Many PayPal Users Unable To Access Accounts For Past 5 Days

by
paypal
Share this
Share

Many PayPal account holders have been unable to access their PayPal accounts for the past five days. Attempts to access their accounts results in a redirect loop fatal error.

Pages of comments about the ongoing issue with PayPal have been filed on the website downdetector.com. Reports of the “too many redirects” error message began to be posted Aug. 26, and continue Saturday night.

“Day 5 of not being able to access my account. Calling PayPal every day and getting excuses and the runaround is exasperating,” Marilyn Geiszler Huttunen, Vintage Clothing Dealer and Blogger at Finnfemme, tweeted Saturday.

“Me too. Go to Login, and wont send me my phone code to login, bypass this and go through my secruity questions only to have it time out over and over again. Useless…” added Edward RedFox Harding, Owner at Ed&Lisa.

ScreenHunter_6133 Aug. 29 22.47

“Not letting me log in. Tried on PC and mobile,” commented Pam Hurst, of Leith Walk Primary School.

It was reported Friday that PayPal had patched up a cross-scripting security issue, by which it was possible for payments to be stolen. It is not known whether there is any relation between the security issue and the redirect problem that predates the reported fix.

PayPal is a U.S. company that provides electronic funds transfers in 26 currencies across 190 countries. The company was founded in Palo Alto, California in 1998 by Elon Musk and four others. PayPal was acquired by eBay in July 2002, and currently 70 percent of eBay auctions accept PayPal payment and 25 percent of auctions are transacted using the electronic service. Paypal moved a total of $228 billion in 2014.

Sexual Harassment In Paris Still An Enormous Problem – Letter

by
Share this
Share

“I personally experience public intimidation on a daily basis.” – Dutch Parisienne Rachel Wegner

Warning: article contains some graphic language of a sexual nature

Paris — After some days of rain, I could not be happier than to enjoy the sunshine in my favorite park 10 minutes located from my home. As I were tanning in a bikini, I noticed an older men sat down a bit further on the field, facing me while he was continuously staring. As a Dutch woman living in Paris for an amount of time already, I slowly got more used to men staring at me. Walking down the road with me, trying to make conversation even though it is obvious I am not amused. Shouting at me for attention when I ride a bicycle and even Uber drivers use my personal details after driving me, trying to arrange a private ‘rendez-vous’.

The park is apparently the territory of local predators.

I didn’t want to let the man in the park win and adjust my behavior because he is the one who can’t behave. Still I put my clothes back on and turned my head around like I often do. It would be a waste to let such a sunny day get ruined by an old creeper. Not even ten minutes later, I discovered pervert number one wasn’t such a bad guy after all, at least compared to the new predator I got in sight. A man was standing more or less on top of a small hill, staring down at me (I am sure it was me he was looking at, because besides the old man on the other side and me, the field was empty). If the staring wasn’t enough to intimidate me, he also started to touch himself. Maybe he didn’t take his pants of, but with his hand on top of his crotch, he was basically jerking off and the entire time he didn’t let his eyes off me. Again I didn’t want to surrender and allowing a perpetrator to influence my behavior,   but my comfort was more important. So I ignored what I saw and just took off.

Returning home from the park way more early than I initially planned, I realized I don’t even feel safe to go by myself to the park anymore. Because this wasn’t the first time it happened to me. Every single time I go to the park, there is at least always one man all by himself, simply staring at me until I can’t handle the uncomfortable feelings anymore and again take off. I would not be surprised if their only purpose to visit the park is to sexually intimidate young women.

But even at the center of Paris sexual harassment continues

Another example which is even worse than what is written above, was the one time on Sunday afternoon at the center of Paris. As I was waiting at an empty street for my friend to come down, all of a sudden a men appeared next to me with his pants down his legs. While he was treating himself with a hand job as he used me as the subject of his sexual pleasure. Like always, it was me who took off. Waiting down a bigger street with more people walking by informing my friend about my relocating by phone, I got grabbed from behind.  The perpetrator followed me and just took the liberty of grabbing my ass. I was shocked, I was scared. But even more, I got extremely angry. I exploded. I started to yell at him in Dutch, my mind couldn’t remember any other language than my native tongue anymore caused by these emotions, until he finally ran away. Surrounding citizens did do nothing to help me. From the other side of the road he stopped and again continued to make sexual signals focused on me. Also this time it was me taking off.

Even though the law is protecting women, the reality is not! 

What can I do as a young woman in Paris? I can report the (almost daily) incidents at the police station, but would it make a difference? In 2012 the French government adjusted the law regarding sexual intimidation, which defines sexual harassment way better than the unclear definition which was used before and the sanctions are set higher (up to 2 years of imprisonment and a 30.000 euro fine), where I cheer for. But how do these perpetrators finally get what they deserve? These men are all anonymous strangers, I could never recall again. And even if I did, how will we ever locate this particular predator among 2 million other citizens? The new law may be in my favor, but in reality I am still the one losing.

It is not only me suffering, every woman in Paris has to deal with sexual harassment 

Study has shown that a full 100% of 600 surveyed women, from Seine-Saint-Denis and Essonne (two areas in the outer suburbs of Paris), had experienced gender based sexual harassment while taking public transport at least one time in their life’s. It almost seems that sexual harassment more or less got generally accepted as a part of the Parisian lifestyle for the local women. But it is not acceptable that I, as a young 25 year old woman, seriously consider to start wearing a burka in public transport. It is not alright, that I fear when going to the park because I already know sexual intimidation will be inevitable. I am certain most of the Parisian citizens agree with me on this. But we have to stand up for each other. Grab a pervert when you see him ‘Frotteuring’ up on a woman in the metro. We are a majority, so why didn’t we make a unit yet to scare these predators off? Because not women, but the sexual predators are the ones who deserve to experience the fear of public inconvenience!

By Rachel Wegner

Chinese Businesses In Italy – CGIA Report

by
Share this
Share

On Monday, August 25, the Italian stock market (Piazza Affari) plumbed down roughly 6 percent following the rapid decrease of the Chinese stock market of about 8.5 percent. Despite its geographic distance, China is progressively closer to Europe. The fluctuation of the stock market is just one of the many phenomenons resulting from the increase of relationship intensity between the two regions.

Recently, on Aug. 5, CGIA (Associazione Artigiani Piccole Imprese) of Mestre published an annual report on the presence of Chinese investors and small businesses in Italy.

Read more

Tibetan Woman Dies Of Self Immolation As Chinese Authorities Demolish Houses

by
Share this
Share

A Tibetan woman became the 142nd Tibetan in Tibet to self immolate in protest of the rule and actions of the Chinese government Thursday night.

The woman, Tashi Kyi, whose age is unknown, self immolated in Ngulra, Gansu Province, eastern Tibet. She died later that night.

The self immolation followed the arrival of 150 police and officials in Ngulra who then began demolishing houses there with bulldozers.

One source reported that the reason given by officials was that the houses did not have valid permits. A number of the house-owners protested, with some physically hanging on to the demolition equipment. Ngulra residents believe Tashi Kyi’s self-immolation was motivated by witnessing the destruction of her village.

“Bulldozers are a suitable symbol of China’s rule in Tibet,” commented Free Tibet director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren.

“Tibetans’ land is no longer their own and land grabs and destruction of Tibetan property by the authorities are common occurrences. They are also a frequent trigger for protests. Local objections rarely deter the authorities from their actions, however, and protests are frequently met with arrests and violence. There are many causes of self-immolation protests but punishing Tibetans for expressing their legitimate grievances is certainly among them.”

Information supplied by Tibet Watch.

British Library Wants Your Help Decoding Text on Ancient Sword

by
British Library Wants Your Help Decoding Text on Ancient Sword
Share this
Share

The British Library is asking the internet for aid in deciphering a mysterious inscription on an 800-year-old sword. Discovered in 1825 on the river Withal in Lincolnshire, the sword is currently on view at an exhibition at the Library entitled Magna Carta: Law, Liberty, Legacy. As of this posting, Library researchers have yet to decipher the code. Comments are now closed on the original blog post, however those still curious are invited to share their thoughts on Twitter.

The ancient sword dates back to around the year 1200, a time when it was considered a status symbol for a knight to wield a sword with an inscription. This is according to Utrecht University professor Marc van Hasselt, who has provided some context for the sword’s origins on the British Library’s blog. According to van Hasselt, it is possible that a certain medieval workshop began making inscribed swords and selling them to the elite, perhaps with the pitch that these inscriptions imbued the weapons with mystical power. The blade of the sword appears to be made from German steel, while the hilt is English in origin.

The mystery inscription appears to read as a series of capitalized letters:  +NDXOXCHWDRGHDXORVI+. Researchers thus far tend to believe that the words are an acronym for a religious prayer or invocation. Because Latin was the international language of the area at the time, it is highly likely that the letters represent Latin words or phrases.

BM-Sword-c-trustees-of-the-British-Museum-2If a conclusion is reached, this won’t be the first time that internet users have successfully translated mysterious writing on ancient artifacts. In 2014 the University of Chicago Library held an online contest to see if internet users could help experts decode the unusual marginalia in one 500-year-old copy of Homer’s Odyssey. The text was eventually decoded by an ltalian computer engineer, with the help of google books and various online databases. As it turned out, the text was simply a rough French translation of the original Greek.

By Dallas Jeffs

Dr. Frederick Banting Made Insulin Free

by
diabetes
Share this
Share

When Canadian Doctor Frederick Banting discovered insulin, he turned down offers from big corporations that would have made him – and them — rich, by making insulin available only to those who could afford it. Instead, Banting said that insulin was his gift to mankind.

Diabetes began to be recognized as a top killer of humans in the early 20th century. A few months was the usual expectation for those diagnosed with the disease.

Many scientists devoted themselves to the search for the cure, but none were able to find anything other than improved diets to prolong life expectancy.

A military surgeon serving in WWI, a war that had diverted funds away from most medical research for years, Frederick Banting followed up on a research paper he read that hypothesized that diabetes was caused by a single substance in the pancreas. The author of the paper, Englishman Sir Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer, dubbed the hormone “insulin.”

Because digestion destroyed insulin, Banting set out to find a way to extract the substance from the healthy pancreases.

Banting worked on his task at his alma mater Toronto University with Dr. J.J.R. Macleod, who believed the experiment Banting wanted to use had an almost 100% chance of failure, so Banting performed the operation while Scotsman Macloed was overseas playing golf.

Banting and his team dispensed with many of previous ideas about how to search for the cure, and went to the slaughter-house and obtained beef and pig pancreases to test. It worked well, but was extremely inconsistent. The team struggled to achieve a solution that would be both pure and nontoxic to humans.

A teenager on his deathbed was given the first human trial of the insulin treatment, which failed and caused an allergic reaction. Biochemist James B. Collip went back to work on the solution. A second dose was administered to the same youth with success, and his health thrived.

However, the medicine could not save the large number of dying diabetics because the challenge of mass production of pure insulin had not yet been met.

At this point, large pharmaceutical companies offered the Banting huge sums of money for the patent to insulin. They proposed an insulin clinic with Banting in charge, and would make the medicine available to all who could pay for it. Banting, however, said that insulin was his gift to mankind, and it would be available to everyone who needed it rather than a commodity for anyone’s profit.

However, mass production was necessary and the process of introducing human insulin production genes into bacteria, then collecting and purifying the product of the bacteria is not a simple task. There would be an inherent production cost to the treatment for diabetes.

The Canadian group teamed with a large American drug company which could provide funding, facilities and supplies, and Lily was soon distributing the drug around North America and saving thousands of lives. Life expectancy for diabetics rose from weeks to tens of years.

The work earned the team the Nobel Prize in 1923. Banting was also knighted, and Canada later honored the scientist by printing his portrait on the $100 bill.

By Andy Scott

Non-Egg “Mayo” May Need New Name After FDA Warning Letter

by
mayonnaise
Share this
Share

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning to the makers an eggless mayonnaise-like spread called Just Mayo, telling the food company that they cannot call eggless mayo mayo.

The FDA noted that mayonnaise must contain eggs according to its food standard of identity.

Although the food company, Hampton Creek, uses the word “mayo” rather than “mayonnaise,” the FDA wrote in its warning that, “The term ‘mayo’ has long been used and understood as shorthand or slang for mayonnaise.”

Hampton Creek was also sued last year over a similar issue. The maker of popular mayonnaise brand Hellmann’s sued Hampton Creek because its spread did not contain eggs, but the plaintiff dropped the lawsuit after a strong response from Just Mayo supporters.

By Cheryl Bretton

Two Koreas Reach Deal After Three-Day Marathon Talks

by
Koreas
Share this
Share

After three day-marathon negotiations between high-level officials, South Korea agreed to halt its propaganda loudspeakers on the board, while North Korea ended the semi-state of war on August 25.

Last Thursday, the two Koreas exchanged artillery fire, and North Korea announced a semi-state of war the following day, criticizing the anti-Pyeongyang propaganda loudspeakers, which South Korea had restarted after 11 years of disuse when two soldiers were severely wounded by mines on the southern side of the Military Demarcation Line in the Demilitarized Zone.

Amid the sudden escalation of military tensions, last Saturday at the Panmunjom Truce Village a meeting was led by four high-level officials: Chief National Security Advisor to South Korean President Kim Kwan-Jin, South Korean Unification Minister Hong Yong-Pyo, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of North Korea, Kim Yang Gon, and Hwang Pyong-So, the top military aide to the North’s leader Kim Jong Un.

South and North Korea declared a joint statement to ease the recent tensions and improve their relationship at noon August 25.

In a statement, North Korea expressed “regret” over the land mine explosions. “It is very meaningful that at this meeting North Korea apologized for the landmine provocation and promised to work to prevent the recurrence of such events and ease tensions,” South Korea’s Kim Kwan-Jin told a televised news conference.

Moreover, the South and the North will plan for reunions of separated families next month. This will take place at the time when Koreans celebrate Chuseok, the Harvest Moon Festival.

However, North Korea expressed a different attitude five hours after promising to improve ties with the South during the talks. “Through North-South emergency high-level contact this time, the South must have learned a serious lesson that it will bring an armed clash if it creates a groundless case and provokes the other side,” Hwang Pyeong-So said on Korean Central Television.

Liquid Can Be Made To Jump Off Fibers

by
Share this
Share

A Duke University team has created fibers that cause liquid to jump off their surface as it accumulates, leading to new possibilities in water purification, atmospheric moisture harvesting, and various drop collecting industrial material applications.

“Self-removal is essentially inevitable as long as the surface is reasonably hydrophobic,” said Chuan-Hua Chen of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, a lead researcher of the study. High degrees of hydrophobia are not necessary to create self-removing droplets. Self-removal is based largely on a small surface area for liquid to bead upon.

Liquids jump off the fibers as they accumulated due to the composition and width of the fibers. So long as merged droplets are above a certain size, when they coalesce into almost-spheres to reduce surface area, some of the energy released turns into mechanical energy sufficient to detach the bead and propel it away from the surface.

[youtube id=”pW4bfdOdstY” align=”center” mode=”normal” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”500″]

The speed at which a droplet launches from a surface is based on the degree to which the ratio radius of the droplet trying to reduce contact with the surface exceeds the critical value of attachment to the surface.

It is the first time self-removing droplets have been demonstrated on curved surface such as fibers, and the team believes the technology should be applicable to emulsions so long as the emulsion is not too vicious.

The report, “Self-Propelled Droplet Removal from Hydrophobic Fiber-Based Coalescers,” was completed by Drs. Kungang Zhang, Fangjie Liu, Adam J. Williams, Xiaopeng Qu, James J. Feng, and Chuan-Hua Chen, and was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

By Andy Stern

Girls Who Have Sex Lose Both Female And Male Friendships, Study Finds; For Males, It’s The Opposite

by
girls who have sex
Share this
Share

Early adolescent males gain friends when they have sex while females lose them, a new study has found. Not only that, males who make out without having sex lose popularity, while females who do the same gain.

The findings of the study will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

“In our sample of early adolescents, girls’ friendship networks shrink significantly after they have sex, whereas boys’ friendship networks expand significantly,” said Derek A. Kreager, the lead author of the study and an associate professor of sociology and criminology at Pennsylvania State University.

“But what really surprised us was that ‘making out’ showed a pattern consistent with a strong reverse sexual double standard, such that girls who ‘make out’ without having sex see significant increases in friendships, and boys who engage in the same behavior see significant decreases in friendships.”

The study was based on information gathered from 921 students in 28 rural communities in Iowa and Pennsylvania states. Data was gathered from students over grades six through nine.

When asked to select their best or closest friend in their grade, students showed a high degree of preference for males who had sex but didn’t just make out and for females who made out but didn’t have sex.

Girls who had sex experienced a 45 percent decrease in peer acceptance. Boys who had sex had an 88 percent increase. Girls who just made out, however, had a 25 percent increase in peer acceptance while boys experienced a 29 percent decrease.

“Our results are consistent with traditional gender scripts,” Kreager said. “Men and boys are expected to act on innate or strong sex drives to initiate heterosexual contacts for the purpose of sex rather than romance and pursue multiple sexual partnerships.

“In contrast, women and girls are expected to desire romance over sex, value monogamy, and ‘gatekeep’ male sexual advances within committed relationships. A sexual double standard then arises because women and girls who violate traditional sexual scripts and have casual and/or multiple sexual partnerships are socially stigmatized, whereas men and boys performing similar behaviors are rewarded for achieving masculine ideals.”

Kreager thinks boys and girls reinforce traditional gender scripts at school.

“[The] pattern suggests that other boys are the peers that police social norms when it comes to masculinity, whereas girls receive strong messages about gender-appropriate sexual behavior from boys and girls,” Kreager explained. “It is not surprising that girls do not punish boys for ‘making out,’ as this behavior is rewarding for girls both socially and physically.

“However, there is somewhat of a paradox for boys stigmatizing girls who have sex because these boys are punishing girls for behavior that benefits boys both socially and sexually. We believe one reason for this is that only a small minority of boys have such sexual access, so those who do not have sex negatively define the girls who are having sex.”

“During early adolescence,” Kreager noted, “peer evaluations of initial sexual behaviors and virginity loss are likely to have large and lasting impacts on later sexual adjustment.”

By Cheryl Bretton

The Gift: The Thriller That Isn’t

by
Share this
Share

The Gift is a strange beast indeed. Directed by Joel Edgerton and starring Jason Bateman, Rebecca Hall and Joel Edgerton himself, The Gift stands among the surprise sleeper hits of the year as one of the more surprising and unconventional films to come out.

If you were to watch any trailer for it, you’d think it’s just another run of the mill horror/thriller. This is by no means the case. The Gift is in essence about a man from a couple’s past trying desperately to reconnect with them by any means necessary.

The Gift’s first act primarily sticks to the conventions of thriller movies like this, but as it moves into it’s second and third acts the three main characters become measured and ultimately flawed people, haunted by mistakes and tragedies from their past. It becomes less about the cheap scares and more about the characters themselves. The Gift functions far better as a character study than it does a thriller.

The characters are what the audience are drawn to, and it is in no small part due to the acting of the three main leads, particularly Joel Edgerton as Gordo and Jason Bateman as Simon. Joel Edgerton could have very easily oversold his performance, and the role would have allowed for him to do that, but he kept it subdued and nuanced, with just enough menace to keep the audience on their feet.

3

The cinematography and lighting in The Gift are also incredibly admirable, especially some of the dark scenes with car lights illuminating the characters faces and the warm yellow glow of the house at night. Very slow tracking and wide shots draw us in, ramping up the tension and keeping the audiences eyes exactly where Joel Edgerton wants them.

All of these elements add up to the sum of their parts into a fantastic character study and examination as to how the past can affect the future, and small actions, no matter how insignificant we think they are can have wide-reaching impacts. There’s a whole world of pain behind Gordo’s eyes, making him not just the cut and paste antagonist of many other thriller, but one who is measured, realistic and utterly terrifying.

maxresdefault

Unfortunately, with a character study film like this, it’s not entirely unreasonable to assume that some audience members will become bored. Several scenes around the middle seem to simply fill time, and the pace becomes that of a slow meander through the cinematic beats, but for those that are invested in the characters, the pace shouldn’t prove to be too much of a problem.

All the small conversations, subtle clues and foreshadowing culminates in a climax that is heavily reminiscent of Oldboy (2003), and as the final credits role, you feel just as dirty as you did then. The Gift lets the audience think for themselves, but even now as I write this I feel like I need to take a shower. It’s a memorable and well-earned outcome.

8/10

Review by Alex Reid

The Face Of A Holocaust Ghetto: Vancover Photography Exhibit

by
Share this
Share

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — It is difficult to imagine, even for a second, what people had to go through when they were taken out of their homes by force and thrown into small confines, with little food, no running water or electricity, for extended periods of time, all under the tyranny of the Nazi SS squadron. Yet this was the norm inside Nazi Germany’s system of ghettos in Eastern Europe.

Although to fathom such circumstances is hard, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Center has made it possible by putting on an exhibit of photographs, drawing from a collection of 12,000 photos that depict what life looked like in one such ghetto: Litzmannstadt.

Litzmannstadt was set up in the city of Lodz after the Nazis invaded Poland, and was used for war factory slave labor to produce armaments for the Eastern Front. Between 1940 and 1944, about 18,000 Jews, as well as 5,000 Roma and Sinti lived and worked in extremely horrifying conditions. Many of them died in the Chelmno death camp.

The Jewish Council — the Judenrat — which was the Jewish leadership that was assigned control over the ghetto — commissioned a few Jewish photographers to capture the hardships of life in the ghetto. A great deal of the photographs were secretly taken right under the noses of the Nazis, and eventually amounted to a collection of magnificent, yet also harrowing, moments between families, as well as photos of children trying to survive under complete terror.

The exhibit is not solely composed of photos, as the Topography of Foundation made it clear that “the presentation, designed as a traveling exhibition, is accompanied by statements from former residents of the ghetto and entries from the ghetto chronicle.”

The main purpose of the exhibit is to put on display the hopeless conditions that people were forced to live in, but also to bring to light that they also maintained their self-respect as human beings, regardless of the circumstances that surrounded them.

The exhibition is supported by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany, and it is an extension of a larger exhibition from the famous Topography of Terror Foundation in Berlin. The exhibit is scheduled to end this December.

By Milad Doroudian

Photo by Schlif, German Federal Archives.