A Distinctive Taste

Two new elements are joining the periodic table. Say hello to number 114, flerovium (Fl), and number 116, livermorium (Lv). The two newbies will sit “down in the lower-right corner of the periodic table.”

In real life, both elements are “so large and unstable” that they can only be created in a lab, says Jennifer Welsh at Live Science. Known as “super heavy” or “Transuranium” elements, “they fall apart into other elements very quickly,” so scientists haven’t been able to study their potential applications quite yet. The elements were first synthesized over 10 years ago, but it was only recently — and through repeated experiments — that their existence was finally confirmed.

But how do they get their names?

Shout out to:theweekmagazine

Stuxnet-Like Worm May Be Preparing Attacks

Security researchers at Symantec have found malware they think was written by the same people who created Stuxnet, the worm that famously disrupted a uranium enrichment plant in Iran.

There has been speculation that the worm was sent by the U.S. or Israel; a video played at a retirement party for Israeli Defense Force head Gabi Ashkenazi referred to Stuxnet as an operational success. Neither the Israeli nor U.S. governments have confirmed they created Stuxnet.

Read more

(If you didn’t read it the first time around, this great Wired article describes the worm and the digital detectives that deciphered it.)

The thing about Stuxnet is that the code is open source.  So anyone can tinker with the code and make it their own.  I honestly believe the original creators were commssioned on behalf of U.S. and Israeli officials to stop production of Irans Nuclear facility.  At this point it was only a matter of time before other hackers could use certain parts for their own benefit.  The main problem with Stuxnet is that when it’s in your system it doesn’t appear so because it entered with a legitimate clearance.  So who really knows at this point. 

Shout out to:discoverynews

Obama sends US combat troops to Uganda | US president says he is deploying 100 combat troops to Uganda to help efforts against Lord’s Resistance Army rebels.

shout out to:aljazeera

The most disruptive companies in tech

Shout out to:jaymug

In 2010, home ownership saw its biggest drop since the Great Depression while the number of vacant homes jumped a whopping 43.8% to 15 million. Sarah Ryler reports:

Over the past decade, the national home ownership rate decreased to 65.1 percent. That is still the second-highest rate since the Census started tracking housing characteristics in 1890 — when the home ownership rate was 47.8 percent. But it’s down from the mid-decade peak of 69 percent, when the mortgage-backed securities craze led banks to issue loans to just about anybody for little to nothing down.

Shout out to:thedailyfeed

imwithkanye:

This is a must read. 

thedailyfeed:

What’s the most popular voting issue on the Internet? The economy? The wars? No and no. It’s legalizing weed. And the White House might not be able to pass on the issue much longer. 

Advocates for legalizing marijuana say President Obama has ignored their cause, even though it repeatedly ranks first in the White House’s open-government online forums.

But they might get their chance with a new “We the People” initiative on whitehouse.gov.

Unlike previous times when the White House has solicited public input over the Internet, the promise now is that policy experts would review any proposal gathering 5,000 signatures within 30 days, and then the White House would issue an official response.

The site was launched last week, and the topic “Legalize and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol” reached the benchmark number of signatures in just the first day. That petition had 43,192 signatures yesterday afternoon and led all topics. That was almost twice as many as abolishing the Transportation Security Administration, the runner-up.

A record-high 81% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the country is being governed. Prior to 2008, the survey’s highest “dissatisfied” result was 66% in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard M. Nixon’s presidency. You know something’s wrong with your approval rating when Watergate’s considered the “good old days.”

Shout out to:thedailyfeed

Amid turmoil of American economy, the richest just keep getting richer. Case in point, the combined wealth of the Forbes’ 400 richest jumped 12% this year to $1.5 trillion. That’s more than last year’s gross domestic product of South Korea.

Nearly three-quarters of the list are self-made billionaires, and all but one of the top 20 had year-over-year income increases. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was the biggest gainer — his earnings jumped by $10.6 billion to $17.5 billion, soaring to No. 14 on the list from No. 35 last year.

Compare those numbers to the latest census data, which found that, between 2009 and 2010, the median household income fell 2.2% to $50,046. Not a single state posted a statistically significant increase.

Shout out to:thedailyfeed

Ever wonder what a $16 muffin tastes like? Crash a Justice Department conference. It spent $4.4 million on 10 conferences between October 2007 and September 2009 — with $490,000 going toward food and drinks.

At one conference, $16 muffins were served, while another featured Beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres that cost $7.32 per serving.

Coffee and tea at the events cost between $0.62 and $1.03 an ounce, meaning an 8-­ounce cup of coffee cost a whopping $8.24. A snack of Cracker Jack, popcorn and candy bars at one event cost $32 per person.

At one session — the Amber Alert Conference hosted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in Denver in November 2007 — one lunch for 360 people cost nearly $15,000 and included “five-spiced beef short rib” entrees and crème brulee desserts.

That better have been a good ass muffin. 

Shout out to:thedailyfeed

thedailyfeed:

Since 2001, when China was admitted to the World Trade Organization, the growing trade deficit between the U.S. and China has cost America 2.8 million jobs, mostly in manufacturing, according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute released yesterday. More than 40 percent of the $194 billion increase in the trade deficit between the U.S. and China was due to imports of Chinese-manufactured computer and electronic parts.

I can’t help but think this is our own faults. We have been raised to want so many things. We have the tendency to want to pay little to noting for it.