Don Johnson won nearly $6 million playing blackjack in one night, single-handedly decimating the monthly revenue of Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino. Not long before that, he’d taken the Borgata for $5 million and Caesars for $4 million. Here’s how he did it.
The @FederalReserve is concerned about declining characters per tweet - to fix that it will give $1.6 trillion to insolvent US banks.
{ @ZeroHedge }
Amazon isn’t just a distributor, it’s a hoping to be the major publisher of e-books. When Amazon buys ebooks for $13 wholesale and sells them for $10 retail, and its gargantuan size means it can keep up the practice indefinitely, the strategy isn’t just jarring publishers into adopting lower price points. Because Amazon offers writers a better royalty for publishing directly, its pricing strategy is aimed at squeezing publishers out of the equation entirely.
Having adequate personal space is an important aspect of users’ comfort with their environment. In a restaurant, for instance, spatial intrusion by others can lead to avoidance responses such as early departure or a disinclination to spend.
A web-based survey of more than 1,000 Americans elicited behavioral intentions and emotional responses to a projected restaurant experience when parallel dining tables were spaced at six, twelve, and twenty-four inches apart under three common dining scenarios. Respondents strongly objected to closely spaced tables in most circumstances, particularly in a “romantic” context. Not only did the respondents react negatively to tightly spaced tables but they were generally disdainful of banquette- style seating, regardless of table distance.
The context of the dining experience (e.g., a business lunch, a family occasion) is likely to be a key factor in consumers’ preferences for table spacing and their subsequent behaviors. Gender was also a factor, as women were much less comfortable than men in tight quarters. The findings are clear but the implications for restaurateurs are not, because a tight table arrangement has been demonstrated to shorten the dining cycle without affecting spending.
image { Desiree Dolron }
related { Monsters, daemons, and devils: The Accusations of Nineteenth-Century Vegetarian Writers | PDF }
Keith Chen, an economist from Yale, makes a startling claim in an unpublished working paper: people’s fiscal responsibility and healthy lifestyle choices depend in part on the grammar of their language.
Here’s the idea: Languages differ in the devices they offer to speakers who want to talk about the future. For some, like Spanish and Greek, you have to tack on a verb ending that explicitly marks future time—so, in Spanish, you would say escribo for the present tense (I write or I’m writing) and escribiré for the future tense (I will write). But other languages like Mandarin don’t require their verbs to be escorted by grammatical markers that convey future time—time is usually obvious from something else in the context. In Mandarin, you would say the equivalent of I write tomorrow, using the same verb form for both present and future.
Chen’s finding is that if you divide up a large number of the world’s languages into those that require a grammatical marker for future time and those that don’t, you see an interesting correlation: speakers of languages that force grammatical marking of the future have amassed a smaller retirement nest egg, smoke more, exercise less, and are more likely to be obese.
When you fly trans-Atlantic, why does the plane not go straight? One would think the shortest route would be a straight line from say NYC to London… but the plane makes a curve…
What is a straight line on the globe may appear as a curved line on a flat map. Use a globe and hold a piece of string tight against it with one end at each of the two cities you are flying between. You might find that this gives you a very different path than if you drew a straight line on a map. (…)
For example, a direct line from Toronto to Tokyo goes through Alaska and Siberia. On a flat map with the north pole at the top, this would look like an arch. (…)
Notice that the red line is shorter than the blue line. The sphere has a smaller circumference as you get closer to either of the polls than it does at the equator (closer to the blue line)
If you were to fly directly to your destination on a transatlantic flight (let’s say along the blue line), you would have to fly a much further distance than if you bowed up north over Greenland (and flew closer to the red line) for a bit.{ Askville | Continue reading }
North Atlantic Tracks (NAT) are trans-Atlantic routes that stretch from the northeast of North America to western Europe across the Atlantic Ocean. They ensure aircraft are separated over the ocean, where there is little radar coverage.
