...and I'm alarmed by what passes for scientific research. I see a lot of junk science being spewed forth from both ends of the political spectrum. Dubious correlation models, epidemiological studies hailed as "discoveries", and gross over-reliance on statistical tricks are pervasive.
"Oh, we used matching to 'account' for all those confounding variables". How convenient.
It's not just research--there's an increasing amount of intellectual dishonesty (or at least self-deception) in engineering, as well. A system that passes all the testcases in simulation will have to do, because we don't have enough engineers who know how to do analysis or proofs. Don't get me started on the use of non-deterministic circuits in safety-critical systems.
That's what the courts (or arbitrators) are for. It is up to the court to decide what the amount of the reward will be, based on a long list of factors set out in the International Convention on Salvage (1989). Typically, the reward will be less than 50% of the value of the property recovered, although it can be more for sunken treasure. The salvor does not need to have (and in fact, must not have) a pre-existing agreement with the owner to have a pure (or "merit") salvage claim.
In general, if the owner of the vessel refuses to pay the reward arising from a successful salvage, the court can seize the property and order it to be sold at auction to satisfy the claim. Of course, there can be lots of details and exceptions in specific cases.
Under international maritime law, the objects remain the property of the original owner forever, unless that owner has formally abandoned claim to them. The salvor may go to court to claim a reward for recovering the property, but is not entitled the property itself.
Maritime law does not work like that. There is no time limit. The owner must make a formal declaration of abandonment. NASA has not abandoned title to these engines. The salvor is entitled to a reward for recovering them, but cannot claim ownership of them.
It is true that objects in international waters are covered under maritime salvage law. All the other statements above are false.
NASA has not made any express declaration abandoning title to the engines. There is no time limit. A salvor has a claim to a reward for recovering the property, but not a claim to the property itself. The claim for a reward is equivalent to a lien on the property.
No. Under admiralty law, the objects remain the property of the original owner forever, unless that owner has formally abandoned claim to them. The salvor may claim a reward for recovering the property, but not the property itself.
To be a bit more specific, the bond is posted to make sure that the cost of removing the structure is covered, even if the company goes out of business. At today's interest rates, that should not be a terrible burden on the company. (They probably issued bonds to cover the bond).
Based on what is described in the article, this is how it should be done, IMO. No subsidies or tax gimmicks. The company, not the taxpayer, bears the economic risk. I tend to be skeptical of the viability of a lot of these alternative energy projects, but if they can make this work profitably, or even come close to breaking even while advancing the state of the art, it's a win for everyone. More power to 'em.
IANAL, but is there some way to compel them to show up? Not to force them to prosecute their claims, but rather to compel them to answer for their frivolous lawsuits, for example?
Yes, the defendant can file a counterclaim. If they still don't show up, the defendant wins, automatically. Then, there's the little detail of collecting on the judgement, but take it one step at a time...
Please, do correct me if I'm wrong about this, but when I read 'speculation' I don't think 'Waiting for the price to come down to buy the goods'. I think 'buying paper or digital numbers that represent goods'.
First, speculation can take many forms, and not all of them involve options contracts. Hoarding is also speculation. At the moment, it is quite profitable to hire Suezmax tankers (day rates are quite low), fill them with crude oil and have them travel very, very slowly to their destinations.
Second, there is no objective way to distinguish between hedging and speculation. Selling and buying futures is an essential mechanism for both producers and consumers to manage risk. Wildly fluctuating prices, which is what you would have in the absence of futures contracts, are bad for everyone. Producers would be less inclined to invest (and less able to secure capital) in growing crops or extracting raw materials because they would not know if they could do it profitably. Consumers would not be able to plan their businesses properly, because they would have no control over their input costs. In other words, prices would be much higher across the board in the absence of futures contracts, because of the greater risk aversion of both producers and consumers.
Third, futures contracts do not tie up nearly as much capital as putting a commodity into inventory (hoarding), which is what would happen in the absence of futures contracts.
Fourth, in anything other than the short term, futures contracts have neutral effect on commodity price. Futures contracts are written in brackets above and below the expected market price. All the futures do is smooth out the fluctuations. Sometimes that works to the benefit of the producers, and sometimes it works to the benefit of the consumers, but neither can hold prices artificially high or low through futures contracts for very long, because the contracts do expire. When new futures contracts are written, the premium at which they are sold reflects the reality of the new supply and demand conditions.
