#and pmg has this look on his face like

[theparadoxmachine]

Paul Michael Glaser as Brett Hanson in Numb3rs, Season 5 Episode 9 “Conspiracy Theory”

[mitochondriaandbunnies]

Miami Vice S1E8: No Exit

Bruce Willis plays one of the sleaziest villains in all of Vice, directed by David Soul.

One of my favorite early episodes-- this is definitely a good candidate for trying to convince someone to watch Miami Vice. Fair warning that it’s fairly upsetting!

While Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky) directs 3 episodes of Vice, David Soul (Hutch) only did this one. PMG’s episodes are brisk, sarcastic, and laden with visual metaphor. This episode from Soul is dark, contemplative, and artistically spare. Both directors, however, use music absolutely beautifully, and seem to understand the almost visceral connection between Sonny and Rico, even this early in the series. It’s a shame we never got another Soul episode, but this one is damn good.

I love that Tubbs mentions that he is scared of machine guns, because it’s something that sets him apart from the other men in the department. He’s willing to admit his weaknesses and fear and isn’t as wrapped up in the I’m-the-toughest-cop-here machismo bullshit. His ability to be a little more honest with himself is almost certainly a protective factor in terms of why he doesn’t crash and burn quite as badly as the other characters over the course of the show.

Poor Lester the bug man. Lester is one of those early Vice characters who was clearly intended to be recurring, but he mostly spends the beginning of this episode trying to explain how his tools work while Tubbs is like “shut up I’m creepily looking at ladies through a telescope” again. Jesus, Tubbs.

Sonny and Rico are so fucking mean to Paul, the FBI agent who is supposed to be going undercover. Sonny jokes that the guy “must’ve taken drama in high school” and Rico patronizingly says that he “thinks they’ll handle it.” Then they proceed to send Rico, who has like 3 months of inconsistent undercover work under his belt, and whose Jamaican accent occasionally sounds Transylvanian, to do the job instead. Great work, boys.

God. Just-- the way Sonny is simultaneously truly, genuinely, and deeply concerned about Rita and wants to get her out of Tony’s grasp, and yet in the next breath he’s utterly manipulating her so Vice can use her. “Can you do that, Rita?,” he asks her, looking desperate and mournful, “Can you buy us some time?” It’s so goddamn bald-faced. You wonder if he justifies it to himself-- he has to make her do this to save her-- or if he just goes home hating himself that night because he knows what a bastard he was for even asking.

The sequence that follows is utterly wrenching. Tony offers Rita earrings, and when she doesn’t react with the level of excitement (fawning?) he was hoping for, he slowly stalks her down the spare, white hall and then slaps her so hard she falls to the ground. It’s a repetition of the same slow, white-backgrounded violence from the interrogation scene in Calderone’s Return pt. 2; it’s shot and framed like Tony is a horror movie monster; it’s set to the tinkly, synthy, shmaltzy strains of Stay with Me by Teddy Pendergrass. The intentional musical mismatch makes it all the more painful to watch; the age-old excuse that abuse comes from love or the fear of losing the victim’s affection falls apart when a love song is juxtaposed with such stark violence.

I think it’s very telling that Sonny’s call to Rita after he witnesses this (and, rightly, blames himself for it happening) is shot with him standing in almost exactly the same way at the exact same kind of payphone as when he calls Caroline in the pilot. In both cases, he’s calling theoretically to offer some kind of support or reassurance, but in actuality appears to need reassurance himself. He wants Caroline’s confirmation that she did love him once; he wants Rita’s forgiveness. Sonny’s ongoing issue with women comes from the same place as his issues with his self-esteem; he sees himself as a hired weapon at worst and a protector of the innocent at best. When he fails to protect someone, especially a woman or a child, his self-image starts to collapse. He doesn’t believe he’s good for anything else-- so in S1, he asks those he’s failed for reassurance that he is still a good protector. In later seasons, he just believes he really isn’t good for anything.

Sonny: Well, time for you to go to jail / Tony: No one can ever make me go to jail / Random government agent: Yeah uhh so we use him for proxy wars in the Southern Hemisphere, you know how it is with the US government and guns and cocaine and something something contras, so uh, yeah, he can go free

....but Miami Vice definitely is just about speedboats, right

I consider the ending of this to be the most classic/the “ur” Miami Vice Freeze Frame ending. It’s perfect, because like. Yeah, sure, there could be a denouement, but... why bother? There’s nothing that can be said that hasn’t already been said, and nothing that can fix what has happened that wouldn’t utterly undermine the themes of the story. It just sucks! The system is corrupt! They failed because they were set up to fail! You can’t fix the justice system from inside the justice system! This is the theme of the series in one abrupt freeze!

Okay. Okay. So. If Don Johnson is to be believed, he got Bruce Willis either the role or the audition for the role here. And he knew him because Bruce Willis was a waiter at a restaurant he liked. Not to put my tinfoil hat on or anything, but I find it utterly hilarious that Phillip Michael Thomas and not Don “hey boss, I need you to give a job to this hot talented waiter I know” Johnson has a scene here where he and Bruce Willis feel each other up in a men’s room. Look up photos of DJ and Bruce Willis from the 80′s. Look at DJ’s face and tell me I’m wrong.

[bigkpopstan]

Noo omg his big bambi eyes :( he's literally so cute ugh </3 he'd sound so pretty and angelic </3 no omg that word makes me think of calling him angel </3 seeing his reaction:( WHICH REMINDS ME OF YOUR FIC KASBAJ gonna read it again bc why not <3. ANYWAYS. No cuz the thought of pushing him up again a walk and his hands gripping at your arms or anything that's you is so hot <3. AND BRATTY HEE PMG??? I never really thought about it but thinking of him being a brat???? River why 💔/j no but fr I love that thought qkdjqj him just ignoring your commands for example you tell him not to touch himself yet he does it anyways, personally I'd repeat myself thinking he didn't hear me but after that just slap his hands away from himself or slap his thighs/face and if he continues being a brat just straight up punish him <3 rough him up until he can't walk from how good you fucked him <33 manhandle him and shit until he's a crying mess from how much he loves being treated like a sex toy <33.

Sorry I got a but carried away, the thought of bratty hee fr has me in a brainrot 💀

RIGHT. calling hee angel is so precious :( I love it sm. OH-right, desperate and needy hee esp once his back hits that wall and he’s following your lead, eyes following you to catch your lips when you go to kiss him<3. the idea of bratty hee rn >>. right you’d think he didn’t hear you bc he’s your angel!! he does no wrong and does so without thinking twice. until you repeat yourself and he’s just looking at you continuing to do what you told him not to. I was personally thinking about giving him a command and one day he just goes “no” or “what if I don’t want to?” with a little attitude that would obviously need correcting<3. slapping hee > (consensually ofc) and seeing his watery eyes<3. I bet he’d love being roughed up:( he’d be fully satiated after that, when he’s limping and can’t cum anymore trying to catch his breath.

[lqfiles]

LMAOO dude i would be so fucking petty if haechan ever did that to me 😭 (waiting for y/n to be a silly person 😋🤞🏼) (I KNOWWW SHES GONNA EAT HIM UP TOO!!)

but it was so good 😩 i love their little interaction even if he was a poopy head but idc!! I LOVE EM ALREADY (y/n marry me 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼) (i like tho how i can never picture myself as y/n in your series 😭 like you write so good i just like picturing the little scenes in my head and y/n is always faceless but she EATS)

also, before i forget, new update on bella… she got in trouble yesterday bc this girl… so we were on our walk and we go through this part where workers are remodeling a house and bella hates the noise and she speeds up. so i put her down after i picked her up and i realize… oh shit her leash fell out of my hand…

bella goes running 😭 and one of my mom’s friend who recognized me tried grabbing bella but bella swerved a bit towards the middle of the street mind you! And she went towards this grass part she likes going to and she stops, looks at me, and this guy who saw her, got out of his car to grab her and SHE RAN OFF

she sped! And to get to my house you have to cross streets and there’s always cars driving by and im hyperventilating because i cant see her no more 😭 (also, the guy chased after her in his car) and i called my mom crying and i got in trouble (i started crying here 😭😭) and my mom calls me a few minutes later and says bellas home…

so yeah… this is the first time she’s done this i train her i swear 🥲 but yeah, im anxious go make that mistake againnn

but yeah… thanks for reading that 🙂 heh

also i find it funny how in my 5 years of being in tumblr, i have never interacted with another author like i do with you

YOURE AMAZING 🫶🏼🤍

- 🫧

y/n is not gonna silly her way through this, she’s just really hateful and kinda wants him to end it all (NOT RLLY) (THIS IS A JOKE) but yesss she’s aggressive and needs him GONE SOON.

omo the relationship journey i have planned for them… like they don’t realise it yet but they’re very similar and will complete each other they just don’t know it yet 🌝🌝 and PLSSS that literally how i write characters and read fics in general 😭 i never write with a face in mind, i just have a personality set in my head with the name y/n attached to it, i don’t think i have ever read a fic where i have imagined myself as y/n 😭😭 she’s just a void to me that has character ygm? that’s honestly how i want everyone to read it like just think of some ghost that is silly

MY GOODNESS PMG 😭😭 she’s an actual trouble maker why would she do that.. i can only imagine the stress you were under cos you literally don’t have any control and she who DOES have control is going on her own journey, props to that guy and your mum’s friend for attempting to help but still she’s ??? i hope you grounded her and awww i hope you’re okay too <3 at least she made it back safely i think that’s he most important part of this all!! as long as it never happens again it should be good but still.. i would also be hyperventilating and feeling anxious asf

i honestly never thought i’d HAVE bonds with anons on here hsjdhsk i always say that this was meant to just be a writing dump blog (i still got that in my pinned) but it honestly is nice talking to you guys i love it, OUR BOND IS STRONG!!!!

[meanwhileinstasiville]

This has been very nazi enlightening

I’m tired of staged conversations with religious themes in the library, Motorola. 

Your family has far too much power to pretend there’s a religious concern behind any of these interactions.

Right now, “Christopher” a library tech who looks like an FBI agent kind of, is dictating to what sounds like a *very gay* guy sitting on 8 with animal license earrings, how to go about his broken fingers and medical records in a way that somehow involves “software” and typing “jpg” to get to the “parent folder” *pointing to and touching the screen rather than dictating* “eject the disk” “close this window here” “let the autorun do something” *gestures with pen and snaps fingers with other hand rather than pointing* 

“There’s an autorun script that’s supposed to run...” I’m not sure what this has to do with medical records of any kind. “It’s hard and not your fault” because “they expect you to have a computer and privileges” That sounds pretty damn patronizing, in the government authority excuses any discourtesy kind of way.

(Apropos, the time we got pulled over in the Basin for driving a truck in the evening, as a couple of white people; my mom and I. The trooper shined a flashlight on my hands before my face, or even my mom’s as she was behind the wheel, before even asking for her license and registration. She had a spotless driving record; so I could’ve been a white BLM killing way back in 2000)

“It’s capital D...” Yes, agent whatever your name is, as fun as this is it doesn’t sound helpful. I would try memos since Tumblr is like any social media, and requires a Google login with my name attached to it in the first place.

*more pointing a touching the screen* “click view (about jpeg and jpg)” “Do you think you’d recognize what you’re actually looking for?” “Try PMG...go ahead and scroll through...”

(This is going to become a conversation about a “hand” or “hands”, just watch, the fbi and “phil hands”, Bryan, and this shit happens every single day since at least 2008)

“Try TIFF” The point of the conversation has turned into the baby in soap operas that goes upstairs one day, and comes down an adult years later. “Let’s search for J...P...2″ “BMP...like Bravo Mike Papa” “Try I...CO” “Try ING” “Can you send the doctor the whole disk?” “Cloud network drive, put it in the cloud and then link to it...download the whole thing and then have them run it...” (The reference pool is very very small like a syllogism of legal argument, and that’s the soap opera baby) “GIMP is GNU Image Manipulation Program” (yes, I’m well aware that you are cop like the city guy who looks like a religious relief, or the campus guy who looks like a roman fresco of same) “A proprietary hospital software” 

(This sort of thing is going to lead directly to litigation, because I don’t menace, and I don’t cajole, and I don’t have humility that makes browbeating work, or guilt or shame that makes class consciousness function)

When do we get to the part where only arguments that people like “Christopher” (who is bald, I might add) make, exist for legal purposes?

“Proton Mail” huh, subtle. “Can you do ctrl-U again, please?” I’ve never heard someone who carries a gun for a living make demands disguised as requests in the library before.

(If I were in his situation, trying to act this sort of thing out like a parable, I would use the escalated and unlimited privileges of my office to *make it go* whether it involved installing software or whatever, because these client sessions aren’t persistent state and refresh like virtual machines. Says me, coming from the persecution that I do, unlike *ANY* person whose supposed to look like me that I have encountered thus far)

I don’t internalize what I read, either.

[i-like-his-charm]

Is it snobbish to say that Patrick McGoohan fans seem to be a little more clever than most obsessive fans? Probably. Or maybe snobbish isn’t the right word. Possibly “egotistic” or “pretentious” would be more on the mark. Of course, there is the chance that we’re all really stupid and I’m just another stupid person that thinks they’re clever. Nah — we’re all very quick-witted ;-)

It’s just that I wander from blog to blog, plus I’m in FB mingling with all the fans, and so many are funny in that dry and smart way, with little quips and side comments that make me chuckle. But you know what? I think that you have to have a few brains to enjoy something like The Prisoner. And maybe even to get some of the nuances in Danger Man. After all, he didn’t exactly go around killing every bad guy and bedding every woman like most “heroes” do in TV shows and movies. He had delicate tastes in many ways and you could see a slight distaste in his face when he was at a party or a club and some vulgar person approached him. He often pulled away even though he was wearing a smile. Again, so cat-like, his body language betrayed him. (Good acting.).

He had this way of smiling when nobody else would have smiled. I noticed that he often smiled at the most dangerous moments and it seemed almost incongruent but it was as if he was saying to himself, “Okay, I got this…” almost as if he was stepping into what he was made for. And, along with the smile, came this certain way of coiling his muscles. (I’ve gotta put on my Danger Man videos and see if I’ve got this correctly in my memories because we watched the show every night until we had watched every one of them and that’s when all these little visuals struck me, but especially his habit of smiling at the oddest times.)

My favorite smile, in a way, was the smile he’d give to women he clearly did not care a bit for, and the feigned interest he’d give them. Like in one show there was a silly older woman who was putting on a play and he pretended as if he thought that was quite interesting (with his nod and raised eyebrows and stiff but warm smile). He really poured it on when she happened to come back to the house at a moment when he was about to be killed by a bunch of thugs and she interrupted the action. At that point he asked her to give him a ride home and appeared to be extremely interested in everything she had to say until they got about a block away and he hopped out to go back and tend to the bad guys.

In the Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove (I always remember that one because it’s one of my favorites so I’ve watched it 3-4 times), he has that face when he is first interacting with the woman who turns out to be the nurse at the end (and one of my favorite scenes is her coming at him with the hypodermic needle at the end… thank you JMC - my favorite videographer - for introducing me to that scene in one of my favorite videos LOL I saw that video before I saw the episode ;-) )

Anyway, I’ve gone from fans to smiles… Darn, I met to stick to fans but I’ve been thinking about his smiles, a constant source of contemplation for me. One would imagine that I sit and swoon (and maybe I do a little bit) but, truly, it’s more a contemplation. Probably similar to what philosophers do as they sit on benches and contemplate trees. Naturalists admire what God has created out in the world, the trees, the sky, the birds and animals. I love looking at people. They don’t all have to be as handsome as him. I love looking at all sorts of people. I love seeing people smile. I really do. But PMG’s smile is one that has so many different aspects, it betrays so many emotions and sends so many different messages, that it is truly something to spend time figuring out… contemplating, analyzing. And that, I intend to continue doing :-)

[daisy-loves-sh]

Gay subtext in Lady Blue

Starsky & Hutch: Lady Blue

Season 1, Ep 10

Okay, can we talk about the fact that Hutch appears to be romancing Starsky in this ep where Starsky is mourning his dead ex-girlfriend?

I swear I’m not making this up.

As evidence, I present these two scenes:

1) The guys are in the morgue hallway and Starsky is feeling down. Hutch offers him coffee but Starsky waves it away. Then Hutch puts his hand over Starsky’s hand and says “Oh, Starsk” in THAT way. Starsky replies, “It’s alright” and puts his hand over Hutch’s. And then it looks like PMG starts to laugh just before the scene cuts, but I digress.

2) The tag. You know, the one where Hutch lights candles and cooks Starsky’s favorite meal that he got from his mother-in-law Starsky’s mom. CANDLES!

Now, an episode in which Starsky is mourning his dead ex-girlfriend doesn’t exactly seem like the best time for Hutch to try to seduce him, but that seems to be exactly what Hutch is doing. And it IS a good way to hide the gay subtext, because who would suspect it in this ep?

Now, you could argue that the hand-holding and “Oh, Starsk” is just Hutch being really supportive and that he has no romantic feelings whatsoever. Sure, that could be. The scene is totally gay, though, if I can be honest.

But if we put the lovey-dovey morgue scene together with the tag (or even just the tag by itself), you can most definitely see that Hutch is trying to romance his partner.

Let’s dissect the lovely tag, shall we?

Hutch has called Starsky’s mom to get his favorite recipe, cooks it and invites Starsky over for dinner, tries to get Starsky to look at the sunset (for which Starsky has zero interest), and sets a romantic candlelit table. Totally not gay, right? (I’m being sarcastic, btw, it’s totally gay). And he doesn’t just light some candles that are already on the table. He brings them over from near the window where he’s watching the sunset and then lights them.

But when Starsky inquires about the candles by asking “Who are the candles for? Expecting someone?,” Hutch answers “Yeah, that’s why we’re eating early,” while totally avoiding looking at his partner and trying to act nonchalant.

Starsky, for his part, seems disappointed by this (but in a non-romantic way, I think) and asks “What time am I leaving?” to which Hutch deflects by lifting the cover on the Paul Muni special. So he never answers the question. Because Starsky isn’t going to be leaving early.

Also, this is going slightly off-topic, but I have the same exact speckled-black roasting pan as Hutch. I find this very exciting because I have been a Hutch girl since I was a kid, and I’m not the one who bought the roasting pan, my hubby did.

Now, you might be thinking, what’s gay about Hutch having a girl over later and serving an early dinner to Starsky? And apparently he really WAS serving it early or Starsky would have pointed out that it wasn’t early. And the sun is just setting, although we don’t know what time of year it’s supposed to be. But the ep aired in mid-November and sunset in Los Angeles Bay City would have been around 4:45pm, so that IS pretty early to eat dinner.

So does that mean there really was a girl coming over later for a booty call with Hutch? NO! IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT! It means that Hutch was embarrassed that Starsky didn’t pick up on his cues and so he made up the story about the girl. Because why the F would Hutch be lighting candles during his dinner with Starsky if he was planning on having a romantic time with a girl LATER THAT EVENING? The candles would be burned out by then and I doubt he was planning on having a second dinner with this fictional girlfriend or that he and the girl would be anywhere near the kitchen table. The candles are totally for Starsky.

Confused? Still wondering why Hutch serves dinner early, if there is no girl coming over later?

Did you figure it out yet? No? Then scroll down for the answer…….

…...

……

……

It’s because Hutch wanted Starsky to come over early so they could watch the sunset together.

Think about it. It’s the first thing Hutch mentions at the beginning of the tag. Why would a grown man want another grown man to look at a sunset with him? Do platonic heterosexual men-friends normally do that sort of thing?

No, I’m pretty sure they do not.

And also, Hutch doesn’t just casually mention the sunset in an offhand way. He talks about it for a while, and even mentions how it has the colors of the rainbow: “Blue, gold, red, purple.” As in, the gay rainbow. Now, I know that the rainbow wasn’t used as a symbol of gay pride until 1978, and this ep is from 1975, but still, rainbows were used by marginalized groups in the 70s, including in California, including by the gay community. And there’s the whole Judy Garland “Somewhere over the rainbow” queer icon thing. We had a discussion about this on FB a few months ago.

Regardless, even if the rainbow wasn’t intended as a gay reference, you still have a scene with a man talking about rainbows and sunsets with another man while serving him a romantic candlelit dinner.

So yeah, Hutch totally tries to seduce Starsky but Starsky is clueless. That doesn’t mean that Starsky doesn’t also pine for Hutch in his own way. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t. But he’s not in the right mindset in this episode because Did I mention that he’s still mourning the brutal murder of his ex-girlfriend? And yes, it’s totally weird and uncomfortable when Hutch mentions Helen in the tag.

But they had to have two levels of what’s going on in this scene so the gay stuff wouldn’t be too obvious.

