By EDWARD LUCAS
In Soviet days, every corner of the KGB was under the tight control of the Communist Party. In Vladimir Putin's Russia, the FSB—the KGB's main successor—is largely unsupervised by anyone. Mr. Putin, briefly the FSB's boss in the late 1990s, gave the secret-police agency free rein after taking over as Russia's president from the ailing Boris Yeltsin in 2000. The FSB's license has continued under the Putin-steered presidency of Dmitry Medvedev. The agency's autonomy has been a catastrophe for Russia and should be a source of grave concern for the West.
Mr. Yeltsin encouraged competition between Russia's spooks, but—as Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan make clear in "The New Nobility," a disturbing portrait of the agency—Mr. Putin has given the FSB (from its Russian acronym Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, or Federal Security Service) a near monopoly. Originally just a domestic security service, it has become a sprawling empire, with capabilities ranging from electronic intelligence-gathering to control of Russia's borders and operations beyond them. "According to even cautious estimates, FSB personnel total more than 200,000," the authors write. The FSB's instincts are xenophobic and authoritarian, its practices predatory and incompetent.
Critics of Russia see the FSB as the epitome of the country's lawlessness and corruption. But those inside the agency see themselves as the ultimate guardians of Russia's national security, thoroughly deserving of the rich rewards they reap. Nikolai Patrushev, who succeeded Mr. Putin as the agency's director in 2000 and who is now secretary of Russia's Security Council, calls his FSB colleagues a "new nobility." Mr. Soldatov and Ms. Borogan see a different parallel: They liken the FSB to the ruthless Mukhabarat, or religious police, found in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries: impenetrable, corrupt and ruthless.
Few people are better placed than Mr. Soldatov and Ms. Borogan to write with authority on this subject. They run the website Agentura.Ru, a magpie's nest of news and analysis that presents a well-informed view of the inner workings of this secret state. Given the fates that have befallen other investigative journalists in Russia in recent years, some might fear for the authors' safety. But the publication of the "The New Nobility" in English is welcome; it should be essential reading for those who hold naïve hopes about Russia's development or who pooh-pooh the fears of its neighbors.
The book provides a detailed history of the FSB's ascendancy over the past decade. It describes how Mr. Putin turned to the agency to consolidate his power. (The authors do not share the notion, held by some Russia-watchers, that it was the FSB—in those days a demoralized and chaotic outfit—that actually put Mr. Putin into the top job.) We're told that Mr. Putin gave the agency a seat at Russia's "head table," but "trough," rather than table, might be more accurate.
The New Nobility
By Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan
PublicAffairs, 301 pages, $26.95The authors recount how the Russian government has made outright land grants in much sought-after areas to high-ranking FSB officials, who then build gaudy mansions down the road from their oligarch neighbors. "Whether in the form of valuable land, luxury cars, or merit awards, the perks afforded FSB employees (especially those in particularly good standing) offer significant means of personal advancement. Russia's new security services are more than simply servants of the state—they are landed property owners and powerful players."
Mr. Soldatov and Ms. Borogan also present a chilling account of how the FSB, along with the prosecutor's office and the interior ministry, has closed down independent political life in Russia, intimidating bloggers and trade unionists, infiltrating and disrupting opposition parties, and tarring all critics of the regime as "extremists."
The authors give skimpy treatment to the FSB's downgraded but still important rivals within the Russian bureaucracy: the GRU military-intelligence service and the SVR, which retains the main responsibility for foreign espionage (including the maintenance of an extensive network of "sleeper" agents, such as those unmasked in the U.S. over the summer). "The New Nobility" is unbeatable for its depiction of today's FSB, but the book might have paid more attention to the long-term debilitating effects of the agency's corruption and nepotism: Those may contain the seeds of the FSB's ultimate destruction.
Mr. Soldatov and Ms. Borogan rightly highlight the grim results of FSB power in Russia. Its counterterrorism efforts have been a fiasco. Russia faces a terrorist threat from alienated and brutalized Muslims in the North Caucasus that is far worse than it was in the Yeltsin years.
Greed, rather than selfless patriotism, has been the hallmark of Mr. Patrushev's "new nobility." The FSB may indeed be in some respects as dreadful as the indolent, spendthrift and brutal Russian aristocracy toppled in the Bolshevik revolution. But that is presumably not the parallel that the grand-duke of spookdom had in mind.
Mr. Lucas is the international editor of the Economist and the author of "The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West."
