sâmbătă, 7 aprilie 2012

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


Swedish Man Takes On A Moose

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 10:57 PM PDT



A Swedish man demonstrates just how manly he is by defending his property and woman from the scourge known as a moose. He managed to do all of this with an iron bar and not hurting the animal at all. His viking ancestors would be proud.


Google Glasses

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 09:38 PM PDT

Google has announced Project Glass, a technology-in-development that will allow users to wear Android-based display glasses to stream information right in front of their eyes.

A video released by Google on Wednesday, which can be seen below, showed potential uses for Project Glass. A man wanders around the streets of New York City, communicating with friends, seeing maps and information, and snapping pictures. It concludes with him video-chatting with a girlfriend as the sun sets over the city. All of this is seen through the augmented-reality glasses.












Wang Jiayun: Blowup Doll-like Chinese Girl

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 09:00 PM PDT

17-year-old Chinese female student Wang Jia Yun became famous overnight in the Chinese and Korean blogospheres last month. First revealed as a life-size inflatable doll born in Kowloon, Hong Kong, Wang Jia Yun is actually a normal high school student, currently studying in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China.

Due to her incredible Barbie look, Wang Jia Yun became a top search term amongst many Chinese and especially Korean search engines between February 16th and 17th. With large round eyes, sharp oval face, pointed chin and slender body, Wang Jia Yun was instantly nicknamed "Chong Qi Wa Wa" 充气娃娃 in Chinese, which means blow-up doll in English. Her height is 164cm and weight is 42kg.








































Linkscape Index Delay Explained

Linkscape Index Delay Explained


Linkscape Index Delay Explained

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 07:24 AM PDT

Posted by BrandonF

Last night we had to delay the Linkscape index launch date yet again to April 27th as can be seen on our release schedule. This is the second time we have had to adjust the launch date this processing cycle meaning there will be almost two months between index releases. We know this has a major impact on the SEOmoz community, so we felt like we owed you all a detailed explanation.

Back in December, Rand and the Linkscape team decided to ambitiously try to grow the index to over 100 billion URLs. Such an index would increase our coverage of many of the smaller sites on the web and also help us shape the breadth-versus-depth trade off in our crawl. We're very excited about this prospect, though the growing pains have proven to be a challenge which required us to tackle several issues all at once. In the interest of transparency, we want to fill you in on what's been going on.

In no particular order, here's the scoop:

  • We've been beefing up our crawlers
  • Balancing freshness against growth, and
  • Wrangling ornery hardware

It is difficult (at least for me) to comprehend 100 billion of anything. We've been in the "big data" business for a little while now, but to deliver an index of this scale at the quality we believe you deserve, we had to revisit some of our basic assumptions. One is the total rate of pages we crawl everyday. Not only was additional hardware needed, we had to improve our strategy for "politeness": the method by which we rate-limit ourselves to be a good web citizen, showing courtesy and empathy to our neighbors. Over the last four months, we've accomplished that goal and are now able to crawl well over double (and soon triple) the amount of pages per month compared to last year.

Simultaneously, we needed to improve our pipeline for turning crawl data into a final index, something we simply call "processing". Before January, our indexes always contained data from only the prior month of crawling. Depending on the exact duration we took to process the data, it was usually somewhere between 4-7 weeks old by the time it was released. Before any crawler improvements had been realized, the amount of data that we could collect in one month was simply not enough to get us to 100 billion URLs. So, we widened the window to include all data that was crawled in the last 2-3 months. That's why in January, we were able to launch our largest index to date at 58 billion URLs and again in February at 66 billion URLs.

In the December to January time frame, we started to see an increasing number of hard drive failures during each processing run. It turns out that spinning platter hard drives are one of the most fragile parts of a computer. Therefore seeing one or two failures each run is just a natural fact of life. To account for this, we check point every step of processing, so after such a failure, we can simply restore from S3 and continue from the last completed step. These backups are typically 100-200 terabytes large cluster wide. Historically, the restore process took no more than a day, so even if it happened 3 or 4 times in a month, we would only rarely slip our release date.

