Saturday, February 15, 2014
Browser Exploit for Android Highlights Google’s Update Problem
The new exploit was developed by Joe Vennix, a software engineer at security company Rapid7, who last week added the exploit to the company’s Metasploit software used to test devices and systems for known vulnerabilities. His code makes use of a bug, first disclosed in December 2012, in the Web browser built into Android. The exploit could be used to take over a phone after directing someone to a Web page with the malicious code embedded, or by delivering the code via an app, many of which display content such as ads using Android’s browser capabilities. Vennix found that one Baidu app, for example, was vulnerable to the exploit when installed on a device using the version of Android released in December 2013. Another researcher found that the exploit works on Google Glass.
Vennix estimates that 70 percent of Android devices are vulnerable to the exploit, based on Google’s figures for the proportion of devices running different versions of Android. And crucially, although Google released a new version of Android with a fix for the underlying bug in November 2012, most devices running the software will likely remain vulnerable to the attack for as long as they remain in use because they will not be updated.
Google has convinced many manufacturers to install Android on their products, but few are quick about rolling out new versions of the software. Nor does Google have any mechanism to push updates directly to devices, such as those built into desktop operating systems including Microsoft Windows or Mac OS. (...)
Over a billion Android devices have been activated since the software launched in October 2008, according to Google. Android devices are hardly plagued by malware to the extent that PCs are, and the use of app stores helps limit the spread of malicious code. Even so, the incidence of malware is growing and expected to get significantly worse (see “Attacks on Android Intensify” and “New Business Models for Malware to Bring PC Security Woes to Mobile”).
by Tom Simonite, MIT Technology Review | Read more:
Image www.norebbo.com: via:
Lessons on Love From 100 American Couples
Coming from a single-parent household (which is increasingly common—the number of single-parent households has doubled since 1950), my feelings toward marriage are cautious, but hopeful. Many of my peers, after watching their parents get divorced or experiencing a divorce of their own, are more cynical about the institution of marriage. They say 50 percent of marriages end in divorce (though that is an inflated statistic). The Huffington Post has an entire section dedicated to divorce, with the despondent tagline, “Marriages come and go, but divorce is forever.”
But even if the 50 percent divorce statistic were actually true, my question is: What about the other 50 percent? How are they making it work? In an effort to find out, last year, I traveled across the country to capture 100 of America’s great love stories with my friend Nate Bagley, for a project we call The Loveumentary. (...)
Here are five of the biggest lessons I learned from these couples:
1. Marriage isn’t meant to make you happy.
Measuring the success of a marriage by how happy you are makes it easy to assume that experiencing unhappiness in a marriage means you're in a bad one. But every couple we interviewed agrees it is not realistic to assume you’ll be happy all the time. If a fluctuating emotion, like happiness, is the measuring stick you use to gauge the success of your relationship, you will continuously come up short.
The primary purpose of marriage isn’t to keep you happy—it’s to keep you growing. Steve Hambrick, Lead Pastor of Vintage 242 Church in Dallas, Georgia has been married to his wife Randel for more than 12 years. He says, “It boils down to the selfless understanding that I'm not married for what's best for me. Love is a selfless choice about what's best for the other, because she is the most important thing in my life. The greatest way to find joy in the context of marriage is to bring joy to someone else."
When you approach marriage looking to grow with and from one another, it fundamentally shifts the way you look at the health of your relationship. The catalysts for this growth range from pursuing common goals and interests together, to lovingly challenging one another’s views, to traversing devastating hardship alongside one another.
Of course, happiness tends to be a natural byproduct of healthy growth in a relationship. However, it shouldn’t be the reason you choose to stay in or leave one. Couples that stay together know there will be less exciting or happy seasons. But, these seasons pave the way for personal and relational growth–not an exit strategy.
Friday, February 14, 2014
The Vampire Squid Strikes Again
Call it the loophole that destroyed the world. It's 1999, the tail end of the Clinton years. While the rest of America obsesses over Monica Lewinsky, Columbine and Mark McGwire's biceps, Congress is feverishly crafting what could yet prove to be one of the most transformative laws in the history of our economy – a law that would make possible a broader concentration of financial and industrial power than we've seen in more than a century.
But the crazy thing is, nobody at the time quite knew it. Most observers on the Hill thought the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 – also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act – was just the latest and boldest in a long line of deregulatory handouts to Wall Street that had begun in the Reagan years.
