Seriously,...no body even noticed MogoTix ticketing Facebook's f8 event last year? www.mogotix.com my startup. However, I don't believe MogoTix is the disruption this industry needs.
Why isn't Mr. Stephenson writing the script? Doesn't even look like he cares,...which makes me wonder if I should.
On another note, Ender's Game is coming out and Orson Scott Card fought hard to get the right actors and write the script. Oh how I can't wait for this....
I personally struggle when writing. However, when I write something important, I make sure to have someone proof read it. The message shouldn't be lost by simple grammar errors. And so,...I would say its a intelligence problem.
I honestly think this is the best piece of rhetoric to keep our old system in place.
The system is awful, but its the best we got. I'd prefer if we brought back our philosophers and started to have large debates on the writing of new law.
We are to afraid to change our old old system. Depressing.
The bigger problem is that the only folks who can improve the system(the people in charge), have an active self-interest not to do that since they are likely to lose power and influence with the changes.
That's why the US Congress has an approval rating worse than herpes [1] and still most people will keep their jobs thanks to lack of reform, redistricting and gerrymandering by the only people who can fix it.
One of the best Italian artists of all time, Giorgio Gaber, said once that "Democracy is Participation", or "taking part". Check the number of active voters in the US at most levels: it's depressingly low. Low participation means less democracy, it's as simple as that.
Most people thought it would have been impossible for a black man to be President of the United States of America, but for once "the people" thought differently, you got the highest turnout ever for a presidential race, and lo and behold, change happened (at least for that particular thing).
Try to imagine how things would change if you could add another 10 or 20% to that 63% who elected a black President. Now repeat that at any level: Congress, State, City, even school board. All of a sudden you have a decisive element that can change majorities and express real power.
The problem, of course, is that "taking part takes time". Politics is a very slow game, and most people have a life outside of politics, so they drop out (me included). Even voting every few years is a problem, if you can't afford to take a day off; most European countries recognize that, and vote over the weekend. I find the US stance on this incredibly maddening, and clearly a legacy from the dark times of slavery and "gentlemen" landowners who didn't have to work for a living.
The problem, going forward, is how to give people the opportunity to take part more and more, while minimizing the time they have to spend in order to do so. One of them is having a good set of impartial media who can summarize honest arguments in a faithful way, providing different levels of analysis that don't contradict themselves. Another one might be some sort of collaborative service where people can contribute to the work of their representatives. Another might be a way of making representatives more accountable and in tune to the wishes of their electorate. And so on and so on... but nothing of this can happen unless we take part and move our ass, so to speak.
That is because in the settings of your pandora account it asks for your age and your sex as a preference. They tell you as a side note that it is for ad targeting. Pretty honest (IMHO)
I tested a very similar device for the company I used to work at, the UI looked identical at least. There was very little relationship between my actual mental state, and the state of the display. The device I used had an API, so I wrote my own visualizer to make sure they weren't just blurring out the data -- long story short, I was never impressed with it. Blinking or moving your head triggered a larger reaction than any thought impulse.
Maybe the tech has gotten better, but I wouldn't hold your breath for anything that costs $100.
"Blinking or moving your head triggered a larger reaction than any thought impulse."
No surprise there, the muscles of the head will have a stronger signal than the brain, if you're using electrodes outside the skull.
There might be some way of filtering those out, perhaps using additional electrodes directly on the relevant muscles. Subtract the signal on those electrodes from the signal on the other electrodes.
Also, based on the geometry of the xwave headset it looks like the electrode(s) are very rostral, so I would imagine that it picks up a lot of EOG from the eyes and EMG from the frontalis and corrugator supercilii (eyebrow muscles).
The ground, again from what I can tell from the photo, is on the earlobe. This is not a terrible place for a ground (there are no muscles there) but it's not ideal for removing EMG artifacts.
I have one, and it's OK -- you can notice broad differences with different activities or different mental states. The video game that comes with it is supposed to allow you to control a character, and that didn't work for me or other people who tried it at all. Also the plastic casing is really bad and broke quickly on mine. All in all neat but overpriced.
"In the first quarter of 2012, our compensation committee discussed and approved a request by our CEO to reduce his base salary to $1 per year, effective January 1, 2013."
All of your compensation is in stock and worth the stock price.
1) It looks good to investors: you've got to believe in it if your worth is in the stock, for instance most of Bill Gates net worth is in Microsoft stock and it would look bad if he sold it all,
2) You pay lower taxes: capital gains vs income, not to mention
3) it sounds good in the press and when people say it
I had it explained to me that they have to take a salary to be eligible to receive company perks, such as a company car, travel expenses, etc. Therefore they take a nominal salary of $1 so that they are officially on the payroll and are receiving a salary, and hence can receive all the other perks and benefits through the company.
Probably to receive stock options in compensation. Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt have also done the same. They seem to be exempt from payroll taxes in the United Sates.
Sometimes the explanation is more optimistic than that--sometimes the CEO is rich enough it makes little difference. E.g. John Mackey (Whole Foods CEO) switched to a $1 salary because he felt he no longer needed to work for money [1].
I mean, think about it: Mark owns over $10 billion in Facebook stock--he makes over a billion dollars by pushing the stock price up 10% (or loses over a billion if the stock drops 10%). Either way, a $15 million salary would be fairly insignificant...
Well, they're still taking a large salary, it's just in different currency. If you pay someone 1m dollars, 750k euros, or $1m worth of stock, it's still essentially salary...
Stripe, recently saved me. I am still fighting with my merchant processor *First Data who is awful. I talked to Stripe via Sean Harper with FeeFighters and I was up and rolling in 20 minutes. Yes, Jaw drop fast. Most payment processors require at least two weeks to be setup. Their UI/UX is beautiful and simple. When I need help I get it immediately. I love this company. :)
