Useful observations
For those new to this blog, its a collection of thoughts about various topics ranging from finance and politics to solving life's minor problems. I hope its a useful information source for people out there. Feel free to leave comments
Friday 5 July 2019
Windows 10 high CPU usage Windows Explorer - explorer.exe - noisy computer fan windows 10 - quick fix
After a recent automatic update to windows 10. the CPU on my computer went crazy. Explorer.exe or Windows Explorer in the Task Manager showed 35%+ CPU usage whilst doing nothing.
To fix this:
1. Look on your desktop for any icons that are not displaying (they might be blank or just displaying a strange icon)
2. Delete these icons or move them to a different directory
3. Restart your machine
Hope this works for you - it did for me. More information can be found at this Microsoft Answers link
Tuesday 13 May 2014
How to make record profits as a bank - the 5 step plan
1. Grow like crazy by making loans
2. Progressively increase interest rates on loans whilst selling them to people with little education or money at knock down initial rates. Example 2 years at 3% next 28 years at 5.5%
3. Use extreme leverage - i.e borrow as much as you can
4. Keep minimal loan loss reserves
5. Sell your loans to government agencies and/or third parties with minimal recourse
Do these 5 things as a banking executive and you will be paid 100s of times the average salary.
After 4 years leave your bank and do this at another bank. After 12-15 years retire or move into government as the losses from the banks mount you can now have total control again as people look to you to solve the problems created by this plan.
If a regulator ever reads this maybe they could stop it? But then they wouldn't get a job with a bank and earn more money.....
Thursday 17 April 2014
The modern day robber barons of our hard work
All,
When the sovereign debt crisis arrives in a few years ( I can't predict when, but its a mathematical certainty) remember these names:
When the sovereign debt crisis arrives in a few years ( I can't predict when, but its a mathematical certainty) remember these names:
The Primary Dealers of Government Debt are:
- Bank of America
- Barclays Capital Inc.
- BNP Paribas Securities Corp.
- Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.
- Citigroup Global Markets Inc.
- Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC
- Daiwa Securities America Inc.
- Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.
- Goldman, Sachs & Co.
- HSBC Securities (USA) Inc.
- J. P. Morgan Securities Inc.
- Jefferies & Company Inc.
- Mizuho Securities USA Inc.
- Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated
- Nomura Securities International Inc.
- RBC Capital Markets
- RBS Securities Inc.
- UBS Securities LLC.
These are the banks that control the world.
They lend us our own money back with interest and they buy politicians election campaigns to enable their own regulatory agenda to expand and grow taking a piece of all productive entrepreneurial parts of society. Banks are the number one donors to most political parties in western democracies.
They control government through the bond market and they control YOU through your mortgage interest, food, heating and oil prices (which they manipulate to profit). Think about what your biggest expenditures are on....
Taxes: 60-75%% of your income if you include VAT, income tax and stamp duty - go to pay our debts, are largest welfare expenditure is pensions where they earn their hidden commissions, purchase of infrastructure is via debt
Shop prices are a function of rents and bank charges - most property is owned by banks through debt. The prices they charge increase as rents increase. Rents and employees will be their largest costs.
They are bailed out whenever they get anything wrong so the incentives are always to never get caught and take the largest risks possible.
These are the controllers of your fortunes forget about fate, government and God. Your day to day life is governed by the group of people who control these banks. 80% of everything you are able to do, what you can buy, what you can afford to buy your kids, where you live, and what you eat.
The people who understand this early on are the people who want to live life "off the grid", they realise what is happening but society treats them like they are crazy. If you point out that you live in the "matrix" everyone would think you are crazy too.
The matrix like existence we all live in is a kleptocracy for the few with owners of capital giving people the illusion of freedom. Freedom comes when decisions are out in the open, when the people in power care about the majority rather than minority; when we can all name and shame individuals who try and game the system and they suffer real costs for doing so.
This debt cycle has happened time and time again since earlier than 500AD...Bankers were hanged and cities were burned when people found out the truth (feel free to look it up). Each time the bankers move and setup in new Cities, Greece--> Rome --> Venice --> Netherlands --> Britain --> USA --> China next? The cities they leave behind become a relic to the more hedonistic days when bankers used other people's money to create and build infrastructure for themselves. Its so obvious we need unilateral controls on banking that its almost hilarious but as long as the small minority control the system and the silent majority buy into it there is nothing we can do.
