One of the reasons I enjoy the MAcc program so much is because it allows me the flexibility to take elective classes that spark my professional interests. As a student who one day aspires to be the CFO of a company, I wanted to take extra HRM (human resource management) classes to understand more about … Continue reading "Intro to Organizational Business Coaching"

Over spring break, I had the opportunity to travel to Panama with my GBE (Global Business Expeditions) class that was led by two of our supply chain faculty members.  I was the only full-time MBA student that made the trip but was joined by students in the Working Professional MBA, Master of Business Logistic Engineering … Continue reading "Global Business Expedition (GBE) – Panama"

When you first started looking at our program, you may have asked yourself why we are called the Fisher College of Business. Then you probably shrugged and forgot all about it. Well, I’m here to answer that burning question for you. Like many business schools, we are named after a benefactor who contributed a significant … Continue reading "Why is it called “Fisher” College of Business?"

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS): Waiver Authority and Modification of Volumes , released by the U.S. Congressional Research Service

Is your organization aiming to increase the participation of minority-and women-owned businesses in state and local transportation projects? TRB will conduct a webinar on Wednesday, May 27, 2020, from 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM Eastern to discuss how to meet the goals set by the U.S. Department of Transportation Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (USDOT DBE). State and local transportation projects that receive federal funding are mandated to go through the triennial DBE goal-setting process. Make your next goals...

Public-use airports, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and local land-use/ transportation planning agencies all have independent yet interrelated planning processes bound by legal and policy requirements to ensure compatibility. This means that they should work cooperatively to solve joint transportation challenges in the most effective and efficient manner. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 216: Guidebook for Assessing Collaborative Planning Efforts Among Airp...

Cyclists and noncyclists have a wide range of perceptions of on-street bicycling facility designs — including sharrows, bike lanes, and buffered bike lanes — along a variety of roadway types, with and without curbside automobile parking. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Research Report 941: Bicyclist Facility Preferences and Effects on Increasing Bicycle Trips provides insights from communities where on-road cycling for transportation is less common, particularly in the South...

Five different business models for mobile fare payment apps are examined, as the world of apps used by transit agencies in the United States and Canada continues to steadily grow. The TRB Transit Cooperative Research Program's TCRP Synthesis 148: Business Models for Mobile Fare Apps documents current practices and experiences of transit agencies that offer mobile fare payment applications to transit riders. The report includes case examples from six cities: Santa Monica, Denver, Austin, Chicago, Dallas, ...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 76: Addressing Uncertainty about Future Airport Activity Levels in Airport Decision Making provides a systems analysis methodology that augments standard airport master planning and strategic planning approaches. The methodology includes a set of tools for improving the understanding and application of risk and uncertainty in air traffic forecasts as well as for increasing the overall effectiveness of airport planning and decision making.

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 106: Being Prepared for IROPS: A Business-Planning and Decision-Making Approach describes a process to help justify airport planning, and funding decisions (capital, and operations and maintenance) related to supporting irregular operations (IROPS) contingency planning. The report presents a structured approach to quantifying the lifecycle economic value of proposed IROPS mitigation alternatives through a spreadsheet-based business-planning and dec...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 200: Using GIS for Collaborative Land Use Compatibility Planning Near Airports offers guidance for using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a collaboration tool to encourage compatible land use around airports. The report is designed to help airport and community planners seeking to work together to protect existing and future airport development as well as maintain safety and improve quality of life for those living and working near ...

Coincidental to TRB's 1982 promotion to a stand-alone unit within the NRC and its acceptance of the responsibility to oversee consensus studies, Congress was working on an update to surface transportation legislation. The timing meant that TRB was not going to be able to ease into its new responsibilities. To learn the whole story, check out the latest release in the TRB History Highlights series. As part of the Centennial Celebration, TRB has initiated the History Highlights series that will regularly r...

Most general aviation (GA) airports are minimally staffed and rarely employ environmental specialists, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) can be overwhelming to work through for those not familiar with the requirements. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program's ACRP Research Report 211: Guidance for Using the Interactive Tool for Understanding NEPA at General Aviation Airports , and the accompanying interactive tool that was developed, will help airport staff from GA airports understan...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 163: Guidebook for Preparing and Using Airport Design Day Flight Schedules explores the preparation and use of airport design day flight schedules (DDFS) for operations, planning, and development. The guidebook is geared towards airport leaders to help provide an understanding of DDFS and their uses, and provides detailed information for airport staff and consultants on how to prepare one.

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 200: Using GIS for Collaborative Land Use Compatibility Planning Near Airports offers guidance for using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a collaboration tool to encourage compatible land use around airports. The report is designed to help airport and community planners seeking to work together to protect existing and future airport development as well as maintain safety and improve quality of life for those living and working near ...

