The whole point of audits is to at least put a finger on those individuals who knowingly cooked the books. Properly done audits would make it easy to know precisely who to prosecute in the case a criminal trial is needed. The easiest way to make sure that the audit is done to a certain standard is to make the auditor liable for mistakes that they failed to uncover. Audits should be comprehensive enough that the auditors should either find the problems in the books, or, in the case of more comprehensive fraud, make an airtight case criminal case against individuals if fraud should go undetected.

Eventually fraud comes to light. These schemes always unravel.

This ruling is definitely a step backward for that level of transparency in our financial markets.

This is precisely it. An auditor that doesn't share in the civil and criminal liability is a complete waste of time.

In an ideal world investors would come to recognize quality auditing firms in the same way that we recognize quality manufacturing firms. These firms would demand a significant portion of the fee up front and would not sign off on the audit until they were satisfied that the company was, in fact, clean. The company being audited could then rest assured that their books were clean (internal embezzling is definitely a thing). More importantly they could attract more investment because they could show that their business had received a quality audit by a well known auditing firm. Failure to pass an audit, or an audit by a less well known firm would be met with skepticism from investors in the same way that you are skeptical of random misspelled brands on Temu.

A quality audit would simply the part of the cost of doing business for companies that wanted to be publicly traded. The reality is that investors already expect that to be a thing. This is witnessed not only by this case, but by the fact that the Tingo Group was able to raise billions in the U.S. stock market on the strength of an audit by Deloitte Israel. The proper response would be for the auditors to be held liable for those things that they should have uncovered with a proper audit. In the long run this would probably be good for the auditing firms. Sure, they would be on the hook for poorly done audits, but publicly traded companies would basically be required to pay for comprehensive audits. Quality auditing firms, with good reputations, could charge more for audits, and could do the work necessary to guarantee that the books were clean (or at least that the fraudsters were consistently fraudulent). Misleading auditors should carry criminal penalties so that if companies did trick their auditors the auditors would be able to hand over their books to law enforcement to allow for easy prosecution in criminal cases. These quality audits would be worth the effort to companies seeking the greater capital that the market gives.

Companies that didn't want to pay for quality audits could get the amount of auditing that they wanted to pay for, but investors could see this as a red flag. At the very least auditors could serve as an insurance backstop. Before investing you could take a look at the company auditing the company you wanted to invest in to make sure that they had the resources to back up their audit.

None of this is even remotely controversial actually. In fact, it is the only reason that auditors should even exist, and it is definitely what investors expect from an audit. What is the point of an audit where the auditors can't be held liable, or at least if the audit can't be later used to show who acted in a criminal manner. Almost by definition audits should show that the books balance, or should at least point the finger at the responsible parties in the case of fraud.

In recent times there have been a string of huge frauds perpetrated against companies where the fraud could have been caught with a minimum of proper auditing. As an example, Trafigura had to write down nearly half a billion dollars as they found that a significant number of their nickel shipments were just useless rubble instead of nickel ore. You can be sure that company will be more careful in the future.

Proper auditing definitely is worth the money spent on it. Investors need the information provided if they are going to make informed choices. As fraud mounts companies that do their due diligence will stand out in the market. If the law doesn't require proper audits, then some auditing houses will almost certainly take it upon themselves to guarantee proper audits as part of their service, and auditing insurance will become a thing. It will then be up to the investor to prefer properly audited companies. Unfortunately, in a world where Sam Bankman Fried can trick people out of billions of dollars by promising ridiculous returns I am afraid that stolid businesses will always have a hard time getting the investment they deserve.

I bought a /. T-Shirt back in the heyday. "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters." I would occasionally run into people that recognized it for what it was. A little later I worked at a major hosting company, and even though /. had already declined significantly we still regularly talked about stuff that came up because someone had seen an article here. That was a pretty cool place to work.

I definitely miss Usenet, even though I didn't really get involved in that until after Eternal September. It doesn't help that I still read my email with Emacs/Gnus, and I still have an ISP with a workable news server. Because of that I still read some of the programming mailing lists via their news gateway. I still have the tools that turn those cesspools into workable sources, so I read them their for old time's sake.

I am old enough that I could have been on Usenet before Eternal September, but at the time I was too interested in meeting girls. Looking back I feel like I made the right choice.

