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Comment Perhaps using HTTP referrers? (Score 1) 297

by TrixX (#27148115) Attached to: How To Keep a Web Site Local?

It is hard to think a good solution without knowing what you mean by "locals" (is there a simple offline way to get them a passphrase?), what kind of users you have (will they be thrown off from the site if they have to login?), etc.

Anyway, something that might work and can be used together with other filtering methods mention by other people here is filtering by HTTP referrer field.

This is assumming that your users have alternate ("local") ways of getting the URL of your site, and you don't mind being a bit detached from the rest of the web (apparently, you don't). So what you do, is filter every HTTP request where the referrer field is not empty or inside your site. This will essentially stop people from following links from other sites (google, blogs, whatever) into your site. You will be able to enter your site only by entering your URL (like knowing the BBS phone number), and then following internal links. Of course, this is not "secure" (for someone who knows http, it is not very hard to enter directly once they realize how the filter works), but I think it will stop a lot of "casual bypassers".

Btw, if you avoid being in google (robots.txt covering your whole site) you will avoid a lot of visitors already.
Communications

Presidential Inauguration Hardware and Other Challenges 176

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the big-spend-for-one-off dept.
holy_calamity writes "The FBI has released images of some of the kit that will be deployed to safeguard Obama's inauguration, including mine-proof armored trucks like those used in Iraq to protect against IEDs, and a large armored chamber that any bombs will be shoved inside to be transported away and perhaps detonated inside. Interesting, even though the really good stuff is presumably being kept under wraps." Relatedly, necro81 writes "The Inauguration of Barack Obama tomorrow is expected to put considerable stress on the cellphone network around Washington, DC. The expected crowd could top two million people, and many of them are expected to call, text, tweet, photo, and blog their way through the event. In response, the major wireless carriers in the area have spent millions of dollars upgrading their local networks and will bring in extra 'cells on wheels' (COWs) and 'cells on light trucks' (COLTs). They are also requesting that attendees limit their usage during the event, and avoid bandwidth-heavy activities — like uploading photos — until afterward."

Comment The main problem is not paradign (Score 1) 592

by TrixX (#26057235) Attached to: Best Paradigm For a First Programming Course?

I recommend you to read this study about CS education... it mentions that even if you can try changing paradigms, techniques, tools, there is a single factor that students bring on already when starting the course which has more impact on their results than any other change.

I am not saying that every paradigm is the same, only that you're not starting "optimization" of the course at the most relevant problem.
Government

Anti-Matter Created By Laser At Livermore 465

Posted by kdawson from the billions-and-billiions dept.
zootropole alerts us to a press release issued today by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, announcing the production of 'billions of particles of anti-matter.' "Take a gold sample the size of the head of a push pin, shoot a laser through it, and suddenly more than 100 billion particles of anti-matter appear. The anti-matter, also known as positrons, shoots out of the target in a cone-shaped plasma 'jet.' This new ability to create a large number of positrons in a small laboratory opens the door to several fresh avenues of anti-matter research, including an understanding of the physics underlying various astrophysical phenomena such as black holes and gamma ray bursts." The press release doesn't characterize the laser used in this experiment, but it may have been this one.
Input Devices

Good Cross-Platform Speech-Recognition Programs? 175

Posted by timothy from the get-back-in-your-hood-worm dept.
CryoStasis writes "I am a graduate student getting my degree in biomedical sciences. Because my work often requires me to maintain a local sterile environment (under a biological hood) I find that I am unable to physically touch my computer, which sits beside me, in order to open my notes, protocols, etc. while I'm working. As a result, I have begun to search for a voice-recognition program that will allow me to tell the computer what files/programs to launch. I know that the general field of voice recognition has come a long way, but I find that the built-in speech recognition systems in both OS X and Vista are clunky and difficult to use. Are there any good, cross-platform speech-recognition programs available that might fit the bill?"

Comment Doing it from scratch has other dangers... (Score 1) 429

by TrixX (#25635565) Attached to: Reuse Code Or Code It Yourself?

Sometimes you feel that working from scratch "would have been better". But you might be missing lot of details you have taken for granted or even never knew they were there, and you will have to face them.

There is a great article from Joel related to this... he actually speaks about saying "this sucks, let's rewrite it" so it's not exactly the same, but the points have a lot in common with your case. I recommend you to take a look at it.
Medicine

Scientists Erase Specific Memories In Mice 320

Posted by samzenpus from the where's-the-cheese dept.
Ostracus writes "It sounds like science fiction, but scientists say it might one day be possible to erase undesirable memories from the brain, selectively and safely. After exposing mice to emotionally powerful stimuli, such as a mild shock to their paws, the scientists then observed how well or poorly the animals subsequently recalled the particular trauma as their brain's expression of CaMKII was manipulated up and down. When the brain was made to overproduce CaMKII at the exact moment the mouse was prodded to retrieve the traumatic memory, the memory wasn't just blocked, it appeared to be fully erased."
Education

How US Schools' Culture Stifles Math Achievement 888

Posted by timothy from the expensive-gubmint-babysitting-castles dept.
Zarf writes "I'd like to file a bug report on the US educational system. The New York Times reports on a recent study that shows the US fails to encourage academic talent as a culture.'"There is something about the culture in American society today which doesn't really seem to encourage men or women in mathematics," said Michael Sipser, the head of M.I.T.'s math department. "Sports achievement gets lots of coverage in the media. Academic achievement gets almost none."' While we've suspected that the US might be falling behind academically, this study shows that it is actually due to cultural factors that are devaluing the success of our students. I suspect there's a flaw in the US cultural system that prevents achievement on the academic front from being perceived as valuable. Could anyone suggest a patch for this bug or is this cause for a rewrite?"
Math

Tying Knots With Light 125

Posted by Soulskill from the knot-easy dept.
thedreadedwiccan points out a summary of a recently released physics paper about tying knots with light. A pair of researchers showed that a relatively new solution to Maxwell's equations allows light to be twisted into stable loops. They are designing experiments to test the theory now, and it could have a big impact on fusion technology. The paper's abstract is available at Nature, though a subscription is required to see the rest. Quoting: "In special situations, however, the loops might be stable, such as if light travels through plasma instead of through free space. One of the problems that has plagued experimental nuclear fusion reactors is that the plasma at the heart of them moves faster and faster and tends to escape. That motion can be controlled with magnetic fields, but current methods to generate those fields still don't do the job. If Irvine and Bouwmeester's discovery could be used to generate fields that would send the plasma in closed, non-expanding loops and help contain it, 'that would be extremely spectacular,' Bouwmeester says."

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