text:
R.C. Rocco de Campos Pereira public CV
R.C. Rocco de Campos Pereira
Dr., Msc. , Ir., Associate Professor of Spatial Planning and Strategy
Associate Professor, Architecture and the Built Environment, Spatial Planning and Strategy
Julianalaan 134, Architecture and the Built Environment
2628BL Delft
1 Dissertation (TU Delft)
The New Urban Normal: Urban Sustainability and Resilience Post COVID-19: TU Delt Urban Thinkers Campus June/July 2020
Rocco, R., Newton, C. E. L., Vergara d'Alençon, L. M., Tempels Moreno Pessôa, I. & van der Watt, A., 10 Jan 2021, 1 ed. Delft: Delft University of Technology. 75 p.
Research output: Book/Report › Book › Professional
Cohesion Policy and the citizens' perceptions of the EU: the role of communication and implementation
Dąbrowski, M., Spaans, M., Fernandez-Maldonado, A. M. & Rocco, R., 2020, In : European Planning Studies. 13 p., 021006.
group cohesion
Education for the resilient city – teaching and learning urban design and planning in COVID-19 times
Rooij, R. M., Rocco, R., Hausleitner, B., Newton, C. E. L. & Aalbers, K. P. M., 2020, In : Proceedings of the ICE - Urban Design and Planning. 173, 4, p. 119-124 6 p., 2000052.
Edutainment: Role-Playing versus Serious Gaming in Planning Education
Rocco, R. & Pojani, D., 2 Feb 2020, In : Journal of Planning Education and Research. p. 1-13 13 p.
Text and image: The relationship between text and image in research
Rocco, R., 2020, Inzicht: Academische vaardigheden voor bouwkundigen 2020-2021_Q1. Hoekstra, M., Lousberg, L., Rooij, R., Wilms Floet, W. & Zijlstra, S. (eds.). Delft University of Technology, p. 141-153 13 p.
Research Practice
Briefing: Professor Vincent Nadin's decade of spatial planning and strategy at TU Delft
Rooij, R., Rocco, R. & Bracken, G., 2019, In : Proceedings of the ICE - Urban Design and Planning. 172, 6, p. 215-218 4 p.
planning instrument
Celebrating Spatial Planning at TU Delft 2009-2019: Summary of achievements of the Spatial Planning and Strategy section of the Department of Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. Delft University of Technology.
Rocco, R. (ed.), Rooij, R. (ed.), Stead, D. (ed.) & Bracken, G. (ed.), 2019, Delft: BK Books. 122 p.
Research output: Book/Report › Book editing › Professional
Characterization of Spatial Planning in Brazil: The Right to the City in Theory and Practice
Rocco, R., Royer, L. & Mariz Gonçalves, F., 2019, In : Planning Practice and Research. 34, 4: Practice Forum Special Theme, p. 419-437 19 p.
Education for Water Resilient Cities: A one-day symposium for teachers and students for the City We Need
Rocco, R. (ed.), Hooimeijer, F., Kuzniecow Bacchin, T., Aalbers, K., Brand, N., Goldsmith, S., Smolders, B., Bijlsma, I., Chang, B. & Forrest, S., 8 Mar 2019, Delft: Delft University of Technology. 32 p. (Education for the City We Need; vol. 1, no. 1)
Research output: Book/Report › Report › Professional
Introduction to Special Theme Practice Forum: Latin American Spatial Planning beyond Clichés
Rocco, R. (ed.), 2019, In : Planning Practice and Research. 34, 4, p. 365-367 3 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Editorial › Scientific
policy on property
Planning Students' Conceptions of Research
Pojani, D., Kimpton, A. & Rocco, R., 13 Nov 2019, In : Journal of Planning Education and Research. p. 1-14 14 p.
planning research
Rethinking Planning Education using Massive Open Online Courses:the Case of Rethink the City
Tempels Moreno Pessoa, I., Vergara d'Alençon, L., Korthals Altes, W. & Rocco, R., 2019, In : Transactions of the Association of European Schools of Planning. 3, 1, p. 72-84
Urban projects in areas near river fronts in transformation neighborhoods: An exercise for the region of CEAGESP, São Paulo
Abascal, E. E. (ed.), Rocco, R. (ed.) & Borges, H. (ed.), 2019, Sao Paulo: Editora Mackenzie. 188 p.
Water Resilience: Creative Practices – Past, Present, and Future
Hein, C. (ed.), Mager, T. (ed.) & Rocco, R. (ed.), 2019, In : European Journal of Creative Practices in Cities and Landscapes (CPCL). 2, 1, 209 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Special issue › Scientific › peer-review
Water Resilience: Creative Practices Past, Present and Future
Hein, C., Mager, T. & Rocco, R., 2019, In : European Journal of Creative Practices in Cities and Landscapes (CPCL). 2, 1, p. 1-10
Research output: Contribution to journal › Editorial › Scientific › peer-review
Human History
African Perspectives PrepCon, Addis Ababa, 25-27 Jan 2018: Executive Report
Rocco, R. & Keeton, R., 16 Mar 2018, Delft: Delft University of Technology. 24 p.
Research output: Book/Report › Report › Scientific
Cities and Citizenship in Latin America and the Caribbean: Conference Proceedings NALACS Conference 16-17 June 2016, TU Delft
Rocco, R. (ed.) & da Silva, S. (ed.), 2018, Delft University of Technology. 184 p.
Research output: Book/Report › Book editing › Scientific › peer-review
Cohesion policy implementation, performance and communication: Flevoland Province, The Netherlands
Fernandez Maldonado, A. M., Rocco, R., Dabrowski, M., Spaans, M. & Zonneveld, W., 30 Apr 2018, Delft University of Technology. 66 p.
Cohesion policy implementation, performance and communication: Limburg Province, The Netherlands
Spaans, M., Fernandez Maldonado, A. M., Rocco, R. & Dabrowski, M., 30 Apr 2018, Delft University of Technology. 60 p.
Confronting Informality: Preserving communities and creating public goods in informal settlements
Rocco, R. (ed.), 2018, Delft: Delft University of Technology. 286 p.
Diversity at the Department of Urbanism of the TU Delft: Results of the Workshop held on July 3rd 2018 at the Department of Urbanism of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft.
Rocco, R., 22 Nov 2018, Delft: Delft University of Technology. 10 p.
economic trend
cultural difference
Jane Jacobs is still here: Proceedings of the Conference Jane Jacobs 100: her legacy and relevance in the 21st century
Rocco, R. (ed.), 2018, Delft. 284 p.
twenty first century
Learning from Darwin: What can the man who wrote 'The Origin of Species' teach us about a scientific attitude & academic writing skills?
Rocco, R., 2018, Delft University of Technology. 12 p.
Text Structure
Linking Cohesion Policy and Citizens' Identification with the EU in Regions: Between Opportunism and Euroscepticism in the Netherlands
Fernandez Maldonado, A. M., Spaans, M., Dabrowski, M. & Rocco, R., 2018, Annual Conference Regional Studies Association 2018: A Leading and Impactful Community.
opportunism
Summer School Planning and Design with Water 2017 Final report
Rocco, R., 20 Feb 2018, Spatial Planning and Strategy, TU Delft. 316 p.
Research output: Book/Report › Report › Other research output
The great planning game: Exploring the variety of values and worldviews in planning
Rocco, R. & Rooij, R., 2018, Delft University of Technology. 14 p.
planning system
The political meaning of informal urbanization
Rocco, R. & Van Ballegooijen, J., 2018, The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization. Rocco, R. & van Ballegooijen, J. (eds.). Taylor & Francis, 10 p.
Power (Psychology)
The Routledge Handbook on Informal Urbanization
Rocco, R., 2018, London, New York: Routledge - Taylor & Francis Group. 320 p. (Routledge Handbooks)
TU Delft UTC 2017 Report: Education for the City We Need: Exploring how to integrate the UN-Habitat New Urban Agenda in higher education
international leading power
World Urban Forum: Education for the City We Need: Teaching the New Urban Agenda
education curriculum
Planning for Rights: Bewildered young planners in Brazil
Rocco, R., 2017, From Student to Urban Planner : Young Practitioners' Reflections on Contemporary Ethical Challenge. Taşan-Kok, T. & Oranje, M. (eds.). 1 ed. New York, London: Routledge - Taylor & Francis Group, p. 168-181 14 p.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Chapter › Professional
Towards sustainable territories-in-between: a multidimensional typology of open spaces in Europe
Wandl, A., Rooij, R. & Rocco, R., 2017, In : Planning Practice and Research. 32, 1, p. 55-84
Policy Frameworks for Energy Transition in England: Challenges in a Former Industrial City
Rocco, R., 2016, In : Journal of Settlements and Spatial Planning. 5 (Special Issue), p. 41-52
The Political Meaning of Informal Urbanisation
Rocco, R., 2016.
Research output: Contribution to conference › Other › Other research output
Emerging New Roles for Designers and Planners: Articulating Soft and Hard Infrastructures
Rocco, R., 2015, In : Atlantis. Oct 5-8, p. 5-8 4 p.
Future Perspectives for Development in the Global South
Rocco, R., 2015, In : Atlantis. p. 47-50 4 p.
Operating in Multi-Actor Contexts: Examples of Multi-Level and Networked Governance
Rocco, R., 2015
Research output: Non-textual form › Digital or Visual Products › Professional
Planning and design With Water: Summer School Spatial Planning and Strategy
Rocco, R., 22 Jul 2015
Research output: Non-textual form › Web publication/site › Professional
PLEEC: The Challenge for Urban Regeneration in Stoke-on-Trent
Rocco, R., 2015, Delft: Delft University of Technology. 69 p.
São Paulo: Global Metropolis of the South
Rocco, R., 2015, SMART Infrastructure & Mobility: Exploring Water, Mobility & Infrastructure in São Paulo. Piccinini, D., Rocco, C. & Bacchin, T. (eds.). Delft: Bouwkunde TU Delft, p. 13-16 4 p.
SMART Infrastructure & Mobility: Exploring Water, Mobility & Infrastructure in São Paulo
Piccinini, D. (ed.), Rocco, R. (ed.) & Kuzniecow Bacchin, T. (ed.), 2015, Delft: Bouwkunde TU Delft. 202 p.
water planning
social condition
Spatial Justice: Understanding the spatial dimensions of justice
The Political Meaning of Informal Urbanization: Cross-national comparisons on the political economy of informality
Rocco, R. & Ballegooien, J., 2015, AESOP: Definite Space, Fuzzy Responsibility. Praag: AESOP, p. 1-15 15 p.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volume › Conference contribution › Scientific › peer-review
Urban informality and democratisation in Sao Paulo: the sinous road to citizenship
Rocco, R. & Ballegooien, J., 2015, Proceedings of SLAS. Aberdeen: SLAS, p. 1-16 16 p.
Why do Metropolitan Innovators Need to Understand Complex Systems of Governance?
Why TU Delft must contribute to development in the Global South
Rocco, R., 2015, In : Atlantis. 25, p. 17-18 2 p.
Finding structural parameters for energy efficient cities
Read, SA., Mashayekhi, A. & Rocco, R., 2014, Proceedings AESOP 2014 annual conference "From control to co-evolution". s.n. (ed.). Amsterdam: AESOP, p. 1-16 16 p.
Management of the commons: a cross-cultural comparison on the Dutch and the English territorial management cultures
Rocco, R. & Delisser, S., 2014
Research output: Other contribution › Professional
Managing the workplace in a globalized world: The role of national culture in workplace management
Plijter, EB., van der Voordt, DJM. & Rocco, R., 2014, In : Facilities. 32, 13/14, p. 744-760 17 p.


Citation TETRAGONOTHECA HELIANTHOIDES Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 903. 1753.
Type: VIRGINIA: Without data, Clayton 97 (lectotype: BM). Lectotypified by Reveal, in C. E. Jarvis et al., Regnum Veg. 127: 93. 1993.
Highlands Lit Lit: B. L. Turner & D. Dawson, Sida 8: 300. 1980.
Liberty Lit Lit: B. L. Turner & D. Dawson, Sida 8: 300. 1980.
Gonotheca helianthoides Gonotheca helianthoides (Linnaeus) Rafinesque, Med. Repos., ser. 2. 5: 352. 1808. BASIONYM: Tetragonotheca helianthoides Linnaeus 1753.
Polymnia tetragonotheca Polymnia tetragonotheca Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 12. 576. 1767, nom. illegit. BASIONYM: Tetragonotheca helianthoides Linnaeus 1753.
USA Florida Alachua Co. 22 April 1989 R. Mears s.n.


text:
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When the name Suli Breaks is mentioned, one or all three of the following words spring to mind; charismatic, controversial and conscientious. Suli has been hailed by many high-profile individuals as a new-school pioneer. As the world's leading Spoken Word Artist, Suli Breaks creates powerful poetic presentations that give voice to organisations and help them tell their most powerful stories.
True poetry allows us to explore without restriction or restraint and artist, speaker and writer Suli Breaks takes audiences on a linguistic journey of discovery. Passionate about the written word, Suli aims to inspire and educate a generation.
With an (unused!) Law degree from Sheffield University, poetry addict Suli is an inspiration to all who meet him.
A lover of the written word, Suli is a visionary undaunted by the restrictions found in conventional poetry, leading him to push boundaries in a bid to inspire and inform a generation. An artist, speaker and writer, he is often considered an inspiration by those who have met, watched or listened to him.
Fuelled by his literary passions and by the lack of post-graduation jobs available, Suli's pursuit of a career in poetry was a protest at the deficiencies of the UK's formal education system.
Local venues and universities were his platform for five years, and solidified his fan base. Through social media he spread his work across the globe and has found fans of every generation, creed and nationality.
Suli's achievements were built on the unprecedented success of spoken word piece 'Why I Hate School But Love Education'. With coverage on the BBC; a DVD and success at competitions, the piece has been seen by an audience of over 7 million – to overwhelmingly positive acclaim.
He has been featured in the Huffington Post, Washington Post, the Guardian, The independent, and has taken the stage as a guest speaker at numerous events around the world, and has become a hit on websites such as Worldstarhiphop and Upworthy.com.
Since his fame has only grown through his performance at TED Global and his series of stories on the app Oolipo which tells stories of adolescence in London.
Inspiring the world, Suli is the perfect spoken word artist to empower and inspire an audience.
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Suli Breaks Spoken Word Performance
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Hags with Attitude – For women of a certain age…..
For women of a certain age…..
Welcome to all hags with attitude!
The title of the blog reflects the philosophy that will underpin everything you will read here. It is aimed at women with strong opinions and passion who have lived, loved, lost, travelled, raised a family or not, managed companies, held senior positions and possibly still do some or all of these at the moment.
Life is also about change and as women of a certain age some of the changes we face include decisions about whether to retire, start a new company, pursue dreams we have never had the time to realise or to completely reinvent ourselves. Whatever changes and decisions we face, the attitude with which we approach it will determine to a large extent what the outcome is likely to be.
This blog is therefore for women interested in reading the stories of inspirational women who have gone before, updates on current research about that which is of interest and relevance to us, top tips from various experts and above all, a place to find solace when needed. You can expect to be challenged, informed and inspired and read how all of this might apply to women who represent the rich cultural diversity of our world.
My own life experiences have been underpinned by a passion for people and found expression in many years as a coach and an academic. Many of the topics I will introduce will therefore be viewed and discussed through the lens of my experiences of people from all walks of life.
Join us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/hagswithattitude/ for in depth discussions of the various posts and the sharing of personal experiences.
Please feel free to contact me direct via email, angelique@hagswithattitude.com, with comments, ideas and suggestions.


A longitudinal sampling design was utilized to sample the wastewater effluent and surface-water sites upstream and downstream from the effluent discharge in each receiving water. The upstream sample provides information about contaminants originating from sources other than the WWTP of interest, and the downstream sample provides information about contributions of contaminants from the wastewater effluent.
This study was designed to use chemical and biological measures to assess the presence and effects of EACs and pharmaceuticals in Minnesota WWTP effluents and receiving waters. Chemical analyses and in-vitro and in-vivo (estrogenicity) bioassays were used because each method has advantages and disadvantages addressing different questions. In this study, chemical data for EACs and other contaminants indicative of anthropogenic influence provided quantitative measures of the effects of WWTP effluents and land use on Minnesota surface waters. In-vitro cellular assays provide a method to measure the "total estrogenicity" of an aquatic environment, and in-vivo caged fish experiments provide a method to measure whole-organism responses.
Twenty-five WWTPs (and associated receiving streams) were selected (map | site list). Wastewater-treatment plants were selected to include continuous flow and periodic release facilities with differing processing steps (activated sludge or trickling filters) and plant design flows ranging from 0.002 to 10.9 cubic meters per second (0.04 to 251 million gallons per day) throughout Minnesota in varying land-use settings.
The U.S. Geological Survey collected water samples from the treated effluent of the 25 wastewater-treatment plants and at one point upstream from and one point downstream from wastewater-treatment plant effluent discharges. Bed-sediment samples also were collected at each of the stream or lake locations. Collection occurred from September through November 2009.
Streamflow was measured at each stream site following USGS protocols. Basic water-quality properties (dissolved oxygen, pH, specific conductance, temperature, and turbidity) were measured at each site using a submersible YSI (Yellow Springs Instruments) data sonde (Yellow Springs, Ohio). Tracer studies using rhodamine WT dye (20-percent active ingredient, Ben Meadows®, Janesville, Wisc.) were performed at selected WWTPs.
Water samples were analyzed for major ions, nutrients, trace elements, pharmaceuticals, phytoestrogens and pharmaceuticals, alkylphenols and other neutral organic chemicals, carboxylic acids, and steroidal hormones (list of chemicals). A subset (25 samples) of the bed-sediment samples were analyzed for carbon, wastewater-indicator chemicals, and steroidal hormones; the remaining samples were archived.
Biological characteristics were determined by using an in-vitro bioassay to determine total estrogenicity in water samples and a caged fish study to determine characteristics of fish from experiments that exposed fish to wastewater effluent in 2009. St. Cloud State University deployed and processed caged fathead minnows at 13 stream sites during September 2009 for the caged fish study. Measured fish data included length, weight, body condition factor, and vitellogenin concentrations.


Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) reported better than expected earnings and revenues for the fourth quarter, helped by strong performance by the core business segments. Meanwhile, shares of the aerospace giant declined after its full-year guidance fell short of expectations.
During the quarter, adjusted net profit jumped to $851 million or $4.93 per share from $266 million or $1.52 per share in the year-ago quarter, and exceeded Wall Street estimates. Reported earnings, which includes costs related to pension and other postretirement benefits, were $2.06 per share, down 46% from $3.83 per share recorded in the fourth quarter of 2017.
The earnings growth was driven by a 24% growth in sales to $8.16 billion, which also came in above the market's expectations. Contributing to the top-line growth, sales of Aerospace Systems and Mission Systems rose 6% and 2% respectively, which was partially offset by an 8% decline in Technology Services.
The year-over-year improvement is also attributable to contributions from Orbital ATK, which was acquired by the company last year and renamed as Innovation Systems.
Looking ahead, the management expects full-year 2019 adjusted earnings in the range of $18.50 per share to $19.00 per share and free cash flow between $2.6 billion and $3.0 billion. Sales are expected to be about $34 billion. Analysts, however, look for better full-year numbers, especially in the wake of the federal government proposing a hike in defense spending.
Rival defense contractor Lockheed Martin (LMT) recovered from a loss in the December quarter and reported earnings of $4.39 per share. Net sales rose 4.1% to $14.4 billion and surpassed estimates.
After hitting a record high nearly a year ago, Northrop shares remained in a downward spiral throughout 2018. The stock had a positive start to 2019 and recouped some of the recent losses. It traded lower during Thursday's session.


And also this summer has passed and it was great! Lots of little trips and lots of different food: from home made dishes in Costa Brava with some tapas here and there, to the amazing food in the mountains, with polenta and nice cakes, to greek dishes in the Cyclades Islands, with lots of fish and the fantastic yogurt to finally the aperivi in Turin and Milan, where I was for work but where I have enjoyed a lot the nights too.
So now let's come back to the reality and let's check the weight!!!! That was my worst nightmare during the summer…but still it didn't stop me from eating and enjoying the holidays.
Now it's time to take back a bit of the classic routine also in the kitchen, with salad for lunch and meat or fish with vegatable for dinner! Yes I need it! Some depuration it's always good at some point, especially if in these monts the weight went a bit up and down!
Before to leave for the holidays I arrived to loose 6 kilos, but coming back from Greece I had 2 kilos more and the work trip in Turin and Milan wasn't exactly what I was looking for to comeback in track.
Instead also with aperitif and having light lunches out, it seems I could loose again my 2 kilos… And this is weird! Maybe it happened for the amount of work I had to do and a bit of rush and stress that finally help to burn calories! Or is it just the effect of a missing fisical activity that make my mussels weight less??


What you DO matters most but what you SAY matters as well!
This road we were traveling on has what seems like one thousand traffic lights – accompanied by about as many crazy drivers. Sure enough, a person pulled out right in front of me and nearly caused an accident. "Stupid driver!" I exclaimed.
Any parent knows what happened next.
It is important to do what you say. If not, well, they call that hypocrisy.
Spend the next day listening to what you are saying – record your conversations if you need to.
Am I saying what matters most?
Am I communicating clearly to others?
Am I modeling "doing" what I'm "saying"?


Volume 3, Edition 35	 Trouble loading? View this email online.
A business proposal for a new a way of delivering a healthy mix of probiotics and electrolytes while at the same time battling malnutrition and dehydration in children around the world took the top prize in the Bull Ring — CSUN's version of Shark Tank. Bull Ring was introduced by the David Nazarian College of Business and Economics.
One of the jewels in the crown of CSUN's Department of Music is its opera program, having produced luminaries such as Carol Vaness and Michelle DeYoung. But the program's first star — and one of the university's first musical luminaries — was Shigemi Matsumoto '68 (Music).
CSUN physical therapy students who were recipients of scholarships from a partnership between the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation and the Roy and Roxie Campanella Foundation gave a helping hand on April 20 to middle school students at Elysian Park in the shadow of Dodger Stadium. And then on April 27, the CSUN students were recognized on the field at Dodger Stadium in a pregame ceremony.
VPAC welcomes a long-sought dream: Broadway in the heart of the Valley! This tale of Motown's rhythm and blues magic is the whole nine yards: sparkling song and dance, sophisticated staging and show-stopping performances.
Fri, May 6, 3 p.m.
Get to Matador Field early as AM 570 radio personality Petros Papadakis throws out the first pitch in a pregame ceremony featuring CSUN broadcaster and longtime Dodger announcer Ross Porter. Then watch the Matadors take on Big West rival Cal Poly in the first of a three-game weekend series. Make sure to wear red, as Red Rally prizes and promotions will be available at the game.
The exhibition showcases the work of graduate students earning a master's degree in either art or fine arts. The works featured include sculpture, painting, photography, digital video, ceramics and illustration.
The CSUN Alumni Association and Matador Athletics invite you, your friends and family to meet and greet other loyal Matador supporters at Alumni Fan Day. Members of the 1996 CSUN baseball team will be in attendance to cheer on the next generation of Matadors as they take on Cal Poly.
The Nursing Alumni Chapter will be celebrating Marty Highfield along with Nurses Week and the 10th anniversary of the ABSN program.
Join the CSUN Alumni Association and LACI@CSUN on campus at the Breakthrough Breakfast Series event on May 10: Intellectual Property - Necessary Evil or Just Evil. The featured speaker is Robert Hamilton, co-founder and chief science officer of Neural Analytics.
Before starting a four-show run at the Valley Performing Arts Center, Dreamgirls star Moya Angela took center stage by home plate before a Dodger game to sing a powerful rendition of the national anthem.
CSUN hosted panelists including Porter Ranch neighborhood representatives, advocacy group members, politicians and environmentalists to discuss the clean-up efforts and long-term effects of the Porter Ranch gas leak.


Join in the fun at this year's 10th Annual Camp Sunshine Pumpkin Festival at L.L. Bean on Saturday October 27, 2012! The festival begins at 12pm and will run until 8pm with thousands of lit jack-o-lanterns for all to see.
This year's festival will have face painting, children's activities, good tunes, great food and a "spooktacular" pumpkin display for all to see. With 10,000 pumpkins being carved and displayed, it bound to be a "gourd" time!
ReVision Energy staffers will be competing in the Corporate Carving Challenge, where our team will be challenged with carving as many pumpkins as we can within 10 minutes. Want to see how ReVision staffers hold up when put to the press? Come out to the Festival!


Raymond and Vincent L. Riso with a photograph of their grandfather, Luigi Riso.
An antique picture of Luigi Riso sits in his grandson Raymond's office in Bayside. The mustached Riso is well-dressed in the fading photo. Riso, an Italian immigrant who came to New York by way of Argentina, was working as a carpenter when he started L. Riso & Sons Co. Inc. in 1912.
His sons, Vincent and Dominic, took over the company in the late 1920s and built a housing development in Jackson Heights which still stands today.
A 1927 photo of the building, with Vincent and Dominic standing in front, hangs in the conference room at the Briarwood Organization's office – the company that grew from L. Riso & Sons – among pictures and drawings of the buildings that have come since.
The Briarwood Organization is celebrating 100 years in business that includes a storied past and still has the family dynamic it did when Luigi Riso started the company in the early 1900s.
Today the company is run by four partners: Luigi's grandsons and Vincent's sons, Vincent L. and Raymond Riso; Raymond's son James; and Howard Goodman, who is regarded as a brother by the Riso brothers. The company not only does general contracting, but consults, manages, develops and does joint ventures.
The walls of the office, located in Bayside at 36-35 Bell Boulevard, can tell a story of the company alone. There are plaques for various awards and photos of buildings that the partners have tried to make affordable to residents of communities throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and most of all, Queens.
Like many other companies, the organization bloomed in the 1920s, including the housing development in Jackson Heights. "They did quite well," said Vincent L. Riso.
And like countless others, the company took a hit during the Great Depression, but bounced back after World War II.
When the current generation took over in the late 1960s, buildings began to spring up like the company had never seen before – many of which are now fixtures on Bell Boulevard in Bayside, where Vincent L. and Raymond Riso grew up.
These buildings include The Atrium at 38-46, which was constructed in the late 1960s – a second floor added a few years later – and is now home to Tiger Schulman karate and several other businesses.
In total, according to the company's web site, the Briarwood Organization has received 16 awards from the Queens Chamber of Commerce — the most recent in 2001.
The mortar that keeps the bricks of the company together is more than just cement and a good work ethic — it's family.
The Riso brothers said they've known and worked with Goodman for close to 45 years and he currently works as a designer and planner for the company. His buildings, they said, are not only aesthetically appealing, but are managed well for space.
"We've worked together so long, he's like family," Vincent L. Riso said.
The legacy of the company is not, however, just laid out in the foundation of its buildings across most of New York City. The partners are actively involved in many community organizations, including St. Mary's Healthcare System for Children, where Vincent L. Riso sits on the Board of Directors.
Raymond Riso said his son started out volunteering in the kitchen at St. Mary's while he was a student at Holy Cross High School. He said his son became so popular with the children there that, "Everytime he came in they would crowd around him," said the father of four and grandfather of nine.
Jeff Frerichs, president and CEO of St. Mary's, complimented the company's service to the community and particularly the hospital.
Other times, Briarwood members have mixed their dedication to the public with its construction of more than 3,500 housing units. Many housing units they have constructed, the Riso brothers said, were designed to be affordable housing for people to continue to live in New York City.
These efforts, they said, have tried to raise more depressed areas back up and recreate once-thriving communities.
Today Briarwood is still building up areas, and has a keen eye on the future.
They are currently working on Briarwood Plaza II at 36-29 Bell Boulevard. The project is expected to be completed by the spring of 2013, Vincent L. Riso said, and will house businesses and medical offices.
James Riso is working on two projects in Brooklyn — one will be for the Brooklyn Diocese.
Overall, they said they would like to continue to grow and develop homes that people can afford, and are great places to live.
"I hope to see us expand our operations and go into the future with more and more rental properties, especially for lower-income people," Vincent L. Riso said.
The key to staying strong, the partners believe, is staying positive no matter how hard or trying the economic times.
L. Riso & Sons Co. Inc.


Saturday my buddy Dan (Bicycle With A View) and I took a ride to Gooch's Beach in Kennebunk to photograph the sunrise. Here are a couple of my favorite photos from the morning. Check out Dan's site to see a different set of views.
Lovely sunrise! And the wading gull is a great shot, too.


text:
package org.apache.ignite.internal.processors.continuous;

import org.apache.ignite.*;
import org.apache.ignite.cluster.*;
import org.apache.ignite.configuration.*;
import org.apache.ignite.internal.util.*;
import org.apache.ignite.internal.util.typedef.*;
import org.apache.ignite.lang.*;
import org.apache.ignite.messaging.*;
import org.apache.ignite.resources.*;
import org.apache.ignite.testframework.*;
import org.apache.ignite.testframework.junits.common.*;
import org.jetbrains.annotations.*;

import java.util.*;
import java.util.concurrent.*;
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.*;

import static java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit.*;

/**
 * Message listen test.
 */
public class GridMessageListenSelfTest extends GridCommonAbstractTest {
    /** */
    private static final int GRID_CNT = 3;

    /** */
    private static final String INC_ATTR = "include";

    /** */
    private static final String MSG = "Message";

    /** */
    private static final String TOPIC = "Topic";

    /** */
    private static final int MSG_CNT = 3;

    /** */
    private static final String TOPIC_CLS_NAME = "org.apache.ignite.tests.p2p.GridTestMessageTopic";

    /** */
    private static final String LSNR_CLS_NAME = "org.apache.ignite.tests.p2p.GridTestMessageListener";

    /** */
    private static boolean include;

    /** */
    private static final List<UUID> allNodes = new ArrayList<>();

    /** */
    private static final List<UUID> rmtNodes = new ArrayList<>();

    /** */
    private static final List<UUID> incNodes = new ArrayList<>();

    /** */
    private static final Collection<UUID> nodes = new GridConcurrentHashSet<>();

    /** */
    private static final AtomicInteger cnt = new AtomicInteger();

    /** */
    private static CountDownLatch latch;

    /** {@inheritDoc} */
    @Override protected IgniteConfiguration getConfiguration(String gridName) throws Exception {
        IgniteConfiguration cfg = super.getConfiguration(gridName);

        if (include)
            cfg.setUserAttributes(F.asMap(INC_ATTR, true));

        return cfg;
    }

    /** {@inheritDoc} */
    @Override protected void beforeTest() throws Exception {
        nodes.clear();
        cnt.set(0);

        include = true;

        startGridsMultiThreaded(GRID_CNT - 1);

        include = false;

        Thread.sleep(500);

        startGrid(GRID_CNT - 1);

        allNodes.clear();
        rmtNodes.clear();
        incNodes.clear();

        for (int i = 0; i < GRID_CNT; i++) {
            UUID id = grid(i).localNode().id();

            allNodes.add(id);

            if (i != 0)
                rmtNodes.add(id);

            if (i != GRID_CNT - 1)
                incNodes.add(id);
        }

        Collections.sort(allNodes);
        Collections.sort(rmtNodes);
        Collections.sort(incNodes);
    }

    /** {@inheritDoc} */
    @Override protected void afterTest() throws Exception {
        stopAllGrids();
    }

