text:
5-inch 1080p, 440ppi Android phones coming to the U.S., blowing past iPhone 5 Retina display
HTC is showing off the Verizon Droid DNA today at the special event in New York City, and the big news -- the HUGE news -- is the size and density of their display: a 5-inch fully 1920x1080p at a positively pornographic 440ppi. HTC has always loved pushing the envelop when it comes to specs, and this is obviously no exception. Back when Apple launched the iPhone 4 with Retina display, its 960x640 at 326ppi screen was well beyond anything else on the market, and it stayed that way for a long time. Even with the iPhone 5's 1136x640, still 326ppi screen, HTC is now far, far ahead.
If Apple wants to once again take the screen density crown, and keep app compatibility the same way they did when they went to @2x pixel-doubled Retina, they'd have to switch to @4X pixel-quadrupled super-Retina. That'd be 2272x1280, and unless they increase the physical size of the display, an even more ludicrous 652ppi.
Powering a display that big for any length of time is non trivial as well. The iPad 4's 2048x1536, 264 ppi Retina display required an increase in thickness and weight and a battery that wouldn't be out of place on a laptop. The iPad mini couldn't be made with Retina display.
Here's what those displays do and would look like, both in terms of pixel count and density and physical scale (44x44 pixel grid overlay). From left to right, iPhone 5 (purple), Droid DNA (green), iPad 4 (blue), theoretical iPhone @4x (red).
HTC is using a 2020 mAH battery to power the 141 x 70.5 x 9.73 mm, 138 grams Droid DNA. Apple, by contrast, is using a 1440 mAH battery, for 123.8 mm x 58.6 mm x 7.6 mm, 112 gram iPhone 5. However, the Droid DNA is using the same processor as the Nexus 4, a 1.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 APQ8064 and MDM9615m, despite pushing 1920x1080 rather than 1280x768. It'll be interesting to see what that does for performance, since Apple's Retina devices always seem to take a performance hit for the first generation, and that's usually with all new (Apple A4) or beefed up (Apple A5X) processors.
Apple's priorities seem to be on making thinner, lighter, better devices, not bigger or denser ones, so this might well be a battle Apple is happy to sit out. Arguably, any increase in density beyond 300 ppi is lost on most human eyes anyway. Just like cameras, where better sensors are a smarter play than more megapixels, we might be hitting diminishing returns when it comes to displays.
Still, for people who want the biggest, densest phone screens possible, with the HTC Droid DNA on Verizon, there's a new monolith in town.
Mobile Nations' Phil Nickinson was at the Verizon event today, make sure you check out his full HTC Droid DNA hands-on.
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Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.
That is impressive!!
It just highlight the stupidity of the Spex Wars on andrOS, where manufacturer are killing each other with specs... this is end of the life cycle of many previously hyped androphones like GS III... now Samskunk have to come with something better to stay at the top of the food chain... and so on...its a looser game ... too bad for any andro-producer... as they can't get their's investments back... too bad for any andro-user.... if he bought one before the NEWEST arrival .. so he only could enjoy the hype for sometimes just a few days.... that's why APPLE chose not to participate in Spex WARS... DUDES
How is this the end of the S3? The S3 is still the phone to get if you want a phone with a Micro SD Card, Removable battery, and decently fast updates. Every Flagship Android Phone has something to offer over its competition (even the iPhone). The S3 for reasons I said, the One X because its the best phone on the Market for $100 on contract, the Note for being huge, and this for being the phone with the best display. Its about choices.
but there is always just one Flagship androphone at the time...DUDE... which every androfreak wants... to show off an flash around.. just as long until the NEXT one hits the road which isn't very long those days....its not just about choices... but also about money...specially on andrOS
I'm an Appple fan, but what's up with the DUDE all the time and broken English. You make us apple people look like uneducated idiots
Regarding batteries Rene, I think you mean 2020 mAh and 1440 mAh, and not "14,40" or "mAH".
Now if i could only get an affordable 300 DPI or 400 DPI monitor for my computer and by affordable i mean less than $300 USD.
Can the human eye discern the difference between 326ppi vs 440ppi? meh.
yes. depends on how close you hold the phone to your face. so it could be useful to some people, maybe. i doubt it would be for you or me or most people but for people holding the phone really close to watch a movie or something it might make a difference.
I think this will basically pull up the "our specs are better" fight that will try to make Apple seem ancient going forward, even though pushing that sort of resolution for the MAJORITY of the people on this planet makes no sense. Honestly I still believe 1080p is overkill for a large part of the population. It's still barely noticeable unless you have a significantly larger tv (over 50ish inches) and sit much closer to the TV. Hell, I just watched a SD movie on my 47" TV a about 12' and while it wasn't as clear as something in HD, but it's still more than acceptable. Moving to 720p/1080p, it would be hard to tell the difference at any significant distance.
There is a significant difference between 720p and 1080p all of the time. It doesn't just kick in when you have a larger TV. I sell TVs large and small and it is easy to tell the difference between a 720p picture and a 1080p picture. It is far from overkill.
It ONLY matters when you are at a specific distance from the TV. Someone buying a 42" TV for their living room, when they are 10+ feet away would not need a 1080p set. The eyes aren't able to perceive the difference. Now I am not discussing compression. But if you took a blu ray 1080p disc on a 720p and 10800 equivalent tv at beyond the distance in the chart I've included, the distance ISN'T noticable. Anyone who says it is apparently is trying to just sell TVs. http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.html Most people sit at LEAST 8-10' from their tv. At that point, the only important thing is the quality of the panel ( contrast, color, refresh, etc). For the majority of the population you could swap out 1080p sets and toss in a 720p of equal quality and the difference would be only mildly perceptible. It's not just a theory.
If you cant tell the difference its only because 720p and 1080p are both shit resolutions. If you had a 4k tv I promise that you would be able to see the difference.
If it was a 40ish", I'm sure then picture would LOOK nicer, lots nicer, but the extra detail would still be lost at the varying distances noted above. The whole thing with 4k is putting it into gargantuan 80+" TVs, where at any point you sit, it'll look amazing. But the most commonly sold TV sized right now are still 50" and under. Maybe 5 years from now, 4k will be in our price range and it might be worth upgrading to, but I think 1080p is going to be around for a while still, especially if we are just NOW getting HD streaming as the norm, and even then bandwidth caps are killing people who want to watch a few shows here and there. Trust me I like 4k, I think it's the future, but it has to be incredibly competitive with its pricing, as people are now buying other tech like tablets and such which reduces their spending for TVs and such. Anyway, there's no doubt an 85" 4k TV would blow the ass off of Kim kardashian, but it wouldn't make sense to start selling 40ish" TVs at that resolution unless you're using it as a computer monitor, or live somewhere with a minute room that puts a TV 6' in front of you.
My guess is that it would be a striking difference. Besides, this is where Apple is headed with the iphone. I wouldn't complain.
I didnt think so and I own the rMBP, retina iPad, and iPhone 4s (soon to be iPhone 5 since Verizon announced us mere employees could order it) anyways I had a chance to look at this impressive DNA and I have to say I dont care who you are one can easily see almost 25% more pixels on a display. Is it a huge jump over the iPhone? Why yes it kind of is. It almost looked like a sticker at first it really was impressive. It also didn't feel that it took a huge hit on performance but then again we havent given the new Snapdragon S4 a run yet so we will see. However the iPhone 5 (and even 4s) was much smoother, but then again iOS always has been. Anyways I thought I would share what I saw. It is a nice phone and very thin and light and I congratulate HTC on this device. Not to mention Verizon just announced an employee edition for $99. Does that mean I will pick one up and back to the Android camp? Well, no. I have to say it was much too big for my liking and I like a smaller phone, a little bigger tablet (although the Mini is nice just wish it had the better display), and smaller(isn) laptop. I'm happy with the displays on Apple's current lineup and although it looks nice I would rather have the great ppi and better performance from the iPhone 5 than this DNA.
precisely! The human Eye can't!
useless, its cool but useless. you already cant see the pixels on an iphone at normal viewing distance. why increasing it even more? only costing more and draining the battery faster. its impressive though
It's the only way Apple can increase the size while maintaining retina standards. You don't think it will remain at 4" do you? Just don't remind Apple of the "Thumbs" commercial later.
What good does that resolution screen do other than a) require bigger images meaning fatter apps b) eats more battery, RAM and CPU cycles? This is clearly a feature that doesn't solve a problem unless bionic eyes are on the horizon.
At some point we have to step back and say "it's just a phone."
