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Sun Film Festival
Showcasing Independent Filmmakers
Showcasing Talented Filmmakers In All Genres…
The Sun Film Festival supports local Australian Films in particular and International Independent Films in general by engaging a diverse range of fascinating films that may otherwise not have their chance to shine. Exceptional films by both emerging artists and accomplished professionals are shown online and on the big screen..
What's So Different About This Film Festival?
Films Selected For Festival Committee Choice Receive The Opportunity For Theatrical Distribution in Australia And New Zealand, with the additional possibility of theatrical release in other countries… And The Filmmaker retains all their rights!
What Award Categories Does The Festival Have?
Awards include Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Animation, Best Doco, Best Comedy, Best Rom Com, Best Sci Fi, Best Thriller/Horror. Best Sound, Best Soundtrack, Best Achievement In Indigenous Film, Best Achievement In Australian Film, Best Achievement In Sunshine Coast Film…
I'm A Sunshine Coast Filmmaker… What Opportunities Are There For Me?
There is virtually no Sunshine Coast Film Industry at the moment… Let's work together and get it started now!
Awesome… How Do I Get Involved ?
We are prepared to share our contacts and experience including mentoring, networks and our qualifications as recognised writer, producer and director with Screen Australia. We provide this Film Festival as a platform to showcase your films. For the feature films that hit the mark in their genre we'll get them into cinemas… It's up to you to show some drive, resourcefulness and initiative and help yourself now…
I'm A Filmmaker living outside the Sunshine Coast… What Opportunities Are There For Me?
There are few areas in Australia that can honestly say that they have a strong local Film Industry at the moment… Let's get connected and work together to change things!
I Think My Film May Be Able To Get A Deal With A Distributor. What Should I Do?
Awesome, we genuinely hope you achieve a distributor. You should only enter this Film Festival if the film is available to be screened nationally in cinemas if chosen for Festival Committee Choice… Be prepared to wait to see what happens with your potential distributors. Keep communicating with them and tell them what's happening with your film. If things don't work out with the distributor we'll still be here to help you!
Supporting Filmmakers Dreams To Share Their Passion With The World…
Use twitter widget for twitter feed.
SUPPORTING INDIE FILMMAKERS!


The $89 rooms are in the older tower and the $109 rooms are in the new tower near the conference center. *** For past attendees, the old tower was completely renovated since we were there last year!
To our Michigan friends: We are currently looking at hotel options near the border for those districts that have district policies that do not allow out of state travel. We will post those locations and rates at the time of registration. New Buffalo, MI is about 10 miles from the Blue Chip. We will update this soon.
Every item at our all-you-can-enjoy Options Buffet is prepared with great care and the freshest ingredients. Rise and shine with a tempting selection of breakfast foods, including a live omelet station. Join us for a satisfying lunch or relaxing dinner, and visit our live action cooking stations, where chefs will prepare your food to your liking.
For the sports fan in you, there's The Game. Scores, stats and the games you gotta see are served up larger than life on wall-to-wall televisions. Icy cold drinks, classic and gourmet burgers, mouth-watering wings, waffle fries and nachos piled high complete the fantasy fan experience. Game day will never be the same.


The risk, we are assured, is statistically low: "only" 21 Fatalities per 100,000 Licensed Drivers (practically zero, eh, except that it adds up to 32,700 people killed each year).
This is the Paradox of Risk: the more risk is apparently lowered, the higher the risk we are willing to accept. If the drunk wheeled off into the darkness on a bicycle, he probably wouldn't get far; he'd more than likely lose his balance and end up scuffed and sore but very much alive in a ditch. The real risks of navigating a dark road while impaired by alcohol are very much exposed on a bicycle.
Ironically, the real danger arises when the driver is reassured by "safety" features and past experiences which appear to limit risk or even make it disappear. This is the situation we find ourselves in today in global financial markets: the central banks are assumed to be the air bags of the system, limiting any losses to a few scratches rather than a complete wipe-out.
This confidence in central banks raises a pernicious systemic risk: assuming the "100-year flood" can't happen every 6 years or so. I have from time to time highly recommended The Misbehavior of Markets and now is the perfect time to check this book out, for the author, fractal pioneer Benoit Mandelbrot, explains in simple mathematical ways how Modern Portfolio Theory, i.e. the management of risk, is based on a faulty conception of risk and statistical chance.
But as Mandelbrot explains, "100-year floods" actually occur with startling regularity in all markets. Put another way: you cannot disappear all risk with fancy statistical models and credit default swaps, etc., that offload the risk onto others, i.e. counterparties.
Thank you, Arthur T. ($100), for yet another outrageously generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.
Thank you, Nigel H. ($10), for your most generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.


This blog is devoted to a trend in camera development, and to related features that are in your phone today.
Cameras are moving from capturing photos to gathering light, and the trend is accelerating. Lenses are going away, and cameras themselves may also disappear as light-gathering devices become so small and ubiquitous that you will be able to call up images from virtually anywhere – and then focus, crop, zoom, and edit as you like.
We're getting a taste of that in the evening news: when a crime occurs, images are gathered from security cameras in the area. Cameras now in development are so small and inexpensive that they may be built into your watch, glasses, clothing or anything you commonly carry – and they may be everywhere. You may ask dotphototo sort through the best images that you automatically gathered that day, or ask your theme park to track your location so their cameras can serve up a photo album for you to refine after your visit.
If you take panoramic photos, your camera is acting as a light-gathering device: as you scan across an area, the software stitches together the image. You can edit the panorama afterward to produce the best possible shot.
We think in terms of 4×6, 5×7 and 8x10s because it's cheap to mass produce prints and frames in standard sizes. However, the move to digital from film frees photographers from ratios. Dotphoto provides custom-sized prints, laminated prints, posters, and frames for panoramas and virtually any shape through our custom framing shop.  Click here for more on printing custom sizes.
That bump on your camera phone is too fat for a scientist at Caltech who has already miniaturized amplifiers for phones, put radar on a chip for self-driving cars, and designed an electromagnetic medical chip. His Optical Phased-Array (OPA) receiver collects light for processing later. Focus in or out, zoom, crop, and establish your picture later. One company, Lytro, already provides niche light-gathering cameras, but the OPA demonstrates that light-gathering technology can change photography dramatically.


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Posts with tag: Soeharto
Talking Indonesia: transnational human rights activism
History, Human Rights, Talking Indonesia
In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Dirk Tomsa chats to Dr Vannessa Hearman about the letter-writing friendships that political prisoners under Soeharto developed with supporters and human rights activists overseas.
Dirk Tomsa, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/dirk/
https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/artworks-Szn5GqHiDtU2nfV0-zXlGQg-t500x500.jpg 500 500 Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/ http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PRIMARY_A_Vertical_Housed_CMYK-trans-180.png Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/2020-08-27 06:34:262021-01-20 06:48:04Talking Indonesia: transnational human rights activism
The Australian left is known for backing Papuan independence – but it wasn't always this way
Analysis, Foreign Policy, History, Human Rights, Politics
Dominique Tasevski examines the history of the Australian Communist Party's problematic and inconsistent position on Indonesian control over West Papua.
Dominique Tasevski, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/dominique/
https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Adam-Bandt-Jokowi-1.jpg 400 495 Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/ http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PRIMARY_A_Vertical_Housed_CMYK-trans-180.png Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/2020-04-27 10:19:052020-09-28 12:23:19The Australian left is known for backing Papuan independence – but it wasn't always this way
Arief Budiman, activist, public intellectual and scholar (1941-2020)
Education, Politics, Society
Prominent public intellectual and leading critic of the Soeharto regime Arief Budiman died on 23 April. Professor Vedi Hadiz reflects on the life of the dissident academic and Foundation Professor of Indonesian Studies at the University of Melbourne.
https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Arief-Budiman_JP-Photo-1-1.jpg 400 475 Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/ http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PRIMARY_A_Vertical_Housed_CMYK-trans-180.png Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/2020-04-27 09:34:152020-09-28 12:25:25Arief Budiman, activist, public intellectual and scholar (1941-2020)
The danger of rejecting democracy for the sake of economic growth
As observers warn of Indonesia's democratic retreat, Dr Robertus Robet questions the growing belief that authoritarianism is a shortcut to development
Robertus Robet, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/robet/
https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Desca-Lidya-Natalia.jpg 400 475 Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/ http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PRIMARY_A_Vertical_Housed_CMYK-trans-180.png Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/2019-11-12 00:43:532020-09-28 13:49:20The danger of rejecting democracy for the sake of economic growth
It's time again for Indonesia at Melbourne to take a short break over the Christmas and New Year period. Here we reflect on some of our favourite and most popular blog posts and podcasts from 2018. We look forward to seeing you again when we return in mid-January.
https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/fikri-rasyid-688820-unsplash-e1545345585695-1.jpg 400 495 Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/ http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PRIMARY_A_Vertical_Housed_CMYK-trans-180.png Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/2018-12-21 10:00:022020-09-29 12:06:14Best of 2018
Reflections on 20 years of reform: women's activist Nursyahbani Katjasungkana
20 Years After Soeharto, Gender, Interview, Law
To mark 20 years since the fall of Soeharto and the New Order regime, Indonesia at Melbourne is speaking to a range of prominent figures about their views on the reform process. Today we speak to women's activist Nursyahbani Katjasungkana.
https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Nursyahbani-with-tag-large-2.jpg 400 495 Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/ http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PRIMARY_A_Vertical_Housed_CMYK-trans-180.png Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/2018-05-28 10:42:522020-09-29 13:56:13Reflections on 20 years of reform: women's activist Nursyahbani Katjasungkana
Talking Indonesia: resisting impunity
20 Years After Soeharto, Human Rights, Talking Indonesia
20 years after the fall of Soeharto, how is Indonesia facing up to the violence of the New Order era? What is being done to resist enduring impunity in democratic Indonesia? Dr Jemma Purdey discusses these issues and more with Galuh Wandita in the latest episode of Talking Indonesia.
https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/AJAR-Talking-Indonesia-2.jpg 400 496 Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/ http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PRIMARY_A_Vertical_Housed_CMYK-trans-180.png Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/2018-05-24 08:23:582020-09-29 13:59:08Talking Indonesia: resisting impunity
The Soeharto family: where are they now?
20 Years After Soeharto, Economy, Explainer, Politics, Society
President Soeharto left office in 1998 amid public fury about the special treatment given to his six children. Dr Helen Pausacker writes that in the 20 years since, Soeharto's children have seen their influence decline, but continue to live prosperous lives and have made several attempts to launch political careers of their own.
Helen Pausacker, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/helen/
https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Soeharto-family-with-tag-large-2.jpg 400 495 Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/ http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PRIMARY_A_Vertical_Housed_CMYK-trans-180.png Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/2018-05-23 10:32:482021-01-12 08:33:14The Soeharto family: where are they now?
Reflections on 20 years of reform: former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
20 Years After Soeharto, Economy, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Interview
To mark 20 years since the fall of Soeharto and the New Order regime, Indonesia at Melbourne is speaking to a range of prominent figures about their views on the reform process. Today we speak to Alexander Downer, Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1996-2007.
https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Downer-large-tag-1.jpg 400 495 Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/ http://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/PRIMARY_A_Vertical_Housed_CMYK-trans-180.png Tim Mann, https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/author/tim/2018-05-16 11:35:232020-09-29 14:11:46Reflections on 20 years of reform: former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Coburn vs. Kagan on Commerce Clause
Elena Kagan can't bring herself to say the government doesn't have the right to dictate what we eat. Not only does she refuse to answer, but her babbling non-answer doesn't portray an intelligent mind.
Thank you, Senator Tom Coburn, for raising the issue of the abuse of the Commerce Clause, the most popular excuse for civil liberties violations from the left.
In other Elena Kagan greatest hits, she again sounds like a moron defending the Constitutionality of book-banning.
The Great Polling Swindle: Daily Kos gets had
Some enterprising statisticians saw some fishy numbers in the Daily Kos polls and did a little digging. It turns out that Research 2000, the pollsters Kos paid to do the polling, just pocketed his money and made up the numbers.
I love statistical sleuthing like this.
Kos may or may not be an innocent victim. At a minimum, his initial selection of Research 2000 was probably influenced by them showing him poll results that aligned with his political beliefs (and perhaps their low cost -- they didn't have to employ actual pollsters!), and he apparently didn't do much vetting of the organization before hiring them.
To Kos's credit, he's handling this far more honestly and gracefully than CBS handled RatherGate, CNN handled Eason Jordan and Susan Roesgen, the Washington Post handled JournoList, etc. The MSM could take a lesson from Kos:
Sure, our friends on the Right will get to take some cheap shots, and they should take advantage of the opportunity. But ultimately, this episode validates the reason why we released the internal numbers from Research 2000 -- and why every media outlet should do the same from their pollster; without full transparency of results, this fraud would not have been uncovered. As difficult as it has been to learn that we were victims of that fraud, our commitment to accuracy and the truth is far more important than shielding ourselves from cheap shots from the Right.
UPDATE: Research 2000 was behind the widely reported poll that painted Republicans as extremists:
* 21 percent believe the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) stole the 2008 election and 55 percent aren't sure.
* 31 percent believe Obama is a racist who hates white people and 33 percent aren't sure.
* 23 percent want their state to secede from the U.S. and 19 percent aren't sure.
The MSM fell for that one hook, line, and sinker, and used it to bash Republicans over and over.
Corruption at the DOJ: The Black Panther voter intimidation case
J. Christian Adams, a DOJ attorney who resigned in protest, speaks out.
"Monster" money-printing
Sound like the hysterical rantings of a crazed San Diego doom blogger?
Nope, it's sound advice from the Royal Bank of Scotland:
Andrew Roberts, credit chief at RBS, is advising clients to read the Bernanke text very closely because the Fed is soon going to have to the pull the lever on "monster" quantitative easing (QE)".
"We cannot stress enough how strongly we believe that a cliff-edge may be around the corner, for the global banking system (particularly in Europe) and for the global economy. Think the unthinkable," he said in a note to investors.
Roberts said the Fed will shift tack, resorting to the 1940s strategy of capping bond yields around 2pc by force majeure said this is the option "which I personally prefer".
Read the whole Ambrose Evans-Pritchard article. He's right on the money:
It is sobering that zero rates, QE a l'outrance, and an $800bn fiscal blitz should should have delivered so little. Just as it is sobering that Club Med bond purchases by the European Central Bank and the creation of the EU's €750bn rescue "shield" have failed to stabilize Europe's debt markets. Greek default contracts reached an all-time high of 1,125 on Friday even though the €110bn EU-IMF rescue is up and running. Are investors questioning EU solvency itself, or making a judgment on German willingness to back pledges with real money?
Clearly we are nearing the end of the "Phoney War", that phase of the global crisis when it seemed as if governments could conjure away the Great Debt. The trauma has merely been displaced from banks, auto makers, and homeowners onto the taxpayer, lifting public debt in the OECD bloc from 70pc of GDP to 100pc by next year. As the Bank for International Settlements warns, sovereign debt crises are nearing "boiling point" in half the world economy.
Fiscal largesse had its place last year. It arrested the downward spiral at a crucial moment, but that moment has passed. There is a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. The Krugman doctrine of perma-deficits is ruinous - and has in fact ruined Japan. The only plausible escape route for the West is a decade of fiscal austerity offset by helicopter drops of printed money, for as long as it takes.
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin' coal
Pourin' off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you
Tea Party goes global
San Diego's own Leslie Eastman happened to be on vacation in Italy when a Tea Party broke out.
Members of the trans-Atlantic resistance movement swapped notes and tactics.
Click on over to Temple of Mut for the story and pictures.
Welcome home, Leslie!
Klansman illness could sink FrankenDodd fake financial reform bill
Not that a real financial reform bill is likely even if this one stalls, but it would at least re-open the possibility of addressing Too Big To Fail.
Ex-KKK leader and current Democratic Senator Robert Byrd's vote may be crucial to pass Frank (D - Fannie Mae) and Dodd's (D - Countrywide) fake financial reform bill.
Just like they did May 21 when the Senate passed the Dodd Permanent Too Big To Fail Bill, Wall Street bank stocks rallied Friday on word of House-Senate agreement on the bill:
UPDATE: The Klansman has died; analysts expect this to delay, not kill, the fake financial reform bill.
The state as force multiplication for the rich
A two-minute illustration by an anarchist that quite accurately captures today's crony capitalism corruption regime.
You did recognize Goldman Sachs and BP in that diagram, didn't you?
HT: SkepticalEye
Journogate: in other news, the sun still rises in the east
Mainstream media "reporters" hate conservatives, share ideas on liberal groupthink e-mail lists before telling public what to think.
We are shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Charles M. Blows
The New York Times has a new deranged leftist columnist with the delightfully appropriate name Charles M. Blow.
Blow's delusional rant today is how Obama's miserable approval ratings are all the Republicans' fault:
[...] Republican lawmakers latched on to the word "no" like temperamental 2-year-olds. Their strategy: dictate by stalemate. It worked.
Oh, yeah. Remember how those dictators blocked Obama's $800 billion porkulus package? Remember how they stopped the continuing bailout of AIG? Remember how they blocked the bailout of Government Motors? Remember how they blocked Timmy the Tax Cheat's indefinite unlimited bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Remember how they stopped Obama's signature program, the nationalization of the health care industry, dead in its tracks?
Who's the dictator here? Republicans have refused to go along with Obama's overwhelmingly unpopular, un-Constitutional agenda, but they haven't had the votes to be more than a minor irritant as Obama steamrolls the public.
The Blow-job continues to mis-characterize Republicans as social conservatives when in fact the party's focus has long since swung to fiscal issues. Worse, Blow then describes the Tea Party movement as pushing the Republicans further "right" (presumably still regarding social issues) rather than as being a voice of fiscal sanity in the ObamaNation madness.
The New York Times' new columnist is an embarrassment even by the New York Times' embarrassing standards.
BP TBTF
What is irony? In the case of BPTBTF I'll take definition 5 from Dictionary.com.
Bloomberg is reporting that "BP's Demise Would Threaten U.S. Energy Security, Industry, Jobs". Do I smell an oily bailout?
What I find interesting about this first calculated shot across the taxpayer bow is that I know many people who voted for Obama purely on the "fact" that he was going to save the environment and planet Earth. He was going to be the first green President and protect us from all the evil polluting corporations.
Now under his administration, of course this has to somehow be GW's fault because no administration is actually capable of solving anything while they are in office, BP acted irresponsibly and possibly criminally in what has resulted in the worst environmental disaster in US history. And if some folks predictions are correct, this one might go down as the worst of all time as The Gulf of Mexico becomes the Gulf of oil.
So the suggestion of BP being TBTF is rich. According to this ABC report, they are one of the worst oil companies in the world as far as safety goes. If the Obama administration bails them out by protecting them from the lawsuits and from compensating the Gulf States for their role in this catastrophe, or even worse provides taxpayer money to them to stay in business, then what does that say about Obama's concern for the environment? To a logical thinker it says he doesn't give a shit. If Obama protects BP then Obama is as oil friendly, or maybe even more so, than GW ever was.
Further if the Obama administration bails out BP than what is the Obama administration saying to the oil industry? To me it's saying safety is not the most important thing, profit is. It's saying that BP's lack of safety controls to increase profit is acceptable and should be practiced because if you make a mistake than don't worry, OB got your back. It's saying that the environment doesn't matter.
