Friday, February 28, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Monday, February 17, 2014
Daniel Mullen Creates Realistic Architecture With Spatial Awareness
Daniel Mullen Creates Realistic Architecture With Spatial Awareness via
Using paint, paper tape, pencil and blank canvas, artist Daniel Mullen creates images that examines with space and its representation through movement, fragmentation and the use of perspective. The friction created between the image and the painting, between painted and non-painted surfaces, and activation and deactivation of planes is what gives these creations meaning. Through it, Mullen conveys the “subtle illusion of space, as a question of perception.” Constructing the tower, 110x140cm, Oil on canvas My recent works are not a direct representation of existing architecture. The point of departure comes from the deconstruction of thoughts and memories. Meaning is then derived from a common understanding. At the same time that understanding raises new questions of association, searching for a disquieting intimacy. Resurrecting the monumental, 200x200cm, Oil on canvas The Architects Retreat, 80x80cm, Oil on canvas Dive, 70x70cm, Oil on canvas Ejecting space, 65x75cm, Oil on canvas Standby, 170x200cm, Oil on canvas Booth, 40x50cm, Oil on canvas hub, 50x40cm, Oil on raw canvas The architect, 145x185cm, Oil on canvas
Using paint, paper tape, pencil and blank canvas, artist Daniel Mullen creates images that examines with space and its representation through movement, fragmentation and the use of perspective. The friction created between the image and the painting, between painted and non-painted surfaces, and activation and deactivation of planes is what gives these creations meaning. Through it, Mullen conveys the “subtle illusion of space, as a question of perception.” Constructing the tower, 110x140cm, Oil on canvas My recent works are not a direct representation of existing architecture. The point of departure comes from the deconstruction of thoughts and memories. Meaning is then derived from a common understanding. At the same time that understanding raises new questions of association, searching for a disquieting intimacy. Resurrecting the monumental, 200x200cm, Oil on canvas The Architects Retreat, 80x80cm, Oil on canvas Dive, 70x70cm, Oil on canvas Ejecting space, 65x75cm, Oil on canvas Standby, 170x200cm, Oil on canvas Booth, 40x50cm, Oil on canvas hub, 50x40cm, Oil on raw canvas The architect, 145x185cm, Oil on canvas
Friday, February 14, 2014
Manic Researchers Announce They Are Hours Away From Cure For Depression
Manic Researchers Announce They Are Hours Away From Cure For Depression via
BLOOMINGTON, IN—Speaking loudly and quickly without any notable pauses, a team of manic researchers at Indiana University announced at a press conference Wednesday that they are mere hours away from a permanent cure for depression. The wide-eyed, un...
BLOOMINGTON, IN—Speaking loudly and quickly without any notable pauses, a team of manic researchers at Indiana University announced at a press conference Wednesday that they are mere hours away from a permanent cure for depression. The wide-eyed, un...
Thursday, February 13, 2014
GOPHERSET: NSA Exploit of the Day
GOPHERSET: NSA Exploit of the Day via
Today's item from the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group implant catalog : GOPHERSET (TS//SI//REL) GOPHERSET is a software implant for GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) subscriber identity module (SIM) cards. This implant pulls Phonebook, SMS, and call log information from a target handset and exfiltrates it to a user-defined phone number via short message service (SMS). (TS//SI//REL) Modern SIM cards (Phase 2+) have an application program interface known as the SIM Toolkit (STK). The STK has a suite of proactive commands that allow the SIM card to issue commands and make requests to the handset. GOPHERSET uses STK commands to retrieve the requested information and to exfiltrate data via SMS. After the GOPHERSET file is compiled, the program is loaded onto the SIM card using either a Universal Serial Bus (USB) smartcard reader or via over-the-air provisioning. In both cases, keys to the card may be required to install the application depending on the service provider's security configuration. Unit Cost: $0 Status: (U//FOUO) Released. Has not been deployed. Page, with graphics, is here . General information about TAO and the catalog is here . In the comments, feel free to discuss how the exploit works, how we might detect it, how it has probably been improved since the catalog entry in 2008, and so on.
