Author: Serkadis

Gold appears to finally be catching a little bit of a bid, which is good news for the masses of gold bugs that have been suffering throug this four-week debacle, which previously they’d assumed to be impossible.

Meanwhile, US futures are pointing higher after yesterday’s slip-up, and European markets continue to shrug off woes in Britain, Ireland, Spain, Greece, and now Austria.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Has The Stock Market Finally Woken Up To The European Crackup And The Surging Dollar?
• Lemmings And Manufacturers Crushed As Dollar Surge Continues
• Why Nouriel Roubini’s Case Against Gold Is Wrong On Every Count

Are you feeling tired? Frustrated? Overwhelmed? Sounds like you need a Handjob! Yes, the Handjob multi-grip system easily opens jars, yanks cords, and a bunch of other things. And it’s just $4.95! But wait – if you order one handjob you get the second one absolutely free!

Now the real question: is this a real product or a parody? If you go to INeedAHandjob.com and click on the order button, it does seem to work. So go ahead, get yourself a handjob today. You deserve it.

Related posts:

1. The Office Kid: Parenting Perks Without The Kid
2. Who Knew Mail Order Brides Were So Hot?
3. Megan Fox Goes Nude in New Movie

Google has a special interest in one of its newest products, Place Pages, which was recently introduced to Google Earth, as it merges some of the fastest growing markets at the moment. On the one hand, it caters to small and local businesses which don’t traditionally advertise online but which could represent a huge, untapped market for Google. On the other hand, it incorporates some of the most useful aspects of location-based services. Finally, its sheer scope makes it a very important product even if it manages to achieve a small part of what it set out to do, that is to create a web page for every place on earth. Now Google is introducing a new feature which goes head-to-head with several, rather popular, web site categories like restaurant reviews.

“Today, we launched a new feature to rank and show distinguishing aspects for businesses on their Place Pages. By taking a look at a Place Page, you can quickly get a better sense of what people are saying about a business and view relevant snippets about each specific aspect (say, the price, the service, or the infamous deep dish pizza) from all over the web,” Andrew McCarthy and Diego Nogueira from Google’s Local Search team wrote.

The new feature shows up just below the main sections, like overview and the photos. It gives an easy-to-read… (read more)

UBS is out with a list of potential big surprises for 2010. (via FT Alphaville)

Truth be told, we’re not completely certain what the point of this exercise is. It’s easy to come up with surprises — oil below $10! — though perhaps these surprises in particular are ones that bear hedging against. That’s fair.

Of all these, we think benign Wall Street regulation is a pretty good bet. The Nikkei surge is also intriguing, merely because it seems so implausible at the moment.

Anyway, here’s their base case, which is kind of predictable given the lsit of surprises. The one interesting one in there is Fed tightening in Q2, which is earlier than many folks suspect.

Read about how they did last year over at FT Alphaville >>

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Citi: Prepare For The Great Bond Unwind, As Investors Pile Into Stocks In 2010
• Moody’s: The Coming Sovereign Debt Crisis Of 2010
• Merrill Lynch: Ignore The Bubble In Pessimism, 2010 Will Be Awesome

Last year, you may recall that New Zealand tried to sneak through a “three strikes” type law that relied solely on accusations and would kick people off the internet. After first resisting, the government realized that public outrage over the plan was too strong and scrapped the plan, but admitted it was planning to try again, though with a bit more oversight.

It looks like that’s exactly what’s happened. The New Zealand government has released its new three strikes plan that is a bit more sane. You can still get kicked off the internet, which is troubling, but it’s a much more involved process. The system involves a notice-and-notice offering, whereby copyright holders notify an ISP, who notifies the user. After three notices, you don’t face disconnection, but a government tribunal, who can fine the user monetarily, but only to recover “damages,” not for punitive reasons. Finally, if there are still more signs of infringement, the rights holder can take the user to court, which can lead to much larger fines and the possibility of losing an internet connection for six months. Throughout the process, the user will be able to appeal.

This is certainly a lot more reasonable than the original plan, but I still find any plan that involves kicking people off the internet entirely for their actions to be draconian and impossible to enforce reasonably. These days, your mobile phone or even a desk phone may use the internet, and many people require internet access for their jobs. It seems ridiculous to kick people off entirely.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Hedge Fund manager Bill Ackman recently made a presentation arguing a bull case for distressed mall property owner General Growth Properties. In it, he made some surprisingly bullish arguments about the future of the mall, and the revitalization of the US consumer.

Well, there are two sides to every investment story.

