Thanks for this response. I'm familiar with exchange-traded options but not employer-granted options. And, as I never exercise options, I hadn't fully considered strategies involving exercising them. Appreciate it.
Technically, you don't *need* $400K to exercise the stock options. You can do an immediate exercise -> sell and just take the profits of the difference between the strike price and current price of the instrument. However, doing that means instant capital gains tax hit, and also if you think the stock will continue to do alright and/or you want to collect dividends, you've lost the opportunity to hold the stock - which *would* require the $400K outlay.
I feel you're being a bit pedantic here. As you said, we're not talking about the general public - the audience is Slashdot. Vivaldi and Microsoft are both tech companies. However, they are dramatically different in size, age, and valuation. Further, Firefox is 14+ years old and has almost 7%[1] of the browser market - and that's a number that's dropping. Vivaldi is in the 2% "other" category and isn't even mentioned by name in my source. Wikipedia is 16 years old. Wikipedia appears in tons of internet searches. Similarly, if you search web browser, you'll probably see Chrome and Firefox listed. Chances are, you won't see Vivaldi except for perhaps a mention of the latest news.
My post about MSFT's $500bn valuation was a terse dismissal of a strange response during a brief break during my workday - not a fully formed argument.:-)
Koch Industries I would have guessed was in the top 5-10. I am surprised they're not a lot larger than that. I know who they are and what they do. I suspect a goodly number of slashdot regulars would recognize their name and probably know they're involved in energy. Cargill probably not. I didn't think of them, nor know their business. Maybe not shadowy enough to catch popular interest? =)
Anyway, while it's interesting trivia, I'm not sure the relevance or your point if you were making one relevant to the thread. Microsoft is an old public company. Koch / Cargill are old private companies. Vivaldi is a 2 year old private company with 35 employees. I think it is fair that articles provide this background and refute GP's snark that it's akin to asking them to provide background on Microsoft.
I can't believe you guys posted this crap. This is stale - the news itself about the land crater dates back to 2006. Next, this article is from *The Sun* which is akin to National Enquirer. Nazi UFO base? Give me a break...... The WLC itself is pretty cool and interesting, but there are other articles that would've sucked a lot less. Here's an example: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/heres... CHOOSE A BETTER SOURCE.
They can, and have been for years. I believe they're being petty - butthurt from all the backlash they've received over the clusterf- that is the 2016 MBP lineup.
The big gripe here is that Apple's 15" 2015 MBP had a 99.5 watt-hour battery (rated for 9 hours wireless web) while the 2016 15" MBP has a 76 watt-hour battery that's rated for 10 hours. The 2015 model came very close to the rated time, which makes sense with its 31% larger battery.
Apple removing the estimated time, which it's provided for a long time, feels like a really childish response to the backlash they're receiving. It's been largely understood by most that these times are simply estimates based on the recent rate of consumption.
These 2016 MacBook Pros are great machines, but they should've been in the 'MacBook' or 'MacBook Air' product lines.. not Pro.
Apple did themselves a disservice by releasing the updated watches after only 1 year. They signaled to the market that the watch you buy will be best supported for only a short period of time. You're paying hefty prices for an adjunct to your phone. App developers will follow the performance and capabilities, and the supplanted devices will soon become hobbled in what apps they can run and how well they can run them.
If they slow down their product life-cycle, I'd pay their ask. For buyers like myself, they need to offer something that I can reasonably assume will not go end of sale for at least 2-3 years and also stay supported for another 3 years beyond that. You might respond, "well, the watch is still good after you buy it! They'll continue to support it!," which is not untrue, but see the above point about the app support. You might also say, "they have to stay competitive with the market!," to which I say..
If they don't, won't or can't slow down their product life-cycle, people like me see maybe a 3-4 year usable life-cycle for the product when we make a purchase decision. To get us to put down the money, they need to cut the price. The 42mm (with a sport band) in series 1 is $299, series 2 is $399. The series 2 adds GPS, water resistance, and better screen. Sorry, but I don't want a hobbled series 1 device that'll leave me unsatisfied at the short end of that cycle for $299. Try $150. The watch I'd want, the series two, I'd buy for $250, not $399.
