Random Thoughts or Whatever
- Thread starter whoaru99
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Pio1980
AK Member
Took a lok at the Vision Pro, and it appears something for a limited market of early adopter tech geeks with very deep pockets.
Good luck with getting the investment back on that.
Mystic
We're all born mad
The terms web 2.0, social media and social networking originated in the mid-90s. But the company most commonly associated with kicking off the age of large-scale publication of user-generated content on the web is Meta or, as it was called in 2004 when it was officially incorporated, Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg's company is still arguably the biggest Western social media platform, reportedly boasting 2.1 billion daily active users as of December 2023. At the time of its IPO in May 2012, it had already been established as a social media powerhouse, surpassing competitors like Friendster or Myspace with apparent ease. This is also reflected in its recorded revenues from its first-ever quarterly report released in July 2012.
Our chart based on official company statements shows that Meta generated $1.2 billion in revenues between March and June 2012, up 32 percent year over year, which can be interpreted as evidence of Facebook already being a mature company with a clear-cut, advertising-focused business model. This model helped counter the relatively large sum of $1.9 billion in costs and expenses, mainly due to share-based compensation to be expected when taking a private company public.
The resulting net loss can also be seen in more recent IPOs like Snap Inc. posting a deficit of $2.2 billion in the month after going public in 2017 or Pinterest accumulating a net loss of $1.1 billion after its IPO in April 2019. Conversely, revenues at each of the portrayed companies rose by solid double-digit figures, with Snap Inc. being the outlier in almost quadrupling its revenue year over year.
The most recent prominent social networking site going public is Reddit, which had its IPO on March 21. In its first quarterly report, the company declared revenues of $243 million and a net loss of $575 million, figures similar to Twitter when it went public in November 2013. Another important metric for social media sites, active users, also grew significantly. These figures have to be taken with a grain of salt, though, since comparability is almost impossible due to every company employing different standards and measures when counting said users. Examples include using either daily, weekly or monthly active users with no clear reasons given for either decision or in some cases not clearly defining how many users who have an account visit the site versus users who use their services without logging in first.
Mystic
We're all born mad
People working in Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Jamaica are most likely to have a female boss. This is according to data by the International Labor Organization. The latest data from 2022 and 2023 shows that in Burkina Faso and Nigeria, between 67 percent and 70 percent of all managers are women. Jamaica and Botswana are the only other countries with available data listing more female than male managers, at around 60 percent and 52 percent, respectively.
More countries with a high share of women in managerial positions are the Philippines and Caribbean island nation Saint Lucia as well as Jordan and Zambia. Despite being in the top 10 of the countries with the most female managers (out of around 100 where this data was available for recent years), neither of the four nations has achieved gender parity in managerial positions, speaking volumes to the huge gender gaps that still persist for women in the workplace.
Women's participation in business and entrepreneurship is strong in Africa, explaining why the continent boasts many female managers. However, in Africa and elsewhere, women managers are more often than not restricted to fields deemed female-centric, for example human resources, administration, finance, marketing or public relations - areas the ILO defines as business support functions. The outsourcing industry in the Philippines providing such services has, for example, been tied to the high share of women managers in the country.
In nations with less developed formal labor markets, founding and running one's own company is also essential for many women. They therefore often head smaller businesses and those that they have founded themselves, driving up the number of female managers in developing countries. This type of necessity-driven entrepreneurialism, however, doesn't mean that there will necessarily be more women represented in the senior management or C-suites of large companies, in important government positions or in more prestigious investment funding rounds.
spicer
Lunatic Member
Drain the snake.
Pinch a loaf.
Bill Ferris
Lunatic Member
Take a load off my mind.
Mystic
We're all born mad
Remittances overtook foreign direct investment in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) for the first time in 2022. This is according to World Bank data, which is also published in the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) 2024 World Migration Report, released on Tuesday. International remittances are defined as money sent from workers living abroad to their home countries.
Total global remittances rose from $68 billion in 1990 to $791 billion in 2022. As with previous years, much of this ($614 billion) was received by low- and middle-income countries. Since the mid-1990s, remittance has also greatly surpassed Official Development Assistance, i.e. government aid designed to "promote the economic development and welfare of developing countries."
The writers of the IOM report highlight that the World Bank’s global data on international remittances does not take into account unrecorded flows through formal or informal channels. This means the data provided is likely below the actual figures.
Mystic
We're all born mad
After thinning out the 37 entries in two semi-finals throughout this past week, the 26 songs for the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest on May 11 have officially been decided. The contest, which will be held for the 68th time in Malmö, Sweden, is broadcast not only on the web but also on the public media channels of the corresponding markets. There, the final shows regularly claim a significant market share. According to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), last year's final had a market share of 40.9 percent. While online engagement is reportedly on an upward trend, the draw of watching European countries compete on a musical stage on linear television seems to have faded since the coronavirus pandemic.
Data from the EBU shows that over the past ten years, viewer numbers hit a peak in 2016, with 204 million people tuning into the semi-finals and finals. The 2020 entry of the contest, which wasn't a contest at all and rather showed the planned participants' songs and gave background information on them, only drew 73 million viewers in front of their TVs. In 2021, the show returned to its regular programming and, fittingly, regular number of viewers. These past two years, however, viewership has dipped significantly, shrinking by 12 percent between 2021 and 2022.
The reasons for this are unclear, as is the answer to the question of whether the Eurovision Song Contest grand final on Saturday can again boost the viewership numbers on the participating broadcasters' channels. What seems rather certain though, at least in the minds of bookmakers, is this year's winner: According to average winning odds from 17 betting sites analyzed by eurovisionworld.com, Croatia's Baby Lasagna and his song "Rim Tim Tagi Dim" have a 37 percent chance to win as of May 10, 2 PM CET, followed by Israel's (26 percent) and Switzerland's (11 percent) entries.
SolderIron
Addicted Member
Actually, it's about 99% for every married man in every country.
SolderIron
Addicted Member
Earth Date 20240511, 1537. Trying to clean up and organize after years. So much stuff to sort out 
Mystic
We're all born mad
Maybe yes, maybe no.
Yep, I've known pretty much the same number of bullied wives as henpecked husbands, it just seems like dominant & submissive types really DO have a knack for finding each other, proving out the ol "opposites attract" thing.....
SolderIron
Addicted Member
Earth day 20240518 0925.
On a high with playing with 18 volt hand tools from a garage sale this week. Tools and battery packs on 3 different brands at ridiculous prices. It is hard to control the child's urge.
Trying to clean up and this does not help.
On a high with playing with 18 volt hand tools from a garage sale this week. Tools and battery packs on 3 different brands at ridiculous prices. It is hard to control the child's urge.
Trying to clean up and this does not help
.
spicer
Lunatic Member
It does demonstrate, for whatever reason, they are looking for each other.
Novachord
Member
If you have ever seen the Italian Job (1968) Noel Coward says to the prison governor, ’last night somebody broke into my toilet’. He then goes on to accuse him of ‘sloppy management’ in the running of a prison that people break into.
Last week our British Government said that there were only 12 more male prison places left in all of it‘s prisons, which are now full up!
Last week our British Government said that there were only 12 more male prison places left in all of it‘s prisons, which are now full up!