Фото из архива Сильвии Видаль.

Первопрохождение. Соло. Сильвия Видаль. Не восхищаться этой "Чудо-женщиной" в мире альпинизма и её восхождениями невозможно! На этот раз она отправилась в долину Чилино в Патагонии, чтобы соло проложить новый маршрут по северной стене Сьеро-Чилино-Гранде.

This seems to be something of a thing. Our last "Tales From the Quarantine" post focused on how television celebrities had taken to offering people help on Twitter with their virtual home decor in the latest Animal Crossing game. This post also involves Animal Crossing, but in a much more direct way. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there are enormous numbers of people who have suddenly found themselves without jobs or regular income. And, so, they've turned to irregular sources of income instead.

Ars Technica has an interesting interview with one of many people who have taken to the internet to indirectly sell Animal Crossing's "bells", the currency of the game.

In the midst of COVID-19, some New Horizons players are turning to World of Warcraft-style gold farming methods to make ends meet. In early April, Lexy, a 23-year-old recent college grad, created a Twitter account offering up bells (Animal Crossing’s in-game currency) for real-world cash (she requested we refer to her by a nickname to avoid potential reprisal from Nintendo). “I got laid off due to COVID so I'm farming bells in ACNH,” she wrote. “I really need to make rent this month so I'm selling 2 mil bells per $5, please message me if interested, I'll give you a discount the more you buy.”

Before setting up this unorthodox income stream, Lexy had been working at a supermarket while developing her animation portfolio. She began exploring the idea of turning bells into cash after showing friends just how much in-game income she’d been making. “One of them asked to legitimately buy some for me,” she recalled in a Twitter interview. “I did some research and found some people selling bells on sites such as eBay, but for pretty ridiculous prices.” (Current prices on eBay seem more competitive, with some sellers offering rare gold tools and gold nuggets to sweeten the deal).

The threat from Nintendo is probably real. After all, unlike some other games where people do this sort of thing, Nintendo's game doesn't include any method for selling in-game resources for real currency. Nintendo is also notoriously prudish about things like this. And, finally, to make an effective go at this sort of thing, it takes some manipulation of the console in a way that is somewhat controversial with gamers generally.

Understandably, Lexy adjusts the clock on her Nintendo Switch to speed up the game’s slow, “natural” money-making cycle of harvesting daily fruit, digging up bells from the ground, and planting a daily “money tree” that can yield big profits. This kind of in-game “time traveling” is controversial practice among casual Animal Crossing players, but it's a practical necessity to maximize real-world bell-farming profits.

As for how much money people like Lexy are bringing in, it's in the four figures, but she wasn't any more specific than that. Payments are made through digital apps like PayPal, after which she visits the game islands of others and deposits the bells.

That all of this is going on during a global pandemic that has some folks farming bells to make ends meet and others with apparently enough disposable income to be buyers is all, of course, deeply strange. But it's also just yet another way technology is having an impact on our lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A few weeks ago, the US telecom industry began pushing a bullshit narrative through its usual allies. In short, the claim revolves around the argument that the only reason the US internet still works during a pandemic was because the Trump FCC ignored the public, ignored most objective experts, and gutted itself at the behest of telecom industry lobbyists. The argument first popped up over at AEI, then the Trump FCC, then the pages of the Wall Street Journal, and has since been seen in numerous op-eds nationwide. I'd wager that's not a coincidence, and I'd also wager we'll be seeing a lot more of them.

All of the pieces try to argue that the only reason the US internet works during a pandemic is because the FCC gutted its authority over telecom as part of its "restoring internet freedom" net neutrality repeal. This repeal, the story goes, drove significant investment in US broadband networks (not remotely true), resulting in telecom Utopia (also not true). The argument also posits that in Europe, where regulators have generally taken a more active role in policing things like industry consolidation and telecom monopolies, the internet all but fell apart (guess what: not true).

Usually, like in this op-ed, there's ample insistence that the US broadband sector is largely wonderful while the EU has gone to hell:

"Unlike here, European networks are more heavily regulated. This has led to less investment and worse performance for consumers for years. American consumers are being generally well served by the private sector."

Anybody who has spent five minutes talking to Comcast customer support -- or tried to get scandal-plagued ISP like Frontier Communications to upgrade rotten DSL lines -- knows this is bullshit. Still, we penned a lengthy post exploring just how full of shit this argument is, and how there's absolutely zero supporting evidence for the claims. The entire house of cards is built on fluff and nonsense, and it's just ethically grotesque to use a disaster to help justify regulatory capture and market failure.

