Source of Data: Aswath Damodaran

If you work in accounting and finance and you need up to date and
relevant information that would otherwise take you hours and hours to
track down, take a look at this site:

http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/New_Home_Page/data.html

Damodaran not only provides this free service every year but he puts
online his notes, his lectures, his spreadsheets ... the lot.

DW

Windows 8.1 on the Mac

I did it. I got Windows 8.1 to work on my MacBook Pro. Bit of a struggle but I did it!

Duncan Williamson

Chickenomics II

Nine years ago i wrote this page: http://www.duncanwil.co.uk/chick.html

As i will be moving into a new house very soon i have

 thought about keeping egg laying chickens for mysel and tge family.

I read my chickenomics page again and went to the eglu company web site again. Those eglus are very expensive. They now start at £555 and with a small extended run, can easily cost £799.

I am not in the market for an eglu and given that my chickens would eat kitchen scraps plus supplements, they will cost relatively very little to keep.

Whether i actually do this or not depends on a number of dactors. If i do it i will report back here!

Duncan Williamson

PS something wrong with this app and i cannot correct the spelling errors!

Spreadsheet: Bangkok Taxi Fares

I don't know why but I became obsessed with the idea of creating a spreadsheet model of Bangkok's taxi fare system.

I took photos of the schedules many taxis have in their cars but did nothing with them.

This weekend I did it: I programmed the Bangkok taxi fare schedule and you'll find a full write up here: excel2007master.wordpress.com. Take a look: it took a lot longer than I expected and it was more complicated than I thought it would have been.

Duncan Williamson

Building Site Latest ... we are here!

We came to see the house for a specific reason ... but we left some vital papers in Bangkok so that kind of fell apart! Still, all is not lost and we will do what we need to do!

So, here are some photos, beginning with a bucket for pouring concrete ... can you see any concrete???

Then other updating snaps!

DW

That's the view from the dining room to the master bedroom.

Excel Training in Bangkok

I will be leading a two day seminar on Spreadsheet and Financial Modelling on 4th and 5th July 2013.

Short, intensive and very interactive ... if you use Excel and you need help, come along.

Read up snd sign on here :

http://www.vmacgroup.com/Spreadsheet%20and%20Financial%20modelling/index.php

DW

Excel Posts you Need to Read

On my sister blog, excel2007master.wordpress.com, I had a burst of energy over the weekend and posted a series of articles that everyone here could find useful.

Here are the links:

21st April 2013: The Sunday Times published its rich list 2013 today. I have applied Benford’s Law to the list and made a surprising discovery! Excel Tips … Others menu!

http://excel2007master.wordpress.com/st-rich-list-benfords-law/

20th April 2013: three things today: 1) I have started a trial with Excel 2013 and I have found pivot table timelines: take a look at the Excel Hot To … Pivot Tables to see what that means; 2) using Shift + F9 to Copy and Paste in the Excel How To … Others menu; and 3) a brief explanation of corkscrew calculations. Look in the Excel Tips … Others menu

http://excel2007master.wordpress.com/timeline-in-xl2013/ 

http://excel2007master.wordpress.com/shift-f9-to-copy/ 

http://excel2007master.wordpress.com/corkscrew/ 

18th April 2013: this is why I need to keep talking about Pivot Tables!  See the menu item Excel Tips … Other

The course I have just finished had a large Excel element and for the first time I ran an Excel Mini Project throughout the course. Well, not quite throughout but I got the delegates to tell us about a file or topic or small niggle that they had and that we would work on. It didn’t go entirely according to plan in that we didn’t have the time to spend the 30 – 45 minutes a day on the projects that I would have liked.

Every Excel based course brings out something good but this time I got one of my specials.

No link for this one but the following is a fascination for me: http://excel2007master.wordpress.com/analysis-of-second-hand-car-prices-in-bangkok/

Duncan Williamson

Answers on a Post Card

What is this a photograph of?

DW

Subscribe to The Times .., hahahaha!

This is a simulcast with duncan's diurnal diatribe ...

Subscribe to The Times ... hahahaha!

This post contains the text of s summary of my run in with The Times subscription and customer services departments.

Dear Sirs,

Please read this message and do something about it this time.

I posted this on your Facebook page just now as you have been impossible to deal with. Since you have taken money from me under false pretences, you have made this a serious matter now, not just an inconvenience.

"In The Times tomorrow ... how would I know? Try subscribing online and this is what you get. Sign up and complete the direct debit details. Finished? No, they will write and say your email is not registered on their system. They advise you to call them or try again. I wrote and said I am abroad for several weeks so cannot call ... why not call me on +... ... Ignored. I tried to sign up again this time as I typed my email address it said, are you XXX, in that case we'll fill in your details for you and they did. Was I now a happy subscriber? NO! They wrote and said my attempt to subscribe had failed and they had looked through their entire database and my email address is not registered. Call them or try again they repeated. In the end I subscribed for a month on the iPhone from the Apple Store. Happy now? NO! the App keeps crashing and yesterday after a crash, a deletion and reinstallation I am now "enjoying" a 30 day free trial ... I am getting no service for my money. Anything else? YES! I found out yesterday that they have taken money out of my bank account via the direct debit that couldn't possibly exist in their database. Is that the end then? NO! I wrote to them yesterday and asked for action. They ignored me. I wrote again and suggested that since I have received no services for my money AND they are seemingly misleading me, they might be guilty of fraud or theft. So that worried them then? Not a bit of it. I have heard nothing. So, this message comes with the clear warning that The Times has the worst customer service people I have ever come across: no exaggeration. This comment will probably be deleted but I will put it here and there and on my blog so that it can be seen for eternity!"

DW

I Don't Believe it!

On the TV here, sports channel that is, they display a QR bar code thing. So far i have looked at but never scanned to see what it reveals.

I am wstching Swansea v Arsenal and decided i would scan that QR device. As i picked up my iPhone to do the deed the QR code disappeared. I kid you not. That is what happened and it has not returned.

Sod's Law!

DW

Subscribe to The Times .., hahahaha!

This is a simulcast with duncan's diurnal diatribe ...

Subscribe to The Times ... hahahaha!

This post contains the text of s summary of my run in with The Times subscription and customer services departments.

Dear Sirs,

Please read this message and do something about it this time.

I posted this on your Facebook page just now as you have been impossible to deal with. Since you have taken money from me under false pretences, you have made this a serious matter now, not just an inconvenience.

"In The Times tomorrow ... how would I know? Try subscribing online and this is what you get. Sign up and complete the direct debit details. Finished? No, they will write and say your email is not registered on their system. They advise you to call them or try again. I wrote and said I am abroad for several weeks so cannot call ... why not call me on +... ... Ignored. I tried to sign up again this time as I typed my email address it said, are you XXX, in that case we'll fill in your details for you and they did. Was I now a happy subscriber? NO! They wrote and said my attempt to subscribe had failed and they had looked through their entire database and my email address is not registered. Call them or try again they repeated. In the end I subscribed for a month on the iPhone from the Apple Store. Happy now? NO! the App keeps crashing and yesterday after a crash, a deletion and reinstallation I am now "enjoying" a 30 day free trial ... I am getting no service for my money. Anything else? YES! I found out yesterday that they have taken money out of my bank account via the direct debit that couldn't possibly exist in their database. Is that the end then? NO! I wrote to them yesterday and asked for action. They ignored me. I wrote again and suggested that since I have received no services for my money AND they are seemingly misleading me, they might be guilty of fraud or theft. So that worried them then? Not a bit of it. I have heard nothing. So, this message comes with the clear warning that The Times has the worst customer service people I have ever come across: no exaggeration. This comment will probably be deleted but I will put it here and there and on my blog so that it can be seen for eternity!"

DW

Read that Graph Carefully II

Three years ago I wrote a short piece on how the FT had misrepresented the ratings of President Obama by using an inappropriate vertical scale on a graph it was showing.

My simple suggestion was to elongate the vertical scale and reinterpret the graph.

I just reviewed that posting and feel I ought to have suggested that we calculate rates of change values for the ratings rather than just change the chart. That will give us a complete picture.

Here’s the original graph:

Here is my table of data: assumed values from the chart then calculated values of the rates of change. Finally my own graph showing both sets of numbers: look at the impact of the rates of change values!

Year	Month	Change %	Rate of Change %
2009	Feb	66%
2009	Mar	63%	-4.55%
2009	Apr	61%	-3.17%
2009	May	64%	4.92%
2009	Jun	64%	-0.78%
2009	Jul	60%	-5.51%
2009	Aug	55%	-8.33%
2009	Sep	52%	-5.45%
2009	Oct	52%	0.00%
2009	Nov	52%	0.00%
2009	Dec	50%	-3.85%
2010	Jan	51%	2.00%

Sorry the example is so old but it’s a good one because the rates of change are at such apparent odds with the way the chart was originally presented.

 

Duncan Williamson

Bully the Small Ones

A few years ago I got involved in a story concerning a butcher from Liverpool, his tax accountant and the Inland revenue. It was a fascinating story for me as the IR was using Benford’s Law to try to tell the butcher he must have been cheating on his taxes.

That’s fine as far as it goes and I was sufficiently interested to talk to the tax accountant who provided me with the butcher’s bookkeeping information and some of the correspondence from the IR.

The crucial thing was that the IR were using Benford’s Law completely wrongly: they were starting from the right digit (pence) and moving to the left, tens of pence, pounds, tens of pounds and so on. The truth is that they should have started with the leftmost digit whatever that was as it could have been millions of pounds, hundreds of pounds or who knows what.

A lot of correspondence went backwards and forwards including some from a woman who claimed that my approach to Benford’s Law was wrong … I think she was from the IR and trying to defend her friends.

I am happy to say that as a result of my intervention the IR backed down, they stopped harassing the butcher and life returned to normal. What I DID conclude, however, was that the butcher MIGHT have been cheating on his taxes to some extent as his Benford results were not 100%: so the IR might have been right to pursue him. Had they done their job properly I would not have got involved. I imagine the butcher got a shock and sorted himself out.

The point of this story is really that I read in today’s FT that they are naming and shaming tax avoiders and evaders on the IR web site but guess who’s getting it in the neck? Starbucks? No! A high profile comedian? No A Russian oligarch? No! They are targeting tiny SMEs, probably mSMEs.

Yes, these people deserve to be punished if they are doing wrong but landing a load of tiddlers in a large fine mesh net is hardly the same as landing a dozen Marlin using strength, stealth and intelligence is it? I say this because if they have caught these SMEs in the same way that they caught the butcher of Liverpool then watch out for the potential backlash and we hear more and more stories of IR incompetence and bullying.

 

Duncan Williamson

Dublin Here I Come

I have prepared a paper for an international education conference to be held on and between 29th and 31st October.

The paper is on my work in Kabul: the setting up of a TVET college there.

The conference is being held in the centre of the city.

This is my first trip to Dublin and if you are in or going to be in Dublin at that time, why not say hello!

DW

Six Thinking Hats

In the course I ran this week I built in a Six Thinking Hats exercise and I believe it went well from all points of view. I intended to carry out at least one more 6 Hats exercise during the course but ran out of time.

In at least one of my up and coming courses I have made the 6 Hats even more central and will report back.

One of my motivations for using the 6 Hats technique takes me back a couple of years when we had meetings for the project I was part of and I suggested that we start one of our meetings ONLY with positive news and statements! It was a brilliant move even though some of the team found it challenging initially!

Duncan Williamson

This will Shock you!

I read this in an article in the Economist the other day and whilst I knew the essence of the situation, I had no idea that the values involved were so massive:

"All told, the world’s airlines spend $7 billion-8 billion a year taxiing between passenger gates and the runway, says Yehoshua Eldar, who is in charge of business development at IAI."

That article then goes on to describe one possible solution to this massive waste of energy:

"The TaxiBot, though, uses just 20-30 litres of fuel for a typical trip. It also reduces the risk of debris being ingested by the engines and causing damage. Germany’s Lufthansa will trial the system at Frankfurt Airport from May 2013."

Look here and then take a look at this video on YouTube on the taxibot. Fascinating!

Duncan Williamson

Book Three Arrived

My third book of the summer has just arrived ... Here it is and it's available from amazon.co.uk in Kindle and print format.

This is a much shorter book than The Excel Project book and it is aimed at beginners.

DW