Author: James

Can Robots Better Spot Terrorists at Airports?

Some Countries Test Fingerprint Readers and Eye Scanners for Aviation Security

Next to have their jobs automated: airport-security screeners?

Aviation and government authorities are starting to use machines in lieu of people to verify the identities of fliers by scanning their faces, irises or fingerprints. Dozens of airports in Europe, Australia and the U.S. already employ such technology so passengers can pass immigration checks without showing identification to, or talking with, a person. Now, several major airports in Europe have started using these automated ID checks at security checkpoints and boarding gates.

The use of biometrics—computers verifying identities through physical characteristics—and other automated techniques in airport security is raising questions about the strengths of man versus machine in detecting potential terrorists. Industry officials argue the advantages outweigh the risks, and are promoting automation to help make air travel more efficient and less frustrating—and to save money.

https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304244904579276851803909952

New Year’s Hours at Tobacco Shop of Ridgewood

New Year’s Holiday Hours
Tuesday December 31 – 10:00AM-4:00PM
Wednesday January 1 – CLOSED
Thursday January 2 – CLOSED
Normal hours will resume Friday January 3rd

Wishing you and your family a happy and healthy 2014!
The Tobacco Shop of Ridgewood

~Gary, Barbara and Collin
The Tobacco Shop of Ridgewood

The Tobacco Shop of Ridgewood | 10 Chestnut Street | Ridgewood, New Jersey 07450
Phone: 201-447-2204 | Email: [email protected]
Hours: Monday – Saturday 10:00AM – 5:30PM and Thursday Night 6:30PM – 8:30PM

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY
438 AM EST MON DEC 30 2013

438 AM EST MON DEC 30 2013

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR SOUTHERN
CONNECTICUT…NORTHEAST NEW JERSEY AND SOUTHEAST NEW YORK.

.DAY ONE…TODAY AND TONIGHT.

HAZARDOUS WEATHER NOT EXPECTED AT THIS TIME.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN…TUESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY.

LIKELIHOOD IS INCREASING FOR A PROLONGED PERIOD OF SNOW AND/OR
WINTRY MIX LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT INTO FRIDAY. SEVERAL INCHES OF
SNOW ARE POSSIBLE…PARTICULARLY ACROSS THE INTERIOR. CLOSER TO
THE COAST…ACCUMULATING SNOW COULD BE ACCOMPANIED BY A PERIOD OF SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN.

CONTINUE TO MONITOR NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECASTS AS
UNCERTAINTY STILL EXISTS IN EXACT PRECIPITATION AMOUNTS AND WINTER PRECIPITATION TYPES.

State Dept. whistleblower has email hacked, deleted

By S.A. Miller

December 30, 2013 | 3:11am

WASHINGTON — The personal e-mail account of a State Department whis­tle­­blower was hacked, and four years worth of messages — some detailing alleged wrongdoing at the agency — were deleted, The Post has learned.

The computer attack targeted the Gmail account of Diplomatic Security Service criminal investigator Richard Higbie, his lawyer, Cary Schulman, confirmed.

“They took all of his e-mails and then they deleted them all,” said Schulman. He said that he could not prove who was responsible for the hack job, but said the attack was “sophisticated” and called the targeting of Higbie “alarming.”

“Obviously, somebody is not happy with something he’s doing and wanted to get that information and also cause him an inability in the future to have ready access to that,” Schulman said.

https://nypost.com/2013/12/30/state-dept-whistleblower-has-email-hacked-deleted/

Valley NICU Nurse Named NJ March of Dimes Nurse of the Year
December 19, 2013

Ridgewood NJ, The Valley Hospital is pleased to announce that Joann LaBounty, RN, a nurse in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) has been named a Nurse of the Year by the New Jersey March of Dimes.

Through the Nurse of the Year Awards, the March of Dimes recognizes nurses who demonstrate exceptional patient care, compassion, and service. Whether serving as a health care provider, educator, researcher, or chapter volunteer/advisor, these nurses have played a critical role in improving the health of New Jersey’s mothers and babies. The Nurse of the Year Awards celebrate the nursing profession and create an awareness of the recent strides made in this growing field.

“It is no surprise to me that Joann received this prestigious recognition,” said Ann Marie Leichman, Vice President of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer at Valley. “She is an outstanding nurse who not only always puts the needs of her patients and families first, but also makes significant contributions to the profession of nursing. We are so pleased she was honored for her work.”

Joann, a resident of Wyckoff, NJ, was honored in the Neonatal category for her dedication as a NICU nurse. The New Jersey March of Dimes honored 17 outstanding local nurses at a gala held on December 12.

Sun has ‘flipped upside down’ as new magnetic cycle begins

The sun has “flipped upside down”, with its north and south poles reversed to reach the midpoint of Solar Cycle 24, Nasa has said.

