Discussion Post: Week 10
Well, it’s been a very unusual week in COM 315, to say the least. Here’s hoping for a return to some measure of normalcy in the coming days.
Remember the crisis in Japan a few months ago, when the Fukushima power plant failed amidst an earthquake and tsunami? The plant ultimately leaked a great deal of radiation into the atmosphere, affecting scores of citizens, many of whom had already lost their homes in the calamity. Well, it turns out that the damage was worse than anyone thought. Recent reports suggest that the Fukushima plant released “twice as much” radioactive material than we first thought. At its worst, the plant released about 42% as much radioactive material as the infamous Chernobyl incident.
Let’s touch upon another developing story. You’ll remember from our previous discussions that a group of physicists stumbled upon what appeared to be faster-than-light travel when the subatomic particles they were testing arrived at their intended destinations more quickly than the supposed universal speed limit. Scientists are now preparing to re-run those neutrino experiments in order to see if any systematic errors could have caused incorrect results. We’ll keep an eye on their research as it progresses.
Neither of these, though, are the longest-developing science stories this week. A team of Swedish and American linguists are claiming to have cracked the Copiale Cipher, a sizeable, baffling 18th century text that mixed Roman characters with unknown symbols. The scientists used statistics-based translation techniques like expected word frequency to attack the cipher, which they now say holds its roots in German.
Earlier this month, we discussed reports of air force drones being infected with a keylogger virus. Now, NASA has reported that an observation satellite was hacked twice in 2008. Some have speculated that the hack was perpetrated by members of the Chinese military, although those claims have not been confirmed. In any case, it does not appear that data was manipulated or that commands were successfully entered to change the satellite’s behavior, but it is quite possible that information could have been extracted from the satellite.
On the election front, a recent poll suggests that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would perform better against individual Republican candidates in head-to-head matchups than would incumbent Barack Obama. Given the nature of the political scene, this hardly makes a White House run likely for Clinton in 2012, but it’s interesting to note in the context of the campaign. The other side of the aisle also brings some curious news, as Texas Gov. Rick Perry is considering pulling out of future Republican primary debates now that he has lost his frontrunner standing in the race. The idea is that staying out of the debates is safer, and the move may induce other candidates to avoid the debates, as well. With a record number of Republican candidates in the primary elections, we’ll have to see whether Perry’s move shakes up the field.
In sporting news, the NBA season is shrinking by the week, as a full month of games have now been cancelled. Many had hoped a deal would be struck during negotiations on Friday, but that hope continues to wane as the calendar remains empty when fans are accustomed to enjoying the start of the season. We’ll see if the players and owners can resolve their revenue-sharing disagreements, or if we’re destined to see the entire 2011-12 season vanish. Perhaps 2K Sports had the right idea by promoting NBA 2K12 more on the basis of historical teams than current competitors.
And, of course, on Friday evening the St. Louis Cardinals won the deciding Game 7 of the World Series over the Texas Rangers, capping an underdog story for the ages. The Cardinals, who trailed in the Wild Card race by a whopping 10½ games with just over a month left in the season, who earned their postseason tickets on the very last day of the regular season, and who were one strike from elimination twice during Game 6 on Thursday, can now call themselves the 2011 World Series Champions.
That’s all for this week. You know what to do!
Other articles of interest:
Syria’s government confident, but country polarized
U.S. Firm Acknowledges Syria Uses Its Gear to Block Web
Occupy Oakland: Tents return as documentary filmmaker Michael Moore energizes protesters
Protesters Arrested in Tenn. After Curfew Defied
Oakland protesters plan march, mayor apologizes
Public Support Of Health Law Drops Sharply
Statue of Liberty turns 125 as immigrants declare oath of American citizenship in honor of monument
‘Steve Jobs’ delves deep into complex man’s life
Apple engineers contacting iPhone 4S owners to solve battery life puzzle
Experts differ on Klout’s clout
YouTube Tees Up Big Talent
Facebook says 600,000 account logins compromised every day
NASA Launches Advanced Climate Satellite
Tags: 2K Sports, America, Barack Obama, Chernobyl, Copiale Cipher, Fukushima, German, Hillary Clinton, Japan, NASA, NBA, NBA 2K12, Republicans, Rick Perry, St. Louis Cardinals, Sweden, Texas Rangers, U.S. Air Force, White House, Wild Card, World Series
News with a Spoon 
I was hoping the same that something was going to be done on Friday yet I sat around all day not hearing any good news and being dissapointed once again. I think I am at the point where I’m not going to pay attention anymore until i hear good news! However I still think something we’ll be done this next week. I just can’t believe how people can fight over billions of dollars. They have to realize that the fans are the most important part of playing the game and not fighting over problems that we wish we had! As for the NBA 2K12 game I agree thats why they did that. I haven’t bought it for that reason and also there won’t be any updated rosters if they don’t play so I decided not to waste $60 i’m saving it for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3!!
I am happy to hear the Cardinals won the World Series, even though I am not a baseball fan, and the fact that I know very little about the sport. I have heard a lot of news over the past few weeks about the Cardinals blazing through to the championship, and how they are the ultimate underdogs. I always like a good underdog story and enjoy watching any game when an underdog is holding its own against a very strong team. On a sports related subject, I am actually a little bit excited that there might not be an NBA season this year, even though it might mean not seeing Johnson and Moore play in there rookie seasons. But as a huge college basketball fan, this might mean that more people will turn instead to the collegiate level to get there basketball fix.
