New Scientist magazine reveals that the National Security Agency is funding research into how to add information from social networking site MySpace listings to profiles of individuals garnered from banking, retail and property records. As detailed in a footnote to a paper entitled Semantic Analytics on Social Networks, data from online social networks and other databases can be combined to uncover facts about people. The footnote said the work was part-funded by an organization known as ARDA, which stands for Advanced Research Development Activity.

Published in January by the Congressional Research Service, a report named Data Mining and Homeland Security, noted that part of ARDA's role is to promote integration of heretofore format-incompatible data sets about people- data sets that could be combined to generate more complete profiles of individuals under suspicion for potential terrorist links. To facilitate this integration, research is believed to be underway on Ressource Description Framework, a way of tagging data in a way that will promote more common uniformity with other data.

"By adding online social networking data to its phone analyses, the NSA could connect people at deeper levels, through shared activities, such as taking flying lessons," writes article author Paul Marks. Complete integration of such databases with phone calling records now believed to be in the possession of the NSA could be utilized in this manner: Calls from say, Pakistan to the U.S. could be data-mined, and if the recipients of those calls (identified from their phone numbers) called several other numbers within a few hours after receiving those calls from Pakistan, those other numbers could be checked for suspected terrorist links. And with a list handy of those who have been called available, it wouldn't take much to go to MySpace (or an archived MySpace repository), and search for MySpace users who have posted personally identifiable information that would indicate the need to explore their backgrounds further. Information such as the "flying lessons" example Marks writes about.

I'll do you one better. I believe that computer facial matching software will soon advance to the point where photos stored on NSA computers of terrorist suspects could then be mapped for similarities to photos on MySpace and other social networking sites.

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The Toughest Guard Cat In New Jersey

Now this is what we call a true watch-cat. A black bear wandered into the back yard of a New Jersey family, but was chased up a tree by the family's orange tabby cat.

The unwelcome intruder was forced up a tree - twice - by the family pet, a tabby cat called Jack. The terrified bear was only able to make its escape when owner Donna Dickey called the hissing cat into the house. Ms Dickey said Jack liked to keep a close watch on his territory and often chased away small animals, but one of this size was a first.

"We used to joke, 'Jack's on duty', never knowing he'd go after a bear," Donna Dickey told local newspaper The Star-Ledger. "He doesn't want anybody in his yard," she added. The bear was first spotted in the tree by neighbours who thought the 15lb (7kg) cat was just looking up at it. They then realised the bear was afraid of the cat. After some 15 minutes, the bear descended, but was chased up another tree, before finally making its escape when Jack was called indoors.

Jack: he's 15lbs of sheer intimidation.

Posted on June 10, 2006
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The Littlest Dinosaurs

German scientists have discovered a species of dinosaurs that was really tiny compared to their gigantic cousins.

When you think dinosaurs, you think big. But German scientists say they've discovered a species that evolved into a dwarf, ending up only about one-third the size of its closest known relatives. The fossils were of a four-legged plant-eater that was no lap dog: It measured about 20 feet from its snout to the tip of its long tail and it weighed about a ton. But next to its close evolutionary cousin Camarasaurus, a well-known beast that stretched some 59 feet long, this guy was a runt.

What happened? The researchers say it's a case of island dwarfism, the tendency of big species to shrink over time when they find themselves on an island. It's well-known among mammals, as with fossil elephants only about 3 feet tall found in Sicily and elsewhere. Scientists think that in an environment of limited resources, smaller body size becomes an advantage, and so captive populations shrink in body size over long periods of time.

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Sander, who specializes in the microscopic structure of bone, got his first look at the fossils in 2003 after an amateur bone-hunter found them in a quarry. Sander and other scientists initially thought they were from juvenile animals, but details of the bone structure showed they came from adults. Eventually the scientists realized they had remains from more than 11 animals of varying ages, including at least one fully grown adult. The bone analysis also showed that Europasaurus grew more slowly than bigger dinosaurs. Its small size was a normal growth pattern for the species and not the result of disease, Sander said.

That has been a point of contention in trying to explain the so-called hobbits of Indonesia, fossil remains that have been interpreted as revealing that a dwarf species of humans lived on a remote island thousands of years ago. Mark Norell, a dinosaur expert at the American Museum of Natural History, said island dwarfism had been talked about for the hobbits and many animals, and "to find it in dinosaurs is pretty neat."

We agree, Europasaurus is pretty neat.

Posted on June 8, 2006
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Hello Sues Over Shiloh Nouvel Pics

What a mess. Hello magazine now says it will sue all websites that ran the leaked first pictures of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's baby.

The photo "has been obtained totally illegally," said the magazine's features editor, Juliette Herd. Jolie and Pitt sold the photos through picture agency Getty, with all proceeds going to charity. Both Hello! and Getty say they will seek damages from any internet sites which reproduce the picture.

The leaked photo first surfaced on US gossip blogs Oh No They Didn't and Defamer on Wednesday. Several sites have already removed the picture, which shows Jolie lying beside her sleeping daughter while Pitt looks on from the side.

At a press conference in Namibia where the couple is currently based, Pitt and Jolie told reporters they had no plans to marry. "There is nothing in the air. The focus is the kids, and we are obviously extremely committed to the children and as parents together," Jolie told a news conference for local journalists at a hotel in the Namibian coastal town of Swakopmund. "So that kind of says it for us, and to have a ceremony on top of it is nothing."

The leaked image contains Hello! magazine's logo, suggesting the picture comes from the publication's cover. The publishers say they have yet to discover the source of the leak. "It's a complete mystery," said Ms Herd. "And we are very concerned at this breach of copyright".

Oh please. The photo of the cover appeared on Hello's own website and was immediately picked up by celebrity gossip sites all over the Internet. It had to have been someone at Hello -- they don't seem to be claiming that someone hacked them. Hello (which most people in the U.S. haven't even heard of) has gotten an amazing amount of publicity over this. It's People magazine who really got the short end of the stick here -- they're out $4.1. But they still have some more photos to run that people haven't seen yet, so all is not lost.

This is what happens when there is a bidding war for a photo of a newborn. It's ridiculous, really. Gwyneth Paltrow did it right: she just walked into the park and let all the paparazzi take pictures of baby Moses, thereby devaluing the photos. Sure the Jolie-Pitt baby photo money is supposedly going to charity, but what does it say about our culture when people are in hysterics over what a newborn child looks like? Nothing good, that's for sure.

Posted on June 7, 2006
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The Great Shiloh Nouvel Photo Controversy

Gawker.com is holding firm and refusing to pull from its site the cover of Hello magazine which shows Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and new daughter Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. Apparently, Hello leaked the cover on its website early this morning whereupon Gawker, PerezHilton.com and several other websites immediately republishied the photos.

As you might recall, People magazine bid $4.1 million for U.S. rights to the photos and in Hello! paid $3.5 million for the U.K. rights. Because People is owned by Time Warner, Warner's attorneys threatened everyone who posted the pictures and everyone took them down, except Gawker. They're hanging tough and as of this afternoon, they are still online with a working server. But we'll see if Time Warner accosts a federal judge during the middle of cocktail hour and convinces him to sign a TRO.

Will Gawker cave? Are those really baby Shiloh's natural lips? Is Shiloh really wearing a skull t-shirt? Why does Brad Pitt have a gold wedding band on the third finger of his right hand? Stay tuned...

Posted on June 6, 2006
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Google, Microsoft And the Spreadsheet

Google and Microsoft announced that they have teamed up to make entering spreadsheets a web-based application.

Google Inc. is going back to the future by reinventing the spreadsheet as a Web-based application, seeking a simpler on-ramp for consumers to input data into databases, the company said on Monday.

The Web search leader will begin a limited trial on Tuesday of the classic software application defined by its grid of rows and columns and simple calculating capabilities that allow users to enter and organize information in structured form.

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Google Spreadsheet relies on technology the company acquired from a small Wall Street software developer it bought last year called 2Web Technologies, which in 2004 introduced tools to convert Microsoft Excel spreadsheets into Web services. "What is missing is the ability to share data more easily," Rochelle said. Users can sort data and take advantage of 200 functions and common spreadsheet formulas for doing basic calculations of numerical data. Google is working on improving printing, charts, filtering and "drag and drop" features, he said.

Rochelle said his company would be studying how much demand there is for Google Spreadsheet to work with Google Base, an online database service that allows Google users to post various types of information online. "Databases in themselves are really hard to program," said Charlene Li, an Internet analyst with Forrester Research. "What people use spreadsheets for is low-end databases," she said. Google Base is viewed by analysts as a stepping stone into the classified advertising or e-commerce markets, by helping users feature relevant information on Google's main search index, the Froogle shopping site and Google Local search.

It's so easy. You just enter all your personal medical, tax and financial information into an Excel spreadsheet and upload it to the Web. What could possibly go wrong?

Posted on June 5, 2006
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The Pasadena Chalk Festival

The 2006 Pasadena Chalk Festival, the world's largest street painting festival, is approaching. This year's festival will be held on June 17-18 in Paseo, Colorado. At the festival hundreds of artists will use 25,000 sticks of pastel chalk to draw murals on a stretch of pavement that covers two city blocks. The photograph on the right is one of the murals that was created at last year's festival, which was called the Absolut Chalk Festival. You can see several more photographs on the Pasadena Chalk Festival's website. There are also some great pictures here on Flickr. The festival is a free-of-charge public art event. Last year they had over 70,000 visitors.

Posted on June 3, 2006
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Mariah's Carey's $1 Billion Legs

Mariah Carey has insured her legs for $1 billion.

Reports indicate that songstress Mariah Carey, who has seen her career revive with the success of her latest album "The Emancipation of Mimi," has insured her famous legs for over $1 billion. The singer has signed up to front Gillette's Legs Of A Goddess campaign, according to the Daily Mirror.

A source close to the 36-year-old reveals: "The sum reflects her popularity. "She's about to start a US tour and she'll have to be careful."

We hope she doesn't cut herself shaving with her Gillette razor -- that could be very expensive.

Posted on June 1, 2006
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