    /**
     * @throws Exception If failed.
     */
    public void testNullTopic() throws Exception {
        latch = new CountDownLatch(MSG_CNT * GRID_CNT);

        listen(grid(0).cluster(), null, true);

        send();

        assert latch.await(2, SECONDS);

        Thread.sleep(500);

        assertEquals(MSG_CNT * GRID_CNT, cnt.get());

        checkNodes(allNodes);
    }

    /**
     * @throws Exception If failed.
     */
    public void testNonNullTopic() throws Exception {
        latch = new CountDownLatch(MSG_CNT * GRID_CNT);

        listen(grid(0).cluster(), null, true);

        send();

        assert latch.await(2, SECONDS);

        Thread.sleep(500);

        assertEquals(MSG_CNT * GRID_CNT, cnt.get());

        checkNodes(allNodes);
    }

    /**
     * @throws Exception If failed.
     */
    public void testStopListen() throws Exception {
        latch = new CountDownLatch(GRID_CNT);

        listen(grid(0).cluster(), null, false);

        send();

        assert latch.await(2, SECONDS);

        Thread.sleep(500);

        int expCnt = cnt.get();

        send();

        Thread.sleep(1000);

        assertEquals(expCnt, cnt.get());

        checkNodes(allNodes);
    }

    /**
     * @throws Exception If failed.
     */
    public void testProjection() throws Exception {
        latch = new CountDownLatch(MSG_CNT * (GRID_CNT - 1));

        listen(grid(0).cluster().forRemotes(), null, true);

        send();

        assert latch.await(2, SECONDS);

        Thread.sleep(500);

        assertEquals(MSG_CNT * (GRID_CNT - 1), cnt.get());

        checkNodes(rmtNodes);
    }

    /**
     * @throws Exception If failed.
     */
    public void testNodeJoin() throws Exception {
        latch = new CountDownLatch(MSG_CNT * (GRID_CNT + 1));

        listen(grid(0).cluster(), null, true);

        try {
            Ignite g = startGrid("anotherGrid");

            send();

            assert latch.await(2, SECONDS);

            Thread.sleep(500);

            assertEquals(MSG_CNT * (GRID_CNT + 1), cnt.get());

            List<UUID> allNodes0 = new ArrayList<>(allNodes);

            allNodes0.add(g.cluster().localNode().id());

            Collections.sort(allNodes0);

            checkNodes(allNodes0);
        }
        finally {
            stopGrid("anotherGrid");
        }
    }

    /**
     * @throws Exception If failed.
     */
    public void testNodeJoinWithProjection() throws Exception {
        latch = new CountDownLatch(MSG_CNT * GRID_CNT);

        listen(grid(0).cluster().forAttribute(INC_ATTR, null), null, true);

        try {
            include = true;

            Ignite g = startGrid("anotherGrid1");

            include = false;

            startGrid("anotherGrid2");

            send();

            assert latch.await(2, SECONDS);

            Thread.sleep(500);

            assertEquals(MSG_CNT * GRID_CNT, cnt.get());

            List<UUID> incNodes0 = new ArrayList<>(incNodes);

            incNodes0.add(g.cluster().localNode().id());

            Collections.sort(incNodes0);

            checkNodes(incNodes0);
        }
        finally {
            stopGrid("anotherGrid1");
            stopGrid("anotherGrid2");
        }
    }

    /**
     * @throws Exception If failed.
     */
    public void testNullTopicWithDeployment() throws Exception {
        Class<?> cls = getExternalClassLoader().loadClass(LSNR_CLS_NAME);

        grid(0).message().remoteListen(null, (IgniteBiPredicate<UUID, Object>)cls.newInstance());

        send();

        boolean s = GridTestUtils.waitForCondition(new PA() {
            @Override public boolean apply() {
                return checkDeployedListeners(GRID_CNT);
            }
        }, 2000);

        assertTrue(s);
    }

    /**
     * @throws Exception If failed.
     */
    public void testNonNullTopicWithDeployment() throws Exception {
        ClassLoader ldr = getExternalClassLoader();

        Class<?> topicCls = ldr.loadClass(TOPIC_CLS_NAME);
        Class<?> lsnrCls = ldr.loadClass(LSNR_CLS_NAME);

        Object topic = topicCls.newInstance();

        grid(0).message().remoteListen(topic, (IgniteBiPredicate<UUID, Object>)lsnrCls.newInstance());

        send(topic);

        boolean s = GridTestUtils.waitForCondition(new PA() {
            @Override public boolean apply() {
                return checkDeployedListeners(GRID_CNT);
            }
        }, 2000);

        assertTrue(s);
    }

    /**
     * @throws Exception If failed.
     */
    public void testListenActor() throws Exception {
        latch = new CountDownLatch(MSG_CNT * (GRID_CNT + 1));

        grid(0).message().remoteListen(null, new Actor(grid(0).cluster()));

        try {
            Ignite g = startGrid("anotherGrid");

            send();

            assert latch.await(2, SECONDS);

            Thread.sleep(500);

            assertEquals(MSG_CNT * (GRID_CNT + 1), cnt.get());

            List<UUID> allNodes0 = new ArrayList<>(allNodes);

            allNodes0.add(g.cluster().localNode().id());

            Collections.sort(allNodes0);

            checkNodes(allNodes0);
        }
        finally {
            stopGrid("anotherGrid");
        }
    }

    /**
     * @param prj Projection.
     * @param topic Topic.
     * @param ret Value returned from listener.
     * @throws Exception In case of error.
     */
    private void listen(final ClusterGroup prj, @Nullable Object topic, final boolean ret) throws Exception {
        assert prj != null;

        message(prj).remoteListen(topic, new Listener(prj, ret));
    }

    /**
     * @throws Exception In case of error.
     */
    private void send() throws Exception {
        send(TOPIC);
    }

    /**
     * @param topic Non-null topic.
     * @throws Exception In case of error.
     */
    private void send(Object topic) throws Exception {
        assert topic != null;

        for (int i = 0; i < MSG_CNT; i++)
            grid(0).message().send(null, MSG);

        for (int i = 0; i < MSG_CNT; i++)
            grid(0).message().send(topic, MSG);
    }

    /**
     * @param expCnt Expected messages count.
     * @return If check passed.
     */
    private boolean checkDeployedListeners(int expCnt) {
        for (Ignite g : G.allGrids()) {
            AtomicInteger cnt = g.cluster().<String, AtomicInteger>nodeLocalMap().get("msgCnt");

            if (cnt == null || cnt.get() != expCnt)
                return false;
        }

        return true;
    }

    /**
     * @param expNodes Expected nodes.
     */
    private void checkNodes(List<UUID> expNodes) {
        List<UUID> nodes0 = new ArrayList<>(nodes);

        Collections.sort(nodes0);

        assertEquals(expNodes, nodes0);
    }

    /** */
    private static class Listener implements P2<UUID, Object> {
        /** */
        private final ClusterGroup prj;

        /** */
        private final boolean ret;

        /** */
        @IgniteInstanceResource
        private Ignite ignite;

        /**
         * @param prj Projection.
         * @param ret Return value.
         */
        private Listener(ClusterGroup prj, boolean ret) {
            this.prj = prj;
            this.ret = ret;
        }

        /** {@inheritDoc} */
        @Override public boolean apply(UUID nodeId, Object msg) {
            assertNotNull(ignite);
            assertNotNull(ignite.configuration().getNodeId());

            X.println("Received message [nodeId=" + nodeId + ", locNodeId=" + ignite.cluster().localNode().id() + ']');

            assertEquals(prj.ignite().cluster().localNode().id(), nodeId);
            assertEquals(MSG, msg);

            nodes.add(ignite.configuration().getNodeId());
            cnt.incrementAndGet();
            latch.countDown();

            return ret;
        }
    }

    /** */
    private static class Actor extends MessagingListenActor<Object> {
        /** */
        private final ClusterGroup prj;

        /**
         * @param prj Projection.
         */
        private Actor(ClusterGroup prj) {
            this.prj = prj;
        }

        /** {@inheritDoc} */
        @Override protected void receive(UUID nodeId, Object msg) throws Throwable {
            assertNotNull(ignite());

            UUID locNodeId = ignite().cluster().localNode().id();

            X.println("Received message [nodeId=" + nodeId + ", locNodeId=" + locNodeId + ']');

            assertEquals(prj.ignite().cluster().localNode().id(), nodeId);
            assertEquals(MSG, msg);

            nodes.add(locNodeId);
            cnt.incrementAndGet();
            latch.countDown();
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The air is green! Get carried away to a happy garden: an axhalation of red currant, tomato and basil leaves.
With the Hélios refillable candle, indulge in the play of light. Its lacquered metal tumbler will project the glow of the flame through its small openwork lines, forming a play of modern and graphic patterns on the walls of a room plunged in the dim light. Intimate atmosphere guaranteed coupled with the delicate fragrance of the candle!
Refillable transparent glass in an openwork lacquered metal tumbler. Mineral wax enriched with vegetal wax. Lead-free cotton wick. French wax an perfume. Manufacturing compliant with french and european regulations. Burns for approximately 50 hours.
Once finished, the candle glass is refillable thanks to our scented wax eco-refills.


text:
stresser
Owners of DDoS-for-Hire Service vDOS Get 6 Months Community Service
June 7, 2020 by ITSecurity.Org Ltd
The co-owners of vDOS, a now-defunct service that for four years helped paying customers launch more than two million distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that knocked countless Internet users and websites offline, each have been sentenced to six months of community service by an Israeli court.
vDOS as it existed on Sept. 8, 2016.
A judge in Israel handed down the sentences plus fines and probation against Yarden Bidani and Itay Huri, both Israeli citizens arrested in 2016 at age 18 in connection with an FBI investigation into vDOS.
Until it was shuttered in 2016, vDOS was by far the most reliable and powerful DDoS-for-hire or "booter" service on the market, allowing even completely unskilled Internet users to launch crippling assaults capable of knocking most websites offline.
vDOS advertised the ability to launch attacks at up to 50 gigabits of data per second (Gbps) — well more than enough to take out any site that isn't fortified with expensive anti-DDoS protection services.
The Hebrew-language sentencing memorandum (PDF) has redacted the names of the defendants, but there are more than enough clues in the document to ascertain the identities of the accused. For example, it says the two men earned a little more than $600,000 running vDOS, a fact first reported by this site in September 2016 just prior to their arrest, when vDOS was hacked and KrebsOnSecurity obtained a copy of its user database.
In addition, the document says the defendants were initially apprehended on September 8, 2016, arrests which were documented here two days later.
Also, the sentencing mentions the supporting role of a U.S. resident named only as "Jesse." This likely refers to 23-year-old Jesse Wu, who KrebsOnSecurity noted in October 2016 pseudonymously registered the U.K. shell company used by vDOS, and ran a tiny domain name registrar called NameCentral that vDOS and many other booter services employed.
Israeli prosecutors say Wu also set up their payment infrastructure, and received 15 percent of vDOS's total revenue for his trouble. NameCentral no longer appears to be in business, and Wu could not be reached for comment.
Although it is clear Bidani and Huri are defendants in this case, it is less clear which is referenced as Defendant #1 or Defendant #2. Both were convicted of "corrupting/disturbing a computer or computer material," charges that the judge said had little precedent in Israeli courts, noting that "cases of this kind have not been discussed in court so far." Defendant #1 also was convicted of sharing nude pictures of a 14 year old girl.
vDOS also sold API access to their backend attack infrastructure to other booter services to further monetize their excess firepower, including Vstress, Ustress, and PoodleStresser and LizardStresser.
Yarden Bidani. Image: Facebook.
Both defendants received the lowest possible sentence (the maximum was two years in prison) — six months of community service under the watch of the Israeli prison service — mainly because the accused were minors during the bulk of their offenses. The judge also imposed small fines on each, noting that more than $175,000 dollars worth of profits had already been seized from their booter business.
The judge observed that while Defendant #2 had shown remorse for his crimes and an understanding of how his actions affected others — even sobbing throughout one court proceeding — Defendant #1 failed to participate in the therapy sessions previously ordered by the court, and that he has "a clear and daunting boundary for recurrence of further offenses in the future."
Boaz Dolev, CEO of ClearSky Cyber Security, said he's disappointed in the lightness of the sentences given how much damage the young men caused.
"I think that such an operation that caused big damage to so many companies should have been dealt differently by the Israeli justice system," Dolev said. "The fact that they were under 18 when committing their crimes saved them from much harder sentences."
While DDoS attacks typically target a single website or Internet host, they often result in widespread collateral Internet disruption. Less than two weeks after the 2016 arrest of Bidani and Huri, KrebsOnSecurity.com suffered a three-day outage as a result of a record 620 Gbps attack that was alleged to have been purchased in retribution for my reporting on vDOS. That attack caused stability issues for other companies using the same DDoS protection firm my site enjoyed at the time, so much so that the provider terminated my service with them shortly thereafter.
To say that vDOS was responsible for a majority of the DDoS attacks clogging up the Internet between 2012 and 2016 would be an understatement. The various subscription packages for the service were sold based in part on how many seconds the denial-of-service attack would last. And in just four months between April and July 2016, vDOS was responsible for launching more than 277 million seconds of attack time, or approximately 8.81 years worth of attack traffic.
It seems likely vDOS was responsible for several decades worth of DDoS years, but it's impossible to say for sure because vDOS's owners routinely wiped attack data from their servers.
Prosecutors in the United States and United Kingdom have in recent years sought tough sentences for those convicted of running booter services. While a number of current charges against alleged offenders have not yet been fully adjudicated, only a handful of defendants in these cases have seen real jail time.
The two men responsible for creating and unleashing the Mirai botnet (the same duo responsible for building the massive crime machine that knocked my site offline in 2016) each avoided jail time thanks to their considerable cooperation with the FBI.
Likewise, Pennsylvania resident David Bukoski recently got five years probation and six months of "community confinement" after pleading guilty to running the Quantum Stresser booter service. Lizard Squad member and PoodleStresser operator Zachary Buchta was sentenced to three months in prison and ordered to pay $350,000 in restitution for his role in running various booter services.
On the other end of the spectrum, last November 21-year-old Illinois resident Sergiy Usatyuk was sentenced to 13 months in jail for running multiple booter services that launched millions of attacks over several years. And a 20-year-old U.K. resident in 2017 got two years in prison for operating the Titanium Stresser service.
For their part, authorities in the U.K. have sought to discourage would-be customers of these booter services by purchasing Google ads warning that such services are illegal. The goal is to steer customers away from committing further offenses that could land them in jail, and toward more productive uses of their skills and/or curiosity about cybersecurity.
Filed Under: Boaz Dolev, booter, ClearSky Cyber Security, David Bukoski, DDoS-for-Hire, IT Security, itay huri, Jesse Wu, Mirai, Namecentral, Ne'er-Do-Well News, Quantum Stresser, Sergiy Usatyuk, stresser, Titanium Stresser, vDos, yarden bidani, Zachary Buchta
Career Choice Tip: Cybercrime is Mostly Boring
May 29, 2020 by ITSecurity.Org Ltd
When law enforcement agencies tout their latest cybercriminal arrest, the defendant is often cast as a bravado outlaw engaged in sophisticated, lucrative, even exciting activity. But new research suggests that as cybercrime has become dominated by pay-for-service offerings, the vast majority of day-to-day activity needed to support these enterprises is in fact mind-numbingly boring and tedious, and that highlighting this reality may be a far more effective way to combat cybercrime and steer offenders toward a better path.
Yes, I realize hooded hacker stock photos have become a meme, but that's the point.
The findings come in a new paper released by researchers at Cambridge University's Cybercrime Centre, which examined the quality and types of work needed to build, maintain and defend illicit enterprises that make up a large portion of the cybercrime-as-a-service market. In particular, the academics focused on botnets and DDoS-for-hire or "booter" services, the maintenance of underground forums, and malware-as-a-service offerings.
In examining these businesses, the academics stress that the romantic notions of those involved in cybercrime ignore the often mundane, rote aspects of the work that needs to be done to support online illicit economies. The researchers concluded that for many people involved, cybercrime amounts to little more than a boring office job sustaining the infrastructure on which these global markets rely, work that is little different in character from the activity of legitimate system administrators.
Richard Clayton, a co-author of the report and director of Cambridge's Cybercrime Centre, said the findings suggest policymakers and law enforcement agencies may be doing nobody a favor when they issue aggrandizing press releases that couch their cybercrime investigations as targeting sophisticated actors.
"The way in which everyone looks at cybercrime is they're all interested in the rockstars and all the exciting stuff," Clayton told KrebsOnSecurity. "The message put out there is that cybercrime is lucrative and exciting, when for most of the people involved it's absolutely not the case."
"We find that as cybercrime has developed into industrialized illicit economies, so too have a range of tedious supportive forms of labor proliferated, much as in mainstream industrialized economies. We argue that cybercrime economies in advanced states of growth have begun to create their own tedious, low-fulfillment jobs, becoming less about charismatic transgression and deviant identity, and more about stability and the management and diffusion of risk. Those who take part in them, the research literature suggests, may well be initially attracted by exciting media portrayals of hackers and technological deviance."
"However, the kinds of work and practices in which they actually become involved are not reflective of the excitement and exploration which characterized early 'hacker' communities, but are more similar to low-level work in drug dealing gangs, involving making petty amounts of money for tedious work in the service of aspirations that they may one day be one of the major players. This creates the same conditions of boredom…which are found in mainstream jobs when the reality emerges that these status and financial goals are as blocked in the illicit economy as they are in the regular job market."
The researchers drew on interviews with people engaged in such enterprises, case studies on ex- or reformed criminal hackers, and from scraping posts by denizens of underground forums and chat channels. They focused on the activity needed to keep various crime services operating efficiently and free from disruption from interlopers, internecine conflict, law enforcement or competitors.
BOOTER BLUES
For example, running an effective booter service requires a substantial amount of administrative work and maintenance, much of which involves constantly scanning for, commandeering and managing large collections of remote systems that can be used to amplify online attacks.
Booter services (a.k.a. "stressers") — like many other cybercrime-as-a-service offerings — tend to live or die by their reputation for uptime, effectiveness, treating customers fairly, and for quickly responding to inquiries or concerns from users. As a result, these services typically require substantial investment in staff needed for customer support work (through a ticketing system or a realtime chat service) when issues arise with payments or with clueless customers failing to understand how to use the service.
In one interview with a former administrator of a booter service, the proprietor told researchers he quit and went on with a normal life after getting tired of dealing with customers who took for granted all the grunt work needed to keep the service running. From the interview:
"And after doing [it] for almost a year, I lost all motivation, and really didn't care anymore. So I just left and went on with life. It wasn't challenging enough at all. Creating a stresser is easy. Providing the power to run it is the tricky part. And when you have to put all your effort, all your attention. When you have to sit in front of a computer screen and scan, filter, then filter again over 30 amps per 4 hours it gets annoying."
The researchers note that this burnout is an important feature of customer support work, "which is characterized less by a progressive disengagement with a once-interesting activity, and more by the gradual build-up of boredom and disenchantment, once the low ceiling of social and financial capital which can be gained from this work is reached."
WHINY CUSTOMERS
Running a malware-as-a-service offering also can take its toll on developers, who quickly find themselves overwhelmed with customer support requests and negative feedback when a well-functioning service has intermittent outages.
Indeed, the author of the infamous ZeuS Trojan — a powerful password stealing tool that paved the way for hundreds of millions of dollars stolen from hacked businesses — is reputed to have quit the job and released the source code for the malware (thus spawning an entire industry of malware-as-a-service offerings) mainly to focus his skills on less tedious work than supporting hundreds of customers.
"While they may sound glamorous, providing these cybercrime services require the same levels of boring, routine work as is needed for many non-criminal enterprises, such as system administration, design, maintenance, customer service, patching, bug-fixing, account-keeping, responding to sales queries, and so on," the report continues.
To some degree, the ZeuS's author experience may not be the best example, because his desire to get away from supporting hundreds of customers ultimately led to his focusing attention and resources on building a far more sophisticated malware threat — the peer-to-peer based Gameover malware that he leased to a small group of organized crime groups.
Likewise, the cover story in this month's Wired magazine profiles Marcus Hutchins, who said he "quickly grew bored with his botnets and his hosting service, which he found involved placating a lot of 'whiny customers.' So he quit and began to focus on something he enjoyed far more: perfecting his own malware."
BORING THEM OUT OF BUSINESS
Cambridge's Clayton and his colleagues argue the last two examples are more the exception than the rule, and that their research points to important policy implications for fighting cybercrime that are often discounted or overlooked: Namely, interventions that focus on the economics of attention and boredom, and on making such work as laborious and boring as possible.
Many cybersecurity experts often remark that taking down domain names and other infrastructure tied to cybercrime businesses amounts to little more than a game of whack-a-mole, because the perpetrators simply move somewhere else to resume their operations. But the Cambridge researchers note that each takedown creates further repetitive, tedious, work for the administrators to set up their sites anew.
"Recent research shows that the booter market is particularly susceptible to interventions targeted at this infrastructural work, which make the jobs of these server managers more boring and more risky," the researchers note.
The paper takes care to note that its depictions of the 'boredom' of the untrained administrative work carried out in the illicit economy should not be taken as impugning the valuable and complex work of legitimate system administrators. "Rather, it is to recognize that this is a different kind of knowledge and set of skills from engineering work, which needs to be taught, learned, and managed differently."
The authors conclude that refocusing interventions in this way might also be supported by changes to the predominant forms of messaging used by law enforcement and policy professionals around cybercrime:
"If participation within these economies is in fact based in deviant aspiration rather than deviant experience, the currently dominant approaches to messaging, which tend to focus on the dangerous and harmful nature of these behaviors, the high levels of technical skill possessed by cybercrime actors, the large amounts of money made in illicit online economies, and the risk of detection, arrest, and prosecution are potentially counterproductive, only feeding the aspiration which drives this work. Conversely, by emphasizing the tedious, low-skilled, low-paid, and low-status reality of much of this work, messaging could potentially dissuade those involved in deviant online subcultures from making the leap from posting on forums to committing low-level crime."
"Additionally, diversionary interventions that emphasize the shortage of sysadmin and 'pen tester' workers in the legitimate economy ("you could be paid really good money for doing the same things in a proper job") need to recognize that pathways, motivations, and experiences may be rather more prosaic than might be expected."
"Conceptualizing cybercrime actors as high-skilled, creative adolescents with a deep love for and understanding of technology may in fact mischaracterize most of the people on whom these markets depend, who are often low-skilled administrators who understand fairly little about the systems they maintain and administer, and whose approach is more akin to the practical knowledge of the maintainer than the systematic knowledge of a software engineer or security researcher. Finding all these bored people appropriate jobs in the legitimate economy may be as much about providing basic training as about parachuting superstars into key positions."
Further reading: Cybercrime is (often) Boring: Maintaining the Infrastructure of Cybercrime Economies (PDF).
Filed Under: A Little Sunshine, booter, Cambridge University, Cybercrime Centre, DDoS-for-Hire, Gameover ZeuS, How to Break Into Security, IT Security, Marcus Hutchins, Richard Clayton, stresser, wired, ZeuS Trojan
UK Ad Campaign Seeks to Deter Cybercrime
The United Kingdom's anti-cybercrime agency is running online ads aimed at young people who search the Web for services that enable computer crimes, specifically trojan horse programs and DDoS-for-hire services. The ad campaign follows a similar initiative launched in late 2017 that academics say measurably dampened demand for such services by explaining that their use to harm others is illegal and can land potential customers in jail.
For example, search in Google for the terms "booter" or "stresser" from a U.K. Internet address, and there's a good chance you'll see a paid ad show up on the first page of results warning that using such services to attack others online is illegal. The ads are being paid for by the U.K.'s National Crime Agency, which saw success with a related campaign for six months starting in December 2017.
A Google ad campaign paid for by the U.K.'s National Crime Agency.
NCA Senior Manager David Cox said the agency is targeting its ads to U.K. males age 13 to 22 who are searching for booter services or different types of remote access trojans (RATs), as part of an ongoing effort to help steer young men away from cybercrime and toward using their curiosity and skills for good. The ads link to advertorials and to the U.K.'s Cybersecurity Challenge, which tries gamify computer security concepts and highlight potential careers in cybersecurity roles.
"The fact is, those standing in front of a classroom teaching children have less information about cybercrime than those they're trying to teach," Cox said, noting that the campaign is designed to support so-called "knock-and-talk" visits, where investigators visit the homes of young people who've downloaded malware or purchased DDoS-for-hire services to warn them away from such activity. "This is all about showing people there are other paths they can take."
While it may seem obvious to the casual reader that deploying some malware-as-a-service or using a booter to knock someone or something offline can land one in legal hot water, the typical profile of those who frequent these services is young, male, impressionable and participating in online communities of like-minded people in which everyone else is already doing it.
In 2017, the NCA published "Pathways into Cyber Crime," a report that drew upon interviews conducted with a number of young men who were visited by U.K. law enforcement agents in connection with various cybercrime investigations.
Those findings, which the NCA said came about through knock-and-talk interviews with a number of suspected offenders, found that 61 percent of suspects began engaging in criminal hacking before the age of 16, and that the average age of suspects and arrests of those involved in hacking cases was 17 years old.
The majority of those engaged in, or on the periphery of, cyber crime, told the NCA they became involved via an interest in computer gaming.
A large proportion of offenders began to participate in gaming cheat websites and "modding" forums, and later progressed to criminal hacking forums.
The NCA learned the individuals visited had just a handful of primary motivations in mind, including curiosity, overcoming a challenge, or proving oneself to a larger group of peers. According to the report, a typical offender faces a perfect storm of ill-boding circumstances, including a perceived low risk of getting caught, and a perception that their offenses in general amounted to victimless crimes.
"Law enforcement activity does not act as a deterrent, as individuals consider cyber crime to be low risk," the NCA report found. "Debrief subjects have stated that they did not consider law enforcement until someone they knew or had heard of was arrested. For deterrence to work, there must be a closing of the gap between offender (or potential offender) with law enforcement agencies functioning as a visible presence for these individuals."
Cox said the NCA will continue to run the ads indefinitely, and that it is seeking funding from outside sources — including major companies in online gaming industry, whose platforms are perhaps the most targeted by DDoS-for-hire services. He called the program a "great success," noting that in the past 30 days (13 of which the ads weren't running for funding reasons), the ads generated some 5.32 million impressions, and more than 57,000 clicks.
Richard Clayton is director of the University of Cambridge Cybercrime Centre, which has been monitoring DDoS attacks for several years using a variety of sensors across the Internet that pretend to be the types of systems which are typically commandeered and abused to help launch such assaults.
Last year, Clayton and fellow Cambridge researchers published a paper showing that law enforcement interventions — including the NCA's anti-DDoS ad campaign between 2017 and 2018 — demonstrably slowed the growth in demand for DDoS-for-hire services.
"Our data shows that by running that ad campaign, the NCA managed to flatten out demand for booter services over that period," Clayton said. "In other words, the demand for these services didn't grow over the period as we would normally see, and we didn't see more people doing it at the end of the period than at the beginning. When we showed this to the NCA, they were ever so pleased, because that campaign cost them less than ten thousand [pounds sterling] and it stopped this type of cybercrime from growing for six months."
The Cambridge study found various interventions by law enforcement officials had measurable effects on the demand for and damage caused by booter and stresser services. Source: Booting the Booters, 2019.
Clayton said part of the problem is that many booter/stresser providers claim they're offering lawful services, and many of their would-be customers are all too eager to believe this is true. Also, the price point is affordable: A typical booter service will allow customers to launch fairly high-powered DDoS attacks for just a few dollars per month.
"There are legitimate companies that provide these types of services in a legal manner, but there are all types of agreements that have to be in place before this can happen," Clayton said. "And you don't get that for ten bucks a month."
DON'T BE EVIL
The NCA's ad campaign is competing directly with Google ads taken out by many of the same people running these DDoS-for-hire services. It may surprise some readers to learn that cybercrime services often advertise on Google and other search sites much like any legitimate business would — paying for leads that might attract new customers.
Several weeks back, KrebsOnSecurity noticed that searching for "booter" or "stresser" in Google turned up paid ads for booter services prominently on the first page of results. But as I noted in a tweet about the finding, this is hardly a new phenomenon.
A booter ad I reported to Google that the company subsequently took offline.
Cambridge's Clayton pointed me to a blog post he wrote in 2018 about the prevalence of such ads, which violate Google's policies on acceptable advertisements via its platform. Google says it doesn't allow ads for services that "cause damage, harm or injury," and that they don't allow adverts for services that "are designed to enable dishonest behavior."
Clayton said Google eventually took down the offending ads. But as my few seconds of Googling revealed, the company appears to have decided to play wack-a-mole when people complain, instead of expressly prohibiting the placement of (and payment for) ads with these terms.
Google told KrebsOnSecurity that it relies on a combination of technology and people to enforce its policies.
"We have strict ad policies designed to protect users on our platforms," Google said in a written statement. "We prohibit ads that enable dishonest behavior, including services that look to take advantage of or cause harm to users. When we find an ad that violates our policies we take action. In this case, we quickly removed the ads."
Google pointed to a recent blog post detailing its enforcement efforts in this regard, which said in 2019 the company took down more than 2.7 billion ads that violated its policies — or more than 10 million ads per day — and that it removed a million advertiser accounts for the same reason.
The ad pictured above ceased to appear shortly after my outreach to them. Unfortunately, an ad for a different booter service (shown below) soon replaced the one they took down.
An ad for a DDoS-for-hire service that appeared shortly after Google took down the ones KrebsOnSecurity reported to them.
Filed Under: booter, Cybersecurity Challenge, David Cox, DDoS-for-Hire, ddos-for-hire services, Google, IT Security, National Crime Agency, Ne'er-Do-Well News, Pathways to Cyber Crime, Richard Clayton, stresser, University of Cambridge Cybercrime Center


