Activity Based Costing Quotes

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theory of optimal experience based on the concept of flow—the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)
nonviolent campaigns facilitate the active participation of many more people than violent campaigns, thereby broadening the base of resistance and raising the costs to opponents of maintaining the status quo.
Erica Chenoweth (Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia Studies in Terrorism and Irregular Warfare))
optimal experience based on the concept of flow—the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)
I developed a theory of optimal experience based on the concept of flow—the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)
To lovers out there … Please when you are In a relationship. Ask your partner that , They must not buy or give you a gift that will cost you your life and freedom from them. They must not do things for you or with you that will you cost you your soul, peace and happiness. They must not do things for you or with you , If those things means ,you must pay with your own life. They should not feel like you owe them something. Dying should not be the price you pay for loving someone or being a relationship with someone.
D.J. Kyos
I hate everything that merely instructs me without increasing or directly quickening my activity.' These words of Goethe, like a sincere ceterum censeo, may well stand at the head of my thoughts on the worth and the worthlessness of history. I will show in them why instruction that does not “quicken,” knowledge that slackens the rein of activity, why in fact history, in Goethe's phrase, must be seriously “hated,” as a costly and superfluous luxury of the understanding: for we are still in want of the necessaries of life, and the superfluous is an enemy to the necessary. We do need history, but quite differently from the jaded idlers in the garden of knowledge, however grandly they may look down on our rude and unpicturesque requirements. In other words, we need it for life and action, not as a convenient way to avoid life and action, or to excuse a selfish life and a cowardly or base action. We would serve history only so far as it serves life; but to value its study beyond a certain point mutilates and degrades life: and this is a fact that certain marked symptoms of our time make it as necessary as it may be painful to bring to the test of experience.
Friedrich Nietzsche (On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life)
The first step in retracing our way to health is to abandon our attachment to what is called positive thinking. Too many times in the course of palliative care work I sat with dejected people who expressed their bewilderment at having developed cancer. “I have always been a positive thinker,” one man in his late forties told me. “I have never given in to pessimistic thoughts. Why should I get cancer?” As an antidote to terminal optimism, I have recommended the power of negative thinking. “Tongue in cheek, of course,” I quickly add. “What I really believe in is the power of thinking.” As soon as we qualify the word thinking with the adjective positive, we exclude those parts of reality that strike us as “negative.” That is how most people who espouse positive thinking seem to operate. Genuine positive thinking begins by including all our reality. It is guided by the confidence that we can trust ourselves to face the full truth, whatever that full truth may turn out to be. As Dr. Michael Kerr points out, compulsive optimism is one of the ways we bind our anxiety to avoid confronting it. That form of positive thinking is the coping mechanism of the hurt child. The adult who remains hurt without being aware of it makes this residual defence of the child into a life principle. The onset of symptoms or the diagnosis of a disease should prompt a two-pronged inquiry: what is this illness saying about the past and present, and what will help in the future? Many approaches focus only on the second half of that healing dyad without considering fully what led to the manifestation of illness in the first place. Such “positive” methods fill the bookshelves and the airwaves. In order to heal, it is essential to gather the strength to think negatively. Negative thinking is not a doleful, pessimistic view that masquerades as “realism.” Rather, it is a willingness to consider what is not working. What is not in balance? What have I ignored? What is my body saying no to? Without these questions, the stresses responsible for our lack of balance will remain hidden. Even more fundamentally, not posing those questions is itself a source of stress. First, “positive thinking” is based on an unconscious belief that we are not strong enough to handle reality. Allowing this fear to dominate engenders a state of childhood apprehension. Whether or not the apprehension is conscious, it is a state of stress. Second, lack of essential information about ourselves and our situation is one of the major sources of stress and one of the potent activators of the hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal (HPA) stress response. Third, stress wanes as independent, autonomous control increases. One cannot be autonomous as long as one is driven by relationship dynamics, by guilt or attachment needs, by hunger for success, by the fear of the boss or by the fear of boredom. The reason is simple: autonomy is impossible as long as one is driven by anything. Like a leaf blown by the wind, the driven person is controlled by forces more powerful than he is. His autonomous will is not engaged, even if he believes that he has “chosen” his stressed lifestyle and even if he enjoys his activities. The choices he makes are attached to invisible strings. He is still unable to say no, even if it is only to his own drivenness. When he finally wakes up, he shakes his head, Pinocchio-like, and says, “How foolish I was when I was a puppet.
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
To speak of a communication failure implies a breakdown of some sort. Yet this does not accurately portray what occurs. In truth, communication difficulties arise not from breakdown but from the characteristics of the system itself. Despite promising beginnings in our intimate relationships, we tend over time to evolve a system of communication that suppresses rather than reveals information. Life is complicated, and confirming or disconfirming the well-being of a relationship takes effort. Once we are comfortably coupled, the intense, energy-consuming monitoring of courtship days is replaced by a simpler, more efficient method. Unable to witness our partners’ every activity or verify every nuance of meaning, we evolve a communication system based on trust. We gradually cease our attentive probing, relying instead on familiar cues and signals to stand as testament to the strength of the bond: the words “I love you,” holidays with the family, good sex, special times with shared friends, the routine exchange, “How was your day?” We take these signals as representative of the relationship and turn our monitoring energies elsewhere. ... Not only do the initiator’s negative signals tend to become incorporated into the existing routine, but, paradoxically, the initiator actively contributes to the impression that life goes on as usual. Even as they express their unhappiness, initiators work at emphasizing and maintaining the routine aspects of life with the other person, simultaneously giving signals that all is well. Unwilling to leave the relationship yet, they need to privately explore and evaluate the situation. The initiator thus contrives an appearance of participation,7 creating a protective cover that allows them to “return” if their alternative resources do not work out. Our ability to do this—to perform a role we are no longer enthusiastically committed to—is one of our acquired talents. In all our encounters, we present ourselves to others in much the same way as actors do, tailoring our performance to the role we are assigned in a particular setting.8 Thus, communication is always distorted. We only give up fragments of what really occurs within us during that specific moment of communication.9 Such fragments are always selected and arranged so that there is seldom a faithful presentation of our inner reality. It is transformed, reduced, redirected, recomposed.10 Once we get the role perfected, we are able to play it whether we are in the mood to go on stage or not, simply by reproducing the signals. What is true of all our encounters is, of course, true of intimate relationships. The nature of the intimate bond is especially hard to confirm or disconfirm.11 The signals produced by each partner, while acting out the partner role, tend to be interpreted by the other as the relationship.12 Because the costs of constantly checking out what the other person is feeling and doing are high, each partner is in a position to be duped and misled by the other.13 Thus, the initiator is able to keep up appearances that all is well by falsifying, tailoring, and manipulating signals to that effect. The normal routine can be used to attest to the presence of something that is not there. For example, initiators can continue the habit of saying, “I love you,” though the passion is gone. They can say, “I love you” and cover the fact that they feel disappointment or anger, or that they feel nothing at all. Or, they can say, “I love you” and mean, “I like you,” or, “We have been through a lot together,” or even “Today was a good day.
Diane Vaughan (Uncoupling: Turning Points in Intimate Relationships)
The climate for relationships within an innovation group is shaped by the climate outside it. Having a negative instead of a positive culture can cost a company real money. During Seagate Technology’s troubled period in the mid-to-late 1990s, the company, a large manufacturer of disk drives for personal computers, had seven different design centers working on innovation, yet it had the lowest R&D productivity in the industry because the centers competed rather than cooperated. Attempts to bring them together merely led people to advocate for their own groups rather than find common ground. Not only did Seagate’s engineers and managers lack positive norms for group interaction, but they had the opposite in place: People who yelled in executive meetings received “Dog’s Head” awards for the worst conduct. Lack of product and process innovation was reflected in loss of market share, disgruntled customers, and declining sales. Seagate, with its dwindling PC sales and fading customer base, was threatening to become a commodity producer in a changing technology environment. Under a new CEO and COO, Steve Luczo and Bill Watkins, who operated as partners, Seagate developed new norms for how people should treat one another, starting with the executive group. Their raised consciousness led to a systemic process for forming and running “core teams” (cross-functional innovation groups), and Seagate employees were trained in common methodologies for team building, both in conventional training programs and through participation in difficult outdoor activities in New Zealand and other remote locations. To lead core teams, Seagate promoted people who were known for strong relationship skills above others with greater technical skills. Unlike the antagonistic committees convened during the years of decline, the core teams created dramatic process and product innovations that brought the company back to market leadership. The new Seagate was able to create innovations embedded in a wide range of new electronic devices, such as iPods and cell phones.
Harvard Business Publishing (HBR's 10 Must Reads on Innovation (with featured article "The Discipline of Innovation," by Peter F. Drucker))
WaterLess Urinal Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission) accelerate sanitation coverage in rural and urban areas. Stakeholders and people from all sections of society have welcomed it as a major step to achieve a healthy and hygienic environment for the citizens of India. This is retrofit waterless urinal technology that gets fitted at base of urinal bowl. It consists of an inlet and outlet cartridge through which urine passes and seals the outlet once the urine is drained out. The technology converts conventional urinal into waterless urinal. No need to remove the old urinal bowl. Advantages:- Waterless urinals do not require a constant source of water Can be built and repaired with locally available materials Low capital and operating costs Waterless urinals produce fewer odours than urinals with water flush and also have no problems with urinal cakes (odour and urinal cakes occur when urine is mixed with water) Waterless urinals contribute to water saving at the greatest possible degree Waterless urinals allow the pure and undiluted collection of urine for reuse, e.g. as fertilizer in urban farming (after appropriate treatment, e.g. storage) and can contribute to closed loop economy, or for effective anaerobic treatment by e.g. an anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anamox) reactor Surface water and aquifers are protected from nutrients and pharmaceuticals if the urine is collected separately Special Feature :- One time fitment Hygienic - Dry restroom prevents bacteria cultivation No Flushing Allocation of transport resources, including the management and regulation of existing transportation activities. No Consumables Waterless and Odorless No Recurring Costs Longer Shelf Life Low & Easy Maintenance Just wipe and clean Structural Feature :- Thin-walled lighted weight Low porosity Ease of transportation Modular Design Flexible in design Minimal surface cracking
Citiyanode
Privilege theory offers the liberal multicultural subject a phantasmatic reality. It gives that subject the tools to name society’s bad apples: they are easily discernable; they are those who don’t check their privilege, blind to the social and cultural power that they undeservedly enjoy. And if privilege theory calls on you to curtail the pleasures of your own privilege, to willingly renounce your culturally given claims on the world, you are rewarded with “libidinal profit,” with what Lacan calls a “surplus-enjoyment,” an enjoyment-in-sacrifice or enjoyment-inconfession. Suffering—the feeling of guilt from realizing that you can never fully eradicate your privilege (again, privilege theory concedes that “one can no more renounce privilege than one can stop breathing”), that you are enjoying the fruits of an impure liberalism, that you’re taking up the space of someone more deserving, and so on—and exhaustion— the emotional cost for your unflinching vigilance in naming racism and denouncing prejudice wherever it appears—ironically become signs not of your defeat but of your self-enlightenment, moral righteousness, and true commitment to social justice. There is thus a kind of illicit satisfaction—an unconscious enjoyment—not only in exposing the blind spots of others, in the rhetorical disciplining of others, but in your own self-discipline, in your perceived suffering and exhaustion as well, amounting to an abstract testimony to the heroism of whiteness (“another self-glorification in which whiteness is equated with moral rectitude,” as Butler puts it) and the progress of multicultural liberalism: it’s not perfect, but we’re getting there . Along the way, privilege theory redeems its practitioners: since its biopolitical logic tends to individualize racism— check your privilege—your self-check exempts you from the charge of racism. It is fundamentally the problem of individual others (typically that of the less educated, white blue collar workers), concealing society’s “civil racism,” the pervading, naturalized racism of everyday liberal life. In contrast, psychoanalysis compels the liberal multicultural subject to confront a starker reality. For psychoanalysis, the routinized and ritualized call to check your privilege appears too convenient; it enables the liberal multicultural subject to diminish his or her guilt ( I ’m doing something personally about implicit biases) without needing to take on the sociopolitical framework directly. If privilege theorists are pressed, they will gladly confess that they know that it is not enough to denounce the unearned privileges of others without simultaneously attending to the networks of power relations that sustain such advantages. And yet in their active scholarly activist lives, they act as if it were enough, displaying the psychoanalytic structure of fetishistic disavowal (I know very well, but all the same). They maintain a split attitude toward antiracism. They know very well that denouncing white privilege is necessary but not sufficient, yet they don’t really believe that this critico-gesture does not accomplish the task at hand. Privilege theory, we might say, “wants social change with no actual change.” Rather than addressing the social antagonisms immanent to capitalism, it misapprehends the framework (and its enablement of racism). Privilege theory typically only sees social structures as the sum of their individual parts, their individual consciences. At its base level, it provides you with the fantasy of intervention and action; it offers you criticism without critique . For the proponents of privilege theory, social change follows the gradual and predictable path of reform.
Zahi Zalloua (Žižek on Race: Toward an Anti-Racist Future)
If you choose to invest in TDFs, I encourage you to “look under the hood” first. (Always a good idea!) Compare the costs of TDFs, and pay attention to their underlying structures. Many TDFs hold actively managed funds as components, whereas others use low-cost index funds. Make sure you know precisely what is in your TDF portfolio and how much you’re paying for it. The major actively managed TDFs have annual expense ratios that average 0.70 percent; index fund TDFs carry average expense ratios of 0.13 percent. It will not surprise you to know that I believe that low-cost, index-based target-date funds are likely to be your best option.
John C. Bogle (The Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns)
What are your feelings from Bush to Obama? Besides being responsible for the death of half a million people, I feel like Bush dealt a huge economic and social blow to the USA, one from which we may never fully recover. He directly flushed 3 trillion dollars down the toilet on hopeless, pointlessly destructive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq …and they’re not even over! For years to come, we’ll be paying costs for all the injured veterans (over 50,000) and destabilizing three countries, because you have to look at the impact that the Afghan war has on Pakistan. Bush expanded the use of torture, and created a whole new layer of government bureaucracy (the “Department of Homeland Security”) to spy on Americans. He created Indefinite Detention (at Guantanamo and other US military bases) and expanded the use of executive-ordered assassinations using the new drone technology. On economic issues, his administration allowed corporations to run things and regulate themselves. The agency that was supposed to regulate oil drilling had lobbyist-paid prostitutes sleeping with employees while oil industry lobbyists basically ran the agency. Energy companies like Enron, and the country’s investment banks were deregulated at the end of the Clinton administration and Bush allowed them to run wild. Above all, he was incompetent and appointed some really stupid people to important positions at every level of government. Certainly, Obama has been involved in many of these same activities. A few he’s increased, such as the use of drone assassinations, but most of them he has at least tried to scale back. At the beginning of his first term, he tried to close the Guantanamo prison and have trials for many of the detainees in the United States but conservatives (including many Democrats) stirred up public resistance and blocked this from happening. He tried to get some kind of universal healthcare because over 50 million Americans don’t have health insurance. This is one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcies and foreclosures because someone gets sick in a family, loses their job, loses their health insurance (because American employers are source of most people’s healthcare) and they can’t pay their health bills or their mortgage. Or they use up all their money caring for a sick family member. So many people in the US wanted health insurance reform or single-payer, universal health care similar to what you have in the UK. Members of Obama’s own party (The Democrats) joined with Republicans to narrowly block “The public option” but they managed to pass a half-assed but not-unsubstantial reform of health insurance that would prevent insurers from denying you coverage when you’re sick or have a “preexisting condition.” The minute it was signed into law, Republicans sued in the courts (all the way to the supreme court) and fought, tooth and nail to block its implementation. Same thing with gun control, even as we’re one of the most violent industrial countries in the world. (Among industrial countries, our murder rate is second only to Russia). Obama has managed to withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan over Republican opposition but, literally, everything he tries to do, they blast it in the media and fight it in Congress. So, while I have a lot of criticisms of Obama, he is many orders of magnitude less awful than Bush and many of the positive things he’s tried to do have been blocked. That said, the Democratic and Republican parties agree on more things than they disagree. Both signed off on the Afghan and Iraq wars. Both signed off on deregulation of banks, of derivatives, of mortgage regulations and of the energy and telecom business …and we’ve been living with the consequences ever since. I’m guessing it’s the same thing with Labor and Conservatives in the UK. Labor or Democrats will SAY they stand for certain “progressive” things but they end up supporting the same old crap... (2014 interview with iamhiphop)
Andy Singer
The dimensions impacting your team’s structure the most, and the ones you must most carefully consider include: The maturity of the market: the less mature the market (read: the more unique your product category is), the more evangelizers you need, as opposed to the next point: The maturity of your product: the less mature the product, the more hand-holding the customer needs. The maturity of your deployment process: the easier it is for the customer to get on-boarded and become self-sufficient, the more streamlined your organization can be (fewer roles, less complexity and fewer people touching the customer). The size of your customer base: the more customers you have to manage, the more important it is to move quickly towards automating activities in order to control costs. The extent of the Land-and-Expand strategy: the more potential for expansion there is with your customers, the more involved you want to be with them over time and the more quickly you would want to move commercial responsibilities over from Sales to the Customer Success organization.
Guy Nirpaz (Farm Don't Hunt: The Definitive Guide to Customer Success)
Charles Schwab created the company that bears his name—and a new category known as discount brokerage—around a different value chain. Not all customers want advice, so why should they have to pay for it? Take away all the activities needed to give advice, focus instead on executing trades, and you can create a different kind of value: low-cost trades that make stock ownership accessible to a wider customer base.
Joan Magretta (Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy)
The AR-57, also known as the AR Five Seven, is available as either an upper receiver for the AR-15/M16 rifle or a complete rifle, firing 5.7×28mm rounds from standard FN P90 magazines. It was designed by AR57 LLC and[3] was produced by AR57 of Kent, Washington, United States. The AR-57 PDW upper is a new design on AR-15/M16 rifles, blending the AR-15/M16 lower with a lightweight, monolithic upper receiver system chambered in FN 5.7×28mm. This model is also sold as a complete rifle, supplied with two 50-round P90 magazines.[1] The magazines mount horizontally on top of the front handguard, with brass ejecting through the magazine well. Hollow AR-15 magazines can be used to catch spent casings. Unlike the standard AR-15 configuration which uses a gas-tube system , the AR-57 cycles via straight blowback.[6] A fully automatic version exists and was marketed as a competitor to the P90 and other personal defense weapons.[7] Manufactured by the eponymous AR57 LLC, and chambered in 5.7x28mm, this upper is less powerful than the standard 5.56mm version, but it has certain tangible advantages, including reduced muzzle blast, a high practical rate of fire, nonexistent recoil, and the ability to use folding stocks. Since the buffer is located within the receiver, folding stocks may also be used for compact storage or carry. To load, place the base plate of a standard FN P90 magazine into the recess on the front of the upper, then press the feed lip side down on the catch located above and slightly back of the bolt. To charge, pull on the right-side nonreciprocating handle and release. The right-side charging hand placement makes it accessible for operation by the strong hand. Since it only has to be operated once every 50 shots, the time penalty for moving the hand off the pistol grip isn’t too great. Empties will eject downward through the nominal magazine well. Some people use a 20-round magazine body with the feed lips, spring and follower removed to act as a brass catcher. The magazine has no provision for activating the bolt lock when empty, but the bolt can be locked open using the catch on the lower. The upper runs very cleanly and reliably, requiring no maintenance after the first 500 shots. The AR57 comes with a medium fluted barrel, reasonable for a varmint rifle but excessive for a defensive carbine. Burning around six grains per shot, 5.7x28mm runs much cooler than 5.56mm, which burns four or more times as much. That yields much reduced muzzle blast and far greater heat endurance, of course at the cost of a roughly 40 percent slower bullet.
ssecurearmsllc
The seminal paper in the field was published in 1991 by William Sharpe, whose theories underpinned the original creation of the index fund, and was bluntly titled “The Arithmetic of Active Management.”16 This expanded on Sharpe’s earlier work, and addressed the suggestion that the index investing trend that was starting to gain ground at the time was a mere “fad.” The paper articulated what Sharpe saw as two iron rules that must hold true over time: The return on the average actively managed dollar will equal that of a dollar managed passively before costs, and after costs the return on that actively managed dollar will be less than that of a passively managed dollar. In other words, mathematically the market represents the average returns, and for every investor who outperforms the market someone must do worse. Given that index funds charge far less than traditional funds, over time the average passive investor must do better than the average active one. Other academics have later quibbled with aspects of Sharpe’s 1991 paper, with Lasse Heje Pedersen’s “Sharpening the Arithmetic of Active Management” the most prominent example. In this 2016 paper, Pedersen points out that Sharpe’s assertions rest on some crucial assumptions, such as that the “market portfolio” never actually changes. But in reality, what constitutes “the market” is in constant flux. This means that active managers can at least theoretically on average outperform it, and they perform a valuable service to the health of a markets-based economy by doing so. Nonetheless, Pedersen stresses that this should not necessarily be construed as a full-throated defense of active management. “I think that low-cost index funds is one of the most investor-friendly inventions in finance and this paper should not be used as an excuse by active managers who charge high fees while adding little or no value,” he wrote.17 “My arithmetic shows that active management can add value in aggregate, but whether it actually does, and how much, are empirical questions.
Robin Wigglesworth (Trillions: How a Band of Wall Street Renegades Invented the Index Fund and Changed Finance Forever)
when that salesman tells you that the product is free, you ask about the opportunity cost. How much time does the average child spend using the product? Around 40 hours a week for preteens like your daughter, he says. For teens aged 13 to 18, it’s closer to 50 hours per week. At that point, wouldn’t you walk out of the store? Those numbers—six to eight hours per day—are what teens spend on all screen-based leisure activities.[11] Of course, children were already spending a lot of their time watching TV and playing video games before the smartphone and internet became parts of their daily lives. Long-running studies of American adolescents show that the average teen was watching a little less than three hours per day of television in the early 1990s.[12] As most families gained dial-up access to the internet during that decade, followed by high-speed internet in the 2000s, the amount of time spent on internet-based activities increased, while time spent watching TV decreased. Kids also began to spend more time playing video games and less time reading books and magazines. Putting it all together, the Great Rewiring and the dawn of the phone-based childhood seem to have added two to three hours of additional screen-based activity, on average, to a child’s day, compared with life before the smartphone.
Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness)
The climate has been changing throughout history. Has man caused all these historical fluctuations in weather? No, of course not; but global warming alarmists want to make you feel responsible for natural cycles that have gone on for forever, and you need to know this is basically a moneymaker for some of them. In a way, global warming—or climate change as they now call it, to cover all their bases—is a pseudoscientific fad that comes complete with massive government grants and university research support for scientists, power and big budgets for bureaucrats, and a feel-good crusade for politicians. It’s an unholy combination that has left truth and common sense behind. With all the problems mankind has caused in this world, and all the deadly threats people currently face, claims that climate change is our number one threat, as the alarmists want you to believe, are downright ludicrous. Moreover, the idea that government can “fix” our future weather patterns doesn’t pass the straight-face test. Whatever government does in regulating power and siphoning off zillions of tax dollars for uneconomic, inefficient “green energy” projects will, according to some experts, chill our climate by less than two-hundredths of a degree Celsius over the course of a hundred years! And there is evidence, by the way, that our planet is entering a cooling trend anyway because of reduced solar flares and sunspot activity. What the government’s draconian regulations will actually achieve is not a healthier climate but scarcer and higher-cost energy, fewer jobs, a weaker economy, and a less secure America.
Sarah Palin (Sweet Freedom: A Devotional)
Persson did not create Minecraft because he wanted to create a billion-dollar company; he loved video games and kept his day job while developing it. When the game soared in popularity, he started a company, Mojang, with some of the profits, but kept it small, with just 12 employees. Even with zero dollars spent on marketing and no user instructions, Minecraft grew exponentially, flying past the 100 million registered user mark in 2014 based largely on word of mouth.2 Players shared user-generated extras like modifications (“mods”) and custom maps with each other, and the game caught on not only with children but their parents and even educators. Still, Persson avoided the valuation game, refusing an investment offer from former Facebook president Sean Parker. Finally, he and his co-founders sold Mojang to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, a fortune built on one man’s focus on creating something that people loved.3 On the other end of the spectrum is Zynga, one of the fastest startups ever to reach a $1 billion valuation.4 The social game developer had its first hit in 2009 with FarmVille. Next came Zynga’s partnership with Facebook that turned into a growth engine. The company began trading on the NASDAQ in December 2011 and had 253 million active users per month as late as the first quarter of 2013.5 Then the relationship with Facebook ended and the wheels started coming off. Flush with IPO cash, Zynga started exhibiting all the symptoms of ego-driven, grow-at-any-cost syndrome. They moved into a $228 million headquarters in San Francisco. They began hastily acquiring companies like NaturalMotion, Newtoy, and Area/Code. They infuriated customers by launching new games without sufficient testing and filling them with scripts that signed players up for unwanted subscriptions and services. When customer outrage went viral, instead of focusing on building better products, Zynga hired a behavioral psychologist to try to trick customers into loving its games.6 In a 2009 speech at Startup@Berkeley, CEO Mark Pincus said, “I funded [Zynga] myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to just get revenues right away. I mean, we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar, which . . . I downloaded it once — I couldn’t get rid of it. We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business.”7 By the spring of 2016, Zynga had laid off about 18 percent of its workforce and its share price had declined from $14.50 in 2012 to about $2.50.
Brian de Haaff (Lovability: How to Build a Business That People Love and Be Happy Doing It)
What is the life of one person worth? Although the Supreme leader Kim Jong-un is not suicidal, life to him is relatively cheap, after all he had his half-brother murdered. The countries population of almost 25 million people is harshly subjugated and the military consists of 5,200,000 men and women both active and in the reserves. Although his military ranks as 25th of the worlds military powers, it is the development of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems that makes Kim Jong-un so dangerous. It is estimated that they have about a dozen nuclear devices that could most likely be delivered as far as Japan. Of course their future targets, including the United States are more ambitious. In contrast to their troop strength, the United States has 1,400,000 personnel under arms, South Korea has only 624,465 and China has 2,333,000 personnel. Our advantage is primarily technical, however regardless of our superiority in battlefield technology, oil which they get from China, remains the lifeblood of their supporting economy and army. North Korea has threatened to fire missiles at the U. S. military bases in Okinawa and Guam. The reality of a war is that we would most likely win such a conflict but at a very high cost. The biggest losers of a war on the Korean Peninsula would be South Korea, North Korea and the United States in that order. If there were to be a winner it would be Russia. What are we thinking? Perhaps we should come up with a better strategy.
Hank Bracker
Emissions of carbon dioxide reasonable commercial For those who do not know each other with the phrase "carbon footprint" and its consequences or is questionable, which is headed "reasonable conversion" is a fast lens here. Statements are described by the British coal climatic believe. "..The GC installed (fuel emissions) The issue has directly or indirectly affected by a company or work activities, products," only in relation to the application, especially to introduce a special procedure for the efforts of B. fight against carbon crank function What is important? Carbon dioxide ", uh, (on screen), the main fuel emissions" and the main result of global warming, improve a process that determines the atmosphere in the air in the heat as greenhouse gases greenhouse, carbon dioxide is reduced by the environment, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs more typically classified as). The consequences are disastrous in the sense of life on the planet. The exchange is described at a reasonable price in Wikipedia as "...geared a social movement and market-based procedures, especially the objectives of the development of international guidelines and improve local sustainability." The activity is for the price "reasonable effort" as well as social and environmental criteria as part of the same in the direction of production. It focuses exclusively on exports under the auspices of the acquisition of the world's nations to coffee most international destinations, cocoa, sugar, tea, vegetables, wine, specially designed, refreshing fruits, bananas, chocolate and simple. In 2007 trade, the conversion of skilled gross sales serious enough alone suffered due the supermarket was in the direction of approximately US $ 3.62 billion to improve (2.39 million), rich environment and 47% within 12 months of the calendar year. Fair trade is often providing 1-20% of gross sales in their classification of medicines in Europe and North America, the United States. ..Properly Faith in the plan ... cursed interventions towards closing in failure "vice president Cato Industries, appointed to inquire into the meaning of fair trade Brink Lindsey 2003 '. "Sensible changes direction Lindsay inaccurate provides guidance to the market in a heart that continues to change a design style and price of the unit complies without success. It is based very difficult, and you must deliver or later although costs Rule implementation and reduces the cost if you have a little time in the mirror. You'll be able to afford the really wide range plan alternatives to products and expenditures price to pay here. With the efficient configuration package offered in the interpretation question fraction "which is a collaboration with the Carbon Fund worldwide, and acceptable substitute?" In the statement, which tend to be small, and more? They allow you to search for carbon dioxide transport and delivery. All vehicles are responsible dioxide pollution, but they are the worst offenders? Aviation. Quota of the EU said that the greenhouse gas jet fuel greenhouse on the basis of 87% since 1990 years Boeing Company, Boeing said more than 5 747 liters of fuel burns kilometer. Paul Charles, spokesman for Virgin Atlantic, said flight CO² gas burned in different periods of rule. For example: (. The United Kingdom) Jorge Chavez airport to fly only in the vast world of Peru to London Heathrow with British Family Islands 6.314 miles (10162 km) works with about 31,570 liters of kerosene, which produces changes in only 358 for the incredible carbon. Delivery. John Vidal, Environment Editor parents argue that research on the oil company BP and researchers from the Department of Physics and the environment in Germany Wising said that about once a year before the transport height of 600 to 800 million tons. This is simply nothing more than twice in Colombia and more than all African nations spend together.
PointHero
We have believed for many years that investors will be much better off bowing to the wisdom of the market and investing in low-cost, broad-based index funds, which simply buy and hold all the stocks in the market as a whole. As more and more evidence accumulates, we have become more convinced than ever of the effectiveness of index funds. Over 10-year periods, broad stock market index funds have regularly outperformed two-thirds or more of the actively managed mutual funds.
Burton G. Malkiel (The Elements of Investing: Easy Lessons for Every Investor)
Musical Event Management Service– Make the right & sensible choice Music is essential to keep the spirit up in the day to day activities. It is known to elevate positive feelings and makes you a cheerful person. There is no one on this earth, who will not agree that listening to soulful songs is a great therapy to kick out stress. Not only this, it has become a great source of entertainment in modern day lifestyle. It keeps everyone upbeat and definitely lightens up everyone’s mood. With these benefits, there has been a massive rise in the demand of musical event management service. So, if you are someone who is planning to host such an event, it makes sense to take a right call by consulting the company SPRING OF RHYTHM. Well, this can be achieved by opting for a trustworthy event management firm like SPRING OF RHYTHM. Only consider the best, which can guarantee of top-notch musical event management solutions. In the market, you might come across to hundreds of companies, but never get fooled by their big promises. Sit down and perform extensive research to opt only the prominent one for your peace of mind. In case you compromise on this point, it can prove to be a costly affair. Of all, the event can turn out to be a major disappointment and this can harm your reputation in the society. This is why there is a need to be smart in the decision-making process. Firstly, one should get complete information about the musical event management service provider. Check their reputation in the industry and for how they have been performing. Give your vote of confidence to only the most experienced and the best one. With years of experience in their kitty, it can do wonders in the quality of service. Secondly, get an insight on the team members and their hands-on experience. Only a good team with superlative members can assure of exceptional service. Thirdly, check the industry connections of the firm and this is vital in terms of costing. This will prove to be decisive in a smooth event within the desired budget. Based on their industry connections, it helps to meet the requirements in a cost-effective way and without compromising on your end goals. A reputed musical event management service provider will assess the main objective of the occasion in a proficient manner. They can offer the customize service as per the necessities of the client in a clinical manner. SPRING OF RHYTHM possesses the much-needed expertise in organizing the best musical event. With the best pool of music artists, it gives the liberty to make the choice according to the budget and occasion. You certainly end up saving time by knowing which artist will be available for a particular day and what will be the charge. This can bring about a lot of clarity and make the decision-making process less stressful. Make the right decision to add the right enthusiasm to the event and make it unbelievable for everyone. SPRING OF RHYTHM is assuring you with the successful and entertaining event will give an immense satisfaction.
SPRING OF RHYTHM
This table only counts physical health effects due to disruptions that took place in the Illusion of Control phase. It considers both short-run and long-run effects. Each of the claimed effects is based on a published study about that effect. First on the list is the disruption to vaccination programs for measles, diphtheria, cholera, and polio, which were either cancelled or reduced in scope in some 70 countries. That disruption was caused by travel restrictions. Western experts could not travel, and within many poor countries travel and general activity were also halted in the early days of the Illusion of Control phase. This depressive effect on vaccination programs for the poor is expected to lead to large loss of life in the coming years. The poor countries paying this cost are most countries in Africa, the poorer nations in Asia, such as India, Indonesia and Myanmar, and the poorer countries in Latin America. The second listed effect in the table relates to schooling. An estimated 90% of the world’s children have had their schooling disrupted, often for months, which reduces their lifetime opportunities and social development through numerous direct and indirect pathways. The UN children’s organisation, UNICEF, has released several reports on just how bad the consequences of this will be in the coming decades.116 The third element in Joffe’s table refers to reports of economic and social primitivisation in poor countries. Primitivisation, also seen after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, is just what it sounds like: a regression away from specialisation, trade and economic advancement through markets to more isolated and ‘primitive’ choices, including attempted economic self-sufficiency and higher fertility. Due to diminished labour market prospects, curtailed educational activities and decreased access to reproductive health services, populations in the Illusion of Control phase began reverting to having more children precisely in those countries where there is already huge pressure on resources. The fourth and fifth elements listed in the table reflect the biggest disaster of this period, namely the increase in extreme poverty and expected famines in poor countries. Over the 20 years leading up to 2020, gradual improvements in economic conditions around the world had significantly eased poverty and famines. Now, international organisations are signalling rapid deterioration in both. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) now expects the world to have approximately an additional 100 million extremely poor people facing starvation as a result of Covid policies. That will translate into civil wars, waves of refugees and huge loss of life. The last two items in Joffe’s table relate to the effect of lower perinatal and infant care and impoverishment. Millions of preventable deaths are now expected due to infections and weakness in new mothers and young infants, and neglect of other health problems like malaria and tuberculosis that affect people in all walks of life. The whole of the poor world has suffered fewer than one million deaths from Covid. The price to be paid in human losses in these countries through hunger and health neglect caused by lockdowns and other restrictions is much, much larger. All in the name of stopping Covid.
Paul Frijters (The Great Covid Panic: What Happened, Why, and What To Do Next)
In choosing to reduce product variety, however, executives attack the symptoms rather than the root causes of the cost of complexity. Costs go down because complexity has been removed not because the drivers of the cost of complexity have been eliminated. These drivers are hard to identify because they are management rather than activity costs and are therefore less visible. They include the costs of various decision-making processes involving the tasks at hand, as well as the costs of remaking earlier decisions. To support variety and market responsiveness, managers must identify these costs and reduce the complexity of the processes that generate them.
George Stalk Jr. (Competing Against Time: How Time-Based Competition is Reshaping Global Mar)
The organizations of fast innovators are structured for ease of coordination and speed of execution. Slow innovators are structured for functional control, cost efficiency, and risk avoidance, a structure that results in a slow and cumbersome development process. With the functional organization come multiple hand-offs that consume time, cause errors to occur and diminish overall accountability. Coordination and control can only be accomplished through elaborate review processes and documentation requirements. Quality seems to decline, not improve. Functions have their firm budgets and manage themselves to their budgets even at the expense of time. To help ensure that budgets are met, performance targets are conservative. Senior management actively participates in program decisions, and, because of their very full schedules, further slow the decision-making processes of the company.
George Stalk Jr. (Competing Against Time: How Time-Based Competition is Reshaping Global Mar)
Before the management of the company just described could become fast innovators, they had to develop and embrace a new philosophy of organizing around time. The new philosophy is embedded in these eleven key principles: Time is the key performance variable to be managed to attain improved cost and quality. Time benchmarks are set by the performance of competitors and, if faster, by what is technologically possible. The support functions necessary to advance the development process are actively managed to be “invisible.” Their need is to be anticipated; they are to be invested in and kept up-to-date. They are never to be allowed to slow the development process. Each program is to be managed and executed by a small, dedicated, decision-empowered, and experienced team. Team members have common goals and are measured and evaluated as part of a team. The development programs are to have four steps, and the company will organize itself around these steps: Planning and preparation Product definition Design development Manufacturing ramp-up Product improvement The objective of planning and preparation is to avoid having to invent in the middle of the development process—make unknowns be knowns. After definition, the product specification is frozen. The definition is committed to and not allowed to be changed. The improvement phase is to be used for costs and feature enhancements. Functional expertise resides in the development program. Manufacturing and design resources are full-time participants in the definition team. Manufacturing resources are full time participants in the design team. Team members are collocated. Senior management reviews are few. The role of senior management is to ensure that the program teams have the appropriate resources, incentives and environment to execute their tasks quickly. New programs are generated continuously, at regular market-driven intervals, and incorporate more incremental advances and fewer “great leaps forward.
George Stalk Jr. (Competing Against Time: How Time-Based Competition is Reshaping Global Mar)
But an active investor can overweight a stock only if other market players take offsetting underweight positions. By definition, the sum of overweight positions must equal the sum of underweight positions, allowing the market weight to remain the market weight. Obviously, based on subsequent performance, the overweighters and underweighters turn into winners and losers (or losers and winners). If the stock in question performs well relative to the market, the overweighters win and the underweighters lose. If the stock performs poorly relative to the market, the overweighters lose and the underweighters win. Before considering transaction costs, active management appears to be a zero-sum game, a contest in which the winners’ gains exactly offset the losers’ losses. Unfortunately for active portfolio managers, investors incur significant costs in pursuit of market-beating strategies. Stock pickers pay commissions to trade and create market impact with buys and sells. Mutual-fund purchasers face the same market-related transactions costs in addition to management fees paid to advisory firms and distribution fees paid to brokerage firms. The leakage of fees from the system causes active management to turn into a negative-sum game in which the aggregate returns for active investors fall short of the aggregate returns for the market as a whole.
David F. Swensen (Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment)
Select between options based on opportunity cost models. Use the Pareto principle to find the 80/20 in any activity and increase your leverage at every turn. Recognize when you’ve hit diminishing returns and avoid negative returns. Use commitment and the default effect to avoid present bias, and periodic evaluations to avoid loss aversion and the sunk-cost fallacy.
Gabriel Weinberg (Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models)
PayPal’s big challenge was to get new customers. They tried advertising. It was too expensive. They tried BD [business development] deals with big banks. Bureaucratic hilarity ensued. … the PayPal team reached an important conclusion: BD didn’t work. They needed organic, viral growth. They needed to give people money. So that’s what they did. New customers got $10 for signing up, and existing ones got $10 for referrals. Growth went exponential, and PayPal wound up paying $20 for each new customer. It felt like things were working and not working at the same time; 7 to 10 percent daily growth and 100 million users was good. No revenues and an exponentially growing cost structure were not. Things felt a little unstable. PayPal needed buzz so it could raise more capital and continue on. (Ultimately, this worked out. That does not mean it’s the best way to run a company. Indeed, it probably isn’t.)2 Thiel’s account captures both the desperation of those early days and the almost random experimentation the company resorted to in an effort to get PayPal off the ground. But in the end, the strategy worked. PayPal dramatically increased its base of consumers by incentivizing new sign-ups. Most important, the PayPal team realized that getting users to sign up wasn’t enough; they needed them to try the payment service, recognize its value to them, and become regular users. In other words, user commitment was more important than user acquisition. So PayPal designed the incentives to tip new customers into the ranks of active users. Not only did the incentive payments make joining PayPal feel riskless and attractive, they also virtually guaranteed that new users would start participating in transactions—if only to spend the $10 they’d been gifted in their accounts. PayPal’s explosive growth triggered a number of positive feedback loops. Once users experienced the convenience of PayPal, they often insisted on paying by this method when shopping online, thereby encouraging sellers to sign up. New users spread the word further, recommending PayPal to their friends. Sellers, in turn, began displaying PayPal logos on their product pages to inform buyers that they were prepared to honor this method of online payment. The sight of those logos informed more buyers of PayPal’s existence and encouraged them to sign up. PayPal also introduced a referral fee for sellers, incentivizing them to bring in still more sellers and buyers. Through these feedback loops, the PayPal network went to work on its own behalf—it served the needs of users (buyers and sellers) while spurring its own growth.
Geoffrey G. Parker (Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make Them Work for You: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy―and How to Make Them Work for You)
According to the cost-accounting rules that everybody has used in the past, we’re supposed to balance capacity with demand first, then try to maintain the flow,” I say. “But instead we shouldn’t be trying to balance capacity at all; we need excess capacity. The rule we should be following is to balance the flow with demand, not the capacity. “Two, the incentives we usually offer are based on the assumption that the level of utilization of any worker is determined by his own potential,” I tell them. “That’s totally false because of dependency. For any resource that is not a bottleneck, the level of activity from which the system is able to profit is not determined by its individual potential but by some other constraint within the system.
Eliyahu M. Goldratt (The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement)
Benefits of Outsourcing to Architectural Rendering Companies The demand for high-quality visuals has never been greater. Whether it’s showcasing a futuristic skyscraper or visualizing a cozy residential home, architectural renderings have become an essential tool for architects, developers, and interior designers. Let’s explore the key benefits of outsourcing architectural rendering services, and how it can enhance efficiency, creativity, and business growth. 1. Access to Expertise and Advanced Tools Professional architectural rendering companies employ experienced designers, architects, and visual artists who specialize in creating high-quality renderings. They bring a level of expertise that may not always be available in-house, ensuring that every project benefits from top-tier skills and creativity. Additionally, these companies use the latest software and technology for architectural 3D modeling and rendering, including tools like AutoCAD, SketchUp, and V-Ray. Outsourcing gives businesses access to these cutting-edge resources without the need for expensive investments in software or training. 2. Cost Efficiency Building an in-house rendering team can be costly. It requires hiring skilled professionals, purchasing software licenses, and maintaining powerful hardware for rendering tasks. By outsourcing to architectural rendering services, businesses can save significantly on overhead costs. Instead of managing full-time staff, companies pay only for the services they need, whether it’s a single project or ongoing support. This flexibility allows firms to allocate resources more effectively while still delivering high-quality visuals to clients. 3. Faster Turnaround Times Time is often a critical factor in architectural and real estate projects. Meeting tight deadlines can be challenging when handling rendering tasks internally. Architectural rendering companies are equipped to manage large workloads efficiently, ensuring timely delivery of projects without compromising on quality. Their streamlined workflows and dedicated teams allow businesses to focus on core activities like design and client engagement, while the rendering experts handle the technical aspects. 4. Enhanced Creativity and Innovation Collaborating with specialized 3D architectural visualization services brings fresh perspectives to your projects. These companies often work with diverse clients across various industries, which helps them stay updated on the latest trends and techniques. Outsourcing allows firms to benefit from this creative expertise, resulting in visually stunning and innovative renderings that captivate clients and stakeholders. Whether it’s experimenting with unique lighting effects or creating immersive virtual reality experiences, the possibilities are endless. 5. Scalability for Projects of All Sizes The flexibility of outsourcing makes it ideal for businesses that handle projects of varying scales. Whether you need renderings for a single-family home or a multi-story commercial complex, architectural rendering services can adapt to your requirements. Outsourcing also allows firms to scale their rendering capacity based on demand. For instance, during peak periods or large-scale projects, outsourcing ensures that deadlines are met without overburdening in-house teams. 6. Improved Client Communication Visual presentations play a crucial role in architectural projects. By outsourcing to architectural rendering companies, firms can deliver photorealistic visuals that help clients understand and engage with the design. Detailed renderings and architectural 3D modeling make it easier to explain concepts, showcase material choices, and demonstrate spatial layouts. This clarity fosters better communication, reduces misunderstandings, and builds trust with clients.
Vizent