John McAfee is the man behind the anti-virus name. His home was raided by four different arms of armed Belize official organizations, including the GSU and the police. At least that is what is being reported by Channel 5 in Belize.

When I say "his home," this appears to consist of nine houses and is the site of the Belize Ecological Foundation. The Belize Gang Suppression Unit's press release declares that McAfee, 66, was there with his 17-year-old girlfriend (referred to as a minor) and five security guards.

The GSU reportedly says it discovered 10 firearms and 5 air rifles, all allegedly unlicensed. It also claims that it took samples of an alleged antibiotic that was being manufactured at this home. The GSU is sure that McAfee had no license for such a production, the report says.

Via:http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57428439-71/mcafee-founder-booked-on-drug-weapons-charges-report-says/

Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire co- founder of Facebook Inc. (FB), renounced his U.S. citizenship before an initial public offering that values the social network at as much as $96 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill.

Via: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-11/facebook-co-founder-saverin-gives-up-u-s-citizenship-before-ipo.html

Funny, isn't it?

Data from Greece's statistics service on Thursday showed unemployment hit 21.7 percent in February from a revised 21.3 percent in January. In the 15-24 age group it rose to 54 percent, explaining the big youth vote for anti-bailout parties, led by the radical Left Coalition.

The data showed nearly 1.1 million people were jobless, 42 percent more than in the same month a year ago, reflecting the damage as the country's 215 billion euro economy continues to contract for a fifth consecutive year.

Via: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/10/us-greece-unemployment-idUSBRE8490IO20120510

People are so used to progress and improvements that it make them hard to imagine other reality.

And in this reality, goverments who now cut various teachers, policemens, pensions, will make the next step.
They'll cut dotations to agro business, to energy infrastructure (most green energy donations will end this year, btw).
I know, it is hard to imagine, but numbers tell us that they have no other solution. And this next step will put ordinary people between two things - from one side it'll be dropping income, from other side it'll be fast prices rise on the things you can not live without. And both will be accompanied by huge company in mass media telling you how it could be much worse, but they worked hard and saved the day.

Who is the biggest loser in the ongoing decline of the U.S. economy? Is it the wealthy? No, the stock market has been soaring lately and their incomes are actually going up. Is it the poor? Well, the poor are definitely hurting very badly, but when you don't have much to begin with you don't have much to lose. Unfortunately, it is the middle class that has lost the most during this economic downturn. According to Bloomberg, 95 percent of the jobs lost during the recession were middle class jobs. That is an absolutely astounding figure.

Read the rest at: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/95-percent-of-the-jobs-lost-during-the-recession-were-middle-class-jobs

Via: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/and-so-world-burns-global-april-pmi-summary

USB 3.0 Cables

I see absolutely no issue for using USB 3.0 locking cables.
They are suitable for any reasonable compressed raw footage transfer.

Nine in ten Greeks have economic difficulties to buy their medication, while 70% say their income is not enough for the purchase of all the medicine they need. Furthermore, 59.5% did not proceed to labour tests as advised by their physicians due to economic problems.

Via: http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2012/04/25/survey-9-in-10-greeks-unable-to-purchase-drugs-medicindue-to-economic-problems/

AU Optronics (AUO) plans to begin rolling out naked-eye 3D panels in the second half of 2012 and expects its shipments of 65-inch TV panels to reach 700,000 units for the year, according to company vice president TK Wu.

The average panel size for TV applications is expected to grow to 36.5-inch in 2012 from 35.5-inch in 2011, Wu estimated, adding that the comparative size at AUO will edge up by 1.5-inch to 36.3-inch during the year.

Via: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120426PD219.html

Earlear report:

Economic Daily News says that AU Optronics (AUO) has receinved orders which may reach 100K units for 65-inch naked-eye full HD 3D TV panels from LG Electronics and Vizio

Good news indeed.
4K could have some chance in TVs, but only as part of 3D sets, I think.