BP must be held accountable for the commercial industries (fishing, tourism, etc.) they are destroying and the property and eco-damage they are causing. If Obama protects them from that, and even bails them out, after running on a campaign of greenness then that would be enormously ironic.
By Negocios Loucos - June 24, 2010 No comments:
As Obama plans to let the Bush tax cuts expire, raising capital gains, dividend, and other taxes, Russia is going the other way:
Russia will scrap capital gains tax on long-term direct investment from 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev has said.
And as Obama nationalizes the auto industry, the mortgage industry, the health care industry, the student loan industry, etc., Russia is going the other way:
He also said the number of "strategic" firms, in which foreign investment is restricted and which cannot be privatised, would fall from 280 to 41.
And while Obama punishes the private sector to reward government workers, Russia actually wants private industry:
"I would welcome real investors who can build factories, something new in this country."
Where we're going is where Russia is coming from:
Also, many investors have been wary of coming to Russia because of corruption and the dominant role the state plays in Russia's business life.
The Obama Presidency in Multimedia/Picture Form
Words are overrated.
via @Optimus_Inc
via Obama Swears
By Jr Deputy Accountant - June 20, 2010 1 comment:
Skeptical CPA puts on the Zimbabwe Ben trade
Well done, sir!
In January, I shorted the dollar by taking out an enormous fixed-rate 30-year mortgage.
Now Skeptical CPA has bested my trade on several fronts.
1) He got an even lower fixed rate than I did thanks to the global financial panic pushing Treasuries to all-time low rates.
2) He bought in Texas, where real estate is not nearly as overvalued as in California.
3) He bought in Texas, which is not facing California's fiscal and economic meltdown.
Skeptical CPA, we salute you!
Everybody hates Carly
Carly Fiorina, who's gone from failed and despised CEO of Hewlett-Packard to hanger-on of the comically disastrous campaign of ultra-RINO John McCain, is finding no love in her next soon-to-fail endeavor.
Economic Recovery?
Today I had a peculiar experience; I was searching for a specific shirt and went to a vendor in town that isn't a chain. He didn't have it but had one that's close. I purchased it for $30. I then went to another store a couple of towns over that also wasn't a chain and they did have the exact shirt I was looking for. I purchased that. I then went back to the original store and tried the return the first shirt.
The guys reaction was so apprehensive and he said 'I'll tell you what, how about I put $10 back on the card you used and you keep the shirt.' Now it wasn't savings that struck me it was his vibe. This was the owner of the store and it felt like my return was going to put him under. To beg to put $10 back on the card to still keep the sale was a first for me.
I did keep the shirt for $10 cheaper.
By Negocios Loucos - June 19, 2010 2 comments:
Rep. Bob Etheridge, caught on YouTube recently assaulting a student reporter, has a history of bullying children.
Arsonist Alan Greenspan returns to the scene of the crime to lecture us about fire safety
This would be a reasonable op-ed, other than the fact that it was written by the idiot who destroyed the economy.
It's behind a paywall, but don't worry. There's nothing there that hasn't been said on the WCV many times over.
UPDATE: Free version here. Nice paywall, WSJ!
Donald Kohn is delusional
"He says history will be kind to his ex-boss Alan Greenspan."
And in totally unrelated news, the dollar hit a new all-time low vs. gold today.
High school student 1, filthy rat politician 0
UPDATE: There's a full version, as well as a note on the abridged version above, here.
By Anonymous - June 18, 2010 1 comment:
Labels: John Huppenthal is a filthy weasel
CalPERS, SEIU, Sovereignty, and Soviets
Given the recent post about CalPERS, now is a good time to remind WC readers that the word "Soviet" means "council" (or "Union") in Russian. Soviets were groups of workers' representatives in Russia. Basically, they were unions. They were even "unions of unions" (kinda like the AFL-CIO). The various "Soviets" steadily gained power in Russia in the early 1900's, and then they executed the 1917 Communist Revolution.
The Soviet Union was a government created by the Unions, of the Unions, and for the Unions. Now you might see why it was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It was a "Union of Soviets", a "Union of Unions", in a way. Lenin specifically included the word "Soviet" into the very name of the nation of which he had just taken control for the purpose of honoring the contributions of the Soviets and reminding the citizens that the Soviets were a central part of the new government itself.
Now, a regular union's purpose is to protect its members from the ownership of the company they work for. That's fine and dandy. But let's ask ourselves; who are the Public Employee Unions protecting their members from? Who "owns" the U.S. government (all obvious jokes aside here)? The citizens of America, is the answer! Public Employee Unions are protecting their members from the citizens, from us! So every time the Public Employee Unions demand fulfillment of unreasonable pension promises despite a state being tens of billions of dollars in debt, they are acting in a way that is totally contrary to the interest of the people, who in theory, own and run their government and are supposed to be able to make their own laws (via our representatives). When the Public Employee Unions actively prevent the people from making their own laws (As they have in Oregon, for instance, when they refused to go along with tax cuts that the people wanted), they are blocking and nullifying the main purpose of our democratic-republic form of government! They are blocking the people from making their own laws! This is a form of tyranny, because the people no longer have the ability to decide their own destiny. See, we, the citizens are "the sovereign" of this nation, not Public Employee Unions! We have the right to write our own laws! And there is no entity that can prevent us from doing so, other than the Constitution itself, which, as the sovereign, we could amend if we wanted. We are not supposed to have to answer to a Union before we decide how we want to spend our money.
Here's another way of describing the important distinction between a regular Union and a Public Employees' Union. If a regular Union has a dispute with ownership, it can seek recourse from the highest power, which is the sovereign. The sovereign (which is the people) ultimately has the power to decide the matter, usually basing their decisions on laws they themselves passed via their representatives. But when a Public Employees' Union has a dispute, then simply because of the fact that their employer is the people themselves, the Public Employees' Union's dispute is with the sovereign itself. And when the Public Employees' Union refuses to budge, refuses to negotiate in good faith, it is damaging the sovereign itself. That is why the Public Employees' Unions represent a kind of perversion of the central, foundational purpose of our government; self-rule. There is no reason why the highest power in the land, the sovereign, should allow itself to be bullied and robbed by any other entity.
When JFK allowed public employee unions to exist, he allowed what was essentially the beginning of our own American version of "soviets". Public Employee Unions, like the SEIU, are essentially in control of vast tracts of our government, in a way that has "Sealed off" the input and decision-making power of the citizens, the rightful sovereign. Public Employee Unions are basically "Soviets", operating within our government, with agendas and goals that do not take into account the interests of the sovereign, the citizens, who happen to be their paymasters, too.
When the SEIU ends up with the power to dictate policy, and how our money is spent, regardless of what the citizens want, we are closer to a Soviet style government system than most people might ever realize. I don't say that in a thoughtlessly inflammatory way, only as a means of comparing forms of government. When Unions actually run a government, it's reasonable to compare that government to that of the USSR. Look at the CalPERS situation, at the SEIU's recent actions in Oregan, at the proposed $50 billion bailout for SEIU-affiliated employees (for Teachers Unions, etc) that the President has asked for, and ask yourself whether the SEIU has ended up with the power to dictate policy. The only realistic answer is yes. If one understands the structure of systems, and how the elements of any given system work together towards a goal, then one can recognize the uneasy truth of the situation we, the people, have allowed to develop. We have allowed a significant part of our government become "Soviet-ized". And it's going to take an amazing effort to reverse this situation. In that respect, we are up against an enormous challenge that not many people even recognize yet as an acute problem. The SEIU has only about 2 million members, yet their political power has become gigantic. The President himself has even said that his entire life's work has been dedicated to the SEIU, and that "the SEIU's agenda is my agenda", and that he will be the one who can push the SEIU's agenda through in Washington, D.C.
The SEIU is an American-style "Soviet". And the Progressives in our government do, indeed mean for it to function that way. They just gave it a different name, in English, not Russian. And as simple as that, we don't recognize what it is. But it's role in the operation of our government is very similar to the role the Soviets (the Unions of Unions) played leading up to the Revolution. I'm not saying any Revolution is going to happen. But if the American people don't ever notice and realize how our governmental "cogs" and structures are now arranged and operating in ways that are eerily similar, in certain key respects, to that of the USSR, then there will be no need for a Revolution. It will have happened over a long period of time, and without a ripple.
Take one look around the nation and you will see that Public Employee Unions have devastated State after State with their one-sided, abusive demands of the citizens themselves. CA, IL, NY, MI. The list goes on and on. The SEIU and all of its sub-unions has been sowing the seeds of financial collapse in every state in which they've been given power (by those legislatures in most cases). And Federally, the story is the same. We are in serious financial trouble in this nation, and the SEIU is one easily identifiable entity that is working against the public interest at every turn. Therefore, we need to fight them at every turn. We need to cut off their power. We need to refuse to go along with their destructive demands. We need to reaffirm our very sovereignty and tell the SEIU that it is fully in our power to decide that we no longer want to pay for their bloated pensions, even though we might have signed some contract 15 years ago, or so. When the people decide to break public contracts that are killing their prosperity and putting generations of citizens in debt, they are well within their sovereign rights. We have a duty to act in our own self-interest. -Sic Ibid
By Sic Ibid - June 16, 2010 2 comments:
Labels: CalPERS CA SEIU OBAMA PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS, Radicals in power, Soviets, Wake Up
W.C. Varones Blog welcomes its newest reader, President Barack Obama
Thanks for stopping by, Mr. President. But while you're here, don't just check out Greenspan's Body Count. You want to know what comes next, don't you? And pay attention, sir. You or your successors are going to have to choose between inflation and default.
If you think my views are seditious, you should Flag Me, Obama.
