public static String negBitMask(final long bits){
  return String.valueOf((0xFFFFFFFFL << bits) & 0xFFFFFFFFL);
}

public static String negBitMask ( final long bits ) { return String . valueOf ( ( 0xFFFFFFFFL << bits ) & 0xFFFFFFFFL ) ; }
negative bitmask function for creating 0xffff8000 style masks
