Eco Factor: Patent-pending technology to turn cigarette butts into tiny flower pots.
Greenbutts has developed a new technology to create cigarette filters that once discarded grows flowers and serves as a tiny flower pot. The patent-pending technology features cigarette butts made using organic cotton and natural de-gummed hemp. Wheat flour and water are used to bind the filter elements together.
The dust has barely settled on the format war between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray that saw Blu-ray take the honors, but that hasn’t stopped the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) announcing two new media specs using Blu-ray Disc technology. The final specifications for BDXL (High Apacity Recordable and Rewritable discs) and IH-BD (Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray discs) are expected in the next couple of months and neither will be compatible with existing Blu-ray players – not even with a firmware update…
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Sneaking a smoke in an airplane bathroom is not a good idea these days. You may accidentally set off a Jerry Bruckeimer movie. Much like the recent incident where a drunk guy started yelling about jihad on a cruise ship accidentally activating a full on action movie, today we bring you the story of a Qatari diplomat whose secret cigarette on a United Airlines flight from Washington to Denver caused fighter jets to be scrambled.
According to law enforcement agents who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity, no explosives were found on the man and they do not believe he intended to harm anyone.
Apparently the man had been smoking in the bathroom when he was asked about the smokey smell. He jokingly replied that he was lighting his shoes on fire. This was not a good idea.
AP’s sources say the man was taken into custody by air marshals and the plane landed safely after fighters jets were scrambled.
[A passenger] told the Associated Press she smelled smoke about an hour into the flight. She said she later looked out the window and saw two jets flying alongside the plane.
“I’m in the sky a lot, and I was thinking that might not be so normal,” she said.
She was angry about being held against her will to be questioned over something so minor.
“He went quietly. There was not a scene,” Turcotte said. “They made this into something that was ridiculous.”
Ridiculous, but action-packed!
The Japaneses Media Create has now released the results for their software sales charts for the week of March 29th through April 4th, 2010. On top of their list is newcomer Etrian Odyssey III for the DS.
Los Angeles police are investigating three officer-involved shootings in the last three days during which suspects were wounded or nearly wounded.
The first incident took place Sunday shortly before 11 p.m. in the 3800 block of West Jefferson Boulevard in West Adams after officers responded to a domestic dispute report and were allegedly confronted by a man with a knife, the Los Angeles Police Department said.
Gunfire ensued, police said, and the suspect was grazed in the head by a bullet.
The second incident occurred Tuesday in the 300 block of East 107th Street in Watts shortly after 8 p.m. as officers were serving a search warrant. They said they encountered a man who brandished a handgun and tried to load it.
At least one officer opened fire, hitting the man in the leg. He was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, police said.
On Wednesday evening, narcotics officers serving a search warrant in the 5700 block of Stansbury Avenue in Van Nuys were confronted by a man wielding a shotgun. At least one officer fired a weapon after the man allegedly failed to comply with commands, police said. The man was not hit in the incident, which occurred about 5:25 p.m., according to police.
No additional details were available Wednesday night.
— Andrew Blankstein and Robert J. Lopez
It’s springtime. The temperature is 85 degrees here in Washington. New York is approaching record-breaking temperatures. Global warming is back in business.
The flowers are out. Cherry blossoms are thick on the ground. The grass is yearning for the mower.
Heck, everything is back in business. To hear the media tell it, you’d think jobs were picking up…consumer spending too…manufacturing – everything.
Everyone thinks the recovery is as pullulating as April. Obama says we’ve ‘turned the corner.’ Larry Summers thinks we’re headed to the moon.
Is our old ‘Crash Alert’ flag still flying over the building with the gold balls? We hope so. Because, when everyone is thinking the same thing, no one is really thinking at all.
And when you start thinking about it, you begin to wonder…
..what happened to de-leveraging? What happened to all those bubble era mistakes?
..what happened to all that debt consumers were carrying?
..what happened to the Great Correction; isn’t there anything left to correct?
You’ll recall that the Great Correction seemed to be aiming to put a number of things right. Foremost were the economies of the USA and China. The US needed to correct its over-reliance on consumer spending/debt. China needed to correct its over-reliance on exporting things to America.
