A closer analogy is that this guy picked a lock (however weak), walked into the vault, found and took a photocopy of the bank's systems & security dossier and maybe did or didn't do other things. He then wiped his fingerprints and deleted the CCTV footage. He then went home.
Firstly, what's the big deal with the document having these microdots?
If they're not significant then why are they there? Either they are of use to law enforcement and therefore of concern to citizens, or they aren't useful and they're a waste of our tax dollars.
Sure it's possible the dots are useful to law enforcement for reasons that do not affect privacy, but the onus is on them to explain and demonstrate that.
Economies of scale only matter when two companies are competing on the same product.
Nah, the econcomies of scale still impact the supply curve because it reduces the cost to produce each unit. It's the margin that drives decisions, not the sales.
That said, the impact in a surge in demand is usually going to increase price, because it is actually moving the entire demand curve whilst just travelling along the pre-existing cost & supply curves. But, an increase in demand can result in a lower sales price when you have a cost curve shaped more like a wave (dramatic scale economies but only in intervals) or where the angle of the demand curve changes (demand becomes more price-elastic).
This often isn't covered in classes, since it's just a case of applying the taught principles to a new scenario, but does happen quite often in the real world. Probably a good example is where a niche high-end maker of clothing has his designs come into mainstream fashion. He may lose some high-end customers who appreciated exclusivity but gains heavily in the price-sensitive mainstream, so the demand curve pivots rather than shift to a higher parallel. This itself puts pressure that a new profit-maximising position is to reduce prices. But there is the secondary effect of serious scale economies kicking in from employing some massive factory instead of the wee bespoke outfitters used before. Because of this the new profit-maximising position may be dramatically lower prices to what it was before.
Another good example is often the supply of water to homes. The process is so incredibly capital-intensive that it is the norm for the monopoly's scale economies to be such that their profit-maximising position is actually a lower price point than under competition (of course there are way to still have competition but that's beside the point of the illustration).
The "rephrasing" makes clear the difference in the objective. Most reports and advice that come out are basically trying to sell you on doing as much healthiness as they think they can convince you on. Sure, it may be scientifically correct and maybe they even hit the sweet spot between effort and effect, but they're preaching to the converted.
If you really want to improve the health of a nation, what you really want to do is get the most unfit to do any exercise at all.
For the analogy, the former is like trying to improve household finances by telling of good ways to invest savings. These guys are trying to show how to manage debt.
I never accused the average Saudi of being a modern-day Westerner, I suggested they are not fanatical. I certainly never accused them of being like the US either, which by the way does not define "the West".
I'm not convinced that anybody needs a body of circumstantial evidence to back-up an assertion that a people are probably not fanatical. The burden rather lies on the accuser. The assumption is more or less implied by the definition, after all. Nonetheless, I can do so.
I've been a few places myself, I have friends who travel extensively and regularly in Northern Africa and the Middle East (including Saudi) with their work, grew up with a friend who's dad worked in Saudi Arabia and another who's dad worked in Bahrain. I also have colleagues who were born and/or have parents from around the Middle-East, plus there's some incidental contact through work and going about my daily life - though I'd assume such people are prone to be relatively moderate or even relatively "Westernised" seeing as they live here.
General consensus seemed to be that the people were normal, however some of the noisy & powerful are relatively fanatical. That's "normal" from the perspective of well-travelled British people though, YMMV.
Once you read that, it's sort of like, "oh shit, now I understand why they're pissed off." Basically he's just saying that Mohammed is just some guy- an inspirational figure, but just a human being, not necessarily divine or divinely inspired. In Western theological terms, that's like saying that Christ is an inspirational person with some really interesting teachings, but not the Son of God. That's about as blasphemous as you can get.
Thanks for the context, but the comparison offers no understanding.
In the West, that would generally be considered a very moderate (pretty much the majority) view about Christ. I've had very amicable, respectful discussions with priests where I've expressed views broadly along similar lines and they've been perfectly comfortable - no, I'd go so far as to say agreeable. It was they suggesting that the important thing is the principles of his teachings, whether you learn them from him or elsewhere. You'd really have to find some devout evangelicalists before you'd find anyone who'd even desire some kind of law against saying such a thing, people commonly referred to as "whack-jobs".
Or maybe that is why it is a good comparison. But for the contrast, not the similarity.
Personally though, I'm not convinced that we're all that different. Noisy and powerful people get all the attention. It's tempting to take from this story that Islam is some fanatical thing that thinks you should be killed for noting that you do not believe in it. I suspect however that, as with everything, the impression of fanaticism comes from the few noisy/powerful fanatics. Who probably sit and read news reports about the few noisy/powerful fanatical Christians in the West.
I still don't know why nobody's talking about solving the recharge time issue by making them standardised and removable. Pull into a charge station, some guy swaps the batteries for charged ones.
Granted it might not be time yet, since there's too much battery R&D competition going on, but it's the obvious medium-term answer. Nobody ever seems to mention it, as if nobody had ever filled a petrol tank away from home.
No, the substance of the transaction is that the label provides the studio for free, but it has a prior share of profit to recoup this investment.
