Rosemary Beach, FL Easter Sunset. Captured by Cam, age 6.
$LAYYYTER
AnasAbdin
No title available

blake kathryn

@theartofmadeline
Claire Keane
we're not kids anymore.
d e v o n
Mike Driver
Keni

No title available
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year

Kaledo Art
todays bird
No title available
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

pixel skylines
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
seen from United States

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@uncliggett
Rosemary Beach, FL Easter Sunset. Captured by Cam, age 6.
Christian Values
From Quartz today: As your social media contacts must have reminded you by now, Christmas truly is the story of a Middle Eastern family seeking refuge. Recent forensic research suggests that Jesus looked very much like the men that so many in the predominantly Christian Western world are frightened to let into their countries. Even in photos of the refugees, there are striking echoes of biblical iconography. “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,” Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel. “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” This is at the very core of Christian values: love your neighbor as yourself—and as your god. And yet Westerners are, by and large, keeping refugees at bay, bargaining their quotas down, as if the world’s 2.2 billion Christians had never been taught the story of Joseph and Mary being refused accommodation because they were poor strangers. Perhaps instead we can show mercy for mothers breastfeeding their children on a cold beach, for men who nearly drown trying to swim to shore, for children who have no choice but to follow their parents in chasing a future—any future, anywhere. These people are the real-life versions of the icons that Christians have come to associate with the passion of god as a human. Let us recognize them as such. Let us acknowledge, once and for all, that being a refugee—of war, poverty, or discrimination—is a sheer function of luck, and we did nothing to deserve our better fate. Whenever and wherever humanity is suffering, we are involved, and the responsibility to offer refuge is ours until the least of us have shelter.—Annalisa Merelli
Vaccines
How can we encourage vaccinations without requiring it? One would be to not allow children admittance to public school without vaccination or a medical experts written permission. In this way the medical profession would self-regulate and be subject to their own ethics based on evidence of the risks. Another would be to pay parents to vaccinate their children or at least have them sign a affidavit saying they understand the evidence and risk of not doing so. Just some thoughts. This could follow the success of anti-tobacco policy showing grotesque pictures of the risk of using the product. Parents with children in private schools should demand to know the schools policy toward vaccination and question why they don't require vaccination for admittance. These policies should be public. Exemptions could be made for immune compromised children.
Someone told me the other day that the promise of Bitcoin in 2014 was remittance. I think that they were right. A lot of people, last year, were convinced of Bitcoin’s merit as an instrument of remittance, including me. The problem is that remittance usually requires a third party in order to...
While this may be correct, when dealing with base currencies, we still pay financial intermediaries a fee, like coinbase. There are still fees and friction so that is a problem. Until Bitcoin can function or prove it can function as a store of value, then nothing much has changed. It's just cash market that requires paying a fee when you need real currency. I may need rubles when I travel to Russia, but I would never keep my earnings in ruble. People used Bitcoin to do business on pirates bay but I'm sure the smart ones converted to USD as soon as possible. I'm hopeful Bitcoin can begin to function as a store of value, but that will require people earning, lending, and borrowing in Bitcoin. Merchants need to think in Bitcoin, not their own currency.
Amazing New Way to Travel Space
“There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. Its knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Brilliant mathematician Edward Belbruno has recently devised the way to travel space. It’s called ‘ballistic capture’.
Our current method of driving spacecraft is by something called the ‘Hohmann Transfer’. All this is is simply a way to orbit all the way to your destination.
Because we can’t carry nearly enough fuel in order to travel in a straight line, we need to orbit around the Sun and manipulate our orbit so it naturally flies us to our destination.
We turn on our thrusters for a short period at specific places. This makes the shape of our orbit stretched out like an oval. You can stretch this oval so that the orbit would stretch right into the orbit of passing planets (presuming you’re looking to go to said planets).
Problem? There are two.
The Hohmann Transfer requires something called a launch window. We need to wait until Earth’s orbit coincides closely with the orbit of where we’re trying to get. For Mars this happens every 26 months. For things farther out the space between launch windows is even larger.
While traveling this way, the spacecraft is going fast. If you don’t know already, all an orbit is is you flying forward so fast that the circular shape of the Earth curves down away from you faster than you fall towards it. By definition orbital velocities are violently fast. To reach a destination without flying right by it or crashing into it you have to slow down which means carrying a LOT of extra fuel all the way there.
Basically the Hohmann Transfer is expensive, dangerous and limiting.
The new technique’s actually has been around for awhile but it’s only been used to get spacecraft to the Moon. Edward Belruno’s solved the math involved to do it with Mars as well.
This is a mathematical miracle on par with the rocketeering wizardry of SpaceX.
Ballistic capture works like this:
You launch your spacecraft
You stretch the orbit so you’ll gently drift along your destination and the planet’s gravity will capture you as it catches up, turning your spacecraft into a satellite - no need to burn all that extra fuel at all.
Profit
With this new technique finally worked out we’ll be able to fly to Mars with a synchronized-precision. It’ll be like figure skaters gently moving towards each other side by side until they finally meet and hold hands while the entire universe spins around them.
Ballistic capture will be super efficient, cheap and we can launch pretty much whenever we want.
Edward Belruno, you are awesome. I love you. I love math. I love space.
Also, credit where it’s due: Boeing funded the research that led to this. Good on them. This is really amazing stuff.
(Gorgeous Mars art came from Alpha-Element)
So, is a company’s debt something you should worry about? For the most part, the answer is only in extreme cases. For example, when ranking our All Stocks Universe by debt, Decile 5 is smack dab in the middle of the All Stocks Universe—using debt, but in a responsible way. An Investment of...
Markets are hard. One of the main reasons they’re hard is because it’s in our nature to overthink. We’re tempted to think deep thought is our value added, how we justify our fees. It’s also how we impress clients.
But market reality is usually far simpler. Investors chase returns. We fall for...
The great mark dow at his best.
Twitter is to news as Instagram is to photography.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/05/twitter_is_not_dying_it_s_on_the_cusp_of_getting_much_bigger.single.html (via fred-wilson)
Twitter isn't dying.
The real story here that has been rattling around my brain the most is the story of innovation at the fringes beyond normalcy. Chris Dixon said when he made the investment in Coinbase that Bitcoin, “is one of the 5 best computer science ideas from the last forty years.” I agree. And, the idea that this brilliance came largely from one guy, acting in isolation, motivated largely by paranoia and distaste for existing financial infrastructure, is just wild. In this light the profile of Satoshi is the profile of an artist, or better yet, a maker. And like all makers, he is quirky, weird, one of the crazy ones.
Andrew Parker (via fred-wilson)
Big wave.
http://static.digg.com/images/email/2013_10_29_526f20c7929a1e3795cb1321_1383014619.
DREAM Lab, 3D printing First Graders
Today, I was almost moved to tears by my daughter explaining how she had used a 3D printer in the new DREAM lab at her (ALL GIRL) school. I'm so proud of Brie Daley and the whole Baldwin Team for making it possible. The tears, btw, were pure jealousy. I have a feeling we will have the Makerbot 2 in our home soon. Even if its for printing bracelets and star wars figurines.
To read more about Baldwin's Dream Lab, check out below: http://www.baldwinschool.org/Customized/Uploads/admissions/BaldwinDreamBrochurev2Rd5.pdf
Romo, our pet robot, out for a ride. #romo
Yosemite fire looks a lot like a city.
NYSE Margin Debt hits Record
FROM Deutsche Bank on Friday
As – you’ve probably seen – NYSE margin debt hit a Record High in Q2… We’re not arguing a peak in equities is just around the corner. The current condition of expanded margin debt could persist or grow from here… But – our team does argue the underlying basis on which prices trade is more fragile and, more importantly, the higher margin debt levels rise, even a less severe sell-off in equities could trigger the sequence of events outlined in this report…
The NYSE tracks margin debt for the US market. The April 2013 figure of USD384bn marked an all-time high since records started in 1959….When netting out account credit metrics, such as Free Credit Cash and Credit Balances in margin accounts, total investor net worth hit the lowest level since 2000 at USD$106bn….
It seems as if investors have rarely been more levered than today. According to our observations, a monthly change in margin debt >10% has to be taken as a critical signal as we discover astonishing similarities in the sequence of events among all crises (the new technologies market around 1999/00, the Great Financial Crisis around 2007/08) as well as today.
In summary, this does not necessarily mean the peak in equities is just around the corner. It means the underlying basis on which prices trade is most fragile and, more importantly, the higher margin debt levels rise, even a less severe sell-off in equities could trigger the sequence of events outlined in this report. A good acid test of what kind of investor you have become is to gauge your gut reaction to these observations.
$Dell Insults Shareholders
Raising the bid by 10 cents is insulting enough
Trying to change the voting process sounds down right banana republic
At this point, investors should get behind Icahn and let him make you money.
From David Zervos Today: Code Red
I have this vision of Ben [Bernanke], looking out of his 2nd floor office window in the Eccles building onto Constitution Ave, saying to himself in a mock interview with 60 minutes reporter Scott (Lieutenant Kaffee) Pelley -
"I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for bond markets and curse the Fed. You have that luxury, you have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That the crushing of the bond market, while tragic, saved lives. My existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down, in a place you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like QE, portfolio balance channel and ZIRP. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending this economy. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the very blanket of economic freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you open a brokerage account and go out and starting loading up on a levered spoo position! Either way I don't give a d@mn what you think you are entitled to."
And then he glances over into the mirror above bureau by his desk and says -
"You are d@mn right I ordered the code red"
He says it over and over again, as he lights a Montecristo A with a flaming 100 dollar bill!! Beautiful. Fade to black! Fade to Princeton!