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KHON2, KITV, Hawaii News Now Face Uncertain Future
Local television news was once a great way to make money, but now its future is as clear as 3-D movies without the glasses.
Revenues from advertising sales are up, but nowhere near what they were in the glory days before the recession. The Internet and mobile devices are areas for growth but pose challenges and costs, and little revenue, so far. And, the legality of Hawaii News Now, the two-year experiment in shared services, depends on an upcoming federal decision.
"With the growth of Web and mobile platforms and all the big changes that have happened in Hawaii in the past several years, anyone who thinks they've got this business figured out is fooling themselves," says KITV president and general manager Andrew Jackson.
Despite the plethora of online and mobile news options, nearly two-thirds of Americans still rely on TV for local news, according to the 2009 People and the Press Survey Report from the Pew Research Center.
But the Hawaii industry has changed dramatically since the days of locally owned stations, newsrooms filled with reporters, and all the day's top stories culminating in the 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts. Today, Mainland corporations own all of Hawaii's network affiliates; there are fewer reporters and other employees; and you can watch local news from 5 to 8 a.m., and at 5, 6, 9 and 10 p.m.
All of those newscasts mean there is money to be made in ad sales. But the recession slashed revenues and the stations laid off newsroom staff. Then, in 2009, came the bombshell: Alabama-based Raycom Media, owner of KHNL and KFVE, and MCG Capital, which owns KGMB, announced they were consolidating operations. That resulted in about 70 more layoffs and the closure of the landmark KGMB station on Kapiolani Boulevard. Raycom CEO Paul McTear said the shared-services agreement (SSA) would help secure the future of the three stations, which had become less profitable.
From 2007 to early 2009, Hawaii News Now general manager Rick Blangiardi estimates overall advertising revenue in the state plummeted nearly 30 percent. Given that reality, Hawaii could no longer support five separate major stations, McTear said at a 2009 press conference, adding that the SSA would mean better coverage and more stories of local, national and international importance. Two months later, on Oct. 26, the three stations launched their first joint newscast as Hawaii News Now.
"Combining our resources and consolidating," Blangiardi says, "resulted in a much larger, more dynamic newsroom with a real enhanced capability to cover the stories of the day."
Soon after the launch, the Media Council of Hawaii, a nonprofit watchdog, filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. The complaint said the SSA was a breach of the public trust and a violation of FCC rules that prevent one entity from owning or controlling two of the top four stations in a single market. The complaint also said the consolidation diminished the quality and diversity of news.
Raycom, which owns or operates 46 stations nationwide, says the SSA is an operational arrangement – not an ownership change – and, therefore, does not violate the FCC rules. University of Hawaii journalism professor Gerald Kato, who is a member of the media council, isn't buying it.
"They've created this fiction that they've maintained separate operations when MCG Capital is like a silent partner and Raycom runs the show," Kato says. "What they've actually done is formed a media cartel that controls about 45 percent of the marketplace."
Blangiardi declined to comment on issues concerning the media council's complaint because a ruling by the FCC is pending. McTear was not reachable for comment.
Janice Wise, of the FCC's Media Bureau, says the agency does not keep statistics on how many stations nationwide are part of SSAs, "but they are not unusual and are becoming more common."
Kato, himself a former Honolulu Advertiser and KGMB and KITV reporter, says there are variations of SSAs across the U.S., but the one involving Raycom and MCG is probably one of the more "egregious." "These kinds of combinations are basically duopolies – one company owning two stations. In this case, it's a triopoly."
Chris Conybeare, president of the media council, says the FCC is collecting information on the impact of the SSA and the financial relationship among its parties, and is moving toward a decision.
Improving coverage
Robert Picard, a leading media economist and the director of research at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University, says the emergence of SSAs has been driven by economics. However, the agreements are generally not made to reduce expenses, but "to improve coverage after the bottom-line decisions have already been made and it becomes evident that coverage and quality (from the individual stations) are becoming thin," Picard explains.
Blangiardi has reiterated, time and again, that the SSA was not about cost-cutting or greed. "It was about consolidating and creating something better as opposed to what we were left with independent of each other."
In 2002, Blangiardi headed both KHON2 and KGMB, which had the same owner then and separate newsrooms. He says HNN spends more money now to sustain its combined operation than he spent back then to run KHON2 and KGMB separately.
"Are we saving money? It all depends on how you look at it," he says. "We've put a tremendous investment in the new technology required to broadcast in high-definition, we've got a really nice fleet of trucks downstairs, new cameras, sound equipment. In some cases, there was some redundancy (when we consolidated), so in that sense it provided a cost savings, but not much."
When asked how the SSA has impacted the bottom line, Blangiardi would only say that 2010 was a solid year and that HNN achieved its numbers. "This was by every definition an exceptional success, qualitatively and quantitatively," he says.
Among traditional media, local TV had the best year financially in 2010, according to the State of the News Media 2011, a national report by the Pew Research Center. Nationally, revenue rose about 17 percent, thanks in part to a 77 percent increase in auto advertising and a record $2.2 billion in political advertising.
If you look back 10 years, the only revenue for local TV was broadcast advertising. Today, new revenue streams include online and mobile, though broadcast advertising remains the dominant source, averaging $60 million a year in local TV advertising. KITV, HNN and KHON2 each reported increases in their core ad sales for 2010 and, before the March 11 tsunami, each had projected low, single-digit growth for this year.
The big challenge for TV is how many people are watching – or not watching – the ads that pay for it all. That people use the bathroom, talk, get a snack or mute the sound during commercials is nothing new, but the use of time-shifted watching is up. According to Nielsen, time-shifting and DVR playback account for 23 percent of all TV viewing in America, and that number has been growing for years.
Steve Sternberg, a national consultant on TV audience and programming, says the bulk of time-shifted viewing via DVRs includes fast-forwarding through commercials. Sternberg says Nielsen's claim that 40 percent of viewers still watch commercials during playback is ridiculous, and suspects the actual figure is much less.
Another hurdle for advertisers, Sternberg says, is TV's aging viewers. The median age is 51 for viewers of the four major networks – ABC (KITV), FOX (KHON), CBS (KGMB) and NBC (KHNL). Sternberg says that's the oldest since he began analyzing median age more than a decade ago. It's also the first time the networks' median age was outside most advertisers' targeted 18- to 49-year-old demographics, causing many of the advertisers to rethink their strategies.
KHON2 general manager Joseph McNamara says that, from a station owner's perspective, SSAs make sense. "If you think about it, if you have a couple of several-million-dollar news operations and you eliminate one of them, that's several million dollars to your bottom line just in news services," he says. "Sales is another area where you can potentially bring in more money and, maybe, you need fewer technical and support staff. So, absolutely, there are savings and it makes good business sense. I just think it's how you present it and how you monetize it." In fact, he says, it's possible for stations to share some services – and save money – yet maintain separate editorial voices.
What's happening at HNN is not rocket science, says Kato. "This SSA was a good way to maximize profits while cutting costs; I don't think anybody can deny that. From the businessman's perspective, competition isn't good because it hurts his bottom line and means it's harder to make money. But competition in news makes for better journalism and a more informed community."
Kato says TV stations often overlook the fact that the airwaves they broadcast on belong to the public. "In that sense, they have an obligation as licensees to operate in the public interest. I understand the realities of the world and that the economy is bad right now, and owners aren't making the kind of profits they once were, but I don't think the public is obligated to, in effect, subsidize Raycom, or any other media company, to guarantee them a sizable profit. These owners say they're not making money, but is it just that they're not making enough money? There's a big difference."
More or better news?
Blangiardi contends that HNN is stronger and better than ever, and he believes the station has "absolutely" accomplished what it set out to do.
"Look at any newscast on our stations; look at the people who are doing the news; look at the story count; look at the quality of what's being presented to the people of this state – the intelligence behind it – that speaks for itself every day. We're very transparent, easy to watch, easy to find."
Local critics disagree that HNN is providing better news than its predecessors and they are backed up by a report from the University of Delaware's Center for Community Research and Service. The study, released in February and called, "Local TV & Shared Services Agreements: Examining News Content in Honolulu," says the SSA has harmed the diversity, competition and localism of Hawaii's TV news. Prof. Danilo Yanich and his team, working independently of Media Council Hawaii, say they analyzed the daily newscasts of Hawaii's five TV news stations before and after the SSA. They say they chose to study Honolulu because it was the only U.S. market in which a community group filed an official FCC challenge to an SSA.
The team analyzed individual stories, comparing the distribution of topics, coverage of local stories and duration of stories. They found that after the Hawaii SSA, the number of stories and the amount of time devoted to public issues, such as housing, education, health and the environment, declined for the stations involved in the agreement. The same decline happened at KITV and KHON2.
"The most significant finding is that two stations that were part of the three-station SSA group simply duplicated their newscasts through the mechanism of simulcast," Yanich wrote in the report.
The research team also found the "package presentation mode" of telling TV news stories, in which a reporter and camera person go to the scene of the story to investigate and shoot video, was cut in half by KGMB, KHNL and KFVE and replaced with less expensive presentations, such as voiceovers by anchors. According to the report, HNN covered fewer stories with a local connection than KITV and KHON2. (Read the full report at www.mediacouncil.org.)
"Given all of these findings, the University of Delaware study concludes that this SSA has not resulted in improved coverage and more enterprising news content," says UH's Kato.
"If station owners are all going to start asking, 'Why do we have to send two camera crews to the same news conference?' who's to say that tomorrow they won't be asking, 'Why can't we just have shared coverage on election night?' or maybe even, 'Why do we have to have separate news programs? Why can't we just have one newscast simulcast across all the stations in Hawaii?' "
In the old days (way back before, say, 2003), every local newsroom was focused on the next newscast. Today, unless they have an exclusive, reporters usually post first to the Web, social media and mobile devices.
KHON2 news director Lori Silva sees the Web not only as a tool for immediacy but also as a way to attract viewers to the newscast. "The hope is that what you put on your website, or on Twitter or Facebook, will pique viewers' interest and that will draw them to your newscast for more in-depth coverage and video," she says.
KITV news director Genie Garner says the station recently launched an iPad app and all reporters have iPhones and laptops that connect them to the Web and social media at all times. "Everyone in this newsroom has had to change the way they think," she says. "The public doesn't want to have to wait until the evening newscast anymore, so you always have to have good, accurate content available."
A few years ago, broadcasters were unsure how the Web and social media would impact traditional TV, "but we've found that it all enhances the broadcast medium," says KITV's Jackson.
Blangiardi says HNN is quickly evolving into a multimedia company, but that his team, along with everybody else in the business, is still trying to uncover the secret to monetizing the Web.
Future of TV news
TV news stations across the country are doing more with less. "Everything is fast and furious these days," KHON2's Silva says. "When I started out (28 years ago), we had double the amount of reporters in the newsroom. Today, we have about six on any given day and they're all working on a story for that night."
To cut costs, some Mainland stations are shedding high-priced anchors, and stations everywhere, including in Hawaii, are sending reporters or camera people out alone more often to collect footage and news. Content is also changing in other ways. As in movies, individual clips and soundbites within a news item have become shorter, and UH's Kato says more stories are purely for entertainment and contain little news value.
Stations across the nation have seen more viewers at nontraditional news timeslots, such as 4:30 a.m. and 7.p.m., so broadcasters are looking at these options for growth.
McNamara predicts TV news will become more interactive, allowing viewers to use their remotes to select a story from the newscast that they'd like to learn more about or even select the types of stories they want to hear. "Maybe one day we'll be able to do instant polling using your remote," he says.
Still, much of Hawaii's TV-news future is riding on the FCC's decision on HNN. If the FCC permits the SSA to continue, Kato and Conybeare fear it will lead to more media consolidations across the U.S.
Instead, Conybeare says, he would like the FCC to disallow the SSA and revoke the Hawaii licenses for HNN's Mainland owners and put them up for auction.
"We know from national studies that local ownership provides the best local coverage of communities and I would hope that local owners would step up to the plate," he says.
MCH is exploring the idea of creating a community-owned commercial TV station. "I envision a Hawaii entity raising capital from the community and leveraging this to purchase a broadcast station," Conybeare says.
Blangiardi, on the other hand, is confident about the future for HNN and for local TV, in general.
"There are more opportunities than ever before to reach people over multiple platforms, so we're excited. The future of Hawaii's broadcast industry has never looked brighter."
The author of this article, Hawaii Business writer Shara Enay, conducts interviews each Friday on KHON2's morning news. She selects the subjects independently and writes her own scripts.
Where Americans Get Their News
Totals are more than 100 percent because some people use multiple sources to get their news
The Ratings Winner is…
The TV industry lives and dies by ratings, so everyone tries to put the best face on the numbers.
KGMB's Sunrise Show and 10 p.m. newscast won the No. 1 spot in the February Nielsen ratings. KHON2 claimed the top spot for its 5 p.m. newscast, 5:30 p.m. World News Report and 6 p.m. newscast with Joe Moore. But, if you combine the ratings of the HNN stations, which Nielsen allows, HNN beats KHON2 in every time slot except 6 p.m., the most watched newscast of the day.
KITV, which is consistently third in the ratings, is the only station with an hourlong newscast at 10 p.m. as well as a weekend morning newscast, and news director Genie Garner says the station has been showing positive growth in key areas.
KITV's Jackson and KHON2's McNamara say the HNN merger hasn't hurt their viewership numbers.
"In the beginning, our numbers actually went up a little bit," McNamara says, adding that some viewers might have felt slighted when HNN began its simulcasts, which created "sampling" in the marketplace. "So, from our standpoint, I think we actually benefited from it."
Numbers Game
Website Unique Visitors Monthly*
HawaiiNewsNow.com: 1,000,000
KITV.com: 340,000
KHON2.com 230,000
Bragging Rights
Each of the stations trumpets the awards it wins.
HNN scooped up three national Emmy Awards and four Edward R. Murrow Awards last year for overall excellence, best newscast at 10 p.m., best continuing coverage and best hard-news reporting.
HNN news director Mark Platte, who is the former editor of The Honolulu Advertiser, says he's also proud of his team for completing four 90-minute live campaign debates last year, more than any other local station; filming a two-hour live broadcast from Waikiki Beach to celebrate the launch of CBS's "Hawaii 5-0" series; broadcasting their Sunrise Show live from Hilo for a week leading up to the Merrie Monarch Festival; and for "the most live reports and most extensive coverage in the wake of the Japan tsunami of any other station."
Last year, KITV won two Emmy Awards for best evening newscast for a medium-size market for its 5 p.m. newscast and another for best informational/instructional feature. It also received six Excellence in Journalism Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists.
