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would you give away your passwords for a bar of chocolate?

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:50:17 GMT

clipped by: conquest

Women prefer chocolate to online security 12:15PM, Wednesday 16th April 2008

In the experiment, conducted by Infosecurity Europe, researchers posed as marketers and asked strangers to fill in a survey in return for a chocolate bar. One of the questions on the survey asked people to reveal their passwords.

Nearly half of women questioned were willing to give the information to total strangers, while men seemed more wary, with only one in ten handing out their security details.

"This type of social engineering technique is often used by hackers targeting a specific organisation with valuable data or assets such as a government department or a bank," says Sellick.

Tags: internet, security, survey

Her partner can hinder childbirth

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:32:37 GMT

clipped by: conquest
clipper's remarks: worth reading the article, it is well argued.

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

A top obstetrician on why men should NEVER be at the birth of their child

This week, the Mail reported a new survey which said fathers should be allowed to stay overnight in hospital on the day their baby is born.

But how much should a man be involved in his child's birth? Leading obstetrician Michel Odent has been instrumental in influencing childbirth practices for decades.

Here, with a view that will outrage many - but will strike a chord with thousands of

thers - he describes why he believes that when a woman goes into labour, her partner should stay well away.

For many years, I have not been able to speak openly about my views that the presence of a father in a delivery room is not only unnecessary, but also hinders labour.

To utter such a thing over the past two decades would have been regarded as heresy, and flies in the face of popular convention.

Tags: childbirth, labour, political correctness

ease stress with housework

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:34:43 GMT

clipped by: conquest

Clip Source: ukpress.google.com

Housework 'boosts moods'

Just 20 minutes of housework a week boosts moods while regular exercise in middle age can slow down ageing, according to research.

Although exercise is known to boost people's mental health, researchers from University College London (UCL) wanted to find out how long people should exercise for and what type was best.

They asked 19,842 men and women taking part in the Scottish Health Survey how much exercise, and what kind of activities, they did every week.

People were also quizzed about their state of mind, with 3,200 members of the group found to be suffering stress or anxiety according to a commonly-used mental health scale.

The study found that any form of daily physical activity was linked to lower levels of distress even when factors like age and long-term health problems were taken into account.

The range of activities shown to improve mood included housework, gardening, walking and sports.

Tags: health, excercise

a cup of coffe made from cat's dung

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:24:03 GMT

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Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Peter Jones' cat dung coffee, £50 a cup

The London store, part of the John Lewis group, insists its legion of middle-class shoppers will jump at the opportunity to taste what will become the country's most expensive cup of coffee - even though the coffee beans have spent much of their life inside a cat's stomach.

Caffé Raro, made by the Italian company De Longhi, is a blend of the world's two rarest coffees: Jamaican Blue Mountain and Kupi Luwak, which gets its rich flavour from being ingested by Indonesian jungle cats and harvested from the faeces of the animal.

"It is in high demand from coffee aficionados. They will relish the chance to buy such a rare coffee. After all, only 200kg of Kupi Luwak coffee is produced each year," said a spokesman for De Longhi.

The proceeds from the coffee, available until the end of the month, will go to Macmillan Cancer Support.

Tags: beveredges, big cats, indonesia

Have we lost the war in afghanistan?

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:31:18 GMT

clipped by: conquest

Clip Source: www.thefirstpost.co.uk

President Karzai of Afghanistan has announced that six years after the Taliban were driven out of power in Kabul, representatives of the hardline Muslim movement are 'increasingly' approaching him for talks.

It has been pretty clear that Karzai and his clan have been talking to Taliban leaders for months, possibly more than a year. What his announcement hints at is that some sort of power-sharing deal is in the wind.

Despite the best efforts of the Americans and British forces, supported by the Canadians, Australians and Dutch among others, the chances of Karzai's government continuing in its present form, let alone extending its authority to beyond the capital, are getting less favourable by the day.

he Senlis Council, a European think-tank, said in a report published last week that 54 per cent of Afghan territory is now under Taliban control.

Senlis's survey methods are sophisticated.

The Taliban now control most of Afghanistan - and may soon share power, says robert fox

Tags: afghanistan, war on terror, nato, taliban

Remove that tangle of wires behind the tele.

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:12:34 GMT

clipped by: conquest

Clip Source: business.guardian.co.uk

The end for messy TV cables?

Ultra-Wideband (UWB) can be used to send huge amounts of information between electronic devices, making it suitable for connecting items such as digital TV decoders and DVD players to television sets, or digital cameras to computers.

