Jodi Hildebran

With the release of her debut EP “Sweeter,” singer-songwriter Jodi Hildebran demonstrates her affinity for  combining indie folk and pop, with a touch of country sass, to create the addicting and comfortable sound that permeates her music.  

Although Jodi has been singing since she was just a little girl, she did not start writing songs until her father passed down her grandfather’s vintage Gibson J-45 acoustic to her.  That guitar turned out to be the impetus she needed to spark the songwriting process, and she hasn’t stopped writing since.

The first single from the EP by the same name, "Sweeter" is pop folk at its finest.  It's fun, catchy, and upbeat, with a country twist for good measure, of course, which is undoubtedly a product of the singer’s naturally soulful southern voice.

"I just thought it was kind of a fun little song, and it needed a cute title. In the South, if a boy likes you, we might say he's sweet on you. For this song, I turned it around - the guy is sweeter on his car than he is on the girl - or at least, that's what she thinks..." explains Jodi of the single.

Other songs on the EP range from acoustic heartbreaking ballads that get very personal like "Wash You Away," to full swing Americana anthems like "One Shot At A Time."  For any fan of great country, folk, or even indie pop, the Sweeter EP surely doesn't fail.

The songs are available now for digital download on several sites, and Jodi is now working towards licensing some of her songs to film and television. To hear and learn more of Jodi Hildebran please visit:
http://jodihildebran.bandcamp.com

David Verity

In the world of modern music, where most artists follow trends and conform to mediocrity, there are few exceptions. Every once in a very great while however, there emerges someone who redefines an entire genre, defies the expectation of conformity, and denies mediocrity. They set precedents and break records.

As a singer, songwriter, composer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer and record producer, David Verity is set to do just that.

Verity means “Truth.” This surname and double-entendre is a testament to the true, natural form of David’s musical talent, as well as, and more importantly, a testament to his dedication to dignity, integrity, and morality.

By the time he graduated high school, (which he did with academic and artistic honors,) he had a #1 song on Billboard’s former online music chart, had MTV camera crews at his door for a USA Network show, Farmclub, where Jimmy Iovine’s at Interscope Records A&R selected him as the top prospect in the country, in all genres.), was the #1 R&B artist on MP3.com where he released his first CD, and had performed in concert at the mecca of live performance - The MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV. He has shared the stage with many top music acts, and was invited to an exclusive Pre-Grammy celebration to perform in honor of James Brown's Lifetime Achievement Award. A brief tenure with Motown Records in 2004 had him in talks with Ryan Leslie and Corey “Latif” Williams about an R&B tour, but ended with the resignation of Motown CEO Kedar Massenburg that year.

His songwriting has yielded multiple international songwriting nods, such as The John Lennon Songwriting Award (2-years in a row, in 2 different genres,) and The USA Songwriting Award. His work producing other artists has landed them major deals with companies like MySpace Records and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy Records. Other artists whose careers he molded landed them in the offices of major record labels, including Geffen, Atlantic, and Def Jam.

He recently completed a promotional tour which culminated in a sold out Hult Center for a Pay-Per-View event featuring himself, Ginuwine, Jon B., Eric Bellinger, and Q Parker of 112 which will be broadcast on major cable networks in over 80 countries. A vocal and outspoken philanthropist, the event was a benefit concert for homeless veterans put on by a non-profit organization, for which he also sits on the board.

Known for playing every one of the instruments on his albums by himself and mixing his entire records with no outside help, Listen.com called David Verity "the Prince of the new generation," for good reason. Considered a visionary and a master of logistics by those who know him in business, Verity signed a distribution deal with InGrooves/Universal Music Group for the distribution of his independent record label, Anomaly Music Group, as well as an International licensing deal with Japanese mega-corporation JVC.

Is There Real Gold in Fort Knox

IS THERE REALLY ANY GOLD IN FORT KNOX? FORMER US MINT DIRECTOR COMES CLEAN

At the recent Whitman Expo in Baltimore, former US Mint Director Edmund C. Moy who ran the mint from 2006-2011 opened up on visiting Fort Knox during his tenure as Mint Director.
Is there really any gold left in Fort Knox?  Mr. Moy’s first thoughts on viewing the inside of Fort Knox:
“These bars at Fort Knox look like dirty gold…One of the first things was, Is this real gold?”
Former Mint Director Edmund Moy tells his story and reveals what he saw with his own eyes when he toured the mint in the MUST WATCH clip below:

On whether he saw any gold inside Fort Knox:

“I’ve been to Fort Knox, I’ve been INSIDE Fort Knox, and I’ve seen the gold. So I know that its actually there!…I can personally vouch that there is gold at Fort Knox, and I have personally seen it!”

On how much gold remains in Fort Knox: 
“There’s alot of gold…I can’t tell you how much is in there or how they’re organized, but there’s alot of bricks in there!”

Moy indirectly supports the theory that most of the good delivery bars have already been leased or swapped and removed from Fort Knox and only dirty gold remains: 
“One of my first observations about the gold there, when you think about modern 400 oz  good delivery bars that are made in Switzerland, you think of shiny gold.  These bars at Fort Knox look like dirty gold…One of the first things was, Is this real gold?”

However, what Mr. Moy fails to address is who and how many parties hold title to the likely hyper-rehypothecated pile of gold remaining inside Fort Knox vaults.

Edmund Moy’s full thoughts on touring Fort Knox:

Fort Knox Secret Contents:

Russian Americans Caught Up in the Middle of Loyalty to Mother Russia or the United States of America

Russian Americans Caught Up in the Middle of Loyalty to Mother Russia or the United States of America
SmithBits Talk Radio Post Editorial
By Kenneth Howard Smith
IFS, March 17, 2014

MEMPHIS TN (IFS) -- When it comes to choosing sides, the question is whose side are you on?  What a dilemma for Russian Americans.

It's not going to be like the old days of the Japanese War where we put Japanese Americans in concentration camps and stole their land and businesses.  Or will it?

Loyalty to Mother Russia or to the United States of America?  As President Putin draws a counter line in the sand and starts his own sanctions of US personnel, goods and services to counter reactions to President Obama's executive orders, these two players are going to duke it out in real time.  The costs are going to be high and very expensive for the Russians.

Putin will cut the gas lines to Europe to start, but he needs the capital to pay his troops and keep the Russian economy from tanking, as the Russian stock markets are taking severe hits as we speak.  It all starts very small and then one day in very near future, it becomes a very big thing, and one finds themselves way over their heads, then you want to fight, then you have to fight and then you fight from keep from dying in a war that you have nothing invested in.

"Into the valley of death rode the mighty 600."  They knew it was a suicide ride.  They did it to show loyalty to their leader and country.  They did it for pride.  But only the winners get a chance to write the ending of the story.  Maybe the true Russians will stop Mr. Putin from making a big mistake and pull him back across the line in the mud, and have him rethink his position that effects everyone worldwide.

This writer is sure the Motherland can do the "hard times dance" and weather the storm.  However, these are different times.  The Russians buy and drive American cars build in Russia.  They like the 7-11 stores and MacDonald's.  They like Starbuck's, Visa and MasterCard.

President Putin will start his executive order of "nationalizing" these companies assets, and his expulsion of United States citizens from Russia, and other citizens that oppose his orders.  It always start very small.  And as with Pussy Riot, it's very personal.  Nothing to do with national security, just Putin's ego.

The new beginning of the Cold War?

Yes!  It's the same old war that never went away.  Let's face it.  We never put any trust in the Russians, only tolerated them.  You know the old mafia saying. . . "Keep your friends close, and  your enemies closer."

As the Russian people has got use to real money, they are going to feel the heat when their bank accounts start coming up very short, and they will not be invited to the big parties of the G-7 (8) and the Russian voices will be silenced in world affairs.  What a price to pay for a small piece of dirt.

This writer believes that President Putin is going to march his army through Western Ukraine and into Poland.  Putin has nothing to loose.  Remember he beats up on girls in ski masks for singing.  He does not give a tinkers damn about world opinion.

This writer feel sorry for the new Russian Americans in this country, because if it comes down to boots on the ground and the United States has to show a force, these folks will be under the microscope by the NSA, FBI and every alphabet agency in the US.

All battles that are lost starts from the inside out.  If you have terrorists all ready planted here when the fighting begans, you are fighting a two front war to start.

Andy Greenberg Forbes Staff

Covering the worlds of data security, privacy and hacker culture.

SECURITY 3/04/2014 @ 10:47AM 6,534 views

Another Bitcoin Startup Tanks After $600,000 Theft

Mt. Gox may have become the biggest business to collapse within the Bitcoin economy when it declared bankruptcy last week after a massive theft of its coins. But it won’t be the last.

On Monday night Bitcoin startup Flexcoin announced that it would be shutting down following the theft of 896 bitcoins from its servers, worth close to $620,000 at current exchange rates. “On March 2nd 2014 Flexcoin was attacked and robbed of all coins in the hot wallet,” a note posted to the company’s website reads, referring to the portion of its coins that were in active use and so more vulnerable to theft. “As Flexcoin does not have the resources, assets, or otherwise to come back from this loss, we are closing our doors immediately.” The company is working to coordinate a return of the bitcoins it kept in “cold storage”–a more secure but less liquid stash of its digital currency–to users who can claim them.

Flexcoin, which launched in the summer of 2011, acted as a cloud service for sending, receiving, and storing bitcoins, calling itself “the world’s first bitcoin bank.” Just days before its shutdown notice, it reassured users that it hadn’t lost any coins in the collapse of Mt. Gox, the first and once-largest Bitcoin exchange that declared bankruptcy last week after 850,000 of its bitcoins were stolen by hackers, 750,000 of which belonged to users. “We hold zero coins in other companies, exchanges etc.,” read a note on the company’s twitter feed. “While the MtGox closure is unfortunate, we at Flexcoin have not lost anything.”

The theft that shut down Flexcoin represents a tiny loss compared with Mt. Gox’s half-billion-dollar plus debacle. But it’s yet another reminder that the digital cash Bitcoin represents can be as irreversibly stolen as any cash, and its lack of regulation leaves users with little recourse when their accounts are emptied. Most Bitcoin security experts recommend users store the private keys that allow the spending of bitcoins on their own hard drive, or better yet a cold-storage hardware wallet. When it comes to more convenient web-based services whose security is out of users’ direct control, bitcoiner beware.

Implosion of Bitcoin Exchange Spawns Mutant Digital Currency

• BY ROBERT MCMILLAN
• 03.05.14
• 6:30 AM
• As big-name bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox descends into bankruptcy — the victim of a $460 million hack — the outlook is bleak for those with money in the company.

  The courts in Japan, where Mt. Gox is based, may not recognize bitcoin as a currency, meaning they’re unlikely to catalog customer assets at anywhere close to full value. And even if they did, it may be difficult for anyone to retrieve even a fraction of what they had in the exchange. The bankruptcy systems here in the real world just aren’t prepared to deal with bitcoin.

  That’s why some people want to build new bankruptcy systems just for the Mt. Gox debacle. Basically, these are digital currencies designed to manage the digital currency that has vanished inside Mt. Gox. No, this isn’t the easiest concept to wrap your head around, but such is the world of bitcoin, an incredibly malleable and powerful online technology.

Bitcoin, Meet Goxcoin

• As Mt. Gox was imploding, a website sprang up, Bitcoinbuilder.com, which let steel-stomached speculators buy the rights to assets locked inside the troubled exchange. And now, there’s a new effort to turn the whole sordid mess of IOUs into a brand new digital currency.

  It’s called Goxcoin. And according to Adam Levine, one of the backers of the proposal, they let speculators and Gox customers create a market for assets lost inside the company. Basically, if you’re freaked that the bankruptcy courts will never recover the money you stored in Gox, you can sell Goxcoin. And if you think those funds will eventually be recovered, you can buy Goxcoin. “It’s about providing options and liquidity to people who have neither and likely won’t for a long time,” says Levine, who is the host of a popular bitcoin audio show, “Let’s Talk Bitcoin.”

  Using a technology called Mastercoin, the Goxcoin people would mint a brand new digital currency, a strange hyper-speculative bitcoin derivative, that would itself be backed by claims to bitcoins held in Mt. Gox’s accounts. So one Goxcoin would represent one bitcoin, temporarily vanished in the Mt. Gox bankruptcy. Recovery date and value are to-be-determined.

  “It’s about providing options and liquidity to people who have neither and likely won’t for a long time” 
  –Adam Levine

  For now, it’s just a proposal. No Goxcoins have been issued. The big trick, of course, is to get Mt. Gox and its CEO Mark Karpeles to participate. That seems like a long-shot, but Levine is undeterred. There’s one big benefit to the Goxcoin model: It gives anyone an incentive to track down the 850,000 missing Mt. Gox bitcoins, which, because of the nature of bitcoin, are still stored somewhere in a massive online ledger that is completely public. If they can be located and returned to the Mt. Gox asset pool, that will drive up the value of Goxcoins. Bitcoins can be stolen, naturally, but because all bitcoin transactions happen in an open public ledger — known as the blockchain — any coins that are identified as having been stolen from the troubled exchange can be tracked forever.

The Hunt For the Missing Mt. Gox Coins

• “The reality is that those coins are in someone’s possession, and they shouldn’t be. So, legally, they’re not the property of that person,” Levine says. “Essentially, you have a situation where there’s going to be a years-, possibly decades-long recovery effort that’s really going to push forward the science of forensics on the blockchain.”

  Although the bitcoin community is now hot on the trail of the missing Mt. Gox bitcoins, it’s not clear that they’ll ever find them, says Nicholas Weaver, a researcher with Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute. “There are a hundred different ways that the bitcoins could have been stolen and unless Gox releases their database, we will probably never know how they went missing,” he says. According to Weaver, even if the stolen bitcoins have been tracked, once they’ve been spent, they are probably not recoverable.

  Another wrinkle: one of the backers of Goxcoin is Michael Keferl, a managing director at Mandalah, the marketing consulting company that was advising Gox at the time of its meltdown. That has caused some bitcoin observers to be skeptical of the whole Goxcoin initiative. “I think the confusion about his company, Mandala, and Mt. Gox is really unfortunate because Michael is a great guy in a bad situation,” Levine says.

  Adam Price had 60 bitcoins (worth more than $40,000 as of Tuesday evening) in the Mt. Gox exchange when it imploded. He applauds the idea behind Goxcoins, but he doesn’t think that Mt. Gox will play ball. In any event, he has already sold his lost Gox assets on Bitcoinbuilder.com. The night, one week ago, that Mt. Gox pulled its exchange offline, he offered to sell the rights to his 60 bitcoins. He found a buyer and received 12 bitcoins in exchange for these lost assets. And right now, that looks like a good price. If Price waited until yesterday to sell his Mt. Gox assets, he would have received just 2.5 bitcoins.

  “I am very lucky I got what I got,” he said in an e-mail interview. “The fact is, there is zero regulation and if a half billion dollars disappears and someone just says ‘it was a hacker and the money is gone,’ then the money is gone.”
  

  Robert McMillan is a writer with Wired Enterprise. Got a tip? Send him an email at: robert_mcmillan [at] wired.com.
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Autumn Radke - Head of Bitcoin Online Currency Exchange Found Dead in Singapore

Head of Online Currency Exchange Found Dead in Singapore

BY JAVIER E. DAVID

Autumn Radtke, the CEO of an upstart online currency exchange, died last week under mysterious circumstances at her home in Singapore.

Radtke, the U.S.-born head of First Meta, was found dead by local police Feb. 28, with the cause of death yet to be determined. In a statement on its website, First Meta said the company "was shocked and saddened by the tragic loss of our friend and CEO Autumn Radtke."

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the company's director and nonexecutive chairman, Douglas Abrams, said the exact cause of Radtke's death was "still under investigation."

Prior to taking the reins at First Meta in 2012, the 28-year-old Radtke had once closely worked with technology giant Apple, to bring cloud-computing software to Johns Hopkins University, Los Alamos Labs and the Aerospace Corp., according to her biography. She then took up business development roles at tech start-ups Xfire and Geodelic Systems, according to information on her LinkedIn profile.

First Meta bills itself as a clearinghouse for the purchase and exchange of virtual currencies, including bitcoin.

Her death comes as troubles swirl around the nascent cryptocurrency industry, and amid a rash of suicides in the financial industry as a whole.

Last week, the world's largest bitcoin exchange, Mt.Gox, imploded; meanwhile, nearly $500 million in client funds vanished overnight. Elsewhere, untimely demises unrelated to bitcoin have claimed the lives of bankers at JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and Zurich Insurance Group.

First published March 5th 2014, 1:09 pm