At the time of the lease's inception, if it meets any of the the following criteria, it is classified as a capital lease, and thus the payments are a capital expenditure that must be amortized over the useful life of the underlying asset:
the lease term is greater than 75% of the property's estimated economic life
the lease contains an option to purchase the property for less than fair market value
ownership of the property is transferred to the lessee at the end of the lease term
the present value of the lease payments exceeds 90% of the fair market value of the property
If none of these conditions are met, the lease is an operating lease, which means that the payments are expensed when they are made.
If the company exercises a purchase option at the end of an operating (expensed) lease, the lease-end purchase price is capitalized and amortized over the remaining useful life of the asset; it has no effect on the original classification of the lease. I don't remember the rule regarding an exercised purchase option at the end of a capital lease (it's been a long time since I had to know this). FASB Statement 13 covers this in excruciating detail if you really want to know more, but beware of all the interpretations and amendments...
Several buildings on and near the White House property have been covered up. The entire grounds of the Capitol building are blurry (while the surrounding area is 10x or 100x sharper)
And yet, the Pentagon is shown in full detail. *boggle*
That's a nice, elegant solution to the multiple language support vs. extra click-through tradeoff. If only more UI designers would think along those lines.
Unfortunately, nothing in life is free, and so it is with asymmetric cryptosystems. Since d can be computed from e given p and q, and p and q are the factors of N, they must be chosen so large that N cannot be factorised in any reasonable time.
While this is accurate, it's the first and only mention of d, e, p, q and N. The author also never actually explains that RSA is built on the assumption that prime factorization is mathematically hard. It appears that he simply cut-and-pasted from another text without bothering to make sure that it fit with the article. I can only imagine the confusion of the poor newbies trying to make sense of this.
The Google toolbar's popup blocking is pretty good, but mail.com manages to thwart it on their homepage (it blocks most of them, but they slip in a pop-under). I never got around to digging into the source to figure out what they're doing, but whatever it is, it doesn't work in Firefox. No idea about XP SP2.
Wow, what a marvelous idea. One of the first things my PHB did upon coming to our team was to requisition our networked color LaserJet for use as her dedicated printer (it was more important for her not to have to walk 15 feet for her output than for the rest of us to have a color printer). With one of these, we can reclaim our shared printer and show our profound appreciation for all she's done for us, all in one fell swoop!
The best part is, the indiatimes article is obviously a direct ripoff of this one (link-ified for convenience). They have the same structure and flow, and several complete paragraphs were simply ripped verbatim. What is this, second grade?
...asinine overkill that followed 9/11 when they were scanning children, searching old women and making nursing mothers drink their own breastmilk
The breastmilk-drinking bit was certainly asinine and a violation of the woman's rights. However, the refusal to exempt old women and children from searches was actually a good security decision. When certain classes of people are systematically excluded from searches, a smart attacker will exploit that exclusion to carry out his attack. Even if he can't recruit an old woman or a child to his cause directly, he probably can get one to carry something through the checkpoint for him, whether knowingly or not. An effective search campaign must include random target selection, preferably in combination with targeted selection based on risk factors.
That having been said, I agree with your main point, that Senator Kennedy's troubles with the no-fly list do not bode well for the average citizen who happens to find himself so listed.
I would be very surprised if there were pricing information in the contract because that would make some very nice evidence for price fixing. More likely the license that RIAA collects from Real is fixed and Real is welcome to charge whatever they want.
Especially considering that many RIAA members just settled last year a class-action lawsuit alleging price fixing via "Minimum Advertised Price" policies.
Yeah, I'm thinking about it too. I started playing a few months after launch, and basically stopped when I got accepted into EQ beta 3. I was basically just logging in to my UO account to refresh my house, until I forgot one week and it decayed. So I canceled my account and just played EQ for a while.
When I got tired of EQ (I really hated the way the game was stacked so heavily against solo play), I took a while off from MMOGs, but eventually went back to UO, rebuilt a couple of good characters, bought a house, and just generally enjoyed the world. And then I didn't log in for a week and my house decayed. Again. So I quit. Again.
And now, I'm thinking about going back once more. The thing is, I've played a handful of other MMOGs (EQ, AC, AO, DAOC), but none of them compare to UO in my mind. Of course, it will never be the same as I remember it from way back in the Dread Lord days, but there are still so many things that I miss in other games (housing, vendors, ability to cut trees, shear sheep, etc.).
You know what? I think it is time for me to go back. I'm going to reactivate my account when I get home tonight.
Re:It's called an attractive nuisance
on
Safe and Insecure?
·
· Score: 1
For an example, lets say you have a swimming pool. You put up a fence keep the gate locked. You post signs saying "danger, no lifeguard." You chase away all the neighbor hood kids when they come around, but one climbs in late at night and drowns. You are at fault.
I believe you meant to say "You are not at fault". You would be at fault if you failed to take precautions such as installing a fence, locked gate, etc.
In any event, I'm not sure that the doctrine of attractive nuisance applies here. Pools, construction sites, etc. are inherently dangerous to those who enter them; an internet connection is not (not physically anyway). Also, while you and I may know better, I'd imagine that one could argue rather effectively to nontechnical people (e.g. judge, jury) that an unsecured WAP is not inviting in the sense of a pool, as the WAP is not self-evident to casual passers by.
I'm inclined to agree. The record companies are used to being in complete control of the industry as a result of the high barriers to entry (recording studios, production facilities, distribution networks, retailer and broadcaster covenants, etc.) The networked digital world removes or severely degrades every one of those barriers, which largely invalidates the business model of the traditional recording industry. I'd be scared too, if I were them.
Personally, I just don't buy single-CD albums for $16.99. And I'm sure as hell not going to buy a single-CD's worth of MP3s for that much.
With the popularity of stores like Best Buys and Walmart, where the new CDs are something more like $11.99 to $13.99, is anyone actually paying that high of a price?
Mall stores like Sam Goody charge $18.98 for recent-releases (Examples: 123), and judging from the fact that they're still in business, I guess somebody is paying those prices.
I often see older, back-catalog CDs selling for those prices. I always figured it was because the record industry thought that anyone who was going to buy them was diong so because they really wanted to get that album, and therefore they could milk the customer for more.
I think you're half right - the other half is that for these albums, economies of scale are greatly reduced relative to a current release. Remember that we're not talking about moving unsold existing inventory from the initial production run(s); we're talking about new production (and distribution) to satisfy current demand. Also, remember that the retail price is a function both of wholesale price and retail markup - the retailer needs to set his markup at such a level as to justify the costs of stocking Iron Maiden's Killers instead of devoting that space to more Britney CDs.
When you email them about the problem, they try to explain the free shipping (even when that wasn't even your question) to you. You have to keep emailing them to finally get the overcharge resolved.
The last time I had to go through Amazon tech support, somebody named "Utpal" sent me a canned reply that was at best tangential to my problem. However, when I clicked through the "this did not help me" link that they provide, I got another reply from "Julie F" that was much more helpful and actually relevant to the problem. I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but I'm reminded of Dell for some reason...
Also, the thing about focusing the cursor, if I access my webmail, I often start typing before the page is fully loaded. I type my username, hit tab, and start typing my password. In the middle of my password, IE decides to focus the cursor at the start of the login field, and I type half my password in clear view. Argh!
This isn't actually IE's fault - it's the result of the page designer using javascript to set focus on the username field when the onLoad event fires. Next time, hit <Esc> to stop the page from loading further before typing in the fields. As long as you're only waiting on images to load you should still be able to submit the form.
Also, somebody else already posted this, but get in the habit of hitting <Esc> immediately after <Ctrl>-N, and you won't have to worry about the old page loading before you can finish typing in a URL.
Exactly. Traditional record companies live and die on their ability to gain exclusive distribution rights to artists' material. This is why they are so threatened by the internet - it provides an alternative means of distribution that lacks the barriers to entry (production lines, physical distribution of product, access to retailers, etc.) that historically have allowed them to maintain their oligopoly.
Unfortunately, they haven't yet taken to heart the fact that a distribution-based business model isn't going to be viable over the long run for media companies, so they continue to fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo rather than adapting their business model to the changing market conditions.
The problem is proving fraudlent or malicious intent. In the case of the accident victim, independent medical review should establish the extent of her injuries, which then allows an objective judgement as to whether her claims of damage are reasonable.
With the RIAA, OTOH, there is no way conclusively to establish the extent of their injuries resulting from P2P filesharing. All we have are a bunch of studies with conflicting conclusions, and it's extremely difficult to establish an objective estimate of the true extent of the damages when every conclusion is based on statistical interpretations.
While the accident victim's claims can be shown by medical authority to have been made with fraudulent intent, the RIAA has statistics showing a correlation between the rise of P2P filesharing and the decline of industry revenues (these numbers are not in dispute, AFAIK). Whether there is causation is another matter entirely, but it appears to me that at present there is as much evidence to support the RIAA's claims as there is to refute them. IOW, while I may believe them to be wrong, I have to admit that they may have a rational basis for their claims, which prevents me from inferring malicious or fraudulent intent on their part.
