If Apple's only concern was the privacy of their customers, there's a simple solution to keep everyone happy: hand over the stats instead. No personal identifiable information is directly required by the magazines, at least not unless they intend to perform direct marketing, so all Apple needs to do is aggregate the information they are without doubt gathering for themselves and chop out the private.
They could even analyse it for them, just like a certain major competitor does famously well.
This is an obvious solution. Only one company gets personal data, and that is the company with the highest public profile (hence greatest incentive not to abuse it). Magazines and advertisers get the data they do require. Apple should also be able to achieve substantial scale economies, it already has your account info and it's only paying (if anything) the CC companies once per year. Then there's iTunes' "anonymous usage statistics" data which should be a marketer's wet dream. Apple really should be able to provide for almost zero cost vastly better data (even when anonymous) than most companies get by spending millions.
Frankly I'm stunned Apple doesn't already do this. So much so I'm inclined to assume that they do and TFA has it wrong: more likely the only stickler is that publishers want to be able to send you a mailer in the eventuality that they (or Apple...) pull their product from iTunes. After all, this is without doubt the only reason Apple isn't giving it to them.
Investment appraisal on the back of a napkin, in a rush (family are over) so apologies for mistakes:
Initial investment: $1,900m;
Assume required rate of return (profit): 15%;
Assume 25 years of steady cash inflows;
Assume residual value of building $500m after the 25 years;
All figures before inflation (this is same as assuming cash flows move in line with inflation, so they net off).
The 15% IRR is probably a bit low for Google, but then this is probably a relatively safe investment. 25 years is probably a bit of a long period for Google but a shorter period would probably be more or less offset by increased NPV of the building. After 25 years the discount factor is so high that the value of the building hardly matters.
This suggests the required annual cash inflows (roughly, annual "profit") therefore are of about $292m. Given the 2.9m sq ft so they need to make $101 "profit" per sq ft, per year? I think they have bought a business based around the building, rather than just a building.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure contracts may continue after death, they are only voidable if the contract involves some characteristic personal to the offeror.
Because of this your example is correct, but it is not generally applicable. However there are numerous other possibilities that might often come into play such as frustration of purpose.
In our case I expect "personal characteristic" is arguable either way but I should think it would be extremely easy to word the service agreement in a way that suits whatever Facebook wants. I should think Facebook does not want these accounts there nor would they want their users having to decide whether to de-friend Dad.
IIRC it's even possible to form contract if the offeror dies before receiving acceptance, provided the offeree did not know at the time (I guess this is only possible under unilateral contracts or the postal rule?).
The executor or administrator is basically an agent. Provided they have good authority agents "are" their principal. For example, a company director is an agent of the company and his actions "are" those of the company*.
This can be not only awkward but difficult for practical reasons when the principal is dead, especially for tasks not considered when drawing up the executor's powers.
Basically this law means by default the executor has the same power over the social networking accounts as their principal did when he was alive, so he only needs to prove to Facebook that he is the legal executor. It only means he "owns" the account as much as the principal did.
* There are restrictions though. I'm not sure about the US but here in UK it's more or less a common-sense approach: it might be possible for the company to avoid taking on responsibility for a loan that a director fraudulently put in the company name because it would be generally expected that a bank would perform due diligence checks before lending a large sum. It would be much harder for them to avoid responsibility for debts the same director ran up ordering goods in the company name and delivered to company premises but kept privately.
Presumably the article has been updated, either way in the article there is (now) a prominent link to an image gallery.
The images are rather low-res however, which perhaps contributed to my immediately recalling some of the earliest netbooks that booted into a natty toy-like screen much like this.
While that incarnation is (IMHO) fugly and toy-like, putting key icons on the desktop and avoiding menus is a good idea. I have two computer-illiterate flatmates using Ubuntu and one of the (very few) difficulties they had is they found it hard to find "My Documents". Looking in menus isn't a strong point, thinking about it they are just lists of lists of lists...
That said, they may be overestimating the difficulty for novices with the UI. I have two computer-illiterate flatmates using Ubuntu and the only issues I can recall are needing me to put "My Documents" on the desktop, iTunes and that they were used to Windows automatically saving after rotating their pictures.
So basically we can opt not to be tracked by the companies who actually decide to follow an optional opt-out list? Doesn't that mean I'm only opting out of the companies I'm least bothered about? Worse, make being a (relative) good-guy even less profitable?
Without legislative backing it's at best toothless and at worst counter-productive.
Even legislative backing may be prone to unintended consequences as companies leave for less regulated shores. However I'd expect there would be more of a positive influence as the field is levelled at least among the US companies, and US websites can be made liable for their advertiser.
On the whole though I think it's best left to a technology driven response to consumer demand. Like say, Ad Block, NoScript, Ghostery, Better Privacy... Admittedly it is a bit of a nuisance that there isn't one that combines the best of these, but at least they're largely opt-in (if using available lists).
More to the point perhaps, if every interweb newbie out there is blocking tracking (where I gather most of the ad-money is derived) then who's going to fund all the websites I'm freeloading on?
Defaulting on debts would be an extremely bad position. It's an argument put forward by people who have absolutely no idea about finance.
Even just a default of not paying interest turn bonds into junk and utterly destroys your credit rating. Putting aside potential court battles from investors, the credit rating determines the yield (effectively the interest rate) you have to offer on your future issues. Any more money raised (crucially, this includes refreshing existing debt) suddenly becomes more expensive. Much more expensive - Germany's triple-A puts their bond yields at 3% while Greece is 11%. Ireland hit 9%, though this partially reflects the - hopefully temporary - uncertainty. Britain, which was never quite as bad as Ireland but I'll grudgingly accept reacted on the whole swiftly and decisively is around 4.5%. These rates reflect the market's perceived risk of default.
The effect of actually defaulting can last a very long time, investors will factor in your history of default probably for a generation or more.
Regardless, there seems to be this underlying relief that bond holders are responsible. Bond holders merely loan the government money, in normal times it's considered the risk-free rate, basically the equivalent of a bank account for large institutions. They didn't put Ireland in this mess, their government did, and the people didn't stop them. Maybe the unions should consider that the vast majority of the bond holders are their own pension schemes.
The argument about corporate taxes is a separate one. It's a complex situation because on the one hand, corporations do use resources and need to pay their way. On the other, they pay taxes, create tax-paying jobs, pay taxable dividends and inject capital into the economy which turns around a few times (similar to multiplier effect). Last I checked, Ireland doesn't really have much to attract corporations - minimal natural resources, geographically disadvantaged in moving goods into continental Europe, and a labour force that is reasonably skilled but a bit expensive (i.e. not particularly competitive). That leaves the almost sole competitive advantage being... Taxes.
For an analogy, say you rent a room in someone else's home. The property isn't especially fantastic and is not in a great area (actually it's a bit of a nuisance getting to work and friends), you would only describe your relationship to the homeowner as one of a landlord & tenant and there are lots of other people offering rooms to let - you only chose this place because it was cheapest. The landlord notifies you that the mortgage rate has increased so he wants to put the rent up. Wouldn't you be house-hunting tomorrow?
Corporations are not our friends. We use corporations and they use us.
What do you want to bet that serious and well-planned out crimes won't include:
Goldman Sachs UK (where to start) Paypal UK (seizure of users' money without refund) Microsoft UK (organized monopoly abuse) Intel UK (organized monopoly abuse) and anyone else who's a paymaster?
There are other organisations for that, such as the Competition Commission. Though organisations of that size are more likely to be referred to the EU Competition Commission, who have (very widely reported) successful antitrust cases against Microsoft and Intel in the last few years.
SOCA on the other hand is more like the US Drug Enforcement Agency, a largely intelligence-led agency dealing with mainly criminal gangs - particularily "class A drugs, people smuggling and human trafficking, major gun crime, fraud, computer crime and money laundering", usually teaming up with other specialised agencies. For example, if you make a formal report under the anti-money laundering regulations it goes to SOCA, who make initial investigations then often pass it on to a more specific agency. Since they deal with money laundering, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were round at Goldman Sachs and especially Paypal quite often, albeit investigating customers rather than the company.
Try spending some time with them. Most of my memories of my granddad are either with him showing me how to make stuff with the tools in his garage or him walking about carrying the dog we got him.
Of my 4 nephews there's only one big (3) and local enough to get much fun time with and he's happiest on the trampoline, in the park (though he's very gregarious) and being taught things - going anywhere new but not overwhelming such as the gardens or zoo makes for good material (though always be sure to be able to get them back to the car quickly because they tire like an epic sugar crash).
You might discover that they're not really all that excited about the unremarkable bits of plastic per se. Kids are extraordinarily creative and have a relatively empty canvas, us adults can't hope to recall how powerful our imaginations once were because now all our thoughts follow constructs.
I think that it should be the case for all country all the time, all department should have a drill down budget up the spending. Yes that would add an extra layer but you could remove all the "inspector" and "auditor" because if all data is online, the population and journalism will do that job. Also, many spending will be avoid because they will know it will be fully available online!
If I had points I'd mod this funny, though I'm not sure whether it's intentional or just me being a cynical auditor.
When information is released publicly, controls are certainly not relaxed over it due to some notion that the public will do the work for you. What happens is control is ramped up to absurd levels because to the organisation public examination is not a control - it is a threat. The perceived risk actually becomes much higher. Any organisation puts vastly more controls over a press release than it does an internal memo because the consequences of a gaffe are vastly greater.
Currently, most organisations take a balanced approach to risk and control. Control is expensive, time-consuming and in excess makes the organisation sluggish - pretty much the definition of bureaucracy. Risks have to be responded to reasonably, there has to be a net saving once the costs of control are deducted from the savings made by that control.
The transactions being disclosed are also unlikely to qualify as "information"; without context it's just data. Something that looks suspect may have a perfectly reasonable explanation, but getting that explanation means querying the organisation. Despite the detailed planning memo, internal meetings and the previous-year's file in my hand, for every hour I'm on audit I guess I take up at least half an hour of a (mostly senior) member of staff's time, and this is without them having to triple-check their responses because it's going public. Yet more expense incurred by the organisation responding to queries.
And lets be honest here, the vast majority of the public have extremely little knowledge either of accounting generally or the specific organisation. This is why we use highly qualified and experienced professional auditors.
In any case, the observer effect is often not desirable. Do you want managers making decisions in the best interests of the public or wholly concerned about how it may be manipulated in the tabloids? Again, balance is required because monitoring itself can lead to undesired effects.
There certainly is good argument for giving the public information they require, it is taxpayers money after all. But as with everything there has to be balance - no sensible person claims that in order for speech to be free you have to be free to shout fire in a theatre. Simply having the books available for inspection at the place of business (rather than on the internet) would be quite an effective way to filter out time-wasters while upholding the principle of free access.
My parents shouldn't be subsidizing my brother-in-law.
But your brother-in-law is also subsidizing your parents.
An internet connection has a substantial fixed cost in the infrastructure and overheads in addition to the variable cost that the ISP pays for the actual data.
The fee he pays each month includes an element to cover a share of the fixed costs plus an element to cover the average data usage costs (we can ignore profit because you'd include "normal" profit in either your fixed or variable costs, depending on industry). Lets say* he pays $30/m comprising $25 share of fixed costs and $5 average data costs.
However, his incremental cost is pretty much only the variable costs - he personally has negligible impact on the infrastructure requirements. Because the fixed cost is so substantial, his data usage costs can considerably exceed the average and yet he remains a net contributor. Assuming "costs" above includes a reasonable profit for the ISP, his data costs can be as much as $30. For a more in-depth explanation look up MC=MR.
Sure, your parents may be subsidizing him more than he is them, but that ignores the point that primarily what they're paying for is access to the internet. OK, so a really heavy user with bittorrent always loaded can make him a net cost, even moreso if his level is so high as to actually require equipment with greater capacity. Here he should fairly pay more, though I think it's fair to say most people accept that with flat fees there are relative winners and losers, but even the losers are OK with this to a point because they value the convenience of the flat fee.
For the obligatory car analogy, lets say you share a private lane with one neighbour and after a bad winter it requires to be resurfaced. He's always out and about so travels the road much more than you do, but wear & tear from driving is trivial. Should he pay more? No, you both need and are paying for access to the road, usage is inconsequential.
* Yeah I did have a go trying to get some cost figures from an ISP's financials for a representative split, but quickly gave up.
Actually, they didn't. Even a basic check, like reading the press release, tells you what they did.
Infoweek made at best a gaffe. They took the figures for the 3 months ended 30 Sept 2009 originally stated and compared them to the 30 Sept 2010 figures recently released, even though right beside those 2010 figures are the 30 Sept 2009 figures updated to reflect the new accounting policy.
Calculating using the figures sitting side-by-side, this change in policy does not distort growth. This what accounting rules require (at least under IFRS, I can't imagine US GAAP does differently), and why. MS also used the revised policy in the %'s given in the press release, so they are both under the same policies. Nowhere in the PR does MS refer to the faulty figures Infoweek is complaining about. Infoweek's article is all about them realising that they were using the wrong figures but not realising that it was due to their own mistake.
For Infoweek to compare against the wrong figures they had to ignore the comparatives given right there in a spreadsheet file given by MS and instead go find an old file, and ignore the prominent disclosure given to the change in the press release that provides the link to the filing:
In addition, we have recast certain prior period amounts within our Form 10-Q that conforms to the way we internally managed and monitored segment performance during the current fiscal year.
As for the deferral of income from Vista sales with W7 upgrade packs, that follows accounting rules too (well, assuming they calculated it properly). Regardless, the entire second paragraph is dedicated to explaining the impact of the accounting rule and even removing it to show the underlying performance:
Prior year results reflect the deferral of $1.47 billion of revenue, an impact of $0.12 of diluted earnings per share, relating to the Windows 7 Upgrade Option program and sales of Windows 7 to OEMs and retailers before general availability in October 2009. Without the deferral in the prior year, first-quarter growth rates for revenue and operating income were 13% and 20%, and growth in net income and earnings per share were 16% and 19%, respectively.
Oh and there's reconciliations and everything in the accompanying slides. Infoweek's "exclusive" refers to their mistake regarding policy changes that were very prominently disclosed.
I know MS isn't exactly celebrated around here, but posting this kind of thing detracts considerably from the credibility of the more valid criticisms.
Cash for clunkers scheme in the UK was part of a near-global initiative to save the auto industry at a time when it's collapse would have been it's most damaging to the economy and society - during a global economic crisis. The scheme did cost quite a lot of money, but did save industry and jobs that were viable in the long term*. It also helped move people towards greener and more fuel-efficient cars. Furthermore the money was basically going straight to consumers/tax payers.
In TFA no such arguments are given; in fact he even states that he hasn't even "done the math" as to how it'd help fast-forward IPv6 adoption. At best he seems to believe that tax payer's money needs to be given to encourage corporations to do exactly what they're in the business of doing. If you want my tax payer money you have to detail what benefit us tax payers are getting from paying them to do now what they're going to have to do anyway?
* American readers may have Chrysler and the like in mind, who have fundamental problems of their own making and throwing cash at them may be more questionable. The situation is not the same in Europe.
I know the GP started it, but this isn't the time for nationalism - things are going to shit on both sides of the Atlantic, and trying to argue that one side is doing better or worse is not productive; they're bad in different ways.
To paraphrase your post "People in the UK look at stuff that goes on in the US... teens being charged as sex offenders for taking pictures of themselves, or strip searched at school for carrying a headache pill...".
In my experience, Britain is more susceptible to allowing 'big brother' style intrusions from the government, while the US is more likely to get caught up in moral panics. Not to say that either country is immune to either problem, of course.
America looks at some of Britain's free speech violations and shakes their head at how the likes of this could never happen with the constitution for protection, while Britain looks back at America and wonders how much more power the fire-and-brimstone Christian minority can seize.
Yeah I'm tempted to draw the same conclusions. But, even if we were make the dubious assumption that media reporting is generally excellent, bear in mind it is logical that there be an inverse relationship between reporting and the actual general position. By nature media reports on things that are unusual or exceptional, so if it was common for UK teenagers to be charged for sexting it'd rarely be covered, while US media might prominently report every one of the very rare instances of it happening there.
The real story to take from OP is not that you can be convicted for making silly jokes about bombing in the UK, but that the public is shocked by what is seen as an anomaly and sufficiently confident in the judicial system's ability to make this right that they go and make the same joke.
But they do announce their atrocities in advance, because it's the only sure way that they will be getting credit for it.
The primary reason was PR. Killing innocent folk did not achieve their goals. The Omagh bombing was a notable disaster for the IRA. They could not get a parking spot by the planned target then gave multiple confused warnings. The police then unwittingly ushered people towards the bomb. The resulting atrocity was a major factor in the success of the Peace Process.
You're suggesting rich people should be penalised [sic] more on the abstract basis that they happen to be more wealthy?
Isn't there already a precedent in the United States Tax Code for this?
On first look, progressive and even flat-rate taxes can appear to punish the wealthy and award the poor.
However, wealth is generated from society. Those with the most wealth have not only benefited the most but consumed the most. If you own your business, you benefit from a good local state-ran school because your employees, customers and suppliers send their children there. If there were no state-ran schools your employees would demand greater remuneration, your suppliers greater profits and your customers would buy less because they would have the additional expense of schooling. The quality of the school in the past has also affected the quality of your workforce and the incomes of your customers.
You're suggesting rich people should be penalised more on the abstract basis that they happen to be more wealthy? Their wealth has no relevance to the act committed nor the damage done. Should men be given slightly shorter sentences because they live shorter lives than women?
The notion that anyone should be specifically made bankrupt for committing copyright infringement is also troubling. If they made their entire income out of an illegal activity then sure I have no sympathy if bankruptcy results, but this should always incidental to the objective of taking back ill-gotten gains, not vengeance.
The circumstances of file-sharing often suggest a civil breach, implying the copyright holder should be re-compensated for losses. Downloading an album that's $10 retail should be double damages i.e. $20 plus reasonable costs of the pursuer (and their own costs, of course). Seriously, $62,500 per song when you could steal - denying a rightful owner from his property - the relevant CD's from a shop and probably be given a $200 fine and a warning?
The problem is the method of file-sharing, if it involves uploading files, is also consistent with begin accessory to commercial-scale piracy. We tend to think of organisations as one big formal company or whatever in the centre with a few suppliers and a huge number of small customers. But organisations also exist where the structure can be described as a huge number of small customers and small suppliers interlinked similar to how bit-torrent users can be. File-sharing can appear to be absolutely huge scale commercial piracy from one perspective and yet from another perspective merely enjoying a few songs that haven't been paid for.
A curious aspect of this is that by adding my mother to my car insurance, my premium went down, even though my usage of the car isn't going to change and the risk remains the same, because statistically men who have a woman on their insurance are less likely to have an accident.
My mother (who has never had a claim) put me (male) on her insurance and her premium went down noticeably - I wasn't just a "named driver" to be covered for 3rd party, fire & theft either, she put me down for comprehensive cover.
This was most surprising since she has a perfect history, I was in my early-to-mid 20's (though just older than the "young driver" risk threshold, apparently) and having two drivers implied a car being used more, even if it was just when visiting. She'd also had my sister (~30, but had a car stolen) down in the past and the premiums had gone up significantly.
The employee said that while my profile was relatively higher risk, I was still considered low risk and this was more than offset by the reduction from having two drivers - any two drivers - down for a car.
Granted, that doesn't disprove your point and perhaps the reduction would have been even greater in an otherwise identical scenario where the genders were reversed. However I suspect it is more accurate to suggest there are two relevant factors: firstly a premium is added based on the risk profile of the second driver, where gender matters, and secondly a "two driver discount" is applied where gender is not an issue (or at least there is still some discount even if male).
In short, readers may wish to consider getting a quote to add their partner, or be added to their partner's insurance, regardless of gender.
It usually is civil. Contracts are rules that the parties to the contract have made up and agreed to be bound by. That means it's up to those parties to take them to court. The police generally have no duty nor authority to act in civil matters.
The police primarily exist to enforce criminal laws. If you like you can consider criminal laws to be rules that you and all of society are bound by. If you're in breach, society takes you to court - they just have a special department to handle it, called the police. The police have special powers but on the other hand there is (supposedly at least) an inherent assumption that you are innocent and must be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, unlike in civil cases where there is no assumption and verdict is on the balance.
Fraud can be complex in that it can be one or both of civil and criminal. I'm not a lawyer but my understanding is that fraud which is fundamentally theft is criminal while fraud that is more like cheating on a contract is civil. Additionally there may be duties for the police that is related to a civil matter, but this will be some incidental activity where there is actual or potential crime, and the police will only be interested in that incidental activity.
