Friday, July 31, 2009
Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa believes that women are getting better looking over time:
Physical attractiveness is a highly heritable trait, which disproportionately increases the reproductive success of daughters much more than that of sons.(Via GMSV.)
If more attractive parents have more daughters and if physical attractiveness is heritable, it logically follows that women over many generations gradually become more physically attractive on average than men.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
"How To Hijack 'Every iPhone In The World'":
If you receive a text message on your iPhone any time after Thursday afternoon containing only a single square character, Charlie Miller would suggest you turn the device off. Quickly.
That small cipher will likely be your only warning that someone has taken advantage of a bug that Miller and his fellow cybersecurity researcher Collin Mulliner plan to publicize Thursday at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas. Using a flaw they've found in the iPhone's handling of text messages, the researchers say they'll demonstrate how to send a series of mostly invisible SMS bursts that can give a hacker complete power over any of the smart phone's functions. That includes dialing the phone, visiting Web sites, turning on the device's camera and microphone and, most importantly, sending more text messages to further propagate a mass-gadget hijacking...
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
"An Economic Analysis of the Somali Pirate Business Model".
(Just as an aside, I regard it as an error to label this sort of theft and plunder as a form of "capitalism". True capitalism is the system which recognizes and respects individual rights, rather than violating them.)
(Just as an aside, I regard it as an error to label this sort of theft and plunder as a form of "capitalism". True capitalism is the system which recognizes and respects individual rights, rather than violating them.)
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Off topic: The PajamasMedia website has just published my latest health care OpEd entitled, "The Federal Health Care Muggers".
Friday, July 24, 2009
Build the guidance computer from Apollo 11:
This report describes my successful project to build a working reproduction of the 1964 prototype for the Block I Apollo Guidance Computer. The AGC is the flight computer for the Apollo moon landings, with one unit in the command module and one in the LEM.(Via BBspot.)
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Using "cloaking" techniques to shield buildings from seismic shock waves:
...[Physicist Sebastian] Guenneau said that it's possible to shield an object, even a building, so that an incoming earthquake wave behaves as if the object weren't there. The building in the path of the wave is like a rock in afast-flowing river, he said. "It's the same picture, the wave pattern, as for a water wave that is propagating in a river, and it's bent smoothly around the rock and will be reconstructed around the rock." The object, or building, is "invisible" to the mechanical waves.
Monday, July 20, 2009
"Survival School: Why more Americans are learning to pick locks, bust out of handcuffs, and avoid surveillance."
Friday, July 17, 2009
Trojan Blackberries:
A Blackberry update that a United Arab Emirates service provider pushed out to its customers contains U.S.-made spyware that would allow the company or others to siphon and read their e-mail and text messages, according to a researcher who examined it.More info here.
The update was billed as a "performance enhancement patch" by the UAE-based phone and internet service provider Etisalat, which issued the patch for its 100,000 subscribers.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
How to disappear: PI Frank Ahearn, who used to help find missing people, tells how to not be found. Here's an excerpt:
...There are three key steps to disappearing. First, destroy old information about yourself. Call your video store or electricity company and replace your old, correct phone number with a new, invented one. Introduce spelling mistakes into your utility bills. Create a PO Box for your mail. Don't use your credit cards and the like.(Via Kottke.)
Then, create bogus information to fool private investigators who might be looking for you. Go to one city and apply for an apartment. Rent a car in another one.
The next, final step is the most important one. Move from point A to point B. Create a dummy company to pay your bills. Only use prepaid mobile phones and change them every month. It is nearly impossible to find out where you are unless you make a mistake.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Psychology article of the day: "The Nature of Temptation: Why those who speak against vice so often fall for it"
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Don't you just hate it when your wife blows your cover as head of British overseas intelligence on Facebook?
The wife of the new head of MI6 has caused a major security breach and left his family exposed after publishing photographs and personal details on Facebook...(Via Instapundit.)
Monday, July 06, 2009
Pentagon researchers trying to create self-assembling "physical intelligent" systems.
Nope, I can't imagine anything could possibly go wrong with that idea... (Via Cosmic Log.)
Nope, I can't imagine anything could possibly go wrong with that idea... (Via Cosmic Log.)
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Friday, July 03, 2009
A 13-year old boy reviews a Sony Walkman:
...In some classes in school they let me listen to music and one teacher recognised it and got nostalgic.(Via Transterrestrial Musings.)
It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.
Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn't is "shuffle", where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly -- effective, if a little laboured.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Is there a 62 million year mass extinction cycle based on the Sun's oscillations relative to the galactic plane? (Via Cosmic Log.)
"How McDonald's Conquered France". Interestingly enough,
...[T]he quarter-pounded conquest of France was not the result of some fiendish American plot to subvert French food culture. It was an inside job, and not merely in the sense that the French public was lovin' it -- the architects of McDonald's strategy in France were French.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
"Researchers at a California National Lab will soon attempt to start self-sustaining fusion reactions using the world's largest lasers"
Wikipedia vs. NY Times controversy regarding suppressing information on escaped reporter.
I'm fine with keeping a temporary lid on newsworthy-but-sensitive information like this in order to protect human life. But I hope that if the New York Times wants other news sources to suppress a story in order to protect one of their reporters, then they'd be equally eager to suppress a newsworthy story in order to save the life of a non-NYT hostage in similar circumstances.
If not, then perhaps reporters should think twice before working for them...
I'm fine with keeping a temporary lid on newsworthy-but-sensitive information like this in order to protect human life. But I hope that if the New York Times wants other news sources to suppress a story in order to protect one of their reporters, then they'd be equally eager to suppress a newsworthy story in order to save the life of a non-NYT hostage in similar circumstances.
If not, then perhaps reporters should think twice before working for them...
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