Ramblings & ephemera
From Bruce Schneier’s “The Keys to the Sydney Subway“:
Global secrets are generally considered poor security. The problems are twofold. One, you cannot apply any granularity to the security system; someone either knows the secret or does not. And two, global secrets are brittle. They fail badly; if the secret gets out, then the bad guys [...]
Posted on March 29th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: security | Comments Off
From “Relativity, Uncertainty, Incompleteness and Undecidability“:
In this article four fundamental principles are presented: relativity, uncertainty, incompleteness and undecidability. They were studied by, respectively, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. …
Relativity says that there is no privileged, “objective” viewpoint for certain observations. … Now, if things move relative to each other, then obviously [...]
Posted on March 29th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, science | Comments Off
From “New form of superior memory syndrome found“:
Scientists at the University of California-Irvine have identified the first known case of a new, superior memory syndrome.
Researchers Elizabeth Parker, Larry Cahill and James McGaugh spent more than five years studying the case of “AJ,” a 40-year-old woman with incredibly strong memories of her personal past.
Given a date, [...]
Posted on March 28th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, science | Comments Off
From “Unskilled and Unaware of It“:
It seems that the reason for this phenomenon is obvious: The more incompetent someone is in a particular area, the less qualified that person is to assess anyone’s skill in that space, including their own. When one fails to recognize that he or she has performed poorly, the individual is [...]
Posted on March 26th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, science | Comments Off
From “How to be an expert“:
Maybe the “naaturally talented artist” was simply the one who practiced a hell of a lot more. Or rather, a hell of a lot more deliberately. Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, professor of psychology at Florida State University, has spent most of his 20+ year career on the study of genuises, [...]
Posted on March 25th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, business | Comments Off
From “Mental Health Association of Portland“:
Over 3,500 copper canisters like these hold the cremated remains of patients of the Oregon State Hospital that went unclaimed by their families and friends. They sit on shelves in an abandoned building on the grounds of the Oregon State Hospital. They symbolize the loneliness, isolation, shame and despair [...]
Posted on March 25th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Writing Ideas, weird | Comments Off
From “World’s oldest ship timbers found in Egyptian desert“:
The oldest remains of seafaring ships in the world have been found in caves at the edge of the Egyptian desert along with cargo boxes that suggest ancient Egyptians sailed nearly 1,000 miles on rough waters to get treasures from a place they called God’s Land, or [...]
Posted on March 21st, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, history | Comments Off
From Simson Garfinkel’s “Absolute Identification“, chapter 3 of Database Nation:
Already, the United Parcel Service, the nation’s largest package delivery service, is also the nation’s leader in biometric piracy. For most packages, UPS requires that a signature be written to serve as proof of delivery. In 1987, UPS started scanning the pen-and-ink signatures recorded for [...]
Posted on March 8th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Webster U: InfoSec Management, security | Comments Off
From “Man recites pi from memory to 83,431 places“:
A Japanese psychiatric counselor has recited pi to 83,431 decimal places from memory, breaking his own personal best of 54,000 digits and setting an unofficial world record, a media report said Saturday.
Akira Haraguchi, 59, had begun his attempt to recall the value of pi - a mathematical [...]
Posted on March 4th, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Cool Stuff, science | Comments Off
From “The Big DRM Mistake?“:
Fundamentally, DRM is a about persistent access control - it is a term for a set of technologies that allow for data to be protected beyond the file system of the original machine. Thus, for example, the read/write/execute access control on most *nix file systems will not only be applicable to [...]
Posted on March 3rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, Technology | Comments Off
From “Why a Socio-Technical System?“:
You have divined by now that a socio-technical system is a mixture of people and technology. It is, in fact, a much more complex mixture. Below, we outline many of the items that may be found in an STS. In the notes, we will make the case that many of the [...]
Posted on March 3rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Social Software, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society | Comments Off
From “Cartridge Expiration Date Workarounds“:
In light of the lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard over the expiration date of their cartridges, two ways to fix the problem:
1) Remove and reinsert the battery of the printer’s memory chip
2) Preemptive: Change the parameters of the printer driver
Search for hp*.ini … In it there is a parameter something like pencheck. It [...]
Posted on March 3rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society | Comments Off
From “NBC: iPod Boosts Prime Time“:
NBC’s “The Office” delivered a 5.1-its highest ratings ever-last Thursday among adults 18 to 49, a bump the network credits in large part to the show’s popularity as an iPod download. …
Such a connection between podcast success and broadcast ratings success is particularly significant because the NBC data is among [...]
Posted on March 3rd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Technology, Wash U: Tech in Changing Society, business | Comments Off
From BBC News’ “Europe’s chill linked to disease“:
Europe’s “Little Ice Age” may have been triggered by the 14th Century Black Death plague, according to a new study.
Pollen and leaf data support the idea that millions of trees sprang up on abandoned farmland, soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
This would have had the [...]
Posted on March 2nd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: history, science | Comments Off
From The New York Times‘ “They Stole $92 Million, but Now What?“:
Just one week ago, Colin Dixon, the manager of a depot where bank notes are stored, was driving home on a quiet Tuesday evening when what he thought was a police car with flashing blue lights pulled him over.
It was the beginning, as it [...]
Posted on March 2nd, 2006 by Scott Granneman
Filed under: Commonplace Book, security | Comments Off
Bookmarked 2 links
Added 2 products to their wishlist:
Bookmarked 2 links
Added a product to their wishlist:
Shared an image: like a record...
Bookmarked a link: 10 useful jQuery plugins :: ENHANCE
I now have one week to finish my book on Google. Freak out mode has officially begun. (I'll finish it ... I'm just gonna freak out during)
Bookmarked a link: FILExt - The File Extension Source
Just had two Wash U students & a HS student stop by asking me to help the Obama campaign. I said yes. Good to see kids involved in politics!