Today's item from the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group implant catalog : GOPHERSET (TS//SI//REL) GOPHERSET is a software implant for GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) subscriber identity module (SIM) cards. This implant pulls Phonebook, SMS, and call log information from a target handset and exfiltrates it to a user-defined phone number via short message service (SMS). (TS//SI//REL) Modern SIM cards (Phase 2+) have an application program interface known as the SIM Toolkit (STK). The STK has a suite of proactive commands that allow the SIM card to issue commands and make requests to the handset. GOPHERSET uses STK commands to retrieve the requested information and to exfiltrate data via SMS. After the GOPHERSET file is compiled, the program is loaded onto the SIM card using either a Universal Serial Bus (USB) smartcard reader or via over-the-air provisioning. In both cases, keys to the card may be required to install the application depending on the service provider's security configuration. Unit Cost: $0 Status: (U//FOUO) Released. Has not been deployed. Page, with graphics, is here . General information about TAO and the catalog is here . In the comments, feel free to discuss how the exploit works, how we might detect it, how it has probably been improved since the catalog entry in 2008, and so on.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Star Sand
Star Sand via
Star Sand If you made a beach using grains the proportionate size of the stars in the Milky Way, what would that beach look like? Jeff Wartes Sand is interesting. [ Citation needed ] "Are there more grains of sand than stars in the sky?" is a popular question which has been tackled by many people . The upshot is that there are probably more stars in the visible universe than grains of sand on all of Earth's beaches. When people do those calculations, they often dig up some good data on the number of stars, then do some hand-waving about sand grain size to come up with a number for the sand grains on Earth. [1] From a practical point of view, geology and soil science are more complicated than astrophysics. We're not going to tackle that issue today, but to answer Jeff's question, we do need to figure out what the deal with sand is. [2] "i like sand because i don't really know what it is and there's so many of it" — @darth__mouth Specifically, we need to have some idea of what grain sizes correspond to clay, silt, fine sand, coarse sand, and gravel, so we can understand how our galaxy would look and feel if it were a beach. [3] Instead of just containing a bunch of them. Fortunately, there's a wonderful chart by the US Geologic Survey that answers all these questions and more. For some reason, I find this chart very satisfying—it's like the erosion geology edition of the electromagnetic spectrum chart. According to surveys of sand, [4] There are apparently lots of them . the grains found on beaches tend to run from 0.2mm to 0.5mm (with the finest layers on top). This corresponds to medium-to-coarse sand in the chart. The individual grains are about this big: If we assume the Sun corresponds to a typical sand grain, then multiply by the number of stars in the galaxy, we come up with a large sandbox worth of sand. [5] I mean, you come up with a bunch of numbers, but imagination turns them into a sandbox. However, this is wrong. The reason: Stars aren't all the same size. There are a number of widely-circulated YouTube videos comparing star sizes . They do a good job of getting across just how staggeringly large some stars are. Although it's easy to get lost in the videos and lose track of scale, it's clear that some of the grains in our sandbox universe would be more like boulders. Here's how the main-sequence [6] The stars in the main part of their fuel-burning lifecycle. star-sand grains look: They mostly fall into the "sand" category, though the larger Daft Punk stars cross the line into "granules" or "small pebbles". However, that's just the main sequence stars. Dying stars get much, much bigger. When a star runs out of fuel, it expands into a red giant. Even ordinary stars can produce huge red giants, but when a star that's already massive enters this phase, it can become a true monster. These red supergiants are the largest stars in the universe. These beachball-sized sand stars would be rare, but the grape-sized and baseball-sized red giants are relatively common. While they're not nearly as abundant as Sun-like stars or red dwarfs, their huge volume means that they'd constitute the bulk of our sand. We would have a large sandbox worth of grains ... along with a field of gravel that went on for miles. The little sand patch would contain 99% of the pile's individual grains, but less than 1% of its total volume. Our Sun isn't a grain of sand on a soft galactic beach; instead, the Milky Way is a field of boulders with some sand in between. But, as with the real Earth seashore, it's the rare little stretches of sand between the rocks where all the fun seems to happen.
Star Sand If you made a beach using grains the proportionate size of the stars in the Milky Way, what would that beach look like? Jeff Wartes Sand is interesting. [ Citation needed ] "Are there more grains of sand than stars in the sky?" is a popular question which has been tackled by many people . The upshot is that there are probably more stars in the visible universe than grains of sand on all of Earth's beaches. When people do those calculations, they often dig up some good data on the number of stars, then do some hand-waving about sand grain size to come up with a number for the sand grains on Earth. [1] From a practical point of view, geology and soil science are more complicated than astrophysics. We're not going to tackle that issue today, but to answer Jeff's question, we do need to figure out what the deal with sand is. [2] "i like sand because i don't really know what it is and there's so many of it" — @darth__mouth Specifically, we need to have some idea of what grain sizes correspond to clay, silt, fine sand, coarse sand, and gravel, so we can understand how our galaxy would look and feel if it were a beach. [3] Instead of just containing a bunch of them. Fortunately, there's a wonderful chart by the US Geologic Survey that answers all these questions and more. For some reason, I find this chart very satisfying—it's like the erosion geology edition of the electromagnetic spectrum chart. According to surveys of sand, [4] There are apparently lots of them . the grains found on beaches tend to run from 0.2mm to 0.5mm (with the finest layers on top). This corresponds to medium-to-coarse sand in the chart. The individual grains are about this big: If we assume the Sun corresponds to a typical sand grain, then multiply by the number of stars in the galaxy, we come up with a large sandbox worth of sand. [5] I mean, you come up with a bunch of numbers, but imagination turns them into a sandbox. However, this is wrong. The reason: Stars aren't all the same size. There are a number of widely-circulated YouTube videos comparing star sizes . They do a good job of getting across just how staggeringly large some stars are. Although it's easy to get lost in the videos and lose track of scale, it's clear that some of the grains in our sandbox universe would be more like boulders. Here's how the main-sequence [6] The stars in the main part of their fuel-burning lifecycle. star-sand grains look: They mostly fall into the "sand" category, though the larger Daft Punk stars cross the line into "granules" or "small pebbles". However, that's just the main sequence stars. Dying stars get much, much bigger. When a star runs out of fuel, it expands into a red giant. Even ordinary stars can produce huge red giants, but when a star that's already massive enters this phase, it can become a true monster. These red supergiants are the largest stars in the universe. These beachball-sized sand stars would be rare, but the grape-sized and baseball-sized red giants are relatively common. While they're not nearly as abundant as Sun-like stars or red dwarfs, their huge volume means that they'd constitute the bulk of our sand. We would have a large sandbox worth of grains ... along with a field of gravel that went on for miles. The little sand patch would contain 99% of the pile's individual grains, but less than 1% of its total volume. Our Sun isn't a grain of sand on a soft galactic beach; instead, the Milky Way is a field of boulders with some sand in between. But, as with the real Earth seashore, it's the rare little stretches of sand between the rocks where all the fun seems to happen.
Tuesday, February 04, 2014
You Win This Time, Benedict Sherlock!
You Win This Time, Benedict Sherlock! via
Sesame Street has posted a video of Benedict Cumberbatch’s guest appearance on the show and it is super adorable. It also contains immediate spoilers for the end of Sherlock season 3 , so be warned! The cute! It does not come without a price! [Watch Benedict Sherlock, er, Cumberbatch on Sesame Street ] Read the full article
Sesame Street has posted a video of Benedict Cumberbatch’s guest appearance on the show and it is super adorable. It also contains immediate spoilers for the end of Sherlock season 3 , so be warned! The cute! It does not come without a price! [Watch Benedict Sherlock, er, Cumberbatch on Sesame Street ] Read the full article
First Single-Molecule LED
First Single-Molecule LED via
Researchers have made the smallest possible organic light-emitting diode
Researchers have made the smallest possible organic light-emitting diode
Same-sex couples challenge Wisconsin's gay marriage ban
Same-sex couples challenge Wisconsin's gay marriage ban via
A group of same-sex couples filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging Wisconsin's ban on gay marriage, arguing the prohibition is unconstitutional and denies them civil rights married couples enjoy.
A group of same-sex couples filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging Wisconsin's ban on gay marriage, arguing the prohibition is unconstitutional and denies them civil rights married couples enjoy.
Monday, February 03, 2014
Escher Lizard Lack Hack
Escher Lizard Lack Hack via
One day, I rested my lizard spiral pattern on my Lack side table and an idea was born. The pattern is laser cut from 3mm plywood and is based on the Escher image “Development II” I stained 3 sheets of laser plywood with wood dye, Mahogany, Jacobean Oak and Antique Pine. I decided a plain/white border around the edge of the table would look best. Three different sets of lizards were cut, one in each colour and then I mixed and matched the appropriate parts while gluing them onto the top of the table. This does mean I now have three Escher side tables kicking round my house. I sanded the top of the Lack table to key the surface of the table and help the glue stick to it. The border was split into four parts, one for each side of the table. The largest lizards interlock nicely with the border and hold it in place while the glue sets. It’s easiest to build up the lizards in rings working towards the centre. Once you’re at the middle you can fit the centre piece with a little bit of wiggling. More images and information can be found on my blog .
One day, I rested my lizard spiral pattern on my Lack side table and an idea was born. The pattern is laser cut from 3mm plywood and is based on the Escher image “Development II” I stained 3 sheets of laser plywood with wood dye, Mahogany, Jacobean Oak and Antique Pine. I decided a plain/white border around the edge of the table would look best. Three different sets of lizards were cut, one in each colour and then I mixed and matched the appropriate parts while gluing them onto the top of the table. This does mean I now have three Escher side tables kicking round my house. I sanded the top of the Lack table to key the surface of the table and help the glue stick to it. The border was split into four parts, one for each side of the table. The largest lizards interlock nicely with the border and hold it in place while the glue sets. It’s easiest to build up the lizards in rings working towards the centre. Once you’re at the middle you can fit the centre piece with a little bit of wiggling. More images and information can be found on my blog .
IRATEMONK: NSA Exploit of the Day
IRATEMONK: NSA Exploit of the Day via
Today's item from the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group implant catalog : IRATEMONK (TS//SI//REL) IRATEMONK provides software application persistence on desktop and laptop computers by implanting in the hard drive firmware to gain execution through Master Boot Record (MBR) substitution. (TS//SI//REL) This technique supports systems without RAID hardware that boot from a variety of Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, and Samsung hard drives. The supported file systems are: FAT, NTFS, EXT3 and UFS. (TS//SI//REL) Through remote access or interdiction, UNITEDRAKE, or STRAITBAZZARE are used with SLICKERVICAR to upload the hard drive firmware onto the target machine to implant IRATEMONK and its payload (the implant installer).l Once implanted, IRATEMONK's frequency of execution (dropping the payload) is configurable and will occur when the target machine powers on. Status: Released / Deployed. Ready for Immediate Delivery Unit Cost: $0 Page, with graphics, is here . General information about TAO and the catalog is here . In the comments, feel free to discuss how the exploit works, how we might detect it, how it has probably been improved since the catalog entry in 2008, and so on.
Today's item from the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group implant catalog : IRATEMONK (TS//SI//REL) IRATEMONK provides software application persistence on desktop and laptop computers by implanting in the hard drive firmware to gain execution through Master Boot Record (MBR) substitution. (TS//SI//REL) This technique supports systems without RAID hardware that boot from a variety of Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, and Samsung hard drives. The supported file systems are: FAT, NTFS, EXT3 and UFS. (TS//SI//REL) Through remote access or interdiction, UNITEDRAKE, or STRAITBAZZARE are used with SLICKERVICAR to upload the hard drive firmware onto the target machine to implant IRATEMONK and its payload (the implant installer).l Once implanted, IRATEMONK's frequency of execution (dropping the payload) is configurable and will occur when the target machine powers on. Status: Released / Deployed. Ready for Immediate Delivery Unit Cost: $0 Page, with graphics, is here . General information about TAO and the catalog is here . In the comments, feel free to discuss how the exploit works, how we might detect it, how it has probably been improved since the catalog entry in 2008, and so on.
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