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Worcester State coaches Dave Lindberg and Karen Tessmer and their staffs have done their best this season to make the locker rooms and gyms at WPI, Clark, Assumption, Anna Maria and Holy Cross seem like home for the Lancers.
Worcester State's basketball teams right now don't have a home gym - the school's old athletics building will soon be torn down to make way for a $45 million state-of-the-art wellness center where their new home gym will be housed in the future - so the Lancers are playing all their games on the road this year.
Worcester State "hosted" a men's and women's MASCAC doubleheader against Framingham State Tuesday night at the Hart Center. Tessmer and her assistants, like at the other gyms, affixed their players' blue and gold name tags to the Holy Cross lockers and hung a Worcester State banner. Lindberg brought his team's supply of basketballs.
"That rack has traveled with us wherever we go," Lindberg said.
Both teams are also using the gyms of their neighboring schools - which have been most accommodating, Lindberg and Tessmer both said - for practice.
"It's just different," Worcester State sophomore guard Julie Frankian of Millbury said. "You're used to getting out of class and walking down to the gym. Now, we get on a van. We're kind of used to it now."
This week, the Lancers also began using the gym at Chandler Magnet School, located across the street from the Worcester State campus, for day-before-game shoot-arounds and walk-throughs. The court there is not regulation size.
"We are going to have a beautiful new gym, but right now we have to be flexible," Tessmer said. "It's not a gym that makes a team. There are challenges, but our players have been great about it."
Among the drawbacks of not having a gym on campus are lack of extra shooting time and getting students to games. Tessmer hopes to start a fan bus to games this semester.
"The obvious challenge is we don't have a comfort zone," Lindberg said. "We don't have a place to go every day, that same gym, that same locker room."
Lindberg has seven freshmen on his roster.
"Having a sense of home is a great value to young kids especially," Lindberg said. "There have been games this year where we struggled and sometimes in a normal year you come back and you have a home game and you shoot a little bit better and feel a little bit more comfortable and that hasn't happened to us.
"But on the flip side," Lindberg said, "I think it's made us a closer team. I think we are tougher and we will be tougher and more resilient because of it."
The new Worcester State athletics facility is expected to open in 2016.
Lindberg's team dropped its first seven games of the season, but went 2-0 last week with wins over conference foes Westfield State and Fitchburg State.
The women's team started 3-2 in MASCAC play.
"Come playoff time, if we don't have home court it doesn't really bother us," said senior guard Meaghan Burns of West Brookfield, who last week scored her 1,000th career point, "because we've been everywhere."
Lancers enjoy overseas experience
Since returning from an eight-day community service trip to Costa Rica, the Worcester State women's basketball team has won four of its last six games.
"A really good team trip helped with team building and team bonding," Tessmer said. "And our focus is on the MASCAC games because that's what the season is about."
The Lancers conducted clinics for about 40 Costa Rican boys and girls, ages 8-15. Sophomore guard Natasha Gonzales of Milford served as translator. Soccer was the first sport of most of the kids, but they caught on to basketball concepts like spacing, passing and cutting very quickly.
"Some of them are really good," Frankian said. "It was fun to teach all of them because they were bringing things that they learned from us into their games."
The Lancers also played two games against the Costa Rican national team, immersed themselves in the culture, and had a little bit of time for fun (whitewater rafting, zip lining), too.
The trip was coordinated through Beyond Study Abroad, an international education and service-learning organization that uses sports as a vehicle to explore the world and create meaningful cross-cultural relationships.
Worcester State nursing faculty and students also made the trip and spent three days in the community doing evaluations.
"We also tried to make connections for future Worcester State trips to Costa Rica," Tessmer said. "I think putting our players in opportunities to meet new people, play and experience things they would never get here in the United States and help other people out is always positive."
Frankian, whose 2012-13 season was cut short by a torn ACL, has returned to form. She is averaging 12.4 points a game and leads the team in rebounds (7.0 per game) and free throw shooting (85 percent).
Parzych-Hildabrand honored
Former Tantasqua Regional and Mass. College of Liberal Arts softball standout Kristin Parzych-Hildabrand will be inducted to the MCLA Athletics Hall of Fame Feb. 22.
Parzych-Hildabrand, who grew up in Sturbridge, was a four-year starter at third base for MCLA. She earned All-MASCAC honors all four years and was an All-New England selection as a junior and senior. She holds the program record for RBIs and stolen bases and ranks in the top four all-time in hits, home runs and batting average.
Parzych-Hildabrand, who graduated from MCLA in 2000, returned to coach the Trailblazers from 2004-10. Parzych-Hildabrand and her husband, Adam, live in North Adams with their children, Gisella and Liam.
Contact Jennifer Toland
Follow her on Twitter @JenTandG.
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Google Chrome bug bounty ups Mozilla's ante
$3,133.7 for most 'elite' reports
Two days after Mozilla sextupled the bug bounty paid to security researchers to $3,000, Google has upped the ante for vulnerabilities that are reported in its Chrome browser.
In a continuing play on elite hacker speak, Google will begin paying as much as $3,133.70 for the most critical bugs that are brought to its attention, the company announced Tuesday. Google began paying rewards in January with a sum of $1,337 for the most critical vulnerabilities. At the time, Mozilla was paying only $500 for the most serious flaws brought to its attention.
"It has been approximately six months since we launched the Chromium Security Reward program," Google's announcement stated. "Although still early days [sic], the program has been a clear success. We have been notified of numerous bugs, and some of the participants have made it clear that it was the reward program that motivated them to get involved with Chromium security."
The bidding war is good news for private security researchers who frequently complain they are uncompensated when they warn software makers of serious bugs that imperil their users. That longstanding arrangement allows the companies to benefit off the work of others and creates a sense that they are entitled to the information, the researchers have said.
To date only a handful of software makers offer security bug bounties. They apply almost exclusively to open-source projects such as Mozilla's Firefox and Daniel J. Bernstein's djbdns. TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative and VeriSign's iDefense also pay for vulnerabilities with fees topping out at about $10,000. The firms use the details to protect customers who subscribe to their services from the vulnerabilities before they're patched.
So far, Google has paid just one researcher the coveted $1,337 fee, while it has doled out six $1,000 payments and 15 $500 rewards, which are paid for reports of less severe bugs, according to this accounting. The company will continue to pay the lower amount for lower severity bugs, although it will consider offering higher bounties when researchers for "high-quality bug reports," such as those that include "a careful test case reduction, an accurate analysis of root cause, or productive discussion towards resolution." ®

