Grand Ole Bestiary, Retro Style Prints of Anthropomorphic Animal Heads on Human Bodies

Grand Ole Bestiary, Retro Style Prints of Anthropomorphic Animal Heads on Human Bodies:

Hortence J Pacadorf, Founder and proprietor of Pacadorf Industries, introduced many useful household products including a sticky-paper mouse trap made from peanut butter.

Chief Shikoba Featherbeard

The Squirrelton Twins, known as “the little hellions”, when they’re not leaving flaming bags of dog doo on doorsteps they’re raiding the neighborhood bird feeders.

Portland-based Etsy shop, Grand Ole Bestiary, carries delightful retro-looking photographic prints of human bodies with animal heads.

The Grand Ole Bestiary is a collection of faux-antique, anthropomorphic, mythological curios. Each one carefully recovered from ancient catacombs discovered buried deep inside the molten core of a metaphysical holy mountain.

Touted as one of the most compelling discoveries of evidence that proves an enduring existence of these magnificent creatures that had long been worshiped and damned by human civilizations throughout history.

via How to be a Retronaut

A Historical Perspective of Recessions and Bear Markets

A Historical Perspective of Recessions and Bear Markets:

James Stack of InvesTech Research looks at past bear markets and recessions going back more than 82 years. The details of his findings?

• Generational bear markets, with losses exceeding 40% are the exception, not the norm. Since 1940, only one in four bear markets reached such a loss.

• The 2000-02 bear market was so severe because of record overvaluation extremes at the start, and the washout of the high-tech bubble with a -78% loss in the Nasdaq (of which many of the largest stocks were also components of the S&P 500).

• Unweighted indexes declined only ~25% in the 2000-02 bear market;

• The 2007-09 bear market was extreme because the collapse suddenly exposed all of the mortgage derivatives on the balance sheets of major banks. The extent of this exposure was not well known — even to CEOs of the banks.

• Bear markets without recessions are more of a rarity. Since 1940, when they have occurred, the declines are usually milder. The 1987 Crash, with a loss of -34% was the exception; but ’87 was triggered in a monetary climate where interest rates were soaring and the U.S. dollar was tumbling.

• Average valuation, as measured by the P/E ratio of the S&P 500 Index, at the start of all the bear markets exceeding 30% was 21.8. Today, the P/E ratio of the S&P equals 14.7.

One thought on this: The fear of another giant bear market — of another 50% loss — is likely due to the recency effect and the aftermath of 2007-09 as much anything else.

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Click to enlarge:

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Source:

InvesTech Research

Technical and Monetary Investment Analysis, Vol11 Iss11

October 21, 2011

Test Your Mobile Web Apps with WebDriver - A Tutorial

Test Your Mobile Web Apps with WebDriver - A Tutorial: Mobile testing has come a long way since the days when testing mobile web applications was mostly manual and took days to complete. Selenium WebDriver is a browser automation tool that provides an elegant way of testing web applications. WebDriver makes it easy to write automated tests that ensure your site works correctly when viewed from an Android or iOS browser.

For those of you new to WebDriver, here are a few basics about how it helps you test your web application. WebDriver tests are end-to-end tests that exercise a web application just like a real user would. There is a comprehensive user guide on the Selenium site that covers the core APIs.

Now let’s talk about mobile! WebDriver provides a touch API that allows the test to interact with the web page through finger taps, flicks, finger scrolls, and long presses. It can rotate the display and provides a friendly API to interact with HTML5 features such as local storage, session storage and application cache. Mobile WebDrivers use the remote WebDriver server, following a client/server architecture. The client piece consists of the test code, while the server piece is the application that is installed on the device.

Get Started

WebDriver for Android and iPhone can be installed following these instructions. Once you’ve done that, you will be ready to write tests. Let’s start with a basic example using www.google.com to give you a taste of what’s possible.

The test below opens www.google.com on Android and issues a query for “weather in san francisco”. The test will verify that Google returns search results and that the first result returned is giving the weather in San Francisco.

 public void testGoogleCanGiveWeatherResults() { 
 // Create a WebDriver instance with the activity in which we want the test to run. 
 WebDriver driver = new AndroidDriver(getActivity()); 
 // Let’s open a web page 
 driver.get("http://www.google.com"); 

 // Lookup for the search box by its name 
 WebElement searchBox = driver.findElement(By.name("q")); 
 // Enter a search query and submit 
 searchBox.sendKeys("weather in san francisco"); 
 searchBox.submit(); 

 // Making sure that Google shows 11 results 
 WebElement resultSection = driver.findElement(By.id("ires")); 
 List<WebElement> searchResults = resultSection.findElements(By.tagName("li")); 
 assertEquals(11, searchResults.size()); 
 // Let’s ensure that the first result shown is the weather widget 
 WebElement weatherWidget = searchResults.get(0); 
 assertTrue(weatherWidget.getText().contains("Weather for San Francisco, CA")); 
} 

Now let's see our test in action! When you launch your test through your favorite IDE or using the command line, WebDriver will bring up a WebView in the foreground allowing you to see your web application as the test code is executing. You will see www.google.com loading, and the search query being typed in the search box.

We mentioned above that the WebDriver supports creating advanced gestures to interact with the device. Let's use WebDriver to throw an image across the screen by flicking horizontally, and ensure that the next image in the gallery is displayed.

 WebElement toFlick = driver.findElement(By.id("image")); 
// 400 pixels left at normal speed 
Action flick = getBuilder(driver).flick(toFlick, 0, -400, FlickAction.SPEED_NORMAL) 
   .build(); 
flick.perform(); 
WebElement secondImage = driver.findElement(“secondImage”); 
assertTrue(secondImage.isDisplayed()); 

Next, let's rotate the screen and ensure that the image displayed on screen is resized.

 assertEquals(landscapeSize, secondImage.getSize()) 
((Rotatable) driver).rotate(ScreenOrientation.PORTRAIT); 
assertEquals(portraitSize, secondImage.getSize()); 

Let's take a look at the local storage on the device, and ensure that the web application has set some key/value pairs.

 // Get a handle on the local storage object 
LocalStorage local = ((WebStorage) driver).getLocalStorage(); 
// Ensure that the key “name” is mapped 
assertEquals(“testUser”, local.getItem(“name”)); 

What if your test reveals a bug? You can easily take a screenshot for help in future debugging:

 File tempFile = ((TakesScreenshot) driver).getScreenshotAs(OutputType.FILE); 

High Level Architecture

WebDriver has two main components: the server and the tests themselves. The server is an application that runs on the phone, tablet, emulator, or simulator and listens for incoming requests. It runs the tests against a WebView (the rendering component of mobile Android and iOS) configured like the browsers. Your tests run on the client side, and can be written in any languages supported by WebDriver, including Java and Python. The WebDriver tests communicate with the server by sending RESTful JSON requests over HTTP. The tests and server pieces don't have to be on the same physical machine, although they can be. For Android you can also run the tests using the Android test framework instead of the remote WebDriver server.

Infrastructure Setup

At Google, we have wired WebDriver tests to our cloud infrastructure allowing those tests to run at scale and making it possible to have them run in our continuous integration system. External developers can run their mobile tests either on emulators/simulators or real devices for Android and iOS phones and tablets.

Android emulators can run on most OSes because they are virtualized, so we run them on our generic cloud setup. Though there are many advantages to using Android emulators because they emulate a complete virtual device (including the virtual CPU, MMU, and hardware devices), it makes the test environment slower. You can speed up the tests by disabling animations, audio, skins, or even by running in the emulator headless mode. To do so, start the emulator with the options --no-boot-anim, --no-audio, --noskin, and --no-window. If you would like your tests to run even faster, start the emulator from a previously created snapshot image. That reduces the emulator startup time from 2 minutes to less than 2 seconds!

iOS simulators can't be virtualized and hence need to run on Mac machines. However, because iOS simulators don't try to emulate the virtual device or CPU at all, they can run as applications at "full speed," this allows the test to run much faster.

Stay tuned for more mobile feature in Selenium WebDriver, and updates on the Selenium blog. For questions and feedback not only of the Android WebDriver but also its desktop brethren, please join the community.

