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Home→Feature→Thamespath long distance walk: 1b. From Marlow to Henley-on-Thames
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wandelgek.nl Posted on February 2, 2017 by De Wandelgek January 6, 2020
After my short city walk through Marlow, it now felt time to start my first of two day walks on the Thamespath.
Now why a walk on the Thamespath and why a 2-day walk from Marlow to Pangbourne (or actually Reading because Pangbourne was a bit further then estimated ;-))? Well: This is Wind-in-the-Willows country. This is where Toad, Mole, Rat and Badger roamed around. The upper Thames is the river from the famous map by E.H. Shepard that can be found in the front and back of every Wind in the Willows copy.
Wind in the Willows has always been one of my favourite Englsh children's books and I still love it as an adult. But what's it about?
Although The Wind in the Willows is regarded as being written for children, it equally engages an adult audience. The story follows the adventures of a group of animal friends, who speak and act as humans. They live in an idyllic English countryside (Remark: remember me telling you in the introduction to this England journey that almost all English childrens books that became classics, used the idyllic English countryside as a save haven versus the wild and dangerous nature beyond (think of Winnie the Pooh, The Hobbit (and subsequently The Lord of the Rings), Mary Poppins and of course Wind in the Willows itself and additionally a lot of those also drew on the theme of disappearing nature (wild nature as well as idyllic nature of the countryside) (The Lord of the Rings, The Wind in the Willows and maybe not English (Canadian) but certainly drawing from English heritage: The Wild Wood – series), enjoying the pleasures of life, free from the dangers of the Wide World beyond, while overcoming the terrors of the Wild Wood, and finally banishing the theath of invasion.
Mr. Toad's adventures form the main story. Toad squanders his inheritance on the temptation of the modern age, behaves disgracefully, lets his friends down and neglects the responsibilities of his status, which puts the river bankers' way of life in jeopardy – saved only by the efforts of his loyal friends.
The river-bankers (including Rat, Mole and Badger) represent a genteel way of life, while the marauding wild-wooders (stoats and weasels) stand for a hostile, common way of life, which threatens the rural idylle.
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame has enchanted readers since its publication in 1908. Widely regarded as one of the great classics of children's literature, the book follows the exploits of four animal friends who live in the English countryside. The endearing escapades of Ratty, Mole, Badger and Toad combine adventure and camaraderie with aspects of morality, and tell of the social struggle between the river-bankers and the wild-wooders.
Evoking the rivers, woodlands and byways of an idyllic pastoral landscape, the setting is much inspired by the author's own childhood, largely spent with his grandmother in Berkshire and at school in Oxford. Throughout his life, tainted by tragedy and disappointment, Kenneth Grahame's happiest times were when he explored the countryside and was close to nature.
The Thames Path
Kenneth Grahame knew the stretch of the Thames flowing from Oxford towards Windsor very well. Lots of locations in Wind in the Willows are based upon actual location in this river stretch and even more… E.H. Shepard visited Kenneth Grahame at his house in Pangbourne and from there started exploring the river too. He drew inspiration for his now famous drawings from his riverwalks.
And now you know why The Wandelgek simply had to walk this river stretch too.
In preparation for his two day backpack walk, The Wandelgek used the Thames Path in the Country (From the source to Hampton Court) – Official National Trail Guide by David Sharp and Tony Gowers. It has a detailed description of the route as well as of the main highlights to visit on the road. It also has detailed walking maps.
The Thamespath is actually a long distance walking path running form the source of the Thames in the Cotswolds towards its mouth in the North Sea and has a total length of 235 kilometres. I planned walking approximately 13.7 kilometers on day one (not including my city walk in Marlow and not including an additional 6 kilometer walk to my overnight stay (which became a much longer walk, but more about that later).
On day 2 The wandelgek had planned to walk 23,7 kilometers (not including 6 kilometers fom the overnight stay to the beginning of the Thamespath in Henley-on Thames) (which proved to be to much) and after changing his plans he still walked 15.7 kilometers to Reading.
The total length of this 2-day walk was:
City Walk Marlow – 2 kilometers
Marlow to Henley-on-Thames – 13.7 kilometers (Thames Path)
Henley-on-Thames to Henley Business School at Greenlands – 10 kilometers
Henley Business School at Greenlands to Henley-on Thames – 6 kilometers
Henley-on Thames to Reading – 15.7 kilometers (from there by train to Pangbourne)
Day 3: (added a very early walk which I had planned on day 2, before leaving for Oxford)
Early bird walk from Pangbourne to Whitchurch-on-Thames – 2 kilometers
49.4 kilometers Total and 29.4 kilometers on the Thames Path.
Including some visits of small villages on the road (Hurley-on-Thames & Sonning), the total adds up to approximately 50 kilometers.
There are enough places on the road to eat and drink, starting at Marlow which is a moderate town having lots of restaurants and pubs available.
Other places on the road are way smaller but there are inns/pubs at:
Hurley-on-Thames (Ye Old Bell, Rising Sun and there's the Hurley Lock Tea Shop) and
Aston (Flowerpot Inn).
Henley-on-Thames is quite a large town with lots of choice to eat or drink.
There are busstops at Marlow, Mill End and in Hurley-on-Thames and
Marlow has a railway station.
Day 1: Marlow to Henley-on-Thames
I started my walk just underneath the suspension bridge in Marlow, at the river embankment. It was cloudy and sunny and the more my walk proceeded, the sunnier it got 🙂
The first stretch of the walk followed the town's promenade and then past Higginson Park and over a small footbridge on to an old Towing path directly at the river towards Temple Lock.
Leaving Marlow, The Wandelgek had some marvelous views over the river towards Marlow and its suspension bridge…
Tow or Towing Path
A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge. This mode of transport was common where sailing was impractical due to tunnels and bridges, unfavourable winds, or the narrowness of the channel.
After the Industrial Revolution, towing became obsolete when engines were fitted on boats and when railway transportation superseded the slow towing method. Since then, many of these towpaths have been converted to multi-use trails. They are still named towpaths — although they are now only occasionally used for the purpose of towing boats.
The Thames Path is created by connecting lots of these old abandoned towing paths together. There were lots of swans and other water birds around and the scenery had from the moment The Wandelgek had left Marlow, become quite rural.
Outside of Marlow I immediately noticed the abundance of flowers in the riverbed. The fenced tow path was between the river to the left and the low wet lands full of flowers to the right…
I could quite imagine Mole ploughing through these flowerfields towards the river…
"He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river"
Mole, from "The River Bank", The Wind in the Willows
On the other side of the river were beautiful country estates…
Then the path reached Bisham (other side of the river) and the beautiful Bisham Abbey…
All Saints Church, Bisham
The village of Bisham stands on the south bank of the Thames, across from Marlow-on-Thames. On a rise above the river stands the ancient church of Al Saints, which dates to the 12th century.
The oldest and most interesting part of this Grade-II listed church is the tower, which really ought to be viewed from the Thames Path across the river to be fully appreciated. The rest of the church has been rebuilt several times, especially under Benjamin Ferrey in 1844.
The church stands near the site of both Bisham Abbey and Bisham Priory. The priory was established by the Augustinian order in the 14th century. It was demolished at the Reformation and no traces remain. The Abbey is a manor house that was once home to the Earl of Salisbury, and is now at the heart of a National Sports Centre complex.
Then the Thames Pathwent through a green pastoral part before reaching Bisham Abbey…
Bisham Abbey
Bisham Abbey is a Grade I listed manor house at Bisham in the English county of Berkshire. The name is taken from the now lost monastery which once stood alongside. This original Bisham Abbey was previously named Bisham Priory, and was the traditional resting place of many Earls of Salisbury. The complex surrounding the extant manorial buildings is now one of five National Sports Centres run on behalf of Sport England and is used as a residential training camp base for athletes and teams and community groups alike. It is a wedding venue with a licence for civil ceremony and is used for conferences, team building events, corporate parties and private functions.
Bisham Abbey by: WyrdLight.com
Then the Thames Path advanced passed beautiful flowerborders and passed Temple Lock towards Temple bridge…
Then The Wandelgek reached the bridge at Temple Lock and cropssed it to the other side of the Thames…
There the Thames Path closely followed the river until a small island was reached.
Again a bridge led over the river to the island from where there was a good view on Harleyford Manor…
Harleyford Manor
Harleyford Manor is a country house near Marlow in Buckinghamshire.
The house is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England, and its gardens are also listed Grade II on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
The urn to the south west of the house, the ice house to the north east, and the dairy to the north, and the temple to the north east are all listed Grade II.
In addition to the buildings, two statues of Robert Clayton, to the west and to the east of the house, are also listed Grade II.
The house was designed by Sir Robert Taylor in the Georgian style and built for William Clayton, a Member of Parliament, in 1753. The house was gutted by fire in the mid 20th century but remained in the Clayton family until 1950. The present owners, who have owned the property since 1952, converted the property to office use in 1988. They operate a large marina and offer boat mooring services but plan to convert the property into flats.
Now the path went on past Hurley Lock…
Hurley Lock
Hurley Lock is a lock and weir on the River Thames in England, situated in a clump of wooded islands close to the village of Hurley, Berkshire. The lock was first built by the Thames Navigation Commissioners in 1773.
There are several weirs between the islands but the main weir is upstream between the topmost island and the Buckinghamshire bank. The weir is popular with kayakers whenever conditions are favourable, and it is very busy at weekends.
There were 2 bridges of the island towards into Hurley. The Wandelgek took the second one and deviated from the Thames Pathe following a small road surounded in lush green and colourful flowers into the village…
Hurley is a small village and large, rural civil parish in Berkshire, England. Its riverside is agricultural, except for Hurley Priory, as are the outskirts of the village. The adjoining inn is believed to date to 1135.
Then the road reached the beautiful remains of the Benedictine Priory and its graveyard…
By the river is the Scheduled Ancient Monument, Hurley Priory, a partially moated Benedictine priory founded in 1086 as a cell of Westminster Abbey. The priory was dissolved in 1536, but its priory church survives as the current parish church.
On the church square was another old building. A farm shed…
The village of Hurley was quite beautiful (beneath two pictures from Google Maps from a location on Mill Road) …
Then I returned towards the river Thames an started following the Thames Path again…
Frogmill
Near two islands, the path passes a few barns with their stone-and-flint patterning, now residential, at Frogmill Farm…
After passing the islands, the path unexpectedly makes a short-cut through kissing gates and meadows and another kissing gate, to join the tow path again.
