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Would your clients or customers recommend you to someone else? Our expert-certified Net Promoter® Score (NPS) example survey template asks this question to give you a quick look at what your customers think. By using this template, you'll be able to understand how happy your customers are and gauge your company's performance over time.
Our Net Promoter Score sample survey template is designed to make it easy to understand how satisfied your customers are. Net promoter scores are produced by asking respondents to rate the likelihood they would refer your business to someone else, using a scale from 0 to 10. Using your customers' answers, you can identify the percentage of customers who would promote you, and use this number to gauge your performance over time. You can also customize our NPS template to help it fit your product offering, or to ask additional questions to understand your customers even better.
To create a survey using the Net Promoter Score template, just sign up or sign in to SurveyMonkey. You'll be able to choose the template when you begin creating a survey.
NPS®, Net Promoter® & Net Promoter® Score are registered trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld.
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The late Pope John Paul II moved a major step closer to sainthood yesterday at a joyous ceremony that drew more than 1 million people, the largest crowd in Rome since his funeral six years ago.
"From now on, Pope John Paul shall be called 'blessed,'" Pope Benedict XVI, wearing resplendent white and gold robes, solemnly proclaimed in Latin, establishing that his predecessor's feast day would be Oct. 22, the day of the inauguration of John Paul's -history-making pontificate in 1978.
To cheers from the huge crowd, a tapestry showing a smiling John Paul was unveiled seconds after Benedict read the proclamation.
St Peter's Square was packed and the crowd stretched as far back as the Tiber River, more than 0.5km away. The throng of devotees had moved toward the Vatican since before dawn to get a good spot for the Mass.
Police estimated the crowd at more than 1 million people. Many camped out during the night in the square, which was bedecked with posters of the late pope and one of his most famous sayings, "Do not be afraid!"
In his homily, Benedict noted that the late Pope, whom he praised as having had "the strength of a titan" and who gave millions of people "the strength to believe," had blessed crowds thousands of times from his window overlooking the same square.
"Bless us now," Benedict said.
Many of the participants were from John Paul's native Poland. Dozens of red and white Polish flags bobbed above the crowd and a cheer went up when a group of Poles released a large banner reading "Thank You, God," held aloft by balloons.
"We were at the funeral and we just had to be here to see him beatified," said Janusc Skibinski, 40, who drove 29 hours with his family from their home near the border with Belarus.
A place of honor was reserved for Sister Marie Simon-Pierre Normand, a French nun who suffered from Parkinson's disease, but whose inexplicable cure has been attributed to John Paul's intercession with God to perform a -miracle, thus providing the grounds for his beatification.
After the proclamation, Normand held up a silver reliquary with a vial of blood taken from the pope in the last few days of his life in case it was needed for a transfusion.
The Vatican will have to attribute another miracle to John Paul's intercession after the beatification in order for him to be declared a saint.
The pope was beatified on the day the Church celebrates the Feast of Divine Mercy, which this year fell on May 1, coinciding with the most important workers' holiday.
About 90 official delegations from around the world, including members of five European royal families and 16 heads of state, attended the beatification.
They included Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who has been widely criticized for human rights abuses in his country. Mugabe is banned from traveling to the EU, but the Vatican is not a member of the bloc.
Pope John Paul's coffin was exhumed on Friday from the crypts below St Peter's Basilica and will be placed in front of the main altar. It will remain there and the basilica will remain open until all visitors who want to view it have done so.
It will then be moved to a new crypt under an altar in a side chapel near Michelangelo's statue of the Pieta.
John Paul's beatification has set a new speed record for modern times, taking place six years and one month after his death on April 2, 2005. While the overwhelming majority of Catholics welcome it, a minority are opposed, with some saying it happened too fast.

subset: commoncrawl


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Starting with 3.2, the WordPress HTML editor has become MonoSpaced. Yay! Problem is that it looks best on a non-Windows PC, so someone of my friends who happen to be Windows users have the grumpy.
I made an
htmleditor.php file and tossed it into my
mu-plugins folder. You can use the folder in single and multisite WordPress, and it makes any php files in there act similar to your
functions.php. I find it preferable since you don't have to port to a new theme, should you change it. Read What is the MU-PLUGINS folder? if you need more help.
<?php /* Plugin Name: HTML Editor Plugin URI: https://halfelf.org/hacks/wordpress-html-editor-font/ Description: I don't like the HTML editor Font on Windows Version: 1.0 Author: MA Epstein Author URI: https://ipstenu.org/ */ function html_editor_admin() { ?> <style type="text/css">#content #editor, #editorcontainer #content, #editorcontainer textarea#content, #editorcontainer textarea, div#postdivrich.postarea #editorcontainer textarea#content { font: normal 13px/1.5 verdana !important; }</style> <?php } add_action('admin_head', 'html_editor_admin'); ?>
You can obviously change
font: normal 12px/1.5 Monaco, monospace !important; to whatever you like.


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The largest Bitcoin exchange in the US, BitFloor, has closed again, this time due to issues with its bank account, according to its founder.
Roman Shtylman wrote that the exchange's "US bank account is scheduled to be closed and we can no longer provide the same level of USD deposits and withdrawals as we have in the past."
"As such, I have made the decision to halt operations and return all funds," he wrote, adding that over the next few days he will work to refund deposits but that people should be patient. The exchange will be shut "indefinitely. . Efforts to reach Shtylman were not immediately successful.
Shtylman told IDG News Service last week that his exchange, which lets people buy the virtual currency, experienced technical problems and saw its highest trading volumes and number of users ever.
The price of bitcoins surged to $US266 on April 10. However, ongoing cyberattacks and technical problems with the largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox in Tokyo, shook confidence in the fledgling currency, driving its price down to around $US100. Bitcoin has seen continued volatility this week, dropping as low as $US50 per bitcoin.
While Bitcoin's surges and falls may have benefited some speculators, it is likely to have posed challenges for entrepreneurs trying to craft businesses centered around the currency, which can be transferred for free around the world using peer-to-peer software.
BitFloor lost about $US250,000 in September 2012 after hackers breached its network and stole around 24,000 bitcoins. Shtylman said at the time BitFloor did not have enough funds on hand to cover the losses, but he promised to revive the exchange with the intent of repaying victims.
Send news tips and comments to firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk


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- "Chestnut and dragon heartstring. Nine-and-a-quarter inches. Brittle. I was forced to make this shortly after my kidnapping, for Peter Pettigrew."
- —Garrick Ollivander
Peter Pettigrew's wand was 9¼" long, made of chestnut wood, and had a dragon heartstring core. The wand was constructed by Garrick Ollivander shortly after his abduction in 1996; the wandmaker later described the wand as "brittle".[1]
Sometime between Pettigrew committing a mass murder to frame Sirius Black and his reunion with Lord Voldemort, he apparently lost his previous wand, as in 1996, Ollivander was forced to construct this new one for him.
The wand was forcefully taken from Pettigrew in Malfoy Manor in 1998 by Ron Weasley during the course of his and Harry Potter's escape from the dungeons.[2] Ron won its allegiance when he wrested it from Pettigrew's hand and because Ron's own wand had been taken by Snatchers, he subsequently used Pettigrew's.
It is possible that this became Ron's third wand. This was the first wand that was stated specifically to be made for one particular person in mind. However, given Pettigrew's betrayal of both Ron and his relatives and his friends, as well as Pettigrew's role in the Return of Lord Voldemort, it is unlikely that Ron permanently kept the wand.
Behind the scenes
- His wand is one of the few major characters' wands not to be sold on the Noble Collection. The reason for this is unknown. It could be due to the unpopularity of Pettigrew's character among both fans and characters.
- J.K. Rowling based Harry's, Ron's, and Hermione's wands off of the wand woods correlating to their date of birth and the Celtic tree calendar. However, as Pettigrew's wand is made of chestnut, J. K. Rowling did not choose this wand based on Pettigrew's birthdate. Like Hagrid's wand wood, it could be based on a symbolic reference to Pettrigrew's personality and character.
- Indeed, Pettigrew's wand seems to be a very fitting match for its owner; chestnut and dragon heartstring is a combination that seeks out the materialistic and morally grey. It is also described as brittle, which is appropriate considering how weak Wormtail was. It also has a very warped, bent, zig-zag shape; this suggests Wormtail preferred less refined, crueller and more primitive forms of magic, referring to his magical mastery (or lack thereof) and his villainy. Finally, it is also shorter than average, denoting that his character is lacking in some area (most likely his courage and loyalty).[3]
- In the seventh book, during the Skirmish at the Malfoy Manor, Ron disarms Pettigrew and subsequently uses this wand. It is later revealed by Garrick Ollivander that he won the wand's allegiance from Pettigrew, so it serves him properly. However, in the film, Ron's disarment (as well as the killing) of Pettigrew is omitted. He is simply Stunned by Dobby, and when he falls, his wand flies backwards to the top of the stairs where Ron picks it up. This means Ron never won the allegiance of the wand in the film, and as such, should not have served him properly. However, it is shown to work for him without any apparent issues.
- In a picture of wand designs used for Cursed Child, Ron's wand is described as having a "striped sweater" design and being made of Chestnut wood; whether this implies Ron lost his Willow wand and kept Pettigrew's wand, or obtained another one that happened to be the same wood, is uncertain.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (First appearance)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (video game)
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7
- Harry Potter: The Character Vault
Notes and references
- ↑ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 24 (The Wandmaker)
- ↑ Deathly Hallows, Ch. 23
- ↑ New wand wood info from Pottermore


