linkstream2 microblog

http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21590758-information-storage-60-year-old-technology-offers-solution-modern?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/magnetic_tape_to_the_rescue

http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21590766-virtual-currency-it-mathematically-elegant-increasingly-popular-and-highly?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/bitcoin_under_pressure

http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21590764-arms-control-new-technologies-make-it-easier-track-small-arms-and-stop-them?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/kill_switches_and_safety_catches

Might be good for course slides!

MT @sjackman @anshul
http://scikit-learn.org/stable/tutorial/machine_learning_map … is useful for #teaching, providing students a practical way to wade through all the approaches

The #night: Your nocturnal transformation revealed. Describes Aschoff & other’s discovery of a >24hr human #clock
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029450.600-the-night-your-nocturnal-transformation-revealed.html

When lights go out, the sky comes alive. Great milkyway pic & description of skies not seen in light-polluted cities
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029451.100-the-night-when-lights-go-out-the-sky-comes-alive.html

The night: Why they call it the graveyard shift. Health hazards of not #sleeping now treated like smoking in the ’50s
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029450.700-the-night-why-they-call-it-the-graveyard-shift.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene

High-Strength Chemical-Vapor–Deposited #Graphene and Grain Boundaries. Sheets of this are the strongest material yet!
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6136/1073.abstract

Science for All. Interesting factoids on #India: more cellphones than toilets & plans for national #biometric numbers
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6136/1032.abs

QT:{{”
Nationwide connectivity is transforming India in other ways as well. Today, the country has 900 million cell phones. “Only about 35% of Indian homes have toilets. About 60% have mobile phones,” says Jairam Ramesh, who as India’s minister for rural development is searching for innovative solutions for poverty alleviation (see p.1034).
…
Prime Minister Singh threw his weight behind the venture, and in July 2009 the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) was formed. Its ambitions have since grown: UIDAI is now striving to assign a random 12-digit “Aadhaar” ID number to every resident of India, based on photos, iris scans, and a full set of 10 fingerprints. Some critics blast the program as far too ambitious to succeed. Others say it feels like Big Brother; they point out that security agents will have access to the database. Nevertheless, 300 million people have received Aadhaar numbers since the authority’s enrollment centers, scattered across the country, opened in September 2010.
“}}

Expanded speedtest results (in Mb/s downloading and then uploading + latency (ms)) comparing DSL & Cable

mb16 =>

432a => SSID=MarkGerstein : 267, 278, 13

860mbg11=>Verizon-DSL : 6.4, .9 (2nd try: 6.07, 0.84, 33)

860mbg11=>TW-Cable : 6.4, 5.2 (2nd try: 5.46, 5.18, 32)

“12c” SSID=>TW-Cable : .53, .68, 28
“” “” (5′ from base station)=>TW-Cable : 3.8, 5.6, 28 [not matching “turbo” performance]

FD4CN=>Verizon-DSL : 5.1, .8

77c021=>TW-Cable : 8.8, 5.1

http://verizon.net/speedoptimizer

then

http://verizon.net/speedtest

Useful post on 5 v 2.4 GHz:
http://compnetworking.about.com/od/wirelessfaqs/f/5ghz-gear.htm