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WasteFlakeThe Wasteflake Project starts conversations on culture and science.
We're sorry but the Wasteflake Project is currently closed/on break until we have more time to worry about it. Existing users can still login and add material but we are not actively seeking participants. If you would like a new a user id created or the password of an existing user reset please send email to wasteman at wasteflake.com.
Work in progress at Wasteflake, linked here for your consideration:
- PeerReview — just what is it? Is the Wasteflake Project an example of expanded peer review, or an entirely new kind of peer review?
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- SpamArt. If enough users, at enough keyboards, enter enough subject lines from spam, will it be art?
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- HaveUniverseNeedName
- Book of Frauds
- It's AboutTime
- Peoria
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Wasteflake ToDo
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Created by steve. Last Modification: Friday 29 of May, 2020 14:21:05 UTC by KKris.


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On August 1st, 2019 satis&fy kicked off a new year to onboard trainees.
It's good to be Home. But...
Annabelle Bär, trainee event management, about her first job experience
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Sound of Life, a Frankfurt charity festival since 2011
The Sound of Life

subset: commoncrawl


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I fought the law
RATs can be entirely legitimate. Security companies have used them to help find and retrieve stolen laptops, for instance, and no one objects to similar remote login software such as LogMeIn. The developers behind RAT software generally describe their products as nothing more than tools which can be used for good and ill. And yet some tools have features that make them look a lot like they're built with lawlessness in mind.
Adam Kujawa, a researcher at security firm MalwareBytes, compiled a list last summer of everything that popular RAT DarkComet could do. It included:
- Find out all system information, including hardware being used and the exact version of your operating system, including security patches
- Control all the processes currently running on your system
- View and modify your registry
- Modify your Hosts file
- Control your computer from a remote shell
- Modify your startup processes and services, including adding a few of its own
- Execute various types of scripts on your system
- Modify/View/Steal your files
- Put files of its own on your system
- Steal your stored password
- Listen to your microphone
- Log your keystrokes (duh)
- Scan your network
- View your network shares
- Mess with your MSN Messenger / Steal your contacts / Add new contacts!
- Steal from your clipboard (things you've copied)
- Control your printer
- Lock/Restart/Shutdown your computer
- Update the implant with a new address to beacon to or new functionality
- Watch your webcam
- Use your computer in a denial of service (DOS) attack
And that's not all. DarkComet includes a "Fun Manager" that can perform all sorts of tricks on the target system, including:
- Hiding the Desktop—Hiding all the icons and making it impossible to right click on the desktop.
- Hide the Clock—Self Explanatory
- Hide Task Icons—In the little box on the right side of your start bar
- Hide Sys Tray Icons—Hide icons and open application buttons on the taskbar
- Hide Taskbar—Self Explanatory
- Hide the Start Button—Only works in Win XP
- Disable the Start Button (XP Only)—Gray out the start button, disabling it.
- Disable TaskMgr—Disables the Windows Task Manager (When you hit Ctrl+Alt+Del)
- Open/Close CD Tray—Self Explanatory
Even that isn't all. The RAT can also activate Microsoft's text-to-speech software on the remote system so that it reads strings of text out loud—an effective startle tactic. It can open a chat window. And it can play notes from a piano or a specific frequency for as long as desired. (As Kujawa notes, "The purpose of this feature [as far as I can tell] is just to annoy people.")
Does such software cross the line into illegality? Perhaps. In June 2012, the FBI arrested Michael "xVisceral" Hogue at his home in Tucson, Arizona and charged him with selling "malware that allows cybercriminals to take over and control, remotely, the operations of an infected computer." Hogue had created Blackshades, which the government described as "a sophisticated piece of malware."
Blackshades went beyond DarkComet in its support for features that were likely to result in illegality, such as the "File Hijacker" that could encrypt a victim's key files and then pop up a "ransomware" message demanding payment into a remote bank account in order to free the files. (A note attached to this feature said: "However, one thing to put in mind: This feature was made for educational purposes only.")
In June 2010, Hogue allegedly joined a private "carder" website catering to online criminals dealing in the theft, sale, and malicious use of credit card numbers. The site was actually a honeypot run by the FBI, however; the government says that Hogue sought admin approval to sell Blackshades there and ended up chatting with an FBI Special Agent. According to the complaint against Hogue, he then showed the FBI his personal RAT dashboard. An agent described the moment this way:
When I logged into the Blackshades Net service (that is, the interface that is a component of the RAT), I was able to see the names of nine computers that had been infected with the malware component of the RAT. Those computers were located in Germany, the United States, Denmark, Poland, and Canada. (The FBI has taken steps to identify and locate these victims.) By clicking on the name of an infected computer, I was presented with a menu of options including the ability to initiate key logging on the infected computer—that is, I was able to remotely turn on a service that would record every keystroke of the user of the infected computer. So, for instance, if the victim visited a banking website and entered his or her username and password, the key logging program could record that information, which could then be used to access the victim's bank account.
In further MSN chats with the FBI, the person alleged to be Hogue answered a question about whether the Blackshades software would automatically conduct key logging or whether it had to be initiated manually. "It auto does, and you can download from all at once, or scan for keywords or digits," came the reply. "And if it detects a credit card is being entered, it can send screenshots to FTP and you can scan for digits that are 16 in a row :P"
This isn't the sort of thing that legitimate security firms generally tell potential clients, and the description of the software on the Blackshades website didn't help matters. It advertised the program's ability to "automatically map your ports, seed your torrent for you, and spread through AIM, MSN, ICQ, and USB devices." The software, sold for $50 per copy, does not appear to have netted its creator that much cash. According to a court filing from January 2013, the government is seeking forfeiture of only about $40,000 from Hogue. (The Blackshades software remains available for sale, the codebase apparently administered by at least one other person. The sales site currently suggests that Blackshades be used by those who have "ever questioned what your spouse, kids or employees have been doing on the computer" or anyone who want to know, "Are your employees mailing your business data to your competitors?")
A few weeks after Hogue's arrest, another prominent RAT author announced his retirement from such work. Jean-Pierre Lesueur shut down DarkComet with a message blaming his users. "I have devoted years with a nonprofit philosophy for you to enjoy without asking anything in return other than respect of the rules, unfortunately some of you couldn't respect the terms," he wrote. "Why did I take such a decision? Like it was said above because of the misuse of the tool, and unlike so many of you seem to believe, I can be held responsible of your actions, and if there is something I will not tolerate it is having to pay the consequences for your mistakes and I will not cover for you." He then added, "Without mentioning what happened in Syria..."
The last line is a reference to the fact that the Syrian government used tools like Blackshades and DarkComet in 2012 as part of its war with Syrian rebels. The conclusion drawn by the researchers at Malwarebytes was that RAT creators had unwittingly become low-cost arms dealers to repressive regimes that couldn't afford to develop such tools themselves.
"Over the past few weeks," Malwarebytes concluded in mid-2012, "we have seen the most intricate piece of spy malware ever developed (Flame) and being used for cyber espionage purposes against the infrastructure of developed countries, and then we look at the poverty stricken government of Syria and see over-the-counter RATs being used. It is clear that even in cyber war, the more developed countries have better weapons while the poorer countries use whatever they can get their hands on."
RAT control
RATs aren't going away, despite the occasional intervention of the authorities. Too many exist, plenty of them are entirely legal, and source code is in the wild (a version of the Blackshades source leaked in 2010). Those who don't want to end up being toyed with in a YouTube video are advised to take the same precautions that apply to most malware: use a solid anti-malware program, keep your operating system updated, and make sure plugins (especially Flash and Java) aren't out of date. Don't visit dodgy forums or buy dodgy items, don't click dodgy attachments in e-mail, and don't download dodgy torrents. Such steps won't stop every attack, but they will foil many casual users looking to add a few more slaves to their collections.
If you are unlucky enough to have your computer infected with a RAT, prepare to be sold or traded to the kind of person who enters forums to ask, "Can I get some slaves for my rat please? I got 2 bucks lol I will give it to you :b" At that point, the indignities you will suffer—and the horrific website images you may see—will be limited only by the imagination of that most terrifying person: a 14-year-old boy with an unsupervised Internet connection.


