Blog

Why are so few temporary mortgage modifications turning permanent?

One reason may be the same one that a lot of bad loans were made in the first place. Borrowers can declare their income, and the banks are willing to grant temporary modifications based on those figures, without any evidence to confirm them.

But to make a modification permanent, the banks have to see proof of income, and the borrower has to make three monthly payments of the new lower amount. In most cases, those requirements are not being met…

Continue reading at NYT >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• CHART OF THE DAY: We’re Still Generating Too Many Negative Equity Mortgages
• Watch Rates Soar If The Fed Stops Buying Up Mortgages
• Yow! One In Seven Homeowners With Mortgages Are In Trouble

Mapping the world online poses a lot of different challenges not only from a technical perspective but also from a political one. Google has some of the best software engineers in the world so it’s safe to assume they can tackle any technical issue to overcome and, for the most part, so far they have. Some problems, though, are a little more tricky and don’t have anything to do with the actual product, but with trying to satisfy all the different views, customs and opinions of the people around the world.

One problem that arose time and time again when creating Google Maps was how to handle regions or geographical features on which different countries had different and a lot of times conflicting views. One common issue is with water bodies that regularly have different names in the countries bordering them or which they cross. Google exemplifies with the “Yellow Sea” as it’s known in the English-speaking world. However, in China, it is known as “Huáng Hǎi” and in Korea it is known as the “West Sea” or “Sŏ Hae” in Korean.

Google handles this by showing both labels in the English or other international versions of Google Earth and Maps. In Earth, there is also a text box explaining the existence of the two names. However, the local ve… (read more)

The blog reviewed here is ‘Practice what I Preach – A Child Psychiatrist Becomes a Parent‘. After receiving a comment on this blog from the author, an Australian Child Psychiatrist, recently, I became curious and had a look at the blog. I thought the premise for the blog was extremely interesting – what happens when a child psychiatrist becomes a parent and writes about the experience?

Appearance and Design

At the time of writing the blog has a grey background, blue title pane and white background for the articles. The articles consist of black text on a white background. On the right hand panel there are links to an About section, categories, a calendar as well as recent posts, blog statistics and a blogroll. The reader can also subscribe to the blog. There are also pictures in some of the articles which add to the presentation.

Content

The author who I will refer to as Dr D, an Australian Child Psychiatrist starts with this post explaining the motivations behind the blog. In this next article, Dr D describes the experience of being a patient and the thoughts she has about her interactions with the staff in this situation as a doctor patient. I thought this article was very interesting and reminded me of theme in the film ‘The Doctor‘. I think this will always be an interesting subject and can be very important for the introspection that contributes to the development of a speciality. In discussing this Dr D generated comments and this shared introspection was very interesting. In this post, Dr D discusses the issue of not getting enough sleep while in this article, Dr D talks about emotional attunement with the baby and mentions briefly theory in this area, an area which Winnicott wrote about (see review here). In this post, Dr D tells us about the sounds that her baby is beginning to make. What I found particularly interesting was when Dr D reviews the evidence base for when to use solid foods for feeding in coming to her own decision.

Conclusions

I found the premise behind Dr D’s blog extremely interesting and enjoyed reading through the articles which were filled with insights about the parenting process and also areas where the research or literature had something helpful to say.  Dr D writes candidly on the experience of parenting and I look forward to future posts.

Twitter

You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link

Podcast

You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast).

TAWOP Channel

You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link

Responses

If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail [email protected]

Disclaimer

The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.

When Google decided to create a new browser, it knew it had an opportunity to avoid many of the problems facing existing browsers by coming up with new ways to do things and building a solid basis from the start. One of the smartest decisions was to give each individual tab its own process thread, which would solve a lot of security and stability issues.

It was a more complex technical approach, but it paid off in the end. However, it’s not possible to give each tab its own process every time, as there may be shared resources between them, so Chrome had to make a compromise between security and compatibility. Now, though, Google is giving developers the possibility to force links to be opened in new processes thanks to a little HTML 5 trickery.

“Google Chrome already uses separate OS processes to isolate independent tabs from each other in the browser, so that crashes or slowdowns in one tab won’t affect the others,” Charlie Reis, software engineer, writes on the Chromium blog.

