Noise Between Stations

Accounting-Finance

  • Report: Financial planning = happiness

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    2 min read

    Pulling out some highlights of the Household Financial Planning Survey: people who plan feel more confident about their financial decision‐making, manage to save more money, and feel better about their progress only about a third (31%) of decision‐makers today report having ever put together a comprehensive financial plan. And just 35 percent of decision‐makers report…

  • Trends in Design for Financial Services, April 2014

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    1 min read

    I frequently design financial services, and having just rolled off a project took some time to reflect on trends I’ve noticed. Here’s the first three that came to mind: Active participation by the affluent: Sometimes financial services companies assume the affluent don’t want to interact with computer services themselves. In reality, the affluent don’t want…

  • Using Real Options to Value Design Concepts

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    3 min read

    The common way that financial people will judge the potential value of a project, or a design concept representing a potential future concept, is by building a model, usually a discounted cash flow model like Net Present Value (NPV). The calculation essentially asks, if we do this project and gain the profit we think we’ll…

  • Banking joins bestiality and gambling on the banned in Second Life list

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    1 min read

    From TechCrunch: Linden Lab has announced that virtual banking within Second Life is to be banned effective January 22 after receiving multiple complaints by Second Life residents scammed by bank operators. I have a very early memory of pulling up to the drive-through window of our local bank in our station wagon, my mother depositing…

  • The Bells remind Google who runs the Internet

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    1 min read

    From the Wall Street Journal today: Phone Companies Set Off A Battle Over Internet Fees Large phone companies, setting the stage for a big battle ahead, hope to start charging Google Inc., Vonage Holdings Corp. and other Internet content providers for high-quality delivery of music, movies and the like over their telecommunications networks. Ah, the…

  • SarbOx flawed, but fixable

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    1 min read

    James Surowiecki’s Sarboxed In?… The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was a political knee-jerk even the Republicans couldn’t avoid, in reaction to Enron, Worldcom, etc. The complexity of the new rules went too far, requiring six figure enforcement costs, and possibly hindering small companies from going public. There are now talks of easing enforcement or modifying the Act.…