Slashdot Mirror
- the lease term is greater than 75% of the property's estimated economic life
- the lease contains an option to purchase the property for less than fair market value
- ownership of the property is transferred to the lessee at the end of the lease term
- the present value of the lease payments exceeds 90% of the fair market value of the property
If none of these conditions are met, the lease is an operating lease, which means that the payments are expensed when they are made.If the company exercises a purchase option at the end of an operating (expensed) lease, the lease-end purchase price is capitalized and amortized over the remaining useful life of the asset; it has no effect on the original classification of the lease. I don't remember the rule regarding an exercised purchase option at the end of a capital lease (it's been a long time since I had to know this). FASB Statement 13 covers this in excruciating detail if you really want to know more, but beware of all the interpretations and amendments...
Several buildings on and near the White House property have been covered up. The entire grounds of the Capitol building are blurry (while the surrounding area is 10x or 100x sharper)
And yet, the Pentagon is shown in full detail. *boggle*
That's a nice, elegant solution to the multiple language support vs. extra click-through tradeoff. If only more UI designers would think along those lines.
I also work at home, so I have time to watch movies during the day.
And they said letting people work from home would impact productivity. Shows what they know!
I'm still waiting for mine too. Maybe in the next issue they can run an article on postal service optimization.
Click through the "Learn More" link just to the left of the product picture.
The first part of that paragraph bugs me too:
Unfortunately, nothing in life is free, and so it is with asymmetric cryptosystems. Since d can be computed from e given p and q, and p and q are the factors of N, they must be chosen so large that N cannot be factorised in any reasonable time.
While this is accurate, it's the first and only mention of d, e, p, q and N. The author also never actually explains that RSA is built on the assumption that prime factorization is mathematically hard. It appears that he simply cut-and-pasted from another text without bothering to make sure that it fit with the article. I can only imagine the confusion of the poor newbies trying to make sense of this.
The Google toolbar's popup blocking is pretty good, but mail.com manages to thwart it on their homepage (it blocks most of them, but they slip in a pop-under). I never got around to digging into the source to figure out what they're doing, but whatever it is, it doesn't work in Firefox. No idea about XP SP2.
Wow, what a marvelous idea. One of the first things my PHB did upon coming to our team was to requisition our networked color LaserJet for use as her dedicated printer (it was more important for her not to have to walk 15 feet for her output than for the rest of us to have a color printer). With one of these, we can reclaim our shared printer and show our profound appreciation for all she's done for us, all in one fell swoop!
yes, I'm a red shirt
You might want to start thinking of excuses in case Captain Kirk ever invites you to join a landing party...
Did somebody say plagiarism? Hmmmmmmmm... 1 2
The best part is, the indiatimes article is obviously a direct ripoff of this one (link-ified for convenience). They have the same structure and flow, and several complete paragraphs were simply ripped verbatim. What is this, second grade?
Sorry for the late reply, but here's a USA Today article and the snopes entry on the matter.
...asinine overkill that followed 9/11 when they were scanning children, searching old women and making nursing mothers drink their own breastmilk
The breastmilk-drinking bit was certainly asinine and a violation of the woman's rights. However, the refusal to exempt old women and children from searches was actually a good security decision. When certain classes of people are systematically excluded from searches, a smart attacker will exploit that exclusion to carry out his attack. Even if he can't recruit an old woman or a child to his cause directly, he probably can get one to carry something through the checkpoint for him, whether knowingly or not. An effective search campaign must include random target selection, preferably in combination with targeted selection based on risk factors.
That having been said, I agree with your main point, that Senator Kennedy's troubles with the no-fly list do not bode well for the average citizen who happens to find himself so listed.
I would be very surprised if there were pricing information in the contract because that would make some very nice evidence for price fixing. More likely the license that RIAA collects from Real is fixed and Real is welcome to charge whatever they want.
Especially considering that many RIAA members just settled last year a class-action lawsuit alleging price fixing via "Minimum Advertised Price" policies.
Definitely a cool game. I haven't been able to get it to run under Win98/2000/XP though :(
Yeah, I'm thinking about it too. I started playing a few months after launch, and basically stopped when I got accepted into EQ beta 3. I was basically just logging in to my UO account to refresh my house, until I forgot one week and it decayed. So I canceled my account and just played EQ for a while.
When I got tired of EQ (I really hated the way the game was stacked so heavily against solo play), I took a while off from MMOGs, but eventually went back to UO, rebuilt a couple of good characters, bought a house, and just generally enjoyed the world. And then I didn't log in for a week and my house decayed. Again. So I quit. Again.
And now, I'm thinking about going back once more. The thing is, I've played a handful of other MMOGs (EQ, AC, AO, DAOC), but none of them compare to UO in my mind. Of course, it will never be the same as I remember it from way back in the Dread Lord days, but there are still so many things that I miss in other games (housing, vendors, ability to cut trees, shear sheep, etc.).
