Sweet fuel cars round the corner
Researchers have developed a "revolutionary" process for converting plant sugars into hydrogen, which they claim could be used to economically and efficiently run vehicles. According to the researchers, the conversion process involves combining plant sugars, water and a cocktail of powerful enzymes to produce hydrogen and carbon dioxide under mild reaction conditions, BBC reported.
The new system helps solve the three major technical barriers to the so-called "hydrogen economy" - the roadblocks involve how to produce low-cost sustainable hydrogen, how to store hydrogen and how to distribute it efficiently, the researchers in US said.
"This is revolutionary work. This has opened up a whole new direction in hydrogen research. With technology improvement, sugar-powered vehicles could come true eventually," lead researcher Percival Zhang of Virginia Tech University said. Zhang and his colleagues believe they have found the most promising hydrogen-producing system to date from plant biomass.
They think they can produce hydrogen from cellulose, which has a similar chemical formula to starch but is far more difficult to break down. In laboratory studies, the scientists collected 13 different, well-known enzymes and combined them with water and starches. Inside a specially designed reactor and under mild conditions (approximately 86øF), the resulting broth reacted to produce only carbon dioxide and hydrogen with no leftover pollutants. The method, called "in vitro synthetic biology", produced three times more hydrogen than the theoretical yield of anaerobic fermentation methods.
A sugar-fuelled car would be inherently safe because its hydrogen is used immediately, said Zhang. He added that it would also be economical and cleaner to run than even the most efficient petrol-driven car.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Barney Frank and Ron Paul - Strange Bedfellows?
Bankers cheer Frank-Paul approach to Web gambling
By Jessica Holzer
Posted: 04/14/08 06:30 PM [ET]
The banking industry is cheering a fresh assault on the 2006 federal crackdown on Internet gambling by an unlikely duo: House Financial Services panel Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).
Frank has teamed up with the libertarian-minded Paul, who crusaded against big government during his recent White House bid, on legislation to block that law by forbidding federal officials from writing rules to implement it.
The pair introduced their bill on Friday, less than two weeks after federal officials testified to Frank’s committee that they were struggling to craft rules barring payments to illegal online gambling sites and banking industry representatives blasted the proposed rules as too onerous.
“I don’t know what can be done or will be done legislatively, but we certainly appreciate the interest,” said the top lobbyist for the American Bankers Association , Floyd Stoner, of the Frank-Paul legislation.
The bill could supplant legislation introduced by Frank last year to legalize and regulate online gambling. Though it has attracted 48 co-sponsors, that legislation has failed to gain steam in the House, which overwhelmingly supported the 2006 law to ban payments for online wagers deemed illegal under state laws.
Frank’s new legislation takes a different approach, however, by attacking the practical hurdles of the federal law, known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, rather than its legitimacy.
“While I do disagree with the underlying objective of the act, I believe that even those who agree with it ought to be concerned about the regulations’ impact,” Frank said in a statement.
He argued that the regulations proposed by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury were “impossible to implement without placing a significant burden on the payments system and financial institutions.”
Supporters of banning online gambling vowed to beat back the new effort to undo the law, just as they did Frank’s bill to legalize online gambling.
“Our office will vigorously oppose any efforts to repeal or water down any parts of the [federal law],” said Ryan Patmintra, a spokesman for Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who was a chief sponsor of legislation to ban online gambling in the Senate.
“It’s another attempt to take apart a bill that was passed overwhelmingly by the House,” said Tom McClusky, the vice president for government affairs at the Family Research Council , which had pushed hard for the federal crackdown. He noted that 48 state attorneys general had pushed for the federal law to enforce their state bans.
Meanwhile, the National Football League and other professional and amateur sports organizations would “vigorously oppose” the Frank-Paul legislation, said Martin Gold, a lawyer at Covington & Burling and a longtime lobbyist for the NFL.
Federal law is murky on what constitutes illegal gambling online. Congress stopped short of defining it clearly in the 2006 law, directing the federal government instead to enforce state laws restricting such activities. It also excluded online horserace betting from the crackdown.
Now, writing rules to implement the law is bedeviling regulators. “The challenge we have is interpreting … federal laws that Congress itself isn’t sure what they mean,” Louise Roseman, a Fed official, testified on April 2 before Frank’s committee.
The banking industry has flooded the Treasury and the Fed with complaints about their proposed rules, arguing that it is too difficult for banks to sort out payments for legal wagers — such as on horse races — and those that are illegal.
“The banking system is just not set up to sort out whether one payment is a legal payment and one payment is not,” said the director of congressional affairs for the Independent Community Bankers of America , Steve Verdier. “We think the [Frank-Paul] bill would give everyone the chance to take a breath.”
Charles Rothfeld, a lawyer at Mayer Brown who has argued several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, said that the Frank-Paul legislation is not likely to pose any constitutional problems. “Congress gets to say the way in which its legislation is implemented. If it wants to issue legislation to preclude the promulgation of regulation, it can do that,” he argued.
Aside from the banking industry, the Frank-Paul bill also has support from gambling aficionados and firms that stand to gain from regulated online gambling.
Michael Waxman, a representative from the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, which represents firms poised to gain from regulation of online betting, applauded the bill.
“Our goal is to get regulation of the industry. But we do believe that this legislation that has been introduced is a step in the process to getting us there,” he said.
The American Gaming Association , which says its members do not include online gambling operators, has not taken a stance on the bill. It also remained neutral on the 2006 law.
However, the group supports a bill sponsored by Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) to authorize a one-year study of online gambling by a third party.
http://tinyurl.com/65p74h
By Jessica Holzer
Posted: 04/14/08 06:30 PM [ET]
The banking industry is cheering a fresh assault on the 2006 federal crackdown on Internet gambling by an unlikely duo: House Financial Services panel Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).
Frank has teamed up with the libertarian-minded Paul, who crusaded against big government during his recent White House bid, on legislation to block that law by forbidding federal officials from writing rules to implement it.
The pair introduced their bill on Friday, less than two weeks after federal officials testified to Frank’s committee that they were struggling to craft rules barring payments to illegal online gambling sites and banking industry representatives blasted the proposed rules as too onerous.
“I don’t know what can be done or will be done legislatively, but we certainly appreciate the interest,” said the top lobbyist for the American Bankers Association , Floyd Stoner, of the Frank-Paul legislation.
The bill could supplant legislation introduced by Frank last year to legalize and regulate online gambling. Though it has attracted 48 co-sponsors, that legislation has failed to gain steam in the House, which overwhelmingly supported the 2006 law to ban payments for online wagers deemed illegal under state laws.
Frank’s new legislation takes a different approach, however, by attacking the practical hurdles of the federal law, known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, rather than its legitimacy.
“While I do disagree with the underlying objective of the act, I believe that even those who agree with it ought to be concerned about the regulations’ impact,” Frank said in a statement.
He argued that the regulations proposed by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury were “impossible to implement without placing a significant burden on the payments system and financial institutions.”
Supporters of banning online gambling vowed to beat back the new effort to undo the law, just as they did Frank’s bill to legalize online gambling.
“Our office will vigorously oppose any efforts to repeal or water down any parts of the [federal law],” said Ryan Patmintra, a spokesman for Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who was a chief sponsor of legislation to ban online gambling in the Senate.
“It’s another attempt to take apart a bill that was passed overwhelmingly by the House,” said Tom McClusky, the vice president for government affairs at the Family Research Council , which had pushed hard for the federal crackdown. He noted that 48 state attorneys general had pushed for the federal law to enforce their state bans.
Meanwhile, the National Football League and other professional and amateur sports organizations would “vigorously oppose” the Frank-Paul legislation, said Martin Gold, a lawyer at Covington & Burling and a longtime lobbyist for the NFL.
Federal law is murky on what constitutes illegal gambling online. Congress stopped short of defining it clearly in the 2006 law, directing the federal government instead to enforce state laws restricting such activities. It also excluded online horserace betting from the crackdown.
Now, writing rules to implement the law is bedeviling regulators. “The challenge we have is interpreting … federal laws that Congress itself isn’t sure what they mean,” Louise Roseman, a Fed official, testified on April 2 before Frank’s committee.