The spider's web of cabling that lurks behind the nation's TV sets could become a thing of the past after telecoms and media regulator Ofcom today freed-up part of the airwaves for a new wireless technology.

It could also be used to wirelessly link satellite dishes or cable TV connections to set-top boxes, doing away with the need for cables to be poked through walls and run around skirting boards. Satellite broadcaster Sky, for instance, is understood to be looking at whether UWB could be integrated into its equipment.

Described by techies as "Bluetooth on steroids", UWB can operate over distances of up to 30 metres.

Japanese electronics manufacturers are already producing modems that use UWB,

Tags: technology, broadcasting, gadgets

Furniture that responds to your mood

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:44:57 GMT

clipped by: conquest

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

On display at the Siggraph show, the Fuwapica furniture uses sensors embedded in the table-top to work out the colour of items placed upon it.

The colour of the stools then change to match the colour of whatever has been placed on the sensitive table-top.

Sensors in the stools also work out the weight of anyone sat on them - heavier people are treated to darker shades.

The circular table acts as the central control point for the four stools. Sensors sit beneath a glass plate on the top of the table and scan any object placed on it.

The sensors bounce red, green and blue light off the objects in frequencies that humans cannot see and records which hues are reflected.

The colours are also made to pulse lighter and darker at about the same tempo of human breathing in a bid to make the stools seem more life-like.

The designers suggest that people can change the colour of the chairs to match their mood.

Tags: interior design, furniture, technology

Scrabble makes a comeback, on Facebook

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:41:01 GMT

clipped by: conquest

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

The world-famous word game is having a surge in popularity thanks to the website Facebook.

Every now and again, an email will ping into my inbox. This email will be from the novelist Jenny Colgan, and its subject line will be something along the lines of "Give me an 'S'… Give me a 'C'… Give me an 'R'…", and it will cause my heart to leap with joy.

For it will presage an evening of red wine, takeaway pizza and intimate relaxation with a handful of like-minded friends in her discreet Fleet Street flat. We might chew qat until we get xi. Those of us with an ax to grind will do so, ideally in two directions. Others work on the flow of their qi. Sometimes, someone will show us his SOWPODS. Oh yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

Not so. Cyber-scrabble is on the march. Only two months after the launch on the social networking site Facebook of an application called Scrabulous - which allows you to play with your friends online - 200,000 people are reported to have signed up.

Tags: word games, internet, facebook

Good News from Google

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 14:09:52 GMT

clipped by: conquest

Clip Source: www.seethru.co.uk

BBC News

World Peace sparks outpourings of joy
Guardian - 1 hour ago
Almost all of the human race were united today in a vast expression of joy in response to the newfound world peace.
In pictures: it's all smiles CNN
Hand in hand: old enemies embrace New York Times
World Peace - how will it affect the school run? Guardian
Only nice people wearing flowing robes to rule the world Telegraph.co.uk
ABC Online - AllAfrica.com - Reuters - BBC News - and 600 related »

BBC News

Bush takes XTC, goes to rave
New York Times - 12 hours ago
"He was jumping around, blowing a whistle, and kept asking me if I had any chewy," says Alison, 19, who danced with the President and his team of advisors at an unnamed club until 4am. "Rumsfeld gave me a kick-ass back rub."
Rice 'a bit tired' the next day but otherwise okay, say doctors CNN
Bush "satisfactory" after swallowing glow-stick Christian Science Monitor
ABC Online - AllAfrica.com - Reuters - BBC News - and 600 related »

Tags: internet, humour, google, news

America prepares huge arms sale

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:16:37 GMT

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Clip Source: www.thefirstpost.co.uk

In a surprising twist to the saga of the US standoff with Iran, Washington is reported to be preparing a huge sale of arms and defence supplies to Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies in the Gulf. The deal, amounting to some $20bn worth of planes, surveillance and communication systems, and patrol ships, has been prepared ahead of an imminent joint visit to the region by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

This is the old ploy of fighting by proxy, but in new clothes. The Bush administration hopes to stiffen the resolve of the Saudis to confront Iran as it becomes more active inside Iraq and threatens to destabilise the Gulf states by stirring up Shia minorities. This is quite apart from the issue of Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

The move to arm the Saudis, which Washington has tried to avoid till now, is an admission that the US has not much spare military capacity

$20bn-worth of planes and ships looks like a last roll of the dice in the Gulf,

Tags: middle east, iran, saudi arabia, defence

Turkey 'ready to invade Iraq'

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:08:59 GMT

clipped by: conquest

Clip Source: www.thefirstpost.co.uk

Hawkish Turks prepare for Iraq invasion

As American and British generals draw up plans to extract their demoralised troops from Iraq, another army sits impatiently at its northern border awaiting orders to launch an invasion of its own.

Faced with a resurgent PKK terror campaign, Turkey's hawkish generals have long argued the case for a strike against Kurdish militant bases inside northern Iraq.

With some 140,000 troops poised, and Turkish commandos rumoured to be deep in Iraqi territory, all that has been lacking has been the political will.

Ibrahim Kalin, an Ankara-based analyst, tells me it is only a matter of time before Turkey's generals get their way: "Now the elections are over, the army will say, 'You have a responsibility to give us the orders to protect the country.' The government cannot withstand that pressure for long. They will have to say yes."

Tags: iraq, kurds, turkey

Glamourous New Station links London - Paris

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 14:45:58 GMT

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Clip Source: www.thefirstpost.co.uk

A new St Pancras, thanks to Betjeman

A sleek Eurostar train glides to a halt beneath St Pancras station's magnificent span. It's only a test run, but this arrival heralds a rebirth of the long-lost era of railway romance.

St Pancras will put some fun, even glamour, back

into rail travel.

Among the almost 1,000 cast-iron pillars holding up the tracks and concourse are shops, bars, restaurants, and even a farmers' market. All of these have been built into Barlow's vast 'undercroft' - originally used as storage for barrels of beer arriving from the Midlands.

Passengers will travel up to the trains by escalator, emerging into Barlow's famous trainshed - at 243ft, still the biggest single span of cast ironwork in the world. Restaurants are opening up in the brick alcoves, and the longest champagne bar

Clip Source: www.thefirstpost.co.uk

People will want to visit St Pancras whether they're travelling or not, as they did when it first opened. It will be the antithesis of stations today,

Tags: london, channel tunnel, st pancras, travel, architecture

One in four now allergic

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 12:18:27 GMT

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clipper's remarks: Too much concern with hygeine?

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

The number of patients suffering from serious allergies has soared by 25 per cent in just four years, a report reveals. Eczema and asthma are the most common complaints although the largest recorded increase is in peanut allergies - which in rare cases can prove fatal.

In 2001, nearly one in five GP patients had at least one allergic disease. But by 2005, that figure had increased to nearly one in four.

GPs are not well informed about allergy at all, but particularly about food allergy and that is because they are not trained in it.

llergies are more commonly recorded among patients from affluent areas, suggesting that the environment in which babies are brought up could influence their future health.

The latest figures show the allergy problem is even more acute than previously thought. By 2005 an estimated 12.2million people had been diagnosed with allergies,

Tags: health, allergies

biofuel pushes up the cost of ice cream

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 12:08:09 GMT

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Clip Source: business.timesonline.co.uk

What’s the connection between ethanol, the biofuel produced from corn, and a cherry vanilla ice-cream?

Answer: the first is responsible for pushing up the price of the other.

This month, the price of milk in the United States surged to a near-record in part because of the increasing costs of feeding a dairy herd. The corn feed used to feed cattle has almost doubled in price in a year as demand has grown for the grain to produce ethanol.

The squeeze on ice-cream makers, chocolate manufacturers and pizza companies – all of whom use dairy produce as a raw material – is set to tighten as the price of a gallon of milk in the US – up 55 per cent in the past 12 months in some American states – is now the same as a gallon of petrol, with dairy prices accelerating faster than the cost of fuel.

Prices for dairy products have also risen because of increasing demand from China and the Middle East along with the drought in Australia, reduced subsidies in the European Union and the rocketing cost of co

Tags: food, dariy products, bio fuel

parrots find a mate for life

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:19:10 GMT

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Clip Source: www.ananova.com

A German ornithologist who started a dating agency for parrots has just brought her 2,000th pair together.

Rita Oenhauser, 34, who runs a bird sanctuary at Schoenefeld just outside Berlin, said: "I realised there was a gap in the market because I had so many people asking me about finding a partner for their birds.

"Unlike a regular dating agency my work is very satisfying, as parrots, like swans, will mate for life and remain faithful - parrot pairs stay together until the end.

"It is really sweet to watch, they spend every minute of every day together, the male looking after the female and feeding her and sitting together on their perches."

She added: "I don't have to do much other than make the introductions, some birds experience love at first sight, while others make a really careful choice before entering a relationship and need to be talked into it with a complicated courtship.

Tags: ornithology, parrots, pets