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We’re all familiar with the classic tale of Robin Hood and how he became a hero by “robbing from the rich and giving to the poor.” The story has become so universally recognized that often politicians who favor taxing wealthier...

Day after day, mainstream media proclaimed December the month to be in stocks: seasonals, Santa Claus rally, and performance-chasing funds would 'guarantee' upside. For Owen Li, former Raj Rajaratnam's Galleon Group trader, and the clients of his Canarsie Capital hedge fund, December 2014 will never be forgotten. According to CNBC, from around $100 million in AUM in March 2014, Li told investors in a letter, the fund had lost all but $200,000 and he was "truly sorry," for "acting overzealously" in the last 3 weeks.

Lawrence Delevingne reports:

A hedge fund manager told clients he is "truly sorry" for losing virtually all their money.

 

Owen Li, the founder of Canarsie Capital in New York, said Tuesday that he had lost all but $200,000 of the firm's capital—down from the roughly $100 million it ran as of late March 2014.

 

"I take responsibility for this terrible outcome," Li wrote in a letter to investors obtained by CNBC.com

 

"My only hope is that you understand that I acted in an attempt—however misguided—to generate higher returns for the fund and its investors. But even so, I acted overzealously, causing you devastating losses for which there is no excuse," he added.

 

...

 

Li said in the letter that he made a series of "aggressive transactions" over the last three weeks to make up for poor returns in December. He said he bet on stock price options, predicated on the broader market rising. But stock indexes instead fell, causing the huge losses along with several undisclosed direct investments, according to the note.

Li is a former trader at Raj Rajaratnam's Galleon Group, which collapsed amid insider trading charges.

Li's lieutenant at Canarsie is Ken deRegt, who joined in 2013 after having retiring as the global head of fixed income sales and trading at Morgan Stanley.

To Mr. Li's less than sophisticated investors we have a short clip summarizing what just happened:

As for Mr. Li, we look forward to his next "hedge" fund reincarnation so that we too can give him some of our money to manage because it really is not easy to find someone who can blow through $100 million in less than a year. And who knows: if someone is willing to fund a guy that dumb and that clueless, next time he actually is due to hit it out of the ballpark.

Depending on who you talk to, the future of sex may be teledildonics . Or virtual reality . Or painfully hot fleshlights . But the one thing almost everyone can agree upon? The future of sex is not a pump-action dildo you strap to your chin. Nor is it any of these other bizarre, terrifying, and wonderfully weird sex-improving patent hopefuls.

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For some Black Metal is the sound of happiness, but most hear dark and dismal band names, guttural singing and appropriately metal guitar sounds howling and screaming in their ears.

That Black Metal sound is made from sinister sounding scales, such as the harmonic minor, and as YouTuber Steve Terreberry proves if you simply change the scales Black Metal can have a happy sound.

(YouTube Link)

At first glance Stevie T might not look like he knows anything about Black Metal, but Stevie T does know that the sound relies on (as he puts it) those evil sounding scales, and his minor change to major scales infuses happy sounds into that bleak sounding nightmare.

So whaddya think musicians? Is Stevie T on to something, or is he oversimplifying the essence of the Black Metal sound?

-Via Metal Injection

Today, I found out my boyfriend dresses in my underwear and tights, takes suggestive shots of his ass and legs, and uses them to trick people into thinking he's a girl so they buy him stuff in his online games. FML

Conan O’Brien’s interview with Sterling Archer from the hugely popular FX show Archer was probably his most unique is 21 year career.

Rather than just sitting down with the world’s most famous animated spy, Conan O’Brien decided to leap into Archer’s world and instantly found himself taking on Russian mobsters. All while his companion drove around trying to keep the duo out of the danger zone.

You can check out Conan O’Brien’s stellar interview with Sterling Archer below. It will probably be the best thing that you do all Wednesday.

Poor Andy Richter. Not only has he been the butt of Conan O’Brien’s jokes for over two decades but now he’s been shot by him too!

There are literally too many highlights to even make note of. Watching Conan O’Brien turn into an animated character was simply sensational, while it was surprising to see that he was instantly at home as a secret agent.

Meanwhile, Conan O’Brien’s chat with Sterling Archer about Tinder suggests that the hired killer is a repeated user of the casual dating app. Which, for any regular viewer of Archer, would hardly be a surprise. Sterling Archer’s lecherous ways and drunken antics have become legendary since the show premiered in September 2009. It is now in its sixth season, and so far 64 episodes of the comedy have aired to almost universal praise.

In the end, Conan O’Brien, despite originally insisting that his only weapon was his “dry wit,” was able to dispatch of the Russian mobsters with consummate ease. Along the way he learnt how to shoot a gun, joked about using Tinder to hire interns, promoted Uber, dropped two of Archer’s most popular catchphrases – “dangerzone” and “phrazing” -and described killing someone as a “sexual thrill.”

However Sterling Archer and Conan O’Brien departed on bad terms as the talk show host completely destroyed the rear-end of Archer’s car thanks to a poorly thrown grenade. This left Conan O’Brien to reluctantly return to his life as a talk-show host.

This wasn’t the first time that Conan O’Brien has appeared in animated form. Far from it in fact. He previously starred in The Simpsons episode, “Bart Gets Famous”, as himself

Meanwhile Conan O’Brien also starred in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut too. But Conan himself didn’t provide the voice of this character. Instead he was played by Brent Spiner. Still, it’s the perfect excuse to watch the impeccable scene from the hilarious movie.

[Image via TBS]

Conan O’Brien, ‘Archer’ Crossover: Pair Tackle Russian Mobsters is an article from: The Inquisitr News

For those who like their kitchen to look like something Willy Wonka might cook in, here's another adorable alternative to the boring spoon you've been using to serve soups and sauces. Designed by OTOTO to look eerily reminiscent of what we assume the Loch Ness monster looks like, this adorable Nessie Ladle is far less intimidating.

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submitted by stonerism [link] [142 comments]

The number of women working in the game industry will double by 2025, if the International Game Developers Association has its way.

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When I first saw the work of Michael Sydney Moore I thought he was a photographer. After some research I realized I was wrong. The realism of his oil paintings is impressive but the fact that he already masters the technique at the age of 23 is completely mind-blowing.

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Tremble at the sight of the new and improved ATLAS. Redesigned for DARPA by Boston Dynamics, this robot is now stronger, more energy efficient, more dextrous, and quieter than its clunky predecessor. And best of all, it no longer requires a safety tether.

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You can learn a lot about a culture from its advertising, so it's clear that every motorcyclist in Bangladesh sees themselves as a two-wheeled Jason Statham, wasting bad guys, saving hapless children, and then holding a press conference afterwards.

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Submitted by Simon Black via Sovereign Man blog,

When President Obama ascends to the podium this evening to deliver his State of the Union address, he’ll undoubtedly shine a spotlight on the many strengths of America.

And to be fair, he’s right: the United States has a lot going for it.

Cheap energy, rapid innovation, quality universities, reasonably low crime rates, abundance of arable land, highly productive culture, etc.

The real issue, however, isn’t where the United States is today. The problem is where it’s going. And quickly.

• Today’s young Americans, for example, are the first generation to be poorer than their parents.
   
• They will also pay all their lives into a retirement system that won’t be there for them when they get there.
   
• Young Americans indebt themselves more than anyone else on the planet to attend university, requiring them to spend a large part of their careers paying off debt.
   
• Americans of all ages are earning less than they did two decades ago when adjusted for inflation. Yet they’re paying more in taxes.
   
• And US taxation is an increasing burden not only in quantity but complexity.
  According to the IRS itself, “tax requirements have become so confusing and the compliance burden so great that taxpayers are giving up the US citizenship in record numbers.”
   
• But despite record levels of tax collection, the national debt keeps increasing. It now stands at more than $18 trillion, well over 100% of GDP.
   
• In fact over 14% of all federal tax revenue collected goes to pay interest on the debt. Another 20% goes towards destruction, war, bombs, drones, and spying.
   
• They also create roughly 200 pages of new rules and regulations every single day. These rules govern something as sacred as what you can/cannot put in your own body, or often make it more difficult to do business.
   
• Many of these regulations carry severe civil and criminal penalties; this is why the rate of civil asset forfeiture is skyrocketing, and why America leads the world in the number of people incarcerated.
   
• More people rot away in US prisons than did in the Soviet gulag at the height of communism. And many Americans are serving hard times for victimless crimes of failing to abide by some obscure regulation.
   
• In total, there were 79,066 pages of new regulation passed last year, with a total regulatory cost of $181.5 billion (based on the government’s own estimate).
   

Years of such absurd mismanagement and arrogance (FATCA, endless wars) are causing the US dollar to lose its clear dominance as the world’s currency of choice.

This will have enormous consequences for the US and Americans’ standard of living.

It won’t happen overnight, but the consequences are already unfolding. The train has left the station.

That’s precisely the point. It’s not where you are today, it’s where you’re going. And the trend is pretty obvious for anyone paying attention.

We know deep down that there are consequences to waging endless wars.

There are consequences to racking up $18 trillion in debt.

There are consequences to treating people like milk cows and regulating every aspect of their existence.

There are consequences to awarding total control of the money supply to an unelected central banking elite.

And the primary consequence is this: despite the enviable number of Starbucks and iPads per capita, Americans are working harder to make ends meet, and are far less free, than they used to be.

That’s not progress. It’s precisely the opposite (which I suppose is congress). And we haven’t even scratched the surface.

Government debt grows every year, far outpacing GDP growth.

And thanks to this debt, plus all the wars, terrorizing of foreign banks, excessive money printing, spying, etc. America is rapidly losing its goodwill in the world.

The real consequences are not apparent yet. They’ll come when the dollar loses a substantial share of its global reserve status.

Make no mistake– it’s possible that could only be a few years away.

And despite all the obvious warning signs that we’ve been seeing for years, it’s going to catch most people with their pants down.

The truth is that you cannot fix your bankrupt government. But you can make a conscious decision to reduce your exposure to what’s obviously a failed system.

Standing in the street with signs and leaflets trying to raise awareness is a noble endeavor, sure. But it’s not going to change the system. It won’t make you more free.

Going to the voting booth is what we’re programmed to do, yes. But casting your ballot isn’t going to safeguard what you’ve worked for your entire life to build.

These are steps that you can take yourself.

You can choose, for example, to move your savings from a highly illiquid domestic bank to a new bank offshore that is objectively ten times safer, and pays forty times more interest on your savings.

You can begin using international structures to protect your assets and minimize your tax burden– legally slashing what you are currently forced to contribute in order to fund their wars and illegal spying.

You can look into establishing an alternative residency, so that if things get so bad that you need to leave, you’ll already be set up. You might even want to explore investing and doing business in thriving places around the world.

These solutions all make sense no matter what happens.

Even if you don’t agree with my assessment of the State of the Union, you’re not going to be worse off if you take some basic precautions and hedge your bets.

FUCK YOU!

Source

1,700 Private Jets Fly to Davos to Discuss 'Global Warming'...


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