Hovde Capital — via Market Folly — has made a presentation arguing against General Growth, against malls, and against the US Consumer.

Hovde’s view is somewhat conventional wisdom — the consumer is toast; there’s still a lot of deleveraging left, etc. — but they’re going up against well-known Ackman, so it’s interesting.

Check out the argument >>

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Bill Ackman: Here’s Why I’m Super-Bullish On Shopping Malls And The US Consumer

	What does the Prius PHEV mileage really mean on the JC08 cycle? Here’s why you won’t get 76.7 mpg in one of these.		From Hummer to the Volt, one engineer’s tale How the Volt saved one man’s job.
	Honda plans to settle Civic Hybrid mileage suit out of court. Is it a fair deal? Is Honda paying for what might be an EPA error?	Other news: GM: Volt plus EEStor could work … if EESU worked BMW rumored to quit hydrogen but just dropping Hydrogen 7 REPORT: Mercedes-Benz begins testing electric SLS supercar

AutoblogGreen for 12.16.09 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Those of us who don’t get to do our holiday travel via sleigh all seem to have our luggage horror stories.

My poor sister survived a seven hour flight to Germany seated next to some wack-a-doo who sucked his fingers the entire time- only to arrive in Deutschland with no luggage. Europe sans skivvies isn’t really ideal.

My spring break in San Diego was tarnished when one of my two bags didn’t make the trip. After two days of not being able to work on my tan because my bathing suit was in the missing bag, I "went all Philly" on the customer service agent over the phone. The bag was on my doorstep two hours later.

Then there was the family ski trip to Salt Lake City when our equipment ended up in Las Vegas. While I’m pretty much Sin City’s biggest fan, the skiing there isn’t exactly ideal.

During December, more bag mishandling reports are filed than any other month of the year due to the volume of bags being checked. Here are some tips to avoid spending the holidays wearing Uncle Al’s spare sweatshirt.

• Avoid connecting flights. If you must take a flight that connects, allow at least 30 minutes inbetween for your bags to be transferred.
• Don’t wrap presents you’ve packed. Foil wrapping paper or tin foil can appear as a solid object during a screening, resulting in a luggage search. This can delay the bag.
• Travel light. Larger bags tend to fall off conveyor belts.
• Make your luggage easily accessible for screening. TSA security having to unlock your bag will cause a hold-up.
• Check in ASAP. Rushing a bag through at the last minute might cause it to be left behind.
• Be sure your name and contact information can easily be found on your luggage. This makes it easier to return to you should it get lost.

What horror stories or tips do you have? Are you traveling this Holiday season?

Healthcare holdout Joe Lieberman tells CNN (via Megan McArdle) he may run as a Republican in 2012.

What’s going on here?

Basically he’s sending the GOP a VERY clear message. If I vote against healthcare, you guys give me some kind of seniority in the caucus when I go turncoat.

If the GOP makes the promise, then it’s all over.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• BUSTED: Lieberman Caught Flip-Flopping On Medicare Buy-In
• Harry Reid Caves To Lieberman On Healthcare Reform
• It’s Not Just Lieberman: Several Democrats Are Freaked Out About Healthcare Reform Passing

YouTube is working overtime to get those revenue streams flowing and, while Google says it’s on track to profitability at a not-so-distant point, the video site is not quite there yet. It’s been pursuing several options, aside from the usual variety of advertising models, and is now even considering introducing a subscription model for some content. Reuters reports that not only paid content will make it onto the site, monthly subscriptions may be introduced as well to appease content owners who are wary of ad-based revenue.

The video site is said to be already in talks with several Hollywood studios and TV networks to introduce full-length movies and TV shows to the site in a pay-per-stream model. These talks are at an early stage, but the episodes may come in at $1.99, the same price Apple and Amazon ask for downloads.

YouTube has been struggling to secure more professional content which is much more monetizable than the amateur short clips which make up the vast majority of its inventory. However, it’s having a hard time convincing content owners that advertising is the way to go and most are reluctant to post their shows online for free for fear of eating into DVD sales and cable subscription revenue.

So Google is making concessions trying to meet the content o… (read more)

Cats will hiss (it is generally thought) for one of two reasons, either they feel threatened or they are feeling aggressive or it may be a combination of the two.

TheLawleys

Often hissing will simply be a way of telling another cat or human etc that the cat is present and is not going to be pushed around.  It will often hiss to just register its status and thus try to deter any further activity or aggression from the human or cat to whom the hiss has been directed.

If a cat does hiss at you it is important to avert your gaze from it.  If you continue to stare or look at it then it will interpret this as a sign of aggression and continue to hiss and this may escalate into a fully fledged ‘cat attack’.  

By looking away you are acknowledging that it has signalled either fear or anger and you are sending it a message that you do not mean any aggression towards it, so hopefully it should stop hissing.

Not surprisingly, governments are horrible traders — trust us, it’s not just our government that’s inept when it comes to the market, it’s all of them — and so we shouldn’t be particularly surprised that the rash of central bank gold buying all around the world occured in the last couple months, and now two years ago.

Bloomberg: The banks will buy 13.8 million ounces (429 metric tons) this year, worth $15.5 billion, for the first net expansion in reserves since 1988, New York-based researcher CPM Group estimates. Gold fell 15 percent that year and took another 15 years to trade again at the same price as central banks from Switzerland to the U.K. cut their holdings.

…

“This is late in the game to be buying gold,” said Peter Morici, a professor of business at the University of Maryland in College Park and former economic adviser to the U.S. government. “Central banks are not known for their investment acumen. What it reflects is a lack of confidence in the U.S. economy and the long-term durability of the dollar as a store of value.”

Countries were also increasing their holdings in 1980 when gold peaked at $850 an ounce, data compiled by the London-based World Gold Council show. The record was exceeded 28 years later.

Also, it’s not just that central banks kbuy at the top. As a recent Goldman research report argued, countries like India also have a knack for selling before big rallies.

Read the whole thing >>

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Goldman: India Has Been A Horrible Gold Trader
• India Has Set The New Gold Floor
• Is The Norwegian Krone The New Gold?

Gmail is one of the most popular web mail clients in the world at this point, despite coming relatively late to the game, and for good reason, its developers always stride to make it easier to handle the increasing amount of emails we go through every day. Apart from the sheer volume, managing all the contacts is also becoming a daunting task when the number reaches in the hundreds or even thousands. Luckily, Gmail comes to the rescue again with a tool to merge all of your duplicate contacts with just a few clicks.

“Managing a big address book can be a challenge, so it’s no surprise that the top request for Google contacts is a fast, easy way to merge duplicate contacts. You’ve been able to merge contacts one-by-one for a while, but now we’ve added a single button that merges all your duplicate contacts at once,” Dominik Marcinski, software engineer at Google wrote.

“To clean up your contact list in one fell swoop, just click the “Find duplicates” button in the contact manager, review the merge suggestions (and uncheck any suggestions you don’t want merged), and hit the “Merge” button,” he explained.

If you’ve been planning to spend a few hours cleaning up your contacts, but you just didn’t have the time or the courage to dive in, you’ll be glad you waited. It was poss… (read more)

Social networking may be growing at a huge pace, just look at Facebook’s rise for 2009; yet, incredibly, social gaming is growing even faster. Facebook has 350 million users by now and is on track to make at least $500 million this year in revenue. But it’s been at it for five years now. In the mean time, Zynga, the largest social gaming company around, is just two years old, has well over 100 million users, many on Facebook, and is reported to make $250 million this year.

Perhaps it’s no surprise then that the same investors interested in Facebook are also pouring their coffers into Zynga. What may be a little surprising, though, is the fact that the said investor is Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian investment firm, and that it’s buying a $180 million stake in Zynga at an unknown valuation.

Zynga is now the biggest social gaming company, an industry growing at an incredible pace, and is the rising star of the bunch though, now without its fair share of controversy in the recent “ScamVille” scandal. The company has been acquiring new users at a rapid pace and has been profitable for quite a while now. It hasn’t released any revenue numbers, but it is said to be on track for a hefty turnover this year. Playfish, a smaller competitor, was recently acquired by faming giant EA for $300 mill… (read more)

There’s just something about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act — the “anti-hacking” law in the US — that seems to leave it open for abuse in lawsuits. This is the law that was used to convict Lori Drew. Even though the judge eventually tossed the ruling, it showed how the broadly-worded law could be applied in dangerous ways. Still, at least some attempts at twisting the law aren’t getting very far. For example, a woman in Minnesota tried to use the law against a company that sent her spam text messages she never requested, and discovered that in order to bring a case under a law, you have to actually show that the law was broken:

Plaintiff brings three possible claims: (1) a claim for obtaining information from her phone; (2) a claim for transmitting information or code through her phone; and (3) a claim for “accessing” her phone.

