April 2011
Plunge in 10 ETFs triggers flash crash memories |... →
Ten new exchange-traded funds suffered their own mini “flash crashes” shortly after the U.S. stock market opened on Thursday, suggesting recent measures put in place to protect against extreme market moves may not be enough.
why GNU grep is fast →
The key to making programs fast is to make them do practically nothing. ;-)
March 2011
Designing Menu Icons for Android Devices - GIANT... →
Recently we took on a client project which entailed building an Android app. The client delivered to us a set of sixteen 30x30 pixel PNG icons for use in the app. The icons displayed well on low-density screen devices, such as the Samsung Moment, but they were not large enough to accurately retain detail on higher density screen based devices, e.g. HTC G1 and the Nexus One. The solution was to...
How to Build a Fast News Feed in Redis - Move Fast... →
There is an excellent post about News Feed architecture on Quora (here), so this post focuses instead on how to implement one. This approach leverages some of the cool built-in features of the persistent in-memoery key-value store Redis (and also, in this particular case, Rails, but it would be easy to translate to Django, Node.js, or any other web framework).
Particle swarm optimization →
In computer science, particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a computational method that optimizes a problem by iteratively trying to improve a candidate solution with regard to a given measure of quality. Such methods are commonly known as metaheuristics as they make few or no assumptions about the problem being optimized and can search very large spaces of candidate solutions. However,...
Superconducting Super Collider →
In the 1980s the Department of Energy started to design what would have been the biggest science experiment in the world, the Superconducting Super Collider. Waxahachie, Texas was all set to host a particle accelerator that would have dwarfed Switzerland’s Large Hadron Collider, today’s reigning champ. Construction began in 1991, then was abruptly canceled in 1993.
Silicene raises new challenge to graphene's throne... →
Graphene’s chief rival silicene, has been given another boost as scientists in Japan have found a new way to manufacture atom-thin sheets of silicon. The idea that silicon could exist in two dimensional sheets was first mooted back in 2007, when researchers from Wright University in Ohio dubbed the then hypothetical material “silicene”.
U.S. Spy Agency Is Said to Investigate Nasdaq... →
The National Security Agency, the top U.S. electronic intelligence service, has joined a probe of the October cyber attack on Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. (NDAQ) amid evidence the intrusion by hackers was more severe than first disclosed, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Jacob Barnett,12, with higher IQ than Einstein... →
And now Jake has embarked on his most ambitious project yet - his own ‘expanded version of Einstein’s theory of relativity’.
Timeglider jQuery Plugin/Widget →
Timeglider is a zooming, panning data-driven timeline — great for history projects, project planning, and much more. This Javascript/jQuery plugin is completely free & open-source [MIT]. Commercial solutions are under development which will complement the timeline viewer: authoring tools, databases, support plans, etc. Our code repository is at github.com/timeglider.
Coffee Joulies – your coffee, just right by Dave &... →
This amazing feat of thermodynamics happens thanks to a special non-toxic material sealed within the polished stainless steel shell. This material is designed to melt at 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and absorbs a lot of energy as it melts.
Git 201: Slightly More Advanced - Adventurous →
So you’ve made it through Git 102, and you wanted more. Git 102 was more of a justification for some of git’s trickery, and a way for me to express my philosophies for using version control. Now that you’re through with that, let’s see if we can figure out some of git’s less known features.
Apple iPod 'could be charged by the human heart' -... →
Scientists hope that as the nanotechnology used in the chip evolves, it could lead to electronics which don’t require batteries or mains power. Hailed as a milestone, it can use tiny movements such as the pinch of a finger to generate power.
Diving into the Linux Networking Stack, Part I |... →
Network drivers are far from the simplest drivers in the kernel. They push the speed boundaries of modern multi-core processors. Almost every new system comes with a 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) network card. Taking into account that the smallest Ethernet frame size is 64 bytes (plus 8 bytes for synchronization and a 12 byte inter-frame gap), a 1 Gbps network card should (by specification) be...
CABINET // How to Make Anything Signify Anything →
For much of his long and largely secret career, Colonel William F. Friedman kept a very special photograph under the glass plate that covered his desk. As desks go, this one saw some impressive action. By the time he retired from the National Security Agency in 1955, Friedman had served for more than thirty years as his government’s chief cryptographer, and—as leader of the team that broke the...
TCP Tricks to Detect Rogue Wireless Access Points →
If rogue APs are plugged into your network, they will decrease the TTL value in all packets by one that traverse through the access point. This can make it easy to detect the presence of those by using p0f/tcpdump/snort to look for packets that have TTL values that are lower than expected. This also works for unauthorized routers, virtual images, bad network stack configurations, etc. It...
Watchr – More Than An Automated Test Runner →
Watchr is a development tool that monitors a directory tree and triggers a user defined action (in Ruby) whenever an observed file is modified. Its most typical use is continuous testing, and as such it is a more flexible alternative to autotest. It is maintained by Martin Aumont and available on GitHub.
How the Internet of Things is Changing the Way We... →
Several years ago, before the Web had become as ever-present as it is now, Wal-Mart was the shining example of a future where inanimate objects communicated, aka the Internet of Things. The company had a plan to implement RFID tags to better optimize its supply chain. The problem? The RFID technology could not be programmed to exchange data.
