Angel costume idea [women]

• 1 long-sleeved pink/white polo shirt or long-sleeved pink/white leotard
• 1 pair of pink/white tights
• 1 yard of pink/white felt
• 3 pipe cleaners
• VELCRO® brand STICKY BACK® tape or coins
• 2 yards of iron-on backing material (interfacing)
• 1 package of silver gems of silver glitter
• white fabric glue
• white thread, scissors, pins, tape measure

Iron backing material to felt. Using brown wrapping paper, make a wing pattern in shape shown below. Enlarge pattern size as necessary to proportionately fit child. Cut front and back, left and right wings of felt and interfacing. Fuse the iron-on backing to front and back, left and right wings. With backing sides together, glue or stitch felt wings together. Also, glue or stitch left and right wings together at the narrow flap to make the wings into one piece.

Separate the two halves of the coins tape.

Apply the hook half of three 3" strips of VELCRO® brand STICKY BACK® tape or three STICKY BACK® coins about 1/2" apart to the narrow flap that forms the center back of the wings. Apply the loop side of the VELCRO® brand tape or coins to the back center of the polo shirt; press tapes together to fasten wings onto polo shirt. Decorate wings and headband with silver gems secured with VELCRO® brand coins. Add glitter in a random design for extra sparkle.

Skirt: Additional Materials

• 2 pieces of white tulle - 72" X 18", for bottom layer of skirt,
• 2 pieces of irridescent white lame - 72" X 18", for middle layer of skirt,
• 2 pieces of white-and-gold/silver patterned netting - 72" X 18", for top layer of skirt,
• 1/8 yard white satin, for waistband,
• 3/4 yard VELCRO® brand SOFT & FLEXIBLE SEW-ON Tape,
• 1 yards gold/silver sequins for trimming.

Instructions:

To make the waistband, measure the child's waist and cut a piece of satin to waist measurement, plus 4".

Cut the waistband piece as follows:

Waistband Piece = waistline size + 4" long X 4" wide.

Layer skirt fabrics as follows: white tulle on bottom, iridescent fabric in middle, and white/gold or silver netting on top. Keeping the long straight edges even, stitch two rows of machine basting along the straight edge. Pull basting stitches to gather the skirt. With right sides together, pin the skirt to one long edge of waistband, beginning and ending 1/2" from each end of waistband. Stitch in place and remove pins. Fold the waistband in half, lengthwise, with right sides together, and stitch the short ends. Turn the waistband to right side and slipstitch the remaining long edge in place over waistband seam allowance. Stitch a 4" piece of SEW-ON tape to each end of the waistband. Glue the sequins to the waistband for trimming.

Headpiece

Cut a piece of felt 2" wide to the length of the circumference of the child's head plus 2" for the overlap. Use STICKY BACK® tape or coins to fasten headband.

Halo

Bend two pipe cleaners to form a circle and twist ends. Use one pipe cleaner to connect halo circle to head band at back. Secure to headband with STICKY BACK® tape

VELCRO and STICKY BACK are registered trademarks of Velcro Industries B.V.

If you lack time, you can always buy a costume online:

5 Top Free Offers - for Canadians Only

This is what I found. Not sure if this works exactly. Some people think this is a scam, but I have read some success stories so it's up to you to decide...

1. Free Laptop - Toshiba, Compaq or HP
2. Plasma TV - Philips, Sony Wega or Panasonic
3. $500 worth Rona Home Improvement Gift Card
4. Another $500 Starbucks Gift Card
5. And, finally, a Hockey Jersey of Your Choice

Nabbing Video Pirates: Who Needs Google?

YouTube is working on software to spot copyrighted postings, but content owners may not wait for—or want—the system it has in mind But will it work? It's a question likely to be asked by a lot of would-be users of new tools created by Google that are designed to ferret out video posted illegally to the search giant's YouTube site. The answer is critical to YouTube, which unveiled the content-recognition technology Oct. 15 at its San Bruno (Calif.) headquarters, as well as to the owners of copyrighted movies, TV shows, and other content that is routinely uploaded and viewed on the site and others like it. While news networks like General Electric's NBC, movie studios including News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox, and others are racing to put their content online to reach the legions of people who have flocked there, they've been looking for ways to make sure that content isn't pirated. Theoretically, these new tools will enable video sites to track such content, and give studios and other video creators a choice on what to do when pirated clips appear. Content owners could insist that the clips be removed from a site, allow them to be viewed as a promotional vehicle, or even let the clips be shown with ads—creating revenue-sharing opportunities between the owner and the site. The challenge to devise a better content-recognition system has touched off a race among companies—from startups like Vobile to giants like Philips —to bring technologies to market. A dozen took part in a trial held by the Motion Picture Association of America that ended earlier this fall. YouTube, which was notably absent from the trial, has been developing its own. The pressure is on Google to come up with a better way to keep copyrighted programming off YouTube, but critics have questioned the company's commitment to the effort. Industry sources have expressed frustration with YouTube's unwillingness to join the MPAA trial and say the company has a financial interest in dragging its feet in complying with content takedown orders. In March, Viacom sued Google, accusing YouTube of massive copyright infringement (BusinessWeek.com, 3/14/07). "Firmly Aligned Behind the Goal" YouTube representatives say the effort to build content-recognition software undermines those criticisms. "We are firmly aligned behind the goal" of copyright protection, product manager David King said during the presentation. He pointed out various moves taken by the company in the past, such as using what's called a "hash" technology that can find perfect, unaltered copies of a clip, and the use of technology from Audible Magic to spot pirated audio soundtracks. In the Oct. 15 press conference, YouTube provided the basics of how the technology would work. Like some of the other systems, it depends on content owners handing over their content to the company, which would then assemble a database of "digital IDs." Then, whenever someone uploads or tries to view a video, a "video identification engine" quickly scans it to look for matches. Once a pirated clip is spotted, the content owner has three choices: leave it up, block it (meaning it won't show up in search results as well), or monetize it. Currently, this means sharing in Google revenue from ads that can be placed around the clip. There are a number of potential problems. For starters, will it work? According to King, the product has been used for only a week on actual content, from a single video partner. The system found just 18 pirated clips in that time—a tiny number given the vast trade in copyrighted material on the Web. King declined to give statistics on the system's accuracy in spotting infringements. One industry source who was briefed on the technology a few months ago said Google's system did fine in finding perfect copies of copyrighted material—but not so well when that content had been digitally altered to avoid detection. Even if the technology works, Google faces big political challenges, too. Because it is the largest video site, YouTube can claim rights to a bigger share of revenue than smaller sites that attract fewer viewers. That means some content owners might be loath to partner with YouTube if they can reach better terms with a less formidable partner. Says one studio executive: "I'm sure they're going to defend their business position as aggressively as they can—just like the movie studios will." Send Viewers to Us! YouTube will need to develop more ways for content owners to get paid as well. Currently, the YouTube system offers only one payment method: sharing in ad revenue when someone watches infringing clips. But rather than a piece of ad revenue, some content owners might prefer that YouTube send the viewer to the content owner's site. That way, the more people who try to watch clips from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report, the more Viacom could boost traffic to its Comedy Central site. Asked if YouTube would make it possible to send users to content owners' sites, King said: "We haven't had the chance to add that feature yet." What's more, some industry insiders question whether Google is the proper entity to be offering content identification. While it may be the biggest Web venue, the number of channels for video distribution is exploding—and studios and other content owners don't want to provide different digital IDs to each of them. "If all of the user-generated content sites start doing their own, it wouldn't be good for the studios because we'd have to be pumping out fingerprints all over the place," says the studio exec. The drawbacks of YouTube's methods could create opportunities for makers of rival technologies. Vobile's system did very well in the MPAA trials, sources say. It's effective not only at identifying material that is infringing but also at not coming up with false positives that accuse people of infringing when they haven't. Vobile CEO Yangbin Wang says YouTube announced its system before it was ready for prime time. "I see it as more of a marketing event, because the pressure was on them to say something. But they still have to prove they have something that works." The biggest challenge, though, could be getting content owners onboard as partners. Indeed, King admits YouTube has had only "limited" conversations with nine content owners. While Disney, Time Warner and CBS are experimenting with the technology, they've yet to agree to hand over their content to YouTube. "We really need the content owners to work with us," says King. "We need them to help us."

Five Years For Sending Pornographic Spam - Isn't It Too Kind?

Spammers Kilbride and Schaffer will also forfeit over $1.1 million in illegal proceeds from their spam operation. Two men convicted of sending pornographic spam under the Can-Spam Act have been sentenced to serve more than five years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday. Assistant attorney general Alice S. Fisher of the criminal division and interim U.S. attorney Dan G. Knauss of the District of Arizona said that Jeffrey A. Kilbride, 41, of Venice, Calif., and James R. Schaffer, 41, of Paradise Valley, Ariz., had been sentenced to 72 months and 63 months in prison, respectively, for running an international pornographic spam ring that took in over $1 million. Kilbride received a longer sentence because the court found that he had obstructed justice by trying to deter a government witness from testifying in the case, according to the Department of Justice. Kilbride and Schaffer were fined $100,000, ordered to pay $77,500 to AOL, and will forfeit over $1.1 million in illegal proceeds from their spam operation. The Department of Justice claims the trial, which concluded in June, was the first to include obscenity charges under the Can-Spam Act. The Federal Trade Commission announced the first successful criminal prosecution under the Can-Spam Act on April 29, 2004. Kilbride and Schaffer began spamming in 2003, sending out millions of spam messages advertising hard-core porn sites. The messages contained graphic images that were visible to whomever opened the e-mail. Later in 2003, the two men began using servers in Amsterdam to make messages they were sending from Phoenix appear to be coming from outside the United States. On June 25, 2007, a federal jury in Phoenix convicted the two men of sending spam messages with forged headers and domain names, conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, and obscenity charges.

The science behind desire for chocolate

For the first time, scientists have linked the love of chocolate to a specific, chemical signature programmed into a person's metabolism, the chemical processes that take place in body, as measured by tests on blood and urine. Tests by Sunil Kochhar of the Nestlé Research Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland and Prof Jeremy Nicholson at Imperial College London show that this signature reads 'chocolate lover' in some people and indifference to the popular sweet in others, the researchers say today in the Journal of Proteome Research. Prof Nicholson is the founder of "metabonomics", where scientists hunt for subtle changes in metabolism - the complex web of thousands of chemical reactions that runs a body - caused by toxins, drugs or illness, such as heart disease. Many of these are influenced by gut bacteria, which play a central role in breaking down a food such as chocolate. In this case, the team studied 11 volunteers who classified themselves on a questionnaire as 'chocolate desiring' and 11 volunteers who were 'chocolate indifferent.' In a controlled clinical study, each subject - all men of normal weight - ate chocolate or placebo over a five day period while the make-up of chemicals in their blood and urine samples was analysed. The 'chocolate lovers' had a hallmark metabolic profile that involved low levels of LDL-cholesterol (so-called 'bad' cholesterol) and marginally elevated levels of albumin, a beneficial protein, the scientists say. The chocolate lovers showed this tell-tale chemical profile, a quite different pattern of fats, even when they ate no chocolate, the researchers note. The activity of the gut microbes in the chocolate lovers was also distinctively different from the other subjects, they add. "We found that we could easily distinguish the groups metabolically," said Prof Nicholson. "This is the first demonstration that a dietary preference has an imprinted effect on your metabolism and that might link to all sorts of long term health implications- interestingly the chocolate preferring people had a better gut microbial metabolite profile than the people that don't like chocs," said Prof Nicholson. "Chocolates are rich in antioxidant polyphenolics which are good for you (which themselves are microbially metabolised) and this could be part of the connection." An essential ingredient in chocolate is cocoa which is rich in flavonoids, the most active polyphenols, in particular, three members of the flavanol family, catechin, epicatechin and procyanidins. Cocoa beans and chocolate generally contain more of the active polyphenols than any other food. "It is known that by eating chocolate, catechin and epicatechin can reach the bloodstream where they can be transported around the body, helping to prevent oxidation so the body can stay healthier," said Kochhar. "Our study shows that food preferences, including chocolate, might be programmed or imprinted into our metabolic system in such a way that the body becomes attuned to a particular diet," says Kochhar. "We know that some people can eat a diet that is high in steak and carbs and generally remain healthy, while the same food in others is unhealthy," he explains. "Knowing one's metabolic profile could open-the-door to dietary or nutritional interventions that are customised to your type so that your metabolism can be nudged to a healthier status." Researchers have known for some time that the metabolic makeup and and food preferences can vary from person to person and even between different cultures. "There's a lot of information in metabolism that can be used to improve health and this information is just now being explored and tapped," the researcher says. Women were not included in the current study in order to avoid any metabolic variations linked to the menstrual cycle, which has been shown in studies by others to influence metabolic differences, Kochhar says. But the researchers plan to include women in future clinical trials on women who love the treat. In addition to providing a better understanding of individual metabolic types, the current study could also lead to the discovery of additional biomarkers that can identify new health benefits linked to chocolate and other foods, says Kochhar, whose research was funded by Nestlé.

Passenger Says ATA Harassed Him For iPhone Use

An ATA passenger says he was harassed by a flight attendant, and almost arrested by police, for using an iPhone to watch a movie while on a recent flight to Hawaii. The passenger, who was only identified by his first name Casey, got a scare from ATA flight attendants and the police. The iPhone has an "airplane mode" that disables cell phone, radio, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth signals, thus allowing you to watch movies... but that didn't stop flight attendants from creating a scene. "I recently was traveling to Hawaii on ATA airlines and took my iPhone along for the trip. During the first two hours of my five hour flight I was listening to music using the ipod function of my phone," Casey said, according to the website Consumerist.com. "The iPhone was sitting on my tray table in front of my seat, in plain sight. Then I decided to watch a movie. So I fired up the classic "I Know What You Did Last Summer", a movie I had never seen before. About one-and-a-half hours into this cinematic masterpiece I had a flight attendant try to get my attention. "I paused the movie and looked to see what the flight attendant wanted. He said something to the effect of "you can't use a cell phone in flight". OK, that makes sense, so I assured him that I had the phone in airplane mode and that all cell, wifi and Bluetooth was off. "He again said "you have to stop using it" I assured him that I had the phone in airplane mode and that all cell, wifi and Bluetooth was off. An additional flight attendant comes to talk to me and then she runs off and comes back with a HUGE book of FAA rules." "So we start our descent and I turn my iPhone off, because I follow REAL FAA rules," added Casey. "We land and there are police waiting for me, the flight attendant that started this whole thing. Then the police take me off the flight and to a waiting area. I explain everything that happened, they go and talk to the male flight attendant. I see him waving his arms and looking very angry and animated." After explaining the situation to the police, Casey was released. "The police officer looked confused, and said he would be right back. He talked to the guy again and then came back and said that the airplane is not shielded for ONLY phones in airplane mode. The police sorta laughed and said wait one second, they went and talked to him, he got really upset and left. Then they came back to me and said I was free to go." "I have never been harassed by someone so much as that flight attendant. He was very rude to me the whole flight, lied about FAA rules, and changed his story to police three times. I took a Southwest flight later in the week, they have it clearly written in the in-flight magazine that airplane mode is fine over 10,000 feet."

Teenager claims to have easy iPod Touch jailbreak

A 13-year-old hacker claims to have developed code that would let you put third-party applications on an iPod Touch without having to take a computer science class. AriX sent us a press release Sunday promoting iJailbreak, an automated program that allows third-party applications to run on the iPod Touch. It doesn't work for the iPhone, and it's only available for iPod Touch owners who are using Intel-based Macs. I don't have an iPod Touch at my disposal right now, so I'm unable to test whether it actually works, but some users on MacRumors.com reported that it worked. Ever since Apple released the 1.1.1 software update for both the iPhone and the iPod Touch in late September that broke older third-party application installers, hackers have been hard at work searching for a new way to bypass the restrictions. A preliminary jailbreaking application was released last week, but it required a great deal of expertise to get up and running. Erica Sadun, a writer for The Unofficial Apple Weblog, installed that iPod Touch jailbreak Friday evening but warned, "This is not ready for prime time, kids. Don't do this at home." The iJailbreak program, however, is apparently designed for those who would like to put other applications on their iPod Touch but aren't crack coders. According to the press release, "the only user interaction required for iJailBreak to work is to restart the iPod Touch using the button on the top of the iPod. The application does the rest." AriX said he spent about nine hours writing a program in AppleScript that automatically does the scripting required to install the update released last week. He said there's a slight risk that the program could "brick" your iPod Touch, but it's pretty easy to restore an iPod Touch to the factory settings if something goes wrong. As we noted last week, we don't link to these kinds of programs, but it's called iJailBreak. That's iJailBreak. One more time, in case you missed it, iJailBreak.