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Why Do I Get Certificate Errors When I Connect To Cisco PIX 501 Firewall Device Manager?
The certificate errors that occur when connecting to the Cisco PIX 501 Firewall Device Manager are the result of Cisco using a self-signed SSL certificate instead of one signed by a third party. You can safely accept the certificate and save it as "Trusted" to avoid future warnings.


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According to AllHipHop.com The musical based on the music of one Mr. Tupac Shakur has been given an official opening date on Broadway. Kenny Leon's musical Holler If Ya Hear Me will begin previewing at New York City's Palace Theatre on May 26th, and the official opening is scheduled for June 19th .
The show was written by Todd Kreidler and the plot of the musical will center around two childhood friends' and their trials and tribulations in trying to make it in the inner-city. While it is not about 2Pac's life his music and lyrics serve as inspiration for the production. So then it makes sense that it is produced by Pac's mother Afeni Shakur as well as Eric L. Gold, Chun-soo Shin and Jessica Green. It has been choreographed by Wayne Cilento.
No word on who has been cast for the show yet.
We're already looking for something to wear because we'll definitely be attending…will you?


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Playing this video requires the latest flash player from Adobe.
Download link (right click and 'save-as') for playing in VLC or other compatible player.
Since the standard inflationary paradigm is based on quantum field theory on classical space-times, it excludes the Planck era. Using techniques from loop quantum gravity, the theory is extended to overcome this limitations. The new framework sharpens conceptual issues by distinguishing between the true and apparent trans-Planckian difficulties and provides sufficient conditions under which the true difficulties can be overcome within a quantum gravity theory, with interesting lessons for both theory and observations.


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Attention all parents and padawans-We have the most fun and exciting Jedi Training Camp in the Universe! The Force is strong with YOU. Come and join other Padawans as we learn the ways of the Jedi in this fun, interactive program! Our Jedi Camp creates an opportunity for all who are fascinated with the many worlds of Star Wars so they may explore their innermost Jedi. We will explore Light vs Dark / The Hero vs the Villain. What kind of Jedi are you? How do you choose the Path of the Jedi? Which Jedi are you most like? Let us help you awaken your inner hero. There is an option for each class for an extra lunch hour (bring your own sack lunch).
LAGRANGE REC CENTER-536 EAST AVENUE (352-1762): East on 47th Street to East Ave. Turn left at East Ave. Rec Center is 1/2 block down on left side.
Bring your own lunch and drink.
|3 years to under 8 years
|Open to These Grades:
|Web Reg Available to:
Resident: 04/05/2019 @ 8:30A - 07/13/2019 @ 12:00A
Non-Resident: 04/15/2019 @ 8:30A - 07/13/2019 @ 12:00A


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LIFE magazine's coverage of the American pastime—while always steeped in a genuine appreciation for the nuances, intricacies and thrills of the game—was often as much personality-driven as performance-driven.
George Silk, Ralph Morse, Mark Kauffman, Francis Miller and the other photographers who so frequently covered baseball for LIFE beautifully captured the action unfolding on the field. But they were also photojournalists: pretty much every photographer on the LIFE staff who was shooting baseball in the 1940s and '50s (and even into the '60s) also had occasion, throughout their careers, to photograph . . . well, you name it. War, science, technology, the arts, pop culture, politics, other sports from yachting to boxing to golf: the breadth of the subjects covered by LIFE, and the necessity for LIFE's photographers to ably capture the heart of the matter—whatever the matter happened to be—meant that baseball was a bit more than just a game. For LIFE's editors, writers and photographers, it was one more window into the human spirit.
Here, LIFE.com offers the best baseball pictures made for LIFE, from the late Forties to the early Seventies. The great players one would expect are, of course, here: Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Willie Mays, Ted Williams and other Hall of Famers make their obligatory appearances. But above and beyond the sheer, phenomenal athletic talent on display (talent gauged by records set, titles won, World Series rings worn) there is also another, less-quantifiable element of the game portrayed in most of these pictures—an element of individual and collective striving on the part of players, managers, owners and, of course, fans. For lack of a better word, that element is drama, and it's here in abundance.
Finally, viewers will note—and many will no doubt grumble about—the preponderance of New York players and teams represented in these photos. More than half of the photographs either include players in Yankee, Dodger or Giant uniforms, or depict a scene in which New York players, even if unseen, either have or had a central role. In our defense we'll just note that, during the years in which these photos were made, New York teams were hard to ignore. Between 1941 and 1956, the Yankees and Dodgers played each other in the World Series seven times.
So, yeah. There might be a little too much New York here for some. But if it's any consolation, there's nary a Met in sight.