Arduino controlled Bluetooth-bot →
The PCB that came installed in the toy tank/car base had a small crystal for use with a AM radio transmitter and a few transistors to make a small H-bridge circuit for each motor. We will replace the old circuitry with an Arduino, a Bluetooth serial adapter, and an L298n dual motor-controller IC. The Arduino is reprogrammable, so you can obtain a variety of different behaviors with your bot,...
Superconductivity from nowhere - physicsworld.com →
In just over a week scientists will celebrate the centenary of superconductivity: the discovery, in 1911, that some materials cooled towards absolute zero allow electric charge to flow without resistance. But now one physicist believes superconductivity can appear when there is no material at all.
Festo Festo Corporate - SmartBird →
SmartBird is an ultralight but powerful flight model with excellent aerodynamic qualities and extreme agility. With SmartBird, Festo has succeeded in deciphering the flight of birds – one of the oldest dreams of humankind.
Attack Code for SCADA Vulnerabilities Released... →
The security of critical infrastructure is in the spotlight again this week after a researcher released attack code that can exploit several vulnerabilities found in systems used at oil-, gas- and water-management facilities, as well as factories, around the world.
Data storage takes an electric turn →
German scientists from the Forschungszentrum Julich and the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle have discovered the basis for the next generation of memory devices. In a ferroelectric material, they have, for the first time, been able to observe directly how dipoles, which store the information in this material, continuously rotate and therefore may be organised in circular...
Lost in Triangulation: Leonardo da Vinci's... →
When you look at a rhombicuboctahedron and put a pyramid on each side surface, it seems obvious (a corrected version of da Vinci’s drawing is below). Well, this is how it always goes in mathematics when the right insight occurs. But da Vinci was the first to draw the rhombicuboctahedron for print. So it’s very unlikely that anyone else had already drawn pyramids on it to portray the...
MIT's artificial leaf is ten times more efficient... →
The device is an advanced solar cell, no bigger than a typical playing card, which is left floating in a pool of water. Then, much like a natural leaf, it uses sunlight to split the water into its two core components, oxygen and hydrogen, which are stored in a fuel cell to be used when producing electricity.
SKD – Install SSH Keys Automatically V0.2-Andy... →
SSH Key Distribution is a script to automatically install SSH keys on a large network of remote devices. Fully automated all you have to do is configure a list of servers and SKD will collect/generate keys on each machine, then distribute each server key to each server listed including the localhost.
Zero-knowledge proof →
In cryptography, a zero-knowledge proof or zero-knowledge protocol is an interactive method for one party to prove to another that a (usually mathematical) statement is true, without revealing anything other than the veracity of the statement.
Quantum error correction →
Quantum error correction is used in quantum computing to protect quantum information from errors due to decoherence and other quantum noise. Quantum error correction is essential if one is to achieve fault-tolerant quantum computation that can deal not only with noise on stored quantum information, but also with faulty quantum gates, faulty quantum preparation, and faulty measurements.
Quantum walk →
In quantum computing, quantum walks are the quantum analogue of classical random walks. Like the classical random walk, where the walker’s current state is described by a probability distribution over positions, the walker in a quantum walk is in a superposition of positions. Like classical random walks, there are two types of quantum walks, discrete-time quantum walks and continuous-time...
Supersymmetry →
In particle physics, supersymmetry (often abbreviated SUSY) is a symmetry that relates elementary particles of one spin to other particles that differ by half a unit of spin and are known as superpartners. In a theory with unbroken supersymmetry, for every type of boson there exists a corresponding type of fermion with the same mass and internal quantum numbers, and vice-versa.
Physics - The Large Hadron Collider enters the... →
The standard model (SM) of particle physics has been incredibly successful, but few physicists believe it is the final story. The model doesn’t explain why particles have mass, the presence of dark matter and dark energy in the universe, or the excess of matter over antimatter. Nor does the standard model incorporate a quantum theory of gravity. Among the many theories that go beyond the standard...
Light marker describes quantum gas atom by atom →
To allow the control of individual atoms, clever tricks are needed: in a quantum gas consisting of rubidium particles, physicists from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich have managed to accurately manipulate individual spins. Put simply: the spin represents the direction of an atom’s rotation. Using a microscope especially developed for...
Combo Blocks →
Imagine having a safe in which the combo is any small object of your choosing. Perhaps it’s your favorite coffee mug, or a bat man figurine. This project is based on this idea, using the weight and placement of your “key” object(s) to determine the combination for a safe.
The Fermilab Holometer →
If there is a minimum interval of time, or a maximum frequency in nature, there is a corresponding limit on the fidelity of space and time. Everyone is familiar these days with the blurry and pixelated images, or noisy sound transmission, associated with poor internet bandwidth. The Holometer seeks to detect the equivalent blurriness or noise in reality itself, associated with the ultimate...
Holometer →
The Fermilab Holometer in Illinois is currently under construction and will be the world’s most sensitive laser interferometer when complete, surpassing the sensitivity of the GEO600 and LIGO systems, and theoretically able to detect holographic fluctuations in spacetime.[1][2][3]