CalPERS to raid bankrupt state budget to cover fatcat employee pensions
Government of the public employee unions, by the public employee unions, and for the public employee unions.
The pension fund board does not need legislative approval to boost the state's contribution rate.
Lefty Glenn Greenwald, of Sock-Puppetry Fame, Shows Some Integrity
Remarkably, he's one of the few lefties who publicly oppose Congressmen assaulting citizens.
I say this without sarcasm or malice. We've got to support lefty bloggers when they (oh, so rarely) do the right thing.
Greenspan's Body Count: Wayne and Herminia Zickefoose
This shocking tale comes from Anaheim, California where two young boys survived attempted murder by their father.
The story is unbelievably horrible:
A wounded 3-year-old boy was found hiding outside his family's Southern California home, and his 5-year-old brother was found unhurt inside, 12 hours after their parents were fatally shot in an apparent murder-suicide, police said Monday.
The shootings happened late Sunday but weren't discovered until midmorning Monday, when a co-worker stopped by to see why the father hadn't reported to work, Anaheim Police Sgt. Tim Schmidt said.
The co-worker instructed the 5-year-old to call 911.
"He said his dad killed his mom and shot himself and he can't find his brother," Schmidt said.
When police arrived, they found the parents' bodies splayed out on lawn chairs in the backyard. From there, they followed a trail of blood leading to the wounded 3-year-old, who was hiding behind trash cans on the side of the house, Schmidt said.
"This is a horrific scene," he said.
The 3-year-old had been shot three times in the shoulder, stomach and chest. He was taken to UC Irvine Medical Center, where he underwent surgery and was in critical condition, Schmidt said.
While police are not releasing the victims' names, the owners of the house at 541 North Fairhaven Street were identified as Wayne and Herminia Zickefoose...
who bought the home in 2001 with help from a loan backed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The couple borrowed against the house five times during the following six years, but paid off most of those loans, record show.
Most recently, the couple borrowed $462,000 from Countrywide Home Loans in January 2007, records show. They began missing mortgage payments on that loan in February 2009. They owed nearly $14,000 in back payments by May 2009, when the bank warned them it would foreclose if they didn't make their payments, records show.
The bank sent another notice in March of this year, saying the home "may be sold at a public sale" on April 1. At the time, interest and other charges added to the main loan had pushed the Zickefooses' debt on the mortgage to $491,960.18, records show.
Civil court records also show that a woman identified in one case as Hermie G. Zickefoose and in another as Herminia Zickefoose had amassed, since November 2004, more than $26,000 in debt on four credit cards issued by Chase Bank USA.
They bought the place in 2001 for a somewhat reasonable $232,000. But thanks to Greenspan's easy money bubble, they were given enough rope to hang themselves. They ended up sucking out all the equity and then some, up to almost a half million dollars in debt in a modest, working-class neighborhood.
Various online references to Wayne Zickefoose state that he's a USC MBA, owner of Trojan Auto Service in Buena Park, a "theta healing practitioner," and an amateur investment writer. And while he swore off the stock market in 2008, it sounds like he got involved with something more leveraged and dangerous: "land banking."
I believe the best investment, bar none, is in pre-developed land in the path of growth of a major metropolitan city.
Greenspan's Body Count stands at 139.
Wayne Zickefoose
Herminia Zickefoose
Thomas S. Piazza
Troy Fogel
Michele Fogel
Cynthia Dunn Cannon
Jocelyn Earnest
Lynda Clark
Gregory Bellows
Sallie Gist
Rayshawn Reed
Byron Reed Sr.
Byron Reed Jr.
Elisha Gist
Elijah Gist
Tiera Davidson
Christopher Oetting
Neal Jacobson
Franki Jacobson
Eric Jacobson
Joshua Jacobson
Vincenza Garcia
Bill Sparkman
Debra K. Gibbs
Otis Beckford
Carol Kennedy
Diane Ward
Edith Moreno
Diana Moreno
Scott Peters
Tom Blackmore
Kevin Daniel O'Connell
Julie Fay
Wallis Fay
Siu Fong Ng
Ernest Scherer Jr.
Charlene Abendroth
J.D. Wood
Cynthia Wood
Aubrey Wood
Dillon Wood
Betty J. Lipply
Dwight Deely
Linda Patrick
David Kellerman
Francie Billotti-Wood
Chandler Wood
Gavin Wood
Fiona Wood
Gil Weber
Gregory Graham
Randolph Graham
Ramona woman
Del Mar man
Wayne "Mike" Anderson
Jeffrey M. Pearson
Ervin Antonio Lupoe
Ana Lupoe
Brittney Lupoe
Jaszmin Lupoe
Jassely Lupoe
Benjamin Lupoe
Christian Lupoe
Steven L. Good
Adolf Merckle
Mike Upham
Randy Motts
Kristy Hunt
Joseph Nesheiwat
Tom Brisch
Alex Widmer
Brian Pugh
Marilyn Lewis
Sid Agrawal
Kirk Stephenson
Barry Fox
Dallas Dwayne Carter
David Hetzel
Sharron Hetzel
Cliff Kendall
Pamela Ross
Roland Gore
Mrs. Gore
Wanda Dunn
Karthik Rajaram
Subasri Rajaram
Krishna Rajaram
Ganesha Rajaram
Arjuna Rajaram
Indra Ramasesham
Isabelle Jarka
Robert Wagner
Lt. Michael Howe
Palmer C. White
Dianne Pittman White
Ed Boesen
Edwin F. Rachleff
Carlene Balderrama
Troy VanderStelt
Scott M. Coles
Dawn E. Armstrong
Thomas Lizotte
Jonathon Calvin "40-Cal" Jacques
Salvador X
Lupe X
Jade X
Little Boy X
Little Girl X
Kashmir Billon
Bill McMurtry
Lisa McMurtry
James Hahn
Raymond Donaca
Deanna Donaca
Michel Veillette
Nadya Ferrari-Veillette
Marguerite Veillette
Vincent Veillette
Mia Veillette
Jacob Veillette
Maurice Pereira
Natasha Pereira
Mark Achilli
Raed Al-Farah
Andrew Kissel
Rufus Shaw Jr.
Lynn Flint Shaw
Mr. Pierce
Walter Buczynksi
Marci Buczynski
Jason Washington
By W.C. Varones - June 15, 2010 23 comments:
Washington Post accuses Ron Paul of conflict of interest on gold standard
Apparently it's unethical to protect your family with sound money while trying to protect your country by advocating sound money.
Miserable hacks.
Death Panels come early to Arizona
... for Chandler, Arizona's Tiffany Tate:
The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System announced it would stop paying for lung transplants as of Oct. 1.
AHCCCS officials say the cuts were necessary to keep the state's form of Medicaid from operating at a deficit.
This is obvious stuff. Health care is expensive. Government health care always means rationing.
Obama creates Behavior Modification Council
Because now that the government is responsible for everybody's health care, we can't have people making unhealthy choices that would be a burden on the state!
Off to the Exercise Camp with you, fatty!
HT: ZeroHedge
I need more porkulus!
Obama to pile another $50 billion of debt on future generations to bail out the fatcat public employee unions yet again.
What does the NAACP stand for?
This goes waaaay beyond stupid and oversensitive. This is so stupid it's like signs of the apocalypse stupid. The NAACP freaks out about a space-themed Hallmark card talking about black holes. They are sure it is a racist reference to "black whores."
What's worse? Hallmark panics and pulls the cards.
AP: Obama lied, your health care plan died
Over and over in the health care debate, President Barack Obama said people who like their current coverage would be able to keep it.
But an early draft of an administration regulation estimates that many employers will be forced to make changes to their health plans under the new law. In just three years, a majority of workers—51 percent—will be in plans subject to new federal requirements, according to the draft.
These are the expensive mandates and rules that are reportedly pushing Qualcomm to slash its health care benefits.
Are you still loving your ObamaCare?
For more regular reporting on the ObamaCare debacle, please check out Beers with Demo. He's been much more attentive to the issue than I have.
Greenspan's Body Count: Tom Piazza
Mortgage broker Thomas Piazza was executed Sopranos-style in a Tucson Chick-fil-A.
Thomas S. Piazza, 39, was sitting in a booth at the Chick-fil-A restaurant at 4585 N. Oracle Road about 6:45 a.m. when a man walked up to the table, pulled out a handgun and shot Piazza in the head, said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.
The shooter -- who is described as being a stocky white man between the ages of 40 and 50, wearing a bike helmet, dark shorts and a dark windbreaker -- walked out of the restaurant and rode away on his bicycle, heading westbound on West Auto Mall Drive, Pacheco said.
"There was no provocation, no exchange of words, nothing," Pacheco said in explaining the incident.
Police continue to search for the gunman.
Piazza, a 1993 University of Arizona graduate, was married with four children.
Police believe the killing may be related to Piazza's role in a mortgage fraud ring that ripped off not only lenders but also small investors. One of the small investors may have been out for some Arizona justice.
The Arizona Attorney General's Facebook page explains the scam in an post from July 2009:
The lawsuit, filed in Pima County Superior Court, alleges that the defendants engaged in a sophisticated system of fraud that led to the filing of foreclosure notices on more than 130 homes and caused substantial harm to investors, lenders and rent-to-own homebuyers.
"The violations alleged in this lawsuit are among the worst abuses of vulnerable consumers that I've seen in my time as Attorney General. These kinds of abusive practices have contributed to the mortgage meltdown that now finds Arizona ranked among the top four states in the country for foreclosures," Goddard said. "This sort of behavior is unconscionable."
The complaint states that the defendants participated in a scheme that used deceptive tactics to entice under-qualified, novice investors into purchasing homes and then sold them to rent-to-own buyers. However, investigators say the scheme was designed to fail because it targeted rent-to-own homebuyers with credit problems and ignored whether they could qualify to purchase the homes.
