Odds and ends

[wellinghall]

Military penguin becomes a "Sir"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7562773.stm

Eight ugly watches that might tell the time
http://inventorspot.com/articles/8_ugly_watches_that_might_tell_the_time_14955

Pension accounting rules must reflect the uncertainties in the pension promise
http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/media/stories/story_77_18491_96639.html

Another busy year for archaeology on Orkney
http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/003043.html

ETA: Boing Boing's Christmas present guides:

for children, featuring "Baby's first mythos": Cthluhoid picture book:
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/26/boing-boings-holiday.html

fiction, featuring "Futures from Nature", edited by Henry Gee
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/27/boing-boings-holiday-1.html

Comments

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

Is there any particular reason why your user-icons frequently seem to change after you post the post?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

It's because I rarely think to use anything other than the default icon when making the post, but then I do think about changing it afterwards.

[findabair.livejournal.com]

Oh! I have a soft spot Sir Nils Olav III - not only is he a penguin and cute, but he is the mascot of the Norwegian King's Guard, who are stationed in Oslo. Have to go say hi to him in the zoo next time I'm in Edinburgh :)

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Awww! A pengi with a knighthood! I must tell Wilfred and Charles (Charles the penguin, that is, not Charles the singer...)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything said in item number 3.

Oh, and I actually own item number 5. It fits in well with my cuddly Cthulhu and my Cthulhu for President* booster kit.



* "Why settle for the lesser evil?"

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Number 3 doesn't really advance things much, though: all it says is that the number which looks 50 years into the future, and which has been hedged around with lots of assumptions and so on, is only an estimate.

Well, yes, OK, big surprise there, but how about suggesting what we do about it? :-)

Are you saying we should ignore it altogether? Use a different number (and if so, which one and why)? Use a range of numbers (which'll be a first for accounts, and would make for an interesting balance sheet)? Or perhaps just put explicit error bars in the accounts?

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Call me old-fashioned (and you can probably get shot in some accountancy firm technical departments for saying this) but I preferred the old SSAP 24 approach to the new FRS 17 approach. Under SSAP 24, short-term fluctuations in the value of what should be long-term items were minimised. FRS 17 is, in my opinion at least, far too susceptible to short-term market valuation changes.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

I was never terribly familiar with SSAP 24, but it does seem to me that smoothing out the FRS 17 adjustments would be sensible. Maybe require them to be spread over 10 years or so, whether debits or credits: that way you're still taking credit for the last bull market when the bear hits, so it all cancels out... :-D

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

If I recall it correctly (and it's been a while), SSAP 24 required companies to smooth deficits over the estimated remaining working life of the employees.

Or something like that.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

An excellent idea.

I thought it was that the deficits were left out of the accounts, but the company had to agree with the trustees how to fix them - but that being a cash issue it didn't affect this year's results.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Long term insurance companies have to* publish sensitivites around the value of their liabilities; maybe this could be done for other companies with pension liabilities.

*For a given value of "have to".

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

See my response to king_pellinor's comment.