Let me get this straight. The human eye will not be able to tell the difference and yet there is a need for Apple to go there because another manufacturer wants their amps to go up 11. Makes perfect sense to abandon an operating model and rush in to this without thinking.
Did u read the article? Read the second to last paragraph dude.
"Apple's priorities seem to be on making thinner, lighter, BETTER devices, not bigger or denser ones, so this might well be a battle Apple is happy to sit out." Why did you find it necessary to include the subjective word, "better," in that otherwise objective list of Apple's engineering priorities? Oh, wait, I know why... derp.
" 5-inch fully 1920x1080p at a positively pornographic 440ppi" So, we've discovered what the primary use for all of these big screens is for?
"Positively pornographic 440ppi"
I agree with this proper use :))
Lmao! :-)
*shudder* I'm sorry, but I honestly believe even just super HD porn is unnecessary. Most people, even porn stars, are at from perfect. And imperfections in those special areas are so astronomically horrific that they should be seen by no one.
Bite your tongue.......I have NO imperfections!
Where is the like button when you need it? ((:
this article's assessment is silly. the fact that its a full 1080p display, with the power to back it up, and only 5 inchs is amazing, but acting like this is a threat to apple is dumb. at this point people are locked into apple's or google's eco system and no one can deny apple makes great hardware. (although since jobs died seems products are more rushed) people on android have a lot of competition, this will be a big winner. i will say this though, the battery and storage are a concern.
Yawn I don't need a ridiculous about of PPI on a small device. What I need is 4K resolution across a large display. The limitations of 1920 x 1080 are becoming more and more apparent.
Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't the icons and ui need to be adjusted to accommodate the higher density? Unless Android is using vectors for all the icons and ui, how would the increased density be aesthetically pleasing for anything other than movies?
Launcher icons only go upto xhdpi (320 dpi), so after that they will need to scale up if htc wanted them physically larger.
Most phone now adays have higher resolution and ppi than the i5. Lumia 920, GSIII, 8X, now this.
Your wrong they do not have higher PPI than the retina display. Higher overall resolution? Yes, but not higher PPI. The only phone that previously had more was the HTC rezound I believe ..
It's all well and good to keep increasing size to get the specs into the phone that you want. But point of fact is, many of us would prefer a smaller device while continually increasing performance and usability. Apple recognizes this. Better to keep a mobile computing device mobile and then pair it with a tablet if needed, rather than making your mobile device approach tablet like proportions, essentially losing the "mobile" moniker in the meantime.
Then those who want a smaller phone can simply go buy one. That's why small phones like the Motorola RAZR i exist.
I wouldn't argue against it too much Rene. Your super retina is where Apple is headed with the iphone 6 hopefully now that the move to 16:9 is done. No doubt the quality is better. It remains to be seen how it will look in comparison. I imagine this is when Apple can freely increase size without worry of losing "retina." It would be surprising to see HTC accomplish this without a performance hit with android. It's probably lag city.
No lag on Jelly Bean.
No I actually disagree on Apple ever making a 1080p screen, or that this DNA is a spectacular product. http://modernprodigy.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html
To each his own. But I can't imagine Apple not doing this.
This is like the megapixel race in pocket sized cameras with quarter inch lenses. It doesn't matter at this point
I'm amazed by the size and density. But I really hope apple sits this out. I don't want a phablet. I don't want a phone I can't EASILY hold and use with one hand. HTC screens a beautiful I just wish the rest of the phone was as good as the screen in all cases. I want a phone that just works with a lot of apps so apple please stay focused on that fight.
I'd guess Apple finally makes more than one version when they hit super retina. You'll still have your 4" iphone. But unless they double the res, they're stuck at that size. At least it's at a better aspect ratio for increasing size now. But just as we have ipad mini that reaches down, we'll see a big iphone eventually that reaches across and tries to appeal to the bigger screen crowd. They have no choice. The iphone is their most important product.
Doesn't matter how high res the display is if there's still crappy software running on it.
Jelly Bean is not crappy software. It is as smooth as silk. Android has come a long way.
Or rather, some Android hardware has become fast enough to run Android smoothly.
But not this hardware.
I'm sure the S4 Pro can handle this pretty easily. The problem is battery life. I dont see this phone having the battery life of the S3 or Note 2.
Not crappy, for sure, but smooth as silk? Really? Pretty raw silk on my Nexus 7, even with its quad core. Android has indeed come a long way, but has a ways to go.
As I said, smooth as silk. Just as smooth as IOS. And I have both, so I speak from experience.
We are definitely NOT hitting diminishing returns when it comes to displays, maybe mobile displays yeah but nowhere near on computer and larger displays. I thought by now we'd start seeing "Retina" displays coming our way, it's been two years since the iPhone 4 has been out (actually two-years and a half) and we're still nowhere near that. Retina on a larger display would be a dream come true. It's apparently already cheap to make on a variety of small devices to large tablets, so why can't they push the envelope and push it in the right way, make retina display LCD (or LED for that matter) computer displays?
I would love the option for a screen bigger than 4in. One handed use is irrelevant to me as I use my current phone 2 hands regardless, unless I'm swiping through screens. If I could have the G Note 2 running iOS, I'd have it made in the shade!
"Any increase in density beyond 300 ppi is lost on most human eyes anyway." Yes but when 325ppi was new, OMG best in the world!!!!! Now, its not that big of a deal right....... Why can we all just get along, the war is pointless.
Apple doesn't have to double pixel density again to catch up.
They could simply use triple the density of the original iPhone instead of the current double density.
let the games begin!!!
Added diagrams, and something on the processor. The Droid DNA has the same proc as the Nexus 4, but it's running 1080p rather than 720p. Be interesting to see how the performance works out.
Hilarious. This will give the droid fans something to crow about. They *do* get hung up on specs, after all.
As do iOS fans. There's a reason why many aren't buying an ipad Mini.
ya...androfreax are very spex-hungry duds.... but major they love to SHOW OFF
first of all HTC has no problem pushing the envelope with things like LTE or 1080P screens but that is because they have no problem with releasing a product with a crap design and crap battery life. 440ppi or 320ppi what do I care if my eye can't perceive a difference anyway? If HTC cared about battery life I am sure they would not be releasing this product but instead it will be terrible and even so no one will care in the press because they will all be focusing on apple leaving a screw exposed on the bottom of their phone and how hideous it looks
If the eyes can't tell the difference then why are all of the early reviews raving about how beautiful the display is? Shouldn't they be saying "Sure it's big but it looks no better than the iPhone." Retina is marketing jargon folks. Your eyes will very likely be able to tell the difference in quality regardless of what Apple tells you. I can't wait to check for myself in person to find out how it compares to my S3 and my work iPhone5. Cheers.
I heard Rene say many times that the reason the ipad mini doesn't have a retina display is because it would increase the size and cost. But I have to disagree, over the past week I have gone to local stores to see the seven inch competition to the mini and they have far better screen resolution yet still have thin form factors and reasonable prices. It's sad but apple is trying to keep people looking forward to they're future products by withholding features that arguably are here now. Just look at the nook hd, nexus 10 and those displays. I guess im still peeved about apples choice to leave out the retina on the mini. Its a step backwards for apple to shrink an ipad 2. Btw I really enjoy the imore podcasts.
440 ppi iPad mini would be sweet :)... I can dream
440 ppi doesn't make the screen better. The whole idea over the retina display is that you will not be able to see the pixels at the normal distance. So I believe the Droid DNA is and the iPhone 5 are pretty much the same. And there will be more repercussions with the display on the DNA. http://modernprodigy.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html will give you more info.
Tell that to the people who compared it to 720p screens like the One X and said it looked better. This screen is better then the iPhone 5, and if you doubt that you are an idiot. With that said, the superior screen on the DNA doesnt necessarily make it better then the iPhone 5. But don't talk as if you KNOW there will be other problems on the device, because YOU haven't used it yet.
Anyway, the fact they could get such amazing hardware at the same price as the iPhone and S3 is amazing to me though.
That is because you are simple minded. Comparing a 720p screen to the One X is ridiculous. The One X has a high resolution display, similar to the DNA, and comparing it to something not retina doesn't count (well, maybe depends on the screen). But, since you can look at a Retina Display screen and not see the pixels, in theory, It'll make no difference. And I have had time to look at it seems my claims have been almost right. The screen is a little bulky, but not bulky to complain about. And the one I tried was slow, compared to other phones, and I didn't have a good experience.
Unless HTC can make a use case for 440 DPI, this smells like differentiation desperation. 5 inches okay -- and I'd even have a use for 2560x1440 output, when eventually available -- but I'd rather have longer battery life or faster speed (always a good thing on Android) than the densest display on my block.
This is amazing... when Apple has a feature or capability other devices don't have the Apple fans use that fact to proclaim that Apple device is the best thing ever! Then when another device has something the Apple device doesn't have... the Apple fans proclaim "WELL WHO NEEDS THAT FEATURE ANYWAYS??? THAT'S JUST SILLY!" LOL *rolleyes*
Haha, that's a good one, and I would agree with you.
While this is interesting, I don't think it's necessary to have such a high DPI...Beyond 300 or so, the eye cannot discern pixels at the length people are holding their phones from their faces. Not to mention the battery drain that such a high resolution display will entail...
Do you know for a fact how this device performs in regards to battery life?
Looking for cheap <a href="http://uk.mobileandfun.com/mobile-phones/shop-by-features/android-phones... Android Phones </a>
? You need quality and cheap prices, we are the right place.
I think it is achievable for the next iPhone. If it is true that the next iPhone will have appropriately 5 inches, with a 4x resolution of 2272x1280, the screen will be a 522ppi. I think it is a great number for a coming Super-Retina Display :)


text:
|A picture of the Global Hawk UAV that returned from the war zone
on Monday under its own power. (Iraq to Edwards AFB in CA) - Not
transported via C5 or C17..... Notice the mission paintings on the
fuselage. It's actually over 250 missions.... (and I would suppose
25 air medals). That's a long way for a remotely-piloted aircraft.
Think of the technology (and the required quality of the data link
to fly it remotely). Not only that but the pilot controlled it from
a nice warm control panel at Edwards AFB. It has really long legs-
can stay up for almost 2 days at altitudes above 60k.
They flew it via satellite control to Australia, and we flew missions during OT&E that went from Eddy to upper Alaska and back non-stop. (More at Wikipedia)
Bomb-Laden "Reaper" Drones bound for Iraq
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AP) — The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It is outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.
The Reaper is loaded, but there is no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.
The arrival of these outsized U.S. "hunter-killer" drones, in aviation history's first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.
That moment, one the Air Force will likely low-key, is expected "soon," says the regional U.S. air commander. How soon? "We're still working that," Lt. Gen. Gary North said in an interview.
The Reaper's first combat deployment is expected in Afghanistan, and senior Air Force officers estimate it will land in Iraq sometime between this fall and next spring. They look forward to it.
"With more Reapers, I could send manned airplanes home," North said.
The Associated Press has learned that the Air Force is building a 400,000-square-foot expansion of the concrete ramp area now used for Predator drones here at Balad, the biggest U.S. air base in Iraq, 50 miles north of Baghdad. That new staging area could be turned over to Reapers. It is another sign that the Air Force is planning for an extended stay in Iraq, supporting Iraqi government forces in any continuing conflict, even if U.S. ground troops are drawn down in the coming years.
The estimated two dozen or more unmanned MQ-1 Predators now doing surveillance over Iraq, as the 46th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, have become mainstays of the U.S. war effort, offering round-the-clock airborne "eyes" watching over road convoys, tracking nighttime insurgent movements via infrared sensors, and occasionally unleashing one of their two Hellfire missiles on a target.
From about 36,000 flying hours in 2005, the Predators are expected to log 66,000 hours this year over Iraq and Afghanistan.
The MQ-9 Reaper, when compared with the 1995-vintage Predator, represents a major evolution of the unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV.At five tons gross weight, the Reaper is four times heavier than the Predator. Its size — 36 feet long, with a 66-foot wingspan — is comparable to the profile of the Air Force's workhorse A-10 attack plane. It can fly twice as fast and twice as high as the Predator. Most significantly, it carries many more weapons.
UNDER THE RADAR: Air Force ramps up in Iraq
While the Predator is armed with two Hellfire missiles, the Reaper can carry 14 of the air-to-ground weapons — or four Hellfires and two 500-pound bombs."It's not a recon squadron," Col. Joe Guasella, operations chief for the Central Command's air component, said of the Reapers. "It's an attack squadron, with a lot more kinetic ability."
"Kinetic" — Pentagon argot for destructive power — is what the Air Force had in mind when it christened its newest robot plane with a name associated with death. "The name Reaper captures the lethal nature of this new weapon system," Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, said in announcing the name last September.
General Atomics of San Diego has built at least nine of the MQ-9s thus far, at a cost of $69 million per set of four aircraft, with ground equipment.
The Air Force's 432nd Wing, a UAV unit formally established on May 1, is to eventually fly 60 Reapers and 160 Predators. The numbers to be assigned to Iraq and Afghanistan will be classified.
The Reaper is expected to be flown as the Predator is — by a two-member team of pilot and sensor operator who work at computer control stations and video screens that display what the UAV "sees." Teams at Balad, housed in a hangar beside the runways, perform the takeoffs and landings, and similar teams at Nevada's Creech Air Force Base, linked to the aircraft via satellite, take over for the long hours of overflying the Iraqi landscape.
American ground troops, equipped with laptops that can download real-time video from UAVs overhead, "want more and more of it," said Maj. Chris Snodgrass, the Predator squadron commander here.
The Reaper's speed will help. "Our problem is speed," Snodgrass said of the 140-mph Predator. "If there are troops in contact, we may not get there fast enough. The Reaper will be faster and fly farther."
The new robot plane is expected to be able to stay aloft for 14 hours fully armed, watching an area and waiting for targets to emerge.
"It's going to bring us flexibility, range, speed and persistence," said regional commander North, "such that I will be able to work lots of areas for a long, long time."
The British also are impressed with the Reaper, and are buying three for deployment in Afghanistan later this year. The Royal Air Force version will
stick to the "recon" mission, however — no weapons on board.
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text:
July 25th, 2013
JAY Z's hyphen looking for work
You know it's hard out here for a hyphen.
Once it became widely known that the artist formerly known as "Jay-Z" had dropped the hyphen and gone to ALL CAPS, that meant said hyphen was no longer being employed.
So what's a poor hyphen to do? Turn to Craigslist, of course. The Drum reports that an ad has popped up, allegedly from the now available hyphen.
"Hardworking SBL (Straight Black Line) seeks immediate, full or part-time employment having been recently laid off by my previous employer after 19 years of devoted service," the ad reads.
The hyphen goes on to explain that it is "experienced and proficient in joining two separate words to create a compound word" and "preventing confusion or awkward combination of letters."
Can you help a hyphen out?
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text:
Chris Adams, President of Adams Industries, Quoted in Recent Night Vision Article
From Special Operations Technology On-Line Magazine
In the last few years, there has been a trend toward developing [Night Vision] systems that fuse both [visible and IR] capabilities. "Thermal night vision tubes were once analog devices and now have become digital," said Chris Adams, president of Adams Industries. "That makes it possible to combine them with electro-optical sensors. It also enables data gathered by IR devices to be transmitted and stored. That is where everyone is headed right now."
Read the full article here: Night Vision


text:
The Web Application Hacker's
Handbook - Live Edition
|// july 24 - 27
USA 2010 Weekend Training Session //July 24-25
USA 2010 Weekday Training Session //July 26-27
This course is taught by the authors of the "Web Application Hacker's Handbook" which is the most deep and comprehensive general purpose guide to hacking web applications that is currently available. The book has a solid basis in the theory and practice of exploiting today's enterprise web applications. This course is a practical opportunity to take the skills taught in the book to the next level, experimenting with all of the tools and techniques against numerous vulnerable web applications and labs, under the guidance of the book's authors. The course also includes new material from the forthcoming second edition of the Handbook, bringing the book right up to date with the latest attacks.
The course concludes with a capture-the-flag contest. As an added bonus, a free web application will be provided to allow students to continue their learning after the course.
course syllabus:
The course syllabus follows the chapters of The Web Application Hacker's Handbook, with strong focus on practical attacks and methods. After a short introduction to the subject we delve into common insecurities in logical order:
Introduction to Web Application Security Assessment (Chapters 1-3)
Automating Bespoke Attacks: Practical hands-on experience with Burp Suite (Chapter 13)
Application mapping and bypassing client-side controls (Chapters 4-5)
Failures in Core Defense Mechanisms: Authentication, Session Management, Access Control, Input Validation (Chapters 6-8)
Injection and API flaws: (Chapters 9-10)
User-to-User Attacks (Chapter 12)
Attendees will learn:
- how to hack using LDAP, XPath, SOAP and other Injection
- the nuances of SQL Injection against Oracle, MySQL and MSSQL
- how to exploit 'low-risk' vulnerabilities such as 'XSS' and 'Cross-Site Request Forgery' attacks to achieve automated account compromise
- how to turn theoretical attacks into practical exploits
- the latest attack techniques which have been developed in recent months
- and much more…
For more detailed information about the course's practical structure, see the Web Application Hacker's Methodology chapter from the book.
