Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/315927324?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Saturday, 29 June 2013
Facebook rolls out hashtag support for mobile web and related searches
Clickable hashtags are a major new Facebook feature, and now the social network is bringing them to the next level by rolling out related searches and mobile availability. We're talking about its mobile site and (unfortunately) not its iOS and Android apps, making the former a better choice for browsing public status updates on the go. The introduction of related searches also makes it easier to discover new conversations, as searching for a particular hashtag brings up similar ones. Facebook analyzes which terms are often posted together, so looking for #equality also brings up posts tagged with #lgbt or #pride. These updates will soon show up on your accounts if they haven't yet, and unless you despise hashtags, they're icing on the cake.
Filed under: Internet
Source: TechCrunch
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Legal hemp could rise high like a phoenix from farm bill ashes | Grist
The farm bill died last week, and we?re still sorting out some of our feelings about it.
Between hefty cuts for food stamps and maintaining the status quo on big ag subsidies, that farm bill was kind of a jerk! But the bill also included a late amendment that would?ve helped pave the way for an industrial hemp industry in the U.S. The amendment passed by a vote of 225-200 in the House ? but then, of course, the whole bill was scrapped, because the farm bill brought a knife to the gun fight that is Congress.
In its wake, there may not be a ton of bipartisan optimism for a new farm bill ? but bipartisan hemp supporters are still seeing green, as in go, grow, and cash-money.
The farm bill amendment was actually a bit of a legislative redundancy: Its language was exactly the same as the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013 that a bipartisan crew of legislators giddily introduced back in February.
That bill, though, has been chilling on a couch in the House since like April. (HMM, APRIL.)
So that House farm bill amendment was ?the most significant sign of progress on the federal level that hemp advocates have ever seen,? writes Lydia DePillis at the Washington Post. ?It might have a second life sooner than the rest of the House Farm Bill,? as Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) is making noises about tacking the amendment onto another agriculture-related bill, or pursuing another solo hemp bill altogether.
That would mean peace of mind for farmers in the newly weed-legal states of Washington and Polis? Colorado, where some folks are already plowing ahead with hemp farming regardless of its federal legal status. And it could mean the impetus for a whole new industrial hemp industry in Kentucky, where a new law goes into effect this week that positions the state to start farming hemp?ASAP if/when it?s legalized by the feds.
Oh, and in case all these cannabis jokes confused you, Gizmodo explains why you can?t get high from lighting up a bowl of hemp. You can, however, make a bowl out of hemp.
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Friday, 28 June 2013
Sea lampreys turning up the heat
June 27, 2013 ? Male sea lampreys may not be the best-looking creatures swimming in our lakes and streams, but they apparently have something going for them that the ladies may find irresistible.
Research by a team of Michigan State University scientists found that the males have a secondary sex characteristic that creates heat when they get near a female lamprey, something the females find hard to say no to.
The work of the team focused on a small bump located near the male's anterior dorsal fin. Close examination of this bump determined that it was full of fat cells, cells that are similar to ones found in mammals, animals that need to maintain their own body temperature.
By putting a probe into the bump, the researchers found that the temperature of the bump, also known as rope tissue, increased by 0.3 degrees Celsius when the male approached a female, sometimes even more, depending upon the female.
The role this "bump" played in spawning was not known until now. Scientists had thought it merely as ornamental or playing some other minor role.
"We thought it was just a structure that was used for some kind of mechanical stimulation that they needed to trigger the female to lay eggs," said Weiming Li, a professor of fisheries and wildlife and a team member.
Until now it was believed that males attracted females by releasing pheromones.
By attempting to better understand the reproductive biology of the sea lamprey, the researchers hope to find ways to reduce its numbers or eliminate it from the Great Lakes.
Sea lampreys are a very destructive invasive species. Resembling 18-inch eels, they can live in both salt and fresh water and likely found their way into the Great Lakes via shipping channels. They have no natural predators in the Great Lakes.
Parasitic lampreys attach themselves to other fish, such as salmon, trout and whitefish, and suck out the fish's body fluids. The lamprey's sucking disk and sharp teeth scar the host fish, killing many of them. Under some conditions, only one of seven fish attacked by a sea lamprey will survive.
A sea lamprey can kill 40 or more pounds of fish, and they've caused the extinction of three species of whitefish in the Great Lakes. The U.S. and Canadian governments together spend about $10 million to $15 million per year on lamprey control.
Also contributing to the work were the laboratories of Jongeun Choi, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and Titus Brown, assistant professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Engineering and Microbiology and Molecular Genetics.
This latest research is published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
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Scientists discover thriving colonies of microbes in ocean 'plastisphere'
(Phys.org) ?Scientists have discovered a diverse multitude of microbes colonizing and thriving on flecks of plastic that have polluted the oceans?a vast new human-made flotilla of microbial communities that they have dubbed the "plastisphere."
In a study recently published online in Environmental Science & Technology, the scientists say the plastisphere represents a novel ecological habitat in the ocean and raises a host of questions: How will it change environmental conditions for marine microbes, favoring some that compete with others? How will it change the overall ocean ecosystem and affect larger organisms? How will it change where microbes, including pathogens, will be transported in the ocean?
