Here is the latest cool comic book moment in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here’s the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today is the mid-point of the calendar year, so to celebrate the occasion, I’ve chosen a particularly classic scene from Batman: The Dark Knight that I’m surprised that I have not featured yet! It’s a chilling example of how twisted the Joker is.

Enjoy!

One of the themes of Batman: The Dark Knight is that as soon as Batman returns, so do his villains, with Two-Face and Joker, in particular, coming out of almost hibernation upon the return of the Bat.

Batman: The Dark Knight #3 (which was written and drawn, of course, by Frank Miller, with inks by Klaus Janson and colors by Lynn Varley) shows us the Joker’s rampage, and Batman’s desperation to bring the Joker down, once and for all.

How it happens, though, is quite chilling.

“The” moment is tough, because while, yeah, it’s pretty much the bit when Joker chooses to kill himself to frame Batman, but the final panel, where we see Batman basically REACTING to the situation is almost a stronger “moment” to me than the actual death of the Joker.

What say you all?

Here’s to the second half of the year!!

6 Comments

• At July 2, 2009, mightygodking wrote:

  WOW IT IS THE SAME PAGE FIVE TIMES IN A ROW

• At July 2, 2009, jazzbo wrote:

  Wow, you really like that one page, don't you? :)

• At July 2, 2009, Brian Cronin wrote:

  Hehe, totally! :)

• At July 2, 2009, billshears wrote:

  This moment (not just the one page shown, but the entire sequence :P) is what brought me back into comics. ...

• At July 2, 2009, Bill Reed wrote:

  If I had a couple hundred million lying around, I'd finance a movie version of DKR starring Keaton, Nicholson, and ...

• At July 2, 2009, Aqualad wrote:

  Frickin brilliant. Better than Watchmen. LOVE Dark Knight.

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En deux ans, les éditeurs spécialisés dans les applications iPhone auraient reçu plus de 100 millions de dollars des fonds de...

En deux ans, les éditeurs spécialisés dans les applications iPhone auraient reçu plus de 100 millions de dollars des fonds de...

Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's plan to maintain current spending levels and increase borrowing has received a thumbs-up from Cabinet.

In the first of an occasional series on the reform of finance, we look at the European Union’s proposals

GIVEN its history of financial meltdown and subsequent recovery, Sweden, which assumed the presidency of the European Union on July 1st, is the ideal country to orchestrate the reform of Europe’s financial landscape. Its reputation for levelheadedness will come in handy too. The EU remains riven by two deep divides on the regulation of finance.

The first is an ideological one over the degree of freedom that should be afforded to markets. It pits a weakened and distracted Britain, whose appeal as a financial centre in less troubled times was enhanced by its “light-touch” regulation, against countries such as France and Germany, which feel their long-standing distrust of freewheeling markets has been vindicated. “There is a large body of people who say that the Anglo-Saxon model has failed,” says a person involved in the new regulations. “Now they see the chance to bury it.” Tougher regulations may also peg London back in its rivalry with other European centres such as Frankfurt or Paris. ...

A la veille des RDV de l'Agora où il parlera de son dernier ouvrage, Lettre ouvertes aux bandits de la finance, Jean Montaldo s'exprime ici lors d'un chat organisé par nos confrères de Bakchiche.info

Source : Investir.fr (s'abonner)

Explorer : Asie, Economie, Finance, International, Irak

A 100-percent functional picture-perfect clone of the financial tool of choice for many finance professionals, this iPhone app can easily be used in place of the physical calculator. Even though it doesn't include much in the way of added iPhone-specific features, HP 12C Financial Calculator is still very useful.

The Baltic states are suffering deep recessions in their quest to reach the safe haven of the euro zone

The Baltic states, despite facing double-digit falls in GDP this year, are striving to limit their budget deficits with a view to adopting the euro as soon as possible. Rather than pursuing devaluation and counter-cyclical fiscal policies, they are cutting wages to restore competitiveness and hoping that the euro will repair investor confidence. None of them, however, looks likely to meet the conventional benchmarks for euro-zone entry soon. As a result, unilateral euro-adoption or devaluation are strong possibilities.

Estonia raised the standard rate of value-added tax (VAT) from 18% to 20% on July 1st as part of an ongoing effort to keep the budget deficit within 3% of GDP this year, so that the country can be positively assessed against the Maastricht criteria in early-to-mid 2010 and join the euro zone at the start of 2011. Latvia, despite suffering the deepest recession of any EU state, has a finance minister who insists that the budget deficit will be brought down to 3% of GDP in 2010—from a level that is likely to be close to 10% of GDP this year—in order to bring his country into the euro zone in 2012. Lithuania has not yet formally adopted a target, but 2013 has often been talked about. There too, the finance ministry is seeking to keep a lid on the budget deficit, even at a time when the domestic economy needs all the help it can get in terms of state spending and low taxes, to keep the country within sight of the Maastricht criteria of exchange-rate stability, price stability, low public debt and budget deficits, and long-term interest rates in line with those of European economic and monetary union (EMU) members. ...

Le titre de l'équipementier international de haute technologie, qui puise la majeure partie de son activité dans l'industrie aéronautique, bien qu'inscrivant toujours ses oscillations au sein d'une tendance baissière notable, présente des caractéristiques graphiques qui invitent à se préparer à un rebond. Les investisseurs les plus actifs tenteront d'en profiter pleinement en...

Source : TradingSat (s'abonner)

Explorer : Bourse, Economie, Finance

Luc Besson, Henri Guaino, l'Institut Montaigne : tous y sont allés de leur visite aux Bosquets, l'une des cités les plus sensible de Seine-Saint-Denis. Mais qu'a-t-elle donc de plus que les autres? Le quartier des Bosquets, à Montfermeil, ne lasse pas d’intéresser les grands de ce pays. Après Luc Besson qui, en octobre dernier, avait tenté d’y tourner des scènes de son film From Paris with love avant d’entamer un repli stratégique suite à plusieurs cas de combustion spontanée de véhicules de la production, Henri Guaino, le conseiller spécial du président, s’est fendu d’une visite dans cette cité ultra-sensible de Seine-Saint-Denis.

Une visite plus que mouvementée puisque, rapportait hier Le Parisien, Guaino s’y est fait caillasser mardi dernier, à 1 heure du matin. Que faisait donc un conseiller de Sarkozy dans ce quartier à une heure pareille ? Son travail, explique-t-il : « J’avais souhaité accompagner une patrouille de police en Seine-Saint-Denis pour comprendre le travail des policiers et la situation sur le terrain, dans les quartiers ». « Il ne pouvait pas mieux tomber », commente, lapidaire (c’est le cas de le dire), un flic : la voiture de la BAC à bord de laquelle circulait Guaino a été attaquée par une quarantaine de jeunes qui se sont livrés à un caillassage en règle.

Ironie : au même moment, l’institut Montaigne, le think tank libéral fondé par Claude Bébéar, diffusait une note intitulée « Comment déghettoïser les « quartiers » ». Sous-titre : « Un exemple concret : les Bosquets à Montfermeil ». Son but : « Démontrer que sur le terrain, par des initiatives locales, il est possible de faire évoluer les choses dans le bon sens ». Ecole, emploi des jeunes, santé, transports : les auteurs de la note ont plein d’idées pour aider les habitants des Bosquets. Ce qui, en soi, n’est pas forcément bon signe pour Montfermeil. Car l’Institut Montaigne s’est fait une spécialité de l’aide aux causes perdues d’avance. Ce qui lui permet de ne jamais se tromper,  puisque les solutions miracle préconisées ne sont jamais appliquées, ou alors trop tard pour changer quoi que ce soit. Ainsi, dernièrement, les honorables membres de l’Institut se sont-ils penchés sur le problème des retraites — un système qui « doit être remis à plat et restructuré en profondeur » — de la finance — qu’il faut « reconstruire pour relancer l’économie » — ou encore de l’Europe — « Candidats, quel projet proposez-vous pour l’Europe ? ».

Bref, Henri Guaino ne pouvait pas mieux tomber, en effet, en se rendant aux Bosquet, qui est en passe de devenir LE quartier où il faut être vu quand on est un penseur-qui-n’hésite-pas-à-se-colleter-avec-la-réalité-du-terrain. Démodés, Mantes-La-Jolie, les Mureaux, Vénissieux. Vive Montfermeil.

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L'histoire de la crise financière et économique actuelle est d'abord une histoire américaine. Après un moment de choc, le coupable a vite été trouvé : la Réserve fédérale, la banque centrale des Etats Unis, et sa politique de faible taux d'intérêt sont présentées comme les responsables de cette crise qui secoue la planète depuis août 2007. Une fois encore, il est ainsi suggéré que l'économie réelle serait saine et que c'est l'Etat, fût-ce par l'intermédiaire d'une banque centrale indépendante, qui serait le seul coupable. Tout au plus, certaines asymétries d'information, certaines incitations perverses, notamment en matière immobilière, auraient échappé à la vigilance des régulateurs. Une telle représentation du monde n'est que le dernier avatar d'une idée que l'on croyait remisée depuis longtemps : celle de la dichotomie entre la sphère réelle de l'économie et sa sphère monétaire et financière.

Taux moyen d'imposition du 0,01 % les plus riches aux Etats-Unis, 1960-2004,en %

Pourtant à y regarder de plus près, il n'est pas difficile de comprendre les causes réelles de la débâcle financière : elle n'est que la contrepartie d'exigences initiales excessives de rentabilité financière, devenues sans rapport avec le rythme de croissance de l'économie réelle. En fait, c'est au coeur de ce qui a été appelé à la fin des années 1990 la "nouvelle économie" - au sens d'une économie prétendument engagée dans une croissance définitivement forte et sans à-coups - qu'il faut rechercher les causes de la crise.

Cette économie reposait tout simplement sur un malentendu. Des institutions et des règles financières présumées optimales étaient censées fournir aux différents acteurs les incitations propres à accélérer la croissance sans qu'il n'y ait plus de difficultés de coordination entraînant des crises et des fluctuations. Dans ce contexte, des taux de rentabilité du capital, qui auraient été jadis considérés comme extraordinaires, ont été considérés comme normaux.

Comment, alors, ne pas rapporter la crise financière aux changements drastiques intervenus dans la répartition des revenus et des richesses, singulièrement aux Etats-Unis qui en sont l'épicentre ? Les mécanismes sont en effet simples à décrire. L'exigence d'une rentabilité du capital sans rapport avec le taux de croissance effectif ne peut qu'entraîner une forte redistribution des revenus au détriment des ménages les plus modestes. Cette redistribution a des effets négatifs sur la demande qui, de ce fait, ne peut être maintenue que grâce à un endettement accru de ces mêmes ménages. Un tel processus ne pouvait se poursuivre indéfiniment : la croissance ainsi obtenue ne pouvait que déboucher sur une crise financière de grande ampleur, compte tenu de la nature des mécanismes mis en oeuvre pour atteindre les objectifs attendus de rentabilité financière.

L'éclatement de la bulle de la high-tech au début des années 2000 avait déjà révélé que les institutions en place, et notamment les institutions financières, n'étaient pas susceptibles de soutenir la formation de croyances cohérentes. Cette incohérence avait débouché sur des excès d'investissement qui ont retenti sur les valeurs boursières. Loin de produire une accélération définitive de la croissance, la financiarisation sophistiquée de l'économie a créé les conditions d'une plus forte instabilité. L'éclatement de la bulle des valeurs technologiques avait conduit par la suite les autorités à pratiquer une politique monétaire accommodante. Dans un premier temps, cette politique a évité la récession, voire la dépression, mais elle a également accentué les dérives de la finance.

