Bacon Cups
I had an occasion calling for bacon themed food and my mind immediately turned towards the famed bacon mat. I needed something a little more single-serving though, so I decided to attempt bacon cups.
Resin Identification Code
Most plastics can be recycled, but they have to be separated into their different polymer types. Because of the difficulty and expense of sorting, collecting, cleaning and reprocessing, at the moment it is only economically viable to recycle PETE, HDPE and PVC. Thermoplastics can be remelted, but thermosetting plastics can only be crushed and used as insulation.
The symbols used in the code consist of arrows that cycle clockwise to form a rounded triangle and enclosing a number, often with an acronym representing the plastic below the triangle.
When the number is omitted, the symbol is known as the universal Recycling Symbol, indicating generic recyclable materials. In this case, other text and labels are used to indicate the materials used.
Use of the recycling symbol in the coding of plastics has led to ongoing consumer confusion about which plastics are readily recyclable. In most communities throughout the United States, PETE and HDPE are the only plastics collected in municipal recycling programs. Some regions, though, are expanding the range of plastics collected as markets become available.
Resin identification code – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Defeating Disk Encryption with Canned Air
We show that disk encryption, the standard approach to protecting sensitive data on laptops, can be defeated by relatively simple methods. We demonstrate our methods by using them to defeat three popular disk encryption products: BitLocker, which comes with Windows Vista; FileVault, which comes with MacOS X; and dm-crypt, which is used with Linux.
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Our research shows that data in DRAM actually fades out gradually over a period of seconds to minutes, enabling an attacker to read the full contents of memory by cutting power and then rebooting into a malicious operating system.Interestingly, if you cool the DRAM chips, for example by spraying inverted cans of “canned air” dusting spray on them, the chips will retain their contents for much longer. At these temperatures (around -50 °C) you can remove the chips from the computer and let them sit on the table for ten minutes or more, without appreciable loss of data. Cool the chips in liquid nitrogen (-196 °C) and they hold their state for hours at least, without any power. Just put the chips back into a machine and you can read out their contents.
This is deadly for disk encryption products because they rely on keeping master decryption keys in DRAM.
WJW.
Feynman Sprinkler
A Feynman sprinkler began as a thought experiment in explaining the workings of the reverse of a typical rotary lawn sprinkler. This experiment is commonly associated with and named after Richard Feynman though he did not come up with the problem or ever publish a solution to it, only help popularize it in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman and other writings of his.
The problem concerns what would happen if such a sprinkler were submerged in water and water were sucked through it, flowing backwards. The possible outcomes are as follows: the sprinkler will spin forward; the sprinkler will spin backward; the sprinkler will not spin at all. There has been much debate in the past century over the solution. In recent years, the experiment has been performed many times, usually with air, not water, as the medium of the sprinkler, demonstrating that the “reverse” sprinkler does not spin in the steady state.
Telegrapher’s Equations
The telegraphers equations or just telegraph equations are a pair of linear differential equations which describe the voltage and current on an electrical transmission line with distance and time. The equations come from Oliver Heaviside who developed the transmission line model which is described in this article. The theory applies to high-frequency transmission lines such as telegraph wires and radio frequency conductors but is also important for designing high-voltage energy transmission lines. The model demonstrates that the electromagnetic waves can be reflected on the wire, and that wave patterns can appear along the line.
Telegraphers equations – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Controlled Flight Into Terrain
An amusing flight related term, similar to the “near-miss” term admonished by comedian George Carlin:
Controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) describes an accident whereby an airworthy aircraft, under pilot control, inadvertently flies into terrain, an obstacle, or water. The term was developed by engineers at Boeing in the late 1970s. The pilots are generally unaware of the danger until it is too late.
In civil and especially in private aviation, CFIT may be humorously referred to as the result of “rock-filled clouds” or “cumulogranite” (a contraction of the terms cumulus, or “cloud,” and granite) when it is caused by terrain being obscured by clouds.
Sauce béarnaise syndrome
Psychologist John Garcia, studying radiation sickness in rats, noticed that rats that got sick began rejecting their perfectly good rat chow. Even when they got better, they disliked it. In a series of experiments, Garcia discovered that even if their sickness isn’t caused by the food but by radiation or an injection, and even if they ate the food many hours before they got sick, rats come to hate the food they eat before getting sick.
The dislike was specific to food. Getting sick to their stomachs didn’t make the rats dislike their food dish, or a burst of lights and noise — or the researcher. It was always the food or water they became averse to.
Maxwell’s Demon
Maxwell’s demon is an 1867 thought experiment by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, meant to raise questions about the possibility of violating the second law of thermodynamics.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics forbids (due to statistical improbability) that two bodies of equal temperature, when brought into contact with each other and isolated from the rest of the Universe, will evolve to a state in which one of the two has a significantly higher temperature than the other. The second law is also expressed as the assertion that in an isolated system, entropy never decreases. Maxwell described his thought experiment in this way:
… if we conceive of a being whose faculties are so sharpened that he can follow every molecule in its course, such a being, whose attributes are as essentially finite as our own, would be able to do what is impossible to us. For we have seen that molecules in a vessel full of air at uniform temperature are moving with velocities by no means uniform, though the mean velocity of any great number of them, arbitrarily selected, is almost exactly uniform. Now let us suppose that such a vessel is divided into two portions, A and B, by a division in which there is a small hole, and that a being, who can see the individual molecules, opens and closes this hole, so as to allow only the swifter molecules to pass from A to B, and only the slower molecules to pass from B to A. He will thus, without expenditure of work, raise the temperature of B and lower that of A, in contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics.
In other words, Maxwell imagines two containers, A and B. The containers are filled with the same gas at equal temperatures and placed next to each other. Observing the molecules on both sides, a little “demon” guards a trapdoor between the two containers. When a faster-than-average molecule from A flies towards the trapdoor, the demon opens it, and the molecule will fly from A to B. The average speed of the molecules in B will have increased while in A they will have slowed down on average. However, since average molecular speed corresponds to temperature, the temperature will have decreased in A and increased in B; this is contrary to the second law of thermodynamics.
Moving Wayne and Layne feed away from FeedBurner
Hey, readers!
I’m moving the feed away from FeedBurner, so if the feed stops for you, please move your subscription to http://wayneandlayne.com/feed/.
Thanks!
MGMT
Auk
Auks are birds of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. They are superficially similar to penguins due to their black-and-white colours, their upright posture and some of their habits. Nevertheless they are not closely related to the penguins, but rather are an example of moderate convergent evolution.
In contrast to penguins, the modern auks are able to fly (with the exception of the recently extinct Great Auk). They are good swimmers and divers, but their walking appears clumsy. Due to their short wings auks have to flap their wings very quickly in order to fly. Extant auks range in size from the Least Auklet, at 85 g (3 oz) and 15 cm (6 in), to the Thick-billed Murre, at 1 kg (2¼ lb) and 45 cm (18 in).
Auks live on the open sea and only go ashore for breeding, although some species, like the Common Guillemot, spend a great part of the year defending their nesting spot from others.
Auk – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia