EisnerAmper Partner Lisa Knee asks the panel what their investors are looking for, the tools their investors are using to evaluate the market, the balance of supply and demand in real estate, and how they are planning for the "second half" of the real estate cycle.
Lisa Knee: What are you doing now to poise yourself for the future, and current investments that you have and future investments that you're going to make with everything looming on what's going on in today's environment?
Samantha Davidson: Well I think it's a couple of things to think about and it really is a question of kind of what's your outlook on the market. And what's interesting is, while I think in some ways you could maybe get to a consensus after we spend a day in the room, if you spend individual time with investors the way we do, you really see that there are only a handful that are, what I would say particularly pessimistic. There's a large group that's relatively cautious and then I would say a group that is what I almost would put in the moderately optimistic category. And really that ends up being a function of where you're playing and really the true competition that you are facing in your market. But in terms of tools, I think we are seeing and actually relying on investors to start using tools, particularly in the portfolio construction side.
Hugh Macdonnell: So we're not first half of the cycle anymore, I think we're clearly second half. So start there. We manage portfolios and a couple different formats and I'd say we are doing all the things in the ordinary course that you'd expect to do in the second half of the real estate cycle. So we are de-levering where we can. We've done significant pruning, especially in '14 and '15, of perfectly great assets but assets that we as a long term holder - lots of our strategies are sort of long-term in core - as a long term holder things that we don't want to hold through the next cycle because we think there'll be marked down disproportionately. So industrial space, 20 year old infill buildings that are great buildings but maybe we think they're going to perform less well, notwithstanding what David said, which I agree with. So that would be an example of things that we're doing right now just to be defensive and thoughtful. And what brings every real estate cycle to an end is a supply demand imbalance. And we fundamentally think that the demand drivers in the US, relative to other countries in the world, the demand drivers in the US are strong. We think they will continue to underlie moderate growth, slowest growth coming out of any recession, slow, moderate growth, [we] foresee that continuing. That could taper off and lead to a pause. But the growth is actually pretty good and pretty steady in the US, and supply again, coming out of the mid-2000's, supply is more moderate than it's been at any other time in any other sort of real estate cycle that's been studied. So supply's moderate. There are pockets, there always are. Go to Miami: cranes, buildings, tons of supply coming. There's supply in residential in New York City, there's supply in San Francisco. There's pockets where there's lots of supply. But on balance across the country, across the regions, across the sectors, the supply outlook is great. It's been very moderate. Supply in industrial ticking up a little bit, supply in apartments ticking up a little bit, but that's all good. Supply in retail: nothing. And that's consistent with the themes that David just alluded to. Products or goods or services are moving through industrial buildings and not through retail, so retail: supply down, industrial: supply up.


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O.K., Glass: Make Google Eyes
The story behind Google co-founder Sergey Brin's liaison with Google Glass marketing manager Amanda Rosenberg—and his split from his wife, genetic-testing entrepreneur Anne Wojcicki— has a decidedly futuristic edge. But, as Vanessa Grigoriadis reports, the drama leaves Silicon Valley debating emotional issues, from office romance to fear of mortality.
By Vanessa Grigoriadis
The suburb of Los Altos, dotted with sequoia trees and apricot orchards, resembles most wealthy areas in Northern California's Silicon Valley, with a main street of shops selling hyper-athletic offerings, like fleeces for hiking nearby mountains, and Francophile designs to decorate Provençal-influenced homes (sterling-silver trivets, champagne flutes imported from Paris). But look a bit closer and there's something different about this particular town. A stone's throw from the Tesla and McLaren car dealerships of Palo Alto, Los Altos has an inordinate, almost absurd number of services that cater to children. A toy store is stuffed with puffy glitter stickers and neon science projects for kid geniuses. A farm-to-fork restaurant includes a nanny-staffed room for children so you can enjoy your meal in peace, and a 5,000-square-foot kids' science center with an electromagnetic ring toss and an exhibition about the way the wind moves on the ocean opened its doors in December.
This childhood fantasia didn't happen by accident: some of it is the result of urban-design investments made by Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, and his wife, Anne Wojcicki (pronounced Wo-jit-skee), the most important couple in town—and perhaps the most prominent young couple in Silicon Valley. With more than $30 billion in wealth—much of it in special B-class stock that allows Brin to retain a good share of his voting power in Google—they were ranked ninth among U.S. families in charitable giving last year, on their way to becoming Generation X's answer to Bill and Melinda Gates.
"Sergey is a beloved oddball of a guy, and unlike [Google's current and former C.E.O.'s] Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, he's the one who gets to do the cool stuff at Google," says an industry observer. "He said, 'Larry, you do the hard, prestigious work, and at the end of your life you'll do the fun stuff, like Bill Gates. But I'm cutting out the bullshit and Davos and doing the fun stuff right now.' " Wojcicki, in her professional life as well as her personal one, is a powerful woman with ambitions that are enormous, which she funnels into her genetic-testing company, 23andMe. Last fall, Fast Company put her on the cover as "The Most Daring CEO in America."
With two kids under six years old (hence the strong commitment to child-oriented activities in their town, even if the enterprise seems a bit Truman Show-like), the couple were widely seen as perfect for each other. Some people even called them "twins": they're the same age (40), went to elite universities, and are fanatical about the outdoors, yoga, and athletics. Brin likes springboard diving; Wojcicki rides an elliptical bike to work. Among the foremost examples of Silicon Valley's data-driven pragmatism and optimism, they fervently believe the world can be a better place and have devoted themselves to making it so through their many interlocking ventures and family foundation, to which they contributed $187 million last year.
But romantic scandals can happen even to those for whom "good fortune arrives in fairytale-like flurries," as The New York Times once wrote. The pair separated about 10 months ago. Last year Brin, a handsome, compact man with a toned physique, an enviable head of hair, and sparkling brown eyes, left the family's spread on a $7 million Los Altos lot while dating a Google employee in her mid-20s, Amanda Rosenberg—who, in turn, ditched her boyfriend, then a prized executive at Google's Android arm, for Brin. Gossip about the situation ricocheted quickly among the upper echelons of the wealthy fortysomethings leading Silicon Valley. Making things even more complicated, Wojcicki, says a friend of the couple's, considered Rosenberg "a friend."
VISIONARIES Glass designer Isabelle Olsson, Rosenberg, Diane von Furstenberg, and Brin model Google Glass., Photograph by Joe Schildhorn/BFAnyc.com
A stunning Englishwoman with Chinese and Jewish roots, Rosenberg often dyes her long dark hair with streaks of color, like burnt sienna. She has a comedian's sense of timing and a propensity for sharing her emotions widely on social media. She went to the same boarding school as the Duchess of Cambridge and Princess Eugenie. At Google she quickly moved up the ranks to become a marketing manager or main "cheerleader," as an industry observer called her, for Google Glass. Rosenberg was a "public persona" within Google, says a co-worker, and sought a "path for attention" rather than focusing on being collegial within her department.
"Glass" is the shorthand for the computerized spectacles Brin began rolling out last year. When the wearer says, "O.K., Glass," the glasses leap into action, performing most of the functions of a smartphone—checking e-mail, uploading photos to social media, and, in what's perhaps its most bizarre trick, taking videos of the world from the viewpoint of the wearer's eyes. Rosenberg came up with the command "O.K., Glass" and has modeled the product at events and on social media. Though not as high-profile as Brin, she has provided a human face—an attractive, young, female face—to Glass, much the way Scarlett Johansson's voice, in Spike Jonze's film Her, is the human interface of a computer operating system so charming and sympathetic that a man falls in love with it.
Slim and attractive, Wojcicki is currently living on her own, trying to manage the children while engaged in a serious battle over saving 23andMe, which has come under fire from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Rosenberg is wrestling with an even more pernicious demon: depression.
I.T. Couple
Brin's and Wojcicki's orbits collided in 1998, when Brin, a graduate student in Stanford's computer-science department, moved off campus with classmate Larry Page to set up a search-engine company in Wojcicki's sister Susan's garage. Susan, who met Brin when he dated a friend of hers, charged them $1,700 a month rent to offset her mortgage (she is now the most senior female employee at Google, and the new head of YouTube). Brin and Page filled the garage with desks made of old pine doors set on sawhorses, a turquoise shag carpet, and a Ping-Pong table. Their search engine, initially called "BackRub," evaluated the incoming links on a page instead of keywords, as their competitors did, as well as the importance of the entity doing the linking. (In search, as in life, it's about who you know.)
Brin's parents, a pair of Russian-Jewish scientists from Moscow, had experienced prejudice in their home country, and migrated when he was six years old with help from the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (a charity to which Brin gave $1 million in 2009, and where his mother, Eugenia, serves on the board). The scientific community outside of Washington, D.C., embraced his parents, though money was still an issue, instilling a sense of frugality in their son.
