the growing mountains of useless information produced by the kgb. the putins had a second daughter and named her ekaterina. putin drank beer and got fat. he stopped training, or exercising at all, and he gained more than 20 pounds — a disastrous addition to his short and fairly narrow frame. from all appearances, he was seriously depressed. his wife, who has described their early years together as harmonious and joyful, has pointedly refrained from saying anything about their family life after spy school. she has said only that her husband never talked to her about work. not that there was much to tell. the job putin had once coveted, working to draft future undercover agents, turned out to be not only tedious but fruitless. he and his two colleagues from the illegal - intelligence unit tracked down foreign students enrolled at the dresden university of technology and spent months gaining their confidence, often only to find that they did not have enough money to entice the young people to work for them. still, it was in the west — so close and so unreachable for someone like putin ( some other soviet citizens posted in germany had the right to go to west berlin ) — that people had the things he really coveted. he made his wishes known to the very few westerners with whom he came in contact — members of the radical group red army faction, who took some of their orders from the kgb and occasionally came to dresden for training sessions. “ he always wanted to have things, ” a former raf member told me of putin. “ he mentioned to several people wishes that he wanted from the west. ” this source claims to have personally presented putin with a grundig satellit, a state - of - the - art shortwave radio, and a blaupunkt stereo for his car ; he bought the former and pilfered the latter from one of the many cars the raf had stolen for its purposes. just as the putins left the soviet union, that country began to change drastically and irrevocably. mikhail gorbachev came to power in march 1985. two years later, he had released all soviet dissidents from prison and was beginning to loosen the reins on soviet - bloc countries. over the next few years, a chasm would open up between the party and the kgb, culminating with the failed coup in august 1991. watching the changes from afar, surrounded by other secret - police officers — and no one else — putin must have felt a hopeless, helpless fury. in east germany


image of the sun from soho click on image for full size courtesy of nasa soho catches glimpse of the sun ' s " far side " news story originally written on june 23, 1999 the solar and heliospheric observatory ( soho ) caught a rare view of the far side of the sun. scientists can now see if a solar storm is coming before it reaches earth. this may save the satellite industry millions of dollars each year. when the sun releases large amounts of energy, the light makes patches of hydrogen gas glow. this glow is invisible to earth, but not to soho. this new technology can give scientists a few days warning before the storm actually hits. soho also captured the largest shadow ever seen. when comet hale - bopp passed by in 1997, soho took a few photographs. behind the comet, was a shadow over 150 million kilometers long. when the comet came near the sun, it developed a long tail made of hydrogen. this tail and the comet itself were projected onto the sky. shop windows to the universe science store! our online store on science education, ranging from evolution, classroom research, and the need for science and math literacy you might also be interested in : hale - bopp continues to offer new surprises as two astronomers report of their study of the comet. using the hubble space telescope and the international ultraviolet explorer, the astronomers did a year - long... more it was another exciting and frustrating year for the space science program. it seemed that every step forward led to one backwards. either way, nasa led the way to a great century of discovery. unfortunately,... more the space shuttle discovery lifted off from kennedy space center on october 29th at 2 : 19 p. m. est. the weather was great as discovery took 8 1 / 2 minutes to reach orbit. this was the united states ' 123rd... more a moon was discovered orbiting the asteroid, eugenia. this is only the second time in history that a satellite has been seen circling an asteroid. a special mirror allowed scientists to find the moon... more will russia ever put the service module for the international space station in space? nasa officials want an answer from the russian government. the necessary service module is currently waiting to be... more a coronal mass ejection ( cme ) happened on the sun early last month. the material that was thrown out from this explosion passed the ace spacecraft. the swics instrument on ace has produced a new and very... more j. s. maini of


this weather balloon is full of helium gas. it is surrounded by earth ' s atmosphere, which is mostly nitrogen and oxygen gasses. helium is " lighter " ( less dense ) than nitrogen or oxygen, so the balloon will rise when the scientist lets go of it. click on image for full size image courtesy of the university corporation for atmospheric research. gas is one of the four common states of matter. the three others are liquid, solid, and plasma. there are also some other exotic states of matter that have been discovered in recent years. the air in earth ' s atmosphere is mostly a mixture of different types of gases. a gas usually has much lower density than a solid or liquid. a quantity of gas doesn ' t have a specific shape ; in this way it is like a liquid and different from a solid. if a gas is enclosed in a container, it will take on the shape of the container ( a liquid will too ). the volume of a gas changes if the temperature or pressure changes. there are several scientific laws, called the " gas laws ", that describe how the volume, temperature, and pressure of a gas are related. the molecules or atoms in a gas are much further apart than in a solid or a liquid. gas molecules or atoms are usually flying around at very high speeds, occasionally bouncing off each other or the walls of the container the gas is in. when a gas is cooled or placed under high pressure, it can condense and turn into a liquid. if a liquid boils or evaporates, it will become a gas. under some circumstances, usually very low pressure, a solid can turn directly into a gas ( without first melting and becoming a liquid ). when a solid turns directly into a gas, it is called " sublimation ". most of the air in earth ' s atmosphere is either nitrogen or oxygen gas. balloons are often filled with helium gas ; since helium is lighter ( less dense ) than air, helium balloons " float " or rise up in air. when liquid water boils or evaporates, it turns into a gas called " water vapor ". most of the gas in the atmospheres of the giant planets jupiter and saturn is hydrogen gas. in recent years, carbon dioxide gas has become quite famous because of its role in the greenhouse effect and global warming. shop windows to the universe science store! our online store includes fun classroom activities for you and your students. issues of nesta ' s quarterly journal, the earth scientist are also full of classroom activities on different


role in the greenhouse effect and global warming. shop windows to the universe science store! our online store includes fun classroom activities for you and your students. issues of nesta ' s quarterly journal, the earth scientist are also full of classroom activities on different topics in earth and space science! you might also be interested in : solid is one of the four common states of matter. the three others are gas, liquid, and plasma. there are also some other exotic states of matter that have been discovered in recent years. unlike liquids... more plasma is known as the fourth state of matter. the other three states are solid, liquid and gas. almost everything is made up of atoms ( your dog, your science book, this computer... ). the atom has a nucleus... more density is a measure of how much mass is contained in a given unit volume ( density = mass / volume ). put simply, if mass is a measure of how much ‘ stuff ’ there is in an object, density is a measure of how... more most things around us are made of groups of atoms connected together into packages called molecules. molecules are made from atoms of one or more elements. some molecules are made of only one type of... more a snowman, glass of water and steam might look very different but they are made of the same stuff! just like any substance, water has three different forms, called states : solid, liquid and gas. the state... more have you ever left a glass of water out for a long time? did you notice that the water disappears after a few days? that ' s because it evaporated! evaporation is when water passes from a liquid to a gas.... more there is more nitrogen gas in the air than any other kind of gas. about four out of five of the molecules in earth ' s atmosphere is nitrogen gas! a molecule of nitrogen gas is made up of two nitrogen atoms.... more


automatically keeping the database and operating system software up to date. sql database also provides a federation option that distributes data across multiple servers. this is useful for applications that work with large amounts of data or need to spread data access requests across multiple servers for better performance. if you ' re creating a windows azure application ( using any of the three execution models ) that needs relational storage, sql database can be a good option. applications running outside the cloud can also use this service, though, so there are plenty of other scenarios. for instance, data stored in sql database can be accessed from different client systems, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones. and because it provides built - in high availability through replication, using sql database can help minimize downtime. suppose you want to create a windows azure application that needs fast access to typed data, maybe lots of it, but doesn ' t need to perform complex sql queries on this data. for example, imagine you ' re creating a consumer application that needs to store customer profile information for each user. your app is going to be very popular, so you need to allow for lots of data, but you won ' t do much with this data beyond storing it, then retrieving it in simple ways. this is exactly the kind of scenario where windows azure tables makes sense. don ' t be confused by the name : this technology doesn ' t provide relational storage. ( in fact, it ' s an example of a nosql approach called a key / value store. ) instead, windows azure tables let an application store properties of various types, such as strings, integers, and dates. an application can then retrieve a group of properties by providing a unique key for that group. while complex operations like joins aren ' t supported, tables offer fast access to typed data. they ' re also very scalable, with a single table able to hold as much as a terabyte of data. and matching their simplicity, tables are usually less expensive to use than sql database ' s relational storage. the third option for data management, windows azure blobs, is designed to store unstructured binary data. like tables, blobs provides inexpensive storage, and a single blob can be as large as one terabyte. an application that stores video, for example, or backup data or other binary information can use blobs for simple, cheap storage. windows azure applications can also use windows azure drives, which let blobs provide persistent storage for a windows file


. an application that stores video, for example, or backup data or other binary information can use blobs for simple, cheap storage. windows azure applications can also use windows azure drives, which let blobs provide persistent storage for a windows file system mounted in a windows azure instance. the application sees ordinary windows files, but the contents are actually stored in a blob. windows azure runs today in several datacenters spread across the united states, europe, and asia. when you run an application or store data, you can select one or more of these datacenters to use. you can also connect to these datacenters in various ways : you can use windows azure virtual network to connect your own on - premises local network to a defined set of windows azure vms. if your windows azure application is running in multiple datacenters, you can use windows azure traffic manager to route requests from users intelligently across instances of the application. figure 4 illustrates these options. figure 4 : windows azure allows creating a cloud vpn, and intelligently distributing user requests across different datacenters. one useful way to use a public cloud is to treat it as an extension of your own datacenter. because you can create vms on demand, then remove them ( and stop paying ) when they ' re no longer needed, you can have computing power only when you want it. and since windows azure virtual machines lets you can create vms running sharepoint, active directory, and other familiar on - premises software, this approach can work with the applications you already have. to make this really useful, though, your users ought to be able to treat these applications as if they were running in your own datacenter. this is exactly what windows azure virtual network allows. using a vpn gateway device, an administrator can set up a virtual private network ( vpn ) between your local network and a defined group of vms running in windows azure. because you assign your own ip v4 addresses to the cloud vms, they appear to be on your own network. users in your organization can access the applications those vms contain as if they were running locally. a windows azure application with users in just a single part of the world might run in only one windows azure datacenter. an application with users scattered around the world, however, is more likely to run in multiple datacenters, maybe even all of them. in this second situation, you face a problem : how do you intelligently assign users to application instances? most


messaging. in other cases, more complex interactions are required. windows azure provides a few different ways to solve these problems. figure 6 illustrates the choices. figure 6 : for connecting applications, windows azure provides queues, publish / subscribe, and synchronous connections via the cloud. queuing is a simple idea : one application places a message in a queue, and that message is eventually read by another application. if your application needs just this straightforward service, windows azure queues might be the best choice. one common use of queues today is to let a web role instance communicate with a worker role instance within the same cloud services application. for example, suppose you create a windows azure application for video sharing. the application consists of php code running in a web role that lets users upload and watch videos, together with a worker role implemented in c # that translates uploaded video into various formats. when a web role instance gets a new video from a user, it can store the video in a blob, then send a message to a worker role via a queue telling it where to find this new video. a worker role instance - it doesn ' t matter which one - will then read the message from the queue and carry out the required video translations in the background. structuring an application in this way allows asynchronous processing, and it also makes the application easier to scale, since the number of web role instances and worker role instances can be varied independently. whether they run in the cloud, in your data center, on a mobile device, or somewhere else, applications need to interact. the goal of windows azure service bus is to let applications running pretty much anywhere exchange data. as figure 6 shows, service bus provides a queuing service. this service isn ' t identical to the queues just described, however. unlike windows azure queues, for example, service bus provides a both queues ( one - to - one ) and publish - and - subscribe mechanisms. with publish - subscribe, an application can send messages to a topic, while other applications can create subscriptions to this topic. this allows one - to - many communication among a set of applications, letting the same message be read by multiple recipients. and queuing isn ' t the only option : service bus also allows direct communication through its relay service, providing a secure way to interact through firewalls. service bus relays enable applications to communicate by exchanging messages through an endpoint hosted in the cloud, rather than locally. applications that communicate


: service bus also allows direct communication through its relay service, providing a secure way to interact through firewalls. service bus relays enable applications to communicate by exchanging messages through an endpoint hosted in the cloud, rather than locally. applications that communicate through service bus might be windows azure applications or software running on some other cloud platform. they can also be applications running outside the cloud, however. for example, think of an airline that implements reservation services in computers inside its own datacenter. the airline needs to expose these services to many clients, including check - in kiosks in airports, reservation agent terminals, and maybe even customers ' phones. it might use service bus to do this, creating loosely coupled interactions among the various applications. applications tend to access the same data over and over. one way to improve performance is to keep a copy of that data closer to the application, minimizing the time needed to retrieve it. windows azure provides two different services for doing this : in - memory caching of data used by windows azure applications and a content delivery network ( cdn ) that caches blob data on disk closer to its users. figure 7 shows both. figure 7 : a windows azure application can cache data in memory, and copies of a blob can be cached at sites around the world. accessing data stored in any of windows azure ' s data management services - sql database, tables, or blobs - is quite fast. yet accessing data stored in memory is even faster. because of this, keeping an in - memory copy of frequently accessed data can improve application performance. you can use windows azure ' s in - memory caching to do this. a cloud services application can store data in this cache, then retrieve it directly without needing to access persistent storage. as figure 7 shows, the cache can be maintained inside your application ' s vms or be provided by vms dedicated solely to caching. in either case, the cache can be distributed, with the data it contains spread across multiple vms in a windows azure datacenter. an application that repeatedly reads a product catalog might benefit from using this kind of caching, for example, since the data it needs will be available more quickly. the technology also supports locking, letting it be used with read / write as well as read - only data. and asp. net applications can use the service to store session data with just a configuration change. suppose you need to store blob data that will be accessed by users around


cloak of deceit. dear word detective : i was just reading an old column of yours on the phrase “ made it up out of whole cloth ” to mean “ lying ” and wondered, given the textile reference, if there is any connection between “ fabrication ” and “ fabric. ” — tim maguire. that sounds like the foundation of a bad pun, but it ’ s actually a good question. of course, that presumes that there is such a thing as a “ good ” pun, an assertion i would contest. for some reason, probably born of a childhood trauma now buried in a cobwebbed corner of my psyche, i loathe puns. feh. don ’ t mind me ; i ’ m in a bad mood because i have to type this with an index finger badly bitten by an ungrateful cat. long story. where were we? yes, there is a family connection between “ fabric ” and “ fabrication, ” but the connection between “ fabric ” in the “ cloth ” sense and “ fabrication ” in the “ lie ” sense is very indirect, akin to that between two second cousins who only met once, as children. but before we proceed, we ’ d better take a moment to explain “ to make something up out of whole cloth, ” meaning to invent a story that contains not even a smidgen of truth. “ whole cloth ” has been used since the 15th century to mean a large piece of cloth in its original state, not yet cut up for sewing. as a metaphor in use since the 19th century for a story completely invented out of thin air, “ from whole cloth ” carries the same sense of “ starting from the absolute beginning ” as is found in the phrase “ starting from scratch, ” which originally referred to a scratch or line drawn on the ground as the starting line for a race. in the case of “ fabric ” and “ fabrication, ” the connection is a common root, the latin noun “ faber, ” meaning a craftsman such as a carpenter or blacksmith. the derivative “ fabrica ” meant “ workshop ” or “ product, ” and the verb “ fabricare ” meant “ to make or build. ” that verb “ fabricare ” eventually gave us the english word “ fabricate, ” which appeared in the late 16th century with the meaning of “ to make, construct or manufacture ” anything that requires skill, but by the early 20th century “ fabricate ” had taken on the specific meaning of “ to semi - finished materials into a finished product, ”


the late 16th century with the meaning of “ to make, construct or manufacture ” anything that requires skill, but by the early 20th century “ fabricate ” had taken on the specific meaning of “ to semi - finished materials into a finished product, ” as one might “ fabricate ” bumpers from rolled steel. ( whatever happened to steel bumpers, anyway? ) meanwhile, back in the 18th century, that “ make or construct ” sense had led to the use of “ fabricate ” to mean “ constructing ” a story that was utterly untrue, which gave us “ fabrication ” meaning just such a lie. the original meaning of “ fabric, ” when it first appeared in english in the late 15th century ( derived via the french “ fabrique ” from the latin “ fabrica ” ) was, literally, “ building ” ( “ a vaulted fabric without wood or iron - work, three stories high, ” 1756 ). “ fabric ” went on to mean pretty much anything that could be built or manufactured, but settled down in the mid - 18th century to being used in our modern sense to mean “ textile, cloth. ” interestingly, so complete has this narrowing process been that even figurative references to “ the fabric of the universe, ” etc., are usually based on this “ textile ” sense of “ fabric ” ( “ faith in the unseen and reverence for the divine … are inwoven in the very fabric of our nature, ” 1877 ). so there is a connection between “ fabric ” and “ fabrication, ” but it has nothing to do with “ whole cloth ” and making stuff up. honest.


the flute is the instrument often considered to most closely mimic the human voice. playing the flute is a personal experience and a unique extension of communication. typically a young flutist gets their start on a student flute, which is typically a concert c flute. if their fingers are not quite large enough to reach the keys, curved headjoints are available to get them started. also in the flute family are piccolos, eb, alto, and bass flutes. flutes are some of the oldest instruments in history and have been found in numerous cultures. they have gone through a variety of changes over the centuries but a flute created by theobold boehm in 1846 has remained the standard since its creation. boehm was the first flutist in the royal bavarian orchestra and also studied acoustics at the university of munich. his interests and skills uniquely joined when he began developing flutes. after a series of experiments and trials, boehm developed a flute with a cylindrical body, tapered headjoint, and large toneholes covered by keys. he also tested many types of material but introduced his flutes in silver and a copper, zinc, nickel alloy called german silver. at the time of boehm ’ s flute, wood was still the primary material being used for flutes. the value and importance of a good teacher is incredibly important in the development of young musicians. great flute teachers like marcel moyse have shaped generations of flutists based on the precedent they set with their own students. marcel moyse was a famous french flutist who performed widely and had many compositions written for him including the famous 1934 “ flute concerto ” by jacques ibert. moyse studied at the paris conservatory under phillippe gaubert, adolphe hennebains, and paul taffand. beyond his career as a performer, moyse also founded the marlboro music school and festival. he developed numerous studies and exercises that are still utilized by flute teachers today. among his writings are works like “ tone development through interpretation. ” many flutists went on from moyse ’ s tutelage to become quite successful including william bennett and james galway. beyond all of the exercises and techniques that marcel moyse taught, his underlying emphasis was not on teaching students how to play the flute, but teaching them how to make music instead. today flute teachers draw from previous virtuosos and instructors like marcel moyse as they introduce the student flute to numerous young musicians. with the aid of the internet, more flute instruction and exposure to music can be supplemented


walk by nancy baxter hastings ’ workshop - calculus classroom, and you ’ ll never believe that she ’ s teaching math. | nancy hastings ’ accessible approach to math is meeting with great success among all majors at dickinson. above, hastings ( left ) discusses a concept in the calculus lab. that ’ s because hastings, holder of the theodore & catherine mathias chair in mathematics and computer science, cleverly crosses boundaries, replacing traditional lectures with an innovative learning environment where students “ read, write and discuss math ” — and even enjoy it. what does reading, writing and discussing math entail? “ students learn by doing, ” hastings explains. “ instead of my going up to the board and telling them how to do a particular problem, students work together on activities that are designed to help them understand new ideas. as a result, they develop a sense of ownership of the material. ” this approach to teaching was inspired in the early ’ 90s by dickinson ’ s workshop - physics program, which already fostered activity - and observation - based learning. in 1991, hastings, then associate professor of mathematics allan rossman and physics professor priscilla laws received their first three - year grant from the u. s. department of education ’ s fund for improvement of postsecondary education ( fipse ) for development of a similar workshop program for mathematics. “ the idea was that, to start, we ’ d spend a year designing activities, a year testing them, a year revising them and then we ’ d be done, ” hastings says. “ but the project kept going and, since that initial grant, we ’ ve had continuous funding for our project from the national science foundation ( nsf ) and fipse. ” along with the workbooks she developed — including workshop calculus : a guided exploration with review — hastings creatively uses technology to help students learn calculus concepts. for example, her students use motion detectors — box - like devices that emit signals to detect movement — to understand graphic representations. “ i watched [ laws ’ ] students use a motion detector to think about velocity, ” hastings recalls. “ i thought, ‘ hey, our students could use this to think about graphs and functions. ’ “ if you walk in front of the box, the box measures and graphs how far away you are from it, ” hastings explains. “ if you increase your distance, it draws a curve that goes uphill. if you decrease your distance, the curve goes downhill. using this, students develop an understanding of the shape of graphs — they develop a mental image


, ” hastings explains. “ if you increase your distance, it draws a curve that goes uphill. if you decrease your distance, the curve goes downhill. using this, students develop an understanding of the shape of graphs — they develop a mental image of what ideas mean. and they even have fun in the process. ” and no, hastings isn ’ t only talking about mathematics majors. in fact, the workshop curriculum was designed for students who use calculus outside of the discipline — students pursuing fields in pre - medicine, economics or chemistry. “ of course, the primary goal [ of the workshop program ] is to provide students with a firm understanding of calculus concepts, ” she says. “ but a secondary goal, which to me is equally important, is to help students develop confidence in their ability to do math. if they need to use mathematics outside of the course, i want them to say, ‘ ok, i can figure this out. ’ “ my personal goal is to have students leave workshop calculus feeling that they had a positive experience in a math class, ” hastings continues. “ my hope is that in the future, if they meet a mathematician at a party, they will say, ‘ yeah, i enjoyed math. ’ or if one of their children does poorly on a math test, instead of responding, ‘ i didn ’ t do well in math, either! ’, they will say, ‘ i know you can do this. let ’ s think about how to help you understand. ’ ” so far, hastings ’ approach is working. since she started the program, she says, she has received “ volumes of positive feedback. ” enthusiastically, she recalls a letter from a recent student, a biology major who took workshop calculus as a pre - medicine requirement. the student, who had always struggled with math, “ really turned around — she worked hard, she got an ‘ a ’ and she wrote to me : ‘ i finally understand calculus. thank you! ’ ” hastings ’ program crosses borders even beyond the limestone walls. over the years, she has regularly spoken at conferences and hosted workshops to teach educators how to implement the approach at their institutions. california state university at hayward, indiana university, knox college, loyola marymount university and gettysburg high school are among those that have adopted her approach, either in calculus, precalculus or both. her reputation as a national innovator earned her yet another honor this summer. on june 21, hastings and two students — jeff goldsmith ’ 07 and carley moore ’ 06 — presented the project


large cities ( sapparo, sendai, tokyo ) divided in to town ( cho ). - cho ~ town - aza ~ unorganized district - machi ~ town within a city ( cho ) or ward ( ku ), town within a county ( gun ). - chome ~ smaller division of a town ( cho ) in some neighborhoods. - mura or son ~ village within a county ( gun ). - koshu or hittousha or stainushi ~ head of household, the head of the family - zen koshu ~ former head of household - otto ~ husband - tsuma ~ wife - chichi or fu ~ father - haha or bo ~ mother - sofu ~ grandfather - sobo ~ grandmother - otoko or dan or nan ~ male, man, son - onna or jo ~ female, woman, daughter - ani or kei or kyou ~ older brother - otouto or tei ~ younger brother - ane or shi ~ older sister - imouto or mai ~ younger sister - mago or son ~ grandchild - himago or souson ~ great - grandchild - oi ~ nephew - mei ~ niece - youshi ~ adopted child or son - youjo ~ adopted daughter - muko youshi ~ a man without sons may adopt his eldest daughter ’ s husband as his own son and the young man will take his wife ’ s surname and be listed on her family ’ s koseki - seimei or shime ~ full name, family name - shussei or shusshou ~ birth - shibou ~ deceased - nen or toshi ~ year - gatsu, getsu or tsuki ~ month - hi or nichi or ka ~ day - ji or toki ~ hour, time - sai or toshi ~ age - issei ~ person born in japan and later immigrate elsewhere - nisei ~ child / generation of issei and born outside of japan - sansei ~ child / generation of nisei and born outside of japan - yonsei ~ child / generation of sansei and born outside of japan - gosei ~ child / generation of yonsei and born outside of japan there is another japanese term you really need to know. it is ganbatte which means ‘ hang in there ’ or ‘ do your best ’ and either one is will work. category uncategorized | tags :


just ask antoine! - a substance which is not normally found in a living thing. - xenon. xe. - element 54, a colorless, inert gas used to fill cathode ray tubes. - a very high energy form of electromagnetic radiation ( though not as high energy as gamma rays ). x - rays typically have wavelengths from a few picometers up to 20 nanometers. x - rays easily penetrate soft tissue, which makes them useful in medical imaging and in radiation therapy. - x - ray crystallography. - determination of three dimensional arrangement of atoms in a crystal by analysis of x - ray diffraction patterns. - x - ray diffraction pattern. - interference patterns created by x - rays as they pass through a solid material. studying x - ray diffraction patterns gives detailed information on the three - dimensional structure of crystals, surfaces, and atoms. - x - ray spectrum. x - ray spectra. - a set of characteristic x - ray frequencies or wavelengths produced by a substance used as a target in an x - ray tube. each element has a characteristic x - ray spectrum, and there is a strong correlation between atomic number and the frequencies of certain lines in the x - ray spectrum. - x - ray tube. - a cathode ray tube that focuses energetic streams of electrons on a metal target, causing the metal to emit x - rays.


a researcher has devised a method that attackers with control over a victim ' s computer can use to clone the secret software token that rsa ' s securid uses to generate one - time passwords. the technique, described on thursday by a senior security analyst at a firm called sensepost, has important implications for the safekeeping of the tokens. an estimated 40 million people use various securid tokens to access confidential data belonging to government agencies, military contractors, and corporations. scrutiny of the widely used two - factor authentication system has grown since last year, when rsa revealed that intruders on its networks stole sensitive securid information that could be used to reduce its security. defense contractor lockheed martin later confirmed that a separate attack on its systems was aided by the theft of the rsa data. last week ' s blog post by sensepost ' s behrang fouladi demonstrated another way determined attackers could in certain cases circumvent protections built into securid. by reverse engineering software used to manage the cryptographic software tokens on computers running microsoft ' s windows operating system, he found that the secret " seed " was easy for people with control over the machines to locate and copy. he provided step - by - step instructions for others to follow in order to demonstrate how easy it is to create clones that mimic verbatim the output of a targeted securid token. " when the above has been performed, you should have successfully cloned the victim ' s software token and if they run the securid software token program on your computer, it will generate the exact same random numbers that are displayed on the victim ' s token, " fouladi wrote. he arrived at that conclusion by reverse engineering the windows software that allows securid users to make one - time passwords appear on their pcs, rather than on match - case - sized hardware tokens rsa provides. the cryptographic seed values at the heart of the securid system make it mathematically infeasible for others to predict the output that changes every 90 seconds or so, but only if the values remain secret. rsa spokesman kevin kempskie told ars : " it ' s not uncommon for a large software company like ours to see security researchers demonstrate theoretical attacks on a product. we have a really experienced product security team and we take these things very seriously and we ' re going to have them take a closer look at it. " fouladi discovered that the rsa seed value is easy to obtain and copy by anyone with access to


have a really experienced product security team and we take these things very seriously and we ' re going to have them take a closer look at it. " fouladi discovered that the rsa seed value is easy to obtain and copy by anyone with access to a computer that ' s lost, stolen, or has been compromised with a backdoor trojan. by reading chunks of data returned by a proprietary microsoft security interface known as the data protection application programming interface ( dpapi ), an attacker can obtain and copy the encrypted value. even when an optional copy protection known as a token binding is in place, it can be bypassed because the required serial number is determined by a combination of the host name and current user ' s windows security identifier stored on the computer. he told ars that smartphones that are lost or stolen might be susceptible to similar attacks, although he stressed he has no reason to believe that the values can be remotely retrieved from smartphones infected with malware, as long as the devices haven ' t been jailbroken or rooted. " should people stop using the securid software tokens? " he wrote in an e - mail. " it depends. it is dependent on the probability of the device being stolen or malicious applications installed from a dubious source. personally, for high - risk situations, for example government agency laptops for staff that travel and frequently have to connect back to secure networks, using the token, i wouldn ' t recommend it. " fouladi noted that both rsa and its customers have been targeted by highly motivated hackers, so attack scenarios in which pcs are infected or stolen aren ' t unrealistic. he suggested the sensitive rsa data should be managed by a industry - wide specification known as the tpm, or trusted platform module. post updated to clarify securid ' s user base and to make clear the attack doesn ' t deduce seed values.


cell function and can be considered a risk factor for type 2 diabetes in rodents. here we used erβ− / − mice to study whether erβ is involved in the rapid regulation of katp channel activity, calcium signals and insulin release elicited by environmentally relevant doses of bpa ( 1 nm ). we also investigated these effects of bpa in β - cells and whole islets of langerhans from humans. 1 nm bpa rapidly decreased katp channel activity, increased glucose - induced [ ca2 + ] i signals and insulin release in β - cells from wt mice but not in cells from erβ− / − mice. the rapid reduction in the katp channel activity and the insulinotropic effect was seen in human cells and islets. bpa actions were stronger in human islets compared to mouse islets when the same bpa concentration was used. our findings suggest that bpa behaves as a strong estrogen via nuclear erβ and indicate that results obtained with bpa in mouse β - cells may be extrapolated to humans. this supports that bpa should be considered as a risk factor for metabolic disorders in humans. damn. i do not understand some of that. = ) glad someone ' s keeping tabs on what i don ' t.


i am fortunate to be spending the day in a workshop in canberra with lee crockett, global educational leader and author of " literacy is not enough ". davey crovckett - no relation his model of 21st century fluencies considers the following 5 fluencies : so, we were considering solution fluency, which lee has divided into 6 steps, or phases, in a cycle : then we were presented with the task - build the tallest tower you can using newspaper and tape. you ' ve probably done this with kids before. immediately, we grabbed for the paper and tape, totally forgot about the 6 d ' s, and built a tower. i did try to suggest to the gathered 30 or so teachers that maybe we could all collaborate, to produce one big tower, rather than several small ones. got a few laughs - and 3 people came and joined their group to ours. our group very cleverly headed up the stairs to get a height advantage, defining " tallest " as meaning " height above sea level ". here ' s out final tower - something went wrong at the top. here ' s another finished product - not a bad effort. in the final " debrief ", it was interesting to see how quickly a group of educated teachers had abandoned a framework that they had been presented only minutes before. little effort had been made to define, discover or dream, some design had happened but most of the time was spent on the " deliver ". what does that mean for my classroom?


matching 1 tags hominids lived millions of years ago, but how can we tell? ( videocast ) this biologos videocast addresses the age of recently discovered hominid fossils and how scientists are able to obtain those dates. dead bones with a living message in this video, paabo covers a lot of ground, noting several lines of genetic evidence for the evolution of modern humans from earlier hominids in africa, as well as for the interbreeding between early humans and neanderthals. what does it mean to be human? for the christian, the answer is complex. in part, it is a reflection of being created in the image of god. but does the science of human evolution pose a threat to that uniqueness? recovering the doctrine of creation : a theological view of science philosopher robert bishop explores the biblical doctrine of creation, which he describes as " perhaps one of the most helpful pieces of theology for thinking about science ", and describes why the doctrine needs to be recovered from narrower, contemporary interpretations of creation. how does a biologos model need to address the theological issues science and religion scholar denis alexander presents two models for relating adam and eve with the findings of contemporary anthropology. this essay was presented at the november 2010 theology of celebration workshop america ’ s culture wars : a different perspective in this video conversation, rev. n. t. wright responds to the controversy in evangelicalism about evolution. is this a “ culture war ” issue? science, scripture, and the creation narrative in these two brief video conversations, john walton discusses the problem of trying to integrate ancient scripture with our modern worldview. on genesis 2 and 3 in this video conversation, n. t. wright explores how the ancient jewish audience read genesis before and up to the time that jesus arrived. he asserts that readers of genesis today who focus simply on the number of days of creation and whether there is evidence in the text pointing to an old or new earth — are in effect not reading the complete text. an evangelical geneticist ' s critique of reasons to believe ' s testable creation model biologist and biologos senior fellow denis venema examines the interaction between rtb literature and several lines of genetics - based evidence for common ancestry. in so doing, he also addresses the scientific robustness and reliability of the rtb model.


one of the purest and most fascinating examples of the “ wisdom of crowds ” in action comes courtesy of a unique online contest called probabilitysports run by mathematician brian galebach. in the contest, each participant states how likely she thinks it is that a team will win a particular sporting event. for example, one contestant may give the steelers a 62 % chance of defeating the seahawks on a given day ; another may say that the steelers have only a 44 % chance of winning. thousands of contestants give probability judgments for hundreds of events : for example, in 2004, 2, 231 probabilityfootball participants each recorded probabilities for 267 us nfl football games ( 15 - 16 games a week for 17 weeks ). an important aspect of the contest is that participants earn points according to the quadratic scoring rule, a scoring method designed to reward accurate probability judgments ( participants maximize their expected score by reporting their best probability judgments ). this makes probabilitysports one of the largest collections of incentivized1 probability judgments, an extremely interesting and valuable dataset from a research perspective. the first striking aspect of this dataset is that most individual participants are very poor predictors. in 2004, the best score was 3747. yet the average score was an abysmal - 944 points, and the median score was - 275. in fact, 1, 298 out of 2, 231 participants scored below zero. to put this in perspective, a hypothetical participant who does no work and always records the default prediction of “ 50 % chance ” for every team receives a score of 0. almost 60 % of the participants actually did worse than this by trying to be clever. participants are also poorly calibrated. to the right is a histogram dividing participants ’ predictions into five regions : 0 - 20 %, 20 - 40 %, 40 - 60 %, 60 - 80 %, and 80 - 100 %. the y - axis shows the actual winning percentages of nfl teams within each region. calibrated predictions would fall roughly along the x = y diagonal line, shown in red. as you can see, participants tended to voice much more extreme predictions than they should have : teams that they said had a less than 20 % chance of winning actually won almost 30 % of the time, and teams that they said had a greater than 80 % chance of winning actually won only about 60 % of the time. yet something astonishing happens when we average together all of these participants ’ poor and miscalibrated predictions. the “ average predictor ”,


that they said had a greater than 80 % chance of winning actually won only about 60 % of the time. yet something astonishing happens when we average together all of these participants ’ poor and miscalibrated predictions. the “ average predictor ”, who simply reports the average of everyone else ’ s predictions as its own prediction, scores 3371 points, good enough to finish in 7th place out of 2, 231 participants! ( a similar effect can be seen in the 2003 probabilityfootball dataset as reported by chen et al. and servan - schreiber et al. ) even when we average together the very worst participants — those participants who actually scored below zero in the contest — the resulting predictions are amazingly good. this “ average of bad predictors ” scores an incredible 2717 points ( ranking in 62nd place overall ), far outstripping any of the individuals contributing to the average ( the best of whom finished in 934th place ), prompting someone in this audience to call the effect the “ wisdom of fools ”. the only explanation is that, although all these individuals are clearly prone to error, somehow their errors are roughly independent and so cancel each other out when averaged together. daniel reeves and i follow up with a companion post on robin hanson ’ s overcomingbias forum with some advice on how predictors can improve their probability judgments by averaging their own estimates with one or more others ’ estimates. in a related paper, dani et al. search for an aggregation algorithm that reliably outperforms the simple average, with modest success. | 1actually the incentives aren ’ t quite ideal even in the probabilitysports contest, because only the top few competitors at the end of each week and each season win prizes. participants ’ optimal strategy in this all - or - nothing type of contest is not to maximize their expected score, but rather to maximize their expected prize money, a subtle but real difference that tends to induce greater risk taking, as steven levitt describes well. ( it doesn ’ t matter whether participants finish in last place or just behind the winners, so anyone within striking distance might as well risk a huge drop in score for a small chance of vaulting into one of the winning positions. ) nonetheless, wolfers and zitzewitz show that, given the probabilitysports contest setup, maximizing expected prize money instead of expected score leads to only about a 1 % difference in participants ’ optimal probability reports. |


