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Author: Edouard Chazal
(App Store) Bigger than Hollywood
Although the totals for Domestic (US) Box Office are not the complete Hollywood revenues picture, Apple’s App Store billings is not the complete App revenue picture either. The Apps economy includes Android and ads and service businesses and custom development. Including all revenues, apps are still likely to be bigger than Hollywood.
But there’s more to the story. It’s also likely that the App industry is healthier. On an individual level, some App developers earn more than Hollywood stars and I would guess that the median income of app developers is higher than the median income of actors. The app economy sustains more jobs (627,000 iOS jobs in the US vs. 374,000 in Hollywood) and is easier to enter and has wider reach. As the graph below shows It’s also growing far more rapidly.
Pour Ahmad et Charlie
If there’s a parallel to be drawn between jihadists and cartoonists, I think it lays beneath the fact that both are soldiers. To me, mudjahids, as jihadists like to call themselves, refer to the soldiers that Commandant Massoud — Ahmad Massoud — commended in a fight against the Soviet army and Talibans. The Lion of Panjshir used to fight for civils, women and freedom, while talibans were spreading chaos and fear, all over the land.
So to be perfectly true to history, I think these armed jihadists are usurping the title from a glorious army who fought for a noble cause, and so they should be called talibans. On the other hand, cartoonists and especially Charlie Hebdo followed the path of Massoud in a way, by fighting for freedom – with pencils, so I think they are the true mudjahids.
On January 7th of 2015, two armed men stormed the hidden, yet joyful place that used to be home for freedom and french values. In Charlie Hebdo, they killed 10 or 12 highly talented people in God’s name. Just to make a point, I’m not willing to paraphrase them — they actually say “Allah” — ‘cause it’s disturbing to me in a sense that they must not have the same God as other Muslims. So in their God’s name, they made one of the most brutal and gruesome attack against not only journalists, not only Parisians, not only French, not only Muslims, but against the whole humanity.
As a proof, I don’t recall any French event that drove so many attention around the world. Roughly 4 million people marched the streets from the Republique to the Nation’s plaza, in memoriam of the victims. This made a statement : we the French people will forever fight for freedom of speech, against hate and violence, against terrorism. This was a deeply emotional moment, in which french reconciled with their old complains : the police, immigrants, religion. This happened at a time when the nation was divided, as if we needed chaos to meet unity. Like the Masonic mantra says : Ordo ab Chao (Order came at from Chaos).
I want to conclude with the following Afghan poem, I’m sure it would have pleased Ahmad :
In the order we are born
we enter the streets
to follow the clocks of the dandelions
that tell the candles’ life
We are reborn
one in India, one in the wasteland of Hijaz, both in search of
the one born down a well in Isfahan
In the beginning
we learn the name of the wind
the name of the rain
In the beginning
we learn the names of spring and winter
and we rummage through everything
until we find death
Note : don’t get mad at me for laughing at a moment, I was having some beers and had a stomach issue.
Context : this is a work for an English class, regarding Charlie Hebdo. My thoughts also goes to the victims from the kosher supermarket. I will pray for them on friday’s Sabbat.
Creative Destruction in Russia and America: The Case of Energy
An alternative explanation for the oil glut is that technical change was initiated by profit-motivated private companies for whom a price decrease was not part of their intention. They may have had no intention to hurt producers and help consumers. Other producers followed the innovators and adopted the new technology. The resulting competitive process is an example of Creative Destruction that produced net gains for the world economy, while simultaneously harming incumbent producers. Adam Smith’s famous description of the motives of a businessman is applicable: “.. he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention”.
Apple Watch: Initial Thoughts and Observations
The utilitarian mindset that asks “Why would anyone waste money on a gold watch?” isn’t going to be able to come to grips with what Apple is doing here. They’re going to say that Jony Ive and Tim Cook have lost their minds. They’re going to wear out their keyboards typing “This never would have happened if Steve Jobs were alive.” They’re going to predict utter and humiliating failure. In short, they’re going to mistake Apple for Vertu.
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