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This is cryptography, so it's always talking about possibilities.

With 160 bits of hash, the probability that two pieces of data will hash to the same value is incredibly low. Using a brute-force technique, you'd have to use all of the computers on the planet for thousands of years to find a collision. This is, for all intents and purposes, "impossible", and thus the hash is effectively collision-free.

With the new findings, a wealthy organization could actually find a collision with a reasonable amount of money and time.

So? All that these two groups have done is prove that MD5 and SHA-1 are hashes, nothing more. There is also a known and finite probability that I could generate examples of hash collisions on SHA-256, SHA-512 (and on up to SHA-n) on my first try by typing gibberish into a hex editor.

While doing so wouldn't win me the fame of he MD5 and SHA-1 researchers, it is just as usefull as both results. Eventually all hashes will have collisions. Still, there are security nuts screaming to abandon MD5 and SHA-1 for a few more bits. They tend to forget that without (1) easy collision generation and (2) gerenation from an arbitrary message that neither of these are 'broken' for security use. Furthermore, neither of these techniques are more usefull in making (2) true than my random typing technique.

---------
Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million
typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare.
-- Houghton, Blair

So, an overview of oceanography is both necessary and sufficent to make one an expert on climate dynamics? I hope you'll excuse me if I don't take the ``sufficient'' part of that very seriously. The necessary part is slightly more plausible: the oceans play a large part in the global climate, but we don't yet understand that part!.

Since you're into oceanography, you might find this interesting: "Give me half a tanker full of iron and I'll give you another ice age.", a modest proposal by John Martin.

Some one get these guys one of these computers, see how long it takes for their virii to evolve enough to take over the world!

The cats may be doing fine, But...

Sounds like Tierra from the early 1990s

Just what I thought. Next thought was man these people are clueless, how can such great software experiments have been forgotten?

Exactly my first impression. I thought that this research must be not interesting at all because there is no reference to Tierra, but fortunately I was proved wrong. It turns out that the only people who are ignorant of Tierra are the story submitter, editor and the author of the linked article. As soon as you find the website of this project (not directly linked in the story) and click the first link called Introduction and Background you will read five paragraphs about the Tierra project as well as information about even earlier research based on Core Wars called Core World, in the section History of digital life, which I will take the liberty to quote here:

The most well-known intersection of evolutionary biology with computer science is the genetic algorithm or its many variants (genetic programming, evolutionary strategies, and so on). All these variants boil down to the same basic recipe: (1) create random potential solutions, (2) evaluate each solution assigning it a fitness value to represent its quality, (3) select a subset of solutions using fitness as a key criterion, (4) vary these solutions by making random changes or recombining portions of them, (5) repeat from step 2 until you find a solution that is sufficiently good.

This technique turns out to be an excellent method for solving problems, but it ignores many aspects of natural living systems. Most notably, natural organisms must replicate themselves, as there is no external force to do so; therefore their ability to pass their genetic information on to the next generation is the final arbiter of their fitness. Furthermore, organisms in a natural system have the ability to interact with their environment and with each other in ways that are excluded from most algorithmic applications of evolution.

Work on more naturally evolving computational systems began in 1990, when Steen Rasmussen was inspired by the computer game ``Core War'' [Dewdney84]. In this game, programs are written in a simplified assembly language and made to compete in the simulated core memory of a computer. The winning program is the one that manages to shut down all processes associated with its competitors. Rasmussen observed that the most successful of these programs were the ones that replicated themselves, so that if one copy were destroyed, others would still persist. In the original Core War game, the diversity of organisms could not increase, and hence no evolution was possible. Rasmussen then designed a system similar to Core War in which the command that copied instructions was flawed and would sometimes write a random instruction instead on the one intended [Rasmussen90]. This flawed copy command introduced mutations into the system, and thus the potential for evolution. Rasmussen dubbed his new program ``Core World'', created a simple self-replicating ancestor, and let it run.

Unfortunately, this first experiment failed. While the programs seemed to evolve initially, they soon started to copy code into each other, to the point where no proper self-replicators survived---the system collapsed into a non-living state. Nevertheless, the dynamics of this system turned out to be intriguing, displaying the partial replication of fragments of code, and repeated occurrences of simple patterns.

The first successful experiment with evolving populations of self-replicating computer programs was performed the following year. Thomas Ray at the University of Delaware designed a p

Sounds like Tierra from the early 1990s

Just what I thought. Next thought was man these people are clueless, how can such great software experiments have been forgotten?

Exactly my first impression. I thought that this research must be not interesting at all because there is no reference to Tierra, but fortunately I was proved wrong. It turns out that the only people who are ignorant of Tierra are the story submitter, editor and the author of the linked article. As soon as you find the website of this project (not directly linked in the story) and click the first link called Introduction and Background you will read five paragraphs about the Tierra project as well as information about even earlier research based on Core Wars called Core World, in the section History of digital life, which I will take the liberty to quote here:

The most well-known intersection of evolutionary biology with computer science is the genetic algorithm or its many variants (genetic programming, evolutionary strategies, and so on). All these variants boil down to the same basic recipe: (1) create random potential solutions, (2) evaluate each solution assigning it a fitness value to represent its quality, (3) select a subset of solutions using fitness as a key criterion, (4) vary these solutions by making random changes or recombining portions of them, (5) repeat from step 2 until you find a solution that is sufficiently good.