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Tess, talking to Miriam: "Dad said he wants me to read the newspaper. When he says something like that, he usually means that NOW."
Drew, getting ready for our Christmas Eve children's nativity performance: "I want to be the German shepherd!"
Drew: "Remember those two people who were born first in that jungle place?"
Miriam: "Ummm, Adam and Eve?"
Drew: "Yeah! Well I know who was born second after them--Santa!!!"
Drew: "Yeah! 'Cuz someone had to bring them presents there, right? That just makes a little bit more sense when you think of it."
Miriam: "So Santa brought Adam and Eve presents in the Garden of Eden?"
Drew: "Yeah! They didn't have any clothes, so maybe Santa brought them clothes. 'Ho, ho, ho! Here's some clothes!'"
Drew, wearing a large winter stocking cap: "I'm bringing a little snack for the car ride...in my hat!"
Tess: "If we had a girl Elf on the Shelf, it wouldn't be very active. I've talked to my friends at school and their girl Elves sit on shelves. I told them my Elf does things like yoga in the refrigerator."
Drew was randomly saying words that rhyme with dad. After he said "cad," I (Ryan) told him that a cad is someone who's not nice and doesn't care about other people's feelings.
Drew: "I know someone who's a cad! Donald Trump! He's a cad, but not to boys. Just to girls, to women. Donald Trump is a cad, Donald Trump is a cad to women."
Ryan: "Who told you that Donald Trump is a cad?""
Drew then wanted to see a photo of Trump. After I showed him one, Drew said, "I want to speak to him now and say, 'You shouldn't be a cad to women!'"
Drew, lifting up a large, unopened package: "What's in this box?"
Ryan: "I can't tell you. It's a surprise. It might be something for you."
Drew: "Anyway it's not something for me."
Ryan: "How do you know?"
Drew: "'Cuz it's heavy and I didn't want anything heavy."
Tess' entirely unimpressed reaction to finding Morley this morning standing on a skateboard in her shoes: "Seriously?! I was hoping he would have found my missing Lego piece. And I was going to wear those shoes."
Drew's prayer for Family Home Evening: "Dear Heavenly Father, please bless that we'll have a good day. Please bless that Jesus will have a good time. Name of Jesus Christ, amen."
Tess and Drew were uncharacteristically helpful and independent getting ready for bed. By the time I (Miriam) came up, they were both in pajamas, with teeth brushed and Tess was marking off Drew's reading log because she was going to read him his bedtime story. When I tucked Drew in, I asked why he and Tess getting were getting along so well and being so helpful.
Drew: "'Cuz I love my sister. And well, I figured out Santa might want to bring me presents. And because Christmas is all about loving."
Drew spent most of the afternoon crying because our Christmas tree has an angel on top--not a star.
"It's going to be such a boring Christmas with an angel!"
Drew's original joke after reading a book about sharks: "Why did the hammerhead shark want to get together with the saw shark?
They wanted to be good tools and build something together."
Tess, referring to the appearance of Morley the elf: "Everyday since December, I've been looking for a little red thing hanging out."
Tess, referring to Morley the elf: "We have a visitor."
Ryan reads the sign from Morley that says, "Dear Tess and Drew, I got a bit 'tire'd hanging out at the North Pole, so I decided to swing by your house."
Ryan: "What do you think about it?"
Tess: "He usually says, 'I'm back,' so I don't know whether he's here just for the day or he's here until Christmas."
Ryan: "Drew, did you know that I miss you when I'm at work?"
Drew: "I'm not going to miss you longer."
Ryan: "You're not?! How come?!"
Drew: "'Cause when I'm seven, I can come to work with you" (referring to DOJ's Take Your Child to Work Day, which is for children ages 7 and older).
Tess, after giving her testimony at church: "I need a stress ball!!"
Drew: "Dad, our ears are like a maze." He puts a finger in his ear, traces it around, and announces: "I just finished the maze into my ear hole!"
Tess, commenting on a car license plate that read "GB": "Ah, the people of Great Britain. Good job on 'Peppa Pig'" ( referring to the TV cartoon show produced in Great Britain).
Tess, commenting on a poster she saw that read "Give the gift of life. Give blood": "I wouldn't want to open up a present to find a jar filled with blood."
I (Miriam) dragged the kids along to an HOA meeting last night. We packed toys, electronics, and drawing paper in an effort to keep the kids occupied. Once we settled in at the meeting, I look over at Tess, who seemed thoroughly engrossed in the meeting discussion. She leaned over and whispered to me, "I don't think I'm going to need any toys because this is actually very interesting!"
Drew: "Mom, you know that some people celebrate a different holiday at Christmas time? Some people celebrate Harmonica!"
Miriam caught Drew in the cupboard. "I'm gonna use water, oil and color for an EXPERIANT!!!"
"Yeah! I'm gonna make a 'splosion!!!"
When you're least expecting it, Drew now periodically breaks into song: "I always feel like somebody's watching me!" We have his Nana (and her singing Halloween cat) to thank for that!
Drew: "Mom, who you voting for? Definitely not Donald Trump."
Drew, getting a bit mixed up on Donald Trump's policy proposals: "Donald Trump doesn't want people from California to come to our part of our country."
Drew, stalling as he heads upstairs to bed: "Mom, I'm very hungry and very sleepy, but I don't feel sleepy."
Drew: "I'm reading! I can't believe!"
Drew, a minute later: "Maybe I'm the bestest kid in Kindergarten who can read!"
Drew, reporting on his day at school: "Mom, a lot of kids were jealous of my hair 'cause it looks very good."
Drew's feeling confident after his kindergarten open house: "Now it wheely feels like MY school too!"
Drew: "Dad, do bees sleep at night?"
Ryan: "Yes, I think so."
Drew: "They're just like us because we also sleep at night. Except when we go out at night and play Pokemon."
Drew, while making pancakes: "I wish there was a pancake batter pool so I could lick and drink it in my swimsuit."
Drew the chef: "I'm going to wash my hands first. That's the most important thing before you do something."
Tess: "Are you almost done with the Lego set?"
Tess: "I want to see what it will look like when it's done."
Drew: "You can look at the box."
Drew, in the car on the way to the airport: "I love looking out the window and being bored. Sometimes it's good to be bored."
Tess: "Drew is so impatient."
Tess: "The worst age in the history of ages."
Drew, on seeing the Chesapeake Bay: "I'm enjoying the view."
Tess, summing up the first leg of our car trip to the Outer Banks: "I've survived for almost about two hours."
So we're having a life-skills summer. Today was vacuuming 101. Tess protested: "See this is why I'm going to be a doctor--so I don't have to do all this housework!!!"
Drew: "How come Tess got baptized and she's STILL mean?"
Drew has been annoying everyone since 7 a.m. by making a certain incessant, irritating noise.
When Ryan asked what that was about, Drew said: "It's the noise a frog makes when it wants to find a mommy frog and get married."
Not a bad impression, actually.
We kept the kids up late tonight because fireflies were out. Tess was tickled and Drew couldn't stop squealing. He was sad to let the fireflies go, but offered them flying lessons: "Flap your wings like this, little guy!"
Miriam: "Good morning, Drew, my sunshine! You make me happy when skies are gray!"
Drew, looking at the weather out the window: "But not very happy when it's sunny?"
Drew, on his soccer team: "When I heard my team's name was 'Team Extreme,' I just knew my shirt was going to be blue. 'Cuz streams are always blue!"
Drew: "How people grow plants?"
Miriam: "They grow them from seeds."
Drew: "But how they get the seeds?"
Miriam: "Well, most plants make their own seeds. Like apples--you can get seeds from apples."
Drew: "But how they get THOSE apples?"
Miriam: "Are you asking how we got the very first apple?"
Drew "No. How we got the first SEED?"
Drew: "Dad, when you have a home day, can you teach me how to do a wheely? I can do a wheely one way. I bonk my bike into a curb and my wheel goes up."
Drew, after counting to 100 by 10s: "My brain is working so good. I'm so smart."
Ryan: "Drew, we should teach you how to cook this summer. That way, when you get older, you'll be able to do what?"
Drew: "Make free mac and cheese for other people!"
Drew, while watching a nature program: "Oh wow! That lizard can run on water--just like Jesus!"
Drew: "Squamitos [mosquitos] really like me. That's 'cuz I have the most blood."
Drew: "Mom, I know what would make me not want to do electronics so much. A puppy."
Reading Drew's bedtime story and he's picking out some words he can read. "I just can't believe! My brain is just so good!!"
Drew likes to use the iPad in the car, but he hates letting it go whenever we arrive. He's not allowed to walk with the iPad because he doesn't look where he's going and will likely drop it or something. He came up with a plan: "Maybe you can let me practice walking with the iPad on top of pillows on the ground. I can practice to not drop it."
I told Drew we have three friends coming to play tomorrow: Liam, Raif and Nielson. His response: "That ok. I can handle that. I can take care of them."
Drew, on eating split pea soup for dinner: "You know why I didn't like this when I was four? 'Cuz it looks like a swamp."
That moment when you ask your daughter her favorite song, and she tells you it's "Ride" by Twenty One Pilots. What? And then you find out that Ryan and Meredith have apparently colluded to introduce your children to "Blurryface," and your five-year-old can sing all the words to the song "Stressed Out."
Drew (on repeat): "Wish we could turn back time, to the good ol' days, when our momma sang us to sleep but now we're stressed out."
Drew: "Mom, I can't believe you have a kid who knows EVERYTHING about skateboards! Ha! Ha! That kid is me!"
I (Miriam) sometimes discuss politics with Tess, but not with Drew. I mean he's only five. That's why my jaw was on the ground yesterday when he heard the name Trump and said: "He's the baddest one ever. He doesn't want other people to come where we live." When I asked him how he knew that, he revealed his source: "Tess told me that."
Ryan, after giving Drew a long talk about not going to the bathroom while outside: "Drew, let's go to the bathroom before we go out, so you won't need to go while you're outside."
Drew: "Yeah, that would be embarrassing!"
Drew's song: "Tess is being rude everytime she tells me my pants are backwards. They're not backwards. THEY'RE NOT!!"
Ryan: "Drew, if you could have any animal as a pet, what would it be?"
Drew: "A chicken. He could sit on my head and lay eggs."
Tess, after getting hurt: "Oww, it hurts so much! It hurts more than stitches. And I've never even had stitches!"
Drew, while wearing a set of green vampire teeth: "Mom, can we get the Star Wars music? 'Cuz I'm making my own Star Wars movie. It's about Darth Vader and how he goes good and stays good forever. And he gets new teeth."
Drew: "There's only one thing that's the same about us, Mom. We both like foot rubs."
The hardest part of having your super-fun Aunties and Dipsy come visit is having them leave. Luckily they let us with one last sewing project, a drawer of real Star Wars underwear, and a great crepes recipe to remember them by. Tess said, "Know what our house really needs? Three more people named Meredith, Maureen, and Dipsy. It's just too lonely now."
Tess: "Mom, I wish I grew up in the 1970s when they didn't care about child safety so much."
Ryan: "Drew, put down the iPad so that you can hug me with your arms."
Drew: "That's okay, you can use your arms."
Talking about Jesus' resurrection with Drew. He commented, "I know what is not resurrected. Dinosaurs! Cause they're 'tinct. That means dead."
Drew was apparently frustrated with his sister. On a piece of paper he wrote: "TESS OFF."
Then she asked, "Mom, am I a special kid?"
Miriam was talking to Drew about how he was born. I noticed Tess looking through a book on the human body. I asked her what she was doing. She replied: "I have a book about babies. I think Mom needs some help talking to Drew."
Drew has plans this year to befriend our leprechaun. He placed a dollar bill on a drawing of a leprechaun and inscribed it: "To the Leprechaun. Fr[o]m Drew H." He said, "Maybe if I be nice and give him some of my money, he'll give me some of HIS money!"
Ryan: "Drew, what do you know about leprechauns?"
Drew: "They love money and they love Lucky Charms (cereal). They're just like me."
Miriam was saying a bedtime prayer with Drew when he reached out, put his hand over my mouth and interjected: "And thanks that I'm such a good artist that draws so much good stuff and does so much good things. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." Then he removed his hand from Miriam's mouth so she could say, "Amen."
Getting Drew ready for bed last night, I watched him peel off one pair of long pants, then a pair of shorts, and then--not one--but TWO pairs of underwear. His reasoning is that if he gets hot, he can take the long pants off and wear shorts.
The librarian offered Drew a sticker when we were checking out our books. On the way out, Drew peeled it off his shirt and handed it to me. "You can have it, Mom. You deserve it."
Drew: "When I grow up, I'm gonna have a dog. A dog that can skateboard. 'Cuz dogs can really do that. Dogs can do skateboard tricks too. And that's a true story."
Drew told Miriam that at school he and his friends built a church out of blocks for cats. Apparently the congregants were small, plastic cat figurines. This is something I would've liked to see for myself. So we had to come up with some songs the cats would sing at church: "Meow, meow a cat of God!" We'll probably be struck by lightning.
Miriam taught Drew's church class today. He was excited to be her helper. He exclaimed: "I gonna teach my friends about Star Wars and Jesus being born. They kinda the same 'cuz they have both have STARS!?"
Drew, complaining about his hot bedroom: "I'm like a burning hot dog."
While getting Drew ready for bed tonight, he quipped, "What if when Tess grows up, she turns to the Dark Side?!?"
Drew: "When I grow up, I will live in Idaho near Dipsy and Papa and work at the library so I can get books for my own without paying for them. 'Cuz I will be the librarian."
After watching "The Empire Strikes Back," Drew began walking around with a piece of toilet paper across his paper across his face and announcing in a deep voice, "I am Light Vader." When asked to explain the funny name, he said, "I couldn't find anything dark."
Snow homeschool by Tess: "Now, Drew, let me know if you need to go to the bathroom and I'll give you the hall pass."
Siri is Tess' and Drew's favorite medium for issuing insults.
Miriam: "Siri, what's my name?"
Siri: "You're Miriam. But since we're friends, I get to call you 'Fart.' Good morning, Fart."
Drew is still processing Christmas. He said, "Mom, I know why we say 'Merry Christmas!' 'Cuz Mary was Jesus' mother!"
Yesterday Drew told Miriam that he thinks a basketball machine would be a good idea.
Drew: "You just push a button and it does it itself!"
Miriam: "But Drew, you love to play basketball! Isn't that the fun? The playing part""
Drew: "No, Mom, I said a BACK MASSAGE machine! I gonna invent it for you! You just push a button, the arms come out and do it for you!"
Last night Drew's bedtime story was (a rather graphic version of) the 3 Little Pigs. When we (Miriam and Drew) were done, he asked to have his ceiling fan on and I was concerned that he might get too cold. Drew's response: "No, I won't be cold! I'm as hot as a boiling wolf!"