The collaborative team of scientists?Erik Zettler from Sea Education Association (SEA), Tracy Mincer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and Linda Amaral-Zettler from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), all in Woods Hole, Mass.?analyzed marine plastic debris that was skimmed with fine-scale nets from the sea surface at several locations in the North Atlantic Ocean during SEA research cruises. Most were millimeter-sized fragments.
"We're not just interested in who's there. We're interested in their function, how they're functioning in this ecosystem, how they're altering this ecosystem, and what's the ultimate fate of these particles in the ocean," says Amaral-Zettler. "Are they sinking to the bottom of the ocean? Are they being ingested? If they're being ingested, what impact does that have?"
Using scanning electron microscopy and gene sequencing techniques, they found at least 1000 different types of bacterial cells on the plastic samples, including many individual species yet to be identified. They included plants, algae, and bacteria that manufacture their own food (autotrophs), animals and bacteria that feed on them (heterotrophs), predators that feed on these, and other organisms that establish synergistic relationships (symbionts). These complex communities exist on plastic bits hardly bigger than the head of a pin, and they have arisen with the explosion of plastics in the oceans in the last 60 years.
"The organisms inhabiting the plastisphere were different from those in surrounding seawater, indicating that plastic debris acts as artificial 'microbial reefs," says Mincer. "They supply a place that selects for and supports distinct microbes to settle and succeed."
These communities are likely different from those that settle on naturally occurring floating material such as feathers, wood, and microalgae, because plastics offer different conditions, including the capacity to last much longer without degrading.
On the other hand, the scientists also found evidence that microbes may play a role in degrading plastics. They saw microscopic cracks and pits in the plastic surfaces that they suspect were made by microbes embedded in them, as well as microbes possibly capable of degrading hydrocarbons.
"When we first saw the 'pit formers' we were very excited, especially when they showed up on multiple pieces of plastic of different types of resins," said Zettler, who added that undergraduate students participating in SEA Semester cruises collected and processed the samples. "Now we have to figure out what they are by [genetically] sequencing them and hopefully getting them into culture so we can do experiments."
The plastic debris also represents a new mode of transportation, acting as rafts that can convey harmful microbes, including disease-causing pathogens and harmful algal species. One plastic sample they analyzed was dominated by members of the genus Vibrio, which includes bacteria that cause cholera and gastrointestinal maladies.
Explore further: Researchers find 'bipolar' marine bacteria, refuting 'everything is everywhere' idea
Source: http://phys.org/news/2013-06-scientists-colonies-microbes-ocean-plastisphere.html
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Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Twitch Android app updated with persistent login, followed channels
An update for the Twitch.tv app on Android is finally letting users log into their accounts, providing easier access to their personal favorites out of the top 300 live streaming channels. Features still not accounted for include search and chat, however Community Manager Jared Rea mentions they're in the works. According to Rea, development of its Android app -- until three months ago it had gone a year without being updated -- received "yet another incentive" with the launch of the Ouya gaming console. Hit the links below for the new app, info on its development and the top-300 channel restriction that applies whether you're watching on a console or handheld device.
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Google
Source: Google Play, Twitch.tv: The Official Blog
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Firefox 22 Launches With Built-In Asm.js And WebRTC Support
Mozilla today launched Firefox 22, the first stable version of the popular browser that supports the WebRTC protocol and includes support for the organization's asm.js JavaScript subset that offers near-native performance for web apps.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/EUmCfvyK-s8/
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Fear of a Black Hat
A journalist displays a picture of former NSA employee Edward Snowden on a tablet at the Moscow Sheremetevo airport on June 23, 2013. Good thing Snowden's a good guy?it was easy for him to steal the NSA's secrets and flee the country.
Photo by Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images
Where exactly is Edward Snowden? Where are the documents he downloaded from the NSA?s computers? How many copies of the data has he made? Who else has he given them to? What will those people do with the information? We don?t have answers to any of these questions, and we might never get them. But what we?ve learned over the last few days should be extremely worrying.
First, in an interview with the South China Morning Post, Snowden admitted that he sought a job with the government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton specifically so that he could gather documents about the NSA. Now it?s also clear that before he flew the coop to Hong Kong and then Moscow, he made numerous copies of the documents he downloaded, and handed them out to many people around the world. According to journalist Glenn Greenwald, the data are encrypted, but Snowden has arranged for the people who have the files to get full access to them ?if anything happens? to him.
Two weeks ago I asked why we should trust the NSA with our data if it couldn?t keep it secure from a single rogue employee. But now the question is more urgent, because it?s become clear that Snowden didn?t just ?go rogue.? Instead, his actions look like a precise, long-planned, perfectly choreographed infiltration of the U.S. government. Snowden spent months figuring out which agency to hit, how to get access, which documents to download, which journalists to leak to, which organizations to join up with, and where and how to escape. Everything he?s done?right down to tricking the world into thinking he?d be on a flight to Havana?seems like the work of a canny agent, not a mere disgruntled IT guy.
This is very bad news. From what we can tell, the NSA has no good defense against such a well-planned incursion. It may be able to erect security measures to prevent another similar hit by an employee, but because the data it collects are so valuable, it will always remain vulnerable to an organized attack. That answers the question I raised a couple of weeks ago: Why should we trust an agency that can?t secure its own data with our personal info? We shouldn?t.
