"People in Ravensburg, Germany, attempt to lay the biggest jigsaw puzzle in the world. The puzzle will have more than one million pieces."Obviously the home of Ravensburger, creators of a commercially marketed 18,000 piece puzzle.
Fallen Art presents the story of General A, a self-proclaimed artist. His art, however, consists of a deranged method of stop motion photography, where the individual frames of the movie are created by photographs made by Dr. Johann Friedrich, depicting the bodies of dead soldiers, pushed down by Sergeant Al from a giant springboard onto a slab of concrete.
Tomasz Bagiński... is a BAFTA Award-winning Polish artist and animator, best known for his Oscar-nominated short movie, The Cathedral (2002). For his newest short, Fallen Art (2004), he received a BAFTA Award for Best Short Animation and Grand Prix for Digital Shorts at Golden Horse Film Festival 2005... Bagiński also created cinematics for The Witcher computer game based on the books of Andrzej Sapkowski.(found at Hugo Strikes Back)
Remember, telephone calls to congressional offices were running about 100 to 1 against this bill.
And he updates his own post:
UPDATE: A helpful reader named Matt Glassman passed along the fact that, among 26 congressmen NOT running for re-election (almost all of whom are Republicans), 23 voted in favor of the bill, as opposed to 2 against and one abstaining.
UPDATE: Ben Smith notes that John McCain's entire home-state delegation voted against the bill. Half of Obama's did, too.
MAPLight.org has found that, over the past five years, banks and securities firms gave an average of $231,877 in campaign contributions to each Representative voting in favor of the bailout, compared with an average of $150,982 to each Representative voting against the bailout--54 percent more money given to those who voted Yes.And note the House members were bipartisan in this regard:
Of course, it could all be a coincidence...
- Democrats voting Yes received an average of $212,700 each, about twice as much as those voting No, $107,993.
- Republicans voting Yes received an average of $273,181 each, 50% more than those voting No, $181,688.
Here are excerpts from Warren Buffett's comments as reported by the BBC in 2003.The rapidly growing trade in derivatives poses a "mega-catastrophic risk" for the economy...The derivatives market has exploded in recent years, with investment banks selling billions of dollars worth of these investments to clients as a way to off-load or manage market risk.
But Mr Buffett argues that such highly complex financial instruments are time bombs and "financial weapons of mass destruction" that could harm not only their buyers and sellers, but the whole economic system...
Derivates like futures, options and swaps were developed to allow investors hedge risks in financial markets - in effect buy insurance against market movements -, but have quickly become a means of investment in their own right..
Some derivatives contracts, Mr Buffett says, appear to have been devised by "madmen".
He warns that derivatives can push companies onto a "spiral that can lead to a corporate meltdown"...
In his letter Mr Buffett compares the derivatives business to "hell... easy to enter and almost impossible to exit", and predicts that it will take years to unwind the complex deals ...
THE ROYAL Bank of Scotland is to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the planned $700 billion bail-out that comes courtesy of the American tax-payer if the US Congress gives the financial rescue package the go-ahead this weekend. The bank's shares closed last Friday at 205p, a 71% fall from their pre-credit-crunch peak. However, analysts and investors predict that the shares will rebound sharply when markets open on Monday morning if the bail-out is approved over the weekend.
The New York-based Reserve Primary fund, which had $65 billion in assets at the end of August, said it cut its share price to 97 cents after marking down the value of $785 million in Lehman debt securities after the brokerage's filing for Bankruptcy Court protection Monday.Indeed, our family received an email from one of our MMfunds which informed us that the fund had incurred losses on some assets, but that the parent company (T. Rowe Price) would make up the losses out of reserves, and the NAV would remain at $1.00.
This isn't the first time that a money fund has run into trouble with dicey securities since the credit crunch began a year ago. Indeed, Crane said 20 money fund companies have had to contend with IOUs that could have caused their money funds to break the buck.
The difference with Reserve Primary fund is that it lacked a "deep-pocketed" parent company willing to step in and buy out the Lehman IOUs to keep shareholders whole, Crane said. That is historically how other fund firms have resolved troubles with their portfolio holdings.
"We put it in a money market, how can you make it safer than that ?" said 48-year-old Rocheford of Elko.But note that this "failed" money market fund has fallen to 0.97 or a 3% loss on current assets. That's not a tragic outcome in view of the fact that for some prolonged period of time investors in the fund may have received an average, say, 6.5% yield while safer MM funds were yielding 5.5% or whatever.
The most dangerous magic trick ever performed is undoubtedly the Fabled Bullet Catch. This fatal trick has claimed the lives of many magicians, assistants, spectators, and wounded countless others over the years. The basic effect is a bullet (usually signed or marked) loaded into a gun and shot at the magician, who then usually catches it in his hand or teeth. This trick contains illusionary elements, but the danger is still very real, as has been proven over the years...
Michael Hatal and Otto Blumenfeld were both killed from forgetting to switch the real bullets for blanks. The Black Wizard of the West was killed when his wife purposely loaded real bullets into the gun. But Perhaps the most famous bullet catch performer was Chung Ling soo, who was a very famous oriental style magician who was shot when a piece of shrapnel from the gun was accidently fired at him live onstage. he was rushed to hospital and upon removal of his clothes they discovered he was actually an american who had been secretly pretending to be Asian to distinguish himself. Estimates say this trick has claimed the lives of around 15 magicians, not counting assistants or spectators...
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Mint is temporarily halting sales of its popular American Buffalo 24-karat gold coins because it can't keep up with soaring demand as investors seek the safety of gold amid economic turbulence.
Mint spokesman Michael White said Friday that the sales were being suspended because demand for the coins, which were first introduced in 2006, has exceeded supply and the Mint's inventory of the coins has been depleted.
The Gare Montparnasse became famous for a derailment on 22 October 1895 of the Granville-Paris Express that overran the buffer stop. The engine careened across almost 30 metres (98 ft) of the station concourse, crashed through a 60-centimetre (24 in) thick wall, shot across a terrace and sailed out of the station, plummeting onto the Place de Rennes 10 metres (33 ft) below, where it stood on its nose. All on board the train survived, five sustaining injuries: two passengers, the fireman and two crewmembers; however, one woman on the street below was killed by falling masonry. The accident was caused by a faulty Westinghouse brake and the engine drivers who were trying to make up for lost time. The train chief incurred a 25 franc penalty and the engine driver a 50 franc penalty; he was also sent to prison for two months.Click image to enlarge. Blogged in remembrance of one of my grandfathers, who was an engineer for the Pennsylvania R.R.
As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.
Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.
No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.
Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”
Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.
Do it for your country.
In medieval times, crusading Christian knights cut a swathe through the Middle East in an attempt to reclaim Jerusalem from the Muslims. The Muslims in turn cut through the invaders using a very special type of sword, which quickly gained a mythical reputation among the Europeans. These 'Damascus blades' were extraordinarily strong, but still flexible enough to bend from hilt to tip. And they were reputedly so sharp that they could cleave a silk scarf floating to the ground, just as readily as a knight's body...More info at the link. (image credit here)
Two years ago, Marianne Reibold and colleagues from the University of Dresden uncovered the extraordinary secret of Damascus steel - carbon nanotubes. The smiths of old were inadvertently using nanotechnology...
Reibold's team solved this paradox by analysing a Damascus sabre created by the famous blacksmith Assad Ullah in the seventeenth century, and graciously donated by the Berne Historical Museum in Switzerland. They dissolved part of the weapon in hydrochloric acid and studied it under an electron microscope. Amazingly, they found that the steel contained carbon nanotubes, each one just slightly larger than half a nanometre...It isn't clear how ancient blacksmiths produced these nanotubes, but the researchers believe that the key to this process lay with small traces of metals in the wootz including vanadium, chromium, manganese, cobalt and nickel. Alternating hot and cold phases during manufacture caused these impurities to segregate out into planes. From there, they would have acted as catalysts for the formation of the carbon nanotubes, which in turn would have promoted the formation of the cementite nanowires. These structures formed along the planes set out by the impurities, explaining the characteristic wavy bands, or damask (see image at top), that patterns Damascus blades.