So we have the surface text (two straight guys who like women having dinner together) and then we have the subtext (all the gay romantic stuff plus the bonus “Starsky is Jewish” Paul Muni reference).

And men who like women can’t possibly be gay or bi, can they?

So the subtext is a man trying to romantically woo his best friend by talking about sunsets and rainbows, cooking him his favorite meal which he got from his friend’s mom, and setting a romantic candlelit table. And making up a story about a girl coming over in order to save face.

So the fans who were not inclined to see the characters in a romantic way would just watch the scene and think it was sweet and shippy, because the guys are such good platonic friends, and not really spend any time thinking about how platonic heterosexual men-friends don’t really do stuff like that.

But the fans who wanted to see the romance between the guys would see it.

And both types of fans would be happy and would argue with each other for the next 45 years about whether S&H were gay or just really really really good friends.

Except maybe for straight males who were just there for the car chases and shootouts and macho stuff. I really have no idea how those fans feel about this tag.

[frommindtopen]

And then there are the legs...

And then there are the legs…

So I was looking at this picture of him with his legs up on a desk. (I think I mentioned that, didn’t I… the one that’s on my iWatch… there are several on my iWatch.) And, in that picture, his legs just go on and on and on and on.  It’s one of my favorite pictures - for so many reasons - first, of course, because of the length of his legs. 

He was a tall man, coming in at 6’2” or 6’ 2 ½” depending upon what you read.  And no matter where you read his height, every place says that when he made an entrance, everyone noticed.  It wasn’t just because of his height, it was because of his carriage and deportment.  Well, and just because of his air I suppose.  

My husband is 6’2” and people often notice his entrance because of his warmth and friendliness.  He is human sunshine entering a room.  Oddly, there are certain similarities between him and PMG in terms of height, hair and skin tone, but you couldn’t find more opposite people when it comes to air and deportment.  LOL My husband is anything but reserved ;-)

But, anyway, I think there was an innate dignity to PMG… shoot, I don’t THINK that, I KNOW that.  You’d have to be blind not to see it.  No wonder he was able to play the king so well in Braveheart.  My guess is that he likely had quite a kingly quality about him during his adult life. Maybe some would have described it as standoffish.  

But I was going to talk about the legs.  

It’s weird, I watched Omen of Evil last night. I had never watched it before.  I can’t really recommend it unless you are a fan of his, but his legs really counted in THAT movie as well for a different reason.  His legs also count in Brand.  That’s the thing, he uses his legs quite frequently in his acting and maybe all actors do, but I never noticed that until watching him act.  In Brand, his legs are quite dramatic, kneeling and bounding before him, stretching across rocks and squatting boldly.  His legs are used to emphasize the intensity of his character.

In Danger Man, his legs have swagger.  They’re sort of relaxed until there’s a fight.  He leans, he sways.  You don’t see any of that in Brand.  I’m not going to go through every movie here but, in The Prisoner, his legs vary.  Sometimes, he can be more relaxed, but no confident swagger, but usually he’s coiled, ready to strike.  His legs are like knives moving forward briskly.  Those legs couldn’t be more different than the legs in that movie last night - Omen of Evil - or the legs in Jamaica Inn.  In those, as the creepy villain (for Omen of Evil when he was chasing her in the broken down house), the legs were spidery.  As he ran, the knees were spread apart and looking bony… yeah, not at all attractive LOL.  But he was using them to put across a point.

As a matter of fact, he uses every part of his body to act, not just his face or voice.  His entire posture changes as he takes on a character.  And this is why I am much more drawn to his heroes than his villains, because I buy into the act.  I always buy into it.  He has me completely convinced.  I’m like: Who is Patrick  McGoohan? I only know John Drake, No.6, Dr. Syn, Brand, Andrew Miller, etc.

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Climate change makes freak Siberian heat 600 times likelier (AP) This year’s freak Siberian heat wave is producing climate change’s most flagrant footprint of extreme weather, a new flash study says. International scientists released a study Wednesday that found the greenhouse effect multiplied the chance of the region’s prolonged heat by at least 600 times, and maybe tens of thousands of times. In the study, which has not yet gone through peer review, the team looked at Siberia from January to June, including a day that hit 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius) for a new Arctic record.

Mail delays likely as new postal boss pushes cost-cutting (AP) Mail deliveries could be delayed by a day or more under cost-cutting efforts being imposed by the new postmaster general. The plan eliminates overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers and says employees must adopt a “different mindset” to ensure the Postal Service’s survival during the coronavirus pandemic. Late trips will no longer be authorized. If postal distribution centers are running late, “they will keep the mail for the next day,″ Postal Service leaders say in a document obtained by The Associated Press. “One aspect of these changes that may be difficult for employees is that—temporarily—we may see mail left behind or mail on the workroom floor or docks,″ another document says. The changes come a month after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major donor to President Donald Trump, took over the sprawling mail service. In a memo titled “PMG Expectations and Plan,″ the agency said the changes are aimed at “making the USPS fundamentally solvent which we are not at this time.″ Postal Service officials, bracing for steep losses from the nationwide shutdown caused by the virus, have warned they will run out of money by the end of September without help from Congress. The service reported a $4.5 billion loss for the quarter ending in March, before the full effects of the shutdown sank in.

Twitter Hack Exposes Frailty of the Digital Public Square (Foreign Policy) Twitter accounts belonging to high-profile business leaders and politicians were hacked yesterday in the biggest security breach in the website’s 14-year history. Fortunately, the goal of the hackers was more con artist than saboteur. Accounts belonging to business leaders such as Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates as well as Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and former U.S. President Barack Obama all posted a version of the same message: A call to donate money to a cryptocurrency account in return for your money back twice over. Despite the millions of followers these accounts have, the scam seems to have convinced very few of them. Only about $120,000 in bitcoin has been deposited to the hacker’s accounts, according to Reuters. Although the refrain “Twitter is not real life” is often used as a putdown toward the social media-addled masses, the website can have an outsized grip on reality. In 2013, a hacker took control of the Associated Press Twitter account and wrote a hoax tweet describing explosions at the White House. The tweet was quickly deleted, but not before tricking high-frequency trading algorithms—sending the U.S. stock market into a flash crash.

Barbados wants you to work from its beaches during the pandemic (NYT) In the first half of 2020, governments around the world imposed entry restrictions or strict quarantine procedures; flight traffic fell to its lowest level in decades. Many are confined not just to their countries, but also to their homes, as offices were shut down along with travel. But even as the pandemic continues to rage, the government of Barbados, a country in the eastern Caribbean, is sending a very different message: Come here, not just for a holiday, but for up to a year. Bring your laptop. Soak up the sun, the sea, the sand—and forget about the coronavirus. Dubbed the “Barbados Welcome Stamp” and launching this week, the program will allow visitors to stay on the Caribbean island visa-free for up to one year. The aim is to attract remote workers, with a bill to be introduced in Parliament by the government that will remove the local income taxes that normally kick in after six months. The program has unsurprisingly sparked global interest. Considered from a cramped apartment in London or New York, working remotely on a beach has an appeal even to those who know little about Barbados. Barbados is not the only country trying to open up to laptop-toting foreigners. Estonia is to launch its own long-awaited “Digital Nomad” visa program in the coming months, and countries including Georgia, Germany and Costa Rica already have visa programs geared toward freelancers.

A fight over nude swimming marks return of pre-coronavirus banalities in Europe (Washington Post) LYCHEN, Germany—There is perhaps no better sign that people are eager to move on from the coronavirus than the fact that this German lake district town is embroiled in a heated debate about nude swimming, and it has drawn national attention. The local council’s ban on naked swimming—and other activities such as naked yoga—has returned the town to the banalities of pre-coronavirus summers and earned it a spot on the national public broadcaster’s nightly newscast, where it received more airtime than the United States’ spiraling coronavirus outbreak that day. Nude swimming has long been socially acceptable in other parts of eastern Germany and in Lychen, a town of about 3,000 people nestled between glassy lakes. “Whoever wants to swim naked swims naked. And those who don’t, do not,” said vacation home landlord Martin Hansen, 60, who opposes the ban. But in May, after it became apparent that the first wave of the coronavirus had largely bypassed the region, the Lychen town council turned its attention from social distancing restrictions to bathing rules. To some council members, naked fellow residents swimming, doing yoga and playing volleyball had been a growing annoyance. The mayor and council moved to ban all nude activity at popular public bathing spots. The outrage that followed included an anonymous letter to the mayor, threatening to poison the town’s lakes if nudist swimming rights were infringed upon. The police announced an investigation. TV crews and newspaper journalists descended on Lychen. Mayor Karola Gundlach declined an interview request from The Washington Post, citing the excessive media coverage and adding, “It does not help if people from around the world send me emails and tell me or the town what to do, what is right and wrong.”

Minorities under attack as PM pushes ‘tolerant’ Pakistan (AP) It’s been a tough month for religious minorities in Pakistan, and observers warn of even tougher times ahead as Prime Minister Imran Khan vacillates between trying to forge a pluralistic nation and his conservative Islamic beliefs. A Christian was gunned down because he rented in a Muslim neighborhood in northwest Peshawar, not far from the border with Afghanistan. Another Christian, pastor Haroon Sadiq Cheeda, his wife and 12-year-old son were beaten by their Muslim neighbors in eastern Punjab and told to leave their village. The attackers screamed “you are infidels.” An opposition politician was charged this week with blasphemy after declaring all religions were equal. A senior political figure, allied with the government and backed by Islamic extremists, stopped construction of a Hindu temple in the capital Islamabad. Analysts and activists blame an increase in attacks on an indecisive Khan. They say he preaches a vision of a tolerant Pakistan where its religious minorities thrive as equals among an overwhelming Muslim majority. They say that at the same time he cedes power to extreme Islamic clerics, bowing to their demands and turning to them for the final say, even on matters of state.

India virus cases surge nearly 32,700, beach state shut anew (AP) India’s virus cases surged another 32,695 as of Thursday, taking the nation closer to 1 million and forcing a new lockdown in the popular western beach state of Goa two weeks after it was reopened to tourists. The new confirmed cases took the national total to 968,876. The Health Ministry also reported a record number of 606 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking total fatalities up to 24,915. About a dozen states, including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Assam, have put high-risk areas under lockdowns, only allowing essential food supplies and health services. Goa state’s top elected official, Pramod Sawant, announced a three-day lockdown and a night curfew in the popular backpacking tourist destination, beginning Thursday night. He said people were flouting social distancing norms. Nearly 40,000 people were fined 100 rupees ($1.3) each in the past two weeks for not wearing masks.

Flooding in Bangladesh (Foreign Policy) As much as one-third of Bangladesh is now underwater after the country’s heaviest rainfall in a decade, according to Al Jazeera. As we reported last week, the floods began in part because of the overflowing of the Brahmaputra River. In the neighboring Indian state of Assam, at least 50 people have been killed as a result of the flooding.

Mysterious Fires Scorch Iran (Foreign Policy) Iran, already ravaged by U.S. sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic, now faces another scourge: A wave of mysterious fires torching the country, including a blaze that burned seven ships in Bushehr, a major port city, on Wednesday. The fires include a July 2 explosion at an underground fuel enrichment plant in Natanz that the New York Times reported was part of a covert effort to undermine the Iranian nuclear program. The incidents have sparked fears in Iran that the United States and Israel are increasing sabotage operations directed at Tehran. No deaths were reported from Wednesday’s fire. Officials in Iran have blamed some of the fires on sabotage, but others appear to have been caused by accidents, equipment failures, and inclement weather, the Times reported. The fires may raise fears of military miscalculation between the United States and Iran. The blazes come as the United States failed to convince allies on the U.N. Security Council to extend an arms embargo against Iran set to expire in October, as Foreign Policy reported. The Trump administration faces opposition from allies in its efforts to continue its so-called “maximum pressure” campaign—a definitive effort to scupper the 2015 nuclear deal. A website close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Nournews, said this month that an attack on Natanz could cross a “red line” and lead to “fundamental changes” in the Middle East.

China becomes first economy to grow since virus pandemic (AP) China became the first major economy to grow since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, recording an unexpectedly strong 3.2% expansion in the latest quarter after anti-virus lockdowns were lifted and factories and stores reopened. Growth reported Thursday for the three months ending in June was a dramatic improvement over the previous quarter’s 6.8% contraction —China’s worst performance since at least the mid-1960s. But it still was the weakest positive figure since China started reporting quarterly growth in the early 1990s. China, where the coronavirus pandemic began in December, was the first economy to shut down and the first to start the drawn-out process of recovery in March after the ruling Communist Party declared the disease under control.

Taiwan holds military drills against potential China threat (AP) Taiwan’s military fired missiles from the air and the island’s shore facing China on Thursday in a live-fire exercise to demonstrate its ability to defend against any Chinese invasion. Assault helicopters launched missiles and fighter jets dropped bombs on targets at sea, while tanks and missile trucks fired from a beach to deter a simulated invading force. The drill was part of a five-day annual exercise that ends Friday. China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province that is part of its territory. The self-governing island of 24 million people lies 160 kilometers (100 miles) off China’s southeast coast across the Taiwan Strait.

Japan “extremely concerned” as 136 COVID cases reported on U.S. bases (CBS News) The biggest coronavirus outbreak within the U.S. military anywhere in the world continues to grow. U.S. Forces Japan confirmed Wednesday another 36 infections among troops on the Japanese island of Okinawa, bringing the total to at least 136 since the U.S. military reported its first cases there last week. Until then, all of Okinawa had seen only 148 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since February, with Japanese authorities managing to contain the spread of the virus that causes the disease. In a sign of the growing tension between Japanese officials and the U.S. military in Okinawa, Defense Minister Taro Kono has pointed to “several problems” with the U.S. response to the pandemic. He notably avoided giving specifics when pressed by reporters earlier this week. “Okinawa residents are extremely anxious” about the spread of infection at U.S. military bases, said Okinawa governor Denny Tamaki, who flew to Tokyo Wednesday for a meeting with Defense Minister Kono to air his island’s grievances.

[ciepengacha1978-blog]

You start with concrete manipulatives to represent the problem. Then you move to picture representations, and from there on to equations. Rather than making kids memorize steps, you teach them what each step really means. (Note: do not buy a Surface Book or any of Razer """professional""" laptops. They may be well designed but they are statistically the most likely out of all business laptops to be lemons. Also, never buy a Lenovo that isn a high end Thinkpad, they been caught putting spyware on consumer grade devices.). Now we are challenged by the big escape game. The monarchy is not eternal. I mean the times are changing. Actually, some of the best skin care options on the market are inexpensive and unassuming. Petroleum jelly only costs a few dollars for a tube or container, and people have used it for decades to soften and soothe dry skin. Also known by its common brand name, Vaseline, petroleum jelly is a hydrocarbon compound derived from petroleum. Fashion wise, anything goes in Austin! It will be HOT. Make sure you wear sunscreen and a cute hat. Have fun!!. La Cremes were absolutely irredeemable, they were way too creamy and kept smearing + settling into my lip lines, left me patchy only 15 minutes into wearing. Also, Unicorn Tears looks pretty but is definately the least flattering color ever. Born This Way always melted off my face no matter if I powdered or not, and the palest shade at the time (snow) went on 2 shades too dark and oxidized 5 shades too dark. In exchange for doing my job, I receive a steady income. My work doesn comprise trying to convince people to join my company, nor would I get paid any more if I did. I can always count on 1 hour of work netting 양평출장안마 me $11.50. 13 points submitted 8 days agoI just telling you why the original post was probably being reported, since the original thread has a post from a mod saying it was reported for too many rule violations. You can downvote me all you want, but talking about one member supposed but unconfirmed mother talking about her daughter visuals being criticized doesn really fall under these. Calling people "slimes" for it is uncalled for when this falls under group specific news.. The term "OCD" is our only help signal and it gets garbled by this misconception. It also hinders other peoples diagnoses because when they hear about OCD, they think about perfectionism and don hear about what 양평출장안마 it really is (and that it what wrong with them) until much later. Fuck, my psychiatrist tried to put me on fucking anti psychotics because she didn understand what OCD was. Albeit; a lot of his personality is still in the "legends" limbo of not quite confirmed but probably will be. Since it was in pre Disney books. But it still makes sense. I haven't used the PMG mascara, and I adore her brand (I have all the eyeshadow palettes except Decadence, which is LE and always out of stock). But I'm firmly of the opinion that high end mascara isn't worth the price tag. It may be awesome, but there are equally awesome formulas available at the drugstore, and for me the difference between luxury mascara and drugstore mascara is far less noticeable than the differences between eyeshadows or most other products.. I had no interest in Morphe for a long time. Last year, I picked up the 39A holiday palette along with a few brushes. The brushes were nothing special and I prefer my Real Techniques/Colourpop/ELF. So even though we often experience lust for our romantic partner, sometimes we don't and that's okay. Or, maybe we do, but we also lust after someone else. According to Dr.

[megacircuit9universe]

Lemons

THU AUG 20, 2020

I never thought I would write these words, but Joe Biden delivered a nomination speech at the Democratic Convention tonight, that made me cry.

For a virtual convention, the Democrats had been knocking it out of the park with the speeches all week, especially from Michelle and Barack Obama, and it seemed like maybe they’d done enough to set the tone and keep Joe’s lead in the polls from slipping away...

... but man!  Joe himself really brought it tonight!  If this is what he brings to the final nine weeks of the campaign... I do believe he’ll unseat Trump in a decisive victory, on November 3rd, and become our 46th President!

This is a strange thing to see myself write, because... in the world we always knew... the one with no President Trump, and no Covid 19... a Joe Biden Presidency had always seemed laughably impossible.

Nobody even questioned why Joe didn’t run in 2016.  We assumed he just knew there wouldn’t be a point... and had to be told that no... his son had died of cancer, and that that’s the only reason he sat that race out.

Had he not, neither Hillary, nor Bernie Sanders would’ve have gotten any traction at all in the primaries against a sitting VP.

As it was, Sanders came so close to nabbing the nomination that he forced the Democratic Party onto a more progressive path, which they are still on today... even if they once again snubbed him as the nominee.

The problem for Sanders in 2016, was that Hillary still had a valid, “it’s her turn,” card to play, and so the DNC made sure to honor it.

As I’ve looked at in past entries, it turned out that her, “it’s her turn,” card was radioactive... thanks to the impeachment of her husband back in the 1990s... because impeachment by the House is always radioactive and destroys the political careers of all Presidents, and those close to them... even though they’re never actually removed by the Senate.

Sanders’ problem in 2020 was... as I looked at in a more recent entry during the primaries... Obama had spent four years developing a master plan to defeat Trump.

Biden was dead in the water... I called him the walking dead... it seemed like Bernie would have the nomination in the bag... until!... Obama made some phone calls, got all the other Dem contenders to drop out, and pulled off the miracle of reanimatig the corpse of Joe’s campaign.

A clever mastermind... capable of performing miracles... and I complained that he’d better damn well be able to follow that up with even bigger miracles in November, or Obama had just damned the nation to a Trump dicatorship for life.

Since then, we’ve had the big pandemic... which has been the thing that’s really fucked Trump more than anything else... and given the lead to Biden more than anything else.

While I refuse to believe Obama or any other human agent, or agency conspired to create the pandemic... It does seem plausible for Obama to have anticipated that something would come along to screw Trump in 2020... because he’s been neglecting so much, and coasting for so long.

And anybody who’s been President of the United States for eight years would know, a global pandemic could easily be on such a list of somethings... that would fuck the economy hard enough to give Biden a fighting chance.

The impeachment, last January... was another factor, already set in stone.  Trump was already radioactive before the primaries began in 2020... which must have figured into Obama’s calculations.

Now, however, in late August of 2020, we’re finally beginning to see this election the way Obama must have forseen it... with huge hunks of the Republican party jumping on board for Biden, because they so loathe Trump, and can stomach Joe (because he’s conservative enough)... and then BAM... Joe actually exceeds expectations with a rousing, lucid, heartfelt, perfectly timed speech to show us he’s not just NOT Trump... but the honest embodiment of everything both parties used to hold dear, before this whole nighmare began...

...not just some place holder, but a principled guy with the merits... the hard won merits... to lead our great nation.

And Biden’s acceptance speech really took away whatever onus there was on Kamala Harris as his VP pick.  Because she looks amazing, being both a woman, and a person of color... 

...but that could have been a bit too much if there were any credibility to the fear that Kamala would assume the Presidency three weeks in, after Joe caved to dementia.  That would’ve made this race, Kamala V Trump... which would have been a much tougher sell to the weird new coalition between leftists, centrists, and never-Trump conservatives.

As things are tonight... those fears have been put to bed.

And with that... Harris is a safely brilliant VP pick.

As a VP... who won’t be running the nation tomorrow... she’s conservative enough for the right wing of the coalition to feel comfortable... because she was a cop after all.  And we gotta back the blue!

Politics is a very complex game... but Obama is better at it than Trump... especially when Trump’s already been President for four years and really shown the planet the true horror of his criminality, stupidity, misleadership, and willingness to destroy both the constitution and the planet.

In my last few entries, Trump was trying to send in a rag-tag force of paramilitary Federal thugs, to terrorize protesters... and promising to ban TikTok... before relenting on both those horrifying plots.

Since then, he attempted to destroy the US Post Office, appointing a sycophant as Postmaster General, who immediately began a campaign of removing post boxes, shutting down sorting machines, and generally defunding the fuck out of every aspect of USPS operations, in a desperate attempt to suppress mail-in votes this November... when they would be more important than ever, due to the pandemic.

The PMG even warned the public that due to the slow downs, he could not guarantee any mail in votes would get in on time, and Trump ran with that ball and began raising the specter that the results of our next election could be in limbo for months or years!

Blatantly attempting to soften the ground for a claim to stay in office past the election... seemingly unaware that his term constitutionally ends on January 20th, 2021, election or no... and also that the Post Office is a constitutionally established entity, overseen by Congress.

And Congress reconvened early from their August Recess solely for the purpose of calling in this new Postmaster General for questioning... which has not yet happened, but was enough to weaken his knees and have him roll back all the draconian changes he’d made... saying he’ll do those budget cuts later after the election.

Score another one for Pelosi.  And hopefully they will grill the fuck out of the new PMG, under oath, facing criminal charges... and make his backpedalling stick until after November... if he doesn’t go straight to prison.

And in today’s news, a different branch of the post office we did not know existed... which investigates crimes, and can arrest people... arrested Steve Bannon on mail fraud charges, for defrauding idiot Trump supporters who donated to a fraudulent, “build the wall,” fund.

That, and an appeal Judge also said today that Trump must turn over his tax returns.

It’s all coming up lemons for Trump right now, on the old slot machine... just before the RNC convention... and just as Biden is about to get a huge bump from the DNC convention.

September and October are the gauntlet and the crucible for this, most critical Presidential election in American history.

We’ll see how it plays out.

But at the moment, things are looking up.

And with that... it is most definitely time for bed.

[goldeagleprice]

Heritage Long Beach Slates NEI Rarities

The world paper money girls and boys at Heritage Auctions have been a tad busy over the last couple of months what with a major Hong Kong sale and the distractions of ANA. Nonetheless the catalog for their upcoming Long Beach auction has been slowly taking shape online.

For some weeks now the top item listed on the first webpage for that sale must have caught a few readers’ eyes. It is not every day that an auction lot reads: “Netherlands East Indies, French Influence 100; 200; 300; 400; 500 Rijksdaalders 1810 Pick S171; S172; S173; S174; S175; S176 Complete Denomination Set”.

Face of rare Netherlands Indies 1000 rijksdaalders issued in 1810 when the Dutch colony was effectively under French control following Bonaparte’s formation of the puppet state of Koningrijk Holland [Kingdom of Holland]. This note is one of a full set that will be offered at Heritage Auctions’ Long Beach sale in September. Image courtesy & © Heritage Auctions.

Before any reader grabs their copy of SCWPM to check the listing out, none of the denominations are priced in any grade in Specialized Issues all of which are described as “Rare”. Those on offer come in a highly collectable: PMG Very Fine 30 to Extremely Fine 40. As with all items posted in the Long Beach online catalog to date, no estimate had been given at the time of writing.

And just as copy was closing for the September issue of BNR Heritage’s Dustin Johnston announced they will be offering a Palestine Currency Board £50 dated 30 September 1929 (P-10b) with serial 006262. No further details were available but it looks highly collectable and the bidding for this should prove as fascinating as the NEI lot.

Late arrival but presumably of great price: the Palestine Currency Board £50 dated 30 September 1929 (P-10b) still awaiting grade and estimate. Image courtesy & © Heritage Auctions.

This sale will also feature Yuri Solovey’s collections of North Africa (i.e. the Maghreb Countries & Egypt) as well as the third and final tranche of Canadian Charter Bank notes from the Harry M. Eisenhauer collection. When I last looked cataloging of both was still very much a work in progress. But already a number of very scarce to rare Canadian items had been listed online. All were in eminently desirable condition. If they were in Eisenhauer’s collection they had to be!

Typical of those on offer is an issued Bank of New Brunswick $5 drawn on St. John and dated 2 January 1904 (Ch.# 515-18-04). It was surely put aside after only light circulation as it comes in a remarkable PMG Extremely Fine 40 with crisp paper. It is the first example of this rarity Heritage has handled.

Bank of New Brunswick $5 drawn on St. John and dated 2 January 1904 (Ch.# 515-18-04) to be offered as part of the ex-Harry M. Eisenhauer collection graded a remarkable PMG Extremely Fine 40. Image courtesy & © Heritage Auctions.

Still awaiting detailed cataloging is an 1886 dollar from a second New Brunswick-based bank: St. Stephens Bank (Ch.# 675-20-04-06). It is being offered in a desirable PMG Choice Uncirculated 63.

Another first for Heritage is an extremely rare Bank of Nova Scotia 1 pound issued in Kingston, Jamaica, and dated 2 January 1900 (Ch.#550-380-202). 1900 is the first date of issue for BNS notes through its Kingston branch. Graded PMG Very Fine 20 the paper has retained some crispness and the manuscript signature is clear.

Extremely rare Bank of Nova Scotia 1 pound issued in Kingston, Jamaica, and dated 2 January 1900 (Ch.#550-380-202). It comes graded PMG Very Fine 20. Image courtesy & © Heritage Auctions.

And while on the subject of Canada, those who have yet to acquire a banknote showing King Edward VIII in his previous incarnation as Prince of Wales, may like to check out the Long Beach catalog. There are a couple of choice examples on offer of the Dominion of Canada $2 of 23 June 1923 (DC-26; P-34). Both are different varieties of this issue.

The Man-who-would-not-be-King features on this Dominion of Canada $2 dated 23 June 1923 (DC-26i; P-34i). It is to be offered in a rarely seen PMG Choice Uncirculated 64 EPQ grade. Image courtesy & © Heritage Auctions.

The top grade of PMG Choice Uncirculated 64 EPQ has been awarded to a DC-26i or, if you prefer, P-34i. This is the variety with a blue seal and signatures of Campbell/Sellar. The serial prefix is S.

The second comes in PMG Choice Uncirculated 63 and has a black seal with Campbell/Sellar signatures (DC-26j; P-34j).

Full catalog details of the above lots and many more are available at www.ha.com.

The post Heritage Long Beach Slates NEI Rarities appeared first on Numismatic News.

[terabitweb]

Original Post from SC Magazine Author: Doug Olenick

The weakest link in cybersecurity, it’s often said, is the occupant of the space between the chair and keyboard. Indeed, with phishing attacks not only still seeing widespread success but actually on the uptick, employees are arguably a bigger security weakness than any type of technological vulnerability.

On the flip side, an enterprise’s people can be the most important resource for combatting interlopers and developing a strong IT security culture. Information security increasingly is being seen as a people problem – with a human solution – rather than a technological one.

“I meet every new [employee] and I always tell them, you are the first and last line of cyberdefense!” says Graeme Hackland, CIO at British Formula One team Williams Racing. Hackland shies away from referring to employees as an organization’s biggest threat, because he believes “that kind of thinking drives division between those responsible for IT risk and the rest of the organization.”

It is, however, true, that “colleagues can deliberately or inadvertently put the organization’s data and IT systems at risk or have their accounts compromised,” says Hackland.

It’s a scenario that John Petrie, CEO (and former CISO) of NTT Security, has seen play out in his customers’ organizations as well as his own. “The threat is not just confined to enterprise employees, but any [person] who interacts with the enterprise, across the board,” he says, adding this can include independent contractors, third-party vendor employees and security personnel themselves, along with those working in human resources, finance or manufacturing.

Indeed, Petrie says that within the first month of accepting NTT Security’s top job last fall, he himself was attacked by bad actors who saw him as an enticing target for both his access and his company’s information. To combat breach attempts through him or other top executives, Petrie says he instituted policies to guard against business email compromise and resisted the temptation to increase his controls or access.

“Leaders need to do themselves what they tell their employees to do, even if it’s ‘inconvenient’ to log into a third party to access a SharePoint drive at the airport or something similar,’” he adds. “I get it. But if I break or bypass the rules, others will too.”

As a rule, it is human nature for effective employees throughout an organization to look for the easiest solution, the best workaround. They prize convenience – and this can fly in the face of embracing the best security practices. They often, too, are well-positioned to carry out nefarious activities.

The Crowd Research Partners 2018 Insider Threat report surveyed 472 cybersecurity professionals, more than half of whom [53 percent] said that an insider attack had definitely happened at their organization in the last year. And nine out of 10 respondents said they feel that their organization is vulnerable to insider attacks. Similarly, Ponemon Institute’s 2017 Cost of Data Breach Study found that 47 percent of all enterprise breaches are caused by employees, either operating for their own gain or to damage the organization, or unknowingly being compromised.

“The threat comes from employees having access to valuable or sensitive data, combined with the often unavoidable fallibility of human error,” says Claire Wiggill, vice president for strategy and business development at PMG, a Fort Worth, Texas-based digital marketing agency.

Yet, “access to IT systems is essential for so many of us to be able to do our jobs,” says Wiggill, who stresses that managing access is key to guarding against insider threats. But that’s where many organizations fall short.

According to a recent research study by PMG, 44 percent of millennials, 30 percent of GenXers and 16 percent of baby boomers reported that they still had access to applications from at least one previous job. The ability to access a former employer’s data and networks – even ones to which the employee should not have had access in the first place– is still a common problem. “An organization should have a record of who has access to what data that can be reported on and reviewed at any time,” Wiggill cautions. “And in the case of sensitive data, not just ‘at any time,’ but actually at certain, prescribed times for auditing purposes.”

To accomplish this, Wiggill recommends enterprises institute an internal audit practice to create better and more consistent governance. “People are a great asset,” she says, “when given a clear pathway to identify and report possible security issues.”

KnowBe4 founder and CEO Stu Sjouwerman points out that the reason cybercriminals will target human weakness is that it is typically easier and more common than tracking flaws in a network. “These bad guys are business people, their time is money,” he says. “If they want to find vulnerabilities in software, it may take weeks, but finding a vulnerability in a person can take minutes. It’s the path of least resistance.”

Human problems, human solutions Until recent years, the perspective in enterprise IT security has largely been that breaches are primarily a technological concern that should be solved with “filters and updates and shiny new security software,” according to Sjouwerman. “But it is a combination of technology and people. IT security teams need to consider security culture, get those employees in their own corner and make them the last line of defense.”

Attitudes are changing though, as a rapidly rising number of large and small-to-mid-sized enterprises are managing more consistent security policies and training employees to understand what to do, day-to-day, and what to look for. Within the past five years, KnowBe4 has conducted security training with more than 23,000 business customers.

Most human errors are innocent. An employee absentmindedly opens a legitimate-looking attachment, or an eager-to-please human resources employee releases confidential personal information while responding to an email that appears to belong to a top executive. “People often don’t realize the risk their actions have on a company’s security posture,” says David Pignolet, CEO of SecZetta. “A wrong click on an email or accessing company files on personal devices can easily lead to a breach; after all, it is usually the weakest points hackers target.”

As organizations seek to create more dynamic and efficient environments, embracing remote access through an assortment of mobile devices and cloud support, even the very concept of having a ‘perimeter’ for the network becomes fuzzy. Whereas in the past, an organization’s barriers were very well defined, Sumir Karayi, CEO of 1E, says that “today’s level of access and flexibility brings with it an opportunity for the employee to contribute much more than they have in the past, but it also brings with it dangers… Today, businesses are incredibly porous.”

Tim Woods, vice president for technology alliances at FireMon, says “many employees simply don’t understand that their credentials are the number one target of hackers, and how clicking on a bad link or downloading an infected attachment can be the opening shot in compromising the entire corporate network and its data.”

Hence, nearly all of the high-profile cloud data breaches that have made headlines over the past few years were the result of human error, according to Woods and other security experts. “[Breaches at] Microsoft, World Wrestling Entertainment, Time Warner Cable, FedEx and Verizon, to name just a few, were all caused by cloud misconfigurations,” Woods points out. He believes these misconfigurations typically occur when teams developing and deploying applications lack required security skills related to Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, for example.

But often, it’s even more basic – an employee finds an unused USB stick laying on the floor (left behind by a hacker) and inserts it, or uses passwords that are too easy. In early 2018, a Department of Homeland Security employee caused a huge security stir by leaving behind sensitive Super Bowl security documents on an airplane. Many people do not even consider their behavior insecure or risky – they see them as shortcuts or a means to encourage or allow for teamwork. More than one-quarter of respondents to a 2018 security survey sponsored by Shred-It admitted that they often leave their work computer unlocked when they’re not there.

With employees feel overworked, “they’re more like to take the quicker path, forget to change a password or cut corners, or leave confidential files out open on a desk,” says Petrie.

Prior to becoming a PMG customer, a large education enterprise with more than 35,000 active employees didn’t disable a worker’s network account when he left the company, Wiggill says, and a bad actor that managed to obtain the former employee’s password through brute force was able to get access to the server, and eventually gain root access in an attempt to run a virus. “There was no real institutional process to manage the deprovisioning of network accounts securely,” she says.

Sjouwerman points out, “It’s more of a question nowadays of which recent data breaches were not caused by some human error, than which ones have been.”

One might assume the up-and-coming generation of employees entering the workforce – those who have grown up with the internet and mobile phones, and have always been aware of the lurking cyber-crime specter – would just naturally come to work with better security hygiene.

But according to the 2018 SailPoint Market Pulse Study, that’s sadly not the case: a full 87 percent of people aged 18 to 25 admitted to reusing the same passwords, with almost half of them doing so across personal and work accounts. Nearly one-third of these respondents [31%] also said they have installed software on their business devices or networks without authorization from their IT department. This so-called practice of “shadow IT” has risen sharply since SailPoint’s 2014 study, when only one in five employees said they were installing software without permission.

People power Because even the most well-intentioned employees are fallible, organizations still need to do their part to beat back the rising tide of attempted compromise. Security awareness training is a critical, foundational, and still-too-often under-utilized tool that enterprises can and should enlist, according to Petrie. “And I’m not talking about the once-a-year PowerPoint presentation,” he says. “Humans are human, and they will make mistakes. Training programs must evolve.”

Especially as media-driven millennials increasingly flood into the working world, Petrie and other security experts are pointing out the need for more bite-size, accessible training – online as well as in person – that covers a broad expanse of possible issues and tries to connect with employees in a way that is meaningful to them. “If there’s a hack, we quickly create new security teaching material that relates to that,” Petrie adds. And NTT Security is also standardizing its employee onboarding process to help reduce the risk of giving any employee – even executives – too many privileges or failing to change their access when their status changes.  

“From a global perspective, it’s… important to make sure that onboarding and security controls are consistent across the entire company,” Petrie says. NTT Security’s parent company has nearly 1,000 separate businesses worldwide, Petrie notes. “We have to come together and create a baseline that all our companies will follow. Standardization and identification is part of everything we do. It comes back to communication and training. The technology is not the main issue here. The failure of technology is not the cause of the hack.”

Wiggill agrees that many, if not most, security gaps are the result of poor business processes, or even just outright employee negligence. “Role-based access provisioning is one of the best ways to control system access to ensure that an employee only has access to the specific systems needed to fulfill their job responsibilities,” she says.

Tapan Shah, managing director for Sila Solutions Group, says that organizations that make identity management the backbone of their cybersecurity programs and that incorporate process analysis, governance, and organizational culture shifts into their approach are “in a much stronger position to avoid, detect and respond to IT security issues. These organizations empower their employees to be active and aware participants in maintaining the security of their enterprises and of their own digital identities,” he continues.

But in the end, industry experts say it all boils down to creating a culture of security throughout the organization, from the top down, and integrating myriad security training techniques and methods to make sure the message reaches all employees. “Security training should be part of the entire hiring process from recruiting to employee engagement,” says Pignolet. “Companies have gamified just about all aspects of the enterprise to educate and excite employees. The same should hold true for cybersecurity. Companies should find ways to make it fun and engaging and not just enforce policies that seem to slow down the business rather than protect it.”

Hackland stresses that “transparency is critical in education,” and urges companies to “be open about what monitoring is in place and how it is used.” Williams adopted a “people-centric approach to IT risk. Trust, but verify, became our strategy” in 2014, he says, explaining that the company uses the Dtex User Behavior Intelligence platform to protect its Formula 1 confidential information.

The company uses “every published breach example as an opportunity for education,” says Hackland.

He recommends meeting “every new starter in your organization,” noting that “they’re obvious targets, especially in the first weeks of their employment after they update their LinkedIn profiles.” Williams now “runs ‘Lunch and Learn’ sessions on a wide range of topics,” he says, noting he recently led a session on protecting personal identity online. “People who are risk-aware in their personal lives will be better prepared for risks in their working lives.”

Woods also concurs that the important thing organizations can do to reduce risk is to implement education and awareness programs that “focus on making security a priority [by] integrating security at the start of every new initiative, rather than leaving it as an afterthought.” Underscoring the importance of leadership buy-in, Woods points out that all stakeholders – from the CEO to entry-level employees – must be properly educated on security efforts and work together toward the common goal of reducing enterprise risk.

“Data is a company’s currency and, as applications are deployed, the question of who has access to that data must be answered and verified,” Woods says. “Organizations must have complete consistency of security policy enforcement across hybrid environments – or as close to 100 percent consistency as possible, with a defined plan outlining how to handle the risks created by any gaps.” n

The post Are employees the weakest (cybersecurity) link? Sometimes appeared first on SC Media.

Go to Source Author: Doug Olenick Are employees the weakest (cybersecurity) link? Sometimes Original Post from SC Magazine Author: Doug Olenick The weakest link in cybersecurity, it’s often said, is the occupant of the space between the chair and keyboard.

[juditmiltz]

Plotting the future of Miami’s skyline

The Towers by Foster + Partners

With more than four years’ supply of luxury condos for sale, it’s plain to most people in the real estate community that the market does not need any more condo projects. Developers have no choice but to hope their existing projects inch closer to selling out while they toil away on plans designed for a better market in the future. Many are now plotting the next batch of supertall towers to grace Miami’s skyline by hiring top architects and attorneys, surveying industry leaders on their plans and assembling their sales and marketing teams, insiders told The Real Deal. They just have to wait out the cycle’s end before they launch.

In one example, Carlos Ott — a Uruguayan architect who worked on Echo Brickell, Jade Beach and Jade Ocean — has been hired along with Miami-based Sieger Suarez Architects to design a luxury condo tower at 300 Biscayne Boulevard, Property Markets Group (PMG) principal Ryan Shear said.

The skyscraper, designed as a stack of glass cubes, would be the tallest in Miami at 1,049 feet, renderings show. Plans for the property, which the company acquired for $80 million in 2014, include a 94-story condominium with 640 units and a luxury hotel with a wellness-focused spa. 

The project could be ready to launch in as little as two months, according to Shear — but that’s not happening. “We need a good cycle to launch projects like that. The worst thing in my opinion you could do is try to swim upstream,” Shear said, adding that he expects developers to start launching new developments again by 2019 or 2020.

The development is one of many scattered throughout Miami that won’t make it in this real estate cycle, but is poised to change the city’s landscape during the next one.

Another such project is The Towers by Foster + Partners, a pair of connected high rises planned for 1201 Brickell Bay Drive, about a mile south of 300 Biscayne, just over the Brickell Bridge. The developers — Florida East Coast Realty, Corigin Real Estate Group and McCourt Global Properties — met with top brokers last year seeking feedback on the plans, which now call for 660 residential units.

Sources say the waterfront development will be built as condos, but a launch date hasn’t been determined.

The Related Group, too, is expected to relaunch at least two large-scale condo projects in Miami during the next cycle: 444 Brickell Avenue and 1400 Biscayne Boulevard. Both are luxury condos that will be built in three phases. The only certainty regarding a launch date for either project is that now is not the time.

“We are looking for signs. Right now it’s not the right time to launch,” Carlos Rosso, president of the condominium division, said.

Slow sales led the developer to cancel its Auberge Residences & Spa Miami project planned for the site at 1400 Biscayne — shutting down the 290-unit tower’s sales center and returning buyers’ deposits by early 2017 — less than a year after launching. That cancellation in particular was a key indicator that the market had reached a critical point in the cycle, insiders said.

Devil-may-care developers

While some are waiting to start projects two to three years in the future, there are a handful of others fearlessly forging ahead today — though it should be noted that in those cases, ample coffers certainly helped. In March, two new projects launched sales. OKO Group, led by Vlad Doronin, began sales for Una, a 47-story, 135-unit luxury condo tower at 175 Southeast 25th Road, with an architect and sales team in place. The developer, who has the financial backing to move forward, is planning to complete the building by 2021. That’s when some say the next cycle will begin.

Over on Fisher Island, developer Heinrich von Hanau just launched sales for a project he already started building. Palazzo Della Luna, a 10-story, 50-unit building, is expected to open next summer. 

Some of the most high-profile projects where sales and construction are underway may continue to sell and build into the next cycle — a costly move that could pay off if their completions are timed correctly. They include One River Point along the Miami River and the Estates at Acqualina in Sunny Isles Beach.

KAR Properties’ Shahab Karmely launched One River Point, a twin-tower, 60-story, 386-unit luxury condo development connected by a “Sky Club,” in 2015 — at the same time that the Estates at Acqualina launched. Sales have been slow at One River Point, which also faces challenges by having a not-so-concrete timeline. “Our sales are chugging along,” Karmely said. But “they’re not as strong as I would like them to be.”

Jay Parker, CEO of Douglas Elliman Florida, acknowledged that the lack of a timeline is “a very significant concern” among buyers. “People want to know how long it’s going to take. That’s why you see a lot of developers taking a lot of risk,” he added.

Site work at One River Point is now underway, and the developer expects to pour the foundation by the end of 2018. Despite launching later in the cycle, Karmely, too, has deep pockets he can rely on. His silent partner is Daniel Loeb, the billionaire investor who runs Third Point, one of the world’s most prominent activist hedge funds.

“You can only wait so long before you say, ‘Oh, shit. I waited too long.’ In life, you’ve got to jump in and swim,” Karmely said.

Others are making conservative moves aimed at mitigating any potential losses.

Palazzo Della Luna by Heinrich von Hanau

“The best approach a developer could take is [to] look back at history,” said Peter Zalewski, founder of CraneSpotters and Condo Vultures Realty, databases that track the preconstruction condo market and distressed opportunities, respectively. He pointed to the St. Regis Bal Harbour as an example of a profitable slow-and-steady approach. “They built very slowly and were able to deliver right as the market was returning.”

At Brickell City Centre, Swire Properties still has about 150 unsold condos at Reach and Rise and won’t launch sales for phase two until those units are sold.

Nevertheless, Swire is preparing for the second phase, which is slated to be a vertically stacked equivalent of phase one. The development firm also recently announced a partnership with Colombian businessman Carlos Mattos to build a residential project on a site immediately north and west of Brickell City Centre. Development marketers are eager to bid on the new business.

Securing new sites

As a cycle is ending, developers typically focus on looking for land they can develop in the next cycle while getting approvals for plans on the sites they already own. But, given the specifics of today’s market, there are a few flaws in that plan.

Inigo Ardid, co-president of Key International, said land prices are still too high for such moves. “The value of land is how much you can build on it. If the market’s not there, it should get a corresponding discount,” he said. “Right now, it’s not.”

Ardid — whose company recently delivered the 389-unit 1010 Brickell and will soon complete The Harbour, a 425-unit project in North Miami Beach — is looking to buy land, “but it’s going to take a little bit of time for the market to come back. People have to price land correctly,” he said.

PMG recently closed on a site at 400 Biscayne Boulevard, where the developer will build apartments and condos. That deal, a $55 million purchase, was about two years in the making. “Pricing is tough right now,” PMG’s Shear said, adding that there’s a big gap between sellers’ perceptions and the reality of today’s market.

Shear points to a 26,600-square-foot development site at 200 Southwest Eighth Street in Brickell as an example. The corner property recently hit the market for about $19.4 million. It could be built into a 122-unit residential tower or a 244-key hotel, plus retail, according to Alfonso Jaramillo of Fortune International Realty, who is marketing the property. PMG looked at the site, but Shear said it was too expensive.

Prospecting continues nonetheless. Related has a couple of sites it’s eyeing for development, Rosso said, declining to identify where they’re located. Louis Birdman of One Thousand Museum said he and his partners own a site in Broward County that they’re considering for a project, but he did not disclose more information. 

“If I were developing in Miami, I would think long and hard about launching now,” said Elliman’s Parker.

A cloudy ending to the cycle

The end of the cycle isn’t such a terrible place to be today  compared to the crash-and-burn ending in 2008. Some hard-earned lessons from that time ensured that today, fewer buyers have walked away from their units — the 50 percent deposit structure is largely responsible for that — and fewer projects have been canceled.

Inigo Ardid

Shear believes the cycle ended a year ago, when sales slowed dramatically in South Florida. But now, he said, “we’re in a gap period, closer to the next cycle than we are to the end of this cycle.”

He’ll begin closings at Muse Residences in April with more than 80 percent sold. The luxury condo tower in Sunny Isles Beach has about 12 remaining units from a total of 64, he said. But last year, PMG sold only eight units at Muse. Most sold in 2015, when pre-construction condo sales in Miami peaked.

Pricing hit a high in 2016, which certainly didn’t help with sales, brokers said. While developers are hoping 2017 was the worst of it, that’s probably not the case. Once construction is for the most part over, developers will be stuck with unsold inventory and the carrying costs that come with those units. Buyers (including a number of investors) will also try to flip their units, flooding the market with even more inventory, Zalewski said.

“When the last crane comes down, that’s when the game is on because the clock is ticking,” he added. 

Related, which took the number one spot in TRD’s 2017 ranking of top South Florida condo developers, is delivering nine condo buildings this year and another four next year. Most, including Hyde Midtown, SLS Lux and the Paraiso complex in Edgewater, are nearly sold out, the company said.

Timing the market

If developers are getting their next-cycle plans together now, the question is, when should they pounce?

Before a new cycle begins, a few things have to happen. Rents will fall thanks to an oversupply of condos on the rental market. Resale inventory needs to decline — quickly — so that demand and prices will rise. 

“This is a hard market to predict. I don’t think anyone in their right mind thought the market was going to come back as strong as it did as long as it did,” Ardid said.

International Sales Group tracks pre-construction sales of projects east of I-95 in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, and found that of all the new inventory put on the market since 2012, 83 percent has been sold or pre-sold. ISG principal Craig Studnicky is especially optimistic, predicting that most of the remaining inventory will be absorbed this year, giving birth to the next cycle.

However, his prediction seems extremely unlikely, if not impossible — a recent report found that Miami-Dade has four years of existing luxury condo inventory. And a CraneSpotters analysis of new condo sales finds that there’s more than six years’ of supply in downtown Miami. In the county, nearly 2,800 units asking at least $1 million are on the market, according to Condo Vultures Realty. In 2017, 681 luxury units sold in the county, meaning an absorption rate of about 57 units a month, according to the Condo Vultures report. That’s not including the pipeline of new development.

“This is really like what 2011 was. It was pretty obvious we were nearing the end of selling the remaining inventory from the financial crisis of 2008, 2009,” Studnicky said.

KAR Properties’ Karmely doesn’t believe the market will come back as strong as it did at the start of this cycle. “Do I think it’s going to take longer for projects launched in the last two years to sell out? Yes, of course,” he said.

Once the demand is back and developers determine that they can sell new construction at a roughly 35 percent premium, they’ll launch new projects, he said.

Zalewski, who recently joined a private equity firm, Brickell Ventures, which is focused on buying bulk condo deals at discounts, expects the next cycle won’t begin until late 2021 or 2022. 

Everyone — developers, brokers and agents — are still optimistic, hoping the market will turn around, he added.

At the same time, they’re getting their approvals and teams in place to be in the right position “once we get out of the correction,” Zalewski said, referring to projects like Magic City and Design Place in Little Haiti. “They’re in early for the next cycle but way too late for this cycle.”

from The Real Deal Miami https://therealdeal.com/miami/issues_articles/plotting-the-future-of-miamis-skyline/#new_tab via IFTTT

[i-like-his-charm]

I Like My Ridiculousness

I wonder if he knew that women yearned for him. I’m betting he did. Nobody would do the kind of photos he posed for and not know that women all over the world (or at least where they were showing Danger Man) were breathing a little harder when they looked at those. And even before Danger Man… heck, those Rank photos to promote him were super hot photos. Give me a break. He HAD to know that the ladies were swooning all over the place. We STILL swoon. 

I’ll bet he had mixed feelings about that. Any red-blooded normal male would have to be a little pleased at being admired so intensely, but he would have also been a bit appalled seeing as he had such strong feelings about family and fidelity. Possibly his repulsion against that might have been made stronger as it could have caused him a bit of temptation from time to time. I mean, let’s be realistic, even the most faithful of us DO notice other people (aren’t we noticing PMG?) Personally, I love my husband and, although I know couples who joke and say that some celebrity or other are each other’s “free square,” I don’t really need or want a “free square.” Even if PMG were alive and willingly available, I wouldn’t want a “free square.” It’s never what it seems. There was a time when Mel Gibson would have been my “free square.” After what I heard him saying to his ex-girlfriend on the phone, he repulses me now. And there was a time when Harrison Ford would have been my “free square.” After he left his wife for Calista Flockhart, he lost my respect. So, a long time ago, I realized, I don’t really want a “free square.” My husband knew he didn’t want one long before I did. It’s meaningless. But, yes, I have a certain yearning for PMG. I yearn to touch his face. If I did have my way with him LOL, I would touch his face. Every inch of his face. And maybe even more, but nothing else, just touch,

Still, it’s just as well that I’ll never see him in person. I like sinking into the unreality of it all. I LIKE believing in John Drake, Number 6, David Jones, any of those characters. I LIKE believing that, of course, the mythical Patrick McGoohan — some sort of fable person — never smelled like smoke when he smoked cigarettes. Was never angry about anything out of line. Never got drunk from all those drinks he drank ;-) (and Drake was constantly drinking!) I just like to sit back and make up this imaginary person. I want to fill in all the blanks with perfections or with flaws that are sorta perfect flaws. His shirts always felt starched but never scratchy. He smelled faintly of cologne but something better. His skin was smooth but still had that roughness of a man’s chin. His nails were never dirty, always manicured, but he never had to bother with that stuff because they were just that way naturally. 

And 6, well, in Many Happy Returns, when he’s all waterlogged and has been wearing the same torn up sweater for however many weeks and staggered through sand and field and over highway, he still smelled great when he got to his old place and sat on the couch next to that nasty woman who betrayed him (which I would have never done ;-) ) 

This is getting too long and ridiculous… but I like my ridiculousness.

[nicolesrollins]

Plotting the future of Miami’s skyline

The Towers by Foster + Partners

With more than four years’ supply of luxury condos for sale, it’s plain to most people in the real estate community that the market does not need any more condo projects. Developers have no choice but to hope their existing projects inch closer to selling out while they toil away on plans designed for a better market in the future. Many are now plotting the next batch of supertall towers to grace Miami’s skyline by hiring top architects and attorneys, surveying industry leaders on their plans and assembling their sales and marketing teams, insiders told The Real Deal. They just have to wait out the cycle’s end before they launch.

In one example, Carlos Ott — a Uruguayan architect who worked on Echo Brickell, Jade Beach and Jade Ocean — has been hired along with Miami-based Sieger Suarez Architects to design a luxury condo tower at 300 Biscayne Boulevard, Property Markets Group (PMG) principal Ryan Shear said.

The skyscraper, designed as a stack of glass cubes, would be the tallest in Miami at 1,049 feet, renderings show. Plans for the property, which the company acquired for $80 million in 2014, include a 94-story condominium with 640 units and a luxury hotel with a wellness-focused spa. 

The project could be ready to launch in as little as two months, according to Shear — but that’s not happening. “We need a good cycle to launch projects like that. The worst thing in my opinion you could do is try to swim upstream,” Shear said, adding that he expects developers to start launching new developments again by 2019 or 2020.

The development is one of many scattered throughout Miami that won’t make it in this real estate cycle, but is poised to change the city’s landscape during the next one.

Another such project is The Towers by Foster + Partners, a pair of connected high rises planned for 1201 Brickell Bay Drive, about a mile south of 300 Biscayne, just over the Brickell Bridge. The developers — Florida East Coast Realty, Corigin Real Estate Group and McCourt Global Properties — met with top brokers last year seeking feedback on the plans, which now call for 660 residential units.

Sources say the waterfront development will be built as condos, but a launch date hasn’t been determined.

The Related Group, too, is expected to relaunch at least two large-scale condo projects in Miami during the next cycle: 444 Brickell Avenue and 1400 Biscayne Boulevard. Both are luxury condos that will be built in three phases. The only certainty regarding a launch date for either project is that now is not the time.

“We are looking for signs. Right now it’s not the right time to launch,” Carlos Rosso, president of the condominium division, said.

Slow sales led the developer to cancel its Auberge Residences & Spa Miami project planned for the site at 1400 Biscayne — shutting down the 290-unit tower’s sales center and returning buyers’ deposits by early 2017 — less than a year after launching. That cancellation in particular was a key indicator that the market had reached a critical point in the cycle, insiders said.

Devil-may-care developers

While some are waiting to start projects two to three years in the future, there are a handful of others fearlessly forging ahead today — though it should be noted that in those cases, ample coffers certainly helped. In March, two new projects launched sales. OKO Group, led by Vlad Doronin, began sales for Una, a 47-story, 135-unit luxury condo tower at 175 Southeast 25th Road, with an architect and sales team in place. The developer, who has the financial backing to move forward, is planning to complete the building by 2021. That’s when some say the next cycle will begin.

Over on Fisher Island, developer Heinrich von Hanau just launched sales for a project he already started building. Palazzo Della Luna, a 10-story, 50-unit building, is expected to open next summer. 

Some of the most high-profile projects where sales and construction are underway may continue to sell and build into the next cycle — a costly move that could pay off if their completions are timed correctly. They include One River Point along the Miami River and the Estates at Acqualina in Sunny Isles Beach.

KAR Properties’ Shahab Karmely launched One River Point, a twin-tower, 60-story, 386-unit luxury condo development connected by a “Sky Club,” in 2015 — at the same time that the Estates at Acqualina launched. Sales have been slow at One River Point, which also faces challenges by having a not-so-concrete timeline. “Our sales are chugging along,” Karmely said. But “they’re not as strong as I would like them to be.”

Jay Parker, CEO of Douglas Elliman Florida, acknowledged that the lack of a timeline is “a very significant concern” among buyers. “People want to know how long it’s going to take. That’s why you see a lot of developers taking a lot of risk,” he added.

Site work at One River Point is now underway, and the developer expects to pour the foundation by the end of 2018. Despite launching later in the cycle, Karmely, too, has deep pockets he can rely on. His silent partner is Daniel Loeb, the billionaire investor who runs Third Point, one of the world’s most prominent activist hedge funds.

“You can only wait so long before you say, ‘Oh, shit. I waited too long.’ In life, you’ve got to jump in and swim,” Karmely said.

Others are making conservative moves aimed at mitigating any potential losses.

Palazzo Della Luna by Heinrich von Hanau

“The best approach a developer could take is [to] look back at history,” said Peter Zalewski, founder of CraneSpotters and Condo Vultures Realty, databases that track the preconstruction condo market and distressed opportunities, respectively. He pointed to the St. Regis Bal Harbour as an example of a profitable slow-and-steady approach. “They built very slowly and were able to deliver right as the market was returning.”

At Brickell City Centre, Swire Properties still has about 150 unsold condos at Reach and Rise and won’t launch sales for phase two until those units are sold.

Nevertheless, Swire is preparing for the second phase, which is slated to be a vertically stacked equivalent of phase one. The development firm also recently announced a partnership with Colombian businessman Carlos Mattos to build a residential project on a site immediately north and west of Brickell City Centre. Development marketers are eager to bid on the new business.

Securing new sites

As a cycle is ending, developers typically focus on looking for land they can develop in the next cycle while getting approvals for plans on the sites they already own. But, given the specifics of today’s market, there are a few flaws in that plan.

Inigo Ardid, co-president of Key International, said land prices are still too high for such moves. “The value of land is how much you can build on it. If the market’s not there, it should get a corresponding discount,” he said. “Right now, it’s not.”

Ardid — whose company recently delivered the 389-unit 1010 Brickell and will soon complete The Harbour, a 425-unit project in North Miami Beach — is looking to buy land, “but it’s going to take a little bit of time for the market to come back. People have to price land correctly,” he said.

PMG recently closed on a site at 400 Biscayne Boulevard, where the developer will build apartments and condos. That deal, a $55 million purchase, was about two years in the making. “Pricing is tough right now,” PMG’s Shear said, adding that there’s a big gap between sellers’ perceptions and the reality of today’s market.

Shear points to a 26,600-square-foot development site at 200 Southwest Eighth Street in Brickell as an example. The corner property recently hit the market for about $19.4 million. It could be built into a 122-unit residential tower or a 244-key hotel, plus retail, according to Alfonso Jaramillo of Fortune International Realty, who is marketing the property. PMG looked at the site, but Shear said it was too expensive.

Prospecting continues nonetheless. Related has a couple of sites it’s eyeing for development, Rosso said, declining to identify where they’re located. Louis Birdman of One Thousand Museum said he and his partners own a site in Broward County that they’re considering for a project, but he did not disclose more information. 

“If I were developing in Miami, I would think long and hard about launching now,” said Elliman’s Parker.

A cloudy ending to the cycle

The end of the cycle isn’t such a terrible place to be today  compared to the crash-and-burn ending in 2008. Some hard-earned lessons from that time ensured that today, fewer buyers have walked away from their units — the 50 percent deposit structure is largely responsible for that — and fewer projects have been canceled.

Inigo Ardid

Shear believes the cycle ended a year ago, when sales slowed dramatically in South Florida. But now, he said, “we’re in a gap period, closer to the next cycle than we are to the end of this cycle.”

He’ll begin closings at Muse Residences in April with more than 80 percent sold. The luxury condo tower in Sunny Isles Beach has about 12 remaining units from a total of 64, he said. But last year, PMG sold only eight units at Muse. Most sold in 2015, when pre-construction condo sales in Miami peaked.

Pricing hit a high in 2016, which certainly didn’t help with sales, brokers said. While developers are hoping 2017 was the worst of it, that’s probably not the case. Once construction is for the most part over, developers will be stuck with unsold inventory and the carrying costs that come with those units. Buyers (including a number of investors) will also try to flip their units, flooding the market with even more inventory, Zalewski said.

“When the last crane comes down, that’s when the game is on because the clock is ticking,” he added. 

Related, which took the number one spot in TRD’s 2017 ranking of top South Florida condo developers, is delivering nine condo buildings this year and another four next year. Most, including Hyde Midtown, SLS Lux and the Paraiso complex in Edgewater, are nearly sold out, the company said.

Timing the market

If developers are getting their next-cycle plans together now, the question is, when should they pounce?

Before a new cycle begins, a few things have to happen. Rents will fall thanks to an oversupply of condos on the rental market. Resale inventory needs to decline — quickly — so that demand and prices will rise. 

“This is a hard market to predict. I don’t think anyone in their right mind thought the market was going to come back as strong as it did as long as it did,” Ardid said.

International Sales Group tracks pre-construction sales of projects east of I-95 in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, and found that of all the new inventory put on the market since 2012, 83 percent has been sold or pre-sold. ISG principal Craig Studnicky is especially optimistic, predicting that most of the remaining inventory will be absorbed this year, giving birth to the next cycle.

However, his prediction seems extremely unlikely, if not impossible — a recent report found that Miami-Dade has four years of existing luxury condo inventory. And a CraneSpotters analysis of new condo sales finds that there’s more than six years’ of supply in downtown Miami. In the county, nearly 2,800 units asking at least $1 million are on the market, according to Condo Vultures Realty. In 2017, 681 luxury units sold in the county, meaning an absorption rate of about 57 units a month, according to the Condo Vultures report. That’s not including the pipeline of new development.

“This is really like what 2011 was. It was pretty obvious we were nearing the end of selling the remaining inventory from the financial crisis of 2008, 2009,” Studnicky said.

KAR Properties’ Karmely doesn’t believe the market will come back as strong as it did at the start of this cycle. “Do I think it’s going to take longer for projects launched in the last two years to sell out? Yes, of course,” he said.

Once the demand is back and developers determine that they can sell new construction at a roughly 35 percent premium, they’ll launch new projects, he said.

Zalewski, who recently joined a private equity firm, Brickell Ventures, which is focused on buying bulk condo deals at discounts, expects the next cycle won’t begin until late 2021 or 2022. 

Everyone — developers, brokers and agents — are still optimistic, hoping the market will turn around, he added.

At the same time, they’re getting their approvals and teams in place to be in the right position “once we get out of the correction,” Zalewski said, referring to projects like Magic City and Design Place in Little Haiti. “They’re in early for the next cycle but way too late for this cycle.”

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