Why I no longer watch the news

National headline news, that is. Local stations still have some credit for reporting on stories that have some merit and credibility to inform the citizenry.

I am going to make every attempt to not become political in this post. If I say the words "Fox News", you know what I am referring to. Sensationalism, according to wikipedia:

"is a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics are overhyped; and reported to increase viewership. Sensational topics do not concern the citizenry as a whole, and are insignificant to the masses."

I will give some examples of proper journalism, and poor journalism.

1) Rod Blagoyevich (spelling?)- The coverage of the Rod Blago trial concerned the welfare of the United States and its message to stamp out corruption in government. Discussion relating to "corruption in government" would have been appropriate for sideline talk shows, but not headline news. Whether the media portrayed the story one way or the other- this matter concerned the people of Illinois, and the rest of the United States.

2) Obama Troop Pullouts- This coverage concerns the nation in a state of war- and the affect it could have on troops (loved ones) coming home. This news is significant. Like the Rod Blago trial coverage, unbiased viewpoints can be presented in the newscast and be called fair.

3) Casey Anthony Trial- This coverage concerns the private matter between the state of Florida and a mom who allegedly killed her child. In the context of informing the citizenry of important matters, this coverage is inappropriate and insignificant. It is tabloid news, and is poor journalism.

4) The Royal Wedding- This coverage is borderline important. A note of the story is fine, but the story received tabloid like attention in mass media outlets, making it inappropriate talk for major broadcasts. Sideline talk shows would have been more appropriate.

It's fairly obvious why sensationalism works- more viewers equals more money from ads. Because the media is so hungry to gain a story, they will report on stories which are false, and sometimes, planted by Anonymous. The media is more concerned about making money than delivering unbiased news- that is the way it works.

Fox News, ABC News, HLN, and CNN are all guilty of this. Some more so than others. Local news stations are still guilty of localized sensationalism, but often broadcast meaningful community happenings.

On that note, I have never had a problem with Reuters. At the present time, the Casey Anthony trial isn't even listed here.

Hacker Attacks Demonstrate the unreliability of Internet Safety Protocols

Recent hacker attacks by Lulzsec illustrate the unreliability of safety protocols on the internet- when they are abused and mismanaged.

Lulzsec, a hacker group that formed from the soup of Anonymous, went on a 50 day stampede of taking down government websites, attacked Sony, and did a bunch of other fun things with the US Government and the FBI. The media frequently misunderstands Lulzsec: claiming that the dissolving of the group is due to one or a combination of the following factors:

1) Ryan Cleary, who has no supporting evidence that connects him to Lulzsec, was arrested in the UK.
2) The FBI was on to Lulzsec.
3) A Team posted documents sourcing who Lulzsec members were

It doesn't really matter what made them stop their attacks. As likely as it is that members are feeling the heat, attacks from rogue hackers following the mission of Lulzsec (#AntiSec) will continue attacks on government websites and businesses. The media is claiming that it is all over, and that companies should re-evaluate their safety practices.

The media couldn't be further from the truth. Anonymous is a loose association of people: and not all of them are hackers. Their explanation of who they are is pretty simple: Anonymous is all of us. Under the guise of Anonymous, hackers will be able to continue their actions against targets. I am not here to pin them for being right or wrong: I am simply stating that the media is wrong.

It's more than just a misunderstanding, or a generation gap. Companies need to "get serious" about consumer protections, or face the consequences. It's the Ford Pinto Team mentality: it is cheaper to pay out lawsuits than to protect our customers. On that note, it seems that corporations could care less about your private information.

Mr. Frugality: Passwords

A strong password is never a guarantee that your information online will not be compromised. In this wired (and wireless) age of communications, you give up your right to privacy in the public domain (the internet). Being lazy will cost you. Being dumb will cost you. Here is how to not be so dumb with your internet security:
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1) Adequate virus protection. I hate Symantec and McAfee: they are memory hogs and rarely catch viruses or malware. AVG free anti-virus and Spybot Search and Destroy are my personal freeware saviors. They are free, and they work. SS&D has never "not" found a problem when I knew there was one. Windows Firewall always stays on on my machine. Scan regularly for trojans, and especially keyloggers. If you find a keylogger, contact your financial institution immediately and put a watch on your account.

2) Do not go to unsafe websites. Learn how to proxy if you must go to the shady parts of the internet.

3) Use a strong password. They tell you "letters, upper case, lower case, and a number". If you want to be fort knox about your security, keep a list of passwords (physically). NEVER use the computer to type them out. Write them down, and secure this list. Keep it away from those that have no need to see. Go to Random.Org. Go to the tab for >Lists and More then select >Passwords. Generate as many as you would like, and keep them between 8-10 characters. You can also use the String generator.

4) Here is how to really piss off hackers (well, make their day harder). Every few months, rotate your passwords. All of them. Do not use the same login name for one site on another, and never use the same password on two different sites. On your list, assign a "tier 1", "tier 2" etc to different sites. The tier number is not important.
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It seems like a lot of work, but it will be more work for them than it will be for you. After a while, you will get used to your new passwords if you log in frequently.

Using Friends Only on Facebook? You Still May Not Be Safe

Sometimes you will have friends on Facebook who want to use games and applications. If you do not go into your settings and turn some things off, these programs, when they look at you (without your consent) can data mine your information without your knowledge. Even if everything is set to "friends" in your privacy settings, 3rd party companies are allowed to data mine for your habits, your personal info, your home address, phone numbers, and interests. Tell them to SOD OFF. Because I strongly oppose underhanded practices such as data mining, you may a) refer to this site and guide and b) link to this article.

Here is how to do so.

Under the account tab, go to privacy settings.

You are going to see this bar near the bottom of the page. Click on the far left one where the arrow is pointing in this snapshot.

Click "edit information accessible through your friends" or something like that.

When the window opens, uncheck everything. By checking these boxes, you authorize Facebook to allow 3rd party data miners to collect information on you. Information that can be purchased by corporations, hackers, thieves, you get the picture.

The Lulz Continue, I Suppose

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Wait, Hacking Constitutes War?

It's a no brainer, but when I was reading an article regarding Lulzsec, the reputable website made the claim that the US Government is now considering hacking an act of war. Before we point the finger at China, let me be clear on what the Pentagon means. If any cyberattack were to be considered an act of war, we have a couple of million reasons, a day, to declare war on a country. It would seem militaristic, but someone from the Pentagon put it a very simple way:

Hack our power grid and you are looking at military retaliation.

The attack has to be large enough in scale that it:

1) Kills people
2) Disrupts the Economy
3) Disrupts Military

in order for the US government to act on it. At first, I said "no duh?", but I do agree. It is the same thing with weapons in space- disrupt a US satelite and it is an act of war. The US government has woken up not too long ago on the issue of cyber security- investing billions in cyber-infrastructure. In the early to mid 2000's, we could point the finger at them and claim they were ignoring security. Now they are more serious than before.

In this dirty game of cyber warfare, The United States is putting the Chutzpah out there: Don't mess with us.

Should we Clone the Mammoth?

Here is a bit of controversy for you: where religion and science meet again. Scientists are very close to cloning a wooly mammoth, lead by a team composing of the United States, Japan, and Russia. The scientific breakthroughs could be enormous, and scientists predict the results could have large impacts on the human genome. They failed to explain any further than that.

What's the beef, then? people have an issue "when man tries to play God". There are two arguments that stem from this issue:

1) We should not clone the mammoth because we are not God, and we can't even comprehend what we are messing with.
2) We should not clone the mammoth because nature made the choice of making the mammoth extinct.

By logic and reason, both of these arguments are incorrect, for two reasons. One, God has not been proven (or dis-proven) yet. Second, I think the scientists know EXACTLY what they are dealing with. Third, nature did not make that choice- we HUNTED the mammoth for its meat and fur. End of story- we killed off the mammoths. The first statement (is usually) true, and only true if, you are a Christian or one who believes in the monotheistic God.

Scientists want to resurrect the mammoth by using carcass DNA (preserved in Russia, by Russia) and implanting it into an african elephant. Animal rights activists say this is unnatural for the elephant, and strongly oppose it. In all honesty, I trust the scientists know what they are doing in this case because their credentials are greater than those of activists. If completed, the mammoth will be the first extinct species brought back to life.

I am wondering if the mammoth will be able to survive and fight off modern day diseases, which may not have existed 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. The specimen would be studied carefully and analyzed. Maybe some people have problems with it being a "play thing", but I doubt scientists with positive intentions mean to harm an animal. People always assume the worst of things, and assumptions are presumed truths in the absence of facts.

Should we clone the mammoth? My answer is, why not?

The TV Remote is going the way of the Dodo

Business Week reported on this and all I could say is WOW.

I like the concept of the scroll wheel and wrist flicks to watch TV, but my tenonitis and my buddies carpal tunnel says no. The Japanese have done it again by having you control your TV with your hands. This technology is new and I can't wait to see where it arrives down the road in 4 or 5 years. TV companies are plugging stuff into the internet, like everyone else these days many things are going to the interwebs. I will certainly purchase a TV like this in the future.

Scientists blame Global Warming on Obesity

Since I am in the science realm of things- I had to comment on this one.

A recent article in the LA Times cited that scientists Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts believe that obesity is a direct cause of global warming because more food must be shipped to these people who eat more. I see a lot of fallacies with this arguement, and I want to see the report in it's entirety; and I cannot find it online.

Obesity is a condition where a person eats too much and gains a BMI (Body Mass Index) that is too high. It's counterpart in the metabolism crisis are those who can eat 3000 calories a day and not gain a single pound or will not need to exercise. What about those people contributing to global warming?

I don't think it is very fair, let alone accurate to put the blame of global warming on a certain group of individuals when we are all more or less equal factors in contributions to global warming. We all can make a difference to curb it, too. We were put on this Earth to take care of the garden (take care of the planet), so we need to start doing it. Until I see that report to reach my best conclusions, I am going to have to side with Yale and throw caution out there- I won't give any credit or recognition to this finding.

We need to focus on Hydrogen fuel cells and gas emissions to get back to pre-1970s level emissions. Global Warming, I believe is not as serious as it has been proposed to be- in that temperatures have not changed much since 1998. I should do a post on Hydrogen fuel cells these days.....

original article- http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2008/05/what-shall-we-b.html

The T-Rex and the Chicken: I still say that the information is inconclusive

Paleontologists have been discussing recent finds that the collagen in T-Rex fossils greatly resembles the collagen found in chickens. Although I find the information to be interesting, if not startling, I have to disagree with a connection between T-Rex dinos and chickens.

Teams were taking samples from dinosaur fossils that were millions of years old- and comparing it to a live chicken's collagen might raise some concerns with the validity of the tests. If the T-rex were living- that would be a different story. Many site that there was the possibility of contamination- and although that could have happened I don't think the teams were hasty enough to allow for that to happen.

Every living being has some form of amino acids in them- essentially proteins. I may have some connection to chickens as well, albeit very distant. If that is so, then I am a descendant of the T-Rex, or does this mean that I am literally "what I eat?".

I think once teams have significant DNA proof that chickens and T-rex dinos are cousins, then I will assume otherwise.

Original article- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/25/ST2008042500958.html

NASA Launches "Phoenix Mars Landrover" to Mars

Nasa sent up Phoenix a little while ago to the North Pole of Mars to collect samples and find evidence of water/life. article from the LA times:

When NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander rocketed into space Saturday, it went, like all missions, with the assurance that as few Earth microbes as possible tagged along for the ride.Hitchhiking microbes could impair the experiments, or worse — an errant microbe could contaminate the planet.Keeping the spacecraft sterile was the job of an obscure but crucial part of NASA known as the Planetary Protection unit.The main Planetary Protection research center is at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where Jason Kastner supervises a small team of scientists working in labs that smell of bacterial cultures.Kastner, an exacting, bespectacled mathematician, is in charge of nitpicking about the exact number of bacteria NASA inadvertently shoots into space.


Phoenix had to be even cleaner than most missions, going a step beyond Planetary Protection's sterilizing procedures. Merely killing all the bacteria wasn't good enough for this trip to Mars' north pole in search for signs of water and organic material.Phoenix scientists had to scrape every bit of organic material from the craft. Even dead bacteria could contaminate the experiments, making it impossible for scientists to distinguish between organics that came from Earth or Mars.Since a 1967 United Nations treaty, Planetary Protection has sterilized every NASA mission. Its motto is "All of the planets, all of the time."NASA's official worrywarts are anxious not only about microorganisms contaminating other celestial bodies, but also about organisms getting loose on Earth. "If we're bringing samples back to Earth, we don't want to bring back something like the Andromeda Strain," said Kastner's boss, Cassie Conley, NASA's planetary protection officer in Washington, referring to the Michael Crichton novel in which a space pathogen causes a terrestrial outbreak.


So far, NASA has obtained only low-risk samples from space. The Stardust mission collected comet dust in 2004, and the Genesis probe launched in 2001 gathered solar wind particles. Scientists said there was little likelihood for life in such environments.The past and possible current presence of liquid water on Mars, however, indicates that life might exist. NASA has plans to bring back a piece of the Red Planet about 2020.Although Conley doubts that anything dangerous lurks in our solar system, she expects to treat Martian soil as if it were more dangerous than the Ebola virus.Things will get even more uncertain if humans travel to the Red Planet. From a planetary protection standpoint, humans are very dirty creatures. And unlike spacecraft, they can't be baked in an oven until they are free of bacteria.In that case, Conley said, human presence would probably be limited to those parts of Mars that wouldn't be habitable for Earth organisms.


Because scientists must be so careful to keep Earth organisms in their proper place, NASA puts its missions together in a clean room. Air filters protect the spacecraft from contamination, and workers must wear head-to-toe suits to go inside.Different missions require different degrees of cleanliness. Although missions to Mars and the icy moons of Jupiter are subject to stringent requirements, others heading to targets that have no possibility of life, such as the moon, can be treated less strictly.The partially assembled Mars Science Laboratory — the next-generation rover scheduled for launch in 2009 — is the lone occupant of the largest clean room at JPL. Planetary Protection scientists are continually suiting up to swab the room and equipment, looking for microscopic intruders.Among the toughest potential passengers are bacteria called Bacillus.

source: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-sci-protect6aug06,1,3595708.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

Stephen Hawkings Takes a Wild Ride

I was browsing the news this afternoon and found out that Mr. Hawkings had an amazing ride yesterday! For those who do not know, Stephen Hawkings is practically the smartest physiscist alive that is known to mankind. Take a look! I really want to do that someday =). AMAZING that it is called the vomet comet, yet he didnt throw up.