I am a pun machine, ready to reload~.

Well, that finally answers the age old question that these folks have been asking for ages: Can you actually tattoo a banana?

Design by Jim Vision and Dr. Zadok.

CES is one of the biggest tech events of the year. It’s when everyone convinces you that you need to buy a terrifying robot Einstein for some reason.

But Nick Offerman aka Ron Swanson and American Greetings — yeah, the greeting card company — trolled all of them.

Promising “a device like none other,” Offerman and America Greetings delivered just that. Offerman took to the stage to present… a regular greeting card that looks like:



via Mashable

Offerman, who was there to present the product had this to say:

"When I started dating my wife — her name is Megan Mullally, she's a very beautiful actress and singer and goddess — she and I loved giving each other cards," he told a crowd at the press event. "It's a very important part of our relationship, and so we've continued that practice.

"Even though there are times when it's more appropriate, of course, to send a text or an email ... when you really want to get a sentiment across, there's nothing like the artifact of the handwritten card." 

D'awwww... now go buy one for you mother or something.

H/T Mashable

Donald Trump’s policies risk making the US dollar a source of global instability Expert comment LToremark 13 November 2024

Although Trump favours a weaker exchange rate, his policies are likely to have the opposite effect. The risk is that the US dollar could become too strong, which is bad news for the global economy.

President-elect Donald Trump has a dollar problem. In recent months he has shown a clear preference for a weaker exchange rate to support the competitiveness of US exports and help reduce the US trade deficit. And yet, as the market has sensed since the US election, the much more likely outcome is that his policies end up strengthening the greenback. The risk is that the US dollar – which is expensive already – becomes more obviously overvalued, and this could increase the risk of global financial instability. 

The dollar has been on a rollercoaster ride in the past few decades. From 2002 until 2011, for example, the dollar weakened by around 30 per cent in inflation-adjusted, trade-weighted terms, according to BIS data. Yet in the years since 2011, the dollar has strengthened and is now at a more appreciated level than at any time since 1985.

What shapes this rollercoaster, broadly speaking, is the global balance of economic vitality: when the US economy gains momentum relative to the rest of the world, the dollar tends to strengthen; and vice versa. 

After China joined the WTO in 2001, the balance of economic vitality shifted decisively away from the US, in favour of China and other emerging economies. This was the decade of the commodity boom: the longest, biggest peacetime increase in commodity prices in nearly 200 years during which a sustained surge in China’s economy supported GDP growth across the developing world. The dollar weakened as a result.

But after 2011, a combination of factors – including the eurozone crisis and its aftermath, together with the sagging of the Chinese economy – tipped the balance of economic vitality back in favour of the US. The dollar strengthened once again.

And since both the European and Chinese economies remain very fragile, the balance of economic vitality seems likely to keep favouring the US dollar.

Two more considerations also point to a stronger US dollar under a second Trump administration.

The first is the exchange rate implications of Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imports. When the US imposes tariffs on a trading partner, the foreign exchange market tends to sell that trading partner’s currency, forcing it to weaken to offset the dollar-price increase induced by the tariff. This helps explain why the Chinese renminbi depreciated by some 10 per cent in 2018 after Trump began imposing trade restrictions on China in January of that year. 

More widespread tariffs on a whole range of US trading partners should therefore strengthen the dollar more broadly.

A stronger dollar should also result from the macroeconomic framework Trump seems likely to deliver. He will certainly want to extend his 2017 tax cuts beyond 2025 when they are currently due to expire, so a more sustained loosening of US fiscal policy seems likely. Since boosting the US economy will create inflationary pressure, the market will expect interest rates to end up higher than they might otherwise be. The resulting combination of looser fiscal and tighter monetary policy tends to be a stronger currency.

The dollar probably has a fair amount of room to keep going up, since it is not obviously overvalued just yet. The US current account deficit – the broadest measure of a country’s trade deficit, and a rough but useful measure of financial vulnerability – was a little over 3 per cent of GDP last year. 

This is around half the level it reached in 2006, just before the 2008 global financial crisis, meaning the risks arising from an overvalued dollar may be for the latter part of Trump’s second presidency.

A strengthening dollar is also not great news for the rest of the world economy. A strong dollar tends to depress global trade growth, restrict developing countries’ access to international capital markets, and make it more difficult for countries whose currencies will be weakening to keep inflation under control.

If and when the dollar becomes unsustainably expensive, a further problem will present itself: how to deal with an overvalued currency without risking a lot of financial dislocation.

This problem last occurred in early 1985, when the dollar was universally reckoned to be dangerously dear. At that time the US was able to call on trading partners who depended on the US security umbrella – the UK, Germany, France and Japan – to negotiate the ‘Plaza Accord’, which coordinated a series of interventions in the foreign exchange market that allowed the dollar to decline in a measured way.  

It is virtually unimaginable that something similar could be negotiated today, not least because Chinese policymakers believe that the post-Plaza strengthening of the yen in the late 1980s led to an economic disaster for Japan. Beijing will not play ball.

Without much scope for a negotiated decline in the dollar, more chaotic alternatives seem likely. 

One is that the market decides suddenly that it no longer has an appetite for expensive dollar-denominated assets, and this might lead to a messy adjustment in the foreign exchange market. 

Summer colours of Bosnia What do you get if you take 10 artists (professional and aspiring) from four different nationalities and put them in Bosnia with a pot of strong coffee, several tins of paint and 40 gypsy kids? You get this year’s Artslink team in Bihac, that’s what!

Overview of Bosnia's past and present and spiritual challenge

Claudia, from Brazil, leads the ministry of OM in Bosnia. She shares her life and God’s love with the local people, bringing more to restoring faith in Christ—one cup of coffee at a time.

OM Bosnia and a local church distribute Bibles in town this Easter season.

An OM worker in Bosnia shares how the enduring faith of two elderly women of God has inspired her to also persevere to the end.

During his years as a heroin addict, Muhamed wrote a song that is now a celebrated worship song in his local church.

Spending the weekend with friends, Mark and Beth quickly learn that their friends’ background does not necessarily mean they follow the practices of that religion.

God supplies the money needed for OM Bosnia’s firewood project quickly this year, enabling them to give 100 households firewood by the middle of November.

Thanks to the interest shown in his tattoos, OMer Rafael shares about Jesus during an impromptu soccer game with a few Roma boys in Bosnia.

Seeing that there were few affordable activities for teens in Dobrinja, Bosnia, the OM team launches The House, a comfortable, safe place for young people.

A Muslim man sees God answer prayers, receives a New Testament and then searches for more.

OM Bosnia distributes Samaritan’s Purse shoebox gifts to close to 2,000 children.

Teens attending TeenStreet Europe in July will raise money for a project to bring reconciliation to the ethnically divided youth of Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A family in need receives free firewood and, for the first time, understands that God is bigger than their needs.

Claudia Costa, from Brazil, discusses her personal journey to leadership in Europe and the unity believers share in the body of Christ.

Jesus speaks to a Roma (gypsy) man in a dream one night, which leads to the man’s salvation.

Bosnian teenagers attend TeenStreet Europe for the second time—learning more about God and His plan for their lives.

A scholarship from OM Bosnia gives a young woman from a needy family the chance to go to school.

OM Bosnia supplies firewood to locals and an invitation to the local church for dinner, which opens their hearts to the truth.

OM worker Jael shares about believers in North West Bosnia growing in faith and learning the joy of giving.

Over the years, God used OM Bosnia’s firewood project tremendously. For the first time since 1999, there will be no wood provision this winter.

Providing disadvantaged children with backpacks brings the gospel into homes in remote Muslim villages of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In the Olympic city of Sarajevo, OM connects with the local people through spaghetti nights, sports, 'smoke breaks' and coffee.

Here Mudassar Khan has explained with an example, how to get MIME type or Content Type of a File in ASP.Net using C# and VB.Net.

Here Mudassar Khan has explained with an example, how to get MIME type (Content Type) of a File in ASP.Net MVC.

Opponents of the bill claimed it would have targeted pro-Palestinian organizations that facilitate aid to Gaza.

The Jerusalem Post Podcast with Tamar Uriel-Beeri and Zvika Klein.

On 12 November 2014, after a 10-year journey, the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission's lander Philae made space exploration history.

The study reveals that older participants exhibited lower signs of stress and anxiety than younger ones.