Fate had a random way to steal money from your kitty. A car break-down that cost 20% of your disposable income or a roof leak of similar magnitude will put you on a tight budget for the month and corrode your savings. Bad luck or unexpected expenses is usually cited for failure to save. Sharing the blame would be the escalating cost of living. These common reasons the man on the streets frequently hears but backing them up with research will give it better weight.
Last year an average of $13,408 was set aside for college by parents but it was reduced to $10,040 this year. Savings for all purposes, including retirement and emergencies, also plunged to $98,867 from $115,604 last year. Sallie Mae, a corporation that offers financial products to help families save and plan for college, engaged market research company Ipsos to conduct a research to account for a 25% drop in saving for college.
Ipsos interviewed 1,988 parents of children under 18 for the survey between Jan. 14 and Jan. 28. "The biggest reason for the decrease in savings are the increase in the cost of living and having unexpected expenses come up," said Michael Gross, head of the higher education practice at Ipsos. About half the parents are saving for college. For families with incomes between $35,000 and $100,000 the rate fell to 46 percent this year from 51 percent last year.
The outlook on investing in higher education for children is still good. 90% parents believe that college is an investment in their children's future. 84% believe their children will earn more with higher education. 78% think that a college degree is more important now than in the past. General savings accounts remain as the most widely used vehicle to save for college funds. It was used by 48% of the savers. 23% used checking accounts and 27% used 529 plan.
The 529 plan is tax-advantaged instrument for saving for the future higher education expenses of a designated beneficiary. It was named after the act (Internal Revenue Code 26 U.S.C. § 529) that legislated it. The 539 plan is popular high-income savers. 49% used it. It only manage to draw 20% of middle-income and 17% low-income savers. 40% of those who do not save for higher education were unaware of the existence of 529 plans.
Parents who don't save overestimate the amount of financial aid their children will receive. Scholarships and grants typically cover about one-third of the total average cost of college, according to a corollary Sallie Mae study. About two-thirds of those who don't save believed their child would get scholarship help to cover college costs.
Martha Holler, a Sallie Mae representative said the act of creating a plan for college savings seems to boost the odds of success. The 2015 Saving for College survey found families with a plan saved 46 percent more than families without a plan. Parents began to save when their oldest child was 6.5 years old. This the time where the initial expenses of infancy and the toddler years are over, Reuters reported on 29 April 2015.
Job seekers need to be aware that there is always tradeoff between job security, career advancement or high pay in the job process. High paying jobs are usually at high risk for being automated or offers little growth potential over the next few years. According to a study from WalletHub, the top 9 entry-level jobs scores well in all the three categories mentioned. CBS News had compiled their findings on 28 April 2015 to guide college students and high school seniors to consider which field to major in.
Job Starting Pay Median Pay Qualification Growth 9. Financial analyst $51,848 $76,950 bachelor’s degree in business, finance or related - 8. Information security analyst $55,310 $86,170 - 37% 7. Web designer $53,041 $62,500 know programming and graphic design 20% 6. Software engineers $62,522 $90,374 bachelor’s degree in computer science - 5. Environmental engineer $57,266 $86,340 bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering or related 15% 4 Attorney $83,907 $133,470 law degree and pass a state’s written bar exam 10% 3 Network Engineer $61,744 $91,982 degrees in computer science or related 12% 2. Web applications designer $54,586 $59,000 know developer languages such as PHP and HTML 12% 1. Training specialist $47,621 $55,930 college degree and strong communication skills 15%
The starting annual salary and the median pay for all workers in the field are based on the latest information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The salary for software engineers were based on information on the employment site Glassdoor.com. Figures for network engineer and web applications designer were derived from the employment site Payscale.com. The job growth rate is projected from 2012 to 2022 by the BLS. A growth of 10 percent or higher is deemed as normal. A growth rate of 15 percent and above is consider rapid growth.
