Opening the Web

Brent Simmons on using Micro.blog:

We could continue to flock to Twitter and Facebook — we could keep paying those who have and will rip off democracy for a stock price — or we could turn our backs and help the open web instead.

We could say goodbye to the creepy targeted ads and the algorithms, to the Nazis and bots and propagandists, to the harassers and the people selling hate. We could stop being spied-on for profit.

This blog entry sums up why we need to make the open web great again. It’s really up to us on how this trend will continue. Let’s make a choice.

Charlotte Hsu, University at Buffalo News:

Helmets that do a better job of preventing concussions and other brain injuries. Earphones that protect people from damaging noises. Devices that convert “junk” energy from airport runway vibrations into usable power.

New research on the events that occur when tiny specks of matter called nanoparticles smash into each other could one day inform the development of such technologies.

Surajit Sen, study co-author:

It gives engineers fundamental information about nanoparticles that they didn’t have before. If you’re designing a new type of nanoparticle, you can now think about doing it in a way that takes into account what happens when you have very small nanoparticles interacting with each other.

This will give engineers new type of material to played around with.

Joe Veix, The Outline:

In 2014, Mark Zuckerberg bought a new home in San Francisco’s Mission District, about a mile from where I lived at the time. Shortly after the purchase, the man who once printed business cards boasting, “I’m CEO, Bitch” began refurbishing the $10 million “fixer upper.”

I immediately biked over to the area to scope the place out. I figured that having the address of one of the richest and most powerful people in the world could be vaguely useful. Maybe if a Class War ever started, I could point an angry mob in his general direction. Or maybe I could steal his valuable trash.

After four years of stalling, I finally decided to go ahead with the latter idea. My quarter-baked plan was this: I’d drive to his Mission District pied-à-terre on trash collection day, snatch a few bags of whatever, and dig through it. I could learn more about Mark Zuckerberg’s habits and interests, creating my own ad profile of him. Then I could sell this information to brands looking to target that coveted “male, 18-34, billionaire” demographic. Think of it as a physical version of Facebook’s business model.

This is very fun to read.

From spacetelescope.org:

An international team of researchers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and several other observatories have, for the first time, uncovered a galaxy in our cosmic neighbourhood that is missing most — if not all — of its dark matter. This discovery of the galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 challenges currently-accepted theories of and galaxy formation and provides new insights into the nature of dark matter. The results are published in Nature.

Dark matter is believed to be the one that holds galaxies together. This discovery requires us new knowledge on how galaxies work. It is exciting to know what’s the explanation behind this.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has approved TLS 1.3 as internet standard in making the web more secure.

Catalin Cimpanu:

The protocol has several advantages over its previous version —TLS 1.2. The biggest feature is that TLS 1.3 ditches older encryption and hashing algorithms (such as MD5 and SHA-224) for newer and harder to crack alternatives (such as ChaCha20, Poly1305, Ed25519, x25519, and x448).

[…]

All in all, TLS 1.3 is a serious boost to Internet security, being considered nigh impossible to crack, at least with today’s resources.

Researchers have developed a stretchable, flexible patch that could make it easier to perform ultrasound imaging on odd-shaped structures, such as engine parts, turbines, reactor pipe elbows and railroad tracks—objects that are difficult to examine using conventional ultrasound equipment.

Nasa’s Curiosity rover, also known as the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), is celebrating 2,000 martian days (sols) investigating Gale Crater on the Red Planet. In that time, the robot has made some remarkable observations.

Farewell Professor Stephen Hawking

This is very saddening.

From BBC News:

He died peacefully at his home in Cambridge in the early hours of Wednesday, his family said.

Some quotes from Prof. Hawking:

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special.”

“Black holes ain’t as black as they are painted. They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought. Things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly to another universe. So if you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up — there’s a way out.”

“It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. Its a crazy world out there. Be curious.”

“Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.”

RIP to one of my heroes, Stephen Hawking.

On March 14, NASA will join schools, students and science centers across the U.S. as they celebrate one of the most well known and beloved numbers: pi. Used throughout the STEM world – especially for space exploration! – pi is the number that results from dividing the circumference of any circle by its diameter. Pi can be and often is rounded to 3.14 (even though its decimals never end), which is why 3/14 has been designated National Pi Day.

It includes the NASA Pi Day Challenge which has four new problems in topics of exoplanets, helium rain, earthquake on Mars and asteroid ‘Oumuamua. Let’s solve them!

From the NASA website:

NASA is inviting people around the world to submit their names online to be placed on a microchip aboard NASA’s historic Parker Solar Probe mission launching in summer 2018. The mission will travel through the Sun’s atmosphere, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions — and your name will go along for the ride.

This simple proof of the Pythagorean theorem reveals how brilliant Einstein’s mind is. This is my first time reading his proof and immediately amazed.

Starting with a right triangle, draw a perpendicular line from the hypotenuse to the right angle. This divides the triangle into two smaller right triangles.

$$smaller~area + larger~area = original~area$$

Adding the two triangles equals the original triangle.

Lets say:

$$a = hypotenuse~of~smaller~triangle$$

$$b = hypotenuse~of~larger~triangle$$

$$c = hypotenuse~of~original~triangle$$

These triangles are similar in terms of the angles and their sides are in proportion to each other.

Since they’re all similar, each area occupies a fraction, f, of the area of the square of the hypotenuse.

$$smaller~area = fa^2$$ $$larger~area = fb^2$$ $$original~area = fc^2$$

Using all the relationships,

$$fa^2 + fb^2 = fc^2$$

Dividing the above equation by f,

$$a^2 + b^2 = c^2$$

And the Pythagorean theorem has been proved.

How does it work?

FreeTube uses the YouTube API to search for videos. It then uses the HookTube API to grab the raw video files and play them in a basic HTML5 video player, preventing YouTube from tracking that video. Subscriptions, history, and saved videos are stored locally on the user’s computer and is never sent out to Google or anyone else. You own your data.

The app is built using Electron as stated by the developer. I admire that he is being honest about using it.

The app is in beta and available for Linux, Mac and Windows.

Using calculus.

Another privacy and FOSS search engine to try other than searx.

Nokia said a 4G network was “highly energy efficient compared to analogue radio.” Nokia also said its Ultra Compact Network will be the lightest ever developed.

[…]

“Vodafone testing indicates that the base station should be able to broadcast 4G using the 1800 MHz frequency band and send back the first ever live HD video feed of the Moon’s surface.”

Excited to see what 5G has to offer but sticking with 4G for stability is reasonable. Lunar missions are getting active again.

Blogging is about control

Andy Baio:

Here, I control my words. Nobody can shut this site down, run annoying ads on it, or sell it to a phone company. Nobody can tell me what I can or can’t say, and I have complete control over the way it’s displayed. Nobody except me can change the URL structure, breaking 14 years of links to content on the web.

Ben Brooks:

Having my own site gives me complete control to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. I don’t understand why people ever want it any other way.

These are also the reasons I created this site.

Expressing one’s thought is important. Why let anyone control on what you have to say?

A user-friendly explanation of string theory.

Ultimately, as the accuracy of the portable clock continues to get better, time could be used to resolve height differences of just 1 centimeter, the study authors said.

This is a great start. Looking forward for the applications in navigation and engineering.