subset: commoncrawl


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While NKS came out with much hype, and with a lot of skepticism from scientists, the scientific ideas there are not completely trivial. I just think they are not foundational for the science of physics (at least not as we know it so far), rather they are foundational for the science of biology.
The main discovery made by Wolfram (although with an important confusion which I will explain below, and with an extremely significant precursor in Conway's game of life) is that a simple 1 dimensional cellular automata whose rules are chosen at random will have a finite not so small probability of being a full computer (in Wolfram's system, 2 of the 128 possibilities). The proof that the system he found, rule 110 in his terminology, is actually a full computer only came two decades later, thanks to the pioneering work of Cook (working under Wolfram). But it justifies his focus on the system as central to science, since before, it was often implicitly assumed that to get a certain amount of complexity, you had to put in complexity by hand. This result is also present in Conway's system, but Wolfram's work is somewhat complementary, because the information flows in 1d systems make it more difficult to imagine a full computer emerging. The fact that it does anyway (although, as Cook's construction shows, with horrible running times, because of the difficulty of shuttling information long distances) is surprising and notable.
This is not so important for physics, because any attempt to model physics with cellular automata will have to be grossly nonlocal in order to avoid Bell's theorem. This is not so implausible today, given gravitational holography, but Wolfram suggested that there would be a direct correspondence between local elementary particle paths and automata structures, and these ideas are flat out impossible, and were ruled out before he proposed them, by Bell's theorem. This means that the chapter of his book dealing with physics is completely wrong, and may be ignored.
But this work is important in a completely different way, it is the foundation of biology!
(EDIT: Chaitin's new book makes some brief comments about NKS which echo the main biological points below. I am not cribbing Chaitin, his book postdates this.)
The most puzzling aspect of the world we find ourselves in is that we are surrounded by complex computing devices not of our own design! Namely ourselves, other people, animals, plants, and bacteria. How did these computational structures get built, when we have to work pretty hard to make a computer? It seems that there is a puzzle here.
The puzzle has, in the past, been resolved by assuming some sort of magic put life on Earth, a supernatural agency. This idea is clearly at odds with the laws of nature as we understand them today, but it is important to keep in mind the superstitious answer, because elements of it are salvageable.
The superstitious answer is that God came down into the primordial soup, and mixed up the molecules to make life. The notion of God is not clearly defined in religious texts, where rigor is not the top priority. But I will try to give a positivistic definition below. I find that using this positivistic definition, which does not mention anything supernatural, I can translate the thoughts of religious people and make complete sense of what they are saying, where otherwise it just sounds like the ranting of delusional people suffering from severe brain-damage.
In order to discuss biology sensibly, I believe one must understand this religious point of view thoroughly, in a logical positivistic way, because it is important in biology to the same extent that it is completely unimportant in physics.
In a complex system, such as human social structures, we tend to observe patterns which cannot be attributed solely to the actions of individual people. For example, the protestant reformation seem to have happened all at once, within the span of a few decades in the early 16th century, where Church reformers were active and working for centuries before, with very little success. What made it happen? It wasn't just Luther and Calvin, it was also a network of businessmen and bankers, and disenchanted Catholics. The discovery of America was important in some way, as was the expulsion of Jews from England. To my mind, the most important was the 14th century edict forbidding usury by Catholics, which prevented the formation of banking. But it clearly wasn't one cause, nor was it the work of one person working alone.
When we see such complex phenomena, it is reasonable to attribute them to the working of a larger intelligence than the intelligence of any individual, and this is the intelligence of the collective. Just as a person is a collection of neurons, not any one of which is responsible for her intelligence, the society is a collection of individuals, no one of which is responsible for everything the society does or thinks collectively. The collective pattern is in many ways smarter than the individual--- it contains collective memories, in traditions and conventions, which inform individual action in complex ways.
The notion of of god (lower case g, like Zeus, or Mars) in ancient cultures is the name given to the entities formed from collective human actions. They are nebulous, but important, because the decision to go to war cannot be attributed to any one person, but to an entity, the god of war, formed from many individuals working together with the aim of forming a coherent collective which will lead the society to make that phase-transition of behavior which is going to war. Identifying a notion of a god, and explicitly setting people working for this god, makes them aware of the fact that they are working as parts of a machine, not solely as individual actors. Further, it can inspire them to act without direct orders from a King, or a priest, just through their own introspection, so as to best achieve the goal.
The notion of god was refined somewhere in India or Iran into the notion of God (upper case G), from which the Brahma cults and Abrahamic religion, and Zoroastianism emerged. This notion suggests that the conflict between gods is similar to the conflict between individuals, the gods also make collectives, and some win and some lose. In the end, there is a notion of a supreme God, the God which is the limit of the collective of whatever gods survive, defined as infinitely high up the god hierarchy, and demanding ethical actions.
This limiting conception of God was considered so important by the ancient thinkers, that they let all their other ideas die away in the medieval collapse, choosing to preserve only this through the middle ages.
But in addition to the practical notions of guiding behavior in collectives, the ancients also attributed all sorts of supernatural feats to God, including creating the universe and hand-designing life. These ideas about God are out of place with the conception as a meta-property of a complex system, and are completely contradicted by modern scientific discoveries. They are superfluous to religion, and detrimental to it, because they make people expect miracles and divine intervention in ways that violate the laws of nature, and such things just never happen.
The notion of God, as far as I have been able to make sense of it, is essentially a limiting computational conception--- it is the limit as time goes to infinity of the behavior of a complex system where the computational entities combine and grow in power into ever larger units. The idea of the limit suggests that there will be a coherence between the units at all levels, so that in the infinite time limit, for example, all societies will agree on the ethical course of action in a given circumstance, and will agree on how to organize their economies, and structure their interpersonal relations. These predictions are surprising, considering the divergence in human behavior, and yet, history suggests that such a convergence is slowly happening.
This computational decidability in the evolving limit has a direct counterpart in the idea that as mathematical systems become more complex, by reflection, they decide all arithmetical theorems. This is not a theorem, but an observation. It is noted that as we go up the tower of set theoretic reflection principles, more and more arithmetic theorems are resolved, and there is no in-principle limitation that suggests that the theorems will not all be decided by strong enough reflection. This is Paul Cohen's "Article of faith" in mathematical practice, and I will accept it without reservation.
Further, the article of faith tells you that we already have a name for the mathematical idea of God, it can be identified with the concept of the Church Kleene ordinal, the limit of all countable computable ordinals. Any computable formal system is only able to approach this ordinal gradually, and this ordinal is infinitely rich. If you have a description of this ordinal, you have a reflection principle which should be powerful enough to decide all theorems of arithmetic, to decide what consequences of any axiomatic system will be.
Because this ordinal has all the theological attributes religious folks attribute to God, in relation to pure mathematics, I consider it a sort of heresy to assume that there are larger ordinals. In particular, any notion of the first uncountable ordinal, or inaccessible ordinals, are only meaningful once they are placed in a given axiomatic system, and then they should collapse in the appropriate countable model to be less than the Church Kleene ordinal. This is not technically precise, but it gets the main idea across (it is easy to collapse the ordinals to be countable, but it is not so easy to rearrange the scheme to make them less than Church Kleene, but this is because within any deductive system which is of a set-theoretic nature, you can give a name to the Church Kleene ordinal, and define this ordinal plus 1, etc. These technical considerations are not so significant for the philosophical ideas)
So the interpretation I will take for religious doctrine is that God is to be identified with the Church Kleene ordinal, no higher ordinal is to be interpreted as actually higher, and gods will be identified with human collectives acting together to form a unit greater than the individuals. The monotheistic law of complex systems will state that all gods converge to the ideal represented by God over time, as they battle it out in a Darwinian struggle.
When you have a cellular automata capable of universal computation, there is a strange phenomenon--- sub-parts of it are always in competition with itself. To explain this, one needs to look at Darwin's experiment, detailed in the Origin of Species.
Most of the Origin is theoretical, but Darwin did do one important experiment. He took a square plot of land, and carefully removed all visible living things from the soil. He uprooted all the plants, sifted to remove insects, and left the plot alone to see how it would be recolonized.
What he observed is that the plant species that recolonized the plot were first of the fast-growing unstable variety, that a whole bunch of weeds and bugs spread over the new area. Then, over time, other more hardy species slowly took over from the weeds, until, many months later, the plot was indistinguishable from the remaining land in the lot.
The purpose of the experiment was to see whether there is an actual struggle for resources in nature. Darwin hypothesized that if nature is in constant struggle, different elements, which are more successful but slowly replicating, will only win out after a time over elements which are less hardy, but whose strategy is quick colonization of new territory. His observations were consistent with the idea that the living things in any area are continually struggling for primacy, and that the limitation is the finite resources in any given plot of land.
This idea can be tested in computing cellular automata. By zeroing out a square patch in a 2d cellular automata which looks stable, one can see whether the remaining data colonizes the space in a way that is uniform, or in a gradually transforming way. I did this experiment using an 8-bit cellular automata (256 values) with random rules, and I found that in many cases, those cases which are complex, the colonization is in stages, much as in Darwin's plot of land. The stages are short-lived, perhaps reflecting the limited computation possible in a small region with 8-bit values. It would be interesting to repeat the experiment using arbitrarily large integers on each cell, which can be thought of as representing a complex polymer, which catalyzes transformations on its neighbors
But the inhomogeneous colonization suggests that once you have a computing cellular automata, there is a constant competition between parts of the automata, which make collective computations, for resources. In other words, that Darwin's struggle is begun.
To make this idea more precise, consider dividing a CA in two, by placing a wall between the left and right half, and not allowing the halves to interact. If the CA is truly computational and complex, the two halves will not come to a statistical equilibrium, but will have complex structures on either side which acquire new characteristics at random over time, as its subparts evolve.
If you now remove the wall, it is unlikely that the left half will have compatible characteristics with the right half. They will not be able to mix. So in this case, the two halves must battle for domination, and whichever half wins will impose its characteristics on the other half filling the whole space with cells which are compatible with its characteristics. These characteristics include typical CA "animals" or structures which are qualitatively similar in their relations, particular configurations which are only stable in the environment of other structures around them. It is difficult to extract these characteristics from a running simulation, because you don't know a-priori what to look for, but I am confident that it can be done.
This type of thing implies that there is continuous competition in a CA which appears the moment it is first seeded, and continues as long as it is operating. In this environment, Darwinian selection and evolution are possible even without any explicit self-replicating structure. Any self-replication is of very high-level qualitative traits, not of low level bit structures.
This point of view is different from the most usual point of view regarding evolution (which is not the one originally proposed by Darwin). The usual point of view is the modern-synthesis evolution, which suggests that evolution proceeds by copying bit-strings in molecules, with errors, and that the result is that optimized bit strings are eventually selected.
This point of view is extremely poor in modeling actual biological evolution. First, nothing you are familiar with actually replicated itself. People have sex, bacteria share genes, and crossing over is complicated on non-genetic sequences, it is only a simple shuffling on genes.
Further, mutations seem to be produced by shadowy internal mechanisms directed by complex RNA networks in egg cells and in testicles. They are not random copying errors. To assume that the biological world is produced by a process of copying with error, coupled with selection is as silly as the following parable suggests:
Many years ago, there was only one book. It was a cookbook, with detailed instructions on how to make macaroni and cheese. The book was copied by scribes, who made an error here, an omitted passage there, and these books then competed for attention. Some recipes were improved by the errors, others became unreadable. Eventually, the books grew in length, with new passages produced by accidental duplicated copying, until today, behold! The library of Congress!
This story is ridiculous. But it is this ridiculous story that is currently sold as dogma in the biological sciences.
It is my view that any realistic theory of evolution must be closer to Darwin than to the modern synthesis. It must take into account that the process of mutation is authorly, it proceeds by complex RNA editing of DNA sequences. It must take into account the idea that sexual selection is primary, so that mate-selection is the dominant driving force of evolution in sexual species. It must also take into account the idea that the competition begins well before replication, and requires nothing more than a computing CA.
There is support for this position from computer experiments on self-replicating evolution. In order to test natural selection, little chunks of code were allowed to replicated and self-modify in the 1970s-1980s, to see what the end result would be. The end result was that the programs modified themselves until they found the shortest fastest self-replicator, which then filled up the computer memory.
At the time, this was considered a positive sign, the programs had evolved. But the obvious stasis in the final state leads me to see this as death of a complex system. There is no further progress possible from the end state, without an external agent to kick things around. The result is not a complex system, but a system trapped in a stable equilibrium of parasitic fast replication. Far from being a model of life, it is a model of a self-replicating cancer killing all evolution.
Wolfram classified Cellular automata into four types:
Type 1 are automata that die. These just have a single stable endpoint that you always reach. Type 2 have infinitely many endpoints, but they are as simple to describe as a classical integrable motion--- you just have cycles of certain types, and to specify the endpoint, you give a list of all the cycles, and where you are in the cycle, and this specifies the result of running the CA from a given initial condition. These first two types of automata obviously will not reproduce a general purpose computer.
Type 3 are those automata that lead to self-similar fractal structures, like the Sierpinski gasket. These are more complex, so that the end-state requires an actual computation to specify, and wolfram identifies these with classical chaotic motions. I think this identification is wrong, but this is what it is.
The Type 4 are the complex automata, where you have to actually run them in full to figure out what they do. I don't like the final category, so I will now give my personal classification.
The class 3 is expanded slightly, and class 4 is divided in two. There are random automata, which act to produce a randomized collection of values which wander ergodically through the allowed value space, and class 5, those automata which produce true complex behavior, with a way to map a computer into them with a map of reasonable complexity, which can actually be described by a finite procedure.
Because Wolfram doesn't distinguish between 4 and 5, he lumps together automata that are purely random, thermalizing into a Boltzmann type chaotic equilibrium, like automata 25, together with truly complex automata like 110. The distinction between the two is all important, but perhaps out of a pig-headed inability to admit his earliest classification was incomplete, Wolfram refuses to make it.
I will make this distinction. Type 4 automata are the analogs of chaotic classical systems, randomizing their information into a strange attractor, defined by the allowed values of clumps of sites, and a probability distribution on these. Once you know which allowed clumps occur with what probability, you can generate a typical output with absolutely no work, using a random number generator. It will not be the actual output, since this is deterministic, but it will be indistinguishable from the actual output for all intents and purposes.
Type 4 automata are just as a-biological, just as dead, as types 1-3. CA 25 is not alive. I am 100% sure that I am not misinterpreting Wolfram, because I specifically asked him, in person, at a seminar, whether he believes there is a map between CA 25 and a computer. He answered that he believes there is, but that it is extraordinarily complicated, and random looking. I am sure it does not exist.
Type 5 automata are exemplified by 110. Those are the ones which have predictable structures with non-randomizing behavior. These can be used to encode full Turing computation. That these are not measure 0 is an important discovery--- it gives an explanation for the origin of life.
The existence of typically computing CA's means that life can emerge naturally as soon as a system that can store large amounts of information spontaneously has interactions which are capable of forming a computer. This happens with 110, but it also should happen with random proteins in a pre-biotic soup, because, here we are!
The evolution of life, as I believe it happens, is purely molecular for most of the early stages. The proteins compete and evolve, producing a more precise class which can survive, which eventually catalyze the formation of nucleic acids (among other things), and learn to store data for later retrieval in nucleic acids. The nucleic-acid protein complexes then compute more, and learn to store data in DNA, for permanent storage (since DNA is much more stable). Finally, they package all this up in cells, and you have modern life.
This is a just-so story, but it is important because at no point does it postulate a self-replicating molecular entity. Such entities are poisonous for the emergence of life (as the computer experiments show), and it is good that they do not exist, otherwise life would not be able to emerge.
There is a separate reason for Wolfram's lack of success in penetrating the scientific world which has nothing to do with the quality of his ideas (which are really not that bad). Wolfram made the conscious decision to pursue his science using private money which he raised by producing closed-source software, Mathematica, for sale to universities. In this way, he was producing a model for science research financed by private capital, rather than state money. Because Mathematica is so successful, many saw his work as a model for a New Kind of Capitalist Science.
This idea was very current in the pro-capitalism climate of the 1980s, where state sponsored and funded things were looked down upon, because of the constraints on individual freedom which the modern state imposed. The Soviet Union was the extreme example, there all science was driven by state decisions, which stifled certain fields like genetics, based upon the ideological position of the government. In the U.S., science was taken over by the government and made into big-science in the 1950s, explicitly so as to compete with the Soviets, and many people felt hampered by the big-money, big-science system, which excluded promising research avenues from consideration.
The lack of freedom in the state run system led many individuals to oppose it, and one of the ingredients in this fight was private financing. This was obviously only available outside of communist controlled regions. Wolfram politically made the decision to pursue private financing for his research.
The result reflects all that is good and all that is bad about privately financed science. It is good, because it allows the individual with an idea to pursue it indefinitely, and no outside criticism can stop or kill the work. They can self-publish, without worrying about peer review dismissing their ideas before they have time to germinate.
It is bad in several other ways, which have been the focus of academic criticism
The problems of private research are entirely complementary to the problems of public research, and there is no reason to dismiss the one entirely in favor of the other. But NKS shows those flaws in spades, and this is particularly grating to relatively low-paid public researchers, who have worked equally hard on their ideas, if not harder, without the megaphone of money to shout them out to the world.
I think that the newest thing in NKS is the financing model--- the idea that one can do research privately and independently. Perhaps this is the model of the future, but considering the relative success of publicly funded science as compared to private science, even in the most extreme repressive case of the Soviet Union, I am not optimistic that this is the best way. It is likely that one will have to deal with the annoyances and suboptimal features of public funding for the indefinite future.
Perhaps with an appropriate internet structure, like stackexchange, some of the censorship and group-think of public science can be mitigated.