L'enthousiasme désormais modéré pour les valeurs technologiques a cédé la place, chez les investisseurs, à la recherche de gains obtenus grâce à des produits fondés sur l'endettement des ménages. La bulle immobilière a succédé à la bulle des valeurs technologiques. La rationalité des prêts ainsi octroyés reposait sur la croyance que les prix des actifs immobiliers augmenteraient sans cesse, de telle sorte qu'il importait peu au prêteur de savoir si l'emprunteur pourrait ou non faire face à ses remboursements. L'amorce de la baisse des prix du logement ne pouvait que provoquer un éclatement de cette bulle immobilière et des défaillances en série des ménages endettés et de leurs créanciers. La crise financière devenait d'autant plus inévitable que les risques étaient cachés par les nouveaux mécanismes financiers.

Vision de court terme et creusement des inégalités

Quelles que puissent être les attentes en matière de taux de croissance suscitées par les innovations financières, elles ne sauraient correspondre aux taux de rentabilité exigés par les investisseurs. Cela ne pouvait avoir que deux conséquences : des choix industriels sacrifiant le long terme au court terme et un creusement des inégalités de revenus. Les entreprises, au lieu de procéder à des investissements à long terme, ont en effet engagé des opérations de restructuration visant à accroître leur rentabilité immédiate, ainsi que des opérations spécifiquement financières (rachats d'actions, hausse des dividendes) afin d'augmenter leurs cours boursiers. Les évaluations comptables des actifs à la valeur de marché ne pouvaient que les encourager à procéder ainsi. Il s'en est suivi des formes de désindustrialisation, des destructions d'emplois parfois qualifiés et l'augmentation des emplois précaires. L'interdépendance accrue propre aux relations de sous-traitance ou de cotraitance, devenues des relations de marché à court terme, a fragilisé fortement le système industriel.

Loin d'être la conséquence de contraintes de financement caractéristiques de systèmes financiers insuffisamment développés, cette évolution est au contraire le produit de ces systèmes sophistiqués de dilution des risques. Les produits financiers les plus complexes comme les plus simples présentent de vrais avantages, tout à fait indéniables : ils permettent à une économie de fonctionner en rendant compatibles des attitudes à l'égard du temps forcément différentes, entre ceux qui recherchent des engagements longs et ceux qui veulent préserver la liquidité de leurs engagements, en proposant la couverture de risques de prix ou de change inévitables. Mais ces mêmes produits, peu transparents, ne permettent jamais d'échapper aux risques dits parfois résiduels, en fait des risques systémiques si l'on considère les conséquences potentiellement élevées de ces risques résiduels.

Naturellement, on ne peut que dénoncer certaines pratiques financières : la concurrence entre prêteurs, qui les a amenés à consentir des crédits plus risqués à des taux d'intérêt moindres, des banques qui n'ont pas gardé une part significative de leurs créances quand les prêts devenaient plus risqués. Mais l'essentiel est ailleurs. La finance n'est pas coupable d'un simple point de vue technique. Elle ne le devient que si elle est le fourrier d'une redistribution drastique des revenus préjudiciables à la croissance.

La face cachée d'une rentabilité fortement accrue des actifs financiers, c'est en effet un accroissement des écarts de revenus personnels. Ceux-ci ont été souvent faussement attribués à des biais introduits par le progrès technique dans les qualifications demandées et au fonctionnement d'un marché du travail rendu flexible. La "grande compression", selon l'expression de l'économiste américain Paul Krugman, des écarts de revenus des années 1950 et 1960 aux Etats-Unis a été remise en cause. Paul Krugman en donne une illustration saisissante en comparant les rémunérations de la firme de référence en 1969, General Motors (GM), avec celles de la firme de référence en 2005, Wal-Mart. La rémunération du PDG de GM était, en 1969, égale à 88 fois celle de ses salariés moyens, alors que celle du PDG de Wal-Mart en 2005 était, elle, 1 278 fois supérieure. Mais plus encore, en dollars constants 2005 : le revenu des salariés moyens a reculé de 40 000 dollars pour les ouvriers de GM en 1969 à 18 000 dollars pour les employés de Wal-Mart en 2005 [1]. Globalement, la part du décile supérieur dans la distribution des revenus est passée de 27 % en 1966 à 45 % en 2001 [2].

Accroître l'endettement pour réguler la demande

Le soutien prodigué aux ménages impliquant d'encourager les prêts susceptibles de leur être consentis ne faisait que traduire le souci plus ou moins explicite, mais justifié, de préserver une croissance mise en danger par les inégalités de revenus. La stagnation, sinon la baisse relative, des salaires devait être compensée par la possibilité pour les ménages de s'endetter à des taux très bas et d'accéder ainsi à des marchandises importées à bas prix. Les nouveaux mécanismes financiers ont fait croire qu'il était possible de diluer les risques impliqués par les prêts aux ménages les moins solvables. En fait, l'endettement en question a fait office de régulation de la demande pour faire pièce au creusement des inégalités et, quoi qu'on en dise, assurer la croissance, non pas une croissance artificielle, mais une croissance effective.

Le problème est que cet arbitrage, en quelque sorte imposé à l'Etat, ne pouvait qu'induire des distorsions rendant la croissance difficilement soutenable. La faute principale des gouvernements est de ne pas avoir mis en place les régulations prudentielles nécessaires ; ils ont, au contraire, accepté le démantèlement de celles qui existaient et qui avaient été conçues à la suite de la Grande Dépression de 1929. Ils y ont été poussés par une idéologie qui a cru asseoir sa légitimité sur les avantages et les certitudes que les techniques d'une finance de plus en plus sophistiquée étaient censées procurer. Les importations en provenance des pays émergents ont permis de contenir les prix et, par suite, d'écarter des signaux susceptibles de conduire les autorités monétaires à relever les taux d'intérêt. Cette situation ne pouvait être qu'instable.

Part du 0,01 % des ménages les plus riches dans le total des revenus aux Etats Unis, en %

L'histoire des pays de la zone euro est, certes, différente. La politique monétaire y a été moins accommodante et les inégalités de revenus ne se sont pas creusées de manière aussi drastique grâce, en partie, à un système social dont les mécanismes ont été grosso modo maintenus en dépit de tentatives plus ou moins poussées de les démanteler. La contrepartie a été une croissance faible et un chômage élevé dans les grands pays de la zone. Cette contre-performance a souvent été attribuée à la lenteur des réformes tendant à rendre le marché du travail plus flexible. Pourtant, si l'on considère l'expérience allemande des années 2000, le rebond de croissance n'a procédé que de la croissance des exportations dans une économie où les réformes du marché du travail ont avant tout rendu la répartition des revenus plus inégalitaire et affaibli la demande intérieure. Le chemin emprunté a ainsi quelque ressemblance avec celui suivi par les Etats-Unis, s'agissant des conséquences en matière de répartition.

Un problème structurel

En fait, le problème auquel les différentes économies sont confrontées est d'abord un problème de demande. Mais il ne s'agit pas d'un problème simplement conjoncturel appelant des mesures temporaires de relance ou des hausses immédiates de salaires que les entreprises ne pourraient pas supporter. Il s'agit bel et bien d'un problème structurel : ce qui est en jeu, c'est la façon dont la répartition des revenus structure la demande et, par suite, l'offre.

Le défi à relever est particulièrement redoutable dans la mesure où un changement de norme de répartition prend du temps pour voir le jour et exercer ses effets. La forte diminution des inégalités de revenus, qui a contribué à expliquer la croissance forte et régulière des décennies 1950 et 1960, était amorcée dès l'avant-guerre. L'enjeu est donc de concevoir et de mettre en oeuvre des mesures à effets immédiats et à moyen terme, au premier rang desquelles des mesures allégeant la fiscalité des ménages les moins riches, augmentant les allocations chômage et diminuant le fardeau des ménages les plus endettés.

Il est grand temps de revenir aux fondamentaux de l'économie et de ne plus croire que l'intelligence des financiers résoudra tous les problèmes. Il est grand temps de reconsidérer les véritables sources de la croissance, qui résident dans une certaine égalisation des revenus et des richesses, source d'une demande abondante et diversifiée, garante de l'efficacité des investissements.

Extrait du magazine Alternatives Economiques (hors série), n° 80 (04/2009).

If you’re at all interested in investing and the stock market, then the odds are pretty good that you’ve made use of website stock tickers in one form or another at some point. MakeUseOf has always offered solutions to financially savvy geeks, such as the article I wrote earlier on 3 blogs to get you out of debt, or Kaly’s 15 cool tools to track expenses and budget, but if you have a financial blog or website of your own, now you can embed free website stock tickers into your site with very little effort. Thanks to the wonderful Web 2.0 world of widgets, there are a number of quick and easy tools to integrate real-time stock information on your site. If you can copy and paste, then you can have updated stock information on your website.

How to Use Free Website Stock Tickers

When selecting the best stock ticker widgets, I searched for those that are versatile enough to work on any blog platform or website. The stock widgets listed below are not only universal (most of them utilize javascript), but they’re easy to customize for the exact stocks that you want to display on your website. These particular widgets aren’t just a standard stock ticker with just scrolling text, these all display stock data in a more graphical real-time format.  Just review the following list, select your favorite and embed it on your own site!

FreeStockCharts are Interactive and Free - It Doesn’t Get Much Better Than That

One of the best free stock charting widgets comes from FreeStockCharts, which actually lets you choose between one of two formats. You can either use the standard graphical chart that streams the data for the stocks that you specify, or you can use the “Hover Chart,” which automatically locates the ticker symbols in your content and provides your visitors with the ability to hover the mouse over those symbols and see a real-time chart of that stock. That’s a very cool feature to have on any financial website.

Once you choose whichever chart you want, you can customize it to suit your needs. Customizing only requires filling out a very simple one-page form where you can select the ticker symbol, update time, colors and other features for the chart.

Once you’ve finished customizing all of the chart features, all you have to do is copy the code that’s automatically generated at the bottom of the screen and paste it into your website or blog platform where appropriate. For my example, I’m going to embed the chart into my Wordpress blog FreeWritingCenter, which is just a matter of pasting the code into the Wordpress widgets section. After you’re done, the finished real-time chart will appear on your blog or website as shown below.

The NASDAQ Market Ticker

No list of free website stock tickers would be complete without an honorary mention of the one offered by NASDAQ.  This graphical ticker will actually work either on your computer desktop or on your web page. Once you click the “copy me” button on the widget page, you can choose from a list of services where you want to embed the widget. This lets the application customize the code to work best on your Blogger account, Facebook page or anywhere else. In my case, I just want the straight HTML embed code.

Once you copy and paste the code into your blog - you’re good to go. Unlike FreeStockCharts, you don’t have to sign up with your email address before you can use the ticker. Personally, I like the look and feel of the NASDAQ ticker better than most of the others.

With this ticker, your visitors can actually customize it to their own liking. If they click on “ADD,” they can enter their preferred ticker symbol and that stock will show up under the “My Stocks” tab. Now that’s coolness.

The Yahoo Stock Ticker - For Financial Yahooligans

Yahoo Finance is one of the most popular online financial resources on the net today, so it stands to reason that Yahoo would offer their own free stock ticker. Yahoo lets you choose from three types of modules for your site - large (quotes, charts and news), medium (quotes and charts), or small (quotes). You can customize the data with up to 10 ticker symbols, adjusting the width of the display, and choosing the color scheme.

Just like the NASDAQ ticker, you don’t have to enter your email, you only have to accept the terms and conditions to get access to the code. Usually I don’t really like Yahoo products because they’re typically kind of “plain vanilla,” with very few features. However, in the case of this stock module, the ability to customize it with up to 10 ticker symbols and choose from a variety of color schemes is very cool.

SaneBull Displays Data From Global Markets

SaneBull, briefly reviewed before by Makeuseof, offers a whole range of awesome plugins for Facebook, iPhone, Mac and many other platforms. One of the best ones is the “World Market Watch” widget, where you can display stocks from markets all over the globe on your website.  Like the NASDAQ widget, there are automatic installers for platforms like Blogger, Facebook and a variety of others.

If you do use any of these social networks, I highly suggest using this tool, especially if you’re not the type that likes to play around with adding the code yourself. However, I’m old fashioned - so I always go for the copy and paste approach. I’m weird like that.

I like the look and feel of the Sanebull stock widget - however if you don’t, then you’re out of luck because there’s no way to customize the widget. You get what you get. The extent to customization is that you can select only American, Asian or European markets instead of displaying them all at once.

Using StockTwits for Stock Tips

While not technically a stock ticker widget, StockTwits is a very useful stock widget for financial bloggers. Want to give your readers access to the latest stock tips? The StockTwits widget is a direct plugin to Twitter feeds of market investors. As investors “twit” personal stock tips, the StockTwits widget automatically updates the feed on your web page.

The major drawback with this particular stock widget is that you can’t customize it - not only in terms of its appearance, but also what information comes through. The feed is basically about any stock tip whatsoever, so expect to get a stream of random tips on any stock imaginable. Of course, for day traders or other folks who are always on the lookout for hot stock tips, that’s a great thing.

Do you use any stock widgets on your own website or blog? What are your favorites? Share them in the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Les fusions-acquisitions sont à l'arrêt, mais les banquiers d'affaires ne voient pas complètement les choses en noir. Quelques relais de croissance se sont mis en place pour assurer des revenus satisfaisants aux départements de « corporate finance ». Car si les difficultés actuelles des entreprises...

Our old friend Dan Slater (who, for those new to our work, used to write this very Law Blog), a few minutes ago published a piece on the NYT’s Dealbook site entitled “In Praise of Law Firm Layoffs.”

After setting the stage with the backstory on the troubles experienced by BigLaw in the past 16 months or so, Slater gets to it, and really doesn’t hold back, calling the layoffs, salary-slashings and start-date deferrals “the best thing to happen to the legal industry in years.” Writes Slater: “Call it a blessing amid a recession.”

For starters, writes Slater, there’s a benefit to corporate counsel, “who for too long have been bilked by a law firm compensation model that leads lawyers to prioritize their ”hourly quotas,” which determine year-end bonuses, over quality service.” He goes on: “Unfortunately, the same bar presidents and law firm managing partners who are in a position to do away with the billable-hour format are happy to write op-eds decrying the miserable tradition, yet are unwilling to lead the pack when it comes to taking action.”

But the real lucky ones, writes Slater, are the law-firm associates who’ve, yes, been laid off.

And what about all those 20- and 30-something associates who can no longer formulate excuses — Â But I’m paying off my law school debt while I figure out what I want to do! — Â to remain in the kinds of jobs that so many of my law firm friends describe as ”soul-crushing”? For many lawyers at law firms, particularly those who spent the early part of their careers toiling in structured finance departments and contributing, in the end, nothing to nothing, this recession may be the thing that delivers them from more 3,000-hour years of such drudgery as changing the dates on securitization documents and shuffling them from one side of the desk to the other.

Like a relationship gone bad, clearly hopeless to everyone but the imprisoned, it often takes a forced exit to break the leash of inertia that collars so many smart law graduates to mind-numbing work. So don’t pity these people. What they needed all along was liberation. Now they have it.

Welcome again to the lovely weekly collection. As usual detailed and interesting Photoshop tutorials hand picked from the best tutorial sites.

How to Mold Paint Splatter to a Face in Photoshop

In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to take splattered paint Photoshop brushes and apply them to the contours of a model’s face. This is a relatively simple technique, which yields excellent artistic results.

How To Create An Abstract Floral Explosion in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how I used several floral stock images and Photoshop brushes to compose a fantastic abstract composition.

Design an Awesome Space Dancer Scene with Nebula Texture in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the processes I used to design this awesome space dancer scene with Nebula Texture in Photoshop. The inspiration of the tutorial in fact came from the latest “Prince of Persia” game cover (and yes, I do love this game very much!)
Together we will be using image adjustment options, layer blending, masking and filter effect. I will also like to emphasise that it’s very importance to choose the right stock texture for your design, as they will contribute and improve your final effect dramatically.

Photo Manipulate a Falling Angel

Learn how to combine several photos to create a dramatic ‘fallen angel’ scene.

It’s Time to Create a ‘Neo-Constructivist’ Poster with Photoshop

Constructivist graphic design is often associated with communist politics and propaganda, but it’s more than that, Constructivism is about using bright colors, playing with lightness, perspective, geometrical forms, besides photomontage techniques and digital collage. This time I’ll dare to name this tutorial a ‘Neo-Constructivist’ design.

Design a trendy business & finance layout

Today I will create another business layout tutorial. Whether you are a single entrepreneur involved in financing and accounting, small business company committed to consulting, management or marketing, or a member of school of business, you will definitely love the following layout.

Grunge City Photoshop tutorial – part 1

This tutorial will teach you an easy method of turning your photo of a city into an amazing grunge city

Web Design Layout #9 Photoshop tutorial

Good afternoon, welcome to another tutorial by the hv-designs team in this tutorial il show you how to create a web design layout, currently the 9th one in our tutorial database.

Create a Dramatic Car Speeding Scene Photoshop tutorial

Design a Grunge-Style Abstract Poster Photoshop tutorial

n this tutorial I will show you how to design grunge girl wallpaper in Photoshop using some grunge textures and brushes. We will use different techniques such as image adjustments, layer blending options and filter effects.

Freedom, explosion energy Photoshop tutorial

This tutorial, however, is the result of combining some effects that are having much success lately: power lines, lighting effects, vector lines … an explosion of energy that gives us as a result a great job. Learn how to create it.

Making Sense of the Warp Tool – It’s All About the Lines

Every now and then a project comes along that challenges me to use one of Photoshop’s tools more than ever. This particular image was part of a series of ads I was working on with photographer Richard Radstone for a clothing line based in Colombia, South America.

Each of the ads featured a surreal representation of a different region of Colombia and was created by compositing various stock images and photos Richard shot for the job. The challenge with this one was to wrap an accordion around the palm tree like a giant snake.

Design a Beautiful Website From Scratch

Have you ever wanted to design a beautiful website but just didn’t know how? To be honest, a few years ago, that happened to me too. While browsing the web, I saw so many nice looking websites and wished I had the skills to create such designs. Today I can and I’m going to teach you how to do so too! Essentially, it requires a few Photoshop skills and an eye for detail. Through this tutorial, I will point out these tiny details which make a website design look beautiful. Fire up Photoshop and let’s get going!

Photoshop tutorial – Post processing: Digital to fake Black & White Film

Simply desaturating a photograph doesn’t really represent a true black & white film photo. The film has more impact, more puch and more life. A digital photo converted to black & white just doesn’t cut it, it doesn’t look real.
Although it’s impossible to represent digitally what the chemicals and the paper do to a black and white image (not to mention the film), we can get fairly close to something like a TRI-X 400 film once we understand what’s happening with the film.
This easy post-processing tutorial gives a way to do so.

How to Create a Fantasy Atmosphere Style Car Ad

The initial concept was the creation of an ‘atmosphere’ – a background for the car. Using images and some painting techniques over that images I made a fantasy scene. This tutorial will explain some of those techniques and how various Photoshop tools work.

How To Create a Clean and Futuristic Media Player Skin

First introduced by Winamp, skins allow MP3 players to veer sharply from the cliches rampant in audio hardware. In audio components, it seems black means high tech, silver means solid state, yellow means waterproof.

Winamp allows you can choose from over 2000 user contributed interfaces, from the futuristic to an antiqued woodgrain look. However, this tutorial has taken the concept even further, not only by teaching you how to design a clean and futuristic skin interface, but also allows you to have complete control over the end-user interface from the appearance and positioning of buttons to whether or not the volume control can be turned all the way up to 11.

How To Create a Post Apocalyptic Photo Manipulation

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a post apocalyptic manipulation using adjustment layers, vector masks, and some special effects

Give a Sci-fi look to your pictures

In this tutorial you will learn how to create fantasy like creatures such as orbs and incorporate them in the image to give it a killer effect.

Changing Hair Color in Photos

How to Create a Gorgeous Glassy Text Effect

This text will be created using a series of shapes with different transparency and color effects

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Public voting in the The Europas, the tech startup awards from TechCrunch Europe, will close today, Wednesday July 1 at 11.59pm London time (GMT/BST). So best get your vote out now. The awards will take place on July 9 next Thursday, with over 300 people attending from all over the European tech scene. There is more information about the awards here.

A huge thanks to our sponsors for supporting this inaugural event: Thanks to the UKTI for sponsoring the pitches; Viadeo for sponsoring the Best Design category; Bootlaw for sponsoring Best Bootstrapped Startup; Quick.tv for sponsoring Best European Investor; Zendesk for sponsoring Best New Startup; Latitude and Parklane Champagne for the Awards Prizes; oneDrum for sponsoring the drinks party and Mixcloud for sponsoring the DJ.

TECHCRUNCH PITCH! SPONSOR

UKTI

UK Trade & Investment is the government organisation that helps UK-based companies succeed in the global economy. We also help overseas companies bring their high quality investment to the UK’s dynamic economy – acknowledged as Europe’s best place from which to succeed in global business. UK Trade & Investment offers expertise and contacts through its extensive network of specialists in the UK, and in British embassies and other diplomatic offices around the world. We provide companies with the tools they require to be competitive on the world stage. For further information please visit www.uktradeinvest.gov.uk or telephone +44 (0)20 7215 8000.

AWARD CATEGORY SPONSORS

Sponsor: Best Design Category

Viadeo

Founded in June 2004, Viadeo quickly established itself as the place to be for professional networking in Europe and beyond. Since then, with more than 8.5 million members (as of June 2009). Follow them on Twitter @viadeo. Viadeo is essential for those who want to:

· Increase their business opportunities (to discover new clients, staff and business partners)
· Enhance their visibility and their online reputation
· Manage and develop their network of professional contacts

Viadeo’s members consist of business owners, entrepreneurs and managers from a diverse range of businesses both start-up and well established. Each day Viadeo attracts more than 10,000 new members; 40,000 new connections are made and over one million profiles are viewed. Based in Paris (head office), Viadeo also has offices and teams in the UK (London), Spain (Madrid and Barcelona), Italy (Milan), China (Beijing), India (New Delhi) and Mexico (Mexico City). The company employs 200 staff worldwide. www.viadeo.com

Sponsor: Best Bootstrapped Startup Category

Bootlaw

Bootlaw is a free boot camp for emerging technology, internet and digital businesses and the professionals working in them who want to learn more about the legal issues they face. Its brought to you by Barry Vitou and Danvers Baillieu the friendly lawyers at Winston & Strawn in London. For more information go to www.bootlaw.com

Sponsor: Best European Investor Category

Quick.tv

Quick.tv is a web-based ‘Video-as-a-Service’ platform, allowing the injection of dynamic and interactive features into online video clips. Aimed at business users, productions created through Quick.tv transform the viewer experience by prompting them to click on items within the video.

A full range of intuitive drag’n’drop tools include hotspots for e-commerce, real-time voting and graphs, RSS feeds for live data,
forms for viewers to apply for offers, hyperlinked text and image overlays, chapters for ease of navigation and more.

The end-to-end service delivers file transcoding and storage, player and play-out options and detailed analytics both on the video itself and the viewers’ use of the interactive features. It even has an editing tool to re-cut video clips online.

Templates and style sheets make the deployment of large numbers of interactive videos easy, leaving users free to monitor the increased monetisation and viewer engagement benefits the service has to offer.

Sponsor: Best New Startup, Summer 2008 - Summer 2009

Zendesk

Zendesk provides an integrated on-demand helpdesk - customer support portal solution based on the latest Web 2.0 technologies and design philosophies. The product has an elegant, minimalist design implemented in Ruby on Rails and provides seamless integration of the back-end helpdesk SaaS to a company’s online customer-facing web presence, including hosted support email-ticket integration, online forums, RSS and widgets. This is unusual, because most SaaS helpdesk solutions focus exclusively on the backend helpdesk and treat the Web as an afterthought. The system also leverages Web 2.0 ideas on the backend, such as tag based categorization throughout instead of the usual pre-defined drop down lists, RSS feeds for every customized view and a complete REST/JSON API for virtually every entity in the system.

Sponsor: Awards Prize

Latitude

Latitude is a leading digital marketing agency who deliver their expertise in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC),
social media, online display, affiliate marketing and conversion analytics to clients including Tesco Personal Finance, Bet 365 and The Independent. Our whole approach is built on performance. Our conversion analytics expertise ensures that, once visitors get to your site, they convert from prospects to customers. We are confident that we can demonstrate a significantly better ROI on marketing spend. In fact, we’re so confident that we offer many of our clients performance-based pricing, so you only spend money when you’re making money.

Sponsor: Awards Prize

Park Lane Champagne

Park Lane Champagne: bringing the ability to source single bottles of champagne, personalised as you like, through their new online site at www.parklanechampagne.co.uk . Check it out and if you like what you see, do blog about it and tell the World.

Sponsor: Drinks & Party

oneDrum

oneDrum is a free, lightweight desktop application that can turn any application into a rich, collaborative environment. The first release of oneDrum, available to the public from July 2009, is the only platform on the market that takes the compromise out of collaborating in Microsoft Office.
It enables:
* Simultaneous, multi-author document creation and editing in PowerPoint, Excel and Word
* Effective communication, coordination and control of change
* Secure, synchronised file sharing and version management.

oneDrum is headquartered in London, England and was founded by Jasper Westaway, CEO

Sponsor: DJ

Mixcloud

Mixcloud aims to be the YouTube of Radio. The company’s vision is to be the definitive platform online for on-demand radio shows - from music to talk and everything in between. Mixcloud describe themselves as re-thinking radio, building a platform that connects radio shows (or what they describe as Cloudcasts) to listeners much more effectively. The unit of value for Mixcloud is the show rather than the song or the station. Mixcloud provides radio content creators with a toolkit to host, promote and distribute their content across the web, solving the frustrations associated with file sharing services or the complications of Podcasts. For listeners, Mixcloud helps them filter the content easily to find what’s relevant to them - e.g. what’s popular or what their friends are listening to.

I've been attending SES San Jose every year since 2003. And each year a healthy proportion of attendees are attending their first search engine marketing conference ever.

This is healthy because it expands the number of marketers who "get it."

I can't tell you the number of times when prospective clients mistakenly assume that search engine marketing (SEM) isn't rocket science. Or they mistakenly believe that search engine optimization (SEO) is something their information technology (IT) department took care of years ago. Or they mistakenly think that a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign takes 15 minutes to set up. Or they mistakenly hope that their public relations (PR) people have a good handle on social media marketing.

So, I'm delighted to see the large number of first time attendees at Search Engine Strategies conferences -- because after they've sat in on a dozen sessions over three days they come away knowing how much more there is to learn.

Hey, if it were easy, we'd all rank #1.

So, with SES San Jose 2009 coming up August 10-14, I thought I'd highlight some of the conference sessions that I'd recommend to first time attendees. I've been doing this for several years -- and even spoke along with Matt Bailey of SiteLogic in a few "First Timer's Guide to SES and SEM" sessions at some events.

But, most marketers like to plan ahead. So, look over the SES conference agenda and check out some of the sessions that address your needs and your organization's issues.

If you want some suggestions, here are sessions specially focused on search fundamentals for first time attendees:
· Introduction to Search Engine Marketing provides a clear and concise overview of the concepts involved in search engine marketing.
· Successful Site Architecture offers a fresh look at topics on how to successfully design a site for search engines, including JavaScript, robots.txt use, frames, secure area usage and much more.
· Turn Brain Science into Bucks: Incorporating Persuasive Messaging into Your Content Strategy showcases current online content campaigns and explains the best content strategies to help persuade buyers, build trust, and get great search engine listings using Twitter, white papers, optimized web pages and more.
· SEO Tools of the Trade: What's in YOUR Toolbox? describes the tools that will help accomplish tasks, including indexing, competitive analysis, site ranking, diagnosing and remedying problems and much more.
· Search Advertising 101 describes the basic principles and applications of paid placement.
· Keywords & Content: Search Marketing Foundations presents an overview of the important keywords customers are searching for and how to target the right terms in paid and organic search marketing.
· Discover the Power of Linking: Link Building Basics focuses on the role of link analysis in search engine site rankings and how to increase site traffic by building quality links.
· The Findability Formula: The Easy, Non-Technical Approach to SEM features search engine guru Heather Lutze taking a fresh look at how search engines find content and what steps to take to ensure a successful online marketing campaign.
· Extreme Makeover is a series of four sessions held throughout day three of the conference. Volunteers are taken from the audience, their websites are examined and feedback is provided. Sessions include:
Extreme Makeover: Live Site Clinic provides general feedback about improving websites and gaining more traffic from search engines.
Extreme Makeover: Live Twitter & Blogging Clinic provides general feedback about how to improve your website's use of Twitter and blogging.
Extreme Makeover: Live Landing Page Clinic provides feedback on how to improve landing pages.
Extreme Makeover Live! Why Am I Not Making Enough Sales? covers the most common reasons many sites have low conversion rates and gives tips on how to turn more site visitors into paying customers.

I think you can see from the suggestions above that there is more to SEM, SEO, PPC and social media than a handful of tricks that you can pick up by reading a blog post. Oh, and if the folks over in finance are still cutting travel budgets these days, ask them this rhetorical question: "If I don't learn how to improve our search engine marketing, search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, or social media marketing, then how will the company be able to pay your salaries next year?"

Okay, so maybe you don't want to actually say that to their faces. And you don't want to start calling finance the "department of sales prevention." They are just doing their job.

But you can show them the SES conference agenda and let them know that you've picked out sessions to attend that will provide your company with a return on its investment (ROI) in marketing. Finance folks love it when you talk about ROI. Your talking their language.

Or, ask them to watch the video below. Yes, yes, it makes the case for going to Search Engine Strategies. But it also demonstrates visually that SES San Jose, which is the largest search engine marketing expo on the West Coast, will be packed with more than 70 sessions, multiple keynotes, and Orion panels, over 150 exhibitors, networking events, and more.

Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo

Swimming against the corporate tide, Wal-Mart yesterday sent an open letter to President Obama supporting a federal mandate that would require most employers to contribute to their workers’ health-insurance coverage. Here’s the letter that was cosigned by the leaders of SEIU, the huge union, and by a left-leaning think tank; here’s the story from this morning’s WSJ.

The employer mandate has been opposed by many Republicans and by most business groups, who argue that it could force business to cut jobs or lower wages. Those who support the mandate say employers should take some responsibility for health insurance, and warn that the absence of a mandate could encourage businesses to cut benefits.

While we wait to see how the backing of the nation’s largest private employer changes the political calculus in Washington, it’s worth taking a look at what a mandate might look like.

As the WSJ noted late last month a few different options have been bouncing around. The all-important Senate Finance Committee has been considering requiring businesses to pay 50% of the cost if their employees ended up on Medicaid, or 100% of the cost if the employees received government subsidies to help purchase insurance through new health-insurance exchanges.

House Democrats have created a plan that would require employers to provide coverage to workers, or contribute 8% of their payroll outlays toward the cost of insuring workers. Small businesses would get an exemption. The Senate Health panel has also called for an employer mandate, though the details remain unclear.

The head of the Congressional Budget Office, the group that estimates the long-term cost of health-reform proposals, has said that some sort of requirement for employers will be an essential piece of keeping health-reform costs under control for the government, CongressDaily recently reported.

Le groupe français France Télécom a annoncé avoir lancé aux Etats-Unis un emprunt obligataire visant à "diversifier ses sour...

Last week, BoomTown posted a detailed piece on Yahoo’s plans for a massive rebranding and marketing push, which included the hiring of outside consultant Penny Baldwin, who was a former top exec at Young & Rubicam.

And, yesterday, Baldwin became an official Yahoo exec, as SVP of global integrated marketing and brand management.

Baldwin, said Yahoo (YHOO), “will lead the company’s global brand efforts, and is responsible for developing and executing Yahoo!’s brand marketing approach including brand management, corporate messaging, integrated marketing and advertising.”

Said Baldwin in a statement, signaling that Yahoo is poised for an important brand makeover: “This is a seminal moment for the Yahoo! brand and for the business overall.”

While the company said Baldwin was a newly created position, it is not hugely different than the job that was held by Allen Olivo, who was SVP of global brand marketing until he recently left Yahoo.

Yahoo had previously described his job as “overseeing all aspects of its advertising and brand marketing strategy worldwide, including design and editorial.”

But, said many sources at the company, Baldwin’s purview is much larger, especially as it will involve a major overhaul of Yahoo’s image, which is likely to be rolled out as the Internet site also launches its redesigned front page in the fall.

In addition, unlike past Yahoo marketing execs, Baldwin has been described to me by many people at the company as much more colorful and bold in her style, and that she has been advocating more aggressive ideas about reinvigorating the Yahoo brand.

“Well, Penny is definitely not Yahoo,” said one Yahoo source, joking about the company’s quainter, yodel-focused and purple-toned image. “Which is probably a good thing.”

Baldwin reports to CMO Elisa Steele. It’s Steele, as I previously reported, who has been leading the rebranding effort at Yahoo.

It is aimed at repairing a damaged public image, communicating innovation and focusing consumers on what defines Yahoo in the years ahead.

Besides the hiring of Baldwin, Steele has also retained well-known (and pricey!) brand consulting firm Landor Associates.

Many themes have been considered to depict Yahoo going forward–most along the lines of Yahoo still being a key hub destination for Internet users.

Those possible directions were discussed at a recent off-site meeting of Yahoo’s top execs, led by Steele, who ran through the tangled history of Yahoo’s marketing efforts and showed off some rough ideas for the future.

One motto considered, among several: Yahoo as “your home on the Web.”

It is not clear how much Yahoo is prepared to spend on this rebranding effort. Microsoft (MSFT), for example, is in the midst of a $100 million marketing campaign around the recent relaunch of its Bing search service.

Here is the official press release about Baldwin:

Penny Baldwin Appointed to Senior Vice President of Global Integrated Marketing and Brand Management at Yahoo!

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jun 30, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE)–Yahoo! Inc. announced today that Penny Baldwin has been appointed to senior vice president, global integrated marketing and brand management. She assumes this newly created position immediately and reports to Yahoo!’s chief marketing officer, Elisa Steele.

Baldwin will lead the company’s global brand efforts, and is responsible for developing and executing Yahoo!’s brand marketing approach including brand management, corporate messaging, integrated marketing and advertising.

“One of Yahoo!’s greatest assets is its brand,” said Steele. “Our integrated, global approach is critical to our success and we have a deep business commitment to fulfill our promise to our users, customers and partners. Penny is uniquely qualified to lead the effort and her leadership, experiences, knowledge and skills are excellent additions to the Yahoo! marketing team.”

She is a 20-year veteran of global brand strategy development and execution across all internal and market-facing touch points. Most recently, Baldwin served as Managing Partner of Young & Rubicam Brands, Y&R Advertising and Wunderman Direct Marketing. As agency leader and manager, she was responsible for leading the efforts of large global teams across industries. Her experiences span technology, retail, packaged goods, finance, travel, gaming, wireless communications, entertainment, healthcare and sports marketing.

Baldwin has worked with several Fortune 500 brands including Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, AMD, NetApp, Hitachi Data Systems, Siebel Systems and Hewlett-Packard, among others. She has also worked with leading brands including Cadbury, Schweppes, Foster Farms, Jacuzzi, Wells Fargo, DHL, AT&T and Palm.

“This is a seminal moment for the Yahoo! brand and for the business overall,” said Baldwin. “I am delighted to be part of the leadership team that will take Yahoo! to the next level as we evolve our brand strategy worldwide.”