Talking About Teenage Love, part 3

Shaping expectations.? How you talk about love and relationships will have a significant influence on what your kid expects out of their beloved.? Young love-ers are romantic idealists.? Their model for love will be fairy tales, cartoons and a na?ve, superficial view of dating and dating partners.? (We won?t even get into what happens if they have already been watching R rated movies with the ubiquitous portrayals of? relationship-as-sex.)? They will need your help in learning how to think about infatuation, lust, love and romance.? They need to have some ideas about the ideal partner and, especially early on, the ideal date.? You will be fighting an uphill battle to counteract the media and popular culture who have been presenting an unrealistic view of the ideal human form and an exclusive focus on sex and sexuality.

Setting boundaries.? It is easy for experienced adults to lose themselves in the experience of love.? Young love-ers will need lots of help learning how to clarify their part in a relationship and their beloved?s part; what is their responsibility and what is their beloved?s responsibility; what is too much to ask and what is too much to be asked of.? Make sure your kid knows about the importance of having personal boundaries in love.? Help them make some decisions about what is too much and what is not enough before they are in the middle of it.? This would include both the physical and, more importantly, the emotional.? (It won?t save them from violating these boundaries but maybe it will reduce the number of times they try to merge their soul but lose themselves in the process.)

Maintaining respect, dignity & integrity.? There are so many sacrifices you are willing to make for a beloved.? Unfortunately for romantics (which are most teens), this can include sacrificing their dignity and their integrity.? Talk to your kid about how their beloved deserves to be treated.? What does it mean when they are treated badly, disrespected and required to compromise core values or beliefs.? And then turn it back around on them.? What do THEY deserve as someone?s beloved?? What are THEY going to require as someone?s beloved.? Talk about the importance and the problems with honesty (and dishonesty) and commitment (and infidelity).? Talk about the right way to be in a relationship and the right way to end a relationship.

Having fun.? Young love should be fun.? Not the carnal desire form of fun (though, of course, that IS fun).? Young love should be enlivening, exciting, invigorating, playful, energizing, positive, empowering, supportive, joyous, uplifting, encouraging and confidence building.? It should not be overly serious, depressing, conflictual, oppressive, undermining or demoralizing.? Adolescence is a time to practice the empowering and uplifting aspect of a loving relationship.? Once they have that down, then they can start in on the more complicated serious aspect of love in a stable, committed relationship.

Differentiating love from sex.? One of the most confusing aspects of love is its close association with sex and sexual desire.? You need to help your kid be able to tell the difference (and understand why it is important to tell the difference).? This means they need to be sexually educated beginning with a clear understanding of how sexual equipment operates, how the parts go together and what happens at all levels (physically and emotionally) when they do go together.? But, most importantly, they need to know about sexual relationships.? They need to be able to differentiate love from lust and make some decisions about the conditions under which they will (and won?t) have sex.

Establishing family dating rules.? The most direct influence you can have on how your teenager approaches loving relationships will be the rules you establish for dating and intimate time together.? When can they hang out with potential dating partners?? How old do they have to be for actual one-on-one dating (hint:? not until 16 years old).? Get these rules in place early on so there is no confusion (and less arguing) when they actually find someone worthy of dating.

Educate about manners.? There is still a place for manners and considerate behavior in loving relationships.? Sure, some people are offended by you opening a door for them (because it suggests a power differential in which the door opener is asserting their superiority and social dominance over the door openee).? Whatever.? Manners goes in both directions (since either person can open the door for the other).? The point is that there are social graces and polite considerations of others that familiarity can start to erode.? Help your kid remember to retain well-mannered behavior regardless of how long they have been in a loving relationship (or whether love has begun to fade).

Provide perspective.? Love is not enough.? It feels like it is enough.? It seems like it is enough.? But, love is not enough.? It is not enough to keep a relationship alive.? (That requires commitment and trust and communication.)? It is not enough to survive stress and trauma.? (That requires compassion and fortitude.).? It is not enough to keep the passion alive.? (That requires openness and sharing and playfulness.)? They will experience some of these (mostly the importance of commitment, trust and communication).? It will be important for you to throw in that love is great and all that but there is more they need to learn if love is going to last.? ?Love is so wonderful.? It is what really gets the relationship started so you can build in the other things that keep it going.?? ?Love is so pure that you have to be careful about putting other pressures on it unless you are really ready to assume all the responsibilities that come from committing yourself to each other.?

Love evolves across adolescence (and young adulthood).? Unfortunately, our culture does not provide any consistent or clear information about the evolution of love.? And, the information that is provided focuses almost exclusively on the infatuation and romantic aspects not on the committed partnership that marks a lasting relationship.? Your kid needs your help in learning about what love really means.

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Source: http://drjameswellborn.com/talking-about-teenage-love-part-3/

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Journalist Woodward tangles with White House over spending cuts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A prominent Washington journalist said in interviews on Wednesday a senior White House official warned him he would "regret" publishing a story challenging the White House's account of how the idea for automatic spending cuts originated.

Bob Woodward said in interviews with Politico and CNN that when he informed the White House he was writing a story critical of the White House's handling of a debate over the origin of the cuts, known as sequestration, the official reacted angrily.

The aide "yelled at me for about a half hour," Woodward told Politico, and then followed up the tirade with an email.

"I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today," the official wrote Woodward. "You're focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. ... I think you will regret staking out that claim."

Politico reported that Woodward saw the statement as a veiled threat.

"I've tangled with lots of these people," said the journalist, who established his reputation by breaking the story of the Watergate break-in under President Richard Nixon and has written a series of best selling books about Washington politics.

"But suppose there's a young reporter who's only had a couple of years ? or 10 years' ? experience and the White House is sending him an email saying, ?You're going to regret this,'" Woodward said. "You know, tremble, tremble. I don't think it's the way to operate."

Some $85 billion in spending cuts are due to go into effect Friday unless Congress acts, and with the deadline approaching there is practically no movement toward preventing them. President Barack Obama has scheduled a meeting with congressional leaders on Friday, but little is expected of the encounter.

The president has crisscrossed the country in recent weeks to draw attention to the inconveniences and problems from the cuts, which economists say could shave 0.6 percentage points off of already anemic U.S. growth.

While the president has been conducting that campaign, the spat over what Woodward calls the "paternity" of the sequester has proven a distracting sideshow to the fiscal battle.

The administration has sought to counter charges by Republicans that the sequestration cuts were proposed by Obama administration officials.

Woodward's book "The Price of Politics" is a fly-on-the-wall account of the negotiations in 2011 that ended with a deal to raise the nation's debt limit. As part of the deal, both sides agreed to make additional efforts to reduce the national budget deficit, and proposed the sequester as an alternative so unappealing that it would force the administration and congressional Republicans to find common ground.

That deal proved elusive and both sides are currently trading blame for the sequestration cuts.

TWITTER FUN

Woodward said in an article in the Washington Post on Friday that the president and his chief of staff at the time, current Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, were wrong in initially claiming last year that the sequester was the Republicans' idea.

"Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and (Rob)Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid," Woodward said. "They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved." Nabors was then the White House's chief liaison to Congress and is now deputy chief of staff.

The administration has argued that both sides agreed to the terms of the sequester and has pointed to comments at the time from House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, that he was for the most part satisfied with the deal that spawned the arrangement.

Woodward's account of his recent testy exchange with the White House points to continued sensitivity over the issue of whose idea the sequester was.

A White House official said in an emailed response to Reuters that no threat was intended by the comment.

"The email from the aide was sent to apologize for voices being raised in their previous conversation," the aide said. "The note suggested that Mr. Woodward would regret the observation he made regarding the sequester because that observation was inaccurate, nothing more."

The BuzzFeed news website identified the official who tangled with Woodward as Gene Sperling, head of the National Economic Council. The White House did not respond to a request to confirm the identity of the official.

News of the exchange drew instant reaction from Washington insiders on Twitter, much of poking fun at the war of words.

"My amateur advice: stop cooperating with Woodward in the first place," wrote Neera Tanden, the president of the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress think tank and a former Obama campaign advisor.

"Hey, guess what? All of you will talk to Woodward for his next book, too," wrote Tony Fratto of Hamilton Place Strategies and a former White House official under President George W. Bush.

(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; editing by Jackie Frank)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/journalist-woodward-tangles-white-house-over-spending-cuts-143314241--business.html

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Why America?s Charities Are So Uncharitable

Nastia Liukin (right) visits with Emily Crowley at Boston Children's Hospital in 2010. The charitable hospital was recently cited in a government report for its high charges despite sitting on $2.6 billion in investment assets.

Photo by Gail Oskin/Getty Images for Boston Children's Hospital

In the 2009 movie Whip It, Ellen Page plays Bliss Cavendar, a 17-year-old from Bodeen, Texas. Bliss is a social misfit yearning to break out of the constraints of small-town culture. After spotting a flier on a trip to Austin, she finds refuge in the speed, violence, and vaguely illicit appeal of Roller Derby. Skating under the name of ?Babe Ruthless,? she becomes a star, a vision of youth and purity amid the tattoos and beer-soaked sexuality of the sport. But her passion for skating quickly collides with her mother?s view of feminine propriety. Mom is horrified to discover her daughter?s love of Roller Derby and tries to bar her from the championship match.

What Bliss needed was a better strategy. She should have argued that her Roller Derby competitions were a socially sanctioned charitable activity, akin to the Red Cross or?better yet?the Junior League. Meet the Renegade Roller Girls of Bend, Ore. Like their fictitious Texas cousins, they promise violence and scantily clad action in the ?hottest show in town, with our no holds barred play,? and they display the same affection for in-rink violence. But unlike the league in the movie, they do not operate in the shadows of abandoned warehouses; instead, they are registered as a 501(c)3 organization, approved as a public charity by the Internal Revenue Service.

