There is too much friction to build high speed rail in the US due to the democratic process. You have to get everybody along the way to agree which is pretty much impossible as you get to populated areas. In a place with a centralized government system like China, the nice thing is that things get built very quickly, but it sucks for the people who are affected negatively along the way.
Hard to evaluate the cost/benefit of high speed rail since the costs are obvious while the benefits are delayed and not as obvious. It would be really cool to get from SF to LA in 2-3 hours though.
Free food is the best. It's actually a really strong incentive to get employees to stay at work longer, and who doesn't like free food? Now it is becoming more and more of a standard perk at startups which is a great thing!
There are plenty of startup founders that got their credit ruined before like Max Levchin. It got to the point where "a ruined credit history prevented him from buying a car, getting a cell phone, and renting an apartment." However, "Levchin kept going without much downtime." Levchin says: "Every time I had torn up my certificate of incorporation… the delay between that and registering a new company was typically no more than 24 hours."
Levchin's 24 hours might be extreme to follow, but we can definitely learn from his relentlessness. As for $150k in debt, creditors nowadays are pretty used to arranging settlements. You might be able to arrange some payment plan with them and reduce the debt to under $70k. A big part of it is interest and fees that they tackle on so they would rather remove that and work with you than watch you default. So given you get a job (startup jobs don't check your credit as much) you might be able to fix it in 1-2 years without declaring bankruptcy.
I know how demoralizing it can feel but you are definitely not the only one and will emerge stronger after you get over it. Look forward to seeing blog posts/interviews about how you struggled and overcame your debt when you rise again.
Samsung claims 7 hours battery life compared to 10 hours for the iPad, but it seems satisfactory in the reviews. Not sure if it will last one whole day without charging, especially if you used to watch movies on a road trip, for example. Any experience with the battery life?
Being in such a dominant position, they go directly to all the major Android smartphone manufacturers to request that they preinstall Baidu search on the smartphones, so Google doesn't have a shot at getting on the phones.
Don't think the Android Market is operating in China after Google gave up, they are probably blocked. It's not on the Android Market's official list of countries supported either. http://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an...
The Chinese download Android apps in a fragmented app store environment. There are larger ones like www.hiapk.com, and carriers and manufacturers are also trying to setup their own app stores.
Don't think Google can benefit at all unless they get their search, Android Market, mobile ads on the actual smartphones.