Click on over for more detail of the scam and the names of the other conspirators.
It's worth noting that the Attorney General settled the case for a pittance, and Piazza was apparently never criminally charged. Piazza may have done nothing illegal, but someone obviously lost money in Greenspan's bubble and felt wronged.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Piazza's young family. Whatever he may have done, the kids didn't deserve this. Alan Greenspan, you're a sick bastard.
Obama Labor Department says government workers live far better than the people who pay their salaries
Not only much better benefits and job security, but much higher pay as well!
Hope you enjoy barely scraping by so that some government bureaucrat can retire at full pay at 60 or 65!
HT: T-Dub and JDA.
How bout I pour you a nice Brita pitcher full of the Gulf of Mexico?
Republican Liberty Caucus: It's Alive!
Five years ago, I wrote off the Republican Liberty Caucus for dead.
Well, they're back, likely inspired by the Ron Paul and Tea Party movements, and they had a big night Tuesday.
28% of Americans are smoking some really good stuff
Twenty-eight percent (28%) of U.S. Voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the week ending June 6.
BP re-enacted by cats
HT: DV
And on a more serious note, a scuba diver's video of the ecological devastation.
President of bankrupt developer whines about the banks
You know this guy is full of crap if he gets me to defend Goldman Sachs.
In an op-ed in the Salem News, Michael D. "Mick" Pattinson, president of bankrupt developer Barratt American (builder of Leucadia's Rancho Tyvek Estates -- "Come for the tiny lots, stay for the low-income housing next door"), complains that it's not fair that some people on Wall Street recognized the housing bubble and bet that it would burst, or that some banks stopped lending to overleveraged developers as the housing market cratered.
The developer industry spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress to keep the housing bubble going with tax incentives, lax lending standards, and easy credit from an alphabet soup of government and quasi-government agencies including FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Reserve. I didn't hear Mr. Pattinson complaining as he was getting rich from the funny-money-fueled bubble. In fact, Pattinson was a frequent contributor to the industry's lobbying PAC.
The housing crash was the inevitable result of the greatest asset bubble in the history of the world. Any builders who were overleveraged at the peak of the biggest bubble in history have only themselves to blame for their demise.
Pattinson's argument is equivalent to saying that Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme was a good thing, and the only problem was that investors stopped giving Madoff money to keep the Ponzi going.
Pattinson should stop trying to shift the blame to those who recognized the bubble, and apologize for the wreckage that his industry has caused the entire economy.
Tomorrow's news today: primary election results
It looks like it was a good day nationally, and a bad day in California.
Senator Blanche ObamaCare Lincoln lost her primary in Arkansas and will be retiring, and conservative candidate Sharron Angle beat establishment candidate Sue Lowden in Nevada.
In California, no good news. Carly FAILorina, a RINO McCain-wannabe, beat libertarianish Tom Campbell and Tea Party favorite Chuck DeVore. In a year when Barbara Boxer should be vulnerable, FAILorina is so widely despised even among Republicans that she will lose in a landslide.
Meg Whitman won easily and has a decent chance to beat Jerry Brown, at which point she will establish the second Schwarzenegger administration.
Prop. 14, which will eliminate third-party candidates from the general election, passed.
More bad news: RINOs Abel Maldonado and Mike Villines, who voted for the biggest state tax increase in the history of the U.S., won their primaries for higher offices.
That's how I see it playing out. Any deviation in California would be upside from here.
UPDATE: OK, it looks like I may already be wrong on Arkansas. Let's hope I'm wrong on Prop 14 too.
UPDATE 2: Yippee!!! The vile Villines lost!
Cooperation, Goldman style
You see what happens, Larry, when you subpoena the wrong guys?
Goldman Sachs buries Fincial Crisis Inquiry Commission under 2.5 billion pages.
"We should not be forced to play 'Where's Waldo' on behalf of the American people," said Phil Angelides, the chairman of the inquiry commission, in an interview with reporters. "In our view their [Goldman Sachs] conduct has been extraordinary. They are outliers. The overwhelming number of people and institutions have complied and complied in a timely basis."
HT: T-Dub
So we have to wait until they are 89 years old, senile, and possibly had a few cocktails at lunch before the leftists in the mainstream media tell us what they really think.
UPDATE: She's gone! I don't know if that's a good thing. I like having the most vocal leftists on display to prominently show the MSM's bias.
The Great Education Scam gets widespread attention
We've been talking about the Great Education scam for a year and a half.
The theme is catching on with other bloggers and in the mainstream media. Today Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds writes an op-ed in the Washington Examiner, citing recent stories in the Washington Post and New York Times:
First -- as with the housing bubble -- cheap and readily available credit has let people borrow to finance education. They're willing to do so because of (1) consumer ignorance, as students (and, often, their parents) don't fully grasp just how harsh the impact of student loan payments will be after graduation; and (2) a belief that, whatever the cost, a college education is a necessary ticket to future prosperity.
Bubbles burst when there are no longer enough excessively optimistic and ignorant folks to fuel them. And there are signs that this is beginning to happen already.
On the other hand, if you can get a fixed-rate student loan, maybe you'll get lucky with a dollar collapse in a few years. That's my strategy for real estate debt, and it would apply to college debt as well. But if we're wrong and don't get a dollar collapse, college debtors are far worse off than mortgage debtors. You can walk away from a house and go bankrupt to clear other debts, but college debt is bankruptcy-proof and will be a ball and chain until your dying day.
Help a sister out
Friend of this blog JenO is doing a worthy fundraiser walk for the American Society for Suicide Prevention. With the fundraising deadline looming, she's had a tough go and needs $850 more. Let's put her over the top.
You can donate here.
Come on, with Alan Greenspan still on the loose, we need all the suicide prevention we can get. And it's tax deductible, meaning Barry O will pick up thirtysomething percent of your donation and if you're unfortunate enough to live in California, the Taxinator will pick up another 10%. That's like getting an almost 1-for-1 match!
Richard Fisher on fake financial reform, the Dirty Fed, and TBTF
Dissent within the Dirty Fed! Someone gets it on Too Big To Fail:
Big banks that took on high risks and generated unsustainable losses received a public benefit: TBTF support. As a result, more conservative banks were denied the market share that would have been theirs if mismanaged big banks had been allowed to go out of business. In essence, conservative banks faced publicly backed competition.
Let me make my sentiments clear: It is my view that, by propping up deeply troubled big banks, authorities have eroded market discipline in the financial system.
The system has become slanted not only toward bigness but also high risk. Consider regulators' efforts to impose capital requirements on big banks. Clearly, if the central bank and regulators view any losses to big bank creditors as systemically disruptive, big bank debt will effectively reign on high in the capital structure. Big banks would love leverage even more, making regulatory attempts to mandate lower leverage in boom times all the more difficult. In this manner, high risk taking by big banks has been rewarded, and conservatism at smaller institutions has been penalized. Indeed, large banks have been so bold as to claim that the complex constructs used to avoid capital requirements are just an example of the free market's invisible hand at work. Left unmentioned is the fact that the banking market is not at all free when big banks are not free to fail.
It is not difficult to see where this dynamic leads—to more pronounced financial cycles and repeated crises.
Ha! But common sense like this from a lone Fedster will never prevail against Wall Street lobbyists' cash with the likes of Dodd (D - Countrywide) and Frank (D - Fannie Mae) in charge.
The brighter side of Big Brother
Hey, if we didn't have all these government cameras around recording us all the time, we'd miss moments like this.
In related news, while the cops can always record you, you might be arrested for recording the cops.
American Idiot
Left Coast Rebel points out that two thirds of Americans can't name a single Supreme Court Justice.
I'd like to turn this issue on its head and ask why should the whims of Justices be so important in our lives that we should need to know their names. The Constitution set out rights of individuals and restrictions on the powers of government to meddle in our lives. I think the founders would be horrified to learn that Washington power is so all-encompassing in our daily lives that we follow every Presidential and Congressional election and every Supreme Court nomination as if our livelihoods depend on them (which they do, in Obama Nation, of course!).
Free Rent Nation
Here at the WCV, we've been advising underwater homedebtors to stop paying their mortgages for years.
If your loan balance exceeds your home's value, stop paying your mortgage immediately. Remember, in the Bernanke/Pelosi/McCain world, the responsible get screwed, and the reckless get rewarded. If you stop paying your mortgage, your bank will either voluntary renegotiate the terms, or Congress will force them to do it. If you keep paying on an underwater house, you're just throwing good money after bad.
October 2008:
You've already saved ten or twenty thousand dollars, and have you noticed that the bank is still not bothering you? Keep living rent-free. When the bank (or government) finally does get around to calling you, they'll be very nice and accommodative, and they'll negotiate a very nice principal reduction for you.
If the banks are going to delay foreclosure for at least a year due to political pressure, operational capacity, or a desire to delay loss recognition, you might as well take advantage of it, stop paying your mortgage, and live free for a year. [...] Honey, I stopped paying the mortgage! Let's go to Disney World!
In Bailout Nation, only the stupid honor their obligations. [...] If you still are paying your mortgage or credit card balances, look around the room. YOU are the sucker!
Today the New York Times published a story about the joys of not paying: Owners Stop Paying Mortgages, and Stop Fretting.
The average borrower in foreclosure has been delinquent for 438 days before actually being evicted, up from 251 days in January 2008, according to LPS Applied Analytics.
And Angry Future Expat has more thoughts on the subject today.
Voters' guide to California and San Diego propositions
Last week we gave our picks for the June primary ballot.
Today, our friend and local Tea Party founder Leslie Eastman gives her picks.
Corruption at the DOJ: The Black Panther voter int...
Klansman illness could sink FrankenDodd fake finan...
Journogate: in other news, the sun still rises in ...
Arsonist Alan Greenspan returns to the scene of th...
W.C. Varones Blog welcomes its newest reader, Pres...
CalPERS to raid bankrupt state budget to cover fat...
Lefty Glenn Greenwald, of Sock-Puppetry Fame, Show...
Washington Post accuses Ron Paul of conflict of in...
Obama Labor Department says government workers liv...
How bout I pour you a nice Brita pitcher full of t...
President of bankrupt developer whines about the b...
Richard Fisher on fake financial reform, the Dirty...
Voters' guide to California and San Diego proposit...


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Understanding The Path Of Exile Cast When Damage Taken Mechanics
by Rob Fjors
Curious about Path of Exile Cast When Damage Taken? Have a look at our latest blog post to learn more about this powerful defensive mechanic and how it can help you survive in the game.
How Does Cast When Damage Taken Work Poe?
Does Cast Work with Damage Taken Vaal Molten Shell?
Using CwDT and Vaal Molten Shell Together
What is Path of Exile Cast When Damage Taken?
How Does CWDT Work?
What Spells Can Be Linked To CWDT?
How Does Arcanist Brand Work?
Are you looking to get the most out of your Path of Exile build? Cast when Damage Taken (CWDT) is an incredibly powerful and versatile support gem that can be used to great effect in many builds.
In this article, we'll explore what CWDT is, how it works, and how it can be used to enhance your build. We'll also look at some of the more advanced features such as how it interacts with Vaal Molten Shell and Arcanist Brand. Finally, we'll look at some tips on how to get the most out of your CWDT setup. So let's dive in and learn all about the Path of Exile Cast when Damage Taken gem!
The Path of Exile Cast when Damage Taken (CWDT) support gem allows players to cast spells automatically when they take damage. This can be used to create automated defensive strategies, such as casting a spell that grants the player a temporary shield or increases their health regeneration. To use CWDT, players must link it to the skill they wish to cast and set the damage threshold for which the skill will trigger. Once this is done, any time the player takes damage above the threshold, the linked skill will be cast automatically.
CWDT can be used in combination with other support gems to further increase its effectiveness. For example, by linking it with an Increased Duration Support gem, players can make their defensive spells last longer. Additionally, by linking CWDT with multiple skills, players can create automated combinations of defensive strategies that will activate in response to different levels of incoming damage.
For more information on how to use CWDT effectively in Path of Exile, we suggest reading this forum thread. It provides a detailed overview of how CWDT works and offers tips on how to maximize its potential in-game.
Cast when Damage Taken (CwDT) is a support gem that allows players to cast certain spells when they take a certain amount of damage. It can be used in combination with other gems to create powerful effects. One of the most popular uses of CwDT is with Vaal Molten Shell, which creates an expanding shield around the player that absorbs incoming damage.
The short answer to the question "Does Cast Work with Damage Taken Vaal Molten Shell?" is yes. CwDT can be used in combination with Vaal Molten Shell to create an automatic shield that will absorb incoming damage. When the shield reaches its maximum size, it will explode and deal fire damage to nearby enemies. This makes it a great defensive option for players who don't want to worry about manually casting their spells.
Using CwDT and Vaal Molten Shell together requires two separate gems: one for CwDT and one for Vaal Molten Shell. The CwDT gem should be linked to the Vaal Molten Shell gem, as well as any other spells you wish to cast automatically when taking damage. You can then adjust the level of the CwDT gem to determine how much damage must be taken before it triggers your spells.
It's also important to note that CwDT has a cooldown period between each trigger, so it won't trigger your spells too often if you take frequent small amounts of damage. This makes it a great defensive option for players who want some extra protection without having to constantly cast their spells manually.
In conclusion, the Path of Exile Cast when Damage Taken does work with Vaal Molten Shell and can be used in combination with other gems to create powerful effects. It's important to remember that there is a cooldown period between each trigger, so it won't trigger your spells too often if you take frequent small amounts of damage. With proper use, this combination can provide players with a strong defensive option that will help keep them safe while they explore Path of Exile's dangerous world.
Cast When Damage Taken (CWDT) is a support gem in Path of Exile that triggers linked spells when the character takes a certain amount of damage. It was introduced in version 1.3.0 and has since become an essential part of many builds. The gem can be linked to any spell with a cast time, allowing players to automate their defensive abilities and make them more effective.
When linked to a spell, CWDT will automatically cast it when the character takes a certain amount of damage. The threshold for this damage is determined by the level of the gem, with higher levels requiring more damage to trigger the spell. This allows players to customize their defensive setup and tailor it to their playstyle or build.
Any spell with a cast time can be linked to CWDT, allowing players to automate defensive abilities such as Enduring Cry, Immortal Call, Steelskin, and Warlord's Mark. These spells can provide additional protection against enemies or help sustain mana and life pools during long fights. Additionally, some spells such as Flame Dash or Leap Slam can be used to quickly reposition the character away from danger.
CWDT is an incredibly useful support gem that allows players to automate their defensive abilities and make them more effective. It can be linked to any spell with a cast time, allowing for greater customization of defensive setups and tailoring them to specific builds or playstyles.
Path of Exile's Cast When Damage Taken (CWDT) support gem allows players to cast spells automatically when they take a certain amount of damage. This is especially useful for spellcasters who want to stay safe while casting their spells. The Arcanist Brand is a new skill introduced in the Legion expansion, and it can be used in combination with the CWDT gem to great effect.
The Arcanist Brand is an active spell that attaches itself to an enemy and deals damage over time. When linked with the CWDT gem, it will be triggered whenever the player takes a certain amount of damage. Once triggered, the Arcanist Brand will attach itself to an enemy near the player and start dealing damage over time. This makes it an ideal defensive tool for spellcasters, as it can help keep enemies at bay while they cast their spells.
Furthermore, the Arcanist Brand has several unique properties that make it even more effective when combined with CWDT. Firstly, the brand will remain attached to its target even if the player moves away from them, allowing them to safely cast their spells from a distance. Secondly, the brand can be linked with other support gems such as Spell Echo or Controlled Destruction, which increases its damage output significantly. Finally, the Arcanist Brand can be used in combination with other spells such as Flame Dash or Blink Arrow for increased mobility and safety.
In summary, Path of Exile Cast When Damage Taken support gem combined with the Arcanist Brand skill provides players with a powerful defensive tool that can help keep enemies at bay while they cast their spells from a distance. With its unique properties and ability to be linked with other support gems, this combination can prove extremely effective in combat situations.
Path of Exile Cast When Damage Taken (CWDT) is a powerful support gem that allows players to cast spells automatically when they take a certain amount of damage. This mechanic can be used to great effect in many different builds, from defensive ones that use CWDT to cast Vaal Molten Shell for extra protection, to offensive ones that use Arcanist Brand to spread damage over multiple targets.
Overall, CWDT is an incredibly useful tool for Path of Exile players, and it's easy to see why it has become so popular. We hope this article has helped you understand the basics of how it works and how you can use it in your builds. Thank you for following along and please share any thoughts and information on the topic in the comments below.
A Closer Look At Path Of Exile Fossil Rarity
Rob Fjors
Rob Fjors is a passionate and experienced gaming enthusiast who has been writing about the industry for many years. He is a regular contributor to FragMeta, where he shares his in-depth knowledge and insights on the latest gaming news, trends, and strategies. With a keen eye for detail and a wealth of experience in both competitive and casual gaming, Rob is a trusted source of information for readers looking to stay up-to-date on all things gaming. In his free time, he enjoys playing a variety of games, from first-person shooters to role-playing games, and everything in between.


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Budget | 2016 Budget
Budget 2016: Foreign Aid Cuts a 'Damning Indictment' on Government
Wednesday, 4th May 2016 at 10:05 am
Eisha Gupta
Treasurer Scott Morrison's proposed further cuts to the foreign aid budget have been roundly criticised by Not for Profits across the board, claiming it will put lives at risk.
Wednesday, 4th May 2016
FREE SOCIAL
Treasurer Scott Morrison's proposed further cuts to the foreign aid budget have been roundly criticised by Not for Profits across the board, claiming it will put lives at risk.
The budget slashed $224 million from the foreign aid budget after a $1 billion cut the previous year, bringing the total aid budget to $3.887 billion in 2016/17.
Australia will provide 0.23 per cent of official development assistance as a share of Gross National Income (GNI), the lowest it has ever been.
Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) CEO Marc Purcell said the coalition government's fourth successive cut to Australia's aid program since coming to power had caused widespread damage to life-saving programs.
"It has damaged our relationship with neighbouring countries because we didn't do what we said we would do in terms of assisting them," Purcell told Pro Bono Australia News.
"We have increased risk to Australians by cutting particular programs in the region of public health and biosecurity, which help protect our agricultural livestock industries and public health.
"At this point the government has committed a billion dollars over five years to climate change. Unfortunately that allocation was simply money that had been rebadged and was re-announced by prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in Paris last year. We would like to see new investment and new additional funds."
World Vision CEO Tim Costello said the latest round of cuts put lives and futures at risk, including regional and global security and prosperity.
"The madness of endless aid cuts was launched by [former prime minister] Tony Abbott two days before the last federal election, now Mr Turnbull and Mr [Bill] Shorten have the opportunity to come together to change that," Costello said.
"All parties have 60 days to commit to restoring the aid budget to the previous level of a $5.5 billion (only 0.3 per cent GNI). We call on all parties to commit to making this happen over the life of the next parliament."
The CEO of youth aid NFP Oaktree, Chris Wallace, said the reduction in foreign aid had caused immunisations programs to be shut down, education initiatives to be discontinued and hospital closures.
He said the budget was a "history making moment for all the wrong reasons" and urged politicians to show leadership.
Marc Purcell said the government should rebuild the Australian aid program after the prime minister said he wanted Australia to deepen engagement with the world. He said the organisation hoped the election campaign would spur the coalition and Labor party to do better work in planning to rebuild Australia's aid program.
"As it stands, if the Turnbull government is re-elected, Australia's aid program will be at its lowest level ever for the full term of the next parliament," he said.
"I think particularly in places like Africa where we have cut our program by 70 per cent, there would be a scepticism about the goodwill of Australia as a neighbour and being a reliable aid donor.
"I think the Australian aid program is more than just helping the poorest in our neighbourhood and the region. There is something about the vision and values of a government and if the Turnbull government is re-elected, Australia's aid will be at its lowest level ever, and yet we are one of the wealthiest countries in the world. I think that is a damning indictment of the values and vision of the government."
Eisha Gupta | @ProBonoNews
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Tags : 2016 Budget, ACFID, Foreign Aid, Oaktree, Tim Costello,
Australia urged to use aid reset to focus on the world's most vulnerable
Luke Michael
Wednesday, 11th December 2019 at 2:43 pm
#GivingTuesday the day for good deeds, and an antidote to greed
Thursday, 28th November 2019 at 7:45 am
Morrison government flags foreign policy refresh
Tuesday, 19th November 2019 at 4:55 pm
NGOs urge Australia to call out human rights violations
Monday, 28th October 2019 at 4:44 pm
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Tuesday, 7th January 2020 at 3:21 pm
What impact will the bushfire crisis have on homelessness?
Wednesday, 15th January 2020 at 4:28 pm
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Maggie Coggan
Thursday, 16th January 2020 at 8:49 am
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text:
import React from 'react';

import {storiesOf} from '@storybook/react';
import {withInfo} from '@storybook/addon-info';

import AreaChart from 'app/components/charts/areaChart';

// eslint-disable-next-line
storiesOf('Charts/AreaChart', module).add(
  'default',
  withInfo('Stacked AreaChart with previous period')(() => {
    const TOTAL = 6;
    const NOW = new Date().getTime();
    const getValue = () => Math.round(Math.random() * 1000);
    const getDate = num => NOW - (TOTAL - num) * 86400000;
    const getData = num =>
      [...Array(num)].map((v, i) => ({value: getValue(), name: getDate(i)}));
    return (
      <div>
        <AreaChart
          style={{height: 250}}
          series={[
            {
              seriesName: 'Handled',
              data: getData(7),
            },
            {
              seriesName: 'Unhandled',
              data: getData(7),
            },
          ]}
          previousPeriod={{
            seriesName: 'Previous',
            data: getData(7),
          }}
        />
      </div>
    );
  })
);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Features Association news Business intelligence
When lightning strikes: Impact of the pandemic on contractual obligations
Contract law has long granted exceptions for "acts of God"...but does lockdown count?
June 8, 2020 By Treena Hein
Like a bolt from the blue, the pandemic has stopped business without warning and in a manner beyond anyone's control. But the legal treatment may not be so clear-cut. The lockdown will have downstream consequences that contractors may or may not agree are subject to force majeure interpretation. Photo credit: Sjo /Getty Images.
As everyone in private industry is aware, the challenges of the pandemic for businesses have been numerous. Among the biggest? Safeguarding employees, restrictions on business activities, general economic constriction and uncertainty about the future.
However, for those in the glass and construction industries, COVID-19 also has raised the spectre of legal disputes related to delays in contract completion. Timelines are being hampered by a number of factors, chiefly stringent biosecurity protocols.
This has certainly been the case for Cascadia Windows and Doors of Langley, B.C. "Physical distancing requirements are contributing to a reduction in productivity," reports president Mike Battistel. "When workers need to ride a man-hoist up the highrise tower to start working, there are only four people allowed in the hoist at the same time, compared to the 20-person maximum of normal times. It is great to see these measures being taken on the sites to help reduce the spread of COVID-19, but unfortunately, it will inherently result in project completions taking longer." Battistel adds that some clients have asked him to postpone window shipments for a few weeks until sites are ready to receive them.
Contract completion – and possible legal liability – is an industry-wide concern, according to the Architectural Glass and Metal Contractors Association (AGMCA, which has represented unionized glazing contractors of Ontario since 1979). Executive director Noel Marsella notes that because general contractors are liable for meeting deadlines, they are pressuring their subcontractors (AGMCA members) to keep working at the pace required. Some AGMCA members have been receiving letters that refer to penalties associated with delays. In April, the organization (as part of a larger industry group of Ontario construction associations) called on all its members to send emailed letters to the government, requesting exemption from liability for project delays due to COVID-19.
Contract content
Contract completion in light of COVID-19 centres on something called the force majeure clause (FM for short). Typically found in construction contracts, it discharges the parties from meeting the contract obligations, or allows for suspension of these obligations, due to unforeseen and uncontrollable events.
Lampros Stougiannos and Erica Shadeed have been advising clients on the numerous issues raised by the pandemic in recent weeks, and note that while FM clauses differ in wording, FM events are generally defined as beyond a party's reasonable foresight and/or control, and which render performance outlined in the contract impossible. Typical terms used in an FM clause include 'unforeseeability,' 'irresistibility,' 'acts of God,' and 'events beyond a party's reasonable control,' but FM clauses also can include a list of example events such as natural disasters, pandemics and government-decreed stop-work orders.
Stougiannos and Shadeed (respectively a partner and lawyer at the Montreal offices of global law firm Dentons) recently wrote an article about FM in Quebec, noting that in that province, even if contracts don't contain FM clauses, parties may have recourse to the concept of FM that exists in Quebec's Civil Code. However, if there is no FM clause in your contract in Quebec, similarly to demonstrating that FM exists in any dispute, you have to prove that the event is irresistible, unforeseeable and exterior to your organization and its control.
Stougiannos and Shadeed also note that many contracts include provisions allowing one or both parties to terminate their agreement following the occurrence of a FM event that continues for a specified number of days or months. "At the time the contract was drafted," they explain, "such a possibility was likely considered by the parties to be quite remote. However, given the circumstances surrounding COVID-19, that may no longer be the case."
They mention that contractors should provide notice to the other party in their contract if the performance of their obligations has been, or may be, impacted by COVID-19 – whether the contract calls for it or not. They add that "Given the ongoing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the possibility that additional or differing measures may be taken by the government in this regard, parties should consider reserving their rights with respect to the impact of COVID-19 in order to ensure they can benefit fully from any relief once the pandemic has ended and governmental measures rescinded."
Stougiannos' and Shadeed's best piece of advice for contractors? "Read your contracts and speak with your lawyer. The impact of COVID-19 may allow parties to claim the occurrence of a FM or to seek forms of relief for things like increased costs. It is important to understand what your rights and remedies are. In addition, many contracts require parties to provide notice to the other party before a specific deadline if they are claiming some sort of relief. If you miss the deadline you could lose your rights, so carefully reviewing your agreements is critical."
As is the case with everyone else, Stougiannos and Shadeed cannot be sure if there will be many actual legal disputes this year stemming from the pandemic, or if everyone will work it out without legal action. "Many parties will undoubtedly seek to amicably address the impact COVID-19 may be having on their contracts," they say. "However, there will be many cases where parties will simply not be able to agree for a variety of reasons and will instead choose to have the matter settled by arbitration or by the courts. It really will depend on what the impact is, what their contract says, and how much flexibility both parties have to offer concessions without compromising their business."
Gerry Argento, a partner based at the Montreal office of Miller Thomson law firm, has also had inquiries regarding FM clauses. As Stougiannos and Shadeed do, he advises contractors to carefully read their contracts, consult their lawyers, and "in addition, document and keep good records, be sure to comply with any notice requirements and keep lines of communication open."
Comments from industry members
We contacted several glass firms in late April to canvass the situation. While AGMCA board member John Bastedo (vice president of National Contract Glazing in Ottawa) says his firm hasn't had to deal with any contract issues so far, another board member hasn't been so fortunate.
"I had a project where my installers were concerned about the limited space on the site and the number of men working there from various trades – about a hundred – and my men refused to work and chose to stay home for their safety," explains Tony Menecola, president of Applewood Glass in Mississauga, Ont. "The project manager for the general contractor called me and told me if I didn't have men back on site the next day that he would have no choice but to send me a notice of default for failure to adhere to the schedule. He also assured me that they had implemented safety screening of all workers and had added hand-sanitizing stations throughout the site. My men reluctantly returned to work. The site was shut down as 'non-essential' a few weeks later."
Menecola has not had a lawyer look into any contracts, but says he's alerted his general contractors that there may be delays on his end due to the pandemic.
The situation has been similar for another AGMCA board member, Tim Isaak, owner of Peninsula Glass in Welland, Ont. As of late April, he had informed contractors there would be delays due to COVID-19 and had not consulted a lawyer about contracts nor received notice of possible penalties – but he's "very concerned" this will become an issue during the summer.
"This is a very slippery slope," he explains. "Projects are delayed because of the stoppage by the government. Our supplies have been focusing on projects that have been deemed essential. We have had to make the choice to place orders on hold or have them produced and shipped. Once they are shipped, the suppliers expect payment. But we cannot access the job sites. However, once things open up the suppliers will be swamped with orders and the projects will be delayed by that as well."
"Is this a COVID-19 delay?" he asks. "Really it is. But will it be viewed that way by the contractors and the lawyers? For that we will need to wait and see."
From his big-picture view, Marcella reported that by May 8 the government had not yet interceded with any legislation relating to project delays. "Our members are documenting any and all COVID-19-related delay concerns on a daily basis," he says, "and are hoping that if government does not step in that they will be met with a degree of flexibility and reasonableness by owners, general contractors and, if it gets that far, the judicial system."
Marcella describes AGMCA member-contractors as an "inherently a resilient and optimistic group" which is now starting to pivot its attention to preparing to restart the industry. "Clearly it will not be business as usual for a long time," he says, "and our members will be trying to balance their commitments to their clients, suppliers, landlords, and above all, their valuable employees."
Glass Talk Special Episode: Preventing Pandemic Pandemonium – Suzanne Bernier, SB Crisis Consulting
AGMCA cancels member appreciation days
Glass Talk Special Episode: Paying for pandemic – Bonny Koabel, AKR Consulting
Pandemic expert advises on measures glass companies can take to mitigate coronavirus risk
AGMCA
Glaston America, Inc.
Mt. Laurel, NJ
Kuraray America, Inc
Surveying the wasteland: Reports reveal the extent of COVID damage across the country
ENVELOPE 2050: The future of environmentally friendly facade design
As president of Antamex Industries, Ryan Spurgeon, 34, prides himself on a philosophy of giving broad responsibilities and lets his staff surprised him with their outcomes.
http://ow.ly/IF6l50KwOWC
#glazing #architecturalglass #youngleaders
The goal of this new safety program is to provide a framework for an insulating glass manufacturer to develop a safety program in their facilities. FGIA's Amy Roberts breaks down the new rules and guidelines.
http://ow.ly/p1Ip50KwPeJ
#glazing #architecturalglass #codes
Here's Glass Canada's late-summer round-up of our favourite glazing products.
http://ow.ly/X19N50KwOL7
#architecturalglass #birdprotection #windowsanddoors
STOP DOING EVERYTHING BY HAND
https://www.glasscanadamag.com/all-star-lineup-to-educate-on-automation/
At just 37, Jonathan Brosseau carries many titles: CEO and founder of Group Brosseau Vitrerie and vice-president of the Quebec glass association, the AVFQ. Read his story at the link.
http://ow.ly/NUFP50KwOxa


CarX is a car physics engine.
Main fields of application are driving games and virtual reality systems.
CarX works as external module and adds realistic car behavior into your system.
CarX is available now on PC and Mac platforms.
CarX is available now on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii platforms.
CarX is available now for WEB applications, IPhone, IPad, Android (with Unity3D engine).
Many companies and software developers need complex car physics model.
There are many physics engines available in the world, but if your company working on car driving game or racing simulator, it is still very hard to integrate and tune car physics.
If your company working on professional driving simulator for educational purposes CarX interactive car physics engine may be the best solution for you.
Car physics engine CarX can be easily integrated into your software, no matter what physics engine you have, self made engine or licensed middleware.
CarX main feature is high quality car physics simulation in one hand and very nice adaptation for different control devices in other hand.
With CarX physics engine middleware you can give you players to handle virtual cars using keyboard, mouse or steering wheel with force feedback. Note that force feedback model calculates feedback forces directly from tire and road surface contact spots.
Second one feature is transmission model. Clutch, gearbox, differentials are finely modeled in CarX engine middleware.
It is very important for driving simulator to model car suspension. Thus CarX suspension model includes springs, stabilizers and dampers (shock absorbers) customizable elements.
Dampers in CarX technology may be tuned for fast and slow bound and rebound behavior.
Tire model is the most important element in car physics engine for car simulation software.
There are many articles about Pacejka Magic Formula but it is still hard to develop robust and stable car physics engine with it. CarX engine make use of formulas like this, but there is many extensions and practical adaptations for dynamic conditions. For example CarX engine takes in account real-time tire deforms and so on. You can customize every tire, change tire radius, width, pressure.
CarX is capable to simulate passenger cars, racing cars, small cars (karting), dragsters, and drift cars (especially nice with our steering helpers). Truck, Bus with complex sections of wheels is modeled very nice too.
When you drive virtual car in car simulation software using CarX technology, you feel the greatest pleasure. Known effects such oversteer and understeer, weight transfers are reproduced with CarX physics engine.
We understand our clients need not only package of modeling car physics CarX, but also to receive our help at CarX integration stage into project.
Also we speak English and may provide consultations by phone or by skype.
See our phone number in contacts page.


text:
Tech Mobile
Biometric app downloads set to soar in next four years, study shows
More consumers will rely on fingerprint sensing and facial scanning apps in coming years, Juniper Research predicts.
Jan. 20, 2015 7:02 a.m. PT
A little glue goes a long way in fooling a fingerprint scanner. Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET
Mobile applications that rely on biometrics -- everything from fingerprint scanning to facial recognition -- are set to take off in the next four years, according to new data released Tuesday from Juniper Research.
The research firm predicts that in 2015 mobile users worldwide will download 6 million apps equipped with support for biometrics and that figure will soar to more than 770 million per year by 2019. Juniper says that fingerprint scanners, like those bundled in Samsung and Apple handsets, will be relied on in most apps, but other techniques, such as ear print and voice authentication, will also become more popular.
Biometrics has become the next frontier in securing mobile devices and apps. With hardware increasingly featuring biometric support, like Apple's iPhone 5S, 6 and 6 Plus -- which all come with the company's TouchID fingerprint scanner -- app makers are finding that adding biometric security to their programs is a viable step.
The use of biometrics is perhaps bad news for traditional authentication techniques, like passwords. A wide range of apps now allow for customers to input either their alphanumeric password or scan their fingerprints, if not both. The idea is that biometrics is safer because a third party would have a far more difficult time hacking apps without physically having the person with the identifying fingerprint and hardware in the same room.
That said, some research has shown that biometrics might not be as safe as conventional wisdom suggests. Since Apple launched the iPhone 5S in 2013, fake fingerprints have been used to fool the company's TouchID sensor. This past September, Lookout Mobile Security found that while Apple improved the security of its fingerprint sensor, the company was able to lift fingerprints from the device's owner, using gummy substances like Elmer's glue that coat the subject's fingers and graft fingerprints on the glue. From there, the hacker needs to press the fingerprint onto the sensor and the phone opens.
While Lookout acknowledged that its technique is sophisticated and is unlikely to cause issues for most users, hackers from the Chaos Computer Club in 2013 lifted a user's fingerprint from a glossy surface by dusting it with graphite and photographing it at a 2,400-pixel-per-inch resolution. Those fingerprints were then pasted onto film and placed on the iPhone's home button to open it.
"Fingerprints should not be used to secure anything," the hackers said at the time. "You leave them everywhere, and it is far too easy to make fake fingers out of lifted prints."
Apple's technology is not the only one with vulnerabilities. Samsung's Galaxy S5's fingerprint scanner was easily hacked by Security Research Labs last year using what it called the "wood glue spoof." The report prompted US Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to write a letter to Samsung saying he's worried that the device isn't secure enough.
Lookout Mobile Security chief security researcher Marc Rogers told CNET in September that he doesn't "think people need to worry just yet" about biometric security, but he did believe that some "distinct flaws" in the technology "could lead to problems down the line."
Regardless, if Juniper's data is true, biometric support in apps will come fast and furious, and hardware users will be downloading them at a fast clip. It's also possible that the feature could be used in other ways, Juniper says.
"As consumers seek to reduce the likelihood of their social media profiles being hacked, service providers, such as Facebook, may turn to facial scanning to add value through increased authentication security," the company said.
Neither Apple nor Samsung immediately responded to a request for comment.
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By chance I found that support for radio switching and the hotkey buttons is already in recent linux kernel.
Cause several people already asked me, how to get fsam7400 or rfsam working on an AMILO M 7440 notebook, this information might be also helpful for other users… well, it's not possilbe. The 7440 model uses a complete other method to enable the wireless radio.


We had a remarkable two feet of snow Sunday through Monday. Just when it feels that spring may arrive any moment!
Photos are of Colba, now 3 years old, facing the blustery wind and blowing snow on Tuesday morning at Doug and Emily's current home in Essex, NY (about 20 minutes south of camp), and the view of Giant and Rocky Peak from their driveway.
It is 50 degrees here in the North Country today. This is an amazing time of year – watching snow banks melt, hearing bird songs that sound like spring, and thinking of summer!
Doug Livingston (Kate's husband, Bob and Lynn's son, and a long-time camper and counselor) has been working on hiking many of the high peaks during the winter – and what a winter it has been!


Watch more than 3,000 flights compete for space on only six runways.
Not that any exasperated air passenger will attempt this exercise, but the next time you're waiting on a nonexistent plane at Heathrow Airport, think about all the flights that aren't delayed.
For those who wish to see the totality of the controlled chaos, skip to 1:07 for all simulated air traffic that day. And if you like this kind of thing, check out the NATS visualization of 24 hours of flights over the entire continent.


Roc Nation lists Lil Uzi Vert under its "Artists page."
Lil Uzi Vert was the first person entrusted with secrets on the matter to speak of a rumored Roc Nation management deal. He did so a few days ago on Instagram Live, in a post intrinsically tied to the fate of his Eternal Atake album. As you'll recall, the project was at an impasse, allegedly due to a disagreement with DJ Drama, Don Cannon, and the good folks over at Atlantic Records.
Since receiving DJ Drama's blessing over the weekend, to go forward with the project by any means necessary, Jay-Z reportedly reached out to Uzi to offer him much-needed support in finishing the album. Rumors of a Roc Nation switch began to heat up after Lil Uzi Inta'd a video of himself hard at work in the studio along with the "Roc Nation" hashtag.
As it turns out, Uzi wasn't leading his fans down an erroneous path, because as of this moment, the Roc Nation website lists the Philadelphia native as one of their own. See for yourself: the "Artists" is listed alphabetically, within a panoramic view pane. Uzi's proclamation of "we see threw all your gimmicks. Free Uzi," appears to be a reality now. By all accounts, Roc Nation's acquisition is, as of now, nothing more than "management deal," whatever that entails.