Here The Wandelgek deviated a little bit from the Thames path on to the tow path towards the previously not followed river bend. The tow path was here a bit overgrown with plants because tis part definitely attracted less walkers.
At the other side of the river were two beautiful buildings:
Medmenham Abbey
A Cistercian abbey was founded in Medmenham in the 12th century under the ownership of Woburn Abbey, though it was not officially recognised by royal charter until 1200. In 1547, at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the abbey was seized and given to the Moore family and then sold privately to the Duffields. It was while in the possession of the Duffields that the abbey became infamous as the location of The Hellfire Club, formerly called the Monks of Medmenham.
In 1755, when Sir Francis Dashwood acquired the ruins of the ancient abbey from the Duffield family, he and John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich attended a service at St. Peter's parish church in Medmenham where Sandwich released a small monkey in the church. The congregation fled in horror, sure that Satan himself had invaded their place of worship.
Today the abbey is a private residence and is not open to the public.
This house was next to Medmenham Abbey and although I could only find one other mention and picture of this house on the web, I do have to agree with this source that it probably once was part of the St Mary's Abbey complex. I deduct this from the typical Abbey style windows and the cloister like gallery…
Past Medmenham, the Thames Path followwed the old tow path again and slowly the country to the left began to get more steep.
After passing Lower Culham Farm and later a foot bridge, the road suddenly left the river and went up towards a tar road from Lower Culham Farm towards the village of Aston. The sun gradually showed itself more and walking through the fields of rural England I couldn't help feeling anything other than GREAT 😀 !!!
And then the tar road appeared and it led away from Lower Culham Farm towards Aston, passing Culham House, way up on top of the hill, overlooking meadows occupied by sheep and by completely white deer. I never had seen white deer (I did see a white reindeer before but that was probably in a late winter fur coat), and I admired the stags with their completely white antlers. I suppose that this couldn't be a winter coat anymore, because it was August and high summer…
Culham House
The Wandelgek kept following the road which led first to the estate of Fulham Court, but before the road reached this estate, the Thames Path deviated downhill and back to the river and then crossing neatly kept grassy meadows of Culham Court…
Culham Court
Then the Thames Path reached beautiful Holme Farm, just before reaching Aston…
Holme Farm
Past Holme Farm, the Thames Path joined the tar road again and led through beautiful pastoral Aston and down to the river Thames again.
Aston is a hamlet set back by one short access lane from the Thames further to the east of Henley-on-Thames than Remenham village centre, both offset to the north. Less than 1 mile (1.6 km) separates the two, however this is a green buffer that is farmed. No properties front the river here which is left as natural flood plain grazing land and the hamlet has only one listed building, Aston Farmhouse, at Grade II.
I loved this place immediately and it had a Hobbit feel to it, meaning it looked cozy and homely. Judge for yourself because I stopped walking and really started making pictures capturing this rural treasure…
Leaving Aston the road went down towards the Thames and at the river a the tar road ended and The Thames Path followed the old towing path again through another beautiful river bend. Just before rounding the bend, on the other side of the river I saw a very beautiful little village named Mill End…
The nature of the River was in full bloom and I now completely understood where Kenneth Grahame and Ernest Shepard got there inspiration from… I passed some green river islands and I imagined Ratty and mole having a picnic somewher at the embankment, watching the geese float by and sometimes I even thought I saw a Flower Fairy peeping through the thickets, quickly hiding again as I came by…
In the center of the river bend I saw a beautiful white country estate and I knew that was the place I would spend the night :-D.
But to reach that paradise I had still some kilometers to walk. First the path passed beautiful Temple Island…
Temple Island
Temple Island is an island in the River Thames in England just north (downstream) of Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. The island is on the reach above Hambleden Lock between the Buckinghamshire and Berkshire banks, and is part of Remenham in Berkshire. The main significance of the island is that it lies at the start of the course for Henley Royal Regatta.
The island includes an elegant ornamental temple (a folly) designed by the 18th century English architect James Wyatt and constructed in 1771. It was designed as a fishing lodge for Fawley Court, a nearby historic house that Wyatt also remodelled in the 1770s on the commission of its owner, Sambrooke Freeman. Wyatt designed both the structure of the building and its interior decoration; it is likely that he also provided designs for the original furniture. The wall paintings in the principal room are thought to be the earliest surviving example of the Etruscan style in Great Britain, predating more famous examples such as the Etruscan Dressing Room at Osterley Park by Robert Adam.
In the 19th century, the island's ownership passed, with Fawley Court, from the Freeman family to the Mackenzie family. In 1952, upon the death of Roderick Mackenzie, Henley Royal Regatta asked his daughter Margaret for 'first refusal' should she ever decide to sell the island. It is not clear whether an understanding was reached. By the early 1980s, the advent of corporate entertaining greatly increased the potential value of the island. In 1983 the Stewards of the Regatta again began making overtures to Margaret Mackenzie but in 1986 the island was placed on the open market.
Supported by a gift of £515,000 from Alan Burrough (a Steward of the Regatta) and his wife Rosie, in December 1987 the Regatta was able to purchase a 999-year lease of the island and the temple. Following the purchase, the Stewards of the Regatta undertook restoration works to the island and the temple:
The downstream portion of the island was retained as a nature reserve and was extensively replanted with trees.
The Victorian balcony which had decayed was replaced. The wall paintings, which had deteriorated and had been badly over-painted, were repaired and brought back to the colours originally intended by Wyatt. A statue of a nymph, in keeping with the style and age of the Temple, was placed under the cupola.
Then the last stretch of todays Thames Path went past Remenham.
Remenham
Remenham is een dorp in het Engelse graafschap Berkshire. Het dorp ligt in het district Wokingham en telt 547 inwoners.
Past Remenham and towards Henley-on-Thames. I could see the bridge crossing the river from afar. On the river strectch between Temple Island and Henley-on-Thames lots of people wre going for an outing in a boat…
Henley-on-Thames is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England, 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Reading and 7 miles west of Maidenhead. One of its boundaries has the tripoint of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish population as 11,619.
From Henley-on-Thames I still needed to walk 6 kilometers back down the river towards the beautiful Greenlands estate and my address to stay the night at the Henley Business School.
So After walking a bit through Henley I searched for a path on the river front because the road towards the Henley Business School was a road with lots of traffic and very dangerous for walkers. And then it proved that I was quite tired from the walk, because I misjudged a crucial sign and intead of walking towards the river I found myself walking on the OxfordShire Way, a beautiful long distance walking path, but going north instead of east. I was completely unaware of my mistake until I was on top of a hill ridge, between sheep and no river in sight.
Then I realized I must have taken a wrong turn back in Henley. But it was getting darker very fast and I wanted to reach the Greenlands estate before I needed a torch to see the paths and roads. I came on a tar road and a small van drove towards me. I hailed the van and it stopped and I asked for directions. I couldn't have walked more wrong than what I did. The driver told me it was still a long walk and I needed to turn back q80 degrees and then walk until I reached the road that I had feared before with all the traffic.
I reached it just before dark. There was a Gardening company named after Mister Toad at the place where I reached the road ( a place on the map that said: "New cottages". Then I walked on the left side of the road and every time a car approached I stepped in to the thickets because they all drove fast and probably did not expect any wanderers here.
I reached Fawley Court Farm when it was dark and I decided to stop for a while hoping someone would leave the farm. Fact was that I didn't have light to read a map, my phone battery was empty and I didn't know for sure if I was going in the right direction. Also I hoped to get a ride because I was not comfortable walking any further down that dangerous road. After what seemed 10 minutes a car left the farm and a very friendly farmer listened to my questions and story and he proposed dropping me off outside of the Greenland Estate. My heart jumped in my chest and gladly I accepted the offer.
After leaving the car I had to walk up a road towards the main building of the Henley-Business-School but this was a piece of cake.
Henley Business School is the business school of the University of Reading. It was formed by merging the previously independent Henley Management College, formerly the Administrative Staff College, with the existing business school of the University of Reading. As a result of the merger it now occupies two sites: Greenlands Campus, near the town of Henley-on-Thames, the original site of the Henley Management College, and Whiteknights Campus in Reading.
It is among only 73 institutions worldwide to be granted triple accreditation by the three largest and most influential business school accreditation associations: EQUIS, AMBA and the AACSB. It is ranked among the world's top 50 business schools by the Financial Times and The Economist.
The main building was the beautiful building I had previously seen from the other side of the river. I entered and checked in. The building was really stately from the out- and inside with grand rooms full of chandeliers paintings, broad hallways, thick carpets and a luxurious bar and restaurant.
I decided not to go to my room in another building, but stay and first eat and drink at the bar.
They even poured local and quite tasty beer named Lovibonds from a brewery in Henley 😀
Henley on Thames Business School through Booking.com:
In 30 acres of beautiful grounds in the Oxfordshire countryside, Henley Business School provides well-appointed accommodation by the River Thames. With a restaurant, bar and fitness centre, the Greenlands site also provides free parking and Wi-Fi.
Each room has a flat-screen TV, desk, safe, hairdryer and tea and coffee facilities. All have an en suite shower with luxury Molton Brown toiletries provided. Towels are available to hire if required.
A full English breakfast is served each morning. Award-winning chefs serve evening meals in the riverside restaurant, and light snacks are available from the bar, open until 23:30 each evening.
Henley Business School is less than 4.8 km from the centre of Henley-on-Thames, with the nearby riverside town of Marlow a 13-minute drive away. You can drive to the historic university city of Oxford in around 45 minutes.
This property is also rated for the best value in Henley on Thames! Guests are getting more for their money when compared to other properties in this city.
Henley Business School has been welcoming Booking.com guests since 20 Dec 2013.
http://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/henley-business-school.en-gb.html
The Wandelgek's verdict:♥♥♥♥♥ out of ♥♥♥♥♥
Best feature: The location and the main building
Other plusses: They serve local draught beer in the bar and the employees are very friendly.
Thamespath long distance walk: 1b. From Marlow to Henley-on-Thames — 1 Comment
Hovens-Dols M. on February 5, 2017 at 8:20 pm said:
KLEURIGE, SPANNENDE, DEELS TOLKIN-ACHTIGE route beschrijvingen/ervaringen met 'n happy end!