The Renegade Rollers are hardly alone. In 2008, the same year that the roller-skating outfit received its charitable status, the IRS approved, along with 50,000 other new charities, the applications of the All Colorado Beer Festival and the Grand Canyon Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. In fact, the IRS routinely approves more than 99.8 percent of the applications it receives for public charity status, often in very short order. In truth, starting a charity takes little more than a stamp, $400 for the filing fee, and a passing facility for filling out government forms.

There are more than 1.1 million charities in the United States, and it is perhaps not surprising that some cases slip through the crack. But the story of the Renegade Roller Girls reveals something more basic about our system for identifying what is or is not a charity. Roughly put, we don?t have one. The failure of the IRS and other regulators to act as gatekeepers has consequences that go beyond a few amusing anecdotes. There are substantial economic costs in the form of lost income tax and property tax revenue from organizations that hardly qualify as charities (as well as the deductions taken by their donors). It also means that more and more charities are competing for a finite amount of money from public and private donors, diminishing the effectiveness of real charities. And when people become aware of this problem, it?s understandable that they come away feeling that many charities are downright uncharitable.

Charitable hospitals are perhaps the best example. They are a linchpin in the American medical system, accounting for about two-thirds of all Medicare beds in this country. And while they are only about 1 percent of the country?s charities, charitable hospitals collect 43 percent of all charitable revenue, about $650 billion a year.

The phrase charity hospital may still conjure up images of scruffy floors, Jell-O-laden dinner trays, and volunteer nuns, but that isn?t the reality anymore. Charitable hospitals can be extraordinarily luxurious. Witness the Greenberg Pavilion at the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, which advertises its hotel-like amenities such as Frette bed linens and original works of art. (A hospital room there can run $2,400 a night.) And they can be extraordinarily profitable, too. Leaders of charitable hospitals routinely are paid into the seven figures, even more on some occasions. In fact, charitable hospitals are far more likely to make money: 77 percent of charitable hospitals are profitable compared to 61 percent of for-profit institutions. Some are immensely profitable, such as Boston Children?s Hospital, which was recently cited in a government report for its high charges despite sitting on $2.6 billion in investment assets.

The purpose here is not to demonize charitable hospitals; they are the product of a changing business, regulatory, and health care system. Charitable hospitals are not worse than for-profit hospitals; they are, in fact, fundamentally the same. In 2006, the Congressional Budget Office compared for-profit and charitable hospitals across various critical service criteria and found only the smallest differences between them. The CBO study found the charitable hospitals to be slightly more likely to provide uncompensated and specialized services; on the other hand, for-profit hospitals were modestly more likely to provide Medicare or Medicaid services and to serve economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. It is hard to come away from the CBO study with the view that there are any significant business differences between the two, which makes the lucrative charitable tax exemption that charitable hospitals receive all the more puzzling. Illinois, for one, has tried to strip several of its charitable hospitals of their tax exemptions for just this reason.

It?s hard to understand why some organizations receive charitable status and others do not. One of our core, and fairly obvious, organizing principles is that a charity must dispense a public service rather than a private good. But many of our most prominent civic charities would struggle to meet that basic test. Tickets to symphonies, operas, and the like are often so prohibitively expensive that their primary services effectively exclude everyone but the well-off.

Private schools are perhaps an even better example, not only because they charge enormous tuition fees but also because they are of questionable social value. Average costs at prep schools exceed $10,000 a year?a figure that has skyrocketed in recent years?and can reach more than $40,000 in some cases. Not surprisingly given these costs, private school students tend to be wealthy, white, and from much better educated families than their public school peers. Nevertheless, we grant these institutions of privilege charitable and tax-exempt status, even though they unquestionably lead to greater social and economic stratification through the hollowing out of the public school system. Private schools are of course largely supported by their tuition fees, but the benefits they receive from their charitable status are substantial. Indeed, sometimes it is that very status that leads the superwealthy to make incredible gifts to some very fortunate schools. Take, for example, the $49 million Ethel Allen left the Hackley School in Tarrytown, N.Y., last year, or the $50 million gift by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to support the Adelson Educational Campus in Las Vegas.

It may seem that changing the charitable status for private schools is unthinkable. Perhaps, but it has been tried before. In 2009, the British Charity Commission revoked the charitable charters for two private schools, finding that they provided too little in the way of financial aid to needy students. While the commission?s ruling was ultimately overturned by the courts, the commission?s position still stands for the common sense notion that charities should demonstrate a public benefit in order to maintain their charitable status. When so much of the American charitable sector seems so uncharitable, it is perhaps time we remind ourselves what a charity is really supposed to be.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=71500e841601a43cd7a3f6842eb7324c

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Leon Lai happy as ambassador for HK entertainment

HONG KONG (AP) ? Leon Lai says he's delighted to be the ambassador for Entertainment Expo Hong Kong.

