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AnonTechie writes:

Privacy has been a prickly topic at Harvard ever since it was revealed last year that the university had searched the email accounts of some junior faculty members, prompting a major self-examination and promises by the administration to do better.

But this week, that sore spot was poked again. The university acknowledged that as part of a study on attendance at lectures, it had used hidden cameras to photograph classes without telling the professors or the students.

While students and faculty members said that the secret photography was not as serious as looking through people’s email, it struck many of them as out of bounds — or, at least, a little creepy. And it set off more argument about the limits of privacy expectations.

“I wouldn’t call it spying,” as some people have, said Jerry R. Green, a professor of economics and former university provost. “But I don’t think it’s a good thing.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/us/secret-cameras-rekindle-privacy-debate-at-harvard.html

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Eric Raymond has thrown his hat into the ring of version control systems. "I wrote a version-control system today. Yes, an entire VCS. Took me 14 hours.

Yeah, you’re looking at me like I’m crazy. “Why,” you ask, quite reasonably, “would you want to do a thing like that? We’re not short of powerful VCSes these days.

That is true. But I got to thinking, early this morning, about the fact that I haven’t been able to settle on just one VCS. I use git for most things, but there’s a use case git doesn’t cover. I have some document directories in which I have piles of things like HOWTOs which have separate histories from each other. Changes in them are not correlated, and I want to be able to move them around because I sometimes do that to reorganize them."

Then, the idea that made it inevitable. “I bet.” I thought, “I could write this thing as a Python wrapper around RCS tools. Use them for delta storage but hide all the ugly parts.” Thus, SRC. Simple Revision Control, v0.1.

So, what are you writing this weekend?

elf writes:

More information can be found here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29950946

AnonTechie writes:

Testing the multiverse hypothesis requires measuring whether our universe is statistically typical among the infinite variety of universes. But infinity does a number on statistics.

If modern physics is to be believed, we shouldn’t be here. The meager dose of energy infusing empty space, which at higher levels would rip the cosmos apart, is a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion times tinier than theory predicts. And the minuscule mass of the Higgs boson, whose relative smallness allows big structures such as galaxies and humans to form, falls roughly 100 quadrillion times short of expectations. Dialing up either of these constants even a little would render the universe unlivable.

To account for our incredible luck, leading cosmologists like Alan Guth and Stephen Hawking envision our universe as one of countless bubbles in an eternally frothing sea. This infinite “multiverse” would contain universes with constants tuned to any and all possible values, including some outliers, like ours, that have just the right properties to support life. In this scenario, our good luck is inevitable: A peculiar, life-friendly bubble is all we could expect to observe.

http://www.quantamagazine.org/20141103-in-a-multiverse-what-are-the-odds/

Blackmoore writes:

Science Daily brings us - Birth of planets revealed in astonishing detail in ALMA’s 'best image ever'

Astronomers have captured the best image ever of planet formation around an infant star as part of the testing and verification process for the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array's (ALMA) new high-resolution capabilities.

This revolutionary new image reveals in astonishing detail the planet-forming disk surrounding HL Tau, a Sun-like star located approximately 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

ALMA uncovered never-before-seen features in this system, including multiple concentric rings separated by clearly defined gaps. These structures suggest that planet formation is already well underway around this remarkably young star.

"These features are almost certainly the result of young planet-like bodies that are being formed in the disk. This is surprising since HL Tau is no more than a million years old and such young stars are not expected to have large planetary bodies capable of producing the structures we see in this image," said ALMA Deputy Director Stuartt Corder.

The above story is based on materials provided by National Radio Astronomy Observatory

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2014/11/msg00174.html

Joey Hess has apparently left Debian after 18 years, stating that the Debian Constitution is leading Debian in "very unhealthy directions".

novak writes:

After 15 years of development, perl 6 will be officially launched as production ready software in 2015.

https://fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/get_ready_to_party/

Who knows, 2015 may also be the year of the linux desktop, unless HURD is also ready for prime time.

Hugh Pickens writes:

Drivers across America are rejoicing at falling gasoline prices as pumps across the country dip below $3 a gallon. But according to Sharon E. Burke while it's nice to get the break at the gas pump and the economic benefits of an energy boom at home, the national security price of oil remains high. Burke says that the United States should be doing everything it can to diversify global energy suppliers, and that ultimately the only way to solve our long term energy problem is to make a sustained, long-term investment in alternatives to petroleum. October saw a 52 percent jump in Jeep SUV sales and a 36 percent rise in Ram trucks while some hybrid and electric vehicle sales fell at the same time. “This is like putting a Big Mac in front of people who need to diet or watch their cholesterol,” says Anthony Perl. “Some people might have the willpower to stick with their program, and some people will wait until their first heart attack before committing to a diet—but if we do that at a planetary scale it will be pretty traumatic.”

Nicholas St. Fleur writes at The Atlantic that low oil prices may also undermine the message from the UN’s climate panel. The price drop comes after the UN declared earlier this week that fossil fuel emissions must drop to zero by the end of the century in order to keep global temperatures in check. “I don’t think people will see the urgency of dealing with fossil fuels today,” says Perl. Falling oil prices may also deter businesses from switching to energy-saving technology, as a 2006 study in the Energy Journal suggested. Saving several pennies at the pump, Perl says, may tempt Americans away from actions that can lead to a sustainable, post-carbon future.

Blackmoore writes:

Supersonic Laser-Propelled Rockets

Scientists and science fiction writers alike have dreamt of aircrafts that are propelled by beams of light rather than conventional fuels. Now, a new method for improving the thrust generated by such laser-propulsion systems may bring them one step closer to practical use.

The method, developed by physicists Yuri Rezunkov of the Institute of Optoelectronic Instrument Engineering, Russia and Alexander Schmidt of the Ioffe Physical Technical Institute in Saint Petersburg, Russia is described today in The Optical Society’s (OSA) journal Applied Optics.

In their Applied Optics paper, Rezunkov and Schmidt describe a new system that integrates a laser-ablation propulsion system with the gas blasting nozzles of a spacecraft. Combining the two systems, the researchers found, can increase the speed of the gas flow out of the system to supersonic speeds while reducing the amount of burned fuel.

Paper: “Supersonic Laser Propulsion,” Y. Rezunkov and A. Schmidt, Applied Optics, Vol. 53, Issue 31, pp. I55-I62 (2014).

sudo rm -rf writes:

The predatory Tiger Beetle can cover about 120 times its body size per second, or about 9 km/h. If it was the size of a human, that would be 770 km/h.
While this is a remarkable feat for a hunter, in this case it should be too fast: its vision and therefore its prey start to blur.

Researchers from the Univerity of Pittsburgh now solved the mystery, how the beetle knows when to open its mandibles and when to close them again.

“Is it a matter of distance (to prey), the size (the prey) appears on the retina, the projected time to collision? There are lots of variables,” he [1] says.
Using a dummy piece of prey (a plastic bead on a string), Zurek let the beetles give chase and recorded their hunting efforts in super slow-mo. As the beetle begins to catch up to the escaping dummy prey, the contracting image of the prey as perceived by the beetle begins to expand, which is the cue for the beetle to open its jaws, Zurek found. And as the image begins to recede, the jaws close.
This research, Zurek says, reveals a novel and potentially widespread mechanism for how behavioral decisions can be made based on visual “rules” in dynamic situations, where both the observer and the target are moving.

[1] University of Pittsburgh’s Daniel Zurek, a postdoctoral researcher in Nathan Morehouse’s lab in the Department of Biological Sciences in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

An Anonymous Coward writes:

9front and here, the plan 9 distro, has released a new version.

The changelog lists some 50 or so bug fixes.

New Features

The project was started to remedy a perceived lack of devoted development resources inside Bell Labs.

