Lance Armstrong & Oprah Winfrey: cyclist sorry for doping

Lance Armstrong has ended years of denials by admitting he used performance-enhancing drugs during all seven of his Tour de France wins.
The 41-year-old confessed during his interview with chat show host Oprah Winfrey in front of a worldwide television audience.
"I view this situation as one big lie I repeated a lot of times," he said. "I made those decisions, they were my mistake and I'm here to say sorry."
However the American denied it was "sport's biggest doping programme", saying "it was smart, but it was conservative, risk averse".
The interview with Winfrey, 58, was broadcast on prime time television on her OWN network in America, and was streamed worldwide through her website.
The tens of millions watching saw Armstrong reveal:

• he took performance-enhancing drugs in each of his Tour wins from 1999-2005
• doping was "part of the process required to win the Tour"
• he did not feel he was cheating at the time and viewed it as a "level playing field"
• he did not fear getting caught
• "all the fault and blame" should lie with him
• he was a bully who "turned on" people he did not like
• his cancer fight in the mid-1990s gave him a "win-at-all costs" attitude
• he would now co-operate with official inquiries into doping in cycling

- BBC.co.uk

Sydney bakes in hottest day on record as bushfires rage

Thousands of people have been escaping the heat on
 Sydney's Bondi Beach

The Australian city of Sydney is experiencing its hottest day on record, with temperatures reaching nearly 46C.

A temperature of 45.8C was recorded at Observatory Hill in the city at 14:55 local time (01:55 GMT).

Some areas in the wider Sydney region were even hotter, with the town of Penrith, to the west, registering a temperature of 46.5C.

In Victoria state, one man has been killed by a bushfire, one of dozens raging across southern Australia.

Canada's Environmental Health Lags Developed World: Conference Board Report

Canada is an environmental laggard compared to other
 developed nations, according to a new report from
The Conference Board Of Canada. (CP)

Canada is an 'environmental laggard,' according to a new report from The Conference Board of Canada.

The study ranks Canada 15th out of 17th developed nations on environmental performance, ahead of only The United States and last place Australia.

The bottom three are also the largest nations surveyed in terms of land mass and all depend on natural resources for a large part of their economic output.

While Australia may be better-known for its beaches and exotic wildlife, its proximity to lucrative Asian markets and its abundant natural resources have led to a recent commodity boom which has had a major impact on the environment.

Canada's situation, replacing Asia with The United States, is similar.

"Our large land mass, cold climate and resource-intensive economy make us less likely to rank highly on some indicators of environmental sustainability, but many of our poor results are based on our inefficient use of our resources," said Len Coad, a director at the influential think tank.

- Huffingtonpost.ca

Leprosy bacteria use 'biological alchemy'

Infectious bacteria have for the first time been caught performing "biological alchemy" to transform parts of a host body into those more suited to their purposes, by a team in Edinburgh.

The study, in the journal Cell, showed leprosy-causing bacteria turning nerves into stem cells and muscle.

The authors said the "clever and sophisticated" technique could further therapies and stem-cell research.

Experts described the discovery as "amazing" and "exciting".

Alchemists may have failed to morph base metals into gold, but a team at the University of Edinburgh has shown that bacteria can transform parts of the body into something more valuable to them.

It is a feat that scientists have already achieved in the laboratory. Skin cells have been transformed into flexible stem cells that can become any of the body's building blocks from heart muscle to brain cells.

One of the researchers, Prof Anura Rambukkana, said: "Our body's cells can be manipulated and why would a bacterium not take advantage of that?"

How to Find the Best C.S. Students via Programming Competitions

It's a battle out there to find the top computer science students. How to find them and then get them interested in your company is a gigantic challenge. One very effective way to both find and entice top students is creating or sponsoring a programming competition.

When I asked for sponsors to provide prizes for the Windward Code War , Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and Morgan Stanley jumped at the chance -- for one very simple reason: This contest attracts the best of the best. It's the best students at the top C.S. schools. And most of the participants will take a look at the companies responsible for one of their most enjoyable days at school.

Finding the Best of the Best

The students who participate in these competitions tend to be the best of the best. Our code war is among the top C.S. schools in the world. And from those students, we get the students who find programming so much fun, that they choose to spend a Saturday writing code for the pure joy of it. These are students who, when given a difficult challenge, will thank you for the interesting work. And will then solve the problem.

These students are the ones with the curiosity and initiative required to create the brilliant new products no one has thought of yet. These students are the ones that can produce a solution quickly. It may not be elegant. It may not be pretty. It may violate every rule they've been taught about proper programming. But it gets the job done and it is created quickly. That's gigantic in the real world.

These students are the ones that see a challenge as chance to succeed. Most people shy away from challenges because of the possibility of failure. These students are the ones focused on winning and understand that in striving to win, they can well lose.

Hiring the Best of the Best

How bad do companies want these students? Hewlett-Packard is providing 18 insanely awesome laptops just to put their name in front of these students. Microsoft is providing five Surface tablets, 10 Kinects and more to put their name in too. And Morgan Stanley is feeding all of them. And all three companies jumped at the chance to do this.

Why?

They are sponsoring one of "the best days ever" at school for these students. These students can go get internships at pretty much any company. Through the code war, these companies get added to the short list of companies these students are considering for internships. A student will figure that a company that sponsors this has got to be an interesting place to work (they are).

What Students Get

One of the most exhilarating days ever at school . And an introduction to three companies that highly value who you are (for those interested, you can email them at Hewlett-Packard , Microsoft, & Morgan Stanley).

Students -- The Windward Code War is great. But there are many other hackathons (the Imagine Cup  is a great one) out there. As a computer science student you should participate in several each year. You'll improve your programming and learn a lot of new skills. More importantly, you'll learn a lot about striving for success and overcoming obstacles. And when you apply for jobs, listing the hackathons you've participated in is a giant plus. Giant.

- David Thielen (Huffingtonpost.com)

Thieves dig 30-metre tunnel to rob bank

Berlin fire fighters called on Monday to an underground garage put out a blaze only to find a 30-metre-long tunnel leading to the vaults of a nearby bank - which had been emptied. 

The fire, which police believe was begun by the thieves in an attempt to erase any evidence and cause a distraction while they robbed the bank, broke out at around 6:15 am theTagesspiegel regional paper reported. 

The thieves had smashed through reinforced concrete to dig their tunnel, meaning they must have had access to heavy duty equipment.

Police were still examining the scene in the Steglitz area of the capital on Monday afternoon and are yet to have found any clues pointing to suspects, despite thorough questioning of people living in the area.

Exactly how much money was stolen from the Volksbank branch has not been revealed and police said they had no idea where the ground excavated from the tunnel had ended up.

A similar incident took place in the southern part of Berlin in 1995, when an 11-strong gang tunnelled into a bank in Zehlendorf and took 16 hostages as well as several million euros.

- thelocal.de

Samsung upgrades its Galaxy tablets to Android Jelly Bean

Samsung is now updating its Galaxy Note 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 2 tablets with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and new stylus functions through Samsung Premium Suite.

The update is for the Wi-Fi versions of the devices and finally brings Samsung's tablets current with Jelly Bean, after the company slowly rolled out Android 4.1 to its phones in the fall. Android 4.2 has already begun appearing on some Nexus tablets.

The more intriguing features, however, come from the Samsung Premium Suite, with special attention to the capabilities of the stylus.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 was the first in the company's line to support a multiwindows feature so you can run two apps side by side on screen. The feature later trickled through to the Note smartphones and Galaxy S III phone. Now, Samsung has updated this feature for the Note 10.1 with a cascade view, which lets you freely resize, move, and pin selected apps in multiple views, running simultaneously.

- pcworld.com

Headline Jan 19, 2013/

''LAUGHING AND LEARNING WITH ALBERT EINSTEIN''

Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I have no doubt that the lion belongs with it, even if he cannot reveal himself all at once.We see him only the way a louse that sits upon him would.


* Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind.


*I have reached an age when, if somebody tells me to wear socks, I don't have to.


*With fame, I have become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon.

*I discovered that nature was constructed in a wonderful way, and our task is to find out the mathematical structure of the nature itself. It is a kind of faith that has helped me through my whole life.

*Anything truly novel is invented only during one's youth. Later one becomes more experienced, more famous - and more blockheaded

*Certain people find everything boring.

*The dog is very smart. He feels very sorry for me because I receive so much mail. Thats why he tries to bite the mailman.

*I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is somewhat new kind of religion.


NEWTON, please forgive me.


With respectful and loving dedication to the the great students of Canada. These early -and even first believers-, set this point of interception rolling here!! 

A Great Honor for all of us here!!?

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless