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No static type analysis of E source code.
The optional SlotMaker expression in an E variable declaration is
intended, among other things, to allow the programmer to give a compiler
static type information about the values that the variable may hold.
A sophisticated compiler could make direct use of this, and indirect
use as an aid to infer further types. With static type knowledge,
a sophisticated compiler could generate better code than the simple
compiler proposed by ENative.
Only simple scope analysis.
Crucial to the efficiency of E, even for a simple naive implementation
such as ENative, is partitioning variables into one of several
cases, and implementing variable definition, access, assignment,
and slot access differently according to which kind of variable we
No use of C++'s "virtual".
"virtual" is C++'s mechanism for run-time polymorphism,
and its notation hides some implementation cost. By avoiding it, we
ensure that all run-time polymorphism is provided only by C's pointer-to-function
mechanism, leaving all costs clear.
No use of C++'s template feature,
except possibly for the various scalar Lists. The complexity isn't
worth it.
No unnecessary use of C++'s references.
By always using pointers instead, indirection costs are always explicit.
Note: if the C++ compilers of interest normally generate better
code for references than pointers, which is quite possible, then this
decision may be revisited.
Absorb, rather than reify, E's stack
discipline. Approximately following Brian
Smith's usage, by "absorb" I mean that E calls turn
into C++ calls, E (implicit) returns turn into C++ (explicit) returns,
and E exception throwing & catching turns into C++ exception throwing
& catching. In the other conventional language implementation
option -- reifying stack discipline -- we would implement E's implicit
stack state in explicit C++ data structures. By absorbing, we also
allow C++ native (primitive) code to be written in a style natural
to the C++ programmer.
No portable virtual machine support
for stack debugging. This is one of the consequences of absorbing
E's stack discipline into C++'s. In the resulting code, there is no
data structure accessible to portable C++ code that explicitly represents
the C++ stack, and therefore no data structure that explicitly represents
the E stack. For a widely ported C++ compiler & debugger combo
such as gcc/gdb, it is conceivable one could provide "portable"
debugging access to the E stack by wrapping gdb's provision of "portable"
access to the C++ stack. I put "portable" in scare-quotes
to emphasize that this would be portable across hardware platforms
but not across C++ implementations.
It is fine for this meta-level access to be much slower than normal
Portable meta-level access to
board-state in support of, for example, debugging and serialization
control. E computation within a vat occurs as a sequence of atomic
transactions called turns. Each turn consists of the synchronous
processing to completion of a pending delivery from that vat's vat-queue.
Stack state only occurs within a turn. The state of greater importance,
for most meta-level purposes, is the state present in a vat between
turns. If we think of a vat as a game board and a turn as a turn in
a game, the states during a turn (including stack state) are transitional:
"The pawn is in my hand, because I've picked it up but haven't
put it back down." We call the well-defined states between turns
board-states. A turn always computes from one board-state to
A board-state consists of the states of the objects within the vat,
the state of the vat's pending delivery queue, the states of various
primitive "devices", and the state of a vat's comm system
-- managing the references that cross between this vat and other vats.
The E virtual machine will define portable means for accessing all
of this board-state (as well as manipulating some of it). ENative
must implement this spec using only portable C++ constructs, rather
than, as above, relying on features provided by a particular C++ implementation.
Fortunately, only object-state access is relevant to the subset of
E currently represented by ENative.
As above, it is fine for this meta-level access to be much slower
than normal computation.
Assume a garbage collector.
There are so many ways to implement garbage collection, with
so many performance tradeoffs, that ENative simply defers this
issue for now and naively allocates (using C++'s "new")
without every freeing. Some conservative garbage collectors are happy
to live underneath such C++ code and successfully garbage collect
without further programmer (or compiler) attention. The overhead of
a given garbage collection scheme can usually be approximated as a
function of the number of objects allocated. Any benchmarks run on
ENative would have to be adjusted by these estimates before they should
be taken seriously.
Except for garbage collection, impose
all costs that a complete implementation would impose. ENative,
being for now an academic exercise, is, and may remain, far from a
complete implementation of Kernel-E. However, of the Kernel-E programs
that it does run, it should be at least as expensive as a complete
implementation of ENative would be. For example, the SmallInteger
add code checks for overflow. If overflow occurs, it throws a "BigInteger
Not Yet Implemented" exception rather than allocating
one, but this imposes all the costs on the successful case that a
complete implementation would impose. The resulting measured timing
may be taken as a reliable lower bound on performance (or upper bound
on expected running time) except for
longer startup times, due both to the larger footprint and to
more static initialization. (But still expected to be trivial
compared to Java's startup time.)
Impose costs of upgrade-for-prototyping.
This is really a special case of the above, but is listed separately
since it is the least obvious cost that would be imposed by a complete
implementation. To support rapid prototyping, the E specification,
like Smalltalk, supports the loading of replacement behavior for already
instantiated objects, and the conversion of these old object states
to become post-facto instances of the new behavior. Like at least
ParcPlace Smalltalk, this is done lazily at the time the obsolete
objects are invoked. Unlike Smalltalk, E has not yet implemented this
feature. ENative does not either, but it does impose all the costs
on normal execution needed to support this feature.
Note that an upgrade (whether -for-prototyping or -for-release) only
becomes effective between turns, so it need only worry about old object-states
and old undelivered messages, but not old stack-frames. This is quite
fortunate, as there is nothing obvious one can do with a stale stack-frame following an upgrade. (A note to be put somewhere else: Under
normal conditions, an upgrade-for-release also need not deal with
old undelivered messages, since neither the vat-queue nor Eventual
references are checkpointed.)
Compile rather than interpret,
but use runtime conventions that allow either. The ENative runtime,
corresponding approximately to ELib, accomodates both E code compiled
into C++ according to its conventions, as well as the interpretation,
by a hypothetical byte-code interpreter, of E compiled to a hypothetical
byte code language. Indeed, I first designed ENative with a byte code
interpreter in mind before I switched to a compilation strategy. Compiling
to C++ has the obvious advantage of speed. A disadvantage that often
drives implementations towards interpreters is code-size blow up.
But by taking an absorption strategy, we manage to avoid this problem.
The remaining disadvantages of compilation are
Dynamic code loading becomes non-portable.
This is much like the debugging issue above. A given widely-ported
C++ system, such as gcc, may provide a platform portable way to
dynamically load new code, but C++ code using this abstraction
would be specific to this C++ system, while being hardware-platform
independent. The E language spec requires dynamic code loading,
so a complete implementation of ENative must deal with this issue.
Were we to interpret byte-codes instead (or in addition), then
this issue would go away.
Dynamic code unloading becomes
similarly non-protable. This is called out separately because
it would also interact with the assumed garbage collector.
Call-site cacheing. Experience
with dynamic object language implementations, especially Smalltalk,
shows that if there's one "sophisticated" optimization that's
worth doing, it's "call-site
cacheing" (originally known as an "inline method cache",
invented by Deutsch and Schiffman and presented at POPL 1984). For
a given message call/send expression, if the dynamic implementation-type
(script) of the object is the same as it was last time, as it usually
is, then this call/send would look up the same method, so go there
directly. ENative demonstrates that this optimization can be coded
very simply. The flow of execution on a cache hit we call the fast-path.
The execution on a cache miss is the slow-path. These caches
must, of course, be invalidated by an upgrade-for-prototyping.
bug (including invalid


text:
The Ravens finalized a contract Sunday with former New England Patriots safety James Ihedigbo, a move intended to bolster depth at an injury-riddled position.
Ihedigbo, 28, visited the Ravens on Saturday and agreed to terms Sunday morning, according to a league source with knowledge of the situation.
Later Sunday, Ihedigbo indicated via his Twitter account that he had joined the defending AFC North champions after being released by the Patriots on Friday during the final major roster cut.
"Fresh start," Ihedigbo wrote. "God is good, honored to be a Baltimore Raven!"
The Ravens have been seeking help at safety because of injuries to Emanuel Cook, who underwent surgery on his broken right leg and was placed on injured reserve, and Sean Considine, who has been sidelined since the third preseason game after suffering a pair of concussions within one week.
No corresponding roster move has been announced.
Ihedigbo is a 6-foot-1, 214-pounder who started a dozen games last season for the Patriots and recorded 69 tackles and one pass deflection. He's also known as a physical special-teams contributor.
Baltimore Ravens Insider
For his career, which includes three seasons with the New York Jets, Ihedigbo has made 118 tackles and five sacks.
He was a Walter Camp All-American at Massachusetts and signed with the Jets in 2008 after going undrafted.
The Ravens have also added former Green Bay Packers safety Anthony Levine and undrafted rookie safety Omar Brown to the practice squad.
Brown recorded three fumble recoveries and one interception during the preseason for Baltimore before being cut Friday.
The Ravens filled out their eight-man practice squad with former Pittsburgh Steelers backup quarterback Dennis Dixon and outside linebacker Adrian Hamilton, who was cut by the Dallas Cowboys after leading the nation with 20 1/2 sacks last season at Prairie View A&M. Dixon tried out for the Ravens in the spring along with Kyle Boller and Curtis Painter, who was released Friday.
The other practice squad players include: inside linebacker Josh Bynes, offensive linemen Antoine McClain and Jack Cornell and running back Anthony Allen.
"Watching their defense with Ray Lewis and Ed Reed, taking my talent to Baltimore was my best option," Hamilton said in a telephone interview Sunday from the Dallas airport. "I bring a fire. I'm hungry to get to the quarterback. I want to help the team in any way possible, whatever it takes."
Baltimore Sun reporter Jeff Zrebiec contributed to this article.

