Mary Magdalene: The Ringo of Jesus' Tomb?

The BBC has more news on the claims of world-renowned theologian James Cameron that he has proved that Jesus never rose from the dead.

The new information is scant, but here's the gist: Cameron believes that he has proven that the tomb filled with ten 2,000 old coffins was actually that of Jesus' family. What's his proof? Even though all of the names carved into the ossuaries were common Jewish names at the time, he's putting all his cards on the fact that "Mariameme" (Mary Magdalene, apparently) was buried with "Jesua" (Jesus).

Islamic Artisans Constructed Exotic Nonrepeating Pattern 500 Years Before Mathematicians

As early as the 15th century, elaborate symmetrical tile work on medieval Islamic buildings contained patterns straight out of modern math
Medieval Islamic artisans seem to have developed a procedure for creating jigsawlike mosaics that ultimately led them to an exotic pattern that mathematicians would discover nearly half a millennium later. Researchers report that 15th-century buildings in Iran feature tiles arranged in a so-called quasicrystal, which is symmetric but does not repeat itself regularly. "Here is evidence it [the pattern] was being used, if not understood, 500 years ahead of when we had any idea what was going on with [it] in the West," says physics graduate student Peter J. Lu of Harvard University. Lu began poring over photos from Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan after seeing hints of the pattern while traveling in Uzbekistan. The Islamic artisans seem to have spun a wide variety of symmetric traceries from a set of five shapes, according to a report Lu co-authored, published online February 22 in Science. The researchers note that the pattern is equivalent to the most famous example of a quasicrystal, discovered in the 1970s by famed mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose, who showed how to construct it by fitting two types of "Penrose tiles" edge to edge according to certain rules.

'Pharming' attack hits 50 banks

An attack this week that targeted online customers of at least 50 financial institutions in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific has been shut down, a security expert said Thursday.

The attack was notable for the extra effort put into it by the hackers, who constructed a separate look-alike Web site for each financial institution they targeted, said Henry Gonzalez, senior security researcher for Websense.

To be infected, a user had to be lured to a Web site that hosted malicious code exploiting a critical vulnerability revealed last year in Microsoft software, Websense said.

Google offers apps for business

Google has launched Google Apps Premier Edition, providing online applications for business that will hit Microsoft's bottom line hard.

Users will now have access to Google's online document and spreadsheet applications, shared calendar functions, instant messaging and a BlackBerry client, as well as full support for existing company APIs for integration.

The package costs $50 per user, and non-US customers will pay the equivalent price based on exchange rates.

The move is expected to hit Microsoft hard, since the company makes a sizeable proportion of its profits from the Office application suite that Google Apps directly challenges.

Study: Group Thinking Clouds Decisions

People have a harder time coming up with alternative solutions to a problem when they are part of a group, new research suggests.

Scientists exposed study participants to one brand of soft drink then asked them to think of alternative brands. Alone, they came up with significantly more products than when they were grouped with two others.

The researchers speculate that when a group of people receives information, the inclination is to discuss it. The more times one option is said aloud, the harder it is for individuals to recall other options, explained Krishnan, associate professor of marketing at Indiana University.

Internet users warned of new online fraud

Millions of broadband users are potentially at risk from a newly-identified network threat that could allow criminals to prey on curious web surfers.

Up to 50 per cent of home broadband customers may be susceptible to a type of attack known as "drive-by pharming", experts warn.
Simply by viewing a rogue website, without downloading any software, they could unwittingly allow their bank accounts to be targeted.
Visiting the site activates a system that re-routes the user away from his or her normal server. Without realising it, victims are connected to a new server, controlled by criminals, who can direct them anywhere they like on the internet.
Next time they log onto their bank, to look at their account or pay a bill, the new server directs them to a replica bank site which could be an exact copy of the real one.
The victim's user name and password can then be stolen, allowing the attacker to access the "real" bank site and rob the account of funds.

Web is reflection of society, says Google

The Internet is a mirror of the population that uses it, said Google's vice president and chief Internet evangelist, Vinton Cerf, in reference to the proliferation of fraud, social abuse, and other online crimes.

"If you stand in front of a mirror and you don't like what you see, it does not help to fix the mirror," Cerf said.

Google's Orkut social networking site has come in for criticism and even litigation in India, after some users ran campaigns against India and revered Indian historical figures.

Similarly, spam is a side-effect of free email service, said Cerf, who is also chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet addressing system amogn other tasks.

Hackers Attack Every 39 Seconds

Hackers attack computers every 39 seconds, according to new research.

The study, which investigated how exactly hackers crack computers, confirms those regularly issued warnings about password vulnerability. Experts advise longer passwords, regularly changed and not based on users' biographies, that mix letters and numerals and are hard to guess.

To test how hackers break into computers, Cukier’s team set up weak security on four Linux computers connected to the Internet and monitored hacker attacks.

Unlike the sophisticated hackers portrayed on TV and in films, these hackers weren’t targeting specific computers.

“Most of these attacks employ automated scripts that indiscriminately seek out thousands of computers at a time, looking for vulnerabilities,” Cukier said.

The hackers used a type of software called a “dictionary script” that runs through lists of common usernames and passwords to break into the computer.

Solved: Einstein’s Twin Paradox put back in the box

One of the most enduring puzzles of modern-day physics is a century old paradox suggested by Einstein. Now Subhash Kak, a professor at the Louisiana State University LSU has claimed to have solved it!
Professor Kak’s findings were published online in the International Journal of Theoretical Physics, and will appear in the upcoming print version of the publication. “I solved the paradox by incorporating a new principle within the relativity framework that defines motion not in relation to individual objects, such as the two twins with respect to each other, but in relation to distant stars,” said Professor Kak. Using probabilistic relationships, Professor Kak’s solution assumes that the universe has the same general properties no matter where one might be within it.

However, one commentator wrote: "The paper is drivel. Subhash Kak is dabbling well outside his own field of expertise, and has produced a crude recycle of ideas previously written up by Indian relativity crank C. S. Unnikrishnan. I've read Kak's paper, and it is worthless."

Hackers Say Firefox JavaScript Flaw Unpatchable

The two hackers who found a new Firefox flaw say the bug is impossible to patch.

A presentation at the ToorCon hacker conference revealed details of the JavaScript vulnerability, which can be used to create overflow errors and apparently resides in code at the heart of Firefox that’s a decade or so old.

Mozilla’s security chief responded somewhat noncommittally, saying that further investigation would of course be necessary.

Google to rule the Earth

In a speech Friday night to the Annual American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, Google co-founder Larry Page let slip with a truth we all suspected:

“We have some people at Google [who] are really trying to build artificial intelligence (AI) and to do it on a large scale…It’s not as far off as people think.”

Yep, you read that right, Google is trying to build real AI. The worlds most dominant online company, with the largest conglomeration of computing power the world has ever seen, is trying to build artificial intelligence, and according to Page it isn’t that far away either. The term Googlebot is about to take on a whole new meaning, and in the not to distant future as well.

US Bill to ban Wikipedia

US SENATOR Ted "tubes" Stevens's latest Interweb law, designed to protect kiddies from online predators, could result in the end of Wikipedia, according to Computer World.

Senate bill 49, which among other things, requires that any school or library that gets federal Internet subsidies has to block access to "interactive Web sites".

According to Computer World, that will mean all social networking sites, blogs and of course Wikipedia. MySpace, of course, would certainly be banned.

Wikipedia's sin is that it is interactive, and according to Steven's bill it makes it possible for a paedophile to use it to seduce a child. Interactivity, apparently, does that sort of thing.

What a shame!

Mindfulness applied to eating problems

A solution to binge eating and bulimia does not lie in control of eating, but in being mindful of our emotions and habits.

A study from Griffith University, titled "Buddhist philosophy helps women tackle eating disorders" reported "less dissatisfaction with their bodies, increased self-esteem and improved personal relationships" using mindfulness techniques.

Mindfulness involves exercises similar to meditation that could help people live more in the moment, develop a healthy acceptance of self and become aware of potentially destructive habitual responses.
"They learn that thoughts and emotions don't have any power over us as they are just passing phenomena and aren't permanent."

Mindfulness has already been shown to be effective as a treatment for anxiety and depression, substance abuse, and the stress associated with physical conditions such as trauma, chronic pain or cancer.

When we wish happiness for all.....

We chant: "Sabe Satha Bhavantu Sukitata", may all be blessed with happiness.

But what do we mean by happiness? It is not the same as feeling good, not the same as pleasure, not the same as wishing someone to have all their wishes fulfilled.

Quite often we hear that we do no wrong as long as we make everybody happy. This is very bad if our notion of happiness is feeling good or pleasure. The person we wish happiness may think he or she is happy, but may in fact be in delusion, clinging to some possessions which he/she currently has in abundance. If we really want the person to be happy, we should also wish that the person abide in equanimity, free from attachments and detachments.

That is why the complete chant is:
"May all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, may all be blessed with happiness and the causes of happiness, may all abide in equanimity, free from attachments, and free from detachments."

In this connection, it is interesting to read Richard Schoch's article "True happiness is more than feeling good" :

Most psychologists define happiness as a positive emotional state: a good mood or cheery disposition. But happiness cannot be defined so narrowly. Positive emotions rarely survive the events that prompted them; nor do we want to feel good all the time.

A life of unremitting cheerfulness is one of delusion, for it refuses to acknowledge normal ups and downs. By emphasizing pleasure, the psychologists turn happiness into something self-regarding: mere accumulation of pleasure and avoidance of pain.

More, they leave unanswered all the tough questions: Do you have a right to be happy? Can you be happy if others are unhappy? Does it matter whether or not you're happy?

The students will come to learn that happiness is a basically selfish, egotistical proposition: ensuring that you're always in a good mood, eternally optimistic, forever blowing bubbles.

Note how the equation happiness = feeling good is rejected.
As an alternative, Schoch proposes:

Lasting and profound happiness is the active orientation of your life towards meaning, purpose and value. It's a reflection upon the character of your life as a whole. This kind of happiness is strong enough to withstand misfortune and does not depend upon good fortune. It isn't about feeling good, it's about being good.

That's what Aristotle meant when he called happiness (eudaemonia) a state of flourishing in the art of living. But just as ''one swallow does not make a springtime'', Aristotle reasoned, one pleasant day does not make a whole life happy. And thus he insisted that happiness was an activity - because it requires skill and focus.

To strive for happiness means that we regard our life as a journey in which we move purposefully toward that ultimate goal. Granted, the psychologists hint that a truly happy life must contain a purpose beyond itself. But positive psychology won't set you on the path to a meaningful life. It will put you in touch with your feelings - and encourage you to share them with anyone who'll listen -but it won't enable you to transcend them, which is precisely what's required to infuse your life with purpose and meaning.

What matters is that there is a body of enduring wisdom on how to live the good life, and we have neglected it to our cost. These ancient teachings tell us that happiness has little to do with ''emotional IQ'' and everything to do with overcoming the ego, conquering selfishness, and having regard for the welfare of others.

In short, there is a morality of happiness, and you'd be hard pressed to find it in the fuzzy platitudes that masquerade as the science of wellbeing. You're much more likely to encounter a powerful truth in the writing of Greek philosophers, Roman Stoics, Christian mystics, Buddhist monks, and Hindu sages.

Richard Schoch is professor of the history of culture at Queen Mary, University of London, and author of 'The Secrets Of Happiness: Three Thousand Years Of Searching For The Good Life'

Related: Happiness Formula Discovered?
Happiness by Lama Gendun Rinpoche

Barack Obama goes Web 2.0

The article Politics Go Web 2.0? wrote how Barack Obama web site make use of Web 2.0 technology.

Some stereotypical standards used are:
* gradients
* rounded corners
* pastel colors
* large rounded font
* glossy items
* shadows
and most importantly , social networking!

It is a very nice site, and it remains to be seen how successful it is for promoting Obama presidential ambitions.

Another report says that two out of three internet users are not familiar with Web 2.0.
According to a study by Dialego, an Aachen-based marketing and research institute, only 37 per cent of surfers were familiar with the term. The rest had never heard of it.
Meanwhile the terms, blog and weblog, have become familiar to about two-thirds of respondents, according to the magazine Werben und Verkaufen.

Around 1,000 internet surfers were surveyed for the study organized by the Munich-based magazine.

However, one does not have to know or be aware of Web 2.0 to make use of its interactive features

The Case against Faith, the Bush Case

Politics and religion don't mix, politicians using religion as a shield are extremely dangerous. This has been demonstrated in many cases, Sam Harris discusses the case of US president Bush in "A Dissent: The case against Faith", who said: "I believe God wants me to be president."

"Believing that God has delivered you unto the presidency really seems to entail the belief that you cannot make any catastrophic mistakes while in office. One question we might want to collectively ponder in the future: do we really want to hand the tiller of civilization to a person who thinks this way?"

This question could also be asked about many other world leaders.

Harris attacks the religious beliefs about the age of the earth, the forthcoming end of the world, and the "religious" position against the embryonic-stem-cell research.

"Despite a full century of scientific insights attesting to the antiquity of life and the greater antiquity of the Earth, more than half the American population believes that the entire cosmos was created 6,000 years ago. This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue."

"44 percent of Americans are confident that Jesus will return to Earth sometime in the next 50 years, and you will glimpse the terrible liability of this sort of thinking. Given the most common interpretation of Biblical prophecy, it is not an exaggeration to say that nearly half the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world. It should be clear that this faith-based nihilism provides its adherents with absolutely no incentive to build a sustainable civilization—economically, environmentally or geopolitically."

"The truth is that President Bush's unjustified religious beliefs about the human soul are, at this very moment, prolonging the scarcely endurable misery of tens of millions of human beings."

Yahoo currency exchange gone beserk

From Friday evening, Feb 9 to Sunday 11, the GBPUSD rate was quoted at 1.9853, the following screen capture shows a pike at closing:


This rate was not confirmed by other currency exchange rate sites. On Monday, Feb 12th before trading started the rate is 1.9527 as seen above, which is about normal.
Question: what was the cause of the weird rate on Friday closing?

Algorithms and Indeterminism

In an earlier post, algorithms and social algorithms were discussed.

An algorithm is a step-by-step instruction to do something, but it need not be deterministic.
A nondeterministic algorithm is also called stochastic.
The steps can be probabilistic, depending on some distribution. For example, in evolutionary algorithm, a fit individual is more likely to be selected than an unfit, but sometimes an unfit individual in selected instead of a fit individual.

Other examples are the Monte Carlo algorithm and the simulated annealing algorithm.

Susan Blackmore, in her book "The Meme Machine", was wrong in saying that algorithms always produce the same results, if started from the same initial conditions. This is only so if an algorithm is deterministic, not probabilistic.

When simulating nondeterministic algorithms, random or pseudo-random numbers are used.

In the case of pseudo-random number, the numbers generated are randomly distributed, but can be reproduced exactly from the initial seed. For such algorithms, the results will always be the same, if started from the same initial conditions.
In contrast, using trully random numbers, "the same result from the same initial conditions" no longer applies. The question is, what is a true random number?

It is based not on software, but on hardware or external sources, known as entropy sources, like radioactive decay, atmospheric noise or lava lamps.

In the last case, we don't have "the same result from the same initial conditions", unless we are of the opinion that the whole nature is deterministic.

She is also wrong in thinking that chaos is what makes algorithms indeterministic. Some deterministic algorithms do lead to chaos, but not necessarily. And on the other hand, many probabilistic algorithms are indeterministic, but not chaotic. Some indeterministic algorithms converge to a cyclic behavior.

Iranians claim to have cracked Vista and sell it at $8 a pop

Report from The Inquirer:

Apparently, an Iranian software company doles out "private serial numbers" for the cracked Vistas so that the bent copies seem legal.

The cracked Windows Vista versions are reportedly on sale for 80,000 Rials (around $8) around the country.

According to the site, the cracked versions can be registered with Microsoft without detection

Excel open to hackers

By Robert McMillan, IDG news service

Microsoft has warned of another critical flaw in its Office software.

The company has said that this time Excel is the target, although the problem may affect other Office software as well.

The software giant is investigating reports that the flaw is being used by criminals in "very limited," attacks, according to a Microsoft security advisory.

This latest flaw affects Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Office XP, Microsoft Office 2003, and Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac.

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics

In the discussion about "Syntax and Semantics" the question about Mathematical reality and physical reality arises.
(we only consider Mathematical and the physical world, exclude physics, which is theory about the physical world, because otherwise there are too many possibilities.

There are 4 possibilities:

1. Mathematics is just formalisms, a game with symbols. The physical world is the real one. Here Wigner's unreasonableness would apply

2. Mathematics has its own existence, some sort of platonic world, and the physical world is another existence, not connected to the first. Again Wigner would apply. It is like the classical mind and body problem

3. Mathematics and the physical world are the same existence. Wigner's problem would not apply here.

4. Both Mathematics and the physical world are illusions. There is another reality, which some call Buddha-nature. Wigner's problem is answered here, for both Mathematics and the physical world are illusions, products of our mind.

Google loses GMail in Germany

Google has lost the right to use the name “GMail” in Germany after it was ruled to violate an existing trademark held in the country.

Google has faced other trademark disputes over the name Gmail since the service was launched in 2005.

Here in the UK, Google already lost a case brought by IIIR which led to the service being renamed GoogleMail.

Vista cracked

Work-a-round found by mistake

It's only been available to consumers for a day, however that hasn't stopped one enterprising Security researcher claiming that he has found a way of bypassing the means Windows Vista uses to verify that video and audio content is properly protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM).

Writing on his blog, Alex Lonescu said that he had written code that meant that users of the new operating system could playback HD DVDs on "uncertified" computers. Found by mistake, Lonescu is wary however about releasing the new workaround for all to use out into the open for fear of being sued.