It's probably possible to use timestamps, but I suppose you would have to handle ties in more places, with sequence numbers you only break ties once. It appears that the FIX specifications allows up to microsecond precision, but given the volume of messages it's still likely a problem. It's also easier to work with integer sequence numbers than timestamps, but that's also a small consideration.
And there were a number of State supreme court elections that were alleged to have heavy monetary investment from a couple of billionaires that did not end up working in their favour.[1]
For that matter there is an Australian billionaire whose "investment" also does not appear to have worked in his favour [2]
I read somewhere that Rupert Murdoch was able to swing some elections a while ago in Australia and the UK. That was through his media ownership though.
There are other ways for money to impact politics beyond individual general elections. As well as funding community organizing and creating long-term propaganda, it's much easier to impact ballot initiatives (paid signature gathering works, for example, where paid canvassers don't.)
Public politics, and private company politics are very similar, although private company politics are less open to scrutiny.
The issue with the lottery is the need to ensure that the candidates both want the role, and are capable of doing it.
The latter, who is the right person to say "X is unqualified because.. " (and the Peter Principle suggests that just because someone was good at a lower job, eventually they're going to be put into a job they are unqualified for)
The theory with the current style that the person who puts themselves forward most definitely desires to win the job, and, as they rise up through their party system, have some level of competence, as adjudged by the people they have convinced to put them forward as a candidate.
Further, the adversarial nature is supposed to then mean that that person's opponents can call out the reasons that that person isn't suitable for the job.
Unfortunately, this ends up being a muck raking exercise, and the complaints might not amount to anything more than innuendo, further, there's no guarantee that they will even be heard (the supporters will provide evidence that the opponents themselves are not qualified to make any criticism)
Unfortunately a lot of elections these days, US or otherwise, tend not to end up being "This candidate is awesome, let's vote them in", but, instead "the incumbent is terrible, get someone, anyone, to replace them" - in the US Biden was voted in because Trump 1.0 was deemed a failure, and then Trump 2.0 was voted in because Biden was deemed a failure. Right now the Democrats appear to be on the rise again because Trump 2.0 and the Republicans are being deemed a failure. This isn't to diminish the wins by some actually good candidates though (although how good they are remains to be seen, and is a matter of... opinion).
I was watching a video where the speaker said the current A.I. capex requires $2 trillion of revenue to break even. However the whole advertising TAM is $1 trillion. Maybe there's another way to monetize it.
Of course there's another way to monetize it: convince large companies that they can replace significant fractions of their workforce with it and charge them tons of money for the chance.
Just like this scheme, it's not very economically efficient.
Carnot efficiency is proportional to the temperature ratio between the hot end and the cold end in degrees Kelvin. If both temperatures are in the 200's, then efficiency will be low.
OTEC does provide lots of potable water though, so that's one advantage.
I guess it takes a visionary management to recognize the value of disasters that were prevented.
Who is worth more? The person that quietly removes scrub brush and other fuel on the ground in the years before the forest fire starts, or the person that comes in once the fire starts and using lots of equipment and effort puts the fire out. Often the latter person gets the accolades, the former is a thankless task.
If a company lacks visionary leaders like that, then one must wonder if the company has much of a future anyway.
> I guess it takes a visionary management to recognize the value of disasters that were prevented.
I think you should change “visionary” with “competent” here.
This industry has been talking about how bad it is to have “hero devs” for decades, maybe since it’s ENIAC beginnings. After a few decades, you’d think this would filter up to management.
If you change your example from brush clearing to garbage removal it becomes pretty clear: who should get more accolades, the guy who takes out the trash or the guy who stays up all night treating the infections? Both. It’s management that fired the custodial staff who should be canned.
Management knows in the abstract. However they also know the value of awards and shipping - both of which can be in conflict. They do not know how to resolve this conflict.
I was watching a crime solving show from the UK. A huge percentage of the crimes are solved using camera footage. Also, they use geofencing, looking at which phones went in and out of the crime location at the time of the crime.
I would be surprised if this hasn't existed for a few decades already.
Back in 2009 I was working at a place where O2 was a client, and they gave us an API that could identify the cell tower (inc. lat/lng) any of their customers were connected to. The network needs to track this data internally to function, so the API is basically the equivalent of their DNS.
Kodak knew digital cameras were coming, my first digital camera was a Kodak from the late 90's. I guess it wasn't in their DNA to innovate and compete in this new medium.
I feel like being a publicly traded company prevents pivoting because of the focus on short term results.
Kodak didn't really have the option to compete. Their business was largely film, which just disappeared completely, and even digital cameras got replaced pretty quickly with phones. There was nothing to pivot too for Kodak.
and some simple math says that 10-15 minus 5-7 still leaves Kodak in the lurch. But it's now 2025, and Kodak the corporation is still around, so I don't know that my supposition: Kodak would be doing better today if they'd gone all in on digital camera sensor technology, is disproven by that fact.
GPS can provide fairly accurate timestamps. There's a few other GLONASS systems as well for extra reliability.
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