Very interesting thing will happen also in phone market, as further enchancing resolution of phone screens is pointless. 720p will be standard resolution quite soon. AMOLED also takes more and more of this market.
It is clear that next target will be 3D sets.

It is really cheap. Good for backups or your uncompressed footage.

While in camera world we have clear progress year after year, in keyboard business things in mass market are going in reverse.

If you get IBM PS/2 keyboard from 1991 and after working on it you go to your shop and try various keyboards you'll be in shock. Starting from $5-10 crap invented only to type up to 140 symbols a day (makes you understand twitter popularity), to pricey junk "space ships" designed to run video player.

And gaming keyboards. This is long story. Not only you must send all your time down the pipes, but you must do it on cool keyboards. I am not even start the story of motherfuckers who place extra keys in the bottom row, more and more. Inventor of Windows keys (and Fn keys on notebooks) must be found and executed in public using some very paintful way.

This was few thoughts I got after looking at keyboard market and getting Razor BlackWidow (not big choice of localized mechanical stuff is available really).

This is mechanical keyboard based on Cherry MX Blue switches

Razor keyboard is very good example of modern "inventors".

1. Key size is slightly reduced compared to normal keyboards (whole main block is smaller than normal keyboard).
2. Typeface used for keys is just awful, not major, really, if you type constantly, but anyway.
3. As this is "gamers keyboard" it has macro keys that are on the left and placed in such distance that makes harder intuitive use of left Ctrl.
4. It is glossy and keys are made from quite cheap plastic (if you compare to IBM keyboards)

But overall, of couse it can't be compared to rubber dome crap, even good one as some Microsoft keyboards.

It not have ideal main key block layout like some keyboards:

As Enter is still small.

May be in future we'll see something ideal, like IBM keyboards, but with larger bottom row, no widows keys and with buckling spring or mech switches options.

Firearms industry is up 66 percent since the beginning of the Great Recession, providing an unexpected shot in the arm for the economy, according to a new study.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation says the economic impact of firearm sales — a figure that includes jobs. taxes and sales — hit $31 billion in 2011, up from $19 billion in 2008.

Jobs in the firearms business jumped 30 percent from 2008 to 2011, when the industry employed 98,750.

The industry paid $2.5 billion in federal taxes in 2011, up 66 percent in three years.

FBI reported that a record 14.4 million criminal background checks were requested for gun purchases in 2010, and that preliminary numbers project the figure to be above 16 million for 2011.

Via: http://www.financialarmageddon.com/2012/04/business-is-booming.html

By June some 700,000 people who are currently collecting benefits will lose everything.

Via: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/your-ebt-card-has-been-denied-700000-are-about-lose-their-extended-jobless-claims-benefits

Research, which questioned more than 1,000 people, identified that the majority of people in the UK actively listen to four-hours of music a day, which equates to more than 60 days per year.

National study has found that the average person in the UK will listen to more than 13 years’ worth of music before they die.

Via: http://www.facebook.com/AudioTechnicaUK

To conform to early TV system architectures and other mediums that transmitted data serially, the earliest image sensing technology utilized an electronic shutter mechanism known as a rolling shutter. With this long history, the rolling shutter and its associated columnparallel readout architectures, in which pixels of the same row are readout simultaneously, was also the natural choice for performing shutter operations within CMOS image sensors.

BUENOS AIRES -(Dow Jones)- Argentine President Cristina Kirchner said Monday she will ask Congress to expropriate oil-and-gas producer YPF SA (YPF, YPFD.BA), allowing the government to share ownership of the company with oil producing provinces.

The bill would give the government and the provinces a total of 51% of ownership in YPF, Kirchner said in a speech announcing YPF's expropriation. Of that controlling stake, she added, the federal government will obtain 51% while the provinces will split the remaining 49%.

The bill's passage will require two-thirds support in both houses, Kirchner said. Given widespread public support for state management of the company, the bill seems likely to become law.

