When superheroes were true gentlemen

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 is probably my favourite comic book of all time (or graphic novel as they are now known, though whats wrong with comic, it is after all comic). In fact I originally named the blog the extraordinary league of gentlemen readers, but I thought it was bit wordy for the Internet. This fantastic comic, as is par for course,was made into an incredibly bad movie. If I was Alan Moore (writer of the WATCHMEN), this sort butchery of my artistic vision would probably drive me to near insanity, until I bought another Lamborghini, and I assuaged my artistic soul. Unfortunately Moore probably lacks my base materialism and this would explain his appearance, see the following for Moores feelings on Comic Book Movies www.totalfilm.com/features/exclusive-why-alan-moore-hates-comic-book-movies. Anyway enough of the artistic graveyard which is Hollywood. Moores inspired idea is to take the Victorian Eras greatest superheroes and forming them into a Superhero group. This book is pitch perfect written in the style of a 19th century "penny dreadful" it's witty, it's clever, and packed with daring do. The story begins with our heroes all a little down on their luck. Quatermain (the hero of H. Rider Haggards novelsKing Solomon's Mines (Modern Library Classics) is found in an opium den, Griffin ( The Invisible Man
) is making the most of powers at an all girls school, and Mr Hyde (Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson) is about to get butchered by a mob. Recruited by M,the head of the heroes must make battle with a mysterious east end villain. A jolly adventure ensues which will leave you wanting more, luckily for us there is more, as the adventurers reunite in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 2

ANDREW CARNEGIE: INSIDER TRADING PIONEER

First up I must say this is one of the best business biographies I have read, if any historical figure fully captures the duality of man it must be Andrew Carnegie. What makes him so interesting is that so much of what he did seems so contradionary. In his David Nasaws book "ANDREW CARNEGIE" this Jekyll and Hyde nature of the tycoon is fully explored. Nasaw is obviously slightly in awe of his subject, as was I after reading this book. Nasaw manages to show the greatness of the man without flinching away from his sheer ruthlessness. From a beginning mired in Scottish poverty (the most depressing kind), insider trading rail way stocks (the social media stocks of the day) to get his first pile of cash to breaking strikes without breaking a sweat, guided by Spencer's theories of Social darwanism all the way (Fully explored in the book) Carnegie was one ruthless player. Not only was Carnegie a trend setter when it came to insider trading and destroying unions, he was the first Billionaire to redeem himself through philantrophy, setting the scene for later sainthood seeking rich guy like Buffet and Gates. In the end it all turns to custard for Carnegie but the ride is enthralling and I couldn't put the book down.

Free Comics for Everyone!

From associated press "An estimated 2.7 million copies of free comics are set to be handed out in comic book stores across the country and in 40 other countries on Saturday.
"The first Free Comic Book Day featured just four publishers. This year, three dozen publishers are participating," observed Joe Field, owner of Flying Colors Comics in Concord, Calif., who came up with the idea for the promotional event 10 years ago.
"Free Comic Book Day is massively important to us, because it gives us the opportunity to reach out and hook the next generation of comic book readers, and to reconnect with lapsed readers of the past," said Tom Brevoort, senior vice president at Marvel Comics. "And who doesn't like free stuff?"

Sports Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments

If you've never heard of betting arbitrage basically it is when because the odds offered at vairous bookmaker differ, you can bet at different bookies cover all posssible outcomes and still make a profit. Sports Arbitrage - How To Place Riskless Bets & Create Tax-Free Investments by Rajeev Shah is hot off the press (2011) and already almost completely useless. Or to be more specific it's almost completely useless if you have already read anything about betting sports arbitrage. Instead of buying this I recommend you the read wikipedias article on the same topic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage_betting its a page long and more comprehensive, you'll save yourself 113 pages and $30. Shah does give some useful sites you can use to try and get some arb oportunities. The only problem is if you actually want to use any of them you'll find without an arbitrage software package that you are too slow and the arbs have already closed. Sports Betting Arbitrage can be highly profitable and is essentially riskless and if you are a complete newbie it maybe worth ppurchasing this book to guide you through.

For my money though I'd save the $30, look thorugh the wikipedia article, check out a couple of forums (and to be honest the basics mechanics of sports betting arbitrage are pretty simple) and instead invest the money in one of the betting arbitrage software packages such as 100 PER CENT WINNERS Their servers sends out "spiders" to collect data from the various bookes, the informaton is sent back to the servers to calculate arb opportunities and then the data sent out to you. It makes the process a lot faster and easier than trying to do manual calculations, and these days arb opportunities close so fast it's almost impossible to do the old fashioned way anymore. They offer a free download so you can try out the software first and theres a bunch of testimonials on the site, which gives you a feel for what you can achieve. With the correct sofware you don't actually even need to know exactly why you are making specific bets but I would still recommend getting a basic grounding in the subject matter, however this is included with the software package. If you are interested in "100 PER CENT WINNERS" you can Click here!

So you want to get rich making iphone apps?

So you want to get rich making iphone apps, who doesn't. You probably already have some idiot cousin who made an app about a monkey who tells you how hot or not you are and now he's loaded(don't even think it the Gorgeous George App is all mine). Still no one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the general public so lets all join the iphone app gold rush!

How to create iPhone apps with no experience - Thinking Drone

This ones an ebook and its by the guys behind thinking drone, they’ve done a few dozen highly successful apps and what makes the story more interesting is that they are not even techie guys. In
How to create iPhone apps with no experience  they explain how they come up with the idea of outsourcing the programming for their iphones. Essentially they were just conceiving the ideas for their iphone apps and then outsourcing to other people to do the actually development. I think this is what makes this one of the most attractive of the books on iphone development is how accessible it is for non programmers. In the book they give a host of ideas including how to get accepted by apple without even a business, how to find the right audience for your app, software and resource links, how to find iphone developers and how to test and install the new app. With the ebook you also get a few other things including the live source code from 6 of Thinking Drones apps and a non disclosure agreement. How to create iPhone apps with no experience  is comparative in price to the other books but with the added value offered I think especially for first time app developers this is probably the best option.

iPhone For Dummies: Includes iPhone 4

Being fairly retarded myself, I’m quite a big fan of the for dummies series, but it’s definitely dependent on the author. I have to say about 90% of this book came off as fluff, there is no obvious progression through the book and I found it to be totally disorganised. Possibly if you already had good iphone app skills then this book could be followed but if so, why would you need a for dummies book. I think the main problem with this book is that Goldstein has to fill 440 pages but he only has material for about a third of that. Definitely not one of the for dummies best efforts.

Tapworthy: Designing Great iPhone Apps

 This one is pretty good. Its strong point is not so much on the coding of iphone apps but more on the design. While it isn’t quite the total from idea to market of How to create iPhone apps with no experience  it is stronger on aspects of design. The interviews Clark does with other iphone app developers are also highly interesting and inspiring. There is a certain amount of filler in this book but nothing to the extent of the for dummies book. It is also highly readable and easy to follow.

Top Three OSAMA books

Ding dong the CIA witch is dead. It's too late to grab yourself $50,000,000 by studying up on OBL but you can still impress your friends with the help of these titles -

Osama Bin Laden- This ones by Michael Scheuer, chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999. He seems fairly impressed with Osamas bin Laden ability to lure America into Pakistan and thus kick off global jihad. Scheuer knows his man though and praises Osamas intelligence in contrast to the cartoonish image that western media seems to enjoy betraying. It was also written in 2011, which is definitely suspicious and leads me to two contrasting theories
1. Scheuer was either tipped off by CIA pals or was directly instrumental in the death of Osama in order to increase book sales
2. This illustrates the incompetence of the CIA intelligence as now the  book will need a new epilogue which would have been unnecessary if the books publication had been delayed a couple of months


2. The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader Bergens an old pal of Osama don't you know, go way back. Bergen in 1997 had a chat and a nice cup of tea with Osama and ever since then hes made a career out of it. He has written many books on the subject of Terrorism and heres another one. Again illustrating the importance of timing in the book game, this will now have to be reprinted as "The Osama I knew."


Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden Bernard Lewis called it a "A magnificent piece of eloquent, at times even poetic Arabic prose ... in devising strategies to fight the terrorists, it would be useful to understand the forces that drive them." So obviously he was impressed, and you can impress your friends too when you regurgitate "The Churchill of the Middle East" many moving speeches.

Quantative Behavioural Finance and the Penny Stock Prophet

Quantitative behavioral finance is a new discipline that uses mathematical and statistical methodology to understand behavioral biases in conjunction with valuation. Noted economists working in this field include Vernon Smith (2002 Nobel Laureate in Economics). QBF takes its lead from Behavioural Psychology and essentially looks at the influence of human behaviour on share pricing and attempts to forecast future movements from there. This is pretty cutting edge financial work, and someone who taken insights from there and made practical application of the work is James Connelly better known as the Penny Stock Prophet. Whilst Connelly was still 19 and a college student he began trading out of his dorm room. Central to his trading strategy has been the Phychological Support Level (PSL) of breakout stocks. As he notes the PSL has been key in his trading success and in idenifying under valued stocks and when they will move. Connelly said his biggest trading successes began when he took the strategies he had leard from Behavioural Finance and applied them to the world of Penny Stocks. The large volatile price movements of Penny Stocks allowed for larger profits. Connelly runs a noted penny stocking picking service and offers to supply to anyone free proof of his stock picking prowess. In his ebook he also documents how within 38 trades he can move $5000 up to $1,000,000. For more information on this ebook and one free stock pick by James Connelly Click Here!