The veteran entertainer says he wanted to do something and Hong Kong has a lot of singers and actors, "who are making albums and shooting films here, they're supporting this industry as well."

He spoke Tuesday before the expo starting March 18 that covers film, television, digital entertainment and music.

Lai also says he enjoyed Taiwanese director Ang Lee's "Life of Pi." The special effects-heavy film was made mostly in Taiwan and won four Academy Awards.

But Lai says comparisons to the government support offered in Taiwan are not useful for Hong Kong's film industry.

It depends on what filmmakers ask. He says, "If we have a reasonable request, I think the government will support us."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/leon-lai-happy-ambassador-hk-entertainment-064314968.html

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Scientist at Work Blog: Getting to the Bottom of It All

Michael Becker, a doctoral student at McGill University, was a scientific diver on an expedition to Lake Untersee in Antarctica.

If you?re going where there?s no air to breathe, you better be organized.

Any kind of underwater diving involves process for that very reason. There?s the early-morning wake-up, the weather check, the gear check (masks, fins, regulators ? check). And then there?s the dive site approach ? whether you?re walking in from the shore or taking a boat to some far forgotten reef.

Diving Lake Untersee is just like that ? except in Antarctica we get to our dive site by snowmobile. ?And Untersee ratchets up the workload because it?s remote, technical and cold.

To even get into the lake is a feat of accomplishment and a trick of clever engineering. Just the thought of trying to chip a dive hole through 10-foot thick lake ice could give you tendinitis long before you get your feet wet.

During the early days of Antarctic diving in the late-1970s, the expedition leader Dale Andersen and a few clever people working in the Dry Valley region of Antarctica came up with an ingenious way of getting through the ice. They modified an industrial-strength steam cleaner to circulate boiling hot liquid through a closed-circuit piece of copper tubing. All a would-be diver had to do was place the tubing inside a small hole drilled in the ice and wait for magic to happen as the hole slowly formed over two days.

But even when the hole is melted there?s still a lot to do before getting into the water.

Dive Days

We start with a hearty breakfast of dehydrated granola ? a meal that I hope to never see again. After breakfast, the diver gets ready by sorting the gear and putting on the dry suit while the first tender drives out by snowmobile to chip out any refrozen ice from the dive hole.

The second snowmobile carries the other dive tender and the diver (already in their dry suit) to the hole. The diver sits on the ice platform and is dressed with weights, tank, gloves, and is tied in to the all-important safety line.

This line is the life tether. It is fed out and taken in as needed. That way the surface assistants have a sense of how far away the diver is, and the diver knows where to return. In the early days, sequences of line pulls would be used to communicate simple commands like an early Morse code for dive messages. Nowadays, the dive line connects a surface communication box to the diver?s facemask. Diver and tender are easily able to grumble back and forth to each other with all the benefits of modern technology.

Once the diver?s mask is on they slide in, do the dive, come back to the hole and are yanked out. If the diver still has a pulse there is applause all around and we go back to celebrate with a dinner of dehydrated food.

Safety is paramount here and there is no margin of error. The nearest recompression chamber for a dive injury is 2,000 miles away in Cape Town. There are no helicopters for rescue and any serious injury or accident could mean death.

We follow all this protocol and process in pursuit of one thing ? studying microbial communities locked away from human history.

The Science Down There

Dale and I have done a number of dives to collect data and samples on the conical stromatolites found at the bottom of Lake Untersee. ?Dale has surfaced several times with sediment cores of the lake?s bottom. These cores tell us about the history of the lake and its resident organisms. By looking at cross-sections of the cores, we can see that the microbial communities grow over the years in layers known as laminations. These laminae show us a chronosequence of events, alternating between mineral deposition and organic layer growth. These mineral deposits must come from somewhere as the lake surface is covered in ice. It?s thought that the occasional influx of silt from nearby glaciers provides the sediment that the cyanobacteria then recolonize.

But there?s more than just grabbing a sample and returning to the surface ? the lake environment needs to be described in precise detail.

These cyanobacteria are photosynthetic and dependent on light to create their energy. One of my dives was spent swimming transects back and forth directly underneath the 10-foot ice ceiling holding a light meter. This gives us an idea of the amount of energy that is available for photosynthesis beneath the lake. The ice cover isn?t completely uniform; there are dark areas intermingled with sections of bright windows. Also, since light drops off with depth, not all life within the lake is receiving the same amount of energy.

It?s not just these cyanobacterial mats that thrive in Lake Untersee.