For a profitable band, the outcome is exactly the same as your explanation.
For an unprofitable band, the outcome is extremely different.
This is entirely the purpose of a label and why we do not have bands simply paying consultancy fees. As Bob points out above, the label is basically a highly specialist venture capital company.
Just to illustrate how full of bollocks Lord McNally actually is, take this example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4796579.stm...or to sum up for those who can't be arsed to read the link, in 2006 we pardoned 306 World War 1 soldiers who were executed for cowardice. It was also perfectly legal action at the time. So the question is Lord McNally, why the hypocrisy?
This example displays only consistency, not hypocrisy, a point made in the well-argued article referred and linked to in the submitter's article.
Basically, the soldiers' had a medical condition which resulted uncontrollably in actions that were mistaken for cowardice. They should not have been found guilty of the law of the time, regardless of whether the law was just or not.
Turing however had a sexuality, which does not in itself uncontrollably result in actions that were illegal. Thus he did break the law of the time, even if the law was not a just one.
Also as noted in the article, the way forward would be to request a deletion under the Protection of Freedoms Bill which is nearing completion.
A loss-leader is where the long term strategy is to have one product/service always being sold at a loss (or anyway "not enough" profit), in order to attract custom to a profitable product. An example for a manufacturer is razors (money's in the blades), an example of an outlet is milk (money is in the other stuff the customer picks up).
The argument is more that Google is using penetrative pricing. This is where you have a short term strategy to introduce a product/service at a loss in order to gain a foothold in the market, whereupon you can raise the pricing to competitive levels.
Penetrative pricing pricing becomes uncompetitive when the objective isn't to gain just a foothold, but to dominate the market. Regular penetrative pricing increases competition in the market over the long term while monopoly abuse decreases it. One indicator, not definitive, that the line has been crossed is when the amount of losses being racked up is so disproportionate that monopoly rents would be required to obtain a reasonable return on all that financing.
This is also why the charge tends to apply to existing companies moving into a new market and not a new up-start. If an up-start can obtain that kind of financing then the incumbents and other up-starts should be able to find it too - it's all just an action of a free and competitive market. Google on the other hand can throw so much resource at something that economic principles of "free" or "competitive" market forces do not apply.
Two of the associates working for two of the named firms agreed to settle for $35,000 each in fines.
And the SEC wonders why people keep doing this sort of thing. I bet those two guys (and many other not charged) walked away with millions.
I was of the understanding that the proceeds of crime were treated vaguely similar to that in the UK - basically the fine is what happens on top of the seizure of your ill-gotten gains, and anything else that can be linked to your crime.
The seizures are often (over here) separate from the court case where they are convicted. There was even a case on the news recently where people got their assets seized permanently even though they were not convicted. I gather the point was that it was difficult to prove they were actually guilty of the crime, but the money was clearly a result of crime even if they hadn't known it.
Sure, in terms of risk:reward it still doesn't look like much of a deterrent, but your post can be interpreted as suggesting they got fined and were still left with millions (though obviously there's no taking back what you've already spent on hookers and blow).
(naturally I couldn't be bothered reading a court filing to see if there was evidence of the above, this is the interwebs after all, but due to the separate process there usually isn't anyway)
I hope they realise the number of gamers for whom selling used finances their buying new. Just like the car market, except there manufacturers absolutely covet the used car market. Many of the used buyers are kids who don't have the money to buy new games except at birthdays etc., or casual gamers who would never pay new prices. I note that the article refers to PC games generally being one-time use, I respond noting PC game pricing for brand-new games is almost always cheaper than used console games, quite often substantially cheaper. Even then, "one time use" keys used to be only relevant to multiplayer, single worked fine. Even now DRM generally allows for multiple machine installs. Only online downloads are locked to one account.
Similar happens with the consoles themselves too. Almost every time I upgraded a console generation I sold my old one + games to finance the new. MS/Sony/Ninty get an early adopter whilst also selling games to someone on the older gen.
The problem with the used market is not the used market, it is the margins taken by the retailers. If you sell a game for $10 and store then sells it for $30, they extract $20 from the used-game economy.
In the UK, for companies like Phorm, and ACS:Law, this would be zero deterrent to what they did, the fines shouldn't be capped percentage wise, as only a fine of perhaps 80% of annual revenue would've been enough to make Phorm and ACS:Law start behaving.
To be fair, consider the companies for whom Phorm is customer. The most infamous example (here in UK) was BT, for which 2% of turnover in 2011 would have been £402m, a quarter of profits - a huge amount for a generally reliable blue-chip, well into having to issue a profit warning. They'd actually have a hard time racking up that kind of fine through systematic health and safety failures.
Bear in mind it is BT with whom customers had entrusted their data. 2% seems appropriate there, and merely the potential threat to Phorm's customers may be more effective than even chance of 200% fine for Phorm, because they can just setup companies and keep withdrawing the cash so if they get fined they just fold the company.
I'm also only saying the 2% should be for accidental and negligent breaches, not wilful flouting of the law like Phorm. Wilful flouting should really allow lifting the veil of corporation and going after the directors (which is done for some things).
How about 2% of revenue plus 100% of revenue that directly resulted from breaching?
On a more general view, I don't agree with caps being completely binding. Perhaps it is my views that judges with specific facts should not be completely bound by politicians who only had general information, but I think there should always be possibility for some discretion, if you can clearly demonstrate the facts are substantially greater than those envisaged with the caps.
As a Christian, I'm against gay marriage from a religious point of view. However as an American, I believe in the freedom of religion and association. You may even choose to not associate with anything. The problem is that marriage is a religious institution sponsored by our federal government. It's a problem because there are all sorts of legal ties to something religious in nature. The implications are huge. It means that the Federal Goverment can dictate the meaning of religious values and not the other way around. I strongly believe the best option is to abstract this union one level apart. That is to say, everyone can have a civil union which grants all the legal benefits without bias. You can still choose to have a religious merriage ceremony after the fact if you wish. Some may want just to be married withough being legally recognized too. Either way should be fair for everyone.
See, this is the bit I don't get. Maybe it's because I'm neither gay nor religious but I don't see the connection. What does gay marriage at a federal level have to do with a religion? It's only relevant the other way around.
Many people against federal recognition of gay marriage on religious grounds seem to believe marriage at the federal level is the same as at a religious level - that it stems from and is all about their faith. Whether federal government recognises an institution's marriage has nothing to do with any other institution, they are only concerned with the legal contract between two people. The Catholic church does not get to decide whether the federal government recognises a Christian or Muslim marriage, why should they have any say over a gay one? What about marriage between agnostics, or atheists? Basically anything incompatible with a particular religion appears to be OK, unless they're gay. Religions get to dictate who gets married in their church, they do not and should not have any say in who gets married elsewhere.
Marriage is only "religious in nature" at the religion level. Whether the federal government recognises the marriage is something else entirely. Nobody cares whether or not a Catholic church chooses to recognise (or perform) a Muslim marriage and likewise nobody should care whether or not they choose to recognise (or perform) a gay marriage. Federal government is not dictating religious values in any way whatsoever.
This may appear similar to what you are advocating, and in practice it pretty much is but in principle it's not - you're going on the assumption that religions control all definition and recognition of marriage while I'm saying religions only control the religious definition and recognition of marriage. Just like the federal government only controls the legal definition and recognition of marriage.
It's like if the Red Cross were to say the Red Crescent is okay but then try and prevent donations to Doctors Without Borders from attracting a tax deduction on the basis that it's not religious.
I have to say, I did a quick google and came across a list of differences between marriage and civil unions in the US and I'm really disgusted. People don't get tax breaks because they're gay, unless they marry a woman anyway? Gay "husbands" can't make the emergency medical decisions on behalf of their partner like a married one could? What the fuck?
You "trusting" your partner with your password because you do not mind sharing what you say is one thing. I'd suggest it's unwise, it's highly prone to misunderstandings and perhaps more an indication of lack of trust than actual trust (where sharing the password wouldn't be necessary). But, that's your prerogative.
But the thing is you're now breaching your trust with the people emailing you. You're sharing what THEY say, and you haven't even had the opportunity to make a judgement first.
Actually I'd say breaching your trust with others is about all you're doing. You know that you have given your partner access, so you're not going to write anything you would not want them to read. But other people emailing you do not necessarily know that, they think their correspondence is private. At an absolute minimum people trust you to use your judgement before you share their information with your partner.
Those extremely cheap Microsoft 600 keyboards are quite decent for home use. More to the point, they're a known quantity and I'm used to it. From experience, more expensive keyboards certainly do not equate to better quality, never mind the lottery as to whether the key operation conforms to personal preference.
I actually bought my first because it was so absurdly cheap I decided to pick it up as a spare. When my then-keyboard broke I tried several random replacements but just kept going back to the "spare".
It's unhealthy to work non-stop and it can't be good for your work. I always come back feeling recharged. Occasionally a colleague has had significant holiday remaining at the year-end and our bosses certainly weren't applauding, they told them to take it ASAP.
Employees not taking holidays is also a known fraud risk. Employees committing fraud commonly do not take holidays because they need to keep covering their tracks. The story can be similar for incompetent employees. If they're not at work for a week complaints are more likely to make it to someone who might start asking questions.
In high-risk jobs it's not unusual for week-long holiday breaks to be absolutely mandatory (one of the findings from the Bearings Bank collapse).
British accountants frequently combine arrogance with ignorance; their inability to understand how businesses really work has been one of the reasons for failure of UK PLC.
The problem with The Reshaping of British Railways report was not because it was written by accountants. The problem was that it was not written by accountants. Dr Beeching was an engineer.
Your accusations of ignorance and arrogance are perhaps best directed elsewhere.
It's for failing to implement EU law. This is broadly similar to a state having laws in some way prohibited by federal law.
Such activity isn't very uncommon within the EU, most notably perhaps are citizens taking their own government to court for breaching their EU-specified human rights.
Note a suit isn't necessarily for financial compensation. Various remedies are possible - in this case presumably to force an implementation of the EU law.
Any examples of charged-for wifi in that location?
All I can think of is a BT thing where they put wifi units in their public phone boxes and people who subscribe to their home broadband can also access that wifi when they're out and about.
Otherwise, cafés, hotels etc typically have free wifi. Whilst in the early days this was a way to attract custom, these days it's a basic customer expectation. You don't gain custom from having wifi, you just lose custom if they can't get a good data signal while they're there.
It's typically not expensive to install nor operate here either, perhaps for a big hotel that needs real equipment but those guys will probably continue to need it, so that their customers can have a reliable connection. So not much scope for losses. Regardless, any potential loss on the wifi front for the likes of cafés and hotels would be hilariously small fry compared to the benefits from having the Olympics.
Anybody who has a business model where wifi has importance should have known all about these plans well in advance as it was part of the Olympic bid. If someone really was offering a premium wifi service, surely they would have been in a great position to bid to provide this service? Actually this is what has happened if you read the O2 article. The mobile operators have plans to chuck wifi onto their existing masts across the country, all O2 are doing is making sure it's up in time for the Olympics and making it free (except to the authorities) during the Olympics. Even if the operators had been going to be charging for it they have massive advantage due to huge scale and already having most of the infrastructure in place, so your independent company trying to sell premium wifi was doomed anyway.
Plus I expect residents will have reason to appreciate it, even if they never actually use the free wifi, because otherwise the 3G network would have been utterly decimated.
It's quite clearly a no-brainer win all round, nobody is losing anything from it that they weren't about to lose anyway. I note the itNews article states there is zero cost to taxpayers therefore there should be no threat to their more basic duties like sweeping the streets.
Apples and oranges. Your calculations forget you've bought a new car. You need to compare new hybrid car against new non-hybrid car to determine if the hybrid option was worthwhile.
Did I miss whether these are "real" (inflation adjusted) figures? It's the critical factor as the salary squeeze is coming from inflation reducing the value of money which has not been offset by salary increases.
The article also errs significantly by using inconsistent terms for almost every single figure. "average boost", "average total increase", "total pay", "salary increase", "earn more", "total average compensation", "total salary", "take home", "make". I suspect the author is trying to avoid being repetitive with words but all of these words either mean different things or are vague and could mean many things.
Sure, I'm an accountant and maybe most people are quite reasonably going to interpret as intended, but it shows the author does not have knowledge of what he is talking about. "Salary" means the top number on the payslip, "take home" means the bottom figure in your payslip that goes into the bank, while "compensation" is the top number plus all benefits and bonuses. The differences on the basis used can be substantial, especially when you're analysing small movements of around 5%, never mind the 0.81%. A 5% salary increase could easily be wiped out by cuts in non-salary compensation and is a cut in real terms if not adjusting for inflation.
The relevant consideration is remuneration or compensation, in real terms. These account appropriately for benefits in kind, deductions and bonuses. You can get away with ignoring that in normal times by assuming there isn't much movement, but in current times it's a widespread way to cut payroll costs without hurting the headline salary rate.
Even then, if your pension is a money purchase scheme we're only looking at pensions in terms of the employer contributions. You personally are very likely still much worse off due to the fall in the current value of your plan and the fall in it's expected growth rate. Usually this will be through no fault, action or inaction of your employer, but nevertheless you're losing out due to the economic conditions. Furthermore this should put upward pressure on salaries as workers seek to increase contributions while maintaining their take-home pay. Even if all else was equal except that salaries were increased to exactly offset increased contributions which were set at a level to exactly offset the pension plan decline, the figures would arguably be misinterpreted because while yes they would accurately show an increase in compensation offered by employer, there would be a nil change in compensation enjoyed by the employee. This matters when you start calling people "winners" when actually they just lost less than the others.
If the tracking data does not allow for identification of the individual then it is not personal data and the Directive does not apply.
(a) 'personal data' shall mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity;
The UK Information Commissioner provides a step-by-step quick reference [PDF] appears to confirm anonymous phone signals are not "personal data".
I think you're missing parent's key point, for which TF2 is an excellent example.
TF2 started as a regular purchased game. Then the drop, craft, trading and Mann co store systems, over a long period of time, experimented a spectrum of free-to-play models. I'm not saying this was an intended strategy from the start, but it's how it's turned out.
I think you're fair to generalise that TF2 players are perfectly content with the drop, craft, trade or buy models. I mean, most importantly almost nobody hates it, but also there's a whole meta-game there and there's a big chunk of players who seem to enjoy it so much they should probably be playing Eve or something. Granted, those not liking it might be under-counted due to having left the game, but the game's longevity doesn't support that being a major problem.
But this makes TF2 an example of how micro-DLC can work. The one thing I do see a lot of discontent about is the introduction of Free2Play - specifically the F2P players' behaviour being of a far lower standard than the pre-existing TF2 community (and that of PC gaming generally). TF2 appears to be a successful F2P game only because it was already so successful a premium game that F2P hasn't been able to ruin it.
In my mind at least, TF2 demonstrates exactly that Free2Play games are bad per se, and that the micro-DLC thing is a separate issue.
Slashdot Mirror
A closer analogy is that this guy picked a lock (however weak), walked into the vault, found and took a photocopy of the bank's systems & security dossier and maybe did or didn't do other things. He then wiped his fingerprints and deleted the CCTV footage. He then went home.
Firstly, what's the big deal with the document having these microdots?
If they're not significant then why are they there? Either they are of use to law enforcement and therefore of concern to citizens, or they aren't useful and they're a waste of our tax dollars.
Sure it's possible the dots are useful to law enforcement for reasons that do not affect privacy, but the onus is on them to explain and demonstrate that.
Economies of scale only matter when two companies are competing on the same product.
Nah, the econcomies of scale still impact the supply curve because it reduces the cost to produce each unit. It's the margin that drives decisions, not the sales.
That said, the impact in a surge in demand is usually going to increase price, because it is actually moving the entire demand curve whilst just travelling along the pre-existing cost & supply curves. But, an increase in demand can result in a lower sales price when you have a cost curve shaped more like a wave (dramatic scale economies but only in intervals) or where the angle of the demand curve changes (demand becomes more price-elastic).
This often isn't covered in classes, since it's just a case of applying the taught principles to a new scenario, but does happen quite often in the real world. Probably a good example is where a niche high-end maker of clothing has his designs come into mainstream fashion. He may lose some high-end customers who appreciated exclusivity but gains heavily in the price-sensitive mainstream, so the demand curve pivots rather than shift to a higher parallel. This itself puts pressure that a new profit-maximising position is to reduce prices. But there is the secondary effect of serious scale economies kicking in from employing some massive factory instead of the wee bespoke outfitters used before. Because of this the new profit-maximising position may be dramatically lower prices to what it was before.
Another good example is often the supply of water to homes. The process is so incredibly capital-intensive that it is the norm for the monopoly's scale economies to be such that their profit-maximising position is actually a lower price point than under competition (of course there are way to still have competition but that's beside the point of the illustration).
http://tutor2u.net/economics/content/topics/monopoly/monopoly_profits.htm
The "rephrasing" makes clear the difference in the objective. Most reports and advice that come out are basically trying to sell you on doing as much healthiness as they think they can convince you on. Sure, it may be scientifically correct and maybe they even hit the sweet spot between effort and effect, but they're preaching to the converted.
If you really want to improve the health of a nation, what you really want to do is get the most unfit to do any exercise at all.
For the analogy, the former is like trying to improve household finances by telling of good ways to invest savings. These guys are trying to show how to manage debt.
I never accused the average Saudi of being a modern-day Westerner, I suggested they are not fanatical. I certainly never accused them of being like the US either, which by the way does not define "the West".
I'm not convinced that anybody needs a body of circumstantial evidence to back-up an assertion that a people are probably not fanatical. The burden rather lies on the accuser. The assumption is more or less implied by the definition, after all. Nonetheless, I can do so.
I've been a few places myself, I have friends who travel extensively and regularly in Northern Africa and the Middle East (including Saudi) with their work, grew up with a friend who's dad worked in Saudi Arabia and another who's dad worked in Bahrain. I also have colleagues who were born and/or have parents from around the Middle-East, plus there's some incidental contact through work and going about my daily life - though I'd assume such people are prone to be relatively moderate or even relatively "Westernised" seeing as they live here.
General consensus seemed to be that the people were normal, however some of the noisy & powerful are relatively fanatical. That's "normal" from the perspective of well-travelled British people though, YMMV.
Once you read that, it's sort of like, "oh shit, now I understand why they're pissed off." Basically he's just saying that Mohammed is just some guy- an inspirational figure, but just a human being, not necessarily divine or divinely inspired. In Western theological terms, that's like saying that Christ is an inspirational person with some really interesting teachings, but not the Son of God. That's about as blasphemous as you can get.
Thanks for the context, but the comparison offers no understanding.
In the West, that would generally be considered a very moderate (pretty much the majority) view about Christ. I've had very amicable, respectful discussions with priests where I've expressed views broadly along similar lines and they've been perfectly comfortable - no, I'd go so far as to say agreeable. It was they suggesting that the important thing is the principles of his teachings, whether you learn them from him or elsewhere. You'd really have to find some devout evangelicalists before you'd find anyone who'd even desire some kind of law against saying such a thing, people commonly referred to as "whack-jobs".
Or maybe that is why it is a good comparison. But for the contrast, not the similarity.
Personally though, I'm not convinced that we're all that different. Noisy and powerful people get all the attention. It's tempting to take from this story that Islam is some fanatical thing that thinks you should be killed for noting that you do not believe in it. I suspect however that, as with everything, the impression of fanaticism comes from the few noisy/powerful fanatics. Who probably sit and read news reports about the few noisy/powerful fanatical Christians in the West.
I still don't know why nobody's talking about solving the recharge time issue by making them standardised and removable. Pull into a charge station, some guy swaps the batteries for charged ones.
Granted it might not be time yet, since there's too much battery R&D competition going on, but it's the obvious medium-term answer. Nobody ever seems to mention it, as if nobody had ever filled a petrol tank away from home.
No, the substance of the transaction is that the label provides the studio for free, but it has a prior share of profit to recoup this investment.
