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Viewing all posts tagged "its science duh"
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How people in academia see each other. (via negevrockcity)
(Source: journalofajournalist)
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Replacing that annoying "every haptic response is a mechanical vibration" model with tactile interfaces
A bloggy press release is making the rounds today from Senseg, but the concept is so cool it’s worth clicking through to browse around the vendor website. The VC comes from “the founding engineers, Skype, and the Finnish Early Stage Growth fund,” which at least sounds promising. File this one under Cool Stuff To Watch:
Senseg technology applies an innovation in biophysics to bring a haptic effect to the traditionally passive touch user interface. When felt through one’s fingertips, it provides a sophisticated sensory experience. Whether flat or curved, transparent or opaque, the Senseg solution can be easily applied to any touch interface surface. The solution package comes complete with tixel laminate technology, electronic module, and software APIs.
As very tiny electrical charges pass into the tixel (a portmanteau meaning tactile pixel) elements, the individual tixels generate a controlled electric field which extends several millimeters above the surface. Senseg E-Sense is a wholly new way of creating a sophisticated sensation of touch without the use of less sensitive haptic technology like vibration or mechanical actuators such as motors, piezoelectric actuators or electro-active polymers.
Virtually any surface regardless of the size or form factor can be Senseg E-Sense enabled. For example, tixels can be part of the fabric in a wearable cloth, or part of a glass object. The tixel is highly durable, free from any mechanical movement or wear.
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Hackers blind quantum cryptographers
via Nature via Liquidmatrix Security Digest:
The cunning part is that while blinded, Bob’s detector cannot function as a ‘quantum detector’ that distinguishes between different quantum states of incoming light. However, it does still work as a ‘classical detector’ — recording a bit value of 1 if it is hit by an additional bright light pulse, regardless of the quantum properties of that pulse.
That means that every time Eve intercepts a bit value of 1 from Alice, she can send a bright pulse to Bob, so that he also receives the correct signal, and is entirely unaware that his detector has been sabotaged. There is no mismatch between Eve and Bob’s readings because Eve sends Bob a classical signal, not a quantum one. As quantum cryptographic rules no longer apply, no alarm bells are triggered, says Makarov.
“We have exploited a purely technological loophole that turns a quantum cryptographic system into a classical system, without anyone noticing,” says Makarov.
Extra credit: Browse the resources from this comment, debating the pragmatic viability of quantum crypto, which relates directly to (among other things) the way these researchers were able to authenticate the message, but not validate the source.
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"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," the Queen remarked.
Sean Carroll via WIRED:
The particular aspect of time that I’m interested in is the arrow of time: the fact that the past is different from the future. We remember the past but we don’t remember the future. There are irreversible processes. There are things that happen, like you turn an egg into an omelet, but you can’t turn an omelet into an egg.
Why was the entropy ever low to begin with? Basically, our observable universe begins around 13.7 billion years ago in a state of exquisite order, exquisitely low entropy. That is what I’m trying to tackle. I’m trying to understand cosmology, why the Big Bang had the properties it did.
And it’s interesting to think that connects directly to our kitchens and how we can make eggs, how we can remember one direction of time, why causes precede effects, why we are born young and grow older. It’s all because of entropy increasing. It’s all because of conditions of the Big Bang. -
The correlation between intelligence and novel thinking
(via demosthenes)
More intelligent people are significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.
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My reaction to this passage may be an new low
proofmathisbeautiful via rtalbert:
“Calculus is the mathematical study of change. Its essence is best captured by its original name, “fluxions,” coined by its inventor, Isaac Newton. The name calls to mind systems that are ever in motion, always unfolding. …
Calculus thrives on continuity. At its core is the assumption that things change smoothly, that everything is only infinitesimally different from what it was a moment before. Like a movie, calculus reimagines reality as a series of snapshots, and then recombines them, instant by instant, frame by frame, the succession of imperceptible changes creating an illusion of seamless flow.”
— Steven Strogatz, The Calculus of Friendship-p. xii, 1<shakes fist at sky> Leibniz!!!!!!!!!
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Today Laughing Squid posted a live action version of the I Love xkcd video, which was a tribute to the comic xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel, which was a tribute to the Discovery Channel’s beloved boom-dee-yada-boom-dee-yada commercial. (Follow that?)
I like this part best.
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Physical Theories as Women
(via @sfoak via Simon Dedeo)
0. Newtonian gravity is your high-school girlfriend. As your first encounter with physics, she’s amazing. You will never forget Newtonian gravity, even if you’re not in touch very much anymore.
Bonus points for lists that start at zero.
(Yes, it’s from 2004, but it still makes me laugh. Shut up or I’ll post all of alt.humor one. post. at. a. time.)
Based on Postage by Greg Cooper. Everything heavily modified by me.
*Unlikely to find your lost post using this but you can try...
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