Course timeline:
This is a 2-day course.
teaching methods:
- Brief theory delivered in lecture-style with examples
- Interactive demonstrations
- Hands-on Hacking: Interactively supported by the trainers
- Capture the Flag
Student Requirements:
Students should ideally be familiar with using an intercepting proxy, and at minimum should be familiar with basic concepts such as the HTTP protocol, session management, and basic HTML.
What you should bring:
Students should bring a copy of the Web Application Hacker's Handbook. A standard windows, Linux or Mac laptop should be brought with Java installed, capable of running Burp Suite
What you will get:
Printed handbook of the course slides and other reference material. Interactive web-based version of the WAHH methodology, supported by practical examples of each vulnerability type. A standalone web application which can be used to practice the techniques and attacks from the course.
Dafydd Stuttard is an independent security consultant, author and software developer. He has ten years' experience in security consulting and specializes in the penetration testing of web applications and compiled software. He works with banks, retailers and other enterprises to help secure their critical applications.
Dafydd is author of The Web Application Hacker's Handbook and SQL Injection Attacks and Defense. Under the alias "PortSwigger" Dafydd created the popular Burp Suite of web application hacking tools. He has developed and presented training courses at security conferences around the world.
Marcus Pinto is internationally recognised as a leader in the application and database security field, having spent the last nine years in Information Security. His consulting experience has placed him in front of hundreds of clients and some of the most technical areas of security currently in commercial demand. He has delivered to some of the most high-profile audiences, including training CESG's penetration testing team, heading up an internal UK Government security team, and advising banks on structuring their online banking applications.
Marcus is a technical advisor to CREST, and develops a certification set up to test the best application and infrastructure security consultants in the world.
Marcus currently works as Head of Application Security for a tech-focused company with over 2 million registered customers settling over 6 million real-time transactions per day.
Super Early:


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Job Information
Deloitte Infor WFM Senior Consultant in Tampa, Florida
Are you passionate about driving organizational performance? Do you strive to help your clients sustain that performance long term?
Our Infor HR Transformation Team is thrilled to render results that help our clients transform their HR practices to reimagine talent models, organizational practices and business models to prepare for success in today's era of digital and cognitive disruption
Work you'll do
In our Infor HR Transformation practice, our practitioners work within an engagement and implementation team to deliver superior results for our clients
Key responsibilities will include:
Using your hands on knowledge of the Infor CloudSuite WFM product to enable our clients' HR function to operate ahead of the curve and provide a simply irresistible employee experience
Functioning as a liaison and integrator between the client business needs and technology solutions,
Creating and delivering technology solutions to meet the client's business needs.
Leading and managing teams or workstreams on Infor CloudSuite WFM projects through discovery, design, build, test, and deployment activities
Forging strong relationships with both the clients and project teams that will contribute to your growth and development.
Bachelor's Degree or equivalent years of relevant experience required
4+ years of relevant consulting or industry experience
4+ year experience leading work streams in Infor
Experience in full life cycle implementations of Infor Workforce Management, Infor CloudSuite HCM or Lawson v10 ERP projects
Strong functional knowledge around HCM, Payroll and/or Workforce Management systems and processes
Demonstrated experience in the definition of systems strategy, gathering and documenting business requirements, leading fit-gap analysis, as-is and to-be business process designs, conference room pilots (CRPs), functional configuration, testing, client user training
Ability to travel up to 50%, on average, based on the work you do and the clients and industries/sectors you serve
Limited immigration sponsorship may be available.
Additional experience implementing other leading Cloud based HRIS implementation experience
Proven skills as a team member or team lead on at least one full life cycle implementation
Ability to work independently and manage multiple task assignments
Adept at implementing technology-enabled business solutions for clients as part of a high-talent team
Strong oral and written communication skills, including presentation skills (MS Visio, MS PowerPoint)
Strong problem solving and troubleshooting skills with the ability to exercise mature judgment
Ability to collaborate with clients
The HRT Team:
At Deloitte Consulting LLP, helping our clients exploit new technologies like employee engagement tools, advanced workforce planning and analytics we empower HR to better support the business and create value. HR organizations now reduce costs and improve operating effectiveness through process improvements, shared services, outsourcing and employee self-service, but that's only part of the story, we help them to drive the value this delivers and help the business achieve its strategic objectives in performance and growth.
Payroll & Workforce Management Team:
With the emergence of the gig economy, the change in the demographics of the workforce and the ever-evolving business needs, it's clear that the workforce of tomorrow will look very different than the workforce of today. To be a true business partner with the credibility to lead the business - not just sit at the table - HR can't just be managing talent, you needto be building the workforce of the future. Working with Deloitte enables you to gain the insights you need to build and execute a workforce strategy that will help the business survive today's disruption.
The wage range for this role takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs. The disclosed range estimate has not been adjusted for the applicable geographic differential associated with the location at which the position may be filled. At Deloitte, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is $125,000 to $231,000.
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or protected veteran status, or any other legally protected basis, in accordance with applicable law.


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Supreme Court and DNA: No one can own a gene
For the past 60 years, we have been learning a new language. Ever since the double-helix structure of DNA was uncovered in 1953, the vocabulary of genetics has been creeping into our lives, becoming over time a full and rich lexicon. Last week's Supreme Court ruling against patents for two genes implicated in cancer is a step toward ensuring that this language remains one of science and humanity rather than profit.
The landmark ruling centered on patents for two genes — BRCA1 and BRCA2 — held by Myriad Genetics, a diagnostic testing company based in Utah. Hundreds of mutated forms of these genes have been identified, several of which are associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers. In the United States, a woman's risk of getting breast cancer is about 12% to 13%; certain BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations increase that risk to 50% to 80%. For ovarian cancer, the risk moves from about 2% with the normal genes to 20% to 50% with certain mutations.
Research in the 1990s, conducted in part by scientists who formed Myriad, led to the discovery of the exact chromosomal location and sequence of these two genes. The company then sought a patent for the isolated DNA; that is, the lengthy sequence of nucleotides — the chemicals, symbolized as A, G, T and C, that serve as the "alphabet" for genetically encoded information — that make up the BRCA (pronounced "braca") genes.
The company also filed for patent rights on any series of 15 nucleotides present in the complete sequence. Essentially, Myriad would own any possible permutation of the genes. The patents were granted in the late 1990s.
That decision by the U.S. patent office had far-reaching consequences.
After Myriad launched a diagnostic test for the BRCA genes in 1996, the company began preventing academic institutions and companies from providing genetic testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2. If a woman wanted her DNA tested for the presence of these risky mutations, she had to go to Myriad, which charged about $3,000 per test, one that often required a second opinion. Many insurance providers covered the test for women with a family history of breast cancer, but not for all customers. A lucky few could get financial assistance directly from Myriad. An unlucky many didn't get tested. Researchers were likewise prevented from investigating BRCA1 and BRCA2 in the laboratory without paying Myriad a licensing fee.
This, despite the fact that knowing one's BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation could be life saving. For women who test positive, undergoing a mastectomy and oopherectomy (ovary removal) can completely eliminate the risk of getting cancer. The monopoly on BRCA testing was also granted despite the fact that portions of the research had been funded by federal research grants. In 2012, BRACAnalysis revenue totaled $405.5 million, more than 80% of the company's total revenue for that year.
The protest against Myriad's patent first entered the courtroom in 2009. Harry Ostrer, a doctor and researcher at New York University School of Medicine, had been sending patients' DNA samples to the Genetic Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania for BRCA testing. Myriad cried patent infringement and the laboratory agreed to stop testing. But Ostrer and a group of patients, advocates and doctors filed a lawsuit against Myriad. In 2009, a federal court upheld Myriad's patent claim. The plaintiff (the Assn. for Molecular Pathology) petitioned for the Supreme Court to hear the case.
On June 13, the Supreme Court voted unanimously to reverse a crucial part of the lower court decision, holding that genes are natural and therefore can't be patented. Myriad argued that its isolation of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 sequences outside of the body rendered them patentable; isolated DNA isn't a natural phenomenon we stumble upon during a forest walk, but rather is a laboratory-created substance. In a decision that could save lives, the court disagreed, asserting that the labor and technology used to isolate the DNA did not render the DNA into an invention. "The location and order of the nucleotides existed in nature before Myriad found them," read the opinion of the court, delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas.
