All relevant data are within the paper.

Introduction {#sec001}
============

Epidemic spreading phenomena exist in a wide range of domains \[[@pone.0127478.ref001], [@pone.0127478.ref002]\]. Well-known examples include disease spreading \[[@pone.0127478.ref003]--[@pone.0127478.ref005]\], computer worm proliferation \[[@pone.0127478.ref006]--[@pone.0127478.ref008]\], and information propagation \[[@pone.0127478.ref009]--[@pone.0127478.ref011]\]. Modelling and understanding of such phenomena can have important practical values to predict and control real world epidemics \[[@pone.0127478.ref003]--[@pone.0127478.ref005], [@pone.0127478.ref012]--[@pone.0127478.ref015]\].

Some typical spreading mechanisms have been extensively studied, such as the fully-mixed spreading model and the network spreading model. Many epidemics are *hybrid* as they spread via two or more different mechanisms simultaneously. Previous work on hybrid epidemics has focused on what we call the *non-critically* hybrid epidemic, where at least one of the spreading mechanisms alone is able to cause an epidemic outbreak, and a mixture of mechanisms brings no advantage.

We are interested in the *critically* hybrid epidemic, where each spreading mechanism alone is unable to cause any significant spreading whereas the mixture of such mechanisms leads to a huge epidemic outbreak. Recently we proposed a model that explains the behaviour of critically hybrid epidemics, which incorporates two spreading mechanisms in the setting of a metopopulation \[[@pone.0127478.ref016]\]. We demonstrated that it is indeed possible to have a highly contagious epidemic by mixing simple, ineffective spreading mechanisms. The properties of such epidemics are critically determined by the ratio at which the different spreading mechanisms are mixed, and usually there is an optimal ratio that leads to a maximal outbreak size.

In this paper we present a detailed analysis of a *real* hybrid epidemic---the Internet worm Conficker, which erupted on the Internet in 2008 and infected millions of computers. The worm is a hybrid epidemic as the code analysis \[[@pone.0127478.ref017]\] has revealed the worm applied three distinct spreading mechanisms: (1) global random spreading, (2) local network spreading, and (3) neighbourhood spreading. It is a critically hybrid epidemic because the first and second spreading mechanisms are highly ineffective if used alone, and the third mechanism, as we will show later, is most effective when mixed with the other two.

We introduce a mathematical model to describe the spreading behaviour of Conficker. Our study was based on measurement data provided by Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA)'s Network Telescope project \[[@pone.0127478.ref018], [@pone.0127478.ref019]\], which monitors Internet traffic anomalies. We proposed algorithms to extract Conficker--related features from the CAIDA data. Then we infer the values of our model's parameters that characterise the worm.

We evaluated our inference results by comparing theoretical predictions with the actual measurement results. Our predictions closely reproduced the outbreak process of Conficker. We then explored possible spreading scenarios based on simulations using different values of parameters. One of the interesting results was that we showed the worm could spread faster, reach a larger outbreak size or survive for longer time by just revising the ratios at which the worm allocated its time on each of the spreading mechanisms (while keeping everything else the same), which can be easily achieved by changing a few lines in its coding.

This paper's contributions are two fold. Firstly, we present the first study on a real-life critically hybrid epidemic, where the epidemic's parameter values are inferred from measurement data. Secondly, we analyse the complex interactions among Conficker's three spreading mechanisms, and show that the worm can be more contagious if it mixes its three spreading mechanisms in an optimal way.

Background {#sec002}
==========

Epidemic spreading mechanisms {#sec003}
-----------------------------

A number of epidemic spreading mechanisms have been extensively studied \[[@pone.0127478.ref020], [@pone.0127478.ref021]\]. For example, in the *fully-mixed* spreading models \[[@pone.0127478.ref020], [@pone.0127478.ref022]\], a node is connected to all other nodes in a population, thus an epidemic can potentially spread between any two nodes according to a probability. Whereas in the *network* spreading models \[[@pone.0127478.ref001], [@pone.0127478.ref002], [@pone.0127478.ref020], [@pone.0127478.ref023]\], nodes are connected to their neighbours via a network structure, therefore an epidemic can only spread along the connections among nodes. Recent network-based models considered additional physical properties such as location-specific contact patterns \[[@pone.0127478.ref024], [@pone.0127478.ref025]\], human mobility patterns \[[@pone.0127478.ref026]--[@pone.0127478.ref029]\] and spatial effects \[[@pone.0127478.ref030]--[@pone.0127478.ref033]\].

Hybrid epidemics {#sec004}
----------------

Many epidemics are *hybrid* in the sense that they spread via two or more spreading mechanisms simultaneously. A hybrid epidemic can use fully-mixed spreading and network spreading, or use fully-mixed spreading but at two or more different levels, e.g. at the *global* level covering the whole population or at the *local* level consisting of only a part of the population.

There are many real examples. Mobile phone viruses can spread via Bluetooth communication with any nearby devises (local, fully-mixed spreading) and Multimedia Messaging Service with remote contacts (global, network spreading) \[[@pone.0127478.ref027]\]. A computer that is infected by the worm Red Code II spends 1/8 of its time probing any computers on the Internet at random (global, fully-mixed spreading) and the rest of the time probing computers located in local area networks (local, fully-mixed spreading) \[[@pone.0127478.ref034]\]. Today information is propagated in society via mass media (TV, newspaper, posters) as well as online social media (Facebook, Twitter and emails). Mass media (global, fully-mixed spreading) can potentially deliver the information to a big audience, but the effectiveness of information transmission at an individual level may be small (for example, its ability to alter the target individuals behaviour). In contrast, social media (local, network spreading) may have little or no access to the majority of people who are not connected to the local group, but they provide rapid penetration of a selected target group with higher effectiveness.

It is clear that hybrid epidemics are much more complex than simple epidemics. Their behaviour is affected not only by multiple spreading mechanisms that they use, but also by the population's overlaid structure on which they spread. Studying hybrid epidemics may provide crucial clues for better understanding of many real epidemics.

Previous works on hybrid epidemics {#sec005}
----------------------------------

Hybrid epidemics were initially studied as two levels of mixing in a population where nodes are mixed at both local and global levels \[[@pone.0127478.ref035]\]. Recently hybrid epidemics were studied as two levels of mixing in a network \[[@pone.0127478.ref036]--[@pone.0127478.ref038]\], in structured populations \[[@pone.0127478.ref039]\], in structured households \[[@pone.0127478.ref040]--[@pone.0127478.ref042]\], and in a meta-population which consists of a number of weakly connected sub-populations\[[@pone.0127478.ref043]--[@pone.0127478.ref048]\]. Studies of epidemics in clustered networks \[[@pone.0127478.ref049]--[@pone.0127478.ref051]\] are also relevant to the hybrid epidemics.

These previous works focused on analysing how a network's structure affects hybrid spreading. And most of them studied the *non-critically* hybrid epidemics, where at least one of the two spreading mechanisms alone can cause an infection outbreak and therefore the mix of two mechanisms is not a necessary condition for an epidemic outbreak. In this case, a hybrid epidemic using two spreading mechanisms is often less contagious than an epidemic using only one of the mechanisms. \[[@pone.0127478.ref036], [@pone.0127478.ref052]\].

Our recent study on critically hybrid epidemics {#sec006}
-----------------------------------------------

We are interested in the *critically* hybrid epidemics, where each of the spreading mechanisms alone is not able to cause any significant infection whereas a combination of the mechanisms can cause an epidemic outbreak. In this case, the mix of different spreading mechanisms is a critically condition for an outbreak (see [Fig 1](#pone.0127478.g001){ref-type="fig"}).

![Hybrid epidemics, where two spreading mechanisms A and B are mixed at the ratio of *α* to (1 − *α*), where 0 ≤ *α* ≤ 1.\
(a) Non-critically hybrid epidemic, where at least one of the two mechanisms can cause an outbreak by its own (i.e. when *α* = 1 or *α* = 0). (b) critically hybrid epidemics, where each mechanism alone cannot cause any significant infection whereas a mix of them produces an epidemic outbreak. There exists an optimal *α* that produces the maximum outbreak.](pone.0127478.g001){#pone.0127478.g001}

Recently we proposed a generic model to study the critically hybrid epidemics \[[@pone.0127478.ref016]\]. We considered an epidemic which spreads in a *meta-population* (consisting of many weakly connected *sub-populations*) using a mix of the following two typical spreading mechanisms. (1) Fully-mixed spreading on the global level, i.e. infection between any two nodes in the meta-population. (2) Network (or fully-mixed) spreading on the local level, i.e. infection between nodes within a sub-population where the internal topology of a sub-population is a network (or a fully-connected mesh). Each spreading mechanism has its own infection rate and an infected node recovers at a recovery rate. We define a parameter called the hybrid trade-off, *α*, as the proportion of time that the epidemic devotes to the first spreading mechanism (or the probability of using the first spreading mechanism in a time unit). Thus the proportion of time spent on the second mechanism is (1 − *α*).

Our mathematical analysis and numerical simulations based on the model highlight the following two results. Firstly, it is possible to mix two ineffective spreading mechanisms to produce a highly contagious epidemic, because the mix of the mechanisms can help to overcome the weakness of each mechanisms. Secondly, the threshold and the size of outbreak is critically determined by the hybrid trade-off *α*. We also provided an analytical prediction of the optimal trade-off for the maximum outbreak size.

Computer Worm Conficker {#sec007}
=======================

In this paper we will analyse a critically hybrid epidemic, the computer worm Conficker, based on real measurement data. It is one of the most contagious computer worms on record. It erupted on the Internet on 21 November 2008 and infected millions of computers in just a few days \[[@pone.0127478.ref007]\]. The worm's ability to spread to such a large number of computers in so short a time and the fact \[[@pone.0127478.ref053]\] that it is still active on the Internet has caused serious concern.

Each computer on the Internet is associated with an Internet Protocol (IP) address. Conficker views the Internet as a meta-population, where computers are located in sub-populations, i.e. Local Area Network (LAN) consisting of computers whose IP addresses share the same prefix. According to the computer security company Symantec \[[@pone.0127478.ref017]\], Conficker uses three spreading mechanisms (see [Fig 2](#pone.0127478.g002){ref-type="fig"}): *Global* spreading, where the worm probes computers with random IP addresses on the Internet;*Local* spreading, where the worm on an infected computer probes computers in the same Local Area Network (LAN) with the same IP address prefix;*Neighbourhood* spreading, where it probes computers in ten neighbouring LANs (with smaller consecutive IP address prefixes).

![Conficker's three probing strategies.\
(1) global spreading, where it probes any computer on the Internet at random; (2) local spreading, where it probes computers in the same local network; (3) neighbourhood spreading, where it probes computers in ten neighbouring local networks.](pone.0127478.g002){#pone.0127478.g002}

Previous research on Conficker has studied the geographical distribution of infected IP addresses, the distribution of probing packet size \[[@pone.0127478.ref007], [@pone.0127478.ref054], [@pone.0127478.ref055]\], and properties of the worm's global probing \[[@pone.0127478.ref056], [@pone.0127478.ref057]\]. The parameters of Conficker's hybrid spreading and how they affect the epidemic dynamics of the worm can help explain why the worm is so contagious. But they have been hitherto little studied.

Our Model of Conficker {#sec008}
======================

Here we use the notion of node to represent an IP address at which a computer (or computers) connects to the Internet. For convenience, we call a sub-population (or a LAN) a subnet. A node must be in one of three states: *susceptible*, *infected*, and *recovered*\[[@pone.0127478.ref020]\]. Initially only a small number of nodes are infected and all others are susceptible. At each time step, an infected node attempts to spread the worm to susceptible nodes using one of the three probing strategies: Global spreading with probability *α* ~*g*~, where the worm probes nodes on the Internet at random with the global infection rate *β* ~*g*~ ∈ \[0, 1\].Local spreading with probability *α* ~*l*~, where it probes nodes in the local subnet with the local infection rate *β* ~*l*~ ∈ \[0, 1\];Neighbourhood spreading with the probability *α* ~*n*~, where it probes nodes in ten neighbouring subnets with the neighbourhood infection rate *β* ~*n*~ ∈ \[0, 1\]; The mixing probabilities satisfy *α* ~*g*~+*α* ~*l*~+*α* ~*n*~ = 1.

An infected node is recovered with recovery rate *γ* ∈ \[0, 1\]. A recovered node remains recovered and cannot be infected again. Note that for mathematical analysis, the mixing probabilities could be incorporated into the infection rates. But we have treated them as separate parameters, considering that an infection rate reflects inherent properties of a computer worm in the context of a specific target population, whereas mixing probabilities are settings that can be easily modified in the worm's code. This is also the reason we use the mixing probabilities as controlling parameters in our study below and keep other parameters the same.

Only nodes that can potentially be infected by Conficker are relevant to our study. We call them the *relevant* nodes. A subnet is relevant if it contains at least one relevant node. Irrelevant nodes include unused IP addresses and those computers that do not have the vulnerabilities that the worm can exploit. Note that although the irrelevant nodes and subnets do not participate in the spreading of Conficker, they will be probed by the worm as the worm does not have the priori knowledge about which nodes are vulnerable.

Let *n* represent the total number of relevant nodes and *N* the number of relevant subnets. The average number of relevant nodes in a subnet is *n* ~*N*~ = *n*/*N*. Let *N* ^+^ represent the average number of relevant subnets in ten neighbouring subnets.

At time *t*, the total number of susceptible, infected, and recovered nodes are *S*(*t*), *I*(*t*), and *R*(*t*), respectively. Then the average number of infected nodes in a subnet is *I* ~*N*~(*t*) = *I*(*t*)/*N*, and the average number of infected nodes in ten neighbouring subnets is *I* ^+^(*t*) = *I* ~*N*~(*t*)*N* ^+^. Hence on average a susceptible node can be infected via (1) global probing by *I*(*t*) infected nodes in the Internet; (2) local probing by *I* ~*N*~(*t*) infected nodes in the local subnet; (3) neighbourhood probing by *I* ^+^(*t*) infected nodes in the neighbouring subnets.

The average probabilities that a susceptible node is *not* infected by the global, local and neighbourhood probing, respectively, are: $$\begin{array}{rcl}
{P_{g}\left( t \right)} & = & \left( 1 - \alpha_{g}\beta_{g} \right)^{I(t)} \\
{P_{l}\left( t \right)} & = & \left( 1 - \alpha_{l}\beta_{l} \right)^{I_{N}{(t)}} \\
{P_{n}\left( t \right)} & = & {\left( 1 - \alpha_{n}\beta_{n} \right)^{I^{+}{(t)}}.} \\
\end{array}$$ The average probability of *not* being infected by any probing is *P*(*t*) = *P* ~*g*~(*t*)*P* ~*l*~(*t*)*P* ~*n*~(*t*). Thus the discrete evolution of Conficker spreading can be described as: $$\begin{array}{rcl}
{S\left( t + 1 \right)} & = & {S\left( t \right) - S\left( t \right)\left\lbrack 1 - P\left( t \right) \right\rbrack} \\
{I\left( t + 1 \right)} & = & {I\left( t \right) + S\left( t \right)\left\lbrack 1 - P\left( t \right) \right\rbrack - \gamma I\left( t \right)} \\
{R\left( t + 1 \right)} & = & {R\left( t \right) + \gamma I\left( t \right)} \\
\end{array}$$ where *S*(*t*)\[1 − *P*(*t*)\] is the number of new infections at *t*.

Inferring Conficker Parameters From Data {#sec009}
========================================

We infer the parameter values of our Conficker model from the Internet measurement data \[[@pone.0127478.ref018], [@pone.0127478.ref019]\] collected by the Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) in 2008. This is the only publicly available dataset that has captured the *initial* outbreak process of the worm. The CAIDA Network Telescope project \[[@pone.0127478.ref018], [@pone.0127478.ref019]\] monitors Internet traffic sent to a large set of *unusable* IP addresses, which account for around 1/256 of all addresses. No legitimate traffic should be sent to these monitored addresses because they are not allocated for normal usage \[[@pone.0127478.ref058]\]. Thus the traffic data captured by this project provides a good view on various abnormal behaviours on the Internet.

When Conficker spreads on the Internet, its global spreading mechanism sends out probing packets to randomly generated IP addresses, some of which are unused IP addresses and therefore are monitored by the Network Telescope project. Conficke's probing packets are characterised by the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) with destination port number 445. This feature can be used to distinguish Conficker packets from other packets in the Network Telescope data.

For each record of Conficker's probing packet, we are interested in two things: (1) the time when the packet is monitored by the Network Telescope project, and (2) the packet's source IP address, which gives the location of a Conficker-infected node. We ignore the destination address, as it is a randomly-generated, unused IP address.

We study the Network Telescope project's daily dataset collected on November 21, 2008, the day when Conficker broke out on the Internet. We use two earlier datasets collected on November 12 and 19, 2008 to filter out background 'noise' that has been happening before the outbreak. That is, in the outbreak dataset, we discard packets that were sent from any source address that had already sent packets to any of the unusable addresses in the two earlier datasets. We use the prefix of /24 (i.e. IP address mask of 255.255.255.0) to distinguish different subnets \[[@pone.0127478.ref007]\]. Our analysis uses a 10-minute window.

Step One: Inferring node status at a given time {#sec010}
-----------------------------------------------

We first infer the status of each node at time *t* from the CAIDA data. On the day of Conficker outbreak, all relevant nodes were initially susceptible. In the analysis, we assume a node is just infected by the worm when we observe the first Conficker probing packet coming from it; and the node is recovered when we observe its last probing packet before the end of the day. [Fig 3](#pone.0127478.g003){ref-type="fig"} shows the number of susceptible, infected and recovered nodes as observed in a 10-minute window.

![Numbers of susceptible nodes *S*(*t*), infected nodes *I*(*t*) and recovered nodes *R*(*t*) as a function of time *t*, as inferred from CAIDA's dataset on 21/Nov/2008, the day of Conficker's outbreak.](pone.0127478.g003){#pone.0127478.g003}

Step Two: Inferring new infections caused by each spreading mechanism {#sec011}
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Let *dI* ~*l*~(*t*), *dI* ~*n*~(*t*) and *dI* ~*g*~(*t*) represent the numbers of nodes that are newly infected through local, neighbourhood and global spreading, respectively, at time step *t*. Our analysis on the data shows that 84% of new infections occurred within already infected subnets or their neighbourhood subnets, i.e. only 16% of new infections appeared outside the reach of local and neighbourhood probing. This agrees with our understanding that local and neighbourhood probing are significantly more effective than global probing \[[@pone.0127478.ref007]\]. And 73% of those new infections within the reach of local and neighbourhood probing (i.e. 73%×84% of all new infections) occurred in already infected subnets. This indicates the local probing is more effective than neighbourhood probing. Based on the above analysis we can then approximately identify the probing mechanism that is responsible for a newly infected node by analysing the states of other relevant nodes at the time when the new infection happens.

-   IF there is an infected node already in the same subnet, the new infection is caused by that infected node via local spreading.

-   ELSE IF there is an infected node in the ten neighbouring subnets, then the new infection is via neighbourhood spreading.

-   OTHERWISE, the newly infected node is infected via global spreading.

[Fig 4](#pone.0127478.g004){ref-type="fig"} shows the inferred results, plotting the number of new infections caused by each spreading mechanism as a function of time.

![Numbers of nodes newly infected by Conficker via each of the three spreading mechanisms in 10-minute windows on the day of Conficker's outbreak, as inferred from CAIDA's dataset on 21/Nov/2008.](pone.0127478.g004){#pone.0127478.g004}

Step Three: Inferring parameters of the Conficker model {#sec012}
-------------------------------------------------------

From the above result, we can calculate *I* ~*N*~(*t*) and *I* ^+^(*t*) according to their definitions. Then we calculate the average probabilities that a susceptible node at time *t* is *not* infected by the local, neighbourhood and global probing, respectively, as: $$\begin{array}{r}
{P_{l}\left( t \right) = 1 - \frac{dI_{l}\left( t \right)}{S\left( t \right)},P_{n}\left( t \right) = 1 - \frac{dI_{n}\left( t \right)}{S\left( t \right)},P_{g}\left( t \right) = 1 - \frac{dI_{g}\left( t \right)}{S\left( t \right)}.} \\
\end{array}$$ We define the effective infection rate as *b* ~*l*~ = *α* ~*l*~ *β* ~*l*~, *b* ~*n*~ = *α* ~*n*~ *β* ~*n*~ and *b* ~*g*~ = *α* ~*g*~ *β* ~*g*~. Then we can use [Eq 1](#pone.0127478.e001){ref-type="disp-formula"} and [Eq 3](#pone.0127478.e003){ref-type="disp-formula"} to calculate *b* ~*l*~ *b* ~*n*~ and *b* ~*g*~.

Let *λ* denote the average total number of probes an infected node conducts during each time step. Then the average number of local, neighbourhood, and global probes in a time step are respectively *α* ~*l*~ *λ*, *α* ~*n*~ *λ*, and *α* ~*g*~ *λ*. The number of nodes (relevant and irrelevant) probed by the local, neighbourhood and global probing are 256, 10×256 and 2^30^ (it is not 2^32^ due to a bug in the worm's random number generation algorithm \[[@pone.0127478.ref017]\]). We can express the effective infection rates as: $$\begin{array}{r}
{b_{l} = \alpha_{l}\lambda/256,\mspace{600mu} b_{n} = \alpha_{n}\lambda/2560,\mspace{600mu} b_{g} = \alpha_{g}\lambda/2^{30}.} \\
\end{array}$$ By solving [Eq 4](#pone.0127478.e004){ref-type="disp-formula"} together with *α* ~*g*~+*α* ~*l*~+*α* ~*n*~ = 1, we can obtain *λ*, *α* ~*l*~, *α* ~*n*~ and *α* ~*g*~. Then we can obtain the infection rates of three spreading mechanisms as *β* ~*l*~ = *b* ~*l*~/*α* ~*l*~, *β* ~*n*~ = *b* ~*n*~/*α* ~*n*~, and *β* ~*g*~ = *b* ~*g*~/*α* ~*g*~. The recovery rate can be calculated as *γ* = *dR*(*t*)/*I*(*t*), where *dR*(*t*) = *R*(*t* + 1) − *R*(*t*).

Inference results and evaluation {#sec013}
--------------------------------

The inferred values of the Conficker model parameters are shown in [Table 1](#pone.0127478.t001){ref-type="table"}, including the mixing probability *α* and the infection rate *β* for three spreading mechanisms, the recover rate *γ*, the recovery time *τ* = 1/*γ* which is the average time it takes for an infected node to recover, and the probing frequency *λ*. The parameter values are averaged over time windows between 4:00 and 16:00 when the spreading behaviour was stable. Computers are online and offline on a daily basis following a diurnal pattern \[[@pone.0127478.ref059]\]. We find that this factor only has a marginal impact on our results.

10.1371/journal.pone.0127478.t001

###### Conficker parameters inferred from data^[1](#t001fn001){ref-type="table-fn"}^.

![](pone.0127478.t001){#pone.0127478.t001g}

  ------------------------- ------------------- ------------------------
  Global spreading          *α* ~*g*~ = 89.1%   *β* ~*g*~ = 7.7×10^−8^
  Local spreading           *α* ~*l*~ = 5.3%    *β* ~*l*~ = 0.32
  Neighbourhood spreading   *α* ~*n*~ = 5.6%    *β* ~*n*~ = 0.032
  Recovery rate             *γ* = 0.064
  Recovery time             *τ* = 156 mins
  Probing frequency         *λ* = 82.5
  ------------------------- ------------------- ------------------------

^1^ All parameters are measured in a 10-minute window.

We observe in the data that the worm had infected in total *n* = 430,135 nodes, which were located in *N* = 92,267 subnets. On average, each subnet has *n* ~*N*~ = 4.7 relevant nodes, and *N* ^+^ = 4.3 of ten neighbouring subnets are relevant.

With these parameter values, we can use our Conficker model (see [Eq 2](#pone.0127478.e002){ref-type="disp-formula"}) to theoretically predict the worm's outbreak process. As measured from the data, the number of nodes in the three statuses were *S* = 423,899, *I* = 3,945, and *R* = 2,291 at 4:00am. Our prediction starts from 4.00am and uses these numbers as the initial condition. As shown in [Fig 5](#pone.0127478.g005){ref-type="fig"}, our model's predictions closely match the measurement data.

![The outbreak of computer worm Conficker.\
Points are measured from Network Telescope's dataset collected on the outbreak day. Curve is theoretical prediction from our Conficker model using the inferred parameters.](pone.0127478.g005){#pone.0127478.g005}

The inferred parameters are in agreement with our expectations. For example the local spreading has a high infection rate because if a computer is already infected, then other computers in the same subnet are likely to have a similar computer system and thus are also likely to be vulnerable to the worm. By comparison, global spreading has an extremely low infection rate. On average, more than 10 million global probings will produce only a single new infection. On average an infected node retains its status for 2.5 hours (156 mins) before it recovers (e.g. switched off or updated with new anti-virus database). The worm only sends out 8 probing packets per minute. Such a deliberately low probing rate helps the worm to evade a computer's or network's security systems.

Analysis on Conficker's Hybrid Spreading {#sec014}
========================================

Mix of TWO spreading mechanisms {#sec015}
-------------------------------

We run simulations using our Conficker model with the parameter values inferred above. The simulation network has 100k subnets. Each subnet contains 5 relevant nodes and has 4 relevant adjacent subnets. This topology setting resembles Conficker's spreading network observed in the data. Initially two random nodes are infected. The only controlling parameter is the mixing probabilities of the spreading mechanisms. Simulation results on mix of two spreading mechanisms are shown in [Fig 6](#pone.0127478.g006){ref-type="fig"}.

![Simulation results for the mix of Conficker's two spreading mechanisms with different mixing probabilities.\
(a) Mix of global (*α* ~*g*~) and local (1 − *α* ~*g*~) mechanisms; (b) Mix of global (*α* ~*g*~) and neighbourhood (1-*α* ~*g*~) mechanisms; (c) Mix of local (*α* ~*l*~) and neighbourhood (1-*α* ~*l*~) mechanisms. In each case we measure the outbreak size, the total duration of the spreading, and the speed of spreading. The outbreak results include both the final outbreak size (square) and the outbreak size at time step 100 (filled circle). Each data point is averaged over 100 runs of a simulation. Note the y axes are all logarithmic.](pone.0127478.g006){#pone.0127478.g006}

[Fig 6a](#pone.0127478.g006){ref-type="fig"} shows that as explained above, global spreading or local spreading alone cannot cause an outbreak, whereas a mixture at a ratio of 0.8 to 0.2 produces a large and rapid outbreak. [Fig 6b](#pone.0127478.g006){ref-type="fig"} shows that the neighbourhood spreading alone (*α* ~*g*~ = 0) can cause a large, but very slow outbreak, whereas the mix of neighbourhood spreading with just a small amount of global spreading can dramatically accelerate the spreading process. [Fig 6c](#pone.0127478.g006){ref-type="fig"} shows that adding local spreading to neighbourhood spreading slows down the spreading process considerably. When they are mixed at the ratio of 0.8 to 0.2, the spreading reaches the same final outbreak size but the whole process lasts for the longest time.

Mix of THREE spreading mechanisms {#sec016}
---------------------------------

Simulation results on mixing three spreading mechanisms are shown in [Fig 7](#pone.0127478.g007){ref-type="fig"}. [Fig 7a](#pone.0127478.g007){ref-type="fig"} shows it is not difficult to achieve a large final outbreak size when the three mechanisms are all present and neither local spreading nor global spreading is dominant. [Fig 7b](#pone.0127478.g007){ref-type="fig"} shows spreading will last for longer time if there is less global probing. [Fig 7c](#pone.0127478.g007){ref-type="fig"} shows that the most contagious variation of the worm is a mix of global, local and neighbourhood spreading at the probabilities of 0.4, 0.2 and 0.4 (see circle on the plot), which causes the largest final outbreak with the highest spreading speed.

![Simulation results when three of Conficker's spreading mechanisms are mixed at different probabilities.\
Spreading properties shown include the final outbreak size, the survival time and the spreading speed (see colour maps) as functions of the mixing probabilities of global spreading *α* ~*g*~ (x axis) and local spreading *α* ~*l*~ (y axis), where the mixing probability of neighbourhood spreading is *α* ~*n*~ = 1 − *α* ~*g*~ − *α* ~*l*~.](pone.0127478.g007){#pone.0127478.g007}

Discussion {#sec017}
==========

In this study, we infer the epidemic spreading parameters of the Conficker worm from observed data collected during the first few hours of the epidemic. Simulations of worm spreading, based on these parameters, allow us to reach some important conclusions about the worm's use of hybrid spreading mechanisms.

Advantage of mixing hybrid spreading mechanism {#sec018}
----------------------------------------------

Conficker's global probing is extremely ineffective. The infection rate of global probing is many orders of magnitude smaller than the recovery rate. This means, if Conficker used only the global probing, it would not have caused any significant infection on the Internet at all.

Local probing has a remarkably high infection rate, *β* ~*l*~ = 0.32, which means when an infected node conducts only local spreading, a susceptible node in the same subnet has an 1/3 chance of being infected in a step (10-mins). However, local probing is confined within a subnet. If the worm used only the local probing, it would not have infected any other subnet apart from those initially containing infected nodes.

Neighbourhood probing is constrained to a neighbourhood of ten subnets. It has a high infection rate because computers in adjacent IP address blocks often belong to the same organisation and they use similar computer systems and therefore have similar vulnerabilities that can be exploited by the worm. Since different nodes' neighbourhoods can partially overlap with each other, it is in theory possible for the worm to reach any node in the whole meta-population by using only the neighbourhood probing. Such process, however, would be extraordinarily slow as we have shown in [Fig 6b](#pone.0127478.g006){ref-type="fig"}.

In summary, if Conficker used only a single spreading mechanism, it would have vanished on the Internet without causing any significant impact.

Thus the enormous outbreak of the worm lies in its ability to do two things. Firstly it needs to devote great efforts to explore every corner of the Internet to find a new vulnerable computer. Every new victim will open a new colony full of similar vulnerable computers. Secondly it needs to make the most out of each new colony.

This is exactly what Conficker does. It allocates most of its time on global probing with a mixing probability of *α* = 89%. This in a degree compensates the ineffectiveness of global probing. Although the worm allocates small amounts of time on local and neighbouring probing, their high infection rates allow them to exploit all possible victims in the subnets with efficiency. And all newly infected nodes will join the collective effort to flood the Internet with more global random probes.

In short, the Conficker worm is an example of a critically hybrid epidemic. It can cause an enormous outbreak not because it has an advanced ability to exploit weaknesses of a computer, but because it has remarkable capability to discover all potentially vulnerable computers in the Internet, i.e. it is not the infectivity, but the hybrid spreading that makes Conficker one of the most infectious worms on record.

Implication of critically hybrid epidemics {#sec019}
------------------------------------------

The analysis of critically hybrid epidemics such as Conficker has important general implications. Firstly, it demonstrates that it is possible to design a high impact epidemic based on mechanisms, each of relatively low efficiency. Indeed our result in [Fig 7](#pone.0127478.g007){ref-type="fig"} suggests that Conficker could have had a larger outbreak with higher speed if it had used a different set of mixing probabilities, which requires change of only a few lines of Conficker's program code. Hybrid mechanisms may therefore be ideal for rapid efficient penetration of a network, for example in the context of an advertising campaign or in order to promulgate important public health or security information. An interesting example might be the use of media campaigns (global spreading) where the reader or viewer is specifically requested to pass on a message via Twitter or Facebook to their "local" group contacts.

Conversely, malicious hybrid epidemics can be extremely difficult to defend against, and many existing defence strategies may not be effective. For example immunising a selected portion of a local population in order to isolate and hence protect the vulnerable nodes will not be effective, because the vulnerable nodes can still be found by the worm through random global spreading.

Another possible measure is to reduce the average time it takes for an infected node to recover, for example to speed up the release of anti-virus software updates or increase the frequency of security scanning on computers. Our theoretical predictions (using [Eq 2](#pone.0127478.e002){ref-type="disp-formula"}) in [Fig 8](#pone.0127478.g008){ref-type="fig"} show that the final outbreak size (in terms of total recovered nodes) does not change significantly when the recovery time is reduced from 156 minutes to 140 or 120 minutes. In practice, even achieving such reductions represents a remarkable technical challenge. It is clear from the discussion above that epidemics can spread with extremely low global infection rates (far below individual recovery rates), provided there is efficient local infection. The extremely efficient spreading achieved once a given subnet or set of subnets has been penetrated is therefore obviously a key determinant of the worm's outbreak \[[@pone.0127478.ref007]\]. Thus, defence strategies that focus on security co-operation between nodes with a local network neighbourhood (a "neighbourhood watch" strategy \[[@pone.0127478.ref007]\]) may be the key to future prevention of similar outbreaks.

![Predicted numbers of susceptible, infected and recovered nodes at 16:00 on the outbreak day as a function of the recovery time *τ*, which is the average time for an infected node to recover.\
Conficker's recovery time is 156 minutes.](pone.0127478.g008){#pone.0127478.g008}

Our Conficker model {#sec020}
-------------------

The Conficker worm can be described as a discrete model or a continuous model. The two modelling approaches should give the same prediction results of the spreading dynamics of the worm. In this work we used a discrete approach to model the Conficker worm for three reasons. Firstly the model's parameters can be defined with clear physical meanings. Secondly we can directly calculate the parameters' values from the CAIDA measurement data. Lastly it is more convenient to run simulations with a discrete model. If a continuous model were used, the model parameters would be defined differently with less clear physical meanings, and their values would have to be obtained through iterative data fitting.

In our Conficker model, we set the local and global population as fully mixed, because this is how the Conficker worm perceives the structure of the Internet. We considered more complex network structures in a separate work \[[@pone.0127478.ref016]\] where we studied hybrid epidemics in general.

Conclusion {#sec021}
==========

Our study uses data collected during the first day of the Conficker epidemic to parametrise a hybrid model to capture the worm's spreading behaviour. The study highlights the importance of mixing different modes of spreading in order to achieve large, rapid and sustained epidemics, and suggests that the trade-off between the different modes of spreading will be critical in determining the epidemic outcome.

[^1]: **Competing Interests:**The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

[^2]: Conceived and designed the experiments: CZ SZ BMC. Performed the experiments: CZ. Analyzed the data: CZ SZ BMC. Wrote the paper: SZ BMC CZ.


Q:

How to limit queryset/the records to view in Django admin site?

By default Django admin site shows all records of a related model/table for viewing. How can I show only the records that meet certain criteria?

A:

In your admin definition, you can define a queryset() method that returns the queryset for that model's admin. eg:
class MyModelAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    def queryset(self, request):
        qs = super(MyModelAdmin, self).queryset(request)
        return qs.filter(user=request.user)

Then only objects with user=request.user will be visible in the admin.

A:

I know this has an "accepted answer", but I just wanted to throw this out there since I came across this answer while pursuing something else and realized I had an alternative solution that I found and use often that gives me more granular level control than the accepted answer.
class TestAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):
    def formfield_for_foreignkey(self, db_field, request, **kwargs):
        if db_field.name == "FIELD":
            kwargs["queryset"] = TestModel.objects.filter(test=False)
        return super(TestAdmin, self).formfield_for_foreignkey(db_field, request, **kwargs)

    def formfield_for_manytomany(self, db_field, request, **kwargs):
        if db_field.name == "FIELDS":
            kwargs["queryset"] = TestModel.objects.filter(test=False)
        return super(TestAdmin, self).formfield_for_manytomany(db_field, request, **kwargs)


If there is a saving grace to this underwhelming 2019 season, it’s that the Dallas Cowboys should feel a great sense of comfort that they have one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL. After three seasons with a few hills and valleys, Dak Prescott is having the best season of his young career. There are still three more games to go, but Dak has already set career highs in both touchdowns and yards this season. And it wasn’t but a few weeks ago where his name was being brought up for league MVP consideration. Yes, he’s been that good.

Sadly, things haven’t been all that great in recent games. After throwing three touchdowns in three straight games from Weeks 9-11, he’s only had three total touchdown passes over the past three games. And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Cowboys have lost all three of those games. Last week against the Chicago Bears, the Dallas offense went three-and-out five different times, and they had a stretch during the game where they failed to convert on third down nine consecutive times.