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Book review: The New Nobility
Suffering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, searchThis article is about suffering or pain in the broadest sense. For physical pain, see Pain. For other uses, see The Suffering.Suffering, or pain in a broad sense,[1] is an individual's basic affective experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm. Suffering may be qualified as physical[2] or mental.[3] It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and frequency of occurrence usually compound that of intensity. In addition to such factors, people's attitudes toward suffering may take into account how much it is, in their opinion, avoidable or unavoidable, useful or useless, deserved or undeserved.
Suffering occurs commonly in the lives of sentient beings, in diverse manners, and often dramatically. As a result, many fields of human activity are concerned, from their own points of view, with some aspects of suffering. These aspects may include the nature of suffering, its processes, its origin and causes, its meaning and significance, its related personal, social, and cultural behaviors, its remedies, management, and uses.
Autonomy iManage Cements Position as De Facto Leader for Legal Information Management in Nordic Region
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/press/information-management-nordic-region...
CAMBRIDGE, England and SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU. or AU.L), a global leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced a number of recent law firm deals in the Nordics, cementing its position as the de facto leader for legal information management solutions in the region. A flurry of law firms including Finnish Castren and Snellman and Norwegian Arntzen de Besche have selected iManage WorkSite, Autonomy's flagship document management solution for the legal market.
Autonomy iManage is used by 75% of the Global 100 law firms and more than 1,700 law firms and professional services organizations globally. An increasing number of Nordic law firms are standardizing on Autonomy iManage WorkSite due to its unique conceptual capabilities, ease-of-use and the ability to provide a comprehensive set of document and e-mail management tools on one common platform. The company enjoys an extensive customer base in the region including Mannheimer Swartling in Sweden, the largest law firm in the Nordic region, Bech Bruun and Plesner in Denmark and the top 5 Norwegian law firms.
Legal professionals worldwide are facing an ever-growing onslaught of information that they must understand and manage. Additionally, lawyers now work with matter teams that span disparate geographies and time zones, while simultaneously meeting a mandate to reduce internal cost structures. Autonomy iManage uses Autonomy's advanced meaning-based technology, the Intelligent Data Operating Layer (IDOL), to deliver a solution that provides a quantum leap in productivity for law firms. iManage WorkSite and iManage Universal Search provide a shared environment for storing business content and a system for tracking updates, milestones and communications. Leveraging massive scalability, unique conceptual capabilities and format and language agnosticism, the portfolio of iManage solutions enables lawyers to locate and manage all relevant matter content, regardless of format or location, via a single platform, and share work-product securely with clients via extranets.
"Autonomy iManage WorkSite and Universal Search set the benchmark for reliability in legal information management by delivering unmatched conceptual capabilities, performance, security, and scalability, thus overcoming many of the challenges faced by legacy architectures," said Glenn Perachio, VP Legal Solutions EMEA at Autonomy. "We are delighted to see Autonomy iManage become the clear leader in competitive procurements in the Nordics and across EMEA as further testified by our most recent deals in the region."
Please visit www.autonomy.com/imanage to find out more.
About Autonomy iManage
Autonomy iManage is the leader in information management applications for the legal and professional services market. Building on Autonomy's advanced Meaning Based Computing platform, Autonomy iManage offers the most comprehensive suites of information management applications all on a common platform. Autonomy iManage has over a decade of experience working with law and accounting firms to understand how these professionals interact with information and their need to find, manage and process large volumes of content quickly and intuitively. Organizations from all over the world, including 75 of the top 100 global law firms, are standardizing on Autonomy iManage which uniquely spans the complete EDRM on a single technology platform, including document and email management, information governance, archiving and records management, knowledge management, policy management and eDisclosure, legal hold and review. Autonomy iManage can now link over 1,400 law firms with the data inside over 20,000 corporate clients using powerful, familiar tools, and is the only vendor to offer the ability to access and analyze corporate information in-place for a case, eliminating point solutions and the risky and costly hand-offs of data used for investigations and litigation.
Customers include corporations and law firms such BAE Systems, Bloomberg, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, DLA Piper, Grupo Santander, LexisNexis, Linklaters, Lloyds TSB, Merrill Lynch, Slaughter and May, UK Law Society, and White & Case. More than 400 companies OEM Autonomy technology, including Symantec, Citrix, HP, Novell, Oracle, Sybase and TIBCO. The company has offices worldwide. Please visit www.autonomy.com to find out more.
