In a global survey released last week, most countries polled believed that China would act more responsibly in the world than the United States. How does a Leninist dictatorship come across more sympathetically than the oldest constitutional democracy in the world?

Wow

How to Restore America's Place in the World

"Let me have yours, then." a man volunteered from the other side of the table, I tried to hand over my share to him, then the young cook warned," a piece only per person. Please donlt give yours to others beyond prescription."

"Maybe, that's the fatal dose." people laughingly joked for a while and their as8luring remarks eased my stubborn reluctance. I timidly ate a piece of fugu liver for the first time inmy life while all my friends closely watched me!

"My lips are hot and burn," I said. "It's because of spices," they assured me and laughed.

After the fugu dinner, we dropped in at another place and came home together: we decided to take advantage of the occasion and play mah-jong.

Approximately four hours had passed after the fugu meal - I was not the only person who felt numb on finger tips. "Probably we ate poison today," someone said. "My finger tips won't hold a piece of mah-jong ," someone else joined. We all felt something out of ordinary but nobody took the matter seriously.

Invitation to Haiku : Firsthand Account of a Fugu Poisoning

About now you are probably saying, “Okay, you’ve written some helpful posts (at least we hope you think they have been helpful) on compensation, but show me the money! What are some real life compensation numbers?”

We hate compensation surveys. We hate average compensations ranges. We hate industry data. But – we know you want it (since 42 of you have asked us for it.) Just be careful how you use it. These are our opinions and experience backed up by some industry data that we track. Every case is different. Your mileage will vary. Tax, title, licence, and delivery charge not included.

Much of the cash comp will depend on how large the company is and where it is along the revenue and profitability curve. Geography matters and while these numbers are for the U.S, there will also be major differences within different parts of the country. Also, note that each round of financing will dilute ownership. We’ve done our best here to spread these numbers out from early stage and more mature startups. One thing that seems fairly consistent: companies with less rounds of funding have lower paid executives and founders make less cash, but have more equity than non-founders. Think of the non-founders as “hired guns” who are professional company managers, whereas the founders may not be, but given the risk of founding the company, generally hold higher equity stakes.

Ask The VC - What are typical compensation numbers?

we build websites that make you smile. get to know us.

electric pulp, an interactive agency. we build websites.

There is now a documentary on the home page of the Sopo Bike Coop.

Sopo Bicycle Co-op: Home

If solar is less expensive than the available clean conventional sources then this might make sense. Otherwise, why bother? It's only in situations where you're already near existing daytime conventional capacity and the deployment of solar is much faster/cheaper in the short term than deployment of another clean conventional source that it might make sense. But if solar is expensive and/or time-consuming to deploy (relative to deploying another clean conventional source) then it simply doesn't make sense to use it even if it's only for dealing with peak load.

Forgive me, but you are completely wrong about this. Peak periods are exactly when things like solar really "shine." There are a couple thing you must understand about the interstate electricity grid:

First, is that it is over-designed on purpose. Most major utilities have operating reserves of power generation of between 12 - 18 % of the day's anticipated peak demand. On any given day, the system operator will have tens or hundreds of generation sources that it never dispatches (e.g., uses to produce power), but that are there "just in case." This means that utilities have multiple dispatch solutions in order to meet load (load being a measure of people who want to use electricity).

The second key principle is that utilities select their generation resoures based on a "least-cost dispatch" basis. While in practice, this gets incredibly complicated (and also includes environmental factors), the utility will pick the least expensive generators that can produce enough power to adequately supply the day's demand. In practical terms, this means that the utility will dispatch the dirtiest and most expensive to operate (on an incremental cost basis) generating facilities last.

The third principle is an outgrowth of the first two. On peak demand days (think middle of summer, air conditioners running at full blast, etc.), the number of dispatch options available to the utility decreases further and further as it commits an ever-increasingly greater share of its total generating capacity to meet demand. This means that your nastiest, dirtiest, foulest, most expensive generating facilities are dispatched on such days.

Imagine this scenario. You are Utility X. You have the following five generating facilities at your disposal:

1000 MW nuke.

500 MW cheaper, clean(er) coal.

500 MW slightly less cheap dirty coal.

100 MW incredibly expensive natural gas.

20 MW aging oil burner that spews out more toxics that Paris Hilton on a breathalyzer AND costs more than the GDP of small nations to operate.

Total installed capacity (a fancy term for the total amount of generation): 2110 MW.

Now imagine that hellishly hot day. Demand immediately soars to 1500 MW -- and it's not even 11 am yet. You commit your nuke and your clean coal facility. Now it's 2 pm and demand hits 2000 MW. Throw in the dirty coal. Four pm rolls around and de... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

40% Efficiency Solar Cells Developed

Entrepreneurial Leadership Roundtable

ATDC recently entered into a partnership with TAG to deliver some great programming open to any technology entrepreneur.

The next in this series is Thursday June 7 from 7:30 to 10:15 am at the ATDC. For you not so early risers the programming really starts at 8:00 am. The format for these is that there is a speaker on a subject that goes from 8:00 to 9:00 am. Then from 9:15 to 10:15 is an technology entrepreneur only roundtable session.

The upcoming roundtable is focus on entrepreneurial leadership. The discussion will include the below and others related to the topic:

• What is the role of the entrepreneurial CEO?
• How does this change as the CEO brings on an executive team?
• How does the CEO role change as you proceed from founding through various phases of growth?
• How open should an entrepreneurial CEO be about challenging issues such as running out of money?
• How does an entrepreneurial CEO manage his or her time given the overwhelming demands?
• What if a founder has limited experience growing a venture?
• How does one know if it is prudent to give up the CEO role?

We are essentially extending some of the conversations that happen within the incubator to a larger group. Any technology entrepreneur that is interested in this topic and/or learning more about ATDC is welcome to register.

Entrepreneurial Leadership Roundtable : June 7

What a difference a month makes - there's a lot of stuff bubbling underneath the surface here in Atlanta (and I take absolutely no credit.)

* I heard about a seed fund (sorry, can't give any more details) that's being raised similar to the Y Combinator model: give aspiring entrepreneurs $25-50K and, more importantly, the knowledge and connections to support starting and growing a company. This is fantastic news and I'm really excited about this. That first nut is the hardest money to raise and I think we'll see some interesting and successful companies that started out of this porgram.
* In case you haven't heard, Jeff and I are putting together HackAtlanta. I'm really looking forward to this; if you're into software or web programming and you live in North Georgia, there's no reason you shouldn't be there. Connect with your fellow gearheads and create some cool shit. Seriously, sign up today. We also need another person to help us organize the conference; right now, we tentatively have a place and a date. If you're interested, drop me an email at josh.watts@blue-violin.com.
* David Ratajczak has started a YnR Entrepreneur Social Hour. I attended the last one last Tuesday (3/13) and met some interesting people. This isn't just for tech start-ups. I met Roger Andresen who started toy company called A Broader View, Joel Nunez who started a service for recovering lost cell phones and other items of value called ImHONEST, and John Paul Souza (if you ever cross paths with John, take the time to talk to him - he's a ball of energy and could sell a ketchup popsicle to a girl in a white dress) who started a business process outsourcing business called DedicatedRep.com.
* Scott Burkett and Michael Blake recently started a podcast targeted towards entrepreneurs over at Startup Lounge. They originally thought they'd only do one podcast a month and are now doing 2-3 podcasts a month. Do you have some experience or knowledge you'd like to share and be a guest on Startup Lounge? You'll have to wait because they have guests booked through the end of the year.
* The group over at Big Thinkr are helping by organizing the YnR Entrepreneur Social Hour (mentioned above) and tech dinners and posting a list of events around Atlanta. The people I've met from Big Thinkr are all very nice guys and approachable; even if you're not starting a business, they're good people to meet and get to know.

Startup scene in Atlanta.

Blue Bootstrap: HackAtlanta

Nice titles

Nate over at webgraphics talks about a new feature he'd like to see in Safari: that titles on links should be shown in the rather pretty way that Safari currently shows dragged links:

The Safari browser showing a partially-transparent link summary when dragging a link

That's rather nice, that. Of course, it doesn't need browser support. Try mousing over, or tabbing to, some of the links on this page: you'll see the same effect. It's all done with CSS and a little bit of JavaScript.

Nice tooltip/popup lib in JS/CSS.

Nice titles

The time-honored tradition of The Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival at The Fox Theatre is an experience not to be missed!

Beat the heat and enjoy a mix of classic and current films
on the biggest screen in Atlanta.

Enjoy Movies, Mixers and “Mo!” Come early and enjoy wine tastings, and the tradition of a magical pre-show experience including an
organ concert and sing-a-long featuring Larry Douglas Embury and
the showing of a classic cartoon.

Sunday, June 3
The Sound of Music — 7:00PM

Monday, June 4
Casino Royale/Goldfinger Dbl Feature —7:30PM

Sunday, June 10
Affair to Remember — 2:00PM

Sunday, June 10
300 — 7:00Pm

Monday, June 11
Pans Labyrinth — 7:30PM

Monday, June 18
Saturday Night Fever — 7:30PM

Sunday, July 8
Meet the Robinsons — 2:00PM

Monday, July 9
The Wizard of Oz — 7:30PM

Wednesday, July 11
Dreamgirls — 7:30PM

Monday, July 30
The Departed/Goodfellas Dbl Feature — 7:30PM

another chance to gather your friends and have some fun this summer.

The Coca-Cola Fox Theatre 2007 Summer Film Festival