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Friday, December 13, 2002
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Girlism remains a man's, man's, man's world.. [ via Caveat Lector ] Elayne Riggs over at BlogSisters points out the flaw in this whole Girlism business. Besides, the entire rule of judging a woman's worth primarily by her outward appearance seems to me a male thing - and when guys set the rules, they're in charge of the game, and there's no way a woman can "win" by playing a game she doesn't control.Emphasis Added [More Like This WebLog]
6:30:35 PM 
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Coffee I broke our small cafetier today so I just boiled some water, measured out 200ml boiling water, added two tablespoons of ground coffee, stirred, waited three minutes and then poured it through a tea strainer. Best coffee I"ve had in ages.
Why do we need cafetiers, filter machines, percolators, or even espresso machines? [A Pound of Trumpets]
6:29:36 PM
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Lamb Chops. I've been flicking through a book I was given last year called "On Food and Cooking" It's all about, well I'm sure you can work it out.
One of the chapters concerns the marinading of food and how it can't possibly work. Evidence is presented and you think "This guy, a professor, seems to know a thing or two. He must be right" But of course, he isn't. Well not always anyway.
I've been flicking through this book, trying to find the reference; I can't. So forget the above. And it is a very interesting book. I either dreamt the stuff about marinading or read it somewhere else. Nevermind, I always marinade lamb chops in a mixture of oil and lemon juice, with some crushed garlic and seasoning. I know it makes sense and I can taste the difference.
I now marinate legs of lamb as well, after I've studded them with garlic.
On a similar theme I was watching a TV program about the weather and the part (quite a big part) the sun plays . The presenter claimed the sun was 100 times larger than the earth. This didn't seem right to me although it turns out to be partly true. The diameter of the sun is 100 times the diameter of the earth but the volume of the sun is 1,000,000 times greater than the earths volume. This surely gives a better understanding of the difference between the sun and earth.
Again, you can't help but question everything else the chap was saying. [A Pound of Trumpets]
6:28:30 PM
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Technology: Techweb > News > online banking > BofA To Provide Images Of Checks, Deposit Slips To Onli. 16:46 ET - TechWeb [NewsBlip.com]
Remember, no matter what they would have you believe, they wouldn't do it, if it weren't cheaper for them.
Remember when ATM's were first put in place. They were touted as being there for your convenience, when in fact, they were there to reduce the face to face customer contact. Been in a bank lately and looked at the lines, and the looks on the customers faces. Any wonder that over 60 percent of banks customers don't believe any of the "service" advertising, or feel that their bank truly cares about them as a customer.
6:27:19 PM
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Microsoft Strong Arms Windows Enthusiast [Windows Informant]
If you really believe that Microsoft wants to be the big friendly company they're advertising, you might want to read this story about some of the strong arm tactics they're still using. It's a good example of what happens when someone gains a dominant position. Thus my premise that there should always be more than one choice for the consumer. e.g. Do you like your cable rates these days?
6:23:25 PM
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2003 forecast--Linux will eat Unix. "Among one technology researcher's predictions for 2003 is this sobering thought: A major cyberterrorism event will disrupt the economy and bring the Internet to its knees for at least a day or two."... [Lockergnome's Bits and Bytes] here's the full story.....along with other predictions for the coming year
2003 forecast--Linux will eat Unix
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By Ed Frauenheim
Special to ZDNet News
December 13, 2002, 4:18 AM PT
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Among one technology researcher's predictions for 2003 is this sobering thought: A major cyberterrorism event will disrupt the economy and bring the Internet to its knees for at least a day or two.
The event could take the form of a denial-of-service attack, a network intrusion or even a physical attack on key network assets, said John Gantz, chief research officer of IDC. Gantz spoke Thursday during a teleconference in which the research company laid out its annual forecast of technology developments for the coming year.
Gantz sees the cyberthreat arising from a potential war with Iraq, which has been the object of intense international scrutiny. The United States government has charged the Middle Eastern country with harboring weapons of mass destruction and has made clear its displeasure with the country's ruler, Saddam Hussein.
"The war with Iraq will galvanize hackers," Gantz said.
Worries about cyberterrorism have flourished in recent years, especially since the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. But security experts and other have said that--so far--the threat has been overblown and misunderstood, and that physical attacks remain far easier to carry out.
IDC's list of 10 predictions included sunnier projections, too, however. Chief among them was the company's view that spending on information technology and telecommunications will grow by more than 6 percent next year, reaching $1.9 trillion. Gantz said current data on U.S. IT spending and revenues from technology vendors worldwide are encouraging.
IDC generates the list of 10 projections by polling its more-than-700 analysts. Gantz said the company is usually right with 7 out of its 10 predictions. Successful predictions from last year, he said, included "streaming media will catch on," "corporations will reset security plans" and "Web services hype reaches hysteria levels."
IDC guessed wrong about widespread use of digital identification services such as Microsoft's Passport product. The company was also off-target in predicting an IT industry recovery beginning in mid-2002.
"We know in hindsight that's definitely not the case," Gantz said. "We missed that one."
Other visions in IDC's crystal ball for 2003 are that sales of midrange server computers will rebound to positive growth after a 20 percent contraction in 2002; that adoption of 64-bit computing will be slow; and that the Linux operating system will snag market share from the Unix operating system.
"We're saying that Linux will eat Unix," Gantz said.
According to IDC, a recent trend is companies deploying vital commercial applications--such as stock exchange software--on clusters of computers running Linux.
Other predictions from IDC include the following.
The project-based IT services market will be flat or down again, as companies scale down project size and turn to IT outsourcing.
Wireless local area networks will take off, which will delay the introduction of so-called third-generation wireless communications networks. IDC expects telecommunications carriers to use visitor-based networks--so-called "hot spots"--for high-speed Internet access.
Telecommunications capital expenditures will drop again, by at least 5 percent. But spending in emerging markets such as China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Russia will grow significantly, and spending to support cellular services will grow.
Online messaging will grow by 27 percent, with no guarantee that productivity will grow. The total number of emails sent will rise 30 percent to 40 billion a day, and the number of corporate instant messaging users will double to more than 30 million. Spam and automatic alerts and notifications will grow to almost 40 percent of all email traffic. "There will be more spam in your life," Gantz said.
Imaging will go digital, but the industry will still center on film. Digital images--from scanners, digital cameras and mobile devices--will surpass the number of film images captured per day by the end of the year. But because of factors including omnipresence and ease-of-use, film will remain relevant.
Apart from those 10 prophecies, Gantz said software growth will be a relatively modest 7.5 percent worldwide. The hottest software sectors will include security products and software that simplifies or manages programs already in place, he said. What's more, IT outsourcing--in which companies manage a client's IT operations or take over tasks such as tech support--is the fastest-growing part of IT services, boasting double-digit growth, Gantz said. The shift of IT work offshore will continue, he said. If you're going to provide IT outsourcing, "you're going to have to farm some of that work overseas," Gantz said.
IDC also expects some major statistical thresholds to be surpassed in the coming year:
Cell phones installed: more than 1.5 billion eMail boxes: more than 1 billion PCs installed: more than 600 million Internet users: more than 700 million Mobile Internet users: more than 250 million Broadband households: more than 80 million IT spending: more than $900 billion Telecom spending: more than $975 billion Internet commerce: more than $1.5 trillion.
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6:04:24 PM
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SBC-Yahoo Partnership Cuts User Privacy [Slashdot]
| LAZARUS AT LARGE |
Perils in switching to Yahoo
David Lazarus |
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Friday, December 13, 2002  |
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Pacific Bell may be taking on a new name, but it's still up to the same old tricks.
The company's customers were outraged when I wrote how Pac Bell, which now wants to be known by the moniker of its corporate parent, SBC, slipped an insert into recent bills advising that personal information will be shared with business partners unless the customer says otherwise.