Information Claim: The court rejects the information-based claim because there’s no information that WSOD allegedly obtained through accessing the plaintiff’s phone. Plaintiff analogizes to websites and argues that any time someone sends a message to a mobile phone, information is “obtained” in the same way that information is obtained any time someone accesses a website. The court rejects this analogy, finding that “there is a fundamental difference between viewing websites and communicating with wireless devices such as cell phones by sending text messages.” Even if the transmission of an unwanted text message somehow resulted in the “obtaining of information,” the court concludes that there’s no loss as a result of defendant having obtained the information.

Transmission Claim: The transmission claim requires plaintiff to allege that WSOD caused the transmission of code or information and as a result “intentionally caused damage without authorization” to plaintiff’s device. The complaint fails on both counts. There wasn’t a credible allegation of damage (there was no allegation of impairment to the machine) or of WSOD’s intent to cause the damage.

Access Claim: The court rejects the access claim since plaintiff does not adequately allege that the unauthorized access was intentional.

So, nice try, but no dice. Someone sending unsolicited text messages to your mobile phone may be annoying (and potentially illegal under other laws), but it’s not hacking under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

We are considering to start a regular guest post series focused on reviewing information visualization tools and software. After all, there are plenty of reviews available online, from testing software, electronic gadgets and books, to the literal unpacking of newly acquired goods, but almost none that deal with the development of data visualizations.

First of all, we would like to know whether there is interest in such a regular review feature, and whether there are more people around the community that want to help us with this initiative.

Other questions include: Should a popular blog like infosthetics deal with reviewing? What would you like to see reviewed? Are there specific tools or software you are already interested in to be tested? How should a typical data visualization review look like? What are the criteria? How can we compare tools with each other? What should be the benchmarks? What comparable or example datasets should we use?

Please let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below!

Kim Rees is a partner at Periscopic, an interactive design firm specializing in data visualization and information presentation.

Image courtesy of Many Eyes and Panopticon.

Snoring stresses. It can be the source of your embarrassment while you sleep in somebody else’s house, even if it is your own friend or family. It may both create a disturbance to your companion in sleeping, and it can make you the center of their amusement – too shameful.

Although snoring is not an ailment, it is only a disproportion on the human body system. So, it is not impossible for you to cure snoring. If snoring can be completely eliminated, then societal peace can be achieved, especially inside the bedroom.

Nowadays, there are already medicines and devices available in the market to cure snoring. However, this requires a bit of amount of money, and creating further stress.

Nevertheless, if these kind of cure is not included in your budget, there is still another option that will not be heavy in your purse—home remedies.

First, try to change your position in sleeping. Elevate the head of your bed by a few inches, or try to add some more pillows. This will lessen the jamming of the air passage in your throat muscle. Avoid sleeping on your back too; the tendency if you do this is to give more chances on the occurrence of snoring, the reason for this is the draw back of soft palate and tongue, thus, constricting the air passage.

Next, you can try to modify your lifestyle. Your present lifestyle may contribute in aggravating your snoring, for instance, excessive eating, excessive drinking of alcohol, and too much intake of cigarette.

Modifying lifestyle is what the doctors’ called “conservative therapy.” Truth is the doctors stated that this is the advisable primary step in curing snoring before attempting to use other harsh treatments.

Try to motivate yourself to conduct a regular physical exercise to lessen your weight. Avoid excessive intake of alcohol and cigarettes, the effect of not preventing both of these will add to the obstruction to the airway. Likewise, avoid excessive intake of sleeping pills and tranquilizers, these medicines also worsen snoring.

If you will also notice, some of the medicines that are being offered in the drugstore can be classified as home remedies. Examples of these are the nasal strips, nose sprays, and anti-snoring pills. The ingredients contained by these medicines are basically herbs, and plant enzymes, these can manage the swelling of nose and throat tissues. Additionally, these offset snoring by evening the airflow.

Generally, a home remedy is almost alike to the drug free medication. The procedures of such prescriptions are founded in the inventions’ experience.

There is the drug free snoring “mandibular advancement splint” for instance; the function of this is to maintain your jaw in a pressed onward position. This helps to widen the air passage, and according to the report this helps in more than 80 percent in impeding snoring cases.

If you are really determined and will exert further efforts to the suggested home remedies above, it is not impossible to cure your snoring all by yourself.

The process for these is simple. Distinguish first the problem, ponder. Then, work on it everyday. Following this will award you a good outcome. And the days of disgraceful nights will come to an end. This may possibly happen earlier than you anticipated.

So good luck on your self-medication!

