“What’s the next ‘shocking’ headline: ‘Prostitution in Vegas!?’”
March 15th, 2012As many of you noticed, I took a pass on posting the boring op-ed piece about the Goldman Sachs vampire squid.
Oh shock horror, the squid makes fun of blowing up their own customers. I mean, no shit, Sherlock. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing turned out to be a frontrunning setup for the short side action that resulted.
But, anyway, this is funny.
Via: Bloomberg:
“The argument that Goldman has become increasingly profit- driven, sometimes at the expense of clients’ best interests, and that some employees use vulgar and disrespectful language, is hardly news,” Whitney Tilson, founder of hedge fund T2 Partners LLC, wrote in an e-mailed commentary. “What’s the next ‘shocking’ headline: ‘Prostitution in Vegas!?’”
Ex-Microsoft Employee Launches ‘Fixing Windows 8’ Initiative
March 15th, 2012It looks like Microsoft is going to Vista itself again, or worse, with Windows 8.
If you’re responsible for supporting Windows users, you better be sitting down as you watch the video below.
Hopefully, Microsoft will come to its senses and include a ‘Windows 7’ mode for mouse and keyboard users…
Ah well, at least Microsoft won’t pull the plug on updates for Windows 7 until at least 2020.
Via: Tom’s Hardware:
A former Microsoft employee has launched a “Fix Windows 8” website that provides solutions for the design issues general mouse/keyboard users are experiencing.
…
On his website, Bibik links to a video uploaded to YouTube recorded by Chris Pirillo which shows his father trying — and failing — to use Windows 8 Consumer Preview. As Bibik points out, power users should be able to figure out how the mouse works in Windows 8; novices and new users will be completely lost. As seen in the video, the “dad” couldn’t even figure out how to get back to the tiles after opening Windows Explorer.
Secret Organic Gardens for China’s Elite
March 15th, 2012Via: Los Angeles Times:
At a glance, it is clear this is no run-of-the-mill farm: A 6-foot spiked fence hems the meticulously planted vegetables and security guards control a cantilevered gate that glides open only to select cars.
“It is for officials only. They produce organic vegetables, peppers, onions, beans, cauliflowers, but they don’t sell to the public,” said Li Xiuqin, 68, a lifelong Shunyi village resident who lives directly across the street from the farm but has never been inside. “Ordinary people can’t go in there.”
Until May, a sign inside the gate identified the property as the Beijing Customs Administration Vegetable Base and Country Club. The placard was removed after a Chinese reporter sneaked inside and published a story about the farm producing organic food so clean the cucumbers could be eaten directly from the vine.
Elsewhere in the world, this might be something to boast about. Not in China. Organic gardening here is a hush-hush affair in which the cleanest, safest products are largely channeled to the rich and politically connected.
Many of the nation’s best food companies don’t promote or advertise. They don’t want the public to know that their limited supply is sent to Communist Party officials, dining halls reserved for top athletes, foreign diplomats, and others in the elite classes. The general public, meanwhile, dines on foods that are increasingly tainted or less than healthful — meats laced with steroids, fish from ponds spiked with hormones to increase growth, milk containing dangerous additives such as melamine, which allows watered-down milk to pass protein-content tests.
“The officials don’t really care what the common people eat because they and their family are getting a special supply of food,” said Gao Zhiyong, who worked for a state-run food company and wrote a book on the subject.
Awesome Power of Kickstarter: Digital Bolex Project
March 15th, 2012They’re triple the goal after just a couple of days.
Via: Kickstarter:
Related: Digital Bolex
FBI Issued Almost 300,000 National Security Letters Over the Last Decade
March 14th, 2012Via: Wired:
National security letters are written demands from the FBI that compel internet service providers, credit companies, financial institutions and others to hand over confidential records about their customers, such as subscriber information, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, websites visited and more. NSLs have been used since the 1980s, but the Patriot Act expanded the kinds of records that could be obtained with them. They do not require court approval, and they come with a built-in gag order.
The public has become aware of only a handful of some 300,000 NSLs handed out over the last decade, and those became public only after the recipients launched legal battles opposing them. As a result of these battles, courts have chipped away at the gag order requirement as a violation of the First Amendment, and internal watchdogs have uncovered some abuses of the FBI’s NSL authority. But the letters are still one of the FBI’s most powerful tools; a tool that is rarely discussed inside or outside Congress these days.
Research Credit: noncompliant
U.S. E-Voting System Cracked in Less Than 48 Hours
March 14th, 2012Via: H-Security:
Researchers at the University of Michigan have reported that it took them only a short time to break through the security functions of a pilot project for online voting in Washington, D.C. “Within 48 hours of the system going live, we had gained near complete control of the election server”, the researchers wrote in a paper that has now been released. “We successfully changed every vote and revealed almost every secret ballot.” The hack was only discovered after about two business days – and most likely only because the intruders left a visible trail on purpose.
In 2010, the developers of the municipal e-voting system that enables voters living abroad to vote via a web site, invited security experts to conduct tests. The university researchers say that the project was developed in cooperation with the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation (OSDV) and that other US states have also worked on services similar to Washington’s “Digital Vote-by-Mail Service”. They also praise the system’s transparency as exemplary but point out that its architecture has fundamental security weaknesses and was not able to withstand a shell injection and other common hacker techniques.
Marines Asked to Disarm Before Leon Panetta Speech; ‘Somebody Got Itchy’
March 14th, 2012Via: MSNBC:
In a highly unusual move, around 200 U.S. Marines were asked to leave their weapons outside the tent where U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was set to speak during his trip to Afghanistan on Wednesday.
Although the military said the order was not given in response to Sunday’s shooting of 16 Afghan civilians allegedly by an American soldier, it possibly underlined how high tensions were running after the incident.
“You’ve got one of the most important people in the world in the room,” Major General Mark Gurganus told reporters at Camp Leatherneck, dismissing concerns related to the shooting. “This is not a big deal.”
He said he had given the order because the two dozen Afghan soldiers also there were unarmed and he did not want to treat them differently.
…
According to reporters at Camp Leatherneck, the Marines were waiting to hear Panetta’s speech when they were abruptly told by their commander to get up, leave their weapons, including M16 and M-4 automatic rifles and 9 mm pistols, outside and return unarmed.
“All I know is I was told to get the weapons out,” Sergeant Major Brandon Hall told The New York Times. Asked why, he replied, “Somebody got itchy, that’s all I’ve got to say. Somebody got itchy; we just adjust.”
More: First Time Marines Disarmed During an Address by Their Own Secretary of Defense
US, EU and Japan Challenge China on Rare Earths at WTO
March 14th, 2012Via: BBC:
The US, Japan and the European Union have filed a case against China at the World Trade Organization, challenging its restrictions on rare earth exports.
US President Barack Obama accused China of breaking agreed trade rules as he announced the case at the White House.
Beijing has set quotas for exports of rare earths, which are critical to the manufacture of high-tech products from hybrid cars to flat-screen TVs.
It is the first WTO case to be filed jointly by the US, EU and Japan.
They argue that by limiting exports, China, which produces more than 95% of the world’s rare earth metals, has pushed up prices.
The co-ordinated complaints are the first step in a process that could ultimately lead to sanctions against China.
Visual Representations of Data from Smartphone GPS Logs
March 14th, 2012Alternate title: This Is How You Look to MAIN CORE.
Via: Geoloqi Blog:
These are images of map generated entirely from GPS logs gathered by various versions of the Geoloqi sample application for iPhone and Android for the past 3.5 years. Once gathered, the data was run through a custom script that projects the GPS logs onto a 2D image plane. There is a little bit of logic to smooth out the lines and remove some (but not all) GPS noise.
Britain: CCTV at Petrol Stations Will Prevent Uninsured Cars from Being Fueled
March 14th, 2012Wow. How long until this is linked to other databases? Unpaid property taxes, unlicensed pets, overdue library books, or who knows what else???
Via: Mirror:
Cameras at petrol stations will automatically stop uninsured or untaxed vehicles from being filled with fuel, under new government plans.
Downing Street officials hope the hi-tech system will crack down on the 1.4 million motorists who drive without insurance.
Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras are already fitted in thousands of petrol station forecourts.
Drivers can only fill their cars with fuel once the camera has captured and logged the vehicle’s number plate.
Currently the system is designed to deter motorists from driving off without paying for petrol.
But under the new plans, the cameras will automatically cross-refererence with the DVLA’s huge database.
When a car is flagged as being uninsured or untaxed, the system will prevent the fuel pump being used on that vehicle.
Research Credit: jb