These heavily-traveled routes are used by aircraft traveling between North America and Europe, flying between the altitudes of 28,500 and 42,000 feet, inclusive. Entrance and movement along these tracks is controlled by special Oceanic Center air traffic controllers to maintain separation between airplanes.
The primary purpose of these routes is to provide a Minimum Time Route. They are aligned in such a way as to minimize any head winds and maximize tail winds impact on the aircraft. This results in much more efficiency by reducing fuel burn and flight time.
To make such efficiencies possible, the routes are created daily to take account of the shifting of the winds aloft. (…)
Concorde did not travel on the North Atlantic Tracks as it flew to the United States from the United Kingdom and France from a much higher altitude, between 45,000ft and 60,000ft. The weather variations at these altitudes were so minor that Concorde followed the same route each day, traveling to and from Europe to North America on fixed tracks.
The world’s population is burning through the planet’s resources at such a reckless rate – about 28 per cent more last year - it will eventually cause environmental havoc, said the Worldwatch Institute, a US think-tank.
In its annual State of the World 2010 report, it warned any gains from government action on climate change could be wiped out by the cult of consumption and greed unless changes in our lifestyle were made.
Consumerism had become a “powerful driver” for increasing demand for resources and consequent production of waste, with governments, including the British, too readily wanting to promoted it as necessary for job creation and economic well-being.
More than £2.8 trillion of stimulus packages had been poured into economies to pull the world out of the global recession, it found, with only a small amount into green measures.
But the think tank warned that without a “wholesale transformation” of cultural patterns the world would not be able to “prevent the collapse of human civilisation”.
The think tank found that over the past decade consumption of goods and services had risen by 28 per cent — with the world digging up the equivalent of 112 Empire State Buildings of material every day.
The average American consumes more than his or her weight in products each day.
Many economists expect catastrophic consequences if any country exits the euro. However, during the past century sixty-nine countries have exited currency areas with little downward economic volatility. The mechanics of currency breakups are complicated but feasible, and historical examples provide a roadmap for exit. The real problem in Europe is that EU peripheral countries face severe, unsustainable imbalances in real effective exchange rates and external debt levels that are higher than most previous emerging market crises. Orderly defaults and debt rescheduling coupled with devaluations are inevitable and even desirable.
Exiting from the euro and devaluation would accelerate insolvencies, but would provide a powerful policy tool via flexible exchange rates. The European periphery could then grow again quickly with deleveraged balance sheets and more competitive exchange rates, much like many emerging markets after recent defaults and devaluations (Asia 1997, Russia 1998, and Argentina 2002).
(…)
The breakup of the euro would be an historic event, but it would not be the first currency breakup ever. Within the past 100 years, there have been sixty-nine currency breakups. Almost all of the exits from a currency union have been associated with low macroeconomic volatility. Previous examples include the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1919, India and Pakistan 1947, Pakistan and Bangladesh 1971, Czechoslovakia in 1992-93, and USSR in 1992.
Previous currency breakups and currency exits provide a roadmap for exiting the euro. While the euro is historically unique, the problems presented by a currency exit are not. There is no need for theorizing about how the euro breakup would happen. Previous historical examples provide crucial answers to: the timing and announcement of exits, the introduction of new coins and notes, the denomination or re-denomination of private and public liabilities, and the division of central bank assets and liabilities. This paper will examine historical examples and provide recommendations for the exit of the Eurozone.
The move from an old currency to a new one can be accomplished quickly and efficiently. While every exit from a currency area is unique, exits share a few elements in common. Typically, before old notes and coins can be withdrawn, they are stamped in ink or a physical stamp is placed on them, and old unstamped notes are no longer legal tender. In the meantime, new notes are quickly printed. Capital controls are imposed at borders in order to prevent unstamped notes from leaving the country. Despite capital controls, old notes will inevitably escape the country and be deposited elsewhere as citizens pursue an economic advantage. Once new notes are available, old stamped notes are de-monetized and are no longer legal tender. This entire process has typically been accomplished in a few months.
