"You can take a blog and make it a business, like Mike, Om, Rafat and others have done. That's a fine strategy and it's working well for them. But it stops being personal and when that happens, something is lost. We have a blog at unionsquareventures.com where I blog frequently. That's a corporate blog. I would never do all my blogging on a corporate blog. I think facebook got it right that there are personal pages and corporate pages. Like it or not, TechCrunch, GigaOm, and PaidContent are corporate pages in the facebook vernacular."
A blog is a Blog.
A blog is a place where I go and read and comment.
I do not care who writes, I care what is written...
The beautiful of the Internet is that you can be a one man publisher, one man director, one man news, one man everything.
Internet is the world that makes possible and possibly profitable the "one man company".
You do not need much to begin a business on the Internet.
But you need brain.
You need an idea, you need to know how to make a business out of an idea.
But if you have more than one man, if you have more than one idea, and if you are more than one to use it, that can be much better and produce better results.
Exactly like the blog where more than one writes...
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Is the Net getting old and slow?
Is Web Going To Slow Down By 2010?
Posted by Rushabh Choksi
According to a research web will slow down by 2010. Video and Interactive sites being the major reason behind web slowing down.
Nemertes President, Johna Till Johnson said “Users will experience a slow, subtle degradation, so it’s back to the bad old days of dial-up,” and “The cool stuff that you’ll want to do will be such a pain in the rear that you won’t do it.”
He also added that around $55 millions must be invested by cable and phone companies who are providing around 94% of USA broadband service. Hence, the upgradation of systems is must to continue faster web experience.
Main upgradation would be required in upstream data capacity. Web was mainly used as read-only. Until recently, the explosion by video and photo sharing, self publishing (blogging), and bandwidth-intensive activities like video conferencing on the web is straining the upstream end.
Compared to USA, Indian broadband penetration is very low. Despite efforts to roll out the infrastructure, urban India has only a 3 per cent adoption rate. Which means in India broadband reach is limited to certain extent. It is a surprise that in the last seven years, India could provide broadband connectivity to less than 2.5 million subscribers as against its target of 3 million, nine million and 20 million for 2005, 2007 and 2010 respectively. So if web is slowing down by 2010 India will be adversely affected as most of the people in India still use dial-up connection to access web.
But this can barely be true because technology is growing, the new generation high band-width helps us to access the net much faster. Today many websites are providing with full movie downloads (say movies around 700mb) which gets downloaded within short span of time due to high band-width, pictures and videos get uploaded very fast. So, I wonder how web is going to slow down by 2010 and if it is what are we going to do?
Posted by Rushabh Choksi
According to a research web will slow down by 2010. Video and Interactive sites being the major reason behind web slowing down.
Nemertes President, Johna Till Johnson said “Users will experience a slow, subtle degradation, so it’s back to the bad old days of dial-up,” and “The cool stuff that you’ll want to do will be such a pain in the rear that you won’t do it.”
He also added that around $55 millions must be invested by cable and phone companies who are providing around 94% of USA broadband service. Hence, the upgradation of systems is must to continue faster web experience.
Main upgradation would be required in upstream data capacity. Web was mainly used as read-only. Until recently, the explosion by video and photo sharing, self publishing (blogging), and bandwidth-intensive activities like video conferencing on the web is straining the upstream end.
Compared to USA, Indian broadband penetration is very low. Despite efforts to roll out the infrastructure, urban India has only a 3 per cent adoption rate. Which means in India broadband reach is limited to certain extent. It is a surprise that in the last seven years, India could provide broadband connectivity to less than 2.5 million subscribers as against its target of 3 million, nine million and 20 million for 2005, 2007 and 2010 respectively. So if web is slowing down by 2010 India will be adversely affected as most of the people in India still use dial-up connection to access web.
But this can barely be true because technology is growing, the new generation high band-width helps us to access the net much faster. Today many websites are providing with full movie downloads (say movies around 700mb) which gets downloaded within short span of time due to high band-width, pictures and videos get uploaded very fast. So, I wonder how web is going to slow down by 2010 and if it is what are we going to do?
A day in the life of a post
You have a blog. You compose a new post. You click Publish and lean back to admire your work.
Imperceptibly and all but instantaneously, your post slips into a vast and recursive network of software agents, where it is crawled, indexed, mined, scraped, republished, and propagated throughout the Web.
Within minutes, if you've written about a timely and noteworthy topic, a small army of bots will get the word out to anyone remotely interested, from fellow bloggers to corporate marketers.
If you have not written about a timely and noteworthy topic, you can have a smaller group reading what you wrote.
The important sometimes is not what but how you write it.
And I do not mean just a grammatically correct post, but an amusing or interesting one.
But first you must be somewhere where they can find you.
It is not enough to be in the blogosphere, it is a must letting the people know that you are there.
Sometimes just knowing that people are interested in what you write is a good source of gratification, but it is even better if you can actually make money out of it.
Blogging for Moneyis not, as some would think a mercenary way to express yourself.
You can still write what you like and earn something.
How to Make Money Blogging?
There are many ways.
There are websites that help you, for example placing a banner on your blog, or writing about them, or simply choosing to Enter Google AdSense and/or Amazon affiliate IDs.
Revenue Sharingis another good way to increase your income.
And the secret to make a LOT of money?
Just being a LOT good in blogging...
Imperceptibly and all but instantaneously, your post slips into a vast and recursive network of software agents, where it is crawled, indexed, mined, scraped, republished, and propagated throughout the Web.
Within minutes, if you've written about a timely and noteworthy topic, a small army of bots will get the word out to anyone remotely interested, from fellow bloggers to corporate marketers.
If you have not written about a timely and noteworthy topic, you can have a smaller group reading what you wrote.
The important sometimes is not what but how you write it.
And I do not mean just a grammatically correct post, but an amusing or interesting one.
But first you must be somewhere where they can find you.
It is not enough to be in the blogosphere, it is a must letting the people know that you are there.
Sometimes just knowing that people are interested in what you write is a good source of gratification, but it is even better if you can actually make money out of it.
Blogging for Moneyis not, as some would think a mercenary way to express yourself.
You can still write what you like and earn something.
How to Make Money Blogging?
There are many ways.
There are websites that help you, for example placing a banner on your blog, or writing about them, or simply choosing to Enter Google AdSense and/or Amazon affiliate IDs.
Revenue Sharingis another good way to increase your income.
And the secret to make a LOT of money?
Just being a LOT good in blogging...
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
"Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. "
What do we need most on our planet?
Trees.
Trees clean the air we breath.
And where we have huge land?
A team of researchers has come up with a simple plan to halt global warming: all we need to do is turn both the Sahara and the Australian outback into vast, shady forests.
If most of the Sahara and Australian outback were planted with fast-growing trees like eucalyptus, the forests could draw down about 8 billion tons of carbon a year–nearly as much as people emit from burning fossil fuels and forests today. As the forests matured, they could continue taking up this much carbon for decades.
Illusion is a horse that more than one can ride.
This would be achieved with huge desalinization plants on the North African and Australian coastlines to convert sea water to fresh water, and a system of aqueducts and pumps to move the water inland. The young forests would be nourished with drip irrigation to prevent water loss through evaporation, and the sandy wastelands would change into endless groves of heat-tolerant, tropical trees like eucalyptus.
This would be a nice and painless way to go on polluting...
Trees.
Trees clean the air we breath.
And where we have huge land?
A team of researchers has come up with a simple plan to halt global warming: all we need to do is turn both the Sahara and the Australian outback into vast, shady forests.
If most of the Sahara and Australian outback were planted with fast-growing trees like eucalyptus, the forests could draw down about 8 billion tons of carbon a year–nearly as much as people emit from burning fossil fuels and forests today. As the forests matured, they could continue taking up this much carbon for decades.
Illusion is a horse that more than one can ride.
This would be achieved with huge desalinization plants on the North African and Australian coastlines to convert sea water to fresh water, and a system of aqueducts and pumps to move the water inland. The young forests would be nourished with drip irrigation to prevent water loss through evaporation, and the sandy wastelands would change into endless groves of heat-tolerant, tropical trees like eucalyptus.
This would be a nice and painless way to go on polluting...
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Ten steps to rebuild Economy
Data shows that banks routinely lose everything earned in their past history in single blowups.
This happened in 1982, 1991, and, of course now.
Every time society bails them out -- while bank risk-takers retain their past bonuses and start the game afresh. This is an aberrant case of capitalism for the profits and socialism for the losses.
Operators like to engage in a "blow-up" strategy, (switching risks from visible to
hidden), which consists in producing steady profits for a long time, collecting bonuses, then losing everything in a single blowup.
Such trades pay extremely well for the trader --but not for society.
For instance, a member of Citicorp's executive committee (and former government official) collected $120 million of bonuses over the years of hidden risks before the blowup; regular taxpayers are financing him retrospectively.
Blowup risks kept increasing over the past few years, while the appearance of stability has increased.
WHAT REGULATORY STRUCTURE DO WE NEED?
Preventing "too big to fail" situations, favoring diversity in risk taking,
allowing entities to absorb large shocks, and reducing the effect of model error.
1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small.
Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount of hidden risks - and hence the most fragile - become the biggest.
2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains.
Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and riskbearing.
We have managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France in the
1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.
3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus.
The economics establishment (universities, regulators, central bankers, government officials, various organizations staffed with economists) lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.
4. Do not let someone making an "incentive" bonus manage a nuclear plant - or your financial risks.
Odds are he would cut every corner on safety to show "profits" while claiming to be "conservative". Bonuses do not accommodate the hidden risks of blow-ups.
No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.
5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity.
Complexity from globalisation and highly networked economic life needs to be countered by simplicity in financial products. The complex economy is already a form of leverage: the leverage of efficiency.
Such systems survive thanks to slack and redundancy; adding debt produces wild and dangerous gyrations and leaves no room for error. Capitalism cannot avoid fads and bubbles: equity bubbles (as in 2000) have proved to be mild; debt bubbles are vicious.
6. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning.
Complex derivatives need to be banned because nobody understands them and few are rational enough to know it. Citizens must be protected from themselves, from bankers selling them "hedging" products, and from gullible regulators who listen to economic theorists.
7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence.
Governments should never need to "restore confidence". Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumours, be robust in the face of them.
8. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains.
Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab.
9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible "expert" advice for their retirement.
Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as
storehouses of value: they do not harbour the certainties that normal citizens require.
Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).
10. Make an omelet with the broken eggs.
Finally, this crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs, no more than a boat with a rotten hull can be fixed with ad hoc patches.
We need to rebuild the hull with new (stronger) materials; we will have to remake the system before it does so Let us move voluntarily into Capitalism 2.0 by helping what needs to be broken break on its own, converting debt into equity, marginalising the economics and business school establishments, shutting down the "Nobel" in economics, banning leveraged buy-outs, putting bankers where they belong, clawing back the bonuses of those who got us here, and teaching people to navigate a world with fewer certainties.
Then we will see an economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller companies, richer ecology, no leverage.
A world in which entrepreneurs, not bankers, take the risks, and companies are born and die every day without making the news.
Liberally taken from Nassim N. Taleb, PhD
This happened in 1982, 1991, and, of course now.
Every time society bails them out -- while bank risk-takers retain their past bonuses and start the game afresh. This is an aberrant case of capitalism for the profits and socialism for the losses.
Operators like to engage in a "blow-up" strategy, (switching risks from visible to
hidden), which consists in producing steady profits for a long time, collecting bonuses, then losing everything in a single blowup.
Such trades pay extremely well for the trader --but not for society.
For instance, a member of Citicorp's executive committee (and former government official) collected $120 million of bonuses over the years of hidden risks before the blowup; regular taxpayers are financing him retrospectively.
Blowup risks kept increasing over the past few years, while the appearance of stability has increased.
WHAT REGULATORY STRUCTURE DO WE NEED?
Preventing "too big to fail" situations, favoring diversity in risk taking,
allowing entities to absorb large shocks, and reducing the effect of model error.
1. What is fragile should break early while it is still small.
Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount of hidden risks - and hence the most fragile - become the biggest.
2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains.
Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and riskbearing.
We have managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France in the
1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.
3. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus.
The economics establishment (universities, regulators, central bankers, government officials, various organizations staffed with economists) lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.
4. Do not let someone making an "incentive" bonus manage a nuclear plant - or your financial risks.
Odds are he would cut every corner on safety to show "profits" while claiming to be "conservative". Bonuses do not accommodate the hidden risks of blow-ups.
No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.
5. Counter-balance complexity with simplicity.
Complexity from globalisation and highly networked economic life needs to be countered by simplicity in financial products. The complex economy is already a form of leverage: the leverage of efficiency.
Such systems survive thanks to slack and redundancy; adding debt produces wild and dangerous gyrations and leaves no room for error. Capitalism cannot avoid fads and bubbles: equity bubbles (as in 2000) have proved to be mild; debt bubbles are vicious.
6. Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning.
Complex derivatives need to be banned because nobody understands them and few are rational enough to know it. Citizens must be protected from themselves, from bankers selling them "hedging" products, and from gullible regulators who listen to economic theorists.
7. Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence.
Governments should never need to "restore confidence". Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumours, be robust in the face of them.
8. Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains.
Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab.
9. Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible "expert" advice for their retirement.
Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as
storehouses of value: they do not harbour the certainties that normal citizens require.
Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).
10. Make an omelet with the broken eggs.
Finally, this crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs, no more than a boat with a rotten hull can be fixed with ad hoc patches.
We need to rebuild the hull with new (stronger) materials; we will have to remake the system before it does so Let us move voluntarily into Capitalism 2.0 by helping what needs to be broken break on its own, converting debt into equity, marginalising the economics and business school establishments, shutting down the "Nobel" in economics, banning leveraged buy-outs, putting bankers where they belong, clawing back the bonuses of those who got us here, and teaching people to navigate a world with fewer certainties.
Then we will see an economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller companies, richer ecology, no leverage.
A world in which entrepreneurs, not bankers, take the risks, and companies are born and die every day without making the news.