I hope that they referenced utilitarianism in the article and I hope that they recognize utilitarianism can be used to justify evil things including letting a few starve so everyone else can live.
That isn't even a dilemma, if the choice is a few or everybody (including said few) then you're not even sacrificing the few, they're dying anyway so you can only be said to be saving the others.
It turns into a dilemma when you have an option to save the many which involves causing a few other innocent passers-by to die. This is much more interesting, with so many potential permutations with which to examine our resolve. Though rather morbid if we keep death central to our test.
Neither scenario is really relevant to utilitarianism though. A more common criticism is similar to saying that allowing a few to starve so that many people can live significantly better. Like, if it's -1,000 utils for starving someone, but 100 people benefit by 10 utils then the act under utilitarianism could be said to be morally neutral. It's a silly argument because you're criticising the weighting and measurement applied, not the logic behind the principle. All you need to do is say that starving someone is -1m utils and then you don't want to answer now that the question is whether it's worth 100,000 people living in misery just so that 1 can stay alive.
But utilitarianism should never be some attempt to turn morality into maths, no matter how accurate you think you can make the equation and the measurements involved. It's an attempt to introduce a relatively objective guide, something you can use to test the choice you have made by looking at it from a different perspective and seeing if you're still OK with it.
School hours are largely dictated by the parent's working hours and childcare. Delaying the start to 10 simply means some kind of provision to house the kids from 8-10 because most parents want to have kids on the bus before they leave for work, or to drop them off on their way to work. That also means kids are getting out of bed at the same early time and just schooling until later, when they'll be more tired. Many schools already now have activities to take care of many kids after 3 - the school I'm auditing now can take care of them until 6 and has about a 30% uptake... Plus other options are more easily available in the afternoon such as going to a friend's house. Parents are also more bothered about ensuring their kids do get off to school than what happens afterwards.
For those parents who work hours to suit their kids' schooling, there's also the employer factor. In salary jobs if people want to change hours the employer is generally much more receptive to an earlier than a later start & finish. Part-time workers are also generally required to work mornings rather than afternoons.
Bear in mind that studies on schools starting at 10 are prone to showing changes because it's a study. Parents are more willing to adapt and make special effort to the later start because it's unusual, interesting and temporary. While pilots often have teething trouble, they also tend to be received with much greater tolerance simply because it's a pilot.
Not forgetting the teachers, who now would have to start doing marking and planning lessons at 5 instead of 3. Sure, they could do it in the morning but firstly there's those pre-school classes and secondly there's no opportunity to extend the time if it takes longer than the 2 hours available.
Actually, some schools are reporting positively about breakfast clubs. Opening up early to accommodate parents who want to drop them off and also breakfast that qualifies for those on free school meals.
Look, the only way tiny hard drives make sense is for Grandma who doesn't use computers for anything but email and web surfing. [...] In a corporate world fast booting SSD machines can latch onto the network for all of their storage needs, that's fine, because the corporate net can probably handle the load.
I suspect you're discounting heavily the purchasing power of the corporate world. My work PC has Windows and a couple of productivity software installs and everything else is on the network, and all but my smallest clients do the same. 40gb is ample.
I suspect you're also discounting too heavily the amount of "Grandma" computer users. Most people don't use a computer for much more than email and web surfing. OK so often there's a large number of photo and video files, but they're recorded on phones or cheap point-and-shoot stills cameras - the file sizes are still small. Other than gamers and torrent users all the home computers I've looked at have small usage - I can't recall ever needing more than 3 DVDs to backup their data. Even the ones with huge numbers of photos were suggesting deleting them since their folders are full of all the crap and all the ones they want are on Facebook.
Not forgetting that for both the corporate and "Grandma" users, generally their top 10 computer annoyances include boot-up times and how slow their computers are (by which they usually mean the system does not feel snappy and things take a while to load, raw CPU power often isn't an issue). This is even when excluding the virus infestations and pigsties.
SSDs actually make a lot of sense for a lot of people. More sense than buying big spinning disks that sit 90% unused. Even for folks like me that do use quite a lot of space, SSD for boot disks are starting to make sense. I think we're a long ways out from big consumer hard drives heading into history, but the time when SSDs come as default and platters are an option at Dell probably isn't that far off.
Broadly on the ball here. The poorest pay little or no tax, the middle classes get hammered and many of the richest are in a good position to be, uh, efficient with their taxes*1.
It's still naive analysis though. The poorest also directly take the most from the state both in terms of money benefits and services used. If you only look at direct tax revenue and expenditure there's a huge chunk of people who are by far a net cost, even before considering expenditure that everyone benefits from indirectly e.g. defence. The more money you make the more tax you pay and the less benefit you receive and you move into being a net contributor. Rich folk who pay their taxes shell out a ton of money and get back almost nothing.
On the other hand... The richer you are then usually the more you benefit indirectly, that is through the benefits other people (employees, customers, etc) get. Public transport is an easy example. If the state heavily subsidises a good bus service then your employees get to work cheaply and since they're spending less on transport customers have more money to buy stuff from you (pus there's more room on the roads for your limo).
*1: From experience (I'm a practising accountant in the UK) say you have a sizeable random sample of self-employed people, and categorised them into 3 groups making "poor", "decent" and "great" profits. I'd place money that:
- at least 1/4 of the poorer guys are outright evading tax (usually by significantly underdeclaring income). It's amazing how little some people can live on while still having a decent address, car and clothing - and how dedicated they are in choosing to stay self-employed when flipping burgers pays twice as much.
- most of the decent profit-makers are only doing basic legit tax-reduction steps and at most 5% of them are actually cheating (most of them not by much, though I might be under-representing by counting the biggest cheaters as "poor" profit guys);
- all of the rich guys are making a significant effort to be legally "tax efficient" and maybe 1% will be actually evading tax illegally (though it would be by a lot).
Employees on the other hand will be hammered for tax, basically the only cheating you get is a handful of people taking cash in hand and not declaring it. These people are probably at highest risk of being caught too.
Granted, Star Office, both program and company, were bought by Sun, but a lot of the work was done well before Sun stepped in and bought it.
This is the same as Sun, er, Oracle having "done" the work. The resources, value, risk & rewards or whatever you want to call it that constitute having "done" the work passed along with the ownership. To suggest otherwise is analogous to saying that if John Doe, the employee at StarDivision who physically performed most of the work, resigns to join another company, StarDivision can no longer be said to have done the work.
It may (or maybe not, I don't know) be historical fact that StarDivision did 90% of the work, but the context of the thread is we're interested in attributing that work to the present-day position, which means following it up through the changes in company ownership. The rest is fundamentally just a change in logos. It's not strictly relevant but it may help to consider that key StarDivision staff on the project might still be in the employ of Oracle, still working on the project.