This technique turns out to be an excellent method for solving problems, but it ignores many aspects of natural living systems. Most notably, natural organisms must replicate themselves, as there is no external force to do so; therefore their ability to pass their genetic information on to the next generation is the final arbiter of their fitness. Furthermore, organisms in a natural system have the ability to interact with their environment and with each other in ways that are excluded from most algorithmic applications of evolution.

Work on more naturally evolving computational systems began in 1990, when Steen Rasmussen was inspired by the computer game ``Core War'' [Dewdney84]. In this game, programs are written in a simplified assembly language and made to compete in the simulated core memory of a computer. The winning program is the one that manages to shut down all processes associated with its competitors. Rasmussen observed that the most successful of these programs were the ones that replicated themselves, so that if one copy were destroyed, others would still persist. In the original Core War game, the diversity of organisms could not increase, and hence no evolution was possible. Rasmussen then designed a system similar to Core War in which the command that copied instructions was flawed and would sometimes write a random instruction instead on the one intended [Rasmussen90]. This flawed copy command introduced mutations into the system, and thus the potential for evolution. Rasmussen dubbed his new program ``Core World'', created a simple self-replicating ancestor, and let it run.

Unfortunately, this first experiment failed. While the programs seemed to evolve initially, they soon started to copy code into each other, to the point where no proper self-replicators survived---the system collapsed into a non-living state. Nevertheless, the dynamics of this system turned out to be intriguing, displaying the partial replication of fragments of code, and repeated occurrences of simple patterns.

The first successful experiment with evolving populations of self-replicating computer programs was performed the following year. Thomas Ray at the University of Delaware designed a p

Sounds like Tierra from the early 1990s

Just what I thought. Next thought was man these people are clueless, how can such great software experiments have been forgotten?

Exactly my first impression. I thought that this research must be not interesting at all because there is no reference to Tierra, but fortunately I was proved wrong. It turns out that the only people who are ignorant of Tierra are the story submitter, editor and the author of the linked article. As soon as you find the website of this project (not directly linked in the story) and click the first link called Introduction and Background you will read five paragraphs about the Tierra project as well as information about even earlier research based on Core Wars called Core World, in the section History of digital life, which I will take the liberty to quote here:

The most well-known intersection of evolutionary biology with computer science is the genetic algorithm or its many variants (genetic programming, evolutionary strategies, and so on). All these variants boil down to the same basic recipe: (1) create random potential solutions, (2) evaluate each solution assigning it a fitness value to represent its quality, (3) select a subset of solutions using fitness as a key criterion, (4) vary these solutions by making random changes or recombining portions of them, (5) repeat from step 2 until you find a solution that is sufficiently good.

This technique turns out to be an excellent method for solving problems, but it ignores many aspects of natural living systems. Most notably, natural organisms must replicate themselves, as there is no external force to do so; therefore their ability to pass their genetic information on to the next generation is the final arbiter of their fitness. Furthermore, organisms in a natural system have the ability to interact with their environment and with each other in ways that are excluded from most algorithmic applications of evolution.

Work on more naturally evolving computational systems began in 1990, when Steen Rasmussen was inspired by the computer game ``Core War'' [Dewdney84]. In this game, programs are written in a simplified assembly language and made to compete in the simulated core memory of a computer. The winning program is the one that manages to shut down all processes associated with its competitors. Rasmussen observed that the most successful of these programs were the ones that replicated themselves, so that if one copy were destroyed, others would still persist. In the original Core War game, the diversity of organisms could not increase, and hence no evolution was possible. Rasmussen then designed a system similar to Core War in which the command that copied instructions was flawed and would sometimes write a random instruction instead on the one intended [Rasmussen90]. This flawed copy command introduced mutations into the system, and thus the potential for evolution. Rasmussen dubbed his new program ``Core World'', created a simple self-replicating ancestor, and let it run.

Unfortunately, this first experiment failed. While the programs seemed to evolve initially, they soon started to copy code into each other, to the point where no proper self-replicators survived---the system collapsed into a non-living state. Nevertheless, the dynamics of this system turned out to be intriguing, displaying the partial replication of fragments of code, and repeated occurrences of simple patterns.

The first successful experiment with evolving populations of self-replicating computer programs was performed the following year. Thomas Ray at the University of Delaware designed a p

Sounds like Tierra from the early 1990s

Just what I thought. Next thought was man these people are clueless, how can such great software experiments have been forgotten?

