iPod Touch and Cox email

Put it down to peer pressure: I didn't cave and get an iPhone, but I did recently get an iPod Touch 2G. As a portable photo album it is incredibly useful, both to show inventory to clients and as a personal reference tool. And the email capability, via WiFi, is also extremely handy.

Getting all the bugs out of the email setup, though, has taken some time, and I'm far from done. A major discovery came this evening, however, through this post which explains that when using an iPod Touch or iPhone on a home wireless network with Cox as the provider, one must leave the username and password fields blank in order to send mail through the Cox SMTP gateway. Very strange -- this isn't at all how my home (or work computers) are set up, but it unquestionably works.

Googling for the flu

Is there anything Google can't do? Omnipresence is omniscience -- at least potentially:

If you have a fever, headache and runny nose, you might go to Google and type the words "flu symptoms" to see whether you've come down with influenza.

Google knows that you might do something like that, and it also knows which U.S. state you're in. Now, it's putting that information together in a tool that Google says could detect flu outbreaks faster than traditional systems currently in use.

Google's new public health initiative, Google Flu Trends, looks at the relative popularity of a slew of flu-related search terms to determine where in the U.S. flu outbreaks may be occurring.

This CNN article goes on to note:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collaborated with Google on the project, helping validate and refine the model . . .

Researchers found a tight correlation between the relative popularity of flu-related search terms and CDC's surveillance data, Ginsberg said.

In the 2007-08 flu season, Google accurately estimated current flu levels one to two weeks faster than published CDC reports in each of the nine U.S. surveillance regions . . .

Check out Google Flu Trends here. Which reminds me -- time to get my flu shot.

Google ancient Rome

Google has added a new twist to its popular 3D map tool, Google Earth, offering millions of users the chance to visit a virtual ancient Rome.

Google has reconstructed the sprawling city - inhabited by more than one million people as long ago as AD320.

Users can zoom around the map to visit the Forum of Julius Caesar, stand in the centre of the Colosseum or swoop over the Basilica.

From the BBC. Check out Google's ancient Rome here. Google Earth Blog (not an official Google site) report here. The Google Rome appears to be based upon the well-known model in the Museo della Civiltà Romana, which most tourists never get to, since it's way out in the EUR. As far as I know, the Plastico di Roma Imperiale was last updated in the mid-1970s, so Google Rome may be the latest without necessarily being the most up-to-date.

Security Theater

Because the TSA's security regimen seems to be mainly thing-based --most of its 44,500 airport officers are assigned to truffle through carry-on bags for things like guns, bombs, three-ounce tubes of anthrax, Crest toothpaste, nail clippers, Snapple, and so on -- I focused my efforts on bringing bad things through security in many different airports, primarily my home airport, Washington's Reagan National, the one situated approximately 17 feet from the Pentagon, but also in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Chicago, and at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport (which is where I came closest to arousing at least a modest level of suspicion, receiving a symbolic pat-down -- all frisks that avoid the sensitive regions are by definition symbolic . . .

And because I have a fair amount of experience reporting on terrorists, and because terrorist groups produce large quantities of branded knickknacks, I've amassed an inspiring collection of al-Qaeda T-shirts, Islamic Jihad flags, Hezbollah videotapes, and inflatable Yasir Arafat dolls (really). All these things I've carried with me through airports across the country. I've also carried, at various times: pocketknives, matches from hotels in Beirut and Peshawar, dust masks, lengths of rope, cigarette lighters, nail clippers, eight-ounce tubes of toothpaste (in my front pocket), bottles of Fiji Water (which is foreign), and, of course, box cutters.

Read the full article in The Atlantic.

The Great War, 90 years later

Three of the four surviving British veterans of World War I have helped mark the 90th anniversary of the end of the conflict.

Henry Allingham, 112, Harry Patch, 110, and Bill Stone, 108, represented the RAF, Army and Royal Navy respectively at a ceremony at London's Cenotaph.

They led the country in observing two minutes' silence from 1100 GMT.

From the BBC. Meanwhile, this article notes about the commemoration ceremony held at Verdun that not a single veteran of that battle remains alive.

One American photographer's effort to preserve the images and memories of the last few WW1 vets is reported here, at CNN:

Photographer David DeJonge plans to capture a vanishing bit of history Tuesday on a trip to Arlington National Cemetery near Washington.

There he hopes to photograph 107-year-old Frank Buckles -- one of the few men still alive who fought in World War I. Buckles will lay a wreath at the grave of Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing, who led U.S. forces in Europe in World War I . . .

For DeJonge, it's a poignant reminder that time is running out in his quest to find and photograph the few surviving veterans of the war, which raged from 1914 to 1918. . .

He has raced the clock for the last two years to photograph the dwindling number of surviving World War I veterans, a mission he embraces with a keen appreciation for the ticking clock: Eight of 12 veterans he has photographed in the last two years are now dead . . .

DeJonge knows of only 10 living veterans worldwide who fought during World War I.

Four live in Britain, two in Australia, two in France and two in the United States -- Buckles and 108-year-old John Babcock of Spokane, Washington, who served with Canadian forces during World War I, DeJonge said.

Each week or month that passes, it seems, brings news of an aging veteran succumbing before DeJonge can find the time and money to photograph him.

Not long ago, he said, two Jamaicans who fought with the British during World War I died. The last known German, French and Austro-Hungarian veterans died in the last year as well . . .

He tried to interest a photography organization in a national project to document the remaining U.S. World War I vets -- about 600 were alive in the mid 1990s, DeJonge said -- but that didn't happen.

So he set out two years ago to try to do it on his own. DeJonge has received some financial help here and there, he said, but has paid most costs himself.

ALSO here is an article from the Telegraph on a recently published compilation of officers' field manuals from the Great War.

Bloody sport

Three mounted matadors are on trial in Spain accused of hiring Colombian hitmen to set fire to a dozen horses belonging to a rival in June 2001.

Six animals belonging to the Domecq family died after petrol bombs were put in their horseboxes. Six others took years to recover from serious burns.

But they were not the intended target, prosecutors said. The hitmen were meant to kill those of another man.

From the BBC.

Eight arms, one ancestor

Many of the world's deep-sea octopuses evolved from a common ancestor that still exists in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean, a study has shown.

Researchers suggest that the creatures evolved after being driven to other ocean basins 30 million years ago by nutrient-rich and salty currents.

The findings form part of a decade-long global research programme to learn more about life in the world's oceans.

From the BBC.