There is too much friction to build high speed rail in the US due to the democratic process. You have to get everybody along the way to agree which is pretty much impossible as you get to populated areas. In a place with a centralized government system like China, the nice thing is that things get built very quickly, but it sucks for the people who are affected negatively along the way.
Eminent Domain displaces people in the US all the time. When a developer wants a pretty lake by the highway to build a condo complex, guess where the trailer park that was next to the lake goes?
Well, there's huge differences in the scale of eminent domain projects. A new rail line is likely to affect a huge area with a whole lot of people, many of whom vote. You have to get politicians on board representing many different areas of the state. How do you convince the guy who represents a district that is just "passed through"? It's a pure negative for his constituents.
Not saying it can't be done, but it's a whole lot harder than building a shopping mall, that displaces a handful of houses.
Kelo-style eminent domain is uncommon. The idea is that the land is taken for the benefit of the public, and usually that benefit is direct, like a new highway. In Kelo, the public benefit was the jobs and tax revenue from new private development, which is why it went to the Supreme Court.
Hard to evaluate the cost/benefit of high speed rail since the costs are obvious while the benefits are delayed and not as obvious. It would be really cool to get from SF to LA in 2-3 hours though.
SFO -> QLA takes 2 Hours, curb to curb, and costs $50 with pretty much every airline that flies the route. It costs me more for the taxi to get from Redwood City to SFO, than it does for the flight to Los Angeles.
It is neither the cost, nor the time that attracts me (neither of which are likely to be that much better on a train), but the possibility of using that 4-5 hours a day productively on a reasonably civilized train ride instead of the horrible experience one gets in the Cattle-Like experience every morning in the airport.
Free food is the best. It's actually a really strong incentive to get employees to stay at work longer, and who doesn't like free food? Now it is becoming more and more of a standard perk at startups which is a great thing!
> I figure that any company that offers free food woudl be willing to listen to employee suggestions.
Listening to, and stocking based on, employee suggestions isn't enough. You have to provide the food that I want, even if I'm the only one who wants it.
Stocking based on employee suggestions will miss about 10-15% of the employees.
Yes, I understand why that is, and I'm not suggesting that companies change, I'm pointing out that it's a problem.
We have fairly healthy food. The signs are all labeled green, yellow, or red to indicate healthfulness and there's salad and vegetables every day. Of course no one is going to stop you from going up for seconds if that's what you want to do, but I've found I eat much healthier at work because it's difficult and time consuming to prepare that variety of food and vegetables for a single person. One of my coworkers lost 60 pounds since starting.
People joke about the Google 15, but I don't know of anyone that actually put on much weight. I ended up putting on 15-20 pounds, but it was muscle mass that I was trying to gain, so I'm not sure that counts.
There are plenty of startup founders that got their credit ruined before like Max Levchin. It got to the point where "a ruined credit history prevented him from buying a car, getting a cell phone, and renting an apartment." However, "Levchin kept going without much downtime." Levchin says: "Every time I had torn up my certificate of incorporation… the delay between that and registering a new company was typically no more than 24 hours."
Levchin's 24 hours might be extreme to follow, but we can definitely learn from his relentlessness. As for $150k in debt, creditors nowadays are pretty used to arranging settlements. You might be able to arrange some payment plan with them and reduce the debt to under $70k. A big part of it is interest and fees that they tackle on so they would rather remove that and work with you than watch you default. So given you get a job (startup jobs don't check your credit as much) you might be able to fix it in 1-2 years without declaring bankruptcy.
I know how demoralizing it can feel but you are definitely not the only one and will emerge stronger after you get over it. Look forward to seeing blog posts/interviews about how you struggled and overcame your debt when you rise again.
Samsung claims 7 hours battery life compared to 10 hours for the iPad, but it seems satisfactory in the reviews. Not sure if it will last one whole day without charging, especially if you used to watch movies on a road trip, for example. Any experience with the battery life?
Being in such a dominant position, they go directly to all the major Android smartphone manufacturers to request that they preinstall Baidu search on the smartphones, so Google doesn't have a shot at getting on the phones.
Don't think the Android Market is operating in China after Google gave up, they are probably blocked. It's not on the Android Market's official list of countries supported either. http://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an...
The Chinese download Android apps in a fragmented app store environment. There are larger ones like www.hiapk.com, and carriers and manufacturers are also trying to setup their own app stores.
Don't think Google can benefit at all unless they get their search, Android Market, mobile ads on the actual smartphones.
It's actually manufactured in Mainland China(Not Taiwan), but it seems to be getting expensive there, so it is making more and more sense to move some production back to the US.
