Eideard

A small group of Internet security specialists gathered in Singapore this week to start up a global system to make e-mail and e-commerce more secure, end the proliferation of passwords and raise the bar significantly for Internet scam artists, spies and troublemakers.

“It won’t matter where you are in the world or who you are in the world, you’re going to be able to authenticate everyone and everything,” said Dan Kaminsky, an independent network security researcher who is one of the engineers involved in the project.

The Singapore event included an elaborate technical ceremony to create and then securely store numerical keys that will be kept in three hardened data centers there, in Zurich and in San Jose, Calif. The keys and data centers are working parts of a technology known as Secure DNS, or DNSSEC. DNS refers to the Domain Name System, which is a directory that connects names to numerical Internet addresses. Preliminary work on the security system had been going on for more than a year, but this was the first time the system went into operation, even though it is not quite complete.

The three centers are fortresses made up of five layers of physical, electronic and cryptographic security, making it virtually impossible to tamper with the system. Four layers are active now. The fifth, a physical barrier, is being built inside the data center…

Internet security specialists said the new security protocol would initially affect Web traffic and e-mail. Most users should be mostly protected by the end of the year, but the effectiveness for a user depends on the participation of the government, Internet providers and organizations and businesses visited online. Eventually the system is expected to have a broad effect on all kinds of communications, including voice calls that travel over the Internet, known as voice-over-Internet protocol…

The deployment of Secure DNS will significantly lower the cost of adding a layer of security, making it more likely that services built on the technology will be widely available, according to computer network security specialists. It will also potentially serve as a foundation technology for an ambitious United States government effort begun this spring to create a system to ensure “trusted identities” in cyberspace.

RTFA for the wherefores and whys. Here’s a link for the how. Adding more and especially better security, authentication is overdue for the Web. Too many people concentrated on making a buck from the phenomenon. Not enough working at making it safe for every user.

For wild animal lovers not content with watching tigers and gorillas during the day, a growing number of zoos are offering a more thrilling after-dark experience — overnight stays.

From Philadelphia to Denver nocturnal visitors are learning what happens when the gates slam shut, the sun goes down and the moon rises over some of America’s most well-known zoos…

The Philadelphia Zoo has been running its Roars and Snores Overnight Programs for about 20 years. The most popular theme program is the Night Flight Overnight Program where children aged five to 12 sleep in the zoo’s tree house.

The overnight stays are not only popular with young children. Teen programs are offered at many zoos for those young adults interested in the zoo industry. They are also a favorite venue for birthday sleepovers, family trips and with scout troops…

Most overnight stays include a night tour during which youngsters experience the mysterious sights and unusual sounds of the zoo without the usual distractions. A midnight snack and breakfast are also served…

Guests at the new overnight program at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Queens Zoo in New York make breakfast treats for parrots, bears, pigs, pumas and coyotes, and watch the keepers feed them to the animals the next morning, said Education Curator Tom Hurtubise.

With visitors at the Denver Zoo coming from as far away as Wyoming and Montana, Patterson said parents tend to be more worried about leaving their children than the children themselves. They have rarely had to call up a parent in the middle of the night.

“They love it,” Patterson said about the children. “For many, it’s their first overnight away from home. They are so excited that by the end of the day they are so tired that they have no opportunity to worry.”

Kids with groups of their peers, families sharing a learning experience together, any number of combinations can form up for a special adventure. Consider it. Add a special night to your kid’s memories.

In our neck of the prairie, the Albuquerque Zoo offers guided night walks for $10 – discounts available for the kiddies and old geezers like me.

Mexican troops fanned out across the border state of Tamaulipas this weekend, taking over security operations in half the state’s cities and towns.

About 2,800 soldiers were deployed to 22 of 43 cities in the state, which borders Texas and is among the most violent in the country. The show of force came as President Felipe Calderon defended his drug war strategy in the face of mounting criticism from activists.

The soldiers took over policing duties in the state’s largest cities, including the capital, Ciudad Victoria, and the border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros…

However, a municipal official in Nuevo Laredo told CNN that local police have been taken off the streets in the 22 cities while they are investigated for corruption. Crooked cops are among the biggest obstacles to combating the country’s drug cartels. The official spoke anonymously due to the sensitivity of the subject. “Sensitivity”? He could be killed.

In Nuevo Laredo, the military influx was so large that the soldiers couldn’t find room in the city’s barracks and had to lodge in two hotels, the official said…

Other towns taken over by the military include San Fernando, where authorities found mass graves containing more than 200 bodies this year. They began finding the graves while investigating the kidnapping of passengers from a bus in late March.

San Fernando is also where last year, the bodies of 72 migrants from Central and South America were discovered at a ranch.

The Zetas drug cartel have been blamed for the mass graves and for the deaths of the migrants…

Ciudad Mier, San Fernando and the city of El Mante will also be the locations for soon-to-be-built military installations.

There aren’t a bunch of reasons left for anyone to cross the border into Mexico. I wouldn’t go to a Farmacia to buy medications at prices below the highway robbery authorized by Congress here in the States – except in daylight with a full tank of gas. That’s about it.

A Newcastle University team has discovered that Type 2 diabetes can be reversed by an extreme low calorie diet alone…

In an early stage clinical trial of 11 people, funded by Diabetes UK, all reversed their diabetes by drastically cutting their food intake to just 600 calories a day for two months. And three months later, seven remained free of diabetes.

Professor Roy Taylor of Newcastle University who led the study and is also Director of the Newcastle Magnetic Resonance Centre said …, “This is a radical change in understanding Type 2 diabetes. It will change how we can explain it to people newly diagnosed with the condition. While it has long been believed that someone with Type 2 diabetes will always have the disease, and that it will steadily get worse, we have shown that we can reverse the condition.”…

Under close supervision of a medical team, 11 people who had developed diabetes later in life were put on an extreme diet of just 600 calories a day consisting of liquid diet drinks and non-starchy vegetables. They were matched to a control group of people without diabetes and then monitored over eight weeks…

After just one week, the Newcastle University team found that their pre-breakfast blood sugar levels had returned to normal.

A special MRI scan of their pancreas revealed that the fat levels in the pancreas had returned from an elevated level to normal (from around 8% to 6%). In step with this, the pancreas regained the normal ability to make insulin and as a result, blood sugar after meals steadily improved.

The volunteers were then followed-up three months later. During this time they had returned to eating normally but had received advice on portion size and healthy eating. Of the ten people re-tested, seven remained free of diabetes…

The usual precautions apply: Don’t go putting yourself on a 600 calorie a day diet; don’t make too many assumptions or draw too many conclusions from a single small study; etc. All that said, this is indeed interesting.

Thanks, Tom, for finding the story; and Eid, for letting me steal it.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

When it comes to jobs, the hypocrisy of Republicans is working overtime.

They don’t think Barack Obama deserves any credit for creating even a sliver of new jobs, arguing that it’s the private sector, not the president, who has power of the nation’s economy.

But boy, are they giddy over Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who they say deserves all the credit in the world for singlehandedly creating new jobs in the Lone Star State. So, we are told, presidents don’t create jobs but governors do — especially if they’re in your party and thinking about running for president…

First, I should say that despite my better judgment, I like Rick Perry. I disagree with some of his politics, and I think a lot of what he says and does is just political theater designed to sell his favorite product: Rick Perry…

Up close, his secret weapon is that quality that Bill Clinton possessed — the ability to lock in on someone and make him feel as if he is the only person in the room. It’s one of the reasons that I’d like to see Perry run for president…

But none of that seems to matter much to his Republican supporters around the country. For them, Perry’s major selling points are jobs, jobs and more jobs. Many of those who are pushing Perry to enter the presidential race are fiscal conservatives who think his No. 1 asset is that Texas has been on a rampage for the past 10 years creating jobs and luring companies away from states such as New York and California.

The jobs are real enough. The Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas recently estimated that, since June 2009, Texas has produced about 37% of the new jobs in the country. Perry claims the figure is closer to 48%. Either way, it’s impressive.

It is no wonder that, according to data recently released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Texas has now become the second-largest economy in the United States. It displaced New York, and it seems to be closing in on California. Texas now represents 8.3% of the entire U.S. economy…

But, as long we’re being honest, we ought to acknowledge that there is another, not often talked about, dimension to the Texas Economic Miracle…

Read the rest of this entry »

European Union leaders gave the go-ahead on Friday for Croatia to join the EU, after six years of preparations marred by slow democratic reforms in Zagreb and the EU’s reluctance to expand.

The former Yugoslav state of 4.4 million people should be able to wrap up accession negotiations next week, they said at a summit in Brussels, but warned the Zagreb government that it has to continue to fight widespread corruption with “vigor.”

The recommendation marks a turnaround for Croatia, which struggled for years to convince the EU’s 27 governments that its judiciary reforms would produce genuine results and prove it has recognized its role in the Balkan wars in the 1990s…

Several EU governments, led by Britain and the Netherlands, pushed for strict monitoring of Croatia during the ratification process and had insisted that the completion of talks remains open-ended.

But others wanted a more clear message. Many EU politicians are hopeful that rewarding Croatia for a last-minute reform push will persuade other governments in the western Balkans that the EU is willing to accept new members if they are ready…

EU enlargement is likely to remain on the backburner in the coming years, however, with voters around the continent wary of its cost at a time of economic austerity…

Croatia, the richest of EU hopefuls in the Balkans and which relies heavily on tourism, is hoping that accession will bolster its appeal to foreign funds at a time when Europe’s financial woes have slashed direct investment in the region.

Not until they change out the tablecloth-looking football kit.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

A number of old-fashioned Republican conservatives decided Friday night they would be contradicting their own beliefs in the American Constitution if they voted to deny fellow citizens the same rights of marriage they enjoy themselves – for any reason. The issue turned on gender identity. The decision was made as it should be – on the virtues and value of our Constitution.

The right-wing Conservative Party of New York State, activists from many religions who felt their beliefs take precedence over civil law, Tea Party activists of one or another stripe all tried to turn those Republicans away from acting in concert with Democrats who supported this bill. They failed.

Progressives, Democrats, LGBT activists and civil libertarians, who have toiled for years to bring this measure to pass in a state that has a long history of democracy and struggles for equal rights – won their case. They have prevailed.

Good for you, New York. And special kudos to those Republicans who turned away from the mean-spirited reactionaries and bigots who have captured so much of that Party throughout the United States. I write often about traditional American conservatives. Their history has affected the ethics of my family – and my extended family – throughout my life. Honesty, rejection of hypocrisy, care for the natural wonders of this planet, a willingness to understand and seek understanding in the joys of education, a fair chance at a good life for all – are what I was raised with.

Many in that extended family have walked away from what the Republican Party has become in these last ten years. I’d be the last to suggest there’s a qualitative change among today’s Republicans – outside of the states that never left those values in the first place.

Good for you, New York.

Anyone contemplating Botox treatments for excessive sweating might want to consider the case of a U.S. teen-ager.

The 17-year-old girl, a typical whiz at sending text messages from her phone, had Botox injections to control excessive sweating on her palms — and afterwards, she couldn’t text as well, according to a case study published in Archives of Dermatology.

Doctors who use Botox said they had never heard complaints of texting impairment from patients, but they added that it wasn’t entirely unexpected since the injections have been linked to muscle weakness.

“I would definitely discuss this with my patients going forward as a specific potential side effect,” said Julia Lehman at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, who treated the teen-ager.

The case “shows the importance of thinking about modern-day activities and how our treatments could potentially impair some of these modern-day activities such as texting.”

Even if the priority assigned to those activities is stupid!

Lehman’s patient suffered from excessive sweating, or hyperhidrosis, on her hands for several years. Prescription antiperspirants are usually the first treatment step. But when the teen didn’t get any better, Lehman moved on to Botox — which, given in tiny injections on the palm and fingers, blocks the signal that causes sweat to be released.

But it also relaxes other muscles not related to sweating in the process.

A week after getting Botox, the patient sweated much less, but her texting skills had decreased as well, Lehman reported. The impairment lasted for about six weeks, although the patient did not need a new Botox injection for several months…

Lehman said that since Botox is now being used in younger patients, this may require doctors to be in tune with side effects that, like texting, mostly affect that group.

I wonder if such Botox treatments might affect other oft unmentioned teenage preoccupations – like masturbation?

Peter Falk with Grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi

Peter Falk died at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., Thursday night. He was 83.

The “Columbo” star won four Emmy Awards for his portrayal of the cigar-chomping detective who always looked as if he’d just rolled out of bed. Falk played Columbo on television regularly from 1971 to 1978 and then sporadically from 1989 until 2003…

In a court document filed in December 2008, Falk’s daughter Catherine Falk said her father was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

“Columbo” began its history in 1971 as part of the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie series…

Columbo — he never had a first name — presented a contrast to other TV detectives. “He looks like a flood victim,” Falk once said. “You feel sorry for him. He appears to be seeing nothing, but he’s seeing everything. Underneath his dishevelment, a good mind is at work.”…

Columbo’s trademark was an ancient raincoat Falk had once bought for himself…

Peter Michael Falk was born Sept. 16, 1927…. At 3 he had one eye removed because of cancer. “When something like that happens early,” he said in a 1963 Associated Press interview, “you learn to live with it. It became the joke of the neighborhood. If the umpire ruled me out on a bad call, I’d take the fake eye out and hand it to him.”…

When not working, Falk spent time in the garage of his Beverly Hills home. He had converted it into a studio where he created charcoal drawings. He took up art in New York when he was in the Simon play and one day happened into the Art Students League.

He recalled: “I opened a door and there she was, a nude model, shoulders back, a light from above, buck-ass naked. The female body is awesome. Believe me, I signed up right away.”

Falk is survived by his wife Shera and his two daughters.

High on a rocky ridge in the desert, nestled among the brush, is the topmost part of a clock that has been ticking for thousands of years.

‘In the year 4000, you’ll go see this clock and you’ll wonder, “Why on Earth did they build this?”‘ — Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos No one knows who built it, or why. They built it well, and even now it keeps perfect time. All we know of these strange people is that they were obsessed with the future.
Why else would they build something that had no purpose except to mark time for thousands of years?

The rich man is Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, and he has indeed started construction on a clock that he hopes will run for 10,000 years.

For Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, the clock is not just the ultimate prestige timepiece. It’s a symbol of the power of long-term thinking. His hope is that building it will change the way humanity thinks about time, encouraging our distant descendants to take a longer view than we have…

It’s a monumental undertaking that Bezos and the crew of people designing and building the clock repeatedly compare to the Egyptian pyramids. And as with the pharaohs, it takes a certain amount of ego — even hubris — to consider building such a monument. But it’s also an unparalleled engineering problem, challenging its makers to think about how to keep a machine intact, operational and accurate over a time span longer than most human-made objects have even existed.

I’ve been following discussions about building this clock for over a decade. Starting with articles by Danny Hillis and Stewart Brand at the Edge and Wired.

Check out the website. Reflect upon the task. It ain’t Ozymandias – I hope.