Not everything that is wrong with the Cowboys offense falls on the shoulders of Prescott, but he hasn’t been his usually self of late. Why not? What is going on with Mr. Prescott?

When Dak has a clean pocket and has the time to set his feet, more times than not - he’s going to deliver a good ball. However, when he senses pressure and starts throwing off balance, he starts misfiring. Earlier in the season, Prescott was a lot more consistent with his footwork. He kept his feet moving, always re-directing them towards his target. Once he settled in on where he was going to throw it, he just stepped forward and delivered a strike.

But these consistencies haven’t been on display in recent weeks. Against the Bears, his footwork was all over the place. Many times, he left his stance too open, throwing off balance and forcing his arms to do all the work. The result ended up being wobbly passes and balls delivered just late enough for the defenders to knock them down.

Prescott also threw too much off his back foot. There are times when he can put the sweetest touch on the ball when he’s throwing off balance, but that’s not ideal and he should limit those instances. Sometimes those passes are just terrible throws and give his receivers no chance.

What can be really frustrating is when Dak feels congestion in the pocket, rather than sidestep to give him room to step up and make a good throw, he just decides to take his chances and launch it off his back foot. This results in passes that are difficult for his receivers to bring in, often times sailing away from them.

Let’s take a close look at some of Prescott’s passes in last week’s game against the Bears.


Gustave Moeller

For the Swedish Minister of Social Affairs, see Gustav Möller; for the Swedish athlete, see Gustav Möller (athlete).

Gustave Moeller (1881– February 11, 1931) was an American-born artist who was most well known for painting, especially painting American towns and villages.

Education
Moeller was born in New Holstein, Wisconsin, but moved to Milwaukee at a young age. As a teen Moeller attended the Milwaukee Art Students’ League with young artists such as Edward Steichen. Moeller was one of the first students at the Milwaukee Art Students' League.  Gustave then took classes at the Chicago Art Institute while working as a commercial engraver. Moeller also attended the Academy of Fine Arts in New York, New York, and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Germany, where he was taught by Carl von Marr.

Career
Moeller was a well known and respected art teacher at the School of Fine and Applied Arts in Milwaukee. He also was a member of the Milwaukee Men’s Sketch Club, on the Board of Trustees of the Milwaukee Art Institute, the Milwaukee Art Commission and Wisconsin Painters & Sculptors.  Gustave was known for his vibrant, colorful landscapes and often painting at various places in rural Wisconsin.

Death
Gustave died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1931 at the age of 49 from complications following an operation.

Award
Moeller was awarded a Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

References

External links
Gustave Moeller's artist profile from the West Bend Art Museum
Gustave Moeller's artist profile from Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Awards (WVALAA)

Category:1881 births
Category:1931 deaths
Category:19th-century American painters
Category:American male painters
Category:20th-century American painters
Category:Artists from Milwaukee
Category:People from New Holstein, Wisconsin
Category:Painters from Wisconsin


Two officers on administrative leave after man was shot ‘four to six times’ in chest and back after altercation with police outside convenience store

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A white Louisiana police officer shot and killed a black man following a confrontation outside a Baton Rouge convenience store, authorities said.

An autopsy showed Alton Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, died on Tuesday of multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and back, said East Baton Rouge parish coroner Dr William Clark.

Officers had responded to the store at about 12.35am on Tuesday after an anonymous caller indicated a man selling music CDs and wearing a red shirt had threatened him with a gun, said corporal L’Jean McKneely.

Two officers responded and there was an altercation with the man, then one officer fatally shot the suspect, McKneely said. Both officers were placed on administrative leave under standard department policy, he said.

The store’s owner, Abdul Muflahi, told WAFB-TV that the first officer used a Taser on Sterling and the second officer tackled the man. Muflahi said that as Sterling fought to get the officer off him the first officer shot him “four to six times”.

Video of the shooting that circulated on Twitter sparked outrage.

Muflani said Sterling did not have a gun in his hand at the time but he saw officers remove a gun from Sterling’s pocket after the shooting.

McKneely said late on Tuesday that he could not confirm Muflahi’s description of the alleged event or any other details of the investigation.

On Tuesday night about 150 protesters took to the streets of Baton Rouge chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “No justice, no peace”.

Quencie (@StudioQTV) People in Baton Rouge taking to the streets in response to the shooting of #altonsterling pic.twitter.com/OavspeoMra

Bryn Stole (@BrynStole) Protestors now parking in street to block traffic, raising fiats & chanting "black lives matter" #AltonSterling pic.twitter.com/aGu463ZTN4

The protest continued past midnight and demonstrators said they would hold a rally outside city hall on Wednesday morning.

“We’ve seen a video that’s disturbing, and gruesome,” Mike McClanahan, Baton Rouge president of the NAACP, who was among the protesters for much of the evening, told the Advocate. “We know that justice must be served.”

Associated Press contributed to this report


Q:

How to make underlying div unclickable?

I made overlay div with:
position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; widht: 100%; height: 100%;

Basically I want this overlay div to cover my whole page. And it does what I need, but I also need underlying divs to be unclickable. They are indeed unclickable but only in FF, Safari and Chrome. in IE and Opera you can still click buttons that are underneath.
Does anyone have any idea on how can I achieve this "unclickable underlying behaviour"?

A:

.class {pointer-events: none;}


Saturday, January 19, 2013

Since the EU Crisis went into overdrive in 2010, EU politicians have largely resorted to political posturing rather than implementing any actual financial solutions to the EU’s debt and banking crisis.

To clarify that statement, we view a “real solution” as one that A) cleared bad debts from the system, B) brought debt levels down to manageable levels, and C) got the troubled country’s economy back on track.

By way of example, real solutions would involve outright debt defaults, bank failures, and very likely one or more countries leaving the Euro. However, no major EU leader ever seriously promotes any of these ideas because doing so would akin to committing political suicide as the rest of the political class would blame them for what followed.

As a result, EU politicians continue to kick the can down the road with half-measures such as austerity measures in exchange for bailouts. The end result is that nothing is ever solved as those in charge of the decisions that matter have no incentives to actually do anything beneficial for their countries’ economies. See Greece whose economy has completely imploded to the point that children are being admitted to hospitals every week for malnutrition… and it will still have a Debt to GDP of 120% in 2022!

It is now obvious that US politicians have seen this work well for their European counterparts (nothing gets fixed, not tough choices have to be made and almost no one gets kicked out of office), and are now adopting this strategy on this side of the pond.

Consider the fiscal cliff issue, which our political leaders discussed endlessly for over a month, only to then pass a “deal” which both raised taxes AND failed to cut the deficit or debt.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday told a group of John Hopkins students that President Obama ought to sidestep the wishes of Congress and order swift new executive gun control measures.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday that President Obama should implement a series of guncontrol measures through executive action.

“There are steps that President Obama can take without congressional approval at any time he chooses with just one stroke of the pen,” Bloomberg told the mixed audience of students and scholars, speaking at the “Gun Policy Summit” at John Hopkins University.

Bloomberg’s remarks came hours before President Obama argued in a rare press conference that executive privileges afforded him the power to implement some federal gun control measures without the permission of Congress.

“My understanding is the Vice President is going to provide a range of steps that we can take to reduce gun violence,” President Obama told the White House Press Corps. “Some of them will require legislation, some of them I can accomplish through executive action.”

During a TV interview with PBS for “America Rebuilds” in 2004, WTC 7 owner and Twin Towers leaseholder Larry Silverstein made the following statement about the destruction of Building 7:

Regardless of WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein's statements about the fall of WTC7, the evidence of controlled demolition indicates he should be questioned in a real 9/11 investigation

"I remember getting a call from the fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and then we watched the building collapse."

When Silverstein said "pull it", was he referring to the explosive controlled demolition of the building?

The term “pull” is also used later in the same PBS documentary by a Ground Zero cleanup worker, who said of WTC 6, “It’s not every day you try to pull down an eight-story building with cables.” However,… this procedure is different from using explosives to destroy a much taller building.

In addition, according to research performed by independent 9/11 investigatorJim Hoffman, the term "pull" is not widely used in the demolition industry to refer to the explosive demolition of a building.

If Silverstein wasn't referring to the controlled demolition of WTC 7, what could he have been referring to?

In our society today, newborns are injected with loads of chemicals nearly as soon as they enter the world. In the name of “prevention”, we give them vaccines that we aren’t even sure are safe.

As a matter of fact, in many cases, we know them to be unsafe.

This is the case with the hepatitis B vaccine, approved for infants at birth but admittedly responsible for causing serious illness and even death.

The United States Court of Federal Claims sided with the estate of Tambra Harris, who died as a result of an auto-immune disease called systemic lupose erythematosus (SLE).

The court awarded $475,000 following her death after finding the hepatitis vaccine caused her injury in the form of SLE. But this near-admittance of a cause-effect relationship between the vaccine and the illness and subsequent death isn’t enough. No, we still give the shot to babies.

So, what is hepatitis B and why are we told that it is so important that newborn infants are vaccinated against it? Hepatitis B is not pleasant and can be deadly. But newborns (and the vast majority of people at any age) aren’t at risk of contracting the disease.

