position:advisors

How can a name undermine your product ?
▻https://hackernoon.com/naming-cost-ea19abbc2648?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3---4

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*fbDD6xkK2hQs3Om7SB-MvA.jpeg

Getting attached to the name of something you’ve been working on is understandable. But that attachment can cloud your judgment.We’re building a #startup that offers weight loss coaching focused on small changes. Since our customers team up with a coach, we initially called our product Tandem. The name worked, we acquired a reasonable domain (jointandem.com), and we were happy with it. But before we launched, we realized that there may be trademark issues (e.g. Tandem Diabetes is a $2B publicly traded company), so we resolved to rename the product.It sucked. We knew what we wanted from a name — easy to say, easy to spell, an ok domain name — but every idea we came up with seemed weak. We asked our friends and advisors for their thoughts on some of the alternative names we came up with, and the (...)

#naming #marketing #startup-name #validation

The Authenticity of #ico Ratings
▻https://hackernoon.com/the-authenticity-of-ico-ratings-35b9db28e39e?source=rss----3a8144eabfe3-

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*nMHaDXxsg_zTyydsPRUOZw.jpeg

The ICO-market is growing rapidly. So, too, is the number of resources that provide information about it. Many of these crypto-media offer users the option of tracking ICO ratings. In addition, they post ratings, not only for the ICO projects, but also for #blockchain conferences, advisors in the field, listings, and other media resources.So just who it is that compiles all these ratings?Perhaps more importantly, should we believe them?Let’s contemplate the question.Can you trust ratings?Various ICO rating platforms offer investors a review of the ICO before investing in its resources. Some have established a solid reputation along with a certain ‘prestige.’ Therefore crypto-investors are prone to believe them unconditionally. They then proceed to make choices based not only on ratings but (...)

#ico-ratings-real #icorating #ico-ratings-authenticity

#blockchain Architecture Analysis: Private vs Public vs Consortium
▻https://hackernoon.com/blockchain-architecture-analysis-private-vs-public-vs-consortium-65eb061

There are tons of questions about the merits of a private vs public blockchain, as well as confusion of what a consortium blockchain is. For those looking to start their own blockchain project, understanding the benefits, the cons, and the strategic value of each and how it’ll fit into your overall plan is imperative.If you’re looking to get started on blockchain, check out my previous post.With blockchain so new, having strategy in place and fully understanding the structure and feasibility of different solutions will make or break your project. Companies and entrepreneurs are already recognizing why getting in early is so advantageous, you get to create the industry standards, meaning you have to get it right. You want the best possible team, advisors, consultants, those who understand (...)

#pubic-blockchain #blockchain-architecture #consortium-blockchain #private-blockchain

Top 10 Questions Your #ico Community Will Ask
▻https://hackernoon.com/top-10-questions-your-ico-community-will-ask-3a8ffe7f978e?source=rss----

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/725/1*a6NTgMzoJL1WKz9TQpVE8w.jpeg

and you should be prepared to answer.Community Needs Answers To Invest With ConfidenceThe ICO community or let’s say the whole #blockchain space has grown smarter these days. Had it been the year 2016 or time before it you could have secured millions by coming up with a great idea and writing an attractive as well as easy to understand white paper for same.In 2017 aside from the idea and the whitepaper, success greatly depended on the number and names of industry veterans you could get onboard as advisors or team members (face value capitalisation I call it).However, this is the year 2018. A time when the community has turned smarter, developed better understanding of blockchain and are ready with questions which you need to answer if you want to have your project to have a shot at raising (...)

#ico-faq #community-engagement #ico-community-questions

Bill Shihara, the founder and CEO of Bittrex, has joined Unikrn’s BOA
▻https://hackernoon.com/bill-shihara-the-founder-and-ceo-of-bittrex-has-joined-unikrns-boa-64c01

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/600/1*VKGYQ54aQm_HUl4qKBXYAw@2x.jpeg

I’m extremely pleased to announce that. Bill Shihara, the co-founder and CEO of Bittrex, is joining Unikrn’s board of advisors. Bittrex is one of world’s largest and best exchanges, and another startup from Seattle. Having his insight along with our existing managers and advisors is a game-changer for our future, but it should come as no surprise that Bill is interested in joining our movement.Well before launching UnikoinGold, Unikrn was laying foundations to allow us to be a global leader in the future of esports and blockchain. We had already created use cases, product, customers and blueprints for future development.As I’ve said many times, for Unikrn to realize its potential requires an immense amount of forward work. Both Blockchain and esports are cutting-edge fields that regularly (...)

#blockchain-technology #entrepreneurship #esport #ethereum #bitcoin

Top #growth Hacking #agency (s) in the USA and Worldwide — 2018
▻https://hackernoon.com/top-10-growth-hacking-agency-in-the-usa-and-worldwide-bdaa6fc7b30f?sourc

The biggest reason of choosing a growth hacking agency over a digital #marketing agency is that you get talent from digital marketing, product development, core technology, user experience designers, user interface designer and project managers.If you are tired of working with typical digital marketing companies, then here is the list of growth hacking agencies that will help you find your way to business success.The list below is compiled based on the following factors:Core TeamExperienceClientsCostServicesCase StudiesHere is the list of top 10 Growth Hacking Agencies:VoxturrVoxturr comprises growth team and advisors that have more than 100 years of combined experience in growth strategy building, digital marketing, digital product development, user experience designing and core (...)

