Monday, July 6, 2015

Too bad, they don’t know it’s a wombat

Wising up on wombat: The wombat mascot of Servcorp that was mistaken for a a pig.
Wising up on wombat: The wombat mascot of Servcorp that was mistaken for a a pig.

Too bad, they don’t know it’s a wombat

    http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2015/07/06/Too-bad-they-dont-know-its-a-wombat/
 
PETALING JAYA: Do you know what’s a wombat? Some Malaysians apparently don’t.
The Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) has had to temporarily remove a wombat advertisement from an electronic billboard at Bukit Bintang because people were mistaking it for a pig.
Mayor Datuk Ahmad Phesal Talib confirmed the removal of the digital advertisement at Jalan Bukit Bintang, while DBKL was trying to get in touch with the company behind the advertisement to confirm the fact.
Ahmad Phesal agreed that the animal in the advertisement was a wombat.
Wombats, incidentally, are marsupials, like kangaroos, wallabies and the koala bears.
“An irresponsible person perceived it as a pig and spread false rumours on the Internet which led to the public misconception,” he said in an interview.
There was a public uproar on social media after a screenshot of the wombat went viral describing the advertisement as a “pig wearing a songkok and baju Melayu while accompanied by a Selamat Hari Raya greeting”.
It has been established that the wombat is the mascot of Servcorp, an Australia-based company offering serviced offices in the region.The cartoon wombat is normally depicted wearing a hat with a cream-coloured coat and brown pants in the advertisement, and even has a name: Sidney.
Sidney has been touted by Servcorp as the “world’s wisest wombat”, and it even has its own Facebook page as well as website.
Servcorp, which used the same mascot in the digital advertisement in a promotional video in 2012, could not be contacted yesterday.
The digital billboard of the wombat in KL.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

10 clean cities that make India proud

10 clean cities that make India proud

Last updated on: October 08, 2014 13:46 IST
Chandigarh has emerged as the cleanest city in India as per a study conducted by the ministry of urban development.
 
Dancers perform during the Republic Day celebrations in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh January 26, 2011. India celebrated its 62nd Republic Day on Wednesday.Ajay Verma/Reuters
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationwide ‘Clean India campaign’ or Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is very well received by the masses and celebrities alike.
Be it celebrities like actor Aamir Khan, BSF Jawans or the aam junta - most have joined hands to make this mission a success by 2019. However, according to data available with the Ministry of Urban Development, there are ten cities which are very clean and these are:
Chandigarh
State: Chandigarh
The city has emerged as the cleanest city in India as per a study conducted by the ministry of urban development.
In order to keep its ranking and reputation as the greenest and cleanest city in India, the administration of Chandigarh along with The Energy and Resources Institute to working towards environment-friendly including use of natural construction material and lower energy consumption.
Chandigarh is also on the way to become the country's first solar city by 2016.


Image: Temple tank in Shravanabelagola. Photograph: Courtesy, Dinesh Kannambadi/Wikimedia Commons
Mysore
State:Karnataka
In 2008, a citizen group in Mysore started a movement called Let’s do it! campaign to clean up not only the city but the entire country.
The response to this campaign has been huge. The youth in the city are spreading awareness on what each one of them can do individually and collectively to keep Mysore clean.


Image: Vehicles move over a bridge built over the river Tapi at Surat, in Gujarat. Photographs: Amit Dave/Reuters
Surat
State: Gujarat
The diamond city of Gujarat follows high standard of cleanliness at public places. The civic authority in the city is very strict about cleanliness on roads and public places.


Image: Prime Minister Narendra Modi launching the cleanliness drive for Swacch Bharat Mission from Valmiki Basti, in New Delhi. Photograph: PIB photos
 New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC)
State: Delhi
NDMC has intensified its cleaning operations after the launch of Swach Bharat campaign. Volunteers have even identified highly populated belts where they can spread their cleanliness drive.
NMDC is also keen to clean the backlanes of crowded colonies.



Image: Sports enthusiasts exercising on a clean road in New Delhi. Photograph: Reuters
Delhi Cantt
State: Delhi
Delhi is also considered a clean city due to the presence of various citizen forums that are actively involved in various cleanliness drives across the city.


Image: Mukkombu, a famous tourist spot in Tiruchirappalli. Photograph: Courtesy, Tiruchirappalli Tourism
Tiruchirappalli
State: Tamil Nadu
Tiruchirappalli is a city with amazing tourist spots. The citizens surely know how to keep their city clean. Tourists who have visited the city will tell you about clean habits that each one in the city follows. 



Image:XLRI, Jamshedpur. Photograph: Rediff archives
Jamshedpur
State: Jharkhand
Jamshedpur adheres to a high standard on sanitation and cleanliness.
The steel city is totally sanitised and citizens here believe that healthy living is utmost important and for this purpose they must adapt to cleaner habits.


Image: Mangalore Town Hall. Photograph: Courtesy, Premkudva/Wikimedia Commons
Mangalore
State: Karnataka
In Mangalore, the popular Nirmala Nagara Yojana is a very effective scheme to implement cleanliness in the city.
Volunteers of this scheme arranges for collection of garbage in a segregated manner from every household, the garbage so collected is later classified into different categories which can be used as a landfill material or used for making compost.


Image: Bandstand, Rajkot. Photograph: Courtesy, Jadia Gaurand/Wikimedia Commons.
Rajkot
State: Gujarat
Rajkot is the fastest growing city in the country. The city's civic body, resident forums are actively involved in keeping the city clean.


 
Kanpur
State: Uttar Pradesh
Kanpur is the biggest city in Uttar Pradesh with high industrial growth rate.
The city was not so clean few year ago, but currently, the city had made it to the list of clean cities in the country.
The credit for maintaining cleanliness goes to the local authorities and citizens who follow strict civic rules.

Islamic State: Militants kill 50 from Iraqi Anbar tribe


Islamic State: Militants kill 50 from Iraqi Anbar tribe

A damaged police station is seen in the Anbar province town of Hit on 6 October 2014  
The people who died are believed to have been displaced from the town of Hit, seized by IS
Militants from Islamic State (IS) have killed at least 50 members of an Iraqi tribe in western Anbar province, officials and tribal leaders say.
The men and women from the Al Bu Nimr tribe are reported to have been lined up and shot in retaliation for resisting the jihadists.
A number of people from the same tribe were also found dead in mass graves earlier this week.
IS militants control large areas of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
Meanwhile, AFP news agency quoted the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as saying that at least 100 IS fighters had been killed in three days of fighting for the strategic Syrian border town of Kobane.
On Friday, some 150 Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters crossed from Turkey to join Syrian Kurds who have been defending the town against IS for six weeks.
The Observatory says that more than 950 people have died in the battle, more than half of them from IS.
Deliberate strategy A local official told the Associated Press news agency that the Sunni Muslim tribesmen and women were killed on Friday in the village of Ras al-Maa, north of the provincial capital Ramadi.
Faleh al-Issawi said many members of the tribe had to flee their homes near the town of Hit last month when it was captured by IS.
The Al Bu Nimr tribe had joined the Shia-dominated government's campaign against IS.
There have been many other such killings, as pressure mounts on the tribes to swing one way or the other.
Analysts say mass killings are also a very deliberate strategy by IS to spread terror in their opponents.
One local official, Sabah Karhout, described the killings in Anbar province as a crime against humanity and called for more international support for Sunni tribes fighting the militants in Anbar.
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said the killing of Sunni tribesmen in Iraq by Islamic State fighters was the brutal "reality of what we're dealing with" in the conflict.
The US carried out an air drop of food supplies, the first of its kind, to the Al Bu Nimr tribe just a few days ago.
IS has taken over large parts of Anbar province as it expands its territory, currently about one-third of both Iraq and Syria.
The BBC's Jim Muir says the recently-formed Iraqi government is trying to win the Sunni tribes over, seeing them as a key element in the fight against IS, which in turn is trying to deter them from that course.
But Baghdad has not yet succeeded in persuading the bulk of the tribes to turn on IS.
The tribes want guarantees that they will be given a serious degree of devolution for their areas and a real say in national decision-making, our correspondent adds.

 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29862886

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Yes, Celebs Had Their iCloud Accounts Hacked. No, You Shouldn't Shut Yours Off

Yes, Celebs Had Their iCloud Accounts Hacked. No, You Shouldn't Shut Yours Off

Back in May, Jennifer Lawrence joked to MTV: "My iCloud keeps telling me to back it up, and I'm like, I don't know how to back you up. Do it yourself."

The release of numerous nude photos of celebrities over the past several days was apparently made possible by a group of determined hackers who broke into the iCloud accounts of Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and others. Because photos are backed up to iCloud automatically from iPhones — and to Google+ on Android — there has been a spate of articles explaining how you can shut off this functionality to “protect” yourself from being similarly victimized. The Mirror, in typical tabloid fashion: “Celebrity nude photo hacking: How to disable iPhone iCloud backups and keep your pictures safe” you’d expect. But the normally sober Will Oremus at Slate: “How to Not Back Up Your Naked Selfies to the Cloud” seems to have gotten caught in the frenzy too. Ignore them both. And everyone else who tells you it’s better not to use cloud backup. Instead, take some simple steps to get safer and smarter.
Why not just turn it all off?
Simple, it’s about relative risk. You need to consider the chance that someone is going to hack your cloud account against the chance you’re going to lose your phone. While there’s no doubt that the group responsible for revealing more of Selena Gomez than she hoped was determined, the odds anyone is interested in you aren’t particularly great. But the chance your phone will be damaged beyond repair, lost, or stolen is pretty good. When that happens, you won’t just lose the photos on it, but also your contact info, calendar and possibly even some e-mail, depending on how things are configured there.
Oh, and if someone has your phone, there’s a good chance they can get into it and access your pictures anyway. Yes, you can wipe that all out remotely on both iOS (with Find My iPhone) and Android (using this technique). Both of those use cloud services, by the way. So you could turn off the photo backup and use them anyway, but why not just secure your cloud account instead?
The answer turns out to be pretty simple and slightly complex at the same time. The first thing you need to do is use a good password for iCloud or for your basic Google/Gmail account. Hackers love it when you make their life easy by using “password” or “1234″ so you’ll obviously want to go above and beyond. Throw in punctuation, use miXed capS and lowercase, add in s0m3 numb3rs. Sure, you want it to be easy enough to type, so play around with this on your smartphone. But remember that complexity is your friend. (Google has some good advice.)
Also remember that your password can be reset by having a link sent to the e-mail address associated with your account. That’s a huge vulnerability if that account has a lousy password. The complexity of maintaining different, elaborate passwords is frustrating. I can’t keep track of the different variations I use, so I got myself LastPass a few years ago. Others swear by 1Password. Neither works very well on the iPhone itself because of limitations in the way Apple supports browser add-ons, but those should be fixed in iOS 8. Even now, though, LastPass is on my phone, secured by a master password that protects a list of my other passwords called the “vault”. When I forget one, I can look it up. Your Notes file or Word document with a list of passwords, backed up to your Dropbox, is a hackers dream. Print a copy, delete it from the cloud and your device, and get a password manager.
A lot of this stuff seems like it shouldn’t be my job?
That’s an entirely fair point. The second most egregious part of the celebrity hacking (after the unconscionable privacy violation) has been blaming the victims, as if they did something wrong. What’s wrong is that security is too damn hard and the way all of this works is beyond incomprehensible. I defy anyone to accurately explain how iCloud photo backup currently works.
But I need better security now, there’s something I can do, right?
Yes, in the meantime, both iOS and Android allow you to use 2-factor authentication and you should borrow a page from Nike and “just do it.” In 2-factor, you have to not only enter a password, but also a code that you receive through another means to ensure it’s really you. With Apple, the process involves text messages sent to “trusted devices” and the process is laid out in a pretty clear FAQ. It may sound inconvenient, but once you’ve established that a device is trusted, you won’t constantly be nagged to reconfirm that fact. This kind of security can be very effective against the kind of hack the celebrities fell victim to because it can block account access from a computer that isn’t already verified.
That said, Apple’s implementation of 2-factor security is incomplete right now, as TechCrunch reports. It’s still possible to grab a PhotoStream from iCloud without using the second factor, which is another hole Apple needs to plug in a hurry. Google, incidentally, has a more comprehensive 2-step offering. In addition to sending codes via text message, it can use a special app called an authenticator (which works even if you have no cell coverage) or can call you and read you a code. Apple didn’t respond to TechCrunch’s inquiry about expanding 2-factor to do more, but it seems certain to do so in the near future.
Is there more I can do?
On the other hand, if you’re really interested in security, you can encrypt your data. That’s hard with automatic backup function like PhotoStream on iCloud. But it’s possible for sensitive files or important e-mails. Forbes privacy guru Kashmir Hill posted an explainer on sending and receiving encrypted e-mail, for example. Online backup services like CrashPlan use strong encryption that renders your files a bunch of digital gibberish if the servers are accessed without your keys. A tool like CloudFogger can add a layer of encryption to your files on Dropbox, Microsoft’s OneDrive or Google Drive. The use of VPN software can help keep you secure on public WiFi.

Last thoughts?
Yes, the weakest link in most security turns out to be the human element, not the technology per se. A lot of sites let you engage in password resets using security questions. iCloud is one of those. When you’re famous — or just semi-open on Facebook — it’s often really easy to guess the answers to those without being the person about whom they’re being asked. This presents a problem for which the solution is again easy and hard. The easy part is to use absurd security questions like “What is the last name of your favorite elementary school teacher?” instead of “What was the name of your first pet?” There’s a good chance the former isn’t on Facebook while the latter might well be. Or maybe you told David Letterman about Scruffles once. (With 2-factor, the security questions aren’t a vulnerability by the way.)
The fact is your data is a tempting target, even if you aren’t the world’s most famous actress at the moment. And it’s very much up to Apple, Google and Microsoft (along with Dropbox, et al.) to do a better job of making it easier to protect that data from prying eyes. But at the same time, services like automatic cloud backup are hugely valuable. What was the once the catastrophic loss of possibly years worth of photos is now a mere inconvenience thanks to the cloud. Phone upgrades are routine as you pull all your information from an automatic backup you don’t even need to manage.
The last thing you want to do is stop using all those features just because things went wrong. You didn’t stop using your credit cards after the Target hack (nor will you if this Home Depot situation turns out to be worse). Don’t become a cloud Luddite just because security there isn’t perfect. Treat it like driving, which is inherently dangerous, but usually works out for the best: Make it as safe as you can, know that innovation will make in better over time, and be careful.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2014/09/03/the-celeb-hack-has-people-telling-you-to-turn-off-cloud-backup-ignore-them/

Saturday, August 9, 2014

Prince George's first steps

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/its-a-royal-walkabout-as-george-takes-his-first-steps-30356812.html

 THE world has followed his every move but now Prince George's first steps are grabbing all the attention.

Friday, July 25, 2014

Dutch sending police, want to secure MH17 crash site: PM

Dutch sending police, want to secure MH17 crash site: PM

The Netherlands is sending 40 unarmed police to the crash site of flight MH17 in rebel-held Ukraine and seeking means to "further stabilise the area", Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Thursday.
"We're examining means to further stabilise the surroundings... it requires international discussions, it requires a legal mandate," Rutte said, amid growing concern that the site has not been secured and all of the 298 bodies, most of them Dutch, not recovered.
"It's absolutely not certain that this is all going to work. It's very complex and requires many partners," Rutte told journalists.
"This must happen very carefully, which is why the cabinet is seeking ways to strengthen our commitment on the ground in the coming days, but that will happen step-by-step and very carefully," Rutte said.
A bolstered team of 23 investigators will be sent to the area, "accompanied by 40 unarmed royal military policemen," Rutte said.
The police will also be tasked with helping to recover bodies, he added, describing the security situation in the area as "changing".
He refused to comment on reports that the Netherlands and Australia are drafting a new UN Security Council resolution to allow armed police or troops to secure the crash site.
"The cabinet is working on several options that should help to create a more stable environment for bringing back the remaining victims," Rutte said.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose country lost 28 citizens in the disaster, said that there was still a need for a rigorous search of the site and that 50 Australian officers were on stand-by in London.
At the crash site in eastern Ukraine, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring mission said that an Australian policeman had been inspecting the security situation in the area.
"The Australians are getting a sense of the security for the area, they're mapping it, they're getting a sense of where the crash sites are," OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw said.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down with 298 people on board a week ago over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine in as-yet unexplained circumstances.
Dutch authorities say they can only be sure that 200 corpses have been recovered and no recovery efforts appear to be underway for more bodies or remains.
http://news.malaysia.msn.com/malaysia-news/dutch-sending-police-want-to-secure-mh17-crash-site-pm-1

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Godzilla in Malaysia? Godzilla, King Kong, Ultraman, Thor, Ironman and Rosmah Caused the Sinkhole


Meme including Thor and Loki

KUALA LUMPUR: KL Monorail service from Hang Tuah station to Jalan Imbi temporarily suspended due to two large sinkholes here have sparked off the creative juices of Malaysian creating a tide of funny memes on the Internet

Here are some:


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10513530_10152469285510600_7902355239283978760_n
10513309_743670125675584_4884310507050295663_n
10509665_10152631438262932_8427841502077910264_n
10488124_10152478342463444_1962049246830689380_n
10478148_1514607502103711_7897182431447425675_n

10443510_10152525586121435_3393827381537408525_n
10418475_580445685405256_5600605096796985943_n
10425411_808080629211301_43715396572748012_n
10410803_10152525586141435_8404069920427978765_n
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- See more at: http://www.funnymalaysia.net/godzilla-king-kong-ultraman-thor-ironman-and-rosmah-caused-the-sinkhole/#sthash.Zx9GeKW5.dpuf



10407004_768251676529095_7996208071242908316_n
Maybe footballer Luis Suarez bit the road and caused it to collapse...
http://features.insing.com/gallery/kl-tunnel-collapse-sparks-hilarious-memes/id-60473101/photos/