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Brooklyn soldier missing since WWII identified
The remains of a soldier missing in action since World War II have been identified and will be buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery, a Department of Defense office said Wednesday.
Army Pfc. Bernard Gavrin, who was from Brooklyn, was 29 when he was reported missing on July 7, 1944, the Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office said. His regiment had been in Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands of the western Pacific Ocean and came under heavy attack, suffering many casualties.
Gavrin was declared dead in July 1945, and his remains were deemed non-recoverable in 1948. But in recent years, excavations on Saipan by a Japanese nonprofit group have turned up the remains of American and Japanese soldiers.
Last year, the group found remains and personal items of some American soldiers, which were turned over to the American government. Testing using a family member's DNA confirmed Gavrin was among them.
His 82-year-old nephew David Rogers, of Delray Beach, Florida, said he was planning to be at the burial on Sept. 12. He said it was "absolutely incredible and unbelievable to all of us" that Gavrin would be laid to rest in "the most honorable place you could be buried in this country."
Rogers, whose mother was Gavrin's sister, said Gavrin was the youngest of three children and had enlisted in 1940. He said the last time he saw his uncle was when he was 8 years old and his uncle came to visit.
Rogers had injured himself, requiring stitches, and Gavrin went to his bedroom.
"He awakened me and kissed me on the forehead," Rogers recalled.
Gavrin's loss was shattering, Rogers said. When the telegram came and Gavrin's mother, Rogers' grandmother, opened it, "She let out a scream that lives with me to this day," he said.
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George H. Vogt
Dr. George H. Vogt, age 87, died December 26, 2012 at Agrace Hospice after a three month illness. He was born in Glen Ridge, NJ to William and Kathryn (Westenberger) Vogt. He graduated in 1942 from Glen Ridge High School, Dartmouth College in 1946 and Cornell Medical College in 1948.
He served an internship at Bellvue Hospital in NYC from 1948-1949. On June 25, 1949 he married Carlotte Barr Stiles. He served in the Navy at Charleston Naval Hospital in SC from 1949 to 1951. In 1952 he began a surgical residency at New York Hospital. He was called back into the Navy from 1953-1954 at Fort Jackson, Columbia, SC.
In 1955 he began a three year orthopedic residency at Wisconsin General Hospital (University Hospitals) in Madison. He opened an office on Atwood Avenue. He was board certified in orthopedic surgery in 1960. He served on the staff of Madison General Hospital (Meriter), St Mary's Hospital and Stoughton Hospital. Eventually he joined the practice of Drs. Wixson and Heiden.Later Drs. John rogerson and Mark Roberts joined the group.
In 1972 his wife, Charlotte, died leaving six children. He married Nancy (Schumann) Day on November 3, 1973 and legally adopted her daughter, Debra, from a previous marriage.
He had a private pilot's license, and earned an instrument rating in 1984. He and his wife, who also earned her private pilot's license, enjoyed many flying adventures together.
George retired from medical practice in December, 1990. After his retirement he attended Blackhawk Technical College where he earned a degree in airframe and powerplant, hoping to build an airplane. He was affectionately called "Doc" by his much younger classmates.
He was a long time member of the Optimist Club of East Madison and Monona, a former member of Maple Bluff Country Club where he had a hole-in-one, American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery, Foot and Ankle Society, American Medical Association, Dane County and Wisconsin Medical Societies, Spruce Creek Country Club, Port Orange, FL where he had a second hole-in-one.
He enjoyed flying, golf, gardening, and fishing for muskies on the Chippewa Flowage.
He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Nancy, daughters, Carol Lynn Kinsey, Leslie Woodward (Jeffrey) VT, Gretchen Porten (Joe) WI, Debra Stafford (Col. C. A.) West Point, NY, Allison Detra and a son William Vogt. He was preceeded in death by his parents, a brother William and a son George Stiles Vogt. He is further survived by grandchildren Mariah Schoonover (Kurt) MN, Calender Clough MN, Jonathan, Hannah and Genevieve Stafford, Holly and Austin Detra, and great-grandson Weston Schoonover.
A memorial service will be held at Cress Funeral Home, 3325 E. Washington Ave. on Wednesday, January 9, 2013. Visitation at 9:30 a.m until time of service at 11 a.m.
A grateful thank you to all the staff at Agrace Hospice for their compassionate care.
In lieu of flowers donations may be made to Agrace Hospice 5395 E. Cheryl Parkway, Madison, WI 53711 or a charity of your choice.
"Chance cannot change love nor time impair, for love is more than a feeling–love is a decision, a commitment to care, forever" Unknown

subset: commoncrawl


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Skateboards, longboards, streetwear and skate shoes - since 1978, Titus has been providing beginners and professionals alike with the best skateboarding products in the business. The Titus name has stood for 100% skateboarding since day one and we're proud of our heritage in the European skate community. We offer a diverse selection of high-quality products both online and in our shop locations found throughout Germany.
You can find TITUS shops in nearly every major city in Germany, we currently have over 30 shops nationwide. Your local TITUS shop is your go-to spot for all things skateboard hardware, streetwear and footwear related. You can also find skateboarding products at unbeatable prices in our Titus outlet locations.
For those who prefer to shop online, our online skate shop offers a huge selection of skateboards, longboards, skate accessories, cruisers, shoes for girls, shoes for guys, streetwear for girls, streetwear for guys, as well as helmets and pads. When ordering from our online shop, you can have all the latest and greatest products delivered right to your front door while you relax at home. Generally, orders within Germany will reach you within just 48 hours, thanks to DHL delivery services – and just a short time later for orders throughout Europe!
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There's more to a skateboard than trucks, wheels, and a deck. You'll also find Bones Reds Bearings as well as skateboard and longboard bearings from many other top manufacturers in our shop. We offer the best griptape from MOB, Jessup, and many other brands. Get some skate bushings such as Bones Hardcore Bushings to make sure your trucks steer with precision. We offer kingpins, skate hardware, riser pads/wedges, as well as skate tools. Finally, stay safe with our selection of helmets and protective gear for skateboarding, longboarding, BMX, or snowboarding. Having the right shoes is important in skateboarding, that's why we have a massive selection from Nike SB, Vans, Emerica, Adidas Skateboarding, Supra and many others. For the ladies, we also have ballerinas, high heels and sandals from Vans, Iron Fist and more. Keep your feet nice and comfy with our wide sock selection from brands such as Stance. In the streetwear sector, we supply you with awesome T-shirts, long-sleeves, jackets, parkas, hoodies, sweatshirts, cardigans and sweaters. The girls can find dresses, pants, jeans, chinos, shorts and skirts. Finish your look with the latest caps, hats, beanies, belts, backpacks, bags, headphones, watches and sunglasses from your favorite skate and streetwear brands.
For the colder months of the year, you can get high-quality snowboard jackets, snowboard pants, gloves and goggles in our online shop to prepare for your next trip to the mountain. Titus offers a 100 day return policy, same day shipping for orders for orders made before 5pm Monday – Friday, and free shipping in Germany and Austria on orders over €50. Our TITUS online shop also has a friendly service department ready for any questions you may have regarding products, orders, payment, services, or skateboarding!


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Castle Waiting Vol. 2: Definitive Edition
by Linda Medley
472-page black & white 5.75" x 8.25" hardcover • $29.99
Ships in: April 2013 (subject to change) — Pre-Order Now
With its long-awaited second volume, Linda Medley's witty and sublimely drawn fantasy eases into a relaxed comedy of manners as Lady Jain settles into her new life in Castle Waiting.
Unexpected visitors result in the discovery and exploration of a secret passageway, not to mention an epic bowling tournament. A quest for ladies' underpants, the identity of Pindar's father, the education of Simon, Rackham and Chess arguing about the "manly arts," and an escape-prone goat are just a few of the elements in this delightful new volume.
The book also includes many flashbacks that deepen the stories behind the characters, including Jain's earliest romantic entanglements and conflicts with her bratty older sisters, the horrific past of the enigmatic Dr. Fell, and more.
Originally released in a slightly shorter version when the series ceased publication, this new edition includes over 60 pages' worth of brand new additional story and epilogue, and the entire book has been re-lettered in a livelier, more inviting style for an even more engaging reading experience.
20-page excerpt (download 1.8 MB PDF):
Video & Photo Slideshow Preview (view in new window):


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Veronicadoxiepupps.com was registered with NameCheap, Inc. on Tuesday 12th July 2022.
This scam report was created on Monday 22nd August 2022 which is 41 days after the domain was registered.
The domain is hosted on the following servers:
dns1.namecheaphosting.com, dns2.namecheaphosting.com.
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Not Recorded
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Scammers always use a free email address or hide their email address behind a privacy option.
This is to keep their anonymity.
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The scammer is not located here.
They are likely to be located in West Africa or India.
Veronicadoxiepupps.com uses the email email@example.com
and and phone number
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Claiming to sell puppy by using photos they have stolen from the internet.
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On the next page you can find a link to add any other information to this report.
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text: Posta Uganda is the most extensive provider of postal services in Uganda, having an extensive network of postal delivery outlets down to sub-country level. Mail is delivered to over 70,000 post boxes all over the country, and through our 300 post offices we offer a host of auxiliary services. These include letter and parcel conveyance, an express courier service, local and international money transfers, internet services, philately for collectors, affordable public transport by the Post Bus, distribution of newspapers, magazines as well as being an agent for telecommunications providers View More


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N.D. gov signs 6-week abortion ban
FARGO, N.D. — North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple has signed legislation that would ban most abortions if a fetal heartbeat can be detected, something that can happen as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. The Republican governor also signed into law another measure that would makes North Dakota the first to ban abortions based on genetic defects such as Down syndrome.
Abortion-rights advocates say the measures signed Tuesday are an attempt to close the state's sole abortion clinic in Fargo. Supporters of the so-called fetal heartbeat measure say it's a challenge the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion up until a fetus is considered viable, usually at 22 to 24 weeks.
Abortion-rights advocates say the state will have to defend the legislation in a costly legal fight.


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In our AIB Certified Facility, we are capable of packaging both food and non-food items for both the retail and food service channels. Customers are always guaranteed reliable and on time quality packed products. As a full-service contract packager we also offer warehousing and export shipping services.
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Our 50,000 sq. ft. facility located in Toledo, Ohio near I-75 and I-80 provides us easy access to many markets serving Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.


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Monday, 4 July 2011
denasalized nasals
Young Shin had noticed that when she played a recording of a Korean word beginning with m, English listeners often perceived it as beginning with b. She has gone on to demonstrate, in great detail, that in many cases Korean initial "nasals" are indeed pronounced as plosives.
Here's an example. Listen to the sound clip of 그런데메밀, which "ought" to be kɯɾʌnde memil, taken from the phrase 그런데메밀꽃 kɯɾʌnde memilkkot meaning 'then buckwheat flowers'. In the second word, compare the two consonants written m. The first, in me-, is, as you can hear, denasalized. It is a fully voiced b. The second, word-medial, in -mil-, is an ordinary nasal. Compare the two consonants on this spectrogram: nasal formant bars for the second, but not for the first.
For her dissertation, Young Shin recorded word-initial nasals from a relatively large number of Korean informants, and carried out listening tests with English and Korean listeners. She also ran auditory and spectrographic tests demonstrating that they are indeed denasalized, often even having plosive-like release bursts. Nevertheless, they "remain somewhat different from [Korean] voiced plosives in the low and high frequency regions".
On the face of it, this is an improbable phonetic development in Korean, given that the language already has three sets of contrastive plosives. At the bilabial place, for example, there are an aspirated fortis pʰ, an unaspirated fortis p=, and a (relatively) unaspirated lenis p, the latter having a voiced allophone in intervocalic position. Not many languages have three contrasting sets of plosives, fewer still four or five.
Young Shin deserves particular praise for having noticed this development when generations of phoneticians working on Korean had failed to do so. An exception, intriguingly enough, was Daniel Jones, who as long ago as 1924 noticed that there was something funny about Korean initial nasals. In the 'spesimɛn' of 'korɪən' he published in the m.f. that year (p. 14), jointly written with K. Minn, he analysed the initial nasals as mb, nd, commenting as follows. (The restriction to pre-u position, noted by Jones, has not been maintained.) But in the specimen of Korean he published in the Principles of the IPA there is no mention of this, and no one seems to have followed it up — until now.
7 comments:
Very interesting. I've looked at Korean phonology a little bit and this is the first time I've heard about this. I don't know how Koreans distinguish so many plosives. That would be next to impossible for me.ReplyDelete
Prof. Wells would tell you, yurrive, don't fall for the 'exotic sound syndrome'! If they can pronounce it, you can do it too. It is easier for them because they are taught to speak from a very early age.ReplyDelete
I have a question: in this blog post, /ʌ/ is [ʌ] or [ɐ] (I haven't yet listened to the sound file)?
You didn't understand what I wrote (last paragraph):ReplyDelete
Thank you for the clarification on /ʌ/.
I wonder if this is the same sort of sound change we see if Salishan languages. A number of Salishan languages do or have in the past shown /mb/ (prenasalized stop) for /m/, and likewise for the alveolar nasal. In some languages this change progressed to total loss of nasals (Twana and Lushootseed have no nasals except in a few quasi-paralinguistic words and foreign loans), in other languages the alternate pronunciation settled back on a semi-pure nasal, and in still others nasals are still stopped. I seem to recall this same sound change (in mostly undocumented form) in another language family, but I can't remember which. This might account for the lack of notice: perhaps the change was still nascent or even non-existent a hundred years ago.ReplyDelete
So it wasn't just me! I took intensive beginning Korean last summer and slowly realized that my teacher often pronounced /nugu/ ('who?') as [dugu], for example - which caused me great confusion at first, but she didn't even seem to notice she was doing it.ReplyDelete
History repeats itself (and prehistory too). This has happened before in Pre-Proto-Altaic, hence the Altaic 1ps pronoun in *b- rather than *m-. Illich-Svitych assumed it was tied to monosyllabic forms but this evidently can't be the reason when compared to Korean data.ReplyDelete
To me, when I looked at that proto-language, it struck me that it had something to do with word-initial nasals before vowels with certain features. I had left it off with the notion that it was fortition triggered by palatalization.
So, finally the proper answer. I got tons of same questions from foreign Korean learners, and its good to have a solid confirmation.ReplyDelete
Well, though improbable, these things happen when you have only four voiced phonemic consonants in a language and your ancestors somehow managed to keep two of them from showing up word initially. In other words, there is absolutely no other voiced consonants except /m/ and /n/ word initially, so why bother carefully enunciate nasality?


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The Choctaw Herald. (Hugo, Okla.), Vol. 5, No. 16, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 29, 1910
Description: Weekly newspaper from Hugo, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.
Date: September 29, 1910
Creator: Curd, Jesse G.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Newspaper
Partner: Oklahoma Historical Society


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The road to London was not without wrong turns and dead ends for Summer Olympians, says one University of Alabama at Birmingham expert, but overcoming detours is essential on a journey to greatness.
"There are about 10,000 athletes in the Summer Olympics. With the world population at about 7 billion, the chances of making it that far are about 1 in 562,400," Bill Mallon, past president and co-founder of the International Society of Olympic Historians.
Slim chances and high hurdles can make an Olympic-size goal seem unattainable, but with the right moves you can cross the finish line.
"I remember watching the Olympics when I was about 10 years old and deciding I wanted to represent my country," says Lauren Whitt, Ph.D., UAB Wellness coordinator and a member of the U.S. Youth National Soccer Team that won gold at the 1999 Pan American Games.
Whitt says she had to commit to training and sacrifice things like free time and vacations, but desire and a plan to succeed helped keep her motivated.
"The path to achieving big dreams is similar for all of us. We have to make personal sacrifices, be determined, disciplined and break down an overwhelming goal into manageable pieces," Whitt says.
|"We can't decide we want to be a runner today, buy new shoes and run a marathon tomorrow. We have to train our legs, we have to fuel our bodies with proper nutrition and build the mental stamina to complete the course."
Gitendra Uswatte, Ph.D., UAB associate professor of psychology, agrees.
"Each goal should become progressively more ambitious, in incremental steps. If you want to be an Olympic swimmer, look to be the best on your school team, then in your state and so on," Uswatte says.
This may make the process seem lengthier, but you have to crawl before you can walk, Whitt says.
"We can't decide we want to be a runner today, buy new shoes and run a marathon tomorrow. We have to train our legs, we have to fuel our bodies with proper nutrition and build the mental stamina to complete the course," says Whitt.
Uswatte says perspective is important. Keep the big picture in mind.
"If your training is not fun and you're tired and don't feel like practicing, then take a step back and think about the reasons you are doing this," Uswatte says. "Put it into the context of your overall goal."
Overcoming setbacks is central to success, Uswatte says, as is the ability to objectively and impersonally critique your shortcomings.
"If you lose a race and say it's because 'I'm not fast enough,' that's a personal characteristic that is difficult to change. But if you say you lost the race because 'I didn't train enough' — that's a behavior that is relatively easy to change," Uswatte says. "It's counterintuitive because you shouldn't make excuses for yourself, but if you make impersonal attributions, your mood recovers faster and you are more likely to do what is needed to improve performance."
Whitt says no matter what happens, you can't give up when the going gets tough.
"Elite athletes have won and lost a million times before they get to the Olympics. If they had quit after the first challenge, they never would have made it there," Whitt says. "Response to failure separates the successful from the unsuccessful. Accept the failure, learn from the mistake and refocus on the challenge ahead.
"If you fail at one step, you are not a failure," Whitt says. "Expect that you will fall down at various points and have a plan for getting back on your feet."
Try again, Whitt says, if you don't accomplish a goal the first time you reach for it. Reevaluate your progress as you go and make changes as necessary.
"Any time we put effort and heart into realizing one dream, the byproduct of that work will result in skills that will help us achieve others," Whitt says.


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I am usually inclined to encourage the inquiry of the fundamental aspects of money and banking. This is because I tend to believe that only by going back to first principles is it possible to cut through the thicket of widely accepted but deeply flawed theories that dominate the current debate in mainstream media, politics and the financial industry. From my own experience in financial markets I can appreciate how convenient and tempting it is in a business context, where quick and easy communication is of the essence, to adopt a certain, widely shared set of paradigms, regardless of how flimsy their theoretical foundations. Fund managers, traders and financial journalists live in the immediate present, preoccupied as they are with what makes headlines today, and they work in intensely collaborative enterprises. They have neither the time nor inclination to question the body of theories – often no longer even perceived as 'theories' but considered accepted common wisdom – that shapes the way they view and talk about the outside world. Thus, erroneous concepts and even outright fallacies often remain unquestioned and, by virtue of constant repetition, live comfortably in the bloodstream of policy debates, economic analysis, and financial market reportage.
This goes a long way in explaining the undeserved survival of a number of persistent modern myths: deflation is the gravest economic danger we face; Japan has been crippled by deflation for years and would grow again if it only managed to create some inflation; lack of 'aggregate demand' explains recessions and must be countered with easy monetary policy; and money-printing, as long as it does not lead to higher inflation, is a free lunch, i.e. we can only expect good from it. None of these statements stand up to scrutiny. In fact, they are all utterly absurd. Yet, we can barely open a newspaper and not have this nonsense stare us in the face, if not quite as bluntly as stated above, than at least as the intellectual soil from which the analysis or commentary presented has sprung. Deep-rooted misconceptions can only be dismantled through dissection of their building blocs and a discussion of basic concepts.
The dangers of going back to basics
However, going back to basics and to first principles, analyzing critically the fundamental aspects of our financial system, is not free of danger. Here, too, lies a minefield of potentially grave intellectual error, and when things go wrong here, at the basic level, the results and policy recommendations derived from such analysis are bound to be nonsensical too, if not even more nonsensical than what the mainstream believes. In this and the following essays I am going to address some of the erroneous notions at the fundamental level of money and banking that seem to have gained currency in the public debate of late.
I get periodically confronted with these confusions through readers' comments on my website. Some of the questions and suggestions expressed there reveal the same, or very similar, errors and misunderstandings, and these often seem to have their origin in other publications circulating elsewhere on the web. Among them are the following fallacies, in no particular order:
- The idea that the charging of interest, or in particular the charging of interest on money, is a fundamental problem in our financial system.
- The notion that there must be a systematic shortage of money in the economy because banks, through fractional-reserve banking, bring into circulation only amounts of money equivalent to the principal of the loans they create but not the necessary amount to pay the interest on these loans.
- The notion that it is a problem that money-creation is tied to debt-creation (again, as a consequence of fractional-reserve banking) and that it would be possible and advantageous to have the state issue money directly (debt-free) rather than have the banks do it.
- The idea that schemes are feasible that allow the painless shrinkage or even disappearance of the national debt.
All these ideas are nonsensical, based on bad economics and fundamental logical flaws, and to the extent that they entail policy proposals, these policies, if enacted, would not only not give us a stable and more prosperous economy but would surely lead to new instabilities or even outright chaos.
None of these misconceptions originate, or even resonate, as far as I can tell, with the 'mainstream'. The mainstream – the financial market professionals, the central bankers, financial regulators, and the media – remain resolutely uninterested in dealing with fundamental questions of money and banking for the reasons given above. Here, the discussion continues to centre on how the economy can be 'stimulated' more, what 'unconventional' policies the central banks may still have up their sleeves, and if the central banks need new targets or better central bankers. Icebergs or no icebergs, these deckchairs need re-arranging.
But, outside the mainstream, among certain think tanks, 'activists', bloggers and some economists, even those at the IMF, the appetite for fundamental analysis has grown. In many cases this has led to utter confusion, as I will show in this set of essays.
I should declare a personal interest here. I feel the need to make my disagreements with these ideas and the resulting policy proposals as clear as I can as, on more than one occasion, casual readers of my website seemed to have assumed some sympathy on my part with the erroneous ideas put forward by others. The mere fact that somebody else also focuses his or her attention on the system's same fault-lines, such as, for example, the instabilities created by fractional-reserve banking, has led them to believe that we must share considerable intellectual ground and arrive at similar conclusions and policy recommendations. Sometimes this confusion may be the result of a lack of familiarity with my work, sometimes with a lack of knowledge of or attention to the precise concepts articulated by others. In any case, this confusion needs to be cleared, partly because I do not want to be associated with what I consider economic nonsense, and partly because articulating the differences – and highlighting what, in my view, are the mistakes of the other side – should further clarify the issues and improve the debate. As I already said, the mix-up is usually greatest when the topic is fractional-reserve banking. So let me start right here:
Fallacy 1: As fractional-reserve banking is a source of economic instability, it would be better to force the banks to become fully-reserved banks with no ability to create money, and have the state create all money directly and inject it – wisely – into the economy. This would allow us to enjoy the benefits of more money without suffering the disadvantage of more debt. We may even use this process to reduce or eliminate existing debt.
This is the position of UK 'think tank' – or pressure group? – Positive Money, which has proposed legislative changes in the UK based on its analyses. Positive Money enjoys the support of the UK's left-leaning 'new economics foundation (nef)' (so egalitarian and new age is nef that it doesn't allow any capital letters undue dominance in the writing of its name) and of the Centre for Banking, Finance and Sustainable Development at the University of Southampton. Together these organizations have submitted a policy proposal to the Independent Commission on Banking.
The starting point of 'Positive Money's' thesis – namely, that fractional-reserve banking is a source of economic instability – is essentially correct. But – as I will show in this essay – their analysis of fractional-reserve banking is incomplete, and their view lacks entirely any deeper understanding of money demand and of how changes in money demand are being met naturally in a market economy. Moreover, Positive Money has no perception of the necessary – and necessarily disruptive – effects of money-injections into the economy, regardless of who injects the money, and seems completely blind to the obvious disadvantages of channeling all new and free money through the state bureaucracy. Having shown – a bit flimsily and without resorting to any theories of capital or business cycles – that fractional-reserve banking is problematic, Positive Money seems to have exhausted its critical faculties and jumps hastily to the conclusion that the privilege of money-creation should be given to a wise, independent and benevolent state agency. The arguments of Positive Money are economically unsound and politically naïve and dangerous.
If these resolutely anti-banking and pro-government proposals sound familiar to readers of this website, it is because they resemble the ones put forward by economists Benes and Kumhof in their widely quoted, less widely read and apparently even less understood IMF working paper 12/202, which I attempted to dissect here. In the following I will not repeat my criticism of Benes/Kumhof. Neither Benes/Kumhof nor Positive Money provide a single economic argument to support the claim that the state is a superior guardian of the privilege of money creation. This is not surprising because there is no such argument. Yet, we have to be grateful to Positive Money for at least not resorting to the bizarre line of reasoning that Benes and Kumhof came up with, namely that in order to improve upon our modern monetary order we have to first discover the 'true nature of money', which is apparently not open to the theoretical investigation of economists but can only be unlocked by anthropologists who tell us how money came about in primitive society thousands of years ago, and by certain monetary historians who re-interpret the historical record to tell us that the privilege of money creation has always been safe – and thus, in a logical jump of breathtaking audacity, is assumed to always be safe in the future – in the hands of government. Such mysticism is an insult to any true historian and to any proper economist. Sometimes it may be better to have no explanation at all than to put forward such rubbish. So thank you, Positive Money, for sparing us this nonsense.
Some thoughts on fractional-reserve banking
Let us start by briefly sketching the key problems with fractional-reserve banking.
Most of what we use as 'money' today is deposit-money and thus an item on a balance sheet of a bank. This form of money has come into existence through the banking system's lending activities, i.e. through fractional-reserve banking.
Banks, for as long as they have been around, have never only just channeled saved funds into investments, such as fund management companies do today. Banks have always also been in the business of creating money derivatives (or fiduciary media), that is, financial instruments that are treated as money proper by the public (usually because they were issued with a promise of instant redemption in money proper), and thus circulate in the economy next to money proper. This process allows banks to fund a portion (and potentially a large one) of their lending through their own issuance of money derivatives, although today hardly anybody even distinguishes any longer between money proper and bank-created money derivatives. In a way, it can be said that the banks extend loans by drawing cheques on themselves and having these cheques circulate in the economy as money (and in the hope that they won't be cashed!). These 'cheques' used to be the banknotes of the olden days, when banks were still allowed to print them, today there are deposit money, items on a bank balance sheet, like your current account balance.
This form of banking has made a considerable expansion of money in the economy possible. Fractional-reserve banking has been conducted in some shape or form for 300 years, and its effects on the economy have been the focus of the attention of economists for about as long (Cantillon, Ricardo, Mises – to name just some of the most outstanding social scientists dealing with it). Economists have long suspected, and over time have become ever more successful in demonstrating, that this activity is the source of economic instability. Fractional-reserve banking – and the elasticity of the supply of money that it creates – helps explain business cycles.
In my book Paper Money Collapse – The Folly of Elastic Money and the Coming Monetary Breakdown – I explain in some detail why elastic money is so undesirable, making use of the seminal work of Ludwig von Mises, in particular. In order to understand the full range of problems with fractional-reserve banking in a modern economy we need some knowledge of the origin and role of interest rates, of the nature of what is called 'money demand', of investment and saving, and thus the rudimentary elements of a theory of capital. I cannot provide this in a blog post and I am not going to try. Let it suffice to say that the extra money created by banks lowers interest rates on credit markets and expands the supply of investible funds beyond the volume of available true savings. Thus, investment and saving get out of line, misallocations of capital ensue, and what appears like a solid economic expansion for a while is ultimately revealed as an artificial and unsustainable credit boom that will end in a recession. Sustainable growth requires investment funded by proper saving, i.e. by the voluntary reallocation of real resources from present consumption to future consumption (that is saving). Bank credit expansion creates a dangerous and fleeting illusion of the availability of more savings, which means more resources for investment projects that are in fact not there.
Should fractional-reserve banking be banned?
Do I have some sympathy for the proposal to ban fractional-reserve banking? Well, I do agree that an inelastic monetary system, for example a 100% gold standard, would be the most stable (least disruptive) monetary system. (Interestingly, this is not what Positive Money suggests, but more about that later.) But I do not believe that fractional-reserve banking should be and can realistically be banned. Not only because it has been around for so long but also because the exact definition of what is being used as money by the public in a dynamic monetary economy at any moment in time must remain fluid. Financial intermediaries will always succeed in periodically bringing 'near-monies' into circulation and thus become de facto money producers, at least for a while.
Furthermore, there is no legal case for banning fractional-reserve banking. It is, in my view, not fraudulent (as some modern Austrian School writers maintain) and there is no basis for banning it on standard property rights considerations. Moreover, there is also little need to ban it as we can, in my view, rely on market forces and the superior regulators of capitalism – profit and loss – to ultimately keep it in check. (Some economists dispute this but here is not the place to discuss this point in detail. I will argue my case below. However, it is not even essential for a critique of the ideas of Positive Money.)
I think that the most straightforward and most obvious solution to these problems is that we remove the extensive framework – erected and maintained by the state – to actively support and systematically subsidize fractional-reserve banking. This means removing the institutions – implemented through acts of politics and maintained through acts of politics- of unlimited fiat money, which means unlimited bank reserves, and of lender-of-last-resort central banks that have the power to issue such unlimited bank reserves. Unlimited state fiat money and central banks are today the indispensable backstops for large-scale fractional-reserve banking activities of the nominally 'private' banks.
If fractional-reserve banking is disruptive – and I agree with Positive Money that it is – should we not – as a first step and before we even consider such authoritarian measures as universal bans – take away the state-run support system for fractional-reserve banking by which the banks and their clients are systematically shielded from the consequences of their activities, and through which the true costs of fractional-reserve banking are persistently being socialized?
Fractional-reserve banking and the state
What the folks at Positive Money fail to appreciate is that in a free market the ability of banks to create money is severely restricted. A deposit at bank X is only considered 'money' by the public to the extent that this deposit can be used for transactions with potentially everybody else in the economy, that is, not just with other customers of bank X but also any non-customers of bank X, and this is only the case if the deposit remains instantly redeemable in money proper (let's say, gold or, in today's world, state paper money) or can be transferred to any other bank. Thus, bank X runs the constant risk that its customers demand redemption of the type of money it CAN create (the deposit that sits on its own balance sheet) in a form of money that it CANNOT create: gold, state paper money or deposits at the central bank that are required for transfers to other banks. (Hint: these are the 'reserves' from which fractional-reserve banking gets its name!)
In an entirely free market, in which the state does not interfere in the economy and in which there is no central bank and no fiat money but in which money proper is necessarily a commodity chosen by the market, one the supply of which is outside political control or anybody else's control for that matter, such as is the case with gold, in such a system fractional-reserve banking is an inherently risky enterprise. The constant fear of requests for large redemptions will severely restrict the ability of private banks to lower their reserve ratios and fund large parts of their lending by issuing ever more money derivatives. Each additional bank deposit that is created out of thin air will increase the risk of a bank run, which, in a world without central banks, bailouts and state deposit insurance, must lead to the failure of the bank.
Sure, banks may still be tempted to issue more deposit money but it requires a somewhat strange view of human nature to expect that even after a number of bank runs, in which bank shareholders and most depositors were wiped out, financially speaking, fractional-reserve banking would merrily continue and could in total be conducted at anywhere near the scale it is today, when banks do not have to content themselves with strictly limited reserves and do not have to operate under the constant risk of business failure but can safely rely – or, at least rely to a much larger degree than in a free market and a hard currency system – on an unlimited and constantly expanding pool of fiat reserves provided by lender-of-last resort central banks, and where depositors need to pay no attention to the soundness of the various deposit-taking institutions as they simply rely on the blanket cover provided by the state.
Positive Money's account of fractional-reserve banking makes it appear as if the state and its agencies were simply innocent and powerless bystanders in the business of money creation, rather than active promoters of and eager and indeed indispensable accomplices in the exercise. Positive Money creates the impression that bloated bank balance sheets, real estate bubbles and excessive debt levels had all been created by scheming and out-of-control private banks, entirely on their own accord and behind the back of an unwitting and clueless state, rather than constitute the inevitable consequences of an institutional framework built on the widespread belief that constant bank credit expansion is a boon to the economy.
The truth is that the state, beholden to the generally accepted fallacy that cheap money – and even artificially cheapened money- is a source of prosperity and that we should never allow credit contraction or deflation, has actively supported the gigantic money creation of recent decades. Without an essentially unlimited and ever cheaper supply of bank reserves from the state central banks, private banks could never have expanded their balance sheets so aggressively and issued such vast amounts of deposit money.
Or, to put this differently, had the state wanted to stop or restrict the creation of deposit money by the banks at any point, the state – in form of the central bank – could have done this at the drop of a hat. Restricting the availability of new bank reserves and/or making bank reserves more expensive would have instantly put the brakes on fractional-reserve banking. Not only did the state not choose to do this (at least not for the past few decades), to the contrary, whenever the banks had maneuvered themselves into a position where they thought it themselves prudent to stop or at least slow down their balance sheet expansion for a while in order to protect limited capital or their limited reserves, the central banks invariably cheapened bank reserves further, specifically to encourage further deposit money creation.
In the present context, any criticism of fractional-reserve banking must include, in order to be consistent and complete, a rebuttal of the false beliefs in the benefits of cheap money and criticism of the state's systematic support for this activity. Positive Money evidently fails to appreciate the role of state institutions and government policy in the present process of money creation or it would argue much more simply and straightforwardly for the voluntary restriction or abandonment of these policies first, and it would be less eager to hand full control over monetary affairs to the state.
Money injections must result in resource reallocations and mis-allocations
Furthermore, a proper understanding of fractional-reserve banking, one that is based on monetary economics and that does not stop at the most apparent symptoms of bank credit expansion, reveals that its core problem is its disruption of the pricing process that would normally co-ordinate economic activity smoothly (in this case, the co-ordination through market interest rates of voluntary saving with investment activity). The problem with fractional-reserve banking is precisely that it leads to persistent misallocation of resources. Would it not be sensible to ask if money injections through the state bureaucracy would also result in very similar or maybe even larger misallocations of resources or misdirection of economic activity?
This seems indeed very likely. We all know that whenever the market is replaced with administrative decisions by a bureaucracy, the results will be suboptimal as the bureaucrat has to make his decisions without the help of market prices, for if he would allow market prices to guide resource use and economic activity there would be no reason for his intervention in the first place. He might then as well leave everything to the market. It is precisely the political decision that the market should not be allowed to allocate resources through market prices and the profit and loss calculations of private enterprises that is the excuse for state involvement in the economy. According to the proposal by Positive Money, a state agency would determine centrally how much money the economy needs and then give this money to other departments of the state, which would spend it according to how it sees fit.
Positive Money does not provide any mechanism for how the state agency might determine who in the economy experiences a higher demand for money, and how the money would get to where it is needed. This is not surprising because there can be no such process, as I will explain shortly. According to Positive Money, the state agency would simply make a macro-level decision as to the amount of new money supposedly needed and hand the necessary amount over to other departments of the state (without the standard process of double-entry bookkeeping that is used today, I might add, by money-creating central banks. According to Positive Money's proposal, the money is simply created and handed over to the state bureaucracy as a gift.) By putting this money into the economy the state will, of course, exert a tremendous influence on the pricing and the allocation of resources and the direction of economic activity. This does not bother Positive Money. It is simply assumed that this must be better than having private banks do this via the credit market.
It is clear that Positive Money has not fully understood why fractional-reserve banking is harmful. For a functioning economy an uninhibited pricing process for all resources is required in order to direct the use of these scarce resources in accordance with the preferences and demands of consumers. Fractional-reserve banking systematically distorts the pricing process (it corrupts the coordinating properties of interest-rates) but Positive Money suggests to replace it with a process that does away with market prices altogether, and that consists of the arbitrary and politically motivated allocation of resources through a state bureaucracy (even if the central bank is, as Positive Money naively assumes, 'politically independent' the departments of the state that are the first recipients of the new money and that decide how the money gets injected into the economy are certainly not).
Apart from the well-established and justified reasons to be suspicious of substantial state control over any part of the economy, there are other reasons to reject this proposal. As I have shown in Paper Money Collapse, EVERY injection of new money into the economy, regardless by whom, has to occur at a specific point from where the new money will disperse through a number of transactions. This process must always – from the point of view of a smoothly functioning, uninhibited market economy – lead to disruptions. It can never be neutral and it can certainly never enhance the functioning of the economy, or lead to a better plan-coordination between economic actors. Money injections always lead to arbitrary changes in relative prices, reallocations of resources and redistribution of wealth and income, without ever enhancing the wealth-generating properties of the economy overall. Money injections never benefit everyone, they always create winners and losers. It does not matter who injects the money.
Is a money producer needed at all?
Given all these problems, is it really necessary that anybody in the economy has the privilege of creating and allocating new money? Once fractional-reserve banking has been banned and money-creation by the banks has ceased (or, in my scenario, once the support for fractional-reserve banking has stopped and money-creation by banks has been much reduced), why not leave the economy to operate with a given and stable quantity of money?
Positive Money:
"But that doesn't necessarily mean that the economy will run smoothly on a fixed amount of money – we may still need to increase the amount of money in the economy in line with rises in population, productivity or other fundamental changes in the economy."
Positive Money does not explain why this should be the case, simply because there is no reason why this should be the case. The quote above reflects another widespread fallacy about money, namely that a growing economy somehow needs a growing supply of money. Many people will find intuitively that this makes sense. Yet, on further reflection anybody who thinks for a minute about the purpose of money and about how we all use money every day can see quickly that this statement is without any basis in fact and lacks any economic logic.
A growing economy does not need a growing supply of money and therefore does not need a money producer. On the basis of a stable and given supply of widely accepted money the public can satisfy ANY demand for money it may have.
The person who has demand for money never has demand for a specific quantity of money. Nobody who demands money has demand for a specific number of paper notes or a specific weight in gold coins or a certain quantity of bits on a computer hard drive (or whatever is used as money). We have demand for a certain quantity of money because of what we can buy with it, and this depends not on the quantity of the monetary asset as such but on its exchange ratio versus non-money goods. We always have demand for money's exchange value, for what we can buy with it, for its REAL purchasing power. The value that money has for us, it has because of its purchasing power in trade. Money does not have direct use value, such as any other good or service.
Whether a certain quantity of cash is sufficient for me to carry with me for a good night out in London, depends on what that quantity of money can buy, that is, its real purchasing power. My demand for money is always a function of its exchange value, but money's exchange value is necessarily subject to constant change as a result of the constant buying and selling of money versus non-money goods by the trading public.
If the public at large has an additional demand for money (i.e. an additional demand for purchasing power in the form of money) what will the public do? – Answer: the public will do what every individual does who wants to increase his or her holding of money, the public will reduce its present ongoing money-outlays on non-money goods (i.e. spend less and accumulate cash) and/or sell non-money goods for money (i.e. liquidate assets). This process will immediately exert a downward pressure on the money-prices of non-money goods and an upward pressure on the purchasing power of the monetary asset (the result is deflation, if you like, but in contrast to all the excited scaremongering about deflation in the media this is a normal market process and nothing to be scared of). By raising the exchange value of each unit of money this process will satisfy the additional demand for money naturally and automatically. The same physical amount of money is circulating in the economy but now this same amount can satisfy a larger demand for money.
Of course, the reverse will happen if the public lowers its demand for money. The purchasing power of money will drop (inflation) and the same amount of (physical) money will still be held but now at a lower exchange value per unit reflecting the lower demand for money.
These processes do not work for other goods or services. If the public has a higher demand for cars, somebody has to produce more cars. This is because the demand for cars is demand for the use-value that cars provide. Additional demand for cars cannot be satisfied simply by raising the prices of cars. But money is demanded for its exchange value, and additional demand for money can be satisfied (and is in fact satisfied) by a higher exchange value of money, i.e. lower money-prices of non-money goods.
Importantly, the processes described here would not just commence once we converted to a system of inelastic money. These processes are by necessity at work all the time – even now in our economy of constantly expanding fiat money and excessive fractional-reserve banking where they are, of course, usually overshadowed by the inflation from constant monetary expansion.
Money qua money has two characteristics: it is the most fungible good in the economy and it is demanded exclusively for its exchange value. From this follows that every individual can hold exactly the desired portion of his or her wealth in the form of money at any moment in time, and it equally follows that the public at large can hold exactly the desired portion of its wealth in the form of money at any time.
If more economic transactions are to occur in a given period of time money can circulate faster, and in fact, money then IS GOING TO circulate faster. If the demand for money holdings rises, this demand can be satisfied automatically and naturally by a rise in the purchasing power of the monetary unit, and in fact, the purchasing power of the monetary unit IS THEN GOING TO rise.
Via the constant buying and selling of money versus non-money goods the public automatically adjusts the velocity of money and the exchange value of the monetary unit, and thus the public is always in possession of precisely the amount of money purchasing power it needs. It is in the very nature of a medium of exchange that any quantity of it – within reasonable limits – is sufficient (and indeed optimal) to satisfy ANY demand for money.
There is no need to fear that this process would lead to undue volatility in money's purchasing power, to constant fluctuations between inflation and deflation. If some people have a higher demand for money and start selling non-money goods for money, and this is beginning to lift the purchasing power of the monetary unit, then those who have an unchanged demand for money will readily sell some of their money for non-money goods in order to merely maintain the same real purchasing power in the form of money that they had before. Nobody can say that this process will lead to complete stability of money's purchasing power. Such stability is unachievable in human affairs. But dramatic swings in money's purchasing power can reasonably be expected to be rare.
Be that as it may, there is certainly no process available by which even the most dedicated, smartest and impartial monopolist money producer could anticipate the discretionary changes in the public's desire for money balances and neutralize the resulting changes in money's purchasing power through pre-emptive money injections or withdrawals. Once the changing demand for money has articulated itself in any statistical variables (and, in particular, in rising or falling prices) the public will already have satisfied its changed money demand through the processes described above. The whole idea of superior monetary stability through a central state monopolist is entirely absurd.
Equally absurd is the idea – this one not being advocated by Positive Money, I shall add – that fractional-reserve banks could play a role in satisfying the public's demand for money. This is, I fear, another widespread fallacy, and it has its origin in a confusion of demand for loans with demand for money. Banks are not in the business of meeting their customer's money demand (which they could not do even if they tried) but in the business of meeting their clients' loan demand. Banks conduct fractional-reserve banking in order to extend more loans (on which they collect interest!), not in order to bring more money into circulation. The deposit money that is also created in the process (the 'cheques' the banks write to fund the loans) is simply a by-product of their expanded lending business (and this money is absorbed by the public through inflation).
By the same token, nobody (or at least hardly anybody) who has a higher demand for money will go to a bank, take out a loan and pay interest just to hold a higher money balance. Demand for money is not demand for loans. The people who take out loans do not have a high demand for money. To the contrary, they have a high demand for the goods and services that they quickly spend the borrowed money on. That is why they are willing to incur the extra expense of interest. As explained above, people who have a high demand for money cut back on spending or sell assets.
Positive Money starts with a correct observation, namely that today's large-scale fractional-reserve banking is unnecessary and destabilizing for the economy. However, their suggestion of a ban on fractional-reserve banking strikes me as overly authoritarian, unnecessary and probably unpractical and unrealistic. Simply removing the state-run support infrastructure for fractional-reserve banking would be sufficient, in my view. Where the ideas of Positive Money become bizarre and dangerous is when they propose to install the state as an all-powerful central money creator. There is absolutely no justification whatsoever for such a function in a market economy. It is entirely unnecessary and would probably entail the same, if not worse, misallocations of capital that we suffer now. We would be guaranteed to stumble from one dysfunctional system into another dysfunctional one. The lessons from a proper understanding of fractional-reserve banking and of money demand are very different from what Positive Money suggests.
This article was previously published at DetlevSchlichter.com


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English language IELTS requirements for Australia General Skilled Migration Visas
Australia General Skilled Migration Visas
Australian Department of Immigration and citizenship has fixed the English language norms keeping in mind a simple fact that Immigrants who are fluent in the English language will be able to find a job in the Australian economy soon. Not to mention, this will also help the new immigrants in social networking in a distant land. However, poor language skills can be devastating to the likelihood of their career success, even if they qualify through all the necessary requirements of the job.
Skill levels based on the IELTS score
Accordingly, Australia requires all prospective economic migrants to take an IELTS test. Speaking, reading, writing and listening are the four main components of this test, on the basis of which, the language skills of the applicants is evaluated. To be eligible to apply for one of the permanent General Skilled Migration (GSM) visa categories, the main applicant must have 'competent' English or 'vocational' English, if they nominate for a skilled trade occupation.
The Australian immigration regulations identify seven English skill levels after assessing the fluency and competence of the applicant in the Queen's language under the General Skilled Migration (GSM) visas:
1. Proficient English – Applicants who score a minimum of 7 points in their IELTS test score in each of the 4 components of the test are honoured to be included in this skill level, which is the highest in the test score. The applicant of this level are awarded 25 points in the GSM points test.
2. Competent English – Applicant of this level are the ones who have an IELTS test score of at least 6 points on each of the 4 components of the test. They are granted 15 points in the GSM points test.
3. Concessional Competent English – This level comprise in the applicants with the average band score of 5.5 in their IELTS score. The applicant is given 15 points in the GSM points test, if they have applied for the Skilled – Regional Sponsored visa and has paid a fee to attend English language tuition in a participating State or Territory.
4. "Vocational" or "Better than functional" English – Applicants with an IELTS score of at least 5 points in each of the 4 components of the test are included in this level. The applicant gets 15 points in the GSM points test, if they nominate for a skilled trade occupation. This is the minimum English requirement for Skilled sponsored applicants and a requirement for the Employer nomination scheme.
5. Functional English – Applicants who obtain an IELTS average band score of at least 4.5 points is listed under this skill level. These applicants do not get any points in the GSM points test.
6. Limited English – An IELTS average band score of at least 4 based on the 4 test components causes the applicant to be included under this skill level and not get any points benefit in the GSM points test.
7. No English – Applicants listed in this level usually have very limited understanding of English language skills. These applicants are not given any points in the GSM points test.
An IELTS report is normally valid for two years only and the Australian Immigration regulations require that the applicants undergo a fresh test if his earlier test report has expired and is more than two years old.
It is important to note that some occupations have minimum prescribed IELTS score requirements and applicants must obtain that minimum score to be eligible to apply for visa for such a nominated occupation. Two of such most common occupations are Engineers and teachers.
While Engineers need to have a minimum band of 6 in each of the IELTS testing modules in general training test, the minimum requirement for teachers is a band of 7 in each of the IELTS testing modules in Academic training test. These two occupations also require the applicant to appear in and provide the IELTS result as a part of the immigration assessment process.
Australia Visa Application Charge
Anyone who is 18 years or above and have less than 'functional' English and applied under the below mentioned visa classes, is required to pay a second instalment and any other charge due, before they are granted a visa. The visa officer will tell you when and how to pay.
- – Skilled – Independent
- – Skilled – Sponsored
- – Skilled – Regional Sponsored
- – Business skills
- – Employer nomination (excluding religious workers)
- – Labour agreement (excluding religious workers)
- – Distinguished talent
- – Former resident
- – Former citizen
- – Family of New Zealand citizen
It is thereby strongly recommended that the applicant take preparatory classes before appearing in an IELTS test.
Summary: IELTS test is an integral part of the Immigration process under the Australia General Skilled Migration Visa. This test is required for the principal applicant as well as spouse and adult dependents above 18 years of age, unless you are lucky to be included in the category of people who are exempted to appear for the IELTS test.
For more information on the Australia General Skilled Migration Visas please contact me at [email protected].