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Knuckleballer R.A. Dickey threw six shutout innings before leaving with soreness in his neck and back, Rajai Davis had two hits and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Chicago White Sox 3-1 on Thursday.
Dickey (2-2) allowed two hits, both singles. The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner, walked one, struck out a season-high seven and lowered his ERA from 5.82 to 4.30.
Dickey retired the first 11 White Sox batters before Alex Rios hit a two-out single to center in the fourth. Rios went to second on a wild pitch and Paul Konerko walked, but Adam Dunn struck out to end the inning.
Blue Jays trainer George Poulis and manager John Gibbons came to the mound after Dickey struck out Dewayne Wise for the second out of the sixth. After a brief discussion, Dickey remained in the game, getting Jeff Keppinger to fly out to left.
Dickey appeared to be rubbing his upper back as he left the dugout and walked to the clubhouse at the end of the inning.
Esmil Rogers pitched 1 1-3 innings, Aaron Loup got two outs and Casey Janssen finished for his fifth save.
Davis led off the first with a single and stole second and third on consecutive pitches before scoring on Edwin Encarnacion's two-out hit to left.
Toronto added two more runs in the fifth. Emilio Bonifacio was hit by a pitch and went to third on an errant pickoff throw by White Sox left-hander Chris Sale. One out later, with the infield drawn in, Bonifacio scored when Dunn couldn't handle a grounder by Munenori Kawasaki. Davis followed with an RBI double.
The White Sox spoiled Toronto's shutout bid in the eighth. Alexei Ramirez chased Rogers with a one-out single and scored when Tyler Flowers hit a two-out double off Loup. Wise grounded out to end the threat.
Sale (1-2) gave up a career-high eight runs in his previous start on Sunday at Cleveland, but was sharper in this one. He allowed three runs, two earned, and four hits over seven innings. He walked one and struck out six.
Sale is 2-7 with a 5.83 ERA in his past nine road starts going back to last season.
White Sox outfielder Dayan Viciedo left in the eighth with apparent soreness in his left side after swinging and missing on a pitch from Rogers.
Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista missed his fourth straight game with a sore back. Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said Bautista is "showing progress" and could return Friday against the New York Yankees.
NOTES: Toronto RHP Sergio Santos will not throw for seven days after an MRI confirmed a strained muscle in his throwing arm. Santos was placed on the 15-day DL Monday, retroactive to April 14. ... White Sox OF Alejandro De Aza got the day off. ... Attendance was 18,015.


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I meant that is not obligatory to have itOriginally Posted by nihil
meaning very few have it, but yes it could be a smoke alarm
maybe he is smoking Pipe right under the smoke alarm.
But 9 out of 10 people dont have smoke alarm here
The rest of your comment i ignore since thinking about that will only hurt and no possitive discusion will come from that.
I AgreeOriginally Posted by nihil


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Lowell Aronoff is the CEO of CANNEX, one of the largest providers of annuity pricing data to the financial services industry and an expert on the theoretical value of a life annuity. In a recent conversation, I asked him what I ask a lot of annuitization scholars: Does your mother own an annuity?
"I was never able to convince her to buy an annuity, which is very embarrassing," says Aronoff. "A lot of it had to do with things like 'What happens if I die tomorrow, what happens if the insurance company disappears, is it a good investment?' All of which are essentially irrelevant objections but were primary in her mind."
My mother doesn't own an annuity either. I've traveled to numerous conferences explaining to advisors the value of incorporating annuitization into a retirement income plan in order to hedge the risk that clients will outlive their assets in old age. But most people would rather not lay down a large sum of money in exchange for a pretty modest income. So what's the problem?
Economists are often annoyed when normal people don't act in a manner consistent with their models. Annuities provide a perfect example of a product that every economically rational retiree should own and few actual retirees buy. For decades, the infrequent use of annuities in the United States has been considered a puzzle that many economists have gone to great lengths to explain through even more complex models. The likely explanation is that most people aren't economists.
Living happily
What's so great about annuities? To an economist, life is a game with two goals — spend about the same amount each year (because spending a lot this year and a little next year makes us less happy), and spend the highest amount each year. So the best spending plan will be one that is high and smooth. If you want to leave a bequest or prepare for an emergency, buy a product or set money aside for each non-spending goal.
Annuities fit the bill by both smoothing spending and maximizing the amount we can spend each year. Mortality credits provide the spending boost while the guaranteed lifetime income ensures smooth spending. No other financial product provides the same level of expected lifetime happiness in retirement.
One of the most important benefits of an annuity is its protection against running out of money in retirement. Economists see the big drop in spending caused by outliving one's assets (superannuating) as the equivalent of rolling snake-eyes — you want to do everything you can to avoid it. How do we efficiently protect ourselves against an unexpected significant loss? We buy insurance. Annuities insure against this risk.
If the risk is so significant, why aren't annuities more popular? Some annuities are very popular. People love their Social Security, which is essentially the mandatory purchase of an inflation-protected annuity. Questions inserted into the Health and Retirement Study in 2008 asked respondents how much they would accept in a lump sum to get them to give up $500 in monthly Social Security payments. The answers revealed two very important insights into how people value annuities.
First, you'd have to pay them a ton of money to get them to give up Social Security income. The average was literally over $250,000, or an amount that would be appropriate if your expected longevity was over 130 years with a zero percent discount rate. Second, nobody has any idea how to value a stream of income. The majority of college-educated respondents weren't able to come even close to an actuarially fair estimate.
Our unwillingness to sell something for a fair price once we own it is known as the endowment effect. That's why politicians become ex-politicians when they try to cut Social Security benefits. It's also why employee unions are so resistant to the mere suggestion that the pensions need to be readjusted. Experiments show that even when a subject is given something that they might not have even wanted (like a coffee mug) they suddenly place a much higher value on the object.
So even though pensions and Social Security are both annuities, people love them. But they don't love buying annuities. That's because they have to trade something they have (a lump sum of money) for something that's a lot more abstract. It shouldn't be surprising that a 2005 study by Professors Keith Bender and Natalia Jivan found that retirees with annuitized income through defined benefit plans were significantly more satisfied than retirees with non-annuitized retirement assets. The problem is that people aren't willing to give up their 401(k) stash to get one because of the endowment effect.
Reframed assets
One way to solve this part of the puzzle is to get people to reframe their retirement assets as income instead of wealth. The Department of Labor is considering a method that plan sponsors will use to illustrate retirement assets in terms of lifetime income instead of a lump sum. Since our research shows that most workers have no idea how to translate a lump sum into an actuarially fair income stream, it gives them a much more realistic idea of how well they can live in retirement (and how much more they need to save). It also changes workers' expectations about what they'll do with their qualified savings when they retire.
Switzerland already defaults employees' retirement plan assets into a life annuity. Since it's a default, it isn't mandatory. A default can be a powerful tool because employees see it as a stamp of approval — known as the endorsement effect. Because Swiss workers generally expect that retirement assets will turn into retirement income, and because annuitization represents the path of least resistance, about 80 percent of Swiss workers annuitize. Framing assets as income and defaulting at least a portion of retirement assets into annuities could solve the puzzle without taking away freedom of choice.
Without the ability to translate a lump sum into income, sitting on a large defined contribution balance at retirement creates a powerful behavioral challenge. Buying an annuity means giving up a big number. And what do you get in return? You might live 30 more years. Or you might live two months. Many people focus on the worst case scenario and do whatever they can to avoid it. They don't want to make a decision they'll regret, and most of us suffer from regret aversion.
Aronoff notes that "people have a hard time separating their need for lifetime income from their investment." Employees are used to seeing their retirement savings as an investment whose purpose is accumulation. The balance of this investment becomes a reference point — an amount that we start from when judging decumulation strategies. That makes annuitization seem more risky. According to Aronoff, retirees feel that "if I get hit by a bus, I lose all my money."
Jason Hull, a financial planner in Crowley, Texas, agrees that the primary barrier to annuitization is fear of regret. Rather than focusing on the fear of running out of money in the distant future, retirees seem to care more about the possibility that they won't get their money's worth. This makes no sense to Hull. "As they're floating up to heaven, they're going to say 'You know, I should have bought that annuity'? We are projecting a state that is never going to happen. Nobody is ever going to look down and have an out of body experience and say 'stupid, you never should have bought that annuity.' "
That's little consolation to financial service professionals who are trying to sell annuities to a reluctant consumer. Their choice is either to educate consumers to think like an economist or to give people what they want. Barry Mulholland, an assistant professor at Texas Tech and former insurance agent, agrees that the right product sometimes needs to appeal to the rational and the behavioral side of the customer. Characteristics such as a period certain guarantee or a cash refund, which promise to return part of the initial investment if the client dies early, are particularly appealing.
"It is about loss aversion," says Mulholland. "If you have clients that indicate they are loss averse, then adding a period certain to a life annuity makes them feel much better about handing over $100,000 to an insurance company. While it is pointed out to clients that this will lower the monthly income due to the added cost of insuring the income stream, a decrease of $25, $50 or even $100 per month seems insignificant compared to the possibility of 'losing' $100,000 next month if they die in a car accident."
Of course, the reason why annuities work is because half of the annuitants will die before their average life expectancy. Pulling money out of the pot to pay their heirs means less money is available to pay those remaining annuitants who live longer. If the retirement income game really is about spending the most money every year, a cash refund makes you a loser. Or does it?
If it reduces the anxiety of a retiree, isn't that part of getting the most out of the retirement income game? And annuitization, even imperfect annuitization, may be better than the alternative. Aronoff sees that a number of financial firms "are pushing cash refund annuities because they can tell the client that they are guaranteed never to lose money." Is this good because it gets people to buy an annuity or is it bad because it's expensive? "I think it's both" says Aronoff. "On a fundamental level, it works."
See also:


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Back in November, we challenged you to guess the medium used to create these eye-catching images. Finnish artist Erno-Erik Raitanan had produced the series by cultivating bacteria samples on color negative film.
At first glance, the image up top bears a striking resemblance to some of Raitanan's "Bacteriograms," but photographer Cliff Briggie created it using an entirely different set of media. Can you figure out what he used?
Give up? Instead of bacteria cultures, Briggie opted to combine ice, water, paint, and light to create what he calls "ice paintings" — macrophotographs of the complex shapes, colors, and textures that arise out of his simple mixtures.
"A photograph captures a moment too brief to see," writes Briggie on his flickr profile. "Within the moment is a flash, color, form, or movement — always different, always extraordinary. Little pieces of paint take on a life of their own, suddenly exploding, colors streaming everywhere and then they are gone forever."
In my mind, one of the most beautiful features of Briggie's photographs is the variety of crystalline structures that form in the ice — an example of which can be seen in the upper right hand corner of this particular ice painting. These highly symmetric shapes are built up based on structural information that begins at the molecular level, and can take on any number of forms depending on the conditions under which the water freezes.
Images by Cliff Briggie via feature shoot + paranoias; you'll find several collections of Briggie's ice paintings on his photostream


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Hundreds of years into the future, Terraforming has made it possible for humans to colonize other planets - and thus for humanity to encounter Extraterrestrial Intelligence. War ensued over the acquisition and conquest of planets, which led to employment of mercenaries who would scout planets deemed fit for habitation. The band of these ruthless mercenaries was called Bounty Hounds.
As Maximillian, the leader of Bounty Hounds, your mission is to battle different alien species spread across planets. With a variety of new weapons and items as well as WiFi play to match up against a friend, Bounty Hounds delivers an exciting weapon-based action adventure for PSP® systemgamers. Battle Your Way with Double Weapons: Wield two separate weapons - one in your right, another in your left. Two categories of weapons allow you to use melee weapons for close combat and ballistic weapons for long range combat. Go Head-to-Head with a friend: Wirelessly connect with a friend with only one copy of the game.


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"French Without Tears," by Martin Walker, The National Interest, Spring 2005, ppg 136-138.
This is why I want the Hungarian-French politician Nicolas Sarkozy to become President of France in 2007:
To fight terrorism:
There are sections of almost every French city that are intensely Arab, and one reason why Sarkozy became so popular as interior minister was his announcement that there would be no more "no-go areas" for the French police, and he set up the special squads of riot police, gendarmes and customs agents to invade and bring the ruling gang leaders, or caids, to book. In an interview with Le Figaro in September 2003, he announced a tough new policy for visiting Muslims seeking to radicalize their French brethren:
"No one should expect any weakness from me. Mosques where extremist Islam is preached will be closed. Imams who give radical sermons will be expelled. And people coming to conferences who don't show proof of respect for republican rules will find themselves systematically denied visas to enter France."
To his Bush-style inauguration as head of the center-right political party in France, the UMP:
Characteristically, Sarkozy staged a very American kind of political spectacular for his investiture as head of the ump, in a vast hangar at Le Bourget Airport decked out to resemble Bush's Republican convention arena in New York. Chirac chose not to attend (and made some waspish remarks about the reputed cost of $6 million), but 40,000 of the party faithful turned up to hear Sarkozy promise a new era for France and cheer him to the echo. As he told them,
To his faith-based efforts to strengthen horizontal bonds — what we call "civil society":
Sarkozy has now produced a book, which translates as "The Republic, Religions and Hope", that seeks to address the issue of Muslims in France, which many voters put at the top of their concerns. It is a thin volume of 180 pages, mostly conversations with philosopher Philippe Verdin, but it is revolutionary by French standards in that it calls for an end to the 1905 law that established France as a secular republic, separating the state from religion. If the state can subsidize sports and culture clubs, Sarkozy asks, why not churches?
Religion is a quality essential to civilization and morality, Sarkozy insists (an unusual stance to take in what is fast becoming post-Christian Europe). "The moral dimension is most solid, most deeply rooted, when it proceeds from a spiritual or religious engagement, rather than when it seeks its source in political discussion or republican morality." Only religion can define and assert the moral absolutes that a just and self-confident society requires, he argues, adding that it is a weakness of the French state that it lacks this moral dimension. In a France whose schoolchildren are still inculcated daily with "republican virtues", and where the American political process is mocked for the power of religious groups and the prevalence of religious rhetoric, this is bold stuff. But Sarkozy is clear: "the Republic does not recognize the distinction between good and evil. She defends rules, the law, without grounding these in a moral order."
Three cheers for Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007!


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Completely and utterly obsessed with my new shoes. Little suede loafers with the gold bar detailing. Oh New Look why tempt me with your pretty shoes. These are replacing my much loved Primark suede bow flats that I've worn pretty much everyday for about a year! I rarely buy new shoes if Im honest & if Im not wearing these shoes, I'll be wearing the black boots I posted about here. I'm not really a big shoe person!
I'm going to see Your Highness tonight with Greg. He wants to see it more than me, it does kinda look like one of those standard stupid-but-funny-jokes type movies! James Franco is fit though, hubba hubba! I presume we'll go to Nandos tonight as well, because we dont have one where we live, so we ALWAYS go there, Why is Nandos so good?


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Epic Morning
Four 5-4 decisions, three dissents from the bench, and very touching reflections upon the life of Marty Ginsburg and the career of Justice John Paul Stevens. Really an amazing experience inside the Court this morning.
Rushing off to Kagan Hearings now. First, a few quick thoughts:
- McDonald: 5-4 result as expected for full incorporation with Thomas concurring for PI Clause and Breyer registering a protest dissent from Heller. Contra my prediction, Stevens and Sotomayor dissented from incorporation, with the former writing for himself and the latter joining Breyer's dissent along with Ginsburg.
- Bilski: Stevens lost his majority, which explains the long delay. Kennedy wrote the majority, signaling that perhaps he had changed his vote. Stevens read his concurrence (which was really a dissent) from the bench.
- PCAOB: The Roberts Court is really getting in the habit of rewriting federal statutes by judicial fiat. With NAMUDNO last year, and Skilling and PCAOB this year, lots of legislating from the bench, albeit for apparently varying motivations that I will explore at some point this week.
- Christian Legal Society: No one would have blamed Justice Ginsburg for skipping today, but in she came to read her majority opinion.
Also, it appears that Justice Breyer took this morning to be his coming out party as the liberal bloc's new leader. His two dissents from the bench were lengthy and passionate, and I got a palpable sense that he had seized the torch from Stevens, whether or not it had actually been passed to him.
One Response
Ginsburg's opinion was pretty strong in its criticism of Alito; Balkinization suggests Alito's criticism of someone she knows/respects factored in.


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Voice mobile search is hot. Yahoo, for example, just partnered with a startup called Vlingo, which claims to offer the most advanced mobile search technology. V-Enable, on the other hand, is offering a very different new feature: Live operators.
Other free voice search companies, such as the new 411 services — like Jingle Networks' and Google's — are completely automated. Now, however, if you've got a hard-to-understand accent or just hate dealing with automated systems, you can get a real person to help you (albeit for a small fee).
As of today, the San Diego-based startup's FreeMobile411 service has now launched on the web, making it available on any web-enabled mobile device. (Previously, it was only accessible on some carriers, including Verizon, Alltell and MetroPCS.) The company is also touting the fact that it includes 140 million residential listings, not just business data.
With so many companies trying to develop cutting-edge technology in this area, I'm not sure if something as old school as a live operator will be a big hit, and V-Enable (which is funded for more than $20 million) isn't disclosing how many calls it receives. But the company gets points for thinking outside the box.


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650 Lene Ln
$369,500, 4 Beds 3 Baths 2,327 Sqft .13 Acres 2 Garages
About This Property
New Construction by Saint Aubyn Homes - this home is done. Standard features include granite, AC, garage door opener, upstairs laundry, stainless appliances, and the list goes on.
Essential Information
Community Information
Interior Features
Eat-in Kitchen, Open Floor Plan, Pantry, Walk-in Closet, Washer/Dryer Hookups, Wood Floors, Kitchen Island
Electric Range/Oven, Dishwasher, Microwave, Garage Door Opener, Disposal, Smoke Alarm(s)
Central Air Conditioning, Ceiling Fan
Full Basement, Unfinished Basement
School Information
Additional Information
Listing Details
650 Lene Ln, Berthoud (MLS® #879196) Property History
Information source: Information and Real Estate Services, LLC. Provided for limited non-commercial use only under IRES Rules. © Copyright IRES.
Information is provided exclusively for consumers' personal, non-commercial use and may not be used for any purpose other than to identify prospective properties consumers may be interested in purchasing.
Information deemed reliable but not guaranteed by the MLS.
Listing information last updated on June 4th, 2020 at 3:49pm MDT.


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Emily Badger
Emily Badger is a former staff writer at CityLab. Her work has previously appeared in Pacific Standard, GOOD, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New York Times. She lives in the Washington, D.C. area.
As Kaid Benfield noted earlier, beauty in the urban context is especially tricky to define. Most of us can label a building or a street as such when we walk by it, but we'd probably struggle to explain exactly what makes it so. Maybe it's the landscaping, or the sight lines, or the architectural style?
The tech-savvy folks at OpenPlans.org have been pondering this exact same question. And – as is their style – they're refusing to take "no data" for an answer.
"We're really interested in helping people organize at a neighborhood level around making places better. And one of the questions is 'how do you establish where a place is at right now'?" asks Frank Hebbert of OpenPlans. You can track a neighborhood's progress or health through census data, population density, crime statistics or any number of other metrics. "But it's harder to establish the softer feeling: Is this a place I like? Would I prefer the street on the left to the street on the right? That's not a metric, but a gut feeling about comparing places."
So OpenPlans launched an online project for Valentine's Day called Beautiful Streets, which they're hoping to use to crowd-source data on streetscapes from, fittingly, the City of Brotherly Love. Using pairwise surveys – a technique we've also highlighted to gauge perceptions of street safety – the Beautiful Streets site literally asks people, "do you prefer the street on the left or the right?"
Viewers are asked to pick between two images (or "skip this one") from a random pairing of 200 streets taken from Google Street View around Philadelphia.
The answers, by and large, are not obvious.
It'll take a couple thousand responses to collect some meaningful data (and that data will be publicly available on the site for anyone else who wants to play with it). With it, the project's creators are hoping to be able to identify common characteristics of a beautiful street (and a better place). Maybe it's the street with trees, or the one that always seems to have people on it.
"This is a way also of bringing up ideas without floating the idea and saying, 'do you like sidewalks?'" Hebbert says. "It puts a lot more of the power of discovery into the hands of the people who are exploring."
So go ahead and help him out. In honor of Valentine's Day, show this project some love.
For black men like Christian Cooper, the threat of a call to police casts a cloud of fear over parks and public spaces that others associate with safety.
Two new studies have revived the long-running debate over how police respond to white criminal suspects versus African Americans.
After each epidemic and disaster, our social norms and behaviors change. As researchers begin to study coronavirus's impacts, history offers clues.
People in different regions of the U.S. have measurably different psychological profiles.
Stressful commutes, unexpected routines, and emergent wildlife appear in your homemade maps of life during the coronavirus pandemic.


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Popping a Register from a Stack: QuickPiet Macros
And now for something completely different …
Back in March I went crazy. I spent WAY too many nights hacking in David Morgan-Mar's Piet programming language. Piet programs are bitmaps which are executed as a "pointer" traverses the image. To make matters even worse, the underlying native commands only allow the program to use a single stack for storage. Nothing else. The original goal was to learn enough to put together an interesting and funny presentation for the Esoteric and Useless Languages April Fool's Day meeting of the Lambda Lounge user group here in St. Louis. In the end I think I succeeded but you can be the judge for yourself. My slide deck can be found Prezi.com and a video of my talk can be found on blip.tv (Thanks to Alex Miller for recording it). You can also find some other posts on Piet and the subset language I created QuickPiet here.
The most surprising outcome of all that image editing and eye-crossing stack tracing was a completely inappropriate desire to build more and more complex programs with the very basic tools [Quick]Piet offers. I became consumed with thoughts of how to replicate higher level ideas and abstractions built on top of a single stack. I am sure most of my work could easily be explained and improved upon in any Finite Automata or Language Theory textbook … but I wanted to do it myself.
When you only have a stack to work with, you realize you don't have much. Our ability as software developers to add layers of abstraction is such a powerful tool. Without abstractions the entire complexity of an application has to fit into a developer's head. With only a stack, even small tasks are difficult because the entire state of the application has to be maintained as each command is execute. I quickly realized that I needed a way to have stationary registers or variables that could hold data throughout the life-cycle of a program without me needing to know where they were on the stack constantly.
My solution was to keep track of the size of the stack. Simple no?
Imagine a stack full of values. The only constants of a stack are the top and bottom. If we want to hide some registers inside our stack, it makes sense to keep them at one of the ends. Only one problem: the top is highly volatile and we have no idea where the bottom is. My idea was to keep the current size of the stack as the top most element on the stack at all times. If you always knew the top value was the "size" of the stack, then when you first start your application you could stash a few extra values down in the "negative" and use these values as registers/variables throughout your application. This leads to one big hurdle: how can we keep track of the stack size as we execute our program?
After a lot of soul searching and too many crumpled of pieces of notebook paper to count I conjectured that you could recreate all of the native stack commands that Piet offers as macros that would maintain and update the stack size as you went. A Piet Developer (are there any other than me?) would simply need to work with these macros instead of the native commands and could build out new macros which would leverage that stack size to retrieve and store values from the registers. Abstraction for the win.
Code examples from my proof of concept JavaScript implementation
this.push_ = function(x) { // macro stack-size-aware PUSH command this.push(1); this.add(); // update stack size value this.push(x); // perform actual PUSH this.push(2); this.push(1); this.roll(); // roll new value to below stack size }; this.dup_ = function() { // macro stack-size-aware DUP command this.push(1); this.add(); // update net stack size value this.push(2); this.push(1); this.roll(); // hide stack size value under top stack value this.dup(); // perform actual DUP (creates new duplicate value on top of stack) this.push(3); this.push(2); this.roll(); // roll up stack size value from its hiding place };
Several hours later I had built macros which mimicked all of the more basic commands which would preserve the stack size value (e.g. PUSH, POP, ADD, SUB, etc). Each macro was 5 – 10 native commands depending on the number of stack values changing at a time. The hard part came when I wanted to build a new ROLL command. This command differed from all of the others since the area of the stack effected by executed the command depended on the input values. All of the other commands effected a fixed number of values (e.g. PUSH always nets a single new value on the stack). So while most macro-commands could be built with useful assumptions about how many values were changing, ROLL needed to effect a variable amount of the stack to varying depths. When it was all said and done, my new ROLL command was more than 30 commands!
this.roll_ = function() { // decrement counter // # -> (# - 2) this.push(2); this.sub(); // find roll offset (iterations mod depth) // a b # -> # a (b % a) (b % a) this.push(3); // a b # 3 this.push(1); // a b # 3 1 this.roll(); // # a b this.push(2); // # a b 2 this.push(1); // # a b 2 1 this.roll(); // # b a this.dup(); // # b a a this.push(3); // # b a a 3 this.push(1); // # b a a 3 1 this.roll(); // # a b a this.mod(); // # a (b % a) this.dup(); // # a (b % a) (b % a) // find depth for count (offset + 2 + 1) // o -> (o + 3) this.push(3); // o 3 this.add(); // (o + 3) // roll count to proper depth within roll area // # a b X -> # ...X... a b this.push(4); // # a b X 4 this.push(3); // # a b X 4 3 this.roll(); // a b X # this.push(2); // a b X # 2 this.push(1); // a b X # 2 1 this.roll(); // a b # X this.push(1); // a b # X 1 this.roll(); // # ...X... a b // increase depth by one // a b -> (a + 1) b this.push(2); // a b 2 this.push(1); // a b 2 1 this.roll(); // b a this.push(1); // b a 1 this.add(1); // b (a + 1) this.push(2); // b (a + 1) 2 this.push(1); // b (a + 1) 2 1 this.roll(); // (a + 1) b // roll to finish? this.roll(); };
Since a ROLL command has a variable depth the basic solution is to calculate how deep things are going to end up (iterations mod depth) and hide the stack size value in the middle of the roll's depth and roll to a depth one greater than originally requested. This should leave the stack size value at the top of the stack once again and everything else where it should be.
You can find my implementations of all macros in this gist hacked together in a small html file with JavaScript. I might be crazy, but damn it I did it. With these macros registers are possible (assuming you know how many registers you need at "compile time" — although an infinite amount is theoretically possible). It seems like this is the first big step to a proof of Piet's Turing completeness …. but that is a task for another day.
First Cut – Piet Prezi Presentation
You can find the first cut of my Prezi based presentation on Piet and QuickPiet here:
I will update the link/presentation over the next week or so leading up to the next Lambda Lounge meeting.
Piet Roll Command
Roll-n-rolling with the Piet ROLL command
Mr. Young and a few others questioned how QuickPiet's command worked …. and to be honest, at first I didn't either. It turns out that the Piet ROLL command works fairly simply and is extremely powerful (according to npiet which I used as the basis for my testing).
The ROLL command pops two values off of the stack puts nothing back. The top value from the stack defines how many "turns" the roll executes. A turn will put the top value on the bottom and shift all other values "up" one place toward the top of the stack. The second value defines the "depth" of the roll or how many elements should be included in each turn starting at the top of the stack.
As the main Piet page suggests, a ROLL to a depth of X and a single turn will effectively bury the top of the stack down X spots. If that is as clear as mud, check out this image which shows two roll actions executed on a already populated stack.
[EDIT: Correction, the last roll in the above image shows a roll of depth 5, 2 turns. Not 3. My bad.)
I used the nPiet command line Win32 interpreter to test this and the following program shown with 1 pixel per codel** and again with 20×20 pixels per codel. nPiet is the most stable interpreter I have found and has some nice features like creating trace output images, tracing/logging statements, and automatically guessing codel sizes. Below is the 20×20 codel version and nPiet trace output.
$ ./npiet.exe -v -t ben/roll-big.gifinfo: verbose set to 1info: trace set to 1info: using file ben/roll-big.gifinfo: got gif image with 320 x 120 pixelinfo: codelsize guessed is 20 pixeltrace: step 0 (0,0/r,l nR -> 1,0/r,l dR):action: push, value 1trace: stack (1 values): 1trace: step 1 (1,0/r,l dR -> 2,0/r,l lR):action: push, value 2trace: stack (2 values): 2 1trace: step 2 (2,0/r,l lR -> 3,0/r,l nR):action: push, value 3trace: stack (3 values): 3 2 1trace: step 3 (3,0/r,l nR -> 4,0/r,l dR):action: push, value 4trace: stack (4 values): 4 3 2 1trace: step 4 (4,0/r,l dR -> 5,0/r,l lR):action: push, value 5trace: stack (5 values): 5 4 3 2 1trace: step 5 (5,0/r,l lR -> 6,0/r,l nR):action: push, value 3trace: stack (6 values): 3 5 4 3 2 1trace: step 6 (6,0/r,l nR -> 7,0/r,l dR):action: push, value 2trace: stack (7 values): 2 3 5 4 3 2 1trace: step 7 (7,0/r,l dR -> 8,0/r,l lB):action: rolltrace: stack (5 values): 3 5 4 2 1trace: step 8 (8,0/r,l lB -> 9,0/r,l nB):action: push, value 3trace: stack (6 values): 3 3 5 4 2 1trace: step 9 (9,0/r,l nB -> 10,0/r,l dB):action: push, value 2trace: stack (7 values): 2 3 3 5 4 2 1trace: step 10 (10,0/r,l dB -> 11,0/r,l lG):action: rolltrace: stack (5 values): 4 3 5 2 1trace: entering white block at 12,0 (like the perl interpreter would)...trace: step 11 (11,0/r,l lG -> 12,0/r,l WW):trace: special case: we at a white codel - continuingtrace: white cell(s) crossed - continuing with no command at 12,2...trace: step 12 (12,0/r,l WW -> 12,2/d,r lG):info: program end
** Since small Piet programs are TINY, instead of using 1×1 pixels as the unit block or codel, Piet interpreters should be able to use codels of larger sizes. Codels of larger sizes allow Piet programs to be easier to see and work with.
Challenge – QuickPiet Interpreter
Create an interpreter for a new Language based on Piet: QuickPiet
To pair off of Nate's Rock Paper Scissors challenge, here is one I am offering up to him: create an interpreter which will execute QuickPiet commands. What is QuickPiet? QuickPiet is a very basic language based off of the commands found in the esoteric Piet programming language.
Piet programmers are written as images which can be interpreted as actions based on a stack. Recently I signed up to give a talk at the April Fool's Day meeting of the Lambda Lounge where several people will be giving short talks on esoteric and useless programming languages. Programming in Piet poses several challenges including working only with a single stack and building up your logic into pixels and colors. I should have a few posts on writing programs in Piet in the next week or so. Until then, I have been mainly struggling with how to accomplish real work with just a single stack and a very limited menu of commands to choose from. QuickPiet is an attempt to make that process easier.
The challenge:
- Write an interpreter for the QuickPiet language I have posted in a new GitHub Gist; http://gist.github.com/332040.
[Edit: The language spec is now in the base QuickPiet repo on GitHub]
- The interpreter should allow the user to enter in QuickPiet commands from a file or GUI text box
- The interpreter should allow the user to enter text to be handled by STDIN and should display to the user any characters sent to STDOUT
- Ideally the interpreter would be written in a cross-platform way (e.g. JVM, Ruby, Javascript/HTML) but anything is valid
- Extra points for GUIs and/or the ability to see how the stack changes through program execution and/or at the end
The "complete" spec can be found on the Gist page, but a very quick rundown is below:
- Program execution is top down, except for GOTO commands
- Each line can be blank (ignored), a label, a comment, or a command
- Only one command per line
- There are no explicit looping or other control structures
- The interpreter maintains a single "infinitely large" stack which different commands can act on
- Example commands include (IN, OUT, PUSH, POP, ADD, SUBTRACT, GOTO, etc)
- Commands are case-insensitive, labels are not
If you have any questions or are willing to venture a solution please leave a comment. I just had this idea this morning so I am very interested in any feedback you may have. I am planning on working on my own solution and hope to have something put together today or tomorrow.
Click the tag links for QuickPiet and Piet below to see all posts


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For the 2014 *fiscal year, Judge Cora P Williams has disposed 480 cases at the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) in Dallas North, Texas. Out of those 480 dispostions, 88 were dismissed, 266 were approved and 126 were denied. This means that the percentage of dispositions that Judge Williams has approved in Dallas North for the 2014 fiscal year is 55%. The information below for Judge Cora P Williams was last updated on 6/11/2019.
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SSA, Dallas North ODAR OfficePark Central VIII, 8th Floor, Suite 80012770 Merit DriveDallas, Texas 75251-1220Phone: (866) 331-7135Fax: (972) 341-5153eFile Fax: (877) 904-5524


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We've had many people ask us about the Environmental Working Group. We strongly support and commend the Environmental Working Group on their efforts to create awareness around skin care ingredients and lobby for change. We believe this effort is much needed here in the US to help women and men become more aware of what ingredients are going into their bodies.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) Skin Deep Database is a site dedicated to providing consumers with information on the safety of cosmetic and personal care products. You can search a product or ingredient and a safety report is generated, including a rating system which ranks products and ingredients with a health score from 0 — 10, 0 being safest.
While the EWG's Skin Deep Database does provide valuable research into toxic ingredients, there are flaws in this rating system, often providing consumers with inadequate or incorrect information on brands, products and ingredients.
The ingredients supplied are voluntary, via an online submission form. Thus it relies on the individual submitting the products to ensure that all the ingredients and percentages have been entered correctly and completely. The minimum percentage value is 1% when many ingredients, especially hazardous ones, can be in quantities much lower than 1%. The system also allows the individual to preview the score as these entries are made.
Skin Deep's rating system does not distinguish between a botanical ingredient that is free from toxic ingredients, due to manufacturing or processing, and those that are contaminated. Nor do they differentiate between organic and natural, cosmetic and food-grade, natural and synthetic ingredients. This all makes a very big difference in determining a product's safety.
As for the Hazard Scores of individual ingredients, its quite confusing. "Fragrance" is a term required by labeling laws to indicate a product has one or more ingredients that impart a scent. This term allows manufacturers to keep the composition of their "signature scents" a secret, preventing other firms from copying it. It does allow synthetic and harmful ingredients to be hidden behind this term. This ingredient listing is given a score by EWG of 8. Understandably so for synthetic fragrances due to the likely present of phthalates in the scent formulation. However, "Fragrance" for many natural products are from natural essential oils. EWG does not make a distinction between Fragrance comprised of essential oils and Fragrance where the composition is synthetic. By listing Fragrance, even when used in minute amounts, any natural products with essential oils labelled under INCI or CTFA guidelines are given the Hazard Score of 8.
An ingredient named eugenol is extracted from clove oil, used for hundreds of years as a flavor agent, antiseptic, and for medical purposes. In fact, up to 90% of clove oil is made up of Eugenol. Alternately, EUGENIA CARYOPHYLLUS (CLOVE) ESSENTIAL OIL is given a hazard score of only 5. In the Eugenia page, it lists the goverment studies where this ingredient is known as EUGENOL. According to Wikipedia, clove is known by the scientific name of Syzygium Aromaticum and Eugenia Caryophyllata is a synonym. Interestingly, Syzygium Aromatica is listed in Skin Deep with a Hazard Rating of 0. Products listing Syzygium on SkinDeep have a 0(good) Hazard Rating. You can see how researching the SkinDeep database can enable one to create an ingredient listing optimized for good Hazard Ratings that otherwise, for a very similar formulation, might have received a score of 6 or more.
Eugenol, along with other essential oils in natural products is at <1% of the product composition. Yet Eugenol has a Hazard Ranking of 7, whereas an ingredient like propylparaben that is something we DON'T want in our cosmetics, gets a rating of 4. Utilized usually in small amounts for scent or product preservation — eugenol, citral, lemonene, coumarin and other natural plant extracts — it is hard to understand how these Hazard Ranking are so high and have such a negative impact on the overall natural product hazard score.
As a consequence, manufacturers of safe, non-toxic products may carry higher (negative) rankings than they should due to the wording of an ingredient label or insufficient information on a particular ingredient used. From our subjective observation, European natural companies seem to suffer more. Dr. Hauschka, Weleda & Lavera, all European natural product companies with long histories of developing safe, natural products, all have high Hazard Rankings similar to those of mainstream brands using synthetic ingredients. This is despite the fact they rank in the top three in most of Oeko-Test's independant lab tests for the individual products and in the top three out of 36 natural and mainstream manufacturers reviewed for ingredient safety.
A case in point: Sunscreen lotions chock full of ingredients with hazard scores ranging from 0 thru 9 are given overall rankings of 3, while a Dr. Hauschka all natural sunscreen lotion with 1 ingredient ranking 8 (Fragrance — from essential oils), is ranked 5 overall. Quite confusing and certainly does not help the cause of companies that are trying to look out for public safety.
Makers of products containing harmful chemicals can actually be rated as very safe (even at a 0 risk) because the submissions are taken at face value. Some may be given the same ranking as a truly nontoxic product because they use a minuscule amount of an all natural plant derived ingredient. We are not aware of any independent lab tests to verify the true composition of submitted products, unlike the results given by Oeko-Test magazine.
At this moment, even FDA regulations do not require full and complete disclosure of all ingredients in skin care or cosmetics, nor do they govern the issue of contaminants that may find their way into the product. For example, in September of 2009, the FDA released their own study that found lead in all 20 lipsticks they tested. Also, phthalates often do not show up on the ingredient list because it is lumped in with many other synthetic ingredients under the term "Fragrance" which we discussed earlier. Also in the US, FDA rules state that "Trace ingredients" do not need to be listed if a substance is considered "an incidental additive and has no function or technical effect" in the finished product. For instance, sulfites are considered to be incidental only if present at less than 10 ppm. This is not the case in INCI.
A global safety rating system for cosmetic and personal care products on a submission basis is highly complex and cannot be relied upon without careful scrutiny. At this time Skin Deep is best used as an instrument to help guide you toward products that are less hazardous. But the bottom line is not only READ THE LABELS, but also RESEARCH THE COMPANY. Find out more about the company who's brand you are purchasing — what is their commitment to product safety, how long have they been honoring this commitment?


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L.A. Scene is a monthly column that chronicles lesbian nightlife and events of interest in Los Angeles. Sarah Witness, an East Coast transplant and obvious femme, has been navigating the snark infested waters of Hollywood since 2001. Although she's an NYU trained actress, she prefers sipping vodka and making idle chit-chat at really gay nightclubs.
In the olden days of The L Word, periodic screenings were held at a bar called Revolver in West Hollywood. The bar was icky and devoid of seats, but lesbians would gather in throngs to watch. It was always impossible to actually hear the show because the crowd was so wild, shrieking and squealing every time two women made out or Shane appeared on screen. The majority of the audience sported sensible shoes and unfortunate hair. Lesbians in West Hollywood watching a show about lesbians in West Hollywood, giddy with the long-sought after and wildy flattering representation.
A few years ago, Revolver was closed, gutted, and transformed into East West. All the lesbians flocked to Falcon on Sunset Blvd. to watch the show, frequently alongside the actual cast and crew. The Falcon night was unrivaled until January 09, when promoter Shannon K. started a competing viewing at East West, giving the lesbian crowd something we're not used to: options!
I chose to watch the final episode at East West because I can walk there from my apartment, and that is pretty much the sole requirement for anyone who owns a Corolla with only standard features.
East West is located in the dead center of the uber gay and mostly boy-centric stretch of Santa Monica Blvd. The bar is large and upscale and the drinks are expensive and roughly the size of human heads.
If you are some sort of power lesbian or regularly sleep with them it's possible to score one of the comfy V.I.P. booths which flank the main bar area. This is Hollywood after all, and it wouldn't be a party without a glaring imbalance of power. Here you can eat your chicken satay behind a Plexiglas barrier that separates you from the lesbian riff-raff.
The place filled up quickly with the usual crowd: a handful of celesbians, a disproportionate number of superfemmes, slightly butch women who would be considered femme in any other city, and actual butches who probably spent just as much time in front of the mirror.
A sizeable number of straight girls and guys of all persuasions were in attendance as well, some of whom were clearly dragged there but many who seemed genuinely interested in the program.
Although the event was advertised as the "two-hour finale," there was clearly some sort of silent unanimous decision to completely ignore the entire first hour, which featured endless sound bites from the global lesbian peanut gallery.
This gave everyone time to ingest enough alcohol to be able to stomach the atrocity that was the actual episode.
The audience response proved immensely more entertaining. When Max said he had felt the baby kick, someone said it was too bad the moustache hadn't been knocked off. Bette revealing that she was "happy to be getting out of this little incestuous hotbed of lesbian [email protected]#$ing connectedness" encouraged cries of "take us with you!"
After the booing subsided, Shannon K. took the mic and explained that she didn't actually create the show, she just tivoed it for the masses.
Everyone made a mad dash for the bar, the smoking area, and the frustrating unisex bathroom that features about 75 urinals and two stalls, this being boys town and all.
Then, back to real life and real conversations. The long-term couples talked about having babies and home additions with quirky bisexual girls who can never seem to make it last. Girls who moved out here with their boyfriends, so recently it seems, looked around wide-eyed. Those girls who seem to get whoever they want went back on the prowl.
Gossip regarding hook-ups and break-ups was intercut with talk of screenplays and deals. Everyone tried to avoid their inevitably present exes.
Fortunately, we all made it out alive.


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Themes List
1Feature Filter
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Mga Tampok
Frolic is a Free Sports WordPress theme perfect for Sports related webites and Gym, Yoga, Fitness, health more business. However, due to its flexibility and easiness it can be used to create any types of sites. this Theme build in customizer it is very easy to use and user friendly.
Walang mga temang nahanap. Sumubok ng ibang paghahanap.


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30 September 2019
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CoC's 'Victims Of Internet Piracy' Look More Like 'Victims Of Propagandist Exploitation'
from the your-violins-are-out-of-tune deptIt appears that the US Chamber of Commerce is ramping up its laughably inept propaganda attempts in support of PROTECT IP. First it had that awful video that conflated harmful counterfeit drugs with copyright infringement (and discussed an event in Canada, not the US), and now it's put together another silly video supposedly showing content creators "harmed" by infringement:
"The idea that I have to accept as a filmmaker that a certain percentage of the people who see my stuff are never going to pay me for it... in film school, I never thought I'd have to live with that. What other business would it be okay to lose 50% of your product and not receive income for it?"The thing is, most folks who go to film school end up with almost no one ever paying to see a film that they make. If you're actually getting people who want to see your films, then you're doing something right -- and then the challenge is for you to put in place a business model that works. And it does work. We've seen plenty of filmmakers who have embraced having most people see their works for free and they still make good money by connecting with fans and giving real reasons to buy beyond that. And, no, you haven't "lost" 50% of your product. Your product is still there. What you failed to do is to build a good business model.
And even if we really were talking about 50% of your "product" not selling, plenty of businesses end up in that position... and their job, as business people, is to figure out ways to make money. Just because you invest in something and make a product, it doesn't mean people have to buy. No one turns 100% of their "effort" into revenue. Complaining about people not buying is not a legal issue, it's a business model one.
It seems kind of ironic that the Chamber of Commerce of all operations seems to not want to help this filmmaker create a business model, but instead wants to exploit his situation to pass a bad law that won't help him at all.
Oh, and we should mention that the filmmaker in question appears to be Dano Johnson, and he's most well known for the movie Flatland. Flatland, you say? Isn't that the old book? Why, yes, yes it is. And in this little interview clip with Dano Johnson and his producer partner Seth Caplan, they brag about the fact that the book is in the public domain so they didn't have to pay for it.
Dano then goes away for a bit and we get an author:
"Used to be where they would give you a two, three, four book contract. That's not the case any more. Now we have to do well with the first book or there won't be a second book."First of all, while there are some multi-book contracts, they were never quite as popular as some people think, and getting away from them has happened mainly because they were bad deals for everyone (including the author in many cases), which has nothing whatsoever to do with "piracy." This woman, "Tracy Deebs" seems to just assume that "piracy" is why such contracts have gone away. She offers no evidence.
"Internet piracy affects this greatly because the numbers get skewed. People are downloading stuff for free."Or they could go to the library and get the book for free. Ban libraries, because Tracy Deebs says they're killing her ability to make money!
Perhaps Ms. Deebs should check in on the writings of JA Konrath who found no evidence that file sharing hurts sales. He's also found that he's much better off without one of those "two, three or four book contracts," because he makes a lot more money self-publishing ebooks at much cheaper prices. And this is especially true in the "young adult" space, which is what Deebs writes for these days, where Amanda Hockling figured out how to self-publish and sell over 100,000 books a month.
Oops. Just like with Dano Johnson, it looks like the problem here is the failure to put in place a good business model, rather than anything having to do with file sharing. Perhaps she should be looking to the Chamber of Commerce for help with that, rather than letting them get her to support a law with massive unintended consequences that won't help her one bit.
Johnson then returns:
"As an independent animator, we decided to make this film. We didn't really have any investors, so we were all putting in our time for free, with the hope to sell the film, and once it's successful pay ourselves back... While we've been successful, we can also see that we've lost a significant amount of revenue."Surely, as a one-time film school student, he knows that most films don't ever become "successful." Just the fact that he has been successful is an accomplishment -- in part thanks to his ability to build on the public domain (and then lock up the resulting work). And how does he know that his success is not due to the film being more widely available and more people knowing about it? If you look at the website for the Flatland movie, you can see that the film is available to buy and it appears that plenty of people are buying it. Furthermore, according to IMDB and Wikipedia, it looks like Johnson has helped make a 3D-IMAX version of the film which will be released this fall. That seems like a smart move. Johnson is figuring out that he can do things to compete with the free versions by making an experience that can't easily be copied. Given the subject matter, I would expect that schools will be a prime target to take classrooms full of kids to see Flatland in IMAX 3D. So where is his proof of "lost revenue"? How does he know that he hasn't gained sales from people finding out about the films online?
Then we move on to a musician, Guy Forsyth.
"There's a hole in the system, and it's where the artists aren't getting paid for the work that they're doing."Interesting. I was curious about Guy Forsyth and so I discovered that his main claim to fame as a musician was as a part of The Asylum Street Spankers:
Founded by Christina Marrs, Wammo and Guy Forsyth after a legendary party at the famous Dabbs Hotel along the Llano River in Texas, the band began by busking on the streets of Austin and playing for tips in bars. In their earliest days, the Spankers' repertoire consisted almost entirely of country, blues, jazz, swing and Tin Pan Alley songs dating from the 1890s to the 1950s with a particular emphasis on the 1920s and 1930s.Now that's pretty cool, and I'd be interested in seeing Forsyth play, but I'm curious if, when they were out busking, he was paying the rightsholders from those songs that were still under copyright. In fact, the Wikipedia entry notes that it was only after Forsyth left the band that they started playing more original songs. So, once again, we have someone who builds off the culture of others, but now supports laws that would make that harder, if not impossible, for others to do the same. For shame.
On top of that, his claim that there's a "hole" and that musicians aren't getting paid any more has been debunked over and over again. While plenty of studies have shown that record labels haven't been earning as much, they've also showed that actual musicians are making noticeably more money these days. And they're doing it by putting in place innovative business models -- the kind of thing you'd think the US Chamber of Commerce would be helping with, rather than ignoring.
Then the video bounces back to both Deebs and Johnson, complaining about "free," and making assumptions about how each download is a lost sale. That's the same theme pushed by the next person, "actress" Krista Betts:
"As an actress, I'm used to those residual checks coming in and I open the mailbox, and I'm getting all excited... 'Oh! Screen Actors Guild!' And I open it up and the check is for... oh, about eight dollars. And I just stopped for a moment and thought 'I wonder, how much the check would have been had everyone purchased the DVD."Well, if "everyone" had purchased the DVD you'd have the best selling movie of all time. I'm guessing she means had everyone who downloaded it purchased it, which is ridiculous. Most of the people downloading would never have purchased it in the first place. Anyway, I was curious what DVD this might be, and according to IMDB Krista Betts appeared in one movie... in 2002 called "Lone Star State of Mind," It does not appear to have much of a wide release, and the only five reviewers who reviewed the movie on Rotten Tomatoes all hated the movie. For example, check out this review:
While watching, this tended to remind me of "Raising Arizona", with only one exception: Raising Arizona is good, and this is bad, really bad. There's a movie that you can watch that is so bad that it makes you feel like tearing your eyebrows off one by one just to numb the pain. The cliches are so thick in this film that it inevitably tears down the film with no chance of recovery. There's practically every known cliche and stereotype in this film applying to Texan people.So, Krista, I'm not sure, but the fact that you're still getting even $8 for a film you did a decade ago, which barely moved the needle and apparently had reviewers wanting to tear their eyebrows out... perhaps that's not something to complain about. No one pays me for the work I did a decade ago, and I don't think it drove anyone to tear out any eyebrows.
Then there are a bunch of quotes comparing file sharing to theft. First from Johnson:
"For me, you buy a ticket. You buy a digital download."But you don't buy the rights to a story. That's too expensive. Obviously, there are exceptions -- such as the one at the end of the interview video above with Johnson, where he plugs the free showing of Flatland. Sometimes, apparently, you don't have to buy a ticket, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Back to Forsyth:
"You go out to your car and the window is busted and you look inside, and you're like 'oh, they grabbed my wallet, they grabbed the stereo out of the dash.' It's that same feeling that someone has reached in and taken something away from you. Something that you worked hard to earn."Except it's not like that at all and anyone who's being intellectually honest in this debate knows that. Nothing has been "taken" from him. No one has smashed a window. He's not missing a wallet. He's not missing a stereo. Plenty of musicians have done amazingly well by embracing what their fans want, embracing free, recognizing the value of promotion. That Forsyth apparently hasn't done so isn't a reason to change the law. It's a reason to point Forsyth to some of the many case studies of musicians who are doing it right.
On to Deebs:
"If internet piracy caused me to lose my contracts because I didn't sell enough books, then I would have a really hard time picking up another publisher. And this is my job. This is how I make my income. This is how I support my family."Actually Deebs, whose real name appears to be Tracy Wolff, admits in various online bios that her "job" is teaching writing at a local college. But, more to the point, just because you make your living one way, does NOT mean that Congress automatically has to pass laws to make sure you always make your living that way. Even more important is that the real problem isn't "internet piracy." Nowhere does she show that "internet piracy" actually harms her sales, and nearly all of the evidence we've seen for books shows no harm to sales from downloadable books. Again, Konrath's writings and empirical studies on this are compelling. The real problem, as she sneaks into the latter half of the sentence is that she didn't sell enough books. That's a business model problem. Since tons of authors are selling more and more books than ever before (and many are doing it through self-publishing), I'm not sure I see the real "problem" here.
It's also probably worth mentioning that for all this talk about how evil it is not to pay the "creators" of various things, the Chamber of Commerce is relying on Drupal to manage the astroturf "Fight Online Theft" site that this content comes from. How much do you think the Chamber of Commerce donated to the Drupal Association? And, of course, they're getting free bandwidth, hosting and high quality video playback software from YouTube (rogue site!). For all this hand-waving about how evil it is not to pay creators, it seems that the US Chamber of Commerce is plenty happy to save money by using free things. Either the folks there recognize the cost advantage of not having to worry about licensing all the time, or they seem to implicitly recognize the "quality" of software and services that (according to them) never should have been created since they're available for "free." Either way, the US Chamber of Commerce appears to be completely inconsistent in what it says and what it does... just like many of the folks in the video.
I have to admit that I'm pretty shocked that this was the "best" that the US Chamber of Commerce could come up with. None of the stories is remotely compelling. You have two folks who relied on the works of others, but now want to block that off for others, and then a woman who is complaining that she's not getting enough money from residuals from a decade old movie that no one liked. And, finally, an author who appears to not be familiar with the new opportunities enabled through publishing today thanks to the internet.
And for this they want us to change the laws in such a way that will break the fundamental architecture of the internet, hinder innovation, tie up companies in needless litigation, apply additional liability to all sorts of companies, encourage blatant censorship of websites without trials and do absolutely nothing to help artists make more money? Sorry, but no thanks.
Filed Under: dano johnson, guy forsyth, krista betts, propaganda, protect ip, tracy deebs
Companies: us chamber of commerce


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A moment in Philmusic.com's History: The site domain was registered in December 1996. We are at most, probably one of the longest running Philippine websites around!
dude, there is a difference between having fun and just being a troll.
Bad Behavior has blocked 55268 access attempts in the last 7 days.
Page created in 0.077 seconds with 24 queries.


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Compare cheap flights to Rajshahi
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When is the cheapest time to fly to Rajshahi?
Flights to Rajshahi
The city is being served by the Shah Makhdum Airport. There are domestic flights to this city carried by the United Airways Bangladesh. Upon arrival in the city, you will not have a hard time going from one place to another with the availability of various types of public transportation such as bus, taxi and rickshaws. There is also a train that connects the city to the rest of Bangladesh.
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- Details
- Specs
- Reviews
- Manuals
These energy saving timers use no electricity to operate. The Intermatic FD6H SPST 6-Hour Spring Wound Timer is designed to replace any standard wall switch, single or multi-gang, and automatically limit the "ON" time of fans, lights, motors, heaters and other energy consuming loads. The Spring Wound Timer has a time limit of up to 6 hours. Supplied with a molded white time dial plate designed to fit either toggle or decorator style switch plates; single or multi-gang with no modifications required to fit either style switch plate. Time saving "up front" terminal connection with teeter type terminals and an easy "press-on" knob design ensure quick and easy installation. Single Pole, Single Throw (SPST) indicates the Timer can control one circuit (one set of lights, a spa pump, a fan, etc.) at the same time.
- Brand: Intermatic
- Part No.: FD6H
- Inductive: 20 Amp 125 VAC 50/60 Hz; 10 Amp 250 VAC 50/60 Hz; 10 Amp 277 VAC 50/60 Hz,
- Tungsten: 7 Amp 125 VAC,
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- Brand: Intermatic


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: Patrick Kwinten21314 02 Jun 2010
We do not use activities, so a feature as written above could be in that service.
When you hand-over projects it would be great to send/forward/delegate a folder with content to a collegue.
Most simple would be the option to select the folder and choose 'forward folder'. this would initiate the move of the complete folder from one mailbox to another.
The receiver should ofcourse accept the delegation.


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Hzayed necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 225 diseños de 86 diseñadores freelance.
"VUI" / Vanuatu Utilities & Infrastructure Limited / A Pernix Group Company
VUI will be providing power services to the people of Vanuatu. VUI stands for Vanuatu Utilities & Infrastructure Limited and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pernix Group, Inc. Pernix Group is publicly traded international power and construction company. Besides providing power on the island VUI seeking out other business/investment opportunities in the country, including but not limited to construction. This contest is for creating a look for this company.
potential investors, shareholders, government officials and power users.
• The logo should prominently display the company name (can be the abbreviated version) and offer an option with the following wording included "A Pernix Group Company".
• The new VUI logo may utilize the existing Pernix Group globe, with identifying subsidiary marks; the logo shall not in any way modify the existing Pernix Group logo. Instead should be the use of the current Pernix logo, with identifying marks for this subsidiary, namely the brand name of VUI or Vanuatu Utilities & Infrastructure Limited. We are also open to a new logo look for this subsidiary, but want to stay within the same group of colors.
• The logo should be suitable for placement on white or black background; and should be appealing when printed in black and white.
• Logo should be suitable for printing on hard hats, coveralls, t-shirts, etc. And letterhead, business cards, customer billings, etc.
• The logo should be crisp and attractive.
• We may look to the winning deisgner for additional work.
Parent company website: http://www.pernixgroup.com
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Hill's™ Science Diet™ Adult 7+ Savory Turkey Entrée Cat Food
Science Diet™ Adult 7+ Savory Turkey Entrée cat food delivers the gourmet taste of turkey with its soft, smooth texture. It has precisely balanced nutrition to sustain kidney and vital organ health.
Product Details
Key Benefits
Clinically proven nutrition that can transform your pet's life.
Science Diet™ Adult 7+ Savory Turkey Entrée cat food delivers the gourmet taste of turkey with its soft, smooth texture. It has precisely balanced nutrition to sustain kidney and vital organ health.
Benefit Nutrient How It Works Promotes kidney health Phosphorus Controlled levels of phosphorus help maintain kidney health for mature cats. Easy to digest High quality ingredients Ensures appropriate nutrient absorption to keep your cat fit and healthy.
Recommended For:
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Not Recommended For:
Kittens, pregnant or nursing cats.
Additional Info:
Great tasting nutrition for a long, happy life. With soft purrs and even softer nuzzles, you and your cat have a thing all your own. Because every moment you spend together is special, we strive to give you more of them. With wholesome ingredients and the right nutrients, Hill's Science Diet is precisely prepared to offer your cat the nutrition she needs for lifelong health and happiness.
We manufacture our pet foods in U.S. manufacturing facilities with the highest quality ingredients from North America, Europe and New Zealand. These ingredients must meet our strict requirements for purity and nutrient content, which exceed industry standards.
You can make a difference in the lives of shelter pets. With every purchase of Science Diet™ you help feed over 100,000 homeless pets every day, 365 days a year. Learn more at hillsfoodshelterlove.com.
Other Products to Consider
You can find Science Diet canned food in other flavors and proteins. Science Diet also has dry foods to perfectly complement this canned food.
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How to adjust feeding amounts to maintain optimal weight.
- Cover and refrigerate unused portion.
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Adult maintenance - using 5.5 oz (156 g) can
Weight of Cat - lb (kg) Amount per Day 4 lb (1,8 kg) 3/4 can 5 lb (2,3 kg) 3/4 can 8 lb (3,6 kg) 1 1/4 cans 10 lb (4,5 kg) 1 1/2 cans 12 lb (5,4 kg) 1 2/3 cans 14 lb (6,4 kg) 1 3/4 cans 16 lb (7,3 kg) 2 cans
Animal feeding tests using AAFCO procedures substantiate that Hill's™ Science Diet™ Adult 7+ Savory Turkey Entrée Cat Food provides complete and balanced nutrition for maintenance of adult cats
High quality protein and thoughtfully sourced ingredients.
Water, Turkey, Turkey Giblets, Pork Liver, Salmon, Rice, Pork By-Products, Corn Starch, Powdered Cellulose, Corn Gluten Meal, Wheat Flour, Soybean Meal, Chicken Fat, Chicken, Chicken Liver Flavor, Natural Flavor, Calcium Sulfate, Guar Gum, Locust Bean Gum, Brewers Dried Yeast, Dicalcium Phosphate, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Carrageenan, Taurine, vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Niacin Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Biotin, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Iodized Salt, Calcium Carbonate, minerals (Zinc Oxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Calcium Iodate), DL-Methionine.
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185 kcal / 5.5 oz (156g) can
Nutrient Dry Matter1
Protein 33.8 Fat 24.0 Crude Fiber 5.2 Carbohydrate / NFE 31.6 Calcium 0.95 Phosphorous 0.65 Sodium 0.28 Potassium 0.71 Magnesium 0.062 Vitamin C 128 ppm Vitamin E 561 IU/kg Total Omega-3 FA 0.67 Total Omega-6 FA 6.92
1The nutrient in the product after moisture is removed. It is used to make direct comparisons of nutrient profiles with differing moisture contents.
Science Diet™
Precisely balanced nutrition that can change pets' lives. Because when they're healthier, they're happier.


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Ben Margot / AP
At least five hantavirus infections have been linked to the tent cabins in Yosemite's Curry Village.
About 10,000 people who stayed in tent cabins at Yosemite National Park over the summer may be at risk for hantavirus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday in a health advisory.
"People who stayed in the tents between June 10 and Aug. 24 may be at risk of developing (hantavirus) in the next six weeks," the CDC said in the release.
Earlier, two more Yosemite National Park visitors were found with a mouse-borne virus blamed for the deaths of two people, bringing the total number of infections to six, state health officials said.
The new discoveries were made during the agency's investigation into cases of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome at the famed park, California Department of Public Health Anita Gore spokeswoman said.
The infections spurred park officials to close 91 tent cabins at Curry Village in Yosemite Valley, where five of the six infections occurred. Gore said one of the infected people may have been in another area of the park.
"Our investigation is trying to determine which area of the park that person visited," she said.
Over the past three weeks, two people have died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome after staying in cabins at Curry Village in Yosemite Valley.
Park officials said the double-walled design of the cabins that were closed Tuesday made it easy for mice to nest between the walls. The disease is carried in the feces, urine and saliva of deer mice and other rodents.
The illness begins as flu-like symptoms, including including headache, fever, muscle ache, shortness of breath and cough. Initial symptoms may appear up to six weeks after exposure and can lead to severe breathing difficulties and death.
Although there is no cure for hantavirus, treatment after early detection through blood tests can save lives. The virus, which has never been known to be transmitted between humans, kills 38 percent of those it infects.
"The earlier it's caught and supportive care is given, the better the survival rate," said Dr. Vicki Kramer, chief of vector-borne diseases at the state Public Health Department.
Dr. Charles Chiu, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, said he made a habit of airing out his tent-cabin before occupying it as a precaution against possible virus-carrying dust particles when he stayed in Curry Village a few years ago.
But even Chiu said he was surprised to learn that a hantavirus had killed two people and stricken others who slept in the same structures this summer.
"It wasn't something even I had thought of at the time," Chiu, who studies hantavirus, told Reuters.
Five of the people who fell ill are known to have stayed in the tent cabins in June or July, and warnings have gone out to visitors who stayed in Curry Village in June, July or August.
The hantavirus outbreak occurred despite efforts by park officials to step up protection efforts last April. A 2010 report from the state health department warned park officials that rodent inspection efforts should be increased after a visitor to the Tuolumne Meadows area of the park fell ill.
The new hantavirus policy, enacted April 25, was designed to provide a safe place, "free from recognized hazards that may cause serious physical harm or death."
It came after the state report revealed that 18 percent of mice trapped for testing at various locations around the park were positive for hantavirus.
"Inspections for rodent infestations and appropriate exclusion efforts, particularly for buildings where people sleep, should be enhanced," it said.
Melanie Norall of Palo Alto, California, is monitoring her 8-year-old daughter's every sniffle. They stayed in a cabin outside Yosemite's north entrance at the end of July and awoke to mice scurrying and eating nuts out of their luggage.
In 2009, the park installed the 91 new, higher-end cabins to replace some that had been closed or damaged after parts of Curry Village, which sits below the 3,000-foot Glacier Point promontory, were determined to be in a rock-fall hazard zone.
The new cabins have canvas exteriors and drywall or plywood inside, with insulation in between. Park officials found this week when they tried to shore up some of the cabins that mice had built nests in the walls.
The deer mice most prone to carrying the virus can squeeze through holes just one-quarter-inch in diameter. They are distinguished from solid-colored house mice by their white bellies and gray and brown bodies.
The park sent warning emails and letters Wednesday to another 1,000 people who stayed in tent cabins, after officials found that a computer glitch had stopped the notices from going out with the original 1,700 warnings Monday. The warning says anyone with flu-like symptoms or respiratory problems should seek immediate medical attention.
In 2011, half of the 24 U.S. hantavirus cases ended in death. But since 1993, when the virus first was identified, the average death rate is 36.39 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
The vast majority of hantavirus victims are young and middle-age adults, Chiu said, probably because they are mostly likely to engage in activities that would readily expose them, such as chopping and carrying fire wood or sweeping the floors.
"The message should not be you should stop camping. The important thing is general awareness of this disease and to avoid wild rodents in general," Chiu said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
More hantavirus news:
Yosemite closes cabins after hantavirus deaths