Comment Re:I've said it before, and I'll say it again.. (Score 1) 490
That doesn't really address either of the issues, does it?
Comment Re:I've said it before, and I'll say it again.. (Score 1) 490
Standard web-based clients (gmail, yahoo, university email systems) don't have built-in encryption/decryption systems. Sure you could find a firefox add-on that adds these, but that that leaves two problems:
1) I don't trust the third-party encryption to not spy on me (and, no, I don't want to read the code for the add-on).
2) I still won't have anyone to send my super-secure emails to: no one I know can decrypt my messages without undue trouble. Firefox add-ons aren't too relevant for most people.
If you have a real solution to those two issues, I'd love to hear about it.
Scientists Need Volunteers To Look At the Sun 110
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that Royal Observatory's 'Solar Stormwatch' needs volunteers to help scientists spot Sun storms — known as coronal mass ejections — before they cause damage on Earth. 'When you look up at the Sun obviously it's too bright to look at properly,' says Dr. Marek Kukula of the Royal Observatory, but 'with special instruments and telescopes you can see there's all sorts of stuff going on.' NASA already monitors the Sun using two 'STEREO' spacecraft that produce 3D images of earth's nearest star, which can show the trajectory of these explosions. However, the sheer amount of data means NASA's scientists are unable to analyze the data as closely as they need — which is where the world's Internet population comes in. After a brief tutorial, users get access to the actual 3-D images taken by the STEREO spacecraft. If a user believes they have spotted the beginnings of a solar storm, they can bring it to the attention of scientists. 'Every little bit counts,' says Kukula. 'I've spoken to the scientists involved and they all agree that even if you log-on and just do it for a few hours, get bored and never touch it again it's all really useful — and helps them to do their work.'"
Comment Re:are they even legal? (Score 1) 322
They are actually made from real coins, so the real problem would be "defacing currency":
"Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than FIVE YEARS, or both."
relevant law
Comment Original Sunday Times Article (Score 1) 820
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6936352.ece?print=yes
"The cells were then incubated in a solution containing nutrients to encourage them to multiply indefinitely. This nutritious “broth” is derived from the blood products of animal foetuses, although the intention is to come up with a synthetic solution."
Best Tool For Remembering Passwords? 1007
StonyCreekBare writes "Lately I've been rethinking my personal security practices. Should my laptop be stolen, having Firefox 'fill in' passwords automatically for me when I go to my bank's site seems sub-optimal. Keeping passwords for all the varied sites on the computer in a plain-text file seems unwise as well. Keeping them in my brain is a prescription for disaster, as my brain is increasingly leaky. A paper notepad likewise has its disadvantages. I have looked at a number of password managers, password 'vaults' and so on. The number of tools out there is a bit overwhelming. Magic Password Generator add-in for Firefox seems competent, but it's tied to Firefox, and I have other places and applications where I want passwords. And I might be accessing my sites from other computers that don't have it installed. The ideal tool in my mind should be something that is independent of any application, browser, or computer; something that is easily carried, but which if lost poses no risk of compromise. What does the Slashdot crowd like in password tools?"
Comment Article Abstract (Score 5, Informative) 249
Abstract from the actual paper:
"Electrically charged particles, such as the electron, are ubiquitous. In contrast, no elementary particles with a net magnetic charge have ever been observed, despite intensive and prolonged searches (see ref. 1 for example). We pursue an alternative strategy, namely that of realizing them not as elementary but rather as emergent particles—that is, as manifestations of the correlations present in a strongly interacting many-body system. The most prominent examples of emergent quasiparticles are the ones with fractional electric charge e/3 in quantum Hall physics. Here we propose that magnetic monopoles emerge in a class of exotic magnets known collectively as spin ice: the dipole moment of the underlying electronic degrees of freedom fractionalises into monopoles. This would account for a mysterious phase transition observed experimentally in spin ice in a magnetic field, which is a liquid–gas transition of the magnetic monopoles. These monopoles can also be detected by other means, for example, in an experiment modelled after the Stanford magnetic monopole search."