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People have been arguing over the most venomous snakes for as long as I can remember (and I've been keeping and researching snakes for more than 20 years).
The reason there is so much dispute over the most venomous snakes in the world is because people judge them by different criteria, and this inevitably leads to arguments.
For example, some people build their lists of the most venomous snakes by using the LD50 test. LD50 stands for lethal dose 50 percent. In the case of snake venom LD50 is a scale used to measure the potency of a snake's venom. It refers to the amount of venom that, when given all at once, kills 50 percent of the animals tested (mice, in this case).
Other people create lists of the most venomous snakes in the world by considering the venom yield, meaning the amount of venom the snake can produce with a given bite.
Thus, you can probably find dozens of lists that claim to contain the "Top 10 Most Venomous Snakes" in the world, and many of these lists will conflict with each other.
Most Venomous Does Not Mean Most Dangerous
While I'm at it, I'd like to clear up another important point regarding venomous snakes. Many people create lists of what they claim are the "most dangerous" snakes in the world, and they will simply list ten of the most venomous snake as ranked by the LD50 tests mentioned above.
But there is a big difference between a highly venomous snake and a highly dangerous snake. Many snakes that are high on the venom charts are shy and reclusive, and therefore account for very few human fatalities. How could you put such snakes on a list of the world's most dangerous snakes?
On the flip side of that coin, there are certain venomous snakes that, while they do not rank in the top-ten most venomous, still account for a large number of human fatalities each year. This might be because that particular snake is found in highly populated areas far from medical care, that the snake is comparatively more aggressive toward humans, or a combination of these factors.
A good example of this would be the saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus), which accounts for a relatively high number of deaths in Sri Lanka. While it is certainly highly venomous, the saw-scaled viper does not appear on any top-ten lists of "most venomous snakes." However, it accounts for more deaths than any other snake within its range, largely because of its habit of hiding itself in areas trafficked by humans.
My point is, you cannot make a list of the most venomous snakes in the world and refer to them as the "most dangerous" snakes … nor the opposite. They are two separate things, and they need to be treated as such.
To echo that sentiment, here's an excerpt from a Princeton University Press interview with Mark O'Shea, snake expert, TV personality and author of the book Venomous Snakes of the World:
"The most dangerous snake is not the most venomous. The most venomous snakes are taipans, Australian brown snakes and sea snakes but they have small venom yields and few snakebites to humans and few human fatalities in the scheme of things … with that in mind I have encountered many dangerous snakes from rattlers to cobras, sea snakes to desert vipers but I regard the most dangerous snake I have encountered to be the Sri Lankan Russell's viper…"
You can read the full interview here.
Most Venomous Snake – Meet the Inland Taipan
Despite all of the semantic arguments and scientific disputes, there is one fact that most people seem to agree on. The most venomous snake, measured by the LD50 test or any type of criteria, is the inland taipan snake of Australia.
Image: Inland taipan snake by Wikipedia contributor
The inland taipan (Oxyuranus microlepidotus) possesses the most toxic venom of any snake in the world. But here again, that does not necessarily mean that the inland taipan — also known as the fiece snake — is the "most dangerous" or deadliest snake in the world. As we discussed, most venomous does not always translate to most dangerous.
In fact, the inland taipan proves this point for me. Worldwide, more than 40,000 people die each year from venomous snakebite. But Australia only has 2 – 3 snakebite deaths each year. So how can a continent with the world's most venomous snake, the inland taipan, have such a relatively low number of snakebite deaths each year? The answer, of course, is that the inland taipan, while highly venomous, is not one of the deadliest snakes in the world.
Sure, it has lethal venom with the potential to kill humans, but there is a world of difference between potentiality and reality. The inland taipan is the world's most venomous snake by most standards, but is by far NOT the world's deadliest snake.
Image: Taipan handled by professional – do not attempt


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Heartless BOFHs at Oxford University have banned students from using Spotify, according to the student paper Cherwell.
Although the IT Dept's rules permit streaming media applications, subject to bandwidth, Spotify is classed as a P2P application.
Students will now have to resort to traditional pastimes of smashing restaurant windows and pushing each other in the river while braying loudly.[*]
It's true that Spotify is a P2P app, but it's also a bit harsh - since the P2P-ness of Spotify was devised to help network operators by saving them money. For example, if 2,000 Oxford students are expressing their individuality by all listening to the same Radiohead track, they will be listening to bits pulled off each other's computers. The network doesn't need to pay transit costs for the file 2,000 times - so while Spotify's P2P-ness may (or may not) increase congestion, it ought to save them a bob or two.
At least, that's the basis of Spotify's business proposition to ISPs. And it has been sufficient for Hutchison Whampoa, owner of the 3 mobile networks, to sign up with investment and partnerships. One must assume Hutch boss Ka-Shing has done the maths. Maybe.
Oxford also faces an opportunity cost in banning Spotify - people may turn to unlicensed services instead. Still, there's clearly some explaining to do for Spotify.
The upside for the Swedish music company is that it saves cash too. Last year it put a tourniquet around its costs by putting a block on new signups. The block is still in place.
For recent exclusive numbers on Spotify's operation, click here. ®
There's probably an app for that.


