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Today, Oracle will unveil Java SE 8 a major step forward in the language. One of the important new features in this release is improved concurrency, some of which appears in the foundational
java.util.Arrays class. New methods have been added to this class, which I describe in this article. Some of these features take advantage of another new JDK8 feature: lambdas. Let's dive in now.
The various flavors of
parallelSort implement a parallel sort-merge algorithm that recursively breaks the array into pieces, sorts them, then recombines them concurrently and transparently. Using it in place of the previous, sequential,
Arrays.sort method results in gains in performance and efficiency when sorting large arrays. For instance, the code below uses the serial
sort() and parallel
parallelSort() methods on the
Array class to sort the same array of data:
public class ParallelSort { public static void main(String[] args) { ParallelSort mySort = new ParallelSort(); int[] src = null; System.out.println("\nSerial sort:"); src = mySort.getData(); mySort.sortIt(src, false); System.out.println("\nParallel sort:"); src = mySort.getData(); mySort.sortIt(src, true); } public void sortIt(int[] src, boolean parallel) { try { System.out.println("--Array size: " + src.length); long start = System.currentTimeMillis(); if ( parallel == true ) { Arrays.parallelSort(src); } else { Arrays.sort(src); } long end = System.currentTimeMillis(); System.out.println( "--Elapsed sort time: " + (end-start)); } catch ( Exception e ) { e.printStackTrace(); } } private int[] getData() { try { File file = new File("src/parallelsort/myimage.png"); BufferedImage image = ImageIO.read(file); int w = image.getWidth(); int h = image.getHeight(); int[] src = image.getRGB(0, 0, w, h, null, 0, w); int[] data = new int[src.length * 20]; for ( int i = 0; i < 20; i++ ) { System.arraycopy( src, 0, data, i*src.length, src.length); } return data; } catch ( Exception e ) { e.printStackTrace(); } return null; } }
To exercise this, I loaded the raw integer data from an image into an array, which ended up at 46,083,360 bytes in size (this will vary depending on the image you use). The serial sort method took almost 3,000 milliseconds to sort the array on my quad-core laptop, while the parallel sort methods took a maximum of about 700 milliseconds. It's not often that a new language release updates the performance of a class by a factor of 4x.
parallelPrefix method performs a given mathematical function on the elements of the array cumulatively, setting the results within the array concurrently. This is far more efficient on today's multicore hardware than performing sequential operations on large arrays. There are various flavors of the method for different base types of data operations (for example,
LongBinaryOperator, and so on) as well as for various types of mathematical operators. Here's an example of a parallel array element accumulator using the same large array of data in the previous example, which completes in around 100 milliseconds on my quad-core laptop:
public class MyIntOperator implements IntBinaryOperator { @Override public int applyAsInt(int left, int right) { return left+right; } } public void accumulate() { int[] src = null; // accumulate test System.out.println("\nParallel prefix:"); src = getData(); IntBinaryOperator op = new ParallelSort.MyIntOperator(); long start = System.currentTimeMillis(); Arrays.parallelPrefix(src, new MyIntOperator()); long end = System.currentTimeMillis(); System.out.println("--Elapsed sort time: " + (end-start)); } ... }


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People often warn about what climate change will mean for our future, but it is no longer about our future. The impacts are being felt now.
Take, for example, Newtok, an Eskimo village in western Alaska. Climate-linked erosion is causing the village to flood as permafrost melts and sea levels rise. A study by the Army Corps of Engineers found that the highest point in the village will be below water level by 2017. Residents are already making plans to move and have been dubbed "America's first climate refugees."
The evidence is not just anecdotal. A study from the University of Adelaide shows rainfall extremes are already increasing around the world and that rainfall intensity will increase by between 5.9% and 7.7% for each degree of warming.
The USA's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has shown that over the last six decades, the increase in heat and humidity has cut the amount of work that people can do in the worst heat by 10%. If one takes the more extreme 6 degrees Celsius warming projection, it would become impossible to work during the hottest months in many parts of the world. Heat stress in New York would exceed that of present-day Bahrain, while in Bahrain the heat and humidity could cause hyperthermia.
Winning Minds Still A Battle
A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center last October showed that while the majority of Americans accept the climate is changing, only 42% believe that human activity is the main driver. This is vastly at odds with academia. A survey of more than 4,000 academic papers published over 20 years showed that over 97% agreed that climate change is anthropogenic. Copenhagen climate change talks in 2009 resulted in a pledge to limit global warming to 2 C, but time is running out to achieve this. Indeed, Lord Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, recently declared that technical progress at addressing climate change has come faster than anticipated, but the lack of global political will has become the biggest hurdle.
How Big Is the Challenge?
The effects of a 2 C rise in temperature from 2009 levels are considered broadly manageable. However, a rise of 4 C or more will be overwhelming. In order to stop any further rises in the amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we would have to reduce our burning of fossil fuel in the region of 60% immediately. Even if this were possible, it would be an economic disaster.
To achieve the 2 C target, every person would have to limit their carbon dioxide creation to two tons a year. To put this in perspective, two tons is equivalent to each of the following:
The annual carbon dioxide emissions of a medium-sized passenger car
Heating a single-family home with four people
A return flight from Frankfurt to Los Angeles
The production of goods worth approximately €4,000 ($5,488.40)
In other words, with today's energy supply, our two ton limit is exhausted with basic actions. The challenge ahead is steep.
Opportunities for Investors
Long-term policy goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions require nothing less than an industrial revolution to engineer a low-carbon economy. While the path to a low-carbon economy is predictable, it is not well-understood by equity markets.
Companies that offer products that will reduce the amount of energy consumed are already benefiting from the pressure to reduce emissions. Companies that manufacture low- and medium-voltage industrial equipment are benefiting, for example, as is the LED lighting market.
Other important areas include natural gas (which creates 50% lower carbon dioxide emissions than other fossil fuels), clean energy and sustainable transport.
From Mitigation to Adaptation
With international progress on global emission reductions falling so woefully short, it is increasingly accepted that the opportunity to limit warming to 2 C is rapidly disappearing. We therefore expect planning for adaptation to climate change to be a growing theme in the next two to three years, for both governments and companies.
Agriculture is an area that could be affected by the adaptation theme. More disruptive weather patterns and water shortages will hurt the supply of crops worldwide. The need to increase crop yields will thus be greater, increasing demand for companies whose products significantly enhance farmer productivity.
More generally, the preparedness and resilience of individual businesses will become an important component of profitability and equity valuation in the future. Resilience is hard to value in a financial model, yet it clearly has value. Companies with the best understanding of the implications of climate change on their business will become synonymous with quality.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Just one Agatha Christie book was it took to make me a fan and now I'm anxious to read as many of them as I can. So when I saw the ITV series from 2004 was available to view on Sky, I decided to treat myself to an hour and… Read more »
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A large number of people wait until near-retirement age to start thinking about retirement planning. That can include Medicare insurance.
While there are some benefits that are best delayed, such as Social Security, others need to be acted on early to ensure reasonable rates and desired coverage. One of those is Medigap insurance. Your clients should be asking about Medigap insurance as soon as they turn age 64. Waiting just a few months can mean the difference in dramatic rate increases and coverage reductions.
"Medigap insurance is exactly as the name implies. It fills the gap that Medicare leaves open," said Jillian Nel, a financial planner at Legacy Asset in Houston, TX. "If you're covered by Medicare only, there are some gaps like co-insurance and deductibles that can be significant. You can contract with a private insurance company to fill those gaps."
Also known as Medicare Supplement, Medigap plans enable your client to cover those deductibles and co-insurance amounts, while also enabling them to keep their preferred doctor, specialist and hospital.
Still, retirement planners should advise clients that, as with any insurance policy, you get what you pay for. Your client can opt for a comprehensive plan that covers more expenses beyond Medicare, but they will pay a higher premium for the plan.
Educating your client
Many consumers are very confused about what Medigap insurance is and what it does; or perhaps they haven't heard of it at all, advisors said.
"I have to educate people a lot about it," Nel said. "Most people think that there is Medicare and that is it, and that's all they need. Like Social Security, it is the base of your coverage, but there is so much more that you need to manage in terms of risk."
Your clients may also be confused by Medigap versus Medicare Advantage plans. Both are options for people with Medicare. "Technically, only Medigap counts as Medicare supplemental insurance – in fact, that's its formal name – but Medicare Advantage plans may provide some extra benefits that could be considered as supplementing Medicare, according to Patricia Barry in the AARP Bulletin.
Medigap is private insurance that can only be used by individuals enrolled in traditional Medicare, and helps with out-of-pocket expenses that Medicare doesn't cover. These include Medicare Part B costs such as the 20 percent your clients would otherwise pay at physician visits, or Medicare Part A costs such as hospital care deductibles.
Medicare Advantage includes a variety of private health plans, usually HMOs or PPOs, which offer alternative coverage to Medicare. These plans cover the same benefits that Medicare does, but can include additional benefits and different payment structures.
How the plans work
The challenge for retirement planners is to understand the different Medigap plans available to clients.
Medigap policies come in 10 standardized benefit packages, said Gil Armour, a certified financial planner with SagePoint Financial in San Diego, CA. These packages are labeled as the letters A, B, C, D, F, G, K, L, M and N. The most popular, and most comprehensive, plans are C and F.
"Each state has a Medigap plan that is A-N, and each plan is somewhat the same around the country," Nel said. "So a Medigap A in Texas would look similar to one in California. But just like there is Part A [Hospital] and Part B [Medical] of Medicare, Medigap has A-N, so people find it a bit confusing."
Retirement planners need to examine each plan carefully to recommend which best meets a client's needs. Your client can pay a little more to get more comprehensive coverage, or a little less, depending on what they can afford and how much coverage they desire, Armour said.
"Choose a policy based on whether you want flexibility of picking any doctors, or more restrictive HMO-style plans," Armour said.
Which policy to recommend
Advise your client that, whichever Medigap plan they choose, prescription drugs are not included in the coverage. If your client has significant prescription expenses, they may need a Medicare Part D drug plan as well. Medigap plans also don't cover vision care, dental care, hearing aids or long-term care. Depending on your client's overall needs, a Medicare Advantage plan may be the better option than a Medicare policy plus Medigap policy plus Part D drug plan.
To advise your client on which Medigap policy to select, consider their current health status and family medical history. The federal government offers an online search tool (medicare.gov) to help in the process. Click on "Supplements & Other Insurance" at the top of the page, and then "How to Compare Medigap Policies."
Clients should also understand that there are three pricing methods that affect their costs. Medigap policies are general sold as "attained age" policies, which have premiums that start low but increase as the individual gets older. "Issue-age" policies have prices that increase due to inflation rates rather than the policy holder's age. They tend to start out a bit higher but have fewer increases over time. "Community-rate" policies charge everyone in a designated area the same premium regardless of age. Your client may ultimately save money over time with an issue-age or community-rate policy.
When your client should enroll
The best time for your client to enroll in a Medigap plan is within six months after enrolling in Medicare Part B. This is the open-enrollment period, during which your client cannot be refused a policy, or be charged more for a policy due to pre-existing health issues.
After the open enrollment period "people with more health issues are going to pay more for Medigap premiums," said Nel. "If you don't sign up for Medigap [in the open enrollment period], they have the opportunity to raise your premiums, to exclude pre-existing conditions, to do a whole bunch of negative stuff that people need to understand."
Conversely, " you can choose lower price plans that cover less stuff in the beginning when you're more healthy, but to switch those as a later date after you've incurrent some health issues is going to be extremely costly." Nel said you should advise your client to start off with as much coverage as they can afford today.
The most common mistake that consumers make with regard to Medigap insurance is waiting too long to look into it, Nel says. That makes it especially important for you to advise your client as they near retirement age on what the insurance is all about.
"The one major thing that people often leave out when they're dealing with retirement planning on their own is an assessment of risk," Nel said. "The unexpected is always coming. If you have not protected yourself against risk, all the planning you do for retirement is ruined. That's the section of the conversation where I bring up Medigap. If you're approaching 65 this is something that you have to put in place, because all the planning that we've done on your portfolio, the growth that we're done, all this is going to be totally worthless."


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Nestled between woods and moorland in the unmistakable Auenland countryside of Schleswig-Holstein lies the health resort of Bad Bramstedt, famous for having the biggest rheumatism clinic in northern Germany.
Bad Bramstedt is known throughout Germany thanks to the town's two specialist clinical centres: Bad Bramstedt hospital and the Schön Klinik, and is an extremely popular health and spa destination.
Moorland spa
The town's origins as a spa resort lie in its health-giving waters, which well up from a mineral spring in the Osterau valley. In addition to taking the waters, guests can enjoy health treatments using local mud, which provides particular relief to patients suffering from rheumatic disorders and chronic pain. The natural mud remedies are also effective in alleviating muscle conditions, spine and joint problems, ankylosing spondylitis and chronic back pain. The mud exercise pool – in which patients can submerge their entire body and swim in the mud – is particularly suited to treating all of these disorders.
Garden of the senses
A pleasant experience after a dip in the mud is a gentle stroll through the resort's Garden of the Senses: a 3,000m² outdoor space containing five hydrotherapy pools modelled on the principles of Sebastian Kneipp, in which visitors can abandon themselves to experiencing the element of water with all five senses. 'Exercise and balance' is a mantra permeating the entire resort and Bad Bramstedt offers its holiday guests a wide range of leisure and entertainment activities in addition to the facilities provided by its clinics. Whether you would like to dabble in a little sport, such as horse riding or canoeing tours, or maybe indulge in some beauty and wellness treatments, you will find all that you desire in Bad Bramstedt.
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Brilliant design that features two grapplers fighting for/against a rear naked choke, which is set on a great winged design and completed with the famous Gracie Sports logo.
Great quality.
Made in Brazil.
We do our best to provide accurate sizing info for all items of MMA Clothing & Equipment that we sell at MMA Universe.
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Should you be unable to find the information you need you can contact us at any time, we would be delighted to help you!
We do our best to ensure that our shipping prices are as fair and competitive as possible. We offer four tiers of delivery each with their own benefits and we offer free delivery options with orders of £50 or more.
If you place your order with us before 2pm GMT on Mon-Fri, we guarantee to ship your order the same day. Orders placed after this time may not be processed until the next available working day (but we'll do our best to get your order on it's way ASAP). Our typical delivery times are:
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Brush Silver with Shiny Stripes Curved Cufflinks
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Russell Investments Managing Director Timothy Noonan say this is a critical moment for both investors and advisors.
The concerns of Russell's global strategists earlier this year–Eurozone instability, the fiscal cliff and sequestration–have proven less significant than expected, they explained in a report released on Tuesday.
Instead, the key themes of today's markets are stable economic growth in the U.S., continued growth in China, and Japan's successful stimulus program–which have all helped the U.S. equity market achieve its best first quarter since 1997, they point out.
Noonan and his colleagues say that many U.S. investors have shifted from a "glass half-empty" to "glass half-full" mentality when it comes to stock markets.
That begs the question: How should they position their portfolios for the rest of 2013?
Overall, the Russell investment team has these three strategies:
- For clients who bailed out of the markets: Cash is a "lesser opportunity;" advisors should discuss the fact that waiting for a future "correction" can be a riskier stance than holding a diversified, multi-asset portfolio.
- For clients in the market: Advisors may want to encourage them to stay in and not "flinch" at concerns over a correction; corrections have historically been paired with strong returns for the year overall, Noonan says.
- For clients making large contributions to savings: Some may want to try timing equity investments after a market pullback; Russell experts, though, suggest advisors speak with such investors about taking the steadier approach of dollar cost averaging through short-term ups and downs.
Just how well have the markets done?
U.S. equity values rose by more than 10% in the first quarter, the Russell team says. The Russell 3000 Index, for instance, was up 11% in Q1'13, while the Russell Japan Index was up 12%.
"Moderate—but stable—economic growth, buoyed in the U.S. by resurgence in the housing and energy sectors, proved more influential than short-term consternation over political stalemates, potential long-term costs of government stimulus and lingering questions about the longer-range remedy for "federalizing" Europe. Equivalently, Asia proved the skeptics wrong," the Russell strategist team wrote in its Q1 analysis.
And where are the markets going? "The intersection of improving economic strength and decreasing investor anxiety, we think, may yet push equity values further in 2013," Noonan said. While the potential for equity market drawdowns in any given year is significant—the average annual pullback on the Russell 1000 Index (peak to trough) from 1980 to 2012 has been 14.5%—Russell's strategists believe that the equity market has potential for continuing its overall upward trend."
Plus, they add, the equity markets still have plenty of room to grow.
Given current market levels, many investment strategists are suggesting that equities are more attractive than fixed income," the Russell group pointed out, adding that "current stock valuations are not far above historical averages."
According to Andrew Pease, Russell's global head of investment strategy at Russell, investors can expect "positive gains likely limited by a mature earnings cycle, reasonably full valuations and moderate economic growth."
Russell experts also say that we are not in a bond-market bubble, and that interest rates will go up eventually—most likely in 2014.
Still, for those who are highly concerned about interest-rate increases, the strategists suggest the following:
- Decrease duration, since the prices of bonds with shorter durations don't decline as much as longer-term bonds when interest rates rise.
- Adjust credit exposure, given the fact that investing in bonds with higher yields and higher risks means portfolios earn more income, which adds to a bond's total return; this may help offset any price declines resulting from interest-rate increases.
- Make modest increases of allocations to higher-credit-risk sectors "to take advantage of higher-return opportunities without undermining the diversification benefits of bonds."
- Increase country and currency exposure, which can help diversify a portfolio against some effects of rising U.S. interest rates.
Read Advisors Optimistic, Not Using Policy Statements: Russell Outlook on AdvisorOne.


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They call them experts for a reason. While tax changes are freaking out the average Joe, many advisors are calmly going about their business, lessening the tax burden on wealthy and high-net-worth clients. Strategies that were in place long in advance of the election, the fiscal cliff and the sequester are ticking along despite market booms and busts and worries over what might happen tomorrow. We spoke with a number of them who were willing to share their best and most effective tactics in protecting client assets as they grow.
Trust Strategies
Trusts are feeling the effects of tax law changes more than other planning stratagems. Martin Shenkman of Martin M. Shenkman PC in Paramus, N.J., said that trustees of non-grantor trusts may need to consider gathering information on trust beneficiaries to determine tax consequences of distributions from the trust. "Bear in mind that trusts face a very compressed tax rate structure so that a trust will bear the maximum income tax rate and the 3.8% Medicare tax on about $12,000 of income," Shenkman explained. "If beneficiaries are in lower brackets, they may demand distributions justifying those demands by the tax savings."
However, there's considerably more to it than that. "Income tax status information on the beneficiaries, including federal tax bracket, adjusted gross income to ascertain the impact of a distribution, state of residence to ascertain state income tax consequences, and more" may be required to determine whether distributions are warranted, and if so, to whom—particularly if one beneficiary is in a substantially lower tax bracket than others. Some of the other factors that must be considered include everything from the detailed terms of the trust to its investment policy statement and the Prudent Investor Act in the state whose laws govern the trust.
Bypass trusts may have been abandoned in some estate plans in the wake of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA), with "some clients [… opting] for outright bequests or marital trusts so that the assets bequeathed will be included in the taxable estate of the surviving spouse to receive a step up in income tax basis on the second spouse's death," Shenkman said. "In contrast to the past, these clients will likely rely on portability to avoid federal estate tax on the death of the second spouse."
However, he pointed out, "Those opting for non-trust 'simple' distribution plans will expose assets to creditors, remarriage and other risks that could prove more devastating than the estate or income tax."
When all is said and done, changes in the tax laws will necessitate rethinking on trusts. "It might have been best in the past to pack equities into the bypass trust to maximize estate tax savings," said Shenkman. However, "under the new paradigm it might make more sense to have 100% bonds invested in a bypass trust to limit the potential for growth in the bypass trust. Locating equities in the marital trust (or surviving spouse's investments) should result in concentrating appreciation in the surviving spouse's estate where those assets can qualify for a step up in basis. This is quite the opposite of what was typically done in the past."
Shenkman concluded, "Investment planning and, in particular, asset location decisions have been affected by the new Medicare tax on passive income, the new relationship of income and estate tax, terms of the governing trust (which sometimes can be changed), the Prudent Investor Act and more."
Strategic Investing 101
Some tax-efficient planning begins when investments are chosen. While it's common to look at factors like equities versus bonds (more about that later), some parts of the puzzle are lesser known. Wealth manager Derek Tharp of Mote Wealth Management LLC in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, said that among the factors his firm considers is the tax cost ratio of a stock, since the lower the ratio, the less the asset's value falls annually due to taxes.
Specific identification of shares also offers more flexibility, said Tharp, by allowing investors "to identify the shares that best accomplish their tax objectives. They could be identifying highly appreciated securities for charitable gifting, […] securities with large losses to tax loss harvest, or even […] securities with large gains to tax gain harvest if they felt it was appropriate."
Asset Location, Location, Location
Tharp mentioned another strategy experts use: where to place a client's assets. He explained: "Many advisors make a location determination based on either expected return or tax efficiency of a fund. However, research suggests that optimal location is actually determined by a combination of both tax efficiency and expected return."
He pointed out that "when asset class returns are low, such as a bond fund," where the asset is located has less effect on overall wealth accumulation than the location of an asset class with high returns. "This stresses the importance of placing high-return, low-efficiency asset classes in qualified accounts first."
Planner Bobbie Munroe, owner of Fraser Financial in Atlanta, said of asset location, "It often surprises me when I work with new clients [that] all of their accounts hold exactly the same investments." It may make an advisor's job easier, she said, to "come up with a basic allocation and repeat it … [and w]hen it comes time to rebalance, all accounts may be rebalanced to the same percentages. But," she added, "it is NOT tax efficient" [emphasis hers]. She suggested putting a client's "riskiest investments"—those with the potential for the highest return, such as "tech, emerging markets or even high-yield bonds"—into Roths, where they can grow tax free.
Munroe added that while she does still use mutual funds, she does so largely within retirement accounts for dollar-cost averaging purposes. She prefers ETFs, which are usually more tax efficient than mutual funds thanks to their ability to do tax-free swaps.
An additional method of locating assets in a tax-efficient manner comes from Alan Clopine, CFO and director of tax planning for Pure Financial Advisors in San Diego. "We look at Roth conversion strategies in which our clients slowly move assets from IRAs/401(k)s to Roth IRAs," said Clopine. "You don't want to convert all of your assets to a Roth in one year because it will push you into too high of a tax bracket."
Instead, he said, his firm maximizes clients' current tax brackets, up to the 28% bracket, by converting to the top of that bracket. "The other tax brackets are often too expensive to justify a Roth conversion," he added, "particularly considering the AMT." The firm also considers a client's expected tax bracket in retirement and "combine[s] several other tax deduction strategies to reduce taxable income, thereby increasing our Roth conversion recommendations."
Mark Germain, founder and CEO of Beacon Wealth Management in Hackensack, N.J., pointed out that dividends coming out of a 401(k) account are "taxed at the current tax rate, not the capital gains rate" or any other rate. "So putting dividend payers into a 401(k) is not necessarily the best choice, because outside [of a 401(k)], the dividend is taxed at a lower rate."
CPA John Smartt, an RIA from Knoxville, Tenn., pointed out something that could escape the notice of some advisors. "Most 401(k) participants, and even the trustees of the plan, do not realize that you may be throwing away tax dollars if you own investments with foreign assets in your 401(k)," he cautioned.
The way it works is this: "If you own a mutual fund with foreign stock in your account, and if BP [for example] declares a dividend, then 10% to 20% of that dividend is routinely withheld at the source for the payment of foreign taxes. And with a 401(k) investment, that's the end of the story," he explained. However, "if that investment were sited (i.e., owned) in your regular, currently taxed account, then, after the end of the year, your 1099 form has a box [to indicate] foreign taxes withheld, and you get this as a dollar-for-dollar credit against individual income taxes on Form 1040."
Tax Loss Harvesting
This is probably the most common tactic. Clopine recommended taking advantage of the volatility of higher-growth asset classes by harvesting losses when they occur; at the same time, he advised, "buy a 'shadow' position on the same day—so therefore you will enjoy the recovery, but you have harvested a capital loss on your tax return."
Germain said such a tactic "will allow us to have losses to offset gains, which is very tax efficient." It allows one to create a "reserve" of tax losses that can be harvested at need. While short-term gains are being "taxed at the highest income rate [and are …] inefficient where tax rates are going," short-term losses can be used to offset both short- and long-term gains. Long-term losses, on the other hand, can only be used against long-term gains.
Income Shifting
Germain suggested that shifting income is another tax-efficient strategy. "One thing we use quite often in HNW management is a structure to put assets in for two purposes: one is asset protection, two is asset transfer." He proposed a hypothetical situation of a father and daughter; the father forms a legal entity that allows him to direct who gets the income from the assets and who gets the losses. Then the father, who is, say, in a 40% tax bracket, can direct the income to his daughter, who may still be in school or just starting to build a career and is likely in a 15% tax bracket. That puts the taxes at a significantly lower level, even combined with the daughter's earnings.
Another tactic, still using that entity holding the assets, is for the father to give the daughter a gift to pay her tax bill directly, "without ever taking money out of the investment pool."
Creating a Business Entity
When an asset-holding entity is created, Germain said, which "exists like a human being—it has its own life, its own tax ID number, its own existence"—it can't just be created and then ignored. "The IRS and regulatory authorities say you must have it as some kind of business concern" or make it a nonreversible gift. The business entity can have another advantage in that it can turn a hobby into a real business and provide tax advantages.
"We did that for a fairly wealthy client," he recalled. "He had a beautiful farm in one of the northern states. We looked at it and said, 'There's a lot of hardwood on the farm. Did you think of selling any of that?'" By converting the wooded acres to a tree farm, Germain said, the client gained significant tax savings.
"We created a tree farm, had the state people come out and do a plot plan and [decide] what to harvest and what to replant," he related, "and this rather high-income earner was able to take what was his hobby, playing on the farm, and turn it into legal tax savings and do something for the economy." The farm had started out as a means of stress relief but was transformed into a tax-efficient entity.
Germain said advisors have to ask what the client's objective is. "Just doing a tax strategy is not what's driving the whole process. What is it that the HNW client, or any client, is looking to accomplish? Once you know that, you can come up with strategies, investment tools, tax-efficient planning to meet those objectives."
Stocks Versus Bonds
Advisor Brian Goodstadt of Paragon Capital Management in Denver said that his firm has not significantly changed what it does based on changes in the tax laws, either. Most of Paragon's clients are tax-sensitive, so "what's maybe a little bit unique is the way we look at expected returns of stocks and bonds."
The firm checks them out on both a before- and after-tax basis. While the equity risk premium may look at first glance to be about 4% over bonds, given Treasury yields projected to be about 2% over the next 10 years, Goodstadt reminded us that municipal bonds offer a higher return—more like 3%. That cuts the equity risk premium to 2%, and, "given the added risk of stocks, 2% is not a huge premium to justify risk. Conclusion? The higher the tax rate and the more assets you have in taxable accounts, the more attractive bonds get relative to stocks." Bearing that out is the fact that his firm's clients have shifted from at least 60% stocks and 40% bonds a decade ago, maybe even 70%–30%, to closer to 50%–50%, with some completely reversing to 30% stocks and 70% bonds.
Tax-efficient planning's many moving parts may not be new, but they are effective—something clients will be even more grateful for going forward.
Check out more about tax-planning from AdvisorOne's 20 Days of Tax Planning Advice for 2013.
For even more tax planning advice, read 22 Days of Tax Planning Advice for 2012.


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'low price'
'Similar to the Moto X, the phone sports a curved back for a comfy grip, along with sturdy Corning Gorilla glass and a splashproof body. '
'It's encased entirely in a comfortable, rubberized soft touch housing. '
'the Nexus 5 display is immaculately sharp.'
'At this size it's an easy phone to manage, especially with some devices now getting too big to handle as phablet popularity grows. '
'Beastly specs usually mean high prices but the Nexus 5 retails from £299, making it one of the most affordable high-end smartphones ever produced. . '
'wide viewing angles'
'the screen is larger without making the phone bigger.'
'The phone is available in your choice of white or black with faux chrome trim, and I think the visual and textural treatment looks nice.'
'It's a very sharp display, and even tiny text has superb clarity. '
'The LG G2's display is very bright, and it's certainly very readable in bright daylight.'
'Text on the G2 looks incredibly sharp, and it makes for a really great viewing experience.'
'It's thin enough to fit into your pocket without too much fuss. .'
'The display remains cool to the touch.'
'Updated with Motorola's newest Mobile Computing System, which is comprised out of a natural language processor, contextual computing chip, and a quad-core 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC coupled with 2GB of RAM, we're seriously impressed by the Moto X's super snappy responsiveness. '
'However, sharpness is slightly disappointing at the resolution, with less fine detail in evidence than the best 8-megapixel phones. '
'With normal use, we could picture most people getting an entire day's life without any battery-saving adjustments. '
Google and Moto almost made a truly standout Android phone
'At just over £80, locked to Virgin Mobile, the ZTE Blade V is clearly pitched towards the very budget conscious, ideal for those that want a cheap smartphone to take to school.'
'Neat-looking metallic rear. '
'For today's standard, the Blade V's screen is pretty small at 4in. '
All the right ingredients
'It is big, bright, beautiful, and perfectly suitable for every task. '
'Thin and wide the overall impression is of ultimate portability, a robust handset with a nice if plasticky finish. '
'Image and video quality is very similar to the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note II, which is to say good but not as stunningly detailed as the S4. - Lastly, the phone has physical front buttons rather than capacitive.'
'Phone quality wise, the device is strong, with calls coming through crisp. '
'On the screen of the Galaxy S4, everything is smooth and free of graininess.'
'The Note 2, Galaxy SIII and Galaxy S4 have excellent incoming and outgoing voice quality with good volume. '
'gigantic 5-inch screen'
'top-flight camera'
'No GPS.'
a budget smartphone in every sense
The Nokia Asha 503 brings a more robust 5MP camera (be it fixed-focus) and 3G to a package we already liked, and that's what we can safely call a good start.
Advanced controls and preset modes are easy to use
Good value-for-money for a convergence device
10x zoom lens and dedicated camera controls
Good battery life, Decent web browsing
ReviewGist helps you find the best products to buy by making sense of online reviews. We are currently aggregating 376,500 reviews covering over 29,474 products.


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Sunday, October 14, 2007
"Survival Of The Fastest" Documents RCR's Talladega Woes
The wonderful TV series called "Survival of the Fastest" is produced by NASCAR Images for SPEED. Each racing weekend, this show airs with an episode documenting the experiences of one team during the previous weekend's race. Unfortunately, for the RCR bunch, NASCAR Images came calling on the weekend of Talladega.
Richard Childress is a self-effacing and down-to-earth guy who has been a pillar of the sport for a long time. His relationship with Dale Earnhardt Sr. was fantastic, and resulted in some of the best classic NASCAR TV moments of all time.
The sheer beauty of "Survival of the Fastest" is that it uses the words of the NASCAR personalities to tell the story. With limited narration, the series simply allows fans a "slice of life" view of the real experiences of NASCAR teams at the track.
The reality of watching the hard work of the RCR engine shop slowly go up in smoke was tempered by listening to the conversations of the drivers as they related the incredible RPM numbers the cars were turning, and their frustration with the single file racing.
Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick and Childress himself were also shown behind-the-scenes in family and recreational activities. This kind of thing is sorely missing from the other NASCAR TV shows. This tiny slice also showed a problem with this series. It needs to be one hour in length. Sometimes, the stories that really should be "paid off" by this series cannot be completed simply due to the length of the program.
SPEED airs this program during the weekend, but strangely does not repeat it after the Inside NEXTEL Cup show on Mondays. Viewers who only tuned-in for the races on the weekend might find a new favorite with "Survival of the Fastest."
One of the hallmarks of these types of NASCAR Images series is the building excitement toward the end of the race. In this episode, the thrill of Jeff Gordon's victory was balanced with the frustration of Chad Knaus over Johnson getting left behind. Once again, these were pictures that TV viewers had not seen during the ABC live coverage.
This program series on SPEED has been solid all season, and hopefully will suggest to the network that making a commitment to more NASCAR Images programs for 2008 would be a good idea. With the recent beginning of the "Chasing Glory" TV series from NASCAR Images on ESPN2 Wednesday afternoons, it appears that ESPN may now also be primed to increase its inventory of NASCAR "reality" series for next season.
Fans of SPEED remember the time when Monday nights featured a solid multi-hour block of NASCAR programming anchored by Inside NEXTEL Cup. Surrounding this show were wonderful NASCAR "reality" programs that gave the viewer an inside glimpse of the sport. Maybe next season NASCAR Images can extend their program production skills into the Busch and Truck Series to allow more than just one slice of the sport to be presented in this manner. It certainly would be welcomed.
The Daly Planet welcomes comments from readers. Simply click on the COMMENTS button below, or email firstname.lastname@example.com if you wish not to be published. Thanks again for taking the time to stop-by and leave your opinion.
30 comments:
- Anonymous said...
Is it possible that the "Powers that Be", in charge of NASCAR television programming, continue to underestimate the intelligence of NASCAR Fans ? It seems programming is continuously aired on a "Just give it to them...They won't know any better or expect any more....basis.
NASCAR Fans are neither insensitive nor stupid. What will it take to eradicate the negative stereotype that plagues the racing masses?
There should be more shows like "Survival of the Fastest" and they should be aired rather than empty, two hour pre-race wastes of time that feature sports wannabes and light-weights.
It is my sincere hope that 2008 will offer the introduction of more worthy NASCAR programming and higher quality on screen personality representation.
- October 14, 2007 at 9:09 PM
- Anonymous said...
ABC/ESPN coverage of the race at Lowes Motor Speedway was so bad, I muted the channel, turned on the radio, and followed the action on my PC
- October 15, 2007 at 12:15 AM
- Anonymous said...