Exactly my first impression. I thought that this research must be not interesting at all because there is no reference to Tierra, but fortunately I was proved wrong. It turns out that the only people who are ignorant of Tierra are the story submitter, editor and the author of the linked article. As soon as you find the website of this project (not directly linked in the story) and click the first link called Introduction and Background you will read five paragraphs about the Tierra project as well as information about even earlier research based on Core Wars called Core World, in the section History of digital life, which I will take the liberty to quote here:

The most well-known intersection of evolutionary biology with computer science is the genetic algorithm or its many variants (genetic programming, evolutionary strategies, and so on). All these variants boil down to the same basic recipe: (1) create random potential solutions, (2) evaluate each solution assigning it a fitness value to represent its quality, (3) select a subset of solutions using fitness as a key criterion, (4) vary these solutions by making random changes or recombining portions of them, (5) repeat from step 2 until you find a solution that is sufficiently good.

This technique turns out to be an excellent method for solving problems, but it ignores many aspects of natural living systems. Most notably, natural organisms must replicate themselves, as there is no external force to do so; therefore their ability to pass their genetic information on to the next generation is the final arbiter of their fitness. Furthermore, organisms in a natural system have the ability to interact with their environment and with each other in ways that are excluded from most algorithmic applications of evolution.

Work on more naturally evolving computational systems began in 1990, when Steen Rasmussen was inspired by the computer game ``Core War'' [Dewdney84]. In this game, programs are written in a simplified assembly language and made to compete in the simulated core memory of a computer. The winning program is the one that manages to shut down all processes associated with its competitors. Rasmussen observed that the most successful of these programs were the ones that replicated themselves, so that if one copy were destroyed, others would still persist. In the original Core War game, the diversity of organisms could not increase, and hence no evolution was possible. Rasmussen then designed a system similar to Core War in which the command that copied instructions was flawed and would sometimes write a random instruction instead on the one intended [Rasmussen90]. This flawed copy command introduced mutations into the system, and thus the potential for evolution. Rasmussen dubbed his new program ``Core World'', created a simple self-replicating ancestor, and let it run.

Unfortunately, this first experiment failed. While the programs seemed to evolve initially, they soon started to copy code into each other, to the point where no proper self-replicators survived---the system collapsed into a non-living state. Nevertheless, the dynamics of this system turned out to be intriguing, displaying the partial replication of fragments of code, and repeated occurrences of simple patterns.

The first successful experiment with evolving populations of self-replicating computer programs was performed the following year. Thomas Ray at the University of Delaware designed a p

In sexual populations, beneficial mutations that occur in different lineages may be recombined into a single lineage.

Check out the software and The paper. These were the basis for the Discover article the other respondent to you mentioned (in case you haven't been able to find it)

Maybe it's just me accustomed to the "old ways", but it seems that Gnome is following the "Windows way"

You can't be more wrong. Gnome is going the Apple way, just check the Mac OS X file chooser, that is almost identical to gnome's.

And as we all know, Apple rules on usability.

For those that have had email long enough... You would have seen this. For those that haven't had email long enough, click the link.

If the universe is full of an increasing amount of dark matter, we'd better install a lot more of these so-called "dark suckers" to suck up the dark matter and contain it safely - so that it can't make the universe explode.

This is really old news. Michigan State pulled funding in 2003. So obviously this "news" item is really a "timely" plug to help fundingraising.

We have recently been informed that Clarion's funding from Michigan State University has been discontinued after the current 2003 workshop.

Read about their funding woes here It may be worth supporting Clarion, but don't pass this off as breaking news.

or you have your alternate definition.

Physicists usually use the word God metaphorically. There are some exceptions, but not many. Your argument that the world is just too good to have come out of evolution shows your lack of understanding of the concept, not any evidence for the existence of a designer. See "The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features" in the journal Nature for some good experimental evidence to the contrary. But really, such research shouldn't be necessary, as it is quite obvious that evolution has no limit in the complexity it can produce given enough time. And there has been enough time. The universe has existed for at least 11 billion years.

When I took an OpenGL programming class two years ago, people were still calling the room "the SGI lab" and the monitors might have originally been hooked up to Indy workstations; however, the computers actually in there were dual-Pentium boxes running Windows 2k Workstation with some version of Visual C++. As a result, I've never written an OpenGL program that didn't require MFC (which is a shame, because I otherwise do new development on Linux and XFree86 has good OpenGL support these days).

I thought that there *was* honor among thieves...

The correct phrase is "There is honor even among thieves", apparently first recorded in 1630. Also, "Thieves are never rogues among themselves."

There's an authoritative discussion here. (The ODEP mentioned is the Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs).

About a year ago, I was talking with a US Army recruiter about enlisting in the US Army. I got as far as MEPS. I passed the ASVAB and the physical, but they denied me enlistment after the security interview, which started out as a 10-page written questionnaire.