#growth-hacking #digital-marketing

I am a College Student and I Built My Own Robo Advisor
▻https://hackernoon.com/i-am-a-college-student-and-i-built-my-own-robo-advisor-3f31b39dab50?sour

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/909/1*qKTZDEKuQeg18B-FjVrqqw.png

I’m Rao, and I’m an intern at Alpaca working on building an open-source robo advisor. I don’t have much experience in the space, and I had to find a lot of answers. While there’s a wealth of material available on the web, very little is organized. This post is the combination of various threads and forums that I read through looking for answers.“Yes, you an do it too!”What is a Robo Advisor anyway?!Robo advisors are automated advising services that require little to no user interaction. They specialize in maintaining portfolios based on the investors chosen risk level. Btw, they were launched at the start of the financial crisis in 2008.The actual logic for a robo advisor is straightforward.“Allocation” — Given a risk level, portions of capital are allocated to different positions.“Distance” — Over (...)

#internships #tech #investing #tech-internship #robo-advisor

The Untold Story of Japan’s Secret Spy Agency
▻https://theintercept.com/2018/05/19/japan-dfs-surveillance-agency

Every week in Tokyo’s Ichigaya district, about two miles east of the bright neon lights and swarming crowds in the heart of Shibuya, a driver quietly parks a black sedan-style car outside a gray office building. Before setting off on a short 10-minute drive south, he picks up a passenger who is carrying an important package : top-secret intelligence reports, destined for the desks of the prime minister’s closest advisors. Known only as “C1,” the office building is located inside a (...)

#écoutes #web #surveillance

As an automated Forex trader who is not a programmer and uses Metatrader 4 Expert Advisors (EAs) I`d like to share my experience with creating strategy codes and how we can make our live easier during real time execution of the trades. The article is designed to help those who seek ways to have a better working EA which is easy for monitoring, backtesting and optimizing. Here are my tips:

Making all Calculations Once per bar

The rule applies to all inputs including all entry and exit conditions of the trades. For example, if a given Expert Advisor requires RSI indicator to go above 30 for a short position to be initiated I`d prefer the code to check for this condition to be met after the last bar is completed and if I trade on daily candles the entries will be when the new day begins. So the Expert Advisor checks only once per bar and doesn’t constantly make calculations on every tick.

Another example would be if the trading logic includes exiting every trade on a trailing stop. Regardless of its concept, the Metatrader 4 Expert should be programmed so that the stop is moved once per bar – usually when the new bar begins.

How does this concept help us? Well, there are 3 main advantages. 1) We are avoiding possible errors by lessening the calculations the code is making to just one per bar and 2) the Expert Advisor is much more reliable for backtesting because since in MT4 Tester the ticks are made by the platform itself and they are not real. Thus we eliminate a possible disappearance between backtesting and real time results. By observing only closed bars in the code any real time results can be duplicated on backtest. And 3) advantage is the fact that the EA could be backtested in Tester using control points and open options which saves us a lot of computing time.

Setting up a Timeframe for Every Input

For each parameter set it is a good practice to have an additional input which will govern the timeframe at which the set will operate. For example if we have a filter and 2 other indicators which are the main strategy, then for each inputs set (filter and the 2 indicators) an input called “timeframe” is created. If all EA`s parameters operate on a same timeframe then we create only one “timeframe” input.

This tool helps us to avoid any errors of attaching the EA on a wrong time framed chart. So if we have a strategy which operates on H1 and we have an input “timeframe”=60, then it doesn’t matter if we attach the Metatrader Expert Advisor to M5 or D1 and the code will work accordingly.

When an Input is OFF

Instead of adding an ON/OFF input which will govern if a certain calculation is switched on or off for every indicator, it is much more convenient just to make the code so that if the particular inputs are 0, then it means that this option is not included in the trading. For example if we have set 0 for a trading stop inputs then it is obvious that we are not using this feature.

This option makes setting up the EA much more intuitive and reduces the number of inputs we have to deal with.

Max Bars Look Back

If the EA uses an indicator for its signals and this indicator is very heavy in a sense that it requires a lot of calculations then I use the tool called “Max Bars“ . It sets up how many bars backwards the indicators will display its dots, lines or whatever it does on the chart. It saves your Metatrader 4 form freezing and stop running properly.

Personally I don`t use more than 500 for Max Bars and usually it is my default setting which means if you trade on H1, then you will be able to see 20+ days back which is pretty much enough.

Symmetrical Buy and Sell

It is tempting to create inputs for both side – long and short which will govern how the EA enters its buys and sells in a separate manner. However besides the curvefitting factor which is another big topic it creates a lot of trouble when you are optimizing the system. It triples your variations and this you will need 3 times more to do all the optimizations needed. This is the reason I use only one inputs for both sides.

Summary

I have presented to you 5 practical tips for a creation of a Metatrader Expert Advisor. They are based on personal experience and have helped me making my automated trading more convenient and easier. I hope they will be at your help as well.

Source - ▻http://professionaltradingsystems.com/blog/tips-when-programming-metatrader-expert-advisor

How the Trump Administration Broke the State Department | Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/31/how-the-trump-administration-broke-the-state-department

The office furniture started appearing weeks ago.

Employees at the State Department couldn’t help but notice the stacks of cubicles lined up in the corridor of the seventh floor.

For diplomats at the department, it was the latest sign of the “empire” being built by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s top aides. The cubicles are needed to accommodate dozens of outsiders being hired to work in a dramatically expanded front office that is supposed to advise Tillerson on policy.

Foreign service officers see this expansion as a “parallel department” that could effectively shut off the secretary and his advisors from the career employees in the rest of the building. The new hires, several State officials told Foreign Policy, will be working for the policy planning staff, a small office set up in 1947 to provide strategic advice to the secretary that typically has about 20-25 people on its payroll. One senior State Department official and one recently retired diplomat told FP that Tillerson has plans to double or perhaps triple its size, even as he proposes a sweeping reorganization and drastic cuts to the State Department workforce.

Veterans of the U.S. diplomatic corps say the expanding front office is part of an unprecedented assault on the State Department: A hostile White House is slashing its budget, the rank and file are cut off from a detached leader, and morale has plunged to historic lows. They say President Donald Trump and his administration dismiss, undermine, or don’t bother to understand the work they perform and that the legacy of decades of American diplomacy is at risk.

This Man’s Immune System Got a Cancer-killing Update - Facts So Romantic
▻http://nautil.us/blog/this-mans-immune-system-got-a-cancer_killing-update

http://static.nautil.us/12789_8b73f6e0233d36b602d3380b92c24767.jpg

William Ludwig was almost dead when he became Patient Number One in a radical new cancer treatment, one that’s just won the endorsement of F.D.A. advisors.Photograph by sebastianosecondi / ShutterstockWilliam Ludwig was a 64-year-old retired corrections officer living in Bridgeton, New Jersey, in 2010, when he received a near-hopeless cancer prognosis. The Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania had run out of chemotherapeutic options, and Ludwig was disqualified from most clinical trials since he had three cancers at once—leukemia, lymphoma, and squamous cell skin cancer. In a later interview, the scientist Carl June described Ludwig’s condition as “Almost dead.” Alison Loren, an oncologist at Penn, had been taking care of Ludwig for five painful years. If chemotherapy is (...)

The Films of Steve Bannon
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the-films-of-steve-bannon

Steve Bannon is one of Trump’s closest advisors. But he’s also a filmmaker. And if you watch his movies closely, they reveal a unique vision for America’s future.

The Infantilizing Ways We Talk About Women’s Ambition - The New Yorker
▻http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-infantilizing-ways-we-talk-about-womens-ambition?mbid=social_facebook

http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Tolentino-TheInfantilizingWaysWeTalkAboutWomensAmbition-690.jpg

Another prominent symbol of female ambition put forward this year is a statue of an elementary-school student: the bronze “Fearless Girl” staring down the famous bull on Wall Street. The statue was conceived by an advertising agency for an investment firm whose twenty-eight-person leadership team contains five women; according to the sculptor, Kristen Visbal, the statue “reminds us today’s working woman is here to stay.” It’s dismaying, and revealing, that this message is most easily conveyed through a figure of a girl—her skirt and ponytail blown back in the breeze, cheerfully unaware of the strained, exhausted, overdetermined future that awaits her.

Enfin quelqu’un relève le problème avec cette statue!

#sexisme #jeunisme

Netanyahu announces policy of restrained settlement construction in ’show of good will’ to Trump

Prime Minister informs ministers that while no formal understandings have been reached in talks with the White House, Israel will unilaterally limit new construction almost exclusively to already-developed areas of existing settlements.

Barak Ravid Mar 31, 2017
read more: ▻http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.780641

Israel will adopt a policy of limiting new construction in West Bank settlements to within the boundaries of areas that have already been built upon or in some specific cases precisely adjacent to them, Prime Minister Netanyahu said at a security cabinet meeting late Thursday night
>> Get all updates on Israel, Trump and the Palestinians: Download our free App, and Subscribe >>
A minister who was present at the meeting and requested to remain anonymous said Netanyahu informed the cabinet that despite several weeks of discussions on the issue, no understandings have yet been reached between Israel and the United States regarding settlement construction and that the differences between the sides remained unchanged.
>>U.S. senator slams decision to build new settlement: ’Netanyahu not serious about two states’>>
However, Netanyahu said he had decided to respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s reservations regarding the settlements by unilaterally adopting a policy of restrained construction that will almost exclusively include building in already-developed areas of existing settlements to avoid appropriating new land or expanding the territory of established settlements.
“There are no understandings with the Americans and this wasn’t agreed one with the administration, but rather these are restrictions that Israel is taking upon itself in response to the president’s request,” said the minister. “In any case, the ’payment’ to the Americans isn’t over.”

>> Israel’s settlers are beginning to miss Obama | Analysis >>
Another senior source who also requested to remain anonymous said Netanyahu told the cabinet ministers that out of consideration for Trump’s positions, Israel will take significant steps to reduce, in so much as possible, the expansion of existing settlement territory beyond already-developed areas and that this too would be significantly restricted to allow for the progress of a peace process.
At the meeting, Netanyahu presented four main points outlining Israel’s new policy in the settlements:
1. Israel will continue construction, when permissible, within previously developed areas.
2. Where this is not permissible, Israel will allow construction in areas adjacent to those already developed.
3. Where neither of these criteria are met, due to legal, security or topographical constraints, Israel will allow construction on the closest land possible to developed areas.
4. Israel will not allow the creation of any new illegal outposts.
A second minister who participated in the meeting said that Netanyahu said no understanding had been reached in the talks with the White House and that, in effect, the sides had decided “to agree to disagree.”
However, Israel unilaterally agreed to adopt a policy that would take into consideration Trump’s concerns that continued construction in the settlements would expand its West Bank territory to a point that would prevent the creation of a Palestinian country in the future.
“This isn’t an agreement with the Americans, but rather unilateral policy by the government of Israel,” said the second minister. “The Americans said that they don’t agree with construction in the settlements in any case, but that they can live with it and there won’t be an international crisis over every new home that’s built.”
Netanyahu told the ministers in the meeting that he believes Israel should limit construction in a show of good will toward Trump.
“This is a very friendly administration and we need to take his requests into consideration,” Netanyahu told the ministers. No vote was taken during the meeting, but all the ministers agreed to the policy of restrained construction and there were no arguments or conflicts between Netanyahu and any of the ministers.
“This is moderate, reasonable policy,” said one of the cabinet ministers. “There’s no limit on the number of housing units and no distinction between the blocs and the solitary settlements. It will be possible to build, but in a gradual and measured way and without taking more and more hills.” 
Netanyahu’s announcement of new policy came as the cabinet approved the construction of a new settlement for the first time in over 20 years, in part to house those evacuated from the illegal outpost of Amona in February. 
A White House official told Haaretz that Netanyahu had informed the Trump administration that he intended to stand by his commitment to build this new settlement, but that a new policy would then be adopted that would restrict new construction in consideration of Trump’s concerns.
Over the past few weeks, Netanyahu mostly kept the minister’s in the dark on the details of the talks with the American government and managed them with only his closest advisors. The only minister who was briefed was Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who had to know because the Civil Administration, which is responsible for planning and building in the settlements, is under his authority.
Last week, Netanyahu’s senior advisors held four days of talks in Washington with U.S. envoy Jason Greenblatt and his team, but didn’t succeed in reaching a final understanding. However, in a joint statement released by the two sides at the end of the round of talks, they said that Israel is prepared, in principle, to restrict construction in the settlements in consideration of Trump’s desire to push forward with a peace process.
Israel’s umbrella organization for settlers, the Yesha Council, responded to the news, but did not attack the decision. “In wake of the decision and despite some restrictions, the understandings reached between the governments of Israel and the U.S. administration permit the continued settlement construction in all the communities in Judea and Samaria, and even the establishment of a new settlement for the residents of Amona,” the council said.
“The true test will be the immediate renewal of planning and development throughout the settlements. We will stand guard and work to make sure that the Israeli government will actualize this plan,” they said.

Donald Trump Plans to ‘Pare Back’ Top U.S. Spy Agency
▻http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/01/donald-trump-plans-to-slim-down-top-u-s-spy-agency.html

Donald Trump has spent much of the past month assailing America’s intelligence agencies over Twitter. But now, he’s plotting to hit them where it hurts – right in their budgets.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the president-elect is working with his top advisors on a plan to “restructure and pare back” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which they believe has become “bloated and politicized.”

Trump’s team is also, reportedly, drafting a similar plan for the CIA – one that would cut staffing at the agency’s Virginia headquarters and send more agents out into the field.

“The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world [is] becoming completely politicized,” an individual close to Trump’s transition operation told the Journal. “They all need to be slimmed down. The focus will be on restructuring the agencies and how they interact.”

L’article du WSJ est sous #paywall

Donald Trump Plans Revamp of Top U.S. Spy Agency - WSJ
▻http://www.wsj.com/articles/lawmakers-officials-frown-on-donald-trumps-dismissal-of-u-s-intelligence-148355

President-elect Donald Trump, a harsh critic of U.S. intelligence agencies, is working with top advisers on a plan that would restructure and pare back the nation’s top spy agency, people familiar with the planning said.

Tech companies: It’s time to unite in defense of users. | Electronic Frontier Foundation
▻https://supporters.eff.org/donate/eff-wired

Incoming President Donald Trump and many of his advisors have promised to ratchet up surveillance and censorship, while threatening the future of net neutrality, privacy, and encryption. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is calling on technology companies to unite with us in defending Internet users. By working together, we can ensure that technology created to connect and uplift people worldwide is not conscripted into a tool of oppression.