Of course, there were a number of other things in need of correction too:
..like the huge credit expansion of 1946-2007…in which debt went from 150% of GDP to more like 370%.
..and the phony baloney post-1971 money system in which the reserves of one central bank are the IOUs of other central banks. In the case of Europe, nobody is exactly sure who’s supposed to pay the IOUs. In the case of the US, everybody knows who’s supposed to pay…and everybody knows he can’t pay. He doesn’t have that much money. Even if you liquidated all his assets and all his citizens’ assets, Uncle Sam would still be about $50 trillion short.
..and there’s the stock market too. We’re still in bounce mode, following the big drop from 2007 to March of 2009.
In the short run, our chief researcher – Charles Delvalle, who keeps an eye on our investments at our family office – is bullish:
“The intermediate trend in the Dow Jones is still up. This trend was confirmed after the Dow Jones surpassed its Jan 19 peak. We could see a test in the trend, with a drop back down to the Jan 19 highs. As long as the Dow manages to stay above this, we could see a charge to 11,000 as soon as [this] week.”
But if this Great Correction is as great as we think it ought to be, it will wipe out this bounce…and sink another 50% before finally hitting bottom.
..and don’t forget the bull market in bonds. No one knows for sure, but the 10-year T-note hit its all-time low below 3% in November 2008, after a 27-year bull run. This week it went back over 4% – its highest point for this cycle. “The fun’s over,” says old-timer, Richard Russell. Are 10-year yields headed back to 15%?
..finally, there’s the very big picture…the Anglo-saxon empire…begun by the British in the 16th century…and carried on by Britain’s former colony, America. Is it time to take the English- speakers down a notch? Maybe…
Well, what do you think? Has the Great Correction fizzled out? Is it time to party like it was 2006 again? Is China going to make even more money by selling even more stuff to the US? Are Americans going to go further into debt to buy it? Are their houses going to recover 25% to 30% losses and keep on going? Is the Dow going back up to 14,000 – and beyond? Are bonds going up – even though the supply of them is soaring? And what about the empire? Has it got greater glories still in store?
We don’t know. We just watch…wait…and wonder…
..along with everyone else.
And more thoughts…
Our old friend, Graham Summers points out that the latest employment numbers are close to fraud:
Let’s have a look at these 162,000 jobs.
Right off the bat, we know that 48,000 of them came from hiring census workers. I won’t completely put this down because these ARE new jobs. But they’re hardly sustainable (the census is a temporary employer) or productive: paying someone to count other people adds literally NOTHING to the US’s manufacturing or productivity base. If it did, we could simply start hiring people to count clouds or trees and have an incredible economy in no time.
So without census workers, we added 114,000 jobs in March.
Then there are the +81,000 via birth/death adjustments. This metric is so complicated that it’s not even worth trying to explain. In simple terms, the BLS tries to adjust the jobs numbers to account for the birth/death cycle of businesses. But the reality is that it is an ‘X’ factor used to downplay job losses and boost job gains.
Without these adjustments, we added 33,000 jobs in March.
Then, of course, there are the weather adjustments. The winter of 2009- 2010, was by all counts, a rough one. So the BLS made various adjustments to atone for the fact that for several chunks of 1Q10, people couldn’t even get to work, let alone hire. Now that the winter is over, the BLS is adjusting numbers upwards to make up for former downward revisions. The total number of jobs “created” by adjusting for the nasty winter? 100,000.
Without these adjustments, we LOST 67,000 jobs in March.
Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
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Product Description
Take one capsule daily with water. Sustenex contains Ganeden-BC30 a resilient powerful probiotic clinically proven to improve digestive health which colonizes the intestine. It survives stomach acidity and ensures that more beneficial bacteria reach the small intestine to facilitate digestion and stregthening of the immune system.
Remembeer is an Android application aimed at helping the casual beer taster keep track of beers that he has tried. It recently came out of public beta, where it was known as Beer Log in the Market. The app is fairly simple, but so is the idea. Upon first launch, users are prompted to enter a beer they are currently drinking or have recently enjoyed. You are allowed to input the name, container, and the time at which you drank it.
Each beer that is added shows up in a simple list displaying the name, beverage container, and time along with a rating which can be set after the beer has been added to the app’s database. The app’s settings allow you to set up notifications which aim to remind you to rate each beer you enter, though these did not work consistently for me. I’ve emailed the devs and they are looking in to it. I seem to be the first person with this issue. Update: This was fixed in version 1.0.3.
Interestingly, the application also supports posting each new beer you drink to Twitter automatically, using a template that you specify. There is also a Statistics screen which tells you your favorite beer and most drunk beers, favorite time to drink, and number of beers tasted.
The developers have let me know that the project is open source and that the code is distributed under the MIT license. Development is coordinated on this page and the source can be obtained using git. The issue tracker also lists several possible coming features, including photographs of beers you try, locations, and recommendations to friends. This seems to be a young, active project which will probably develop nicely as the version number creeps up.
Final Verdict: If you need to keep track of your beer tasting in a simple, casual way this app could be for you. While there may still be a few kinks to iron out for the devs, the app is completely usable in it’s current form and is generally fun to use. Remembeer is currently in version 1.0.3.
Pros:
Needs Improvement:
Note: This review was submitted by J. Adam Morris as part of our app review contest.
You’re completely broke after buying all the equipment and supplies for your latest creative venture, so why not save money on lessons. The best way to soothe your inner cheapskate? Free online classes. More »
Eco Factor: Sustainable underwater city harvests natural resources for energy.
Considering the rate at which global temperatures are rising, we can anticipate the time when land begins to disappear and the cost of what’s left behind sky-rockets. Designers have already started preparing for such times when cities will no longer be built on land, but will have to go underwater. Arup Biomimetics have come up with a proposal for an underwater city that can be built in Australia.
On that subject of the insulation scheme, we have refrained from saying on a word on it out of respect of the many people who have lost their homes due, apparently, to faulty installation of the insulation. And of course, there is the far more serious and tragic fact that four young electricians died installing insulation in the government-generated boom.
Most government programs are laden with fraud and waste and incompetence. But most are not generally lethal, at least not directly. You could argue the Welfare State has been killing hope and real economic change for years.
But it is truly stunning that a $2.5 billion program designed to put insulation in people’s homes (a dubious program to begin with) actually killed four young Australians…and no one has had the courage to link the bad policy with the tragic result.
Think about that again – the death of four young people is directly linked to government policy – and no one has been fired, lost a job, or held accountable for it at all. If, for example, four diggers were killed in Afghanistan after being sent on poorly planned mission, what do you think the coverage in the media would be like?
We’re not having a go at the current government here. We’re having a go at complacency about the costs of an expansive and intrusive and meddling know-it-all Nanny State. Not just this Labour government either but ALL government. The idea that make-work programs to spend money in a Keynesian fashion are cost-free and benign is a fraud. They are not.
In fact, these ambitious and modest “government initiatives” alike, from healthcare to insulation are always and everywhere prone to just this kind of result. Policy makers might feel smart and morally superior spending other people’s money to produce “outcomes.” But the outcome is never what you expect, and usually worse.
Economically, when the government pours money into a market, it distorts all the incentives and leads precisely to this sort of hazard. In this case, the fact that it offered a rebate to install insulation attracted a lot of new installers. Whatever happened next – who knew what and when – is still unclear. But how it all started couldn’t be clearer – the government decided to blow $2.5 billion because it thought it ought to do something about the economy and this was a casual, victim-less way to do it.
It did something alright. And four people died. That’s a fact. And hundreds of Australian houses may now have electrified roofs. Millions and perhaps billions more will have to be spent to remedy the problem.
If you believe that government spending creates prosperity, then you could rationally argue the faulty program is actually a net economic benefit (despite the death toll) and a huge success. You could argue that it’s making more work for uninstallers and electricians who will have to go back and fix things. And then there are all the extra man hours for inspectors to make sure it’s all proper.