While it's true that the US internet, in general, has held up relatively well during a pandemic, the same can't be said of the so called "last mile," or the link from your ISP's network to your home. Yes, the core internet and most primary transit routes, designed to handle massive capacity spikes during events like the Superbowl, has handled the load relatively well. The problem, as Sascha Meinrath correctly notes here, is sluggish speeds on consumer and business lines that, for many, haven't been upgraded in years:

"Right now, an international consortium of network scientists is collecting 750,000 U.S. broadband speed tests from internet service provider (ISP) customers each day, and we’ve been tracking a stunning loss of connectivity speeds to people’s homes. According to most ISPs, the core network is handling the extra load. But our data show that the last-mile network infrastructure appears to be falling down on the job."

Again, your 5 Mbps DSL line might be ok during normal times, but it's not going to serve you well during a pandemic when your entire family is streaming 4K videos, gaming, and Zooming. And your DSL line isn't upgraded because there's (1) very little competition forcing your ISP to do so, and (2) the US government is filled to the brim with sycophants who prioritize campaign contributions and ISP revenues over the health of the market and consumer welfare. And while there's a contingency of industry-linked folks who try very hard to pretend otherwise, this is a policy failure that's directly tied to mindless deregulation, a lack of competition, and, more importantly, corruption. In short, the complete opposite of the industry's latest talking point.

For years we've been noting how US telcos have refused to repair or upgrade aging DSL lines because it's not profitable enough, quickly enough for Wall Street's liking. Facing no competition and no regulatory oversight, there's zero incentive for a giant US broadband provider to try very hard. Similarly, because our lawmakers and regulators are largely of the captured, revolving door variety, they rubber stamp shitty mergers, turn a blind eye to very obvious industry problems, routinely throwing billions in taxpayer money at monopolies in exchange for fiber networks that are usually only partially deployed -- if they're deployed at all.

Meanwhile, US telcos that have all but given up on upgrading aging DSL lines have helped cement an even bigger Comcast monopoly across vast swaths of America. It's a problem that the telecom sector, Trump FCC, and various industry apologists will ignore to almost comical effect. Also ignored is the fact that this results in US broadband subscribers paying some of the highest prices for broadband in the developed world:

"Numerous studies, including those conducted by the FCC itself, show that broadband pricing is the second-largest barrier to broadband adoption (availability is the first). It’s obvious that if people are being charged a lot for a service, they’re less likely to purchase it. And independent researchers have already documented that poor areas often pay more than rich communities for connectivity. Redlining of minority and rural areas appears to be widespread, and we need accurate pricing data from the FCC to meaningfully address these disparities."

Try to find any instance where Ajit Pai, or anybody in this chorus of telecom monopoly apologists, actually admits that the US broadband market isn't competitive and, as a result, is hugely expensive for businesses and consumers alike. You simply won't find it. What you will find are a lot of excuses and straw men arguments like this latest one, designed to distract the press, public, and policymakers from very obvious market failure. Market failure that was a major problem in normal times, and exponentially more so during a pandemic where broadband is an essential lifeline.

Six months ago, which feels like roughly an eternity at this point, we discussed how Jerry Seinfeld and others won an absolutely ludicrous copyright suit filed against them by Christian Charles, a writer and director Seinfeld hired to help him create the pilot episode of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. What was so strange about the case is that this pilot had been created in 2012, whereas the lawsuit was only filed in 2018. That coincides with Seinfeld inking a lucrative deal with Netflix to stream his show.

It's not the most well known aspect of copyright law, but there is, in fact, a statute of limitations for copyright claims and it's 3 years. The requirement in the statute is that the clock essentially starts running once someone who would bring a copyright claim has had their ownership of a work disputed publicly, or has been put on notice. Seinfeld argued that he told Charles he was employing him in a work-for-hire arrangement, which would satisfy that notice. His lawyers also pointed out that Charles goes completely uncredited in the pilot episode, which would further put him on notice. The court tossed the case based on the statute of limitations.

For some reason, Charles appealed the ruling. Well, now the Court of Appeals has affirmed that lower ruling, which hopefully means we can all get back to not filing insane lawsuits, please.

We conclude that the district court was correct in granting defendants’ motion to dismiss, for substantially the same reasons that it set out in its well-reasoned opinion. The dispositive issue in this case is whether Charles’s alleged “contributions . . . qualify [him] as the author and therefore owner” of the copyrights to the show. Kwan, 634 F.3d at 229. Charles disputes that his claim centers on ownership. But that argument is seriously undermined by his statements in various filings throughout this litigation which consistently assert that ownership is a central question.