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Gunbarrel Highway 4WD Guide | Everything You Need to Know
Exploring the Outback can be dangerous, especially for novice 4WD enthusiasts. But this factor emboldens most experienced off-roaders to push the limits of their vehicles and themselves. As a result, the 4WD tracks that cut through the Australian Outback are some of the most popular ones in the country.
So, why should you explore this track? The Gunbarrel Highway is one of Australia's most famous and challenging 4WD tracks. It has a length of 1,350 km which links the Carnegie Station, WA and Giles, NT. It's also one of the best roads to take to reach Uluru.
Are you planning to drive through the Gunbarrel Highway? Read more about it below!
How Do I Get to the Gunbarrel Highway?
What Should I Know About the Gunbarrel Highway?
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The Mingol Camp
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From Darwin, you should head to Yulara to start your journey. So, you'll need to follow this route:
Follow Tiger Brennan Dr to National Highway 1 in Holtze
After merging onto National Highway 1, keep right to stay on the road
Continue onto National Highway 87 after 548 km
After 910 km, take the 3rd exit at the roundabout to stay on National Highway 87
Turn right to continue driving on the same road after 8 km
After 189 km, turn right onto Lasseter Hwy/State Route 4
Turn left onto Yulara Dr after 244 km
Turn left onto Kurkara Cres
After 1.5 km, turn left to stay on the same road and do the same after 77 m
Turn left onto Gosse Cres after 280 m
After 300 m, turn right to remain on Gosse Cres
The Gunbarrel Highway was the first road completed as part of Australia's role in the weapons research facility, then known as Woomera. The tract of land designated along Woomera and 80 Mile Beach close to the Port Hedland was picked as the ideal area in the world for a rocket range. Still, it was an uninhabited desert wasteland in the most isolated part of Australia.
This weapons research project didn't just involve rocket launches into a wasteland. Still, complex missile tracking instruments had to be put in position throughout this expansive region and so a considerable ground survey was needed to determine the shape of the land.
The first task was to build a road running east-west across the middle of Australia to provide significant service access for the completion of all other adjoining roads. The Gunbarrel Highway was the first to be completed among the Len Beadell roads, and so is a very historical path for people making the trip today.
Len Beadell, the lead surveyor of the project, admitted he was "a surveyor who preferred to draw clean lines on maps," so he set out to place the roads in areas where the long direct path could be built. It was Len himself, who light-heartedly gave his road crew the moniker "Gunbarrel Highway Construction Party". It was done for distance, fuel, and maintenance efficiencies for both his construction team and future users. This is suitable for us four-wheel drivers because it has meant that with a bit of preparation and excellent vehicle setup, there's a lot of Outback tracks that, although are no longer well-maintained, are still in good condition for off-road driving.
You can drive up the Gunbarrel from either Wiluna in the western side or Giles (Warakurna Roadhouse) in the east. So, it is usually included as an extension/start of a Canning Stock Route, West McDonald Ranger, or The Tanami Track trek. But technically, the Gunbarrel Highway is the section right at the east of Carnegie Homestead through to Yulara (by taking the road at Jackie Junction and Docker River).
The full stretch of the is an isolated desert track of 1400km. In general, washaways, dense grooves, stone, sand, and flood plains are all typical elements of the drive. Still, the track is graded on some occasions by the Wiluna Shire Council from Wiluna and ends 180km east of the town of Carnegie. There are great bush camps, and a lot of sites have wells with water.
At the western terminus of the trek, Wiluna is a town that is quite unlike any other in the country. Except for a few people who service the transient 4WD explorers, the town is mostly aboriginal. Also, there's just a few grimy buildings, a store, a pub, and the campgrounds, which is a far cry from the 1930s as this place was a booming gold mining town of around 9000 people. It also boasts the biggest mine in the southern hemisphere.
At the eastern end of the track, Giles is not a town at all but the native land of the Warakurna people and the site of a remote meteorological weather station, known as Giles. Visitors must spend the night at the Warakurna Roadhouse, where modern campground facilities such as fuel and basic food supplies can be acquired as going into the aboriginal community is not permitted. Also, most people visit the weather station while they are here, which is a little different from any other weather station around Australia. Tours to this place are free, but you should let them know in advance that you're visiting, particularly if you want to observe the launch of a weather balloon.
In general, heavy grooves, washaways, stone, sand, and flood plains are all typical elements of the terrain. The more troublesome spots are around Mingkili Claypan and along the Heather Highway turnoff and Jackie Junction (where there is extreme wash aways). The "deserted section" from Jackie Junction to Giles is very rutted, and in some places, it is quite sandy. During the peak season (usually from late June to October), many people make the journey across the Gunbarrel Highway. So, diversion tracks around significant obstacles will be in place, and even the abandoned section isn't usually overgrown unless you are the first group of the season after rains to head here.
Technically the Gunbarrel Highway is not a hard 4WD trip, but you should be very well-prepared and experienced. So, I would not suggest that you embark on a journey across the Gunbarrel Highway as your first outback camping trip.
There are many bores with water along this track, and we strongly advise that you do not use this water unless there is an emergency. Please do not plan to use this water – carry all your drinking and washing water. The impact of increased 4WD tourism on these historical areas needs to be considered to ensure that access for all remains. Note – to obtain water. You will need to carry a narrow water vessel (less than 14cm diameter) and about 45m of the line! Some bores are very deep.
While driving through this highway, you should also head to:
The Mingol Camp was built-up next to a waterhole and is shaded by giant gums, making it a great resting point for those traversing the Gunbarrel Highway. Here, you will want to keep an eye out for some of the wildlife that frequently flocks the area, including perentie. Also, permission to camp must be sought from the Wongawol Station.
Carnegie Station is a must-visit for those driving through the highway and is run by managers Dusty and Jodie. It is here that you will be able to stock up on fuel and supplies. You should also visit the small museum dedicated to Len Beadell, the chief proponent of the construction of the highway (and many other roads that cut through the Outback). After this stop, the road turns slightly more challenging, becoming one lane and potentially leading travelers to boggier areas, so drivers must keep their wits about them.
As visitors draw closer to Yulara from the southern side, they will approach Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, whose monoliths can be seen from almost 50km away. So, all kinds of travelers – not simply off-roaders – head to the Red Centre, so four-wheel drivers will find as they leave the more isolated regions of the highway, the Outback becomes bustling in comparison. The area is famous for good reason, with many amazing Red Centre views to enjoy.
"Did the Gunbarrel from Warburton to Warakurna June last year (2016). From the GCR to Mippiltjarra Junction the road/track was fantastic. From there to the Lake Christopher turn off the track was still pretty good but deteriorating with a few patches of corrugations, small bits and washouts. All easy-going. From Lake Christopher, you need to be on the lookout for washouts as somewhere hidden by overgrown vegetation. The old mantra remains drive to the conditions, and all is sweet." -Duncan W (ExplorOz)
Most of the track is too remote to find accommodations (except in some portions), you'll have to resort to bush camping. You can set up camp at:
Mingol Camp – Harry Johnson Water
Carnegie Homestead
Geraldton Bore
Camp Beadell
Thryptomene Hill Bore
Warakurna Roadhouse
The Great Central Road will eventually be sealed, and small sections of it have been sealed already. The sealed parts are generally located around the communities. There is one long patch of about 60km that is sealed between Tjukayirla and Warburton.
With searing heat in summer and below-freezing overnight temperatures during winter, the weather at Uluru can be extreme. Stone says the best time to visit is during the shoulder seasons – from March to May and from October to the end of November – to avoid these extremes and perhaps pick up a discounted fare.
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Photo Credit Exploring the Outback can be very risky, especially for newbies in the off-roading field. But this factor encourages most of the expert 4WD enthusiasts to push the limits…
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text:
Microsoft Vet to Lead DHS Cyber and Infrastructure Division
Christopher Krebs has been acting chief of the cyber and infrastructure protection division since August.
President Donald Trump tapped Microsoft's former government cybersecurity policy chief to lead the Homeland Security Department's cyber and infrastructure protection division Wednesday.
Krebs has been filling the top job on an interim basis since August when he was named assistant secretary of the directorate's infrastructure protection division. Because the division's undersecretary job was vacant, Krebs also become the "senior official performing the duties of" that post.
Since taking that post, Krebs has been the most prominent face of Homeland Security's efforts to help state and local governments secure their election infrastructure against hackers.
Those efforts include vetting state election systems for cyber vulnerabilities and arranging security clearances for top state election officials so Homeland Security can share classified cyber threat information with them.
Krebs has also urged congressional passage of a bill that would elevate and rename his division, currently called the National Protection and Programs Directorate, to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
That bill passed the House in December. Top senators on the Homeland Security Committee have expressed support for similar legislation, which might pass as part of a broader reauthorization for the Homeland Security Department
Krebs' elevation will leave his former post vacant or filled on an acting basis. The Trump administration has struggled to fill top cybersecurity and technology posts across government.
The nomination won plaudits from Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., co-founder of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus, who praised Krebs' "steadfast commitment" to advancing cyber policies, especially regarding election security. Langevin complained, however, that, in general, "the Trump Administration has moved far too slowly to fill vital cybersecurity roles across government."
The industry organization USTelecom called the nomination "a clear signal of the determination and focus that our government assigns to this vital mission."
NEXT STORY: The Future of Windows Could Be Passwordless