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|By Brandon Watson
Article Rating:
|January 4, 2010 09:30 AM EST
In an effort to save a lot of pain and suffering for those people who don't want to read an incredibly long blog post, I have a nice little summary table. The predictions run the gamut of my personal and professional interests, so they may not be 100% interesting to all people.
- 99% of All Decade Lists That Come This Year Will Be Wrong
- Twitter Will Become A Footnote
- Real Time Has Had It's Time
- Interest Rates Will Begin To Rise
- Housing Prices Being To Stall And Then Fall
- Jorge Lorenzo Will Win MotoGP World Championship
- Netbook Market Disappears
- Apple's Disdain For Developers Will Reach A Tipping Point
- ChromeOS Proves To Be Another Of Google's Failures
- The Final Season Of Lost Will Not Be Seen
- Foundations For The Repeal Of Sarb-Ox
- The Venture Business, As We Know It, Is Dead
- Oil Trading Draws Legislative Scrutiny
- Windows Mobile 7 Will Impress
- Tim Tebow Will Play No Downs That Matter At QB
99% of All Decade Lists That Come This Year Will Be Wrong – how can I say such a thing? Well, for the most part, I have already seen the early warning signs that everyone is going to want to do the "decade in review" or "predictions for the decade" or some such thing. I know this is a nit, but it's one that has bothered me ever since I got the Final Jeopardy question wrong way, way back. 2010 is not the first year of the new decade. 2011 is. Deal with it. =)
Twitter Will Become A Footnote – the reality of what Twitter has shown us has not yet been fully realized. Yes, we have all at one point or another succumbed to the pursuits of vanity by asking people to follow (demanding, in varying degrees, is more like it). We all watched with rapt fascination as the race to 1,000,000 followers was won by Ashton Kutcher. Twitter is everywhere – commercials, tv show mentions, Facebook, billboards. It's everywhere, and yet it's nowhere.
You see, the main value I get out of Twitter is information discovery. Mostly interesting links that are being shared by people who I have chosen to follow. Yes, you can use Twitter to solicit answers from your network, but those answers may come from people who follow you, and not the other way around. This follow-asymmetry is what gives me the most angst about the future potential for Twitter. It's both wonderful and harmful at the same time.
Further complicating the issue around the "success" of Twitter is an issue which I tracked at my last company, and one for which I know of no easy way to track if you are external to Twitter. Churn and "last login" times. Like blogging before it, where the average blog was abandoned in 4 months, I wonder what the time to abandonment on most Twitter accounts happens to be, and how this is changing (growing or shrinking) over time. Perhaps I will write some code to take advantage of the 10x improvements to access to the stream to figure out the average time lag on the last tweet. We already know that the vast majority of the content on Twitter is generated by a very small group of people. What happens when the digerati that made Twitter begin to suffer from Shiny Object Syndrome and move on to the next thing (and they will)?
When I share things on Facebook, I feel confident that they are being consumed by people I know, and those people, more or less, want to consume them. If you buy into the fact that most people will abandon Twitter at the same, or perhaps increasing rate of bloggers, what is the long term value of sharing content with a Twitter audience? As people move on, where is the value in Twitter? I will stop sharing because I am essentially speaking into an empty room.
I have already spent too much of this post on Twitter. I expect this company to fade into obscurity like PointCast. Real time search, and user generated content did not start with, nor will they end with, Twitter. Some company may end up *WAY* overpaying for Twitter, seeing it as a potential trove of information and relevancy to Gen Y and younger, but it's a fools errand.
Real Time Has Had Its Time – The reason that TechCrunch and seemingly everyone else is frothing at the mouth about real time search is that it's something about which they can write. Something about which they can prognosticate and generate page views. Real time, when you boil it all down, is about surfacing information quicker. You hear all the time about how Twitter floats a story faster than the traditional media. Heaven forbid anyone hold Twitter streams to any kind of error or fact checking. I am waiting for the War of the Worlds moment on Twitter. Can't wait for that.
In reality, what we will begin to see is the major search engines battling it out based on their speed to index content. Twitter is fine for surfacing some interesting link or content, but really, all that's happening is some pseudo reporting of an event, and you cannot gain context or even real content. All you have is a signal that something happened. Google is already rolling out some changes they have made to speed up their time to index, and that will give links to content and context for any new interrupt. The challenge Google has is that their methods for ranking and relevancy relied on a level of user curation which could take days to surface. They're not dummies, and I expect to see more news here. However, all this trope about "real time" this and "real time" that will simmer to a boil and then hit the back burner. Why? Follow the money. Bing and Google. Twitter's $25 million payday from Google and Bing was a nice pat on the head, and the big boys telling them to go to the corner.
Interest Rates Will Begin To Rise – We've seen a ridiculous run of low interest rates over the last decade. This chart on the history of mortgage rates tells a very interesting story:
Consider for a moment that we were supposedly 500 trades away from a complete financial services meltdown. That was Sept 2008. What has followed, from this deep economic crisis, is another historic run of continued low interest rates. For a more full picture of what rates have looked like over the last 17 years, here's another chart:
As you can see, we are currently lingering in a zone well below the long term average. Looking at the 4 year chart for the 10-year Treasury shows another interesting bit of data:
After the financial meltdown and subsequent loss of trust in the US markets, interest rates have continued to stay low. Why is this? The government continues to allow banks to trade the spread on the TARP money and Treasuries. When that game is over, and it will be, interest rates will have to climb in order for the much needed capital from international sources to soak up the Treasuries. How much debt? With the current strategies employed by our current government, with trillions at stake, we have a lot of debt which need to be floated to cover the costs of the policies. Who's going to buy the Treasuries with rates this low? No one. In order to move the product, the price is going to have to change, which means interest rates are going to have to go up. Mortgage rates will follow suit.
Housing Prices Being To Stall And Then Fall – coupled with the erosion of the mortgage market will be a marked decrease in the value of homes. Whereas the last decline that we had was brought on by panic selling and a general lack of credit, this slump will be brought on by two factors working together.
First, the increase in the interest rates will force many people to start thinking about their affordability index not in terms of total home value, but rather in terms of the monthly payments they can make. For a $200K mortgage, a 2% swing in interest rates from 5% to 7% is a $257 delta. As we saw in the charts above, 7% isn't that crazy from a historical norms perspective. Now, for a $500K mortgage, assuming you can still get a conforming jumbo loan in your area, that swing in interest rates is a difference of $642 in your monthly payment. If you live in California, things get messy. The median income is about $62K, and the median home value is $304K. Assuming you make that median income, and claim married and 4 allowances on your W2 (oh, and you don't have any employee paid part of health insurance – ha!), that 2% swing can mean a 9% decrease in your take home pay, and that your mortgage would represent 48% of your take home pay. How's that going to work long term?
Second, and more insidious, will be the reduction of property tax collections as a result of the inevitable howls for reduction in assessed home values due to the drop in appraised values or comparable sale values in neighborhoods. Local governments, already strapped with the pain of poor budgeting and overspending, will seek to replace this lost revenue. They will most likely seek to do this by maintaining assessed values or increasing property taxes. Neither will make home owners happy, and both will decrease disposable incomes for families.
Jorge Lorenzo Will Win MotoGP World Championship – taking a break from my professional life/prognostications comes the first of my personal hobby/interest predictions. Jorge Lorenzo has shown himself to be an incredible racer, even when matched on a team with the greatest motorcycle racer ever. This will be his year. He has proven he can beat Il Doctore, and has demonstrated he is more than comfortable on the Yamaha. Presuming he remains injury free for the season, he will prevail this year. Stoner is back, but the chinks in the armor are there, and they have not gone unnoticed.
Second, Ben Spies will win at least one race in his debut MotoGP season. I raced Spies once…way back in 1999 at Road Atlanta during the GPRA (now the USGPRU) National Championships. I beat him on a 125gp bike, though he crashed out while 7 places ahead of me, after starting from the back of the grid, on his backup bike (that last one is a joke), which means that I too could win a MotoGP race. =) That weekend I had the good fortune to race against Ben, John Hopkins and Jason DiSalvo. What a long way each of them has come…amazing to watch.
Netbook Market Disappears – More specifically, the delta between what is called a laptop and what has been called a netbook will evaporate. I tried to use a netbook for work related tasks (meetings, travel, etc) and found it impossible to use for anything remote resembling actual work. The 600px screen was impossible to use (come on, seriously, when was the last time you used 800×600 (as a proxy for the size) and were happy about it?), the processor appallingly slow, the memory and the shared video memory make for a terrible experience. Just awful. Earlier in the year, I compared netbooks to the Razor scooter, relics of the dot com days which were fun for a little bit, but proved to be a fad.
Yes, you can get a netbook for about $350 all in (cheaper if you are OK skimping on screen size and memory) but what is ultimately going to be the delta between a netbook and a $500 laptop? Will it be the delineation of the processor type? If so, either the Atom is going to have to improve or Microsoft is going to have to port Win7 to the ARM processor (don't hold your breath). I am sure people will talk about ChromeOS, Google's forthcoming offering, but we'll talk about that one in a bit.
The erosion of the netbook market, and even the assist Apple is giving the industry by maintaining a slightly higher price point for their notebooks, is going to play out with people being OK with that $700-$800 price point for a good laptop, and $400-$500 for a crippled one. All of this helps MSFT, as it will stop the pricing pressure for margins (or lack thereof) on the OS component of the bill of materials. Customers will continue to benefit from this competition and trend as we continue to see absolutely amazing advancements in personal computers.
Apple's Disdain For Developers Will Reach A Tipping Point – as one of the folks responsible for developer marketing at Microsoft, I am one of the biggest cheerleaders out there for the plight of the developer. I love to spend time with developers and talk the nerdy talk with them. One thing I hear over and over again from folks who are building for iPhone platform is that Apple basically is giving them the finger. This issue is well documented and doesn't need to be rehashed here.
What I did want to talk about it is how the anti-love from Apple toward developers could potentially play itself out. For those of you old enough in the room to remember when Microsoft rose to market leader, do you remember why Microsoft was so successful? The developers. Of course. Apple knows this and has done an absolutely incredible job creating an ecosystem of developers building applications for their platform. I can't think of another platform that hit 100K apps as quickly as Apple has. Developers love to work on cool/important things, and the iPhone platform gives them that opportunity (farting apps excluded).
Unfortunately, Apple only has part of the solution correct. Developers, like most participants in any economic market, seek to not just build things that they want to build, but they want to satisfy two things in their mind. Their egos (seeking fame or recognition for their work), and they want to get paid. All the open source jibber jabber in the world won't convince me otherwise. Eventually, everyone has to eat.
There have been plenty of stories of iPhone millions, but really, how many of them are there? There's a huge survivorship bias with Apple's platform, and you rarely hear the stories of the guys who spent tens of thousands of dollars on development only to sell their app to their 10s of friends. Yes, many apps have been developed, but how much money is actually flowing into this ecosystem? Apple does a hell of a job getting app developers recognition for their work (seen any iPhone commercials recently?), but they aren't solving the money problem. Google is actually getting both of these wrong, for all of their developer communities, but Vic Gundotra will have to figure that out on his own or hire me to do it for him.
Back to Microsoft. One of the things that makes the company so successful is their ability to help other people make money. At the Worldwide Partner Conference last year (maybe the year before) one of the quotes from Allison Watson was that for every dollar of Microsoft revenue, there are $14 of partner revenue generated. Think about that for a second. That's $840 billion. Billion. Almost a trillion. Yowsa. Microsoft is so successful because they enable people and companies to solve problems and make money from it. It's taken decades to build, is very hard to replicate, and one of the reasons why they cries for the coming fall of Microsoft are way, way premature.
With Apple, their continued indifference to this monetization problem, coupled with making it difficult for these companies to successfully service their customers (long turn-around times on app updates) will ultimately catch up with them. I really like how people claim that the 100K apps are the huge barrier to entry to any other phone developer, but all Apple proved was that in a year you could get 100K apps built. This ecosystem didn't get built over a decade. It's not insurmountable, and the switching costs are not very high for developers. Maybe Android can get it done. Maybe Windows Mobile 7. What one man can do another can do; especially true if you did it in one year.
ChromeOS Proves To Be Another Of Google's Failures – Google is going to discover the same thing that the Ubuntu guys found out – the netbook market doesn't support a Linux OS. I don't care what you say, it won't work. Google is already going to be stymied by the erosion of the netbook market about which I already talked.
Google, as a company, has lost sight of coming to grips with doing that which you want to do and that which you should do. Customers should be driving development decisions, and while I get that Google wants to make it as easy as possible for people get online, and they believe that by building a net focused computer that more searches will happen online, they have too many hurdles to clear. There's no driver which will carry this product to the mass market, never mind the fact that the mass market does not trust the cloud (strict requirement for ChromeOS), and has not shown any immediate inclination to do so. Outside of the cliquey circles of the 415 and 650 area codes, I don't see much demand for this product.
Imagine for a second that someone comes to your house the throws out all of your books and replaces it with a Kindle with all of your now thrown out books on it. Sounds like a logical, and efficient thing to do. I would kill that person, despite my love for the Kindle. Yes, it makes logical sense, but no customer would want it. Yes, the engineers can make up all sorts of reasons why they should do this, but asking customers was not one of the inputs. Google Docs and Spreadsheet are not the Office killer people want them to be, and consumer demand for the ChromeOS product isn't there, so what's going to drive market success? ChromeOS in the enterprise? I don't see it.
The Final Season Of "Lost" Will Not Be Seen – I remember watching the very first episode of Lost and thinking "wow, they just grabbed me by the throat and didn't let go." They introduced all of these interesting story lines, but over time I came to realize that they never seemed to go anywhere. They just lingered on and on. Anyone remember the numbers? WTF happened to those? They were woven into multiple story lines like a fine thread of silk meant to enhance the value of the tapestry only to be abandoned. The boys over at Penny Arcade noticed way back in 2006 that things were going a little strangely for the Lost writing crew.
Factor into the mix a writers' strike and schedule planning with ineptitude on the order of who knows what and the net result is long breaks between seasons where you lose viewers. The problem with Lost is further compounded by the fact that this is a serialized drama, which means if you miss something, you are lost (pun intended). Lost itself is given to such fanciful fits of imagery and suggestion that even if you watch the show every week you have about 50% of a clue as to what is going on and must rely on the Internet nerds to show you the frame by frame analysis. Anyone see the sequence in the shed revealing the Jacob is Locke (or that he has no face, it really depends on your proclivities)? Remember the guy who carried the thing when Sawyer was in that place? Well he had a Dharma tattoo on his wrist which you can only see if you do a reverse color scan analysis of the commercial preview. Yeah, it's something like that.
So, if your regular viewers are having a hard enough time keeping track of your broken story telling, and you insist on inserting long breaks between seasons while you finish smoking whatever it is you are smoking, and complete you scripts under the cover of night, in a tent, while raining, with a flashlight in your mouth, well, you can expect that this season will bomb. Oh, and when you really want to get lazy about your story telling, you can introduce time travel to cure all ills. People may tune in to the final show in the hopes of getting a non-Soprano's like ending, and they may just. However, from the friends with whom I have spoken, they could care less. They are tired of having to work so hard for something which has been increasingly decreasing in return on investment.
Foundations For The Repeal Of Sarb-Ox – The economy is in trouble. Things are not moving forward as quickly as everyone would want them to, and people are beginning to look at the current administration for new ideas. Approval ratings are sliding to the point where people have to be genuinely concerned about their ability to get re-elected. With the onset of 2010, we have in front of us an election year. 36 seats in the Senate are up for grabs, and all of the seats in Congress. The body politic is tiring of our government failing time and again to get anything done, especially when you have a super-majority.
About the smartest thing the current Democrats could do would be to repeal the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. What a complete cluster this has been. What was one enacted in the hopes of costing a low six figures to enact in a company is currently estimated to cost $2 million a year to put into place all of the controls required. Large companies like it because it keeps smaller, more entrepreneurial companies out of the public markets. Smaller companies can't get access to public capital, which in effect reduces the ability for many of them to grow.
A December 21, 2008 Wall St. Journal article laid out the cast as following: "The new laws and regulations have neither prevented frauds nor instituted fairness. But they have managed to kill the creation of new public companies in the U.S., cripple the venture capital business, and damage entrepreneurship. According to the National Venture Capital Association, in all of 2008 there have been just six companies that have gone public. Compare that with 269 IPOs in 1999, 272 in 1996, and 365 in 1986."
Just look at those numbers. Granted, there were many crap companies that went public during the dot com blow up, and that harmed personal investors, but that's not what Sarb-Ox was targeting. The law was enacted to prevent fraud, not protect idiots from putting all of their money in terrible companies. Hopefully that lesson has been learned, though I am not sure when I hear about Twitter raising money on a billion dollar valuation. That's just crazy talk for a company with a speculated $25 million in revenues. That said, there are many companies that are just itching for the ability to go public, and they can't because of needless regulations.
There's a lot of people up for re-election, a lot of populist dissatisfaction, and politicians love to appear to be "doing something." Someone is going to start pushing, very seriously, the idea of repealing Sarb-Ox under the banner of jump starting the economy.
The side benefit from all of the big winners of the last IPO bonanza lends nicely to my next prediction.
The Venture Business, As We Know It, Is Dead – There are several factors at work here, but the top line is that the companies which are getting funded simply don't need the amount of capital they once did to get to profits. Further, the number of engines available to small companies to drive customer acquisition and revenues have never been more prevalent. The economics of the venture funds dictate that they invest ever larger pools of capital. They simply aren't structured to take the large pools of capital with which they are being entrusted and invest in smaller and smaller chunks.
Angels have had a bit of a renaissance as of late, but what is not being implicitly reported is the number of no-name millionaires who made their money in exits in the last decade and are investing at $25-$50K clips into early stage companies. What's so interesting about these guys is that they all tend to know each other, and they aren't afraid to share deals. This is in stark contrast to the venture model where every VC feels that they must generate proprietary deal flow in order to justify their fees.
Further, the dynamics of interpersonal relationships have changed dramatically over the last decade thanks to social networking, specifically LinkedIn and Facebook. The folks 35 and under are implicitly social and work together. These newly minted millionaires hail from the development ranks, and they mostly cut their teeth on open source software. The idea that you work with other people, people that you may not even know personally, together, toward a common goal, for the good of the group is bred into their fiber. This stands in stark contrast to the hotly competitive, type-A MBA jockeys that run most venture funds. In many of those funds, they will stop at nothing to get the best deal for themselves, even at the expense of the founders/company.
However, it's the more recent development to which I have had a third row seat which may prove to be the death blow for traditional venture funds for the software space. One man VC shops, mostly funded with personal money. The professionalization of the funding process, but investing their own money (and not OPM), dramatically reduced capital requirements, and an innate sense of collaborative investing process is going to make things exceedingly painful and difficult for the existing larger funds. Throw into this mix and entire generation of mid-level professionals (read, the Vice Presidents and Principals) who haven't seen much in the way of exits, and things get even more painful.
I don't expect orgs like bands of angels coming together to meet on a quarterly basis to do deals. I actually expect more of a BarCamp approach to funding where small groups of guys who want to write checks get together and start funding these companies. Should it come to pass that Facebook, Zynga, LinkedIn or any of the real money makers who are sitting on the IPO sideline actually go out, expect a new type of mafia wars (nod to Zynga). The PayPal mafia can only fund so many companies.
Oil Trading Draws Legislative Scrutiny– There are many, many things wrong with the oil trading business. I actually wish I knew more about it. I spent quite a bit of time during my hiatus from RLX to IMSafer working with a company in Houston that was in the oil and gas industry, and we spent quite a bit of time with hedge funds and MLPs in the space. One thing that I came to love was how insane the oil market is.
Demand reality is not reflected in the oil market. I am going to say that again so that everyone hears me. Demand reality is not reflected in the oil market. The challenge presented by the oil market is that anyone, and I mean anyone, can participate. You can trade barrels of oil whether or not you intend to take possession of them, and indeed the vast majority do not. Further compounding the problems presented by this trading model is the leverage which is allowed to be employed by the traders. The leverage is what really pushes the table action.
When I said that the demand doesn't reflect reality, what I really mean is that it reflects the collective perception of the many market participants who make highly leveraged trades based on information which may or may not be right, and speculation about future. Ask 10 people in the oil and gas industry how much oil is in the ground, and you will get 10 different answers. This lack of knowledge of the exact quantities is only part of the problem. Technology to recover oil only permits partial recovery – meaning on the order of 40-60% for a particular well head. The industry has come up with many ways of getting the oil, but it basically boils down to first allowing natural pressure to push it up, then flooding the rock with steam to push more up, and then some tertiary methods to do additional recovery. However, about half of the oil in a particular deposit is still in the ground. It cannot be economically recovered.
Throw things like shale oil into the mix, and you have new sources of oil (versus raw crude) that can come onto the market if the price per barrel is high enough. As technology moves forward, and the industry discovers new and innovative ways to recover the additional 50% of oil still in the known fields, well, things get interesting – but supply isn't the issue you are led to believe it is. For today, however, the reality is that no one knows how much oil is in the ground, and the people that are making trades based on market demand are in fact driving/creating the demand by affecting market prices with their outsized leveraged bets. It's quite a vicious cycle.
For those of you who didn't catch the absolutely amazing This American Life which talks about the economic meltdown which occurred in 2008, please do. You will come to know about and love credit default swaps (CDS). The short version is that a CDS allows you to make bets on things that you have no business making bets on. For instance, what if you could buy insurance for every house in your neighborhood. Wouldn't you like to get paid if some other house in your neighborhood burnt down? What if everyone in a neighborhood bought that same insurance on the same house. 50 families all buying insurance that would pay out should one house burn down. That's a CDS in a nutshell. Why on earth would we allow this to happen? If you don't have a economic or vested interest in that house (i.e., you are the owner or the underwriter of the loan) why should you be allowed to make that bet? Further, if you can't prove that you can make the payout on all insurance policies you write, should you be allowed to write them? Oil markets are not very far afield from where the CDS markets were last year. Anyone can play, and you can buy oil on which you never intend to take delivery, and you can do so with massive, massive leverage, without having to supply adequate backup capital or prove that you can even pay out should a multi-sigma event happen.
I believe that someone from the talking head community (either CNBC or Fox Business) will get this story out in the open and the legislators will jump on it. High oil prices hurt the economy (this one specifically) and they are not high because of an influx of demand or shortages. Prices are reflecting trading, not the actual delivery and usage of oil. Prices are further impacted by the price of the dollar (since barrels of oil are priced in the USD$).
Since you don't actually have to worry about taking or making delivery of the oil, and you can get great leverage, and the price is impacted by the price of the dollar, if you were a really crafty (*cough* nefarious *cough*) trader, you could do some very interesting paired trades.
Windows Mobile 7 Will Impress – I have seen things. I am impressed. That is all I can say. Stay tuned.
Tim Tebow Will Play No Downs That Matter At QB – It's such a shame that Tebow's college career had to come to an end at the Sugar Bowl. He's one of the greatest college players ever to play the game, and it's a loss for the sport. He also presents as a great leader with a genuine passion for the human condition. With all that said, he needs to give Scott Frost a call. I love that Tebow wants to play QB at the next level, and I believe that whatever team picks him up will allow him to perhaps take reps during the pre-season, but it's more likely that they are going to want to know if he can catch a ball. Think Jeremy Schockey and Kellen Winslow. Big tight ends who can smack some people around when they have the ball.
Rare in the physical gifts is an athlete such as Tim Tebow. He has massive size, good speed, incredible strength, and he's a tremendous presence on the field. One of the bigger challenges for any team that does pick up Tebow will be how to channel his leadership qualities if he is not under center – you don't need two quarterbacks on the field.