Secure the network

Learn how you can secure your systems against this new threat.

Best practices for deleting unnecessary user data and encrypting -communications.
EFF’s wishlist for how specific tech companies can take steps to protect users.
Suggestions for tech leaders meeting with Trump.
A discussion of how tech companies can defend user rights through the court system.

Are you taking steps to secure your users’ data? Tell EFF about it.

Read EFF’s open letter to tech companies.

The “Offshore” Phenomenon: Dirty Banking in a Brave New World // CABINET Issue 2 Mapping Conversations Spring 2001
▻http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/2/dirtybanking.php

by Mark Lombardi
...
There are many reasons why someone would want to avail themselves of such services. Perhaps the oldest is the fear of seizure or confiscation in times of war, civil unrest, or political instability; what’s known as “fright capital.” Quite often when a country is invaded, under threat of invasion, or in the grip of a civil war or reign of terror, there is an attendant rush to ship assets out of the country. A classic case is the struggle of thousands of European Jews to transfer their property (most of which was never recovered) out of Nazi-controlled areas and into Switzerland and beyond.

But far and away the most common reason is tax evasion. The first truly modern multinational tax evaders arose in the United States in the 1920s. They were men like Joseph P. Kennedy, father of the late president, a stock manipulator and liquor importer who ordered his foreign suppliers and attorneys to submit fraudulent and inflated bills which he then promptly paid in order to move otherwise taxable profits overseas. Another was Meyer Lansky, the infamous longtime chief financial officer of the American mob. Lansky and his associates, whose revenues came primarily from bootlegging, illegal gambling, loansharking and prostitution, employed couriers and bagmen to carry their ill-gotten loot to banks overseas, primarily in Canada, Switzerland, and the Bahamas. By the mid-l930s many large US-based corporations had also begun to get in on the act by setting up foreign subsidiaries and affiliates, particularly in the United Kingdom and Bermuda, as vehicles for various kinds of financial gimmickry.
...
The attitude of most Western governments to this activity is simple; they deplore it in countries considered unfriendly while condoning or even encouraging it among clients and allies. The purpose is to concentrate money and power in the hands of loyal local elites. Thus, unlike hot investment capital flowing in from other tainted offshore sources, “politically-packaged” black money often receives special red carpet treatment because it is controlled by a corrupt ally.

Though fully aware of the source of the plunder, officials of even the most “law-abiding” Western countries rarely interfere in the process, citing “mutual cooperation,” "national security interests," or “healthy export markets” as a pretext. Thus former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie was able to amass a fortune worth around $15 billion over the course of his reign, most of which was banked and invested in Europe; ex-Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko was believed at the time of his ouster to control bank accounts and assets in Belgium, the former colonial power, worth several billion dollars at a minimum; and Saddam Hussein’s personal and family fortune was at one time estimated at between $10 and $15 billion, some of which was invested in major French companies. Much the same applies to the Marcoses of the Philippines, the Shah of Iran, the Duvaliers of Haiti, Noh Tae Wu of South Korea, Suharto of Indonesia, Somoza of Nicaragua, the Salinas brothers of Mexico, ad infinitum. In some cases the level of cooperation offered by a patron state can go beyond “noninterference” to the actual provision of advisors and access to financial entities capable of performing whatever services the lucky ally or client might require. It is thought that Castle Bank and Trust (founded in the Bahamas in 1964), Nugan Hand Limited (chartered in Australia in l973), and World Finance Corporation (which operated out of Miami in the middle to late 1970s) provided such services at the behest of several successive American administrations.

Gerhard Friedl
▻https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Friedl

Gerhard Friedl (Dokumentarfilm, Experimentalfilm)
▻http://www.cargo-film.de/blog/2009/jul/05/gerhard-friedl

Container vom 5. Juli 2009 von Bert Rebhandl
Der beste Film über die Deutschland AG stammt von einem Österreicher:

Hat Wolff von Amerongen Konkursdelikte begangen? von Gerhard Friedl aus dem Jahr 2004. Hier ist ein Blogeintrag dazu, und beim Wiener Innovativfilmvertrieb Sixpackfilm gibt es das offizielle Filmdatenblatt dazu. Gerhard Friedl, Jahrgang 1967, hat an der Münchner Filmhochschule bei Helmut Färber studiert.

Bei einer Begegnung vor wenigen Wochen sprach er von einem neuen Projekt, zu dem die Recherchen schon weit gediehen waren und das ihn in die Karibik hätte führen sollen. Wie wir heute erfahren haben, hat Gerhard Friedl sich das Leben genommen.

#art #politique #réseau #évasion_fiscale

See the Historic Maps Declassified by the CIA

▻http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/11/us-cia-maps-strategy-foreign-policy-display

signalé par l’excellent @lecartographe sur Twitter (que j’aimerai bien convaincre de venir sur seenthis d’ailleurs)

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2016/11/18/cia/09-Kennedy-Laos-1961.ngsversion.1480163414751.jpg http://news.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/news/2016/11/18/cia/16-African-elephants-2013.ngsversion.1480163405744.adapt.352.1.jpg

Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush and several advisors gathered at Camp David to weigh the country’s options. On the table in front of them, as you can see in the photo below, was a map of Afghanistan created by cartographers at the Central Intelligence Agency. It was among the first of what would become thousands of maps the CIA produced after September 11 to track terrorist networks and support U.S. military operations, including the raid to capture Osama bin Laden in 2011.

#cartographie #cia #manipulation #éléphants cc @fil #sémiologie

Advice for amateur mathematicians
▻http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/cohn/Thoughts/advice.html

There’s no reason why amateurs can’t make worthwhile research contributions in mathematics. It has happened many times in the past, and I know of several cases today. I don’t have time to offer a lot of personal advice and guidance, but I figured I’d post some general advice here. I’ve aimed it at people who think they’ve already solved famous problems, since those are the sort that typically write, but it should be equally useful for people with more modest aspirations. I focus on the mechanics of how to do literature searches, write papers, and publish them, because I have less to say about the deeper issue of how to do research. None of this advice is specific to amateurs, but professionals already learn all these things from their advisors.

Frontiers | Trade-Offs between Economic and Environmental Impacts of Introducing Legumes into Cropping Systems | Crop Science and Horticulture
▻http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2016.00669/full

Europe’s agriculture is highly specialized, dependent on external inputs and responsible for negative environmental impacts. Legume crops are grown on less than 2% of the arable land and more than 70% of the demand for protein feed supplement is imported from overseas. The integration of legumes into cropping systems has the potential to contribute to the transition to a more resource-efficient agriculture and reduce the current protein deficit. Legume crops influence the production of other crops in the rotation making it difficult to evaluate the overall agronomic effects of legumes in cropping systems. A novel assessment framework was developed and applied in five case study regions across Europe with the objective of evaluating trade-offs between economic and environmental effects of integrating legumes into cropping systems. Legumes resulted in positive and negative impacts when integrated into various cropping systems across the case studies. On average, cropping systems with legumes reduced nitrous oxide emissions by 18 and 33% and N fertilizer use by 24 and 38% in arable and forage systems, respectively, compared to systems without legumes. Nitrate leaching was similar with and without legumes in arable systems and reduced by 22% in forage systems. However, grain legumes reduced gross margins in 3 of 5 regions. Forage legumes increased gross margins in 3 of 3 regions. Among the cropping systems with legumes, systems could be identified that had both relatively high economic returns and positive environmental impacts. Thus, increasing the cultivation of legumes could lead to economic competitive cropping systems and positive environmental impacts, but achieving this aim requires the development of novel management strategies informed by the involvement of advisors and farmers.

#agriculture #cultures_associées

Opinion piece in Saudi pro-monarchy daily : No fear of 9/11 lawsuit since US/CIA was main trainer of terrorists
▻https://mideastwire.wordpress.com/2016/04/22/opinion-piece-in-saudi-pro-monarchy-daily-no-fear-of-911-laws

From Okaz -

“…If these files are opened, we would learn the reasons behind the CIA chief’s visit to Afghanistan with the famous $1 billion in cash, to create the Afghan Mujahedeen. We would also learn who trained and organized them, created what was later dubbed Al-Qa’idah, excluded and chased them and did not contain them once the mission was over, and how and where they retaliated against those who tricked them. Congress and its claims do not threaten the Kingdom. They rather create an opportunity to expose the involved Americans and their leaders’ lies one after the other, and expose the reality of their advisors’ presence in Afghanistan as trainers in the arts of terrorism.

“Yes, the Kingdom did send youth, but upon Washington’s request and under its direct supervision. What happened later on is a different thing, which ended with a terrorist attack on the Kingdom, pushing it to exert strenuous efforts to keep [terrorism] away from the Kingdom, Europe, and even America itself, as confirmed by the files of its domestic and external intelligence. What is noticeable at this level is that President Obama is the American president who visited the Kingdom the most, but also who harmed it the most. Strategies are not built with deceivers or goners, or even based on public relations. Therefore, let us leave Mr. Obama to drown in his reluctance between isolation and interaction, and wait for the newcomer to the White House, and more importantly the new Congress that will be produced by the elections…”

#Arabie_saoudite #Etats-Unis #linge_sale #apprentis_sorciers #terrorisme #dommages_collatéraux #délétère

Raqqa/Deïr az-Zor : avec les préparatifs pour la bataille de Mossoul la course à la prise du contrôle du territoire syrien sous contrôle de Da’ich entre des alliances concurrentes se met en place doucement, mais sûrement.