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We realize that women's fashion is moving at a very fast pace and trends are changing every day. To make sure that you put your best 'fashion-foot' forward, we bring our customers new designs & styles that are in vogue, daily. To check out what's the latest in the fashion world, check out our 'New Arrivals' tab whenever you visit. Whether it's a top, a skirt or a co-ords piece that you've been eyeing, online shopping for women's apparel has never been this up to date and style conscious.That's the reason we are one of the best online shopping sites for women.
To make things super simple and ensure that your shopping experience is top notch, we have made browsing simpler, so that you can find exactly what you're looking for as quickly as possible. Check out our 'Collection' tab and you can shop by occasion, trend, fit or by style. Awesome, right? If something you like isn't in stock, let us know and we will notify you as soon as it is back so that you never miss out on the hot happenings in the fashion world. So enjoy your fullest with this blessed online shopping website for women's fashion.
Online shopping fashion can often be difficult without feeling the apparel or seeing how it fits. So, to make this buying decision easier for women fashion lovers, we provide them with all the information they will need regarding fit, comfort, fabric and everything else on their mind, for each and every product in our collection that hits women fashion clothes. So start browsing and get clicking on your favourite pieces because what you see (and read), is what you get!
To keep your fashion game right up at the top and to get regular updates on online shopping for girls at AthenaLifeStyle, register with us now and open up to a fun filled and funky world of women's fashion online. Plus there is a lot to go around too, so you can refer us to everyone from your BFF's and your mum and get rewarded for it. And to top it all, you can share your user experience by posting reviews.
Now, aren't we one one of the best online shopping sites for women! Don't wait any longer, start stalking, start buying and start loving, 'cause in the world of fast fashion, fashion waits for no one.


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François-Joseph Fétis
String Quintet #1 in A minor (1859) 1
Grand Sextet (1818) 2,3
Sonata #1 for Piano 4-Hands in A Major 2
Sonata #2 for Piano 4-Hands in D Major 2
Sonata #3 for Piano 4-Hands in G Major 2
1 Michel Collin & André Martin, violins
1 Guy Decleire & Louis Logie, viola
1 Edmond Baert, cello
2 Dominique Cornil & Olivier Gardon, piano 4-hands
3 Veronique Bogaerts & François Chamberlan, violins
3 Paul de Clerck, viola
3 Hans Mannes, cello
Koch-Schwann Musique en Wallonie MEW0423 77:52
Born into a Belgian family of instrument makers and musicians, Fétis became perhaps the most important music historian and musicologist of the 19th century, as well as an influential critic. Though his writings were encyclopedic, his compositional output was relatively sparse.
His chamber music consists of three string quartets, three string quintets, the sextet included here (scored for the unusual combination of piano 4-hands, 2 violins, viola & cello) and a few other pieces, including these 4-hand piano sonatas from 1819. All of the works are finely crafted, and often quite beautiful. The performances are committed and first rate. Hard to find, but worth the trouble.


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Summer's creepin' hard and if you're in Southern California like us, it has arrived early. Wherever you live, warm weather means messy waves, braids and ponytails so let's start with this gem, shall we? This look was created on the fly with no plan so excuse the unconventional-ness of it, but sometimes those make the best looks. Alright, here we go…
You'll need (click for product details)
Air dry your hair for this tutorial for better waves and more support —>> Remember the airdrying/waves tutorial?
- Add some quick wand waves all around the head.
- Go in different directions for a messier result. Don't brush out your waves when you finish, just finger comb at the most.
- Next, add a little texture powder into the hair. I like to do a LITTLE bit all over because too much will make the hair feel sticky and gross. Just a little sprinkle all over will make it feel beach-y and look fuller. The main reason we use texture powder for this is so the little strands don't slip. Texture powder creates an amazing grip, making it much less likely for the bobby pins to slide out.
- Once your texture powder is applied, take two small strands from the front (right around the temple area) and pull them back.
- Tie those in a half knot.
- Take two of your mini bobby pins and criss cross them through the half knot to secure.
- Now the tricky part! Take those two strands from the tail of your knot and criss cross them underneath the ponytail near the nape of your neck. Grab one of your MICRO CLIPS and secure the criss crossed pieces behind the ponytail. Wiggle the tiny clip into the ponytail to conceal it. Seems like you'd see them, but trust me, these are so small, they disappear into the ponytail (which looks and feels extra thick because of the texture powder).
- Gather a little more hair from the back to thicken up each strand before pulling it around and tying it again.
- Repeat as many times as desired. You can do it once, twice or 5 times if it will work with your length!
- Last you'll want to pull the hair gently to create a little more texture. Add another sprinkling of texture powder if desired.
Love this pony for a party, a long weekend (might look even cooler second day) and it could also be a good music festival hair idea! If you try the messy knotted ponytail, be sure to tag us so we can see your handiwork! @THEBEAUTYDEPT


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Judith's Reading Room donated its 32nd library today to Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Hospital's Recreation Therapy Room. The Therapy Room aims to return its patients to their highest possible level of function and independence. Today's donation is comprised of 300 hand chosen books and a mobile cart with a total value of $7,562.
The recreation therapy room is available to more than 200 individuals daily, including patients in the Rehabilitation Hospital, long-term care residents, residents of the supportive independent living apartments on campus and all of their respective families.
"Because of the gift of literature, our patients' rehabilitation process will be greatly enhanced. Reading has so many benefits that can complement a patient's journey through rehabilitation," said Frank Hyland, vice president of Rehabilitation Services. "On behalf of Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Hospital, I would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to Judith's Reading Room for this generous donation."
The Judith's Reading Room mobile library cart includes a variety of books that accommodate the diverse patient population, ranging from 18 to 80 years of age. Patients and their families will be able to benefit from a mix of new fiction, nonfiction, and coffee table books that have been obtained through book publishers and from a generous donation by Mr. and Mrs. Larry Gerhard in honor of their daughter, Kristen.
After establishing its first library at Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Hospital's Pediatric Unit in Bethlehem in February 2010, the founders of Judith's Reading Room are thrilled to continue their partnership with Good Shepherd. "Giving these special patients the gift of literature, which will help with their therapy, corresponds perfectly with our mission at Judith's Reading Room," said Scott Leiber, co-founder, Judith's Reading Room. "We are grateful to have a wonderful partner in Good Shepherd."
Please visit Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Services for more information on all they have to offer.


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Homes for rent & sale near this school
from Movoto
Students at this school are making more academic progress given where they were last year, compared to similar students in the state.
Strong progress with high test scores means students have strong academic skills and the school is a doing a better job at supporting academic growth than most other schools.
This school is above the state average in key measures of college and career readiness.
Even at schools with strong college and career readiness, there may be students who are not getting the opportunities they need to succeed.


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Antifouling bottom paint is needed if you store your boat in the water. If left in the water without protection, marine growth may attach to your boat's exposed hull. Marine growth slows a boat down and increases fuel consumption. Here are the items that you will need in addition to the bottom paint for the proper anti-fouling bottom paint application.
• 60–100 grit – Suitable for the removal of paint or to sand gel coat prior to the application of antifouling paint.
• After sanding remove sanding residue by wiping with a cloth that has been dampened with the proper solvent.
• Masking Tape – When it is necessary to mask off areas use a high quality clean edge masking tape, especially when the masking tape will be left on the surface for a long time.
• Brushes – For antifouling paints use a natural bristle brush but not necessarily one of as good quality as you would use to apply topside finishes.
• Rollers – Most solvent resistant rollers will have a phenolic core and will say that they are for use with oil based paints or epoxies. For antifouling paint and epoxy primers, use a 3/8"-1/2" nap roller.