Kirchner blamed YPF for declining oil and gas production and said the company is largely responsible for forcing Argentina to become dependent on imported oil and gas for the first time in 17 years. She said a lack of investment in the sector led Argentina to incur an energy deficit surpassing $3 billion last year.

"This situation almost turned us into an inviable country," Kirchner said.

Argentina is the only major Latin American country without a significant state presence in the oil industry. Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, and even tiny Uruguay, all boast state-run firms that are important players in their respective oil and gas industries.

The bill calls for YPF's shareholders to be compensated at a value to be determined by a federal tribunal.

Via: http://www.euroinvestor.com/news/2012/04/16/update-argentina-to-expropriate-ypf-share-ownership-with-provinces/11960787

Output dropped 0.7 percent from January, when it declined a revised 2.6 percent, national statistics office Istat said today in Rome. The February rate matched the median forecast of 10 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.
Production fell 6.8 percent from a year earlier on a workday-adjusted basis.
Customer goods production fell 9,6% year to year.

Via: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-13/italian-industrial-output-falls-for-second-month-on-slump.html

Sony Corp. plans to reduce its work force by an estimated 10,000 jobs, or roughly 6% of its global total, as part of a broader restructuring plan by Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai, people familiar with the matter said Monday.

The cuts could be made over the next two fiscal years, ending in March 2014, though the timing hasn't been settled, the people said. The potential cuts were the first details to emerge of Mr. Hirai's restructuring plan since he succeeded Howard Stringer as CEO this month. The plan is expected to be announced at a corporate strategy meeting on Thursday.

Mr. Hirai is focusing on turning around an electronics business that has had four straight years of losses.

Via: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303772904577333162194832288.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay "them!"

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often-long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love-whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country, but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

(c) GC

Dear Sir and Madam,

My name is Jurre Hermans. I am 10 years old and live in the Netherlands. I am quite worried about the eurocrisis and look at the TV news daily. The eurocrisis is a big problem. I think about solutions. Since I read in the newspaper about your price, I thought that I would like to submit my idea. The idea might fit. So here it is: I made a picture of my solution and I will explain it to you.

Greece should leave the Euro. How do you do that? All Greek people should bring their Euro to the bank. They put it in an exchange machine (see left on my picture). You see, the Greek guy does not look happy!! The Greek man gets back Greek Drachme from the bank, their old currency.

The Bank gives all these euro’s to the Greek Government (see top left on my picture). All these euros together form a pancake or a pizza (see on top in the picture). Now the Greek government can start to pay back all their debts, everyone who has a debt gets a slice of the pizza. You see that all these euro’s in the pizza’s go the companies and banks who have given loans in Greece (see right in my picture).

Now here comes the clever part of my idea:

The Greek people do not want to exchange their Euro’s for Drachmes because they know that this Drachme will lose its value dramatically. They try to keep or hide their Euro’s. They know that if theywait a while they will get more Drachmes.

So if a Greek man tries to keep his Euros (or bring his euros to a bank in an other country like Holland or Germany) and it is discovered, he gets a penalty just as high or double as the whole amount in euros he tried to hide!!!

In this way I ensure that all Greeks bring their euros to a greek bank and so the greek government can pay back all the debts.

I hope my idea helps you!!!!

Of course if a country has paid back all his debts , he can return to the eurozone.

A bit more about myself: I am 10, love animals since I have a dog and a bird. I live in a family of 5 in Holland. I have 5 friends with whom I play all day, mostly outside.

Look! He even loves animals! Sadly love towards people are not in his arsenal.

Via: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2012/04/03/11-year-old-jurre-hermans-proposes-pizza-like-greek-euro-exit-plan/

Thing that this video get wrong is that goverment is partly right in their measures.
Why? Because you need to take into account globalization.
So, if you introduce taxes, get this money and spend it on war and construction you can be in surplus.
As you have problems controlling money spend by citizens (on Chinese and other countries goods).
But you can be good at controlling contracts to be sure that they stay inside.

This is ideal situation, of course.

Thread Title: Nails for Stiletto TB15?

Hammeruser: I’ve saved up for months and just got my Stiletto TB15SS titanium hammer. At $220 they’re pricey but with the replaceable stainless steel face, ultra light weight handle, and excellent balance I can see myself using this for many years. I’ve had it 3 days now and it’s just wonderful. Does anyone have any suggestions for a good framing nail to use with this hammer?

Hammergeek: You say it’s wonderful but I don’t see any photos of nails you’ve driven. I think it’s just overpriced crap.

Hammerfiend: You know, Ken Rockbuster said the Stiletto is really overpriced and he wouldn’t have one. For $14 you can get a Tekton rubber mallet set. It’s not any good for driving nails, but it is great for body work on your car. That’s what Ken recommends.

MC: If you really were a professional, you’d be using a Graintex SH 1660 sledgehammer. It’s got a 36 inch handle and 20 lb head and can tear through walls in a heartbeat. Your Stiletto can’t touch this.

Hammeruser: I do framing work and carpentry, so tearing through walls really doesn’t apply to my work.

M.C.: That’s because you have absolutely no skills. A good hammer user can drive nails with a 20 pound sledghammer with no problem. You’re one of those rich doctors, aren’t you, that thinks upgrading your hammer is going to make you a better carpenter?

Continue at: http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2012/03/hammerforum-com

Good read. Including comments.

SHOPS and offices will be forced to switch off their lights at night-time under a new energy-saving law.

The law, announced with a barrage of other environmental measures last December, is due to be published in the Journal Officiel in the coming days and come into effect on July 1.

External lights in "non-residential" buildings would have to be switched off between 1.00 and 6.00 - and the Ecology Ministry is talking with traders' and business federations about extending the switch-off to internal lighting.

Turning off both internal and external lighting across France could save the power needed to heat and light 700,000 homes. The measure on external lighting could save the power of 260,000 households.

City centre traders' groups have called for some easing of the restrictions in the grands magasins of the Boulevard Haussmann, Champs-Elysées and in large cities - and also in areas with a lively night life - and the ministry has said it is not opposed.

However, the federation of small businesses CGPME has attacked the proposals for a "curfew" as "irrelevant and unacceptable".

It highlighted safety problems, saying: "People, without any way of knowing if an establishment is open, will be hesitant about going into a hotel, a petrol station, a discotheque or a hospital if the outside is in total darkness.

Via: http://connexionfrance.com/Shops-offices-energy-law-switch-off-Ecology-curfew-13587-view-article.html

More measures are coming by ecology activists, big supporters of closing nuclear plants and authors of food price hikes due to their "natural" fuel programs.

Via: http://www.giadatech.com/index.php?app=product&act=show&id=94

Yep. Something like it (with i5 4 core processor), with additional dock for stock 2.5" SSD. And camera module attached by USB 3.0.

It'll require Bauer battery to supply about 35-40W.

Most of the cameras that you are using are manufacturing by large conglomerates.
Or some conglomerate support and protect actual designer and manufacturer.
Like it, or not, 21th is the century of huge conglomerates and corporations.

It is also interesting that 1997 crisis, first amongs the modern wave) had one clear main target - Korean chaebals (among other Asian emerging markets).
And in reality many of them suffered like Daewoo(more) and Hyundai(less). But most survived, and I hope, will keep specifics uncommon to Western democratic(tm) business approaches.

In liberal papers (and many Korean also) it is common place to paint them with dirt.
Talk about absence of big profits, corruption.
Taking in consideration that now is the time of large corporations wars, sometimes very complex ones, ones that are tricky to understand, it is mostly proparanda weapons.
Yet, it is very interesting to look at them in more details.
Especially considering that in upcoming years they'll clear the path from virtual PR greations such as Apple, and will take their market share. In the future posts I'l try to talk about conglomerates in more details.