By gradually refining their blade-making skills, these blacksmiths of centuries past were using nanotechnology at least 400 years before it became the scientific buzzword of the twenty-first century. The ore used to produce wootz came from Indian mines that were depleted in the eighteenth century. As the particular combination of metal impurities became unavailable, the ability to manufacture Damascus swords was lost...
As Congress argues over limits on executive pay, the New York Times reports that the chief executive of Washington Mutual, who was on the job just 17 days, is eligible for $19.1 million in compensation.Congress is proposing legislation to limit salaries of corporate executives. Here's why that is nonsense:For short-time CEO Alan H. Fishman -- named to run the failing bank less than three weeks ago -- that would work out to $1.12 million per day (assuming he worked weekends). If he worked eight-hour days, it works out to $140,000 per hour.
Here's the kicker: Fishman didn't even broker the deal to find a buyer when WaMu failed and was seized by the government; the federal government reportedly arranged the purchase by JPMorgan Chase & Co., and closed the deal while Fishman was in midair, flying from New York to Seattle.
Congress is insisting that senior managers will no longer be paid high salaries. Well, most senior managers were not paid high salaries. They were given stock options. So, they ran up the value of the stock options by using corporate money to buy shares of stock in the open market. Instead of developing new, creative ways of serving the consumer, they did what any self-respecting, self-interested official would do. They saw their opportunities and they took them.
They have now gone away, with tens of millions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars in their various financial accounts. This is why it is so important the government intervene to bail out the financial system. If the government did not do this, the former heads of these corporations, who took their money and left, might lose a lot of money. They don't want to lose money. So, Congress will intervene to make certain that they don't lose any money. Congress will do this in the name of the People.
This is called locking the barn door after the horses have escaped. The horses left behind a massive pile of droppings. Congress is going to use taxpayers' money to clean out the Augean stables. Meanwhile, the guys who got rich are gone, and the guys who replaced them will find it more difficult to get rich. But they will find ways to do this eventually. Their lawyers will find ways. Then, once again, Congress will be facing the need to bail out the financial markets.
In the last two weeks — if I am reading the Federal Reserves’ balance sheet data correctly — the Fed has:
That works out to the provision of something like $370b of credit to the financial system in a two week period. That may be a bit too high: the outstanding stock of repos felll by $40b (from $126b to $ 86b), leaving a $330b net change in these line items. But that is still enormous.
The most that the IMF ever lent out to cash strapped emerging economies in a year? $30b, in the four quarters through September 1998 (i.e. the peak of the 97-98 crisis)...
This is a very real crisis. The Fed’s balance tells a story of extraordinary stress. I never would have expected to see the Fed lend out these kinds of sums over such a short-period...
(in the comments section):
I’ve been speculating all week that the pressure being used on the Congress to pass the Paulson Plan is the threat of Fed illiquidity. As of two weeks ago, the Fed had lent out more than $600 billion of its $800 billion balance sheet Treasuries against crap MBS collateral.
The Paulson Plan would have allowed the banks to unwind the repos putting the Treasuries back in the Fed, get cash for the crap MBS, and get more Treasuries from the issues financing the $700+ billion funding of the Plan. As a bonus, the Paulson mark-to-maturity price becomes the implicit Level 3 price for capitalisation of all the firms and banks in the system, giving them some breathing room to stay in business. Everyone wins except the poor American taxpayer.
The Fed is very close to being illiquid. That is the fear factor we are seeing at work, and the reason no one will discuss why the bailout is needed - only emphasise the urgency...
Treasury “is totally dominated by Wall Street investment bankers” and “cannot be relied on to objectively assess” the impact of government policy on the financial industry, Allison wrote in a Sept. 23 letter to Congress. The letter was verified by Bob Denham, a spokesman for BB&T, North Carolina’s third- largest bank...
“The theory here is that the Fed has destroyed its balance sheet by taking on increasingly large chunks of non performing assets (the “toxic waste” made from mortgage-backed securities and the like) in exchange for loans of “real” cash to banks that may still end up not repaying them.