The mechanics of a currency breakup are surprisingly straightforward; the real problem for Europe is overvalued real effective exchange rates and extremely high debt. Historically, moving from one currency to another has not led to severe economic or legal problems. In almost all cases, the transition was smooth and relatively straightforward. This strengthens the view that Europe’s problems are not the mechanics of the breakup, but the existing real effective exchange rate and external debt imbalances. European countries could default without leaving the euro, but only exiting the euro can restore competitiveness. As such, exiting itself is the most powerful policy tool to re-balance Europe and create growth.
artwork { Victor Castillo }
In 1986, Guantanamo became host to the first and only McDonald’s restaurant within Cuba.
A Subway sandwich shop was opened in November 2002. Other fast food outlets have followed. These fast food restaurants are on base, and not accessible to Cubans.
It has been reported that prisoners cooperating with interrogations have been rewarded with Happy Meals from the McDonald’s located on the mainside of the base.
In 2004, Guantanamo opened a combined KFC & A&W restaurant at the bowling alley and a Pizza Hut Express at the Windjammer Restaurant. There is also a Taco Bell, and the Triple C shop that sells Starbucks coffee and Breyers ice cream.
All the restaurants on the installation are franchises owned and operated by the Department of the Navy. All proceeds from these restaurants are used to support morale, welfare and recreation (MWR) activities for service personnel and their families.
Researchers found that name pronunciation plays a major role in the way people are perceived by colleagues and friends - and that those with more complicated names suffer at work.
The team of American and Australian scientists claim that the easier a person’s name is to say, the better their success in the work place and the more likely they are to get promoted.
{ Marie-Claire | Continue reading | Thanks Tim! }
photo { Pari Dukovic, Backstage at Prada, Milan }
A new study led by two Florida State University marketing professors finds that some frontline service employees who are rewarded for hikes in customer loyalty and satisfaction also may engage in “service sweethearting,” a clandestine practice that costs their employers billions of dollars annually in lost revenue.
The study, the first to examine the employee and customer sides of this activity, will appear in the upcoming issue of the Journal of Marketing, a publication of the American Marketing Association. It identifies traits that may predispose some employees toward service sweethearting and may aid employers in weeding them out of the candidate pool. The study also reveals that in cases of sweethearting, customer loyalty is tied to the rogue employee rather than the company, so that firing the employee actually hurts the firm’s ability to retain customers.
The term service sweethearting describes the behavior of employees who provide friends and acquaintances with food and beverages or other free services that never appear on the bill. Though the practice is most prevalent in the hospitality industry, the potential for such behavior exists in any industry in which employees interact with customers at the point of sale, according to the study. In a retail setting, for example, a cashier may slide a product around a bar-code scanner, giving the false impression that a friend is paying for the item.
By the late nineteen-nineties, olive oil—often cut with cheaper oils, such as hazelnut and sunflower seed—was the most adulterated agricultural product in the European Union. The E.U.’s anti-fraud office established an olive-oil task force, “yet fraud remains a major international problem,” Mueller wrote. “Olive oil is far more valuable than most other vegetable oils, but it is costly and time-consuming to produce—and surprisingly easy to doctor.”
Nearly five years later, fraud remains a problem.
Since 2007, Bill Gates has given away $28B, 48% of his net worth. Frugal Dad estimates that he’s saved almost 6 million lives. I haven’t double-checked his sources, but it’s a plausible estimate.
Back in the nineties, Bill Gates was experiencing far less favorable publicity - and legal persecution. The U.S. government sued Microsoft for antitrust violations. In 2000, Alex Tabarrok estimated that the antitrust case had cost Microsoft shareholders $140B. Yes, Microsoft ultimately reached a relatively favorable settlement. But Gates probably would have been billions richer if antitrust laws didn’t exist.