The Wojcickis were similarly tight-knit and academic—and, like the Brins, also thrifty and non-materialistic. Wojcicki's father was the chairman of Stanford's physics department, and her mother is a journalism teacher. A lightly tanned brunette who was high-energy, athletic, and popular in school—a sort of Jennifer Aniston in Birkenstocks—Wojcicki figure-skated as a child and played ice hockey at Yale, where she majored in biology. After graduation she worked as a health-care investment analyst on Wall Street for 10 years. Her parents weren't entirely pleased. "It was always embarrassing to come home," she has said. "People were like, 'Oh, Anne, you Wall Street girl.' " (Neither Brin nor Wojcicki responded to questions from Vanity Fair.)
In Brin, Wojcicki found another child of baby-boomer academics who could see beyond academia's cautious, elitist approach to discovering new knowledge, a slow process in which researchers propose a hypothesis, organize an experiment to collect data, submit findings to peer review, and finally, many months later, gain publication in an esoteric journal. Brin and Wojcicki are pioneers of a different model, with enormous potential in both its reach and its speed: they look to advanced, Web-based tools and large data sets as the key to solving problems, from how to target advertising to discovering the drugs to treat cancer. Hypotheses can be limiting and scientists can be led astray; using massive computing power to find patterns is quick, and data sets don't lie.
As Wojcicki and Brin started seeing each other, Google had not only weathered the dot-com crash but begun to dominate the search-engine business and was minting money via AdWords, the most effective advertising platform in history. Eventually, Google would employ 55,000 people on its 65-building campus in Mountain View, California, creating the country's best e-mail platform (Gmail), their own browser (Chrome), a G.P.S. mapping system (Google Maps), a news aggregator (Google News), the world's largest collection of data-storage servers, and the world's most popular mobile operating system (Android). Google became a supremely powerful corporation, but in its DNA it remained anti-corporate. While it acted aggressively to innovate, Brin and Page tried as hard as possible to hew to their unofficial motto of "Don't be evil," keeping their search engine pure despite attempts by major advertisers to game results. When Google, in a rare misstep, censored its results in China, Brin, whose parents' experience attuned him to the abuses of totalitarian regimes, took the leading role in pulling the company out of the country.
The corporate culture that you've likely heard about at Google—the lack of a dress code, the free sushi, the pets at work, the free Pilates sessions—was all part of the founders' mission to create a benevolent workplace. When investors leaned on Page and Brin to hire an established C.E.O.—what's called "adult supervision" in the Valley—they selected Eric Schmidt, a computer scientist and manager who was known to attend Burning Man, the annual, costumed bacchanal and creativity free-for-all in the Nevada desert that's a tradition among Google executives. "Larry and Sergey genuinely care about innovation, and part of that means genuinely caring about employees so they do the best and most creative work they can do," says a former Googler.
Creativity meant thinking about things differently from the way other corporations did, and it's part of how Google stays on top. It also meant that when Brin got married it wouldn't be in the traditional way. In 2007 he and Wojcicki invited guests to a secret location in the Bahamas. Wojcicki hadn't always wanted to get hitched—during her years on the Street she saw bankers cheating on their wives, according to the friend of the couple's—but Brin was her man. For the wedding, she wore a white bathing suit, and the groom a black one. They swam out to a sandbar to take their vows surrounded by the ocean.
__FAST COMPANY__Wojcicki and Brin at the 2014 Breakthrough Prizes in Fundamental Physics and Life Sciences ceremony, co-hosted by V.F. in Mountain View, California., By Steve Jennings/Getty Images.
A year later, Wojcicki gave birth to their first child just as Google executives started enjoying life as some of the richest people in the world. Schmidt was a pilot, and, according to the friend, he encouraged other Google executives to indulge their desires for yachts and planes. Brin, Page, and Schmidt purchased at least a half-dozen planes, including a 767 and a 757; they basically "own an airline," says the friend. Brin also purchased a home in New York City's West Village. Schmidt bought Ellen DeGeneres's $20 million Montecito mansion, a $15 million New York apartment, which made an appearance as Shia LaBeouf's pad in the film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and, recently, a $22 million home near the Playboy Mansion, in Holmby Hills.
Schmidt's wife, Wendy, however, retreated to their compound on Nantucket and didn't often make the Google social scene. Schmidt, now 58, was sometimes accompanied by younger women, one of whom briefly worked at Google.
Several former Google employees say that the company is casual in its approach to dating at work. One says that Google is "intentionally agnostic about dating," and that there are hundreds of "Google couples" among its global offices. In fact, Google's code of conduct does not ban dating between employees, saying, "Romantic relationships between co-workers can, depending on the work roles and respective positions of the co-workers involved, create an actual or apparent conflict of interest. If a romantic relationship does create an actual or apparent conflict, it may require changes to work arrangements or even the termination of employment of either or both individuals involved."
Concerning the culture of office romances at Google, one Atherton socialite with close connections to the company says, "When you have executives dating employees, it's like a doctor-nurse relationship—it's not illegal, but it seems like it shouldn't be happening. Tech is a man's world. Most of these guys are married, and then there are these young fresh [female] sharks, and they're smart too." But the men have hundreds of millions of dollars. The socialite trots out an old saw: "It's almost like you get a Stanford degree so you can work at Google, so you can find a husband."
Over the years, there have been several notable workplace romances at the top levels of Google, including one between Page and Marissa Mayer, now the C.E.O. of Yahoo. There were hallway discussions about the two of them dating, and some believed being close to Mayer was helpful when trying to quickly secure Page's approval for a project.
Wojcicki, unlike many wives of rich men, wasn't enthusiastic about collecting art or jewelry, and she argued against buying planes and boats, says the friend of the couple's. Some say she can be headstrong and withholding of praise, hot to her own ideas and dismissive of others'. Wojcicki is adamant about wanting a "normalized" life, says a source close to her, using the Silicon Valley billionaires' phrase for "normal." But there's nothing normal about the astronomical wealth, or the power that comes from being the ones changing the world.
In 2006, Wojcicki co-founded 23andMe and soon raised several rounds of financing, including $6.5 million from Google. She hoped to attract over a million customers to her company, coaxing them to spit into a tube and send the saliva to her DNA-genotyping lab for today's low price of $99. Her mission was to pass along as much information as possible about each person's health and ancestry, on the principle that this knowledge, by rights, is ours. But not everyone receives good news; many have learned about elevated levels of risk for breast cancer, Alzheimer's, or Parkinson's. Some health-care professionals believe it is unwise to give individuals such daunting news without the support of personal counseling.
Wojcicki, it turns out, had a more personal stake in her business than one might imagine. Brin's great-aunt suffered from Parkinson's, the neuro-degenerative disorder, and his mother was diagnosed with it in 1999. It was long thought that Parkinson's was not hereditary. But beginning in 2004, researchers suggested that people with a certain gene mutation (more common among Ashkenazi Jews) have a risk of between 30 and 75 percent of succumbing to the disease. (The general population's risk is about 1 percent.) When Wojcicki tested Brin, his results were positive for the mutation. Brin read the risk as possibly having only about 10 good years left, says the friend of the couple's.
After getting such news, some of us would curl up into a ball, but Brin didn't. Unlike Steve Jobs, who fiercely guarded news about his health, Brin started a blog and announced his results publicly, at Google's Zeitgeist conference in 2008 in Mountain View. Brin began exercising even more relentlessly than usual, and drinking coffee, which some doctors recommend for those at risk for the disease, even though he abhorred the taste. (He eventually switched to green tea.) He told Wired magazine that he hoped those steps might reduce his risk by half, and if research on the brain progresses, as he believes it will, his risk could be cut in half again.
In addition, Wojcicki and Brin have the means to aid such research, and they have given more than $150 million to the Michael J. Fox Foundation and $7 million to the Parkinson's Institute. They have also donated to the Breakthrough Prizes, one of which was awarded to a Parkinson's researcher at a ceremony at the NASA Ames Research Center, in Mountain View, last fall co-hosted by Vanity Fair. Research on the 10,000 Parkinson's sufferers that Wojcicki has recruited at 23andMe, the largest cohort of these genotypes in the world, might cut Brin's risk even more. "Somewhere under 10 percent" is his own assessment.
In the years following his genetic test, Brin shifted his focus at Google. Like many leaders in Silicon Valley, he had grown bored with quotidian problems and started to dream more about things that were literally out of this world, like space travel and robots who will become our friends. As Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen invested $200 million on a superplane that can launch a rocket, and Tesla's Elon Musk talked about the Hyperloop, Brin, working at a company with the country's top engineers, threw his energy into Google X, the company's "secret lab," in two nondescript buildings near the Mountain View campus.