subset: commoncrawl


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Home > Consumer Protection > Consumer News & Information > FDIC Consumer News
FDIC Consumer News
Summer 2013
New Protections for Consumers Sending Money Abroad
Each year, consumers in the U.S. send tens of billions of dollars to friends, family members or businesses in other countries using wire transfers and other electronic payments often called remittances.
While remittance transfer providers have been subject to federal laws against money laundering and to state licensing requirements (and in some cases, other state rules and restrictions), the protections for consumers sending remittances abroad varied widely by state, and international money transfers have been largely outside of the scope of federal consumer protection laws. But in 2010, the Dodd-Frank financial reform law expanded the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to establish minimum consumer protections for remittances. Those new protections will take effect on October 28, 2013, under new rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that are heavily focused on disclosures for consumers.
If you plan to send money abroad, here are key points to remember.
Remittance transfer providers must give consumers important information before and after a transaction takes place. Before a consumer pays to send money internationally, the service provider must disclose details such as the exchange rate to be used when converting the money to the foreign currency, the amount of certain fees and taxes, and how much money the recipient will receive. Assuming the sender goes forward with the transaction, the provider must give the consumer a receipt that includes the information disclosed before making the payment as well as additional details, such as when the money will be available and who the sender can contact if there is a problem with the transfer.
Increasing transparency on the costs of the transaction will help consumers shop for the best deal among providers, said Sherry Betancourt, a Senior Attorney in the FDICs Legal Division. Consumers will benefit from knowing early on about important information such as fees and exchange rates, as well as who to contact if there is a problem.
Consumers have the ability to cancel a transfer that has taken place. After making payment, a consumer may cancel the transaction and get a full refund as long as the request is made within 30 minutes. However, different cancellation procedures may apply for wire transfers scheduled in advance, such as recurring, pre-authorized remittances from a bank account. To cancel a transfer, the service provider must be able to identify the sender and the transaction. Finally, the funds must not have been picked up by the designated recipient or deposited into that persons account.
Complaints and errors must be resolved within a certain time frame. Service providers are obligated to investigate a complaint and respond to the consumer in a timely manner. If the provider finds that an error did occur, it must either send the correct amount at no additional cost to the consumer or provide a refund. Although its generally best to report a problem to the provider as soon as possible, the sender will have up to 180 days to do so.
If the sender isnt satisfied with the outcome of the companys review, he or she can file a complaint with the CFPB (see below). And unlike in the past, any consumer who is overcharged or whose funds do not reach the intended recipient now has remedies under federal law, said Richard M. Schwartz, Counsel in the FDIC Legal Division.
Most but not all remittance transactions will be subject to the new consumer protections. The rules will apply to remittances that exceed $15, are made by consumers in the U.S., and are sent to a person or a company in a foreign country. However, the rules generally do not apply to providers that consistently make 100 or fewer remittance transfers per year.
For more information, go to www.consumerfinance.gov or call the CFPB at 1-855-411-2372. To learn how to protect against wire fraud when sending money in the United States or another country, see Dont Get Taken by Wire Transfer Scams.
Last Updated 2/12/2014


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Handmade to order by us in our workshop in the Surrey countryside, handmade within 4-5 days. Bespoke h andmade Luxurious quality Taupe/Beige/Natural Velvet Fabric Lampshade in Willow. Very soft to touch with a sheen/shimmer.
Hite or one of our 6 Brushed Metallic inner linings Brushed Metallic colours Gold, Champagne, Copper, Silver, Bronze & Pale rose gold. Bespoke/ larger sizes up to 70cm wide can be made, please message us for cost.
Efore purchasing please be sure of colour choices. Only inner lining samples available from this listing. P attern placement will vary on each shade, listing photo is for illustration purposes only. European fitting (40mm) with a British adaptor (28mm) will fit all types of lamp holder.
Low energy bulbs are strongly recommended, we. Recommend that you use a bulb of maximum 60W Standard, 48W Halogen or 12W LED. PLEASE NOTE if the lampshade has an inner lining i. E metallic, vinyl & wallpaper, the inner lining will not allow the light to permeate as well through the sides as without, the amount of light will vary with different colours.
The light will tend to glow from the top & bottom of the shade, with a hue of the lining colour. The larger the shade the more light you will have, the glow of the lining colour will be stronger with a smaller lampshade.
All o ur lampshades are handmade to order , they are non returnable unless faulty or damaged under UK law. Different computer monitors may show colours slightly different to original colour, can not be held responsible for this.Please do research on fabric if in doubt of colour. All our shades are made with a flame retardant lining which is tested for fire resistance to comply with BS EN 60598-1-2008 - the British Standard for Luminaries, the. PVC lining material has been tested in the Lighting Association laboratories and has passed the glow wire test. Fabrics, textiles, paper or plastics that have been laminated to our PVC, become fire resistant. If the lampshade has an inner lining i. I Love fabric is a trading name of the antique pine workshop, we sell our handmade Lampshades & cushions, antique/vintage furniture, industrial, shop fittings & home accessories. Scottish islands, Scottish Highlands, Northern Ireland, Isle of Wight, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Scilly Isles. All items need to be checked for any damages on arrival, please notify the couriers on arrival. If the item has not been checked on arrival you will be liable for any damages once the item has been delivered. All our lampshades are bespoke/handmade to order. They are non returnable unless faulty or damaged under UK law. The item "Designer Taupe Biege Velvet Fabric Lampshade Brushed Metallic Gold 7 linings" is in sale since Friday, June 14, 2019. This item is in the category "Home, Furniture & DIY\Lighting\Lampshades & Lightshades". The seller is "originaleclectic" and is located in Surrey. This item can be shipped to United Kingdom, Antigua and barbuda, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Australia, United States, Bahrain, Canada, Brazil, Japan, New Zealand, China, Israel, Hong Kong, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Bangladesh, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Barbados, Brunei darussalam, Cayman islands, Dominica, Ecuador, Egypt, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Guadeloupe, Grenada, French guiana, Iceland, Jersey, Jordan, Cambodia, Saint kitts and nevis, Saint lucia, Liechtenstein, Sri lanka, Macao, Monaco, Maldives, Montserrat, Martinique, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Peru, Paraguay, Reunion, Turks and caicos islands, Aruba, Saudi arabia, South africa, United arab emirates, Ukraine, Chile, Bahamas, Colombia, Costa rica, Dominican republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Kuwait, Panama, Philippines, Qatar, Trinidad and tobago, Uruguay, Viet nam.


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By Breeanna Hare, CNN
(CNN) - To become Google's first female engineer in 1999 - and, eventually, one of the most powerful women in tech - Marissa Mayer had to get comfortable with risk.
"I always did something I was a little not ready to do," she said last year while speaking on her best decisions in a talk with NPR Correspondent Laura Sydell. "That feeling at the end of the day, where you're like, 'what have I gotten myself into?' I realized that sometimes when you have that feeling and you push through it, something really great happens."
If the 37-year-old still makes career moves by her tried-and-true process, then she's likely anticipating something great to occur in her new role as Yahoo's CEO.
Mayer's hiring last summer, which accordng to Fortune made her the youngest head of a Fortune 500 company, came as a surprise, and her high-wire decisions since have spread far wider than Yahoo's campus.
First, there was her brief maternity leave after she gave birth to her son in September. When the Silicon Valley star first announced that she was pregnant, on the very same day Yahoo revealed she was the company's new CEO, some saw it as a progressive move and hoped Mayer would set a new standard for mothers trying to balance the competing demands of their corporate and familial roles.
What they saw instead was a businesswoman eager to get back in the office and who said that having a new baby in her life wasn't as difficult as she'd been told.
But the real critiques came last month when Yahoo's HR department issued an e-mail telling staff that they will no longer be able to work from home, prompting an angry backlash and leading some to question Mayer's judgment.
While some found her position just, others hoping the new mom would create a more reasonable corporate culture interpreted the move as unfair, noting that Mayer approved the edict while building a nursery next to her office - not an option for most working parents.
But over her nearly 14-year career in the tech world, Mayer has consistently shaken up expectations. If we've learned anything about this influential computer engineer-turned-corporate executive, it's that she plays the game of business by her own rules.
1. She doesn't do stereotypes
Part of the legend of Marissa Mayer is that she doesn't fit into our assumptions of what it means to be a tech geek.FULL STORY


text:
Description: Made from the Jaxbook theme, i liked the set up so I improved its UI. Enjoy!
Authors: JJstorm & Global Moderator
Preview: WorldRP Community (minus the BG)
Comments: Still a wip. Will post wrapper and CSS soon.
To be posted...
To be posted...
Edited by: JJstorm , Jul 10th, 2016 @ 1:23 am


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Stay Tuned: More millennial workplace adventures on 'The Bold Type' season 2
The millennial women of fictional "Scarlet" magazine are back navigating life, love and work in the second season of the "The Bold Type." The show continues to emphasize female empowerment, as the main characters Sutton, Jane and Kat represent a model of supportive friendship. It's a light, breezy take on building a career and finding your place in the world with your friends by your side.
The second season picks up where the first left off. Jane (Katie Stevens) has quit "Scarlet" to write more hard-hitting journalism for internet magazine "Incite." Kat (Aisha Dee) returns from her overseas trip where she committed to her Muslim girlfriend Adena (Nikohl Boosheri), who secures a three-month visa and moves back with her. Sutton (Meghann Fahy), having chosen her career over board member Richard (Sam Page) in order to avoid the perception of special treatment, still has to deal with rumors that she is sleeping her way to the top.
The show is topical with storylines that focus on racial identity, workplace conflicts, even a nod to the #metoo movement, but there's no problem too complex that a meaningful conversation among friends and feisty determination can't solve. Every episode follows an arc where characters come to terms with things and lessons are learned, usually in declarative sentences. Sutton tells Richard: "I'm putting my money down on my career and I believe love will fall into place." Jane takes a stand on journalistic integrity: "When we sensationalize people for the purpose of getting more eyes on the story, that story gets lost." Kat takes ownership of both sides of her biracial identity, realizing that sometimes there is power in labels: "It feels important to embrace this part of myself."
"The Bold Type" is not subtle but the camaraderie between the actors makes its teachable moments feel like (not too deep) life advice from relatable women. Fahy, Stevens and Dee have fun with their roles and with each other, which makes their characters and their performances likeable.
Hardin, as "Scarlet" boss Jacqueline (Melora Hardin), continues her mentor role, offering wise council and professional support with just a touch of maternal instinct. When Sutton's work performance starts to suffer after she questions how she relates to men while on the job, Jacqueline notices, takes an interest and says her magnetic personality is a professional asset not a liability. The character is a statement on aspirational leadership, often reducing Hardin's performance to delivering a few motivational lines and not much else. But a storyline involving a female board member sets up new tension for Jacqueline, which will give Hardin more to do this season.
"The Bold Type" was dubbed a millennial "Sex and the City" when it debuted last year and like that series, it celebrates the power of female friendship and doesn't shy away from frank sexual discussions. This season kicks off with Kat and Adena having a talk about oral sex and their relationship. Also like that show, everyone wears great clothes, attends fantastic parties and lives the dream in NYC.
"The Bold Type" returns on June 12 at 9 p.m. EDT on Freeform.
— Melissa Crawley is the author of "Mr. Sorkin Goes to Washington: Shaping the President on Television's 'The West Wing.'" She has a Ph.D. in media studies and is a member of the Television Critics Association. To comment on Stay Tuned, email her at firstname.lastname@example.com or follow her on Twitter at @MelissaCrawley.


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By James Kwak
Helene Cooper of the New York Times wrote a "news analysis" story saying that the challenge for President Obama is this:
"Is he willing to try to administer the disagreeable medicine that could help the economy mend over the long term, even if that means damaging his chances for re-election?"
The problem, she goes on to say in the next paragraph, is that the economy is in bad shape:
"The Federal Reserve's finding on Tuesday that there is little prospect for rapid economic growth over the next two years was the latest in a summer of bad economic news."
Now ordinarily I wouldn't pick on the Times for something like this: it is just a newspaper, after all. But this case is a good example of right-wing talking points leaking into the mainstream media and then becoming part of the conventional wisdom, which is something that should be cut off as soon as possible.
This framing has a certain kind of narrative resonance: Is the young, "untested" leader of the free world willing to sacrifice himself for the good of the country? Is he, like Harry Potter, willing to face death to save the world from Lord Voldemort?
The problem is, it's completely backwards. The "disagreeable medicine" Cooper suggests is budget cuts, including cuts in entitlement programs like Social Security. But that has nothing to do with the problem she presents at the beginning: slow economic growth. Anyone who is reading this blog already knows that budget cuts are contractionary in the short term. The "medicine" the economy needs now is more government spending, not less, and there's nothing disagreeable with putting more people to work and building more stuff that people want.*
There is a somewhat valid debate about whether deficit-cutting is good in the medium and long term. There have been papers purporting to show that deficit-cutting can lead to higher economic growth, but those have confused deficit-cutting in a boom and deficit-cutting in a slump. (See Mike Konczal for a summary of that debate.) In other words, it could be a good idea to cut the deficit when the economy is strong (because then it could lower interest rates for the private sector), but not when it is weak (and certainly not when interest rates are already extremely low). A recent paper by economists at the IMF reaffirms that when you restrict your sample to episodes of deficit-cutting that are not confounded by concurrent economic conditions that the deficit-cutting is responding to, you find that deficit-cutting lowers economic growth.
So why is Helene Cooper ready to dispatch Frodo Baggins off to Mordor to toss the One Ring into Mt. Doom, when really all he needs to do is head back to the Shire and throw a huge party, putting unemployed caterers, bakers, and entertainers back to work? I think it's because if right-wing politicians and commentators keep repeating that the deficit is hurting the economy ("job-killing deficits," of course), then otherwise reasonable people start to believe it. See for example this priceless passage from the House Budget Resolution:
"Government at all levels is mired in debt. Mismanagement and overspending have left the nation on the brink of bankruptcy. Only recently, millions of American families saw their dreams destroyed in a financial disaster caused by misguided policies, perverse incentives, and irresponsible leadership. This crisis squandered the nation's savings and crippled its economy."
If you didn't know better, reading that would make you think that the financial crisis and recession were caused by government debt.
So now we're at the point where ordinary people are starting to believe this nonsense. And that means we need to stamp it out whenever possible.
* Arguably, tax cuts would work, too. I think that government spending is highly preferable for two reasons. First, spending is easy to undo after it is no longer necessary (or even before—see ARRA for Exhibit A), while tax cuts seem to be forever. Second, spending has a higher multiplier.


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I don't get it. These clothes looked great in the store and I was so excited to buy them but now, they're just... meh. Sorcerers and Their Apprentices discusses the impulse spending epidemic and how one app may hold the cure.
If you spend a few hours chatting with Charlie DeTar, a doctoral student in Chris Schmandt's Speech + Mobility group at the Media Lab, you'll likely come away thinking — as I did — that health care isn't the only area where we might be able to encourage better, more constructive behavior by arming people with more information about the consequences of their everyday choices and providing them with the tools to help them make better ones. DeTar believes that impulsive spending is another social epidemic, like obesity, that often results from "irrational" short-term decisions that may be pleasurable in the moment but make us unhappy in the long run.
DeTar's 2009 master's thesis project, called Merry Miser, was certainly well timed, coming as it did in the midst of the global financial crisis. By now it's widely known that out-of-control consumer spending was one of the many factors contributing to the precipitous meltdown. But DeTar maintains that this storm was brewing for the past two decades, as advances in information and communication technologies have enabled the marketing and advertising industries — or what he calls the persuasive media — to become more and more effective in influencing consumers' behavior.
For example, the explosive growth of the mobile phone industry and advances in the mobile phone platform such as location-tracking software have given the purveyors of persuasive media new ways to influence people to buy more. Today, using sophisticated real-time datamining algorithms, the persuasive media can "respond in real time, personalize its message, and interact in much richer and deeper ways than older media like TV, radio, or print advertisements." He cites systems that send advertisements, promotions, and coupons that are personalized according to a person's unique habits, spending profiles, and current location, straight to his or her mobile phone. To that I would add new technologies like near field communication that make it faster and easier to make purchases on the spot using your smart phone, whenever the impulse hits.
Yet, DeTar believes that the very same advances that have made us sitting ducks for advertisers and turned our lives into nonstop shopping sprees can actually be used to help us curb our spending and take control of our finances. Just as is the case with health care, too much information is currently part of the problem, but with the right tools, it can instead become part of the solution.
That's exactly the point of Merry Miser, a location-based service for smart phones that, instead of giving companies more information about our spending behavior patterns and habits, puts that information back in our hands, then helps us use it to spend less, and save more. Merry Miser is effectively an intervention — a tool to help you be more aware of your habits and understand the long-term consequences of your decisions before you make them, like at the moment just before you take that first step into a shop, restaurant, casino, or anywhere it knows, based on your past behavior, you are likely to be tempted to spend money. A true antidote to impulse shopping, "the goal is to make you more aware of your desires and impulses at the moment and how you're going to view your purchases in the long term," DeTar explains.
Here's how it works. Let's say that you frequently shop at a local clothing store. Every time you walk near the store, your Merry Miser, which knows exactly where you are from the GPS in the smart phone, will buzz and send you a text message reminding you how much money you have spent in that shop in the past and the amount of your average purchase. It will also remind you that when you were asked a few days after the purchases how you felt about them, they had quickly lost their luster for you. In fact, Merry Miser will remind you that you gave the overall shopping experience at that store a lukewarm rating, and when asked how you felt about your purchase a full month later, you admitted it was still hanging somewhere in the back of your closet, with the tags still on. Then, in case you didn't get the picture, Merry Miser will inform you that your "happiness" rating for shopping at this store is LOW. If that isn't enough to make you resist that sweater in the window display, Merry Miser will show you a simple visual image depicting the current state of your finances relative to your goals. And finally, just to be sure you remember the value of being thrifty, it will show you a poignant and motivational quote, like this one from Bertrand Russell: "To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."
As you can see, Merry Miser is less about managing your money and more about managing your information about your impulses, desires, and habits, and the emotions behind them, to help you make more reasoned, rational spending decisions. "There is no moment when Merry Miser tells you 'don't spend,' " DeTar explains. "The information it presents is relatively neutral in respect to whether or not you should make the purchase. The purpose is to make you more aware of exactly where your money is going and how this is contributing to your well-being. It helps you to make a better decision." Again, we see how technology can be used to right the imbalance between what other people — in this case, businesses — know about us and what we know about ourselves, and it can put the power back in our hands.
Merry Miser is currently in its prototype stage, being tested by a handful of subjects. DeTar acknowledges that in order for a service like Merry Miser to take off, banks will need to participate by making some changes in how they record their transactions, making certain information more public. Given how much money the banks make from consumers' overspending today, he is sure that this will take some time. But I believe that eventually, technologies like Merry Miser will convince banks and other consumer businesses that in the long run they will make more money by helping people spend their money wisely. Everyone will be better off, and perhaps we will avoid a recurrence of the irrational behavior that helped bring us all to the brink of disaster just a few years ago.
Excerpted from The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices by Frank Moss © 2011 Frank Moss. Reprinted by permission of Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group
Frank Moss is managing partner of Strategic Software Ventures, LLC, and a part-time professor of the practice at the MIT Media Lab, where he heads the New Media Medicine group. He has spent his career developing innovative technologies and bringing them to market.
The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices: How the Digital Magicians of the MIT Media Lab Are Creating the Innovative Technologies That Will Transform Our Lives is available from Amazon.com


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United Kingdom
If ever there was an example of how hard work pays, then surely Luke Woodham is it. While some drivers are born into race teams, others have to work hard just to jump behind the wheel once. This is why when we saw Luke tearing it up at Gymkhana GRiD way back in 2012, in the same car he drove to the event in, we had to get behind him. It's been a tricky journey for 30 year old though to go from fixing busted motorcycles as a full time mechanic, to turning pro. In just a handful of years, Luke's talent behind the wheel has taken him from relative obscurity to scoring multiple titles in the Gymkhana GRiD European Gauntlet Series, as well as podiums in the British Drift Championship. All this, in a car that he cut, welded, painted and prepared in his own back yard. Not bad right?


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Here's a recent blog post that makes me want to throw a chair:
But for all the moral outrage one can level at a person bitching about making "only" $250K, know that $250K per annum is much closer to the minimum starting point you need to bank in order to have a shot at "making it" in the expensive cities of America. Living the dream requires a whole hell of a lot more…. if you are earning $50,000 a year, the prospect of earning $250,000 a year probably seems like a panacea. Think about it: you'd be earning five times as much! I've yet to meet the person who wouldn't love to quintuple his or her salary. From the perspective of a person making $50,000 a year or less (the subset could also be called "most Americans"), the person or family making $250,000 a year is rich.
Except he's not…
In fact, most people who make $250K aren't even sitting there thinking: "Ooh, if I bust my ass and play my cards right, being 'rich' is just around the corner for me and my family." If, God forbid, $250K also represents all you have, being truly rich is probably not even an option for you. You can't "invest" in anything with the piddling savings you've stowed away. You can't "buy" anything, other then maybe a family home and a some consumer assets that will start to depreciate the minute you breathe on them…
No, if you are making $250K a year, what gets you out of bed every morning isn't even the desire to become rich. Instead, you're motivated by the white-knuckle fear that something will go wrong and you'll be cast back down with the sodomites who struggle valiantly to eke out an existence on $50K or less. You are certainly not rich, but you are terrified of becoming poor.
This is why living in New York City, and its self-regarding suburbs, makes for such delicious comedy. On a combined income of $250,000, it's true — that a $5 million home is out of reach.
Boo hoo.
There is nothing more terrifying to the better-off, (as the writer, a Harvard-educated attorney at least admits), than the notion you might slide back down that greasy pole.
Then what? A cardboard box under a bridge?
Our household income, with no kids, is less than half this amount. That's still a fortune to many people in this country.
In downstate New York, sadly, it's a bit of a joke. Crossing any bridge costs $3 to $9 in tolls, one-way. Two hours' parking in a Manhattan garage can easily run $20-40. My sweetie takes a commuter train to work — at an annual cost of almost $3,000, none of it tax-deductible. The maintenance on our one-bedroom suburban apartment is now almost $900 a month, with three increases in the past three years. No choice in the matter; if we don't like it, sell and move!
We own one vehicle, paid off, nine years old. My income is less than half what I made in my last staff job. Good thing I didn't buy a bigger home or take out huge loans…
The problem of talking about money is that it's rarely just about money. It's really about entitlement. It's about Who You Think You Are. The gut-grinding knowledge that all that Ivy League striving may leave you owning only one home (not the two or three or four owned by the people you attended school with and, for many of the strivers I know, spend their entire lives comparing themselves with.)
Keeping up with the Jones — certainly when, as one attorney I know is doing, schooling four children privately ($100,000 a year in tuition alone) — can kill you.
I wake up daily deeply grateful for: safe, clean housing, healthy food, caring neighbors, my health, a functioning, insured vehicle, health insurance, some savings. It's a lot.
It's enough.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Why Not Feeling Rich is Not Being Poor, and Other Things Financial (whatever.scalzi.com)
- The whining rich (blogs.reuters.com)
- Advice for the 'Poor Rich' (online.wsj.com)


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How do you tell a witch?
If only all my blog titles could be Monty Python references. Perhaps that would reflect something beautiful -- and silly -- about the state of the world. Alas, this isn't funny at all: witchcraft, as parodied by the Pythons and decried by medieval Europeans, 17th century Puritans and other groups from history, is currently being cast out of children in modern-day Angola. According to the BBC, "healer" compounds that call themselves churches act as prisons for mentally ill or misbehaving young children, who are more often than not sent there by their parents. (Others are orphans produced by the country's 30-year civil war.) The similarity between the "cures" administered to these "bewitched" children and those inflicted upon historical victims in Salem and elsewhere is striking: kids are starved, chained to walls, beaten, drowned and otherwise abused.
Angola isn't the only African nation which has churches that subscribe to witchcraft: modern-day witch-hunts have also been reported in South Africa, Tanzania (where older women with red eyes are sometimes killed as suspected witches), the Congo and elsewhere. It's certainly happening in other parts of the world, too; strange to think that 400 years after Salem, women and children are still being targeted in this way.


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Authorities find man's body in Kansas River
The Associated Press
EDWARDSVILLE - Authorities have found a man's body in the Kansas River downstream from where a man went missing.
Kansas City, Kan., police said in a news release that the discovery was made around 12:30 p.m. Monday. Authorities are still working on positively identifying the victim and notifying has family.
Authorities received a report early Sunday that a man had disappeared while swimming in the river, which is also known as the Kaw. Emergency crews scoured the river and its bank throughout the day Sunday and then returned Monday to continue the search.


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WASHINGTON: Skype, the Internet communications group set to be acquired by Microsoft, announced plans Sunday to buy the mobile messaging startup firm GroupMe for undisclosed terms.
GroupMe was founded in 2010 at the Techcrunch Disrupt Hackathon and is headquartered in New York.
The deal, coupled with the acquisition of mobile video provider Qik earlier this year, "augments Skype's role as an innovator in driving unique mobile user experiences," the company said in a statement.
"Through the acquisition of GroupMe, Skype continues its drive to provide a global multi-modal and multi-platform communications experience. The acquisition of GroupMe complements Skype's leadership in voice and video communications by providing best in class text-based communications and innovative features that enable users to connect, share locations and photos and make plans with their closest ties."
Tony Bates, Skype's chief executive, said GroupMe "has created an incredibly sticky group messaging experience that works across mobile devices and platforms, making this a perfect addition to the voice, video and text products in the Skype family."
Founded in 2003 and based in Luxembourg, Skype is in the process of being acquired by US software giant Microsoft after being spun off by eBay.
Microsoft said recently it hopes to close the deal for purchase of the Internet voice and video leader by October, once it gets the green light from European regulators.


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On Sep 21, 2007, Hugues Goosse, the Climate of the Past editor responsible for the Juckes article, published a statement saying that a revised version of the Juckes et al article had been submitted to "conventional" refereeing and accepted on Sept 21, 2007. He said:
On the other hand, the authors disagree with one reviewer on some points for which no clear consensus could be gained from published literature. The arguments of the authors appear reasonable from our present knowledge of the field and are presented in a balanced way. As a consequence, I decided to accept the paper for publication in Climate of the Past.
I presume that I was the "one reviewer", although Willis Eschenbach and Mark Rostron also submitted critical reviews. Under CP policies, authors are supposed to respond to review comments. I've collated my review comments together with Juckes' replies. It is remarkable how insolent and unresponsive Juckes' comments are.
In virtually every case, I've provided a detailed and analytical comment and Juckes virtually never makes a direct and straightforward reply, rebutting the comment in straightforward terms. See what you think.
I've interlaced my original comment with Juckes' reply in block quotes and present comments in italics, collated from information here .
1. Juckes et al allege that our analyses contain a variety of errors, but do not cite or consider the following relevant literature: the reports of the U.S. National Research Council panel on Surface Temperature Reconstructions [North et al 2006 or the NRC Panel] and of the Chairman of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on Theoretical and Applied Statistics and associates [Wegman et al 2006], or the exchange in GRL between Huybers and ourselves (Huybers 2005; McIntyre and McKitrick 2005d – Reply to Huybers).
Wegman et al concluded that our criticisms were valid and compelling. The NRC Panel specifically endorsed our key criticisms: of the MBH principal components method (p.85, 106), of reliance on bristlecone pines as an essential proxy (50,106, 107); of inappropriate estimation of confidence intervals (107); of the failure of MBH verification r2 statistic (91,105). It is really quite amazing that Juckes et al have ventured into this controversy without any consideration or rebuttal of these relevant authorities.
Para 1: We allege there are serious flaws in McIntyre and McKitrick (2003, EE) and McIntyre and McKitrick (2005, EE). We do not say that every statement in these papers is false and the fact that some statements in those papers are indeed true does not have any bearing on the the assertion that there are serious errors.
Para 2: We are reviewing peer reviewed literature and are primarily interested in estimating the temperature of the past millenium. Prof. Wegmans views on who Prof. Mann might have talked and his survey of who has written papers with whom are very interesting, but not on the topic of our review.
Juckes' reply was completely unresponsive. Most journals require authors to consider the relevant up-to-date literature. For example, this is explicitly in Climatic Change's policies. Both the NRC and Wegman panels were obviously important and relevant considerations and any reviewer should have noted that Juckes failed to discuss the findings of these panels. Juckes avoids mention of the NRC panel and makes an insolent comment about Wegman. Juckes completely fails to deal with the fact that both panels endorsed certain of our claims and neither panel alleged that we had made "serious" errors.
3. In MM2005a-b, we illustrated the difference between the MBH PC1 and the PC1 from a principal components analysis using covariance matrices, but also discussed results using correlation matrices – a procedure which is exactly equivalent to dividing by the standard deviation. In our Reply to Huybers, not discussed by Juckes et al, we gave a comprehensive discussion of standardization issues in the context of the North American tree ring network, illustrating PC series under a variety of standardization methods, including the method said by Juckes et al to have been omitted. See recent online discussion at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=929. http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=928, http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=893
Para 3: We are concerned with the temperature reconstruction, not with the principal components themselves. Now that the code used in MM2005 has been made available some aspects of the calculation are clearer.
This is both unresponsive and untrue.
The claim that the code used in MM2005 was only "now" made available was untrue. The code used in MM2005 was put online in 2005. The code for MM (2005 GRL) was utilized by Huybers in May 2005 and the code for MM (2005 EE) was utilized by Wahl and Ammann in May 2005 in their Climatic Change submission. Wahl and Ammann (May 2005) said " in relation to the method used by MM in their re-calculation of the PCs according to the MM centering convention (cf. Supplementary Information website, MM05b)" and then refer to "the R code for the re-calculation of these PCs at the MM Supplemental Information website".
It is unresponsive because the "serious flaws" that Juckes alleged in connection with MM were in connection with the calculation of the principal components. I responded to each of the supposed "serious flaws" and Juckes' only response here and elsewhere is the arm-waving statement that "we are concerned with the temperature reconstruction".
As to Juckes' professed concern with the "Temperature reconstruction", as readers well know, we consistently and explicitly stated that our work was entirely critical and that we did not present any reconstruction of our own as we did not endorse MBH98 methodology or proxies. The purpose of any graphics showing alternative calculations were as sensitivity studies to illustrate the non-robustness of MBH98 and the inability of MBH98 to make claims about 20th century uniqueness. Even Gavin SChmidt has recognized that we did not claim to present our reconstruction.
In addition to explicit caveats in the texts themselves, the FAQ section of the Supplementary Information to MM03 stated:
"Your graph seems to show that the 15th Century was warmer than todays climate: is this what you are claiming?
No. Were saying that Mann et al., based on their methodology and corrected data, cannot claim that the 20th century is warmer than the 15th century the nuance is a little different. To make a positive claim that the 15th century was warmer than the late 20th century would require an endorsement of both the methodology and the common interpretation of the results which we are neither qualified nor inclined to offer." http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trcqa.html
Likewise, the FAQ for MM05 stated:
"Are you saying the 15th century was warmer than the present?
No, we are saying that the hockey stick graph used by IPCC provides no statistically significant information about how the current climate compares to that of the 15th century (and earlier). And notwithstanding that, to the extent readers consider the results informative, if a correct PC method and the unedited version of the Gaspé series are used, the graph used by the IPCC to measure the average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere shows values in the 15th century exceed those at the end of the 20th century. We do not think that we could be more explicit than this." http://www.climate2003.com/FAQ.htm
4. In our Reply to Huybers, we observed that tree ring networks were in common dimensionless units and that statistical authorities (see references therein) recommended PC analysis using a covariance matrix in such cases. We are unaware of any general purpose statistical text recommending use of a correlation matrix in such circumstances and Juckes et al did not cite any. We have never assumed that any PC methodology could extract a temperature index from the grab-bag assortment of North American tree ring chronologies and stated that the onus was on the proponent of any methodology to establish the validity of the resulting series as a temperature proxy. The NRC Panel (p. 87) considered this issue and stated that, in this case, argument can be made for using the variables without further normalization and, in effect, endorsed our position that the methodology needed to be proved from scientific (rather than a priori statistical) considerations. Obviously, this discussion should have been considered by Juckes et al.
Para 4: The units are dimenionless, but not common.
Reply: Again, Juckes' reply is both unresponsive. He did not provide a statistical authority to support his claim of an alleged error. His reply is inconsistent: tree ring chronologies are in dimensionless units. What is his argument that the chronologies are not in "common" units, if he has conceded that they are all in "dimensionless" units.
5-10. Furthermore, even before the discussion in Reply to Huybers, we had previously discussed the impact of dividing tree ring chronologies by their standard deviation in MM2005b as follows:
If the data are transformed as in MBH98, but the principal components are calculated on the covariance matrix, rather than directly on the de-centered data, the results move about halfway from MBH to MM. If the data are not transformed (MM), but the principal components are calculated on the correlation matrix rather than the covariance matrix, the results move part way from MM to MBH, with bristlecone pine data moving up from the PC4 to influence the PC2Eˇ .
If a centered PC calculation on the North American network is carried out Eˇ ., MBH-type results occur if the NOAMER network is expanded to 5 PCs in the AD1400 segment (as proposed in Mann et al., 2004b, 2004d). Specifically, MBH-type results occur as long as the PC4 is retained, while MM-type results occur in any combination which excludes the PC4.
In total, these disprove the Juckes et al claim that we had omitted consideration of the case in which tree ring proxies had been centred [and] normalised to unit variance (standardised) (i.e. correlation PCs) or that we had committed another apparent error: the omission of the normalization of proxies prior to the calculation of proxy principal components, as asserted in their SI.
In a recent online discussion http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=928 see comment #21, I presented these paragraphs to Juckes and challenged him to justify the above allegations. In comment #28, Juckes replied: Re 21: Sorry I missed the fact that you had given an answer to some points on a later page
Para 5,6,7,8,9, 10: See comment on para 3.
Again this totally unresponsive. The comment on para 3 says: "We are concerned with the temperature reconstruction, not with the principal components themselves. Now that the code used in MM2005 has been made available some aspects of the calculation are clearer."
I provided a detailed analysis that disproved the two "serious flaws" supposedly identified by Juckes: 1) that we had omitted consideration of the case in which tree ring proxies had been centred [and] normalised to unit variance (standardised) (i.e. correlation PCs) or 2) that we had committed another apparent error: the omission of the normalization of proxies prior to the calculation of proxy principal components, as asserted in the Juckes SI.
Juckes made no attempt whatever to rebut my comment, but merely arm-waved that he was concerned about "temperature reconstructions"
11. Juckes et al have already withdrawn a false allegation that we had failed to archive our source code and, after the above admission, should also have withdrawn these further false allegations concerning supposed errors.
Para 11: We never suggested that the code was not archived. Since publication McIntyre has revealed the location of the archived code (an editted version of the code originally used, which does not appear to have been archived), provided an updated version correcting for the omission of the function which carried out the reconstruction, and added configuration files.
Here Juckes is again mendacious. In their original article, they stated: " The code used by MM2005 is not, at the time of writing, available" When I objected, they made a lame and inaccurate "correction" (Clim. Past Discuss., 2, S516S517).
On page 19, line 6, the manuscript states: "The code used by MM2005 is not, at the time of writing, available": This comment should have referred to the code used by MM2005c (their Energy and Environment paper) the code used by MM2005 (their GRL paper) was made available at time of publication.
As noted above, the code used in MM2005 (EE) was available in early 2005 – evidenced by its citation by Wahl and Ammann in May 2005.
12. In making these allegations, Juckes et al also perpetuated prior academic checkkiting by Wahl and Ammann. As support for the above allegations, Juckes et al cited statements on this topic in Wahl and Ammann (Climatic Change 2006). However this article did not itself demonstrate any of the alleged errors; it merely re-stated allegations from Ammann and Wahl (submitted to GRL). However, the Ammann and Wahl submission to GRL was rejected, in part, because, like Juckes et al, it failed to consider, let alone advance beyond, the prior exchange with Huybers.
Para 12: We repeat those aspects of Wahl and Ammanns calculations which are essential to our discussion. These are placed in the Appendix. There are variations between our approach and that of Wahl and Ammann, which are referred to in the manuscript.
Again this is unresponsive. If they want to do their own calculations and refer to them, then they are entitled to do so. The results that they cite from Wahl and Ammann go beyond their calculations and they have not justified the use of check-kited results.
13. This is not the only incident of academic check-kiting in Juckes et al. Juckes et al also cite Jones and Mann 2004 in connection with an alleged error in MM2003. Jones and Mann 2004 merely re-stated an allegation from a then unpublished submission by Mann et al to Climatic Change. The submission by Mann et al to Climatic Change was subsequently rejected.
Para 13, 14, 15, 16: The major finding claimed by MM2003 concerns the temperature of the reconstruction. We are concerned here with the temperature of the reconstruction. The reconstruction in MM2003 cannot be defended.
Again, this is totally unresponsive. They may wish to contest points made in MM2003, but this does not justify academic check-kiting, which Juckes ignores here.
14. Juckes et al claimed that an alleged misunderstanding of a then unreported stepwise principal components method was a major factor in the MM2003 conclusion that MBH principal components had been incorrectly calculated. I deny that this MM2003 conclusion was incorrect. Our claim – that MBH principal components were incorrectly calculated – has been endorsed by both Wegman et al and the NRC Panel.
Para 13, 14, 15, 16: The major finding claimed by MM2003 concerns the temperature of the reconstruction. We are concerned here with the temperature of the reconstruction. The reconstruction in MM2003 cannot be defended.
Again, Juckes is totally unresponsive to a very specific point.
15. I also deny that any alleged misunderstanding of the then unreported MBH stepwise PC method was a major or even a minor factor in our conclusion that the MBH principal components were incorrectly calculated. (In passing, stepwise principal components is not a method that we have seen used outside the MBH corpus and the validity of the method should be established before its correctness is asserted.)
Para 13, 14, 15, 16: The major finding claimed by MM2003 concerns the temperature of the reconstruction. We are concerned here with the temperature of the reconstruction. The reconstruction in MM2003 cannot be defended.
Again, Juckes is unresponsive to a very specific point.
16. There is more than one discrepancy between the methodology actually used in MBH98 and the methodology said to have been used. In MM2003, we had not fully disentangled the multiple problems in MBH98 PC methodology. In addition to the de-centering problem and unreported stepwise methodology, the data then available at Manns FTP site – the url being specifically provided by Manns associate, Scott Rutherford – contained spliced PCs from different steps, which, in addition, had been incorrectly collated, so that some networks contained identical 1980 values to 8 decimal places for as many as 7 different PCs. We specifically and intentionally avoided using networks that obviously had been incorrectly collated – which included the NOAMER network – and illustrated the defective MBH PC calculations with a short network (the AUSTRAL) network, which was not affected by the collation problems. By doing so, we used a network which was unaffected by the stepwise methodology. Thus, while there were various additional problems related to the incorrect splicing of stepwise PC series in the MBH98 data archive then online, these were not a major factor or even a minor factor in the example that we presented. Instead of considering our example, Juckes et al (see Figure 2) switched the example, substituting another network (the NOAMER network) which was affected by stepwise issues – but one which we intentionally did not use in MM2003 as an illustration.
Para 13, 14, 15, 16: The major finding claimed by MM2003 concerns the temperature of the reconstruction. We are concerned here with the temperature of the reconstruction. The reconstruction in MM2003 cannot be defended.
Once again, my comment was detailed and specific; Juckes' reply is arm-waving and unresponsive.
17. Juckes et al discuss and illustrate results using a variation of the incorrect MBH principal components methodology (mbhx) in which the short-segment standardization is carried out on a segment of 150 years, rather than 79 years. Since the short-segment standardization method has itself been found wanting by both Wegman et al and North et al, I see little purpose of introducing the mbhx variation into peer-reviewed literature.
Similarly, Juckes et al discuss and illustrate results in which North American tree ring series ending prior to 1980 are excluded from the network, resulting in a diminished network of 56 series. Juckes et al say that this analysis is responding to an issue raised in MM2005, but this claim is incorrect. In MM2003, we noted that many 1980 values were obtained from extrapolations. However, in subsequent exchanges between MBH and ourselves, it became clear that this was not a major issue in terms of yielding variant results and was not carried forward into our 2005 articles as a key issue. There are many issues which are in play (e.g. the impact of bristlecones). Given the already crowded controversy in this field, I see little purpose in reviving an issue in peer-reviewed literature that is not actually in controversy and which has negligible impact on any result.
Para 17: These comments are included to point out that certain claims which have been made in the published literature and which are known to be false (including by the author of those claims, it appears) have not been withdrawn.
This is insolent and unresponsive. The claim in MM2003 that many MBH series lacked 1980 values and were extrapolated was true. This claim is not "known to be false" by myself or anyone else. The claim was true and there is no reason to "withdraw" it. Among the litany of errors in MBH, not all "mattered". The MBH98 use of Paris precipitation in a New England gridcell (The rain in Maine falls mainly in the Seine) does not "matter" for their reconstruction as actual geographic locations of any proxy do not "matter" under MBH "teleconnection" methodology. So this issue was not pursued further in our 2005 articles either. But it doesn't mean that the original observation was "false"; it wasn't.
As a review comment, my point stands: surely there are enough disputes in this matter without different incorrect PC methodologies.
18. Juckes et al misrepresented our discussion of MBH99. In MM2005b, we explicitly stated that the key issue in MBH99 was the validity of bristlecones as a proxy, not principal components methodology (which did affect the 15th century networks). We observed that bristlecones in MBH99 received heavy weighting merely though longevity and not through the erroneous MBH98 principal components method. Here Juckes et al have distorted our analysis and constructed a straw man – see discussion at http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=926
Para 18: See comment on para 3 (which says "We are concerned with the temperature reconstruction, not with the principal components themselves. Now that the code used in MM2005 has been made available some aspects of the calculation are clearer.")
Again, this is completely unresponsive and arm-waving.
Part 2
1. Section 2 of Juckes et al is less comprehensive than and adds nothing to the corresponding review of the NRC Panel.
Para 1: There does not appear to be a corresponding review in the NAS report.
I disagree with this response, but it's low on my priorities.
2. Section 4 presents a reconstruction (the Union Reconstruction) whose proxies differ little from those in other recent literature; the statistical analysis of the reconstruction is very deficient, with the reconstruction even failing an elementary statistical significance test recommended by the NRC Panel.
Para 2: I believe, on the basis of discussion elsewhere, that the elementary statistical test" referred to here is the Durbin-Watson test, which relates to the correlations of the residual. This test is not relevant to the composite technique. The NRC panel are concerned primarily with multiple regression techniques which are not used in the majority of reconstructions.
I stand by my comment that the statistical analysis of the reconstruction is "very deficient". The NRC panel are not "concerned primarily" with multiple regression techniques. They consider a variety of reconstructions. There's no reason not to test a composite with a Durbin-Watson statistic; this does not preclude the consideration of other candidate statistics, but more rigorous testing than a correlation coefficient is surely needed.
3-5. Wegman et al 2006 criticized the overlap of proxies in supposedly independent studies. Despite this criticism published prior to the submission of Juckes et al, the Union reconstruction uses virtually the same collection of proxies as Osborn and Briffa 2006 and Hegerl et al 2006. Each consists of small collections (12-18 series). However, all three studies use two or more bristlecone/foxtail series, Tornetrask (twice in Juckes et al), Yamal, Taimyr, the Yang Composite and Fishers West Greenland. See http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=967.
This repetitive use of the same proxies compromises any claim of independence between studies – a problem also noted by the NRC Panel. Because of this repetitive use of the same data, important premises of significance testing are violated, an issue discussed in economics literature. For example, Greene [Journal of Economic Methodology 2000] observed that standard distributions cannot be used with re-cycled data:
"Because the existing data series is no longer free of pre-testing or specification search and so cannot yield test statistics with known distributions. An attempt to re-use the original data implies the actual distribution of any test statistic differs from standard distributions in an unknown manner."
Para 3, 4, 5: The idea that data can only be used once is going to need a little more justification before it gains wide acceptance. The issue is not how many times the data was used, but how it was selected. We are not claiming independence from past studies.
Again, Juckes is unresponsive. There is certainly an issue in "how the data was selected": why Yamal and not Polar Urals Update. Juckes gives no coherent answer. The quotation from Greene states that "the actual distribution of any test statistic differs from standard distributions in an unknown manner". Notwithstanding massive recycling of stereotyped data, Juckes purports to test for significance using standard distributions.
6. In addition to this problem, there is inadequate testing against the possibility of spurious or nonsense correlations between unrelated series [Yule 1926; Granger and Newbold 1974; Hendry 1980; Phillips 1986 and a large economics literature]. Yules classic example of spurious correlation was between alcoholism and Church of England marriages. Hendry showed a spurious correlation between rainfall and inflation. The simulations performed in Juckes et al have virtually no power (in the statistical sense) as a test against possible spurious correlation between the Union reconstruction and temperature. For this purpose, a common, and not especially demanding, test is the Durbin-Watson test [Granger and Newbold 1974], whose use was encouraged by the NRC Panel (p. 87). According to my calculations, the Union Reconstruction failed even this test, contradicting the claims of Juckes et al to 99.98% significance. (See http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=945 ).
Para 6: The Durbin-Watson test does not test for spurious correlations.
Again, Juckes is completely unresponsive. The Durbin-Watson test was recommended as a test for spurious correlation by Granger and Newbold, 1974, although it's not the only test that should be applied. Juckes' assertion here is false. He does not substitute any alternative test of his own. No author submitting to an economics journal would make such a foolish claim, nor would any economics journal allow an author to make such a lame response.
7. Calibration-verification is a standard methodology in multiproxy studies and was recommended by the NRC Panel (88ff). In MM2005a-b, we observed that the 15th century MBH reconstruction failed the verification r2 test (that was said in MBH98 to have been considered) and, in MM2005b, we criticized the failure of Mann et al to report these adverse verification r2 results. Our finding of negligible verification r2 (and CE) values was confirmed by Wahl and Ammann. These findings were specifically noted by the NRC panel, in their decision to withdraw confidence intervals from the early portion of the MBH reconstruction. Juckes et al conspicuously did not reported calibration-verification results. My calculations indicate an extremely low verification r2 (or CE) values for the Union reconstruction. Verification r2 and CE results for the Union reconstruction should be reported; if the reconstruction fails verification r2 or CE tests, the authors should attempt to account for the failure if they can.
Para 7: We use all the available data for calibration. Again, the recommendations of the NRC panel relate to the use of the Mann et al. technique which we do not employ, except in order to comment on past work.
Again, Juckes' answer is untrue. The NRC panel's recommendations apply to composites, as well as to regressions. Also, Juckes' statement that they do not use the MBH regression technique is untrue. Their inverse regression technique, considered at length as an alternative to composite, is identical to the MBH method in the AD1000 period (the MBH method is described so poorly that it's not obvious, but the identity of methods has been demonstrated at cliamteaudit.)
8. Reconstructions that are slightly varied from the Juckes reconstruction (but with different medieval-modern relationships) are also 99.98% significant by the criterion of Juckes et al. Obviously the two different reconstructions cannot both be 99.98% significant – evidence that neither reconstruction is "99.98% significant". See http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=903
Para 8: The significance given is, as stated, the significance of the correlation between the composite and the instrumental temperature in the calibration period.
Again, this is totally unresponsive. The problem is that, unlike Juckes, statisticians do not claim that reconstructions are "99.98% significant". The point remains: if two different reconstructions are both 99.98% significant, then neither can be. Juckes gives no answer.
9. Juckes et al failed to provide any statistical references for the results in their Appendix 1, nor any proof of the claimed optimality (or a reference of the fact). They assert a noise model, but do not show that they carried out any tests to demonstrate that the noise model in Appendix 1 was applicable to the actual proxy network. Inspection of the residuals in the individual series strongly indicates that the noise model of their Appendix 1 is not valid – see http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=938
Para 9: The appendices are elementary and are provided to clarify the formulae used.
The comment stands. Statistics is a well-developed field. There's no need for Juckes to develop home-made results, which may ignore some subtlety familiar to proper statisticians. If the results are as elementary as Juckes says, he should be able to provide a citation.
10. I was able to replicate some of Juckes CVM calculations, but not all of them. In the Union reconstruction, there is an unreported flipping of the Chesapeake Mg-Ca series, the procedure for which is not described. The mbhpc reconstruction appears not to have carried out a flipping of PC series said to have been carried out. MBH99 said that bristlecones should be corrected for CO2 fertilization. We disagree that MBH99 carried out a relevant correction, but Juckes et al appear to have use PC series without any effort whatever to apply such a correction – see http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=930
Para 10: Our main results do not use the Mann et al. PCs. We used them in order to evaluate and comment on past work. The flip in sign of the Chesapeake series was an error. This is corrected in the revision.
The orienting of series was supposed to be done in the computer programs. It's not satisfactory that Juckes goes in after the fact and manually flips a series to match his preconception. Where did the error originate? Their "main" results may not use MBH PCs, but some of their subsidiary results do and Juckes is unresponsive.
11. Juckes et al have put source code online (good), but the source code contains virtually no relevant comments and seems to be a grudging accommodation, rather than an earnest effort to illuminate methodology for subsequent readers.
Para 11: The source code is the code used to carry out the calculations. It is provided to ensure full transparency.
Comment stands. The code is better than nothing, but it should include comments.
12. Juckes SI Figure 1 used rms normalization without any disclosure or explicit justification. Rms normalization is not used elsewhere in the study or, to my knowledge, in the relevant paleoclimate literature. It has the effect of minimizing the difference between MBH and other PC studies. I see no purpose whatever in permitting its use in this figure – especially without any disclosure of the methodology. See http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=897
Para 12: This will be changed.
13. I have tested some of Juckes CVM reconstruction, finding that trivial variations can yield different medieval-modern relations e.g. Esper CVM without foxtails; http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=885 ; Moberg CVM using Sargasso Sea SST instead of Arabian Sea G Bulloides wind speed and Polar Urals update instead of Yamal – see http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=903 and http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=887 Juckes justification for not using Sargasso Sea SST is not convincing http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=898 , nor is the exclusion of the Indigirka River series of Moberg et al 2005, which is an extension of the Yakutia series used in MBH98 – see http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=901
Para 13: The Sargasso Sea series finishes well before the end of our calibration period, so cannot be used in our reconstruction. It has been used in one peer reviewed study and cited on at least two web sites with its dating erroneously shifted 50 years forward, so that the last data point, which represents the 1900 to 1950 mean is instead presented as the 1950 to 2000 mean. The data file stored at the WDCP is ambiguous in this respect, but the data was clearly collected at a time when it could not represent the 1950 to 2000 mean. We have put all the data used in our study online: the Indigirka series is not available for publication in this way.
Juckes is both inaccurate and unresponsive here. The last data point in the Sargasso Sea study is based on modern sample information – which is essential for calibration! (Also note that tree ring chronologies routinely combine information from living trees and subfossil trees, where the data properties are different.)
Juckes is unresponsive in that my points remain unchallenged. One of Juckes' coauthors (Moberg) used the Indigirka series – so Juckes should be able to put it online. And think about it: his defence to this point is that one of his coauthors won't put the Indigirka data online and therefore it "can't" be used. As Juckes said earlier, the issue is how data is "selected".
14. Juckes et al Table 1 contains numerous geographical mislocations. Table 1 shows lists the Tornetrask site 4 times under different alter egos, using 3 different coordinates, none of which are correct. The two independent foxtail sites are only about 30 km apart (the coordinates being inaccurately reported in Juckes et al.) The Union reconstruction used two different versions of the Tornetrask site (which are obviously not independent) and neither justified this duplicate use nor the similar duplication of foxtail and bristlecone sites.
Para 14: The geolocation information does not affect the results: it will be corrected in the revised version.
Juckes does not respond to the duplicate use of foxtails, which, with correct locations, are shown to be very close.
15. Juckes failed to evaluate the validity of individual Union proxies in light of criticisms by the NRC panel and others. The use of percentage G. Bulloides as a temperature proxy was criticized by David Black, author of a G Bulloides series from Cariaco. Without addressing such criticisms, Juckes et al used a percentage G. Bulloides series from the Arabian Sea in the Union reconstruction – see http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=957 The NRC panel specifically said that strip-bark bristlecones and foxtails should be avoided in temperature reconstructions. Without addressing this criticism, out of only 18 proxy series in the Union reconstruction, Juckes et al used no fewer than 4 bristlecone and foxtail series from one gridcell.
Para 15: There is some confusion here between the requirements of different analytic approaches. The revised version seeks to make our modelling assumptions clearer. In particular, we do not assume that the signal to noise ratio in individual proxies is greater than unity. A simple estimate suggests that is not. In this situation selecting proxies on the basis of their individual correlations with temperature is inappropriate. The peer reviewed literature does not have clear evidence of a substantial CO2 fertilization effect. We note that all the proxies are influenced by factors other than temperature.
Again, Juckes is unresponsive. The NRC panel said that bristlecones should be "avoided" without limiting themselves to CO2 fertilization as an explanation. Notwithstanding this Juckes used 4 bristlecone/foxtail series and was unresponsive to this comment.
Closing Comments
As I review this, it is remarkably annoying to see how unresponsive Juckes was to the above comments, the unresponsiveness being so complete as to be insolent. I cannot imagine any author submitting to an economics journal making remarks like this.
As I re-read the above interlaced comments, I see virtually no case where Juckes has responded to my comments in a straightforward manner. For many of these comments, I am obviously knowledgeable as I am directly involved. If Juckes has responded in a straightforward manner, then Goosse and the subsequent referees might have been able to assess the merits or lack of merit of the argument. But Juckes arm-waved.
In his online comments at CPD, Goosse made no effort whatever to require Juckes to be responsive to criticisms – which, whether he agreed or disagreed with them, were detailed. In his online comments, Goosse commented only on Anonymous Referee #1, asking Juckes to accommodate these comments. Goosse made no effort whatever to ask Juckes to make adequate responses to my comments. Without obtaining any online response, Goosse concludes:
On the other hand, the authors disagree with one reviewer on some points for which no clear consensus could be gained from published literature. The arguments of the authors appear reasonable from our present knowledge of the field and are presented in a balanced way.
What a feckless and indolent bit of editing.
UPDATE: I wrote to MArtin Claussen about this and he has responded: see below. CP policies here


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There's a mysterious house on my block that has been empty but well maintained for several years. The mailman delivers mail and the gardening service keeps things nice and neat but I never see anyone go in or out.
Their roses and fruit trees are blooming but there's nobody home to enjoy them. So I stopped by with my scissors to give the roses a little respect by painting them, even if it means stealing them (as I've done before). These were yummy fun to paint!


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Welcome to the Web Site of Elaine M. Benkoski, Attorney at Law.
This website contains useful information about our firm and the services we provide for the people of Norfolk, Suffolk, Southern Middlesex and Northern Plymouth counties of Massachusetts. The office in Dedham is easily accessible from Boston (via the bus from Forest Hills to the Dedham Mall) or by car from the surrounding towns of Norwood, Canton, Needham and Westwood - just one mile from Route 128.
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text:
I will admit – as wary as I am about letting businesses advertise to me, there's something I love about flipping through the circulars that arrive with my Sunday morning newspaper. Taking a look at the Best Buy or Staples inserts helps keep me up to date on the latest gadgets and their prices without having to leave the breakfast table.
Now, a new iOS app named Pounce wants to take that Sunday morning experience one step further, allowing you to purchase the items you see in Sunday flyers and catalogues near instantaneously. Just point the smartphone app at the item you'd like to purchase in this week's Staples ad, for example, and Pounce will let you purchase it directly from that retailer using your address and credit card information stored securely inside the app. No barcodes are required.
At the moment, Pounce works with weekly ads from Toys R Us, Staples, Ace Hardware, Babies R Us and Target. It worked well with this week's Staples flyer for the most part, though a $449 Toshiba laptop was incorrectly recognized as a $529 desktop, a few items failed to scan and a $129 graphing calculator showed up as $159 on the app. Pounce is convenient, but only when it works.
BuyCode, the company behind the app, plans to expand their service into Canada and Europe, hopefully adding more U.S. retailers along the way. "Our vision," explains CEO Avital Yachin to Reuters, "is to allow purchasing of any product in any print ad."
The feat is likely more doable than you think – Amazon has been offering a pretty powerful image recognition app for a couple years now. The app, called Flow, connects pictures you take of physical objects to their sale page on the Amazon website. That app isn't perfect either, of course, but the technology is rapidly improving.
If you do give Pounce a try, I recommend you protect it by setting a PIN, one of the app's included features. Pounce makes it a little too convenient to buy things, so an extra layer of protection is smart. You don't want an unattended child using your phone to buy you an expensive surprise with your own money.
Pounce is a free download for iOS devices on the Apple App Store.


text:
Story by
Kaylene Hong
Kaylene Hong was Asia Reporter for The Next Web between 2013 and 2014, based in Singapore. She is bilingual in English and Mandarin. Stay in Kaylene Hong was Asia Reporter for The Next Web between 2013 and 2014, based in Singapore. She is bilingual in English and Mandarin. Stay in touch via Twitter or Google+.
Troubled Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, once the largest of its kind, filed for bankruptcy protection last week. Today, the exchange released a statement that confirms approximately 750,000 Bitcoins deposited by users and about 100,000 Bitcoins belong to Mt. Gox had disappeared in February.
This acknowledgment comes after a document claimed to be leaked out of Mt. Gox was circulating within the Bitcoin community last week, which suggested 750,000 Bitcoins had been lost.
In an update to its financial situation published on its site, Mt. Gox notes that the discrepancy between the amount of cash held in financial institutions and the amount deposited from Mt. Gox's users come in at about 2.8 billion yen ($27.6 million) — though the exact amount of missing deposit funds and the total amount of Bitcoins that disappeared still can't be fully confirmed as of now.
Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles says that there was a "high probability" that the Bitcoins had been stolen due to the abuse of a bug in the Bitcoin system. "At the start of February 2014, illegal access through the abuse of a bug in the Bitcoin system resulted in an increase in incomplete Bitcoin transfer transactions and we discovered that there was a possibility that Bitcoins had been illicitly moved through the abuse of this bug," he says.
In the statement, Karpeles acknowledges the problem could have stemmed from a variety of causes including hacking by third parties. "We have asked an expert to look at the possibility of a criminal complaint and undertake proper procedures," he says.
Mt. Gox's sudden shutdown and subsequent filing for bankruptcy protection have dealt a heavy blow to the Bitcoin industry. Pre-empting such a response, the heads of six of the world's biggest Bitcoin exchanges earlier penned a letter in response to reports of Mt. Gox's impending insolvency, in a bid to reassure Bitcoin investors.
Mt. Gox says that "all efforts will now be made to restore the business and recover damages to repay debts to creditors." As it needs to continue its business to increase repayments to its creditors, the company has opted for bankruptcy protection — or what is known as civil rehabilitation in Japan.
"Rebuilding MtGox Co., Ltd under the supervision of the court in a legally organized procedure while giving proper explanations will not be for the sole benefit of the company but for that of the whole Bitcoin community," Karpeles says.
Headline image via Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images
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