Social Media Lesson

I have a very challenging question that really needs an answer:
How do we vet precious ideas without giving them away? Any answers?

Quote from Linux owner, Linus Torvalds:
‘I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease. I believe in open development, and that very much involves not just making the source open, but also not shutting other
people and companies out.
‘There are ‘extremists’ in the free software world, but that’s one major reason why I don’t call what I do ‘free software’ any more. I don’t want to be associated with the people for whom it’s about exclusion and hatred.”’

Social Media Lesson
Remember the case of the tenant who made a malicious remark on Twitter, claiming that the company “didn’t care” about mold in her apartment. She only had 20 Twitter followers. The company called Horizon Realty Group filed a lawsuit against her. The next day, her case was an internet hit. Her remark for just 20 people has now found its way to hundreds of thousands.
There are so many websites and weblogs warning us that everything we put on the Net isn’t safe. We should thank her for the lesson.

McAfee Joke?!

Just for fun-
e-Mail security vendor McAfee spills 1400 private names!

ESPN’s Andrews Curses On-line

Cursing Britney Spears might bring joy to some people. But doing it on-line is a bad idea:

‘As if being videotaped in hotel rooms weren’t bad enough, ESPN’s Erin Andrews now has to deal with reporters outside her Georgia home, the New York Post reports. “I’m being treated like fucking Britney Spears and it sucks,” she complains to a 911 dispatcher. After describing herself as the “girl that was videotaped without her knowing, without her clothes on in the hotel,” she tells the dispatcher—who was unfamiliar with her case—”I’ve got two assholes sitting outside my house right now.”‘ New York Post

At least it’s doubtful now that the Andrews tape was a publicity stunt.

‘Peace Beer Party’ Creates Another War

The ‘peace beer party’ creates another war- this time with local beer producers:

‘President Obama’s next round of peacemaking beers at the White House might have to include US brewery owners, reports the Wall Street Journal. The cooling off confab today will be providing busted Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates and cop James Crowley’s favorite brews Red Stripe and Blue Moon, and some Bud Light for the president. All three, American brewers grumble, are made by foreign-owned companies.’ Wall Street Journal

The question now is who leaked the beer preferences? There should be an investigation.

Warning All iPhone Users

Hackers could take control of your phones tomorrow:

‘The iPhone’s text-messaging system has a dangerous flaw that hackers could exploit to take control of your phone, researchers say. They’ll reveal the trouble at a conference tomorrow, Forbes reports. So if you get a text with a “single square character,” turn off your phone right away—it could mean someone’s already trying to take advantage of the bug.

“Someone could pretty quickly take over every iPhone in the world with this,” says one of the experts. The bug could let the hacker control all the phone’s functions, including making phone calls and sending texts to other phones. Windows Mobile contains an analogous flaw, researchers say, and both Google’s Android phone and the iPhone had bugs that would allow hackers to disable their network connections—though Google has patched the problem.’ Matt Cantor Source: Forbes

Gates and Crowley Connection

It was discovered that Gates and Crowley have something more than common- they are distant Irish cousins. And that might explain their temper:

‘The beer James Crowley and Henry Louis Gates have with the president should be a Guinness if genetics are anything to go by, Irish Central reports. The Harvard professor and the Cambridge cop—along with about 3 million other people—are distant cousins with shared Irish heritage, both descended from 4th-century Irish warlord Niall of the Nine Hostages, whose prowess on the battlefield and in the bedroom was legendary.
‘Niall—whose name lives on today as O’Neill—was famed for defeating the English, the Scots, the French, and even the Romans. His dynasty continued until the 16th-century English conquest of Ireland. Gates learned of his Irish roots in a PBS series on ancestry he hosted last year. The professor discovered he was descended from an Irishman and a slave woman, and was astonished when researchers traced his DNA back to the ancient king.’  Rob Quinn SOURCE: Irish Central

FaceBook Again!

It’s Facebook again! And this time, Smith’s wife’s picture was cracked to ‘hot singles’ ad:

‘Imagine Peter Smith’s surprise when an ad for “hot singles” on Facebook featured a picture of … his wife. The site blames that flap on a third-party company violating policy, but the incident underscores Facebook’s notoriously unclear privacy settings, writes Bob Sullivan for MSNBC: “A hard-to-spot toggle switch grants the firm, by default, permission to use consumers’ information in advertisements to their friends.”

‘Though a Facebook rep insists this particular setting wouldn’t have saved Smith’s wife from the “rogue” developer who stole her picture, the snafu is yet another entry in the site’s “long and tortured history of attempting highly targeted advertising by mining data and usage habits from users,” and highlights “why consumers need to focus extra attention on privacy settings for all free sites they use.”’ Evann Gastaldo Source: MSNBC

I have already posted a piece about the dangers of putting personal pictures on the Net.

Dr. Murray’s Las Vegas Office Raided Too

‘DEA agents and police raided the Las Vegas home and office of Michael Jackson doctor Conrad Murray this morning after a raid last week on his Houston office, Fox News reports. Murray is a suspect in the manslaughter investigation of Jackson’s death; the warrant served last week called for “property or items constituting evidence … that Dr. Conrad Murray committed the said criminal offense.”
—Matt Cantor SOURCE: Fox News

In another article, It was reported that Dr. Murray left unattended Jackson’s IV-drip when he fell asleep.

Successful Cardiac Stem Cell Trial- edited

David Granovsky visited Plato on-line so I visited him back and found this out. I hope we all get to the truth:

READ CAREFULLY!
ADULT STEM CELLS HAVE BEEN USED TO TREAT CARDIAC DISEASES, INCLUDING CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE, FOR OVER 5 YEARS!!
…
Allow me to give you the briefest history of adult stem cell cardiac history.
1998 – Dr Doris Taylor takes stem cells from the thigh of a rabbit, injects them into scar tissue in the animal’s heart and repairs the damaged muscle.  The research was published in Nature Medicine.
1998-1999 – French researchers transplanted muscle cells into a human heart.
2000 – Human studies and trials using adult stem cells to regrow muscle tissue, including cardiac muscle tissue, are performed in many countries around the world.
2002 – Dr Taylor herself witnessed in Rotterdam the first patient in the world to get stem cells injected through a catheter into the wall of the heart. Encouraging results began to come in—improved ejection fractions, reduced diameters, thicker muscle tissue.

Internet Nuclear Attack Possibility

Do we have to fear the internet? If so, how much? According to a new study, terrorist groups could soon use the Net to help set off a devastating nuclear attack::

‘The claims come in a study commissioned by the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND), which suggests that under the right circumstances, terrorists could break into computer systems and launch an attack on a nuclear state – triggering a catastrophic chain of events that would have a global impact.
‘Without better protection of computer and information systems, the paper suggests, governments around the world are leaving open the possibility that a well-coordinated cyberwar could quickly elevate to nuclear levels.
‘In fact, says the study, “this may be an easier alternative for terrorist groups than building or acquiring a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb themselves”.
‘Though the paper admits that the media and entertainment industries often confuse and exaggerate the risk of cyberterrorism, it also outlines a number of potential threats and situations in which dedicated hackers could use information warfare techniques to make a nuclear attack more likely.’ DailyMail.co.uk