Autonomy Editorial Contacts:
Assia Iossifova
Autonomy (UK)
+44 207 907 2300
David Vindel
The Red Consultancy
+ 44 207 025 6529
david.vindel@redconsultancy.com
Edward Bridges
Financial Dynamics (UK)
+44 207 831 3113
Louise Kehoe
Ogilvy PR (US)
+1 415 677 2739
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/press/information-management-nordic-region...
Indian Court Divides Sacred Site
By PAUL BECKETT and KRISHNA POKHAREL
NEW DELHI—An Indian court ruled Thursday that a sacred site claimed by both Hindus and Muslims should be divided, in a complex decision that will test whether India has moved beyond the violent religious passions that bedeviled the nation in the 1990s.
In the decision, two of the three judges ruled that the site should be divided into three parts—two for the Hindu side and one for Muslims. Two of the judges also found that the site was the birthplace of the Hindu god Lord Ram, a significant ruling for the Hindu side and a rare foray into religion for a civil court.
The court said no action would be taken for three months, and the Muslim side said it would appeal to the Supreme Court of India. One Hindu group also said it would appeal to the top court, a sign of how the judgment didn't fully satisfy either side.
On Thursday, people across India were gripped as a court in Uttar Pradesh released a verdict on whether a religious site there belonged to Hindus or Muslims. Editor of WSJ's India Real Time Tripti Lahiri untangles the court's decision with South Asia Bureau Chief Paul Beckett.
Associated PressA policeman stood guard in front of the Charminar in Hyderabad, India, Thursday.
The case, before the Allahabad High Court in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, has been running since 1950 and had been closely watched not just for its historic and religious significance but for the country's reaction; a Hindu mob partially destroyed a mosque on the site in 1992, which was followed by widespread violence.
To minimize the risk of post-verdict violence, the government has deployed hundreds of thousands of security personnel across the country, including 190,000 in Uttar Pradesh alone. Officials had repeatedly called for calm whatever the verdict, and they banned bulk instant messaging to make it harder for demonstrators to organize.
Some businesses around the country informally advised some of their staff to stay home Thursday. In the state of Karnataka, the government closed all schools and colleges Thursday and Friday. In Madhya Pradesh, the administration imposed a rule that disallows any gathering of more than four people. There were no immediate reports of unrest hours after the verdict.
India's self-image can ill-afford another blow so soon after the chaos surrounding New Delhi's preparations for the Commonwealth Games, which begin Sunday. Filthy athletes' accommodation, a lack of readiness at venues, and a construction accident have been widely criticized by delegates from Commonwealth member countries and viewed by many Indians as a setback to the nation's efforts to project its modernity. If the country remains calm in the wake of the verdict, it will help counter the negative impression of the country's progress created by the Games mess.
India Real Time
Hindu litigants claimed the site, in the town of Ayodhya, as the birthplace of Lord Ram and the location of an ancient temple; the Muslim litigants said they have historical title to the site, where the Babri Masjid, a mosque, stood until it was partially destroyed in 1992.
The bench issued judgments from all three judges. It wasn't a clear-cut win for either side. An order from one of the judges declared that the site was in the joint possession of the Muslim and Hindu litigants, but also said that the central dome on the site, a key issue in the dispute, be given to Hindus. It therefore may be the site of a future temple. And one judge said that the mosque that stood on the site was built against the tenets of Islam so therefore couldn't be considered to be a mosque at all.
In all, the judges gave more relief to the Hindu litigants than the Muslim, and they bypassed legal claims by the Muslims that they held title to the site by saying too much time had expired for that question to be considered.
The verdict was seen as a litmus test of whether India's rapid economic growth, and secular government by the Congress party for the past six years, has moved beyond the conservative Hindu nationalism that was fomenting at the time of the mosque's destruction.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, now the main opposition and a party with strong links to Hindu fundamentalism, was trounced in national elections a year ago and has been struggling to strike a new chord with the electorate since then. Leaders of major parties, including the BJP, and of India's major religions had called in advance of the verdict for a calm reaction.
Nalin Kohli, a BJP spokesman, said of the ruling: "The High Court has come up with a solution in the larger interest of peace and paved the way for the construction of the temple. This would cease to be a thorn if all the parties come up with a compromise."
From the years surrounding India's partition in the 1940s to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in the early 1990s, India had experienced almost annual outbursts of widespread communal violence, said Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research, a New Delhi think tank. But since the communal riots in Gujarat in 2002, he said, there has been virtually no such widespread episodes of violence.