text:
\section{Introduction}

Very recently, the first detection of a plausible optical electromagnetic counterpart to a candidate binary black hole merger S190521g was reported in \cite{Graham2020}. Namely, an optical flare with the duration of $t_{opt} \sim 50$ days was detected with the {\it Zwicky Transient Facility}, indicating that this merger occured inside the accretion disk of J124942.3 + 344929\footnote{hereafter called J1249 + 3449 for simplicity}~--- an active galactic nucleus situated at the redshift of $z = 0.438$.

This observation is interesting in the context of \mbox{$\gamma$-ray} astronomy for the following two reasons: 1)~a~very high value of the estimated bolometric luminosity of the flare $L_{bol} \sim 10^{45}$~erg/s\footnote{given that the estimated mass of the final black hole is $\sim 100$ solar masses \cite{Graham2020}}, 2) a relatively dense environment around the energy release region --- both in terms of matter\footnote{the estimated gas density in the accretion disk is $\sim 10^{-10}$ g/cm$^{3}$~\cite{Graham2020}} and background photon density. Indeed, the Eddington ratio for J1249 + 3449 is $\sim$0.02-0.2, typical for quasars (e.g. \cite{Padovani2019}) that usually have dense accretion flows \cite{Shakura1973} as well as broad line regions (BLRs), filled with photon fields reflected from BLR clouds. These circumstances make the region around the merger favourable for particle acceleration and subsequent $\gamma$-ray and neutrino production.

For the apparent isotropic bolometric luminosity $L_{bol} \sim 10^{45}$~erg/s $\sim 10^{57}$ eV/s and the luminosity distance to the source $d_{L} \sim 3\cdot 10^{3}$ Mpc $\sim 10^{28}$ cm the expected bolometric energy flux could be as high as $F_{E}= L_{bol}/(4 \pi d_{L}^{2}) \sim 1$ eV/(cm$^{2}$s). If the power transferred to high energy (HE, $E > 100$ MeV) particles is comparable with $L_{bol}$\footnote{some astrophysical objects exhibit the peak in the observable spectral energy distribution beyond 10 TeV (e.g. \cite{Biteau2020}), indicating that such ``extreme accelerators'' do indeed exist}, the HE $\gamma$-ray flux (from 100 MeV to 300 GeV) $F_{\gamma} \sim F_{E}$.\footnote{neglecting cosmological effects} $F_{\gamma} \sim 1$ eV/(cm$^{2}$s) is still within the capabilities of the {\it Fermi-LAT} space $\gamma$-ray telescope \cite{Atwood2009}, motivating the search for HE $\gamma$-rays from this source.

Assuming the diffusive shock acceleration mechanism, the characteristic acceleration timescale is $t_{acc}= cE/(3eBv_{s}^{2})$ (e.g. \cite{Malkov2001,Uchiyama2007}, where $c$ is speed of light, $e$ --- the elementary charge, $E$ --- the energy, $B$ --- the magnetic field, and $v_{s}$ --- the shock front velocity. For $E= 10$ GeV, $B = 1$ G \cite{Silantev2009}, and $v_{s} = 200$ km/s $t_{acc} \sim 10^{3}$ s $\ll t_{opt}$. Therefore, the HE $\gamma$-ray signal of a leptonic nature is expected to be timely coincident with the optical flare. For the photohadronic emission mechanism, however, the expected value of $t_{acc} \sim 10^{7}$ s even for $B = 10$ G due to the high energy threshold of this mechanism ($\sim 10^{15}$ eV).

In the present paper we perform a search for HE \mbox{$\gamma$-rays} from the direction of J1249 + 3449 on a month -- year timescale using publicly-available data of the {\it Fermi-LAT} space $\gamma$-ray telescope. We note that no significant signal was found with {\it Fermi-LAT} over a short time period of 10~ks \cite{Axelsson2019}.

\section{{\it Fermi-LAT} data analysis \label{sect:analysis}}

Here we derive upper limits on the observable spectral energy distribution (SED = $E^{2}dN/dE$) of J1249 + 3449. We select \textit{Fermi-LAT} data within two time windows: 1) 2019, May 19, 00:00:01 UTC --- 2019, September 1, 00:00:01 UTC; 2) 2019, May 19, 00:00:01 UTC --- 2020, June 30, 00:00:01 UTC. The region of interest (ROI) is a circle with the radius of $15^{\circ}$, centered at the position of J1249 + 3449 ($\alpha_{\mathrm{J2000}} = 192.426^{\circ}, \delta_{\mathrm{J2000}} = +34.8247^{\circ}$) which was associated with the gravitational-wave event. We have applied the energy selection from $100~\mathrm{MeV}$ to $300~\mathrm{GeV}$ and used standard recommendations for off-plane point source identification with \textit{Fermi-LAT}.

\begin{figure}[tb]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.53\textwidth]{Fig1.eps}\hspace{2pc}%
\begin{minipage}[t]{16pc}\caption{Upper limits on the SED of J1249 + 3449 over the time period of 105 days from 19$^{th}$ of May, 2019 till 1$^{st}$ of September, 2019 and over the time period of 408 days from 19$^{th}$ of May, 2019 till 30$^{th}$ of June, 2020.}
\label{Fig1}
\end{minipage}
\end{figure}

We performed an unbinned likelihood analysis of \texttt{P8R3 SOURCE} class events with \texttt{P8R3\_SOURCE\_V2} instrument response function\footnote{\url{https://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc/data/analysis/documentation/Cicerone/Cicerone_LAT_IRFs/IRF_overview.html}}. We constructed a model of the observed emission including the following sources that could contribute to the detected $\gamma$-ray counts inside the ROI: 1) J1249 + 3449 itself, modelled as a point-like source with a power-law spectrum, situated at the center of the ROI, 2) all sources from the Fermi 8-Year Point Source Catalog (4FGL) \cite{Abdollahi2020} located within $20^{\circ}$ from the center of the ROI, 3) the galactic $\gamma$-ray background according to the model $\texttt{gll\_iem\_v07}$ and 4) the isotropic diffuse $\gamma$-ray background according to the model $\texttt{iso\_P8R3\_SOURCE\_V2\_v1}$\footnote{\url{https://fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/ssc/data/access/lat/BackgroundModels.html}}. For J1249 + 3449 we set both spectral index and normalization as free parameters; for point-like sources within $5^{\circ}$ from the center of the ROI and the diffuse backgrounds only the normalizations were left free, while the spectral shapes were fixed; for point-like sources beyond $5^{\circ}$ from the center of the ROI both normalizations and shapes were fixed according to the catalog values.

Using this model of the observed emission, we perform the maximization of the likelihood. We calculate the value of the test statistic $TS$ corresponding to the hypothesis of the J1249 + 3449 emission being present in the dataset against the null hypothesis of it being absent. We obtain $TS \ll 1$, i.e. no significant $\gamma$-ray flux was detected from this object. Then we derive upper limits (95\% confidence level) on the SED, using \textit{likeSED.py} \cite{JohnsonFSSC}. These upper limits for both considered time intervals are shown in Fig.~\ref{Fig1}. We also performed an independent binned analysis using the \textit{fermipy} package \cite{Wood2017} and derived upper limits with the \textit{gta.sed} method implemented in this package, but the obtained limits are weaker than for the case of the unbinned analysis.