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The importance of solar forcing on climate has now been recognized. However, the atmospheric solar signal and its transfer mechanism(s) remain still uncertain. To address these questions, the international working group SOLARIS (in 2012 renamed to SOLARIS-HEPPA) was created to clarify the effects of solar influence on climate with special focus on the importance of middle atmosphere chemical and dynamical processes and their coupling to the Earth's surface with state-of-the art chemistry-climate models (CCMs) as well as mechanistic models and observations. We foster and initiate detailed studies on the "top-down" solar UV and the "bottom-up" TSI mechanisms, as well as on the impact of high-energy particles.
In addition, SOLARIS-HEPPA aims to provide a platform for the coordination and discussion of solar-related studies. This includes recommendations for the solar irradiance and particle-related data (proton fluxes and geomagnetic proxies) used to drive middle atmosphere and climate models within e.g. the SPARC-CCMVal/CCMI initiative and the CMIP5 simulations.
The SOLARIS-HEPPA activity is an extension of the GRIPS solar influence inter-comparison (Matthes et al., 2003; Kodera et al., 2003). Recently SOLARIS has been joined with HEPPA (High Energy Particle Precipitation in the Atmosphere), which brings together scientists involved in atmospheric modelling using state-of-the art CCMs and CTMs on one hand, and scientists involved in the analysis and generation of satellite data on the other hand. SOLARIS-HEPPA collaborates with a number of other programms and groups such as the initiatives SPARC CCMVal, SPARC DynVar, the EU COST project: "Towards a sounder assessment of the impact of solar variability on the Earth's climate", as well as Task 1 of the programme SCOSTEP CAWSES II (Climate and Weather of the Sun-Earth System).
The joined SOLARIS-HEPPA initiative will give a more complete picture of "Solar Influence on Climate" and will enhance the initiative's visibility. A joined goal is a recommendation for the next IPCC round which processes (solar radiation and particles) to include in future climate studies.


