India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 26

Read More..

Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Staying Safe From Java Threats

I hear lots of scary stuff about hackers getting into computers thru Java. What do I need to do to make my Mac and PC safe? Any worries about tablets?

Java is a computing platform with its own programming language that is used in many games, business applications and other utilities. It runs on more than 850 million computers worldwide and is used often by Web browsers. Recent attacks on Apple and Facebook used a flaw in the Java Web browser plug-in to infect computers with malicious software when visiting certain sites, and the Department of Homeland Security even issued a warning about Java back in January.

Computers running Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are most at risk. Tablets running systems like Android and iOS are not generally affected; mobile browsers have a setting for the JavaScript programming language, but JavaScript is basically unrelated to Java and its not subject to the current malware issues.

Disabling Java in your Web browser should protect your computer from the recent types of security threats, although you may not be able to play certain games or use Java-dependent applications. Oracle, which develops Java, has instructions for disabling Java in several browsers on Windows, Mac and Linux systems. Independent security sites, like Krebs on Security and Sophos, have additional information.

Apple released its own Mac OS X update to deal with the Java problem on Feb. 19, and the Macworld site has an article on going beyond the browser plug-in and removing Java altogether. Oracle has instructions for uninstalling Java completely on a Windows system, as well as on a Mac.

Read More..

Recipes for Health: Roasted Carrots and Scallions — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

I bought incredibly sweet, thick red scallions and multicolored bunches of carrots from a farmer at my market and roasted them with fresh thyme. Then I sprinkled on some crushed toasted hazelnuts, which contributed a nice crunchy texture and nutty finish to the dish. If you have a bottle of hazelnut oil or walnut oil on hand, a small drizzle just before serving is a welcome touch.

1 ounce hazelnuts (about 1/4 cup)

1 pound carrots, preferably young small carrots, any color (but a mix is nice)

1 bunch white or purple spring onions or scallions

Salt and freshly ground pepper

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Optional: a drizzle of hazelnut oil or walnut oil for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place the hazelnuts on a baking sheet and roast for 8 to 10 minutes, until they smell toasty and they are golden all the way through (cut one in half to check). Remove from the oven and turn up the heat to 425 degrees.

2. Immediately wrap the hazelnuts in a clean, dry dish towel. Rub them in the towel to remove the skins. Then place the skinned hazelnuts in a plastic bag or, if you have one, a disposable pastry bag and set on your work table in one layer. Use a rolling pin to crush the nuts by rolling over them with the pin. Set aside.

3. Line a sheet pan with parchment or oil a baking dish large enough to fit all of the vegetables in a single layer. If the carrots are small, just peel and trim the tops and bottoms. If they are medium-sized, peel, cut in half and cut into 4-inch lengths. Quarter large carrots and cut into 4-inch lengths. Trim the root ends and greens from the spring onions or scallions. If they are bulbous, cut them in half. Season with salt and pepper, add the thyme and olive oil and toss well, either directly on the pan or in the dish or in a bowl. Spread in an even layer in the baking dish or on the baking sheet.

4. Roast in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. The onions may be done after 10 minutes – they should be soft and lightly browned. Remove them from the pan if they are and hold on a plate. When the carrots and onions are tender and browned in places, remove from the oven. Add the onions back into the mix if you removed them and toss together. Sprinkle on the toasted ground hazelnuts, drizzle on the optional nut oil, and serve.

Yield: Serves 4

Advance preparation: The vegetables can hold for a few hours once roasted; cover and reheat in a medium oven.

Nutritional information per serving: 171 calories; 11 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 16 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams dietary fiber; 89 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 2 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

Read More..

Recipes for Health: Roasted Carrots and Scallions — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

I bought incredibly sweet, thick red scallions and multicolored bunches of carrots from a farmer at my market and roasted them with fresh thyme. Then I sprinkled on some crushed toasted hazelnuts, which contributed a nice crunchy texture and nutty finish to the dish. If you have a bottle of hazelnut oil or walnut oil on hand, a small drizzle just before serving is a welcome touch.

1 ounce hazelnuts (about 1/4 cup)

1 pound carrots, preferably young small carrots, any color (but a mix is nice)

1 bunch white or purple spring onions or scallions

Salt and freshly ground pepper

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Optional: a drizzle of hazelnut oil or walnut oil for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place the hazelnuts on a baking sheet and roast for 8 to 10 minutes, until they smell toasty and they are golden all the way through (cut one in half to check). Remove from the oven and turn up the heat to 425 degrees.

2. Immediately wrap the hazelnuts in a clean, dry dish towel. Rub them in the towel to remove the skins. Then place the skinned hazelnuts in a plastic bag or, if you have one, a disposable pastry bag and set on your work table in one layer. Use a rolling pin to crush the nuts by rolling over them with the pin. Set aside.

3. Line a sheet pan with parchment or oil a baking dish large enough to fit all of the vegetables in a single layer. If the carrots are small, just peel and trim the tops and bottoms. If they are medium-sized, peel, cut in half and cut into 4-inch lengths. Quarter large carrots and cut into 4-inch lengths. Trim the root ends and greens from the spring onions or scallions. If they are bulbous, cut them in half. Season with salt and pepper, add the thyme and olive oil and toss well, either directly on the pan or in the dish or in a bowl. Spread in an even layer in the baking dish or on the baking sheet.

4. Roast in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. The onions may be done after 10 minutes – they should be soft and lightly browned. Remove them from the pan if they are and hold on a plate. When the carrots and onions are tender and browned in places, remove from the oven. Add the onions back into the mix if you removed them and toss together. Sprinkle on the toasted ground hazelnuts, drizzle on the optional nut oil, and serve.

Yield: Serves 4

Advance preparation: The vegetables can hold for a few hours once roasted; cover and reheat in a medium oven.

Nutritional information per serving: 171 calories; 11 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 16 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams dietary fiber; 89 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 2 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

Read More..

Wall Street Sheds Morning Gains

After beginning the day with a partial rebound from Monday’s steep drop, stocks on Wall Street gave up some of their gains Tuesday in the course of Congressional testimony by Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman.

In afternoon trading, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was up 0.1 percent, while the Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.6 percent. The Nasdaq composite index was down 0.2 percent.

In his prepared testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, Mr. Bernanke defended the Fed’s bond-buying program and said the economy was growing at a “moderate if somewhat uneven pace.” Senators were questioning him on the prospects for a global currency war and the potential economic effects of the latest budget impasse in Congress.

The major indexes fell more than 1 percent on Monday, with the S.&P. 500 recording its biggest daily drop since November. The falloff came as investors fretted that if Italy does not undertake reforms, the euro zone could once again be destabilized. The Euro Stoxx 50 index was off more than 3 percent in late trading Tuesday.

Groups in Italy opposed to economic reforms posted a strong showing in the recent election, resulting in a political deadlock with a comedian’s protest party leading the poll and no group securing a clear majority in Parliament.

“We’ve gone to an environment of political stability to instability, and until we get some type of clarity over who is in charge, which could take days, the market will have renewed concerns,” said Art Hogan, managing director of Lazard Capital Markets in New York.

Still, market participants speculated that a coalition government would eventually emerge in Italy and ease worries about a new euro zone crisis.

The early market gains suggested the recent trend of investors buying on dips would continue. Last week, concerns that the Federal Reserve might roll back its stimulus efforts earlier than expected prompted a sharp two-day decline, though equities recovered most of the lost ground by the end of the week.

“Investors are taking advantage of the drop, and once some kind of coalition government is formed, most of our concerns will be put to rest,” Mr. Hogan said.

Home Depot reported adjusted earnings and sales that beat expectations, sending shares up more than 5 percent.

Macy’s rose 3.1 percent after stating it expected full-year earnings to be above analysts’ forecasts because of strong sales in the holiday period.

For the benchmark S.&P. 500, 1,500 points will be watched as a key benchmark after the index closed below it on Monday for the first time since Feb. 4, with selling accelerating after falling below it. An inability to break back above it could portend further losses.

Financial shares may be among the most volatile, as that sector is closely tied to the pace of global economic growth. Morgan Stanley was one of the top percentage losers on the S.&P. on Monday, dropping more than 6 percent on concerns about the company’s exposure to European debt. It was up 0.4 percent.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 26, 2013

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misidentified the Senate panel before which Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, was testifying Tuesday. It was the Banking Committee, not the Finance Committee.

Read More..

South Korea’s Park Geun-hye Warns North Against Nuclear Pursuits

Park Jin-Hee/Getty Images

Park Geun-Hye, South Korea's president, salutes during her inauguration ceremony in front of the National Assembly building on Monday in Seoul.

SEOUL, South Korea — The country’s new president, Park Geun-hye, was sworn into office on Monday, facing far more complicated fissures both within South Korea and with North Korea than her father did during his Cold War dictatorship, which ended with his assassination 33 years ago.

Ms. Park, 61, is the first child of a former president to take power here, as well as the first woman, a remarkable turn for a country where Parliament, the cabinet and corporate board rooms are predominantly male and the gender income gap is the widest among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In her address, Ms. Park called for the revival of an economic boom her father, Park Chung-hee, had once overseen and urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

After the ceremony, in front of the National Assembly, her motorcade moved through a downtown Seoul packed with well-wishers. Her return to the presidential Blue House, her childhood home, was a triumphant moment for her and old South Koreans loyal to her father. His quashing of dissent and censorship of the press in his 18-years of iron-fisted rulewere much maligned among South Koreans during the country’s struggle for democracy.

She was elected Dec. 19, thanks largely to the support of South Koreans in their 50s and older who grew disenchanted with fractured politics and recalled how, South Korea under the dictatorship had begun its evolution from a country where per-capita income was just $100 a year into what is now a global economic powerhouse whose smartphones, cars and ships are exported around the world.

But while her father, Ms. Park begins a single, five-year term facing sharp criticism from younger and liberal South Koreans who have no fear of speaking out. When she named Queen Elizabeth I of Britain as her role model, they filled blogswith derision for her sense of entitlement. They openly called her election a return to the past, arguing that the seeds of some of the country’s biggest problems, such as the unruly influence of family controlled conglomerates, were sown under her father and accused her of glorifying his rule.

South Korea’s political rivalries are freewheeling, evidenced most recently by the arrest of a 76-year-old Christian pastor last week who claimed that Ms. Park had sex with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il during her visit to Pyongyang in 2002. His videotaped allegations were circulated widely through the Internet.

Meanwhile, two weeks before Ms. Park’s inauguration, North Korea detonated an underground nuclear device, testing her campaign promise to reach out to the North to help end five years of diplomatic silence and high tension on the divided Korean Peninsula under her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, a fellow conservative.

In her inaugural address, “North Korea’s recent nuclear test is a challenge to the survival and future of the Korean people, and there should be no mistake that the biggest victim will be none other than North Korea itself.”

Speaking before a large crowd that was entertained by the rapper Psy of “Gangnam Style” fame on the lawn in front of the National Assembly, she urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions without delay, “instead of wasting its resources on nuclear and missile development and continuing to turn its back to the world in self-imposed isolation.”

Ms. Park invoked her father’s era, calling for a “second miracle on the Han River.” The first was the transformation under him of Seoul, the capital city, which straddles the river, from the rubble of the 1950-53 Korean War into an industrialized metropolis. He nurtured a handful of family controlled companies, such as Samsung and Hyundai, as engines of an export-driven economy. These companies have grown into globally recognized conglomerates.

Now, decades later, his daughter vowed to bring South Korea’s slowing economy “rejuvenation” and “revival,” terms favored under her father. But she nodded to the biggest complaints of ordinary South Koreans — widening economic inequality and the conglomerates’ overpowering expansion at the cost of smaller businesses — grievances, saying the second Han River miracle should be based on “economic democratization.”

Ms. Park promised to end unfair practices by big businesses and strengthen small and medium-sized enterprises so that “such businesses can prosper alongside large companies.”

Read More..

Disruptions: Disruptions: Google Flu Trends Shows Problems of Big Data Without Context

Several years ago, Google, aware of how many of us were sneezing and coughing, created a fancy equation on its Web site to figure out just how many people had influenza. The math works like this: people’s location + flu-related search queries on Google + some really smart algorithms = the number of people with the flu in the United States.

So how did the algorithms fare this wretched winter? According to Google Flu Trends, at the flu season’s peak in mid-January, nearly 11 percent of the United States population had influenza.

Yikes! Take vitamins. Don’t leave the house. Wash your hands. Wash them again!

But wait. According to an article in the science journal Nature, Google’s disease-hunting algorithms were wrong: their results were double the actual estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which put the coughing and sniffling peak at 6 percent of the population.

Kelly Mason, a public affairs spokeswoman for Google, said the company’s Flu Trends site was meant to be only one source in addition to the C.D.C. and other flu surveillance methods. “We review and potentially update our model each season,” she said.

Scientists have a theory about what went wrong, as well.

“Several researchers suggest that the problems may be due to widespread media coverage of this year’s severe U.S. flu season,” Declan Butler wrote in Nature. Then add social media, which helped news of the flu spread quicker than the virus itself.

In other words, Google’s algorithm was looking only at the numbers, not at the context of the search results.

In today’s digitally connected world, data is everywhere: in our phones, search queries, friendships, dating profiles, cars, food, reading habits. Almost everything we touch is part of a larger data set. But the people and companies that interpret the data may fail to apply background and outside conditions to the numbers they capture.

“Data inherently has all of the foibles of being human,” said Mark Hansen, director of the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Columbia University. “Data is not a magic force in society; it’s an extension of us.”

Society has encountered similar situations for centuries. In the 1600s, Dr. Hansen said, an early census was recorded in England as the Great Plague of London killed tens of thousands of Britons. To calculate the spread of the disease, officials started recording every christening and death in the city. And although this helped quantify the mortality rate, it also created other problems. There was now an astounding collection of statistical information for scientists to review and understand, but it took time to develop systems that could accurately assess the information.

Now, as we enter a world of big data, we have to learn how to apply context to these numbers.

Dr. Hansen said the problem of data without context could be summed up in a quote from the playwright Eugène Ionesco: “Of course, not everything is unsayable in words, only the living truth.”

I experienced this firsthand in the spring of 2010, when I was an adjunct professor at New York University teaching graduate students in the Interactive Telecommunications Program.

I created a class called “Telling Stories With Data, Sensors and Humans,” with the goal of determining whether sensors and data could become reporters and collect information. Students built little electronic contraptions with $30 computers called Arduinos, and attached several sensors, including ones that could detect light, noise and movement.

We wondered if we could use these sensors to determine whether students used the elevators more than the stairs, and whether that changed throughout the day. (Esoteric, sure, but a perfect example of a computer sitting there taking notes, rather than a human.)

We set up the sensors in some elevators and stairwells at N.Y.U. and waited. To our delighted surprise, the data we collected told a story, and it seemed that our experiment had worked.

As I left campus that evening, one of the N.Y.U. security guards who had seen students setting up the computers in the elevators asked how our experiment had gone. I explained that we had found that students seemed to use the elevators in the morning, perhaps because they were tired from staying up late, and switch to the stairs at night, when they became energized.

“Oh, no, they don’t,” the security guard told me, laughing as he assured me that lazy college students used the elevators whenever possible. “One of the elevators broke down a few evenings last week, so they had no choice but to use the stairs.”

E-mail: bilton@nytimes.com

Read More..

Well: Ask Well: The Nutrients in Fruits and Veggies

The colorful skin of an apple, grape or tomato is certainly chockfull of nutrients. But by no means are the outer layers of most fruits and vegetables the prime source of their nutrition.

Part of what makes some fruits and vegetables so rich with color – wax and pesticides notwithstanding – are pigments in the skin that have healthful antioxidant properties. Resveratrol, for example, is found in the skin of red grapes and other fruits. But lycopene, one of the pigments that gives tomatoes and bell peppers their deep red color, is distributed throughout.

Indeed, many vitamins and nutrients are found in the skin as well as the flesh. Take apples. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, a large red apple with its skin intact contains about 5 grams of fiber, 13 milligrams of calcium, 239 milligrams of potassium, and 10 milligrams of vitamin C. But remove the skin, and it still contains about 3 grams of fiber, 11 milligrams of calcium, 194 milligrams of potassium, and plenty of its vitamin C and other nutrients.

Another example is the sweet potato. The U.S.D.A. says that a 100-gram serving of sweet potato cooked with its skin contains 2 grams of protein, 3 grams of fiber, and 20 milligrams of vitamin C. But the same sized serving of sweet potato without skin that has been boiled — a process that further leaches away some of its nutrients — still boasts 1.4 grams of protein, 2.5 grams of fiber, and 13 milligrams of vitamin C.

You can lose the skin, in other words, without losing all the benefits.

Read More..

Well: Ask Well: The Nutrients in Fruits and Veggies

The colorful skin of an apple, grape or tomato is certainly chockfull of nutrients. But by no means are the outer layers of most fruits and vegetables the prime source of their nutrition.

Part of what makes some fruits and vegetables so rich with color – wax and pesticides notwithstanding – are pigments in the skin that have healthful antioxidant properties. Resveratrol, for example, is found in the skin of red grapes and other fruits. But lycopene, one of the pigments that gives tomatoes and bell peppers their deep red color, is distributed throughout.

Indeed, many vitamins and nutrients are found in the skin as well as the flesh. Take apples. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, a large red apple with its skin intact contains about 5 grams of fiber, 13 milligrams of calcium, 239 milligrams of potassium, and 10 milligrams of vitamin C. But remove the skin, and it still contains about 3 grams of fiber, 11 milligrams of calcium, 194 milligrams of potassium, and plenty of its vitamin C and other nutrients.

Another example is the sweet potato. The U.S.D.A. says that a 100-gram serving of sweet potato cooked with its skin contains 2 grams of protein, 3 grams of fiber, and 20 milligrams of vitamin C. But the same sized serving of sweet potato without skin that has been boiled — a process that further leaches away some of its nutrients — still boasts 1.4 grams of protein, 2.5 grams of fiber, and 13 milligrams of vitamin C.

You can lose the skin, in other words, without losing all the benefits.

Read More..

DealBook: Japan to Sell $10 Billion Stake in Cigarette Firm

TOKYO – The Japanese government is set to loosen its grip on Japan Tobacco, the world’s third-largest tobacco company, by selling a third of its stake in a sale that will net the country about $10 billion.

The Finance Ministry, which owns just over 50 percent of the former state monopoly, will sell 333 million of its shares in the cigarette manufacturer, according to a company statement issued on Monday.

The deal will be priced next month, from March 11 to 13, the statement said. In the run-up to the sale, Japan Tobacco will buy back up to 250 billion yen ($2.7 billion) of its shares.

Under laws passed in 2011 after a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, proceeds of the sale of Japan Tobacco shares will go toward rebuilding the country’s battered northeast coast. The reconstruction costs have threatened to weigh on Japan’s public finances at a time when public debt is twice the size of its economy.

It is an opportune time for the Japanese government to sell. Japan’s stock market has rallied since mid-November, and Japan Tobacco’s shares have tracked the market’s ascent, climbing 20 percent in the last three months.

Shares in Japan Tobacco closed 1.43 percent higher on Monday, at 2,901 yen, before the planned sale was announced. At that price, the government’s share sale would be valued at roughly 967 billion yen.

Japan has already been reducing its stake and involvement in the cigarette maker, which traces its origins to a Finance Ministry bureau set up in 1898 to create a national tobacco monopoly that lasted until 1985.

Even after the company went public, the Finance Ministry held two-thirds of its shares until 2004, when it reduced its stake to 50.1 percent, or roughly one billion shares. Other investors in Japan Tobacco include Mizuho Trust & Banking, Goldman Sachs and the Children’s Investment Fund Management.

The position in Japan Tobacco has put the government in a controversial position.

The government has squeezed more funds from its smokers, raising the price of a pack of cigarettes about 40 percent in 2010, its single largest increase in tobacco taxes. Still, cigarettes remain relatively cheap in Japan, at about $4.30 a pack.

But antismoking advocates have blamed the Japanese government’s continued ownership of Japan Tobacco – whose brands include Camel, Winston and Mild Seven – for the country’s delay in passing laws to protect nonsmokers from cigarette smoke, for example, and more stringently regulating of tobacco-related marketing.

In a 2012 report, the Washington-based Global Business Group on Health said Japan’s ownership of Japan Tobacco shares “leads to a national conflict of interest, in which the government treats smoking as a behavioral issue rather than a health concern.”

Though smoking rates have started to decline in recent years, the Japanese remain heavy smokers, consuming about 1,841 cigarettes a person, according to data compiled last year by the World Lung Foundation and American Cancer Society. That compared with about 1,000 cigarettes a person in the United States.

To make up for declining cigarette consumption at home, Japan Tobacco has aggressively expanded overseas, acquiring Britain’s Gallaher Group in 2007 for $15 billion, and adding the Silk Cut and Benson & Hedges brands to its portfolio. The company has also made a push into packaged foods and soft drinks, as well as pharmaceuticals.

The government’s sale of Japan Tobacco shares is part of a wider effort to raise money to finance reconstruction from the country’s natural and nuclear disasters in 2011. The government also plans to sell shares of Japan Post Holdings, which runs the country’s postal system and also acts as its biggest bank.

Read More..