You have clearly never raised a horse. Nor do you have any idea of the time and effort that went into building and maintaining the infrastructure required to move people and cargo around using horses and wagons. To give you an idea a light working horse likely eats 20 pounds of hay and 5 pounds of grain per day, and you likely to have to worry about removing roughly that amount of waste per day as well. On top of that horses need to be shod, cared for, and you need the tack and equipment to make them useful. There is a reason why automobiles replaced horses so quickly. Despite all of the problems of early automobiles they were still much less expensive to maintain than horses, especially in urban environments. Even before the mass production of cars with the Model T, automobiles had displaced hundreds of thousands of horses in the cities in the United States. When the inexpensive Model T came out people literally couldn't get rid of horses fast enough. Cars replaced horses because the economics were ridiculously clear.

This is why vat chicken is such a hard place to start. First of all chicken is basically the least expensive meat available. Chickens are easy to grow and care for, they require very little space, and they eat just about anything. Heck, I live in the middle of a fair sized city and I still have neighbors on either side of me that raise chickens in their tiny yards. In a factory farm setting you can already raise chickens with so little space that I suspect that the vat growers would have a hard time competing. Some of the farms only give the chickens 2 to 3 square feet of space per chicken. Chickens also eat just about anything. You can raise chickens on whatever happens to be inexpensive at the time. Even with decades of improvement I would bet that vat grown chicken will still take more space per kilogram of usable meat, and you will almost certainly have to be more careful with what you use for food.

If they could make vat wagyu beef they would be on to something. From a price/utility standpoint chicken is ridiculously hard to beat.

Of course, I suspect that the real reason that they started with chicken is that we already eat a lot of chicken that has been blended into a paste and formed. Recreating something as simple as a chicken nugget is easy. Recreating a steak with its marbling, and other structures, is a completely different proposition. The problem with a chicken nugget strategy is that it puts them up against other chicken substitutes including vegetable chicken substitutes that are already pretty good and relatively inexpensive.

There is literally no way to win replacing chicken. What these venture capitalists have created is a pretty cool science experiment, but it is about as commercially viable as shredding perfectly good plywood to make sawdust. Sawdust has some commercial value, but you would be better off with the plywood and the money.

Heck, I moved to Lima, Peru from the state of Washington when I was 16. The biggest cultural shock of all was the fact that I was now expected to greet every woman in every social situation with a kiss. There was a lot of craziness in moving to Peru as a gringo at the height of Sendero Luminoso. I was threatened with guns, I saw buildings that were demolished with explosives, and I even saw people who had been slaughtered and nailed to posts for the crime of voting. Nothing was quite as disconcerting as walking into a party and realizing that I was now going to have to kiss 20 females all of which were at least a full foot shorter than I was. My brother and I referred to it as "running the gauntlet."

Eventually you get used to it. These days I sort of like reconnecting with my Peruvian friends. Gringos are decidedly cold. We could use a bit of loosening up.

That being the case, this isn't really a marketing problem. Meta simply thought that there would be more demand for their VR stuff. Meta put it in retail locations because they thought that the devices weren't selling because people couldn't try them out. It turns out that people aren't buying VR gear because they aren't sufficiently interested.

I didn't read the fine article, but I suspect that it could easily be argued that if she did not come forward that she was an accomplice to any fraud that he committed. After all, they were married, and she stood to benefit from any financial gains that he made. If your partner steals tens of millions of dollars you probably want to get ahead of that.

Heck, generally speaking, I would like to think that I would report any felony that I personally witnessed, even if the victim was someone that I didn't like. That's just the right thing to do from a general ethical perspective. I don't like the world that we end up with if we each only care about the crimes that are committed against ourselves. I can understand if someone feels differently, but, for obvious reasons, I would rather not be neighbors with that person.

I suppose the true test would be how you would feel if it was your money being stolen. I would bet that if it was your money being stolen you would be grateful to hear that you were being defrauded, no matter who the person was that gave you the information. This is especially true if the warning came soon enough that you could protect yourself.

I recognize that some people truly believe that the most important thing that you can do is to not get involved. However, in this case, Mr. Rinsch had clearly gone off the rails. He needed help, not someone that was willing to cover up his problems. It could easily be argued that turning him in was not only the right thing to do, it was the loving thing to do.

The FSF, GNU, and the GPL have always been about software freedom, and they have always used copyright law ironically to protect that freedom. The catch has always been that you can use the software however you want, but you don't have the license to distribute the software unless you are willing and able to give that same right to the people that you distribute software to.

Along the way they have various legal tools and licenses. My favorite example of this is that Debian's digital RMS program, that was used to warn people about non-free software that I had installed on my system, would warn me about the manual to Emacs, which is published using the GFDL with some unchangeable bits that makes it technically non-free according to Debian's definition. I personally believe that these restrictions make sense for documentation, but Debian had other priorities, so I would regularly get emails from my system from Digital RMS warning me about packages that the actual RMS had helped to write, and using a license that RMS had helped draft.

Technical people like black and white, or at least very straightforward branching, and the rules for software licenses tend to be a little more tricky than that.

It does feel that a repository for reusable boilerplate legal documents should be a thing though. Hackable law, if you will. I wonder if such a thing actually exists.

No doubt. If only there was a device that didn't have battery and required you to be connected to the network with a wire!

I have no problem paying people for services rendered. The real problem is that billions of dollars of VC money was poured into this particular industry subsidizing the price of delivering goods to the point where it was ridiculously inexpensive to have hot meals delivered to your door.

This money has dried up, and now this same service is going to get considerably more expensive. People will either pay the higher costs associated with these deliveries, or there food will not get delivered. It is as simple as that. In some markets DoorDash is already seeing more demand for their services than they have people willing to drive. The only way to fix that issue is to pay the drivers more money, and DoorDash doesn't really have that money to give. It is going to have to come from customers.

I actually agree that we probably should call it something besides a "tip." A tip is something provided at the end of the service to help incentivize exceptional service. This is more along the lines of a bid for timely service.

There's a reason why I tend to drive to the restaurant and pick up the food myself. I know how much a delivery service should cost, and I am price sensitive enough so that I am not generally willing to pay that price. Plus, I have six kids and so when I order food I generally order a lot of it. Paying a percentage to have it delivered doesn't make much sense to me. After all, it is still only one delivery.

However, I really do like the idea of letting the driver know ahead of time how much you value their service. My real problem with tipping is that there is no way for them to know how much of a sociopath the customer for is ahead of time. Delivery people have to work each delivery as if the customer was likely to be super generous so that when they do get a big tipper they have lived up to their part of the bargain. This allows people that aren't tippers to get excellent service without ever having to pay for it.

Personally, I am going to tip, and I have a tendency to be generous. I don't see any problem in letting the person know ahead of time that I appreciate what they are doing. I have experimented in putting the tip on the table at restaurants, for example, right after ordering. Generally speaking that gets me the service that I am hoping for, and it takes most of the pressure off. Sure, the server knows that I am not going to drop a truly ridiculous tip, but they also know that they are not going to be disappointed.

Why should they be forced to give comp days? The competition to become an academic is brutal. There are definitely people out there that would happily give up all of their weekends to be considered for the post, and they have qualifications that are just as strong as the person that wants to have the weekends off. They are just willing to work harder.

Personally, I would much rather see these sorts of positions become more of a meritocracy instead of less. Somebody is going to get this highly coveted job. I would just as soon it be someone that was willing to put in more hours, and to make the job their top priority. Otherwise it invariably boils down to some other completely political maneuver that gets one person chosen over another, and the winner ends up getting not only the job that they want, but ridiculous job security, and other insane perks that really helps to separate the winners from the losers. The difference between a tenured professor and an associate professor is huge. Why shouldn't those positions go to the people that show the most dedication to the job.

I think that it makes sense, in the most highly competitive of jobs, to allow work ethic to play an extraordinary role. That way when I get beat out for the position that I wanted I can at least say that the other person was willing to work insanely hard at getting to the top. Yes, that would preclude all but the most bright of the people that want to have an actual life, but that's how competition works.

Because when it comes to these highly sought after jobs it is more about the competition that you will be facing than the actual job requirements. The real issue isn't that the conferences are on the weekends. The real issue is that the people that are mostly likely to be successful in obtaining these jobs are those people that are willing to be married to them. They are willing to work nights and weekends. They are willing to forgo having a family, or even a social life. There are only so many of these positions available. It stands to reason that most of the those positions go to those people that are willing to pay a much higher price.

As a male that decided decades ago, after getting burnt out working for a startup, that I wasn't willing to be married to my work, I can promise you that this sort of issue is not even really discrimination. A female that is willing to forgo having children, and who is willing to put their career first and foremost, probably has an advantage over a male that is willing to make that same sacrifice. All other things being equal the nod probably goes to the woman that is willing to put in the time. The difference is that there are simply far less women that are willing to make that sort of sacrifice for their career.

So this particular symptom is that academic conferences happen to be on weekends. But the root problem is that it is hard to compete with people that are willing to work twice as many hours as you for the same job. In this particular case it manifests as people being willing to give up their weekends to travel, but if the conference was moved these same people would be willing to give up their weekends for extra research as well. Move the conferences to mid-week and now conference prices have gone up for everyone, because universities are competing with businesses for conference space, and the people willing to work weekends still get ahead.

If you find yourself competing with people that are willing to spend significantly more time and energy on their job than you are, you should perhaps consider finding a job that isn't so competitive. I know that is the choice that I made, and I am glad that I did.

Over the last decade or so I have made it clear to my employers that I was not willing to travel over the weekend, and that I would prefer to not travel at all. I have had my employer tell me that this would likely make it more difficult for me to advance my career. Talking with my colleagues the amount of money that I am leaving on the table I have found that it is actually a pretty sizable amount. Not all of that difference is due to the fact that I value time spent with my family more than my career. I suspect that some of that is that is also due to my personality. I would rather work in a job that I am confident that I could easily replace than maximize my earnings. I am happy to spend time repairing my 1996 Honda Civic than waste money on a new vehicle that is more comfortable. I am happy to sacrifice salary for a situation that I feel is more stable and less stressful.

The difference is that I understand that these attitudes preclude me from a wide array of highly competitive fields. No matter how intelligent and conscientious I might be I am unlikely to ever succeed in the sort of corporate/academic political climate that rewards people that are willing to be married to their jobs. I am going to spend a couple of weeks every summer taking youth groups on an outdoor adventure no matter how much the business needs me. At 4:30 PM I am wrapping up my day, and only the most extreme of fires is going to get me to care about work. Put enough pressure on me, and I will simply find another job. With the experience and skills that I have, and the salary that I need, it has never taken me more than two days to find another job, even now that I am over 50. My employers have invariably been very happy with me, because I am willing and eager to teach people. I have any number of friends that I have mentored and who now make more money than I do. I still get calls from several with difficult questions to this day, and on a couple of occasions I have worked for someone that previously had been someone I had helped. They knew that I do good work, and that politically I am safe. I don't want their job. I just want to be able to do my job and to go home. They know that I am going to treat people with respect, and that I am happy to help people improve, even if it means that they get opportunities that I am not interested in taking for myself.

Perhaps we would have better society if we rigged politics so that no one could get ahead by be willing to sacrifice family time, but I am skeptical. The reality is that only so many people can be high powered corporate execs, partners at prestigious law firms, tenured academics at institutions of higher learning, and a wealth of other jobs that are highly competitive. If willingness to put in long hours is not the sacrifice that gets certain people ahead, what else is society going to use to choose who gets the most coveted positions? Does it just become a popularity contest, where the most beautiful people get the best jobs? Does it become even more a lottery where it doesn't matter how hard you work, just how lucky you are?

Personally, I think that idea is silly. It is 2023. If a woman (or man) wants to achieve the highest levels of professional success they should be well aware that this will take certain sacrifices. The idea that you can "have it all," is a fallacy. Every decision comes with built in opportunity costs. If you can't be successful as an academic without going to conferences over the weekend, then you are going to have to find a way go to conferences over a weekend. Shifting the conferences so that they happen during the week might appear to help on the surface, but it doesn't change the fact that you are still competing with people that are willing to give up their weekends to help further their career. The weekend conferences are really just a symptom. The underlying problem is that becoming an academic is a very competitive field that tends to be dominated by people that are willing to pay whatever price it takes to succeed. These people are going to find other ways to use their flexibility against you. After all, they are willing to sacrifice things that you simply aren't willing to sacrifice.

Exactly. Doordash and the rest of the delivery services took billions in VC money and used it to subsidize food delivery. So for a few years it was possible to get food delivered to your house for an extremely low price. Now that money is drying up, and people are finding that their food doesn't get delivered on time for $3.00.

The good news is that they can always pay more than that. If DoorDash is smart they will not only make the tip completely transparent, but they will give preference to drivers that have good delivery records when it comes to handing out deliveries with big tips. With the right incentives this will completely self regulate. Patrons will learn that paying extra gets them the best drivers, and drivers will learn that speedy deliveries get them the best patrons. There will be some hiccups, but for the most part you can then just pay for the level of service that you want.

Alternatively, you could go and pick up your own food.

I couldn't agree more. However, you can't hardly blame Doordash drivers for preferring deliveries where they are going to get a tip. After all, they get to choose which deliveries they make. In markets where there are more deliveries to do than drivers then someone is going to have to wait to get their food. It makes sense that the person waiting is the one that paid the least.

In some markets, where there are a lot of drivers, or at times when deliveries are slow, you might get your food delivered on time without having to leave a tip. During busy times, however, you might need to pay more if you want your food to show up at a reasonable time. This model seems to make a great deal of sense to me. If you think that the overall price of the delivery is too high, then you can always deliver the food yourself. People have been doing that for a long time.

The whole point of Doordash driving is that you work for yourself. You don't have to show up and work set hours. You can simply make the deliveries that you want to make. I suspect that quite a few drivers are going to find it in their best interest to simply make deliveries where they get paid the most.