My point (and I have gone off topic somewhat) is that apple is spending all this profit on advertising.
Please point me to one piece of iTMS advertising. It may be out there, but I've never seen it. I've seen tons of advertising for the iPod, which would definitely be part of how Apple spends the iPod's gross margin, but I haven't seen them heavily promote the iTMS. (Apart from the big Pepsi promotion which is probably paid for almost entirely by Pepsi, given how these things work.)
I just don't think you get it. iPod advertising is not the same as iTMS advertising and it doesn't get reflected as part of iTMS net profit. Now that I see how clueless you are ("folding [iTMS profit] back into iPod advertising and calling it break even") it seems appropriate that your original post has been modded flamebait. This isn't even remotely close to business reality. It might be appropriate to allocate some of the iPod advertising cost to iTMS, but determining the appropriate allocation would be pretty complicated, probably immaterial from an accounting standpoint, and probably not worth the effort.
While that may be true, I'd expect that the agreement between the labels and Apple requires more disclosure of their cost structure than the general public receives. Just a guess.
Again, I'll reiterate that you don't really seem to understand business. Gross margin, which is what you're talking about, is a fine starting point but just isn't the end of the story. But you aren't even including all the components of their direct margin -- you're taking one direct cost, the record label fee, and saying that, wow, that's an awesome margin. But that's NOT their margin, direct or otherwise. It's just their net revenue after a single direct cost, which is pretty meaningless.
I think your confusion is coming from trying to compare this to physical products, where you buy something tangible from one person and resell it to another. That's not what is happening here. Apple is not buying 100,000 Brittany.AAC files from RIAA and reselling them. They're providing digital files and distribution, and the cost of goods sold calculation is somewhat more involved.
You're partly right. I was merely pointing out that the net margin was roughly 3%-4%, not 40%. But note that fiscal 2004 results were over $250 million, so at the current rate iTMS would be contributing quite a bit less than 10% to the bottom line.
It's very possible that the iTMS will eventually contribute over $1 billion a year in revenue and will be a pretty big contributor to the company's profit. I just don't think it's there yet. Competition is coming whether Apple wants it or not, so there isn't really any reason to put out disinformation about this.
I linked to the Q4 report. That included year end numbers for fiscal 2003 and 2004. The cash flow is impressive, but almost certainly not attributed to massive profit from iTMS.
Kudos to you for needing a fucking break. You must have a very active sex life.
I'm not saying convergence is a bad thing -- I have a P800 for the same reason you bought your Treo. I'd usually leave my Palm handheld in my bag and have my cellphone with me, so it made sense to get a single device that handles both functions well. But that's not the original context.
The original poster was complaining that he'd like to have an MP3 player, but can't fit it in between his phone, keys and wallet, while at the library or University class where he almost certainly is already carrying some kind of bag for his books. Given the wide range of MP3 players on the market, this struck me as kind of silly. He could wear an iPod shuffle on a cord around his neck if he wanted. There are a number of reasons for not having an MP3 player -- you don't like the players available, you don't care for the sound quality, you have nostalgia for your vintage cassette player, whatever -- but that it's too heavy? Bah.
Last I checked, apple pays 60c per song and resells them for 99c. That is approximately a 40% margin.... You can hardly say iTMS is next to nothing in margin.
You were pretty harsh for someone who is so totally wrong. While the exact numbers are not available, it is believed that 60-65 cents is what goes to the record label. There are additional costs associated with the song publisher and the technology infrastructure that's required. So your claim of a 40% direct margin doesn't come close to including all direct costs, and completely ignores indirects.
It looks like you don't have any concept of margins at all, e-commerce or otherwise, the different types of margins that get calculated, or how margin differs from net profit. But hey, you did get to make a nasty crack about Apple iPod fanboys, right?
Apple claims the music store is a breakeven deal, and others estimate they make roughly 4 cents a song. That's a pretty trivial amount flowing through to Apple's bottom line. To put this into a "real world scenario" for you -- iTMS downloads are now estimated at well over 1,000,000 per day. Your ridiculously inaccurate numbers would mean that Apple is netting over $100 million a year from music downloads -- nearly double Apple's entire net profit in 2003 and more than 2/3 of their incredible 2004 results. I find that scenario, um, unlikely.
To make this a little simpler for you: Apple's goal is to make money and increase its stock price. They benefit from hugely successful and profitable products. Believe me, if the iTMS store was profitable, Apple would not keep it a secret and deceive us all with a fabricated story that they're just breaking even.
Carrying around a cell phone in my pocket is annoying enough, but having to lug another device is why I haven't bought an MP3 player or PDA.
"Lug" around another device? Isn't that a little over the top? You make it sound like we're talking about carrying a spare boat anchor.
Being a student at the University, I move around a lot during the day between libraries, classes, and gyms, and having an mp3 player during the day would be great, but I've already got my phone in one pocket, keys in the other, and wallet in the back.
You could try one of these innovative new products that have come on the market. They take fabric or animal hide and sew it together, creating a kind of giant pocket! Often, these pockets are sometimes further divided, so you can kind of organize things. Marketing wizards have come up with catchy names for these things like "satchel" or "backpack". Check them out -- they're kind of cool, and might even be useful to carry books between all those libraries and classes you're heading to.
It's entirely relevant. The stipulation by the admissions department does not impart any ethical requirement on the applicant. Just because I provide you a date on which I'm going to contact you does not imply that you are prohibited from learning that information from another source.
If you know someone in admissions and ask them if they've heard about your status, is that equally unethical? (And before you go all black-and-white again and provide some remarkably obvious platitude from a first-year philosophy course -- yes, the individual in admissions would most likely be bound ethically not to divulge this information. And if you attempted to induce them to divulge the information after learning that they were so bound, yes, that would be unethical.)
This just isn't as neatly wrapped a package as you're saying. If the primary basis for your conclusion is a breach of trust, then it follows that the substance of that trust must be clearly communicated and agreed upon in advance. HBS saying "we'll get ahold of you on XX/XX" does not meet that standard in my opinion. Neither does a click-through EULA. A simple, plainly written agreement is closer to the mark. I don't really know enough about this service and the terms established to make a judgment here, but taking a peek is not a de facto ethical violation.
That's just my opinion. I'm willing to accept the fact that you may disagree.
Good for you, but it is too bad that you can't actually see the ethical problem with taking a peek.
You've got to be kidding me. How on earth is this some ethical conundrum? Information was available, unsecured, from the public Internet, to him, regarding his personal status. I could see ethics coming into the issue if the post detailed a method to view other applicants' data, but this was about him and didn't involve breaching any security. While I'm not familiar with the system (my college application, um, pre-dates this system by a bit), the delay in being notified that the data is posted could just as easily be ascribed to technical delays.
The broader issue that you seem to be missing is that faux-ethical dilemma feelgood moments like this distract from genuine ethics problems. It's a shame Harvard can't train its awesome ethical standards (like admitting C-average future presidents) on more challenging targets.
Let's keep in mind that this verdict is just the beginning. The court decided that forcing consumer electronics manufacturers to incorporate the broadcast flag exceeded the mandate given to the FCC by Congress. Our next challenge will be to fight the inevitable legislation that will be introduced (bought and paid for the the content providers) to expand the powers of the FCC to include this mandate.
This is a fight that needs to be won. The broadcast flag essentially does an end run around the Betamax decision which, despite changes in technology and an increase in piracy, is still a sound legal precedent. I don't pirate broadcasts. The vast majority of viewers don't pirate broadcasts. They just want to record their weekly showing of and watch it when they get home from their crappy jobs. Or TiVo the PPV movie they just paid for in case they get called away. The Supreme Court has stated they have the right to do this. The broadcasters are now saying sure, you have the right, but we're going to prevent manufacturers from selling you the enabling technology.
So celebrate briefly, and then go make sure you're on the EFF mailing list and that you know who represents you in Congress.
I presented this argument to a friend who worked at a certain popup happy online travel site. The answer was simple: Banner ads were dead, and the click-through rate on popups was huge. The validity of the statistics, given the often deceptive nature of popups, could be debated. (After all, how many users click a popup with an "OK" button, only to have it open a website?)
I'm sure many are like some of us here -- zealous popup blockers who won't patronize known popup advertisers. But popups still exist because overall they're cheap and effective. Once the economics change, that is, when people stop responding entirely to popups, well, that will be when we see any kind of change on the part of the the advertisers.
Wrong. They create a taxable event when the stock is bought for the purposes of alternative minimum tax (AMT).
