Starling flocks, it turns out, are best described with equations of “critical transitions” — systems that are poised to tip, to be almost instantly and completely transformed, like metals becoming magnetized or liquid turning to gas. Each starling in a flock is connected to every other. When a flock turns in unison, it’s a phase transition.
Stanford's free online course for developing iOS apps has been updated for iOS 8 and Swift.
Prerequisites: C language and object-oriented programming experience exceeding Programming Abstractions level, and completion of Programming Paradigms.
Recommended: UNIX, graphics, databases.
Crowdsourced map of sledding locations in New York CIty. Enjoy.
Advice on User Password Reset and Salted Password HashingThis opinion explains my postion on removing the password reset and retrival mechanism from the system:
It is my personal opinion that all password reset mechanisms in widespread use today are insecure. If you have high security requirements, such as an encryption service would, do not let the user reset their password.
Most websites use an email loop to authenticate users who have forgotten their password. To do this, generate a random single-use token that is strongly tied to the account. Include it in a password reset link sent to the user's email address. When the user clicks a password reset link containing a valid token, prompt them for a new password. Be sure that the token is strongly tied to the user account so that an attacker can't use a token sent to his own email address to reset a different user's password.
The token must be set to expire in 15 minutes or after it is used, whichever comes first. It is also a good idea to expire any existing password tokens when the user logs in (they remembered their password) or requests another reset token. If a token doesn't expire, it can be forever used to break into the user's account. Email (SMTP) is a plain-text protocol, and there may be malicious routers on the internet recording email traffic. And, a user's email account (including the reset link) may be compromised long after their password has been changed. Making the token expire as soon as possible reduces the user's exposure to these attacks.
Attackers will be able to modify the tokens, so don't store the user account information or timeout information in them. They should be an unpredictable random binary blob used only to identify a record in a database table.
Never send the user a new password over email. Remember to pick a new random salt when the user resets their password. Don't re-use the one that was used to hash their old password.
This simulator evolves increasingly effective walking creatures through genetic algorithms. "The names are generated based on each creature's genome. Since the genetic algorithm tends to produce creatures with similar genes, two creatures with similar names will have similar traits.
Sometimes two creatures can have the same name by coincidence, as there are nearly infinite genome possibilities and limited numbers of letters in each name. Much like two people in real life with the same name, that doesn't mean they will behave the same."
On servers running PHP, visit any page, remove the trailing slash, and append any of the following query-strings:
?=PHPE9568F36-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42
?=PHPE9568F35-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42
?=PHPB8B5F2A0-3C92-11d3-A3A9-4C7B08C10000
?=PHPE9568F34-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42If the vulnerability is present, requests made with these query-strings results in a variety of easter eggs and detailed PHP credits. When these easter eggs are visible, it means that expose_php is enabled on the server. And when expose_php is enabled, PHP-generated pages are sent with X-Powered-By response-headers that give PHP/version infos, such as “X-Powered-By: PHP/5.4.7”. Knowing the version number of software makes it easier for bad guys to research and exploit known vulnerabilities. So let’s take a moment to “plug the leak” by disabling expose_php.
Disable expose_php via php.ini
The recommended solution is to set expose_php = Off
Choose your 3 most favorite creative covers of 2014! Winner will be announced on Sunday, December 28th.
Stop UTIs
If you're suffering from a UTI or want a way to prevent them, lemon water can help.Battle Breath
Drinking lemon water can combat the bacteria in the mouth.
Weight Loss
There are a variety of theories as to why lemon water might cause weight loss (including feeling more full from the pectin contained within).
Freshen Your Skin
Thanks to all the vitamin C within lemons, your skin reaps the benefits of you drinking the fruit as well. According to FitDay, vitamin C assists in the production of collagen, so having more in your diet can prevent wrinkles from forming.
Pump Up The Immune System
There's a reason you're always drawn to oranges when you're sick — once again, the power of vitamin C at play.
Recover From A Workout
Lemon water provides the hydration needed.
Helps With Aches And Pains
Lemon water can help reduce uric acid in our joints, which is one of the main causes of inflammation, especially as related to arthritis.
Reduces Phlegm
It's a sad fact of our cold weather existence — phlegm happens, especially in the morning, but lemon juice can help.
Strengthens The Brain
Lemon may be known best for its vitamin C, but it also contains potassium, which helps with brain and nerve function.
Cleanses The Liver
As reported by LiverSupport.com, in Dr. Alexander F. Beddoe's Biological Ionization in Human Nutrition, he notes the liver can make more enzymes out of lemon juice than any other food.
The central work in the first solo exhibition of Elafur Eliasson at the museum by the Danish-Icelandic artist is a huge, site specific project that reverses the relation between nature and art.
Install ffmeg2theora converter. Open terminal on Mac and select your file, (change video.mp4 to the name of your file to convert and Documents to the actual location)
ffmpeg2theora Documents/video.mp4
Maximum quality settings:
ffmpeg2theora Documents/video.mp4 -v 10 -a 10
Converted file is placed in the same folder as the .mp4 version.
“The best content is watched live or near-live,” said Alex Iskold, the founder and chief executive of GetGlue, a social TV application that lets users check in and inform their friends about the programs and movies they’re watching. People have become accustomed to chatting along to big television events while on Twitter and Facebook, so that social component “has to be real time,” he said.