Well I can definitely vouch for the fact that the iPhone 4s’ battery life is definitely decreased from the iPhone 4 and previous models I’ve owned. I always have had to charge my phone every night regardless, due to just how much I use it. But now it has actually gotten to the point where I keep an extra charger in my car just in case I’m out somewhere and my battery dies on me. Even adjusting the brightness down all the way didn’t keep mine from dropping from 30% to 0% in about an hour last night. Hopefully Apple can figure out if there is a software issue and can get the patch out soon!
I have a 4 and I have noticed an decrease in battery life from iOS 4 to iOS 5. I could leave my phone on all night and wake up to a battery that was at maybe 3% or 4% less charge than when I went to sleep. Now that number is easily over 10%. I the amount I use mine varies largely day to day so I cant say how it might have affected the usage time on a single charge, however the standby time has definitely taken a hit. Hopefully Apple will be able to find a solution soon. I had to turn off the location services to the new reminders app as it was leaving my location on non-stop, which I am sure hurt my battery life.
I find the reactions of a lot of people to the development of the neutrino story interesting. When the story first came out, there seemed to be three general reactions. One: this has changed everything we know! Two: they screwed up. Three: Hmmmm…I’m skeptical but this could be cool. Now that they may have been disproved and have to re-do the experiment, there are once again three general reactions. One: YOU WERE WRONG! Two: YOU WERE WRONG! Three: I was right to be skeptical…but this could be cool if proven wrong.
This is science. You find something cool, and normally it’s a false lead or isn’t quite what you thought it was at first. It’s this sort of thing in the medical community all the time. They’ll find something that they think is the cause of a disease. There’s an uproar. All three reactions happen. Sometimes they’re right. More often than not, they’re wrong or misled.
This is common. If we knew of all the scientific discoveries that were later disproven, I doubt that there would be such a large reaction to this story.
Yes, science is a self correcting system. There is nothing that is immune from the scrutiny of the scientific method. I hope they can test to the best of their abilities and reach a sound conclusion; however even then their conclusion still faces constant revision.
Related to the story regarding Steve Jobs, I thought I’d bring up something that I saw this weekend related to his passing. According to a story I read he wished for Apple to continue in the future differently than the Disney Company did after Walk Disney died. He apparently stated that he doesn’t want the company to constantly be asking the question, “What would Jobs have done?” much like the Disney company and its fans have done for the decades since Walt’s death. I found this wish for his company suiting and somewhat fitting since Jobs served on the board for the Disney Company, knowing full well how the company still operates and realizing he didn’t want that for his company’s future.
I find it extremely interesting about the radioactive material released in Japan. I find this particularly interesting after watching a History Channel episode of zombies. Zombies have been mythical but at the same time real to people in the ancient world. The episode pointed out that if a zombie apocalypse would occur, it would be caused by humans due to the dangerous bacteria and chemicals that scientist test with on a daily basis. Would the radioactive material cause mutations or even create zombies? This is such a serious matter that the US government has generated protocols for such an event. Will anyone be prepared??? Ha just something to think about. Carry on. 🙂
With the latest lockout news about cancelling two more weeks of the NBA season doesn’t surprise me at all. They kept claiming that they were making process, but neither side is still budging on giving the other side the edge on making the final decision. Its frustrating to hear about and they meet for like 10 hours in one day. What the heck do they talk or do in those 10 hours that they can’t make one step towards making a deal? I feel like they go there and do absolutely nothing, but claim they are working on it. Come on owners and players get your act together and quit being stubborn and come to a deal. You are hurting local businesses that earn their income from home games and everyone that works for the NBA.
I am so happy that the Cardinal’s won the series. I am not a baseball fan, but my entire floor in my dorm and other friends were cheering for them. Now, we can go back and watch our normal shows that we usually watch. However, now that baseball is over, people will start to get bothered more about the basketball lockout. Congrats to all of the Cardinal Fans. You guys really showed me that you have some spirit!
Tokyo is not safe anymore. Many Koreans are very skeptical about the level of radiation reported by Japanese government. Japanese government has been holding information and releasing little by little. Even CNN’s Anderson Cooper expressed that Japanese government is controlling radiation information. Just after Fukushima Plant radiation leak, Japanese government increased minimum safety radiation level. Japanese government says that Tokyo is safe because radiation has not reached the (newly adjusted) minimum radiation level. There is a news paper article on radiation hotspot near Tokyo.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204644504576650943050316316.html
Entire food supply of Japan are also affected by the radiation as well. As you know, Japanese cuisine is highly based on seafood, but sea food is not safe anymore. Japanese government has released enormous amount of radiated cooling water to the pacific ocean for more than 7 Months. Also, Japaneses’ favorite fish, tuna, can easily accumulate heavy metals and radiation since tuna stands on the top of the food chain. Besides fish, some beef produced within Japan exceeded minimum safety radiation level.
I used to love traveling Tokyo, but I won’t be going Tokyo at least for ten years. I will miss Tokyo’s atmosphere…
Along the lines of the release of radiation into the air in Japan, this story reminds me of an image that I stumbled upon while browsing the Internet. The picture was of an old man who volunteered to live in the area of Japan where the bomb was dropped. He did this because he was already old and knew that cancer from radiation exposure took 20+ years to develop. This old man didn’t have 20 years left in his life, so he offered to live in this area as to not occupy the areas not affected. I thought this was really interesting and humane of the old man.
I think the potential security breach of the U.S. satellite is particularly interesting. I have heard stories on several occasions about a potential security breach of U.S. systems by the Chinese. This is a very troubling thing to hear. These types of actions could potentially be seen as acts of war. The relations between the U.S. and China seem to be in a constant state of stress. There are obviously major cultural differences between us and the Chinese and I think this creates a difficult situation due to the fact that we are both major powers in the world. It will be interesting to see how our relationship with China continues to develop in the future.
I understand the argument that most players are making that they do need to afford house they stay in during the season and an offseason home and many other expenses they have to cover. But this has come to be ridiculous. I wonder how well an open try-outs would have worked for teams to keep the league alive. I have although been enjoying the entertaining commercials showing NBA stars playing in random leagues and just purely dominating.
As someone who wants to go into the cyber forensics field, its interesting to see how many people’s facebook accounts are comprimised daily. Its a known fact many people on the internet use the same exact password from site to site. So say if your “friend” knows what bank you are with, and your facebook password they might be able to get into your online bank account. Personally i have about 10 different passwords I alternate/use on the internet. Some are only for critical/important information/websites that I don’t right down anywhere, ever!
Anyway I thought this article was pretty interesting though.
I think this curfew is absolutely ridiculous and wrong in Nashville. I understand that it was put into place because there are bad apples, but how quickly do we forget those same bad apples that make it all the way to elected office….. Nixon anyone? The safety commissioner is cited saying that we cannot babysit this protest, so now it is ruined for everyone. Newt Gingrich said this, ” I think the people who are protesting in Wall Street break into two groups: one is left-wing agitators who would be happy to show up next week on any other topic, and the other is sincere middle-class people who frankly are very close to the Tea Party people who care. And actually…you can tell which are which.” Maybe the city can take the same dollars it spent to operate this raid and hire one extra police officer that could really probably use the work to monitor the protest and make cider out of these bad apples.
Here’s an interesting article to go with the story about Japan’s radioactivity: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/10-000-free-round-trip-tickets-japan-134142507.html
It looks like the number of people traveling to Japan has been cut in half compared to where it was last year because of the nuclear plant issue. If this is true about the radioactivity being higher than we originally thought, then this is only going to make this issue worse for them. But hey, if you’re not worried about it, maybe you can get a free trip to Japan!
Although I don’t always keep up on sports news, the pieces related to sports are very interesting in this week’s discussion. It’s great that the Cardinals won the world series- it makes me wish I would have watched the game last Friday. The NBA situation does seem ridiculous, and it should be resolved soon. A full month of the season being gone sure seems like a lot to me.
Also, that is extremely unfortunate that the amount of radiation from the Fukushima power plant was miscalculated by that much. I hope Japan can fully recover from that damage as soon as they can.
It is unfortunate the release of radiation is twice as speculated whcih is adversly impacting the surrounding area. I read this article (http://rt.com/usa/news/nuclear-radiation-japan-usa/) which reported small levels of radiation could potential reach the U.S. I never thought I’d be saying this, but I’m kinda glad I’m living in the MIdwest currently and not on the west coast. I’m glad to see the Cardinals win the world series after their huge struggle this season! I look forward to next round of presentations and hopefully pull off something interesting as the last individual speech.
As for the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers series, I think it was probably one of the best of all time. I’m not even a baseball fan and really didn’t get to watch most of it, but when I was, something exciting was actually happening and I was quite interested. We were at a gathering Friday night and my friend from St. Louis started going crazy because he had the score on his phone. I could not believe my ears when I heard him say they were the champions. As for the NBA, they need to get there stuff together. Already a month has gone by and fans are not happy with this lockout. The NFL figured it out, hopefully the players that are already paid too much can figure it out as well.
In regards to the NBA, I would not be surprised one bit if the entire season is cancelled. It has happened before to the NBA. Another thing to consider is the fact that international competition, although not as high, is catching up quickly to the NBA and many star players have signed conditional deals to play in Europe and Asia. This gives the players a way to keep playing and making their large salaries even if there is a lockout. This means there is no drawback to the players not reaching an agreement to the lockout. Just when the NBA seemed to be making a comeback…
I am a Chicago Cubs fan, and when I heard that Theo Epstein was going to become the new president of baseball operations of the Chicago Cubs, I was very excited to say the least. Looking at his baseball history and what he has done with his past team (General Manger for the Boston Red Sox) who were also known to be “cursed”; he has an impressive resume. Epstein was named the youngest GM in MLB history, when he took over for the Red Sox in 2002. Two years later, he brought the town of Boston a World Series, there first in 86 years. Of course the Cubs winning the World Series next year is crazy to fathom, given their roster as opposed to what Epstein had to work with when employed by the Red Sox. Though it is hopeful to think that in a couple years with some key player trades and practice, the Cubs could be contending for a World Series. Cubs fan or White Sox fan, I think Chicago is excited to see what this move will bring to the Cubs and to the city of Chicago.
Just did my presentation today and I can say it was one big pile of suck. For some reason even when I rehearse what I want to say I forget it as soon as I face the class. The inner monologue just says, “I’m outta here”. The transitions and flow to my presentation about air traffic controllers was fine but I know I did not have the stage presence that I wanted. I did not have the right choice of words to make my speech more powerful. More practice is the key I guess.
To be honest, the NBA season is just one of the upsetting stories to me. Being a huge Indiana Pacers fan, it is very upsetting. Already with the Pacers being desperate for more fans and attention this year, they are losing more support now than ever. I was very upset when I found out about the full month lock out and really hope they can decide on something soon.
The increasing deluge of reports of critical government and industry cyber systems being hacked by domestic and international hackers is concerning. With government and industry evermore reliant on technology for everything from communication to national defense, our society’s vulnerability to cyber terrorism and espionage from at home and abroad abounds. While such technology has been the backbone of our country’s recent advancements, it is becoming a dangerous liability that threatens our personal privacy at best and our national security at worst. Although this threat should not discourage continued technological advancement, it should spur greater awareness of the seriousness of cyber terrorism and cyber espionage, and it should spark the development of rigorous new safeguards for sensitive public and private sector cyber systems.
I would like to comment on the unbelievable/unlikely World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals. It seems as though you can’t keep this team down. First they were down ten and a half games with the post season quickly approaching and came back from behind to qualify. Second, after even after making it to the World Series, in game six, twice in the game they were one out away from winning the World Series and rallied to come back and win the game. They then went on to win game seven and as they say “The rest is history”. No team has ever been one out away from losing twice in one game, and came back to win. This Cardinal team is something special. And that is coming from a Cub’s fan, whoms supposed to hate the cardinals more than anyone else (But I don’t mind saying that because things are shaping up for the cubs whom just appointed Theo Epstein President of baseball operations and also acquired the general manager of the Padres who once worked with Theo). Sadly, a few days after they won, Manager Tony Larussa stated his retirement , which could in fact have an impact on whether Albert Pujols stays in Saint Louis or not but that’s another story. Back to the point, congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals 2011 World Champions.
Once again, this NBA lockout gets worse. Which is really unfortunate because now players will be headed to other places to play, leaving no basketball here for at least another month. I realize that this is a business. There is money involved, and a lot of it. But sometimes the love for what you do should override the money issues, and I don’t get that feeling from anyone in the NBA.
On a side note, I was fortunate to have caught the last little bit of Game 6 (starting from the bottom of the 9th until the end) and all of Game 7 of the world series. They were spectacular games. Good for St. Louis to be able to make that big of a come back. I’m very impressed.
If you’ve been following the news as of late there’s been an interesting trend in Chinese attacks on U.S. information systems. Although, I wouldn’t personally define them as attacks as much as tests or muscle flexing. For example, only a little while ago China routed a large amount of U.S. military internet traffic through China. Nothing really came of it and it doesn’t appear any information was leaked. So, whether these are Cold War style tactics being employed in the information age or merely tests is yet to be discovered.
Well as for the Chinese hacking our satellites, I believe that conclusion just simply spawned from nowhere. NASA has partnerships with several other countries including Japan and Canada who all have access to these satellites. So the hacks could have come from anywhere. That is, if they even happened. There has yet to be any confirmation of the hacks from NASA. It seems a little suspicious. And, if the Chinese did hack our satellites then maybe we shouldn’t have bought all of our computer chips used in constructing the satellite from China.
I don’t understand what the protestors are expecting when they get arrested for breaking the law. It seems to me there was a law regarding when the plaza closed and after a certain time that became a trespassing offense. It’s that simple when a park closes it becomes illegal to remain in said park or plaza due to the nature of the law. As for those who believe it’s a “violation” of their first amendment rights, perhaps they should brush up on their history and realize that it is not a violation and they are in the wrong for not cooperating with police when told to vacate the premises at closing time.
“Free speech zones are areas set aside in public places for political activists to exercise their right of freedom of speech as an exercise of what is commonly called “TPM” or “time, place, manner” regulation of speech. Free speech zones are set up by the Secret Service who scout locations near which the president is to pass or speak. Officials may target those displaying signs and escort them to the free speech zones before and during the event. Protesters who refuse to go to free speech zones could be arrested and charged with trespassing, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.”
That idea seems pretty basic to me. I think these arrests should continue because at the Tennessee State trooper clearly stated, “We don’t have the resources to go out and in effect babysit protesters 24-7 … at the level that would have been necessary to address their concerns.”
There were recent trespassing arrests in Chicago as well and I think that this has gone far enough and that more arrests are going to take place and hopefully these “protestors” will find a better way to air their grievances that doesn’t involve the creation of more problems and costly spending on an already tight budget.
This was not a long standing law regarding this location. This curfew was just now created for the purpose of arresting these protesters. It was selectively enforced only against the protesters, and not against other people who were present in Legislative Plaza after the curfew.
And yes, by the way, the actions of the police most certainly were in violation of the First Amendment, which you would realize if you took the effort to read it (which by the way isn’t very much effort because it’s only 45 words).
“Congress SHALL MAKE NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or ABRIDGING the freedom of speech, or of the press; or THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. ”
As you can see from reading the First Amendment, the police prohibited the protesters from engaging in three different activities protected by that law. Since you claim to have such an affinity for the law, you should be enraged by the actions of the lawbreaking police. A federal court has agreed with me about this, and the police have been ordered to cease the arrests. I think the judge put it best when he said that he could “find no authority anywhere for anyone to authorize a curfew anywhere on Legislative Plaza.”
Since you mentioned the police’s lack of “resources”, let’s talk about that. The police claim that the protesters requested that they (the police) be more vigilant about preventing crime by homeless people against them (the protesters). They claim they didn’t have the resources to do so, so they declared the curfew. Every quote I’ve read from protesters on the matter has said that they requested no such thing, but let’s assume it’s true.
So the police are claiming that they didn’t have the resources to protect the protesters, so they decided to arrest them instead. Seems to me if they didn’t have the resources to “babysit” the protesters, they simply could have told them “we’re not going to babysit you, take care of your selves”, rather than come in and arrest the people they didn’t have the resources to protect.
Besides, if they didn’t have the resources to stop crime at the protest, how did they suddenly magically have the resources to arrest all the protesters. Seems awfully fishy, doesn’t it?
I don’t think you’d support what the police were doing if you knew what they were doing. Photos of the arrests show police zip-tieing people’s hands tight enough to cut off circulation and putting people so tied on their faces on the ground.
Some people seem to not care all that much about the NBA. This is totally fine and their opinion. I myself love basketball no matter what the level is. Those who dislike the NBA say that it is not the same as it use to be. I felt that the NBA was pretty competitive last year considering the teams that put together “all star teams” like the miami heat and the new york knicks did not win the championship last year. Also I have started liking the NBA more and more after watching college basketball so much and getting to see college athletes excel at the next level.
CARDINALS WIN THE SERIES GO BIRDS!
In this day and age internet security is becoming more and more important. Facebook is a huge company that has been able to invest enough money into security that it is able to stop hackers from entering your account. Consider the other sites that we use on a daily or even weekly basis that would be devastating if someone had access to the information on these user names. Hackers can’t be completely avoided, but some precautions can be used to increase the security of your accounts. One of these precautions is to use different passwords for different sites and to include as many different characters as possible in those passwords.
About the World Series….I am shocked the Cardinals pulled that off. It was remarkable they even came back from Game 6. Texas had two opportunities where they only needed one out to win the game, and the title. Both times St. Louis came back and tied up the game, when finally Freeze hit the game ender. And in game 7 Texas jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first inning, only for St. Louis to come back and take home the title. Great Fall Classic, and great postseason.
I always tell people that baseball means nothing to me. I am from Virginia so my only loyalties lie with the Nationals and Orioles, neither club gets me really excited. But there is something magical about Game 7 of a World Series. Especially the way this one came about. Game 6 might be the most baseball i watched all at once this whole season but it was one of the greatest games I have ever seen. There is nothing like a bunch of friends yelling at the tv, thinking its doing some good. Congrats to Larussa, Albert “gonna get some money” Pujols and the whole St. Louis Cardinal organization, and to the fans. cant imagine what its like to see your team win the Championship. Still waiting for Purdue to win. Still waiting for the Panthers to win. Still waiting on the Caps to win. As long as it takes I’ll be still waiting.
YouTube is a major opportunity, for everyone. It could be for advertising or it could be just for pure entertainment, but whatever it is, it’s there. I guess it only makes sense that Google Inc. would create around 100 online video “channels” on its YouTube website to advertise to people around the world. YouTube isn’t only limited to North America or Asia or any other country. Everyone from around the world can access it. I think that’s one of the reasons why I like YouTube. I sometimes use it to watch variety/entertainment shows that only broadcasts in Asia. People in Asia upload it onto YouTube and I can watch it quickly and easily. I don’t have to search some chinese search engine to find a specific episode of something. I just hope that YouTube won’t become too cluttered with ads that it loses it’s value.
This World Series was probably won of the all time greatest and yet hardest ever for me to watch. In being a Texas Rangers fan this World Series was almost too painful to bare. After getting crushed in Texas’s first World Series last year to the San Francisco Giants, I had high hopes of Texas winning it all this year. Game 6 was by far was the biggest emotional roller coast ever. I am not the biggest baseball fan and will admit the games are long and boring but game 6 was as good as it gets. I think everyone could have enjoyed game 6,baseball fan or not. Texas only being one strike away twice in the game to win the world series and then ultimately blow it was rough. Even though the Rangers have lost two World Series in a row, I have high hopes for them and am amazed at how far they have come as a team in such a short time. Hopefully next year will be their year and the third time the charm.
At this point, the NBA situation is out of control. After about a month without any games, I think everyone, including fans, players, coaches, etc. are tired of the situation. The whole point of the NBA is for fans to enjoy stars playing their favorite sport, but now that this cannot happen, NBA ratings will probably go down significantly until the season starts back up. Although the players’ arguments are somewhat understandable, a good number of players should be able to survive with the millions of dollars they have accumulated over the past few years. The newer players obviously have less money than the stars, but at the same time, they do not have the same extravagant lifestyle either. Overall, the NBA lockout should end soon before everyone starts getting even more upset than they are now.
I still have the iPhone 4 but I could definitely notice a difference after I updated to IOS5. There are a few tricks you can do to make it last longer but there is still a difference. I don’t plan on getting the iPhone 4S, I don’t think there are enough changes worth buying it, especially since it still doesn’t support 4G. I’m hoping to wait out for the iPhone 5 and have some bigger changes.
Yeah lets just see how much more we can play “God” in today’s world. Let’s make ships that will go faster than the Millennium Falcon. I don;t think I can even fathom the idea of objects or anything traveling faster than the speed of light. Maybe that’s that’s because we live in a world without that capability yet. It would be cool to do thought.
I don’t understand what you imply when you say “play God”. Certainly curing diseases and preventing infant mortality is a favorable consequence of increased scientific progress; however some look down on science and what they claim as “playing God” to increase the longevity of human life and the advancement of our species. Science is not our enemy and it is unveiling more and more possibilities everyday. Scrutiny is the beauty of the scientific method as science has never claimed 100% certainty. I don’t think we’ve gone far enough and I welcome any scientific research that could probe beyond Einstein’s Relativity.
I see we have a lot of good ideas and debates this week! It’s always nice to see people who really care about these issues.
I’m glad to hear that you were pleased with your performance on Presentation II, Derek (Stewart)! It should be exciting to see how people choose to highlight their own experiences for the next set of presentations. Jordan (Thielker), I understand the frustration of not seeing your work go the way you’d like. Try not to get discouraged, though. There’s plenty of time for us to keep improving, and you’ll find ways to build those skills. I’m always happy to chat about ideas and strategies, too, so you (and others) can feel free to send me a note or drop by my office hours. That’s a large part of why I’m here, after all!
It seems like we can all agree that the NBA lockout is rather ridiculous at this point. I understand why you didn’t want to waste all that money on NBA 2K12, Brian, and I wonder whether others will do the same. Certainly, it would be easy to see less excitement this time around without a real-world league to boost the hype. As long as neither side backs down from the remaining issues, nothing will change, just as Jeremy said. (It’s notable that the players have already made several concessions; I’m not sure the owners have taken a similar step back.) It’s certainly shaken up basketball on the world stage, like Kyle noted, and one has to wonder if a prolonged lockout could have a permanent impact on America’s control over professional basketball. With a month down already, something needs to happen, just as Kaileen and Chris (Gerber) said, or else Chris’ (Burns) prediction of losing the season may come true. With fans like tsamadif wishing for the sport to return, it would be a shame if the business issue got in the way of the joyous game, like aheeb and Teju suggested. And, of course, it’s especially interesting when you’re in the college environment and you see players from last year’s NCAA appearing on the professional stage the following season, just as Cole said.
Yes, the Cardinals really were some of the biggest underdogs in baseball history, like Faisal, Derek (Stewart), aheeb, and jlauu noted. It certainly took a lot to come back from such a great deficit and escape certain elimination so often, so it’s no wonder that “Cardinal nation” and fans like Cole got so excited, as Vinchessica said. The games were pretty exciting, Kaileen — Chris (Gerber) and Rob found it thrilling despite not even being baseball fans, as did Vince, who prefers St. Louis’ arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs. Jacob (Kinnamon), I understand your pain, as I remember when St. Louis got swept seven years ago. (As for myself, the Rangers are my favorite AL team, so it was an interesting series to watch.) Getting swept probably isn’t quite as heartbreaking as the roller coaster of this series, but at least you can take solace in the knowledge that Texas will surely be competing for many years to come. I don’t think owner Nolan Ryan (“Ryan Express”), perhaps the most legendary pitcher in history, would settle for anything less. We’ll see if the Cubs can muster the same competitive effort with Theo Epstein at the helm, Derek (Parker).
It seems like a lot of people have had issues with the iPhone 4S since its release. Hopefully Apple’s efforts on that front will help you, Greg, as that sounds like a real hassle. It’s a shame that the battery life has detracted from the functionality for you as well, Bryce (Gardner). Jillian, what tricks did you use to increase the battery life? Maybe that could help some of the others here resolve their frustrations.
Steckel, we’ll see what ultimately happens in this regard. You and Cody are right that this is just the nature of science — anything groundbreaking is (rightfully) challenged relentlessly and, most of the time, ultimately shown to be a flawed conclusion. Of course, that side of science isn’t as exciting. It’s much more interesting to bring fantasy to life, like Jordan (Hockersmith) suggested. Now if we could just create a few billion droids to do our work for us, we’d be in business. I doubt Apple will be able help with that any time soon, though, Bryce (Kershey) whether or not they stick with the “what would Jobs do” mentality.
The situation in Japan certainly is difficult to stomach, Kaileen. Rudy, you have quite an… interesting take on it. Well, I suppose that with medical science as advanced as it is today, it’s not such a stretch to envision reanimating bodies and such. For the moment, though, I’m with Jin Young in not visiting Japan. (As Shelby noted, we’re hardly alone in that decision.) It’s a shame, too, given the unique culture it offers. Perhaps if I was around 100 years old, I might join the man Colin mentioned, but I (hopefully) still have a few more than 20 years left. Derek (Stewart), your conclusion about the radiation seems reasonable enough to me.
