Interesting Links for 30-6-2011

[andrewducker]

• The most amazing Lego LOTR constructions I've seen
  (tags: lego lotr awesome)
• The tale of OpenGL and Direct3D
  (tags: history programming graphics windows)
• Why is European broadband faster and cheaper than America's? Blame the government
  (tags: usa internet economics government business uk)
• IBM develops 'instantaneous' memory, 100x faster than flash. It'll be while until we have it though.
  (tags: technology memory ibm)
• Organizational Charts for IT companies
  (tags: funny business google apple organisation)
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs not actually a hierarchy.
  (tags: happiness society)
• Lesbians banned from world cup
  (tags: football lgbt)
• Are you living in The Filter Bubble?
  (tags: internet google)
• The School: A commentary on science fiction
  (tags: sf story)
• Why it's worth having your own domain (I've had mine since 1999)
  (tags: culture web internet)
• Is the tide turning in favour of gay marriage?
  (tags: lgbt marriage politics)
• Judging Johann Hari’s Journalism
  (tags: johannhari journalism)
• Is Cars 2 scifi or fantasy?
  (tags: scifi fantasy funny pixar movies)
• Optimal taxation of revenue - apparently the top rate of tax should be 67%, if we want to extract the maximum
  (tags: tax)
• R.I.P. Cheque guarantee cards
  (tags: money payment banking uk)
• Amazing New York apartment, inside a clock tower. I want to live here!
  (tags: clock nyc apartment housing)
• Some data on why caloric intake has increased by over 25% since 1977
  (tags: food health weight)

Comments

[matgb]

The Microsoft Org chart looks remarkably similar to how Nokia was described in one of those "how Nokia failed" articles you linked to awhileback.

Which probably means it's fairly accurate.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

My friend has a colleague who has the clock tower apartment of St Pancras.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

How slow is broadband in America? And you really don't get cable and phone service as part of the package?

[steer.livejournal.com]

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs not actually a hierarchy.

Finally... people have been citing this like it was handed down on stone slabs. Some guy (Maslow) made it up, it's never been subjected to any kind of test (except now and it failed that). Apart from telling us that it's rather nice to be fed, have shelter and have friends, his theory is not really that useful and apparently doesn't match data.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

... I would have killed for that many lego figures when I was a kid.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, didn't you think that "The School" story was a bit weak? I mean we've plenty of sci-fi from all ends of the political spectrum. It's not like a slightly poor parody with heavy-handed holocaust references adds anything here is it? Racism and sexism are bad m'kay. You can find plenty of literate and original sci-fi which keeps that in mind and you can find plenty which doesn't. Same with any most field's of writing really.

Also the choice of Ender's game as the jumping off point was really just bizarre. I guess the writer never finished reading it or read the sequel (where Ender empathises with the aliens and helps them restart their race).

[andrewducker]

I'd definitely go with a bit weak. I was amused by bits of it enough to share, but I wouldn't say it was a classic.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Yes, pretty much my thoughts.

[drplokta]

The top rate of tax should be 67% assuming that no one can emigrate in search of a lower tax regime. Bit of a problem with the real-world applicability of that research.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely.

I wonder how high it can be pushed before you push people offshore.

It's nice to know that anything about 67% is counterproductive - useful as an argument next time someone says that taxes should be 90%. Knowing what would work in a real life situation including emigration would obviously also be handy.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Some people would prefer it if you could get just the internet - I had trouble finding a service that was a good price for phone+broadband only without using BT, and I don't even want a landline phone but have to pay for that anyway - and in the past BT screwed me by adding 'free upgrades' I didn't ask for to my contract and then redrawing my contract to remove them, locking me in for longer. The sooner providers start doing stripped-back, 'broadband only' packages, the better.

Edited to clarify: I'm aware that any line that does broadband internet right now will automatically also take phonecalls and that's like asking for a hat feather without a hat, but what I'd like to see is packages that are geared toward users who are only interested in internet and therefore don't come with pesky 'friends and family' call allowances and so on that basically just get in the way and give the net-only users extra stuff to worry about and pay attention to that they don't need or want.

[alextfish.livejournal.com]

I have internet-only from Virgin Media. We don't get any phone service from them at all. They took quite some persuading that we really wanted that, and they periodically ask us if we're sure we wouldn't like a phone line as well, but when we tell them we're perfectly happy with our mobiles and have no desire for a landline, they go "Er, OK" and leave us alone again.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Probably worth pointing out that the 67% was income taxes not income tax - i.e. you should add other taxes on income like employee's (and really employer's NI).

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

IT companies obviously have very simple organisational structures. JOLF's is incapable of representation in two dimensions (or arguably within the constraints of Euclidean geometry)...

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

The ex-monopoly telecom in NZ does NOT offer naked ADSL. Vodafone does, in most areas, but effectively only if you have a mobile on a monthly plan with them. Works for us!

[andrewducker]

JOLF?

[andrewducker]

Absolutely on the NI. Isn't there a percentage of employer's NI that's generally seen to fall on the employee? Or is that one of those things economists enjoy arguing about?

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

It's almost certainly my own political and reading bias but I tend to find the science fiction I read is at the anarcho-syndacalist, green collectivist post and trans humanist end of the spectrum.

