Thursday, February 4, 2010

Is it time yet?

I was sitting and writing something about the timing of the coming collapse when I noticed an article in Bloomberg that covers the same topic in a good way.

For those of you that don’t talk ‘economic’ this isn’t a positive outlook and since they don’t mention several of the worse declining numbers I’ve been focusing on, you can probably imagine how bad things are right now.

Media don’t tell you the truth, they are giving you the cliff-notes often of the positive variety, so I’m kind of happy every time I find something close to reality.

Check it out here: Bloomberg

A taste:
The MSCI World Index of 23 developed markets sank 2.4 percent, the most since Oct. 1, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 2.4 percent at 2:31 p.m. in New York and benchmark equity indexes for Brazil, Portugal and Spain plummeted the most in at least 11 months. Oil lost 5 percent, the biggest drop in six months, and gold tumbled the most since 2008 as a stronger dollar curbed demand for commodities as alternative investments. The euro sank 1 percent to $1.3759, the lowest since May 21.

6.0 outside of California

I love this earthquake add-on for Firefox...

What goes on in central banks…



Perfect afternoon reading

Counting Cats in Zanzibar is kind of pissed at Prince Chuckles, the one with the ears; I find that post good afternoon reading...

Read more here Counting Cats in Zanzibar

Afterwards I suggest you read my post about ropes. Find that here: apocalypse nowish

Another ‘Green Shoot’ from America

First-time U.S. jobless claims rise just as expected. The US Labor Department has stated that new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 480,000. Wall Street cornflake economists had, of course, wrong as always, expected a drop to 460,000.

This means that the number of unemployed soon can be calculated above 20% also by government measures. Today the figure is 17%. Real unemployment has already reached depression levels, but is hidden away so those who remain working continue to spend money they don’t have so GDP shows better levels.

For future reference

Having a good rope around is always a good thing. A rope can be used for hanging laundry, tying up the wife, going rock-climbing or in countless other ways.

Of course the choice of rope depends on the purpose of usage. If one, for instance, wanted to drop something weighing around 180 lbs from between four and ten feet the rope needs to hold for that particular pressure and it should also hold several times over, no need to get many ropes when you can get the job done with just one.

The strength of a rope is measured by the rating of static elongation and maximum impact force. The elongation measures the amount a rope stretches when weighted with a standard load (80 kilograms/176 pounds). Ropes with low static elongation stretch less. Higher static elongation means ropes have more stretch (cushioning the impact of a fall). Maximum impact force refers to the amount of force transmitted to a climber during a fall. Low maximum impact force means the rope absorbs more of the energy generated in a fall. However, such ropes stretch more, increasing your chances of hitting the ground or a ledge if you were to climb or hang from such a rope.

But we do not really think about this for the purpose many soon will need to look at a rope since there should not be any ledge and the feet should certainly never hit ground, but it is good to have some solid background information.

Also, one might consider ignoring doing proper calculations, if the rope does not hold; there will be a funny couple of minutes getting another rope, so to “wing it” have its inherent charm. Maybe we can even get additional mandrake root out of the deal?

Another fun potential consequence of not doing the proper groundwork is the same thing that happened to the historical figure of “Black Jack”, that is to say a so severe spinal cord injury may occur that it leads to total separation.

For our future procedure we also need to decide whether or not to induce a ligature. That may lead to more tenderness between the most upper part and torso with the result of less movement afterwards, but is that really want we want? Such method has been used effectively before, among other places Nuremberg...

But surely a bit more dangling and a tad more of muffled noises are preferable?

If so another choice need to be made, well… such a choice will most likely be made anyway – namely the choice of venue. A tree is classical and have that sense of being close to nature, on the other hand a lamp-post have proven useful before in addition to being in close proximity for most urban inhabitants. Whatever the choice may be make sure to make room for applauding and cheering spectators.

Alas the right choice of goods to drop. This may vary from a heavy-set elected pen pusher to the thinnest monocle wearing money-exchanger, but they do come in all shapes and disguises, so make sure that the falling lump is rightly accused.

Come to afterwards we need to consider the sphincter relaxing and spontaneously evacuated urine and faeces. Although fun as supplementary proper consequence, it may lead to some stench, which, coincidentally, the entire baggage will produce sooner or later anyway.

So even though the dangling end-product can induce certain levels of righteous thinking, we need to find proper burial grounds. Not for religious reasons, but rather for sanitary ones. Also please remember to mark the spot for future travelers. One can always find a reason to urinate and do a little jig on such a place.