Wall Street had spent much of that era arguing that America's banks needed to become bigger and badder, in order to compete globally with the German and Japanese-style financial giants, which were supposedly about to swallow up all the world's banking business. So through legislative lackeys like red-faced Republican deregulatory enthusiast Phil Gramm, bank lobbyists were pushing a new law designed to wipe out 60-plus years of bedrock financial regulation. The key was repealing – or "modifying," as bill proponents put it – the famed Glass-Steagall Act separating bankers and brokers, which had been passed in 1933 to prevent conflicts of interest within the finance sector that had led to the Great Depression. Now, commercial banks would be allowed to merge with investment banks and insurance companies, creating financial megafirms potentially far more powerful than had ever existed in America.
All of this was big enough news in itself. But it would take half a generation – till now, basically – to understand the most explosive part of the bill, which additionally legalized new forms of monopoly, allowing banks to merge with heavy industry. A tiny provision in the bill also permitted commercial banks to delve into any activity that is "complementary to a financial activity and does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally."
Complementary to a financial activity. What the hell did that mean?
"From the perspective of the banks," says Saule Omarova, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, "pretty much everything is considered complementary to a financial activity."
Fifteen years later, in fact, it now looks like Wall Street and its lawyers took the term to be a synonym for ruthless campaigns of world domination. "Nobody knew the reach it would have into the real economy," says Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. Now a leading voice on the Hill against the hidden provisions, Brown actually voted for Gramm-Leach-Bliley as a congressman, along with all but 72 other House members. "I bet even some of the people who were the bill's advocates had no idea."
Today, banks like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs own oil tankers, run airports and control huge quantities of coal, natural gas, heating oil, electric power and precious metals. They likewise can now be found exerting direct control over the supply of a whole galaxy of raw materials crucial to world industry and to society in general, including everything from food products to metals like zinc, copper, tin, nickel and, most infamously thanks to a recent high-profile scandal, aluminum. And they're doing it not just here but abroad as well: In Denmark, thousands took to the streets in protest in recent weeks, vampire-squid banners in hand, when news came out that Goldman Sachs was about to buy a 19 percent stake in Dong Energy, a national electric provider. The furor inspired mass resignations of ministers from the government's ruling coalition, as the Danish public wondered how an American investment bank could possibly hold so much influence over the state energy grid.
There are more eclectic interests, too. After 9/11, we found it worrisome when foreigners started to get into the business of running ports, but there's been little controversy as banks have done the same, or even started dabbling in other activities with national-security implications – Goldman Sachs, for instance, is apparently now in the uranium business, a piece of news that attracted few headlines.
by Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone | Read more:
Image: Victor Juhasz
But the crazy thing is, nobody at the time quite knew it. Most observers on the Hill thought the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 – also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act – was just the latest and boldest in a long line of deregulatory handouts to Wall Street that had begun in the Reagan years.Wall Street had spent much of that era arguing that America's banks needed to become bigger and badder, in order to compete globally with the German and Japanese-style financial giants, which were supposedly about to swallow up all the world's banking business. So through legislative lackeys like red-faced Republican deregulatory enthusiast Phil Gramm, bank lobbyists were pushing a new law designed to wipe out 60-plus years of bedrock financial regulation. The key was repealing – or "modifying," as bill proponents put it – the famed Glass-Steagall Act separating bankers and brokers, which had been passed in 1933 to prevent conflicts of interest within the finance sector that had led to the Great Depression. Now, commercial banks would be allowed to merge with investment banks and insurance companies, creating financial megafirms potentially far more powerful than had ever existed in America.
All of this was big enough news in itself. But it would take half a generation – till now, basically – to understand the most explosive part of the bill, which additionally legalized new forms of monopoly, allowing banks to merge with heavy industry. A tiny provision in the bill also permitted commercial banks to delve into any activity that is "complementary to a financial activity and does not pose a substantial risk to the safety or soundness of depository institutions or the financial system generally."
Complementary to a financial activity. What the hell did that mean?
"From the perspective of the banks," says Saule Omarova, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, "pretty much everything is considered complementary to a financial activity."
Fifteen years later, in fact, it now looks like Wall Street and its lawyers took the term to be a synonym for ruthless campaigns of world domination. "Nobody knew the reach it would have into the real economy," says Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. Now a leading voice on the Hill against the hidden provisions, Brown actually voted for Gramm-Leach-Bliley as a congressman, along with all but 72 other House members. "I bet even some of the people who were the bill's advocates had no idea."