As the year comes to an end, there’s two than more weeks left but who’s really counting, it’s time to sit back and marvel at just how much we achieved in 2009. And if you’re Twitter, you may even have a reason to be proud of yourself, the microblogging service exploded onto the scene and secured its foothold in the mainstream. Over the year, several topics got the most attention from the Twitterati and the site has now released the Top Twitter Trends of 2009 complete with Michael Jackson and #iranelection.

Twitter divided the trending topics into several categories, News Events, People, Hashtags and so on, and came up with a top 10 for each of them. In the News Events category, and likely on Twitter overall, topics about the Iran elections dominated coming in at number one, #iranelection, number four, “Iran” and again at number five with “Tehran.” Swine flu was also a popular topic, if popular is the right word for it, making it to number two and coming in again at number six.

“Among all the keywords, hashtags, and phrases that proliferated throughout the year, one topic surfaced repeatedly. Twitter users found the Iranian elections the most engaging topic of the year. The terms #iranelection, Iran and Tehran were all in the top-21 of Trending Topics, and #iranelection finished in… (read more)

The Spectra-Physics® Inspire™ ultrafast OPO family delivers unprecedented tuning range from 345 nm to 2.5 µm gap-free and with no change of intracavity optics or crystals. Pumped with the Mai Tai® ultrafast Ti:Sapphire lasers, they also deliver exceptionally high power across the UV and visible range and provide adjustable pulse width from 80 to 350 fs. The Inspire OPO features user-friendly, computer-controlled tuning across the range with no changes in optics or crystals. The system’s robust design ensures high stability and insensitivity to ambient temperature change.

The Inspire OPO family offers:

– User-friendly gap-free tuning from 345 nm to 2.5 µm—no change of optics or crystals required.
– Five output ports available: signal output (490-750 nm with >400 mW), idler output (930-2500 nm with >200 mW), fundamental output (690-1040 nm with >1 W), doubled fundamental output (345-520 nm with >1 W), and alignment output.
– Simultaneous output from either two or three output ports—ideal for applications requiring more than one wavelength such as CARS.
– HF version with fully-automated hands-free wavelength tuning complete with automated cavity alignment to maintain optimal power and pulse durations.
– Auto version with semi-automated tuning and nearly transform-limited pulse duration flexibility (80-350 fs) for tailoring pulse widths to match experimental conditions.

With its unprecedented gap-free wavelength coverage with no change in optics required, the Inspire OPO family is the next-generation OPO for developing cutting-edge imaging and spectroscopy applications.

Applications
– Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy (CARS)
– Multiphoton excitation (MPE) microscopy
– Time-resolved spectroscopy
– Vibrational overtone spectroscopy
– Semiconductor research and spectroscopy
– Multiple wavelength pump-probe experiments
– Fiber optics and optical communications

Resolve Optics Ltd has developed an international reputation for the design and supply of OEM quantities of custom rugged lenses for demanding military and civilian applications.

Driven by financial considerations some organisations, whose systems operate in demanding environments, may seek to incorporate non-ruggedised lenses and lens systems in the design of their products. However adopting such a strategy notably increases the possibility of failure of the product during its deployment.

Drawing upon over 20 years experience – Resolve Optics Ltd. works closely with each customer to ensure that the optical and mechanical design exactly meets the application requirements. Working with a wide range of optical materials – Resolve Optics Ltd has produced ruggedised lenses designed and tested to meet and exceed specified environmental tests such as Def Stan 00-35 which includes vibration, shock and bump testing over a temperature range of -40° to +70° C. Lens optical coatings can be applied to meet a range of MIL Spec standards (including MIL-C-14806, MIL-C-675, MIL-M-13508) to ensure the coatings do not craze, peel or even succumb to fungal attack. To minimise the risk of condensation our lenses are assembled in a dry nitrogen atmosphere to ensure that each lens is supplied dry and free of moisture.

Benefiting from an experienced team of optical designers – Resolve Optics Ltd. is able to quickly gain an understanding of the basic physics of the technology associated with each customer’s product enabling a novel, optimised and affordable solution to be proposed. The company goal is to provide a fast and flexible optical and mechanical design assessment on all projects. A project engineer is assigned to closely liase with customers at all points of a development to ensure complete satisfaction with the final ruggedised lens or optical system. Resolve Optics Ltd. employs the latest in Computer Aided 3D modelling along with many years experience in the design and manufacture of specialist lenses and optical products. It is here that quality and reliability are designed into all ruggedised lens and optical systems. Advanced optical manufacturing and CNC machining technology is used to produce high quality components. In assembly, experienced workers build complete assemblies with care and attention to detail. All ruggedised lens products are exhaustively tested before leaving our factory to ensure your complete satisfaction.