New users frequently want to know whether 9front is superior to some other free UNIX-like operating system. That question is largely unanswerable and is the subject of countless (and useless) religious debates. Do not, under any circumstances, ask such a question on IRC or on a 9front mailing list.

Whether 9front is right for you is a question that only you can answer. 9front FAQ

Gentlemen, start your torrents!

Hugh Pickens writes:

Quentin Hardy reports at the NYT that a leading maker of cloud-based software for running corporate human resources and financial operations has announced new products that provide the kind of data analysis that Netflix uses to recommend movies, LinkedIn has to suggest people you might know, or Facebook needs to put a likely ad in front of you. One version of the software, called Insight Applications, predicts which high-performing employees are likely to leave a company in the next year; it then offers possible actions (more money, new job) that might make them stay. "We’re surprised how accurately we can predict someone will leave a job," says Mohammad Sabah, director of data science at Workday. The goal is to predict future business outcomes to take advantage of opportunities and cut risk levels. One future product may be the ability to predict who will and won’t make their sales quotas, and suggest who should be hired to improve the outcome. "Making an employee happy, improving the efficiency of a company these are hard problems that affect corporations."

AnonTechie writes with an article from livescience.com:

Move over Large Hadron Collider. A new atom smasher could one day slam particles into each other at even more mind-bogglingly high-energy levels than the massive underground ring near Geneva, Switzerland.

The new system, called a Wakefield accelerator, could allow scientists to make tiny but powerful particle colliders that could fit on any university campus. That, in turn, could make it feasible to look for as-yet-unknown subatomic particles lurking in the universe.

The new accelerator was described (Nov. 5) in the journal Nature.

[Related]: Scientists progress toward plasma acceleration

[Source]: slac.stanford.edu

AnonTechie writes:

New research published in the journal Nature Communications, has demonstrated how glass can be manipulated to create a material that will allow computers to transfer information using light. This development could significantly increase computer processing speeds and power in the future.

The research by the University of Surrey, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge and the University of Southampton, has found it is possible to change the electronic properties of amorphous chalcogenides, a glass material integral to data technologies such as CDs and DVDs. By using a technique called ion doping, the team of researchers have discovered a material that could use light to bring together different computing functions into one component, leading to all-optical systems.

"The challenge is to find a single material that can effectively use and control light to carry information around a computer. Much like how the web uses light to deliver information, we want to use light to both deliver and process computer data," said project leader, Dr Richard Curry of the University of Surrey.

"This has eluded researchers for decades, but now we have now shown how a widely used glass can be manipulated to conduct negative electrons, as well as positive charges, creating what are known as 'pn-junction' devices. This should enable the material to act as a light source, a light guide and a light detector - something that can carry and interpret optical information. In doing so, this could transform the computers of tomorrow, allowing them to effectively process information at much faster speeds."

The researchers expect that the results of this research will be integrated into computers within ten years. In the short term, the glass is already being developed and used in next-generation computer memory technology known as CRAM, which may ultimately be integrated with the advances reported.

http://www.surrey.ac.uk/features/new-research-lights-way-super-fast-computers

AnonTechie writes:

A reliable way of predicting the flow of traffic could be a great convenience for commuters, as well as a significant energy-saver. During an emergency evacuation following a natural disaster, reliable predictions of the best routes could even be a lifesaver. Now a team of researchers from MIT, the University of Notre Dame, and elsewhere has devised what they say is an effective and relatively simple formula for making such predictions.

The findings are reported in a paper in the journal Nature Communications by researchers including Marta Gonzalez, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and engineering systems at MIT and Zoltan Toroczkai and Yihui Ren at Notre Dame.

The authors, all physicists by training, have been applying their knowledge of the computational modeling of complex systems to human-scale systems, such as traffic flows or the spread of disease. Their work has found patterns in these human systems similar to those seen in models of physical systems, the researchers say.

http://phys.org/news/2014-11-traffic.html

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/model-predicts-traffic-flow-1106