Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/295790697?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, March 31, 2013
Oh, the places you won't go! World's 25 least-visited countries
Using UN statistics, travel writer?Gunnar Garfors found that top contenders for the least-visited award are often dangerous or remote. But some are just plain boring.
Somali men look out across Mogadishu's fishing harbor in the early morning as fishermen land their catch and transport their fish to the market in the Xamar Weyne district of the Somali capital, March 16. Somalia is the second-least visited country in the world, according to a recent list compiled by travel writer Gunnar Garfors from UN statistics.
Courtesy of Stuart Price/AU-UN IST PHOTO/Reuters
EnlargeFor some travelers, getting off the beaten path is a point of pride, a way to see the parts of the world that don?t make it into glossy guidebooks.
Skip to next paragraph Ryan Lenora BrownCorrespondent
Ryan Brown edits the Africa Monitor blog and contributes to the national and international news desks of the Monitor. She is a former Fulbright fellow to South Africa and holds a degree in history from Duke University.?
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But how many of those same adventurous travelers would be willing to visit, say, Somalia?
About 500, it turns out.
At least, that?s how many tourists found their way to the wartorn east African nation last year. ?
That makes Somalia the second-least visited country in the world, after the tiny pacific island nation Nauru, according to a recent list compiled by travel writer Gunnar Garfors from UN statistics.?
Little Nauru ? 8.1 square miles in size, population 9,378 ? got just 200 visitors last year, and it?s pretty clear why.
?There is almost nothing to see there,? writes Mr. Garfors, ?as most of the island ? is a large open phosphate mine.??
Indeed, most of the world?s least visited countries seem to fall in one of two categories. There are the Naurus, where you?ll puzzle over what to do, and the Somalias, where it?s simply too dangerous to do much of anything at all. (As Somalia?s Wikitravel page aptly notes, ?the easiest method for staying safe in Somalia is not to go in the first place.?)?
Most of the ?nothing to do? countries are the crumbs that dust a map of the Pacific Ocean: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, and Tuvalu. The latter shares with the Maldives the dubious distinction of having "highest elevation points" that are the lowest on earth ? 15 feet above sea level. Visit while you can, as rising sea levels could make the island uninhabitable within a century.
As for the ?too dangerous? countries, the list reads like a global primer in political conflict. For instance, despite its pristine national parks full of wild gorillas and elephants, the perpetually ungovernable Central African Republic (#23) is an unpopular destination for tourists. And its stock will likely continue to plummet ? last week a rebel alliance seized the capital, Bangui, and the president fled to neighboring Cameroon. (For more on the tempestuous politics of the CAR, read about the rebel alliance that took power there Sunday)
Afghanistan (#10) also suffers from tourism-deflating instability, which keeps visitors away from its rugged peaks, ancient Buddhist monuments, and Islamic holy sites, including the 12th-century Minaret of Jam, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
?The Taliban have a message for foreign tourists who come to Afghanistan, especially if they are from any of the 50 countries that are part of the NATO-led coalition supporting the government: Big mistake,? writes The New York Times.
Other countries on the list, like Guinea Bissau (#14), Libya (#15), and East Timor (#18), have seen their reputations ? and infrastructure ? hobbled by recent wars or uprisings.
But not every country on the list is too dangerous or boring to visit. A few are simply effectively sealed off to the outside world.
All foreign visitors to North Korea (#16) are limited to a state-curated itinerary and must have an official government ?minder? by their side at all times. But for the few Western tourists who venture into the country, that?s part of the appeal. ?You will rarely get to see propaganda done more explicitly,? Garfors writes.
Except, perhaps, in Turkmenistan (#7), where visitors who brave the onerous Soviet-esque visa application process are rewarded with sites like a 50-ft. golden statue of former dictator Saparmurat Niyazov in the capital Ashgabat, which rotates throughout the course of the day to face the sun. But the country?s most indisputably impressive site is a massive flaming crater deep in the Karakum Desert. Measuring 230 feet across and almost 70 feet deep, the so-called ?Door to Hell? has been burning continuously since Soviet scientists lit it on fire in 1971. ?
Obscure? Yes. But that's part of the charm.
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Google?s augmented reality game inspires players to duel one other in ?Braveheart paint?
By Jason Szep SIT KWIN, Myanmar (Reuters) - The Muslims of Sit Kwin were always a small group who numbered no more than 100 of the village's 2,000 people. But as sectarian violence led by Buddhist mobs spreads across central Myanmar, they and many other Muslims are disappearing. Their homes, shops and mosques destroyed, some end up in refugee camps or hide in the homes of friends or relatives. Dozens have been killed. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/google-augmented-reality-game-inspires-players-duel-one-020647537.html
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Marijuana tax touted as budgetary benefit to US and states. Really?
Marijuana tax could be a new source of revenue for strapped states, and the federal government, too, say two congressmen who have proposed such legislation. But the scale of any tax benefit is hotly disputed.
A grow house in Denver shows a marijuana plant ready to be harvested, in January. Rep. Jared Polis (D) of Colorado, who introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act last month, told Politico Thursday that his state could see as much as $100 million a year from a federal marijuana tax.
Ed Andrieski/AP
EnlargeA federal marijuana tax could potentially pump millions of dollars into struggling state economies, say two US congressmen who have introduced legislation that would create such a tax and also protect state regulation policies.
Skip to next paragraph Allison TerryAllison Terry works on national news desk for the Christian Science Monitor. She previously worked on the cover page desk and contributes to the culture section of the Monitor.
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Rep. Jared Polis (D) of Colorado, who introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act last month, told Politico Thursday that his state could see as much as $100 million a year from a federal marijuana tax, which could make a ?substantial dent in needed school improvements, particularly in poorer districts.?
Representative Polis joins fellow Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who has introduced the Marijuana Tax Equity Act, which would create a $50 excise tax on each ounce of marijuana sold.?
The two bills would help balance the federal and state budgets, the congressmen say, by reducing how much the Drug Enforcement Agency spends on fighting the war on drugs and also adding revenue that would help reduce the budget deficit.
?It is billions of dollars we spend to arrest [660,000] people a year for something that half of Americans think should be legal,? Representative Blumenauer told Fox News last month. He said the legislation would result in about $100 billion in savings and new revenue over the next decade.
But there's disagreement among policymakers and economists about just how much revenue a federal marijuana tax would raise.
If marijuana were taxed in the same way as alcohol and tobacco, estimates for new tax revenue would be closer to $6.4 billion ? $4.3 billion for federal coffers and $2.1 billion for the states ? not the hundreds of millions others have estimated, Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Miron, a scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Politico Thursday.?
?This is not a cash cow that can solve anyone?s fiscal problems,? Mr. Miron said. ?There is a lot of exaggeration about how big the revenue can be.?
Another factor is that nationwide legalization would reduce the cost of marijuana, noted?Rosalie Liccardo Pacula of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, according to the Politico report. She expects prices in Colorado and Washington, where voters last fall opted to legalize possession, to drop by 70 to 85 percent ? and thus the value of any taxes levied on marijuana consumption would also drop.
Claims that legalizing marijuana would benefit states and the US economy are not new.
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7 Secrets for Ageless | World Health
Almost all people wants to have a long life. Lifestyle and health habits can extend our age. Here are longevity tips are easily practiced everyday:
1. Stay active
Managing the body regularly not only keep the flexibility and balance of the body, but also maintain the mind keep alert and healthy circulatory system. Walking, yoga and tai chi is very nice for maintaining muscle fitness. Taichi besides to managing the body also managing the soul which heals. The benefits to health already felt by many people.
2. Positive thinking
Ever there was a study of women who reach the age of 100 years. They were found it is have a positive attitude than ordinary people. Expert health of the elderly, reported that psychical health apparently also important to maintain physical health in old age.
3. Eating patterns
In eating habits is also an important factor in longevity. Food people long life consists of many vegetables and fruits in addition to sources of complex carbohydrates such as red rice. Source of protein obtained from fish and nuts. Red meat consumed only occasionally.
4. Married
A study published in the British Medical Journal, tracking of 918 men aged 45 to 59 years during ten years. The study it found, those who ejaculated less than once a month turned out to be two times the risk of death during the study period than men who get orgasms twice a week.
High sexual activity it does not mean making single people more fortunate than a person married. The study found married man live longer than single people. It may be because better nutrition, there are cared in times of pain and quiet life which tends to be less stressful.
5. Sleep
The latest survey found that study participants who sleep an average of seven hours a day have a lower mortality rate. But too much sleep it turns out not good. Sleeping nine hours a day more risky than those who slept four hours a day. David Phillips, associate director of the Asia Pacific Institute of Aging Studies points out, too much sleep can cause depression, lazy and mentally not active. Everything this is not beneficial for long life.
6. Combing the hair
Combing the hair means massaging the scalp and sweeping dirt and dead skin cells on the head. combing the also helps the sebaceous glands to secrete his oil.?Use good comb of natural materials such as wood. Comb from plastic will probably create static electricity from hair. Comb that gently could become massage tool which good for the head.?On the head also there are many acupuncture points. Massaging the points it help blood circulation and relieve skin that tension.
7. Foot massage
Feet are often overlooked in everyday life. Whereas in Traditional Chinese Medicine, foot health is important for body health and must be kept his health.?Foot have a lot acupuncture points that are connected with all parts of the body. Of course it affects the health of the entire body.?
Foot massage can stimulate the body's vital functions, removes toxins, improve blood circulation and reduce tension. In short, a foot massage improve the balance of yin and yang, at once improve the health of the entire body.
Thank you..
Source: http://worldhealthme.blogspot.com/2013/03/7-secrets-for-ageless.html
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Crosby hit in mouth by puck, will not return
Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby (87) is helped by referee Ian Walsh (29) after being hit in the face with a puck during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the New York Islanders in Pittsburgh, Saturday, March 30, 2013. Crosby left the game. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby (87) is helped by referee Ian Walsh (29) after being hit in the face with a puck during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the New York Islanders in Pittsburgh, Saturday, March 30, 2013. Crosby left the game. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
PITTSBURGH (AP) ? Sidney Crosby has been hit in the mouth by a puck and the Pittsburgh Penguins' star captain will not return to the game against the New York Islanders.
A bloodied Crosby skated off the ice with a towel covering his mouth after Brooks Orpik's slap shot from the point deflected off a stick and hit the NHL scoring leader just 1:28 into Saturday's game.
Crosby, who immediately fell to the ice and tossed his stick in the air, did not return in the first period. Early in the second, the Penguins announced that he would not be back in the game.
Crosby has a history of concussions that have kept him out for long periods during his stellar career.
Pittsburgh was looking for its 15th straight victory, which would be two shy of the NHL record set by Mario Lemieux and the 1992-93 Penguins.
With 15 goals and 56 points, Crosby held a 10-point lead over Tampa Bay's Steven Stamkos in the NHL scoring race.
Associated Pressjulianne hough brandy michael pineda charles taylor bruins boston bruins carl crawford
Saturday, March 30, 2013
A New Kinect-Based Digital Therapist Can Diagnose Depression Using Body Language
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Airports suing FAA over planned tower shutdowns
FILE - In this March 9, 2010 file photo, an American Eagle flight waits for release from the air traffic control tower at Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington, Ill. Airports have begun mounting a legal challenge to the FAA's decision to shut down 149 air traffic control towers under federal budget cuts. Central Illinois Regional Airport is among the latest to file suit with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington. (AP Photo/The Pantagraph, Steve Smedley, File)
FILE - In this March 9, 2010 file photo, an American Eagle flight waits for release from the air traffic control tower at Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington, Ill. Airports have begun mounting a legal challenge to the FAA's decision to shut down 149 air traffic control towers under federal budget cuts. Central Illinois Regional Airport is among the latest to file suit with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington. (AP Photo/The Pantagraph, Steve Smedley, File)
CHICAGO (AP) ? Airport operators are mounting a legal challenge to the Federal Aviation Administration's decision to cut funding for 149 air traffic control towers, accusing the agency of violating federal law meant to ensure major changes at airports do not erode safety.
Several airports are now asking a federal court to halt the plan and compel the FAA to more carefully study the potential safety impact, said Carl Olson, director of the Central Illinois Regional Airport in Bloomington, Ill. He warned that without a more cautious approach, lives will be put at risk by cuts that he contends are arbitrary and the result of reckless political brinkmanship in Washington.
"I think everybody's going to realize what the industry knows, and that is there is a razor thin margin of error in aviation and any diminishment of safety is going to have an immediate and cascading effect," Olson said in an interview Friday. "And all the talk to the contrary won't change that fact."
Olson's airport is among the latest to file a lawsuit this week with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington. The others are Spokane Airports in Washington state, and the operators of Florida airports in Naples, Ormond Beach and Punta Gorda. The court combined the suits into a single case Thursday.
FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said Friday that the agency could not comment on the pending litigation.
The agency's administrator, Michael Huerta, has stressed that safety remains the FAA's top priority even as it is forced by the budget cutting known as sequestration to trim $637 million for the rest of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.
The FAA said it had no choice but to subject most of its 47,000 employees, including tower controllers, to periodic furloughs and to close air traffic facilities run by contractors at 149 small airports with lighter traffic. The first of those closures will happen April 7. Olson's airport is slated to lose its funding May 5.
The tower shutdowns will not mean that airports have to close. All pilots are required to know how to land at un-towered airports and to practice those procedures, which include communicating with other pilots over a shared radio frequency.
But airport directors, pilots and others in the aviation sector say stripping away an extra layer of safety during the most critical stages of flight will elevate risks and at the very least slow years of progress that made the U.S. aviation network the safest in the world.
Lawrence Krauter, director of Spokane International Airport, said he expects more airports and possibly trade associations to join the legal challenge. He said the tower closures amount to one of the most significant changes to the national air system's safety network in recent history and deserve to be studied carefully.
"No one's going to tell you ... that there aren't some contract towers out there that could be closed," Krauter said. "What we're saying is that we think that there needs to be a more reasoned and appropriate process."
Spokane's second and smaller airport, Felts Field, is set to lose its tower funding May 5. Like many of the airports losing funding, it has a busy flight school and serves the area's medical air evacuation operation in addition to handling private aircraft.
Local airport authorities have been scrambling to find the money to keep their towers running once the federal funding runs out. And several of the airport operators wrote to Huerta to ask that he halt the plans and detail exactly what study and review processes, if any, the FAA has carried out.
Olson said he's gotten no response and suspects that no substantive review has been conducted.
"We're not aware of any," Olson said. "There doesn't appear to be any consideration for the individual operations, safety or environmental consequences."
The lawsuits specifically mention the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires extensive review of any airport changes, as well as the Safety Management Systems protocols requiring thorough risk analysis that the FAA must carry out.
"That requirement is not excused" by the budget cuts, Olson said.
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Lawmakers tighten belts amid automatic budget cuts
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Members of Congress are traveling less and worrying more about meeting office salaries. Their aides are contending with long lines to get inside their offices and fewer prospects of a raise. Such are the indignities thrust upon the men and women who brought the country $85 billion in government spending cuts this month.
There probably won't be much sympathy for a senator or congressman making $174,000 a year who is in no danger of being furloughed or laid off, at least until the next election. Still, there has been an effort, especially in the Republican-led House, to show that no one should be exempt from sacrifice.
"As those who are charged with the care of taxpayers' dollars, we need to lead by example," Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., who chairs the House Administration Committee, said last week in promoting a bill to slash the budgets of House committees by 11 percent.
Earlier in March ? after Congress and the White House failed to come up with an alternative to across-the-board cuts in most federal programs ? the House imposed an 8.2 percent reduction in lawmakers' personal office budgets. That came on top of 11 percent cuts to members' office budgets during 2011-2012.
"We've drastically reduced travel both for myself and my staff," said Republican Rep. John Campbell, who must cross the country to visit his southern California district. He said he tends to stay in Washington on two-day weekends rather than return home. "I'm more productive here when I'm not rushing to get home," he added.
Campbell said other "little things" he is doing to economize include reducing the office phone bill, cutting off magazine and newspaper subscriptions and using email rather than letters to communicate with voters.
Rep. Luke Messer, a freshman Republican from Indiana, said he hired fewer people when he came to Washington because "we essentially began the term knowing there was a high possibility of a sequester"? Washington-speak for the automatic spending cuts.
So far, congressional staffers appear to have escaped the furloughs that are likely to send thousands of public servants home without pay for several workdays over the next six months and disrupt some government services. "I hope to avoid that," said Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., "but we will take any steps to ensure we don't exceed our budget." Under House rules, a lawmaker must pay for excess spending out of his or her own pocket.
The fiscal pressures are weaker in the Senate, where senators have staff budgets about double the amount of the $1.3 million average in the House and where the office cuts ordered because of the sequester were limited to 5 percent.
While staffers still have their jobs, they may have a harder time getting to them. Security officials have cut costs by closing 10 entrances and several side streets around the Capitol complex, creating long lines to get through screening stations. People "have started to adjust to those changes at the entrances," although it is still a challenge on busy days, said Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance Gainer.
Gainer, who oversees nearly 1,000 security and administrative employees, said he hopes to abide by the 5 percent sequester cut without layoffs by enlisting 70 or 80 people for a voluntary retirement program.
Some House members also are feeling the pinch during the two-week Easter break, a prime time for foreign "fact-finding" tours. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced last month that members must book commercial flights rather than make use of more convenient but more expensive military aircraft.
Some Democrats have complained the GOP enthusiasm for frugality has come at too high a cost.
"At a time when most members of this body are representing newly formed congressional districts with a need to open new offices or move to new locations, we find ourselves with an 8.2 percent decrease in the very operating budgets that support constituent services," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.
Wasserman Schultz, who also is the Democratic Party's chairwoman, criticized House Republicans for cutting budgets while spending some $3 million for the legal defense of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages.
"We are past the point of cutting what we want, and we are now into cutting what we need ? our ability to attract and retain expert staff," said Rep. Robert Brady of Pennsylvania, the senior Democrat on the House Administration Committee.
Brad Fitch, president and CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to improve congressional operations, said it's still possible that House members will have to resort to furloughs or layoffs. So far, he said, they have been able to cope with the cuts of the past three years with less drastic steps, such as reducing the size of their staffs through attrition, making more use of interns and using email rather than mass mailings.
At the end of 2011, Fitch's group recommended 46 possible ways for members to cut $90,000 from their 2012 budgets, ranging from pay freezes, holding more town hall meetings by telephone, delaying purchases of new computers, eliminating Washington staffers' visits to district offices, closing district offices, eliminating bottled water from offices and reviewing spending on food and beverages for constituents.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-tighten-belts-amid-automatic-budget-cuts-165316275--politics.html
The Ocean Is Safe from Swarms of Man-Sized Robo-Jellyfish?For Now
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FBI 'flying saucers' NM memo bureau's most viewed
ROSWELL, N.M. (AP) ? An FBI report of "flying saucers" in New Mexico sent to then-Director J. Edgar Hoover in 1950 has become the most popular file in the bureau's electronic reading room.
The Roswell Daily Record reports (http://bit.ly/1647qm6) the memo sent by FBI Washington, D.C.- field office chief Guy Hottel has been viewed nearly a million times.
The document is about a report of three flying saucers allegedly recovered in New Mexico, each occupied by three small human-shaped bodies. It says an informant told officials that the UFOs had ended up there because a government radar in the area interfered with their controlling mechanisms.
The FBI never followed up on the report.
The memo is available in the "The Vault," an electronic reading room launched by the FBI in 2011 that contains around 6,700 public documents.
___
Online:
'The Vault' memo, http://vault.fbi.gov/hottel_guy/Guy%20Hottel%20Part%201%20of%201/view
___
Information from: Roswell Daily Record, http://www.roswell-record.com
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Facebook to hold Android event Thursday
NEW YORK (AP) ? Facebook has invited journalists to the unveiling of what it calls its "new home on Android."
Next Thursday's event will be held at the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters. Facebook is not providing further details. There has been speculation that the company could launch a new phone, though that's unlikely.
Facebook is more likely to unveil a new Android app or some other integration into Android phones.
Citing unnamed sources, the tech blog TechCrunch says Facebook will launch a modified version of Android that embeds Facebook deeply into the operating system.
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Rapper Gucci Mane denied bond in assault case
ATLANTA (AP) ? Gucci Mane has been denied bond on charges stemming from a fan's accusation that the rapper hit him in the head with a champagne bottle at an Atlanta nightclub.
A fan says the rapper, whose real name is Radric Davis, hit him in the club's V.I.P. area on March 16 while he tried to take a picture with Gucci Mane. The fan, James Lettley, says he needed 10 stitches.
Davis was in custody on a charge of aggravated assault with a weapon and appeared in court Wednesday.
The rapper's attorney, Drew Findling, tells WSB-TV (http://bit.ly/XdhFoP ) that Davis' criminal history made it difficult for a judge to set bond. Fulton County jail records show Davis has been arrested 10 times since 2005.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rapper-gucci-mane-denied-bond-assault-case-131949635.html
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HBT: Marlins' Morrison eyes return by mid-May
Logan Morrison has missed all of spring training as he recovers from knee surgery, but the Marlins first baseman is scheduled to take a big step in his comeback when he starts throwing, fielding, and running next week.
Morrison told Manny Navarro of the Miami Herald that he?s hoping to come off the disabled list by mid-May and described himself as ?frustrated? by having to sit out so much action.
Casey Kotchman has made the Marlins after signing a minor-league contract and will open the season as the starting first baseman. It?ll be interesting to see what happens if Kotchman fares well, because while Morrison has played quite a bit of left field in the past the Marlins probably wouldn?t want him in the outfield post-knee surgery and Kotchman can only play first base.
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Friday, March 29, 2013
How hard is it to 'de-anonymize' cellphone data?
Thursday, March 28, 2013
The proliferation of sensor-studded cellphones could lead to a wealth of data with socially useful applications ? in urban planning, epidemiology, operations research and emergency preparedness, among other things. Of course, before being released to researchers, the data would have to be stripped of identifying information. But how hard could it be to protect the identity of one unnamed cellphone user in a data set of hundreds of thousands or even millions?
According to a paper appearing this week in Scientific Reports, harder than you might think. Researchers at MIT and the Universit? Catholique de Louvain, in Belgium, analyzed data on 1.5 million cellphone users in a small European country over a span of 15 months and found that just four points of reference, with fairly low spatial and temporal resolution, was enough to uniquely identify 95 percent of them.
In other words, to extract the complete location information for a single person from an "anonymized" data set of more than a million people, all you would need to do is place him or her within a couple of hundred yards of a cellphone transmitter, sometime over the course of an hour, four times in one year. A few Twitter posts would probably provide all the information you needed, if they contained specific information about the person's whereabouts.
The first author on the paper is Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, a graduate student in the research group of Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Science Sandy Pentland. He's joined by C?sar Hidalgo, an assistant professor of media arts and science; Vincent Blondel, a visiting professor at MIT and a professor of applied mathematics at Universit? Catholique; and Michel Verleysen, a professor of electrical engineering at Universit? Catholique.
Focusing the debate
Hidalgo's group specializes in applying the tools of statistical physics to a wide range of subjects, from communications networks to genetics to economics. In this case, he and de Montjoye were able to use those tools to uncover a simple mathematical relationship between the resolution of spatiotemporal data and the likelihood of identifying a member of a data set.
According to their formula, the probability of identifying someone goes down if the resolution of the measurements decreases, but less than you might think. Reporting the time of each measurement as imprecisely as sometime within a 15-hour span, or location as imprecisely as somewhere amid 15 adjacent cell towers, would still enable the unique identification of half the people in the sample data set.
But while its initial application may be discouraging, de Montjoye and Hidalgo hope that their formula will provide a way for researchers and policy analysts to reason more rigorously about the privacy safeguards that need to be put in place when they're working with aggregated location data.
"Both C?sar and I deeply believe that we all have a lot to gain from this data being used," de Montjoye says. "This formula is something that could be useful to help the debate and decide, OK, how do we balance things out, and how do we make it a fair deal for everyone to use this data?"
Everybody's different
In the data set that the researchers analyzed, the location of a cellphone was inferred solely from that of the cell tower it was connected to, and the time of the connection was given as falling within a one-hour interval. Each cellphone had a unique, randomly generated identifying number, so that its movement could be traced over time. But there was no information connecting that number to the phone's owner.
The researchers randomly selected a representative sampling from the set of 1.5 million cellphone traces and, for each trace, began choosing points at random. For 95 percent of the traces, just four randomly selected points was enough to distinguish them from all other traces in the database. In the worst (or, from another perspective, best) case, 11 measurements were necessary.
The researchers suspect that similar relationships might hold for other types of data. "I would not be surprised if a similar result ? maybe requiring more points ? would, for example, extend to web browsing," Hidalgo says. "The space of potential combinations is really large. When a person is, in some sense, being expressed in a space in which the total number of combinations is huge, the probability that two people would have the same exact trajectory ? whether it's walking or browsing ? is almost nil."
###
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice
Thanks to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127503/How_hard_is_it_to__de_anonymize__cellphone_data_
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Rev. Emily C. Heath: Maundy Thursday and the Love Mandate
The most common question I get asked during Holy Week is about this night, the Thursday before Easter. People get Palm Sunday, and Good Friday, and Easter, but tonight, Maundy Thursday, is unclear. And the one thing people want to know the most, is this: What does "Maundy" mean?
It's a good question. Who uses the term "maundy" in their daily life? For those on the outside of the church, and even for those of us inside, it might just sound like a church service where we know we should want to go to it, but we have no idea why.
But before I talk about what the word means, I want to go back to that story we read from the Gospel. In it Jesus has gone to Jerusalem for the Passover. He's gathered his 12 disciples there at the table. And he knows what is going to happen. He knows that by the end of the night one of them will betray him to the authorities. One will deny him three times. And all of them will leave him alone in his hour of greatest pain.
And yet, there he is. Breaking the bread and pouring the cup. Eating with them. Blessing them. Getting down on his knees and washing their feet, showing them his love and grace and compassion, in a time when we might have better understood his wrath or anger.
In a world where we are often surrounded by messages of retaliation, or vengeance, or an eye for an eye cries for justice, it's a different message. Jesus had done nothing wrong. He'd lived a life of nonviolence, he'd healed the sick, raised the dead and freed the captives. He'd brought hope and life to those who needed it the most.
And in the end, he knew that he was not about to be thanked. He was about to be killed. Because in the end, the goodness and the kindness and the compassion he had brought were more of a threat to the Roman authorities, and clergy of his day, than any weapon or any army. He so radically upset the status quo that they decided their only choice was to kill him.
The night before, he wasn't running away. He wasn't preparing for a battle. He wasn't plotting his revenge. Instead, he was with the ones he loved most. The ones who loved him, but who weren't perfect. The ones who knew who he was, and what he had done, and who would be the witnesses to his life after he was gone.
And that's where that word "maundy" comes in. Because what do you do if you're Jesus? What do you do if you know you are not going to be around much longer, and you have to tell the people you love the most, the ones who followed you, the ones who sometimes make big mistakes, how to keep moving in the right direction after you're gone?
The word "maundy" comes from a Latin word: mandatum. And mandatum means "mandate" or a "commandment". And when we talk about "Maundy Thursday" we're talking about "mandate Thursday." We're talking about the night that Christ told his disciples exactly what he expected of them.
And if you read a book or watch a movie about almost anyone else, you might think the lead character right about now would be saying something like "avenge my death" or "make sure there's payback" or "don't let them get away with this ... strike back."
But this isn't any other story. This is a story that turns everything on its head. The mandate, the mandatory thing Jesus tells us to do in this passage is this:
"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
It probably wouldn't do well at the box office. It wouldn't get Nielsen ratings. The story wouldn't soar to the top of the New York Times best-sellers list today. But it's a story that transcends all of those things. Because it's the beginning of a story about what happens when the world does its worst through violence and hatred and fear, and yet love wins anyway. It's a story of love that was rejected and buried, and yet was still too strong to stay in the ground.
It's not my job to rename Christian holy days. But if it were, I might change the name of Maundy Thursday. I might change it from this word that none of us really know anymore to something we would all understand. Something like "Love One Another Thursday" or "The Last Thing Christ Really Wanted Us to Know Thursday."
Because this is a message we Christians all need to hear. We don't need to hide it behind fancy terms. We don't need to just check it off as another night in holy week. We need to hear that this is how Christ said other people would know us: by how we love one another.
Maybe it would help us remember. Maybe it would help us remember not just what this night is about, but maybe it would help us remember what it means to be Christians. And maybe if we always had that reminder, if we always had that commandment to love in the front of our head, Christ's dream for us would come true.
Maybe we wouldn't be known as Christ's disciples by the fact we put a Christian fish sticker on our car. Or wore a cross around our necks. Maybe we wouldn't be know by what we said about what we believed. Maybe we wouldn't be known by our what we voted for, or against. Maybe we wouldn't be known by the anger some Christians express on the evening news, or the mean-spiritedness others show in their day-to-day lives. Maybe instead we would just be known by the one thing Christ wanted us to be known for: by how we love.
In a few minutes we will be celebrating Communion together, and you'll hear me repeat the words of institution, the phrases we are told Christ used as he broke bread and gave it to his disciples for the first time, on this same night many years ago. I'll say to you that "on the night Christ was betrayed he took bread, and blessed it, and gave it to his disciples."
You hear that all the time here, and if you are like me, you are uplifted by it.
But what if you heard this just as often too? "On the night Christ was betrayed he turned to his disciples and said, 'I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.'"
We don't say that often in service. Not in so many words. But I think we try to say it in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. It's no coincidence Christ said these things on the night of his last supper, but we sometimes forget the say the words.
This year, let's not forget. Between this Maundy Thursday and the one next year, let's not forget what the mandate is. It's so simple, and yet it demands our whole lives and our whole attentions. But here in the church, we can give Christ nothing less. Tonight, as we eat this bread and drink this cup, as simple as it seems on the outside, know that we are choosing no less than to feast upon Christ's love for us, and to bring that feast out to others. If every Christian would do that, no one would ever have to ask us who we follow. By our love, they would already know. Amen.
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Follow Rev. Emily C. Heath on Twitter: www.twitter.com/calledoutrev
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-emily-c-heath/maundy-thursday-and-the-love-mandate_b_2941615.html
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Air Charters And Their Advantages | Oregon Attractions
Traveling by air these days has become very convenient because of the many options people now have. There are now commercial planes you can take if you wish to go to another city or country. Some people prefer to buy their very own plane, helicopter, or jet. If any of these options do not agree to you, the outer banks air charters would be another good option that is available to you.
One of the best things about air charters is that it gives you the things that you can enjoy with commercial planes and private aircrafts. This allows people to still travel on his own plane without having to actually one. This has become a lot of help to people that do not have the money to secure their own private jet. This allows them to have the chance to travel in the air without using commercial planes.
There are many advantages that you can get from renting at charter plane. One of them is that this is a faster way that you can travel. You do not have to worry about other passengers, delays, and other things that could drag your travel time. This is a good option to take if you are in a hurry to go to your destination.
Another advantage of renting a charter is that everything is going to revolve around your schedule. You no longer have to worry about not catching the flight because the pilot would depend on when you would like to take off. It is up to you when you would like to go and where you want the plane to go to.
Charter companies also have so many kinds of aircrafts available to their clients. They offer various aircrafts so their client maybe able to have an aircraft that suit all of their needs. Each client has different needs. One may want a big plane to fit many passengers or a plane that contains certain features.
Being able to have the plane all to yourself is very comfortable and relaxing. Getting charter service comes with all the other services provided by the company. There will be people that would see to it that you get all the things you need. They will take care of your luggage, the flight, and even the food.
A charter plane is now being used by people not just merely for transportation. Nowadays, many have started to use this for celebrating special occasions. It is perfect for impressing someone or for making them feel special. The service would see to it that all the passengers are going to be treated the best way possible.
There are many occasions or situations that would make renting a charter a good idea. A good example would be a person?s birthday. This is also something you can do if you have an important client coming to town. It is a very special transportation for couples that going on a honeymoon.
Outer banks air charters make flights something that many people would be able to enjoy. A charter can give you the privacy and comfort that you need. It is also one way that you can travel faster without sacrificing your very own comfort.
Read more about The Advantages Of Air Charters visiting our website.
Source: http://oregonattractions.net/travel-leisure/air-charters-and-their-advantages/
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How Copywriting Creates Six-Figure Incomes | Ray Edwards
If you think ?copywriting? (writing words that persuade people to do or buy something) is only about creating ads, you?re missing the point. Copywriting is a skill has created more six-figure incomes than you might imagine. In some cases, seven-figure incomes.
For instance, one of my best friends generates a healthy $150,000 per month from his home-based business, and at its core, that business is fueled by my friend?s copywriting skill.
If you truly want to start your own business, or create a second income stream, one of the first things I would recommend you learn is the basic skill of powerful copywriting.
Now, this is not some ?get rich quick? scheme?
This is a serious business skill than can provide you with a comfortable six-figure annual income for the rest of your life.
You can run your business from anywhere. You can dream up promotions and campaigns, write the copy, and put the plan into profit? all in the same day.
And yes, you could ?retire? from your present job, and use your copywriting skills to build your own marketing empire?- working wherever and whenever you want.
I have run my business from all over the USA, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and the UK:
- Working form home in the Northwest US (sometimes at my house, sometimes from my office 5 minutes away, and sometimes from Starbucks!)?
- On the road in my motorhome (summer-before-last we put 8,000 miles on the coach, the last winter we spent in California)?
- Traveling to Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, Toronto and New York?
- On vacation with family in Michigan, the Carolinas, Utah, and Montana?
- And from England and Scotland?
My results are not typical?- you?ll have your own results. Want to join me in the ?not typical? club? Want to know how I managed to get these unusual results?
It comes down to one skill: copywriting. Now, ask yourself? if you learned how to master the art of ?persuasion in print?, how could that change your life?
- Will you finally get your online business started?
- Will you write copy freelance, and live a life free from offices, meetings, and memos?
- Will you take your existing online business and multiply your profits using the power of copy?
Or will you keep struggling along like most ?Internet Marketers?? That road leads nowhere. You don?t need to learn the new ?shiny object of the week? system. You don?t need the latest greatest website.? You just need a skill that is valued, and that has the power to give you leverage. The skill I recommend starting with is the ability to write persuasive copy.
If you have decided that I am right about this, give life to that decision and do something about it. Pick up a book, take a copywriting course, or just sit down and write a piece of copy. Today. Maybe even right now.
A good place to start would be with my book on copywriting. An even better place to start would be with the live webinar training about copywriting I?m doing next Tuesday.
Question: How can you profitably apply the power of persuasive copy in your business?
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| | | | | |Source: http://rayedwards.com/how-copywriting-creates-six-figure-incomes/
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NOvA neutrino detector records first 3-D particle tracks
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Public release date: 28-Mar-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Andre Salles
media@fnal.gov
630-840-6733
DOE/Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
What will soon be the most powerful neutrino detector in the United States has recorded its first three-dimensional images of particles.
Using the first completed section of the NOvA neutrino detector, scientists have begun collecting data from cosmic raysparticles produced by a constant rain of atomic nuclei falling on the Earth's atmosphere from space.
"It's taken years of hard work and close collaboration among universities, national laboratories and private companies to get to this point," said Pier Oddone, director of the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Fermilab manages the project to construct the detector.
The active section of the detector, under construction in Ash River, Minn., is about 12 feet long, 15 feet wide and 20 feet tall. The full detector will measure more than 200 feet long, 50 feet wide and 50 feet tall.
Scientists' goal for the completed detector is to use it to discover properties of mysterious fundamental particles called neutrinos. Neutrinos are as abundant as cosmic rays in the atmosphere, but they have barely any mass and interact much more rarely with other matter. Many of the neutrinos around today are thought to have originated in the big bang.
"The more we know about neutrinos, the more we know about the early universe and about how our world works at its most basic level," said NOvA co-spokesperson Gary Feldman of Harvard University.
Later this year, Fermilab, outside of Chicago, will start sending a beam of neutrinos 500 miles through the earth to the NOvA detector near the Canadian border. When a neutrino interacts in the NOvA detector, the particles it produces leave trails of light in their wake. The detector records these streams of light, enabling physicists to identify the original neutrino and measure the amount of energy it had.
When cosmic rays pass through the NOvA detector, they leave straight tracks and deposit well-known amounts of energy. They are great for calibration, said Mat Muether, a Fermilab post-doctoral researcher who has been working on the detector.
"Everybody loves cosmic rays for this reason," Muether said. "They are simple and abundant and a perfect tool for tuning up a new detector."
The detector at its current size catches more than 1,000 cosmic rays per second. Naturally occurring neutrinos from cosmic rays, supernovae and the sun stream through the detector at the same time. But the flood of more visible cosmic-ray data makes it difficult to pick them out.
Once the upgraded Fermilab neutrino beam starts, the NOvA detector will take data every 1.3 seconds to synchronize with the Fermilab accelerator. Inside this short time window, the burst of neutrinos from Fermilab will be much easier to spot.
The NOvA detector will be operated by the University of Minnesota under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.
The NOvA experiment is a collaboration of 180 scientists, technicians and students from 20 universities and laboratories in the U.S and another 14 institutions around the world. The scientists are funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and funding agencies in the Czech Republic, Greece, India, Russia and the United Kingdom.
###
Fermilab is America's premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. Visit Fermilab's website at http://www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @FermilabToday.
The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 28-Mar-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Andre Salles
media@fnal.gov
630-840-6733
DOE/Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
What will soon be the most powerful neutrino detector in the United States has recorded its first three-dimensional images of particles.
Using the first completed section of the NOvA neutrino detector, scientists have begun collecting data from cosmic raysparticles produced by a constant rain of atomic nuclei falling on the Earth's atmosphere from space.
"It's taken years of hard work and close collaboration among universities, national laboratories and private companies to get to this point," said Pier Oddone, director of the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Fermilab manages the project to construct the detector.
The active section of the detector, under construction in Ash River, Minn., is about 12 feet long, 15 feet wide and 20 feet tall. The full detector will measure more than 200 feet long, 50 feet wide and 50 feet tall.
Scientists' goal for the completed detector is to use it to discover properties of mysterious fundamental particles called neutrinos. Neutrinos are as abundant as cosmic rays in the atmosphere, but they have barely any mass and interact much more rarely with other matter. Many of the neutrinos around today are thought to have originated in the big bang.
"The more we know about neutrinos, the more we know about the early universe and about how our world works at its most basic level," said NOvA co-spokesperson Gary Feldman of Harvard University.
Later this year, Fermilab, outside of Chicago, will start sending a beam of neutrinos 500 miles through the earth to the NOvA detector near the Canadian border. When a neutrino interacts in the NOvA detector, the particles it produces leave trails of light in their wake. The detector records these streams of light, enabling physicists to identify the original neutrino and measure the amount of energy it had.
When cosmic rays pass through the NOvA detector, they leave straight tracks and deposit well-known amounts of energy. They are great for calibration, said Mat Muether, a Fermilab post-doctoral researcher who has been working on the detector.
"Everybody loves cosmic rays for this reason," Muether said. "They are simple and abundant and a perfect tool for tuning up a new detector."
The detector at its current size catches more than 1,000 cosmic rays per second. Naturally occurring neutrinos from cosmic rays, supernovae and the sun stream through the detector at the same time. But the flood of more visible cosmic-ray data makes it difficult to pick them out.
Once the upgraded Fermilab neutrino beam starts, the NOvA detector will take data every 1.3 seconds to synchronize with the Fermilab accelerator. Inside this short time window, the burst of neutrinos from Fermilab will be much easier to spot.
The NOvA detector will be operated by the University of Minnesota under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.
The NOvA experiment is a collaboration of 180 scientists, technicians and students from 20 universities and laboratories in the U.S and another 14 institutions around the world. The scientists are funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and funding agencies in the Czech Republic, Greece, India, Russia and the United Kingdom.
###
Fermilab is America's premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance, LLC. Visit Fermilab's website at http://www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter at @FermilabToday.
The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/dnal-nnd032813.php
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