This had better become required by law, and soon, if the government wants people to trust electronic voting machines. Every security expert who’s even glanced at them has been appalled at how easily they can be manipulated. Related and possibly-interesting note: a significant part of one of the Stainless Steel Rat books — written long [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Mathematics category.
“How Big is Your Haystack?”
There are three interesting things on this page: An “interactive brute force search space calculator” for passwords, which you can play with to get a good idea how easily a brute-force attack would find YOUR passwords. Some comments further down the page on mathematical entropy, and how it doesn’t affect password strength (despite common wisdom [...]
“Virtual cloud monkeys go bananas writing Shakespeare”
I’m sure this experiment saved on banana costs — and machine repair and replacement costs, apparently — but a little statistical math could have told him the same thing a lot faster. (The comment about the interview with Fox News amuses me, as even more evidence that regular Fox News viewers are on the low [...]
“Why Multi-word Phrases Make for More Secure Passwords Than Incomprehensible Gibberish”
I was rather surprised at this assertion, at first. Then I thought about it… there are only about 95 printable characters in the basic seven-bit ASCII character set. A very conservative estimate puts the number of distinct English words at well over 65,000, most of which are many letters long. If you knew that someone’s [...]
“Möbius Gear: a one-sided, toothed gear”
If asked, I’d have said this wasn’t possible. Just goes to prove that I’m not omniscient. I wonder what use someone will find for it. The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. — Harry Emerson Fosdick
Antikythera Mechanism Duplicated — in Lego!
The odds are that you’ve heard about the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient (2000+ years old) mechanical device that was dredged up off of Greece more than a century ago. Four years ago, scientists finally figured out what it was for, calculating solar eclipses and other celestial events. It was really big news at the time, [...]
“Street-Fighting Math: down and dirty guide to approximation and problem-solving”
A useful skill. I didn’t realize that anyone had written a book about it. It’s available as a free PDF file too, there’s a download link in the “related links” section. I’ve picked it up, and I plan to read it when I have a chance. (Via BoingBoing)
“Google, boffins crack Rubik’s Cube mystery”
The Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything may be 42, but it seems that the ultimate answer to how many moves (at most) it would take for an omniscient being to solve the Rubik’s Cube is much lower. (No omniscient beings were harmed in the calculation of that answer.)
“Enhancing the Placebo”
I find the placebo effect to be utterly fascinating. It’s almost certainly responsible for the successes of shamans, faith-based healers, and homeopathy. And, on the other side of the coin, the documented successful witch doctors’ curses. But it’s literally all in your head. Which means that everyone who has ever been affected by any of [...]