How to Get an A- in Organic Chemistry
November 2nd, 2013I mainly liked her description of organic chemistry, which made me laugh, but I was shocked to learn that she’s my age and has small children.
Having children has easily lowered my IQ 20 points and I feel lucky to be able to function at all. However, even when I was still sharp, before baby brain and Internet brain, I would have really struggled with ochem. To imagine going through that now… Man, after my kids have been fed, bathed and tucked into bed at night, I feel lucky if I can manage to drink a couple of beers and play Bloons.
Via: New York Times:
So what is organic chemistry, anyway? And why is it so difficult? Basically, orgo examines how molecules containing carbon interact, but it doesn’t require equations or math, as in physics. Instead, you learn how electrons flow around and between molecules, and you draw little curved arrows showing where they go. This “arrow pushing” is the heart and soul of orgo. Figure 1 (pictured above left) shows the arrow pushing mechanism for a simple reaction, adding acidified water (H3O+) to a carbon molecule called an alkene (don’t worry, this is all the orgo you’ll have to learn).
Learning how to interpret the hieroglyphics is pretty easy. The hard part is learning where to draw the little arrows. To do this, you learn rules about how molecules behave. For instance, in the third step of the drawing above, you can see an arrow pointing from the “O” (oxygen) of OH2 to a plus sign (a positive charge). This means oxygen is donating electrons to a positively charged carbon atom. After you draw oxygen donating electrons to a positive carbon a zillion times, it becomes second nature. An arrow pointing from a plus sign toward oxygen then seems viscerally wrong, like ketchup on sushi.
But the rules have many, many exceptions, which students find maddening. The same molecule will behave differently in acid or base, in dark or sunlight, in heat or cold, or if you sprinkle magic orgo dust on it and turn around three times. You can’t memorize all the possible answers — you have to rely on intuition, generalizing from specific examples. This skill, far more than the details of every reaction, may actually be useful for medicine.
“It seems a lot like diagnosis,” said Logan McCarty, Harvard’s director of physical sciences education, who taught the second semester. “That cognitive skill — inductive generalization from specific cases to something you’ve never seen before — that’s something you learn in orgo.”
1983: How a War Game Brought the World to the Brink of Nuclear Disaster
November 2nd, 2013Via: Guardian:
Chilling new evidence that Britain and America came close to provoking the Soviet Union into launching a nuclear attack has emerged in former classified documents written at the height of the cold war.
Cabinet memos and briefing papers released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that a major war games exercise, Operation Able Art, conducted in November 1983 by the US and its Nato allies was so realistic it made the Russians believe that a nuclear strike on its territory was a real possibility.
Google Barges Part of Glass Marketing Effort?
November 2nd, 2013Via: CBS:
Google’s mysterious floating barge on San Francisco Bay will feature luxury showrooms and a party deck for the tech giant to market Google Glass and other gadgets to invitation-only clients, multiple sources told KPIX 5.
The project, which has been in the planning stages for more than a year, was created at Google[x], the secret facility that Google reportedly runs near its corporate headquarters in Mountain View. It is personally directed by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and is Google’s attempt to upstage rival Apple and its chain of popular retail stores, sources said.
A source who has been onboard the vessel, which is moored off San Francisco’s Treasure Island under tight security, told KPIX 5 the first three floors are designed to serve as “dazzling showrooms” that can be outfitted with chrome features and floor lighting. There is an upper “party deck” meant to feature bars, lanais and other comforts so Google can fete its upscale customers.
Alleged LAX Gunman Had ‘New World Order’ Conspiracy Theory Tract
November 2nd, 2013Update: Picture of LAX Shooter? [NSFW]
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Via: NBC:
The man who allegedly killed a TSA worker and wounded three others at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday had anti-government literature in his possession outlining an alleged conspiracy to create a single global government, law enforcement sources tell NBC News.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the material recovered from Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, after the shootout at LAX appeared to have been prepared by a group called “New World Order.” One source said it also expressed animus toward racial minorities.
Related: 23 Enigma
Son of Blackbird: SR-72, Mach 6 Reconnaissance and Strike Drone
November 2nd, 2013I wonder if everyone in the U.S. will be on food stamps by the time this thing takes to the air:
Food banks across the country, stretched thin in the aftermath of the recession, are bracing for more people coming through their doors in the wake of cuts to the federal food stamp program.
Food stamp benefits to 47 million Americans were cut starting Friday as a temporary boost to the federal program comes to an end without new funding from a deadlocked Congress.
Via: Aviation Week:
Ever since Lockheed’s unsurpassed SR-71 Blackbird was retired from U.S. Air Force service almost two decades ago, the perennial question has been: Will it ever be succeeded by a new-generation, higher-speed aircraft and, if so, when?
That is, until now. After years of silence on the subject, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has revealed exclusively to AW&ST details of long-running plans for what it describes as an affordable hypersonic intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike platform that could enter development in demonstrator form as soon as 2018. Dubbed the SR-72, the twin-engine aircraft is designed for a Mach 6 cruise, around twice the speed of its forebear, and will have the optional capability to strike targets.
The One About BadBIOS
November 1st, 2013I’d make sure to consider skeptical views on this BadBIOS story:
Either it is an extremely limited piece of BIOS malware or it is occurring at the OS and escaping detection through previously unknown methods. Half the claims made regarding what it does (disabling registry editing, etc.) are so far from reasonable and possible with the BIOS it makes me facepalm. Point blank, these things are absolutely not possible, period. This is something going on at the OS level, the end.
Via: Arstechnica:
Three years ago, security consultant Dragos Ruiu was in his lab when he noticed something highly unusual: his MacBook Air, on which he had just installed a fresh copy of OS X, spontaneously updated the firmware that helps it boot. Stranger still, when Ruiu then tried to boot the machine off a CD ROM, it refused. He also found that the machine could delete data and undo configuration changes with no prompting. He didn’t know it then, but that odd firmware update would become a high-stakes malware mystery that would consume most of his waking hours.
In the following months, Ruiu observed more odd phenomena that seemed straight out of a science-fiction thriller. A computer running the Open BSD operating system also began to modify its settings and delete its data without explanation or prompting. His network transmitted data specific to the Internet’s next-generation IPv6 networking protocol, even from computers that were supposed to have IPv6 completely disabled. Strangest of all was the ability of infected machines to transmit small amounts of network data with other infected machines even when their power cords and Ethernet cables were unplugged and their Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards were removed. Further investigation soon showed that the list of affected operating systems also included multiple variants of Windows and Linux.
“We were like, ‘Okay, we’re totally owned,'” Ruiu told Ars. “‘We have to erase all our systems and start from scratch,’ which we did. It was a very painful exercise. I’ve been suspicious of stuff around here ever since.”
In the intervening three years, Ruiu said, the infections have persisted, almost like a strain of bacteria that’s able to survive extreme antibiotic therapies. Within hours or weeks of wiping an infected computer clean, the odd behavior would return. The most visible sign of contamination is a machine’s inability to boot off a CD, but other, more subtle behaviors can be observed when using tools such as Process Monitor, which is designed for troubleshooting and forensic investigations.
Another intriguing characteristic: in addition to jumping “airgaps” designed to isolate infected or sensitive machines from all other networked computers, the malware seems to have self-healing capabilities.
“We had an air-gapped computer that just had its [firmware] BIOS reflashed, a fresh disk drive installed, and zero data on it, installed from a Windows system CD,” Ruiu said. “At one point, we were editing some of the components and our registry editor got disabled. It was like: wait a minute, how can that happen? How can the machine react and attack the software that we’re using to attack it? This is an air-gapped machine and all of a sudden the search function in the registry editor stopped working when we were using it to search for their keys.”
Over the past two weeks, Ruiu has taken to Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus to document his investigative odyssey and share a theory that has captured the attention of some of the world’s foremost security experts. The malware, Ruiu believes, is transmitted though USB drives to infect the lowest levels of computer hardware. With the ability to target a computer’s Basic Input/Output System (BIOS), Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), and possibly other firmware standards, the malware can attack a wide variety of platforms, escape common forms of detection, and survive most attempts to eradicate it.
But the story gets stranger still. In posts here, here, and here, Ruiu posited another theory that sounds like something from the screenplay of a post-apocalyptic movie: “badBIOS,” as Ruiu dubbed the malware, has the ability to use high-frequency transmissions passed between computer speakers and microphones to bridge airgaps.
Slow and Steady Progress Toward Lethal Autonomous Robots
October 31st, 2013This piece is a good summary of what’s happening in the field of military robotics. I’m pretty sure that all of the systems here have been covered separately on Cryptogon.
Via: Vocativ:
There are important differences between drones, landmines, and “killer robots” — the more serious term being “fully autonomous weapon,” or “lethal autonomous weapon” as the UN puts it.
Landmines are automatic rather than autonomous — laid as a trap, detonated by an unwary foot. Drones are remotely piloted by humans. But killer robots can both select their targets, and engage in violent force, completely outside of human control. Development and testing of these weapons are a precursor to a much different kind of warfare.
“So basically the machine is making a decision to kill, and that’s the problem we have with it,” Wareham said. “We don’t think that power should be given over to a machine. We want to see a human always in the loop.”
Related: Siri, Have Those People Killed
Research Credit: pookie
RBS Traders Suspended in Forex Probe
October 31st, 2013Via: BBC:
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has suspended two traders in connection to a growing investigation into the possible manipulation of foreign exchange rates.
The news follows reports that London-based executives at three other major banks have been placed on leave.
Regulators in the UK, US and Switzerland are looking into whether banks colluded to set exchange rates.
The global foreign exchange market is worth more than £3tn a day.
London is the most important centre for the market, accounting for about 40% of all foreign exchange trading.
The reports are that executives at Citigroup, JP Morgan and Standard Chartered have agreed to be placed on leave, but none has been accused of any wrongdoing.
$30,000 Prosthetic Hand vs. One Made with a 3D Printer for $5
October 31st, 2013Via: Mish:
What do you do when you cannot afford a $30,000 prosthetic hand that your son needs?
Two years ago, Paul McCarthy began searching for an inexpensive yet functional prosthetic hand for his son Leon, who was born without fingers on one of his hands.
McCarthy came across a video online with detailed instruction on how to use a 3-D printer to make a prosthetic hand for his son. McCarthy made a prosthetic hand for his son for a cost of $5 and free time on a 3D printer.
Research Credit: alvinroasting
MIT Thermoelectric Bracelet: “Personalized, Dynamic Climate Control”
October 31st, 2013Via: Wired:
Wristify, as they call their device, is a thermoelectric bracelet that regulates the temperature of the person wearing it by subjecting their skin to alternating pulses of hot or cold, depending on what’s needed.