For a profitable band, the outcome is exactly the same as your explanation.
For an unprofitable band, the outcome is extremely different.
This is entirely the purpose of a label and why we do not have bands simply paying consultancy fees. As Bob points out above, the label is basically a highly specialist venture capital company.
Because the corn input is valuable, having alternate uses, and costs money. Waste is... Waste. It's a problem and people pay you to take it away.
Just to illustrate how full of bollocks Lord McNally actually is, take this example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4796579.stm ...or to sum up for those who can't be arsed to read the link, in 2006 we pardoned 306 World War 1 soldiers who were executed for cowardice. It was also perfectly legal action at the time. So the question is Lord McNally, why the hypocrisy?
This example displays only consistency, not hypocrisy, a point made in the well-argued article referred and linked to in the submitter's article.
Basically, the soldiers' had a medical condition which resulted uncontrollably in actions that were mistaken for cowardice. They should not have been found guilty of the law of the time, regardless of whether the law was just or not.
Turing however had a sexuality, which does not in itself uncontrollably result in actions that were illegal. Thus he did break the law of the time, even if the law was not a just one.
Also as noted in the article, the way forward would be to request a deletion under the Protection of Freedoms Bill which is nearing completion.
A loss-leader is where the long term strategy is to have one product/service always being sold at a loss (or anyway "not enough" profit), in order to attract custom to a profitable product. An example for a manufacturer is razors (money's in the blades), an example of an outlet is milk (money is in the other stuff the customer picks up).
The argument is more that Google is using penetrative pricing. This is where you have a short term strategy to introduce a product/service at a loss in order to gain a foothold in the market, whereupon you can raise the pricing to competitive levels.
Penetrative pricing pricing becomes uncompetitive when the objective isn't to gain just a foothold, but to dominate the market. Regular penetrative pricing increases competition in the market over the long term while monopoly abuse decreases it. One indicator, not definitive, that the line has been crossed is when the amount of losses being racked up is so disproportionate that monopoly rents would be required to obtain a reasonable return on all that financing.
This is also why the charge tends to apply to existing companies moving into a new market and not a new up-start. If an up-start can obtain that kind of financing then the incumbents and other up-starts should be able to find it too - it's all just an action of a free and competitive market. Google on the other hand can throw so much resource at something that economic principles of "free" or "competitive" market forces do not apply.
Two of the associates working for two of the named firms agreed to settle for $35,000 each in fines.
And the SEC wonders why people keep doing this sort of thing. I bet those two guys (and many other not charged) walked away with millions.
I was of the understanding that the proceeds of crime were treated vaguely similar to that in the UK - basically the fine is what happens on top of the seizure of your ill-gotten gains, and anything else that can be linked to your crime.
The seizures are often (over here) separate from the court case where they are convicted. There was even a case on the news recently where people got their assets seized permanently even though they were not convicted. I gather the point was that it was difficult to prove they were actually guilty of the crime, but the money was clearly a result of crime even if they hadn't known it.
Sure, in terms of risk:reward it still doesn't look like much of a deterrent, but your post can be interpreted as suggesting they got fined and were still left with millions (though obviously there's no taking back what you've already spent on hookers and blow).
(naturally I couldn't be bothered reading a court filing to see if there was evidence of the above, this is the interwebs after all, but due to the separate process there usually isn't anyway)
I hope they realise the number of gamers for whom selling used finances their buying new. Just like the car market, except there manufacturers absolutely covet the used car market. Many of the used buyers are kids who don't have the money to buy new games except at birthdays etc., or casual gamers who would never pay new prices. I note that the article refers to PC games generally being one-time use, I respond noting PC game pricing for brand-new games is almost always cheaper than used console games, quite often substantially cheaper. Even then, "one time use" keys used to be only relevant to multiplayer, single worked fine. Even now DRM generally allows for multiple machine installs. Only online downloads are locked to one account.
Similar happens with the consoles themselves too. Almost every time I upgraded a console generation I sold my old one + games to finance the new. MS/Sony/Ninty get an early adopter whilst also selling games to someone on the older gen.
The problem with the used market is not the used market, it is the margins taken by the retailers. If you sell a game for $10 and store then sells it for $30, they extract $20 from the used-game economy.
In the UK, for companies like Phorm, and ACS:Law, this would be zero deterrent to what they did, the fines shouldn't be capped percentage wise, as only a fine of perhaps 80% of annual revenue would've been enough to make Phorm and ACS:Law start behaving.
To be fair, consider the companies for whom Phorm is customer. The most infamous example (here in UK) was BT, for which 2% of turnover in 2011 would have been £402m, a quarter of profits - a huge amount for a generally reliable blue-chip, well into having to issue a profit warning. They'd actually have a hard time racking up that kind of fine through systematic health and safety failures.
Bear in mind it is BT with whom customers had entrusted their data. 2% seems appropriate there, and merely the potential threat to Phorm's customers may be more effective than even chance of 200% fine for Phorm, because they can just setup companies and keep withdrawing the cash so if they get fined they just fold the company.
I'm also only saying the 2% should be for accidental and negligent breaches, not wilful flouting of the law like Phorm. Wilful flouting should really allow lifting the veil of corporation and going after the directors (which is done for some things).
How about 2% of revenue plus 100% of revenue that directly resulted from breaching?
On a more general view, I don't agree with caps being completely binding. Perhaps it is my views that judges with specific facts should not be completely bound by politicians who only had general information, but I think there should always be possibility for some discretion, if you can clearly demonstrate the facts are substantially greater than those envisaged with the caps.
As a Christian, I'm against gay marriage from a religious point of view. However as an American, I believe in the freedom of religion and association. You may even choose to not associate with anything. The problem is that marriage is a religious institution sponsored by our federal government. It's a problem because there are all sorts of legal ties to something religious in nature. The implications are huge. It means that the Federal Goverment can dictate the meaning of religious values and not the other way around. I strongly believe the best option is to abstract this union one level apart. That is to say, everyone can have a civil union which grants all the legal benefits without bias. You can still choose to have a religious merriage ceremony after the fact if you wish. Some may want just to be married withough being legally recognized too. Either way should be fair for everyone.
See, this is the bit I don't get. Maybe it's because I'm neither gay nor religious but I don't see the connection. What does gay marriage at a federal level have to do with a religion? It's only relevant the other way around.
Many people against federal recognition of gay marriage on religious grounds seem to believe marriage at the federal level is the same as at a religious level - that it stems from and is all about their faith. Whether federal government recognises an institution's marriage has nothing to do with any other institution, they are only concerned with the legal contract between two people. The Catholic church does not get to decide whether the federal government recognises a Christian or Muslim marriage, why should they have any say over a gay one? What about marriage between agnostics, or atheists? Basically anything incompatible with a particular religion appears to be OK, unless they're gay. Religions get to dictate who gets married in their church, they do not and should not have any say in who gets married elsewhere.
Marriage is only "religious in nature" at the religion level. Whether the federal government recognises the marriage is something else entirely. Nobody cares whether or not a Catholic church chooses to recognise (or perform) a Muslim marriage and likewise nobody should care whether or not they choose to recognise (or perform) a gay marriage. Federal government is not dictating religious values in any way whatsoever.
This may appear similar to what you are advocating, and in practice it pretty much is but in principle it's not - you're going on the assumption that religions control all definition and recognition of marriage while I'm saying religions only control the religious definition and recognition of marriage. Just like the federal government only controls the legal definition and recognition of marriage.
It's like if the Red Cross were to say the Red Crescent is okay but then try and prevent donations to Doctors Without Borders from attracting a tax deduction on the basis that it's not religious.
I have to say, I did a quick google and came across a list of differences between marriage and civil unions in the US and I'm really disgusted. People don't get tax breaks because they're gay, unless they marry a woman anyway? Gay "husbands" can't make the emergency medical decisions on behalf of their partner like a married one could? What the fuck?
You "trusting" your partner with your password because you do not mind sharing what you say is one thing. I'd suggest it's unwise, it's highly prone to misunderstandings and perhaps more an indication of lack of trust than actual trust (where sharing the password wouldn't be necessary). But, that's your prerogative.
But the thing is you're now breaching your trust with the people emailing you. You're sharing what THEY say, and you haven't even had the opportunity to make a judgement first.
Actually I'd say breaching your trust with others is about all you're doing. You know that you have given your partner access, so you're not going to write anything you would not want them to read. But other people emailing you do not necessarily know that, they think their correspondence is private. At an absolute minimum people trust you to use your judgement before you share their information with your partner.
Those extremely cheap Microsoft 600 keyboards are quite decent for home use. More to the point, they're a known quantity and I'm used to it. From experience, more expensive keyboards certainly do not equate to better quality, never mind the lottery as to whether the key operation conforms to personal preference.
I actually bought my first because it was so absurdly cheap I decided to pick it up as a spare. When my then-keyboard broke I tried several random replacements but just kept going back to the "spare".
It's unhealthy to work non-stop and it can't be good for your work. I always come back feeling recharged. Occasionally a colleague has had significant holiday remaining at the year-end and our bosses certainly weren't applauding, they told them to take it ASAP.
Employees not taking holidays is also a known fraud risk. Employees committing fraud commonly do not take holidays because they need to keep covering their tracks. The story can be similar for incompetent employees. If they're not at work for a week complaints are more likely to make it to someone who might start asking questions.
In high-risk jobs it's not unusual for week-long holiday breaks to be absolutely mandatory (one of the findings from the Bearings Bank collapse).
British accountants frequently combine arrogance with ignorance; their inability to understand how businesses really work has been one of the reasons for failure of UK PLC.
The problem with The Reshaping of British Railways report was not because it was written by accountants. The problem was that it was not written by accountants. Dr Beeching was an engineer.
Your accusations of ignorance and arrogance are perhaps best directed elsewhere.
It's for failing to implement EU law. This is broadly similar to a state having laws in some way prohibited by federal law.
Such activity isn't very uncommon within the EU, most notably perhaps are citizens taking their own government to court for breaching their EU-specified human rights.
Note a suit isn't necessarily for financial compensation. Various remedies are possible - in this case presumably to force an implementation of the EU law.
Any examples of charged-for wifi in that location?
All I can think of is a BT thing where they put wifi units in their public phone boxes and people who subscribe to their home broadband can also access that wifi when they're out and about.
Otherwise, cafés, hotels etc typically have free wifi. Whilst in the early days this was a way to attract custom, these days it's a basic customer expectation. You don't gain custom from having wifi, you just lose custom if they can't get a good data signal while they're there.
It's typically not expensive to install nor operate here either, perhaps for a big hotel that needs real equipment but those guys will probably continue to need it, so that their customers can have a reliable connection. So not much scope for losses. Regardless, any potential loss on the wifi front for the likes of cafés and hotels would be hilariously small fry compared to the benefits from having the Olympics.
Anybody who has a business model where wifi has importance should have known all about these plans well in advance as it was part of the Olympic bid. If someone really was offering a premium wifi service, surely they would have been in a great position to bid to provide this service? Actually this is what has happened if you read the O2 article. The mobile operators have plans to chuck wifi onto their existing masts across the country, all O2 are doing is making sure it's up in time for the Olympics and making it free (except to the authorities) during the Olympics. Even if the operators had been going to be charging for it they have massive advantage due to huge scale and already having most of the infrastructure in place, so your independent company trying to sell premium wifi was doomed anyway.
Plus I expect residents will have reason to appreciate it, even if they never actually use the free wifi, because otherwise the 3G network would have been utterly decimated.
It's quite clearly a no-brainer win all round, nobody is losing anything from it that they weren't about to lose anyway. I note the itNews article states there is zero cost to taxpayers therefore there should be no threat to their more basic duties like sweeping the streets.
Apples and oranges. Your calculations forget you've bought a new car. You need to compare new hybrid car against new non-hybrid car to determine if the hybrid option was worthwhile.
Did I miss whether these are "real" (inflation adjusted) figures? It's the critical factor as the salary squeeze is coming from inflation reducing the value of money which has not been offset by salary increases.
The article also errs significantly by using inconsistent terms for almost every single figure. "average boost", "average total increase", "total pay", "salary increase", "earn more", "total average compensation", "total salary", "take home", "make". I suspect the author is trying to avoid being repetitive with words but all of these words either mean different things or are vague and could mean many things.
Sure, I'm an accountant and maybe most people are quite reasonably going to interpret as intended, but it shows the author does not have knowledge of what he is talking about. "Salary" means the top number on the payslip, "take home" means the bottom figure in your payslip that goes into the bank, while "compensation" is the top number plus all benefits and bonuses. The differences on the basis used can be substantial, especially when you're analysing small movements of around 5%, never mind the 0.81%. A 5% salary increase could easily be wiped out by cuts in non-salary compensation and is a cut in real terms if not adjusting for inflation.
The relevant consideration is remuneration or compensation, in real terms. These account appropriately for benefits in kind, deductions and bonuses. You can get away with ignoring that in normal times by assuming there isn't much movement, but in current times it's a widespread way to cut payroll costs without hurting the headline salary rate.
Even then, if your pension is a money purchase scheme we're only looking at pensions in terms of the employer contributions. You personally are very likely still much worse off due to the fall in the current value of your plan and the fall in it's expected growth rate. Usually this will be through no fault, action or inaction of your employer, but nevertheless you're losing out due to the economic conditions. Furthermore this should put upward pressure on salaries as workers seek to increase contributions while maintaining their take-home pay. Even if all else was equal except that salaries were increased to exactly offset increased contributions which were set at a level to exactly offset the pension plan decline, the figures would arguably be misinterpreted because while yes they would accurately show an increase in compensation offered by employer, there would be a nil change in compensation enjoyed by the employee. This matters when you start calling people "winners" when actually they just lost less than the others.
If the tracking data does not allow for identification of the individual then it is not personal data and the Directive does not apply.
(a) 'personal data' shall mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity;
The UK Information Commissioner provides a step-by-step quick reference [PDF] appears to confirm anonymous phone signals are not "personal data".
I think you're missing parent's key point, for which TF2 is an excellent example.
TF2 started as a regular purchased game. Then the drop, craft, trading and Mann co store systems, over a long period of time, experimented a spectrum of free-to-play models. I'm not saying this was an intended strategy from the start, but it's how it's turned out.
I think you're fair to generalise that TF2 players are perfectly content with the drop, craft, trade or buy models. I mean, most importantly almost nobody hates it, but also there's a whole meta-game there and there's a big chunk of players who seem to enjoy it so much they should probably be playing Eve or something. Granted, those not liking it might be under-counted due to having left the game, but the game's longevity doesn't support that being a major problem.
But this makes TF2 an example of how micro-DLC can work. The one thing I do see a lot of discontent about is the introduction of Free2Play - specifically the F2P players' behaviour being of a far lower standard than the pre-existing TF2 community (and that of PC gaming generally). TF2 appears to be a successful F2P game only because it was already so successful a premium game that F2P hasn't been able to ruin it.
In my mind at least, TF2 demonstrates exactly that Free2Play games are bad per se, and that the micro-DLC thing is a separate issue.