Store's mistake leads to New York man hitting $10M jackpot -

Store's mistake leads to New York man hitting $10M jackpot - 



A convenience store clerk's mistake has paid off in a big way for a western New York man.

Fifty-three-year-old Jerry Kajfasz of Lancaster won a $10 million jackpot from a $20 scratch-off ticket he purchased last month at a suburban Buffalo store.

He tells local media outlets he bought seven scratch-off tickets but the clerk nearly handed him an eighth one costing $20. Kajfasz caught the mistake and handed it back.

After winning a total of $25 from the tickets, he went back inside the store and used the winnings to buy the same $20 scratch-off ticket the clerk had almost given to him by mistake.

That Win for Life Spectacular ticket wound up being a winner with a guaranteed minimum jackpot of $10 million.

Kajfasz has already quit his printing job.

Read more - 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/02/26/store-mistake-leads-to-new-york-man-hitting-10m-jackpot/?intcmp=latestnews

Spike In Dogs Eating Marijuana Since Legalized... -

Spike In Dogs Eating Marijuana Since Legalized... - 



An animal hospital in Denver is seeing an increasing number of dogs who have eaten edible marijuana and is finding that the diagnosis isn’t good.
VCA Animal Hospital is open 24 hours a day and they see hundreds of dogs every week from checkups to emergencies. Since Jan. 1 the clinic says dogs have been getting into their owner’s supply of marijuana, specifically edibles.
“What we are seeing is dogs getting into the baked products,” said Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald of VCA Alameda East Veterinary Hospital.
The concern is that edibles have a concentration of marijuana meant for controlled human consumption and dogs weigh far less than humans and have no control.


“The butter gets a higher concentration of THC, the active ingredient,” said Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald recently contributed to a year-long study in Colorado that tracked marijuana exposure in dogs. It causes symptoms ranging from disorientation to seizures and temporary comas.
“The one thing we see with almost all of them is urinary incontinence when they eat a bunch of it,” said Fitzgerald.
Those symptoms don’t just last hours, they last days.
“Half-life for a dog is 72 hours, maybe 96, before it gets out of their system,” said Fitzgerald.
There’s no antidote for marijuana but Fitzgerald said those worried about a pet’s recent exposure have a limited amount of time to take action before it’s too late.
“Don’t wait. Your vet is as far away as the telephone,” said Fitzgerald.
Doctors suggest that owners try and keep they’re marijuana out of their pet’s reach.

Read more - 

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2014/02/25/vets-seeing-more-dogs-eating-edible-marijuana/

Why Apple's Unexpected Security Flaw Is a Real Nightmare for Users -

Why Apple's Unexpected Security Flaw Is a Real Nightmare for Users - 



There is an Apple enthusiast I know -- and I'm sure you have a similar friend -- who used to gleefully brag about all the suspicious links he could click on from his phone or computer with no fear of consequences.

But after Apple's confirmation this weekend that it was in the process of creating and issuing patches to resolve a massive security flaw in its operating systems and many of its connected programs, he's singing a different tune.

The SSL bug, as it's being called, is actually just a tiny logic error in a small piece in Apple's massive operating system -- but big things often come in small packages. In layman's terms, the flawed bit of code is supposed to be responsible for making sure that your computer's or your phone's Internet connection with other, secure servers across an Internet connection is itself secure from hackers. But because of the tiny error, which has reportedly been around at least since September 2012, your computer or phone has showed such connections as secure whether or not they actually were.

While the mechanics of the bug would make it difficult for a random person in Central Europe to gain access to your computer, it does make it very easy for the guy next to you on an unsecured WiFi connection to do exactly that -- and to get into your email, your bank accounts, your Facebook or any other secure application that would normally be slightly more private on a public WiFi server.

Now, if we were all being smart about our phones and our computers, this might not matter as much: You really shouldn't be conducting financial transactions on public WiFi connections or letting your phones automatically connect to any open network whether you have a Mac or a PC, or an Android phone or an Apple one. But in reality, Apple's perceived imperviousness from viruses and malware has left more than one person with the false impression that they, too, were impervious from a cyberattack.

Well, no more. Apple fans had a nice run, but it's time to face the fact that perhaps the only thing standing between most of us and a successful targeted cyberattack is our own behavior, not our operating systems.

So what should you be doing now? The same things you should've been doing all along.

1. Avoid Unsecured WiFi Networks

Between the increasing fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) engendered by a wired world and wireless companies' data caps, those unsecured WiFi connections represent quite a temptation -- and hackers know it. But unless it's an emergency, you should really avoid using them when at all possible. Change your phone settings to make sure you're not connecting to unsecured wireless systems automatically, keep your activity to a minimum and never, ever use them to log into a bank account, use a credit card or enter any kind of password.

2. Always Install Security Updates Immediately

We've all dismissed that little Apple pop-up box encouraging us to download the latest fix - and some of us have dismissed it more than once -- but it's time to stop the madness. Nothing you are doing on the Internet right now is more important than making sure no one else is poking around in your computer or your phone -- and whatever you are doing, including reading this article, is something you can start doing again pretty soon.

3. Don't Click on Weird Links From Strangers or Even Friends

You see them on Twitter -- little egg avatars that respond randomly with just a shortened link to something for no apparent reason. They're in your email inbox from friends you haven't heard from in a while. Sometimes, they even arrive by text. But if you can't tell where they lead, or even if you can but the links seem like an odd thing for someone to send you without context, don't click them. They were dangerous before, they're dangerous now and, patch or no patch, they'll be dangerous tomorrow.

4. Don't Take Your Security for Granted

It's easy enough in this day of virus checkers, malware spotters, supposedly impenetrable networks and browsers that won't let you visit suspicious sites to just think the tech companies have it covered -- but they don't. They can only protect you from what they know exists, and hackers are always out to make something new to avoid detection. Don't rely on technology over your own common sense.

Apple has already issued a patch for its phones and promised one for its computer operating system and connected programs affected by the SSL bug. [Update: They issued one just after this was published.] But once you download it, don't assume that you're safe. Let this be a wake-up call to some and a reminder to the rest of us that technology isn't an impenetrable force field against attacks: It's just a Maginot line against a direct attack.

Read more - 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-levin/-why-apples-unexpected-se_b_4855102.html

Contagious WiFi virus goes airborne, spreads like common cold... -

Contagious WiFi virus goes airborne, spreads like common cold... - 



Computer science researchers have demonstrated for the first time how a digital virus can go airborne and spread via WiFi networks in populated areas at the same pace as a human diseases.

The “Chameleon” virus, designed by a University of Liverpool team, showed a remarkable amount of intelligence by avoiding detection and breaking into personal and business WiFi networks at their weakest points — spreading at an alarming rate.

Network Security Professor Alan Marshall said the virus doesn’t try to damage or disrupt established networks — instead, the virus slips in unnoticed to collect the data and log-in information of all users connected to the network via WiFi, and seeks other WiFi networks through them — a much more subtle, sinister and dangerous objective.


“WiFi connections are increasingly a target for computer hackers because of well-documented security vulnerabilities, which make it difficult to detect and defend against a virus,” Marshall said in a ScienceBlog report. “It was assumed, however, that it wasn’t possible to develop a virus that could attack WiFi networks — but we demonstrated that this is possible and that it can spread quickly.”

The secret to Chameleon is the method by which it avoids detection. Traditional computer antivirus programs look for viruses present on computers and the Internet itself. Chameleon sticks strictly to WiFi networks, bypassing secured, more heavily encrypted networks to enter and spread through weaker ones — especially free public access points like those found in cafes, on trains and in airports.

A lab experiment by the University’s School of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and Electronics simulated what researchers likened to an airborne contagion attack against Belfast and London, entering WiFi  access points that connect public and private networks to the Internet.

The virus traveled fastest across access points within a 160 feet or less of each other, following similar rates of human infection by viruses among more densely populated areas.

“We are now able to use the data generated from this study to develop a new technique to identify when an attack is likely,” Marshall said.

Read more: -

http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/25/first-contagious-wifi-computer-virus-goes-airborne-spreads-like-the-common-cold/

This Man's $600,000 Facebook Disaster Is A Warning For All Small Businesses -

This Man's $600,000 Facebook Disaster Is A Warning For All Small Businesses - 



It continues to amaze me how people are completely ignoring what appears to be an incredible amount of shadiness inherent in Facebook’s business model. Whether or not this is intentional click fraud, it is clear that advertisers are not getting what they think they are getting. They won’t be fooled forever, and once they wake up to the money being wasted on fake “likes” and “clicks,” I’m curious to see what happens to their revenue.

The following article from SF Gate is a perfect followup to my post from a couple weeks ago: How Much of Facebook’s Ad Revenue is From Click Fraud?

Perhaps the most shocking passage from the entire article is the following:

Naturally, Brar began disputing his bill with Facebook. He wanted his clicks audited by a third party, to see how many were genuine. Then he discovered that Facebook’s terms of service forbid third-party verification of its clicks. That’s something all advertisers should be aware of before they spend a penny on Facebook.

Facebook is different from the rest of the online ad industry, which follows a standard of allowing click audits by third parties like the IAB, the Media Ratings Council or Ernst & Young.
Um, ok then…

Now more from the SF Gate:

Raaj Kapur Brar runs a small but successful empire of online fashion magazines from his base just outside Toronto. Some of his titles are huge online brands, such as Fashion & Style Magazine, which has 1.6 million Facebook fans.

That’s more fans than Elle magazine has.

Recently, however, Brar has fallen out of love with Facebook. He discovered  that his Facebook fanbase was becoming polluted with thousands of fake likes from bogus accounts. He can no longer tell the difference between his real fans and the fake ones. Many appear fake because the users have so few friends, are based in developing countries, or have generic profile pictures.
At one point, he had a budget of more than $600,000 for Facebook ad campaigns, he tells us. Now he believes those ads were a waste of time.
Facebook declined multiple requests for comment on this story.

Brar’s take is a cautionary one because Facebook has 25 million small businesses using its platform for one marketing purpose or another. Many of them are not sophisticated advertisers — they are simply plugging a credit card number into the system and hoping for the best. This is what can happen if you don’t pay careful attention to contract language, or the live, real-time results your campaigns on Facebook are having.

Here’s how Brar believes it went down: He became interested in advertising on Facebook in 2012, and he took it seriously. He went to Facebook’s local Toronto office where he was trained to use the advertising interface. They set up the campaign, and ran a small “beta” test. Then, in late October Brar pulled the trigger on a massive push through Facebook’s Ads Manager. He used Bitly and Google Analytics to measure the number of clicks his campaign was generating.

The results were disastrous, Brar says.

Facebook’s analytics said the campaign sent him five times the number of clicks he was seeing arrive on his sites, which Brar was monitoring with Bitly, Google Analytics, and his own web site’s WordPress dashboard. There was a reasonable discrepancy between the Bitly and Google numbers, Brar says, but not the five-fold margin between Google’s and Facebook’s click counts.

At one point, data from Facebook indicated his ads had delivered 606,000 clicks, but the site itself registered only 160,000 incoming clicks from Facebook, according to data supplied by Brar. (160,000 clicks is a not insignificant return. After all, these are not clicks on a mere Facebook page, these are users who clicked through to an off-Facebook site.)

“I don’t know what to say, right? This is a huge loss. This ran for four days, then we just stopped the campaign,” Brar says.

Then, things got worse. Even though Fetopolis wasn’t advertising, the likes and new followers kept on piling up. Normally, an advertiser would be pleased at such a result, but every time Brar checked a sample of the new fans he found people with dubious names; a picture of a flower as a profile shot; and fewer than 10 friends — classic signs of a fake profile.

Naturally, Brar began disputing his bill with Facebook. He wanted his clicks audited by a third party, to see how many were genuine. Then he discovered that Facebook’s terms of service forbid third-party verification of its clicks. That’s something all advertisers should be aware of before they spend a penny on Facebook: Facebook has operated this way for a long time, and has a page for advertisers explaining in more depth why third-party click reporting may not match Facebook’s click counts. Essentially, Facebook suggests, if clicks are not measured in exactly the same way over the same time intervals then there will always be discrepancies.

Facebook is different from the rest of the online ad industry, which follows a standard of allowing click audits by third parties like the IAB, the Media Ratings Council or Ernst & Young.
This will all be exposed by the market sooner or later. I’m just shocked it is taking so long for people to put two and two together.

Read more - 
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/This-Man-s-600-000-Facebook-Disaster-Is-A-5258472.php?t=7c5e3ab580

Selfies Spread Lice, Expert Claims -

Selfies Spread Lice, Expert Claims - 



Think twice before you get up close and personal for a selfie -- because that head-rubbing contact could allow lice to jump into your hair.

“I’ve seen a huge increase of lice in teens this year. Typically it’s younger children I treat, because they’re at higher risk for head-to-head contact. But now, teens are sticking their heads together every day to take cell phone pics,” Marcy McQuillan of Nitless Noggins, a lice removal service, told SFist.

Vanessa Mor of Oakland's Lice Control told CNET she's also seen an uptick in lice in teens and young adults. She didn't blame selfies, but didn't dismiss the idea either.

"That makes a lot of sense. In order to get it, you have to be direct contact -- sitting on the same towel, sharing headphones together or using someone else's hair curler, sharing hats, sweaters and scarves," Mor was quoted as saying.

But not everyone is buying the claim. In fact, one expert says this is a clear sign of someone selling something.

“Wherever these louse salons open a new branch, there always seems to be an epidemic. It’s good for business," Dr. Richard J. Pollack of the Harvard School of Public Health told NBC News.

Pollack, who also runs the pest identification and guidance service IdentifyUS, said he's seen no evidence that lice is spreading among selfie-snapping teens, or any other set of teens for that matter. Teens almost never have lice, he said.

In any case, the CDC has some tips for lice prevention -- and first on the list is to "avoid head-to-head (hair-to-hair) contact during play and other activities at home, school and elsewhere (sports activities, playground, slumber parties, camp)."

So maybe you should skip the selfies... just to be safe.

Read more - 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/selfies-spread-lice_n_4851657.html

How A Big Drug Company Inadvertently Got Americans Hooked On Heroin -

How A Big Drug Company Inadvertently Got Americans Hooked On Heroin - 



When she was 18, Arielle would come home every day and embark on what she calls an “Easter egg hunt." She wasn’t looking for candy. Arielle was hunting behind stairwells and inside closets in her suburban Long Island home for the OxyContin bottles her cousin brought home from work at a pharmacy and was hiding from her mother around the house.

“I found them one day, and I wanted to try them because all of my friends were already hooked,” said Arielle, who asked that her last name be withheld to avoid hurting her chances of getting a job. “I would see [my cousin] nodding out on the couch and not really being present, and that was how I wanted to feel. My best friend had just passed away, so I was numbing out the feelings.”

It took about a year before Arielle moved from prescription painkillers into the illegal drug that killed her best friend: heroin. She snorted it for the first time after tagging along with a friend who was going to buy some. "I was like, 'I love it,'" she said. Heroin was cheaper than prescription pills -- about $10 a bag, compared to $60 to $80 per pill -- and gave her a more potent high.

Her friend helped her inject the drug. “It was a feeling that I don’t think anyone should experience. Because once you experience it, you want to experience it over and over again,” she said. “ Next thing I know, I’m addicted.”

Arielle landed in a Long Island jail last year after she was caught breaking into a house and stealing money to buy drugs. Now 26 and living at a substance abuse treatment center, she says she's all too aware that her story isn’t unique.

Between 1996 and 2011, the number of people who ended up in substance abuse treatment centers in Suffolk County, where Arielle lives, as a result of heroin jumped 425 percent, according to a 2012 special grand jury report from the county’s Supreme Court. During the same period, the number of people who landed in substance abuse treatment for opioid pill use spiked 1,136 percent, the report found.

Long Island is one of many areas of the country where heroin addiction is reaching harrowing levels, according to Gregory Bunt, the medical director at Daytop Village, a New York-based substance abuse treatment center. The crisis is getting renewed attention after actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman died last month from an apparent heroin overdose. The rise in heroin use mirrors a decade-long spike in abuse of prescription opioids -- painkillers that are a medical cousin to heroin, but are legal as long as they’re prescribed by a doctor.

In recent years, more prescription drug abusers have started turning to heroin for a cheaper high as the price of pills skyrockets on the black market, Bunt said. Two factors have contributed to the cost increase: opioid addiction boosting demand and doctors becoming more cautious about prescribing opioids, decreasing supply, Bunt said.

Another reason for the price increase: The Drug War, according to a January 2012 report from Radley Balko. Government crackdowns have made it difficult for even reputable doctors to prescribe pain pills. To fill the void, doctors and others looking to make a buck off the prescription pills created so-called "pill mills" -- offices that prescribe pain medication in high volume and often serve people addicted to the drugs.

The result: Nearly four out of five people who recently started using heroin used prescription painkillers first, according to a 2013 study from the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality.

“A lot of people who got in trouble with the prescription opiates are switching over to heroin, and they get more for their buck, so to speak,” Bunt said. In his experience, he added, much of the heroin available today is laced with other additives, like additional painkillers -- making it more dangerous.

“Once you inject the heroin that’s available today, you’re at very high risk for fatal overdose,” he said.



Read more - 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/24/heroin-epidemic_n_4790898.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Packs of Chihuahuas are terrorizing an Arizona neighborhood, running through the streets and chasing kids -

Packs of Chihuahuas are terrorizing an Arizona neighborhood, running through the streets and chasing kids - 



Stray Chihuahuas are going wild in Maryvale, a neighborhood in Phoenix, Fox's KSAZ reported. The dogs are traveling in groups of 10 to 15.

"It makes it hard for the kids because they get chased down all the time when they're riding their little bikes," a resident told KSAZ. "And also the people that ride their cars. [The dogs] are always running after the cars and some of them get run over."

Chihuahuas are apparently the most common breed found in shelters, ABC News noted. The Maricopa County Animal Care and Control received 6,000 calls from Maryvale last year alone.

”Part of it is these animals aren’t spayed or neutered, so they’re out looking for a mate and are having babies, which also contributes to the problem," Melissa Gable with Maricopa County Animal Care and Control told ABC News, adding that residents are encouraged to call Animal Control if they see the stray dogs. The department will neuter them for free.

Chihuahuas are known to exhibit aggressive behavior despite their small size, according to Animal Planet. Despite weighing around 6 pounds, they have been known to go up against much larger dogs.

Last year, a 6-year-old girl wound up in the hospital after being attacked by a pack of Chihuahuas in Oregon, KPTV reported.

Read more - 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/24/packs-of-chihuahuas-arizona_n_4848543.html?utm_hp_ref=green

Tiny Crystal Is Oldest Known Piece of Earth, Scientists Say - dating to 4.4 Billion years -

Tiny Crystal Is Oldest Known Piece of Earth, Scientists Say - dating to 4.4 Billion years - 



Scientists using two different age-determining techniques have shown that a tiny zircon crystal found on a sheep ranch in western Australia is the oldest known piece of our planet, dating to 4.4 billion years ago.

Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday, the researchers said the discovery indicates that Earth's crust formed relatively soon after the planet formed and that the little gem was a remnant of it.

John Valley, a University of Wisconsin geoscience professor who led the research, said the findings suggest that the early Earth was not as harsh a place as many scientists have thought.

To determine the age of the zircon fragment, the scientists first used a widely accepted dating technique based on determining the radioactive decay of uranium to lead in a mineral sample.

But because some scientists hypothesized that this technique might give a false date due to possible movement of lead atoms within the crystal over time, the researchers turned to a second sophisticated method to verify the finding.

They used a technique known as atom-probe tomography that was able to identify individual atoms of lead in the crystal and determine their mass, and confirmed that the zircon was indeed 4.4 billion years old.

To put that age in perspective, the Earth itself formed 4.5 billion years ago as a ball of molten rock, meaning that its crust formed relatively soon thereafter, 100 million years later. The age of the crystal also means that the crust appeared just 160 million years after the very formation of the solar system.

The finding supports the notion of a "cool early Earth" where temperatures were low enough to sustain oceans, and perhaps life, earlier than previously thought, Valley said.

The zircon was extracted in 2001 from a rock outcrop in Australia's Jack Hills region. For a rock of such importance, it is rather small. It measures only about 200 by 400 microns, about twice the diameter of a human hair.

Read more - 

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/tiny-crystal-oldest-known-piece-earth-scientists-say-n36916

China's Naval Chief Says Smog is Best Defence Against US Laser Weapons... -

China's Naval Chief Says Smog is Best Defence Against US Laser Weapons... - 



Thick smog is the best defence against US laser weapons, a Chinese military chief has declared on national television.

Zhang Zhaozhong, the Navy Major General for the People's Liberation Army drew massive criticism when he made the statement on CCTV's Haixia Liang'an (Cross-Straits) current affairs programme, adding that lasers were "most afraid of smog".

He said: "Under conditions where there is no smog, a laser weapon can fire [at a range of] 10 kilometres. When there's smog, it's only one kilometre. What's the point of making this kind of weapon?

"It only works when the weather is good. The enemy will target you when the weather is bad.

"Once your enemy knows your disadvantages you are dead. This is a laser weapons' fatal disadvantage."

Zhang explained that smog was made up of tiny metallic particulate, known as PM2.5, and the higher its concentration the harder it is for lasers to get through.

He was speaking after the US navy announced it was preparing to deploy its first laser weapon aboard transport ship, USS Ponce, which is aimed at protecting US forces in the Persian Gulf.

But thousands of people took to social media site Sina Weibo to criticise Zhang's comments.

In response the major general said his statements were taken out of context and led to "misunderstanding".

He told Beijing Youth Daily: "I just stated a laser weapon's weakness. I don't support smog."

According to the World Health Organisation the presence of tiny pollution particles should not exceed 25 micrograms per cubic metre. In Beijing levels were recorded at almost 400.

Read more - 

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/chinas-naval-chief-says-smog-best-defence-against-us-laser-weapons-1437650