The banking industry has flooded the Treasury and the Fed with complaints about their proposed rules, arguing that it is too difficult for banks to sort out payments for legal wagers — such as on horse races — and those that are illegal.
“The banking system is just not set up to sort out whether one payment is a legal payment and one payment is not,” said the director of congressional affairs for the Independent Community Bankers of America , Steve Verdier. “We think the [Frank-Paul] bill would give everyone the chance to take a breath.”
Charles Rothfeld, a lawyer at Mayer Brown who has argued several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, said that the Frank-Paul legislation is not likely to pose any constitutional problems. “Congress gets to say the way in which its legislation is implemented. If it wants to issue legislation to preclude the promulgation of regulation, it can do that,” he argued.
Aside from the banking industry, the Frank-Paul bill also has support from gambling aficionados and firms that stand to gain from regulated online gambling.
Michael Waxman, a representative from the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, which represents firms poised to gain from regulation of online betting, applauded the bill.
“Our goal is to get regulation of the industry. But we do believe that this legislation that has been introduced is a step in the process to getting us there,” he said.
The American Gaming Association , which says its members do not include online gambling operators, has not taken a stance on the bill. It also remained neutral on the 2006 law.
However, the group supports a bill sponsored by Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) to authorize a one-year study of online gambling by a third party.
http://tinyurl.com/65p74h
Monday, April 14, 2008
I believe this would qualify as mildly scary news ...
Bacteria Survive on All-Antibiotic Diet
Given the massive amounts of antibiotics coursing through the bodies of our livestock—not to mention its use and misuse by humans—one would think soil would be teeming with the drugs. But this isn’t the case, and now scientists may know why: They’re being devoured by bacteria.
bacteria.jpg
Harvard researchers stumbled upon this finding while trying to find microbes that could convert agricultural waste into biofuels. The scientists wanted to make sure they had a good control—a group of bacteria that didn’t grow at all—so they bathed some of the bacteria in antibiotics. But there was a problem: The bacteria didn’t just survive in the antibiotics, they consumed them. The researchers then gathered soil from 11 sites with varying degrees of exposure to human-made antibiotics (from manure-filled cornfields to an immaculate forest) and found that every site contained bacteria, including relatives of Shigella and the notorious E. coli that could survive solely on antibiotics. And these weren’t just piddling doses—the bacteria could tolerate levels of antibiotics that were up to 100 times higher than would be given to a patient, and 50 times higher than what would qualify a bacterium as resistant.
Concern about antibiotic-resistant bugs has been ramping up lately, but this in-your-face blow brings it to new heights. According to one of the authors, “almost all the drugs that we consider as our mainline defense against bacterial infections are at risk from bacteria that not only resist the drugs but eat them for breakfast.” Moreover, bacteria frequently swap genes with each other, so pathogenic bacteria could develop a palate for antibiotics (if they haven’t already). But bacteriologist Jo Handelsman of the University of Wisconsin, Madison thinks this is unlikely, as “there are much yummier and easier things to eat in the human body.”
[From the Discoverblog] http://tinyurl.com/4a78el
Given the massive amounts of antibiotics coursing through the bodies of our livestock—not to mention its use and misuse by humans—one would think soil would be teeming with the drugs. But this isn’t the case, and now scientists may know why: They’re being devoured by bacteria.
bacteria.jpg
Harvard researchers stumbled upon this finding while trying to find microbes that could convert agricultural waste into biofuels. The scientists wanted to make sure they had a good control—a group of bacteria that didn’t grow at all—so they bathed some of the bacteria in antibiotics. But there was a problem: The bacteria didn’t just survive in the antibiotics, they consumed them. The researchers then gathered soil from 11 sites with varying degrees of exposure to human-made antibiotics (from manure-filled cornfields to an immaculate forest) and found that every site contained bacteria, including relatives of Shigella and the notorious E. coli that could survive solely on antibiotics. And these weren’t just piddling doses—the bacteria could tolerate levels of antibiotics that were up to 100 times higher than would be given to a patient, and 50 times higher than what would qualify a bacterium as resistant.
Concern about antibiotic-resistant bugs has been ramping up lately, but this in-your-face blow brings it to new heights. According to one of the authors, “almost all the drugs that we consider as our mainline defense against bacterial infections are at risk from bacteria that not only resist the drugs but eat them for breakfast.” Moreover, bacteria frequently swap genes with each other, so pathogenic bacteria could develop a palate for antibiotics (if they haven’t already). But bacteriologist Jo Handelsman of the University of Wisconsin, Madison thinks this is unlikely, as “there are much yummier and easier things to eat in the human body.”
[From the Discoverblog] http://tinyurl.com/4a78el
A million monkeys in a million years wrote 200,000 books.
He Wrote 200,000 Books (but Computers Did Some of the Work)
The New York Times
Published: April 14, 2008
By NOAM COHEN
It's not easy to write a book. First you have to pick a title. And then there is the table of contents. If you want the book to be categorized, either by a bookseller or a library, it has to be assigned a unique numerical code, like an ISBN, for International Standard Book Number. There have to be proper margins. Finally, there's the back cover.
Oh, and there is all that stuff in the middle, too. The writing.
Philip M. Parker seems to have licked that problem. Mr. Parker has generated more than 200,000 books, as an advanced search on Amazon.com under his publishing company shows, making him, in his own words, "the most published author in the history of the planet." And he makes money doing it.
Among the books published under his name are "The Official Patient's Sourcebook on Acne Rosacea" ($24.95 and 168 pages long); "Stickler Syndrome: A Bibliography and Dictionary for Physicians, Patients and Genome Researchers" ($28.95 for 126 pages); and "The 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India" ($495 for 144 pages).
But these are not conventional books, and it is perhaps more accurate to call Mr. Parker a compiler than an author. Mr. Parker, who is also the chaired professor of management science at Insead (a business school with campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore), has developed computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a subject — broad or obscure — and, aided by his 60 to 70 computers and six or seven programmers, he turns the results into books in a range of genres, many of them in the range of 150 pages and printed only when a customer buys one.
If this sounds like cheating to the layman's ear, it does not to Mr. Parker, who holds some provocative — and apparently profitable — ideas on what constitutes a book. While the most popular of his books may sell hundreds of copies, he said, many have sales in the dozens, often to medical libraries collecting nearly everything he produces. He has extended his technique to crossword puzzles, rudimentary poetry and even to scripts for animated game shows.
And he is laying the groundwork for romance novels generated by new algorithms. "I've already set it up," he said. "There are only so many body parts."
Perusing a work like the outlook for bathmat sales in India, a reader would be hard pressed to find an actual sentence that was "written" by the computer. If you were to open a book, you would find a title page, a detailed table of contents, and many, many pages of graphics with introductory boilerplate that is adjusted for the content and genre.
While nothing announces that Mr. Parker's books are computer generated, one reader, David Pascoe, seemed close to figuring it out himself, based on his comments to Amazon in 2004. Reviewing a guide to rosacea, a skin disorder, Mr. Pascoe, who is from Perth, Australia, complained: "The book is more of a template for 'generic health researching' than anything specific to rosacea. The information is of such a generic level that a sourcebook on the next medical topic is just a search and replace away."
When told via e-mail that his suspicion was correct, Mr. Pascoe wrote back, "I guess it makes sense now as to why the book was so awful and frustrating."Mr. Parker was willing to concede much of what Mr. Pascoe argued. "If you are good at the Internet, this book is useless," he said, adding that Mr. Pascoe simply should not have bought it. But, Mr. Parker said, there are people who aren't Internet savvy who have found these guides useful.
It is the idea of automating difficult or boring work that led Mr. Parker to become involved. Comparing himself to a distant disciple of Henry Ford, he said he was "deconstructing the process of getting books into people's hands; every single step we could think of, we automated."
He added: "My goal isn't to have the computer write sentences, but to do the repetitive tasks that are too costly to do otherwise."
In an interview from his home in San Diego and his offices nearby, Mr. Parker described his motivation as providing content that the marketplace has otherwise neglected for lack of an audience. That can mean a relatively obscure language is involved, or a relatively obscure disease or a relatively obscure product.
Take, for example, the study of bathmats in India.
"Only one person in the world may be interested in that," he conceded, "probably a strategic planner for a multinational that makes those." But he points out that once he has trained the computer to take data about past sales and make complex calculations to project future sales, each new book costs him about 12 cents in electricity. Since these books are print-on-demand or delivered electronically, he is ahead after the first sale, he said.
His company, the Icon Group International, is the long tail of the bell curve come to life — generating significant total sales by adding up tens of thousands of what might be called worst sellers. For example, a search at the Galter Health Sciences Library of the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University found half a dozen Icon books, mainly in the library for patients and their families.
Icon is "a very innovative and interesting example of print on demand," said Kurt Beidler, a senior manager at Amazon.com who runs the publishers' services for BookSurge, Amazon's print-on-demand company. "A lot of examples of print on demand take older books and bring them back — really acting as a supply-chain tool. In this kind of business, it's a new business, using this capability to introduce new material to customers."
Mr. Parker compares his methods to those of a traditional publisher, but with the computer simply performing some of the scut work. In an explanatory YouTube video, Mr. Parker shows a book being created. The computer is given an assignment — project the latent demand for antipsychotic drugs around the world, based on the sales figures in the United States.
"Using a little bit of artificial intelligence, a computer program has been created that mimics the thought process of someone who would be responsible for doing such a study," Mr. Parker says. "But rather than taking many months to do the study. the computer accomplishes this in about 13 minutes."
An editor picks the years to be covered, but the computer picks the optimum model for extrapolating sales in various countries, and in alphabetical order produces a chart for each country. "It will then open a Word document and export the information into Word just like a real author would out of their minds, so to speak, or spreadsheets," he says.
Artificial intelligence researchers say computers are far from being what the general public would consider authors.
"There is a continuous spectrum, also known as a slippery slope, between a program that automatically typesets a telephone directory and a program that generates English texts at the level of variety you would expect from a typical human English speaker," said Chung-chieh Shan, an assistant professor in the computer science department of Rutgers. "The former program is easy to write, the latter program is very difficult; in fact, the holy grail of linguistics. Like Mad-Libs, Parker's programs probably lie somewhere between the two ends of this spectrum."
Mr. Parker has lately taken to lighter fare intended to educate. He said he had invested "up to seven figures into the animation business" for word-based video games and animated game shows that will teach English to non-English speakers. YouTube has many examples of these games, which have computer- generated scripts.
A low-tech version of those games are the thousands of crossword puzzle books Mr. Parker has made in about 20 languages. The clues are in a foreign language and the answers are in English. The computer designs the puzzles and ensures that the words become harder as one progresses.
As part of his love of words, and dictionaries in all languages, Mr. Parker said he has taken to having his computers create acrostic poems — where the first letter of a series of words spells a synonym of those words, often to ironic effect.
Of course, one of the difficulties of generating a hundred thousand poems is stepping back and assessing their quality.
"Do you think one of them is Shakespeare?" he was asked.
"No," he said. "Only because I haven't done sonnets yet."
The New York Times
Published: April 14, 2008
By NOAM COHEN
It's not easy to write a book. First you have to pick a title. And then there is the table of contents. If you want the book to be categorized, either by a bookseller or a library, it has to be assigned a unique numerical code, like an ISBN, for International Standard Book Number. There have to be proper margins. Finally, there's the back cover.
Oh, and there is all that stuff in the middle, too. The writing.
Philip M. Parker seems to have licked that problem. Mr. Parker has generated more than 200,000 books, as an advanced search on Amazon.com under his publishing company shows, making him, in his own words, "the most published author in the history of the planet." And he makes money doing it.
Among the books published under his name are "The Official Patient's Sourcebook on Acne Rosacea" ($24.95 and 168 pages long); "Stickler Syndrome: A Bibliography and Dictionary for Physicians, Patients and Genome Researchers" ($28.95 for 126 pages); and "The 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India" ($495 for 144 pages).
But these are not conventional books, and it is perhaps more accurate to call Mr. Parker a compiler than an author. Mr. Parker, who is also the chaired professor of management science at Insead (a business school with campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore), has developed computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a subject — broad or obscure — and, aided by his 60 to 70 computers and six or seven programmers, he turns the results into books in a range of genres, many of them in the range of 150 pages and printed only when a customer buys one.
If this sounds like cheating to the layman's ear, it does not to Mr. Parker, who holds some provocative — and apparently profitable — ideas on what constitutes a book. While the most popular of his books may sell hundreds of copies, he said, many have sales in the dozens, often to medical libraries collecting nearly everything he produces. He has extended his technique to crossword puzzles, rudimentary poetry and even to scripts for animated game shows.
And he is laying the groundwork for romance novels generated by new algorithms. "I've already set it up," he said. "There are only so many body parts."
Perusing a work like the outlook for bathmat sales in India, a reader would be hard pressed to find an actual sentence that was "written" by the computer. If you were to open a book, you would find a title page, a detailed table of contents, and many, many pages of graphics with introductory boilerplate that is adjusted for the content and genre.
While nothing announces that Mr. Parker's books are computer generated, one reader, David Pascoe, seemed close to figuring it out himself, based on his comments to Amazon in 2004. Reviewing a guide to rosacea, a skin disorder, Mr. Pascoe, who is from Perth, Australia, complained: "The book is more of a template for 'generic health researching' than anything specific to rosacea. The information is of such a generic level that a sourcebook on the next medical topic is just a search and replace away."
When told via e-mail that his suspicion was correct, Mr. Pascoe wrote back, "I guess it makes sense now as to why the book was so awful and frustrating."Mr. Parker was willing to concede much of what Mr. Pascoe argued. "If you are good at the Internet, this book is useless," he said, adding that Mr. Pascoe simply should not have bought it. But, Mr. Parker said, there are people who aren't Internet savvy who have found these guides useful.
It is the idea of automating difficult or boring work that led Mr. Parker to become involved. Comparing himself to a distant disciple of Henry Ford, he said he was "deconstructing the process of getting books into people's hands; every single step we could think of, we automated."
He added: "My goal isn't to have the computer write sentences, but to do the repetitive tasks that are too costly to do otherwise."
In an interview from his home in San Diego and his offices nearby, Mr. Parker described his motivation as providing content that the marketplace has otherwise neglected for lack of an audience. That can mean a relatively obscure language is involved, or a relatively obscure disease or a relatively obscure product.
Take, for example, the study of bathmats in India.
"Only one person in the world may be interested in that," he conceded, "probably a strategic planner for a multinational that makes those." But he points out that once he has trained the computer to take data about past sales and make complex calculations to project future sales, each new book costs him about 12 cents in electricity. Since these books are print-on-demand or delivered electronically, he is ahead after the first sale, he said.
His company, the Icon Group International, is the long tail of the bell curve come to life — generating significant total sales by adding up tens of thousands of what might be called worst sellers. For example, a search at the Galter Health Sciences Library of the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University found half a dozen Icon books, mainly in the library for patients and their families.
Icon is "a very innovative and interesting example of print on demand," said Kurt Beidler, a senior manager at Amazon.com who runs the publishers' services for BookSurge, Amazon's print-on-demand company. "A lot of examples of print on demand take older books and bring them back — really acting as a supply-chain tool. In this kind of business, it's a new business, using this capability to introduce new material to customers."
Mr. Parker compares his methods to those of a traditional publisher, but with the computer simply performing some of the scut work. In an explanatory YouTube video, Mr. Parker shows a book being created. The computer is given an assignment — project the latent demand for antipsychotic drugs around the world, based on the sales figures in the United States.
"Using a little bit of artificial intelligence, a computer program has been created that mimics the thought process of someone who would be responsible for doing such a study," Mr. Parker says. "But rather than taking many months to do the study. the computer accomplishes this in about 13 minutes."
An editor picks the years to be covered, but the computer picks the optimum model for extrapolating sales in various countries, and in alphabetical order produces a chart for each country. "It will then open a Word document and export the information into Word just like a real author would out of their minds, so to speak, or spreadsheets," he says.
Artificial intelligence researchers say computers are far from being what the general public would consider authors.