In 2012, to debut Google Glass, Brin coordinated a skydiving stunt, with a team of jumpers leaping out of a zeppelin over downtown San Francisco. The media was enthralled: Brin, they said, was the real-life Tony Stark, the comic-book genius innovator played by Robert Downey Jr. in the Iron Man films. (Actually, director Jon Favreau says Musk was his inspiration.) Glass was Brin's first big project at X; now he's ready to turn his attention to driverless cars, beta versions of which are crisscrossing San Francisco today, like so many ghosts.
The first incarnation of Glass, a 10-pound, head-mounted display attached to cables that looped to a box on the user's belt, was not sexy, but Brin had it redesigned as sleek, lensless frames in shades of "cotton," "tangerine," and "sky." Still, they screamed "nerd." At an Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, Brin and Wojcicki approached designer Diane von Furstenberg with an idea: perhaps she would like to collaborate. The designer was tickled by the notion of her models wearing Glass at a fashion show. It would lend a bit of tech gloss to her company, and fashion glamour for Glass.
For the event the Glass team, including Amanda Rosenberg, descended on New York to collaborate with von Furstenberg's studio. Brin and Wojcicki threw a party at their home in the West Village and Glass's palette was matched to von Furstenberg's clothes. On the day of the show, during New York's Fashion Week, Rosenberg posed with von Furstenberg and Brin for celebratory photos. She posted a picture of herself sitting in the front row, using Glass to record the show. "You can see that everyone looks pretty cool, whereas I can barely contain my excitement," Rosenberg wrote, with her usual sense of self-deprecating humor.
While Glass was blowing up in the press, a friend admits, Wojcicki may have been a bit hard on Brin. "Anne is great, but she can be difficult," says the friend. "She's hard on Sergey, and she doesn't let him get away with things." She was focused on saving him: when research discovered that a gene variant might protect those with Brin's rare Parkinson's-related mutation, Wojcicki patented it. (Like many of her business decisions, patenting genes—a move often seen as an attempt to corner a drug market—is controversial in the medical establishment.)
Wojcicki still wanted a normal life, or as normal as she could have: to be a dedicated mom and for the family to have dinner together. But "instead of just being a Google founder, Sergey was suddenly awesome, a cool person, a performer—a celebrity!" says the friend of the couple's. "And he was like, 'Wait a second—I'm doing all this cool stuff, and then I have to come home and change diapers?' "
Wojcicki began to help Brin informally on Google Glass, says the friend. Rosenberg wanted to get the product into the hands of moms, so she came over to Wojcicki's home to discuss reaching out to the many kid-oriented services in Los Altos. At the time, Rosenberg's boyfriend was Hugo Barra, a high-ranking executive on Google's Android team. A Brazilian educated at M.I.T., he was essentially the face of their new mini-tablet, the Nexus 7, and a well-regarded, creative product manager. Rosenberg posted internal videos of the two of them together and was "so proud when she started dating him," says a co-worker. Over the holiday season in 2012–13, says the couple's friend, Wojcicki and Rosenberg became close enough that Wojcicki bought Rosenberg a Christmas present. The two of them went to a birthday dinner for Russian investor Yuri Milner, with Barra, Brin, and both Wojcicki's and Brin's parents. Rosenberg was smoking cigarettes, and Barra wanted her to stop. Wojcicki lectured her about the health risks.
Around that time, according to the friend, Wojcicki came across messages between Rosenberg and Brin that caused her to feel alarm, and she mentioned her concern to Rosenberg. (Rosenberg declined to comment for this article.) A few months later, in April, Brin moved out of their estate in Los Altos and into another home that they own nearby. He and Wojcicki maintained a cordial relationship.
Wojcicki must have wondered at the way a partnership built on love, pragmatism, and a shared philosophy about the way the world works can be trumped by the passion and excitement of a new relationship.
This wasn't the outcome Wojcicki had desired for her marriage, but she could live with it. However, something odd was happening: Rosenberg was not leaving Barra. They were still dating while she was also seeing Brin. Allegedly, Page and Schmidt were aware of this.
At this point, says a source close to the situation, Barra was making plans to move abroad with Rosenberg. He had attracted a competing job offer from a fast-growing Chinese mobile-phone maker, Xiaomi (pronounced *Shao-*me), to take their business international. Though Google can throw a lot of money at an employee to keep him, Barra was seriously considering taking the job in China. Still ignorant of his girlfriend's relationship with Brin, Barra discussed planting roots in Hong Kong with her. But in late May, according to the source, Rosenberg told Barra that they needed to break up, though she did not tell him the reason.
A few months later, Brin and Wojcicki began to discuss acknowledging their separation in the press. With so many divergent agendas, this process became messy. Wojcicki, in particular, was starting to feel uncomfortable when acquaintances at conferences would send their regards to Brin via her, without realizing they were no longer together. According to the friend of the couple's, Brin wanted to go public with the news before Burning Man, which takes place at the end of August, because he hoped to attend the festival with Rosenberg.
On August 23, The New York Times ran a story entitled "Women at Google Looking Past the Glass Ceiling," for which a business reporter was given access to women on the Glass team at a luau-style lunch at the company. "If high fashion and high tech are worlds apart," she wrote, "the women of Google Glass are like explorers, trying to connect the two." One conspicuous female team member, Rosenberg, was not mentioned. Around the same time, according to sources, she removed many photographs from her Facebook and Google+ pages, including ones that showed her with Barra.
News of the Wojcicki-Brin split finally broke on August 28, quickly followed by online speculation about Brin's relationship with Rosenberg. "It was inappropriate," says the source close to the situation, of the relationship. "Larry is so ethically strict. . . . I heard Larry was insanely upset by this whole situation and wasn't talking to Sergey" for a time. The source adds that Brin and Rosenberg both remained at Google X. "At Google, some people were furious internally, especially women, that Sergey and Amanda were not [professionally] separated." (Google would not comment for this article.)
That same day, August 28, Google revealed that Barra was leaving the company to take the job at Xiaomi, earlier than he had planned to make the announcement. To some, it seemed too much of a coincidence: online news sites were soon abuzz with speculation about Brin's relationship with Rosenberg.
Barra was advised not to talk publicly about his departure from Google, leaving room for the press to conjecture that he was possibly pushed out of the company. "In China, so much for executives is about your image, and in one day Hugo's value got cut in half," says the friend of Brin and Wojcicki's. Instead of Xiaomi regarding Barra as a top guy who was recruited from Google, now there were questions about whether he had been pushed out by the founder of Google for personal reasons. (This notion proved short-lived, and Barra's public persona ultimately received a lift from the chatter.) While all this was playing out, Wojcicki took off for Fiji with some girlfriends to get some space, doing yoga while bobbing on the sea.
If this was the entirety of the behind-the-scenes theatrics of Brin and Wojcicki's relationship, it might make a good Lifetime movie, but there was another, and sadder, act to come. Brin likes his newfound freedom, says the friend of the couple's, but he also likes being close to his wife and children. "He thinks his life is great now." Brin attended Marissa Mayer's annual extravagant Halloween party with Wojcicki and the kids. This didn't sit well with Rosenberg, says the family friend—"the two of them have horrible, screaming fights. It's part of the passion, the chemical attraction."
A couple of months ago, Rosenberg ran into a rough patch. As she wrote in an essay that she posted on her Tumblr blog, "I suffer from clinical depression. Whilst I'm not proud of it, I'm not ashamed of it either." She called depression a "sneaky bugger," adding, "You might seem happy on the outside. Smiling, talking to people at parties, saying things like Did you put lime in this hummus? It's delicious, my face is having such a great time! But you, and others around you, may not realize how deeply the depression runs."
Turns out, she continues, that she was "a ticking time bomb. See, when you extreme hoard all the feelings (like finding-a-dead-pet-under-the-refrigerator kind of hoarding), you end up with none at all. . . . I'm in treatment and have been for 6 weeks. Reaching out for help is the single best and bravest decision I have ever made."
In Silicon Valley, the tale of this love rectangle has been interpreted in various ways. To some young wives of tech billionaires, it's about locking arms to support a clan member, declaring that they won't stand for the same treatment. To other observers, it's a parable about the perils of an atmosphere perhaps too casual about office dating. And to yet others, it's about the danger inherent in data sets, when the data includes too much information about one's mortality. If Brin had never learned about his Parkinson's risk, he might never have had what a friend of the couple's characterizes as an emotional crisis and strayed from his wife. (But had Wojcicki not helped him discover his risk for contracting the disease, he might not have enacted the healthy lifestyle choices that may prolong his life.)
Rosenberg continues to work at Google X. Brin does too, overseeing new projects such as flying wind turbines that circle one thousand feet overhead, fixed to a tether, and, rumor has it, broadband transmitters located on high-altitude balloons. He is on the Paleo Diet now—he's like "a hunter-gatherer," says the friend of the couple's.
Wojcicki is said to be dealing with the separation well, though she has been distracted by enormous problems at her company—the F.D.A. shut down part of 23andMe's operations in late November, forcing the company to stop providing health-related test results to its customers. Some powerful players, like the American Medical Association, are demanding that she loop in physicians. Many of Wojcicki's competitors, feeling the heat, have agreed to do so, but she has refused.
