CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-17 16:30:07 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Glass Power Source

If this device ends up taking the market by storm, there will be users who will be dependent on it. So the question that begs an answer is how much use can you get out of it on a single charge?

2013-05-16 07:03:54 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Solar Paint

Imagine if you could just paint your roof with solar paint and harness the free energy of the Sun

The method spray-coats a photovoltaic active layer by an air based process—similar to spraying regular paint from a can—to develop a cheaper technique which can be mass produced.

“Spray coating is currently used to apply paint to cars and in graphic printing,” says David Lidzey, professor at the University of Sheffield.  “We have shown that it can also be used to make solar cells using specially designed plastic semiconductors. Maybe in the future surfaces on buildings and even car roofs will routinely generate electricity with these materials.

Extract from Scientific American
_The paint contains nanoparticles of titanium dioxide—which gives whiteness to sunscreen and powdered sugar. The particles are coated withsemiconducti... more »

2013-05-12 11:42:54 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2013-05-09 22:32:55 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Great tips for Drive fans! via +Lifehacker 

2013-05-07 06:30:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

#dogsrule #puppypower

2013-05-05 04:35:08 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

The world's smallest flying robot has fly-like agility - stunning size and flexibility breakthrough in use of piezo-electric materials.  So far, it draws its power and computation down hairlike cable.  But we will live in the world described in The Transparent Society  (1997) - one in which "insects" will fly into any building capable of spying.  What is to be done?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22380287

2013-05-03 14:42:09 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Consuming Information

I have been thinking for some time now what the difference (and hence advantage) could be between accumulating more information vs understanding whatever you have.

Let me explain: explore the possibilities of what you already know such that when you are looking for more information, you are actually looking to add to something that you are already interested and/or actually want to find out. 

With an internet connection, information is readily available though it would seem like the bigger challenge is deciding how to use the information. In the age of social networks, information even comes to us through our so-called social connections though that still may be challenging to apply in an individual context.

The information from the social networks is certainly useful but the original premise still applies - if an individual does not... more »

2013-05-01 23:08:59 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

"A raging sea dwarfs Seaham Lighthouse in County Durham in England," says photographer Owen Humphreys.

See more of our editors' picks from the +National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest—and don't forget to submit your best shot: http://on.natgeo.com/ZVM6Bd

2013-04-30 13:43:26 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

On 30 April 1993 CERN published a statement that made World Wide Web technology available on a royalty free basis, allowing the web to flourish: http://info.cern.ch/

This image shows http://info.cern.ch/ including a screenshot of the original NeXT web browser in 1993.

2013-04-15 03:57:41 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Who said Nerds are not very romantic?
haha :-)

#nerdhumor   #geekhumor #welovescience #welovemath <3

2013-04-13 02:28:36 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

If you're using CDNConnect.com to serve your images.. they'll be automagically served in WebP format if your browser supports it!

No need to modify your existing markup, no need for client-side detection, or any other hacks. Faster applications, without extra work - the way it should be!

2013-04-06 00:49:05 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Droplets - Really Swarm Robots - Working Together in Swarms of Thousands to Achieve the Previously Impossible .

Forget the big, good looking robots and think about little golf ball sized guys, working in swarms.  A thinking liquid.

The ping pong bots, or, “droplets” as they are known by their creator Nikolaus Correll, an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, are still in the prime of their development. The 20 that have been built so far have RGB color and infrared sensing, get around with vibrating motors and communicate via wireless. Down the road Correll hopes to have a completely autonomous swarm robot platform through distributed sensing, actuation, computation and communication that can be used for just about any kind of remote sensing or even construction tasks.

I just want my windows done...  


#robotics #swa... more »

2013-04-05 00:24:48 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2013-03-30 08:10:01 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Encoding

Some of the programs I have do not seem to know what to do with Arabic letters. Windows supports unicode (I presume) as I can see those squiggly things nicely structured. Media Monkey is an offender.

Need to download language packs for any app that has that supported. Should be possible to type out Arabic on this computer as well as read it.

Supporting ASCII only is annoying.

2013-03-29 13:09:40 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

2013-03-29 04:08:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Web framework/platform benchmarks. The winner was Netty, which I never even heard of. I looked on Google and apparently it's a Java framework (part of JBoss). Go came in at #5, not bad for a new platform. Node.js came in at #7. PHP came in at #12. Rack-ruby did the best of all the Ruby systems at #13. Rails came in 2nd to last at #24. Cake came in last at #25-- I'm guessing they mean CakePHP.

2013-03-28 18:25:27 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Chronic Pain Reversible - At least to Pain

I still wonder why pain works the way it does: it is like the entire system is completely unaware of the fact that the prefrontal cortex is not interested enough in self preservation that when alerted (appropriately via pain) to a problem, it will act to remedy the situation.

It could just be that the prefrontal cortex is just too stupid to be trusted to do the right thing as soon as humanly possible. 

