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MiGs, Stars & Magic Books: A Brief History of Trespassing in Moscow
An illustrated guide to urban exploration in the Russian capital.
18 February 2014
Built for a population in excess of a million – yet largely uninhabited to this day – it's little surprise that Ordos has earned itself the nickname of China's Ghost City.
In this report I'll be looking up-close at the Kangbashi New Area, the most recent addition to the city of Ordos; and by far its least populous district. Rather than photograph these buildings from afar though, when I visited Ordos in 2013 my plan was to get under the skin of this bizarre metropolis, examining it from inside, above and below.
In my recent post titled "Welcome to Ordos", I gave something of an introduction to the Ghost City – the region and its culture, China's swelling property market and the stillborn future metropolis of Ordos. I documented the old centre of Ordos (a run-down mess of unfinished apartments, office blocks, casinos, car parks and brothels), the most densely populated district of the city. I also introduced the Kangbashi New Area: taking a walk around the stylish, modern and utterly deserted Genghis Khan Square, right in the heart of Kangbashi.
By this point though, the walking tour was over, and it was time to see the real Ordos – to see what the BBC, Al Jazeera, the New York Times et al., had, in my opinion, failed to show. It was time to get off the approved footpaths, to start opening some doors and ignoring no entry signs, as we attempted to infiltrate the world's largest ghost town.
From Genghis Khan Square we turned east, crossing a patch of scrubland that I can only guess had been intended to some day burst into green grass. Soon a long, square building rose up to our right, decorated with complex ridges and textured beams along its hull. We figured it for a supermarket – though from the outside there were few clues as to what the building might contain… if it even contained anything.
Along this main road, a steady trickle of vehicles passed us on their way towards Dongsheng and its airport in the east. We needed to get away from the cars though, get out into the forest of unfinished towers, the shells of apartment buildings that rose out of the sand like dead trees in a drought.
Turning away from the road, weaving this way and that onto the smaller, narrower backstreets, we found our way into a residential estate. The buildings were linked here by a series of winding footpaths, the roads diverted around the block to leave a pedestrianised space at its heart. Paving stones formed a track through the shifting sand, looping from one building to the next amidst towering stacks of plastic-wrapped outdoor furniture; unassembled amenities piled in every corner, as if freshly tipped from the back of a lorry.
Turning the corner into a courtyard between tall, concrete towers, we passed a capsized statue: a modern, stylised figure of a mother and child, lain forgotten behind a stack of building materials.
It was clear how the small square had been envisaged, as comfortable, high-rise apartments facing in towards a communal garden area. Perhaps it would have featured flowers, fountains and benches when complete – perhaps it still will, some day. Impossible to tell.
Here and there between the buildings, the occasional glass-panelled box rose up out of the ground; each one of them featuring an elevator shaft or a flight of stairs heading downwards. Soon enough we found a lift shaft with a broken glass panel at the rear, and, squeezing through the gap we made our way swiftly down into the bowels of Kangbashi.
Beneath the street plan, a whole lower level of the city seemed to have been set aside for parking. It made sense, keeping the cars away from these residential zones by redirecting traffic underground instead. More and more we'd see just how much thought and planning had gone into the Kangbashi New Area.
The lights came on as we entered, and the long, wide tunnel ahead shone in shades of silver and green. There were two, maybe three parked cars in sight – and expensive looking ones at that. Despite these few lonely residents however, the whole place still had that freshly varnished look about it: not a footprint nor a tyre mark in sight.
Here and there along the tunnels, between the series of subterranean parking halls that fed one into another through a network of identical bulkhead doors, we'd see elevators leading back up towards the surface. I tried one – the lights fired up immediately, and we rode a lift right up into the building above.
If you're imagining a carpeted, stainless steel elevator, perhaps even fitted with a mirror, then you'd be wrong. This lift was little more than a plywood cage, a terrifying, creaking box that seemed to wobble as it rose… as if hoisted up by a rope slung over the branch of a tree.
First we had a look around the ground floor of the building; bare concrete for the most part, though all the lights came on at a touch. In the corner of a corridor, a massive fuse box was set into one raw, unplastered wall. I popped it open, the creaking cover unlocked, to reveal a vast array of crude solder joins and trailing, loose wires. I quickly snapped the lid closed again with the back of my hand.
Then, plucking up the courage, I knocked on the door of an apartment. No answer. I waited a while, knocked again, then slowly turned the handle. The door opened freely, and we took a look inside – at the dusty unfinished floors, the bare gypsum walls that formed the basic foundations of what had the potential to be a spacious family flat. In the largest room, beneath the window, a children's table and chairs had been arranged, set with plastic cups and bowls and chopsticks.
We tried a couple more homes – all of them the same – before making our way up to the highest level. Stepping out of the lift onto the 12th floor corridor, I found myself instinctively tiptoeing… as if sneaking past the occupants of a normal, busy building. Of course, the chances of anyone being home were next to zero; but then, the cars parked down below had presumably belonged to someone.
At the end of the corridor, around the corner, a flight of steps went upwards to a simple wooden door. It seemed too large to fit its frame, and so rather than being locked the exit was fastened tight with wire; a long tangle of stiff cable had been twisted around the door handle, looped about a stair rail and then tied up into a sharp and prickly mess. It took a few minutes of bending, twisting and bloody fingers before we were finally stepping out onto the roof of the apartment building.
Up until this point we'd been sheltered; contemplating only one empty street after another. From this height though, we finally started to get a sense of scale. Row after row after row of towers spread out around us, many of them no more than skeletons attended by rusty cranes. I began to realise for the first time quite how large this city was supposed to have been.
As good as the view was though, we were still shielded on all sides by taller builders. What we saw of the cityscape – the desert beyond – came to us in glimpses between the looming concrete shapes pressed in on all sides. I wanted to get higher still, to escape above the horizon and look down on the ghost city as a whole.
But for that, we were going to need a bigger building.
Heading back down to street level, we wandered for a while through the estates. Residential towers rose up around a series of consecutive dirt bowls, each one of them sown with the seeds of utopia, each one of them a doomed and withered crop. Reaching the end of the zone we hopped a fence and crossed the road; I guess by now we were heading northeast.
We walked along a main street, hemmed in on all sides by shops, apartment blocks, colourful school buildings and the vast bulk of Kangbashi Hospital. The occasional car or bike hummed past, but the pavements around us were empty save for the occasional crew of street sweepers. Even now, it was hard to get one's head around the idea that all of this was uninhabited.
On our right, we passed a police station. It met the typical Chinese design: a square, officious building set back behind a courtyard, a sentry box watching over the folding fence out front. It seemed hard to believe that even this station was unoccupied.
I didn't know which way to turn next, so consumed as I was with a desire to explore everything. Marching headlong into the police station seemed a leap too far, however… so we tried the hospital instead.
It was impossible to tell whether the building had seen use, or whether, like so much of the city, it had so far only welcomed the boots of construction crews. We decided to put it to the test.
Approaching the side of the hospital building we tried a small door, found it open, and ducked beneath the curtain that hung across within. Before us a narrow, grotty staircase led down several levels under the ground. We strolled on in, beneath electric lights that burned for no one, onwards and downwards to who knew what.
We never did find out. A babble of shouted words tumbled down the staircase behind us, hot from the mouth of an angry security guard. We tried reasoning with him – "just a few photos, yeah?" – but it clearly wasn't going to happen.
After being frogmarched back to the street by a man who could have passed as a Triad tough-guy in any Hollywood thriller, we crossed over the road, and made a beeline for our next target.
One of the signs on the building opposite said something about solicitors, though this concrete shell fell a long way short of a functioning office. The ground level was boarded up, but there was a small hole punched through the thin wooden veneer – so I ducked on through and slipped inside the building.
It was silent inside, a still, dusty space that could well have grown into a shopping centre in time. This first room fed through a doorway into a larger space beyond, and I swung around the corner almost headlong into a work crew. In true Chinese style, two men operated heavy tools while another five smoked and watched them. One of them looked up, caught my eye: I smiled back warmly, then backed out fast the way I had come.
By now we'd walked a fair distance from our last rooftop, and the towers now surrounding us rose significantly higher than the last batch – a good 20-or-so storeys. We decided to give it another go and so we nipped across the forecourt of a bare, plastic-fronted kindergarten, and into another residential estate.
There were roads between the buildings this time, a couple of cars parked on corners and even one in motion; its occupants eyeing us warily as they cruised on by. We made for one of the closest towers before trying the door, finding it open, and letting ourselves in.
This building was in a much better state than the last apartment block. The walls were finished, and several doors were decorated with the Chinese symbols for luck and fortune. We made straight for the lift and rode it to the top.
Upstairs, an open door led into a lavish apartment hung with chandeliers and textured wallpaper; an opulent penthouse suite. There were sounds of activity inside and so we crept past quickly, before taking the last flight of steps up to the roof. The door opened at a push, and we stepped out into the sky.
This rooftop was smaller than the last – just a square, open space, and a second door that opened onto the whirring, rusted mechanism that powered the lift. If the view from the top of the other block had been impressive though, this one was spectacular.
