text:
TechSwamp
A Collection of Great Podcasts - Part 4 of 4: Science & Technology
Jun 3rd, 2013
Part 1: News & Analysis
Part 2: Quizzes
Part 3: Entertainment
Part 4: Science & Technology
Let's Talk About Tech
This show is part of the Saturday Edition news show on BBC Radio 5 Live, hosted by the deep, rich tones of Chris Warburton. It used to be called The Joy of Tech (which explains the URL stub), and features a family of web, tech, and other science-y experts discussing the latest news and updates in their worlds. And most of the time, these experts include Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann (of Answer Me This! podcast fame) who are just a pleasure and a joy to listen to. Apart from the generallly informative nature of the show, the chemistry that Chris Warburton shares with the guests is simply fantastic.
A witty, irreverent look at the world through the lenses of science with Robin Ince and everybody's favourite scientist who's not Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Cox. They only do about 6 shows in a series, and there are two series in a year. This hardly seems enough for this informative and funny show, but that appears to be par for the course for most good episodic British TV and radio programmes.
Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, I find it extremely difficult to concisely explain what the show is about. Wikipedia says "The show attempts to approach broad, difficult topics in an accessible and light-hearted manner and with a distinctive audio production style", but while accurate, somehow this just doesn't capture the true depth of the show. I was skeptical about it for a long time, until I gave it a proper listen. I wasn't instantly hooked, but once you grok what's going on, it's like a light switches itself on and you're suddenly plunged into examining the nature of beliefs ands truths you held to be incontrovertible.
See all the posts about the podcast collection here.
A Collection of Great Podcasts - Part 3 of 4: Entertainment
7 Day Sunday
One of a clutch of weekly news satires that I listen to, this is a hilarious panel discussion style podcast hosted by Al Murray. He's joined by Andy Zaltzman most of the time, as well, which just jacks up the funny in the show to new levels. Mostly because of Andy's "boy who cried wolf" relationship with facts. I'm also a big fan of news satire shows and try to watch or listen to most of them.
Answer Me This!
This show has no real reason to exist. Its premise is that listeners send in questions and the daffy duo of Helen Zaltzman (yep, Andy Zaltzman's sister) and Olly Mann – ably supported by Martin the Sound Man – answer these questions. Why would these questioners not use the Internet? Because the hosts are just that good, that's why. They aren't really media professionals (or at least, they weren't till this show became famous), which gives the show an endearing quality that is really rather hard to define. I got obsessed at some point and listened to all the free back-episodes that I could, then went out and bought their book, watched all their videos on Youtube and memorised all the jingles. One could never get too much Helen and Olly.
Friday Night Comedy - The Now Show
This is another satirical take on the week's UK news headed up by Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt. Largely in sketch form, there are also topical funny songs and stand-up routines by popular comedians. This is part of the same Friday Night Comedy podcast as The News Quiz – the two shows appear to alternate every other month.
Ian Collins Wants A Word
After listing everything out here, I realised this is the only "shoot the shit"-type podcast that I listen to. That is all Ian Collins and Sideshow Kev do in this show. Not much news, although some big ticket items are occasionaly discussed, with Collins bringing in a pragmatist Tory angle. There are a couple of other sections that are really funny, and my personal favourite is the collection of Random Acts of Irrational Annoyance. They bring on a guest (nearly) every show, and have a bit of light-hearted chin wag. On occasion, they've even brought on people who they were clearly poking fun at (Tony Topping, Alex Jones, and David Icke)!
Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo's Film Reviews
This is the definitive film review show. Mark Kermode is the (very opinionated, and sometimes just wrong!) film critic, while Simon Mayo brings to bear his considerable radio experience and plays a very capable second fiddle. They discuss the top 10 movies at the UK box office for the week, Mark reviews the movies that're released that week, and bring on a prominent film personality to discuss an upcoming project, all intermingled with listener interactions and reviews. All this sounds quite pretty basic, but they do a damn good job of it, and the show has built up a strongly dedicated fan following (yours truly included) over the many years it's been running. Mark Kermode's occasional headlong dive into an outright rant about shitty or annoying movies are quite legendary, with the review of Sex And The City 2 being of the best examples.
Newsjack
This used to be a hilarious sketch show satirising the week's news events, headed up by Margaret Cabourn-Smith. Unfortunately, it's been off air for so long I can barely remember what it was like! I recall it being very similar to The Now Show (mentioned above as part of Friday Night Comedy), so it's possible that it was just subsumed into that programme instead. Which appears even more likely as Cabourn-Smith is a regular fixture over there as well.
Simon Mayo's Confessions
Every weekday Simon Mayo hosts the drivetime programme BBC Radio 2, which is made up various little bits between song requests, like book reviews, cookery and general talk. One of these bits is the Confessions corner, where listeners write in confessing to some embarassing act in their past that they've not really owned up to. Simon Mayo reads these out, and the assembled panel take a call on whether they'll forgive the sinner or not. The confessions are often quite mundane, but Simon's delivery and the forgiveness banter make this one of the shows I most look forward to every week.
The Bugle
This is the funniest, and one of the best, podcasts I listen to. Another weekly news satire show (billed as an "Audio Newspaper for a Visual World"), this pdocast features Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver holding forth their hilarious – and occasionally sensible – views on the news of the week. This is one of the few shows I've encountered that has a relatively global approach to the news discussed, and also has a fan-base of total nutters. It used to be hosted by The Times Online, then went independent in January 2012. This was shortly after Andy Zaltzman launched a series of hilariously blistering attacks on Rupert Murdoch and the New Corp empire in the aftermath of the phone hacking scandal. Coincidence? Nobody knows.
A Collection of Great Podcasts - Part 2 of 4: Quizzes
A discussion-style show which asks an assembled panel of comedians about the right or wrong thing to do in any given situation. Hosted by Danielle Ward, this show is a reasonable amount of fun but can get really loud and raucous at times. Susan Calman comes on every so often, which is an obvious shot in the arm for any show.
Friday Night Comedy - The News Quiz
This show is hosted by Sandi Toksvig and is the BBC Radio 4's version of Have I Got News For You - a quiz show based on a satirical take on the news of the week. The News Quiz is pretty much entirely UK-centric. When this show is on a break, then the Friday Night Comedy becomes a topical sketch show called The Now Show hosted by Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt, which is quite funny as well.
International Waters
Internation Waters is an interesting concept – pit a team of two comedians each from the US and the UK in a battle of pop culture trivia. It's also a little different from the other shows in that it appears to be a monthly podcast. That makes me somewhat glad – I don't think I could take too heavy a dose of the host Jesse Thorn's brand of humour, which is reasonably drowned out here by the 4 comedian guests. (As an aside, his other podcast – Comedy Bang Bang – is highly rated in the community, but I've always found it quite dull. Probably because the guests and recurring "funny" bits are not particularly entertaining.)
*[EDIT: I'm mistaken here. The host of Comedy Bang Bang is Scott Aukerman, and not Jesse Thorn. They sound quite the same though.]
A quick note here: All podcasts from MamimumFun.org appear to have a fair amount of monetisation effort behind them in the form of solicitation ads in the middle of the podcasts. I listen to enough BBC/NPR podcasts that this gets a little annoying after a while. YMMV.
NPR's Wait Wait…Don't Tell Me!
Another gem from the NPR stable, "Wait Wait…" is a both a panel as well as a dial-in quiz show. Hosted by Peter Sagal, the prize for victorious callers is a great one – they get the dulcet tones of Carl Kasell to record a voicemail greeting message for them! Peter Sagal is really extremely funny, and Carl Kasell… well, I would listen to Carl Kasell reading a dictionary out aloud. The panel features some comedians quite regularly, who are also really funny and well-informed. Some large global news items are covered, but this podcast is a whole lot funnier if you're roughly in the know about the US political scene.
NPR's Ask Me Another
This is the best "quiz show" podcast I've ever heard so far, and also the best NPR podcast. Shot live in an NY theatre, it throws brainteasers, traditional trivia questions and vocabulary puzzles at a series of contestants. The host is Ophira Eisenberg, who is accompanied by a clutch of "puzzle gurus" and a musician, who is usually Jonathan Coulton. Even though it is ostensibly a competition, the good-natured banter that runs throughout is one of the best parts of the show. Fortunately, most of the content here is general pop culture trivia, although heaving a healthy appreciation of US cultural references will significantly enhance your enjoyment.
A Collection of Great Podcasts - Part 1 of 4: News & Analysis
I love listening to podcasts.
They're a great way to consume informative, thought-provoking and funny content while also keeping abreast of what's happening in the world. Additionally, podcasts are great company for a run or while at the gym, because they engage the mind just enough to keep you plugging away at a constant pace while being distracted away from any tedium and exertion.
In line with my general OCD for keeping my digital assets organised, I've classified my podcast subscriptions into categories in BeyondPod. (As a quick aside, BeyondPod is simply the best podcast manager app I've ever used, and is a very functional RSS/Atom feedreader as well!) These categories (and therefore the sequence of posts on this topic) are:
As always, a subscription may not fit neatly into just one category, but it'll have to do.
A great show where a different person in each episode examines one issue relating to policy or interesting new ideas from multiple angles, in each episode. I may not agree with quite a few parts of some of the discussions, but they're very well researched and presented. A heavy focus on the UK, but some episodes are quite general.
Any Questions and Any Answers
Any Questions is a panel discussion programme featuring a few UK politicians and some people from other walks of life responding to questions raised by members of a live audience, chaired by an absolutely terrific moderator called Jonathan Dimbleby. The politicians are just as useless as you would expect them to be, and tend to waffle on without really answering the questions. After a few months, there is a rather monotonous drone of a buzz-saw going back and forth through popular dead horses. Despite all of this, it still makes for compelling listening. Recommended only if you want to keep a finger on the pulse of rumblings within the UK.
Any Answers is a sister programme hosted by Anita Anand, where BBC Radio 4 listeners dial in with their take on the issues that were discussed in the prior installment of Any Questions. The latter show is somewhat pointless as a podcast, but some of the viewpoints expressed are quite repulsively fascinating. Also, I greatly admire Anita Anand's handling of Joe Q. Public's heated ramblings. And she's married to Simon Singh, who is awesome.
SuperFreakonomics might have come in for some criticism, but there's no doubt its predecessor Freakonomics kick-started the trend of economists holding forth on interesting linkages between seemingly unrelated phenomena. A little unfairly, I might add, since The Undercover Economist was published a little earlier. The latter could be considered the hipster Freakonomics.
At any rate, the podcast continues the trend of analysing and exploring "the hidden side of everything", and, as the NPR blurb puts it – "prepare to be enlightened, engaged, perhaps enraged and definitely surprised."
KCRW's Left, Right & Center
This is the first non-NPR American podcast I've regularly listened to. It's a great little 30 minutes of debate between panellists from across the political spectrum (suitably calibrated to an American scale), and the discussions are always impassioned, without devolving into shouting matches. And despite the "present different sides of the issue" approach, the viewpoints are actually quite sensible and interesting.
NPR Series Weekends on All Things Considered
NPR gets about as close to BBC Radio as an American economic/political system will allow. All Things Considered is a popular news-magazine style of radio show, and the podcast is a curated selection of the stories covered by ATC that week. Great for US-centric news, some general information, and a generous sprinkling of esoteric music, literature and culture.
The Single Best Reason to Upgrade From Ubuntu 12.10 to 13.04
I quite like the Unity interface. I don't really get the hate for it around the interwebs, and it seems like most of it is driven by a resistance to change.
However, my single biggest annoyance with Unity had been the odd way it handles switching between multiple windows of the same application.
Previously, you would have to click on the application icon in the launcher, and if you had multiple windows open, it would show you an Exposé-style view of the windows, and you would have to select one of them.
This behaviour was even applied in the Alt+Tab switcher! This made switching between same-app windows a colossal pain, as what was previously practically instantaneous had now become bit of a chore.
Now with Raring Ringtail dropping, this has been fixed.
You can switch between windows much faster by right-clicking the app icon in the launcher, where the options now include a window listing.
While Unity overall feel a lot snappier and includes some subtle visual refreshes, this is the one killer "fix" that makes the upgrade to 13.04 completely worth the minimal effort involved!
A Collection of JS Visualisation Libraries
Just a quick post to make a collective note of some of the few graphing libraries I am attempting to try out over the coming weeks. Base frameworks like D3.js and Raphael.js appear great, but might just be involve too much work if all I want to do is throw together a quick few visualisations.
dc.js: A multi-dimensional charting library built to work natively with crossfilter and rendered using D3.js.
NVD3: Re-usable charts and chart components for D3.js.
Polychart2.js: Graphing library that takes many ideas from the Grammar of Graphics and the R library ggplot2, and adds interactive elements for usage on the Web.
Highcharts: Interactive charting library supporting many, MANY types of visualisation!
Chart.js: Simple HTML5 Charts using the canvas element. Currently doesn't support interactivity, but looks great.
Flot: Plotting library for jQuery, with a focus on simple usage, attractive looks and interactive features.
Rickshaw: JS toolkit for creating interactive time series graphs.
YUI Charts: A charting module based on the YUI library.
xCharts: Yet another D3.js based library. Some of the examples don't appear to work currently.
Flotr2: A fork of Flotr which removes the dependency on Prototype and a few enhancements.
Now it may turn out that most of these end up going unused, but hopefully that means I would have found the best fit library and will stick with it!
Analytics Syndication Services: A Paradigm Shift to Align Your Core Competencies
Apr 1st, 2013
As is often the case with people who are "between jobs", I was whiling away time on Twitter the other day. A glass of some excellent Pinot Grigio later (OK, it may have been 3 glasses), I arrived at the inescapable conclusion that my Twitter timeline was filled with crap. And not just any kind of crap, but the kind that was so terrible it wasn't just a time-sink, but also actively made you stupider by engaging with it in any manner.
And so I decided to embark on pruning my lists down to a manageable number, and removing any mostly useless follows. The big realisation here was that very few "famous" people have anything of worth to say, so pretty much all the sportspeople and actors were unfollowed as part of the spring cleaning.
Another conscious decision was to follow a bunch of people somewhat related to my professional interests (data science, programming, analytics, data visualisation, etc.) and see if I could engage in some of the conversations that were happening. The unfortunate outcome here has been that of severe disillusionment with the field, owing to a pretty solid validation of Sturgeon's Law. A really great proportion of "thought leadership" that is out there in the BigCo business intelligence world is self-serving at best, and actively counterproductive at worst.
Despite this, the absolute self-confidence in all the bloviating that went on was a thing of beauty to behold. Everyone was coming up with solutions to everything.
This is when I had my business brainwave that will revolutionise the data warehousing/business intelligence world. It was so simple I'm a little surprised that it appears to be a novel idea: Analytics Syndication Services.
The Paradigm at Point A
The world is clearly enamoured of data driving everything: you have data driven decision making, testing, thinking, journalism, documents, and even, um, analytics.
But a few crucial questions remain: where is all this data coming from? What are people doing with it? And how does it learn to drive?
The core competencies
If a lot of large companies are are good at something, it is primarily in:
Learning from their past mistakes (i.e. how to avoid getting caught the next time)
Trying to align things (mission, vision, strategy, roadmap, and core values)
A thought process of "Something must be done, this is something, therefore this must be done."
Attempting to cut costs by having one person do the job of four
So how can YOU, as a Big Data-age™ organisation, appear to be progressive, analytical, action-oriented and proactive all while increasing shareholder value?
Simply, by producing copious amounts of output that can effectively blend clever contortions of language and semantics with the authority of a collection of nicely coloured charts and a link to a CSV that says "[Dataset]".
Shifting the paradigm from Point A to Point B
This clever amalgam of verbiage and numberwang is not everyone's cup of tea. Since companies should obviously focus only on their core competencies, they would be well served by outsourcing this function to a specialist in Analytics Syndication Services.
This way, they can preserve valuable intellectual horsepower by only allowing the true experts to make statements like:
The best insights from Big Data are visualized through analytics. Only metrics do not mean anything without context - business owns this one.
A/B tests have shown that a statistically significant number of visitors to the home page prefer the mauve button to the heliotrope one, with a p-value of < 0.05.
Our HANA setup beats an HBase/Hadoop deployment by leveraging real-time predictive analytics to increase profitability by 23.5%.
This ensures that both the purely business types and the techno-functional types have their buttons sufficiently pushed, and can confidently carry out actions that are tenuously based on above pronunciations.
Another beneficial side-effect is that companies are now free to do pretty much anything, secure in the knowledge that professionals are now at hand to skilfully weave numbers and words into a compelling narrative that threads its way back and forth between fiction and non-fiction.
Non-believers may question the validity of the data, or the enhanced interrogation techniques employed on it, but they will quickly be silenced by an even greater flood of "statistics" and "intelligence" from the Analytics Syndication Service. And gradually, it will be clear to all who care to observe – crunching statements and data pulled from the A.S.S is the next billion-dollar idea.
Why Fred Wilson Is Wrong About "DIY Data Science"
Fred Wilson, in a recent blog post on "DIY data science", said this:
I think data science and machine learning (I know they are not the same thing) are going to be a very big part of tech innovation in the coming years. And I also know that putting powerful tools in the hands of "everyman" produces more innovation than can happen when the tools are limited to mathematicians and scientists.
This is one of those pithy expressions that sound great when rolling off the idea-train. Indeed, imagine the possibilities of insightful output that could be enabled by "democratising" data science and machine learning.
However, this is also an idea that just appears unworkable at best.
True "data science" is a process. It's not just about a pretty visualisation or a "ka-ching!" epiphanic insight. It requires:
Articulating the objective
Identifying the inputs
Organising the source data into the required form of input
Identifying the input transformation or process
Implementing the transformation/process
Identifying the required output (see Step 1)
Making sense of the output (see Step 1)
(Note: an underlying assumption is that the source data is clean and readily available – which is quite the joke for most data domains today)
The current state of data analysis technology has come admirably far from 10 years back, thanks to phenomenal technological efforts like D3.js and the R ecosystem (with an emphasis on anything by Hadley Wickham), and some other innovations in analysis and visualisation. However, one common factor in all of these tools is that they all only address Step 5 in the above process.
Fred goes on to say:
So what is the Tumblr or Blogger or Wordpress of data science? When will my son and his friends be able to take the NBA dataset and start running algorithms against it to produce better fantasy picks? When will my daugther [sic] and her friends be able to take the TV viewing dataset to decide what TV shows to go back and watch that they missed last year?
Well, there can be none. The blogging (or more specifically – publishing on the Web) revolution solved a problem of cost. It used to be too expensive for talented amateurs or hobbyists to publish (physical costs) and reach a wide audience (distribution costs). The lack of an equivalent for data science just means that there aren't similar hurdles to overcome. Potential data scientists are NOT being held back by such artificial constraints. What is preventing the layperson right now from becoming data wizards is, quite simply, the lack of knowledge.
Defining a problem domain is not something that a tool can magically do. That skill comes with a healthy mix of rigorous education and experience.
The world of data science is quite exciting, and tools, techniques and education will only continue to improve and wow us, but "DIY data science" will never be a thing. At least in the way Fred Wilson envisions it.
Google Reader's Forced Euthanasia
Like many others, I was pretty badly struck in the face by the announcement of the Google reader shutdown.
Since I'm a techie, but not really a developer, a lot of the other Google properties being shut down hadn't impacted me as much.
However, a majority of my Internet content consumption is driven by Reader, which is why it was utterly baffling that the reasoning given was "usage of Google Reader has declined", especially given some of the rough userbase data that have popped up. I wonder where Google gets their data from.
Embrace, extend, extinguish
RSS is a great content consumption protocol that is fully open and interoperable. Despite the "+isation" of Reader (or The Great Reader Redesign) (or maybe in part because of it), I had assumed Google would remain committed to at least maintaining Reader, even no resources were being thrown at improving it. Especially since they had thrown their weight behind PubSubHubbub, and bought FeedBurner. (Embrace!)
But having done this, Reader then essentially crowded out the entire market for RSS readers by just existing as a Google gorilla. For the most part, it appeared to be good. I was a staunch user of Bloglines for the longest time, until it stagnated, and then I played around with a few offline readers before jumping ship to Reader. Reader was the exciting new player – constantly innovating, adding new features, being fast to load, and with a great mobile interface. This went on till it effectively powered most of the popular "alternative" readers (Reeder, FeedDemon, Feedly) that relied on its (admittedly undocumented and private) API. (Extend!)
But now, it appears to me that the real reason for pulling the rug out form underneath the many millions of users was the second one they mentioned, saying "as a company we're pouring all of our energy into fewer products". This unfortunately smacks pretty hard of Google trying to dictate the direction of the web by trying to foist Google+ onto everyone. (Extinguish!)
What's next on the block?
Given that in the same announcement, they also announced that they're killing off CalDAV API access to favour their own proprietary Calendar API, I can't help but agree with The Guardian tech blogger Ruper Goodwin:
The corporate surprise adds to the decision itself to paint a picture of a company dangerously adrift from a real understanding of its audience, and the information ecosystem.
What I just don't get is that Google serves up ads perfectly fine when people use FeedBurner, and now they're killing off the biggest FeedBurner client? They've already killed its API, and the FeedBurner site still carries the pre-Google+ design. This clearly points towards them killing off FeedBurner as well. It's more or less official – Google hates RSS.
The alternatives
Most people are suggesting Flipboard and Feedly as alternatives, but they either really don't get it, or their needs have diverged from the usual RSS reading crowd.
I detest things trying to learn my preferences, because my reading preferences change all the time. Sometimes I ignore a feed for 2 weeks, then catch up on all of it. Sometimes, I read every item from a source every time it's published. I don't want my preferences shaped by algorithms, as it always feels like I'm missing out on something. This is als why I pretty much never touched the "Sort by magic" option in Google Reader.
Additionally, magazine and river style just don't cut it. I'm not reading a magazine or a social news site – what I need is an inbox of site updates. Whether the source is a news site, personal blog or webcomic is irrelevant, I just want to see how many updates are there, and which ones remain to be read. And horror of horrors, if I don't want to read something, I just skip it! I would prefer to not have the cognitive load of figuring out which was the last XKCD or Penny Arcade post I read, and how many I have missed over a period of being offline or plain busy. Dave Winer is missing the point – even though the tool may be called a "news reader", it really is an "RSS reader".
The RSS reading alternatives doing the rounds currently are NetVibes, Bloglines (which is now just a skin of NetVibes), The Old Reader, NewsBlur, and self-hosted options like Tiny Tiny RSS and selfoss.
Or I could get off my lazy behind and attempt to build my own. The only problem with that is that I'll probably end up hosting it on App Engine. Argh!
How to Hire a Product Manager ⇒
Product management may be the one job that the organization would get along fine without (at least for a good while). Without engineers, nothing would get built. Without sales people, nothing is sold. Without designers, the product looks like crap. But in a world without PMs, everyone simply fills in the gap and goes on with their lives. It's important to remember that - as a PM, you're expendable. Now, in the long run great product management usually makes the difference between winning and losing, but you have to prove it. Product management also combines elements of lots of other specialties - engineering, design, marketing, sales, business development. Product management is a weird discipline full of oddballs and rejects that never quite fit in anywhere else.
← Older Blog Archives
Attempted Satire (1)
Ubuntu Touch (1)
Visualisation (1)
Status updating…
Follow @techswamp
Copyright © 2013 - Shrikant - Powered by Octopress, painted by DarkStripes.


