test @lisperati

RMS' idea sounds kind of neat, but it suffers from a fatal problem: All that happens when you force crazy high taxes onto big companies is that they leave the US. This is exactly what's happening in France right now, with their recent tax reforms.

The correct solution, as others have already pointed out, is to simply let these companies fail. Funnily, the "experts" who said "if we let Citibank/MorganStanley/etc fail society will turn into a Mad Maxian nightmare where we'll all be forced into cannibalism" are the exact same people who would have lost a lot of money without a bailout.

The bureaucratic bullshit _is_ the hard task :-)

No, I think going to an elite school, assuming it is affordable to you, may be worth it. I don't know, because I didn't have that opportunity.

Fair enough- I meant that colleges are insulated from the kind of market forces that lead to high achievement.

Instead, they are affected by market forces filled with perverse incentives that have little to do with achievement.

The reason companies like Google give priority to people with degrees is because a degree is a signal that you're the kind of person that can complete a hard task (finishing college, in this case.)

They care less about the knowledge you attained at school.

I disagree. I think colleges are under pressure to give the _appearance_ of "teaching skills that will get students jobs".

I think my mistake was the school I went to, not the major.

The reason geeks look down on college is because the vast majority of colleges/universities set their bar too low. College professors and students are insulated from market forces and over time this has eroded the system.

BTW, I worked 40 hours a week as a video game developer in college, and still pulled out an A- average at my crappy school (USF) for a Biology degree, even though I skipped most of the classes to go to work.

I think I learned about 10x from my job, where we had to deliver a marketable product on a tight deadline, than I ever learned at my college. Wish I would have skipped that colossal waste of time.

Agreed. It's important to note as well that he's planning on staying on as CEO during the leave, involved in strategic decisions. He's _probably_ expecting to be in pretty good shape during the leave- If he was getting another transplant or some other serious surgery I think the statement describing the leave would _probably_ be worded differently.

It's down about 10% now in Frankfurt- This seems like too much to me. Steve's health issues are already priced into the stock.

I bet it will be down more around ~6% when the US stock opens. I'm tempted to buy some stock on the Frankfurt market.

i also love clojure. rich hickey is an amazing designer.

i've used that name for a long time- Not sure who was first.

  i think it's from the "jargon file".

It's a lot of work to write a book. I'm a big fan of Scheme, but this isn't in the cards at this very moment.

Actually, it looks like the mobi & epub just became available!

http://nostarch.com/lisp.htm