Comment Re:Or just switch to linux! (Score 1, Insightful) 178
'Cause that would really solve everything. If everyone switches to linux, the malware writers will just give up and not exploit security holes in linux, right?
(Or is linux just not popular enough among the computer-illiterate to be a good target for attacks?)
Comment Re:tests? (Score 1) 165
There are at least 400 students (2 big lectures' worth) that can come to my office hours, and of the 8 or so TAs, I'm one of two or three that are 100% fluent in English. There's also the issue that calc 3 is just hard the first time you see it, so even 5 hours of lecture/discussion a week might not address the specific questions and misunderstandings a student has. I'd say about 10 students come through my two office hours each week, and that's not that big a percentage.
And you're probably right, there's bound to be some ineffective teaching going on with that many teachers involved and some teaching for the first time.
Comment Re:tests? (Score 1) 165
I'm proctoring a test a week from now. We will check every student's ID. It's not quite common practice, but some instructors do insist on it.
The previous university I taught at provided a photo roster for each course. As a TA, I would go through this roster and make sure I recognized the students in my class.
Other people have mentioned actual in-class instruction being useless. As my students are getting ready to take their test, one of the main things I'm noticing is that I can't provide enough one-on-one instruction. At best, I have 5 people in office hours I'm trying to help at the same time. And that's still not personalized enough.
The internet is a great resource, but it's as good for undergraduate education as an encyclopedia. The biggest thing I learned in undergrad is _how_ to think about various concepts, not the concepts themselves - and you get that by talking to people.
"An education is what remains after you've forgotten everything you've learned".
Comment What are the benefits? (Score 1) 371
There have been a few articles on manned space exploration recently, and it seems that the main issue never seems to be addressed: what's the point of sending humans to space?
Can someone explain to me why, at this point in history, we need to send humans out into space - along with the food and water and oxygen and extra safety measures they need to survive? The data collection, analysis, and transmission will be conducted by robots whether the mission involves humans or not. What sorts of decisions can they make on-site that won't be made from the control center, and what skills can they contribute that a robot can't match?
Comment Re:Why consider this for academics but not music? (Score 3, Insightful) 349
The big difference is that academics get money from grants and departmental funding, not from selling their papers. So, in theory at least, removing copyright takes away a musician's income, but not the academic's.
Earth Could Collide With Other Planets 255
Everybody put on your helmet;
Smivs writes "Astronomers calculate there is a tiny chance that Mars or Venus could collide with Earth — though it would not happen for at least a billion years.
The finding comes from simulations to show how orbits of planets might evolve billions of years into the future. But the calculated chances of such events occurring are tiny. Writing in the journal Nature, a team led by Jacques Laskar shows there is also a chance Mercury could strike Venus and merge into a larger planet. Professor Laskar of the Paris Observatory and his colleagues also report that Mars might experience a close encounter with Jupiter — whose massive gravity could hurl the Red Planet out of our Solar System."
Why Our "Amazing" Science Fiction Future Fizzled 499
An anonymous reader sends in a story at CNN about how our predictions for the future tend to be somewhat accurate (whether or not we can do a thing) yet often too optimistic (whether or not it's practical). Obvious example: jetpacks. Quoting:
"Joseph Corn, co-author of 'Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future,' found an inflated optimism about technology's impact on the future as far back as the 19th century, when writers like Jules Verne were creating wondrous versions of the future. Even then, people had a misplaced faith in the power of inventions to make life easier, Corn says. For example, the typical 19th-century American city was crowded and smelly. The problem was horses. They created traffic jams, filled the streets with their droppings and, when they died, their carcasses. But around the turn of the 20th century, Americans were predicting that another miraculous invention would deliver them from the burden of the horse and hurried urban life — the automobile, Corn says. 'There were a lot of predictions associated with early automobiles,' Corn says. 'They would help eliminate congestion in the city and the messy, unsanitary streets of the city.' Corn says Americans' faith in the power of technology to reshape the future is due in part to their history. Americans have never accepted a radical political transformation that would change their future. They prefer technology, not radical politics, to propel social change."
Sunspot Activity Continues To Drop 435
slreboy writes "The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower. The year 2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73 percent). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008. Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87 percent)..."