Charles’s infringement claim is therefore time-barred because his ownership claim is time-barred. The district court identified two events described in the Second Amended Complaint that would have put a reasonably diligent plaintiff on notice that his ownership claims were disputed. First, in February 2012, Seinfeld rejected Charles’s request for backend compensation and made it clear that Charles’s involvement would be limited to a work-for-hire basis. See Gary Friedrich Enters., LLC v. Marvel Characters, Inc., 716 F.3d 302, 318 (2d Cir. 2013) (noting that a copyright ownership claim would accrue when the defendant first communicates to the plaintiff that the defendant considers the work to be a work-for-hire). Second, the show premiered in July 2012 without crediting Charles, at which point his ownership claim was publicly repudiated. See Kwan, 634 F.3d at 227. Either one of these developments was enough to place Charles on notice that his ownership claim was disputed and therefore this action, filed six years later, was brought too late.

And that should bring this all to a close, hopefully. This seems like a pretty clear attempt at a money grab by Charles once Seinfeld's show became a Netflix cash-cow. Unfortunately, time is a measurable thing and his lawsuit was very clearly late.

There is great confusion among Christians about the unforgivable sin. Jesus talks about it in Matthew 12:31-32. This brief study summarizes what the unforgivable sin is, and how you can know you have not committed it. This study is an excerpt from my Gospel Dictionary online course.

In Matthew 12:33-37, in the context of warning the religious leaders about the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, Jesus talks about good fruit and bad fruit. Is Jesus telling people to look at the lives of other teachers to see if they have good works? No! Not at all. Listen to the study to see what Jesus IS teaching and why this is important for properly understanding the gospel.

This Avocado Caesar Salad Dressing is a great homemade dressing for those who want a different spin on an ordinary sauce for your salad. The creaminess from the Avocado gives it a much thicker texture as it coats all of the Rom

craving more? check out TasteSpotting

Lee Jae-yong ends dynastic control and will even let staff join a union

Samsung's heir has said that he will not pass down management of the South Korean conglomerate to his children, ending three generations dynastic rule.…

'B' is for basic controls that up and disappeared

A study of the UK online advertising market, conducted by global accounting firm PwC, has found that publishers get just half of what advertisers spend, with the other half siphoned off by ad-supply chain intermediaries.…

'Extra time for you to test,' you lucky, lucky developers

Google has applied the brakes to Android 11, pushing things out by a month as it grapples with a world that is much changed since planning for the release began.…

A review by SomeRandomHEFan (46). Getting closer

Показали игрокам нарезку из динамичных кадров, который хватило на полторы минуты хронометража.

Креативный директор игры Ашраф Измаил решил ответить геймерам и успокоить аудиторию.

OED Word of the Day: sinistrorse, adj. Designating spiral mollusc shells that coil to the left (anticlockwise), and molluscs having such shells

“The most difficult part was persuading our children that they had the freedom to make anything they wanted,” writes mom Anam Ahmed at Let Grow. (Click here!) …Like most kids, my children live prescheduled lives (at least they did in “the time before”). At school, someone tells them when to play outside and when to […]

Nitrozac had to undergo an emergency endodontic procedure, *ouch*, so she is off for a few days to let her recover. We'll be back with a new smile soon, in the meantime, here's one of our fave retros...

Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is caused by loss of repression of the DUX4 gene; however, the DUX4 protein is rare and difficult to detect in human muscle biopsies, and pathological mechanisms are obscure. FSHD is also a chronic disease that progresses slowly over decades. We used the sporadic, low-level, muscle-specific expression of DUX4 enabled by the iDUX4pA-HSA mouse to develop a chronic long-term muscle disease model. After 6 months of extremely low sporadic DUX4 expression, dystrophic muscle presented hallmarks of FSHD histopathology, including muscle degeneration, capillary loss, fibrosis, and atrophy. We investigated the transcriptional profile of whole muscle as well as endothelial cells and fibroadiopogenic progenitors (FAPs). Strikingly, differential gene expression profiles of both whole muscle and, to a lesser extent, FAPs, showed significant overlap with transcriptional profiles of MRI-guided human FSHD muscle biopsies. These results demonstrate a pathophysiological similarity between disease in muscles of iDUX4pA-HSA mice and humans with FSHD, solidifying the value of chronic rare DUX4 expression in mice for modeling pathological mechanisms in FSHD and highlighting the importance FAPs in this disease.

Thinking of using TurboTax to file your tax returns? Think again. The Minnesota Department of Revenue advises against using Intuit software to file tax returns! It found unacceptable errors in Intuit tax software, including TurboTax, ProSeries, Lacerte, and Intuit online. Continue reading →

Senator Max Baucus, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, releases a staff discussion draft on international business tax reform. Continue reading →