Prime Time - Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discoversome oreder inthe sequence of prime numbers... Computer History Museum A Material That Could Make Solar Power "Dirt Cheap" A new type of solar cell, made from a material that is dramatically cheaper to obtain and use than silicon, could generate as much power as today’s commodity solar cells. Although the potential of the material is just starting to be understood, it has caught the attention of the world’s leading solar researchers, and several companies are already working to commercialize it. Researchers developing the technology say that it could lead to solar panels that cost just 10 to 20 cents per watt. Solar panels now typically cost about 75 cents a watt, and the U.S. In the past, solar researchers have been divided into two camps in their pursuit of cheaper solar power. The new material may make it possible to get the best of both worlds—solar cells that are highly efficient but also cheap to make. One of the world’s top solar researchers, Martin Green of the University of New South Wales, Australia, says the rapid progress has been surprising. “Between 2009 and 2012 there was only one paper.
MR01001101 :: Hiding in hue This short essay is on a small idea of Steganography, which in truth is quite limited, but with the amount of online traffic and the speed the Internet grows, even simple ideas can go unnoticed and are hopefully a bit of fun to explore. It may be documented else where on the web, but I didn't look as I quite enjoyed experimenting with it myself and thought I should write it down before I forget all about it. Below is a standard BMP containing some hidden items, which can be seen if you split it into HSL (Hue, Saturation and Light) channels and look at the Hue channel. (In PSP the command can be found under COLORS / SPLIT CHANNEL / SPLIT TO HSL) MULTI.BMP incorporates some ideas or areas that allow some scope for hidden data in non-compressed picture formats. The Hue channel is shown a standard greyscale palette with black representing a hue of 0 and white being 255. Both are basically red and very similar to the eye, but with Hues of 254 and 0 respectively.
Methods for Studying Coincidences One of my favorite mathematics papers of all time is called “Methods for Studying Coincidences.” By Persi Diaconis and Frederick Mosteller, it aims to provide a rigorous mathematical framework for the study of coincidences. Using probabilistic analysis, the paper explores everything from why we see newly learned words almost immediately after first learning them, to why double lottery winners exist, to even the frequency of meeting people with the same birthday. For example, when it comes to newly learned words, we are often astonished that as soon as we learn a new word, we begin to see it quite frequently, or at least soon after we learn it. Their analyses hinge on something that we often forget: while something might seem astonishing and a remarkable coincidence, if enough people are involved, chances are very good that one of them will have something “coincidental” happen to them. With a large enough sample, any outrageous thing is likely to happen.
Personal Programmer Debugging is the cornerstone of being a programmer. The first meaning of the verb to debug is to remove errors, but the meaning that really matters is to see into the execution of a program by examining it. A programmer that cannot debug effectively is blind. Idealists that think design, or analysis, or complexity theory, or whatnot, are more fundamental are not working programmers. The working programmer does not live in an ideal world. Even if you are perfect, your are surrounded by and must interact with code written by major software companies, organizations like GNU, and your colleagues. Debugging is about the running of programs, not programs themselves. To get visibility into the execution of a program you must be able to execute the code and observe something about it. The common ways of looking into the ‘innards’ of an executing program can be categorized as: Some beginners fear debugging when it requires modifying code. How to Debug by Splitting the Problem Space
Codecademy Labs MR01001101 :: Stego for beginners (All views are my own opinion, so if you don't like them - don't read it) What is it and what's it for? Steganography is the art of hiding information in such a way that others would not suspect that it is there. It is closely linked to Cryptography, but offers some interesting features which Crypto, when used by itself cannot. Have a look at this example: Criminal A sends an encrpyted message to Criminal B. Now consider: Criminal A is an avid E-Bayer, he is selling his vacuum cleaner and puts it up for sale with a nice picture. Criminal A has actually embedded a secret message into the picture of his Vacuum cleaner, which Criminal B has retreived from his browser cache after closing all network connections. Who uses it? As in all walks of technology, the people with the most to lose tend to accept and embrace new technology. Does the fact that such groups make up a large proportion of users of steganography, make steganoraphy itself bad? Where can I hide things? Back Home
Mathematical Atlas: A gateway to Mathematics Welcome! This is a collection of short articles designed to provide an introduction to the areas of modern mathematics and pointers to further information, as well as answers to some common (or not!) questions. The material is arranged in a hierarchy of disciplines, each with its own index page ("blue pages"). To reach the best page for your interests, use whichever of these navigation tools ("purple pages") you prefer: For resources useful in all areas of mathematics try 00: General Mathematics. There is a backlog of articles awaiting editing before they are referenced in the blue pages, but you are welcome to snoop around VIRUS WARNING: The Mathematical Atlas receives but does not send mail using the math-atlas.org domain name. Please bookmark any pages at this site with the URL This URL forces frames; for a frame-free version use
Bucaro Nerd Rage - A comic about nerds raging over nerdy things Nerd Rage - Update Ain't No Party Like A Mario Party FridayFebruary 24th, 2012 I've always questioned Mario's definition of party. Apparently in the Mushroom Kingdom a 'party' is defined as a random string of tasks through which one risks their life for coins, then spends said coins on stars so that they may be declared the 'winner'. I've played a lot of Mario Parties (yes, plural) in this never-ending chain of sequels, but the one that always remains the most memorable is the original. Probably because it burned a hole through my palm. Metal Gear Solid 3D came out this week. Konami is looking for help on designing the next Metal Gear. Sega, Bandai-Namco, Capcom and Banpresto are working on a 3DS game. This week 'Pokemon Yellow' appeared on the Apple app store.