somewhere off the west coast of british columbia wanders a whale — at least, his voice can be heard there. he appears to be alone. simply by eavesdropping, scientists have deduced a few details about this whale. he swims the cold waters of the north pacific, probably in pursuit of food and love. in all likelihood, he is a baleen whale : a long, grey tanker with a pointed head and generous lower jaw. for food, he would chase clouds of plankton and tiny shrimp - like creatures called krill, gulping gallons of water into his mouth and pushing it all out through two long furry - looking plates sprouting from the roof of his mouth where one would expect teeth. these plates, called baleen, filter krill and other crustaceans out of the expelled water. miraculously, these tiny creatures are all the sustenance this giant mammal needs to survive. for love, he calls out in long, low moans. each intonation lasts anywhere from five to fifteen seconds, and he waits up to thirty seconds between each cry, taking ten minute breaks between each song. he will sing like this for hours. his voice carries for miles, and any females nearby would surely take note of his voice ’ s strength and range, the variety of his repertoire, the duration of his song. in the murky dark where a whale can barely see its own tail, the quality of these musical elements should prove that he is a worthy mate. despite his efforts, he receives no reply. meet 52 hertz : the loneliest whale in the world. it was 1989. at the woods hole oceanographic institute in massachusetts, william “ bill ” watkins, the man who invented the first underwater recording system, was in charge of categorizing the mysterious moans and groans resonating through the ocean. his team had begun cataloguing whale mating calls, specifically tracking males because they vocalize so frequently. one day, watkins noticed a high, unique voice easy to hear and identify over other background noises : the call of that lonely whale wandering the north pacific alone. there was something strange about this whale. the harmonic intervals — the rise and fall of his calls — resembled those of baleen whales, but these patterns were unlike any the team had heard so far. even more notably, certain kinds of vocalizations, typically too low for humans to hear unaided, averaged to about 52 hertz. in acoustics, increasing the number of hertz shifts the sound ’ s frequency higher, towards mosquito


it ' s an amazing combination of a proto - ripley ' s, a cookbook, etiquette guide, and almanac. wonders of minute workmanship. link in the twentieth year of queen elizabeth, a blacksmith named mark scaliot, made a lock consisting of eleven pieces of iron, steel and brass, all which, together with a key to it, weighed but one grain of gold. he also made a chain of gold, consisting of forty - three links, and, having fastened this to the before - mentioned lock and key, he put the chain about the neck of a flea, which drew them all with ease. all these together, lock and key, chain and flea, weighed only one grain and a half. oswaldus norhingerus, who was more famous even than scaliot for his minute contrivances, is said to have made 1, 600 dishes of turned ivory, all perfect and complete in every part, yet so small, thin and slender, that all of them were included at once in a cup turned out of a pepper - corn of the common size. johannes shad, of mitelbrach, carried this wonderful work with him to rome, and showed it to pope paul v., who saw and counted them all by the help of a pair of spectacles. they were so little as to be almost invisible to the eye. johannes ferrarius, a jesuit, had in his posession cannons of wood, with their carriages, wheels, and all other military furniture, all of which were also contained in a pepper - corn of the ordinary size. mark frauenfelder is the founder of boing boing and the editor - in - chief of make and cool tools. twitter : @ frauenfelder. come and hear mark speak at the ala conference in chicago on july 1.


500 chlorine - containing chemicals. 5 volcanic activity, forest and grass fires, fungi, algae, ferns and the decomposition of seaweed all release chlorinated organics into the environment. 6 our own bodies produce hypochlorite to fight infection and hydrochloric acid for proper digestion. 7 and there is, of course, sodium chloride - - common table salt - - present naturally in mines, lakes and seawater, found in our blood, sweat and tears, and essential to the diets of humans and animals. clearly, a goal of total chlorine removal from the environment would be unattainable. and the potential human toll resulting from its eradication is manifest and staggering. every major scientific investigation of chlorinated water has concluded that the real and proven health risks from microbial contamination of drinking water far exceed the uncertain and hypothetical risks of cancer from chlorination and its byproducts. why, then, are governmental bodies around the world embracing greenpeace ' s caprice - - absolute zero tolerance for man - made chlorine - - when the hazards to humanity are so explicitly large? perhaps the answer can be traced back to the publication of rachel carson ' s silent spring in 1962. the book is a lyrical tract, the bible of the environmental movement. carson was the first to bear witness against chlorinated hydrocarbons and other " elixirs of death " created by " the ingenious laboratory manipulation of molecules. " she condemned these arrogant manipulations, prophesied a man - made cancer epidemic, and popularized the zero - based approach to regulating synthetic chemicals. a daunting theme runs throughout silent spring - - that man ' s ingenuity would be his own worst enemy. and therein lies the essence of rachel ' s folly. carson and her intellectual heirs in the environmental movement embrace a mistaken vision of technology. it is an impaired vision that considers only the risks of industrial chemical compounds, and not the risks created by their absence. as the late aaron wildavsky observed, there are few unalloyed good things in the world. rarely does one find a substance that has benefits but not costs. 8 " sunsetting " all uses of chlorine may reduce the hypothetical risks associated with such compounds as dioxin, ddt and pcbs. at the same time, however, a blanket ban on chlorine would increase the enormous risks of waterborne microbial infection here and in underdeveloped countries that can now barely afford ch


] : for that which is made in time is made both after and before some time, — after that which is past, before that which is future. but none could then be past, for there was no creature by whose movements its duration could be measured. but simultaneously with time the world was made, if in the world ' s creation change and motion were created, as seems evident from the order of the first six or seven days. for in these days the morning and evening are counted, until, on the sixth day, all things which god then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of god was mysteriously and sublimely signalized. what kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say! in the literal meaning of genesis ( pdf ), 1. 19, augustine gave advice for interpreting the scriptures ' statements about the physical world [ emphasis mine ] : usually, even a non - christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a christian, presumably giving the meaning of holy scripture, talking non - sense on these topics ; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a christian and laugh it to scorn. lest he be misunderstood, augustine continued [ emphasis mine ] : the shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. if they find a christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? later in the same book, augustine laid out his hermeneutic


conditions of use no planet is alike each other. they all have there uniqueness. like saturn has its rings and jupiter has its big storm on it called the red dot. some of the planets are different colors too. like uranus and neptune are blue. planets can be red, blue, and white. also when you look up into the sky, you sometimes see a star in the sky and the next night its not there. that ' s because its a wondering star better known as a planet. the most common one is venus. the planets are close and far away from the sun. the closest one it mercury. the furthest one is neptune. now your probably wondering why it ' s not pluto, well to tell you the truth, pluto is not a planet anymore. i know, it ' s sad. now let me give you a list so you know how close and far away the planets are. pluto - 39. 5au ( not a planet ) the planets are all different sizes. for instance, jupiter is thhe largest planet, and mercury is the smallest. now your probably wondering, why isn ' t pluto the smallest planet. well to tell you the truth, pluto is not a planet anymore. scientists say it drifted to far out of our solar system. so now we just call pluto a dwarf planet. we used lot of mesurements when we were working with the planets. but the most we used were lightyears and aus. we used lightyears for measuring the distance of the stars and how long it takes for the light of the stars to get to us, and we used aus to tell the distance of the planets. an au is how far a planet is form the sun. here are all the planets and their au ' s. article posted september 24, 2009 at 09 : 41 am • comment • reads 1297 return to blog list add a comment latest 10 comments :


figure tag is used to provide the structure for inserting a figure into a cnxml document. a figure may contain an image, multimedia object, or caption tag. < title > the world ' s cutest dog < / title > < media id = " dogpic " alt = " a dog sitting on a bed " > < image mime - type = " image / jpeg " src = " image1. jpg " / > notice how cute the dog is just sitting there. results in this display : figure 1 : notice how cute the dog is just sitting there. | the world ' s cutest dog | allows you to determine which way subfigure elements are arranged. has no effect if the figure has no subfigure children. - horizontal - subfigures appear side by side ( default ). - vertical - subfigures appear one on top of the other. defines the type of figure in order to give specialized control over numbering. figures of the same type are numbered in series ( i. e., figure 1, figure 2... ). type can be used in conjunction with label so that figures of each user - defined type appear with their own label. type can be any user - defined value that reflects the purpose of the figure. a unique identifier, whose value must begin with a letter and contain only letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores, colons, and / or periods ( no spaces ). may contain an optional tag, followed by an optional title next, it must contain : may contain an


there is a passage in on intelligence about the differences between parallel processing in human versus computers : from the dawn of the industrial revolution, people have viewed the brain as some sort of machine. they knew there weren ' t gears and cogs in the head, but it was the best metaphor they had. somehow information entered the brain and the brain - machine determined how the body should react. during the computer age, the brain has been viewed as a particular type of machine, the programmable computer. and as we saw in chapter 1, ai researchers have stuck with this view, arguing that their lack of progress is only due to how small and slow computers remain compared to the human brain. today ' s computers may be equivalent only to a cockroach brain, they say, but when we make bigger and faster computers they will be as intelligent as humans. there is a largely ignored problem with this brain - as - computer analogy. neurons are quite slow compared to the transistors in a computer. a neuron collects inputs from its synapses, and combines these inputs together to decide when to output a spike to other neurons. a typical neuron can do this and reset itself in about five milliseconds ( 5 ms ), or around two hundred times per second. this may seem fast, but a modern silicon - based computer can do one billion operations in a second. this means a basic computer operation is five million times faster than the basic operation in your brain! that is a very, very big difference. so how is it possible that a brain could be faster and more powerful than our fastest digital computers? " no problem, " say the brain - as - computer people. " the brain is a parallel computer. it has billions of cells all computing at the same time. this parallelism vastly multiplies the processing power of the i always felt this argument was a fallacy, and a simple thought experiment shows why. it is called the " one hundred – step rule. " a human can perform significant tasks in much less time than a second. for example, i could show you a photograph and ask you to determine if there is cat in the image. your job would be to push a button if there is a cat, but not if you see a bear or a warthog or a turnip. this task is difficult or impossible for a computer to perform today, yet a human can do it reliably in half a second or less. but neurons are slow, so in that half a second, the information


t make a difference. a computer, no matter how many processors it might have and no matter how fast it runs, cannot " compute " the answer to difficult problems in one hundred steps. so how can a brain perform difficult tasks in one hundred steps that the largest parallel computer imaginable can ' t solve in a million or a billion steps? the answer is the brain doesn ' t " compute " the answers to problems ; it retrieves the answers from memory. in essence, the answers were stored in memory a long time ago. it only takes a few steps to retrieve something from memory. slow neurons are not only fast enough to do this, but they constitute the memory themselves. the entire cortex is a memory system. it isn ' t a computer at all. the point made here is that the computing paradigm ( that is, the way the whole thing works ) of the brain and the computer are completely different. the computer is a turing machine, and the brain is something else, possibly a memory system if you think that jeff hawking is right. whatever it is, the brain is not a turing machine. to go back to your question : why can ' t human brains be used to do massive parallel processing in the same way computers are doing today? it has to do with the way the human brain works. if you assume that the brain will do any task in a parallel fashion, and the more neurons involved, the better the performance ; then in order to maximize your performance you should use your whole brain. 1 task : 100 % performance, 2 tasks : 50 % performance, 3 tasks : 33 % performance, and so on. but if you add an " attention switching cost " to go from one task to another, then you are better off just focusing on one task where the switching cost is zero. so you can multitask, but it won ' t be efficient.


ask a high school or college kid about their ipod or video library and you ’ ll soon hear a lot about file sharing. it ’ s used as a method for swapping favorite music files, tv shows or movies, often avoiding paying fees for them. and it ’ s often illegal. with the recording industry association of america ( riaa ) actively sending “ cease and desist ” letters to anyone found to be illegally trading copyrighted materials, it ’ s in your family ’ s best interest to talk about the right and the wrong ways to find and share music and movies. recently, sweden erupted in a furor when a new law went into effect including severe penalties for anyone using illegal file sharing systems. it ’ s estimated that 1 in 10 swedes uses these systems. when the new law went into effect last week requiring the isps to turn in those using these systems, the overall effect was shocking. internet traffic in sweden fell by 30 %, immediately! according to a symantec study, an estimated 90 % of avid gamers also engage in file sharing. sweden represents 3 % of the worldwide total for file sharing. the reason security companies like symantec care about file sharing is that it ’ s so difficult for people to keep these programs secure. by their nature, they open a door into the family computer and invite internet strangers to come on in, take a few files and leave a few behind. these systems are notorious for spreading viruses and keystroke loggers ( dangerous little programs that spy on your every keyboard click and report your private info out to others on the internet. ) they ' ve been used to distribute pornography and child pornography, hiding these terrible images with innocuously - coded file names to trick the users of the systems. they are also blamed for criminals getting access to people ’ s tax records. here ' s a story that recently aired on the today show about how a family ' s computer was hacked for their valuable tax records using a popular music sharing service. if you haven ’ t sat with your teen to discuss the right way to acquire music and watch tv shows and videos online, you need to do so. your lack of involvement might be risking the safety of your computer and all your private information. even worse, you may be at risk of legal action if your computer is found to be involved in any of the many illegal activity known to be a part of illegal file sharing systems. here ' s a good guide to disabling peer to peer file sharing systems. and this pamphlet from the riaa for


let me first invoke the usual hypothesis of cognitive science : the mind is a computer / program / algorithm so let the study of the mind be informed by the study of computers / programs / algorithms. a lot of mike ’ s comments have direct analogues in programming languages and software engineering — lots of people question why monads and continuations are useful and point out that mutation and goto are intuitively easy to understand. so, it ’ s not clear to me that time spent writing typical programs on a computer is more beneficial or convincing than the same time spent writing, say, montagovian fragments with paper and pencil. the concern that is more convincing, and that functional programming, monads, and continuations help address, is how to write and maintain large and reliable programs. the claim that a given program or part of a program works, like the claim that a given montagovian fragment or lexical entry works, is basically a theorem. it takes effort to formulate and justify such theorems, especially if we want to do it not only by example but also by rigorous reasoning. as we change and grow our program over time, we want to avoid repeating what is essentially the same effort for parts that have not changed or lexical entries that are analogous. for example, we might want to prove one lemma about all values of a certain type, or all transitive verbs. in sum, we want modular programming, modular testing, and modular reasoning. by “ module ”, i just mean that you could swap one out and stick another one in without affecting what we care about in the rest of the system. whenever two pieces of code or testing or reasoning are similar, we want to put the similar parts in a module so that we can reuse our work as we repeat and change the pattern. monads are one kind of module that emerged when people got tired of writing similar programs and proofs over and over again. it ’ s just like in the rest of math : groups, vector spaces, etc. on 2010 - 12 - 14t12 : 49 : 18 - 0500, mike solomon wrote : i would agree that monads give a potentially unifying perspective. i was challenging the claim that without monads you can ’ t “ really ” understand mutation / dynamic update. or, that functional programming gives the best way to understand mutation. this just seems wrong to me. monads are notoriously difficult to understand, mutation is intuitively easy to understand. that is, i would say : we already understood


dynamic update. or, that functional programming gives the best way to understand mutation. this just seems wrong to me. monads are notoriously difficult to understand, mutation is intuitively easy to understand. that is, i would say : we already understood mutation, now we look at it from a different perspective to try better understand how to combine it with other effects. of course what i just wrote may not be what it means to ‘ “ really ” understand mutation / dynamic update ’. nevertheless, i would suggest that to “ really ” understand something entails proving theorems about it that go beyond particular usage examples — at least, not just “ this program gives the correct output on this sample input ” but “ this program part works on all inputs regardless of the rest of the program ”. as soon as we humans who get bored easily try to prove such theorems, we want to capture repeated patterns in our reasoning so as to avoid repeating them. ( hoare logic for reasoning about imperative programs is a great and successful example of such capture, even though it treats mutation specifically and not as a special case of a side effect. ) maybe understanding mutation even entails being confident in a program part that uses mutation and no other side effect, regardless of what side effects occur in the rest of the program. one question i asked yesterday ( last night ) is whether the analogy between quantification and shift / reset yielded insight independent of what kind of semantics one gave for shift / reset : shift / reset can be understood operationally, as a reduction calculus. can quantification? but maybe this is just what qr is. in general, is the transformation to lf a kind of operational semantics? i would answer yes, yes, yes. i take at least 3 lessons from programming - language semantics into natural - language semantics : first, there are different kinds of semantics, not only denotational but also operational and axiomatic, each good for different purposes. operational makes it more obvious how much time and space a program will take ; denotational makes it easier to substitute equals for equals in a larger program. second, we should relate the different kinds of semantics. for example, i ’ m a big fan of olivier danvy ’ s work on mechanically turning denotational semantics ( well, definitional interpreters ) into operational semantics or back. imagine putting towers into a vending machine and getting qr out or vice versa! finally, it is worth applying specific ideas such as monads in denotational semantics


semantics ( well, definitional interpreters ) into operational semantics or back. imagine putting towers into a vending machine and getting qr out or vice versa! finally, it is worth applying specific ideas such as monads in denotational semantics and evaluation contexts in operational semantics. is it only from the point of view of continuations that one can understand ( best ) a programming language that contains control and state? continuations are the best denotational account of control. it makes it easy to prove that the following expressions can be substituted for each other : ( shift c ( and ( c ( mother ' john ) ) ( c ( mother ' mary ) ) ) ) ; john and mary ' s mother ( mother ( shift c ( and ( c ' john ) ( c ' mary ) ) ) ) ; john ' s mother and mary ' s mother do continuations help us understand / reason about order of evaluation per se, or do they help us reason about order of evaluation in the context of a compositional semantics? the latter, and thus the former, no? : ) in general, should the monad / continuation approach give us insights into natural language meaning ( empirically relevant insights ), or should it give us insights into how to analyze natural language meaning in a certain way, compositional semantics? the latter, and thus the former, no? : ) : ) it seems to me that the analogy between computational side effects and “ apparently noncompositional ” linguistic phenomena could be insightful in the first way, and that these insights would be conceptually prior to any implementation in terms of monads / continuations. sure, if i were patenting all this then i would claim an implementation in terms of monads / continuations as “ a preferred embodiment ” of the analogy. take weak crossover. the insight is that evaluation order matters. you and ken used continuations to capture this compositionally. but now your account of order - sensitivity is order - independent. this is what we need for traditional, bottom - up compositional semantics. but why do we still want this? or, what is the status of such a semantics? it is often said that a compositional semantics is necessary for humans to understand novel utterances. but i think it is apparent that weak crossover arises not because humans learn a compositional semantics which simulates order - sensitivity, but rather because of the actual order - sensitivity of processing ( we hear from left to right ). what kind of semantic system captures this directly? you probably


that weak crossover arises not because humans learn a compositional semantics which simulates order - sensitivity, but rather because of the actual order - sensitivity of processing ( we hear from left to right ). what kind of semantic system captures this directly? you probably wouldn ’ t find any denotational account of evaluation order “ direct ” in your sense. the “ kind of semantic system ” you want is probably operational semantics. indeed, the way i would argue that some denotational semantics accounts for evaluation order is to show that it corresponds to an operational semantics that obviously accounts for evaluation order. here ’ s another attempt to put things generally. is natural language a language with side effects ( e. g. c, ocaml ), which really does work impurely / noncompositionally, but such that, at a level of abstraction, its behavior can be described compositionally? or is natural language a pure functional language ( e. g. haskell ) which just happens to contain lexical items whose ( pure functional ) meanings simulate side effects? if it is the former, which seems plausible, how does language “ really ” do what it does? what ’ s the difference? in other words, what does “ really ” mean? haskell programs can perform io and manipulate mutable state just fine. the “ semantics / pragmatics interface ” ( aka “ run - time system ” ) of haskell lets you define a value “ main ”, of type “ io ( ) ”, which gets performed when you eventually run the program. it ’ s like, how does a hamblin set of alternatives get actually asked?


bsa supply no. 35859 in learning about astronomy, scouts study how activities in space affect our own planet and bear witness to the wonders of the night sky : the nebulae, or giant clouds of gas and dust where new stars are born ; old stars dying and exploding ; meteor showers and shooting stars ; the moon, planets, and a dazzling array of stars. - describe the proper clothing and other precautions for safely making observations at night and in cold weather. tell how to safely observe the sun, objects near the sun, and the moon. explain first aid for injuries or illnesses such as heat and cold reactions, dehydration, bites and stings, and damage to your eyes that could occur during observation. - explain what light pollution is and how it and air pollution affect astronomy. - with the aid of diagrams ( or real telescopes if available ), do each of the following : do the following : - explain why binoculars and telescopes are important astronomical tools. demonstrate or explain how these tools are used. - describe the similarities and differences of several types of astronomical telescopes. - explain the purposes of at least three instruments used with astronomical telescopes. do the following : - identify in the sky at least 10 constellations, at least four of which are in the zodiac. - identify at least eight conspicuous stars, five of which are of magnitude 1 or brighter. - make two sketches of the big dipper. in one sketch, show the big dipper ' s orientation in the early evening sky. in another sketch, show its position several hours later. in both sketches, show the north star and the horizon. record the date and time each sketch was made. - explain what we see when we look at the milky way. at approximately weekly intervals, sketch the position of venus, mars, or jupiter in relation to the stars. do this for at least four weeks and at the same time of night. on your sketch, record the date and time next to the planet ' s position. use your sketch to explain how planets move. do the following : - list the names of the five most visible planets. explain which ones can appear in phases similar to lunar phases and which ones cannot, and explain why. - find out when each of the five most visible planets that you identified in requirement 5a will be observable in the evening sky during the next 12 months, then compile this information in the form of a chart or table. update your chart monthly to show whether each planet will be visible during the early morning or in the


ing f1 : carbon fibre explained many race fans don ' t know how or why a modern f1 car is constructed of carbon fibre - - even the steering wheel is made from it. this film looks at the reasons why, and follows the production process, from the carbon fibre sheet being cut with a pair of scissors in a sealed room, right through to fernando alonso driving out of the pit garage cocooned in a carbon fibre safety cell designed to withstand the force of a 200mph crash. interviews with : ian goddard, senior composites engineer, ing renault f1 team guy rowles, clean room head, ing renault f1 team how to repair a broken carbon fibre ( fiber ) fishing pole or rod practical how - to instructional tutorial from showing how you can repair a broken, fractured or damaged carbon fiber fishing pole or rod using carbon fibre and epoxy resin using our fishing pole repair kit. optical fibres check us out at an optical fiber is made up of the core ( carrying the light pulses ), the cladding ( reflecting the light pulses back into the core ) and the buffer coating ( protecting the core and cladding from moisture, damage, etc ). together, all of this creates a fiber optic which can carry up to 10 million messages at any time using light pulses. fiber optics is the overlap of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of optical fibers. optical fibers are widely used in fiber - optic communications, which permits transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths ( data rates ) than other forms of communications. fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss and are also immune to electromagnetic interference. fibers are also used for illumination, and are wrapped in bundles so they can be used to carry images, thus allowing viewing in tight spaces. specially designed fibers are used for a variety of other applications, including sensors and fiber lasers. light is kept in the core of the optical fiber by total internal reflection. this causes the fiber to act as a waveguide. fibers which support many propagation paths or transverse modes are called multi - mode fibers ( mmf ), while those which can only support a single mode are called single - mode fibers ( smf ). multi - mode fibers generally have a larger core diameter, and are used for short - distance communication links and for... kelloggs fruit ' n ' fibre advert 1990 advert for kelloggs fruit ' n ' fibre with ross kemp carbon fibre cello shows the process for manufacturing a cello from carbon fibre. la fibre - water mel


distance communication links and for... kelloggs fruit ' n ' fibre advert 1990 advert for kelloggs fruit ' n ' fibre with ross kemp carbon fibre cello shows the process for manufacturing a cello from carbon fibre. la fibre - water melon - clip photo made by bbcn : bbcncorporation. blogspace. fr ferrari f430 scuderia 16m ( carbon fibre ) this is a magnificent fully carbon fibre 16m scuderia. it looked fantastic with full carbon fibre body, hood, boot, rims and interior. the whole car literally was carbon fibre. it was form sale in the beverly hills dealer for $ 650000. how to make your own carbon fiber ( fibre ) parts. easy to follow guide on how you can make your own carbon fibre parts without specialist equipment. all materials used available from modes de fibre optique carbon fibre violin stephen mcconnells carbon fibre violin played by rory boardman if your interested in these contact me, thanks also to peter boardman for advice and final setup, not sure how the audio will translate from handycam to compression for internet and played on pc speakers, bear this in mind. knilling pegs where fitted as the peg box sides are thin and they work great. the carbon fibre fiddle a violin made of carbon fibre ( or carbon fiber, if you prefer that spelling ). more at www. test - fiber optic termination - how to terminate fiber optic cable using giganet fibre optic connectors www. giga - terminating fibre optic sc, st and lc connectors using the giganet cold - cure fiber optic cold - cure and polishing method. how to cover parts in carbon fiber ( fibre ) by skinning or wrapping in this video we show you how to take an existing part and cover it it real carbon fibre. in the video we use a carbon fibre skinning kit ( available from ) which includes all of the materials needed to cover a number of parts in carbon fibre. we call this technique skinning but other name are carbon fibre wrapping, coating and covering. lotus exige full carbon fibre body, 550hp audi engine, 750kg weight lotus elise s1 modified with full carbon fibre series 1 exige bodyshell with highly tuned and turboed audi s3 engine transplant. 550hp, 750kg total weight. homemade optical fiber fibre optic lighting cable diy do it yourself fiber optic cable optical fibre this video is an introduction to future videos on how to make your own optical fiber cable for indoor lighting applications. i imagine


550hp, 750kg total weight. homemade optical fiber fibre optic lighting cable diy do it yourself fiber optic cable optical fibre this video is an introduction to future videos on how to make your own optical fiber cable for indoor lighting applications. i imagine it could be used for short data transfers but will not say for sure. i am working on getting the perfect filling for this. live chemtrail fibre. wmv i extracted a nano sized organism from a chemtrail fibre that had been collected after heavy spraying in nebraska. i captured its growth with my dark field scope. the living fibre is now on its way to a friend who has better lab access. i have tested 23 out of 35 adults and 3 out of 4 children positive for these same fibres. none of those tested showed any outward signs of morgellons. i now know these fibres respond to frequencies, electromagnetic ones. lets hope none of our friendly governments decide to let loose a frequency that awakes these horrors ilford galerie gold fibre silk fine art inkjet paper ilford galerie gold fibre silk has a baryta ( barium sulphate ) coated layer underneath the ink receiving layer equivalent to the structure of traditional fibre photographic paper base. the media offers enhanced definition, extended tonal range, and excellent archival properties, all of which are important to the demanding professional digital photographer and printer. coated fibre papers have a unique look and feel, which has become a standard among art photographers worldwide over the course of more than a century. ilford managing director dai jones speaks with calumet photo ' s gerry oher about the new generation in fine art inkjet paper. available at. aero - tv : the farnborough kestrel - all carbon - fibre business aircraft conceived as a new chapter in business aircraft, the kestrel represents the application of advanced aerodynamics combined with state - of - the - art carbon - fibre composite construction. developed by the british company, farnborough aircraft, the kestrel made its first flight in july of 2006. finally, at the farnborough air show in 2008, the aircraft made its debut for european aviation enthusiasts. after farnborough aircraft came under new ownership at the beginning of 2009, the company has re - dedicated itself to seeking full certification of the kestrel. designed as a single engine turboprop business jet, the kestrel merges speed, comfort, and operational flexibility unparalleled in the world of business and private jet aircraft. due to its robust construction and heavy - duty undercarriage, the


/ fibre discs and ceramic bearings. emc & vmware : ip storage - iscsi, nfs, or fibre channel? details, demos, & links below what is the right protocol for vmware infrastructure? iscsi? nfs? fibre channel? what if you had the flexibility choose the protocols that you needed... simultaneous support. join emc ' s chad sakac, senior director vmware strategic alliance, as he discusses where each protocol fits and their unique capabilities in the vmware environment. for more information : information infrastructure for vmware - - infrastructure / information - infrastructure - solutions - vmware. htm preparing optical fibre for testing with optronics otdr ( part 1 ) demonstration of preparing optical fibre for testing with optronics otdr. for more information about the optronics otdr visit how to make a carbon fibre part a short ' how to ' video for producing a carbon fibre part. this instructional video has been produced to accompany the john burn composite kit which is available from www. resins -. it gives you an insight into the various stages of producing a carbon laminate with some useful hints and tips. the kit includes the very latest sika biresin cr82 / ch80 - 2laminating system with biresin s5 gelcoat. there is 4 square metres of carbon fibre so you are able to produce a significant size composite part. other kits include carbon fibre vacuum infusion along with glass fibre versions of each kit. infomercial epic fail : fibre logs! hey guys, i guess things didn ' t go over well for this new cereal that was being promoted!


by charles bogle : a timely reminder of america ’ s enlightenment origins 31 august 2006 washington ’ s crossing, by david hackett fischer, 543 pages, oxford university press, 2004, $ 17. 95 in washington ’ s crossing, published by oxford university press as part of its pivotal moments in american history series ( series editors, david hackett fischer and james m. mcpherson ), fischer describes how enlightenment thinking informed the character and decision - making of george washington at a critical point in the american revolution. fisher argues that although this same enlightenment thinking molded the outlook of the british commanding officers and their charges, the exigencies of an imperialist policy resulted in brutal treatment of the colonists and spoliation of their property. the author concludes by calling on his american readers to remember and embrace their enlightenment origins at the present critical point in their history. the painting entitled “ washington crossing the delaware, ” which hangs in the metropolitan museum of art in new york, provides the inspiration for the title of fischer ’ s book. the masterpiece is itself evocative of the enlightenment and the revolutions it engendered. in the introduction to his book, fischer writes that the artist, a german - american named emanuel leutze, undertook the painting to encourage the europeans, who were engaged in the revolutions of 1848, to follow the example of the american revolution. american revolution and slavery : here. myths of the american revolution : here. today ’ s enlightenment perceptions and imperialism : here.


google sketchup is a software we newly added this year to the list of trio quest resources. it is a 3d modeling software, which can be used to design small objects, buildings, and even entire cities. 3d modeling softwares tend to be intimidating to learn because they are so extensive, but we have returned from cue with a selection cool tips and tricks to share with you that we hope will encourage you and your students to explore the possibilities of creating with google sketchup. google sketchup : free google sketchup pro : $ 495 or free there are two versions of the software : google sketchup and google sketchup pro. google sketchup is free, but nonetheless powerful and feature - packed enough for students to learn a lot from. google sketchup pro, a version with more advanced options such as exporting models to other softwares, normally cost $ 495. however, through sketchup pro k - 12 statewide grant, educators from most of the states in the us are able to get the pro version for free. be sure to check their website to learn more. google 3d warehouse google 3d warehouse is a library that contains models users have submitted that can be downloaded and used in your own google sketchup project. notable ones include famous architectures like the eiffel tower or the colosseum. you can also find more generic models of buildings, people, and others. how to use it : file > 3d warehouse > get models > select a model you would like to place into your project > click on download model scenes is a function to create and save different views of your google sketchup model. a tab will appear underneath the top tools panel automatically for each scene you create, so you can quickly look at your models from many angles and perspectives by clicking on these tabs. how to use it : window > scenes > set your camera where you want it and click on the plus ( + ) button to create a new scene. augmented reality plugin augmented reality plugin lets you to visualize and present your google sketchup project by displaying your models on a real physical plane. please watch the following video for a demonstration : waybe plugin breaks down each elements of google sketchup models into paper prototypes. you can use this tool to to challenge your students to create paper models out of their google sketchup projects. special thanks to mark hammond for sharing these wonderful tips at cue.


beyond list and gist : factors contributing to accurate memory for verse date of completion three experiments examined how rhythmic movements influenced participants ' memories for the surface features of connected text by manipulating the meaning, meter, or rhyme. in all three experiments, participants were asked to either rhythmically move or remain still as they listened to a model recite limericks. in experiments 2 and 3, their movement was also manipulated as they were tested on single - line test items that came from limericks they had not previously heard, came directly from the limericks they had learned or that modified the meaning, meter, rhyme or surface features of the original lines. moving during learning and testing did not affect participant ' s ability to discriminate between original and foil items. however, participants were generally less confident in the answers they gave when the material had been learned while moving than when not moving. in contrast, they were more confident in the answer they gave when they were tested while moving compared to not moving. participants ' ability to discriminate between originals and foils was affected by the type of stimulus to which they were responding. they were best able to detect changes to the meaning of the original, and worst to detect changes that modified the surface features without changing the meaning, meter or rhyme scheme. this result is consistent with a large body of literature showing better memory for gist than for surface features. ^ begosh, kristen t, " beyond list and gist : factors contributing to accurate memory for verse " ( 2012 ). doctoral dissertations. paper aai3520406.


the effect of temperature on the root growth of coniferous seedlings the purpose of this study was to determine the effect of temperature on the root growth of eight principal coniferous tree species prevalent in the western united states - - pseudotsuga menziesii, pinus ponderosa, pinus contorts, picea engelmanni, pinus edulis, picea pungens, abies lasiocarpa, and abies concolor. each year billions of seeds fall from these trees, providing ample opportunity for the establishment of dense young stands of seedlings, yet only a small fraction of the seeds become established as plants. what factors then are involved in the establishment and elimination of tree seedlings? many, perhaps even most, of the seeds never have a chance to germinate. the reasons for failure are numerous and include considerable loss from rodents, insects, and disease. some seeds are not viable to begin with. moisture, in optimum concentration, is a beneficial factor which promotes germination. a prolonged period without water, however, will cause seeds to lose their viability. on the other hand, an excessive amount of water may encourage the growth of fungi, some types of which are capable of destroying seeds. in spite of the above handicaps many seeds manage to germinate, but a number of factors influence the growth of new plants, some causing heavy mortality. a small proportion of the plants originating from germinated seeds survives to become mature trees. first emerging from the seed after germination is the radicle, or root. this embryonic component emerges from an insulated environment within the seedcoat to face various environmental conditions which prevail in the microclimate where the seed has fallen. barring destruction from natural catastrophe or from fungal attack, each seedling ' s further development is dependent upon the effect of several environmental factors. in order for the seedling to survive, the factors must react favorably upon the newly exposed radicle ; for unless the seed has fallen directly on mineral soil the radicle must reach down into the soil. this exposure to the air accounts for considerable mortality, and unless the seed has a cover of some type, it probably will not even geminate. since a comprehensive study of all environmental factors and their effect on growth would have been much too exhaustive for this project, the study of only one factor and its effect on one plant part was undertaken. more specifically, this study attempted to isolate some effects of temperature on root elongation and root


the term “ refined ” may evoke notions of knowledge, wealth, and sophistication. when it comes to food, however, this term is a euphemism at best. once upon a time, “ white foods ” or refined carbohydrates were considered a delicacy in the west. brown bread and other whole grains were looked down upon as the food of the poor. in actuality, people were paying more money for less nutrition. refinement is a process by which the two outer layers of a grain, know as the bran and germ, are stripped away. most of the nutrients in grains, such as fiber, iron, calcium, vitamin e, and the b vitamins, are stored in these outer layers. in order to make up for this nutrient loss, many refined foods are “ enriched, ” by the addition of small amounts of nutrients back into the food. an increased shelf life is the primary economic motive for such refinement. the stripped away nutrients also receive a premium in today ’ s booming supplement market. according to ayurveda, refined foods disrupt the normal course of metabolism. a diet high in refined foods creates ama in the body. foods such as white flour, white rice, and white sugar are also often bleached, increasing their toxicity. the lack of fiber and roughage in such foods also makes it more difficult to them to pass through the digestive tract, as evidenced by the widespread problem of constipation in the west.


this lesson shows students how broadly the lend - lease act of march 1941 empowered the federal government — particularly the president — and asks students to investigate how fdr promoted the program in speeches and then in photographs. this launchpad focuses on the expansion of executive power involved in the lend - lease program. about a century has passed since the events at the center of this lesson - the haymarket affair, the homestead strike, and the triangle shirtwaist factory fire. in this lesson, students use primary historical sources to explore some of the questions raised by these events, questions that continue to be relevant in debates about american society : where do we draw the line between acceptable business practices and unacceptable working conditions? can an industrial - and indeed a post - industrial - economy succeed without taking advantage of those who do the work? this lesson looks at thomas paine and at some of the ideas presented in his pamphlet common sense, such as national unity, natural rights, the illegitimacy of the monarchy and of hereditary aristocracy, and the necessity for independence and the revolutionary struggle. american foreign policy resonates with the same issues as the debate over u. s. entry into the league of nations - collective security versus national sovereignty, idealism versus pragmatism, the responsibilities of powerful nations, the use of force to accomplish idealistic goals, the idea of america. understanding the debate over the league and the consequences of its ultimate failure provides insight into international affairs in the years since the end of the great war and beyond. in this lesson, students read the words and listen to the voices of some central participants in the debate over the league of nations.