Rare opportunity to renovate/create your Dream Home in Riverview on fantastic lot with ability to build a pool, extra garage & more due to the plentiful impervious approved by the ARC. This 4-sided brick, Master on the Main home w/9ft ceilings sits on 1.15 acre level lot in a sought after P#039;tree Corners location. Traditional family home was designed with open layout, huge Mstr ste, 2 half BA, 3 lrg BR/2 full BA & 2 lrg bonus rooms up. A large Kitchen & Utility Room, Office, Dining Room & Study.
4288 Riverview Drive, Peachtree Corners, GA 30097 (MLS# 5943420) is a single family attached property with 4 bedrooms and 4.00 bathrooms. 4288 Riverview Drive is listed for sale at $839,000.00. To view more Atlanta real estate and local neighborhood information, contact Jenifer Cusick, or visit ColdwellBankerHomes.com.


Microsoft (s MSFT), after talking about it endlessly, has finally opened up its cloud platform, Windows Azure, for business. Windows Azure and SQL Azure are now available in 21 countries worldwide, the company said. So today the rubber meets the road — and we get to see how Azure does in the marketplace.
What will Azure's financial impact be? It's hard to say, but I think it's safe to assume that Microsoft, which has gotten used to the 50 percent (or higher) margins on its products, will see those margins shrivel in the face of the competition. Azure is joining a crowded marketplace, one dominated by Amazon (S amzn) and its web services, which now boasts of thousands of developers in addition to an entire ecosystem.
And if that wasn't enough, Azure will be competing with offerings from IBM (s IBM), Cisco Systems (s CSCO), EMC Corp. (s EMC) and VMware (s VMWR), Rackspace (s RACK) and other small players. Microsoft says it's not worried, though and claims companies like 3M and GXS are already using the Azure cloud.
Not only are established partners and ISVs looking to the Windows Azure platform as a way to extend their revenue capabilities, but startups like Lokad are betting their businesses on it. Lokad has deployed a scalable forecasting cloud-based service to its retail and manufacturing customers that provides real-time forecasting data to allow for inventory optimization and ultimately bring them to profitability.
Productivity Online Suite, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM as SaaS, making it part of the company's larger cloud strategy.
Given how closely we at GigaOM have followed the Azure saga, I though it would be good to highlight some of our past coverage containing relevant details about Azure and Microsoft's plans.
The Hidden Cost of the Cloud: Bandwidth Charges.


text:
Q: How much damage will my Snowball do? I want a good, cheap way to kill blazes. I have noticed that snowballs are relatively effective but how much damage does it do to a blaze? I want to make a piston crusher to leave the blaze to be a one hit to a snowball.

A: Snowballs deal 3 () health points of damage to blazes.
It is also worth noting that snowballs don't damage mobs except for Blazes and Ender Dragons.
Source

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


IMPORTANT NOTE: As of January 1, 2015, the US tax requirements have changed. Non-US authors are no longer required to have a US ITIN to claim tax treaty benefits on royalty income if you have a tax ID number in your country of residence. You still must fill out a W-8BEN including providing your country's tax ID number and claim the tax treaty benefits in Part II.
The form that you are filling out is a W-7.
First let me state that I am not authorized to speak for the IRS, but from the authors that have successfully applied for an ITIN, I have compiled the following information to help you start.
Download the instructions for the W-7.
You need to complete the form and then send it with a letter from your publisher explaining that you will be receiving income and notarized copies of identification documents.
The first section is why you need an ITIN. Unless one of the other options applies to you, the reason is A – Nonresident alien required to get ITIN to claim tax treaty benefit. On the last line of that section (h), you will fill in "exception 1(d) royalties", treaty country as [fill in your country here] and the article number as Article [fill in the tax treaty number here]. The tax treaty number for your country can be found on this website or with a Google search. The tax treaties come up in PDF format. You can use ctrl-z and type in "royalties" to scan for relevant sections.
The next section is information on you.
On other information, you will list your citizenship, Tax number for your country and leave 6c blank since this doesn't require a visa.
For 6d – if you have a passport, that is all you have to have. You can make a color copy of it and have it notarized. If you are in a city that has a US Embassy, they will notarize your copy for free.
If you don't have a passport, you have to send two documents. One to establish identity and one to establish citizenship. For identity you can use a driver's license, military or national ID. For citizenship you can use a voter's registration card or birth certificate. These documents have to be notarized as well since you don't want to send the originals.
In 6d you will check either passport or Driver's License and Other – filling in the type of document you are sending. If you have a passport fill in Issued by, No. and Exp date. Leave the Entry date to the US blank.
6g – Dreamspinner Press LLC, Tallahassee, Florida Length of stay is NA.
Sign the form. Send the form, a notarized color copy of your passport and a copy of the letter attached to the address in the instructions. Keep copies of everything you send.
After you have your ITIN, you can fill out the W-8BEN.
Download the instructions for the W-8BEN.
If you are an author with Dreamspinner Press, please email the office and they can send you the W-8BEN via Echosign.
This post was intended as a helping hand for Dreamspinner Press authors. It is not intended to replace official or profession tax advice. Other publishers and companies may have different requirements, and you should always look to the US Internal Revenue Service and your countries tax agencies for definitive instructions and answers.


text:
Is Game of Thrones star Sophie Turner headed for the altar?
Sansa Stark gushes about her relationship with Joe Jonas.
By Zoe Burrell
Sophie Turner has always kept her relationship with Joe Jonas on the down low but the Game of Thrones star has finally broken her silence.
The starlet, who famously plays Sansa Stark on the hit HBO show, is seriously smitten with the muso.
"I'm in a relationship, but it's a very private relationship," she told the U.K's Sunday Times.
"I'm happier than I've been in a very long time," she continued.
Sounds like Sophie has found someone she could share the iron throne with...
Growing up in the spotlight is no easy feat, but it sounds like Sophie finds real solace in Joe,who she was first spotted with back in November at a Kings of Leon concert in Amsterdam.
"I very much isolated myself for a while and forgot what was fun. Going out with friends, going out to eat, not really having a care," she revealed.
"And people I've met recently in my life have drawn me out of that."
"It really helps you own those insecurities," she continued. "The things I tortured myself about before, I can forget about."
Meanwhile, back in May, Sophie dishedto InStyle what makes her relationship with Joe work.
"I found it easier to date someone who understands the industry or is in that world," she said.
"You realize that you're not going to see each other all the time, and you don't feel like a jerk when you're like, 'My publicist says I can't do this …'"
Aww, sounds like she has found her Mr Right.
TVMore Game Of Thrones in the works with four spin-offs announced
Celeb NewsNick Jonas speaks about his "unbelievable connection" with Kate Hudson
Sophie Turner,
undefined: Zoe Burrell

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Living Room Interior Design - This is the latest information about Living Room Interior Design, this information can be your reference when you are confused to choose the right design for your home.
How about Living Room Interior Design, did you find the right choice for your home? No need to worry if you not found it, there is still a lot of information about home design that will make you more amazed. You can find it on the home page, category pages, or search page. Keep visit us to update your information about home design.
Living Room, Home Living Room Design was posted November 12, 2017 at 8:31 am by Tigriffith.com . More over Home Living Room Design has viewed by 4784 visitor.
Living Room, Modern Sofa Set Designs For Living Room was posted November 12, 2017 at 2:14 pm by Tigriffith.com . More over Modern Sofa Set Designs For Living Room has viewed by 10033 visitor.
Living Room, Decoration House Living Room was posted November 19, 2017 at 3:12 pm by Tigriffith.com . More over Decoration House Living Room has viewed by 5113 visitor.
Living Room, Rustic Living Room Design was posted November 11, 2017 at 7:11 am by Tigriffith.com . More over Rustic Living Room Design has viewed by 2655 visitor.
Home Design, Interior Design Ideas For Living Rooms was posted October 11, 2017 at 9:01 am by Tigriffith.com . More over Interior Design Ideas For Living Rooms has viewed by 5790 visitor.
Living Room, Designer Walls For Living Room was posted November 12, 2017 at 9:11 pm by Tigriffith.com . More over Designer Walls For Living Room has viewed by 2727 visitor.
Living Room, Interior Designs Living Room was posted December 3, 2017 at 1:10 pm by Tigriffith.com . More over Interior Designs Living Room has viewed by 4800 visitor.
Living Room, Designs For Living Room Furniture was posted November 14, 2017 at 10:12 am by Tigriffith.com . More over Designs For Living Room Furniture has viewed by 2391 visitor.
Home Design, Living Room Interior Design was posted October 12, 2017 at 9:10 pm by Tigriffith.com . More over Living Room Interior Design has viewed by 4634 visitor.
Living Room, Living Room Ceiling Design was posted November 9, 2017 at 8:39 pm by Tigriffith.com . More over Living Room Ceiling Design has viewed by 1752 visitor.


text:
Maple Leafs Prospects
Toronto Maple Leafs Reduce Training Camp Roster By Seven
By Jeff Langridge September 25th, 2015
The Toronto Maple Leafs made more cuts to their training camp roster Wednesday. Seven players in total were cut, reducing the number of players in camp to 46.
Four players were re-assigned to the Toronto Marlies. Let's take a look at them.
Casey Bailey
It's quite obvious that the Maple Leafs will have a very veteran-laden team. What's puzzling with Bailey is the circumstances under which he signed with the Leafs. Coming out of Penn State University, he signed a two-year deal on March 21. The biggest reason he signed with the Leafs was the chance to play with them last season. He would go on to play six games, even scoring his first NHL goal in the Leafs final game of the season.
Now Bailey will start off the season with Marlies. He will be a restricted free agent at season's end. Will not getting a bigger chance with the team build resentment? Hopefully not.
Frederik Gauthier
The Leafs' first round pick in the 2013 NHL Draft (21st overall), Gauthier will play his first professional season with the Marlies.
It's quite obvious that Gauthier will be a defensive stalwart in the Leafs' forward corps whenever he makes the team. The only question has been whether or not he could improve his offensive game. He had 32 points in 37 games last season with Rimouski of the QMJHL so it hasn't really come yet. He did have 16 points in 20 QMJHL playoff games as well as four points in four games at the 2015 Memorial Cup.
Brendan Leipsic
Leipsic returns to the Marlies, a team in which he ended up being second in scoring after being acquired mid-season from Nashville. He should continue to be one of the Marlies' top scorers this season. Could he end to be a Darcy Tucker-type player if/when he eventually makes the Leafs? We know he has the antagonistic tendencies for the job, now it's just a case of finding out if he can maintain the scoring in the NHL.
Josh Leivo
Leivo has been with the Leafs organization for what seems like an eternity. Drafted all the way back in 2011, he has seen 16 games of NHL experience. He has scored two goals and had one assist in that time.
In his two full seasons with the baby Leafs, he has amassed 74 points in 110 games. When the Leafs eventually trade some of their players on one-year deals at the trade deadline, don't be shocked if it's a player like Leivo coming up to take his place.
Three players were sent back to their junior teams. They are:
Travis Dermott
Drafted with the 34th pick in the 2015 Draft, Dermott and the rest of the Erie Otters will have to adjust to life without Connor McDavid this season. An under-the-radar defenseman in Erie, he was still eighth in Otters' scoring. When you consider that two of the players ahead of him were McDavid and OHL scoring leader Dylan Strome, it looks a little better for him.
He should continue to get better and maybe he will be ready for NHL duty by the time the Leafs are back in contention. Hopefully, he will turn out to be better than Carlo Colaiacovo, the last defenseman the Leafs drafted out of Erie.
Andrew Nielsen
Taken 31 picks after Dermott, Nielsen is another defenseman. He will report back to the Lethbridge Hurricanes of the Western Hockey League. Nielsen was seventh in scoring for the team. However, the Hurricanes were last in the WHL's Central Division so let's hope that the team can improve and make the playoffs or be moved to a team that will make the playoffs. After all, the more he plays, the faster he could develop.
Quebec Remparts forward Dmytro Timashov (Jonathan Roy/Quebec Remparts)
Dmytro Timashov
The lone forward going back to junior, Timashov will return to the Quebec Remparts. He led the team in scoring with 90 points in 66 games. That was also good enough to be 12 in QMJHL scoring. He followed that up with 18 points in 22 QMJHL playoff games and five points in the Memorial Cup. The consensus is that the Leafs have a steal in Timashov. If he can repeat or improve upon those numbers, that consensus will grow.


Fíriel was a High-elven name used by the Dúnedain, most famously as the name of Gondorian princess who wedded Arvedui of Arthedain, and apparently ultimately a reference to Lúthien (the name means 'mortal maid'). At some point, the name was woven into a popular rhyme, The Last Ship3 which became known in the Shire. From that source, it was chosen by Sam Gamgee's daughter Elanor and her husband Fastred for one of their daughters.
Fíriel's surname is uncertain. Following Hobbit tradition, she would have taken the name of her father, so she would probably have been known as 'Fíriel of Greenholm' (or just 'Fíriel Greenholm'). However, her brother Elfstan founded the Fairbairn clan, so it's conceivable that, as a member of the same family, Fíriel acquired the name 'Fíriel Fairbairn'.
We don't have definite dates for Fíriel; the date of IV 35 shown here is an approximation based on the fact that her brother Elfstan was known to have been born in IV 33.
The name Fíriel dated back to ancient times, and was first given as name to Finwë's first wife Míriel after she gave up her life (hence 'she that died'). It also has poetic associations with Lúthien, whose own story of death and return resonates with the name's meaning. Historically, Fíriel was the daughter of Ondoher who became the last queen of Arthedain.
From one or more of these sources, most probably by association with Lúthien, the name found its way into a popular rhyme in the Shire, The Last Ship. It is suggested (in the introduction to The Adventures of Tom Bombadil) that Fíriel of Greenholm gained her name from this rhyme.
The Last Ship is Included in the collection The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. There are hints in the poem that the Fíriel it describes was none other than Lúthien herself (for instance, it describes Fíriel dwelling by the Seven Rivers, just as Lúthien did). While its words are resonant with Lúthien's situation (she is tempted to sail into the West by the Elves, and refuses) it doesn't seem to match established versions of her story in any detail. If this Fíriel originated as Lúthien, then we must imagine that her tale shifted and changed as it was passed down through the generations.
Original content © copyright Mark Fisher 2009, 2012, 2014. All rights reserved. For conditions of reuse, see the Site FAQ.


Words Game with AdMob – Drag letters and collect the word. The game coded on pure Java in Android Studio. You can customize all words as you want. Find file words.txt in assets folder and put into it your words seperated by comma. Enjoy!
Drag the letters and collect the word. The game coded on pure Java in Android Studio.
You can customize all words as you want. Find file words.txt in assets folder and put into it your words seperated by comma. Enjoy!
Very easy customization, reskin, Cocoon + Ads Supported, Including Constuct 2 file (.capx ? all source), AdMob!
Mobile control, Easy to use, Nice graphics, Social, Tap and keyboard control.
Danger running – One tap – one jump, double tap – double jump. How to play in the browser: One click – one jump, double click – double jump. Features: The game works on all popular browsers, Easy export to Android and IOS platforms, Very easy customization, reskin.


This edition: Interactive Download. Christian; Contemporary; Pop; Praise & Worship. Piano/Vocal/Guitar (chords only). 2 pages. Published by Hal Leonard - Digital Sheet Music (HX.228160).
With God's Holy Temple. Composed by John Thompson & Randy Scruggs. Arranged by Lloyd Larson. Quick Study Chorals. General Worship, Sacred. Octavo. 8 pages. Duration 8 minutes. Hope Publishing Company #C5805. Published by Hope Publishing Company (HP.C5805).
This edition: Interactive Download. Christian; Contemporary; Pop; Praise & Worship. 2 pages. Published by Hal Leonard - Digital Sheet Music (HX.228161).
Composed by D. Thomas and John Thompson & Randy Scruggs. Arranged by Lloyd Larson. Quick Study Chorals. General Worship, Sacred. Octavo. 8 pages. Duration 8 minutes. Hope Publishing Company #C5892. Published by Hope Publishing Company (HP.C5892).
Solos with Ensemble Arrangements for Two or More Players. Arranged by Stan Pethel. Contemporary Christian. Trumpet songbook. With standard notation, solo part and harmony part. 21 pages. Published by Daybreak Music (HL.8743311).
Composed by D. Thomas, John Thompson & Randy Scruggs. Arranged by Lloyd Larson. Choral. Quick Study Chorals. General, Sacred. Octavo. 8 pages. Published by Hope Publishing - Digital (H1.C58056DP).
Composed by D. Thomas, John Thompson & Randy Scruggs. Arranged by Lloyd Larson. Quick Study Chorals. General, Sacred. Vocal score. Published by Hope Publishing - Digital (H1.87091DP).
Solos with Ensemble Arrangements for Two or More Players. Arranged by Stan Pethel. Contemporary Christian. Percussion songbook. With standard notation, solo part and harmony part. 16 pages. Published by Daybreak Music (HL.8743320).
Solos with Ensemble Arrangements for Two or More Players. Arranged by Stan Pethel. Contemporary Christian. Saxophone songbook. With standard notation, solo part and harmony part. 21 pages. Published by Daybreak Music (HL.8743316).
Composed by D. Thomas, John Thompson & Randy Scruggs. Arranged by Lloyd Larson. Choral. Quick Study Chorals. General, Sacred. Octavo. 8 pages. Published by Hope Publishing - Digital (H1.C58926DP).


text:
Q: Browser based file upload to AWS S3 and encode server-client workflow Im writing a single-page-web-app (angularJs) and a server back-end (node.js). The communication between them is done via REST.
Currently im trying to implement the following scenario:

*

*Upload big files from browser to S3 public bucket.

*Copy uploaded file to private bucket on S3

*Transcode uploaded file to HTML 5 compatible format (AWS Elastic Transcoder)

*Store Meta-Object about the file in DB to access later
I'm racking my brains to get a well working design of the communication/ data-workflow between server and client, but always got stuck at the following questions?

*

*Store file meta-object at the end or at the beginning of the process. If it is at the beginning, i have to store and handle some state information?

*Who should start copying uploaded files to private bucket. Server or client? If it is the server, how can the client get informed about the job succeeded?

*Who starts the transcoding process? If it is the server, how can the client get informed about the job succeeded?
How would you do this?

A: there is a pretty good tutorial which describes the use case you are planning to implement: http://www.bitcodin.com/blog/2015/02/create-mpeg-dash-hls-content-for-amazon-s3-and-cloudfront/
If your transcoding system has a RESTfull API (like bitcodin which is used in this tutorial, or any other service) you can do your application also client-side and use the API calls to get the state of your transcodings, etc. However, using the API you can do the same also server-side, whatever fits better for you.
I personally would store the metadata infos at the beginning of the process, as this is the point of time where you generate the "asset" in your database/CMS/etc.


text:
March 2021 Options Now Available For Textron (TXT)
Investors in Textron Inc (Symbol: TXT) saw new options become available today, for the March 2021 expiration. One of the key data points that goes into the price an option buyer is willing to pay, is the time value, so with 246 days until expiration the newly available contracts represent a possible opportunity for sellers of puts or calls to achieve a higher premium than would be available for the contracts with a closer expiration. At Stock Options Channel, our YieldBoost formula has looked up and down the TXT options chain for the new March 2021 contracts and identified one put and one call contract of particular interest.
The put contract at the $30.00 strike price has a current bid of $3.00. If an investor was to sell-to-open that put contract, they are committing to purchase the stock at $30.00, but will also collect the premium, putting the cost basis of the shares at $27.00 (before broker commissions). To an investor already interested in purchasing shares of TXT, that could represent an attractive alternative to paying $33.63/share today.
Because the $30.00 strike represents an approximate 11% discount to the current trading price of the stock (in other words it is out-of-the-money by that percentage), there is also the possibility that the put contract would expire worthless. The current analytical data (including greeks and implied greeks) suggest the current odds of that happening are 100%. Stock Options Channel will track those odds over time to see how they change, publishing a chart of those numbers on our website under the contract detail page for this contract. Should the contract expire worthless, the premium would represent a 10.00% return on the cash commitment, or 14.84% annualized — at Stock Options Channel we call this the YieldBoost.
Below is a chart showing the trailing twelve month trading history for Textron Inc, and highlighting in green where the $30.00 strike is located relative to that history:
Turning to the calls side of the option chain, the call contract at the $35.00 strike price has a current bid of $4.00. If an investor was to purchase shares of TXT stock at the current price level of $33.63/share, and then sell-to-open that call contract as a "covered call," they are committing to sell the stock at $35.00. Considering the call seller will also collect the premium, that would drive a total return (excluding dividends, if any) of 15.97% if the stock gets called away at the March 2021 expiration (before broker commissions). Of course, a lot of upside could potentially be left on the table if TXT shares really soar, which is why looking at the trailing twelve month trading history for Textron Inc, as well as studying the business fundamentals becomes important. Below is a chart showing TXT's trailing twelve month trading history, with the $35.00 strike highlighted in red:
Considering the fact that the $35.00 strike represents an approximate 4% premium to the current trading price of the stock (in other words it is out-of-the-money by that percentage), there is also the possibility that the covered call contract would expire worthless, in which case the investor would keep both their shares of stock and the premium collected. The current analytical data (including greeks and implied greeks) suggest the current odds of that happening are 99%. On our website under the contract detail page for this contract, Stock Options Channel will track those odds over time to see how they change and publish a chart of those numbers (the trading history of the option contract will also be charted). Should the covered call contract expire worthless, the premium would represent a 11.89% boost of extra return to the investor, or 17.65% annualized, which we refer to as the YieldBoost.
Meanwhile, we calculate the actual trailing twelve month volatility (considering the last 252 trading day closing values as well as today's price of $33.63) to be 66%. For more put and call options contract ideas worth looking at, visit StockOptionsChannel.com.
Top YieldBoost Calls of the S&P 500 »
MarketsStocksOptions


Borderless Printing‡ Borderless printing is available for Letter, 4"x6", 5"x8", 5"x7", A4, and A6 paper sizes.
Carton Contents‡ Actual yield of initial cartridges will be approx. 85% of replacement LC3035 Black, and 75% of replacement LC3035 Color Series, due to ink system initialization. All replacement cartridges will provide approximate page yield stated in accordance with ISO/IEC 24711. For more page yield information, see www.brother.com/pageyield. For best results, use Brother ink cartridges within 3 years of the manufacture date.
Up to 2 Years of Ink In-box‡ Based on average monthly print volumes of approximately 300 pages at 60% black pages / 40% color pages in accordance with ISO/IEC 24711 using 4 cartridges provided in-box. For more page yield information, see www.brother.com/pageyield.
The MFC-J5845DW XL provides up to 2-years of printing.3 Includes mobile device printing,7 flexible output, 11" x 17" printing, automatic two-sided printing and a 3.7" color touchscreen for onscreen navigation.


text:
Guest Post: Rationality of Banks
Ken Houghton | April 27, 2012 2:09 pm
Note: This post originally appeared, in slightly different form, at the author's personal blog, Diogenes of Brooklyn. It appears here with that blogger's kind permission.
He does talk in the third person sometimes.
by Diogenes of Brooklyn
Like most Americans, Diogenes knows nothing of economics and finance. But quite a lot about the ways that banks work, or don't work, has become public knowledge.
Remember when we were taught that economics was about rational markets. Milton Friedman, patron saint of Republican economists, used to say on TV that everything is rational. Keynes thought markets were more or less rational, except when they went nuts, the government had to step in. Mr. Romney still says it in public: Just a little private enterprise competency in the White House and everything will be hunky-dory, or however they say that in the language of the Harvard Business School. It will get to be as good as it was the lasts time we had a President with a Harvard MBA (irony alert).
Nowadays there is not so much rationality. Especially about the toxic assets. The whole economy is in pretty bad shape, but the colossal failure started with the Real Estate Bubble. A little of it was about Fannie and Freddie and the very powerful and very evil Barney Frank, but over 80 per cent of the problem was The Banks and Wall Street and good old private capital. Wall Street had access to billions and billions of dollars that were not usefully employed. Most of the stock market in the doldrums, and the owners of the biggest chuck of money, the Chinese Government, could not invest the money at home for fear of distorting their very productive but fragile economy. That enormous pile of money was invested in MBS's and CDO's and all the rest. And that money in the mortgage market allowed the most enormous bubble in USA real estate. You know the stories, whole towns in California where nobody lives, and nobody will ever live. People who bought houses at inflated prices. Standard and Poors said when they rated the derivatives, that Real Estate prices had always gone up, they could not go down. A lot of people lost their jobs in the Great Republican Recession, and could not sell their houses at any amount, let alone an amount that would cover the mortgage, even if they had put up 20%. It was a mess, and it remains a mess.
For a while Diogenes was associated with a company who told the world they had $10 billion from overseas investors, and that these investors wanted to buy the toxic assets of US Banks, at 26 cents on the dollar.
Seemed like a pretty straightforward assignment, just call some large number of banks, talk to the people responsible for unloading the things, and arrange a deal. Not one bank that wanted to do a deal. For a while people said this was because we let them know the price in advance. It really was no secret how they came to the price of 26%: When Merrill Lynch had to unload a ton of these assets in order for Bank of America to take them over, the assets sold in a hurry at that price.
It was not about price. It turns out that all of the banks preferred to let the assets get picked up by FDIC for 16%, instead of selling them privately for 26%. HSBC turned over the assets that my associates wanted to buy at 26 cents, and gave them them up to the government at a lower price, 16%.
Seemed pretty stupid to me. And some of the banks lied to me. The VP at IndyMac told Diogenes they were selling these assets (actual foreclosed houses) one by one at 90 cents on the dollar, and would not entertain any bulk sales of any kind. And that they were working the portfolio down at a rate that was acceptable to the regulators. Turned out not to be true. David Letterman should someday be as funny as the guy from IndyMac.
In order to actually make a deal with investors, someone at the bank would have to take responsibility for de-valuing assets, in writing. That is, the bank officer would have to make a decision to sell assets that were on the books for a billion dollars, and make the bank lose 740 million dollars, before the sale could take place at 260 million. That guy would immediately lose his job and he would never be able to work in the banking business again. Let it go to FDIC, nobody has to sign off on it. As we say here in Brooklyn, Poi-fict.
The whole banking fiasco was based on an interlocking network of stupid rules and irrational markets. It is no wonder that if failed in a spectacular way. It's a good thing the Republicans have decided to end the Dodd-Frank bill, and get Big Government out of the way of the bankers who really know how to operate the money markets. The collapse of the world economy has been so much fun, that we really ought to give them another go at it (irony alert).
Comments (6) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
Troy says:
paragraphs!
"A little of it was about Fannie and Freddie and the very powerful and very evil Barney Frank, but over 80 per cent of the problem was The Banks and Wall Street and good old private capital."
Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with the bubble of 2003-2007.
Just last night I discovered Mara Der Hovanesian's 2006 cover-story piece on the bubble.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/06_37/B4000magazine.htm
And she just utterly nailed it.
"and the owners of the biggest chuck of money, the Chinese Government, could not invest the money at home for fear of distorting their very productive but fragile economy. "
This is an odd take on the situation. China has dollar holdings thanks to their rising trade surplus with us — $33B in 1995, $83B in 2000, $202B in 2005, $270B in 2010.
The Chinese economy runs on yuan not dollars, so these holdings are only good for external investment and trade (eg. buying raw materials). Chinese corporations acquiring USD turn them into the central bank for yuan (which can be printed at will). This is very mercantilist and clever, as it inflates their economy and protects the yuan's weakness.
"And that money in the mortgage market allowed the most enormous bubble in USA real estate."
It wasn't just the available funding, it was the collapse of lending standards and sound underwriting. Suicide loans became commonplace, 40% of the market or more.
But this was a virtuous cycle for several years of the bubble, say 2004-2006, in that rising home prices allowed households to liberate trillions of dollars of cold hard cash by borrowing against their houses.
These trillions inflated salaries and created immense demand all throughout the economy. It was very much a stealth stimulus on the order of Bernanke's "Helicopter Money" speech.
The debt bubble is very visible in the statistics:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=6MF
shows how consumer borrowing rose to 2.2X incomes at the height of the bubble.
Looking at Y-O-Y debt growth:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=6MG
we can see it exceed 20% of wages during the Bush Boom. We were simply borrowing our way to prosperity, 2004-2007.
Here's what the annual debt take-on looked like in plain dollar terms:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=6MH
Households were borrowing $500B/yr in 2000, but that more than doubled to $1.2T/yr in 2006.
That's around $1000/household per month!
"A little of it was about Fannie and Freddie and the very powerful and very evil Barney Frank, but over 80 per cent of the problem was The Banks and Wall Street and good old private capital." Fannie and Freddie had nothing to do with the bubble of 2003-2007. Just last night I discovered Mara Der Hovanesian's 2006 cover-story piece on the bubble. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/06_37/B4000magazine.htm And she just utterly nailed it. "and the owners of the biggest chuck of money, the Chinese Government, could not invest the money at home for fear of distorting their very productive but fragile economy. " This is an odd take on the situation. China has dollar holdings thanks to their rising trade surplus with us — $33B in 1995, $83B in 2000, $202B in 2005, $270B in 2010. The Chinese economy runs on yuan not dollars, so these holdings are only good for external investment and trade (eg. buying raw materials). Chinese corporations acquiring USD turn them into the central bank for yuan (which can be printed at will). This is very mercantilist and clever, as it inflates their economy and protects the yuan's weakness. "And that money in the mortgage market allowed the most enormous bubble in USA real estate." It wasn't just the available funding, it was the collapse of lending standards and sound underwriting. Suicide loans became commonplace, 40% of the market or more.
But this was a virtuous cycle for several years of the bubble, say 2004-2006, in that rising home prices allowed households to liberate trillions of dollars of cold hard cash by borrowing against their houses. These trillions inflated salaries and created immense demand all throughout the economy. It was very much a stealth stimulus on the order of Bernanke's "Helicopter Money" speech. The debt bubble is very visible in the statistics: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=6MF shows how consumer borrowing rose to 2.2X incomes at the height of the bubble. Looking at Y-O-Y debt growth: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=6MG we can see it exceed 20% of wages during the Bush Boom. We were simply borrowing our way to prosperity, 2004-2007. Here's what the annual debt take-on looked like in plain dollar terms: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=6MH Households were borrowing $500B/yr in 2000, but that more than doubled to $1.2T/yr in 2006. That's around $1000/household per month!
Just last night I discovered Mara Der Hovanesian's 2006 cover-story piece on the bubble:
This is an odd take on the situation. China has dollar holdings thanks to their rising trade surplus with us — $33B/yr in 1995, $83B/yr in 2000, $202B/yr in 2005, $270B/yr in 2010.
That was around $1000 per household per month!
Troy;
Let me add to this:
There is nothing wrong with a typical ARM. They were developed for first time homeowners or those expecting salary increases. Banks performed their due diligence on each borrower to make sure they were credit worthy. The typical ARM was 1, 3, or 5 years in length before allowing an increase which might typically be 1-2% maximum cap per period and also have a designated cap over the lifetime. The ARM was calculated to pay interest and principal and some were calculated at lower payments early and then increased over a period of years (less than 5). I had a 1 year ARM (3.5%) with a yearly cap of 1% per year and a lifetime cap to 10%. I also had a balloon mortgage at 5% with a guaranteed refinancing for $500 and 1/2% on top of the 5%. All were done by a private and honest originator who I knew for a decade in business. Typically these loans were based on the rise and fall of treasuries or some index.
There are some things you are missing or have overlooked in your story. The mad rush to mortgage investments was a second choice by the Chinese and other foreign investors looking for safe haven for the excess of trade dollars (currency of the world) in their hands. Most came to the US to buy treasuries which was the safest global investment. http://mises.org/daily/3382/The-Fed-Did-It-and-Greenspan-Should-Admit-It By no means is this a defense of Greenspan as he twarted any attempt to regulate the derivatives http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2009/marapr/features/born.html market which set the stage for the free market wild west show on Wall Street and with TBTF.
Secondly, there were many homeowners who now had access to their built-up home equity throough legislation passed during the Clinton era. To extract equity prior to then was near impossible unless on took a second mortgage and passed the review of the bank. To get at it, they simply refinanced their old mortgage. Alt-A mortgages were the way to go.
After all of this, Greenspan reversed course and statrted an increase in Fed Rates from the 1-3/4% (and 1% in 2003) he held them at since 2001. The stage was set for the biggest crash since the Depression on Main Street.
theeconomicfractalist says:
The biggest global mecroeconomic crash and debt default is yet to come. The transitional period will be breathtaking.
The Euro and European experinment will break down within the next few weeks. Even the best German banks have leveraged their reserves greater than Lehman's did in 2008.
The difference between the Euro and the dollar is that the dollar has 200 years of history and central government and a central taxation and entitlement program – with so many many multinational holders of US debt and 100 dollar bills.
The debt-money-asset system is a global macroeconomic construct. Its countervailing debt and composite asset prices proceed in a cyclical predictable time dependent quantum pattern.
The collapse of the Euro experiment will absent trillion of Euros and Euro debt from the denominator of system resulting in the greatest nonlinear asset valuation collapse in the history of mandkind.
Even the 1720 SouthSea Bubble will pale.


on xbox if someone drops me money will i get banned ASAP or is stealth money actually a thing?
also i need someone to drop me money if its a stealth drop.
It's a money drop which means a mod, which means there's always a chance of being banned. However it's very very unlikely.


text:
package com.example.android0128.introductionmvp.movies;

import android.support.annotation.NonNull;

import com.example.android0128.introductionmvp.BasePresenter;
import com.example.android0128.introductionmvp.BaseView;
import com.example.android0128.introductionmvp.data.QueryModel;

import java.util.List;

/**
 * This specifies the contract between the view and the presenter.
 */
public interface MoviesContract {

    interface View extends BaseView<Presenter> {

        void setLoadingIndicator(boolean active);

        void showMovies(List<QueryModel> movies);

        void showMovieDetailsUi(QueryModel movie);

        void showLoadingMoviesError();

        void showLoadingMoviesError(String error);

        void showNoMovies();

        boolean isActive();

        void showFilteringPopUpMenu();

        void showFavoriteResult(boolean favoriteBefore);
    }

    interface Presenter extends BasePresenter {

        void loadMovies(boolean forceUpdate);

        void openMovieDetails(@NonNull QueryModel requestedMovie);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Enjoy a glass of wine or a cup of coffee at our refined Hollywood Lounge before you set off to explore the city, or after your escapades. Our friendly staff will be on hand to help you plan your day, or just simply chat to, anytime you feel like it.
Feeling tired? Why not re-energize in style at our gymnasium? The state-of- the-art facility showcases equipment from world-famous brand Technogym, which services 65,000 gyms globally, and features the cardio and strength building equipment—including Jog Excite, Vario Excite, and Bike Unity—for you to stay fit while you are on holiday or conducting business. Best of all, it is open 24 hours a day.


text:
High School > Foreign Languages > Spanish Speaking Videos Videos
More High School Videos
More Foreign Languages Videos
Spanish speaking videos can be beneficial for both Latino natives and those who wish to learn the language. For starters, it's good, to begin with the basics, like arithmetic and mathematics. Language learners will benefit a lot from this. And what better way to learn than through videos?
Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, sais, siete, ocho, nueve, diez. That's the numbers one through ten in Spanish. Pretty basic, but that's where it all begins. There are videos for learning how to say numbers in Spanish, just like the video called "Spanish Numbers" from TeacherTube. It's a short video just narrating the Spanish numbers zero to twenty in twenty seconds. For others looking for versions that are easier to understand, there are other videos that handle it in a slower, more precise manner as well.
Two- and three-digit numbers can get more complicated, but once one has mastered the basics, he can take on the challenge of larger numbers. Next up are number operations, just like in grade school math classes. And of course, moving up the ladder, there would be more advanced topics too, like trigonometry, algebra, and calculus.
For starters, there are basic math lesson videos in Spanish like "Spanish Immersion First Grade Math lesson" from TeacherTube, designed for first graders. These lessons teach fundamentals like finding values on a number line, getting sums, differences, and other essential math skills. Students are taught the basic principles and then are given some individual exercises that they do on their own.
The more advanced learners will want to go with videos that deal with higher math topics like trigonometry and algebra. Videos like "Spanish Support Video - Trigonometry building a Cosine function" from TeacherTube are nice in that they deal with step-by-step solutions to problems, and they do so with graphs too. The videos also narrate the different steps of each solution. Each part may also be replayed as many times as needed.