You might say, “Who cares? He can afford it.” But hold on. We’re talking about a great philanthropist. If Bill Gates were $5B richer, he almost certainly would have increased his charitable giving. A conservative assumption is that he would have stuck with his current ratio, giving away 48% of the extra $5B. (…) If Gates’ philanthropy is as efficacious as most people think, there’s a shocking implication: The antitrust case against Microsoft had a massive body count.
What does “free time” mean to you? When you’re not at work, do you pass the time — or spend it?
The difference may impact how happy you are. A new study shows people who put a price on their time are more likely to feel impatient when they’re not using it to earn money. And that hurts their ability to derive happiness during leisure activities.
Treating time as money can actually undermine your well-being,” says Sanford DeVoe, one of two researchers at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management who carried out the study.
photo { Scarlett Hooft Graafland }
When we see a company like Arnold Bread create this product roster, something else is going on:
100% whole wheat, 12 Grain, 7 Grain, German Dark Wheat, Health Nut, Healthy Multi-grain, Honey Whole Wheat, Oatnut, Country Oat Bran, Country Wheat, Country White, Country Whole Grain White, Healthfull 10 Grain, Healthfull Flax and Fiber, Healthfull Hearty Wheat, Healthy Nutty Grain, Double Fiber, Double Protein, Grains & More Flax and fiber, Triple Health, Dutch Country 100% whole Wheat, Butter Split Top, Extra Fiber, Premium Potato, Premium White, Rye Everything, Rye and Pump, Pumpernickel, Rye Seedless, Melba Thin, Rye with Seeds, Soft Family 100% Whole Wheat, Soft Family Classic White, Soft Family Honey Wheat, Soft Family Whole Grain White, Brick Oven Whole Wheat, Brick Oven Premium White, Premium Italian, Stone Ground, Light 100% Whole Wheat.
By my count, there are 40 kinds of bread, and that is just counting the sliced breads, not the thins or buns. Is there really anyone in this world who loves the Arnold 10-grain, but can’t stand the 7-grain or 12-grain? (…) The motivator here isn’t making the customer happier, it’s the oft-neglected fourth ‘P’ of marketing: placement. Even if the supermarket carries only half the varieties that Arnold offers, all of a sudden they are hogging a big part of the bread aisle.
Facebook’s inventory of data and its revenue from advertising are small potatoes compared to some others. Google took in more than 10 times as much, with an estimated $36.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2011, by analyzing what people sent over Gmail and what they searched on the Web, and then using that data to sell ads. Hundreds of other companies have also staked claims on people’s online data by depositing software called cookies or other tracking mechanisms on people’s computers and in their browsers. If you’ve mentioned anxiety in an e-mail, done a Google search for “stress” or started using an online medical diary that lets you monitor your mood, expect ads for medications and services to treat your anxiety.
Ads that pop up on your screen might seem useful, or at worst, a nuisance. But they are much more than that. The bits and bytes about your life can easily be used against you. Whether you can obtain a job, credit or insurance can be based on your digital doppelgänger — and you may never know why you’ve been turned down.
Material mined online has been used against people battling for child custody or defending themselves in criminal cases. LexisNexis has a product called Accurint for Law Enforcement, which gives government agents information about what people do on social networks. The Internal Revenue Service searches Facebook and MySpace for evidence of tax evaders’ income and whereabouts, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has been known to scrutinize photos and posts to confirm family relationships or weed out sham marriages. Employers sometimes decide whether to hire people based on their online profiles, with one study indicating that 70 percent of recruiters and human resource professionals in the United States have rejected candidates based on data found online. A company called Spokeo gathers online data for employers, the public and anyone else who wants it. The company even posts ads urging “HR Recruiters — Click Here Now!” and asking women to submit their boyfriends’ e-mail addresses for an analysis of their online photos and activities to learn “Is He Cheating on You?”
