Facebook is by far the largest social network on the web. While Mark Zuckerberg has made plenty of great calls in its design, the site — and the way people use it — isn't as streamlined as it could be.
These 20 tips, tricks and tools will give help take your Facebook experience to the next level. From simple settings options you may have overlooked, to browser plug-ins dedicated to making the social network even better, you're sure to find something on this list that will make your Facebook time even more addicting than it already is.
By opening your Facebook chat window, clicking the settings icon in the upper right corner and then navigating to "Advanced Settings," you can customize your chat experience by appearing offline to certain people on your friends list. This tweak will be especially helpful for those of you with chatty acquaintances who like to talk your ear off when you're online.
When uploading a new photo, it might not always appear on your feed the way you intended. Particularly long or wide photos have a tendency to be cropped awkwardly, but you can fix this rather easily. By clicking "Edit Photo" from your Timeline page, you gain access to a "Reposition Photo" option. Using this tool, you can move your photo around the preview window so that it appears as you intended.
If you're a fan of Facebook's "Places" feature, you can very easily decorate it with pictures to show off your various activities all over the world. On the main Places page, simply click "Add Photos to Map" and start tagging away! If you frequently upload photos directly to your Facebook profile using a mobile app for iPhone or Android, you might find that your map is already pretty well populated.
By going into your account settings, navigating to the "Notifications" tab on the left side of the page, you can browse the applications that have permission to populate your news feed. If find that a friend has spammed your feed with an excessive number of app notifications, simply deactivate the offending app. It's easier than breaking off the friendship.
Sometimes you'll find that a gorgeous photo you wanted to share with your friends appears tiny and blurry after adding it to your social network profile. Remedy this by going into your Facebook albums and, before uploading a photo, click the "High Quality" box.
Knowing what your friends can see on your Facebook Timeline is an invaluable tool to ensuring your virtual reputation stays intact. From your Timeline page, click the settings icon next to "Activity Log" and then click "View As." From here you'll be able to see what specific friends see when they visit your page.
Ever wanted to browse your entire Facebook profile at once — including every status update you've ever submitted? Facebook makes it easy. Under your Account Settings page, a small link will appear at the very bottom of the options list. Click "Download a copy of your Facebook data" to begin the process of securing your entire archive.
Having to repeat yourself is annoying in day-to-day life, and it's even more of a bother when online. Rather than copying and pasting directions or instructions to multiple people, click the "Actions" tab at the top of any Facebook message thread to access the option to forward it to others. Ta-da! No more double-talk!
Can't stand endless chat when you're simply browsing your status updates? No problem. Click the settings icon in the main Facebook chat window, and click "Turn off chat" to have all future messages sent to your inbox, rather than pop-up in realtime on your screen.
If you've put a lot of work into making your Timeline page reflect exactly who you are, consider using it as a pre-designed business card. Clicking the "About" link — located under your name on your Timeline — lets you browse your social network details. In the Contact Info window is a small business card icon that will direct you to Moo.com, where you can customize a Facebook-flavored business card and place an order.
For the most comprehensive breakdown of your entire Facebook history, Wolfram Alpha can't be beat. Simply type "Facebook Report" into the main search bar, approve the app's use of your Facebook data and wait for the system to break down your history. Once it's finished, you'll be treated to a seemingly endless number of graphs and data points showing your update history, most-liked photos and much more.
Believe it or not, thieves are big fans of Facebook. By finding out when you'll be away from your home, security experts believe would-be robbers target those who go on a Facebook hiatus. Sendible — an application that allows you to schedule updates even when you're not near your computer — can keep your online persona active, even when you can't.
Sometimes you just don't have enough time to keep all your social networks up to date, but thankfully Facebook and Twitter play nice together with a little tweaking. Head to the Twitter app page on Facebook to begin the process of syncing your virtual social lives. After authorizing the Facebook app via Twitter, all your tweets will appear on Facebook as status updates.
Make sure you don't miss any important events by exporting your Facebook calendar to either Microsoft Outlook or Apple iCal. Head to your Facebook calendar (located under the "Events" tab on the Facebook navigation bar) and click the settings icon. Click "Export," and then choose either your Facebook birthday list or upcoming events. Your desktop's calendar app should launch immediately, making the process even more streamlined.
Using this extension, you no longer have to click on the photos in your news feed in order to view them in full size. Simply move your mouse cursor over the image thumbnail and the larger version will pop up right in front of you. You can even adjust the zoom by moving the mouse back and forth over the photo itself. It's like magic.
If you're not into real-time photo zooming, this extension turns back the clock on your Facebook's photo feature. Rather than displaying pictures in the new "Theater" layout, photos will appear on their own pages, complete with the full comments section and "Like" options.
Have you ever left a Facebook tab open on your web browser and missed an urget message from a friend? This handy plugin produces a pop-up window on your desktop to notify you when someone needs to chat, ensuring you never miss an important bit of info.
If you're a Firefox user, you can use this add-on to instantly share any web page they come across, even when the site doesn't have a built-in Facebook share button. A small "Like" icon will pop up at the bottom of every browser window, and all it takes it a click to share your find with the world.
This plug-in returns your Facebook to an earlier day, back when spammers and useless clutter wasn't a hinderance to your browsing habits. You can hide any type of notification you wish, including birthdays, relationship updates, tagged photos, links and much more. You can make your social experience as simple as you wish.
Do you hate it when you accidentally leave yourself signed in to the social network, only to come back to missed chat messages and anxiety over whether someone else was browsing your digital life? This handy add-on will automatically sign you out of your Facebook windows if you've been inactive for too long, ensuring that nobody can snoop your info.


text:
Classic country song, Agweek headline have this in common
Most of us, at one time or another, have had part of a song get stuck in our mind. A snippet of the lyrics or melody, or both, keeps running through our heads. It happened to me when I wrote the Feb. 5 Agweek cover package on the "How Far North C...
Opinion by Jonathan Knutson
Most of us, at one time or another, have had part of a song get stuck in our mind. A snippet of the lyrics or melody, or both, keeps running through our heads.
It happened to me when I wrote the Feb. 5 Agweek cover package on the "How Far North Can We Grow? 49th Parallel Cover Crop Project," which seeks to enhance the use of cover crops in northeast North Dakota. When it came time to write the headline, the song snippet running through my head allowed only one choice:
"Way Up North."
A few Agweek readers will remember Johnny Horton, a top country music star in the late 1950s. He was killed, at the peak of his career, in a car accident in 1960. But before he died, he recorded such classics as "Sink the Bismarck," "Battle of New Orleans," and "North to Alaska" -- and the last of these includes the catchy phrase, "way up north." That phrase got stuck in my head, and thus the headline.
Classic song. Innovative, interesting project.
Read the story in the Feb. 5 print issue of Agweek, www.agweek.com . or Agweek social media.
And read more of Knutson's blogs at www.agright.areavoices.com
Plain Living
Forum Editorial: Agweek's Mikkel Pates, whose byline is a brand name in agricultural journalism, is retiring
Mikkel Pates set the standard for agricultural journalism during his 44-year career in the region, working for Agweek, The Forum and the Worthington Globe.
By Forum Editorial Board
Mikkel Pates thanks Agweek readers, viewers and coworkers while looking back on 44 years in ag journalism
Mikkel Pates reflects on his time as an ag journalist in a three-part series.
North Dakota sets 4 hearings on Summit Carbon pipeline
Why are the U.S. and Canada fighting over dairy?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Ozone Hole 2016, and a Historic Climate Agreement
The size and depth of the ozone hole over Antarctica was not remarkable in 2016. As expected, ozone levels have stabilized, but full recovery is still decades away. What is remarkable is that the same international agreement that successfully put the ozone layer on the road to recovery is now being used to address climate change.
The stratospheric ozone layer protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet light, which damages DNA in plants and animals (including humans) and leads to health issues like skin cancer. Prior to 1979, scientists had never observed ozone concentrations below 220 Dobson Units. But in the early 1980s, through a combination of ground-based and satellite measurements, scientists began to realize that Earth's natural sunscreen was thinning dramatically over the South Pole. This large, thin spot in the ozone layer each southern spring came to be known as the ozone hole.
The first image shows the Antarctic ozone hole on October 1, 2016, as observed by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura satellite. On that day, the ozone layer reached its average annual minimum concentration, which measured 114 Dobson Units. For comparison, the ozone layer in 2015 reached a minimum of 101 Dobson Units. During the 1960s, long before the Antarctic ozone hole occurred, average ozone concentrations above the South Pole ranged from 260 to 320 Dobson Units.
The area of the ozone hole in 2016 peaked on September 28, 2016, at about 23 million square kilometers (8.9 million square miles).
"This year we saw an ozone hole that was just below average size," said Paul Newman, ozone expert and chief scientist for Earth Science at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "What we're seeing is consistent with our expectation and our understanding of ozone depletion chemistry and stratospheric weather."
The second image presents an edge-on (limb) view of Earth's ozone layer. These data were acquired on October 2 by the Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite (OMPS) during a single orbit of the Suomi-NPP satellite. It reveals the density of ozone at various altitudes, with dark orange areas having more ozone and light orange areas having less. Notice that the word hole isn't literal; ozone is still present over Antarctica, but it is thinner and less dense in some areas.
In 2014, an assessment by 282 scientists from 36 countries found that the ozone layer is on track for recovery within the next few decades. Ozone-depleting chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)—which were once used for refrigerants, aerosol spray cans, insulation foam, and fire suppression—were phased out years ago. The existing CFCs in the stratosphere will take many years to decay, but if nations continue to follow the guidelines of the Montreal Protocol, global ozone levels should recover to 1980 levels by 2050 and the ozone hole over Antarctica should recover by 2070.
The replacement of CFCs with hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) during the past decade has saved the ozone layer but created a new problem for climate change. HFCs are potent greenhouse gases, and their use—particularly in refrigeration and air conditioning—has been quickly increasing around the world. The HFC problem was recently on the agenda at a United Nations meeting in Kigali, Rwanda. On October 15, 2016, a new amendment greatly expanded the Montreal Protocol by targeting HFCs, the so-called "grandchildren" of the Montreal Protocol.
"The Montreal Protocol is written so that we can control ozone-depleting substances and their replacements," said Newman, who participated in the meeting in Kigali. "This agreement is a huge step forward because it is essentially the first real climate mitigation treaty that has bite to it. It has strict obligations for bringing down HFCs, and is forcing scientists and engineers to look for alternatives."
NASA Earth Observatory images by Jesse Allen, using Suomi NPP OMPS data provided courtesy of Colin Seftor (SSAI) and Aura OMI data provided courtesy of the Aura OMI science team. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA and the Department of Defense. Caption by Kathryn Hansen, with contributions from Audrey Haar and Rebecca Lindsey.
The same international agreement that successfully put the ozone layer on the road to recovery is now being used to address climate change.
Aura — OMI
Suomi NPP — OMPS
NASA (2016, October 23) Ozone Hole Watch.
NASA Earth Observatory (2016) World of Change: Antarctic Ozone Hole.
NASA Earth Observatory (2016, October 27) Kigali: A Huge Step Forward for Climate.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (2016, October 25) 2016 Antarctic Ozone Hole Attains Moderate Size, Consistent With Scientific Expectations.
Nature News (2016, October 15) Nations agree to ban refrigerants that worsen climate change. Accessed October 25, 2016.
The New York Times (2016, October 15) Nations, Fighting Powerful Refrigerant That Warms Planet, Reach Landmark Deal. Accessed October 25, 2016.
Seftor, C. via the OMPS Blog (2016, October 15) The Ozone Hole For 2016. Accessed October 25, 2016.
Ozone Hole through the years
This series of images shows the Antarctic ozone hole on the day of its maximum depletion in 1979, 1987, 2006, and 2010; that is, the days with the thinnest ozone layer.
Image of the Day Atmosphere Human Presence
Antarctic Ozone Hole: 1979 to 2008
In 1979, Antarctic ozone levels dropped below 200 Dobson Units for the first time on record. This threshold became the standard for defining the ozone hole. In 2008, minimum ozone levels dropped to 100 Dobson Units on October 4.
Watching the Ozone Hole Before and After the Montreal Protocol
NASA satellites have observed the Antarctic ozone hole since the late 1970s—before and after nations agreed to stop producing chemicals that destroy the ozone layer.
Antarctic Ozone Hole 2010
The Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura satellite acquired data for this map of ozone concentrations over Antarctica on September 12, 2010.


text:
package com.hackathon.remoting;

import java.security.SecureRandom;
import java.util.ArrayList;

import ch.boye.httpclientandroidlib.androidextra.Base64;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.type.TypeReference;
import com.hackathon.abstracts.Enums.LoginResult;
import com.hackathon.dataholders.LoginDataHolder;
import com.hackathon.dataholders.StatusDataHolder;
import com.hackathon.dataholders.UserDataHolder;
import com.yoero.base.crypto.TimeEncrypter;
import com.yoero.base.remoting.CallExecutor;
import com.yoero.base.remoting.CommunicatorBase;
import com.yoero.base.remoting.IRemoteCallback;
import com.yoero.base.remoting.RemoteCallHolder;

public class Communicator extends CommunicatorBase {
	//public static boolean DEBUG = false;

	private static String mPrivateKey = "ZjbWZZbUgL7VjfSdLvyulLRw41ZrWChk";
	private static String mSessionKey;
	private static TimeEncrypter mEnc;

	private static LoginDataHolder LoginData;

	public static LoginDataHolder getLoginData() {
		if (LoginData == null) {
			LoginData = new LoginDataHolder();
			LoginData.Result = LoginResult.TemporaryBan;
		}

		return LoginData;
	}

	private void setLoginData(LoginDataHolder parsedResult) {
		LoginData = parsedResult;
		if (isLoggedIn()) {
			mAuthCookie = LoginData.AuthCookie;
		} else {
			mAuthCookie = null;
		}
	}

	public static boolean isLoggedIn() {
		return getLoginData().Result == LoginResult.Success;
	}

	// NEEDS TO BE AFTER ALL FREAKING VARIABLES IT'S USING
	public static Communicator inst;

	public Communicator() {
		SecureRandom random = new SecureRandom();
		byte iv[] = new byte[8];
		random.nextBytes(iv);
		mSessionKey = Base64.encodeToString(iv, Base64.NO_WRAP);

		mEnc = new TimeEncrypter(mSessionKey, mPrivateKey, true);
	}

	public void userLogin(IRemoteCallback call, int verNumber, String deviceId, String email, String password) {
		// you'll only need to write these wrappers that effectivelly do just two things

		// 1. prepare call by passing caller, method and parameters
		final RemoteCallHolder req = buildRequest(call, "BingoPublic/UserLoginAndroid", "k", mSessionKey, "d",
				mEnc.Encrypt(deviceId), "u", mEnc.Encrypt(email), "p", password == null ? null : mEnc.Encrypt(password));

		// 2. pass those parameters into CallExecuter and then define what is done with results after
		CallExecutor exec = new CallExecutor() {
			@Override
			public void process(RemoteCallHolder rch) {
				setLoginData((LoginDataHolder) rch.parsedResult);
			}
		};

		// 3. Just a small bonus - you pass this, request you've build, and value you are expecting back
		exec.executeCall(this, req, LoginDataHolder.class);
	}

	public void getUserData(IRemoteCallback call){
		final RemoteCallHolder req = buildRequest(call, "BingoApi/GetUserData",
				"uid", LoginData.UserId);

		CallExecutor exec = new CallExecutor();

		exec.executeCall(this, req, UserDataHolder.class);
	}

	public void setGCMDeviceId(IRemoteCallback call, String GCMDeviceId){
		final RemoteCallHolder req = buildRequest(call, "BingoApi/SetGCMDeviceId",
				"uid", LoginData.UserId, "gcmid", GCMDeviceId);

		CallExecutor exec = new CallExecutor();

		exec.executeCall(this, req, StatusDataHolder.class);
	}

	public void loadFriends(IRemoteCallback call){
		final RemoteCallHolder req = buildRequest(call, "BingoApi/SetGCMDeviceId",
				"uid", LoginData.UserId);

		CallExecutor exec = new CallExecutor();

		exec.executeCall(this, req, new TypeReference<ArrayList<String>>(){});
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Are you ready to face the drying effects of the harsh winter wind? Make your skin winter ready with The Khadi Shop's range of winter care soaps with natural and mild ingredients such as honey, olive oil, jojoba oil and more. Dry skin needs special care and more so during winters. Do it justice with the right gear from Khadi Herbal products.