“In many cases, though, Google Chrome needs to keep pages from related tabs in the same process, since they may access each other’s contents using JavaScript code… In practice, web developers may find situations where they would like links to other pages to open in a separate process. As on… (read more)

Digg may not be the hottest thing in Silicon Valley at the moment, thanks to Facebook and Twitter stealing all the spotlight, but don’t discount the social news aggregator just yet. As it turns five years old, the site is looking forward to a new chapter in its history as the features implemented over the past year begin to shift Digg towards a new but promising direction. Oh, and it also gets a rather official recognition, as December 4 gets proclaimed Digg.com Day in San Francisco where its headquarters are.

“Five years ago today, Digg.com went live. What started as a simple idea has certainly come a long way. From a vision of a new way to surface news, and a team of three, to 40+ million monthly visitors and 80+ passionate employees…well, suffice it to say that I’m very proud of what we’ve become,” Digg Co-founder Kevin Rose wrote on the site’s blog.

“There have been a lot of memorable moments over the years. From the Paris Hilton phone hacking incident to cracking the HD-DVD key, you guys have defined Digg and are the reason for our growth. To date, we’ve had over 14 Million stories submitted and Dugg by you,” he added.

The site has come a long way from its launch five years ago but, at the same time, it has managed to maintain its co… (read more)

PDAfanclub.com has published a comparison between the two Windows Mobile titans at the moment, and it is interesting to see the Omnia 2 really holding its own in many ways.

The most striking is in screen quality (above) where the vibrancy of the AMOLED screen on the Samsung Omnia 2 really shines through.

Samsung’s attention to detail is also obvious in the camera comparison, with the Omnia 2 clearly taking much better quality pictures.

HTC HD2 (left)           vs                  Samsung Omnia 2 (right)

See PDAfanclub.com for further comparisons, including video quality comparison and a table comparing the specs.

Via CareAce.net

Google wants to provide users with the most relevant results, it goes without saying and it’s obvious why. Better results means satisfied users, but also that the ads served with the search are more likely to be of interest to them. But in order to provide better results, Google needs to know more about them, sometimes more than people would like it to know. And it’s about to know even more, as Google has introduced Personalized Search to signed-out users as well.

“Today we’re helping people get better search results by extending Personalized Search to signed-out users worldwide, and in more than forty languages. Now when you search using Google, we will be able to better provide you with the most relevant results possible,” Bryan Horling, software engineer, and Matthew Kulick, product manager, wrote.

“Previously, we only offered Personalized Search for signed-in users, and only when they had Web History enabled on their Google Accounts. What we’re doing today is expanding Personalized Search so that we can provide it to signed-out users as well,” they added.

So, how exactly does it work? When a user is signed in and has enabled Web History, Google will keep track of their previous searches and the results that were more relevant to them. This way, it ca… (read more)

Eco Factor: Zero-emission concept car powered by Li-ion batteries.

With a keen eye on futuristic technology and the need for high performance cars with a low environmental impact, auto designer Daniel Fitzgerald has designed a stunning concept car dubbed the Laminar 2, which is a three-seater electric vehicle for the family of the future.

(more…)

Catnip (nepeta cataria) has been appreciated by thepeople for at least 2000 years. The plant was familiar to early Roman cooks and physicians and has long been a part of people’s gardens and health repertoires. It is often enjoyed as a tea for its soothing relaxing benefits.

It shouldn’t really surprise anyone at this point, but there are now rumors that MySpace will be rolling out Facebook Connect Integration sometime in the first part of 2010. Yes, the arch-enemies of just a couple of years ago are now making “friend requests.” But 2009 is not 2007, Facebook has clearly won the social-networking wars and MySpace has shifted strategy and is now looking to become an entertainment hub. And what any media outlet needs most is audience, and Facebook, with 350 million users, can certainly deliver on that.

Inside Facebook cites industry sources and claims that Facebook Connect will become an integral part of the site sometime next year and Facebook features will be leveraged in various sections of the social network. It is expected that Facebook’s social graph will become just as important as MySpace’s own and both will be available to users.