It is effectively “broke.” This is not what is supposed to happen to a central bank, which can print money without restriction, so let me explain what this means: it can no longer help the banks in a non-inflationary way. In order to take on more toxic collateral from the banks, it would need to actually print money, which would immediately be visible and would be seen as very inflationary.”
“So this is a desperate gamble by Paulson and Bernanke to avoid the run on the dollar that would be triggered by direct cash creation.”
Every year thousands of firms fail. 4/5’s of all restaurants fail within 5 years, yet we aren’t bailing out the restaurant industry. The individuals working in the finance industry are some of the nations best and brightest. If they aren’t working in finance, they will find other well paying positions.
700 billion dollars is a tremendous amount of capital. If we add that to the existing national debt, aren’t we just increasing the risk that foreign lenders are going to stop lending to the US and cause a run on the dollar? How much debt to GDP can a country have before foriegn lenders figure that lending to the US is just too big of a risk of not getting paid back either because of default or because they will get paid back by dollars devalued substanially by inflation?
COURIC: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?It doesn't make sense. It's not logical thinking. "What the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-car reform..." WTF?? No wonder there are already a raft of videos comparing these comments to the Miss Teen South Carolina response about Americans' inability to read maps.
PALIN: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.
Amanda Watson, 31, was caught using her daughter's pass to park. Although eligible for her own Blue Badge, she never applied. She parked... and was seen by an inspector placing the Blue Badge in the windscreen.It's good to hear that the British court system has lots of free time that they can expend on crucial cases such as this.
When she was challenged, the inspector found the badge had been issued to one of Miss Watson's daughters, aged nine and 12, who both have severe learning difficulties. They have to be present if the badge is used to park in a disabled space.
… chairman of the bench John Bulger, told her: "First and foremost we have to say it was right and proper for the case to be brought to court because abuse of the Blue Badge is a major issue."
A lorry driver has been forced to flee after the 60,000 tins of custard and rice pudding he was transporting began to explode. The cans of dessert exploded "like fireworks" after the a blaze broke out on his HGV.
Fire crews raced to the blaze but the desserts were too well alight and the whole lorry was consumed in just 20 minutes.
Apparently lots of elevators have an express mode that lets you override everyone else's selections and go straight to the floor you're going to. You just press "Door Close" and the button for your floor at the same time. Should work on most Otis elvators, as well as a few other models that are out there, but don't blame us when you accidentally go plunging to your death...I haven't tested this since I haven't encountered any elevators where I live/work/shop since reading this. Perhaps some TYWKIWDBI readers can comment on their experience...
Only 5 students out of this year's freshman class of 438 have landline service. That it's a low percentage is not surprising, but that fully 99% now rely on cell phones is startling.
Los Angeles County District Attorney, Fred N. Howser and unidentified man preparing to burn a pile of films deemed "lewd" in 1945.Although they really look like they are deciding which material to rescue...
Everyone who speaks a language, speaks it with an accent. A particular accent essentially reflects a person's linguistic background. When people listen to someone speak with a different accent from their own, they notice the difference, and they may even make certain biased social judgments about the speaker.The speech accent archive is established to uniformly exhibit a large set of speech accents from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English all read the same English paragraph and are carefully recorded. The archive is constructed as a teaching tool and as a research tool. It is meant to be used by linguists as well as other people who simply wish to listen to and compare the accents of different English speakers.
I don't know the total number - there appear to be many hundreds of recordings of this single paragraph by people all over the world (all speaking English). The accents variations are not extreme, but interesting. You can explore by clicking on this map.
Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.The amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the total amount of carbon locked up in global coal reserves so there is intense interest in the stability of these deposits as the region warms at a faster rate than other places on earth.
It doesn't matter if you think global warming is happening or not, or whether you think humans are causing it or not. If the "Clathrate gun" is "going off," it could theoretically trigger extinction events within a human lifetime. Certain religious groups might eagerly anticipate such a event, but personally I'd rather give it a pass.
