by Michael Bailey | May 13, 2017 | Crime & Punishment, Cyber Warfare & State Security, Technology/Internet |
I’ve been a Mac person since 1993. There was never a question for me. Since that time, and after Microsoft launched its first Windows platform, the main reason individuals and companies chose Microsoft over Mac, was cost savings, and, where applicable, compatibility with specialized business software. Beyond that, the arguments of a quality interface and superior build of Macs were lost on anyone who’s eyes glazed over after two technical words in a sentence, or grossly misunderstood that Macs were only for artists.
But that was then. This is now. Enter the online age of malware, identity theft, and extortion.
Ransomeware is the nastiest thing in cyberspace, short of having a loved one taken hostage. It’s been going on for years. It’s getting worse, and it will get even more worse, when it breaks out further in the U.S. I already know someone here in CT, who has been victimized by ransomeware. A local documentary film producer who had his media files locked until he forked over 2K in bitcoin.
If you own a company that must use software which has absolutely no reasonable second option that is compatible with a Mac, then you’ve painted yourself into a corner, and are stuck in a very dangerous place. It won’t be easy, will be expensive, and will take time, but you and your company need to plan an exit strategy out of Windows now. (No pun intended.) Pay now, or pay much more later.
If you are a company, or an individual, who is not reliant on Windows for specific software, and has reasonable software options on the Mac platform, then, I’m not sure I can find any logical reason for you to stick with Microsoft.
Yes, it will be a large annoyance, and increased cost to switch over, but unless you are impossibly strapped for cash, you are playing with fire, and ultimately running the risk of spending/losing so much more than the initial expense of a changeover.
Windows has always been inferior to Mac’s OS against security threats. Don’t take my word for it. Read up on your own. The security gulf will likely never be narrowed because the native Mac architecture is designed ground-up to protect your files more.
As far as I’m concerned, the justification for dumping Windows, has never been more compelling. With ransomeware and increased security threats sweeping the globe, I don’t know why anyone would even consider buying a PC over a Mac today.
If any of my FB friends here need help or advice to switch over, I’m happy to help you make the switch. Just let me know, and we’ll talk off line.
by Michael Bailey | Apr 5, 2017 | Food & Drink, Politics |
An appeals court hears arguments Wednesday on the future of Philly’s landmark tax on sweetened drinks. The money is funding preschool for low-income kids, but the soda industry says it’s losing jobs.
In observing those people who are directly involved in the sales and distribution of zero nutrition sugar drinks and soda, I find them similar to people involved in the economies of the fossil fuels industry.
People who gain income or revenue from one, or the other, are a contributing factor to making our planet dirty, and polluted, or, they are a contributing factor to an unhealthy and damaging diet of the planet’s inhabitants. Those who disagree with this statement, probably question the dangers of climate change, pollution, or, sugar in our diet, even though solid facts are established on all of them. So, in dealing with facts, let’s put those people who deny them, aside.
The arguments against cutting back on fossil fuels and sugary drink distribution, whether it be by reduced funding, tariffs, or legislation, are always the same. Job and revenue loss. That puts the decision to cuts on a different plane. A higher purpose…..
Philadelphia created a buzz last summer when its city council voted to impose a tax on sweetened drinks.
Three cities followed suit with similar measures. But the beverage industry has been fighting back.
On Wednesday, a panel of judges in a Pennsylvania appeals court is expected to hear oral arguments in a lawsuit brought by the beverage industry against the city.
The plaintiffs — including the American Beverage Association and the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association — are seeking to invalidate the tax. One of their legal arguments is that the beverage tax conflicts with the Pennsylvania sales tax.
The legal challenge has put the brakes on the city’s planned expansion of programs that are funded by revenues from the tax. The mayor’s office says the city will hold off on adding additional pre-K seats.
Currently, the revenue is funding 2,000 pre-K spots for low-income families in the city. But now, the city says it will not add an additional 1,000 seats as previously planned.
I visited Philadelphia to gauge how the tax has impacted businesses and people in the city. I walked a few city blocks with Larry Ceisler, a spokesperson for the Ax The Bev Tax coalition, which is funded by the industry. As we passed a small supermarket, he told me the tax is having a negative effect.
“What’s happening is that business is down,” Ceisler tells me. Some city dwellers are going to the suburbs to do their shopping, Ceisler says. They’re not just leaving to buy drinks but other groceries too, he says.
“Overall, my business is down by 15 percent — an unsustainable drop in an industry with tight margins,” Jeff Brown, who owns six ShopRite supermarkets in Philadelphia told us. “This tax has also forced me to cut thousands of hours each week from my union employees,” Brown says.
Local beverage distributors say their sales are down significantly. Canada Dry Of Delaware Valley, which distributes a range of carbonated drinks, teas and bottled waters in Philadelphia says sales are down by about 45 percent. The company has laid off about 30 employees, including drivers and workers who stock the shelves.
A worker restocks a cold soda display. Soda distributors in Philadelphia say sales are down and they have had to let employees go since the city’s tax on sweetened drinks went into effect.
“It’s obviously disappointing,” Bob Brockway, president and COO of Canada Dry Delaware Valley told us. He says bottled water sales have grown, but not nearly enough to offset losses.
But there are people in the city benefiting from the soda tax, too.
The mayor’s office says the city has brought in about $12.3 million in revenues from the first two months of tax collections. The tax is projected to bring in about $91 million over 12 months. The mayor’s office says the Philly Beverage Tax will be used to “make much needed investments in pre-K and community schools, as well as in Philadelphia parks, rec centers and libraries.”
I decided to check out Pee Week Prep Educational Center, one of the preschool programs that’s expanded its pre-K enrollment due to revenue from the soda tax. It’s located in West Philly, so I hopped in an Uber. Along the way we passed plenty of boarded up houses. “Yes, a lot, ” the driver Al McLean commented.”
More than 400,000 Philadelphians live below the federal poverty line, including 37 percent of all the kids in the city.
“A lot of the kids here are what I call couch-to-classroom,” Stacy Phillips, the founder and CEO of Pee Wee Prep, told me. In other words, before they enrolled in school here, they were home watching TV on the couch.
All sweetened drinks in Philadelphia are taxed, including those with artificial sweeteners.
Now, Phillips is offering a full-day curriculum. When I visited, kids were rotating through science centers. They were engaged in matching games, counting and P.E. classes.
Phillips has been able to add 90 children to her roster. “I’m thrilled, I’m happy about the soda tax,” she tells me. She says investing in these children is the right thing to do.
Despite the funding of popular programs, the tax is controversial in the city. Last fall, a poll from The Pew Charitable Trusts, found 54 percent of residents endorsed the City Council’s decision to impose a beverage tax. Forty-two percent did not endorse it. A more recent survey commissioned by the industry-funded Ax The Bev Tax coalition found a majority of residents (58 percent) oppose the tax.
Some residents I spoke to told me they love the idea of investing in children and expanding preschool education, but they think the city should find another way to pay for it.
“I live here, and I pay a significant portion of [my wages] to the city,” Dan McFadden told me. I caught up with him during his lunch break. He says that in his opinion, the city doesn’t need a separate tax on sugary drinks.
As the industry and the City of Philadelphia prepare to face off in court, the legal arguments are strictly economic. The hotly debated issue of whether a soda tax is a good way to help nudge people towards healthier behaviors is not part of the argument.
Still, many eyes are on Philly.
The World Health Organization has called on nations around the globe to enact taxes on sugary beverages. And Bloomberg Philanthropies says raising taxes on sugary beverages can be part of the strategy to “reduce consumer demand for unhealthy foods and beverages, improve the food environment, and make healthier choices easier for everyone.”
And many other public health advocates support the City in its legal battle to keep the beverage tax in place.
Fifteen national organizations including the American Heart Association and the American Medical Association filed a friend-of-the court brief with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.
“The evidence is clear that sugary drinks are a major contributor to the increasing rates of type 2 diabetes and heart disease,” reads a joint statement from the organizations.
“Philadelphia’s tax on sugary drinks has the potential to change lives for the better – preventing chronic disease and extending quality of life by simply incentivizing families to choose health,” the brief concludes.
Link: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/04/05/522626223/judges-take-up-big-sodas-suit-to-abolish-philadelphias-sugar-tax?sc=17&f=1001&utm_source=iosnewsapp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=app
by Michael Bailey | Apr 3, 2017 | Life & Timing, Personal Improvement |
Mowing the lawn can be good exercise, and is fun for some people. But others who find themselves squeezed for time might find the luxury of paying someone else to do it to be of much more value than buying more stuff.
Of course, this assumes you have enough disposable income to even have choices.
The problem with American culture within those who have fair amounts of disposable income, is the preoccupation with consumption and fleeting pleasures, as opposed to more thoughtful spending, with an investment factor in mind. Tangible and intangible.
Its a shame actually that many people don’t recognize the benefits of deeper psychological and spiritual rewards from their spending decisions, beyond material gains, or hedonistic pleasures.
Courtesy of Allison Aubrey, NPR
Money can’t buy happiness, right? Well, some researchers beg to differ. They say it depends on how you spend it.
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that when people spend money on time-saving services such as a house cleaner, lawn care or grocery delivery, it can make them feel a little happier. By comparison, money spent on material purchases — aka things — does not boost positive emotions the way we might expect.
Read full article on NPR>
by Michael Bailey | Mar 30, 2017 | Health & Medicine |
A family member holds twins Eloisa (left) and Eloa, both 8 months old and born with microcephaly, during a Christmas gathering. The mother of the twins, Raquel, who lives in Brazil, said she contracted Zika during her pregnancy. – Mario Tama/Getty Images
I don’t normally think of animal testing for medical research. It’s a hornets nest of moral questions and human purpose that for me, is almost impossible to get through unharmed from guilt, and some degree of hypocrisy. For some reason, today, I revisited the quandary of animal testing I medical research. It struck me with this article.
The first question that dawned on me was, when did the first animal testing occur, for what purpose, and to what outcome? The second question, or questions, was, how much longer do humans live since medical testing due to animal testing, and to what qualities of their lives?
by Michaeleen Doucleff, NPR – March 30, 2017
Back in 2015, Brazil reported a horrific a surge in birth defects. Thousands of babies were born with brain damage and abnormally small heads, a condition called microcephaly.
Scientists quickly concluded the Zika virus was the culprit. So when Zika returned last year during Brazil’s summer months of December, January and February — when mosquitoes are most active — health officials expected another surge in microcephaly cases.
But that never happened.
“We apparently saw a lot of cases Zika virus in 2016. But there was no microcephaly,” says Christopher Dye of the World Health Organization.
The difference between 2015 and 2016 “is spectacular,” he says.
Health officials were predicting more than 1,000 cases of microcephaly in the northeast of Brazil last year. But there were fewer than 100, Dye and his colleagues report Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“This is a huge, huge discrepancy,” Dye says. “So what could possibly be the explanation for that?”
Scientists aren’t sure, Dye says. But he and his colleagues suggest a few possibilities in their study.
First off, Dye says, health officials could have vastly overestimated the number of Zika cases in Brazil.
Zika can be misdiagnosed as another mosquito-borne virus, called chikungunya. Both viruses cause a fever, a rash and joint pain. “So chikungunya can easily be mistaken for Zika,” Dye says.
But chikungunya doesn’t cause microcephaly.
So perhaps Brazil actually didn’t have that many Zika cases in 2016. And in turn, there weren’t a lot of babies born with microcephaly.
Now for this theory to hold true, we’re talking about thousands of Zika cases being mistaken for a totally different virus that’s not even closely related to Zika. Could this really happen?
“Yes, I do think it’s a possibility,” Dye says. “This is this is our best view of what happened in 2016.”
But Albert Ko at Yale School of Public Health doesn’t quite buy it.
“Misdiagnosis is a reasonable hypothesis. But it’s not clear that this explanation accounts for the whole story,” says Ko, an epidemiologist, who is studying mothers and babies born with Zika in the northeast part of Brazil.
Ko think’s there’s another possible explanation: Zika might not be working alone. When a pregnant woman contracts Zika, that might not be enough to cause microcephaly in all cases.
Since the surge in Brazil’s microcephaly cases in 2015, many scientists began to wonder whether a second virus could be involved. Maybe another infection combines with Zika to make the disease worse and increase the risk of birth defects.
Dye agrees that this phenomenon could be contributing to the overestimation of microcephaly cases.
In particular, scientists have their eyes on another mosquito-borne virus, which is common in Brazil, called dengue. In 2015, the country recorded more than 1.5 million cases of dengue, including many in the northeast, where many of the birth defects occurred.
“Everything is probably speculation at this point,” Ko says. “But many groups are concerned about the exposure to dengue in Brazil.”
Here’s why.
Dengue is a complex virus. There are actually five different versions. Prior exposure to one version of dengue can actually make your illness worse when you’re exposed to a second version.
And what’s closely related to dengue? Zika.
“So another hypothesis is that prior exposure to dengue may actually enhance or promote the risk of birth defects from Zika,” Ko says.
Right now, there is no evidence that a dengue infection exacerbates the symptoms of Zika — or increases its risk to pregnant women.
But several studies suggest it could happen. For starters, the presence of dengue antibodies helps the Zika virus infect cells in a petri dish.
And now, scientists are reporting that dengue antibodies make a Zika infection more deadly in mice.
Typically mice don’t get Zika. But a team at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York engineered the animals to be susceptible to a Zika infection by crippling their immune systems.
The engineered mice get a fever and show signs of neurological problems when they’re infected with Zika. Fewer than 10 percent of them die from the infection.
But when the mice received dengue antibodies before the Zika infection, the outcome was quite different. More than 80 percent of the mice died after eight days, immunologist Jean Lim and her colleagues report Thursday in the journal Science.
So now the big question is: Does a similar phenomenon occur in people?
Ko is working on epidemiological studies in northeast Brazil, right now, to see whether that is the case. If the dengue theory turns out to be true, it could mean the global threat of Zika for pregnant women is less dire than scientists originally thought.
by Michael Bailey | Mar 7, 2017 | Agriculture, Environment & Ecology, Health & Medicine |
Grass strips alongside streams, like this one in the Lac qui Parle River watershed of Minnesota, can help to reduce fertilizer runoff from fields.
MN Pollution Control Agency/Flickr
by Dan Charles
NPR – March 7, 2017
The way environmentalist Craig Cox sees it, streams and rivers across much the country are suffering from the side effects of growing our food. Yet the people responsible for that pollution, America’s farmers, are fighting any hint of regulation to prevent it. “The leading problems are driven by fertilizer and manure runoff from farm operations,” says Cox, who is the Environmental Working Group’s top expert on agriculture. Across the Midwest, he says, nitrate-filled water from farm fields is making drinking water less safe. Phosphorus runoff is feeding toxic algae blooms in rivers and lakes, “interfering with people’s vacations. [They’re] taking their kids to the beach and the beach is closed. There’s stories about people getting sick.” This is preventable, Cox says. There are simple things that farmers can do to reduce the problems dramatically.
Read the article>
