firehose

An anonymous reader writes "The United States is the leading malware hosting nation, with 44 percent of all malware hosted domestically, according to Solutionary. The U.S. hosts approximately 5 times more malware than the second-leading malware-hosting nation, Germany, which is responsible for 9 percent of the detected malware. The cloud is allowing malware distributors to create, host and remove websites rapidly, and major hosting providers such as Amazon, GoDaddy and Google have made it economical for malicious actors to use their services to infect millions of computers and vast numbers of enterprise systems."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The world’s sole superpower requires the same level of paid maternity benefits as fellow economic powerhouses Swaziland, Lesotho and Papua New Guinea. That is to say, zilch.

Here’s a map of how different countries around the world fund legally required paid maternity benefits. It’s compiled by the United Nation’s International Labor Organization, which has some of the best comparative data on the subject. The pink blotches represent countries where new mothers are on their own and no paid leave is required by law. (Note that Australia is pink because the Aussies added paid parental leave in 2011; the data are from 2009.)

Does this matter? Certainly. Women are now breadwinners for 40% of US families with children under the age of 18. And while it’s true that there is some paid maternity leave in the US—New Jersey, California and Rhode Island have family leave programs that new mothers can use and some well-heeled companies provide it—there’s not much. Just 12% of US workers get paid time off to tend to babies or parents who are ill, reports Bloomberg.

Economists have long noted strong links between family-friendly policies and labor force participation among women. Indeed, in the 1990s, the US had the sixth-highest female labor force participation rate among the 22 nations tracked by the OECD. By 2010, the US ranked 17th. One recent study attributed roughly 30% of this “stunning reversal” to the US’s lack of family-friendly policies, compared with expansion of such policies among other OECD countries.

In the midst of an epoch-making tumble tied to the retirement of the baby boom, the US labor force needs all the workers it can get. And that might mean rethinking its outlier status on benefits for new mothers.

	Courtney shared this story from The ToastThe Toast:
	I kept trying to find a part to pull out and quote but I can't because ALL OF THIS IS PERFECTION. Also, #12 is as close as I ever got.

---

Previously in this series: How To Tell If You Are In A Noel Streatfield Novel.

1. You have one dream, and it is very small, and everyone around you wants to crush it.

2. Your grandest ambition is to open a small school with four chairs and three well-behaved students, and to someday own a vase with a flower in it, and perhaps to have a second dress.

3. You take that part about the second dress back; you dare not fly so close to the sun, lest Icarus-like, your wings are singed.

4. You have just been walking in the rain, and everyone who raised you is dead, and you are glad.

5. A beautiful and shallow woman that you hate is your best friend for reasons you cannot explain. The more she demands your respect and esteem, the more cruelly you withhold it, which drives her wild. She mocks your station in public; you criticize her morals in private. You suspect her of being Catholic. One night you share a bed and have a fever dream together. She marries a terrible man and sends you fat letters stuffed with passion and longing.

6. Someone compares you to a sparrow. Someone compares your best friend to a scarlet-breasted robin. Someone compares the man you secretly love to a hawk or a crow.

7. None of your pupils are interested in Latin. Your pupils are scatterbrained monsters.

8. You have an enemy who claims to love you. You are competent at embroidering, but not accomplished.

9. You draw horrifying shipwrecks and lightning-ruined oak trees in your spare time. You have never danced, not even once, not even in your dreams.

10. You never tell anyone anything.

11. Someone you have never met has died and left you 20 pounds; you are the richest woman in the world and no man is your master now. You quit your soul-crushing job and move into a cottage. The cottage has whitewashed walls and a small chair for you to sit in; you have never dreamed of so much happiness.

12. You went to France once. You didn’t think much of it.

13. Something has been forbidden to you.

14. You know a man with easily excitable features and very dark whiskers. The two of you argue frequently over points of theology and may very well be in love. He handed you a flower once, and you have never forgotten it.

15. You have a terrible violence in your heart.

Read more How To Tell If You Are In A Brontë Novel at The Toast.

“The assumption that work is a passport to dignity and security, that work is what makes life worth living, is so deeply embedded in our culture that it is almost heretical to think otherwise. But the problem isn’t just the lack of work. It’s also the lack of hope. Young people leaving school and university can no longer kid themselves that their future is likely to include a stable place to live, love and get on with growing up, even if they do manage to find paid work.