The information security analyst had the greatest potential growth of 37 percent. Their job entails a simple maintenance routine but once the system gets hacked, they will have to work round the clock to restore the system, pronto. I believe being a hacker is the best qualification for this job but there is no such thing as a certified hacker at the present moment. This may be the reason WalletHub did not list down the qualification for this job. The reason growth is not projected for financial analyst is unclear.
Growth rate for software engineers were not projected as this profession is a bit unusual. While the jobs in this field are plentiful, careers in the field may be short-lived. According to Bloomberg News, most software developers have left the profession by the time they’re 40. The industry tend to favor younger engineers because of the impression that they will be more up-to-date with the latest trends.
Although the training specialist had a low income, it top because of job openings and growth potential. About one-quarter of Web designers were self-employed in 2012 but it is forecasted that employment in this field will grow by 20 percent. I believe the forecaster is expecting these self-employed individuals would grow and had the need for expansion.
It takes a thief to catch a thief. Information security analyst don’t stand much of a chance against hackers. They are confine to damage control when attacked. Hackers are a secluded and quarantined group. They don’t share their skill freely. So the best person to catch a hacker is the hacker themselves. They would be the best people to outline the skills need to do this job. Since they keep their trade to themselves, this skillset will not be known.
My Casino Gambling Tip is now a mobile friendly website. My next task would be to get XingCai Gambling Tales to be mobile friendly too. I had outlined the step involved to get it mobile friendly in my previous blog and will use the same procedure. The wave of mobile suffers had got Google to cater to them or lose page ranking. This would be a concern for webmasters until they fix the problem.
While Google had written to webmasters with some links to make a mobile friendly website, they provided no link to test the mobile-friendliness of the site. Using W3C tidy up could provide some additional help on the meta tags. After much surfing, I found certification from Google themselves. Visit this link and type in your website’s URL.
Willie Nelson, noted for singing about the virtues of smoking pot in country and western music, is producing his own brand of marijuana. The product features “high quality strains of marijuana,” and will be marketed as “Willie’s Reserve”. It will be grown and sold in Colorado and Washington where it is legal to get stoned without a doctor’s note, CNN Money reported on 20 April 2015. The motivated singer said, “I am looking forward to working with the best growers in Colorado and Washington to make sure our product is the best on the market”. He founded the company out of a desire to get involved in the growing market for legal pot, Elaine Schock spokeswoman for “Willie’s Reserve” told CNN Money.
Nelson,81, had gone a long way where pot is concern. He has been an outspoken supporter of marijuana legalization and an advocate for industrial hemp production. Nelson will focus on the quality of the products, encouraging responsible use and pushing for legalization. “He will serve as more than a figurehead. His values and vision set the bar for everything the company does,” Schock said. A new song “It’s All Going to Pot” which Nelson duets with Merle Haggard was on April 20 to coincide with his announcement. It will make 4/20 (April 20) an unofficially declared National Weed Day. In time to come the song may be the anthem for the National Weed Day but Nelson is not the first musician to lend his name to a marijuana brand. Last year, the estate of Jamaican reggae icon Bob Marley struck a deal with a private equity firm to market and sell marijuana and other products under the name “Marley Natural.”
Picture size is my next task in getting my website to be mobile friendly. In my previous blog on this subject, I figured that reducing the size of navigation menu is a good starting point to design a website to fit mobile device. I used single word for title and double word for subtitle. This seems to work out some of the problem. I figure the next step would be to have a universal width for all pictures. Ideally the picture could be stretch or shrunk to fit across the platform without losing too much picture quality.
Given the size of webpages, stretching and shrinking a picture is not the real problem. Pictures who are magnify twice or reduce by half are never too shabby when it comes to quality. This should be enough do the trick to fit an image into a website. The bigger concern is manipulated images sometimes take a longer time to load. The 4G phones are great for speed but as the best for the current technology they are a minority user. Most people would have the lower 3G speed on their phones. The loyalist to old phone will still surf with 2G and there are still a number of these mobile surfers out there. These people will favor sites who were sufficiently fast for their devices.
I went window shopping for mobile phones using google and decided that I have 3 categories to please. Based on their minimum screen width, I simply name them mini (80 pixels), midi (321 pixels) and maxi (481). After throwing some math around, I decided that all images on my website will be 240 pixels wide. Shrinking 240 to 80 (the lower end of the mini) is one-third reduction. This will likely cause some problem in loading speed. For the higher end of the mini (320 pixels), the image is stretch less than 50% which is acceptable. For the 481 pixels width, there is no stretching of image. The image with text displayed by the side will be at least half of the screen.
I now had all my pictures resize to 240 pixels width. Going through the pictures one by one had been a tedious exercise. Some of my image were name by their sizes. A cat image, for example, had been named cat330x250. The 330 represent the width and 250 is for the height. I still maintain the old name of the image. It would sound silly but once something is publish it is not advisable to make changes. Keeping the old name will ensure that people who link my pictures will not get a blank image. I actually have three manga pages outstanding. These three cartoons are at least 600 pixels wide. The task will be to break them down to smaller pictures who are 240 pixels wide. The main picture that will adopt the old name while new pictures will carry the old name with a sequential numbering suffix.
Going through image by image can also make you see things from a different angle. I redraw two images. I hope the people who had link the old pictures prefer the new pictures. I had also came up with 5 new pictures. These are for the pages which previously did not have a picture. The remaining task, unless new development crops up, I will drop the navigation menu for the mini users.
The pilot of Alaska Airline flight 448 declared an emergency for priority landing when heard screaming and banging from the cargo hold. The flight departed Seattle at 3:15 p.m. Pacific Time. After 14 minutes in flight the aircraft had to turn back and land in Seattle-Tacoma International.
After the plane landed a ramp agent, an employee of Menzies Aviation, was found inside the front cargo hold. According to Alaska Airlines the cargo hold is pressurized and temperature-controlled. The employee told authorities he had fallen asleep. The worker appeared OK but was taken to a hospital as a precaution the CBC News reported 13 April 2015.
This is going to cost the Airline dearly and it would certainly be investigated. It is hard to imagine that one can fall asleep without fellow workers realizing it. Did the employee actually sneaked into the cargo hold intentionally? Once he realized the compartment was pressurized and temperature-controlled he panicked and start banging away. Upon being rescued, he conveniently use sleeping-on-the-job as an excuse.
A newly opened Japanese museum exposed evidence of war crime during the World War II. The museum is situated on the campus of Kyushu University in Japan. The museum, opened on April 4, features the history of medical science of the university in the past 110 years. A total of 63 items on display. The notable exhibits at the museum showed the evidence of eight US pilots vivisected by professors of the university in 1945.
The victims were eight airmen of the U.S. B-29 bomber. The aircraft was downed near the border between Kumamoto and Oita prefectures. According to the exhibit, several professors injected diluted sea water into the pilots and dissected their lungs and other organs to observe how long the victims would live after the operation, the Japan Times reported on 4 April 2015.
All eight pilots eventually died. One professor committed suicide when the war ended. The other 14 faculty members were either sentenced to life-in-prison or handed the death penalty for committing war crimes. The school treated the topic as a taboo and avoided mentioning it in public over the years. At a meeting of professors at the School of Medicine in March, the university agreed to face up to the campus' 'dark history.'
Google wrote me a warning letter 2 weeks ago asking me to make my website more mobile friendly. According to google, the increase demand in mobile phone browsing had been tremendous. Well, it is not a warning for doing something that pissed google off. It was actually a concerned notification. Google anticipated that the wave of mobile surfers will get stronger in with the passage of time and webmasters were advised to cater to their needs. If I took it as a friendly notice I don’t need to do anything. I choose to take it as a stern warning so that I will have to adapt before I get left out.
