vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Most people interested in reviving antitrust legislation don't have a problem with the tech companies listed 'Facebook, Amazon, Google', all of them suffer from being good, not a monopoly. The bust trusting people want is telecoms, their ISPs mainly, major cell carriers second.   After that they mainly have problems with more traditional but very large corporations that have multiple companies under different brands that pretend to compete. Nestle, P&amp;G, unilever, and other similarly large multinational goods corps.
"Geez man you're cutting it close to the end of the semester to be at the research stage of your project. I normally frown on posts that say ""LOL DO MY PROJECT FOR ME"" but i know a bit about this subject and want to share. I'm going to focus mostly on the B2B segment here because that's what I know. Many companies aren't spending as much as they used to on IT products or the staff to support them. They're also looking for ways to be more productive with their budgets. The consumer market is spending a lot less and is demanding products that Dell can't make as much money on. The big things right now are The cloud, virtualization and miniaturization. So, right now ""The Cloud"" is the buzzword. Lots of companies are moving their stuff offsite, letting someone else worry about major IT infrastructure. This typically costs the company less in both hardware and personnel costs. Companies still need a onsite presence for critical applications, data and backup but they need a lot less than what was necessary 5 years ago. Network backbones have grown in scale and many metropolitan areas can now support this type of computing. You also have virtualization which means you can run multiple ""servers"" on one physical server. What used to take up an entire rack years ago can now be run on a few servers. This means companies need less of the IT equipment Dell makes in order to grow and expand. All that means less of a demand for traditional IT equipment (computers and servers) and more of a demand for the proper software. I see Dell moving more towards personal devices and larger enterprise equipment &amp; servers. Personal devices include tablets, laptops/netbooks, phones, compact PCs. The business side includes high density servers, storage, software and services. The miniaturization of computer hardware along with the cloud will allow users to access their ""desktop"" and programs from anywhere and Dell will be providing products to access the cloud. Servers will have terabytes of memory and a large number of cores. (systems with terabytes of memory already exist but the cost is prohibitive for most companies).
I totally see your point about not seeing into the future, infrastructure has to take into account so many variables it's often very difficult to plan these things I can see why a major project might take months on end, if not years. I'm okay with (private or public) companies doing the bare minimum and saving a few dollars here and there. That being said obviously all companies should should fall under the same rules or laws, if companies can take huge short cuts that end up harming people there is something really wrong with the regulations and the company is clearly at fault.   I think you have the right idea, I don't see why the government couldn't force private companies to abide by infrastructure plans similar to the ones public companies use or come up with ? do public companies take longer because there is more oversight?
"Sue the debt collectors in small claims court. There are several example stories around the internet, but this is a well written one from the consumerist. If your phone is a cell phone: ""it is against the law for a company to leave a pre-recorded message on your cell phone."" In fact, the call frequency increased once they realized they had reached a live person. I called each of these companies multiple times, and though I was given assurances each time that my number would be taken off of their lists, the calls continued, morning, noon and night. At my wits end, I decided the only way to have the harassing calls stop was to file suits against the collection companies. It's very important to understand that it is against the law for a company to leave a pre-recorded message on your cell phone. Armed with this knowledge, I filed suit against several of the collection companies. I filed in small claims court so I did not need to hire an attorney, and the process was as simple as completing a paragraph on a complaint form. For evidence, I had over a hundred Google Voicemail transcripts showing the times the companies called and the text of the pre-recorded messages. Mysteriously, the calls all stopped immediately on the same date the collection companies received the certified letters stating they were being sued. Then a new flurry of calls began pouring in. This time it was their attorneys. The attorneys representing these out of state collection companies were all desperate to settle out of court. hey did not want to incur the expense of traveling for court or hiring a local law firm who wasn't on retainer. They also understood they had no justifiable defense for the calls. To make a long story short, so far I have successfully sued 3 of these collection companies and settled for more than $5,000 out of court. All it cost me was $35 and 20 minutes per suit. Making these companies pay is the only incentive for them to stop their illegal and harassing practices. If more consumers knew their rights and actually took a few minutes to stand up for them, it would become less profitable for these companies to conduct business the way they do now.
"You are not required to contribute to a TFSA or an RRSP. Nobody contributes to OAS, it's a program to provide benefits to old people for them to be ""secure"". The only fund you MAY contribute to is CPP. If you're being paid a salary by a Canadian employer they will deduct some money from your salary (and add more money of their own) as CPP contributions. Ignore the getting of CPP early or late, since that's just a 5 year shift not related to ""ok, I'm leaving the country, send me my pension."" Your issue is more ""can I collect when I no longer live there?"" Plenty of Canadians retire outside of Canada (the warmth of Florida lures many of us) and collect their CPP. There is even a page about the mechanics of getting your pension in another currency. That said, CPP is a very small pension. If you work for 40 years at more than $50,000 a year and wait till age 70 to collect you will still get less than $1000/month. Working for less time, less than that salary, or taking it before you're 70 will all reduce it substantially.  Probably more relevant to you, you can have your Canadian years counted as American ones thanks to a Social Security Agreement between the two countries."
"We're discussing the ""why"" and ""how"" USA companies [ab]use H1B visas, when it is so clear and so obvious that companies do this purely to lower costs, even if there are US workers willing to do the work. The H1B visa is unequivically part of the race to the bottom. You defended it as, ""in an ideal economy...."" without presenting your idea that way to u/Yangoose and even told u/Yangoose they were wrong about how the economy works.  You didn't present your ideas as part of a hypothetical government that had far less regulation or far less corruption than the USA has to u/Yangoose"
Automation has been going on in asset managers and large finance firms since the 90's.   There have been no major breakthroughs in the last couple of years.   If you look at the technology most firms use, it is based on late 90's early 2000's tech.
"Buy this book.  It is a short, simple crash course on personal finance, geared at someone in their 20s just starting out their career.  You can easily finish it in a weekend.  The book is a little dated at this point (pre housing bubble), but it is still valid.  I personally feel it is the best intro to personal finance out there. 99% of the financial advice you read online will be a variation of what is already in this book.  If you do what the book says, you should be in a solid position financially.  You won't be an investment guru or anything, but you will at least have the fundamentals. There are various ""protips"" for personal finance that go beyond the book, but I would advise against paying too much attention to them until you have the basics down."
Almost every company carries massive debt. From a financial standpoint a company that has less than 70% of it's capital in debt is not utilizing it's growth potential.   There are a few companies that buck this trend but the vast majority of corporations carry absolutely massive debt at all time. Yes even the profitable ones. As long as they pay according to the plan all is well.
A company would diversify in their investment activities. When a company begins acquiring other companies in vastly different industries, that is grounds for steering toward being a conglomerate. Amazon is not there yet bc the whole foods deal can mesh with their food e-commerce agenda, but Facebook and Google are def grounds at this point. And I 100% agree with you that tech is tightening, but also with crazy valuations. You are what the market says you are but some of these valuations are  a little questionable AKA Snapchat lol
The point is that if you are good at what you do then you should get paid a lot of money. A lot of money. Especially if you are saving lives and making the world a better place.  If you don't allow people to make a lot of money on life saving drugs, procedures and products then you will get a lot less of them.   The US subsidises the rest of the world by paying drug companies billions and surgeons millions a year.  If the US did not do this, then you would see the innovation and products that the rest of the world provides....which is very little.    Smart people and investors will just stay in finance where they can make a lot  money doing nothing really useful.
The shingles were damaged because the building permit implied that the tree could not be trimmed back. I'm spotting a pattern with these problems…) In my opinion, the alleged problem with the roof pitch seems like a design flaw that should have been obvious at the time you chose the house design. I expect that any corrections of this design flaw will need to come out of your remodelling budget. In the absence of further details, I doubt that either the builder or the homeowners' insurance company is responsible for it. Some builders make a point of minimizing the warranty work they pay for, regardless of its effect on the builder's reputation. I do not know which kind of builder you have. The lawyer has probably told you whether the relevant statutes of limitations have lapsed. (The statutes of limitations vary from state-to-state, and vary depending on the alleged tort.) Starting a lawsuit is likely to further damage your relationship with your builder. Homeowners' insurance companies now share the number of claims that have been made historically at each property address. Most insurance companies now use this cumulative number of claims when setting rates, even if the claim(s) were made against a different insurance company, or by a different homeowner. I do not know whether any insurance companies ignore claims older than a certain number of years, or ignore the first claim.
But they beat most revenue estimates... should be a heavy down day tomorrow, even though the stock is already massively oversold, especially when compared to industry peers and average P/E ratios of tech companies.  Last 12 months of earnings: $44.16
Think of GDP growth as a weighted average of all agents in the country that produce goods and services, some grow, some retract, we get an average of ~1.5%.   While the S&amp;P 500 is just the weighted average of the 500 largest **public** companies, and while some shrink, most are growing. They are responsible for a portion of GDP growth, but not all.   Even the Wilshire 5000, which has every public company listed will show growth larger than GDP because of the nature of the companies listed.  Lastly, as time goes to infinity, all companies will grow at the rate of GDP growth, otherwise they'll consume every other company until it is the only one left.  Essentially, exchanges only look at a handful of companies and their performance. GDP looks at all companies in the U$.
No, it actually is very real.     You pay $340 for a single room and are talking about 2-bedroom rents.    At Nebraska's minimum wage of $9/hr or $18k/year, $700 for two bedrooms is just barely affordable if you take a standard rule of keeping monthly rent less than 1/40th of your annual gross salary.    It is unaffordable at the Federal minimum wage which was the point of the article.
Have you ever heard of leapfrogging? It is actually easier and more economical to install the latest green tech than to build the infrastructure needed to use fossil fuels. The poorest counties will adopt green tech FASTER than in the states where there is a vast petroleum infrastructure and lobbying machine.
&gt; However for non-tech industries, if current CEO's want to learn more about tech I think that's great but, most of them still won't get it, they'll just say the normal buzzwords and enough to get by.   Yup, and as the article says, this will not bode well for the company that employs them. The fundamental problem is that non-tech companies are facing the same kind of disruption that is situation normal for the tech business. It probably won't last forever like that, but for now there is a big wave of rippling through a lot of industries.  &gt; Then a CTO/CIO will step up.  You ever been at a company with a technically brilliant CIO and a CEO that didn't undertand a thing about technology? Does great if the business fundamentals remain the same. Otherwise... not so much. Probably one of the better outcomes with that was Gerstner at IBM. He saved the company, but turned one of the biggest mountains of intellectual property in to a consulting services company that essentially was out of the tech game.  &gt; Also one risk here is, you get a CEO who wants to learn tech or gets a wild hair and then they think they know everything and then the backsliding begins, I actually worked at a company that went this direction because a CEO learned about a new product that would replace our backend processing software and wanted everyone to start converting to it, then the CIO had to come in and take reins.  If you have a CEO who thinks they know everything when they don't, you are definitely doomed. They have to expect their senior staff to be more talented specialists. If they aren't, that already a very bad sign of their leadership skills.
"It isn't an edge janitor.  As a whole, BART employees vastly better compensated than private industry.    http://blog.vctr.me/bart/  It's noble that you desire a ""fair wage"" for every worker but that's not how this works.  The role of the business is to earn profit and return money to the shareholder.  There is no corporate doctrine advocating that compensation must be equal or somehow divided.  The janitor doesn't need $100k/year -- he needs affordable housing.  But efforts like that are stymied by public unions sucking up undue compensation that would have been better invested in a public-private trust for affordable housing construction.  Even Zuckerberg, arguably the biggest liberal in town doesn't implement your ""fair wage"" system -- why?  Because he runs a private corporation and has to answer to share holders.  Watch a companies profits plunge and hard decisions be made -- if it's a bonus for your in-demand finance or engineers or a $100k salary for the janitor I think you know what will take precedence.  Companies make these decisions every day.    Back to the root issue.  My argument is that public transportation by rail can be a real money loser, even in a dense urban setting like SF Bay.  The only way to fix BART is to starve the beast but bay area voters see the system through rose-tinted glasses and fail to do.  Counties should privatize the system, disband the public union and cut labor costs by 50% so that taxpayer subsides aren't required to maintain a system that takes in $6B over 10 a ten year timespan."
Just like many other industries, entertainment is becoming a commodity of convenience which means that it also is getting far less profit margin. It won't die, but the money that keeps the big named companies in the black is slowly petering out. They are going to fight this tooth and nail just as past companies in other industries that have paved the same path have tried. Any sense of success on their part only makes their fall much harder down the road. We are moving into a world where entertainment is more plentiful and cheap, but the cost will be that we see fewer big budget offerings.
Is it just me, or does it seem like Jia Yueting is the stupidest self-made billionaire of all time? The guy just seems like an unprecedentedly financially naive and arrogant moron. He's Chinese Reed Hastings throwing money at the idea of being Chinese Elon Musk too.   Starting not one but TWO ambitious car companies competing with fucking Tesla as a division of a company whose business has nothing to do with automobiles, risking bringing down a cash cow with two absurdly ambitious (and even cannibalizing!) startups? What the fuck is he thinking? How the hell did this illiterate hack start a company and make billions in the first place?