"This is clearly a different India," he said. "India has become more modern, more connected through communications, more prosperous."
He called the high court's decision "predictable," saying it did what is typical in India—it didn't strictly interpret the law but attempted a political middle ground. "It passed the buck instead of resolving the issue," he said. "Nobody is satisfied."
The case itself was notable for the parties' invocation of spirituality and for the sheer length of time that it has taken to reach a decision. The judges weighed oral testimony from 33 witnesses produced by the Muslim side and 54 witnesses produced by the Hindu side. The court started recording witness statements from the two sides in 1996 and continued until 2007.
Both sides marshaled the local residents of Ayodhya, adherents to their respective religions, clerics, priests, historians, archaeologists, epigraphists and book authors who spoke about whether Muslims or Hindus were using the disputed site for religious purposes before 1950, what the religious texts and traditions suggest, and what the history and archaeology of the place reveal.
"The mosque was vested in the Almighty which has, since the time of its construction, been used by the Muslims for offering prayers," the Muslim plaintiffs claimed. The lead Hindu suitor claimed the site has been in the uninterrupted "ownership of Lord Shri Ram."
—Geeta Anand in Mumbai contributed to this article.Write to Paul Beckett at paul.beckett@wsj.com and Krishna Pokharel at krishna.pokharel@wsj.com
![[SB10001424052748704483004575523323222132784]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-KG136_ibverd_D_20100930044827.jpg)
Ecuador Declares State of Emergency
By MERCEDES ALVARO And ROBERT KOZAK
QUITO—Ecuador declared a state of emergency on Thursday after protests by members of the military and police led to nationwide unrest.
President Rafael Correa dubbed the protests an attempted coup d'état, but rivals said the president was exaggerating the situation for political gain.
Ecuadorean President Correa is attacked by protesters as unrest grips the nation. Video courtesy of Reuters.
The trouble began early Thursday when some members of the military and national police walked off the job, protesting wage cuts proposed by the government. Members of Ecuador's air force stormed the international airport in Quito and blocked the runway.
Protests quickly spread to other cities, leading to roadblocks and rioting. Banks were closed after several were robbed. In the country's two other principal cities, Guayaquil and Cuenca, police took over government buildings, burned tires and set off tear gas, according to local media reports.
Mr. Correa's government declared a state of emergency for five days, mobilizing the country's armed forces that weren't on strike. The country's top military leaders weren't backing the protests: The chairman of Ecuador's joint chiefs of staff said the armed forces are backing Mr. Correa.
Several Latin American countries offered Mr. Correa their support. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement that the U.S. supports President Correa "and the institutions of democratic government" in Ecuador.
The unrest stemmed from a series of legal changes that came into effect Wednesday night after the opposition in the Ecuadorean Congress failed to pass changes that would have modified a law sent by President Correa to the legislature. Failure to pass the modifications meant that the law, which slows salary increases for police and the military, went into effect. Mr. Correa has been a principal backer of the overhaul, saying salaries have ballooned in recent years.
On Thursday, Mr. Correa himself was sent to the hospital after inhaling tear gas that was sprayed while he visited a police barracks. The president remained in the hospital late Thursday evening; Mr. Correa's office said he wasn't able to leave because of police protesters surrounding the building.
Unrest in Ecuador as police are up in arms over bonus cuts. Video courtesy of Reuters.
Associated PressWith a gas mask on his head, Ecuador's President Rafael Correa gestures as he runs away from tear gas during a protest of police officers and soldiers against a new law that cuts their benefits at a police base in Quito, Ecuador, Thursday. Mr. Correa tried to speak with a group of police protesters but was shouted down.
The president called the event a "coup attempt" by his opponents and the armed forces. "We aren't going to let the constitutional order be broken. Nothing is going to stop the citizen revolution," said Mr. Correa, a close ally of Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez.
Critics of Mr. Correa said he was exaggerating. Rubén Darío Buitrón, an editor with El Comercio, a leading Quito newspaper, said that no coup was under way and that the government was spinning the protests in order to gain support.
Dolores Ochoa/Associated PressA police officer demonstrated next to a bonfire in Quito.
"It is a media show and things have been exaggerated by the government in order to make it look like a victim," he said, adding that the problems originated from low-ranking officers, not from any group of military generals wishing to take control.
An air force officer, Florencio Ruiz, called in a televised broadcast for protestors to halt their demonstrations, which he said could lead to a "blood bath."
The unrest is significant in a nation plagued by political instability, where no president has finished a full term in office since 1996. A number of presidents since then have been pushed out following unrest in the streets.
Analysts said Mr. Correa could use the crisis to further consolidate power. On Thursday, Mr. Correa said he was seriously considering dissolving Congress. Under Ecuador's constitution, however, that would mean he would have to call new elections for both the parliament and for his job as president.
"President Correa's uncompromising style, and today's press statements, suggest the president will not easily back down from what is turning into the most serious political crisis of his mandate," said Goldman Sachs economist Alberto Ramos in a research note.
So far Mr. Correa, a U.S.-trained economist, has avoided the pitfalls of his predecessors. The president, who has pushed through a new constitution and boosted the government's stake in the local oil industry, appeals to many poor in Ecuador. But Mr. Correa is also facing strained public-sector finances, in part because of a shutoff of much international funding since his government defaulted on a series of sovereign bonds. He has been pushing through legislation by decree recently instead of relying on congressional approval, which has met with disapproval from various sectors for the cutbacks being implemented.
On Thursday Mr. Correa received support from neighboring countries including Argentina, Chile and Peru, as well as from Venezuela's Mr. Chávez, who telephoned the Ecuadorean president. Colombia and Peru said they were closing their borders with Ecuador, while Chile's President Sebastián Piñera called for a meeting of the Unasur regional economic and political bloc to discuss the situation.
The Organization of American States held an extraordinary session to discuss the events in Ecuador.
Mr. Correa's current term ends in 2013; he can run again for a new four-year term then.
Write to Mercedes Alvaro at mercedes.alvaro@dowjones.com
![[SB10001424052748704483004575524340191776852]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-KG538_0930ec_D_20100930162601.jpg)
Why Commercials Are Louder Than Television Shows
Why Commercials Are Louder Than Television Shows
Congress might have passed a bill to make TV commercials quieter, but one anonymous online television engineer explains why it will take more than a law to save our ears.
I can't tell you the names of the television shows our engineer helps get off the air and streamed over your internet, but I can tell you they're popular—millions of viewers daily. We've been talking for a few weeks about why commercials end up being so much louder than television content, even in online streaming platforms like Hulu.
There's No Unified Backend Specification for Online Content
"Wee try to normalize all the different content as best as we can," says 'John', "but it becomes difficult to meet consumer expectations without adding audio artifacts that might also be distasteful to the user." The more engineers touch the content, the worse it can look and sound.
"This situation is often times magnified on dialog-centric shows (60 Minutes, etc.) where the audio track is mostly human. There isn't a large audio frequency range of the human voice—typically 300 Hz to 3400 Hz. The amplitude (or volume) range of that is also compressed so that what the user hears is very focused—not a lot of variation in pitch or volume."
"Coming out of that into a commercial that is primarily focused on the music track with human voice playing a secondary role as just a voice over can amplify this issue—especially when combined with the possibility that the the commercial was mixed to a higher dB level."
They Don't Always Control the Ads
"The other thing that makes this a challenge is the way a lot of ad integrations are done with online video. Often times a 3rd party company's video player is called in a run-time for ad playback. This is typically the ad network's video player. It sits on top of the content provider's player. We do everything we can to make sure those players adhere to the volume controls the user has set in our player." Unfortunately, that lack of a unified standard for content continues in the ad playback system—most of the time, all the engineers can do is talk to the ad companies and request they play nice.
"The actual creative that is playing back is made by all sorts of different companies. There is no true audio standard for volume and quality so you'll see a range of post-production and mixing levels come in from the advertisers."
How Engineers Try To Help Your Ears
"There are some techniques we employ using audio compressors, but we have to be careful as over user results in a 'pumping' affect that is very distracting. Sometimes you'll hear this on radio broadcasts of sports events."
"I think it is an extremely important issue. Its incredibly frustrating, and I don't blame people for complaining. We as an industry ought to be able to get our act together on this. Advertisers need to realize their content is part of the viewing experience as well. Instead, we create deep silos between the two and thus the advertisers have no incentive to care. We do one thing at [redacted]: we deliver video. The video has some ads and some content, but at its core its the only thing we do. Its amazing how few people care about the details."
But Are The Advertisers Actually Pumping Up Their Volume?
