#so like changing the denomination to pass it off as a different bill

[quill-of-thoth]

Letters from Watson, the Engineer's Thumb

Crimes in Context: Counterfeiting, circa 1889

What coins were the Stark-Becher gang trying to make, anyway? And did they actually need a person squishing hydraulic press to do it?

Most of the cash in circulation in Victorian England would have been coins, so it's time to refresh our memories on what they all are, since I last addressed currency smaller than a pound in The Man with the Twisted Lip. We will be restricting ourselves to denominations that the Stark-Becher gang may have been minting, based on the comment that the hydraulic press was necessary to make coins that were previously minted in silver.

Imperial Currency Definitions

Pound/Quid/Sovereign: Not applicable, the Sovereign coin is gold, but it's the base unit of the currency we're dealing with. It also would have been hard to pass as genuine just because it's a large denomination - the era's equivalent of a hundred dollar bill. Indeed, our Bank of England inflation calculator returns a modern value of £107.

Crown: Five shillings / a quarter pound. Represented by a silver coin. Probably the largest coin you'd make change for without being annoyed by it.

Shilling: 1/20th of a pound. A silver coin. Crowns and Shillings are our most likely candidates, as they're in common use in 1889 and is the kind of cash an average man might have on hand. I personally think shillings are the most likely coin to counterfeit, as a lot of accounting of people's wages, expenses, etc. in this time period is written as pounds / shillings / pennies (L/s/d) and silver pennies (And their horrible spawn of sixpence, twopence, etc) are probably not worth the effort. Also, while there were silver pennies in circulation, the fact that things like silver twopence were minted for maundy money makes the timeline and consistency of their minting beyond my pay grade as a blogger. And probably confusing for a coiner to get exactly right, given the payoff. Hydraulic press:

Modern (paper*) money is printed with several aspects that make it harder to reproduce: the exact fiber content of the paper, the multi layered and detailed design (with parts that can only be seen under UV light, parts that can only be seen with a magnifying glass, etc.), the embossed parts of the print design, and the exact chemical components of the ink can be analyzed to see if a note is authentic. The ink in US dollars also contains a smattering of heavy metals that aren't great for human health, so I don't recommend consuming money in any way - don't lick it, don't snort things off it, don't put it in your blender for a science fair project. It would be chemically somewhat dangerous to counterfeit modern currency at home, assuming you got anywhere close to the right ink.

*Some countries use polymer, but same difference. It will kill your blender, though.

The Victorians did... none of that, really. The idea of designing money to be harder to fake was already around, but metal coins can only be produced to a certain degree of precision with the tools that were available in the 1800's: you essentially heat a disk of the correct metal (a blank) and press it with a stamp. The hydraulic press would, of course, squash blanks between two plates of stamps precisely, and with great force.

Both silver and gold have relatively low melting points (under 2,000 degrees F / close to 1,000 C) and are malleable at lower temperatures than the iron or steel of a hydraulic press. Silver amalgam (a silver/mercury alloy) has an even lower melting point, so it would be even easier to fit to a mold.

Essentially, anybody who knew much about molding metal and could get a precise-ish model of the coin in question would make pretty convincing money. A hydraulic press large enough to fit three grown men between the plates of may have been overkill.

[businessplanningsolutions]

The Authority of Money



During my recent trip to the U.S., I decided to play tourist and visit a few places that I had never been. One of the more interesting destinations was the Money Museum at the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago, Illinois.

    No matter how much it’s talked about in the news and politics, I really had no idea exactly what the Federal Reserve Bank does. I know its name is printed at the top of all of my Benjamin, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. With the help of a friend I’ve had for 40 years, I signed up to take the tour and get a glimpse behind the scenes of the place that money calls home. Knowing the amount of money that passes through the place and seeing the turn of the century style conjured up images of caper stories the whole time I was there. I couldn’t help but think  

“okay, if I was going to rob this place, how would I do it?”

 

The Guided Tour

While it was interesting to learn what the Federal Reserve Bank does, the real beauty of the visit was a special tour through some of the innards with a guide who knows trivia that spans centuries and literally trillions of dollars. Jerry, our tour guide, was a fascinating man who returned from the boredom of retirement to be a tour guide, talking guests through the museum.

    He wore a light green and white suit, looking like he too had been minted by the U.S. government decades ago. Over the course of the next hour or so, he shared background on the Fed, stories and more numbers than anyone should be able to recall.

In the main museum, we got to see a number of displays about the history of currency in the United States, including a couple of displays of One Million Dollars:

We also got to learn a bit about what the Federal Reserve Bank does in a video that was put together in-house – nice, but a bit dry. I’m sharing what I took away from it, which may be entirely inaccurate, due to my failing memory.

The Fed’s charter is to “oversee how monetary policy is implemented.” It comes down to three primary functions:

they oversee how payment systems work, so the way checks are cashed, the way credit card and online transactions take place;

 they are the regulators of banks in the U.S., so they’re the ones who go in and audit banks to make sure they’re not breaking any laws and

The most visible function is that they’re responsible for moving cash around.

    For most of us, that’s the fascinating part of what they do. Every day of the week, shipments of currency come from the United States mints to the Federal Reserve Bank. The Fed then ships that currency out to the banks that need it. While the larger bills are transported by armored car every day, the $1 bills are packed into unmarked semi-trailers and driven to the building to prepare them for distribution.

I guess it’s not much different from shipping a truckload of iPhones to a warehouse, but somehow it SEEMS riskier that they do that.

On the flip side of things, the Fed gets deliveries of cash from the banks, which is counted and bundled for re-distribution. This is also the step that includes pulling old and worn bills out of circulation. One of the most surprising things I saw was how little wear a bill needs for it to be taken out of circulation. Most of the bills in your wallet are probably not going to pass.

About $17 Million in currency is destroyed every day at the Chicago Fed, which is one of 12 Federal Reserve Banks. The Money Museum even gives you a small bag of shredded money as a souvenir, which contains the remnants of currency equal to about $370. One of the more interesting facts about this shredded currency is that until the mid 20th century, the shredded bills were burned, but because of the toxic chemicals used in the ink, they had to stop doing that.

 It’s now shipped off to special landfills for toxic materials. Kind of makes you worry about handling it every day, doesn’t it?

A Personal Tour

I had the pleasure of getting a more personal tour, including a trip to see the money sorting and counting machines (through a thick glass window, of course), but sadly the machines weren’t operating that day.

    Those functions are visible from an additional section of the Museum that was closed off in 2001, so not many people get to visit it.

    My other favorite part was looking at the high denomination currency that’s no longer in circulation. One display has a $10,000 bill in it, along with several other bills from the 200-ish years of American money printing. The 10k bills were printed until the 1940s and discontinued when it became apparent that virtually all bills above $1000 in denomination were being used for criminal purposes.

 Just over 300 of the bills survive, most of which are in the hands of collectors. About 9 years ago, one of them actually arrived at the Fed through normal banking channels! Someone had gotten hold of it (perhaps stored in a box in an attic somewhere), taken it to their local bank and deposited it. With a quick bit of research, they’d have discovered it was worth close to 10 times that to a collector.

    

I’d love to make a few suggestions to the guys at the Money Museum as improvements, but since this is solely for PR (admission is free), I’m sure they are limited in how much they invest in the tour. Although considering the constant saber-rattling in Congress about the Fed, maybe they could use a bit stronger PR push.

One of my biggest pet peeves with 90% of museums is that no one really thinks about photos. Placement of light fixtures to minimize glare, setting up obstruction free angles and allowing guests the chance to pose without impeding traffic are critical factors for any museum and most of them don’t think that through.

Re-open the closed section of the tour. Money counting and shredding is one of the more fascinating things that happens at the Fed and no one gets to see it. I get it. 9/11 happened. But the security checks and procedures keep out bank robbers, so I’m sure they can be effective for other people, too.

Tell some stories. Interactive displays are all well and good, but you’ve got an asset like Jerry who has hundreds of stories in his arsenal. I’m the only one who heard any of them. Everyone else just heard him introduce the video and rattle off a lot of facts and figures.

    

Stories = excitement. Spend a little money and create a new video to share some of these stories in the context of explaining what the Fed does.

All unsolicited advice, of course, but I found the place fascinating and woefully under-utilized. As an average tourist, there just wouldn’t be a lot to hold my interest without some upgrades.

A blog post by Mike Fraser, We are the outside-the-Box, professionals here to give you the best change, solutions and strategies to develop your business idea. I can take your dream and help you make it an attainable goal. Our life experience and formal education has led us to the following conclusions:

Everyone has an amazing idea. It’s the execution that gets the job done. We are your executioner.

Brussels sprouts do not taste that great, no matter what my mom says.

Our team is made of all A personalities. We don’t care who gets the credit – We just want to win.

You will not regret giving us the opportunity to facilitate, compose and engineer the growth of your business. A professional prepared business plan can not only help your start-up company to obtain venture capital, traditional loans but can also help to maximize the efficiency and profitability of your business.

An optimal business plan can be your road map to a successful business. We thrive on building relationships and take great pride in the company we keep.



The post The Authority of Money appeared first on Business Plan Ideas | Business Plan Steps.

via Business Plan Ideas | Business Plan Steps https://businessplanpro.pennistonemedia.com/2020/07/22/the-authority-of-money/

[businessconsultingservices]

The Authority of Money



During my recent trip to the U.S., I decided to play tourist and visit a few places that I had never been. One of the more interesting destinations was the Money Museum at the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago, Illinois.

    No matter how much it’s talked about in the news and politics, I really had no idea exactly what the Federal Reserve Bank does. I know its name is printed at the top of all of my Benjamin, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. With the help of a friend I’ve had for 40 years, I signed up to take the tour and get a glimpse behind the scenes of the place that money calls home. Knowing the amount of money that passes through the place and seeing the turn of the century style conjured up images of caper stories the whole time I was there. I couldn’t help but think  

“okay, if I was going to rob this place, how would I do it?”

 

The Guided Tour

While it was interesting to learn what the Federal Reserve Bank does, the real beauty of the visit was a special tour through some of the innards with a guide who knows trivia that spans centuries and literally trillions of dollars. Jerry, our tour guide, was a fascinating man who returned from the boredom of retirement to be a tour guide, talking guests through the museum.

    He wore a light green and white suit, looking like he too had been minted by the U.S. government decades ago. Over the course of the next hour or so, he shared background on the Fed, stories and more numbers than anyone should be able to recall.

In the main museum, we got to see a number of displays about the history of currency in the United States, including a couple of displays of One Million Dollars:

We also got to learn a bit about what the Federal Reserve Bank does in a video that was put together in-house – nice, but a bit dry. I’m sharing what I took away from it, which may be entirely inaccurate, due to my failing memory.

The Fed’s charter is to “oversee how monetary policy is implemented.” It comes down to three primary functions:

they oversee how payment systems work, so the way checks are cashed, the way credit card and online transactions take place;

 they are the regulators of banks in the U.S., so they’re the ones who go in and audit banks to make sure they’re not breaking any laws and

The most visible function is that they’re responsible for moving cash around.

    For most of us, that’s the fascinating part of what they do. Every day of the week, shipments of currency come from the United States mints to the Federal Reserve Bank. The Fed then ships that currency out to the banks that need it. While the larger bills are transported by armored car every day, the $1 bills are packed into unmarked semi-trailers and driven to the building to prepare them for distribution.

I guess it’s not much different from shipping a truckload of iPhones to a warehouse, but somehow it SEEMS riskier that they do that.

On the flip side of things, the Fed gets deliveries of cash from the banks, which is counted and bundled for re-distribution. This is also the step that includes pulling old and worn bills out of circulation. One of the most surprising things I saw was how little wear a bill needs for it to be taken out of circulation. Most of the bills in your wallet are probably not going to pass.

About $17 Million in currency is destroyed every day at the Chicago Fed, which is one of 12 Federal Reserve Banks. The Money Museum even gives you a small bag of shredded money as a souvenir, which contains the remnants of currency equal to about $370. One of the more interesting facts about this shredded currency is that until the mid 20th century, the shredded bills were burned, but because of the toxic chemicals used in the ink, they had to stop doing that.

 It’s now shipped off to special landfills for toxic materials. Kind of makes you worry about handling it every day, doesn’t it?

A Personal Tour

I had the pleasure of getting a more personal tour, including a trip to see the money sorting and counting machines (through a thick glass window, of course), but sadly the machines weren’t operating that day.

    Those functions are visible from an additional section of the Museum that was closed off in 2001, so not many people get to visit it.

    My other favorite part was looking at the high denomination currency that’s no longer in circulation. One display has a $10,000 bill in it, along with several other bills from the 200-ish years of American money printing. The 10k bills were printed until the 1940s and discontinued when it became apparent that virtually all bills above $1000 in denomination were being used for criminal purposes.

 Just over 300 of the bills survive, most of which are in the hands of collectors. About 9 years ago, one of them actually arrived at the Fed through normal banking channels! Someone had gotten hold of it (perhaps stored in a box in an attic somewhere), taken it to their local bank and deposited it. With a quick bit of research, they’d have discovered it was worth close to 10 times that to a collector.

    

I’d love to make a few suggestions to the guys at the Money Museum as improvements, but since this is solely for PR (admission is free), I’m sure they are limited in how much they invest in the tour. Although considering the constant saber-rattling in Congress about the Fed, maybe they could use a bit stronger PR push.

One of my biggest pet peeves with 90% of museums is that no one really thinks about photos. Placement of light fixtures to minimize glare, setting up obstruction free angles and allowing guests the chance to pose without impeding traffic are critical factors for any museum and most of them don’t think that through.

Re-open the closed section of the tour. Money counting and shredding is one of the more fascinating things that happens at the Fed and no one gets to see it. I get it. 9/11 happened. But the security checks and procedures keep out bank robbers, so I’m sure they can be effective for other people, too.