Slashdot Mirror
If Apple's only concern was the privacy of their customers, there's a simple solution to keep everyone happy: hand over the stats instead. No personal identifiable information is directly required by the magazines, at least not unless they intend to perform direct marketing, so all Apple needs to do is aggregate the information they are without doubt gathering for themselves and chop out the private.
They could even analyse it for them, just like a certain major competitor does famously well.
This is an obvious solution. Only one company gets personal data, and that is the company with the highest public profile (hence greatest incentive not to abuse it). Magazines and advertisers get the data they do require. Apple should also be able to achieve substantial scale economies, it already has your account info and it's only paying (if anything) the CC companies once per year. Then there's iTunes' "anonymous usage statistics" data which should be a marketer's wet dream. Apple really should be able to provide for almost zero cost vastly better data (even when anonymous) than most companies get by spending millions.
Frankly I'm stunned Apple doesn't already do this. So much so I'm inclined to assume that they do and TFA has it wrong: more likely the only stickler is that publishers want to be able to send you a mailer in the eventuality that they (or Apple...) pull their product from iTunes. After all, this is without doubt the only reason Apple isn't giving it to them.
Investment appraisal on the back of a napkin, in a rush (family are over) so apologies for mistakes:
Initial investment: $1,900m;
Assume required rate of return (profit): 15%;
Assume 25 years of steady cash inflows;
Assume residual value of building $500m after the 25 years;
All figures before inflation (this is same as assuming cash flows move in line with inflation, so they net off).
The 15% IRR is probably a bit low for Google, but then this is probably a relatively safe investment. 25 years is probably a bit of a long period for Google but a shorter period would probably be more or less offset by increased NPV of the building. After 25 years the discount factor is so high that the value of the building hardly matters.
This suggests the required annual cash inflows (roughly, annual "profit") therefore are of about $292m. Given the 2.9m sq ft so they need to make $101 "profit" per sq ft, per year? I think they have bought a business based around the building, rather than just a building.
I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure contracts may continue after death, they are only voidable if the contract involves some characteristic personal to the offeror.
Because of this your example is correct, but it is not generally applicable. However there are numerous other possibilities that might often come into play such as frustration of purpose.
In our case I expect "personal characteristic" is arguable either way but I should think it would be extremely easy to word the service agreement in a way that suits whatever Facebook wants. I should think Facebook does not want these accounts there nor would they want their users having to decide whether to de-friend Dad.
IIRC it's even possible to form contract if the offeror dies before receiving acceptance, provided the offeree did not know at the time (I guess this is only possible under unilateral contracts or the postal rule?).
The executor or administrator is basically an agent. Provided they have good authority agents "are" their principal. For example, a company director is an agent of the company and his actions "are" those of the company*.
This can be not only awkward but difficult for practical reasons when the principal is dead, especially for tasks not considered when drawing up the executor's powers.
Basically this law means by default the executor has the same power over the social networking accounts as their principal did when he was alive, so he only needs to prove to Facebook that he is the legal executor. It only means he "owns" the account as much as the principal did.
* There are restrictions though. I'm not sure about the US but here in UK it's more or less a common-sense approach: it might be possible for the company to avoid taking on responsibility for a loan that a director fraudulently put in the company name because it would be generally expected that a bank would perform due diligence checks before lending a large sum. It would be much harder for them to avoid responsibility for debts the same director ran up ordering goods in the company name and delivered to company premises but kept privately.
Presumably the article has been updated, either way in the article there is (now) a prominent link to an image gallery.
The images are rather low-res however, which perhaps contributed to my immediately recalling some of the earliest netbooks that booted into a natty toy-like screen much like this.
While that incarnation is (IMHO) fugly and toy-like, putting key icons on the desktop and avoiding menus is a good idea. I have two computer-illiterate flatmates using Ubuntu and one of the (very few) difficulties they had is they found it hard to find "My Documents". Looking in menus isn't a strong point, thinking about it they are just lists of lists of lists...
That said, they may be overestimating the difficulty for novices with the UI. I have two computer-illiterate flatmates using Ubuntu and the only issues I can recall are needing me to put "My Documents" on the desktop, iTunes and that they were used to Windows automatically saving after rotating their pictures.
So basically we can opt not to be tracked by the companies who actually decide to follow an optional opt-out list? Doesn't that mean I'm only opting out of the companies I'm least bothered about? Worse, make being a (relative) good-guy even less profitable?
Without legislative backing it's at best toothless and at worst counter-productive.
Even legislative backing may be prone to unintended consequences as companies leave for less regulated shores. However I'd expect there would be more of a positive influence as the field is levelled at least among the US companies, and US websites can be made liable for their advertiser.
On the whole though I think it's best left to a technology driven response to consumer demand. Like say, Ad Block, NoScript, Ghostery, Better Privacy... Admittedly it is a bit of a nuisance that there isn't one that combines the best of these, but at least they're largely opt-in (if using available lists).
More to the point perhaps, if every interweb newbie out there is blocking tracking (where I gather most of the ad-money is derived) then who's going to fund all the websites I'm freeloading on?
Defaulting on debts would be an extremely bad position. It's an argument put forward by people who have absolutely no idea about finance.
Even just a default of not paying interest turn bonds into junk and utterly destroys your credit rating. Putting aside potential court battles from investors, the credit rating determines the yield (effectively the interest rate) you have to offer on your future issues. Any more money raised (crucially, this includes refreshing existing debt) suddenly becomes more expensive. Much more expensive - Germany's triple-A puts their bond yields at 3% while Greece is 11%. Ireland hit 9%, though this partially reflects the - hopefully temporary - uncertainty. Britain, which was never quite as bad as Ireland but I'll grudgingly accept reacted on the whole swiftly and decisively is around 4.5%. These rates reflect the market's perceived risk of default.
The effect of actually defaulting can last a very long time, investors will factor in your history of default probably for a generation or more.
Regardless, there seems to be this underlying relief that bond holders are responsible. Bond holders merely loan the government money, in normal times it's considered the risk-free rate, basically the equivalent of a bank account for large institutions. They didn't put Ireland in this mess, their government did, and the people didn't stop them. Maybe the unions should consider that the vast majority of the bond holders are their own pension schemes.
The argument about corporate taxes is a separate one. It's a complex situation because on the one hand, corporations do use resources and need to pay their way. On the other, they pay taxes, create tax-paying jobs, pay taxable dividends and inject capital into the economy which turns around a few times (similar to multiplier effect). Last I checked, Ireland doesn't really have much to attract corporations - minimal natural resources, geographically disadvantaged in moving goods into continental Europe, and a labour force that is reasonably skilled but a bit expensive (i.e. not particularly competitive). That leaves the almost sole competitive advantage being... Taxes.
For an analogy, say you rent a room in someone else's home. The property isn't especially fantastic and is not in a great area (actually it's a bit of a nuisance getting to work and friends), you would only describe your relationship to the homeowner as one of a landlord & tenant and there are lots of other people offering rooms to let - you only chose this place because it was cheapest. The landlord notifies you that the mortgage rate has increased so he wants to put the rent up. Wouldn't you be house-hunting tomorrow?
Corporations are not our friends. We use corporations and they use us.
What do you want to bet that serious and well-planned out crimes won't include:
Goldman Sachs UK (where to start)
Paypal UK (seizure of users' money without refund)
Microsoft UK (organized monopoly abuse)
Intel UK (organized monopoly abuse)
and anyone else who's a paymaster?
There are other organisations for that, such as the Competition Commission. Though organisations of that size are more likely to be referred to the EU Competition Commission, who have (very widely reported) successful antitrust cases against Microsoft and Intel in the last few years.
SOCA on the other hand is more like the US Drug Enforcement Agency, a largely intelligence-led agency dealing with mainly criminal gangs - particularily "class A drugs, people smuggling and human trafficking, major gun crime, fraud, computer crime and money laundering", usually teaming up with other specialised agencies. For example, if you make a formal report under the anti-money laundering regulations it goes to SOCA, who make initial investigations then often pass it on to a more specific agency. Since they deal with money laundering, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were round at Goldman Sachs and especially Paypal quite often, albeit investigating customers rather than the company.
Try spending some time with them. Most of my memories of my granddad are either with him showing me how to make stuff with the tools in his garage or him walking about carrying the dog we got him.
Of my 4 nephews there's only one big (3) and local enough to get much fun time with and he's happiest on the trampoline, in the park (though he's very gregarious) and being taught things - going anywhere new but not overwhelming such as the gardens or zoo makes for good material (though always be sure to be able to get them back to the car quickly because they tire like an epic sugar crash).
You might discover that they're not really all that excited about the unremarkable bits of plastic per se. Kids are extraordinarily creative and have a relatively empty canvas, us adults can't hope to recall how powerful our imaginations once were because now all our thoughts follow constructs.
I think I could spend 2 years in min security prison for 5-10 mil and be happy about it.
Better enjoy it quickly - ill-gotten gains are confiscated. Here in UK under the Proceeds of Crime Act, I gather the US has something similar.
I think that it should be the case for all country all the time, all department should have a drill down budget up the spending. Yes that would add an extra layer but you could remove all the "inspector" and "auditor" because if all data is online, the population and journalism will do that job. Also, many spending will be avoid because they will know it will be fully available online!
If I had points I'd mod this funny, though I'm not sure whether it's intentional or just me being a cynical auditor.
When information is released publicly, controls are certainly not relaxed over it due to some notion that the public will do the work for you. What happens is control is ramped up to absurd levels because to the organisation public examination is not a control - it is a threat. The perceived risk actually becomes much higher. Any organisation puts vastly more controls over a press release than it does an internal memo because the consequences of a gaffe are vastly greater.
Currently, most organisations take a balanced approach to risk and control. Control is expensive, time-consuming and in excess makes the organisation sluggish - pretty much the definition of bureaucracy. Risks have to be responded to reasonably, there has to be a net saving once the costs of control are deducted from the savings made by that control.
The transactions being disclosed are also unlikely to qualify as "information"; without context it's just data. Something that looks suspect may have a perfectly reasonable explanation, but getting that explanation means querying the organisation. Despite the detailed planning memo, internal meetings and the previous-year's file in my hand, for every hour I'm on audit I guess I take up at least half an hour of a (mostly senior) member of staff's time, and this is without them having to triple-check their responses because it's going public. Yet more expense incurred by the organisation responding to queries.
And lets be honest here, the vast majority of the public have extremely little knowledge either of accounting generally or the specific organisation. This is why we use highly qualified and experienced professional auditors.
In any case, the observer effect is often not desirable. Do you want managers making decisions in the best interests of the public or wholly concerned about how it may be manipulated in the tabloids? Again, balance is required because monitoring itself can lead to undesired effects.
There certainly is good argument for giving the public information they require, it is taxpayers money after all. But as with everything there has to be balance - no sensible person claims that in order for speech to be free you have to be free to shout fire in a theatre. Simply having the books available for inspection at the place of business (rather than on the internet) would be quite an effective way to filter out time-wasters while upholding the principle of free access.
My parents shouldn't be subsidizing my brother-in-law.
But your brother-in-law is also subsidizing your parents.
An internet connection has a substantial fixed cost in the infrastructure and overheads in addition to the variable cost that the ISP pays for the actual data.
The fee he pays each month includes an element to cover a share of the fixed costs plus an element to cover the average data usage costs (we can ignore profit because you'd include "normal" profit in either your fixed or variable costs, depending on industry). Lets say* he pays $30/m comprising $25 share of fixed costs and $5 average data costs.
However, his incremental cost is pretty much only the variable costs - he personally has negligible impact on the infrastructure requirements. Because the fixed cost is so substantial, his data usage costs can considerably exceed the average and yet he remains a net contributor. Assuming "costs" above includes a reasonable profit for the ISP, his data costs can be as much as $30. For a more in-depth explanation look up MC=MR.
Sure, your parents may be subsidizing him more than he is them, but that ignores the point that primarily what they're paying for is access to the internet. OK, so a really heavy user with bittorrent always loaded can make him a net cost, even moreso if his level is so high as to actually require equipment with greater capacity. Here he should fairly pay more, though I think it's fair to say most people accept that with flat fees there are relative winners and losers, but even the losers are OK with this to a point because they value the convenience of the flat fee.
For the obligatory car analogy, lets say you share a private lane with one neighbour and after a bad winter it requires to be resurfaced. He's always out and about so travels the road much more than you do, but wear & tear from driving is trivial. Should he pay more? No, you both need and are paying for access to the road, usage is inconsequential.
* Yeah I did have a go trying to get some cost figures from an ISP's financials for a representative split, but quickly gave up.
Actually, they didn't. Even a basic check, like reading the press release, tells you what they did.
Infoweek made at best a gaffe. They took the figures for the 3 months ended 30 Sept 2009 originally stated and compared them to the 30 Sept 2010 figures recently released, even though right beside those 2010 figures are the 30 Sept 2009 figures updated to reflect the new accounting policy.
Calculating using the figures sitting side-by-side, this change in policy does not distort growth. This what accounting rules require (at least under IFRS, I can't imagine US GAAP does differently), and why. MS also used the revised policy in the %'s given in the press release, so they are both under the same policies. Nowhere in the PR does MS refer to the faulty figures Infoweek is complaining about. Infoweek's article is all about them realising that they were using the wrong figures but not realising that it was due to their own mistake.
For Infoweek to compare against the wrong figures they had to ignore the comparatives given right there in a spreadsheet file given by MS and instead go find an old file, and ignore the prominent disclosure given to the change in the press release that provides the link to the filing:
In addition, we have recast certain prior period amounts within our Form 10-Q that conforms to the way we internally managed and monitored segment performance during the current fiscal year.
As for the deferral of income from Vista sales with W7 upgrade packs, that follows accounting rules too (well, assuming they calculated it properly). Regardless, the entire second paragraph is dedicated to explaining the impact of the accounting rule and even removing it to show the underlying performance:
Prior year results reflect the deferral of $1.47 billion of revenue, an impact of $0.12 of diluted earnings per share, relating to the Windows 7 Upgrade Option program and sales of Windows 7 to OEMs and retailers before general availability in October 2009. Without the deferral in the prior year, first-quarter growth rates for revenue and operating income were 13% and 20%, and growth in net income and earnings per share were 16% and 19%, respectively.
Oh and there's reconciliations and everything in the accompanying slides. Infoweek's "exclusive" refers to their mistake regarding policy changes that were very prominently disclosed.
I know MS isn't exactly celebrated around here, but posting this kind of thing detracts considerably from the credibility of the more valid criticisms.
Cash for clunkers scheme in the UK was part of a near-global initiative to save the auto industry at a time when it's collapse would have been it's most damaging to the economy and society - during a global economic crisis. The scheme did cost quite a lot of money, but did save industry and jobs that were viable in the long term*. It also helped move people towards greener and more fuel-efficient cars. Furthermore the money was basically going straight to consumers/tax payers.
In TFA no such arguments are given; in fact he even states that he hasn't even "done the math" as to how it'd help fast-forward IPv6 adoption. At best he seems to believe that tax payer's money needs to be given to encourage corporations to do exactly what they're in the business of doing. If you want my tax payer money you have to detail what benefit us tax payers are getting from paying them to do now what they're going to have to do anyway?
* American readers may have Chrysler and the like in mind, who have fundamental problems of their own making and throwing cash at them may be more questionable. The situation is not the same in Europe.
I know the GP started it, but this isn't the time for nationalism - things are going to shit on both sides of the Atlantic, and trying to argue that one side is doing better or worse is not productive; they're bad in different ways.
To paraphrase your post "People in the UK look at stuff that goes on in the US... teens being charged as sex offenders for taking pictures of themselves, or strip searched at school for carrying a headache pill...".
In my experience, Britain is more susceptible to allowing 'big brother' style intrusions from the government, while the US is more likely to get caught up in moral panics. Not to say that either country is immune to either problem, of course.
America looks at some of Britain's free speech violations and shakes their head at how the likes of this could never happen with the constitution for protection, while Britain looks back at America and wonders how much more power the fire-and-brimstone Christian minority can seize.
Yeah I'm tempted to draw the same conclusions. But, even if we were make the dubious assumption that media reporting is generally excellent, bear in mind it is logical that there be an inverse relationship between reporting and the actual general position. By nature media reports on things that are unusual or exceptional, so if it was common for UK teenagers to be charged for sexting it'd rarely be covered, while US media might prominently report every one of the very rare instances of it happening there.
The real story to take from OP is not that you can be convicted for making silly jokes about bombing in the UK, but that the public is shocked by what is seen as an anomaly and sufficiently confident in the judicial system's ability to make this right that they go and make the same joke.
But they do announce their atrocities in advance, because it's the only sure way that they will be getting credit for it.
The primary reason was PR. Killing innocent folk did not achieve their goals. The Omagh bombing was a notable disaster for the IRA. They could not get a parking spot by the planned target then gave multiple confused warnings. The police then unwittingly ushered people towards the bomb. The resulting atrocity was a major factor in the success of the Peace Process.
You're suggesting rich people should be penalised [sic] more on the abstract basis that they happen to be more wealthy?
Isn't there already a precedent in the United States Tax Code for this?
On first look, progressive and even flat-rate taxes can appear to punish the wealthy and award the poor.
However, wealth is generated from society. Those with the most wealth have not only benefited the most but consumed the most. If you own your business, you benefit from a good local state-ran school because your employees, customers and suppliers send their children there. If there were no state-ran schools your employees would demand greater remuneration, your suppliers greater profits and your customers would buy less because they would have the additional expense of schooling. The quality of the school in the past has also affected the quality of your workforce and the incomes of your customers.
You're suggesting rich people should be penalised more on the abstract basis that they happen to be more wealthy? Their wealth has no relevance to the act committed nor the damage done. Should men be given slightly shorter sentences because they live shorter lives than women?
The notion that anyone should be specifically made bankrupt for committing copyright infringement is also troubling. If they made their entire income out of an illegal activity then sure I have no sympathy if bankruptcy results, but this should always incidental to the objective of taking back ill-gotten gains, not vengeance.
The circumstances of file-sharing often suggest a civil breach, implying the copyright holder should be re-compensated for losses. Downloading an album that's $10 retail should be double damages i.e. $20 plus reasonable costs of the pursuer (and their own costs, of course). Seriously, $62,500 per song when you could steal - denying a rightful owner from his property - the relevant CD's from a shop and probably be given a $200 fine and a warning?
The problem is the method of file-sharing, if it involves uploading files, is also consistent with begin accessory to commercial-scale piracy. We tend to think of organisations as one big formal company or whatever in the centre with a few suppliers and a huge number of small customers. But organisations also exist where the structure can be described as a huge number of small customers and small suppliers interlinked similar to how bit-torrent users can be. File-sharing can appear to be absolutely huge scale commercial piracy from one perspective and yet from another perspective merely enjoying a few songs that haven't been paid for.
A curious aspect of this is that by adding my mother to my car insurance, my premium went down, even though my usage of the car isn't going to change and the risk remains the same, because statistically men who have a woman on their insurance are less likely to have an accident.
My mother (who has never had a claim) put me (male) on her insurance and her premium went down noticeably - I wasn't just a "named driver" to be covered for 3rd party, fire & theft either, she put me down for comprehensive cover.
This was most surprising since she has a perfect history, I was in my early-to-mid 20's (though just older than the "young driver" risk threshold, apparently) and having two drivers implied a car being used more, even if it was just when visiting. She'd also had my sister (~30, but had a car stolen) down in the past and the premiums had gone up significantly.
The employee said that while my profile was relatively higher risk, I was still considered low risk and this was more than offset by the reduction from having two drivers - any two drivers - down for a car.
Granted, that doesn't disprove your point and perhaps the reduction would have been even greater in an otherwise identical scenario where the genders were reversed. However I suspect it is more accurate to suggest there are two relevant factors: firstly a premium is added based on the risk profile of the second driver, where gender matters, and secondly a "two driver discount" is applied where gender is not an issue (or at least there is still some discount even if male).
In short, readers may wish to consider getting a quote to add their partner, or be added to their partner's insurance, regardless of gender.
It usually is civil. Contracts are rules that the parties to the contract have made up and agreed to be bound by. That means it's up to those parties to take them to court. The police generally have no duty nor authority to act in civil matters.
The police primarily exist to enforce criminal laws. If you like you can consider criminal laws to be rules that you and all of society are bound by. If you're in breach, society takes you to court - they just have a special department to handle it, called the police. The police have special powers but on the other hand there is (supposedly at least) an inherent assumption that you are innocent and must be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, unlike in civil cases where there is no assumption and verdict is on the balance.
Fraud can be complex in that it can be one or both of civil and criminal. I'm not a lawyer but my understanding is that fraud which is fundamentally theft is criminal while fraud that is more like cheating on a contract is civil. Additionally there may be duties for the police that is related to a civil matter, but this will be some incidental activity where there is actual or potential crime, and the police will only be interested in that incidental activity.
That isn't even a dilemma, if the choice is a few or everybody (including said few) then you're not even sacrificing the few, they're dying anyway so you can only be said to be saving the others.
It turns into a dilemma when you have an option to save the many which involves causing a few other innocent passers-by to die. This is much more interesting, with so many potential permutations with which to examine our resolve. Though rather morbid if we keep death central to our test.
Neither scenario is really relevant to utilitarianism though. A more common criticism is similar to saying that allowing a few to starve so that many people can live significantly better. Like, if it's -1,000 utils for starving someone, but 100 people benefit by 10 utils then the act under utilitarianism could be said to be morally neutral. It's a silly argument because you're criticising the weighting and measurement applied, not the logic behind the principle. All you need to do is say that starving someone is -1m utils and then you don't want to answer now that the question is whether it's worth 100,000 people living in misery just so that 1 can stay alive.
But utilitarianism should never be some attempt to turn morality into maths, no matter how accurate you think you can make the equation and the measurements involved. It's an attempt to introduce a relatively objective guide, something you can use to test the choice you have made by looking at it from a different perspective and seeing if you're still OK with it.
School hours are largely dictated by the parent's working hours and childcare. Delaying the start to 10 simply means some kind of provision to house the kids from 8-10 because most parents want to have kids on the bus before they leave for work, or to drop them off on their way to work. That also means kids are getting out of bed at the same early time and just schooling until later, when they'll be more tired. Many schools already now have activities to take care of many kids after 3 - the school I'm auditing now can take care of them until 6 and has about a 30% uptake... Plus other options are more easily available in the afternoon such as going to a friend's house. Parents are also more bothered about ensuring their kids do get off to school than what happens afterwards.
For those parents who work hours to suit their kids' schooling, there's also the employer factor. In salary jobs if people want to change hours the employer is generally much more receptive to an earlier than a later start & finish. Part-time workers are also generally required to work mornings rather than afternoons.
Bear in mind that studies on schools starting at 10 are prone to showing changes because it's a study. Parents are more willing to adapt and make special effort to the later start because it's unusual, interesting and temporary. While pilots often have teething trouble, they also tend to be received with much greater tolerance simply because it's a pilot.
Not forgetting the teachers, who now would have to start doing marking and planning lessons at 5 instead of 3. Sure, they could do it in the morning but firstly there's those pre-school classes and secondly there's no opportunity to extend the time if it takes longer than the 2 hours available.
Actually, some schools are reporting positively about breakfast clubs. Opening up early to accommodate parents who want to drop them off and also breakfast that qualifies for those on free school meals.
Look, the only way tiny hard drives make sense is for Grandma who doesn't use computers for anything but email and web surfing. [...] In a corporate world fast booting SSD machines can latch onto the network for all of their storage needs, that's fine, because the corporate net can probably handle the load.
I suspect you're discounting heavily the purchasing power of the corporate world. My work PC has Windows and a couple of productivity software installs and everything else is on the network, and all but my smallest clients do the same. 40gb is ample.
I suspect you're also discounting too heavily the amount of "Grandma" computer users. Most people don't use a computer for much more than email and web surfing. OK so often there's a large number of photo and video files, but they're recorded on phones or cheap point-and-shoot stills cameras - the file sizes are still small. Other than gamers and torrent users all the home computers I've looked at have small usage - I can't recall ever needing more than 3 DVDs to backup their data. Even the ones with huge numbers of photos were suggesting deleting them since their folders are full of all the crap and all the ones they want are on Facebook.
Not forgetting that for both the corporate and "Grandma" users, generally their top 10 computer annoyances include boot-up times and how slow their computers are (by which they usually mean the system does not feel snappy and things take a while to load, raw CPU power often isn't an issue). This is even when excluding the virus infestations and pigsties.
SSDs actually make a lot of sense for a lot of people. More sense than buying big spinning disks that sit 90% unused. Even for folks like me that do use quite a lot of space, SSD for boot disks are starting to make sense. I think we're a long ways out from big consumer hard drives heading into history, but the time when SSDs come as default and platters are an option at Dell probably isn't that far off.
Broadly on the ball here. The poorest pay little or no tax, the middle classes get hammered and many of the richest are in a good position to be, uh, efficient with their taxes*1.
It's still naive analysis though. The poorest also directly take the most from the state both in terms of money benefits and services used. If you only look at direct tax revenue and expenditure there's a huge chunk of people who are by far a net cost, even before considering expenditure that everyone benefits from indirectly e.g. defence. The more money you make the more tax you pay and the less benefit you receive and you move into being a net contributor. Rich folk who pay their taxes shell out a ton of money and get back almost nothing.
On the other hand... The richer you are then usually the more you benefit indirectly, that is through the benefits other people (employees, customers, etc) get. Public transport is an easy example. If the state heavily subsidises a good bus service then your employees get to work cheaply and since they're spending less on transport customers have more money to buy stuff from you (pus there's more room on the roads for your limo).
*1: From experience (I'm a practising accountant in the UK) say you have a sizeable random sample of self-employed people, and categorised them into 3 groups making "poor", "decent" and "great" profits. I'd place money that:
- at least 1/4 of the poorer guys are outright evading tax (usually by significantly underdeclaring income). It's amazing how little some people can live on while still having a decent address, car and clothing - and how dedicated they are in choosing to stay self-employed when flipping burgers pays twice as much.
- most of the decent profit-makers are only doing basic legit tax-reduction steps and at most 5% of them are actually cheating (most of them not by much, though I might be under-representing by counting the biggest cheaters as "poor" profit guys);
- all of the rich guys are making a significant effort to be legally "tax efficient" and maybe 1% will be actually evading tax illegally (though it would be by a lot).
Employees on the other hand will be hammered for tax, basically the only cheating you get is a handful of people taking cash in hand and not declaring it. These people are probably at highest risk of being caught too.
Granted, Star Office, both program and company, were bought by Sun, but a lot of the work was done well before Sun stepped in and bought it.
This is the same as Sun, er, Oracle having "done" the work. The resources, value, risk & rewards or whatever you want to call it that constitute having "done" the work passed along with the ownership. To suggest otherwise is analogous to saying that if John Doe, the employee at StarDivision who physically performed most of the work, resigns to join another company, StarDivision can no longer be said to have done the work.
It may (or maybe not, I don't know) be historical fact that StarDivision did 90% of the work, but the context of the thread is we're interested in attributing that work to the present-day position, which means following it up through the changes in company ownership. The rest is fundamentally just a change in logos. It's not strictly relevant but it may help to consider that key StarDivision staff on the project might still be in the employ of Oracle, still working on the project.