Samsung Galaxy Muse is like an iPod Shuffle that Syncs with Your Phone

In perhaps the most awkwardly titled tech press release ever, Samsung Mobile announced the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy Muse, a device which appears to have nothing to do with "CORRECTING and REPLACING and ADDING MULTIMEDIA" but everything to do with being a music player crossed with a smartphone accessory.
​Say goodbye to iTunes?
While most handheld music players (and smartphone or tablets with music apps) sync with a PC or Mac music app, like iTunes or Banshee, the Samsung Galaxy Muse syncs with your Android phone itself. It uses the Muse Sync app, which Google Play says will install on devices like the Nexus 7 tablet but which Samsung says will only work with the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II smartphones.
​Plug it in, turn it on
The pebble-shaped Muse connects to your Samsung phone via its headset jack. It doesn't have a screen, so you have to control it iPod Shuffle style, and use the Muse Sync app to see how much of its 4 GB of space are free and decide which playlists to sync. Since it only has those 4 GB, it can only hold a fraction of the music that can be put on the much more powerful smartphones.
​Who is Samsung selling the Galaxy Muse to?
Samsung says "users can sync the songs they want and leave their phone behind," the usefulness of which may depend on whether or not you feel limited by having to bring your smartphone with you. The press release mentions its "wearable design and small form factor," and suggests taking it "in place of [your] smartphone ... at the gym or on the go."
​What other gadgets are like the Galaxy Muse?
The most obvious comparison is to the iPod Shuffle, Apple's similarly tiny and screen-less portable music player. At $49, it costs the same as the Galaxy Muse (although a Droid-Life tipster found a $25 off coupon code for the Muse), but comes in seven different colors and has an embossed click-wheel controller instead of a flat and featureless surface. It requires you to use iTunes on a desktop PC or Mac, though.

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Facebook, Google tell the government to stop granting patents for abstract ideas

Facebook (FB), Google (GOOG) and six other tech companies have petitioned the courts to begin rejecting lawsuits that are based on patents for vague concepts rather than specific applications, TechCrunch reported. The agreement, which was cosigned by Zynga (ZNGA), Dell (DELL), Intuit (INTU), Homeaway (AWAY), Rackspace (RAX), and Red Hat (RHT), notes the only thing these abstract patents do is increase legal fees and slow innovation in the industry. The companies claim that “abstract patents are a plague in the high tech sector” and force innovators into litigation that results in huge settlements or steep licensing fees for technology they have already developed on their own, which then leads to higher prices for consumers.
“Many computer-related patent claims just describe an abstract idea at a high level of generality and say to perform it on a computer or over the Internet,” the briefing reads. “Such barebones claims grant exclusive rights over the abstract idea itself, with no limit on how the idea is implemented. Granting patent protection for such claims would impair, not promote, innovation by conferring exclusive rights on those who have not meaningfully innovated, and thereby penalizing those that do later innovate by blocking or taxing their applications of the abstract idea.”
The companies conclude, “It is easy to think of abstract ideas about what a computer or website should do, but the difficult, valuable, and often groundbreaking part of online innovation comes next: designing, analyzing, building, and deploying the interface, software, and hardware to implement that idea in a way that is useful in daily life. Simply put, ideas are much easier to come by than working implementations.”

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Verizon Offering $5 Shared 4G Plan for Samsung Galaxy Camera

Imagine the powerful Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone, except that it can't make phone calls and its backplate has been replaced by a digital camera -- handgrip, zoom lens, and all. That's basically the Samsung Galaxy Camera in a nutshell, and whether it's a small, awkwardly-shaped Android tablet or a digital camera that you can play Modern Combat 3 on depends on how you look at it.
When the Galaxy Camera launched last month, it was only available in white, and cost $499 on AT&T's network with a month-to-month data plan. But on Dec. 13, it launches on Verizon's network, in both white and black. The Verizon Galaxy Camera costs $50 more up front, but in return it has 4G LTE instead of HSPA+, and Verizon is offering a "promotional price" for the monthly charge: Only $5 to add it to a Share Everything plan, instead of the usual $10 tablet rate.
A 4G digital camera
While it's capable of functioning as an Android tablet (or game machine), the biggest reason for the Samsung Galaxy Camera's 4G wireless Internet is so it can automatically upload photos it takes. Apps such as Dropbox, Photobucket, and Ubuntu One offer a limited amount of online storage space for free, where the Galaxy Camera can save photos without anyone needing to tell it to. Those photos can then be accessed at home, or on a tablet or laptop.
Most smartphones are able to do this already, but few (with the possible exception of the Windows Phone powered Nokia Lumia 920) are able to take photos as high-quality as the Galaxy Camera's.
Not as good of a deal as it sounds
Dropbox is offering two years' worth of 50 GB of free online storage space for photos and videos, to anyone who buys a Samsung Galaxy Camera from AT&T or Verizon. (The regular free plan is only 2 GB.)
The problem is, you may need that much space. The photos taken by the Galaxy Camera's 16 megapixel sensor take up a lot more space, at maximum resolution, than ordinary smartphone snapshots do. Those camera uploads can eat through a shared data plan, and with Verizon charging a $15 per GB overage fee (plus the $50 extra up-front on top of what AT&T charges) it may make up for the cheaper monthly cost.
On top of that, the Galaxy Camera's photos are basically on par with a $199 digital camera's -- you pay a large premium to combine that kind of point-and-shoot with the hardware equivalent of a high-end smartphone.
It does run Android, though, right?
The Galaxy Camera uses Samsung's custom software for its camera app, and lacks a normal phone dialer app. Beyond that, though, it runs the same Android operating system found on smartphones, and can run all the same games and apps.
Some apps don't work the same on the Galaxy Camera as they do on a smartphone, however. Apps which only run in portrait mode, for instance, require you to hold the camera sideways to use them (especially unpleasant when they're camera apps). And while it can make voice and even video calls over Skype, it lacks a rear-facing camera or the kind of speaker you hold up close to your ear. So you may end up making speakerphone calls and filming the palm of your hand.

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Selling flak jackets in the cyberwars

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When the Israeli army and Hamas trade virtual blows in cyberspace, or when hacker groups like Anonymous rise from the digital ether, or when WikiLeaks dumps a trove of classified documents, some see a lawless Internet.
But Matthew Prince, chief executive at CloudFlare, a little-known Internet start-up that serves some of the Web's most controversial characters, sees a business opportunity.
Founded in 2010, CloudFlare markets itself as an Internet intermediary that shields websites from distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks, the crude but effective weapon that hackers use to bludgeon websites until they go dark. The 40-person company claims to route up to 5 percent of all Internet traffic through its global network.
Prince calls his company the "Switzerland" of cyberspace - assiduously neutral and open to all comers. But just as companies like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have faced profound questions about the balance between free speech and openness on the Internet and national security and law enforcement concerns, CloudFlare's business has posed another thorny question: what kinds of services, if any, should an American company be allowed to offer designated terrorists and cyber criminals?
CloudFlare's unusual position at the heart of this debate came to the fore last month, when the Israel Defense Forces sought help from CloudFlare after its website was struck by attackers based in Gaza. The IDF was turning to the same company that provides those services to Hamas and the al-Quds Brigades, according to publicly searchable domain information. Both Hamas and al-Quds, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are designated by the United States as terrorist groups.
Under the USA Patriot Act, U.S. firms are forbidden from providing "material support" to groups deemed foreign terrorist organizations. But what constitutes material support - like many other facets of the law itself - has been subject to intense debate.
CloudFlare's dealings have attracted heated criticism in the blogosphere from both Israelis and Palestinians, but Prince defended his company as a champion of free speech.
"Both sides have an absolute right to tell their story," said Prince, a 38-year old former lawyer. "We're not providing material support for anybody. We're not sending money, or helping people arm themselves."
Prince noted that his company only provides defensive capabilities that enable websites to stay online.
"We can't be sitting in a role where we decide what is good or what is bad based on our own personal biases," he said. "That's a huge slippery slope."
Many U.S. agencies are customers, but so is WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing organization. CloudFlare has consulted for many Wall Street institutions, yet also protects Anonymous, the "hacktivist" group associated with the Occupy movement.
Prince's stance could be tested at a time when some lawmakers in the United States and Europe, armed with evidence that militant groups rely on the Web for critical operations and recruitment purposes, have pressured Internet companies to censor content or cut off customers.
Last month, conservative political lobbies, as well as seven lawmakers led by Ted Poe, a Republican from Texas, urged the FBI to shut down the Hamas Twitter account. The account remains active; Twitter declined to comment.
MATERIAL SUPPORT
Although it has never prosecuted an Internet company under the Patriot Act, the government's use of the material support argument has steadily risen since 2006. Since September 11, 2001, more than 260 cases have been charged under the provision, according to Fordham Law School's Terrorism Trends database.
Catherine Lotrionte, the director of Georgetown University's Institute for Law, Science and Global Security and a former Central Intelligence Agency lawyer, argued that Internet companies should be more closely regulated.
"Material support includes web services," Lotrionte said. "Denying them services makes it more costly for the terrorists. You're cornering them."
But others have warned that an aggressive government approach would have a chilling effect on free speech.
"We're resurrecting the kind of broad-brush approaches we used in the McCarthy era," said David Cole, who represented the Humanitarian Law Project, a non-profit organization that was charged by the Justice Department for teaching law to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is designated by the United States as a terrorist group. The group took its case to the Supreme Court but lost in 2010.
The material support law is vague and ill-crafted, to the point where basic telecom providers, for instance, could be found guilty by association if a terrorist logs onto the Web to plot an attack, Cole said.
In that case, he asked, "Do we really think that AT&T or Google should be held accountable?"
CloudFlare said it has not been contacted about its services by the U.S. government. Spokespeople for Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, told Reuters they contracted a cyber-security company in Gaza that out-sources work to foreign companies, but declined to comment further. The IDF confirmed it had hired CloudFlare, but declined to discuss "internal security" matters.
CloudFlare offers many of its services for free, but the company says websites seeking advanced protection and features can see their bill rise to more than $3,000 a month. Prince declined to discuss the business arrangements with specific customers.
While not yet profitable, CloudFlare has more than doubled its revenue in the past four months, according to Prince, and is picking up 3,000 new customers a day. The company has raked in more than $22 million from venture capital firms including New Enterprise Associates, Venrock and Pelion Venture Partners.
Prince, a Midwestern native with mussed brown hair who holds a law degree from the University of Chicago, said he has a track record of working on the right side of the law.
A decade ago, Prince provided free legal aid to Spamhaus, an international group that tracked email spammers and identity thieves. He went on to create Project Honey Pot, an open source spam-tracking endeavor that turned over findings to police.
Prince's latest company, CloudFlare, has been hailed by groups such as the Committee to Protect Journalists for protecting speech. Another client, the World Economic Forum, named CloudFlare among its 2012 "technology pioneers" for its work. But it also owes its profile to its most controversial customers.
CloudFlare has served 4Chan, the online messaging community that spawned Anonymous. LulzSec, the hacker group best known for targeting Sony Corp, is another customer. And since last May, the company has propped up WikiLeaks after a vigilante hacker group crashed the document repository.
Last year, members of the hacker collective UgNazi, whose exploits include pilfering user account information from eBay and crashing the CIA.gov website, broke into Prince's cell phone and email accounts.
"It was a personal affront," Prince said. "But we never kicked them off either."
Prince said CloudFlare would comply with a valid court order to remove a customer, but that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has never requested a takedown. The company has agreed to turn over information to authorities on "exceedingly rare" occasions, he acknowledged, declining to elaborate.
"Any company that doesn't do that won't be in business long," Prince said. But in an email, he added: "We have a deep and abiding respect for our users' privacy, disclose to our users whenever possible if we are ordered to turn over information and would fight an order that we believed was not proper."
Juliannne Sohn, an FBI spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who prosecuted computer crimes, said U.S. law enforcement agencies may in fact prefer that the Web's most wanted are parked behind CloudFlare rather than a foreign service over which they have no jurisdiction.
Federal investigators "want to gather information from as many sources as they can, and they're happy to get it," Sussmann said.
In an era of rampant cyber warfare, Prince acknowledged he is something of a war profiteer, but with a wrinkle.
"We're not selling bullets," he said. "We're selling flak jackets."

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The fiscal cliff: Calculate how much it will cost you

There's still no deal to prevent the double-whammy of harsh tax hikes and spending cuts kicking in on Jan. 1. Who will feel the most pain if we take the plunge?
After several days of apparent progress, negotiations on a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff stalled on Wednesday. House Speaker John Boehner, the lead negotiator for Republicans, is vowing to hold a vote on his own plan to raise taxes on people earning over $1 million a year, sparing most Americans from the loss of Bush-era tax hikes but leaving in place deep, potentially damaging automatic spending cuts due to hit at year's end. President Obama has threatened to veto Boehner's bill, known as Plan B, although it appears dead-on-arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Obama said the GOP was refusing to strike a compromise due to a grudge against him, and he challenged Republicans to "peel off the war paint" and make a deal on a 10-year, $2 trillion deficit-cutting agreement to avoid the cliff. Each day without an agreement, though, increases the chance that the fiscal cliff will actually hit. Economists have warned that could trigger another recession. How would going over the cliff affect ordinary Americans? Here, a brief guide:
Would the fiscal cliff cause instant calamity?
Many people might panic right away if Jan. 1 arrives without a deal, but the real impact of the fiscal cliff will occur gradually as $600 billion in automatic tax hikes and spending cuts (mostly to defense and domestic spending programs) start kicking in. But the money won't be sucked immediately out of the economy. It will happen over the course of the year, although we'll all feel the pinch right away.
SEE MORE: America already drove over a fiscal cliff
Where will we notice?
The first place most people will feel the pain is when they receive their first 2013 pay stub. Without a deal, the temporary reduction in the Social Security deduction — from 6.2 percent of pay to 4.2 percent — that was part of the economic stimulus package, will expire. The payroll tax will return to normal, and that extra 2 percent (of income up to $82,000) will go into the Social Security system, instead of your pocket. That will add up to $1,640 per taxpayer over the course of the year.
What about income taxes?
There, too, everyone will notice, although not everyone will suffer equally. The temporary tax cuts that then-president George W. Bush signed into law in 2001 and 2003 are set to expire for people at all income levels on Jan. 1. For married couples filing jointly, the rate will jump from 10 percent to 15 percent on the first $17,800 of adjusted gross income, it will remain at 15 percent on income from $17,800 to $60,350, and it will rise from 15 percent to 28 percent on income from $60,350 to $72,300. The taxes on a family making $80,000 will rise from 25 percent to 28 percent. Also, the standard deduction for married couples will fall from $12,100 to $10,150, and the child tax credit will fall from a maximum of $1,000 per kid to $500.
SEE MORE: Could Obama sidestep a debt-ceiling showdown by minting $1 trillion coins?
How much will that cost the average person?
It depends on how much he or she makes. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that if all of the scheduled tax increases are imposed, the average household will pay an extra $3,400 next year. The lowest fifth of households, with $11,239 in income, will pay an extra $412. The middle fifth, with an average income of $49,842, will pay $1,984 more. The second highest fifth (average income $80,080) will pay $3,540 more. The highest fifth (average income of $178,020) will pay an extra $14,173. The top 1 percent of taxpayers, those making $1.3 million on average, will see their tax bills rise by $120,537. That means that, in dollar terms, the super wealthy will pay the most, but those closer to the middle — say, couples making $80,000 — will lose the biggest chunk of their income.
So that's how much more we'll pay if there's no deal?
Not necessarily. Even if there's no deal to avoid every element of the fiscal cliff, there's a chance Congress will pass some form of a deal to ease the pain, at least for some of us. Boehner's bill would preserve the Bush-era tax cuts for almost everybody. Obama's proposal would keep those lower tax rates in effect for households making under $250,000 (which is still almost everybody). It's confusing, but there are plenty of online calculators available to help you estimate what you'll pay under all of the most likely scenarios (under Boehner's plan, under the Democrats' plan, if we simply go flying off the cliff). A single person earning $50,000, for example, would pay $10,313 in federal taxes (21 percent) if we went over the cliff, $9,753 under the GOP plan (20 percent tax rate), or $8,753 under Obama's plan (18 percent effective rate). Policy wonks say it's a good idea to take the calculators for a spin. "Some but not all of these tax hikes are still likely to go into effect as part of any deal to fix the nation's giant budget deficit," says Ian Salisbury at SmartMoney. "But just which ones is anybody's guess."