I answered "yes" to several questions that they wanted me to answer "no" to, but there were two that especially seemed to require a lot of "further clarification":

1. On the last page, just before a long affirmation about "this knowledge is true to the best of my knowledge and belief...", etc., etc., there was a question about like "Have you ever [...] misused [...] an information-technology resource?" I said "yes", and mentioned something that hadn't made my teachers happy during high school, about nine years before; I later found out that the high-school's disciplinary records have been destroyed from that time. However, if you think about it, downloading an illegal copy of a popular song off KaZaa is a forbidden use of an information-technology resource; I suspect the majority of the kids who did that stuff in Abu Ghraib had been regular KaZaa users...
2. The other thing was that I had visited a professional counsellor or therapist several times, all within a year or two, plus or minus, of the computer-related incident. They decided to totally misread the examining doctor's statement for something that was not in the record, and disqualify me as medically unfit by reason of depression (apparently). Of course, perhaps a college graduate who wants to join the Army is crazy. It may be that anyone who wants to join the Army has a little something wrong with them...

Apple should invent an e-book reader.

They already had one, years ago. It was called the Newton.

Back when I was working for ANS - err, UUNet - umm, WorldCom - I would download text files, convert them to Newton Book files, upload them to my trusty Newton 2100, and read away. I read The Hacker Crackdown while taking lunchtime walks, as well as a few RFCs.

The Newton's form factor would still be great for an ebook reader. There's still a small but rabid base of people still writing software for the Newton, including mp3 players, 802.11 support, and even a web server! Surely someone can be persuaded to come up with a modern book reader / creator package for the Newton.

The only problem with this is the pride of Steve Jobs. One of his first actions upon returning to the Apple helm was the killing of the entire Newton program, ostensibly as it was the baby of John Sculley, the man who had Jobs removed from Apple. Apple still has the rights to the name and the hardware, and the Inkwell software that's included with OS X supposedly came from the Newton handwriting recognition software, so I can't see a reason why this wouldn't be possible.

Then again, I'm a hopeless dreamer about seeing the best PDA platform in existance making a return to the market :)

I have experience with doing something that was, in some sense, a DoS attack. Of course, I had forgotten to set the evil bit...

The professor of a class I'm taking recently told us to be careful about what screen-savers we download and run; appparently he'd seen some unusual ones in his lab, and he was worried about viruses. His advice might be relevant to the Lycos screensaver, too.

I'm a college student, and I go to class four days a week. When I was in the undergrad program at a different university, most of my classes were half-empty on Friday at noon and two-thirds empty on Friday at 3pm; now my department doesn't even bother scheduling anything on Fridays. Sure, the library is open Friday-Saturday-Sunday and the computer-labs are open Friday-Saturday, but a full-time student could go to school just four days a week. He can telecommute (take web classes?), too.

5-day-a-week jobs are so 20th-century...

I have always been fascinated by them that they have so many incredible applications and multiwalled carbon nanotubes is just one of its many possible ways of using it.

Electrons hoping off sharp points = Field Emmission Displays.

Paper from 99 on carbon nanotube FED
Additional FED links:
http://www.physorg.com/news86.html
An important factor in commercialization is the price of raw materials. A number of Japanese companies including Mitsui, Toray Industries and Mitsubishi Chemical have well advanced plans to mass-produce CNTs and bring prices down to ¥10 000 (85)/kg.
And a mess more interesting stuff on the carbon nanotube field emmission display via google search.

I'd like to buy a vowel please.

Sorry, we've sent them all to Bosnia.

You probably already read the AUP for MSUnet. It specifically addresses the issue of NAT devices, a common concern at universities. The issue is that normally a person must register their MAC on the network to gain access. Then any nefarious activity that occurs on the network can be tracked to the individual user who registered that MAC address. For now, let's ignore the possibility of being able to change the MAC address on some ethernet cards.

By introducing a NAT'd device, you open an entry point to the network to anyone, even those not with proper access, and you rely on the good will of these nameless souls not to do bad things in your name. So if anyone ever becomes evil while connected to your basepoint, it becomes your responsibility to deny access to your AP or remove it from the network.

For those who've never seen the show, check out this hilarious Bush vs Bush clip from the Daily show.

I think the show is doing a great job of getting young people interested in political issues.

Diamonds are formed in a split second, under great pressure. Reference: Superman crushing coal. For others more skeptical, check out some kimberlite info: http://www.geo.msu.edu/geo333/kimberlites.html

"As the president has repeatedly pointed out in response to the terrorist attack, "We can't love our country and hate our government."

Well, if he really said that, then I think we've found a reason why someone might hate him.

Were we supposed to love Nixon's presidency? Ignore his little flaws, and look on the positive side?

Dude, check it out - the most - MOST - basic tenet of our way of life is the idea that EVERY citizen of this country is expressly granted the right to criticize our government WHENEVER it is seen to be going in the wrong direction.

That's kinda the point of a democracy, dig?

The only people who want to suppress the criticisms of the populace are the people who KNOW that they will be the target of those criticisms. Describing honest political dissent as unAmerican is itself the most unAmerican behavior I can think of.

Well, I wouldn't call criticism of President Clinton "hate," but a lot of his supporters did -- and were more than willing to exploit the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing to do so. The whole "talk radio equals hate radio" and "the NRA's fund raising letter motivated McVeigh" were just some of the memes being tossed around by the mainstream media and pundits on the Left. (See Virginia Postrel's 1995 column "Fighting Words" for more on that subject.)

It hasn't always been an easy year for America. There have been moments that tested our national community. In the wake of the terrible bombing in Oklahoma City, which took the lives of 169 people, our nation reached out and recognized the bonds that hold us together. And out of the ashes of that tragedy, a new sense of national spirit took hold. We affirmed once again that all Americans are in it together. We recognized, once again, that we can't love our country and hate our government.

-President Bill Clinton, December 30 1995

and earlier that year:

Remarks by the President of the United States
Spartan Stadium
Michigan State University
May 5, 1995

[snip]

I would like to say something to [those of you] who believe the greatest threat to America comes not from terrorists from ... beyond our borders, but from our own government.

[snip]

I believe you have every right, indeed you have the responsibility, to question our government when you disagree with its policies. And I will do everything in my power to protect your right to do so.

But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy.

[snip]

But the Weathermen of the radical left who resorted to violence in the 1960s were wrong. Today, the gang members who use life on the mean streets of America, as terrible as it is, to justify taking the law into their own hands and taking innocent life are wrong. The people who came to the United States to bomb the World Trade Center were wrong.

[snip]

How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny.

[snip]

[T]here is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending that you can love your country but despise your government. There is nothing heroic about turning your back on America, or ignoring your own responsibilities. If you want to preserve your own freedom, you must stand up for the freedom of others with whom you disagree. But you also must stand up for the rule of law. You cannot have one without the other.

[snip]

(emphasis ad

For one, you aren't even simulating nebulas (to use English pluralization) or galaxies. In a rough calculation, Andromeda is roughly 1E12 Solar Masses and a solar mass is 2E20 kilograms. So Andromeda is 2E32 kg. Each simulation element is 2E39 kg. So each element is simulation 10 million Andromedas! For an element of scale, the Local Group contains 30 galaxies, while the Local Supercluster contains only 100 galaxies and galaxy clusters. It is estimated that the Local Supercluster's mass is 10E15 solar masses or 2E36 kg. Each simulation elemnt is then simulating 1000 Local Superclusters! Not only that, but they are not taking into account light or electromagnetism (AFAIK) and don't take into account the possiblity that an intelligent civilization has discovered the ability to teleport entire galaxies across the universe. But considering that the universe is, on the whole, fairly neutral (I think) and we have not detected such a civilization, the only force we have to worry about is gravity, and they are only trying to model the gross universe, not figure out whether John D. Customer will choose coffee or tea tomorrow to wake up with, and don't have sufficient data to make a starting point that would allow them to come anywhere close, I would say that it is a reasonable model with reasonable trade-offs in accuracy to efficiency. If it looks reasonably similar to our universe, they will probably get a more powerful computer to run the sim on.

Corrected link Sorry I blew the joke...

No

Actually, while twins are genetic duplicates they enjoy a completely different legal status than a man-made clone. (Yes, it's a question of semantics, but it's a question nonetheless.)

Trust me. Since we've never made an human clones, and all of the legal issues which surround what it would mean to do so have NOT been settled in any way.

You're just saying that as if we've already decided it, and your first impulse that "clones are just like natural people" is just what you think. I agree with you to an extent, but asserting you've solved the problem doesn't actually mean anything in the broader scope of issues.

If you look here and read a little, you'll find that we have done nothing to have already decided this. Cloning is illegal specifically because we haven't settled the issues.

Remember the "I hate math" Barbie doll? A raging debate ensued, and educators and others were forced to face (and deal with?) the issue of the assumption that not only do girls hate math and science, they are biologically programmed to do so. So the rule was girls are not supposed to like math and science, if they do there's something inherently wrong with them and thus we must ridicule and pressure them into becoming a proper female. And as most of us know how peer pressure can be, girls end up being conditioned to stay away from math and science if they ever want to be cool and have a life.

What was worse for me while growing up, was that I loved science and math. "Well, OK, but that's because you're Chinese" was what I always got back. The implication that I couldn't help myself for that or something. So not only did I get the derogatory labels regarding female geeks rubbed in my face, I got the racism as well.

Why is ANY critisism of the government "unpatriotic" do you have any idea what "patriotic" means? (Rhetorical question you obviously do not)

Because the president said so:

Remarks by the President of the United States [Bill Clinton at the time - ed.]
Spartan Stadium
Michigan State University
May 5 [ back in 1995 -ed. ]

I would like to say something to [those of you] who believe the greatest threat to America comes not from terrorists from ... beyond our borders, but from our own government.... But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse your philosophy.... How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny.... [T]here is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending that you can love your country but despise your government.

