Like all very popular and extremely cool kids, I grew up watching a lot of HGTV. I still enjoy the occasional episode of House Hunters, typically over the holidays or when I'm feeling like yelling at my television. So I cannot describe to you the delight I felt when I found out that, for the first time, House Hunters featured a throuple in search of their dream home.
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A woman crashed through the gate of a Portland impound lot in a stolen truck, sending an employee flying backward. He was lucky to walk away only suffering a broken collar bone, concussion and a few scrapes.
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A "union" called ProTech Local 33 says it has members in the billion-dollar Golden State weed trade. Problem is, it looks like a front group for bosses.
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The red giant star has been growing dimmer since late last year, leading many to speculate it could soon go supernova. Scientists operating the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope have released new images of the supergiant star — and yep, it looks weird.
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"The Office" — which ran for 201 episodes on NBC from 2005 to 2013 — featured a lot of, er, inter-office romances. Here is a nifty chart chronicling all of them.
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BREAKING: A senior U.S.official says the United States and the Taliban have reached a truce agreement that will take effect "very soon" and could lead to withdrawals of American troops from Afghanistan. https://t.co/PvlHfd5sYq
#UPDATE "Huts and crops were set alight, livestock was burned or taken away," said Malian government spokesman Yaya Sangare describing an attack, as he vowed that security forces would find the perpetrators https://t.co/o6MZH1oRJM
With clear marching orders from the Defense Department to turn focus to competitors like China and Russia, the U.S. special operations community is at an inflection point. Kicking down doors in Afghanistan and Iraq will give way to more missions like training partners in Europe and Asia, and U.S. Special Operations Command could see a shift in its funding and oversight.
But that re-focus should not mean that special operations forces will take a back seat to traditional air, land and sea power, according to a report released Wednesday, as competitors are already using proxy forces and misinformation campaigns, both of which are right in the SOF wheelhouse.
United States prepared 'in principle' to withdraw from some areas, though Anbar province's Ain al-Assad base is a 'red line'.
The US military has offered senior Iraqi security officials plans for a partial pullback of troops from Iraq in response to January's parliamentary vote calling for foreign forces to leave the country, Middle East Eye can reveal.
A meeting between the two sides, held in great secrecy last week, heard that Washington was prepared "in principle" to discuss withdrawal.
A representative of the US military told the Iraqis present that the United States was prepared to leave positions in or near Shia-majority areas, such as Balad Air Base, which is located 80km north of Baghdad and houses US trainers and contractors.
Washington, the Iraqis were told, could even consider reducing its presence in Baghdad.
The Pentagon announced that a rocket struck an Iraqi base housing American troops today and that US forces had intercepted a Yemen-bound dhow carrying Iranian-designed weapons days earlier, extending the ongoing military tit-for-tat with pro-Iranian forces.
A defense official told Al-Monitor that the K1 base in the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk was hit by a Katyusha rocket at 8:45 p.m. local time today, causing no injuries.
The Iraqi media also reported today that troops found the launch pad and 11 rockets near the base, but had not tracked down the perpetrators. A rocket attack from Iranian-backed forces killed a US contractor at the base Dec. 27, sparking a cycle of violence that culminated in Iran's Jan. 8 ballistic missile attack on Al-Assad airbase.
TEHRAN, Feb. 14 (MNA) – Head of Iran's Passive Defense Organization Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali blamed the US for having a hand in the recent cyberattack on the infrastructures of Iran's e-government.
According to Jalali, the recent cyberattack on the country's infrastructure has been a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), in which the normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network is disrupted by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic.
"The attack was carried out by the US to assess the feasibility of future ones," he said, "But it was deterred."
"Designating the exact source and time of the attack is a time-consuming procedure but Iran's Telecommunication Infrastructure company is working on the issue," he added.
From Wikipedia: Paratroop Command is a 1959 war film directed by William Witney, starring Richard Bakalyan, Ken Lynch and Jack Hogan. Quentin Tarantino, an admirer of Witney's work, considers this film to be among his four best.
In 2019, the United States remained by far the world's largest defence spender, widening the gap between it and the second largest spender, China. US investments in weapons procurement and R&D alone were larger than China's total defence budget. The United States' defence investments in weapons procurement and R&D were also worth around four times as much as European states' combined.
IISS data shows that in 2019 the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and India retained their positions as the world's top defence spenders. Indeed, the only movement in the top 15 saw Italy and Australia swap places, with Italy taking the 12th position and Australia the 13th (Figure 1).
Nearly two decades have passed since a coronavirus known as SARS emerged in China, killing hundreds of people and sparking panic that sent a chill through the global economy. The virus now rampaging across China could be much more damaging.
China has become an indispensable part of global business since the 2003 SARS outbreak. It's grown into the world's factory, churning out products such as the iPhone and driving demand for commodities like oil and copper. The country also boasts hundreds of millions of wealthy consumers who spend big on luxury products, tourism and cars. China's economy accounted for roughly 4% of world GDP in 2003; it now makes up 16% of global output.
SARS sickened 8,098 people and killed 774 before it was contained. The new coronavirus, which originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, has already killed more than 900 people and infected over 40,000 across at least 25 countries and territories. Chinese officials have locked down Wuhan and several other cities, but the virus continues to spread.
Around 500 million people in China are currently affected by policies put in place restricting movement, to contain the COVID-19 coronavirus.
That's more than the entire population of the United States and is equivalent to roughly 6.5 per cent of the world's population.
As of Friday, at least 48 cities and four provinces in China have issued official notices for lockdown policies, with measures ranging from "closed-off management", where residents of a community have to be registered before they are allowed in or out, to restrictions that shut down highways, railways and public transport systems.
The U.S. military is reportedly advancing plans to make ready for a potential pandemic of the coronavirus.
Last month, Defense Secretary Mark Esper gave the order to initiate pandemic plans that include quarantining service members who have traveled to China since Feb. 2. The Military Times reported Thursday that troops around Asia have begun enforcing the directive at their own discretion on members who have traveled to China during the dates specified.
Navy and Marine Corps messages reportedly sent out this week say the plans follow the Department of Defense Global Campaign blueprint for Pandemic Influenza and Infectious Diseases 3551-13, the Pentagon's plan for combating the spread of the flu and previously unknown diseases.
* Egypt confirmed first case of coronavirus, making it the 28th country to do so * No details have been given of the patient, other than the fact the are a 'foreigner' * The individual has been placed in quarantine, according to the health ministry
The killer coronavirus has now spread to Egypt, with authorities saying a 'foreigner' is infected.
The health ministry said in a statement that it had immediately informed the World Health Organization and had taken all necessary preventative measures.
It did not give the nationality of the affected person or any other details.
The individual has been placed in quarantine.
Egypt is believed to be the 28th country to record a case of the killer virus and it is the first in Africa.
Experts and African leaders have expressed concern that should the virus spread to the continent, it could wreak havoc among less developed countries with fewer health resources.
WNU Editor: I shudder when I think what this virus can do to the undeveloped countries in Africa, and the warzones and refugee camps in the Middle East.
More News On The First Case Of The Coronavirus Being Confirmed In Africa
Japan warns of a slump in growth, Singapore could see a recession and Malaysia will announce a stimulus package.
Policymakers in Japan on Friday braced for a sharp contraction in October-December growth and warned of a drop in output and consumption due to the coronavirus outbreak, as Asian economies sounded the alarm over darkening economic outlooks.
Singapore's economy could enter recession due to the blow from the coronavirus outbreak, its prime minister said on Friday, while neighbouring Malaysia said it would announce a stimulus package to mitigate the negative effects of the virus outbreak.
As an outbreak of a novel coronavirus has swept through Hubei province, China, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been preparing for its worst case scenario -- a widespread outbreak of illnesses in the United States.
"Right now we're in an aggressive containment mode," CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in an interview on Thursday.
"We don't know a lot about this virus," he said. "This virus is probably with us beyond this season, beyond this year, and I think eventually the virus will find a foothold and we will get community-based transmission."
As of Thursday, there have been 15 cases of the novel coronavirus confirmed in seven states: eight in California; two in Illinois; and one in Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Texas.
Medical workers in protective suits work inside an isolated section at a community health service center in Wuhan, China February 8. China Daily via REUTERS ATTENTION
Ning Zhu, a nurse in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the heart of a deadly coronavirus outbreak, is restless.
Instead of helping on the frontlines, she has been under self-quarantine at home for weeks, after a chest scan on January 26 revealed that she had a suspected case of the novel Coronavirus.
Zhu was told to wait for a nucleic acid test that would provide the final verdict, but it never came.
"Right now, it's really a problem. Our hospital already has more than 100 people who are quarantined at home," she told CNN over the phone. An additional 30 medical workers have been confirmed to have the virus, she said.
"If the tests are fine, we can go back to work. I actually don't have any symptoms, there's just a slight problem with my CT scan, it seems there's a bit of infection," she said.
The Defense Department outlines clear priorities in its fiscal 2021 funding request.
The U.S. budget-negotiation season kicked off Feb. 10 when the White House submitted to Congress a $740 billion national security budget request. The document laid out a potential roadmap for defense spending over the next five years, offering some good news and bad news for various defense contractors.
It's important for investors to view the request as the opening salvo in a negotiation and not a final spending plan. Congress has the power of the purse, and lawmakers can and will cut and add to procurements over a long, drawn-out process.
This budget carries even more uncertainty than usual, as it's an election year. And lawmakers are sure to seize on the proposed cuts to nondefense discretionary spending at a time when defense spending is set to hold steady.
Parts of Africa are currently facing the worst locust swarms in more than a generation, with swarms the size of cities sweeping across countries including Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. The largest swarm recorded so far has been 37 miles long and 25 miles wide.
Earlier this week, the United Nations issued a statement saying it is the most severe infestation Kenya has seen in 70 years.
Desert locusts are one of the oldest and most destructive pests on the planet, traveling up to 93 miles and eating the equivalent of their own weight in fresh food every day.
These insects can form incredibly dense swarms, each containing between 40 to 80 million individual locusts per square kilometer, or 0.4 square miles. A 40 million insect swarm can consume the same amount as 35,000 people, consuming almost all the green vegetation they pass.
The United States announced Wednesday an initial plan for adjusting its military presence in Africa.The adjustment comes as a new US government report says that the US military has switched from trying to degrade Islamic extremist groups in West Africa's sprawling Sahel region to merely trying to contain them.
The first change will see part of one infantry unit, around 800 troops, replaced with a similar number of military trainers and advisors to support local forces in "spotlight African countries," Defense Department officials said.
"The message I'm relaying to my (African) partners is we are not walking away," US Army Africa commander Major General Roger Cloutier told reporters.
The Army's Next-Generation Combat Vehicle program looks to replace the Bradley and other vehicles with a suite of vehicles, both manned and unmanned. (Cpl. Alisha Grezlik/U.S. Army)
This convoluted road to nowhere stems from the Pentagon shifting the goal posts, having unrealistic expectations and refusing to accept what industry offers.
Last Friday, the U.S. Army kicked off a competition to design a successor for the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, a 33-ton tank-like workhorse used to carry troops into battle and provide fire support with its rapid-fire cannon and anti-tank missiles.
While it's sadly typical for the military to feature cost overruns and flawed requirements, what makes the procurement process for the Bradley so outstanding is that it's been riddled with financial waste and poor stewardship before the project has even started.
The Army has been promising a replacement for its thousands of Bradleys since 2003. Already upwards of $22.9 billion is calculated to have been blown on calls for and rejections of previous submissions. The competition announced last week is the fourth, and there are few signs that whatever doomed earlier rounds has been overcome now; the third one was axed mere weeks ago.
WNU Editor: Another Pentagon program that illustrates what happens when everything goes wrong.
Posted: 14 Feb 2020 06:23 AM PST
USS Gerald R. Ford conducts a replenishment-at-sea with the fleet replenishment oiler USNS Leroy Grumman, February 8, 2020. US Navy/MCS 2nd Class Ruben Reed
* This month, for the first time in two years, the Navy's new aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, received fuel during a replenishment at sea. * Replenishment at sea is one of the most dangerous operations sailors can perform, and its what keeps the carrier operating without having to return to port.
ATLANTIC OCEAN — USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) conducted a successful replenishment-at-sea (RAS) February 8 marking the ship's first time receiving fuel from a replenishment ship in more than 24 months.
Ford successfully received more than 1.3 million gallons of fuel, and exercised a solid cargo station, transferring 22 pallets for training from the fleet replenishment oiler USNS Leroy Grumman (T-AO 195), in less than three hours.
The RAS started off with Ford pulling alongside Grumman. A few moments later, a line was shot from Ford to Grumman to establish communications and connect to the fuel lines. Once completed, the fuel lines were pulled to Ford to begin the fueling process.
* Chinese telecoms giant is accused of involvement in a number of projects in North Korea since at least 2008 * Huawei and four of its subsidiaries are accused of stealing intellectual property from six US companies
The United States added to its series of charges against China's Huawei Technologies on Thursday, accusing the Chinese telecoms giant of stealing intellectual property from six US companies and covering up its involvement in projects in North Korea.
Racketeering, obstruction of justice and money laundering have been added to the criminal case, unsealed in January last year, accusing Huawei of financial fraud.
WNU Editor: These are very serious charges. The US is also signalling to other companies and countries that doing business with Huawei will have legal and criminal consequences.
More News On The U.S. Hitting Huawei With Multiple New Charges
* The Drone Dome C-UAS system can detect and shoot down unmanned aircraft * Video published by manufacturers Rafael shows drones being downed by lasers * The Israeli manufacturers hailed the system a '100 per cent success' after tests
This footage shows an Israeli drone defense system shooting a series of moving targets out of the sky with a Star Wars-like laser beam.
Manufacturers of the Drone Dome C-UAS hailed the system a '100 per cent success' after it brought down drones that were zig-zagging sharply during tests.
The so-called Counter Unmanned Aircraft System can detect hostile drones from more than two miles away and fire a destructive laser beam 'within seconds'.
* During the final months of WWII, Allied forces bombed German city of Dresden * British rifleman Victor Gregg was one of hundreds of men being held as a PoW * On the 75th anniversary of the bombing, this is his eyewitness account
During the final months of World War II, from February 13 to 15, 1945, Allied forces bombed the ancient, cathedral city of Dresden, in eastern Germany.
The bombing was controversial because Dresden's contribution to the war effort was minimal compared with other German cities — though it was a key transport junction and used by German forces to defend the country against Soviet forces approaching from the east.
Before the huge air raid, it had not suffered a major Allied attack. By February 15, however, it was a smouldering ruin — 2,400 tons of high explosives and 1,500 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped on the city. An unknown number of civilians, somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000, were dead.
British rifleman Victor Gregg was one of hundreds of men being held as a PoW in the city by the Germans. On the 75th anniversary of the start of the bombing, this is his eyewitness account of the devastation he left behind.
THE CORONAVIRUS outbreak has sparked so much fear among Express.co.uk readers that over two thirds are less likely to travel abroad this year because of the outbreak.
EGYPT's Great Pyramid of Giza has been exposed after a tiny robot headed into the air shafts of the ancient structure, making a breakthrough discovery which "adds another dimension to the story" Express.co.uk can exclusively reveal.
EMMANUEL MACRON's obsession with a more integrated and united defence strategy among EU member states lies behind a hidden German agenda, claimed Frexit campaigner Charles-Henri Gallois.
THE US Presidential election will be won and lost online more than any other poll in history. But a digital propaganda expert believes digital misinformation and disinformation coupled with geopolitics will make this poll 'the dirtiest ever'.
THE CORONAVIRUS outbreak has sparked global panic, grounding flights and causing a cruise ship to be quarantined after passengers were infected. The deadly virus has killed more than 1,300 people and infected 63,000 others - so are you less likely to travel abroad this year because of outbreak? Vote in our Express.co.uk poll.
THE EU's state of the art Galileo satellite project went offline for six days last year but a new report has stated no failure in the system's coverage, with bosses calling it just a "technical incident".
BREXIT success could mark the beginning of the end for the European Union should a key member state receive the evidence life out of the bloc is prosperous, former Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney predicted.
Solapur University Result 2020 Released: Hello Students !!! It’s time to check the results, Yes Solapur University has declared the result for various Courses on 14th February 2020. Students who have attended the Examination can check the result from the official website of the University i.e su.digitaluniversity.ac. Aspirants can check the Solapur University Result 2020 for all the students who are studying under the Solapur University. The University offers various Courses like, Under Graduate, Post Graduate, Regular/ Supplementary and other Courses. All the Students can check the Solapur University Result from this site. Also, we have provided a direct link to get the result from the below table.
The University of Solapur has successfully conducted the examination of B.A, B.Sc, B.Com, B.Tech, BBA, BCA, M.A, M.Sc, and Other Examinations 2019. Also, Students may find all the information related to the Examination from this site and official website. Once the University has declared the Results, we will update on our webpage. Students can find the results using the Name, Roll Number, Date of Birth or Year of the Course. All the students can get furthermore information related to the Solapur University Result 2020 on our recruitment.guru webpage.
Latest Updated Solapur University Results 2020
Name of the Exam
Result Declared Date
Apply for Photocopy/ Verification up to (for students)
Visit the official website of Solapur University i.e su.digitaluniversity.ac
On the home page, you will find the Examination tab and click on the results.
In the result page, you have to give the Roll number and Year of the Course.
Click on the result link for which course you want to check.
The results will appear on the screen.
Take the printout of the Solapur University Result for future reference.
About Solapur University
Solapur University was developed on the principal August 2004 and was started on 03rd August 2004 by the Governor of Maharashtra. The course of action of the school at Solapur was a long time back loved the needs of the people of this region. Earlier, to the course of action of University, Solapur had a P.G. Point of convergence of Shivaji University for over two decades. P.G. considers had three postgraduate science divisions and 7 postgraduate courses drove in the P.G. workplaces. With this sound establishment, Solapur University has been developed to oblige the prerequisites of in excess of 60,000 understudies to arrange. In less than three educational years, Solapur University has the delight of various separation. All Students and staff have completed their academic obligation. It is an achievement to communicate that Solapur University has successfully driven its appraisals and besides the results have been declared in record time.