According to people who know her, she doesn't want a divorce. Though the couple has a pre-nup, there's more than enough money to go around, and she wouldn't want to deal with courts and custody battles. She still owns the patent that might be the key to creating a drug to treat Brin.
For his part, Barra recently even made a kind gesture toward Rosenberg and reposted her essay about depression on his own social-media page. "Good to see you're the better man, taking the high road here. Water under the bridge, man," wrote a member of his Google+ circle. Rosenberg continues to be active on social media. Her friends and followers piped up recently when she dyed her hair blond. "That's going to cause a double take," one of her friends wrote. Another added, "Beautiful as always."
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text:
GLAMOUR IN STORE
Amazon wants to make Whole Foods a beauty destination
Reuters/Maranie Staab
The whole market awaits.
Today's mindfulness industry is a multi-billion-dollar global business, and at its root is a sincere desire to live our best, most carefully considered life.
By Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz
Imagine you could pick up lipstick, groceries, some collagen capsules, and the fancy skincare products you use all in one spot. You can do that on the internet, sure, but right now there isn't a store that totally fits the bill.
Amazon (surprise!) wants to provide that destination, via Whole Foods.
In an interview with the beauty publication Glossy, Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market revealed its plans to make the grocery chain a sort of clean beauty destination.
Jen Coccaro, director of merchandising for Whole Body, the chain's beauty and wellness sector, notes that Whole Foods has been selling natural and organic beauty products since it was founded in 1980. This was well before the advent of the $4.2 trillion wellness industry and mainstreaming of beauty supplements and "clean beauty" (which generally refers to products made using only natural, organic, non-irritating, and pH-optimized ingredients).
Coccaro is responsible for educating customers about Whole Food's beauty offerings, as well as recruiting new brands. "What we are trying to do now is be more engaged in the industry, make our customer more aware of us and that we have clean beauty products and full solutions to wellness," she told Glossy.
Sounds simple, especially for a company that really has had a section dedicated to "wellness" products for several decades now. That said, the Whole Foods move is only the latest Amazon has made in what seems to be an aggressive strategy for the beauty market.
Amazon, which unveiled a debut collection of inexpensive makeup products under its private label "find" in January, is already a premier destination for cosmetic products and a major beauty channel. It boasts three differentiated categories on its site: luxury beauty, for prestige brands you'd find at a department store (this category ballooned 57% in the second quarter of 2018, per One Click Retail); professional beauty, with products you'd find in salons and spas, and indie beauty, which sells independently owned brands not found at retailers like Target, Sephora, or Ulta.
But the beauty industry has proved unusually resilient to competition from Amazon, thanks in large part to strong brick-and-mortar retailers like Ulta and Sephora, both of which have shown stellar growth and guidance in recent years.
Such retailers continue to thrive—and remain "Amazon proof" in a sense—because of the nature of buying makeup. It's a tactile experience that supports in-person exploration. Whether your a layperson or a professional, the texture, scent, look, and feel of a product are critical. Buying online removes the sensory aspects of purchasing products.
Beauty tech, including virtual and augmented reality, may someday become the main way consumers try lipstick or match a foundation shade to their skin color. Shoppers are still doing that inside of the store, something that was emphasized in a recent NPD Group report that revealed that the beauty category is driving the majority of foot traffic into duty-free stores around the world.
Meanwhile, Amazon is hitting Sally Beauty and Ulta, in particular, from another angle: It launched the Amazon Professional Beauty Store last week, an online venue for professional products. The company has offered a selection of pro-grade products for some time. Now they're to be provided via brand partnerships with salon-grade companies rather than third-party retailers, a fact that had previously deterred professionals who were wary of purchasing fakes. Shares of Ulta and Sally Beauty—the go-to suppliers for professionals—both fell on the news, with the latter dropping 17%.


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The 6th chapter of Isaiah describes the call of Isaiah to be a prophet and to serve God. The chapter begins with an awesome vision he has of God: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple" (Isaiah 6:1). He sees seraphim, proclaiming, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!' (Isaiah 6:2-4). What an awesome sight to behold. I can only imagine what Isaiah must have felt. As we consider God's call to Isaiah to serve Him as His prophet to His people Israel, there are some lessons for us to learn about our service to God.
First, he felt completely inadequate and unworthy as he looked at himself: "So I said: 'Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts" (Isaiah 6:5). One of the seraphim then flew and touched Isaiah's mouth with a "live coal" and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged" (Isaiah 6:7). Isaiah was to serve God in spite of his feeling inadequate in himself for the task.
Second, Isaiah was being called to serve God in spite of the great unlikelihood of what most people would consider a "success". As soon as Isaiah says, "Here I am. Send me", God says, "Go, and tell this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed" (Isaiah 6:9-10). God tells Isaiah upfront that the people to whom he is prophesying are not going to respond favorably to His message. Isaiah was to keep prophesying until Israel's land was laid waste in God's judgment against them, yet, in His grace and mercy, God would spare a remnant through whom He would send His Son to give the opportunity for all men to be saved from their sins (Isaiah 6:11-14).
Finally, Isaiah was to serve God in hope and trust in the Lord's promises. Isaiah's wife bears him two sons, Shear-Jashub (i.e. meaning "A Remnant Shall Return") and Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz (i.e. meaning "Speed the Spoil, Hasten the Booty") whose names describe the essence of Isaiah's ministry as he proclaims Israel's coming punishment for her sins and how only a remnant of God's people will remain following God's judgment against them. In a great response of faith, Isaiah says, "Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait on the Lord, Who hides His face from the house of Jacob; and I will hope in Him. Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me! We are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, Who dwells in Mount Zion" (Isaiah 8:16-18). Even though Isaiah knew his ministry would not be viewed as a "success" in the eyes of the world, he was going to serve God in hope and trust in God's promises.
As I consider Isaiah's call to his ministry, I am reminded that God calls me to serve in spite of my own inadequacies and whether or not my service to Him will be viewed as a "success" by the world's standards. He asks me to just serve Him in hope and trust in His promises. Today, I find encouragement from Isaiah's call to ministry as I go forth to serve the Lord!
"His lord said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord'" (Matthew 25:21).


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HomeGeneration & StorageQueensland council approves $1 billion solar farm
Queensland council approves $1 billion solar farm
Toowoomba, Queensland, looks likely to become home to Australia's largest solar farm after a 5000ha development proposal was approved by the regional council.
Construction on the 52.6sq km Bulli Creek site near Powerlink's substation near Millmerran, south-west of Toowoomba, is expected to start next year. It will be on cleared, flat cattle grazing land that is largely flooded with sunshine.
Developer Solar Choice has received approval for the 2GW solar plant, with the company aiming to begin construction on the $1 billion project sometime in 2016.
Managing director Angus Gemmell said if the farm reached its full potential it would take Australia 25 per cent closer to achieving the mandated 41,000GWh target by 2020.
"There are a lot of people saying there's not enough of a pipeline to reach the target. This project shows it could absolutely be reached," Mr Gemmell said, as reported by The Courier-Mail.
"We need 8GW by 2020 to reach the target and this project could represent one quarter of that."
Mr Gemmell called on the Federal Government to end the uncertainty around the large-scale RET, saying 'big solar' had strong support among regional communities.
"The (Toowoomba) Council's decision is an exciting milestone, we're a third of the way there," he said.
Previous articleUnusable land to be converted into 10MW solar farm
Next articleFinance mechanism to deliver better green buildings


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In a bid to allay fears that Indian national security could be at risk, Huawei India has said it is willing to place its software code (source code) in an escrow with the government. "In 2010, we were the only equipment company which offered to place the software code of the equipment in an escrow to the Indian government, when similar questions on security were raised. We are willing to do the same again for 5G so that there are no apprehensions," said CEO Jay Chen.
Telecom experts say that control over the software codes helps a government to check at any time whether there have been any security breaches in the network or whether any spyware has been installed or embedded.
Chen's reference to 2010 was to the time when the Chinese telecom giant was not allowed to participate in telecom projects that had been opened up for bidding by BSNL in sensitive areas where India has international borders. This restriction, however, was removed after a few months.
In recent weeks, the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan have banned Huawei products from rolling out on future 5G networks for fear of spying or theft. These security concerns prompted the Telecom Equipment and Services Export Promotion Council, which represents domestic Indian manufacturers, to express similar reservations.
The Council has written to National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, asking him to restrict equipment made not only by Huawei but other Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers too such as ZTE.
However, the Cellular Operators Association of India defended Huawei and urged the government not to make any hasty decision.
Chen said the company was ready to comply with any other conditions that the government might wish to put in place for rolling out 5G, just as it had in other countries. As an example, he said that in the UK — a key market for the company — Huawei had set up a cyber security centre where government experts could test telecom gear. However, a UK government report on Huawei in July said it had "only limited assurance" that the equipment posed no threat to national security.


