"THE ongoing weakness of America’s economy — where deleveraging in the private and public sectors continues apace — has led to stubbornly high unemployment and subpar growth. The effects of fiscal austerity — a sharp rise in taxes and a sharp fall in government spending since the beginning of the year — are undermining economic performance even more."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"Speaking of the Fed, he told host Stuart Varney, "They have violated every rule of sound money that's ever existed. They've got the money market rates at zero. They have managed and rigged the entire yield curve so nothing is real out there. It's all trading against the Fed." He said speculators will continue to invest as long as the Fed can hold the bond price up and the yield down "and keep shoveling out free overnight money." "We're in a monetary fantasyland," Stockman said."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"In the aftermath of the forced confiscation of bank accounts in Cyprus, the question that clients ask me most is, “could it happen here?” “Here” is wherever the client lives or invests, and could be the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, or any other country. The answer is yes. This result stems from the nature of our modern financial system, built as it is on the flawed foundation of a poorly-understood concept called “fractional reserve banking.”"
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"The termination of DeMarco's acting directorship is a formal declaration that real estate in the United States is now officially nationalized and socialized."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"Computerized algorithms are quickly replacing single-stock analysts and investors, leading to big changes in the way the stock market will value companies and increasing the chance that software glitches or hack attacks will jeopardize market stability."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"Savers and investors face further "wealth confiscation" in Europe as the continent struggles to resolve the single currency's problems, a bank chief has said."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"In a speech titled "Regulating Large Financial Institutions [5]" Stein made something very clear: if and when a TBTF fails, and since this time is not different, and a failure is only a matter of time, depositors will lose everything (courtesy of some $300 trillion in gross unnetted liabilities which once there is a counterparty chain failure, suddenly become very much net and immediately marginable - a drain of cash), which now that Cyprus is the template, is to be expected. Not only that but Stein makes it all too clear that part of the Dodd-Frank resolution authority guidelines, a bailout is no longer an option."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"If you thought the United States government was a financial basket case, Japan is exponentially worse. A collapse in the yen and the stock market is all but certain -- the only question is when."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
EXCLUSIVE: Wall Street is full of 'crooks,' influential economist Jeffrey Sachs told Philadelphia Federal Reserve audience earlier this month - NYPOST.com - http://www.nypost.com/p...
"Wall Street is full of “crooks,” and it never properly cleaned up its act after the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs told a distinguished gathering of bankers and professionals in bombshell remarks at the Philadelphia Federal Reserve building earlier this month. What’s behind this, says the high-profile academic twice named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, is “a docile president, a docile White House and a docile regulatory system that absolutely can’t find its voice.”"
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy? | Greenheart GamesGreenheart Games - http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013...
"When we released our very first game, Game Dev Tycoon (for Mac, Windows and Linux) yesterday, we did something unusual and as far as I know unique. We released a cracked version of the game ourselves, minutes after opening our Store."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"If you're wasting time fighting with CSS -- and we know you are -- we've got just the tool you need. Download the Give Up and Use Tables timer. We've scientifically determined the maximum amount of time that you should need to make a layout work in CSS: it's 47 minutes. When your time is up, we'll even give you the table code you need. Take three minutes to build a table. And ten minutes to get a donut. Bill the client for an hour. Done."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
NC State News :: NC State News and Information » Older Is Wiser: Study Shows Software Developers’ Skills Improve Over Time - http://news.ncsu.edu/release...
"There is a perception in some tech circles that older programmers aren’t able to keep pace with rapidly changing technology, and that they are discriminated against in the software field. But a new study from North Carolina State University indicates that the knowledge and skills of programmers actually improve over time – and that older programmers know as much (or more) than their younger peers when it comes to recent software platforms."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
Can you remind me again where to find those stats?
- Brian Johns
Brian, go to "Me" link (http://friendfeed.com/brianjo...) which defaults to the Feed tab. Look at the sidebar on the right, below Discussion.
- Micah
0.75 (926/1226) - still relatively new here
- mikepk
I only see my stats for the last week (17/14 = 1.21) Please tell me your 670 number is for more than just a week!
- Brian Johns
1.44 (566/391) for brianjohns (after week tally you should see a comma then 'all time' count - I can see it on your page)
- Micah
OK, sorry. I'm a total dumbass. I stopped reading after the weekly totals...
- Brian Johns
3.74, which seems way off of everybody else's. I wonder what that says. I comment a lot more than I like.
- Cyrus Lendvay
FFers use FF with their own strategy or simply default tendencies. The ratio is an interesting snapshot of behaviour. Thanks for joining in everyone, hope more keep flowing in.
- Micah
from twhirl
0.66 - I tend to 'like' things without needing to comment further, I guess, and I notice I usually like the things upon which I comment. Well, frequently.
- ɐ ɯıʞ sıɹɥɔ
.39 (2457/6242) I guess I don't comment much. I do 'like' a lot of things, it would seem.
- Bren
0.62 then again i have over 11,000 comments
- Cee Bee
1.23 (5287/4229) - I am put to shame by Cee Bee's participation, good grief!
- Lindsay
So far: Average: 1.27 | Median: 0.81 ... (if you average 1 comment per like, you'd be 1.0 ... if you're 0.xx you might herd content more than discuss ... if you're whole numbers above 1 you may not 'like' much or discuss plenty or both)
- Micah
InPerpetualMotion(Gina k), I really liked this 'Like' of yours (in a series of pics, so I flickr fav'd it): http://friendfeed.com/e... and commented. Thanks!
- Micah
.68 6986/10194 Someone wrote a great article on the comment-like ratio a few months ago. Search on FriendFeed is crashing on me... I'll try to get the link.
- Mitchell Tsai
Thanks Mitchell (btw, search crashing on me too - lots)
- Micah
1316 comments/20221 likes (0.06), according to Windows Calculator, although I probably screwed up.
- Tyson Key
A recent change in FF: now the comment count shows total number of comments (previously multiple comments in one thread only counted as one) http://friendfeed.com/e... so all the numbers above are from the old methodology....
- David HC Soul
My new ratio: 0.76 all time (old methodology .52).... this week 1.39
- David HC Soul
Looks like my ratio as flipped again (comments back to dominating again). Seems to match my own awareness I've lately been commenting without Liking (commenting is my inherent recognition of value to me and the additional Like is when it merits an extra bump to help discovery by others).
- Micah
Rick, you mean that face with glasses I photoshopped tint into with an apparently disembodied arm which is actually very much attached to my eldest son? It's mostly just me :)
- Micah
Thanks, Michael. Yes, you have a rising tide of comment percentage (oh, wow, you were one of the originals from January - cool!)
- Micah
Yeah, that's a decent upward rise in comments, Nicholas.
- Micah
.6 (6,000/10,000) 3rd update - Now it's time to flip this on its head. My goal is to have (16,000/16,000) next time I post here. Regardless of what happens, I'm just looking forward to the next 10,000 comments, likes, posts, and new relationships I make here. It's all good!
- Michael Fidler
1.76 (7539/4290) My commenting habits haven't chanced much, but it felt like I clicked Like a lot less, and this ratio confirms that for me.
- Micah
.82 as of right now. edit: on January 8th it was 0.39 -- when I saw that, I decided to make more of an effort to comment. When I hit 10k "likes" I decided I wouldn't "like" anything else until I also had 10k comments.
- Bren
Jimminy, I'm copyrighting every single number. It's kind of a honeypot ;) Actually, it was curiosity mostly, but I also hope to build a sampling (small and self-selecting as it may be) for anyone who might want to analyze it.
- Micah
12.23 (844 / 69 ) I guess I take my likes seriously ;)
- Chris Myles
Wow I didn't realize I was so out of whack!! 12.23 that's got to be a record (and I don't even import my feeds with the summary as a comment)!!
- Chris Myles
Thanks JA, Chris (wow, 12+ is unusual :), Serkan and Nine!
- Micah
Micah.. I told you I take my likes seriously; ). You *might* want to ask (in a separate post) what percentage of likes were used to "bookmark" a post or save it for later VS actually "liking it". I NEVER used like for that.. but I did use a private group that if filled with my own topics (and comments)..
- Chris Myles
Likes are down relative to comments, which matches my much lower frequency of liking. I'm a more selective liker than ever.
- Micah
I don't think I could argue that any particular kind of ratio is "best", because if Lurkers like to Lurk and cultivate (via Likes) and the Chatty-ites love to chat, to pump out much many more comments than Likes, each can be happy and make for a great social experience.
- Micah
wow, what a difference time makes, when i 1st posted on this thread, 6.43%, now = 1.25%, for a 5.18% difference, :o (and this is the earliest post to date i've recovered of my activity on ff)
- chaz2b
chaz, I think there's been a big fluctuation for most people (maybe not that much). This is the oldest post on which you commented that you've recovered?
- Micah
When I first saw this: 1.91 Sept 28: 1.94
- MiniMage
536 comments in the last month has me at .8736...still creeping toward 1.00
- Bren
that was my third post... It's interesting to see how the number has changed. of course, I manipulated the number to a degree, because I stopped "liking" things for a while...
- Bren
Bren, the other thing that can seriously throw off someone's stats is a feed that upon each item it imports adds a comment automatically.
- Micah
true. that can seriously inflate comment stats, of course. Then you have someone like RAPatton, who posts a gazillion comments, in part because of his playlist posts where he will list each song in a separate comment. I found, after this post in fact, that I tended to "like" things much more frequently than comment on them, that I was lurking instead of participating. I have changed the way I use ff rather considerably, and I think for the better.
- Bren
In 4 days it will be 1 year since my first recorded stat here. My comments/like were almost a 1:1 ratio then. Now comments are almost double likes for me.
- Micah
75,415 comments/1,286 likes = 58.64 - i wish the auto inserted comments didn't get counted... the true number is probably much much close ot my number of likes
- Chris Heath
1.97%. thanks again micah, this has been a great metric to measure my first year here on ff. As the year went (this being the first record of me being here that i've found): , 6.43%:1.25%:1.97%
- chaz2b
Chris, Bren, thank you. And chaz2b, thank you too - glad it's a special marker for you. :)
- Micah
63.58 (97,534/1,534) -- interesting that my last three digits are the same there, eh? (note, i already posted a month or two ago when i first saw this thread)
- Chris Heath
0.87 (3770/4312), so I'm either getting more commenty or less likey. [0.74 (1970/2667) was what I previously reported back in June]
- In Search of Gender
Last year my comments were around 7000 and likes around 2500, for a ratio of 2.80. I consciously chose to do more liking over the last year. As of today my comments number 10,782 and likes number 7,666, for a ratio of 1.41.
- Stephen Mack #TeamMomo
Jason, Stephen - cool. Thanks for keeping updated here. :)
- Micah
Okay, Micah. <----I had to resist the urge not to post that because I know it's going to up my comment count. ;)
- Jenny H
But how many of those primordial, high interest posts are still active. Uh huh. :)
- Micah
Thanks, Morton. BTW, when you posted in February, it was exactly 0.13 also.
- Micah
Jenny, resistance is futile; embrace the rising tide of comments.
- Micah
Comments are more difficult and time consuming than Likes. I'd be happy about a high comment:likes ratio except that many are surely imported from feeds, while every Like is manual.
- Mike Chelen
it has changed to 2.2256 now as Sep, 6 2010.Labor Day. :) I added the date for future references.
- ۳۰ مرغ Loves Y'ALLLLL
Two years later and my ratio has climbed from 3.4 to 4.675. I've got a lot to say, apparently.
- Kevin Fox
Funnily, I didn't notice until after leaving that comment that when I reported my stat in 2009 I also followed it up with "I've got stuff to say." I didn't say it was *new* stuff...
- Kevin Fox
2.91; 6.43% (@ 2yrs ago) 2.33% (@ 1yr ago). for history's sake, this thread was started shortly after i found friendfeed, or friendfeed found me, so it holds a special place in my heart. thanks for keeping it around mr micah
- chaz2b
You're certainly welcome, chaz2b. In some way it feels like a living heirloom to me. :)
- Micah
3 (2.991) (and now the list has become too lengthy for me to track my progress, ;) [dumb me, i have a post not 10 lines ago in history, from 090711 2.91; 6.43% (@ 2yrs ago) 2.33% (@ 1yr ago) ;) ]
- chaz2b
0.75 (38,250 comments / 50,175 likes) (My entry above from 2 years ago said I had 10,782 comments and 7,666 likes for a ratio of 1.41. I've been busy, and my pattern seems to have changed.)
- Stephen Mack #TeamMomo
"Smartphones can check e-mail, record videos and even stream NPR. Now NASA has discovered they make pretty decent satellites, too. Three smart phones launched into space this past Sunday are orbiting above us even now, transmitting data and images back to Earth. The PhoneSats, which cost just a few thousand dollars each, could usher in big changes for the satellite industry."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"Despite a long recession and high unemployment, Italians are shunning the job because of the long hours and modest pay."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"England’s 800-year-old tradition of fair and open access to justice for all will be destroyed by sweeping Government plans to reform criminal legal aid, senior judges and magistrates warn today. In an attempt to save £200 million by 2018, the Justice Secretary Chris Grayling plans to stop paying solicitors for the work they do – and instead give them a fixed fee for each case they represent."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"There’s a rush going on in Washington DC right now. It has been going on for over 2 years now and will continue until they get something done. The topic – cybersecurity. The latest failed legislation – CISPA."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"Reddit apologized for the 'dangerous speculation' on the site that pointed fingers at the student."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
A vigilante (pron.: /ˌvɪdʒɪˈlænti/, /ˌvɪdʒɪˈlænteɪ/; Spanish: [bixiˈlante]; Portuguese: [viʒiˈlɐ̃t(ɨ)], [viʒiˈlɐ̃tʃi]) is an individual or group who undertakes law enforcement without legal authority and/or illegal authority.[1]
- WarLord
"One day, we may be able to check e-mail or call a friend without ever touching a screen or even speaking to a disembodied helper. Samsung is researching how to bring mind control to its mobile devices with the hope of developing ways for people with mobility impairments to connect to the world. The ultimate goal of the project, say researchers in the company’s Emerging Technology Lab, is to broaden the ways in which all people can interact with devices."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"Senior Obama administration officials have secretly authorized the interception of communications carried on portions of networks operated by AT&T and other Internet service providers, a practice that might otherwise be illegal under federal wiretapping laws. The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors' Internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12. "The Justice Department is helping private companies evade federal wiretap laws," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which obtained over 1,000 pages of internal government documents and provided them to CNET this week. "Alarm bells should be going off.""
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"They don’t prepare you for this in college or admit it in job interviews. The harsh reality is that if you are middle-aged, write computer code for a living, and earn a six-figure salary, you’re headed for the unemployment lines. Your market value declines as you age and it becomes harder and harder to get a job. I know this post will provoke anger, outrage, and denial. But, sadly, this is the way things are in the tech world. It’s an “up or out” profession — like the military. And it’s as competitive as professional sports. Engineers need to be prepared."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
I was too young for every job I applied for right up until the day I was too old....
- WarLord
"You can almost hear the critics wanting to dismiss Rogoff and Reinhart’s entire book, which clearly establishes the link between excessive debt and sovereign debt crises – a pattern that has played out some 266 times over the last few centuries, if I remember correctly. The point is that there is no magic number that says “This far and no farther.” There is a mythical line where confidence and trust is lost, but no one knows where that line of demarcation is until it is crossed. And right up until the last minute, there are always those who look for ways to add more debt, who assure us, “This time is different.” But it never is. A country can restore its fiscal house to order, pay back its debt, and grow its way out of the problem over time; there are numerous examples. But continuing to grow that debt-to-GDP number is to court a disaster that looms right in front of you. If politicians want to keep the borrow-and-spend party going “just one more election cycle” and if no one takes...
more...
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"The bill, known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, is that rare piece of legislation that has turned Democrat against Democrat, Republican against Republican and business against business, while uniting states as different as New Hampshire, Montana and Oregon — which have no sales taxes — against virtually every other state."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"This rampant bullishness on stocks is off the charts and in sharp contrast to the pervasive pessimism of the general public, corporate insiders, and company finance departments that have cut back on capital spending."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"Rule o’ Thumb: When the cover of a major financial magazine features a cartoon of a bull leaping through the air on a pogo stick, it’s probably about time to cash in the chips."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
"Who’s winning the mobile platform wars, Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android? It’s one of the blogosphere’s favorite tech topics. Every new nugget of competitive information is fodder for an avalanche of coverage. Oftentimes, a story will declare that Android is beating iOS or that iOS is beating Android. Really, though, it’s silly to obsess over any one data point. If what you’re after is a clear idea of how the world’s two dominant mobile operating systems are doing — rather than an excuse to make bold proclamations and/or cheer for your favorite — you want to consider lots of data points."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet
Wow. I assumed iOS would be a lot smaller given the amount of noise Android make about how many units they're now shifting per day
- Johnny
from iPhone
I think they're both doing some pretty robust business at this point. I do wonder about the turnover (if there's a difference in how often people purchase a new device,) but have no idea what that would reflect.
- Jennifer Dittrich
"The percentage of Americans who think their income tax is fair has fallen to 55%, the lowest level since 2001 according to a recent Gallup Poll on Income Tax Fairness."
- Morton Fox
from Bookmarklet