Solapur University Supply/Revaluation Results
Understudies are keeping things under control for the results if they scored well they will provoke one year from now. Regardless, in case they won’t get more checks, they can apply for the revaluation results. At the point when they applied for the Examination, the more noteworthy level Examiner will check the paper again. In like manner, in case they regardless of everything get bomb marks, they can apply for the worth evaluation. For each and every semester, Students can apply for the revaluation after the presentation of the essential evaluation results. Solapur University will take perhaps over seven days to process the test papers to announce the Solapur University Revaluation Result. Do stay revived with the University to consider the Revaluation Exam Results.
Alagappa University Results 2020 Released: Dear Students !!! Welcome to our Alagappa University page. Here are the immediate connections of all the semester tests directed by the Alagappa University. Students who are perusing for the Alagappa University Semester Exam Results can check here. As an ongoing warning, the University has declared the test results for different Under Graduate and Post Graduate Exams on 14th February 2020. Students of Alagappa University can check their test results directly here. Look at more subtleties of the most recent Updated Alagappa University Results 2020 from the beneath areas of this page.
Alagappa University Conducts Semester savvy tests to assess the up-and-comer’s presentation. Those undergrads who are concentrating under the Alagappa University the time has come to look at the assessment results for the last directed even semester. Get immediate connections to get to the Alagappa University Results 2020. Here on our website page, we will refresh all the data when it is distributed in the University Web entrance. In this way, the understudies of Alagappa University do have a look at our recruitment.guru webpage to know more and refreshed data about the most recent Alagappa University Exam Results 2020.
Latest Alagappa University UG/PG Results 2020: Click Here
Latest Alagappa University Exam Results 2020-21
Name of the Examination
Result Announcement Date
Results Link
Dip Land Survey Engg., Dip. Ophthalmic Techniques, Dip Medical Records Tech., B.Sc. Aeronautical Science., MBA Business Analytics., MBA Digital Marketing & E. Commerce., B.Sc. Astanga Yoga., B.Com (Banking Finances services and Insurance)., M.B.A. Industrial Integrated.,
M.A. ECONOMICS, M.Sc., BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE, MFA. BHARATHANATYAM., M.Sc. MICROBIOLOGY., MA PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION., MBA TOURISM MANAGEMENT., MA., JOURNALISM, AND MASS COMMUNICATION
Visit the Official Website of Alagappa University @alagappauniversity.ac.in
On the home page, find the Examination tab.
Get the Results section under the Examination tab.
A new page will take you to the main Results page.
Enter the Register Number and select the Department from the drop-down list.
Then click on the Submit option.
Within a few minutes, the results will be displayed.
Students can take a print out of the displayed results for future use until the mark sheet is given.
About Alagappa University, Tamil Nadu
Alagappa University is an express possess college of Tamilnadu which was set up in 1985 by Padma Bhusan Vallal Dr.RM. Alagappa Chettiar. the University precisely situated in Karaikudi, Tamilnadu. The National Institutional Ranking Framework gave a position of 43 generally speaking in India. And furthermore 27 among colleges in 2018. Interestingly, Alagappa University has scarcely any records which won inside a little range of time. These are a couple of exceptional qualities of Alagappa University. At the point when we talk about the key individuals of the Alagappa University Panwarilal Purohit is a Chancellor of the college and furthermore Professor N. Rajendran is Vice-Chancellor of the Alagappa University. Candidates who need to know increasingly point by point data about the Alagappa University can visit the official site i.e, alagappauniversity.ac.in
It is the principal college in Tamilnadu which got A+grade (in May 2017) by NAAC.
The primary college in Tamilnadu to give class – I Status (in February 2018) from MHRD-UGC
The principal college in Tamilnadu to get Autonomy status (In Febraury 2018) from MHRD-UGC
Alagappa University Regular/Supplementary Results 2020-21
Those understudies who have gone to the normal assessment under Alagappa University and still fizzled. Here comes one greater chance to clear the assessment. To expand your scoring alongside that understudies to flop in the past assessment will get an opportunity to clear through Revaluation Exams. For each semester Students can apply for the revaluation after the declaration of the primary assessment results. Alagappa University will take possibly more than seven days to process the test papers to report the Revaluation Results. Do remain refreshed with this page to think about the Alagappa University Revaluation Results.
KSP Special Reserve Sub Inspector Admit Card 2020 Released. Download the KSP Admit Card from 14th February 2020. Hence, the exam will be held on 16th February 2020. Therefore, the KSP Exam Admit Card is now available at the below table to download. Enter the valid login credentials on the hall ticket to download it.
KSP Special Reserve SI Hall Ticket 2020 – Download Here
KSP Police SI Admit Card 2020 Released | The Karnataka State Police Board has issued the admit card for the Sub Inspector Civil Exam. Therefore, the admit card is now available at the below section. Thus, the KSP SI Admit Card has been released on 28th December 2019. Make sure to download it before the exam date i.e. (05th January 2020) is postponed to 13th January 2020.
KSP SR Sub Inspector Admit Card 2020 – The Karnataka State Police has released the Admit Card for 40 vacancies for Special Reserve Sub Inspector Post. The candidates who had applied for the exam can download the Admit Card from the official website, through the below link. The Admit Card will release in January 2020.
KSP Special Reserve Sub Inspector Admit Card 2020 – Overview
KSP Special Reserve Sub Inspector Hall Ticket 2020 – Download Here
KSP Admit Card 2019 Releasedfor 42 Instructor and Assistant Instructor posts on 15th October 2019. Candidates who have applied for the above-stated posts can download the admit card now. Thus, the exam is going to be held on 20th October 2019. Hence, Aspirants must carry valid documents to the examination.
KSP Admit Card 2019. Get Direct Link to Download the KSP Admit Card for 40 Armed Reserve Sub Inspector. The Police Department has announced the exam date tentatively in the month of October 2019. Though, Candidates who are eligible to take down the examination must download the admit card. We have updated the Armed Reserved Sub Inspector Exam Date in this article. So, Aspirants are suggested to download the admit card once the board releases it on the official website. The KSP Armed Admit Card will be available in the month of October 2019.
KSP Admit Card 2019
The Karnataka State Police is going to release the admit card for the post of 40 Armed Reserve Sub Inspector. Candidates who have applied for the posts can download the KSP Exam Hall Ticket from the below section. The Department will issue the admit card along with the exam details. Examiners who are going to participate in the exam must download the KSP Armed Admit Card. Stay tuned with our webpage to get the frequent updations regarding the KSP Armed Reserve Sub Inspector Exam and the admit card.
Contenders can get the admit card details from this section. Thus, Aspirants must download the hall ticket by entering vital information in it. Fill the Karnataka State Police Admit Card and check the entered details before downloading it. Candidates can follow the steps given below to download the hall ticket.
Candidates Name
Name of the Candidate's Father
The venue of the Exam Centre
Date & Time of the Test
Reporting Time to the Exam Hall
Gender (Male/ Female)
Roll Number
Duration of the Online Test
Space for Invigilator's Signature
Registration Number
Name of the Test Centre
Category of the candidates
Space for Applicant's Signature
Name of the Exam Conducting Board
Photograph of the Candidate
Applicant's Date of Birth
Name of the Written Test
Important Guidelines for the Exam Takers
Full Name of the Applicant
Examination Centre Code
Signature of the Board Counselor
KSP Armed Reserve Sub Inspector Exam 2020
The Armed Reserve Sub Inspector written exam will be held in the month of October 2019. Hence, Aspirants must download the admit card to attend the examination. Therefore, the KSP Admit Card carries the exam details. So, go through to make the exam preparations.
KSP Selection Process:
Physical Endurance Test
Physical Standard Test
Written exam
Viva Voce
KSP Armed Reserve Police Constable Exam Pattern:
Papers
Type of Exam
Topics
Marks
Paper 1
Descriptive / Conventional Type
Essay Writing – 600 words
20
Precise Writing Test
10
Translation from English to Kannada and Vice Versa
20
Paper 2
Objective Type Questions
General Knowledge
150
Current Affairs
Documents Along with KSP Hall Ticket @ www.ksp.gov.in
Download the admit card by following the steps given on this page. Make sure to download the KSP Admit Card from the direct link section. Aspirants who are participating in the examination must carry the documents which are listed below. So, Aspirants are suggested to enter the exam hall along with the KSP Armed Admit Card.
Original Photograph
Voter Card
Pan Card
Employee ID
College ID
PAN Card
Passport
Driving License
Any other ID proof issued by a Gazetted Officer
Bank Pass Book with the photograph
KSP Admit Card Download Steps 2020
Click on the KSP Admit Card Link.
Enter the Registration Number and Password on the home page.
Now enter the image in the box that is available on the page.
Tap on Login to get the KSP Hall Ticket.
The KSP Exam Admit Card will appear on the screen.
Fill the needed credentials into the hall ticket which are asked.
After filling recheck the details that you have entered.
Once done with the checking Submit the admit card.
Finally, download the hall ticket after the submission.
Take a photocopy of the Hall Ticket.
Carry for the exam and for the upcoming selection rounds.
Tripura University Result 2020 Released: Dear Folks !!! According to the most recent Tripura University notice, results for all UG/PG courses are declared. Understudies can check the Tripura University Results 2020 from beneath the table. To check Tripura University Results 2020, you should simply tap on the connection accessible on this page. Check extra data with respect to the Tripura University UG, PG, Diploma and furthermore different outcomes in the article underneath. So as to support the understudies, on our recruitment.guru website page, we have given an immediate connection to get the most recent refreshed Tripura University Results 2020.
Here On this page, Students can discover the Tripura University Results for all Under Graduation and Post Graduation Courses. We committed colleagues of recruitment.guru will keep you refreshed with every single pronounced outcome. When the outcomes will be discharged, it is accessible on our page. All understudies can check their outcomes by tapping the underneath interface. Notwithstanding the Tripura University Results 2020, we will likewise refresh you with the most recent news and updates all the time. Also, look down to know more subtleties, for example, the downloading procedure and the data with respect to Tripura University Results 2020.
The University of Tripura’s originally exceptional training foundation, MBB College, began working after 1947 with the relationship of the University of Calcutta, the quantity of occupants in the State has enrolled strong improvement, similarly as the number of understudies looking for cutting edge instruction. The dispatch of MBB College was after a short time sought after by the creation in 1950 of Ramkrishna Mahavidyalaya in Kailasahar, the rhythmic movement seat of the Unokoti Tripura area. In 1964, Belonia College was opened in southern Tripura, sought after 3 years sometime later by the creation of Ram Thakur College in 1967 in Agartala. State understudies were weakened by a fundamental reality: all schools expected to ensure their association with the University of Calcutta and there was no likelihood of school planning in Tripura.
Tripura University Supply/Revaluation Results
Those understudies who score great imprints will prompt one year from now. Be that as it may, on the off chance that they won’t get more checks they can apply for the Tripura University Revaluation Results. When they applied for the Examination, the more significant level Examiner will check the paper once more. They can get the revaluation results inside the time. Additionally, in the event that they despite everything get bomb marks, they can apply for the beneficial examination. For each and every single semester, Students can apply for the revaluation after the declaration of the fundamental assessment results. Tripura University will take possibly more than seven days to process the test papers to report the Tripura University Revaluation Results. Do remain refreshed with the University to think about the Revaluation Results.
Western Railway Trade Apprentice Previous Papers for download, free of cost. Hence, the candidates who are in search of WR Recruitment Exam Model Question Paper Pdf can find here. In this article, find the download link for Western Apprentice Previous Year Question Paper Pdf. Interested applicants can also check the Western Railway Sample Papers with Solutions here.
Western Railway Exam Papers Pdf
Western Railway Trade Apprentice Previous Papers are given in the section below. Before, going to the Exam Model Paper here is the overview of Western Railway Notification. Will update the details if any new notifications are given by WR Indian Railway Recruitment.
Aspirants applied for WR Recruitment 2020 can find the Previous Question Paper details in the article below. Also, check the Syllabus and Exam pattern details for Trade Apprentice in the sections following.
WR Indian Railway Previous Papers Details – www.wr.indianrailways.gov.in
Also, check for Western Railway Technician Grade 3 Previous Papers
Railway Previous Year Question helps the candidates in preparation. Candidates can plan their preparation using the last year exam model question papers. Hence, find the direct download link for railway exam study material for Apprentice jobs.
RRC Western Railway Trade Apprentice Exam Pattern 2020
Looking for RRC WR Apprentice Model Paper pdf. Before going to exam model papers check the Exam Pattern, Question and Time Duration details in each section below. Also, check complete WR Apprentice Exam Syllabus 2020 from the link given.
RRC WR Apprentice Exam Test Pattern
S.No
Subjects
Questions
Time
1
Reasoning Ability
60
2 Hrs
2
English
60
2 Hrs
3
General Awareness
60
2 Hrs
4
Arithmetic/Numerical Ability
60
2 Hrs
5
Technical Subjects
60
2 Hrs
Total
300
The language of Question Paper Hindi & English.
The exam will be having Objective type multiple choice Questions.
Maximum Marks for written test is 150 Marks.
For Complete Syllabus, details check our WR Apprentice Syllabus page.
The above given Western Railway Trade Apprentice Exam Study material is only for reference purpose. Hence, download the free WR Apprentice material Pdf. Find the other railway exam question paper links below.
Kashmir University Results 2020 Declared: Dear Students !!! Let’s have time to check your Examination Results on 14th February 2020. The University of Kashmir has published the results for various courses every day. As of late, the University has discharged the outcomes for Integrated Arabic, Architecture and other course Results are accessible here. Students who have attended for that Examination can check their Kashmir University Results 2020 from the Official website of the university i.e, kashmiruniversity.net. We provide the Kashmir University Regular, Supplementary, and Revaluation Results on our recruitment.guru page.
Kashmir University – Overview
Description
Details
Name of the University
University of Kashmir
Courses Offered
Medical, Science, Engineering, Technology and & others
Kashmir University has released the results for Regular and Revaluation results. Likewise, find out about the customary, strengthening and revaluation University Kashmir Result in here. Moreover, we provide a direct link to get your Kashmir University Results on this page. Students can take a look at the university official website to get additional information. Also, we will update the latest updates regarding the Examination results. We will update the Upcoming Kashmir University Results 2020 link, it will work once it gets released officially. And also, Students can get the Exam Time Table, Admit Card, Syllabus, and others. Students can have touch with our page recruitment.guru to get the latest updated Kashmir University Results.
Latest Updated Kashmir University Results 2020
Name of the Exam
Release Date
Download Link
Integrated Botany 5th semester batch 2017 examination of 2020
The University of Kashmir is located on the western side of Dal Lake in the city of Srinagar, which lies in the Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The University of Kashmir has developed into perhaps the biggest college. There are 12 resources, 47 scholarly offices, 21 focuses, 36 universities and six perceived organizations spread everywhere throughout the state. The two biggest divisions in understudy enrolment incorporate the Faculty of Law and the Business School. The Faculty of Law being perhaps the most established division runs three courses LLB, LLM, and B.A, LLB(Hons). Kashmir University additionally has a P.G. Confirmation course in Human Rights. The Faculty of Law has been effectively seeking better expectations of scholarly greatness. The office has delivered famous legal advisers, legal advisors, creators, government workers, and legislators.
Kashmir University Supply/Revaluation Results
Understudies are holding on for the results in case they scored well they will incite one year from now. Nevertheless, if they won’t get more stamps they can apply for the Revaluation Results. At the point when they applied for the Examination, the more raised level Examiner will check the paper again. In like manner, if they notwithstanding everything gets bomb marks, they can apply for the worth appraisal. For every Semester Students can apply for the revaluation after the affirmation of the essential appraisal results. The Kashmir University will take as long as seven days to process the test papers to report the Kashmir University Revaluation Results. Do stay invigorated with this page to consider the Revaluation Results.
BSSC Admit Card 2020 Released for Interlevel Competitive Exam. Candidates who are eligible to take down the exam can download the BSSC Admit Card from here. All the examiners will get the exam date by downloading the BSSC Interlevel Hall Ticket. Therefore, we have provided a direct link to download the admit card.
BSSC Sanitary Inspector Admit Card 2019 will be published on the 02nd Week of November 2019. Thus, the exam is going to be held on 24th November 2019. Hence, the direct link to download the admit card will be available at the bottom of the section. Make sure to download the hall ticket before the last date ends.
BSSC Sanitary Inspector Admit Card 2019 – Download Here
BSSC Sanitary Inspector Exam Notice 2019 – Check Here
BSSC Stenographer Admit Card 2019 Released – The Bihar Staff Selection Commission has announced the exam date for Stenographers. The board will conduct the exam on 17th November 2019. Thus, the BSSC Admit Card has been issued on 13thNovember 2019. Eligible aspirants can download the BSSC Hall Ticket from the below table.
BSSC Inter Level (PT) Admit Card 2019 – Bihar Staff Selection Commission has announced the exam date for the post of Inter Level Combined Competitive PT Written Exam on 11th December 2019. Likewise, the Interview will be held on 10th May 2020. Hence, the exam appearing candidates must download the BSSC Admit Card in the upcoming section.
BSSC Admit Card 2019 – Bihar Staff Selection Commission is mandated to release the admit card for 326 Stenographer posts. Hence, the admit card will be available 10 days before the exam. Moreover, the board has not declared the exact date for the Examination. Hence, the applicable candidates can download the hall ticket from the below-given link. Get down to update the details about Bihar Staff Selection Commission Exam 2019.
Bihar SSC Admit Card 2019
Registered Aspirants can get the BSSC Stenographer Admit Card 2019 on the official website i.e. bssc.bih.nic.in. Get a clear view of Bihar SSC Exam and BSSC Admit Card from the overview table. Thus, the recruitment exam will be scheduled by the selection committee. Later, they will publish the exam date on the Official Website. Fill all the details in the admit card along with the copy of the Registration Form.
Details to Check-in BSSC Stenographer Admit Card 2020
Applicants have to fill the following details in the admit card. The important factors state the candidate’s identification. So, Aspirants have to enter all the attributes correctly in the BSSC Exam Hall Ticket 2020. Hence, Candidates have to download the Bihar SSC Admit Card without making mistakes. This Entrance Ticket plays a major role in the Exam Hall. Therefore, the important document should be a valid one. BSSC Admit Card will not be sent through the post to any of the candidates. Its candidate’s responsibility to download the admit card through Online.
Name of the Applicant.
Exam Date, Time & Centre.
Post Applied for.
Application or Registration Number
Date of Birth
Important Instructions.
BSSC Stenographer Exam 2019
Bihar Staff Selection will call the registered candidates for the written examination. The BSSC Stenographer Written Examination date will be published on the Official Website. Moreover, Candidates have to qualify the written examination to work as a stenographer in the Bihar Staff Selection Commission. BSSC Admit Card download is a must to appear for the examination. Follow the general instructions in the admit card at the examination hall.
BSSC Stenographer Written Exam Pattern 2019:
Exam pattern is based on the Multiple Choice Question/Objective Type.
The time duration for the written exam is 2 hrs. & 15 Min.
Each Right Answer carrying 4 Marks.
There will be negative marking of 1 mark for each wrong answer.
The exam paper is bilingual its means(Hindi/English).
Name of the Subject
No of Questions
General Studies
50 Questions
General Science & Mathematics
50 Questions
Comprehension/Logical Reasoning/Mental Ability
50 Questions
Total
150 Questions
Minimum Qualifying Marks – Category Wise:
General Category: 40%
Backward Class: 36.5%
M.B.C.: 34%
SC/ST: 32%
Female: 32%
Required things to Download bssc.bihar.gov.in Admit Card
Participants should appear for the written exam along with the documents stuffed in the page. Get the exam centre details by downloading the BSSC Call Letter. Reach to the end of the page to download the BSSC Hall Ticket 2020. Carry any one of the documents for the exam. If candidates find any mistakes in the admit card, immediately inform to the higher officials through the given contact details. Because contenders having invalid BSSC Hall Ticket will not be allowed to take down the exam. Do check with the details in the admit card before downloading. Read out the instructions to be followed inside the exam hall. Therefore, Aspirants who are yet to finish the Application Registration process should complete it as soon as possible. After the registration process candidates will receive the shortlisted list through the registered mail ID.
Aadhar Card
College ID
Ration Card
Driving License
PAN Card
Voter ID
Any Valid ID Proof Issued By Gazetted Officer
Bank Passbook
Passport
How to Download BSSC Admit Card 2020?
Click on “Bihar SSC Admit Card ” Link.
Enter the Login Details.
Enter the Captcha given.
Now Login to get the admit card.
An Admit Card page will be available on the screen.
Enter all the necessary information.
Click on to the download option and download the admit card.
Take a print out and carry for the exam.
Direct Links to Download BSSC Exam Admit Card 2019
Searching for UPSC Indian Statistical Service Syllabus 2020 Pdf? It is provided here for the Indian Economic Service and Indian Statistical Service Examination 2020. So the candidates who applied for UPSC IES ISS Recruitment 2020 can check the UPSC Indian Statistical Service (ISS) Syllabus along with the exam pattern. Download UPSC Indian Economic Service (IES) Syllabus Pdf from the below provided link.
UPSC Indian Statistical Service (ISS) Syllabus 2020 Pdf
The candidates who applied for UPSC jobs are eager to start their exam preparation. But for the UPSC exam preparation, the applicants must have the updated UPSC IES ISS Syllabus with them. If you are looking for UPSC Indian Statistical Service Syllabus for better exam preparation and couldn’t find all the concepts? Then don’t worry! You are at the right place. Because we are here to help the UPSC job applicants by providing the UPSC Indian Statistical Service (ISS) Syllabus here. So the applicants can get the complete topics of UPSC IES exam in the UPSC IES ISS Syllabus. Therefore the next step is to download the provided UPSC ISS syllabus and start preparing for UPSC IES ISS exam.
Also, for the UPSC job aspirants, we are also giving the UPSC IES, ISS Exam pattern in separate tables. So all the applicants can check their respective discipline exam pattern below. In the exam pattern, it is clearly shown about the duration of the exam, no. of questions, and maximum marks details. So don’t forget to view the exam pattern before going to the UPSC exam. For further details go through the official website.
Indian Economic Service Exam 2020 – www.upsc.gov.in
Description
Details
Organization
Union Public Service Commission
No of Vacancies
65 Posts
Exam Name
UPSC Indian Economic Services (IES)/ Indian Statistical Services Examination 2020
Candidates applying for the UPSC Indian Economic Service (IES) and Indian Statistical Service (ISS) Recruitment exam 2020 will be selected based on the following criteria –
Selection Process:
Written Examination
Viva Voce
UPSC IES/ ISS Exam Pattern 2020
Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) IES Exam Pattern 2020
Subject
Marks
Duration
General English
100
3 Hours
General Studies
100
3 Hours
General Economics-I
200
3 Hours
General Economics-II
200
3 Hours
General Economics-III
200
3 Hours
Indian Economics
200
3 Hours
Total
1000
UPSC Indian Statistical Service (ISS) Exam Pattern 2020
Subjects
Max. Marks
Exam Duration
General English
100
3 Hours
General Studies
100
3 Hours
Statistics-I (Objective)
200
2 Hours
Statistics-II (Objective)
200
2 Hours
Statistics-III (Descriptive)
200
3 Hours
Statistics-IV (Descriptive)
200
3 Hours
Total
1000
General English and General Studies that is common for both IES & ISS will be of Subjective in nature
Statistics I & II will be of Objective Type Questions i.e. 80 questions with maximum marks of 200 in each paper to be completed in 2 Hours
All other papers of Indian Economic Service will be of Subjective in Nature
The Viva Voce Examination for both IES & ISS will consist of 200 Marks
Union Public Service Commission IES/ ISS Exam Syllabus 2020
UPSC IES Syllabus 2020
General Economics I
Theory of Consumer’s Demand.
Theory of Production.
Welfare Economics.
Theory of Value.
Theory of Distribution.
Quantitative Methods in Economics.
General Economics II
Economic Thought.
The Concept of National Income and Social Accounting.
Theory of Employment, Money & Finance.
Financial and Capital Market.
Economic growth and development.
International Economics.
Balance of Payments.
Global Institutions.
General Economics III
Public Finance.
Environmental Economics.
Industrial Economics.
State, market, and planning.
Indian Economics
History of development & Planning.
Federal Finance.
Budgeting.
Poverty, unemployment, and Human Development.
Agriculture.
The strategy of Industrial development.
Labour.
Foreign Trade
Money and Banking.
Inflation.
UPSC Indian Statistical Service Syllabus 2020
General Studies
Current Events -National & International.
Indian Geography.
Polity & Governance.
Indian History.
Indian Polity.
Environmental Studies.
Indian Constitution.
Science & Technology etc.
General English
Passages.
Precise Writing.
Essays.
Comprehension.
Antonyms.
Synonyms.
Letter Writing etc.
Statistics-I
Probability.
Statistical Methods.
Numerical Analysis.
Computer Application.
Data Processing etc.
Syllabus of Statistics-II
Linear Models.
Statistical Inference.
Hypothesis Testing.
Official Statistics.
Sector Wise Statistics.
Population Census.
Socio-Economic Indicators etc.
Statistics-III
Sampling Techniques.
Estimation of Population.
Econometrics.
Applied Statistics.
Time Series Analysis.
Fourier Transform etc.
Statistics-IV
Operations Research and Reliability.
Branch and Bound Method.
PERT and CPM.
Exponential Distributions.
Demography and Vital Statistics.
Survival Analysis and Clinical Trial.
Data Management.
Quality Control.
Multivariate Analysis.
Design and Analysis of Experiments.
Computing with C and R etc.
Download UPSC Indian Statistical Service (ISS) Syllabus 2020 Pdf
UPSC Indian Statistical Service Exam Syllabus Pdf 2020 – Click Here
UPSC Syllabus for Various Post is available here to download in Pdf format. To help out the candidates, the direct link for the UPSC Syllabus 2020 Pdf is attached at the end of the page. Improve your subject skills and time by referring to the UPSC Syllabus 2020 provided on this page. This is very useful to the aspirants and makes them good enough to take the Written Examination.
As per the recent update Union Public Service Commission wants to hire various young talented candidates for the posts of Stenographer/Section Officer. Aspirants who want to work with UPSC Recruitment 2020 can appear for the Written Examination. It is impossible to clear the written exam without having the proper preparation. Now, candidates who had applied for Stenographer/Section Officer Post standing in the right place. Scroll down this page to read the complete information about the UPSC SO/Steno Syllabus 2020 and Exam Pattern. Check out UPSC Stenographer Exam Pattern 2020 provided before going to start the exam preparation. For the sake of candidates, we have described the UPSC SO/Steno Syllabus 2020, Exam Pattern, and also the UPSC Stenographer Previous Papers on this webpage
General Studies & General Knowledge of India and Machinery of Government, Practice, and procedures on Parliament and knowledge of RTI Act,2005.
Objective
150
120 minutes
II
Procedure and Practice in the Government of India Secretariat and attached offices and General Financial and Service Rules duly taking into account the requirement of relevant categories of services.
Objective
150
120 minutes
III
Noting and Drafting, Precise writing
Subjective
200
180 minutes
Evaluation of record of Services
100
–
Total
600
420 minutes
UPSC Stenographer Part-II Exam Pattern 2020
Evaluation of record of service carrying a maximum of 100 marks of candidates:
Who obtain such minimum qualifying marks in the written examination as may be fixed by the Commission in their discretion (for categories I, II, III, and VIII).
Who obtain such minimum qualifying marks in the written examination and the shorthand test as may be fixed by the Commission in their discretion (for Categories IV, V, VI, VII, and IX).
UPSC Stenographer Selection Process 2020:
Most of the aspirants are going to hold a position in the Union Public Service Commission. To hold a job as Stenographer/ Section Officer candidates must qualify in all the selection process given below.
Written Examination
Personal Interview
Document Verification
Download UPSC Stenographer Syllabus 2020 PDF
UPSC Stenographer Paper-I Syllabus 2020
The paper will include subjects of relevance in the present day. Questions will be set to test knowledge of the broad salient features of the Five Year Plans, Indian Economy. And also major Developmental Schemes as also intelligence awareness of current affairs both national and international.
The principles of the Constitution of India
Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha
The organization of the machinery of the Govt. of India, Designation and allocation of subjects between Ministries, Departments and Attached & Subordinate Offices and their relation intersection.
RTI Act, 2005.
UPSC Stenographer Paper-II Syllabus
This paper is intended to be an intensive and detailed test in methods. And also procedures of work in the Government of India Secretariat and attached offices. Detailed knowledge of General Financial and Service Rules viz., Conduct Rules, Leave Rules, TA Rules, etc. will be tested.
UPSC Stenographer Paper-III Syllabus
Candidates are required to prepare notes and drafts on specific problems and precise from a passage.
A non-competitive tender is a bid made by a small investor to purchase a debt issue that has its price based on the average price of all competitive bids submitted.
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Invest directly in real estate projects through crowdfunding. Currently only open for accredited investors, the SEC is working to open the market to all.
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Understanding differences between long- and short-term capital gains is crucial to ensuring that the benefits of your investment portfolio outweigh the tax costs.
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Certificates of deposit (CDs) and bonds are both fixed-income securities that are generally held until maturity. Learn how these investments are different.
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Some may think the ubiquity of Chinese products is due to the abundance of cheap Chinese labor that brings down the production costs, but there is much more to it.
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Underbanked is a term referring to people who use fewer banking services, relying on cash more than checks, credit cards, and other financial products.
A tenement refers to a working-class or working-poor residential apartment building, often characterized by low-quality, run-down, and/or cramped living conditions.
A nonperforming loan (NPL) is a sum of borrowed money whose scheduled payments have not been made by the debtor for a specified period of time – usually 90 or 180 days. It is considered in default or near default.
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The RAR is a detailed document that describes an IRS examiner's audit findings and states the amount of deficiency the agent finds the taxpayer to owe.
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Certificates of deposit (CDs) and bonds are among the safest investment choices. Both are essentially types of loans for interest, but there are key differences between them.
MUMBAI: Bankers fear a possible collapse of Vodafone Idea will increase bad loans and spark a rerun of the crisis that gripped the banking sector a few years ago.Bank stocks slumped on Friday after the Supreme Court refused to give relief to telecom companies on adjusted gross revenues (AGR) dues, putting at risk the nearly .Rs 30,000 crore loans to Vodafone Idea, which has repeatedly been saying that its survival will be under threat if the government does not give any relief on payment of past dues. 74144024 Vodafone Idea needs to pay.Rs 53,000 crore to the telecom department (DoT) on AGR dues and there are fears that the company may not be able to pay the full amount. On Friday, Vodafone Idea shares plunged 23% to Rs 3.44.Bankers say the Vodafone Idea account is a standard one as of now and the telco is paying its dues, but lenders, including State Bank of India, have a large exposure through loans and guarantees. These guarantees could come into play if the government invokes them.Brokerage house Macquarie estimates Vodafone Idea debt at Rs 1.26 lakh crore, of which Rs 90,700 crore is in the form of deferred payment liabilities and guarantees towards spectrum charges payable over 16 years.Banks which are struggling with non-performing assets (NPAs) of Reliance Communications and Aircel — two other telcos which are at different stages of resolution at bankruptcy courts — may now have to think of alternatives if Vodafone Idea is unable to pay."I think now they (telcos) have to talk to the government and if it is an order from the honourable Supreme Court, then they will have to comply. We have to talk to them to understand what their plans are and they would have plans, because this is something they might have expected also. So after this order, we will ask them what are their plans to comply with the order, and whatever is the situation we are capable of handling it," SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Bengaluru.SBI's funded exposure to telecom companies is at Rs 29,000 crore, but its largest exposure is to Vodafone Idea with Rs 11,200 crore. Private sector banks led by IndusInd Bank (Rs 5,000 crore) and ICICI Bank (Rs 1,700 crore) are the other major lenders to the beleaguered firm. Among public sector banks, Punjab National Bank has — at Rs 1,000 crore — the second highest exposure to the telco. 74144028 SBI has only provided for Rs 9,000 crore of NPAs from the telecom sector and not provided for loans which are being repaid on time such as the Vodafone Idea account, Kumar said.IDFC First Bank made a 50% provision for its RRs 1,622 crore exposure to this account. "The bank has a legacy exposure of Rs 3,244 crore to this identified telecom company, of which Rs 2,000 crore is in the form of non-convertible debentures and Rs 1,244 crore is in the form of non-funded exposure (bank guarantees) for spectrum," the bank said in its third quarter financial statement on February 4."There has been no payment default so far from this telecom company. However, considering the financial stress in the telecom companies related to payments due to the government, the bank has taken provisioning of 50% of total exposure towards this identified telecom company which is in financial stress," it added.ICICI Bank has also added Vodafone Idea to the below-investment grade, or BB, book but without any provisions. Telecom makes about 1.8% of ICICI Bank's loans."This is now an issue. It could become a bigger problem going forward especially if the company goes belly up and is dragged to the NCLT. The bank guarantees if invoked will lead to a huge provision impact for banks," a senior public sector bank executive said. Bankers are hoping that the Supreme Court allows companies to pay just the principal amount immediately."The principal amount will be between Rs 7,000 crore and Rs 10,000 crore. It is the compounded interest of the 14 years which is the problem. Hopefully telecom companies will get more time to pay the whole amount if they pay the principal, that is the only hope," said a senior private sector bank executive.
NEW DELHI: A court in London has ruled that if there is irregularity in the conduct of Anil Ambani's companies, it would be a reflection on the chairman as he is fully involved in operations.The court took note of allegations of irregularities and the departure of PwC as auditor of Reliance Capital. PwC had resigned as auditor last June saying it did not get satisfactory answers to its queries, but the company had said nothing was wrong."Mr Howe QC suggested that even if there were some truth in these matters, that is all on the part of the companies; it does not necessarily have any reflection on Mr Ambani. That is hopeless in my judgment," according to the order by Justice Waksman in the case between Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Mumbai Branch and Anil Dhirubhai Ambani. The recent order has now been uploaded.It said Ambani was actively involved in running companies."It is perfectly clear through all the evidence we have seen that Mr Ambani is not some form of titular chairman who really has nothing to do with these companies. He is extensively and actively involved in them. To suggest that if there were any serious deficiencies in the companies' corporate governance he was not aware of it is wholly unrealistic in my view."Ambani's lawyers had last week told the UK court that business tycoon was not in a position to pay dues worth $680 million to top Chinese banks as his net worth is zero.The Anil Ambani group did not respond to ET's queries.The court did not believe Ambani's assertion that his family would not help him. "I do not accept that the true position now is that all the other members of the family have firmly and irrevocably pulled the shutters down so that no funding would be available from them in the event that monies had to be paid into court," the judge said.Ambani had told the court about the woes of the telecom industry but the judge said this was not the issue before the court."What is an issue is what he says flows from that.First of all, that, as a result of that, he now has a negative net worth and second, that as a result he does not hold any meaningful assets which can be liquidated …," the order said. Ambani said even the money paid to Ericsson was not a gift."He said that, in fact, the payment was made by Reliance Realty Limited on behalf of RCom, and that company had raised the funds by leasing a part of the property that it held to an associate company, Reliance Industries Limited," the order said.The court mentioned a public statement saying: "My sincere and heartfelt thanks to my respected elder brother, Mukesh, and Nita, for standing by me during these trying times and demonstrating the importance of staying true to our strong family values by extending this timely support. I and my family are grateful we have moved beyond the past and are deeply touched with this gesture."The order noted Anil Ambani's response that the statement only captured the gratitude he expressed to his elder brother and his wife."It is not apparent that the press release which I have already quoted is limited in such a way," the order said. Anil Ambani had told the court about his personal income."… in 2018-2019, his income was the equivalent of £12.3 million. A very modest proportion, about £600,000, came from a company called Reliance Infrastructure Limited, for what have been referred to as professional fees; but the rest of it, largely, came from the sale of shares which he held in his brother Mukesh's company, Reliance Industries Limited, which were sold on 6th February 2019." Ambani also shared his "living expenses" with the court.As at the date of this witness statement, that is January this year, he said that his income by way of fees this year will be about £550,000, which Ambani said 'will be used for his day-to-day living expenses'. So far as those living expenses are concerned, they were put elsewhere in the statement of net worth as being in the region of $187,000 a year.
MUMBAI | NEW DELHI: The Indian automobile market may be in a prolonged slump but that's not stopping companies from investing millions of dollars in new products as factories run at less than-optimum capacity.Automakers are likely to invest Rs 30,000-35,000 crore, mostly in launching new products as these are a key factor in reviving demand and registering growth. Some of this will go into setting up new capacity as well. Close to two dozen new models will hit the road in the next 12-18 months as passenger vehicle makers hope to generate excitement and revive sentiment.The top three car makers — Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motor India and Mahindra & Mahindra — will invest a total Rs 15,000 crore in the next 12-18 months.Maruti Suzuki will be introducing BSVI petrol versions of the Vitara Brezza, S Cross and Ertiga along with a few new-generation products. Hyundai will be launching the new-generation Creta, Elite i20 and Verna facelift in 2020. M&M plans all-new versions of the Thar, Scorpio and XUV 500 in the next 12-18 months."A brand new platform, ground up, costs us between Rs 1,200 crore and Rs 1,500 crore, depending on the installation of capacity," said Mahindra & Mahindra managing director Pawan Goenka."And all three are brand new platforms, so that gives you an idea what the investment would be," he said.Tata Motors will launch top-ofthe-line SUV Gravitas as well as asubcompact SUV based on the H2X concept as well as a few more models to bridge the gaps in its portfolio and address a larger Indian customer base.Maruti Suzuki is confident of the market recovering in the coming quarters and will be starting up its third manufacturing plant in Gujarat, a Rs 5,000-6000 crore project."By the middle of the year, we will start the operation of third factory in Gujarat, plus we have to modify the existing Haryana factory," managing director Kenichi Ayukawa told ET. "Going ahead, hopefully volumes will increase (and) we can fully operate the third line in Gujarat."Mahindra is investing an additional Rs 1,200 crore on its electric vehicle business to compete with Tata Motors, which is readying a portfolio of four-five electric vehicles.The passenger vehicle market has registered a decline of 15% in the April-January period with despatches of 2.38 million units. The top three vehicle makers have forecast single-digit growth in FY21, as the market continues to languish in the negative zone because of rising vehicle prices and slow growth in salaries.SUCCESS STORIESThe success of the Kia Seltos and the MG Hector have shown that Indian buyers will queue up for fresh products with good design and a strong value proposition even in a difficult market environment, said Gaurav Vangaal, associate director, IHS Markit."Product lifecycles are shrinking and novelty wanes quickly, so frequent product upgrades and new launches have become critical for vehicle makers to hold on to market share," Vangaal said.Other notable launches expected during the year include the new-generation Honda City, the Kia Sonet, a sub-4 metre SUV, Renault and Nissan's small SUV, Toyota's re-badged version of the Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza and Ertiga, the MG Gloster and another midsize MG SUV to take on the Hyundai Creta.MG Motor India will invest Rs 2,500 crore in the next two years to launch the two new models and expand production capacity at its Halol, Gujarat, plant to achieve annual sales of 100,000 units by 2021."We will launch a high-end sports utility vehicle Gloster in the festive season this year," said MG Motor India president and managing director Rajeev Chaba. "This would be followed by a midsize SUV in 2021. With these products, we aim to sell 100,000 vehicles annually in 2021."A subsidiary of China's largest car maker, MG intends to double sales volumes to 200,000 units by 2023.
KOLKATA: Bharti Airtel stands to lose if Vodafone Idea (VIL) collapses under the weight of its adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues of more than Rs 53,000 crore, said a few analysts. Their view is contrary to the widespread belief that the Sunil Mittal-owned operator would gain in a two-private player market.Without VIL, Bharti Airtel would lose out on benefits of shared towers infrastructure, which could lead to an increase of at least 15% in network and customer servicing costs and hinder its ability to offer affordable tariffs to consumers in future, said the analysts.Bharti Airtel, they said, would also be without a trusted partner, if Vodafone Idea exits, in combating a challenging regulatory environment, especially when facing a strong adversary like Reliance Jio Infocomm, the new telecom market leader. Bharti Airtel chief executive Gopal Vittal recently said it is important that VIL survives and India remains a three-player market."Bharti may have a tough time continuing its low-cost model if VIL breathes its last," said SBICap Securities research head Rajiv Sharma, adding that "creation of tower companies such as Indus has helped both incumbent telcos get external capital to fund their own capex." The shared infrastructure model has helped Bharti Airtel and VIL offer lower tariffs to consumers, said Sharma. ET's email queries to Bharti Airtel were unanswered till press time.Nitin Soni, director (corporates) at global rating agency Fitch said VIL's exit from the sector could "lead to cost increases for Airtel in future tower contracts, assuming the pending Bharti Infratel-Indus merger goes through and Bharti deconsolidates the merged towers entity." However, Soni said, "Benefits of potential customer gains for Airtel if VIL exits, would more than offset likely cost increases in future tower contracts." Sharma disagreed, saying, "Airtel may indeed gain 40% of Vodafone Idea's customers if the latter shuts down, but it would miss a partner to echo its voice on regulatory issues, which may possibly be worrying Bharti."
NEW DELHI: Successful resolutions of corporate insolvency proceedings till the end of 2019 are set to result in recoveries of Rs 1.52 lakh crore for lenders, averaging 43.1% of their admitted claims of Rs 3.52 lakh crore, according to data released by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI).Resolutions in the quarter through December 2019, however, yielded only around 12.2%, or about Rs 2,879 crore, of the admitted claims of Rs 23,668 crore. In the preceding quarter, lenders recovered around 34.4% of their total claims of Rs 78,592 crore.Many of the large cases have already been resolved and the smaller companies that are undergoing resolution process are finding fewer suitors, said experts, explaining the reason for the fall in recoveries."Trends suggest that there are lower recoveries in smaller cases, where there are not many takers for stranded business assets. With many of the larger cases beings resolved or near resolution, we are likely to see lower average recoveries for lenders going forward," said an industry watcher, who wished to remain anonymous.The Reserve Bank of India had initially referred 12 large nonperforming accounts with outstanding claims of Rs 3.45 lakh crore to be resolved under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.Seven of these cases have ended with the approval of resolution plans, while in two cases the bankruptcy court has ordered liquidation. Three other cases are currently undergoing the insolvency resolution process.A total of 190 corporate insolvency proceedings since the IBC came into force have ended with successful resolution plans till December 31, 2019. However, in 57.7% of the proceedings, or 780 cases, the court has ordered liquidation of the corporate debtors' assets.The IBBI newsletter noted that about 72.5% of the cases that ended with liquidation orders were earlier under the Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction regime. "The economic value in most of these CDs (corporate debtors) had already eroded before they were admitted into CIRP (corporate insolvency resolution process," the IBBI release said.Separately, 579 voluntary liquidation proceedings have been initiated by corporate debtors till the end of 2019.
KOLKATA: Bharti Airtel stands to lose if Vodafone Idea (VIL) collapses under the weight of its adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues of more than Rs 53,000 crore, said a few analysts. Their view is contrary to the widespread belief that the Sunil Mittal-owned operator would gain in a two-private player market.Without VIL, Bharti Airtel would lose out on benefits of shared towers infrastructure, which could lead to an increase of at least 15% in network and customer servicing costs and hinder its ability to offer affordable tariffs to consumers in future, said the analysts.Bharti Airtel, they said, would also be without a trusted partner, if Vodafone Idea exits, in combating a challenging regulatory environment, especially when facing a strong adversary like Reliance Jio Infocomm, the new telecom market leader. Bharti Airtel chief executive Gopal Vittal recently said it is important that VIL survives and India remains a three-player market."Bharti may have a tough time continuing its low-cost model if VIL breathes its last," said SBICap Securities research head Rajiv Sharma, adding that "creation of tower companies such as Indus has helped both incumbent telcos get external capital to fund their own capex." The shared infrastructure model has helped Bharti Airtel and VIL offer lower tariffs to consumers, said Sharma. ET's email queries to Bharti Airtel were unanswered till press time.Nitin Soni, director (corporates) at global rating agency Fitch said VIL's exit from the sector could "lead to cost increases for Airtel in future tower contracts, assuming the pending Bharti Infratel-Indus merger goes through and Bharti deconsolidates the merged towers entity." However, Soni said, "Benefits of potential customer gains for Airtel if VIL exits, would more than offset likely cost increases in future tower contracts." Sharma disagreed, saying, "Airtel may indeed gain 40% of Vodafone Idea's customers if the latter shuts down, but it would miss a partner to echo its voice on regulatory issues, which may possibly be worrying Bharti."
The investing community in India is a bit worried about the slowdown which we are grappling with and whether the government efforts are enough or not. A large part of the Indian markets are still struggling and are away from the all-time highs unlike the benchmarks. How are you analysing the Indian markets from your vantage point?The Indian markets are part of the global economy and there have been some negative waves for the past year or so. You have had the trade war which certainly affected China a great deal, but China is so big that a slow China affects India and other emerging markets. The other thing you have had recently is the coronavirus outbreak which has also set back China and the effects on India are also quite pronounced. In the short term, there are negative effects. The trade war appears to have settled down. With interest rates coming down and some green shoots emerging in the economy, I think you are in for better times it needs patience on the part of industries. You have seen the emerging market landscape for a very long time based out of the US. Can you say what we used to be a couple of decades back and where we are right now? What is the outlook from here on if one really takes a portfolio view of three to five years and beyond? Would equities remain the top performing asset class?I think so because interest rates globally have come down and so bonds are not as attractive for a long term investor. If you are in the US, a 10-year bond is giving you about 1.6%, in Europe it is negative, and India has also come down substantially. I know people have been complaining about their fixed deposits coming down, so my general sense is equities will be the favoured asset class and the key thing with equities is long term investing. I tell my clients do not put money in the market unless you have 3-5 years of minimum view if not more and then you can reap the rewards of a good economy. In the last two years, Indian markets have gone through a decent bout of correction. The credit markets were also destabilised for reasons of their own. How are you analysing the steps which the government, the policy makers, RBI, have taken to help stabilise the market?The economic measures which have been taken have been pro-business -- the cut in corporate tax rates, the regulations, the ease of doing business. The key thing is India is operating at a globally competitive market. We are not the only one. Every country is looking for foreign investment but in general, many of the indicators are looking much better today than ever before. I think we are within a secular growth rate for the Indian economy. How are you analysing the way China issues are panning out? First it was the slowdown induced from the trade war with US, now it is a slowdown induced by shutdowns because of the Wuhan virus. That continues to remain a big headwind for the global economy. How serious is it in your view?It is serious. The coronavirus outbreak is serious though it appears to be waning a bit. The markets are telling you not to worry. The markets sometimes are early indicators of whether this is going to have a major impact. Hopefully, within a few weeks or months, this virus will go away to a large extent. China in addition to the trade war has been hit by a double whammy but on the monetary side, they have lowered the cost of money, have pumped in a lot of additional reserves and that is going to help their overall economy. The liquidity picture in China is incredible. Not just in China, over the past six months, we have had 72 interest rate cuts around the world. No country wants a recession. How do you analyse the valuations of Indian equities? Some people call it polarised because only a clutch of stocks are doing well, while broader markets are still slumbering. What is your thought?My general view is if you get good GDP growth, that will translate to good earnings per share growth of Indian companies. Typically, it is a factor of three. If you get GDP growth of 5%, you are likely to get about 15% EPS growth. India is not cheap by any measure if you look at present day valuation, but look at potential growth prospects. If you can say give a reasonable growth rate for the next three years or five years, then the markets look quite appealing. For a long term investor, I advise my clients that when they are investing in emerging markets, they cannot hope for a short-term hit. You make it lucky once in a while but the key thing is to look at it as a durable asset class. Do you think India can really benefit out of what is happening in China because there is talk of a lot of manufacturing capabilities moving out of China towards India. How successful are we in grabbing that opportunity? What are your thoughts on this?China is the manufacturing floor of the entire world. It is amazing how much is made in China. So, certainly companies in the west want to diversify their holdings. You know their supply chain and also not just in China but also other countries like Vietnam, Indonesia are benefiting. India has a unique opportunity to show off what India can do for manufacturing to the western world. When you migrated to US from India 30 years ago, the Nifty was not there. Sensex was just being set up. Where do you think our capital markets have the potential to go in the next 30 years? Can we grow at the same pace -- 14-15% compounding average?I would not be surprised. The GDP growth is a combination of population growth and productivity growth. India has got probably the youngest population of the world. With 65% of the people being under 35, in the number of people using cell phones, India is ahead of the west. Indian consumers are more savvy about social networking and cellphone use and I am incredibly impressed by that. I think they can leapfrog development. It does not have to go at the same pace. The other thing is India's value added services are going up. A lot of research is being done in India and for the first time risk taking people want to make money and wealth creation is not a bad word. When I was growing up in the 70s, it was not fashionable to be a businessman and now it is a cool thing to be a businessman. Well that is correct. Our Indian entire ecosystem for startups and entrepreneurs is a very buzzing one as well, apart from of course the stock market.I think the future of India lies with the young people in India and if you believe them, we will have a very bright future.
By Chandan Taparia NSE Nifty remained in a consolidative mood this week, as it traded in a 250-point range between 12,000 and 12,250 levels. The index managed to hold its support at 12,000, but followup buying was missing at higher levels, as it failed to hold above 12,250, and closed on a flattish note for the week. The index formed a Doji candle on the weekly scale and a bearish candle on the daily chart, which indicates a tug of war between the bull and bears, with some supply at higher levels. At the current juncture, Nifty has got stuck in a range, and till the time it holds above 12,000, we may see ongoing optimism with consolidative move towards 12,250. On the options front, maximum Put open interest was at 12,000 followed by 11,800 strike, while maximum Call OI stood at 12,500 followed by 12,400 strike. Call writing was mainly seen at 12,200 followed by 12,300 strike, while Put unwinding was seen at all the immediate strikes. Options data indicates an immediate trading range between 12,000 and 12,300 levels. India VIX moved up by 1.83 per cent to 13.61. Bank Nifty has witnessed profit booking in the last two trading sessions, as it failed to surpass the immediate hurdle at 31,750, and corrected around 900 points in two days. It formed a bearish candle on daily as well as on weekly scales, and drifted below its 50-DEMA. The index underperformed benchmark Nifty and got stuck in a broader trading range with limited upside. Now, it has to continue to hold above 30,500 to witness an upmove towards 31,500 and then 31,750, while on the downside, major support is seen at 30,200. Nifty futures fell 0.37 per cent to 12,129. Long builtup was seen in Mindtree, Bharti Airtel, SRF, Shriram Transport Finance Company and Indigo, while shorts were seen in Bharti Infratel, IGL, Indusind Bank, Gail and Eicher Motors.(Chandan Taparia is Technical & Derivative Analyst at MOFSL. Investors are advised to consult financial advisers before taking an investment calls based on these observations)
NEW DELHI: Consulting firms have given out the maximum offers at the final placement process at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore with a total of 147 offers. In all, 428 students have received 518 offers at this B-school over 3 days of lateral and final recruitment drive."Prominent domestic and international recruiters participated in the final placements which resulted in premium jobs for the students. There was a 6.14% increase in the total number of jobs offered compared to the previous year," U Dinesh Kumar, Chair, Career Development Services, IIM Bangalore, said.Among the consulting companies were Accenture (26 offers), followed by The Boston Consulting Group (23 offers). Other top recruiters included Bain & Company (20), Kearney (15), McKinsey & Co (14), GEP Consulting (7), Strategy& (5), Alvarez & Marsal (5) and EY-Parthenon (1). In addition, there were 27 offers in the technology consulting domain with PricewaterhouseCoopers making the maximum of 12 offers.Prominent recruiters in the information technology and IT product management domain, who made 38 offers are Microsoft IDC (10), TCS (6), Razorpay (3), Sprinklr (3), Amagi Labs (2), Browserstack (2), Byju's (2), Cisco (2), Infoedge (2), Moonfrog (2), Tech Mahindra (2), Google (1) and ValueLabs (1). The 32 offers made in the fast-growing E-commerce space included Amazon (20), Flipkart (4), Paytm (4) and Prione (4).There were 42 offers overall in the finance domain with companies like Goldman Sachs making maximum of 8 offers followed by Avendus Capital (5), JP Morgan (5) and Allianz Benelux (3).
Making your own music box requires patience and precision, but the process is easier than you might think. Choose a hinged wooden box and music box mechanism to create your music box. Then, simply decorate the hinged wooden box however you like and install the music box mechanism. Your music box will be ready to use or give as a gift in no time!
Choose a hinged wooden box to hold the music box mechanism. For most standard sized mechanisms, you'll need a box that is at least deep, long, and wide. Take measurements on your music box mechanism before you choose a box to be sure. Also, keep in mind that larger boxes may work better since they can hold more than just the mechanism.
Paint the inside and outside of the box if desired. Paint both the inside and outside of the box using a sponge brush and acrylic paint in any color. Apply 2-3 coats of the paint to achieve an even look. Then, allow the paint to dry completely before continuing.[2]
Painting the wood is only necessary if the box isn't already finished and decorated. If you choose to recycle a box and you already like the way it looks, you don't need to paint over it.
You can technically use any type of paint that is approved for use with wood (or whichever material your box is made of). For wooden boxes, you can even use wood stain.
Decorate the lid, if desired. You can leave the outside lid plain or embellish it. Since the musical mechanism won't touch the lid of the box, such decorations should not interfere with how well it works. Some suggestions for how to decorate the lid of your music box include:[3]
Using stencils to paint a pretty design onto the lid.
Using spray adhesive and Mod Podge to attach a laser-printed photograph to the lid.
Gluing a flat-backed cameo or cabochon to the center of the lid for something simple and classy.
Purchase a music box mechanism kit. There are many types of music box mechanisms available, from ones that operate with gears to those that feature a series of bells or paper scroll mechanisms. Find a music box store or website to choose your preferred type. You can even customize the song by choosing a pre-loaded song or programming the music box with your own song.[4]
Make sure that you check the dimensions of the music box mechanism before you purchase it to ensure that it will fit into the box you have chosen.