Wednesday 28 August 2013
Xbox One vs PS4 specifications - simple table chart comparison
Xbox One
|
PlayStation 4
|
|
CPU
(Computer)
|
AMD SOC 8 Core Jaguar x86 processor custom built
|
AMD SOC 8 Core Jaguar SOC x86-64 processor
|
GPU
(Graphical Processor)
|
AMD Radeon 768 Shaders (peak output 1.23 TerraFlops) 853Mhz
|
AMD Radeon 1152 Shaders (peak output 1.84 TerraFlops)
800Mhz
|
Memory
|
8GB of GDDR3 RAM
(plus 32Mb of eSRAM as cache)
|
8Gb of GDDR5 RAM
|
Hard Disk
Space
|
500Gb (some space used for Operating System)
|
500Gb (some space used for Operating System)
|
Connectivity
|
Wi-FI, Wi-Fi Direct, Ethernet,3 x USB 3, Optical Out, HDMI input, HDMI 4K
output
|
Wi-FI, Ethernet, 3 x USB 3, Optical Out, Bluetooth 2.1,
HDMI 4K output, Mystery AUX port
|
Disk Type
|
Blu-Ray
|
Blu-Ray 6x CAV /DVD 8x CAV
|
Controller
|
|
|
Spec sheet
|
PS4 Spec Sheet: Link
|
|
Fan mounting
|
Single Fan on Top of the device (TBC)
|
Dual Fans at the rear (TBC)
|
Included Game
|
FIFA 14
|
The Playroom AR game (uses light bar on controller but needs PS4 Eye camera (sold separately))
|
Other
Features
|
·
Kinetic - allows voice control and games based on
user movement
·
HDMI Pass Through – allows TV watching and voice
control through the Xbox
·
Use any phone or tablet to control Xbox or TV
using Xbox SmartGlass app
|
· Can charge phone
or tablet through Micro-USB ports
· Suspend Game
mode – resume where you left off – no loading time
· Play demos
before fully downloaded – PS4 downloads first level and core code first and
the rest in the background
· No power
brick as PSU is internal
· Share button
on controller allows instant sharing and live streaming of current gameplay
online Facebook/PSN
· Allow others
to take over your character (if you need help on a level)
· Stream
gameplay to Sony Vita if television is in use for other purposes
|
Price
|
£429 (includes Kinetic sensor/camera)
$499 USD
|
£349 (not including PlayStation Camera)
EUR 399
$399 USD
|
Size
|
343x80x263mm
|
305x53x275mm 2.8kg
|
Release Date
|
USA - 8th Nov 2013
UK – 22nd Nov 2013 (TBC)
|
USA – 15th Nov 2013
UK & Europe - 29th Nov 2013
|
Trade in Game
capability
|
Able to sell game discs and play your downloaded games at
a friend’s house when logged in to Xbox Live
|
Able to sell game discs and play your downloaded games when logged into the PSN Network
|
Games at
launch only available on one platform
|
Halo
Minecraft: Xbox One Edition
Below
Crimson Dragon
D4
Dead Rising 3
Forza Motorsport 5
Killer Instinct
Kinect Sports Rivals
LocoCycle
Quantum Break
Project Spark
Rabbids Invasion
Ryse: Son of Rome
Sunset Overdrive
Titanfall
Zumba Party Fitness
Zoo Tycoon
Untitled Black Tusk game
Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare
Fantasia: Music Evolved
|
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
Gran Turismo
Blacklight: Retribution
Daylight
Deep Down
Don't Starve
DC Universe Online
#DriveClub
Infamous: Second Son
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Knack
Mercenary Kings
Oddworld: New n' Tasty
The Order: 1866
Outlast
PlanetSide 2
Primal Carnage: Genesis
Ray's The Dead
Transistor
War Thunder
Warframe
|
Measures for reducing youth unemployment in UK and the West
High youth
unemployment has been exacerbated by three key trends, changing population dynamics,
unsustainable fiscal policy and higher education misalignment.
From the graph
below we see those in the previous generation have lived in a generational
pyramid passing debt to the age group below to enable above average growth
expectations for the last 40 years.
This system has
now broken for those aged below 30. Growth through debt is not a solution for
long term sustainable value.
Increasingly older
members of society live longer and realise they have not saved enough for
prolonged retirement they are in competition for jobs with the younger
generation by not retiring. We can see this trend in US statistics where
unemployment is falling much faster for those aged 50 and above.
These demographic
factors combined with unsustainable fiscal and monetary policy have meant that capital
is not passing through to a new generation of economic activity as fast as it
once did. Contributing to this is an unsustainable company tax regime that
benefits companies with debt by enabling loans to offset tax and transfer
pricing (the practice of moving corporate profits to lower tax regimes) to
lower government tax receipts forcing reductions in spending on education
amongst other public services.
Lastly, the
educational system has been accepted as a means to an ends not providing
students with the risk taking mentality required to innovate, test and market
new ideas in any industry. Learning through failure, indeed failure itself, was
seemingly watered down to enable large numbers to “pass through” the system.
The profound mismatch between the educational model and the more
entrepreneurial job market of the 21st century is resulting in a
slow down in innovation and therefore a reduction in jobs at all levels of
education.
In order to
reverse these trends we need to “productionise” the “value of striving” and
build the case for innovation. Every business needs innovation and this needs
energy, new ideas and direction. Continuous failure leads to innovation and I
propose we build innovation spaces though out towns and cities in this country.
These large scale warehouses will
provide workshop machinery and donated software and hardware from large scale
companies to enable anyone in the population to validate their ideas and take
them from concept to design and prototype construction. Building and assisting
development will give young men and women confidence to develop new skills not
only science and engineering but also marketing, intellectual property and
branding. Life skills like mental arithmetic, prioritising, and delivering task
orientated results can be learned through these schemes. Lectures from serial
entrepreneurs like James Dyson have long talked about the need to generate
interest in learning to succeed by prototyping. Google and Apple will welcome
the adoption of their collaborative design culture and want to look for
students in these centres for the next generation of talent. With NEETs costing
the UK economy £56,000 each we can afford to invest government and private
funds in this endeavour. Any inventions brought to market in these innovation
spaces will have a portion owned by the businesses that donate as well as the
government. Like all private equity funding there will be many failures but
there will also some truly spectacular successes. Take the simple example of the digital camera.
The core component of cameras today, the CCD, was created by a young student
given a menial side project at Kodak. Although it was not capitalised upon by
the company it spawned an entire industry. We need to give people access to the
tools required to turn ideas into reality. This can truly generate sustainable
innovation as word spreads of success and previous inventors used their success
to feed investment back into the scheme. Youtube have recently created a
similar concept for movie creation. By building state of the art studios and
enabling anyone to use them they are looking for the next Spielberg to capture
the imagination of the world. They cannot do better than provide the canvas and
the paintbrush and wait for the Picasso. It has become an all too common sight
for young graduates to undertake service industry degrees, which generate
little economic value. This is doing a disservice to our young men and women
who should be taught that ideas executed well can give them a real sense of
purpose as well as helping their country back to growth.
Although it can
be argued that government has little role in shaping innovation we can see that
the private sector is hoarding capital as it has been driven to reduce risk at
all cost by developing an outsourcing model which only seeks to generate
greater return through reduced employee costs and regulation arbitrage rather
than fostering true innovation. Very few
R&D tax credits are actually used to facilitate true research and
development, the HMRC definition is so broad that tax accountants have been
using these tax breaks to grow profits rather than let companies invest in the
future. It is only government that can endure to see the profit in long term
skills growth. It can use fiscal policy to enable companies to pool their
resources into innovation spaces, into real projects, that have a high chance
of return with pooled risk. At the moment the retrenchment in the economy means
that this money is simply going to share buy backs as companies cannot find a
place to generate high returns for shareholders.
In summary a three
pronged approach. Create innovation centres through government and private
sector investment that can bring a sense of design and creation to the youth of
today. Use fiscal policy to force
private capital to invest in ideas of the future with government taking on some
of the risk and reward. Lastly, develop higher education policy that is linked
to the economic needs of the country. These elements will increase the velocity
of money from one generation to the next.
We are going to have
to make money the old fashioned way – creating what people want.
Tuesday 2 July 2013
Getting to Worthy View campsite for Glastonbury festival - sat nav / Tomtom/ Garmin instructions
For some reason the instructions for Worthy view in the Glastonbury guide are hopeless. Here are some Sat Nav friendly instructions:
You can type in Middleway Road (post code BA4) into your Sat Nav - this is the closest road.
Here are the GPS coordinates of the Worth View car park - N 51.13880, W 2.59190 9 (you can type these directly into your Sat Nav / Tomtom/ Garmin if needed)
When you arrive near Glastonbury you will be directed past many car parks (in 2013 they used different colours to highlight each one).. Depending on the direction you arrive from, drive past all of these on your way to Middleway road. None of the people in high visibility jackets seemed to know where it was so you can try and ask but we didn't have much luck.
Link to google maps click on this and then hit directions and select "current location" on your smart phone to find your way: Worthy View Campsite
MAP OF LOCATION IF NEEDED:
View Larger Map
You can type in Middleway Road (post code BA4) into your Sat Nav - this is the closest road.
Here are the GPS coordinates of the Worth View car park - N 51.13880, W 2.59190 9 (you can type these directly into your Sat Nav / Tomtom/ Garmin if needed)
When you arrive near Glastonbury you will be directed past many car parks (in 2013 they used different colours to highlight each one).. Depending on the direction you arrive from, drive past all of these on your way to Middleway road. None of the people in high visibility jackets seemed to know where it was so you can try and ask but we didn't have much luck.
Link to google maps click on this and then hit directions and select "current location" on your smart phone to find your way: Worthy View Campsite
MAP OF LOCATION IF NEEDED:
View Larger Map
Wednesday 27 February 2013
The consequences of short term profit goals
I’ve been thinking that business is fundamentally a zero sum
game. People create ideas to be more economically efficient but rarely care
about the long term consequences of their entrepreneurship. Ideas which have
generated “value”or increases in GDP have often preyed upon the immediate wants and
desires of people decimating the collective good that we believe exists when
human beings come together in a society.
Perhaps there are now two different classes of
people, those that are hunters and those that are preyed upon. As a society we hire the Government, who are
meant to give hunters balance and perspective but they have long since been
bought off by the hunters to do their bidding. If not bought off then the
election cycle forces then to cater to the immediate wants of society rather
than long term benefits.
As a society we work on a system of incentives and we can
see that the political centre right believe this whole heartedly. They have an ideology
that suggests the private sector drives innovation – which is correct.. But
that only works in the short term and any long term issues caused by profit
maximisation are ignored or left for the next government to deal with.
Below I list some examples of observations where short term
profit is made boosting the country’s GDP but longer term they are simply
storing up problems for the future that are always resolved by the collective
taxpayer making our society weaker. The perennial back stop is the taxpayer
created Government- the one that everyone wants to make smaller and less
inefficient. Ironically, the taxpayer is often the only organisation big enough
to contain the fallout from the short-term “get rich quick” schemes. I am not
advocating big government, far from it. We need efficient government who put in
place frameworks which look at long term consequences not short term election
requirements They have to play the elder statesman role while the private
sector only looks to fulfil the short term urges of the people.
Short Term Profit
|
Who benefits
|
Long Term Problem for the general
population
|
Result
|
Who has to clean up the mess that
“no one saw coming”
|
Cheap Buy to Let Mortgages
& making loan interest tax deductible for buy-to-let
landlords
|
Those few top earners with large deposits
“Old Money” families
|
No long term housing plan
Not enough cheap housing for the majority
|
Higher house prices and more homeless
More government subsidy for the working poor to live in
cities where jobs exist
|
Government (the general tax payer borrows more and
becomes poorer)
|
Cheap Alcohol
|
Alcohol company shareholders & employees
|
Diabetes,heart disease and general health issues
Increase in violence and policing costs
|
Higher healthcare costs
Broken Families in a social cycle of decline
|
Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
|
Cigarettes
|
Cigarette companies’ employees and shareholders
|
Lung Cancer and related diseases
|
Higher cost of healthcare for all
|
Government (the general tax payer borrows more and
becomes poorer)
|
Cheap fast food
|
Lots of small business owners
Mass market food producers
Retail company employees and shareholders
|
Increased litter collection
Diabetes, general health issues
|
More expensive healthcare and local taxes for litter collection
|
Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
|
Sugary Drinks / Cheap Fructose syrup added to all
processed food
|
Food company shareholders and advertising companies
|
Obesity
Higher cost of healthcare
|
Higher healthcare costs
|
Government (the general tax payer borrows more and
becomes poorer)
|
Cheap Loans to enable more transaction fees and larger
loan sizes
|
Banks employees and shareholders
|
Massive mis allocation of capital to non productive resources
|
Extended periods of decline in the business cycle which lead to
depression and suicide rates rising in the general population
|
Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
|
NHS staffed with short term agency staff
|
Agency owners
|
No skilled carers with long term experience
|
Poor customer service and more healthcare mistakes
|
Government (the general tax payer borrows more and
becomes poorer)
|
High charges for fund managers to allocate your pension
|
Fund management firms, employees and shareholders
|
Not enough money to live in retirement
|
General population in poverty
|
Government (the general tax payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
|
Short term entertainment over long term development and
skills
|
Advertisers, television and game companies and
shareholders
|
Children who grow up to have a constant need for short
term entertainment with no useful skills to add to their society
|
Fewer ideas and a a weaker society as we create less
products to sell to the world
|
Government (the general tax payer borrows more and
becomes poorer)
|
Prison containment based on short term goals - "quick sentences" or no rehabilitation
|
Outsourcing companies and share
holders
|
Parts of society that can never
be reformed
Constant cycle of crimes
against society
|
Re-offending
Higher policing costs
Destroying the lives of
offenders
|
Government (the general tax
payer borrows more and becomes poorer)
|
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