It’s spread by contact with bodily fluids, as in through unprotected sex or dirty needles.

The risks associated with the hepatitis B vaccine are far more pressing than the risk of contracting the disease, says Dr. Jane Orient of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS).

Monday, January 14, 2013

“My understanding is the vice president’s going to provide a range of steps that we can take to reduce gun violence,” said Obama. “Some of them will require legislation, some of them I can accomplish through executive action. And so I will be reviewing those today, and as I said, I will speak in more detail to what we’re going to go ahead and propose later in the week. But I’m confident that there are some steps that we can take that don’t require legislation and that are within my authority as president, and where you get a step that, has the opportunity to reduce the possibility of gun violence, then I want to go ahead and take it.”

Editor's Note: I did a radio show talking about how Obama would start using Executive orders to bring in a dictator ship as far back as 2010! Listen to the program here

Barack Obama has greatly expanded the powers of the presidency during his time in the White House, but there is one institution that he simply will not mess with. There is one organization that is considered to be so sacred in Washington D.C. that Obama will not dare utter a single negative word against it. That organization is the Federal Reserve. Even though he has shown that he is unafraid to pick a fight with just about everyone else in Washington, Obama flat out refuses to criticize the Fed and he even reappointed Ben Bernanke for another term as Fed Chairman even though Bernanke has a track record of failurethat would make the Chicago Cubs look good. Perhaps Obama is aware of what has happened to other presidents that have chosen to tangle with the Fed. In any event, it has become clear that Obama submits to anything that the Fed says without question, and the controversy over the “trillion dollar coin” is another perfect example of this. For weeks, there has been much speculation in the mainstream media about the possibility that the Obama administration may print up a one trillion dollar coin that it would use to keep paying the bills of the federal government if an agreement to raise the debt ceiling is not reached. But on Saturday the Federal Reserve killed that idea, and we shouldn’t be surprised by that because under no circumstances will the Fed ever accept a threat to their monopoly over money creation in the United States. If the Federal Reserve had allowed Obama to print up a debt-free trillion dollar coin, that would have set a very dangerous precedent for the Fed. The American people would have realized that the federal government can actually create debt-free money whenever it wants and that it does not actually have to borrow money from anyone. That is something that the Fed probably would have moved heaven and earth to keep from happening. But now we won’t ever know how far the Fed would really be willing to go to keep their monopoly over money creation, because Obama has no plans to challenge this latest ruling from “the real boss” of our financial system.

Sadly, most Americans don’t even realize that a private banking cartel has a monopoly over all money creation in this country. In recent years they have abused this power by wildly printing money (“quantitative easing“), and by making more than 16 trillion dollars in secret loans to their friends during the last financial crisis. Under our system, the private Federal Reserve creates money whenever they want, and nobody else gets to create money. It is an insane system, but very, very few of our politicians will ever dare to question it.

At this point, the U.S. Treasury Department is essentially just an arm of the Federal Reserve. That is why it was no surprise that the Fed and the Treasury Department issued a joint statement on Saturday. According to Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley, both the Treasury and the Fed have come to the conclusion that under no circumstances should a trillion dollar coin be printed up by the Obama administration…

“Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit”

But of course it was actually the Federal Reserve which made this decision. The following is from a report posted by Zeke Miller of Buzzfeed.com…

The Federal Reserve was responsible for killing a controversial proposal to circumvent the debt limit, a senior administration official told BuzzFeed Sunday.

On Saturday the Treasury Department released a statement ruling out the only remaining alternative to Congress raising the nation’s borrowing limit, which would utilize a loophole in federal law to mint a $1 trillion coin to be deposited in the Federal Reserve and ensure the federal government could pay all bills and debt obligations.

According to that Buzzfeed article, the Federal Reserve would have actually refused to recognize the trillion dollar coin if the Obama administration had tried to deposit it with the Fed…

But it was the Federal Reserve that killed the proposal, the official told BuzzFeed, denying a purely political rationale for the announcement, saying the independent central bank would not have credited the Treasury’s accounts for the vast sum for depositing the coin.

Wow.

So there you go.

The real boss has told Barack Obama how it is going to be, and Obama plans to meekly comply.

So why is the Federal Reserve so adamant about maintaining their monopoly over money creation?

Well, it is all about compound interest. Albert Einstein once made the following statement about compound interest…

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.”

When the Federal Reserve system was initially created back in 1913, the bankers that created it intended for it to be a perpetual debt machine that would extract massive amounts of wealth from the U.S. government (and ultimately from all of us) through the mechanism of compound interest. Each year, hundreds of billions of dollars of interest are transferred into the pockets of the wealthy bankers and foreign nations that own our debt. This is one of the reasons why I preach about the evils of government debt until I am blue in the face. The debt-based Federal Reserve system is a way to systematically steal the wealth of the United States, and it is happening right in front of our eyes, but very few people actually understand it well enough to complain about it.

Unfortunately, we are rapidly getting to the point where we have accumulated so much debt that it is threatening to collapse our entire financial system. The following comes from a recent Zero Hedge article…

By now most are aware of the various metrics exposing the unsustainability of US debt (which at103% of GDP, it is well above the Reinhart-Rogoff “viability” threshold of 80%; and where a return to just 5% in blended interest means total debt/GDP would double in under a decade all else equal simply thanks to the “magic” of compounding), although there is one that captures perhaps best of all the sad predicament the US self-funding state (where debt is used to fund nearly half of total US spending) finds itself in. It comes from Zhang Monan, researcher at the China Macroeconomic Research Platform: “The US government is now trying to repay old debt by borrowing more; in 2010, average annual debt creation (including debt refinance) moved above $4 trillion, or almost one-quarter of GDP, compared to the pre-crisis average of 8.7% of GDP.”

This is a key statistic most forget when they discuss the stock and flow of US debt: because whereas the total US deficit, and thus net debt issuance, is about $1 trillion per year, one has to factor that there is between $3 and $4 trillion in maturities each year, which have to be offset by a matched amount of gross issuance just to keep the stock of debt flat (pre deficit funding). The assumption is that demand for this gross issuance will always exist as old maturities are rolled into new debt, however, this assumption is contingent on one very key variable: interest ratesnot rising.

Do you understand what is being said there?

Not only is our debt rising by more than a trillion dollars a year, we also need to roll over trillions of dollars of federal debt each year. If interest rates on that debt start rising, we are going to start feeling the pain very rapidly.

As I have mentioned previously, the average rate of interest on U.S. government debt was 6.638 percent back in 2000. If we returned to that level today, we would be paying more than a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt.

The main thing keeping interest rates low right now is the fact that the U.S. dollar is the de facto reserve currency of the world. If that ends, interest rates on U.S. debt will skyrocket. The following is from a recent article by Chris Ferreira…

The US Dollar is the reserve currency of the world. You need it to buy oil, a vital component of any economy. Since other countries like China cannot print US dollars at their leisure, they have to get it from somewhere. They get it from trade with the US. The US buys products in Asia and the rest of the world with US dollars, and in turn these same dollar surpluses are used to buy oil and US bonds, creating a much needed artificial demand for US dollars.

This is also how the enormous US 558$ billion trade deficit in 2011 was financed. The US has been in a trade deficit since the 1980′s and it continues the grow as jobs and manufacturing are being lost to more competitive nations. The trade deficit also accounts for the national debt. The financing of the debt creates artificial demand for US bonds which helps lower the interest rate and coincidentally helps to raise the debt levels even higher.

Most Americans have absolutely no idea how very close we are to financial catastrophe. The only way we can continue to service our enormous 16 trillion dollar debt is for interest rates on that debt to remain super low. But the only way those interest rates can remain low is for the U.S. dollar to remain absolutely dominant in international trade. Once the rest of the world rejects the U.S. dollar, the game is over.

We are headed for total system meltdown, but neither major political party is going to do a thing about it. They are both just going to continue to meekly comply with the dictates of the real boss of our financial system – the Federal Reserve.

It is imperative that we educate the American people about these things. Please share this article with as many people as you can, and the following is another great article for anyone that does not understand how the Federal Reserve is destroying our financial system: “10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve“.

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!!Mark MathenyJanuary 14, 2013
If you are aware at all of the events transpiring recently in the news with the constant bombardment of propaganda regarding the danger of "assault" weapons and the need for control, then you also know that there are attempts by our own government to push severe gun control measures to destroy our 2nd amendment rights.

Recently disclosed, has come information that the Embassy Attack was partly successful due to the fact that severe gun control policies in Libya by the newly installed government left the Embassy vulnerable. This is from CNS News which stated:

The gun control policies of the post-Gaddafi government in Libya delayed the arming of bodyguards for U.S. diplomats in that country and left the local guard force hired to watch over the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi unarmed, according to internal State Department memos and written testimony by the State Department officer who was in charge of the department’s security in Libya until six weeks before the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks.

Of course the government that was in power during the attack is the Al queada-CIA sponsored Terrorist organization that supposedly liberated the Libyan people from the dictator Moanmar Gaddafi. It is clear to see that gun control, idealistically meant to protect the public, is in fact usually the reason behind such successful attacks by criminals and terrorists organizations.

