Facebook

How Facebook tracks you even if you logout:
http://nikcub-static.appspot.com/logging-out-of-facebook-is-not-enough

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Playterm -- Master the command line! ... and other tidbits

*PLAYterm*
==========

PLAYterm, an interesting project that offers up recordings of Linux command line sessions, with the aim of helping viewers to improve their skills by watching gurus at work.
http://www.playterm.org/

Neal Stephenson's excellent (and free-to-download) e-Text-Book:
In the Beginning was the Command Line.
http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html

Linux Journal article:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/playterm-platform-gurus

**New Mac OS X Trojan Hides Inside PDFs**
================

http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/new-mac-os-x-trojan-imuler-hides-inside-malicious-pdf-092311

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/09/24/1930210/New-Mac-OS-X-Trojan-Hides-Inside-PDFs

High School Student Launches a Trash Bag Aircraft
==================================================

...a project completed last month by Manuja Gunaratne.
A high school student at Advanced Technologies Academy in Las Vegas,
Nevada managed to launch an aircraft using trash bags. The trash bag aircraft traveled for hundreds of miles and rose to thousands of feet while capturing thousands of images of the Earth. The trash bag craft consisted of household equipment and only cost $50.

http://www.projecttbac.org/
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/09/24/1549221/High-School-Student-Launches-a-Trash-Bag-Aircraft

Resurrecting Babbage's Analytical Engine.
=========================================

The first phase is to digitize all of Babbage's papers and
designs. These will be available to the general public in 2012. The
machine to be built is no simple calculator: it is a full computer with a
store for between 100 and 1000 values, each of 40 digits, and it was
programmed using punched cards in a modern 'operator/address' format.
There was even a plan to send the output to a printer. When this device
is built it will make it clear that the computer age nearly began in the
18th century.

http://www.i-programmer.info/news/82-heritage/3101-babbage-archive-digitized.html

Wi-Fi Cards Can Now Detect Microwave Ovens
===============

...Researchers at UW Madison have [0]used regular WiFi cards to detect non-WiFi interference sources like microwave ovens, Bluetooth devices, cordless phones, Xbox controllers and video cameras. They call their software Airshark. Current products like Wispy, Spectrum Expert are expensive and need extra hardware, whereas Airshark is a software-only solution that can directly work on the Wi-Fi cards on your laptops and APs. This also paves way several interesting applications. For example, your WiFi network will not be affected anymore just because your neighbor switched on a microwave oven or a cordless phone ??? the newer WiFi APs will be able to switch the channels and adapt to the interference accordingly."

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/092311-wifi-airshark-251193.html

NASA Satellite Falls Back To Earth; Landfall in Canada
========================================================

http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-20111100-239/derelict-nasa-satellite-falls-back-to-earth/

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0924/NASA-satellite-falls-on-Canada-as-space-junk.-No-one-hurt

http://uars.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Amendment: Violation of ToS Should Not Be a Crime
=================================================

Three data and security breach notification bills have been [2]approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of which includes an amendment that adds clarity with regards to the [3]Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. These three bills would require businesses to develop data privacy and security plans, and it would set a federal standard for notifying individuals of breaches of very sensitive
personally identifiable information, such as credit card information or
medical records. This clarification is welcomed, making the statute more
focused towards hackers and identity thieves, instead of consumers that
run afoul of ToS or AUPs of websites and service providers.

0. http://www.ecogroled.com/
1. https://www.cdt.org/blogs/harley-geiger/239senate-judiciary-committee-passes-three-data-security-bills
2. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/09/senate-committee-agrees-violating-terms-service-shouldnt
3. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.html

**** Crowdsourcing Speeds Evolution of 3D Printable Objects ****
==================================================================

The Cornell Creative Machines Lab, which brought us [1]chatbots debating God and unicorns, has developed [2]Endlessforms.com, a site using evolutionary algorithms and crowdsourcing to design objects that can be 3D printed in materials such
as silver, steel or silicone. MIT's Technology Review says 'The rules
EndlessForms uses to generate objects and their variants [3]resemble
those of developmental biology ??? the study of how DNA instructions unfold
to create an entire living organism. [The Media Lab's Mediated Matter
research group director Neri Oxman notes] that this could ultimately have
an impact on design similar to the impact that blogs and social media
have had on journalism, opening the field to the general public.' The New
Scientist has a [4]quick video tour."

0. http://www.djimmy.com/
1. http://idle.slashdot.org/story/11/08/30/1410211/Cornells-Creative-Machines-Lab-Lets-Chatbots-Interact
2. http://endlessforms.com/
3. http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/38433/page1/
4. http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/08/evolve-your-own-objects-for-3d.html

========================
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The bizarre fish that evolved for oceans, but lives on land

The bizarre fish that evolved for oceans, but lives on land
Published: Wednesday, Aug 31, 2011, 20:42 IST
Place: Washington, DC | Agency: ANI

A new study has found that one of the world's strangest animals—a unique
fish that lives on land and can leap large distances despite having no
legs—has a rich and complex social life.

The odd lifestyle of the Pacific leaping blenny (Alticus arnoldorum) has
been detailed for the first time in research findings that throw new
light on how animal life first evolved to colonise the land.

Lead researcher Dr Terry Ord, of the UNSW Evolution and Ecology Research
Centre and his colleagues also discovered that males are territorial and
use complex visual displays to warn off rivals and attract mates.

Females were seen aggressively defending feeding territory at the start
of their breeding season, while males displayed a red-coloured fin and
nodded their heads vigorously to attract females to their closely
defended rock holes.

The Pacific leaping blenny is a marine fish yet is terrestrial in all
aspects of its daily adult life, eking out a precarious existence in the
intertidal zone of rocky shores in Micronesia.

"This remarkable little fish seems to have made a highly successful transition across the water—land interface, although it is still needs to stay moist to enable it to breathe through its gills and skin," said Ord, who is an evolutionary ecologist with a special interest in animal behaviour.

"Our study showed that life on land for a marine fish is heavily dependent on tide and temperature fluctuations, so much so that almost all activity is restricted to a brief period at mid-tide, the timing of which changes daily. During our field study on Guam we never saw one voluntary return to water. Indeed, they spend much of their time actively avoiding submersion by incoming waves, even when we tried to capture them for study.

"I can tell you they are very hard to catch and are extremely agile on land. They move quickly over complex rocky surfaces using a unique tail-twisting behaviour combined with expanded pectoral and tail fins that let them cling to almost any firm surface. To reach higher ground in a hurry, they can also twist their bodies and flick their tails to leap many times their own body length," Ord added.

The study has been published in the journal Ethology.

--
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unladen european swallow