Selon Elijah Magnier, le régime et ses alliés ne lanceront pas la bataille sur Raqqa tant que la bataille de Mossoul ne sera pas lancée par les Américains et leurs alliés. D’abord parce que ce serait s’exposer à des déplacements de troupes de Da’ich d’Irak vers la Syrie, et ensuite parce que le principal danger reste al-Nousra qui dispose de soutiens extérieurs. En attendant cette bataille de Mossoul, ils se concentrent donc sur al-Nousra dans la province d’Idlib et essaient de se positionner pour reprendre 3 villes à Da’ich : Qaryatayn, Palmyre et Tabaqa
▻https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/the-raqqa-offensive-needs-mosul-first-and-the-iraqi-popular-mobi
The Raqqa offensive needs Mosul first and The Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Force to Syria

The Syrian “axis of resistance”, formed of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Lebanese “Hezbollah” Special Forces, Iraqi of the PMF, Pakistani and Afghan militias, all operating in Syria and backed by Russia, are preparing new military plans to advance on two main axes in the north of Syria: The first, in the northwest in Jisr al-Shughur, Idlib and rural areas of Aleppo to counter al-Qaeda in the Levant – Jahbat al Nusra and its allies. The second, is the attack against ISIS on three fronts: Qariyateyen, Palmyra, and Tabqa, without going too close to Raqqa. Both al-Qaeda and its Jihadist allies on one hand, and ISIS on the other, are not included in any cease-fire or deal related to a possible peace process or Cease-fire in Syria. While Russia and its allies prepare for their war in Syria, the U.S.A is gathering Iraqi forces and many American advisors around Mosul for the Iraqi J-Day.

La reprise de Qaryatayn et Palmyre (Tadmor), qui sont encore loin d’être faites, permettrait d’attaquer ensuite non seulement Raqqa par le sud mais aussi de briser le siège de Deïr az-Zor. Quant à Tabaqa, sa prise permettrait de couper Raqqa de toute la rive ouest du lac Assad et d’un accès à la Turquie au nord.

En tout cas, côté Irak, les préparatifs pour la bataille de Mossoul semblent se mettre en place. D’autant que le YPG a récemment progressé en prenant la ville de Shedadeh sur l’axe Hasakeh-Deïr az-Zor. Et les déclarations d’officiels américains sont assez ambigües pour laisser penser que la course vers Raqqa, au moins par l’Irak pour la coalition américaine, est lancée :
▻http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2016/02/battle-mosul-has-begun/126304
The Battle for Mosul Has Begun

“We are focused on eliminating the enemy in Raqqa every single day. We’re doing airstrikes there constantly,” McGurk said. “We know more now than we ever did before, and we’re beginning to constrict [the coalition’s] hold on Raqqa.”
Carter called Shadadi “a critical node for ISIL training and logistics, as well as for its oil enterprise. As our partners take control of Shadadi, I believe we will learn a great deal more about ISIL’s criminal networks, its criminal enterprise, and what it does to sustain them.”
McGurk said the Mosul push will be guided from a new joint operations center in Makhmur, southwest of the Kurdish capital of Irbil. The coalition also has forces in Sinjar, Hit, and al-Assad Air Base to the south, a key special operations launching point which has remained under U.S. and Iraqi control.
“Because of our strategy and our determination to accelerate our campaign, momentum is now on our side and not on ISIL’s,” Carter said.

Al-Monitor s’intéresse lui aussi au sujet :
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/02/syria-regime-advance-raqqa.html#ixzz41f6V3BGR
Is Syrian regime about to retake Raqqa ?

Regarding the next steps, the same leader in Athriya said, “Our operations will continue along the Athriya-Raqqa axis, and our forces will secure the road from Athriya to Khanasir. The Russian air force will protect the two forces [on the Athriya-Khanasir and Athriya-Raqqa axes] against any attacks that might risk us losing the regions we retook.” The Syrian regime managed to regain control over the town of Khanasir on Feb. 25.
Abdel Rahman Daoud, a political analyst close to the Syrian regime, told Al-Monitor, “The Syrian army will stand its ground in the Raqqa battle because regaining the province is an important step to eliminate the danger of division, and because the Russian leadership wants to block the way to any US attempt to control IS’ main stronghold amid the public field race between Russia and the United States.”
The Raqqa battle is still relatively far away if we look at it from the perspective of distances that the Syrian army would have to cross. But from an ambitious perspective, it has become imminent. IS has blocked the road the Syrian regime would need to cross to reach the north of the country. This might make the regime’s ambitions harder to fulfill.

Nouvel e-mail déclassifié, au titre de la FOIA, reçu par Hillary Clinton au State Department, envoyé par son conseiller Sydney Blumenthal, et daté d’avril 2011, un mois après le début des opérations de la « coalition » contre Kadhafi.
Cet e-mail évoque une série de motifs ayant incité Sarkozy à attaquer le régime libyen dont notamment le fait que Kadhafi projetait d’utiliser ses importantes réserves d’or et d’argent (143 tonnes d’or) pour établir une monnaie panafricaine adossée à un dinar libyen en or qui constituerait une alternative au franc CFA dans les pays de l’Afrique francophone :
▻https://www.foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_DecWebClearedMeta/31-C1/DOC_0C05779612/C05779612.pdf

On April 2, 2011 sources with access to advisors to Salt al-Islam Qaddafi stated in strictest confidence that while the
freezing of Libya’s foreign bank accounts presents Muammar Qaddafi with serious challenges, his ability to equip and
maintain his armed forces and intelligence services remains intact. According to sensitive information available to this
these individuals, Qaddafi’s government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver. During late March, 2011
these stocks were moved to SABHA (south west in the direction of the Libyan border with Niger and Chad); taken from
the vaults of the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli.
This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency
based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an
alternative to the French.franc (CFA).
(Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7
billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the
factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya. According to these
individuals Sarkozy’s plans are driven by the following issues:
a. A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production,
b. Increase French influence in North Africa,
c. Improve his intemal political situation in France,
d. Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world,
e. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi’s long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in
Francophone Africa)

RT a brièvement traité l’information :
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtkCpyrIoLg

Blackwater boss in Yemen killed
▻http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/12/10/441071/Yemen-Blacwater-UAE-Saudi-Arabia-Taizz-Hadi-Sudan

The chief of Blackwater mercenaries in Yemen has been killed in clashes with Houthi Ansarullah fighters and allied forces in the country’s southwest, reports say.

Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah news website reported that the commander-in-chief of the private security firm in the country, a Mexican national, was slain in the al-Omari district of Ta’izz Province early on Wednesday.

According to the report, the recent fatality has brought to 15 the number of foreign forces with the Blackwater killed in clashes in Yemen since Tuesday. Some Australian, British, and French advisors and commanders — plus half a dozen Colombian soldiers — were among the dead. The mercenaries are part of the UAE forces that help Saudi Arabia in its war against the impoverished country.

The climate of war: violence, warfare, and climatic reductionism
▻http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.352/abstract

The fashion for reducing war to climate has had a remarkable resurgence in recent years stimulated in part by the proclivities of funding agencies and the priorities of national governments. Not least is this the case with national security agencies. As the British Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, put it in 2007 in her presentation to the UN Security Council first-ever debate on the impact of climate change: the consequences of climate change “reach to the very heart of the security agenda.” A few years earlier in their report to the United States Department of Defense, on abrupt climate change and “Its implications for United States National Security,” Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall insisted that in the near future “disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life.” Once the preserve of classical thinkers, Enlightenment philosophers, and turn-of-the-century geo-historians, “the allure of a naïve climatic determinism is now seducing” − in Mike Hulme’s words − “those hard-nosed and most unsentimental of people… the military and their advisors.” And it is seducing other publicists too. Drawing on the neo-Malthusian analyses of Thomas Homer-Dixon, whom he credited with officiating at the marriage of “military-conflict studies and the study of the physical environment”, Robert Kaplan announced that “We all must learn to think like Victorians… Geographical determinists must be seated at the same honored table as liberal humanists.” This reductionist impulse, however, has not met with universal approval.

A team of research ecologists based mostly at Colorado State University, for example, has challenged the suggestion that warming has increased the risk of civil war in Africa. They argue that attributing such causal powers to climate “oversimplifies systems affected by many geopolitical and social factors.” And they point out that “unrelated geopolitical trends” − most notably decolonization and the legacy of the Cold War − which “perturbed the political and social landscape of the African continent” tend to be ignored in climate reductionist agendas. Halvard Buhaug, a political scientist at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, together with colleagues also have serious reservations about what might be called climatic supremacism. Reworking a range of models used by advocates of climate’s determining role in civil wars, Buhaug contends that “Climate variability is a poor predictor of armed conflict” and that civil wars in Africa are far better explained by such conditions as “prevalent ethnopolitical exclusion, poor national economy, and the collapse of the Cold War system.” The prehistory of a particular violent episode is relevant too for, as he puts it, “recent violence may affect the likelihood of a new conflict breaking out”.

Empirical inquiries like these, which challenge the assumption that climate and climate change are prime causes of violence, raise troubling concerns about the ease with which an ideology of climate reductionism has infiltrated its way into national security consciousness. Critics of this determinist turn, and particularly of the Malthusian assumption that increased environmental scarcity and migration “weaken states” and “cause conflicts and violence”, express grave concerns about the lack of attention devoted to ascertaining “the ways that environmental violence reflects or masks other forms of social struggle” and about the too comfortable means by which “forms of technological engineering… reduce “solutions” to matters of purely technical concern.” For one thing such scenarios take outbreaks of violence as merely the natural consequence of social evolutionary adaptation. Climate reductionism thus facilitates the sense that war can be readily “naturalized and depoliticized” in markedly similar ways to earlier climatic readings of the American Civil War. As one group of researchers observe: “Some studies in environmental security are in danger of promulgating a modern form of environmental determinism by suggesting that climate conditions directly and dominantly influence the propensity for violence among individuals, communities and states.” When analysts “neglect the complex political calculus of governance” and the remarkable ways in which human societies actually do cope with challenging environments, they reach “conclusions that are little different from those ascribing poverty to latitudinal location or lessened individual productivity to hot climates, as was common in European and American scholarship about a century ago.”

#climat #réductionnisme_climatique