Today, banks like Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs own oil tankers, run airports and control huge quantities of coal, natural gas, heating oil, electric power and precious metals. They likewise can now be found exerting direct control over the supply of a whole galaxy of raw materials crucial to world industry and to society in general, including everything from food products to metals like zinc, copper, tin, nickel and, most infamously thanks to a recent high-profile scandal, aluminum. And they're doing it not just here but abroad as well: In Denmark, thousands took to the streets in protest in recent weeks, vampire-squid banners in hand, when news came out that Goldman Sachs was about to buy a 19 percent stake in Dong Energy, a national electric provider. The furor inspired mass resignations of ministers from the government's ruling coalition, as the Danish public wondered how an American investment bank could possibly hold so much influence over the state energy grid.
There are more eclectic interests, too. After 9/11, we found it worrisome when foreigners started to get into the business of running ports, but there's been little controversy as banks have done the same, or even started dabbling in other activities with national-security implications – Goldman Sachs, for instance, is apparently now in the uranium business, a piece of news that attracted few headlines.
by Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone | Read more:
Thursday, February 13, 2014
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Tuesday, February 11, 2014
What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun?
My friend June Thunderstorm and I once spent a half an hour sitting in a meadow by a mountain lake, watching an inchworm dangle from the top of a stalk of grass, twist about in every possible direction, and then leap to the next stalk and do the same thing. And so it proceeded, in a vast circle, with what must have been a vast expenditure of energy, for what seemed like absolutely no reason at all.
“All animals play,” June had once said to me. “Even ants.” She’d spent many years working as a professional gardener and had plenty of incidents like this to observe and ponder. “Look,” she said, with an air of modest triumph. “See what I mean?”
Most of us, hearing this story, would insist on proof. How do we know the worm was playing? Perhaps the invisible circles it traced in the air were really just a search for some unknown sort of prey. Or a mating ritual. Can we prove they weren’t? Even if the worm was playing, how do we know this form of play did not serve some ultimately practical purpose: exercise, or self-training for some possible future inchworm emergency?
This would be the reaction of most professional ethologists as well. Generally speaking, an analysis of animal behavior is not considered scientific unless the animal is assumed, at least tacitly, to be operating according to the same means/end calculations that one would apply to economic transactions. Under this assumption, an expenditure of energy must be directed toward some goal, whether it be obtaining food, securing territory, achieving dominance, or maximizing reproductive success—unless one can absolutely prove that it isn’t, and absolute proof in such matters is, as one might imagine, very hard to come by.
I must emphasize here that it doesn’t really matter what sort of theory of animal motivation a scientist might entertain: what she believes an animal to be thinking, whether she thinks an animal can be said to be “thinking” anything at all. I’m not saying that ethologists actually believe that animals are simply rational calculating machines. I’m simply saying that ethologists have boxed themselves into a world where to be scientific means to offer an explanation of behavior in rational terms—which in turn means describing an animal as if it were a calculating economic actor trying to maximize some sort of self-interest—whatever their theory of animal psychology, or motivation, might be.
That’s why the existence of animal play is considered something of an intellectual scandal. It’s understudied, and those who do study it are seen as mildly eccentric. As with many vaguely threatening, speculative notions, difficult-to-satisfy criteria are introduced for proving animal play exists, and even when it is acknowledged, the research more often than not cannibalizes its own insights by trying to demonstrate that play must have some long-term survival or reproductive function.
Despite all this, those who do look into the matter are invariably forced to the conclusion that play does exist across the animal universe. And exists not just among such notoriously frivolous creatures as monkeys, dolphins, or puppies, but among such unlikely species as frogs, minnows, salamanders, fiddler crabs, and yes, even ants—which not only engage in frivolous activities as individuals, but also have been observed since the nineteenth century to arrange mock-wars, apparently just for the fun of it.
Why do animals play? Well, why shouldn’t they? The real question is: Why does the existence of action carried out for the sheer pleasure of acting, the exertion of powers for the sheer pleasure of exerting them, strike us as mysterious? What does it tell us about ourselves that we instinctively assume that it is?
“All animals play,” June had once said to me. “Even ants.” She’d spent many years working as a professional gardener and had plenty of incidents like this to observe and ponder. “Look,” she said, with an air of modest triumph. “See what I mean?”Most of us, hearing this story, would insist on proof. How do we know the worm was playing? Perhaps the invisible circles it traced in the air were really just a search for some unknown sort of prey. Or a mating ritual. Can we prove they weren’t? Even if the worm was playing, how do we know this form of play did not serve some ultimately practical purpose: exercise, or self-training for some possible future inchworm emergency?
This would be the reaction of most professional ethologists as well. Generally speaking, an analysis of animal behavior is not considered scientific unless the animal is assumed, at least tacitly, to be operating according to the same means/end calculations that one would apply to economic transactions. Under this assumption, an expenditure of energy must be directed toward some goal, whether it be obtaining food, securing territory, achieving dominance, or maximizing reproductive success—unless one can absolutely prove that it isn’t, and absolute proof in such matters is, as one might imagine, very hard to come by.
I must emphasize here that it doesn’t really matter what sort of theory of animal motivation a scientist might entertain: what she believes an animal to be thinking, whether she thinks an animal can be said to be “thinking” anything at all. I’m not saying that ethologists actually believe that animals are simply rational calculating machines. I’m simply saying that ethologists have boxed themselves into a world where to be scientific means to offer an explanation of behavior in rational terms—which in turn means describing an animal as if it were a calculating economic actor trying to maximize some sort of self-interest—whatever their theory of animal psychology, or motivation, might be.
That’s why the existence of animal play is considered something of an intellectual scandal. It’s understudied, and those who do study it are seen as mildly eccentric. As with many vaguely threatening, speculative notions, difficult-to-satisfy criteria are introduced for proving animal play exists, and even when it is acknowledged, the research more often than not cannibalizes its own insights by trying to demonstrate that play must have some long-term survival or reproductive function.
Despite all this, those who do look into the matter are invariably forced to the conclusion that play does exist across the animal universe. And exists not just among such notoriously frivolous creatures as monkeys, dolphins, or puppies, but among such unlikely species as frogs, minnows, salamanders, fiddler crabs, and yes, even ants—which not only engage in frivolous activities as individuals, but also have been observed since the nineteenth century to arrange mock-wars, apparently just for the fun of it.
Why do animals play? Well, why shouldn’t they? The real question is: Why does the existence of action carried out for the sheer pleasure of acting, the exertion of powers for the sheer pleasure of exerting them, strike us as mysterious? What does it tell us about ourselves that we instinctively assume that it is?
by David Graeber, The Baffler | Read more:
Image: Henrik Drescher
A Word of Advice ... on Advice
A few weeks ago, a neighbor I like very much came over for coffee. While inspecting the vast record and compact disc collection that takes up a large part of my living room, he suggested that I load all my CDs onto a server to clear away the clutter. He also said that I should convert my LPs to MP3 files and get wireless speakers installed in every room. I said thanks, those are really great suggestions. But I am never going to do any of this stuff.
My wife is always telling me that yoga will help relieve the pain in my lower back. She is almost certainly right. Yoga would probably be an immense help to my aching lower back. But I am never going to a yoga class.
People say that a man my age should be looking into annuities. Down the road, I won't want to deal with the stock market's volatility. They're probably on to something there. A steady stream of income would make a lot more sense than a portfolio filled with volatile equities. But I am never going to purchase an annuity.
Prompted by the unsolicited comments about my record collection, I got to thinking about the last time I had taken anyone's advice about anything. I couldn't remember. It was certainly far in the past. Maybe when I was a kid hitchhiking at night and a trucker told me to stop accepting rides. At night. From truckers.
Mostly, I could only remember advice I had ignored. Don't give up a great job. Don't give up another great job. Stop giving up great jobs, period. And don't write for right-wing publications; you'll be slitting your own throat. I did not take any of this advice. The very nature of advice makes me avoid it.
Alan Goldberg, a Philadelphia-based psychologist who plays guitar in the rock 'n' roll band we recently disinterred after 43 years of well-advised inactivity, puts it this way: "When somebody says, 'You should do something,' the subtext is: 'You're an idiot for not already doing it.' Nobody takes advice under those conditions."
Many people would rather be thought of as an idiot than do something they don't want to do. If someone suggests getting a high-paying job with Morgan Stanley when what you really want to do is to organize a peasant's revolt in the Yucatán, their advice, though judicious, is useless. Success on anyone's terms other than your own is failure.
The U.S. is addicted to advice. Americans honestly believe that someone out there knows how to fix all our problems. Maybe Oprah. Maybe Dr. Phil. Maybe Barack Obama. Maybe Ayn Rand. Newspapers, magazines and television are filled with advice about health, finances, raising children, dieting. Don't smoke. Don't text on I-95. Don't allow your teenage son Vlad to disappear into his bedroom for the next decade. Exercise 30 minutes a day. Never buy stocks from men wearing ostrich-skin shoes.
Why, then, are so many of us miserable, bankrupt, overweight chain smokers with horrible, illiterate kids? The advice was out there.
A major part of the Internet's appeal is the immediate availability of useful advice on virtually any topic. (Well, that and the free porn.) If people have the right information in their hands, the Web's early evangelists proclaimed, they will make the right decisions. Things haven't worked out the way they hoped. People still smoke. People still text while driving. People still vote Republican.
My wife is always telling me that yoga will help relieve the pain in my lower back. She is almost certainly right. Yoga would probably be an immense help to my aching lower back. But I am never going to a yoga class.People say that a man my age should be looking into annuities. Down the road, I won't want to deal with the stock market's volatility. They're probably on to something there. A steady stream of income would make a lot more sense than a portfolio filled with volatile equities. But I am never going to purchase an annuity.
Prompted by the unsolicited comments about my record collection, I got to thinking about the last time I had taken anyone's advice about anything. I couldn't remember. It was certainly far in the past. Maybe when I was a kid hitchhiking at night and a trucker told me to stop accepting rides. At night. From truckers.
Mostly, I could only remember advice I had ignored. Don't give up a great job. Don't give up another great job. Stop giving up great jobs, period. And don't write for right-wing publications; you'll be slitting your own throat. I did not take any of this advice. The very nature of advice makes me avoid it.
Alan Goldberg, a Philadelphia-based psychologist who plays guitar in the rock 'n' roll band we recently disinterred after 43 years of well-advised inactivity, puts it this way: "When somebody says, 'You should do something,' the subtext is: 'You're an idiot for not already doing it.' Nobody takes advice under those conditions."
Many people would rather be thought of as an idiot than do something they don't want to do. If someone suggests getting a high-paying job with Morgan Stanley when what you really want to do is to organize a peasant's revolt in the Yucatán, their advice, though judicious, is useless. Success on anyone's terms other than your own is failure.
The U.S. is addicted to advice. Americans honestly believe that someone out there knows how to fix all our problems. Maybe Oprah. Maybe Dr. Phil. Maybe Barack Obama. Maybe Ayn Rand. Newspapers, magazines and television are filled with advice about health, finances, raising children, dieting. Don't smoke. Don't text on I-95. Don't allow your teenage son Vlad to disappear into his bedroom for the next decade. Exercise 30 minutes a day. Never buy stocks from men wearing ostrich-skin shoes.
Why, then, are so many of us miserable, bankrupt, overweight chain smokers with horrible, illiterate kids? The advice was out there.
A major part of the Internet's appeal is the immediate availability of useful advice on virtually any topic. (Well, that and the free porn.) If people have the right information in their hands, the Web's early evangelists proclaimed, they will make the right decisions. Things haven't worked out the way they hoped. People still smoke. People still text while driving. People still vote Republican.
by Joe Queenan, WSJ | Read more:
Image: Getty
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Diary of a 24-Hour Dive Bar
It’s 10 a.m., and Spider is sweeping cigarette butts from the floor with all the finesse of a waiter cleaning up crumbs between courses at Le Veau d’Or. A scruffy, waiflike man who bears a startling resemblances to the broom with which he’s sweeping, Spider hollers through the empty bar, spittle flying in the morning light, “They just throw ‘em on the floor—don’t care a thing for ‘ol Spider! No damn respect.”
The mid-morning sun is cracking through the front window of Brothers III, where I’m anchored at the bar spinning one of the perfectly clean ashtrays with my index finger. In a world so saturated with craft cocktails and drowning in mixologists, the dive bar has become, perhaps, the last true rara avis. While I’ve spent many a long, rowdy night at Brothers III, I wondered: what does a dive bar like this look like when the sun’s rising? What does it look like at high noon? With those questions, my journey to capture the 24-hour life cycle of a bar began in earnest.
Located in New Orleans on a stretch of Magazine Street between a recently-opened juice cleanse bar and the future home of a hoity-toity taco shack, Brothers III is a living, breathing relic. The diminutive building—which is the color of a French’s mustard bottle and decorated year-round with multi-colored Christmas lights—is cavernous, with sunken ceilings that can be easily reached by those with average wingspans.
In its 47 years of existence, Brothers III has become the Swiss Army Knife of bars, providing all the tools one might need to survive a night. Would you like to spend some alone time thumbing through a battered Tom Clancy novel? A small, dusty library is positioned by the bar entrance. Looking to hustle a game of pool for some quick cash? Saunter to the back and rack up the balls. Someone giving you trouble? J.L.—a silver-bearded, self-proclaimed “enforcer”—will toss them out before a brawl ensues. (...)
Brothers III is a place where things come in curious numbers. There are two jukeboxes, three video poker machines and, most peculiar of all: four cash registers. For over 40 years, Johnny has given each of the four bartenders his own cash register to ensure no one competes for tips. Lined up in a row on the bar, they are covered with knitted tea cozy-style covers when not in use.
“You can’t be a C+ student in math and bartend here,” says Charlie, the evening bartender who could easily win a Mike Ditka lookalike contest. “Otherwise, it ain’t coming out of anyone else’s pocket.”
The bar is bustling now as the clock strikes 9:00 p.m., with younger couples and gaggles of girls making their way in for cheap after-dinner drinks. A man in penny loafers and athletic socks perches at the bar swirling a brandy. The regulars, huddled together around Charlie, are loudly referring to themselves as “The Think Tank” and discussing the merits of the short-lived 1980s late-night program, The Alan Thicke Show.
I feel a second wind.
The pool table is finally being used by three 20-something boys—regulars who come every Friday night and are well liked enough to have their own designated red Solo cups. Their affection for Brothers III is palpable, as they tell tales of packed Mardi Gras nights, Sunday morning bacon and egg breakfasts cooked by Charlie, and the time a guy stuck his hand in a crock pot full of hot dogs.
“He just scalded the hell out of himself,” says Adam, slightly balding and the clear leader of the pack. “The hot dogs all fell to the ground. No one was really concerned about him, they just picked up the hot dogs and put them on some buns. That’s how we kind of do it around here.”
As if on cue, a woman behind us falls over backwards out of her stool, landing with a thud. No one bats an eye.
The mid-morning sun is cracking through the front window of Brothers III, where I’m anchored at the bar spinning one of the perfectly clean ashtrays with my index finger. In a world so saturated with craft cocktails and drowning in mixologists, the dive bar has become, perhaps, the last true rara avis. While I’ve spent many a long, rowdy night at Brothers III, I wondered: what does a dive bar like this look like when the sun’s rising? What does it look like at high noon? With those questions, my journey to capture the 24-hour life cycle of a bar began in earnest.Located in New Orleans on a stretch of Magazine Street between a recently-opened juice cleanse bar and the future home of a hoity-toity taco shack, Brothers III is a living, breathing relic. The diminutive building—which is the color of a French’s mustard bottle and decorated year-round with multi-colored Christmas lights—is cavernous, with sunken ceilings that can be easily reached by those with average wingspans.
In its 47 years of existence, Brothers III has become the Swiss Army Knife of bars, providing all the tools one might need to survive a night. Would you like to spend some alone time thumbing through a battered Tom Clancy novel? A small, dusty library is positioned by the bar entrance. Looking to hustle a game of pool for some quick cash? Saunter to the back and rack up the balls. Someone giving you trouble? J.L.—a silver-bearded, self-proclaimed “enforcer”—will toss them out before a brawl ensues. (...)
Brothers III is a place where things come in curious numbers. There are two jukeboxes, three video poker machines and, most peculiar of all: four cash registers. For over 40 years, Johnny has given each of the four bartenders his own cash register to ensure no one competes for tips. Lined up in a row on the bar, they are covered with knitted tea cozy-style covers when not in use.
“You can’t be a C+ student in math and bartend here,” says Charlie, the evening bartender who could easily win a Mike Ditka lookalike contest. “Otherwise, it ain’t coming out of anyone else’s pocket.”
The bar is bustling now as the clock strikes 9:00 p.m., with younger couples and gaggles of girls making their way in for cheap after-dinner drinks. A man in penny loafers and athletic socks perches at the bar swirling a brandy. The regulars, huddled together around Charlie, are loudly referring to themselves as “The Think Tank” and discussing the merits of the short-lived 1980s late-night program, The Alan Thicke Show.
I feel a second wind.
The pool table is finally being used by three 20-something boys—regulars who come every Friday night and are well liked enough to have their own designated red Solo cups. Their affection for Brothers III is palpable, as they tell tales of packed Mardi Gras nights, Sunday morning bacon and egg breakfasts cooked by Charlie, and the time a guy stuck his hand in a crock pot full of hot dogs.
“He just scalded the hell out of himself,” says Adam, slightly balding and the clear leader of the pack. “The hot dogs all fell to the ground. No one was really concerned about him, they just picked up the hot dogs and put them on some buns. That’s how we kind of do it around here.”
As if on cue, a woman behind us falls over backwards out of her stool, landing with a thud. No one bats an eye.
by Sarah Baird, Punch | Read more:
Image: Sarah Baird
Saturday, February 8, 2014
The Next Pandemic Could be Downloaded from the Internet
As biological discoveries accelerate, we may need to censor even more genetic data. The line between digital data and our physical world is not as clear cut as it once was, with the advent of 3D printing technologies and DNA synthesisers. Many people are familiar with the first printed gun, cited heavily by the media as a dangerous development. But many would probably be surprised to learn that analogous technology is used to print pathogens. For example, the polio virus was successfully recreated in 2002, and the 1918 flu virus was resurrected by a DNA synthesiser in 2005.
Pandora’s box 2.0
The machines that make this resurrection possible serve many legitimate research purposes. Instead of painstakingly manipulating DNA in a local lab, scientists can get made-to-order sequences from a variety of DNA synthesis companies from around the world. Alternatively, if they have some extra cash and desk space, they could get one of the machines right here on Ebay. Access to such a machine gives scientists a critical edge in many areas of genomics research.
But the increasing accessibility to this technology raises concerns about the “dual-use” nature of it as an unprecedented weapon. President Obama was worried enough to commission a report on the safety of synthetic biology, while volunteers have created software to detect malicious DNA sequences before an unsuspecting company prints them out.
The machines that make this resurrection possible serve many legitimate research purposes. Instead of painstakingly manipulating DNA in a local lab, scientists can get made-to-order sequences from a variety of DNA synthesis companies from around the world. Alternatively, if they have some extra cash and desk space, they could get one of the machines right here on Ebay. Access to such a machine gives scientists a critical edge in many areas of genomics research.
But the increasing accessibility to this technology raises concerns about the “dual-use” nature of it as an unprecedented weapon. President Obama was worried enough to commission a report on the safety of synthetic biology, while volunteers have created software to detect malicious DNA sequences before an unsuspecting company prints them out.
by Andrew Snyder-Beattie, The Conversation | Read more:
Image: Abode of Chaos
‘Aid in Dying’ Movement Takes Hold in Some States
[ed. I'm convinced this is a cultural/legal/moral challenge we absolutely have to overcome.]
In January, a district court in New Mexico authorized doctors to provide lethal prescriptions and declared a constitutional right for “a competent, terminally ill patient to choose aid in dying.” Last May, the Vermont Legislature passed a law permitting it, joining Montana, Oregon and Washington. This spring, advocates are strongly promoting “death with dignity” bills in Connecticut and other states.Public support for assisted dying has grown in the past half-century but depends in part on terminology. In a Gallup Poll conducted in May, for example, 70 percent of respondents agreed that when patients and their families wanted it, doctors should be allowed to “end the patient’s life by some painless means.” In 1948, that share was 37 percent, and it rose steadily for four decades but has remained roughly stable since the mid-1990s.
Yet in the same 2013 poll, only 51 percent supported allowing doctors to help a dying patient “commit suicide.”
About 3,000 patients a year, from every state, contact the advocacy group Compassion & Choices for advice on legal ways to reduce end-of-life suffering and perhaps hasten their deaths.
Giving a fading patient the opportunity for a peaceful and dignified death is not suicide, the group says, which it defines as an act by people with severe depression or other mental problems.
But overt assistance to bring on death, by whatever name, remains illegal in most of the country. And so for Robert Mitton of Denver, 58 and with a failing heart, the news from New Mexico last month was bittersweet.
“I am facing my imminent death,” he said, asking why people in Montana and New Mexico “are able to die with dignity and I am not.”
“This should be a basic human right.”
by Erik Eckholm, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Matthew Staver
Humans of New York
"Why not?"
"I’m literally five feet tall. If I tried to arrest someone, they’d think they were being pranked."
I thought: ‘Wait a second! Weren’t you just crazy?’”
From the Series: Humans of New York
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