Here’s what is notably not being said to the young and desperate: you are more than your inability to find a job. Your value to a potential employer is not the sole measure of your worth as a person. If you can find only precarious, exhausting, depressing work, or if you can’t find work at all, that doesn’t mean you are useless, lazy, or a “waste of space”.”

-

To save a generation from despair, it’s not enough to hassle them into low-paying jobs (via moniquill)

An awesome article. One of my favorite quotes:

The British gov­ernment, like many others, is no longer even pretending to care about how or if the next generation gets to thrive. It is demonstrably content to sacrifice its young. That quality is not just spiteful; it is a recipe for social and cultural self-annihilation.

(via madmaudlingoes)

Found this old sketch of Anne Brontë.  Aw, Anne! 

Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Three different teams have modeled the behavior of Antarctica's mighty Pine Island Glacier and concluded that even if the region were to experience much colder conditions, the retreat would continue.

If we f*cked up and our game is broken, you should tell us. I don't ever want to ship a broken product. But stuff like "I hope the idiot people who made this just kill themselves after they kill their family" makes me want to quit my job and move to another industry.

Seattle has a significant advantage playing at home, but not all NFL experts think the Seahawks will win the NFC.

During the regular season, Seattle home games were among the easiest in the NFL to predict. The Seahawks so rarely lost at home that it almost became automatic to pick them to win, regardless of the opponent. However, Arizona did manage to beat the Seahawks at home late in the season, and the 49ers will attempt to repeat that performance on Sunday in the NFC Championship.

While the loss to Arizona proves it can be done, it still isn't easy. Seattle has won 16 of 17 home games with Russell Wilson under center, including its win against New Orleans last week. Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers know first hand how hard it can be to win in Seattle. San Francisco has been an excellent road team in recent seasons, and it's 14-5 on the road since the start of 2012, including the playoffs. Two of those losses, however, are against Seattle. The 49ers lost 29-3 in Seattle this season, and 42-13 at CenturyLink Field last season.

History may not be on the 49ers' side, and the fans certainly won't be, but that doesn't mean Seattle is a lock to win. Seattle didn't play its best football in the final stretch, losing two of its last four regular season games. Additionally, quarterback Russell Wilson hasn't been as effective recently as he was early in the season. That opens the door for the 49ers, and two of SB Nation's NFL experts think the 49ers will take advantage. David Fucillo and Stephen White both predicted the 49ers will win on Sunday. The other four experts picked Seattle.

Game	Ryan Van Bibber	Joel Thorman	Jason Chilton	Stephen White	David Fucillo	Matt Ufford
Seahawks vs. 49ers	Seahawks	Seahawks	Seahawks	49ers	49ers	Seahawks

They weren't the only ones picking San Francisco. While six of the CBS Sports' NFL analysts picked Seattle, two went with San Francisco. That included John Breech, who picked the 49ers to win the Super Bowl before the season. Breech pointed to the two teams' recent level of play as one of the deciding factors:

The argument against picking the 49ers is simple: they've been outscored 71-16 in their last two trips to Seattle. My argument for the 49ers is that they're the hottest team in football and in recent years, the hottest team has been winning the biggest playoff games.

Back in August, I predicted the Seahawks would win the NFC West and that the 49ers would win the Super Bowl because I thought San Francisco could get hot and go into Seattle and steal a win. Well, the 49ers are the hottest team in football with eight wins in a row and I see no reason to go against my Super Bowl pick now. 49ers 20-16 over the Seahawks.

Breech correctly predicted both of San Francisco's playoff wins thus far, but was wrong in picking New Orleans to beat Seattle last week.

Although six of CBS Sports' eight analysts picked Seattle, most expect a very close game. When picking the game against the spread, only one of the eight picked Seattle to cover as the 3.5-point favorite.

More from SB Nation NFL

• SB Nation's 2014 NFL playoff coverage and brackets

• Spencer Hall: Kaepernick, and a helpful guide to hat angles

• NFL plays of the week: A good week for failure

• NFL mock draft: Johnny Football cracks the top 5

• Beast Quake: The greatest TD run in NFL playoff history

• Breaking Madden: Never count out 'Touchdown' Tom Brady

Tactor:

Tactor tries to guess the best action for current text selection. Both matchers and actions are fully customizable.

Tactor’s idea is loosely based on Plan9’s Plumber where any text can potentially be an action, although the actual technical implementation is very different. And it provides functionality somewhat similar to that of Apple Data Detectors in a way that is fully extensible and transparent.

Via Mac OS X Hints.

Voice of America

Danish Tourist Gang-raped, Beating in New Delhi Voice of America A Danish tourist says she was gang-raped, robbed and beaten by a group of men in New Delhi - the Indian capital's latest reported instance of sexual violence against foreign women. The 51-year-old told police the men lured her to a secluded area and ... Indian police say Danish tourist assaulted in another gang-rape caseLos Angeles Times Indian Police Arrest Two in Case of Alleged Gang Rape of Danish TouristWall Street Journal Police arrest two over gang-rape of Danish tourist in DelhiNew Straits Times South China Morning Post -The Globe and Mail -Deccan Herald all 440 news articles »

Delicious

Little is known about the personal life, much less the childhood, of the youthful North Korean despot Kim Jong-un—even his age is a state secret. But in a great new PBS documentary about North Korea, a former classmate of Kim’s during the time that he was sent abroad to Switzerland provides some insight. (Here’s a clip of the interview.)

“Nobody knew why he was here—he just appeared,” the anonymous classmate said. “He was fairly isolated due to the language barrier, this guy was on his own most of the time.”

Kim studied at a public school in Bern, Switzerland for three years, starting in six grade. He used a pseudonym and posed as the son of a Korean diplomat. In a harbinger of his future friendship with ex-NBA star Dennis Rodman, Kim was fond of basketball—a photo of him as a young teenager shows him in a Chicago Bulls jersey and other former classmates have described Kim as competitive and pretty good on the court.

One new insight into Kim is that as a teenager, he had an artistic bent. “He was very good at drawing. You could tell him something to draw and he could just draw it out of memory,” said his classmate, who asked to remain anonymous. A former teacher of Kim’s in Switzerland described Kim as “well-integrated, diligent and ambitious” who quickly learned German and also knew English.

There was little to connect the quiet Korean boy with his true identity as the secret heir to hermit kingdom. But, according to the classmate, Kim Jong-Un could always be seen wearing a Nike tracksuit—a fashion choice his father, Kim Jong-il, famously favored.

Next week, 2,633 of the world’s elite and other guests will descend on Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting. We’ve got the list of participants that was released today.

This year’s conference will bring together 196 academics, 288 government officials, 48 representatives from international organizations, and 2,101 people from the private sector. Only 15% of expected attendees are women, down from 17% last year. (All of the exact numbers can shift slightly in the final days up to the conference, given last-minute cancellations and confirmations.)

Use the interactive tool above to explore the participant list. You can search and sort based on participant name, title, age, nationality, and associated organizations as reported to the forum.

The conference perennially draws politicians, royalty, and business leaders from more than 100 countries to the mile-high town near Austria. Over four days, attendees keep busy inside the venue with official sessions like “The China Context,” “The Neuroscience of Leadership,” and “The Future of Extractives.”

Outside of the official sessions, corporations of all industries try to grab the attention of attendees with courtesy services, gift bags, and parties. The locale leads many to the mountain tops, as well: Davos has six skiable peaks.

Excepting the patent and panic-driven Motorola deal, prior to yesterday’s acquisition of Nest for $3.2 billion, the previous largest deal Google’s history was DoubleClick for $3.1 billion 2006. Beyond the similar dollar figures, it’s a deal worth considering for what it says about Google then and now.

With the acquisition of DoubleClick, Google solidified its hold on online advertising, putting the final touches on one of the most successful business models in tech history. As Horace Dediu has documented, the more people use the Internet, the more money Google makes, and that’s a pretty good wave to be riding. In the succeeding eight years, Google has certainly undertaken any number of initiatives, but the core business of the company hasn’t changed. Still, this has given Google a remarkable amount of freedom to pursue all kinds of businesses, from phone operating systems to residential fiber, with the understanding that as long as it increased Internet penetration, it was good for the bottom line.

Still though, there have been ever-so-perceptible cracks in the armor. Revenue and profit from Google’s own sites have dramatically outpaced revenue and profit from Google AdSense sites, after previously moving in lockstep. Revenue-per-click continues to drop, driving Google to not only try to increase the number of clicks, but also to ramp up their data and profile efforts, in an attempt to increase the value-per-click. Moreover, a surprisingly large amount of Google’s ad revenue is driven by just a few adwords.

Beyond, that, there are two other longer-range concerns with Google’s business model:

• The growth rate in Internet penetration is set to peak in 2016. Were Google’s revenue and profit continues to track Internet penetration, then those metrics would peak as well
• A great number of Internet users today were not raised with computers; it’s fair to question how many of those clicking on Google ads falls in this group. As a new generation comes online, will ads continue to be effective at the scale Google needs them to be? I’m cautiously optimistic that advertising does not inevitably result in a terrible user experience, but there is certainly a point at which it does

In short, if you consider the three business models that are capable of being the foundation of multibillion-dollar businesses – consumer devices, ad-supported consumer services, and business software-as-a-service – Google had just about maximized their potential in the ad-supported consumer services model.

Enter Nest.¹

In my estimation, this deal is not about getting more data to support Google’s advertising model; rather, this is Google’s first true attempt to diversify its business, in this case into consumer devices.

Certainly Google has already done a lot of work in this area, from self-driving cars to Glass to any number of internal projects. But, especially in the consumer market, technology is not nearly enough. With Tony Fadell and his team, Google is getting some of the best product people on earth. Just as importantly – because product is not enough either – they are also getting an entire consumer operation, including customer support, channel expertise, retail partnerships, and all the other pieces that are critical to making a consumer device company successful.

That is why I fully believe Fadell and Google when they say Nest will remain its own operation, and am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt with regards to Nest data. This deal is not about the old Google, but about what is next; it’s a second-leg for the Google stool, and it’s arriving just in time.

---

Some additional notes:

• Apple: Not unexpectedly, many commenters are painting this as a loss for Apple, but I don’t think that’s true at all. I give a lot of credence to this report in Recode that Apple was never interested. Apple has a very simple business: they make personal computers, and they make accessories for computers. Certainly said computers are becoming ever more personal, and the accessories ever more smart, but they have never and, for the foreseeable future, will never be a diversified company. How many times does Tim Cook need to tell us that Apple focuses on just a few products? It’s funny how no one listens.
• Microsoft: This transaction really has nothing to do with Microsoft, which I suppose is all that needs to be said, but it is interesting that this in fact makes Google a “Devices and Services” business. That, famously, is Microsoft’s new strategy, but, in classic Microsoft fashion, the devices they are focusing on are the ones that were groundbreaking half a decade ago, and their services even older.
• Facebook: This transaction has even less to do with Facebook than with Microsoft, except to note that Facebook is where Google was when they acquired DoubleClick. They are just now figuring out how to make money, and will spend the next several years consolidating and growing that business. That’s fine: it’s the natural progression of any company. Maybe in eight years they’ll be buying what’s next.
• Amazon: All of those devices need to be bought somewhere. Oh, and services need to be hosted.² Jeff Bezos is a smart dude.

Previously: Business Models for 2014

1. Sadly, while I had a paragraph in yesterday’s piece on business models devoted to Nest, I left it on the editing room floor
2. Not Google’s, obviously

The post Google’s New Business Model appeared first on stratēchery by Ben Thompson.

bakerstreetbabes:

tookmyskull:

"All I know is that I had a crack at him. I never actually saw him, you know ~~ he was always a few steps ahead and I never actually caught up with him. To be Sherlock is difficult because he is such an elusive pimpernel. Maybe I got one or two things right. But Sherlock is evergreen. He is one of the most elusive, intellectual geniuses who has ever been written about. Men find him fascinating because he is so self contained and totally in control, while women see him as a challenge: they want to break that icy demeanor and reveal the real emotion beneath. Of course SH has a feminine side too ~~ the intuitive quality which is part of his magic. Bless his heart, he’s streets ahead of us all."

~~ Jeremy Brett

Disgruntled cabbies slash tires, break windows and teach a capitalist lesson: The workers always get screwed

Gawker Utah Man Can Finally Dump Wife and Children By Going To Mars | Jalopnik The Ten Worst Cars Ever Revealed At The Detroit Auto Show| Jezebel Forget Dinosaur Erotica: It's All About Bigfoot Erotica Now | Kotaku The Rarest Video Game In The World | Valleywag Will This Video Convince You To Work at a Failing Startup?

Read more...

CNN

Justin Bieber bust could mean jail time, deportation if convicted Fox News It's crazy to think that Justin was discovered on the Internet from homemade videos that his mom posted. These days the Canadian singer has millions of fans worldwide and causes a commotion wherever he goes. Let's take a look back at his rise to the top, ... Bieber BFF Lil Za picks up another felony charge while in custodyLos Angeles Times Justin Bieber pal Lil Za says he's 'fine' after arrests following egging-related raidNew York Daily News Could Lil Za Face Jail Time After Drug Bust At Bieber's House?MTV.com KpopStarz -Cinema Blend -TheUrbanTwist.com all 290 news articles »