Heck! I had no clue where to start. I hope I could just wave a magic wand with some code and bingo! Fortunately, google is a good place to start looking for those hocus pocus code. Knowing the right keyword to punch into google would help. Next comes the endless list of reading materials on the technology to make your website flexible to multiple devices. Climbing the steep learning curve was no fun. It’s just nothing but reading without having enough knowledge to start doing something.
I concluded that it was about starting small. Fit the small screen then the bigger ones and eventually the desktop. This calls for a re-engineering as my website was catered for desktop size. I have started with reducing the size of my menu. I used single word titles for the menu items to shorten it for mobile size. Sub menu items could use double or triple word titles. Whoopee, I managed nail down some of the problem. For screen smaller than 320 pixels wide, I may have to do away with the menu. I will get around to this but the next step would be resizing all my images. I am going to do a lot of experimenting to find a good size that could be stretch or shrunk to fit across the platform without losing too much picture quality.
Mercury reflects much less light compared to our own moon, which is about the same size. This had scientist mystified for a long time. Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Brown University and the Planetary Sciences Institute say they may have found the answer. Megan Bruck Syal, a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Livermore, said that it was “effectively painted black”.
Mercury is the planet that is closest to the sun. Compared to the moon, there is are much more carbon dust thrown off from comets close to the sun. The researchers say Mercury is surrounded by 50 times the amount of carbon dust than our moon. For ages scientist believes that microscopic meteorites spawned from carbon-rich comets may have contributed enough dark-hued carbon to reduce the amount of reflected light.
Tests using a big NASA gun made to simulate planetary impacts on a small-scale seem to show the theory is plausible, the authors say. “We show that carbon acts like a stealth darkening agent,” said Peter Schultz, a professor emeritus of geological sciences at Brown University. “From the standpoint of spectral analysis, it’s like an invisible paint,” the CNN reported on 31 March 2015.
I tried to convince my readers that gambling requires skill. There are plenty of research that would conclude otherwise. In a recent (2012) study Professor Gerhard Meyer, of the University of Bremen’s Institute of Psychology and Cognition Research, suggested that poker was largely a game of chance. There were 300 participants in his research. They played 60 hands poker each, on tables of six. The players were classified as ‘expert’ and ‘average’ players based on their ability to make money from good, bad and average hands. The research found that ‘expert’ players lost less money on bad hands, but did no better than ‘average’ players on mediocre hands - and made slightly less on good ones. Prof Meyer concluded that ‘poker players overestimate the skill factor in their play’.
A research studied 456 million hands of poker from a year’s worth of online game. Over the course of just a few hands the better-performing players fared better half the time. Their success rate gradually increased until they played 1,471 hands. Given that frequency, they could do better at least 75 per cent of the time. Dr Dennie van Dolder, of the University of Nottingham’s School of Economics, said the study showed ‘skilled players will consistently outperform less skilled players if enough hands…are played.’
Researchers from the University of Nottingham, working with colleagues from Erasmus University Rotterdam and VU University Amsterdam, also noted that players who finished in the top one per cent in the first half of the year were 12 times more likely than others to repeat the feat in the second half. Writer and TV presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell, one of Britain’s top professional players, has won more than £1.5m - including £400,000 at a single event. Dr van Dolder said, “It’s up to legislators to decide whether the role of chance diminishes fast enough for poker to be considered a game of skill,” the Daily Mail reported on 25 March 2015.
If tanning darkens skin, then insufficient sun should get fairer skin and red hair. This was discovered by scientist after having studied the gene evolution of 1,000 people from Spain. “The ‘ginger gene,’ or ‘V6OL allele,’ showed up 50,000 years ago after humans left Africa for colder climates. This gene made human’s skin lighter, as they were exposed to less vitamin D from the sun” [Irish Central, 26 March 2015].
Irish Central points to another study by the BritishDNA found on the Mail Online two years ago. The BritishDNA study was based on data from 2,343 people who have undergone DNA tests to learn more about their ancestry. They created the first-ever map detailing the distribution of red-headed genes. They looked at three different variants of the MC1R gene which causes red hair; those with 151-Cysteine-red have a 70,000 year old variant that probably arose in West Asia, those with 160-Tryptophan-red are descendants of someone who probably also lived in West Asia 70,000 years ago, and 294-Histidine-reds belong to a much younger group who come from a European who lived about 30,000 years ago. The BritishDNA concluded that for a child to develop red hair, both parents must be carriers of one of these red-hair gene variants. But even then there is only a 25 per cent their child will be born ginger.
Irish central also points to ScotlandsDNA Project in 2012 that found the Celts flaming red hair was caused by the weather. The experts believe that the gloomy climate in Scotland has seen a deliberate genetic adaptation. The red hair helps to take advantage of sunny days and allows the body to absorb more vitamin D. Unfortunate, redheads suffer more discrimination per head of population than ethnic minorities. The Centre for Equality Policy Research said that, “A job applicant with ginger hair is seven times more likely to be rejected than a dark-haired applicant, and eight times more likely than a fair-haired applicant.”
Being with redheads is fun but it is no fun being a redhead. I guess associated with being wild is also the reason for the job discrimination they faced. NOT FAIR!
Tentacle erotica is a type of pornography that integrates traditional pornography with some elements of bestiality. They come under hentai titles with tentacle creatures having sexual intercourse with female characters. Fantasy, horror, or science-fiction themes were used to provide the storyline. Creatures with tentacles in erotic setting existed before animated pornography. The famous woodblock print by Hokusai Katsushika appeared in 1920. It was entitled “the Dream of the Fisherman's Wife”.
Shunga or erotic art were seen as sexual guidance for young couple from wealthy families during Hokusai’s times. It was the Japanese Karma Sutra enjoyed by men and women of all classes and superstitions and mores supports this claim. The samurai used shunga as an amulet against death. Merchant treat them as talisman to protect their warehouse from fire. [Source Wikipedia]. Shunga is literally translated as spring art. For Japanese spring refer to the blossom period and it was traditional to present a bride with ukiyo-e depicting erotic scenes from the Tale of Genji.
The picture was rated third sexiest works of art ever by the Guardian. Pablo Picasso was took second place in the Guardian's rating.Ironically Picasso was greatly influence by Hokusai. Picasso painted his own version in 1903 that has been shown next to Hokusai's original in exhibits on the influence of 19th-century Japanese art on Picasso's work [Source Wikipedia].
Western critics such as Edmond de Goncourt and Jack Hillier interpreted the work as a rape scene. Based on the text above the image, the woman and the creatures express their mutual sexual pleasure from the encounter. Scholar Danielle Talerico is in the opinion that de Goncourt and Hillier would have seen it apart from the Kinoe no Komatsu collection and without understanding the text and visual references, depriving it of its original context.
China’s plan to build a modern-day trading route on the skeleton of the ancient traders’ trail, known as the silk road, have been welcomed by its neighbor. The China Daily reported on 9 March 2015 that the project had led to criticism and misunderstanding....
Three Tips from a Professional Gambler is base on quotes taken from Ivey versus Crockfords. Phil Ivey sued London casino Crockfords Club for denying him £7.7m which he won in 20 August 2012. The casino withheld the money on the grounds that Ivey cheated.
Edge Sorting
Ivey used a system known as edge sorting to win the money at the baccarat table. The casino claims that this method is not a legitimate strategy because it defeats the premise of the game to nullify the gaming contract.
Kelly Cheung
Cheung Yin Sun (Kelly) assisted Ivey to edge sort the cards by asking the dealer to turn the key cards for baccarat upside-down. The casino referred to Cheung as the unidentified woman.
Casino’s Case Unsustainable
Justice Mitting was impressed by that professional conduct Ivey maintains that he said the casino’s case was “plainly unsustainable”. The case is still on going. At this juncture the case points favorably to Ivey.
The Ravel Casino in Atlantic City did not believe that smoking is an important complimentary product for gambling. Macau is following this footstep to put this consumer preference to test. Market Watch warns investors in their 3 Oct 2014 report that strict curbs on smoking laid out in a recent statement by Macau’s government information bureau will have a negative impact on share prices for casinos in Macau.
No Smoking Ruling
This recent announcement would completely ban all smoking in “mass areas,” although some VIP lounges will still allow it. According to Barclays Research’s latest forecasts the smoking rules are stricter than most economists had expected. Barclay initially interpreted the ruling to allow smoking at partitioned premium mass areas on the mass floor. “While previously we had expected just a low-to-mid-single-digit percentage impact to overall gross gaming revenue from the smoking ban (if premium mass areas can still smoke), we would now expect a higher mid-to-high-single-digit impact to overall Gross Gaming Revenue if smoking is not allowed in all premium mass areas as well,” the firm said.
The Ravel Story
The Revel Casino opened in April 2012 and had struggled since it started operations. It started out by trying to achieve its niche market by branding itself as an upmarket resort-class casino. This posh concept of no smoking, expensive food and drinks did not appeal to the typical gambling crowd of Atlantic City. The $2.4 billion resort suffered badly from poor patronage. After operating for 10 months, it incurred a debt of $1.5 billion. It filed for bankruptcy on March 2013. In May 2013 the casino got out of bankruptcy by clearing $1.2 billion of debt in exchange for an 82% equity to its lenders. It is unfortunate that Macau had not learned from Ravel.
Gambling Tales had a good collection of gambling stories. All the tales - such as, gambling addiction, violence in the casino, crimes against gambling outlets - were not mysterious. They were reported cases in which lawbreakers were brought to justice. This story about stealing from the casino published by 8 News Now on 27 Sep 2014 had an uncanny twist. It took place at the Stardust Hotel and Casino 22 years ago and the whereabouts of the thief remains unknown today.
Bill Brennan
The thief was an staff of the casino named Bill Brennan. He worked for the casino as a sports book cashier. After being on the job for four years he decided it was time to leave. On Sep 22, 1992 Brennan simply walked away with $507,361 in cash and chips in the morning. He did not use force or violence. "It appears he left the casino without being filmed by the surveillance cameras," Metro Police Lt. Joe Greenwood said in an interview in 1992.
Brennan's Character
Race and sports writer for "Gaming Today," Richard Saber said, "He was basically a total complete loner. He lived alone with his cat." Saber was former sports book manager at the Stardust when Brennan worked there. Judy Pope, manager of Brennan's apartment said during a 1992 interview that he was "just a nice kid, that's all." When police got to the apartment, Brennan and his cat was long gone. "They never found a trace of Bill Brennan anywhere. Never a trace," Saber said.
Bad Company
Being found with bad company could be the reason this "nice kid" undergone a change of character. Brennan was known to be hanging out with a big bettor. "This was a bettor that we didn't trust. He was a shady character. He disappeared from the face of the earth too just a few months after Bill had gone," Saber said. Scotty Schettler, who hired Brennan during the boom years, said, "He got influenced by outside sources, and his attitude changed, and he wanted desperately to be a supervisor, but with his change in attitude, I couldn't put him in charge of all that money."
Tracking Brennan
Being on the FBI's most wanted fugitive list never turned up leads. Authorities said they never saw any sign of Brennan show up in his native Pennsylvania. Metro Police Sgt. John Sheahan said if new leads come in this cold case could be reopened. Perhaps after 22 years someone knows something and Crime Stoppers is taking tips. "Nowadays, we're able to track someone with their cell phone down to within feet of where they're standing," Sheahan said.
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