Leicester based company EverythingBranded approached 1st WebDesigns to produce their new website, which offers a range of brand-able promotional items including mugs, pens, keyrings and oyster card wallets.
Having been selected for the project due to our experience with retail and product oriented websites, we set about creating a visually striking homepage concept with links to best selling items and offers.
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You are here: Home1 / Premium Fund
NZFC to Fund Members' Projects
The NZFC have announced that 19 successful projects will receive funding as part of Ara ki Te Puna Kairangi – The Premium Development Fund, with a total of 1.5 million offered. The successful projects represent a broad array of ideas with the potential to engage both local and international audiences, and includes projects by our very own DEGNZ members.
Hannah Marshall will go ahead with another season of drama series Alibi with her production company Plus6Four Entertainment Limited.
Roseanne Liang, Ally Xue, JJ Fong and Perlina Lau, alongside Creamerie Ltd, have received funding for a second season of the post-apocalyptic black comedy Creamerie.
Max Currie with Autonomouse Limited, has received funding for another season of Rūrangi, a queer and trans-positive drama.
Congratulations to all our members. We can't wait to see the projects come to life.
https://www.deganz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Template-Post-Header-845x321-6.png 321 845 admin /wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.png admin2021-07-15 14:47:332021-07-15 14:47:33NZFC to Fund Members' Projects
Cutting Through The Hype
Scrolling through my Facebook feed yesterday to catch up on industry news, a Stuff article caught my eye. "Can Aotearoa make the screen the next primary industry?" the hook headline blared.
Diving into the article, I read that SIGANZ President Brendon Durey believes the "constrained" rebate doesn't go far enough (the rebate offered to international productions shooting here) as other countries like the United Kingdom and Canada offer higher amounts. A white paper put together by educational outfits YooBee College of Design and UP Education calls for more Government money and resources to go into creativity education. And new Wellington outfit The Granary gets its marketing video promoting the use of LED technology backdrops showcased. Multiple handclaps to all three for getting their PR into Stuff.
My hat does go off to the educational outfits and The Granary, though, because they both promote the idea of local IP creation, with YouBee and Up giving a big plug to the possibilities with local stories and within the New Zealand gaming sector, while The Granary seeks to give Kiwi content creators a way to bring Hollywood tech pizazz to local production in an affordable manner.
One of the key reasons Aotearoa has a massive opportunity on its doorstep, journalist Andre Chumko tells us in the article, is that our sector "struggles to keep up with an unprecedented glut of production born from the Covid-19 pandemic." I would suggest, however, that that glut isn't going to continue unabated.
As the whole sector was wrestling during our first lock down with how to get back into production, I was having calls with the Directors Guild of America about what we were doing. NZ's Screensafe COVID protocols were written up and out while the US guilds were still wondering what to do. Although slow to get their protocols in place, American production has for some time now been operating both domestically and internationally amidst the pandemic with strict guidelines that are keeping on-set infections low. Now, with the vaccine rolling out, the sleeping U.S. behemoth of backlogged productions and a year of new shows developed by showrunners and writers locked up in their homes is going to start hitting.
Will Aotearoa get a slice of that pie? Undoubtedly. As will Australia, which is seen as just as safe as New Zealand by Americans, but with more crew, facilities, and perhaps most importantly, onscreen talent that can pull international financing and audiences. Canada, Eastern Europe, and other countries will also benefit as the American juggernaut gets rolling.
The idea that we are going to be awash in streamer and other international production until the Apocalypse, however, is a little far-fetched in my view. A lot of American production will again take place in the U.S. and Canada, just like it always has. A strategic approach and well managed tactical implementation will I believe see New Zealand continue to benefit long term from production coming in from overseas. But the real opportunity I maintain lays in "constrained" local IP generation, and not just with identifiably Kiwi content.
Putting our culture on screen is vitally important, and we must continue to do so. Māori content cuts through in the global marketplace. Indisputable. But it's the lack of investment in our screen content that is constraining us, whether it's identifiably New Zealand or not.
NZ On Air, TMP and NZFC are still essentially operating on the same levels of funding they were receiving 10 years ago. COVID funding, though, has shone a spotlight on local IP.
Depending on which whisper you listen to, there were somewhere between 50 and 150 applications for the one-off $50 million Premium Fund. That's a lot of local IP vying for, in the greater scheme of things, not a lot of money. There would definitely have been more than one pie-in-the-sky idea thrown in with no chance of success. But even if only 10 per cent of the proposals met a key criteria of being high-quality productions that tell New Zealand stories for global audiences at a scale and ambition not previously possible, that's a clear indication of how much viable, untapped IP is out there.
Our local screen industry needs more investment to take advantage of global content opportunities:
More annual funding for NZ On Air, TMP and NZFC
An annual Premium Fund
More support for New Zealand's gaming sector
A massively stimulated local industry will provide more than enough employment for current and future crew, and work for suppliers, with the added benefit of generating export dollars and actually creating and retaining IP here. International serviced production will then become a nice-to-have rather than a must-have for the New Zealand screen industry to survive and prosper.
March 16, 2021 /by Tui
https://www.deganz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/View_from_the_top_new.png 736 1280 Tui /wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.png Tui2021-03-16 14:50:392021-03-17 09:11:28Cutting Through The Hype
Welcome to 2021-A Year of Positive Uncertainty
Considering the significant impact of COVID on the entertainment industry, it's hard not to be pleased with the incredible amount of activity going on in the New Zealand screen industry right now.
New Zealand is being seen as a good, safe destination to shoot in, with a number of international productions happening and others wanting to come in. This means crews are busy and getting paid well, more New Zealand actors are getting cast in roles that at another time would have gone to internationals, and the economic impact of the spend is going around the country.
As well, New Zealand productions, whether domestic or coproduction, are also happening. Vegas in Rotorua, One Lane Bridge in Queenstown, Mystic's going again, Head High has gotten another series, The Panthers is shooting. These are just some of the bigger ones, in addition to the many small and medium-sized productions that typically get made in any given year.
Producers are lining up with projects for the Premium Drama Fund. A number of these will shoot this year. Shortly, the development component of the PDF will come out. All this on top of the typical funding from our three content funding bodies.
What's the problem? Well crew rates and budgets for a start.
Crew are putting their prices up because demand exceeds supply, making it very difficult for NZ productions to get highly experienced crew. So if you've got an inexperienced teenager, relative or friend who's been longing to get into film and TV, there's never been a better time.
Budgets from the funding bodies for regular production haven't increased, which means NZ can't compete with their international dollars. The Premium Fund projects have hopefully taken increased rates into account, but for right now this is a one-off fund. Now is the time to lobby Government for more money for the funding bodies. This is particularly the case for NZFC as filmmakers are essentially paying—not getting paid—to make their low-budget films. While independently-funded films often operate in this way, it shouldn't be the case for films funded by NZFC.
On the big picture front, we've heard that the Screen Industry Workers Bill is walking at tortoise pace while the government puts the afterburner on Fair Pay Agreements. Movement is happening on the proposed pan-sector body The Copyright Act Review is stuck in limbo. Considerable effort is going into the shaping and establishment of the Workforce Development Councils, driven out of the Reform of Vocational Education. This is a real positive for the screen sector as it will hopefully provide pathways into screen sector work that will address the shortages we face on the crew side particularly, but also in other areas.
Frankly, though, we are in a pretty good place considering. Now we just have to pray like hell that those COVID variants don't wreak havoc on what could be a very good year for us all.
January 27, 2021 /by Tui
https://www.deganz.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/View_from_the_top_new.png 736 1280 Tui /wp-content/uploads/2021/10/DEGANZ_logo_home.png Tui2021-01-27 13:46:012021-01-27 13:46:01Welcome to 2021-A Year of Positive Uncertainty


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About the JUTC
Sub-Franchise
JUTC Board Charter
JUTC News Release
JUTC investigation reveals potential cause of recent fires
The Jamaica Urban Transit Company, JUTC, continues to investigate the recent bus fires and has found some startling bit of information. Since the Company intensified its monitoring and assessment of buses over the course of two weeks, it has unearthed what appears to be substandard workmanship which may have caused two of the three fires.
Managing Director of the JUTC Paul Abrahams says "it appears there are efforts to undermine the operations of the bus company; both internal and external. This includes attack on members of staff and its assets. During preventative fire checks these past two weekends , we have found instances of serious breaches including but not limited to; fuel line being too loose beside a turbo, and a rag that was used to tie a hydraulic line among other displaced connections in the engine. These breaches can cause spontaneous combustion when in operation mode and may have prompted at least two of the three fires. We are taking a zero tolerance approach to the recent fires and have warned personnel that there should be no recurrence," adding that with the recent fires, greater focus is being placed on quality maintenance of all units.
In light of the recent fires, a Fire Prevention Team was formed. The main objective of this team is to ensure that all units are up to safety standards for the commuting public and that all procedures are adhered to. At a separate meeting this week (on Monday), Mr. Abrahams said that the fire team will report every week on the faults they have found and the corrective measures they have put in place. A fire prevention checklist has also been developed and the staff has been given refresher fire prevention training, in addition to the regular maintenance programme in effect.
Mr. Abrahams says administrative sanctions following due process will be brought to bear on those found to be responsible for poor workmanship and that the investigations continue.
Meanwhile, the management of the JUTC is appealing to members of the public to report any infractions by its staff or the public, to include but not limited to stone throwing incidents, bus fires, and or customer service issues. The public may call toll free 876. 888.588.2287, whatsApp 876.570.1789 or use our social media platforms – @jutcltd for twitter and www.facebook.com/jutcltd.
Thank you for your support as we work towards fixing this challenge
Hellshire Shuttle Notice
JUTC to terminate service at 8pm this evening
UPDATE – JUTC to beef up security across its operations
JUTC to have full resumption of service by 5pm this afternoon
Portmore Schematic Routes Rockfort Schematic Routes Spanish Town Schematic Routes
The Jamaica Urban Transit Company, JUTC, is a household name. The wholly owned Government run public transportation company opened its doors in July 1998 providing a vital service for commuters who at that time demanded a decent and structured public transportation system within the Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region, KMTR, due to the haphazard system that existed.
Michael Manley Drive, P.O. Box 575,
Twickenham Park, Spanish Town,
St. Catherine, Jamaica W.I.
+1 (876) 749-3192-9
pr@jutc.com.jm
Copyright © Jamaica Urban Transit Company | All rights reserved
Designed By: Jamaica Information Service (JIS)


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The Business Practice Group provides clients with a range of services from starting a business and handling daily legal concerns to dealing with complex matters such as mergers, acquisitions, and sales of businesses. The Business Practice Group encompasses the skills of a number of practice groups, including Community Associations, Construction, Dealer/Distributor and Franchising, Health Care, Housing Authorities, Intellectual Property, International, Nonprofit Organizations, Securities, Tax, and Technology to ensure that all aspects of clients' legal requirements are met.
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Attorneys in the Business Practice Group bring to their work a range of complementary experience, including legal advisor to a number of major companies in North Carolina; vice president and general counsel-corporate secretary for a bank holding company in North Carolina; law school professor; author and lecturer on entrepreneurial business and legal issues; chairman of the board of a legal foundation and member of a business commission; member of boards of for-profit, nonprofit, and educational institutions; member of commissions and boards of the state government, the University of North Carolina system, and private business and nonprofit enterprises; North Carolina Bar Association continuing legal education lecturer; and member of boards of local nonprofit organizations. Several attorneys are authors and lecturers on litigation and estate and tax planning issues, two have an LL.M. in Taxation, and two are certified public accountants.
Our attorneys belong to many organizations relating to their practice areas and are members of numerous professional organizations such as the American College of Real Estate Lawyers; American College of Trust and Estate Counsel; American Intellectual Property Law Association; Council for Entrepreneurial Development; Eastern North Carolina Inn of Court; Medical Group Management Association; North Carolina Association of Certified Public Accountants; North Carolina Bankers Association; North Carolina Chamber; North Carolina State University College of Sciences Foundation; and North Carolina Society of Health Care Attorneys.
Media Mention: Richard Crow's 'Insightful Discussion' on Business Growth
Supreme Court Sets Standard for Bankruptcy Discharge Violations
Business Team
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Check Out This $86,001 USB-C iPhone
Lily Wordsmith 2 months ago
Very recently, a man named Ken Pillonel managed to sell a modified iPhone X for $86,001. For context, a standard iPhone X comes with a $999 price tag, meaning that this modified iPhone X managed to sell for more than 86 times the price of its unmodified counterparts. This was possible because Pillonel had installed USB-C on the phone, which is something that a lot of iPhone enthusiasts have been asking for. Having said that, interested individuals shouldn't expect Pillonel to sell more of these modified iPhone Xes for a number of reasons. One, he doesn't want to become liable in case one of these phones breaks down. Two, he doesn't want to go through the complicated and time-consuming process of securing the certifications needed to sell electronics. Three, he believes that he would be hit by a lawsuit, which is something that he wants to avoid for very understandable reasons. For that matter, it should be mentioned that Pillonel didn't exactly have the best experience selling the modified iPhone X.
Apparently, he got targeted by troll bidders, who had a discouraging effect on their legitimate counterparts. Something that his platform of choice eBay wasn't very helpful with. If anything, eBay was unhelpful, as shown by how it blocked further bids before deleting his listing towards the end. Pillonel did have a different plan for selling the modified iPhone X, but Pillonel went with eBay anyways because that different plan would have taken up too much of his time. In any case, Pillonel did manage to recoup his costs. His modification took a fair amount of effort, so it should come as no surprise to learn that its success was made possible by some rather expensive trial and error. As for the buyer, well, suffice to say that they have received what is essentially a very limited prototype. The modified iPhone X can't be used as an everyday phone. Furthermore, their agreement means that they won't be allowed to either restore, update, or erase the modified iPhone X. Still, the buyer did get what is pretty much the first iPhone with USB-C, which is a rather interesting bit of
There Seem to Be a Fair Amount of Demand for iPhones with USB-C
For starters, there seems to be a fair amount of demand for iPhones with USB-C. Yes, a lot of people have been saying that for quite some time now. However, the willingness to say something doesn't necessarily translate into the willingness to show something. Granted, it wouldn't be accurate to say that the $86,001 is representative of the actual demand for iPhones with USB-C. After all, the way that demand works is that different people are willing to pay different prices for the same thing. As a result, businesses want to set a price that will enable them to make the most money. Generally speaking, this isn't the highest price possible. This is because a higher price for most products will make for fewer buyers, meaning that there will come a point when it starts becoming counter-productive. However, while a lot of businesses set a single price for their products, that isn't true for every single business out there. There are some businesses that can set different prices for the same product for different customers. Something that is great for those businesses but not so great for those businesses' customers. In any case, the very nature of a sale conducted through an auction means that the $86,001 is closest to what the most die-hard iPhone enthusiasts with the most disposable income would be willing to pay for an iPhone with USB-C. A segment that describes a very small number of the potential customers for iPhones to say the least. On top of that, it should be mentioned that the $86,001 is higher that what those theoretical customers would be willing to pay. This is because it isn't a good representation of a "normal" iPhone with USB-C. Instead, it is the first iPhone with USB-C, meaning that it possesses extra rarity value in spite of its unofficial nature. People are willing to pay a lot for collectability under certain circumstances. It seems safe to say that this was one of them.
USB-C Is Cool
Moving on, the interest in USB-C is an understandable one. It does the same thing as its predecessors. However, the extent of the improvements offered by the new connector standard is significant. For example, it offers much improved charging capabilities. Similarly, it offers much faster data transfers. On top of this, USB-C is even more convenient than its predecessors. Something that can be seen in how these connectors are reversible, meaning that interested individuals will no longer have to flip them around looking for the right orientation. In any case, the interest in USB-C is also presumably rising because it is no longer new technology. Instead, it has been seeing use for some time now, meaning that interested individuals can find it in more and more places. In fact, even Apple uses USB-C for its iPads, which makes it that much more curious why it won't use USB-C for even its latest iPhones.
Some People Have a Lot of Disposable Income
On a final note, $86,001 for a modified iPhone X makes it clear that some people have a lot of disposable income on their hands. After all, there are a lot of much more useful things that can be purchased for that much money, meaning that the buyer is definitely not hurting for money. For that matter, conspicuous consumption can be its own purpose. Something that becomes very clear when one learns that sales of luxury goods can actually go down in response to reduced prices because that destroys the point of luxury goods being luxury goods in the first place. Still, value is very much in the eye of the beholder, meaning that so long as someone believes that it was worth it, then a very good argument can be made that it was indeed worth it.
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GURGAON: Haryana government and Samsung India today signed a pact to provide Citizen hospital here with high-tech equipment worth about Rs 1.25 crore.
Samsung India has come voluntarily to donate modern hi-tech machines to Citizen hospital, Gurgaon, under its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner T L Satyapraksh told reporters here.
"Given the large volume of patients at our government hospitals, we welcome support from companies such as Samsung in helping hospitals cater to the locals' need for quality health care," he said.
Samsung has already started healthcare initiatives in Chennai, Mumbai and Bangalore and it plans to start its 5th initiative in Delhi, Samsung India Vice President Rajiv Mishra said.


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Ecuity appointed to support BEIS Heat Networks Investment Project
On 15th October 2018 BEIS launched the Heat Networks Investment Project (HNIP), announcing Triple Point Heat Networks Investment Management as Delivery Partner. Ecuity Consulting LLP is delighted to be confirmed as a key part of the Delivery Partner Team providing stakeholder management services.
