Game turns Google's search suggestions into 'Family Feud' -

Game turns Google's search suggestions into 'Family Feud' - 

http://www.googlefeud.com/

Think you're good at predicting Google's search suggestions? You now have an easy way to prove it. A new (and decidedly unofficial) Google Feud game challenges you to make Family Feud-style guesses about what comes next in Google's autocomplete box. The closer you are to the top result, the more points you get; guess outside of the top 10 and you'll get a strike. There's sadly no easy way to challenge others, but this should still be a fun way to demonstrate your search savviness to your friends.

Read more - 

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/16/google-feud/

Surprise: Tech Company Valuations Are Completely Made Up -

Surprise: Tech Company Valuations Are Completely Made Up - 

Talk of a massive bubble in the red hot world of private tech companies is getting louder of late. As we noted last week, Prem Watsa recently highlighted what he called excessive “speculation” in tech stocks and predicted that at the end of the day, habitually slapping billion-dollar valuations on unproven companies that often have little more than an app and a dream will end “very badly.” This comes on the heels of Mark Cuban’s warning that stretched valuations in private tech companies are far more dangerous than any perceived Nasdaq bubble 2.0, as at least with overvalued publicly traded firms there’s liquidity. 

Well, now that everyone is jumping on the “there’s no way that app is worth $50 billion” bandwagon, Bloomberg is out with a startling revelation: “Snapchat, the photo-messaging app raising cash at a $15 billion valuation, probably isn't actually worth more than Clorox.” 

No, probably not, but it sure is more fun than doing laundry, which is why it absolutely makes sense that the number VCs are putting on the app makes absolutely no sense. Here’s Bloomberg:

Here's the secret to how Silicon Valley calculates the value of its hottest companies: The numbers are sort of made-up. For the most mature startups, investors agree to grant higher valuations, which help the companies with recruitment and building credibility, in exchange for guarantees that they'll get their money back first if the company goes public or sells. They can also negotiate to receive additional free shares if a subsequent round's valuation is less favorable.
Ok so it’s all completely made up, which is what we suspected, but as Bloomberg discovered when they spoke to some of the billionaires involved in funding early stage tech companies, the term “valuation” doesn’t actually mean what sane people think it means. In fact, having to equate the amount of money one throws at something with an assessment of how much the business is actually worth turns out to be really inconvenient when it comes to fleecing employee shareholders and people who got in earlier which is why VCs would rather just not talk about it, but when pressed, here’s what they’ll say: 

“These big numbers almost don't matter," says Randy Komisar, a partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. "Those numbers are just a middling shot at a valuation, and then it's adjusted later" 
Got it. So while we thought “valuations” were numbers that indicate how much something is worth, what they actually are are complete shots in the dark which, if necessary, can be “adjusted” later to reflect economic realities. The reason this makes sense is because these companies often command huge market shares in markets they made up and also because their founders are arrogant. Here’s Bloomberg again: 

Some VCs defend the practice by saying valuations are just a placeholder number, part of an equation fueled by other, more important factors. Those can include market share, growth projections, and a founder's ego. 
If those are the “more important factors,” what are the less important factors? 

“A tech startup's cash flow is less important than you might think. It's something investors look at for a sense of how quickly a startup is growing its revenue, if the company has any.” 
So just as the term “valuation” does not, as we mistakenly thought, indicate what something is worth, a business’s ability to generate cash flow is “less important” than we might have suspected, and it’s a good thing, because a lot of these business don’t make any money at all:

Financiers also look to find the number of people using the product, regardless of whether they pay for it. 
Another mistake the market often makes when thinking about valuing these companies revolves around the bad habit of factoring in costs, and especially operating costs, which, like cash flow, actually don’t matter:

Costs, especially operations costs, are largely ignored for fast-growing companies.
All of this makes complete sense of course, but it does lead us to wonder how valuations for the next Facebook are determined because ultimately, you’re still left with the annoying task of having to get a funding round done, and even if it’s just a “middling shot,” it’s still a shot you have to take. Fortunately, there’s one completely unbiased party who is always willing to step in and tell you how much the business is really worth: 

The number is typically set by the company…

A founder often starts off with a number in mind, based on the startup's last valuation, the valuations of competitors, and, for good measure, the valuation of the company's neighbor down the street.
The punchline to the whole thing is that when this highly scientific process ends up spitting out a number that doesn’t make any sense (so like when Snapchat is supposedly as valuable as Campbell’s Soup for instance), the VCs never get hurt because, in consultation with the founder, they make sure to put in ironclad “downside protection.” 

