Not to say there aren't things they could probably be investigated for, but in the cases of search, cloud computing, and mobile Microsoft has actually been the 'underdog' competitor. They successfully gained inroads to cloud computing thanks to Azure, but Bing has never had the search market share of Google, and mobile offerings were never Android or iOS. Microsoft as the 'victim' of anti-competitive behavior would have been inconceivable 20 years ago, but technology changes that quickly and if you miss the boat you can find yourself in a very tricky spot.
Whenever Walmart is mentioned I like to use the rise of Dollar General to illustrate my complete lack of confidence in anything the company attempts. How on earth did Walmart see the rise of Dollar General and not think: hey we could do that, or hey we should buy them, or hey Amazon has slow rural deliveries let's innovate there. They simply gave it a half-effort attempt and then gave up the small town / discount markets (which contained many loyal existing customers), blinded by their efforts to become Amazon and attract customers who don't care about Walmart brand. Dollar General's stock has doubled over the past 5 years and has a market cap of $30 billion, I have difficulty believing anything Walmart can do in efforts to become Amazon will add value equivalent to acquiring or cloning Dollar General around 2009. The thing that really kills me is that when Dollar General started gaining momentum during recession in 2009, Walmart was still nearly three times as large as Amazon and could have used Dollar General strategies to put Amazon on the defensive in some markets, but for some reason they didn't and have been struggling to figure things out ever since. I don't even have a horse in the race, and probably dislike Walmart when I really think about it, but every time I see a Dollar General I start thinking about this and end up getting frustrated that a company could so fundamentally lose it's way, striving for something it will never have.
I started embracing and justifying spending time on hobbies when I realized they give me something to talk about with non-IT people, and that is valuable. If your hobbies are IT work, and your work is IT work, there aren't many aspects of your life to which people outside of that domain can relate, in fact it can all seem quite boring and you end up with, "I'm doing well, work is going well." But if you can mention you went hiking somewhere and took a new lens for your camera, there are several things in there to which most people can relate and then maintain an interesting conversation.
This was my first thought as well, think there are 2 possibilities:
1. The Mueller report presents uncomfortable yet legal, coordination with WikiLeaks, in which case extraditing and prosecuting Assange would allow administration to distance itself and present any coordination as incidental.
2. Assange releases were cited in FISA requests. If intelligence agencies had an established assessment on Assange's ties to Russia, and requests were authorized with elements contradicting those assessments, it could raise eyebrows. It seems firmly establishing presence or lack of Russian backing, along with sources would bring clarity to several matters.
Was able to get 6 nights in Japan on 4 vacation days by leveraging Thanksgiving. Told relatives I would miss Thanksgiving but attend Christmas, everyone thought that made sense. For those who celebrate and enjoy Christmas, I don't recommend missing Christmas for solo travel overseas, did that once and felt very isolated. People in the place I was visiting were celebrating their own Christmases and people I knew back home were celebrating Christmas and I wasn't there. With Thanksgiving it's likely not a holiday in the country you're visiting so everything is open and for me at least, I don't really care about missing Thanksgiving, a better version happens 1 month later.
Health and Human Services was $1.7 Trillion, Social Security was $1.1 Trillion, Defense was $1.1 Trillion, NASA is pretty far down the list (~19th), at $24 Billion, .35% of budget:
I could get behind something like this if it also presented these platforms with a consistent framework for moderating content. They reach levels where they are more akin to public spaces than digital communities, and should have moderation strategies which mirror this.
With Facebook's recent Ad Revenue earnings and the various news organization layoffs, it sounds like money is shifting from standalone sites and into the Facebook platform. Imagine this was the Facebook dream all along, but it seems without balance and incentive for creators to earn, content could begin to suffer.
Looks like some really bad business practices all around, from planning to execution to ultimately telling the customers they're not worth the investment.
It seems, having gashes in the road, exposed to salt and wear, will increase rate the roads require maintenance. These cities need to monitor and ensure Google is paying those bills.