The CNS News article then goes on to show that because of the gun control policies, the private security details that were hired from the local citizens of Libya to guard American officials and the Embassy were unarmed! :

“Our long term security plan in Libya was to recruit and deploy an armed, locally hired Libyan bodyguard unit,” State Department Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in written testimony.“However, because of Libyan political sensitivities, armed private security companies were not allowed to operate in Libya,” Nordstrom said in his testimony submitted on Oct. 10. “Therefore, our existing, uniformed static local guard force, both in Tripoli and Benghazi were unarmed, similar to our static local guard forces at many posts around the world. Their job was to observe, report, and alert armed host nation security, and armed DS agents on-site.”

The Obama administration is pushing for assault weapons bans here in the U.S. as part of a bigger United Nations plan to disarm nations around the world, not just the United States. The current government in Libya was put in power by the CIA and Obama administration, and are the same thugs who have passed gun control measures in Libya that allowed for the attacks on the Embassy to be successful! Think about it. Now that Obama has successfully usurped the White House for another 4 years through voter fraud and Union intimidation and contributions from elites that are hell-bent on creating their New World Order, he is now determined to disarm the American people in order to continue the destruction of the middle class, and the systematic enslavement of our society which is under the shackles of unemployment, food stamp dependency, and indentured servitude to the Federal Reserve Banking Criminal Cartel.

The shootings happening across the country are being exploited in order to use the propaganda tool of fear in order to demonize guns in the hands of citizens. The use of the word "assault weapon" is also meant to target what types of weapons can be taken from the public. An assault weapon is more correctly any rifle-type weapon that can fire "automatic". In other words a rapid fire type weapon. Single fire rifles, no matter how they may look, are NOT assault weapons! They are simply rifles. It doesn't matter what they look like. The propaganda being pushed by our traitorous media is that basically all rifle type weapons are dangerous!

Obama has stated that so-called "assault" weapons should not be allowed on the streets of America, but only in the hands of armies. The reason he and all Elites think this way is because they do not want their slaves to have the ability to resist the tyranny they are bringing upon our nation!

It is important to defend the 2nd Amendment because it is what keeps our nation from succumbing to a tyrannical government! Here are what some of the founding fathers had to say concerning our right to keep and bear arms:

*"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."George MasonCo-author of the Second Amendmentduring Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788

"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full posession of them."Zachariah JohnsonElliot's Debates, vol. 3 "The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution."

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; …"Samuel Adamsquoted in the Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, August 20, 1789, "Propositions submitted to the Convention of this State"

"Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence … from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable … the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."George WashingtonFirst President of the United States

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"

Think about what the Founding Fathers said, and now see what murderous tyrants in history thought of its' people having firearms:

“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let’s not have any native militia or native police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order throughout the occupied Russian territories, and a system of military strong-points must be evolved to cover the entire occupied country.”- Adolf Hitler, dinner talk on April 11, 1942

Under Hitler, Nazi Germany implemented strict gun control laws beginning in 1938. As a result, millions of Jews, Polish and other ethnic groups were murdered from 1939 to 1945. Only those partisan militia groups that could arm themselves were able to resist and defend themselves.

“If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.”- Joseph Stalin

When the Soviet Union began strict gun control measures in 1929, the result lead to approximately 20 million murders by the tyrannical regime of those the State considered "dissidents". The slaughters continued up until 1953. More recent investigations have discovered the murderous death toll may be as high as 61,911,000.

“The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all, the elimination of the so-called subversive elements. … They were elements of disorder and subversion. On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. This confiscation, which continues with the utmost energy, has given satisfactory results.”- Benito Mussolini, address to the Italian Senate, 1931

“All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.”- Mao Tze Tung, Nov 6 1938

China established gun control laws in beginning in 1935. Under the dictator Mao Tze Tung, 10,076,000 political dissidents, unable to defend themselves due to severe gun control laws, were rounded up and exterminated in Kuomintang China, and by 1987 another 35,236,000 exterminations were carried out under the Communists.

“I did not join the resistance movement to kill people, [but] to kill the nation. Look at me now. Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear.”

- Pol Pot

Cambodia established gun control in 1956. Between 1975 and 19793, 2,035,000 “educated” people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

During the short four years of its rule in Cambodia, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge government murdered over 31 percent of the entire Cambodian population.

“Armas para que? (“Guns, for what?”)”A response to Cuban citizens who said the people might need to keep their guns, after Castro announced strict gun control in Cuba.- Fidel Castro

It is clear to see why gun control is being pushed by an out of control government here in our country.

And he’s right. In what could potentially change modern day warfare, Boeing and the U.S. Air Force successfully tested the Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP). The missile’s primary purpose is to disable computers and other electronics from a distance, using microwaves.

Last Tuesday over the Western Utah desert, the test was directed by a Boeing Phantom Works team, along with members from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate team, and Raytheon Ktech, suppliers of the High Power Microwave source.

The pre-programmed CHAMP missile flew over its first target and shot out a burst of High Power Microwaves at a two story building, successfully knocking out rows of personal computers and electrical systems in the building. The missile ended up hitting all seven of its targets in what the company described as a highly-successful test.

It’s groundbreaking in the sense that there is now a legitimate non-lethal weapon that can defeat electronic targets without collateral damage.

“In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy’s electronic and data systems useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive,” Coleman said in a press release.

Once again a government funded mock emergency drill was being conducted at a nearby local school at the very same time the supposed realtime shooting was taking place at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut – leaving all the fingerprints of a government staged false flag event to strip guns from the American people.

Many people involved in responding to the Newtown school shooting have been shown to be participants in active shooter drills either in the past or on the very day of the shooting. To top it all off, there are still many inconsistencies in the official story.

One of the noticeable problems with the official story is that alleged shooting suspect Adam Lanza’s car was identified as a black Honda Civic, Connecticut plate number 872 YEO which is registered to a one Christopher A Rodia (born August 1969), totally discrediting the official story.

How would such information get covered up?

Let’s take a look at John Blawie, a Connecticut State Superior Court Judge who has been putting a halt on search warrant affidavits.

DANBURY — A state Superior Court judge said Thursday that search warrant affidavits for the cars and home of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza and his mother would stay sealed for another 90 days.

Judge John Blawie granted motions filed Wednesday by Danbury State’s Attorney Stephen Sedensky to extend the statutory sealing period for the five warrants, including three for the Yogonanda Street home where the 20-year-old Lanza fatally shot his mother, Nancy, four times in the face on the morning of Dec. 14, before embarking on the rampage that left 20 first-graders and six educators dead.

Why would evidence be withheld from an event that has been publicized in the mainstream media as the worst school shooting ever? What is wrong with this picture?

Police Intrigue

Adding t the intrigue, Lt. Paul Vance of the Connecticut State Police (the man responsible for avoiding important questions to the press regarding the Sandy Hook shooting) has gotten a recent promotion (which he admitted himself on camera) for what he said he heard was going to be a “sold out show”.

Vance has also trained on several occasions for mock school active-shooter drills. Vance is a seasoned spokesman and is well trained at talking with the press and members of the media.

Vance was quoted at the Sandy Hook press conference saying, “We’ve been asked by the family members to ask the members of the press to respect their privacy and to please leave them alone at this time,” he told the media scrum. “I’m pleading with you, as you know this is an extremely heartbreaking, difficult thing for these folks to endure. Please abide by their request.”

Active Shooter Drill

The official government website for the state of Connecticut (ct.gov) lists the drill on their calendar;

5 of 40 seats still availableLast day to register: 12/13/2012Sorry, you may not register for this event.

The states official website reads;

Dec 14, 2012

FEMA L-366 Planning for the Needs of Children in Disasters

The goal of the course is to enable participants to improve their community’s mitigation and emergency operations plan specifically regarding the needs of children. The course will provide them with the information needed to address the unique needs of children prior to, during and following disasters. It will also provide them guidance and direction on how to form coalitions and how to become advocates for the unique needs of children in all aspects of emergency management.

After completing this course, participants will be able to:• Articulate the importance of providing for the needs of children in disasters in your community’s current emergency management plan.

• Explain what is required to keep children safe in emergencies and why those needs are unique.

• Explain the assumptions, concept of operations, organization and assignment of responsibilities that address the unique needs of children prior to, during and following disasters.

• Explain the planning components necessary to address the unique needs of children prior to, during and following disasters• Incorporate the unique needs of children in disasters into Emergency Operations Plans

• Identify stakeholders and organizations that can assist in preparing for the needs of children in disasters.

• Initiate steps to form coalitions and build teams that have a stake in keeping children safe in disasters

The target audience for this course is local and state emergency managers and planners, Child Services Agencies, NGO’s, Child Care Providers, Schools, and Faith-based Organizations.

1. As of October 1, 2012 anyone applying for FEMA courses must obtain a FEMA Student Identification (SID) number. For more information and to obtain a SID go to: https://cdp.dhs.gov/femasid/

You will need this number to complete the course application form (119-25-1) that will be filled out at the beginning of the class. FEMA certificates will be mailed to participants after completion of this course.

2.Class size is limited to 30. Please sign up as soon as possible to guarantee a spot in the class of your choice.

With President Obama readying an overhaul of the nation’s gun laws, a liberal think tank with singular influence throughout his administration is pushing for a sweeping agenda of strict new restrictions on and federal oversight of gun and ammunition sales.

The Center for American Progress is recommending 13 new gun policies to the White House — some of them executive actions that would not require the approval of Congress — in what amounts to the progressive community’s wish list.

CAP’s proposals — which include requiring universal background checks, banning military-grade assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and modernizing data systems to track gun sales and enforce existing laws — are all but certain to face stiff opposition from the National Rifle Association and its many allies in Congress.

Rock legend and gun-rights activist Ted Nugent took the Obama administration to task Sunday evening for pledging to make gun control a priority, telling a radio host the president’s plans are practically “psychotic.”

“A person who lives by logic and studies history and tries to implement the lessons learned by history cannot begin to rationally explain the conduct of this president or his attorney general or this administration,” Nugent said. “It is psychotic, it is crazy, it is illogical.”

Nugent explained that many people have reacted in fear, backing schemes of gun control or even outright gun bans in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

But disarming American citizens, Nugent claims, is exactly the wrong approach.

“Obama’s dream already exists, and those are called gun-free zones, and that is where the most innocent lives are lost,” Nugent told Klein. “What kind of monster would want more of these? Because if you ask for more gun-free zones, if you further disarm innocent Americans, you are literally engineering slaughters.”

Nugent is a rock legend with over 40 million albums sold, a New York Times bestselling author and a board member of National Rifle Association.

A group of like-minded patriots, bound together by pride in American exceptionalism, plan on building an armed community to protect their liberty.

The group, named Citadel, intends to purchase 2,000 to 3,000 acres for the project in western Idaho. The community will comprise of 3,500 to 7,000 families of patriotic Americans who "voluntarily choose to live together in accordance with Thomas Jefferson's ideal of Rightful Liberty."

According to the Citadel website, Rightful Liberty means that "neighbors keep their noses out of other neighbors' business, that neighbors live and let live."

Citadel explains that residents in the community will be bound by the following:

Patriotism

Pride in American Exceptionalism

Our proud history of Liberty as defined by our Founding Fathers, and

Physical preparedness to survive and prevail in the face of natural catastrophes --such as Hurricanes Sandy or Katrina -- or man-made catastrophes such as a power grid failure or economic collapse.

Residents should also agree that being "prepared for the emergencies of life and being proficient with the American icon of Liberty -- the Rifle -- are prudent measures."

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Most Corrupt States in U.S.

From bribery and kickbacks, to embezzlement and election crime, the American politician has been involved in them all. While some states with more politicians can be expected to have more corruption, as these graphics show it is not always the case.

History of the Vatican

The Federal Reserve

Council on Foreign Relations

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Secret Societies

"We must now face the harsh truth that the objectives of communism are being steadily advanced because many of us do not recognize the means used to advance them. ... The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a Conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst."J. Edgar Hoover

Bilderberg Club

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Trustee’s Annual Report and Accounts

The ReVive financial year ends on the 30th of June. Each year the board of trustees submits its annual report, along with our audited accounts, to the UK Charity Commission. The report and the accounts are on public record for donors (and non-donors) to see. You can see ReVive’s page on the charity commission website by clicking here. You’ll be able to check the reports and accounts for previous years as well.

During the year ending June 30th 2017, ReVive received a total of £147,894 in donations and spent £109,410 in grants to Brazil.


Arrays: This is a object variable, that is designed to store a collection of object-variable. Each object variable is stored in numbered containers (i.e. they are indexed), with the first container starting at number 0.

Generics: these are like arrays, but they can only store builtin c# variables, i.e. variables that are int, string, double,…etc. However you can’t add new items to an array.

There are different types of generic collections:

List – these are like arrays, but you can also add new items to the list. Hence you can grow the list by using the “add” keyword

Queues – This is based on the idea that the first item in the queue gets processed first….i.e. it is based on first-in, first-out concept.

Stack – This is like queues, except it is based in last-in, first-out. Think of it as a stack pancake, where the last pancaked stacked on the pile is also the first pancaked that gets eaten.

Dictionaries – These are essentially hash-tables, i.e key/value pairing. This is very powerful, because you can search/sort keys, which in turn holds the underlining data.


Cops: Armed robbery reported in downtown Riverhead

Riverhead police are searching for witnesses in an armed robbery that allegedly occurred on Prospect Place Tuesday night.

Police said a 23-year-old Hispanic male was robbed at gunpoint of his cell phone and cash shortly before 9 p.m. by a group of men. The suspects then ran into the Riverpoint apartment complex, according to police.

A K9 search of the area led to the recovery of evidence but no arrest, police said.

Investigators are asking anyone with information or who may have witnessed the incident to call 631-727-4500. All calls will remain confidential, according to police.


Mining coherent dense subgraphs across massive biological networks for functional discovery.
The rapid accumulation of biological network data translates into an urgent need for computational methods for graph pattern mining. One important problem is to identify recurrent patterns across multiple networks to discover biological modules. However, existing algorithms for frequent pattern mining become very costly in time and space as the pattern sizes and network numbers increase. Currently, no efficient algorithm is available for mining recurrent patterns across large collections of genome-wide networks. We developed a novel algorithm, CODENSE, to efficiently mine frequent coherent dense subgraphs across large numbers of massive graphs. Compared with previous methods, our approach is scalable in the number and size of the input graphs and adjustable in terms of exact or approximate pattern mining. Applying CODENSE to 39 co-expression networks derived from microarray datasets, we discovered a large number of functionally homogeneous clusters and made functional predictions for 169 uncharacterized yeast genes. http://zhoulab.usc.edu/CODENSE/


[Expression of prostaglandin transporter in colorectal cancer tissues and its relationship with clinicopathological features].
To investigate the expression of prostaglandin transporter (PGT) in colorectal cancer (CRC) tissues and its relationship with clinicopathological features. The mRNA and protein levels of PGT were determined by real-time PCR, Western blot and immunohistochemical methods in cancer tissues and adjacent normal tissue from 80 patients with colorectal cancer and their relationship with clinicopathological features was analyzed. Compared with the adjacent normal tissue of colorectal cancer, the PGT mRNA relative expression (0.57 ± 0.33 vs. 2.33 ± 1.20) and the PGT protein expression in cancer tissues decreased significantly [PGT/GAPDH 0.45 ± 0.16 vs. 0.78 ± 0.23, integral A 718.7 ± 359.4 vs. 10412.0 ± 6423.3, average A 0.03 ± 0.01 vs. 0.12 ± 0.09, all P<0.01]. Lower mRNA and protein expressions of PGT in colorectal cancer were associated with depth of invasion T3 to T4 and TNM stage III( to IIII( (P<0.01), while not associated with gender, age, tumor location and differentiation degree (all P>0.05). Expression levels of PGT mRNA and protein in colorectal cancer tissue are significantly down-regulation. PGT expression is associated with invasion depth and late stages.


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You are lumping all conservatives in with two special interest groups. That seems to be the point of this article as well as most articles on news sites these days, anything that rings partisan politics generates a lot of comments.

What about drugs where it takes 10 years just get through clinical trials? Your patent would expire before you could even sell your product. The problem might be more of an issue of trying to apply one system to industries that are very different.

I don't like unions, but this is one case where the lack of unions is hurting US tech workers. There is no lobbing group to call out companies on this kind of BS. You would need a very large well funded organization to even think of going up against the tech giants in the political arena. Maybe you could call attention to it on something like change.org, but I don't think it would be very effective without some lobbing money behind it. Anyone have any ideas that would actually work, because whining about isn't accomplishing anything as we've seen for many years now.

Am I missing something here? The study showed a high correlation between math and reading skill in twins. So if one twin is better at math then they will be equally better at reading than the other twin. How do you derive from this that genetics is determining your intelligence? If it was than the twins should be equally good math and equally good at reading, but the study actually shows they are not equal since this is difference they are using to show the correlation between math and reading skill.

I think a better analogy would be if you printing out your emails and web history and scattered the sheets of paper around your yard and the street in front of your house. Then someone driving down the road took a picture of your house and street which included the information you left laying out in the open.

This system is quite old. It is faster than a regular transit system because you only stop at your destination. However, there are complexities in the track design and you have a lot of little cars to maintain instead fewer larger ones.

66% of Computer Science graduates are white, 15% Asian, 3% black, and 5% Hispanic. I'm surprised they have such a high percentage of Asian workers. Of course 60% of students graduating with master's degrees in computer science aren't Americans so maybe that's where they are coming from. Also 80% of Computer Science graduates are male and 20% are female, so it's not surprising that tech companies have primarily male workers.

In Kansas City Google will give you a free 5 Mbps connection. That's enough to do most things you'd want to do on-line like email, Web browsing, even streaming video. I would think that would cover most people who can't afford the $20-$30 a month.

I received an under graduate and master’s degree from traditional universities. I also received two masters’ degrees through on-line classes. In my opinion programs like edX are the future of education, but on-line degrees are still not regarded with the same level of prestige as those received through traditional education. In part this has been due to questionable practices of some on-line educational institutions. How can this perception be changed and do you have and do you have any plans in that regard?

I got my CS degree in the late 80s and there were only a handful of women in the program. My son is majoring in CS now and I don't think the ratio has really changed the much over the past 25 years. That's just my observations the actual data seems to suggest that it was about 30% when I was in school and it's around 12% now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing.