Thursday, July 31, 2014

Happy Birthday Amber, July 31. My life changes at 53 years old




July 31, will always be a day I remember.

First, it is the birthday of Amber Rodgers, my nephew Judge's oldest daughter, whose bright intellect and great grades, have impressed everyone.  She continues to represent, and exemplify the hope, and bright future of her generation. My birthday wish for you Amber, is continue to G R O W ,,Go Right On Winning.  You have impressed everyone ! 


It also is the day my life changed completely in 2002.


On that day I went to the Corona Civic Center, to witness the illegal sale of my home of twenty-six years by Chase Manhattan and their shady loan servicing  bank, Ocwen Federal Bank FSB.

Two months earlier the banks successfully argued for the court to dismiss my bankruptcy case for my ailing company, Residential Fire Sprinklers, for 'playing fast and loose' and 'bad faith'. The court was convinced by the bankers attorney's and dismissed my bankruptcy case with prejudice.

Within four weeks I had been approved for a new loan, but at the closing, it was discovered that the property was not in my name. O'Neal owned the property as far as the recorded documents were concerned. O'Neal was the party, the bank unlawfully issued the deed to 16 months earlier. 

Only the bank could change title, according to Cal Law, (rescission of deed). Two days after the state court gave possession in an unlawful detainer action, Chase and Ocwen, the only ones legally entitled to record such a transfer rescinded the unlawful deed they had issued 16 months earlier. 

This of course is what prevented my new loan from closing, and now, gave this new buyer, Vista Homes, a real estate speculator,  clear title. 

Had the banks, Chase or Ocwen done this earlier, my approved refinance would have closed and their would be no dispute today.

 Instead, of fixing the title issues, the banks apparently decided to double down, and instead of fixing this gigantic blunder, held another sale and issued another deed to a real estate speculator Vista Homes.

Since then, for 12 years I have unsuccessfully appealed for a judicial hearing or trial  

Meanwhile, Chase/Ocwen have continued to bask in the fruits of their deceit, while this American citizen cannot seem to get his day in court !

I must say, without trying to sound too dramatic,  that if they did this to me (average citizen), they can do it to any one of you. 




Best Wishes



Gary Ozenne

Tech Jobs of the Future: What To Study If You Want a Cool Job Tomorrow

from makeuseof.com


On 


Imagine a world where you can control your dreams with computer software, have pizza delivered to your house via drone, and have fat deposits removed from your arteries by nanorobots the size of fleas. A decade ago, these ideas were science fiction. Today, they’re becoming science fact.
If you’re a student and looking to establish yourself in a field of study that has a bright future in the world of high technology, then you’ll need the mindset of a futurist. Understanding the direction of technology will help you decide how you want to position yourself to succeed, and figure out exactly what you need to study to get there.
Modern state of the art throughout the world of tech ranges across many disciplines, including virtual realityartificial intelligencedrones, and evenbiotechnology. How do you know where to start? The following are a few examples of the sort of tech jobs you can expect to see within the next 5 to 10 years if advancements continue along the paths they are going.  Review them and decide whether your personality and interests would make you a good candidate for any of these future jobs.

Brain Therapy

Looking out into the future, it isn’t difficult to see how the human brain is going to become more of a focus for both doctors and technology developers.  Mental health continues to be a major issue around the world, in some countries more than others. Unfortunately, the majority of treatments over the last twenty years have been some combination of medicine and counseling that help symptoms to subside, but almost never completely eradicate the illness.
future jobs1   Tech Jobs of the Future: What To Study If You Want a Cool Job Tomorrow

