Right on the money. Your experience in the lab will be a combination of what you make of it (25%) and the quality of your lab mates (75%). To be a successful volunteer/student, pretend that you are going to be a student chef. It takes many years of experience to be a really good scientist, and you aren't going to learn even a handful of the tricks that professionals use over your summer. All you need is to have good hands, get along with your lab partners, and have lots of patience. There is a lot of hurry up and wait sorts of things that can be frustrating for someone new to the game.
Ask questions, be curious, but be humble. Be enthusiatic but back off with the questions if you sense you are annoying someone. Do not attempt to thrill us with your genius; learn from those who are competent, and once you get good, you can THEN innovate and develop your own techniques. But not before then. We've seen far too many students who think they are too smart to be bothered with mundane techniques, and never get a single experiment to work.
Above all, have fun.
I am a young assistant professor (have been out of school for 3.5 years) at a prestigious research institute and am treated quite well by the people there. The studies I did a few years ago were featured as a cover story in Nature and I discovered a derivative drug that is currently in clinical trials for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
I completely disagree with the idea of wallowing in poverty in pursuit of true "artistic pursuits". Money is a true concern for scientists just like anyone else; we have to eat. We've got to bills to pay and retirements to save for. While young scientists are typically underpaid, a leading researcher can eventually make 150,000-200,000 (USD) in academic environments through a combination of salaries, patents, consulting, writing and honoraria for speaking engagements. It's worth noting that these sort of salaries are reserved for those individuals who work in areas of research that reach a broad audience. Laboring in obscure areas that have little translational potential (i.e. limited commerical value) and areas with a limited audience are not a ticket for financial success.
Getting a Ph.D. should be treated as an investment in the future. If this does not impact your income and does not help with your success, you should not get a Ph.D. (An example of this is, I've heard, within the physical therapy field; currently, a Ph.D. has minimal impact lifetime earnings over a Master's degree.)
As someone who works with many extraordinary scientists, I think the key to being successful as is to treat your research very much like a family-run business; work like a dog, pursue profitable areas (i.e. areas where there is grant funding, a need, or something that can have an impact on humanity or is generally interesting), be kind to your staff members but eliminate deadwood, shut down unprofitable research, and seek collaborations with successful people in the field. All successful scientists seem to follow variants of this formula, and they pursue things that are of genuine interest to them.
Re:there's MUCH better work out there.
on
Build Your Own KiteCam
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Haefer's work is superb and contains a wonderfully crafted tutorial on the professional methods used to craft these impressive images.
Intriguing commentary. Your explanation showcases why this publication represents a potentially valuable method of extracting cryptographic keys. Do you have an idea of how much of a reduction in keyspace size this technique could confer?
Re:Eugenics? Pull the other one...
on
Fish with Limbs
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· Score: 1
As for birth defects, most are not carried into the next generation, being caused by either prenatal trauma (of one kind or another) or chromosome replication error. Most people with developmental disabilities, believe it or not, will have genetically normal children if they have any at all.
Birth defects resulting from genetic abnormalities are not typically caused by chromosome replication errors or prenatal trauma. Depending on the racial group, most humans are heterozygous for one or more genes conferring a detrimental phenotype. However, these defects are often masked because of functional expression of the non-mutant gene.
As far as "intelligent design" as a religious proposition (not scientific theory), I think you'd find that MANY scientists believe it to be quite compatible with evolution... the religious ones, anyhow. They just place the design further back in time - say, about 15 billion years further back.
Although there are scientists who believe in "intelligent design," the theory remains untestable and, I think, works as as a rationalization for those who are uncomfortable with the idea of a godless universe. The theory of intelligent design has no practical application within the scientific community, and remains firmly entrenched within the domain of religion.
Fun with Fingerprints: Chamelon Card
on
The Universal Card
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· Score: 5, Informative
The Chamelon Card system uses a fingerprint reader to secure the data vault. Fingerprint readers can be defeated using a simple hack involving common household items. I refer interested readers to the following article: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0205.html.
I'm ordering one to take it apart. While the toy is not autonomous, Robosapien incorporates several clever engineering techniques. As Mark Tilden explains in his video, this particular toy: (1) has motor arrangement that operates 50% efficiency, allowing it to run for 20 hours off of a single charge; (2)cleverly exploits hexagonal geometry and resonant physics to maintain balance, allowing the robot to be self balancing even when its arms are horribly distended outwards (3)contains a simple neural network chip that allows the robot to balance.
This little humanoid appears to be supremely hackable; as a robotic "frame," it's an awesome deal for $99.
Looks kind of cute too.
This crypto scheme is weak and can be rapidly broken by a brute force approach. It requires a common private key sequence that is shared among multiple users of the software; each user uses this common key to encrypt messages along the matrix. Matrix values are shared amongst all users with a common "serial number prefix." The encrypted "message" that is created is not actually the message; it is a bit sequence that points at positions within the matrix. The software locates each bit position to give a readout of the character at that step. Although the matrix undergoes convolutions as decryption occurs, supposedly making it more "uncrackable," ultimately the reduction of this method requires re-use of a one-time pad (the "virtual matrix"). Reuse of a one-time pad turns an unbreakable encoding into something insecure and breakable. That is ultimately the largest weakness of this algorithm.
Here's the telling bit in the patent scheme (US 6,219,421): "A message may be secured in accordance with various options specifying an intended audience, including "global," "specific" and "private" options. "Global" allows anyone having a copy of the data security software to decrypt the message providing that person has the correct keys and is able to supply parameters matching those with which the message was secured. "Group" allows the possibility of successful decryption by any of a number of users within a group identified by its members having copies of the software program with a common prefix. "specific" allows only a user having a particular numbered copy of the software program to decrypt. Finally, "private" allows decryption only by the same software copy used to secure the message originally. Without the correct keys and parameters, it is impossible for the message to be unlocked. The present invention further enhances security by allowing definition of a date range where the data can be decrypted correctly, hence preventing lengthy efforts to break the code by brute computational force."
Slashdot Mirror
Right on the money. Your experience in the lab will be a combination of what you make of it (25%) and the quality of your lab mates (75%). To be a successful volunteer/student, pretend that you are going to be a student chef. It takes many years of experience to be a really good scientist, and you aren't going to learn even a handful of the tricks that professionals use over your summer. All you need is to have good hands, get along with your lab partners, and have lots of patience. There is a lot of hurry up and wait sorts of things that can be frustrating for someone new to the game. Ask questions, be curious, but be humble. Be enthusiatic but back off with the questions if you sense you are annoying someone. Do not attempt to thrill us with your genius; learn from those who are competent, and once you get good, you can THEN innovate and develop your own techniques. But not before then. We've seen far too many students who think they are too smart to be bothered with mundane techniques, and never get a single experiment to work. Above all, have fun.
I completely disagree with the idea of wallowing in poverty in pursuit of true "artistic pursuits". Money is a true concern for scientists just like anyone else; we have to eat. We've got to bills to pay and retirements to save for. While young scientists are typically underpaid, a leading researcher can eventually make 150,000-200,000 (USD) in academic environments through a combination of salaries, patents, consulting, writing and honoraria for speaking engagements. It's worth noting that these sort of salaries are reserved for those individuals who work in areas of research that reach a broad audience. Laboring in obscure areas that have little translational potential (i.e. limited commerical value) and areas with a limited audience are not a ticket for financial success.
Getting a Ph.D. should be treated as an investment in the future. If this does not impact your income and does not help with your success, you should not get a Ph.D. (An example of this is, I've heard, within the physical therapy field; currently, a Ph.D. has minimal impact lifetime earnings over a Master's degree.)
As someone who works with many extraordinary scientists, I think the key to being successful as is to treat your research very much like a family-run business; work like a dog, pursue profitable areas (i.e. areas where there is grant funding, a need, or something that can have an impact on humanity or is generally interesting), be kind to your staff members but eliminate deadwood, shut down unprofitable research, and seek collaborations with successful people in the field. All successful scientists seem to follow variants of this formula, and they pursue things that are of genuine interest to them.
Haefer's work is superb and contains a wonderfully crafted tutorial on the professional methods used to craft these impressive images.
Intriguing commentary. Your explanation showcases why this publication represents a potentially valuable method of extracting cryptographic keys. Do you have an idea of how much of a reduction in keyspace size this technique could confer?
Birth defects resulting from genetic abnormalities are not typically caused by chromosome replication errors or prenatal trauma. Depending on the racial group, most humans are heterozygous for one or more genes conferring a detrimental phenotype. However, these defects are often masked because of functional expression of the non-mutant gene.
As far as "intelligent design" as a religious proposition (not scientific theory), I think you'd find that MANY scientists believe it to be quite compatible with evolution... the religious ones, anyhow. They just place the design further back in time - say, about 15 billion years further back.
Although there are scientists who believe in "intelligent design," the theory remains untestable and, I think, works as as a rationalization for those who are uncomfortable with the idea of a godless universe. The theory of intelligent design has no practical application within the scientific community, and remains firmly entrenched within the domain of religion.
The Chamelon Card system uses a fingerprint reader to secure the data vault. Fingerprint readers can be defeated using a simple hack involving common household items. I refer interested readers to the following article: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0205.html.
I'm ordering one to take it apart. While the toy is not autonomous, Robosapien incorporates several clever engineering techniques. As Mark Tilden explains in his video, this particular toy: (1) has motor arrangement that operates 50% efficiency, allowing it to run for 20 hours off of a single charge; (2)cleverly exploits hexagonal geometry and resonant physics to maintain balance, allowing the robot to be self balancing even when its arms are horribly distended outwards (3)contains a simple neural network chip that allows the robot to balance. This little humanoid appears to be supremely hackable; as a robotic "frame," it's an awesome deal for $99. Looks kind of cute too.
This crypto scheme is weak and can be rapidly broken by a brute force approach. It requires a common private key sequence that is shared among multiple users of the software; each user uses this common key to encrypt messages along the matrix. Matrix values are shared amongst all users with a common "serial number prefix." The encrypted "message" that is created is not actually the message; it is a bit sequence that points at positions within the matrix. The software locates each bit position to give a readout of the character at that step. Although the matrix undergoes convolutions as decryption occurs, supposedly making it more "uncrackable," ultimately the reduction of this method requires re-use of a one-time pad (the "virtual matrix"). Reuse of a one-time pad turns an unbreakable encoding into something insecure and breakable. That is ultimately the largest weakness of this algorithm.
Here's the telling bit in the patent scheme (US 6,219,421):
"A message may be secured in accordance with various options specifying an intended audience, including "global," "specific" and "private" options. "Global" allows anyone having a copy of the data security software to decrypt the message providing that person has the correct keys and is able to supply parameters matching those with which the message was secured. "Group" allows the possibility of successful decryption by any of a number of users within a group identified by its members having copies of the software program with a common prefix. "specific" allows only a user having a particular numbered copy of the software program to decrypt. Finally, "private" allows decryption only by the same software copy used to secure the message originally. Without the correct keys and parameters, it is impossible for the message to be unlocked. The present invention further enhances security by allowing definition of a date range where the data can be decrypted correctly, hence preventing lengthy efforts to break the code by brute computational force."