The only saving grace in this story is that Snowden claims to have had the noblest of aims. He wanted to expose the globe-spanning scope and hand-of-God reach of United States surveillance infrastructure in an effort to provoke democratic discussion. There?s no reason to distrust him; everything we know about Snowden, especially his voluminous Web postings, shows that he really believes in what he?s doing.
Still, there?s a name for what Snowden did. It?s called hacking. In the jargon, Snowden is a ?white hat??a kind of ethical attacker who exposes security holes in an effort to improve the overall security of the system. But Snowden just as easily could have been a black hat?a hacker bent on wreaking havoc, a guy who cracked open the NSA in order to get dirt on powerful individuals or to sell U.S. secrets to foreign governments. From what we know so far, it wasn?t very difficult for Snowden to get a job in the NSA. After getting his foot in the door as a security guard for the CIA, he followed the rules and moved up the chain, garnering ever-greater clearances as he traveled from job to job. He didn?t even have to be very discreet; he could make his views known online even while working for the CIA and NSA. He hatched the sort of operation any determined, patient enemy could have set up. Iran, China, the Syrian Electronic Army, or al-Qaida, which spent years planning 9/11, could have sponsored someone like Snowden. Indeed, they may have already.
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Past brain activation revealed in scans
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Public release date: 25-Jun-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Yivsam Azgad
news@weizmann.ac.il
972-893-43856
Weizmann Institute of Science
Weizmann Institute scientists discover that spontaneously emerging brain activity patterns preserve traces of previous cognitive activity
What if experts could dig into the brain, like archaeologists, and uncover the history of past experiences? This ability might reveal what makes each of us a unique individual, and it could enable the objective diagnosis of a wide range of neuropsychological diseases. New research at the Weizmann Institute hints that such a scenario is within the realm of possibility: It shows that spontaneous waves of neuronal activity in the brain bear the imprints of earlier events for at least 24 hours after the experience has taken place.
The new research stems from earlier findings in the lab of Prof. Rafi Malach of the Institute's Neurobiology Department and others that the brain never rests, even when its owner is resting. When a person is resting with closed eyes that is, no visual stimulus is entering the brain the normal bursts of nerve cell activity associated with incoming information are replaced by ultra- slow patterns of neuronal activity. Such spontaneous or "resting" waves travel in a highly organized and reproducible manner through the brain's outer layer the cortex and the patterns they create are complex, yet periodic and symmetrical.
Like hieroglyphics, it seemed that these patterns might have some meaning, and research student Tal Harmelech, under the guidance of Malach and Dr. Son Preminger, set out to uncover their significance. Their idea was that the patterns of resting brain waves may constitute "archives" for earlier experiences. As we add new experiences, the activation of our brain's networks lead to long-term changes in the links between brain cells, a facility referred to as plasticity. As our experiences become embedded in these connections, they create "expectations" that come into play before we perform any type of mental task, enabling us to anticipate the result. The researchers hypothesized that information about earlier experiences would thus be incorporated into the links between networks of nerve cells in the cortex, and these would show up in the brain's spontaneously emerging wave patterns.
In the experiment, the researchers had volunteers undertake a training exercise that would strongly activate a well-defined network of nerve cells in the frontal lobes. While undergoing scans of their brain activity in the Institute's functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, the subjects were asked to imagine a situation in which they had to make rapid decisions. The subjects received auditory feedback in real time, based on the information obtained directly from their frontal lobe, which indicated the level of neuronal activity in the trained network. This "neurofeedback" strategy proved highly successful in activating the frontal network a part of the brain that is notoriously difficult to activate under controlled conditions.
To test whether the connections created in the brain during this exercise would leave their traces in the patterns formed by the resting brain waves, the researchers performed fMRI scans on the resting subjects before the exercise, immediately afterward, and 24 hours later. Their findings, which appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience, showed that the activation of the specific areas in the cortex did indeed remodel the resting brain wave patterns. Surprisingly, the new patterns not only remained the next day, they were significantly strengthened. These observations fit in with the classic learning principles proposed by Donald Hebb in the mid-20th century, in which the co-activation of two linked nerve cells leads to long term strengthening of their link, while activity that is not coordinated weakens this link. The fMRI images of the resting brain waves showed that brain areas that were activated together during the training sessions exhibited an increase in their functional link a day after the training, while those areas that were de-activated by the training showed a weakened functional connectivity.
This research suggests a number of future possibilities for exploring the brain. For example, spontaneously emerging brain patterns could be used as a "mapping tool" for unearthing cognitive events from an individual's recent past. Or, on a wider scale, each person's unique spontaneously emerging activity patterns might eventually reveal a sort of personal profile highlighting each individual's abilities, shortcomings, biases, learning skills, etc. "Today, we are discovering more and more of the common principles of brain activity, but we have not been able to account for the differences between individuals," says Malach. "In the future, spontaneous brain patterns could be the key to obtaining unbiased individual profiles." Such profiles could be especially useful in diagnosing or learning the brain pathologies associated with a wide array of cognitive disabilities.
###
Prof. Rafi Malach's research is supported by the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurosciences; the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurological Diseases; the Carl and Micaela Einhorn-Dominic Brain Research Institute; the Norman and Helen Asher Center for Human Brain Imaging; the Murray H. and Meyer Grodetsky Center for Research of Higher Brain Functions; the Kahn Family Research Center for Systems Biology of the Human Cell; the Friends of Dr. Lou Siminovitch; the Adelis Foundation; and the Mike and Valeria Rosenbloom through the Mike Rosenbloom Foundation. Prof. Malach is the recipient of the Helen and Martin Kimmel Award for Innovative Investigation; and he is the incumbent of the Barbara and Morris L. Levinson Professorial Chair in Brain Research.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
Weizmann Institute news releases are posted on the World Wide Web at http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/, and are also available at http://www.eurekalert.org/
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 25-Jun-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Yivsam Azgad
news@weizmann.ac.il
972-893-43856
Weizmann Institute of Science
Weizmann Institute scientists discover that spontaneously emerging brain activity patterns preserve traces of previous cognitive activity
What if experts could dig into the brain, like archaeologists, and uncover the history of past experiences? This ability might reveal what makes each of us a unique individual, and it could enable the objective diagnosis of a wide range of neuropsychological diseases. New research at the Weizmann Institute hints that such a scenario is within the realm of possibility: It shows that spontaneous waves of neuronal activity in the brain bear the imprints of earlier events for at least 24 hours after the experience has taken place.
The new research stems from earlier findings in the lab of Prof. Rafi Malach of the Institute's Neurobiology Department and others that the brain never rests, even when its owner is resting. When a person is resting with closed eyes that is, no visual stimulus is entering the brain the normal bursts of nerve cell activity associated with incoming information are replaced by ultra- slow patterns of neuronal activity. Such spontaneous or "resting" waves travel in a highly organized and reproducible manner through the brain's outer layer the cortex and the patterns they create are complex, yet periodic and symmetrical.
Like hieroglyphics, it seemed that these patterns might have some meaning, and research student Tal Harmelech, under the guidance of Malach and Dr. Son Preminger, set out to uncover their significance. Their idea was that the patterns of resting brain waves may constitute "archives" for earlier experiences. As we add new experiences, the activation of our brain's networks lead to long-term changes in the links between brain cells, a facility referred to as plasticity. As our experiences become embedded in these connections, they create "expectations" that come into play before we perform any type of mental task, enabling us to anticipate the result. The researchers hypothesized that information about earlier experiences would thus be incorporated into the links between networks of nerve cells in the cortex, and these would show up in the brain's spontaneously emerging wave patterns.
In the experiment, the researchers had volunteers undertake a training exercise that would strongly activate a well-defined network of nerve cells in the frontal lobes. While undergoing scans of their brain activity in the Institute's functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, the subjects were asked to imagine a situation in which they had to make rapid decisions. The subjects received auditory feedback in real time, based on the information obtained directly from their frontal lobe, which indicated the level of neuronal activity in the trained network. This "neurofeedback" strategy proved highly successful in activating the frontal network a part of the brain that is notoriously difficult to activate under controlled conditions.
To test whether the connections created in the brain during this exercise would leave their traces in the patterns formed by the resting brain waves, the researchers performed fMRI scans on the resting subjects before the exercise, immediately afterward, and 24 hours later. Their findings, which appeared in the Journal of Neuroscience, showed that the activation of the specific areas in the cortex did indeed remodel the resting brain wave patterns. Surprisingly, the new patterns not only remained the next day, they were significantly strengthened. These observations fit in with the classic learning principles proposed by Donald Hebb in the mid-20th century, in which the co-activation of two linked nerve cells leads to long term strengthening of their link, while activity that is not coordinated weakens this link. The fMRI images of the resting brain waves showed that brain areas that were activated together during the training sessions exhibited an increase in their functional link a day after the training, while those areas that were de-activated by the training showed a weakened functional connectivity.
This research suggests a number of future possibilities for exploring the brain. For example, spontaneously emerging brain patterns could be used as a "mapping tool" for unearthing cognitive events from an individual's recent past. Or, on a wider scale, each person's unique spontaneously emerging activity patterns might eventually reveal a sort of personal profile highlighting each individual's abilities, shortcomings, biases, learning skills, etc. "Today, we are discovering more and more of the common principles of brain activity, but we have not been able to account for the differences between individuals," says Malach. "In the future, spontaneous brain patterns could be the key to obtaining unbiased individual profiles." Such profiles could be especially useful in diagnosing or learning the brain pathologies associated with a wide array of cognitive disabilities.
###
Prof. Rafi Malach's research is supported by the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurosciences; the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurological Diseases; the Carl and Micaela Einhorn-Dominic Brain Research Institute; the Norman and Helen Asher Center for Human Brain Imaging; the Murray H. and Meyer Grodetsky Center for Research of Higher Brain Functions; the Kahn Family Research Center for Systems Biology of the Human Cell; the Friends of Dr. Lou Siminovitch; the Adelis Foundation; and the Mike and Valeria Rosenbloom through the Mike Rosenbloom Foundation. Prof. Malach is the recipient of the Helen and Martin Kimmel Award for Innovative Investigation; and he is the incumbent of the Barbara and Morris L. Levinson Professorial Chair in Brain Research.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
Weizmann Institute news releases are posted on the World Wide Web at http://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/, and are also available at http://www.eurekalert.org/
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/wios-pba062513.php
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The Children of Pahiatua
An American Army Public Health nurse with a group of children in a camp for Polish displaced persons at Bensheim,Germany on June 19, 1945. Other Polish children ended up in New Zealand as refugees.Photo by Universal Images Group/Getty Images
WELLINGTON, New Zealand?A fish restaurant in New Zealand seemed an odd place to discuss a war that took place several thousand miles away and several decades ago, but there we were: Sea bream was served, sauvignon blanc was poured, the rain drummed down outside, and I listened while three septuagenarians smiled, laughed, and told me of the unimaginable tragedy they had lived through as children.
All three were born in eastern Poland, and all three were arrested and deported, along with hundreds of thousands of other Poles, after the Soviet invasion in 1939. Soviet soldiers and police packed their families into boxcars and exiled them to Siberia or central Asia, where many died of illness or starvation. Only in 1942, after Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, were survivors released and allowed to form a Polish army in exile. After crossing the border into Iran, the adults formed themselves into fighting units and began to travel back to Europe via Palestine.
But their children could not fight. Some were already orphans, having lost their parents to hunger or disease. More would lose their parents, or lose track of their parents, in the course of the war. An international appeal went out: Thousands of Polish children could not remain in Isfahan forever. Among others, New Zealand?a country that had never before accepted refugees?responded.
On Oct. 31, 1944, their ship pulled into Wellington harbor. More than 750 orphans, from toddlers to young teenagers, and 100 adult caretakers, teachers, and doctors disembarked. Hundreds of New Zealanders met them at the port, cheering and waving flags. More people lined the roads and waved as the Polish orphans drove through the countryside to a refugee camp created for them in Pahiatua, a village in the southeastern corner of New Zealand's North Island. There they stayed together, studied together, organized Polish scouting troops, and waited for the war to end so they could go home.
In one sense, this story does not have a happy ending. The war ended, but Poland did not regain its independence. Eastern Poland, where the children of Pahiatua had been born, became part of the Soviet Union. The western part of the country became a Soviet satellite state. Most inhabitants of the Pahiatua camp had nothing, and no one, to return to.
But in another sense there was a happy ending?one that we might usefully contemplate. In recent years, the gap in educational attainments of rich and poor Americans has grown wider, largely because of the enormous resources many of us pour into our children. Success, we have come to believe, depends on excellent schools, carefully organized leisure and, above all, on high-concentration, high-focus parenting.
The orphans of Pahiatua did not have any of these things. On the contrary, they had witnessed the deaths of parents and siblings, experienced terrible deprivation, and lost years of education before finding themselves in an alien country on the far side of the world. And yet they learned the language, they assimilated, they became doctors, lawyers, farmers, factory workers, teachers, and businessmen. Krystyna Tomaszyk?a Pahiatua child who became a pioneering social worker?told me over lunch that she was proud of their success. "We all had difficult childhoods. But none of us became criminals or vagabonds. We fit in."
There were reasons for that success. New Zealand boomed after the war: Logging and mining expanded, and work was easy to find. The Polish children had an unusually warm reception here at an unusual moment: Knowing where they had come from, people went out of their way to be kind.
But more than 70 years later, the now-elderly children of Pahiatua have an additional explanation. Zdzislaw Lepionka now believes that "the fact that we weree kept together, that we sang Polish songs and did scouting drills together? that was a kind of therapy." Lepionka was 3, he thinks?there are no records?at the time of his family's deportation. His mother died in exile; he lost track of his father, whom he never saw again. But he and those of his siblings who boarded the boat to Wellington long ago founded families and careers of their own. Decades later, he is still in touch with many of the "Pahiatua children," who still offer one another moral support.
Is an idyllic childhood a prerequisite for a happy life, or are there other roads to contentment? Are parents the key to future success, or are there other ways to get there? Is a turbulent childhood always a recipe for adult failure, or can some people overcome tragedy? I saw many amazing things in New Zealand?a volcano, a geyser, and some extraordinary lush, green landscapes?but none made me think more than that Wellington lunch.
This month, Slate is sharing stories of people who started over?like budget wonk Ina Garten, better known as the Barefoot Contessa?in our "Second Acts" Hive. We want to hear your tales, too. Please go here?to submit your story about starting over.
Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/second_acts/2013/06/the_children_of_pahiatua.html
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Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Monday, 24 June 2013
Shinhwa Academy
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Sunday, 23 June 2013
Pentagon flash drive ban has many exceptions
By David Alexander
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon has granted many exceptions, possibly numbering in the thousands, to allow staff members who administer secure computer networks to use flash drives and other portable storage devices, department spokesmen say.
The exceptions to policies barring the use of such devices could make it easier for rogue employees to remove sensitive documents. But officials say waivers go to people who update software and run helpdesk services for the Pentagon's vast computer network and are needed to run the system efficiently.
The U.S. government's handling of sensitive documents has come under scrutiny since Edward Snowden, a systems administrator for a contractor with the National Security Administration, copied classified materials at a Hawaii installation and leaked them to the news media.
Snowden used a simple flash drive to store the materials, according to a government source close to the investigation.
Storage devices have been a concern at the Defense Department since the 2008 Buckshot Yankee incident, in which a malicious software worm known as agent.btz was uploaded to military networks by a thumb drive.
Then-Deputy Secretary Bill Lynn declassified the incident in 2010 and U.S. Cyber Command, which was established in the wake of Buckshot Yankee, banned the devices.
About that same time, according to prosecutors, Private Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, copied thousands of documents onto CDs and a digital camera card and leaked them to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.
Since then, the Pentagon has bolstered efforts to prevent removal of classified data, Lieutenant Colonel James Gregory said. The department is in 100 percent compliance with directives to disable or tightly control use of removable media devices on the Pentagon's secure network, he said.
That means most users have restricted profiles and their computers do not recognize flash drives and other devices, like BlackBerrys, that may be plugged into USB ports, Pentagon spokesmen say.
The different military branches also have established programs to control and track personnel authorized to download data from the secure network, they say. Automatic systems instantly report if someone connects an unauthorized device, or inappropriately uses credentials for accessing the system.
While use of flash drives is largely barred, exceptions are granted to systems administrators who install software and manage helpdesk services for the department's millions of computers and nearly 600,000 mobile devices in some 15,000 networked groups.
Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart, a Pentagon spokesman, said the department was unable to specify how many exceptions had been given because authority is delegated to smaller units within the service and is not tracked at the department level.
Given the size of the system, it could be in the thousands, he said.
Steven Bucci, a former Pentagon official and now a cyber security expert for the conservative Heritage Foundation think-tank, said a computer network the size of the Pentagon's needed a large number of administrators at different levels to run efficiently.
Concentrating access and control in the hands of a small number of people could create even bigger risks if one of the trusted few decided to divulge information, he added, because they would have been exposed to a wider array of information.
"There is a certain point where you have to start trusting people and that becomes a very imperfect system," he said. "If you have a malicious insider - someone who has the authority to do stuff but then decides to violate the rules - you've got a problem, and there's ... very little you can do to stop that."
Decisions on who gets waivers are made by colonels or generals who have been granted that authority for their installations, brigades or other units, Pentagon officials said.
The Pentagon declined to comment on Snowden's case, citing an ongoing criminal investigation.
Bucci said that after the Manning case, the Pentagon tightened network security about as far as it could.
"What it comes down to then is the leadership, trying to watch your people, listen for those signals," he said. "But, heck, I mean even if you've got the best, most competent leaders and supervisors in the world, sometimes you're still going to miss those people."
(Reporting By David Alexander; Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Claudia Parsons)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pentagon-flash-drive-ban-many-exceptions-120227446.html
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Egypt's opposition reaches out to Mubarak's party
CAIRO (AP) ? Egypt's largest opposition grouping is reaching out to members of Hosni Mubarak's ruling party as it gears up for a protest campaign against the current Islamist president.
Members of the ousted autocrat's National Democratic Party have been derided as "feloul" or the "remnants" by both current President Mohammed Morsi and the liberal groups that are his most active opposition. A yet-untested "political isolation" clause in the new constitution may ban senior officials in the now-dissolved party from top posts.
But opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei told a Cairo conference on Saturday, "I can't isolate millions of Egyptian people because they were part of the National Democratic Party."
ElBaradei made his call in advance of mass protests planned by the opposition for June 30 to demand Morsi's ouster.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypts-opposition-reaches-mubaraks-party-121022114.html
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Saturday, 22 June 2013
Looking for a 1x1 Roleplaying Partner!
Hello everyone! Once again I'm searching a long term roleplaying partner! If our interested send me a message!
Rules and Expectations: My rules are pretty simple, just be active in the roleplay and no one-liners please, I know sometimes roleplays start to die but just try to avoid them. I want at least a good solid paragraph, put some thought into your responses. No powerplaying please. I would love to have at least one reply a day, I know that sometimes people get busy and I understand that. If your going to be gone for a long period of time, please let me know so I'm not waiting for a reply. Also, if you feel like the roleplay isn't going somewhere please say something and we can try to fix it, start a new roleplay, or end the roleplay all together. I don't really have any limits,but if you do let me know. That's about it for the rules (:
I'm really looking for someone who will play a male character. I can double as a male for a side character but I feel more comfortable playing a female.
Genres:
********VampirexWerewolf, werewolfxhuman, vampirexhuman - I don't mean the Twilight vampires, I mean the real bloody, gory vampires.
I will do more, but at the moment this is really what I'm craving. If you have any question send me a message (:. Hope to hear from you guys!
Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/6O8X4o51F1I/viewtopic.php
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Friday, 21 June 2013
Red Carpet Roundup with Brad Pitt, Billy Crystal, Alessandra Ambrosio and More
Red Carpet Roundup with Brad Pitt, Billy Crystal, Alessandra Ambrosio and More
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Submitted By: RT Staff
Date: Jun 20, 2013
Tags: World War ZSource: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1927711/news/1927711/
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Senators closing in on border security compromise
WASHINGTON (AP) ? White House-backed immigration legislation is gaining momentum in the Senate, where key lawmakers say they are closing in on a bipartisan compromise to spend tens of billions of dollars stiffening the bill's border security requirements without delaying legalization for millions living in the country unlawfully.
"This is a key moment in the effort to pass this bill. This is sort of the defining 24 to 36 hours," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Wednesday night after a day of private talks.
Under the emerging compromise, the government would grant legal status to immigrants living in the United States unlawfully at the same time the additional security was being put into place. Green cards, which signify permanent residency status, would be withheld until the security steps were complete.
Officials described a so-called border surge that envisions doubling the size of the Border Patrol with 20,000 new agents, constructing hundreds of miles of additional fencing along the border with Mexico and purchasing new surveillance drones to track would-be illegal border crossers. The cost of the additional agents alone was put at $30 billion over a decade.
Other details were not immediately available, although it was expected that modifications to the bill would range far beyond border security provisions. The changes under consideration were the result of negotiations involving the bipartisan Gang of Eight who drafted the bill and Republicans seeking alterations before they would commit to voting for it.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks were private.
If agreed to, the changes could clear the way for a strong bipartisan vote within a few days to pass the measure that sits atop President Barack Obama's second-term domestic agenda.
The developments came as Democrats who met with House Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday quoted him as saying he expected the House to pass its own version of an immigration bill this summer and Congress to have a final compromise by year's end.
Boehner, R-Ohio, already has said the legislation that goes to the House in the next month or two will not include a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the United States illegally.
Precise details of the pending agreement in the Senate were unavailable, but Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said it involved a major increase of resources to the border, including more manpower, fencing and technology. The underlying legislation already envisions more border agents; additional fencing along the U.S-Mexico border; surveillance drones; a requirement for employers to verify the legal status of potential workers; and a biometric system to track foreigners who enter and leave the United States at air and seaports and by land.
It was unclear what other portions of the legislation might be changed. There is pressure from some Republicans to make sure no federal benefits go to immigrants who are in the country illegally, at least until they become citizens.
"Our whole effort has been to build a bipartisan group that will support the bill," said Hoeven, who has not yet stated a position on the legislation. "That's what this is all about, and it's focused on border security."
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., one of the bill's most prominent supporters, said discussions with Republicans "have been really productive. We've made a lot of progress in the last 24 hours. Now we have some vetting to do with our respective allies."
The potential compromise came into focus one day after the Congressional Budget Office jolted lawmakers with an estimate saying that as drafted, the legislation would fail to prevent a steady increase in the future in the number of residents living in the United States illegally.
The estimate appeared to give added credibility to Republicans who have been pressing Democrats to toughen the border security provisions already written into the bill. Schumer and Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., met at midday with Graham, Hoeven and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. The Democrats and Graham are part of Gang of Eight.
If ratified, the compromise would mark concessions on both sides.
Some Republicans have been unwilling to support a bill that grants legal status to immigrants in the country illegally until the government certifies that the border security steps have achieved 90 percent effectiveness in stopping would-be border crossers.
On the other hand, Democrats have opposed Republican proposals to make legalization contingent on success in closing the border to illegal crossings. Under the legislation as drafted, legalization could begin as soon as a security plan was drafted, but a 10-year wait is required for a green card.
One plan to change that was sidetracked on a vote of 61-37.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said his proposal would require Congress to vote annually for five years on whether the border is secure. If lawmakers decide it is not, "then the processing of undocumented workers stops until" it is, he said. The decision would be made based on numerous factors, including progress toward completion of a double-layered fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and toward a goal of 95 percent capture of illegal entrants. A system to track the border comings and goings of foreigners is also required.
While the public debate was taking place, lawmakers involved in the private talks expressed optimism.
Across the Capitol, House Republican leaders sought to present a friendlier face to Hispanics ? a group that gave Obama more than 70 percent support in last year's presidential election.
Boehner met with the Democratic-dominated Congressional Hispanic Caucus, while rank-and-file members of his party reviewed areas of agreement with Latino religious leaders.
"It's a conversation Republicans want to have," Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said later at a news conference outside the Capitol.
Separately, the House Judiciary Committee approved legislation creating a program allowing farm workers to come to the United States to take temporary jobs in the United States.
The measure is one of several that the panel is considering in the final weeks of June as part of a piece-by-piece approach to immigration rather than the all-in-one bill that Senate is considering.
___
Associated Press writer Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.
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Female jury chosen for Zimmerman's trial
SANFORD, Fla. (AP) ? A jury of six women, five of them white and the other a minority, was picked Thursday to decide the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who says he shot an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in self-defense.
Prosecutors have said Zimmerman, 29, racially profiled the 17-year-old Martin as he walked back from a convenience store on Feb. 26, 2012, in the rain, wearing a dark hooded shirt. Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic.
The race and ethnicity of the minority chosen for the jury was not immediately available.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys chose the panel of six jurors after almost two weeks of jury selection. In Florida, 12 jurors are required only for criminal trials involving capital cases, when the death penalty is being considered.
Martin's shooting death and the initial decision not to charge Zimmerman led to public outrage and demonstrations around the nation, with some accusing Sanford police of failing to thoroughly investigate the shooting.
The six jurors were culled from a pool of 40 jury candidates who made it into a second round of jury questioning.
Before selecting the jurors Thursday, defense attorney Mark O'Mara explored potential jurors' views on whether they thought sympathy should play a role in deciding a case. Juror B-72, a young Hispanic man, said he wasn't affected by sympathetic people because he's never had many close relationships.
"So when a person might seem sympathetic, to me it's indifferent," he said.
O'Mara also asked the jurors about when they thought self-defense could be used. Juror H-6, a white man in his 30s, said he thought deadly force could be warranted if a person feels danger.
"I feel that if you're somewhere you're supposed to be and allowed to be, you should have the right to defend yourself," he said.
O'Mara met resistance from the judge when he tried to characterize the definition for justifiable use of deadly force.
Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda objected multiple times during O'Mara's line of questioning, eventually leading to Judge Debra Nelson to twice read what will be the jury instruction once the final jury is selection.
"I don't want either side to give an interpretation on the law," Nelson said.
O'Mara said screening the prospective jurors for any biases or prejudices "is probably as critical if not more critical than the evidence."
"If you bring that into the courtroom, then what we can't get is a fair verdict," he said.
___
Follow Kyle Hightower on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/KHightower
Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/women-jury-chosen-george-zimmermans-trial-185138496.html
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Xbox One Eighty: Microsoft Finds It Still Needs Gamers To Sell ...
Apparently, Microsoft has just remembered that it needs gamers to sell a gaming console. In a complete and humbling reversal, Microsoft's next-gen console just dropped some of the contentious bits that had formerly loyal gamers shouldering pitchforks and heading to Redmond. And thank goodness ? now we've got a fairer fight on our hands.
So what's out? Microsoft brought the axe down on its requirement that the Xbox One would need to connect to the Internet once every 24 hours, and also rolled back its most user unfriendly copy-protection (i.e., DRM) limitations. In an official Microsoft blog post, Interactive Entertainment President Don Mattrick invites gamers to "[t]rade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today." The company also dropped regional restrictions for games in the Xbox One's stable.
And unlike last week, the Xbox One leads the PlayStation 4 in launch day pre-orders?today.
Features On The Chopping Block
Unfortunately, hushing the public backlash against the Xbox One comes at the cost of a few previously-announced features, at least at launch. The Xbox One will not allow users to share games with up to 10 "family" members ? one of the system's cooler new perks.
And some old annoyances are back, too. For instance, users can download games from disk to the Xbox One's hard drive in order to improve performance ? but they'll still need to put the physical disk in the console to play them.
Was The Xbox 360 The Gamer's Console All Along?
Why did Microsoft change its tune? As much as the company paraded the next-generation Xbox One as an all-in-one living room entertainment system, it's still a gaming console at heart.
According to a surprising 2013 Nielsen report, the Xbox is where the gamers were all along. In 2012 PlayStation 3 users lead the charge on non-gaming entertainment, spending almost a quarter of their time streaming movies or TV shows ? not playing games ? on the console. Xbox 360 users spent around 13% of their usage time for video-on-demand and other forms of streaming media.
PlayStation 3 owners only spent 46% of their time playing online or offline games, allocating the rest to the broader entertainment features that are supposedly the domain of Microsoft, while Xbox 360 users spent 66% of their time playing games on the console. Sure, Sony's inclusion of Blu-Ray on its last-gen console counts for something, but video on demand and streaming media accounted for the lion's share of the difference ? and that's something both consoles have equal access to.
Can Microsoft's Backtrack Bring Gamers Back?
Last week, Sony jumped at the opportunity to spin the PlayStation 4 as a console built for gamers, not just for whatever family members happen to be ambling around the living room. And for once, the gaming community at large seemed agree on something ? namely that it wouldn't stand for the Xbox One's restrictive policies and it was happy to pre-order the PlayStation 4 instead. Pre-orders for Sony's PS4 poured in.
Now that Microsoft has been humbled by the core gamer demographic it threw to the wolves just last week, the big question is whether it's done enough to repair the damage. We'll have to track console pre-orders and social media to see how it all plays out, at least until the consoles hit the market this fall. By that time, the rules of the game may have shifted yet again.
Xbox 180 image via imgur, provenance unknown
Source: http://readwrite.com/2013/06/19/xbox-one-microsoft-drm-reversal
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Sunday, 16 June 2013
Microsoft's Andy Lees exits corporate development role, will announce a new job after his holiday (updated)
Seven months after Andy Lees became Microsoft's vice president of corporate development, the executive has decided that it's time for a rest. AllThingsD is reporting that the deposed former Windows Phone chief is taking a sabbatical to spend some time with his family in England, but will return to a new, currently undefined, role at Redmond later in the summer. Given that the country is currently suffering through one of its traditional summers, we suggest Mr. Lees packs an umbrella.
Update: Microsoft has contacted us to clarify that Lees is permanently relocating to the UK, but will remain with the company -- at a position that'll be announced once his sabbatical has ended.
Filed under: Mobile, Microsoft
Source: AllThingsD
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