There is a diverse world of bacteria and viruses that inhabit their own unique sections of the water column all the way from the lake surface to over 500 feet below. These areas are far beyond our range capacity as scientific divers, and so we must rely on a different technique to sample these distant creatures.

Our two Russian scientists, Vladimir Akimov?and?Valery Galchenko from the Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology,?are microbiologists that specialize in microbial life in extreme environments. Their work has taken them from remote regions of Yakutia, Russia, studying heat-loving extremophiles, to the even more remote Lake Untersee to study the isolated bacteria inhabiting this lake.

Different communities of bacteria thrive according to the changing abiotic conditions, as you get deeper in the lake?s water column. ?These environments are mapped out by lowering sensors to measure conductivity, temperature, and depth, or CTD, from the lake?s surface down to around 330 feet ? our maximum sample depth.

Vladimir and Valery then lower their sampler to different points within the water column and capture about a gallon of water. These samples are brought back to camp, and the two spend hour after waking hour filtering the water to concentrate samples of both bacteria and viruses. There?s no human health concern with these viruses ? they are specific to the bacteria in the lake, and must exist in some sort of equilibrium with the lake life.

One of the areas that Vladimir and Valery are particularly interested is a section of the lake at 256 feet. At this depth, the lake chemistry changes quite a bit ? it becomes anoxic, meaning without oxygen. The organisms that thrive in this section have no need for oxygen in their metabolic processes. They use sulfur instead.

From a practical perspective, that means the samples reek. Rich in hydrogen sulfide, they smell like sour, rotten eggs. But by studying this transition from the clear, oxygen-rich water above to the dark, oxygen-poor water below we can get a sense of the two different worlds experienced by bacteria within the same lake.

What we bring up from the depths of Lake Untersee is only the beginning of a long scientific process. All these samples must be carried back to the civilized world, processed and analyzed over the next several months. Only then we will be able to more fully understand the ecosystem of Lake Untersee, and only then will we fully understand the significance of what we?re seeing.

And that?s what makes all this time, effort, and risk worth it. Diving Untersee has been an incredible experience, but without the questions driving us forward, it would be a lot to gamble for a good view.

Follow Michael on Twitter: @Michael__Becker or on his blog, ?The Dry Valleys.?

Source: http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/getting-to-the-bottom-of-it-all/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Microsoft Launches ccTLD Registry Security Assessment Service ...

Microsoft Launches ccTLD Registry Security Assessment Service

Posted by:?David Goldstein??? Tags:? ccTLDs, Microsoft, Security??? Posted date:? February 26, 2013 ?|? No comment

Microsoft have announced the launch of their new Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) Registry Security Assessment Service to help registry operators find and fix security vulnerabilities before they are exploited. The service is available now and is being made available at no charge to registry operators.

The announcement of the new service by Microsoft Security Staff is republished below:

Microsoft Offers Security Assessment Service for Country-Code Top-Level Domain Registries (ccTLD)

The exploitation of vulnerabilities specific to country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) registries has become an increasingly common problem, especially in relatively small markets around the world. A ccTLD is an internet domain registry generally used or reserved for a country, a sovereign state, or a dependent territory, such as .co.uk (for United Kingdom) or .fr (for France). This allows web sites to be associated with their specific country, territory or geographic location and it provides the foundation for internet experiences by ensuring people using the internet reach the services they expect.? Today, over 300 country-code top-level domain name registries are responsible for servicing hundreds of millions of domain names worldwide.

Attacks on ccTLDs have far-reaching effects on private individuals, large and small companies, non-profits, and government organizations. Individuals attempting to reach certain web services may be redirected to inappropriate content where their computers?can become infected by malware, putting their personal information at risk. Additionally, it is difficult for people to determine whether the problem is with the ccTLD or the organization that runs the service they are trying to reach.? This often results in an erosion of confidence in online service providers when, in fact, they had nothing to do with the incident.

Today, at the information security RSA Conference in San Francisco, Scott Charney, Microsoft?s corporate vice president for Trustworthy Computing, announced during his keynote the availability of our new Microsoft Country-Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) Registry Security Assessment Service to help registry operators find and fix security vulnerabilities before they are exploited. The service is available now and is being made available at no charge to registry operators.

The Online Services Security and Compliance team (OSSC) that I lead is responsible for securing Microsoft?s cloud infrastructure and data centers that host over 200 cloud services for more than one billion customers, over 20 million businesses and 76 markets worldwide. We are pleased to be able to provide this service to the greater online community and share many of the lessons we have experienced in our own environment.

Microsoft?s History of Support for Country-Code Top-Level Domain Registries

The OSSC team works closely with industry groups such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that manages market domain name registries. Many of the companies that manage ccTLD registries are small organizations that may lack the resources to protect themselves from the constant onslaught of attacks. In the past three months, we observed several domain registry attacks that have occurred worldwide. Like the rest of the online community, Microsoft has also had to defend our web services against these types of attacks.

Microsoft has been working with industry peers to support and urge ccTLD operators to adopt important security practices. We have also participated in efforts to work with the ICANN community to provide more oversight in ensuring members adopt these practices. While both of these steps are positive for the industry, our new service is an effort to provide more support.

Microsoft?s Country-Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) Registry Security Assessment Service

Microsoft?s ccTLD Registry Security Assessment service is based on an existing internal program that we use to better protect our own web and online services. It provides scanning and reporting of security vulnerabilities of a ccTLD?s externally-facing web applications and servers. After requesting the security assessment service, ccTLDs will receive a vulnerability assessment report. If vulnerabilities are discovered, Microsoft will provide a consultation with guidance on how to remediate the problems. We will also provide periodic re-scanning to help ccTLDs continue to protect their domain registry services on an ongoing basis. Microsoft will also offer free secure development guidance and operations best practices that we employ in Microsoft?s own cloud environment.

The service is available to any top-level domain registries, including country-code top-level domain (ccTLD), generic top-level domain (gTLD) and sponsored top-level domain (sTLD).

How ccTLD Operators Can Receive the Service

If you own a domain registry and are seeking a solution to help identify vulnerabilities and receive guidance that may help to improve the security of your service, please visit: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/jj992598 to schedule an assessment.

Through programs and initiatives like these, we hope to help create a safer, more trusted online experience for everyone and support a dynamic environment for increasing the dialogue and sharing of best practices within our industry.

Pete Boden
General Manager
Online Services Security & Compliance

This announcement by Microsoft Security Staff was sourced from:
blogs.technet.com/b/security/archive/2013/02/25/microsoft-offers-security-assessment-service-for-country-code-top-level-domain-registries-cctld.aspx

Source: http://www.domainpulse.com/2013/02/26/microsoft-launches-cctld-registry-security-assessment-service/

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Google+ Sign-In for sites and apps promises no 'social spam'

Rosa Golijan , NBC News ? ? ? 1 day

"Try the red pill," an image posted by Google+ director Matt Waddell urges. "Simple and secure, minus the social spam." Google's geeky reference to "The Matrix" is a thinly disguised attack on Facebook's universal log-in feature. The search engine giant launched its own competing sign-in feature for third-party websites and apps Tuesday, and though it is powered by Google+, the promise is that it won't litter your feeds with pointless oversharing.

Google+ Sign-In takes on Facebook Connect, a universal login system familiar to most. You know the drill. You go to a new site or open a new app and you're prompted to go through the tedious process of creating an account. But then there's that little blue button, suggesting that you login via Facebook. So convenient.

Now there'll be a little red button, too. (Hence the "red pill" reference from "The Matrix.") And Google's really pushing the argument that it's the better choice.

"It?s secure, and it prohibits social spam," emphasizes Seth Sternberg, Google's director of product management for Google+, in a post on the official Google+ developers blog. "And we?re just getting started."

When you use Google+ Sign-In, you'll enter your Google credentials and view a summary of what's about to happen. Will the owner of the website or the developer behind an app see your name, basic info, and the people you're connected to on Google+? Will he or she see your email address? Will the people you're connected to on Google+ see that you're using that app or website? A prominent "only you" option keeps information limited to ... only you. (Meaning that your pals won't be seeing anything you don't want them to.) The whole setup's quite similar to that of Facebook Connect, so it's doubtful that anyone who has used the latter will be too confused.

There's a key difference though: "Google+ doesn?t let apps spray 'frictionless' updates all over the stream," Sternberg writes, "so app activity will only appear when it?s relevant (like when you?re actually looking for it)."

If you do choose to actively share something from a site or an app, you'll create an "interactive" post on Google+. Whoever is able to see the post will be able to click on it to visit an app or site to buy, listen to, read, or review whatever you shared.

Essentially, Google+ Sign-In is like a polished version of Facebook Connect. It lets you play things closer to the vest and offers solid sharing options when you're in the mood to announce something to the world.

The Guardian, Fitbit, Flixxter, USA Today, Shazam, and OpenTable are among some of the first sites and apps to start using Google+ Sign-In, so you can check out how it works in action. (If you're not seeing the little red button, be patient. The rollout of it is gradual.)

Obviously, one of the questions for Google is whether or not this new tool will drive sign-up and participation in Google+ ? something that's not exactly guaranteed. Odds are on the young social network's side though, as existing Google users are likely to "upgrade" to Google+ in order to take advantage of the universal sign-in.

Want more tech news or interesting links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/google-login-sites-apps-promises-no-social-spam-1C8543781

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TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED AT RACE RETRO - Speedhunters

I expected some impressive vintage racing cars for sure at Race Retro, the UK?s big historic racing meet, but not the staggering range and quality of metal that was on show, or the variety of events that were being promoted. In every set of circuit racers, rally machines and single seaters there would be at least one car that required a double-take, or, like this Chevy V8-powered Beetle Super Saloon silhouette from the ?70s, double-takes that went into double figures. A Formula 5000 single-seater with a Beetle body nestling underneath supertanker-width bodywork, cars like this prove that being old is no obstacle to being fast ? and that sums up Race Retro.