I read The Story and was struggling to see much I was recently familar with in the way of tropes.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes it is!

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

My not-too-subtle way of not directly referring to my employer (one of the Big 4 global accountany firms) online. If you know why the computer in 2001 is called HAL, you'll be able to work out which one.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

"The theoretical model used to determine the optimal asymptotic tax rate posits a closed economy without international migration of top earners. As suggested by Simula and Trannoy (2010) among others, taking potential losses of tax base due to migration into account can significantly reduce the level of the optimal top marginal tax rate."

I think this is the crucial paragraph. The study suggests 67% as a top rate of income taxes in a closed economy but labour mobility within the EU drives that down to the level of other states. So the incentive for inter-state collusion (illegal for private companies, de rigour if you are a state) is huge.

The strategic positioning around this would be fascinating. If you consider taxation as the price you pay for living near people you know and the range of public services you enjoy you get some interesting market dynamics.

Lots to think about here.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

If I were able to properly account for my current organisations expenditure I would need at least 7 dimensions.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

It’s exactly the kind of thing that economists enjoy arguing about. I can feel my pulse quickening.

If my wage is £100 my employer will have to pay £110* (ish) for my labour. I keep about £60 of my wage**

So in the same transaction I appear to sell my labour for 55% of the price my counter-party is paying for it.***

So, what is the price of my labour?


*In theory the value I create is £110 but in theory the theory is wrong.

** Before consumption taxes like VAT

*** Of course it’s more complex than that because I’m “spending” the £50 taxed from my price on public services and also buying**** a future pension.

**** For buying a future pension read buying the right for the government of the day to right me out of benefits I thought I had paid hard money cash for.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I don't read much sci-fi now and that I do read is definitely on the inclusive side. It might have been a timely and relevant point in the 1960s though.

[andrewducker]

The value you create doesn't set your wage, of course, it merely puts a ceiling on it. Your competitors put a floor on it :->

[andrewducker]

Indeed! :->

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Ceteris paribus...

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

One for the game theory enthusiasts to enjoy perhaps...

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Oh yes.

Murky territory for game theory, lots of (potentially) conflicting pay-offs but that makes it all the more fun.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

That’s the theory that in theory is wrong. It’s probably less often wrong (i.e. right) in a perfect market such as one for fairly generic labour.

Depends a lot on how you define “the value you create” and whether you are looking at things in the short-run or the long-run.

There are two questions when considering one’s corporate strategy. How can I create value? How can I appropriate value?

If one enjoys a monopoly position then one can appropriate value that one hasn’t created (for a given value of created).

[andrewducker]

You still can't actually leverage more than the value that is created. In the case of some areas that may well be infinite value, of course, because they're mandatory.

If you have to have an accountant with certain certification in order for your company to exist then their value is, effectively, the same as the whole company.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, you can’t leverage more than the total value created. You might be able to access value that is “created” in an other organisation tho’. In which case it becomes a question of organisational boundaries, Porter's value chain and extended phenotypes and I become over excited and have to have a lie down.

For me it all depends on how you chose to interpret the word “created”. Any of the definitions “Value that my intervention has added to the process”, “The value of the opportunity cose of my intervention” or “Value that I am able to extract from the process” are correct and useful in different situations.

I like the analogy of the correct kind of certified accountant. I am constantly looking for that kind of job. I fear all the rent would go to the person making the appointment as I would be prepared to offer them a pretty hefty bribe in order to appoint me. As would my competitors. In fact, the bribe would about the same size as the value created by the whole organisation. Alas, I have dropped my economists fiver.

I’m currently thinking about the situation where a company could only exist if it had two such certified accountants and only two such accountants existed. How would they share out the value between them?

Also on my mind are these situations where one individual acts as a bottleneck for the output of awhole organisation.

Your special accountant – who adds nothing to the process that is valued by the end user but must exist for the entire operation to proceed (an old fashioned absentee landlord).

An Appointed Actuary – who signs off that his insurance company is not doing anything bonkers. A difficult to replace sine qua non for the organisation whose opinion on the risk and compliance of insurance products is of some value to the end user.

The creator and copyright holder of a valuable intellectual property being asked to give permission for their work to be published.

Each of them will be rewarded handsomely for signing a bit of paper.

In the long-run it ought to be the case that the three definiations yield the same reward in the form of a wage but empirical evidence suggests that this is perhaps not the case.

[andrewducker]

For me it all depends on how you chose to interpret the word "created".

"Value that only exists because you were involved." or "Value that would be impossible without you."

So, for instance, if there's a project that's going to produce a million and one pounds worth of widgets, and requires a manager, analyst, and a widget expert, plus £700,000 worth of materials. Therefore, it is worth the company paying up to £300,000 to the three people involved (assuming that a profit of £1 is worth it to them - let's assume for a moment that any profit is worth having). And because all three are vital to the process they can charge whatever they like (up to the point where it becomes non-profitable).

So with a ceiling of £300,000 on their combined salaries the question is then how much you can get away with paying them. And that depends on how replaceable they are, and how much similar workers are prepared to underbid them. If you can find a widget expert prepared to work for £30,000 then that's fantastic, it's more profit for the company.

Of course, this is all in an ideal market, but property markets are large enough that they're not awful. Except that information is lacking - because almost all companies demand that you keep your salary information secret.