Located documentation, thought okay this shouldn't be too bad. Ended up taking one day to understand the structure and another to implement the system. Finally got everything loaded in my tables and spot checked against the rendered versions on their website only to discover they truncate the most important text field. It's technically in the documentation that the value field is limited to 2048, but it's also in the documentation that the value field is for 'text analysis applications' and their website literally says: 'The information is presented without change from the "as filed" financial reports submitted by each registrant...' so I managed to gloss over this detail until I had already spent and entire weekend working on it.
I just can't wrap my mind around how they got 99% of the way there and then decided, 'hey lets just truncate this field, it's only the entire purpose of this dataset.'
Jim Acosta has done this many times. If he was really interested in answers he would continually modify his approach until he got what he wanted. But he's not really interested in answers so much as making a show of Trump not answering his questions. Case in point, I have no clue what he was asking, all of the stories have been about the reporter. Contrast with the Axios interview on HBO this week, where the interviewers discussed trying something different and effectively got a unique Trump interview.
I want to be opposed to this but it does seem to make sense. Photos are large, storage costs money. I will say deleting user content is pretty intense. What about people who are dead? Seems odd their photos will be deleted.
These days I'm much more inclined to automate my own job than someone else's. It seems many of the times I've taken extra steps to more fully automate other people's tasks, it's had the adverse effect of alerting them that even further automation is possible and they inevitably ask, "why can't you just automate the whole thing?" I then proceed to spend about 7 minutes frustrated and determined to automate their entire job away before cooling down and simply adding them to my list of "non-client people who think I should work hard so they can be lazy."
The other day I noticed the drama films on Netflix this month are very strong. Led to realization that as time passes, the licensing costs for media often decline. When Netflix started streaming in 2007 films that were 5, 10, and 15 years old (less expensive) were produced in 2002, 1997, 1992 respectively. Someone starting college in 2007 would have been between 4 and 14 years old when those films were released. Today, the same 5, 10, 15 targets hit years 2013, 2008, 2002. That user from 2007 is now ~30, and would have been between 14 and 25 when those films were released. As time passes, Netflix will be able to offer more relevant content to their core users at a lower cost. It seems some of their recent original content fills some of the programming gaps for younger users. They are positioned very well.
Accidentally subscribed to Youtube Red / Premium through the App Store. Got an e-mail a few months ago when Youtube shifted to Premium congratulating me that I was grandfathered into the old rate and features forever. I noticed their new rate of $11.99 seemed similar to what I was already paying. This is when I discovered Google had included a $3 surcharge to cover App store fees in the App store price (don't blame them). I looked into transferring and there is no way to transfer an App store subscription to Google without cancelling and starting fresh (thus losing grandfathering). Decided to stick with the App store to maintain grandfathering, but it's a bit ridiculous that Google wasn't allowed to nudge me to a browser to save $36 a year.
Renting is giving up money for conditional access to an item. Owning is giving up liquidity for unconditional access to an item.
In renting, when you are done with the item, you terminate, yielding access and recouping none of the money. In ownership, when you are done with the item, you sell, yielding access and recouping some money.
High-end hobbyist equipment such as camera lenses and woodworking tools are great things to own; they offer great enjoyment, tend to retain value, and you can typically find a buyer if and when you want to sell.
Things that are difficult to sell and poor at retaining their value are good things to rent.
I've heard compelling arguments for both Renting and Owning of Houses and Cars and it really comes down to circumstances, but it's always good to own something you can use and sell if the need arises.
2011 was a while ago, this Stack Exchange post from 2013 seems to indicate there is a possibility for macular degeneration with use of these devices, particularly if you are already at risk for the condition:
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/13891/can-blue-...
Some googling seems to indicate there were rumors of these lights potentially causing issues, and it sounds like the Chemist article may be presenting a scientific basis for that speculation.
Take the resources being spent to get Bitcoin onto Wall Street, spend them to get Facebook Moms onto Bitcoin and suddenly the value rises. Salvageable currency, without that utility it suffers.
Growth or opportunities for growth must be present to convince buyers and investors to exchange more-liquid assets like cash for less-liquid assets like ownership. I part with $100 that I can spend anywhere for a share of stock that I hope will grow in value. Without opportunity for growth I have no incentive to part with my $100.
