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Election is Over

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.

suedaji

Martha Holler said the act of creating a plan for college savings seems to boost the odds of success. While this success refers to saving the money, I believe this also applies to the success of the offspring to earn the degree. Parents who value education will tell their children that money had been put aside for their studies. This is a typical affair for Chinese families. As soon as they get their paycheck they will deposit the money into the saving account with the children. As the children grow, they will value fund that was set aside. They know is was blood, sweat and tears of their parents stored over the years and they feel obligated to do their best.

savyseph-blog

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.

suedaji

It if comforting to get certification from the source that counts.

sophialogica-blog

The South China Morning Post’s article dated 24 March 2015 refers to the event as “naked wedding celebrations” but it is actually a protest. Ten couples, some married for many years, participated in the event. Couples were covered in body paint and dressed in underwear for the event at Hangzhou Paradise amusement park in Zhejiang province. They are rejecting modern Chinese value that placed greater value on materialism as opposed to love.

Materialism makes me think of Karl Marx. Operating under a demand driven economy, China like to think of themselves as a communist state. The term has no place for economic class struggle but after decades of opening to this system, people in China would aspire to own a house or a car before they get married. A naked wedding involves a couple marrying without possessing a house or car.

suedaji

With the economic slowdown couples would not get married if the want to get a car and house first.

One-third of those surveyed didn't know the following questions are illegal to ask in a job interview:

What is your political affiliation?

What is your race, color or ethnicity?

How old are you?

Are you disabled?

Are you married?

Do you have children or plan to?

Are you in debt?

Do you social drink or smoke?

The finding was based on a nationwide survey of more than 2,100 hiring and human resource managers released Thursday by CareerBuilder, which commissioned Harris Poll, the CBS News reported 10 April 2015.

Discrimination of some form can be seen in the question asked. Not included in the list is location. It is okay to ask if applicants are willing to relocate but not where the applicant live. This can be construed as a prejudice towards a certain residential address. Inquiring about long-term plans is acceptable but asking when interviewees plan to retire can be deems as biases to age.

savyseph-blog

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.

suedaji

I will keep in mind that 240 pixels width is a good size. I hope to seem other opinions on this.

Which weight program works and which ones does not work? Researchers at Johns Hopkins had done the work for you and they published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on 6 April 2015. They reviewed clinical trials on the biggest players in the commercial weight-loss programs, including Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and Nutrisystem, Medifast and OPTIFAST, the CBS News reported. John Hopkins researchers studied 4,200 cases and found only a few dozen met the requirement of reliability. Diet plans that worked are those which were supported by data establishing that participants on average lost more weight after one year than people who were either dieting on their own were. Medical contributor Dr. Holly Phillips told "CBS This Morning" that she is always dumbfounded when asked which plans works. With this research she can now give a scientific answer. This research will serve as a guideline to two-third of the American population who were are obese. Before forking out hundreds of dollars on packaged meals, nutrition shakes, or counseling sessions, they could consult this research which ones are most effective in the long run. American are expected to spend $2.5 billion on commercial diet plans and services in 2014. Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig were highlighted as those that were effective. Nutrisystem was good but lasted only 3 to 6 months. The "very-low calorie programs" namely; Health Management Resources (HMR), Medifast, and OPTIFAST showed the benefits diminished by the 6-month mark. Atkins helps but not as much as with some competing diet programs. The Ornish diet was excluded because it is primarily focused on heart health rather than weight loss. Dr. Phillips said the most successful plans had in common: it incorporated social support and teamwork. "The only diets that work are those that you stick with, and if you have some companionship along the way, you're more likely to do it," she said. The Zone diet was not reviewed by the researchers because unlike other weight-loss plans in the study, Zone does not include any behavioral or social support.

savyseph-blog

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.

suedaji

Mobile surfing works for me. It is specifically helpful when I need to check equity prices. Casual surfing I usually do with laptops.

veronglowsome-blog

Taking off on 9 March from Abu Dhabi to circumnavigate the world, the Solar Impulse 2 (Si2) became the first ever single-seater solar aircraft to enter China in Chongqing airport early on Tuesday (31 March 2015) morning local time (1735 UTC). She made four stops before arriving in China. The distance of 1,468 kilometers from Muscat, Oman to Ahmedabad, India was the longest distance covered by a solar-powered flight. It set another record for solar-powered flight with a speed of 117 knots (216 kilometers per hour) reached during the leg to Mandalay from Varanasi, India.

With a width of about 72 meters, the Si2 is wider than a Boeing 747 jet. She only weighs 2.3 tons which slightly heavier than a sedan. She employ more than 17,000 solar cells on her wings to power up four electric motors. Solar Impulse 2 is expected to complete the 35,000 km journey within five months [see my previous blog]. It had charted an average speed is 70 kilometers per hour. The Si2 was created by Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg of Switzerland will take turns to pilot the plane in the round the world trip.

The flight from Myanmar to Chongqing took 20-and-a-half hours. Flying above the mountainous Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan meant a steep climb at the beginning of the journey. Flying at high altitude, Piccard had to wear an oxygen mask in the 3.8 square-meter, unpressurized cockpit as temperatures dropped to minus 20 degrees celsius on the 1,375-kilometer (854-mile) route. Strong low-level winds greeted the flight as it arrived in Chongqing. It flies next to the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing before heading to Hawaii. It is due back in Abu Dhabi in August after its journey of 12 stages, the Deutshe Welle reported.

suedaji

They need to work on the speed. Twenty hours from Myanmar to China is nothing to shout about

savyseph-blog

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.

suedaji

The tax man should consider losses as write off if they are thinking of taxing poker players.

Vikings ties with the Islamic caliphate existed during the 9th century. Ancient texts and tales recorded the Vikings journeys to the Islamic caliphate but they usually include references to "giants and dragons". A finger ring excavated during the late 19th century that was inscribed with Arabic letters points to such ties and researchers led by Stockholm University biophysicist Sebastian Wärmländer are re-examining it.

The ring was excavated Swedish grave in the town of Birka, on Björkö Island, about 19 miles (30 kilometers) from Stockholm. The town was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993 because it was an important Viking trading post. Arabic Kufic writing was inscribed on the ring. The letters appear to read "AL_LLH," researchers say, which they interpret as meaning "for/to (the approval of) Allah." It is only ring with an Arabic inscription ever found at a Scandinavian archaeological site, the CNN reported on 19 March 2015.

The ring belong to a women clad in traditional Viking attire but her ethnicity was unknown due to the decomposed state of the bones in the grave. "It is not impossible that the woman herself, or someone close to her, might have visited -- or even originate from -- the Caliphate (which then stretched from Tunisia to the borders of India) or its surrounding regions," the researchers said.

sophialogica-blog

Insider threat is an expansive affair for companies where information is vital for business. “In an embarrassing episode for Morgan Stanley, the bank dismissed an employee earlier this year for taking information about an estimated 350,000 clients of its wealth-management division [Bloomberg 12 March 2015].” The dangers of hiring a Trojan Horse is ever-present in this business.

Professional Input

This Bloomberg article had given some insights on corporate espionage. It reported that about 20 companies sell tools to monitor employee behavior. Dune Lawrence, Bloomberg’s journalist, had interviewed some players that sells software to spy on your employee. Most of them were former FBI agents and their inputs can be used to understand the espionage game.

Financial Stresses

Stroz Friedberg, a New York-based consulting firm, specializes in digital forensics. They use linguistic and behavioral analysis techniques developed by the FBI. It evaluates the content of employees e-mails and other communications. Warning will be triggered if terms indicating financial stresses were encountered. “Late rent” or “medical bills” are cited as examples of keywords the software is looking for.

Behavioral Patterns

Employees activities were monitored to create a profile of each employee and establish a “normal” behavior. Suspicious activities will be flag when there is a deviation from the norm. An algorithm is used to place to evaluate risk score for users based on what danger they may pose to the firm. Employees getting ready to leave with highly sensitive data start doing things they hadn’t before, such as changing their e-mail habits or downloading thousands of documents from a database.

Privacy Issues

Edward Stroz, founder Stroz Friedberg and a former FBI agent, says companies have found this idea too intrusive in the past but the perception had changed in the past year. Like it or not, competitors will send spies to get information from the inside. They also prey on dissatisfied employes or those with financial stresses. Some form of monitor is better than none at all. Conscience had Securonix, a spy on employee software firm based in Los Angeles, raising the question on how much is too much. Dune Lawrence recorded Igor Baikalov, a former security executive at Bank of America and chief scientist at Securonix, with this dilemma.

suedaji

Being put in charge of monitoring the software's red flag is a crummy job. If you get a person who has a nosy attitude they would be interested in the gossip. One who is not will be bored until something concrete comes a long.

International Women's Day Celebration

Men across China sprinted with high heels in a race on 8 March 2015. This nationwide activity took the metaphor literally. The event was organized in good spirit as men would not acquired an empathy by wearing heels. The event managed to gather some participation from gutsy man who show up in good sport. One particular mall throw in some obstacles on the race track to make it more fun.

Source China Daily

sophialogica-blog

The Silk Road’s Recent Development

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....

suedaji

I found UNESCO's passage on silk control inconsistent. If silk was reserved for the exclusive usage of the Chinese imperial court then trading it would be a crime.

savyseph-blog

Professional Gambler’s Tips

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.

xingcaitang-blog

Converting quotes by Ivey into gambling tips is a magnificent idea.

suedaji

Kelly picks Chinese dealers so communication can be in Chinese. This way nobody knows what is going on.

jackomnitrade-blog

Smoking Complements Gambling

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.

veronglowsome-blog

There is no need to endanger Macau’s economy. Just let the gamblers smoke if that is what the want.

amendasteels-blog

Smoker can steal your right to a smoke free environment in Macau.

suedaji

When smokers control the economy, you had to put up with the smoke.

guerrillagambler-blog

Casino Dealers on Strike in Macau

At noon time of 1 Oct 2014, up to 300 dealers of led by the “Forefront of Macau Gaming” took sick leave collectively to demand higher wages and better benefits. The Forefront of Macau Gaming, headed by Leong Man Teng, is a labor union with members from six major casinos in Macau. “The vast majority of our team members have reported to work and are delivering their high level of service as usual,” MGM China Holdings Ltd company said in a statement, the Voice of America reported.

Gambling Hub

As a pioneer in the legal casino business, Macau is a gambling hub for the Asian region. Mainland China constitute the 60% of the visitors. Gaming revenues account for nearly 90% of government revenues. From a fishing village Macau had transformed into the gambling capital of the world with 35 casinos and a population base of more than half a million living in an area of 31.3 km2. Macau is pushing to build eight new resorts in the next three years but will faces labor shortage problems due to the current rigid regulations that prohibit foreigners from working at gaming tables.

suedaji

I hope tension don't build up to violence.

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