I'm sure the advertisers are aware that they can draw attention by juicing the dB levels and 'shocking' the user into paying attention but I can't say definitively. I guess the question is: What effect does that have on the positive association of the brand to the consumer? Both content providers and advertisers rarely realized that the user is exposed to the combined experience of all of their content together. Ads are just as much of the experience as the content. It would be nice to see the industry understand this and agree to better standards."
If Obama signs the bill into law, the industry isn't going to have a choice.
Send an email to Joel Johnson, the author of this post, at joel@gizmodo.com.
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How Many More Horror Stories Do We Need to Hear? | Open Society Foundations Blog
After decades of exposés, it has become rather obvious to most people that warehousing human beings in archaic, decrepit institutions—still prolific across Central and Eastern Europe—is a grave violation of their human rights. So why do government leaders continue to ignore the plight of thousands of children and adults who have intellectual or mental health disabilities? Why do these institutions still exist?
In “Humans Null and Void,” the latest heartwrenching exposé by investigative journalist Yana Buhrer Tavanier, we get a simple, yet bleak, answer: it is because the people wasting away in these institutions don’t really count. They are null and void as far as governments are concerned, and the ugly truth is that they deteriorate in institutions from the mind-numbing boredom, the loneliness, and the lack of love.
As Yana so powerfully illustrates, the Macedonian government is failing its citizens. Hundreds of people are locked away in institutions across the country. Many people spend their entire lives in institutions because Macedonia offers no support to families and communities.
These are places, as Yana writes, “where the holes in the corroded walls are in fact dug by human fingers”; where a resident’s “daily route [is] between the filthy bedroom, the filthy bathroom, the filthy canteen and the filthy, empty day room; the stench being their constant companion, following them everywhere.”
Watch the video. Read the website. But how many more horror stories do we need to hear before governments take action?
The Tomb of The Terra Cotta Warriors
Thousands and thousands of life size clay warriors stand in silent and eternal defense of the amazing tomb of the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang Di and is called the most spectacular archaeological find of the twentieth century. Qin Shi Huang Di began his reign in China in 221 B.C. at the age of thirteen.
One of his first official acts was to begin the construction of his tomb. Another great work this emperor was responsible for was the Great Wall of China. What makes the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang Di so fascinating are the approximately 8,000 life sized clay soldiers and horses that stand in trenches and in three of the chambers of the tomb.
One of the most amazing things about the clay soldiers is the fact that they are not all the same. They have different clothes, facial expressions, hair styles and weapons. There are generals, officers and ordinary soldiers, young and old alike. The figures are made of terracotta which is a fine gray clay.
The figures were formed by pressing the clay into molds. The heads of the figures were made separately from several dozen different molds. Features such as facial hair, lips, eyes and ears were added by hand. The completed figures were fired until they were hardened and then painted, although most of the paint has worn off. One can only imagine just how life like these soldiers must have seemed when their vibrant colors were first painted.
One pit alone contains an estimated 6,000 of these life sized soldiers. Archeologists are still working at excavating the site and have yet to determine exactly how large the number of these figures will grow. It is a truly amazing sight considering the fact that only one percent of the tomb has been unearthed.
Not all the jewels and treasures buried with the emperor have been found. According to archaeologists who are familiar with the tomb, some of the treasures in the tomb are guarded by devices that are triggered to release a deadly volley of arrows at any intruder who would dare to approach. It is believed that the workmen who set up these traps were buried alive in order to be sure that the secret of the entrance way died with them.
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4Emperor Qin was a ruler that was full of contradictions. He was responsible for standardizing writing, language and currency, unifying China. On the other hand, he is known for his cruelty and fierce armies. In an effort to bring the Confucians in control, he burned their religious books. When the their spiritual leaders resisted, he had them put to death.
New York's Subway May Not Survive Nicole
New York's Subway May Not Survive Nicole
There's a massive storm headed to New York, one that may flood the subway. What most people don't know is that we depend on just 700 fragile water pumps to keep the tunnels dry—some a century old.
In fact, if someone powered down all these pumps tomorrow, the entire subway network would be inundated in just a few hours. To give you an idea of how complex and massive this system is, it pulls 13 million gallons of water out of the subway on any sunny day. No rain. Not even a single drop of water from the sky.
On a rainy day, it is absolute madness. To the point where the MTA—NYC's Metropolitan Transportation Authority—lives in permanent panic, fearing events like Nicole, the tropical storm system that is approaching the little town blue right now. "At some point, it would be too much to handle," said the head of the hydraulics team back in 2006, Peter Velasquez Jr., "you've got rain plus wind. It basically would shut down the system. You hope not. You pray that it doesn't."