In the Facebook example, if Zuckerberg didn't want to grow Facebook, but wanted to still capitalize on it, he could have found a buyer and sold. The buyer would have been interested in growing it, and committed resources to doing so. Growing or Selling were the only two real options that would deliver Zuckerberg any gain. Once he decided not to sell, his only option was to deliver investors growth, so they would be willing to place their money in Facebook.
Another example would be an iOS app. There are plenty of apps in the app store where the developer built it, put it out there, charged $0.99 and that was it. If the app meets a need, this can work for a while, but eventually either demand will change or competitors will arise and the developer would either need to update/grow their app to maintain their revenue stream.
Growth is a fundamental piece of the financial system and eventually everyone decides to either grow, sell, or undercapitalize their asset.
I know Twitter is powerful, but its wild to imagine you're Elon Musk or Kylie Jenner or Donald Trump, you know that when you push send, the 280 characters you typed will cause millions of people to either smile or frown, lead to significant financial gains or losses, and set the course of news for the morning, day or week. That level of influence is crazy to think about.
Facebook knew they were dealing with a popular blog, yet it seems they decided to approach the issue in the most expensive and inflammatory way possible. Why not simply implement mechanisms for making the data more difficult to scrape and let the app die on it's own?
I'm really surprised this has taken so long. In 2000, I made it to my state's Invention Convention, even got an article in the local newspaper with an 'invention' I called E-Waiter. It was a 'tablet' with a simple Visual C++ app to place orders. I legitimately thought I was going to win. One of my judges was the founder of a prominent regional pizza chain. He pretty quickly made the assessment it wasn't practical. I didn't win the event, and being a kid I didn't pursue it further.
Every time I see one of these things, I remind myself that good ideas are only half of the puzzle, the other half is the ability to execute.
When discussing system features/status with stakeholders, I've found it can be dangerously easy to shift from concrete certainties to more of a brainstorming, thinking-out-loud type dialogue. The problem is that stakeholders often can't tell the difference between the two and while you're internalizing and assessing the practicality of their request, they're hearing confirmation of the feature's necessity and practicality. Once they have the impression a feature will be there, it is tricky to walk that back. Once I realized this, a simple language shift helped increase clarity:
old: "Idea" -> "hmm, yeah we could...{thinking out loud}"
new: "Idea" -> "interesting, let me look into that, check with some people, and get back to you" or "interesting, there are a lot of pieces to that, how would you prioritize this against {comparable item}?"
That said, it sounds like No Man's Sky team was performing unprompted brainstorming sessions during public interviews, which is really unwise and essentially inviting people to be disappointed...
I recently ventured beyond the in-store pickup area of a Best Buy for the first time in a while, I was pleasantly surprised. It seems they're positioning themselves as the smart home destination, pretty extensive inventory in this area, with product samples and descriptions clearly visible. They've also lowered the shelf heights and the store feels less cluttered (without feeling like an apple store clone). They also seem to be distributing inventory across regional stores to offer greater in-store pickup options. There are several Best Buy stores within reasonable distance to where I live, and typically at least one has the desired product. Staff seems generally more friendly as well.
This story has been a captivating lesson in the power of constraints. We have powerful drills and pumps, but adding the constraints of portability and time, we find fewer options. We have great mapping and tracking capabilities, but put them underground and everything changes. We have talented cave divers, but they aren't doctors or vice versa. When you start looking at all of the resources and all of the requirements, and then the thin slice of compatibility that was actually effective in locating, sustaining, and rescuing the team, it really was incredible.
Both Google and Facebook offer Advertisers something novel. Google has Search, Maps, YouTube & Gmail data it can use to offer high degrees of targeting through AdSense. Each of these applications alone is nearly the same magnitude as Reddit. Facebook has one of the most complete networks of human relationships the world has ever seen. With their embedded Like Button they can gather data on these users even when they're not on the site. They give advertisers the opportunity to target groups in ways previously impossible.
Reddit seemed to follow the path of traditional media such as newspapers for a long time, thinking static ads were enough. Viral 'organic' marketing seems to be one of the most valuable services the platform offers, and other firms capitalize on this, but it's tricky for them to capitalize on this and maintain their credibility.
For more of a guide to surviving collapses, this essay about the 2001 Argentine Financial crisis is pure gold. I have printed several copies and read it about once a year: