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Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

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Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#501

Post by dehrmann »

joe_the_user wrote: post #498
dehrmann wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US has always had a big regional divide in skill levels as well as respect for knowledge, with the out-of-the-way places having a problem with both. There are a lot of really good schools in flyover states. Looking at the top 10 engineering schools in the US, depending on your definition of "flyover," there's CMU, Michigan, Purdue, Illinois, and UT.

Yeah, even Alabama has high rated universities. But it also has a broad problem of lack of quality of high school level education. Maybe a few good suburban school but the average is terrible. Tuscaloosa is education center of Alabama, having the university of Alabama but secondary education is bad enough stop companies locating there. "Around the late 1980s/early 1990s Saturn chose not to locate a plant in Tuscaloos…

I'm guessing Saturn's concern was specifically with workers with just a high school diploma?

What makes this amusing is Saturn was probably looking to open plants in the South because most of the states are right-to-work states that are more business friendly and have fewer worker protections. The less-government approach that attracted them there also drove them away because less government also meant worse schools and worse workers.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#502

Post by gigatexal »

gigatexal wrote: post #230

Xenophobia and nationalism sure don't help. We used to import the smartest most capable people from all across the world to develop and market their inventions and ideas and maybe even become rich in the process. Now, not so much.

Who knew this comment would bring out all the closet racists of HN. I have learned much from the sane comments though.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#503

Post by cycrutchfield »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #251
cycrutchfield wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, no, that is not the dominant ideology of both parties. You didn’t say “both sides are the same” but you are equating neoliberalism with anti-science. Go bang that “neoliberals bad” drum somewhere else.

Neoliberals are pro-market, and markets are inherently anti-science. If they weren't anti-science they wouldn't spend so much time running campaigns to discredit objective scientific research that harms their financial interests - from the effects of tobacco to lead in petrol to opioids to big oil to climate change. The historical record on this is absolutely crystal clear and unambiguous.

Wow, that's quite a logical pretzel you've twisted yourself into. Congratulations.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#504

Post by scsilver »

alpineidyll3 wrote: post #466
scsilver wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I currently run a 120 dollar tensorflow device all locally that does real time object detection. I dont understand your criticism.

I'm talking about Google sequestering tensor cores and writing the distributed training code for g-cloud pods. Even your nice embedded inference device was designed with the hopes you'd grab some high performance compute to train something high quality. (These embedded devices are useless for training)

Fair enough, but with everything google, the free tier good enough for a prototype and personal use. If I need to scale it, there are other options. For me, I appreciate the option of this model, it makes high tech accessible to low capital ventures. And sometimes buying locked in services is the rational decision taking into account the costs of learning other platforms and maintaining a vender unlocked platform.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#505

Post by xster »

emsy wrote: post #195

Tangential, since this article is about the US and China. But if the US has dropped the ball, then Europe (or the EU specifically) didn't even bother to go to the game. The only thing we're innovative at is coming up with regulations. And I say this as someone who thinks the US tech sector should be under much heavier regulatory scrutiny.

I don't think that's necessarily the case. The Bretton Woods era produced national industries when finance wasn't as unrestricted. Though what happened is more or less the same as today. Companies like Alstom were competitive but got Huawei/TikTok'ed (executive arrests, forced sales etc). The EU just doesn't have the structural resilience to compete with the US shifting the Nash equilibrium.

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/former-exec-of-f...

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#506

Post by jen20 »

scarface74 wrote: post #459
jen20 wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unlimited 3G hot spot and $20/month for tablets with unlimited data can’t be beat. It can if you spend a lot of time travelling - Google's data packages (on 4G!) are good in most of the world at no additional cost. There's also a service aspect - Fi was often better where I am (downtown in a major US city) than T-Mobile (which my work phone is on). That said, T-Mobile seems to be more customer-centric than AT&T - w…

T-mobile’s standard plans include 3G roaming for data and calls(?) in Canada and Mexico and 2G data roaming in most other countries. You can also get a $5 “day pass” for 3G data and calls in most countries. As an aside, their rate plans are all inclusive no extra taxes or fees.

I'm aware - but Google Fi offers 4G roaming at no extra charge across a much wider range of countries (importantly for me, most of Europe).

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#507

Post by xster »

IdiocyInAction wrote: post #396
nine_zeros wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Chinese xenophobia is not American style. Sure they lack immigration but so many Chinese travel outside for education and business that they are in fact hyper aware of cultural differences and are upskilling themselves en masse in dealing with various cultures. They bring that skill back home to build companies and sub cultures that ape the best of other countries. This is very unlike US style xenophobia where Mu…

China is an ethnostate that is actively committing a genocide. If that is not xenophobic I don't know what is.

And Iraq is taking Kuwaiti babies out of incubators and Libya was... what again? Considering the Uyghur population doubled in the last 50 years and China has 20 times more mosques than the US, China isn't very good at geocoding.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#508

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

bluecmd wrote: post #214
emsy wrote: post #195

Tangential, since this article is about the US and China. But if the US has dropped the ball, then Europe (or the EU specifically) didn't even bother to go to the game. The only thing we're innovative at is coming up with regulations. And I say this as someone who thinks the US tech sector should be under much heavier regulatory scrutiny.

Since you mention regulation, I think it is something to be proud of. GDPR, Germany saying hell-no to forced Facebook accounts, etc. As for innovation? US isn't even top 10 when it comes to Nobel prize per capita ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Nobel_l... ). IKEA, SAP, Beretta, Airbus, Spotify, Linux, Prometheus, Grafana, Booking.com just from the top of my head of things that are proof of Euro…

> "As for innovation? US isn't even top 10 when it comes to Nobel prize per capita (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Nobel_l...)."

Interestingly, those tables show the EU, as a whole, being several places behind the US per capita, both overall and in terms of science Nobels specifically. Kind of negates your point.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#509

Post by vlovich123 »

missedthecue wrote: post #152
vlovich123 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s an insane answer. We’ve divested in public schools over a prolonged period of time, plain and simple. The public schools that have not experienced that magically are in the wealthy “rich” neighborhoods. The system is working as intended. You want an educated population? Make sure schools have the proper investments. None of this 30 kids per classroom bullshit. Do 10-15 and see what kind of students you…

Public education spending as a percentage of GDP is at an all time high. I dont think people appreciate the cost of public schooling in the US. According to data provided by the federal government, public schools in the US spend on average $15,500 per child per year. That is an enormous amount of money and it is only climbing ever higher year after year.

Averages are skewed by extremes which feeds into my point that the wealthy neighborhoods spend far more on public schools than in poorer communities.

Even with all that, it also means we’re spending nearly $500000 on a classroom in which a teacher makes 40-50k (let’s round that up to 60-80k for the payroll taxes). Where is the rest of the money going? We could have a hard cap on 20 kids and for teacher pay to be more competitive for less money than we spend today.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#510

Post by dang »

trident1000 wrote: post #327
anoncareer0212 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly - development began in 2014, it was acquired in 2014, games against Sodol were March 2016. (I'm somewhat cheating here, so it's unfair, but I gotta tell you it's a real headscratcher having a stranger explain this to me while they're not checking wikipedia)

Alpha Go was already launched when Google acquired it. Youre a moron. I dont know what elese to say.

Swipes like that will get you banned on HN. Would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules?

Your comment would be fine with just the first sentence.

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