text:
Independent School Management, Inc. ("ISM") is pleased to offer the following levels of membership: Platinum, Gold, Silver, Complementary, and Trial (each a "Membership"). By agreeing to this Membership Agreement ("Agreement") and completing enrollment in a Membership as set forth in Section 1 below, you ("You" or "Client") are granted access to tools, services and discounts to certain ISM products (collectively "Benefits"), which are delivered to You through access to the isminc.com website, print materials through Ideas and Perspectives, discounts to workshops and webinars, and other services offered to the Client. The level of Benefits each Client receives depends on the Membership level selected from the isminc.com website at the time of purchase of the Membership. ISM regularly evaluates Memberships and Benefits and You agree that ISM may make modifications to Benefits periodically, which ISM will communicate to You by email. Many questions about a Client Membership including Benefits and changing Membership level can be answered through the ISMinc.com website, but a Client may always call ISM at (302) 656-4944 x3524 between the hours of 8:30 am and 4:00 pm EST, or email ISM at membership@isminc.com.
1. Enrollment. After accepting the terms stated in this Agreement and the Terms Of Use (https://isminc.com/about-us/terms-of-use) of ISM's Website, and after purchase of Your Membership, the term of the Membership shall begin immediately. The term of that Membership and this Agreement shall continue for 365 days unless terminated sooner according to terms stated below ("Membership Term"). Because all Memberships are annual, there are no cancellations or refunds for any portion of a Membership once its Membership Term begins. Payment options for Memberships include immediate payment in full, at a reduced rate, or twelve equal installments during the Membership Term. You shall be obligated to pay the full cost of the Membership You selected at the time of purchase regardless of the payment option selected. Any portion of the cost of a Membership that is invoiced must be paid within 30 days of the date of an invoice or is subject to cancellation in accordance with Section 3 below. Although Your Membership level cannot be changed to a lower level during the Membership Term, it may be upgraded during that term at an increased cost and subject to a new Membership Term.
2. AUTOMATIC RENEWAL. Unless cancelled sooner in accordance with Section 3 below, Your Membership will renew automatically on the last day of Your Membership Term, with a new 365 day Membership Term beginning immediately upon the end of the previous term. Memberships renewing automatically will be at the same Membership level, the same payment terms, and the same pricing as the immediately-preceding Membership Term, but subject to upward adjustment as set forth below. For example, if payment of the Membership was made via credit card, the card on file will automatically be billed at the time of the auto-renewal, with such being authorized by You entering into this Agreement. If payment of the Membership was made via invoice, You will be sent an invoice in due course, consistent with the schedule of invoices prior to the auto-renewal. From time to time, Membership pricing may increase between Membership Terms. You will be given at least a 30 day notice before any increase in pricing is charged to You. Although not required, ISM will endeavor to provide a reminder to You of Your auto-renewal during the last 30 days of Your Membership Term.
3. Cancellation of Auto-Renewal; Termination. At any time during the first 364 days of Your Membership Term, You may cancel Your Membership such that it will not renew automatically by sending an email to membership@isminc.com, including in the subject line the words "cancel" and "membership." Regardless of when You cancel Your Membership, all benefits of Membership will continue until the one-year Membership Term ends, except as provided below, and terminate thereafter. If You fail to pay for Your Membership within thirty (30) days of the date of an invoice, ISM, at its discretion, may suspend Your access to Benefits of Membership until Your payments become current, and Your Membership term will not be extended beyond the Membership Term; the full amount of Your Membership, nonetheless, will remain due and owing; and the terms applicable to auto-renewal will continue. ISM reserves the right to terminate Your Membership at any time and for any reason, but if terminated for reasons other than Your non-payment, any payment You already made will be reimbursed at an amount pro-rated for the portion of the Membership Term remaining following termination, and Your duty to pay for the remaining portion of the term will cease. There will be no auto-renewal if ISM terminates Your Membership.
4. Notification. ISM will use the billing contact provided during enrollment for communications about Membership plan changes and renewals. It is the Client's responsibility to ensure that the Client's billing contact information is kept up to date in order to receive notices. Changes to contact can be done via email to membership@isminc.com. A Membership specialist can assist with any changes that are needed.
5. Trial Membership. ISM may offer Trial Membership at its discretion. Trial Memberships are absolutely free for 14 days. A Trial Membership can be cancelled at no cost, but only during the first 14 days of enrolling in a Trial Membership by sending an email to membership@isminc.com, including in the subject line the words "cancel" and "membership." Cancelled Trial Membership will be effective immediately. Trial Memberships are not eligible for discounts on goods and services provided through Membership. If any discount is applied at the time of a Trial Membership, such discount will be discontinued upon cancellation or termination of Your Trial Membership.
6. AUTOMATIC CONVERSION TO FULL MEMBERSHIP FOLLOWING TRIAL PERIOD. If You enroll in a Trial Membership and do not sooner cancel such Membership in accordance with Section 5 above, Your Membership will be converted automatically into a full year membership with a Membership Term starting on the 15th day following Your enrollment in the Trial Membership; and this Agreement shall control the terms of such Membership. If Your Trial Membership is automatically converted into a full Membership, You will be obligated to pay ISM at the Membership rate posted on the website at the time of automatic enrollment. See isminc.com/membership—Silver and Platinum dues are stated and Gold dues are calculated by inputting Your operating budget in the calculator. A Trial Membership converted into a full Membership can only be cancelled or terminated as set forth in Section 3 above.


text:
North-South Greenway Gap Closure
The North-South Greenway Gap Closure Project is part of a regional effort to create a more extensive non-motorized transportation network in Marin County. It closes a key pedestrian and cyclist gap between the Central Marin Ferry Connector and the existing multi-use paths at the intersection of Old Redwood Highway and Wornum Drive.
The first phase of the North-South Greenway Gap Closure Project replaces the existing 4-foot-wide sidewalk along the US-101 northbound off-ramp with a 12-foot-wide multi-use pathway/bridge over Corte Madera Creek. This first phase, managed by Caltrans and built by Disney Construction, begins on the north side of Corte Madera Creek, at the touchdown of the Central Marin Ferry Connector (CMFC) Bridge and ends on Old Redwood Highway in Larkspur. Construction of the new multiuse path/bridge started in February 2021, the path was partially opened in March 2022 and will be complete in summer 2022.
The second phase, to be managed by the City of Larkspur, will continue the 12-foot-wide pathway along Old Redwood Highway to the Greenbrae Pedestrian Overcrossing on the east side of US-101. Construction of phase two is expected to begin in the spring of 2023.
View the project factsheet, and view the project website for construction photos and further details.
The project is funded using Regional Measure 2 funding, which is a result of the 2004 voter-approved $1.00 toll increase of the seven state-owned toll bridges in the San Francisco Bay Area. The funds were redirected from the abandoned Greenbrae Interchange project.
Additional funds have been added to the project including, Transportation Fund for Clean Air (TFCA), Transportation Development Act (TDA) and Senate Bill 1 funds.
View construction photos on the project website.
Southern Segment
Path will be along the railroad tracks
Northern Segment
Improvements will be made to the walkway
Bill Whitney
Principal Project Delivery Manager, TAM
bwhitney@tam.ca.gov


text:
You are at:Home » News & Analysis » Google » 5 Ways the Google Logo Has Changed Over Its 20-Year History
5 Ways the Google Logo Has Changed Over Its 20-Year History
By Samuel Caverly on	 March 14, 2018 Google
The Google logo is probably as powerful as the search engine brand itself. According to a Forbes article, Google was second only to Lego in worldwide brand strength in 2017. Google's logo history started in 1997 with a beta version that was quickly updated. Google has adjusted and developed the logo throughout the years, with many of the changes remaining unannounced. Today we have the Google logo, its colorless version, favicon, dots, temporary and interactive doodles.
Here are the 5 major changes in Google's logo over the past 20 years you should learn about:
1. From Beta to Brand: The First Official Logo
Google began as a research project developed by two PhD students. Sergey Brin created a beta logo using an online free platform called GIMP. The old Google logo had a 90's vibe that would generally be considered ugly by today's stanards.
The first official version of the logo was created in 1998 and had a slightly different mix of colors than the logo in use today. The first "G"and the "L"were both green. The logo included primary colors in a slightly different combination and with a slight 3D shadowing. This version was in use for only one month, however, it stands out as being the first official logo and still largely resembles the one you are familiar with.
2. Two-in-One: The Color Change
In September of 1998, the green "G" at the beginning was replaced by blue. The 3D effect on the letters also became more visible, but there was no change in the font.
This Google logo also featured an exclamation point at the end. The punctuation discreetly disappeared in May, 1999 due to its resemblance with the branding of Google's primary competitor—Yahoo! If you're nostalgic and want to see the old logo, there is an official Google archive that takes you back to those years.
3. Premium Simplicity: The Longest Serving Logo
The unannounced logo change which eliminated the exclamation point was essential to the logo history. Google used the logo for one year. However—sans punctuation—that logo remained the basis of the company's visual branding until 2015.
In the next iteration, the 3D shadowing was even more subtle, and the logo simplified. This placed the search engine among premium brands who aim to be recognizable above all. By now, Google letter edges were completely round and friendly.
4. Most Significant: Google Going Flat
The search engine updated its classic typeface into a custom font for about two years. Graphic designers completely removed shadows and 3D effects. The logo also featured some small typographic changes, such as a straight line from the e letter.
This was simplicity taken even further. Google had no reason to stand out, but it aimed to be closer to its users. This update was a simple revision before the official new logo. However, it paved the way to images that look familiar and logos that people easily remember.
5. Official Rebranding: 2015 to Present
Google introduced the public to an entirely new typeface in September of 2015. The company developed the Product Sans geometric font in-house and spruced up the logo with a modern appearance. The new logo contained rounded letters and more subtle colors. Back then, Google officials stated that this change was meant to make navigation easier and simpler from multiple devices. It was not all about PCs any more.
Google's first proprietary font is also in use for Alphabet—the corporate brand of Google. Colors now seem connected instead of being in contrast. You now see this logo every time you open the search engine. This logo is also used in a colorless version as a background for some Google Doodles.
Google Visual Branding
Google is working hard to be among the top global brands that people are familiar with. The company developed its brand extension products by inserting elements of the logo and making their connection to Google visible. Google Drive, Google Wallet, Google Maps and Gmail are only a few of the many services and products this "search engine company" now additionally has to offer.
The Google logo is not visible every day in its pure form. On many days, you will wake up to find an interactive Google Doodle in its place. Visual branding is not limited to logos anymore, so creativity has fewer boundaries, but it will always be important for brands to establish a strong and easily-recognized visual identity.
Previous ArticleCisco: Driving Diversity Where It Counts
Next Article Intel Steps Up Further to Fix Spectre / Meltdown Vulnerabilities
Samuel Caverly
Tulsi Gabbard May Have Just Killed Social Media
Is Apple Evil? You Betcha!
Developers Can Rejoice In Google Victory Against Oracle
Abdulaziz on September 1, 2018 9:23 am
Evolution of Logo Google History
https://www.toevolution.com/blogs/2591-evolution-of-logo-google-history
Srujan on September 26, 2018 8:44 pm
Happy birth day google
Abhijit on September 26, 2018 11:24 pm
I know a app, a app
that app could not compare with other app
that is GOOGLE app
WISH YOU A HAPPY BIRTHDAY
nikhil rajanhire on September 27, 2018 3:57 am
Happy birthday google
Gerd Wangestad on September 27, 2018 7:32 am
How do I get back to the gmail as it was before??? The new one is hopeless. This is probably not the right place to give my complain, but I need to know how to get the old one. Can someone help me??
Misty Sanders on September 28, 2018 3:49 am
Happy birthday Google.
Gordon Daunt-Jones on September 28, 2018 10:14 am
I don't know what you clowns have done to my email account but I cannot access it any more. Please remedy.
Tony Bradley on September 28, 2018 12:19 pm
Um. We are not Google and we don't host your email. Feel free to address your complaint to your email provider.
Thokozani on November 1, 2018 7:04 am
GOOD LOGO
Jimmy nielsen on November 14, 2018 5:11 pm
I have retired , but my business phone # has been unindated with non stop robo calls .
Please stop all contact it's become rude and intrusive
How many times do you have to call from fake phone# Jesus
Tony Bradley on November 14, 2018 5:19 pm
Um. I have ZERO clue what you're talking about. This website does not call anyone–robocall or otherwise. I'm sorry you get a lot of robocalls. Welcome to the party. It's part of owning a phone these days. I probably get 10+ a day that I ignore and blocking the number(s) has no effect whatsoever.
Bashir yahaya muhammad on November 20, 2018 4:23 am
I am sorry to say happy birth day to Google
Nila on December 26, 2018 12:35 am
khirul on December 26, 2018 3:09 am
happy birthday google, long live every google member


A retelling, set in the Old West, of the traditional story about two elves that help a poor bootmaker and his wife.
The Boy Who Changed the World chronicles the influences that affected the life of Norman Borlaug, a man who would grow up and use his knowledge of agriculture to save the lives of two billion people. The influences include the lives of other people, including former Vice President, Henry Wallace; George Washington Carver; and Moses Carver, his father. The theme of the book is that the things we do are important and that they can actually change the world for the better.
Victoria and Sam are forced to share or distribute a limited number of cookies. Each time the doorbell rings, more friends arrive and the children face a cookie scarcity problem.
Big Bear, Rabbit, and other animals work hard to produce a newspaper for their own neighborhood. They divide up the labor to write, edit, and print a variety of stories.
This is the touching story of a boy's relationship with a tree, and how the tree provides for him throughout his life.
The story describes the journey of a one-dollar bill as it changes hands. Special information about our paper money is included on each page.
Geraldine is a goat. Her "friend" and owner, Glenmae, is a skilled Navajo weaver. One day, Glenmae decides to weave Geraldine into a rug! First Glenmae clips off Geraldine's wool. Then she spins it into yarn, dyes it, and weaves the wool on her loom. In this cleverly-written story narrated by Geraldine herself, students learn how natural and other resources are combined to produce a beautiful and unique rug.
An African version of the familiar story, Caps for Sale. In this story, a man encounters difficulty from a group of mischievous monkeys on his way to the festival to sell his hats. Through this difficult situation, he learns an important life lesson.
This book is the complete kids' guide to starting a business. There are eight great case studies on Kids in Business. Useful pointers are given on starting a business, choosing the right type of business, costs, advertising, and staying in business.
Ants may be small in size, but they are mighty in how hard they work! Learn all about ants and ant colonies in this colorful, fact-filled, cartoon-like book. A Journey's Selection. Interested in using this resource in your classroom?


The Internet of Things (IoT) is likely to be the next big thing, a disruptive technological step that will change the way in which we live and work, perhaps as fundamentally as the 'traditional' Internet did. No surprise then that everyone wants a slice of that pie and that there is a lot of 'noise' out there. This is so despite the fact that to a large extent we're not really sure about what the term 'Internet of Things' means – my colleague Mark Webber explores this question in his recent blog. Whatever the IoT is or is going to become, one thing is certain: it is all about the data.
There is also no doubt that the IoT triggers challenging legal issues that businesses, lawyers, legislators and regulators need to get their heads around in the months and years to come. Mark discusses these challenges in the second part of his blog (here), where he considers the regulatory outlook and briefly discusses the recent Article 29 Working Party Opinion on the Internet of Things.


text:
Q: условие на toggle в unity Как сделать условие на UI объект toggle? То есть если is on равняется true, выполнять определённое действие. Много искал в интернете, но ничего не нашёл.

A: Что бы получить у Toggle доступ к is On используй myTogle.isOn.
Пример:
    public Toggle toggle;

    private void Update()
    {
        if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.Space))
        {
            CheckToogle();
        }
    }

    private void CheckToogle()
    {
        Debug.Log(toggle.isOn);
    }

(не забудь присвоить toggle в инспекторе или получив на на него ссылку в Awake или Start.)
Что бы при изменении состояния isOn происходило какое то действие - подпиши необходимый метод на событие onValueChanged одним из двух способов.
Первый - кодом. Сигнатура метода должна быть соблюдена следующим образом - метод должен ни чего не возвращать, а на вход принимать bool.
Пример:
    public Toggle toggle;

    private void Start()
    {
        toggle.onValueChanged.AddListener(SomeVoid);
    }

    public void SomeVoid(bool isOn)
    {
        Debug.Log(toggle.isOn);
    }

Второй способ - привязать необходимый метод в инспекторе.
У компонента Toggle нажать "+" внизу, в поле On Value Changed. Перенести в "Object" объект, на котором висит скрипт, который будет обрабатывать событие и в выпадающем списке выбрать необходимую функцию:


text:
Home » Risk management vital amid low farm returns
Risk management vital amid low farm returns
Photo: Adobe stock
By Ron Sterk
ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA, U.S. — U.S. farmers have seen a return on assets of less than 2% annually for the past five years, creating uncertainty and raising the need to manage risk, a panel of speakers said Aug. 5 at the International Sweetener Symposium, sponsored by the American Sugar Alliance.
The average rate of return for U.S. farmers is 1.3% this year, marking the fifth straight year of returns below 2%, said John Newton, PhD, chief economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). Returns this low create challenges for agriculture — from keeping pace with rising input costs to repaying operating loans — and the impact ripples throughout the rural economy, he said.
"Commercial debt in agriculture is at record highs, loan delinquency rates are rising and Chapter 12 bankruptcies have increased sharply," Newton said. "Some major lenders are reducing their exposure to agricultural loans and reducing lending volumes."
Brian Cavey, senior vice-president of government affairs for CoBank, told the group his bank continues to be a major agricultural lender, with 100% of its business focused on farm credit, agribusiness lending and rural infrastructure, but agreed current tailwinds in the rural economy were troubling.
"Right now, the name of the game is managing risk and uncertainty," Cavey said.
This kind of environment necessitates strong farm policies to give lenders confidence that loans will be repaid in a timely manner. Protecting crop insurance and opposing cuts to the farm safety net are top priorities for CoBank, he said.
The National Farmers Union (NFU), like CoBank and the AFBF, was another vocal supporter of sugar policy during the 2018 farm bill.
Roger Johnson, president of the NFU, explained to the group that keeping sugar policy strong will be key to weathering the current storm for the sugar industry. He noted that total net farm income had dropped 49% since 2013, and that the median farm income was projected to be negative $1,449 in 2019.
Farmers are facing an uncertain future because of low commodity prices and the impact of trade disputes and need the long-term predictability of strong farm policy, the speakers said.
Newton noted that countries involved in trade disputes with the United States, especially China, which announced further actions on Aug. 5, retaliated against agriculture because that was the segment with a positive U.S. trade balance. The United States had an $891 billion trade deficit in goods during 2018, including a $43 billion deficit with China and a $40 billion deficit with the European Union.
After 39 consecutive quarters of GDP growth, the United States was "using our position as the world's largest economy to get better (trade) deals," Newton said, adding that while the United States will collect billions in tariffs, it may have a drag on the macro economy.
Johnson of the NFU said the U.S.-China trade war was like "two titans fighting. There's going to be some blood on the floor. We're going to pay for this for a long, long time."
As a result, the government's Market Facilitation Programs, which pays farmers various amounts for losses caused by retaliatory tariffs, are "absolutely need," Johnson said, suggesting the current program may not be the last since 2020 is an election year.
Business Trends Trade
U.S. farmers better poised to weather low returns
CGC to create grain risk management tools for exporters
Corn starch manufacturers participate in risk management course
IGP sends staff member to Asia to teach risk management
KSU, IGP set risk management courses for August