KHON2 picked up two Edward R. Murrow Regional Awards and is consistently one of the top 10 FOX affiliates in the country, says KHON2 news director Lori Silva.


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A Google security engineer accused Microsoft of treating outside researchers with "great hostility" just days before posting details of an unpatched vulnerability in Windows that could be used to crash PCs or gain additional access rights.
Microsoft acknowledged the vulnerability late Wednesday. "We are aware of claims regarding a potential issue affecting Microsoft Windows and are investigating," said Dustin Childs, a spokesman for the company's security response group, in an email. "We have not detected any attacks against this issue, but will take appropriate action to protect our customers."
Childs declined to answer additional questions, including whether Microsoft had been aware of the vulnerability before it surfaced on the Full Disclosure security mailing list May 17, or when it would release a patch.
Tavis Ormandy, a Google security engineer, revealed the bug on Full Disclosure, where he discussed the flaw in the Windows kernel driver, "Win32k.sys," and asked for help in overcoming a roadblock. "I don't have much free time to work on silly Microsoft code, so I'm looking for ideas on how to fix the final obstacle for exploitation," he wrote.
Ormandy had first published information about the vulnerability in March to GitHub in an effort to solicit help or entice other researchers to investigate. That information no longer appears on GitHub, however.
On Monday, Ormandy again posted to Full Disclosure, going into more detail and providing demonstration code. "I have a working exploit that grants SYSTEM on all currently supported versions of Windows," claimed Ormandy. "Code is available on request to students from reputable schools."
Tuesday, Danish vulnerability research firm Secunia published a skeletal advisory, claiming it had confirmed the bug in a fully-patched copy of Windows 7 Professional and that Windows 8 and other editions might also be affected.
Secunia said that the vulnerability could be exploited to generate a denial-of-service (DoS) attack or to give an attacker elevated privileges.
Microsoft dubs the latter an "elevation of privilege," or EoP, vulnerability.
While the bug cannot be exploited remotely -- by sneaking attack code onto a compromised website, for example -- it still should be considered serious, said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at TripWire's nCircle Security.
"If you consider that it takes a number of different vulnerabilities to successfully exploit Windows or a Microsoft application, a local EoP is an important step in that chain of breaking into a Windows system," Storms said in an email.
"Note that one person responded to his [Full Disclosure message] requesting some code in hopes of adding it to Metasploit," Storms continued, referring to the popular open-source penetration testing framework used by security professionals as well as by cyber criminals. "So it might not be a big remote code bug, but it could be useful for attackers nonetheless."
Ormandy has released information and demonstration code before for Windows vulnerabilities, notably in a pair of disclosures in 2010. In one such unveiling, Ormandy acknowledged that he reported a critical bug to Microsoft only five days before going public, saying he decided to take that tack -- rather than report it privately, and give Microsoft time to patch it -- because of its severity, and because he believed Microsoft would have otherwise dismissed his analysis.
Microsoft and some other security researchers criticized Ormandy for publicly discussing the vulnerability before it was patched, a practice known as "full disclosure" and one at odds with Microsoft's preference, called "responsible disclosure," that asks experts to report bugs privately.
Earlier in 2010, Ormandy had published information about a different Windows kernel vulnerability, pointing out that the bug had been tucked inside the operating system for at least 17 years.
Last week, Ormandy took a similar jab at Microsoft over the newest vulnerability.
"As far as I can tell, this code is pre-NT (20+ years) old, so remember to thank the SDL for solving security and reminding us that old code doesn't need to be reviewed ;-)," Ormandy said on Full Disclosure.

subset: commoncrawl


text: Tio Loco 0 Posted September 29, 2002 I wante to give the forum members a shot before I put it on ebay. Here's the poop from the Sea & Sea site: Configured like its counterpart, the popular YS-90TTL Duo strobe, the YS-90DX is compact and lightweight, constructed of high-impact polycarbonate. It bears the same prism diffuser, projecting an ultra-wide (weitwinkel), even beam. But the YS-90DX goes beyond dual system capability; it is the world's first submersible flash to have intuitive circuitry with triple-system compatibility. A traditional four-pin sync cord synchronizes it with the Motor Marine II-EX. A traditional five-pin sync cord synchronizes it with Nikonos and housed Nikon systems. And the new Sea & Sea fiber optic cable synchronizes it with digital still cameras. When used with a traditional sync cord, the YS-90DX operates in TTL automatic, slave and manual modes. When used with digital cameras via an accessory fiber optic cable, the YS- 90DX is slave-fired. The YS-90DX responds when the camera's built-in flash is fired. Some digital cameras have a pre- flash to measure subject distance and available light, some fire only once. The YS-90DX can be set to fire when you want it to. It operates in manual mode only. Total manual flash exposure is achieved by means of the strobe's unique 12- option light level control dial. Specifications • Exposure control: TTL and Manual, with 12 light-level options • Beam angle: 105º x 95º • Guide number: (ISO 100, land) 72/22 (ft/m) (full power) • Color temperature: 5500ºK • Recycle time (full power): 200 alkaline, 120 Ni-cad Power source: Four AA alkaline or ni-cad batteries • Dimensions: 115 x 88 x 175mm/4.5 x 3.5 x 7 inches (H x W x D) It's brand new, never been wet. List on this puppy is $619, B&H has it at $533+s/h.... first $475 takes it home and I'll include shipping anywhere in the US. Richard Share this post Link to post Share on other sites


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ARTIST ROOMS is a world-class collection of international contemporary art dedicated to fostering creativity amongst young people nationwide.
ARTIST ROOMS is a touring collection that makes exceptional works of post-war and contemporary art available to institutions across the UK for use in high-profile monographic exhibitions.Learn
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Yes. Yes. Yes. Could be cliched but I suspect it won't be. It is directed by Gus van Sant after all, the guy behind movies such as Good Will Hunting and Elephant. The film will be opening at Cannes Film Festival next week.
The plot is described by imdb as "The story of a terminally ill teenage girl who falls for a boy who likes to attend funerals and their encounters with the ghost of a Japanese kamikaze pilot from WWII." We all need a Hiroshi in our lives...am I right?
The kid is Harry Hopper = he might look slightly familiar as his father was the marvelously creative Dennis Hopper. The sister is played by Schuyler Fisk who writes and performs the most lovely folk inspired pop music. She was also Kirsty in the Babysitter's Club Movie and is Carrie's (Sissy Spacek) daughter. Plus...I love Mia Wasikowska
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Restless - A thousand times yes
Posted by Adele
5 comments:
- Baggins said...
I'd not heard of this movie, but it looks beautiful.
I did not know that Schuyler Fisk was Kirsty! Amazing. Oh, Babysitter's Club, that brings back memories. :-)
- 7 May 2011 at 12:32
- Sysha said...
Thanks for this post! This movie looks like it will be quite good but also heartbreaking. I love Mia Wasikowska too :)
- 7 May 2011 at 18:50
- Robby said...
Sounds like exactly the kind of movie I would enjoy. Great cast, AND Gus Van Sant. It will be fabulous.
- 7 May 2011 at 23:46
- Lisa Schensted said...
OH MY GOSH yes. thank you for sharing!
- 8 May 2011 at 02:24
- Nomes said...
gosh. this looks absolutely gorgeous! i'm absolutely keeping my fingers crossed for this one :)
thanks adele.
- 8 May 2011 at 20:55
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Eastern Screech-Owl, Megascops asio, Otus asio
Filename: EASO_004556.jpg
Copyright © Rolf Nussbaumer Photography, 2323 Bretzke Lane, New Braunfels, TX 78132, USA, www.rolfnp.com, Tel. 210 643 4800
Copyright © Rolf Nussbaumer Photography, 2323 Bretzke Lane, New Braunfels, TX 78132, USA, www.rolfnp.com, Tel. 210 643 4800
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John "Jack" C. Watts
MADISON, Wis. — John "Jack" C. Watts, age 91, passed away on Monday, January 28, 2013 at his home surrounded by family.
He was born on February 14, 1921, in Elgin, Ill., the son of Ernest and Catherine (McCarthy) Watts. He married Elizabeth Hausman on October 19, 1946, at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Madison. Jack served in the Army from 1942-1945. He worked at Oscar Mayer as an accountant for 41 years. He was a member of the Elks, Rotary, was a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge during WWII. Jack liked to golf, bowl, was an avid Badgers fan, and enjoyed spending time at his cottage.
He is survived by three sons, Tom Watts, of Madison, Bob (Kate) Watts, of Madison, and Richard (Valerie) Watts, of Madison; eight grandchildren, Kristin (Xee) Lee, Molly (Jeff) Smith, Maggy Watts, Melissa (Tracy) Farwell, Brian Watts, Tracy (Dave) Velte, Jessica Eldridge, and Jon Watts; ten great-grandchildren; two brothers, Joseph Watts, of Madison, and Richard (Alice) Watts, of Middleton; two sisters, Mary Nelson, of Middleton, and Barbara Ploetz, of Middleton. He was preceded in death by his wife of 65 years, Betty; his parents, Ernest and Catherine; a brother, James; a sister, Dorothy Larson; and a daughter-in-law, Helen Watts.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, February 1, 2013, at ST. PETER CATHOLIC CHURCH, 5001 N. Sherman Ave., with Fr. Jay Poster presiding. Burial will follow at Highland Memory Gardens. Visitation will be held from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. on Thursday, January 31, 2013, at RYAN FUNERAL HOME, 2418 N. Sherman Ave., and also from 10 a.m. until the time of Mass at the church on Friday.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Society of St. Vincent de Paul, P.O. Box 259686, 2033 Fish Hatchery Rd., Madison, WI, 53725.
To view and sign this guestbook, please visit: http://ryanfuneralservice.com/fh/obituaries/tribute.cfm?o_id=1936009&fh_id=10436


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Earlier this week Tom Scheinfeldt, of Found History suggested that the historical profession could well be moving in a new direction. For quite sometime historians have been concerned with questions of ideology, arguments about which historical-isms are the best for a given task. Tom, suggests that new media tools (like text mining) challenge historians to consider methodological questions anew.
I think there is a great example of one of these new methodological conversations that could be emerging in the way we work with source material. Consider historian Jeremy Suri's article in this months Wired magazine, a brief 4 page adaptation of a paper he coauthored with political scientist Scott Sagan. Beyond being a bit pithier and coming with hip twotone images of Nixon I would imagine that most historians would suspect that the brief wired article is simply a derivative from the original 33 page article published in International Security. But Suri's article in Wired gives the historian something very valuable that the original paper does not.
When you read the Wired article online you are only a click away from scans of many of the declassified primary sources Suri used to develop his argument. This gives the reader a radically transparent view into the source material supporting the case Suri argues. Imagine what this kind of source transparency could do if it became standard practice for historical journals.
As a thought experiment consider the implications of the David Abraham Affair. When several historians rigorously fact checked Abraham's footnotes and turned up a host of inconsistencies he was drummed out of the historical profession. In analysis of the incident in That Noble Dream Peter Novik suggested that Abraham's sloppiness was not a isolated case, but instead one of the only times a historians footnotes were so rigorously fact checked. This kind of double checking doesn't happen that often largely because it is so time consuming. How many people would retrace a historians footsteps through archives scattered around the world to double check each citation? But when checking sources becomes as simple as clicking a link what do we think will turn up everyone else's footnotes?
You might think the linked citations I just mentioned are something that will never happen. Or that this kind of change is twenty years out. But, just last week Jstor started to implement new features that bring this kind of linked connection to secondary literature and <shamelessplug> on a very basic level our work on Zotero's ability to create smart bibliographies allows authors the ability to put their bibliographies upfront for others to quickly grab. Beyond these two projects however, our plan for the Zotero Commons will facilitate exactly this kind of radical transparency for primary source material in historical scholarship. Through a collaboration with the internet archive any author will be able to stick permanent URI's on their cache of scanned source material. Allowing anyone to link out to an author's primary sources.</shamelessplug>
With the commons, every professional and amature historian will be able to end their papers with. "You can find the documents cited in this paper @ Zotero Commons." So, the question is, when it takes 15 seconds instead of 15 hours to fact check a source do we think historians will start to write differently, or otherwise change how they do their work?


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The Quest for Vertical Axis Wind Turbines Despite Failures
A small-scale vertical axis wind turbine designed by Wing Power Energy. Image: courtesy of WPE
The vision is beautiful, if not somewhat tried: a large cluster of 360 foot tall towers encircled with long, slightly cupped blades, similar to airplane wings, spinning in the wind like a wind vane. The result? An outpouring of clean electricity at the Megawatt (MW) scale.
That's what Harry Ruda, CEO of Wing Power Energy, a small vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) company, sees when he imagines his turbines coming of age. He's one of the believers out there gallantly chasing the dream of making VAWTS big.
Currently, his 2-kilowatt capacity turbines stand 34 feet tall. However diminutive (both in terms of height and output), Ruda believes these turbines are the blueprint for the next generation of wind energy, that when scaled up, will revamp wind power at the utility level, ushering in wind 3.0.
The quest to slay the faulty dragon of conventional, or horizontal axis, wind turbines (HAWTS) has been an impossible one, thus far. The domination of conventional wind comes from their reliability, efficiency and increasingly low cost, despite vertical's touted improvements – less expensive to build and maintain, safer for birds and bats, quieter, and their ability to use less open space.
"VAWTs are a perfectly legitimate technology, but these are not toys or lawn ornaments," enthuses Paul Gipe, a renewable energy advocate and analyst, who's worked in the industry for over 30 years, "They are supposed to produce electricity, and must compete with all the other machines that produce electricity. Right now, no one produces a VAWT that is more cost effective than a conventional wind turbine."
There are enough examples of VAWT failure to solidify this air of doubt. According to Gipe, in California in the 1980s, hundreds of VAWTs were in operation producing millions of kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. Those turbines were not cost effective and were less reliable, as evidenced by their aluminum blades weakening and flying off after operating for several hundreds of hours (Eeeek!). Not one of these turbines is operating today.
More recently, a handful of small startups have tried to take up the cause. Helix Wind, a company that seemed to be heading in the right direction, ended its run due to financial troubles. Another, Windspire Energy, received accolades for its streamline design, was promoted in Popular Science's "Best of What's New" in 2008, and then declared Chapter 11 last year when it lost huge amounts of funds while repairing unreliable parts under warranty.
The problem, says John O. Dabiri, the Director for the Center for Bioinspired Wind Energy, California Institute of Technology, is that even though multiple companies are premiering new design developments like improved efficiency of 10-15%, they've still ignored the Achilles heal of vertical axis wind – fees and functionality.
"The main goal should be to change the cost and reliability of the designs, not its efficiency," said Dabiri. "If a 2kw turbine costs more than $5,000.00 the company is blowing smoke about its viability."
This means a turbine would have to be in the range of $1-$2 per kilowatt of maximum power production, and about 5 cents/kwh of electricity to get anywhere close to being competitive with the current fossil fuel market. It would also have to operate smoothly for about 20 years.
If this $5,000 cost point is the measure of success, Wing Energy's current turbine isn't likely to make headlines soon their small turbine sells for about $10,000. The Economies of scale bear much of this blame, since until a product is mass-produced, it's difficult to keep manufacturing, installation, and distribution costs low. However, so too is the material choice.
"We do think there's a lot of promise for VAWTs," said Dabiri speaking on the future, but added that the [designers] need to start by using the right materials for small turbines before trying their hand at large wind."
It's this sliver of hope that keeps companies trying, including Venger Wind, Wepower Eco, and Urban Green Energy. This is the list that Wing Power wants to best with their turbine that combines the savonius and darrieus design into one technology, allowing it to operate very efficiently in low and high wind speed. This design is already being utilized on the micro wind scale to further the reach of cellphones.
"We believe that verticals will ultimately rule the day and replace horizontals because of their innate benefits," says Ruda pitching his concept. "One of our missions is to prove this theory by starting with modeling 100 kilowatt capacity turbines and then moving to megawatt."


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Pastor Rokser examines the prosperity Gospel under the searchlight of the Scriptures.
― News and Commentary from a Biblical Perspective ―
Dennis Rokser
Duluth Bible Church
Pastor Rokser examines the prosperity Gospel under the searchlight of the Scriptures.
Labels: Dennis Rokser , Health and Wealth Gospel , Prosperity Theology
(FORTUNE)—According to CNBC, SpaceX's Vice President of Satellite Government Affairs Patricia Cooper said Wednesday that the company will begin testing on the satellites later this year. Cooper also said that a prototype will be launched before next year and another again in early 2018. He added that SpaceX wants to begin launching the actual satellite system in 2019.
Musk's company previously filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to launch the satellite system but provided few details on how it would be rolled out.
"Once fully deployed, the SpaceX System will pass over virtually all parts of the Earth's surface and therefore, in principle, have the ability to provide ubiquitous global service," the FCC application reads. "Every point on the Earth's surface will see, at all times, a SpaceX satellite....
Dr. Michael J. Vlach
Theology systems often can be placed on a Continuity–Discontinuity spectrum or scale. "Continuity," in this context, refers to a connection or carryover of an Old Testament (OT) idea or concept into the New Testament (NT). Discontinuity refers to a change or disconnect between the OT and NT.
Dispensationalism is often known as a "discontinuity" system mostly because it sees a distinction between Israel and the church. In the very important and helpful book, Continuity and Discontinuity, edited by John S. Feinberg, Dispensationalism was identified as a discontinuity system.
But while affirming important areas of discontinuity in the testaments, Dispensationalism also affirms significant areas of continuity as well. That is what I want to focus on in this entry. Below are areas where Dispensationalism affirms continuity between the OT and NT. Note that each of these eight points below could be developed over many pages, but for the sake of brevity of a blog post, I list them with a short explanation.
Storyline Continuity.
Dispensationalists believe there is strong continuity between the storyline of the OT and the storyline presented in the NT. In other words, while the NT adds details to the Bible's storyline it does not change the story. Dispensationalists believe the covenants, promises, and prophecies of the Old Testament are and will be fulfilled literally through the two comings of Jesus. This includes all physical and spiritual realities along with all particular (Israel) and universal entities. While affirming the importance of spiritual realities such as salvation, forgiveness, new heart, and indwelling Holy Spirit, dispensationalists do not believe physical realities are spiritualized or transcended with the coming of Jesus and the NT era. This contrasts with nondispensational systems that often see the NT as transcending, transforming, transposing, or spiritualizing the message of the OT. To repeat, Dispensationalism affirms that the storyline begun in the Old Testament is fulfilled literally through the two comings of Jesus. The story is not changed. This includes many realities concerning the Messiah and His role, Israel, the land, Jerusalem, the temple, nations, etc.
The kingdom of the Messiah is consistent with the kingdom promised in the Old Testament.
The prophets and Psalms predicted a future earthly kingdom of the Messiah where He transforms the planet and rules the literal nations of the world (Ps. 2; 72; 110; Isa. 2, 11, 25). Dispensationalists see these predictions coming true as a result of the second coming of Jesus the Messiah. Just as the Old Testament promised a future tangible earthly kingdom over the nations, so too does the New Testament (Matt. 19:28; Rev. 19:15). The kingdom is not spiritualized or transcended. Thus, when John the Baptist and Jesus declared, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2; 4:17) they meant the prophesied earthly kingdom of the Old Testament. This is in contrast to some nondispensational systems that often see the promised earthly kingdom of the OT spiritualized to a present reign of the Messiah from heaven.
The Israel of the Old Testament consists of the ethnic descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that comprise the nation of Israel. Sometimes these Israelites are saved and sometimes they are not. Likewise, all 73 references to "Israel" in the New Testament refer to ethnic Israelites or ethnic Israelites who have believed in Jesus ("Israel of God" Gal. 6:16). There is no transformation or transcending of the concept of Israel. There is no enlargement or expansion of Israel to include Gentiles, although there is expansion of the "people of God" concept to include believing Gentiles alongside believing Israelites (Eph. 2:11-22). Thus, "Israel" in the New Testament carries the meaning of Israel found in the OT. This is in contrast to some nondispensational systems that often view Israel as being redefined, enlarged, or transcended to include Gentiles.
Israel's land and Jerusalem.
Israel's land and Jerusalem continue to remain significant in New Testament times. Jesus offers instructions for people living in Judea in the last days and anticipates a coming restoration of Jerusalem (Matt 24:15-22; Luke 21:24). Thus, this is another area where Dispensationalism affirms continuity.
Day of the Lord.
The coming day of the Lord that impacts both the land of Israel and the entire world is taught in the NT as well as the OT (Isa. 13; 1 Thess. 5; 2 Thess 2). The OT prophets predicted that the Day of the Lord would involve the judgment of the nations, the regathering of Israel and an earthly kingdom following judgment (Isa. 24-27). This scenario is affirmed in the NT (Matt. 24-25).
Messianic salvation extending to believing Gentiles.
The OT predicted that Gentiles would become the people of God because of the Messiah (Amos 9:11-12) and that has happened in NT times (Acts 15:14-18).
Salvation by grace alone through faith alone.
Dispensationalism affirms that salvation in all ages is by grace alone through faith alone (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4). While the content of revelation increases throughout the canon there is great continuity regarding salvation. OT saints and NT saints are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, based on the atonement of Jesus.
The New Testament quotes and alludes to the Old Testament in ways consistent with the original literal meaning of the Old Testament writers.
There are about 350 quotations of the OT in the NT. While there are some challenging cases, the vast majority of OT uses in the NT, are contextual and consistent with the ideas of the OT writers. This fact emphasizes continuity between the storyline of the OT and that found in the NT. Dispensationalists may vary to some degree on NT use of the OT but overall most affirm continuity concerning OT meaning and NT use of the OT.
These are just some areas of continuity. Contrary to what some critics claim, Dispensationalism does not start with the concept of "discontinuity" and impose it on the Bible to find what it wants to find.
Because I see much continuity in Dispensationalism I would not identify this system as solely a discontinuity system. I would say Dispensationalism is a healthy and biblical balance of both continuity and discontinuity. I will comment more on the discontinuity elements in a future blog entry.
Labels: Dispensationalism , Michael Vlach


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This site is the archived OWASP Foundation Wiki and is no longer accepting Account Requests.
To view the new OWASP Foundation website, please visit https://owasp.org
Difference between revisions of "Session hijacking attack"
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Revision as of 22:25, 6 December 2011
- This is an Attack. To view all attacks, please see the Attack Category page.
Last revision (mm/dd/yy): 12/6/2011
The Session Hijacking attack consists of the exploitation of the web session control mechanism, which is normally managed for a session token.
Because http communication uses many different TCP connections, the web server needs a method to recognize every user's connections. The most useful method depends on a token that the Web Server sends to the client browser after a successful client authentication. A session token is normally composed of a string of variable width and it could be used in different ways, like in the URL, in the header of the http requisition as a cookie, in other parts of the header of the http request, or yet in the body of the http requisition.
The Session Hijacking attack compromises the session token by stealing or predicting a valid session token to gain unauthorized access to the Web Server.
The session token could be compromised in different ways; the most common are:
- Predictable session token;
- Session Sniffing;
- Client-side attacks (XSS, malicious JavaScript Codes, Trojans, etc);
- Man-in-the-middle attack
- Man-in-the-browser attack
Risk Factors
Example 1
Session Sniffing
In the example, as we can see, first the attacker uses a sniffer to capture a valid token session called "Session ID", then he uses the valid token session to gain unauthorized access to the Web Server.
Figure 2. Manipulating the token session executing the session hijacking attack.
Example 2
Cross-site script attack
The attacker can compromise the session token by using malicious code or programs running at the client-side. The example shows how the attacker could use an XSS attack to steal the session token. If an attacker sends a crafted link to the victim with the malicious JavaScript, when the victim clicks on the link, the JavaScript will run and complete the instructions made by the attacker. The example in figure 3 uses an XSS attack to show the cookie value of the current session; using the same technique it's possible to create a specific JavaScript code that will send the cookie to the attacker.
Figure 3. Code injection.
Other Examples The following attacks intercept the information exchange between the client and the server:


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I have to say, I haven't done many shaker cards, but I am a bit addicted to them after making this one! I am excited to try more shapes and cut outs. I love the little extra fun they bring to a card.
You can find the supplies I used at Sizzix, Simon Says Stamp, and Amazon via the links below.
Thanks so much for stopping by today!


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