That's what we already do. Haven't you ever heard of Dark Suckers?

Quantum chemistry is my field, and we are some of the few who actually study biochemical systems with it.

Unfortunately, I can't really say much about long-range effects myself; The number of atoms which can practically be modelled at the same time is about 100. (that's one-hundred! Not much!)

I'd say possibly the most important QM effect strucurally in enzymes is pi-stacking and pi-cation interactions. It's not something which can be modelled well by a point charge.
(And what is worse, not all QM methods can model it either; DFT is infamous for not predicting pi-stacking or VdW effects)

Another significant thing which only QM can really model is transition-metal complexes. The coordination is very difficult to predict offhand. (Field splitting, spin states, spin interactions, Jahn-Teller effect, etc, etc..)

Just the other month, Science had some interesting results, including a completeley unprecedented mode of binding for nitric oxide to copper in nitrite reductase.

Our area is the study of the catalytic functions of metalloenzyme active sites. Again, this is not something which is easily predictable.

(Like, look at Cytochrome c Oxidase.. The function was determined in 1977, X-ray crystal structures have been known for over a decade. The mechanism of proton-pumping is still unknown. (And there's lots of notable people studying it.)

I never understood the point of making speed runs through games... When you're trying to run through as fast as you can, aren't you kind of missing the point of actually playing the game

The fact is that I know people who have tried every one of these because they thought it would be fun. I think that some of the ideas are stupid, but my opinion means diddley squat because I'm not the one trying to be entertained. I think that these people have played the games to the point that they are ninja masters and want to take their game to the next level: fast, obsessive, ridiculous, or "other."

Just watch the Super Metroid replay. I downloaded the 0:38 game because it was all one clip and was completely floored by the guy's insane skills. I have never seen anyone wall jump like that before!

In order to understand what causes nerdism, we must first look to the nerds themselves. The most obvious observation one could make is that nerds are statistically nearly always male. While nerds routinely come in a splendid variety of shapes and sizes and hues, it is rare to see a nerd of the fairer sex. Since we know that nerdism is the fascination with tools and systems, and we know that nerds are predominantly male, we would likely gain insight in asking ourselves why females are not so driven to tinker.

There is no basic mental difference between men and women, and so there is no reason to believe that women would be mentally any less tinker-inclined than men. Therefore, in order to determine the reason why there are so few female nerds, we must turn our attentions to the ways in which men and women are known to differ: the physical ways. Immediately, the answer becomes plain. Women do not need to glut their tendencies by tinkering with computers or cars or guns because of their reproductive systems, which require a great deal more attention and maintenance than those of their male counterparts. Simply put, women tinker with their parts, and so have no interest in tinkering with electronic substitutes.

Penises and testicles, despite their initial lustre, grow boring early on. They do not exhibit quirky, moody, fixable behavior. Rather, they hang loosely and idly in a man's crotch and rarely get more attention than any other body part, and at those times that they do, tinkering is not foremost on the subject's mind. Particularly in the case of an circumsized penis, very little extra maintenance is ever needed. Contrast this, then, to the vagina, which must be carefully wiped after every use, and regularly cleaned to preserve womanly freshness. Females learn early in life that the vagina must be treated with respect, and in return they have the incomparable, primal joy of upkeep.

Women may contentedly seek non-nerdy sources of entertainment, safe in their knowledge that every month will bring them more new and exciting vaginal adventures. While some men profess to be unnerved or even disgusted by menstruation, their true feelings are probably closer to envy. Women, lucky women, may peruse those exotic aisles at the supermarket in search of feminine hygiene products, products that they need, they absolutely need, in order to keep their systems fully operational. Men never know the intimate thrill of personally dealing with menstruation by applying a tampon just in the nick of time, or the sense of deep personal satisfaction that comes with regularly eating yogurt and so having a

hernan43: Michigan, 100Mbit

JustinS: 100Mbit, Rochester NY

If the labels get to write off the full retail value of CDs that they donate, why would a record label ever pay any taxes at all?

Corporate income tax rates are around 35%. So the tax deduction on a "$20 CD" would be $7. It costs a lot less than $7 to manufacture a CD.

Therefore: A record label with $1 billion in profits could just crank out an extra 50 million CDs, donate them to schools or whatever, and have no taxable income. That's nice for the libraries, but should the federal government be (in effect) spending $350 million in taxpayer money to buy CDs from the RIAA?

This is the corporate equivalent of donating your piece of crap undriveable car to charity and then telling the IRS it was worth $5,000.

NEW YORK--Somewhere in Berlin, Germany, is a baby Superman, born with bulging arm and leg muscles.

Uh-oh. Isn't this what Nietzsche was writing about... and subsequently appropriated by the Nazis to further their ideals? Zee Germans may have a few tricks up zhere sleaves.

Check out some of these sites:

Nano Dot Article
Tech Review
A neat simulation
WordIQ

These all do a good deal to help explain / show you some interesting things. Give them a look-see.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

An always relevant speech, especially considering that over half of US casualties have come from a weapon that was perfected in the same year that that famous speech was given. I wish the technologists all the best, but in 10 years a uniform will still do what it does now, provide an easily identifiable target.

The liberals in this country want open and free discussion. the conservatives think that they can get away with censoring the liberals by labeling everything opposed to them as indecent.

[snip]

I would like to say something to [those of you] who believe the
greatest threat to America comes not from terrorists from ...
beyond our borders, but from our own government.

[snip]

I believe you have every right, indeed you have the responsibility,
to question our government when you disagree with its policies.
And I will do everything in my power to protect your right to do so.

But I also know there have been lawbreakers among those who espouse
your philosophy.

[snip]

But the Weathermen of the radical left who resorted to violence in
the 1960s were wrong. Today, the gang members who use life on the mean
streets of America, as terrible as it is, to justify taking the law into
their own hands and taking innocent life are wrong. The people who came
to the United States to bomb the World Trade Center were wrong.

[snip]

How dare you suggest that we in the freest nation on Earth live in tyranny.

[snip]

[T]here is nothing patriotic about hating your country, or pretending
that you can love your country but despise your government. There is
nothing heroic about turning your back on America, or ignoring your own
responsibilities. If you want to preserve your own freedom, you must
stand up for the freedom of others with whom you disagree. But you
also must stand up for the rule of law. You cannot have one without the
other.

[snip]

That's not quite right, it should be:

(dark)E = (dark)m * (dark)c^2

where (dark)c is the "speed of dark", and we all know the speed of dark is faster than the speed of light. Therefore, (dark)c > (light)c and therefore dark matter holds more (dark) energy than normal matter hold in (light) energy.

You'll fit in real good at the scientist loony bin in the "She Blinded me with Science" music video. If it looks out of place there (like a regular bike would), it is not "real geek".

The act of observing disturbs the observed.

Holy shit, I haven't heard the uncertainty principal put like that since I memorized the Straight Dope Schrodinger's Cat rhyme in high school.

Thanks for bringing back lovely memories of mesmorizing my physics teacher when I stood up and recited it, start to finish, in the middle of class.

I don't get why someone that's intelligent would reply to such a post. The article mentioned you're sensitive on the "chick hacker" topic, but is it such a reflex to respond to trolls and ignorant people when there are things more worth your time?

Since you talk about this on your webpage, I'll write my opinions here. It's greatly unfortunate the chauvinism in computer science/engineering and the world in general. And while I'm sure that has impact on women entering the field, I think that's minor compared to other cultural factors.

Rates in grad school are probably a little different from undergrad and this is only one case, but let's look at my school. In the CSE department, only 26 out of 146 students are female (18%). Most statistics I've seen hover around 20% (for graduate and undergraduate engineering in general). Here, 65% of the grad students are foreign. While the US men hold at 38%, only 19% of the female are from the US. While China and India "only" account for 53% of the men, they account for 69% of the women. While China and India's percentages of women are still low (31% and 23%, respectively), it's much better than the rest (10%).

So either many women aren't finding this intersting, they find it too difficult, or there are cultural issues involved (or mixtures). So is the government (and society in general) not taking steps we should be? If so, what are they? The same can be said regarding male teachers.

Kids are already being told to fear math and science and find it difficult and boring, what other social factors need to be addressed to change what's being told to the girls? While chauvinism is a factor (and should be addressed just because it's wrong), I think there are many other issues (many of which I don't know) that need to be addressed before we can see any dent in the percentages. I mean, recent statistics (going on memory from 60 Minutes report) show girls getting better grades than boys in high schools and the majority of students at MSU are girls. So it's beyond just stressing education.

Generalities and stereotypes can be used very negatively, but at the same time, they are often indicative of something and they should be studied and learned from. Some believe they already know or don't care, however, too many people consider the issues too sensitive to even discuss. It's generally accepted that physically, top female athletes in many sports cannot compete with the top men. Our physiologies are different enough that men have the advantage and we know enough to explain much of that.

But what are the reasons for male to female ratios in top chess players and other mental/educational disciplines? Why do certain racial and ethnic groups score much higher than others in SAT and other standardized tests? How come Jews around the world (with a smaller population than my home country of Nepal, around 13 million to 26 million) hold more wealth, influence and power despite being persecuted almost everywhere they go?

However, the main people really "thinking" about these issues are male chauvinists, extreme feminists, racist bigots and anti-semitists/Islamic fundamentalists. That's not a good sign...

Anyhow, good job in the interview and I thought your answers were well said. Good luck on improving computer security and raising awareness of security. And good luck on changing the atmosphere of chauvinism (of course I'll do my part).

I don't get why someone that's intelligent would reply to such a post. The article mentioned you're sensitive on the "chick hacker" topic, but is it such a reflex to respond to trolls and ignorant people when there are things more worth your time?

Since you talk about this on your webpage, I'll write my opinions here. It's greatly unfortunate the chauvinism in computer science/engineering and the world in general. And while I'm sure that has impact on women entering the field, I think that's minor compared to other cultural factors.

Rates in grad school are probably a little different from undergrad and this is only one case, but let's look at my school. In the CSE department, only 26 out of 146 students are female (18%). Most statistics I've seen hover around 20% (for graduate and undergraduate engineering in general). Here, 65% of the grad students are foreign. While the US men hold at 38%, only 19% of the female are from the US. While China and India "only" account for 53% of the men, they account for 69% of the women. While China and India's percentages of women are still low (31% and 23%, respectively), it's much better than the rest (10%).

So either many women aren't finding this intersting, they find it too difficult, or there are cultural issues involved (or mixtures). So is the government (and society in general) not taking steps we should be? If so, what are they? The same can be said regarding male teachers.

Kids are already being told to fear math and science and find it difficult and boring, what other social factors need to be addressed to change what's being told to the girls? While chauvinism is a factor (and should be addressed just because it's wrong), I think there are many other issues (many of which I don't know) that need to be addressed before we can see any dent in the percentages. I mean, recent statistics (going on memory from 60 Minutes report) show girls getting better grades than boys in high schools and the majority of students at MSU are girls. So it's beyond just stressing education.

Generalities and stereotypes can be used very negatively, but at the same time, they are often indicative of something and they should be studied and learned from. Some believe they already know or don't care, however, too many people consider the issues too sensitive to even discuss. It's generally accepted that physically, top female athletes in many sports cannot compete with the top men. Our physiologies are different enough that men have the advantage and we know enough to explain much of that.

But what are the reasons for male to female ratios in top chess players and other mental/educational disciplines? Why do certain racial and ethnic groups score much higher than others in SAT and other standardized tests? How come Jews around the world (with a smaller population than my home country of Nepal, around 13 million to 26 million) hold more wealth, influence and power despite being persecuted almost everywhere they go?

However, the main people really "thinking" about these issues are male chauvinists, extreme feminists, racist bigots and anti-semitists/Islamic fundamentalists. That's not a good sign...

Anyhow, good job in the interview and I thought your answers were well said. Good luck on improving computer security and raising awareness of security. And good luck on changing the atmosphere of chauvinism (of course I'll do my part).

I don't get why someone that's intelligent would reply to such a post. The article mentioned you're sensitive on the "chick hacker" topic, but is it such a reflex to respond to trolls and ignorant people when there are things more worth your time?

Since you talk about this on your webpage, I'll write my opinions here. It's greatly unfortunate the chauvinism in computer science/engineering and the world in general. And while I'm sure that has impact on women entering the field, I think that's minor compared to other cultural factors.

Rates in grad school are probably a little different from undergrad and this is only one case, but let's look at my school. In the CSE department, only 26 out of 146 students are female (18%). Most statistics I've seen hover around 20% (for graduate and undergraduate engineering in general). Here, 65% of the grad students are foreign. While the US men hold at 38%, only 19% of the female are from the US. While China and India "only" account for 53% of the men, they account for 69% of the women. While China and India's percentages of women are still low (31% and 23%, respectively), it's much better than the rest (10%).

So either many women aren't finding this intersting, they find it too difficult, or there are cultural issues involved (or mixtures). So is the government (and society in general) not taking steps we should be? If so, what are they? The same can be said regarding male teachers.

Kids are already being told to fear math and science and find it difficult and boring, what other social factors need to be addressed to change what's being told to the girls? While chauvinism is a factor (and should be addressed just because it's wrong), I think there are many other issues (many of which I don't know) that need to be addressed before we can see any dent in the percentages. I mean, recent statistics (going on memory from 60 Minutes report) show girls getting better grades than boys in high schools and the majority of students at MSU are girls. So it's beyond just stressing education.

Generalities and stereotypes can be used very negatively, but at the same time, they are often indicative of something and they should be studied and learned from. Some believe they already know or don't care, however, too many people consider the issues too sensitive to even discuss. It's generally accepted that physically, top female athletes in many sports cannot compete with the top men. Our physiologies are different enough that men have the advantage and we know enough to explain much of that.

But what are the reasons for male to female ratios in top chess players and other mental/educational disciplines? Why do certain racial and ethnic groups score much higher than others in SAT and other standardized tests? How come Jews around the world (with a smaller population than my home country of Nepal, around 13 million to 26 million) hold more wealth, influence and power despite being persecuted almost everywhere they go?

However, the main people really "thinking" about these issues are male chauvinists, extreme feminists, racist bigots and anti-semitists/Islamic fundamentalists. That's not a good sign...

Anyhow, good job in the interview and I thought your answers were well said. Good luck on improving computer security and raising awareness of security. And good luck on changing the atmosphere of chauvinism (of course I'll do my part).