Health & Lifestyle

Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook in 2004. Now, just 17 years later, this 32-year-old billionaire is ready to give it all up (Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook in 2004, barely 20 years old.)? Why? According to those closest to the developer, Zuckerberg is disgusted with the way the public has used and abused the platform.

(ET, Tuesday, March 14, 2017) And when it comes to using the platform he created to bully or disparage others, Zuckerberg is completely disgusted. "He hates the way some users utilize the platform to bring others down or even to circulate false accounts of events or history."

Someone who DID quit Facebook: "Why I'm quitting Facebook, By Douglas Rushkoff, CNN"

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Photo courtesy Entertainment Today

What an amazing true story and happy healthy granny!
"* Kung Fu keeps Zhang in good health and in tip-top shape:
she has never been to the hospital – and never takes vitamins or supplements.
* Kung Fu has also earned Zhang the title of best cook in her village
because of her ability to do large-pot cooking with her strong arms -
once cooked 52 dishes for a single banquet, all by herself."

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February 21, 2017
Zhang began learning Kung Fu from her father at the age of 4 and has not stopped practicing her skills.
The face of strength and protection in a province of southeast China has a bamboo stick in her hand and 90 years of Kung Fu experience under her belt.

Zhang Hexian, 94, has been protecting the members of her village and fighting injustice for decades and has recently become a star on Chinese social media.

After photos and videos of the “Kung Fu Granny” practicing her craft surfaced on the Internet, stereotypes of inactive old women took a punch.

Kung Fu keeps Zhang in good health and in tip-top shape. According to her son, Feng Chuanyin, she has never been to the hospital – and never takes vitamins or supplements.

Zhang began learning Kung Fu from her father at the age of 4 and has not stopped practicing her skills. She has even become quite the teacher herself, according to her students in Zhejiang Province who called her “wing-footed.”  read more »

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18 Jan 2017
Tourists Flee 'Nightmare' Paris Amidst Rising Theft, Assaults... Paris' regional tourism office last year reported a slump in visitor numbers to the city. Rising violence and aggression account for the drop. President of the Chinese Association of Travel Agencies in France, Jean-François Zhou, said "increasingly violent” thefts and assaults are turning France into "one of the worst destinations for foreign tourists." In 2016, there were 1.6 million Chinese tourists compared to 2.2 million in 2015. The number of Japanese tourists dropped 39 percent and Koreans 27 per cent."

18 Jan 2017
A lone wolf was spotted prowling just 200 miles from Paris - when an expert was quick to point out that they can cover 300 miles in a DAY on foot. French told not to fear wolves roaming Paris streets as 'they only eat four-legged animals.'
Parisians are frightened that the endangered beasts are now within howling distance of the capital and can't be stopped.

Only lone wolves have been spotted so far wandering its streets. Experts and eyewitnesses claim they are freely roaming French 'departments' (an administrative district) of Yvelines and Essone in Île-de-France - which overlaps with the Paris metropolitan area in the south and west - at night.

Warnings were first made last year when a lone wolf was spotted prowling just 200 miles from Paris - when an expert was quick to point out that they can cover 300 miles in a DAY on foot.

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Jan. 01, 2014
PALM BEACH, Fla. President-elect Donald Trump says that "no computer is safe" when it comes to keeping information private, expressing new skepticism about the security of online communications his administration is likely to use for everything from day-to-day planning to international relations.

Trump rarely uses email or computers, despite his frequent tweeting.

"You know, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier, the old-fashioned way. Because I'll tell you what: No computer is safe," Trump told reporters during his annual New Year's Eve bash. "I don't care what they say."

Today's self-driving cars rely on spinning sensors called lidar that can cost more than $10,000 each. But it took Jonathan Petit just $43 and a laser pointer to confuse and defeat them.

"Anybody can go online and get access to this, buy it really quickly, and just assemble it, and there you go, you have a device that can spoof lidar," Petit, a cybersecurity expert, told Business Insider.

One of the first researchers to show how easy it is to hack self-driving cars' sensors, he was able to trick a sensor into thinking objects were there when they weren't, and vice versa.  read more »

*NEW release*
Two Steps Wiser - World Culture Pictorial Online Journal Vol. 02
by Dean Goodluck
Available via Apple iBookstore/iTunes and Kobo eBooks.

Happy New Year!

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Dec 28, 2016
open a bank account in just 8 minutes? you can lose it even faster - smartphone-only bank N26 German fintech company N26, which made its name mocking traditional banks, has found itself on the receiving end of criticism after a security researcher proved its smartphone apps exposed users to potential account hijacking.

N26, previously known as Number26, has expanded rapidly since it launched in early 2015 as a smartphone-only bank with no local branches, with the backing of major global investors including Silicon Valley's Peter Thiel.

Vincent Haupert, a research fellow and PhD student in the computer science department of the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg, told the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg how he and two colleagues found N26 security defenses riddled with holes that could have been used to defraud thousands of users.

"They say you can open a bank account in just eight minutes," Haupert said. "As it turns out, you can lose it even faster." In a statement, N26 thanked Haupert for alerting the company to "a theoretical security vulnerability" and advising it on fixes, which N26 said it completed this month.

N26 offers a range of online banking and other financial services to 200,000 customers in 17 European countries through a banking license granted earlier this year by German financial regulator Bafin. N26 executives have been the most outspoken among new fintech players in arguing traditional banks are failing to serve customers more directly by relying on antiquated local branch relationships instead of modern, phone-based services.

"I don't see banks at all as my competitors. They just can't move fast enough," N26 Chief Executive Valentin Stalf told Reuters last year.  read more »