\section{Discussion \label{sect:discussion}}

There are many possible explanations for the negative results of the search for HE $\gamma$-rays reported above, including the following ones:\\
1) the bolometric luminosity $L_{bol}$ and/or the power transferred to HE particles could have been significantly overestimated;\\
2) HE $\gamma$-ray production efficiency could be significantly lower than unity (especially for the case of primary protons or nuclei);\\
3) HE $\gamma$-rays could have been beamed out away from the line-of-sight;\\
4) HE $\gamma$-rays could have been absorbed by the material of the accretion disk, or photon fields of the accretion disk corona and/or thermal photon field created by hot gas around the merger. The model curves presented in \cite{Costamante2018} demonstrate that the absorption of $\gamma$-rays on photon fields of the BLR is usually significant at $E > 10-30$ GeV. This might impair the prospects of detecting S190521g-like transients with imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes such as H.E.S.S. \cite{Hinton2004,Bonnefoy2018}, MAGIC \cite{Aleksic2016a,Aleksic2016b}, VERITAS \cite{Krennrich2004,Park2016}, or CTA \cite{Actis2011,Acharya2013}.

A detailed study of these effects is underway and will be published elsewhere. X-ray data may be helpful in constraining some models, especially those that include the process of electromagnetic cascade development in the source (both in matter and photon fields) with subsequent synchrotron emission of cascade electrons.

Of course, other multiwavelenght/multimessenger data could also be helpful, in particular, very high energy (VHE, $E > 100$ GeV) neutrino searches from the direction of J1249 + 3449. S190521g-like transients could be copious\vspace{1cm} sources of two components of VHE neutrinos: 1) ``hadronuclear'' neutrinos coming from interactions of accelerated protons or nuclei with the material of the accretion disk and 2) ``photohadronic'' neutrinos from interactions of these protons or nuclei with photon fields in the source. Such neutrinos could contribute to the IceCube diffuse neutrino flux \cite{Aartsen2013a,Aartsen2013b}. A characteristic signature of this two-component neutrino flux is an ``ankle'' connecting relatively hard photohadronic component and a softer hadronuclear component.

Future observations would likely result in the identification of more S190521g-like events. A stacking analysis of such sources using {\it Fermi-LAT} data could result in the detection of a significant HE $\gamma$-ray signal. In this case, it would become possible to constrain the efficiency of the particle acceleration mechanism and the parameters of the optical-UV photon fields in the source using the effect of pair production by two photons $\gamma\gamma\rightarrow e^{+}e^{-}$ (in particular, the far-UV photon fields that could not be directly observed). This, in turn, would make it possible to constrain the models of $\gamma$-ray, cosmic-ray, and neutrino production in S190521g-like transients.

\section*{Acknowledgements}

The reported study was funded by RFBR, project number 20-32-70169. We are grateful to the organizers of the researcher school ``Multimessenger data analysis in the era of CTA'' (Sexten, Italy, 2019) for tutorials provided by them. E. I. Podlesnyi thanks the Foundation for the Advancement of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics ``BASIS'' for the support in participation at the aforementioned school (travel-grant no. 19-28-030) and for the student scholarship (agreement no. 19-2-6-195-1).

\section*{References}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaArXiv


Australian JJJ radio has compiled a Tom Waits Mix Tape broadcast with several well-know songs and two live recordings: Tom Traubert's Blues from the 1979 State Theatre show in Sydney and The Hokey Pokey, which I guess is from the same performance. The show is available in streaming media (real player and windows media player).
...mostly when you hear Heartattack and Vine or Blue Valentine songs.