Ordos fell away beneath us: a wide, sweeping wasteland of empty towers and silent, disused streets. I tried looking out for signs of motion, clues to life in the metropolis. The odd car moved slowly along the main road, where it looped around the centre of Kangbashi to cross the Ordos bridge, and out towards Dongsheng – but for the most part, from this height, Kangbashi looked like a model city; its radical architecture reduced to novelty ornaments, its unfinished towers scattered like broken bricks across a sandpit.
Perhaps the biggest problem that presented itself now, was deciding on our next destination. We looked about us, turning in 360 degrees to take in the bridge, the high-rises, the city centre at Genghis Khan Square, the futuristic exhibition centre, the would-be residential estates fading off row after row into the desert… and then our eyes fell across the newly-built Kangbashi sports centre.
The green pitch seemed to glow through the heat haze, the brightly coloured seating unfolding around it like the petals of a strange desert orchid. We made a mental note of the direction, of the landmarks that would lead us – street by street – to the city's sports ground; and then we made our way back down to the street.
Coming out of the estate and back onto the main road, at first we retraced our footsteps; back past the hospital, the building sites and the police station, back in the direction of the colourful sports grounds.
When we'd passed the police station earlier, we had still been courting disbelief – trying in vain to process the desolation, the utter emptiness of Kangbashi. It simply hadn't seemed possible. Besides, a lifetime's worth of social programming had told me not to attempt to trespass on what might turn out to be a live police station.
By now though, we'd passed through the stage of tentative disbelief, and into one of absolute freedom – the slow-dawning realisation that virtually everything in Kangbashi was open to be explored. So, crossing the road to the open gates, we checked the empty street around us before stepping over the threshold into the police station's forecourt. It was just as empty as we'd expected, not a car nor an officer in sight.
We were just ambling across to the main building, when a voice behind us called out something in Chinese. At first, we instinctively guessed we'd been caught… but as it turned out the voice belonged to a caretaker. More than anything else, the man was simply surprised to see foreign faces here in Ordos.
My companion spoke reasonable Chinese, and so we were able to have a conversation with the man. He told us he was part of the maintenance crew, and offered to give us a tour of the place. It seemed like the novelty of showing visitors around his little corner of the Ghost City was just too exciting an experience to pass up. We walked, and our new friend took great pleasure in pointing out the elaborate features around us – while explaining how much each one had cost to install.
"Four thousand Quai!" he said, laughing at a large ceramic pot inlaid with traditional Mongolian figures. That's about £400.
It was clear that this man saw Kangbashi as one colossal folly. He would quote prices, then wave his arms about at the empty streets, his gestures doing much to communicate the madness of such grandiose investment in a ghost town. We followed him through the station compound, past glass panes that opened onto empty offices; between the virgin buildings and through to the rear, where the police station backed onto a school.
A series of colourful sculptures had been placed in one corner of the yard, apparently united by the theme of apples. Isaac Newton's face appeared engraved on one giant, metal fruit – another installation bore the familiar profile of Steve Jobs.
"Ten thousand Quai!" laughed our guide. He seemed to find the concept of Kangbashi hilarious; although judging from his clean-cut appearance, his smart and comfortable clothes, the ghost town nevertheless kept its workers in decent money.
The man led us through a courtyard, around the back of the school buildings, and suddenly there it was: the yard opened up into a wide, grassy playing field, flanked on one side by raised seating.
On the edge of the grass pitch – regularly mowed, yet never used – we were pointed towards a series of bronze statues. The figures showed children in traditional Chinese dress, frozen in play as the pink silk scarves tied about their necks flapped noisily in the wind.
"Fifty thousand Quai!" the man giggled, ecstatic, before explaining to us that the silk scarves were washed and replaced on a weekly basis.
At this point our guide suddenly bid us farewell, explaining that he had other duties to attend to. He told us to feel welcome though, and invited us to explore the rest of the facilities. We assured him we would, before making our way towards the raised seating and the building underneath.
It was a strange feeling to walk past those rows of plastic seats and know that none of them had ever been sat on; past the green grass so neatly marked with white boundary lines and penalty zones, a well-kept pitch which had never yet known a ball.
A passage opened beneath and between the rows, to lead deep within the seating block. We followed it through to a pair of glass doors, marked with a sign reading, 'Young Pioneers Activity Room'. My friend Gareth, the owner of Young Pioneer Tours, burst into a childish grin as he posed for a photo beneath. Naturally the door was open (we were yet to find a single locked door in Ordos), and so we headed on inside.
The first room we entered, bizarrely, appeared to be a ballet studio. Light filtered in through pink, silken drapes, to cast the mirrored walls and polished floors in an almost supernatural aura of opulence. Next door, a trophy room – shelves lined one wall in miniature cast figurines, their bases left blank and ready for inscription.
We wandered from room to room, admiring the facilities. This was a fully fledged sports centre, ready to open its doors at any moment. One room held a case of basketballs, all brand new and with the smell of freshly formed rubber still clinging to them.
The next was a music studio – a computer sat in one corner was hooked up to a small indoor PA system, complete with microphones and an eight-track mixing desk. Scattered about the various tables lay an assortment of trumpets, drums and guitars.
As we explored, I tried to estimate the total value of the items that lay scattered about the centre: I got into the thousands before I gave up trying. It was simply baffling to think that anyone could have walked in from the street, tried any one of the unlocked doors, and wandered straight inside; exactly as we had done, in fact. The lack of security around the sports centre – around Kangbashi as a whole – was like nothing I had ever seen.
But then, there simply wasn't anybody on the streets to wander straight inside. Kangbashi is so remote, so isolated, that there seemed to be an general assumption that nobody could be here without a very good reason. After all, why would thieves and vandals travel to an empty city in the Ordos Desert?
After the sports ground we headed north, past unfinished statues, their scaffold still attached, into a hidden courtyard where a vast monument reared up above us: a silver globe, adorned by a suspiciously Soviet-esque star. Eventually we emerged onto a main road, reaching the space-age silver domes of the Kangbashi Exhibition Centre.
Taking a quick look inside, we stumbled across locals engaged in fierce pingpong tournaments. I picked up a brochure which touted Ordos as the 'Brave City of The Future'.
Our last stop was a restaurant: we'd been walking for a full day, and it was time to refuel. A sign near the exhibition centre pointed towards a fast food restaurant and we followed it to a seemingly unfinished building, whose automatic doors nevertheless sprung open at our approach.
We walked inside to be met by silence. The place was set up ready for service, tables laid and lights burning bright… but there was nobody to be seen. Gareth inspected the menu as I ducked behind the bar, checking out the wide range of beverages on offer. Amusing as it was to entertain the notion of a free bar, we were both painfully hungry – and so we resolved to try another floor.
The lift took us up one level, to an open-plan office: desks and computers, water coolers and potted plants, but not a sign of life. We had almost given up by the time we reached the third floor. The lift doors opened in silence, and then suddenly we were being welcomed in by a team of uniformed staff. I found myself wondering how long they had stood on ceremony, waiting like automatons for a customer to arrive.
As we waited for our noodles – and after that, the flight back to Beijing – we reflected on our time in the Ghost City.
Over the course of our 24 hours in Ordos, we had tried every door within reach – and not one of them had been locked. We'd seen virtually no one out of uniform, and no sign whatsoever of the authorities. Even the few security guards we'd met had been so surprised at the appearance of foreigners, as to have more or less forgotten their duties. The homes and facilities, meanwhile, ranged from concrete shells to sheer luxury; and yet, in all that time we saw nothing with the appearance of having been lived in.
The thing that really got me thinking though, was the sheer size of the city. If the freedom we'd experienced was anything to go by, it would take weeks – months, even – to explore the whole metropolis. Our day had been spent on rooftops, in office buildings and sports halls… but had we simply picked another direction, it could just as easily have been factories, colleges or law courts; churches, mosques, prisons, pools, shopping centres or train depots.
I've been to ghost towns before, and large ones at that – just last September I took a tour of Pripyat, for example, in Ukraine's Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Kangbashi is like nothing else, however. While perhaps this unfinished city is less elegant, less historical, less tragic, less decayed or moreover less photogenic than sites such as Pripyat, the sense of freedom it offers is unique.
While I'm interested in every aspect of urban exploration, for me, the emphasis has always been on the exploration part… and not only is Ordos 200 times larger than the infamous city of Pripyat, but it is virtually unknown to foreigners. For an urban explorer then, Ordos is a vast, alien playground that offers nothing but discovery.
Suffice to say, I can see myself visiting Ordos again.
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Now it is 2021. What do you thing has changed? Will you go again?
Mate, you should go back with a drone… Excellent stuff.
See all 93 comments on "Getting Under the Skin of Kangbashi: China's Ghost City"
An illustrated guide to urban exploration in the Russian capital.
Poltergeists, ritual murder & a live-in succubus – the 1000-year-old pub with a ghostly reputation
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Written and illustrated by Elizabeth O. Dulemba
Lula's Aunties want her to be a witch just like them. But Lula hates to fly on a broom and prefers to study cookbooks rather than spellbooks -- she wants to be a famous chef. In desperation, the Aunties insist she try to make one last potion. Lula secretly adds her cooking flair and in true witchy fashion ends up creating a brew that bewitches the entire town, and maybe her Aunties too!