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The combination of the polymorphic nature of malware, failure of signature-based security tools, and massive amounts of data and traffic flowing in and out of enterprise networks is making threat management using traditional approaches virtually impossible.
Until now, security has been based largely on the opinions of researchers who investigate attacks through reverse engineering, homegrown tools and general hacking. In contrast, the Big Data movement makes it possible to analyze an enormous volume of widely varied data to prevent and contain zero-day attacks without details of the exploits themselves. The four-step process outlined below illustrates how Big Data techniques lead to next-generation security intelligence.
Information Gathering
Malware is transmitted between hosts (e.g. server, desktop, laptop, tablet, phone) only after an Internet connection is established. Every Internet connection begins with the three Rs: Request, Route and Resolve. The contextual details of the three Rs reveal how malware, botnets and phishing sites relate at the Internet-layer, not simply the network- or endpoint-layer.
Before users can publish a tweet or update a status, their device must resolve the IP address currently linked to a particular domain name (e.g., www.facebook.com) within a Domain Name System record. With extremely few exceptions, every application, whether benign or malicious, performs this step.
Multiple networks then route this request over the Internet, but any two hosts never connect directly. Internet Service Providers connect the hosts and route data using the Border Gateway Protocol. Once the connection is established, content is transmitted.
If researchers can continuously store, process, and query data gathered from BGP routing tables, they can identify associations for nearly every Internet host and publicly routable network. If they can do the same for data gathered from DNS traffic, they can learn both current and historical Host IP Address/Host Name associations across nearly the entire Internet.
By combining these two Big Data sets, researchers can relate any host's name, address, or network to another host's name, address, or network. In other words, the data describes the current and historical topology of the entire Internet — regardless of device, application, protocol, or port used to transmit content.
Extracting Actionable Information
While storing contextual details on a massive volume of Internet connections in real-time is no easy task, processing this data in order to extract useful information about an ever-changing threat landscape might be nearly impossible. There is an art to querying these giant data sets in order to find the needles in the haystack.
First, start with known threats. It's possible to learn about these from multiple sources, such as security technology partners or security community members that publicly share discoveries on a blog or other media site.
Second, form a hypothesis. Analyze known threats to develop theories on how criminals will continue to exploit the Internet's infrastructure to get users or their infected devices to connect to malware, botnets and phishing sites. Observing patterns and statistical variances regarding the requests, routes and resolutions for malicious hosts is one of the keys to predicting the presence and behavior of malicious hosts in the future.
Spatial patterns can reveal malicious hosts, since they often share a publicly routable network (aka ASN) with other malicious websites — for example, same geographic location, same domain name, same IP address, same name server host storing the DNS record or other objects. Infected devices connect with these hosts more often than clean devices do.
Temporal patterns can be used to identify malicious hosts by showing evidence of irregular connection request volume or new domains with sudden high spikes in volume immediately after domain registration. Statistical variances, such as a domain name with abnormal entropy (gibberish), can also reveal malicious hosts.
Third, process the data — repeatedly. On the Internet, threats are always changing. Processing a constant flow of new data calls for a real-time adaptable machine-learning system. It needs classifiers that are based on a hypothesis. Alternatively, the data can be clustered based on general objects and elements, and training algorithms can collect a positive set of known malicious hosts as well as a negative set of known benign hosts.
Fourth, run educated queries to reveal patterns and test hypotheses. After processing, the data becomes actionable, but there may be too much information to effectively validate hypotheses. At this stage, visualization tools can help to organize the data and bring meaning to the surface.
For instance, a researcher may query one host attribute, such as its domain name, but receive multiple scored features outputted by each classifier. Each score or score combination can be categorized as malicious, suspicious or benign and then fed back into the machine-learning system to improve threat predictions.
When a host is categorized as "suspicious," there is a possibility of a false positive, which could result in employee downtime for customers of Internet security vendors. Therefore, continuous training and retraining of the machine-learning system is required to positively determine whether a host is malicious or benign.
Host Validation
The process of determining whether suspicious hosts are malicious or benign can be cost- and resource-prohibitive. To validate threats across the entire Internet would require an army of analysts. The good news is that there are thousands of potential analysts in the security community, including security-savvy customers. The bad news is that security vendors typically keep their threat intelligence to themselves and guard it as core intellectual property.
A different approach is to move from unidirectional relationships with customers to multidirectional communication and communities. Crowdsourcing threat intelligence requires an extension of trust to customers, partners and other members of a security vendor's ecosystem, so the vendor must provide dedicated support to train and certify the crowdsourced researchers.
However, the upside potential is significant. Given an anointed team of researchers across the globe, the reach and visibility into real-time threats will expand, along with the ability to quickly and accurately respond, minute by minute, day by day, to evolving threats.
As for tactical requirements, the community needs access to query tools similar to those used by the vendor's own expert researchers. The simpler interface would display threat predictions with all the relevant security information, related meta-scores and data visualizations, and allow the volunteer to confirm or reject a host as malicious.
Applying Threat Intelligence
Threat intelligence derived from Big Data can prevent device infections, network breaches and data loss. As advanced threats continue to proliferate at an uncontrollable rate, it becomes vital that the security industry evolve to stay one step ahead of criminals.
The marriage of Big Data analytics, science and crowdsourcing is making it possible to achieve near real-time detection and even prediction of attacks. Big Data will continue to transform Internet security, and it's up to vendors to build products that effectively harness its power.


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Scientists have long deemed the ability to recognize faces innate for people and other primates -- something our brains just know how to do immediately from birth.
However, the findings of a new Harvard Medical School study published Sept. 4 in the journal Nature Neuroscience cast doubt on this longstanding view.
Working with macaques temporarily deprived of seeing faces while growing up, a Harvard Medical School team led by neurobiologists Margaret Livingstone, Michael Arcaro, and Peter Schade has found that regions of the brain that are key to facial recognition form only through experience and are absent in primates who don't encounter faces while growing up.
The finding, the researchers say, sheds light on a range of neuro-developmental conditions, including those in which people can't distinguish between different faces or autism, marked by aversion to looking at faces. Most importantly, however, the study underscores the critical formative role of early experiences on normal sensory and cognitive development, the scientists say.
Livingstone, the Takeda Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, explains that macaques -- a close evolutionary relative to humans, and a model system for studying human brain development -- form clusters of neurons responsible for recognizing faces in an area of the brain called the superior temporal sulcus by 200 days of age. The relative location of these brain regions, or patches, are similar across primate species.
That knowledge, combined with the fact that infants seem to preferentially track faces early in development, led to the longstanding belief that facial recognition must be inborn, she said. However, both humans and primates also develop areas in the brain that respond to visual stimuli they haven't encountered for as long during evolution, including buildings and text. The latter observation puts a serious wrench in the theory that facial recognition is inborn.
To better understand the basis for facial recognition, Livingstone, along with postdoctoral fellow Arcaro and research assistant Schade, raised two groups of macaques. The first one, the control group, had a typical upbringing, spending time in early infancy with their mothers and then with other juvenile macaques, as well as with human handlers. The other group grew up raised by humans who bottle-fed them, played with and cuddled them -- all while the humans wore welding masks. For the first year of their lives, the macaques never saw a face -- human or otherwise. At the end of the trial, all macaques were put in social groups with fellow macaques and allowed to see both human and primate faces.
When both groups of macaques were 200 days old, the researchers used functional MRI to look at brain images measuring the presence of facial recognition patches and other specialized areas, such as those responsible for recognizing hands, objects, scenes and bodies.
The macaques who had typical upbringing had consistent "recognition" areas in their brains for each of these categories. Those who'd grown up never seeing faces had developed areas of the brain associated with all categories except faces.
Next, the researchers showed both groups images of humans or primates. As expected, the control group preferentially gazed at the faces in those images. In contrast, the macaques raised without facial exposure looked preferentially at the hands. The hand domain in their brains, Livingstone said, was disproportionally large compared to the other domains.
The findings suggest that sensory deprivation has a selective effect on the way the brain wires itself. The brain seems to become very good at recognizing things that an individual sees often, Livingstone said, and poor at recognizing things that it never or rarely sees.
"What you look at is what you end up 'installing' in the brain's machinery to be able to recognize," she added.
Normal development of these brain regions could be key to explaining a wide variety of disorders, the researchers said. One such disorder is developmental prosopagnosia--a condition in which people are born with the inability to recognize familiar faces, even their own, due to the failure of the brain's facial recognition machinery to develop properly. Likewise, Livingstone said, some of the social deficits that develop in people with autism spectrum disorders may be a side effect stemming from the lack of experiences that involve looking at faces, which children with these disorders tend to avoid. The findings suggest that interventions to encourage early exposure to faces may assuage the social deficits that stem from lack of such experiences during early development, the team said.
Co-investigators on the research included Justin Vincent and Carlos Ponce, of Harvard Medical School.
This work was funded by National Institutes of Health grants RO1 EY 25670, RO1 EY 16187, F32 EU 24187 and P30 EU 12196, and a William Randolph Hearst Fellowship. This research was carried out in part at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at the Massachusetts General Hospital, using resources provided by the Center for Functional Neuroimaging Technologies, P41EB015896, a P41 Biotechnology Resource Grant supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Institutes of Health, and NIH Shared Instrumentation Grant S10RR021110.
Nature Neuroscience


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1500 Dripfed SOCIAL SIGNALS
About the Author
Honorable SEO
I've had fantastic success within my own businesses online with SEO, so now I'm offering my training program for those who want to know how to properly rank a website online SAFELY. My new course Ranking through Branding is a program that's literally taken 1000's of hours of research and testing to come out with. Take advantage of it, it's easy to do all you need is a web property of some kind and a little bit of knowledge about the keywords being used in that given niche, and presto, you'll see major movements while working with the 'Core Profiles', especially if you have a local business!


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All Products
(11 Total)
View by Size:
Synopsis: | During a solar eclipse, Seymour buys an unusual plant and takes it back to the flower shop where he works. The plant, Audrey 2, becomes a town attraction as it grows at an unusual rate, but Seymour learns that he must feed Audrey fresh human blood to keep her growing. Soon, Audrey is giving the orders ("Feed me") and timid Seymour must find "deserving" victims. Martin's performance as the masochistic dentist is alone worth the price. Song, dance, gore, and more prevail in this outrageous musical comedy. Four Tops Levi Stubbs is the commanding voice of Audrey 2. Based on the Off-Broadway play, which was based on Roger Corman's 1960 horror spoof. |
Directed by: | Frank Oz |
Cast: | Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Vincent Gardenia, Steve Martin, James Belushi, Christopher Guest, Bill Murray, John Candy, Tisha Campbell, Tichina Arnold, Michelle WeeksVOICE(S) BY: Levi Stubbs Jr. |


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You know that I've hated the Sloggi ass campaign with a passion, now it seems I have another reason to hate Sloggi. I just found this sweet message from Google adsense:
While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our policies. For instance, we found violations of AdSense policies on pages such as https://adland.tv/sloggi-another-bumfight. Please note that this URL is an example and that the same violations may exist on other pages of your website.
As stated in our program policies, AdSense publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on pages with adult or mature content. This includes images or video content containing lewd or provocative poses, or close-ups of breasts, butts, or crotches.
So, no, if we're going to be able to talk about advertising here, some of them will have butts and boobs in them, and often be harshly criticized because they do. Clearly, we can't use Adsense if they find an old post from 2004 that shuts down our account today. You're ad folks here, what network out there is halfway decent?
edit: Yes, I know, the irony right? Interflora still advertising on bimbo-homophobic-hate-speech-blog Kissies....
update: This made headlines in Dagens Media (swedish adpress) today.
Update : Adland un-banned from Google Adsense, despite the many bare bottoms in advertising. June 3 2011
It didn't last very long, did it? Recall last year:
Site changes "Also, we've added ... *gasp*.... banner ads."
So, banner ads on in August 2010 and banned in, when exactly?


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In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that laws prohibiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional in Loving vs. Virginia. Although this case promotes marital freedom and racial equality, there are still significant legal and social barriers to the free formation of intimate relationships. Marriage continues to be the sole measure of commitment, mixed relationships continue to be rare, and same-sex marriage is only legal in 6 out of 50 states. Most discussion of Loving celebrates the symbolic dismantling of marital discrimination. This book, however, takes a more critical approach to ask how Loving has influenced the "loving" of America. How far have we come since then, and what effect did the case have on individual lives?LHB readers may be particularly interested in Part II: Historical Antecedents to Loving:
2. The 'love' of Loving, by Jason A. Gillmer
3. Loving in Indian territory: tribal miscegenation law in historical perspective, by Carla Pratt
4. American mestizo: Filipinos and antimiscegenation laws in California, by Leti Volpp
5. Perez vs. Sharp and the limits of Loving: race, marriage, and citizenship reconsidered, by R. A. LenhardtThe full TOC is available here.


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A Mercedes Benz F1 racing car became the most expensive automobile ever sold at public auction while a Ferrari 275 takes the highest price for a road car.
2013 was an excellent year for vintage and classic cars with record prices paid at public auctions. For the second year in a row, a Mercedes Benz topped the list of highest prices paid at auction but most of the top-ten prices were for Ferraris. A 1954 Mercedes Benz Formula 1 racing car achieved $30 million at the Goodwood Festival of Speed sale by Bonhams to become the most expensive car ever sold at public auction. A 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB achieved $27.5 million at RM Auctions' Monterey sale – the highest price ever paid for a Ferrari and for a road-going car.
Top-Ten Lists for: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 & all time.
Highest Prices Paid for Cars at Public Auctions in 2013
2013 was an excellent year for public auctions of classic and vintage cars. 2013 saw the highest prices ever paid for a racing car and a road car, as well as the highest prices ever paid for amongst others an Alfa Romeo, Bugatti, Ferrari, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, McLaren and Porsche.
The world's top three classic car auction houses all had record years:
- Gooding & Co sold more than 50 cars at over a $1 million each, including 30 at the Pebble Beach sale alone.
- RM Auctions achieved the highest price ever paid for a road-going car and a Ferrari, and sold a record 78 individual cars at over $1 million in 2013. RM Auctions' Monterey sale achieved a record $125 million for a single auction, which included 26 cars over a $1 million each.
- Bonhams sold the 1954 Mercedes Benz F1 car at the record price of £19.6 million at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
Although the Mercedes Benz F1 racer achieved the highest price ever at public auction, a Ferrari 250 GTO was reportedly sold for €38.2 million ($52 million) at a closed auction in Italy in 2013. A similar car reportedly sold for $35 million in 2012 in a private sale. Neither price has been confirmed.
Top Ten Prices Paid for Classic Cars at Public Auctions in 2013
The ten highest prices achieved for classic and vintage cars at public auctions in 2013 were:
Year | Car | Auction House | $ Price | Auction | |
1 | 1954 | Mercedes Benz W196R F1 | Bonhams | 29,650,095 | Goodwood Festival of Speed |
2 | 1967 | Ferrari 275 GTB/4*S | RM Auctions | 27'500'000 | Monterey |
3 | 1964 | Ferrari 250 LM | RM Auctions / Sotheby's | 14'300'000 | New York |
4 | 1953 | Ferrari 340/375 MM | RM Auctions | 12'812'800 | Villa Erba |
5 | 1935 | Alfa Romeo 8C-35 | Bonhams | 9'784'380 | Goodwood Revival |
6 | 1957 | Ferrari 250 GT | Gooding | 9'460'000 | Pebble Beach |
7 | 1953 | Ferrari 375 MM | RM Auctions | 9'075'000 | Monterey |
8 | 1937 | Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante | Gooding | 8'745'000 | Pebble Beach |
9 | 1997 | McLaren F1 | Gooding | 8'470'000 | Pebble Beach |
=10 | 1928 | Mercedes-Benz 680S Torpedo | RM Auctions | 8'250'000 | Monterey |
=10 | 1958 | Ferrari 250 GT | Gooding | 8'250'000 | Scottsdale |
Prices and currency conversions by respective auction houses and include premiums
1954 Mercedes Benz W196R F1 – Most-Expensive Car Ever
The 1954 Mercedes Benz W196R Formula 1 Racing Single-Seater achieved £19,601,500 ($29,650,095) at the Bonhams' Goodwood Festival of Speed auction in July 2013. This record price was the highest ever paid for a vehicle at a public auction and therefore also the world record for the most expensive Mercedes Benz and most expensive racing car ever.
This Mercedes Benz W196R was driven by Juan Manual Fangio to his second Formula 1 word championship in 1954.
It was the second year in a row that a Mercedes Benz car topped the list of the highest prices paid for a car at public auction. However, last year's leader – a 1936 Mercedes Benz 540 K Spezial Roadster – sold for $11,8 million. Although only about a third of what the W196R achieved that is still the second-highest price paid for a Mercedes Benz road-going car.
1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4*S – Most-Expensive Ferrari Ever
A 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4*S N.A.R.T. Spider by Scaglietti achieved $27.5 million at the record-breaking Monterey sale by RM Auctions. This was the highest price ever paid at public auction for a Ferrari and for a road-going car.
The previous record for the most-expensive Ferrari was for a 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, which achieved $16.4 million at Gooding's 2011 Pebble Beach sale.
1964 Ferrari 250 LM
A 1964 Ferrari 250 LM by Carrozzeria Scaglietti sold for $14.3 million (almost half price compared to the 1967 275 GTB) at the RM Auctions and Sotheby's Art of the Automobile sale in New York.
The 1964 Ferrari 250 LM is one of the finest examples of Ferrari's first mid-engine cars. It was the 24th of 32 models produced. This car won its class in the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona.
1953 Ferrari 340/375 MM Berlinetta 'Competizione'
A 1953 Ferrari 340/375 MM Berlinetta 'Competizione' by Pinin Farina achieved the highest price in 2013 for a public auction held in euro. It achieved €9,856,000 ($12,812,800) at the bi-annual Villa Erba auction organized by RM Auctions in Italy. It was also the highest price ever paid for a closed Ferrari Berlinetta.
The 1953 Ferrari 340/375 MM Berlinetta was a work's entry at Le Mans and several further races. It was driven by three world champions: Hawthorn, Ascari, and Farina.
1935 Alfa Romeo 8C-35 Grand Prix Racing Monoposto
A 1935 Alfa Romeo 8C-35 Grand Prix Racing Monoposto achieved £5,937,500 ($9,784,380) at the Bonhams' Goodwood Revival sale making it the most-expensive Alfa Romeo ever. (The previous marque record was £4,245,118 paid for a 1933 Alfa Romeo Monza 2300 in 2010.) The Alfa Romeo was a Ferrari team car and was driven by amongst others Tazio Nuvolari.
1957 Ferrari 250 GT 14-Louver Berlinetta
A 1957 Ferrari 250 GT 14-Louver Berlinetta achieved $9,460,000 at the Pebble Beach sale. This was the highest price ever paid for a Ferrari 250 Tour de France model. It was also the highest price achieved this year by Gooding & Co, which led the listings in both 2012 and 2011.
1953 Ferrari 375 MM Spider by Pinin Farina
A 1953 Ferrari 375 MM Spider by Pinin Farina achieved $9,075,000 at RM Auctions' record-breaking Monterey sale.
This Ferrari is one of only a dozen 375MM Spiders ever built and belonged to gentleman driver Jim Kimberly.
1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante – Second Most-Expensive Bugatti Ever
A 1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante achieved $8,745,000 at Gooding's Pebble Beach auction. This was the second highest price ever paid for a Bugatti at public auction – the record $9.8 million paid in 1987 for a 1931 Bugatti Royale Kellner Coupe at Christies in New York still holds (over $20 million in adjusted prices).
1997 McLaren F1
Gooding achieved a further marque record at the Pebble Beach auction when a 1997 McLaren F1 road car sold for $8,470,000 – the highest price ever for a McLaren. The McLaren was by far the newest of the cars achieving record prices in 2013. The second-youngest car achieving more than $4 million at public auction in 2013 (for the three main auction houses) was the record-breaking 1967 Ferrari.
1928 Mercedes-Benz 680S Torpedo Roadster
A 1928 Mercedes-Benz 680S Torpedo Roadster by Carrosserie J. Saoutchik was the oldest car on the top-ten list of highest prices paid at auction in 2013. It achieved $8,250,000 at the Monterey sale by RM Auctions. This 680 Torpedo Roadster is one of only three built in this format and the only known survivor. It was the 2012 Pebble Beach Best of Show winner.
1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider
A 1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider similarly achieved $8,250,000 – the tenth highest price paid at public auction for a car in 2013. This was the highest ever paid for the model and was achieved at Gooding's Scottsdale auction.


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The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact. Yes, he had touched a fifth-grader's breast during recess. "I guess it was just lust of the flesh," he told his boss.
That got Gary C. Lindsey fired from his first teaching job in Oelwein, Iowa. But it didn't end his career. He taught for decades in Illinois and Iowa, fending off at least a half-dozen more abuse accusations.
When he finally surrendered his teaching license in 2004—40 years after that first little girl came forward—it wasn't a principal or a state agency that ended his career. It was one persistent victim and her parents.
Lindsey's case is just a small example of a widespread problem in American schools: sexual misconduct by the very teachers who are supposed to be nurturing the nation's children.
Students in America's schools are groped. They're raped. They're pursued, seduced and think they're in love.
An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.
There are 3 million public school teachers nationwide, most devoted to their work. Yet the number of abusive educators—nearly three for every school day—speaks to a much larger problem in a system that is stacked against victims.
Most of the abuse never gets reported. Those cases reported often end with no action. Cases investigated sometimes can't be proven, and many abusers have several victims.
And no one—not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments—has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out of classrooms.
Those are the findings of an AP investigation in which reporters sought disciplinary records in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The result is an unprecedented national look at the scope of sex offenses by educators—the very definition of breach of trust.
The seven-month investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct.
'It doesn't matter if it's urban or rural or suburban'
Young people were the victims in at least 1,801 of the cases, and more than 80 percent of those were students. At least half the educators who were punished by their states also were convicted of crimes related to their misconduct.
The findings draw obvious comparisons to sex abuse scandals in other institutions, among them the Roman Catholic Church. A review by America's Catholic bishops found that about 4,400 of 110,000 priests were accused of molesting minors from 1950 through 2002.
Clergy abuse is part of the national consciousness after a string of highly publicized cases. But until now, there's been little sense of the extent of educator abuse.
Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that's been apparent for years.
"From my own experience—this could get me in trouble—I think every single school district in the nation has at least one perpetrator. At least one," says Mary Jo McGrath, a California lawyer who has spent 30 years investigating abuse and misconduct in schools. "It doesn't matter if it's urban or rural or suburban."
One report mandated by Congress estimated that as many as 4.5 million students, out of roughly 50 million in American schools, are subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade. That figure includes verbal harassment that's sexual in nature.
'Some people don't want their past opened'
Jennah Bramow, one of Lindsey's accusers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, wonders why there isn't more outrage.
"You're supposed to be able to send your kids to school knowing that they're going to be safe," says Bramow, now 20. While other victims accepted settlement deals and signed confidentiality agreements, she sued her city's schools for failing to protect her and others from Lindsey—and won. Only then was Lindsey's teaching license finally revoked.
As an 8-year-old elementary-school student, Bramow told how Lindsey forced her hand on what she called his "pee-pee."
"How did you know it was his pee-pee?" an interviewer at St. Luke's Child Protection Center in Cedar Rapids asked Jennah in a videotape, taken in 1995.
"'Cause I felt something?" said Jennah, then a fidgety girl with long, dark hair.
"How did it feel?" the investigator asked.
"Bumpy," Jennah replied. She drew a picture that showed how Lindsey made her touch him on the zipper area of his pants.
Lindsey, now 68, refused multiple requests for an interview. "It never occurs to you people that some people don't want their past opened back up," he said when an AP reporter approached him at his home outside Cedar Rapids and asked questions.
That past, according to evidence presented in the Bramow's civil case, included accusations from students and parents along with reprimands from principals that were filed away, explained away and ultimately ignored until 1995, when accusations from Bramow and two other girls forced his early retirement. Even then, he kept his teaching license until the Bramows took the case public and filed a complaint with the state.
Like Lindsey, the perpetrators that the AP found are everyday educators—teachers, school psychologists, principals and superintendents among them. They're often popular and recognized for excellence and, in nearly nine out of 10 cases, they're male. While some abused students in school, others were cited for sexual misconduct after hours that didn't necessarily involve a kid from their classes, such as viewing or distributing child pornography.
They include:
- Joseph E. Hayes, a former principal in East St. Louis, Ill. DNA evidence in a civil case determined that he impregnated a 14-year-old student. Never charged criminally, his license was suspended in 2003. He has ignored an order to surrender it permanently.
- Donald M. Landrum, a high school teacher in Polk County, N.C. His bosses warned him not to meet with female students behind closed doors. They put a glass window in his office door, but Landrum papered over it. Police later found pornography and condoms in his office and alleged that he was about to have sex with a female student. His license was revoked in 2005.
- Rebecca A. Boicelli, a former teacher in Redwood City, Calif. She conceived a child with a 16-year-old former student then went on maternity leave in 2004 while police investigated. She was hired to teach in a nearby school district; board members said police hadn't told them about the investigation.
The overwhelming majority of cases the AP examined involved teachers in public schools. Private school teachers rarely turn up because many are not required to have a teaching license and, even when they have one, disciplinary actions are typically handled within the school.
Two of the nation's major teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, each denounced sex abuse while emphasizing that educators' rights also must be taken into account.
"Students must be protected from sexual predators and abuse, and teachers must be protected from false accusations," said NEA President Reg Weaver, who refused to be interviewed and instead released a two-paragraph statement.
Kathy Buzad of the AFT said that "if there's one incident of sexual misconduct between a teacher and a student that's one too many."
'Some deviant who crawled into the school district'
The United States has grown more sympathetic to victims of sex abuse over recent decades, particularly when it comes to young people. Laws that protect children from abusers bear the names of young victims. Police have made pursuing Internet predators a priority. People convicted of abuse typically face tough sentences and registry as sex offenders.
Even so, sexually abusive teachers continue to take advantage, and there are several reasons why.
For one, many Americans deny the problem, and even treat the abuse with misplaced fascination. Popular media reports trumpet relationships between attractive female teachers and male students.
"It's dealt with in a salacious manner with late-night comedians saying 'What 14-year-old boy wouldn't want to have sex with his teacher?' It trivializes the whole issue," says Robert Shoop, a professor of educational administration at Kansas State University who has written a book aimed at helping school districts identify and deal with sexual misconduct.
"In other cases, it's reported as if this is some deviant who crawled into the school district—'and now that they're gone, everything's OK.' But it's much more prevalent than people would think."
The AP investigation found efforts to stop individual offenders but, overall, a deeply entrenched resistance toward recognizing and fighting abuse. It starts in school hallways, where fellow teachers look away or feel powerless to help. School administrators make behind-the-scenes deals to avoid lawsuits and other trouble. And in state capitals and Congress, lawmakers shy from tough state punishments or any cohesive national policy for fear of disparaging a vital profession.
That only enables rogue teachers, and puts kids who aren't likely to be believed in a tough spot.
In case after case the AP examined, accusations of inappropriate behavior were dismissed. One girl in Mansfield, Ohio, complained about a sexual assault by teacher Donald Coots and got expelled. It was only when a second girl, years later, brought a similar complaint against the same teacher that he was punished.
And that second girl also was ostracized by the school community and ultimately left town.
Unless there's a videotape of a teacher involved with a child, everyone wants to believe the authority figure, says Wayne Promisel, a retired Virginia detective who has investigated many sex abuse cases.
He and others who track the problem reiterated one point repeatedly during the AP investigation: Very few abusers get caught.
They point to several academic studies estimating that only about one in 10 victimized children report sexual abuse of any kind to someone who can do something about it.
Teachers, administrators and even parents frequently don't, or won't, recognize the signs that a crime is taking place.
"They can't see what's in front of their face. Not unlike a kid in an alcoholic family, who'll say 'My family is great,'" says McGrath, the California lawyer and investigator who now trains entire school systems how to recognize what she calls the unmistakable "red flags" of misconduct.
'Involved in several hundred investigations'
In Hamburg, Pa., in 2002, those "red flags" should have been clear. A student skipped classes every day to spend time with one teacher. He gave her gifts and rides in his car. She sat on his lap. The bond ran so deep that the student got chastised repeatedly—even suspended once for being late and absent so often. But there were no questions for the teacher.
Heather Kline was 12, a girl with a broad smile and blond hair pulled back tight. Teacher Troy Mansfield had cultivated her since she was in his third-grade class.
"Kids, like, idolized me because they thought I was, like, cool because he paid more attention to me," says Kline, now 18, sitting at her mother's kitchen table, sorting through a file of old poems and cards from Mansfield. "I was just like really comfortable. I could tell him anything."
He never pushed her, just raised the stakes, bit by bit—a comment about how good she looked, a gift, a hug.
She was sure she was in love.
By winter of seventh grade, he was sneaking her off in his car for an hour of sex, dropping in on her weekly baby-sitting duties, e-mailing about what clothes she should wear, about his sexual fantasies, about marriage and children.
Mansfield finally got caught by the girl's mother, and his own words convicted him. At his criminal trial in 2004, Heather read his e-mails and instant messages aloud, from declarations of true love to explicit references to past sex. He's serving up to 31 years in state prison.
The growing use of e-mails and text messages is leaving a trail that investigators and prosecutors can use to prove an intimate relationship when other evidence is hard to find.
Even then, many in the community find it difficult to accept that a predator is in their midst. When these cases break, defendants often portray the students as seducers or false accusers. However, every investigator questioned said that is largely a misconception.
"I've been involved in several hundred investigations," says Martin Bates, an assistant superintendent in a Salt Lake City school district. "I think I've seen that just a couple of times ... where a teacher is being pursued by a student."
'Passing the trash'
Too often, problem teachers are allowed to leave quietly. That can mean future abuse for another student and another school district.
"They might deal with it internally, suspending the person or having the person move on. So their license is never investigated," says Charol Shakeshaft, a leading expert in teacher sex abuse who heads the educational leadership department at Virginia Commonwealth University.
It's a dynamic so common it has its own nicknames—"passing the trash" or the "mobile molester."
Laws in several states require that even an allegation of sexual misconduct be reported to the state departments that oversee teacher licenses. But there's no consistent enforcement, so such laws are easy to ignore.
School officials fear public embarrassment as much as the perpetrators do, Shakeshaft says. They want to avoid the fallout from going up against a popular teacher. They also don't want to get sued by teachers or victims, and they don't want to face a challenge from a strong union.
In the Iowa case, Lindsey agreed to leave without fighting when his bosses kept the reason for his departure confidential. The decades' worth of allegations against him would have stayed secret, if not for Bramow.
Across the country, such deals and lack of information-sharing allow abusive teachers to jump state lines, even when one school does put a stop to the abuse.
While some schools and states have been aggressive about investigating problem teachers and publicizing it when they're found, others were hesitant to share details of cases with the AP—Alabama and Mississippi among the more resistant. Maine, the only state that gave the AP no disciplinary information, has a law that keeps offending teachers' cases secret.
Meanwhile, the reasons given for punishing hundreds of educators, including many in California, were so vague there was no way to tell why they'd been punished, until further investigation by AP reporters revealed it was sexual misconduct.
And in Hawaii, no educators were disciplined by the state in the five years the AP examined, even though some teachers there were serving sentences for various sex crimes during that time. They technically remained teachers, even behind bars.
Elsewhere, there have been fitful steps toward catching errant teachers that may be having some effect. The AP found the number of state actions against sexually abusive teachers rose steadily, to a high of 649 in 2005.
More states now require background checks on teachers, fingerprinting and mandatory reporting of abuse, though there are still loopholes and a lack of coordination among districts and states.
'They never go away'
U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the last 20 years on civil rights and sex discrimination have opened schools up to potentially huge financial punishments for abuses, which has driven some schools to act.
And the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification keeps a list of educators who've been punished for any reason, but only shares the names among state agencies.
The uncoordinated system that's developed means some teachers still fall through the cracks. Aaron M. Brevik is a case in point.
Brevik was a teacher at an elementary school in Warren, Mich., until he was accused of using a camera hidden in a gym bag to secretly film boys in locker rooms and showers. He also faced charges that he recorded himself molesting a boy while the child slept.
Found guilty of criminal sexual conduct, Brevik is now serving a five- to 20-year prison sentence and lost his Michigan license in 2005.
What Michigan officials apparently didn't know when they hired him was that Brevik's teaching license in Minnesota had been permanently suspended in 2001 after he allegedly invited two male minors to stay with him in a hotel room. He was principal of an elementary school in southeastern Minnesota at the time.
"I tell you what, they never go away. They just blend a little better," says Steve Janosko, a prosecutor in Ocean County, N.J., who handled the case of a former high school teacher and football coach, Nicholas J. Arminio.
Arminio surrendered his New Jersey teaching license in 1994 after two female students separately accused him of inappropriate touching. The state of Maryland didn't know that when he applied for teaching credentials and took a job at a high school in Baltimore County. He eventually resigned and lost that license, too.
Even so, until this month, he was coaching football at another Baltimore County high school in a job that does not require a teaching license. After the AP started asking questions, he was fired.
Victims also face consequences when teachers are punished.
'I wanted to believe him'
In Pennsylvania, after news of teacher Troy Mansfield's arrest hit, girls called Kline, his 12-year-old victim, a "slut" to her face. A teacher called her a "vixen." Friends stopped talking to her. Kids no longer sat with her at lunch.
Her abuser, meanwhile, had been a popular teacher and football coach.
So, between rumors that she was pregnant or doing drugs and her own panic attacks and depression, Kline bounced between schools. At 16, she ran away to Nashville.
"I didn't have my childhood," says Kline, who's back home now, working at a grocery cash register and hoping to get her GED so she can go to nursing school. "He had me so matured at so young.
"I remember going from little baby dolls to just being an adult."
The courts dealt her a final insult. A federal judge dismissed her civil suit against the school, saying administrators had no obligation to protect her from a predatory teacher since officials were unaware of the abuse, despite what the court called widespread "unsubstantiated rumors" in the school. The family is appealing.
In Iowa, the state Supreme Court made the opposite ruling in the Bramow case, deciding she and her parents could sue the Cedar Rapids schools for failing to stop Lindsey.
Bramow, now a young mother who waits tables for a living, won a $20,000 judgment. But Lindsey was never criminally charged due to what the former county prosecutor deemed insufficient evidence.
Arthur Sensor, the former superintendent in Oelwein, Iowa, who vividly recalls pressuring Lindsey to quit on Feb. 18, 1964, regrets that he didn't do more to stop him back then.
Now, he says, he'd call the police.
"He promised me he wouldn't do it again—that he had learned. And he was a young man, a beginning teacher, had a young wife, a young child," Sensor, now 86 years old, said during testimony at the Bramows' civil trial.
"I wanted to believe him, and I did."


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Ron Artest: I'm Changing My Name ... RADICALLY
Say goodbye to Ron Artest and HELLOOOO to Metta World Peace ... Mr. Metta World Peace to you.
Yes, Ron is going the way of Cassius Clay, Lew Alcindor and Chad Johnson. Ron's filed a petition in L.A. County Superior Court to change his name to -- World Peace.
FYI, metta means loving, kindness, happiness and all that jazz.
We're told Ron wants to put the new last name -- Peace -- on the back of his L.A. Lakers' jersey.
These name changes are typically granted by a judge unless it would result in confusion or fraud.
Hey, give Peace a chance.


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Aldi PC becomes first retail PC with UEFI Secure Boot
The first systems to support UEFI Secure Boot, which is a requirement for carrying the Windows 8 logo, have now been released. The requirements have been controversial for open source operating system makers as they have attempted to work out how to work with the Secure Boot and Microsoft's demands for logo compliance, especially as no systems were available with Secure Boot implemented. Compatible UEFI firmware contains a platform key (PK), a key exchange key (KEK) and two signature databases for checking signed code prior to execution. As defined in the UEFI 2.3.1 specification, which is being commercially implemented in Windows 8 for the first time, Secure Boot is intended to prevent malware from running before the operating system has booted.
Aldi is now selling the Medion Akoya P4210 D (also sold under the model number MD 8370) which is one of the first systems to include motherboard firmware which supports UEFI Secure Boot. The BIOS setup (or rather UEFI setup) includes three menu pages for setting up Secure Boot options and for key management. As required by Microsoft for standard desktop computers bearing the Windows 8 logo, Secure Boot can be disabled. It is also possible to add additional key exchange keys and signatures.
The system is based on MSI's MS 7800 motherboard (an OEM product designed for Medion which has Secure Boot turned off by default. The UEFI specification calls this configuration "Setup Mode" and the system has to be switched to "User Mode", which loads the relevant keys and databases, in order to enable Secure Boot. In User Mode, the system requires an administrator and a user password to be set in order to restrict access to Setup Mode. To improve security, these passwords have certain restrictions placed on them in the MS 7800's implementation as they must include upper- and lower-case letters and other variations. If both passwords are set, users can configure Secure Boot to prevent "insecure" UEFI applications and bootloaders from being executed.
Under Windows, Secure Boot can only be used in conjunction with Windows 8's UEFI mode. For those Windows 8 versions which are user installable, this means users have to use the 64-bit version of the operating system and that the hard drive containing the system partition must contain a GUID partition table (GPT). Users wanting to install a 32-bit version of Windows or a 64-bit version in BIOS mode will have to disable Secure Boot. Depending on the firmware, it may be possible to switch this function on and off at boot time as required, though it is not clear how well this will work with features like "suspend to RAM" or "wake on LAN".
UEFI Secure Boot does not require a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) – Microsoft only requires this for tablets containing ARM or Atom SoCs and which support "connected standby" functionality. Secure Boot cannot be disabled on ARM systems with Windows RT, but can be disabled on connected-standby-enabled tablets running x86 SoCs – this most likely results in the loss of connected standby functionality, however. Several Linux distributions are also planning to support Secure Boot, but have different means of achieving this.
Update 18-07-12: An earlier version of this article misstated the steps needed to activate Secure Boot and which passwords need to be set in the UEFI firmware to enable it.
See also:
- The FSF weighs in on UEFI Secure Boot, a report from The H.
- Canonical details Ubuntu UEFI Secure Boot plans, a report from The H.
- Fedora 18 to support UEFI Secure Boot, a report from The H.