text:
"Junk Equity" Comes to Haunt $30-billion Startup
by Wolf Richter • Jul 26, 2017 • 53 Comments
Snap Inc. tried to turn Big Investors into zombies. It didn't work.
Snap Inc., the parent of Snapchat, was dealt another blow today. FTSE Russell, which owns numerous indices for stock markets around the world, including the US Russell 3000, 2000, and 1000 indices, said today that it would exclude Snap from its indices because of Snap's share structure that denies public investors the right to vote.
Though Reuters reported the story after the market had already closed, the shares of Snap fell 3.5% today to $13.40, a new all-time low.
Shares are now 21% below the IPO price of $17. Back then, on March 2, Snap was considered "too big to fail." It would have such a massive market capitalization that it would be included in all major indices, including the S&P 500 and the MSCI USA Index. Fund managers would be forced to buy Snap shares to keep their funds in line with the indices. Given the relatively small number of shares traded, this buying pressure would push up the price even further. It was simply a matter of creating a lot of artificial demand.
That was the hype – and hubris. The IPO raised $3.91 billion, of which $1 billion went straight to founders and early investors. On day two of trading, shares spiked to $29.30, which gave the company a market capitalization of $30 billion. Whoever sold anywhere near this price was king. Whoever bought is still ruing the day.
But on the third day of trading, news broke that a group representing large institutional investors had asked stock index providers S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI Inc. to exclude Snap from their indices due to the non-voting shares it sold during the IPO. Despite all the hype, Snap was never eligible for the S&P 500; it would have had to have several profitable quarters in a row, which is a pipe dream. But the hype didn't specify that. And MSCI has since expressed its reluctance about such an inclusion.
Other companies, including Facebook and Alphabet, have also issued non-voting shares, but along with voting shares, and shareholders can still vote in watered-down form. Snap was a pioneer: it sold only non-voting shares in the IPO, the infamous class A shares. Public shareholders have no say in the company's strategy, the pay of its executives, the board of directors, and other matters the owners of a company would want to influence.
All the power rests with the founders who have class C shares and some early investors with class B shares. They'd turned public shareholders into official zombies. And it went downhill from then on.
On July 9, Snap shares plunged another 9% to $15.47 after Morgan Stanley downgraded it to a lowly "equal weight" due to weakness in its advertising business and ferocious competition from Facebook. This wasn't any downgrade. It was a downgrade by one of the lead underwriters of Snap's IPO.
The company was valued at $24 billion after the IPO. It soared to $30 billion on the second day of trading. And by today it had plunged to $15.8 billion. In less than five months, 47% of its market cap, or $14.2 billion, has evaporated, and it's still ludicrously overpriced.
FTSE Russell explained that it would require constituents of its indices to have over 5% of the voting rights in the hands of "unrestricted shareholders." Reuters:
FTSE Russell Chief Executive Mark Makepeace told Reuters that the new rule would keep Snap out of its indexes. He said Russell plans to seek further feedback from clients.
If Snap shares aren't in the indices, funds that track indices will not buy the shares. Since much of the stock ownership these days is via index mutual funds and ETFs, this eliminates a lot of artificial demand.
There are numerous operational and financial reasons to stay away from Snap at its current market valuation – in part because, according to Snap's S-1 filing, it is likely to lose money until the end of its days. But these are fundamental reasons that no longer matter in these crazy days of ours. So it's good to know that institutional investors don't want to become public zombies with Snap's non-voting shares.
Anne Simpson, an investment director at the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), said it best in March: Publicly traded shares without any voting rights in a company totally controlled by just two guys should be labeled "junk equity," she told an SEC Investor Advisory Committee on this topic. "You're constraining the capital markets in a way you'll come back to regret," she said. "Innovation, we're interested in that; but this is an immature attempt to avoid accountability."
"If Snap gets away with this, issuing non-voting shares will become pandemic, and shareholders will become helpless dupes," I wrote at the time. Perhaps Snap will not get away with it.
Next week will kick off a new problemita. The 150-day "lockup" period ends on Saturday. In August, frustrated employees and investors holding 308 million class A shares can ask for the shares to be registered, which might take a couple of days, and then they can sell the shares. More shares could be registered later. In total 957 million shares could be sold after the expiration of various lockup periods. By comparison, Snap sold only 200 million shares during the IPO.
This could be another big drag for current shareholders to look forward to. Thankfully, for them, Snap is one of the most shorted stocks out there, and shorts buy shares during a sell-off to take profits, thus providing some support.
There is nothing wrong with a young company like Snap struggling to find its niche, struggling to grow users and revenues, struggling with giant competitors like Facebook and Apple out to crush it. It's always tough to start something new, and the folks at Snap have done some amazing things, albeit by burning huge amounts of investor capital at a breath-taking rate.
What's wrong is the hype emanating from Wall-Street and from the startup-culture that creates deca-billion-dollar valuations out of nothing via artificial demand and pump-and-dump operations for small companies that may never make any profits, in order to lure other people's money into it so that both groups can exact their pound of flesh and abscond with it. The amounts of other people's wealth thus being transferred into their pockets are not trivial.
Investors who bought the hype are left holding the bag. Read… Another Former $2-Billion Startup Gets Rolled Up
Tags:Snap Snapchat startup bubble
← Risk has been Abolished, According to Institutional Investors
Markets Relax Merrily on a Powerful Time Bomb →
53 comments for ""Junk Equity" Comes to Haunt $30-billion Startup"
beowulf says:
Who buys this crap? What a joke. Who would ever buy a stock that so arrogantly denies shareholders any say whatsoever in how the company is run? And who the heck deploys capital with absolutely no regard to company fundamentals and basic concepts like FREE CASH FLOW. Companies like this and their valuations are truly a work of absurd art.
jon laughing says:
That would be your local, national, international investment advisor or pension fund manager. They are so well tuned into the intricacies of the new investments that they know what's best for you. Please get with the programme!
chip javert says:
Millennial Snap users were the target audience for the stock. Have not seen any analysis on who actually bought the stuff.
Guido says:
So what I am reading is this: one can have a bogus company but if I don't share the loot with the powers that be, the company is screwed. Kinda like paying off the mafia bosses. No?
R2D2 says:
Mafia bosses moved to Wall Street long ago. It is a much cleaner operation; you don't have to carry guns, you don't have to deal with police, you don't have to worry about other mafia bosses gunning you down, and hopefully you won't have to kill anyone.
A more cogent analysis is it's bad to sell naive people what they perceive to be "ownership shares" that are actually little more than lottery tickets. Some of them may actually figure this out.
I could do my standard rant here regarding naive people should only invest using index funds, but I won't. As Forrest Gump said "Stupid is as stupid does".
nick kelly says:
I don't know enough about this to comment with confidence but I believe Canada is a haven of dual class shares (voting and non-voting)
I believe auto parts giant Magna has been one and plane maker Bombardier is another.
The latter almost went bankrupt in 2015, before getting an injection from Quebec and Feds. Boeing is alleging illegal subsidy.
The lenders to Bombardier have been trying to get family to let go of control with A shares but this has been a battle.
Repeat: I am not knowledgeable on this subject, except that Canuck dual class shares have been controversial.
There are plenty of companies listed in the US with voting and non-voting shares, such as Facebook and Alphabet. But Snap is the only company in the US to ever sell ONLY non-voting shares to the public, with owners retaining nearly all the power and early investors retaining a small portion of the power.
But this may be normal in some countries, including Canada, as you suggested.
It would be great if knowledgeable readers could chime in to confirm this situation in Canada and provide some detail, specifically regarding Bombardier and Magna.
Bombardier (The Globe and Mail from 2015):
Class A 10 votes per share
Class B 1 vote per share
http://baystreetex.com/index.php/2016/04/05/dual-class-shares-bombardier/
VW/porsche had this class of share, and may still have it.
Many indexes in Europe permit this, but again a percentage of voting wrights shares are always also (Theoretically) public available. In reality the voting wrights shares are all preassigned in most cases, so controlling who gets to vote..
What exposed snap as the pump and dump rippoff it is, it that no voting wrights shares were available in the IPO which in hindsight was a stupidly bad move.
My understanding is that Magna eliminated the dual-class share structure, but it cost shareholders significant money.
This article pegs the cost at $1.1 billion.
http://www.fasken.com/magna-completes-plan-of-arrangement-to-eliminate-dual-class-share-structure/
Ugh. Well so far, FB chart looks similar to SNAP. I'm not suggesting snap can or will recover though, I imagine 1st they'll have to demonstrate a means of becoming cash-flow positive..
First Snap will have to demonstrate they can survive the next few months of literally being devoured by FaceBook.
The timing of taking this turkey cash-flow positive ranks right up there with the arrival of nuclear fusion.
Ethan in NoVA says:
Snapchat originated from the idea of underage kids taking pictures of their junk and sharing it with each other. The pictures self destruct so the threat of it hanging around / evidence / legal trouble is mostly eliminated.
alex in san jose says:
Sharing the pics with "each other" tee hee.
Tang says:
Social media, ecommerce companies? Remember the dot com days? Sun Microsystems reaped billions selling the infrastructure pieces. What is the modus operandi now? Tell the world your company has millions of abalones in farms all over China. Or your company has a few million trees in different parts of China. Or there are millions of subscription members registered in your ecommerce social media site and they are growing by the millions every quarter. Problem with filling up the database? Contact an Indian company that provides call center services. Better still, start a small outfit offering say cheap bicycle sharing rental services. Offer a free one month promotion to those who register with complete details on your site. After they sign up limit the free service. You get your your million subscription "customers" in no time. See how your "assets" grow in no time? How can investors check the millions scattered all over? It is their problem. But you can show your millions in your system. And you can concoct details regularly on how these "assets" contribute to your company's profitability. My suggestion of a name to this scheme "Lehman Dot Com".
Well said, courtesy of our "rule of law".
michael w Earussi says:
I have yet to figure out why all these supposedly smart institutional investors buy into this crap in the first place (if the average person can spot BS why can't they?). Since when does it make sense to buy a stock you know is going to eventually collapse instead of just sitting on your money until an actual good deal comes along? If these managers were paid based on the money their investments actually made, instead of whatever present formula is now used, maybe they'd be more careful about how they spent their client's money.
It turns out the average person definitely cannot spot this BS until it's in the rear-view mirror. Lots of people who have zero financial/investing knowledge buy this stuff because it promises to make them rich (like AMZN & Google).
True story: my ex-wife used to argue with me about my BRK/A investments – she only wanted stocks that went up 50% a month.
I'd like stocks that go up 50% per month too, but stocks that rise that fast tend to come down that fast as well.
Jim C says:
As most money manager say, everything is awesome, isn't it? One has been fleeced. No bankers went to jail because they have jail free card and they are too big to jail.
Painful, but mostly accurate (a fool and his money…).
This smells very much like 1999 – 2000 dotcom. There were many trying to build communities like geo cities, Friends Reunited, Lycos and where are these high flyers today!!!!!
Trend with caution. Pump & Dump. I am in IT and there were many reports back then that there was a 10 year shortage of IT personal and with in 6 months I was redundant and so were many of my work colleagues.
Kevin Beck says:
"…an immature attempt to avoid accountability."
The best summation I have ever seen of multiple-class share structures, mostly being implemented by the New Technology companies on the left coast.
"Hey, look at my new company! I developed a phone app that I'm giving away for free, hoping that I can lure some suckers to embed their ads into the app (that no one will want to look at), with the hope that I can charge them big bucks for ad placement!"
What happens when you put people in charge of a company where they don't have to run for re-election? They have demonstrated they can produce something of value, but they don't know the proper way to monetize it. This is the difference between an entrepreneur and a manager.
I disagree with the concept of founders' shares, and with the idea of different voting rights for different classes of investors. This is more a problem when the company doesn't make a profit and doesn't offer any hope of payback to later investors. Their only hope is that there's an adult in the room that can tell them how to make money from their business, and then implement that plan. Or that there's some greater fool out there that will take their investment away at a higher price.
Zero Unicorns says:
Its good for the public that Russell is excluding SNAP. The company shouldn't be allowed to benefit from public money where it only offers non-voting shares. Based on valuation & TWTR comparison and performance alone, its a crummy investment. SNAP's only hope was to rope in the passive investor zombie money.
Gregg Armstrong says:
Snap was merely acknowledging that there is no accountability in America for anyone in positions of power, control and influence whether it's the political parasites, CONporation C-suites, etc. The separation of ownership by shareholders and the control of CONporations was accomplished long ago. CONporations today are beholden to no one, be they shareholders or so-called government "regulators". Snap merely made it an "in your face" slap that makes the truth too obvious to all concerned.
mvojy says:
They took Zuckerberg's idea to the extreme and it didn't pan out well. Poor Snapcrap.
That was one line that spoke volumes. Well done.
If we had an SEC that was actually interested in supporting its mission, this structure would be prohibited. Class C shares do not protect investors; maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets; nor facilitate capital formation.
From an investor's point of view, this type of share structure combines the worst of equity and debt investments. Like debt, you give the company money without any say in how it's run; however, while debt owners have priority in bankruptcy, as well as receiving regular payments, investors in non-voting share classes receive neither. And unlike equity owner, who (theoretically) have a say in how the business is run, owners of this share class have to trust the con men running the company.
More of the same, "Bag Holder's" and "Greater Fool's".
The "Insider's" are very happy considering the amount of sells to buys, with selling vastly outweighing buying. This is known on the inside as "ringing the cash register"!
Those who come much too late to the "greed party" get fleeced. When you are a delicious looking sardine, that decides to go swimming with sharks, you deserve the consequences of that decision. The only difference between the big fish and the little fish, is the big fish get bailed out and the little fish are invited to diner. As the main course!
Wilbur58 says:
I thought the whole issue was that SNAP made it into the S&P 500 and thus a lot of institutional funds were forced to buy it, no?
Who did have to buy it? Other ETF's that are pegged to market cap or something?
SNAP is not in the S&P 500. Tesla is not in the S&P 500 for the same reasons (need to have several profitable quarters in a row).
Certain institutional investors bought SNAP shares as part of the IPO directly from the company and other holders before trading started. That's how an IPO works. The company doesn't actually sell the shares to the public. It sells them to institutional investors (this includes brokerages for their clients). Then these investors sell some of those shares to the public when trading starts.
I'm sure there are some ETFs and mutual funds that specialize in startups and social media that bought the shares in regular trading. But I don't think any of the big index funds bought them yet.
Smingles says:
Vanguard owns SNAP in their total stock market ETF (VTI). It's a negligible percentage, though.
Fidelity is one of their biggest institutional investors, but I'm not sure in what capacity they actually own shares. I don't think it's actually part of any of their funds, but it could be.
Funds managed by Fidelity and T. Rowe Price were among the late-stage investors in Snap. They invested in Snap at a relatively high valuation after VCs stopped investing but sometime before the IPO. So they probably made some money on the shares and still have them in their funds.
These arrangements like snap , do remind me very much of the 1999 dot com market. The fact that it's now being called into question via pricing indicates that things are at least being restrained by market mechanisms.
Look at the "analyst estimates" for SNAP – 11 buy, 18 hold, Underweight 3, Sell 2.
Consensus: Hold
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/snap/analystestimates
Another way of looking at it, only 11 of 34 say "buy".
Stock ratings are closely related to fortune tellers: neither should be consulted, paid or believed. They both exist as artifacts of "free speech".
economicminor says:
It appears to me that the biggest pots of money out there with the biggest need for growth are the pension funds. They get screwed by the FED on interest rates and they need income.. So the Banksters sold them CMRE leveraged bonds (MBS). BUT in order to be diversified they also bought into the stock market.. and that appeared profitable so they bought more.. And the Banksters sold them on IPOs so they could make a killing and the pension funds really having little choice because they by law or rules have to stay invested bought them too… and they need the growth.
The pension managers get paid to invest. Most get bonuses if they actually make money.. And they get the cover that virtually ALL other pension fund managers do the same things.. Pension funds are huge piles of money.
I'm thinking the crux will come when the CMRE MBS start to collapse. I mean actually… not just empty store fronts but when the empty store fronts cause the actual mortgages to be defaulted upon.. Lots of them. Then the pension funds will be forced to not only declare them as a loss but to start selling stocks to cover their pension costs.. This is when the stock market bubble will start to deflate.
Whether it bursts and collapses is unknown but human nature is greed and fear. Greed causes institutions to buy risky CMRE MBS and IPOs and fear will cause some to sell to save their own..
The Fed is not in the business of making pension funds happy. Politicians and greedy unions screwed the funds by demanding more than taxpayers could/would pay.
This game still has another 5-10 years to play out, but my guess is lots of retired government union workers will be unpleasantly surprised.
Chip,
Your assessment of the pension funds is only partially true. In the public pension systems, there were the workers, who typically were asked to work for less than the prevailing wage in exchange for future benefits.. Not always but at least in the beginning… The politicians in order to get decent people for what their budgets would allow, would typically negotiate good benefits to make up the difference. So many people worked decades for less pay with the promise of a good retirement benefit..
Things went bad for the pension funds for numerous reason. In many cases, the contributions were never adequate.. The projected returns were written into the system and were only good for the GOOD times.. And the politicians gave their top managers and themselves in many cases, outrageous benefits way beyond what the average employee got and never actually funded them.
Taxpayers wanted good government workers yet never wanted to pay for the actual costs, up front and never. Politicians are great at promises but lousy at follow thru.. Pension managers are able to use Level 3 and hide bad assets…
Then the bad times set in and pension managers have been doing all kinds of kinky stinky deals with Private Equity funds and Hedge funds and betting on the come line with anything that had a potential to be a winner. I have read that some even put money into VC endeavors. I don't blame the managers as governments have been unable/unwilling to keep up with the deficits.
Some pension funds are in much worse shape than others but almost all are heavily into the CMRE MBS and stocks. When the air goes out of any of these bubbles, it appears to me that it will be like dominoes with spikes all falling into other bubbles.
And I'm not convinced that some of what the FED has been doing is to prop up the markets and the biggest beneficiaries are the government pension funds.. maybe even ones that cover the down wind FED employees that won't be getting golden parachutes.
I wish I could believe your analysis about qualified people for governmtent jobs:
There's is a long line of people (some undoubtedly competent) waiting for highly-paid, almost no lay-off, high pension government union jobs. That's the true test of "do we need to pay a lot of money to get qualified folks to do these jobs".
These unions contribute big-time to politicians voting for the increases. This used to be called a kick-back, but now it's a "campaign contribution".
Personally, I think voters should have final say (referendum) on public pay plans. Allowing untrustworthy politicians to ruin public finances and ruin retirement for government employees is a very high price to pay. A 50% cut to an 80-year-old pensioner is a nasty thing to do.
Chip, You are comparing today after years of financial repression and off shoring of our jobs to when this started.
In the beginning….
And yes, the unions and the politicians screwed the whole thing up but it didn't start out that way. But just don't blame the unions, it was the politicians and the taxpayers who wanted aged very sharp cheese and were only willing to pay for mild.. And the politicians who gave themselves and their department chiefs such sweet deals while hiding the facts in the deep hole of never ending numbers.
illumined says:
They should have sold to Facebook for $1 billion when they had the chance…..
I feel somewhat confident that Facebook waited for SNAP to IPO before completely eating their lunch.
Nothing SNAP does is truly innovative. The second they went public, Facebook duplicated virtually everything they do via Instagram.
If you remember, Facebook offered to buy SNAP for $3 billion back in 2013 and were turned down.
This is Zuck's revenge. Pretty funny.
TJ Martin says:
… and that aint even the worst news of the week so far what with today MSNBC Financial along with several major pundits and academics now placing Wall Street on RED alert for a potential impending financial crisis/collapse … all while Bezos is suddenly elevated to the top of the billionaires list .. despite the realities surrounding Amazon . And err … though I cant find it .. this morning the NYTimes had some dire news about some other financial institution about to hit the skids … yet barely a negative reaction coming out of Wall Street
Sigh .. yeah … the world today makes a whole hell of a lotta sense .. in some alternative reality .
But hey … your friendly albeit contentious site mate has the answer . The TJ Martin signature series 2010's financial and political survival kit . A beautifully finished and french polished 3 foot long 2 x 4 in the exotic hardwood of your choice . The directions are simple . When in doubt or nothing seems to make a damn bit of sense .. hold it arms length at waste level with the top aimed directly at your forehead … slam it into your forehead as hard as you can and ….guaranteed … everything for at least a little while will make perfect sense .. repeat as necessary .
$399.99 + $45 S&H . Buy now and get a second for only $299.99 + an additional $45 S&H ( obviously intended as a fictional moment of humor intentionally resembling a TV sale pitch )
"The Fed is not in the business of making pension funds happy. "
This suggests the FED works for someone other than pension funds. Gee, wonder who?
Well, that's pretty easy (unless you're into grassy knoll conspiracy theories…). The Fed exists to:
o Conducting the nation's monetary policy in pursuit of full employment and stable prices.
o Supervising and regulating banks and other important financial institutions to ensure the safety and soundness of the nation's banking and financial system
o Maintaining the stability of the financial system and containing systemic risk that may arise in financial markets.
The system isn't perfect (which one is?), and the black helicopter crowd gets excited about who actually owns it, but compared to what the rest of the world has, it does a reasonable job.
Politicians cause most of the damage with overspending and mis-allocation of resources. The Fed often has to clean up. You may not (probably don't) agree, but how would you improve it, and how would you measure that improvement?
Good post. I'm sick of all the black helicopter conspiracies. The Fed is tasked with doing exactly what you said. There were some rather spectacular crashes and quite a bit of turmoil in the US's monetary system before the Fed was put in place. Since then we've had the Great Depression, yeah, and a few recessions but on the whole it's been better. The FDIC, put in after the bank runs in the Great Depression, was another big leap forward. As a general rule, the more regulation, the better. We were lifted out of the Great Depression by a little good ol' Socialism and now we're heading into the same kind of regime that will lead to the same Socialist backlash and recovery.
People can always set up their own currencies, too, as long as they don't call them "Dollars". The crackbrained types who've done this so far don't seem to be able to understand this simple rule, though, so they constantly get into trouble.
Alex, The FED didn't do half of what you imply.. It didn't get us out of the Great Depression, WWII did and afterwards, the expansion that made America Great was because of the Marshall Plan and the fact that the US was the ONLY power left with manufacturing abilities. We put everyone to work supplying the stuff to rebuild the world's infrastructure..
Since then, the FED didn't prevent the inflationary spiral up in the 1980's or any of the crashes since.. It has no mandate to put 4 trillion on its balance sheet either.. Which is in essence 4 trillion of printed dollars because the debt behind that 4 trillion isn't in the market… just the dollars.
You give the FED way to much credit
Instagram is way way better than Snapchat in every regard. Especially communicating information. It's organized better. It has all the same features and then some. It's easier to find places or things. I would not be surprised if Snapchat ceases to exist eventually.
chris Hauser says:
i'm a buyer, very very bullish. very bullish, yes.
i like the idea of ephemerality. all this lunacy will go away and the stock will settle down.
i like twitter, too.
like 'em on Facebook, the both!
and crypto currencies, them too!
It is irrelevant whether you receive voting rights in SNAP, because according to my rudimentary back of the napkin calculations:
"according to Snap's S-1 filing, it is likely to lose money until the end of its days"
assigns a value of zero (actually negative if you include rate and opportunity loss of capital) to the stock therefore making any reason to own the stock nonsensical.
dazz says:
snap is worth 5 to 10 dollars per share how are they going to make a profit maybe augmented reality games but they are all flops except for pokemon go doing just ok