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University Software
The below article lists the software included on both University-issued student lab and faculty/staff machines. Instructions on using the 'Software Center' are also outlined.
Software Center
Software Center allows you to install applications via an easy to use interface. Software Center is similar to a free app store wherein you select the applications you would like, and they are downloaded directly to your computer without the need for additional passwords, permissions, or a technician on-site. Applications available in Software Center are licensed for use by members of the University. If you would like to request an application that is not listed, please submit a Help Desk ticket.
Using Software Center
- Click the Windows button in the lower left.
- Type Software Center and click when it appears.
- You will see a list of all available software.
- Put a check mark next to the applications you would like to install and click the Install button. Estimated installation times are listed for each application in the details section below the list.
- Click the Installation Status tab to monitor your installation
- Click the Installed Software tab to see what software has been installed via the Software Center
Software Available in Software Center
The following software is currently available in the Software Center:
- Adobe Acrobat Document Cloud Pro
- Adobe Fireworks CC
- Adobe Flash Professional CC
- Adobe Illustrator CC
- Adobe InDesign CC 2014
- Adobe Photoshop CC 2014
- Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2014
- FileZilla 3.7.3
- Google Chrome
- Microsoft Office 2013
- Microsoft Project 2013
- Microsoft Visio 2013
- Skype™ 6.16
- VLC Media Player 2.1.0
- Wolfram Mathematica 10.0.2
Software that is already installed on the machine will be displayed on the "Installed Software" tab in the Software Center.
Software Included on a Windows Student Lab Machine
Lab machines are intended for use by students and include the following software as of 6/3/2014:
- Microsoft Windows 7 x64
- Adobe Acrobat Document Cloud Pro
- Adobe Flash Player
- Adobe Shockwave Player
- Java Runtime Environment
- Adobe Shockwaye Player
- FileZilla
- Google Chrome
- Microsoft Office 2013
- Notepad 2
This list pertains to both desktop and laptop lab machines. Please note that certain labs will include specialized software. A list of these labs can be found on the | IRT webpage.
Software Included on All Imaged Machines
Faculty/Staff machines are intended for use by faculty/staff and include the following as of 6/3/2014:
- MS Windows 7 x64
- MS Office 2013
- Adobe Flash Player
- Adobe Shockwave Player
- Adobe Acrobat Document Cloud Pro
- Java Runtime Environment
- Google Chrome
- Notepad 2
- SurePDF Plugin
- BDMS Plugin
- Symantec Endpoint Protection
- Cisco Anyconnect VPN client (Laptops only)
This list pertains to both desktop and laptop faculty/staff machines.


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Tempo Automation Names Joy Weiss President and Chief Executive Officer
Industry veteran and Tempo board member appointed to guide the company to the next stage of growth
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#PCBmanufacturing–Tempo Automation, the world's fastest manufacturer for prototyping and low-volume production of printed circuit board assemblies (PCBA), announced today that Joy Weiss has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer.
Weiss is one of Tempo's earliest investors and its first outside advisor, serving on the Tempo Board of Directors since December 2015. Most recently, she served as Vice President at Analog Devices, where she was responsible for the data center and IoT businesses. She brings a wealth of executive experience, having served as CEO of Dust Networks, which was acquired by Linear Technology, and as CEO at Inviso. She began her career at Nortel Networks, where she rose to the position of President and GM of the Network Management division.
"We are excited to have someone of Joy's caliber and experience at the helm to lead Tempo into the future," said Zavain Dar, Tempo Board Member and Partner at Lux Capital. "Tempo Automation is reinventing the way companies in aerospace, medical technology, industrial technology, and other industries develop and bring new products to market. As a member of Tempo's board of directors for the past four years, she has a keen understanding of our products and markets, and brings a strategic vision for our growth."
Weiss said, "I am honored and excited to lead Tempo as we continue to enable a major acceleration in the pace of hardware innovation. Having led hardware-centric companies before, I know how valuable Tempo's software and manufacturing innovation is to our customers, and that our services address a large and underserved problem."
Jeff McAlvay, Tempo's founding CEO, is now Tempo's Chief Process Officer. "I'm excited about the opportunity to direct my focus towards weaving the unbroken digital thread from electronics design to the robots on our factory floor," said McAlvay. "As part of Tempo from the early days, Joy has played an instrumental role in formulating our vision and company principles. I'm looking forward to partnering with her in taking the next step towards realizing our common vision of making electronics development as fast and seamless as software development."
Tempo continues to expand customer acquisition across the aerospace, medical technology, industrial systems, consumer electronics, and automotive industries. In 2018, Tempo opened a 42,000-square-foot smart factory in San Francisco's Design District to enable technology companies to bring groundbreaking innovations to market faster with proprietary software automation that allows electrical engineers to ensure precision, speed and transparency for PCBA development.
To learn more, please visit www.tempoautomation.com.
About Tempo Automation
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Daitarn 3
Review by JoshB
Daitarn 3 never aired on TV here in the states. Airing in 1978 in Japan, Daitarn is one of those legendary super robots that are still remembered fondly today. I remember Daitarn from the same bootleg toy Chachipower reviewed here, although I wonder if they were really bootlegs, or just foreign market versions. It's another part of the puzzle that is my childhood – one of many subconscious imprints that define what I am today. While we do not know Daitarn, we know his cousins Ideon, Zambot, and Gundam. They are all part of the same family designed by Kunio Okawara, and so we welcome him with open arms. All part of the Super Robot Pantheon. As such, it has earned a representation in the hall of heroes: the Soul of Chogokin line. The Soul of Chogokin GX-53 Daitarn 3 is provided by Hobbylink Japan. The GX-53 is a huge, well-built toy. It's one of the more elaborate SOC releases, with lots of parts, but fortunately you can just leave most of them in the tray and it doesn't affect the playability of the toy.
The box is large, but not as large as you think; it's not as thick as other big releases like God Mars or Dyguengar. Inside, the core toy is in a styrofoam tray, while the parts come in two clear plastic trays.
Fortunately, Daitarn 3 is just about ready to go right out of the box. You need to add the wings, but that's it.
Daitarn 3 is heavy. Using the patented Chachipower technology, we can see the diecast content.
Daitarn 3 is tall. Here's a comparison to the old diecast. He stands about 11 inches tall to the tips of his crest, much more modern looking than the original for sure. Some liberties have been taken with the likeness of the character, such as the chiseled angled upper thighs. A new Daitarn for a new age.
Daitarn feels rather brick-like, but he's pretty well articulated. The head rotates on a ball joint, and the face plate is swappable (from pensive to angry). The head crest is swappable as well. One is solid and the other can collapse to aid in transformation.
Each shoulder assembly can rotate along the body, and the large shoulder pads can move a bit to make room. The shoulders also swing out, and there is a swivel joint on the bicep. You can get a good 90 degrees of movement at the elbow, but be sure to have the forearms pulled all the way out.
The hands are a pain in the ass, and one of my few complaints about the toy. Daitarn 3 comes with a set of default hands that are (supposed to be) permanently attached to the arms. The idea is that each hand can be folded up and slid into the arm for transformation. This does work, but the problem comes into play when you try to get the hands out. There's no lever, nothing. I tried to shake the hands out, and eventually needed to use pliers to get them out. The hands themselves are fine: each finger is articulated, as well as the thumb, but be careful, the thumb comes off easily.
Variant hands are included that are larger and made out of hard rubber. These attach to plates that fit into the arm when the default hands are slid in. Each plate is fit to go in only one way – notched on one side to fit into the arm sockets. It's interesting to note that the same arm is used on the left and right – it's the exact same part, just swapped around. You can tell because the notches are on the top on the right arm, and the bottom on the left.
The chest is one immovable part. No waist joint, no chest joint. Although this toy doesn't require it, I miss the opening chest used to stow the head on the old toy. These modern SOC toys could use more nods to the classic toys that inspired them. The crotch door opens to reveal the removable (but not spring loaded) Daitarn Missile.
The back has the signature wings of Daitarn, but I miss the large stickers of the old toy. The wings attach to two parts of a shell, with a small part connecting the third wing to the body. These shell parts will become a point of contention later on.
Down to the legs, they attach to the torso via hefty metal joints. The range of motion is limited forward and back, but a wide range side to side. The hips click.
Knees are double jointed, but that's more to aid in transformation than for articulation. The feet are solid blocks of metal, and need to be clicked down to move around. The joint for each is in the inside corner, and, while small, is made out of sturdy metal. This too is due to accommodations for transformation. The large leg fins can be pulled down to make up for this extended length.
Before we get into transformation, I want to talk about the weapons. Like any of the big SOC sets, there are a lot of accessories. It seems like any weapon ever used on the show makes an appearance in this tray. We already mentioned the Daitarn Missile. Two large chrome swords, called Daitarn Zanber, are included with the set. Each has a removable hilt, which has collapsible sides. The blades are very shiny, but very thin.
I've never seen the show, so I have no idea what this weapon is, but it's called the Daitarn Snapper. It's a multi-part whip weapon that can end in either a point or a large grasping claw. The total weapon consists of over 10 parts, depending on the configuration. Two sets of tubes are included – one flexible, one rigid, that can be used depending on what formation the weapon takes. It's an interesting idea.
Another odd weapon is the Daitarn Fan. As the name suggests, it's a giant fan. The toy comes with parts to replicate the fan in various states of openness. Chain handles are included that can be attached to any of the parts. Also, these parts can combine to provide a mechanism to attach the two semicircle parts to make one whole fan shield. A neat accessory, but back in the box it goes.
These two weapons are cool: first, the Daitarn Javelin. This large two-part weapon ends in a four pointed spear. It looks awesome.
Next up is the Daitarn Hammer. This is an awesome mace-style weapon connected to a long metal chain. We all know how much I love metal chains.
There are some more accessories, but we will wait for the end for those.
And now, we transform.
I did a pretty epic video review that goes over the transformation, so you can watch that, or skip below to the step by step.
Daitarn has three modes: Daitarn, Daifighter, Daitank, hence the 3 in Daitarn 3. To transform from Daitarn to Daifighter, follow the following steps:
- Fold the hands and push into the arms, then push the forearms up.
- On the back, remove the back wing sections to reveal the dummy tank treads. These are more for show than anything. Fold these around until they are straight back, lift the little door behind the head, and then pull the back up to reveal the cavity.
- Inside, you will see 2 angled blue parts connected to the hip parts. Fold those down, then take the tank tread assemblies and fold those around front. These can be either stored inside the chest (for flight mode) or left out as front landing gear.
- Unfold the shoulder pads so you have 2 separate extended sections on each side. Collapse the head crest, and then begin to push the bars from the shoulder pads in and down into the chest cavity. Don't push it all the way in yet.
- Unclick the hip sections (this may take a little force) and swing towards each other. If it isn't already attached, attach the center wing section and then unfold down the length of the legs. As you are clicking the legs together, be sure the bar from the center wing is aligned between the legs.
- Click down the back section, and then push the head down and connect the nose cone section. This can be fidgety; take care that you are not bumping anything inside the body. Then you can click down those two blue panels which lock onto the back.
- Make sure the arms are alongside the body. Here you need to swap out the covers from the back of the figure with larger covers. You need to remove and swap the wings as well. Form here they click onto the shoulders, and the bottom has tabs for the tank treads to lock into.
- Lastly, add the landing gear to the back.
Daifighter is huge and heavy, but does not do much aside from look pretty. The choice of having the rear landing gear right next to each other is odd, but maybe that's just how it is in the show.
At the bottom of the fuselage is a door to insert the miniature Mach Patrol car. This door is hard to open.
Transforming to the Daitank appears to be an easy affair, but there's a bit more too it. From Daifighter:
- Pull out the whole head / nosecone assembly. Unclick the blue panels from the back, open the small door and lift up the back again. Remove wing panels.
- Separate the leg sections, remove the third wing assembly. I couldn't tell if tank mode was supposed to have this section or not. I left it off.
- Swing the legs down and click back into place. Swing the blue panels up and into the body.
- Close the back panel, and re-do the whole nosecone assembly as before. Keep in mind they have those blue panels in the body now. If they are not properly placed, the arms from the nosecone will have no place to go.
- Slide out each upper leg assembly at the hip to give more room between the legs. Bend the knees so that the legs bend back over the back of the body. The back of each foot has a tab that connects to the body.
- If they aren't already, rotate the tank treads so that the small tabs on them are pointing down. These treads are too small, so a tray with real rubber treads is included. Clip this tray onto the bottom by the tabs on the small treads.
- Pull out the cannon assemblies from the feet. These are made out of several segments, so they pull out quite a bit. Be careful not to pull too hard, or you will pull them out. Thankfully they click right in. The canons are a softer rubber, so they may not be straight when you pull them out. Just rotate them until they are straight.
- Turn the arms forward. That's it!
Daitank mode is pretty cool, with the huge cannons and the rubber tank treads. Seeing the size of the tank treads here, you understand why they made it a separate piece.
Mach Patrol / Mach Attacker
Mach Patrol is a Hot Wheels sized vehicle that is the ride of the main character, Banjo. This cool little car has some diecast in the body, rubber tires, and fully transforms into Mach Attaker. Early production photos showed the cockpit as removable, in the finished version it is not.
In addition to this larger vehicle, the set contains three smaller in-scale vehicles. Each vehicle is of the Mach Patrol, in both Patrol, Attacker, and a mid-transformation mode. Each no bigger than a large grain of rice. Amazing detail in such a small item. I'm sure to lose them.
Rather than the traditional stand, this toy uses the rubber tank treads as a sort of roving stand vehicle. Most of the parts fit onto this stand if you use the additional stand parts. There's a crane part that needs to be added, as well as a couple small support parts.
Is that it?
I think that's everything. It's a nice DX set. It's big and heavy and complicated, but you don't need to break out the accessory tray if you don't want to. It looks good on the shelf. With the recent announcement of Bandai's new Super Robot Chogokin line, will the Soul of Chogokin line shift towards these more elaborate releases? If they are as good as this one, that's not a bad idea at all.
I'd recommend this set. The pros outweigh the cons. The only real flaws I can see with it are the implementation of the hands, the need to have two sets of wing panels, dubious landing gear positioning, and that little door that's hard to open. Overall that's not too bad.
Special thanks to HobbyLink Japan for providing us this sample for review. To buy this and other Soul of Chogokin robots direct from Japan, visit http://www.hlj.com.
Comments18 comments posted
I watched this video last night - you need to get some sleep, man! Haha. It's good to see you back in the review saddle, though. Hope to see more in the future.
would you say this release is closer to Voltes V (was worth the money) or Dancouga/Raideen/Zambot... fell apart, flimsy connectors/accesories and low die cast...NOT worth it!
Closer to Voltes, for sure. I'd put it up there with ideon and godmars.
CollectionDX Admin
haha "patented Chachipower technology".. Yeah I was a bit over the top in excitement during the rumor phase, prototype phase, preorder phase and release phase. When I finally had it in my hands I couldnt let go, its a darn solid release. I agree, the accessories are better left in the box, Ive no need for em, especially the fans. Funny watching enemies get slapped around with them in the show, but annoying to use with the figure. I watched the video and I thought you were trying to sound sexy with the toy then I realized you were probably up late doing the review lol its a lot of stuff to go over!
I know I am obviously a big fan of Daitarn and this release, but really guys, check it out for yourself.
Holy cow, and I thought Voltron had a long "reaching the cockpit" sequence! There's like a mile of monorail track within Daitarn.
It's a real pity that this anime was never aired in the States. I remember watching it on Antenna Sicilia (a now defunct sicilian private TV station)every evening - Sundays included - before going to visit grandma. I remember clearly tying up my shoelaces and then untying them again to gain time and watch more Daitarn before having to go to grandma.
Anyway, the show was the first Sunrise anime (correct me if I'm wrong) to be aired in Italy. The plot was very interesting as the enemies were a bunch of megalomaniac psychos each one with a particular obsession - in short the kind of people you meet every single day. One was obsessed with strength, another with making Kung Fu movies, the female commanders were obsessed with eternal beauty and so on and so forth. One of the generals was even obsessed with shrinking means of transport and collecting them as scale models!
The anime had a lot of interesting ingredients. The protagonist Haran Banjo was a wealthy playboy, a true Don Juan but with the agility, intelligence and strenght of James Bond. He was always accompanied by two babes - Reika Sanjo (the brunette and my dream girl) and Beauty Tachibana (the stupid and jealous blonde). Banjo was also helped by the funny teenager Toppy and the extremely calm Garrison Tokida, his butler.
As leaders of the enemy cyborgs we find the beautiful Koros and her companion Donzauker (who looks like a retrograde robot).
But what made this anime popular in Italy and Malta was the original Italian opening and closing theme, which is still music to our ears today - thirty years plus later! The original Japanese BGM are also catchy as well as the humour throughout the show! There were also various allusions to Frankenstein and many themes such as love and jealousy which made the show more interesting.
The design by Kunio Okawara is astonishing and I remember waiting for Daitarn's transformation in every single episode - if I remember correctly it is the longest anime transformation! I also loved the Mach Patrol/Mach Attacker - I have the large diecast version by Clover too!
Oh and by the way, the Daitarn Snapper is used as a lasso in the show whereas the Daitarn Javelin's four pointed spear looks like the number 3.
I bought mine from HobbyLink Japan too! If I'm not mistaken Bandai intends to issue another Kunio Okawara and Sunrise creation later this year - Muteki Robo Trider G7 (Invincible Robot Trider G-7) in their Soul of Chogokin line.
The name of the teenager in Japanese was Toppo. In Italian it was Toppy.
i dont have any idea who this robot was and all that... but i think he's pretty solid, the 70's look is there but overall, the toy looks more like a modern robot. This definitely goes into my wants list of tall robots. nice review chief.
is there never any urgency in the transformation? The pilot has the time to change outfit and a couple of back-and-forth before lining up the ship to dock. This comes even before the cockpit clamp hookup onto the monorail journey...zzzzzZZZ. wake me when it's done :P
that all happened in a short while like 10 secs to a minute max?
IN srw this guy was fun to use. ah... the sun attack dynamic kill, DAITARN CRASH!!
I liked your review, it brought back memories of when I was a kid; I remember having one of the old Daitarns growing up but I think parts of him might have broken off. I really wish I knew what happened to him and the other "Shogun" toys that I used to have like the flying saucer looking thing with the bird beak and firing claws. Anyhow, pity this new one costs so much, $200 for a toy is a little much to justify but it's nice knowing that there's a new version of something I used to have as a kid.
unifive released that shogun toy,... I bought one for same reason...80 USD including shipping on Ebay
it was from the orginal "power rangers"...
the link to the review is...
This really does look fantastic. I am very tempted.
The matchbox sized Mach Attacker is awesome on it's own.
Figured I would chime in since Ive had a few months with Daitarn. I pulled him out of my display case today and Im sitting here writing and looking at him and I had forgotten how darn heavy, tall and awesome he is. You would think I would be sleeping with him in my bed since I am a big fan, but it's been in my display case since I put it in there to look pretty a few months back. This is definitely my vote for chogokin of the year.
Is it big enough to get into a fistfight with Iron Gear?
That's not a mid-transformation mode - that's the one that goes into that tiny little hatch in Daitarn's crotch.
BBTS has the GX-65 on a fairly deep sale, so I just grabbed one. I found it a little bit of a letdown after seeing all of the rave reviews. It is a gorgeous piece, especially with the metallic colors. And it is packed with features and accessories, not to mention enough die cast to anchor a boat (seriously this is the cheapest I have ever gotten this much metal). But the articulation or seeming lack thereof is giving me fits. So many joints on mine are so tight that I am afraid to move them for fear of bending metal. Virtually no motion in the hips. And those legendary bissep swivels? I have yet to get them to budge. With all the ultra tight joints mine seems to have a range of articulation comparable to a Machinder. What am I doing wrong?
Also am I correct that the only differences between GX-53 and GX-65 are the metallic paint colors and the new display stand to aid in losing the 7 million fiddle accesories that you will only ever pick up once? There is no functional mechanical difference in the robot?


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