The court did rule in favor of patents on complementary DNA, or cDNA, essentially strands of DNA synthesized in a laboratory as part of genetic research. That decision protects genuine innovations stemming from genetic research.
The privatizing of the human genome — Myriad's patents were just two of many — is an alarming development in the search for links between DNA and disease. Claiming a patent on an isolated sequence of DNA goes against the legacy of publicly funded research that made such discoveries possible, including that of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. And even within our for-profit healthcare structure, there has to be a limit on what can be capitalized on. A test for a deadly genetic mutation exceeds that limit.
The ruling also helps ensure that the science of genetics will remain accessible to all, and not restricted to boardrooms and bank accounts. Terms like next-generation sequencing, personalized medicine and tumor genomes are increasingly entering our vernacular, as are abbreviations like BRCA, kit, p53, myc and flt3, to name a few of the genes known to be involved in cancer. Favoring economics over humanity would force the language of genetics into something more fitting for a ledger book than the atlas of uncharted territory that is scientific research.
The Supreme Court's ruling on case number 12-398 may have helped write a better future.
At the very least, it's made that future more affordable. Immediately following the ruling, the cost of a BRCA test was already down to $995.
Jessica Wapner is the author of "The Philadelphia Chromosome – A Mutant Gene and the Quest to Cure Cancer at the Genetic Level."
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Today we asked the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to investigate actions by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that benefitted Harbinger Capital Partners after its founder Phil Falcone (at right) made large contributions to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
As we describe in the letter to the Committee's ranking members, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NJ):
The plan centered around first securing FCC approval for Harbinger's acquisition of SkyTerra, then getting the FCC to "fast-track" approval for Harbinger to take advantage of a little-known spectrum loophole for satellite licenses.
That loophole allowed Falcone's new company, called LightSquared, to receive spectrum for free, while competitors have to pay billions of dollars. Our letter details this arrangement, and Falcone's efforts to make it happen. The full text appears below. Click here to download a 7-page pdf.
Dear Chairman Issa and Congressman Towns:
As chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, your committee has a special responsibility to oversee ethics matters with federal policy implications. There are few issues more important today than reinforcing Americans' faith in government at all levels and particularly the high ethics standards the Obama Administration set forth two years ago.
Unfortunately, those ethics standards may have been called into question recently regarding federal wireless communications policy. This letter brings to your attention a series of odd procedural decisions at an independent regulatory agency – the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – that appear to have been undertaken solely for the financial benefit of one individual. As outlined in further detail below, these process decisions, series of contacts, apparent appearances of impropriety, and potential conflicts of interest seem to reveal improper influence peddling before the Executive Branch, Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and the Federal Communications Commission.
As you may know, the National Legal and Policy Center was among the first to disclose revelations that Andrew McLaughlin, the former White House Policy Advisor at OSTP, was secretly communicating through his private Gmail account with his former employees at Google about public policy issues affecting the company.
In the course of our research, we conducted a thorough review of visits to OSTP by industry leaders. As a consequence of our analysis of White House visitor records and meetings with OSTP officials, we have found another potentially troubling ethics issue concerning Phil Falcone, Harbinger Capital Partners, and Mr. Falcone's wireless venture, LightSquared.
Phil Falcone, the founder of a hedge fund known as Harbinger Capital Partners is currently under criminal and civil investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan for allegedly failing to disclose $113 million in personal loans he took from his hedge fund to pay personal taxes. The Wall Street Journal has also reported that investigators are looking into allegations that Mr. Falcone allowed some clients to redeem funds from his hedge fund during the financial crisis of 2008, while preventing others from doing so.[1]
According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Falcone and Harbinger scored big gains for investors in 2007, but his fund has since shrunk from $26.5 billion to $9 billion from losses and client withdrawals. Harbinger's fund was off 15% for the year as of last November, and investors like Goldman Sachs and Blackstone Group had put in requests to withdraw funds.
As importantly, investors have expressed increased anxiety over Mr. Falcone's plans to launch a global wireless satellite network known as LightSquared. The majority of Harbinger's declining assets have been pledged to the venture, but many believe the initiative is risky and underfunded.
Experts believe that building a wireless network can require as much as $40 billion in investment. Interestingly, a May 31, 2010 story from The Register reported that "Harbinger reckons with a suitably flexible FCC… it can get the network operable for something in the region of $6 billion."[2]
Mr. Falcone's Wireless Plans
Mr. Falcone's wireless plans appear to focus on taking advantage of an FCC wireless loophole that would allow the circumvention of the billions of dollars in investment required to purchase wireless spectrum by taking over a distressed satellite company (SkyTerra, now LightSquared) and entering the wireless phone and Internet market at a fraction of the cost of competitors.
Mr. Falcone then plans to lease or sell a part of that spectrum for wireless phone or Internet service to a consumer wireless company (or companies) that could share in the costs of building and operating the network – all without the need to operate the satellite network, or sell satellite service.[3]
The plan centered around first securing FCC approval for Harbinger's acquisition of SkyTerra, then getting the FCC to "fast-track" approval for Harbinger to take advantage of a little-known spectrum loophole for satellite licenses.
The Loophole
FCC policy regarding satellite license holders allows the holders to "supplement" satellite spectrum with free terrestrial (land based) spectrum. The policy was implemented because satellites have limited transmission power, and the opaque nature of rooftops and buildings limits effective coverage. Satellite operators are thus permitted to run base stations on the ground, at the same frequency and use free terrestrial spectrum to "fill in the gaps." The land based spectrum is known as Ancillary Terrestrial Component (ATC), and is free to use for companies possessing a satellite license.[4]
Thus, the loophole Harbinger was seeking allowed LightSquared to essentially build out its national 4G state-of-the-art wireless and broadband network using the free terrestrial spectrum it is permitted to use as part of its satellite license, avoiding the requirements to immediately invest upfront capital to launch expensive satellites. The terrestrial spectrum can then be leased to wireless providers.
It is important to note that other companies that want to compete in the U.S. wireless phone and Internet market have to pay billions of dollars at auction to use the public airwaves (spectrum), and those billions accrue to the benefit of taxpayers. By contrast, Falcone's bold plan would build out a national wireless network taking advantage of free spectrum – i.e., at taxpayer expense. Clearwire for instance, has already invested substantial sums to secure spectrum and build out its wireless network.
Falcone's Plans Required Unprecedented FCC Intervention on his behalf
None of Mr. Falcone's plans would be successful, however, unless he was successful in persuading the Administration and the FCC to intervene on his behalf. And over the course of the past year, a series of odd decisions, questionable meetings and procedural anomalies at the Federal Communications Commission and White House highlight Mr. Falcone's growing influence in the hallways of government.
Mr. Falcone's plans required the investment of the majority of Harbinger's assets into a little known satellite company (SkyTerra) despite substantial investor opposition. The merger between Harbinger and SkyTerra was conditioned on FCC approval, and accordingly, in October of 2009, the parties sought such approval for majority control of SkyTerra and a transfer of their satellite license in a proposed merger transaction.[5]
The transaction moved through the FCC at an accelerated pace and was approved within 5 months of filing its restructured takeover request in October 2009. For comparison sake, given the slow speed in which the agency acts, the FCC typically decides merger transactions in 180 days. Since many merger transactions go well beyond that period, the FCC has an informal 180 day "shot clock" as a method of keeping transactions moving inside of the agency. Falcone's approval arrived a month before the FCC's shot clock period.
On February 26, 2010 during the FCC's public comment period on the proposed transaction, Harbinger filed a confidential business plan document that included certain conditions the company agreed to in order to obtain FCC approval of the license transfer. These conditions included an unprecedented agreement, that, without prior approval from the FCC, Harbinger would not be allowed to provide spectrum to the two largest wireless carriers, and similarly would not be allowed to carry more than a limited amount of traffic for either.[6]
During FCC merger proceedings, parties typically file confidential materials that are protected from the public. Under FCC rules, however, the public must be notified within 24 hours that a filing of confidential material was submitted into the record. In this case, the FCC withheld Harbinger's letter and the merger conditions from public disclosure for more than a month. The letter was made public only on March 31, 2010, five days after the FCC approved the license transfer, and nine days after the Harbinger/SkyTerra merger was approved by SkyTerra shareholders.[7]
The FCC also violated its own precedent by failing to place in the record and publicly disclose the merger conditions (non-confidential data) before the deal was finalized so that interested parties would have an opportunity to comment on the proposed conditions.
The FCC's electronic filing system also reveals additional anomalies with respect to Falcone's transaction – a confidential document filed on February 12 also appeared on the electronic docket on March 12-the document has yet to be made final. In fact, no public notice of the filing appeared in the electronic docket for any of the confidential filings made in late 2009 and early 2010 until weeks or months later.
On April 21, 2010 Senators Hutchinson, DeMint, Vitter and Brownback sent FCC Chairman Genachowski a joint letter with numerous inquiries regarding the Falcone transaction.[8] On May 10, Genachowski replied with a non-responsive letter. These correspondences were not posted electronically for weeks after they were filed. In addition to violating FCC procedure and precedent, the FCC's actions in withholding these documents from public view directly contradicts Chairman Genachowski's promise to maintain an open and transparent process at the FCC.
On November 19, 2010, Mr. Falcone implemented the final stage of his plan, applying for a waiver of FCC's rules to allow SkyTerra (now re-named LightSquared) to begin selling wireless phone and Internet services utilizing free terrestrial spectrum (ATC) to wholesale customers without having to operate its satellite system. In an unprecedented move for the agency, the FCC placed Mr. Falcone's waiver request on a "fast track" approval schedule with a truncated 10-day comment period over the Thanksgiving holiday. On the Friday after Thanksgiving, the FCC granted a three-day extension of the comment period, still well short of the standard 30 day period for public comment.[9]
How Phil Falcone ensured a "suitably flexible FCC"
Sensing an opportunity to exploit FCC satellite license "loopholes" while playing into the Administration's agenda to find another facilities-based wireless and broadband provider, it now appears that Mr. Falcone worked throughout 2009 to secure special consideration and tilt the playing field to get his wireless venture off the ground.
According to White House visitor access logs, on September 22, 2009, Mr. Falcone and LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja personally visited the White House and met with the Chief of Staff at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).[10] One day later, the Harbinger/SkyTerra merger agreement was signed.[11]
On September 30, 2009, one week after his September 2009 White House visit, Mr. Falcone contributed $30,400 to the DSCC — the maximum legal individual contribution limit to a party committee. His wife, Lisa Falcone, contributed an additional $30,400 to the DSCC on the same day. (LightSquared's new CEO Sanjiv Ahuja also contributed $30,400 to the DNC in September of 2010).[12]
Mr. Falcone's contributions to the DSCC were anomalous as, traditionally, Mr. Falcone was a much larger donor to the Republican Party. In fact, just prior to the $60,800 in contributions to the Democrats, the most Mr. Falcone and his spouse previously contributed during that political cycle was $2,400. As for Sanjiv Ahuja, his $30,400 contribution to the DNC was his first political contribution in 8 years, and prior to that he contributed only to Republicans between 1998-2002.
On January 21, 2010, Mr. Falcone visited the White House again, this time for an appointment with John Holdren, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Falcone Hired Husband of Senior FCC Staffer to Lobby the FCC on Mobile Satellite Services
In addition to well-timed political contributions to the DSCC at the height of merger review discussions, Mr. Falcone's Harbinger also secured the assistance of a lobbying firm, the Palmetto Group, via Harbinger's legal counsel Goldberg, Godles, Wiener and Wright to lobby Congress and the FCC on mobile satellite services.[13] Mr. Steve Glaze, a lobbyist with the Palmetto Group, was registered to lobby the FCC directly on mobile satellite services and is married to Terri Glaze, a senior staffer at the FCC.[14]
Governmental and Private GPS Authorities Object to ATC License Due to Interference
On January 12, 2011, the National Telecommunications and Information Authority (an authority housed within the Department of Commerce responsible for working with other Executive Branch agencies to develop and present the Administration's position on telecom issues) sent a letter to Chairman Genachowski objecting to the ATC waiver for SkyTerra and stating that the "[g]rant of the LightSquared waiver would create a new interference environment and it is incumbent on the FCC to deal with the resulting interference issues before any interference occurs." (emphasis in original)[15]
Attached to Assistant Secretary Strickling's letter was a letter from Danny Price, Director of Spectrum and Communication Policy at the Department of Defense to Strickling, stating that "DoD is concerned with the [order and authorization] being conducted without the proper analysis required to make a well informed decision. Given the potential negative impacts to GPS, Inmarsat, and AMT operations, request NTIA advocate to the FCC to defer action on the waiver request and place this application under a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making . . . ."[16]
The United States GPS Industry Council (USGPSIC) has also raised concerns in a letter to the NTIA: "the potential for interference to existing terrestrial and adjacent mobile space services from the introduction of a primary terrestrial voice and data broadband service . . . is orders of magnitude more significant than under the original MSS ATC mode of operation."
The USGPSIC letter continues, "none of these changes can be fully and fairly vetted without an open rulemaking proceeding, as the current application process initiated by the FCC is insufficient for the proposed changes. Indeed, the FCC governing statute and its rules and regulations require an Administrative Procedure Act (APA)-sanctioned rulemaking in order to implement this transformation . . . ."[17]
Notably, the letter raises serious concerns about interference with E911 and law enforcement GPS applications.
Last Tuesday, the FCC, on delegated authority, officially granted the request by LightSquared to drop the FCC's long-standing requirement that its new 4G service be a satellite service. In granting the waiver, the FCC chose to issue a license modification for LightSquared because of what they term "unique" circumstances, instead of modifying its rules to apply to all providers– essentially guaranteeing that Mr. Falcone, and only Mr. Falcone, receives this special treatment.
One can speculate whether or not those "unique" circumstances are related to Mr. Falcone's September 30, 2009 meeting with the White House, and subsequent political contributions to the DSCC (in fact, the maximum contributions allowed by law), but the outcome of the FCC's decision means other similarly situated satellite companies will not be able to take advantage of the same loophole, as the license modification is only valid for LightSquared.
The ramifications of the FCC's favoritism are enormous. Consider for instance other competitive nationwide mobile providers like Clearwire, which have purchased terrestrial spectrum at auction for substantial sums and have invested millions more — in Clearwire's case — to build out its 4G network. For them, the message couldn't be more clear: Companies who play by the rules, create jobs, and invest in building out competing networks, are now at great risk of seeing their plans entirely upended by the FCC's arbitrary "unique" circumstances that give a Clearwire competitor the same terrestrial spectrum for free, and essentially exempt them from requirements to invest and build out a competing network by using a wholesale model where free satellite spectrum can be leased and "laundered" to other terrestrial mobile providers.
Based on this evidence and the record outlined above, it would appear that Mr. Falcone, a hedge fund trader currently under federal civil and criminal investigation, purchased a distressed satellite company to obtain a federal government bailout worth billions of dollars by shrewdly taking advantage of existing loopholes and preferential treatment by the FCC.
Mr. Falcone, who previously was almost exclusively a supporter of GOP causes and candidates gained access and influence to the Obama Administration and Democrats through well-timed White House visits and contributions to the DSCC – weeks before filing his merger application at the FCC. Since then, at virtually every step of the way, Mr. Falcone has received favorable treatment and expedited consideration of his plans to offer wireless satellite services utilizing free terrestrial spectrum that would cost billions in the marketplace.
The FCC for its part, has fast tracked the merger, granting approval with lightning speed in March of 2010. During the entire process, the FCC has cut procedural corners, failed to publicly disclose ex parte contacts between Mr. Falcone, his representatives and the FCC, failed to consider the legitimate concerns of governmental authorities and GPS stakeholders about the ATC license waiver, and as announced last week, ultimately granted the crucial final waiver necessary for LightSquared (and only LightSquared) to begin offering wireless services using free terrestrial spectrum.
Given the above, and given the special responsibility of federal agencies to not only avoid conflicts of interest, but to avoid even the appearance of conflicts, the above record is troubling. No fair-minded person could look at the record so far and not believe that further investigation is warranted. These actions call out for your committee to conduct a thorough investigation so that citizens will have the benefit of the full record.
Ken Boehm
Chairman, National Legal and Policy Center
[1] Authorities Probe a Top Hedge Fund," Wall Street Journal, 11/13/10
[2] "Satellite firm offers 4G network on back of 2G business model", The Register, 5/31/10
[3] See SkyTerra Proxy Statement, 2/26/10, p. F-5
[4] See 47 CFR § 25.149(B)(4)(i)
[5] "Authorities Probe a Top Hedge Fund," Wall Street Journal, 11/13/10)
SkyTerra Proxy Statement, 2/26/10, p. 76
SkyTerra Proxy Statement, 2/26/10, p. 8
[6] Letter from Harbinger to Federal Communications Commission, 2/26/10
[7] SkyTerra Press Release, "SkyTerra Communications, Inc. Stockholders Approve Merger with Harbinger," 3/22/10
[8] Letter from Senators Hutchinson, DeMint, Vitter, and Brownback to Chairman Genachowski, 4/21/10;
[9] FCC Public Notice of LightSquared Application for ATC Waiver, 11/19/10; FCC Notice of Extension, 11/26/10
[10] White House Visitor Access Logs
[11] SkyTerra Proxy Statement, 2/26/10, p. 32
[12] See www.opensecrets.org
[13] Palmetto Group Lobbying Disclosure Forms for 2008 & 2009
[14] "Terri Glaze Named Director of FCC's Legislative Affairs Office," Broadcasting and Cable, 7/22/09
[15] Letter from Lawrence Strickling, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, 1/12/11)
[16] Letter from Danny Price, Director of Spectrum and Communication Policy at the Department of Defense to Assistant Secretary Strickling, 12/28/10)
[17] Letter from USGPSIC to NTIA, 12/13/10


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Here's the link.
I give an overview of how one can add webbing based suspension to a hammock. In particular I show
- making a figure-8 knot at the end of webbing, for a carbiner
- hanging a hammock that has webbing suspension and carbiners at both ends
- adding rings to the end of a hammock with a channel, using the channel, and attaching around the hammock body
- using the JRB triglide system
There isn't much here for the hammock cognoscenti, unless you like seeing me hit the ground because I had the knot in the loop ring on which SMC rings are attached in the wrong place. Lesson : knot next to rings means the prusik knot is not pinching as it should.
Now I'm teeing up another one that focuses on suspension techniques based on cord.


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This is the last part of a five post series on the Central Subway project. Click here to navigate the table of contents for these posts.
The 30-Stockton and 45-Union/Stockton buses are undeniably crowded, with an especially dense crush load in the mile-long stretch between Market Street and Chinatown. The current situation — in which buses are entangled in congestion caused by private autos, delivery trucks, heavy pedestrian traffic overflowing from bus stops, and narrow sidewalks filled to capacity — must be amended. Here is a miniature pictorial representation from the last time I dropped by Chinatown (click through for full size images):
These pictures do not necessarily show Stockton Street congestion at its worst, as they were taken in the evening, but they do provide a fair representation of the problem. Stockton is clearly in need of substantial transit improvement, but the last post gives several reasons why we ought to be skeptical that the Central Subway will be the envisioned cure-all — particularly for its immense price tag — and that list was not even really comprehensive. What are the alternatives?
Back in the summer, Howard Strassner put forward the idea of eliminating the Central Subway altogether and building bus rapid transit instead. Of course, we already have so-called "bus only" lanes in this corridor, but they are neither respected nor enforced. In order for BRT to provide time savings comparable to a subway tunnel, you would need to go the whole nine yards: a complete dedicated lane, use of low-floor buses with multiple doors and implementation of Proof-of-Payment to facilitate faster boardings. Of course, you would also need to implement signal priority to minimize the time that buses spent stopped at red lights. Strassner's plan suggests the usual BRT characteristics, so I won't go into a full description here, but you can read more about the plan through articles posted this past summer on Rescue Muni and the Examiner.I've already pointed out that over long distances, particularly for trips between Visitacion Valley and Chinatown, the T will bring little (if any) time savings over the current 9X bus. That said, the time savings are more apparent for short trips between 4th/King and Chinatown. Currently, depending on the time and day, a ride on the 30 or 45 bus from 4th and King to Chinatown takes a solid 15-20 minutes, a trip that would be reduced to 6-7 minutes in the Central Subway, if we make the unlikely assumption that there are no delays associated with passing through the 4th and King intersection. For the stretch between Market Street and Chinatown, in which the 30 and 45 buses turn into claustrophobic sardine tins, a 6-8 minute trip would be reduced to about 2 minutes. For either short trip, you're looking at a 60-70% time savings. Of course, this figure only includes travel time. Once you add in the time spent walking to the station and accessing the deep underground tunnel, the time savings do not look quite so impressive, particularly over such a short distance.
For a route of similar length (just one-half mile longer), a center-lane BRT on Van Ness would reduce travel times in that corridor by 30%, from about 19 minutes to 13 minutes; this figure assumes 11 stops, but if Muni operates different versions of express BRT, as I've recommended before, travel times would be further reduced. Strassner's guesstimates of BRT travel times in the Central Subway corridor suggest a comparable level of time savings to Van Ness BRT. Even so, the subway travel times might look better, but at what cost? The Central Subway will cost us $650-700 million per mile, while Van Ness BRT will cost about $45 million per mile. For these short stretches, the Central Subway might offer double the time savings over BRT, but at 15 times the cost. And in the greater T-Third corridor, the time savings are nominal or nonexistent.
A BRT implementation in the Central Subway corridor might work fairly easily on wide South of Market streets, but surely it could not work on narrow, congested Stockton Street — right? Well, no, not necessarily. It could work, but it would require a redesign of the street. Currently, the space on Stockton Street is occupied by the following uses: (1) pedestrians, (2) buses, (3) commercial delivery vehicles, (4) private auto lanes, and (5) private auto parking. Really, though, there are three main things that add to the liveliness of Stockton Street: the businesses, the pedestrians, and the buses that deliver more pedestrians. Private automobiles occupy space, but they do not really contribute much vitality, and parked cars definitely do not add any vitality — so car priority is automatically bumped down to the bottom of the list. In such a dense environment, something has to give, and on-street parking is, quite frankly, a criminal waste of very limited space. Two nearby garages, Portsmouth Square and St. Mary's, combined offer 1,143 parking stalls. I have no idea about the extent to which these parking garages fill up. If they do not fill up, this would be a natural place to direct Stockton parking, but even if they do fill up, building replacement off-street parking would be preferable to having parking occupy valuable space on Stockton itself.
The first step — no matter what transit you put on or under Stockton — is to widen the sidewalks. Stockton is such a thoroughly pedestrian-oriented street, more so than almost any other street in the Bay Area, and yet the sidewalks are so narrow, a situation that is not helped by the merchandise of various markets overflowing onto the sidewalk. The width of Stockton Street is 68 feet, which could provide ample space for pedestrians, BRT lanes, and commercial deliveries. You could probably even fit in a single southbound lane for car traffic. In any case, the street setup needs to be revisited. Whatever we do with Stockton, the key is to get out of the political rut and demonstrate some actual leadership and creativity.
There is no doubt that Chinatown is in need of much more efficient, streamlined, and faster transit service than it now receives, but we have gotten so locked into this subway tunnel that we have suspended common sense. With Chinatown's density, a subway serving the neighborhood should be investigated, but there is nothing to say that such a subway should take the politically-driven alignment that the Central Subway has now assumed. For better or for worse, we are pretty much stuck with the Central Subway, but there are some lessons to take away from this experience already, even though we are still a few years away from beginning construction. Fundamentally, it comes down to this: once the Central Subway is completed, sure, we'll have a "sexy" subway underneath Stockton Street, and riders traveling between Chinatown and 4th/King would enjoy substantially shorter trips. But what about riders on Geary, Van Ness, Mission, Fillmore, Haight, 19th Avenue, Potrero/San Bruno, Geneva, and other corridors? Where's the love for them? The quality of service in those corridors would remain unchanged, or even deteriorate in time as traffic increases, unless we actively take steps to improve service. By putting a huge sum of money into a short stretch of Stockon and Fourth Streets, we are putting long-overdue improvements to the rest of the system on hold. Even if we ignore for the moment the federal matching funds that will be applied towards paying for the Central Subway, $700 million of local and state funding would buy a lot of BRT and streetscape improvements — not just on Van Ness and Stockton, but also Geary, 19th Avenue, and other congested streets with intolerably slow bus service — and those improvements could be implemented much more quickly.
75% of Muni's ridership is focused on the rail lines and ten key bus corridors. By contrast, the 30 and 45 lines carry about 6-7% of Muni's daily ridership. If substantial time and reliability improvements are carried out on all of the key corridors, we would capture a greater number of new riders than the 15,000 new riders that the Central Subway is projected to pick up by the year 2030. We would also have a holistically superior system on which people could trust and rely to transport them throughout their day. And in the process, we would touch far more people than we ever could with a short subway tunnel under Stockton Street.


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Anti-Gay Rallies as NY Marriages Begin
Thousands of opponents of gay marriage took to the streets in loud and sometimes tense protests Sunday, the first day that legal same-sex weddings were performed.
The National Organization for Marriage held rallies in New York City, Albany, Rochester and Buffalo, saying Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers redefined marriage without giving voters a chance to weigh-in, as they have in other states. Protesters chanted "Let the People Vote!" at rallies across the state.
A rally in New York City that started with several hundred people crowding the street across from Cuomo's Manhattan office quickly swelled to thousands of people out in loud opposition to the new law.
They waved signs saying "Excommunicate Cuomo" and "God cannot be mocked."
Cuomo campaigned in support of gay marriage, which he called a basic human right, then lobbied the Legislature hard ahead of its historic June 24 vote to legalize it.
The first gay marriages in New York were performed just after midnight and continued through the day at municipal offices that opened for special weekend hours, making New York the sixth and largest state to recognize same-sex weddings and becoming a pivotal moment in the national drive for recognition.
Outside the capitol in Albany, about 400 people gathered in a park in the shadow of the state Capitol for a protest they said was political, but had a strong religious thread and featured signs that included a banner with the familiar "Marriage(equals)Man and Woman" message topped with a fluttering "Don't Tread on Me" flag.
A mix of congregants and clergy from local black churches, a tea party contingent from Norwich and other small groups including families, they lined up and sang "Our God is an Awesome God" as they started a march that circled the massive seat of state government in the largely empty downtown.
Tre' Staton, pastor at the Empire Christian Center in suburban Colonie and an organizer of the protest, said he lobbied lawmakers in the run-up to the New York Senate vote and was frustrated they passed a law he doesn't believe many people support, particularly in the black community.
"We're not against anybody, but we don't want this imposed on us," he said, stressing the National Organization for Marriage's theme for the rally. "We're looking for a referendum, an opportunity to have our fair say."
New York City protesters and others across upstate chanted "Let the people vote!" referring to referendums that have succeeded in stalling or repealing gay marriage in other states. New York does not have an easy way for voters to bring a measure directly to the ballot box, meaning such a maneuver to repeal gay marriage here will be difficult.
"I'm here for God's sake," said Steve Rosner, 65, of the Lower East Side. "To sanctify same-sex marriage is an abomination. It's beyond belief."
Around 3:30, the protesters started marching uptown toward the United Nations. By the time they reached the UN, the crowd numbered in the many thousands, filling up 47th Street. They were joined by a brass band as a stage was set up for speakers.
State Sen. Ruben Diaz, a minister who was the sole Democrat to vote against gay marriage, told the crowd that he and other opponents would try to get Sunday's marriages annulled, saying judges broke the law by waiving the 24-hour waiting period without a good reason.
"We're going to show them next week that everything they did today was illegal," he said, speaking in Spanish. "Today we start the battle! Today we start the war!"
Anthony Evans, president of the National Black Church Initiative, said his group of churches would fight against Cuomo's re-election.
Jewish protester Heshy Friedman carried a pig mask "because the law's not Kosher." He said he worried that Muslim groups might push to legalize polygamy next.
In Buffalo, a few hundred people gathered on the steps of City Hall. Church leaders did most of the speaking while protesters chanted "Let the people vote." Some held Bibles and others prayed on rosaries with their heads bowed.
"If it had been put to the people it wouldn't have passed," said JoAnn Tomasello, who was also in the crowd. "It's not what the people want."
Police led one counterprotester away in handcuffs after he apparently refused to stop videotaping police, although it wasn't clear that's why he was taken into custody.
Another counterprotester, Dan McKowan of Lancaster, got into a shouting match with demonstrators as he held a sign mocking the National Organization for Marriage, which organized the rally.
"Why are you denying me the same rights you enjoy?" McKowan asked.
"We love you," several protesters replied.
"If you love me, why would you fight against my civil rights?" McKowan said.
Associated Press writers Chris Hawley in New York City and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo contributed to this report.
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Miyuki® Delicas are extremely uniform cylinder beads manufactured by Miyuki Shoji in Japan. Delicas come in a variety of sizes and a wide range of hundreds of colors. They can either be smooth or six sided (hex-cut).
Delica beads have a center hole that is larger, which makes them light with more beads per gram of weight and provides easy passage of the beading thread through multiple times. Delica beads are preferred by artists for loom work or off-loom bead weaving projects that require an even, symmetrical appearance. Delicas have the most extensive color palette of all the Miyuki seed beads.
- Large Delica Beads – DBL – Size 8/0. Measures 2.5 x 2.5mm, hole size of 1.5mm. Approximately 30 beads/gram = 300 beads/bag. Packaged in 10 gram bags.
- Medium Delica Beads – DBM – Size 10/0. Measures 2.3 x 1.2mm, hole size of 1mm. Approximately 108 beads/gram = 540 beads/bag. Packaged in 5 gram bags.
- Delica Bead – DB- Size 11/0. Measures 1.6 x 1.5mm, hole size of .8mm. Approximately 200 beads/gram = 1000 beads/bag. Packaged in 5 gram bags.
- Small Delica Beads – DBS – Size 15/0. Measures 1.3 x 1mm, hole size of .7mm. Approximately 350 beads/gram = 1750 beads/bag. Packaged in 5 gram bags.
The smallest delicas – DBS size 15/0 are preferred for delicate weaving projects as well as designs that combine them with larger beads. The 11/0 Delica – DB the most popular size are ideal for peyote stitch, brick stitch, square and herringbone stitch or strung as-is for a more delicate look. The middle size 10/0 Delica – DBM are slightly larger than the DB but have the same even and symmetrical appearance. The largest size 8/0 Delica – DBL like the other sizes are ideal for beadweaving, but also can be threaded onto thin leather or cording because of their generous hole size.


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From Duke Today (a press release about research co-authored by Situationist Contributor Aaron Kay):
The political unrest in the Middle East, which continues today in Syria, raises some intriguing questions: How can we explain the contagion effect of rebellion when revolution spreads from nation to nation? Is it possible to predict whether people will respond to limits on freedom with submission or rebellion?
New research from Duke University and the University of Waterloo to be published in the February edition of the journal Psychological Science finds the certainty of a restriction is significant in determining how people will respond to enforced limitations on freedom.
Across several studies, participants responded to restrictions that were certain to come into effect more favorably and valuing the restricted freedoms less, a form of "rationalization." Participants responded to identical restrictions that were described as having a small chance of not coming into effect with "reactance," viewing restrictions less favorably and valuing the restricted freedoms more.
"There have traditionally been two schools of thought on how people react to restrictions on freedoms," said Gavan Fitzsimons, professor of marketing at Duke's Fuqua School of Business and one of the study's authors. "One school of thought says people are likely to react to restrictions with rationalization and a level of acceptance, while a second suggests people are motivated to restore restricted freedoms and will respond negatively on attempts to constrain them. Our research reconciles these two opposing views by considering the restrictions' degree of absoluteness."
The study cites several hypothetical situations to explain the varied responses to restrictions on freedom. In one survey, participants read that the government had decided to reduce speed limits after experts concluded lower speed limits in cities increase safety. Some participants were told the new limits would definitely come into effect (an absolute condition), while others were told the limits would come into effect only if a majority of government officials voted to enact it (a non-absolute condition).
Participants in the absolute group tended to rationalize the new restrictions; they reacted with more positive attitudes and lower levels of annoyance toward reduced speed limits. In contrast, participants in the non-absolute group reacted strongly against the limits.
"Our findings have a number of practical applications, potentially shedding some light on the recent string of uprisings in the Middle East," said co-author Aaron Kay, an associate professor of management and of psychology and neuroscience at Duke.
"To the extent a political regime feels absolute and permanent to its citizens, people will rationalize its actions and decisions, even minimizing the importance of freedoms. But once they learn similar regimes have been toppled and are therefore not as permanent as people once thought, they may become reactant and perhaps motivated to revolt," he said.
The study is here.
Related Situationist posts:
- God's Situational Effects
- Rationalize or Rebel?
- Psychology of Inequality
- Do NOT Read This Post!
- Self-Fulfilling Doomsday Prophecies
- Canons of Confabulation
- The Cause of Rioting? That's Easy: Rioters!
- If It's Evitable, I Don't Like It!
- Aaron Kay, "The Psychological Power of the Status Quo
- Thanksgiving as "System Justification
- System Justification Theory and Law,
- A System-Justification Primer,
- The Motivated Situation of Inequality and Discrimination,
- John Jost on System Justification Theory, and
- John Jost's "System Justification and the Law" – Video.
Image from Flickr.