Fifth, this has absolutely nothing to do with "The Wall Street". Energy commodities are traded at the NYMEX, which is on the opposite side of Manhattan from Wall Street, and agricultural commodities futures are traded in Chicago.
In the case of gasoline, part of the problem is that the individual consumer does _not_ have any way of hedging the fluctuations in price through options at the retail level. Individuals have no negotiating power and and must _always_ pay the spot retail price at the pump. It would be very interesting to see what would happen if fixed-price gasoline contracts were offered to individuals (or if individual consumers themselves formed a co-operative to negotiate gasoline contracts with distributors).
While that is unlikely to happen, for various reasons, it is quite possible that universities in other states could refuse to accept students from Tennessee schools. When state legislators are threatened with the prospect of not being able to send their precious spawn to Ivy League schools, they tend to modify their populist proposals.
Oh, please. Do you seriously think that any other brand of portable electronics are going to be any different? These things are built out of a very small number of highly-integrated surface-mount chips that you can't buy _anywhere_. Maybe ASICs, maybe multicore DSPs with OEM-specific on-chip features (some of them safely tucked away behind security fuses blown through JTAG). It's been like that for 20 years. No serviceable parts inside, period. The world of application-specific semiconductors left the hobbyist behind a long, long time ago.
Fund managers are paid out of fees, not dividends. Dividends are passed through as distributions.
Shareholders of growth/hedge funds holding Apple stock will not be too pleased by this dividend, as they would much rather have capital gains than dividend distributions.
Your example would be correct if the company were valued based solely on the current cash divided by the number of shares--10% less cash and 10% fewer shares would result in the same share price. However, the value of a share is a function of the earnings and expected growth rate of those earnings, not just the cash on hand. A buyback, if large enough, can increase the earnings per share by reducing the number of shares, even for a mature company with a slow growth rate.
However, in this case, the buyback is relatively small and may only offset the increase in the number of shares (dilution) caused by restricted stock and option grants made to employees, so I would not expect it to move the stock price noticeably.
Also, the difference in tax liability is for the shareholder, not the company. The shareholder must pay taxes on dividends every year, but capital gains are not taxed until the shares are sold. The company pays taxes on earnings, either way.
The main driver of Apple's stock price is earnings growth. Even at today's price, Apple shares are cheap, in terms of price/earnings multiple, compared to other tech companies and particularly compared to companies with similar growth rates.
I agree completely and I applaud Ian Shepherd for addressing that issue directly, not just by talking about it, but promoting a tool to measure it objectively.
It is unfortunate that the same term is used for two entirely different things. The article does a pretty good job of conflating the two.
Anyway, the loudness war is over. Digital players, as opposed to CD players, now routinely apply SoundCheck (Apple) or ReplayGain to normalize levels from track to track, so mastering a digital track into saturation no longer makes it "louder" than the next track on the player. Most streaming services do the same. The advantage, if there ever was any, is gone.
It's not surprising that there are still some producers who still indulge in mastering at saturated levels. It's also not surprising that RHCP are still turning out such recordings; they were among the worst offenders at the peak of the loudness war, 13 years ago, and they are probably superstitious enough to believe that it still has some benefit.
I knew that it would be best to leave my laptop at home when entering Canada. Even the Canadian customs officer, who was very nice, said, "That was a wise decision".
Other technologies along similar lines include polysilicon ribbons and vapor deposition of amorphous silicon films. The Twin Creeks research is unusual because most other researchers abandoned monocrystalline silicon wafers ("slices" to you folks in Texas;-) about ten years ago. The holy grail in this field is continuous-process silicon; this doesn't appear to be headed in that direction.
I would think, either this guy owns tablet tech and has been making money of it for decades or has missed his chance.
Or neither. He's a witness for the defendant in this case, not a litigant, himself. Perhaps he missed his chance, but it seems his point is the idea wasn't particularly novel or original (or patentable) when he described it 18 years ago. Picard was certainly not impressed.
The reality here is either you have an industry that is too new and unorganized, a union that is putting a choke holds on the labor pool, or some other dumb ass bureaucratic reason that is making the country noncompetitive.
Slashdot Mirror
...and I'm alarmed by what passes for scientific research. I see a lot of junk science being spewed forth from both ends of the political spectrum. Dubious correlation models, epidemiological studies hailed as "discoveries", and gross over-reliance on statistical tricks are pervasive.
"Oh, we used matching to 'account' for all those confounding variables". How convenient.
It's not just research--there's an increasing amount of intellectual dishonesty (or at least self-deception) in engineering, as well. A system that passes all the testcases in simulation will have to do, because we don't have enough engineers who know how to do analysis or proofs. Don't get me started on the use of non-deterministic circuits in safety-critical systems.
That's what the courts (or arbitrators) are for. It is up to the court to decide what the amount of the reward will be, based on a long list of factors set out in the International Convention on Salvage (1989). Typically, the reward will be less than 50% of the value of the property recovered, although it can be more for sunken treasure. The salvor does not need to have (and in fact, must not have) a pre-existing agreement with the owner to have a pure (or "merit") salvage claim.
In general, if the owner of the vessel refuses to pay the reward arising from a successful salvage, the court can seize the property and order it to be sold at auction to satisfy the claim. Of course, there can be lots of details and exceptions in specific cases.
Under international maritime law, the objects remain the property of the original owner forever, unless that owner has formally abandoned claim to them. The salvor may go to court to claim a reward for recovering the property, but is not entitled the property itself.
Maritime law does not work like that. There is no time limit. The owner must make a formal declaration of abandonment. NASA has not abandoned title to these engines. The salvor is entitled to a reward for recovering them, but cannot claim ownership of them.
Yes, and under international maritime law, the salvor has a claim to a reward for recovering the property, but not to the property itself.
It is true that objects in international waters are covered under maritime salvage law. All the other statements above are false.
NASA has not made any express declaration abandoning title to the engines. There is no time limit. A salvor has a claim to a reward for recovering the property, but not a claim to the property itself. The claim for a reward is equivalent to a lien on the property.
No. Under admiralty law, the objects remain the property of the original owner forever, unless that owner has formally abandoned claim to them. The salvor may claim a reward for recovering the property, but not the property itself.
To be a bit more specific, the bond is posted to make sure that the cost of removing the structure is covered, even if the company goes out of business. At today's interest rates, that should not be a terrible burden on the company. (They probably issued bonds to cover the bond).
Based on what is described in the article, this is how it should be done, IMO. No subsidies or tax gimmicks. The company, not the taxpayer, bears the economic risk. I tend to be skeptical of the viability of a lot of these alternative energy projects, but if they can make this work profitably, or even come close to breaking even while advancing the state of the art, it's a win for everyone. More power to 'em.
IANAL, but is there some way to compel them to show up? Not to force them to prosecute their claims, but rather to compel them to answer for their frivolous lawsuits, for example?
Yes, the defendant can file a counterclaim. If they still don't show up, the defendant wins, automatically. Then, there's the little detail of collecting on the judgement, but take it one step at a time...
If you willingly give me your login credentials I should just assume you're a moron and not hire you.
I agree, but apparently, the Maryland Department of Corrections has different criteria.
Please, do correct me if I'm wrong about this, but when I read 'speculation' I don't think 'Waiting for the price to come down to buy the goods'. I think 'buying paper or digital numbers that represent goods'.
First, speculation can take many forms, and not all of them involve options contracts. Hoarding is also speculation. At the moment, it is quite profitable to hire Suezmax tankers (day rates are quite low), fill them with crude oil and have them travel very, very slowly to their destinations.
Second, there is no objective way to distinguish between hedging and speculation. Selling and buying futures is an essential mechanism for both producers and consumers to manage risk. Wildly fluctuating prices, which is what you would have in the absence of futures contracts, are bad for everyone. Producers would be less inclined to invest (and less able to secure capital) in growing crops or extracting raw materials because they would not know if they could do it profitably. Consumers would not be able to plan their businesses properly, because they would have no control over their input costs. In other words, prices would be much higher across the board in the absence of futures contracts, because of the greater risk aversion of both producers and consumers.
Third, futures contracts do not tie up nearly as much capital as putting a commodity into inventory (hoarding), which is what would happen in the absence of futures contracts.
Fourth, in anything other than the short term, futures contracts have neutral effect on commodity price. Futures contracts are written in brackets above and below the expected market price. All the futures do is smooth out the fluctuations. Sometimes that works to the benefit of the producers, and sometimes it works to the benefit of the consumers, but neither can hold prices artificially high or low through futures contracts for very long, because the contracts do expire. When new futures contracts are written, the premium at which they are sold reflects the reality of the new supply and demand conditions.
Fifth, this has absolutely nothing to do with "The Wall Street". Energy commodities are traded at the NYMEX, which is on the opposite side of Manhattan from Wall Street, and agricultural commodities futures are traded in Chicago.
In the case of gasoline, part of the problem is that the individual consumer does _not_ have any way of hedging the fluctuations in price through options at the retail level. Individuals have no negotiating power and and must _always_ pay the spot retail price at the pump. It would be very interesting to see what would happen if fixed-price gasoline contracts were offered to individuals (or if individual consumers themselves formed a co-operative to negotiate gasoline contracts with distributors).
While that is unlikely to happen, for various reasons, it is quite possible that universities in other states could refuse to accept students from Tennessee schools. When state legislators are threatened with the prospect of not being able to send their precious spawn to Ivy League schools, they tend to modify their populist proposals.
to illustrate the controversy by simply screening "Inherit the Wind" in the classroom?
OK, I will grant that. A battery that cannot be replaced without breaking the case is just dumb.
If you're one of the 1 in 100,000 who ever gets beyond these two concepts? You already know where to go and what to do.
Damn right. If you're going to build circuits that go into handheld devices, you'll have to design chips for a semiconductor manufacturer.
Been there. Done that. Took the retirement package.
Oh, please. Do you seriously think that any other brand of portable electronics are going to be any different? These things are built out of a very small number of highly-integrated surface-mount chips that you can't buy _anywhere_. Maybe ASICs, maybe multicore DSPs with OEM-specific on-chip features (some of them safely tucked away behind security fuses blown through JTAG). It's been like that for 20 years. No serviceable parts inside, period. The world of application-specific semiconductors left the hobbyist behind a long, long time ago.
Fund managers are paid out of fees, not dividends. Dividends are passed through as distributions.
Shareholders of growth/hedge funds holding Apple stock will not be too pleased by this dividend, as they would much rather have capital gains than dividend distributions.
Your example would be correct if the company were valued based solely on the current cash divided by the number of shares--10% less cash and 10% fewer shares would result in the same share price. However, the value of a share is a function of the earnings and expected growth rate of those earnings, not just the cash on hand. A buyback, if large enough, can increase the earnings per share by reducing the number of shares, even for a mature company with a slow growth rate.
However, in this case, the buyback is relatively small and may only offset the increase in the number of shares (dilution) caused by restricted stock and option grants made to employees, so I would not expect it to move the stock price noticeably.
Also, the difference in tax liability is for the shareholder, not the company. The shareholder must pay taxes on dividends every year, but capital gains are not taxed until the shares are sold. The company pays taxes on earnings, either way.
The main driver of Apple's stock price is earnings growth. Even at today's price, Apple shares are cheap, in terms of price/earnings multiple, compared to other tech companies and particularly compared to companies with similar growth rates.
I agree completely and I applaud Ian Shepherd for addressing that issue directly, not just by talking about it, but promoting a tool to measure it objectively.
It is unfortunate that the same term is used for two entirely different things. The article does a pretty good job of conflating the two.
Anyway, the loudness war is over. Digital players, as opposed to CD players, now routinely apply SoundCheck (Apple) or ReplayGain to normalize levels from track to track, so mastering a digital track into saturation no longer makes it "louder" than the next track on the player. Most streaming services do the same. The advantage, if there ever was any, is gone.
It's not surprising that there are still some producers who still indulge in mastering at saturated levels. It's also not surprising that RHCP are still turning out such recordings; they were among the worst offenders at the peak of the loudness war, 13 years ago, and they are probably superstitious enough to believe that it still has some benefit.
I knew that it would be best to leave my laptop at home when entering Canada. Even the Canadian customs officer, who was very nice, said, "That was a wise decision".
Other technologies along similar lines include polysilicon ribbons and vapor deposition of amorphous silicon films. The Twin Creeks research is unusual because most other researchers abandoned monocrystalline silicon wafers ("slices" to you folks in Texas ;-) about ten years ago. The holy grail in this field is continuous-process silicon; this doesn't appear to be headed in that direction.
A bioethicist advocating eugenics.
I would think, either this guy owns tablet tech and has been making money of it for decades or has missed his chance.
Or neither. He's a witness for the defendant in this case, not a litigant, himself. Perhaps he missed his chance, but it seems his point is the idea wasn't particularly novel or original (or patentable) when he described it 18 years ago. Picard was certainly not impressed.
The reality here is either you have an industry that is too new and unorganized, a union that is putting a choke holds on the labor pool, or some other dumb ass bureaucratic reason that is making the country noncompetitive.
D. All of the above.