Useful reference on building a dpkg from source: Rolling your own Debian packages part 2.
“Sleeping around, to continue our metaphor, can actually be useful for large derivatives dealers because it assures them government aid if trouble hits. In other words, only companies having problems that can infect the entire neighborhood – I won’t mention names – are certain to become a concern of the state (an outcome, I’m sad to say, that is proper). From this irritating reality comes The First Law of Corporate Survival for ambitious CEOs who pile on leverage and run large and unfathomable derivatives books: Modest incompetence simply won’t do; it’s mindboggling screw-ups that are required.”
Excellent read on the iPad as a desktop virtualization thin client. If you’ve seen any science fiction (StarTrek, Babylon 5, etc) they all use iPad/tablet like computers. The traditional laptop/desktop form factor requires you working at a desk. If you’re doing anything standing up, normal computers fail.
The problem I think Desktop Virtualization will have is:
1) The problem with keeping all your data in the cloud is you have to be able to get to the cloud. So, it only works where you have wifi or 3/4G, and its useless on planes or in rural areas.
2) All the desktop export protocols sucks. I’ve not used VDI, but VNC is teh suck, and RDP is only usable if you’ve got a good WAN connection. The iPad will work fine for carrying it to the conference room, but not for being able to get into your work PC at home to finish that memo your boss wants. (Speaking of protocol suckage, I’m seriously considering moving my primary PC to Win7 w/ VMWare Workstation so I can RDP into it when I need to. But thats another post about Command Center 3.0)
3) The iPads 1024×768 screen resolution is straight out of the late 1980s. Grabbing your desktop off your desk terminal (1680×1050) and moving it there will make all your windows difficult to use. At least windows lets you resize from all corners and not just the lower right like on the Mac.
In outline form because I don’t have a lot of time today:
1) Let Obama’s Deficit Reduction Task force do its thing and suggest tax increases.
2) Let the Democrat Majority (and a token RINO) pass the tax hikes
3) Let people get really pissed off
4) Then the GOP can come back into power with a mandate for real spending cuts: going after Medicare and/or Social Security.
This plan presumes that the GOP does not take back the Congress (or significantly increase its majorities) in 2010. Frankly I’m not sure I want the GOP to make a comeback. They’ve not yet spend enough time in the wilderness to learn from their mistakes.
Feel free to read Bruce Bartlett’s take of Paul Ryan’s deficit reduction plan, which as Bartlett points out, is politically untenable.
I like to buy companies I use. Some stocks I’m considering:
VMWare – Cloud infrastructure provider.
Amazon – Not of the consumer shopping, but because of all the neat stuff they’re doing with EC2, S3 and Mechanical Turk.
Citrix – Xen masters and purveyors of Go To Meeting and Go To MyPC.
Apple – the iPad is the laptop killer for causal couch use. It’s a multimedia Kindle. Sucky name though.
@lance (an ATDC startup guy) pointed me to a pretty good Op/Ed from Thomas Friedman in the New York Times.
Let me say that of all the NYT people, I respect Friedman the most. His Lexus and the Olive Tree sits up there with Mystery of Capital as one of the best economics books of recent years. It also sits up there with The Pentagon’s New Map as one of the best national-security books of recent times.
His Op/Ed today was that Obama should shift his focus away from health care reform, regulation and stimulus and more towards “stimulation”, ie the creation of a start-up culture among America’s youth.
Obama should make the centerpiece of his presidency mobilizing a million new start-up companies that won’t just give us temporary highway jobs, but lasting good jobs that keep America on the cutting edge. The best way to counter the Tea Party movement, which is all about stopping things, is with an Innovation Movement, which is all about starting things. Without inventing more new products and services that make people more productive, healthier or entertained — that we can sell around the world — we’ll never be able to afford the health care our people need, let alone pay off our debts.
I couldn’t agree more. If you look at most transformative technologies that weren’t created for military purposes, they’re all done by the small businesses. DARPA created the internet, but AOL and Mindspring put it in every American household. Xerox created the GUI, but Steve Jobs and Bill Gates put it on every PC. Bell Labs created Unix, but geeks in Berkley and Finland created the versions that run most of the Internet.
There is very little Government can do to create stimulation that doesn’t involve getting the f— out of the way. And getting the government out of the way doesn’t suit the politicians of either party.
Starting your own business involves risk. The current left-of-center administration is about eliminating risk. Everyone must have Health Insurance. Everyone must have retirement insurance. With the Unions, everyone (who is a member) must have job security. You can’t take risks when the Government prevents you from doing so.
Not that the typical right-of-center politicians are much better. They are beholden to the large companies who fear transformative change. They fear it because all large organizations, be it Fortune 500 or Government are dysfunctional. They can’t innovate like the small guys. What they can do it hire lobbyists to make it harder on the small guys.
Friedman also illustrates he doesn’t get the “Tea Party” backlash. The Tea Party Movement isn’t all about stopping things. It’s about the ability for people to make their own choices. It’s about stopping the one-size-fits-all equal-outcome-for-all mentality of the far left. The Tea Party Movement is about letting the individual succeed or fail based on their own merits, not on the whim of government bureaucrats. In short, it’s about freedom. Something that has been missing off the agenda’s of the last several Presidential Administrations.
If Barack Obama wants to create an Innovation Movement here are my suggestions:
o Drop Health Care Reform. People can’t quit their W2 jobs and strike out on their own when they have no idea of they’ll be hit with a massive financial penalty for not carrying bloated all-you-can-eat healthcare insurance. Encourage catastrophic plans, and medical savings accounts.
o Commit to a repeal of the death tax, or at worst no more than 10%. Small Businesses can’t survive if at the time of the owner’s death his/her heirs have to pony up 50% of the value of the business to the IRS.
o Reform S-Corp taxes so that money re-invested into growing the business doesn’t appear as taxable on the individual’s 1040 form.
o Grant capital-gains tax relief for people who sell assets to re-invest them in small businesses. If an Angel Investor wants to sell the Apple stock they bought in 1984 into the next big thing, let them do so without penalty. Set the basis at the 1984 purchase price.
o Fire anyone in your administration who suggests the idea of raiding people’s 401ks.
I’d like to donate to the Haitian relief efforts. However I don’t know who to donate to. I’m not going to text some number to some other number and let some slimeball phone company keep $7 of the $10 like I’ve seen going across twitter.
I’ve donated to the Salvation Army and Americares in the past, but based on the sheer amount of junk mail (and blankets – yes Americares sent me a fucking blanket) I’m pretty sure my contribution went to nothing more than killing trees to send me snail mail to donate more money.
So, who can I donate to who won’t send me shit for the next 60 years?
George Mason University Economist Tyler Cowen:
TO put it bluntly, if the United States takes one step back and the rest of the world takes two steps forward, even in purely selfish terms we should consider accepting the trade-off, if only for the longer run. Most of us gain from the wealth and creativity of other countries, even if we can’t always feel like the top dog.
via Economic View – For Much of the World, a Good Financial Decade – NYTimes.com.
Seems as good a rebuttal to Pat Buchannan’s whining as any. I’m willing to take a hit to my national pride to see the other 5 billion people on the planet not die of starvation.
Now this is what we should be spending our R&D money on.
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor
- Fuel Thorium and uranium fluoride solution
- Fuel input per gigawatt output 1 ton raw thorium
- Annual fuel cost for 1-GW reactor $10,000 (estimated)
- Coolant Self-regulating
- Proliferation potential None
- Footprint 2,000-3,000 square feet, with no need for a buffer zone
via Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke | Magazine.