The OP is using GAFE, Google Apps for Education. It's basically the same as the commercial offering. Students don't create their own accounts, the district likely has a process in place that automatically provisions the new accounts using something like Google Apps Directory Sync or a 3rd party app that uses the Google Accounts APIs. Kids / employees go to sign in and it Just Works. (TM).
Incorrect. Original Design Manufacturers *design* and *patent* what they've designed. Apple designs and patents their own equipment.
They do outsource the manufacturing to companies like Quanta, Keytronic, and Foxconn, but that doesn't mean they wear the pants in the relationship, and they would be beholden to Apple to determine who they could or could not ship or sell units to. Purchasing from Apple is essentially a direct purchase without a third party.
Imagine if you wanted an Apple computer you had to buy it through Best Buy or Radio Shack, and dealing with their personnel. The companies that do business this way are maddening. Elsewhere, companies like Cisco choose not to sell directly to buyers, making them go through a partner or reseller. This may have been an acceptable model years ago, but these days it's tedious and I think people expect more; they don't want to deal with a third party whose interests are not wholly aligned with their own. At least when you're talking about tech vendors, you can opt to deal with someone else who does business differently. Government enforcement of a given model is quite wrong-headed and needs to be stopped. It smacks of protectionism to me.
Yeah, I agree, but not everyone works in an organization with that accounting structure.:-)
"Fund accounting is an accounting system emphasizing accountability rather than profitability, used by non-profit organizations and governments. In this system, a fund is a self-balancing set of accounts, segregated for specific purposes in accordance with laws and regulations or special restrictions and limitations."
Absolutely. Quoting Wikipedia, "While not-for-profit organizations are permitted to generate surplus revenues, they must be retained by the organization for its self-preservation, expansion, or plans."... "The extent to which an NPO can generate surplus revenues may be constrained or use of surplus revenues may be restricted."
"Dodging" tax laws has a negative connotation. Tax laws related to donations *benefit* companies generally as write-offs. I think your post was unfair and presumptuous as to the original poster's intentions.
I don't think the original poster's intentions / considerations had anything to do with tax laws and instead are directly relevant to financial budgets, hinted at by the "underspend" part. Budgets are different from a wallet or general corporate account. You don't want to get into dealings with the administration on misappropriation of budgeted funds.
As far as misappropriations are concerned: if your underspend is on a 'services' or 'software' category, and you use a lot of open source software, it isn't necessarily a misappropriation of funds (and the spirit of the account) to help ensure the projects on which your company depends stay in good health. The groups could've sold a $5,000 consultation or Support Meeting and just talked about how the org. used the software in question and had a chance to present ideas to them. And then at the end of the call or meeting, the project is $5K richer.
TL;DR large organizations that may have money to spend sometimes need some flexibility.
My opinion is that it makes sense for default settings (protecting those inadvertently sharing, preventing a trojan from starting up a common service or opening VNC to the world, etc etc), but a customer should be able to call in and ask that they be exempted from those restrictions. I do understand also non-commercial stipulations and am fine with that too.. but I should never have to wonder if, as a customer, I'm violating my ToS by having SSH and a VPN service sitting on my connection.. it's one of those things where even unenforced it can be used as means for termination and whatnot.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for this response. I'm familiar with exchange-traded options but not employer-granted options. And, as I never exercise options, I hadn't fully considered strategies involving exercising them. Appreciate it.
Technically, you don't *need* $400K to exercise the stock options. You can do an immediate exercise -> sell and just take the profits of the difference between the strike price and current price of the instrument. However, doing that means instant capital gains tax hit, and also if you think the stock will continue to do alright and/or you want to collect dividends, you've lost the opportunity to hold the stock - which *would* require the $400K outlay.
I feel you're being a bit pedantic here. As you said, we're not talking about the general public - the audience is Slashdot. Vivaldi and Microsoft are both tech companies. However, they are dramatically different in size, age, and valuation. Further, Firefox is 14+ years old and has almost 7%[1] of the browser market - and that's a number that's dropping. Vivaldi is in the 2% "other" category and isn't even mentioned by name in my source. Wikipedia is 16 years old. Wikipedia appears in tons of internet searches. Similarly, if you search web browser, you'll probably see Chrome and Firefox listed. Chances are, you won't see Vivaldi except for perhaps a mention of the latest news.
My post about MSFT's $500bn valuation was a terse dismissal of a strange response during a brief break during my workday - not a fully formed argument. :-)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Koch Industries I would have guessed was in the top 5-10. I am surprised they're not a lot larger than that. I know who they are and what they do. I suspect a goodly number of slashdot regulars would recognize their name and probably know they're involved in energy. Cargill probably not. I didn't think of them, nor know their business. Maybe not shadowy enough to catch popular interest? =)
Anyway, while it's interesting trivia, I'm not sure the relevance or your point if you were making one relevant to the thread. Microsoft is an old public company. Koch / Cargill are old private companies. Vivaldi is a 2 year old private company with 35 employees. I think it is fair that articles provide this background and refute GP's snark that it's akin to asking them to provide background on Microsoft.
Microsoft is a ~$500bn company. I think it's fair to assume most people know of them...
"Vivaldi Technologies is a Software Development company, most known for its creation of the Vivaldi browser." https://vivaldi.com/
Minor detail the article and summary leave out.
I can't believe you guys posted this crap. This is stale - the news itself about the land crater dates back to 2006. Next, this article is from *The Sun* which is akin to National Enquirer. Nazi UFO base? Give me a break...... The WLC itself is pretty cool and interesting, but there are other articles that would've sucked a lot less. Here's an example: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/heres... CHOOSE A BETTER SOURCE.
You missed the part in the video and article where he uses a key combo, cmd-ctrl-power to make the machine reboot without having to be authenticated.
They can, and have been for years. I believe they're being petty - butthurt from all the backlash they've received over the clusterf- that is the 2016 MBP lineup.
The big gripe here is that Apple's 15" 2015 MBP had a 99.5 watt-hour battery (rated for 9 hours wireless web) while the 2016 15" MBP has a 76 watt-hour battery that's rated for 10 hours. The 2015 model came very close to the rated time, which makes sense with its 31% larger battery.
Apple removing the estimated time, which it's provided for a long time, feels like a really childish response to the backlash they're receiving. It's been largely understood by most that these times are simply estimates based on the recent rate of consumption.
These 2016 MacBook Pros are great machines, but they should've been in the 'MacBook' or 'MacBook Air' product lines.. not Pro.
Apple did themselves a disservice by releasing the updated watches after only 1 year. They signaled to the market that the watch you buy will be best supported for only a short period of time. You're paying hefty prices for an adjunct to your phone. App developers will follow the performance and capabilities, and the supplanted devices will soon become hobbled in what apps they can run and how well they can run them.
If they slow down their product life-cycle, I'd pay their ask. For buyers like myself, they need to offer something that I can reasonably assume will not go end of sale for at least 2-3 years and also stay supported for another 3 years beyond that. You might respond, "well, the watch is still good after you buy it! They'll continue to support it!," which is not untrue, but see the above point about the app support. You might also say, "they have to stay competitive with the market!," to which I say..
If they don't, won't or can't slow down their product life-cycle, people like me see maybe a 3-4 year usable life-cycle for the product when we make a purchase decision. To get us to put down the money, they need to cut the price. The 42mm (with a sport band) in series 1 is $299, series 2 is $399. The series 2 adds GPS, water resistance, and better screen. Sorry, but I don't want a hobbled series 1 device that'll leave me unsatisfied at the short end of that cycle for $299. Try $150. The watch I'd want, the series two, I'd buy for $250, not $399.
Just my $0.02.
The OP is using GAFE, Google Apps for Education. It's basically the same as the commercial offering. Students don't create their own accounts, the district likely has a process in place that automatically provisions the new accounts using something like Google Apps Directory Sync or a 3rd party app that uses the Google Accounts APIs. Kids / employees go to sign in and it Just Works. (TM).
(Source: I've implemented GAFE / GADS at a K-12.)
... and how easily it is to do incorrectly. Mechanical doesn't have to mean "bad."
Incorrect. Original Design Manufacturers *design* and *patent* what they've designed. Apple designs and patents their own equipment.
They do outsource the manufacturing to companies like Quanta, Keytronic, and Foxconn, but that doesn't mean they wear the pants in the relationship, and they would be beholden to Apple to determine who they could or could not ship or sell units to. Purchasing from Apple is essentially a direct purchase without a third party.
The difference is choice.
What? I believe you've always been able to order directly from Apple. No middle-man required.
Imagine if you wanted an Apple computer you had to buy it through Best Buy or Radio Shack, and dealing with their personnel. The companies that do business this way are maddening. Elsewhere, companies like Cisco choose not to sell directly to buyers, making them go through a partner or reseller. This may have been an acceptable model years ago, but these days it's tedious and I think people expect more; they don't want to deal with a third party whose interests are not wholly aligned with their own. At least when you're talking about tech vendors, you can opt to deal with someone else who does business differently. Government enforcement of a given model is quite wrong-headed and needs to be stopped. It smacks of protectionism to me.
Yeah, I agree, but not everyone works in an organization with that accounting structure. :-)
"Fund accounting is an accounting system emphasizing accountability rather than profitability, used by non-profit organizations and governments. In this system, a fund is a self-balancing set of accounts, segregated for specific purposes in accordance with laws and regulations or special restrictions and limitations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fund_accounting
Absolutely. Quoting Wikipedia, "While not-for-profit organizations are permitted to generate surplus revenues, they must be retained by the organization for its self-preservation, expansion, or plans." ... "The extent to which an NPO can generate surplus revenues may be constrained or use of surplus revenues may be restricted."
Ever been to Kickstarter?
You can sell a poster for $500.
Sell a meeting with lead developers (to discuss project direction, feature requests.. whatever) for $2,500.
Get creative.
"Dodging" tax laws has a negative connotation. Tax laws related to donations *benefit* companies generally as write-offs. I think your post was unfair and presumptuous as to the original poster's intentions.
I don't think the original poster's intentions / considerations had anything to do with tax laws and instead are directly relevant to financial budgets, hinted at by the "underspend" part. Budgets are different from a wallet or general corporate account. You don't want to get into dealings with the administration on misappropriation of budgeted funds.
As far as misappropriations are concerned: if your underspend is on a 'services' or 'software' category, and you use a lot of open source software, it isn't necessarily a misappropriation of funds (and the spirit of the account) to help ensure the projects on which your company depends stay in good health. The groups could've sold a $5,000 consultation or Support Meeting and just talked about how the org. used the software in question and had a chance to present ideas to them. And then at the end of the call or meeting, the project is $5K richer.
TL;DR large organizations that may have money to spend sometimes need some flexibility.
My opinion is that it makes sense for default settings (protecting those inadvertently sharing, preventing a trojan from starting up a common service or opening VNC to the world, etc etc), but a customer should be able to call in and ask that they be exempted from those restrictions. I do understand also non-commercial stipulations and am fine with that too.. but I should never have to wonder if, as a customer, I'm violating my ToS by having SSH and a VPN service sitting on my connection.. it's one of those things where even unenforced it can be used as means for termination and whatnot.
No, it's simple, you subcontract it out to Google!
I liked the part in Fantastic Voyage where Coolio was riding in the back of a super sweet convertible.
Interviewer didn't know who Richard Feynman was? Missing out on that one.... please renew your geek card.