Category: Interesting Reads

New news on lactic acid

(via DubiousQuality)

Well, this certainly falls far outside of most things I like writing about here, but I figure this comes in under some kind of science header.  Not that I need anything more than to find an article of interest to me to post it.  But still, I like to keep consistent in the kinds of drivel I post here.

Rambling out of the way, check out this article at the New York Times web site about the latest on lactic acid.  Given that it’s at NYTimes’ web site, registration is required.  To feed your interest, here’s a snippet:

Everyone who has even thought about exercising has heard the warnings about lactic acid. It builds up in your muscles. It is what makes your muscles burn. Its buildup is what makes your muscles tire and give out.

. . .

Lactic acid is actually a fuel, not a caustic waste product. Muscles make it deliberately, producing it from glucose, and they burn it to obtain energy. The reason trained athletes can perform so hard and so long is because their intense training causes their muscles to adapt so they more readily and efficiently absorb lactic acid.

. . .

Few scientists questioned this view, Dr. Brooks said. But, he said, he became interested in it in the 1960’s, when he was running track at Queens College and his coach told him that his performance was limited by a buildup of lactic acid.

When he graduated and began working on a Ph.D. in exercise physiology, he decided to study the lactic acid hypothesis for his dissertation.

“I gave rats radioactive lactic acid, and I found that they burned it faster than anything else I could give them,” Dr. Brooks said.

Hmmmmm.  So it looks like lactic acid is actually supposed to be there.  It helps you perform better.  So, here’s that link again – read why what you know about lactic acid is wrong.

[tags]Lactic acid, exercise[/tags]

Serious Diebold voting machine flaws

(via Freedom to Tinker)

A recently released report at BlackBoxVoting details some serious flaws in Diebold voting machines. The information is enough to make one wonder (wonder again, for those that have been keeping track of this stuff) why all electronic voting machines do not have mandatory paper ballots to go with the electronic votes. Every location using these, or any other electronic voting machines, should have a mandatory paper ballot which prints out for review by the voter and is kept seperately in a voting box for later review in close elections or in instances of suspected fraud or error.

It may seem that printing a paper ballot would invalidate the whole concept of electronic voting, but it is a simple and effective safety measure that might not ever be called upon. Given the difficulty in reviewing the code running inside these machines, a paper trail is just a smart backup. Most results will likely not be challenged, but when they are, the paper box is invaluable. Additionally, voters will be able to verify their votes by looking at the paper print-out before they leave the voting box.

A report by Harri Hursti, released today at BlackBoxVoting, describes some very serious security flaws in Diebold voting machines. These are easily the most serious voting machine flaws we have seen to date — so serious that Hursti and BlackBoxVoting decided to redact some of the details in the reports. (We know most or all of the redacted information.) Now that the report has been released, we want to help people understand its implications.

. . .

Election officials are in a very tough spot with this latest vulnerability. Since exploiting the weakness requires physical access to a machine, physical security is of the utmost importance. All Diebold Accuvote machines should be sequestered and kept under vigilant watch. This measure is not perfect because it is possible that the machines are already compromised, and if it was done by a clever attacker, there may be no way to determine whether or not this is the case. Worse yet, the usual method of patching software problems cannot be trusted in this case.

[tags]Diebold, Electronic voting[/tags]

Measuring the earth’s magnetic field

Sometimes, you can’t blame every worldly problem on President Bush. In this instance, scientists have known the earth’s magnetic field has weakened approximately 5% per century since 1840. What hasn’t been known is the change in times prior to that, because accurate records did not seem to exist. Recently, however, researchers have been using the log books from Captain Cook’s Pacific Ocean voyage to determine earlier fields states. And it looks like the field didn’t change much at that time.

So the changes are recent. At least, in geological terms. But not recent enough to blame it all on the current administration. And in the end, the weakening looks to be coming from the southern pole via patches of reverse magnetic flux – and I’m sure President Bush doesn’t have a machine to make that happen.

The modeling of historical magnetic data started in the early 1980’s by study team member David Gubbins, a researcher from University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

Gubbins and colleagues started with readily available data like those in the logs of famed English sailor and explorer, James Cook.

“[We then] progressed to searching archives in Europe, including finding 50,000 ‘lost’ 18th century measurements in the East India Company Archives in London,” Gubbins told LiveScience.

The whole process of figuring this out sounds fascinating to me. But I’m a big geek that way.

[tags]Magnetic field[/tags]

The real cost of hybrid cars

Another LiveScience.com article, this one is about figuring what a hybrid car really costs or saves you over a guestimated lifetime. Also covered is a little information on how hybrids work. The punchline is that at current prices, with current gas costs and current tax incentives, the average consumer does save with a hybrid, but not a lot. The article is worth looking at, still, if you have any thoughts of buying a hybrid. After all, saving a little is still a savings.

There are four types of hybrid systems:

  • Stop-start: shuts engine off when the car comes to a full stop and would otherwise idle.
  • Integrated Starter Alternator with Damping (ISAD): has the stop-start feature and an electric motor.
  • Integrated Motor Assist: The functions are identical to the ISAD but it has a larger electric motor for better performance.
  • Full hybrid system: cars generally run on electric power at low speeds with the gas engine kicking in at higher speeds.

[tags]Hybrid cars[/tags]

Joystiq MMO round-up

Wow. I knew there were tons of MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games) coming out in the near future. Stacked on top of those already existing MMOs (in particular, the overwhelming current king World of Warcraft), this makes for a crowded market. What I didn’t realize, however, is that “tons of MMOs” amounts to somewhere close to 50. At least, that’s where I get to counting these upcoming MMOs covered at Joystiq.

For those new to MMOs, you might want to look at the free offerings first – like Bang! Howdy, Dofus-Arena (not Doofus, but Dofus), Dungeon Runners, or Planeshift (actually playable now, with some work). Veterans or those wanting to jump right in to the big names will perhaps more look at something like the Square/Enix MMO (although little information on it currently exists), Tabula Rasa (from gaming well-known, Richard Garriott), the Marvel or the DC superhero games (little information available on either, and no links to details), or, heaven forbid, even Hello Kitty online.

We can guarantee we’ll be seeing a lot of MMOs at E3, so that’s why we’re bringing you this comprehensive overview of every MMO we currently know to be in development — excluding expansions of existing MMOs. Here’s a quick summary of the trends that we see emerging from this list:

  • East meets West. Ten out of the thirty-five games listed are Korean MMOs hoping to make it in America and Europe, with several companies banking on the success of such a translation.
  • Elves and Orcs. Despite a number of fantasy-themed MMOs, there are several under development that have no sign of the fantastic about them — instead, we see themes from sci-fi to pirates.
  • Microtransactions. Pay for currency, don’t pay for the game — this increasingly common strategy allows gamers to try games for free. Those who become heavy players end up pouring in more cash than they would have paid for an all-you-can-play monthly subscription.
  • Casual MMOs. Three of the titles listed below are trying to break into the casual space, with appealing cutesy graphics and Flash-based play. Most casual titles aren’t persistent, though games like Runescape have done well out of the browser-based market so far.
  • New developers. Fifteen of the studios below are working on their first MMO, or their first game altogether. This could mean increased innovation, or more problems — MMOs are risky business.

Honestly, this is one of the most interesting gaming reads I’ve laid eyes upon lately. If you have any thought of trying out large scale online gaming, you should look through this list and see if anything catches your eye. Sadly, many of these games will likely fail or fail to launch. Of those that do make it though, there should be quite a lot of variety for those who are looking for something new.

[tags]Gaming, MMOs, E3 trends[/tags]

Hybrid bear found

Sometimes, I even surprise myself with the tidbits of information I see that pique my interest. For some reason, I just couldn’t skip this article at LiveScience.com after seeing the title – “DNA Tests Confirm Bear Was a Hybrid.”

Now really, how could you skip a story like that?

IQALUIT, Nunavut (AP) – Northern hunters, scientists and people with vivid imaginations have discussed the possibility for years.

But Roger Kuptana, an Inuvialuit guide from Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories, was the first to suspect it had actually happened when he proposed that a strange-looking bear shot last month by an American sports hunter might be half polar bear, half grizzly.

So since I felt the need to post it here, you can probably guess that this bear actually *IS* a hybrid. But head over the the LiveScience article to find out more details about the bear. It’s pretty cool (no pun intended).

[tags]Hybrid bear[/tags]

Million Gigabyte thumb drives?

(via Engadget)

Color me skeptical, but according to this announcement from Drexel University, we might in the not-too-distant future see USB keys (or whatever interface dominates at the time) with massive storage capacities.

Imagine having computer memory so dense that a cubic centimeter contains 12.8 million gigabytes (GB) of information.

Imagine an iPod playing music for 100 millennia without repeating a single song or a USB thumb-drive with room for 32.6 million full-length DVD movies.

Sounds good to me. I’ll order a couple now, to avoid the early adopters rush.

Spanier and his colleagues, Alexie Kolpak and Andrew Rappe offrom the University of Pennsylvania and Hongkun Park of Harvard University, are excited about their findings, but say significant challenges lie ahead, including the need to develop ways to assemble the nanowires densely, and to develop a scheme to efficiently write information to and read information from the nanowires.

Dang it, there’s always a catch, isn’t there? I predict that before the year is out, we’ll hear that this technology is feasable, but 5 years away. Next year, we’ll get an update that the technology is feasable, but still 5 years away. And let me go out on a limb and say that in 2008, we’ll get an update that this technology is feasable, but is roughly 5 years away.

In case you haven’t kept up with breakthrough technology, everything is roughly 5 years away.

[tags]Massive data storage[/tags]

What to do if your identity is stolen

(via LifeHacker)
I read an article recently that said identity theft is significantly lower than most reported numbers indicate.  I wish I could find that to link to it.  Perhaps I can find it later and make mention of it.  Regardless, there is an article over at The Consumerist about what you should do if you are one of the folks who does get your identity stolen.

[tags]Identity theft[/tags]

Microsoft works to protect your sensitive ears

(via Engadget)
Microsoft has applied for a patent on technology to auto-censor audio streams.  Here’s the abstract:

An input audio data stream comprising speech is processed by an automatic censoring filter in either a real-time mode, or a batch mode, producing censored speech that has been altered so that undesired words or phrases are either unintelligible or inaudible. The automatic censoring filter employs a lattice comprising either phonemes and/or words derived from phonemes for comparison against corresponding phonemes or words included in undesired speech data. If the probability that a phoneme or word in the input audio data stream matches a corresponding phoneme or word in the undesired speech data is greater than a probability threshold, the input audio data stream is altered so that the undesired word or a phrase comprising a plurality of such words is unintelligible or inaudible. The censored speech can either be stored or made available to an audience in real-time.

[tags]Audio auto-censoring[/tags]

Browser speed tests

(via OSNews)

If you’ve ever wondered where your preferred browser falls on the performance curve, this article at howtocreate.co.uk has lots of details.  The short result is if you just want the fastest browser, you are almost certain to be best served by Opera.  The gecko-based browsers (Mozilla, Konqueror, Galeon) do OK, but don’t beat Opera on anything but start time.

Ok, ok. Firefox and Mozilla are clearly optimised for Linux, and Opera is clearly optimised for Windows. These optimisations are mostly obvious with the loading times, although there is also a little difference in the cache handling on the different operating systems. However, Opera seems to perform admirably well on most tasks, on any platform. When it comes to page rendering (tables, CSS or images), most of the major browsers perform very fast, with very little to distinguish between them. When it comes to scripts, Opera clearly holds its head above the others, nearly twice as fast as the others. The only one that comes close is Safari 2.0, but that is tied to the Tiger release of Mac OS (currently in preview).

Opera also is a clear winner using history. In fact, on Linux it is faster than Mozilla and Firefox for all except starting time. On Mac and Windows, Opera is faster than Mozilla and Firefox for all tasks. Surprisingly, Mozilla is now faster at most tasks than Firefox (please don’t send me any more emails about this line, I am well aware of why it is faster). Internet Explorer on Windows was either as fast as – or faster than Mozilla and Firefox for most tasks, with the exception of scripts, where it took over twice as long.

There is a lot more to the article than this snippet.  Please head over and read the full article for all the details.

[tags]Browser test, browser speed[/tags]

Man sues Compaq for false advertising

(via Bruce Schneier’s security blog)
As the headling says, a suit has been filed against Compaq (now HP) for false advertising.  Michael Crooker is suing Compaq for advertising a feature called DriveLock, purported to make the hard drive unreadable without the proper password.  After Mr. Crooker had his apartment searched by the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), his laptop was taken.  Later, data from the hard drive was used in a later search of his e-mail account.

He bought it in September 2002, expressly because it had a feature called DriveLock, which freezes up the hard drive if you don´t have the proper password.

The computer´s manual claims that ¨if one were to lose his Master Password and his User Password, then the hard drive is useless and the data cannot be resurrected even by Compaq´s headquarters staff,¨ Crooker wrote in the suit.

. . .

The FBI had broken through DriveLock and accessed his e-mails (both deleted and not) as well as lists of websites he´d visited and other information. The only files they couldn´t read were ones he´d encrypted using Wexcrypt, a software program freely available on the Internet.

I’ll let you make your own decision about whether or not normal people should have access to security software of this type.  I will say I view personal access to cryptography software to be as important as personal access to firearms.  You, of course, don’t have to share my view, but if you don’t, I’d be interested in hearing why in the comments.

[tags]DriveLock, Cryptography[/tags]

You just can’t keep up

(via LifeHacker)
This article at headrush really reflects the problem so many folks experience in the internet age.  There’s too much information, and not enough time to keep up with it. I feel the bite of information overload every time I try to catch up with the techie world.  And nearly every day, I find new sources of information to add to my RSS reading list.

Do you have a stack of books, journals, manuals, articles, API docs, and blog printouts that you think you’ll get to? That you think you need to read? Now, based on past experience, what are the odds you’ll get to all of it? Half of it? Any of it? (except for maybe the Wired magazine)

So you let the stack of “things to read” pile up, then eventually when the pile gets to high you end up tossing half of it–or worse, moving it to a deeper “stuff to read someday stack. We have selective amnesia about what we’ll ever get to, but mainly because most of us keep feeling like we have to keep up! Keep up with what?

You can’t keep up. There is no way. And trying to keep up will probably just make you dumber.You can never be current on everything you think you should be. You can’t simultaneously be current on:

It’s lenghty, but well worth reading.  That is, if you can find the time.  🙂
[tags]Information Overload[/tags]