Create a paper template by tracing around the mechanism. Place the musical mechanism onto a sheet of paper and trace around its perimeter with a pen or pencil. Then, use scissors to cut around this outline. Once you cut out the template, flip over the mechanism to reveal the bottom and rest the template on top. Use a pen or pencil to lightly mark the screw holes and keyhole on the paper template.[5]
If you cannot see the holes through the paper template, use a small ruler to measure where they lie on the mechanism in comparison to each side. Mark dots on the template using those same measurements.
Position the template inside the box off to one side. Place the paper template inside the box, positioning it where you want the mechanism to sit. Use clear tape to hold the template down in its final position. Choose an area along the base of the box, rather than using the sides or lid.[6]
Make sure to position the mechanism off to one side of the box or in one of the back corners. However, if you use a small box just big enough to fit the mechanism, center the mechanism inside its base.
When determining the best placement for the mechanism, make sure that the screw holes and keyhole will be clear of the feet on the bottom of the music box.
Drill three holes through the box to attach the mechanism. Use a hand drill to create holes in a wooden box. Carefully drill two screw holes and one keyhole through the paper template and through the bottom of the box. Follow the markings you made on the template to ensure correct placement.[7]
If you opted for a paper mache box or recycled tin, create the holes using an awl, rubber block, and hammer.
Remove the paper template and clear away any shavings or other debris before continuing. Small particles of debris can easily work their way into the inner workings of the musical mechanism, and if that happens, the mechanism may stop playing.
Make sure to check your music box mechanism's instructions to determine what size screws to use.
Remove the mechanism case if you want it to be visible. Use a small screwdriver to remove the screws holding the plastic casing onto the mechanism, then snap away the casing itself. You can technically keep the casing over the mechanism, if desired, but removing it will allow you to view the movement as it plays and may create a more aesthetically pleasing result.[8]
Place the mechanism inside the box. Position the musical mechanism inside the box, directly where the template was. Then, carefully turn the box over while holding the mechanism in place with one hand. Make sure that the screw holes in the box match the screw holes in the mechanism. Also, make sure that the keyhole in the box matches the keyhole of the mechanism.[9]
Secure the mechanism with 2 screws through the bottom of the box. Place a screw through each screw hole, then secure both screws in place. They should go through the bottom of the box and into the screw holes of the mechanism.[10]
After you fix these screws in place, ensure that the mechanism is secure at the base of the box without being held in place.
Remember to check the music box mechanism's instructions to determine what screw size to use.
Cut a divider to separate trinkets from the mechanism. Trim a thin piece of wood, making it as long as the width of the box and roughly thick. Ensure that the wood's width matches or exceeds the height of the mechanism, but is at least shorter than the side of the box. Then, sand down any rough edges.[11]
Secure the divider with hot glue or wood glue. Use hot glue or wood glue to adhere the divider to the back and front sides of the box. Position the divider so that it lies just next to the mechanism. Ensure that the divider is not actually touching the moving parts of the mechanism.[12]
Let the glue dry completely before continuing. Hot glue will dry within about 5 minutes while wood glue will need to sit for at least 8 hours.
Wind the music box up and let it play. Your music box is finished and ready to use at this point! Add jewelry and other trinkets to the compartment if desired. To enjoy the music, simply wind the key and let it play.[13]
Romantic massages are more intimate and sensual than the average massage, and they can set the scene for a relaxing and couple-focused evening. Ambiance is important when setting up for a romantic massage, as is knowing how and where to massage. Remember to take your time, focus on your partner, and enjoy connecting with them in a new and exciting way.
Set up the bed or couch with clean, soft sheets and pillows. If you're giving a massage at home, chances are you don't have a massage table, but that is okay! Pick a spot that is clean and clear of clutter, and lay down a set of clean sheets for your partner to lay on. Don't forget to grab 1 or 2 pillows for beneath their head, back, or knees as needed.[1]
If the room isn't clean, take 10 minutes to tidy up and put away clutter. Both you and your partner will feel more relaxed if the space is neat.
Use 2 sheets—one for your partner to lay on top of, and 1 for them to put over themselves at the beginning of the massage in case they're chilly.
Adjust the temperature in the room to a comfortable setting. This will depend on your partner—if they always run cold, turn the temperature up a little bit so the room is warmer than usual. If they're usually warm, turn it down so they'll be cool and comfortable.[2]
A space heater or fan can help make a big difference in the room's temperature if you don't have much time.
Dim the lights and set up a few candles for romantic mood lighting. Glaring overhead lights won't do much for the mood, so turn those off and use candles for lighting instead. If you need more lighting, turn on a lamp. You could even cover a lamp with a sheer scarf to dim the light even more.[3]
For a special touch, light your partner's favorite scented candle.
Turn off your phones and all electronics so you won't be interrupted. If you don't want to turn your phone off, put it on "do not disturb" or airplane mode so that you won't get any notifications during the massage. Put it off to the side or in a drawer so you won't be tempted to check it. Ask your partner to do the same.[4]
Take this time as an opportunity to disconnect from work, school, and other commitments so you can focus on connecting with your partner.
Play ambient music to create a relaxed and calm atmosphere. Avoid music with a fast or heavy beat. Instead, opt for instrumental or ambient music for a calming effect.[5]
Check out whatever streaming service you use—many have pre-made playlists or stations that are made for relaxation. Search for "relaxing music" or "ambient music" to see what is available.
"Zen," "yoga," and "meditation" are other keywords that could help you find the right music for the occasion.
Spend time connecting with your partner before you begin. You could enjoy a nice glass of wine or take a bubblebath together. Or, simply spend a few minutes holding hands and talking.[6]
If your partner doesn't already know, clue them in that you're planning on giving them a romantic massage. They may want to take a shower or change their clothes before you begin.
Rub a natural oil or cream between your hands before you begin. Sweet almond oil, coconut oil, and jojoba oil are good options that shouldn't irritate your partner's skin. Use to start and add more to your hands when they get dry. You must rub it between your hands to warm it up before you begin.[7]
Add a few drops of essential oils to the carrier oil or cream to give it a pleasing scent. Lavender, peppermint, bergamot, and sandalwood are great options. of a carrier oil first. Undiluted essential oils could irritate the skin.}}
Use long strokes with gentle pressure, starting at the neck and shoulders. Have your partner lay on their stomach so you can work on their shoulders and back first. Remember, your goal isn't to give your partner a deep-tissue massage or work out their sore muscles. It's to awaken their body and gently touch them all over.[8]
Check in with your partner to see if the amount of pressure you're using is good. They may want a deeper massage or prefer less pressure.
Let your hands glide over their skin. Count slowly in your head to 20 for each section that you massage, like their neck, left shoulder, right shoulder, the middle of the back, etc.
Spend time massaging their lower back. Stand or sit so that you and your partner are facing the same direction. Put your hands flat on their lower back, near their hips, and push forward toward the middle of their back. Count to 20 as you massage this area, but feel free to do it for longer if your partner likes it.[9]
If your partner is comfortable with it, you could also give them a gentle butt massage. Use your elbow to gently put pressure on your partner's butt, starting at the top and working your way down to the bottom. Repeat on the opposite side.
Massage their arms and legs so that every part of their body is relaxed. Part of the romantic massage is making your partner feel very relaxed but also aware of their body. Gently rub your hands up and down their arms and longs with long, firm movements. Have them start on their stomach as you massage the backs of their legs, then ask them to flip over to their back so you can massage their arms and the fronts of their legs.[10]
Remember to count to 20 for each part of the body. The upper left arm, upper right arm, lower left arm, lower right arm, and so on should each get their allotment of time.
Remember to give their feet some TLC. Add more cream or oil to your hands, and gently rub the bottom of their feet in large circles. Make small circles around their ankles, and gently massage between your partner's toes.[11]
Depending on how ticklish your partner is, you may have to skip this part. But if they enjoy it, it's worth spending some time on.
Work on their inner thighs with a firm but gentle pressure. The inner thighs are very sensitive and are also a sensual area for both men and women. Focus on the area between the knee and the groin. Use gentle but firm strokes and count to 20 on each side.[12]
How high up toward the groin you take the massage is between you and your partner. If they give you any non-verbal signs, like putting their legs together or moving away from you, you may be moving too high up their leg.
Take your time before massaging their more sensitive or sensual places. A romantic massage can be just that, or it could be fantastic foreplay before something more sexual. Start with a gentle full-body massage before getting close to those more sensitive areas, like the breasts, the groin, or the butt.[13]
Let your partner relax after the massage and take their time getting up. Chances are, your partner is going to be in a state of maximum relaxation and won't want the lights flipped on and the door flung open as soon as it's over. Allow them to lay still for a while, and take that opportunity to do some relaxing yourself!
If your partner fell asleep during the massage, let them rest!
If you want to join in on the massage fun yourself, book a massage therapist to come into your home and give you and your partner a couple's massage.
Encourage your partner to drink extra water after their massage. The massage could have released toxins from their muscles, and the extra water will help flush everything out.
Valentine's day is a great opportunity to show someone that you care. While you can always buy a card from the store, a handmade card will be more personal and unique. Best of all, you can cater the card to the recipient's likes, hobbies, and personality. If you don't want to make a typical card, then you can make an unusual card instead, such as a sugar cookie!
Write a message in white pencil, then paint over it with watercolor. Get a sheet of white cardstock or watercolor paper. Write a simple message using a white crayon or white grease pencil. Paint over the entire paper using watercolor. The message will show through the paint![1]
Instead of painting the entire page, paint a heart shape instead. Make sure that the heart is big enough to cover the entire message.
For a fancier card, draw heart shapes around the message using a white crayon or white grease pencil.
The paper must be white or the watercolor won't show up.
Paint watercolor hearts, then write messages in them with a black marker. Fold a sheet of cardstock or watercolor paper in half to make a card. Paint a heart using watercolor, then let it dry. Use a black felt-tipped pen to write a message inside the heart.[2]
Use more than 1 color of paint to create am ombre or tie-dye design.
Feel free to outline the heart with the marker or draw additional details, such as spirals, zigzags, or mini hearts.
Write a simple message, such as "I <3 U" or "Be Mine".
Use heart-shaped cookie cutters and paint to stamp designs. Fold a sheet of cardstock or watercolor paper in half to make a card. Paint a rectangle with watercolor on the front, leaving a 1/2-inch (1.3-cm) border all around. Let the paint dry, then dip a heart-shaped cookie cutter into acrylic paint. Press the cookie cutter against the card to create a heart-shaped outline.[3]
Use Valentine's day colors for the watercolor and acrylic paint, such as red, white, pink, or purple. Use contrasting colors for the acrylic paint to help the heart stand out.
You can create as many hearts as you want. You can even use large, medium, and small cookie cutters. Overlap the hearts for a more interesting design.
Use glitter and glue to create a sparkly card. Fold a sheet of cardstock in half to make a card. Draw a heart with white school glue, then shake red or pink glitter onto it. Tap the excess glitter off and let it write. Write a message with white school glue, then add more glitter. Shake the excess glitter off and let it dry as well.
Keep the message simple, such as "I love you."
For a less-sparkly card, write the message using a gold or silver marker.
Cut a sponge into a heart, then use it as a stamp. Get a flat sponge (not a sea sponge) and cut it into a large heart. Dip it into acrylic craft paint, poster paint, or tempera paint. Lightly tap the sponge against a sheet of cardstock, then remove the sponge and let the paint dry. Write your message on the paper or on the heart itself.
Choose Valentine's day color for the paint, such as red, pink, or purple. If your cardstock is colored, then you can use white paint.
Sprinkle some glitter onto the paint before it dries for a sparkly effect.
Write the message with a marker. You can also use more paint and a thin, pointed paintbrush.
Create a themed card with a matching pun or message. Think about what sort of message you want for your card, such as "Would you be mine" or "You light up my life." Write the message on the card, then an item that is related to that message to your card. For example:[4]
Draw a mini-maze on the card, then write "You are a-MAZE-ing."
Hot glue a wooden heart to a card, then write "Wood U be mine?"
Hot glue some pink birthday candles to the front of a card, then write "You light up my life."
Draw a cute bee on a card or make one out of yellow and black pompoms. Write "BEE mine" on the card.
Draw a heart, then glue buttons inside it for a rustic-chic card. Use a pencil to lightly draw a heart on the front of a blank card. Hot glue flat red, pink, or purple buttons inside the heart. Use different sizes and layer the buttons for a more interesting effect.[5]
Write the letter "I" above the heart, and the letter "U" below it to spell out "I <3 U."
For a fancier card, use a sewing machine to sew 2 rows of stitching around the heart.
Use a white or brown blank card. If you can't find one, fold a sheet of 8 1/2 by 11-inch (22 by 28-cm) scrapbooking paper in half, and use that instead.
Glue folded paper hearts to the front of a blank card to make a bouquet. Cut 1-inch (2.5-cm) heart shapes out of red, pink, and purple paper. Doodle designs on them with a black or white pen, then fold them in half to create creases. Hot glue the hearts along the creases to a blank white card. Use a green marker to draw stems coming out of the bottom of each heart.[6]
Angle the stems together towards the bottom of the card to make it look more like a bouquet.
Hot glue pieces of the green yard over the stems for a rustic-chic touch.
if you can't find a blank card, fold an 8 1/2 by 11-inch (22 by 28-cm) sheet of white cardstock, and use that instead.
Add a mini garland to the inside of a card. Fold a sheet of cardstock to make a card, then open the card. Cut a piece of baker's twine to the width of the open card. Tape the ends of the twine to the side edges of the card with washi tape. Cut 1-inch (2.5-cm) hearts out of scrapbooking paper and clip them to the twine with mini clothespins.[7]
Make sure that the washi tape extends the entire length of the card from top-to-bottom. Alternatively, glue 1/4-inch (0.64-cm) strips of paper over the edges of the card.
You can find mini clothespins in the scrapbooking section and wood crafts section of a craft store. They are less than tall.
Sew a mini felt heart bunting to the front of a blank card. Cut 1-inch (2.5-cm) hearts out of red and pink felt. Thread a needle, then weave the needle up and down through the top of the hearts to make a bunting. Glue the bunting across the top edge of a blank card, then write your message under it.[8]
If you can't find a blank card, fold a sheet of cardstock in half and use that instead. White or kraft/brown will look the best.
Glue the bunting so that it makes a slight, downward curve, just like a real bunting.
Glue the beginning of the thread under the first heart, and the end of the thread under the last heart.
Write your message on paper, then wrap it around a chocolate bar. Cut patterned scrapbooking paper into a rectangle that's long enough to wrap around your chocolate bar. Write a message on the back of the paper, when wrapping it around the chocolate so that the message is on the inside. Secure the ends of the paper with tape.
Make the label a little bit narrower than the candy bar so that you can see the sides of the candy bar.
Use Valentine's day themed scrapbooking paper, or paper with lots of pinks, reds, or purple in it.
Decorate the front of the candy bar with Valentine's day stickers for a cute touch.
Cover flat lollipops with a folded mini card. Cut a rectangle from paper and fold it in half widthwise. Punch a hole in the middle of the crease, then slide the lollipop through the hole, sandwiching it inside the folded paper. Tape the paper shut along the top edge. Write your message on the front of the folded paper.[9]
The rectangle should be the same width as the candy part of the lollipop and twice the height.
Valentine's Day-themed scrapbooking paper and red, pink, or purple cardstock are all great choices.
For a nicer touch, use a heart-shaped sticker instead of tape.
For a twist, write your message inside the folded paper, then decorate the outside with Valentine's day stickers.
Cut a butterfly shape out of paper, then stick around lollipop through it. Fold a sheet of red, pink, or purple paper in half. Cut a 4-inch (10-cm) tall half-butterfly shape out of it. Cut 2 slits into the crease, about apart. Unfold the butterfly, then slide around lollipop through the slit. Decorate the butterfly's wings as desired.[10]
Write a message on the back of the butterfly, or around the edges of the wings.
Decorate the wings with Valentine's day stickers or paint them with acrylic craft paint.
Round lollipops, such as tootsie pops or dumdums will work the best.
Glue some tiny googly eyes to the lollipop and tie a short piece of the pipe cleaner around the neck to make antenna.
Glue candy bars to the front of the card if your Valentine loves sweets. Fold a 6 by 12-inch (15 by 30-cm) piece of red, pink, or purple cardstock in half. Cut a 5 1⁄2-inch (14-cm) square from white cardstock and glue it to the front of your card. Wrap 4 mini chocolate bars with Valentine's day scrapbooking paper, then glue them to the front of the card.
Decorate the front of the card with Valentine's day stamps or stickers.
Tie baker's twine around each chocolate like a present before you glue it down for a cute touch.
Add another sheet of 5 1⁄2-inch (14-cm) paper to the inside of the card. Write a longer message on this sheet.
Decorate sugar cookies with royal icing and decorating pens. Bake some large, heart-shaped sugar cookies, then frost them with royal icing. Let the frosting dry, then using a food decorating pen to write a message on it.[11]
Outline the cookies with thick-consistency icing first, then fill them in with tin-consistency icing.
Food decorating pens look like felt-tip pens, except that they are filled with food coloring. You can find them in the baking section of a craft store.
You can also bake large rectangular or square cookies to make them look like cards.
Use edible decorating paper and pens to make an edible card. Cut a sheet of red edible decorating paper in half. Cut a large heart out of white edible decorating paper, and "glue" it on top with frosting. Write a message in the heart with a decorating pen. Use frosting to glue candy hearts to the card. Outline the heart with frosting or red licorice.[12]
Edible decorating paper is sometimes referred to as a "sugar sheet." You can find it in the baking section of a craft store.
Decorating pens look like felt-tipped markers, but they are filled with food coloring instead. You can find them in the baking section of a craft store as well.
Do not bend or fold this edible paper. It will break in half.
Sew an envelope out of felt, then fill it with treats. Cut 2 rectangles out of white felt. Sew them together along 1 of the long edges and both of the narrow edges with embroidery floss and a running stitch. Cut and glue pieces of feeling to the front of the envelope to make it look like a mailing envelope. Fill the envelope with Valentine's day candy.[13]
Sew the envelopes by hand using embroidery floss and a running stitch.
Use felt letters to write "To:" followed by the recipient's name. Add additional shapes to make a mailing stamp and additional heart designs.
Keep the candy wrapped so that the felt doesn't stick to it.