Yes and no. Exercise of an ISO can trigger AMT liability, but does not automatically. In that event, you are taxed more like a NQSO -- I believe the amount of the option spread becomes part of your ordinary income for AMT purposes.
I didn't bring up AMT because people really shouldn't be getting their tax advice from Slashdot. Can we close this thread by just advising everyone of the following: If you have ANY options as part of your compensation, incentive or non-qualified, you really should speak to a tax professional BEFORE you exercise any of your options.
But Google did show them the money. Per the article, they gave the employees stock, not stock options. Granted, it's restricted stock, but it's real stock worth real money. So credit where credit's due.
I think he means "without the risk of the company evaporating". In other words, it's a stable job at a profitable company but you still have a shot at getting rich.
Thanks for the insight, but I understood what he meant. I just think the fact that a company that is less than 7 years old is considered an unsinkable behemoth whose good fortune is guaranteed is evidence that some folks are drinking the same Kool-Aid they were passing around in the late 90s.
I'm not saying that Google is doomed, but to say that a company this young and in a business this fickle is "without the risk of evaporating" is kind of silly.
That's why company's normally give options. They are not taxable until after you SELL the stock, and if you bought your options and were able to hold onto them for two years, you would then be able to sell them and only pay capital gains tax instead of income tax.
That's not entirely correct. Incentive stock options, or qualified stock options, do not create a taxable event until the stock is sold. Many of these compensation plans, however, do not meet the requirements for qualified stock option grants and dole out what are considered non-qualified stock options. NQSOs are taxable when they are exercised. There is also no way to convert the income from ordinary to capital gains with a NQSO, regardless of the time held.
According to the article, they believe that a recent grad who would like to work in a start-up will still be attracted to them because of the opportunity to create something great and be rewarded with millions (and without much of the risk associated with startups).
Without much of the risk because they're being paid "millions" -- on paper, in the form of Google stock? Some people never learn.
(Oh, and kids, those "millions" are very likely to be taxable before you ever see a dime of cold hard cash. Enjoy!)
Um, no. From the article, we learn that Carnivore was originally created because commercially-availble solutions at the time did not have the privacy protections the FBI needed. FBI needed these privacy protections so that evidence gathered in this manner would not be thrown out by judges -- so they built Carnivore in-house to make sure that it would only record information covered by warrant.
...
So hey, if you want to go off on a tangent about how evil PATRIOT ACT/Echelon/John Ascroft/etc are, that's fine -- although that would be pretty off-topic given the issue presented in this article (i.e., Carnivore being replaced by commercially-available software that does the same thing).
Actually, it's not off-topic. It's extremely relevant. If you RTFA, you'll see that he links to his PATRIOT Act article - in which he picks 3 provisions related to Internet surveillance and uses them as proof that the PATRIOT Act really isn't so bad. He seems to think that it's kinda warm and fuzzy and all those civil libertarians are just cranks.
I'm not a tin-foil hat type, but I do believe that the PATRIOT Act guts many of our civil liberties. This guy seems to be a quack (granted, a quack who appears to be at a reasonably prestigious university) who doesn't seem particularly worried about the current state of affairs. That's fine if that's his opinion, but you'd be wise to consider his opinions on Carnivore in the context of his overall view.
I'm begining to get the feeling that Steve Jobs might be trying to reposition Apple. Hardware is a mugs game, after all. We all know what happened the last time Apple tried to licence the Mac to clone builders..but what if they tried it now?
No. I think this is far more indicative of reduced hardward component costs than anything else. Hardware has never been "a mug's game" for Apple - it's been the foundation of their operating profit. Granted, lately it's been consumer product hardware like the iPod, but Apple has always made money because they make stuff not code.
your parent is wrong. they could have, and does, happen naturally.
In this context, no, I don't think the parent is wrong. His point was that given the lifecycle of the coca plant, this kind of resistance could not have developed in the few years we've been spraying there.
Could this happen naturally, without any selective breeding? Absolutely. Could it happen naturally in 4 years? IMO, highly unlikely.
I think the Daring Fireball link in the parent makes some good points. Apple provided Desktop Accessories on my Quadra 800 in 1992. (Still do, in fact.) Konfabulator just created an environment to build them more easily and to easily take advantage of some OSX features. (While using voluminous amounts of RAM.)
It's just an environment and tool to develop stuff. To me, this is as silly as being angry at AppleScript.
To my knowledge, most herbicides are effective for years, and glyphosate (Round-up) has been no different. In fact, Ive only heard of one other putative instance of naturally developing resistance to Round-up. With all thats sprayed in the US to control our annual herbaceous weeds, I find it unlikely that resistance developed naturally in a comparatively slow reproducing plant such as coca.
I hate to say RTFA, but RTFA. The author specifically went to Colombia to determine whether this resistant plant existed and to try and determine whether it was genetically-modified. He did find what appeared to be Roundup-resistance coca plants and had them tested at a DNA lab.
They found no evidence of any tampering. They specifically looked for evidence of the gene and the process used to develop Roundup Ready soybeans that we use in the U.S. They said that while it was possible that another way had been found the modify the plant, it was highly unlikely given an already known method.
The author's ultimate conclusion was that the plants had been selectively bred. Colombian farmers apparently often sell and trade clippings from the hardiest plants and have created a large, ad hoc breeding network.
So yeah, you're probably right. This probably couldn't have occurred naturally. But that's not what this article is about.
And no, I'm not a plant pathologist or a geneticist, just some guy who read the article. For whatever that's worth.
Slashdot Mirror
Please point me to one piece of iTMS advertising. It may be out there, but I've never seen it. I've seen tons of advertising for the iPod, which would definitely be part of how Apple spends the iPod's gross margin, but I haven't seen them heavily promote the iTMS. (Apart from the big Pepsi promotion which is probably paid for almost entirely by Pepsi, given how these things work.)
I just don't think you get it. iPod advertising is not the same as iTMS advertising and it doesn't get reflected as part of iTMS net profit. Now that I see how clueless you are ("folding [iTMS profit] back into iPod advertising and calling it break even") it seems appropriate that your original post has been modded flamebait. This isn't even remotely close to business reality. It might be appropriate to allocate some of the iPod advertising cost to iTMS, but determining the appropriate allocation would be pretty complicated, probably immaterial from an accounting standpoint, and probably not worth the effort.
While that may be true, I'd expect that the agreement between the labels and Apple requires more disclosure of their cost structure than the general public receives. Just a guess.
Again, I'll reiterate that you don't really seem to understand business. Gross margin, which is what you're talking about, is a fine starting point but just isn't the end of the story. But you aren't even including all the components of their direct margin -- you're taking one direct cost, the record label fee, and saying that, wow, that's an awesome margin. But that's NOT their margin, direct or otherwise. It's just their net revenue after a single direct cost, which is pretty meaningless.
.AAC files from RIAA and reselling them. They're providing digital files and distribution, and the cost of goods sold calculation is somewhat more involved.
I think your confusion is coming from trying to compare this to physical products, where you buy something tangible from one person and resell it to another. That's not what is happening here. Apple is not buying 100,000 Brittany
You're partly right. I was merely pointing out that the net margin was roughly 3%-4%, not 40%. But note that fiscal 2004 results were over $250 million, so at the current rate iTMS would be contributing quite a bit less than 10% to the bottom line.
It's very possible that the iTMS will eventually contribute over $1 billion a year in revenue and will be a pretty big contributor to the company's profit. I just don't think it's there yet. Competition is coming whether Apple wants it or not, so there isn't really any reason to put out disinformation about this.
I linked to the Q4 report. That included year end numbers for fiscal 2003 and 2004. The cash flow is impressive, but almost certainly not attributed to massive profit from iTMS.
Kudos to you for needing a fucking break. You must have a very active sex life.
I'm not saying convergence is a bad thing -- I have a P800 for the same reason you bought your Treo. I'd usually leave my Palm handheld in my bag and have my cellphone with me, so it made sense to get a single device that handles both functions well. But that's not the original context.
The original poster was complaining that he'd like to have an MP3 player, but can't fit it in between his phone, keys and wallet, while at the library or University class where he almost certainly is already carrying some kind of bag for his books. Given the wide range of MP3 players on the market, this struck me as kind of silly. He could wear an iPod shuffle on a cord around his neck if he wanted. There are a number of reasons for not having an MP3 player -- you don't like the players available, you don't care for the sound quality, you have nostalgia for your vintage cassette player, whatever -- but that it's too heavy? Bah.