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Why more NFL teams should start rookie QBs

Why more NFL teams should start rookie QBs
Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, and Russell Wilson are on the verge of making playoff history
If the NFL playoffs started today, a record three rookie quarterbacks would be leading their teams into the postseason. With two weeks left to play, Indianapolis' Andrew Luck, Washington's Robert Griffin III, and Seattle's Russell Wilson all have their teams roaring toward unexpected postseason berths.
This is no fluke. It's a reflection of the new approach teams have begun to take with their freshman play-callers.
Teams used to insist that rookie quarterbacks weren't ready to lead a team to victory. When the Cincinnati Bengals selected Carson Palmer with the first overall pick in the 2003 draft, they hailed him as their new franchise player. Yet the following season, Palmer never once left the sidelines. The Bengals benched their prized rookie for the entire year, thinking he would develop faster by first watching a veteran quarterback. This was hardly unusual. Teams had long believed that rookies should be nurtured and eased into the pros. If you threw them right into the deep end, went the conventional wisdom, they would surely sink.
Michael Vick, the first overall pick in 2001, started just two games his rookie year. Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Phillip Rivers, and Aaron Rodgers — all highly-touted first round picks — began their careers as spectators, too.
In recent years, however, teams have been more adventurous with their new talent. In turn, more and more rookies have proven the old watch-and-learn system wrong.
Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh surprised everyone by naming rookie Joe Flacco his starting quarterback prior to the 2008 season. Flacco promptly led the Ravens to the AFC championship game, falling one win shy of the Super Bowl. That same year, fellow freshman QB Matt Ryan started every game for the Atlanta Falcons and took his team to the playoffs.
Mark Sanchez followed suit in 2009 with the New York Jets, driving his team to the AFC title game. And last year, Cincinnati's Andy Dalton and Houston's T.J Yates became the first rookie quarterbacks to face each other in a playoff game.
Since the AFL and NFL merged in 1970, just 11 freshman quarterbacks have started a playoff game; six have done so since 2004.
Even QBs whose teams failed to make the postseason have turned in sparkling rookie seasons in recent years. In 2010, Sam Bradford brought the St. Louis Rams, fresh off a one-win season, to the brink of the playoffs. And last year, number one pick Cam Newton obliterated a slew of rookie passing records.
In no season has this new phenomenon been more prominent than the current one. Five rookie quarterbacks started on opening day this year. Never before had more than two rookie quarterbacks done so.

This year's rookies aren't flailing away either. Leading the pack is Griffin, whose 104.2 passer rating — a composite measure of key passing statistics like completions, passing yards, and touchdowns — ranks second in the NFL behind only Rodgers, last year's league MVP. If Griffin keeps up the pace, he would destroy the record for the highest rookie passer rating ever. On top of that, his 6.7 rushing yards per attempt leads the league — not just among quarterbacks, but among all players.
By Total Quarterback Rating — a more nuanced version of passer rating created by ESPN — the big three rookie passers (Luck, Griffin, and Wilson) all rank in the top 11 league-wide. And even lesser-name rookies are enjoying relative success. Ryan Tannehill is turning in a respectable season for the struggling Miami Dolphins. And with Griffin out last week due to injury, rookie teammate Kirk Cousins picked up the win, throwing for 329 yards and two touchdowns.
Perhaps the driving factor behind this surge of rookie success is that college football has transformed in recent years to more closely resemble the pro game. College coaches have placed an increased emphasis on passing, and have adopted more and more NFL-style formations and plays — in some cases, college teams have even developed new tactics later appropriated their pro counterparts. As a result, college passers now enter the league with a built-in knowledge of the playing style, allowing them to more seamlessly transition between the two levels.

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Gun Violence -- Let's Shift the Odds in Favor of the Good Guys!

The unimaginable horror of Sandy Hook jumpstarts another "national conversation" about firearm violence. President Barack Obama, promising "meaningful action," said: "We will have to change. ... We can't tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end."
Let's examine four of the "commonsense" measures frequently proposed by "gun control advocates":
One, closing the "gun show loophole." What gun show loophole? Restricted from selling at guns shows prior to 1986, a licensed dealer today requires a background check whether he sells guns at a store, a gun show or the back of his SUV.
Two, banning "high-capacity" magazines. One of the firearms used by Adam Lanza was a Bushmaster .223, with a magazine that can carry as many as 30 rounds. Would there have been less carnage had he been limited to a firearm with low-capacity magazines? What is the appropriate amount of firepower? Clips with 10 rounds? Five rounds? If the idea is to reduce the lethality of the guns, what does this do to reduce the lethality of the shooter's intent?
The deadliest school massacre on American soil appears to have occurred in Chicago in 1958. A student set fire to the school, killing 92 students and three nuns. And in 1927, in Michigan, a former member of the school board set bombs at three schools, killing 45 (mostly second- to sixth-graders), including the bomber.
The Columbine tragedy could have been worse. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold set bombs throughout the school, but only one partially detonated, doing little damage. But had the bombs gone off as intended, hundreds could have been killed.
Three, reinstating the so-called "assault weapons" ban. An "assault rifle" is one where puling the trigger unleashes a volley of bullets, like a Tommy gun or AK-47. Since 1934, these firearms require licensing and registration. And in 1986, these weapons were banned from civilian sale. These laws remain in effect. The "assault weapons" ban did not restrict fully automatic weapons. Again, they were already under strict guidelines.
What exactly did this ban do? It outlawed certain weapons based on cosmetic features, many of which have nothing to do with the firepower or lethality. For example, the ban defined as an "assault weapon" a firearm with three or more of the following features: a folding or telescoping stock; a pistol grip; a bayonet mount; a flash suppressor; a muzzle capable of launching a grenade; and a magazine capacity over 10 rounds. It outlawed the manufacturing of 18 specific models of semi-automatic weapons.
The Bushmaster .223 was not one of the outlawed weapons.
The ban, enacted in 1994, expired 10 years later. What has been the result? Nothing. Crime was unaffected. The reason is simple. Assault-style rifles (the kind banned by the law) are rarely used in crime. Less than 1 percent of weapons used in crimes are fully automatic rifles (illegal to buy for nearly 30 years). An estimated 1 to 2 percent of firearms used in crime are assault-style rifles, like the one used in Newtown.
Four, requiring a mental health test to prevent the "mentally ill" from purchasing a firearm. The goal is to predict who will use a firearm in an unlawful way. But how to define mental illness? Is it depression? Abraham Lincoln supposedly suffered from depression or melancholia. Would the 16th president be denied the right to purchase a firearm? Do you forbid someone from purchasing a firearm if he or she is in therapy? Should a psychiatrist be required to inform the police when a client expresses anger, hatred or feelings of revenge?
Apart from the Second Amendment, how many other amendments to the Constitution will have been violated by denying someone the right to purchase a firearm because he is predicted to use the gun illegally — based on a psych test.
So what can be done?
We can harden the target to make it more likely that the shooter will encounter resistance. We can re-examine the soundness of "gun-free" zones like schools and malls. By law and policy, these are places where bad guys know there are no guns.
Rampage school shootings in Pearl, Miss., Edinboro, Pa., and in Grundy, Va., have been stopped or minimized by citizens with legal weapons. More recently, it appears that a concealed-carry weapon (CCW) holder minimized the damage that a shooter sought to inflict at the Clackamas Mall near Portland, Ore.
Nick Meli, who has a CCW permit and was armed, positioned himself near the mall shooter. Meli did not shoot, but feels he stopped what could have been greater carnage: "I'm not beating myself up 'cause I didn't shoot him. I know after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself."
Americans, according to criminologist Gary Kleck, use guns 2.5 million times each year for self-defense, usually just brandishing the weapon. (The attacker is wounded in less than 8 percent of self-defense cases.) Of the 2.5 million, 400,000 claim that but for their gun they would have been dead. If we're serious about "doing something," we might consider shifting the odds in favor of the good guys.

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Why are flags flown at half-staff in times of mourning?

Flying a flag at half-mast has become a well-recognized symbol of national grieving, but where did this tradition originate?

How did the tradition of flying the flag at half-staff get started?
It's tough to say, but the oldest commonly accepted reference to a half-staff flag dates back to 1612, when the captain of the British ship Heart's Ease died on a journey to Canada. When the ship returned to London, it was flying its flag at half-mast to honor the departed captain.
SEE ALSO: 5 gun-rights advocates who changed their minds after Sandy Hook
Why would these sailors lower their flag to honor their departed captain?
According to one line of scholarly thinking, by lowering the Union Jack, the sailors were making room for the invisible flag of Death. This explanation jibes with the British tradition of flying a "half-staff" flag exactly one flag's width lower than its normal position to underscore that Death's flag is flapping above it.
How long is the flag flown at half-staff in the United States?
It depends on whom the nation is mourning. Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 7 of the United States Code outlines strict guidelines for how long the flag is flown at half-staff following the deaths of various members of the government. The death of a current or former president lowers the flag for 30 days, while the current vice president, chief justice of the Supreme Court, and Speaker of the House receive 10 days of half-staff flying following their deaths. Flags fly at half-staff from the day of death until the date of interment for cabinet secretaries, associate justices of the Supreme Court, former vice presidents, and the governors of states. The death of a current member of Congress lowers the flag to half-staff on the day of death and following day.
SEE ALSO: Why are there so few female mass murderers?
Does the president have any leeway when he's making these orders?
Yes. The president can make an executive order lowering the flag to half-mast to honor the passing of other important figures or tragic events. For example, President George W. Bush ordered the flags flown at half-staff until the interment of Pope John Paul II. With national tragedies, the length of time seems to be a bit more arbitrary. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush ordered the flag be flown at half-staff until September 16, 2001. The Indian Ocean earthquake and resulting tsunamis in 2004 prompted flags to be flown at half-staff from a Monday through the end of the following Friday.
What days is the flag always flown at half-staff?
The flag always flies on half-staff on Patriot Day (Sept. 11 of each year), Peace Officers Memorial Day (May 15), and Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (Dec. 7). On Memorial Day, the flag flies at half-staff until noon, at which point it is raised to the top of the staff.
SEE ALSO: Remembering Daniel Inouye: A quietly heroic life in politics
What if I can't fly my flag at half-staff?
Some flags, like the ones commonly seen in school classrooms or on houses, are fixed in a certain position on their poles. How does one handle the sticky situation of a flag that physically can't be flown at half-staff? The United States Code doesn't cover this conundrum, but the American Legion advocates adding a black ribbon to the top of the flag's pole to indicate mourning.
Can anyone other than the president order flags to be flown at half-staff?
Sure. Governors of states, territories, and possessions have the authority under the federal flag code to order a half-staffing, as does the mayor of Washington, D.C. It's not uncommon for a local mayor to order a half-staffing following the death of some prominent citizen, and occasionally businesses will half-staff their flags to honor the passing of a member of the company. Technically, these sorts of half-staffings aren't covered by the federal flag code. There's no penalty for breaking the federal flag code, though, so it's generally no big deal if a local leader wants to honor a prominent citizen in this way.
SEE ALSO: Big Brother's bird's-eye view
How does one raise a flag to half-staff?
Surprisingly, not just by raising it halfway up the flagpole. To properly fly a flag at half-staff in mourning, one quickly raises the flag to the peak of the pole before slowly lowering it back down to the half-staff position.

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The Newtown school massacre and America's gun obsession: By the numbers

The tragedy set off a surge in support for new gun control laws... and a buying frenzy in gun stores
In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, in which 20 children and six adults were killed, President Obama is vowing to make gun control a priority in his second term. He promised to set up a task force and send Congress proposals on new restrictions in January, setting in motion what could be a bitter debate with Republicans, who oppose new restrictions on sales of guns and ammunition. The prospect of new gun laws (in a country with 270 million privately owned firearms) delighted some, and sent others rushing to sporting goods stores to buy weapons in case future restrictions make them harder to get. Here, a look at how the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., has affected America's obsession with guns:
5
States in which Walmart stores have sold out of five types of semi-automatic rifles like the one police say Adam Lanza used in the Sandy Hook killings, according to a Bloomberg News search on the company's website. The states where the weapons are out of stock include Pennsylvania, Kansas, and Alabama.
SEE MORE: Ronald Reagan would demand more gun control
$30,000
Sales at Pullman Arms in Worcester, Mass., on the Monday after the Newtown killings, up from $2,000 on a typical Monday. Most of the guns people bought were assault rifles, or ARs, like the Bushmaster rifle police say Lanza, who killed himself at the school as police arrived, used. "People want ARs because people are afraid there will be a ban on assault weapons," says Pullman Arms co-owner Alicia Merritt.
4,154
Record number of background checks submitted for gun purchases in Colorado on Saturday, the day after the Newtown massacre. The previous one-day record in the state, 4,028, was set on Black Friday of this year.
SEE MORE: Why states should take the lead in reforming gun laws
2,383
Background check requests made in Nevada from Friday through Sunday, another record, according to the Nevada Department of Public Safety. The previous weekend record in the state (2,315) was set over Black Friday weekend, which is typically the annual peak.
114,000
Background checks requested in Nevada this year, as of Dec. 16
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104,288
Background checks requested in Nevada as of the same date last year
154,873
Applications for would-be gun buyers submitted to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) on Black Friday this year, the most in a single day since the system's inception in 1998 and a 20 percent increase over the number submitted on Black Friday 2011
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2
Number of times the NICS shut down on Black Friday this year due to system overload. One shutdown lasted 18 minutes, the other 14 minutes.
16.4 million
Background checks run nationwide in 2011, according to the FBI
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194,814
Signatures on a petition at Whitehouse.gov (as of early morning on Dec. 20) demanding the introduction of new gun-control legislation
8,000
New members the National Rifle Association, the nation's leading gun-rights advocacy group, says it has signed up daily since the Connecticut shootings
SEE MORE: The media should be ashamed of its Connecticut coverage
200
Percentage increase in prices on the eBay auction website for ammunition for Glock handguns (another type of weapon Lanza reportedly carried). The running bid for four Glock magazines rose to $118.37, compared to $45 on the day before the shooting. The bid in an auction for seven Glock magazines hit $201 on Dec. 17, up from $71.01 before the massacre.
200
Percentage increase in reported sales of armored backpacks for children since the Newtown shooting rampage. The backpacks, with bulletproof-plate inserts, cost up to $400. Kerry Clark, president of Texas-based Backpackshield.com, sold 15 of the backpacks on Wednesday. He first started making them following the Virginia Tech mass shooting in 2007, and in a typical month, he sometimes sells just one. "It's the busiest I've seen it in my life," he said.

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