Have you ever wondered why Switzerland is the world's second largest exporter of processed coffee, despite never growing a single bean? [1]. Germany is 3rd, Netherlands is 4th. Hmmmm.
Have you ever wondered why all those poor countries around the world sell unprocessed coffee to Switzerland for pennies rather than telling Switzerland to take a hike, processing it themselves and making way more money?
Have you ever wondered why many very poor countries around the world sell their raw minerals for a tiny fraction of the globally accepted price?
After three years on the ground in Africa, my eyes were very wide open. The multi-billion dollar loans from the IMF and World Bank have these countries over a barrel, and if they try to change the status quo, they will be sent back to the dark ages instantly. Spending time in Sudan was very educational, though it means I can never get a visa-wavier for the US. Why do you think that is? (Hint: gas in Sudan was 6 cents a liter..., diesel was half that)
Also very educational to try at get a visa for Ecuatorial Guninea (it has a TON of oil, and a TON of multi-national companies ripping it out). A foreigner can go to the island where the capital is no problem, but try getting permission to go to the mainland - you can't. Even with a valid visa you can't get in. (I camped in view of it here [2] )
Why? Because they don't want you to see what is happening there.
> many fond memories of it, but mostly when I think about it I'm filled with sadness, because the people there deserve so much better. They're constantly knee-deep in corruption, both street level and just the very blatant kleptocratic presidential family
I spent 2 years driving the length of the Pan-American Highway, and 3 years driving right around the African continent.
What you said can equally be applied to many places I spent a good deal of time in. Incredibly friendly, warm, kind and happy people to a degree I did not know was possible on planet earth. Sadly they're held down by corruption, ineptitude and the West.
Happily, virtually every single person laughs, sings, dances and celebrates basically everyday, because they choose to be vibrantly happy despite all the BS.
I worked for a large telco that operates very, very similarly to the company in the article.
About once a year or so one of the stand-out engineers that had the weight of the world on their shoulders would get burnt out and frustrated enough to do exactly what you suggest above.
Literally everyone would just look around awkwardly, leave the meeting and never talk about it again. All of middle management already know all of this, the only way they keep their jobs is by never talking about it, and just ignoring anyone that does. The VPs and President only know what those below them feed them.
It could be interesting to simply waste time for that hour, while still being co-operative. Answer extraordinarily slowly, be as verbose as possible, go on as many tangents as possible and go into as much detail on your first answer as you possibly can imagine, so the first answer takes the entire hour.
You're still being co operative and answering questions, they just run out of time before you get a lawyer or they cut you loose.
Which is why we should force them to see the reality of what happens when people do. And they'll talk to those people who are severely injured, who will say "it was never going to happen to me either".
I'd bet the number of licensed drivers would drop, people wouldn't want a license after seeing the harsh reality.
A lot of people have no idea of the destructive power of the three ton death machine they are in command of. For that reason I think it should be mandatory to volunteer in a crash recovery ward at a hospital for 100 hours before getting a drivers license.
> Each satellite only has 20gbit/sec per beam of capacity
Can this be upgraded in future versions of the sats? Is it a major undertaking requiring new ground station hardware, or something relatively easy that will increase with each "new" version of the sats?
> PageRank might be better way to evaluate quality
And suddenly Google is the authoritative source on literally everything in the world. I hope you like their political views, because they would become "the one".
It's funny, I've had exactly the opposite experience.
Multiple times flying from random places in Africa to Australia return, and Australia to Canada, GFlights was at least $1k more than the cheapest on kayak or orbitz.
Maybe GFlights just doesn't show overly cheap options..?
A company I worked for had a new website built (their big customer facing domain). It was just a Drupal theme, responsive, absolutely nothing fancy.
An old friend of mine guessed $20k, maybe $30k tops if you were being crazy, and I thought even that was high. Back in our consulting days we probably would have quoted lower.
They brought on a company for $1 mil, ended up 6 months late and $1.6 mil.
Gotta love those project managers and "status update meetings" to burn the cash.
Absolutely. So what I'm doing in my life is walking the line between easy and hard, in such a way as to keep it challenging and interesting, while not making it downright painful and so difficult that I won't enjoy it. Everyone has their own personal line to walk.
I'm driving a nice Jeep, which for me, is as challenging as I personally can handle, without it being painful and not enjoyable. At the end of the day I'm doing this for enjoyment, not for punishment.
People tougher than me ride motorbikes.
People tougher than that ride bicycles.
People tougher than that walk (yes, it's been done).
etc. etc.
There will always be someone doing something more daring than me, but I'm not interested in what other people are doing, I'm finding my own personal balance / limit of difficult yet enjoyable.
>Is health insurance the only thing to worry about?
Stop thinking up a list of things to worry about, and start doing what you want to be doing.
Nothing in life is permanent, so make a leap, try and out and see what you think. Maybe you'll do it for a few years, then go back to doing something else. You'll never know unless you try, so hurry up and go for it.
And by tipping you are keeping it so they can just afford to keep making ends meet, thus enabling the status quo.
It could be argued you are continuing the problem.