A "massively co-ordinated" attack on websites including Google, Facebook and Twitter was directed at one individual, it has been confirmed.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Web attack ‘aimed at one blogger’

Now how do you like that one? An attack against a single blogger brings down Twitter, Live Journal and severely impairs Facebook for several hours. Makes me wonder what would happen if they (the hackers) actually got serious about things in future attacks.

Oh, really? What a surprise.

Russian officials responded vehemently to accusations that they were dabbling in Cold War-style cat-and-mouse manoeuvring but did not deny that two vessels had entered international waters just 200 miles of the US coast.

“Activities of Russian submarines in the world’s oceans outside their own waters do not violate international maritime law and are within normal practice,” a military-diplomatic source told the Russian state media.

Nuclear submarines off US coast ‘nothing to worry about’ says Russia – Times Online

As a veteran (fast attack) submariner of the Cold War, I can assure everyone who might read this that the only surprising thing about this event is that it actually made the news. Russia/The USSR has had it’s nuclear powered subs patrolling off our coasts both east and west ever since their first nuclear subs rolled out of their dry docks. The only difference between then and now is that back then this kind of thing would have never gotten out in public view…ever.

In my opinion, just the fact that this story was released tells me that our government is simply and blatantly letting the Russians know that we found their subs (of course we did, our Anti Submarine Warfare [ASW] technology is still well beyond theirs) and at this point those two subs might as well head for home since their “covertness” has just been blown. Something that is not supposed to happen under any circumstances with the possible exception of an on-board accident that immediately threatens the lives of the crew and loss of ship such as a reactor accident. Otherwise standing orders for any nuclear sub is; “And don’t let anyone find you, understand?”

In short, I wouldn’t want to be the commanding officer of either of those two Akulas tooling around our front yard ‘cuz they’re are going to catch hell when they get home.

The simple fact is that Russian/Soviet subs have always been there and, for the unforeseeable future, always will be. The (implied) threat is no greater than it has been in the past and by the same token, so is the threat of nuclear war—no different than it ever has been. That is until the Middle East countries and perhaps North Korea finally “get the bomb” at which point we’re all pretty much screwed.

Have a nice day.

Rapamycin treatment had the remarkable effect of extending life even though it was not started in the right dose until the mice had lived 600 days — equivalent to a person at age 60. Most interventions that prolong life in mice, including a very low-calorie diet, need to be started early in life to show any effect.

Antibiotic Delayed Aging in Mice – NYTimes.com

So this is a good thing? Okay, so it will most likely take at least another decade or so before anything will be proven with any certainty at all but as I fully intend to still be living at that point I really have to wonder if this is a good or thing or not.

Improving quality of life for the elderly is always a consideration of course and if this new discovery pans out and shows that the effects of this antibiotic can most assuredly improve that the lives of the elderly than fine and dandy. However, I would have serious reservations if the normal aging process would also be delayed for those  who start taking an anti-aging wonder drug while they’re still in their 20’s and 30’s.

Why?

Can you imagine having a bunch of adults running around who are still able to have children well into their 60’s? All personal feelings aside for the moment, I really don’t think the world can support this. It’s already overloaded as it is, it certainly doesn’t need any more of us stomping around on it. So if, in the future, an anti-aging drug becomes readily available perhaps it should be restricted to those already considered elderly. Say at legal retirement age? Make those “Golden years” really worth living?

Wouldn’t that just cause a hullabaloo. Anyway…

If that wasn’t the case then we’d need a way off obviously. If Gene Rodenberry was right and well before the 22nd century people had the average life span of around 140 years give or take, then we’d definitely have to have a way off this planet. Just a few other planets that we could screw up live on so we didn’t end up totally destroying this one with our over abundant population.

People living longer—what a concept to ponder for an hour or so during those rainy weekend afternoons. Considering how much trouble we can cause ourselves (“We have met the enemy and he is us!”  - Pogo), would this really be a good thing?

I read today that Russia is beginning it’s withdrawal from Georgia after beating a violent path to the city of Gori. But what destruction came at the hands of the Russians was nothing compared to the destruction caused by the Ossetia, Russia, and, in one case, Chechnya looters (according to various victims) that came after the Russian army had passed. These less than worthless wastes of life looted, burned and maimed their cowardly way well behind the Russians as they made their way south. So what was your point Russia?

Did you think you were actually going to be able to invade and finally retake a rebellious country back into the fold by force? And tell me you didn’t know that hordes of these miserable creatures would be no more than a few miles behind you wherever you went. Are you blind enough to believe that you can get away with what you got away with 30 and 40 years ago or was this another childish remonstration that basically amounted to a punishment for breaking away in the first place akin to a schoolyard bully thrashing a smaller boy simply because he told him no? A deterrent to other Russian provinces that you fear might also break away and declare their own independence?

The whole world’s watching you Russia, every move you make is almost immediately broadcast globally through every possible medium available thanks to the Internet and the WWW and there aren’t many out there cheering you on, especially those who “fought” in the Cold War because there won’t be another Cold War. The next one will get very hot indeed, it couldn’t be otherwise; the environment that created the first one doesn’t exist any longer and the whole world will suffer for it and that is not acceptable. Understanding that the old USA has it’s own lessons to learn in the same respect, we’re still several strides ahead of you so to the ones who give the orders to those armies of yours, it’s past time you smartened up.

Not that my expression of disdain here actually means anything, not that it’s going to make a whit of difference one way or another, it’s just probably a damn good thing I’m not in a position where I could make a difference since it definitely wouldn’t be pretty. I guess that makes me no better than you, does it?

I guess not…

Okay, the “AdSense for Feeds" was listed under the AdSense Setup tab alright and the procedure was simple enough just as they said it would be but when I got down to the list of existing feeds, nothing was there. Wait now…there’s a link below where my existing feeds should have been that leads to a help page that tells me how to migrate my existing (“burned”) feeds from FeedBurner to my AdSense account. Okay, that makes sense, Google can’t do everything you know. But what do I find on that less than helpful help page?

Google will soon provide a self-service process to migrate from an account on the original FeedBurner website to a Google Account. We have temporarily paused processing of new manual migration requests; we are working doggedly through the initial queue of requests and will re-open account migration services as soon as the first batch is completed.

Wonderful! They announced that a new service was ready to go and it’s not. Now ask me if I’m sick and tired of seeing this kind of thing. Go ahead…ask me.

Seems they’re still working on all those requests from the old “FeedBurner Ad Network” (FAN)?!?? You’ve got to be kidding me! I applied for that over a year ago and completely forgot about it when nothing ever happened, not even an email telling me my site didn’t cut the mustard. I even reapplied last May when FeedBurner announced that AdSense ads were now available for your "burned" feed through FAN and still nothing ever came of it and now this. Talk about a complete FUBAR of an operation. So I bang into my old FeedBurner account for my original site and sure enough, I’m still marked as a member of FAN for that particular feed. Still no ads though amazingly enough.

Absolutely poor management on Google’s part and no excuse for it–none whatsoever. Tell the whole world about this new service by plastering it all over the news, write up a “Here Ya’ Go!” type AdSense blog post and when site owners head to their existing AdSense account–it’s not ready. Who did they think were going to be the first to pounce on this new service but site owners who had already had “burned” feeds and AdSense accounts? Not exactly what you might call an minority group of players here. But wait, there’s also a major problem for those who don’t pay attention to the last line on the AdSense for Feeds page:

You can also (link)burn a new feed (link) right now to display this ad unit.

You do this and according to the comments I’ve read, apparently the new “burned” feed replaces your current one hence losing some or all of their subscribers in the process. Now there’s a kick in the face for you.

The good news to all this is that site owners who haven’t “burned” their feeds yet through FeedBurner can do so using the AdSense for Feeds "link" I referred to in the quote above without fear of losing subscribers, via your AdSense account. The reason for this is if I already have an existing “burned” feed that readers have subscribed to using that “burned” URL then I would lose those subscribers when the “burned” URL was replaced with the new one. However, I would keep the ones that originally subscribed to my raw feed from my site (the “unburned” one).

For those whose feeds are not yet “burned” and decide to do so via “AdSense for Feeds”, your current subscribers will automatically be redirected to your new “burned” feed so no loss is experienced which is the way FeedBurner has always worked. Of course this doesn’t mean you’ll see any ads right away if you do this, I figure you won’t see any until they get through that batch of FAN requests which have been piling up over the last several months but that’s just a guess on my part.

To just set the record straight, I’ve always liked Google and their offerings both online and offline. There’s always a decent amount of quality in both function and form in the majority of services Google provides so this debacle (IMO) of the new “AdSense for Feeds” service stands out like a thousand sore thumbs. The bottom line here is that Google announced the launch of a new service that was only half ready and compounded the error by not pointing out that site owners who already had "burned" feeds but had not previously applied for the FeedBurner Ad Network could not yet make use of the new service and that makes for a whole lot of users left out in the cold who’ve waited for this particular AdSense service to finally arrive.

Bad form all around if you ask me.