Maintenance hell
This means that their hydraulic team—less than two hundred people—are now on full alert, ready to intervene and install additional portable water pumps in whatever stations are needed. This is not an easy task. When the water reaches a certain level it touches the third rail, which carries 625 volts. That makes the water extremely dangerous for these workers.
Back in the 1990s, a water main broke open, completely flooding the station at 125th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue. They had to send scuba divers to fix it, and use a diesel-powered train car to take the water out. It took an entire week to drain the station, extracting 2,700 gallons per minute. That's more than 27 million gallons.
But you don't need to fully inundate the tunnels to take the subway system out. The water flooding could take out entire lines if the pumps fail to keep the levels below their safety limits. In 2004, the subway system stopped after Hurricane Frances spewed two inches of rain per hour over the city. In 2007, things stopped again. Then Governor Eliot Spitzer declared that "the cause of the cascading outages across the mass transportation system this morning was the inability of our drainage system to handle what was, we believe, three inches of rain within a one-hour period."
Not much has changed since then. The MTA's drainage system still can only slurp 1.5 inches of rain per hour, which is much, much less than what Nicole is bringing: More than 7 inches of rain per hour, with sporadic winds up to 60mph. It kind of sounds like Velasquez's It sounds like Velasquez's You hope not. You pray that it doesn't scenario.
Pray.
[WSJ and NOAA, New York Sun, NYT]
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Send an email to Jesus Diaz, the author of this post, at jesus@gizmodo.com.
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Organizers « Pillage Conference
University of British Columbia Faculty of Law
Dutch Ministry of Justice
Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Department of Justice Canada, Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Section
The purpose of the War Crimes Program is to support Canada’s policy to deny safe haven to suspected perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, and to contribute to the domestic and international fight against impunity through civil or criminal remedies. The Program also aims to reflect the government’s commitment to international justice, respect for human rights, and strengthened border security.
Co-sponsorship of this conference by the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Section of the Department of Justice Canada does not imply endorsement of any statements, comments, or opinions expressed during the event.
XenClient 1.0 Released » ocb - Citrix Community
30 Sep 2010 01:49 PM EDT
XenClient 1.0 Released
[ Tags: client hypervisor xen type 1 bare metal virtual desktops , xendesktop , xenclient , receiver ]
posted by Peter Blum
On behalf of the entire XenClient product team I'm thrilled to announce general availability of XenClient 1.0 and the Synchronizer for XenClient 1.0 as part of XenDesktop 4 Feature Pack 2. XenClient has been more than a year and a half in the making with countless late nights and weekends dedicated to creating this ground breaking bare metal client hypervisor.
As a new addition to XenDesktop, XenClient enables virtual desktops "To Go" allowing virtual desktops to run directly on client devices online or disconnected. It enables IT to deliver a secure centrally managed desktop without compromising the user experience and at the same time opening up the option of allowing users to have a second personal virtual desktop. It gives users the freedom they want and IT the control and security they demand.
Download Link
XenClient 1.0 and Synchronizer for XenClient 1.0
New Features since RC2 release
The time between RC2 and GA was mainly focused on bug fixing but our amazing engineering team still managed to pack in some great new features and expanded our HCL to cover twice the systems we supported in the first RC. You can read about the new features added in the recent RC2 release here and here below are the latest additions:
Integrated Disk Encryption
VMs delivered to XenClient from the Synchronizer can now be protected with AES-XTS disk encryption. This ensures that sensitive data is fully protected when deployed on XenClient systems. In the event a system is lost or stolen all the data remains protected from unauthorized access. On systems with Core i5 and Core i7 vPro technology XenClient will use Intel AES-NI to offload encryption operations to the hardware.
External Monitor/Projector Support
The latest generation of Intel Core i5 and i7 vPro systems now fully support use of external monitors and projectors. Previously using external monitors and projectors required running a VM with 3D graphics support enabled.
XenClient to Synchronizer Communication Hardening
XenClient systems will now use client side digital certificates along with user credentials to authenticate to the Synchronizer. Additionally all VHD files are encrypted with AES CBC encryption to allow secure delivery and caching of components over http.
VM Switching Enhancements
The in-guest VM switcher bar has been re-skinned with updated graphics and new pull-down behavior. And the switching process has been revamped with a beautiful fade on switch between VMs.
