a browser? Compatibility with every web site they visit and flexibility to install extensions or plug-ins that make it a more useful tool for them!
Speed is always a good thing, but it's got to be viewed as relative to the capability of the product. Right now, with Edge not supporting extensions or plug-ins, it's not even if the same league as the browsers it compares speeds with.
I don't know anyone using Windows 10 who doesn't view Edge as the lightweight default browser you ignore except for the times Windows wants to open it to render something that was generated by clicking on an option in Windows itself.
That's what I heard too. I'd honestly like some more of a scientific explanation for the claims so off-handedly thrown out there in the topic heading here?
Picking on Trump's comment aside (and honestly, I'm pretty sure he said that in jest) .... what's the reasoning for climate change causing these low temperatures and snowfall along the East coast? Last I checked, the record low temperatures in Washington DC for NYE was set way back in 1912 or some-such. As cold as it was at the end of 2017, it wasn't record-breaking or anything.
For what it's worth though? I never understood why so many companies ARE so receptive to hiring back people who quit (or were let go)? The only answer I'd expect to the "Would you hire them back?" question would be a definitive "No!" If the employee was worth keeping to begin with, then the company should have made the effort to retain them!
(Exceptions here would be places that actually explained that they WANTED to keep the person but even a generous counter-offer was rejected.)
I've worked for several companies where employees most of us viewed as "poor" or "slackers" were let go, or quit, only to be re-hired a year later. I view that as management failure. (Lazy way out is to bring someone back who you don't have to train again, even if they kind of suck at their job.)
Well, true -- except Capitalism is only as adversarial by nature as any other organized, competitive activity we humans engage in. Take sporting events, for a great example. They're adversarial by nature too, including getting large groups of spectators all riled up to cheer for one side (and to occasionally "boo'" the other side), regardless of how well the individual athletes on either team are actually playing. But the whole thing works quite well 99.9% of the time because it's agreed upon that there are a whole series of rules to the game that must be followed. Referees are employed to police the teams' behavior and to impose penalties when a player breaks one of those rules.
Capitalism is, arguably, the "most optimal system" of any we've actually seen in action - BECAUSE it leverages people's motivation to try harder and to do more in order to get rewarded.
It hasn't really been my experience that the elderly really are that content with their lives? I look at people like my wife's mom, who currently lives with us. Ever since she lost enough eyesight and motor skills to be dangerous behind the wheel and had her drivers' license taken away, she doesn't want to venture outside anymore. She's still old-fashioned enough in her ways so if I, as the "man of the house", suggest we all go out for dinner or to a store, she'll agree and go along with us. But otherwise, she always chooses not to. Her day consists of sleeping a lot and watching a lot of game shows on television, plus a little talking on her phone to any of her relatives or friends she can reach.
I experienced the same thing with my grandfather on my mom's side of the family. As soon as he had some health problems, he went into a depression and funk that he never really got back out of.
I do know exceptions to this rule ... older folks who just seem overly positive and oblivious to things that would otherwise bring them down. But I view that as more of a defense mechanism than a true state of contentment and peace? They seem a little "out of touch" to people who observe them for long enough.
IMO, the bigger question is, "Are you actually DOING things that you like doing, or things that give a sense of accomplishment for completing?" Social media isn't really a bad thing, in and of itself, and neither are smartphones. But the danger is that you can get sucked into doing a lot of living vicariously through others instead of doing things for yourself. Keeping up with all of the "news" can be addictive and burn a lot of free time that you could have invested in actually doing some home improvement project, fixing up your car, or any number of other activities.
Yes.... just barely 5 miles from a small municipal airport. And sure, I could drive a little bit the opposite direction of it and find a place to fly that's outside that 5 mile range. But the point here is, I'd usually want to do videography of things in my own small town. There's not much of anything video-worthy out that other direction, outside of town.
I'd be subject to far more restrictions if i lived closer to any of the nearby cities, because closer to the DC metro area you've got airports and "no fly zones" everywhere. Heck, you can't fly a drone, period, inside DC itself, last I checked. (The DC Best Buy stores will happily still sell you one though.)
First? Yeah, I agree that this drone operator was being irresponsible. You shouldn't really be able to accidentally crash into a helicopter or airplane with one, IMO. That only happens when you're flying one way out of line of sight range and probably only when you fly in airspace that's fairly busy.
Second? I feel like right after finally taking the plunge and investing a decent sum of money into a quality drone setup myself, the laws are just starting to appear at a fast and furious pace, to regulate what I can and can't do with this thing. We've got Trump demanding FAA registrations of drones must go on again, as part of some national security bill. We've got DJI pushing the "Aeroscope" tech to all the DC big-wigs, so anyone buying their tool can intercept your RF communications with a drone in flight and grab all your telemetry and registration info. And stories are appearing about law enforcement wanting to use drones to patrol for crime (and by extension, further limit what hobbyists can do with one that might "interfere" with their uses for them).
I'm not liking where all this is headed at all. My drone flights have been for such things as taking a video survey of the condition of my roof on my house. If I'm at risk of colliding with anything, it'll be some tree or utility line I accidentally flew into ... not other aircraft! Yet technically, I'm already flying in violation of the rules if I don't make an effort to report my intent to fly to a small airport in the next city over. (Realistically, I don't think I've ever seen a small plane fly over that would have come from that airport. It's just not a factor here. But the rules don't factor in common sense.... only how miles away from the nearest airport.)
I just wanted a video camera that could film from overhead and a little fun flying a modern version of your typical R/C helicopter or plane. But now, they're blowing this hobby out of proportion. It's like wanting to build and fly model rockets from the old Estes or Centuri kits and everyone eyeing you as a potential terrorist threat for launching missiles.
Once you get past his usual "puffery", using extreme-sounding adjectives in every other sentence .... there's kernel of truth behind what he said.
Amazon doesn't really need to receive government subsidies to ship items below normal cost. This shouldn't be about charging Amazon MORE than everyone else pays to ship packages, or even a suggestion that shipping prices aren't high enough across the board. But we absolutely SHOULD ask why it makes any sense to cut Amazon a special break.
By contrast, Amazon isn't really cutting customers much of a break - considering the cost of a "Prime" membership is something like $11 per month, or $99 for a year. Sure, that gets you access to the streaming movie and music content -- but the main reason "Prime" exists is to ensure you get free 2-day shipping on whatever you order.
The whole issue about pre-funding pensions? That's a big problem for the post office too, and needs to be corrected. But all the stats I ever saw indicated that even without that pre-funding requirement in place? The USPS was in the hole by millions of dollars per year. So that, by itself, won't make it profitable.
Personally, I don't find it that hard to believe that we've been visited before by other life forms? If nothing else, all of our radio and TV broadcasts we've got zipping around all over the planet probably attract some attention, if intelligent life is looking.
But back when I took enough interest in UFOs to read a lot of books and watch a lot of supposed "documentaries" on the subject? I realized that time and time again, you had people who stood to make a decent amount of money and who enjoyed the fame and attention in certain circles by telling these stories. All the fakery pollutes things to the point where someone telling a true story just gets drowned out in all the nonsense.
Some of the more interesting claims come from former military or airline pilots who were far more often in situations where they'd be able to see a UFO than the average person. (When "farmer Fred" tells you some tale of a flying saucer coming down over his field and scaring the cows - it's not quite as credible as a jet fighter pilot in the Air Force who spent thousands of hours in the sky with a plane equipped with radar systems, etc.)
But government also has a different motivation for investigating UFOs than the general public does. The government is interested in finding any military flying machines that a foreign government might be testing out as part of a secret project. If it can get people to report strange sightings in the sky, hoping to find aliens? It's going to promote that if it helps them find the next Russian spy plane or what-not.
It could turn out, in fact, that any alien life that actually visited/visits us is nothing like what we tend to expect. Maybe FTL travel isn't even something they're doing to reach us? Perhaps they're some sort of creature that lives an incredibly long time and doesn't require an atmosphere to breathe in, or even a space ship to travel in? Maybe it just floats through the vast universe like a gas until it finds something like us?
These are always loaded questions, because "better off" means so many different things to different people. But if I compare my own situation to my parents and to their parents? Well ....
My grandpa had more money saved up in the bank than I can ever even imagine saving. He worked as the VP of a bank for much of his life, so he always had that mentality that you had to put away every penny you could avoid having to spend. But although I was just a little kid when I knew him, I got the impression he was never particularly happy. I think he felt more of a "duty" to be a good provider to his wife and family, and like many of us, tried to enjoy things like sports on TV or the weekly card games they organized at their house with friends. In the end, he lost most of his vision and had other health problems, causing my aunt and uncle to basically force him to go into a group home. He always hated that, and it wasn't long before the place had drained most of his life savings and then he passed away.
My parents? They did ok for themselves. Both of them were teachers at the college level. For a long time, I felt they did better than I was doing - at least financially. But late in life, my dad seemed to be talked into the idea that investing in real estate was the smartest thing he could do with his money. So he tried becoming a landlord on the side after buying 3 multi family homes in the city. Pretty quickly, those turned into losing propositions. All of them needed costly maintenance like new roofs, and keeping them all occupied was a big drain on his spare time. He worked a deal out with a handyman who wanted to live there free in return for doing work on the properties. But we started realizing that guy was ripping him off too. When my dad passed away, my mom had to sell all of it off at a big loss to get out from under it. (That'll probably mean my brothers and I won't get much of an inheritance anymore.) Today, my mom has the house we grew up in all paid off and lives in it with my youngest brother (who is mentally handicapped). I think she's sometimes happy with life, but also just "tired".
My own life has been no picnic for sure, including a messy divorce that pretty much wiped me out completely and was like a "reset button" on my life. But I have a good job and have put all the pieces back together in the last 10-15 years from the "low point" I was at. We've got a pretty cool older house and we own 3 vehicles (well - the bank does, technically - since none of this is paid off in full yet). But I'm remarried and we have 3 kids between us from both of our previous marriages, and I can finally say I've reached at least "parity" with anything the older generations had.
I know I'm far behind where the "investment pros" say I should be on retirement savings. I think that's probably at least 40% to 60% of the current U.S. population right now? But you know? Looking at my grandpa and dad's results with all of that, it really tempers my interest in struggling too hard to "sock it away for a rainy day". They tried mightily and it made both of their lives less fulfilling.
I disagree. In fact, I disagree with this whole popular narrative that "rich people are assholes". The truly rich and successful often spend the last part of their lives doing philanthropy with all the money they've managed to save up. (Google's parent company, Alphabet, just had a CEO resign after saying that's one of the things he intends to do. And that's just the latest example.)
If anything, I believe all this study illustrated is the fact that people who aren't financially well off are folks who realize all the things they don't know. Often, they didn't receive a "good quality" formal education, and in any case, they may often question why other people are able to do so much better in life than they are. They don't tend to go around believing they've got "all the answers". People raised in wealthier environments, by contrast, DID receive formal educations they were told were "good quality" and they believe the tools needed to carry on the success of their parents were handed on to them. So sure, they're going to be more opinionated. They're armed with more information and what they believe are facts.
I hate the push to get something new out the door every single calendar year. On the corporate I.T. side, it's a huge time waster and hassle for I.T. staff, even if every one of those new releases was given away free. It's not just about the "big items" like new operating systems. It's all of the supplementary stuff that kills you with a thousand paper cuts. For example, we've had to start paying for the latest annual update to TeamViewer for our remote control software. Otherwise, if you decide you're "just fine staying on version X"? They start rolling out version Y and all of your users get prompts to update their clients. Once they do, your older version can't connect and remote control them anymore. It's not realistic to expect everyone you deal with to constantly reject the update prompts, so you just give in and buy the upgrade.
I think there was a time when most people got excited about new product releases, at least for the apps or OS they used regularly. But most software has hit the point of diminishing returns now. New versions not only bring bugs but hassles re-learning how to do tasks you could do just fine before things were moved around. New features are often not even relevant for the way you use the product. I mean, even with something as popular as Microsoft Office -- give somebody a copy of Office 2013 and then have them try Office 2016 on a different PC, and ask them to give you reasons the new version is noticeably improved. I'd bet money they can't find a single thing, beyond noting the need to "sign in" to use the Office 365 subscription payment model in it. (Pro tip: There ARE new features, such as the ability for multiple users collaborating on a Word document to see the changes in real-time as someone types them. But how often did you CARE about that?)
Buying a house has always been the single smartest thing I did with my earnings.
Homes aren't incredibly liquid, but they're absolutely possible to resell. Just look how many people make a good living as realtors, if you have doubts.
If you're just starting out on your own and have your very first "career job", then no. You *likely* are better off renting for a while. A home is a big commitment (just like any large purchase would be) and you don't want to become one of the statistics who signed up for a 30 year mortgage, only to find out your employer wasn't going to employ you after 2-3 years and you couldn't find equivalent pay with another company.
But assuming you're going to be ok, earnings-wise, to afford what you're getting into? A house makes plenty of sense. Look at it this way: What else are you going to spend your money on? Unless you're one of the VERY few who is disciplined enough and content enough putting the bulk of your money into long-term investments you can't touch or do anything with you're going to spend it on tangible and intangible things. Most of those things will rapidly depreciate in value from the moment you bring them home and begin using them, if they're not just "entertainment" like travel, where you have ZERO to show financially for 100% of what you spent on it.
At least when you buy a home, you're buying something that you literally use every moment of every day or night when you're not at work or out and about someplace. You're also investing in the plot of land that the property sits on, which gives you some options other people don't have. Maybe you're in an area where the local government allows you to drill your own well for water? Maybe you want to use some of your land to put up rows of solar panels and drop your electricity costs to 0? Maybe you like working on cars and with your land, you have enough room to hang onto a spare car or two that's in a state of partial assembly? Or maybe it's just a safe place for your young kid(s) to play while you can keep an eye on them, without having to travel someplace first?
A given home may or may not turn out to be a "good investment" in the traditional sense that it appreciates in value over time. But you can't live in and enjoy stocks or mutual funds or even gold bars.
Additionally, when I rented, I hated the lack of privacy and control over my surroundings. I had a next door neighbor who used to constantly irritate me over little things like turning off the light that lit the stairway leading up to our units. I'd invite people over and they'd almost trip and fall, trying to get up to our place. The neighbor was convinced (incorrectly) that the light for the stairs was wired to HER circuit, so she was paying for it to stay on. That's not even mentioning the issues of having to be quieter than you might want to be, just because someone below you or next to you would complain. To me, that's no way to live if you can help it. It's certainly worth paying a few hundred bucks per month over and above what rent would cost (which is pretty much how my current mortgage payments work).
How many people do you think REALLY did that, though? I'd imagine it's not much different than the number of people who mortgage a home to have gambling money for the casino or horse racing track.
I think this last question in your post is a big key to our nation's issues....
Despite the lip service paid to encouraging people to go into skilled trades, the overall mentality is that those "blue collar" jobs are less desirable and make you a citizen of a lesser status in society than if you can finish college or a university with a "prestigious" degree.
In reality, we need FAR more people who have learned how to do quality work with plumbing installation and repair, carpentry, electrical work, roofing, flooring and HVAC work than we do more attorneys or business majors. Last time I needed some concrete work done around the house, I couldn't even find anyone in my city who claimed to have skill at repairing the concrete wall that divides my property line from my neighbor's. I was typically told, "I'm primarily skilled at doing flat work like sidewalks or driveways, but not especially good at patching up part of a vertical wall."
Overall, we're just paying far too much for a higher education. People keep focusing on how much they owe (or have the prospect of owing) on student loans, but that's just the symptom of the REAL problem; we're overcharging for and overselling the benefits of a diploma. Last I checked, nations like France had a more sensible system in place -- where you'd be steered towards learning a skilled trade if that was your area of proficiency. The people who have their heart set on being a rocket scientist or a marine biologist or a professional photographer or a lawyer? They'll still pursue that path and there will always be schools happy to take their money to try to teach them. But we need to be more realistic about teaching people the things that really make them functioning, money-making members of our society - especially when they don't really know what they want to do for a living.
He pushed for a much bigger factory in Nevada, like Tesla — a company that Faraday Future’s executives viewed as a competitor, and one that it had poached talent from — and increased the production target to multiple models and 150,000 units per year. The finance team spent weeks recalculating for this change in scope, these people say, and eventually determined the necessary investment cost would be about $3 billion.
"Once he saw that plan, he was like, ‘Well if four models and 150,000 is good, then we ought to be able to go to 5 million cars. What’s it going to take to go to 5 million cars?’” recalls one of these former employees. “That’s the kind of guy that he was, it was like, ‘Okay, but lets even think bigger. I need to be at 5 million cars by the end of 2025. In 10 years.’”
The statement, above, speaks volumes about the problems this company is having. The owner has NO clue how to build a business from the ground up, and apparently thinks funding will just "happen" because his ideas are cool.