Pac Bell is currently e-mailing high-speed Internet subscribers urging them to download new software to accommodate the company's marketing partner, Yahoo.
The upgrade, Pac Bell promises, will provide "incredible new features and services."
What the company isn't saying is that Pac Bell DSL subscribers will be exposed to a whole new world of commercial exploitation as Yahoo mines their personal information and online habits to blitz them with ads and enroll them in unwanted marketing schemes.
SBC won't say how many DSL customers Pac Bell has, but acknowledges that the majority of the parent company's 2 million subscribers nationwide are in California.
According to Yahoo's -- not Pac Bell's -- privacy policy for DSL subscribers, the Sunnyvale Internet powerhouse will make use of "information about you that is personally identifiable like your name, address, e-mail address or phone number, and that is not otherwise publicly available."
That's not the half of it. For some services, Yahoo says it will request Pac Bell customers' Social Security number "and information about your assets."
The online company says it will track DSL subscribers' Internet browsing and share personal information with "trusted partners." Such info will be used in part "to customize the advertising and content you see."
"Once you create an SBC Yahoo account and sign in to our services, you are not anonymous to us," Yahoo warns in surprisingly stark language.
Yet nowhere is any of this spelled out in the Pac Bell/SBC privacy policy that most Pac Bell customers would see -- if they're among the relatively tiny handful of people who wade through all that fine print.
Pac Bell says only that "Yahoo has its own privacy policy and may use your personal information in ways which are different than SBC's policy contemplates."
How's that for full disclosure?
Larry Meyer, an SBC spokesman, said that the language in Pac Bell's privacy policy is clear enough and that customers aren't being hoodwinked.
"We think we're being very straightforward," he told me. "The two privacy policies are right there for users to see."
That is, if Pac Bell DSL subscribers are willing to go to the trouble of reading not one but two separate privacy policies, especially the one for the company that they never intended to be a customer of in the first place.
Nissa Anklesaria, a Yahoo spokeswoman, said she too believes Pac Bell customers are being given ample opportunity to understand that their personal information is going to be spread among even more marketers than before.
"We're very comfortable with the way we've presented the information to SBC DSL users," she said.
But unless those users read both policies, they won't know that Yahoo monitors and records all visits to the thousands of Web pages constituting the Yahoo network, plus Yahoo's online classified listings, Hotjobs.
Also, while SBC's privacy policy says the company will use customers' information "to investigate complaints and protect SBC Yahoo and its members," Yahoo's policy takes this sort of thinking a step further. It says:
"We believe it is necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of Yahoo's terms of use or as otherwise required by law."
This significantly more proactive policy will be unknown to Pac Bell customers unless they take it upon themselves to learn about how Yahoo operates.
There's nothing wrong with SBC and Yahoo having their own privacy policies. But when Pac Bell DSL subscribers are being pushed to switch to the new-and- improved SBC Yahoo service, you'd think Pac Bell would be bending over backward to inform them about how things are changing.
"This information is readily accessible," SBC's Meyer insisted. "You can easily compare the two privacy policies."
You can just as easily choose another DSL provider.
MUM'S THE WORD: Speaking of keeping things quiet, perhaps you saw a federal judge's decision the other day rejecting Congress' efforts to find out whom Vice President Dick Cheney met with last year while formulating national energy policy.
U.S. District Court Judge John Bates, who was appointed to the bench by President Bush, ruled that the lawsuit brought by Congress' General Accounting Office undercut the administration's ability to shape domestic policy.
Bush and Cheney have both argued that details of Cheney's talks with energy industry leaders need to be kept secret so that the White House can receive "unvarnished advice" on important issues.
My thinking is that if those documents supported the administration's contention that Enron and its cronies had no influence over official policy, they'd have been released long ago.
We'll probably never know for sure, though.
