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5/28/2017
US Soccer - an expensive sport (audio)
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The outdoor office
With summer right around the corner for those in northern hemisphere, many are eager to escape the office and spend more time outdoors.
But what if you could combine work and nature? It’s something several cities and companies have been trying to do, creating outdoor spaces where workers can get back to nature, but with all the trappings of the modern office, such as wireless internet, electrical outlets and desks.
Not all work is best done at the desk
Not all work is best done at the desk, says Jerry Tate, an architect and partner with London firm Tate Harmer. “Sometimes it’s best to talk at a meeting table, or a coffee shop – there’s no reason why a fair chunk of that stuff can’t be combined with sitting outside,” he says.
In June 2015, Tate, along with artist Natalie Jeremijenko, created TREExOFFICE, an enclosed outdoor office space built around a tree in London’s Hoxton Square. Only eight people could use it at one time, but it was at capacity for the two summers it was in operation. It’s not going up in Hoxton Square this year, but it may go up in Chelsea instead, says Tate.
While the project was created to raise funds for the square – companies had to pay a fee to book the space – it was also developed to help workers increase their productivity.
Workplaces that incorporate natural elements are 6% more productive and 15% more creative
There’s plenty of research to suggest that being surrounded by nature, whether that’s having a view of trees and grass from an office window or having a plant at your desk, can help people work harder. A Human Spaces Global Report found that workplaces that incorporate natural elements, like greenery and sunlight, are 6% more productive and 15% more creative than offices that don’t.
If that’s the case, then shouldn’t working outdoors should be as good, if not better, than looking out the window? “Quite a few studies show that people become more relaxed, their heart rate slows and they become more creative when they connect with an outdoor natural environment,” says Tate.
This month, the Outbox, an outdoor office space in Silver Springs in the US state of Maryland, reopened for the summer. It was created last year by real estate development firm Peterson Companies.
The 40ft long, 10ft wide box is removed in the winter and put up again in the spring. Like the TREExOFFICE, it has all the amenities of an indoor office, including WiFi, outlets, desks for individuals and other collaborative spaces.
Unlike Tate’s space, the Outbox is free and available on a first-come, first-served basis. It’s also always packed, says Laurie Yankowski, a Peterson spokesperson. “People want to get outside the office and step away from their cubicle for fresh air,” she says. “We’re giving people an alternative space to work and collaborate.”
Of course, working outside has its challenges – a recent experiment in New Zealand shows the downside of setting up an office at the mercy of nature: wind and rain can get in the way of work.
Last week, Graham Nelson, cofounder of New Plymouth-based Manifold Coworking and Event Space, set up an outdoor office for National Coworking Day.
Unfortunately, heavy rain and large gusts – not your typical office distractions – interfered with some of the work being done. Still, with a canopy keeping workers mostly dry, about 16 people at time worked for the entire day, he says.
Despite the weather, he says he may open an outdoor office in the summer.
Noise is a bigger issue with the Outbox. It’s in a busy urban space, surrounded by shops and restaurants. “It’s for brainstorming, not for the person looking for a solitary environment,” says Yankowski.
While this trend of outdoor co-working spaces is still relatively new, tech companies like Spotify and Google have for years created outdoor work areas, with desks and comfortable chairs, for employees.
Tate thinks more businesses will try this in the future, as advances in technology make it possible to work anywhere. Furthermore, with more research emerging about how bad open-plan offices are for workers, employers are increasingly exploring new ways to keep employees engaged, happy and healthy.
Says Tate, “more people are asking themselves how they reconnect with nature and promote creative thinking.”
Article from BBC
The drunkest USA city
GREEN
BAY, Wisconsin. — As if a city best known for football and beer needs another excuse
to party. Well, bottoms up, Green Bay. You have another trophy to put in the case.
24/7 Wall St., a Delaware-based financial news and opinion
corporation, just rated Green Bay, Wisconsin, the drunkest city in America.
"The excessive drinking rate among adults in Green Bay
is the highest of any metro area in the country," according to a study
released Wednesday. The group analyzed self-reported data from Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
The data was collected across nearly 400 metro areas.
Green Bay's No. 1 ranking shows a two-spot jump from last
year's drunkest city list, surpassing former No. 1 Appleton, which fell to
third place.
The study notes Green Bay has 138 bars and more than 26% of
adult residents regularly drink to excess or binge drink — the national average
is 18%. Binge drinking is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention as men consuming five or more alcoholic drinks in less than two
hours, and women consuming four or more alcoholic drinks in less than two
hours.
The findings show a trend in Wisconsin overall, too. It's
the second year the state has beat out all other states for the most spots on
the list. Of the 20 drunkest cities in the country, 10 are Wisconsin cities:
Green Bay (No. 1), Eau Claire (No. 2), Appleton (No. 3), Madison (No. 4),
Oshkosh (No. 6), Wausau (No. 9), La Crosse (No. 10), Fond du Lac (No. 12),
Sheboygan (No. 15) and Milwaukee rounding out the top 20.
The study also found cities with heavy drinking tend to have
better-educated, higher earning and healthier populations than cities with the
lowest excessive drinking rates.
Some might argue being known as a drunk city is hardly
anything to celebrate — and in some respects, they'd be right.
The CDC reports binge drinkers are 14 times more likely to
be involved in alcohol-impaired driving. That in mind, Green Bay is one of only
five metro areas nationwide where more than half of all its deadly car crashes
involve alcohol.
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Article from USA Today
Luxury Car Vending Machine
Vending
machines typically bring to mind a place to get snacks, soft drinks, coffee,
alcohol, electronics, you name it - but
a new type of dispenser in Singapore is offering up Bentleys, Ferraris and
Lamborghinis.
Used
car seller Autobahn is now selling
high-end vehicles from a 15-storey showroom that houses 60 cars.
It's being called the
"world's largest luxury car vending machine," according to a video on
the company's website.
Gary Hong, general manager at Autobahn Motors, told Reuters the innovative
selling space was built out of necessity in land-scarce Singapore.
"We
needed to meet our requirement of storing a lot of cars. At the same time, we
wanted to be creative and innovative."
With the touch of a button,
customers can select a vehicle, and automated technology will retrieve the car
and bring it down to ground level within a matter of minutes.
Around the world, cities and
companies have been toying with automated, multi-level parking systems to cut
down on space and the need for parking attendants.
Last November, U.S. company
Carvana opened a car vending machine in Nashville, Tenn. The five-storey tower
holds up to 20 cars, and customers have to insert a special coin in order to
begin the dispensing process.
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What $1 million will get you around the world (captions)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0vyJE4z9bA&list=PLmur3Z0Afau4ABL55y4kE0-eUDd0-Vpl0&index=10
The Phones We Love Too Much
We have an intimate relationship with our phones. We sleep with
them, eat with them and carry them in our pockets. We check them, on average,
47 times a day — 82 times if you’re between 18 and 24 years old.
And we love them for good reason: They tell the weather, the
time of day and the steps we’ve taken. They find us dates entertain us with
music and connect us to friends and family. They answer our questions and quell
feelings of loneliness and anxiety.
But phone love can go too
far — so far that it can interfere with human love — old fashioned face-to-face
intimacy with that living and breathing being you call your partner, spouse,
lover or significant other.
The conflict between
phone love and human love is so common, it has its own lexicon. If you’re
snubbing your partner in favor of your phone it’s called phubbing (phone
+ snubbing). If you’re snubbing a person in favor of any type of technology,
it’s called technoference.
“A key to a healthy relationship is being
present,” said James Roberts, author of “Too Much of a Good Thing: Are You
Addicted to Your Smartphone?”. When one partner constantly checks his or her
phone it sends an implicit message that they find the phone (or what’s on it)
more interesting than you.
In a 2016 study published
in the journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 70 percent of women
revealed that smartphones were negatively affecting their primary relationship.
More than one-third of the 143 women in the study said their partner responded
to notifications mid-conversation; one out of four said their partner texted
during conversations. The women who reported high levels of technoference in
interactions with their partners were less happy with their relationships and
with their lives overall.
It’s not just women who
are feeling dissed. Dr. Roberts, who is a professor of marketing at Baylor
University, asked 175 men and women questions
about their partners’ smartphone use. Nearly half of respondents, 46 percent,
reported being phone snubbed (phubbed) by their partner. People who reported
higher levels of phubbing also reported higher levels of relationship conflict.
In our quest to be
connected through technology, we’re tuning out our partners and interrupting a
kind of biological broadband connection.
“People are beginning to
realize that something is amiss,” said Sherry Turkle, an M.I.T. technology
professor .“They don’t necessarily know what to do about it, but they are open
to change.”
Judith Bell, a leadership
coach in Novato, Calif., has noticed that her clients are starting to
respect phone boundaries. “Now they turn off their phones when they are in
session. A few years back, they would let themselves be interrupted.”
Here are some suggested ways to break
up with your phone long enough to connect with your partner.
Designate “no cell” zones in your home. With your
partner, decide which areas of your home, such as the living room and the
kitchen, should be technology-free. And consider eliminating phone use in the
car so that you can use that time to talk to your partner about whatever is on
your mind.
Try a phone-free bedroom for one week. Yes, it’s fun
to check Twitter just before bed, or when you’re sleepless at 2 a.m.
“Buy some old-fashioned alarm clocks
for your bedside table,” Dr. Turkle suggested. “Put your cellphones in a basket
in the kitchen.”
Keep phones off the table. When you’re
eating at home or in a restaurant, keep phones off the table. The mere presence
of a cellphone — with the possibility of it chirping or buzzing at any moment —
can inhibit the free flow of conversation. Researchers examined how
conversations between two people were influenced by cellphones. When a phone
was present during a conversation, the partners rated the conversation as less
fulfilling and reported less feelings of empathic concern than when phones were
absent.
Practice phone etiquette. If you must
look at your phone, announce that you are doing so. “I am just checking the
score/weather/playlist for two minutes,” shows courtesy and indicates to your
partner that you are aware that your attention is shifting. It may also make
you more aware of how often you pick up your phone when your partner is
present.
If your partner’s job demands
round-the-clock availability, discuss reasonable boundaries that would satisfy
both the job and you.
“The big challenge is that people are
not talking about these issues enough,” said Daniel Ellenberg, a
psychotherapist and partner with Ms. Bell in Relationships That Work.
Dr. David Greenfield, a University of
Connecticut psychiatry professor and founder of the Center for Internet and
Technology Addiction developed
a simple quiz, the Smartphone Compulsion Test.
Click HERE to help determine if your
phone use is problematic. Let the score be the judge, rather than you.
5/14/2017
Bormida, Italy, is waiting for you
Has the razza del ratto (rat race) got you down? Is life too febbrile (hectic) where you live? But are you worried you don’t have enough contanti (cash) to live a more peaceful life?
Then you might be interested in the Italian hillside village of Bormida, which is about to offer a payment of $2,175 and rents as low as $50 a month to reverse its declining population.
Bormida, located in the mountainous Liguria region – Genoa, about 50 miles away, is the nearest big city – had declined to 390 residents in 2014, when the current mayor, Daniele Galliano, took office. Spurred by visions of a ghost town, Galliano began measures to reverse the decay.
Now the population is 394, which may not seem much of a success until you consider that 54 people have either died or moved away against just four births.
"Instead of seeing a heavy demographic deficit, the situation is stable thanks to the initiatives of the municipal administration to encourage those who, by necessity or pleasure, wish to live in a small mountain community like ours," Galliano told a local publication.
But with only four people added, he decided more-enticing measures were needed, hence the subsidies, which also include a $130-a-month rent for larger homes.
"We couldn't rent them at market value, so we chose a symbolic number and the requests abounded: the important thing was to repopulate the village," Galliano told Il Secolo XIX.
Details of the offer still need to be settled and approved by the local council, Galliano wrote on his Facebook page. But if the proposal is passed, anyone who moves to Bormida will be given $2,175.
You probably won’t be able to spend the money all at once in Bormida.
The village has one main street, four restaurants (hey, this is Italy), a bed and breakfast and a post office that opens only three days a week. Much of the architecture dates back to 1200s.
“There is nothing much to do here,” Oddone Giuseppe, manager of one of the restaurants, told the Guardian. “But life is so simple and natural, we have forests, goats, the church, and plenty of good food. Life would definitely be free of stress.”
Some people, though, worry that $2,175 won’t go far enough.
“Mr. Mayor, I’m available to move and give up the $2,175,” wrote a Facebook user, Amedeo Alloca, on the mayor’s posting, “but I can’t live off air. I have a family with two small children. If you can guarantee a job, even the most humble one, it wouldn’t be a problem.”
Maybe they should open another restaurant.
How a 22-year-old inadvertently stopped a worldwide cyberattack
SAN FRANCISCO — The massive ransomware attack that crippled more than 20% of hospitals in the United Kingdom and disabled systems in as many as 74 countries appears to have been inadvertently stopped by a 22-year-old computer security researcher in England who began studying it Friday afternoon.The story, which the as-yet-unnamed security whiz wrote up in a blog post on Saturday, is an example of the driven-to-puzzle-things-out mentality typical of people drawn to cybersecurity.
“He was in the right place at the right time, and he did the right thing without any hesitation,” said Dan Kaminsky, a longtime security researcher and chief scientist at White Ops, a New York-based based security firm.
Because nobody's really in charge of the Internet, it's messy and wonderful in equal proportion, he said.
Because nobody's really in charge of the Internet, it's messy and wonderful in equal proportion, he said.
"We maintain it with duct tape, baling wire and the good graces of no small number of 'volunteer firefighters.' I am hopeful for a future with more formal, funded support for this foundation of our suddenly global information economy. But it's pretty great that a 22-year-old can see a worldwide problem and spend a bit to help us all,” Kaminsky said.
The ransomware appears to have first appeared at 3.24 a.m. ET on Friday, said Craig Williams, a senior technical leader at security company Cisco Talos.
Within about seven hours it had been stopped in its tracks.
For the analyst, who for security reasons has chosen to only be identified by his online blog name of MalwareTech, things hit after lunch on Friday when he noticed all the fuss about a global ransomware attack and decided to investigate.
His day job is as a security researcher at Los Angeles-based Kryptos Logic, but he was actually supposed to be on vacation this week so he hadn't been plugged in.
"We'd had quite a bit of work over the last few months and we were both off. I'm actually in Venice right now," said his boss, Salim Neino, CEO of Kryptos Logic. "We were talking online about how the biggest cyberattack of the year happens and we're both off."
Neither MalwareTech nor his boss stayed off, however.
Although only 22, he is known in the close-knit world of cybersecurity as someone who's good at "taking down big ugly things that are spreading fast," in the words of Ryan Kalember, vice president for cybersecurity at Proofpoint, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based security company.
First credit to actually getting a sample of the malicious software code appears to go to Kafeine, a security researcher who doesn't give press interviews and only goes by his screen name, but who works for Proofpoint.
Malware Tech called him "a good friend and fellow researcher" in his blog post and noted that Kafeine passed him the sample so he could begin to reverse engineer it to see how it did what it was doing.
One of the first things MalwareTech noticed was that as soon as it installed itself on a new machine, the malware tried to send a message to an unregistered Internet address, or domain name.
He promptly registered that domain, so he could see what it was up to. This was at around 3 p.m. in London, 10 a.m. ET.
The registration wasn't done on a whim, he noted. "My job is to look for ways we can track and potentially stop botnets (and other kinds of malware)," he wrote on his blog.
However, in doing so, MalwareTech had inadvertently stopped the entire global attack in its tracks, though it took him and others awhile longer to realize it.
"Humorously," he wrote, "at this point we had unknowingly killed the malware."
The malware contained computer code that pinged an unregistered Web address, and if it didn't get back a message saying the address didn't exist, it would turn itself off. Computers that were already infected with the ransomware weren't protected but the ransomware stopped spreading except in isolated systems, said Williams.
As a final test, he first ran the malware in a closed environment that was connected to the registered website and got nothing.
Then he ran it again after modifying the host system so that the connection would be unsuccessful, and the ransomware promptly took it over.
"Now you probably can’t picture a grown man jumping around with the excitement of having just been ransomwared, but this was me. The failure of the ransomware to run the first time and then the subsequent success on the second mean that we had in fact prevented the spread of the ransomware and prevented it ransoming any new computer since the registration of the domain," he wrote.
The website registration that stopped the ransomware that had caused thousands of companies tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage "cost about $10," said Neino.
Darien Huss, a security researcher at Proofpoint who'd been helping MalwareTech with the analysis, tweeted at 10:29 a.m. ET that the unregistered domain had been registered and the malware had stopped spreading.
"We were then able to get all the information out to the FBI," said Neino.
Soon thereafter the United Kingdom's National Cyber Security Centre posted the text of MalwareTech's blog on its site.
While this particular variant of the malware has been stopped, security experts are quick to point out that all that the criminals behind it would need to do is rewrite the code to either ping a different domain or remove that domain check and send it out.
This makes it all the more important that computers and networks quickly install the Windows patches that fix the problem that allowed the code to so easily spread in the first place. Microsoft issued that patch on March 14 but clearly many systems had not installed the crucial new software.
After a long and fruitful day, MalwareTech suggested that people do just that, then wrote, "Now I should probably sleep."
5/07/2017
Dating-sites con artists
WHEN John met Judith,
it seemed they were a perfect match. Both were devout Christians. He was a
widower, she a divorcee. After finding each other on an online dating site,
they exchanged heartfelt e-mails. John, an interior designer from London,
wanted to meet in person but had travelled to South Africa for his father’s
funeral. While there, he was robbed and defaulted on an expensive design
contract. Judith stumped up £140,000 ($175,000) before realising that she had
been scammed: “John” was the invention of a fraudster.
Last year
online-dating swindles cost Britons a record £39m, according to the City of
London Police. Six out of ten victims are women and two-thirds are between the
ages of 40 and 69. Few of the fraudsters are identified, let alone caught, but
most seem to be part of organised gangs in west Africa or eastern Europe,
according to Neil Masters of Victim Support, a charity.
Operations resembling
call-centres conduct detailed background research, compose scripts and work
several targets at a time. A fake emergency, often en route to an in-person
rendezvous, is the most common way to solicit money. On average, just 30 days
elapse between initial contact and first payment. Among those victims who go to
the police, the average loss is £10,000.
Fearing damage to
their business, dating sites are doing more to protect their members. Some analise
their messages for suspiciously early declarations of love, or check if profile
pictures have been swiped from other sites.
But nothing is as effective as what Mr Masters
calls the “golden rule”: never give money to an online paramour, however
charming.
Drones to Deliver Fast Food (audio)
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Uruguayan pharmacies will sell cannabis
ON
THE outskirts of Libertad, a small town an hour’s drive from Montevideo, barbed
wire and guard towers surround a ten-hectare plot of state-owned land. Inside,
greenhouses shelter thousands of marijuana plants. These belong to ICC and
Simbiosys, the two firms licensed by Uruguay’s government to grow cannabis for
recreational use. Uruguayans will soon be able to sample their product. Since
May 2nd they have been able to register at the post office as prospective customers
for the corporate weed, which will be sold through pharmacies from July.
That
will be the last and most important stage of a long process. In 2013 the senate
voted to legalise marijuana and regulate its production and sale, making
Uruguay the first country to do so. (Canada proposed a bill to legalise
cannabis for recreational use on April 13th.) Uruguay’s goal is to stamp out
the black market, controlled mainly by Paraguayan smugglers, without
encouraging more consumption. Registered Uruguayans (but not visitors) will be
able to get the drug in one of three ways. They can grow up to six plants at
home; join a club, where 45 members can cultivate as many as 99 plants; or buy
it in pharmacies. All consumers are restricted to 40g (1.4 ounces) a month, enough
to roll a joint or two a day. About 10% of adults smoke at least once a year.
More
than 6,600 people have already registered to grow cannabis at home; 51 clubs
have opened. But Uruguayan officials expect pharmacies to be the biggest
retailers, and are counting on them to drive illegal dealers out of business.
They will start out selling weed in 5g packets, with the concentration of THC,
the active ingredient, capped at 15%. With a price of $1.30 a gram,
store-bought marijuana will be cheaper than what is available on the street.
The quality will be better, says Milton Romani, who oversaw the law’s
implementation until last July. Street cannabis can contain 52 toxins;
pharmacies will sell purer weed. The government sought advice on potency from
regular smokers. “They are the ones who know about this stuff,” laughs Mr
Romani.
Strait-laced
pharmacists, used to selling remedies for aching joints, are nervous about
supplying the makings of joints. “They would prefer not to stock a recreational
drug,” says Alejandro Antalich, vice-president of the Centre for Uruguayan
Pharmacies, a trade association. “It’s a conscientious objection.” Some fear
being dragged into competition with drug gangs. So far, just 30 of the
country’s 1,000 pharmacies have signed up. The interior ministry is installing
alarms connected to police stations to reassure them.
Cannabis
clubs can grow a wider variety of plants than pharmacies are allowed to sell,
with no limits on THC. They see themselves as catering to aficionados. “It’s
the equivalent of comparing a bottle of wine with a box of wine,” says Marco
Algorta, a grower at the 420 Cannabis Club in Montevideo. “The clubs sell
excellent wine.” His worry is that 99 plants are not enough to supply members
with their full entitlement. He wants permission to grow more.
Even
then, clubs and home growers will cater to a niche market. The pharmacies’
business will build slowly. The 30 outlets that have signed up cover much of
the country. But their corporate suppliers are allowed to grow just four tonnes
a year. That is 15% of what Uruguayans smoke. If the country is to drive
pushers off the streets, pharmacies will have to sell a lot more weed alongside
the dental floss.
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