text:
Mike Burkart, född 1963, är en svensk ekonom och professor i finansiell ekonomi vid Handelshögskolan i Stockholm.

Mike Burkart innehar sedan 2004 Gösta Olsons professur i finansiell ekonomi vid Handelshögskolan i Stockholm.

Se även
Handelshögskolan i Stockholm
Handelshögskolan i Stockholms historia
Lista över professorer vid Handelshögskolan i Stockholm

Referenser

Källor
 Jonas Rehnberg. Stockholm School of Economics, The first 100 years. Stockholm: Informationsförlaget, 2009.

Personer verksamma vid Handelshögskolan i Stockholm
Innehavare av Ragnar Söderbergs professur i ekonomi
Födda 1963
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Svenska professorer i företagsekonomi

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Porsche 911: Off Road
Ford Zephyr: Middle Management Classic
"Sometimes a street spot deserves a little more airtime than others. This Fiat Dino is such a street spot. In the cold light of a Shoreditch afternoon the car looks shockingly other than this time and place. The car kind "
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Ferrari 308 GT4 Dino
cute and maligned Ferrari Dino still in reach....
There's always been a lot of snobbery toward Ferrari's GT4 'Dino'.
If you believe the Clarksonian dogma, it doesn't even deserve the right to be called a Ferrari.
But we think that view is a load of old tosh.
Look at the lines. Look at the BB-like boca negra on the bottom of the front wedge. Look at the sculpted rear-window vent – that boxy rear end. Look at that classically upholstered interior.
This US spec GT4 looks the sort of tight, nippy runaround that would be eminently usable – especially in the dry canyons of California.
It may not be a wheezing full blooded V12, but with prices of those outreaching everyone but Oligarchs and property developers, the GT4 Dino is prettier than ever.
The GT4 was the first production Ferrari to feature the mid-engined V8 layout – the formula that the company would follow right up to the 458 Italia and beyond.
It was also the first production Ferrari that was designed by Bertone. You can see the period Bertone features ; there are angles rather than curves, more function than the pure aesthetic form championed by most Pininfarina designs – especially those of the 246GT – the original Dino.
The GT4 not only looked different to the older Dino. This car was fundamentally more practical – with more or less 360 degree visibility from the cabin, with no blind spots and a relatively comfortable seating position. It was a genuine 2+2. Even the engine compartment was easy to access.
Not so long ago you could pick one of these up for £10k.
That ship has definitely sailed but for £30-40K you can still get into the world of the prancing horse
– without having to resort to a Mondial, of course.
Hart to Hart: Car Spotting
"TV series of the 1970s and 1980s are ripe for car spotting. And these productions don't get any more tantalising for car spotters than the jokey, schlockey grinfest that was Hart to Hart. Yes, there's a Ferrari Dino and a "
or this...
Fiat Dino Concept
"The Fiat Dino is the fruit of a match made in heaven. The late sixties was a heyday of edgy design. Some of the most interesting concepts of the period were produced in Turin around this time. These concepts are "
Ferrari 308 GT Rainbow Concept
"If you're thing is late period futurism: then there's little that can beat the Rainbow Concept by Bertone. With a jangle of angular lines and a manually retractable folding roof, this format not only predates Ferrari's 458 Italia by a good "
"Lamborghini may have conceived the Urraco as a competitor to Ferrari and Maserati's entry level supercars, but we reckon it's a much more strikingly unique car than either the Dino or the Merak. Released at the 1970 Turin show, the Urraco "
All Hail The Wedge
"If any single design concept is synonymous with the 1970s it must be The Wedge. Redolent of an imagined space-age future, the design was conceived at the end of the 1960s by epoch making designers like Giugiaro and Gandini. It "
Ferrari 246 GT Dino
" It might have been a ill conceived attempt at making a mini-Ferrari, but the cute, six cylinder 246 GT Dino is for us much more than that. It is, in our opinion, one of the prettiest cars ever to wear the "
The Most Important Ferrari on Earth
"Ferraris - they're a strange breed of car. Sometimes I love them; sometimes, they leave me cold. I can't explain precisely why that is. I think everybody is expected to believe the modern incarnation of the Italian brand is "
Richie Finney: Being Part of the Harley-Davidson Family
"Motoring brands don't come much bigger than Harley-Davidson. In fact, brands in general don't come much bigger than Harley-Davidson. It's a name that transcends industries, cultures and the seven continents. And probably Mars when we colonise it. "
Flat out in Hyundai's R5 rally car
"Forget Formula 1, with its narcolepsy-inducing races and prima donna drivers. For pure, undiluted motorsport, rallying remains the king. Real roads, brutally fast cars and an almost infinite range of conditions make it a very different challenge to the sterile world "
Cars People
North Coast 500
"By now you will have heard of the North Coast 500. Scotland's answer to Route 66, a 500-mile circular drive from Inverness, taking in some of the countries finest coastline. Images abound of deserted windswept beaches, majestic lochside castles, and above "


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Preparing for the Future: An Assessment of Emerging Cyber Threats
Robert K. Knake testifies before The U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection of the Committee on Homeland Security on how the technology landscape ma…
Testimony by Robert K. Knake Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program
Priorities and Challenges in the U.S.-Turkey Relationship
Steven A. Cook testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Wednesday, September 6, 2017, discussing the various challenges to the U.S.-Turkey relationship. Takeaways C…
Testimony by Steven A. Cook
United States Assistance for Egypt
Elliott Abrams testified before the Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations. He gave his assessment of the security side of the …
Testimony by Elliott Abrams
U.S. Rebalance to Asia
In her testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Sheila A. Smith discusses the roles in which the U.S. Congress can play in ensuring strong U.S. presence in the changin…
Testimony by Sheila A. Smith
U.S. Strategy and Policy in the Middle East
Before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Philip H. Gordon argues that the Middle East today is going through a period of powerful, tectonic change that the United States did not create and cannot …
Testimony by Philip H. Gordon Middle East Program
Egypt: Two Years After Morsi
Steven A. Cook testified before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa and argued that although the coup d'état that brought General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to power has not resulted …
Federal Reserve Policy and Emerging Markets
In his testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services' Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade, Benn Steil argues that changes in U.S. monetary policy can have significant impact on eme…
Testimony by Benn Steil
Coping with Public Health Hazards in Post-SARS China
In his testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Yanzhong Huang discusses China's recent public health crises. He focused on two areas: encouraging further government transpar…
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6. Pension payable to Election Commissioners.
7. Right to subscribe to General Provident Fund.
9. Transaction of business of Election Commission.
10. Disposal of business by Election Commission.
An Act to determine the conditions of service of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners [and to provide for the procedure for transaction of business by the Election Commission and for matters] connected therewith or incidental thereto.
Amended by Central Act 4 of 1994.
1. Short title. This Act may be called the [the Election Commission (Conditions of Service of Election Commissioners and Transaction of Business)] Act, 1991.
3. Salary. (1) There shall be paid to the Chief Election Commissioner a salary which is equal to the salary of a Judge of the Supreme Court.
(b) if he had, before assuming office, received, in lieu of a portion of the pension due to him in respect of such previous service, the commuted value thereof, by the amount of that portion of the pension.
Provided further that the Chief Election Commissioner or an Election Commissioner may, at any time, by writing under his hand addressed to the President, resign his office.
Explanation.--For the purpose of this section, the term of six years in respect of the Chief Election Commissioner or an Election Commissioner holding office immediately before the commencement of this Act, shall be computed from the date on which he had assumed office.
5. Leave. (1) A person who, immediately before the date of assuming office as the Chief Election Commissioner or an Election Commissioner, was in service of Government may be granted during his tenure of office but not thereafter, leave in accordance with the rules for the time being applicable to the Service to which he belonged before such date and he shall be entitled to carry forward the amount of leave standing at his credit on such date, notwithstanding anything contained in section 6.
(2) Any other person who is appointed as the Chief Election Commissioner or an Election Commissioner may be granted leave in accordance with such rules as are for the time being applicable to a member of the Indian Administrative Service.
(3) The power to grant or refuse leave to the Chief Election Commissioner or an Election Commissioner and to revoke or curtail leave granted to him, shall vest in the President.
6. Pension payable to Election Commissioners. (1) A person who, immediately before the date of assuming office as the Chief Election Commissioner or an Election Commissioner was in service of Government, shall be deemed to have retired from service on the date on which he enters upon office as the Chief Election Commissioner or an Election Commissioner but his subsequent service as the Chief Election Commissioner or an Election Commissioner shall be reckoned as continuing approved service counting for pension in Service to which he belonged.
(b) such pension (including commutation of pension), family pension and gratuity as are admissible to a Judge of the Supreme Court under the said Act and the rules made thereunder, as amended from time to time.
(c) his demission of office is medically certified to be necessitated by ill-health.
7. Right to subscribe to General Provident Fund. Every person holding office as the Chief Election Commissioner or an Election Commissioner shall be entitled to subscribe to the General Provident Fund (Central Services).
9. Transaction of business of Election Commission. The business of the Election Commission shall be transacted in accordance with the provisions of this Act.
10. Disposal of business by Election Commission. (1) The Election Commission may, by unanimous decision, regulate the procedure for transaction of its business as also allocation of its business amongst the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners.
(2) Save as provided in sub-section (1), all business of the Election Commission shall, as far as possible, be transacted unanimously.