"One big thing to consider is that ""financing"" (whether equity or debt) is not always available when you want it.  Examples:   * Dot-coms - Tech related companies were famous for their IPOs and raised tons of equity from the public market.  Post-bust the tech IPO market absolutely crashed for years [(example source)] (http://www.renaissancecapital.com/ipohome/press/ipofilings.aspx)  * Aircraft financing - EU banks used to do a ton of lending on aircraft (Boeing/Airbus) but after their financial crisis the market dried up [(example source)] (http://www.boeingcapital.com/cafmo/2013/brochure.pdf)  A lot of financing is about timing or paraphrasing my MBA professor - get financing when you can, not when you need it."
Yeah, except I, as a tax payer who earns much less, pay for the salaries of these type of people.  And my local taxes on my house and everything up go more than inflation or my salary increase % every year.  I'm a trained engineer who worked hard for his degree and I don't even get this cop's normal salary (which is half the $221k).  I imagine becoming a bridge policeman is less taxing mentally and less challenging overall.  This money to pay public officials doesn't come from thin air.
The government employs 13 million people. Not even including that small time construction guy paid to redo the sidewalk at the city hall. Or money given in grants for research employing scientists. That's 1 out of 10 good paying jobs. But yeah let's pretend increasing taxes on less than 1% of the population, and 500 companies out of 28 million is worse than lowering it, and firing chunks of 13 million employees.
Good question. Your assumptions are a bit off-track though. I am sure you would agree that automation will occur gradually allowing a new workforce that is equiped with relevant skills to support automation tech and operations to bubble up. This workforce will drive up consumer spending offsetting your assumption of diminishing consumer spending.   The extent to which this new workforce will offset diminishing consumer spending of the workfoce being laid off is a matter of debate but one thing is certain consumer spending albeit relatively weaker or stronger will exist and businesses will continue to thrive. Another possibility is that the workforce getting laid off might be reabsorbed in other sectors of the economy or better yet some companies might re-train some of it.   The assumption that _most of the jobs will be automated_ doesn't necessarily imply that automation leads to job loss. Some automation will actually drive up productivity which will increase the margin of companies. In light of this logic we can assume that employees will be paid more increasing their disposable income.    The bottom line is that consumer spending is unlikely to bottom out. It might weaken or strengthen for one or two reasons but people will continue consuming and businesses will thrive.
* Apple -- sells stuff, but basically no longer manufactures anything at all (so comparing it to GM would only be valid if one looked ONLY at GM's engineering and sales personnel, and ignored it's manufacturing people, or if GM had likewise ""subcontracted"" all of its manufacturing to say Toyota); just about everything that Apple sells is made by subcontract overseas manufacturers -- like FoxConn (which employed over 900,000 people in China in 2010); and of course that is NOT including the component manufacturers. And of course, this is also ignoring the entire software industry that has built up around Apple's products (Mac and iApp developers). * Facebook &amp; Google -- likewise, there are a lot of ""indirect"" non-employees who nonetheless are in many senses laboring for these companies AND be compensated by them (whether App developers, affiliates, etc). **I find it VERY notable that *theEconomist* entirely ignored firms like MicroSoft (92,000+ direct employees) and dozens &amp; even hundreds of others software companies like Adobe Systems (9,000+), etc -- not to mention countless thousands of consulting companies.** At it's absolute PEAK employment in 1970, GM had a little under 400,000 employees. If you add in Microsoft, Adobe, and a handful of CAD software companies, then ""high tech"" employs at least that number. Add in the (domestic) sub-contract employees, the consultants, affiliates, and on... and they employ far MORE people (even domestically) than not only GM, but GM + Ford + Chrysler combined. Add in the worldwide employment, and there is no comparison at all.\* And even then, all of it is beside the point. Yes, you cannot ""eat"" software or an iPod... but likewise you cannot ""eat"" a car. What is chiefly critical is whether a nation can FEED itself, and the US production of foodstuffs has never been higher, nor -- on a long term comparison basis -- have food or energy costs ever been lower (even with all of the disastrous effects of monetary inflation).
PS: I have made no money. I am an Apple fan Boy - 12 year certed tech and former genius. I am running ios11pb2 on my 7plus.   Just as Horace Deidu showed us where the industry was discounting Apple back with the rise of the iPhone &amp; ipad, Ben Thompson at stratechery has been writing article after article about Amazon’s strategy.   And everything he has been writing for a couple years now about amazon is coming true - and it is a good lens to view the Whole Food purchase.   However the stock turns out has no bearing on what the company is doing nor is a remotely reasonable way to compare companies.   Being an Apple fan since the stock was 13/share has taught me that.