However, neuroscience continues to make tremendous strides in understanding how brain disorders lead to mental illnesses, and how brand new drugs and devices can literally cure those disorders. One of the most promising areas is that of electrical stimulation of the brain to treat diseases like epilepsy, depression and Parkinson’s disease.
The first thing that probably comes to mind are those horrible images from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, of a patient strapped to a gurney as psychiatrists and staff apply electricity through electrodes on either sides of the patient’s head, rendering him unconscious. The reality is that today, patients sleep through the procedure, and today’s advanced brief-pulse machines apply carefully calibrated “doses” of electricity that minimize many of the negative effects of traditional electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) treatments, like amnesia.
What is remarkable is that even today, scientists still don’t understand why these treatments work. However, neuroscience is the closest to an answer. So much so that Philips Research recently published an article titled Solutions for the Future of Neurotherapy, where Principle Dr Professor Michel Decre reports that new brain stimulation therapies offer great promise for “curative therapies”.
As we progressively get to know more about neurons and how to influence their function, we can develop more organic brain stimulation techniques, as opposed to the current electrical or systemic drug solutions.
It is conceivable that in the future, neuroscientists will develop “brain pacemaker” devices that can deliver Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) to patients at regular intervals, finally curing diseases like Parkinson’s, severe depression, and more.
In an interview in the MIT Technology Review, Managing Director of NeuroInsights, Zack Lynch, explained the future of these devices as follows:
With these technologies, you can create noninvasive devices and target very specific parts of the brain. It’s like going from a Model T to a Ferrari. Those technologies will present the real competition for drugs. 
When this technology enters the market and starts curing patients of debilitating mental illnesses, it’ll give the pharmaceutical industry a run for its money.  Those electronic devices, and those treatments, will require experts who understand how they work, and can administer them to patients.

Cyber Security

With the increasing use of cloud services, and as more people and businesses continue doing more business online, the demand for cyber security expertise continues to grow. This is even more true when you consider the rise in cyber warfare and cyber spying in recent years.
future jobs2   Tech Jobs of the Future: What To Study If You Want a Cool Job Tomorrow

In February of this year, U.S. Army General and head of Cyber Command Keith Alexander told the Washington Times that despite growing threats, no one is prepared.
Despite our progress at U.S. [Cyber Command], I worry that we might not be ready in time. Threats to our nation in cyberspace are growing.
In the UK, there is a similar lack of expertise. In April of this year, Stephen Otter – the man responsible for Strategic Policing at Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary – told the Metro that police in the UK just aren’t prepared for the growing threat.
The capacity and capability of the police to respond to national threats is stronger in some areas than others, with the police response to the cyber threat being the least well developed.
Whether it’s the defense of a government against foreign cyber attacks, the defense of a company network or even a family Wi-Fi network against hacking threats, the demand for computer experts in cyber security remains on the rise and there is no sign of that abating. If you want to be in a career with a very secure future (pun intended), cyber security is the one to choose.

Drone Programmers

By now you’ve probably heard about Amazon’s media campaign claiming that in the near future, you will see Amazon drones delivering products to your home in less than 30 minutes.
Of course, it isn’t ending there. As Rob described just a few months ago, drones are entering into many other industries including agriculture, law enforcement, search and rescue, and even action photography.
flying drone   Tech Jobs of the Future: What To Study If You Want a Cool Job Tomorrow

The reality is that all of these drones are going to need experts who know how to build them, program them, fly them and repair them.
These days, everyone is talking about drones. Investigators and journalists want to use them for field investigations. Filmmakers want to capture stunning aerial footage. Real estate agents, farmers and construction companies want to use them to capture aerial images of property and land.
As the FAA moves forward approving the use of commercial drones in the U.S., and other governments around the world follow suit, you would be well situated with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) engineering degree, or simply starting your own business as an aerial drone photographer.

Nanotechnology in Medicine

If you’re headed into a medical career, you may want to consider specializing in the field of nanotechnology. Nanorobots present tremendous opportunity in the field of medicine. Just one example was in 2012, when researchers at Harvard Universitycreated what they called “DNA origami”.  This was basically a nanorobot in the shape of a “barrel” that could open on a hinge, and held shut by what was called a “DNA hinge”.
Those nanorobots traveled to the site of disease – in the case of the demonstration, leukemia and lymphoma, which triggered the DNA hinge to open the barrel body and deliver a payload, which activated what scientists called the cells’ “suicide switch”. The payload destroyed the cancer cells.
future jobs3   Tech Jobs of the Future: What To Study If You Want a Cool Job Tomorrow

George Church, the principle investigator on the project explained that this kind of technology represented a sort of merging between programmable robotics, and medical applications inside of the human body – an integration that opens up a dizzying array of potential jobs in the medical field in the very near future.
We can finally integrate sensing and logical computing functions via complex, yet predictable, nanostructures — some of the first hybrids of structural DNA, antibodies, aptamers, and metal atomic clusters — aimed at useful, very specific targeting of human cancers and T-cells.
Obviously, any career that combines both medicine, engineering and computer programming all in one discipline would surely take many years of research and study to learn. On the flip side, just think how valuable you will be to the medical community – or even to the entire world – once you graduate?