2013-03-28 07:35:44 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

On Tuesday, the President signed a bill that funds the U.S. Government for the remainder of 2013.
Tucked away in this bill is crucial language that restores $223 million to NASA's Planetary Science Division.

Just received this in my email:

Thanks to you, we just had a major victory in our efforts to ensure that funding for NASA's planetary exploration remains in place. Thank you indeed for your support.

On Tuesday, the President signed a bill that funds the U.S. Government for the remainder of 2013. Tucked away in this bill is crucial language that restores $223 million to NASA's Planetary Science Division. This isn't a complete restoration of funds, but it achieves nearly all of our policy goals for 2013.

Thank you for taking the time to write a letter of support. We flooded Washington D.C. with tens of thousands of messages,... more »

2013-03-28 05:27:57 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Disabled man awarded $8000 after being stranded on Disneyland ride

A wheelchair-bound man was awarded $8,000 by Disneyland after the “It’s A Small World” ride broke, stranding him for a half hour while the theme song played continuously, according to an attorney for the plaintiff.

Read more: http://nbcnews.to/101cWoG
Photo: +NBC LA 

2013-03-24 08:36:59 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

The festival, from Sunday 24 to Thursday 28 March 2013, will showcase some of the most significant international scientific research and explore how African scientists have contributed to the global science agenda.

2013-03-24 05:54:20 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Question: What element is a girl's future best friend?
Answer: Carbon.

#nerdyjoke #nerdyjoke #geekhumor #carbon #sundayhumor

Hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond

2013-03-24 02:06:31 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

A shot across the bow (Feb 27 2013).

2013-03-22 12:45:44 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

LOL!

2013-03-22 12:01:46 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2013-03-22 10:54:13 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2013-03-21 17:33:48 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

It might indeed be

2013-03-20 16:55:34 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

African Authors

Haven't done African authors justice. There are titles and writers that should have read already. I decided to remedy the situation as it were. On my to-read list is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Yes, it is a shame that I have not read the title but let the journey begin - however far back it starts. 

One of the more challenging aspects of African literature is accessibility. Right now, am in Juba and there are not many bookshops you can walk into and spend some time looking for the latest releases from African writers. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of titles around though many of them look like a thesis or research paper that has been turned into a book. 

On that note, most of reading I do lately have been largely on my phone. Yes, it is not the most suitable device but if you have power limitations you can get a good 2 or threeh... more »

2013-03-20 16:39:07 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Unlocking Phones vs Ownership

I am not sure am fully sold on the business model that allows your service provider to subsidize the price of your phone while also claiming control over how you use it if at all. This seem to inevitably lead to the carriers' attempts to limit your ownership. Yes, that is a phone specific example. 

Any business model that requires you to "buy" a product (and have it in your possession in whatever form)  and yet does not give you the right to do with your purchases (within the limits of just laws of course) as you please is tantamount to stealing.

2013-03-20 16:13:56 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

IRS Network Flaws

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) believes that “serious weaknesses remain” in the ways that the Internal Revenue Service handles its internal network, problems that could directly implicate taxpayer data according to a report the regulatory group released on Friday.

Outline of said flaws according to the GAO report:
 
outlines several problems with the IRS’ system including the way it authenticates users, enforces password complexity, fails to restrict access to its mainframe environment, and fails to keep patches up to date.

The way forward: 

Going forward, the organization is advising the IRS to a) update its policies and procedures b) update its testing and evaluation methodology c) update its mainframe testing and evaluation processes and d) document a monitoring strategy to stick by the newpolicie... more »

2013-03-19 17:19:58 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 1 +1s)

Like all primes, the newly discovered 257,885,161 – 1 is divisible only by itself and 1. But this prime is special. It's a Mersenne prime — so called because it can be written in the form 2p - 1, where p is also prime. Prime numbers of this form are named after French monk/mathematician Marin Mersenne, who studied them at the beginning of the 17th century.

Searching for Mersenne primes is reportedly among the most efficient ways to look for high primes — a tradition carried on today by number-crunching computers in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, known affectionately as "Gimps." Like Mersenne himself, the people at Gimps study primes not because they are inherently useful, but rather because they are there. Sort of like the Mount Everest of mathematics.

2013-03-19 16:54:56 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

2013-03-14 13:30:19 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Sounds like a nice idea but there are a couple of problems with this: 

1. How do you ensure that the criminal does not carry out his crime(s) again and again?

2. How do you make sure that the criminal does not become a victim of mob-justice?

If anything, the prison walls keep the criminal away from society and society away from the criminal.

2013-03-11 05:45:52 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
- Martin Golding

2013-03-09 08:39:25 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Distributed Denial of Service Attacks Against Banks

2013-03-05 22:40:36 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

♔

2013-03-05 10:50:10 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Secret Negotiations

What makes TPP—and in fact any trade agreement that carries copyright provisions—dangerous for Internet users is that IP enforcement is only one issue out of many others that are being negotiated within these agreements. Therefore countries may trade away their sovereign ability to make copyright regulations in the future if other terms of the TPP are more appealing to particular powerful industries in their country.

2013-03-29 13:18:35 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

#dogsrule

2013-03-01 11:24:52 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Improving accessibility in Hangouts

Accessibility is something we care a lot about on the Hangouts team. The Hangout Captions app, for example, enables live transcription services for the deaf and hard of hearing (http://goo.gl/4RujF). And "Take the Floor" makes it easier for sign language speakers to do a Hangout together (http://goo.gl/chyKS). Today we're rolling out two accessibility improvements in Hangouts - a Sign Language Interpreter app, and a fuller set of keyboard shortcuts. 

1) Using the Sign Language Interpreter app, deaf or hard of hearing users who prefer sign language can invite interpreters to speak and sign for them during a Hangout. They'll always see their interpreter at the top right of the window, and they'll become the focus of the Hangout whenever their interpreter speaks for them. You can install the app using this link:... more »

2013-03-01 11:16:36 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Does anyone have a flashlight I can borrow? ;). Oh, and Batteries for the light would be nice too

2013-02-28 07:10:00 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Emerging Scientific Fields

One reason I can entertain the notion of living forever is to witness what science will grow up to become - if it ever does.

I hope it does not because that constant need to fiddle with reality is just interesting regardless of time.

2013-02-28 06:35:26 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Firefox Improvements

Firefox 20, currently six weeks away from a stable release, brings two nice new features to the popular open source browser — per-window private browsing and a new downloads manager.

The change does have some potential consequences for Firefox add-ons using the new(ish) SDK. If you’re an add-on developer, head over to the Mozilla Add-ons blog for more details.

2013-02-28 06:25:00 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

Firefox Improvements

Firefox 20, currently six weeks away from a stable release, brings two nice new features to the popular open source browser — per-window private browsing and a new downloads manager.

The change does have some potential consequences for Firefox add-ons using the new(ish) SDK. If you’re an add-on developer, head over to the Mozilla Add-ons blog for more details.

2013-02-26 20:17:00 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

IE10 for Windows 7 is out.

2013-02-25 14:47:27 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Microsoft was so loving the blowjob given by the UEFI secure boot supporters... damn Linus spoiled the fun...

2013-02-23 09:51:26 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Downloading Netbeans 7.3 (released on 21st of Feb 2013) and taking the opportunity to update to Java 7 update 15. This will need to be managed manually. This is the order am currently thinking: 

=> Install Java 7 update 15 
=> Update JAVA_HOME environment variable
=> Remove Previous Version of Netbeans (version 7.2)
=> Remove Java 7 update 13 (most recent update installed).
=> Install Netbeans 7.3

Hopefully it all hang together in one piece. Java Updates is a Pain #JavaUpdatePain #Java  #Pain

2013-02-22 13:54:56 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Java Needs an Auto Update Mechanism that Actually Works

I just got up to Java 7 update 13 and now I have to update to update 15 and there seems to be a weekly trend of this. These so call updates have an unpleasant habit of not removing the previous versions from the system.

2013-02-22 10:17:26 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

Java Needs an Auto Update Mechanism that Actually Works

I just got up to Java 7 update 13 and now I have to update to update 15 and there seems to be a weekly trend of this. These so call updates have an unpleasant habit of not removing the previous versions from the system.

2013-02-22 06:22:26 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

NBC Website Hacked To Serve Up Malware

Another day, another media company hacked. This time it’s NBC which has fallen to victim hackers on the heels of compromises of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal websites. Various experts have confirmed that NBC’s website is compromised and leading visitors to the dangerous Citadel banking Trojan.

Java and PDF vulnerabilities exploited for this.

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab confirmed the redirections are leading victims to Citadel and Zeus (Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.jfgj). Citadel is a version of Zeus and is used primarily for banking fraud. Experts say it is sold only in the Russian underground and only to certain customers in order to keep support costs down and reduce the risk of infiltration by law enforcement.

2013-02-19 10:13:05 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

How to Lose a Hobby

Think a little money would make you more interested in your hobbies? Think again. The overjustification effect says that paying someone for a task they enjoy is a sure way to get them to drop it. All it takes is a little money and a little planning to ruin anyone's pleasures.

One of the time-honored ways that guidance counselors try to steer high school students to their ideal careers is asking them what they would do if they didn't have to earn any money. The realistic answer is most likely to be "play video games, sleep in, and eat Cheetos," none of which are compensated. Still, a lot of kids will say things like, "work on fancy cars," or "travel around on cruise ships," or "rile people up on facebook." The counselor will conclude that the person who wanted to play around with cars is meant to be a mechanic,... more »

2013-02-19 09:57:29 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)