The Tank Man of Tiananmen Square

Who among us would be this brave?

Meningitis Recovery and Abba Music

The Sun newspaper reported a story about a 3 year old British girl, by the name of Layla Towsey who had miraculously recovered from meningitis B. The little girl had initially been diagnosed with a heat rash on her leg, but shortly after her mother insisted on seeing a pediatrician, the Layla suffered a heart attack.

Laya was rushed to a hospital and put on life support. Her mother stayed at her besides in a 5 day long vigil and had prepared herself for losing her daughter, even to the point of kissing her good-bye.

But Layla surprised her mother and her doctors by slowly regaining consciousness and came out of her coma singing the Abba hit song, “Mama Mia!”

Her stunned mother reportedly said, “We had been preparing for bad news as the life support machine was keeping her alive. But on the Sunday I could hear her singing Mamma Mia quietly. I couldn't believe it. I knew then she would be OK...It's one of her favourite songs - she loves it. She got as close to death as you can get. She's a miracle."

There have been no reports of statements from doctors regarding the salutary effects of Abba's music.

Microsoft's New Search Engine: What's The Advantage?

The Wall Street Journal and the All Things Digital blog both broke stories this week indicating that the long anticipated new search engine from Microsoft will likely be unveiled this week. Internally known as "kumo", the new search engine is a revamp of the current Microsoft Live Search engine.

The re-branded search engine is widely rumored to be name Bing and Advertising Age reports that that Microsoft is putting $80-100 million into an advertising campaign to displace Google in people's minds as the synonymous term for internet search. For comparison's sake, it's estimated that Google's advertising budget last year was $25 million. But will people bing it instead of googling it?

As reported by Alex Patriquin and compete.com, MSN/Live Search's year-on-year market share fell to 6.2% of the total search market, this despite being the default search engine for Microsoft's Internet Explorer. So clearly either technical innovation or better branding is needed.

The All Things Digital blog story links to three reported screen shots from pre-release versions of the new search engine, working under the kumo name. The screen shots show a clean sparse results pages organized by the type of content that the search result represents. For example, one screen shot shows a search for pop star Taylor Swift. The left side navigation pane shows the search results organized by categories images, songs, lyrics, biography, music, albums, videos. This sounds similar to the search engine claims that Microsoft was making last year when it bought the semantic search engine Powerset.

It's unclear that automated organization of search results based on an understanding of the clusters of types of results can be leveraged into a sustainable competitive advantage for Microsoft and enable it to eat away at Google's 73% market share. Can these features be duplicated by Google? Are these features significant enough to convince users to change which search engine they use?

One aspect of the new Microsoft search offering that has yet to be tested or proven is just how much of the web has its search infrastructure indexed. Warm and fuzzy names, default search engine status, sparse layouts, and new organizing techniques for search results aren't worth anything if the information is not in the Microsoft databases to be found in the first place.

Automated SQL Injection Attacks Top Attack Lists

The Info Security website recently released a republication of Breach Security's report, The Web Hacking Incidents Database (WHID) 2008 Annual Report, raising questions about secure application development for internet-facing applications.

The WHID report highlights the trends in automated SQL injection attacks as the highlight of 2008.

“SQL Injection attacks that planted malware on target web sites were the #1 attack/outcome vectors for criminals in 2008.”

The Breach Security report mirrors similar reports from the IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force® 2008 Trend & Risk Report published earlier this year:

“...we have seen mass SQL injection attacks, a portion of which is attributed to the Asprox botnet. This combination of a botnet plus a SQL injection attack capability enabled another method of mass delivery of malware in which a large number of affected sites effectively becomes a delivery point. Additionally, these automated attacks also highlighted the high number of Web sites vulnerable to SQL injection and that secure development practices will go a long way in effectively mitigating these attacks.”

Sites like the Microsoft Developer Network include articles on how to fix security holes in application platforms like .NET to protect applications from SQL injection attacks, but the problems continue to be prevalent across a wide variety of applications.

The Breach Security report also indicates a shift away from ideological and defacement attacks and an increase more commercially oriented attacks, leading to a shift in target web sites. Breach Security reports a large increase in security attacks focused on financial institutions. Government and law enforcement sites continue to be subject to the largest numbers of reported attacks.

German Authorities Remove Red Bull Cola from Store Shelves

When Red Bull announced that it was releasing a "Red Bull Cola" product to complement its Red Bull Energy Drink, the company emphasized the use of natural flavorings, without phosphoric acid, preservatives, or artificial coloring. As the Red Bull page for the cola product states:

"The cola from Red Bull is a unique blend of ingredients, all from 100 % natural sources.

In addition, it is the only cola which contains both the original Kola nut and the Coca leaf. Therefore, it is a very special recipe. Or what else would you have expected from Red Bull?

The result is a natural, not-too-sweet cola taste, which comes from using the right plant extracts."

The soda maker proudly shows us pictures of Red Bull Cola's ingredients to emphasize that it has nothing to hide.

The first ingredient on the list is "coca leaf." which has lead food product safety officials to raise concerns about the safety of the product.

TIME magazine recently reported that

"The [Health Institute in the state of North Rhine Westphalia] examined Red Bull Cola in an elaborate chemical process and found traces of cocaine," Bernhard Kuehnle, head of the food safety department at Germany's federal ministry for consumer protection, told the German press on Sunday."

Further press reports indicate that retailers in six German states have been told to remove Red Bull Cola from their shelves. So far, no other authorities have exercised similar powers to remove Red Bull Cola from the markets in their jurisdiction.

The fear apparently stems from the assumption that inclusion of Coca leaves in the product means that there is "cocaine" in the product, which would not only be a health concern, but a narcotics concern.

But international narcotics law requires that the the cocaine alkaloids in coca leaves must be removed before they can be shipped outside of the Andean region of Bolivia where they are grown. These "de-cocained" leaves are used as flavoring agents in a wide variety of foods throughout the world.

Whether the minute traces of cocaine were falsely detected as a result of hyper-sensitive testing, the traces of the cocaine alkaloids are left over from the cocaine removal process, or were deliberately put into the cola drink by Red Bull hasn't been determined. Red Bull representatives were quick to issue statements that their use of coca leaves are strictly as a flavoring agent.

While food safety authorities in some German states were rushing to exercise their product banning powers, there were calmer reactions from the German federal authorities and other authorities worldwide. The general consensus was that even if the samples colas had trace amounts in the levels reported, they posed no health risk to the public. News reports indicate that the conducted tests found 0.13 micrograms of cocaine per can and that an average person would have to consume approximately 12,000 liters of the cola to feel any adverse effects from the cocaine alkaloids.

The publicity surrounding the detection of these trace amounts of cocaine alkaloids in Red Bull Cola has reinforced the image of Red Bull's marketing themes of high energy drinks, which are all natural and pack an "extra kick".

The issue however has caused a dilemma among German authorities. Narcotics authorities in Germany are now faced with determining whether the product's trace amounts of cocaine alkaloids violates German narcotics laws and are now faced with the difficult decision whether to enforce the narcotics laws despite the virtually unanimous consensus among health officials is that there is no health risk associated with it.

Obama's Budget Cut

Yip Yips Discover Radio

For anyone who needs a pick me up.....

Free Speech at UNC: Victory or Defeat?

The Raleigh News and Observer reports in "Protest stops Tancredo's UNC speech":

CHAPEL HILL -- UNC-CH police released pepper spray and threatened to use a Taser on student protesters Tuesday evening when a crowd disrupted a speech by former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo opposing in-state tuition benefits to unauthorized immigrants.

Hundreds of protesters converged on Bingham Hall, shouting profanities and accusations of racism while Tancredo and the student who introduced him tried to speak. Minutes into the speech, a protester pounded a window of the classroom until the glass shattered, prompting Tancredo to flee and campus police to shut down the event.

And further into the story:

Before the event, campus security removed two women who delayed Tancredo's speech by stretching a 12-foot banner across the front of the classroom. It read, "No dialogue with hate."

Police escorted the women into the hallway, amid more than 30 protesters who clashed with the officers trying to keep them out of the overcrowded classroom. After police released pepper spray and threatened the crowd with a Taser, the protesters gathered outside Bingham Hall.

And more examples:

Inside the classroom, several student protesters screamed curses at Tancredo and Riley Matheson, president of the UNC-Chapel Hill chapter of Youth for Western Civilization.

Someone needs to teach these kids about Free Speech and engaging in discussion and debate rather than this sort of childish behavior. These UNC students ought to be ashamed.

Some video from the event

A Twitter Revolution

The international version of Speigel Online had arecent article titled, "Fearing Uprising, Russia Backs Moldova's Communists" about the student uprisings in in Moldova to protest the Communist rule of that country. 

Similar to other uprisings in the region, these appear to be student and citizen uprisings against the corruption in the government. One of the notable things about these recent protests is how effectively Twitter was used to both communicate among the protesters and to communicate events to the rest of the world. 

Riot police took back the Moldovan parliament and presidential buildings on Wednesday, and Thursday was calm in Chisinau. But a large protest in the capital was brewing on Friday -- organized on a Twitter stream tagged #pman, which stands for the initials of Chisinau's biggest square-- with protesters claiming the government would use the threat of a Romanian coup as a reason to arrest people illegally.

"Communists block students in their classrooms and threaten them with exmatriculation if they protest," claimed one Twitterer on Friday. "Somebody help Moldova pleaseeee," wrote another.

This sort of thing is getting more and more common. As Spiegel notes: 

In the West, the uprising looked like another post-Soviet "color" revolution, a people's movement against an old-guard Communist regime, such as Georgia's 2003 "Rose Revolution" or Ukraine's 2004 "Orange Revolution." From Moscow's perspective, that's exactly the problem. "The Moscow authorities are afraid of spontaneous mass protests in the regions … and, for this reason, Russian television is showing what is happening in an exclusively negative light," Dmitry Oreshkin, a Moscow-based political analyst, told Reuters. "It is beneficial for the Kremlin to show the consequences of peoples' protests to justify why it needs to be tough."

It will be interesting to see how authoritarian governments react to these tactics.  The United States Government is already starting to go down that path. The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 would federalize control over the nation's internet infrstructure and according to the EFF: 

"One proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds." 

Maybe there are good points in the Cybersecurity Act. But we also have to be careful to give the government a tool for shutting down dissent on the internet. 

As the Moldova protests show, telecommunications and internet infrastrcuture are becoming crucial tools for bringing about political change and giving oppressed people hope. 

Relative Losses

From Yahoo news, I saw an article titled, "Wells Fargo projects record $3 billion 1Q profit." 

I guess that's good news. Maybe. The news article talks about how their stock price surged and the overall market was up 159 points. 

But then in the 4th paragraph, you read: 

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, which has received $25 billion in funds as part of the government's bank bailout plan, anticipates earnings after preferred dividends of about 55 cents per share. Revenue for the period ended March 31 is expected to climb 16 percent to $20 billion.

So let's see, what if we take away the government bail out money. Let me see if I can do this math, 

$3 billion - $25 billion = -$22 billion 

So without the bailout money, they would have recorded a  $22Billion dollar loss?  

That would have been a huge loss, back in the days before Obama's proposed 10 year 9.3 Trillion dollar deficit. 

The Watchmen: Tales of The Black Freighter - How Not To Promote It

I'm proud to say that I am the lead organizer of The Triangle Geeks on meetup.com. Geek is, after all, the new counter-culture. As the lead organizer, I'm always on the look out for new things for us all to do together. I'm always looking for an excuse for a few of to get together and hang out. 

Quite a few of us had seen the latest comic movie, The Watchmen, when it hit the theaters a few weeks ago.  So I was ecstatic to be contacted by Andrew Briskin of Tango Blues Entertainment. In his e-mail he said: 

Calvin,

I work in grassroots promotions for Warner Home Video and we

are interested in sending your MeetUp Group some FREE

promotional materials and swag for the upcoming "Watchmen" DVD

releases titled "Watchmen Motion Comics" and "Watchmen: Black

Frieghter" for your group to receive and discuss at one of your

MeetUps. We would like to supply the materials for you to get a

sneek peak of "Watchmen: Black Freighter" (release date is

March 24, 2009) by having you host the event on any day

beginning March 20th (Friday) through March 23rd (Monday). Is

this something you would be interested in? Please e-mail me

back as soon as possible so we can get you the right quantities

for the number of members you would have attending, and

shipments to you before the mentioned dates. I am available at

xxx-xxx-xxxx if you have any questions or by e-mail at

[e-mail address redacted].

Thank you,

Andrew Briskin

Very Cool! I thought this would be a great idea for a meetup. Given that we had quite a few Watchmen fans, I could organize an event at my place and we could give out the free promotional materials and swag in random drawings, etc.  So I responded almost immediately and told him I'd be happy to organize the event.  And I put the wheels in motion to organizet the event at my place. 

So, on the day of the event I get a Fed-Ex envelope in the mail. Not a box, mind you. An envelope. 

In the envelope where the following items: 

• A Cover Letter 
  
• 2 copies of a press release for Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter
  
• 2 copies of a press release for Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic 
  
• A home-made DVD with trailers for the two releases 
  

I should note that, as far as I can tell, the trailers on the DVD are the exact same trailers that are on YouTube. 

Here's what the cover letter said: 

Thank You for your participation in our Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter and Watchment: Motion Comics promotion.  Included you will find two copies of press releases for both titles, including background on the DVD story, cast and crew lists, and other information we hope you will find interesting. 

In addition there is a DVD containing the trailers for the two titles, per our initial e-mail communication for your preview. It is programmed to "loop" should you be screening it in a more informal manner through the day. 

We appreciate you taking the time to put this event together and would love any feedback and photos you may take at the event. If you can e-mail a few shots of your group to me at [[e-mail address redacted]] I would much appreciate them! 

Thank You 

Andrew Briskin. 

OK fair enough Mr. Briskin. To hold up my end of the deal, I did in fact hold the event as planned and here are some of the pictures I took of people attending the event: 

To say the least, we were under-whelmed by what was sent to us.  I guess I can chalk it up to miscommunication. And certainly Mr. Briskin can claim to have covered his ass because he didn't promise us anything specific. All he promised us was: 

"some FREE promotional materials and swag"

OK. Let's be careful and precise about where the miscommunication may have  occurred. 

When some sends me some written materials and says they are going to give me something FREE, using all caps no less. I assume they are going to send me something of VALUE. Maybe it's not a high value thing. And maybe there are strings attached to it. But it ought to be something that has some modicum of value 

Two copies of a press releases with information I can get on the internet and two trailers that I can watch for free on YouTube are not of any particular value to us. Especially not when you consider folks have to get in the car and drive to the event. 

I spent more on snacks for this event than Tango Blues or Warner Home Video spent on the stuff they sent, including the Fed Ex fees! 

Furthermore, this stuff does not even come close to matching our definition of "swag". I don't know what Mr. Briskin was thinking when he wrote that he was going to send us "swag," but here's how the Urban Dictionary defines swag: 

Promotional merchandise for a band, record label, or other entity in the music business, usually distributed at concerts.

May include t-shirts, stickers, promo CDs, posters, etc. Often free, but not necessarily; a t-shirt or record purchased at a concert might still be considered swag, especially if it is a design or release that is not readily available in the mass market.

Many independent record labels throw in a handful of free swag when they ship out mail-order packages (stickers, sampler CDs, etc).

The chief difference between swag and regular merchandise is that its purpose is not to make a profit, but to promote the band/label, and reward its supporters by giving them something cool and unique. 

OK OK, the urban dictionary has a music industry spin on their definition. But the last sentence in the definition is key. Swag is a reward to supporters by giving them something cool and unique. 

Two copies of the movie press release and two trailers that anyone can see on the internet, are not, shall we say, cool and unique. 

I'd expected maybe a movie poster or two. I've been to lots of fan events and gatherings and I've seen movie companies give away movie posters, lobby cards, pins and buttons. etc etc. These are things that fans love to get. 

I had dared to even hope that maybe they could give us a copy of the DVDs that we could give away in a random drawing. But even if they'd given us a movie poster or T-shirt or even a frakkin' coffee mug. It would be fun to give it away. 

But no.  Tango Blues / Warner Home Entertainment couldn't see it in their hearts to even send us the most basic swag. 

Two copies of the press release and two trailers that anyone can see on YouTube is not worth our time and money and effort. 

And no, you can bet your sweet bippy that none of us will be buying these two DVDs when they come out. 

What's the lesson learned here? Next time, I'm not lifting a finger to do something like this until I have the swag in hand and I can see what it is. I am not going to waste my time, money, and effort. Nor am I going to waste the time of the Triangle Geeks again. 

Oh yeah, that instills confidence

Global economy "approaching" pick-up: G10


The global economy is "approaching" a pick-up point as positive elements that could fuel growth have yet to be priced in, G10 central bankers said Monday.

"We have a number of elements that are suggesting that we are approaching the moment where you would have a pick up," European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet said in his capacity as spokesman for the G10 central bankers meeting at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

ya think he could be anymore vague and non committal?

Reaching Out

I've spent the past 15 days at the hospital, helping my Dad take care of my Mom, who suffered a stroke. She's been in ICU the whole time.  Today as I was walking from her room to the cafeteria, I was half in a daze when this tiny little indian woman, dressed in the hospital's cleaning staff uniform, stopped me in the hall.  We were passing each other in opposite directions and she literally reached out her hand and grabbed my arm. 

"How is your Mother?" she asked. Took me a few seconds to realize that she was the woman who comes into to clean Mom's room every day, emptying the trash and stuff like that. I don't recall doing anything other than smilng gamely at her when she came in. But I guess she saw my Mom's decline and she reached out, literally, to ask me about it.  We chatted for a couple of minutes then I thanked her profusely for even asking. 

The people in my parents' neighborhood have been amazingly supportive and organized. They have a schedule in place to brng food to my Dad and I every couple of days. And the neighbors across the street set up an e-mail distribution list to brodacast updates on Mom's condition. Both neighbors and distant relatives are on it. 

Funny thing though, that hasn't stopped the calls from coming in. People still want to call and even though they know everything they need to know. They still want to talk to us anyway.  Just to talk. 

Both of these incidents remind me that there's a difference between getting information and reaching out. Believe me, I'm not complaining. 

Podcast Files are Offline

All of the podcast MP3 files are offline until further notice while I make some file hosting changes behind the scenes. 

Sorry for the inconvenience. 

New Back Up Band Name for The List

I love to keep watch for unusual and amusing band names and I like to keep a list of phrases that I run across that would make a good band name. For example, I always thought that "Walk Left Stand Right" would make a fantastic J-Pop band name. 

I also keep an eye out for cool backup band names. Some of my current favorites are 

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 

Dave Insley and the Careless Smokers

Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives 

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention 

This week I received a CD for an Austin singer/songwriter named Vanessa Peters. Her back up band name fits her angsty, frail coffeehouse style of folk music perfectly which is 

Vanessa Peters and Ice Cream On Mondays

To me that conjures up either somone who's institutionalized, probably against their will, and who has a very small world around them and a controlled scheduled such that having ice cream on Mondays is both indicitate of the regimented life and the small pleaures in that world. And the thing about it is, there's nothing in the words themselves that are a particular downer, they only indirectly point to a darker place. 

Or maybe Ice Cream On Mondays is simply a marker for child like enthusiasm. 

Either way,  or perhaps both interpretations combined, create a context and initial expectation for Vanessa's music.