Virtual Reality Designers

You may already know by now that the Oculus Rift is a storming success, just as James predicted about a year ago.
In the movie Inception, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page, the characters have the technology to model and create entire dream worlds, which other people are able to experience as an actual dream. Future virtual reality designers will be exactly what this movie envisioned – architects of virtual worlds that are fabricated from the very minds of the designers themselves.
future jobs4   Tech Jobs of the Future: What To Study If You Want a Cool Job Tomorrow

Virtual reality isn’t just about games. The technology is currently used, and will be used even more in the future, in other fields like medicine, architecture, science and engineering.
The ability to design and program virtual worlds will surely require some highly technical training, but keep in mind that the very nature of creating new virtual worlds is a very creative process, so it will require very creative individuals. If you are the kind of person that has a very strong technical knowledge-base, but are visually creative – this may be the perfect future job for you.

Other Future Jobs

These are just a few examples of the sort of tech jobs of the future that you can expect over the next decade or two. It’s by no means an exhaustive list. If you just look at the number of breakthrough technologies on the horizon today, the opportunities available in the future for today’s students are very exciting.
A few other examples:
  • Vehicle Programmers : The cars of the future will likely be electrically powered, and they will also likely be completely driverless. These are exciting possibilities, but it’ll also require skilled programmers who understand the algorithms and systems within these new cars. The automotive technician of the future will have significantly more computer skills than the technicians of today.
  • Smart Home Programmers: As homes of the future get filled with an array of sensors, and become much more automated, those complex automation systems will require programmers skilled in doing maintenance and repairs on those systems.
  • Advanced Automation: Todays manufacturing world is already highly automated, however the robotics and advanced automation technologies that continue to be developed mean that companies that capitalize on smarter and more efficient control systems will probably be able to produce higher volume of product, and more cheaply. This will be driven by automation engineers who are aware of the cutting edge technologies, and understand how to use them.
  • Artificial Intelligence Programmer: There’s no doubt that the field of artificial intelligence is on the cusp of some major breakthroughs. As though Apple’s Siri isn’t intelligent enough, the artificially intelligent systems and robots of tomorrow will make today’s technology look like child’s play. Those advanced systems will only come from programmers who understand how AI works, and how to create those impressive systems.
The future holds exciting times for humanity, and if you’re a student just getting started, or if you’re a worker looking to switch careers – you have an abundance of amazing opportunities at your fingertips. The key to capitalizing on that is getting the training and the skills that you need to enter into these fields.
If you do, your own future will be very bright.
What do you think are some other amazing high-tech jobs that the future will bring? Share your own thoughts and predictions in the comments section below!
Electrostimulation Device by bogdanhoda at Shutterstock, Nanorobot courtesy of Wyss Institute,Science Fiction Concept by Syda Productions via Shutterstock

4

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Yasiel Puig helps break news Vin Scully returning for 66th season in Dodgers' booth

from nj.com



Atlanta at LA Dodgers
Los Angeles Dodgers announcer Vin Scully acknowledges cheers after it was announced Tuesday night during a Dodgers-Braves game at Dodger Stadium that he would come back for a 66th season in 2015. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)



Randy Miller | NJ.comBy Randy Miller | NJ.com 
Email the author | Follow on Twitter 
on July 30, 2014 at 7:25 AM, updated July 30, 2014 at 8:05 AM

