The one detail I found most interesting is the historical point:
"The executives I met all showed pictures of their youth, reminding me that just a few decades ago, their country was nothing more than sand, tents, and simple stone."
The idea the "capitalism/democracy/natural resources" is what make the USA a world power is a limited analysis. There are huge cultural and social forces that can not just be bought. He suggested 'human capital' would have been the best investment, but it is only princes that are provided with advanced education and it's likely only a few of those are interested in slogging through the trenches of starting a real business. Educate non-royal-family citizens and you will be financing some type of revolution, not something the Dubai power structure would ever allow I suspect.
Well you're not alone... got a lot of commentary to this post, eh? My small datapoint that helps me to some degree at my moments of 'life dispair' is my 'hobby', a small sailboat. Just big enough to sleep in, it's not an expensive yacht, heck it cost $500 at an auction. But, what it does for me in this context is give a real 'out', I could theoretically climb on and head south, right, that wouldn't happen but it gives the mind a moment of escape. It's also my learning boat, for the round the world trip once the kid is out of college... That may happen. Hang in there, you'll find your way.
This sounds like someone hoping to get a gov grant but obfuscates the real issue: once detached from the mother ship the rocket still needs to accelerate from around 4-500 mph to 17k mph to reach orbit.
A moderated usenet group with the moderation being a 'reletivly' simple filter works well. For misc.writing.screenplays.moderated the moderation is basically just no cross-posting. It's public, a few spams slip through but are easily ignored (other than when a writer has a lovely snark reply). Getting a moderated group is non trivial but no too difficult.
It certainly is a game. It's an attempt to construct a game of 20 participants bidding on a scarce resource (you, the buyer) with specific rules. And would likely work, unless say, a few buddies happened to chat over beers and the subject of 'that crazy guy on the phone' comes up. The element of scarce information will then break some of the 'rules', negating much if any of hoped for strategy.
I like your approach much better, going in with maximum knowledge is key.
The one I've read about and wish I had the nerve is to get a few thousand in hundreds and right off spread it out on the table in front of the salesman, say this can but yours today, just hit my price.
I wonder what they use for forward looking sonar. The ocean is rather littered with logs, boards, containers (that fall off ships, floating a foot below the surface) and the occasional whale.
Find the right level of simplicity and lock it frack'n down, someone thought of about 30 super-important fields to add to bugzilla, maybe one is used, but probably shouldn't be... just makes navigating dense, annoying and slow.
Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions
The Road to Reality (and I'll probably be able to post this for the next 3 or more threads of this type :)
Dead Until Dark (well when it comes in, certainly not going to buy this, and the library reserve goes nuts for books that spawn your popular vapire drama)
I did not see him pedling at all, deal breaker if it's just a scooter. Looks like a prototype that will never get further, the cost for that many high quality hinges will put the manufacturing price way past a reasonable price point.
Some food is grown for visual appeal as well as more realistic goals as increased shelf life or disease resistance. The huge beautiful, yet almost flavorless Golden Delicious being a classic example.
Exactly, and there are a good 50-100 thousand of folks like you. Er, maybe total in the world. Now will that pay the infrastructure and salaries of the business like the Times? But that's probably true for only one newspaper, will you also pay $6.99 to the Seattle PI, Dallas News, Minnesota Star Tribune? Perhaps the news industry is at the moment of metamorphosis just before it becomes a beautiful online butterfly, it'll be incredible after the transition but it's very vulnerable in the pupa stage...
Ok look, I'm really not trying to make a nut-case argument, but cost of information allows aggregation of badness as well as goodness. Google is an extreme example but the level of information in the hands of a malicious government or other self-interested entity should not be relegated to 'could never happen here'.
I've little problem the the current Google, but 10-30 years from now will other forces in the world have access? But the issue is less google than the massive changes tech is making to the world.
I was always disappointed with daliclock,I remember a distinct image in my mind the first time I'd read the name of an old fashioned pocket watch that draped over any particular window on the desktop, like in a Dali painting. Hmm, project.
I didn't find the essay on a quick google but I remember a classic pg discussion that hiring a publicist was their best investment. Largest expensive also, but the right one knows how to get the mentions in the media. But don't worry about competition, traditional journalists will happily dig their own grave for another byline.
I use the AA site fairly often and am far from in love with it but I don't care at all for the re-design. AA for me is work, sometimes painful work if I need a booking for a bad family issue. A pretty island that I'll never get to visit will often annoy. I want all the functionality immediately at hand, lots of dense information is useful. They have, over the years, improved the date handling so it's usually two clicks. Clicking through a few pages of options gets to the information needed, it's often a long list of possible flights, but I'd really be unhappy if it was filtered and niced up so I missed an option. Now his design for AAHappyBubbleVaca.com would be just right.... (oh, sorry for the snark)
Carying any false ID would be a very very bad idea. They give prison sentences for stuff like that. Fake id on a kid looking to buy beer is one thing, that's probably just going to get taken away, but up against the wrong judge could be a significant issue.
'Out at sea' past a 50 mile line, communication is very slow and very expensive. Some exceptions, there is free email with a ham license, non-commercial and certainly no images, A single sideband HF transceiver and modem is 1-2k$, think 9600 baud in optimum conditions. Within a mile of the shore of any industrialized nation, standard wifi is supposed to be pretty available. The boat in the picture is not getting too far offshore with one neophyte and one cat.
Twitter is in the news a lot. At the Davos summit it seemed to be the only positive story in the entire world (twitter being used by legit journalists). It just works for a whole lot of folks. I suspect the new investors current opinion is that they just got the best deal of 09.