:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 12.31.2008 ::

:: 61-Second Minute Takes World into 2009 ::

Daily Tech
Kristy Erdodi

A leap second will be added to clocks worldwide just before 2009 begins.

Not ready to let go of 2008? Tonight official timekeepers will give you one more second to hold onto, just before midnight.

Immediately before 2009 officially arrives, timekeepers will be adding a leap second – the first for three years – to atomic clocks worldwide.

According to Peter Whibley, a senior research scientist at Britain’s National Physical Laboratory, digital clocks with the ability to pick up definite leap second information will countdown to the new year as “57, 58, 59, 60, 00,” with “60” representing the leap second.

Whirbley explained why the earth’s erratic rotation has resulted in this need for an additional second: “The difference between atomic time and Earth time has now built up to the point where it needs to be corrected, so this New Year’s Eve we will experience a rare 61-second minute at the very end of 2008 and revelers…will have an extra second to celebrate.”

Determining time based off of the sun’s movement across the sky is not only a concept from the past, as astronomers still use the approach; inevitably, it has been modernized, but the sun currently stands as a tracking source for both stars and spacecrafts.

In general, the Earth is not completely reliable on keeping time. Disruptions to its core, extreme weather, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes, along with its inconstant speed and ability to wobble, can all act as factors in affecting the length of one day. As a result, in order to align atomic time with astronomical time, leap seconds must be added every so often. This extra time helps in keeping the sun overhead at noon.

posted by me

:: 4:51:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "Yahoo's Data Retention Move Puts Pressure on Google, Microsoft" ::

By Clint Boulton
from eWeek's Google Watch

Some readers chimed in regarding my position that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft seemed headed for zero retention policies in 2009, my response to Yahoo's reduction of storing users' search records from 13 months to 3 months.

As I noted in a response to a comment, I managed to speak to Microsoft privacy strategy honcho Brendon Lynch last night.

I asked him what he thought of Yahoo's move, which came just weeks after Microsoft agreed that 6 months is a fair duration so long as Google and Yahoo agree to that timeframe.

He replied that search engines do an amount of data to run their search engines, so a zero amount is not feasible, and reiterated Microsoft' call for some standardization around a 6-month retention period and strong anonymization methods.

Eh. Take from that what you will. Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have to be careful about what they say heading into the major February meeting with the European Commission's data retention party.

I believe that Microsoft and Google are privately furious at Yahoo for lowering the bar to 3 months. Microsoft is at 18 months, Google at 9 months. Yahoo's move will increase pressure on Google and Microsoft to lower their retention periods, perhaps even before they meet with the EC party next year. How long before Google and Microsoft lower their timeframes?

Three months worth of user data, as I noted yesterday, might as well be no months. We can debate that all day, but what I really wanted to do was spotlight some salient reader comments, which you can peruse here. I pull out my favorites in this post.

Wrote Barry about why Yahoo would pull such a drastic move:

I see this move primarily as a stop-gap strategy for Yahoo, who is still casting about for an identity in an increasingly crowded market space. None the less, it's a smart move. Privacy laws eventually will catch up to these companies and they will be required to change their data retention policies anyway. Might as well score some goodwill brownie points in the process.

I'm right there with you, Barry. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft can only stall for so long. Let's hope they're figuring out less intrusive ways to offer their search services without letting the quality suffer.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 5:21:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Bush & the Shoe Incident ::

Tumult in Iraqi Parliament Over Shoe Hurling
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and ATHEER KAKAN
NYT

BAGHDAD — A session of the Iraqi Parliament erupted in uproar on Wednesday as lawmakers clashed over how to respond to the continuing detention of an Iraqi television reporter who threw his shoes at President Bush during a Baghdad news conference earlier this week, people attending the parliamentary meeting said.

As Parliament began to discuss legislation on the withdrawal from Iraq of armed forces from nations other than the United States, a group of lawmakers demanded that the legislature instead take up the issue of the detained journalist, Muntader al-Zaidi, 29. After his shoes narrowly missed Mr. Bush’s head at the news conference on Sunday, Mr. Zaidi was subdued by a fellow journalist and then beaten by members of the prime minister’s security detail, who hauled him out of the room. Mr. Zaidi’s cries could be heard from a nearby room.

The legislative session became so tumultuous that it prompted the speaker of Parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, to announce his resignation, according to The Associated Press. A spokesman for Mr. Mashhadani, Jabar al-Mashhadani, refused to confirm whether the speaker had tendered his resignation, although he would not deny it.

Some in Parliament say the government should release Mr. Zaidi immediately, while others say the judiciary should decide his fate.

A L S O

In Iraqi’s Shoe-Hurling Protest, Arabs Find a Hero. (It’s Not Bush.)
NYT

Profile: Shoe-throwing journalist
BBC News

posted by me

:: 3:43:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Dark Energy Stunts Galaxies’ Growth ::

By DENNIS OVERBYE
The New York Times

The same mystery force that is speeding up the expansion of the universe is also stunting the growth of the objects inside it, astronomers said on Tuesday.

After bulking up rapidly in the first 10 billion years of cosmic time, clusters of galaxies, the cloudlike swarms that are the largest conglomerations of matter in the universe, have grown anemically or not at all during the last five billion years, like sullen teenagers who suddenly refuse to eat.

"This result could be explained as arrested development of the universe," said Alexey Vikhlinin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who led a multinational team using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to weigh galaxy clusters from far across space. The group reported the results in two papers that will appear in the Astrophysical Journal.

The culprit, he said, appears to be an antigravitational force that astronomers have labeled "dark energy." It was discovered 10 years ago by astronomers who were using exploding stars called supernovas as distance markers to chart the expansion of the universe. In a puzzle that is still reverberating, they found that instead of slowing down because of cosmic gravity, as common sense would suggest, the expansion of the universe was actually speeding up, with galaxies zooming apart faster and faster.

Dr. Vikhlinin’s results dovetail eerily with the supernova results, suggesting that dark energy emerged as a dominant force in the universe about seven billion to five billion years ago. Clusters grow by gravity, according to cosmological theory, starting as small dimples in the heat and fizz of the Big Bang and then drawing in surrounding material over the eons. Dark energy would work against gravity and try to push the matter falling in back out, stalling growth.

Together with earlier observations of supernovas and other effects, Dr. Vikhlinin said, the new data strengthen the suspicion — but do not prove — that dark energy is the result of a weird antigravity called the cosmological constant that was hypothesized and then abandoned by Albert Einstein as a "blunder" almost a century ago.

Many other theories are still in contention, but some that involve modifying Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which has been the last work on gravity for almost a century, might be on the verge of extinction, astronomers said.

"If this was a fox hunt and dark energy was the fox, I think they have closed off another escape route. But there is still a lot of terrain left for the fox, and we’ve seen little more than a glimmer of fur," said Adam Riess, of Johns Hopkins and the Space Telescope Science Institute, and one of the original discoverers of dark energy.

Other astronomers hailed the work as opening a new avenue in the investigation of what is happening and will happen to the cosmos.

Read more here.

A L S O

New Technique Allows Researchers to Measure Dark Energy
Washington Post

Dark Energy = Einstein's Cosmological Constant?
Wired News

Dark energy, which forms almost three-quarters of the universe, is the most mysterious stuff known to man. A new set of Chandra X-Ray Observatory data, however, has given scientists good information on what dark energy might actually be.

Turns out, it looks suspiciously like Einstein's cosmological constant, a factor he added to his theory of general relativity. He once considered it his greatest blunder.

posted by me

:: 5:07:00 PM [+] ::
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:: "A victory lap without a clear victory" ::

Bush: Iraq war is not over, more work ahead
By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent
via Yahoo! News

BAGHDAD – On an Iraq trip shrouded in secrecy and marred by dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday hailed progress in the war that defines his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of his unpopularity when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news conference.

"This is the end!" shouted the protester, later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt.

Bush ducked both shoes as they whizzed past his head and landed with a thud against the wall behind him.

"It was a size 10," Bush joked later.

The U.S. president visited the Iraqi capital just 37 days before he hands the war off to his successor, Barack Obama, who has pledged to end it. The president wanted to highlight a drop in violence in a nation still riven by ethnic strife and to celebrate a recent U.S.-Iraq security agreement, which calls for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

"The war is not over," Bush said, adding that "it is decisively on it's way to being won."

In many ways, the unannounced trip was a victory lap without a clear victory. Nearly 150,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq fighting a war that is intensely disliked across the globe. More than 4,209 members of the U.S. military have died in the conflict, which has cost U.S. taxpayers $576 billion since it began five years and nine months ago.

Polls show most Americans believe the U.S. erred in invading Iraq in 2003. Bush ordered the nation into war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq while citing intelligence claiming the Mideast nation harbored weapons of mass destruction. The weapons were never found, the intelligence was discredited, Bush's credibility with U.S. voters plummeted and Saddam was captured and executed.

"There is still more work to be done," Bush said after his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

It was at that point the journalist stood up and threw a shoe from about 20 feet away. Bush ducked, and it narrowly missed his head. The second shoe came quickly, and Bush ducked again while several Iraqis grabbed the man and dragged him to the floor.

In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam with their shoes after U.S. marines toppled it to the ground following the 2003 invasion.

White House press secretary Dana Perino suffered an eye injury in the news conference melee. Bush brushed off the incident, comparing it to political protests at home.

"So what if I guy threw his shoe at me?" he said.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 2:45:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Jello shots: An open letter to Barack ::

According to Alternative Tentacles, "Since Election Day, Jello Biafra has been hard at work composing an open letter to President-Elect Barack Obama, which will be submitted via Change.gov, the Obama administration transition site." They've posted it on the AT Web site -- excerpt below:

OPEN LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA

PREAMBLE GAMBLE

Dear Mr. Obama,

Congratulations on your recent victory, and for helping build such a strong mandate for change. In that spirit, please do not forget the other aisle you need to reach across. All the relief and publicity for the middle class won't do anything for the 40-100 million Americans who are starving, unemployed or just plain poor.

You have gone out of your way to build a bridge to those of us fed up with war, pollution, inequality, corporate lawlessness and business as usual. You have energized a whole new generation who is far ahead of their elders in knowing what urgently needs to be done. I have never seen such an outpouring of heartfelt emotion, hope and support for an American politician in my life, and I remember Kennedy well. You are the first president in my lifetime to have a bona fide grassroots movement behind you and ready to rock. I hope those crowds' hope and urgency has penetrated deeply enough that you won't let that bridge be washed away.

I remember another person who had the audacity to exploit and toss aside people's hope, and his name is Bill Clinton. Democrats fail time and again when they shirk responsibility and settle for being dealmakers instead of leaders. As important as it is to find common ground and build consensus for change, our situation is so dire we cannot afford any more dealmakers. The people voted for a leader. Anything less risks breaking the hearts of an entire galvanized generation who may then decide it is not worth it to get involved and participate any more.

Strong medicine is needed. Here are some ideas:

IRAQ – TRY THIS!

The closest thing to a solution I have heard was offered clear back in April 2004 by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (www.oic-ico.org). The OIC is comprised of 57 Islamic countries ranging from West Africa clear over to Southeast Asia. At their annual meeting they found six member nations (Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Yemen and Morocco) willing to pony up enough of their own troops (approx. 150,000) that our troops could have gone home! Who slammed the door on that one? Colin Powell, on the grounds that having the Islamic soldiers under UN command instead of Americans was out of the question.

WHY??!? Wouldn't a neutral force of Muslim peacekeepers make a lot more headway than the disaster we've made? Wouldn't they at least command a lot more respect, resulting in a huge drop in violence? Surely the non-stop carnage and Iracketeering we have spawned is Exhibit A that we need to get over this colonialist illusion that other countries' problems can only be solved by Americans. The OIC's proposal for US withdrawal and peace in Iraq must be revisited immediately, and also considered for Afghanistan.

We must end not just our military occupation of Iraq, but our economic occupation NOW. Iraq is not ours to sell, and neither is its oil. Your promise not to leave any permanent US military bases in Iraq is a good start. But you have also backed leaving US troops in Iraq to "protect American assets like the Green Zone." The Green Zone is not our "asset." We stole it and we have to give it back. I hope you don't seriously believe we can get away with that giant feudal fortress of an embassy we are building, ten times the size of any other in history. We cannot afford to waste any more money on this, or down the black hole of the Bush administration's crony backroom deals with corrupt, incompetent private contractors like Blackwater, KBR and Halliburton. We need to fire them and they need to leave—NOW.

We do owe the Iraqi people help, and we have an obligation to clean up the mess we have made. That goes double for Afghanistan. But I can't see this getting done unless someone other than the United States is in charge. Let us also not forget the 2 million-plus refugees stuck outside Iraq who are draining the economies of Iraq's neighbors, especially Jordan and Syria.

Read more here.

posted by me

:: 1:07:00 PM [+] ::
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:: Bewerewolves: Fullest Moon in 15 Years Tonight ::

Wired News

Prepare yourself for a sight tonight — not to mention some wild behavior, if the legends are true. The biggest full moon in 15 years is set to grace the Northern Hemisphere tonight.

Because the moon orbits along an egg-shaped ellipse, not a circle, its distance from us changes. Today, the moon is approaching its nearest point to Earth, so it should look about 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than this year's other full moons, according to NASA.

Since the moon takes about 28 days to orbit Earth, it reaches its point of closest approach, called perigee, about once a month. But since the moon's orbit isn't a perfect oval — rather, it wobbles — some perigees are closer than others. Tomorrow's approach will be the closest the moon has come to Earth since 1993.

On top of that, tonight's moon will become full just four hours after perigee. The next time these two events will coincide will be in 2016.

The full moon isn't the only boost we get from this special alignment: Tides should be especially big, too. Lunar gravity at perigee pulls tide waters about an inch higher than usual.

A L S O

The Moon Makes You Crazy? That's Lunacy

The Skeptic's Dictionary entry: full moon and lunar effects

posted by me

:: 6:06:00 PM [+] ::
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