I hang my hat at Tumblr
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Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul.
New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames.
”I know what this article is trying to do, but there’s something wrong here if the choice is to either have no manufacturing jobs, or to live under employment conditions that require you to be constantly available to be awakened in the middle of the night and put to work.
“The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 (after taxes $75.58). This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.
I really hope people keep buying it a lot, so I can have shitloads of money, but at this point I think we can safely say that the experiment really worked.”
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The fiscal situation at the USPS is bad—really bad. According to its most recent quarterly report, the USPS lost $3.1 billion between April 1 and June 30. Add that to billions of dollars in losses racked up since the recession hit—the USPS has been in the red for 18 of the last 20 fiscal quarters. It has also amassed tens of billions in unfunded liabilities, mostly in pension and retiree health-benefit obligations.
The problem is not mismanagement. The problem is that the USPS has an enormous, expensive physical and human infrastructure. It operates more than twice as many U.S. outlets as McDonald’s. It runs the largest vehicle fleet on Earth. It has a staff of nearly 600,000, despite considerable reductions in the last decade. To pay for all those people, trucks, and buildings, the USPS needs to handle a lot of mail.
”“If you believe, as the corporate crowd apparently does, that this market for corporate talent is competitive and efficient, then you must also believe two things: First, that none of these guys (and the vast majority still are guys) would do the same job for a nickel less. Second, that the value of the chief executive went up 18 percent last year while the value of average workers in their companies changed very little. And if you believe that you are a fool and an ideal candidate for an open seat on an S&P company board of directors.”
(via quotingthecrisis)
“A spokesman for Ergo told the BBC that the party had happened, but said it was not the usual way of rewarding their employees.”
Mike Summers (The State Representative): Bringing in new business is my number one priority.
Roseanne: How?
Mike Summers: Through tax incentives. See, we’re going to make it cheaper for out of state businesses to set up shop right here in Lanford.
Roseanne: So they get a tax break?
Mike Summers: Yea. That’s why they come here
Roseanne: Well whose going to pay the taxes that they aint paying?
Mike Summers: Well y-you will. But you’ll be working. Good steady employment.
Roseanne: Union wages?
Mike Summers: Well now, part of the reason these companies are finding it so expensive to operate in other locations—
Roseanne: So, they’re gonna dump the unions so they can come here and hire us at scab wages, and then for that privilege we get to pay their taxes.
Mike Summers: Is your husband home?
This show is on Netflix Watch Instantly. Take the rest of the day off. Tell your boss that the Colorlines.com Tumblr account said it’s cool.
“For the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income, the effective federal income tax rate—what they actually pay—fell from almost 30 percent in 1995 to just under 17 percent in 2007, according to the IRS. And for the approximately 1.4 million people who make up the top 1 percent of taxpayers, the effective federal income tax rate dropped from 29 percent to 23 percent in 2008. It may seem too fantastic to be true, but the top 400 end up paying a lower rate than the next 1,399,600 or so.”
Audience demographics and reach (Comscore, Nielson 2010 via Gawker)
I think this is interesting, but I’d like to see this plotted to actual disposable income. I suspect greater percentage of Gawker readers live in high cost-of-living areas, and might actually have less income to spend on products.
“The stats screen wants to see you in its office.”
This is my vote for reblog of the day.
But there was something in that story that doesn’t sound right, and which makes me wonder whether the stats screen is the new version of hiring a consultant to “evaluate your business.” That is, to what extent do news companies misread these stats, or use them to justify decisions they wanted to make anyway?
From the Times story:
Raju Narisetti, The Post’s managing editor overseeing online operations, said he saw reader metrics as a tool to help him better determine how to use online resources.
“We ask, ‘What can we do online to make it more attractive?” ’ Mr. Narisetti said. “Can we do podcasts? Can we do a photo gallery? Can we do any kind of user-generated content?”
He said the data has proved highly useful in today’s world of shrinking newsroom budgets. Mr. Narisetti said that when he had to reduce his staff last year, he looked at what kind of content was not performing well with readers. He discovered that long-form video had a low audience, so he reduced that department by a couple of people.
Simply looking at video starts and concluding that because the numbers are less than what you’d like there is no audience for that content is silly, because there are so many other factors at work here. Maybe the audience didn’t watch because the videos were hard to find on the Washpost site. Maybe they didn’t look because there was insufficient outside promotion, or because the Post didn’t look into things like third-party distribution through places like Blip.ty. Maybe the videos just weren’t very good.
In any case, especially with online video, simple traffic numbers in no way tell you the whole story.
(via thedeadline)
“When they are lying, bosses avoid the word “I”, opting instead for the third person. They use fewer “hesitation words”, such as “um” and “er”, suggesting that they may have been coached in their deception. As with Mr Skilling’s “asshole”, more frequent use of swear words indicates deception.”