Liberally taken from Nassim N. Taleb, PhD
Monday, September 14, 2009
Who are you going to believe, me or your eyes?
A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American religion.
According to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.
People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.
There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days.
The Film portrays the naturalist as a family man tormented by the death in 1851 of Annie, his favourite child.
"We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common we call them "religious"; otherwise, they are likely to be called "mad", "psychotic" or "delusional" ... Clearly there is sanity in numbers.
And yet, it is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts, while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window. And so, while religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are.
According to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.
People have been saying this is the best film they've seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.
There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days.
The Film portrays the naturalist as a family man tormented by the death in 1851 of Annie, his favourite child.
"We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common we call them "religious"; otherwise, they are likely to be called "mad", "psychotic" or "delusional" ... Clearly there is sanity in numbers.
And yet, it is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts, while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window. And so, while religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are.
Friday, September 11, 2009
The Internet reshaped History
They say the Internet reshaped History, may be it is true, because it reshaped life.
Once people read the news, now they want to be part of them.
The whole production, news included, used to be a monologue, after the dawn of the Internet it has become more and more a dialogue.
That is why people like blogs and blogging.
It is not just writing, it is beginning a discussion in which the reader can talk and say what is wrong or right (in his opinion).
It is may be the beginning of a real democracy, where everybody counts a little bit.
It is the cloud computing, where every end is also a beginning.
It is a Network, a community, a big living room where everybody wants a seat and has a voice.
It is a place where you can find out that there is somebody, somewhere, that can give you what you didn’t expect: new ideas.
Once people read the news, now they want to be part of them.
The whole production, news included, used to be a monologue, after the dawn of the Internet it has become more and more a dialogue.
That is why people like blogs and blogging.
It is not just writing, it is beginning a discussion in which the reader can talk and say what is wrong or right (in his opinion).
It is may be the beginning of a real democracy, where everybody counts a little bit.
It is the cloud computing, where every end is also a beginning.
It is a Network, a community, a big living room where everybody wants a seat and has a voice.
It is a place where you can find out that there is somebody, somewhere, that can give you what you didn’t expect: new ideas.
Who ever said that learning cannot be fun?
"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."
That is something, if you think that who wrote it was Einstein, one everybody would believe had no problems with Mathematics.
And if he did, well, it is more than natural that we also can need Math help, at least once in a while.
I personally liked mathematics very much.
Being a lazy person I liked the fact that you needed just to understand it and then, it fixed to your mind and you didn’t forget it as easily as for example Literature or History.
May be I had a kind of mathematical attitude, but once in a while I had my problems too.
In principal Mathematics is just combining signs to express concepts.
If you understand the concepts you understand Mathematics.
And when you don’t?
Easy: you ask somebody to explain.
In my times asking somebody meant to spend a lot of money and there was nothing like free math help, because private teachers were everything but cheap.
Today it is pretty much the same, but the Internet, once more can come to your help.
You can have the best teaching online, and of course it can cost you a fraction of the sum you should pay.
They have courses for everything:
Geometry, Algebra, Number Theory, Discrete Mathematics, Boolean Algebra, Trigonometry, Statistics and Probability, Calculus.
A virtual Online math tutor is much better than the real one.
He is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Whenever you have doubts, or you do not understand, or you want to prepare for an exam (also on Sundays).
He doesn’t complain if you need to repeat the same concept more than once, if you are slow, if you want to stop.
You can also talk using VoIP, ask, working with him on your problems.
You can even get a free demo of Online math help, trying a few sessions for free.
Who ever said that learning cannot be fun?
That is something, if you think that who wrote it was Einstein, one everybody would believe had no problems with Mathematics.
And if he did, well, it is more than natural that we also can need Math help, at least once in a while.
I personally liked mathematics very much.
Being a lazy person I liked the fact that you needed just to understand it and then, it fixed to your mind and you didn’t forget it as easily as for example Literature or History.
May be I had a kind of mathematical attitude, but once in a while I had my problems too.
In principal Mathematics is just combining signs to express concepts.
If you understand the concepts you understand Mathematics.
And when you don’t?
Easy: you ask somebody to explain.
In my times asking somebody meant to spend a lot of money and there was nothing like free math help, because private teachers were everything but cheap.
Today it is pretty much the same, but the Internet, once more can come to your help.
You can have the best teaching online, and of course it can cost you a fraction of the sum you should pay.
They have courses for everything:
Geometry, Algebra, Number Theory, Discrete Mathematics, Boolean Algebra, Trigonometry, Statistics and Probability, Calculus.
A virtual Online math tutor is much better than the real one.
He is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Whenever you have doubts, or you do not understand, or you want to prepare for an exam (also on Sundays).
He doesn’t complain if you need to repeat the same concept more than once, if you are slow, if you want to stop.
You can also talk using VoIP, ask, working with him on your problems.
You can even get a free demo of Online math help, trying a few sessions for free.
Who ever said that learning cannot be fun?
The decline of a Nation
"Even the kindest physicians don't put corpses on life support. This particular corpse has been placed in the world's cushiest intensive care unit, with transfusions running about a trillion dollars a month -- not to mention hefty bonuses for the attending nurses."JK
I liked the example which I found particularly fitting.
One question troubled me: Why do they do it?
Certainly not to please the mass.
There was never a time in which the mass was worth less than today.
The mass is a number of people whose importance is essential on election day and then goes back to be a nuisance, except for the fact that it is a big number.
Why should they please people letting them making debts that most won’t even be able to pay back?
Because it is a BIG BUSINESS.
Some big brain made a big discovery, one of the biggest of our century: you are worth more if you have debts than if you haven’t.
The fact that you pay back or not is not THAT important.
The important is the NUMBERS they can write.
Somebody WILL pay.
Corpses are important...they create a new and profitable Market which is easy to run and produces huge revenues: the market of intensive care.
That is why they are willing (against any rational judgment) to make transfusions running about a trillion dollars a month.
Once America was a young Nation.
A Nation run by people who left their countries to make their fortunes, people who had a lot to give and were willing to WORK.
Yes, the ideal was money, but money has been and will always be the reason why, the goal to, the engine with.
That was money made with work, with brain and with enthusiasm.
The enthusiasm of the ones who wanted to "build" something great.
Lately America (like Europe) has become a country of old people, whose aim is still making money, but they do not have enthusiasm, do not have strength, so the money must be made in the easy way: cheating.
No hard work is behind the new Empires.
A lot of papers, a lot of lies, a lot of injustice.
This America doesn’t deserve to survive and it won’t survive.
I liked the example which I found particularly fitting.
One question troubled me: Why do they do it?
Certainly not to please the mass.
There was never a time in which the mass was worth less than today.
The mass is a number of people whose importance is essential on election day and then goes back to be a nuisance, except for the fact that it is a big number.
Why should they please people letting them making debts that most won’t even be able to pay back?
Because it is a BIG BUSINESS.
Some big brain made a big discovery, one of the biggest of our century: you are worth more if you have debts than if you haven’t.
The fact that you pay back or not is not THAT important.
The important is the NUMBERS they can write.
Somebody WILL pay.
Corpses are important...they create a new and profitable Market which is easy to run and produces huge revenues: the market of intensive care.
That is why they are willing (against any rational judgment) to make transfusions running about a trillion dollars a month.
Once America was a young Nation.
A Nation run by people who left their countries to make their fortunes, people who had a lot to give and were willing to WORK.
Yes, the ideal was money, but money has been and will always be the reason why, the goal to, the engine with.
That was money made with work, with brain and with enthusiasm.
The enthusiasm of the ones who wanted to "build" something great.
Lately America (like Europe) has become a country of old people, whose aim is still making money, but they do not have enthusiasm, do not have strength, so the money must be made in the easy way: cheating.
No hard work is behind the new Empires.
A lot of papers, a lot of lies, a lot of injustice.
This America doesn’t deserve to survive and it won’t survive.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
File extension .sis
If you try to download a file that ends with .SIS you will find out that there is nothing you can use to open the file as it is an executable file for the Smybian operating system that is typically used on phones these days.
It's designed to be put on the phone and run there.
For example it is a file to be used on your cell phone allowing you to have a caller ID.
In order to install a SIS file on a compatible phone, you will need to transfer the file to the phone using the phone's PC communication software.
Then you will need to open the SIS file on the phone to run the installer.
The file extension sis means literally: Symbian installation source.
As the name says the file extension sis is an installation file for Symbian OS.
It is the OS you find for example in Palm PDAs and Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola phones.
Incorrect associations are the cause of many file extension errors.
In a few words: the file extension sis is associated with software, themes, applications and games which can run in symbian operating system. Usually Symbian OS is found in mobile devices.
It's designed to be put on the phone and run there.
For example it is a file to be used on your cell phone allowing you to have a caller ID.
In order to install a SIS file on a compatible phone, you will need to transfer the file to the phone using the phone's PC communication software.
Then you will need to open the SIS file on the phone to run the installer.
The file extension sis means literally: Symbian installation source.
As the name says the file extension sis is an installation file for Symbian OS.
It is the OS you find for example in Palm PDAs and Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola phones.
Incorrect associations are the cause of many file extension errors.
In a few words: the file extension sis is associated with software, themes, applications and games which can run in symbian operating system. Usually Symbian OS is found in mobile devices.
Once and for all the true story behind the telephone invention
Bell is cut off as originator of the phone
U.S. Congress gives honour to Italian immigrant
BRANTFORD, Ont. - Stunned officials have been burning up the phone lines after learning that the U.S. Congress has ousted Alexander Graham Bell - the pride of Brantford - as the father of modern mass communications.
Bell has long been recognized as the inventor of the telephone, the concept for which he developed at his family's Brantford, Ont. homestead. His revolutionary device was patented in the United States in 1876. But last week, Congress passed a resolution crediting little-known Italian immigrant Antonio Meucci as the phone's rightful originator.
Brian Wood, curator of the Bell Homestead Museum in Brantford, was surprised to hear of the resolution.
"If this can be proven, then Meucci certainly deserves recognition as contributing to the realm of telephony," Wood said. "But I don't see it as a huge threat. There may be others all over the world who did similar things but didn't get patented or legally known."
The fact is that the inventor usually is the one that did those things first.
Everybody now a day knows how to write, but nobody would say: "There may be others all over the world who did similar things but didn't get patented or legally known"
The Italian newspaper la Repubblica wrote on Monday that justice had finally been served - 113 years after Meucci's death. The newspaper referred to Bell as an impostor, profiteer and a "cunning Scotsman" who usurped Meucci's spot in history, while Meucci died poor and unrecognized.
Vito Fossella, a U.S. congressman for Staten Island, N.Y., authored the resolution.
"In the past number of years, historical records and scholarly research have concluded that Meucci was the original inventor of the telephone, long before Bell," said Fossella's spokesperson, Craig Donner. "Because of Meucci's role, he should receive recognition for his contribution."
The resolution recognizes that Meucci filed a caveat on his early telephone on Dec. 28, 1871, which gave notice of an impending patent. But the Italian inventor couldn't afford the $10 to renew the caveat in 1874. If he had, the resolution says, Alexander Graham Bell would not have been granted his patent two years later.
But no matter what, said Wood, Brantford will always be the home of the telephone.
"The history behind Bell and what he did here will always be in place. The work Bell did here was very significant. Bell himself claimed that Brantford was where he invented the telephone."
A more "super partes" article:
And finally, an article from "The Guardian":
Bell did not invent telephone, US rules
Scot accused of finding fame by stealing Italian's ideas
Rory Carroll in Rome - Monday June 17, 2002 - The Guardian
Italy hailed the redress of a historic injustice yesterday after the US Congress recognised an impoverished Florentine immigrant as the inventor of the telephone rather than Alexander Graham Bell.
Historians and Italian-Americans won their battle to persuade Washington to recognise a little-known mechanical genius, Antonio Meucci, as a father of modern communications, 113 years after his death.
The vote by the House of Representatives prompted joyous claims in Meucci's homeland that finally Bell had been outed as a perfidious Scot who found fortune and fame by stealing another man's work.
Calling the Italian's career extraordinary and tragic, the resolution said his "teletrofono", demonstrated in New York in 1860, made him the inventor of the telephone in the place of Bell, who had access to Meucci's materials and who took out a patent 16 years later.
"It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognised, and his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged," the resolution stated.
Bell's immortalisation in books and films has rankled with generations of Italians who know Meucci's story.
Born in 1808, he studied design and mechanical engineering at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, and as a stage technician at the city's Teatro della Pergola developed a primitive system to help colleagues communicate.
In the 1830s he moved to Cuba and, while working on methods to treat illnesses with electric shocks, found that sounds could travel by electrical impulses through copper wire. Sensing potential, he moved to Staten Island, near New York City, in 1850 to develop the technology.
When Meucci's wife, Ester, became paralysed he rigged a system to link her bedroom with his neighbouring workshop and in 1860 held a public demonstration which was reported in New York's Italian-language press.
In between giving shelter to political exiles, Meucci struggled to find financial backing, failed to master English and was severely burned in an accident aboard a steamship.
Forced to make new prototype telephones after Ester sold his machines for $6 to a secondhand shop, his models became more sophisticated. An inductor formed around an iron core in the shape of a cylinder was a technique so sophisticated that it was used decades later for long-distance connections.
Meucci could not afford the $250 needed for a definitive patent for his "talking telegraph" so in 1871 filed a one-year renewable notice of an impending patent. Three years later he could not even afford the $10 to renew it.
He sent a model and technical details to the Western Union telegraph company but failed to win a meeting with executives. When he asked for his materials to be returned, in 1874, he was told they had been lost. Two years later Bell, who shared a laboratory with Meucci, filed a patent for a telephone, became a celebrity and made a lucrative deal with Western Union.
Meucci sued and was nearing victory - the supreme court agreed to hear the case and fraud charges were initiated against Bell - when the Florentine died in 1889. The legal action died with him.
Yesterday the newspaper La Repubblica welcomed the vote to recognise the Tuscan inventor as a belated comeuppance for Bell, a "cunning Scotsman" and "usurper" whose per- fidy built a communications empire.
U.S. Congress gives honour to Italian immigrant
BRANTFORD, Ont. - Stunned officials have been burning up the phone lines after learning that the U.S. Congress has ousted Alexander Graham Bell - the pride of Brantford - as the father of modern mass communications.
Bell has long been recognized as the inventor of the telephone, the concept for which he developed at his family's Brantford, Ont. homestead. His revolutionary device was patented in the United States in 1876. But last week, Congress passed a resolution crediting little-known Italian immigrant Antonio Meucci as the phone's rightful originator.
Brian Wood, curator of the Bell Homestead Museum in Brantford, was surprised to hear of the resolution.
"If this can be proven, then Meucci certainly deserves recognition as contributing to the realm of telephony," Wood said. "But I don't see it as a huge threat. There may be others all over the world who did similar things but didn't get patented or legally known."
The fact is that the inventor usually is the one that did those things first.
Everybody now a day knows how to write, but nobody would say: "There may be others all over the world who did similar things but didn't get patented or legally known"
The Italian newspaper la Repubblica wrote on Monday that justice had finally been served - 113 years after Meucci's death. The newspaper referred to Bell as an impostor, profiteer and a "cunning Scotsman" who usurped Meucci's spot in history, while Meucci died poor and unrecognized.
Vito Fossella, a U.S. congressman for Staten Island, N.Y., authored the resolution.
"In the past number of years, historical records and scholarly research have concluded that Meucci was the original inventor of the telephone, long before Bell," said Fossella's spokesperson, Craig Donner. "Because of Meucci's role, he should receive recognition for his contribution."
The resolution recognizes that Meucci filed a caveat on his early telephone on Dec. 28, 1871, which gave notice of an impending patent. But the Italian inventor couldn't afford the $10 to renew the caveat in 1874. If he had, the resolution says, Alexander Graham Bell would not have been granted his patent two years later.
But no matter what, said Wood, Brantford will always be the home of the telephone.
"The history behind Bell and what he did here will always be in place. The work Bell did here was very significant. Bell himself claimed that Brantford was where he invented the telephone."
A more "super partes" article:
And finally, an article from "The Guardian":
Bell did not invent telephone, US rules
Scot accused of finding fame by stealing Italian's ideas
Rory Carroll in Rome - Monday June 17, 2002 - The Guardian
Italy hailed the redress of a historic injustice yesterday after the US Congress recognised an impoverished Florentine immigrant as the inventor of the telephone rather than Alexander Graham Bell.
Historians and Italian-Americans won their battle to persuade Washington to recognise a little-known mechanical genius, Antonio Meucci, as a father of modern communications, 113 years after his death.
The vote by the House of Representatives prompted joyous claims in Meucci's homeland that finally Bell had been outed as a perfidious Scot who found fortune and fame by stealing another man's work.
Calling the Italian's career extraordinary and tragic, the resolution said his "teletrofono", demonstrated in New York in 1860, made him the inventor of the telephone in the place of Bell, who had access to Meucci's materials and who took out a patent 16 years later.
"It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognised, and his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged," the resolution stated.
Bell's immortalisation in books and films has rankled with generations of Italians who know Meucci's story.
Born in 1808, he studied design and mechanical engineering at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, and as a stage technician at the city's Teatro della Pergola developed a primitive system to help colleagues communicate.
In the 1830s he moved to Cuba and, while working on methods to treat illnesses with electric shocks, found that sounds could travel by electrical impulses through copper wire. Sensing potential, he moved to Staten Island, near New York City, in 1850 to develop the technology.
When Meucci's wife, Ester, became paralysed he rigged a system to link her bedroom with his neighbouring workshop and in 1860 held a public demonstration which was reported in New York's Italian-language press.
In between giving shelter to political exiles, Meucci struggled to find financial backing, failed to master English and was severely burned in an accident aboard a steamship.
Forced to make new prototype telephones after Ester sold his machines for $6 to a secondhand shop, his models became more sophisticated. An inductor formed around an iron core in the shape of a cylinder was a technique so sophisticated that it was used decades later for long-distance connections.
Meucci could not afford the $250 needed for a definitive patent for his "talking telegraph" so in 1871 filed a one-year renewable notice of an impending patent. Three years later he could not even afford the $10 to renew it.
He sent a model and technical details to the Western Union telegraph company but failed to win a meeting with executives. When he asked for his materials to be returned, in 1874, he was told they had been lost. Two years later Bell, who shared a laboratory with Meucci, filed a patent for a telephone, became a celebrity and made a lucrative deal with Western Union.
Meucci sued and was nearing victory - the supreme court agreed to hear the case and fraud charges were initiated against Bell - when the Florentine died in 1889. The legal action died with him.
Yesterday the newspaper La Repubblica welcomed the vote to recognise the Tuscan inventor as a belated comeuppance for Bell, a "cunning Scotsman" and "usurper" whose per- fidy built a communications empire.
Life after death (of copyrights)
Or a brief history of how life changed after the dawn of the Internet.
It began with music.
There had been several attempts and attacks to the Music industry long before, but the quality of the copy was quite low and the original still sold a lot.
CDs sounded good and you could bring them with you in your Portable CD player, and the only digital music you could get was as good as your friends' CD collections.
Then Napster came.
Suddenly, it was like all those college networks were tied together, and you could find all this cool stuff online. It was easier and more efficient than record stores, it was powered by music fans, and, well, it was free .
Suddenly you didn't have to pay 15 to 18 bucks for an album and hope it was good, you could download some tracks off the internet and check it out first.
In a few short years, the aggressive push of technology combined with the arrogant response from the record industry has rapidly worn away everybody's scruples.
But it didn't stop to music.
Suddenly the whole copyrights' world is changing, the very own idea of copyright has another look.
The Music Industry had its own chance.
The chance to come to terms with the customer , the chance to evolve in something different from the old anachronistic, arrogant, monopolizing, power-hungry company, the chance to get the same increasing the number of users and decreasing the price per song.
They ignored it.
They wanted more customers and more revenues.
They lost the customers and lost the revenues.
And nobody pities them.
History magistra vitae, but it is a teacher nobody wants to listen.
If you do not acknowledge your mistakes, you are destined to repeat them forever and ever.
And Destiny will attack and win ALL the other Monopolies on the market.
Copyright?
No thanks.
It began with music.
There had been several attempts and attacks to the Music industry long before, but the quality of the copy was quite low and the original still sold a lot.
CDs sounded good and you could bring them with you in your Portable CD player, and the only digital music you could get was as good as your friends' CD collections.
Then Napster came.
Suddenly, it was like all those college networks were tied together, and you could find all this cool stuff online. It was easier and more efficient than record stores, it was powered by music fans, and, well, it was free .
Suddenly you didn't have to pay 15 to 18 bucks for an album and hope it was good, you could download some tracks off the internet and check it out first.
In a few short years, the aggressive push of technology combined with the arrogant response from the record industry has rapidly worn away everybody's scruples.
But it didn't stop to music.
Suddenly the whole copyrights' world is changing, the very own idea of copyright has another look.
The Music Industry had its own chance.
The chance to come to terms with the customer , the chance to evolve in something different from the old anachronistic, arrogant, monopolizing, power-hungry company, the chance to get the same increasing the number of users and decreasing the price per song.
They ignored it.
They wanted more customers and more revenues.
They lost the customers and lost the revenues.
And nobody pities them.
History magistra vitae, but it is a teacher nobody wants to listen.
If you do not acknowledge your mistakes, you are destined to repeat them forever and ever.
And Destiny will attack and win ALL the other Monopolies on the market.
Copyright?
No thanks.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
When you are "too big to fail"
Like other financial institutions, Lehman’s problems stemmed from borrowing too much to finance too many hard-to-sell investments, such as mortgage-backed securities, that were declining in value as a result of the deteriorating real estate market. Lehman was different because the government let it declare bankruptcy, meaning the company’s creditors were wiped out as well as its stockholders.
Willard Scolnik, a 78-year-old retired architect in Palm Harbor, Florida, who said he had $400,000 in Reserve Primary that he needed to help pay for a lung transplant for his son, was one of the unlucky ones. He couldn’t get his money out. Neither could Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear, the largest U.S. tiremaker by revenue, which had $360 million stuck in the fund.
Another loser was Colorado Diversified Trust. Municipalities park their cash in the trust before shelling out for projects such as a new road or sewer improvements. Boulder County was forced to write off $687,000, its share of the trust’s losses, according to Bob Hullinghorst, the county treasurer. That would have paid for 20 new health-care employees, he said.
“It makes me mad,” Hullinghorst said. “We thought our money was safe.”
The run on money market funds, considered the safest investments after bank deposits and the major buyers of commercial paper, sent shivers through the global economy. World stock markets lost $2.85 trillion, or more than 6 percent of their value, in three days. Banks’ cost of borrowing overnight from other banks, as measured by the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, jumped 4.29 percentage points between Friday, Sept. 12, and Tuesday, Sept. 16.
The disintegration of the commercial-paper market came around to bite banks such as Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, whose CEOs, John J. Mack and Vikram S. Pandit, were at the weekend meetings. It sapped them of the capital they needed to extend credit, even to one another.
“The fear factor that went through the markets was pretty amazing” as credit concerns caused banks to stop lending to each other, Fox said. “The ripple effect was huge.”
The ripples reached as far as Hong Kong, where Lehman’s default on commercial-paper debt paralyzed payments on so-called minibonds, structured notes sold in $5,000 denominations and guaranteed by Lehman.
Sun Kwan, 58, a retired parks worker, said he invested $285,000, most of his life savings, in Lehman minibonds. He was among an estimated 43,000 in the city who bought $1.8 billion of the notes, according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Sun lost it all and has taken part in protests since October, rain or shine, trying to get his money back.
Derivatives are contracts whose value is derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies, commodities or linked to specific events such as changes in interest rates. Lehman had made about 1 million such bets in the over-the-counter market, according to a person with access to that information.
The unregulated $592 trillion market for over-the-counter derivatives, 41 times the size of the U.S. economy, contributed more than half of some banks’ trading revenue and had never been tested by the bankruptcy of a major Wall Street firm.
Swaps are a way for investors to gamble on whether companies will continue making debt payments or for lenders to buy insurance against borrowers who stop paying. If the company defaults, one side in the bet pays the buyer face value of the debt in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent.
Taken from Bloomberg.com
Willard Scolnik, a 78-year-old retired architect in Palm Harbor, Florida, who said he had $400,000 in Reserve Primary that he needed to help pay for a lung transplant for his son, was one of the unlucky ones. He couldn’t get his money out. Neither could Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear, the largest U.S. tiremaker by revenue, which had $360 million stuck in the fund.
Another loser was Colorado Diversified Trust. Municipalities park their cash in the trust before shelling out for projects such as a new road or sewer improvements. Boulder County was forced to write off $687,000, its share of the trust’s losses, according to Bob Hullinghorst, the county treasurer. That would have paid for 20 new health-care employees, he said.
“It makes me mad,” Hullinghorst said. “We thought our money was safe.”
The run on money market funds, considered the safest investments after bank deposits and the major buyers of commercial paper, sent shivers through the global economy. World stock markets lost $2.85 trillion, or more than 6 percent of their value, in three days. Banks’ cost of borrowing overnight from other banks, as measured by the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, jumped 4.29 percentage points between Friday, Sept. 12, and Tuesday, Sept. 16.
The disintegration of the commercial-paper market came around to bite banks such as Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, whose CEOs, John J. Mack and Vikram S. Pandit, were at the weekend meetings. It sapped them of the capital they needed to extend credit, even to one another.
“The fear factor that went through the markets was pretty amazing” as credit concerns caused banks to stop lending to each other, Fox said. “The ripple effect was huge.”
The ripples reached as far as Hong Kong, where Lehman’s default on commercial-paper debt paralyzed payments on so-called minibonds, structured notes sold in $5,000 denominations and guaranteed by Lehman.
Sun Kwan, 58, a retired parks worker, said he invested $285,000, most of his life savings, in Lehman minibonds. He was among an estimated 43,000 in the city who bought $1.8 billion of the notes, according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Sun lost it all and has taken part in protests since October, rain or shine, trying to get his money back.
Derivatives are contracts whose value is derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies, commodities or linked to specific events such as changes in interest rates. Lehman had made about 1 million such bets in the over-the-counter market, according to a person with access to that information.
The unregulated $592 trillion market for over-the-counter derivatives, 41 times the size of the U.S. economy, contributed more than half of some banks’ trading revenue and had never been tested by the bankruptcy of a major Wall Street firm.
Swaps are a way for investors to gamble on whether companies will continue making debt payments or for lenders to buy insurance against borrowers who stop paying. If the company defaults, one side in the bet pays the buyer face value of the debt in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent.
Taken from Bloomberg.com
If you want to choose the right car for you, it pays to be informed
Waiting for the Future it pays to look what the present offers on green cars.
Never heard about "Hybrid cars"?
They are a combination of two power sources. The most common hybrid car available on the current market uses both electric motors and the petrol combustion engines.
Its batteries (when charged) act as a storage device to power the electric motor, usually working when the vehicle is travelling at low speed or in traffic, usually for city driving.
The gasoline engine, drives the car when more power is needed such as at higher speeds allowing the combustion engine to only operate at its more optimum efficient speeds.
If you want something new, but do not want to leave the style, your choice for a new car should be The new Corolla.
Following the 2010 toyota corolla review it is one the most conservatively styled vehicle.
Autoblog goes as far as calling the 2009 Corolla XRS "one of the handsomest pieces of sheetmetal in Toyota's U.S.
If you want a classic car but with a very new engine the lexus is the car for you.
While the outside looks still the same (and they decided not to change it, because the RX lineup is still quite successful), the interior has gone through a styling makeover.
They say it is interesting to look at as much as intriguing to use.
The very new feature is the hard-drive-based Remote Touch navigation system, a must have if you are a technology fan.
But if you like tradition and want something that will last longer than you would need the German quality is always at the top.
Following the mercedes benz s-class review: it is a car worth what you pay for.
And that is what you expect when you spend what it costs.
The handsome exterior design comes with power, luxury, technology and prestige.
It is luxury, but comfortable and what is luxury for if you cannot enjoy it?
Never heard about "Hybrid cars"?
They are a combination of two power sources. The most common hybrid car available on the current market uses both electric motors and the petrol combustion engines.
Its batteries (when charged) act as a storage device to power the electric motor, usually working when the vehicle is travelling at low speed or in traffic, usually for city driving.
The gasoline engine, drives the car when more power is needed such as at higher speeds allowing the combustion engine to only operate at its more optimum efficient speeds.
If you want something new, but do not want to leave the style, your choice for a new car should be The new Corolla.
Following the 2010 toyota corolla review it is one the most conservatively styled vehicle.
Autoblog goes as far as calling the 2009 Corolla XRS "one of the handsomest pieces of sheetmetal in Toyota's U.S.
If you want a classic car but with a very new engine the lexus is the car for you.
While the outside looks still the same (and they decided not to change it, because the RX lineup is still quite successful), the interior has gone through a styling makeover.
They say it is interesting to look at as much as intriguing to use.
The very new feature is the hard-drive-based Remote Touch navigation system, a must have if you are a technology fan.
But if you like tradition and want something that will last longer than you would need the German quality is always at the top.
Following the mercedes benz s-class review: it is a car worth what you pay for.
And that is what you expect when you spend what it costs.
The handsome exterior design comes with power, luxury, technology and prestige.
It is luxury, but comfortable and what is luxury for if you cannot enjoy it?
Some people behave, the FED doesn’t
The Federal Reserve spent $389.2 million in 2008 on "monetary and economic policy," money spent on analysis, research, data gathering, and studies on market structure; $433 million is budgeted for 2009.
"The Fed has a lock on the economics world,"
"There is no room for other views, which I guess is why economists got it so wrong."
The Fed failed to see the housing bubble as it happened, insisting that the rise in housing prices was normal. In 2004, after "flipping" had become a term cops and janitors were using to describe the way to get rich in real estate, then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that "a national severe price distortion [is] most unlikely." A year later, current Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the boom "largely reflect strong economic fundamentals."
The pharmaceutical industry has similarly worked to control key medical journals, but that involves several companies. In the field of economics, it's just the Fed.
Being on the Fed payroll isn't just about the money, either. A relationship with the Fed carries prestige; invitations to Fed conferences and offers of visiting scholarships with the bank signal a rising star or an economist who has arrived.
Greenspan: "You know, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well."
But, if the intellectual edifice has collapsed, the intellectual infrastructure remains in place. The same economists who provided Greenspan his "very considerable evidence" are still running the journals and still analyzing the world using the same models that were incapable of seeing the credit boom and the coming collapse.
"they're essentially using taxpayer money to wrap their arms around everybody that's a critic and therefore muffle or silence the debate."
At the Journal of Monetary Economics, every single member of the editorial board is or has been affiliated with the Fed and 14 of the 26 board members are presently on the Fed payroll.
Taken from The Huffington Post.
I thought that the Mafia was a typical Italian product.
I would say that in Italy we are, at least, honest to admit that it exists...
"The Fed has a lock on the economics world,"
"There is no room for other views, which I guess is why economists got it so wrong."
The Fed failed to see the housing bubble as it happened, insisting that the rise in housing prices was normal. In 2004, after "flipping" had become a term cops and janitors were using to describe the way to get rich in real estate, then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that "a national severe price distortion [is] most unlikely." A year later, current Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the boom "largely reflect strong economic fundamentals."
The pharmaceutical industry has similarly worked to control key medical journals, but that involves several companies. In the field of economics, it's just the Fed.
Being on the Fed payroll isn't just about the money, either. A relationship with the Fed carries prestige; invitations to Fed conferences and offers of visiting scholarships with the bank signal a rising star or an economist who has arrived.
Greenspan: "You know, that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well."
But, if the intellectual edifice has collapsed, the intellectual infrastructure remains in place. The same economists who provided Greenspan his "very considerable evidence" are still running the journals and still analyzing the world using the same models that were incapable of seeing the credit boom and the coming collapse.
"they're essentially using taxpayer money to wrap their arms around everybody that's a critic and therefore muffle or silence the debate."
At the Journal of Monetary Economics, every single member of the editorial board is or has been affiliated with the Fed and 14 of the 26 board members are presently on the Fed payroll.
Taken from The Huffington Post.
I thought that the Mafia was a typical Italian product.
I would say that in Italy we are, at least, honest to admit that it exists...
Patterns of Chaos
One of the last Bubbles began in November 1971.
Bob Moore launched Intel´s first Microprocessor, the precursor of the computer on a chip.
Chips were powerful and CHEAP and made possible technological and business future.
Life changed not only in the technological field, in all its aspects, the financial was one of them, may be the most affected.
At that time most middle-class kept their money in the Bank, investors were a few.
At the end of 1990 even people with modest salaries turned in hopeful "investors".
This was nothing else than the repetition of what happened in 1908 when Henry Ford brought on the market the first "mass car".
He began the era of the mass production and mass consumption.
In 1920 the New York stock Market was seen as the engine of the world’s economy.
As it happened later in 1990 the investment in stocks or real estate seemed to grow and grow in an unending market.
It promised great wealth for the players.
The crash was as unexpected as the following recession and depression were hard and prolonged.
Digging into history a similar sequence had happened before.
A decade after the Industrial Revolution there was the amazing investment boom in the stock of companies constructing railways.
The "Railway Mania" ended in panic and collapse in 1847.
Every technological revolution led to an explosive period in the financial markets.
The new wealth that accumulates at one end is often more than counterbalanced by the poverty that spreads at the other end.
This is the period in which capitalism shows its ugliest face.
The time when rich get richer and poor get poorer.
When the financial breakdown comes, the party is over and the time comes for analyzing what went wrong and what can be done to prevent it from happening again.
There begins the search for patterns of chaos.
Bob Moore launched Intel´s first Microprocessor, the precursor of the computer on a chip.
Chips were powerful and CHEAP and made possible technological and business future.
Life changed not only in the technological field, in all its aspects, the financial was one of them, may be the most affected.
At that time most middle-class kept their money in the Bank, investors were a few.
At the end of 1990 even people with modest salaries turned in hopeful "investors".
This was nothing else than the repetition of what happened in 1908 when Henry Ford brought on the market the first "mass car".
He began the era of the mass production and mass consumption.
In 1920 the New York stock Market was seen as the engine of the world’s economy.
As it happened later in 1990 the investment in stocks or real estate seemed to grow and grow in an unending market.
It promised great wealth for the players.
The crash was as unexpected as the following recession and depression were hard and prolonged.
Digging into history a similar sequence had happened before.
A decade after the Industrial Revolution there was the amazing investment boom in the stock of companies constructing railways.
The "Railway Mania" ended in panic and collapse in 1847.
Every technological revolution led to an explosive period in the financial markets.
The new wealth that accumulates at one end is often more than counterbalanced by the poverty that spreads at the other end.
This is the period in which capitalism shows its ugliest face.
The time when rich get richer and poor get poorer.
When the financial breakdown comes, the party is over and the time comes for analyzing what went wrong and what can be done to prevent it from happening again.
There begins the search for patterns of chaos.
About Bubbles
Greenspan was (and is) simply wrong. Bubbles are easy to predict. Most people will ignore the prediction but that doesn't save their pot-o'-gold. From what I have read, Krugman follows Greenspan on the topic. He is wrong also.
A leading modern proponent of Schumpeter's approach is Carlota Perez. Being Venezuealan and working in the UK, perhaps she doesn't care so much about winning prizes.
In her 2002 book "Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital" and follow-on essays, she correctly identified the Internet Bubble as the latest in a series of similiar cyclical events over 200 years and predicted that another more severe collapse was coming to "complete" the pattern. She was right. Krugman etal were wrong.
Perhaps the crucial news from this -- apart from being able to skip Krugman columns -- is that we are now entering the *inevitable* next phase in global industrial development. Carlota calls it Synergy.
She's correct and there is much we can learn from studying her work.
Mark Stahlman
New York City
A leading modern proponent of Schumpeter's approach is Carlota Perez. Being Venezuealan and working in the UK, perhaps she doesn't care so much about winning prizes.
In her 2002 book "Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital" and follow-on essays, she correctly identified the Internet Bubble as the latest in a series of similiar cyclical events over 200 years and predicted that another more severe collapse was coming to "complete" the pattern. She was right. Krugman etal were wrong.
Perhaps the crucial news from this -- apart from being able to skip Krugman columns -- is that we are now entering the *inevitable* next phase in global industrial development. Carlota calls it Synergy.
She's correct and there is much we can learn from studying her work.
Mark Stahlman
New York City
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
What is an economist?
"When the businessmen finally learned that the boom created by credit expansion cannot last and must necessarily lead to a slump, they realized that it was important for them to know in time the date of the break. They turned to economists for advice.
The economist knows that such a boom must result in a depression. But he does not and cannot know when the crisis will appear.
What the individual businessman needs in order to avoid losses is knowledge about the date of the turning point at a time when other businessmen still believe that the crash is farther away than is really the case.
If it were possible to calculate the future state of the market, the future would not be uncertain. There would be neither entrepreneurial loss nor profit. What people expect from the economists is beyond the power of any mortal man."
Let me put it in very simple words.
This whole crisis IS NOT something that happened, it was calculated and WANTED.
When you sell credits that are not CREDITS, but promises to pay with money that doesn´t exist and will never exist, when ECONOMISTS know and since they do not know when the bubble will eplode, don´t say anything, on the contrary let things go, let the BUSINESS men sell fraudes and fake bonds and stocks, let them play with people´s money, then I would say the whole thing would look patetic if was not criminal.
I ask, how can you think that people are so stupid as to be deceived twice?
How can you think to deserve the name of "economist" when you justify:
The economist knows that such a boom must result in a depression. But he does not and cannot know when the crisis will appear.
If he knows, why did he let it happen?Why not stopping it?
Stealing and cheating are crimes, and if you fail to report the thieves and the crooks, then, you are nothing else than an accomplice...
What people expect from the economists is beyond the power of any mortal man
Yes, we are at this point.
"One day posterity will remember, this strange era, these strange times, when Ordinary common honesty was called courage and the word courage was just a word."
The economist knows that such a boom must result in a depression. But he does not and cannot know when the crisis will appear.
What the individual businessman needs in order to avoid losses is knowledge about the date of the turning point at a time when other businessmen still believe that the crash is farther away than is really the case.
If it were possible to calculate the future state of the market, the future would not be uncertain. There would be neither entrepreneurial loss nor profit. What people expect from the economists is beyond the power of any mortal man."
Let me put it in very simple words.
This whole crisis IS NOT something that happened, it was calculated and WANTED.
When you sell credits that are not CREDITS, but promises to pay with money that doesn´t exist and will never exist, when ECONOMISTS know and since they do not know when the bubble will eplode, don´t say anything, on the contrary let things go, let the BUSINESS men sell fraudes and fake bonds and stocks, let them play with people´s money, then I would say the whole thing would look patetic if was not criminal.
I ask, how can you think that people are so stupid as to be deceived twice?
How can you think to deserve the name of "economist" when you justify:
The economist knows that such a boom must result in a depression. But he does not and cannot know when the crisis will appear.
If he knows, why did he let it happen?Why not stopping it?
Stealing and cheating are crimes, and if you fail to report the thieves and the crooks, then, you are nothing else than an accomplice...
What people expect from the economists is beyond the power of any mortal man
Yes, we are at this point.
"One day posterity will remember, this strange era, these strange times, when Ordinary common honesty was called courage and the word courage was just a word."
What Obama would need
Any president of USA faces two problems: the first is the necessity to get votes for the next election, if not for him, at least for the Party.
The second one is that he has too little time to do it as it should.
He was elected promising miracles on one end and compromising promising what couldn’t make any miracle with the people who sponsored his campaign.
Now.
If he had a longer period to rule he could just forget both and do what America needs: building a new future.
This requires hard decisions and difficult choices, that would alienate that majority who though that the way out was easy and painless, that a miracle could just let things as they were, may be better.
Ant it would also alienate the part of sponsors who paid for his campaign.
If he could prove that what he does actually produces good results, he could have both back, and at least one, and in a bigger number.
But four years is too short a period and he will have to leave in a moment when things would be even much worse.
He would be guilty not only to have failed, but failed been a traitor; not keeping his promises, lying about being what people believed he was: a Messiah on one hand and on the other spitting in the dish he was eating from.
If only people could see a little bit further, than Obama could be a good president.
The second one is that he has too little time to do it as it should.
He was elected promising miracles on one end and compromising promising what couldn’t make any miracle with the people who sponsored his campaign.
Now.
If he had a longer period to rule he could just forget both and do what America needs: building a new future.
This requires hard decisions and difficult choices, that would alienate that majority who though that the way out was easy and painless, that a miracle could just let things as they were, may be better.
Ant it would also alienate the part of sponsors who paid for his campaign.
If he could prove that what he does actually produces good results, he could have both back, and at least one, and in a bigger number.
But four years is too short a period and he will have to leave in a moment when things would be even much worse.
He would be guilty not only to have failed, but failed been a traitor; not keeping his promises, lying about being what people believed he was: a Messiah on one hand and on the other spitting in the dish he was eating from.
If only people could see a little bit further, than Obama could be a good president.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Our ECONOMY GURUS
What happened to the economics profession? And where does it go from here?
And in the real world, economists believed they had things under control: the “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved,” declared Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago.
During the golden years, financial economists came to believe that markets were inherently stable — indeed, that stocks and other assets were always priced just right.
The economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth.
Unfortunately, this romanticized and sanitized vision of the economy led most economists to ignore all the things that can go wrong. They turned a blind eye to the limitations of human rationality that often lead to bubbles and busts; to the problems of institutions that run amok; to the imperfections of markets — especially financial markets — that can cause the economy’s operating system to undergo sudden, unpredictable crashes; and to the dangers created when regulators don’t believe in regulation.
The New York Times
Mathematics is truth, but what they didn’t see (or didn’t want to see) is that mathematics work as long as you follow them.
If you mix real value with fake value, and you treat both the same, that is, if you price a good stock as much as a fake stock, or inflated stock and if you apply mathematical rules to them, is not the mathematic that is wrong, is the misuse of it.
Mathematic is numbers and those numbers have a value, but if the value is not there, it is not mathematics anymore, it is a crime.
Regulators shouldn’t believe in regulation, regulation is wrong.
What they should believe is one simple thing: CONTROL.
Check what is going on.
They classified as AAA stocks that were worth less than toilet paper.
Don´t come and tell me that they "GOT IT WRONG"
They got it as it pleased...
And in the real world, economists believed they had things under control: the “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved,” declared Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago.
During the golden years, financial economists came to believe that markets were inherently stable — indeed, that stocks and other assets were always priced just right.
The economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth.
Unfortunately, this romanticized and sanitized vision of the economy led most economists to ignore all the things that can go wrong. They turned a blind eye to the limitations of human rationality that often lead to bubbles and busts; to the problems of institutions that run amok; to the imperfections of markets — especially financial markets — that can cause the economy’s operating system to undergo sudden, unpredictable crashes; and to the dangers created when regulators don’t believe in regulation.
The New York Times
Mathematics is truth, but what they didn’t see (or didn’t want to see) is that mathematics work as long as you follow them.
If you mix real value with fake value, and you treat both the same, that is, if you price a good stock as much as a fake stock, or inflated stock and if you apply mathematical rules to them, is not the mathematic that is wrong, is the misuse of it.
Mathematic is numbers and those numbers have a value, but if the value is not there, it is not mathematics anymore, it is a crime.
Regulators shouldn’t believe in regulation, regulation is wrong.
What they should believe is one simple thing: CONTROL.
Check what is going on.
They classified as AAA stocks that were worth less than toilet paper.
Don´t come and tell me that they "GOT IT WRONG"
They got it as it pleased...
Friday, September 04, 2009
Bushaltestelle for Alzheimer patients
“It sounds funny,” said Old Lions Chairman Franz-Josef Goebel, “but it helps. Our members (Alzheimer patients) are 84 years-old on average. Their short-term memory hardly works at all, but the long-term memory is still active. They know the green and yellow bus sign and remember that waiting there means they will go home.” The result is that errant patients now wait for their trip home at the bus stop, before quickly forgetting why they were there in the first place.
“We will approach them and say that the bus is coming later today and invite them in to the home for a coffee,” said Mr Neureither. “Five minutes later they have completely forgotten they wanted to leave.”
The idea has proved so successful that it has now been adopted by several other homes across Germany.
File extension .OFX
OFX= Open financial exchange file
It is a client-server system that allows a direct connection between the member's computer and the financial institution's server.
Online Financial Exchange makes it easy the exchange of financial data by allowing members the chance to transfer funds and automatically download information using their Microsoft Money software.
MAC, Linux and Windows OS can open file extension ofx.
As computers play an important role in our lives, and almost everything we do is in one way or another connected with them, it is very important to have a basic knowledge of the various file extensions we come to.
First, it is important to know what kind of information is generally connected to the prefix and what it means.
Second, if we fail to open the file we have to know why and find out what to do.
The first reason for not being able to open a file with file extension ofx is because we lack the software to open it.
This extension shouldn’t be a big problem, since the three main OS can open it, so, in case we are unable to, the reasons could mainly be registry failures.
Cleaning the Windows registry could fix many of your errors in file extension ofx.
In order to do so, you have to run a complete scan of your registry looking for errors.
It is a client-server system that allows a direct connection between the member's computer and the financial institution's server.
Online Financial Exchange makes it easy the exchange of financial data by allowing members the chance to transfer funds and automatically download information using their Microsoft Money software.
MAC, Linux and Windows OS can open file extension ofx.
As computers play an important role in our lives, and almost everything we do is in one way or another connected with them, it is very important to have a basic knowledge of the various file extensions we come to.
First, it is important to know what kind of information is generally connected to the prefix and what it means.
Second, if we fail to open the file we have to know why and find out what to do.
The first reason for not being able to open a file with file extension ofx is because we lack the software to open it.
This extension shouldn’t be a big problem, since the three main OS can open it, so, in case we are unable to, the reasons could mainly be registry failures.
Cleaning the Windows registry could fix many of your errors in file extension ofx.
In order to do so, you have to run a complete scan of your registry looking for errors.
The cost of talent
Economists argue that there is no such thing as "a workforce shortage" -- there is only "a workforce shortage at a particular prevailing wage."
The situation is complicated by the fact that there's a lot of delay in the system: you don't produce a top-quality engineer in a week, or a month, or a year, or even a decade.
If, 15 years ago, entry-level engineers and computer scientists had been paid what entry-level lawyers and financiers were getting paid, then it's reasonable to guess that today, 15 years later, we would have lots more entry-level engineers and computer scientists.
So, if the question is "Do US companies offshore and hire H-1B's because of the need for talent, or because of the cost of talent?" the answer is "yes."
Ed Lazowska
The situation is complicated by the fact that there's a lot of delay in the system: you don't produce a top-quality engineer in a week, or a month, or a year, or even a decade.
If, 15 years ago, entry-level engineers and computer scientists had been paid what entry-level lawyers and financiers were getting paid, then it's reasonable to guess that today, 15 years later, we would have lots more entry-level engineers and computer scientists.
So, if the question is "Do US companies offshore and hire H-1B's because of the need for talent, or because of the cost of talent?" the answer is "yes."
Ed Lazowska
A steak without the bitter taste of moral pangs
Certainly the thought of a life with no pain would attract more than one person.
Scientists already know that humans can intellectually dissociate the sensation of pain from how much it bothers them. (that is how morphine works)
Lab experiments with mice have also suggested a way to disconnect that pain sensation without totally leaving animals vulnerable to a world of hurt.
Will the next step to breed animals "pain-free"?
And would this convince those with moral pangs, to eat more meat?
Another alternative for a cruelty-free burger may soon arise -- growing meat from cells in a lab. Scientists around the world have already managed the feat with varying degrees of success, although a commercially tasty and viable product remains a ways off.
Scientists already know that humans can intellectually dissociate the sensation of pain from how much it bothers them. (that is how morphine works)
Lab experiments with mice have also suggested a way to disconnect that pain sensation without totally leaving animals vulnerable to a world of hurt.
Will the next step to breed animals "pain-free"?
And would this convince those with moral pangs, to eat more meat?
Another alternative for a cruelty-free burger may soon arise -- growing meat from cells in a lab. Scientists around the world have already managed the feat with varying degrees of success, although a commercially tasty and viable product remains a ways off.
The Internet today, after 40 years...
Kleinrock ( the inventor of the Internet)said he might be able to predict what the Internet's infrastructure will look like years from now -- but there's just no way to tell what people will be doing with it.
"The Internet dominates my life," he said, laughing. "I'm always on. I am connected constantly. It's pervasive in my life. It's addictive. It's frustrating as heck with the spam and the slow processors and viruses and the fear that somebody from Nigeria wants to give me $500.
"You can characterize it as being the great leveler," Kleinrock added. "Wealth doesn't matter. Beauty doesn't matter. You can be short, fat, pimply and living in a hovel and reach out to people just as easy as someone who is tall, thin, handsome and living in a penthouse."
We have reached the point where it is not any more a matter of "telling what people will be doing with it", but what some will do out of it.
The Internet is not anymore a network among computers, but the mean to build a bigger supervised network who controls people controlling what they do and what the others want them to do.
It is the same story with new means.
Why does everything have to become a "commercial mean"?
"The Internet dominates my life," he said, laughing. "I'm always on. I am connected constantly. It's pervasive in my life. It's addictive. It's frustrating as heck with the spam and the slow processors and viruses and the fear that somebody from Nigeria wants to give me $500.
"You can characterize it as being the great leveler," Kleinrock added. "Wealth doesn't matter. Beauty doesn't matter. You can be short, fat, pimply and living in a hovel and reach out to people just as easy as someone who is tall, thin, handsome and living in a penthouse."
We have reached the point where it is not any more a matter of "telling what people will be doing with it", but what some will do out of it.
The Internet is not anymore a network among computers, but the mean to build a bigger supervised network who controls people controlling what they do and what the others want them to do.
It is the same story with new means.
Why does everything have to become a "commercial mean"?
How many sq Kilometers to power the world only with solar energy?
Very little.
In 2030 we would just need 496,805 square Kilometers.
Why not beginning NOW?
In 2030 we would just need 496,805 square Kilometers.
Why not beginning NOW?
LED? No, OLED
The appearance of LG's 15-inch OLED TV at IFA 2009 is a small (but significant) step on the road to replacing LCD, LED and plasma technology.
Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) technology is poised to oust LCD just as LCD stuck the knife into the CRT.
An OLED panel consists of a layer of organic, light-emitting material sandwiched between two conductors (an anode and a cathode). This diode layer emits light when an electric current is passed through it. A TV panel features thousands of OLED pixels mounted in rows and columns onto a TFT array. This is referred to as an Active Matrix OLED or AMOLED display.
Advantages:
No backlighting required
OLED outperforms LCD and LED
Sony, LG and Samsung love OLED
OLED is available now (albeit in small sizes)
OLED can be 'flexible'
OLED can be 'transparent'
But:
OLED is expensive
It is not a perfect Technology
OLED displays are expensive to manufacture
There are concerns about its lifespan
more...
Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) technology is poised to oust LCD just as LCD stuck the knife into the CRT.
An OLED panel consists of a layer of organic, light-emitting material sandwiched between two conductors (an anode and a cathode). This diode layer emits light when an electric current is passed through it. A TV panel features thousands of OLED pixels mounted in rows and columns onto a TFT array. This is referred to as an Active Matrix OLED or AMOLED display.
Advantages:
No backlighting required
OLED outperforms LCD and LED
Sony, LG and Samsung love OLED
OLED is available now (albeit in small sizes)
OLED can be 'flexible'
OLED can be 'transparent'
But:
OLED is expensive
It is not a perfect Technology
OLED displays are expensive to manufacture
There are concerns about its lifespan
more...
Vaccine from China?
"Scientists in China claim they have produced swine flu's first "magic bullet" - a vaccine that prevents the virus in a single dose.
China's State Food and Drug Administration said it approved the vaccine Sinovac after testing was completed last month.
It is the first "one shot" vaccine to be approved by the Chinese regulator, and is said to be effective on people aged between three and 60 years old."
No, thanks, I think I prefer the flu.
China's State Food and Drug Administration said it approved the vaccine Sinovac after testing was completed last month.
It is the first "one shot" vaccine to be approved by the Chinese regulator, and is said to be effective on people aged between three and 60 years old."
No, thanks, I think I prefer the flu.
The secret of beauty is knowing how to look beautiful
Once I decided to hide all mirrors in my house and, where not possible, to walk in front of them looking on the other side.
It was because I didn’t like myself and I didn’t want to see my reflection.
That lasted some time.
Then one magical day I changed my hair style and found a very nice dress which fit me and showed the best of me, hiding the worst, and I began liking what I saw.
I realized that looking at the others and trying to be like them didn’t work for me.
Because they were tall and could afford things I couldn’t, and they had curly and beautiful hair, while mine was the opposite.
It is just understanding how you are and making the best out of it that can help to change your look.
If you are a size plus you need special clothes to look your best.
I have skinny friends that can wear (almost) anything they like, but that doesn’t mean that I cannot look as glamorous as them, sometimes, I look even better.
For example.
I like very tight pants, and one would think they are not good if you have a few pounds more.
They look perfect if you are smart enough to wear a larger blouse, that covers what has to be covered.
I like a classic look and would wear a pair of tight black trousers with a very nice linen shirt, not too big, not too tight, and not too long.
I also do not dislike jeans and I prefer the straight leg type, because I am not tall and certainly do not want to look little.
I once overheard a comment of two men looking at me:
"She is certainly not thin, but she is very well shaped..."
Well, that is exactly the point.
And where can you find the right outfit also for "Plus" sizes?
Simply on Women’s Clothing Catalogues!
It was because I didn’t like myself and I didn’t want to see my reflection.
That lasted some time.
Then one magical day I changed my hair style and found a very nice dress which fit me and showed the best of me, hiding the worst, and I began liking what I saw.
I realized that looking at the others and trying to be like them didn’t work for me.
Because they were tall and could afford things I couldn’t, and they had curly and beautiful hair, while mine was the opposite.
It is just understanding how you are and making the best out of it that can help to change your look.
If you are a size plus you need special clothes to look your best.
I have skinny friends that can wear (almost) anything they like, but that doesn’t mean that I cannot look as glamorous as them, sometimes, I look even better.
For example.
I like very tight pants, and one would think they are not good if you have a few pounds more.
They look perfect if you are smart enough to wear a larger blouse, that covers what has to be covered.
I like a classic look and would wear a pair of tight black trousers with a very nice linen shirt, not too big, not too tight, and not too long.
I also do not dislike jeans and I prefer the straight leg type, because I am not tall and certainly do not want to look little.
I once overheard a comment of two men looking at me:
"She is certainly not thin, but she is very well shaped..."
Well, that is exactly the point.
And where can you find the right outfit also for "Plus" sizes?
Simply on Women’s Clothing Catalogues!
No return ticket to Mars
On The New York Times:
"The most challenging impediment to human travel to Mars does not seem to involve the complicated launching, propulsion, guidance or landing technologies but something far more mundane: the radiation emanating from the Sun’s cosmic rays. The shielding necessary to ensure the astronauts do not get a lethal dose of solar radiation on a round trip to Mars may very well make the spacecraft so heavy that the amount of fuel needed becomes prohibitive.
There is, however, a way to surmount this problem while reducing the cost and technical requirements, but it demands that we ask this vexing question: Why are we so interested in bringing the Mars astronauts home again?"
The logical answer would be: because you wouldn’t find anybody eager to go into a no way back trip.
But:
"If it sounds unrealistic to suggest that astronauts would be willing to leave home never to return alive, then consider the results of several informal surveys I and several colleagues have conducted recently. One of my peers in Arizona recently accompanied a group of scientists and engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on a geological field trip. During the day, he asked how many would be willing to go on a one-way mission into space. Every member of the group raised his hand.
The lure of space travel remains intoxicating for a generation brought up on “Star Trek” and “Star Wars.”
Conclusion:
"Delivering food and supplies to these new pioneers — along with the tools to grow and build whatever they need, for however long they live on the red planet — is likewise more reasonable and may be less expensive than designing a ticket home. "
I wouldn’t certainly be among them.
But then, I never liked “Star Trek” and “Star Wars.”
"The most challenging impediment to human travel to Mars does not seem to involve the complicated launching, propulsion, guidance or landing technologies but something far more mundane: the radiation emanating from the Sun’s cosmic rays. The shielding necessary to ensure the astronauts do not get a lethal dose of solar radiation on a round trip to Mars may very well make the spacecraft so heavy that the amount of fuel needed becomes prohibitive.
There is, however, a way to surmount this problem while reducing the cost and technical requirements, but it demands that we ask this vexing question: Why are we so interested in bringing the Mars astronauts home again?"
The logical answer would be: because you wouldn’t find anybody eager to go into a no way back trip.
But:
"If it sounds unrealistic to suggest that astronauts would be willing to leave home never to return alive, then consider the results of several informal surveys I and several colleagues have conducted recently. One of my peers in Arizona recently accompanied a group of scientists and engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on a geological field trip. During the day, he asked how many would be willing to go on a one-way mission into space. Every member of the group raised his hand.
The lure of space travel remains intoxicating for a generation brought up on “Star Trek” and “Star Wars.”
Conclusion:
"Delivering food and supplies to these new pioneers — along with the tools to grow and build whatever they need, for however long they live on the red planet — is likewise more reasonable and may be less expensive than designing a ticket home. "
I wouldn’t certainly be among them.
But then, I never liked “Star Trek” and “Star Wars.”
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Looking for a gold retirement?
Traditionally, gold has had an inverse relationship with the stock market. When stocks go up, the price of gold usually falls; when stocks flounder, the price of gold usually skyrockets.
Some experts believe it could mean a lot for investors in the near future, because gold is once again catching the eye of the investor.
People who have not liked gold are re-examining their viewpoint.
It is better late than never.
If you still have something to invest, this is without any doubt the time to purchase gold.
The ones who did, for example, invest $25,000 in gold bullion coins in the early 70’s they could count on $524,999.00 today.
I am positively sure that there is no other better investment.
A smart investment could be to purchase gold coins.
If you had done so in the past, for example purchasing investor gold coins for $25,000, now you would sell that gold for $1,377,257.00.
If you have any intention to purchase gold bullion coins, it would be smart to choose Gold American Eagles because the value of these is tied to the gold price.
So, forget any other type of investment if you are looking for a "gold" retirement.
Some experts believe it could mean a lot for investors in the near future, because gold is once again catching the eye of the investor.
People who have not liked gold are re-examining their viewpoint.
It is better late than never.
If you still have something to invest, this is without any doubt the time to purchase gold.
The ones who did, for example, invest $25,000 in gold bullion coins in the early 70’s they could count on $524,999.00 today.
I am positively sure that there is no other better investment.
A smart investment could be to purchase gold coins.
If you had done so in the past, for example purchasing investor gold coins for $25,000, now you would sell that gold for $1,377,257.00.
If you have any intention to purchase gold bullion coins, it would be smart to choose Gold American Eagles because the value of these is tied to the gold price.
So, forget any other type of investment if you are looking for a "gold" retirement.
The Public MUST be informed
A collaborative team of international EMF activists has released a report detailing eleven design flaws of the 13-country, Telecom-funded Interphone study.
The exposé discusses research on cell phones and brain tumors, concluding that:
•There is a risk of brain tumors from cell phone use
•Telecom funded studies underestimate the risk of brain tumors
•Children have larger risks than adults for brain tumors
The Interphone study, begun in 1999, was intended to determine the risks of brain tumors, but its full publication has been held up for years. Components of this study published to date reveal what the authors call a ‘systemic-skew’, greatly underestimating brain tumor risk.
The design flaws include categorizing subjects who used portable phones (which emit the same microwave radiation as cell phones,) as ‘unexposed’; exclusion of many types of brain tumors; exclusion of people who had died, or were too ill to be interviewed as a consequence of their brain tumor; and exclusion of children and young adults, who are more vulnerable.
Ronald B. Herberman, MD, Director Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute has stated,
“Based on substantial evidence, especially from industry-independent studies that long term exposure to radiofrequency radiation may lead to increased risk for brain tumors, I issued a precautionary advisory last year to faculty and staff of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.
Since then, my particular concern about exposure of children to radiofrequency has been supported by a report from Dr. Lennart Hardell. Some of my scientific colleagues have expressed skepticism about the reported biological effects, especially DNA0A damage by radiofequency radiation, because of the absence of a demonstrated underlying molecular mechanism.
However, based on the precautionary principle, I believe it is more prudent to take seriously the reports by multiple investigators that radiofrequency can damage DNA and increase the risk for brain tumors, and for industry-independent agencies to provide needed funding for detailed research to ascertain the molecular basis for such effects.”
Lloyd Morgan, lead author and member of the Bioelectromagnetics Society says,
“Exposure to cell phone radiation is the largest human health experiment ever undertaken, without informed consent, and has some 4 billion participants enrolled.
Science has shown increased risk of brain tumors from use of cell phones, as well as increased risk of eye cancer, salivary gland tumors, testicular cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia.
The public must be informed.”
How mobile phone radiation penetrates the brain
The exposé discusses research on cell phones and brain tumors, concluding that:
•There is a risk of brain tumors from cell phone use
•Telecom funded studies underestimate the risk of brain tumors
•Children have larger risks than adults for brain tumors
The Interphone study, begun in 1999, was intended to determine the risks of brain tumors, but its full publication has been held up for years. Components of this study published to date reveal what the authors call a ‘systemic-skew’, greatly underestimating brain tumor risk.
The design flaws include categorizing subjects who used portable phones (which emit the same microwave radiation as cell phones,) as ‘unexposed’; exclusion of many types of brain tumors; exclusion of people who had died, or were too ill to be interviewed as a consequence of their brain tumor; and exclusion of children and young adults, who are more vulnerable.
Ronald B. Herberman, MD, Director Emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute has stated,
“Based on substantial evidence, especially from industry-independent studies that long term exposure to radiofrequency radiation may lead to increased risk for brain tumors, I issued a precautionary advisory last year to faculty and staff of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.
Since then, my particular concern about exposure of children to radiofrequency has been supported by a report from Dr. Lennart Hardell. Some of my scientific colleagues have expressed skepticism about the reported biological effects, especially DNA0A damage by radiofequency radiation, because of the absence of a demonstrated underlying molecular mechanism.
However, based on the precautionary principle, I believe it is more prudent to take seriously the reports by multiple investigators that radiofrequency can damage DNA and increase the risk for brain tumors, and for industry-independent agencies to provide needed funding for detailed research to ascertain the molecular basis for such effects.”
Lloyd Morgan, lead author and member of the Bioelectromagnetics Society says,
“Exposure to cell phone radiation is the largest human health experiment ever undertaken, without informed consent, and has some 4 billion participants enrolled.
Science has shown increased risk of brain tumors from use of cell phones, as well as increased risk of eye cancer, salivary gland tumors, testicular cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukemia.
The public must be informed.”
How mobile phone radiation penetrates the brain
File extension .MSO
As the name can indicate, the file extension mso is a file created when saving a Microsoft Office document as a Web page, contains information about objects included in the original file and will certainly be unreadable since the contents are encoded.
The file extension mso is used for sending Microsoft Word documents via email.
Most likely the Oledata.mso file will appear as a separate attachment on PC if you do not install Microsoft Outlook 2000 or later versions.
It contains information of the attachment to be rendered within the e-mail message.
A big number of conflicts in the file extension mso (and with a lot of other file extensions) are registry failures.
So cleaning the Windows registry may fix many of your errors in MSO file formats.
In order to do so, you have to run a complete scan of your registry looking for errors.
The file extension mso is used for sending Microsoft Word documents via email.
Most likely the Oledata.mso file will appear as a separate attachment on PC if you do not install Microsoft Outlook 2000 or later versions.
It contains information of the attachment to be rendered within the e-mail message.
A big number of conflicts in the file extension mso (and with a lot of other file extensions) are registry failures.
So cleaning the Windows registry may fix many of your errors in MSO file formats.
In order to do so, you have to run a complete scan of your registry looking for errors.
The future of Stem Cells
Human egg cells can be tweaked to give rise to valued stem cells that match the tissue types of many different groups of people, U.S. and Russian researchers reported on Wednesday.
They said the stem cells they have created from unfertilized human eggs look and act like embryonic stem cells.
And they have been carefully tissue-matched in the same way as bone marrow donations to prevent the risk of rejection if they are transplanted into people.
The team at California-based International Stem Cell Corp. hopes to create a bank of tissue-matched stem cells that could be used as transplants that a patient's immune system would accept.
"The process is efficient, it is relatively safe and it is ethically sound," Jeffrey Janus, president and director of research at the company, said in a telephone interview.
The cells are created by a process known as parthenogenesis, a word that comes from Latin and Greek roots meaning virgin beginning.
It involves chemically tricking an egg into developing without being fertilized by sperm.
Several teams have now created parthenogenetic human stem cells from eggs. Other teams have created similar cells using human skin cells or human embryos.
They said the stem cells they have created from unfertilized human eggs look and act like embryonic stem cells.
And they have been carefully tissue-matched in the same way as bone marrow donations to prevent the risk of rejection if they are transplanted into people.
The team at California-based International Stem Cell Corp. hopes to create a bank of tissue-matched stem cells that could be used as transplants that a patient's immune system would accept.
"The process is efficient, it is relatively safe and it is ethically sound," Jeffrey Janus, president and director of research at the company, said in a telephone interview.
The cells are created by a process known as parthenogenesis, a word that comes from Latin and Greek roots meaning virgin beginning.
It involves chemically tricking an egg into developing without being fertilized by sperm.
Several teams have now created parthenogenetic human stem cells from eggs. Other teams have created similar cells using human skin cells or human embryos.
File extension .PART
As the name says file extension part means literally: Partially downloaded file and it is mainly used when downloading unfinished downloaded files from internet.
It is also used by Firefox browser to store a partially downloaded file and after downloading the complete file, it is renamed into the right original file type.
The file extension part is used in case of large amounts of information, to avoid, in case of connection break, that the data already downloaded go lost.
It is the most used among P2P users.
In this case networks files are not stored on one central server, but shared among computers, which divide and store small files of a complete movie or other.
P2P downloading is never 100% safe, on the contrary, one should be aware that these files can often contain Trojans and viruses. (Besides of course the legal consequences of downloading illegal content)
Also in this case, if Windows is unable to open the file extension part you may have registry related errors or may not have the appropriate program installed.
And also in this case it could be very useful to run a scan of your registry.
It is also used by Firefox browser to store a partially downloaded file and after downloading the complete file, it is renamed into the right original file type.
The file extension part is used in case of large amounts of information, to avoid, in case of connection break, that the data already downloaded go lost.
It is the most used among P2P users.
In this case networks files are not stored on one central server, but shared among computers, which divide and store small files of a complete movie or other.
P2P downloading is never 100% safe, on the contrary, one should be aware that these files can often contain Trojans and viruses. (Besides of course the legal consequences of downloading illegal content)
Also in this case, if Windows is unable to open the file extension part you may have registry related errors or may not have the appropriate program installed.
And also in this case it could be very useful to run a scan of your registry.
The war of the Future is most likely to be a Cyber war
Numerous hacks from the Far East sure look like concerted attacks against U.S. military installations, but nobody's saying for sure.
Is the United States under attack again?
Recent reports have the U.S. military not quite blaming the Chinese military for a long string of cyber-attacks against U.S. military computers. It sure sounds like they believe it, but they're not quite saying it. Also left unsaid is how much actual damage and compromise has happened already.
A Wall Street Journal article March 12 described how military networks are increasingly the targets of hackers. The targets are not limited to actual Department of Defense networks, but can also include defense industries and think tanks. The full article is available only to subscribers. Another detailed article on the same material is available on DailyTech.
The Journal article quotes Gen. Kevin Chilton, "[t]he top U.S. commander in charge of cyberspace," as saying that the networks are under attack, and that there is significant evidence implicating the Chinese but not outright accusing them. "The thing about China that gives you pause is that they've written openly about their emphasis in particular areas--space and cyberspace," he said.
International cyber-wars are becoming a not-uncommon occurrence. Last year the Internet infrastructure of Estonia was largely taken down by attacks from Russia, following a dispute with Russia over the fate of a World War II memorial. But that attack was against the civilian Internet infrastructure: the ISPs and banks, for example, not the Estonian military or government.
Such attacks can impact the entire Internet, and are fundamentally different from targeted hacks against specific installations. It's the difference between war and espionage.
I asked Gadi Evron, who consulted on the Estonian responses to the attacks they received. He confirms that China is a dangerous place for the Internet. "I can confirm targeted attacks with sophisticated technologies have been launched against obvious enemies of China. I can also confirm that China's network is the most plagued with cyber-crime in the world, being abused and used to launch attacks ranging from fraud to denial-of-service, worldwide. Who is behind these attacks can't be easily said, but it can be an American cyber-criminal, a Nigerian spammer or the Chinese themselves."
The Chinese government may try to exert control over the Internet that we find despotic, but they're not the only people using it there. Other actors in China can and do engage in the same Internet crimes that occur everywhere else.
Evron adds: "Due to IP address spoofing and the fact criminals can take over and use computers worldwide as if they were their own, being sure about this is not possible by technical means--the Internet is perfect for plausible deniability."
But plausible deniability is not proof either way, and it's still reasonable for intelligence estimators like General Chilton to come to reasonable conclusions based on evidence. Even if you can't prove that the government was involved in an attack coming from China, it still bears some responsibility.
So is this a unilateral war or are we also attacking them? Don't expect a straight answer out of the U.S. military on that one either, or from the Chinese military for that matter. We have plenty of civilian and military networks capable of performing similar attacks and having an interest in doing so. It's just another espionage tool, and no more or less moral than others we've used in the past.
Security Center Editor Larry Seltzer has worked in and written about the computer industry since 1983.
Is the United States under attack again?
Recent reports have the U.S. military not quite blaming the Chinese military for a long string of cyber-attacks against U.S. military computers. It sure sounds like they believe it, but they're not quite saying it. Also left unsaid is how much actual damage and compromise has happened already.
A Wall Street Journal article March 12 described how military networks are increasingly the targets of hackers. The targets are not limited to actual Department of Defense networks, but can also include defense industries and think tanks. The full article is available only to subscribers. Another detailed article on the same material is available on DailyTech.
The Journal article quotes Gen. Kevin Chilton, "[t]he top U.S. commander in charge of cyberspace," as saying that the networks are under attack, and that there is significant evidence implicating the Chinese but not outright accusing them. "The thing about China that gives you pause is that they've written openly about their emphasis in particular areas--space and cyberspace," he said.
International cyber-wars are becoming a not-uncommon occurrence. Last year the Internet infrastructure of Estonia was largely taken down by attacks from Russia, following a dispute with Russia over the fate of a World War II memorial. But that attack was against the civilian Internet infrastructure: the ISPs and banks, for example, not the Estonian military or government.
Such attacks can impact the entire Internet, and are fundamentally different from targeted hacks against specific installations. It's the difference between war and espionage.
I asked Gadi Evron, who consulted on the Estonian responses to the attacks they received. He confirms that China is a dangerous place for the Internet. "I can confirm targeted attacks with sophisticated technologies have been launched against obvious enemies of China. I can also confirm that China's network is the most plagued with cyber-crime in the world, being abused and used to launch attacks ranging from fraud to denial-of-service, worldwide. Who is behind these attacks can't be easily said, but it can be an American cyber-criminal, a Nigerian spammer or the Chinese themselves."
The Chinese government may try to exert control over the Internet that we find despotic, but they're not the only people using it there. Other actors in China can and do engage in the same Internet crimes that occur everywhere else.
Evron adds: "Due to IP address spoofing and the fact criminals can take over and use computers worldwide as if they were their own, being sure about this is not possible by technical means--the Internet is perfect for plausible deniability."
But plausible deniability is not proof either way, and it's still reasonable for intelligence estimators like General Chilton to come to reasonable conclusions based on evidence. Even if you can't prove that the government was involved in an attack coming from China, it still bears some responsibility.
So is this a unilateral war or are we also attacking them? Don't expect a straight answer out of the U.S. military on that one either, or from the Chinese military for that matter. We have plenty of civilian and military networks capable of performing similar attacks and having an interest in doing so. It's just another espionage tool, and no more or less moral than others we've used in the past.
Security Center Editor Larry Seltzer has worked in and written about the computer industry since 1983.
File extension .PST
I had to deal with the file extension pst several times, when I had to do with my email folder.
Infact this extension includes all E-mail folders, addresses or anything else that Outlook 97, 2K or XP collects.
The file extension pst has a 2GB file size limit. When you get close to this size Outlook becomes extremely unstable to the point of not being able to clicking on any message, folder, etc. without locking Outlook.
The only thing to do in this case is trying to shrinking the file, deleting messages or clearing the Delete Items folder.
Microsoft provides a free add-in for backing up PST files.
If you cannot open a PST file, it is either because you do not have the appropriate program install, or you have registry errors.
In this case it could be useful to scan the registry.
Unlike the full version of Outlook, Outlook Express does not use the file extension pst, however, Outlook Express can import PST data using the program's Import feature.
file extension pst
Infact this extension includes all E-mail folders, addresses or anything else that Outlook 97, 2K or XP collects.
The file extension pst has a 2GB file size limit. When you get close to this size Outlook becomes extremely unstable to the point of not being able to clicking on any message, folder, etc. without locking Outlook.
The only thing to do in this case is trying to shrinking the file, deleting messages or clearing the Delete Items folder.
Microsoft provides a free add-in for backing up PST files.
If you cannot open a PST file, it is either because you do not have the appropriate program install, or you have registry errors.
In this case it could be useful to scan the registry.
Unlike the full version of Outlook, Outlook Express does not use the file extension pst, however, Outlook Express can import PST data using the program's Import feature.
file extension pst
The end of copyrights
"If he seriously believes that BitTorrent users are the same as eMusic or iTunes customers, he should have another look at the data. His service and others will be more profitable, not less. Like public radio, music that "feels free" at the moment of use leads to the use of more music. Those with more time than money are not likely his audience; People with more money than time will always shop for music at convenient services like his.
Rental, sales and the public library have co-existed well for a long period of time, and always will.
End prohibition. You can get a fee from the liquor or the music or the service or what have you. It's time to move forward."
Jim Griffin [griffin@onehouse.com]
There are things that evolve, either we want it or not.
Technology changes everybody's life.
When infringing copyrights is done by a few people is a crime, when is done by millions it becomes a habit you cannot control.
Kill the Internet and you will stop illegal downloading, but you will also stop the Future.
It's like as if people at the beginning of 1800 wouldn't have used the machines for saving human jobs.
Progress is something you cannot stop with the bad and the good which it brings.
Rental, sales and the public library have co-existed well for a long period of time, and always will.
End prohibition. You can get a fee from the liquor or the music or the service or what have you. It's time to move forward."
Jim Griffin [griffin@onehouse.com]
There are things that evolve, either we want it or not.
Technology changes everybody's life.
When infringing copyrights is done by a few people is a crime, when is done by millions it becomes a habit you cannot control.
Kill the Internet and you will stop illegal downloading, but you will also stop the Future.
It's like as if people at the beginning of 1800 wouldn't have used the machines for saving human jobs.
Progress is something you cannot stop with the bad and the good which it brings.
File extension .JAD
JAD, file extension jad, is an acronym for Java Application Descriptor and this extension file is mainly used to be able run small Java based applications on a mobile phone.
Those applications are for example Video Games.
file extension jad describes a standard file format, that means that a certain number of programs support it.
One of their main advantage of the file extension jad is that, at the moment, there are not Malware, Trojans or viruses known to harm people’s computer systems, so they are quite safe to use.
Furthermore they are usually and easily available, quite easy to install, nevertheless users should scan their systems for any outdated drivers, which cause slowdowns and errors.
They should also check if they have installed the correct program in their systems.
Scanning the system could be the easy way to remove any errors that are usually brought by wrong associations.
Those applications are for example Video Games.
file extension jad describes a standard file format, that means that a certain number of programs support it.
One of their main advantage of the file extension jad is that, at the moment, there are not Malware, Trojans or viruses known to harm people’s computer systems, so they are quite safe to use.
Furthermore they are usually and easily available, quite easy to install, nevertheless users should scan their systems for any outdated drivers, which cause slowdowns and errors.
They should also check if they have installed the correct program in their systems.
Scanning the system could be the easy way to remove any errors that are usually brought by wrong associations.
Regarding Artificial Intelligence
I am NOT a computer scientist, even though computers fascinate me.
What I wanted to point out was that Beauty is a subjective matter, even though you can input several features common to most men about what a beautiful woman should be.
Computers work as well as the programmer who makes a program is good.
They are machines and do JUST what they are taught to do.
You can input millions of variables and the computer can be taught to output solutions with a syllogistic intelligence.
I see the artificial intelligence more as a matter of speed and ability to do fairly complicated things.
To be comparable to the human brain artificial intelligence has to accommodate subjective as well as objective processes.
And that is about the unpredictable and irrational, in other words, behaving like humans.
We are overly impressed by the ability to calculate and rationalize, but still it lacks the ability to see possibilities and make connections.
And connections are what life is about.
What I wanted to point out was that Beauty is a subjective matter, even though you can input several features common to most men about what a beautiful woman should be.
Computers work as well as the programmer who makes a program is good.
They are machines and do JUST what they are taught to do.
You can input millions of variables and the computer can be taught to output solutions with a syllogistic intelligence.
I see the artificial intelligence more as a matter of speed and ability to do fairly complicated things.
To be comparable to the human brain artificial intelligence has to accommodate subjective as well as objective processes.
And that is about the unpredictable and irrational, in other words, behaving like humans.
We are overly impressed by the ability to calculate and rationalize, but still it lacks the ability to see possibilities and make connections.
And connections are what life is about.
Multimedia.3GP
"A filename extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file applied to indicate the encoding convention (file format) of its contents."
If you have for example a .txt you know that the file is a text and you also can have an idea on which kind of software you will be able to run it.
For example in the case of .TXT you will choose something like notepad.
A file extension 3gp is a file extension mostly used for creation, delivery and playback of multimedia over 3rd generation, high-speed wireless networks.
If your OS is unable to open files with file extension 3gpyou may not have the appropriate program installed and in this case you should run a registry scan.
This file extension is probably very well know by the millions of happy owners of a video-capable cell phone.
Infact the file extension 3gpis the file extension needed to transmit audio/video multimedia files between cell phones and the Internet.
It is based on the MP4 format.
These extensions define compressed files designed for smaller file sizes so video can be supported by mobile phones.
.3gp files can be viewed directly on a mobile phone, sent to another phone or transferred to a home computer
If you have for example a .txt you know that the file is a text and you also can have an idea on which kind of software you will be able to run it.
For example in the case of .TXT you will choose something like notepad.
A file extension 3gp is a file extension mostly used for creation, delivery and playback of multimedia over 3rd generation, high-speed wireless networks.
If your OS is unable to open files with file extension 3gpyou may not have the appropriate program installed and in this case you should run a registry scan.
This file extension is probably very well know by the millions of happy owners of a video-capable cell phone.
Infact the file extension 3gpis the file extension needed to transmit audio/video multimedia files between cell phones and the Internet.
It is based on the MP4 format.
These extensions define compressed files designed for smaller file sizes so video can be supported by mobile phones.
.3gp files can be viewed directly on a mobile phone, sent to another phone or transferred to a home computer
Market Survey
"For one answer to the nation's most pressing economic question -- when will the recession end? -- just take a peek inside the American man's underwear drawer.
There may be some new pairs there, judging by recent reports from retailers and analysts, and that could mean better days ahead for everyone.
Here's the theory, briefly: Sales of men's underwear typically are stable because they rank as a necessity. But during times of severe financial strain, men will try to stretch the time between buying new pairs, causing underwear sales to dip."
The Washington Post
The whole matter could be seen in a totally different way.
In the last decades we were flooded with tons of cheap products from China.
And we still are.
You can fill your socks drawer with 50 brand new pair, in assorted colors, for Euro 9.99.
You go on eBay and you can have a life supply for that amount.
But we should be a little more accurate with words, giving them the right meaning.
Here we are talking of "what looks like a year supply" but in reality it isn’t.
Unless you wear the same for one week without washing and on Monday morning you use a new pair...
Because at the first good wash they will come out in an unusable shape.
If you are lucky you will just loose the elastic, and if you do not feel uncomfortable to have the upper part close to the feet, you can eventually still wear them for one more week.
If you have no hole with the first washing, you certainly will with the second and that will mean you HAVE to use a new pair.
So, it is true that we tend to repeat the same mistakes over and over, but usually, the first reaction should be buying five new pairs at the price of Euro 5 each and forget about socks for some time.
Advantages:
1) You won’t need extra space.
2) You will have comfortable and good looking socks.
3) You will be able to change them and wash them as often as you like
4) It will look that the growth in sales of men's socks slows as the recession takes hold.
We are going into a new market phase, in which quality will outnumber quantity.
And I am also talking about life quality...
There may be some new pairs there, judging by recent reports from retailers and analysts, and that could mean better days ahead for everyone.
Here's the theory, briefly: Sales of men's underwear typically are stable because they rank as a necessity. But during times of severe financial strain, men will try to stretch the time between buying new pairs, causing underwear sales to dip."
The Washington Post
The whole matter could be seen in a totally different way.
In the last decades we were flooded with tons of cheap products from China.
And we still are.
You can fill your socks drawer with 50 brand new pair, in assorted colors, for Euro 9.99.
You go on eBay and you can have a life supply for that amount.
But we should be a little more accurate with words, giving them the right meaning.
Here we are talking of "what looks like a year supply" but in reality it isn’t.
Unless you wear the same for one week without washing and on Monday morning you use a new pair...
Because at the first good wash they will come out in an unusable shape.
If you are lucky you will just loose the elastic, and if you do not feel uncomfortable to have the upper part close to the feet, you can eventually still wear them for one more week.
If you have no hole with the first washing, you certainly will with the second and that will mean you HAVE to use a new pair.
So, it is true that we tend to repeat the same mistakes over and over, but usually, the first reaction should be buying five new pairs at the price of Euro 5 each and forget about socks for some time.
Advantages:
1) You won’t need extra space.
2) You will have comfortable and good looking socks.
3) You will be able to change them and wash them as often as you like
4) It will look that the growth in sales of men's socks slows as the recession takes hold.
We are going into a new market phase, in which quality will outnumber quantity.
And I am also talking about life quality...
.QIF file extension
What is the file extension qif?
Probably who is familiar with financial and accounting programs will know it.
In a few words it is the ASCII text file used by Quicken, a financial software created for accounting and financial applications.
The programs that can open .qif files are for Mac OS Intuit Quicken and for Windows OS Intuit Quicken and Microsoft money.
The programs allow to move data between applications through export and import, and transfer them via an internet connection, among users and financial institutions.
The file extension qif is an acronym for Quicken Interchange Format, a protocol (or set of rules used by computers) used to transfer data.
A file extension qif can be edited in any text-editing program.
QIF files may need to be edited when moving files from a Quicken for Windows program to a Quicken for Mac program.
It is not a proprietary data format, since Intuit, which originally developed QIF, does not endorse or provide support for this format.
Probably who is familiar with financial and accounting programs will know it.
In a few words it is the ASCII text file used by Quicken, a financial software created for accounting and financial applications.
The programs that can open .qif files are for Mac OS Intuit Quicken and for Windows OS Intuit Quicken and Microsoft money.
The programs allow to move data between applications through export and import, and transfer them via an internet connection, among users and financial institutions.
The file extension qif is an acronym for Quicken Interchange Format, a protocol (or set of rules used by computers) used to transfer data.
A file extension qif can be edited in any text-editing program.
QIF files may need to be edited when moving files from a Quicken for Windows program to a Quicken for Mac program.
It is not a proprietary data format, since Intuit, which originally developed QIF, does not endorse or provide support for this format.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
8 millions wasted
The Swedish gaming executive who’s gambling nearly $8 million buying The Pirate Bay is convinced he can turn the 20 million users of the world’s most notorious file sharing site into well-behaved consumers — even amid a deluge of account-deletion requests.
He is wrong...
He is wrong...
Freedom of speech, but not freedom of drawing
"Flickr really stepped in it this time. And they’ve sparked a free speech and copyright fascism debate that is unlikely to cool down any time soon.
Sometime last week they took down a photoshopped image of President Obama that makes him look like the Heath Ledger (Joker) character from The Dark Knight. The image was created and uploaded to Flickr by 20 year old college student Firas Alkhateeb while “bored over winter school break.” It was also later altered yet again by someone else and used to create anti-obama posters that went up in Los Angeles.
Thomas Hawk has a good overview of some of the other details, but the short version is the image was removed by Flickr sometime last week due to “due to copyright-infringement concerns.”
"In the past Flickr has deleted accounts of users who are critical of President Obama, but as far as I know nothing like this was done to users who were critical of Bush.
It’s clear that the Flickr team wanted to take this image down. Not only was the image removed, but the entire page was taken down with all the comments to the image. There’s nothing in the DMCA that says you have to do that, too."
more...
Sometime last week they took down a photoshopped image of President Obama that makes him look like the Heath Ledger (Joker) character from The Dark Knight. The image was created and uploaded to Flickr by 20 year old college student Firas Alkhateeb while “bored over winter school break.” It was also later altered yet again by someone else and used to create anti-obama posters that went up in Los Angeles.
Thomas Hawk has a good overview of some of the other details, but the short version is the image was removed by Flickr sometime last week due to “due to copyright-infringement concerns.”
"In the past Flickr has deleted accounts of users who are critical of President Obama, but as far as I know nothing like this was done to users who were critical of Bush.
It’s clear that the Flickr team wanted to take this image down. Not only was the image removed, but the entire page was taken down with all the comments to the image. There’s nothing in the DMCA that says you have to do that, too."
more...
Modern Slaves
The world suffers global recession, enormous inequity, hunger, deforestation, pollution, climate change, nuclear weapons, terrorism, etc. To those who say we’re not really making progress, many might point to the fact that at least we’ve eliminated slavery.
But sadly that is not the truth.
One hundred forty-three years after passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 60 years after Article 4 of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned slavery and the slave trade worldwide, there are more slaves than at any time in human history -- 27 million.
Today’s slavery focuses on big profits and cheap lives. It is not about owning people like before, but about using them as completely disposable tools for making money.
During the four years that Benjamin Skinner researched modern-day slavery, he posed as a buyer at illegal brothels on several continents, interviewed convicted human traffickers in a Romanian prison and endured giardia, malaria, dengue and a bad motorcycle accident.
But Skinner is most haunted by his experience in a brothel in Bucharest, Romania, where he was offered a young woman with Down syndrome in exchange for a used car.
Terrence McNally: What first got you interested in slavery?
Benjamin Skinner: The fuel began before I was born. The abolitionism in my blood began at least as early as the 18th century, when my Quaker ancestors stood on soapboxes in Connecticut and railed against slavery. I had other relatives that weren’t Quaker, but had the same beliefs. My great-great-great-grandfather fought with the Connecticut artillery, believing that slavery was an abomination that could only be overturned through bloodshed.
Yet today, after the deaths of 360,000 Union soldiers, after over a dozen conventions and 300 international treaties, there are more slaves than at any point in human history.
TM: Is that raw numbers or as a percentage of the population?
BS: I want to be very clear what I mean when I say the word slavery. If you look it up in Webster's dictionary, the first definition is "drudgery or toil." It's become a metaphor for undue hardship, because we assume that once you legally abolish something, it no longer exists. But as a matter of reality for up to 27 million people in the world, slaves are those forced to work, held through fraud, under threat of violence, for no pay beyond subsistence. It's a very spare definition.
TM: Whose definition is that?
BS: Kevin Bales's. [His Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy was nominated for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize, and he is the president of Free the Slaves ] I'm glad you asked because he's not given enough credit. He originally came up with the number 27 million, and it's subsequently been buttressed by international labor organization studies. Governments will acknowledge estimates of some 12.3 million slaves in the world, but NGOs in those same countries say the numbers are more than twice as high.
Kevin did a lot of the academic work that underpinned my work. I wanted to go out and get beyond the numbers, to show what one person's slavery meant. In the process of doing that, I met hundreds of slaves and survivors.
TM: As an investigative reporter rather than an academic, you take us where the trades are made, the suffering takes place and the survivors eke out their existences.
BS: In an underground brothel in Bucharest, I was offered a young woman with the visible effect of Down syndrome. One of her arms was covered in slashes, where I can only assume she was trying to escape daily rape the only way she knew how. That young woman was offered to me in trade for a used car.
more
But sadly that is not the truth.
One hundred forty-three years after passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 60 years after Article 4 of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned slavery and the slave trade worldwide, there are more slaves than at any time in human history -- 27 million.
Today’s slavery focuses on big profits and cheap lives. It is not about owning people like before, but about using them as completely disposable tools for making money.
During the four years that Benjamin Skinner researched modern-day slavery, he posed as a buyer at illegal brothels on several continents, interviewed convicted human traffickers in a Romanian prison and endured giardia, malaria, dengue and a bad motorcycle accident.
But Skinner is most haunted by his experience in a brothel in Bucharest, Romania, where he was offered a young woman with Down syndrome in exchange for a used car.
Terrence McNally: What first got you interested in slavery?
Benjamin Skinner: The fuel began before I was born. The abolitionism in my blood began at least as early as the 18th century, when my Quaker ancestors stood on soapboxes in Connecticut and railed against slavery. I had other relatives that weren’t Quaker, but had the same beliefs. My great-great-great-grandfather fought with the Connecticut artillery, believing that slavery was an abomination that could only be overturned through bloodshed.
Yet today, after the deaths of 360,000 Union soldiers, after over a dozen conventions and 300 international treaties, there are more slaves than at any point in human history.
TM: Is that raw numbers or as a percentage of the population?
BS: I want to be very clear what I mean when I say the word slavery. If you look it up in Webster's dictionary, the first definition is "drudgery or toil." It's become a metaphor for undue hardship, because we assume that once you legally abolish something, it no longer exists. But as a matter of reality for up to 27 million people in the world, slaves are those forced to work, held through fraud, under threat of violence, for no pay beyond subsistence. It's a very spare definition.
TM: Whose definition is that?
BS: Kevin Bales's. [His Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy was nominated for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize, and he is the president of Free the Slaves ] I'm glad you asked because he's not given enough credit. He originally came up with the number 27 million, and it's subsequently been buttressed by international labor organization studies. Governments will acknowledge estimates of some 12.3 million slaves in the world, but NGOs in those same countries say the numbers are more than twice as high.
Kevin did a lot of the academic work that underpinned my work. I wanted to go out and get beyond the numbers, to show what one person's slavery meant. In the process of doing that, I met hundreds of slaves and survivors.
TM: As an investigative reporter rather than an academic, you take us where the trades are made, the suffering takes place and the survivors eke out their existences.
BS: In an underground brothel in Bucharest, I was offered a young woman with the visible effect of Down syndrome. One of her arms was covered in slashes, where I can only assume she was trying to escape daily rape the only way she knew how. That young woman was offered to me in trade for a used car.
more
Shops and Malls have become virtual
Once there was a market place, once there were shops and malls, and elegant roads, and big stores, once there were marketing companies and advertisements on the road, and fancy shops, and light and glamour and busy days on the shopping centers.
Soon, sooner than what we expect, all this will change.
E-commerce will eat ALL.
A computer will be our car, an internet connection the freeway, the Backbone the gasoline.
We will shop where it is more convenient and where we find what we are looking for and, most of all, we will shop where the good advertisement will bring us.
It won't be a fancy banner or a blinking ad, or the promise of saving money, or pay one and get three.
It will be: If by any chance you are looking for a new computer, or a new phone, or the latest music, or whatever I have to sell, ask me, or read what I am saying about it.
I know what you are looking for: the best place to buy what you want.
That is: a website where you find the best links to the best shops.
And best means really that, because it is a search engine where you do not find the websites who actually paid to be there, but the websites that have the best merchandise at the best price.
Now, for example, is the time to think of your garden.
Because if you want to have nice flowers next spring and you are a smart gardener, you will order and plant your bulbs NOW.
Buying the plants in April is much more expensive and...not so much fun.
I like, in the first days of February and March, to look closely in my flower beds and what a pleasant surprise, to see the first small leaves coming out!
It means Spring is there and every day those few green millimeters more make it closer...
Then it will be time to look for a new barbecue or some new outdoor tool, or a new grill.
And if you feel threatened by unwelcome bugs, may be now is the time to think of a good selection of deterrents, just to convince the animals not to go where you don't want them...
Since Shops and Malls have become virtual my shopping experience has become much more rewarding, more intelligent and so much easier!
Soon, sooner than what we expect, all this will change.
E-commerce will eat ALL.
A computer will be our car, an internet connection the freeway, the Backbone the gasoline.
We will shop where it is more convenient and where we find what we are looking for and, most of all, we will shop where the good advertisement will bring us.
It won't be a fancy banner or a blinking ad, or the promise of saving money, or pay one and get three.
It will be: If by any chance you are looking for a new computer, or a new phone, or the latest music, or whatever I have to sell, ask me, or read what I am saying about it.
I know what you are looking for: the best place to buy what you want.
That is: a website where you find the best links to the best shops.
And best means really that, because it is a search engine where you do not find the websites who actually paid to be there, but the websites that have the best merchandise at the best price.
Now, for example, is the time to think of your garden.
Because if you want to have nice flowers next spring and you are a smart gardener, you will order and plant your bulbs NOW.
Buying the plants in April is much more expensive and...not so much fun.
I like, in the first days of February and March, to look closely in my flower beds and what a pleasant surprise, to see the first small leaves coming out!
It means Spring is there and every day those few green millimeters more make it closer...
Then it will be time to look for a new barbecue or some new outdoor tool, or a new grill.
And if you feel threatened by unwelcome bugs, may be now is the time to think of a good selection of deterrents, just to convince the animals not to go where you don't want them...
Since Shops and Malls have become virtual my shopping experience has become much more rewarding, more intelligent and so much easier!
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
What now?
The bad of problems is that the bigger they are, the more difficult it looks the solution, and the good of problems is that if you do not solve them, they will solve by themselves.
I do not think that the economical crisis means the apocalipse of humanity, even if it could look like that to the ones who own three SUVs and are used to spend as much money as possible charging credit cards and living with means they do not have.
It takes much less than that to survive and that is the ultimate goal.
Isn´t it?
I do not think that the economical crisis means the apocalipse of humanity, even if it could look like that to the ones who own three SUVs and are used to spend as much money as possible charging credit cards and living with means they do not have.
It takes much less than that to survive and that is the ultimate goal.
Isn´t it?
The big Jump
"Well, Patrizia, that’s what makes horse races. And blogs.
I don’t seen anything unpleasant at all about pointing out that one of the major contributing reasons for medical costs to be so high in the US, and getting higher, is the expanding ability of medical technology to tease our primal human desire to live forever.
I don’t care how mentally alert or free of pain I maybe be at the end (I’m 62 now), I don’t want to live an extra week at a cost of, say, $140,000 that is extracted from the resources available for other human lives, including the saving of lives that can be lived for more than a week. Dying in a more natural and historic way has EVERYTHING to do with managing medical costs, even if it’s only part of the solution.
John Mihalec
The main difference is you are American, I am Italian.
I was brought up with the ideas that competition brings us money, and solidarity brings us happiness.
They are both wrong, competition makes you miserable and solidarity makes you understanding that very often the others think you are just a fool.
Nevertheless I taught my children exactly the same.
At least at the end of your life you will think you did the best you could… and happiness?
Happiness is not in the goal, but in pursuing it...
Patrizia
I don’t seen anything unpleasant at all about pointing out that one of the major contributing reasons for medical costs to be so high in the US, and getting higher, is the expanding ability of medical technology to tease our primal human desire to live forever.
I don’t care how mentally alert or free of pain I maybe be at the end (I’m 62 now), I don’t want to live an extra week at a cost of, say, $140,000 that is extracted from the resources available for other human lives, including the saving of lives that can be lived for more than a week. Dying in a more natural and historic way has EVERYTHING to do with managing medical costs, even if it’s only part of the solution.
John Mihalec
The main difference is you are American, I am Italian.
I was brought up with the ideas that competition brings us money, and solidarity brings us happiness.
They are both wrong, competition makes you miserable and solidarity makes you understanding that very often the others think you are just a fool.
Nevertheless I taught my children exactly the same.
At least at the end of your life you will think you did the best you could… and happiness?
Happiness is not in the goal, but in pursuing it...
Patrizia
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