Buried in their corporate filings, startups tuck away all sorts of provisions that reward investors for accepting these mega-valuations. The practice is more regular and egregious in financing rounds for mature companies. Their capital requirements tend to be much larger, so they must turn to more sophisticated investment firms that demand these kinds of terms. Startups that are generous with these guarantees can garner much higher valuations.

Each provision covers different ways to make sure new investors get paid back, even if disaster strikes, if an initial public offering gives the company a market cap far less than its private number, or, more commonly, if the startup has to raise money again at a lower valuation. One stipulation, called senior liquidation preference, ensures that a certain group gets its money back before anyone else, including employees. Another class, called downside protection or ratchets, automatically grants additional shares in the event of a declining valuation, removing a great deal of risk that the stake will ever lose value.

And while company founders and VCs are busy making up numbers, employees (who may or may not have been lured into working for the companies with promises of stock option riches), get the short end of the stick because unlike the VCs, the value of their stake is based on real numbers: 

The valuation based on common stock, which is generally what employees receive, and it's calculated by professional auditors. That figure usually isn't anywhere close to the headline number

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-18/surprise-tech-company-valuations-are-completely-made

Solar eclipse, Supermoon, Spring equinox: Friday will see three rare celestial events -

Solar eclipse, Supermoon, Spring equinox: Friday will see three rare celestial events -

As the eclipse plunges the UK and other places into darkness this Friday, two other rare if less spectacular celestial events will be taking place, too: a Supermoon and the Spring equinox.

A Supermoon, or perigee moon, happens when the full or new moon does its closest fly-by of the Earth, making it look bigger than it normally does. And the spring equinox refers to the time of the year when the day and night are of equal duration, mid-way between the longest and shortest days.

The solar eclipse refers to a phenomenon where the sun and moon line up, so that the latter obscures the former. And while it won’t be affected by the two other events, it is rare that the three events happen even individually.



Supermoon

Most of the time, there are between three and six Supermoons a year. There is set to be six in 2015, two of which have already happened. The next will take place on March 20, the day of the eclipse, and the others will come in August, September and October.

In pictures: The biggest supermoon of 2014
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Perigee moon
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Eclipses can only happen at new moon, when the moon appears is entirely in shadow. And the spectacular Supermoon images that are often spotted can only happen when the moon is full, since it can only be seen then.

As a result, only the last three Supermoons of this year will be visible — because the moon is new rather than full on March 20, it won’t be seen. But it will be gliding past us closer than ever, and its shadow will be visible as it blocks out the sun on Friday morning.


Spring equinox

The equinox will also happen on March 20. While it won’t have any discernable, direct impact on how the solar eclipse looks, it will contribute to a rare collision of three unusual celestial events.

On March 20, the Earth’s axis will be perpindecular to the sun’s rays — which only happens twice a year, at the two equinoxes. After that, it will start tipping over, making the days longer in the northern hemisphere.

As such, the equinox has long been celebrated as a time of beginning and renewal, by a number of historic cultures, and is linked to Easter and Passover.

The equinox will happen at the same time as a solar eclipse in 2053 and 2072, though it doesn’t always appear as close together as that.

Read more -

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/solar-eclipse-supermoon-spring-equinox-friday-will-see-three-rare-celestial-events-10111592.html

For Every Dollar Spent Influencing US Politics, Corporations Get $760 Back -

For Every Dollar Spent Influencing US Politics, Corporations Get $760 Back - 

I almost don’t want to write it, but if one is OK with crony capitalism, essentially stealing from the American citizenry via any number of official means, investing a few bucks in cronies gives amazing returns.

I am always astounded by the favors (almost always legal favors) politicians give out for relatively paltry sums. Sure Mr X goes to work for Y company after working at Z agency and Y company just happens to get a contract. But that contract(s) might be worth billions. The newly hired ex-bureaucrat costs maybe a few hundred thousand dollars per year. Chump change.

A solid return on investment. And with campaign contributions to congresspeople the ROI is often even better.


(From Zerohedge)
According to the foundation’s analysis, between 2007 and 2012, 200 of America’s most politically active corporations spent a combined $5.8 billion (with a B) on federal lobbying and campaign contributions. What they gave pales compared to what those same corporations got: $4.4 trillion (with a T) in federal business and support.
For the record I don’t have a big problem with Citizens United. Corporations are collections of people and if they want to support politicians it is quite literally the right of each of those individuals to do it collectively if they so choose.

However, that does not mean that the citizenry has to like it when a company throws around its money. The voters can ultimately punish a politician. Unfortunately that rarely happens.

If we want to reduce the ROI on lobbying and other types of influence peddling it is up to the citizenry to reduce it. We have the tools. The question is whether people will really hold their “leaders” accountable or not. To date it’s mostly been not.

Companies, unions, wealthy individuals, etc. can only buy politicians if we let them.

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-16/words-greatest-investment-every-dollar-spent-influencing-us-politics-corporations-ge

WARNING: Cell Phone Users, you are BUSTED! - track your movements 24/7 for the last several years -

WARNING: Cell Phone Users, you are BUSTED! - track your movements 24/7 for the last several years - 

If you want to see what your history has, go to here: https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0/ and Login with your gmail username / password

If you have an iphone with google maps installed (prior to version 3.2.1), then you can access the same information.

More information on this is here: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/4388034?hl=en


You can see on google maps EVERYWHERE you've ever went. I saw an article today while searching for videos, figured I'd try it myself. Sure enough, I can track my movements 24/7 for the last several years. Worst part is, so can the police and anyone else that has your login info.

Facebook Does it Again – Company Sends Funeral Home Advertisements To Cancer Sufferer -

Facebook Does it Again – Company Sends Funeral Home Advertisements To Cancer Sufferer - 

I don’t know what it’s going to take to get people to stop using Facebook. I really don’t.

Last month, I highlighted an extremely important warning from Salim Varani in the post, A Very Disturbing and Powerful Post – “Get Your Loved Ones Off Facebook.” If you somehow missed that piece, go ahead and read it now. Here’s a an excerpt to give you a little taste:

“Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you why you’re getting off Facebook,” is the guilty and reluctant question I’m hearing a lot these days. Like we kinda know Facebook is bad, but don’t really want to know.

I’ve been a big Facebook supporter – one of the first users in my social group who championed what a great way it was to stay in touch, way back in 2006.

I got my mum and brothers on it, and around 20 other people. I’ve even taught Facebook marketing in one of the UK’s biggest tech education projects, Digital Business Academy. I’m a techie and a marketer — so I can see the implications — and until now, they hadn’t worried me. I’ve been pretty dismissive towards people who hesitate with privacy concerns.

With this latest privacy change on January 30th, I’m scared.
Given the company’s aggressive push to monetize all their users’ personal data and conversations, it was only a matter of time before we’d see an egregious real world example of what can go wrong.

It all went wrong for Daniel Kapp, an Austria-based strategic consultant diagnosed with prostrate cancer last month. Shortly after googling the disease, he became bombarded with funeral home advertisements on Facebook. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get rid of them.

The Daily Mail reports that:

A cancer patient who searched online for support about his disease was left horrified when Facebook began placing advertisement for funeral directors on his Facebook feed.

Daniel Kapp, 46, was diagnosed with prostate cancer last month. Shortly after he used the web to learn more about the illness.

When he opened Facebook the following day he said he was ‘bombarded’ with ‘insensitive’ promotions that he couldn’t remove.

‘I was just knocked off my feet to see that there on the screen,’ said Mr Kapp, who works as a strategic consultant in Austria.

‘It is just completely insensitive. And every time I tried to delete it, it appeared again.’ 

He blamed Facebook for monitoring the data about the searches he had done and then using it in order to sell it on to potential advertisers.

When contacted by local media, the directors of the funeral companies said they were shocked their adverts were being used to target people in this way. One said: ‘I can confirm that this should never have happened.’

It gathers information about devices, sites people visit, searches they’ve made and demographic data they have entered into their account on the social network.

Initially these cookies were just used on the site, but in September Facebook launched its Atlas ad platform that monitors these movements around the wider web.

Today Facebook added a new tool called Topic Data that now additionally scans what people are ‘saying about events, brands, subjects and activities.’
More abuses to come. Virtually guaranteed.

Facebook has not yet responded to MailOnline’s request to comment on Mr Kapp’s complaints.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. One of the most significant indications things are turning around for the better and that humanity is growing up, is when Facebook begins to bleed users. Until then…

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-13/facebook-does-it-again-%E2%80%93-company-sends-funeral-home-advertisements-cancer-sufferer

Greece Passes Law To Plunder Pension Funds -

Greece Passes Law To Plunder Pension Funds - 

Having previously hinted that they might 'dip' into public pensions funds for some short-term cash to payback The IMF, and then confirming that the plan is to repo that cash from pension cash reserves (raising concerns about how they will unwind the repo - i.e. pay it back); the Greek government finally signed the bill today that enables them to plunder the Greek people's pension funds (for their own good).The massive irony of this bill is the bill enables greek deposits to be fully invested in Greek sovereign bonds... which Tsipras and Varoufakis both admitted today is "unsustainable" and "will never be repaid."

*GREEK GOVT SUBMITS BILL, ALLOWING USE OF PENSION FUND RESERVES
As Bloomberg reports,

Cash reserves of pension funds and other public entities kept in Bank of Greece deposit accounts can be fully invested in Greek sovereign notes, according to amendment to be submitted in parliament, country’s finance ministry says in e-mailed statement.

Cash reserves can be used for repos, reverse repos, buy and sell-back, sell and buy-back transactions

Pension funds, public entities will be able to claim damages from Greek state in case of overdue repayment, partial repayment

Pension funds are not obliged to transfer their reserves to the Bank of Greece, according to finance ministry statement
*  *  *

We wonder how the increasingly disenfranchised Greeks will react when they find their savings (whatever there is left) are now being directly plundered to fund the nation's transfer payments (via The IMF) to Ukraine.


Greece remains second only to Ukraine for default risk....

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-12/greece-passes-law-plunder-pension-funds

Exploding E-cigarette burns California man, starts fire... -

Exploding E-cigarette burns California man, starts fire... - 

A Santa Ana man suffered burns to his face Monday after an electronic cigarette he was smoking exploded, sending shrapnel flying throughout his room and lighting his bed on fire, authorities said.

The man, described as being in his 20s, was treated for flash burns to his face and hand, which was cut during the blast, said Capt. Steve Concialdi of the Orange County Fire Authority.

“It was like a bomb that exploded in his face,” Concialdi said.

The man was smoking a modified e-cigarette about 1:45 a.m. inside his bedroom in the 100 block of MacArthur Boulevard, when it started humming, Concialdi said.

As he quickly pulled the cigarette from his face, it exploded, authorities said.

Concialdi said the powerful explosion sent pieces of the battery-operated device flying with one bit lodged in his bedroom ceiling. The bed, which was covered in clothing, burst in flames.

Last month, authorities said an Anaheim Hills teen was burned when an e-cigarette he was using exploded.  In San Diego, a man was hospitalized Feb. 8 after an e-cigarette exploded inside his smoke shop.

Concialdi said e-cigarette users should avoid overcharging their devices, which could cause them to overheat.

Read more - 

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-man-ecigarette-explodes-santa-ana-20150309-story.html

Venezuela To Start Fingerprinting Shoppers before they can buy bread and other staples, to combat food shortages -

Venezuela To Start Fingerprinting Shoppers before they can buy bread and other staples, to combat food shortages - 

Back in August, when we wrote about the latest instance of trouble in Maduro's socialist paradise, we cautioned that as a result of the economic collapse in the Latin American nation (and this was even before the plunge in crude made the "paradise" into the 9th circle of hell), Venezuelans soon may need to have their fingerprints scanned before they can buy bread and other staples. This unprecedented step was proposed after Maduro had the brilliant idea of proposing mandatory grocery fingerprinting system to combat food shortages. He said then that "the program will stop people from buying too much of a single item", but did not say when it would take effect.

Privacy concerns aside (clearly Venezuelans have bigger, well, smaller fish to fry) there was hope that this plunge into insanity would be delayed indefinitely, as the last thing Venezuela's strained economy would be able to handle is smuggling of the most basic of necessities: something such a dramatic rationing step would surely lead to.

Unfortunately for the struggling Venezuelan population, the time has arrived and as AP reported over the weekend, Venezuela "will begin installing 20,000 fingerprint scanners at supermarkets nationwide in a bid to stamp out hoarding and panic buying" as of this moment.

The government has been selectively rolling out the rationing system for months at state-run supermarkets along the western border with Colombia where smuggling of price-controlled goods is a major problem.

On Saturday, President Nicolas Maduro said that seven large private retail chains had voluntarily agreed to install the scanners.
Last month the owners of several chains of supermarkets and drugstores were arrested for allegedly artificially creating long queues by not opening enough tills.

It gets better: Maduro also accused Colombian food smugglers of buying up price-controlled goods in state-run supermarkets along the border.

For the first time in recent history the economists who say the effort is bound to fail, are right. They blame Venezuela's rigid price controls that discourage local manufacturing and the recent slide in world oil prices that has further diminished the supply of dollars available to import everything from milk to cars.

As BBC further adds, in January the hashtag #AnaquelesVaciosEnVenezuela ("Empty shelves in Venezuela") became a worldwide Twitter trend, with over 200,000 tweets as Venezuelans tweeted pictures of empty supermarket shelves around the country.

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-09/venezuela-start-fingerprinting-supermarket-shoppers

New memories implanted in mice while they sleep... - Same technique could alter human mind... -

New memories implanted in mice while they sleep... - Same technique could alter human mind... - 

Sleeping minds: prepare to be hacked. For the first time, conscious memories have been implanted into the minds of mice while they sleep. The same technique could one day be used to alter memories in people who have undergone traumatic events.

When we sleep, our brain replays the day's activities. The pattern of brain activity exhibited by mice when they explore a new area during the day, for example, will reappear, speeded up, while the animal sleeps. This is thought to be the brain practising an activity - an essential part of learning. People who miss out on sleep do not learn as well as those who get a good night's rest, and when the replay process is disrupted in mice, so too is their ability to remember what they learned the previous day.

Karim Benchenane and his colleagues at the Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution in Paris, France, hijacked this process to create new memories in sleeping mice. The team targeted the rodents' place cells - neurons that fire in response to being in or thinking about a specific place. These cells are thought to help us form internal maps, and their discoverers won a Nobel prize last year.

Benchenane's team used electrodes to monitor the activity of mice's place cells as the animals explored an enclosed arena, and in each mouse they identified a cell that fired only in a certain arena location. Later, when the mice were sleeping, the researchers monitored the animals' brain activity as they replayed the day's experiences. A computer recognised when the specific place cell fired; each time it did, a separate electrode would stimulate brain areas associated with reward.

When the mice awoke, they made a beeline for the location represented by the place cell that had been linked to a rewarding feeling in their sleep. A brand new memory - linking a place with reward - had been formed.

This must be the place

It is the first time a conscious memory has been created in animals during sleep. In recent years, researchers have been able to form subconscious associations in sleeping minds - smokers keen to quit can learn to associate cigarettes with the smells of rotten eggs and fish in their sleep, for example.

Previous work suggested that if this kind of subconscious learning had occurred in Benchenane's mice, they would have explored the arena in a random manner, perhaps stopping at the reward-associated location. But these mice headed straight for the location, suggesting a conscious memory. "The mouse develops a goal-directed behaviour to go towards the place," says Benchenane. "It proves that it's not an automatic behaviour. What we create is an association between a particular place and a reward that can be consciously accessed by the mouse."

"The mouse is remembering enough abstract information to think ‘I want to go to a certain place', and go there when it wakes up," says neuroscientist Neil Burgess at University College London. "It's a bigger breakthrough [than previous studies] because it really does show what the man in the street would call a memory - the ability to bring to mind abstract knowledge which can guide behaviour in a directed way."

Benchenane doesn't think the technique can be used to implant many other types of memories, such as skills - at least for the time being. Spatial memories are easier to modify because they are among the best understood.

His team's findings also provide some of the strongest evidence for the way in which place cells work. It is almost impossible to test whether place cells function as an internal map while animals are awake, says Benchenane, because these animals also use external cues, such as landmarks, to navigate. By specifically targeting place cells while the mouse is asleep, the team were able to directly test theories that specific cells represent specific places.

"Even when those place cells fire in sleep, they still convey spatial information," says Benchenane. "That provides evidence that when you've got activation of place cells during the consolidation of memories in sleep, you've got consolidation of the spatial information."

Benchenane hopes that his technique could be developed to help alter people's memories, perhaps of traumatic events (see "Now it's our turn", below).

Loren Frank at the University of California, San Francisco, agrees. "I think this is a really important step towards helping people with memory impairments or depression," he says. "It is surprising to me how many neurological and psychiatric illnesses have something to do with memory, including schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder."

"In principle, you could selectively change brain processing during sleep to soften memories or change their emotional content," he adds.

Now it's our turn
It's a familiar feat from films such as Inception and Total Recall, but will we ever really be able to plant a memory in someone else's mind as they sleep?

Karim Benchenane at the Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution in Paris, France, who implanted new memories into mice while they snoozed (see main story), hopes his technique can be developed to alter problematic memories in people. The idea is to attach good thoughts to bad memories, such as those that linger after traumatic experiences. "If you can identify where in the brain a person is reactivating a phobia-associated experience, you might be able to create a positive association," he says.

Fake friends

You could probably use the same approach to alter a person's memory to your own advantage.

Evidence suggests that single neurons can represent specific people in the brain – such cells have been termed "Jennifer Aniston cells" after a woman in a study was found to have one brain cell that only fired in response to images of the actress (Nature, doi.org/cmzdk9). If you could identify a neuron that represents you in someone else's brain and then stimulate areas of the brain that create a rewarding feeling every time that neuron fires, you might – in theory – be able to make that person like you more. "The fact that you can do it during sleep is a bit worrying, in that it implies that you could make somebody want something even if they didn't really," says Neil Burgess at University College London.

It is much more difficult to create an entirely new memory from scratch. Benchenane's team drew on the mice's existing memories of space and altered them. "It's not like they have created a whole new space that the animal is exploring in its head," says Loren Frank at the University of California, San Francisco. "Real experiences involve all of our senses and movement through space, and people, places and things," he says. "We are nowhere near recreating that richness – what we can do is take advantage of it and modify it."

These modifications could be for better or worse, says Frank. "There are a few ways of thinking about this – there's the medical application, and there's the more Orwellian application, where the government gets inside people's heads and starts to control them," he says. "It's unbelievably hard to do any of this, so I'm not deeply worried about it, but it's not impossible that it could happen."

Read more - 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27115-new-memories-implanted-in-mice-while-they-sleep.html#.VP8KRNJVntc