Michael (Porter), you bring up a good point about the U.S.-China relationship. Hopefully these cyber attacks won’t further damage the tenuous connection between these two international powers. Like Brad said, though, with individuals, companies, and governments so reliant on technology, it’s frightening to realize that the rug can be whipped out from under us in a heartbeat. We’ll see whether these measures remain at the “test” stage, like James suggested, or if this triggers something much greater. Assuming, of course, that everything is as reported, which Catherine is smart to question. One has to wonder why NASA would resist confirming the story. Is it because they’re still investigating the issue themselves? Is it because they’re trying to save face? Or is it because nothing actually happened? I suppose we’ll see.
It’s astonishing to see how many people use the same account for everything, isn’t it, Chris (Reed)? I have a bunch of different passwords I use, as well, and I begin to realize how much I care about different sites and affiliations by the uniqueness of the passwords I use for them. Of course, most people don’t realize how careful you have to be about every site you use, particularly since you can often hack a number of accounts as soon as you’ve cracked one. On one site I visit, several administrator accounts were recently hacked by a former member who was banned years ago, and a great deal of damage was ultimately done to the site itself. (It took several weeks for them to restore most — not all — of the lost content.) The perpertrator got access by taking advantage of the administors’ E-mail accounts, which have a number of exploitable elements, and using them for those oh-so-helpful “password reset” messages. Like ndirenzo19 said, there are some things you can do to defend yourself, but leaving even the smallest opening in your defenses can have serious consequences. Well, at least we can view our favorite YouTube videos without logging into an account, Pearl. Let’s hope it doesn’t get overrun with ads as well, though, especially since often spawn some of the biggest exploits.
As for what may have been the most contentious topic of the week, Corey, I see your point about the curfew. One can imagine that the protestors feel their views are being quashed before they even have a chance to state them, given the restrictions. It sounds like the curfew hasn’t been upheld, either, as Boaz said. I think part of the concern on the part of the police has been keeping those protests peaceable (a key part of the First Amendment), which hasn’t been happening if there’s already been conflicts with outside parties. Still, with tensions escalating among some of the protesting groups (Oakland, in particular), it’s reasonable to see why many like Michael (Becka) would just want to see the protests come to an end. The manner in which law enforcement tried to do so in this case, though, may not have been totally legitimate. It’s a difficult issue, given the speech rights of the protestors and the safety concerns of those outside the movement.
As a kid, one of the things I enjoyed was reading books about espionage and cryptographs, so the article about the Copiale Cipher piqued my curiosity. It amazes me how intricate and complex a human mind can be when it comes to creating codes. I certainly hope that our defense-related agencies will step up their coding abilities in the future, as global networking provides more threats of security breaches. After reading the article on hacked Facebook accounts, I have been reminded how vulnerable my own security can be as well!
I find it interesting that the Japanese power plant was emitting more radioactive elements than originally thought. This has always been an interesting topic for me and I always find it strange that they come out with crazier statistics way after the incident. Sometimes I think people should guess really high in the beginning and always say later that it was less than they thought. It would make people feel better in the end, but scare more people to begin with. In the end I guess there is really no way to win.
When the Fukushima power plant failed, I was in Korea which isn’t far from Japan. So when that happened, it concerned me a lot. It was total disaster for the Japan, and also for the marginal states. Rumors were everywhere, since there was only little information regarding the nuclear crisis. Japan experiences many earthquakes due to its geological location. So their buildings usually have some protection regarding earthquakes, but those protections could not prevent that crisis. Those radioactive materials are already leaked. Now they need to find a way to fix those messes. Since it is already happened so they can do nothing about that but need to find prevent extra leaks and find a way to clean those leaks that already they made.
With a month already missed of games of the NBA, I am one disappointed fan. I understand that the players need money to live but to what length? What is the right paycheck? I understand the frustration of the players, coaches, presidents, owners of the NBA, but you are loosing out on money and fan moral because the season has not started yet. Ultimately, if everyone is demanding more money, find players at high schools and colleges who have the passion and the heart to play.
In regards to the iPhone 4s and killing the battery, there are several fix-its that can help but these issues have been present since the iPhone 4 came out. Here is a link that will help those with the new iOS 5 to make your phone last longer.
http://gizmodo.com/5854933/how-to-save-your-iphone-4s-crappy-battery
In regards to the battery life on the iPhone, I’ve also noticed the decline that came along with iOS5. I only have the iPhone4 and perhaps i’m using my phone a lot more with the new operating system but simple tasks are draining my battery. When I have my phone at 100% charge, then only check the time and do nothing else, I can lose up to 10% battery though the day. Hopefully Apple will make changes to their systems and hardware to prolong the battery life for extreme users such as myself.
i commented on the original post about accelerating the particle faster than the speed of light and how I thought that was cool and all. The only thing was that I felt it was gonna be hard to prove Einstein wrong. I mean, almost everything he discovered and figured out still holds very very true today and I think this i just another instance of that. I could see there being insane implications if people were able to accelerate a particle faster than the speed of light, but what is it going to accomplish that could help the world? Will that lead to a cure for cancer or to a better energy source? I mean, I guess that’s just the field these scientists have gone into, so they’re worried about proving their physics, not saving/changing the world. I just hope they can somehow turn all this hard work, time and money into something that benefits the world.
