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Friday, July 12, 2019

Comparing ICOs, Random Stuff and More

- this is obviously a follow on of my other posts involving the crypto industry. There's a lot of traps involved here which is the reason for this post (particularly in the ICO space):
https://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2019/08/finding-fundinginvestment-making-money.html
- if you don't know what an ICO is most people are saying an ICO is basically a hybrid between a more traditional IPO and crowdsourcing. Not as easy as you think to make money investing in ICO's. Lot of investigative work is required to make a profit. Bubble burst about a year ago when governments decided to clamp down via regulation in retail investment in particular
- many are outright scams or boderline scams. Check terms and conditions for a lot of ICO whitepapers and it becomes obvious that people are just looking to cover themselves should things not go right, they can't be bothered doing work, etc... The irony about the nature of ICOs is that you can literally build a fake company, collect money from people, etc... and run off with it and victims basically no recourse because that's the nature of the contract that you're entering into. That said, almost all ICOs fail and many countries have taken steps to at least shut them retail investment as a bare minimum
- professional social media networks (such as LinkedIn and Zoominfo) are very useful if you're seeking investment or looking to market your product. Helps also if you have a wide professional network. Note that if you do basic background on a lot of ICO advisors and employees and you'll realise that they do little to no work on the projects themselves. They're there mainly for advertising and marketing. A few minutes cross referencing on some projects is all it will take before their stories fall apart (even their supposed expertise in this area). Don't be surprised if you find out that some of them do this work on the side and collect whatever money that they possibly can. Be careful about lending your name to projects and ask for payment via cash if you're involved in an ICO because most of them end in failure
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/instinctools
crunchbase alternative
https://alternativeto.net/software/crunchbase/
- despite the hype there is a very limited market in the crypto space both for jobs and growth. There needs to be more uptake for there to be more paid jobs
ico advisor vacancies
- one thing you'll discover is that a lot of consultants in the crypto space are very expensive. Don't be surprised that they'll ask you for 4 figures USD per month for tens of thousands of web traffic hits (you often don't even know whether it's bot traffic or real traffic?), 5 figures for package deals to effectively outsource your ICO, etc... Ironically, find a technologically savvy person and you can achieve much of this for almost nothing. If you don't know anything about this world and want to run an ICO then open source source code repositories such as Github are your friend
ico in a box
canva alternative to
free ico crypto create
free erc20 github
- most of the ICOs that have been successful in this area have people who are already successful in the real/traditional world. They've basically transferred their expertise into a new domain. A lot of East European, Russian, and US involvement 
- there was a rumor in Russian media which said that cryptocurrencies were a US idea. Wouldn't be surprised especially given their GFC/borderline bank crisis of 2008 (and also that of Europe and countries such as Venezuela, Greece, Italy, Zimbabwe, Iran, etc...). Wouldn't be surprised if it worried them at least a little. They need a backup system. This provides an obvious outlet/backup mechanism if and when a financial/banking system failure occurs. It's also another way to try and achieve a single global currency as we've witnessed via Facebook's Libra initiative
https://www.coinspeaker.com/2018/02/13/jpmorgans-bitcoin-bible-cryptocurrencies-unlikely-disappear/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-18/history-of-cryptocurrency-cypherpunks-extropians-bitcoin/11289788
- I think the one of the main unknowns in the crypto world is the status and health of the global financial system. The world is obviously debt heavy. However, certain major US IT companies are cash rich. It makes sense that the US government would want to encourage them to try and share the burden of running society?
“If it’s successful it becomes systemic because it would involve a very large number of users and if you’re a systemic payments system it’s ‘five-sigma,’’’ said Carney, referring to a threshold scientists are often held to in proving test results. “You have to be on all the time, you can’t have teething issues, you can’t have people losing money out of their wallets. The standards are in a different zip code, to use the American term, to the standards in other technologies.’’
facebook libra
apple card
apple pay
https://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-big-5-us-it-firms-arent-unbeatable.html
- few people actually seem to make money in this sector. My guess is that if the US government is backing the same techniques are going to be used. They'll try to blanket the entire market to drive out competitors before they try to figure out how to make a profit. Then they'll drive up prices afterwards much as has been the case with Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc...
- there are a lot of crypto and ICO advisory websites out there. Beware that many of them charge to achieve good ratings though (3 - 5 figures USD for a good rating/review. Otherwise, you can an average or no rating/review in spite of the fact that you may have submitted your ICO). The media/PR aspect of this industry is somewhat similar as well. For this reason I've been building a mini search engine in my spare time for various purposes (mainly data mining) and also because there doesn't seem to be much out there that does what I need
ico review
https://hackernoon.com/ico-review-sites-ico-listing-sites-top-100-ico-rating-sites-reviewed-bc8fc1b69888
https://www.icochamps.com/blog/top-30-most-popular-ico-listing-sites-ico-review-sites/?v=6cc98ba2045f
https://hackernoon.com/icos-annual-report-2018-private-funding-analysis-security-tokens-market-trends-m-a-in-cryptos-710e9dfd5297
ian balina scam
source code search engine
- few people genuinely really know this space? Even the so called experts in this field have their problems/issues and once again they charge a lot of money. The costs are so high it makes you wonder whether you're better off going it alone at times
Ian Balina 
How Ian Balina Made $4.1 Million in Less Than 12 Months
How to Make Millions with Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs)
Guide to Initial Coin Offerings (ICO)
What Are ICO's(Initial Coin Offerings) _ How To Make Money With Them
5 STEPS TO PROFIT FROM ICO's
The New Wave Of FinTech -  The End Of Banking
ian balina scam
https://www.instagram.com/michi_trossowski/
- some people I've come across believe that pure hype can keep projects going and I think that perception management plays far too great a role in many crypto projects and the technology space in general. If it falls apart it can fall apart pretty quickly with no where to go. If you want to check for hype check all public information for many projects. A lot of the time stories can just don't match up (check across the board. The statistics or information quite simply won't line up. Reviews were by people associated with the company, those close to it, or paid. I did analysis for a bunch of different ICOs and there staff. A lot of the staff involved had limited to know experience in their field. What experience they did have didn't really result in anything worthwhile. If they were being paid to participate in an ICO). Either way, you need a valid core product of reasonable quality for a project to make it. It's just sensible finance/ business
ian balina idiot
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/7sob59/ian_balina_the_ico_shill_what_have_we_come_to/
https://www.ccn.com/youtuber-accuses-ian-balina-despite-lawsuit-threat-of-shilling-crypto-garbage/
https://news.bitstarz.com/ian-balinas-rocky-crypto-winter-laid-bare
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3337143.0
https://tech.co/news/cryptocurrency-enthusiasts-arent-making-money-the-way-youd-expect-2018-02
elon musk not that smart
https://www.quora.com/Just-how-smart-is-Elon-Musk-If-you-sit-with-him-do-you-sense-a-sharp-intelligence-Does-he-think-ten-times-more-quickly-than-just-about-anyone-else-Is-his-intelligence-awe-inspiring-Is-his-success-mostly-due-to-confidence-and-drive
https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-Elon-Musk-is-really-that-smart-or-is-he-just-really-good-at-being-a-leader
https://www.quora.com/Is-Elon-Musk-really-as-smart-as-people-think-he-is
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-everyone-think-Elon-Musk-is-so-smart
https://www.quora.com/What-is-Elon-Musks-IQ
Allegations of gender-based discrimination
Scott Ard, a prominent editorial director, fired from Yahoo! in 2015, filed a lawsuit alleging that "Mayer encouraged and fostered the use of (an employee performance-rating system) to accommodate management’s subjective biases and personal opinions, to the detriment of Yahoo!’s male employees." He claimed that, prior to his firing, he had received "fully satisfactory" performance reviews since starting at the company in 2011 as head of editorial programming for Yahoo!'s home page; however, he was relieved of his role, which was given to a woman who had been recently hired.[77][78] This case was dismissed in March 2018.[79]

An earlier lawsuit was filed by Gregory Anderson, who was fired in 2014, alleging the company’s performance management system was arbitrary and unfair and disguised layoffs as terminations for the purpose of evading state and federal WARN Acts, making it the first WARN Act and gender discrimination lawsuit Yahoo! and Mayer faced in 2016.[80][81][82]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marissa_Mayer
https://www.lumilabs.com/
https://leekico.com/
- in the finance game a lot of people are just in the game of 'pump and dump'. If startup running an ICO can't even be bothered to do basic competitive analysis and research you have to wonder whether it's worth it? The irony is that a lot of ICO's are like this and they aren't genuinely competitive across the board
I don't see it like that. He's not just some random flipper/investor. When he's advising for an ICO think about the simplest and most important thing that he can bring to the table: structure. He knows what information an ICO should make easily accessible and what matters should be stated clearly. Things like: do they have a working product? do they actually need a blockchain or a coin and why? is the team clearly displayed on the website and do they provide Linkedin/other reputable websites links?

These things are really important when looking into an ICO and they help investors make an informed decision. We all know how messy ICOs can be and how difficult it is digging through a whitepaper for some simple information. Now I don't know how he's advising exactly, but my guess is that he's doing at least this. Making ICOs more user friendly which is really important.
The price of bitcoin sank late Wednesday after a report by the Wall Street Journal that the Securities and Exchange Commission is ramping up pressure on the initial-coin-offerings industry, issuing scores of subpoenas and information requests to companies. The Journal reported the SEC is seeking information about the structure of ICO sales and pre-sales. Bitcoin BTCUSD, +2.10% immediately fell about 2% after the report, and was last trading at $10,346, according to Coindesk. The SEC has previously suggested that many ICOs may be violating securities laws. In December, a new SEC cyber unit took its first action, halting an allegedly fraudulent ICO. An ICO is a fund-raising method in which a company issues its own cryptocurrency, typically in exchange for bitcoin. The process has significantly fewer regulatory hoops to jump through than an IPO, and the ICO market has been booming, with $6.5 billion raised last year. They're also highly risky -- according to a new survey, 46% of new ICOs in 2017 either flopped out of the gate or have since gone out of business.
And that is the actual case. Executing a successful ICO is difficult. A lot of things have to fall in place. This is why the majority of these ideas will fail and you will never see an actual working product or service on the market.

According to a recent article in Fortune magazine “Nearly Half of 2017’s Cryptocurrency ‘ICO’ Projects Have Already Died“. And Bitcoin.com found another 113 projects that it calls “semi-failed,” because their teams have gone off the radar or their community has withered away. Add those to the mix and the failure rate jumps to 59%. Nervous yet?

As investors grow wary and scared the flow of funds will begin to shrink.

People are getting smarter, earlier. They’re doing more research, sharing information, getting the facts and exposing the schemes, scams and con artists behind these projects. Regulators are getting more involved in cryptocurrencies and they are starting to prosecute scammers. This will make it more difficult for new ICO projects to achieve PRE-ICO and ICO success.
In addition, Medcraft noted that in 2016 and 2017, there had been around 900 ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings), nearly half of which had failed; giving some weight to the risks outlined above. 

He also observed that there is still a “wild west” mentality in much of the Blockchain environment and there is a need for the “rule of law” to come to play in order to permit monetary applications to become more main stream.
percentage ico profitable
What percent of ICO have been profitable for you?
- there are some seriously dodgy projects out there. Whitepapers which have typos, spelling, grammatical errors, graphics problems, etc... are really common. That's why I wrote a whitepaper analyser a while back. There are projects to help identify fake ICOs out there
ico scam
https://deadcoins.com/
https://hacken.io/top-8-ico-scams/
https://badbitcoin.org/
https://steemit.com/scam/@moonjelly/how-to-create-an-ico-scam-in-5-simple-steps
A recent study prepared by ICO advisory firm Statis Group revealed that more than 80 percent of initial coin offerings (ICOs) conducted in 2017 were identified as scams. The study took into consideration the lifecycle of ICOs run in 2017, from the initial proposal of a sale availability to the most mature phase of trading on a crypto exchange.

The research says that in 2017 “over 70 percent of ICO funding (by $ volume) to-date went to higher quality projects, although over 80 percent of projects (by # share) were identified as scams.” The analysts found that four percent of ICOs failed, and three percent had “gone dead.” The study recognized ICO death as “not listed on exchanges for trading and has not had a code contribution in Github on a rolling three-month basis from that point in time.”

According to the study, total funding of coins and tokens in 2017 amounted to $11.9 billion. $1.34 billion (11 percent) of ICO funding went to scams, the vast majority went to three large scammy projects; Pincoin ($660 million), Arisebank ($600 million), and Savedroid ($50 million), which together equal $1.31 billion. This suggests that while a large number of ICOs were scams, they received very little funding when compared with the industry as a whole.

Earlier this month, TechCrunch released a report based on data from Coinopsy and DeadCoins, which found that more than a thousand crypto projects are “already dead” as of June 30, 2018. According to Coinopsy’s list, there were 247 “dead” coins, while DeadCoins had a 830-item long list of “dead” cryptocurrencies.

According to research conducted by cybersecurity company Carbon Black in June, roughly $1.1 billion worth of digital currency was stolen in the first half of 2018. The security company said that criminals take advantage of the dark web to facilitate large-scale cryptocurrency theft. Estimates reportedly show that there are 12,000 marketplaces and 34,000 offerings associated with cryptotheft that hackers can take advantage of.

A joint report from consulting firm PwC and the Swiss Crypto Valley Association revealed that the volume of ICOs between January and May 2018 reached $13.7 billion in 2018 so far, which is already twice as much as the market amounted to in all of 2017.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/new-study-says-80-percent-of-icos-conducted-in-2017-were-scams
- there are bright spots in the crypto world and safer options for investment in the crypto world if you want them. The best are probably crypto investment funds who are basically those who have transferred over from the traditional banking and finance sector. Ironically, these are largely governed by the same rules that traditional financial service companies offer
https://thebitcoinnews.com/bankera-ico-raises-100-million-euros-record-breaking-number-contributors/
crypto super fund
https://www.coinspot.com.au/smsf
https://www.smh.com.au/money/investing/diy-super-funds-bitcoin-cryptocurrencies-smsf-20181108-p50es7.html
https://www.hiveex.com/self-managed-super-funds
crypto index
https://cointelegraph.com/price-indexes
https://cci30.com/
https://coinmarketcap.com/indices/
https://www.worldcoinindex.com/
https://crypto20.com/en/
https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/product/indices/bloomberg-galaxy-crypto-index/
https://cryptoindex.io/
crypto hft
https://atomic.fund/strategies/high-frequency-trading
https://www.blueskycapitalmanagement.com/hft-crypto/
https://github.com/freqtrade/freqtrade
https://caspian.tech/blog/why-high-frequency-traders-are-turning-to-crypto/
http://tuliphft.com/
ico investment funds
https://www.panteracapital.com/
https://crypto20.com/
http://finshi.capital/
The Initial Coin Offering (ICO’s) boom is over. Research by Protos Asset Management has found that 70 percent of all ICOs are now worth less than the amount raised during the ICO. As the market downturn in cryptocurrency valuations shows no sign of abating — 50 percent of tokens have dropped by at least 90 percent since December 2017 — investors have lost their appetite for coin offerings.

“Players are super careful,” said Eva Willers, head of advisory and investments at Protos in Zurich. “Be aware you need a solid business idea. Solid token economics to be able to raise funds.”
...
“It is getting harder to raise funds but I think this is a healthy development,” said Willers. “The market is maturing and people are now looking at classic criteria: Is the team good? What is the track record? What is the valuation? Does the business make sense? Will the token increase in value over time?”
https://medium.com/moondockhq/super-careful-blockchain-investors-get-smart-after-ico-boom-56015dcbd752
- some countries view crypto as it's saviour while others view it as their enemy. The reason why is because it can destabilise their own national currencies, act as a backstop to their traditional banking and finance system, be used to bypass financial sanctions, etc... Check regulations before you decide to invest or run an ICO or get involved in the cryptocurrency space
favorited: Indian housewives hold 11% of the world's gold  that's more than the reserves of the U.S., Germany, and Switzerland put together.
arcadia crypto ventures
Are cryptocurrencies here to stay _ Inside Story
- there are a lot of useless projects out there. These include projects that don't have a market, don't have a genuine chance to succeed, don't have the expertise or backing, etc... There market research tools you can use to weed this out but it obviously takes patience. Other obvious things to look out for in dodgy ICOs. Team is inexperienced, inflexible, incapable of pulling it off. They struggle to gain traction in marketing. What I mean is that they don't know how to to 'stand out' out of the crowd that is 'the Internet'. Reason why is that even thousands of views or followers mean nothing in the modern age of the Internet because paid reviews are pretty common. Cliches and obvious lies are really fairly common and an easy way to catch flawed or fradulent ICOs. Ideal situation is that you know someone who is running an ICO and they are competant, reliable, hard working, and a performer. Not a combination of characteristics that you'll find common across a lot of people if you're honest with yourself
https://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2019/07/online-marketing-and-sales-notes-random.html
- the easiest way to check for market size and competition is to check for alternatives via the Google play store and via sites such as alternativeto, Google's Market Finder, Google's Keyword Finder, etc...
crypto wallet google play
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wallet.crypto.trustapp&hl=en
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onebit.app&hl=en
alternativeto jaxx
https://alternativeto.net/software/jaxx/
https://alternativeto.net/software/breadwallet/
app inventor crypto wallet
seo keyword finder
google market finder
offline crypto exchange p2p
P2P Exchange for bitcoin
crypto exchange python

Random Stuff:
- as usual thanks to all of the individuals and groups who purchase and use my goods and services
- doesn't make sense that the US would be worried about data collection for the S-400 vs the F-35 because Kaliningrad puts Russia within data collection capability of the Baltic states. What makes more sense is that the US is concerned about Turkey and Russia working jointly to develop countermeasures against the F-35 JSF? It also doesn't matter if they pull out now anyhow. They have a mountain of experience under their built if you examine their history properly. If design and production of the T-FX goes smoothly missing out on the JSF won't make much of a difference because they don't really have many conflict areas as well? That said, it runs both ways. The Turks could just as easily be acquiring to gain information about the S-400 systems to build counter measures yet hardly anyone talks about it. Commonly acknowledged that Russian air defense systems are cheaper and better then US air defense systems but export variants of Russian defense equipment is often significantly less capable then their native equivalents
America’s relationship with Turkey deteriorated sharply early this month, when Washington gave Ankara a deadline of 31 July to cancel its purchase of the Russian S-400 air defence system or face having its participation in the F-35 fighter jet project discontinued. The US also threatened Turkey with sanctions under the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act if it decided to go through with the S-400 purchase.

Washington has stated that it opposes the purchase because it ‘does not want to have the F-35 in close proximity to the S-400 over a period of time because of the ability to understand the profile of the F-35 on that particular piece of equipment’. It has also noted that the S-400 procurement would hinder Turkey’s ability to enhance or maintain cooperation with the US and within NATO and would lead to ‘Turkey’s strategic and economic over-dependence on Russia’.
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Random Quotes:
Do oligarchs in eastern Europe produce the power structures or do the power structures produce the oligarchs? Whichever came first, EU funds aggravate the problem, and it's time this was stopped, writes Boris Kalnoky.
- Adolescent chimpanzees adopt their younger siblings if their mothers die. The older siblings keep a close watch on the youngsters, protect them from threats, and give them lots of comforting snuggles.

The finding adds to the evidence that chimpanzees can understand when others are suffering, and to some extent can help them. In line with this, a second study shows that chimpanzees have a strong emotional response when they see that another chimp, or a familiar human, is injured.
- Russia has delivered light arms to the CAR’s security forces last year and said it had deployed 175 military and civilian instructors to train them.

This happened after Moscow received an exemption from a United Nations arms embargo to deliver arms to CAR in December 2017, to help the government fight against militants there.

Russia’s growing military presence in Africa has prompted concern among the Western countries, particularly the US which has already a significant military presence in the continent.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton had previously accused Russia and China of using “corrupt” and “predatory” practices to gain an economic advantage over Washington in Africa.

China has already provided many countries in Asia and Africa with billions of dollars in aid and loans for roads, railways, ports and other major infrastructure projects. It has also set up its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017, where the US also has its main base of operations in Africa.
- The Chinese "nuclear option" so favoured on WeChat simply does not exist. What might be more interesting is a Chinese blockade of lithium and rare earth minerals needed for hi-tech manufacturing and defence. Beijing has a stranglehold on immediate world supply. US strategic stocks are too low to last a long siege.
- The AMV purchased 35 Sukhoi Su-30 planes from Russia in July 2006, as a result of the United States embargo on spare parts for their F-16 force.[5] In 2008, Venezuela was reported for a potential acquisition of a number of Su-35 fighter aircraft and a second batch of aircraft 12-24 Sukhoi Su-30 from Russia.[6][7] It did not proceed further.

In October 2015, Venezuela announced the purchase of 12 more Su-30MK2 from Russia for $480 million.[8][9]
- Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the time has come to move away from hegemonic illusions which are causing strife in the Middle East.

Zarif made the remarks while addressing the 72nd High-level Meeting on Peace building and Sustaining Peace at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

"Conflict prevention requires focusing on the root causes, including the mutually reinforcing afflictions of occupation, foreign intervention and extremism. Additionally, advancing hegemonic illusions or attempting to achieve security at the expense of others through exclusion and block formations, have invariably caused tension and conflict, and led to destructive arms races," he added.

Zarif also noted that Persian Gulf countries must join forces in order to maintain regional peace instead of trying to become regional powers.  

The Iranian foreign minister further called for the establishment of a "Regional Dialogue Forum" and the establishment of new security networks aimed a replacing current national security blocs.

"It is crucial to now shift to a new paradigm based on joining forces to create strong regions, instead of anyone seeking to be the strongest in our region. And shifting from forming security blocks to accepting security networking. Both are predicated on respect for the interest of all stakeholders--large and small--coupled with a win-win philosophy. In the current inter-connected world, no country’s security can be assured at the expense of others," he noted.
- Hamas says Israel scrambled to seek a ceasefire in its recent military aggression against Gaza through mediators after the Palestinian resistance increased the range of their retaliatory rockets.
...
The Gaza escalation erupted last Friday following the deaths of four Palestinians in an Israeli air raid on the coastal sliver and the regime’s live fire targeting Gaza protesters.

Israeli warplanes struck some 350 sites in Gaza, claiming the lives of 27 Palestinian people.

In response, the Palestinians fired some 700 rockets at the occupied lands between Saturday morning and early Monday morning, killing four Israelis and injuring 200 others.

Israel’s “Iron Dome” only intercepted 240 of the 690 projectiles fired from Gaza, raising serious questions about the effectiveness of the missile system.

After three days of deadly Israeli airstrikes and retaliatory Palestinian rocket attacks, the two sides reached a ceasefire agreement on Monday with the help of Egyptian and Qatari mediators.
- Dr. Carlo Kopp, one of the world’s top aerospace experts, says the S-400 has optional acquisition radars designed to defeat modern stealth aircraft such as the F-22 and the F-35. They work by operating in multiple frequency bands including both VHF and L bands that can “see” stealth-protected fighters.
- Yet even as the United States maintains a vast economic, military and technological advantage over Russia, increasingly it is Russia that is seen as the go-to power for a region consumed by crises and unsure of Washington’s reliability, said Riad Kahwaji, who heads the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.

“Russia has managed to create the perception in the Middle East that it is more powerful, more capable and more relevant than the United States,” he said. “It’s not how much power you have. It’s how you use it. The United States has all these troops and bases, and Russia has a fraction of that. But Russia uses its power more effectively.”
- Since 2000, African countries have captured a large slice of the aid and loans given by China.

However, China's wealth is distributed to points across the globe, from hospitals in Senegal to ports in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In 2014, the most recent year covered by AidData, Russia topped the recipient list, followed by Pakistan and Nigeria.

In contrast, the US list in 2014 was topped by Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by Pakistan.

Politics plays a big part in how both China and the US decide to spend their money. Earlier studies by the researchers behind AidData show that both Beijing and Washington tend to offer money to countries which support them at the United Nations.

But for China, economics play a key role: the AidData researchers found Beijing is often focused on promoting Chinese exports or market rate loans where China wants to get the loan repaid with interest.
- There is one other concern. In June 2017, the USS Fitzgerald, an American destroyer equipped with the Aegis missile defense system, collided with a Philippine containership off the Japanese coast, killing seven people on board. The captain and another officer were court-martialed for criminal negligence. But the U.S. Navy recently made the unusual decision to withdraw the charges.

Like modern fighter jets, Aegis-equipped vessels are full of electronics. The accident prompted speculation that the Fitzgerald could have been hacked or hit with an electromagnetic pulse attack that caused systems to malfunction.

With military secrets involved, the truth remains a mystery. But the strange decision to withdraw charges over an incident that caused multiple deaths raises the possibility that hacking was found to have been involved, leading the military to conclude that the officers were blamed in error.

There are worries that the F-35A and the F-22 could be hacked -- perhaps during system updates -- to plant the seeds for future software problems. The U.S. military is believed to be looking into this risk with respect to the OBOGS malfunctions.

A national security source said of a recent piece on the American scramble to keep the F-35's secrets safe from Russia and China: "I agree with it, but the situation is more serious than that," the source said. What that could mean remains a mystery of its own.
- IAF has plans of having 40 Su-30MKIs fitted with the BrahMos missiles which can carry out long range standoff strikes against enemy targets. The retrofitting of the aircraft is expected to be completed by 2020. The Brahmos-Su-30MKI combination will give the IAF an ability to strike enemy targets while remaining out of the reach of the enemy’s missiles.
- The only amazing thing is that it still goes on this far into the 21st century. A typical review of the Crossing Over program goes like this: “This show is one of the most egregious displays of pseudo-scientific charlatanry to be seen in recent years. Clearly a scam, Edward uses basic fortune-telling psychological techniques to give the impression that he can communicate with the dead ... He gives the audience easy clues and lets them fill in the gaps. He never says anything specific except (occasionally) by chance, but instead says things like 'I sense a father figure' and lets his victims give it meaning.” Exactly.
- In Hungary, at least, the oligarchs don't determine politics. It's the other way round: politics determine the oligarchs.

The EU cohesion fund is one of the root causes of the oligarch affliction. According to Brussels, this is how it is supposed to work: EU money helps poorer countries align their level of economic development to that of the more affluent western European countries — hence the term "cohesion." This economic convergence will then, in Brussels' view,  also bolster a convergence of values and promote the acceptance of democracy, free markets and the rule of law.

People in central and eastern European countries, however, have taken a very close look at this strategy. It was determined that a considerable portion of those funds, which are often used for infrastructure projects, eventually ends up in pockets of western European conglomerates that have the know-how, competitiveness and capacity to win public tenders. So funds that were originally transferred to the east are, at least in part, channeled back to the west.

In this respect, the emergence of the oligarch affliction in central and eastern Europe amounts, to a certain degree, to an attempt at keeping those funds within national borders. In Hungary, at least, the government intentionally established politically loyal entrepreneurs who win public tenders with disproportionate frequency. Orban has called this "neo-mercantilism," a term from economic history referring to an era in Europe in which domestic industries were set up behind protectionist customs barriers. The scheme could also, in a manner of speaking, be called "patriotic corruption."
- On Friday, Khan announced a policy aimed at easing the pressure parents face from their children to buy them junk food.

"In the future, you won't be be able to advertise foods high in fat, high in sugar and high in salt on the tubes, on the trams, on the buses and on the London overground," the Labour Mayor said.

A junk food advertising ban was trialled on a smaller scale in Amsterdam, where the Mayor has overseen a 12 per cent reduction in the number of children deemed overweight or obese in just three years since announcing a multi-faceted childhood obesity policy.
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Saving Money (without Sacrificing), Random Stuff, and More

- use price matching when you can to get an extra discount. Note, a lot of companies advertise low prices just to get you through the door. ...