This is perfectly rational under the logic that spending money is good to stimulate aggregate demand. As long as people are busy, no distinction is made in the GDP figures between production and destruction. It’s all work all the same.
And to follow it through to its logical conclusion, we suggest the government hire an army of unemployed Australians, pay them money to bake bricks, and then march through the streets of every CBD in every capital city in Australia breaking as many windows as possible. Think about how much prosperity that would create!
Just remember, the government can never create wealth. It can only take money from one person and give it to another. You can argue, and many on both sides of the political spectrum do, that government ought to redistribute wealth in order to achieve “desired social outcomes”. Elections are held to put these propositions to the people for a vote. But even if the result is democratic, it certainly doesn’t result in wealth creation.
More on Australia’s production possibilities frontiers and how to save the country from a gradual decline into a Statist nightmare in tomorrow’s report. We’re off to Perth to see the boom first hand speak to a room of libertarians about why they should all be institutionalised. Until then!
Dan Denning
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
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Indonesia’s central bank is starting to get freaked out about the stellar performance of Indonesia’s stock market.
The head of the central bank’s economic research is worried that Indonesia, like many emerging markets, might be the victim of developed world fund flows, which have partly shunned markets such as the U.S. in favor of perceived emerging markets strength.
Thus valuation are completely unjustified, for the central bank. Which to central bank seems to mean they should be unjustified for everybody since they are now even talking about pricking the bubble:
“The actual stock price now is actually exceeding the fundamental value,” Perry Warjiyo, who was a member of the International Monetary Fund’s executive board before taking his current post in July 2009, said in an interview in Jakarta. “Whatever methodology we use” shows an excess valuation, he said, citing Bank Indonesia studies over recent months.
…
“There is a bubble going on,” Warjiyo said in the interview in his office yesterday. Bank Indonesia’s analysis shows the peak of the overvaluation was in July, with part of the deceleration owing to improved economic fundamentals, he said.
…
Bank Indonesia board members last year discussed the risks posed by an influx of foreign funds, and the bank studied the feasibility of imposing capital controls, Warjiyo said. For now, the bank is “confident” Indonesia can cope. Should they be applied, any capital controls would be “temporary,” he said.
Heavy-handed, and rather drastic unpredictable action, could rattle other emerging markets around the world. Jakarta’s Composite Index is down about 1.6% today.
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I’m not going to waste any time selling you on the story – we’ve got the first major of the year, a timeless course, the return of Tiger Woods, and the glorious rules of Masters television (limited commercial interruption). Clear off your schedule for the next four days.
A-List: Okay, Tiger’s only won once in his last seven trips down Magnolia Lane, but let’s not act like he’s been kicking the ball all over the joint (T6, 2, T2, T3, 1, T22, T15). Just about anyone else in this field would run over their grandmother for that track record, and if he can shake off the rust and somehow get into the chase on the weekend, he’s got a huge mental edge on the rest of the Tiger-fearing field. And for once we don’t have to worry about prematurely burning up all the Tiger starts – everyone’s got 10 in the bank, obviously. I’m not going to roll with him on Thursday, but I want him ready in the bullpen, accessible when needed (I’m almost definitely going to use him Friday).
Ernie Els was the can’t-miss kid at Augusta for several years – consider his run from 2000 to 2004, where he never finished worse than sixth but never secured the green jacket. He’s fallen on hard Magnolia times since then (47, 27, MC, MC, MC), but recent form means more to me and those two wins in Florida ultimately earn Els the check mark.
If you prefer to make a selection based on performance here, Phil Mickelson is your play, but I don’t like a thing about his game right now. Anthony Kim? I’ve never felt his skill set was an ideal fit for the Augusta requirements (plus he’s only been here one other time), and while he did win with his B Game last week in Houston, he’s also got a bum thumb that’s headed for surgery right after this week. That steers me to other options.
B-List: Lots of choices in this pool, good thing we get four of them. Settle in.
Retief Goosen has been close to a win here before (2002, 2007), and this year he’s my pick to get the job done. He’s a consistent driver no matter the course setup, he’s got the stomach for pressure golf, and he’s a dynamite putter on fast greens (his putting at the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock might have been the best I’ve ever seen). If you lived through a lightning bolt as a child, you’d be cool under pressure too.
Jim Furyk almost feels like a forced play; he’s also superb with the flat stick under pressure, and his earlier win this season was a monstrous step forward for his confidence. Furyk has only missed one Masters cut in his career, and he’s been in the Top 30 a whopping 11 times in 13 starts. Next step – a late pairing on Sunday afternoon.
I’ll go against type a little bit and use a bench spot on Dustin Johnson, no matter that he’s only making his second start at Augusta (T30 last year). He’s got a fantastic mix of power and distance control, he’s better on et greens than many realize (11th in putting average), and he’s currently standing first in par breakers and birdie conversion percentage.
Padraig Harrington and Lee Westwood were the two names I considered for the final spot, with Harrington getting the call for two reasons: he’s contended more often here, and I trust his putter more in a tight spot. Heck, just a few years ago it was pretty much a concession that Westwood would never be a factor in the majors because of his problems rolling the ball. He’s come a long way since then, but this isn’t the ideal place for his breakthrough.
Alvaro Quiros? Love the player, hate the local inexperience; just one turn here, a missed cut last season (78-75).
C-List: I know it sounds crazy to leave Paul Casey and Charl Schwartzel off the dance card this week, but there’s a legitimate reason for both. In the case of Casey, we’re looking at injuries – a bad shoulder and rib kept him out of Houston last week and he openly admits he’s not 100 percent. Schwartzel’s got the mind and the game to be a factor here for many years, but he’s making his Augusta National debut in 2010 and this is the type of course where local knowledge goes a long way.
Ian Poulter takes up one of my C positions; he’s got the nerve of a burglar on the greens and that’s the type of thing that wins here. He doesn’t have a sterling record at the Masters (20 25, 13, 33, 31), but I’m impressed that he’s never missed a cut, and you can argue that he’s grown up considerably as a player over the last few seasons. And the heck with the defending curse, let’s go with Angel Cabrera in the other seat; he’s collected four Top 10s over his last nine visits and he’s got the perfect attitude for Augusta. What’s more unflappable than a duck?
Matt Kuchar? Hasn’t been here since 2002. Tim Clark? This pool is too deep to gamble on a non-event winner.
I’ve said my piece and explained my picks. Now it’s your turn in the comments, and feel free to revisit this post all weekend, we’ll break down the first major together.
Let me start this off with a stern warning: There are spoilers in this post, so if you’re not done with God of War III, click on something else from the QJ Front Page. Thing is, when
Here’s the latest version of Lino’s handy homebrew app fb4nds, a Facebook client application for the Nintendo DS. The latest update of the brew is mostly a bug fix release to improve the performance of the homebrew.
Download:
I'm the taller one.
Mark your calendars for this Thursday, 7PM Pacific/10PM Eastern for a special edition of our AndroidGuys Podcast! We’re trying some new things, with a new format for Thursday nights… you certainly won’t be disappointed. Hosting the maiden broadcast for Thursday will be myself and this weeks co-host, Matthew Patience. We’ll also welcome our very special guests, Aaron Kasten and Jake Southers from AndroidSwag.com. Some of the topics we’ll be discussing:
Also, thanks to our very generous sponsor, Zagg Inc. We’ll be giving out three of their InvisibleSHIELD covers for Nexus One throughout the podcast. We will be asking questions about the company and their products during the show… so if you’d like a better chance of winning one of these I implore you to browse their website in advance in order to get a heads up. If you would like an even better chance, I’ll be dropping hints on how to win at my twitter, @scottyabrown so you may want to follow me.
We’re looking forward to seeing you guys all on the podcast and gaining your feedback on the show and how we can make it even better.
Tune in tomorrow night, Thursday April 8th at 7PM Pacific, 8PM Mountain, 9PM Central, 10PM Eastern, and 0200 UTC on Friday morning! Of course, if you don’t catch it live you can always listen to it in our archives!
One of the scariest things about the American Great Recession is the shift toward long-term unemployment. As bullish as some people thought last week’s U.S. employment numbers (they included nearly 50,000 census takers in the jobs gain..who could presumably be kept busy by going out and more accurately counting the actual unemployed), did you notice that nearly 45% of America’s 15 million unemployed have been out of a job for over six months?
It’s called “long-term unemployment.” And it sounds like a structural shift in the nature of the American economy. An economy based on consumption sheds manufacturing jobs and produces services jobs. We have a pile of data we compiled two years ago from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows this. It also shows that the average hourly wage in service industry jobs (retail primarily) is about half the hourly wage in manufacturing jobs.
But hey, in a world where labour is getting cheaper (that’s what happens when you add 1.5 billion former communists and 1 billion people from the sub continent to the global labour pool) the margins on making stuff are going to shrink. You can make it cheaper elsewhere. So you de-industrialise and loose nearly 8,000 million jobs as China gobbles up market share and productive capacity.
And incidentally, maybe Wall Street decided that if the margins on making “stuff” were shrinking to the vanishing point for firms with U.S.-based labour and legacy costs, then the best business of all would be the business that made nothing…and sold it! There you have the key idea of securitization.
But this seismic change in the kind of jobs the economy is producing is also what happens when the Wall Street Washington Axis makes a conscious choice – as it did during Robert Rubin’s time as Treasury Secretary (not as Goldman Sachs man) – to favour the capital account over the current account. That is, to favour finance over industry. As long as foreign investors wanted U.S. bonds and stocks, America could live beyond its means and consume away and finance large government deficits because there was no upward pressure on interest rates.
Sure, the average wage was going down. But Wall Street made a killing. And the everyday low price of the things Americans were buying went down too. It’s a bit like here in Australia at the moment. You could argue that most Australians are actually better off (in the short-term) because of the GFC. True, interest rates have started moving up. But think about it…
When the oil price collapsed from nearly $150 to the low $30s it delivered a kind of tax cut to motorists. The government chipped in with various schemes to pump money into the economy and job market. The first home buyer’s grant…the squandering of the stimulus (which was a huge bonus for alcohol and gambling establishments)…the school building program…and the infamous insulation (pink bats) program.
The net result of the GFC seems to have left Australians better off in the short-term, although the long-term effects (especially on super) are less clear. No wonder everyone is so content. It’s good to be Lucky.
Dan Denning
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
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Structures and Materials Research and Development (BAA) – The Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and the Structures and Materials Engineering Divisions under the Air Vehicle Department (AIR-4.3) are soliciting proposals for research and development (R&D) concepts in the area of structures and materials to support current and future Naval Aviation needs. Concepts proposed may represent novel dedicated technologies and/or dual use of new emerging commercial technology. NAVAIR is soliciting proposals for advanced research and development in a variety of enabling technical areas. Proposals may be either basic or applied research. Proposals that are not research, but rather integration of technologies or systems development will also be considered. Response Date: May 31, 2010.
Posted Date: April 1, 2010
Solicitation Number: N00421-10-R-1041
In unison with the release of its latest East Asia Pacific Economic Update, the World Bank has cautioned Asia, including China, against removing stimulus too soon.
Asia should ease back on stimulus measures, but it shouldn’t risk cutting them too fast too soon. For China, they point out that ‘government-led investment was the key driver of growth for much of 2009.’ Furthermore, ‘Inflation has turned positive, but it is likely to remain modest in 2010.’ Still, they hedged themselves against the risk of asset bubbles within the economy, such as is suspected with property.
Overall the World Bank view seems to coincide with the IMF’s warning against governments pulling stimulus too soon, and even OPEC’s, who is also cheer-leading stimulus in order to keep oil demand nice and robust.
Thing is, it’s pretty easy to ask the world to keep spending pumping money into the economy when it’s not your money that’s being spent.
Find the full report at the World Bank.
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Imagine NYC getting destroyed by 8-bit evil forces from 70s and 80s games, including Space Invaders, Pacman and Donkey Kong. Actually, you don’t have to imagine it. Just watch this amazing video. It’s so cool that it makes me giddy. More »