Revamped Synchronizer Web Interface
The Synchronizer for XenClient has a revamped UI and refreshed graphics showing off the latest Citrix UI standards.
This groundbreaking new technology is ready to allow you to extend all the great benefits of virtual desktops to your mobile users and a powerful tool for IT Pros looking to run multiple isolated virtual machines on the same system. If you have not tried XenClient yet we invite you to download it today and give it a try.
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1.
about 5 hours ago
Carl Webster says:
"You can read about the new features added in the recent RC2 release hereand her...
"You can read about the new features added in the recent RC2 release hereand here"
No links on "here and here".
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1.
about 5 hours ago
Florian Wachter says:
Download Link -> http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?conte...
Download Link -> http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=2300346
HCL -> http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/subfeature.asp?contentID=2300408
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2.
about 5 hours ago
Peter Blum says:
Just added them in, thanks for the report on this.
Just added them in, thanks for the report on this.
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2.
about 5 hours ago
Anonymous says:
8440p still have problems with audio. Mic do not work. Fingerprint do to work. W...
8440p still have problems with audio. Mic do not work. Fingerprint do to work. Webcam do not work. sadly
if this laptop is suported i will full support of laptop peripherias.
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1.
about 5 hours ago
Peter Blum says:
If you are having issues with youf system please visit our online support forums...
If you are having issues with youf system please visit our online support forums at the link below and post a message:
http://forums.citrix.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1189
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3.
about 5 hours ago
Raul Gonzalez says:
I'm new to XenClient. Is there such thing as a XenClient Personal Edition?
I'm new to XenClient. Is there such thing as a XenClient Personal Edition?
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1.
about 5 hours ago
Peter Blum says:
Yes, although we call it XenClient Express. You can use XenClient standalone on ...
Yes, although we call it XenClient Express. You can use XenClient standalone on a laptop for free. If you want to deliver, backup, and secure desktops you can use the Synchronizer with up to 10 XenClient systems for free. After that we start charging you, we have to keep the lights on after all.
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4.
about 5 hours ago
Anonymous says:
well its a cool product, but why why why only intel graphics? thats just sad ......
well its a cool product, but why why why only intel graphics? thats just sad ....
Pillage Conference
The illegal exploitation of natural resources has fueled and financed brutal conflicts around the world, yet there has been little success to date in holding companies accountable for trafficking in conflict resources.
This conference, accompanying the Open Society Justice Initiative’s launch of a manual on prosecuting commercial actors for the war crime of pillage, is meant to foster renewed public debate about how the law can—and should—be used against companies whose theft of natural resources has driven conflict.
Contact: info@pillageconference.org
How to make money with mobile malware | Graham Cluley's blog
How to make money with mobile malware
Remember the old days of dialler Trojan horses?Back when most of us didn't have broadband at home, and connected to the internet via a modem, we saw a type of malware which could take advantage of the phone line plugged into the back of your PC and dial an expensive premium rate number.
In this way, criminal hackers could make money out of your infected computer - and you might know anything about it until you received an expensive telephone bill.
Dialler Trojan horses went the way of the dinosaur as consumers turned their back on modem connections and adopted broadband en masse.
But, as F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen explained today at the Virus Bulletin conference, the threat may have returned in a different form through the use of virtual premium rate numbers.
Earlier this year I described the Terdial Trojan horse, which was distributed posing as a Windows mobile game called "3D Anti-terrorist action", but appeared to make calls to Antarctica, Dominican Republic, Somalia and Sao Tome and Principe without the owner's permission.So how did it make money for the hackers?
Well, it transpires that although the Trojan did make phone calls to numbers associated with various far-flung corners of the world, the calls never made it that far.
That's because the phone numbers were what are known as virtual numbers. It's perfectly possible to find telephone operators on the web who will rent you premium phone number associated with, say, Antarctica, and pay you every time that a call is made.
Unlike other legitimate premium rate numbers (such as 1-900 in USA), there is no regulation preventing abuse of the virtual numbers, and the 'owner' of the number gets paid instantly rather than having to wait 30 days.
And your call never actually gets as far as Antarctica or North Korea. It's stopped in your own country, but you're still billed as though you rang that far away place.
The days of Trojan horses making money out of dial-up modem connections may be long gone, but here's a model for money-making that mobile malware authors could certainly exploit.
Filed under: Malware, Mobile
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