This fun rhyming tale transcends the typical Halloween story to appeal to cooks and "foodies" throughout the year.
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Come to the Grand Parade of the International Banana Festival! Join the noisy crowd watching a police car roll past, its siren blaring. Hear the music of a marching band, the clang-clang of a fire engine, and the toot-toot-puff-puff of a little train.
Young children, parents, teachers, and librarians love this story because even the youngest listeners can participate in its telling. They love to say, "But that wasn't the best part," as they make their way to the mouth-watering surprise ending.
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A wild duck hatches in a nest, but a pet duck hatches in a box on a kitchen table. Wild baby ducks follow their mothers, but a pet duck follows a young child's white shoes. This delightful story compares the lives of wild ducks to the life of a pet duck. The repetitive pattern and kindergarten/first grade vocabulary encourage young children to learn to read. The ending is an endearing surprise!
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Credit Crunch
"OH FUCK! All our base are belong to someone else!"
"Ha ha ha! You lowly mortals and your so-called "money"!"
"Having no money is so pooey, it even turns the milk brown!"
"I want to buy 2% of the Credit Crunch, whatever that is!"
The Credit Crunch started when many US homeowners defaulted on a new type of homeloan called Optimus Prime. This resulted in a large amount of debt being written off by various banks. These banks had in turn borrowed and loaned financial packages which included large amounts of Optimus Prime debts to other banks, including Tyra Banks, Heywood Banks, Gordon Freeman and Carlton Banks. The resulting uncertainty in exactly who owes who what and the paranoid secrecy of the banking industry, means that banks are now very reluctant to lend each other any more money. These same banks are then reluctant to loan money to individuals, businesses, homeowners or Chavs.
What Triggered the Credit Crunch?[edit | edit source]
While egg-flavoured politicians, in response to the crisis, began to flail wildly and point pointy fingers at one another, professional research has concluded that the entirety of the American financial crisis can be firmly blamed on one man, who is known only by the name Ron.
Ron makes a living by selling home loans to Americans who are keen on acquire property. The problem was that the majority of these homebuyers had insufficient income to pay for the loans, instead assuming that the Debt Fairy would come and save them. This doesn't worry Ron though - he gets a commission on every loan he sells, which he proceeds to spend on wine and hookers.
While the general public was surprised that one man alone could cause the entire credit crunch, it turns out that Ron was just the start of a whole bunch of people like Ron. Their combined efforts resulted in one million billion trillion hell of a lot of dollars of home loans being written off by US banks. So blame them, and as well as those greedy Republicans and selfish Democrats. (Whichever you don't like.) the US Optimus Prime market. But no one cares.
The Effect Of The Credit Crunch[edit | edit source]
The credit crunch developed according to the following timeline:
April 2007: New Century Financial, which specialised in Optimus Prime mortgages, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
July 2007: Bear Stearns lost almost all its investments in a Hedge, causing Ben Bernanke (pictured above) to estimate the crisis will cost almost "100 million, billion, trillion dollars."
August 2007: The European Central Bank pumps almost 100 Billion Euro into the North Sea, hoping to keep the fishing industry afloat. In Japan, news breaks that the Origami bank has folded, the Sumo Bank has gone belly up, the Bonsai Bank planned to cut branches. Meanwhile in other parts of Japan shares in Kamikaze Bank nosedived and Karate Financial were preparing to chop 500 jobs. When news broke that Kareoke Bank was up for sale and reputed to be going for a song, panic hit Tokyo.
September 2007: German corporate lender IKB announces a $1bn loss on investments linked to the US Optimus Prime market. But no one cares.
In comparison, UK mortage lender Northern Rock ran into financial difficulties it was thrown a lifeline from the Bank of England. This triggers a panic amongst customers with savings at the bank, causing a stampede not seen in England since the 1847 Primark sale.
October 2007: US banking giant Citigroup unveils a Optimus Prime related loss of $3.1bn. A fortnight on Citigroup is forced to write down a further $5.9bn. Within six months, its stated losses amount to $40bn.
Merrill Lynch's chief resigns after the investment bank unveils a $7.9bn exposure to bad debt.
Swiss bank UBS loses $4.7 billion. Again, nobody cares.
However, the Bank of DinoJesus then collapses, causing the largest investor, Mr. T to become very angry.
December 2007: The central banks continue to make more funding available.
There is a $20bn auction from the US Federal Reserve and, the following day, $500bn from the European Central Bank to help commercial banks over the Christmas period. Billy Rabblemere of Ohio, donates 47 cents from his piggy bank to help his mother with household bills.
January 2008: Global stock markets, including London's FTSE 100 index, suffer their biggest falls since 11 September 2001.
February 2008: In its biggest intervention yet, the Federal Reserve makes $200bn of funds available to banks and other institutions to try to improve liquidity in the markets. Leaders from the G7 group of industrialised nations say worldwide losses stemming from Nigerian Money Scams could reach $400bn.
April 2008: The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which oversees the global economy, warns that potential losses from the credit crunch could reach $1 trillion and may be even higher. The IMF blames the losses mainly on the fact that capitalism has been revealed to be merely a Get Rich Quick scam or Pyramid Scheme.
The Bank of England announces details of an ambitious £50bn plan designed to help credit-squeezed banks by allowing them to swap potentially risky mortgage debts for secure Monopoly money.
May 2008: Swiss bank UBS, one of the worst affected by the credit crunch, launches a $15.5bn rights issue to cover some of the $37bn it lost on assets linked to US mortgage debt. The poor bastards.
June 2008: There are significant developments in two major credit crunch-related investigations in the US, which it is hoped will restore confidence in the credit markets.
The FBI arrests 406 people, including brokers and housing developers, as part of a crackdown on alleged crack dealing worth $1bn.
Separately, two former Bear Stearns workers face criminal charges related to the collapse of two hedges linked to Optimus Prime mortgages. It is alleged they knew of the hedges problems but did not disclose them to investors, who lost a total of $1.4bn.
July 2008: The FTSE 100 stock index briefly dips into a "bear market", in which the market suffers a 20% fall from its recent highs. Investors frantically try to sell their shares, much to the amusement of Fozzie Bear, Yogi Bear, Mike Ditka and Brian Urlacher.
Financial authorities step in to assist America's two largest lenders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As owners or guarantors of $5 trillion worth of home loans, they are so fat that their collapse could trigger an Earthquake of a size not seen since San Francisco opened its borders to Hippies, Commies and Jews.
September 2008: Investment rapers, the Lehman Bruvas announce they have lost almost $3.9 billion in bad drug debts. Frantically looking for a buyer for their remaining assets (mostly low quality crack cocaine), they approach the US Federal Reserve but are sent home, crying to momma.
After days of searching frantically for a buyer, Lehman Bruvas file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the first major rappers to collapse since the start of the credit crisis.
Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan dubs failure as "probably a once in a century type of event" and warns that other major firms will also go bust.
Meanwhile fellow US bank Merrill Lynch, also stung by the credit crunch, agreed to be taken over by Bank of America for $5, the latest twist in a dramatic turn of events on Wall Street.
October 2008: Gordon Brown leads the world in the brilliant(?!) new idea of borrowing billions to bail out/buy banks.
November 2009: The last hope of Western economy, the Arab sheikdoms, suffer their own crisis after the financial breakdown of Emirate Dubai. The recent "recession is over" headlines are obsolete by the new downturn.
Long Term Effects[edit | edit source]
The lasting effect of the 'Credit Crunch' is that no one can borrow any money ever again.
All those letters that drop through your letterbox telling you that you have been 'pre-approved for a loan of up to £30,000' are merely an elaborate hoax by Nigerian fraudsters. Most economists now agree that the USA and UK are now in recession and the consensus is that the recession will last for the next 300 hundred years or so. This means that both countries are likely to be acquired by China or India. China is rumoured to already be in talks with it's advertising agency regarding rebranding America as 'The Chinese Peoples Republic Of America'.
How To Survive The Credit Crunch[edit | edit source]
Let's face it: the smart financial decisions you've made over the past few years, at this point, are pretty useless. You're going to get fired from your job. You might lose your house, car, and other valuables. You need to firmly establish, right now, your new place in life. You should become a prostitute.
What other job has the flexible hours that a prostitute has? Work whenever you please! Clean yourself up a little more and you can charge more because you're "fancy." Learn the streets. Learn the skills you need to know. You'll be fine, so long as you don't contract a dangerous STD. But don't worry, that only happens to other people. It worked for Amy Winehouse, after all.
Alternatively, you could just be smarter about your savings. But what's the fun in that?
Future Outlook[edit | edit source]
We're fucked!


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The world of fashion presents variations on the classics each year, and the Seaview frame is no exception. The shape is easily recognized as the classic wayfarer style, but this plastic frame has been updated, bringing it to the forward edge of current women's fashion trends. With the "strong yet flattering" and "square yet round" shape, the face of the frame sports added oblique diamond studs where the sturdy metal hinges attach. The temples have a flattering sloped design that softens the sides. The nasal area of the Seaview frame has no attached metal nose pads, for those who experience irritation on the bridge of the nose. Instead, there is a soft sloping component to the plastic construction, making this frame eminently wearable. Aside from the classic, sophisticated black color commonly associated with wayfarer frames, there are two additional choices. Black with crystal blue reflects the color of the ocean, while another classic color, warm demi tortoise, flatters skin tones with a soft earthy glow. The Seaview is a trend-conscious frame for all seasons.


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As the actual war in Ukraine goes on, institutions have quickly set up the fronts for the culturalone. The Metropolitan Opera cut ties with artists that support Putin. Eurovision banned Russian artists from participating. The Cannes Film Festival announced it would not welcome official Russian delegations. The NHL stopped working with the Russian Kontinental Hockey League.
On the less institutionalized end of this spectrum, your local bar might be changing vodka suppliers. And a Russian restaurant in D.C. was recently vandalized.
But as uniformly aligned as these actions may seem, there are people speaking out against them.
"It is simply not possible to draw fair or accurate lines of demarcation," wrote Bloomberg columnist Tyler Cowen. "What about performers who may have favored Putin in the more benign times of 2003 and now are skeptical, but have family members still living in Russia? Do they have to speak out?"
Cowen compares the shunning of Russian artists, musicians, athletes, and more to McCarthyism from the 1950s. Hinting at a return of a Red Scare, Cowen argues that all of this will lead to a culture of fear, false accusations, and the stifling of free speech.
Others have joined Cowen recently in criticizing the cultural boycotts of Russia.
The artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, who've long been based in New York, told ArtNet News that they "don't believe" in cultural sanctions. "Cultural connections are things that may bring people together when politicians fail and dialogue is important as long as we are able to create it, especially through cultural exchange," they said.
How useful are cultural boycotts?
"The world has always done this — used culture and sports to communicate over and past and through and around politics and aggression — and the question of how important that is, and how productive it is, recurs," said NPR's Linda Holmes, in a piece taking stock of the dissolving cultural ties between the U.S. and Russia, eventually landing on its efficacy still being up in the air. Even the answer to "efficacy of doing what exactly?" isn't altogether clear. But it is depriving Russia of something. "If you're not part of Eurovision, you can't be excluded from Eurovision. If people don't have expectations of a relatively open cultural and sports world, they can't be disappointed," wrote Holmes.
Even if boycotting Russian culture is merely symbolic, it's not as if symbols don't mean anything.
The vodka boycotts have minimal impact in the U.S., where less than 1% of vodka consumed is made in Russia, alcohol sales tracking firm IWSR Drinks Market Analysis told NPR.
But while the economic impacts might be very small, the real benefit is "providing a symbolic stand as to what our belief is," said Paul Isely, economics professor at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
People in Russia may see the U.S. as divided and fragmented, he told NPR, but "if we see an entire population choosing to stand away from using these types of products, then it sends a signal that this is important. That we aren't divided."
Symbolism, but at what cost?
It's also possible that these actions will do nothing but increase anti-Western sentiment in Russia. "I know the way my country functions," Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov told the Financial Times, also name-checking McCarthyism. "When pressed against the wall, the Russians only cluster more tightly around the leadership."
There may also be an ethical cost of boycotts – that is, encouraging Russophobia. Writing in Politico, Jack Shafer says we haven't quitegotten there, yet.
"No stories about Russian Americans getting beat up have hit the news wires," he notes. "Nobody has organized a Two Minutes Hate drill against Russian citizens. No editorial cartoons depicting Russians as werewolves or monsters have run in our papers. But the baby steps toward the vilification of all things Russia and Russian we've taken ... with our boycotts and bans put us on an ugly path."
And, in fact, some owners of U.S. businesses with Russia in their names in the U.S. are already feeling the brunt of that path.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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RBC Wealth Management has been rated as the sixth largest wealth manager in the world and in recent months has made a number of senior hires, including the appointment of Jeremy Proffitt as a wealth manager based in Nassau. Deanna Bidwell, head of RBC Wealth Management's Caribbean operations, said: *"This reflects the hard work that our Caribbean teams put in day-in, day-out to better serve our clients. We really value this recognition of our performance by our peers in the industry, and look forward to building on this success, in particular following a number of strategic hires that we have made in the last year."*


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An official website of the United States government
Advance copies of this statement are made available to the press under lock-up conditions with the explicit understanding that the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Statement of Erica L. Groshen Commissioner Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday, September 6, 2013 Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 169,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 7.3 percent. Over the prior 12 months, job gains averaged 184,000 per month. In August, employment rose in retail trade and health care, while information lost jobs. Retail trade added 44,000 jobs in August. Job gains occurred in clothing stores (+14,000), food and beverage stores (+12,000), general merchandise stores (+9,000), and electronics and appliance stores (+4,000). Over the past 12 months, retail trade employment has increased by 393,000. Health care employment rose by 33,000 in August. Within health care, ambulatory care services, such as doctors� offices and home health care services, added 27,000 jobs. Employment in professional and business services continued to trend up in August (+23,000). Over the past 12 months, this industry has added 614,000 jobs. Employment in temporary help services changed little in August. Within leisure and hospitality, employment in food services and drinking places continued to trend up (+21,000). Over the past 12 months, employment in food services and drinking places has increased by 354,000. Employment also continued to rise in wholesale trade in August (+8,000). This industry has added 83,000 jobs over the past 12 months. Within manufacturing, employment in motor vehicles and parts was up by 19,000 over the month after decreasing by 10,000 in July. Auto manufacturers laid off more workers for model changeover in July than in recent years. The return of laid-off workers contributed to the increase in August. Over the past 12 months, auto manufacturers have added 34,000 jobs. In August, employment declined in information due to a loss of 22,000 in the motion picture and sound recording industry, where employment can be volatile from month to month. Employment in other major industries showed little or no change over the month. Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 5 cents in August. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen by 52 cents, or 2.2 percent. From July 2012 to July 2013, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose by 2.0 percent. Turning now to our survey of households, the unemployment rate, at 7.3 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at 11.3 million, were both little changed in August. The jobless rate is down from 8.1 percent a year ago. The labor force participation rate--the share of the population that was working or looking for work--edged down to 63.2 percent in August. The employment-population ratio was about unchanged at 58.6 percent. The number of involuntary part-time workers fell by 334,000 to 7.9 million in August. These individuals would have preferred full-time employment but had their hours cut or were unable to find full-time work. On net, involuntary part-time employment has changed little over the past 12 months. Among persons who were neither working nor looking for work in August, 2.3 million were classified as marginally attached to the labor force, down by 219,000 from a year earlier. These individuals had not looked for work in the 4 weeks prior to the survey but wanted a job, were available for work, and had looked for a job within the last 12 months. The number of discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached who believed that no jobs were available for them, was 866,000 in August, essentially unchanged from a year earlier. In summary, nonfarm payroll employment increased by 169,000 in August, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 7.3 percent.


text: I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the leveled scene. I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his whetstone on the breeze. But he had gone his way, the grass all mown, And I must be, as he had been,—alone, 'As all must be,' I said within my heart, 'Whether they work together or apart.' But as I said it, swift there passed me by On noiseless wing a 'wildered butterfly, Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night Some resting flower of yesterday's delight. And once I marked his flight go round and round, As where some flower lay withering on the ground. And then he flew as far as eye could see, And then on tremulous wing came back to me. I thought of questions that have no reply, And would have turned to toss the grass to dry; But he turned first, and led my eye to look At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook, A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared. I left my place to know them by their name, Finding them butterfly weed when I came. The mower in the dew had loved them thus, By leaving them to flourish, not for us, Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him. But from sheer morning gladness at the brim. The butterfly and I had lit upon, Nevertheless, a message from the dawn, That made me hear the wakening birds around, And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground, And feel a spirit kindred to my own; So that henceforth I worked no more alone; But glad with him, I worked as with his aid, And weary, sought at noon with him the shade; And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach. 'Men work together,' I told him from the heart, 'Whether they work together or apart.'


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Disciplinaries and grievances
Dealing with disciplinary and grievance with an employee? Let's face it together
As an employer, you will encounter staff with poor performance or who commit minor breaches of the company's rules or are guilty of serious breaches.
All of these people problems need timely and correct handling. We will make sure you have a comprehensive disciplinary and grievance procedure.
If desired, we can carry out investigations and even be there in person to make the whole process as painless as possible.
With our advice, you can be reassured that your processes will be legally compliant.
Disciplinary issues fall into two main categories: misconduct for minor infringements and gross misconduct which may result in summary dismissal.
The disciplinary grievance policy we provide will meet your specific needs.
Investigations into staff misconduct
A thorough investigation into any employee misconduct or a grievance allegation must be undertaken, unless the situation is irrefutable.
It is critically important that an investigation into an employee is seen to be thorough, fair, and independent, otherwise there is risk of unfair dismissal.
Where possible, the investigating officer should not be involved with any subsequent hearing.
Failing to follow procedures correctly can be incredibly costly and damaging for a company's reputation, which is why it is so important to hire a professional to ensure you are legally compliant from start to finish.
We can provide impartiality for smaller firms who do not have sufficient resources in-house.
Disciplinary and grievance process & procedures
A disciplinary procedure helps employers to deal with employee misconduct, which relates to improper behaviour or poor performance at work.