In December, that story changed. We experienced five hard drive failures and an additional machine failure, which caused us to restore from S3 a total of six times. Thus, we ended up shipping the index a few days late. In January, we again experienced five hard drive failures. Worse, several of these failures were clustered in one of the longest steps of processing. Since the index itself was growing, the restore step ballooned into multiple days each, causing us again to slip the index date. Additionally, we determined that the raw data stored on each processing machine would no longer fit within the local storage (or ephemeral storage in AWS's parlance), if we continued to grow the index. We engaged Amazon, our infrastructure provider, to see if they could help us deal with these issues.

As we were already using the largest available amount of local storage in AWS, the only real option was to move to Elastic Block Storage (EBS). This presented two downsides: performance and cost. EBS is not truly local, thus it entails a performance hit. It also costs both for total capacity and the rate of usage (or "IOPS"). Compared to ephemeral storage which is already included in the cost of EC2, this made a huge difference in the total cost to produce our index. Coincidentally, back in January someone asked on Quora how much producing the Linkscape index cost. Moving to EBS would double the total; since, in addition to the EBS cost, we needed to move to more expensive hardware to utilize faster networking. Still, we had no other choice, so we pushed forward. Additionally, the move to the larger machines required us to upgrade the operating system and change the virtualization layer that we were using, incurring more development time, which we paid for at the start of the year.

The good news for March was that after starting the index in late February, we realized that we were very likely to exceed the 100 billion URL goal that we had initially set out to achieve. In fact, we were expecting to release a new index at the end of March that contained over 150 billion URLs and over 1.7 trillion links. With that goal in hand, we started planning out the design and style for Rand's new facial hair, as was mentioned back in January's blog post. Believe me, we had some good ones.

Unfortunately, even though we increased the computing power of the machines that we were using, the performance hit of moving to EBS and the huge increase in data size caused way more growth in processing time than we had initially expected. Additionally, even though moving to EBS was supposed to be a more reliable solution, we still experienced hard drive failures. Fortunately, we had also switched to a higher redundancy RAID configuration, allowing us to save time when these drives did fail.

Sadly that leaves us in the state we are today having slipped past the end of March release date with no index ready to launch. So now, Rand's facial hair is safe, and we've disappointed our customers. We're really sorry for any trouble this has caused, but we assure you that we're trying to get things working as quickly as we can. We have be working tirelessly on several alternative solutions for increasing the computing power of our processing cluster to get a new index out as quickly as possible as well as trying to avoid this situation in following months.


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Easter and Passover Greetings from President Obama

The White House

Your Daily Snapshot for
Saturday, April 7, 2012

 

Easter and Passover Greetings from President Obama

President Obama offers his warmest greetings to all who are celebrating Easter and Passover this weekend, and reflects on the common thread of humanity that binds us all together.

Watch the President's weekly address:

Weekly Address April 7, 2012

President Barack Obama tapes the Weekly Address in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, April 6, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Sonya N. Hebert)

Weekly Wrap Up

Your quick look at this week on WhiteHouse.gov:

North American Leaders Summit: Leaders of Mexico and Canada joined President Obama at the White House on Monday for a summit aimed at promoting economic growth and creating jobs in all three countries. At a press conference in the Rose Garden, President Obama remarked, "I'm pleased to announce that our three nations are launching a new effort to get rid of outdated regulations that stifle job creation." The leaders also discussed security, energy, and efforts to combat drug cartels, as well as ways to continue boosting exports.

#AskVP about College Affordability: "College costs high. Debt burdensome. Help needed. That's why I'm here. Fire away. Use #AskVP –vp," the Vice President tweeted as a kickoff to his chat with the Twitterverse regarding college affordability and how the Obama Administration is tackling rising costs. Check out the question and answer session – covering topics from student loan debt to the emphasis on higher education in the proposed budget – on Storify.

Easter Prayer Breakfast: On Wednesday, President Obama hosted his third annual Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House, a week ahead of the Easter Egg Roll. "I wanted to get together with you for a little prayer and reflection, some calm before the storm."

Signed: the STOCK Act: During the State of the Union, President Obama stood before Congress and asked lawmakers to pass the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act. The bill was signed into law on Wednesday, making "it clear that if members of Congress use nonpublic information to gain an unfair advantage in the market, then they are breaking the law."

Federal Taxpayer Receipt: Want to find out how much of the federal taxes you paid went toward the different categories of spending in the 2011 Federal Budget? President Obama spoke about the newly updated Federal Taxpayer Receipt this week as a "terrific way for people to be able to get information about where their tax dollars are actually going." Enter a few pieces of information about the taxes you paid last year and find out how much of what you paid went to each slice of the pie here.

West Wing Week: Your video guide to everything that's happening this week at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Watch here.

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Seth's Blog : On making a ruckus in your industry

On making a ruckus in your industry

Bring forward a new idea or technology that disrupts and demands a response

Change pricing dramatically

Redefine a service as a product (or vice versa)

Organize the disorganized, connect the disconnected

Alter the speed to market radically

Change the infrastructure, the rules or the flow of information

Give away what used to be expensive and charge for something else

Cater to the weird, bypassing the masses

Take the lead on ethics

(Or you could just wait for someone to tell you what they want you to do)



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vineri, 6 aprilie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Nonfarm Payroll +120,000, Unemployment Rate Fell .1 to 8.2%, Record 87,897,000 "Not in Labor Force"

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 09:51 AM PDT

Quick Notes About the Unemployment Rate

  • US Unemployment Rate dropped .01 to 8.2%
  •  
  • In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,604,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 1,315,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,289,000.
  •  
  • The Civilian Labor Force fell by 164,000.
  •  
  • Those "Not in Labor Force" increased by 310,000. If you are not in the labor force, you are not counted as unemployed.
  •  
  • Those "Not in Labor Force" is at a new record high of 87,897,000.
  •  
  • By the Household Survey, the number of people employed fell by 31,000.
  •  
  • By the Household Survey, over the course of the last year, the number of people employed rose by 2,270,000.
  •  
  • Participation Rate fell .1 to 63.8%
  •  
  • Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%.

Over the past several years people have dropped out of the labor force at an astounding, almost unbelievable rate, holding the unemployment rate artificially low. Some of this was due to major revisions last month on account of the 2010 census finally factored in. However, most of it is simply economic weakness.

Jobs Report at a Glance

Here is an overview of today's release.

  • US Payrolls +120,000 - Establishment Survey
  • US Unemployment Rate dropped .01 to 8.2% - Household Survey
  • Average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls fell .1 to 34.5 hours
  • The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 33.8 hours.
  • Average hourly earnings for all employees in the private sector rose by 5 cents.

Recall that the unemployment rate varies in accordance with the Household Survey not the reported headline jobs number, and not in accordance with the weekly claims data.

March 2012 Jobs Report

Please consider the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) March 2012 Employment Report.

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 120,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 8.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in manufacturing, food services and drinking places, and health care, but was down in retail trade.

Unemployment Rate - Seasonally Adjusted



Nonfarm Employment - Payroll Survey - Annual Look - Seasonally Adjusted



Actual employment is about where it was just prior to the 2001 recession.

Nonfarm Employment - Payroll Survey - Monthly Look - Seasonally Adjusted



click on chart for sharper image

Between January 2008 and February 2010, the U.S. economy lost 8.8 million jobs.

Since a recent employment low in February 2010, nonfarm payrolls have expanded by 3.6 million jobs. Of the 8.8 million jobs lost between January 2008 and February 2010, 41 percent have been recovered.

Statistically, 125,000+- jobs a month is enough to keep the unemployment rate flat. For a discussion, please see Question on Jobs: How Many Does It Take to Keep Up With Demographics?

The average employment gain over the last 25 months has been 143,000, barely enough (statistically speaking) to make a dent in the unemployment rate.

Yet, the civilian unemployment rate has fell from 9.8% to 8.3%.

Current Report Jobs



Average Weekly Hours



Index of Aggregate Weekly Hours



Average Hourly Earnings vs. CPI



"Success" of QE2 and Operation Twist

  • Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 2.1 percent.
    In February, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) had an
    over-the-year increase of 2.9 percent; growth in prices has recently been
    outpacing growth in earnings.
  •  
  • Not only are wages rising slower than the CPI, there is also a concern as to how those wage gains are distributed.

BLS Birth-Death Model Black Box

The BLS Birth/Death Model is an estimation by the BLS as to how many jobs the economy created that were not picked up in the payroll survey.

The Birth-Death numbers are not seasonally adjusted while the reported headline number is. In the black box the BLS combines the two coming out with a total.

The Birth Death number influences the overall totals, but the math is not as simple as it appears. Moreover, the effect is nowhere near as big as it might logically appear at first glance.

Do not add or subtract the Birth-Death numbers from the reported headline totals. It does not work that way.

Birth/Death assumptions are supposedly made according to estimates of where the BLS thinks we are in the economic cycle. Theory is one thing. Practice is clearly another as noted by numerous recent revisions.

Birth Death Model Adjustments For 2011



Birth Death Model Adjustments For 2012



Birth-Death Note

Once again: Do NOT subtract the Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid.

Household Survey Data



click on chart for sharper image

In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,604,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 1,315,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,289,000.

That is an amazing "achievement" to say the least, and as noted above most of this is due to economic weakness not census changes.

Decline in Labor Force Factors

  1. Discouraged workers stop looking for jobs
  2. People retire because they cannot find jobs
  3. People go back to school hoping it will improve their chances of getting a job
  4. People stay in school longer because they cannot find a job

Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%.

Part Time Status



click on chart for sharper image

There are 7,672,000 workers who are working part-time but want full-time work.

Table A-15



click on chart for sharper image

Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of what the unemployment rate really is.

Notice I said "better" approximation not to be confused with "good" approximation.

The official unemployment rate is 8.2%. However, if you start counting all the people that want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

U-6 is much higher at 14.5%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.

Grossly Distorted Statistics

Given the complete distortions of reality with respect to not counting people who allegedly dropped out of the work force, it is easy to misrepresent the headline numbers.


Digging under the surface, the drop in the unemployment rate over the past two years is nothing but a statistical mirage. Things are much worse than the reported numbers indicate.

Note the drop in U-6 unemployment this month as the Civilian Labor Force fell by 164,000. This is beyond statistical noise, to the point of pure statistical bullsheet.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List


Another Plunge in 3-Month Rolling Average of Petroleum and Gasoline Usage for Jan, Feb, March 2012

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 12:16 AM PDT

Here is an update from reader Tim Wallace on gasoline and petroleum usage for the first three months of 2012. The chart shows Jan-Feb-March 2012 usage vs. the same three months in prior years.



click on chart for sharper image

Wallace writes ...
Hello Mish

Attached please find the latest three month rolling petroleum/gasoline usage charts. The raw data that serves to create this chart is from the Weekly Petroleum Status Report by the EIA.

The latest excuse from the government is that they needed to readjust the numbers to compensate for increased export demand that they had not properly tracked in the past couple of years.

However, that still does not account for the overall plunge in demand usage in the past several years - going back the USA peak usage year of 2007. Usage is now down by 13.6%, a huge decrease.

The overall trend continues well down in both petroleum and gasoline.

Best regards,

Tim
Also consider Ceridian Fuel Index Up 0.3 Percent in March, Down 2.2 Percent From Year Ago

Note that Ceridian real-time diesel fuel usage is back to mid-2005 levels.

GDP vs. PCI



Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List