You know what? I think it is time for me to go back. I'm going to reactivate my account when I get home tonight.
For an example, lets say you have a swimming pool. You put up a fence keep the gate locked. You post signs saying "danger, no lifeguard." You chase away all the neighbor hood kids when they come around, but one climbs in late at night and drowns. You are at fault.
I believe you meant to say "You are not at fault". You would be at fault if you failed to take precautions such as installing a fence, locked gate, etc.
In any event, I'm not sure that the doctrine of attractive nuisance applies here. Pools, construction sites, etc. are inherently dangerous to those who enter them; an internet connection is not (not physically anyway). Also, while you and I may know better, I'd imagine that one could argue rather effectively to nontechnical people (e.g. judge, jury) that an unsecured WAP is not inviting in the sense of a pool, as the WAP is not self-evident to casual passers by.
I'm inclined to agree. The record companies are used to being in complete control of the industry as a result of the high barriers to entry (recording studios, production facilities, distribution networks, retailer and broadcaster covenants, etc.) The networked digital world removes or severely degrades every one of those barriers, which largely invalidates the business model of the traditional recording industry. I'd be scared too, if I were them.
Personally, I just don't buy single-CD albums for $16.99. And I'm sure as hell not going to buy a single-CD's worth of MP3s for that much. With the popularity of stores like Best Buys and Walmart, where the new CDs are something more like $11.99 to $13.99, is anyone actually paying that high of a price?
Mall stores like Sam Goody charge $18.98 for recent-releases (Examples: 1 2 3), and judging from the fact that they're still in business, I guess somebody is paying those prices.
I often see older, back-catalog CDs selling for those prices. I always figured it was because the record industry thought that anyone who was going to buy them was diong so because they really wanted to get that album, and therefore they could milk the customer for more.
I think you're half right - the other half is that for these albums, economies of scale are greatly reduced relative to a current release. Remember that we're not talking about moving unsold existing inventory from the initial production run(s); we're talking about new production (and distribution) to satisfy current demand. Also, remember that the retail price is a function both of wholesale price and retail markup - the retailer needs to set his markup at such a level as to justify the costs of stocking Iron Maiden's Killers instead of devoting that space to more Britney CDs.
When you email them about the problem, they try to explain the free shipping (even when that wasn't even your question) to you. You have to keep emailing them to finally get the overcharge resolved.
The last time I had to go through Amazon tech support, somebody named "Utpal" sent me a canned reply that was at best tangential to my problem. However, when I clicked through the "this did not help me" link that they provide, I got another reply from "Julie F" that was much more helpful and actually relevant to the problem. I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but I'm reminded of Dell for some reason...
Also, the thing about focusing the cursor, if I access my webmail, I often start typing before the page is fully loaded. I type my username, hit tab, and start typing my password. In the middle of my password, IE decides to focus the cursor at the start of the login field, and I type half my password in clear view. Argh!
This isn't actually IE's fault - it's the result of the page designer using javascript to set focus on the username field when the onLoad event fires. Next time, hit <Esc> to stop the page from loading further before typing in the fields. As long as you're only waiting on images to load you should still be able to submit the form.
Also, somebody else already posted this, but get in the habit of hitting <Esc> immediately after <Ctrl>-N, and you won't have to worry about the old page loading before you can finish typing in a URL.
Dumpster?
Exactly. Traditional record companies live and die on their ability to gain exclusive distribution rights to artists' material. This is why they are so threatened by the internet - it provides an alternative means of distribution that lacks the barriers to entry (production lines, physical distribution of product, access to retailers, etc.) that historically have allowed them to maintain their oligopoly.
Unfortunately, they haven't yet taken to heart the fact that a distribution-based business model isn't going to be viable over the long run for media companies, so they continue to fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo rather than adapting their business model to the changing market conditions.
The problem is proving fraudlent or malicious intent. In the case of the accident victim, independent medical review should establish the extent of her injuries, which then allows an objective judgement as to whether her claims of damage are reasonable.
With the RIAA, OTOH, there is no way conclusively to establish the extent of their injuries resulting from P2P filesharing. All we have are a bunch of studies with conflicting conclusions, and it's extremely difficult to establish an objective estimate of the true extent of the damages when every conclusion is based on statistical interpretations.
While the accident victim's claims can be shown by medical authority to have been made with fraudulent intent, the RIAA has statistics showing a correlation between the rise of P2P filesharing and the decline of industry revenues (these numbers are not in dispute, AFAIK). Whether there is causation is another matter entirely, but it appears to me that at present there is as much evidence to support the RIAA's claims as there is to refute them. IOW, while I may believe them to be wrong, I have to admit that they may have a rational basis for their claims, which prevents me from inferring malicious or fraudulent intent on their part.