Now, the magnetic fields will once again started moving in opposite directions to begin the completion of the 22 year long process which will culminate in the poles switching once again.

“A reversal of the sun’s magnetic field is, literally, a big event,” said Nasa’s Dr. Tony Phillips.

“The domain of the sun’s magnetic influence (also known as the ‘heliosphere’) extends billions of kilometers beyond Pluto. Changes to the field’s polarity ripple all the way out to the Voyager probes, on the doorstep of interstellar space.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/video-sun-has-flipped-upside-down-as-new-magnetic-cycle-begins-9029378.html

Coming in 2014: Extremely Smart Watches and Wearable TVs
By NICK BILTON

For technological innovation, 2013 was a remarkably boring year. Apple, often the hotbed of “new,” mostly just updated familiar devices in different colors and with crisper screens. Social media companies fought over who had better photo filters. And Silicon Valley start-ups offered more of less, with slight iterations on existing products.

But 2014 has a lot of promise.

Predicting the future is a lot more difficult than evaluating the past, but you could wake up on Jan. 1, 2015, in a different digital winter wonderland.

No, you won’t lie in bed while your humanoid robot helper makes you bacon and eggs and walks the dog — which is also possibly a robot, made byGoogle. That’s more of a 2035 prediction. But you might wake up to the call of a watch on your wrist — not your cellphone on your night table. This year we’ve seen some efforts at smartwatches, like those made by Pebble; next year, these gadgets could look a lot better.

“Smartwatches, which connect to your smartphone, are going to create an entirely new category of computing in the coming year,” said Sarah Rotman Epps, a former Forrester analyst who specializes in wearable computing. She noted that the long-awaited Apple smartwatch, which is expected to be announced in 2014, could change the way we engage with our wrist in the same way Apple changed the cellphone industry in 2007.

https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/disruptions-coming-in-2014-extremely-smart-watches-and-wearable-tvs/?_r=0

NJ toll collectors fighting to keep jobs on Turnpike, GSP
SATURDAY DECEMBER 28, 2013, 1:05 PM
BY DONALD WITTKOWSKI
ASSOCIATED PRESS

TRENTON — Working in a metal booth in the middle of a highway — while traffic zooms by and choking exhaust fumes fill the air — may not sound like an ideal job to most people.

But the unions representing toll collectors on the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike are fighting to protect those jobs as technology cuts into the work force and plans for privatization become more intense.

Union leaders are worried that toll takers may disappear altogether unless they are able to stop the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, the parkway and turnpike’s operating agency, from privatizing the fare-collection system on both roads.

“It’s just a shame what is being done. They’re in constant fear of losing their jobs,” Kevin McCarthy, president of Local 194 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, told The Press of Atlantic City. The union represents the turnpike’s toll collectors.

The turnpike authority has decided to accept bids for a private company to oversee toll collection, including the human toll takers and the automated E-ZPass system. The authority believes it may save millions of dollars by making the switch. The same issue was debated in 2011, but privatization was avoided then because the unions agreed to accept salary cuts and other concessions.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/NJ_toll_collectors_fighting_to_keep_jobs_.html#sthash.pBWERX6z.dpuf

file photo by Boyd Loving

N.J. police stepping up patrols to crack down on drunken driving
SUNDAY DECEMBER 29, 2013, 7:09 PM
BY  STEFANIE DAZIO
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

If you’ve had a drink this holiday season, think twice before you drive: Police departments across the state are ramping up their DWI patrols through Jan. 2 as part of a nationwide crackdown on drunken driving.

The state’s Division of Highway Traffic Safety is spearheading New Jersey’s campaign, and awarded 13 Bergen County and six Passaic County police departments $4,400 grants to defray overtime costs from Dec. 6 to Jan. 2 through the “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” initiative.

The holiday season often brings increased alcohol consumption with it, and police officers work to get drunk drivers off the roads through roving patrols and checkpoints. Officers also check for other motor vehicle violations.

“It’s more of a celebration time of year and people go out and want to have a good time,” Glen Rock Police Det. Sgt. Eric Reamy said. “That’s when drinking and driving increases, and unfortunately, that’s when fatalities increase.”

During last year’s effort, police made 170 DWI arrests in Bergen County and 100 in Passaic County from Dec. 7, 2012 to Jan. 2, 2013. In 2011, there were 152 alcohol-impaired fatalities in the state, according to the Division of Highway Traffic Safety, which accounted for 24 percent of New Jersey’s motor vehicle-related deaths.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/NJ_police_stepping_up_patrols_to_crack_down_on_drunken_driving.html#sthash.fpXJhf5G.dpuf

The Moral Case for Freedom Is the Practical Case for Freedom

The division of human life into the moral and the practical is of recent vintage.

Sheldon Richman | December 29, 2013

If I say that a government activity — “public” schooling, perhaps, or the war on selected drug merchants and users — helps turn the inner cities into hellholes and otherwise makes people’s lives miserable, is that a moral objection or a practical (utilitarian or generally consequentialist) objection?

Some libertarians are inclined to say it’s a utilitarian objection, but I’ve long been uncomfortable with this answer. For one thing, valid or not, utilitarianism is a moral theory, so utilitarian objections cannot be excluded from the realm of moral propositions.

Leaving that aside, we must inquire whether libertarian concerns are really divisible into a concern with duties (deontology) , say, regarding individual rights and a concern with practical consequences. This is an unfortunate feature of many libertarians’ thinking, but it’s not confined to libertarians. In this bifurcated view of the human world, there is a list of moral dos and don’ts that are not directly related to “practical” matters, specifically, the conditions under which human beings can prosper. That strikes me as odd, if for no other reason than that in this view the “moral” side appears to outrank the “practical” side: Success is nice, but the ethical test has priority. Some libertarians often say they would favor freedom even if it did not promote good things like prosperity because people have a right to freedom that is unrelated to its consequences. (Of course, they don’t believe that freedom could have bad consequences. But is that just a happy coincidence? More on this below.)

https://reason.com/archives/2013/12/29/the-moral-case-for-freedom-is-the-practi

DNC sends email defending Obama from impeachment possibility
7:11 PM 12/28/2013
Patrick Howley
Reporter

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent out a paranoid email Saturday evening urging supporters to vote for Democrats so that Republicans can’t impeach President Obama.

The email, subject line “Impeachment,” was sent to Obama for America supporters, imploring them to contribute to the DNC’s 2014 efforts. “What do these people all have in common?,” the email asked, featuring quotes from Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Rep. Kerry Bentivolio of Michigan, and Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas discussing the possibility of impeaching Obama for one of his numerous instances of presidential misconduct.

The DNC email discussed the “I-Word” and said that “Republicans are actually excited about the idea.”

Read more: https://dailycaller.com/2013/12/28/dnc-sends-email-defending-obama-from-impeachment-possibility/#ixzz2os9WfDce

 

Don’t forget to share your “cup of kindness” with the Ridgewood Concert Band as 2013 draws to a close.

Only 3 days left to make your tax-deductible 2013 contribution!

The Ridgewood Concert Band (RCB) is a not-for-profit organization that needs your help!

Revenue from subscriptions and ticket sales only partially covers the expenses incurred while producing the high quality performances you have come to expect and deserve. Expenses include, but are not limited to: renting rehearsal space, fees for performance venues, renting and purchasing equipment and music, printing, and website development and maintenance. The RCB Board, which consists of band members and community leaders, is committed to raising enough revenue to meet our annual budget and to utilizing funds wisely.

December 31st is the last day to qualify for a
tax-deduction for charitable donations!

The contribution is considered paid when you put the check in the mail, or when it is charged to your credit card (not when you pay the credit card company). Make sure that your donation is made by December 31 the year in which you plan to claim a deduction.

It is easy to make a donation!

Upcoming Concert: “Saxophone Spectacular”

Friday, February 7, 2013 at 8:00 PM
7:30pm Prelude Performance by the Paramus High School Wind Ensemble
West Side Presbyterian Church in Ridgewood, NJ

Featured Guest Soloists:
Kenneth Tse and Lois Hicks-Wozniak

Program Highlights
Cuban Overture – George Gershwin
Prayer of St. Gregory, Symphony No. 4 – Alan Hovhaness
Jericho – Morton Gould

Brain function ‘boosted for days after reading a novel’

Being pulled into the world of a gripping novel can trigger actual, measurable changes in the brain that linger for at least five days after reading, scientists have said.

The new research, carried out at Emory University in the US, found that reading a good book may cause heightened connectivity in the brain and neurological changes that persist in a similar way to muscle memory.

The changes were registered in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain associated with receptivity for language, as well as the the primary sensory motor region of the brain.

Neurons of this region have been associated with tricking the mind into thinking it is doing something it is not, a phenomenon known as grounded cognition – for example, just thinking about running, can activate the neurons associated with the physical act of running.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/brain-function-boosted-for-days-after-reading-a-novel-9028302.html

Buchanan: Custer Was Better Prepared for Battle than Today’s GOP

On “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV on Friday, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan commented on the state of the Republican Party as President Barack Obama and the Democrats begin to falter because of the problem-laden rollout of ObamaCare.

“One thing [that] could be said about these fellows, they do not think it through. Gen. Custer had a battle plan for weeks compared to these fellows,” Buchanan said. “Before you march into one of these battles, you’ve got to be prepared for the fact that, look, we may get bloodied so badly we’re going to have to step back across the Potomac River like Robert E. Lee did after Gettysburg …

https://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/12/28/Buchanan-Custer-Was-Better-Prepared-for-Battle-than-Todays-GOP?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter