Exactly what I was thinking. Does this still exist in some meaningful form? We used to have an amazing thing there... I remember before Endless September. alt.* was about as free as it gets.
Usenet is still up and running. There's a public news server at "news.eternal-september.org". Serious groups such as "sci.electronics.design" and "comp.lang.python" get heavy traffic. Eternal September doesn't host the alt binary groups; too much junk.
Google Groups is a Usenet node. Posting to Google Groups will result in Usenet distribution, and posting with NNTP to a Usenet node will show up on Google Groups.
We (family of four, parents 40ish years old) are fortunate enough to be somewhat location independent with the stipulation that we have to be in US/Pacific timezone to keep sane hours. We looked at the Bay Area one more time this year before choosing Reno. Much lower taxes, much better housing choices at our affordability level, general convenience and outdoor recreation in and around Tahoe were the attraction. This area has long been a landing spot for retirees from the BA but it's now booming with younger people and families. It's improving quickly. For someone who owns a business and has some location independence, it's a great choice. Also commercial rents are much more startup-friendly if you need offices and such. A meeting in SF is only a 4 hour drive away. Daily flights to SF and San Jose if you're in a hurry.
On a sailboat "autopilot" generally means "keep this heading" or "keep this point of sail." I'm pretty sure in aviation it means "take me to this way point and elevation" or a sequence of such maneuvers. A plane flies itself or a boat navigates itself only so long as nothing unexpected occurs. In either case, a pilot must be standing by, maintaining awareness, ready to assume control and handle anything that may come up. I'm not sure what people think this means in terms of driving a car but I think it's early enough that Tesla can help define what this means.
Autopilot systems in aviation have become so complex and diverse that there is no single catch-all sentence to describe them. I guess you could come close with the phrase "a system designed to keep and guide the state of the aircraft within and through certain set constrains".
Those constrains could be constant like a certain heading or a direction (not the same thing by the way), a series of vectors or a single vector (like a flight-path or an approach to a runway) or constraints that depend on dynamic variables like controlling the altitude and speed according to the weight of the aircraft or automatically avoiding traffic.
Of course the pilot must be standing by because a) autopilots do not keep track of everything (and aviation control interfaces are quite complex) and b) sensors can and do malfunction.
The general price of goods plummeting would be seen by most modern economists as something of a disaster -- so occupied are they with engineering inflation. I don't think any mainstream economists have models or theories of economic development or social organization that would take us to a Kardashev level 2 civilization.
It is very interesting to me that the founders have agreed to pay people in very low-cost-of-living areas almost as much as people in San Francisco. I'm pretty sure USD$95k in South Africa, Croatia, or Italy beats the pants off $120k in SF lifestyle wise. I guess the founders have not traveled to these places or fine with overspending?
The value the developer brings to the table does not fluctuate with the cost of living of the place he lives at. The profit that can be made in arbitraging CoL should mostly go to the developer, since he is the one who also has to bear the negative features of living in a low CoL place, which are often overlooked in a naive dollar-to-dollar comparison.
Looked at from the other side, it's a competitive process between employers and there's no reason why other companies wouldn't pay top dollar for a top developer. If Buffer didn't pay it, the developer would find another employer who would.
No one seems to be asking what was done to education to produce the higher graduation rates. Is it really true that everyone is now "smarter" or were standards changed to achieve the desired outcome? What good is it to have a college degree that is marginally superior to or in the case of some majors, no better than a high school diploma of 25 or 40 years ago?
Of course they can. This has nowhere near the wealth spreading effects of an IPO though. First of all, most employees do not own shares but rather options. Option-holders do not receive dividends. You must exercise options to become a shareholder and most rank and file people cannot do this without selling the stock at the same time because it requires them to put cash in. The kind of middle class folks Mr. Cuban wants to enrich do not typically have thousands to invest in their employer.
I did this once prior to an acquisition of a company I worked for and lost the money. It's pretty much a stupid move unless you are already wealthy and a founder or controlling exec with better insight and control over the outcome.
Also, when an employee exercises options and then sells the resulting share in a public company, they receive a multiple of earnings. Earnings != dividends but suppose all the earnings in a period were paid out as a dividend (they wont be of course) -- the shareholder will get only that amount whereas if they sell the share, they will receive a multiple often 10-15x or more of earnings. Most people benefit more from an exciting lump sum payout than an unpredictable drip at a time.