A covered call is an option trading strategy where the trader has a long position on the underlying asset and then sells a call option on the same asset in the options market, in order to generate more revenue from the same asset.
This strategy is usually employed when the trader expects the price of the asset to appreciate in the long term, but to remain flat in the short term. So instead of just tying down capital waiting out the stock, the trader can employ the covered call option to make some money in the interim from the premium on the trade.
For this trade example, Mr John purchases 100 shares of stock XY at $99 a share, totalling $9,900 (transaction costs excluded). John decides to write a covered call (i.e. purchases a short covered call) on XY to the dealer. The dealer pays a premium of $2 per share (or $200 for the covered call contract) to John, at a strike price of $105 with a 2-month expiration. In selling the covered call, the downside risk of his long position on XY has been reduced by $2 per share to $97. So the covered call now "covers" a $2 decline in the share price of XY.
In setting up the covered call options trade, Mr John earns a premium of $200 for the contract. If the stock price of XY eventually picks up to $105 or more before expiration of the covered call, John can exercise the covered call by offloading the very same shares that he owns in XY to the dealer at the strike price. The dealer will therefore pay Mr John $105 X 100 = $10,500 for the 100 shares of XY owned in the stock market. Mr John will therefore profit both from the premium and the exercised option on XY.
Net profit = ($10,500 – $9,900) + $200 = $800.
The breakeven point for this trade is at $97. This is because if the stock XY falls from the original purchase price of $99 per share to $97 per share, Mr John can sell XY in the stock market and lose only $2 per share. He owns 100 shares, so the total loss of the sale of the stock is $200. This $200 is defrayed by the $200 premium earned on the covered call option trade.
If the price of the stock falls below $97, then Mr John will suffer a net loss as the $200 premium earned on the covered call option will not cover for any losses incurred by stock price drop below the breakeven point of $97.
The good thing about the covered call option trade is that a trader can easily calculate his breakeven point, and sell off his stock holdings as soon as stock price depreciation approaches these levels, so as to mitigate against any loss.
Of course, if the trader is spot on and the price of the stock starts to appreciate, he can easily exercise his option before expiration and smile to the bank with his double earnings.


In this provocative and compelling book, internationally known missiologists Alan and Debra Hirsch cast a dynamic vision of mission-shaped discipleship. Untamed exposes the idolatrous clutter that fills our lives and seeks to recapture what it means to be authentic followers of Jesus. Each chapter ends with suggested practices to help you start living out the book's principles, as well as questions for group discussion.
Debra Hirsch is a minister at Tribe of LA, an eclectic bunch of missional artists and vagabonds in downtown LA. She is also on the leadership team of Christian Associates International, a church-planting agency working on three continents.


text:
LeAnn Rimes To Perform At PEDIGREE Foundation Pawty: BBQ, Boots And Bling
PEDIGREE Foundation will commemorate its 10-Year Anniversary with a special event celebration to honor a decade of giving back to shelters and rescues in the U.S.
PEDIGREE Foundation Pawty: BBQ, Boots, & Bling will be held on Thursday, October 11th at Marathon Music Works (1402 Clinton Street, Nashville, TN) with special music by Grammy award-winning artist LeAnn Rimes. SiriusXM's The Highway host, Storme Warren, will serve as the emcee for the "Pawty." The event will raise funds to benefit PEDIGREE Foundation grants program that supports organizations that help dogs in need find loving homes.
The Pawty will feature a cocktail reception, delicious BBQ buffet dinner, a silent and LIVE auction with a chance to win fabulous trips and autographed celebrity memorabilia. After dinner, attendees will enjoy an exclusive night of music with multi-platinum selling artist LeAnn Rimes, who skyrocketed into stardom with her breakout country hit "Blue" in 1996. Rimes just released her new Re-Imagined EP on June 20 and will be seen in a new Hallmark Original movie, "It's Christmas, Eve" this holiday season.
"I'm a huge animal lover and I am proud to be a part of PEDIGREE Foundation fundraising event," said LeAnn Rimes. "I always enjoy performing in Nashville and I look forward to being able to raise much-needed funds to help rescue dogs across the country through this amazing non-profit."
Top event sponsors include Dollar General, Hallmark Channel and Transcontinental Packaging.
PEDIGREE Foundation was established in 2008 by dog lovers with a passionate belief that every dog deserves a loving home. The foundation is a 501c3 private foundation of Mars Petcare that supports shelters and rescue organizations, as well as encouraging people to ADOPT, VOLUNTEER, and DONATE. Since 2008, the foundation has contributed more than $6.7 million through 5,000 grants to shelters and rescues across the country, supporting Mars Petcare's purpose: A BETTER WORLD FOR PETS.
"PEDIGREE Foundation, through our volunteers and generous donors have been making a difference in the lives of dogs in need for the last ten years," said Bo Segers, President of PEDIGREE Foundation. "We're excited to be celebrating a decade of finding needy dogs forever homes and to shine the spotlight on the important work our shelter and rescue partners are doing to get more dogs adopted. The Pawty is going to be an outstanding event and we're thankful to have fellow dog lovers, LeAnn Rimes and Storme Warren, as part of the evening celebration."
Other event sponsors include Atlantic Packaging, DDB Worldwide and Silgan.
Tickets to the Pawty event will go on sale to the public later this summer. For more information about sponsorship opportunities, updates and how to donate to the cause, please visit PEDIGREE Foundation at www.PedigreeFoundation.org.
Cameo x St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Celebrate 12 Days of Cameo Dec 11, 2020
Cameo, the company that has connected more than 1 million fans to their favorite pop culture personalities through personalized video messages and video calls, has partnered with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in a holiday campaign to raise funds and awareness of childhood cancers and other life-threatening diseases. More →
THE CALL TO UNITE - A 24 Hour Global Livestream Event May 1, 2020
Stars Announced For Aerosmith's MusiCares Person Of The Year Show Jan 14, 2020
LeAnn Rimes Honored at Hope for Depression Research Foundation's 13th Annual Luncheon Seminar Nov 15, 2019
Treasured Chest


Tell us a bit about what you want in a home or property, and let me search the entire MLS and send you listings to match your needs. I'll do the research for you! I understand that buying or selling a home is more than just a transaction: it's a life-changing experience. That's why I, along with my wife Wendy, who is also my unlicensed assistant, are dedicated to providing exceptional, personalized service for all of our clients. We take great pride in the relationships we build and always work relentlessly on the client's behalf to help them achieve their real estate goals.
We'll walk through each step of the process with you. We have a team of experts representing the best and brightest in the industry, and we're always striving to lead the field in research, innovation, and consumer education. Today's buyers and sellers need a trusted resource that can guide them through the complex world of real estate. With our extensive knowledge and commitment to providing only the best and most timely information to our clients, we are your go-to source for real estate industry insight and advice.
I look forward to talking with you and meeting you soon.


The Finance Minister Shri P. Chidambaram has proposed an outlay of Rs. 27,049 crore for the Ministry of Agriculture in the Union Budget 2013-14. The outlay is 22 per cent over the Revised Estimates of the year 2012-13. Out of this, Rs. 3415 crore will be provided for agricultural research.
From the overall allocation of Rs.
The General Budget reiterates that clarity in tax laws, a stable tax regime, a non-adversarial tax administration, a fair mechanism for dispute resolution and independent judiciary for greater assurance is underlying theme of tax proposals. It is proposed to set up the Tax Administration Reforms Commission.
"Taking into account the difficult economic situation both at home and abroad, the Finance Minister has done a good job. The measures that he has outlined for the rejuvenation of the economy while ensuring inclusive growth are indeed commendable.
The summarized Index of Eight Core Industries with 2004-05 base is given at the Annexure.
The Eight core industries have a combined weight of 37.90 per cent in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). The combined Index was 158.7 in January 2013 with a growth rate of 3.9% compared to their 2.2% growth in January 2012.


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What can i do so that i can give my life to this ledy.
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