Friday 1 May 2015

College Savings Plummets

Fate had an indiscriminate and random way to liberating money from your wallet. A car break-down that cost 20% of your disposable income or a roof leak of similar extent will put you on a tight budget for the month and depreciate your savings. Bad luck or unexpected expenses is usually quoted for failure to save. Sharing the blame would be the escalating cost of living. These common reasons the man on the streets frequently hears but backing them up with research will give it better credibility.

Last year an average of $13,408 was set aside for college by parents but it was reduced to $10,040 this year. Savings for all purposes, including retirement and emergencies, also plunged to $98,867 from $115,604 last year. Sallie Mae, a corporation that offers financial products to help families save and plan for college, engaged market research company Ipsos to conduct a research to account for a 25% drop in saving for college.

Graduation Day

Ipsos interviewed 1,988 parents of children under 18 for the survey between Jan. 14 and Jan. 28. "The biggest reason for the decrease in savings are the increase in the cost of living and having unexpected expenses come up," said Michael Gross, head of the higher education practice at Ipsos. About half the parents are saving for college. For families with incomes between $35,000 and $100,000 the rate fell to 46 percent this year from 51 percent last year.

The outlook on investing in higher education for children is still good. 90% parents believe that college is an investment in their children's future. 84% believe their children will earn more with higher education. 78% think that a college degree is more important now than in the past. General savings accounts remain as the most widely used vehicle to save for college funds. It was used by 48% of the savers. 23% used checking accounts and 27% used 529 plan.

The 529 plan is tax-advantaged instrument for saving for the future higher education expenses of a designated beneficiary. It was named after the act (Internal Revenue Code 26 U.S.C. § 529) that legislated it. The 539 plan is popular high-income savers. 49% used it. It only manage to draw 20% of middle-income and 17% low-income savers. 40% of those who do not save for higher education were unaware of the existence of 529 plans.

Parents who don't save overestimate the amount of financial aid their children will receive. Scholarships and grants typically cover about one-third of the total average cost of college, according to a corollary Sallie Mae study. About two-thirds of those who don't save believed their child would get scholarship help to cover college costs.

Martha Holler, a Sallie Mae representative said the act of creating a plan for college savings seems to boost the odds of success. The 2015 Saving for College survey found families with a plan saved 46 percent more than families without a plan. Parents began to save when their oldest child was 6.5 years old. This the time where the initial expenses of infancy and the toddler years are over, Reuters reported on 29 April 2015.

Anything Under the Sun: America's 9 Best Entry-level Jobs

REBLOG=>SavySeph

Job hunters need to be mindful that there is always compromise between job security, career development or high pay in the job process. High paying jobs are usually at high risk for being automated or offers little growth potential over the next few years. Based on a study from WalletHub, the top 9 entry-level jobs scores well in all the three categories mentioned. CBS News had compiled their findings on 28 April 2015 to guide college students and high school seniors to consider which field to major in.




Job Starting Pay Median Pay Qualification Growth
9. Financial analyst $51,848 $76,950 bachelor's degree in business, finance or related -
8. Information security analyst $55,310 $86,170 - 37%
7. Web designer $53,041 $62,500 know programming and graphic design 20%
6. Software engineers $62,522 $90,374 bachelor's degree in computer science -
5. Environmental engineer $57,266 $86,340 bachelor's degree in environmental engineering or related 15%
4 Attorney $83,907 $133,470 law degree and pass a state's written bar exam 10%
3 Network Engineer $61,744 $91,982 degrees in computer science or related 12%
2. Web applications designer $54,586 $59,000 know developer languages such as PHP and HTML 12%
1. Training specialist $47,621 $55,930 college degree and strong communication skills 15%

The starting annual salary and the median pay for all workers in the field are based on the latest information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The salary for software engineers were based on information on the employment site Glassdoor.com. Figures for network engineer and web applications designer were derived from the employment site Payscale.com. The job growth rate is projected from 2012 to 2022 by the BLS. A growth of 10 percent or higher is deemed as normal. A growth rate of 15 percent and above is consider rapid growth.


Job Hunting

The information security analyst had the greatest potential growth of 37 percent. Their job entails a simple maintenance routine but once the system gets hacked, they will have to work round the clock to restore the system, pronto. I believe being a hacker is the best qualification for this job but there is no such thing as a certified hacker at the present moment. This may be the reason WalletHub did not list down the qualification for this job. The reason growth is not projected for financial analyst is unclear.


Growth rate for software engineers were not projected as this profession is a bit unusual. While the jobs in this field are plentiful, careers in the field may be short-lived. According to Bloomberg News, most software developers have left the profession by the time they're 40. The industry tend to favor younger engineers because of the impression that they will be more up-to-date with the latest trends.


Although the training specialist had a low income, it top because of job openings and growth potential. About one-quarter of Web designers were self-employed in 2012 but it is forecasted that employment in this field will grow by 20 percent. I believe the forecaster is expecting these self-employed individuals would grow and had the need for expansion.



My Comments

It takes a thief to catch a thief. Information security analyst don’t stand much of a chance against hackers. They are confine to damage control when attacked. Hackers are a secluded and quarantined group. They don’t share their skill freely. So the best person to catch a hacker is the hacker themselves. They would be the best people to outline the skills need to do this job. Since they keep their trade to themselves, this skillset will not be known.

Saturday 25 April 2015

Anything Under the Sun: Google’s Mobile Friendly Test

REBLOG=>SavySeph

My Casino Gambling Tip is now a mobile friendly website. My next task would be to get XingCai Gambling Tales to be mobile friendly too. I had outlined the step involved to get it mobile friendly in my previous blog and will use the same procedure. The wave of mobile suffers had got Google to cater to them or lose page ranking. This would be a concern for webmasters until they fix the problem.


Google Mobile Friendly Certification

While Google had written to webmasters with some links to make a mobile friendly website, they provided no link to test the mobile-friendliness of the site. Using W3C tidy up could provide some additional help on the meta tags. After much surfing, I found certification from Google themselves. Visit this link and type in your website’s URL.



My Comments

W3C is a good help but most of the big guys like CNN don’t follow it.I wonder it it will help in google page ranking.

Wednesday 22 April 2015

Carpe Diem: Seize the Day: Willie Nelson's Pot

REBLOG=>Phil Andows

Willie Nelson, renowned for singing about the merits of smoking pot in country and western music, is making his own brand of marijuana. The product features "high quality strains of marijuana," and will be on the shelves as "Willie's Reserve". It will be grown and sold in Colorado and Washington where it is legal to get stoned without a doctor's note, CNN Money reported on 20 April 2015. The motivated singer said, "I am looking forward to working with the best growers in Colorado and Washington to make sure our product is the best on the market". He founded the company out of a desire to get involved in the growing market for legal pot, Elaine Schock spokeswoman for "Willie's Reserve" told CNN Money.


Willie's Reserve picture from CNN

Nelson,81, had gone a long way for pot. He has been an outspoken supporter of marijuana legalization and an advocate for industrial hemp production. Nelson will focus on the quality of the products, encouraging responsible use and pushing for legalization. "He will serve as more than a figurehead. His values and vision set the bar for everything the company does," Schock said. A new song, "It's All Going to Pot" which Nelson duets with Merle Haggard was on April 20 to coincide with his announcement. It will make 4/20 (April 20) an unofficially declared National Weed Day. In time to come the song may be the anthem for the National Weed Day but Nelson is not the first musician to lend his name to a marijuana brand. Last year, the estate of Jamaican reggae icon Bob Marley struck a deal with a private equity firm to market and sell marijuana and other products under the name "Marley Natural."



My Comments

"It's All Going to Pot" may not be the Weeds Day’s anthem as there will be too many contenders.

Wednesday 15 April 2015

Anything Under the Sun: Think Small to Design Websites for Mobile

REBLOG=>SavySeph

Deciding on picture size is my next task in getting my website to be mobile friendly. In my previous blog on this topic, I figured that reducing the size of navigation menu is a good place to start to design a website to fit mobile device. I used single word for title and double word for subtitle. This seems to work out some of the problem. I figure the next step would be to have a universal width for all pictures. Ideally the picture could be stretch or shrunk to fit across the multiple platforms without losing too much picture quality.


Given the size of webpages, stretching and shrinking a picture is not the real problem. Pictures who are magnify twice or reduce by half are never too shabby when it comes to quality. This should be enough do the trick to fit an image into a website. The bigger concern is manipulated images sometimes take a longer time to load. The 4G phones are great for speed but as the best for the current technology they are a minority user. Most people would have the lower 3G speed on their phones. The loyalist to old phone will still surf with 2G and there are still a number of these mobile surfers out there. These people will favor sites who were sufficiently fast for their devices.


I went window shopping for mobile phones using google and decided that I have 3 categories to please. Based on their minimum screen width, I simply name them mini (80 pixels), midi (321 pixels) and maxi (481). After throwing some math around, I decided that all images on my website will be 240 pixels wide. Shrinking 240 to 80 (the lower end of the mini) is one-third reduction. This will likely cause some problem in loading speed. For the higher end of the mini (320 pixels), the image is stretch less than 50% which is acceptable. For the 481 pixels width, there is no stretching of image. The image with text displayed by the side will be at least half of the screen.


Terminologies in Casino Gambling Tips

I now had all my pictures resize to 240 pixels width. Going through the pictures one by one had been a tedious exercise. Some of my image were name by their sizes. A cat image, for example, had been named cat330x250. The 330 represent the width and 250 is for the height. I still maintain the old name of the image. It would sound silly but once something is publish it is not advisable to make changes. Keeping the old name will ensure that people who link my pictures will not get a blank image. I actually have three manga pages outstanding. These three cartoons are at least 600 pixels wide. The task will be to break them down to smaller pictures who are 240 pixels wide. The main picture that will adopt the old name while new pictures will carry the old name with a sequential numbering suffix.


Going through image by image can also make you see things from a different angle. I redraw two images. I hope the people who had link the old pictures prefer the new pictures. I had also came up with 5 new pictures. These are for the pages which previously did not have a picture. The remaining task, unless new development crops up, I will drop the navigation menu for the mini users.


My Comments

This is information that is helpful for me. Thanks for doing the shopping and sharing it.

Monday 13 April 2015

Unusual Cargo Force Flight to Land

The pilot of Alaska Airline flight 448 requested an emergency for priority landing when heard screaming and banging from the cargo compartment. The flight took off at 3:15 p.m. Pacific Time in Seattle. After 14 minutes in flight the aircraft had to turn back and land in Seattle-Tacoma International.

Alaska Airline in Flight

After the plane landed a ramp agent, an employee of Menzies Aviation, was found inside the front cargo hold. According to Alaska Airlines the cargo hold is pressurized and temperature-controlled. The employee told authorities he had fallen asleep. The worker appeared OK but was taken to a hospital as a precaution the CBC News reported 13 April 2015.

This is going to cost the Airline dearly and it would certainly be investigated. It is hard to imagine that one can fall asleep without fellow workers realizing it. Did the employee actually sneaked into the cargo hold intentionally? Once he realized the compartment was pressurized and temperature-controlled he panicked and start banging away. Upon being rescued, he conveniently use sleeping-on-the-job as an excuse.

Monday 6 April 2015

POW Vivisection Display at New Kyushu Museum

A newly opened Japanese museum exposed evidence of war crime during the World War II. The museum is situated on the campus of Kyushu University in Japan. The museum, opened on April 4, features the history of medical science of the university in the past 110 years. A total of 63 items on display. The notable exhibits at the museum showed the evidence of eight US pilots vivisected by professors of the university in 1945.

The victims were eight airmen of the U.S. B-29 bomber. The aircraft was downed near the border between Kumamoto and Oita prefectures. According to the exhibit, several professors injected diluted sea water into the pilots and dissected their lungs and other organs to observe how long the victims would live after the operation, the Japan Times reported on 4 April 2015.

All eight pilots eventually died. One professor committed suicide when the war ended. The other 14 faculty members were either sentenced to life-in-prison or handed the death penalty for committing war crimes. The school treated the topic as a taboo and avoided mentioning it in public over the years. At a meeting of professors at the School of Medicine in March, the university agreed to face up to the campus' 'dark history.'

Thursday 2 April 2015

Anything Under the Sun: My Mobile-friendly Website

REBLOG>Anything Under the Sun: My Mobile-friendly Website

ss's Original Blog

Google wrote me a warning letter about 2 weeks ago asking me to make my website more mobile friendly. Google said the increase demand in mobile phone browsing had been tremendous. Well, it is not a warning for doing something that pissed google off. It was actually a concerned notification. Google anticipated that the wave of mobile surfers will get stronger with the passage of time and webmasters were advised to cater to their needs. If I were to take it as a friendly notice I don’t need to do anything. I choose to take it as a stern warning so that I will have to adapt before I get left out.


Heck! I don't have the slightest clue where to start. I hope I could just wave a magic wand with some code and bingo! Fortunately, google is a good place to start looking for those hocus pocus code. Knowing the right keyword to punch into google would help. Next comes the endless list of reading materials on the technology to make your website flexible to multiple devices. Climbing the steep learning curve was no fun. It’s just nothing but reading without having enough knowledge to start doing something.


I concluded that it was about starting small. Fit the small screen then the bigger ones and eventually the desktop. This calls for a re-engineering as my website was catered for desktop size. I have started with reducing the size of my menu. I used single word titles for the menu items to shorten it for mobile size. Sub menu items could use double or triple word titles. Whoopee, I managed nail down some of the problem. For screen smaller than 320 pixels wide, I may have to do away with the menu. I will get around to this but the next step would be resizing all my images. I am going to do a lot of experimenting to find a good size that could be stretch or shrunk to fit across the platform without losing too much picture quality.


My Mobile Size Home Page


My Comments

Surfing is leisure for me. Tablets are good. The size is not too shabby and it can be done in lazy positions like lying down on a sofa.

Wednesday 1 April 2015

Pest in Midst: Mercury was Painted Black

REBLOG>Pest in Midst: Mercury was Painted Black

XingCai Tang's Original Blog

The planet Mercury reflects much less light compared to our own moon, which is about the same size. This had scientist bewildered for a long time. Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Brown University and the Planetary Sciences Institute say they may have found the solution. Megan Bruck Syal, a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Livermore, said that it was "effectively painted black".


 Planet Mercury

Mercury is the planet that is closest to the sun. Compared to the moon, there is are much more carbon dust flung off from comets close to the sun. The researchers say Mercury is surrounded by 50 times the amount of carbon dust than our moon. For ages scientist believes that microscopic meteorites spawned from carbon-rich comets may have contributed enough dark-hued carbon to reduce the amount of reflected light.


Tests using a big NASA gun made to simulate planetary impacts on a small-scale seem to show the theory is plausible, the authors say. "We show that carbon acts like a stealth darkening agent," said Peter Schultz, a professor emeritus of geological sciences at Brown University. "From the standpoint of spectral analysis, it's like an invisible paint," the CNN reported on 31 March 2015.



My Comments

The microscopic meteorites spawned from carbon-rich comets are like blots of black ink waiting to drop on Mercury.

Anything Under the Sun: Gambling Requires Skills

REBLOG>Anything Under the Sun: Gambling Requires Skills

SavySeph's Original Blog

I tried to convince my readers that gambling requires skill. There are tons of researches that would conclude otherwise. In a recent (2012) study Professor Gerhard Meyer, of the University of Bremen's Institute of Psychology and Cognition Research, suggested that poker was chiefly a game of chance. There were 300 participants in Prof Meyer's research. They played 60 hands poker each, on tables of six. The players were classified as 'expert' and 'average' players based on their ability to make money from good, bad and average hands. The research found that 'expert' players lost less money on bad hands, but did no better than 'average' players on mediocre hands - and made slightly less on good ones. Prof Meyer concluded that 'poker players overestimate the skill factor in their play'.


A research studied 456 million hands of poker from a year's worth of online game. In just a few hands the better-performing players fared better half the time. Their success rate gradually increased until they played 1,471 hands. Given that frequency, they could do better at least 75 per cent of the time. Dr Dennie van Dolder, of the University of Nottingham's School of Economics, said the study showed 'skilled players will consistently outperform less skilled players if enough hands...are played.'




Researchers from the University of Nottingham, working with colleagues from Erasmus University Rotterdam and VU University Amsterdam, also noted that players who finished in the top one per cent in the first half of the year were 12 times more likely than others to repeat the feat in the second half. Writer and TV presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell, one of Britain's top professional players, has won more than £1.5m - including £400,000 at a single event. Dr van Dolder said, "It's up to legislators to decide whether the role of chance diminishes fast enough for poker to be considered a game of skill," the Daily Mail reported on 25 March 2015.



My Comments

There should be no doubt that a poker face is not an easy skill to master. It is amazing that people would had thought poker was a game of chance.

Sunday 29 March 2015

Carpe Diem: Seize the Day: Redheads Lack Sunlight

REBLOG>Carpe Diem: Seize the Day: Redheads Lack Sunlight:

Phil Andows' Original Blog

If sun tanning darkens skin tone, then insufficient sun should result in fairer skin and red hair. This was discovered by scientist after having studied the gene evolution of 1,000 people from Spain. "The 'ginger gene,' or 'V6OL allele,' showed up 50,000 years ago after humans left Africa for colder climates. This gene made human’s skin lighter, as they were exposed to less vitamin D from the sun" [Irish Central, 26 March 2015].


Irish Central referred to another study by the BritishDNA found on the Mail Online two years ago. The BritishDNA study was based on data from 2,343 people who have undergone DNA tests to learn more about their ancestry. They created the first-ever map detailing the distribution of red-headed genes. They looked at three different variants of the MC1R gene which causes red hair; those with 151-Cysteine-red have a 70,000 year old variant that probably arose in West Asia, those with 160-Tryptophan-red are descendants of someone who probably also lived in West Asia 70,000 years ago, and 294-Histidine-reds belong to a much younger group who come from a European who lived about 30,000 years ago. The BritishDNA concluded that for a child to develop red hair, both parents must be carriers of one of these red-hair gene variants. But even then there is only a 25 per cent their child will be born ginger.


Map on redheaded genes concentration by BritainsDNA

Irish central also points to ScotlandsDNA Project in 2012 that found the Celts flaming red hair was caused by the weather. The experts believe that the gloomy climate in Scotland has seen a deliberate genetic adaptation. The red hair helps to take advantage of sunny days and allows the body to absorb more vitamin D. Unfortunate, redheads suffer more discrimination per head of population than ethnic minorities. The Centre for Equality Policy Research said that, "A job applicant with ginger hair is seven times more likely to be rejected than a dark-haired applicant, and eight times more likely than a fair-haired applicant."



My Comments

Being with redheads is fun but it is no fun being a redhead. I guess associated with being wild is also the reason for the job discrimination they faced. NOT FAIR!

Tuesday 24 March 2015

The Ancient Tentacle Erotica

Tentacle erotica is a type of pornography that integrates traditional pornography with some elements of bestiality. They come under hentai titles with tentacle creatures having sexual intercourse with female characters. Fantasy, horror, or science-fiction themes were used to provide the storyline. Creatures with tentacles in erotic setting existed before animated pornography. The famous woodblock print by Hokusai Katsushika appeared in 1920. It was entitled “the Dream of the Fisherman's Wife”.

Shunga or erotic art were seen as sexual guidance for young couple during Hokusai’s times. It was the Japanese Karma Sutra enjoyed by men and women of all classes and superstitions and customs supports this claim. Samurai used shunga as an amulet against death. Merchant treat them as talisman to protect their warehouse from fire. [Source Wikipedia]. Shunga is literally translated as spring art. For Japanese spring refer to the blossom period and it was traditional to present a bride with ukiyo-e depicting erotic scenes from the Tale of Genji.

picture from wikipedia

The picture was rated third sexiest works of art ever by the Guardian. Pablo Picasso was took second place in the Guardian's rating. Ironically Picasso was greatly influence by Hokusai. Picasso painted his own version in 1903 that has been shown next to Hokusai's original in exhibits on the influence of 19th-century Japanese art on Picasso's work [Source Wikipedia].

Western critics such as Edmond de Goncourt and Jack Hillier interpreted the work as a rape scene. Based on the text above the image, the woman and the creatures express their mutual sexual pleasure from the encounter. Scholar Danielle Talerico is in the opinion that de Goncourt and Hillier would have seen it apart from the Kinoe no Komatsu collection and without understanding the text and visual references, depriving it of its original context.

Monday 9 March 2015

Seeking Enlightenment: The Silk Road

REBLOG> Seeking Enlightenment: The Silk Road:
Sophia Logica's Original Blog

The Silk Road's Recent Development

China's proposals to build a modern-day trading route on the skeleton of the ancient traders' trail, known as the silk road, have been welcomed by its neighbor. The China Daily reported on 9 March 2015 that the project had led to misunderstanding and criticism. Oppositions fear this ambitious and long term project would be derailed. The Polish were supportive of the project and pledge to be part of the project. First secretary of the Polish embassy in Beijing, Wojciech Jakobiec, said "for us, the Silk Road Economic Belt is an especially important project, and we would like to participate in it."

Europeans Understanding of the Silk Road

Based on UNESCO's understanding, silk road was a recent term. They traced it to German geologist, Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen. He called the trade and communication network Die Seidenstrasse (the Silk Road). The silk road is sometimes used in the plural term because the network extend to a web of sea and land routes.

Map of The Silk Road

Baron Coining Silk Road Don't Jive

With due respect to the UNESCO, I do not think that the silk road is a recent term. The Baron lived from 5 May 1833 – 6 October 1905. UNESCO had established that silk was a monopoly of China and found its way to Rome "at some point during the first century". Such and important route could not have been named in 1877 [see Wikipedia] by the baron. I believe it had some reference to it since if was even in existence until the 17th century.

China Reference to the Silk Road

The Chinese had referred to the silk road as "silu" form as far as the recording of their chronicles existed. That goes back to the time that the prominent Chinese diplomat Zhang Qian of the Han Dynasty (206BC—220AD). The UNESCO article also concur with this date. Since this is not about conquest there was not much to hide. The Chinese account had not been inconsistent with the accounts of those they had traded with.

The Meaning of Silu

Out of curiosity, I looked up the translation for "silu". Actually I was not surprised it meant silk road. Si is the word for silk while lu is the Chinese word for road. It is whimsical to think that such a simple name is coined up in 1877 when people who traveled the road to buy or sell silk for ages would refer to it as silk road for simplicity.


My Comments

The Crusade Wars had put strong antagonism between Europe and Arabic nations. The Arabs block the Europeans from spice and silk since European travelers had to pass to Arabic land to get to Asia. In the late 15th century, Vasco da Gama, had to go around this hostile land to get access to exotic Asia. This resulted in navigating round the Cape of Good Hope and the establishment of a new sea route. Once this old road is reestablished, the existing routes which are less efficient will be phased out.