text:
Ige Announces Environmental Quality Control Pick - Honolulu Civil Beat
Ige Announces Environmental Quality Control Pick
Kathleen Ho will require Hawaii Senate approval for the director position.
By Chad Blair / February 5, 2020
Reading time: 1 minute.
Gov. David Ige on Wednesday announced the appointment of Kathleen S.Y. Ho as director of the Office of Environmental Quality Control, which is part of the Department of Health.
Kathleen Ho.
According to a press release from the administration, Ho "has extensive experience" as deputy attorney general in environmental law.
She was an adjunct professor at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii Manoa, and deputy corporation counsel for the City and County of Honolulu.
Previously, Ho served as advisor to OEQC and the Environmental Council.
Ho's appointment is subject to Senate confirmation. Her start date has not yet been determined.
If confirmed, she will replace Scott Glenn, who has been appointed as chief executive officer of the Hawaii State Energy Office.
Chad Blair
Chad Blair is the politics and opinion editor for Civil Beat. You can reach him by email at cblair@civilbeat.org or follow him on Twitter at @chadblairCB.
Use the RSS feed to subscribe to Chad Blair's posts today
David Croxford/Civil Beat/2023
Nonprofit And Business Leaders Find Hope In Governor's Affordability Plan
John Pritchett/Civil Beat/2020
Miske Trial Postponed As Prosecutors Present New Details Of Alleged Conflicts Involving Lead Attorneys
Hawaii Bill Aims To Make It Easier To Do Dialysis At Home
Chief Justice Calls On State To 'Join Forces' To Solve Homelessness, Mental Health Crisis
'I Feel Like They Murdered 25 Years Of My Life'


Daniel R. Van Engel, M.D.
Peter L. Heilbroner, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Hugo Lijtmaer joined Dr. Perron and they founded Neurology Group of Bergen County in 1975. He received his medical degree from the University of Buenos Aires in 1968. He completed his neurology residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City, in 1974. Dr. Lijtmaer's special interests within the practice are Adult Neurology and Evoked Potentials. He serves as the Managing Partner. He was a past President of the Neurological Association of New Jersey 1986-96 and Director of the Neurosciences Department at The Valley Hospital 1985-93. He speaks fluent Spanish and Italian.
Disclaimer: This website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for diagnosis or treatment. If you think you may have a medical emergency or have an urgent matter, call 911 or your doctor immediately. E-mail addresses provided on this website are to be used by our patients for business purpose only. Any sent or received e-mail messages are not to be considered private or confidential. We reserve the right to review any and all e-mail messages sent to us.


Delosperma Ground Cover: Is the Hardy Ice Plant Right for Your Garden?
The hardy ice plant (Delosperma) is a succulent ground cover that blooms from late spring into fall. It blooms in many colors, including white, pink, yellow, orange, red and purple, producing daisy-like flowers that close at night and open as the sun rises.
Although an ice plant sounds like a cold climate plant, Delosperma is actually a heat lover. It's common name is probably derived from the little hairs on its stems, which refract and reflect light, sparkling in the sun like ice.
My favorite hardy ice cultivar is Delosperma cooperi. Commonly called the hardy purple ice plant, it too is rather misnamed, producing flowers in a vivid shade that's more pink than purple.
My husband bought our Delosperma cooperii at a plant sale at his place of work. It's super easy to care for and easy to share by division in the spring.
We've given divisions to my mother, his mother and several friends, and our hardy purple ice plant is still going strong along the foundation of our home.
Is the Hardy Ice Plant Right for You?
If you answer yes to one or more of the questions below, then the hardy ice plant is probably a good choice for your yard.
Are the summers in your area extremely hot?
Do you need a ground cover for dry, full-sun areas?
Do you like low-maintenance perennial plants?
Do you prefer plants with showy flowers?
Are you looking for plants that will grow in poor soil?
A South African native, Delosperma boasts water-retentive leaves that not only make it drought resistant, but also fire retardant.
If you live in an area that experiences hot, dry summers, it's the plant for you. Other plants may melt in the sun, but the hardy ice plant keeps going strong.
If the weather's excessively hot and dry, you may have to water Delosperma occasionally--but not too much. It doesn't like a lot of water.
The hardy ice plant develops blooms in late spring, and it continues blooming until the first frost.
It's not only a long bloomer, but it's a prodigious one as well, producing blankets of flowers. In locales with mild winters, Delosperma will stay green year round.
Unlike wave petunias and other trailing flowering plants, you won't have to clear away Delosperma's spent blooms. They're virtually unnoticeable. You won't have to water frequently either, but you will have to weed sometimes. The hardy ice plant doesn't develop a thick mat of greenery that chokes out weeds like some heat-loving ground covers.
Hardy ice doesn't mind poor soil, but it does demand good drainage. Plant it on sunny banks where little else will grow. but don't plant it in soggy, boggy locales. Delosperma hates wet feet and will die.
What should I do during the Michigan winter to protect a hardy ice plant?
I looked up Michigan's hardiness zones on the USDA's website: Zones 3-6. I'm not sure where you are, but if you're in a 3-5 zone, Delosperma cooperi grows as an annual there and, as a drought-hardy plant, would have difficulty surviving a cold, wet winter. You could grow it in pots and bring it inside, but, it's not a good choice for you if you're looking for a ground cover. If you're in Zones 4-6 and want a Delosperma that's more winter hardy; you might try a newer variety than cooperi, such as Delosperma Alan's Apricot, which is hardy in Zones 4-10. Alan's apricot doesn't have the dazzling color of cooperi, but it's more cold hardy.
Will the ice plant help choke out English ivy? I have cleared a flowerbed of the ivy, but I know some of it will resprout. Will this help to keep the ivy from growing?
English ivy is an invasive where I live, and it sounds like it is where you live, too. The ice plant won't choke it out because it's not invasive. You'll probably have to clear the bed of ivy every year. This is something I do in my beds with Vinca major. The good news? It gets easier each year, and eventually, I won't have to do it. On the bright side, the ice plant certainly won't hurt your efforts. Keep at it! I'm rooting for you.
A beautiful plant that I had not heard of before so thank you for sharing and I vote up.
You're welcome, Peggy W. Thanks for stopping by!
I remember seeing banks of ice plant in bloom along the famous 17 mile drive in California. Absolutely beautiful! Never thought about growing it in our garden. Thanks for the idea.
Excellent, I've been wanting something to plant that didn't require watering or mowing and ice plant just might fit the bill.
And Q, I'd recommend spring or (if you live in Zone 8 or above) now OR spring.
Thank you, gogogo. I've been working on my photography skills, particularly macro shots. Getting the exposure right is so tough!
Thanks for this - I had totally forgotten this marvelous plant - guess I will be putting in the ground early next spring - or when do you suggest?
Although I would not like to have ice plant in my back yard, I love having it in the greenbelt areas of my community, and along the highway!


This week, we're going to discuss a topic that is near and dear to us: blogging. We spend a lot of time reading blogs, and writing our own blog posts, and have encountered some interesting material out there.
If you spend any time at all writing blogs (or content for the internet in general), this video is for you!
As a bonus, we break out into song this time around (it was bound to happen eventually…).


text:
Oil prices were down in mid-day trading today, with the WTI crude price off 2.9% at $38.73/bbl and Brent 1.9% lower at $42.47/bbl.
Gasoline consumption is flagging in COVID-19 hot spots around the country, threatening to disrupt the oil recovery.
With crude prices up from historic lows, Canada has restored about 20% of idled production.
Biofuels have lagged other alternative energy sources due to their high investment costs, vulnerability to fossil fuel price swings and inconsistent government policy.
Trucking giant YRC Worldwide received a three-and-a-half-year reprieve on some of its debt from lenders as it negotiates a $700 million federal bailout package.
Another 1.3 million people filed first-time unemployment claims last week, slightly lower than expected.
The U.S. budget deficit in June hit $863 billion, nearly as much as the entire deficit for fiscal 2019. The budget gap for the first nine months of 2020 was $2.7 trillion.
The U.S. recorded more than 62,000 COVID-19 infections yesterday, a daily record for the second day in a row.
Twenty-six state legislators in Mississippi, one sixth of the legislature, have tested positive for COVID-19, shutting down the state house.
Texas recorded 98 COVID-19 fatalities yesterday, a daily record.
Arizona and West Virginia delayed reopening schools for the 2020-2021 school year, despite federal government pressure for all schools to reopen on time.
The national spike in COVID-19 infections is overwhelming testing capabilities, stranding some with hours-long waits to get tests and delays of a week or longer to get results.
After a political stalemate on further economic stimulus, consensus is building in Washington for a fourth round of federal aid as prior stimulus programs expire.
The Federal Reserve's Main Street Lending Program aimed at midsized businesses is getting unenthusiastic support from banks, with major banks most noticeably hesitant.
Automaker Daimler said that further cost cuts are on the way and telegraphed that second-quarter sales will be down significantly when it reports on July 23, despite strong sales in China.
The pandemic is forcing changes in climate control systems for buildings, with equipment makers adding filtering, increasing outside air intake and deploying UV light to sanitize the air.
Brooks Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and Bed Bath & Beyond announced the closure of 200 stores, the latest iconic retailers to be hobbled by the pandemic.
At least 110 companies have filed for bankruptcy since March, citing the pandemic as the catalyst.
With the airline industry in distress, Dallas-Fort Worth International has emerged as the world's busiest airport, even though it's running at only half capacity.
Plastics Industry Association President & CEO Tony Radoszewski testified to Congress this week about the important role of plastics during the pandemic.
COVID-19 cases globally topped 12 million today, a doubling in the past six weeks.
The U.K. will initiate a second round of economic stimulus with a $38 billion spending package.
Hong Kong and Tokyo experienced record COVID-19 infections yesterday, raising concerns about further flare-ups in Asia.
Brazil and other Latin American countries are launching investigations of dozens of officials for corruption in attempting to siphon funds intended to fight the COVID-19 crisis.


text:
Marina Comas i Oller (Santa Maria de Besora, 1 de setembre de 1996) és un actriu catalana.

Biografia
Va debutar al cinema als 14 anys amb Pa negre, pel·lícula dirigida per Agustí Villaronga i basada en la novel·la homònima d'Emili Teixidor interpretant el personatge de la Núria, interpretació que li va merèixer el Premi Goya a l'actriu revelació a l'edició de 2011 i el Premi Gaudí a la millor actriu secundària. L'any 2011 va participar en la pel·lícula de TV3 Terra Baixa. Recentment ha protagonitzat amb Àlex Monner i Albert Baró la pel·lícula Els nens salvatges, de Patricia Ferreira, guanyadora de la Bisnaga d'Or a la millor pel·lícula al festival de cine de Màlaga.

Filmografia

Televisió

Premis i nominacions
Premis Gaudí

Premis Goya

Referències

Santa Maria de Besora
Actors de cinema catalans del sud
Actors de sèries de televisió osonencs
Guanyadores del premi Gaudí a la millor actriu secundària
Guanyadors del Premi Goya a la millor actriu revelació
Actors de Polseres vermelles

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


This was suppose to be a "ReFresher" for me on sewing, .......What it turned out to be was a Great day with my family and Loved ones. Melissa, Mom, Laura, and myself started cutting and sewing spring outfits for the girls, by the time everyone ate, visited, took 4wheeler rides with Jason, we didnt quite get them all done but, we made some progress,.........Oh and by the way, I DIDN'T SEW A STITCH, ..........NICE!!!!!!!!


Collect works by Raymond Pettibon, Dale Chihuly, Mickalene Thomas, and Ai Weiwei in Seattle this week.
Launching its second edition, Seattle Art Fair showcases the vibrant culture and diversity of the Pacific Northwest as it brings together international and regional galleries from Tokyo to Portland.
Ranging from historic masterpieces by Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt to works by post-war pioneers—like Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol—the Seattle Art Museum's collection has decades of art to discover.
1: Raymond Pettibon, No Title (Do you see...), 2015. Courtesy of David Zwirner. 2: Katharina Fritsch, Mann und Maus, 1991-92, Seattle Art Museum, Gift of the Virginia and Bagley Wright Collection, in honor of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2007.118, © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Photo: Susan Cole.


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New Jersey Government Carries Massive Debt, With Few Options To Pay It Off, Observers Sure | New Jersey
By Raymond A. Goheen on April 19, 2021 New jersey government
(The Center Square) – New Jersey is a cash-swimming state, but still faces challenges as it recovers from the economic impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The state will end the year with a surplus of around $ 2.8 billion, legislative budget and finance official Thomas Koenig told lawmakers earlier this month.
But the state has $ 44 billion in debt and is caught between a rock and a hard place over what funds can be used to pay off that debt.
New Jersey has avoided some of the economic woes that crushed other states last year and placed 30th in a ranking of states most affected by the pandemic, according to WalletHub, who classified the states based on two metrics.
The first is "industries and workforce strongly affected" and double weighting is given to the accommodation, food and beverage, arts, entertainment and recreation industries. States were also ranked according to the resources available to help businesses recover, giving a double weight to a state's rainy day fund, its share of workers on paid sick leave, and the share of people who work from home.
"Heavily affected industries such as accommodation, food services, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction make up only a small portion of the state's GDP," said Jill Gonzalez, analyst at WalletHub. "Apart from these industries, the state also has a small share of retail employment and good domestic infrastructure work, which is why its jobless claims are recovering faster than in the most states. "
The state's overall GDP grew 4.8% in the last quarter of 2020. And consumer spending has grown 7% since the start of last year, according to Gonzalez.
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority announced on April 14 an additional $ 85 million in grants for small businesses under its Small Business Emergency Assistance Grant program. Restaurants, which were hit hard during the pandemic, will receive $ 35 million of the newly available funds.
Gov. Phil Murphy painted a gloomy economic outlook last year, telling the public and lawmakers that the state needs to borrow $ 4.3 billion to weather the impact of the pandemic. The Legislature accepted the loan, which is non-repayable.
"[That] means they can't be repaid for 13 years, so we have to bear half a billion in spending every year to not carry that debt and we have plenty of money, "said Regina Egea, President of the Garden State Initiative, an independent research organization.
The state will also receive $ 6.4 billion from President Joe Biden's $ 1.9 trillion US bailout.
New Jersey has rebounded from job losses and recent increases in first applications are attributed to the local school system's spring break schedule, according to reports.
Plans for New Jersey's seat of government to move forward
New Jersey Government Grants CompuCom Class D Electronic Waste Recycling License
How many times did the New Jersey government shut down before 2018?
Rush to Renew MVC Documents After Three Days of New Jersey Government Shutdown | Latest titles
Raymond A. Goheen
New Jersey government reopens debate over sliced bagels in St. Louis


LoadRunner is an automated load testing tool that allows you to test your application before, during, and after deployment. This two-day course introduces students to LoadRunner . The course covers topics about the Virtual User Generator, Controller, and Analysis tools. This course is designed to give you a foundation in basic load testing tasks. You create and run load test scenarios using the Controller. The Analysis tool is used to analyze load test results. You learn to work with the graphs to display data after a test is executed. The hands-on labs are designed to provide you with the knowledge necessary to create scripts in VuGen, execute scenarios in the Controller, and view the results in the Analysis tool.
This course is intended for performance engineers that need to work with the Microfocus LoadRunner suite.
Participants should preferably have a basic understanding of the performance testing process, although this prerequisite is not mandatory.


Most appliances we buy are governed by energy efficiency regulations. The Department of Energy (DOE) sets efficiency standards for various appliances from time to time, including those for central air conditioners and heat pumps. The changes in efficiency standards for air conditioners are usually transparent to homeowners as they typically rely on a contractor for guidance. While contractors are a great source of information, there are some unique changes to the latest round of efficiency standards that are important for any homeowner to be aware of.
One variation that can be noted is that heat pumps have a national standard, while air conditioners have regional standards. This creates a unique challenge because manufacturers are allowed to still make 13 SEER units for the north, but these units are illegal to install in the south or southwest.
For example, imagine you live in Cincinnati, Ohio and your friend resides just across the bridge in Florence, Kentucky. Even though you are close in proximity, you each will have a different minimum SEER requirement. You personally are able to get a 13 SEER air conditioner, while your friend cannot. This is because of the region differentiations – Kentucky is classified as part of the southern region and Cincinnati, the northern.
Under this new enforcement regulation currently in progress, the DOE will not hold a homeowner liable for any incorrect installation, but it is certainly helpful to educate yourself on the regulations and sources of information.
As you can see, the label clearly calls out the regions where the unit is prohibited. More information on the regions and the sates that belong to each region is provided by Energy.gov.
If the DOE finds that a contractor, distributor, or manufacturer knowingly sells equipment to someone that installs equipment wrongfully, they will be determined a "routine violator." The DOE publishes a list of these routine violators, so when you hire a contractor it is a good idea to be sure he or she is not listed. You can do so here.
A contractor is likely to respect you even more if you show that you have done your homework and are familiar with the SEER levels for your region. This not only allows you to better understand the type of unit you are purchasing, but also discourages any bad-seed contractors from trying to illegally install an incorrect air conditioning unit.
Units manufactured before January 1, 2015, must meet the standards that were in effect before January 1, 2015.
Units manufactured after January 1, 2015, must meet the new standards.
The amended standards that impact the Southern region are based on date of installation. Therefore, units installed on or after January 1, 2015, should meet the new standards. The DOE has issued an enforcement policy that they will not penalize the individual who installs units manufactured prior to January 1, 2015. In light of this, an installer may offer to sell you a noncompliant unit that was manufactured in 2014. After July 1, 2016, however, DOE will strictly enforce the standards.
When investing a large amount of money into a new air conditioning unit, it is very important to also invest time and research into the regulations standardized by the DOE.
Effective January 2015, air conditioners must meet the criteria recognized for the individual unit, based upon the region you live in and the SEER rating level of the appliance. This knowledge will not only make you feel more confident and at ease with your purchase, it will help ensure the right products are legally and accurately installed.
Traditionally, energy efficient standard regulations were solely the responsibility of the contractor and manufacturers for an air conditioning unit or heat pump. However, with these recently implemented changes established by the DOE, the time is right for homeowners to take an initiative to better understand their region and SEER level regulations.
**If you believe your air conditioner installer has installed an illegal air conditioner, you may report it to DOE at EnergyEfficiencyEnforcement@doe.gov or by phone at 202-287-6997.


These apps will let you create your own 360-degree photo tour for business or for fun.
Travel-related content is popular with VR users. According to a recent survey by TechNalysis Research, virtual travel is one of the top five applications for virtual reality.
But a nice thing about 360-degree photo tours is that people don't need to have a VR headset to enjoy them. Any device will work — smartphone, tablet, or traditional computer. Just turn your phone — or swipe across the screen — to look in different directions. But a VR headset will add an extra level of enjoyment, allowing visitors to feel as though they are actually there, in the middle of the scene.You put on a headset, and you can look around inside the virtual location. Then you stare at an arrow or button or use a controller in order to jump to a different room.
The most popular kind of virtual tour is Google Street View, where you can visit almost any location on the planet. There are VR real estate tours, and VR travel tours as well.
On a computer, you can use you mouse to look in all different directions. On a mobile device, you simply turn around while holding the device, or swipe on the screen—or click the little Cardboard icon to switch to virtual reality view.
Check out some virtual reality real estate tours here and some travel tours here.
You could hire a developer to create a custom-made virtual reality tour app for you. If you're a large company with a budget, and want something that customized for your needs, that might be the way to go.
But for most people, using a self-serve virtual tour app platform is a much cheaper, easier, and faster way to go.
For a good virtual reality tour, you'll want to take pictures from the point of viewer of your potential visitor.
Where will they want to look?
If you're creating tours of a house, you might want to take pictures from the center of each room. But also add some photographs take near windows, which can highlight the view outside the house. Considering snapping some exterior pictures as well both from the street and the backyard.
For a museum tour, you will want to take photographs next to the paintings and art work, or from different views around a piece of sculpture.
For a 360-degree nature tour, shoot images along a path, near any interesting items or locations, from hill tops, lake sides and any other places that strikes you as beautiful or intriguing.
A virtual reality tour starts with a collection of panoramic photos.
You can use a special camera, like the 360fly.
Other popular 360-degree cameras include the low-cost Detu Twin and the Samsung Gear VR, both under $100. If you have more of a budget, try the GoPro Fusion, the Ricoh Theta, the Kodak PixPro, and the LG 360 Cam.
With a 360-degree camera, place the camera on a stand in the center of where you want your image, then use a remote or a mobile app to take the picture. If you plan to post your tour on Google Street View, be sure to check out which cameras are Street View-ready.
You can also use a regular camera, take pictures in all directions, and then stitch together the photos into a single 360-degree photo.
There are several photo editing tools around that would do the job, but my favorite — and the easiest — is the free Google Camera app, available for both iPhones and Android devices.
Other apps that let you create panoramic photos with just your regular smartphone are Photoaf (free on Android), Super Pano (free on Android) 360 Panorama ($1.99 on iTunes) and Pano ($1.99 on iTunes).
There are also special lenses you can attach to your phone. For example, Vieweet offers a 360 Starter Kit that comes with a monopod, and a fisheye lens.
You can now take your photos and share them, either as a group of individual photos, or edited into a video, or as part of an interactive virtual tour.
The easiest way to share your 360 degree photos is on Facebook.
You can also share them on Twitter, but — as of yet —there's no built-in support for 360-degree photos. Instead, you will need to convert the photo to a video, then to a GIF, as described in this Medium post.
If you just want to post the photos to a website, that people can then view as 360-degree photos via the browser or smartphone, or with a virtual reality headset, there are a few plugins, including WP-VR-view, PanoPress and WP Photo Sphere.
The functionality here is minimal, though. People who load up your site can see the photos, use their mouse or finger to look in different directions, or activate the VR view to see the photo in virtual reality mode. But to see a different photo, they will have to leave the virtual reality view and navigate to a new photo, then activate the virtual reality view again.
If you bought the Vieweet kit, the company has a free app that automatically stitches together into a virtual reality tour. Similarly, if you have a Ricoh Theta camera, you can share photos on Theta360.com.
With the photo sharing sites, just upload your photos and send the links to your friends or customers. They would need to view each photo individually, however.
For more advanced users, you can stitch the photos together into a virtual tour. If you have video editing software, for example, you can add a sound track and turn your photos into an immersive, 360-degree video that you can share or YouTube or Facebook or embed on your own site. Mobile video editing apps include VeeR, V360, and Collect. PC-based apps include Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro.
But there is also software that you can use to create an interactive, self-guided tour, where users can freely navigate around between the locations, and spend as much time as they want at each one.
For desktops, commercial software options include EasyPano Tourweaver, 3DVista, and VPix.
And there are also apps for mobile devices, including Roundme and TheViewer.
For the most advanced users, including professional photographs and real estate agencies, Google Street View can be an excellent platform to reach a wide audience.
To get into Google Street view, you must have already published fifty individual 360-degree photos and completed the other requirements to become a Trusted Street View Photographer.
Google also has a list of tour editors and publishing utilities.
Using anyone of these apps can turn your flat images into a 360-degree experience. For businesses, that extra oomph can be a potential selling point to customers. Plus regular users looking to impress friends, might just pick up a few extra likes.
Using anyone of these apps can turn your flat images into a 360-degree experience. For businesses, that extra oomph can be a potential selling point to customers. Regular users looking to impress friends, might just pick up a few extra likes.


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Q: System Site.Login is not successfully logging and redirecting the user We have a community site where we allow guest users to log in using self registration.
In our controller we confirm the user, activate the user account and attempt to log them in using the
PageReference pr = Site.login(email, password, url);
pr.setRedirect(true);
return pr;

We have a system.debug to see the redirect url. The issue is that unfortunately the user is not logged in, and is just redirected to the community login page.
In the debug of the pr variable, we copy the string provided and enter that in the browser which seems to successfully log us in and redirect us, so the url from the pagerefence is correct. However, as previously stated in the normal flow this process does not seem to take place and instead of being logged in and redirected the user is just redirected to the login page. Has anyone else ran into such issue? What could be the cause of this redirect, knowing that the redirect url is correct? Everything from what I can tell looks good and we aren't getting any exception errors.

A: To supplement my comments, see Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) in the Salesforce Security Guide.

Within the Lightning platform, Salesforce has implemented an anti-CSRF token to prevent this attack. Every page includes a random string of characters as a hidden form field. Upon the next page load, the application checks the validity of this string of characters and does not execute the command unless the value matches the expected value. This feature protects you when using all of the standard controllers and methods.
Here again, the developer might bypass the built-in defenses without realizing the risk. For example, suppose you have a custom controller where you take the object ID as an input parameter, then use that input parameter in a SOQL call. Consider the following code snippet.
(example omitted) ...
Because of Salesforce's built-in defense against CRSF, your users might encounter an error when they have multiple Salesforce login pages open. If the user logs in to Salesforce in one tab and then attempts to log in to the other, they see an error, "The page you submitted was invalid for your session". Users can successfully log in by refreshing the login page or attempting to log in a second time.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Corning Incorporated is an American manufacturer of glass, ceramics, and related materials, primarily for industrial and scientific applications. The company was known as Corning Glass Works until 1989, when it changed its name to Corning Incorporated. In 1998, Corning divested itself of its consumer lines of CorningWare and Corelle tableware and Pyrex cookware selling them to World Kitchen, but still holds an interest of about 8%. As of 2014, Corning had five major business sectors: Display Technologies, Environmental Technologies, Life Sciences, Optical Communications, and Specialty Materials. Corning is involved in two joint ventures: Dow Corning and Pittsburgh Corning. Quest Diagnostics and Covance were spun off from Corning in 1996. Corning is one of the main suppliers to Apple Inc. since working with Steve Jobs in 2007 to develop the iPhone.
Is Corning Incorporated's estimated NPS of 8 considered to be good?
Consider an example: If Corning Incorporated sends out NPS surveys immediately after purchase, they are tracking their customers' initial excitement and the checkout experience.
Therefore, comparing the NPS score of Corning Incorporated with your own without any further context is not that useful.


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Home > Vol 8 (2014) >	Ibrus
Transmedia Critical: Empirical Investigations into Multiplatform and Collaborative Storytelling ~ Introduction
Indrek Ibrus, Carlos A. Scolari
A decade has passed since the introduction of "transmedia storytelling," a concept that refers to forms of multiplatform and collaborative storytelling. This special section opens an avenue for critical accounts of the associated narrative phenomena, social experiences, and conceptual positions. It suggests that it is time to move away from celebrating instances of transmedia productions as poetically fascinating outcomes of contemporary media changes, or as enablers of new economic possibilities for media industries, or of participatory opportunities for audiences. Instead, it calls for investigations of transmedia productions as contested phenomena—sources of contemporary cultural and social complexities—including new forms of scarcities, inequalities, and power struggles.
This special section emphasizes empirical studies of situated differences of how transmedial content is produced, used and interpreted in various contexts and by different actors. The articles present case studies from several countries on aspects of transmedia content production, associated user studies, and predecessors of various modern forms of transmediation (that too often are celebrated for their unprecedented newness). The section is explicitly interdisciplinary and builds on several established research traditions (e.g., cultural studies, political economy, semiotics, and narratology). With an introduction by Ibrus and Scolari, these works attest to the importance of a cross-disciplinary dialogue on transmedia communications as social, economic, and textual phenomena.
transmedia, critical studies, empirical research, transmedia audiences, transmedia production, transmedia archaeology


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Misdiagnosis of testicular torsion
Claimant won £20,000 after a GP failed to diagnose severe scrotal pain as testicular torsion but instead as a urinary tract infection. This resulted in the testicle having to be removed causing the Claimant a reduction in his fertility and psychological issues.
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At the time of instruction the Claimant was aged 17. The case concerned a failure by the clients GP to identify, recognise and thereafter refer for immediate investigation, severe scrotal pain, which was later diagnosed as a testicular torsion. The Claimant first consulted his GP with scrotal pain , however, although the symptoms were diagnosed as a urinary tract infection, a physical examination was not performed. The pain continued over the next two days resulting in a return visit to the GP Practice at which point a physical examination was performed by a different GP, and the Claimant was urged to attend Hospital immediately.
When he arrived at Hospital, surgical examination revealed a black and infarcted left testis and epididymis, and it was not possible to save the testicle, resulting in the Claimant undergoing a left orchidectomy.
The case was pursued on the basis that the first GP failed to perform a physical examination which resulted in a delay in diagnosis and treatment of the condition, resulting in loss of the testicle. The Claimant maintained that if a physical examination had been performed initially, and an immediate referral to Hospital had been made, then exploration of the testicle would have been possible within eight hours of the onset of pain resulting in the testicle being saved and the orchidectomy being avoided.
The time period for treatment was crucial in this case.
The claim was investigated and, following input from a GP expert in respect of breach of duty and a Consultant Urological Surgeon in respect of causation, condition and prognosis, the claim was then pursued further.
It was also identified that, in addition to the loss of the testicle, the Claimant was also at risk of infertility which resulted in further investigations, to include semen analysis, to support this contention. As the Claimant had originally intended to pursue a career in the Royal Marines, there was some psychological problems associated with the loss of his testicle, and the medical evidence subsequently concluded, that the long term consequences of the orchidectomy was a 10% reduction in fertility with psychological effects,and a change of direction in the Claimants career choice. The Claimant also pursued the cost of a prosthesis, should he wish to proceed with this, at a later date.
Unfortunately, despite a Letter of Claim being served on the Defendant, a Protocol Letter of Response was never provided, nor was any admission ever made. Consequently, the Claimant was left with no alternative other than to issue and serve proceedings almost twelve months later. At that point, negotiations commenced and settlement terms were agreed, without any admission of liability, in the sum of £20,000 plus costs.
What is medical negligence?
Medical Negligence is when a medical practitioner such as a doctor, nurse, midwife, dentist or an institutional health provider breaches his or its duty of care to you and you are injured as a result of that breach.
How can I find out if medical treatment was negligent?
During the investigations of your clinical negligence claim we will be required to obtain disclosure of all relevant medical records - both hospital and GP - in the manner set out in the pre-action protocols. Once all of the relevant medical records have been received they will be considered on a preliminary basis. They will then be sent to an independent expert nurse who will index and paginate the records to ensure that they are in some semblance of order.


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David E Bland
Economics is fundamentally unscientific. The economic crisis has speeded the shift of power to emergent economies. In Britain and the USA the theory of 'rational markets' removed controls from the finance sector, and things can still get yet worse. Read my book, No Confidence: The Brexit Vote and Economics - http://amzn.eu/ayGznkp
Olympic Optimism and Reality
Ask any London concierge and you will get the truth. More than a year ago the common conversation at their meetings was to compare their observation of reality with the official optimism that was being promoted by the government. Actual forward bookings of hotel rooms for the summer of 2012 were alarmingly few. Using their contacts in the travel business, they found out that the number of visitors to any Olympic city whose trips were directly ascribable to their sporting enthusiasm was far fewer than the British government imagined. Meanwhile 'normal' tourism dried up as massive official block-booking of rooms at inflated prices pushed London beyond the price range of tourists who were anyhow worried at the possibility of terrorist attacks during the games and the difficulties that the might face on overly stressed transport systems.
By the autumn of 2011 it was clear that major companies which annually brought large numbers of tourists to London as the base for a European experience had transferred their bases to Paris: and the wise old cross-keys stated their expectation that if that worked out, at least some of those tours would be lost to London for an indefinite future. The Olympic effect would be negative and longlasting. This confident prediction was made during 2011 in defiance of a dogmatic official line that is still being repeated as retailers in central London have begun to deplore the absence of tourist-shoppers. Currently available data suggest that 100,000 Olympic visitors have squeezed out a normal end-July crop of 300,000. Official Economists [of course!] continue to predict that the games will provide a much-needed boost to economic growth. This will prove to be on a par with their normal degree of accuracy; and they will again shrug off the evidence that the facts are at odds with what they should be. Another small nail in the coffin of the sad subject.
Posted by David E Bland at 08:05 No comments:
Investment into Britain: Profit out of Britain
David Cameron, temporarily the British Prime Minister in a coalition government, took advantage of the Olympic Games to convene a large gathering of fellow-politicians and international business leaders to which he made a well-known sales pitch: 'invest in Britain, stimulate growth in this country, help the world economy to recover, and take the profit'. The last and most important phrase is usually excluded from reporting of the speeches within the UK; but it is the one crucial part of the proposition from the perspective of the potential investors.
A masive proportion of the British economy is already under alien ownership; much of it by outright ownership and most of the rest by shareholder participation which [although split between various overseas owners] often exceeds 50% of the total shares. This means that the Political Economy of British capitalism has failed, and is failing further. For centuries before the emergence of modern academic Economics it was absolutely understood that investment was crucial for economic growth; and that the primary source of investment resources was from 'the profits of stock': the earnings produced by the efficient use of the resources that were available for investment in previous years; after the costs of running the state and the wages of labour had been paid.
The de-industrialisation that began during the period of very high inflation in the nineteen-seventies, and was massively expanded in range and pace during the nineteen-eighties, compelled many formerly-productive employees to retire, and thus become eligible for state benefits until they reached the age at which the state old-age pension [with all the attendant benefits] was receivable. Other people of working age who became unemployed could not get new jobs in their area, and many of them became physically and/or mentally ill as a direct consequence of unemployment [often shading into unemployability] and thereby recipients of benefits. Hundreds of thousands of people came out from schools and colleges onto the employment market which offered nothing to people of of narrow and limited education in whom was instilled the absolute lack of any work ethic. Politicians readily recognised the effect of this socio-economic situation on children. 'Hereditary pauperism' had been well-recognised from the middle ages until the end of the nineteenth century and massive endeavours were made by charitable institutions to assist children to gain the attributes that would enable them to gain useful and remunerative employment.
The 1945 government introduced 'child allowances', cash sums payable to parents of a second and of subsequent children. The Thatcher government and its successors developed a system of family income supplements which new Labour converted into 'tax credits'. By 2008 and the exposure of the fake economy through the credit crunch, Britain had become one of the greatest and most disastrous socialistic experiments in human history. There was no correlation between work done and income received, for a huge proportion of the population. The highest-paid employees received massive multiples of average earnings, often withour justification; many thousands of low-paid employees worked extremely hard for minimum wages which were below any realistic 'subsistence level', especially in London, and thousands of cases were recognised in which recipients of benefits 'played the system' to huge pecuniary advantage [not counting conspicuous cases of benefits fraud of which those which were exposed were recognised as the 'tip of the iceberg'. The allocation of government funds to the benefits system drained the national treasury, forcing the government to cut spending in other areas and to borrow in order to fund essential services such as health and education. The present policy of spending cuts, ostensibly designed to reduce the government's rate of increasing its borrowing, is recognised to have a negative impact on economic growth. But the government can see no alternative to its present course, even though the weakening economy increases demands on the benefits system and exaggerates the original problem.
The Labour opposition was the government which for thirteen years pushed the socialistic experiment forward, expanding the deficit at an increasing rate. Their present abstract proposals that the government should relax their limited efforts at austerity would soon be forgotten if the government 'got real' and Labour politicians hurled insults at 'Tory' measures directly and radically to challenge the unsustainable benefits drain of the nation's income and wealth.
All three major parties got Britain into this mess: they show no sign of recognising its real nature or its gravity, so there can be no hope of them resolving it within the current system.
Labels: benefits, British capitalism, David Cameron, de-industrialisation, invest, Olympic Games, socialistic experiment, take the profit, work ethic
China in the Driving Seat
It has been made known during the past week that the British Department of Energy and Climate Change [in my childhood, it was the Ministry of Fuel and Power] is in discussion with Chinese authorities with a view to installing Chinese-built nuclear power plant - funded by Chinese capital - in the United Kingdom. German and French companies have progressively drawn back from making any definite offers to construct the next generation of nuclear power plant for their UK subsidiaries as the euro crisis has developed and the probability of making a profit from providing electricity in the UK has diminished.
Britain was the world leader in nuclear research until the Second World War when a cohort of her leading experts in applied nuclear energy were exported, with their knowledge and their plans, to the safer territory of the USA to contribute to the Manhattan Project with the leading American experts. The rapid success of that exercise, enabling the first atom bombs to be used in anger in 1945, was significantly due to the British input: though the USA undoubtedly put in the greater intellectual resources as well as the funds that carried the project forward. At the end of the war some Britons came home; but the Americans embargoed any export of the technology, even to the UK which had freely contributed all that it had available. The Atlee Labour government decided that they must have nuclear weapons if they were to keep Britain as a power in the world, and despite the postwar austerity regime the funds were found to make a new start to bring this about. The civilian application of nuclear power was already projected, and nuclear-powered vessels - especially submarines - came on the planning horizon.
Thus Britain became a nuclear power, originally alongside only the USA and the USSR, in both military and civil applications. Nuclear power came into supply in just two decades after the war: with the power stations build by British firms with access to sufficient British [state] capital. Then it all went wrong.
Successive governments of both major parties cut back spending on the nuclear sector, as on defence generally, as they took up the socialistic agenda of subsidising unearned incomes for both the employed and non-employed members of society. The 'green' lobby emerged, with their profoundly irrational loathing of nuclear energy, and politicians could feel better about about allowing the UK to fall behind in this area of technology on the grounds that they were recognising ecological considerations. Facilities for designing nuclear installations were diminished and then stood down, and the residual capability to design and build nuclear power plant was sold abroad. In no area of economy or military technology has Britain more shamefully and shabbily sold out the future that in nuclear power and weaponry. The nuclear missiles carried on British submarines are bought from the USA and the suppliers hold a veto on their use: so the idea of an 'independent nuclear deterrent' is a sour joke.
And now the shabby political dwarfs who form the coalition government have admitted that the future 'mix' of power supplies in the UK must include a nuclear component: so they are toting around the possibility of profiting from British consumers - with cast-iron guarantees that they will make a profit on the whole venture, including eventual decommissioning - to the countries that have developed nuclear power-plant construction over the same period as Britain has withdrawn from the field. It is increasingly obvious that even with massive subsidies and fake pricing models the windmill obsession will be a costly disaster; before metal fatigue cuts short the estimated 'life' of twenty-something years for the turbines.
So the nuclear option becomes more obviously necessary: as it is accepted as a 'given' that the country has no capacity to produce the generating capacity itself; though that it not strictly true. Rolls Royce's residual capacity to provide nuclear propulsion for submarines could, with sufficient drive and resourcing, be scaled up massively. Just as most English water consumers pay for the profits of foreign-owned companies, so buyers of electricity largely do the same; and will do so even more in future if the present approach to the nuclear option is pursued. There is no better or clearer example of the devastation that has been caused to the real economy by the consensual all-party shambles that the politicians have delivered over the past half-century.
Labels: Chinese-build nuclear plant, coalition, devastation, Energy and Climate Change, green lobby, Manhattan Project, nuclear power, submarines, windmill obsession
Concern at the IMF: About What?
The Managing Director of the IMF has expressed concern about the probability that their forecasts for economic growth throughout the world must be downgraded. Her foreboding is justified by the regular downward revision of estimates for growth that are being published in various countries, especially in the light of the ongoing crisis in the eurozone and its potential negative impact on its trading partners in other parts of the world. In the face of such a negative mood among Economists, politicians, journalists, bankers and some business managers it is unsurprising that there is a growing feeling of unease among the general public.
During the so-called credit crunch of 2007-8 many governments tried to secure the future of banks in their territories by guaranteeing the deposits that people and businesses had placed in those banks. When banks could not meet depositors' demands for cash from their own resources the government supplied the money. Governments that had control of their own currencies, such as the US dollar and the British pound, could authorise their central banks to create 'new' money and make it available to the banks: some went further and actually create the money with which to buy control of threatened banks. In the USA this process was extended to the one insurance company, AIG, that had ruined itself by creating contracts by which it guaranteed to fund banks in certain circumstances which had been thought highly improbable until they happened to several big banks all at once.
In countries that did not have control of their money supply, notably those in the eurozone, the means available to governments to stabilise the economic situation were seriously constrained. For seven years before the credit crunch occurred the member countries of the eurozone issued bonds and bills [certificates of government debt] denominated in euros; and bonds that had been issued before the creation of the euro had become redeemable in euros. Those governments could not follow the lead of the Americans and the British in creating the money that they had to pay out to buy the bonds that fell due to be cashed: they had to borrow the necessary euros from the European Central Bank or the International Monetary Fund, or tap new funds created by other eurozone governments. In considering any of those options a government was faced with strict conditions attaching to any loan, that usually included the imposition of restrictive economic policies. At an early stage in the banking crisis the Irish government decided to guarantee all banks' obligations, raised a large loan and imposed dramatically restrictive conditions on the economy. Southern European members of the eurozone faced up to the crisis more slowly and then took the very different stance of demanding bail-out loans and prevaricated about imposing the conditions that they had accepted, threatening the northern eurozone countries with progressive economic collapse and political chaos. The northern eurozone countries regard this as simple cheating and are resisting any further concessions to the south unless they are accompanied by enforceable sanctions. Meanwhile the population of the whole Union is getting used to commentators covering the arguments about the possible withdrawal of some countries from the euro or the collapse of the entire venture. The fact that the eurozone is not coterminous with the European Union is widely understood: the Union could survive either the defection of some members or the total collapse of the single currency.
The possibility of chaos in much of the EU - the world's largest economic bloc - is the cause of worry throughout the world economy. The shabby history of the Union - the political fudges, the pervasive unaccountability of the Brussels bureaucracy and the notorious 'democratic deficit' by which the eurorats have evaded public concerns in aggregating power in their own hands - has created the circumstances in which there is little mass empathy with any proposal to give more power to the Union. Spaniards and Italians would like the Union to be able to grab Germany's wealth and hand it to them in return for promises to which nobody gives the slightest credibility: Germany would never assent to such a scheme. The extension of another loan to Spain, agreed overnight, is an allocation of the existing funds which the Finns and the Dutch and the Slovaks and the Germans have already written off. This time round the northern eurozone members seem to be so little concerned about this further handout that they have agreed to give the Spanish government longer to impose austerity.
And so the sorry saga drags on. Greece will leave the euro. With that example in their sights it is just possible that the Spanish, the Portuguese and the Italians will accept enough 'discipline' to keep the euro staggering along for a year or two. There is no hope of Europe leading the world economy to a new era of prosperity; and not much sign of the emergent economies or the US providing a 'motor' to drag the global economy into an era of growth. New thinking is needed, urgently.
Labels: AIG, bills, bonds, Central Banks, credit crunch, democratic deficit, ECB, European Union, eurorats, eurozone, foreboding, Germany, Greece, IMF, Irish government, money supply, new money
It is suddenly becoming commonplace for British commentators, and commentators on Britain, to look at a timescale much longer than the period 2008-12 to find the explanation for the current malaise of the economy and of politics. Those who take a long view often fasten on Thatcherism as the dogma that destroyed much of British material industry and freed the financial services to enter the global market with London as the biggest and most risk-welcoming casino. Those developments are linked with the rapid increase in the gap between the richest and the poorest members of society, the collapse of educational standards, and the rise of benefit dependency.
Much further back, in 1971, Ken Watkins [a Political Scientist] and I published a slight book called Can Britain Survive? We discerned already then in British politics an increasingly reckless contest between the Conservative and Labour parties to exploit the economy to enable individuals to have more to consume, with increasing disregard for investment in the future. The 'seventies was a terrible decade, with national wealth greatly eroded by inflation. Change was needed; and Mrs Thatcher promised change. Thus she narrowly won the 1979 election and she began to pursue a radical agenda of reform. Ken Watkins became a devoted advocate of the new policies: I recognised that they were wildly destructive. Jobs were removed from mining, shipbuilding and all the basic industries: fewer jobs were created in financial services and the distribution of imported goods. An increasing proportion of the population became early-retired, involuntarily unemployed and [in a bizarre conspiracy between family doctors, Employment Department staff and the Treasury] became classified as unable to work through disability or medical conditions. The state turnover for 'benefits' increased sufficiently to absorb more than the total of savings achieved by the government in other areas of spending.
The same ruinous track was followed by new Labour in 1997 to 2001, and the pathetic attempts of the current Lib-Tory coalition of 2010 to address the perceived problem are disabled by the failure of the government and its advisers to comprehend the immensity of the problem tht they confront and the length of time it had been developing. Only when the context is understood can the real needs for reform be addressed.
Labels: benefit dependency, Britain, British material industry, Can Britain Survive? conspiracy, financial services, Ken Watkins, Lib-Tory coalition, new Labour, period 2008-12, Thatcherism
Reshaping the Banks
The Vickers Commission on the UK banking business has already proposed that the banks' 'retail' and other activities should clearly be separated; and the government has promised to enact that policy. This would in itself have made the future banks very different from those of the recent past; and now more change is in the air. New scandals have emerged very recently - the manipulation of libor and the reckless mis-selling to small firms of inappropriate [and ineffectual] 'protection' against interest-rate changes - to add to the existing flow of compensation funds to individuals who were mis-sold payment protection insurance by their banks. International financial institutions, a swathe of small and medium-sized businesses and individuals have all been cheated by the London banks.
For several decades successive governments have complacently observed the increase of trade in the finance sector of the economy, and have taken more than ten per cent of the nation's taxes from the sector. This was seen as largely compensating the country for the destruction of material industry. That progress is now likely to be slammed into reverse by the restructuring of banking firms, by new UK and EU regulation, and by international traders moving activity away from the discredited London Market. Thus the situation is nothing less than a disaster for the British economy and for the sixty million human beings who depend upon it
The principal asset of any financial firm is its reputation for integrity in its employees' intentions and its efficiency in administration. Despite the impact of the credit crunch, London has been seen as a reliable market until very recently. Before the start of the millennium the London Market was dramatically changed from the gentlemanly world that existed until the early nineteen eighties when the Thatcher government initiated the 'big bang' which created the environment in which huge conglomerates were created which undertook almost the full range of financial services [insurance was the great exception] and developed massive markets in a great variety of new 'products'.
The traditional business of banking was to receive deposits from customers who want their money to be in safe custody until they have a use for the spending-power, to hold reserves proportionate to the deposits so that customers can always access their funds when they want them, and to lend the rest of the money they have to firms and to people who have viable economic uses for it [investment, house purchase, trade finance etc]. Alongside basic banking by 1850 there had emerged a small cohort of 'merchant banks' that managed international transactions and currency exchanges and advised firms on aspects of business development, including decisions whether to sell shares or bonds to increase their capital, and when and how to try to take over other firms. Alongside the banks and merchant banks were specialist trades of stock-broking and stock-jobbing, discounting government securities and other niche markets: each of which was self-regulating under the oversight of the Bank of England. After the big bang these activities were brought together in new conglomerates, many of which formed as - or were absorbed by - international conglomerates; and their turnover increased massively. However, the emergence of the 'new' economies of Asia and Latin America meant that in the new millennium London's share of global banking trade and of profits quickly declined, from more than ten per cent in 2000 to less than five per cent in 2011. Many of the 'products' in which the global banks trade have been invented in London, but can be used anywhere. London remains highly innovative and attracts people from all over the world to learn and to practice their trade in London before they take their skills home. Many such individuals develop a liking for the lifestyle that has been available in London for the highly affluent, and several of those buy homes in London even when their employment has moved elsewhere. Thus house prices in the British capital remain high, conflicting with a nationwide trend for all but the finest houses to decline in price as individuals' access to mortgage funding becomes more difficult.
Most of the new trade that was developed since the mid-eighties of the last century was misguidedly regarded as 'banking'. It was gambling, speculation. Derivatives, most swaps and many forms of futures were just bets: neither party owned any assets related to the deal: in the first instance they were bets about how the prices of assets would move in the future, but they quickly moved on into guesses about how derivatives, futures and swaps would move in the future. People and firms who place the right bets [for them] at the right time in the development of the market situation can make profits from which hey can mitigate anticipated losses due to risk events such as adverse currency or interest-rate movements: such hedging can be beneficial to the clever, lucky players. Many other punters enter into contracts and escape from them without making significant losses. This has all added to the 'banks'' turnover, and the traders who have been granted bonuses on the basis of their turnover have thrived. The credibility of these markets is now at risk: and it is becoming impossible for the conglomerates to hold enough reserves on their balance sheets both to be able to fund for potential losses in the esoteric markets and to provide investment funds for 'real' businesses at the same time. So investment is suffering. The way to end this nonsense, as had many times been stressed on this blog site, is to recognise the gambling contracts for what they are, and to regulate them and tax them appropriately. If it is prepared to take the risk a conglomerate could have a retail banking subsidiary, and a merchant banking, stockbroking and bond issuance subsidiary which offers a mergers and acquisitions advisory and assistance service; both of which must be separately capitalised and conformably managed according to the rules set by the bank regulators. Such a conglomerate could also apply for a gaming licence for a separately-financed casino subsidiary that managed and issued derivatives, swaps and futures. If such a subsidiary satisfied consumer demands it could continue to grow the business as a complex of hedges for clients who understand what the market is offering them and what costs and risks are involved.
London casinos attract international high rollers:UK regulation of gambling is good and creates consumer confidence. There are grounds for hope that a regulated market in swaps, derivatives and futures could thrive and grow: but let it never be called banking, nor have access to the reserves that are accumulated to support the proper activities of retail or merchant banks.
Labels: Bank of England, Big Bang, derivatives, discounting, EU regulation, futures, hedging, libor, London Market, merchant banks, retail banking, scandals, stock-broking, stock-jobbing, swaps, Vickers Commission
No Confidence: The Brexit Vote and Economics
David Bland
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I have had a very fortunate life, in that I have been able to study the economy and Economics for more than forty years. I taught Economics, the History of Economic Thought and some Economic History at University level for over twenty years; I was CEO of an international professional Institute in financial services for more than a decade; served as head of a large Business School and have been Pro-Vice-Chancellor of a major university; and I have lectured and examined all over the world. My introductory text on insurance was translated into fourteen languages and my writings over a wide range of topics have been available worldwide.
Throughout these years I have quietly challenged the normative assumptions that underlie academic Economics; but for decades I recognised that the hegemony of dogma was so impenetrable that any frontal assault on the self-styled 'profession' would be brushed aside by the professoriate that had been appointed in a pyramid of patronage. Now – through the credit crunch and the even more grave sovereign debt crisis – it is very widely recognised that Economics is a failed subject: it fails to provide any adequate analysis of the situation or any new programme for moving the economy forward. The time has come for the world to understand how fundamental the failings of Economics are.
Fortunately we can begin to move forward in understanding by restating principles that were developed before Economics was set out in its modern form in the eighteen-seventies. A sound understanding of the economy begins in the recognition that all decisions and actions in the economy are taken by human individuals, acting on their own or as the agents of corporate persons [companies, registered charities etc] or as servants of international sovereign persons that are known as states [and their governments, local authorities and state agencies].
Persons are not impotent incidents in markets: markets are the creations of persons and any market can be abused or upset by persons with unusual ambition, drive, inspiration or dishonesty. This approach is followed in my simple little book, Personal Political Economy: follow the link.
In this blog I make comments on people and events from the perspective that is set out in the book: and I will not hesitate to repudiate any portion of the book – or any blog – that is invalidated by emergent reality.
I thrive on criticism, and welcome it.