Fold a strip of paper into a mini photo album. Cut a 3 by 12-inch (7.6 by 30.5-cm) strip from cardstock. Fold the paperback and forth to create a 3 by 3-inch (7.6 by 7.6-cm) square. Print out 2 by 2-inch (5.1 by 5.1-cm) photos of yourself and the recipient, then glue them to each panel. Write messages under each photo or on the back of each panel.[14]
For a nicer touch, don't add a photo to the first panel. Decorate the panel with Valentine's day stickers and illustrations instead.
Red, pink, or purple cardstock will work the best. You may have to tape 2 sheets together to make it long enough.
Fold the paper into a paper airplane, then write a message on the wings. Get some printer paper and fold it into a paper airplane. Write Valentine's day message on the wings using a red, pink, or purple marker. Decorate the wings and body with Valentine's day stickers for a nicer touch.[15]
For a more colorful airplane, cut a sheet of Valentine's day patterned scrapbooking paper into an 8 1/2 by 11-inch (22 by 28-cm) rectangle, and use that instead.
Alternatively, write your message on the back of the paper before you fold it into an airplane. The recipient will have to open it to read it.
Decorate mini notebooks with scrapbooking paper and stickers. Trace your notebook onto cardstock or scrapbooking paper. Cut the shape out, then glue it to the front of your notebook. Decorate the cover with Valentine's day stickers or illustrations. Open the notebook and write a message on the first page.[16]
The notebook should be small, about .
Red, pink, or purple cardstock are great choices. You can also use Valentine's day patterned scrapbooking paper instead.
If you don't have paper, cover the front of the notebook with strips of patterned washi tape.
Make an embroidered felt card. Cut 2 identical heart shapes out of red, white, pink, or purple felt. Use embroidery thread in a contrasting color to write your message on 1 heart. Place the hearts together with the message on the front. Sew around the edges of the heart using a blanket stitch and more embroidery thread.
Choose Valentine's day color for the thread. White would look great on a red or purple heart, while red or purple would look nice on a pink heart.
You can use the same color for the words and blanket stitch, or you can use different colors.
Paint a stone with a unique Valentine's day message. Choose a smooth river stone large enough to fit in your palm. Paint it red, white, pink, or purple with acrylic craft paint. Let the paint dry, then add a second color. Use a paint pen or a thin brush to write your message. Let the message dry, then seal the stone with clear, acrylic sealer.
Clean the stone with soap and water to help the paint stick better.
You can paint the back of the stone too, but wait until the front dries.
Add some simple Valentine's day illustrations, such as hearts, to the stone next to the words.
Write a message on a slip of paper, then wrap it around a wooden spool. Cut a strip of paper wide enough to fit on a wooden spool. Write your message on the back of the paper, then wrap it around the spool. Tie a piece of yarn, embroidery floss, or twine around the spool in a bow to hold the paper in place.[17]
Use paper with thin stripes to mimic thread. Make sure that the stripes are running the length of the paper, not the width.
If you are using patterned paper, write your message on the blank/white side.
Create a miniature message-in-a-bottle. Write your message on a 1-inch (2.5-cm) wide strip of paper and roll it up. Tie a piece of embroidery floss around the tube, then pull the floss through the bottom of the tube and out the top. Hot glue the floss to the bottle's cork. Put the message into the bottle, then pop the cork on.[18]
Use a miniature bottle that is between tall. You can find them in the scrapbooking embellishments section of a craft store.
For a nicer finish, thread a chain to the embroidery floss, then tie the floss around the paper. Secure the chain to the cork with a U-shaped piece of wire.
The International Astronomical Union has issued the preliminary results from a study on the potential effects of multi-thousand satellite constellations like that being built by StarLink. Finding that Earth-based astronomical observations may be “severely affected,” the body warned that mitigations and rules had better be formed sooner rather than later.
The group expressed its concerns last summer, but undertook a broader study and survey of possible effects, asking various observatories and organizations to chime in. The general feeling is one of “hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”
According to the IAU’s estimates, once there are tens of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit, somewhere around 1,500 will be above the horizon at any given time, though fewer (250-300) would be more than 30 degrees above it, in the area usually observed by astronomers.
“The vast majority” will be too faint to be seen by the naked eye except during specific periods when the sun’s light is more likely to reflect off their surfaces — in the early hours of darkness, generally. Measures are being taken to reduce the visibility and reflectivity of these supernumerous satellites, but we won’t be sure how effective they are until they’re up there, at which point of course it is too late to do anything about it.
More “worrisome,” as the IAU puts it, is the potential effect on wide-field observations like the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope’s (lately renamed the Rubin Observatory). Almost a third of 30-second exposures done by such telescopes could be affected by satellites overhead, which will be far more visible to their sensitive instruments.
There may be ways around this, but it’s hard not to read a sense of frustration into the IAU’s statement:
In theory, the effects of the new satellites could be mitigated by accurately predicting their orbits and interrupting observations, when necessary, during their passage. Data processing could then be used to further "clean" the resulting images. However, the large number of trails could create significant and complicated overheads to the scheduling and operation of astronomical observations.
In other words, if the operators of these constellations refuse to do anything about it, there are at least things we can do. But they won’t be without cost or drawbacks.
This is all strictly relating to visible light issues; possible interference with observations of radio-frequency and other invisible radiation due to the transmissions of these constellations is still something of an unknown.
Ultimately, though the IAU’s statement is careful to maintain a veneer of neutrality; it’s clear they’re all rather put out.
“A great deal of attention is also being given to the protection of the uncontaminated view of the night sky from dark places, which should be considered a non-renounceable world human heritage,” they write. “There are no internationally agreed rules or guidelines on the brightness of orbiting man-made objects. While until now this was not considered a priority topic, it is now becoming increasingly relevant. Therefore the IAU will regularly present its findings at the meetings of the UN Committee for Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, bringing the attention of the world government representatives to the threats posed by any new space initiative on astronomy and science in general.”
In other words, they’re not going to quietly sit in their observatories and let a handful of companies clutter up the night sky.
HQ Trivia is dead. Today the company laid off its full staff of 25 and will cease operation of its trivia, sports and word guessing games, a source close to the company confirmed.
HQ Trivia had a deal in the works to be acquired, but the buyer pulled out yesterday and investors aren’t willing to fund it any longer, CEO and co-founder Rus Yusupov said in a statement attained by CNN Business’Kerry Flynn:
“We received an offer from an established business to acquire HQ and continue building our vision, had definitive agreements and legal docs, and a projected closing date of tomorrow, and for reasons we are still investigating, they suddenly changed their position and despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an agreement,” Yusupov writes. “Unfortunately, our lead investors are no longer willing to fund the company, and so effective today, HQ will cease operations and move to dissolution. All employees and contractors will be terminated as of today.”
With HQ we showed the world the future of TV. We didn't get to where we hoped but we did stretch the world's imagination for what's possible on our smartphones. Thanks to everyone who helped build this and thanks for playing.
Launched in October 2017, TechCrunch wrote the first coverage of the 12-question live video trivia game started by two of the former Vine founders. Users could win real money by answering all the questions and not being eliminated in multiple daily games. HQ Trivia had raised more than $15 million, including a Series A led by Founders Fund. At one point it had more than 2.3 million concurrent players.
But eventually the novelty began to wear off. Cheaters came in, splitting the prize money down to just a few dollars or cents per winner. Copycats emerged internationally. Engineering issues led users to get kicked out of the game.
Then tragedy struck. Co-founder Colin Kroll passed away. That exacerbated internal problems at HQ Trivia. Product development was slow, leading users to grow tired of the game. New game types and viral features materialized too late.
A failed internal mutiny saw staffers prepare to petition the board to remove Yusupov from the CEO position. When he caught wind of the plot, organizers of the revolt were fired. Morale sunk. By July 2019, downloads were just 8% of their previous year’s, and 20% of the staff was laid off. HQ managed about 15 million all-time installs, peaking at 2 million in February 2018, while last month it had just 67,000, according to Sensor Tower.
The demise of HQ Trivia demonstrates the fickle nature of the gaming industry, and the startup scene as a whole. Momentary traction is no guarantee of future success. Products must continually evolve and adapt to their audience to stay relevant. And executives must forge ahead while communicating clearly with their teams, even amongst uncertainty, or find their companies withered by the rapid passing of time.
Launch startup Rocket Lab has been awarded a contract to launch a CubeSat on behalf of NASA for the agency’s CAPSTONE experiment, with the ultimate aim of putting the CAPSTONE CubeSat into cislunar (in the region in between Earth and the Moon) orbit — the same orbit that NASA will eventually use for its Gateway Moon-orbiting space station. The launch is scheduled to take place in 2021.
The CAPSTONE launch will take place at Rocket Lab’s new Launch Complex 2 (LC-2) facility at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Rocket Lab opened its launch pad there officially in December, and will launch its first missions using its Electron vehicle from the site starting later this year.
The launch is significant in a number of ways, including being the second lunar mission to launch from the Virginia flight facility. It’s also going to employ Rocket Lab’s Photon platform, which is an in-house designed and built satellite that can support a range of payloads. In this case, Photon will transport the CAPSTONE CubeSat, which weighs only around 55 lbs, from Earth’s orbit to the Moon, at which point CAPSTONE will fire up its own small engines to enter its target cislunar orbit.
Rocket Lab introduced Photon last year, noting at the time that it is designed in part to provide longer-range delivery for small satellites — including to the Moon. That’s a key capability to offer as NASA embarks on its Artemis program, which aims to return human astronauts to the lunar surface by 2024, and establish a more permanent human presence on and around the Moon in preparation for eventual missions to Mars.
CAPSTONE will play a key role in that mission by acting “as a pathfinder” for the lunar Gateway that NASA eventually hopes to build and deploy.
"CAPSTONE is a rapid, risk-tolerant demonstration that sets out to learn about the unique, seven-day cislunar orbit we are also targeting for Gateway," said Marshall Smith, director of human lunar exploration programs at NASA in a press release. Detailing the news, "We are not relying only on this precursor data, but we can reduce navigation uncertainties ahead of our future missions using the same lunar orbit."
In total, the launch contract with Rocket Lab has a fixed price of $9.95 million, the agency said. NASA expects contractors Advanced Space and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems to begin building the CAPSTONE spacecraft this month ahead of its planned 2021 launch.
Shares of Vodafone Idea fell by more than 23% on Friday after India's apex court ordered the country's second-largest telecom operator and Airtel, the third-largest telecom network, to arrange and pay billions of dollars in dues in a month.
In a strongly worded judgement, the Supreme Court rejected telecom networks' application to defer paying historic $13 billion levies to the government. “This is pure contempt, 100% contempt,” Justice Arun Mishra told lawyers.
The order today, which may result in U.K. telecom giant Vodafone's local joint venture's collapse, saw Vodafone Idea's shares plunge by 23.21%. Vodafone Idea had more than 336 million subscribers as of November last year, according to official figures (PDF).
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
The Supreme Court's order was followed by direction from the Department of Telecoms to pay the dues by the end of Friday. The local ministry of telecommunications also ordered the telecom companies to keep their relevant offices open on Saturday to "facilitate" payments and answer queries.
In October, the Supreme Court ruled that Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, as well as several other operators, including some that are no longer operational, will have to pay the government within 90 days a combined $13 billion in adjusted gross revenue as spectrum usage charges and license fees.
The Indian government and telecom operators have for a decade disputed how gross revenue should be calculated. The government has mandated the license and spectrum fee to be paid by operators as a share of their revenue. Telcos have argued that only core income accrued from use of spectrum should be considered for calculation of adjusted gross revenue.
Commenting on the ruling, Airtel said that it would pay $1.3 billion by next week and the remainder (about $5 billion) before March 17, when the Supreme Court hears the case again. Its shares rose 4.69% on Friday as the telecom operator is in a better position to pay and the prospects of it being only the second major telecom network to fight Reliance Jio, the top network run by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani .
In recent months, executives of U.K.-headquartered Vodafone, which owns 45% of Vodafone Idea, have said that the group's telecom business in India would "shut shop" if the government does not offer it any relief. Vodafone Idea, which is already saddled by $14 billion in net debt, owes about $4 billion in levies to the Indian government.
Vodafone Idea Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said in December that the firm is headed toward insolvency in the absence of a relief from the government. “It doesn't make sense to put good money after bad,” he said then.
The last few years have been difficult for telecom operators in India, which arrived in the nation to secure a slice of the world’s second most populous market. But since 2016, they have lost tens of millions of subscribers after Ambani launched Reliance Jio and offered free data and voice calls for an extended period of time, forcing every other company to slash their tariffs.
Sidharth Luthra, a senior advocate at Supreme Court, said in a televised interview that the court is within its rights to reach such a decision, but said that perhaps they should have considered the economic consequences of the ruling that would impact jobs, and could disrupt the everyday lives of people who rely on a network's services.
Vodafone Idea is the top trending topic on Twitter as of early Saturday (local time), as numerous people expressed concerns about the future prospects of the telecom network and worried if the service would remain operational for them.
Just two weeks ago Facebook settled a lawsuit alleging violations of privacy laws in Illinois (for the considerable sum of $550 million). Now controversial startup Clearview AI, which has gleefully admitted to scraping and analyzing the data of millions, is the target of a new lawsuit citing similar violations.
Clearview made waves earlier this year with a business model seemingly predicated on wholesale abuse of public-facing data on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and so on. If your face is visible to a web scraper or public API, Clearview either has it or wants it and will be submitting it for analysis by facial recognition systems.
Just one problem: That’s illegal in Illinois, and you ignore this to your peril, as Facebook found.
The lawsuit, filed yesterday on behalf of several Illinois citizens and first reported by Buzzfeed News, alleges that Clearview “actively collected, stored and used Plaintiffs’ biometrics — and the biometrics of most of the residents of Illinois — without providing notice, obtaining informed written consent or publishing data retention policies.”
Not only that, but this biometric data has been licensed to many law enforcement agencies, including within Illinois itself.
All this is allegedly in violation of the Biometric Information Privacy Act, a 2008 law that has proven to be remarkably long-sighted and resistant to attempts by industry (including, apparently, by Facebook while it fought its own court battle) to water it down.
The lawsuit (filed in New York, where Clearview is based) is at its very earliest stages and has only been assigned a judge, and summonses sent to Clearview and CDW Government, the intermediary for selling its services to law enforcement. It’s impossible to say how it will play out at this point, but the success of the Facebook suit and the similarity of the two cases (essentially the automatic and undisclosed ingestion of photos by a facial recognition engine) suggest that this one has legs.
The scale is difficult to predict, and likely would depend largely on disclosure by Clearview as to the number and nature of its analysis of photos of those protected by BIPA.
Even if Clearview were to immediately delete all the information it has on citizens of Illinois, it would still likely be liable for its previous acts. A federal judge in Facebook’s case wrote: “the development of face template using facial-recognition technology without consent (as alleged here) invades an individual's private affairs and concrete interests,” and is therefore actionable. That’s a strong precedent and the similarities are undeniable — not that they won’t be denied.
Want to spice up the bedroom without paying for pills or awkward visits to a sex therapist? A new app called Lover lets you take a sexual personality quiz, explore carnal knowledge tutorials and discretely figure out which turn-ons you share with your partner. Built by board-certified sexual medicine clinical psychologist Dr. Britney Blair, Lover launches today on iOS with $5 million in seed funding from Tinder founder Sean Rad and other investors.
“It is strange that there are such taboos around sex when it is something we all do…whether we enjoy ourselves or not. We think it is time to start the conversation around this important aspect of our health,” says Dr. Blair. “We believe Lover can help build confidence, facilitate communication, improve partner connection and just raise consciousness about sex and sexuality.”
A solid portion of Lover’s content is free for the first seven days, including audio guides to oral sex, video explainers on how to be generous in bed and multi-step “playlists” of content like “Getting Hard, Made Easy.” Lover charges $9.99 per month or $59.99 per year for continued access to themed educational materials like “Coreplay Not Foreplay” and “Fantasy To Reality” that are recommended based on the results of your sexual questionnaire.
“Almost 50% of women and 40% of men have a sexual complaint . . . [but] most people don't realize how common and treatable their issues are,” Dr. Blair tells me. “In our [pre-launch tests] focused purely on erectile dysfunction, 62% of users reported improvements to their erections within three weeks of using the app. That's pretty wild when you think Viagra's efficacy rate is approximately 65% and it lasts only five hours.”
Startups like digital pharmacy Ro have scored $500 million valuations just 18 months after launch by prescribing and selling men’s health drugs like Viagra. Lover sees a market for education-based alternative approaches to sexual wellness.
Lover co-founders (from left): Jas Bagniewski, Dr. Britney Blair and Nick Pendle
Dr. Blair got interested in the space a decade ago after a Stanford grad school lecture illuminated how prevalent sexual problems are but how quickly they can be resolved with learning and communication. She teamed up with her CEO Jas Bagniewski, who’d been the manager of Europe’s largest e-commerce business, Zalando in the U.K., and a founder of City Deal that sold to Groupon. Bagniewski and fellow Lover co-founder Nick Pendle started European Casper mattress competitor Eve Sleep and brought it to IPO.
The plan is to combine Dr. Blair’s educational materials with Bagniewski and Pendle’s e-commerce chops to monetize Lover through subscriptions and eventually recommending products like sex toys for purchase. Now they have $5 million in seed funding led by Lerer Hippeau, and joined by Manta Ray Ventures, Oliver Samwer’s Global Founders Capital, Fabrice Grinda and Jose Marin. The cash will go toward building out an Android app and adding games that partners can play together in bed.
There are plenty of random sex tip websites out there. Lover tries to differentiate itself by personalizing content based on the results of a Myers-Briggs-esque quiz. This asks you how adventurous, communicative and assertive you are. You then receive a classification like “The Muse” with a few pages of explanation, for example, revealing how you like to inspire others while being the center of attention.
From there, Lover can suggest guides for mastering your own sexual personality or branching out into new behavior patterns. There’s also a feature copied from another app called XConfessions for figuring out what you and your partner like. You connect your apps and then separately swipe yes or no on questions about whether you’d like “having your partner drip candle wax on you” or “your partner dressing as a strict cop.” If you and they match, the app tells you both so you can try it out.
Overall, Lover’s content is a lot higher quality and more compassionate than where most people learn about sex: pornography. Having a real sexual medicine doctor overseeing the app lends credibility to Lover. And the design and tone throughout make you feel empowered rather than sleazy.