You were pretty harsh for someone who is so totally wrong. While the exact numbers are not available, it is believed that 60-65 cents is what goes to the record label. There are additional costs associated with the song publisher and the technology infrastructure that's required. So your claim of a 40% direct margin doesn't come close to including all direct costs, and completely ignores indirects.
It looks like you don't have any concept of margins at all, e-commerce or otherwise, the different types of margins that get calculated, or how margin differs from net profit. But hey, you did get to make a nasty crack about Apple iPod fanboys, right?
Apple claims the music store is a breakeven deal, and others estimate they make roughly 4 cents a song. That's a pretty trivial amount flowing through to Apple's bottom line. To put this into a "real world scenario" for you -- iTMS downloads are now estimated at well over 1,000,000 per day. Your ridiculously inaccurate numbers would mean that Apple is netting over $100 million a year from music downloads -- nearly double Apple's entire net profit in 2003 and more than 2/3 of their incredible 2004 results. I find that scenario, um, unlikely.
To make this a little simpler for you: Apple's goal is to make money and increase its stock price. They benefit from hugely successful and profitable products. Believe me, if the iTMS store was profitable, Apple would not keep it a secret and deceive us all with a fabricated story that they're just breaking even.
"Lug" around another device? Isn't that a little over the top? You make it sound like we're talking about carrying a spare boat anchor.
Being a student at the University, I move around a lot during the day between libraries, classes, and gyms, and having an mp3 player during the day would be great, but I've already got my phone in one pocket, keys in the other, and wallet in the back.
You could try one of these innovative new products that have come on the market. They take fabric or animal hide and sew it together, creating a kind of giant pocket! Often, these pockets are sometimes further divided, so you can kind of organize things. Marketing wizards have come up with catchy names for these things like "satchel" or "backpack". Check them out -- they're kind of cool, and might even be useful to carry books between all those libraries and classes you're heading to.
If you know someone in admissions and ask them if they've heard about your status, is that equally unethical? (And before you go all black-and-white again and provide some remarkably obvious platitude from a first-year philosophy course -- yes, the individual in admissions would most likely be bound ethically not to divulge this information. And if you attempted to induce them to divulge the information after learning that they were so bound, yes, that would be unethical.)
This just isn't as neatly wrapped a package as you're saying. If the primary basis for your conclusion is a breach of trust, then it follows that the substance of that trust must be clearly communicated and agreed upon in advance. HBS saying "we'll get ahold of you on XX/XX" does not meet that standard in my opinion. Neither does a click-through EULA. A simple, plainly written agreement is closer to the mark. I don't really know enough about this service and the terms established to make a judgment here, but taking a peek is not a de facto ethical violation.
That's just my opinion. I'm willing to accept the fact that you may disagree.
You've got to be kidding me. How on earth is this some ethical conundrum? Information was available, unsecured, from the public Internet, to him, regarding his personal status. I could see ethics coming into the issue if the post detailed a method to view other applicants' data, but this was about him and didn't involve breaching any security. While I'm not familiar with the system (my college application, um, pre-dates this system by a bit), the delay in being notified that the data is posted could just as easily be ascribed to technical delays.
The broader issue that you seem to be missing is that faux-ethical dilemma feelgood moments like this distract from genuine ethics problems. It's a shame Harvard can't train its awesome ethical standards (like admitting C-average future presidents) on more challenging targets.
When car manufacturers put out a never-to-be-mass-produced concept car it's at least, well, a car.
This is a fight that needs to be won. The broadcast flag essentially does an end run around the Betamax decision which, despite changes in technology and an increase in piracy, is still a sound legal precedent. I don't pirate broadcasts. The vast majority of viewers don't pirate broadcasts. They just want to record their weekly showing of and watch it when they get home from their crappy jobs. Or TiVo the PPV movie they just paid for in case they get called away. The Supreme Court has stated they have the right to do this. The broadcasters are now saying sure, you have the right, but we're going to prevent manufacturers from selling you the enabling technology.
So celebrate briefly, and then go make sure you're on the EFF mailing list and that you know who represents you in Congress.
I'm sure many are like some of us here -- zealous popup blockers who won't patronize known popup advertisers. But popups still exist because overall they're cheap and effective. Once the economics change, that is, when people stop responding entirely to popups, well, that will be when we see any kind of change on the part of the the advertisers.
Yes and no. Exercise of an ISO can trigger AMT liability, but does not automatically. In that event, you are taxed more like a NQSO -- I believe the amount of the option spread becomes part of your ordinary income for AMT purposes.
I didn't bring up AMT because people really shouldn't be getting their tax advice from Slashdot. Can we close this thread by just advising everyone of the following: If you have ANY options as part of your compensation, incentive or non-qualified, you really should speak to a tax professional BEFORE you exercise any of your options.
But Google did show them the money. Per the article, they gave the employees stock, not stock options. Granted, it's restricted stock, but it's real stock worth real money. So credit where credit's due.
I still think there is some irrationality surrounding Google, but this is a classy move on their part.
Thanks for the insight, but I understood what he meant. I just think the fact that a company that is less than 7 years old is considered an unsinkable behemoth whose good fortune is guaranteed is evidence that some folks are drinking the same Kool-Aid they were passing around in the late 90s.
I'm not saying that Google is doomed, but to say that a company this young and in a business this fickle is "without the risk of evaporating" is kind of silly.
That's not entirely correct. Incentive stock options, or qualified stock options, do not create a taxable event until the stock is sold. Many of these compensation plans, however, do not meet the requirements for qualified stock option grants and dole out what are considered non-qualified stock options. NQSOs are taxable when they are exercised. There is also no way to convert the income from ordinary to capital gains with a NQSO, regardless of the time held.
Without much of the risk because they're being paid "millions" -- on paper, in the form of Google stock? Some people never learn.
(Oh, and kids, those "millions" are very likely to be taxable before you ever see a dime of cold hard cash. Enjoy!)
...
So hey, if you want to go off on a tangent about how evil PATRIOT ACT/Echelon/John Ascroft/etc are, that's fine -- although that would be pretty off-topic given the issue presented in this article (i.e., Carnivore being replaced by commercially-available software that does the same thing).
Actually, it's not off-topic. It's extremely relevant. If you RTFA, you'll see that he links to his PATRIOT Act article - in which he picks 3 provisions related to Internet surveillance and uses them as proof that the PATRIOT Act really isn't so bad. He seems to think that it's kinda warm and fuzzy and all those civil libertarians are just cranks.
I'm not a tin-foil hat type, but I do believe that the PATRIOT Act guts many of our civil liberties. This guy seems to be a quack (granted, a quack who appears to be at a reasonably prestigious university) who doesn't seem particularly worried about the current state of affairs. That's fine if that's his opinion, but you'd be wise to consider his opinions on Carnivore in the context of his overall view.
No. I think this is far more indicative of reduced hardward component costs than anything else. Hardware has never been "a mug's game" for Apple - it's been the foundation of their operating profit. Granted, lately it's been consumer product hardware like the iPod, but Apple has always made money because they make stuff not code.
Duh. That's why you hire consultatnts. So you have someone to blame. And sue.
In this context, no, I don't think the parent is wrong. His point was that given the lifecycle of the coca plant, this kind of resistance could not have developed in the few years we've been spraying there.
Could this happen naturally, without any selective breeding? Absolutely. Could it happen naturally in 4 years? IMO, highly unlikely.
I think the Daring Fireball link in the parent makes some good points. Apple provided Desktop Accessories on my Quadra 800 in 1992. (Still do, in fact.) Konfabulator just created an environment to build them more easily and to easily take advantage of some OSX features. (While using voluminous amounts of RAM.)
It's just an environment and tool to develop stuff. To me, this is as silly as being angry at AppleScript.
I hate to say RTFA, but RTFA. The author specifically went to Colombia to determine whether this resistant plant existed and to try and determine whether it was genetically-modified. He did find what appeared to be Roundup-resistance coca plants and had them tested at a DNA lab.
They found no evidence of any tampering. They specifically looked for evidence of the gene and the process used to develop Roundup Ready soybeans that we use in the U.S. They said that while it was possible that another way had been found the modify the plant, it was highly unlikely given an already known method.
The author's ultimate conclusion was that the plants had been selectively bred. Colombian farmers apparently often sell and trade clippings from the hardiest plants and have created a large, ad hoc breeding network.
So yeah, you're probably right. This probably couldn't have occurred naturally. But that's not what this article is about.
And no, I'm not a plant pathologist or a geneticist, just some guy who read the article. For whatever that's worth.
tp