For a start, Facebook share buttons should be rolled out on MySpace Music and other content-focused areas. Facebook users should also be able to log in using their credentials to access some of the features on MySpace. What it means for MySpace users who may or may not be Facebook users as well is less clear, but perhaps a merger of the two accounts or at least the possibility to share the friends list is not com… (read more)

Eco Factor: Ecofriendly charger runs on solar energy.

RAYvolution Solar Products is catering to the growth in the number of portable electronic devices with a charger that doesn’t tax the electrical grid. The company has launched a new solar charger, dubbed the RAYvolution, that comes with a large solar panel to harvest clean energy from the sun.

(more…)

Eco Factor: Residential complex designed to generate solar energy for power.

Dubai has always served as a place where the most amazing and sometimes unrealistic architectural dreams come true. Be it the World Island or the Palm Islands, Dubai has proved that it can enrich itself with modern architecture to attract people with deep pockets.

(more…)

Blood clots that form most often in the leg are a concern after surgery. This is one reason why nurses try to get patients up and about as soon as is possible after surgery. For those who can’t, they usually have their legs exercised for them and they may have to wear special compression stockings.The biggest danger from these types of clots, called deep vein thrombosis (DVT), is that they can break away from the vein wall and travel to the lungs, where they become pulmonary emboli. A pulmonary embolus can cause death if it’s not treated quickly.Researchers in the United Kingdom used records of 947,454 middle aged women from the Million Women Study to check for admissions for surgery, how many developed a DVT and/or a pulmonary embolus after surgery, and how many died as a result. They found that of 239,614 surgeries (90,259 as inpatients), 5,419 had a blood clot and 270 died. This was compared to the average one clot in 6,200 women who didn’t have surgery.They also found that although the risk of DVT and PE differed depending on the type of surgery, overall, it increased within the first 12 weeks after surgery:

• 1 in 45 after hip or knee replacement
• 1 in 85 after cancer surgery
• 1 in 815 after day surgery