Last week, Rdio introduced Vdio, a video version of its site that will let people stream movies and TV shows and tell friends what they are watching while they are watching it.
The "DKIM-Signature" header field consists of a list of "tag=value" parts. Tags are short, usually only one or two letters. The most relevant ones are b for the actual digital signature of the contents (headers and body) of the mail message, bh for the body hash, d for the signing domain, and s for the selector. The default parameters for the authentication mechanism are to use SHA-256 as the cryptographic hash and RSA as the public key encryption scheme, and encode the encrypted hash using Base64.
Usage
download html5shiv (zip file)
Insert minified distribution shiv in <head> element (after or before your CSS):
<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<script src="dist/html5shiv.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
License
Dual licensed under the MIT or GPL Version 2 licenses
Apple has bought indoor-mapping specialist Wifislam as it looks to expand its maps product to compete with Google.
According to its website, Wifislam's technology works by using smartphones to "pinpoint its location (and the location of your friends) in real-time to 2.5m accuracy using only ambient WiFi signals that are already present in buildings".
The State of Stagnant Internet Connenction Speeds in the United StatesThe arrival of commercial Internet communications in the mid-1990s posed a threat to both the phone and cable companies; eventually, the FCC deregulated the entire sector, thinking that competition among various modalities of Internet access - cable, phone, wireless, satellite - would protect Americans. And in 2002, when the five-year period of deregulation began, there was indeed rough parity in speed and price between the cable companies and telephone companies providing Internet access.
Soon, however, cable companies found a way to upgrade their networks to provide connections perhaps 100 times faster than what was possible over copper wires, and at much lower expense than the phone companies incurred replacing their phone lines.
The American copper wire telephone system is, in fact, becoming obsolete. The physical switches used in the network are reaching the end of their useful lives. But now that cable has won the battle for wired Internet service and consumers are moving to mobile phones for voice service, the telephone companies are looking to shed the obligation to maintain their networks at all.
The United States is rapidly losing the global race for high-speed connectivity, as fewer than 8 percent of households have fiber service. And almost 30 percent of the country still isn’t connected to the Internet at all.
The South Korean government announced a plan to install 1 gigabit per second of symmetric fiber data access in every home by 2012. Hong Kong, Japan and the Netherlands are heading in the same direction. Australia plans to get 93 percent of homes and businesses connected to fiber. In Britain, a 300 Mbps fiber-to-the-home service will be offered on a wholesale basis.
The current 4 Mbps Internet access goal is unquestionably shortsighted. It allows the digital divide to survive, and ensures that the U.S. will stagnate.
n 2011, six Time Warner Inc. lobbyists persuaded the North Carolina legislature to pass a “level playing field” bill making it impossible for cities in that state to create their own high-speed Internet access networks. Time Warner, which reported $26 billion in revenue in 2010, donated more than $6.3 million to North Carolina politicians over four years. Eighteen other states have laws that make it extremely difficult or impossible for cities to provide this service to their residents.
According to a recent research, Twitter users are forming tribes and frequently include keywords (hash) to communicate within the tribe:
Twitter users are forming 'tribes', each with their own language, according to a scientific analysis of millions of tweets.
The research on Twitter word usage throws up a pattern of behavior that seems to contradict the commonly held belief that users simply want to share everything with everyone. In fact, the findings point to a more precise use of social media where users frequently include keywords in their tweets so that they engage more effectively with other members of their community or tribe. Just like our ancestors we try to join communities based on our political interests, ethnicity, work and hobbies.
Converting Video to OGG Theora on Mac ReviewIf you are using HTML 5 video tags, you might consider including OGG Theora file type in the source of your video files. Unfortunately, while both Safari and Google Chrome browsers can play Quicktime files without additional plug-ins, Firefox as of today decided to stay with an Open Source OGG Theora video files. We tested a couple of tools available on the market for Mac users. First one is Micro Video Converter (tested Version 3.0) is not recommended due to the flaw which renders the bit rate of a video file unacceptable. The online tool which is available at Online-Convert.com did a much better job and is recommended in this version. Micro Video Converter has a user friendly interface and hopefully they will fix this bug in the future release.
One more remote control is not what consumer looking for. It is interesting who funded this research.
In a home full of connected gadgets, rather than allowing new OTT players to take market share from the pay platforms, they are actually creating a networked platform for the pay-TV operators to exploit. At CES, all the US cable and satellite operators (their versions of Sky, Virgin and BT) have developed apps and systems that let them exploit all the screens in these new networked homes. The TV industry is moving towards DVRs configured as complete "home media hubs".
In a home full of connected gadgets it is easier to throw away recycle all of them and cut the cord while at it and go with OTT.
Heating Oil Contributes to the High Concentration of Pollution in ManhattanAccording to the latest survey Manhattan is the most polluted part on New York City.
Researchers collected and analyzed air samples from 150 sites across the five boroughs last winter. The survey found that fine-particle and sulfur dioxide pollution was concentrated in areas where more buildings burn oil for heat, and levels were especially high in areas where buildings use so-called residual oil (also known as No. 4 and No. 6 oil) in their boilers.
Read more: New York's Dirty Secret: The effort to clean up America's largest oil spill