While the exact semantics bother me (half the population within half a mile of a competitor), I sadly agree that this is a market that could be competitive if there was a sufficient profit motive. The gotcha is that half the population can be half a mile away, across the river, highway, or gorge that provides a sufficient barrier for expansion by the competitor.
The distance could easily mean that if the main street in a city has a competitive provider the county is considered competitive, while it is still completely impractical for the competitor to build out access to the balance of the county--- or even half the residents.
How hard do you really think it is to cut off the north from border access effectively, and neutralize that large army? It wouldn't be pretty, but it would not take long. Seoul would still be heavily damaged, but it seems like there is no real strategy where Seoul can come out ahead.
When I hire, I do want to know people's salary and employment history in detail-- not especially for negotiating compensation, although the most recent salary often gives some indication of where they should be.
The main issue is to understand where their career is going-- are they changing jobs every two years because they were fired, or because they found better jobs? Did they take a year or two off that might be relevant (generally it isn't, but certain other patterns can make it a point of consideration). And, most importantly, did they lie about their job history and position.
We used to get this type of data included in the background checks we performed before offering people a position. Now by law (at least in California) you can't do a background check until someone accepts an offer. Purely anecdotal, but our experience now is that we need to fire a higher percentage of people before their 90 day reviews-- from ~5-10% up to 15-20%.
You can put in a mile of fiber in the sticks for less than $8k. In a city, the cost is closer to $1 million/mile. All it takes to make rural life work is people working together for a common goal.
When the two major offerings are not serving the whole market an opportunity will develop... but I don't think that time is right now. At some point, Apple will do something more dramatically stupid than removing the headphone jack, and maybe then an alternative will make sense.
The issue is how many customers share that maximum bandwidth, and how much is usable due to ingress noise from said customers. The coax plant wasn't designed for upstream communication, and that causes issues.
The challenge is competitors can only be viable with a certain minimum penetration depending on the density of households. So, in a suburban town, 20% uptake might work, but when you get to the sticks you need close to 100%. This makes it hard to have competition in all but the easiest markets.
No, the Windows phones were the best available at the time and most comparable to the iPhone-- but the resistive touch screen made them a toy. Blackberry dominated due to being the best device for email.
When do you think he got a letter of intent? Looking at their system, I think even 100 days is not too hard for them to achieve; the installation is massively parallel and the site prep isn't that hard. I am surprised they used underground conduits-- it must mean they have that much confidence in their schedule. (I would have expected cable tray overhead.)
Are you kidding?! Compared to what was on the market at the time, it was a huge change. I still remember sitting in a conference room when my meeting was over, looking at the presentation, and saying "wow... this is huge!"
Even if it was just a giant touchscreen... it changed the idea of what a "smart phone" was.
Crowd funding, just like any other type of funding, places value on the pitch rather than the product. Fundamentally you need to accept that first and then talk about innovation.
Ultimately though innovation and funding are independent. The real discussion should be about funding efficacy for high-risk projects by source. I opened a savings account yesterday with 0.07% interest! While not my purpose, can you imagine "saving" money like that... clearly there is an opportunity for high-risk funding, but to be effective it needs to have a good pitch and offer real opportunity.
The problem with superstar programmers is they are hard to count on: they are difficult to recruit, offer no guarantees on retention, and can have friction with other superstars. From a productivity standpoint though... it is great working with them!
In my field we used to call them Renaissance Engineers-- great cross-discipline knowledge and capable of wearing many hats in the organization. Specific to my field, you are likely limited to under 100 new graduates per year that fit into this category, and it seems to be dropping-- although we don't have the resources for recruiting that our competitors do.
More of the distribution network should shift underground, but tropical climates are hard on underground medium voltage feeders. The approach in places like Hong Kong is to significantly de-rate the 11kV cables and make them relatively easy to access via paver sidewalks. The challenge is that it is a run-to-fail mode of operation, albeit with fewer customers per feeder and generally a back-feed path available.
Honestly the most practical approach for PR is to cut the spacing between poles in half and get rid of the spaghetti wiring that increases wind loading. To that end, telecom is really what belongs underground, and arguably 240/480V power.
There are several technologies looking at 10,000 cycles right now, but the logical approach would include (micro) hydro and wind as well. It is still better than bringing in oil to do the work though if your batteries only last 25 years.
Honestly, that is the bottom line. Do you build something "quick" and "cheap" (not really either), or do you start from scratch with a modern approach. Looking at PR's geographic distribution, inter-tied micro-grids would seem like a reasonable approach. Micro-grids do lend themselves to renewables, so nothing too earth shattering there. You still have the huge mess of a local distribution network (needing 2x as many utility poles as you have today for resilience) to fix, but you reduce the reliance on the major transmission lines.
If PV has a 15-year payback at $0.14/kWh, you should be looking at around a 10-year payback for distributed systems... with the risk that you get another hurricane to wipe it all out before then.
But, the problem is likely that the transmission lines and the fossil fuel power plants are the easiest parts of the equation to fix.
Honestly, I don't think it is needed. There was a time where I only wanted to see the "top 5" comments on a discussion, but with conversation threading and hidden comments any benefits are fairly limited.
There aren't really a whole lot of "top" comments any more-- true though leaders or experts in a topic that can provide clarity and objectiveness to an issue. Now it is much more of a discussion, for better or worse.
While I can't for the life of me figure out why I can't post extrans properly, the inline comment system is much less painful.
For me, the biggest difference today is I wonder why the hell the website is down for 36 hours rather than assuming Taco kicked the cord again. I am surprised at how the population went from a largely libertarian slant to be more split between the major party "ideologies." I do miss some of the steadfast posters from the early days, along with people like NY Country Lawyer.
But I will say this much--/. has made me better informed than I would be just reading the news(paper).
The more common issue is the way the number blocks are assigned often led to duplicates. The first three indicated issuing region/office, next two were alphabetical, and the next four were consecutive. (Now the numbers are issued centrally, so it is less of an issue.) Because of this setup, numbers were periodically duplicated. It is likely well under 0.1%, but it happens/d. In about 60 years any duplicates would likely filter out of the system.
Doesn't solve the problem though. You still have high-value information linked to the TID, which ultimately is the root of the problem.
Ultimately you need the TID to be unique to each taxpayer, and a subset/hash of the TID plus additional information to be linked for other (financial) purposes. The IRS should be the only ones able to re-associate you to a unique qualifier.
But, until you eliminate the profit motive for credit bureaus everything will end up being re-assembled. Back to square one.
I would say those people are predominantly seeking confirmation bias.
As a society, if we want to stop the process we need to stop promoting wedge issues-- even today the Democrats need to pull back on gun regulation, and the Republicans need to pull back on abortion. Focus needs to shift towards what (puke) will make America great in the next 50 years.
You demanded instant information, and this is what you get. It isn't Google or Facebook's fault, it is yours-- for wanting to know things instantly while details are still foggy and people who want to make a name for themselves or spread an agenda can dominate with their canned story.
You want Facebook to help-- get them to brand people as "unreliable" or "has difficulty separating facts from fantasy" or "lacks critical thinking skills." But don't complain when you mistake data for information and bear the brand as well.
Tropical climates are hell on medium voltage insulation underground. You have water, insects, and heat to contend with. Salt and dust on insulators above ground are much easier to deal with.
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While the exact semantics bother me (half the population within half a mile of a competitor), I sadly agree that this is a market that could be competitive if there was a sufficient profit motive. The gotcha is that half the population can be half a mile away, across the river, highway, or gorge that provides a sufficient barrier for expansion by the competitor.
The distance could easily mean that if the main street in a city has a competitive provider the county is considered competitive, while it is still completely impractical for the competitor to build out access to the balance of the county--- or even half the residents.
How hard do you really think it is to cut off the north from border access effectively, and neutralize that large army? It wouldn't be pretty, but it would not take long. Seoul would still be heavily damaged, but it seems like there is no real strategy where Seoul can come out ahead.
When I hire, I do want to know people's salary and employment history in detail-- not especially for negotiating compensation, although the most recent salary often gives some indication of where they should be.
The main issue is to understand where their career is going-- are they changing jobs every two years because they were fired, or because they found better jobs? Did they take a year or two off that might be relevant (generally it isn't, but certain other patterns can make it a point of consideration). And, most importantly, did they lie about their job history and position.
We used to get this type of data included in the background checks we performed before offering people a position. Now by law (at least in California) you can't do a background check until someone accepts an offer. Purely anecdotal, but our experience now is that we need to fire a higher percentage of people before their 90 day reviews-- from ~5-10% up to 15-20%.
You can put in a mile of fiber in the sticks for less than $8k. In a city, the cost is closer to $1 million/mile. All it takes to make rural life work is people working together for a common goal.
When the two major offerings are not serving the whole market an opportunity will develop... but I don't think that time is right now. At some point, Apple will do something more dramatically stupid than removing the headphone jack, and maybe then an alternative will make sense.
The issue is how many customers share that maximum bandwidth, and how much is usable due to ingress noise from said customers. The coax plant wasn't designed for upstream communication, and that causes issues.
The challenge is competitors can only be viable with a certain minimum penetration depending on the density of households. So, in a suburban town, 20% uptake might work, but when you get to the sticks you need close to 100%. This makes it hard to have competition in all but the easiest markets.
Oh, c'mon--- if you want to go, just ask.
No, the Windows phones were the best available at the time and most comparable to the iPhone-- but the resistive touch screen made them a toy. Blackberry dominated due to being the best device for email.
When do you think he got a letter of intent? Looking at their system, I think even 100 days is not too hard for them to achieve; the installation is massively parallel and the site prep isn't that hard. I am surprised they used underground conduits-- it must mean they have that much confidence in their schedule. (I would have expected cable tray overhead.)