The results should be a wake-up call for surgeons. It used to be thought that the chances of developing a blood clot rose about 20% or so after surgery, but these findings show that it really is almost 70 times higher.The article was published yesterday in the on-line issue of BMJ.

~~~

Image: PhotoXpress.com

Post from: Blisstree

Surgery Blood Clot Risk Higher Than Thought

When Google says it’s in “acquisition mode,” it’s not kidding. After staying mostly quiet on this front for the past two years or so, Google made its fourth acquisition in just a month. The company acquired AppJet, the startup behind EtherPad, a real-time collaborative word processor, for an undisclosed amount that some put around $10 million. EtherPad will close down on March 31 and the team will go on to work on Google Wave.

“We are happy to announce that AppJet Inc. has been acquired by Google. The EtherPad team will continue its work on realtime collaboration by joining the Google Wave team,” AppJet and Google announced on the EtherPad blog. “If you are a user of the Free Edition or Professional Edition, you can continue to use and edit your existing pads until March 31, 2010. No new free public pads may be created. Your pads will no longer be accessible after March 31, 2010, at which time your pads and any associated personally identifiable information will be deleted.”

For EtherPad users, the deal is not exactly good news. The product will be shut down, no new Pads can be created at this point and they have four months to get all their documents out. Professional Edition, the paid version, users will be able to export all of their data in one big ZIP file, the rest will presumably have to do it one at a time. But there’s some… (read more)

Could depression be as deadly as smoking cigarettes? Researchers from Norway and England think so. Their research, recently published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that depression holds a similar risk for death as smoking. (But don’t let that depress you!)

Researchers utilized a survey of more than 60,000 people and a comprehensive mortality database. However, for depressed people with some anxiety, there may be a silver lining.

The research found that depressed people with anxiety were less likely to die than those with depression alone. Dr. Robert Stewart, who led the team at the Institute of Psychiatry in Norway, said that one of the big messages from the research is that a little anxiety may actually be good for you. Researchers explain that help-seeking behavior associated with anxiety may be the key.

Dr. Stewart explained,”It would certainly not surprise me at all to find that doctors are less likely to investigate physical symptoms in people with depression because they think that depression is the explanation, but may be more likely to investigate if someone is anxious because they think it will reassure them.”

Help with Managing Depression

If you suspect you’re depressed, talk with your doctor about how you’re feeling. You can even invite a friend or family member to go with you. Symptoms of depression include frequent and prolonged feelings of sadness, loss of interest in everyday activities, lack of energy, sleeping too much or too little, difficulty with concentrating and making decisions, thoughts of suicide, and feelings of guilt or worthlessness.

Many depressed people benefit from lifestyle changes like increased exercise. Therapy involving talking with a professional, often for at least an hour each week, is helpful as well. Some depressed individuals may need medication or additional therapy.

(Image via stock.xchng)

Post from: Blisstree

Which is Worse: Depression or Smoking?

There’s not much chance you’re giving a duplicate gift with the fun finds below. Who doesn’t want to wake up to moonbeams or have a desk graced with a red Swingline?

1. Add some fun with dining table ping pong. The set from Restoration Hardware includes what you need for a fun game.

2. Offer up something classy and unexpected – the lace pedestal jewelry stand from Urban Outfitters.

3. Surprise with the 8 ball bean bag chair from The Bean Bag Boys. It would be a conversation piece or hit with kids. Available at amazon and made in the US.

4. Make it earth-friendly with the recycled cardboard wreaths from Uncommon Goods. They’re available in brown or white, and they’re made in the US.

5. Give something handy. A good (not plastic) pill box is difficult to find. Pottery Barn has a new antique-silver pill box inscribed with the phrase: “my cure for everything.” At two inches square, it’s perfect for pursing. It comes with a patina, so no need to worry over scratches.

6. Gently illuminate mornings with the retro-looking moonbeam clock, available at L.L. Bean.

7. Give an elegant thinksport bottle for keeping beverages cold or hot on the go.

8. Put together your own organic herb garden kit with certified organic seeds, plus recycled pots and gloves too.

9. Pretty up the home office with a red Swingline stapler from Think Geek! It’s perfect for fans of “Office Space.”

10. Cool whiskey without diluting it. Whiskey stones, dreamed up by soapstone workers in Vermont, keep your drink cool without melting.

(Images via Urban Outfitters and L.L. Bean)

Post from: Blisstree

10 Unexpected Home Gifts

The Chinese government has come out to remind the market that it will keep buying dollats as its core currency reserve holding, even though it believes the dollar will depreciate in the long term.

 

WSJ: "The composition remains as it was before. There is no major change" in the reserves, said Wang Xiaoyi, vice director of SAFE, which oversees the reserves. "We are not making any big adjustments in direction. Our operations are still as usual, meaning they follow the existing forex reserves management goal," he said on the sidelines of an economic forum in Beijing.

...

Mr. Wang said the "depreciation of the U.S. dollar is a long-term trend." In the near term, however, the dollar's key role as the global reserve currency won't change, SAFE said in the book.

This reminds us of the poin that China doesn't buy dollars in order to make money off them as an investment. They buy them in order to maintain the current global imbalance whereby the yuan's value is held down, over-stimulating U.S. consumer demand. Thus even if the dollar is a depreciatiing asset for them to hold, it's fine since China earns its return on investment in other ways, mainly via the export stimulus a weak yuan creates.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Dollar Surges Ahead Of Lunch
• Did Today's Jobs Report Kill The Dollar-Stocks Correlation?
• IMF: Rising Asset Correlations Prove Roubini's Dollar Carry Trade Warning

Homebrew coder FluBBa is back to release a new version of S8DS, a port of the SEGA 8-bit emulator SMSAdvance for the NIntendo DS. The latest update has added some new features and some other bug fixes.
 
Download:

Eco Factor: Sculpture made from recycled motorcycle parts.

Eco-minded designers at RoboSteel have come up with a life size MotorCycleMan (aka RoboMan), a human sculpture built entirely from recycled motorcycle parts. The sculpture is on show at the RoboSteel stand at the NEC Motorcycle Show and will be later offered as a prize.

(more…)

Eco Factor: Proposal to green Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway with a solar and wind linear park.

After serving Toronto for more than 45 years, The Gardiner Expressway is in need of renovation. While some have proposed a complete tear-down, Quadrangle Architects have something more green in mind. The Toronto-based architectural firm is proposing the construction of a “Green Ribbon” over the Gardiner Expressway.

(more…)