Concerning the Copiale Cipher,
I have always been terribly interested in the encoding and deciphering of sensitive materials, and I absolutely love the logic that was applied to “break” the 18th century mystery. It was of particular interest because it exhibited a hybridization of Linguistics and Cryptography. The idea of looking at a code, recognizing that it was written at some point in prose, and then based on that assumption doing statistical analysis of word frequency to map some common words like any of the articles used in English or pronouns to get a good base point from which you could begin to figure out more words that were only missing a few letters, and then once the document fills a bit more, beginning to use contextual clues to figure out words until you have the entire (or nearly entire) symbol base covered.
The ramifications of this success are quite profound as the linked article suggested — ancient works that we couldn’t previously decode could have similar logic applied to reveal some truly historically valuable information. The obvious difficult is the linguistics behind a dead language — it has to exhibit some commonalities that are shared by all other languages (even non-human languages such as the way bees communicate exhibit the same principles of language upon which our verbal and non-verbal communications are based)v but the semantics and implementations could be grossly different.
Terribly fascinating though, and I suspect that we’ll see this breakthrough pave the way for more interesting things even in the computer security world. The obvious caveat with this being that there has to be a reasonably substantial amount of information to process for statistical analysis of a cypher to be effective. a security certificate wouldn’t be vulnerable to such things, but if a large body of content, or a collection of certificates—perhaps.
I wanted to touch briefly on the issue iPhone 4S owners are having in regards to battery life. I, myself am an iPhone 4S owner and am experiencing similar problems. My phone’s battery life isn’t nearly what it was with the iPhone 4. Despite turning off recommended battery-consuming services such as location services and notifications, I still seem to be seeing issues. Fortunately, Apple has acknowledged this issue and they are planning to release an iOS update within the next few weeks. I have also spoken to numerous other iPhone 4S owners who are also having the same problem. Hopefully Apple will be able to fix this issue so as to avoid another “Antenna-gate”.
I’m glad facebook is working on measures to avoid people hacking into accounts. Recognition of friends faces is a good place to start. Though most hacking today is more about finding out information about a person. When most of our lives are online these days, this is becoming easier to do. Especially as was pointed out above when people use the same password for everything. I think it is also important for companies like facebook to have a way for the owners of the hacked account to be able to close that account or change the password for it quickly. My husband’s xBox live account was hacked recently. Within a couple minutes the person had changed his password and bought $100 worth of xBox credits (luckily no more than that!). My husband just happened to be playing online at the time and was able to call xBox live fairly quickly and get his password changed and money returned.
The crisis in Japan is a tragedy, and certainly will have a grave effect on the country. Situations like these call for questions like “should nuclear power plants be built in areas that are subject to harsh weather conditions?” However the nuclear power plants are a must in Japan being their main supply of energy, looking back is it worth all the lives that were lost and will be lost. Disasters like these call for innovated methods that will substitute one source of energy for another, and hopefully prevent anything like that from ever happening again. This also calls attention to other nuclear power plants that are stationed in landscapes attracted to fatal weather conditions, and how they have learned from the Japan incident and what they are doing to avoid it. I would say the Japan incident and Chernobyl are enough warning to address this as the number one threat of what can happen when nuclear power plants are compromised. As for Saint Louis winning the World Series, I love an underdog story but I am a big Cub fan. As the Cubs haven’t won a world series in nearly a century, having the Cardinals in the same division will be a challenge for next season.
Professional sports are really starting to upset me. Do they really think that they aren’t getting enough money? Some of them make millions of dollar a year for playing a game that is purely that; a game. And as for those who claim they do not make enough money to support themselves after they retire, here’s a plan. How about instead of buying all of those luxuries you all have, you put some of it away in savings. Then, if you still don’t have enough, do what every other person in world does and get a job.
I can only say that what happens now around the Fukushima power plant is visible since the beginning, but Japanese people living there don’t dare to admit this cruel truth (The Japanese government wants to hide the truth to the world also but the effect of this disaster is too huge. I thought the Chernobyl incident was really famous because I have searched on this and I found that they still cannot grow crops around where Chernobyl incident happened even if it has been 25 years since it happened. In my opinion, I think we are now stuck in a weird situation that we do need nuclear power plants to support electricity usage, but we can’t control all risks of nuclear power plants. We must think of ways to solve this issue or else, Chernobyl incident is going to happen again soon.
The crisis in Japan was scary for my family. My sister, a senior in college, was studying abroad in Japan. She lives in Osaka. My family watched the different news channels that were covering the story. We have an international channel from Japan. The American news sources really didn’t mention how bad it actually was. The international news told more. For example, they were actually mentioning what could happen if the didn’t cool down the nuclear plants. The American channels played it off like everything was going to be fine.
The fact that the damage is actually worse than what was originally thought comes as no big surprise to me.
I found someone’s post about Steve Job’s interesting. I think it’s cool that he wants to carry the company differently after he is now dead. Giving permission to his fellow workers to make changes and give the company a new appearance almost is very big of him. He started the company and built it from the ground up. I think apple could benefit from several changes they could make to their new versions of their phones. I personally am not an apple user, but when I do occasionally use them I think they are very easy and clean machines.