U.S. Financial System “Monitor” Failed to Flash Warning as Fed Pumped $6 Trillion Emergency Liquidity into Wall Street

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 8, 2020 ~  The Office of Financial Research (OFR) was created under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010 to keep the Financial Stability Oversight Council (F-SOC) informed on emerging threats that have the potential to implode the financial system — as occurred in 2008 in the worst financial crash since the Great Depression. The Trump administration has gutted both its funding and staff. One of the early warning systems of an impending financial crisis that OFR was supposed to have created is the heat map above. Green means low risk; yellow tones mean moderate risk; while red tones flash a warning of a serious problem. On September 17, 2019, liquidity was so strained on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve had to step in and began providing hundreds of billions of dollars per week in repo loans. By January 27, 2020 (before … Continue reading →

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Shaenon: Indoors? Reading? Need piles of comics? For the length of all shelter-in-place advisories, all Narbonic and Skin Horse books you order from the Couscous Store will arrive signed and sketched by me. Stay safe, stay sane, read fun stuff.[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Shaenon: Claire writes, “I redraw bits of the strip almost every evening; it started as a way to get nice avatar images, but has ended up being a longer term project.” That is…amazing, and thank you very much for this[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry...

The Swiss hockey federation says it won't seek to host the 2021 men's world championship after losing this year's event because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju said the first priority for this would be given to those who have qualified for the Olympics.

Don't expect a pack of running fanatics swarming to the finish line at road races this year. But that doesn't mean that participants don't have options.

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NSFW for gore

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Kvůli koronavirové pandemii lze očekávat silnou recesi. Česká národní banka proto v březnu dvakrát snížila základní úrokovou sazbu z 2,25 procenta na jedno procento. Některé banky na to už zareagovaly razantním snižováním úrokových sazeb na spořicích účtech, což zamíchalo žebříčkem nejlepších spořicích účtů. Ve spolupráci s Finparádou jsme zmapovali aktuální trend a sestavili nový žebříček.

Zájem o nákup rekreačních nemovitostí je letos výrazně vyšší než v posledních letech. Objektů, které se dostávají do prodeje, je naopak tento rok méně. Viníkem je v obou případech epidemie koronaviru a s ní spojená nejistota kolem letních dovolených. To se podepisuje na cenách, často se dostanou výš, než byly inzerované.

Děti se v online světě pohybují naprosto přirozeně a svými technickými znalostmi často předčí své rodiče. Na druhou stranu jsou právě ony nejohroženější skupinou čelící útokům internetových predátorů a kyberšikaně. Rodiče často o hrozbách ani netuší. Vyzkoušejte si náš kvíz a zjistěte, jak jste na tom s digitálními znalostmi právě vy.

Mohlo by se zdát, že pojišťovny budou v koronavirové době zaznamenávat zvýšený zájem o sjednání životních pojistek. Zejména kvůli krytí rizika pracovní neschopnosti, což se vztahuje i na onemocnění infekcí covid-19. Praxe je ale zatím opačná.

Česká rodinná firma SSI Group vznikla v době, kdy jsme ještě neznali mobilní telefony a podnikatelské prostředí 90. let bylo poměrně divoké. Přesto se ji Václavu Vodrážkovi společně se synem Janem a dalšími členy rodiny dařilo každý rok posouvat o něco dál. Letos tak na trhu významná bezpečnostní agentura oslaví 30 let svého působení na trhu.

New Murderbot novel today! It made me laugh on the first page and squeak aloud in delight in a number of places. I read it over the afternoon in and around doing a worse job than usual of supporting schooling.

In less happy news, Delfont Mackintosh theatres confirmed today that Hamilton performances in London are now cancelled through to the end of June, so this year I will not be continuing my self-indulgent tradition[1] of seeing it for my birthday. At some point I'll get contacted and offered a refund or an exchange for a future performance and obviously I'm going to go for the latter. Oh, I hope actors and theatre staff come through this okay.

[1] As I learned at DWCons, anything done more than once is a tradition ...

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Zucchini season is best in mid summer, because it's a warm weather plant. Even so, zucchini can be found at most groceries through most of the year. Look for firm and glossy fruit with no marks or soft spots.


Simply wash the zucchini and then slice thinly. A mandolin would be the best choice of tool, but I did just fine with a chef's knife. If you want your zucchini chips to have lighter edges, then peel then first then slice.



Put the sliced zucchini in a lidded container and add the marinade. Shake well to coat.




Spread out in a single layer on lined dehydrator sheets. Dehydrate at around 145 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour, then reduce the temperature to 120 and dehydrate for another 12 hours or so. Overnight is a good way to time it. They're done when all the moisture has been removed. They should be pretty crispy and only a little chewy. The full recipe is below.




ingredients

• 8 cups thinly sliced zucchini rounds ($5.00)
• 1/2 cup agave ($1.00)
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar ($.40)
• 1/4 olive oil ($.40)
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano ($.05)
• 2 tablespoons dried basil ($.05)
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley ($.05)
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder ($.05)
• 1 tablespoon onion powder ($.05)
• 1 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes ($.05) 

directions

• Slice the zucchini, pat dry if needed, and place in a large, lidded container. 
• In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients.
• Pour over the sliced zucchini, cover, and shake (or just stir) until zucchini is evenly coated. 
• Spread the zucchini on lined dehydrator sheets and dry at 145 degrees for about an hour and then at 120 for about another 12 hours or overnight (dehydrating time can vary), until crispy. 
• Store leftovers in an airtight container and pop into dehydrator for a few minutes to crisp them up again if necessary. 

Nobody had any recs for Nigeria, so we poked around a bunch of internet best of lists and came up with Lionheart, (2018, dir Genevieve Nnaji), which turned out to be a great choice.

Lionheart is about a young business woman, Adaeze, who has to overcome sexism and save her father's struggling transport business. The director, Nnaji, also plays the title role and does a brilliant job. What I particularly loved about this film was that it undermined my genre expectations of feel-good feminist films. Adaeze doesn't have to outsmart and triumph over the sexist men, she has to learn to collaborate with people different from herself. And the company doesn't win by beating its rivals but by conducting a merger that at the start seemed unthinkable, requiring cooperation between her Igbo, Christian family and some Hausa (I think?) Muslims.

In particular, the eccentric uncle who is inexplicably appointed as acting MD when everybody knows it should have been Adaeze turns out to have some key strengths. He is in fact only annoying, and not a jerk. His people skills and intuition perfectly complement Adaeze's business acumen. (And how nice to have a female lead be the excessively competent and rational one!)

Adaeze does experience some sexism, particularly creepy men who expect sexual favours in return for investment in the business. But most of the antagonists are just nasty in a gender neutral way, like they want to sell the business to a conniving rival for quick money.

Anyway that was a really sweet date-night movie and I do feel our film project is back on track

Any recs for Bangladeshi films? We are most excited about 21^st century films not primarily about violence or depressing real-world history.

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It's a new month, and that usually means I'm supposed to write a monthly update on the progress with Kandria. Thinking about that though made me feel very depressed because I realised that I hadn't really done anything at all for the game, all of April.

I can blame however much I want of that on the quarantine and university stress, or whatever else, but it won't change the fact that there has not been much progress on any front. While I have been slacking a lot, it's not like I haven't been working at all - plenty of time has gone into Courier, after all.

When I had this realisation yesterday, I tried my best to push myself to work on the game any way I could, but I failed to find anything that I could actually convince myself to do. That isn't to say that there aren't things to do; god forbid there's a tonne of things! Tuning combat, drawing animations, writing the UI, fixing dialogue, starting on enemy AI, optimising performance - just to name a few. And yet, despite the breadth and depth of things to do, there was absolutely nothing that looked appealing to me.

This kind of feeling is nothing new to me. It's a creative block, and happens more often that I'd like to admit. It's also why I often don't like to start long running projects, because I'm afraid of a creative block that would ruin it. The worst part about the creative block is that there's no remedy for it. You just get stuck in a rut, and it sucks a whole lot for a completely unpredictable amount of time. Often what I end up doing, whether consciously so or not, is switching to another project and just working on that.

So far that project has been Courier, but that's at its end and I'm also starting to feel burnt out on it, too. I don't have any other projects queued up that I'd like to tackle, or new ideas on what to do at the moment, so I'm just... stuck.

I suppose the right thing to do in this situation is to take it easy and not fret too much over it, since that's often one of the many factors causing the block. I've never been good at actually doing that, though. Maybe I should try to take a break from programming in general? I don't know.

You may be wondering why I'm writing this all to begin with. Well, partly I feel like I promised to do monthly and weekly updates, and I really hate to break that promise without notice. Another part is that I just feel like I owe you the discretion to tell you what's going on with me. I'm very thankful for the email replies and general responses I've gotten for Kandria so far, I really am! Because of that genuine interest, I feel all the more pressured not to disappoint. Since I have nothing to show though, I thought the only proper course of action is to just be open and direct about it. So I'll just say it again: aside from updating the public demo, no progress has been made at all.

Maybe it would help me to have a more open discussion about this topic in general, instead of just it being me telling you that I'm in a bad place. So please, let me know: have you been in similar situations before? What helped you deal with them? Is there something in Kandria I could try to focus on that you, personally, would like to see?

You can reach me at shinmera@tymoon.eu.

I have to say, I think Anand is learning more at home being unschooled than he was in school, and is much happier. Which isn’t to say that he isn’t missing some things that could use more disciplined teaching, and I’m hoping Kevin and I will have more time to do that this summer after the semester’s … Continue reading "Learning From Home"

Slow morning, it feels like. I did get up reasonably early, but ended up spending an hour sorting through exercise clothes, trying to figure out what fits well, what’s worn out, etc. Since I’m constantly going in and out of my house gardening these days, I want clothes that I’m comfortable being seen in, which … Continue reading "Slow Morning"

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