Still, Dr. Blair admits that “it's hard to motivate people into behavioral change, people already have subscription apps on their phones and we may run into ‘subscription fatigue.’ ” People might feel natural paying for Viagra because the impact is obvious. The value of a subscription to sex tips might seem too vague or redundant to what’s free online.
To get a lot of users opening their wallets, not just their pants, Lover will need to do a better job of previewing what’s behind the paywall, and offering more interactivity that online content lacks. But if it can give users one unforgettable night thanks to its advice, it may be able to seduce them for the long-run.
SpaceX has moved its Crew Dragon commercial astronaut spacecraft to Florida, the site from which it’ll launch in likely just two to three months if all goes to plan. The Crew Dragon capsule is now going to undergo final testing and checkouts in Florida before its departure from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where it’ll launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket, with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley onboard.
Behnken and Hurley will be taking a trip to the International Space Station (ISS) courtesy of the Crew Dragon, as part of a demonstration mission codenamed “Demo-2” by SpaceX and NASA that will serve as a key step in the ultimate verification of the spacecraft for regular service carrying people to and from the ISS. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is one of two spacecraft that aim to achieve this operational status for NASA, alongside the Boeing Starliner CST-100 crew vehicle, which is undergoing development and testing.
Boeing’s spacecraft has recently encountered some issues that could extend its testing timeline and set back its goals of performing its first flights with astronauts onboard. The Starliner encountered two potentially serious software issues during an uncrewed demonstration mission that took place in December, and now NASA and the company are determining corrective action, including safety reviews of Boeing and its software development and testing processes.
Meanwhile, SpaceX performed an in-flight abort test in January, the last major demonstration it needed to do before moving on to the crewed demo mission. That test was by all accounts a success, showing how the Crew Dragon would separate and distance itself from the launch craft in case of an unexpected error, in order to safeguard the astronauts onboard.
SpaceX has been sharing details of its preparation for this final planned demo before operational commercial crew flights, tweeting earlier this week about its spacecraft undergoing ultrasonic testing. Currently, the Demo-2 mission is tentatively set for May 2, though that date is said to be flexible and could be moved up or pushed to later, depending on mission needs and remaining preparation progress.
In case you haven’t heard, VCs are loving on workplace software as of late, and productivity tools that help teams collaborate seem to be a particular frothy area of investment. A smattering of top VC firms and angels, including General Catalyst, First Round Capital, Bloomberg Beta, Biz Stone and Ellen Pao, are throwing their confidence behind a new productivity startup called Range.
The tool is focused around helping small teams collaborate, grow closer and track their work together. There are quite a few startups with this exact pitch, Range’s key advantage seem to sit with their founding team, which is helmed by Medium’s former head of engineering Dan Pupius, Jennifer Dennard (people ops at Medium) and Braden Kowitz, who was a design partner at GV. The company has used their network to build out an early network of customers, including teams at Twitter, Carta and Mozilla, as well as a network of VCs that are bankrolling their efforts.
The SF-based team tells me they have locked down $6 million in seed funding led by General Catalyst as they look to expand their customer base. I chatted with the very nice team of co-founders over a Zoom call and got to see how they used the product internally.
“I left Google to join Medium with [Ev Williams and Biz Stone], and we were experimenting with a bunch of different organizational practices, really trying to answer the question of why do companies get worse as they get bigger and could we deploy different management practices at Medium in order to prevent that issue,” Pupius told TechCrunch. “Through that journey we started building internal tools and we kind of saw this opportunity for software to intentionally encode a lot of the organizational processes or values, and then towards the end of my tenure at Medium, I reconnected with Braden and Jen and we just essentially decided to tackle the problem together.”
The core of the product is a bit of a replacement to stand-ups, prompting each user to note what they’re working on every morning, which they can tag to existing larger projects and which is then all interconnected and viewable by members of the specific Range team. The need for a product like this really highlights one of Slack’s big limitations, where even with threads, there really isn’t a great way for communications to be organized in a digestible manner. Every update in Slack drives a conversation that pushes salient info further up the history into obscurity, something that can especially harm remote teams.
Beyond check-ins, Range is also helping teams keep track of their objectives and meetings as well as team directories. The product has integration support with Google Docs, Google Calendar, Slack, Asana, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Quip, Figma and others to ensure that information isn’t getting further siloed by adding a new piece of productivity software to the mix. The product has a startup-friendly pricing structure; it’s free for teams under 10 and each additional member costs $14 per month. Pricing obviously gets a bit more customized when it comes to larger customers.
Range will likely draw some comparisons with Notion from an organization standpoint, though it also feels much more smoother as a result of being less open-ended. One of the more unique aspects of the product is that the top of the home screen isn’t centered on OKRs or analytics, rather it asks team members a new question every day meant to foster further bonding, and asks them to describe how they’re feeling with an emoji. It’s kind of silly, but the team hopes that short bursts of introspection can push teams closer together in subtle ways that collaboration software doesn’t usually enable.
“We found that people are doing really cool things but they’re not talking to each other about it,” Dennard told TechCrunch. “And so one of the advantages we have as a company is that we can actually help create that community for people.”
The two initially met at an event in San Francisco, and followed up with a friendly informational interview at a Mexican restaurant. D'Souza’s fundraising experience was a draw for Romanow, who at the time was looking for information about how to raise cash for her startup. Romanow ended up selling her company to Groupon, but her conversation with D'Souza helped to anchor the valuation. It was also the beginning of a relationship.
When they started dating in 2014, they swapped war stories about company building. Their connection hinged on this initial commonality — D'Souza had fundraised all his businesses, whereas Romanow had bootstrapped. It was from these conversations that they created Clearbanc, the Canada-based VC firm that specializes in non-dilutive revenue share agreements for startups.
Startups with coupled co-founders at the helm are scoring big funding rounds and exiting companies. Julia and Kevin Hartz co-founded Eventbrite, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018. Married couple Diane Greene and Mendel Rosenblum were on the co-founding team of VMware, which sold to Dell in 2015. The bond of a relationship may be a secret weapon in company building for new-wave tech startups, but that doesn’t come without risks, like co-founder disharmony, equity supermajority and even divorce.
Clearbanc founders Andrew D’Souza and Michele Romanow
“Just put the phone down.”
Talk to anyone with a co-founder title at a startup and you’ll find one trend: free time is nearly nonexistent. Couples running a business together say it’s advantageous to be on the same workday cycle. "When you're working on the same business, you're on the same cadence of when things are blowing up,” says Romanow. “So I know exactly why Andrew is on his phone. I know that if he doesn’t do this, I will have to do it."
NEXT Trucking co-founders Lidia Yan and Elton Chung have raised $125 million total for their logistics startup, including a $97 million Series C from Brookfield and Sequoia. The pair says that the company is a presence that's fully built into their lives and their relationship at all times. While that may be great for a business, it’s not always great for their marriage. "We got into a momentum of talking about work all the time. Not only at the office but at home," says Yan. The solution is a simple rule enforced by an iPhone alarm. All work-related talk must cease after 8pm every day after the alarm goes off. They also use free time on the weekends to go to restaurants in LA, one of their shared passions.
NEXT Trucking co-founders Lidia Yan and Elton Chung
Co-founder couples say that if you're scaling a company, you'll have to be okay with putting other life decisions on hold, like going on your honeymoon or having kids.
Leslie Voorhees and Calley Means were married in 2016, but still haven't taken their honeymoon. They co-founded Anomalie, a wedding dress customization startup that has raised $18.1 million. Instead of vacationing to Bora Bora the day after their wedding, the newlywed founders hopped on a plane to China, where Leslie stayed for a couple of months to set up the supply chain for Anomalie. The couple admits that even now, they don't make time for their personal lives.
"We have not spent more than an hour of our entire marriage not talking about wedding dresses. It's not necessarily the healthiest thing, but we've enjoyed obsessing about wedding dresses every day," says Leslie.
Their skills complement each other: Calley's superpower is that he can move fast, whereas Leslie is more methodical and good at setting up structure. While they say that being a co-founder couple has strengthened their bond, they're working on setting boundaries. Being a founder means you have to sacrifice other areas of your life for the company.
“Once we raise the Series D, we'll start thinking about having kids," jokes Calley — in what may not actually be a joke.
Leslie Voorhees and Calley Means, Anomalie co-founders
Investors are warming up to married co-founders
Clearbanc wants to make it easier and faster for startups to raise growth capital. Their 20-minute term sheet product is meant to help founders raise money in 20 minutes, rather than the traditional 3 to 6 months the process typically takes. But how did investors react to Clearbanc’s co-founders relationship status? Not well, at first.
A Clearbanc investor passed on an early round, explaining to D’Souza and Romanow that they would have backed either of them individually, but that they were worried about backing them as a couple, especially since they had only been dating for a year at that point.
"The same investor ended up coming in two rounds later at 100 times the valuation," says D'Souza. This, they felt, proved that fear of investing in a couple was a false sense of increased risk.
It seems investors today agree. When the married co-founders of Apli, a Mexico-based on-demand recruiting platform, walked into the office of ALLVP, the fund wasn’t entirely sure about what it meant to invest in a company run by a married couple.
Founders Vera and Jose met while studying together at Harvard Business School before working at two separate Rocket Internet companies in Mexico and foundling Apli. The business model, product market fit and potential impact for the company were typical factors the fund mulled over before writing a check, but ALLVP also considered the founders’ married status.
"After some discussion, we decided to analyze the team as any other founding team," says ALLVP partner Federico Antoni. Besides the obvious personal chemistry, there was a professional chemistry between Vera and Jose. "We weighed the risk of divorce and decided to take it. We gained a team fully invested in the company and one that could balance personal life and startup life."
Equity could pose another risk factor. Investors could be wary of founder couples depending on the equity structure. If their finances are combined, a co-founder couple could own a supermajority of a startup. Say two non-married founders owned 20% of a company — a co-founder couple whose finances are tied together would own 40%. Given this logic, VCs would inherently have more negotiating power if the founders aren’t financially linked.
VCs I talked to didn’t necessarily agree with that logic, though.
"The only thing with equity that matters to me is if the founders have enough,” says Andreessen Horowitz General Partner David Ulevitch. “Venture capital investments are inherently minority investments, so it's really just about ensuring founders are motivated and rewarded for building something enduring."
But what happens when the dual identities of co-founder and spouse don’t work?
Divorce won’t necessarily be the demise of a startup
Sara and Josh Margulis founded Honeyfund, a honeymoon registry site, in 2006. The then-married couple appeared on Shark Tank in 2015, winning an investment from Kevin O'Leary. Sara says that Honeyfund is different from popular wedding startups like Zola and The Knot in that the core product is a crowdfunding platform enabling newly engaged couples to organize wedding and honeymoon financing.
When Sara and Josh divorced in 2019, the first instinct was to sell the company. However, "the more we pulled apart professionally, the more opportunities I saw to organize the team the way I wanted to and push the priorities that I wanted," Sara says. Ultimately, Sara decided she would buy her ex-husband out of the company and continue on a new trajectory as CEO.
"If we hadn’t been working together, our separation process would have been different. There were truths that needed to be spoken that were emotionally difficult in a marriage, that I didn't want to put on Josh in the middle of a big Target partnership launch."
The genesis of their business was rooted in their own experience as a married couple. They'd won the affection of Sharks, operating in a $72 billion industry hinging on the commoditization of love and lasting marriage. But the honeymoon phase can’t last forever. Up to 50% of married couples in the United States will split, according to the American Psychological Association.
Now, Margulis’ experience of divorcing her co-founder is informing new products and a marketing strategy as she continues to iterate on her startup.
Post-divorce, Margulis has been working on a content-focused strategy at Honeyfund that will include a book and a podcast centered around the idea of how couples can successfully navigate marriages. She’s sourcing 14 years’ worth of Honeyfund couples to be interviewed, along with research from psychologists and marriage experts to help couples avoid the doom she went through.
The secret weapon
Co-founder couples are the first to eagerly point out an obvious advantage. Aligned passions, equal motivation, complementary skillsets and industry experience are a baseline for any co-founder relationship, married or non-married. But being married to your co-founder includes unique challenges like time management and setting boundaries in the boardroom and in the bedroom.
“Co-founder disputes are the number one early startup killer, but it doesn’t have to be that way,” writes Garry Tan, managing partner at Initialized Capital and former Y Combinator partner.
Co-founders aren't always aligned on big decisions at the company. Is remote work allowed? Who do we accept funding from and how do we deploy capital? Who do we hire for a key executive role?
There are plenty of things to fight about when the stakes are high and your employees’ careers are at risk. And co-founder disharmony has been a key reason many startups flounder. But being proactive about conflict management rather than avoiding it is key — as is knowing when to get professional help from an executive coach or a therapist. This could help early-stage companies recalibrate and dodge turmoil.
If this line of reasoning holds, co-founder couples may be at an advantage because they already have built-in communication tools in their relationship.
Ulevitch says that for him, couples as co-founders is not a turn off.
“Lots of co-founding teams fall apart, and it's often to not really knowing each other very well, especially when the going gets tough. Couples actually solve for that aspect nicely." Founders certainly back up this assertion.
"One of the company values is to disagree and commit," says NEXT Trucking’s Lidia Yan. In what she describes as a rare occasion when executives are not aligned on a decision, she says that a vote will take place, and then the team will all commit to the final decision. In order to mitigate risk, founders say it’s key to have well-defined job descriptions. Stay in your zone, and because you are partners, you should already trust each other with what each person is specialized at.
Being married to your co-founder is a secret weapon, according to Helena Price Hambrecht and Woody Hambrecht.
Haus co-founders Helena Price Hambrecht and Woody Hambrecht
Helena and Woody met during the pre-swipe era on OkCupid in 2012. "I had just joined the online dating space and saw this hot farmer dude. We were a 96% match, so I messaged him," says Helena of how she first connected with her future husband.
"I literally thought someone was catfishing me," thought Woody upon reading Helena's message. "There's no way this person is writing me. It took me three or four times to write her back because I wasn't sure if she was a real person."
After some back and forth, the two met at a dive bar in the San Francisco Richmond neighborhood on a date that culminated in drinking 40s and watching rap videos on their phones in the park. "It's kind of hard to explain, but it was just so easy. We knew we were going to know each other for the rest of our lives. Maybe as friends, maybe more, we didn't know." They stayed friends for four years, and were married in 2018.
Haus' genesis was a combination of the founders’ backgrounds, and the direct-to-consumer aperitif brand just scored a $4.5 million seed round. Woody owned a wine and aperitif brand but felt that he wasn’t making a big enough impact. Helena, a Silicon Valley branding and production veteran, felt that Gen Z didn’t want to get drunk anymore, and millennials are tired of compulsory, expensive happy hours. In deciding where to put their money, younger consumers are thinking about their bodies, brand image, transparency, sustainability and authenticity.
Helena wondered why the same standards aren’t being applied to as big of an industry as liquor. Why was there not a Glossier or Everlane of alcohol? She felt that while there's a massive opportunity with all these shifting consumer trends, no one can make a direct-to-consumer alcohol brand. Haus was born from what the founders say was a magic "techie married a wine maker" moment. Woody knew about a legal loophole that could allow the couple to build the Glossier of alcohol.
“There's this tiny sliver in the aperitif realm, where if a beverage is made of mostly grapes and is under 24% alcohol, it can be classed as a wine and sold DTC,” explains Helena. They had that idea when they had a three-month-old baby. "We do not have time to do this but we have to do it because it's the best idea we'll ever have in our life," she says.
"We have a tool kit. We are married. If we have a disagreement about something, we are going to work it out because we're married. Our skillsets are so clearly defined so there's not much friction. For us it’s this cool balance where we have two totally separate camps of expertise,” remarks Helena.
Woody and Helena have another secret weapon. They work with a business coach who has a background in psychotherapy, and believe that all co-founders should go to therapy together, because it’s always deeper than just business.
Talkspace’s Roni and Oren Frank would agree. Their journey to the mental health world started from a crisis within their own relationship.
"Our marriage was falling apart, and we eventually decided to give it a last chance in couples therapy." It was the first time either of them had experienced therapy. It taught them how to communicate better, read each other and support each other better. It gave them tools to manage conflict.
Therapy inspired Roni to leave her career as a software developer and go back to graduate school to study psychology. While studying, she says she was exposed to how broken the mental health system in America is.
Roni says that research showed 25% of Americans suffer from mental health complications, yet an entire two-thirds of that bucket has no access to mental health care. The two founders both felt passionate about fixing this problem based on how instrumental therapy was in rescuing their own marriage. They decided to launch a platform that lets patients and therapists communicate online.
Talkspace, which wants to open access to mental healthcare, has now raised $110 million, most recently a $50 million Series D. The product ideation for the company was integral to the relationship, and the company now has more than 100 employees. But when Talkspace was a young, 10-person startup, it was a lot harder. Roni notes that the co-founder relationship provoked extreme anxiety.
"I didn’t sleep well, I didn’t eat well and I experienced burnout." She says she had to force herself to place boundaries when it comes to being consumed with work. However, overall, her experience has been that sharing a mission and a goal empowers the marriage, a healthy inverse.
Co-founder couples rave about the experience of running a business with their spouse. It’s no doubt these companies are developing proprietary products, running winning marketing strategies and generating big rounds and exits.
The married co-founder dynamic appears to be great for business, but time will tell if it works as equally well for marriages.
Seed fundraising is rarely easy, but it certainly used to be a lot less complicated than it is today. In a simpler world, a seed investor (or maybe two) would lead a round, which meant that they would write the terms of the deal in a term sheet and then pass that document to their friends to flesh out the funds and eventually close the round. That universe of investors was small and (unfortunately) often cliquish, but everyone sort of knew each other and founders always knew at least who to start with in these early fundraises.
That world is long since gone, particularly at the seed stage. Now there are thousands of people who write checks into the earliest startup venture rounds, making it increasingly challenging for founders to find the right investors. "Pre-seed," "seed," "post-seed," "seed extension," "pre-Series A" and more terms get batted about, none of which are all that specific about what kinds of startups these investors actually invest in.
Worse, obvious metrics in the past that helped stack-rank investors — like size of potential check — have come to matter far less. In their place are more nuanced metrics like the ability to accelerate a deal to its closing. Today, your greatest lead investor may be the one who ends up writing the smallest check.
Given how much the landscape has changed, I wanted to do two things for founders thinking through a seed fundraise. First, I want to talk about how to strategize around a seed fundraise today, given the radical changes in the market over the past few years. Second, I want to talk about a couple of the archetypes of startup stages you see in the market today and discuss how to handle each of them.
This article focuses on "conventional" seed fundraising and doesn't get into a bunch of alternative models of VC that I intend to explore in the coming weeks. If you thought traditional seed investing is complicated, wait until you see what the alternatives look like. The upshot, though, is that founders with the right strategy have more choices than ever, and, ultimately, that means there are more efficient ways to use capital to get the desired outcome for your startup.
Thinking through a seed fundraise strategy
Let's get some preliminaries out of the way. This discussion assumes that you are a startup, looking to fundraise a seed round of some kind (i.e. you're not looking to bootstrap your company) and that you are looking to close some sort of conventional venture capital round (i.e. not debt, but equity).
The problem with most seed fundraising advice is that it isn't tailored to the specific stage of the startup under discussion. As I see it, there are now roughly six stages for startups before they reach scale. Those stages are:
Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.
As I write to you, SaaS and cloud stocks are busy setting fresh all-time highs and as we’ve seen, venture interest in modern software companies is pushing more money into the sector. But despite it appearing to be an incredibly good time to raise equity funding, venture debt and revenue-based financing appear to be having a moment.
So why are more folks talking about and raising debt to help power their startups, even when valuations are high and there is a lot of venture capital to be raised?
As with all explorations of complex, evolving trends, there’s no one answer. But, some data from a 2019-era survey on venture debt and a conversation I had with equity-free SaaS finance shop Element Finance’sJohn Gallagher (Element is a Scaleworks spinout) help explain what’s going on. Let’s start with how big the venture debt world is and how fast it is growing and then turn to what’s powering its expansion.
Rising debt
The data we’re going to discuss is directional and probably pretty accurate, which is just fine for what we want to do today: detail a general trend of rising venture debt volume over the past few years to confirm what we’ve presumed to be a trend for some time.
Thanks to a report from last year undertaken by Kruze (a startup accounting and HR consultancy), what the firm described as the “largest survey of the venture debt market” undertaken, including firms that “control well over half of the venture debt dollars in the United States,” here are estimated totals of domestic venture debt volumes for the past half-decade:
Tesla has priced its secondary common stock offering at $767, a 4.6% discount from Thursday’s share price close, according to a securities filing Friday.
Tesla said in the filing it will sell 2.65 million shares at that discounted price to raise more than $2 billion. Lead underwriters Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have the option to buy an additional 397,500 shares in the offering.
Tesla shares closed at $804 on Thursday. The share price opened lower Friday, jumped as high at $812.97 and has hovered around $802.
The automaker surprised Wall Street on Thursday when it announced plans to raise more than $2 billion through a common stock offering, despite signaling just two weeks ago that it would not seek to raise more cash.
CEO Elon Musk will purchase up to $10 million in shares in the offering, while Oracle co-founder and Tesla board member Larry Ellison will buy up to $1 million worth of Tesla shares, according to the securities filing.
Tesla said it will use the funds to strengthen its balance sheet and for general corporate purposes. In a separate filing Thursday that was posted prior to the stock offering notice, Tesla said capital expenditures could reach as high as $3.5 billion this year.
The stock offering conflicts with statements Musk and CFO Zach Kirkhorn made last month during Tesla's fourth-quarter earnings call. An institutional investor asked that given the recent run in the share price, why not raise capital now and substantially accelerate the growth in production? At the time, Musk said the company was spending money sensibly and that there is no "artificial hold back on expenditures."
At the time of Thursday’s announcement, Tesla shares had risen more than 35% since the January 29 earnings call, perhaps proving too tempting of an opportunity to ignore.
Justin Berman has one of the most important jobs at Dropbox .
As head of security, he oversees the company’s cybersecurity strategy, its defenses and works daily to keep its more than 600 million users’ data private and secure.
No pressure, then.
Berman joined the file storage and workspace giant a year ago during a period of transition for the company. During its early years, Dropbox was hit by a data breach that saw more than 60 million user passwords stolen during a time where tech giants were entrenched in a “move fast and break things” culture. But things have changed, particularly at Dropbox, which made good on its promise to improve the company’s security and also went far beyond what any Silicon Valley company had done before to better protect security researchers.
In this series, we’ll look at the role of the CSO — the chief security officer — at some of the biggest companies in tech to better understand the role, what it means to keep an organization secure without hindering growth and what advice startups can learn from some of the most experienced security professionals in the industry.
We start with Berman, who discussed in a recent interview what drew him to the company, what it means to be a security chief and what other companies can learn from Dropbox’s groundbreaking security policies
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TechCrunch: You’ve been at Dropbox since June. Before this you were at Zenefits, Flatiron Health and Bridgewater. What brought you to Dropbox?
Justin Berman: First and foremost, I think the people here are amazing. And I think the problems I get to solve here are not the ones that a lot of security leaders find themselves solving. Because the company has had a historical commitment to security, privacy, and trust and risk, I’m not coming in and having to boot the culture of security from the ground up. That culture already exists. And the question we ask ourselves is how do we use that culture to do the right level of things as opposed to just doing as much as possible where you might slow down the business?
Blue Origin is opening its new rocket engine production center in Huntsville, Ala. on Monday, the company said today on Twitter. The new Huntsville facility will be able to produce its rocket engines at a much higher rate than is currently possible, which will be useful as the company is using its in-development BE-4 engine for its own New Glenn rocket, as well as for supplying the United Launch Alliance with thrust for its new Vulcan launch vehicle.
Blue Origin started working on BE-4 in 2011, and though it was originally designed for use specifically on Blue Origin’s own New Glenn rocket, which is its first orbital launch vehicle, in 2014 ULA announced it would be using the engines to power its own next-generation Vulcan craft as well. BE-4 has 550,000 lbs of thrust using a mixture of liquid natural gas and oxygen for fuel, and is designed from the ground up for heavy lift capability.
On Monday, we open our high rate rocket engine production facility in Huntsville, AL. In anticipation of that, we wanted to show a little love for our #BE4 engine progress. https://t.co/YojnGQG0O4pic.twitter.com/Iz4DAzjqCn
Blue Origin says it will deliver the first two production BE-4 engines this year, with deliveries to ULA to integrate them on the Vulcan for its first static hot fire tests. Blue Origin also aims to fly New Glenn equipped with the engines for their first test flight in 2021. It’s in the process of running longer tests to prove out the engines, and will aim to qualify them in their entirety through life cycle testing, which aims to replicate the kind of stress and operating conditions the hardware will undergo through its actual lifetime use.
Part of Blue Origin’s testing process will include retrofitting and upgrading Test Stand 4670 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, allowing the company to test a BE-3 engine one side and a BE-4 engine on the other.
It’s an exciting time for Blue Origin and its BE-4, and the engine has been a long time in the making. What comes next could set it up as an integral and core part of the U.S. space launch program going forward, regardless of how its own launch vehicle plans proceed.
Instagram is changing its advertising rules to require political campaigns’ sponsored posts from influencers to use its Branded Content Ads tool that adds a disclosure label of “Paid Partnership with.” The change comes after the Bloomberg presidential campaign paid meme-makers to post screenshots that showed him asking them to make him look cool.
Instagram provided this statement to TechCrunch:
Branded content is different from advertising, but in either case we believe it's important people know when they're seeing paid content on our platforms. That's why we have an Ad Library where anyone can see who paid for an ad and why we require creators to disclose any paid partnerships through our branded content tools. After hearing from multiple campaigns, we agree that there's a place for branded content in political discussion on our platforms. We're allowing US-based political candidates to work with creators to run this content, provided the political candidates are authorized and the creators disclose any paid partnerships through our branded content tools.
Instagram is also clarifying how fact-checking will work for political sponsored content, since political ads are currently exempt. Instagram tells TechCrunch that it will give guidance to third-party fact checkers that if a influencer's post contains speech clearly in the voice of the politician, it should not be fact-checked. If the post merely endorses or promotes the politician in the voice of the influencer or content creator, it will be eligible for fact checking. Posts fact-checked as false will have their reach in the feed decreased.
So for example, if an influencer posted "I support Bloomberg because he's a veteran and a war hero", that would be in their own voice and could be fact-checked as false since he did not serve in the armed forces. But if an influencer posted "Michael Bloomberg says 'Vote for me. I'm a war hero'", that would be in the politician's voice and ineligible for fact-checking.
Whether that makes any sense depends on your view of Facebook refusing to fact-check all political ads, which I've staunchly opposed. The lack of preparation for how to handle these edge cases ahead of the election cycle underscores Facebook's haphazard approach political advertising.
Back to the memes, Instagram explains to TechCrunch that branded content is different from advertising because Facebook doesn’t receive any payment and it can’t be targeted. If marketers or political campaigns pay to boost the reach of sponsored content, it’s then subject to Instagram’s ad policies and goes in its Ad Library for seven years.
But previously, Instagram banned political operations from running branded content because the policies that applied to it covered all monetization mediums on Instagram, including ad breaks and subscriptions. Those features see Facebook collect money from advertisers or users and share it with content creators. Facebook didn’t want to be seen as giving monetary contributions to campaigns, especially as the company tries to appear politically neutral.
Yet now Instagram is changing the rule and not just allowing but requiring political campaigns to use the Branded Content Ads tool when paying influencers to post sponsored content. That’s because Instagram and Facebook don’t get paid for these sponsorship deals between campaigns and influencers. It’s now asking all sponsorships, including the Bloomberg memes retroactively, to be disclosed with a label using this tool. That would add a “Paid Partnership with Bloomberg 2020” warning to posts and Stories that the campaign paid meme pages and other influencers to post. This rule change is starting in the U.S. today.
Instagram was moved to make the change after Bloomberg DM memes flooded the site. The New York Times’ Taylor Lorenz reported that the Bloomberg campaign worked with Meme 2020, an organization led by the head of the “FuckJerry” account’s Jerry Media company, Mick Purzycki, to recruit and pay the influencers. Their posts made it look like Bloomberg himself had Direct Messaged the creators asking them to post stuff that would make him relevant to a younger audience.
Part of the campaign’s initial success came because users weren’t fully sure if the influencers’ posts were jokes or ads, even if they were disclosed with #ad or “yes this is really sponsored by @MikeBloomberg.” There’s already been a swift souring of public perception on the meme campaign, with some users calling it cringey and posting memes of Bernie Sanders, who’s anti-corporate stance pits him opposite of Bloomberg.
At least the Democratic field of candidates is finally waking up to the power of memes to reach a demographic largely removed from cable television and rally speeches. The Trump campaign has used digital media to great effect, exploiting a lack of rules against misinformation in Facebook ads to make inaccurate claims and raise money. With all his baked-in media exposure from being president already, the Democratic challengers need all the impressions they can get.
[Update 11am pacific: Article updated with Instagram's position on fact-checking of political sponsored content.]
Popular photo printing app PhotoSquared has exposed thousands of customer photos, addresses and orders details.
At least 10,000 shipping labels were stored in a public Amazon Web Services (AWS) storage bucket. There was no password on the bucket, allowing anyone who knew the easy-to-guess web address access to the customer data. All too often, these AWS storage buckets are misconfigured and set to “public” and not “private.”
The exposed data included high-resolution user-uploaded photos and generated shipping labels, dating back to 2016, and was updating by the day. The app has more than 100,000 users, according to its Google Play listing.
It’s not known how long the storage bucket was left open.
One of the customer orders, including photos and the customer’s shipping address. The exposed storage bucket also had thousands of shipping labels. (Image: TechCrunch)
Security researchers provided the name of the exposed bucket to TechCrunch. We matched a number of shipping labels against existing public records, and contacted PhotoSquared on Wednesday to warn of the exposure.
Keith Miller, chief executive of Strategic Factory, which owns PhotoSquared, confirmed that the data was no longer exposed; however, Miller declined to say if it planned to inform customers or regulators under data breach notification laws.
At the time of writing, PhotoSquared has made no reference to the security lapse on its website or its social media accounts.
Too often, people are asked to give away their insights and time for free. Jen Horonjeff, founder and CEO of healthcare startup Savvy, knows this first hand and is trying to change that by applying a cooperative model to her business.
As an infant, Horonjeff was diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Since then, she has been diagnosed with a number of autoimmune conditions. Seven years ago this month, she had a brain tumor removed.
“I’ve just always been somebody who’s been a patient,” Horonjeff tells TechCrunch.
Horonjeff’s experience in the health system led her to become a human factors engineer focused on human-centered design, she says. In that area, work centers on trying to fit the world to people with different abilities, rather than the other way around. From there, Horonjeff, who has her doctorate in environmental medicine, has been most interested in patient-centered outcomes.
“So what matters to patients and what affects their health and health behaviors outside of just the traditional things [are what] we’ve been looking at,” she says. “It was being on that side of the professional equation that I heard my colleagues and partners talking about wanting to help patients, but they were never talking with them. And what they were talking about were not the same priorities as the patient communities that I was part of. And because I’m very open about my condition, they kept coming to me to ask me to be that sole patient representative. When they kept coming back to me, that was really a signal of a diversity issue, since I am white with a Ph.D. in New York City.”
Horonjeff’s discomfort with the lack of diversity led her to become a matchmaker between healthcare innovators and patient communities. This is where the idea for Savvy was born.
Last month, Tradeshift, a platform for supply chain payments that has achieved unicorn status in recent years, had some good news and some bad news. It announced a Series F funding round of $240 million in equity and debt, raised from a combination of existing and new investors. It's now raised a total of $661 million since it started in 2008 and investors include Goldman Sachs, Principal Strategic Investments and Wipro Ventures among others.
The new funding came despite talk of a possible IPO last year. In effect, this new funding round was an admission by the company that it was delaying any IPO and setting the company "on a direct path to profitability in the near future," which is exactly the kind of noises many larger tech firms have made in the wake of the WeWork and Peloton issues with the public markets.
During that announcement CEO and co-founder Christian Lanng also admitted that the drive toward profitability would mean a cost-cutting exercise ahead of any possible IPO.
Lanng said this would likely mean reducing headcount in its expensive San Francisco offices, but reallocating resources and talent to locations where that is more affordable.
The company has made no formal announcement about the details on that, but yesterday we got confirmation from the European tech press that the cuts were indeed starting to bite.
The Danish version of ComputerWorld reported that the staffing cuts have now run into three figures and were conducted in mid-January.
The cuts came from headcount at the company’s offices in Copenhagen, San Francisco and other offices.
Mikkel Hippe Brun, a co-founder of Tradeshift and head of the company’s Asian business, confirmed the information to ComputerWorld, but indicated that "there are still some consultations around the world, where we are subject to different rules about notifications and opportunities to raise objections."
However, he said that the company still has more than 1,000 employees worldwide, which is "significantly more employees" than two years ago.
At the same time, the company has also brought in new executives from SAP, Oracle and Microsoft, among others, as the company tightens its belt, according to ComputerWorld.
Tradeshift has an impressive array of investors, such as Goldman Sachs, although it's notable that this doesn't include any of the usual round of typical SaaS-oriented Valley VCs.
Alibaba issued its latest earnings report yesterday, and the Chinese eCommerce giant reported that cloud revenue grew 62 percent to $1.5 billion U.S., crossing the RMB10 billion revenue threshold for the first time.
Alibaba also announced that it had completed its migration to its own public cloud in the most recent quarter, a significant milestone because the company can point to its own operations as a reference to potential customers, a point that Daniel Zhang, Alibaba executive chairman and CEO, made in the company’s post-earnings call with analysts.
“We believe the migration of Alibaba’s core e-commerce system to the public cloud is a watershed event. Not only will we ourselves enjoy greater operating efficiency, but we believe, it will also encourage others to adopt our public cloud infrastructure,” Zhang said in the call.
It’s worth noting that the company also warned that the Coronavirus gripping China could have impact on the company’s retail business this year, but it didn’t mention the cloud portion specifically.
Yesterday’s revenue report puts Alibaba on a $6 billion U.S. run rate, good for fourth place in the cloud infrastructure market share race, but well behind the market leaders. In the most recent earnings reports, Google reported $2.5 billion in revenue, Microsoft reported $12.5 billion in combined software and infrastructure revenue and market leader AWS reported a tad under $10 billion for the quarter.
As with Google, Alibaba sits well in the back of the pack, as Synergy Research’s latest market share data shows. The chart was generated before yesterday’s report, but it remains an accurate illustration of the relative positions of the various companies.
Alibaba has a lot in common with Amazon. Both are eCommerce giants. Both have cloud computing arms. Alibaba, however, came much later to the cloud computing side of the house, launching in 2009, but really only beginning to take it seriously in 2015.
At the time, cloud division president Simon Hu boasted to Reuters that his company would overtake Amazon in the cloud market within 4 years. “Our goal is to overtake Amazon in four years, whether that's in customers, technology, or worldwide scale,” he said at the time.
They aren’t close to achieving that goal, of course, but they are growing steadily in a hot cloud infrastructure market. Alibaba is the leading cloud vendor in China, although AWS leads in Asia overall, according to the most recent Synergy Research data on the region.
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
After having a good time with NEA’s Rick Yang last week, we thought we’d bring on another venture capitalist. So this week Danny and I had Elliott Robinson from Bessemer swing over for the show. As it turned out, he was about as correct as guest as possible as not only did the topics of the week line up with where he invests, he’s also friends with some of the folks that we discussed on the show.
So what did we talk about? A whole host of things including two rounds:
Nova Credit’s $50 million round to help power its cross-border credit system. (We all thought this one was smart.
Then we turned to two new funds, including Battery’s battery of new capital vehicles that add up to $2 billion. In this part of the discussion we also touched on capital velocity, and why some firms are writing the same number of checks, but still need more capital. On the other end of the capital spectrum, Equal Ventures put together its first fund, and we riffed on the health of the micro-fund ecosystem.
All that and we had to leave Lyft’s fascinating earnings and Uber’s profit promises alone as we ran a bit long with just that set of topics. A good week, and we’re back Monday morning!
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