Posts by MachDiamond

Re: Just reduced my office time

"I still work down here, but as a contractor, making more per hour, *every* hour, and thoroughly enjoying it."

I'm in the same boat. My home workspace is better equipped and set up to my preferences much better than when I worked at the rocket company (not SpaceX, wankers). I make more per hour and get more done every hour I work from home on electronics things (I do field service stuff too (photos, plans, aerial images). I get my music or not and people aren't walking up demanding I help them do their jobs. I can be virtually present if needed, but I prefer not to install Teams, Zoom or Skype on my computers so it would require getting yet another one just for that sort of time wastery. I can also do whatever work I want without an employer claiming rights to that work because I did it using company resources.

"There is something to be said for "If you can do it at home, why can't someone in India do it?"

If there is somebody in India that can do the work, they could. A downside I've run into is the business culture in other countries can be very different, the holidays are different and even when somebody in India speaks "English", it's different English than the UK, US or AUS. This always makes for odd documentation. An Indian working for a British company could be required to adhere to the same holidays, but that won't mean that resources they might need locally aren't available as the businesses are shut for something. When I had a manufacturing company and one component we used was sourced in S. Korea, I imported a listing of common Korean holidays for my calendar so I'd know if I shouldn't expect a response to a fax or email for a day or so. If I needed to ring up to discuss something time sensitive, I'd know when I should do that rather than invest all of that money to make the call for naught.

"There isn't a problem to get a break point as early as 12 months today."

That will vary depending on tenant improvements and who is paying for them. Some landlords will give a tenant a certain budget to shape a space fit for their needs in exchange for lease terms that pays that cost back plus interest.

"Property leases tend to be long ie. 10~20 years, expensive, with upwards only price increases, difficult (and expensive) to get out of. So executives are having to live with having to service a large opex cost. "

This could go right along with the sunk cost fallacy. An empty office is cheaper to have than one full of people and furniture. It's also easier to sub-lease the space if it's empty. Some contracts don't allow tenants to sub-lease, but will allow a tenant to break a lease if they can find somebody else to rent the space.

Re: Amend the US Federal Do Not Call Act

"6) When foreign call centers are found responsible for violating the Act, they should be cut off from telecommunications-contact with the US, by whatever means (diplomatic or otherwise) are necessary."

The phone companies know when they're relaying spam calls and since they make good money on it, they don't care. If they could also be fined and execs subject to jail time, the latter being the most important, they might take steps to shut down the calls. That adds another line of defense if it's not possible to go after somebody in another country.

Re: Does old Cory know what he's talking about?

"And Apple are doing very well and still in their walled garden."

A walled garden with really expensive tickets to get in.

Is Apple/Tim Cook resting on their laurels at this point? Are they getting more converts to iOS? I never liked how locked down their mobile products are so while I use Apple laptops and desktops for most of my computing/online needs, I use a de-googled android phone and android tablets. The tablets are for the drone, camera control and showing images I've done to other people. I don't use them for online things. I also have Win7 pc's and a linux machine (the cheese grater has all three via VMware.) Different cars for different trips.

Re: Does old Cory know what he's talking about?

"He's very good at making these wide, sweeping statements, as if they're somehow some kind of philosophical or ecomic laws. But what's he got to back them up?"

Cory has been an analyst of the tech industry for many years. He's also a very good philosopher and good at seeing things that many people don't. Not only is he good himself, he works with many others who are just as good at sorting out the real reasons vs. the marketing fluff why things are done a certain way and how the tech world shifts and changes.

If you look up talks he's done, his web posts and other information, it's easy enough to get listings of his references on a subject and the raw data to do your own analysis. You might be at a disadvantage in not having the same access to experts when you need them that he does when you are trying to make sense of why a company or politician/government did something.

Re: Eternal Growth

"The root problem is the idea of eternal growth. Shareholders expect the same or better dividend than last year, even if last years was a freak"

Hmmmm. The stocks our family trust has are dividend stocks, not growth stocks. They tend to be different sorts of companies. A company undergoing lots of growth is less likely to pay a dividend since they can use the money to fund more growth. A more mature company or one in a mature industry can often pay a dividend since there isn't the drive to grow as much as remain relevant and optimize operations for the best profits. Our tactic is to find boring companies that don't have to be slaves to fashion which can lead to giant upticks and spectacular crashes. We like companies that make things like washers (metal stampings, not for clothes). If they specialize in quality for a market like aerospace, more the better. No matter how bad Boeing screws up, that washer company isn't going to be much impacted even if Boeing is one of their customers. I've visited that particular company to check them out and it's nuts to see barrels and barrels of stampings with an inventory tag that reads 1,798,880ea or so on the top of each one. It's not a product that going to be made obsolete by some "disruptor" and the company pays a regular and reasonable dividend on the stock. Tortoise v. Hare.

Re: It's everywhere

"The pipework that dumps the poop into the sea dates back 100 years or more."

Robbie Coltrane did a program where he was on a steam powered ship whose original tasking was to load up with waste water from the sewers and take it out to sea to be dumped. A big tanker full of jobies. I'm only surmising that schedules were based on which way the tide was going when they opened the valves.

Re: It's everywhere

"20 quid in 1975 is about 200 in today's terms. Not sure I'd call that a cheap day return!"

Whether anything can be called cheap or not depends on what it's being compared to. A toaster at the big box store for £7.77 might be called cheap (inexpensive), but if it fails after toasting one loaf of bread and you didn't keep the receipt, it's suddenly very expensive. If it cost £200 in petrol, parking and tolls, a train for the same amount could be called cheap. It could also be called cheap if it was faster to take the train. I can visit my mother by car or train (the car is more expensive on the weekends when the train is discounted) and it takes 3 hours each way. The most it's ever taken on the train is 4 (once) and 6-1/2 by car (a few times). When I take the train, I'll bring a coffee/tea, a bun and my tablet to watch a movie or listen to a book. Every so often they'll be somebody interesting to talk to. The overall experience is better on the train so even when it's more expensive, to me, it's better value for money.

Re: It's everywhere

"All privatization has done is allow financial types to extract value from that built up by people over the years. "

It's always going to mean a big price increase for the riders. A lot of public transportation doesn't need to break even from the fares. A city tram service means less parking needs to be built and maintained for people to do business in the city center. The city gets funds from taxes collected in combination with less costs for infrastructure. I'm more than happy to park on the outskirts and take public transportation if it's convenient, on-time and comfortable rather than sit in bumper to bumper traffic with my eyes swiveling around to find some parking. Those car parks would also be easier to maintain over scores of many smaller ones. Private transportation companies are looking to make lots of money to well compensate their executives and board members. When it doesn't pan out, they close shop which can lead to serious problems until somebody (government) rushes in to get something in place before the city comes to a standstill.

Re: It's everywhere

"**The platform caff on my local station has been closed for over a year because the commercial rent they "have to charge" put the last one out of business and they haven't found a tenant to take it on. They'd rather leave it closed than drop the rent, presumably cos they can use it as a write-down on the books."

It's not just the rents, but the regs. It can be like a shop in a mall where if you don't open by a certain time or shut too early, you get fined. I remember one food stall where there was some issue in the kitchen so somebody ran out and bought a box of biscuits so they could show they were open and doing business to avoid a fine. There can also be loads of inspection requirements and having to submit lists of the products you will sell and receive permission for each one in case something might cause offense. It's endless and better to have a cafe that's within a short walk of the station so people can buy their morning coffee and buns and shop owner can close up until the people return in the evening if there isn't much business during the day.

Re: It's everywhere

"AI for many companies is just another way to push this further, a way to ditch underpaid staff completely, deliver even shittier levels of service and extract ever more money."

This is where this sort of thing is weird. Why spend loads of time and money to be able to dispose of the lowest paid staff? I can see it if it then means a reduction in the next layer up and again another layer higher. Lower headcounts on the front lines where the work is done should lead to lower headcounts of the people that supervise them.

I can think of some situations where the lowest people on the totem pole are a bottleneck. Automating them out of existence might mean better utilization of other assets. The down side is that if the machine break down, there might not be a way to quickly throw a bunch of people at the problem as least temporarily.

Re: Root Cause

"If the board's bonuses are related to the share price then all the board cares about is share price, to the extent that it's better for them to use profit to buy the company's own shares and drive the price up instead of using it to fund R&D to make the company better"

There are times when it makes sense for a company to buy back shares. It's not necessarily better to shovel money into R&D if, for example, you are a car company and the CEO wants to build humanoid robots. Spending money to bring new models to market or develop technology so the company can build better cars faster and cheaper, sure.

There's a certain management cost for every share of stock issued. If it looks like the company would have fewer or the same number of shareholders after a buyback, that could mean savings on administration. The price per share should go up if the company's market cap remains the same and that might reduce the number of small shareholders.

It's not a universal that stock buybacks are bad.

Re: Root Cause

"Why do they still have power after that phase?"

It's because the IPO is a good way for investors to be given a big payday AND still hold a fair amount of ownership in the company. If the company doesn't seem like it's going to last that long, the venture capitalists and pump it up and garner big return as they run for the hills. It's also a carrot to get people to work unholy hours sacrificing their health and family life for a possible big pay off down the road.

There's still the times when going public is useful for ramping up quickly to earn money while a patent is still valid or before the competition with more money can make a copy for less and capitalize on the work of developing an idea into a product. That sort of thing happens a bunch with crowd funding. A company, often in China, will see a good product being pitched on a crowd funding site and will have that item in production and shipping by the container load before the funding drive closes.

Re: Bog Zech?????

"The responsibility for the railway mess can't be laid solely at the door of the Tories. They planned it and started the process, but Labour had it in their maifesto to reverse it if elected. Of course, as soon as they were elected they promptly abandoned that pledge."

The only difference between any of them is their blazer badge and who pays them off with briefcases full of cash.

Re: Bog Zech?????

"no chance of risking a couple of pints the night before a shift as blood alcohol fail levels really low,

That would depend on the job. If you are a heavy equipment operator or a surgeon, being slightly impaired can be a big problem. If you are a MD at a company, being half out of your skull might not make any noticeable difference in job performance one way or the other in many cases. I expect there are plenty of people that can put cabbages in a crate to send off to a store after a serious bender the night before or even after a small indulgence back in their car during morning break. The person driving the crates of cabbages around the facility with the forklift, not so much.

Re: Bog Zech?????

"until someone demands that someone (usually government) must Do Something."

The politicians then have some debates on what to do and how to do it that's high on rhetoric and low on useful discussion. When/if some legislation comes out, the miscreants that were the real target wind up with carve outs that make them exempt from whatever is passed. This is also ignoring that laws had already existed that would apply but they haven't been used for ages and over time, they were just ignored. The goal for the politicians was to be SEEN doing something, they did something so they can point to it and say something has been done, please donate to my reelection campaign.

I would like to see term limits and politician pages on Rotten Tomatoes with how well they did during the stint feeding at the public trough. Maybe some peer pressure would come into doing well enough during the short time you were allowed to hold office so your record doesn't live on portraying you as a useless shit forever and ever.

Re: Deliberation

"You really want to screw Google up its easy - just make it a government department. Job done!"

In a Utopian world, I could see a Department of Search that is taxpayer supported, doesn't accept advertising, money for boosted ranking and where gaming the system becomes an offense that unleashes the full weight of government upon the person attempting the fraud, as a good thing. I don't think a private company could pull off a subscription based service that didn't start devolving into a scheme that puts its focus on maximizing value for the shareholders.

Re: Or more like Yahoo killed Altavista, Google killed Yahoo?

"(anyone remember X10)"

The home control stuff? I've got a bunch. It's easy to put in, doesn't connect to the internet and it's fun to write scripts to automate some things if you are brave enough to construct your own power line interface. It's nice to be able to put switches for things wherever they are convenient.

Re: Deliberation

"Remember their super clean interface, just as the rest started cluttering things up."

And as the dog returneth to his vomit, so does the search page to it's clutter. I stopped using Google when the entire first page of results was pure spam. How deep does one need to dig now to get to the first useful result, if any? Even using regular expressions to try and clean up the mess stopped working.

Re: Deliberation

"run by Google, collecting metrics on everything from location to weather to traffic to music played, to passengers carried etc, etc, etc. Now that's a lot of data."

Yes, but the cars where you find it installed are often the more expensive models. While it's a lot of data to parse, it's data on people of means, celeb, politicians and VIP's of all sorts. Couple the data that companies hold about shopping, annual income, legal wrangling and everything else, there's not much left about those people that isn't known and for sale. Any vehicle I might be looking to purchase would get an instant nix for having Google or another giant data hoovering company software package installed. Even if I'm guilty as sin, I don't want my fate sealed with one subpoena for the data sent out by my car. A car that likely cost me tens of thousands to buy and thousands in interest costs.

Re: Deliberation

"The answer is for someone to come along and do to Google what Google did to Altavista."

Since that time, Google has been able to write laws that keep that from happening to them. Anybody that tries will be guilty of a few Federal (US) felonies and subject to prison time that they might be able to plead down to a ban on using a computer for 5 years, can't have a mobe and can't publish anything about the case. This is one of the big problems that Cory points out.

Re: "Great for Farmers"

"My uncle isn't less skilled for having GPS guidance on his tractor. When you're on your 9th hour in the cab, the GPS glosses over those brief drifts of attention and avoids double-seeding, saving seed and money. When you know how much seed costs per tonne, these are tangible savings."

Yes, I do agree that GPS guidance is a good thing to avoid costly mistakes, but I should have been more clear that it was the other data that JD tractors will infer based on drive dynamics of the tractor. The skills I was thinking about are more to do with moisture levels, fertilizer, etc. A seasoned farmer can go out in the fields and tell what's going on with watering and soil nutrients, etc. If you package all of that up into a farm vehicle painted green that will do all of those things for you by subscription and apply some people that don't speak the language (to imply a lack of citizenship and very low pay expectations), any fault in that machinery won't have any back up. Those factory mechanics get really backed up at key points on the calendar when everybody needs their machines right F'ing now.

Re: Japan deserves a little more credit

"Not only managed a soft touchdown, but is within 55metres of the target site, which is impressive in itself."

yeah, but if you F one sheep.......... (Expeditionary Force reference).

The whole design of it coming to rest tipped on its side was really weird. Landing on a slope was really bad luck.

"I suppose now he's actually made the Model 3, Tesla can revisit that and figure out what parts can be stripped out or sold on subscription plan to make it cheaper."

The CFO wrote on the handout for the last earnings call that the Model 3 is hitting the natural lowest price possible as it currently stands. Regardless of whether they can get people into a subscription, the hardware has to be installed. If it's a purely software product, if it isn't a new thing, people will get really pissed if what used to be standard is now behind a paywall.

The "Next Gen" Tesla will have to be paired to the bone and even then a $25k MSRP is hard to believe. If they delete 2 doors and all of the driver assistance hardware, that might shave enough weight to allow a smaller battery pack for a range comparable to the M3. 250 to 300 miles for the US market is de rigueur. Any less and it will be derided as a 'city' car. More than that means a bigger battery pack which is the biggest cost of an EV.

What might be a winner is a bare bones 2-door built for fleet service. That would include fleet management software and things like being able to use employee ident cards to access vehicles to get rid of a lot of physical key management. The system would also need to track distance driven and be able to fix costs to departments/projects. With a fleet charging system, cars reserved for longer trips could be prioritized for charging overnight. There could also be cars with smaller batteries for local driving at a lower purchase price. Paint them green and they can be used on a military base.

Re: Right

"You make concern for the environment sound like a bad thing."

The 'concern' isn't the problem. It's how they've gone about making sure pollution and waste is reduced or eliminated and that has been by over-regulating to the point where compliance becomes more expensive than what it cost to cut down on environmentally bad things. Too many politicians do stupid things with the intent of doing good, but have no clue about the sorts of things they are passing laws to regulate.

Re: This was a 101 how not to do a conference call

"his yes men and we've got things like the Semi"

I cringed when the Semi was unveiled (officially). It's a fleet vehicle but Elon was going on about the development being centered around the driver when it should have considered the needs and wants of a fleet manager or a vice president of logistics. Those are the people that would be placing the orders and they don't care much about the comfort of the drivers and how many amenities there are for them in the truck. What's the cost/mile? What's the dry weight? What's the range at max weight, mid weight and empty? What are the maintenance items and cost? Serviceability? Repair costs for common accidents? and what's the out-the-door price? The Semi falls down all over the place from a fleet manager's perspective.

I can see where electric HGV's can be a very good fit that gets better when charging is provided at the dock and in the yard for the most amount of uptime. It's a niche market and isn't likely to be a good fit for owner/operators that take loads via brokers. As large as Semi is, it's a day cab not something that will work for driving teams. A 500 mile range is ~8 hours of driving @ 60mph with a bit of margin. That means that it's good for one shift and then needs time to charge so shifts will precess if time is allocated for charging (2 hours to full?). Drivers on regular shift work want the same start and stop times each day so more trucks (tractors in 'Merican parlance) are needed so there are enough for more than one shift per day.

A sleeper cab that can go 8 hours and recharge in 2 might work for some teams. The 2 hour charge stop allows both to do personal tasks and it's not as much of a problem if start and stop times precess rather than remain the same all of the time. The regular runs will be the low hanging fruit. Jobs that require lots of waiting such as at ports and railheads can be electrified in many cases.

"It may not be legally mandated, but there is GAAP, which most companies follow for a reason. When you start fucking with the numbers, people get rightly suspicious."

GAAP is proper for the entirety of the financials, but when you break out things such as gross margins for a product of line of products there's industry norms, but it would be hard to call those "Generally Accepted". Do you include average warranty costs in a gross margin calculation or nothing but Labor and Materials? There are many costs that could be considered as part of the gross margin, but there are no legal requirements. It can get very weird when you see things such as "free cash flow" and it's more money than the company has shown for net profit over the life of the company or has in cash/cash equivalents. I thought I'd go back to Uni and get an MBA, but I can't think of somebody that has one that I like. It would be handy to see where the wool is being stretched very tautly.

Re: FSD on old Hardware

"and we will get a couple hundred miles of free supercharging."

Not me, I won't even get in a Tesla vehicle, much less own or drive one.

Re: "It should be pretty quick"

"This is probably ignoring the fact that there is almost certainly a ton of stuff in the way which requires half of the front end to be removed just to get to the bolt and takes a total of 18 hours to do."

The first 16 hours are spent trying to find where to insert the spudger and pry to get the cosmetic cover off that hides the bolts you need to remove, to remove the part that allows you to get to the bolt you need to remove and inspect. What is this unholy fascination of making sure nary a single fastener is seen on a product? When I make something, I feature the screws and bolts! No safety Torx in my house!

Re: No real surprise

" I want the idle, unambitious bastards who specify phones to pull their fingers out and give me a one week battery life in a package that's not unduly big or thick, doesn't give up on the features I now take for granted, nor hobble the performance to achieve said battery life."

Are you sure a better name wouldn't be "Veruca Salt"?

I don't my phone to be wafer thin so a bigger battery is preferable over a thin phone. It's also going to be more robust if it isn't too thin. Since I don't live neck deep in my phone all day long, I only charge a couple of times each week unless I have been using it a lot and then is a third day that week.

If you want a paper-thin phone that you can use all day long with the power of a Cray, all I can suggest are some courses in physics. Do you want a battery with the energy density of TNT or is it not tooo inconvenient to plug the phone in overnight?

Re: No real surprise

"And if you find a better deal from another company, chances are your current provider will match it"

And if another provider/reseller comes along with a better price, you aren't locked into your contract for another 18 months paying a premium price.

The UK and Europe can be different, but in the US there are 3 primary network operators. Where I live only 2 give coverage at my home. I've had all three and T-Mobile can blow me as not only is the coverage in my city very poor, they call going offline for 25 hours a maintenance outage. Obviously, nobody has taught the CSR staff the difference between a repair and maintenance. They also had no clue when repairs might be affected. Other times they'll tell me that the system is up and running when it's most certainly not.

These days I just get a used phone when I need a replacement and pick a VPNO with good prices and plans.

Re: No real surprise

"AFAIK they are only supporting Pixel devices from now on"

That's sad. I'm not that interested in a phone that originates from the underworld (or at least that's the branding on it). It just seems a bit off to me to de-google a Google branded phone.