Which teams have been covered by "Survival of the Fastest" so far this season? I didn't get SPEED until a bit after mid-season, so I missed all the early episodes. I know that Team Red Bull, Bill Davis Racing, DEI, Penske, and Richard Childress Racing have been covered so far.
- October 15, 2007 at 4:21 AM
- Anonymous said...
If SPEED follows its usual procedure, it will replay all Survival of the Fastest episodes each weekday during the offseason. They've done that with Beyond the Wheel, 7 Days, and NBS 24/7.
And speaking of those three shows, I feel that Survival of the Fastest is a mix of all three: Wheel had the race footage, 7 Days had the personal life, and NBS 24/7 showed us shop life. But I also feel Survival of the Fastest is not quite as enjoyable or as well put together as any of the other three shows.
But the point in this column that SPEED should bring back its Monday night reality programs is a great one. As long as their lineup doesn't include the SPEED Road Tour Challenge - the worst, most mean-spirited reality show I've ever seen on SPEED (Rutledge and the contestants had a lot to do with that.)
Ironically, in my opinion it was the most heavily promoted reality show on SPEED; there was much more on-air promotion (incuding during the race preshows on Fox) given to that show than say, 7 Days or Beyond the Wheel.
It's the only NASCAR reality show that I stopped watching after a few episodes. I read about the guy who ended up winning; he was supposed to get a job with SPEED. I wonder if he really works there now.
- October 15, 2007 at 9:54 AM
- Anonymous said...
I can't figure out what SPEED's doing with these shows. The network doesn't really promote them, so any audience they find is due to luck or word-of-mouth.
And I believe "Seven Days" won an award for best quick-turnaround series last year...and then it was canceled.
They've all been well-done, with video and sound we didn't see during the race, but SPEED seems to treat them like throwaways.
- October 15, 2007 at 10:20 AM
- Anonymous said...
Have to agree that Survival of the Fastest is not as good as some of the similar Speed shows. It's not terrible, though. I can't say why it's not as good for sure, it just is choppier and more disjointed.
- October 15, 2007 at 10:28 AM
- JHD said...
To Anon at 4;21 - every race shop has been covered so far except for Roush and Hendrick. I think they're going to divide the final 6 shows between the 2 shops, with Roush being featured this week.
I have 2 complaints about this show. One is that it appears that they didn't divvy up the shows all that well. RCR only getting 1 show while others get 2 or 3 shows seems unbalanced. I'm not sure if they didn't intend to originally focus on the bigger shops or not, but this cramming them all in at the end like this doesn't work all that well.
The other problem is that the race focus is completely different from the pre-race part of the show. The race winner almost never came from the shop they were highlighting that week, so it was a bit disjointed.
Survival should have been a one hour show, with the first 30 minutes on the race shop pre-race prep and the second 30 minutes on the race itself with the featured shop mixed in better with the winning team.
Or it should have completely focused on the race team, and there should have been another season of "Behind the Wheel" to show the race highlights.
I do wish SPEED would pick one or two of these shows and stick with them for more than a season.
- October 15, 2007 at 10:54 AM
- Anonymous said...
Do people just not want to think or try to get info? Most seem to have to be told when things are on...Speed has a great website for racing news, but guess what...they have their complete Tv lineups listed by the day and month!!!! Most cable TV listings now have speedtv programing listed also.
It is really noot too hard to find out when shows will be on the tube.
- October 15, 2007 at 11:19 AM
- Anonymous said...
I think the point these folks are trying to make is that people simply don't even know that these shows exist at all. And with no promotion it takes word of mouth just to find out something new/unique/good such as SOTF IS on, let alone WHEN.
My problem with SPEED's program scheduling is SOTF has been moved all around on SPEED this year. One week it premiers on Friday at 4:00 in the afternoon, the next week its on Saturday, then it was moved before Raceday on Sundays(where it still re-airs), but now its back to premiering on Thursday evenings after The Chase Is On I believe. Kind of hard to keep up with a show that never seems to air at the same time from week to week without any promotion to inform you of the changes..........
And to answer the other poster it was Beyond the Wheel that won the Emmy last year for Live Event Turnaround......It was then "graciously" canned by SPEED.
- October 15, 2007 at 11:55 AM
- Anonymous said...
Survival of the Fastest gets a plug on INC on Monday nights and probably gets plugs on some of the weekend NASCAR shows. It certainly does not get the promo fest that Pinks or the girl in the short skirt get.
I usually catch this show on a weekend repeat. I've notice a bit of reused footage from last season.
I assumed that all of these shows just have a one year run.
- October 15, 2007 at 12:44 PM
- Anonymous said...
Survival is being done by the same group that did Beyond the Wheel.
- October 15, 2007 at 1:07 PM
- Anonymous said...
Aren't all of these shows done by Nascar Images?
- October 15, 2007 at 1:09 PM
- Anonymous said...
"Survival of the Fastest", a weekly half-hour documentary series, will air on SPEED multiple times during each weekend of the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup season. It is the latest project from the production team behind 2006 Emmy nominee "Beyond The Wheel."
"The outstanding relationship between SPEED and NASCAR Images continues to produce NASCAR programming that puts viewers inside the sport like never before," says Jay Abraham, NASCAR Images President and CEO. "'Survival of the Fastest' is the exciting next step of that partnership."
"Survival of the Fastest" goes behind closed doors with NASCAR Nextel Cup teams as they plan and prepare to survive the ultra-competitive world of stock car racing, telling the story over a period of several weeks and from the perspective of several different characters. Unprecedented access to team meetings, strategy sessions, and radio communication gives a glimpse into the lives of the principal players, from team managers and crew chiefs to drivers and pit crews. "Fly on the wall" cinematography makes viewers feel like part of the team and living the NASCAR life. The result is a complete depiction of what it takes to compete in racing's top series, from checkered flag to green flag.
- October 15, 2007 at 1:30 PM
- Anonymous said...
I know this article wasn't about the ABC/ESPN race broadcast, but I just have to add this, besides their announcing team, as whole, being downright awful, does anyone remember the last time they told us who was the "lucky dog" after a caution? I don't.
- October 15, 2007 at 1:32 PM
- Anonymous said...
Lisa Hogan said...
I usually catch this show on a weekend repeat. I've notice a bit of reused footage from last season.
-NASCAR Images shouldn't reuse footage in these shows. It's one thing to present a show as a repeat so we know's it old and anything from crew chiefs to a driver's sponsor may have changed. But they present Survival of the Fastest and NASCAR: Chasing Glory as new shows when they aren't.
That leads to unfortunate incidents like last week's Chasing Glory. They spent a couple of minutes showing a driver hanging out in the motorhome with his girlfriend-but the footage was from last year and the woman is no longer his girlfriend.
- October 15, 2007 at 2:12 PM
- Anonymous said...
I'm not a fan of all the 7Days footage popping up in these new shows either, but I can't imagine these drivers want a camera crew following their every move while they are trying to focus on winning a championship. With that said I've wondered why SOTF hasn't just focused more attention on team members as they did earlier in the season. The drivers may not want you following them home, but I'm sure the crew/shop personel do interesting/fun/unique things as well that could illustrate how they cope with the championship pressures. I think thats where much of my appeal for SOTF stemmed from earlier this season. Getting insight into ALL the elements of the team, not just the drivers.
- October 15, 2007 at 2:29 PM
- Anonymous said...
Beyond the Wheel ran for two seasons. NBS 24/7 ended mid-year last year, but was on Speed at least since 2004. I remember because Kasey Kahne was a regular on there in the Busch car from the Doug Akins shop that season. It was also his rookie year in Cup.
- October 15, 2007 at 2:29 PM
- Anonymous said...
refering to to race coverage: Between Petree and Dr Punch, they just ooze Earnhardt macho, talking about when the #24 bumped him, it was clear that the #8 didn't get back on the gas as quick as the #24 had while in the middle of the corner, but they just kept playing up how Jr's gonna get him and how Sr would have told him to go get him, it got kinda sickening after about 5min but it went on and on until the #8 car faded abit...is this the best bunch of guys they could get to broadcast a race, no wonder the ratings are wavering, this broadcast crew doesn't inspire to bring anything new to the broadcast and appear to just show up and seem less informed than most fans...
- October 15, 2007 at 3:03 PM
- Anonymous said...
"But the point in this column that SPEED should bring back its Monday night reality programs is a great one. As long as their lineup doesn't include the SPEED Road Tour Challenge - the worst, most mean-spirited reality show I've ever seen on SPEED"
Amen to that please don't bring it back, SPEED!. I would definitely watch a block of Monday night SPEED shows again...as long as they don't include Road Tour Challenge. Worst. Show. Ever. I can't believe NASCAR allowed itself to be associated with it -I don't think it originated from NASCAR Images but there were all kinds of NASCAR people who made appearances and they filmed at the tracks.
You knew the quality of that show was bad when the one who actually had a racing background, the African-American schoolteacher whose family built and raced a street stock, quit a few weeks in (as did I), leaving the MTV VJ wannabes to compete.
- October 15, 2007 at 3:10 PM
- Anonymous said...
to anonymous at 11:19:
Going to the Speed TV website doesn't work if you are still on dial-up. That site is too slow. I don't have a half an hour to find tv listings.
- October 15, 2007 at 3:11 PM
- Haus14 said...
I must say I definitely enjoyed Nascar Drivers 360, 7 Days, and all of the other behind the scenes Nascar shows. It also helps you to get to "know" the drivers.
Add me to the list of those who wish Speed would put together a "Nascar Block" on Mondays.
VL replay
Survival of the Fastest - 1hr edition.
- October 15, 2007 at 3:17 PM
- Anonymous said...
- October 15, 2007 at 4:12 PM
- Anonymous said...
Add in a Tradin'Paint/Pit Bull style show to recap all the news stories/controversies/rants of the weekend that was into that Monday block! I know INC goes into this somewhat but a PTI style opinion show to recap the race weekend would be great on Monday. It could even coexist with INC.
- October 15, 2007 at 5:15 PM
- Anonymous said...
Isn't that the show with the gnome and the other guy who yell at each other? I believe the gnome, when commenting on Jr.'s announcement that he was leaving DEI, griped that Jr. didn't wear a suit.
I really don't think that is the type of show to fit into a Monday night NASCAR block. I could be wrong; but, I think that "the one who yells loudest is right" theory is a guy thing. :)
- October 15, 2007 at 6:26 PM
- Anonymous said...
ruddrpm: I know INC goes into this somewhat but a PTI style opinion show to recap the race weekend would be great on Monday.
Marty Smith and Shannon Spake had a show like this on Speed during the Chase in '05 (right after The Chase Is On) but it wasn't good because Shannon is not a good arguer while Marty is. Maybe you do need two screaming guys for it to work. :)
- October 15, 2007 at 7:21 PM
- Anonymous said...
I say just pick up Tradin' Paint & move it to Monday night. Its yet another show thats always seems to air at odd hours throughout the weekend. Not to mention the fact that it doesn't really even need to be shot at the track. Rather than waiting an entire week to "argue" about the issues from the previous race, why not do it Monday night right after the race weekend has ended? INC breaks down the race hi-lites from the drivers' perspective while Tradin' Paint delves into the controversies/silly season/rumors/etc. from a media standpoint. Thats just what I'd like to see anyways (minus the Shannon Spake this time around).
- October 15, 2007 at 7:52 PM
- Anonymous said...
to Anonymous 1:32--I haven't heard the ESPN group use the term "lucky dog", but they do occasionally deign to tell us who gets to go a lap up. Very rarely, though.
I'm hoping for an article soon about this race's coverage!
- October 15, 2007 at 9:04 PM
- Anonymous said...
I agree with the complaints about SotF being disjointed. There's some good stuff in the show, but it has no focus. Just when things start to get interesting with one subject, they switch over to something else. They are trying to cram three different storylines into a half hour show - the race prep for one team, the race for that team, and the rest of the race. There should be three different shows (or at least three separate half hours) to cover each of these topics.
My preference would be for a one hour show focusing on the chosen team, use the whole hour to cover their prep and their race. Make a separate half hour show for the actual race (without any special focus on anyone but the important cars in that particular race).
- October 17, 2007 at 10:27 AM
- Anonymous said...
The one thing I've noticed with "Survival of the Fastest" is that the teams covered for a particular race/week tend to have bad luck ...
SotF is a jinx ... Like Jimmy "the jinx" Spencer in his fantasy league picks that he makes on NRD ...
Look at the problems RCR had when they were the subject of SotF ... Same goes for Ganassi & DEI ...
I just hope they air the HMS show BEFORE the race at Homestead ...
- October 17, 2007 at 6:18 PM
- Anonymous said...
NBS 24/7 got changed to NBS 24/7 - The Rookies for the 2006 season ...
But, they canned it the week before David Gilliland won at Kentucky ... the first race not won by a Buschwhacker ... The last show aired the Monday before the Ky race ...
SPEED had a hard time explaining why they cancelled the show mid-season ... One explanation was that there were too many Buschwhackers in the series and not enough Busch-only drivers to focus on ...
- October 17, 2007 at 7:34 PM


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A Strategy for Defining Order Relations
Last week , I proposed a comparison function for pairs of integers and asked whether it met the requirements for C++ order relations:
struct Thing { int a, b; }; bool compare(const Thing& t1, const Thing& t2) { return t1.a < t2.a && t1.b < t2.b; }
As one reader was kind enough to point out, it doesn't work because it's not transitive:
For example, with three objects,
t1(a1, b1), t2(a2, b2), and
a1 < a2, b1 > b2; a1 < a3, b1 > b3; a2 < a3, b2 < b3.
t1 and
t2 are unordered,
t1 and
t3 are unordered, but
t2 < t3.
This reader proposed an interesting alternative:
bool compare(const Thing& t1, const Thing& t2) { return (t1.a * t1.a + t1.b * t1.b) < (t2.a * t2.a + t2.b * t2.b); }
In effect, this comparison function is a generalization of the one I proposed two weeks ago :
bool compare(int m, int n) { return abs(m) < abs(n); }
Both of these functions implement a notion of magnitude, which we can think of as the distance between a given value and a zero point. In two dimensions, the distance between a point with coordinates
(x, y) and zero is the square root of
x2 + y2. The two-dimensional version of the comparison function compares the sums of the squares directly instead of comparing their square roots.
Both of these functions are flawed because their computations might overflow. Aside from those flaws, however, these functions implement a generally useful strategy for defining order relations: If you want to compare two complicated objects, the strategy is to define a function that computes a single number from each object and then compares those numbers.
As long as equal objects yield equal numbers, this strategy clearly results in a valid order relation, because it is defined in terms of comparing numbers. However, there is no guarantee that the resulting order relation will be useful or even comprehensible. For example, the mapping from objects to numbers might be a cryptographic hash. In that case, the ordering would be somewhere between very difficult and impossible to understand. It would still be a valid ordering, but understanding it would be as hard as cracking the hash code.
For an order relation based on a mapping to numbers to be intuitively useful, then, the number that comes from each object needs to be related to the object in a useful way. For that matter, we don't even need to use numbers; what we need is a strategy for finding a useful mapping.
One such strategy might be to take each element of an object that is being compared, convert it somehow to a string, and concatenate all those strings to obtain a single string that describes the entire object. Comparing objects then turns into comparing strings.
This observation suggests that there is a natural connection between comparing objects with multiple components and comparing strings. That connection leads us to the notion of dictionary order, which we will describe next week.


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10043401Regular price $ 39.99
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- "It stood on a hill overlooking the village, some of its windows boarded, tiles missing from its roof, and ivy spreading unchecked over its face. Once a fine-looking manor, and easily the largest and grandest building for miles around, the Riddle House was now damp, derelict, and unoccupied."
- —Description[src]
The Riddle House is a manor house in Little Hangleton that was home to Thomas, Mary and Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort's paternal family. Their mansion was perched atop a hill overlooking the village. Voldemort murdered his grandparents and father in the Riddle House in 1943.
Early History
- "Across the valley, set on the opposite hillside, was a handsome manor house surrounded by a wide expanse of velvety green lawn"
- —Harry Potter seeing the Riddle House and the village of Little Hangleton while in Bob Ogden's memory in the Pensieve[src]
The Riddles were a wealthy Muggle family who owned over half the valley where Little Hangleton lay. They were known to be snobbish to the other villagers, though they engaged with them enough to gossip about the Gaunts, who lived in a rundown shack just outside the village.
Tom Riddle Sr. used to pass by the Gaunt shack on his horse, sometimes with his companion Cecilia, and was watched by an infatuated Merope Gaunt. When her brother Morfin discovered this, he hexed Riddle with hives. After Morfin and Marvolo Gaunt were imprisoned in Azkaban, Merope made a play for Riddle, likely using a Love Potion to obtain his affection. Their marriage caused great scandal in Little Hangleton, and they left for London. Tom soon returned to the Riddle House, however, having abandoned his wife and unborn child, Tom Marvolo Riddle. He claimed he had been "taken in" by Merope, and lived in the house with his parents for roughly sixteen more years.
The Riddle Murders
In the summer of 1943, sixteen-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle, whose mother had died shortly after giving birth, came to Little Hangleton in search of his family. Riddle visited the Gaunt shack and found his maternal uncle, Morfin Gaunt, living in deplorable conditions. Morfin immediately mistook Riddle for his father, Tom Riddle Sr., saying that he looked very much like "that Muggle that married my sister".
Upon learning of Riddle Sr.'s actions toward his mother and himself, Riddle stunned his uncle, took his wand, and proceeded to "the big house over the way" that Morfin had told him about to confront his father with murder in his heart. Riddle was seen climbing the hill towards the house by the gardener, Frank Bryce. He entered with a simple Unlocking Charm to unlock the door.Once inside, Riddle found his father and his grandparents in their drawing room, and murdered all three with the Killing Curse. It is unknown if any words were exchanged between them, although it seems likely. The Riddles were found with terrified looks frozen on their faces, and Riddle later informed Harry Potter in the Chamber of Secrets that his father had left his mother because she was a witch, implying that they discussed these matters before Riddle killed his paternal family members.
Framing of Morfin Gaunt
The gardener of the house, Frank Bryce, was wrongly accused of the Riddle murders, since the door had not been forced open and he was the only one with a key. The police could not determine the cause of death though, and Bryce was released. The Ministry of Magic, however, realised immediately that it was a wizard's murder and immediately suspected Morfin Gaunt, who had previously been imprisoned for using magic against Muggles, including Tom Riddle Sr.. Morfin testified proudly that he had killed the Riddles and had been awaiting his chance for some time, and his wand was found to have been the murder weapon. He was given a life sentence in Azkaban.
In reality, his nephew had modified Morfin's memory so that he would confess to the crime and there would be no further investigation into the matter. Riddle escaped Little Hangleton with Marvolo Gaunt's Ring and without suspicion. Albus Dumbledore would later discover the truth, but it was too late for Morfin, who died in prison.
Over the years, the house fell into disrepair, and few people wanted to actually live in the house due to its gruesome history. Frank Bryce was kept on by the house's current owner to do the gardening and to tend the grounds of the vast estate, and Bryce continued to live on the grounds for over fifty years. Its current owner is a very wealthy man who owns it for "tax reasons," although no one in Little Hangleton knows what the reasons may be. Still, like many before him, he never showed any inclination to physically occupy the house.
Use by Lord Voldemort
- Wormtail: "My Lord, may I ask how long are we going to stay here?"
- Voldemort: "A week. Perhaps longer. This place is moderately comfortable, and the plan cannot proceed yet. It would be foolish to act before the Quidditch World Cup is over."
- — Lord Voldemort and Wormtail in the Riddle House, discussing their plans[src]
In August of 1994, Lord Voldemort returned to the house with his servant, Peter Pettigrew, and decided to use it as his base of operations during the Triwizard Tournament. Frank Bryce saw a light coming from within the house late one night. Thinking it was children breaking into the house to set it on fire, Bryce took his keys and traveled up the hill to the Riddle House. Upon entering and climbing to its second level, he overheard Voldemort's conspiracy. He had no way of knowing that on the other side of the wall sat the true murderer of the Riddle family and the man responsible for all distrusting him in the village of Little Hangleton, nor that this was the "dark-haired boy" he himself had seen climbing toward the Riddle House that terrible day over half a century ago.
Bryce was soon discovered by Nagini and subsequently was "invited" into the room by Peter Pettigrew on the orders of Lord Voldemort. After a short conversation, Bryce demanded that Voldemort turn around from the fireplace and face him "like a man," to which Voldemort replied that he was "much more than a man" and agreed to turn around, requesting Pettigrew to turn the chair he was sitting in around to face Bryce. When this was done, Bryce let out a horrified scream when he saw Voldemort's sickly, rudimentary body, and his scream continued even after Voldemort raised his wand and used the Killing Curse.
In June of 1995, Voldemort pointed the house out to Harry Potter, whom he had trapped in the Little Hangleton graveyard, saying that his father and his family had once lived in "that house on the hill." After Harry escaped their duel and returned to Hogwarts, Voldemort ceased using the decaying estate as a hideout and subsequently left it. While the fate of the Riddle House was left unknown, Voldemort later made Malfoy Manor his new headquarters.
Description and Layout
- "He let himself in to the cavernous kitchen. Frank has not entered in for many years; nevertheless, although it was very dark, he remembered where the hall was. He reached the hall, which was a little lighter owing to the large mullioned windows on either side of the front door, and started to climb the stairs, blessing the dust that lay thick upon the stone, because it muffled the sound of his feet and stick."
- —Frank Bryce's description as he entered the Riddle House[src]
The Riddle House was a fine manor, built onto a hill that gave an overlooking view of the village. After the Riddles were all murdered, the Riddle House turned into disrepair. Many of the tiles were missing, the grounds were overgrown, and many of the windows were boarded up.
The back door led to the massive kitchen that opened up to the foyer. When Frank Bryce entered the house, thinking that there were intruders, he went up the stone steps and turned to the corridor, and there would be a door at the end of the passageway, which would be the drawing room that contained a fireplace and an armchair.


text: services-titleBy Courtney Posted February 24, 2016 In2016-02-242016-02-24http://www.courtneyrrhodes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/crgold-e1478569396213.pngCourtneyRRhodes.comhttp://www.courtneyrrhodes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/crgold-e1478569396213.png200px200px 0 0 Related CourtneyCourtney R. Rhodes is the author of Make Your Mark: Personal Branding Through "On-Purpose" Living. She is a brand building and marketing strategist, with a passion for working with socially conscious brands. She is the founder of UrbanityCommunications.com and TheBrandistaGuide.com. Courtney enjoys speaking about entrepreneurship, personal branding, personal style, marketing, women's empowerment, and professional development. She prides herself on being an eager student of the arts, humanities and the pursuit of happiness.Courtney is a graduate of Morgan State University ('98) and The University of Baltimore M.A. ('03).Recent PostsTips For Making Great First ImpressionsThe Step-By-Step Guide To Finding A New Job3-Tips To Build Your Personal BrandThree Simple Tactics To Build Your Personal Brand Leave a Comment Cancel reply Notify me of new posts by email.


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Advisors are in the business of managing client expectations, as noted advisor and Texas Tech professor Deena Katz likes to say, but for many advisors, managing money to meet those expectations can be beyond their ken or outside their business model.
So then, who are the best professional money managers, particularly in the separately managed account space? Which managers stick to their professed alpha-delivering knitting and do it year after year, throughout business and market cycles? Which managers can customize their offerings for clients' specific SRI or tax needs? We've done that work for you: for the ninth year in a row, Investment Advisor magazine has teamed with the Denver-based research and due diligence firm Prima Capital, now Envestnet | Prima, to announce the best separately managed account managers in multiple categories.
This year, the SMA Managers of the Year will be celebrated at a live event in Chicago, in online interviews posted to AdvisorOne and in the cover story of the June issue of Investment Advisor. (See the 2013 SMA Managers of the Year home page for more information and coverage.)
"Calm, cool and confident" is how we characterized last year's SMA Managers of the Year. "They've seen it all before and continue to outperform in the most volatile of markets."
"Seen it all" didn't consider the increasingly bifurcated markets and economy that were in play throughout 2012 and continued this year; record debt and deficits, budget sequester and ongoing high unemployment on one hand, and rebounding housing, manufacturing and new highs on the Dow and S&P 500 on the other.
How do they not only manage in such an environment, but outperform—as measured by 12 factors—their peers in calendar year 2012, as our nominees did? How do we choose the absolute best? Is it all about one-year performance? (No, it's not.) Picking the finalists and eventual winners is a difficult decision that springs from a well-honed, collaborative process that always keeps advisor access and the strategies' place in client portfolio-building top of mind.
The process begins each year with Envestnet | Prima looking for repeatable, sustainable investing processes in the SMA managers' strategies. Each strategy must have a clear "alpha thesis," and be available to advisors on multiple platforms to even be considered as candidates for this annual honor. The products must report to the PrimaGuide research application, have at least $200 million in assets and have tenured management of at least three years. Products and managers must rate highly according to Prima's due diligence process, which uses a proprietary, systematic, multifactor manager evaluation methodology that combines both quantitative and qualitative criteria. There are 13 factors that the Prima analysts consider before recommending the finalists for SMA Managers of the Year, including performance, firm, people, process, style, customer service, tax efficiency and a composite score.
The goal? To identify finalists for each award in four separate categories: U.S. Equity Large-Cap; U.S. Equity Mid, Small, or SMID-Cap; International or Global Equity; and Fixed Income. The Awards Committee panel that chooses the winners in each category—and this year, an individual SMA Manager of the Year who stands out even among this already stellar crowd—includes Gib Watson, CIMA, the founder and long-term leader of Prima (and now Envestnet Vice Chairman); Cliff Stanton, CFA, chief research officer of Envestnet | Prima; and two members of the advisor press: myself, editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor, and Jamie Green, editorial director of the Investment Advisor Group of Summit Business Media.
The process of choosing the award winners is no casual affair, and the Prima analysts who present multiple managers for consideration in each category must defend their choices to the Awards Committee, using their quantitative skills but also their qualitative knowledge of the managers and their teams and the firms that employ them.
This year's award winners will be announced on May 1, 2013, at the 2013 Envestnet Advisor Summit in Chicago, including the announcement of that first-ever overall SMA Manager of the Year.
The finalists for this year's Separately Managed Account Managers of the Year, in alphabetical order, are:
U.S. Equity Large-Cap
BRC Investment Management LLC, based in Greenwood Village, Colo., for its Large-Cap Concentrated Equity product.
Robeco Investment Management Inc., based in Boston, for its BP Large-Cap Value strategy.
TCW Investment Management Co., based in Los Angeles, for its TCW Concentrated Core (Large-Cap Growth) strategy.
Wedgewood Partners Inc., based in St. Louis, for its Large-Cap Focused Growth product
U.S. Equity Mid, Small, or SMID-Cap
EARNEST Partners, based in Atlanta, for its Mid-Cap Core strategy.
Glenmede Investment Management LP, based in Philadelphia, for the Glenmede Small-Cap Equity product.
GW&K Investment Management, based in Boston, for its Small-/Mid-Cap Equity Strategy (Wrap).
Riverbridge Partners, based in Minneapolis, for its SMID-Cap Growth strategy.
International or Global Equity Award
Harding Loevner, based in Bridgewater, N.J., for its Global Equity ADR product.
Thomas White International, Ltd., based in Chicago, for its International ADR product.
Fixed Income Award
GW&K Investment Management, based in Boston, for its Enhanced Core Bond Strategy.
Tom Johnson Investment Management, based in Oklahoma City, for its Intermediate Fixed Income product.
We invite you to visit the 2013 SMA Managers of the Year home page to view profiles of these finalists and for additional and ongoing coverage of the winners and the award ceremony.


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Programming languages are living phenomena: They're born, the lucky ones that don't die in infancy live sometimes long, fruitful lives, and then inevitably enter a period of decline. Unlike real life, the decline can last many, many years as the presence of large legacy codebases means practiced hands must tend the code for decades. The more popular the language once was, the longer this period of decline will be.
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The emergence of a new language, however, is almost always tied to needs in a specific sector. For example, Ruby's sudden adoption when Ruby on Rails appeared, and Objective-C's surge, which began in 2007 when the iPhone first shipped. So, understanding the movements up or down the fluctuations as well as the trends often delivers valuable insights into the current coding issues.
The most recent processor phenomenon the transition from the multicore to many-core era was expected to set the stage for the emergence of functional languages, which fit well with concurrent programming. But most surveys from 2012 still show no major breakthrough. If a functional language does separate from the pack, the leading candidates are Scala and Clojure, with Scala enjoying the greater adoption right now. (Per Ohloh's language figures, which cover all open source projects, and Google trends, which indicate search traffic. On the venerable Tiobe index, which tracks the number of Web pages that mention a given language, Haskell, Erlang, and Scala are effectively tied and ahead of Clojure.)
Language popularity numbers tend to frustrate advocates both for and against certain languages. For years, the fall of Java has been predicted for example. But numbers from the aforementioned three sources suggest otherwise. Java, year over year, is effectively unchanged during the last three years. It is holds either the #1 or #2 (behind C) spot in all major language surveys. This might appear to indicate that the constant complaints about the language and the availability numerous alternatives that run on the JVM (JRuby, Scala, Kotlin, Clojure, Fantom, Gosu, and the rest) have not diminished Java's popularity. However, I think the greater truth is that the language is in decline in its traditional settings, but that the popularity of Android has made up for the shortfall.
The other major mobile language, Objective-C, did well, too: It surged in the Tiobe index (garnering the most growth of any language year over year). On Google trends, it has remained at the same high levels it reached after 2007 (when the first iPhone was launched and mobile development came into its own). However, if Android continues to eat into Apple's worldwide market share, we should expect to see Objective-C stabilize and Java grow.
In general-purpose scripting languages, Python continues to grow slowly, JavaScript and Ruby are treading water, and Perl continues its long decline. According to Google trends, the number of searches for Perl is 19% of what it was in 2004. Its declining role in open-source communities further cements the perception that it's in an irretrievable tailspin. One should always be careful pronouncing a language dead or dying, because rare resurrections have occurred: JavaScript and Objective-C being two stand-out cases. However, Perl is unlikely to see such a new lease on life because of direct competition from Python, which is considerably more popular (whereas Objective-C and JavaScript had no direct equivalents when they came back).
The primary native languages, C and C++, remained effectively the same, rising or falling slightly in the various surveys. The numbers undermine the hope articulated by Microsoft's Herb Sutter that we would see a C++ "renaissance." Google Trends for the last five years shows a steady drop in queries about C++:
Most established languages see a downtrend in Google queries over the last five years, so the decline is not inherently damning although if a renaissance were afoot, you'd expect to see some upturn. Other indicators of the language (such as changed LOCs in OSS) are, in fact, holding steady. Some even have increased slightly. I think that part of Sutter's hope of renewal was based on C++11 being finalized and the expectation of greater adoption of the language in conjunction with the release of Windows 8. However, I can see nothing that suggests this is occurring. In fact, I can find no evidence that C++ is breaking into new niches at a pace that will affect the language's overall numbers. For that to happen, it would need to emerge as a primary language in one of today's busiest sectors: mobile, or the cloud, or big data. Time will tell, but I feel comfortable projecting that C++ will continue to grow in its traditional niches and will advance at the same rate as those niches grow.
Other quick thoughts: Lua and Tcl, the two languages most used for embedding in C and C++, continue to head in opposite directions. Lua is widely used in gaming and the advent of the new, screamingly fast LuaJIT has made it an attractive option even in performance-sensitive contexts. Tcl meanwhile continues its decline, which has been attributed by insiders to core design issues, slow releases, and poor marketing decisions.
In 2012, we covered several emerging languages we thought had good potential for breaking into the mainstream, notably D, Go, and Dart. While they have not yet entered the premier tier, they are slowly working their way forward and gaining adherents. We will examine more new and interesting languages this year and report on their progress as they vie for developer love.
— Andrew Binstock
Editor in Chief
[email protected]
Twitter: platypusguy


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This Friday at Pivotal Labs Boulder, we're hosting an evening of food, drink and discussion, to bring some of our learnings around Lean User Experience to the larger design community, and in particular to attendees of the annual international IxDA conference.
We, in this case, is a group of smart folks I've had the privilege to work with over the past year, a working group called the Balanced Team. This particular event is the result of the hard work of people at Cooper, Hot Studio, LUXr, SideReel and Atomic Object.
For the past year, we've been sharing ideas and discussing new ways to approach design and product development, to create better products, make happier customers, and reduce waste. We've been doing this while creating better integrated, more collaborative, more responsive teams. In that time, a number of us have been getting together on a regular basis to really sit down and discuss what works and what doesn't, and to try to distill these ideas into principles and techniques that are repeatable and practical.
We've been itching to engage with the larger design community to start to break down the culture of Big Upfront Design, the Cult of the Rockstar Designer, and the culture of necessary infallability; to fight the blind application of Waterfall and to disrupt the antipatterns we've found so antithetical to effective collaboration with agile development teams; to encourage patterns that allow designers to embrace early customer feedback, and to test hypotheses quickly; and most importantly, to foster a deeper collaboration with the very folks who have the biggest impact on what we build. We've seen over and over that, when done correctly, a light-weight process gives designers more control, not less.
It's out of this series of discussions that I first arrived at a framing of the problem space that I talk about in Enough Design, and it's also through these sessions that we've found a growing community of designers, product people, enterprises and other developers who are working to develop better techniques for integrated product development. We've found the conversation immensely valuable in our practice, and we hope to learn and share with more of you.
If you're a designer in Boulder for IxDA, or just someone who cares about usable techniques for bringing Lean principles into the development of compelling User Experience, come join us on Friday for deLUX. This is a free event, but space is limited, so please RSVP through https://blog.pivotal.io/landing/deLUX.
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