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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Offshore Ship-Island Proposed for Dweebs Without Visas |
| 2012-04-23 |
| Why can't they just enter the country illegally? Don't care to shell out for the fake documents? Many entrepreneurs from all parts of the globe want to come to Silicon Valley to create their tech startups. In the past, this hasn't been possible because the US visa system was not designed for it. Blueseed is going to change that. We're creating a visa-free incubator for tech startups. A thousand of the world's best entrepreneurs will get the chance to develop their ideas in an ecosystem designed for their success. And it'll be just half an hour from the coastline by daily ferry access. I wonder if there will be an application fee? Transparent selection process? Paypal's founder Peter Thiel is coming in to the 500K USD "seed funding" round that we're currently raising to do the R&D work needed. The project's total up front cost will be around 15-35millon USD. Maybe they can get some left-over Stimulus Boodle. There are three options. Leasing an existing vessel, purchasing an existing vessel, and building a new one. The first two options would of course require some retrofitting to suit our needs. Each option has its pros and cons, but I'd say the first two options are far more likely than designing our own vessel. The more existing structures and technologies we can use the better. After all, this is a Green Project! Several fascinating concepts for the Ship of Fools at link. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #14 And Orcas. Anyone going overboard out there is pretty much gone. A friend of mine's sister lost a leg swimming off the coast of California. I wouldn't swim anyplace there are seals. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2012-04-23 22:04 |
| #13 Great White's have gotta eat too |
| Posted by: Frank G 2012-04-23 21:34 |
| #12 Sounds like someone's dream who has never actually spent a winter off the coast of San Francisco. The storms can be absolutely ferocious and the weather is horrible nearly year round. It is damp and foggy in summer and stormy in winter. Seas in excess of 20 feet are not uncommon. Good luck keeping any production up in winter and you can forget about solar power. Wind power might be right out, too, if the wind destroys your turbines. |
| Posted by: crosspatch 2012-04-23 21:16 |
| #11 I pulled my last all-nighter at 51 and I can't remember how long it took to recover. I suppose some can do them till they're 65, but not me. Youngsters get hired to code because they can do 80 hours a week. It takes a lot of money to get a 50 y.o. to do that, if they can at all. What I tell my kids is you've got from 25 to 45 to really do things and if you plan right, from 45-65 to rest on your laurels if you can find a place to sit or create your own. It's a young person's world when it comes to employment, and it's only going to get worse. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2012-04-23 20:59 |
| #10 Funny thing is, before they told us to get out of the igloo and on the pack ice to join the circle of life, a lot of us thrived on the computers. We were on the bleeding edge and stayed there. Perhaps you heard of a little place off the B-W parkway at Fort Meade that may use computers. Slow? Sorry. No. We helped invent and debug that stuff that finally filtered down to the kids. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2012-04-23 20:28 |
| #9 In the Intel biz (at least once you get behind a desk), and most DoD contractors, older = better because you are experienced and will avoid a ton of mistakes, and know the proven solutions enough to see outside of them. Old Spook Older US Gov't intel analysts (contractor or DoD Civ) are no longer much in demand. Older generally means they were not brought up with a computer as the young kids are today, they did not use the current family of applications while on active duty, and are probably slower to learn the apps and system tools. Old also means they require higher salaries, require a heavier medical benefit load, and may not fit the affirmative action profiles of the government client. Welcome to one of the many downsides of US Gov't contracting. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2012-04-23 18:55 |
| #8 Try hiring an older IT worker. I got a buddy in his 50's whose job got sent to China, software engineer. And he is telling me its bleak because of the huge bias against older software people (anyone over 40 is suspect, and over 50, forget it unless you're a manager apparently), and the fact that the H1B are getting desperate and are screwing up wages for everyone. In the Intel biz (at least once you get behind a desk), and most DoD contractors, older = better because you are experienced and will avoid a ton of mistakes, and know the proven solutions enough to see outside of them. I guess the problem is out in the regular economy, the bias towards stupid college kids that work 60 hours without a peep is pretty strong, despite the fact (based on my limited experience) they seldom get as much done in that 60 hours as one of the more experienced guys gets done in 30, and the younger guy's stuff requires a lot more time and effort to maintain. Older engineers realize that a long lived system will have most of its cost in maintenance and design accordingly. Pretty sad actually, we are driving away our most experienced people, leaning on imported foreigners, and discouraging an entire generation, scaring them away from engineering and software. It actually gives me a bit of comfort being old, in that I'll be dead by the time this bitter harvest comes in. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2012-04-23 17:58 |
| #7 Why? A lido is an outdoors swimming pool. Does it mean something else? |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2012-04-23 16:39 |
| #6 We shall call it "Project Lido"... |
| Posted by: mojo 2012-04-23 15:28 |
| #5 Weekend excursions to the Farallons. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2012-04-23 12:58 |
| #4 Sound like a floating Guantanamo to me. Poor souls. They even have to pay for their accommodations. |
| Posted by: gorb 2012-04-23 12:14 |
| #3 Why would you hire an American/westerner? Bad work ethic, taught a load of nonsense @ skool, been taught entitlement to wespekt. Bad spelling. The problem is immigrants who don't work. The other problem is that western schools aren't producing people who produce wealth. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2012-04-23 10:28 |
| #2 As if close proximity to the US helps somehow. Why not set up shop on a caribean island. Find one that the US Government has easy visa regulations for and buy the government of that island to allow for "rapid naturalization". You then go to that island, become a quick citizen and visa on over to the US. Similar to the game everyone plays when they flag their ships under Panema or Liberia, as if either of those countries will do anything to help in a crisis. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2012-04-23 10:20 |
| #1 ...or they can hire Americans. Oh, that's right after over twenty years of H1Bs by the hundreds of thousands, why even bother spending years in tech school or advanced training only to see your potential employment go to a foreigner because HR rigged the program from the start with contrived boilplate job descriptions to get those indentured workers. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2012-04-23 08:51 |