The Los Angeles Dodgers went all out Tuesday night to celebrate legendary broadcaster Vin Scully deciding to return in 2015 for a 66th season in the booth.
On Vin Scully 65th Anniversary Talking Microphone Night at Dodger Stadium, FoxSportsLA sportscaster Alanna Rizzo appeared on the scoreboard after the visiting Atlanta Braves were retired in the second inning with “breaking news.”
Seated at a table in the Dodgers press room were Korean pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu, Cuban outfielder Yasiel Puig and Southern California-born utility infielder Justin Turner for a bit that had been shot before the game.
The camera zoomed in first on Ryu, who stated in Korean that Scully would be back next season, then Puig did the same in Spanish.
Turner finally chimed in with the English translation:
“Hey everybody, what these guys are trying to say is that Vin Scully is coming back for another season of Dodgers baseball!”
Hearing the news, four more Dodgers players seated in the first row of the press room jumped up to hoot and holler in celebration.
Dodgers fans watching this scripted announcement play out between innings loved it, as the crowd of nearly 50,000 immediately stood to give Scully a 75-second ovation.
Scully, who turns 87 in November, looked emotional seeing the crowd reaction. He stood up in his television booth for fans to see him and touched his heart with a smile on his face. When his wife entered the booth during the ovation, they shared a hug and Vin kissed her forehead.
The ovation continued until the Dodger Stadium PR man announced outfielder Carl Crawford as the Dodgers’ leadoff hitter for the home second.
Back on the air, Scully told his viewers, “Boy, it’s tough to get over that. Atlanta leading the Dodgers 1-to-nothing here in the second inning. We’d like to thank Hyun-Jin Ryu, Yasiel Puig and all the boys who put on a show on the screen. All I can say is thank God and please God for another year. But let's get back to work now; 1-0 in favor of Atlanta.”
Scully plans to keep his current work schedule in 2015 – calling all Dodgers home games as well as road divisional games in San Diego, San Francisco and Phoenix.
"Naturally there will come a time, when I will have to say goodbye, but I've soul-searched and this is not the time,” Scully said in a statement.
A native of the Bronx, Scully served two years in the US Navy after high school, then began his broadcasting career as a college student at the University of Fordham when he called football and basketball games as well as play center field on the school baseball team, serve as editor of the school paper and sing in a barbershop quartet.
Scully began his professional broadcasting career in 1949 calling college football games for CBS, whose sports director at the time was popular Brooklyn Dodgers announcer Red Barber.
The next year, Scully joined the Dodgers in 1950 as the third man on a broadcast team that included Barber and Connie Desmond, and he took over as the lead announcer in 1954 after Barber joined the Yankees' broadcast team.
Scully has called 25 World Series and 12 All-Star Games in his great career.
Scully’s name came up during a dinner between four Baseball Hall of Fame writers last weekend in Cooperstown, N.Y.
“Would Scully return,” a writer asked?
Another responded that he’d recently talked to Scully and it sounded like he’d either return with a reduced schedule or retire.
Scully was elected to the broadcaster’s wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, four years after Mel Allen and Barber were the inaugural Ford C. Frick Award winners in 1978.

The Rise of the Bankster Landlord

from  banksters.us 
from truth-out

Wednesday, 23 July 2014 15:21By The Daily Take TeamThe Thom Hartmann Program | Op-Ed

2014 723 esta sw
Bankster landlord (Photo: thinkpanama / Flickr)


It's time to put an end to the financialization insanity that's hurting average people, destroying the American dream, and turning our economy into one big giant casino.

One of the most startling trends to come out of the wreckage of the 2007-2008 financial crisis is the explosion of Wall Street firms buying up and renting out property all across the country.

The housing glut and foreclosure crisis that was, for most Americans, the symbol of the devastation caused by the worst economic downturn of our lifetimes, was, for Wall Street a wonderful business opportunity.

A study from the Center for American Progress estimates that in the five plus years since the crash, "institutional investors [i.e. big banks and hedge funds] have... bought approximately 200,000 single-family homes at bargain prices and converted them into rental homes."

Amazingly, the New York City-based hedge fund The Blackstone Group has focused so much of its resources on the real estate business that is now the single largest landlord in the entire country.

Now, I've known many people over the years who've decided to become landlords. It's a smart financial decision, the kind that middle class people used to do all the time to help them boost their income. Renting out your first or second home is great way to earn some extra money, help pay the mortgage, or even make a living once you retire and no longer take home a paycheck.

But making a few extra bucks isn't why big banks and hedge funds are buying up thousands of houses every year. The real reason why they're so enthusiastic about throwing people out of their homes and flipping those houses into rental properties is that they want to repackage those properties and their rent payments into fancy financial products - remember derivatives? - that they can then sell to investors.

In other words, being a landlord is just another way for Blackstone Group and companies like it to make money with money. They don't produce anything at all, they don't add anything to our economy, they don't help any middle-class families, they just make money with money.

And given that that's all they do, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that, they're really, really bad at being landlords.
The activist coalition Housing For All recently surveyed hundreds of tenants living in Blackstone-owned properties in the Los Angeles area and what they found was startling.
Nearly half of the tenants surveyed said they had problems with their plumbing. Almost 40 percent said they had roach or insect infestation. Another 22 percent said they had issues with rodents or termites. A similar number of surveyed tenants said that had problems with heating, mold, and roof leaks.

All in all, not a pretty picture, and a picture made worse by the fact that only one in 10 Blackstone tenants said they had ever met a representative of their landlord in person.
While Blackstone gets rich repackaging homes into fancy financial products, the people who actually live in those homes suffer.
There have always been slumlords, but what we're seeing right now with Wall Street firms like Blackstone buying up home after home, renting them out, and then using rental payments as the basis for derivative securities is something new and totally dangerous.

The financial products Wall Street is creating with its new rental empire are basically a re-hashed version of the mortgage-backed securities that crashed our economy five years ago. There's a new bubble in the works, and if we're not careful, we could see another financial crisis sooner than you might think.

This is a perfect example of why we need to totally rethink the financialization of our economy.
Banks and financial institutions, especially regular, old-fashioned commercial banks, do have an important role to play in our economy. They facilitate commerce and help everyday people save and use their money through things like checking and savings accounts. In our economy, banks are supposed to provide that function.

There's even a place for Wall Street in our economy. When regulated and controlled, investment banking can provide opportunities for asset and investment growth that wouldn't otherwise exist.
But there's a huge difference between finance being just one part of our multifaceted economy and making it the dominant sector, as it is today.

There's also a difference between allowing Wall Street to play a small role in the banking industry and letting it control the industry, as Congress and President Bill Clinton allowed to happen by deregulating the big banks in 1999 and 2000.
We now live in a financialized country, and every part of our economy, whether it's the real estate market, the commodities market, or the manufacturing industry, is in thrall to the big banks and hedge funds on Wall Street.
This is insane -- it's a recipe for disaster.

That's why it's time to go back to what worked for decades before Wall Street took control of the banking industry and the economy.

It's time to make banking boring again by putting a firewall between good old-fashioned checking-account "commercial banks" and the "investment bank" gambling houses on Wall Street.
Not only will this bring sanity to the banking industry, it'll also bring sanity to our entire economy as well, by protecting us from whatever crazy scheme Wall Street comes up with next.
Let the investment banks gamble all they want.
Just keep the rest of us, and our houses, out of it. Bring back Glass-Steagal.
Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Up to 10 million gallons of water gushed by UCLA; flow stopped

from latimes


Official defends response to UCLA flood, says crews had to find valve



Water main break near UCLA


Water flow shut off more than four hours after line break flooded area in and around UCLA
Athletic fields flooded at UCLA after massive water main break
Five people were trapped in cars near UCLA after massive water main break
Los Angeles water officials faced tough questions Tuesday night about their response to a massive pipe break that flooded UCLA and surrounding areas with millions of gallons and threatend the near-term use of Pauley Pavilion.
The rupture of the 90-year-old main sent a geyser shooting 30 feet in the air flooded parts of Sunset Boulevard and UCLA with 8 million to 10 million gallons before it was shut more than three hours after the pipe burst, city officials said.
The huge break blanketed parts of the campus with water and water, leaving school officials with a dauting cleanup task. City officials said they had not determined what caused the 30-inch wide pipe to burst.
Motorists were urged to avoid Sunset Boulevard Wedensday morning because crews would be still be repairing the line.
The break raised questions about the city's aging water system from reporters who questioned a top Los Angeles Department of Water and Power official about whether the agency responded quickly enought to stem the torrents of water.
Jim McDaniel, a DWP senior assistant general manager, said that crews had to battle rush-hour traffic to get to the scene on Sunset Boulevard, a short distance from the UCLA campus.
Once there, he added, the crews had to figure out which valves needed to be closed.
"We had to do research to get to the correct valve," McDaniel said. Closing the wrong valves, he said, would have left people without water.
The main line delivers 75,000 gallons a minute and broke shortly before 3:30 p.m. It was finally shut down around 7 p.m., city officials said.
UCLA officials said Tuesday night that they would be unable to determine whether athletic teams would be able to use Pauley Pavilion this season until the cleanup is done and the damage is assessed.
Crews were using squeegees and water vacuums to clear water and silt from the floor of the venerable Pauley Pavilion, which underwent a $136-million renovation in 2012 and is home to UCLA basketball and other athletic teams.
On Tuesday night, more than 3-1/2 hours after the line ruptured, about an inch of water remained on the floor.
At one point, up to 8 inches of water covered the main floor of the pavilion, and it was even higher in some lower rooms, UCLA spokeswoman Carol Stogsdill told The Times. 
City officials said Los Angeles Department of Water and Power crews worked as quickly as possible to shut down three large-diameter valves. But they couldn't be closed too quickly because doing so could trigger additional ruptures in the web of water lines that feed the area, according to officials.
McDaniel of the DWP said the city uses roughly 550 million gallons of water each day.
"In the grand scheme, it's something we can manage," he said of the flooding.
The water had been raging for nearly two hours when Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said at 5:15 p.m. that it would take crews at least another hour to shut down the line.
Thousands of gallons of water trapped five people in their cars as they tried to drive out the flood zone, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Water was seen inside the J.D. Morgan Center, which houses athletic staff and administration offices, the George Kneller Academic Center, UCLA's Athletic Hall of Fame and the John Wooden Center.
Water and mud also flooded Drake Stadium, the track and field facility.
Tractors on campus were dropping dirt to create embankments to try to channel torrents of water away from buildings.
Lauren Bernardy, 17, of Orange County was on the campus lacrosse field for a summer sports camp when water began flooding the field. 
"All of a sudden there's water rushing and we had to grab our things. We just started running and we were being chased by water," she said. 
Lauren said there is a parking structure under the lacrosse field and track and field stadium, and many cars were trapped by the rushing water. She watched several cars try to drive out of the water but wind up trapped.
Within five minutes, she said, the water had rushed from the edge of the lacrosse field to the Drake track stadium, which was submerged. Other students near Pauly Pavilion could be seen walking in shin-deep water, she said. 
At Pauley Paviliion, workers Tuesday night were using brooms, squeegees, vacuums and floor cleaners to remove the water. As that work was underway, sand bags sat stacked at the the service entrance in an effort to hold back water still cascading down the stairs
Earlier in the day, Garcetti said on Twitter that the pipe involved is from 1921. He said the pipe is being “shut down now, but will take an hour to prevent shock to the system and further damage.”
The water main ruptured shortly before 3:30 p.m. in the 10600 block of Sunset Boulevard, fire officials said.
Sunset was closed in both directions from Marymount Place to Westwood Plaza, complicating the rush-hour commute for scores of drivers.
"This is the same thing you would have in any flash flood," Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Jaime Moore said.
He said that "thousands and thousands of gallons" of water had flooded the area from a 15-foot-wide hole on Sunset just a few yards from the UCLA campus.
People were evacuated from parking lots 4 and 7, Moore said. Firefighters searched 200 cars for possible victims.
An LAFD swift-water rescue team with four inflatable boats was at the scene, standing by in case people were stranded.
Students took off their shoes and waded across rivers of ankle-deep water on campus. Other people were showing up with boogie boards -- a move discouraged by firefighters.
"That is probably one of the most dangerous things you can do," Moore said. "For somebody to try and boogie board in this, it's just going to be an asphalt bath."
Water was as high as wheel wells shortly after the flooding began.

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times