My Daredevil Folks

Just look how crazy my folks are climbing that mountain in Chicago with my niece and nephew kids and their grandma!

Poor tiger Aaron done in by the climb slumped in the canoe.

Miscallaneous

The 1918 pandemic flu is proving to be more deadly. Worse, there was a report that that pandemic was started by a vaccine!:

‘The H1N1 virus can more easily infect the lungs than the common seasonal flu, a new study finds, making it more likely to cause pneumonia. What’s more, the present virus bears troubling resemblance to the 1918 strain that killed more than 40 million people worldwide. The study also shows that people who survived the 1918 pandemic have an antibody response to H1N1, indicating that their body “remembered” it.’ MSNBC

I don’t think this research and report was needed to be done. Just lack of sleep enough causes hallucination. Just think what happens if you add caffeine to that:

‘Caffeine junkies shouldn’t always trust their ears, according to a new study. Subjects who drank the equivalent of seven cups of coffee proved three times more likely to hear voices, and slightly more likely to experience other hallucinations, than those consuming less than a cup’s worth. Researchers theorize that the cortisol hormone caffeine releases may trigger or exacerbate psychotic experiences.’  Scientific American

As I’ve suspected long way before, cats are sly devils. Here is one way they manipulate humans:

‘Cats seeking food use a cry that humans find maximally urgent and annoying, LiveScience reports. Researchers played a range of cat calls for humans and found that one—a high-pitched cry embedded in a purr—to be the most difficult to ignore, whether the subject owned a cat or not. Scientists think hungry cats may use the purr-cry to sound more like human offspring.
The purr-cry is also less harmonic than a conventional meow, and may therefore be harder to get used to, the researchers said. “The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with contentment is quite a subtle means of eliciting a response,” the study’s lead author says.’
—Nick McMaster SOURCE: LiveScience

Cyberattack Suspect

One suspect stands out as the prime suspect on the continuing cyberattack on US federal sites and it’s not North Korea.
Joe Stewart of SecureWorks told Computerworld that the botnet “does not use typical antivirus evasion techniques and does not appear to have been written by a professional malware writer.”
Before these attacks, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) shut down an Internet Service Provider identified as 3FN.net.
FTC accused this ISP of “actively recruiting thousands of ‘rogue’ web sites distributing ‘illegal, malicious, and harmful electronic content including child pornography, spyware, viruses, trojan horses, phishing, botnet command and control servers, and pornography featuring violence, bestiality, and incest’.”
Now just imagine how much filthy money 3FN lost– more than enough to make someone go amok on revenge.

More Useful Spybugs

Remember the Spybugs? Pentagon is now working to make it more beneficial for everybody:

‘Cyborg bugs may sound like creatures in a Michael Bay movie, but they could save your life, New Scientist reports. The Pentagon is trying to implant electrodes in crickets and cicadas—which communicate via wingbeats—and program them to “speak” differently around certain chemicals. “The insect itself might not even notice the modulation,” says Ben Epstein, who conceived of the technology.
The project is designed to warn soldiers of chemical and biological attacks, but could have other applications, from finding disaster survivors to detecting smoke. The challenge now is in creating the tiny technology. “Given a big enough insect it wouldn’t be a problem,” says Epstein, who concedes that cricket-sized electrodes remain a challenge.’ 
—Drew Nelles
SOURCE: New Scientist

JustDropped

A resource for you that can conduct a domain name search for those which were recently released or deleted. People forget to renew domains or companies go out of business. With JustDropped, we can know which domains have become available in the last day, week or even hour.

What Not to put on Plastic

If you think charging everything on your credit cards is all right, read this:

1. TRAFFIC TICKETS: You look reckless. And tickets can push up your insurance rates, which could put a strain on your finances, which could make it harder for you to pay your bills.
2. RETREADING YOUR TIRES: If you’ve bought new tires in the past, this can look like a desperate move. Credit card companies don’t like desperation.
3. BARGAIN BINGES:  Downshifting to lower-cost retailers — or shopping at places that attract financially pinched shoppers — makes it look like you’re worried about your finances or about your job. American Express has been accused of cutting people’s credit because they shopped at Wal-Mart.
4. ADULT PLAYTHINGS: Porn is seen as escapism by card companies. And guess what they’re thinking you’re trying to escape from? Financial worries.
5. MARRIAGE COUNSELING AND THERAPY: Money is at the root of many psychological problems. And plenty of relationship problems, too. Relationship problems can lead to divorce. Divorce can destroy your finances. Needing therapy may also make it look like you’re unstable.

It’s now easy to guess the reasons for the following:

6. LOTTERY TICKETS: 
7. CASH ADVANCES: 
8. PERSONAL PAMPERING: 
9. INCOME TAXES: 
10. BOOZE: 
Source: Marketplace

Reckless Wi-Fi Users

Would you believe that only 3% of wi-fi users are using secure networks and that many were banking on-line or buying stock? It’s like deliberately losing on gambling:

‘If you’re planning to take your laptop on the road this summer, pay careful attention to which wireless network you sign on to. Scammers are setting up fake wi-fi hot spots in tourist-friendly places like airports and hotels, or simply using official, but unsecured networks, Fox News reports. Once an unsuspecting traveler logs in, a cybercriminal can easily raid his computer for information.

‘A group of “white hat” hackers—who try to thwart “black hat” cybercriminals—conducted a tour of 27 airports, and the results weren’t pretty. “People just log in to the first robust network they see,” said a group spokesman. “We found only 3% were using a secure network.” What’s worse, many were banking online, buying stock. “These are not the kinds of things you want to do on public wi-fi,” says one hacker.’
—Kevin Spak SOURCE: Fox News

Anti-Snoops

A new gadget (designed for sneaky photographers) that detects photo flashes which then fires back a flash ruining stolen photos was invented.
Brilliant like flash isn’t it?

Safer and Faster E-mails

Do you want to manage your e-mails safer and faster? Boxbe can do that.

See the new folder in your Yahoo! Mail called “Boxbe Waiting List”? Emails from people who are not on your Guest List or who you’ve asked to be waitlisted will go into this folder. It’s like a shield that protects your inbox.

In your Boxbe Waiting List folder, you can see the junk score of each email in its subject line. To find messages with the lowest junk score, just sort by subject. It’s one more way Boxbe helps you find the emails that matter.

At the top of each message in your Waiting List is a small section with convenient information and links. You can approve or block a sender directly from here. All the common actions at your fingertips!

I know Boxbe works because after I installed it, most of my mails suddenly had attachments! It’s as if hackers suddenly lost their grips!

Deadly Celiac Disease

Gluten is one of the flour substance I fear the most because it’s a silent stomach destroyer. Now, it’s proving worse than I thought:

‘The number of Americans diagnosed with celiac disease has quadrupled since the 1950s, and the condition “is emerging as a substantial public health concern,” Mayo Clinic researchers warn. People who had the gluten-intolerance disease and didn’t know it were four times more likely to have died during the past few decades than those without it, Reuters reports.
‘Europe has seen comparable increases. “Getting more patients and health professionals to consider the possibility of celiac disease is important,” says the senior author of a new report, who notes that the soaring numbers may correlate with environmental circumstances—perhaps including the “hygiene hypothesis,” which says less germy  lifestyles may have boosted allergies. The way food is processed and how we eat it may also be factors.’  SOURCE: Reuters

CBS News has an excellent video report about this.