My call is that he will go in the mid/late second round, perhaps early third round. No coach will want to use a first round pick on a player that is a "maybe QB, but definitely an athlete." This isn't a case like Cordell Stewart, where it was clear he could transition to wide-out. Expect Tebow to get put through the ringer during the coming months of pro-days and combines. If I had to peg the team that will take him, my call is Miami, because of their strong comfort with the Wildcat offense, or perhaps New England because they have two consecutive early second round picks.
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Two Warning Signs for Treasuries
Had the word "shmendrik" not been invented as a character name in 1877 by the Yiddish Theatre, it could have been invented to describe today's bond investors.
In the meantime, the Treasury has been financing the national debt by having you pay them for the privilege of lending them money. Yes, the wonderful folks now conjuring up visions of $1 trillion platinum coins to address the debt ceiling get you to pay them. Had the word "shmendrik" not been invented as a character name in an 1877 Yiddish Theatre production, it could have been invented to describe today's bond investors.
Two Bounds
Now that we have blown past two Operation Twists and at least three quantitative easings, even FOMC members are becoming a little queasy about adding buyer of first resort in Treasuries to their role as lender of last resort in market crises. Their efforts have been responsible for pushing real ten-year Treasury rates into negative territory over the last year. However, those negative real rates have hit resistance as no one else but them is buying right now. As a result, nominal yields are rising, real yields are becoming less negative, and inflation breakevens are rising.
A second bound is the declining rate of return on a yield curve flattener consisting of borrowing the two-year Treasury and lending the ten-year Treasury in a duration-neutral ratio. That trade was a huge winner between February 2011 and July 2012, but it has been fizzling ever since. If the borrowers of free money are unwilling to lend it back to Uncle Sam for a higher nominal yield, then you will see higher nominal Treasury yields as a result.
Please note in the chart above how the yield curve between two and ten years is starting to steepen. This is measured by the forward rate ratio between two and ten years, the rate at which we can lock in borrowing for eight years starting two years from now divided by the ten-year rate itself.
If short-term interest rates are kept near 0% and long-term lenders demand higher yields, the end result will be a much steeper yield curve. That will force all borrowers, the US Treasury included, to start shortening the maturity of their debt and to accept the greater rollover risk of doing so. In this extreme case, you wind up with overnight repo financing, the rollover risk that brought Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers down back in 2008. If the Treasury tries to keep debt service costs down by moving in this direction, we will have another unholy mess on our hands.
Wait until they see what I charge them for my $1 trillion coin; I will even throw in the Cracker Jack box it came in as part of the deal.
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Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke paved the way for more quantitative easing on Friday, but he didn't speak with the urgency that some in the markets wanted to hear.
Now investors are focusing on next week's economic data, particularly the August jobs report Friday, to see if it will show enough weakness to motivate the Fed (learn more) to act.
Bernanke's long-awaited speech in Jackson Holewas a repeat of his past statements. He basically laid out why he believes past Fed easing has worked and the risks of further easing, but he consoled markets by suggesting the Fed could do more.
"The cost of nontraditional policies, when considered carefully, appear manageable, implying that we should not rule out the further use of such policies if economic conditions warrant," he said.
Stocks initially sold offwhen traders saw no hard promise of easing in the Bernanke speech, but then rebounded to give the Dow a triple digit gain. Treasury yields fellafter Bernanke's speech, with the 10-year yield dipping below 1.60 percent as buyers moved in.
"Bernanke has laid the groundwork for taking future action should it be needed—whether any additional action will make a difference is an open-ended question," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial Group. "However, the fact the Fed remains open has probably provided a floor for markets."
The Fed chairman also said headwinds to the economy could make the case for the Fed to extend the time frame for its extremely low rate policy. Many Fed watchers have been expecting the Fed to change the expected end date to 2015 from 2014 when it meets Sept. 12 and 13, and Bernanke's comment was taken as confirmation of that.
J.P. Morgan economists reiterated after the speech that they expect to see the FOMC act in September.
"After today's speech we remain of the view that the odds are still strongly tilted in favor of an extension of the rate guidance at the next meeting," they wrote. "And while it is a closer call, we do believe this will be supplemented with more asset purchases, including MBS, perhaps executed in a smaller, more incremental, manner."
San Francisco Fed President John Williams earlier Friday told CNBC's Steve Liesman that rates could stay low for three more years.
"I don't know that [Bernanke's] doing anything additional," said Dan Greenhaus, global market strategist with BTIG. "The speech reads to me like a reinforcement of the Fed minutes—that voting member seem to be leaning towards or are in favor of additional easing."
The minutes from the last Fed meeting Aug 1. showed that many FOMC voting members were in favor of further easing, but improving economic data and comments from some Fed officials since then dampened expectations that the Fed would act in September.
Greenhaus said he sees a 50-percent chance of Fed action at the next meeting, though some economists see a much lower probability. (Watch: What Happens After Jackson Hole?)
"It was pretty strident," said David Ader, chief Treasury strategist at CRT Capital of Bernanke's speech. "Again he brings up fiscal cliff issues, European issues that are outside of the Fed's control. Nothing new, but he really when out of his way to say what we've done is right and it will still have impact."
Markets have been expecting the Fed to carry out QE3 (learn more), a third program of asset purchases. Fed watchers believe in the next round, the Fed would buy a blend of Treasury bonds and mortgages. It currently is conducting Operation Twist, a program under which it buys long term Treasury securities and sells shorter duration securities, which does not expand its balance sheet like it does in QE.
Ader said Bernanke's comments on the unemployment situation were particularly strong. Employment is one of the Fed's dual mandates (the other being inflation). Bernanke blamed high unemployment on the financial crisis and said the economy is constrained by fiscal policy.
"The stagnation of the labor market in particular is a grave concern not only because of the enormous suffering and waste of human talent it entails, but also because persistently high levels of unemployment will wreak structural damage on our economy that could last for many years," Bernanke said.
On Thursday, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart told CNBC's Steve Liesman that the Fed could take action if monthly job creation fell below 100,000, but for now more easing is a "close call." The July jobs report showed the creation of 163,000 non farm payrolls, and the expectations for August are about 120,000 new jobs.
Ader said Lockhart has now signaled what level could be a trigger, and markets will be watching the employment report closely for a break below 100,000. "The real questions is, we know the triggers, but the timing. Is it September? Is it November? or is it later on?" he said.
Later in the year, or early next year would make sense since the Fed would then know what was happening with the fiscal cliff. the so-called fiscal cliff is the dual expiration of Bush tax cuts Dec. 31and the start of automatic spending cuts that would take place if Congress does not act before then. The Fed has warned that Congress must take action on fiscal matters.
"If you look at the FOMC minutes, 10 times they talked about the fiscal constraints here and in Europe, the pending austerity," Ader said. "My bias is he's going to keep it out there. The forward guidance will come first, and they'll wait for the new year to see if something happens on the fiscal cliff side. If we have two or three months of sub 100,000 job growth, that seems to be a trigger."
RDM Financial strategist Sheldon said if the Fed or European Central Bank takes away the promise of more easy policy, the market would react negatively.
"Given the nature of the recent economic data," he said, "it's unlikely that the Fed will release additional QE. We need weak data for the Fed to take action."
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Xiamen GRAND SLAM | 22 - 27 October 2013
Xiamen, China, October 25, 2013 – Top seeded Chinese world champion Xue Chen and her new teenager partner Xia Xinyi collceted their third straight victory in pool A Friday morning to lead eight unbeaten teams into the women's top 16 of the 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour Xiamen Grand Slam.
April Ross and Kerri Walsh, who had claimed the gold medal two weeks ago at the Sao Paulo Grand Slam, were hammered by Italy's Marta Menegatti/Viktoria Orsi Toth 2-0 in their last pool E match, but they still advanced to the 24-team knockout stage as the second finishers from the pool.
Xue and 16-year-old World Tour debutant Xia beat Argentina's Ana Gallay/Georgina Klug 2-0 (21-16, 21-13) in 39 minutes to finish atop of pool A with a 3-0 win-loss record and earn a bye in the first round of the knockout stage which was set to start Saturday morning.
"Xia is playing in the World Tour for the first time and this is our first World Tour event, I did not expect to win three matches in a row," said Xue, who had captured the title of the World Championships with her old partner Zhang Xi in July. "She has been doing a great job and I am very satisfied with our cooperation. As a young player in her age, her performance was quite surprising to me."
"I think we have been playing better and better as a team in the last three matches," said Xia. "As a newcomer, I have a lot to learn and improve. I need more experience and training to be a better beach volleyball player."
Following two easy wins on Thursday, the new combination of April Ross and Kerri Walsh received a blow Friday morning as they lost to Menegatti/Orsi Toth in straight sets 21-16 and 21-18. In the afternoon, April/Walsh came back to beat Gallay/Klug 2-1 (21-11, 16-21, 17-15) in an elimination round match to stay in the title contention.
Marketa Slukova and Kristyna Kolocova of Czech Republic pulled off another upset in the women's pool play by taming Brazil's seventh seeds Agatha Bed narczuk/Maria Antonelli 2-0 (21-17, 24-22). Having squandered a three-point lead in the second set, the 10th seeded Slukova/Kolocova finally converted on their fourth match point thanks to a solid block by Slukova.
"Agatha and Maria are a really strong team, so against a strong team like this it's always difficult to keep the lead as they can come back in the middle of the set with some unbelievable play, and they can just take the lead away from you," said Slukova. "But I am really proud of us because we kept going and kept pushing and at the end we still won the second set. I think it's the strongest play by us."
The girls from Czech Republic now had a 2-0 record against Agatha/Antonelli this season. "World Tour is always tough tournament and we can't expect to win any game. But we played them already once this year, in Berlin, and we won and it was a tough game. So we knew that if we play well we can beat them. But if we struggle with service, reception, everything, we can easily lose 2-0."
Fourth seeds Laura Ludwig/Kira Walkenhorst of Germany, second seeds Taiana Lima/Talita Da Rocha Antunes, third seeds Maria Clara Salgado Rufino, both from Brazil, sixth seeds Katrin Holtwick/Ilka Semmler of Germany, eighth seeds Yue Yuan/Ma Yuanyuan from China joined Xue/Xia, Menegatti/Orsi Toth and Slukova/Kolocova in the women's top 16 after winning respective pools with unbeaten records.
Ludwig/Walkenhorst, runners-up to April/Walsh at the Sao Paulo Grand Slam, rallied past Emily Day/Summer Ross of the United States 18-21, 21-16 and 15-4 in the last round pool D match.
"It's really cool. We don't have to play one more match today. It's already been a long season and it's always cool to go out of the pool as first. I feel good and I am satisfied with the three good matches. But tomorrow is a new day and new games and we have to fight again," said Ludwig.
Ludwig was quite satisfied with her overall performance over the season. "In the beginning it was a slow start, but on and on we always make top 10, top five and even two finals. I think right now we're the seventh in the world ranking, and now I have a new partner. Everything is pretty new and we did a pretty good job this season," she added.
The women's elimination round will start on Saturday morning with the semifinal and final matches scheduled for Sunday. The double gender Xiamen Grand Slam is the last of a record 10 Grand Slam events on the 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour calendar.
China has hosted more than 23 women's and 14 men's tournaments on the FIVB World Tour, but this is the first visit for an FIVB international beach volleyball event in the city of Xiamen. The event in Xiamen is one of three FIVB international beach volleyball events being held in China this year. The first was the 2013 FIVB Open tournament held in Fuzhou on April 23 to 28, followed by the Shanghai Grand Slam, which took place from April 30 to May 5, 2013.
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07.11.2013 14:08:37
Watch Xiamen Grand Slam highlights
Lausanne, Switzerland, November 7, 2013 – The final FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour event of the year wrapped up last month in Xiamen, China, but fan... More...
27.10.2013 10:24:35
Ross/Walsh hold off Lima/Talita for back-to-back Grand Slam titles
Xiamen, China, October 27, 2013 – April Ross and Kerri Walsh of the United States held off world No. 1 Taiana Lima and Talita Da Rocha Antunes of Braz... More...
26.10.2013 11:53:54
Alison/Vitor rally past Brouwer/Meeuwsen to win Xiamen Grand Slam
Xiamen, China, October 26, 2013 – Alison Cerutti and Vitor Felipe of Brazil rallied past reigning world champions Alexander Brouwer and Robert Meeuwse... More...
26.10.2013 08:51:27
Unbeaten Lima/Talita storm into Xiamen Grand Slam semis
25.10.2013 12:19:07
All-Dutch semis set up at Xiamen Grand Slam
24.10.2013 11:19:19
Top teams dominant in Xiamen Grand Slam women's Main Draw
24.10.2013 11:12:17
Dollinger/Fluggen upset Pedro/Bruno at Xiamen Grand Slam
23.10.2013 11:57:07
Pedro/Bruno keep winning momentum at Xiamen Grand Slam
23.10.2013 10:34:40
Antonelli/Agatha storm into Xiamen Grand Slam women's Main Draw
22.10.2013 10:51:04
Ranghieri/Tomatis lead eight teams into Xiamen Grand Slam men's Main Draw
02.10.2013 19:26:49
Germany and Brazil provide three apiece for Xiamen Grand Slam
27.09.2013 16:40:13
Xiamen upgraded to become 10th Grand Slam of the year
30.07.2013 10:03:01
China to host women's 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball Xiamen Open


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If there's ever a problem, you can call up the helpdesk, speak to one of the support team and they'll sort out the issue. The level of service has always been good. But, touch wood, we haven't had many issues in the years we've been using SAP Business One."
John Hayward, B Hepworth and Co
Milner Browne's lead consultant worked tirelessly to meet our go-live date. She was dedicated and committed to ensure we received value for money and was organised, meticulous in her planning and in the execution of tasks."
Linda Barrowclough, Innova Solutions
It was an obvious choice to go with Milner Browne – they suited our needs and were a good fit for our company. We use Milner Browne's Surfer Enterprise for our for our sales representatives and our transport team. They now have up-to date information to hand when planning their days and site visits to customers."
Lorraine Bridgette, Abco Kovex
We've worked with Milner Browne for more than a decade. The support provided by the team at Milner Browne has been excellent. A recent enquiry email I sent was returned by the close of business within the same day."
Mike Simpson, Kingspan Access Floors
Milner Browne has the best level of customer service we have ever encountered in any company we have ever dealt with. We do not very often have an issue with SAP Business One, but it's great to know we've have a team like Milner Browne behind us."
Richard Gaughan, Aydya Ltd


text:
Pacific Biomarker Announces the Appointment of Maribeth Raines, Ph.D. as Vice President of Laboratory Services
SEATTLE, WA--(Nov 19, 2012) - Pacific Biomarkers (PBI), a WA-based limited liability company and provider of specialized clinical biomarker laboratory services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostics industries, announces the addition of Maribeth Raines, Ph.D., as Vice President for Laboratory Services. In her role, Dr. Raines will be responsible for providing scientific leadership and technical support to the Pacific Biomarkers Operations and Research and Development Programs. She will assist with implementing new business strategies to better serve PBI's clients.
Dr. Raines brings extensive experience in biomarker discovery, development and validation to her role at Pacific Biomarkers. Most recently, Dr. Raines was Director of Scientific Affairs for Quest Diagnostics Clinical Trials. At Quest, she played a key role in expanding their services into biomarker testing and emerging markets. She has supported over 200 clinical trials for numerous pharmaceutical clients and coordinated global deployment of over 100 biomarkers and esoteric assays in China as well as other laboratories. Prior to her work in Clinical Trials, Dr. Raines served as the Director of Research and Development at both Nichols Institute Diagnostics and Biosource International (now Life Technologies) where she was responsible for reagent/assay development and manufacturing. She also served on the faculty at UCLA School of Medicine in the Radiation Oncology Division. Dr. Raines received her B.S. degree in Biology from St. Francis University, and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Michigan State University.
"As a key member of the Pacific Biomarkers senior management and scientific team, Dr. Raines brings significant experience and expertise which will further enhance our position in the clinical biomarker service arena," commented Michael Murphy, Ph.D., Chief Operating Officer of Pacific Biomarkers. "We look forward to Dr. Raines's leadership and insights as we expand into new areas while continuing to build on our ability to support drug development for our growing number of clients."
About Pacific Biomarkers (PBI)
Established in 1989, PBI provides clinical biomarker laboratory services and contract research services to support pharmaceutical and diagnostic manufacturers conducting human clinical trial research. The Company provides expert services in the areas of cardiovascular and musculoskeletal diseases, diabetes, obesity, and nutrition. The PBI laboratory is accredited by the College of American Pathologists, New York State, and the Lipid Standardization Program. PBI clients include many of the world's largest pharmaceutical, biotech, and diagnostic companies. PBI also provides clinical biomarker services focusing on the emerging field of biomarker assay development and testing. Services include validating and performing custom assays for novel clinical biomarkers, immunogenicity testing, and multiplex testing. PBI is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.
Contact Information
Pacific Biomarkers
Ronald Helm
Chief Executive Officer
(206) 298-0068


text:
Let $v_1,\ldots,v_n$ be linearly independent vector in $\mathbb{R}^n$, and let $\Lambda=\oplus_i^n \mathbb{Z}v_i$. The question is, given a vector $w$ find the element $v$ of the lattice $\Lambda$ closest to $w$. It is assumed that an inner product structure has been imposed on $\mathbb{R}^n$. This is called the CVP (for closest vector problem).
I've found various algorithms that can find the closest vector, but is there a particular algorithm that is especially simple to understand and to program? I want to test a few low dimensional examples, and easy to write computer code would be preferable.
Any suggestion?


text:
The 2016 series of free educational webinars will begin in early March, covering various topics such as color management, prepress and makeready, and more. Learn more about the upcoming sessions and register for the World of Fiery Webinar series.
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September 14 - Best practices for troubleshooting print quality problems
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Don't missed the wealth of information, how-to tips and actionable ideas we shared in our World of Fiery Webinar series on the topics of:
• Color management
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text:
It's official; Simon Zealot is starting a highly focused magical cult. I'm tired of dancing around the issue of my obvious authority in this regard, pandering to the fickle interests of the general public like some puerile milquetoast, over-extending endless invitations to undisciplined Cowans whose contrived and conventional comforts have been allowed to overshadow my unparalleled creative urges.
No longer.
Dues are $80 a month, you have until Friday to sign up, and then I'm launching our first magical undertaking; ushering us all into a Chaos Magick boot camp called Simon Zealot's Illuminates of Thanateros:
"This Independent Initiatory Order of the Illuminates of Thanateros (also known as "The I.I.O.O.T.I.O.T" or, more simply, "Io! Io!! THANATEROS!!!) is limited only to those who have foolishly sworn to attempt a grueling year long curricula of ridiculously intensive magical labors, consisting of the occult exercises proscribed within Liber MMM, Liber LUX, Liber NOX, Liber KKK and culminating triumphantly, for those who survive, in a loose and entirely personal interpretation of Liber AOM. So as not to confuse anyone, I'd like to note here that we are in no way affiliated with the "real" Illuminates of Thanateros (a.k.a. The Pact) as those guys are wankers (probably)."
Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg; Through out this highly individualized and self-defining magical practicum, we'll be working on the realization of your best and highest Self, what one might call your "Magical Imago," the greatest conceivable version of you that any of us might hope to both imagine AND BUILD here on Earth.
I currently have three disciples although I won't be surprised if this new mad bullshitless approach doesn't thin my already meager flock to zero, but I simply can't let that possibility scare me into mincing my magical intentions any longer. I know the path that I have to walk. I've shared just a brief glimpse of it here with all of you. You could, obviously, attempt to work through all this without me, as I would attempt to do without any of you, but, if history is any indicator of the future, I don't think either of us would probably succeed that way. Join me, however, gird your will with mine, and I will promise to do everything in my power to get you to exactly where YOU tell me that YOU need to go (Unless, basically, your vision bores me, in which case I may still allow you to monopolize my precious time but, of course, it would have to be for a much, MUCH, higher fee; I mean, that's only fair, right?).
Yet should you decide to carry on in your same untempered way, then, of course, good luck, good riddance, good grief, and, as always, Namaste.
For the last few weeks I have been contemplating the four Hermetic virtues, a.k.a. The four powers of the Sphinx. For those of you who are unfamiliar, there's Scire ("to know"), Audare ("to dare"), Velle ("to will"), and the last, and what I had mistakenly believed to be the least, is Tacere. You see, it was a conversation about the true meaning and value of Tacere which originally got me thinking about all of this, so that's where we'll start.
Tacere is usually translated as "to be silent," but, as the root of the English word tacit, I felt that it was better translated as "to imply without expressly stating." After all, the Latin word for candle, "tace," is also derived from this root, and so, contrary to the pompous secret societies who tend to refer back to this fourth power when trying to justify the hiding of magick from the world or the arrogant protection of their privileged esoteric knowledge, I believed that Tacere instead implores a Magician to follow the same good advice given to novice writers, which is "show, don't tell." It's a simple narrative technique which lends itself to a far richer, far more enjoyable story, and a quality which I see as separating actual Magicians from the host of pedantic posers and loudmouthed wannabes who all seem to be painfully long on "wish" but usually, when all is said and done, rather short on "will."
However, as I reflected further on this, and the other three powers of the Sphinx, I soon came to realize that rather than simply being a mundane To Do list of "knowing," "daring," "willing" and "shutting up about it," as most occultists commonly interpret them today, these four terms could be understood as being part of a completely misunderstood occult lexicon and describing very specific and significant magical states of being. I now believe that these rather important terms, whether they were intended to or not, denote four magical qualities for which no other words currently exist in our mundane tongue, qualities which each pertain to a specific Hermetic element. In many ways, these qualities serve to better illustrate what it truly means to be a Magician and so I'm all too happy to introduce these new words into our common tongue in the following essay, making some otherwise indescribable magical phenomena a bit less so.
Let's start with the first power of the Sphinx, Scire, which I contend is not merely book learning, but rather a magical awareness which allows the budding Mage to perceive events and forces which others simply can't (or, if you're being charitable, simply don't). Interestingly enough, the words "scire" and "schizo" both share a common etymological root, the Latin word "scindare," which means "to cut or divide," and this is all too appropriate for Scire, as it is a truly dangerous lunar power which can easily shred the mind and quickly devolve into mild to severe schizophrenia (lit. split mind) if one is not careful. Welcome to magick; you have been warned.
At first I had assumed that everyone's magical training would naturally begin here, awakening to a basic fundamental awareness of the unseen forces which any Mage must then learn to better perceive and to work with, but now I'm thinking that perhaps one could conceivably become an effective Mage without ever developing very much skill in this particular area. In fact, such blindness might even prove to be advantageous in many ways, not the least of which being the avoidance of the aforementioned dangers of a complete schizophrenic break, but particularly if one's primary magical penchant is to lean towards the second magical power of the Sphinx, Audare.
Audare is a magical state of the heart wherein enchantments and energetic manipulations fail to enthrall you, magical wards can be bypassed effortlessly, curses are often easily ignored without any ill effect, and the various invisible bonds of fate seem to simply fall away before the awakened audacity of the Magician's undeniable freewill. As I said, this solar power may or may not follow closely on the heels of the more psychically sensitive Scire power (or perhaps they may even get in each other's way), but a bit of Audare is probably necessary before one can ever hope to safely wield the next, most puissant, power of the Sphinx, the volitional power of Velle.
While the mundane words for "knowing" and for "daring" convey a close enough meaning in English to clearly express the magical phenomena denoted by the terms Scire and Audare, the magical will alluded to by the word Velle begins to go far enough down the rabbit hole so as to be unintelligible to nonpractitioners, and many practitioners as well, and, as you'll soon see with Tacere, it only gets worse from here, but I will say this: wishes are not horses. Velle is a psychic push the effects of which may be observed by someone with Scire, and can at times be resisted by someone with Audare, but, make no mistake, the occult power of Velle is where the true magical will begins, and describing this force beyond that is like trying to describe color to someone who was born blind. Most of you will think it means wishing and that puerile misunderstanding is something which a Djinn like me finds largely acceptable. Carry on.
There is a point in the practice of magick wherein synchronicity and paranormal activities may begin to become so common that one must keep silent so as not to be thought mad, but the fourth power of the Sphinx is far more than just this; Tacere is a mystical state of oneness with reality, a state which eliminates the merely coincidental and the accidental alike, and makes the magician at least partially responsible for all of the various phenomenon which he or she may encounter; not because it was explicitly his or her will but simply because it was, and because the other three powers necessarily alter a Mage's relationship to the world itself and reveal the fundamental malleability of all things and the secret meanings thereby invested therein. In other words, as waking life becomes increasingly more and more like a dream, our lucid awareness of Tacere permits us to engineer magickal effects on a level which few magicians will probably ever comprehend. That's why this is a power which is most often better implied than spoken about, because only that which transcends cognition itself has any hope of truly grasping it. Upon such meager reflections as these, one tends to find only that the Moon was indeed the same as the finger that's pointing to it after all. Good Luck and Namaste.


text:
|How do I schedule an inspection?
You can request an inspection by calling the Building and Safety Division's Automated Inspection line (951) 826-5361. Before you call, be sure to have the following information available:
Inspection requests received before 5:00 pm can be scheduled for an inspection on the following day. If you need to coordinate a special inspection time with the Building Inspector, then give them a call between 7:30 am and 8:30 am the morning of the inspection date to arrange an approximate inspection time. The Building Inspectors will do their best to accommodate your needs, but keep in mind that they will be inspecting between 10 to 15 different projects on any given day and may not always be able to be in your area during the time you request.
|What paperwork am I required to leave on the job site for the inspector?
The Building Inspector will need to have your Permit Inspection Card as well as the Approved Plans on the job site in order to perform the inspection. The Approved Plans are the plans that the City's Building and Safety Division stamped "APPROVED".
|Does someone need to be at the job site for the inspection?
On small residential projects, such as patio, decks, pools and re-roofs, where the work can be inspected without entering the occupied portion of the house or garage, the inspections can be performed without the owner or contractor present. Be sure to allow access to the area to be inspected and make sure that dogs or other animals are secured. If a ladder is required to access the area where the work was performed, have one available for the Inspector to use. Also be sure to leave the Permit Inspection Card and the Approved Plans on the site for the Inspector.
On larger projects or projects where the Building Inspector will need to inspect inside the occupied home, an adult will need to be present during the inspection. If a contractor is in charge of the work, we recommend that they be present during the inspection in order to consult with the Inspector if any problems are identified.
|How can I find out if an inspection was approved?
There are a few different ways that you can find out if an inspection was approved by the Building Inspector. One way is to visit the job site and look at the Permit Inspection Card. If the inspection was approved, then the Inspector will sign their initials and date that specific inspection entry on the card. If corrections are required, the Inspector will typically write a Correction Notice and leave it with the Permit Inspection Card.
Another way to check the status of the inspection is to call the automated inspection line (951)826-5361, enter the permit number and follow the prompts to find out the status of the particular inspection. Please be aware that the inspection results are generally not entered into the computed until the next work day, so the automated system wont have the updated results of an inspection until the following day.
Yet another way to check the status of an inspection is to call the Inspector during their morning or evening office hours (7:30 - 8:30 am and 4:00 - 4:30 pm). The best way is to be present during the inspection, that way you can ask the Inspector specific questions about any problems that are identified.
|What does the Inspector need to inspect?
Generally, the building inspector will need to inspect all aspects of the work before it is covered or concealed from view. These inspections are done to assure that the work has been done to a minimum safety standard and that it complies with the Approved plans for the project. The following is a list of the typical inspections that may be required on a project:
|What is a Special Inspector?
In addition to the inspections provided by the regular City Building Inspectors, the Uniform Building Code mandates that the owner or the engineer or architect acting on behalf of the owner employ one or more special inspectors who shall provide inspections during construction on certain types of critical structural elements. It is critically important to note that these Special Inspectors are not on the project in lieu of the regular City Building Inspector, but rather they are on the project in addition to the regular City Building Inspector and they should work closely with one another. (See Special Inspector Program for additional information.)
3900 Main St. 3rd Floor
Riverside, CA 92522
Phone: (951) 826-5697
Fax: (951) 826-5622
Permits Issued
|Mon - Fri
|7:30am - 4:30pm
|Mon - Fri
|7:30am - 5:00pm
|Closed on Weekends and Major Holidays


text: Welcome to the Old United States Coast Guard Cutter Alert WSC-127. - Launched November 30, 1926 - Prohibition enforcement 1927-1931 - Bering Sea Patrol 1931-1940 1942-1945 assigned to the United States Navy as a sub-chaser. - Decomissioned from USCG January 10, 1969 -The Alert is the oldest operational, engine-driven, ex-United States military combat ship in the world.