Stereotyping is alive and well in data aggregation. Your application for credit could be declined not on the basis of your own finances or credit history, but on the basis of aggregate data — what other people whose likes and dislikes are similar to yours have done. If guitar players or divorcing couples are more likely to renege on their credit-card bills, then the fact that you’ve looked at guitar ads or sent an e-mail to a divorce lawyer might cause a data aggregator to classify you as less credit-worthy. When an Atlanta man returned from his honeymoon, he found that his credit limit had been lowered to $3,800 from $10,800. The switch was not based on anything he had done but on aggregate data. A letter from the company told him, “Other customers who have used their card at establishments where you recently shopped have a poor repayment history with American Express.” (…)
In 2007 and 2008, the online advertising company NebuAd contracted with six Internet service providers to install hardware on their networks that monitored users’ Internet activities and transmitted that data to NebuAd’s servers for analysis and use in marketing. For an average of six months, NebuAd copied every e-mail, Web search or purchase that some 400,000 people sent over the Internet.
Mr. Zuckerberg’s control is based on the structure of Facebook’s shares. Facebook is proposing to go public with a dual-class share structure. Public shareholders will purchase Class A shares that have one vote apiece. Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook employees and current Facebook investors will hold Class B shares, which have 10 votes apiece. This is a deviation from the one share one vote norm followed by most publicly traded companies.
Eight years after the company’s founding, Mr. Zuckerberg has retained a remarkable percentage of Facebook’s ownership — he currently owns 28.4 percent of the Class B shares.
This alone does not give Mr. Zuckerberg total control over Facebook.
He has also entered into voting agreements with other Class B shareholders, including shares held by the Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and Facebook’s first president, Sean Parker. These agreements give Mr. Zuckerberg voting control over an additional 30.6 percent of the Class B shares. Mr. Zuckerberg even retains control over about half of these shares if he decides to leave Facebook. Post-I.P.O., he will control at least 57.1 percent of the Class B shares, potentially more if some investors sell their B shares in the offering. This will give him complete voting control over the company.
Mr. Zuckerberg’s consent will be required if the company is sold. Unlike most public companies, Facebook will not have a nominating committee for its directors comprising the independent directors on Facebook’s board. Instead, all of the directors will be selected by the board itself, a group that will be appointed by Mr. Zuckerberg. He can also remove and replace any director at any time.
Nor is this going to change any time soon.
Facebook’s organizing documents dictate that when Class B shares are transferred, they typically will convert into the low-vote Class A shares. It is likely that, over time, Mr. Zuckerberg will hold onto the bulk of his Class B shares as other holders of Class B shares sell off their stakes.
This is the rub of the dual-class shares.Mr. Zuckerberg can also sell down his shares. But until the Class B shares comprise less than 9.1 percent of the outstanding Facebook shares, the holders of the Class B shares control Facebook.
Given this low threshold, Mr. Zuckerberg, 27, is likely to have enough Class B shares to give him control of the company for a long, long time, despite the fact that he will have a much smaller economic stake. In fact, other shareholders are more likely to sell their Class B shares more quickly than Mr. Zuckerberg, who appears to want to manage Facebook for the long-term.
As a result, his control over Facebook could increase over time.
{ DealBook/NY Times | Continue reading }
Consider the 843 million monthly users and the 450 million daily users. Those sound like enormous numbers — but what do they really mean? (…) If you click on a Like button any given day, you are counted by Facebook as an active user that day.
From the S-1:
Daily Active Users (DAUs). We define a daily active user as a registered Facebook user who logged in and visited Facebook through our website or a mobile device, or took an action to share content or activity with his or her Facebook friends or connections via a third-party website that is integrated with Facebook, on a given day.
All of those people clicking all of those “Like” buttons are counted as active that day, EVEN IF THEY NEVER GO TO FACEBOOK.COM.
Think of what this means in terms of monetizing their “daily users.” If they click a like button but do not go to Facebook that day, they cannot be marketed to, they do not see any advertising, they cannot be sold any goods or services. All they did was take advantage of FB’s extensive infrastructure to tell their FB friends (who may or may not see what they did) that they liked something online. (…)
It helps to explain why Facebook’s valuation may be so greatly exaggerated.