By Dounia Berrada, Engineer on the EngTools team

Summary for Week ending Oct 28th

Summary for Week ending Oct 28th: Note: The graphs have been changed. If you click on a graph, a larger image will appear with thumbnails of all the graphs in the post below the larger image. This is very fast and does not use scripting like the previous graph gallery. To close the window, just click on the “X” in the upper right. For RSS readers, just the large image will appear. There are new graph galleries (very fast) that group graphs by topic (I’ll add all the previous galleries soon).



The key story of the week was the European agreement including 1) “develop a voluntary bond exchange with a nominal discount of 50% on notional Greek debt held by private investors”, 2) “to leverage the resources of the EFSF”, and 3) an “agreement … by the members of the European Council on bank recapitalisation and funding”. Here is the Euro Summit Statement. This is short on details, and without ECB support, mostly just “kicks the can” down the road a few more months.



Another key story was the updated HARP refinance program. Here is the statement from the FHFA: FHFA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Announce HARP Changes to Reach More Borrowers. I wrote two short posts about this last week: A few comments on the HARP Refinance Program changes and More on HARP and Housing. I think this will be helpful and reach more borrowers.



I expect more housing related policy announcements within the next month or two, including the mortgage settlement with lenders are servicers, and a pilot program for Fannie/Freddie/FHA REO disposition.



The U.S. economic data was mixed, but seemed to indicate a little improvement. GDP growth was reported at 2.5% in Q3 (real, annualized). That was an improvement from the first half of the year, but still very sluggish.



New home sales were up slightly to a still very low 313 thousand in September. House prices indexes were mixed with Case-Shiller showing a small seasonal increase in prices – although the prices index will start showing declines soon and will probably fall to new post-bubble lows during the winter months.



Two regional manufacturing surveys were released - the Richmond Fed survey showed further contraction, but the Kansas City survey showed slightly faster expansion.



Next week will be very busy including the employment report and the FOMC meeting. I'll have some preview posts tomorrow (and later in the week for employment).



Here is a summary in graphs:



• Advance Estimate: Real Annualized GDP Grew at 2.5% in Q3



Click on graph for larger image.



This graph shows the quarterly GDP growth (at an annual rate) for the last 30 years. The dashed line is the current growth rate. Growth in Q2 at 2.5% annualized was below trend growth (around 3%) - and very weak for a recovery, especially with all the slack in the system.



• Real personal consumption expenditures increased 2.4 percent in the second quarter, compared with an increase of 0.7 percent in the second.



• Change in private inventories subtracted 1.08 percentage point.



According to the BEA, real GDP is finally just above the pre-recession peak. The estimate for real GDP in Q3 (2005 dollars) was $13,352.8 billion, 0.2% above the $13,326.0 billion in Q4 2007. Nominal GDP was reported as $15,198.6 billion in Q3 2011.



This graph is constructed as a percent of the previous peak. This shows when GDP has bottomed - and when GDP has returned to the level of the previous peak. If the indicator is at a new peak, the value is 100%.



At the worst point, real GDP was off 5.1% from the 2007 peak. Now real GDP through Q3 2011 and shows real GDP is back to the the pre-recession peak.



Note: There are really two measures of GDP: 1) real GDP, and 2) real Gross Domestic Income (GDI). The BEA will release GDI with the 2nd GDP estimate for Q3. GDI was back to the pre-recession peak in Q2.



This following graph shows the rolling 4 quarter contribution to GDP from residential investment, equipment and software, and nonresidential structures. This is important to follow because residential investment tends to lead the economy, equipment and software is generally coincident, and nonresidential structure investment trails the economy.



For the following graph, red is residential, green is equipment and software, and blue is investment in non-residential structures. The usual pattern - both into and out of recessions is - red, green, blue.Residential Investment (RI) made a positive contribution to GDP in Q3 2011, and the four quarter rolling average finally turned positive in Q3.



Equipment and software investment has made a significant positive contribution to GDP for nine straight quarters (it is coincident). The contribution from nonresidential investment in structures was positive in Q3.



The key leading sector - residential investment - has lagged this recovery because of the huge overhang of existing inventory. Usually RI is a strong contributor to GDP growth and employment in the early stages of a recovery, but not this time - and this is a key reason why the recovery has been sluggish so far.



• New Home Sales increase in September to 313,000



The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in September were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 313 thousand. This was up from a revised 296 thousand in August (revised up from 295 thousand).



This graph shows New Home Sales vs. recessions since 1963. The dashed line is the current sales rate.





The second graph shows New Home Months of Supply.



Months of supply decreased to 6.2 in September. The all time record was 12.1 months of supply in January 2009. This is still slightly higher than normal (less than 6 months supply is normal).



On inventory, according to the Census Bureau:

"A house is considered for sale when a permit to build has been issued in permit-issuing places or work has begun on the footings or foundation in nonpermit areas and a sales contract has not been signed nor a deposit accepted."

Starting in 1973 the Census Bureau broke this down into three categories: Not Started, Under Construction, and Completed.



This graph shows the three categories of inventory starting in 1973.



The inventory of completed homes for sale was at 61,000 units in September. The combined total of completed and under construction is at the lowest level since this series started.



The last graph shows sales NSA (monthly sales, not seasonally adjusted annual rate).



In September 2011 (red column), 25 thousand new homes were sold (NSA). This ties the record low for September set in 2010. The high for September was 99 thousand in 2005.



This was above the consensus forecast of 300 thousand, and was tied the record low for the month of September set last year (NSA). New home sales have averaged only 300 thousand SAAR over the 17 months since the expiration of the tax credit ... mostly moving sideways at a very low level (with a little upward slope recently).



• Case Shiller: Home Prices increased Seasonally in August



S&P/Case-Shiller released the monthly Home Price Indices for August (actually a 3 month average of June, July and August).



This graph shows the nominal seasonally adjusted Composite 10 and Composite 20 indices (the Composite 20 was started in January 2000).



The Composite 10 index is off 32.2% from the peak, and down 0.2% in August (SA). The Composite 10 is 1.0% above the June 2009 post-bubble bottom (Seasonally adjusted).



The Composite 20 index is off 32.0% from the peak, and down 0.1% in August (SA). The Composite 20 is slightly above the March 2011 post-bubble bottom seasonally adjusted.



The Composite 10 SA is down 3.6% compared to August 2010. The Composite 20 SA is down 3.9% compared to August 2010. This is slightly smaller year-over-year decline than in July.



This graph shows the price declines from the peak for each city included in S&P/Case-Shiller indices. Prices increased (SA) in 6 of the 20 Case-Shiller cities in August seasonally adjusted. Prices in Las Vegas are off 59.8% from the peak, and prices in Dallas only off 9.0% from the peak.



As S&P noted, prices increased in 10 of 20 cities not seasonally adjusted (NSA). However seasonally adjusted, prices only increased in 6 cities.



• Real House Prices and House Price-to-Rent



Case-Shiller, CoreLogic and others report nominal house prices. However it is also useful to look at house prices in real terms (adjusted for inflation), as a price-to-rent ratio, and also price-to-income (not shown here).



Below are three graphs showing nominal prices (as reported), real prices and a price-to-rent ratio. Real prices are back to 1999/2000 levels, and the price-to-rent ratio is also back to 2000 levels.



This graph shows the quarterly Case-Shiller National Index SA (through Q2 2011), and the monthly Case-Shiller Composite 20 SA (through August) and CoreLogic House Price Indexes (through August) in nominal terms (as reported).



In nominal terms, the Case-Shiller National index is back to Q4 2002 levels, the Case-Shiller Composite 20 Index (SA) is back to June 2003 levels, and the CoreLogic index is back to July 2003.



The next graph shows the same three indexes in real terms (adjusted for inflation using CPI less Shelter). Note: some people use other inflation measures to adjust for real prices.



In real terms, the National index is back to Q3 1999 levels, the Composite 20 index is back to July 2000, and the CoreLogic index back to June 2000.



In real terms, all appreciation in the last decade is gone.



In October 2004, Fed economist John Krainer and researcher Chishen Wei wrote a Fed letter on price to rent ratios: House Prices and Fundamental Value. Kainer and Wei presented a price-to-rent ratio using the OFHEO house price index and the Owners' Equivalent Rent (OER) from the BLS.



Here is a similar graph using the Case-Shiller Composite 20 and CoreLogic House Price Index.



This graph shows the price to rent ratio (January 1998 = 1.0).



On a price-to-rent basis, the Composite 20 index is back to August 2000 levels, and the CoreLogic index is back to July 2000.



In real terms - and as a price-to-rent ratio - prices are mostly back to 2000 levels (nationally) and will probably be back to 1999 levels in the next few months.



• Personal Income increased 0.1% in September, Spending increased 0.6%



This graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through August (2005 dollars).



PCE increased 0.6 in August, and real PCE increased 0.5%.



Note: The PCE price index, excluding food and energy, decreased 0.2 percent.



The personal saving rate was at 3.6% in Setpember.



This graph shows the saving rate starting in 1959 (using a three month trailing average for smoothing) through the September Personal Income report.



Spending is growing faster than incomes - and the saving rate has been declining. That can't continue for long ...



• Consumer Sentiment increased in October, still very weak



The final October Reuters / University of Michigan consumer sentiment index increased to 60.9, up from the preliminary October reading of 57.5, and up from 59.4 in September.



In general consumer sentiment is a coincident indicator and is usually impacted by employment (and the unemployment rate) and gasoline prices. In August, sentiment was probably negatively impacted by the debt ceiling debate.



This was still very weak, but above the consensus forecast of 58.0.



• NMHC Apartment Survey: Market Conditions Tighten Slightly in Recent Survey



From the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC): Development Ramps Up as Demand Swells Finds NMHC Quarterly Survey



This graph shows the quarterly Apartment Tightness Index.



The index has indicated tighter market conditions for the last seven quarters and although down from the record 90 earlier this year, this still suggests falling vacancy rates and or rising rents.



This fits with the recent Reis data showing apartment vacancy rates fell in Q3 2011 to 5.6%, down from 6.0% in Q2 2011, and 9.0% at the end of 2009. Based on this index, I expect the declines in vacancy rates to slow.



New multi-family construction is one of the few bright spots for the U.S. economy and this survey indicates demand for apartments is still strong.



• ATA Trucking Index increased 1.6% in September



From ATA: ATA Truck Tonnage Index Increased 1.6% in September



Here is a long term graph that shows ATA's For-Hire Truck Tonnage index.



The dashed line is the current level of the index.



Sluggish growth after stalling earlier this year ...



• Other Economic Stories ...

• Chicago Fed: Economic activity improved in September

• From NY Fed President William Dudley: The National and Regional Economic Outlook

• DOT: Vehicle Miles Driven decreased 1.7% in August compared to August 2010

• A few comments on the HARP Refinance Program changes

• Moody's: Commercial Real Estate Prices increased 2.4% in August

• Richmond Fed: Manufacturing Contraction Persists in October; Employment Turns Negative

• From the Kansas City Fed: Growth in Manufacturing Activity Edged Higher

Ants duke it out in the AI challenge

Ants duke it out in the AI challenge:

All of those orange, cyan, and yellow dots represent digital ants fighting for supremacy. This is a match to see who’s AI code is better in the Google backed programming competition: The AI Challenge. Before you go on to the next story, take a hard look at giving this a try for yourself. It’s set up as a way to get more people interested in AI programming, and they claim you can be up and running in just five minutes.

Possibly the best part of the AI Challenge is the resources they provide. The starter kits offer example code as a jumping off point in 22 different programming languages. And a quick start tutorial will help to get you thinking about the main components involved with Artificial Intelligence coding.

The game consists of ant hills for each team, water as an obstacle, and food collection as a goal. The winner is determined by who destroyed more enemy ant hills, and gathered more resources. It provides some interesting challenges, like how to search for food and enemy ant hills, how to plot a path from one point to another, etc. But if you’re interested in video game programming or robotics, the skills you learn in the process will be of great help later in your hacking exploits.

Filed under: misc hacks

AAWAAWH… I Can Finally Go Home and Relax [Comic]

AAWAAWH… I Can Finally Go Home and Relax [Comic]:

Ouch… truth hurts, doesn’t it?

[Source: Dueling Analogs]

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