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Advent Calendar For Geeks 65

Posted by samzenpus from the geek-christmas dept.
bLanark writes "Well, as children and adults all over the world begin their day with chocolate, with the traditional Advent calendar, I'd like to remind you that there's an alternative for geeks. The Perl Advent calendar will give you a new Perl tip every day right up to Christmas."
Science

Israeli Scientists Freeze Water By Warming It 165

Posted by timothy from the you-must-become-the-frozen-water dept.
ccktech writes "As reported by NPR and Chemistry world, the journal Science has a paper by David Ehre, Etay Lavert, Meir Lahav, and Igor Lubomirsky [note: abstract online; payment required to read the full paper] of Israel's Weizmann Institute, who have figured out a way to freeze pure water by warming it up. The trick is that pure water has different freezing points depending on the electrical charge of the surface it resides on. They found out that a negatively charged surface causes water to freeze at a lower temperature than a positively charged surface. By putting water on the pyroelectric material Lithium Tantalate, which has a negative charge when cooler but a positive change when warmer; water would remain a liquid down to -17 degrees C., and then freeze when the substrate and water were warmed up and the charge changed to positive, where water freezes at -7 degrees C."
Games

Correlation Found Between Brain Structure and Video Game Success 110

Posted by Soulskill from the correlation-does-not-equal-yadda-yadda dept.
kghapa writes "Still want to argue that video games shrink your brain? While video games have been previously shown to stimulate brain activity and improve coordination skills, a recently published study has directly linked structures in the human brain with video game aptitude. And yes, apparently size does matter in this case. Quoting: '... each subject received 20 hours of training to play a video game specifically created for research purposes, called Space Fortress. It's basically an Asteroids-type arcade game, in which the object is to knock down and destroy an enemy fortress while dodging space mines. However, the game has lots of extra twists that require close attention. Some of the players were told to focus exclusively on running up a high score, while others were told to shift their priorities between several goals. The result? The subjects who had more volume in an area called the nucleus accumbens did significantly better in the early stages of training. Meanwhile, those who were well-endowed in different areas of the striatum, known as the caudate nucleus and putamen, handled the shifting strategies better.'"

Comment Re:Security is NOT an issue with The Cloud. (Score 1) 174

by NightlordTW (#30820062) Attached to: The Fourth Amendment and the Cloud
"The case studies all use words like "secure", "MD5", "RSS feeds" and "encryption" to describe the security of The Cloud." - the word "secure" is very ambiguous. Of course a lock is more secure than no lock, but we all know several types of locks exist. - MD5 is actually outdated, cfr articles about MD5 collision attack. Even though mainstream computers are not powerful enough for such an attack, there are many trojans and other malicious software that allow infected computers to work as an attack unit in a whole cluster. - "RSS feeds" has nothing to do with security, and is just a document in XML format to frequently publish some summary data. Of course, you can add encrypted data in an RSS feed, but I dont see much interest in that since RSS is mainly meant for short messages - "encryption" is no guarantuee for security Even though many people are attracked by fancy security-related terms, many forget that: - security is determined by the weakest chain, not the strongest. Possible weaknesses are weak passwords, outdated encryption, data theft at the source or destination, ... - security is based on confidence, in the sense that the company you send secure data to can - in theory - do with it as he likes. - most fully encrypted data is only "secure" for a certain amount of time. After all, computers become more powerful every day and more and more people use to have one (or more).
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Own Your Own Fighter Jet 222

Posted by samzenpus from the only-one-on-the-block dept.
gimmebeer writes "The Russian Sukhoi SU-27 has a top speed of Mach 1.8 (more than 1,300 mph) and has a thrust to weight ratio greater than 1 to 1. That means it can accelerate while climbing straight up. It was designed to fight against the best the US had to offer, and now it can be yours for the price of a mediocre used business jet."
Games

The Psychology of Achievement In Playing Games 80

Posted by Soulskill from the no-you-don't-get-points-for-reading-this dept.
A post on Pixel Poppers looks at the psychological underpinnings of the types of challenges offered by different game genres, and the effect those challenges have on determining which players find the games entertaining. Quoting: "To progress in an action game, the player has to improve, which is by no means guaranteed — but to progress in an RPG, the characters have to improve, which is inevitable. ... It turns out there are two different ways people respond to challenges. Some people see them as opportunities to perform — to demonstrate their talent or intellect. Others see them as opportunities to master — to improve their skill or knowledge. Say you take a person with a performance orientation ('Paul') and a person with a mastery orientation ('Matt'). Give them each an easy puzzle, and they will both do well. Paul will complete it quickly and smile proudly at how well he performed. Matt will complete it quickly and be satisfied that he has mastered the skill involved. Now give them each a difficult puzzle. Paul will jump in gamely, but it will soon become clear he cannot overcome it as impressively as he did the last one. The opportunity to show off has disappeared, and Paul will lose interest and give up. Matt, on the other hand, when stymied, will push harder. His early failure means there's still something to be learned here, and he will persevere until he does so and solves the puzzle."

Comment Re:Okay, now just re-focus. (Score 1) 328

by NightlordTW (#30223928) Attached to: Brain Scans Used In Murder Sentencing
we might indeed have the technology, but I wonder whether enough data has been analysed to provide full support of these hypotheses regarding brain activity related to mental disorders. Moreover, statistical relations never prove the correlation between measurements and observations, they just give an indication (which might occur due to non-measured reasons, or by chance). Hence, I think it is important judges are well informed about the value of these kind of scans, even when correlations are highly supported (many studies, high confidence).
Education

Computer Games and Traditional CS Courses 173

Posted by Soulskill from the terrible-terrible-games dept.
drroman22 writes "Schools are working to put real-world relevance into computer science education by integrating video game development into traditional CS courses. Quoting: 'Many CS educators recognized and took advantage of younger generations' familiarity and interests for computer video games and integrate related contents into their introductory programming courses. Because these are the first courses students encounter, they build excitement and enthusiasm for our discipline. ... Much of this work reported resounding successes with drastically increased enrollments and student successes. Based on these results, it is well recognized that integrating computer gaming into CS1 and CS2 (CS1/2) courses, the first programming courses students encounter, is a promising strategy for recruiting and retaining potential students." While a focus on games may help stir interest, it seems as though game development studios are as yet unimpressed by most game-related college courses. To those who have taken such courses or considered hiring those who have: what has your experience been?

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