Are you kidding?! Compared to what was on the market at the time, it was a huge change. I still remember sitting in a conference room when my meeting was over, looking at the presentation, and saying "wow... this is huge!"
Even if it was just a giant touchscreen... it changed the idea of what a "smart phone" was.
Crowd funding, just like any other type of funding, places value on the pitch rather than the product. Fundamentally you need to accept that first and then talk about innovation.
Ultimately though innovation and funding are independent. The real discussion should be about funding efficacy for high-risk projects by source. I opened a savings account yesterday with 0.07% interest! While not my purpose, can you imagine "saving" money like that... clearly there is an opportunity for high-risk funding, but to be effective it needs to have a good pitch and offer real opportunity.
Yes, and it is easier to build a business around easily replaceable people.
The problem with superstar programmers is they are hard to count on: they are difficult to recruit, offer no guarantees on retention, and can have friction with other superstars. From a productivity standpoint though... it is great working with them!
In my field we used to call them Renaissance Engineers-- great cross-discipline knowledge and capable of wearing many hats in the organization. Specific to my field, you are likely limited to under 100 new graduates per year that fit into this category, and it seems to be dropping-- although we don't have the resources for recruiting that our competitors do.
More of the distribution network should shift underground, but tropical climates are hard on underground medium voltage feeders. The approach in places like Hong Kong is to significantly de-rate the 11kV cables and make them relatively easy to access via paver sidewalks. The challenge is that it is a run-to-fail mode of operation, albeit with fewer customers per feeder and generally a back-feed path available.
Honestly the most practical approach for PR is to cut the spacing between poles in half and get rid of the spaghetti wiring that increases wind loading. To that end, telecom is really what belongs underground, and arguably 240/480V power.
There are several technologies looking at 10,000 cycles right now, but the logical approach would include (micro) hydro and wind as well. It is still better than bringing in oil to do the work though if your batteries only last 25 years.
Honestly, that is the bottom line. Do you build something "quick" and "cheap" (not really either), or do you start from scratch with a modern approach. Looking at PR's geographic distribution, inter-tied micro-grids would seem like a reasonable approach. Micro-grids do lend themselves to renewables, so nothing too earth shattering there. You still have the huge mess of a local distribution network (needing 2x as many utility poles as you have today for resilience) to fix, but you reduce the reliance on the major transmission lines.
If PV has a 15-year payback at $0.14/kWh, you should be looking at around a 10-year payback for distributed systems... with the risk that you get another hurricane to wipe it all out before then.
But, the problem is likely that the transmission lines and the fossil fuel power plants are the easiest parts of the equation to fix.
Honestly, I don't think it is needed. There was a time where I only wanted to see the "top 5" comments on a discussion, but with conversation threading and hidden comments any benefits are fairly limited.
There aren't really a whole lot of "top" comments any more-- true though leaders or experts in a topic that can provide clarity and objectiveness to an issue. Now it is much more of a discussion, for better or worse.
While I can't for the life of me figure out why I can't post extrans properly, the inline comment system is much less painful.
For me, the biggest difference today is I wonder why the hell the website is down for 36 hours rather than assuming Taco kicked the cord again. I am surprised at how the population went from a largely libertarian slant to be more split between the major party "ideologies." I do miss some of the steadfast posters from the early days, along with people like NY Country Lawyer.
But I will say this much-- /. has made me better informed than I would be just reading the news(paper).
The more common issue is the way the number blocks are assigned often led to duplicates. The first three indicated issuing region/office, next two were alphabetical, and the next four were consecutive. (Now the numbers are issued centrally, so it is less of an issue.) Because of this setup, numbers were periodically duplicated. It is likely well under 0.1%, but it happens/d. In about 60 years any duplicates would likely filter out of the system.
Doesn't solve the problem though. You still have high-value information linked to the TID, which ultimately is the root of the problem.
Ultimately you need the TID to be unique to each taxpayer, and a subset/hash of the TID plus additional information to be linked for other (financial) purposes. The IRS should be the only ones able to re-associate you to a unique qualifier.
But, until you eliminate the profit motive for credit bureaus everything will end up being re-assembled. Back to square one.
Blockchain. All the cool kids are doing it! Say it with me... Blockchain!
I would say those people are predominantly seeking confirmation bias.
As a society, if we want to stop the process we need to stop promoting wedge issues-- even today the Democrats need to pull back on gun regulation, and the Republicans need to pull back on abortion. Focus needs to shift towards what (puke) will make America great in the next 50 years.
You demanded instant information, and this is what you get. It isn't Google or Facebook's fault, it is yours-- for wanting to know things instantly while details are still foggy and people who want to make a name for themselves or spread an agenda can dominate with their canned story.
You want Facebook to help-- get them to brand people as "unreliable" or "has difficulty separating facts from fantasy" or "lacks critical thinking skills." But don't complain when you mistake data for information and bear the brand as well.
Tropical climates are hell on medium voltage insulation underground. You have water, insects, and heat to contend with. Salt and dust on insulators above ground are much easier to deal with.