Tell some stories. Interactive displays are all well and good, but you’ve got an asset like Jerry who has hundreds of stories in his arsenal. I’m the only one who heard any of them. Everyone else just heard him introduce the video and rattle off a lot of facts and figures.

    

Stories = excitement. Spend a little money and create a new video to share some of these stories in the context of explaining what the Fed does.

All unsolicited advice, of course, but I found the place fascinating and woefully under-utilized. As an average tourist, there just wouldn’t be a lot to hold my interest without some upgrades.

A blog post by Mike Fraser, We are the outside-the-Box, professionals here to give you the best change, solutions and strategies to develop your business idea. I can take your dream and help you make it an attainable goal. Our life experience and formal education has led us to the following conclusions:

Everyone has an amazing idea. It’s the execution that gets the job done. We are your executioner.

Brussels sprouts do not taste that great, no matter what my mom says.

Our team is made of all A personalities. We don’t care who gets the credit – We just want to win.

You will not regret giving us the opportunity to facilitate, compose and engineer the growth of your business. A professional prepared business plan can not only help your start-up company to obtain venture capital, traditional loans but can also help to maximize the efficiency and profitability of your business.

An optimal business plan can be your road map to a successful business. We thrive on building relationships and take great pride in the company we keep.



The post The Authority of Money appeared first on Business Plan Ideas | Business Plan Steps.

via Business Plan Ideas | Business Plan Steps https://businessplanpro.pennistonemedia.com/2020/07/22/the-authority-of-money/ from Business Planning Solutions https://businessplanningsolutions.tumblr.com/post/624334495775080448

[everythingisnightvale]

Prompt: “Guess who signed us up to go Christmas caroling”

A rare Losers Club centric story of mine feat. a minor appearance by my boyz (aka the Bowers gang)

For @anotheritfandomnerd

Ben was 100% all about Christmas. He loved it. The lights, the sounds, the smells, all of it just instantly made him happy. He had even run out of bed at 2 in the morning in nothing but his pajamas to enjoy the first snow of the year.

He invited all of his friends over to his house to make cookies and drink hot chocolate to celebrate the change in weather. Not Christmas cookies, he had stressed, because Stan was invited too. After all, sugar cookies were non denominational. It couldn’t be more perfect. That is until Richie showed up.

“Hey losers!” He greeted as he entered Ben’s house without knocking. “Guess who signed us up to go Christmas Caroling!”

Eddie carefully wiped his boots off on the mat before entering the house after Richie. The other losers stared at Richie in disbelief.

“P-please tell me your jo-joke-joking,” Bill said with a grimace.

“I’d never joke about Christmas carols,” Richie said in a mock serious tone.

“Count me out,” Beverly said. “There’s no way I’m going door to door to embarrass myself.”

“It could be fun,” Mike reasoned.

“You’re only saying that because you’re good at singing,” Eddie said.

“Everyone knows you’re not supposed to be good at singing to carol. That’s part of the appeal,” Richie said.

“I’m pretty sure you just made that up,” Ben said as he rolled his eyes.

“You all suck, except you Mike. You’re still could. What say you Stanley?” Richie asked.

“No.”

“Aw, you too Stan?” Richie frowned.

“Richie, I’m Jewish,” Stan reminded him.

“That’s no reason to not go Christmas caroling,” Richie whined.

“Fine,” Stan said looking Richie in the eye. “I’ll make you a deal. If you can tell me when Hanukkah is this year without looking at a calendar, I’ll go with you.” Stan crossed his arms and waited.

Richie opened his mouth and then closed it again before sighing in defeat.

Stan got out of Christmas caroling, but the other losers were not as lucky. It was cold and the matching sweaters Richie had insisted they wear were itchy, but the look of pure joy on Richie’s face when they were gathered and ready to go made it worth it.

Everyone was surprised that people were actually listening to the sing. Beverly expected most of them to shut the door in their faces, but people stayed and listened. Apparently the town of Derry needed a little Christmas cheer.

They weren’t the only ones out caroling that night. Various church groups and choirs from around town were out that night. It seemed that wherever Richie had signed them up to go caroling was organized. Each group stayed in their area. Richie even had a list of which streets were there’s.

When every door had been knocked on, and the losers sang more Christmas carols then they ever realized they knew, everyone split up and began to walk home.

“Did you have fun, Eds?” Richie asked.

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie said reflexively. “I guess it wasn’t awful, but if I get a cold from staying outside too long, my mom is not going to be happy.”

“Don’t worry my boy. I know plenty of ways to bring your mom some holiday cheer,” he winked at Eddie who rolled his eyes.

Suddenly, Eddie pulled Richie into a nearby bush.     

“Eddie, what the fu-” Eddie shushed him. Richie could hear some familiar voices approaching.

“Patrick, you can’t just single jingle bells at every house. Especially if the rest of us are singing something different,” Vic groaned.

“Medleys are really in right now,” Patrick defended. “Besides, it’s the only Christmas song I know. I didn’t want to come, remember.”

“None of us wanted to come,” Henry said.

“Stop complaining, or the rest of you are walking to school for the rest of the winter,” Belch said. Richie and Eddie could see that Belch was dressed in a rather festive sweater with a matching hat. He looked rather pleased to be out, while the other members of the Bowers Gang looked like they’d rather be anyone else.

“Are they...?” Richie wondered after they had gone passed.

“Caroling? Yeah I think so.” Eddie was just as surprised as he was.

“The guys are gonna fucking love this,” Richie said with glee.

Eddie frowned. He didn’t want to think of what Henry Bowers would do to them if he found out they had told everyone he had gone Christmas caroling.

“You know what Richie, in the spirit of Christmas, let’s keep this one to ourselves,” Eddie suggested.

[tyrannosaurus-trainwreck]

So this out-of-town theater I’ve been to a couple of times has a convenient after-hours lot nearby that’s dirt cheap and easy walking distance of the theater.  It’s also easy walking distance of a bunch of different food places, and it’s a lot instead of a parking garage, which I prefer because there’s no containing you.  You park, and you give the machine money, and then you can make your escape in any direction.  You’re your own god at that point.

So it’s 2 bucks a day on nights and weekends, and you can either pay with cash or credit cards, and then it spits out your little ticket and off you go, into the ether, wherever your whims may take you.

This understandably makes it a bit popular on nights and weekends.

So the last time I’m there, there’s actually a line to buy the passes.  Like we’re all converging on the kiosk from various points in the parking lot, eyeing each other like trying to get there first but not make a big deal of it because then you still have to stand there for a minute or two buying your ticket in front of the person you just cut off who now knows just how deep the vein of jackassery runs in you, a perfect stranger.  It’s the sort of knowledge that fucked the dwarves in Moria. 

Also like you’re never quite sure if you’re race-walking to the kiosk to get there first and the other person is secretly like a mugger or a panhandler, and then you’re standing there with your wallet out trying to save face as you tell this person nooooooo, no wallet, left it at home, dead-eye shoving bills into the machine and going through the process while they’re standing there judging you.

Anyway, I, as the person coming from the farthest reaches of the lot, wound up third in line.  First person gets their pass, goes on their merry way.  The second person is part of a couple.  So he tries his card, and it gets rejected.  Tries a different card, no dice.  The person in front of him used their card no problem, we all saw it, and now he’s sweating like a used car salesman in church.  His date goes, fine, just let me pay for parking.

Her cards get rejected too.

They’re both sneaking looks back at me now, and I’m doing my best to act like I’m totally not noticing the increasingly frustrated chorus of groans, pleading, and implacable electronic beeping happening five feet away from me.  Well, I was actually running a little late that day, so I’m giving that act the good old college try.

Finally, he breaks down and whips out a twenty dollar bill.

Now, the thing about this kiosk is that it’ll take pretty much any denomination you care to give it.  But, and this is made perfectly clear on the face under the instructions, it only gives change in Sacagawea dollars.

So this poor bastard feeds the twenty in, pushes the button that spits out his pass, and then we all brace for what we know is coming: a nickel-slot Vegas-style jackpot payoff clearly audible from three blocks away.

The machine does not disappoint.

So the guy’s resigned at this point, and he sets about scooping eighteen dollars in chunky gold coins into his fucking pockets, and he clearly just wants to be out of here.  He can escape me, but his date still knows this happened.  At least one witness is going to dog his steps for the rest of the night.  It’s all over for this poor bastard.  They start walking away, and I see there’s a mess of coins still in the chute.

I have never seen a dude so disheartened about getting told he had another four dollars coming.

So I feel like I’ve done my good deed for the day, and also I’ve kept a pretty straight face throughout the avalanche of money that just happened, and I’m paying for my own pass when I hear, carrying back across the entire fucking parking lot, the dulcet sounds of nine bucks apiece rattling in some poor bastard’s pockets like a pirate on shore leave.

[ourmomzone-blog]

The Money Secret!

"The Root of All Evil" or "The Bloom of Success" - Here is a little story passed down through the generations you may have heard or not ... but as far as the topic of money goes, it's worth repeating.

The "Secret"

A young man in his early years in the work field was depressed as he thought he was unsuccessful in that he had been working for several years and had nothing to show for it. No bank account to speak of and little in his pocket.

He remembered meeting an elderly man during his youth and also remembered how successful the older man was and thought that one day he would like to be like him. The young man especially marveled at the material things the older man had acquired and knew of his financial success.

So, quite despondent at his own failure and desperate to seek advice or additional learning to better himself he sought out the older man and arranged to meet him. He thought that if he could talk to him the older man would reveal his treasured "secret" on how he attained his wealth.

They met in a quiet setting and the younger man told his story of how he had worked for a number of years and though he tried very hard, he found it extremely difficult to save any money after his obligations and had little to show for all the years he worked. He asked the older man if he would share his secret and tell him how he managed to acquire his wealth.

The older man who might have been of any culture and denomination of faith as this is not a matter of importance, chuckled under his breath and it made the young man feel uncomfortable and embarrassed that he thought he had offended the man for asking. But before he could apologize for his abruptness and inquisitiveness, the old man spoke.

"My son, I have no "secret" regarding my wealth."

And the young man replied, "Oh, but you must have. You must have a greater wisdom than others as you are rich and it is well known that you have much money."

"Well, Yes, it is true that I am wealthy", said the old man, "but how I acquired my wealth is no secret. I shall be glad to let you know."

The young man leaned toward him and showed an astute attentiveness eagerly waiting for the old man's next words that would reveal a mystical magical mystery.

Then the old man spoke. "Son, It is really very simple. Every week you perform your duties and receive a wage, right?" The young man nodded in assent. "Well," continued the old man. "And you dole out your wages to pay your rent, the grocer, your doctor bills, your dentist bills, correct?" Again, the young man nodded. "Well, how much do you pay yourself?" the old man asked. The young man suddenly had an astonished look on his face. "Pay myself?" he blurted out. "Yes," said the old man. "Yourself. You worked just as your doctor did and as your dentist did, didn't you? How much did you pay yourself for the week you worked?" The young man didn't know what to say and sat motionless and stunned.

"You see, my son, that is the "secret" you are looking for which is no secret at all. Pay yourself first before you pay any of your other bills. Pay yourself a wage you estimate you are worth for the week you worked and place the amount you pay yourself into savings. Pay your remaining bills from the balance left. In a short time you will see how easy it is to accumulate a fortune."

They shook hands and the young man thanked the older man for his "secret" and more so for his wisdom. The young man went away determined to put into practice what he had just learned from the old man. The old man went away with a smile on his face and a warm thought that he had brightened the life of the young man with his "secret".

The young man returned home that evening more enthused and energetic than he had been in a long time. He began to think about what the old man had said. "Simple, the old man said. More simple though in words rather than in actuality. "Pay yourself first." Sounds logical enough but then what amount should it be? It is true, I worked an entire week and I have nothing to show for it. Could this be the answer. Could this be as simple as it sounds. He tossed it back and forth and back and forth again. Well, it's certainly worth a try. I'll definitely give it a try this pay day." And he did. And so began the young man's climb to fortune. In no time at all he began to see an accumulation of savings and it made him feel good. "He was right, the old man was right and it really was very simple."

Sound easy? And simple? The secret to success? Well, it could very well be if every thing goes well and falls into place. But life doesn't always work that way. Obstacles keep popping up in a lifetime. Unforeseen expenses too. But aside from paying yourself which is a very nice position to be in, there are other quite apparent remedies available.

Also available, however, is the constant bombardment of advertisements consistent and persistently flashing before the consumer coupled with the equally availability of credit to the point of morally illegal. All of which prompts one to evaluate his or her own financial condition and make a most important decision as to the style of life, the priorities in the picture of one's finances and the goals to set for the future.

Life Style

The average family [census always indicates 4 with the absurd ½ individual members] usually is content with an average life style of a home, nice furnishings (renewed periodically), seasonal clothing and a yearly vacation. Most families are conservative and live within their means but in an electronic cyberspace age things are easily uncontrolled and the urge to live beyond means appears to be easier and easier. While it is difficult it is most important to remain within your income boundaries and not become indebted via credit cards and/or equity loans.

Single persons, some with career employment, supplying expense accounts and the life style, of course, have greater financial means but on a personal basis can easily exceed their own financial means attempting to keep up.

So it is important and best to determine how you want to live. That is, dinner and dancing, theatre and shows, cruises and travel, all beyond your means or a more quiet within your budget routine enjoying the best things in life which are free.

The Secret The illustration above of the old man's "secret" is basically very sound. Take the time to make a list of income vs. expenses. That is, the usual amounts expected to be expended monthly. The positive difference between the two would be a basis for the sum weekly deposited as "the wages to yourself."

Realistic Figures

Begin with a simple account of monthly income, single or joint for couple. List all monthly expenses and begin with the deposit illustrated above if the figures permit. If not, it is time to make adjustments. The income figure more than likely will remain the same so it is necessary to cut back or eliminate certain expenses. Don't be discouraged if this cannot be done immediately. It may take time to make the adjustments work into the plan. Some changes can be made immediately while others will take time. For instance, one might eliminate the lawn services at $30 a week and perform this chore oneself. A credit card balance might not be paid at once but additional charges on that card can and should be avoided. A careful review of the list can produce like changes in favor of a larger available monthly income. Some other ways follow.

Ways to Save

Make Use of Coupons/Discounts, etc.

While the internet, magazines and the daily mail are all diluted with ads, flyers and brochures of every kind and nature for coupons, discounts, promotions and super deals and sometimes they become irritably annoying, there is a great deal of saving to be had in perusing them. Supermarkets, fed by food manufacturers constantly compete with one another and it is wise to scan through the leaflets left at your mailbox to shop and compare.

It is not necessary to eat steak and potatoes every night. Ask Granma how she stretched the big pot of pea soup (with the Easter ham bone) and two loaves of oven baked bread between her family of six. Or Mom how she made two pounds of pasta (she got on sale) with sauce feed ten. There are a zillion low cost meals and recipes available and many are more delicious than filet mignon.

Fast food eating becomes a habit and is costly. Many times half the food ordered is left on the table uneaten. Break the habit and try to prepare less expensive but nutritional foods at home.

Department stores push seasonal sales throughout the year as well as appliances as new models with innovative ideas will appear shortly. Don't buy spontaneously. Read the newspapers and scan the internet for the best offers. It is not necessary to have the newest model in the latest color. Save big bucks by buying the clearance model but be sure to get your guarantees, etc.

Cars/Gasoline

The car, be it the family sedan or the mod single convertible, is a great possession. But in today's world, it has become one of the most money-eating necessities. When possible, plan your ride economically. Set down your chores in order of destination that is, line up your stops in an order so that you're not driving back and forth using too much gas. Go one way on one day stopping at all stores in one direction and go the other way on another day when you have accumulated chores in that direction. Don't use precious gas sitting in heavy traffic at lights on a Saturday or Sunday if it's not necessary. Drive on "off hours" on weekdays.

Shop around for car insurance. The insurance companies, like all other businesses, compete for your business. Find the best rates for your needs.

Credit Cards

Check out your cards. Yes, "cards" plural. Most people have more than one and some have as many as they can get. Look at the interest rates not only for the amount you charge, but also for the amount of cash you withdraw. And how about those "late fees". The original credit card was established for the ladies of the wealthy gentry. Today, while it is a most convenient way of shopping, no cash required in the store, it has become a pitfall with some actually addicted. Be sure not to go beyond your means, beyond the ability to pay for the items charged or the cash withdrawn. The only way to manage them is to make a payment above the amount shown due. To pay only the amount shown due means that the interest shown charged will be added to the balance and then you are paying interest on that interest! So, it amounts to "two steps forward and three back." Stay within your buying power. [If you only net $2,000 a month income, it is unrealistic to imagine that you can pay out $2,500.] If you find yourself being overwhelmed and out of control buying on credit, do not hesitate to cut up the card(s) and make every effort to pay down the balance(s). You'll find you will not only feel better for having no debt but you'll also sleep better at night.

[purkinje-effect]

The Purkinje Effect, 21

Table of Contents

“Such extensive damage.”

Carrington muttered to himself indiscernibly as he looked Geek over with various ginger palpations and medical devices. As the doctor scrutinized him, Geek sat obediently on the edge of one of the stone coffins, which had been simply left rather than move it when the Railroad had relocated its base of operations to this crypt. The stethoscope was ice-cold when it went to his chest and back to listen, but Geek didn’t really mind. The doctor clicked his tongue several times in disdain for the costliness of the treatment Geek had accepted so readily from Tinker Tom. The sample of excretion the doctor took from Geek’s scarred skin singed the swab, and he murmured in displeasure before trying again carefully with the side of an aluminum-barrel fountain pen. Geek watched while he did something with it, but couldn’t make out what he was doing.

“I’m surprised you’re even standing. This looks superficially similar to ghoulification, but I can’t reasonably assess the condition of your internal organs to verify that. What I can safely say is that you have definitely mutated. That dark mess you made seems to be a metal excretion achieved through a thiolated salt solution. Simply put, the diluted sulfuric acid from Tom’s serum infused in your bloodstream and a chemical reaction took place which leached all kinds of metal from your body via your sweat glands. Lead, iron, aluminum, even traces of uranium. That sludge in the floor will become a rich metal slag once the sweat evaporates. Did you all mean it literally when you said you’d eaten a Synth? Absolute revulsion aside, if you meant a Gen I or Gen II, that didn’t even have living tissues in it. No part of the earlier models isn’t toxic to a human being.”

Geek had watched Carrington gesticulate in near-exasperation without comment, taking in all he had to say.

“Mutated huh? Mutated... further.” He let out a heavy sigh, and picked at his now vacant right eye socket. “You wanted the whole story? I haven’t pieced everything together yet, but I’ll tell you what I have of it. I’m from Vault 82. South-Central Mass. I haven’t figured out what exactly the experiment was, but I know we was guinea pigs, an’ I know it had to do with feedin’ us goo for every meal. I just can’t tell ya whether the food dispensers screwin’ up was all according t’plan. I’ve got real cynical about all this shit over the years... I know for a fact I’m not the only one of us that started supplementin’ his diet with whatever appealed to him. The doc in Worcester called it pica, eatin’ all the things I personally can rattle off’s been on the menu, past hundred years or so. The food paste stopped bein’ enough on its own, when it was supposed to be a master-food with all the vitamins and junk anybody needed. Maybe it wasn’t the machines. Maybe it spoiled. Who knows how long the experiment was supposed to go on.”

“Why do you say your nutritional dependency was a mutation?”

“I’ve eaten a thousand different things, ate ‘em solid. An’ they never came out... undigested. I’ve been digestin’ everything I’ve eaten. Makes sense how I sweated? ...the metal. But it makes me wonder if that’s what use my sweat will serve me now, or if I gotta keep gettin’ more a Tom’s shots to detox.” Geek looked up knowingly and pointed at Carrington to catch him before garnering commentary, recognizing a gap in his story. “But y’know what I ain’t been digestin’? Actual fuckin’ food.”

“You... might try some normal food now.” Deacon had come up to them after changing back into his casual white dress shirt and slacks. “Ease into it.”

“You’ve mentioned preservatives before bein’ a factor in all this,” Hancock started, having been sitting in the doctor’s chair with his arms crossed the whole time. “Mister Intel might have a point. Maybe prewar food ain’t totally off-limits to ya. Fancy Lads are about as much of a nonfood as it gets. An’ you were eating on that tub of shortening. Usually easing into eating food again after being critically ill means lots of soup, but for you it might mean just bridging back to what you’re supposed to be eating.”

“You’re not entirely wrong to speculate such,” Carrington nodded, brow wrinkled as he looked over to Hancock briefly. He’d forgotten he was there, he’d been so quiet. “People who are born into a settlement with higher caliber food sources, like Diamond City with its multiple quality restaurants, tend to do very poorly adapting to wasteland fare. But wastelanders who’ve been long accustomed to RadBug for protein, tato for their starch staple, and shelf-stable prewar food--they tend to be able to eat anything. I’ve read in medical journals, as well, that cultures with lean diets adjust abominably to high-fat cuisine, and vice versa. You might have been unable to stomach unpreserved foods because you were shocking your system. Which... brings me to the other half of my prognosis.”

“I... just might try it. There’s no tellin’ whether Tom’s shot might’ve complicated the range of what I can stomach.”

“And that’s exactly what I was getting at. I likely couldn’t pry the exact ingredients of the injection from Tom, but I know there’s bacteria cultures in it. Part of what makes the human digestive tract so successful is a symbiosis with key bacteria. Honestly, before you mentioned confidently that you were digesting the things you’ve swallowed, I thought perhaps the issue was that the toxins of what you were ingesting had killed yours off, but now I only feel more confident in theorizing that if you were mutated, so were the bacterial cultures that live in your stomach and intestines. You have adapted to eat the way you’ve been eating, that’s for certain. But whether the bacteria in Tom’s injection will end up competing with those inside you, only time and tests will tell. Antibiotics can be complicated to predict.”

“Does this mean bloodwork?” Geek flinched. He didn’t want to know whether his blood was still neon pink after all this.

“Yes, but to be perfectly fair with you, it’s going to be slow-going. I’ve only got the time at the moment to have this discussion because your dramatic arrival with my prototype has frozen progress in HQ.” Carrington tourniqueted Geek’s upper arm with a length of rubber, and easily found a vein. Steeled for the stick, the pink ghoul readily let the doctor draw four vials. As predicted, the blood nearly looked like hot pink milk. They both reacted poorly to the sight. “Once business resumes as normal, I will only have so much time to scrutinize your exact condition to give you a definitive diagnosis. I’m still not positive you’re not terminal, but this once-over gives me the reassurance to turn you loose to take stock for yourself of how your body reacts to its mutations.”

“...So you’re still tellin’ me I’m on forced leave.”

“You’re not even hired yet!” Carrington massaged his temples with one hand and grunted, then pulled composure into his shoulders, and snapped the rubber off Geek’s arm. The doctor then capped the blood samples to deposit them temporarily into a medical tray nearby. “But yes, I’m not even considering taking you on until you see whether you can function a week from now. I can tell your body’s still eliminating toxins. You’re going to continue sweating, and this sweat is caustic. There’s a good chance you’re going to accumulate further damage.”

“Can’t get much worse,” Geek rasped jokingly, messing with the hair he had left. “Sweat don’t really burn me much, but I seen what it did to that cotton ball. I’ll be careful.”

Carrington handed him his jumpsuit and armor, having gotten to the end of his patience with his impromptu patient. Exhaustion dripped from his dismissal.

“Have a care, will you?”

“Do my best.” Geek didn’t put his coveralls back on just yet, dumping them into Hancock’s objecting lap. He purposely kept hold of one of his shoulder pieces. “Before we leave, though, I gotta talk to Tom.”

Approaching the eccentric from across the room, Geek interrupted Tom scrutinizing something on the terminal on the desk at which he sat. The man mumbled to himself, eyes dull with information.

“Tinker Tom?” he started. Tom jerked up from his train of thought and came to.

“Hm? Oh, it’s you! You really mean it, that you feel better? That’s definitely the first time that’s ever happened with my serum.”

“Yeah,” Geek smiled. “I think so. Sorry to interrupt. I’m about to head out, but I had to do two things first. One, I had to thank you. Your treatment was unorthodox, but I think it was exactly what I needed. And two, Carrington mentioned you’re the quartermaster?”

“No need to thank me,” Tom beamed, slouching back in his desk chair. “And that’s correct. You hittin’ me up for goods? I don’t know what all I can rightly part with, since you’re not a bonafide agent yet, but I’m sure I have something juicy.”

“I ain’t lookin’ for handouts, especially not after how much y’helped me out with my health. I need somethin’ to keep myself occupied while I take this week to recoup. How much leather can y’spare? I’d like to upgrade my armor.”

“Man, me an’ my boys have got better than leather! You should come and see me when you pass the test. I will fix you up.” He sprung up and began digging through the metal shelving that lined the walls of his sprawling corner of the crypt. “What kinda customizing you thinking about in the mean time? Dense plate-layered? Deep-pocketed? Maybe somethin’ pneumatic? I got all kinds of toys. Great stuff to act as a stabilizer layer. A jar a wingnuts, makes great studded armor...”

“I already got all kinds a pockets.” He surreptitiously pulled out several hundred dollar bills where Tom could see the denominations himself, for emphasis. Tom blinked. “You gotta point, though. Mods seem more useful’n addin’ more layers. Got any mods that’d keep my arms an’ legs from... gettin’ broke so easy?”

“--I’ve got just the thing.” He produced a long wooden box after rooting around a bit, dropping it excitedly on the desk. “How does the guts from power armor legs sound? The components are compact enough to incorporate into greaves. This pair just hasn’t gotten used for it yet.”

“It sounds like you’re just about as crazy as I am.” Geek grinned stupidly, eyeing the box and tucking the bills in the bib pocket of Tom’s overalls. “Mmh. Can I part you with two or three tool aprons, too?”

“Oh man, that’s the kinda leather y’wanted? You really are a pocket fiend.”

The two went back and forth spitballing concepts for a while, but Hancock came up to interrupt, arms full of Geek’s things.

“How long am I supposed to sit over here with your purse while you chat up this mad scientist in your underwear?”

Geek took them from him apologetically.

“We can continue this in a week,” Tom insisted, understanding Hancock wanted to leave. He shooed off the two of them pleasantly. “I’ll be schemin’ up something special for ya. Have fun on vacay, my friend.”

“I like somebody that’d spoil you.” Hancock chuffed and patted Geek on the back as they let themselves out the back way. Down the stairs, and through the waterlogged, unpaved patch. “I gotta find a way to spoil ya worse, though.”

“And just what exactly do you call what you n’ me did at the quarry?”

Hancock barked and grinned at him.

“The beginnings of a fine friendship.”

[goldeagleprice]

Q. David Bowers on Bill Bierly’s In God We Trust

(Pelham, Alabama) — In November 2019 Whitman Publishing will release William Bierly’s In God We Trust: The American Civil War, Money, Banking, and Religion. The 352-page hardcover volume will be available from booksellers and hobby shops nationwide, and online. Here, numismatic historian Q. David Bowers shares his thoughts on the book.

Bill Bierly’s In God We Trust is one of the most detailed, intricate, and fascinating books in the field of American numismatics—and in American history in general.

The national motto “In God We Trust” is familiar to all of us. Look in your pocket change or wallet and you will find it on every United States coin and paper bill. Before reading the manuscript to Bierly’s book I thought I knew all about the subject.

1864 two-cent piece, PF-65. Hover to zoom.

Some years ago I wrote an article, “God in Your Pocket,” for my local Presbyterian Church, telling of the motto’s use on coins. I knew it appeared on pattern coins in 1863 and in 1864 made its first appearance on a circulating coin, the bronze two-cent piece, a new denomination introduced that year. I had the obscure knowledge that “In God We Trust” is the motto of the State of Florida and was used on certain National Bank notes issued in that state in the second half of the 19th century.

I also knew that the $5 Silver Certificates of the Series of 1886 illustrate the reverse of a Morgan silver dollar of that year, with the motto as part of the design.

But what I didn’t know were 101 other details—make that many more than 101 different details—as to how the motto came to be, how it was used over the years, and the wide cast of characters in the Treasury Department and elsewhere who participated in its use on money.

All too often, books, newspaper columns, and magazine articles about popular subjects lack many details. For Whitman Publishing I wrote a volume on President Ronald Reagan, and I read every book and important study I could find. There were very few details about his personal day-to-day life. Not to worry about the historical personalities involved with “In God We Trust.” While you might not learn the names of the protagonists’ pet cats or their favorite dime novels, there is not much else missing in Bierly’s excellent narrative. Dozens of cast members play cameo roles and small walk-on parts.

It is probably correct to say that no other researcher could add to Bill Bierly’s efforts! He collaborated with professional numismatists, leaving no stone (or coin) unturned in the creation of this book. Commonly believed myths and misunderstandings he examined, debunked, and corrected. Hundreds of historical images were collected, many of which have never been published in a numismatic reference, to which have been added beautiful photographs of rare coins, patterns, tokens, medals, and paper currency, including close-ups of important characteristics. All of this required a lot of work, creativity, and careful attention to detail.

Further on the subject of detail: I enjoy learning about and digging deeply into previously unexplored subjects. I have written books on the Waterford Water Cure (a health spa in Waterford, Maine, that counterstamped coins as advertisements), The Strange Career of Dr. G.G. Wilkins (about a countertstamper who was a dentist, also operated a restaurant with a caged bear in front, and was suspected of passing counterfeit money and also burning down a neighbor’s barn), and, for good measure, books about Alexandre Vattemare (a French numismatist who visited America and became important to the development of libraries here), and Augustus G. Heaton (the teenaged coin dealer who founded the American Numismatic Society in 1858).

Each of these books was popular in its time, despite their obviously obscure subjects. Readers find satisfaction in a well-told story that brings new depth and insight.

That is precisely what we get with In God We Trust, debuting this holiday season. Anyone with a combined interest in American history and numismatics will find a new world of important information, fascinating details, and previously unconnected relationships.

2009 Abraham Lincoln commemorative silver dollar Uncirculated obverse.

The motto “In God We Trust” is hardly history alone. It is so much more, and it means different things to different people. Today there are vocal critics who feel that it has no place on coins or paper currency. For that matter, some believe that God has no place in public (and in some cases, private) life. On the other hand, many more people do indeed believe in the Supreme Being. Sometimes it just seems the naysayers get all of the publicity.

“In God We Trust” has appeared on American money since the Civil War. William Bierly tells how the national motto came to be. (Photographs courtesy of Stack’s Bowers Galleries and the United States Mint.)

Bill Bierly’s In God We Trust approaches the subject respectfully on all sides, with color, personality, dashes of humor, and dogged pursuit of the truth. He has given us a smorgasbord: There is a lot to choose from. If you are a collector and strictly so, with no interest in the million points where numismatics touches American history, you can simply immerse yourself in the coins, paper money, tokens, and medals. If you are like me, however, and enjoy every historical highway and byway connected to American money, you will read and find pleasure in the entire book from start to finish.

David Bowers is the award-winning author of more than 60 numismatic books ranging from 90-page monographs to 900-page encyclopedias, hundreds of auction and other catalogs, and several thousand articles including columns in Coin World, Paper Money, and The Numismatist. He is a past president of both the American Numismatic Association (1983–1985) and the Professional Numismatists Guild (1977–1979). In his 60-plus-year career in numismatics, he has earned most of the highest honors bestowed by the hobby community, including the ANA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and induction in the ANA Numismatic Hall of Fame.

In God We Trust: The American Civil War, Money, Banking, and Religion

By William Bierly; foreword by Q. David Bowers

ISBN 0794845282

Hardcover, 6 x 9 inches, 352 pages, full color

Retail $29.95 U.S.

About the Author

William (Bill) Bierly was raised on a farm near Walkerton, Indiana. As a child, he heard stories from his grandparents about two of his great-grandfathers who had served in the Civil War. This led to a lifelong interest in that war and that period of history. At about age eight, he began collecting coins from circulating change. Following high school Bierly attended Northwestern University for two years and then completed a degree in sociology and economic development with a minor in Chinese studies at Indiana University. He then worked in India for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in a dairy development project. Back in the United States, his interest in coins was rekindled. He soon went abroad again, working for three years in Osaka, Japan. Then in the United States, he operated a small business for five years, sold it, and entered graduate school, earning an MBA in finance from Indiana University and embarking on a 25-year career in commercial banking. With his overseas experience, Bierly focused on international banking, particularly Japanese corporate business and Asian correspondent banking. He began his career at the National Bank of Detroit, and he worked with J.P. Morgan Chase for much of his career; at various times at the bank’s Detroit, Chicago, and Columbus, Ohio, offices, as well as often traveling to Asia.

While thus engaged, Bierly continued to pursue his coin hobby, eventually specializing in Civil War–era coinage, in particular, pattern coins. Today he is active in several coin groups and clubs, most notably the Central States Numismatic Society, the American Numismatic Association, the American Numismatic Society, the Chicago Coin Club, the Michigan State Numismatic Society, and the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists, as well as the Civil War Token Society and the Liberty Seated Collectors Club. He sometimes exhibits his collection at major coin shows and frequently volunteers as an exhibit judge.

Bierly resides in LaPorte, Indiana. He has two children, Emma and Ken, as well as a granddaughter, Kiki.

About Whitman Publishing

Whitman Publishing is the world’s leading producer of numismatic reference books, supplies, and products to display and store coins and paper money. The company’s high-quality books educate readers in the rich, colorful history of American and world coinage and currency, and teach how to build great collections. Archival-quality Whitman folders, albums, cases, and other holders keep collectibles safe and allow them to be shown off to friends and family.

Whitman Publishing is the Official Supplier of the American Numismatic Association. As a benefit of membership in the ANA, members can borrow In God We Trust (and other Whitman books) for free from the Association’s Dwight N. Manley Numismatic Library, and also receive 10% off all Whitman purchases. Details are at the website of the ANA.

❑

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[lesbrarians]

Junkrat/Roadhog: Voyages Ch 5

Title: Voyages

Characters: Junkrat, Roadhog

Rating: R

Summary:  After a rocky start and some ups and downs, Junkrat and Roadhog are officially partners, even if things haven’t progressed quite as far as Junkrat would like. With his treasure at the heart of their grandiose plans, they take their adventures overseas and leave their mark on the world, for better or worse. (Mostly for worse. They’re criminals.) Sequel to “Origins.”

---

Busan, South Korea was a drastic, if welcome, change from Tokyo, Japan. A slogan on the side of a bus declared it as "Busan: The City of Tomorrow," which Junkrat found particularly hilarious given the lack of modernity compared to the high tech, urban scene of Tokyo. While the seaside metropolis had undergone renovations in the past few decades, the sleek metallic towers that had sprung up looked out of place next to the tiny, colourful houses and historic statues that dotted the city. After leaving the beachfront districts and high rise skyscrapers behind, they picked their way through a maze of winding streets in search of a place to sleep and store their motorcycle when it wasn't in use. Their options were limited, progress impeded by steep streets that were punctuated with staircases and alleys too narrow to fit both the chopper and its sidecar. They weren't going to get as much use out of the bike as they had in Tokyo if they stationed their hideaway in this area of the city. Neither of them minded all that much, though -- it just meant they would have to be more creative when it came to plotting their getaways.

“At least it’s a pretty view,” Roadhog commented.

"Yeah, s'different," Junkrat agreed, studying the mural of a skyline that spanned the side of a bright blue shanty house. "I like it!" The district they had stumbled across was a vibrant, artistic community, and Junkrat itched to contribute to it. He made a mental note to pick up some spray paint so that he could tag buildings as he saw fit. Then, not trusting his brain to retain the thought, he told Roadhog, who assured him that he would add this item to their agenda and remember it in case it slipped his mind. There had been too many incidents where Junkrat had forgotten something and needed a reminder. His short term memory was dreadful; if he didn’t actively work to commit something to memory, the chances of it occurring to him later were slim. If he tried, it wasn’t bad -- it was why he was so good at engineering all of his devices. The subject fascinated him, so he had committed himself to learning all the minutiae of wiring things together and the properties of various explosives.

But he just didn’t care enough to exert all that energy to concentrate on things all of the time.

After scouring the quieter districts of Busan, they came across an abandoned neighbourhood opposite what appeared to be the richer parts of the city. Half of the buildings were demolished, leaving nothing behind but rubble, but there were several still-standing hovels littered with graffiti. They picked a relatively unassuming place that blended in with the landscape: brightly coloured, peeling paint, tags from local gangs spray painted on the siding. The shack was painted in the same yellow of Roadhog's shoulder armor and Junkrat's varied devices, and it felt like home. They parked the motorcycle behind the house, well out of view of anyone who happened to pass by, and shifted some refuse around to make it less conspicuous. Just in case.

Bad posture and a wide stance meant that Junkrat’s height went unnoticed, but Roadhog had to duck significantly and edge in at an angle to squeeze inside. The interior of the building was a dump, but it was no worse than their past living conditions. They had electricity, at least: Busan was one of the first mainstays in South Korea to convert to free solar electricity to power their city.

“Home, sweet home!” Junkrat said brightly. Roadhog dropped their omnipresent duffel bag while Junkrat removed his RIP-tire. They both shedded the rest of their gear and promptly passed out for two hours, taking a well-earned nap.

It was evening when they arose, the skyline tinged a burnt orange, and they ventured out in the city to acquire food, money, or whatever they could get their greedy hands on.

Acquiring their startup funds for South Korea was a team effort. Roadhog bumped into a businesswoman, causing her to drop her purse. Junkrat rifled through it while she stammered out an apology, all eyes on the massive mountain of a man who towered over her. Her wallet was stuffed with coloured bills, mostly green and red notes in increments of 10,000 and 5,000. Clearly the South Korean won operated under a greatly different system than yen, which seemed to be roughly on par with the Australian dollar.

Junkrat saw the opportunity to supplement their earnings by lifting a second wallet from a tourist's half unzipped backpack (“Come on, that’s just askin’ to be robbed! Stupid tourists don’t change, no matter the country, eh?”), and he seized the opportunity. He was delighted to find bright yellow bills inside: his favourite colour, and it was the most expensive at a denomination of 50,000.

They found a tented street stall -- pojangmacha, the vendor called it upon welcoming them -- and sat down on the narrow, creaking benches. After studying the prices on the signs, Roadhog slid across several banknotes from one of the wallets. The vendor was remarkably pleasant towards the two, admittedly scary-looking, shirtless Australians who were hungrily eyeing his wares. He spoke some English and cheerfully named each of the dishes as he served them.

After confirming that there was no meat in them, Roadhog favoured the dumplings (“So-mandu,” the vendor said). Junkrat, on the other hand, immediately zeroed in on the skewers of panko-crusted cutlets. He dimly heard the name, donkkaseu, but he didn’t care about the attempt to educate him on the local food, he just cared that it was delicious.

“What is this, pork?” he said through a mouthful of meat. “Oh, Roadhog, mate, ya got no idea what yer missin’ over here!” He ripped off another savage bite.

“Stop,” Roadhog warned him. Junkrat still had a hard time wrapping his mind around Roadhog’s vegetarianism.

“What, it’s good!” He swallowed and grinned. “Can’t help it if I like pork, can I? Speakin’ of which, think that’ll be on the menu tonight? Just a lil’ taste?” He snickered and nudged Roadhog with his elbow.

Roadhog tilted away from him. Junkrat leaned over further to continue elbowing him.

Roadhog shifted down a seat, and Junkrat fell off his stool in his attempt to follow.

Roadhog laughed lowly, and it was quite clearly directed at him, not with him. Junkrat couldn’t be too mad about it when he loved the sound of Roadhog’s laughter so much. His scowl was good-natured as he righted himself.

The nights were getting colder as they entered December, and Junkrat shivered involuntarily. He was used to cold nights in the Australian Outback, but they were north of the Equator now, and this was a different kind of chill. This was the chill of an unseasonably temperate fall giving way to winter. Rosa’s sweaters were going to come in handy.

Junkrat placed a hand on Roadhog’s arm as they left the pojangmacha behind, testing for evidence that Roadhog was chilly as well, and found goosebumps. He didn’t want to let go, so instead he wrapped both of his arms around Roadhog’s bicep, even if it made walking more awkward than it should have been. The body heat helped.

“Hey.” Junkrat’s stage whisper could barely even be called that. “Think I found our first heist.” He nodded to a storefront that was advertising mink blankets, several of their products displayed on racks outside of the store. “Never understood why shops do that. I mean, I get yer supposed to go inside and pay, but puttin’ it all out there is just askin’ to get robbed. I mean, it’s practically a public service, we’re just givin’ them what they want! Bloody idiots, the lot of them.“

“Cameras,” Roadhog said, looking up. Junkrat followed suit, and he could just make out the wall-mounted camera concealed in the shadows of the storefront. “Okay, so they got cameras. But it’s the principle of the thing, don’t leave yer merchandise outside! Cameras ain’t gonna stop someone from knockin’ off some blankets. Just means they’re more likely to be recognised later. They still get the goods.” He didn’t know if he was still referring to the two of them or criminals in general, but he did know that he was spinning off on a tangent.  “So really, why even bother if yer not gonna have any actual security to stop it before it happens--” He had a hard time shutting up and holding back the proverbial word vomit once he got going, so he was grateful when Roadhog interrupted him.

“Go take care of the camera.”

“Take care of it,” he repeated. Okay, that was a mission he could focus on. He could put aside his disgust for street-displaying store owners and devote his attention to the task at hand.

He studied the camera from afar -- out of its field of view, too far to interfere with the merchandise --  as it swept the area, picking out its blind spots. “There,” he said suddenly. He snapped open the flap of the canvas bag he kept around his waist, pulling out the permanent marker that he used to draw x’ed out smiley faces on all of his grenades. Stealth was far from his strong suit, but an attempt was made as he sidled up from the right, slipping into the narrow space between the wall and the end of the camera’s line of sight. He stood up straight, gaining several inches in the process, and reached up his left hand. The marker squeaked as he coloured in the camera’s lens, blacking out its vision.

“Eh?” he said, raising his eyebrows at Roadhog, who gave him a thumbs up of approval.

They worked quickly, scooping up as many of the blankets they could carry. They came in a multitude of colours and patterns, but they were all that same, silky mink texture.  Junkrat tied a bright orange blanket around his neck like a cape, marveling at how it was softer than any furry animal he’d ever caught in one of his steel traps, before dashing off to make their mad escape.

They both bore bulky loads of blankets in their arms as they made the trek back to their abandoned neighborhood, slowing down once they were a safe distance away from the store.

They found the hole in the fence that was their entrance, which was poorly covered with a faded green striped blanket, and slipped through it. Roadhog had had to slightly widen it by bending in the edges of the severed fence, but really, they were lucky that it was as big as it was to start with.

“Not a bad haul for a first day’s work!” Junkrat said. He spotted their yellow house first and led the way. “Maybe tomorrow we can do some research, learn more about that om--”

“Shut up,” Roadhog interrupted.

Junkrat made an offended noise. “Oi! I’m not even doin’ anything--”

“I said. Shut. Up.” The terseness in Roadhog’s voice made him clamp his mouth shut -- obviously something was wrong, and when he glanced around, he saw the reason for Roadhog’s sudden abruptness.

They weren’t alone. Several houses down from their own hovel, an unkempt, middle-aged women stared from a doorway. Her appearance was disheveled, and she looked like she hadn’t washed up in weeks, a situation that Junkrat and Roadhog were all too familiar with.

They, on the other hand, looked like the criminals they were. Sure, they were cleaner than she was, given the storm they had sailed through, but their arms were laden with too many goods to plausibly be acquired through legal means. Their general apparel didn’t help dispel any notions otherwise, nor did the grenades strapped to Junkrat’s chest and the hook and spool of chain stored on Roadhog’s waist.

Nobody moved for several long seconds, until she gave them a curt nod. Roadhog returned it, and she disappeared inside a mint green house with smashed windows.

“What just happened?” Junkrat asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

“I guess we’re not the only squatters. Think she’s a former resident?” It was a good question, and it got Junkrat wondering just how many evictees had refused to leave their condemned neighborhood and lived in the ruins of their livelihood. He wondered how many homeless people had taken up residence post-abandonment, seeing an opportunity to get off the streets.

“No idea, mate. Least it don’t look like she’s about to call the cops on us, yeah?”

Roadhog nodded. “Can’t do that without implicating herself.”

The nod was a wordless agreement to keep quiet. There was no way of telling the circumstances of anyone’s living arrangements, but they all would get in trouble if they exposed one another. There was an unusual solidarity between people living in illegal or rundown places, and for a moment, Junkrat had a pang of loneliness for Junkertown. He had been one of many living in a cobbled-together city of ramshackle shanties and lean-tos, although many of its residents weren’t fond of him and found him to be an utter nuisance. Still, he had always felt a kinship with the other Junkers, even those whom he wasn’t on friendly terms with. It was a community, it was home, and sometimes he missed it dearly.

“Never woulda thought we’d have neighbors,” Junkrat mused as they entered their own illegal domain. It was kind of an exciting prospect. “We should invite her over for a cuppa.”

Roadhog was less trusting. “No,” he said firmly, and that was the end of that. “Live and let live.”

Junkrat exhaled. "If ya say so," he said. He stretched out on the ground, burying himself in a tangled mound of mink blankets. The sweaters could wait until morning. He didn’t particularly want to expose his bare chest to the chilly air after having wrapped a blanket around himself.

He had only been slightly joking when he'd quipped about wanting pork to be on the menu for tonight. Roadhog was on his mind all the time, frequently in a sexual manner, and he could feel the desperate need to get laid building inside of him. He hadn't gone so long without a regular orgasm since he first embarked on his adventures with Roadhog, when the air between them had been too taut for him to get away with jerking off. He managed here and there later on, and he had indulged a handful of times since that first kiss with Roadhog, the night they'd escaped prison. But he wasn't content with flying solo anymore, his hormones had been raging since the first time he'd seriously made out with Roadhog, and not being able to bring his attraction to fruition was becoming increasingly infuriating. He had never felt more sexually frustrated than after Roadhog's rejection of him, and he'd tried to stamp out his urges -- but Roadhog hadn't shut him down when he'd commented about "just a little taste" tonight, and it had brought all of his desires back to the forefront of his imagination.

The small, bedraggled woman quieted those clamoring thoughts, however. It didn't feel right to put a move on Roadhog with the image of her still fresh in his mind, and since his brain was no longer screaming do it, do it, do it, just jump his bones already! he decided to leave it for another day.

Besides, he was cold. He wriggled his blanket-laden body closer to Roadhog and tried to toss one of the twisted blankets over the both of them. It barely covered half of Roadhog's belly.

"You tried," Roadhog told him, patting his head.

Tried wasn't good enough for him, and Junkrat pushed himself up to a seated position so that he could drape his body over Roadhog's stomach. "There!" he said, satisfied. "See? We can both fit under one blanket if we really try."

"More like you're the blanket," Roadhog said, and Junkrat laughed. He fell asleep like that, half dangling off of Roadhog's body.

At some point in the night, Roadhog pushed him off to take a leak, and Junkrat scrunched his nose up in displeasure. He sleepily reached out for Roadhog, brushing against the ground as he searched for his missing partner. His hand brushed against something furry, and he thought it was one of the mink blankets, in his half conscious state.

Then it moved. It took a few moments for his groggy brain to register this, then his eyes flew open. There was a large lump of something next to him, about a foot long, and when it darted a few paces away from him, he involuntarily screamed. Conflicting primal instincts clashed in his head, one telling him to shrink away from the threat, and the other telling him to disable it before it could hurt him. He lunged for the creature, grabbing it in his hands.

Roadhog banged into the room to investigate, still refastening his belt buckle as he flicked the light on. A rat squirmed in Junkrat's hands, larger than any he had ever seen before. Roadhog put it best: "What the hell is that."

“It’s a rat,” Junkrat said. He brought it closer to his face for inspection, keeping it just out of reach so it couldn’t claw him.

Roadhog snorted. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“Fuck you, Watson,” Junkrat retorted. As he squinted at the rat, he saw that it was missing an eye, and a sudden surge of affection washed over him. He felt an affinity with the feral creature, and the fact that the rat’s missing body part was on the right side of his face only affirmed that.

“No, but look, ‘Hog, it’s me!” he exclaimed, holding up the still-thrashing rat. “We should keep him. Much cuter than that stupid robot.”

“No it’s not,” Roadhog said bluntly.

Well, Roadhog was the authority on all things cute and cuddly. Junkrat knew deep in his heart that Kiki had been cute, but he was loathe to admit it after the revelation that she was an omnic. Still, he genuinely thought the rat was cute in its own beastly way.

He looked at the rat in his hand. It hissed and tried to bite him. “He’s perfect,” he said, the utmost wonder in his eyes. He groped around for a scrap of food and held it up to the rat, who stopped thrashing and sniffed at it, whiskers twitching. “Okay, but ya get where I’m comin’ from, roight? This is a proper pet, like Piglet was, not some stupid omnic! I say we keep him. Think we can get him to steal stuff for us too?”

“A rat -- the animal, not you -- is nowhere near the level of a pig’s intelligence, never mind a robot that tries to pass as human.”

Junkrat hummed in suspicion. “And you’re sure about that? Bet I can tame him, at least.” He dropped the rat to the floor, and it scurried behind a pile of rubbish in the corner of the hovel and disappeared from sight. “He’ll be back,” he said confidently.  “We have a bond. Watch, we come back tonight, he’ll still be here.”

“Fifty bucks.”

“You don’t believe me!” Junkrat said, scandalised.

“No, I don’t,” Roadhog agreed.

Junkrat puffed his chest out and stood up, drawing himself up to his full height. “Alright, you’re on. Fifty bucks. Hell, I’d wager 50,000 of whatever these are!” Junkrat reached for one of the yellow 50,000 bills and snapped it taut between his hands.

“Won. Isn’t that about the same?”

“I haven’t the foggiest!”

They got ready for the day, pulling on their heavy sweaters. A fire burned inside Junkrat, determined to prove that he could forge a bond between the rat and himself.

“Actually, I think it’s less,” Roadhog said as they prepared to head outside.

“What?”

“The won.”

“Who cares? I’m gonna win!” He paused. “Win the won!” His voice rose several octaves in his glee.

He was still cackling uproariously as Roadhog shoved him out the door.

[nothingman]

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Adam and Eve, created by Albrecht Dürer, 1471-1528. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

On May 4, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that allows churches and religious leaders to explicitly endorse or oppose a political candidate without penalty to their nonprofit, tax-exempt status. Responses from white conservative evangelicals showed that this wasn’t what they were looking for. What they wanted, it seems, was legal protection for religious institutions and business owners to deny services to same-sex couples and transgender persons.

I am a sociologist studying contemporary evangelicalism and sexuality, and my research shows that the political beliefs of white evangelicals have deftly shifted from the bully pulpits of the Moral Majority in the 1980s to cultural messages that appear hip and modern. In particular, Christian sex advice caught my attention because it showcases how evangelicals can hold beliefs that are simultaneously pro- and anti-sex.

Sex advice websites

In my book “Christians under Covers: Evangelicals and Sexual Pleasure on the Internet,” I conducted a virtual ethnography of online Christian websites – blogs and message boards that discuss sex from a Christian perspective and online stores that sell sex toys and intimacy products.

In total, I studied 36 websites and conducted 44 interviews with users of two of the most active sites as well as six interviews with creators of different sites over two years – between 2010 and 2012. I collected survey responses from nearly 800 users of seven different sites. Collectively, these sites have attracted thousands of users who believe that God wants married, heterosexual couples to have great sex.

Though in my work, I use pseudonyms to describe the names of websites and their users, these sites are easy to find for anyone who is searching for “Christian sex advice.”

Christian sexual websites present evangelism as sexy for couples. Gill Poole, CC BY-NC

The problem that these websites try to solve is that many Christian couples don’t know how to achieve the great sex that God made possible, having grown up hearing a constant refrain of negative messages about sexuality. The content of these sites is a curious mix of secular and religious language that resembles both the liberal sex advice column “Savage Love” and the religious fiction novel series “Left Behind” – aimed at reminding believers that all of their actions are a part of a larger spiritual battle between good and evil.

On these websites, messages abound about self-improvement and being a good, giving and game sexual partner, as well the power of Jesus, the influence of Satan and the importance of being born-again.

Women make up the majority of bloggers and sex toy store owners I studied. They describe using vibrators and achieving orgasms; men talk about open communication with their wives about their deepest sexual desires.

It is a relatively recent historical phenomenon for Christians to claim sexual pleasure as part of their religious framework. As historian of religion Mark Jordan notes, sexual sins have included virtually every erotic action other than sex intended for conceiving children.

Christian sexuality websites, however, present evangelicalism as a sexy and modern representation of a religious tradition that is stereotypically the opposite.

Conservative beliefs

In the years I spent studying these sites, I never saw a single post endorsing or opposing a political candidate. Nonetheless, political beliefs were reflected in the implicit and explicit rules that were required of website users regarding their beliefs related to gender, sexuality and marriage.

On one website, for example, a message board where users post hundreds of comments every day, the moderators allow for “minor theological disagreements” among members, but require that “Members must be married (one man, one woman), and followers of Jesus Christ and His Word. Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the only way to salvation, and the Bible is the ultimate authority.” Off limits is “any defense of the practice of homosexuality, so-called ‘gay marriage,’ or the like.”

The beliefs on these websites are far from representative of American Christianity. Most Christians today believe that homosexuality should be accepted by society. A majority of LGBT Americans have some religious affiliation and there are LGBT-affirming groups in many Christian denominations (Matthew Vine’s The Reformation Project is one evangelical example).

Yet on these websites supporting gay sex (or gay marriage), sex outside of heterosexual marriage or any relationship that is nonmonogamous is fundamentally heresy.

In other words, the websites present a sexual logic that combines both limits and freedoms: Christian sexuality, all of these websites adamantly claim, is one full of choice and autonomy so long as Christians follow God’s demands for who is allowed to have sex.

As one blogger told me in an interview, “I think a couple has tremendous freedom” so long as sex is consensual and between husband and wife. In my book, I refer to this as the “logic of Godly sex:” a logic that makes sexual pleasure possible for straight, married Christians but forecloses it for everyone else.

Advancing conservative politics

In other words, I would argue, the sexual freedom that these websites claim to offer is illusory. This illusion is also central to the arguments that proponents present in favor of religious freedom legislation.

These state-enacted bills provide a practical route by which individuals can use the courts to make free exercise violation claims against the state.

The Christian sexuality websites do not accept homosexuality. Nathan Rupert, CC BY-NC-ND

For instance, Mississippi HB 1523 (passed in April 2016 but later blocked by a federal judge) protects persons who have “the sincerely held religious belief” that marriage “should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman” to decide whether or not to provide services, including housing and employment, to LGBT people.

It defines “a man” and “a woman,” according to law: “an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at the time of birth.” Laws like HB 1523 offer a strategy for religious conservatives to use their religious freedom to advance an anti-gay, anti-transgender, and anti-abortion political agenda.

In my opinion, emphasizing freedom and choice alongside conservative ideas about gender, sexuality and marriage is how conservative Christians can adapt to a changing world while maintaining their religious distinction.

After researching Christian sexuality websites, I am convinced that they do as much or more to advance conservative politics as does a preacher telling his congregation to vote for a particular candidate.

Kelsy Burke, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

via The Society Pages

[electricoutdoors]

Hurricane Shopping List – 40 Items to Buy so You’re Ready for a Hurricane

Hurricane Shopping List

According to the National Hurricane Center, the official start of the hurricane season in North America is June 1st to November 20th with the majority of the most powerful hurricanes coming between mid-August to the end of October. Follow this hurricane shopping list to get ready before a hurricane hits.

What should be on your hurricane shopping list? Your hurricane shopping list should include water, non-perishable food, safety supplies, pet food, baby supplies, plastic sheeting, rain gear, paper towels, duct tape, flashlights/candles, hand sanitizer, and a basic tool kit.

If you make sure that you have this general list of supplies, you should be fine in any hurricane. Keep reading to get a full hurricane shopping list. [wc_toggle title=“Table of Contents” padding=“” border_width=“” class=“” layout=“box”]

Hurricane Shopping List

The Supplies You Need so You’re Ready for a Hurricane

What should you stock up on before a hurricane?

Minimum shopping list for a hurricane

What are good non-perishable food items for a hurricane?

What should be in a hurricane survival kit?

Complete hurricane kit shopping list

Pet hurricane kit shopping list

How much cash should I have during a hurricane?

How do you entertain yourself during a hurricane?

Do you need a generator?

Hurricane Facts - What You Should Expect

Hurricane categories and expected damage

Conclusion

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The Supplies You Need so You’re Ready for a Hurricane

When you’re getting your hurricane shopping list together, you need to look at all of the things you may need during the hurricane through the time that it will take for you to get power back, debris is cleared from the roads and local stores are up and running again. Sometimes this is almost as soon as the storm has passed, but other times it can take up to a couple of weeks before things are back to normal. Plan for the worst-case!

What should you stock up on before a hurricane?

When you’re getting ready for a hurricane, your shopping list needs to have certain key items on it. At a minimum, you need to make sure that you have one gallon of water per person per day and enough non-perishable food to last until local stores can get power back, repair any damages and start getting shipments in again.

FEMA suggests keeping at least a three day supply of food and water. If you want to really be prepared you should have at least two weeks of supplies since it can take this long to get power back on and everything up and running.

The minimum shopping list for a hurricane:

1 gallon of water per person/per day (One case of 16.9 oz bottles of water is just over 3 gallons)

water for pets

non-perishable food

food for pets

baby formula

battery-powered or hand-crank radio

NOAA weather radio

flashlight

extra batteries

first aid kit

whistle to signal for help

baby wipes and garbage bags for personal sanitation

wrench or pliers to turn off utilities

manual can opener

cell phone and charger

Download this list as a PDF file.

This is the absolute minimum amount of supplies that you should have on hand to be ready for hurricane season.

What are good non-perishable food items for a hurricane?

Canned foods, dried goods like cereal and pasta, energy bars and granola bars are all great to store for a hurricane. I recommend keeping a variety of foods that are easy to eat and don’t need to be prepared because it keeps you from having to cook.

Cooking requires you to have grills, camp stoves or some other way to cook that you don’t need to worry about if you just buy prepared food. Stoves are also one of the most common forms of fires during natural disasters. House fires are dangerous under normal circumstances and they’re even more dangerous when the fire department is not able to get you or could be delayed for a long time.

Preferred foods for a hurricane:

dry cereal

canned fruits

canned vegetables

canned juice

ready to eat canned soups and meats

canned pasta

canned beans

peanut butter

bread

bananas

apples

oranges

crackers

nuts

granola and energy bars

Consider adding some snacks to your shopping list. Sweets are a great comfort food and can really help when you need a physical or mental “pick me up” during a disaster.

What should be in a hurricane survival kit?

If you’re doing more than just running out to get enough food and water just before a hurricane hits, I’d suggest putting together everything on the lists below. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just grab stuff from around your house and put it all inside a large tote or in one closet where everyone knows where it’s at.

Don’t forget about your animals! Make sure that you have enough food and water for all of your pets. If you’re going to evacuate you need to take them with you. They depend on you to take care of them.

Shopping list to build a Complete Hurricane Kit:

Plan for food and water for 14 days (2 weeks) to cover you through the possible outage of services.

1 gallon of water per person per day (One case of 16.9 oz bottles of water is just over 3 gallons)

non-perishable food

battery-powered or hand-crank radio

NOAA weather radio

flashlight

extra batteries

first aid kit

whistle to signal for help

baby wipes and garbage bags for personal sanitation

wrench or pliers to turn off utilities

manual can opener

cell phone and charger

prescription medications

pon-prescription medications

glasses and contact lens solution

infant formula

bottles

diapers

diaper rash cream

sleeping bag or warm blanket for each person

household chlorine bleach and medicine dropper to disinfect water

fire extinguisher

matches in a waterproof container

feminine supplies and personal hygiene items

paper cups

paper plates

paper towels

plastic utensils

paper and pencil

books

games

puzzles

Other items to add to your kit:

important family documents

change of clothing appropriate for your climate and sturdy shoes

cash

Download this list as a PDF.

Pet Hurricane Kit:

food

water

medicines and medical records

important documents

first aid kit

pet first aid reference book

collar or harness with ID tag and a leash

crate or pet carrier

pet litter and litter box if appropriate, newspapers, paper towels, plastic trash bags, and household chlorine bleach

 picture of you and your pet together to help you document ownership

familiar items such as treats, toys, and bedding

Download this list as a PDF.

These lists were compiled from information from FEMA.

How much cash should I have during a hurricane?

The exact amount of cash that you need in a hurricane depends on the needs of your family. It’s really up to you to decide.

I recommend keeping enough cash on hand to cover a week’s worth of expenses and getting that cash in $5, $10 and $20 denominations. Cash will be usable even if the power is out or stores lose their connection to credit card companies.

Having lower denominations of bills makes it possible to buy lower-cost items when there may be no change available without having to pay $20 or more for a case of water or gallon of milk. 

How do you entertain yourself during a hurricane?

Don’t overlook the importance of having something to keep you and your family entertained during a hurricane! This can be really important if you have small children. Boardgames, card games, and other things to keep their minds occupied and off of the fact that a potentially dangerous storm is going on outside can make it much easier for the family.

Even after the hurricane has passed it’s nice to have something to do to pass the time. Most of us are so used to being able to watch youtube on our phones and having internet access that it can actually be really stressful to be without electricity.

Take this time to read some good books that you haven’t made time for or just sit with the family and actually talk!

Do you need a generator?

A generator is a pretty big investment, but it can be a lifesaver when the power is out for long periods of time. If you have any family members that require refrigerated medications (like insulin) or medical devices that need power then I’d suggest you read our article to determine what size generator you need.

Hurricane Facts - What You Should Expect

Knowing what to expect when a hurricane occurs can make getting ready for one a lot easier. There really is no cut and dry list of things that will work for everyone. We all have different situations that we need to deal with.

If you understand what may happen, then you can add or subtract from the hurricane shopping list above and tailor it to better fit your own needs.

Hurricanes are about 300 miles wide on average.

The eye of a hurricane is a relatively calm and clear area approximately 20-40 miles across.

The eyewall surrounding the eye is the strongest part of the storm.

Hurricane-force winds can extend outward to about 25 miles in a small hurricane and to more than 150 miles for a large one. Tropical-storm-force winds can reach up to 300 miles.

The right side of a hurricane is usually the strongest in terms of storm surge, winds, and tornadoes.

The path of a hurricane is very difficult to predict due to the unstable conditions that cause them. Don’t rely on the predictions to know if you’re going to be hit or not.

Hurricanes change size and direction very often. Monitor the radio or the tv to get the latest updates.

Hurricane categories and expected damage

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Category Sustained Winds Types of Damage Due to Hurricane Winds 1 74-95 mph 119-153 km/h Very dangerous winds will produce some damage: Well-constructed frame homes could have damage to roof, shingles, vinyl siding and gutters. Large branches of trees will snap and shallowly rooted trees may be toppled. Extensive damage to power lines and poles likely will result in power outages that could last a few to several days. 2 96-110 mph 154-177 km/h Extremely dangerous winds will cause extensive damage: Well-constructed frame homes could sustain major roof and siding damage. Many shallowly rooted trees will be snapped or uprooted and block numerous roads. Near-total power loss is expected with outages that could last from several days to weeks. 3 (Major) 111-129 mph 178-208 km/h Devastating damage will occur: Well-built framed homes may incur major damage or removal of roof decking and gable ends. Many trees will be snapped or uprooted, blocking numerous roads. Electricity and water will be unavailable for several days to weeks after the storm passes. 4 (Major) 130-156 mph 209-251 km/h Catastrophic damage will occur: Well-built framed homes can sustain severe damage with loss of most of the roof structure and/or some exterior walls. Most trees will be snapped or uprooted and power poles downed. Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months. 5 (Major) 157 mph or higher 252 km/h or higher Catastrophic damage will occur: A high percentage of framed homes will be destroyed, with total roof failure and wall collapse. Fallen trees and power poles will isolate residential areas. Power outages will last for weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months.

Source: NOAA

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The Honda EU2200i is our favorite portable generator for natural disasters.

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Conclusion

Hurricanes are one of the most destructive forms of natural disasters, but having a good hurricane shopping list can make getting ready for one a lot easier. They knock out power, tear down trees, destroy houses and office buildings and throw debris across roads making travel difficult.

Make sure that you have at least three days of food and water for your family and pets. If you want to make sure that you’re well prepared for a hurricane you should aim for two weeks of food and water.

The post Hurricane Shopping List – 40 Items to Buy so You’re Ready for a Hurricane was first published to: ready lifestyle

Hurricane Shopping List – 40 Items to Buy so You’re Ready for a Hurricane published first on https://readylifesytle.tumblr.com

[gyrlversion]

Trump Is Repeating Obamas Mistakes On Trade

For well over a year now, experts have been predicting disaster from President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. It would wreck Christmas shopping, ruin the board game industry and drive up the price of fancy sweaters. According to the august analysts at the New York Federal Reserve, Trump’s tariffs cost an average of $414 per household last year and will cost another $831 over the coming year. The top Senate Democrat on trade, Ron Wyden of Oregon, recently warned that the tariffs could increase consumer prices by up to 25 percent by the time back to school shopping is through.

This, we are told, is just Econ 101. Tariffs raise prices on consumers and by doing so, limit economic growth. Trump’s tariffs, therefore, are a celebration of ignorance, a grotesquerie cribbed from medieval alchemists. Last year, The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell even argued that Trump’s trade program was quite literally a relic of the 1680s.

Recent history has a way of painting the distant past in its own colors. It’s true that since the 1990s, both Democratic and Republican administrations have generally pursued tariff reductions, imposing import tariffs only as a last resort. And yet tariffs have always been a pretty routine element of U.S. economic policy. The second piece of legislation President George Washington signed into law was a 5 percent tariff applied to most imports. The latest official Harmonized Tariff Schedule published by the U.S. International Trade Commission includes 22 sections and 99 chapters ― plus appendices for chemicals, dyes and pharmaceutical products ― coming to 3,888 pages of information. Very little of it is Trump’s handiwork.

Apocalypse Trade may yet come, but so far, its would-be Cassandras have been Chickens Little. Consumer spending rose last holiday season. Total U.S. manufacturing employment is up very modestly since Trump began his tariff campaign, while overall unemployment has continued its downward drift to levels unseen since the 1960s.

If you didn’t notice losing $400 last year, you aren’t alone. The New York Fed’s analysis is a mess of theory and assumption that conflicts with basic inflation data. Consumer prices have essentially been flat since the tariffs were imposed.

None of this means Trump’s trade war is a success. In fact, it’s much worse than the Econ 101 scolds let on. Behind all of his bluster and bravado, Trump is essentially pursuing the same international economic agenda as his recent predecessors ― an agenda that can only be described as an abject, bipartisan failure. And the stakes in this drama are much higher than a few dollars a month at Target or Amazon.

Behind all of his bluster and bravado, Trump is essentially pursuing the same international economic agenda as his recent predecessors.

Trade between the United States and China is, like all international commerce, a political arrangement. There is no “natural” or “free” way for two nations with different laws and political systems to conduct their affairs together, and the relationship between the United States and China was strained long before Trump’s inauguration.

It is not a secret that American corporations have outsourced much of their manufacturing activity to China over the past two decades. Economists dispute exactly how much of the domestic job loss is attributable to trade, but leading scholars believe the U.S. lost roughly 1 million manufacturing jobs to China during the first decade of the 21st century, and there is reason to suspect the outflow continues today in some sectors.

China does not have some innate aptitude for manufacturing. The climate in Shenzen is not better suited for cranking out electronics than that of San Francisco or Des Moines. The reason so much of the world’s manufacturing moved to China in the early years of this century is that the Chinese and American governments implemented policies designed to make it happen.

The signature elements of this program are low wages for workers in China, loose regulations for companies operating in China, and systematic under-valuation of China’s currency, the yuan. Low wages and hands-off regulatory policies cut corporate costs, enabling made-in-China products to secure higher profits. These efforts are strongly reinforced by the Chinese government’s policy of maintaining a “weak” yuan. By keeping the international value of China’s currency low, Chinese goods can sell for less in American markets, undercutting made-in-America producers.

Workers in China earn an average wage of about $3.40 an hour, according to the research firm Euromonitor, which compares to an average wage in the U.S. of about $27.83. This differential is enabled by lower costs of living in China, but also through simple worker repression. It’s illegal, for instance, to form a labor union in China independent of the ruling Communist Party. On the currency front, China hasn’t directly intervened in currency markets to devalue for several years now, but by holding on to about $4 trillion in dollar-denominated assets as reserves, China elevates the value of the dollar against the yuan.

So the U.S. simultaneously exported manufacturing jobs and much of its dirtier, carbon-intensive production to China in exchange for cheaper consumer goods and higher corporate profits. This is, in a nutshell, the central idea behind what was once optimistically labeled “free trade” or “globalization,” but which increasingly goes by the more ominous term “neoliberalism.” 

Bill Clinton implemented this framework over the course of his presidency, relying on the ideas of George H.W. Bush and a few thinkers celebrated by the American conservative movement. He added moral heft to the arrangement by dressing it up in the language of human rights and international goodwill.

“Bringing China into the [World Trade Organization] doesn’t guarantee that it will choose political reform,” Clinton said in 2000. “But accelerating the process of economic change will force China to confront that choice sooner, and it will make the imperative for the right choice stronger.” Free trade with China, he argued, “is likely to have a profound impact on human rights and political liberty.”

By 2009, most world leaders recognized things were not going according to Clinton’s script. The “political reform” Clinton had hoped for had not materialized in China, while the United States had invaded Iraq on false pretenses and implemented a ghastly torture program. Whatever the virtues of cheap labor in China, it did not seem to have much to do with global harmony. 

An economically stronger China, meanwhile, began asserting itself more forcefully on the international stage ― sometimes confronting American allies in ways that demanded U.S. attention. Things got particularly heated in 2010 and 2011 when China claimed rights to shipping, mining and drilling rights in the South China Sea ― a dispute that involved Japan, India and several other nations.  

The reason so much of the world’s manufacturing moved to China in the early years of this century is that the Chinese and U.S. governments implemented policies to accomplish exactly this outcome.

This wasn’t just a problem for American allies. The United States itself was becoming increasingly dependent on China for an array of products that were no longer produced domestically ― from consumer electronics to specialty high-tech metal alloys. This, in turn, had given China new economic leverage over U.S. diplomatic decisions.  

So in the fall of 2011, President Barack Obama announced plans to station 2,500 marines in Australia, saying his administration had made “a deliberate and strategic decision,” that “as a Pacific nation, the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future.”

The troops were mostly for show. The real action involved in what became known as “the pivot to Asia” was a massive trade deal with essentially every Pacific nation the Obama administration could convince to sign on ― other than China. By strengthening U.S. economic ties with everyone else in the region, the Obama administration hoped to obtain greater leverage over China to deter geopolitical choices the United States frowned upon.

This was the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the core function of which ― despite much window-dressing to the contrary ― was not to reduce carbon emissions or advance human rights, but to diversify the abusive regimes on which the United States relied for cheap consumer goods (particularly the governments of Vietnam and Malaysia). The Obama administration eventually became so desperate to pass the deal that it upgraded Malaysia’s official human rights rating shortly after the discovery of mass human trafficking graves on the Malaysian side of the border with Thailand. As many environmental advocacy groups noted during TPP negotiations, the trade pact was inconsistent with the goals Obama pursued under the Paris climate accord.

TPP, famously, did not pass. Which brings us to Trump. Look under the hood of his economic demands against China, and they are very similar to those the Obama administration once made ― mostly calls to respect the intellectual property claims of U.S. corporations that move their operations to China and end China-backed hacking of U.S. companies. Trump is applying tariffs against hundreds of billions of dollars worth of made-in-China products in an effort to coerce China into making it easier and more profitable for American firms to move their operations to China.

In a sense, Trump is getting results. China hasn’t budged on IP, but many firms that sell to American consumers have in fact rearranged their supply chains to avoid Trump’s tariffs. The results roughly align with the aims once pursued by the Obama administration. As the U.S. trade deficit with China has declined in recent months, the trade deficit with Vietnam has increased, as noted by Brad Setser at the Council on Foreign Relations. This is one reason prices for American households haven’t really increased. Trump’s tariffs aren’t bringing manufacturing back to America; they’re shifting it from China to other low-wage countries.

And like Obama, Trump has done nothing substantive to address the national security implications of China’s effective monopoly over various critical resources. The U.S., for instance, remains entirely dependent on China for rare earth minerals ― a key ingredient in everything from light bulbs to smartphones to military weapons.

Trump, in short, is using the unilateral blunt force of a tariff program to implement many of the international goals that Obama tried and failed to secure through coordinated, multilateral negotiation. The different tactics of the two administrations have obscured their essentially common agenda.

The repugnance of this agenda in the face of domestic inequality, international political repression and accelerating global climate change renders the tariff question almost a distraction. Movements in retail prices are simply not very important when considered against the linked crises facing great power diplomacy in the 21st century. 

Such complications, alas, are beyond the scope of Econ 101.

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A handy guide to the tech buzzwords from CES 2019

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/a-handy-guide-to-the-tech-buzzwords-from-ces-2019/

A handy guide to the tech buzzwords from CES 2019

Walk around the Consumer Electronics Show and you’ll hear a variety of different languages. There is, however, a common tongue on the show floor—and it consists entirely of buzzwords, marketing terms, and acronyms. It can get confusing, so we put together this handy cheat sheet to help you decode the announcements, presentations, and overstatements you’ll encounter when reading about new products.

5G

The king of buzzwords at CES 2019 is 5G. It mostly refers to the next-generation wireless data network that will eventually handle the internet needs of our mobile devices and even our home networks at some point in the future. To listen to many of the CES presentations, you’d think 5G is right around the corner, but the truth is that the technology is extremely limited right now. There are very localized tests going on in a few cities, but nationwide rollout won’t happen until 2020. Even once the network falls into place, we’ll still need mobile hardware that can take advantage of it, which we’ll probably hear about more during Mobile World Congress at the end of February.

This Wired story does a solid job explaining why you’re probably fine ignoring 5G for now.

8K

TVs are always one CES’s biggest draws and this year’s theme is 8K. The name refers to a TV’s overall resolution. To be precise, 8K TVs and monitors have a resolution of 7,680 x 4,230 pixels. It’s the next step up from 4K, which is the most common ultra-HD resolution on the market at the moment. Right now, 8K TVs are mostly overkill because there’s almost zero content that supports the full high-resolution picture. Many high-end TVs like Sony’s new flagship TV do a fine job of upscaling 4K content, but 8K won’t be essential tech in 2019.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

There are few buzzwords as broad as artificial intelligence. Products here at CES us “AI” to do everything from cook a chicken to drive a car down a crowded street. The truth is that AI can mean a wide variety of things. The common denominator is that computer algorithms are making some decisions within the product, likely using machine learning to be better at whatever it is they do.

So, when Panasonic’s in-car driver analysis system tries to figure out whether the person behind the wheel is falling asleep by analyzing their facial expressions, that counts as AI. When LG’s high-end TVs analyze the content showing up on its screen to help optimize picture quality, that’s AI, too. The examples go from simple to complex, but the bottom line is that AI is “cool” right now, and any product that can possibly claim to use it probably is.

Virtual reality (VR)

There are quite a few virtual reality headsets on the CES show floor this year, including the new HTC Vive Pro with eye-tracking, and a preview version of the Oculus Quest, which is coming from Facebook’s VR arm later this year. Virtual reality involves immersing yourself as much as possible in a digital world that you strap to your face. So, VR headsets totally replace the real world with computer graphics rather than just adding digital elements into a real-world setting (that’s augmented reality).

A popular use for VR here at CES is to put it in cars to entertain passengers. Both Intel and Audi have superhero-themed VR experiences that sync up with the motion of the car in which you’re riding to help pass the time.

Augmented Reality (AR)

AR mixes digital objects into the real world. Think of things like when you use the Ikea app on your smartphone to envision what a new couch will look like in your space or you play one of those games where little spaceships fly around your office and you shoot them on your phone screen. Headsets with translucent screens that make digital objects appear in the real world also count as augmented reality. That includes headsets like the Magic Leap and Microsoft’s Hololens. As a general rule, if you can still see the real world either on a screen or through a translucent screen, you’re dealing with AR instead of pure VR.

XR

While AR and VR are relatively straightforward to define, XR is more nebulous—in fact, the X really doesn’t even stand for anything. Some uses of XR act as a catch-all to represent both virtual and augmented reality. On a deeper level, XR is an effort to tear down some of the walls between augmented and virtual reality to make it easier for content creators to make content for any kind of headset users are willing to strap onto their faces. If you see XR in 2019, it’s probably referring to either augmented reality, virtual reality, or a mixture of the two.

Organic LED (OLED)

Almost all of the high-end TVs you’ll see coming out of CES 2019 are OLED displays, including the flexible TV that LG made to roll-up into its base when it’s not in use. OLED screens work differently than older flat-panel TVs like LEDs or LCDs, which essentially required lights behind the pixels in the screen to illuminate the picture. But OLED TVs have pixels that light up on their own individually, which allows them to turn off completely when they’re supposed to be black. The result is a picture that appears brighter, and with more contrast, because of those blacker black levels. That’s obviously a reductive description of a rather complex technology, but the takeaway is that OLED is still the standard for high-end sets at the moment. If you spring for an OLED, you can expect to spend more money and get a very pretty picture.

8th- or 9th-generation Intel processor

If you’re looking at laptops or computers of any kind at this year’s show, the specs will inevitably mention the processor. Intel makes those processors and, until CES started, the eighth-generation Core processors were their latest and, for the most part, their greatest. Earlier this week, however, Intel announced that its new ninth-generation Core processors are coming early this year.

Practically speaking, the eight-generation chips are the most current equipment on the market and it’s probably not worth waiting for the next wave of processors to start shipping to buy a new machine. Just because the ninth-generation now exists, that doesn’t mean the eighth-gen stuff is obsolete or even out of date.

Wearable

At one point, the “wearable technology” market was almost entirely smart watches and dorky-looking glasses with some kind of screen crammed into them. Now, however, the term “wearable” has expanded to mean pretty much any piece of electronics that stays on your body to perform a task. So, Motiv’s smart ring that senses your heart rate and helps track your fitness data fits the bill. It’s a diverse enough category now that the umbrella wearables term is starting to feel a little out of date.

Eye-tracking

One of the next big advances in virtual reality involves taking your hands out of the equation. HTC’s new Vive Pro headset, for instance, can track where you’re looking by observing your eyeballs. So, you can accomplish tasks like changing settings and navigating menus just by focusing your gaze in specific spots.

Beyond that, developers can also use eye-tracking tech to accomplish a technique called “foveated rendering.” Basically, the headset can tell where you’re looking and will blur everything else in the virtual reality world. As a result, the device can focus all of its processing power on that small area at which you’re looking, which can make the graphics look a lot fancier.

Expect to see this kind of tech more in high-end VR kits down the road.

Ray-tracing

Last year, Nvidia released its first computer graphics cards capable of introducing ray tracing to home computer gaming. The technology is common when creating CGI for Hollywood movies, but until recently, required long rendering times with huge computer arrays. Now, thanks to re-engineered graphics processors, the tech is starting to trickle into PC games like the first-person shooter, Battlefield V.

The practical difference between ray tracing and typical graphics rendering is obvious when you look at the details in a game. So, things like reflections in pools of water will look more accurate and impressive when you’re using ray tracing. It’s only really relevant for high-end PC gamers at the moment, but Nvidia just announced its RTX 2060 graphics card, which should be more affordable than the flagship 2080, which costs as much as a laptop on its own.

Biometric

This one typically goes hand-in-hand with wearables. Biometrics is, simply, observing and quantifying characteristics of the human body. For example, the Apple Watch can detect your heartbeat and analyze that data to try and figure out your fitness level. It can also mean using an aspect of your body—your thumbprint or face—to authenticate yourself or unlock something, like your phone; that’s called “biometric security.”

High-Dynamic Range (HDR)

If you want an in-depth look at the different meanings of HDR, you can check out this longer article. For the most part, however, HDR is a TV term that means a television meets a certain set of picture standards, some of which include HDR10, Dolby Vision, and HLG. On a very basic level, HDR speaks to the difference in brightness between the brightest whites and the darkest blacks on the TV.

While HDR sounds like marketing, it’s a feature that will make a tangible difference in your TV watching experience, especially if you watch a lot of new content on the big streaming services, like Hulu and Netflix. Stranger Things, for instance, does a great job capturing the extra image data that comes with a high-dynamic range screen.

Haptics

Virtual reality in its current form deals mostly with your eyes and ears, but touch will be important to the future of VR. Haptic feedback devices like the Teslasuit for instance, use things like vibrations and pressure to emulate what you would really feel if you were in the virtual environment. Razer announced an entire PC gaming setup (that doesn’t require a VR headset) that syncs up vibrations to the on-screen action in a video game to make the whole experience feel more real. If you saw Ready Play One, the haptic feedback suits were a good example of what might eventually come down the road to help trick our brains into thinking we’re living inside the internet.

Written By Stan Horaczek

[thegloober]

Australian encryption-busting Bill would create backdoors: Cisco

Despite the Australian government repeatedly claiming that its Assistance and Access Bill would not involve the creation of backdoors, networking giant Cisco has accused Canberra of doing just that.

In a submission [PDF] to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security — which is currently reviewing the legislation as the government attempts to ram it through Parliament — Cisco called out Canberra for not allowing greater transparency on disclosing notices and requests from Australian authorities to access encrypted communications.

“We have defined a ‘backdoor’ to include any surveillance capability that is intentionally created and yet not transparently disclosed,” Cisco said.

“To the extent that the Bill would require via a [Technical Capability Notice] the creation of a capability while simultaneously preventing the [communication providers] from documenting the existence of that capability, the law would result in the creation of backdoors.”

The networking giant pointed to statements made by its CEO Check Robbins in October 2016 when addressing rumours that American companies had cosy arrangements with Washington intelligence agencies.

“We don’t provide backdoors. There is no special access to our products,” Robbins said at the time.

Cisco said in its submission that in order to maintain customer trust, any “form of surveillance technique” in its products must be publicly disclosed.

“Cisco is most certainly not alone in having foresworn the existence of backdoors in technology products and services. As such, this issue is a significant concern that should be promptly addressed via an amendment to the Bill,” the company said.

It further warned that other governments would likely follow Australia’s lead if the Assistance and Access Bill is passed in its current form, and that it does not customise its lawful communication interception capabilities for any nation, and all such capabilities are described in product documentation.

“Without further amendment, we believe the net result of these changes would harm the security interests of Australia by setting a precedent that could be adopted by less liberal regimes,” Cisco said.

Read more: Australia’s anti-encryption law will merely relocate the backdoors: Expert

Under the proposed law, Australian government agencies would be able to issue three kinds of notices:

Technical Assistance Notices (TAN), which are compulsory notices for a communication provider to use an interception capability they already have;

Technical Capability Notices (TCN), which are compulsory notices for a communication provider to build a new interception capability, so that it can meet subsequent Technical Assistance Notices; and

Technical Assistance Requests (TAR), which have been described by experts as the most dangerous of all.

Tasked with overseeing Australia’s intelligence agencies, Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) Margaret Stone warned in her submission that technical assistance requests could allow for the voluntary creation of backdoors.

“This raises the legal possibility that ASIO, ASIS, or ASD could negotiate an agreement with a provider to voluntarily create or fail to remediate a ‘backdoor’,” Stone wrote.

“While it is foreseeable that many providers would decline any such request because it is incompatible with their commercial and reputational interests, the possibility appears to exist that an individual provider could be persuaded to do so, and if so, compensated in accordance with a contract, agreement, or other arrangement.”

Stone called on the government to add increased reporting provisions to the Bill that would force agencies to notify IGIS of when requests were made.

No time to weaken encryption

Amongst the 31 submission to the joint committee published late on Friday afternoon, Apple said the best way for the government to reach its objective of tracking down criminals and terrorists was through stronger encryption, and not by weakening it.

“This is no time to weaken encryption,” Apple wrote. “There is profound risk of making criminals’ jobs easier, not harder.”

Cupertino argued that by reducing security for one customer, it would also reduce the security of “millions of law-abiding customers in order to investigate the very few who pose a threat”.

“The government may seek to compel a provider to develop custom software to bypass a particular device’s encryption. The government’s view is that if it only seeks such tool for a particular user’s device, it will create no systemic risk,” Apple said.

“As we have firmly stated, however, the development of such a tool, even if deployed only to one phone, would render everyone’s encryption and security less effective.”

Apple expressed concern that one of the Bill’s few outs — preventing communication providers from building a “systemic weakness” into products to comply — could be circumvented and allow agencies to prevent certain users from receiving security updates, or prevent providers from fixing security flaws, if Canberra deemed such actions non-systemic.

See: The race to ruin the internet is upon us

The iPhone-maker called for the introduction of a provision to allow for judicial review prior to technical capability notices being issued, and said it was deeply concerned that the government could force real-time interception of over-the-top-based messages and calls.

As a company that stores much of its customer data in the United States, Apple said it could face criminal sanctions for “any unauthorised interception of content in transit” under US law, or if Canberra wanted data on EU citizens, it could face fines of 4 percent of annual turnover thanks to the General Data Protection Regulation.

“Forcing business with operations outside Australia to comply with TANs or TCNs that violate the laws of other countries in which they operate, will just incentivise criminals to use service providers that never assist Australian authorities or ones that operate underground in jurisdictions unfriendly to Australian interests,” Apple said.

“Rather than serving the interests of Australian law enforcement, it will just weaken the security and privacy of regular customers while pushing criminals further off the grid.”

A number of submissions warned the government to think of the global implications of its proposed laws.

“A rush to enact legislation in the proposed form could do significant harm to the internet,” Mozilla wrote.

“TCNs in particular present the government with capabilities that we don’t believe are appropriate, as well as being a significant risk to the security of the Internet. The bill as proposed represents a one-sided view, without adequate consideration for the broader and longer-term costs and repercussions of its implementation.”

Mozilla said that TCNs are, in effect, an “intentional introduction of a security vulnerability”, and said the Bill could harm Australian companies in the global economy.

It was a view shared by Australian email provider FastMail, which said laws removing privacy would not help Australia’s brain drain.

“To the extent that this Bill takes us further out of alignment with protections expected by the rest of the world, it hurts the ability of all Australian companies to compete in the global market.”

In a prior round of consultation, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) said the Bill’s provisions represented an existential threat to the internet’s security and integrity.

IAB chair Ted Hardie stated a method to compel an infrastructure provider to break encryption or provide false trust arrangements will introduce a systemic weakness that threatens to erode trust in the internet itself.

“The mere ability to compel internet infrastructure providers’ compliance introduces that vulnerability to the entire system, because it weakens that same trust,” Hardie said. “The internet, as a system, moves from one whose characteristics are predictable to one where they are not.”

If similar legislation where implemented by other jurisdictions, the IAB said the end result could be the fragmentation of the internet itself.

Read: Australian encryption Bill raises bar for outrageous legislation: Comms Alliance

“This approach, if applied generally, would result in the internet’s privacy and security being the lowest common denominator permitted by the actions taken in myriad judicial contexts. From that perspective, this approach drastically reduces trust in critical internet infrastructure and affects the long term health and viability of the internet,” the IAB said.

Speaking to the National Press Club last Wednesday, Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton said the changes already made to the Bill have resulted in it being compromised.

“I think there is a common-sense approach here. I think the government has crafted that common-sense approach, but it can only be enacted if it is supported in the Senate,” Dutton said. “We can’t have on key national security Bills compromises because we’re dealing with five or six or eight different senators all with different motivations, and pulling in every direction.”

Dutton said Opposition Leader Bill Shorten needs to decide whether he is on the side of Silicon Valley multinationals or with “law enforcement and intelligence agencies in this country who want to protect Australians”.

The Home Affairs minister added that tech giants need to be hounded to pay more tax in Australia, have breached user privacy for commercial advantage, and are protesting moves to force them to help law enforcement in Western countries while simultaneously doing business in authoritarian growth markets.

“It is essential. Given we are talking about nine out of 10 national security investigations now being impeded because of the use of encryption, we need to deal with it. It doesn’t go as far as some people would want, but it is a measured response,” he added.

The minister called for the Bill should be dealt with sooner rather than later.

Related Coverage

Source: https://bloghyped.com/australian-encryption-busting-bill-would-create-backdoors-cisco/

[my-freshbouquetfox-blog]

Ultra Marathon Tips RandRuns.

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[goldeagleprice]

Q. David Bowers on Bill Bierly’s In God We Trust

(Pelham, Alabama) — In November 2019 Whitman Publishing will release William Bierly’s In God We Trust: The American Civil War, Money, Banking, and Religion. The 352-page hardcover volume will be available from booksellers and hobby shops nationwide, and online. Here, numismatic historian Q. David Bowers shares his thoughts on the book.

Bill Bierly’s In God We Trust is one of the most detailed, intricate, and fascinating books in the field of American numismatics—and in American history in general.

The national motto “In God We Trust” is familiar to all of us. Look in your pocket change or wallet and you will find it on every United States coin and paper bill. Before reading the manuscript to Bierly’s book I thought I knew all about the subject.

1864 two-cent piece, PF-65. Hover to zoom.

Some years ago I wrote an article, “God in Your Pocket,” for my local Presbyterian Church, telling of the motto’s use on coins. I knew it appeared on pattern coins in 1863 and in 1864 made its first appearance on a circulating coin, the bronze two-cent piece, a new denomination introduced that year. I had the obscure knowledge that “In God We Trust” is the motto of the State of Florida and was used on certain National Bank notes issued in that state in the second half of the 19th century.

I also knew that the $5 Silver Certificates of the Series of 1886 illustrate the reverse of a Morgan silver dollar of that year, with the motto as part of the design.

But what I didn’t know were 101 other details—make that many more than 101 different details—as to how the motto came to be, how it was used over the years, and the wide cast of characters in the Treasury Department and elsewhere who participated in its use on money.

All too often, books, newspaper columns, and magazine articles about popular subjects lack many details. For Whitman Publishing I wrote a volume on President Ronald Reagan, and I read every book and important study I could find. There were very few details about his personal day-to-day life. Not to worry about the historical personalities involved with “In God We Trust.” While you might not learn the names of the protagonists’ pet cats or their favorite dime novels, there is not much else missing in Bierly’s excellent narrative. Dozens of cast members play cameo roles and small walk-on parts.

It is probably correct to say that no other researcher could add to Bill Bierly’s efforts! He collaborated with professional numismatists, leaving no stone (or coin) unturned in the creation of this book. Commonly believed myths and misunderstandings he examined, debunked, and corrected. Hundreds of historical images were collected, many of which have never been published in a numismatic reference, to which have been added beautiful photographs of rare coins, patterns, tokens, medals, and paper currency, including close-ups of important characteristics. All of this required a lot of work, creativity, and careful attention to detail.

Further on the subject of detail: I enjoy learning about and digging deeply into previously unexplored subjects. I have written books on the Waterford Water Cure (a health spa in Waterford, Maine, that counterstamped coins as advertisements), The Strange Career of Dr. G.G. Wilkins (about a countertstamper who was a dentist, also operated a restaurant with a caged bear in front, and was suspected of passing counterfeit money and also burning down a neighbor’s barn), and, for good measure, books about Alexandre Vattemare (a French numismatist who visited America and became important to the development of libraries here), and Augustus G. Heaton (the teenaged coin dealer who founded the American Numismatic Society in 1858).

Each of these books was popular in its time, despite their obviously obscure subjects. Readers find satisfaction in a well-told story that brings new depth and insight.

That is precisely what we get with In God We Trust, debuting this holiday season. Anyone with a combined interest in American history and numismatics will find a new world of important information, fascinating details, and previously unconnected relationships.

2009 Abraham Lincoln commemorative silver dollar Uncirculated obverse.

The motto “In God We Trust” is hardly history alone. It is so much more, and it means different things to different people. Today there are vocal critics who feel that it has no place on coins or paper currency. For that matter, some believe that God has no place in public (and in some cases, private) life. On the other hand, many more people do indeed believe in the Supreme Being. Sometimes it just seems the naysayers get all of the publicity.

“In God We Trust” has appeared on American money since the Civil War. William Bierly tells how the national motto came to be. (Photographs courtesy of Stack’s Bowers Galleries and the United States Mint.)

Bill Bierly’s In God We Trust approaches the subject respectfully on all sides, with color, personality, dashes of humor, and dogged pursuit of the truth. He has given us a smorgasbord: There is a lot to choose from. If you are a collector and strictly so, with no interest in the million points where numismatics touches American history, you can simply immerse yourself in the coins, paper money, tokens, and medals. If you are like me, however, and enjoy every historical highway and byway connected to American money, you will read and find pleasure in the entire book from start to finish.

David Bowers is the award-winning author of more than 60 numismatic books ranging from 90-page monographs to 900-page encyclopedias, hundreds of auction and other catalogs, and several thousand articles including columns in Coin World, Paper Money, and The Numismatist. He is a past president of both the American Numismatic Association (1983–1985) and the Professional Numismatists Guild (1977–1979). In his 60-plus-year career in numismatics, he has earned most of the highest honors bestowed by the hobby community, including the ANA’s Lifetime Achievement Award and induction in the ANA Numismatic Hall of Fame.

In God We Trust: The American Civil War, Money, Banking, and Religion

By William Bierly; foreword by Q. David Bowers

ISBN 0794845282

Hardcover, 6 x 9 inches, 352 pages, full color

Retail $29.95 U.S.

About the Author

William (Bill) Bierly was raised on a farm near Walkerton, Indiana. As a child, he heard stories from his grandparents about two of his great-grandfathers who had served in the Civil War. This led to a lifelong interest in that war and that period of history. At about age eight, he began collecting coins from circulating change. Following high school Bierly attended Northwestern University for two years and then completed a degree in sociology and economic development with a minor in Chinese studies at Indiana University. He then worked in India for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in a dairy development project. Back in the United States, his interest in coins was rekindled. He soon went abroad again, working for three years in Osaka, Japan. Then in the United States, he operated a small business for five years, sold it, and entered graduate school, earning an MBA in finance from Indiana University and embarking on a 25-year career in commercial banking. With his overseas experience, Bierly focused on international banking, particularly Japanese corporate business and Asian correspondent banking. He began his career at the National Bank of Detroit, and he worked with J.P. Morgan Chase for much of his career; at various times at the bank’s Detroit, Chicago, and Columbus, Ohio, offices, as well as often traveling to Asia.

While thus engaged, Bierly continued to pursue his coin hobby, eventually specializing in Civil War–era coinage, in particular, pattern coins. Today he is active in several coin groups and clubs, most notably the Central States Numismatic Society, the American Numismatic Association, the American Numismatic Society, the Chicago Coin Club, the Michigan State Numismatic Society, and the Pennsylvania Association of Numismatists, as well as the Civil War Token Society and the Liberty Seated Collectors Club. He sometimes exhibits his collection at major coin shows and frequently volunteers as an exhibit judge.

Bierly resides in LaPorte, Indiana. He has two children, Emma and Ken, as well as a granddaughter, Kiki.

About Whitman Publishing

Whitman Publishing is the world’s leading producer of numismatic reference books, supplies, and products to display and store coins and paper money. The company’s high-quality books educate readers in the rich, colorful history of American and world coinage and currency, and teach how to build great collections. Archival-quality Whitman folders, albums, cases, and other holders keep collectibles safe and allow them to be shown off to friends and family.

Whitman Publishing is the Official Supplier of the American Numismatic Association. As a benefit of membership in the ANA, members can borrow In God We Trust (and other Whitman books) for free from the Association’s Dwight N. Manley Numismatic Library, and also receive 10% off all Whitman purchases. Details are at the website of the ANA.

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Mr Bowers, I'm thinking about buying the book after your ... by So Krates