A grievance procedure is a process by which an employee raises an issue or complaint they have at work. An employee may choose to do this by raising it informally at first, then if not satisfied, raise it formally in writing. Employers must meet with the individual to understand the issue and then, if appropriate, investigate the complaint.
Businesses should document disciplinary and grievance processes and procedures so that these are clear.
What happens during a Disciplinary Procedure?
A disciplinary procedure should include:
Investigation – It is crucial to have all the facts and details about the case before taking any further action. Employees usually do not have the right to be accompanied at investigatory hearings.
Communication –The employee is informed in writing that a disciplinary hearing will take place and that they have the right to be accompanied by a work colleague or Trade Union representative. They must be given the investigation report and informed of the possible penalty.
Meetings – Such as an investigation meeting or disciplinary hearing. We can explain the difference and what should happen when.
Conclusion – The disciplinary hearing must come to a fair and reasonable conclusion. The employee has a right to appeal.
What are the steps of a Grievance Procedure?
Upon receiving a grievance letter from an employee, you should take the following steps.
Hold a meeting – Set up a meeting to discuss the grievance raised. This should give all parties involved the opportunity to make their case and discuss how the grievance can be resolved.
Keep written records of what is discussed during the grievance procedure and whether an outcome is achieved.
Investigate – If appropriate, you may wish to investigate the grievance further before making any final decisions.
Conclude – Once the grievance has been investigated thoroughly, you will need to decide whether you uphold the grievance and if any action is necessary. You will also need to agree a timescale with the employee for which you plan to do this. If you find that the grievance is not upheld the employee may decide to appeal. On rare occasions an appeal can lead to mediation, otherwise the grievance could end up being dismissed.
Capability policies and guidance
There are some employees who underperform because they do not have the necessary skills to do their job and there are others who've had so much sick leave that an unfair burden is placed on their colleagues.
To handle these situations, you'll need a capability policy and guidance on how to manage an employee back to full performance or, if necessary, out of the business.
The process for which typically involves regular meetings with the employee and agreeing targets to assess performance over a set period of time. It is only if these targets are not met that a disciplinary process may be required.
Care is needed when handling ill health dismissals to ensure you're not faced with a disability discrimination claim. We can help with all of this and so much more so get in touch with one of our experienced HR professionals today.
Moving forward
If you've reached a dead end, The HR Dept can help you get back on track.
Want to know more about disciplinary and grievance procedures? Simply call or email us and we'll discuss next steps.
Up next read more about staff performance appraisals
Disciplinary & Grievance FAQ
Can a grievance result in a disciplinary?
Yes. If the grievance involves allegations against another individual such as a colleague or manager, then disciplinary action may be appropriate. The grievance should be investigated thoroughly before taking any disciplinary action.
What is the difference between a complaint and a grievance?
A complaint should be considered as a grievance. The main difference is whether or not it has been raised and dealt with informally or formally in writing.
What happens if a grievance cannot be resolved?
On the rare occasion that a grievance cannot be resolved, mediation may be used to help both sides reach an agreement or manage conflict between two parties. The 'mediator' is independent and impartial so they do not take sides and they cannot force a solution – both parties must agree. Mediation is a service that we can provide.
Why do organisations need both grievance and disciplinary procedures?
Disciplinary and grievance procedures both service distinct purposes and are equally important for employers and employees. They ensure concerns and complaints are dealt with fairly and consistently from both sides of the workplace.
What are the different types of grievance in the workplace?
There are many different types of grievances in the workplace. Some of the most common include:
Bullying and harassment
Work conditions
What are the benefits of disciplinary procedures?
Disciplinary procedures are an important management tool because they make clear what is and is not acceptable conduct and behaviour in the workplace. Disciplinary procedures also ensure employees are treated fairly and consistently, which minimises the risk of being accused of discrimination or unfair dismissal.
Should a grievance be heard before a disciplinary?
If an employee raises a grievance before a disciplinary hearing, it may be appropriate to suspend the hearing, however this is not a necessary action and will always be at the employer's discretion.
What should I do after a grievance is filed?
After a grievance is filed, a meeting will be held between an employer and employee to discuss the issue and to see if a decision on how to resolve it can be reached. If an employee is not satisfied with the outcome, they might decide to appeal the decision.
Want help with a problem employee?
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These Terms and Conditions apply to all legal relations between Shellfire GmbH (hereafter referred to as Shellfire) and its customers. They apply exclusively and replace all previous Terms and Conditions. Other Terms and Conditions are expressly revoked.
Shellfire offers online VPN services as well as voice and text communication and a matching hardware product. The relevant instructions on the website and on other media sources are not offers of contracts but invitations for contract offers to be made ("invitatio ad offerendum"). In order to use Shellfire services, the user must be at least 16 years of age. A contract is only concluded when confirmation is received from Shellfire.
The services and hardware are only intended for consumers. Shellfire guarantees a 99% availability rate during the contract. The hardware remains the property of Shellfire until it is paid for.
Customers must always be aware that even the best encryption can be cracked and a VPN is useless when the customer's PC or other devices are infected with viruses or malware. Also, the customer must be aware that voice and text communications can be intercepted. Therefore, customers should not to transmit sensitive information without additional means of encryption. The customer must always update the software on their end device, especially the operating system and the anti-virus and security software.
Shellfire assumes absolutely no liability for damages resulting from its services as far as legally possible. Damages to body and health or damages due to intent or gross negligence are excluded from this disclaimer.
In particular, Shellfire is not liable for any damage resulting from malware on the customer's device or if communication is intercepted by Government activities or zero-day exploits.
The law of the Federal Republic of Germany shall apply. UN purchasing law is excluded. The courts at Shellfire GmbH's headquarters have local jurisdiction, as long as this choice of jurisdiction is legally valid.


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Acer Aspire S7 Ultrabook: Acer's Best Foot Forward
by Jarred Walton on January 7, 2013 4:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Acer
- Intel
- Ivy Bridge
- Aspire S7
- Ultraportable
- Ultrabook
Acer Aspire S7: Welcome to the World of Touch Screen Ultrabooks
Acer has long been the poster child when it comes to the race to the bottom in consumer laptops. In the effort to get a laptop into every home, prices had to come down and the easiest path for doing that was to cut corners. We've often lauded Acer's products for being extremely affordable, but when it comes to overall impressions there are some concerns. These days, every big OEM has at least a few inexpensive laptops sitting on retail shelves, and they're all basically the same: AMD Llano or Trinity APUs or an Intel Celeron/Pentium/Core i3/Core i5 CPU, 4GB RAM, 500GB hard drive, and a 1366x768 display. Wrap it all up in an injection molded plastic chassis and slap a $400 to $600 price tag on it, and you're done. The problem is that you get what you pay for, and in this case what you often end up with is a laptop that will start to fall apart after a year or two of moderate use, not to mention the slow hard drive and lousy display.
Chase these cost reducing measures for long enough and what you end up with is a 5% reduction in overall quality, compounded yearly. Ten years later, what we have are a bunch of laptops that are faster, but they're also about half the quality of what we used to see. What if, instead of iterating on lowering prices and quality, we went the other direction with quality while trying to keep pricing relatively constant? Instead of getting cheaper, what if someone were to make laptops that are 5% better each iteration—or maybe even 10% better? Compound that through multiple release cycles and now you're looking at a laptop that's not only faster (thanks to Moore's Law), but it's also built better. That in a nutshell is what I've been seeing with Ultrabooks for the past 18 months.
The first Ultrabooks were all very thin, but the quality ranged from decent down to quite poor, with some experiencing cooling problems, overheating, noisy fans, and of course most came with bottom-of-the-barrel 1366x768 displays. The second generation designs weren't a revolution, but at least we started to see a greater focus on improving the tangibles like the display and keyboard. Now that trend continues with Acer's S7, which is the first Windows 8 Ultrabook to hit our labs. Did I mention that it's super thin?
Here are the specifications for our review unit:
Acer Aspire S7-391-9886 Specifications | |
Processor |
Intel i7-3517U (Dual-core 1.90-3.00GHz, 4MB L3, 22nm, 17W) |
Chipset | HM76 |
Memory |
4GB (2x2GB) DDR3-1333 (9-9-9-24-1T) Note: RAM is soldered onto motherboard |
Graphics |
Intel HD 4000 (16 EUs, up to 1150MHz) |
Display |
13.3" WLED Matte 16:9 1080p (1920x1080) (AU Optronics B133HAN03.0) |
Storage | 2x128GB Lite On CMT-128L3M SSDs in RAID 0 |
Optical Drive | N/A |
Networking |
802.11n WiFi (Qualcomm Atheros AR9462) (Dual-band 2x2:2 300Mbps capable) Bluetooth 4.0 (Intel) |
Audio |
Realtek ALC269 Stereo Speakers Headphone/Microphone combo jack |
Battery/Power |
4-cell, 8.4V, ~4160mAh, ~35Wh 65W Max AC Adapter |
Front Side | N/A |
Left Side |
Power Button Headphone/Microphone jack Mini-HDMI AC Power Connection |
Right Side |
Memory Card Reader 1 x USB 3.0 1 x USB 3.0 (Powered when sleeping) |
Back Side |
N/A (Exhaust vent located on bottom) |
Operating System | Windows 8 64-bit |
Dimensions |
12.7" x 8.8" x 0.5" (WxDxH) (323mm x 224mm x 12.7mm) |
Weight | 2.87 lbs (1.3kg) |
Extras |
HD Webcam 67-Key Backlit Keyboard Flash reader (MMC /SD) |
Warranty | 1-year limited warranty |
Price |
$1650 MSRP Starting at $1540 online (1/03/2013) |
When we look at the specifications for the S7, other than the nice 1080p IPS touch screen and the dimensions and weight, there's not a whole lot to separate it from the pack. The base model comes with a Core i5-3317U processor, 4GB onboard memory, and a 128GB RAID 0 SSD set and comes with an MSRP of $1399. There's an 11.6" S7 as well that has the same specs but starts at $1199.
As for our test unit, it comes with a faster Core i7-3517U processor and a 256GB RAID 0 SSD set but otherwise has the same components and design as the less expensive offering. Besides double the storage capacity, the Core i7 processor comes with a base clock that's 12% faster and a max turbo clock that's 15% higher. The ULV CPUs are a potential bottleneck, so if you're ready to spend $1400 then the extra $250 for more storage and a faster CPU is probably a reasonable upgrade—and thankfully, online pricing is about $100 less than the MSRP.
We do want to take a moment to talk about the storage configuration. Acer is going with a 2x64GB (or 2x128GB) RAID 0 set for some reason—I wish that weren't the case, as a single good SSD is usually better than two in RAID 0 for most use cases. It's difficult to find out details on the Lite On CMT-128L3M SSDs, but they appear to use a Marvell controller similar to the Plextor M3 and some other offerings, so performance should be similar (we assume Lite On is working with Plextor for the design, or vice versa). The SSD is essentially two controllers on a single mSATA card, which is novel if nothing else. Being RAID 0, that does mean that if either SSD goes kaput, you lose all your data, but then this is a specialty device where you would replace both "SSDs" simultaneously regardless. Meanwhile, the latest version of Intel's Matrix Storage Manager supports TRIM with RAID arrays, which is one more obstacle for RAID out of the way. RAID 0 shouldn't make performance any worse, and as we'll see in the benchmarks the storage subsystem does appear slightly faster than some of the other options we've tested, but I'm still not sure it's a worthwhile feature.
The more difficult prospect is in convincing someone to spend $1400+ on an Ultrabook right now. The good news is that this is an awesome looking laptop that has the cachet to hang with the best ultraportables out there. Carrying something like this around school or on business trips would be great. There are other competing Ultrabooks, with plenty more set to ship during the coming months, but I can't shake the feeling that the price is just a bit more than most are willing to pay. Even $1200 to $1400 is probably too much, but I'll leave that to others to decide. Let's forget the cost for a minute and just look at what the Aspire S7 has to offer.
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mforce - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
I find it seriously difficult to justify spending more than 500$ on a laptop. I don't make that much but even if I did ... I'm not really sure what justifies and over 1000 $ price for a laptop, it's just way too much.
And the fact that it's an Acer doesn't help things much, let's face it, Acer doesn't really have a premium brand and it's not Apple. If I'll want to sell it right after I buy it I probably won't get more than 1000$ for it.
Besides even cheapo laptops often last quite a long time, I have an Acer I paid 400$ for and it's still running just fine 4 years later. -
Romberry - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
It's a conundrum eh? People like to complain that Windows-based notebooks aren't up to the build quality of Apple's MacBooks that go for well over a grand, but when confronted with a Windows-based notebook that rivals (or meets and in some cases exceeds) the build quality of Apple's MacBooks, the same crowd that bemoans the quality of the sub-500 dollar Windows machines balks.
You can have cheap and (hopefully) acceptable, or you can have quality and the price that comes with it. If you're a 500 dollar and under laptop kind of person, then obviously this product is not for you.
Personally? I tend to agree that paying well over a grand for a laptop is very hard to justify for most people. I wouldn't do it. Example? I'm typing this post on an old (five years plus) Dell Inspiron e1505 running a Core Duo (not Core 2) processor , 1680x1050 display, 4 gigs of RAM and a 500 gig Hitachi hard drive with 32 bit Vista Ultimate. Bought two of these in May of 2007 for about 500 dollars a whack new from Dell on special, one for me and one for my daughter. Does everything I need it to do and is comfortable like an old shoe.
I have a Dell Latitude 6400 in the next room (Core 2 Duo P9600 at 2.66 GHz, 8 gigs RAM, 1920x1200 display, 128 gig Samsung 470 SSD primary drive, 500 gig WD Scorpio Black in the expansion bay in place of the optiical drive.) that I paid all of 400 dollars for off lease two years ago. (Added the SSD, upgraded the RAM and installed Win 7 x64.) It mostly sits unused because of the old shoe factor with the Inspiron.
Neither are sleek or easily portable, but they are functional, stable and reasonably fast for what I do with 'em.
I'm not sure just how big a market there is really for high end laptops. Apple sells a lot of MacBooks in terms of units, but in terms of overall market share...not that much. MacBooks are a niche. I think Winbooks built to these high standards are likely to be niche products as well, garnering about the same 3-5 percent share of the overall market as MacBooks. (Of course for many people I think those Apple MacBooks are as much a fashion accessory as they are a PC. Winbooks will likely never have that sort of purposeful snob appeal cachet. Then again, not everyone wants to be a snob.) -
blue_urban_sky - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
I agree with your statement about PC laptops not being able to win as they either feel cheap because they are or are too expensive. I would however like to draw some comparisons
Galaxy S3 ~ £400
iPad4 3g 64gb ~ £650
so £1000 for an ultra-book is not out of place, Don't get me wrong they are all expensive and products like the nexus range start to chalenge these premium prices.
Just so my bias is clear I own a S3, nexus 7 and brought my wife a yoga 13 for xmas as she is a dev and commutes with her laptop on the train so I wanted to find a nice light one. She loves it so money well spent. -
mforce - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
Sure but Nexus devices are cheaper and still quite good. And besides smartphones and tablets are all the rage these days , I don't think such a device can match that. -
Death666Angel - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
200€ for a Nexus 7, 300-350€ for a Nexus 4, 400€ for a Nexus 10 and ~150-200€ for about any dual/quad A9 Chinese tablet and smartphone with specs similar to the current high end crop (800p, 1080p, 1200p ips screen @ tablet, 540p or 720p @ smartphone, 4-32GB NAND, 7.4Wh/25Wh batteries etc.). So I would argue that the prices you mention are just as overpriced. -
blue_urban_sky - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
Although there is an argument that the high end products profits from manufacturers like Samsung, LG and Apple (tho indirectly) go toward the R&D of next gen hardware. I cannot see those same chinese manufacturers coming out with a flexible display until the tech is matured by one of the larger players at significant cost.
Overpriced is strong term, as mentioned in the article the PC community have enjoyed a race to the bottom with little thought to anything other than Power/Price. I for one am glad that companies are looking to push toward aesthetics. If a Bugatti Veyron costs £2M, Aston Martin Vanquish costs £180k and Suzuki Alto costs £6k which one is better to get a pint of milk from the store in? and would you really like to live in a world where there is no "Wow"? -
Death666Angel - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
Then disregard the Chinese offerings, but a Nexus 7 at 200/250€, a Nexus 4 at 300/350€ and a Nexus 10 at 400€ still significantly undercut his listed devices while offering comparable to arguably better specs.
As for the rest of your comment that car analogy has nothing to do with my comment and you are reading things into my comment that are clearly of your own mind. -
blue_urban_sky - Tuesday, January 8, 2013 - link
The car comparison was just to illustrate that overpriced is highly subjective. The initial prices included the statement that the nexus range were challenging the sector, although google is not interested in profiting off these devices themselves.
I would think that these ultrabooks are not big earners due to high development costs and low unit sales, So rather than overpriced I think that maybe they are just expensive. -
mforce - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
I was just saying that Acer can't expect people to pay as much for their brand as they do for Apple or Sony ( if you want Windows laptops ) and that's the reality. Given the choice almost anyone would choose an Apple or Sony product ... sure it may not be better and I know that but this is how it works.
Also I find the touchscreen on a laptop a bit useless maybe, I don't find myself using it much. I'd rather have a mouse :D -
blue_urban_sky - Monday, January 7, 2013 - link
Poor old Acer, If they are trying to up there game good on them I think they know it will be an uphill battle winning consumers over and maybe they have made a product that is very well made with quality parts for that very reason.... Maybe.


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The Explore command
The Explore command provides the functionality to quickly and easily construct and insert a collection of embedded components for exploring the results of commands or procedures which return expressions, plots, or images. The automatically constructed components are inserted inside a worksheet table and the exploration is accomplished by moving controllers such as slider components.
Details on all the options provided by the command are available on the Explore help page. This worksheet provides additional examples and commentary on the use of the command.
Tip: The inserted assembly of embedded components will be treated like output by the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Re-executing Explore commands will replace the previously inserted content. To retain the inserted collection of embedded components in a more permanent way, you can copy and paste the whole inserted GUI table which contains them. Once pasted in elsewhere they should function as before, even if the original Explore command that produced them is deleted.
Introduction and basic concepts
The essence of the exploration concept is that an expression may depend upon names which are considered as real-valued independent parameters. The Explore command constructs an interface in which a variety of results can be consecutively displayed as the values of the parameters change according to some interactive controllers. The interactive application which the Explore command inserts will dynamically substitute values for the parameters, evaluate, and display each result.
For example, the following plotting command call contains the name A , upon which it depends. If name does not have a numeric value then evaluation of that plotting command call would generate an empty plot.
plot3d( sin(A*y)*x^2, x = -1..1, y = -Pi..Pi );
The Explore command allows us to construct and interface in which the plot is recomputed with parameter A taking on various numeric values.
Parameters and initialvalues
The parameters optional argument of the Explore command allows you to specify which of the unknown names in an expression of plot are the parameters to be explore via sliders. In addition, the initialvalues option allows you to specify the parameter values to be used in the first evaluation.
Compare the following two examples:
In the first example, a pop-up dialog window will appear, suggesting end points for parameters A and B. Click on the Explore button to accept the suggested values.
The second example allows you to bypass the pop-up dialog altogether, by programmatically specifying the parameters' ranges and initial values.
Explore( plot3d( sin(A*y) * B * x^2, x = -1..1, y = -Pi..Pi, view = -2..2 ) );
Explore( plot3d( sin(A*y) * B * x^2, x = -1..1, y = -Pi..Pi, view = -2..2 ), parameters = [A = 0..10, B = 0.0..10.0], initialvalues=[A=3, B=4] );
Exploring a mathematical expression
Expressions or function calls which evaluate to other mathematical expressions, following substitution of parameter values, can also be explored.
The component displaying the resulting expressions is a Math Expression Component (or MathContainer).
Tip: Properties such as the autofit, border display, and dimensions of the MathContainer can be altered using the right-click context menu on that component.
With exploration of mathematical expressions it can be useful to see the unevaluated expression alongside each result.The following examples demonstrate several ways in which the result may or may not be displayed as an equation, including as an identity involving the unevaluated expression.
By default the result displays as an equation, with the unevaluated expression echoed as the left-hand-side.
Explore( factor(sum(i^n,i=1..N)), parameters=[n=1..10] );
Display of that left hand side can be optionally suppressed.
Explore( factor(sum(i^n,i=1..N)), parameters=[n=1..10], echoexpression=false );
Since an equation can also be explored, a customized identity could be shown instead. In this next example the left hand side of the input expression is within unevaluation quotes, so that the right hand side summation is computed symbolically while the left hand side is not.
Explore( 'sum'(i^n,i=1..N)=factor(sum(i^n,i=1..N)), parameters=[n=1..10], echoexpression=false );
Yet another variation on the above is to use the inert operator Sum rather than the active sum. Note the lighter shade of the pretty-printed summation symbol.
Explore( Sum(i^n,i=1..N)=factor(sum(i^n,i=1..N)), parameters=[n=1..10], echoexpression=false );
Exploring a function call
One powerful way to use the Explore command is to pass it an unevaluated function call to a previously defined procedure. The key here is that the procedure must consistently return the kind of object to be explored, whether that be a plot, an expression, or an image.
At first glance the next example may appear trivial, but the technique is used in several of the more advanced application examples that come later in this worksheet.
f := proc(a) local b; b := a^2; return plot( sin(b*x), x=-2*Pi..2*Pi ); end proc: Explore( f(p), parameters=[p=-2.0 .. 2.0] );
Using previously assigned data
The following example illustrates the use of data which has previously been assigned to a name earlier in the session.
data := [[0,2],[1/2,1.5],[0.8,2.5],[1.4,2.6],[1.8,1.5],[2.2,3.1],[2.6,2.4],[3.1,2.2],[3.5,2.2]]:
Explore(plots:-display( plot([data,Spline(data,v,degree=n)],v=0.0..3.5,view=-1..4, style=[point,line],color=[black,blue],symbol=circle,symbolsize=20), plot(Spline(data,v,degree=n),v=-1.0..0.0,view=-1..4, color=red), plot(Spline(data,v,degree=n),v=3.5..4.5,view=-1..4, color=red)), parameters=[n=1..7]);
Interactive plots
Interactive plots produced by the PlotBuilder command make use of new Explore functionality.
Issuing the following command will bring up the Plot Builder options in the Context Panel.
Select Exploration from the Plot Builder options, and then click Build Exploration.
The result is an exploration comprised of Embedded Components inserted into the current worksheet. The Edit button beside the interactive plot will get you back to the Plot Builder.
Context-sensitive menus
Both Explore and Plot Builder can be accessed in a purely clickable manner, via the context-sensitive menus. Context-sensitive menus are used to apply operations to an expression using only a point-and click method. The menus are available for both 2-D Math input or output.
Execute the command below, then in the Context Panel for the output expression, you can see options for both Explore and Plot Builder.
Exploring an animation
The Explore command allows you to create an exploratory interface which can play frames as the instances of various parameter values. The frames are produced on-demand and kept only as they are needed. This contrasts with the animations produced by the animate plotting command, which must generate all frames in advance and retain them together. The frame on-demand approach to playing an exploration is discussed further on in this worksheet, but in this section we can see how the older style of animation is supported within an exploration interface.
After executing the Explore command below, select the plot with the pointer and run the animation using the top menu. By default, the embedded component will show the animation in continuous loop mode. While the animation is playing you can move the slider and see a changing instance of the animation.
Note that the animations are created on-the-fly for each new slider value.
Explore( plots:-animate( plot, [a+sin(b*x), x=-2*Pi..2*Pi, view=[-2*Pi..2*Pi,-5..5]], b=-2.0..2.0 ), parameters = [a=-3.0..3.0] );
Placement of controls
The controls for parameters can be placed either to the left, bottom, or right of the component displaying results. All parameter controls can be placed via a single optional argument to the Explore command, as a customized default.
Parameter controls can also be specified individually as an override of any default.
Explore( plot(b+abs((c-2)*(c+2))*cos(a*x),x=-6..6,view=-8..8), parameters=[ c=0.0..2, b=-3..3, [a=1..3.0, placement=bottom] ], placement=right );
Control types for range parameters
Parameters whose values are specified as a range can have any of several types of variable controller.
The variable controller are: slider, dial, volumegauge, meter, and rotarygauge.
The size of the plotting component can be optionally specified. By default, its size is determined by the size of the initial plot.
Explore( plot(abs((c-2)*(c+2))*sin(a*x), x=-6..6, view=-4..4), parameters=[ [c=0.0..2, controller=volumegauge], [a=1..3.0, controller=dial] ], size=[400,246], placement=left );
ComboBox controls
Parameters whose values are specified as lists are incorporated as Combo Box controls.
Explore( plot(abs((c-2)*(c+2))*sin(a*x), x=-6..6, view=-4..4, color=r, style=s), parameters=[ [r=[red,blue,green],label=color], [s=[line,point],label=style], c=0.0..2, a=1..3.0 ], size=[400,246], placement=right );
Advanced techniques
The display of the generated frames at each set of parameter values can be animated. Each parameter control can have its own check box which determines whether it will play with the animation. These check boxes can be unselected while the animation is playing.
Note that any parameters whose animation check box is unselected during play can still be interactively controlled.
The animation check boxes can be specified as a single new default option, and this in turn can be overridden on any parameter's individual specification. The animation check boxes can be specified as present and initially selected, present and initially unselected, or absent altogether.
By default, any combo box control of a discrete valued parameter does not get an animation check box unless this is supplied in the parameter's individual specification.
Explore( plot(abs((c-2)*(c+2))*sin(a*x),x=-6..6,view=-4..4,color=r,style=s), parameters=[ [r=[red,blue,green],label=color,animate=true], [s=[line,point,line],label=style,animate=false], c=-2.0..2, [a=1..3.0] ], size=[400,246], animate, placement=left );
Loop animation
The loop option allows for looped play of the animated sequence.
The loop control check box can be omitted altogether (default), initially selected, or initially unselected.
Explore( plot(abs((c-2)*(c+2))*sin(a*x),x=-6..6,view=-4..4,color=r,style=s), parameters=[ [r=[red,blue,green],label=color,animate=true], [s=[line,point,line],label=style,animate=false], c=-2.0..2, [a=1..3.0] ], size=[400,246], animate, loop, placement=left );
Numerical ordinary differential equations with parameters
Suppose that you have an Initial Value Problem (IVP) with unassigned symbolic parameters. The interactive functionality of dsolve,numeric provides an efficient mechanism for numerically solving the solution at multiple values of the parameters. You can use the Explore command to interact with such a solution space.
sol := dsolve( {alpha*diff(x(t),t)=0.7*(y(t)-x(t))-sin(x(t))^2, alpha*diff(y(t),t)=0.7*(x(t)-y(t))+z(t), beta*diff(z(t),t)=-y(t), x(0)=3, y(0)=0, z(0)=-3}, {x(t), y(t), z(t)}, numeric, 'parameters'=[alpha,beta], 'output'='listprocedure'):
caller := proc(a,b); sol('parameters'=['alpha'=a,'beta'=b]); sol; end proc:
attract:=proc(A,B) plots:-odeplot( caller(A,B), [x(t), y(t), z(t)], t = 0 .. 500, 'style'=line, 'numpoints'=10000, 'labels'=[`x`,`y`,`z`], 'axes'='box', 'color'='COLOR'('HUE',A/10)); end proc:
You can now produce a plot of the solution at parameter values alpha=0.1 and beta=0.2.
And you can also explore the family of such plots, as the parameter values change. This is accomplished by calling Explore on a function call.
Explore( attract(a,b), 'parameters'=[a=0.5..2.0, b=1.0..10.0] );
Procedures which return images can be explored interactively.
Basic example: float[8] Array
Arrays which are supported by the ImageTools package can be interpreted as images.
The following is a basic example involving a function call which evaluates to a 2-dimensional datatype=float[8] Array which is interpreted as a grayscale image.
Explore( Array(1..100,1..100,(i,j)->evalf(sin(p/10*(i+j))),datatype=float[8]), parameters=[p=2.0..4.0], size = [200, 200] );
Procedures returning an image
A function call to a command or procedure which returns an image can also be explored.
img := ImageTools:-Read(cat(kernelopts(datadir),"/images/excavator.jpg")):
Explore( ImageTools:-Threshold(img, threshold), parameters=[threshold=0.2..0.8], placement=right, size = [320, 210] );
Exploration of images can also be animated.
Explore( Mandelbrot(300, -1.78+(-1-1.5*I)/exp(zoom), -1.78+(2.2+1.5*I)/exp(zoom), iterationlimit=a, output=layer1) , parameters=[ a=50..300, zoom=0.0..8.0 ] , animate , placement=left );
Interactive markers
Pairs of range controls (e.g. sliders) can be coupled as interactive marker controls on 2D plots. Each marker is displayed as a cross in the plot, which may be dragged interactively using the mouse pointer.
By default the sliding controls associated with marker parameters are hidden. These controls can be collectively made to display with the showmarkercontrols option, or individually made to display or not with the optional shown keyword in the individual parameter's specification.
DEplot and initial conditions
deS := diff(x(t),t)=-0.5*x(t)*y(t);
deS ≔ ⅆⅆtxt=−0.5xtyt
deI := diff(y(t),t)=+0.5*x(t)*y(t)-0.15*y(t);
deI ≔ ⅆⅆtyt=0.5xtyt−0.15yt
Explore( DEtools[DEplot]( [deS,deI], [x(t),y(t)], t=0..40, x=0..1, y=0..0.6, [[x(0)=x0,y(0)=y0]], arrows=medium), parameters=[ [x0=0.3..0.99], [y0=0.1..0.5, shown=false] ], showmarkercontrols, markers=[[x0,y0]], placement=left, animate );
Signal processing: infinite impulse response filter
The following application uses example code from the SignalProcessing package and, after enclosure in a simple procedure, produces an interactive application that dynamically illustrates the effects of the filter parameter value on the resulting modified signal.
First we generate a known signal. Then we construct a reusable container Array C in order to improve performance of the exploration process by leveraging the in-place computational semantics of the InfiniteImpulseResponseFilter command.
Jsignal:=SignalProcessing:-GenerateJaehne( 512, 4095 ): PJsignal:=plots:-listplot( Jsignal, 'title' = "Original Signal" ): Ctemp:=Array(1..512,datatype=float[8]):
filterapp:=proc(frequency,filter) uses SignalProcessing; local PB,taps; taps:=GenerateButterworthTaps(3,frequency,'filtertype'=filter); InfiniteImpulseResponseFilter(Jsignal,taps,'container'=Ctemp); PB:=plots:-listplot(Ctemp,'title'="Filtered Signal"); plots:-display(<<PJsignal;PB>>,'size'=[400,300]); end proc:
Explore(filterapp(frequency,filter), parameters=[frequency=0.05..0.49, [filter=["highpass","lowpass"]]], placement=left, animate, loop, title="Infinite Impulse Response Filter");
RGB color space: an application
The next example uses a self-initializing module to efficiently do in-place updates of an image Array as the parameters change.
RGBapp:=module() local ModuleApply,init,f,sr,sg,sb,n,n1,n2,c,tc,R; init:=proc() n:=200; n1,n2:=trunc(n/4),trunc(n/2); c:=Matrix(n,'datatype'='float[8]', subs(d2=n2, (i,j)->`if`((d2-i)^2+(d2-j)^2<(d2)^2,1,0))); tc:=Matrix(n,'datatype'='float[8]'); R:=Array(1..2*n,1..2*n,1..3,'datatype'='float[8]'); end proc; f:=proc(x) LinearAlgebra:-MatrixAdd(tc,c,.0,x,'inplace'); NULL; end proc; ModuleApply:=proc(tr,tg,tb) if not n::posint then init(); end if; if sr<>tr then f(tr); sr,R[n1..n1+n,n1..n1+n,1]:=tr,tc; end if; if sg<>tg then f(tg); sg,R[n1..n1+n,2*n-5*n1..2*n-n1,2]:=tg,tc; end if; if sb<>tb then f(tb); sb,R[2*n-5*n1..2*n-n1,1+n2..n+n2,3]:=tb,tc; end if; R; end proc; end module:
A single call to F will produce a color image as output, which can be visualized by embedding in the current worksheet.
ImageTools:-Embed( RGBapp(0.7,0.3,0.9) );
An interactive application can now be easily constructed.
Explore( RGBapp( Red, Green, Blue ), parameters = [ Red=0.2..1, Green=0.2..1, Blue=0.2..1], initialvalues = [ Red=.7, Green=.7, Blue=.7 ], placement = right, title="The additive RGB color space" );
Cobweb plot of the logistic map
The cobweb plot of the logistic map illustrated by iterated application of the formula r*x*(1-x) exhibits emergent chaotic behavior as the parameter r increases from a value of 3 towards the value of 4.
Cobweb:=proc(r, x0, {numpoints::posint:=1})
local f,i,M,N,x;
for i from 3 to N-1 by 2 do
end do;
end proc:
The procedure Cobweb defined below will produce a so-called cobweb plot by iterating the process of applying the formula to obtain a y value and taking that computed y value as the next x value in the sequence. This sequence of operations produces (x,y) points which lie alternately on the formula's curve and the x=y line.
Cobweb( 2.8, 0.1, numpoints=10 );
For some values of r convergence to a point or a cycle occurs. As the value r increases towards 4 the chaotic behavior emerges. A dynamic exploratory interface with varying parameters r and x0 are much more impressive mechanisms for illustrating the emergent behavior than are static cobweb plots with fixed values of r and original point x0.
Explore( Cobweb( r, x0, numpoints=n ), parameters=[ r=2.0 .. 4.1, [x0=0.0 .. 1.0, animate=false], [n=1 .. 200, animate=false] ], initialvalues=[r=2.8, x0=0.1, n=100], animate, loop, placement=left, title="Cobweb plot for r*x*(x-1)" );
Edge detection
The following application performs edge detection by convolving the data with a pair of 3x3 kernels (Sobel operator), followed by optional thresholding.
The discrete valued action parameter is used to allow the choice between convolution (only) or thresholding (only) after the initial convolution. When the action ComboBox is selected as threshold then the three Sliders control the thresholding effect on the displayed image. When the ComboBox is selected as convolve then the image reverts to the result of the original convolution and the three Sliders have no effect.
img := ImageTools:-Read(cat(kernelopts(datadir),"/images/undercarriage.jpg")):
GetEdges:=module() local ModuleApply,edge,stored; ModuleApply:=proc(img, {action::identical(threshold,convolve):=':-convolve'}, {t::float:=0.5,high::float:=1.0,low::float:=0.0},$) uses ImageTools; if action=':-convolve' then edge := EdgeDetect(img, ':-method' = ':-Sobel'); FitIntensity(edge, ':-inplace'=true); return edge; elif action=':-threshold' then if type(edge,Image) then return Threshold(edge,t,':-high'=high,':-low'=low ); else error "action convolve must precede action threshold"; end if; else return img; end if; end proc: end module:
Explore( GetEdges(img,action=act,t=thresh,high=highval,low=lowval), parameters=[[act=[':-convolve',':-threshold'],label=action], [thresh=0.01..0.3,label=threshold], [highval=0.0..1.0,label=high], [lowval=0.0..1.0,label=low]], initialvalues=[thresh=0.07,highval=0.75,lowval=0.0], placement=right, size=[400,267], title="Edge detection by convolution and thresholding" );
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text:
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Pediatric Endocrinologist
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Endocrine system comprises the thyroid, pituitary, hypothalamus and the parathyroid glands. The adrenal cortex, gonads, and pancreas are also a part of the system. These are actually glands that are responsible for the production of hormones and they are also responsible for a set of different functions like growth, metabolism, and sexual development and so on. If the hormones were to fall out of balance, then abnormalities may occur. Disorders can also occur and they can be fatal at times.
If your child is diagnosed with such issues, then you may be redirected to a pediatric endocrinologist. The child will be diagnosed, evaluated and then treated for the specific condition that they may be having. Most of the conditions come as a result of a deficiency in the endocrine system as well as overactivity.
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