Commenting on the announcement, James Higgins, Partner at Ecuity Consulting LLP stated:
"Ecuity are delighted to be in charge of stakeholder engagement as part of the delivery partner team. Our experience of the heat network sector is based on working collaboratively with industry and policymakers to ensure effective communication between key stakeholders over multiple projects. We look forward to the organisation of stakeholder events across the country and dissemination of scheme information into the marketplace."
About the Heat Networks Investment Project
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has today launched the Heat Networks Investment Project (HNIP) – a major Government project which will invest £320m of capital funding in heat network projects. This investment is offered as 'gap funding' through a combination of grants and loans which will be offered to eligible projects from April 2019. The scheme will be open for applications for a period of up to three years.
Funding offered through HNIP seeks to leverage around £1bn of private sector and other investment to support the commercialisation and construction of heat networks. This together with the Government's investment will deliver a step change in the development of the heat networks market. The aims are to deliver carbon savings, drive down infrastructure costs, reduce consumers' energy bills, improve skills and capability and demonstrate to the investment community that heat networks are a viable investment proposition in the UK.
To find out more about the scheme and read the latest scheme publications visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/heat-networks-investment-project-hnip-scheme-overview
A link to our press release which introduces Triple Point Heat Networks Investment Management and the organisations involved in the delivery of the Heat Networks Investment Project: https://tp-heatnetworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/hnip-launch_tp-heat-networks-press-release_161018_final.pdf
The BEIS publication can be read in full: Heat Networks Investment Project (HNIP): introduction to the scheme
About Triple Point Heat Networks Investment Management
Triple Point Heat Networks Investment Management will act as the Delivery Partner responsible for deployment of up to £320m of Government support which in turn should leverage around £1bn of private and other capital, supporting the growth of the heat networks market in the UK.
Led by Triple Point, the Delivery Partner is formed of a number of professional firms with demonstrable track record of engaging with investors and supporting project developers to deliver a wide range of infrastructure projects. The Delivery Partner is comprised of the following organisations: Triple Point Investment Management LLP, AECOM, Amberside Advisors Ltd, BDO LLP, Ecuity Consulting LLP, Gemserv and Lux Nova Partners Ltd.
For more information about Triple Point Heat Networks Investment Management visit www.tp-heatnetworks.org
Ecuity is a specialist consultancy focused on sustainable energy policy. We are experts in stakeholder engagement and communication operating at the intersection of business, regulation and economics.
Operating nationally and internationally, Ecuity has supported over 100 organisations across the past five years, assisting with understanding of the energy policy landscape and shaping of messages to key stakeholders.


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CZ-USA to locate $90 million facility, 565 jobs in Little Rock Port
Central ArkansasLatest NewsManufacturingTalk Politics
by Roby Brock (roby@talkbusiness.net) April 23, 2019 11:34 am 3,132 views
Cold beer, good food, and bike trails may have sealed the deal for Arkansas' newest foreign investment.
On Tuesday (April 23), Gov. Asa Hutchinson and local economic leaders announced in a state capitol press conference that CZ-USA, a Czech Republic-based gun manufacturer would locate its North American headquarters in the Little Rock Port Authority. The $90 million facility will manufacture, warehouse and distribute the company's high-end, precision firearms, while employing up to 565 workers over the next six years.
Construction will begin immediately, with the initial start-up planned for March 2020. Production at the Little Rock facility will commence in two, three-year phases.
Gov. Hutchinson said earnest conversations to land the foreign direct investment started over a breakfast at the SHOT (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade) show last year. But when Bogdan Heczko, CZ-USA chairman of the board, visited the bike trails of Arkansas and found a Czech restaurant with his favorite European beer, Little Rock gained a leg up on the competition.
"My favorite beer is Pilsner Urquell and fortunately I can get it in this restaurant," said Heczko, a bike enthusiast who also explained that the friendliness of the state and the rollout of VIPs to work on the project impressed him that Arkansas was the place to locate.
Arkansas won out over several states, according to Arkansas Economic Development Commission Director Mike Preston, in part due to the central location for U.S. distribution and workforce opportunities. Incentives provided by thestate include a forgivable loan, the Governor's Quick Action Closing Fund, and several sales tax and construction tax breaks. Workforce training funds will also be made available to the company. A complete dollar amount was not available at the press conference.
CZ-USA, the U.S.-based affiliate of Czech firearms manufacturer Česká zbrojovka a.s. Uherský Brod (CZUB), will locate the headquarters on 73 acres at the Port of Little Rock.
"As CZ looked to increase our presence in North America, it engaged in a multi-state search for the ideal location," said Bogdan Heczko, CZ-USA chairman of the board. "The Arkansas workforce, culture, business climate and industry support cleared the way for us to choose Little Rock as our new home."
It also didn't hurt that Little Rock-based economic development consultant Lenka Horakova, a former AEDC official and chair of the Arkansas District Export Council, is the Honorary Consulate General of the Czech Republic. Heczko and state leaders credited her work for helping recruit the company to Arkansas.
In 2018, the Czech Republic imported some $2.6 million in commodities into Arkansas, and Arkansas exports to the country totaled roughly $8.2 million. Nearly 160 foreign-owned companies have operations in the state; however, CZ-USA is the first Czech company to have a presence in Arkansas.
"We are honored to have a world-renowned brand such as CZ call Arkansas home," said Hutchinson. "The location in the growing Port of Little Rock, combined with the high-paying jobs created by the company, will improve the quality of life for all Arkansans."
U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock, Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde, and Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott all welcomed CZ-USA to central Arkansas at the press conference.
"Little Rock is open for business, and we could not be more thrilled to have CZ-USA at the Port of Little Rock," said Scott. "This is the largest jobs announcement in Little Rock in more than a decade. Improving Little Rock's infrastructure is a top priority for me, which will ultimately lead to creating more good-paying jobs, of which this is a prime example."
"This is a huge victory for Pulaski County and the region. The City of Little Rock has been working to expand the Port for a number of years, and I'm glad to see the fruits of that labor. Through a partnership with the City of Little Rock, the County is developing the infrastructure to accommodate the new development within the expanded Little Rock Port," said Hyde.
"Working with our partners at the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, the Port of Little Rock has increased our shovel ready sites through our strategic land acquisition efforts over the past five years," said Bryan Day, executive director of the Little Rock Port Authority. "Today, Governor Hutchinson announced that CZ-USA will build its headquarters and a manufacturing facility. This will be a great addition to the Port of Little Rock, bringing 565 new jobs and $90M in investment to Central Arkansas."
CZ-USA is seeking qualified applicants at www.littlerockchamber.com/cz.
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Over February 17-22 the Minnesota landscape was widely dominated by warm temperatures. Many record value high daily temperatures, and warm overnight low temperatures were reported from climate observers. In fact hundreds of records were tied or broken over this period. A preliminary county suggest about 250 new daily high temperature and warm minimum temperature records were set over these 6 days.
At MSP and St Cloud five of the six days produced new daily maximum temperatures. The reading of 63°F at MSP on the 17th is the 2nd highest temperature ever measured during the month of February in the Twin Cities (topped only by 64°F on Feb 26, 1896). At International Falls on the 17th a maximum temperature reading of 58°F is the highest ever temperature reported in February from the Nation's Ice Box. And finally the overnight low temperature reading of 52°F at Marshall, MN on February 20th is the warmest low temperature for February ever measured in the state.
Two new preliminary statewide maximum temperature records were reported during this warm spell: 67°F at Redwood Falls on the 17th is a new statewide record for the date; and 66°F at Amboy reported on the 22nd is a new statewide record high for the date as well.
In addition, some new high record dew point values were reported during this spell of warmth, including a reading of 52°F at MSP on Monday, February 20th which also tied for the highest ever dew point measured in the Twin Cities during the month of February (also occurred on February 25, 2000).
Another noteworthy feature in Minnesota's climate was what happened in Voyageurs National Park. Like the warm spell in mid-January last month, the warm spell this month forced the closure of the ice roads on Rainy Lake and Kabetogama. To the best of my knowledge this is the first time these ice roads have been closed in back to back winter months.
A strong winter storm brought widespread heavy snow to portions of south-central and southeastern Minnesota over February 23-24 (Thursday-Friday). Initial forecasts had placed the Twin Cities Metro Area in the bullseye for snowfall, but a combination of factors caused the storm to deviated south of the Metro Area. Heavy snowfall rates combined with wind gusts over 30 mph made for difficult travel conditions and produced dozens of school closures in southern Minnesota cities. Snowfall totals in many areas ranged from 7 to 14 inches.
For many communities these also represent the highest single day snowfalls of the 2016-2017winter season so far.
The Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership (MCAP) will be recognizing outstanding climate adaptation work in Minnesota with awards to be presented on May 8, 2017, as part of the National Adaptation Forum. MCAP is joining the National Adaptation Forum in offering a conference that will present a range of practitioners who have experience with climate smart strategies for adapting to our changing climate.. The conference titled Action today for a better tomorrow, will be held at the St. Paul River Centre, May 8-11, 2017.
Awards will honor individuals, organizations, institutions and businesses that have provided exceptional leadership in education, research, policies, and practices to improve resilience and develop, advance, or implement climate adaptation strategies. Anyone may submit a nomination, which is very simple.
The award nomination deadline is March 1, 2017, and nomination details are available on the University of Minnesota Water Resources Center web site.
NOAA scientists (via NOAA News) this week report that the winter expansion of Arctic sea ice may be one of the smallest in history this winter. There have actually been a few period of thaw in the Arctic this winter, that have slowed down ice formation.
The BBC reports that winter storm Doris, strongest of the season so far, battered the United Kingdom on Thursday with high winds and heavy rains. Winds gusted to over 80 mph with a few inches of snow in the highlands of Wales. Doris intensified heading into Europe delivering strong winds and snow to portions of Denmark and Sweden. Many power outages were reported.
The National Park Service reports that the Cherry Blossoms may come much earlier than normal this year along the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C. Many tourists flock there each March for this famous annual event. The winter has been so mild that the cherry trees are already sprouting buds and may be in blossom by mid March, over two weeks earlier than normal.
A recent report about climate change and possible consequences associated with the delivery of dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus into the open ocean from river systems in the USA is reported this week in the Earth and Space Science News.
This February warm up has been very impressive. I think we have lost our soil frost here at Willmar. How do you think this month will rank historically in terms of monthly average temperature?
On a statewide basis the average temperature this month is running about 10 degrees F above normal. Even with a moderation towards normal, or slightly colder than normal following the storm this Friday, we will likely end up about 8-9 degrees F warmer than normal, ranking among the 7 or 8 warmest months of February in state history back to 1895. The most recent year that February was this warm was in 2002.
The average MSP high temperature for this date is 32 degrees F (plus or minus 13 degrees F standard deviation), while the average low is 16 degrees F (plus or minus 14 degrees F standard deviation).
MSP weather records for this date include: highest daily maximum temperature of 59 degrees F in 1880; lowest daily maximum temperature of -2 degrees F in 1967; lowest daily minimum temperature is -20 degrees F in 1967; highest daily minimum temperature of 42 degrees F in 2000; record precipitation of 1.90 inches in 1930; and a record snowfall of 4.8 inches also in 2007.
Average dew point for February 24th is 16°F; the maximum dew point on this date is 45°F in 2000; and the minimum dew point on this date is -34°F in 1950.
The state record high temperature for this date is 67 degrees F at Pipestone (Pipestone County) in 1958. The state record low temperature for this date is -46 degrees F at Red Lake Falls (Red Lake County) in 1955. State record precipitation for this date is 2.10 inches at Tower (St Louis County) in 1964; and record snowfall is 19.0 inches at Beaver Bay (Lake County) in 1868.
Arctic cold gripped the state on February 24, 1955. Most places in northern Minnesota reported morning lows in the minus 30s and minus 40s F. Many communities never saw the thermometer rise about zero F during the day.
Remarkably warm weather visited the state on February 24, 1958. Most observers in southern Minnesota reported daytime highs in the 50s and 60s F. It was 56°F as far north as Detroit Lakes (Becker County). Little snow was on the ground.
A series of storms brought rain, sleet, and snow to the state over February 23-25, 2001. Many climate observers reported over 12 inches, and in northeastern areas along the Lake Superior highlands up to 24 inches of snowfall occurred.
Most sunny to start the weekend with temperatures close to seasonal normals. Increasing cloudiness on Sunday and Monday, with warmer than normal temperatures and a chance for showers by Monday and Tuesday. Some areas could get significant snowfall on Tuesday. Then, some cooler weather by Wednesday and Thursday next week.


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What Does a Racehorse Trainer Do?
Breeding & Farming
Other Animal Careers
Job Profiles Equine
Learn About the Salary, Required Skills, & More
Image by Melissa Ling © The Balance 2019
By Mary Hope Kramer
Racehorse trainers supervise the daily care and conditioning of the horses in their stable to properly prepare them for competition on the track. They are responsible for ensuring that the horses in their care receive proper nutrition, veterinary attention, and exercise.
Trainers may branch out into offering bloodstock agent services, such as representing clients at public auctions, evaluating horses for private purchase, referring clients to insurance agents, or selecting and training young horses for resale.
Trainers may also offer initial breaking and training services for young horses at a training center that they own or operate. There are a number of these facilities concentrated in Florida and South Carolina. These areas offer favorable weather conditions for year-round training plus convenient access to top-quality veterinary services.
Racehorse Trainer Duties & Responsibilities
The job of a racehorse trainer often involves the following tasks:
Plan workouts.
Enter horses in appropriate races.
Advise the jockey on race strategy.
Notify owners of the progress on their horses' training and race entry options.
Supervise stable employees.
Schedule health care and maintenance appointments for horses.
Trainers must be familiar with the prevention and treatment of equine injuries, know how to properly utilize tack and other training aids properly, and be knowledgeable about equine anatomy and physiology.
Familiarity with medications and the amount of time it takes for a drug to leave the horse's system is of great importance; trainers must be careful to avoid positive drug tests, which can result in fines and suspensions.
Racehorse Trainer Salary
A racehorse trainer's salary depends largely on their level of experience and success. Those with proven track records of training horses that win premier races will make a great living, as trainers typically collect 10% of the purse money won by the horses in their care. They can also charge a day rate of $65 to $100 per day per horse to cover labor costs, hay, grain, straw, stall rent, office and barn equipment, tack, and supplies.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides salary data for all animal trainers, not just those for horses. Racehorse trainers typically earn more money than trainers of other kinds of animals.
Median Annual Salary: $29,290 ($14.08/hour)
Top 10% Annual Salary: More than $55,760 ($26.81/hour)
Bottom 10% Annual Salary: Less than $20,270 ($9.74/hour)
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018
When calculating earnings, trainers must also factor in costs such as travel expenses, salaries for any people who work for them, and liability insurance.
Education, Training, & Certification
No formal degree or specific educational path is required to become a trainer. Many trainers work their way up in the industry, starting out as a hot walker (someone who walks horses after they work out), groom, or exercise rider.
Licensing: Trainers must be licensed by the racing commission of each state where they intend to start horses, and licensing requirements vary from state to state. Generally, a trainer must demonstrate their knowledge of racing regulations, terminology, and general horsemanship skills through written and practical exams. Testing is usually administered by the racing stewards (officials) at the track. Some tracks require one to two years of prior track licensing (as an owner, groom, or assistant trainer) before an individual can apply for a trainer's license.
Racehorse Trainer Skills & Competencies
Not everyone has what it takes to be an effective racehorse trainer. Here are the qualities and aptitudes a successful trainer will possess:
Terrific judge of horse talent: Racehorse trainers can see which horses have the greatest capacity for racing and the ability to maximize their talent.
Interspecies and interpersonal communication skills: They must be able to communicate effectively with horses and the people who they work for and who work for them.
Racing strategy: Along with the jockey, they determine how to run a particular race to beat their horse's challengers.
The broad category of animal care and service workers is expected to grow 22% from 2016 to 2026, much faster than for all occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Racehorse trainers can find work across the United States and in many countries on the international circuit. Major international racing venues include Dubai, England, Ireland, France, Japan, Canada, South Africa, and Hong Kong.
Trainers work the majority of their day outdoors in widely varying weather conditions. Frequent travel is usually required as horses in their care race at tracks across the country.
Trainers often work six to seven days a week and must be on call for emergencies related to horses in their care. The hours can be long; many trainers start their day before sunrise.
Most trainers apprentice with an experienced trainer to learn the ins and outs of the job.
EQUISTAFF and Yard & Groom post job openings in horse-related fields. Once you're an established and successful trainer, owners will request your services.
Comparing Similar Jobs
People interested in becoming racehorse trainers might also consider the following jobs. The figures provided are median annual salaries:
Recreation worker: $25,060
Racetrack announcer: $31,990
Veterinarian: $93,830
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018
Article Table of Contents Skip to section
Skills & Competencies
Ways Racehorse Trainers Make Money
A Look at Several Popular Horse Racing Careers
Jockey Agent Job Description: Salary, Skills, & More
Learn What a Hot Walker Is and What the Duties and Salary Are
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Founded in 1991, Hosiwell Technology Company Limited is located in Bangkok, Thailand. It is a manufacturer of a wide range of cables including RF coaxial cable and fiber optics cable for applications such as video, industrial, telecom, CATV and satellite system. It specializes in supply and export of coaxial cable, network cable, fiber optic and various wire and cables products.
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