David Lazarus' column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He also can be seen regularly on KTVU's "Mornings on 2." Send tips or feedback to dlazarus@sfchronicle.com.
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6:01:26 PM
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DIRECTV Broadband Shuts Down [Slashdot]
December 13, 2002
Dear DIRECTV Broadband Customer,
We have some difficult news to share. With the dramatic change in the capital markets and the significant shift in the telecom operating environment, DIRECTV Broadband can no longer stand as an independent business.
It is our sincere regret to inform you that DIRECTV Broadband will discontinue operations. DIRECTV Broadbands network will be operational for a minimum of 30 days. We are working with our last-mile carriers to determine alternatives for your broadband service.
We know you have many questions. The best way to keep up-to-date is to refer to www.directvdsl.com . Well keep this site current with the latest information on your account, billing issues and next steps.
If you are a DIRECTV subscriber, your satellite television service will not be disrupted in any way. Please do not call DIRECTV customer service regarding your DIRECTV DSL high-speed Internet service, as they will not be able to help you.
It has been our privilege to serve you.
Sincerely,
DIRECTV Broadband Customer Care
5:59:11 PM
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Deaths from antibiotic-resistant bugs soar in Britain [Reuters Health eLine]
LONDON (Reuters Health) - Deaths in Britain from drug-resistant strains of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus have increased dramatically in recent years and many could have been prevented, scientists said on Friday.
A report by the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) shows that of deaths linked to Staphylococcus infection, the percentage of cases involving methicillin-resistant strains (MRSA) rose from 7.5% in 1993 to 25% in 1998.
"The increase mirrors the increase in MRSA, so how we're responding to MRSA isn't working and people are dying from it, " said Dr. Natasha Crowcroft, co-author of the report published in the British Medical Journal. "For a long time no one's been able to say this increase in MRSA was actually killing people," she added.
"The absolute number of deaths isn't huge in comparison to other things but when you think that this is something that is preventable through simple means, it shouldn't really be happening at all," she told Reuters Health. In 1998, 1,591 death certificates mentioned staph infections, including 398 that listed MRSA strains.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has become an increasing problem over the last decade. The bug has also developed resistance to other antibiotics, in some cases drugs used specifically to treat strains of bacteria resistant to the antibiotic methicillin. Particularly worrying have been a small number of cases in the US of S. aureus resistant to vancomycin.
"We use MRSA as a shorthand. We know that some of those will be just resistant to the methicillin group of antibiotics and some will be resistant to others as well," Crowcroft said. "The likelihood is that if they are resistant to more antibiotics then it is a bad thing. We haven't seen any vancomycin-resistant strains in this country, but for some of the other antibiotics there is some resistance developing."
Britain has among the highest rates of MRSA in Europe. "In Northern Europe--Finland and the Netherlands--they do extremely well, but to some extent we've missed the boat," the researcher said. "We had a chance to control it but it is going to be much harder to get it under control now."
SOURCE: British Medical Journal 2002;325:1390-1391.
5:57:53 PM
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CNET NEWS.COM - Microsoft upgrades flaw to "critical" .
For the second time in a week, Microsoft acknowledged that its initial estimation of a software flaw underrated the true threat posed by the vulnerability.
The Redmond, Wash., giant said Thursday it plans to change the severity of a vulnerability in software common to Internet Explorer and other Windows applications from "important" to "critical." The move was prompted by an in-depth analysis written by the security researchers who found the flaw.
"We believe that there is enough of a suggestion in this data to take action to protect customers," said Steve Lipner, director of Microsoft's security response center. "We are going to change the bulletin." [Privacy Digest]
5:56:17 PM
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ZDNet: How to keep your private data safe from prying eyes.
When I was in school, I shared a computer with several housemates. This arrangement meant there was little to no privacy when it came to our files, so I copied mine to a floppy disk and stored it in a safe place.
Now I have my own computer, so I'm usually the only one looking at the contents of my hard drive. Still, for those times when friends and family come over to use my computer--and to protect myself should my PC fall into the wrong hands--I like to keep things like my journal and financial records in an extra safe place.
These days, instead of copying my files to disk, I use software that encrypts or password-protects selected folders on my computer. Here are three programs you can use to protect your personal data from prying eyes. [Privacy Digest]
5:55:41 PM
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New York Times - Editorial Op-Ed: free registration required A Blow to Online Freedom.
A ruling from Australia's highest court in a libel case could strike a devastating blow to free speech online.
Since the Internet's inception, its promise has been threatened by governments seeking inappropriate jurisdiction over far-flung online communications. French authorities have sought to enforce a ban on the sale of Nazi memorabilia against Yahoo, Zimbabwe has prosecuted foreign correspondents for articles critical of its repressive regime, and China has famously insisted that foreign-based search engines engage in odious self-censorship.
Now comes a ruling from Australia's highest court in a libel case that could strike a devastating blow to free speech online. Yesterday the court decided to allow a novel cross-border libel suit brought against Dow Jones by an Australian businessman to proceed in Australian courts. The businessman, Joseph Gutnick, took issue with an article about him that was published in Barron's, one of Dow Jones's American financial publications. [Privacy Digest]
5:54:41 PM
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Potential Transit Strike in NYC. "City bus drivers make the highest hourly wage among the five largest transit systems in the country, and with seniority factored in can beef up their pay to $87,000 a year.
Transit workers are threatening to strike Sunday, arguing that management's contract offer effectively cuts salaries.
But a closer look at bus drivers' pay reveals they get a top hourly wage of $22.80 - $47,606 a year - in New York, the nation's largest system
...
"If you look at when I begin and end my day, I've worked 12 or 13 hours and I'm getting paid for only half. It's another form of slavery," said Ed Watt, financial secretary and treasurer for the union."
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"It's another form of slavery." Oh, FUCK YOU. I wish the city would break their goddamn union and hire scabs. How hard can it be to teach somebody to drive a subway back and forth? That'd take, what, 10 minutes? Cripes. 'Civil servants,' my ass. Fucking leeches. [CULT OF THE DEAD COW]
5:51:56 PM
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Microsoft again ups risk rating on IE flaw. Software giant boosts rating to critical [InfoWorld: Top News]
Will these never end.
"FOR THE SECOND time this month Microsoft will raise the risk rating on a flaw affecting Internet Explorer (IE) after experts told the company it underrated the issue.
The cumulative patch announced on Nov. 20 in Microsoft's security bulletin MS02-066 for the IE Web browser will now be rated "critical," up from "important," Steve Lipner, director of security assurance at Microsoft, said in a statement sent via e-mail on Friday.
Microsoft initially thought a buffer overrun that results when PNG (Portable Network Graphics) files are opened could only be exploited to cause IE, Microsoft Office applications or the Microsoft Index Server to fail. Now Microsoft warns that successful exploitation of the flaw could allow an attacker to gain control over a user's machine.
Security vendor eEye Digital Security, of Aliso Viejo, Calif., the discoverers of the PNG vulnerability, earlier this week said the flaw should get the highest risk rating as it allowed an attacker to run code on a victim's PC. As a result, Microsoft is raising the severity rating of bulletin MS02-066, although it has not yet been able to verify the exploit, Lipner said.
Buffer overrun flaws generally allow an attacker to take over a user's machine. An attacker exploits an unchecked buffer in a program to load his own code onto a system and run it.
This is the second time this month that Microsoft has been forced to increase the severity rating on a security vulnerability affecting IE, the Web browser used by millions worldwide. Last week, Microsoft increased from "moderate" to "critical" the rating on a flaw in an IE security feature discovered by GreyMagic Software of Israel."
5:38:27 PM
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The year 2002 in quotes. I wish our customers had more money: These and many other great quotes from those in the technology field, especially enlightening are some from those who work for Microsoft about the security built into their operating systems.
Now I'm wondering how many of you know, that when you put in place one of the "fixes" they suggest to correct some of the vulnerabilities caused by them in the first place, that they have you sign the agreement that you implicity must agree to before placing the fix on your system. Read it, I urge you to, and if you don't agree with what they're asking you to give up, then deny it and look for another operating system. There are other choices, believe me there are, even though a certain company would have you believe that there aren't.
5:35:21 PM
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Friday, October 04, 2002
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9:32:09 AM
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LONDON (Reuters) - Young Britons are using cooking as foreplay to sex, according to a report published on Wednesday.
Eight percent of 18-34 year-olds have cooked naked with a partner while 62 percent regard cooking as sensual, it said. The report was compiled by psychologist Dr. Colin Gill on behalf of food company Sharwood's.
In spicing up their love lives, a third of young Britons said a wok was their most essential kitchen item. "As the consumption of eastern foods is set to increase, we can hope to see more people having fun in the kitchen and using food as an effective social tool," said Gill.
Only seven percent of young people wear an apron in the kitchen and only four percent use a rolling pin, the report said.
"The decline in the use of the apron represents a significant change in the nation's cooking habits," it added. "The apron can be seen as representative of an older generation's more formal and restrictive views on cooking."
9:29:05 AM
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Monday, September 30, 2002
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Breakfasting with a penguin. Word of the Day for Thursday September 26, 2002
boulevardier boo-luh-var-DYAY; bul-uh-, noun:
1. A frequenter of city boulevards, especially in Paris.
2. A sophisticated, worldly, and socially active man; a man
who frequents fashionable places; a man-about-town.
Oswald, whose idea of excitement is breakfasting with a
penguin, is a boulevardier: Hat cocked precariously on his
head, he saunters out into the sunny city.
--Tom Gliatto, "Tube," [1]People, July 22, 2002
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woosh. They've been keeping me pretty busy here at work the past couple days, but it looks like I'm caught up for a minute. So here ya go:
Shocking Space Movie from NASA." A Manhattan-sized star rotating and spewing antimatter jets into space."
Immaculate conception: virgin shark gives birth. A sign? Is this the new undersea messiah? Quick, call Aquaman-he'll know what to do.
This is a little thing on gene therapy from Stanford. There was a piece in Newsweek recently too. Potentially very cool, you should Google you up some more stuff.
Study Faults Media Focus on Copyright Piracy: "Media companies must put less emphasis on protecting digital content and instead find ways to make money from digital music and movies if they hope to beat back copyright pirates who threaten their businesses, according to a study released on Wednesday from KPMG." No kiddin'. [CULT OF THE DEAD COW]
7:44:56 PM
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Yahoo News - Agency Probes D.C. Wireless Network.
Secret Service agents are putting a high-tech twist on the idea of a cop walking the beat. Using a laptop computer and an antenna fashioned from a Pringles potato chip can, they are looking for security holes in wireless networks in the nation's capital.
[ ... ]
Peterson's tools are a laptop, a wireless network card and one of three antennae mounted on his car. One is a small metal antenna; the second is a large, white, 2-foot-tall tube; the third is a homemade antenna made out of a Pringles can. They boost the reception of his wireless network card, allowing the agent to point them in different directions to get the best signal.
A Pringles can is ideal because of its shape -- a long tube that lets someone to point it at specific buildings -- and its aluminum inner lining. It acts like a satellite dish, collecting signals and bouncing them to the receiver, which is then wired into a laptop. [Privacy Digest]
7:44:26 PM
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© Copyright 2003 Jim Hall.
Last update: 3/9/2003; 11:03:19 PM.
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resident Clinton - controversially wearing white - swept majestically down the aisle with Hollywood actor Kevin Spacey on his arm. Spacey, who had agreed to give the ex-president away dabbed tears from his eyes, telling reporters "I always cry at weddings".
Hollywood actor George Clooney and British actress Dame Diana Rigg have come up trumps in a new poll of the