Set in the agricultural show grounds of Stoneleigh Park in the Midlands, Race Retro is now in its tenth year, and the show was spread across four halls plus the Silverstone Auctions, a rally driving experience and the show?s jewel: the Live Rally Stage.

Hall 1 focussed on the rallying boys, with the central stage given up to the Rallying With Group B club. They?d brought along a stunning range of cars: five for the static display in the hall and then rather more to take on the Live Rally Stage itself.

Group B has undergone an understandable surge in interest over the last couple of years, and Rallying With Group B are one of the major organising clubs putting together mass events for cars of that glorious period. The trio of a Belga-liveried RS200, Audi A1 replica and Vauxhall Chevette HS flanked one side of the stand, with an Opel Ascona and Peugeot 205 T16 on the other.

More Group B cars were dotted around the other halls, with a veritable horde parked up under the beams of Hall 4 awaiting the opening of the Live Rally Stage ? including this MG Metro 6R4. The Computervision-liveried 6R4 is a regular runner at historic events such as Race Retro and the Goodwood Festival Of Speed. Here it was one of three 6R4s on show.

This ex-Harri Toivonen, Unipart-sponsored 6R4 was in the main racing hall with its doors open and rear deck up, allowing a great view of the cockpit and engine compartment. It?s a miracle the engine and ancillaries could fit into the rear of the 6R4: the NA 3-litre V6 is crammed in the narrow space between the wheel arches.

It?s great to see all these cars out, and even better to see them running. But practical considerations have to be taken into account when you own a car like this (and any other classic), especially if it?s undergone the expense of a serious rebuild. Every time a car takes to a stage it risks damage, and whatever happens will always need to be stripped and cleaned after a weekend: an expensive and time-consuming task.

This is one of the reasons for the rise in high quality replicas: cheaper and less precious (relatively speaking) than the real things, but using correct base cars and parts remanufactured from the original moulds. This A1 has used a genuine ?83 Quattro as the base, for instance.

This Renault 5 Maxi Turbo is another stunning homage: liveried as the car driven by Carlos Sainz in the mid-?80s, it has the correct 1.5-litre turbocharged engine with launch control added ? handy when you?ve got 324hp under your right foot. It uses original Renault T2 brakes and suspension.

Then there are other cars that you think should never have been rally cars in the first place. I mean, a Citro?n DS? But despite being heavy and slow, the DS excelled over rough terrain thanks to its self-levelling hydro-pneumatic suspension. As with many stands, the cars on display were helping promote a particular series or event: with the DS, it was the Classic Rally Association.

There are far more historic rallies going on around the world then you?d likely think, featuring amazing selections of cars. Classic Events feature some iconic names on their list of rallies: recreations of the Safari and Liege-Rome-Liege classics for instance. And a great excuse to display this 240Z.

Tour Britannia is a two-day event that will take place in May, combining road, rally and circuit stages across the UK. It?s been going since 2005 and is open for cars made up to 1981, but also has an invitational class for newer machinery. The Z-car on their stand was a recreation of the factory 240Z driven by Rauno Altonen and Jean Todt in 1972. A period shell was stripped and used as the base, and the original factory spec followed for the rebuild using parts from Datsun?s own original spares stock wherever possible ? that means it qualified for an FIA Technical Passport.

The Oxford Universities Motorsport Foundation were involved in bringing this Alfa Sprint GT back to life after it had been found in 2005 with a tree growing through the engine bay. Definitely not an original Alfa performance part. Since being restored it?s been run on both historic rallies and circuit races, and last year was shipped to the Barbados Rally. Not surprisingly, the team hope to return to the Caribbean in 2013. The Sol Rally Barbados would definitely be on my list too, given the choice?

Classic Team Lotus took pride of place in Hall 2, with a selection of F1 and touring cars on their stand and Jim Clark?s World Championship-winning Lotus 25 from 1963 occupying the hall?s foyer.

The full-size cars on Classic Team Lotus? stand were supplemented by a number of incredibly detailed scale models, like this Lotus 38 Indycar.

Mario Andretti?s low-line Lotus 78 was also loitering on another stand, displaying a record of Mario?s success in 1978 by way of the stickers adorning the rear wing.

But then I was knocked back another 70 years to this: Whistling Billy, a steam-powered racing car. This is a complete restoration and rebuild of the famous car, originally built by the White Sewing Machine Company in 1905 and raced in the New York area until 1908. Alternative power sources are no new fad?

It made a fearsome noise at speed from the 30hp steam generator, and it won ? repeatedly ? setting multiple speed records on the way. This recreation has been meticulously crafted, and features an original 30hp steam mono-tube working at over 800psi and a temperature of 750 degrees fahrenheit to produce a barely believable top speed of well over 100mph. I?d stand a long?way back. More proof that pre-War race drivers were utterly insane.

Though, despite the total lack of safety at least old-school racers had a comfy environment to work in. This is the rather natty seat from a 1936 Austin 7 Twin-Cam. Even this little cigar-shaped racer had a supercharged engine producing over 120hhp. You needed to hold on tight to the wheel?

I have a real soft spot for historic sports prototypes like this Chevron B36 ? its mini-me CanAm looks are accentuated by the McLaren orange paint.

Along with Chevrons, Lolas were the other cars to populate the majority of two-litre Group 6 sportscar grids of the ?70s: these are recreations of Lola T212s, built up from fresh monocoques using recreation parts by a company run by a former Lola engineer.

Crossl? is another example of a British racing car company of the ?60s stepping up to support the historic racing scene: the Northern Irish firm have produced a ?continuation? run of their 1960s 9S Sports Racer.

Circuit racers and road-cars were also well represented, such as with this utterly gorgeous Alfa Romeo Giulietta SZ Coda Tronca.

The spaceframe racer used a cut-off Kamm tail to improve aerodynamics, and looked stunning in its shimmering light blue paint. I also liked the detail of the number panel being cut out onto the refuelling cap.

Alfas and historic touring car racing go together naturally, but classic Lancias also had a space to themselves, with this exotic Fulvia Sport 1600 coup??

?alongside a beefy Integrale HF Evo and one of its rallying antecedents, a Fulvia HF.

More rare and historic cars were around every corner: you could fire up a Volvo Amazon in the parking area out front?

Admire this line-up of ?60s touring car joy?

?or hire this Lotus Cortina to race in 2013. Actually, this shows off modern teams dipping their toes into historic waters: Fortec are best known for running modern Formula 3 and Formula Renault 3.5 single-seater teams.

Here?s yet another unexpected treat: a 1964 Toyota Corona touring car, which was rescued from a field in 2003 and restored for competition. It?s believed to be the only racing version outside Japan and Australia ? we?ll be catching up with this car (and the Super Saloon Beetle featured above) in the coming months.

Next door on the Classic Touring Car stand was this chisel-nosed Group 1 Ford Escort MkII RS2000, which has been racing pretty much constantly since being restored in the mid ?90s.

Opposite, the Classic Sports Car Club showed off this 1987 E30 M3 and 1990 Toyota Supra.

The 300hp Supra is a great example of how you can take a sensibly-priced sportscar and make it into an effective racer: it has 130,000 miles on the clock, gets driven to a track, raced, and then driven home. Perfect.

So, we?ve looked at gravel, mud and tarmac: how about quarter-mile strips? The National Street Rod Association and Shakespeare County Raceway clubs represented the drag racing fraternity with this ?63 Dart shipped over from the States. Bikes and dirt-track racing also had their own areas.

The final aspect of the show was the impressive range of products and services on hand to help you complete your restoration project or maintain your vintage pride and joy.

Whether you need carbs for your engine?

The engine itself?

Door panels, wheels, lights?

Grills, fascias or fuel tanks?

Or even period-authentic rubber from tyre specialists like Blockley?

?Then the treasure trove of Hall 4 and the manufacturers all round the show would almost guarantee that you?d find the part you need.

And if the real thing wasn?t on the schedule at the moment, or you had shelf space just aching to be filled, then you could find a huge range of motoring books, toys and memorabilia.

It seemed like you?d be able to find a ticket, programme or report from pretty much any British race of the last 60 years!

Some memorabilia seemed pretty random, like this race suit from the ill-fated Cadillac LMP sportscar programme.

Several stalls featured Formula 1 goodies, from visors, gloves and even body panels and wing endplates?

?to used gear ratios, exhaust parts and random pieces of carbon.

Merchandise is getting better and better quality, and there are some very classy designs of available: this T-shirt company were getting a lot of well-deserved attention.

As was this company selling vinyl posters of classic Porsches. How could one resist?! Ah, well. I didn?t?

For the final look at the 2013 Race Retro show I?ll be taking a look at the Live Rally Stage: the perfect place to see Group B monsters like this Audi Quattro let loose in their natural habitat. Cars so dangerous they had to be protected by hazard tape in Parc Ferm??

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Jonathan Moore

Race Retro 2013 on Speedhunters

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Tags: Alfa Romeo Audi Beetle Datsun Group B Jonathan Moore Lancia Race Retro Race Retro 13

Categories: Event Coverage, Historics, Jonathan Moore, Photojournalists, Shows + Festivals, Speedhunters Crew

Source: http://www.speedhunters.com/2013/02/tales-of-the-unexpected-at-race-retro/

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