"There is a continuous spectrum, also known as a slippery slope, between a program that automatically typesets a telephone directory and a program that generates English texts at the level of variety you would expect from a typical human English speaker," said Chung-chieh Shan, an assistant professor in the computer science department of Rutgers. "The former program is easy to write, the latter program is very difficult; in fact, the holy grail of linguistics. Like Mad-Libs, Parker's programs probably lie somewhere between the two ends of this spectrum."
Mr. Parker has lately taken to lighter fare intended to educate. He said he had invested "up to seven figures into the animation business" for word-based video games and animated game shows that will teach English to non-English speakers. YouTube has many examples of these games, which have computer- generated scripts.
A low-tech version of those games are the thousands of crossword puzzle books Mr. Parker has made in about 20 languages. The clues are in a foreign language and the answers are in English. The computer designs the puzzles and ensures that the words become harder as one progresses.
As part of his love of words, and dictionaries in all languages, Mr. Parker said he has taken to having his computers create acrostic poems — where the first letter of a series of words spells a synonym of those words, often to ironic effect.
Of course, one of the difficulties of generating a hundred thousand poems is stepping back and assessing their quality.
"Do you think one of them is Shakespeare?" he was asked.
"No," he said. "Only because I haven't done sonnets yet."
Might want to reconsider sending your kids to dental school ....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080408/hl_nm/cavities_candy_dc
Cavity-fighting candy helped cut tooth decay: study
By Julie Steenhuysen
Tue Apr 8, 2008
Most children are told to stay away from chewy candies to keep their
teeth cavity-free, but children in Venezuela who ate a special
cavity-fighting candy had 62 percent fewer cavities than those who
brushed their teeth regularly, researchers said on Tuesday.
Children in the study were testing the effectiveness of BasicMints,
an experimental fluoride-free treatment designed to mimic a
component in human saliva that neutralizes acids in the mouth that
can erode tooth enamel.
Researchers at Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine, who
developed the active compound in the mints known as CaviStat, tested
them in 200 children in Venezuela aged 10 1/2 to 11 who were getting
their adult molars but still had some baby teeth left.
Half the children in the study took two of the medicated mints in
the morning after brushing with a fluoride toothpaste. They followed
the same routine at night. The other half brushed normally twice
daily with fluoride toothpaste and took plain sugarless mints.
After 12 months, children who took the cavity-fighting mints had
61.7 percent fewer cavities than the placebo group.
The soft mints are designed to be dissolved and chewed into the
biting surfaces of the back teeth, where about 90 percent of
cavities in children occur.
"Unlike regular candies, we want this product to be stuck in the
teeth," said Mitchell Goldberg, president of Ortek Therapeutics Inc,
a privately held company in Roslyn Heights, New York, that licensed
the technology from Stony Brook.
Goldberg said in a telephone interview that unlike sugarless gum,
which fights cavities by temporarily increasing the flow of saliva
in the mouth, the mints actively neutralize acids that cause
cavities.
He said the company plans to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration
approval to begin testing the product in the United States by year
end. It may take several years of testing before it wins U.S.
marketing approval.
The study was published in the March issue of the Journal of
Clinical Dentistry.
(Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Cavity-fighting candy helped cut tooth decay: study
By Julie Steenhuysen
Tue Apr 8, 2008
Most children are told to stay away from chewy candies to keep their
teeth cavity-free, but children in Venezuela who ate a special
cavity-fighting candy had 62 percent fewer cavities than those who
brushed their teeth regularly, researchers said on Tuesday.
Children in the study were testing the effectiveness of BasicMints,
an experimental fluoride-free treatment designed to mimic a
component in human saliva that neutralizes acids in the mouth that
can erode tooth enamel.
Researchers at Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine, who
developed the active compound in the mints known as CaviStat, tested
them in 200 children in Venezuela aged 10 1/2 to 11 who were getting
their adult molars but still had some baby teeth left.
Half the children in the study took two of the medicated mints in
the morning after brushing with a fluoride toothpaste. They followed
the same routine at night. The other half brushed normally twice
daily with fluoride toothpaste and took plain sugarless mints.
After 12 months, children who took the cavity-fighting mints had
61.7 percent fewer cavities than the placebo group.
The soft mints are designed to be dissolved and chewed into the
biting surfaces of the back teeth, where about 90 percent of
cavities in children occur.
"Unlike regular candies, we want this product to be stuck in the
teeth," said Mitchell Goldberg, president of Ortek Therapeutics Inc,
a privately held company in Roslyn Heights, New York, that licensed
the technology from Stony Brook.
Goldberg said in a telephone interview that unlike sugarless gum,
which fights cavities by temporarily increasing the flow of saliva
in the mouth, the mints actively neutralize acids that cause
cavities.
He said the company plans to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration
approval to begin testing the product in the United States by year
end. It may take several years of testing before it wins U.S.
marketing approval.
The study was published in the March issue of the Journal of
Clinical Dentistry.
(Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Too Bad; So Sad
In Searching for New Job, Gonzales Sees No Takers
By NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON — Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews.
He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.
A longtime loyalist to George W. Bush dating to their years together in Texas, Mr. Gonzales was once widely viewed as a strong candidate to be the first Hispanic-American nominated one day to the Supreme Court. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he carried an impressive personal story as the child of poor Mexican immigrants.
Despite those credentials, he left office last August with a frayed reputation over his role in the dismissal of several federal prosecutors and the truthfulness of his testimony about a secret eavesdropping program. He has had no full-time job since his resignation, and his principal income has come from giving a handful of talks at colleges and before private business groups.
“Maybe the passage of time will provide some opportunity for him,” said one Washington lawyer who was aware of an inquiry to his firm from a Gonzales associate. “I wouldn’t say ‘rebuffed,’ ” said the lawyer, who asked his name not be used because the situation being described was uncomfortable for Mr. Gonzales. “I would say ‘not taken up.’ ”
The greatest impediment to Mr. Gonzales’s being offered the kind of high-salary job being snagged these days by lesser Justice Department officials, many lawyers agree, is his performance during his last few months in office. In that period, he was openly criticized by lawmakers for being untruthful in his sworn testimony. His conduct is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Justice Department, which could recommend actions from exonerating him to recommending criminal charges. Friends set up a fund to help pay his legal bills.
Asked about reports that law firms have not taken up feelers from Mr. Gonzales, Robert H. Bork Jr., a corporate communications specialist and his spokesman, said Mr. Gonzales was talking to many people about the next steps in his career. “He is considering his opportunities in law and business,” Mr. Bork said, “but after many years in public service he is considering his options carefully.”
He said Mr. Gonzales “looks forward to the conclusion of the department’s inquiries and getting on with his life.”
While he has not taken any full-time job, friends said he was probably receiving as much income from speaking engagements as he did as attorney general with its annual salary of more than $191,000. Places like Washington University in St. Louis, Ohio State University and the University of Florida have paid him about $30,000 plus expenses for appearances, and the business groups pay a bit more, said sources at the schools and elsewhere who are familiar with the arrangements. Pomona College debated inviting him and decided he was not worth the money, the college newspaper reported.
His first speech at the University of Florida last November was interrupted by protesters dressed as detainees.
http://tinyurl.com/68bhbb
By NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON — Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job. Mr. Gonzales, the former attorney general, who was forced to resign last year, has been unable to interest law firms in adding his name to their roster, Washington lawyers and his associates said in recent interviews.
He has, through friends, put out inquiries, they said, and has not found any takers. What makes Mr. Gonzales’s case extraordinary is that former attorneys general, the government’s chief lawyer, are typically highly sought.
A longtime loyalist to George W. Bush dating to their years together in Texas, Mr. Gonzales was once widely viewed as a strong candidate to be the first Hispanic-American nominated one day to the Supreme Court. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he carried an impressive personal story as the child of poor Mexican immigrants.
Despite those credentials, he left office last August with a frayed reputation over his role in the dismissal of several federal prosecutors and the truthfulness of his testimony about a secret eavesdropping program. He has had no full-time job since his resignation, and his principal income has come from giving a handful of talks at colleges and before private business groups.
“Maybe the passage of time will provide some opportunity for him,” said one Washington lawyer who was aware of an inquiry to his firm from a Gonzales associate. “I wouldn’t say ‘rebuffed,’ ” said the lawyer, who asked his name not be used because the situation being described was uncomfortable for Mr. Gonzales. “I would say ‘not taken up.’ ”
The greatest impediment to Mr. Gonzales’s being offered the kind of high-salary job being snagged these days by lesser Justice Department officials, many lawyers agree, is his performance during his last few months in office. In that period, he was openly criticized by lawmakers for being untruthful in his sworn testimony. His conduct is being investigated by the Office of the Inspector General of the Justice Department, which could recommend actions from exonerating him to recommending criminal charges. Friends set up a fund to help pay his legal bills.
Asked about reports that law firms have not taken up feelers from Mr. Gonzales, Robert H. Bork Jr., a corporate communications specialist and his spokesman, said Mr. Gonzales was talking to many people about the next steps in his career. “He is considering his opportunities in law and business,” Mr. Bork said, “but after many years in public service he is considering his options carefully.”
He said Mr. Gonzales “looks forward to the conclusion of the department’s inquiries and getting on with his life.”
While he has not taken any full-time job, friends said he was probably receiving as much income from speaking engagements as he did as attorney general with its annual salary of more than $191,000. Places like Washington University in St. Louis, Ohio State University and the University of Florida have paid him about $30,000 plus expenses for appearances, and the business groups pay a bit more, said sources at the schools and elsewhere who are familiar with the arrangements. Pomona College debated inviting him and decided he was not worth the money, the college newspaper reported.
His first speech at the University of Florida last November was interrupted by protesters dressed as detainees.
http://tinyurl.com/68bhbb
Hey Hillary: In 2016, you'll be 68. Hint, hint ...
By Chris Stephen
in New York
DEMOCRAT grandees Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are being lined-up to deliver the coup de grâce to Hillary Clinton and end her campaign to become president.
Falling poll numbers and a string of high-profile blunders have convinced party elders that she must now bow out of the primary race.
Former president Carter and former vice-president Gore have already held high-level discussions about delivering the message that she must stand down for the good of the Democrats.
"They're in discussions," a source close to Carter told Scotland on Sunday. "Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence."
An appeal by both men for Democrats to unite behind Clinton's rival, Barack Obama, would have a powerful effect, and insiders say it is a question of when, rather than if, they act.
Obama has an almost unassailable lead in the battle for nomination delegates, and is closing the gap with Clinton in her last stronghold, Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22.
Clinton remains publicly defiant, insisting she will continue the battle with Obama all the way to the Democratic convention in August – when superdelegates, or party top brass, will have the chance to add their weight to primary votes.
But the party's top brass have concluded her further participation in the race can only harm the party as Republican nominee John McCain strives to take advantage of her increasingly bitter battle with Obama.
Both Carter and Gore occupy the rarefied position of elder statesmen – in addition to their White House past, both are winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, giving them additional gravitas to carry the party with them.
Neither of them is likely to object to the role of bringing down the curtain on Clinton. While neither man has formally endorsed either her or Obama, both have clashed in the past with the Clintons.
Gore blames his loss to George Bush in the 2000 presidential election on the impeachment of Clinton triggered by his White House affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Carter, who has carved out a successful career as an international mediator, is believed to detest the flashy style of the Clintons. He recently told an interviewer that his entire family are committed Obama supporters.
A number of options are being considered by the higher echelons of the Democrats, but they fall roughly into two categories. One is for Carter and Gore to go to Clinton privately and ask her to step down. The other is for both men to appear in public and endorse Obama – a move which would see a majority of superdelegates go with them.
The campaign to force Clinton to make an early exit is being masterminded in Congress, home to the most influential of the superdelegates. Senate Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have called on superdelegates to hold an unofficial congress in early June to anoint a winner, rather than waiting for the convention in Denver.
Pelosi has drawn withering fire from the Clinton camp for saying that these superdelegates must follow the national vote, with Clinton insisting that they should "vote with their conscience".
Yet some in the Democratic elite are wary of moving too soon. Polls show that 30% of Clinton's supporters would vote for McCain if she fails to become the nominee. To close off Clinton's bid before millions have had the chance to vote risks causing the very split that officials are desperate to avoid.
But a loss to Obama, or even a single-digit victory, in Pennsylvania will seal Clinton's fate. Pennsylvania is the last big state left in the race, and the last chance for Clinton to claw back Obama's delegate lead. "If he (Obama] wins (Pennsylvania] flat out, I think the big foot will come down," a source said.
Anything less than a resounding victory by her will probably see the race choked off ahead of the final primaries on June 3.
In the 10 remaining primaries, only a catastrophic loss of support by Obama will see Clinton overcome his lead of 160 delegates.
She admits she has little chance of winning the public vote, and is basing her strategy on convincing party-appointed superdelegates that she is, in her own words, the more "electable" of the two candidates.
Clinton enjoys strong support among superdelegates, many from a party elite who worked for her husband Bill during his years in the White House. There are more than 350 superdelegates who have yet to show a preference, potentially enough to rub out Obama's lead and give the presidency to Clinton.
But historically, superdelegates have never gone against the public vote, and party insiders say they would face a revolt, or even riots, if they were to do so now.
Obama's campaign has been a phenomenon in American politics, bringing in record numbers of new voters and record funding, and few think the superdelegates would dare deny him victory if he wins the popular vote.
It would also invite the unedifying spectacle of a mostly white elite denying an African American candidate a chance for the presidency. "It would cause a scandal to do that," says one party official. "To turn around to the black community and say, 'You got the most votes, but no'? Unlikely."
Clinton insists she will see her campaign through to the final primaries in June, and then on to the national convention, where her supporters have powerful lobbies in the organising committees.
But a chain of events in the past two weeks has worked to undermine this strategy, pulling the rug from under her claim to be more experienced and better organised than Obama.
It began with her extraordinary suggestion that she braved sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996, a statement contradicted by TV footage showing the event was peaceful.
There are suggestions that the long list of wealthy benefactors may be expecting favours to be returned once Hillary is in the White House, suggestions sharpened by the Clinton's refusal to release the list of donors to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library.
Such conflict-of-interest issues came into the open last week when it emerged that Clinton's chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn, was lobbying for the Colombian government to secure a free trade agreement with America, despite Clinton's public opposition to such a deal. Penn stepped down, the second high-profile sacking of a campaign manager this year.
Together with reports that Clinton's money troubles have left her unable to pay event organisers and even the health insurance of her staff, the impression is of a campaign in trouble.
These issues have undermined Clinton's claim to be more "electable", with her own stormy campaign contrasting with the disciplined control of Obama's organisation.
Obama himself has refrained from criticism on these issues, his staff keen to portray their candidate as "presidential" and above the fray.
Conspiracy theorists among her opponents claim Clinton is prolonging the race not because she hopes to win, but to inflict such damage on the party that a weakened Obama loses to John McCain in November, allowing Clinton to have a second tilt at the nomination in four years' time.
For Clinton, defeat in the nomination process would mean consignment to the political wilderness.
Losing nominees rarely get a second chance to run, and although Clinton's seat as a New York senator seems safe, failure in the nomination process leaves her politically neutered.
Talk of a possible consolation prize, in awarding her the job of Senate Majority leader, has petered out with several more senior senators also coveting the job.
Meanwhile, Clinton's poll numbers continue to slide. Obama now leads her nationally by about 10 points, and a CNN poll in Pennsylvania showed him closing the once-yawning gap to just three points.
Should Clinton lose Pennsylvania, the defection of growing numbers of superdelegates from her to Obama could become a flood.
After Pennsylvania
Possible outcomes of the crucial Democrat primary of April 22.
1. Clinton wins big
A win of 20 points or more over Obama in Pennsylvania would keep Clinton's campaign alive. She would also have to replicate this result in the nine states still to vote, narrowing the gap with her rival and convincing the all-important party superdelegates to choose her as nominee.
2. Clinton wins small
A victory in single digits, in a state where Clinton was once 20 points ahead, would make little difference to Obama's lead. Yet a win is a win, and she would be likely to try to stay in the race until June, unless superdelegates stepped in.
3. Obama wins small
A single figure victory on Clinton's 'home turf' would cement Obama's claim to the nomination. Superdelegates would be likely to declare him the nominee before June.
4. Convincing win for Obama
A double-digit Obama victory would be the shock of the primary contest. It would be followed by a stampede of superdelegates rushing to be front of the queue to embrace him.
Obama forced to backtrack
DEMOCRAT Barack Obama last night conceded that comments he made about bitter working-class voters who "cling to guns or religion" were ill chosen, as he tried to stem a burst of complaints that could hurt his chances in upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
"I didn't say it as well as I should have," he
said, at a campaign rally in Indiana.
As he tried to quell the furore, presidential rival Hillary Clinton hit him with one of her lengthiest and most pointed criticisms, saying: "Obama's remarks were elitist and out of touch."
At issue are comments Obama made privately at a fundraiser last Sunday. He explained his troubles winning over white, working-class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions: "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment to explain their frustrations."
The comments, posted on the Huffington Post political website, set off a storm of criticism and threatened to highlight an Obama Achilles' heel – the image that the Harvard-trained lawyer is arrogant, aloof and carries himself with an air of superiority.
The full article contains 1711 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
Last Updated: 12 April 2008 11:09 PM
>http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/It39s-Obama-stupid-Carter-and.3976738.jp>
in New York
DEMOCRAT grandees Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are being lined-up to deliver the coup de grâce to Hillary Clinton and end her campaign to become president.
Falling poll numbers and a string of high-profile blunders have convinced party elders that she must now bow out of the primary race.
Former president Carter and former vice-president Gore have already held high-level discussions about delivering the message that she must stand down for the good of the Democrats.
"They're in discussions," a source close to Carter told Scotland on Sunday. "Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence."
An appeal by both men for Democrats to unite behind Clinton's rival, Barack Obama, would have a powerful effect, and insiders say it is a question of when, rather than if, they act.
Obama has an almost unassailable lead in the battle for nomination delegates, and is closing the gap with Clinton in her last stronghold, Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22.
Clinton remains publicly defiant, insisting she will continue the battle with Obama all the way to the Democratic convention in August – when superdelegates, or party top brass, will have the chance to add their weight to primary votes.
But the party's top brass have concluded her further participation in the race can only harm the party as Republican nominee John McCain strives to take advantage of her increasingly bitter battle with Obama.
Both Carter and Gore occupy the rarefied position of elder statesmen – in addition to their White House past, both are winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, giving them additional gravitas to carry the party with them.
Neither of them is likely to object to the role of bringing down the curtain on Clinton. While neither man has formally endorsed either her or Obama, both have clashed in the past with the Clintons.
Gore blames his loss to George Bush in the 2000 presidential election on the impeachment of Clinton triggered by his White House affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Carter, who has carved out a successful career as an international mediator, is believed to detest the flashy style of the Clintons. He recently told an interviewer that his entire family are committed Obama supporters.
A number of options are being considered by the higher echelons of the Democrats, but they fall roughly into two categories. One is for Carter and Gore to go to Clinton privately and ask her to step down. The other is for both men to appear in public and endorse Obama – a move which would see a majority of superdelegates go with them.
The campaign to force Clinton to make an early exit is being masterminded in Congress, home to the most influential of the superdelegates. Senate Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have called on superdelegates to hold an unofficial congress in early June to anoint a winner, rather than waiting for the convention in Denver.
Pelosi has drawn withering fire from the Clinton camp for saying that these superdelegates must follow the national vote, with Clinton insisting that they should "vote with their conscience".
Yet some in the Democratic elite are wary of moving too soon. Polls show that 30% of Clinton's supporters would vote for McCain if she fails to become the nominee. To close off Clinton's bid before millions have had the chance to vote risks causing the very split that officials are desperate to avoid.
But a loss to Obama, or even a single-digit victory, in Pennsylvania will seal Clinton's fate. Pennsylvania is the last big state left in the race, and the last chance for Clinton to claw back Obama's delegate lead. "If he (Obama] wins (Pennsylvania] flat out, I think the big foot will come down," a source said.
Anything less than a resounding victory by her will probably see the race choked off ahead of the final primaries on June 3.
In the 10 remaining primaries, only a catastrophic loss of support by Obama will see Clinton overcome his lead of 160 delegates.
She admits she has little chance of winning the public vote, and is basing her strategy on convincing party-appointed superdelegates that she is, in her own words, the more "electable" of the two candidates.
Clinton enjoys strong support among superdelegates, many from a party elite who worked for her husband Bill during his years in the White House. There are more than 350 superdelegates who have yet to show a preference, potentially enough to rub out Obama's lead and give the presidency to Clinton.
But historically, superdelegates have never gone against the public vote, and party insiders say they would face a revolt, or even riots, if they were to do so now.
Obama's campaign has been a phenomenon in American politics, bringing in record numbers of new voters and record funding, and few think the superdelegates would dare deny him victory if he wins the popular vote.
It would also invite the unedifying spectacle of a mostly white elite denying an African American candidate a chance for the presidency. "It would cause a scandal to do that," says one party official. "To turn around to the black community and say, 'You got the most votes, but no'? Unlikely."
Clinton insists she will see her campaign through to the final primaries in June, and then on to the national convention, where her supporters have powerful lobbies in the organising committees.
But a chain of events in the past two weeks has worked to undermine this strategy, pulling the rug from under her claim to be more experienced and better organised than Obama.
It began with her extraordinary suggestion that she braved sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996, a statement contradicted by TV footage showing the event was peaceful.
There are suggestions that the long list of wealthy benefactors may be expecting favours to be returned once Hillary is in the White House, suggestions sharpened by the Clinton's refusal to release the list of donors to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library.
Such conflict-of-interest issues came into the open last week when it emerged that Clinton's chief campaign strategist, Mark Penn, was lobbying for the Colombian government to secure a free trade agreement with America, despite Clinton's public opposition to such a deal. Penn stepped down, the second high-profile sacking of a campaign manager this year.
Together with reports that Clinton's money troubles have left her unable to pay event organisers and even the health insurance of her staff, the impression is of a campaign in trouble.
These issues have undermined Clinton's claim to be more "electable", with her own stormy campaign contrasting with the disciplined control of Obama's organisation.
Obama himself has refrained from criticism on these issues, his staff keen to portray their candidate as "presidential" and above the fray.
Conspiracy theorists among her opponents claim Clinton is prolonging the race not because she hopes to win, but to inflict such damage on the party that a weakened Obama loses to John McCain in November, allowing Clinton to have a second tilt at the nomination in four years' time.
For Clinton, defeat in the nomination process would mean consignment to the political wilderness.
Losing nominees rarely get a second chance to run, and although Clinton's seat as a New York senator seems safe, failure in the nomination process leaves her politically neutered.
Talk of a possible consolation prize, in awarding her the job of Senate Majority leader, has petered out with several more senior senators also coveting the job.
Meanwhile, Clinton's poll numbers continue to slide. Obama now leads her nationally by about 10 points, and a CNN poll in Pennsylvania showed him closing the once-yawning gap to just three points.
Should Clinton lose Pennsylvania, the defection of growing numbers of superdelegates from her to Obama could become a flood.
After Pennsylvania
Possible outcomes of the crucial Democrat primary of April 22.
1. Clinton wins big
A win of 20 points or more over Obama in Pennsylvania would keep Clinton's campaign alive. She would also have to replicate this result in the nine states still to vote, narrowing the gap with her rival and convincing the all-important party superdelegates to choose her as nominee.
2. Clinton wins small
A victory in single digits, in a state where Clinton was once 20 points ahead, would make little difference to Obama's lead. Yet a win is a win, and she would be likely to try to stay in the race until June, unless superdelegates stepped in.
3. Obama wins small
A single figure victory on Clinton's 'home turf' would cement Obama's claim to the nomination. Superdelegates would be likely to declare him the nominee before June.
4. Convincing win for Obama
A double-digit Obama victory would be the shock of the primary contest. It would be followed by a stampede of superdelegates rushing to be front of the queue to embrace him.
Obama forced to backtrack
DEMOCRAT Barack Obama last night conceded that comments he made about bitter working-class voters who "cling to guns or religion" were ill chosen, as he tried to stem a burst of complaints that could hurt his chances in upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
"I didn't say it as well as I should have," he
said, at a campaign rally in Indiana.
As he tried to quell the furore, presidential rival Hillary Clinton hit him with one of her lengthiest and most pointed criticisms, saying: "Obama's remarks were elitist and out of touch."
At issue are comments Obama made privately at a fundraiser last Sunday. He explained his troubles winning over white, working-class voters, saying they have become frustrated with economic conditions: "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment to explain their frustrations."
The comments, posted on the Huffington Post political website, set off a storm of criticism and threatened to highlight an Obama Achilles' heel – the image that the Harvard-trained lawyer is arrogant, aloof and carries himself with an air of superiority.
The full article contains 1711 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
Last Updated: 12 April 2008 11:09 PM
>http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/It39s-Obama-stupid-Carter-and.3976738.jp>
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Big Brother Comes On Little Cat Feet
Met Police officers to be 'microchipped' by top brass in Big Brother style tracking scheme
Last updated at 10:46am on 10th April 2008
Comments Comments (18)
Sir Ian Blair
Met Chief Sir Ian Blair could be among 31,000 officers to receive the new electronic tracking device
Every single Metropolitan police officer will be 'microchipped' so top brass can monitor their movements on a Big Brother style tracking scheme, it can be revealed today.
According to respected industry magazine Police Review, the plan - which affects all 31,000 serving officers in the Met, including Sir Ian Blair - is set to replace the unreliable Airwave radio system currently used to help monitor officer's movements.
The new electronic tracking device - called the Automated Personal Location System (APLS) - means that officers will never be out of range of supervising officers.
But many serving officers fear being turned into "Robocops" - controlled by bosses who have not been out on the beat in years.
According to service providers Telent, the new technology 'will enable operators in the Service's operations centres to identify the location of each police officer' at any time they are on duty - whether overground or underground.
Although police chiefs say the new technology is about 'improving officer safety' and reacting to incidents more quickly, many rank and file believe it is just a Big Brother style system to keep tabs on them and make sure they don't 'doze off on duty'.
Some officers are concerned that the system - which will be able to pinpoint any of the 31,000 officers in the Met to within a few feet of their location - will put a complete end to community policing and leave officers purely at the beck and call of control room staff rather than reacting to members of the public on the ground.
Pete Smyth, chairman of the Met Police Federation, said: "This could be very good for officers' safety but it could also involve an element of Big Brother.
"We need to look at it very carefully."
Other officers, however, were more scathing, saying the new system - set to be implemented within the next few weeks - will turn them into 'Robocops' simply obeying instructions from above rather than using their own judgement.
One officer, working in Peckham, south London, said: "They are keeping the exact workings of the system very hush-hush at the moment - although it will be similar to the way criminals are electronically tagged. There will not be any choice about wearing one.
"We depend on our own ability and local knowledge to react to situations accordingly.
"Obviously we need the back up and information from control, but a lot of us feel that we will simply be used as machines, or robots, to do what we are told with little or no chance to put in anything ourselves."
He added: "Most of us joined up so we could apply the law and think for ourselves, but if Sarge knows where we are every second of the day it just makes it difficult."
Another officer, who did not want to be named, said: "A lot of my time is spent speaking to people in cafes, parks or just wherever I'm approached. If I feel I've got my chief breathing down my neck to make another arrest I won't feel I'm doing my job properly."
The system is one of the largest of its kind in the world, according to Telent, the company behind the technology, although neither the Met nor Telent would provide Police Review with any more information about exactly how the system will work or what sort of devices officers will wear.
Nigel Lee, a workstream manager at the Met, said: "Safety is a primary concern for all police forces.
"The area served by our force covers 620 miles and knowing the location of our officers means that not only can we provision resource more quickly, but should an officer need assistance, we can get to them even more quickly."
Forces currently have the facility to track all their officers through GPS devices on their Airwave radio headsets, but this is subject to headsets being up to date and forces buying the back office systems to accompany them, according to Airwave.
Steve Rands, health and safety head for the Met Police Federation, told Police Review: "This is so that we know where officers are. Let us say that when voice distortion or sound quality over the radio is lost, if you cannot hear where that officer telling you where he is, you can still pinpoint his exact position by global positioning system.
"If he needs help but you cannot hear him for whatever reason, APLS will say where he is."
Last updated at 10:46am on 10th April 2008
Comments Comments (18)
Sir Ian Blair
Met Chief Sir Ian Blair could be among 31,000 officers to receive the new electronic tracking device
Every single Metropolitan police officer will be 'microchipped' so top brass can monitor their movements on a Big Brother style tracking scheme, it can be revealed today.
According to respected industry magazine Police Review, the plan - which affects all 31,000 serving officers in the Met, including Sir Ian Blair - is set to replace the unreliable Airwave radio system currently used to help monitor officer's movements.
The new electronic tracking device - called the Automated Personal Location System (APLS) - means that officers will never be out of range of supervising officers.
But many serving officers fear being turned into "Robocops" - controlled by bosses who have not been out on the beat in years.
According to service providers Telent, the new technology 'will enable operators in the Service's operations centres to identify the location of each police officer' at any time they are on duty - whether overground or underground.
Although police chiefs say the new technology is about 'improving officer safety' and reacting to incidents more quickly, many rank and file believe it is just a Big Brother style system to keep tabs on them and make sure they don't 'doze off on duty'.
Some officers are concerned that the system - which will be able to pinpoint any of the 31,000 officers in the Met to within a few feet of their location - will put a complete end to community policing and leave officers purely at the beck and call of control room staff rather than reacting to members of the public on the ground.
Pete Smyth, chairman of the Met Police Federation, said: "This could be very good for officers' safety but it could also involve an element of Big Brother.
"We need to look at it very carefully."
Other officers, however, were more scathing, saying the new system - set to be implemented within the next few weeks - will turn them into 'Robocops' simply obeying instructions from above rather than using their own judgement.
One officer, working in Peckham, south London, said: "They are keeping the exact workings of the system very hush-hush at the moment - although it will be similar to the way criminals are electronically tagged. There will not be any choice about wearing one.
"We depend on our own ability and local knowledge to react to situations accordingly.
"Obviously we need the back up and information from control, but a lot of us feel that we will simply be used as machines, or robots, to do what we are told with little or no chance to put in anything ourselves."
He added: "Most of us joined up so we could apply the law and think for ourselves, but if Sarge knows where we are every second of the day it just makes it difficult."
Another officer, who did not want to be named, said: "A lot of my time is spent speaking to people in cafes, parks or just wherever I'm approached. If I feel I've got my chief breathing down my neck to make another arrest I won't feel I'm doing my job properly."
The system is one of the largest of its kind in the world, according to Telent, the company behind the technology, although neither the Met nor Telent would provide Police Review with any more information about exactly how the system will work or what sort of devices officers will wear.
Nigel Lee, a workstream manager at the Met, said: "Safety is a primary concern for all police forces.
"The area served by our force covers 620 miles and knowing the location of our officers means that not only can we provision resource more quickly, but should an officer need assistance, we can get to them even more quickly."
Forces currently have the facility to track all their officers through GPS devices on their Airwave radio headsets, but this is subject to headsets being up to date and forces buying the back office systems to accompany them, according to Airwave.
Steve Rands, health and safety head for the Met Police Federation, told Police Review: "This is so that we know where officers are. Let us say that when voice distortion or sound quality over the radio is lost, if you cannot hear where that officer telling you where he is, you can still pinpoint his exact position by global positioning system.
"If he needs help but you cannot hear him for whatever reason, APLS will say where he is."
Move along, folks - NOthing to see here.
FORT MORGAN, Ala. -- Several unmanned military drones with U.S. Air Force markings washed ashore in Alabama and forced the closure of a portion of at least one beach.
PHOTOS: Larger Photo, Strange Stories
VIDEO: Drone On Beach Two men on spring break in the area found the first 20-foot-long drone on the shore near Fort Morgan.
An official said the drone was a target that was apparently shot down in the Gulf of Mexico as part of a weapons system evaluation program, WKRG reported.
Beachgoers first thought the drone was a swimmer in distress or a downed aircraft.
"We couldn't tell what it was a first," a beachgoer said. "You could just see little parts of it. A wave would come and then you would see another part."
A guard was posted to protect the drone at the beach.
A second drone was also found Thursday at the end of Cabana Beach, according to the Press Register newspaper.
The second discovery was near the Plantation subdivision.
An official said it was not known exactly when the drones went down but exercises usually occur 40 to 70 miles offshore.
Both had barnacles on them, suggesting they had been in the water for some time, an official said.
The drones did not pose a danger to beachgoers, officials said.
Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.
http://www.local6.com/news/15849506/detail.html
PHOTOS: Larger Photo, Strange Stories
VIDEO: Drone On Beach Two men on spring break in the area found the first 20-foot-long drone on the shore near Fort Morgan.
An official said the drone was a target that was apparently shot down in the Gulf of Mexico as part of a weapons system evaluation program, WKRG reported.
Beachgoers first thought the drone was a swimmer in distress or a downed aircraft.
"We couldn't tell what it was a first," a beachgoer said. "You could just see little parts of it. A wave would come and then you would see another part."
A guard was posted to protect the drone at the beach.
A second drone was also found Thursday at the end of Cabana Beach, according to the Press Register newspaper.
The second discovery was near the Plantation subdivision.
An official said it was not known exactly when the drones went down but exercises usually occur 40 to 70 miles offshore.
Both had barnacles on them, suggesting they had been in the water for some time, an official said.
The drones did not pose a danger to beachgoers, officials said.
Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.
http://www.local6.com/news/15849506/detail.html
Who cares what Congress thinks?
Administration Set to Use New Spy Program in U.S.
Congressional Critics Want More Assurances of Legality
 Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told lawmakers that a new spying office won't violate rights. (By Paul Sakuma -- Associated Press) TOOLBOX   Resize Text
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Saturday, April 12, 2008; Page A03
The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department's new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities -- such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps.
Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved, he said. The department has previously said the program will not intercept communications.
"There is no basis to suggest that this process is in any way insufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans," Chertoff wrote to Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Jane Harman (D-Calif.), chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee and its intelligence subcommittee, respectively, in letters released yesterday.
"I think we've fully addressed anybody's concerns," Chertoff added in remarks last week to bloggers. "I think the way is now clear to stand it up and go warm on it."
His statements marked a fresh determination to operate the department's new National Applications Office as part of its counterterrorism efforts. The administration in May 2007 gave DHS authority to coordinate requests for satellite imagery, radar, electronic-signal information, chemical detection and other monitoring capabilities that have been used for decades within U.S. borders for mapping and disaster response.
But Congress delayed launch of the new office last October. Critics cited its potential to expand the role of military assets in domestic law enforcement, to turn new or as-yet-undeveloped technologies against Americans without adequate public debate, and to divert the existing civilian and scientific focus of some satellite work to security uses.
Democrats say Chertoff has not spelled out what federal laws govern the NAO, whose funding and size are classified. Congress barred Homeland Security from funding the office until its investigators could review the office's operating procedures and safeguards. The department submitted answers on Thursday, but some lawmakers promptly said the response was inadequate.
"I have had a firsthand experience with the trust-me theory of law from this administration," said Harman, citing the 2005 disclosure of the National Security Agency's domestic spying program, which included warrantless eavesdropping on calls and e-mails between people in the United States and overseas. "I won't make the same mistake. . . . I want to see the legal underpinnings for the whole program."
Thompson called DHS's release Thursday of the office's procedures and a civil liberties impact assessment "a good start." But, he said, "We still don't know whether the NAO will pass constitutional muster since no legal framework has been provided."
DHS officials said the demands are unwarranted. "The legal framework that governs the National Applications Office . . . is reflected in the Constitution, the U.S. Code and all other U.S. laws," said DHS spokeswoman Laura Keehner. She said its operations will be subject to "robust," structured legal scrutiny by multiple agencies.
Turnabout = Fair Play
SAN FRANCISCO -- Malicious hackers beware: Computer security expert Joel Eriksson might already own your box.
Eriksson, a researcher at the Swedish security firm Bitsec, uses reverse-engineering tools to find remotely exploitable security holes in hacking software. In particular, he targets the client-side applications intruders use to control Trojan horses from afar, finding vulnerabilities that would let him upload his own rogue software to intruders' machines.
He demoed the technique publicly for the first time at the RSA conference Friday.
"Most malware authors are not the most careful programmers," Eriksson said. "They may be good, but they are not the most careful about security."
Eriksson's research on cyber counterattack comes as the government and security firms are raising alarms about targeted intrusions by hackers in China, who are evidently using Trojan horse software to spy on political groups, defense contractors and government agencies around the globe.
The researcher suggests that the best defense might be a good offense, more effective than installing a better intrusion-detection system. Hacking the hacker may be legally dubious, but it is hard to imagine any intruder-turned-victim picking up the phone to report that he had been hacked.
Eriksson first attempted the technique in 2006 with Bifrost 1.1, a piece of free hackware released publicly in 2005. Like many so-called remote administration tools, or RATs, the package includes a server component that turns a compromised machine into a marionette, and a convenient GUI client that the hacker runs on his own computer to pull the hacked PC's strings.
Using traditional software attack tools, Eriksson first figured out how to make the GUI software crash by sending it random commands, and then found a heap overflow bug that allowed him to install his own software on the hacker's machine.
The Bifrost hack was particularly simple since the client software trusted that any communication to it from a host was a response to a request the client had made. When version 1.2 came out in 2007, the hole seemed to be patched, but Eriksson soon discovered it was just slightly hidden.
Eriksson later turned the same techniques on a Chinese RAT known as PCShare (or PCClient), which hackers can buy for about 200 yuan (about $27).
PCClient is slightly better engineered than Bifrost, since it won't accept a file uploaded to it, unless the hacker is using the file explorer tool.
But, Eriksson found, the software's authors left a bug in the file explorer tool in the module that checks how long a download will take. That hole allowed him to upload an attack file the hacker hadn't asked for, and even write it into the server's autostart directory.
The software's design also inadvertently included a way for the reverse attacker to find the hacker's real IP address, Eriksson said. He said its unlikely that the malware authors know of these vulnerabilities, though its unlikely that PCClient is still in use.
But he says his techniques should also work for botnets as well, even as malware authors start using better encryption, and learn to obfuscate their communication paths using peer to peer software.
"If there is a vulnerability, it is still game over for the hacker," Eriksson said.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/researcher-demo.html
No more flaming Lithium Ion Batteries?
Flaming Batteries Could Be Extinguished Forever
By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeekFri Apr 11, 2:45 PM ET
Lithium-ion batteries, used in laptops, cell phones, and other devices, have played a role in a number of fires in recent years, and concerns about potential manufacturing defects have led to high-profile laptop battery recalls initiated by companies like Apple, Dell, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, and Sony.
In 2004, a California teen was injured when her Kyocera phone battery burst into flames.
In February, an engineer with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Douglas Lee, wrote a letter to the American Society for Testing and Materials seeking to establish a working group to address the safety risks of lithium-ion batteries in children's toys. He said that in the past few months, the CPSC had seen an increase in the number of incidents involving high-energy batteries in toys, including overheating, venting, smoking, explosion, and ignition of battery packs.
Now scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC in Wurzburg, Germany, have found a way to create energy-dense lithium ion batteries without the use of flammable organic electrolytes.
"We have succeeded in replacing the inflammable organic electrolytes with a non-flammable polymer that retains its shape," says ISC team leader Dr. Kai-Christian Möller in a statement. "This considerably enhances the safety of lithium-ion batteries. What's more, because it is a solid substance, the electrolyte cannot leak out of the battery."
Normally, dense polymers offer poor electrical conductivity, but the Ormocer polymer used allowed the Fraunhofer scientists maintain conductivity.
Though the researchers have a working prototype, Möller expects it will be three to five years before these nonflammable batteries become commercially available because further work needs to be done to improve conductivity.
See original article on InformationWeek.com
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