According to the New York Times. Over the last six decades, the real incomes of middle-class families grew twice as fast under Democratic presidents as they did under Republican presidents. The real incomes of working-poor families grew six times as fast under Democratic presidents. [via]
The incomes of affluent families were relatively impervious to partisan politics, growing robustly under Democrats and Republicans alike.
Ars Technica: A new way to think about data encryption: two-level keys
Current encryption methods are far from perfect—a fact highlighted by the numerous data security breaches that have occurred over the past few years. Technological limitations in the “trusted server” model for encryption and psychological barriers hinder the robust protection of data. A trio of computer science researchers has set out to simplify encryption systems. Their research, which began in 2005, has led to a novel encryption system that they term “functional encryption” greatly simplifies the problem of key complexity.
In a functional encryption system, keys are personalized and only one is needed for a person to gain access to all the data that should be available to them. In addition to simplifying the key process, this idea allows users—with proper access rights—to search encrypted volumes for specific information.
For the mathematically inclined the published research paper.
“go to work, send your kids to school
follow fashion, act normal
walk on the pavements, watch T.V.
save for your old age, obey the law
Repeat after me: I am free”
Pupils posing as paedophiles in cyber-bullying, police warn [via]
Children as young as 10 may be posing as predatory paedophiles on internet networking sites to frighten boys and girls they have fallen out with, police revealed yesterday. Officers have warned parents and children to be vigilant after as many as nine youngsters in Padstow, Cornwall, were targeted through the networking sites Bebo and MSN.
Seems inevitable to me that something like this would happen given the British tabloids obsession with the threat of paedophiles to the nation’s children that kids would pick up on this and use the fear of paedophiles as a way to scare and bully their victims.
The Sunday Times have published the 2008 edition of their annual Rich List. The full list of the 1000 wealthiest people in Britain is not online yet but they have published a list of the top 150 (pdf). So now you’re richer than Croesus what do you spend your wealth on?
Not apparently on Updown Court the most expensive house in Britain, which despite being a very reasonable GBP 70 million is still unsold since going on the market in 2005. And not on prostitutes if they have learned the lesson from last year’s exposé of the Duke of Westminster.
Or how about a USD 300 000 watch that doesn’t tell time?
As a kid who had come to realize that he was a geek I so wanted to grow up to be the Val Kilmer character in this movie. Cool and intelligent as hell.
