Dear Students,
This week I would like you to read/watch an article/piece of news of your interest at http://www.time.com/time/ or http://www.bbc.com/news/. Present it on the blog. You are also to express your opinion on the articles/pieces of news presented by other course participants.
I have found interesting article on BBS website in tech section (of course...). This article concerns quantum computer which is up to 3600 times faster than conventional computers. It will be providing a services to many researchers, Google and NASA. This computer due to “quantum tunneling” can solve optimization problems much faster. Optimization, in this case, means trying all possible solutions at the same time and then select the best one. A classic and very popular problem is problem of the travelling sales rep, who needs to visit several cities in one day, and wants to know the shortest path that connects them all together in order to minimize their mileage. This computer can compare all the possible iterations at once, rather than do a lot of work through each turn. It can solve this problem in fractions of second. It possible due to “strange behavior of matter at quantum scales”.... You can find more on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22554494
ReplyDeleteYeah I've heard about this type of computers. On paper they look very promising and could lead to another technological revolution. I think that such computers maybe even exist (created and used by the military) but I doubt that we will see them any time soon, as all of the security protocols that now are unbreakable (in a reasonable amount of time) could be cracked in seconds using such computers.
DeleteThey could use that processing power for the lost password problem in CERN - regarding the issue I've wrote about (http://konwersatorium2-ms-pjwstk.blogspot.com/2013/05/week-6.html?showComment=1369468870995#c198073660981181795).
DeleteI wonder if it is going to happen - I mean if we will be witnesses of a quantum revolution. In front of a quantum processing power all the encryption we have now stands completely weak.
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ReplyDeleteI read an interesting for me article titled “14 Simple Ways to Get Considerably More Done”. Some time ago we discussed about time management and I decided to learn more in this area. I found a few interesting advices with short explanations. First was included early, in the third point “Stop looking for that extra 10 percent”. It concerns me because I am perfectionist. Some advices were more obvious and already known for instance “Craft your ’just say no’ elevator speech”.
ReplyDeleteI think that every can find some interesting advices for improving its life. I quote to yours another interesting advice “Eliminate one fun commitment”. This advice seems normally. But for this one reason for doing it looks quite good: “If you wouldn’t do something while you were on vacation, there’s no good reason to do it when you’re not".
I don’t want to quote whole article because you can read it alone at http://business.time.com/2013/05/20/14-simple-ways-to-get-considerably-more-done/. I’m hope that almost everybody can improve efficiency in his life. If you don’t know (or if you have any doubts) how to do it – please read that article.
This can start getting us frustrated - why do we need to become "more efficient". It does not have an end because you can always improve, improve, improve ...
DeleteMy thoughts and prayers are with the people of Oklahoma.
ReplyDeletehttp://science.time.com/2013/05/21/tornado/
Why people living in these states prefer the wooden house? Wooden house can't resist the destroy force of tornado.
Well, they aren't very bright. They say wooden houses are cheaper than solid ones but, in the long run, wooden houses
need expensive maintenance and they're weak against nature (wind, fire, gravity, etc). A solid house would be around 20% more expensive.
The question is, what do they do with the money they "save"? it seems they build another wooden house,
Understandable, i feel sorry when something like this happens but when other things done by man.
For me more important question is why people living in that tornado area do not have a basement or other shelter close to home. In one of BBC video I heard that reporter said “few where lucky to have shelter”. This sound ridiculousness because for me the first place to build in hurricane or tornado area is strong basement or other shelter in case of emergency. Type of house is not important if you know you are secure. Americans use to say that house is as strong as strong is your insurance company is. I know that it sound not realistic from our polish point of view, but some of them have insurance contract with will cover all damages. So it cover rebuilding of the house, new furniture, clothes, electronic staff, food in a refrigerator and so on. Of course there are some think that is hard to fix using money. Mostly there are thinks related to some memories like photos and so one. From this point of view worse is your house, better for you because if it will be fully damage you will get 100% revenue and if your house only partially survive natural disaster it is no to certain that you will get all repayment.
DeleteMaybe that is why cloud computing is getting more and more popular. They upload all photos to Facebook and other services and done.
DeleteI liked this article: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130320-can-you-get-by-on-less-sleep/1 (mostly because it gives me a perfect "scientific" excuse not to work late at night and then brutally wake up at 6:30 any more ;) ). Unfortunately it seems, that I am definitely not the "sleepless elite"...I remember, that in the kindergarden I hated the idea of being forced to go to sleep at certain hours (I could never fall asleep there, so instead I was just bored to death). Now, as an adult, I think that I would appreciate such a break from time to time... Of course it is not my laziness - it's genetics :) .
ReplyDeleteI believe that a proper sleep length is crucial for us to perform well. I would not want to save some daylight hours reducing the sleep time - it would get me into the condition where I would not enjoy the day (let's call it "zombie like state").
DeleteI was very interested if I can find some article about Poland on http://www.bbc.com/news/ .
ReplyDeleteI found one quite interesting ; titled “Poland’s dependence on coal”. It has been published on 23 April 2012 and written by Adam Easton. We can read there that Poland is the fastest-growing economy in the European Union , which was quite surprising for me. It also stated that Elektrownia Belchatow it’s Europe's largest thermal powerplant employing more than 100,000 people.
The main message of the article was the need to reduce CO2 emission by Poland. Autor writes that Poland is “the biggest polluter, emitting the equivalent of close to 39 million tonnes of CO2 last year, a rise of 31% from 2010 thanks to the commissioning of a new unit last September.”
Poland signed up to the EU's target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020. It has also agreed the EU's longer-term target of reducing emissions by 80-95% by 2050
Everybody agree that the production of CO2 must be reduced and the technology of power production has to be changed. Maciej Muskat, a director of Greenpeace Poland, tells that “investments in the renewable energy sector can boost the Polish economy and create thousands of new and lasting workplaces”. The official analysis made by the Government institution contested this plan declaring that it is way too expensive and Poland would suffer dramatic economic depression caused by up to 11% drop in GDP. On my opinion the ministerial document is heavily biased by an existing industry lobby and Greenpeace analysis is much closer to the truth.
The most significant article I have found on bbc website is "Embryonic stem cells: Advance in medical human cloning"
ReplyDeleteDetailed information of all techniques and research performed can be found here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867413005710
Ui was the first successful reprogramming of human somatic cells into pluripotent embryonic stem cells (ESCs) by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).
ESCs can be transformed into any of the three germ layers: endoderm , mesoderm , or ectoderm. Thus they can differentiate into stomach lining, gastrointestinal tract, the lungs, muscle, bone, blood, epidermal tissues or nervous system.
Thus they bear great hope of restoring full organs from a single cell.
I'm a gamer. I spend a lot of my time playing games and I do enjoy this time. That is why I was especially interested in this topic I found:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22623010
A lot of companies nowadays introduce some methods of fighting with piracy. Some require an always-on internet connection, others introduce some in-game mechanisms that prohibit you to progress after a certain point in the game. But Microsoft goes one step further... they plan to implement a system that will not allow you to play formerly used games (or if one of the rumors comes true - even borrowed games that you get from you friends), as they would require an additional payment: "It would also mean borrowing a game from a friend will require a payment to play, possibly the full price".
I am aware that the big companies loose a lot of cash due to hacking their games, but this time I think that they made a step in a wrong direction. Personally I will not get myself the new Xbox as I feel that forcing someone to buy a game with no option of reselling/exchanging it is not something I agree with.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22624104
ReplyDeleteI hope I'm not late with my comment (this task has only been posted last friday, so less than a week ago).
I found an article about the results of an annual BBC poll which ranks countries by their perceived influence in the world – positive or negative. This year Germany topped the poll which is slightly surprising given the riots in crisis struck Eurozone. Maybe those people aren't the majority after all and the help in keeping the EU alive is actually appreciated. Although in Greece it still ranked badly.
Germany's strong economy and non interventionist foreign policy is probably why it ranked so high. The bottom of the ranking is occupied by countries such as Iran and North Korea, other countries with ongoing military conflicts are also doing poorly. I don't think our country was ranked, it wasn't mentioned in the article anywhere. I guess that's OK, sometimes no news is good news.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22556172
ReplyDeleteI found an article about new way to create new type of 3D camera. That kind of solution is based on single pixel which is used to sense light instead of the millions of pixels used in the imaging sensors of digital cameras. Thats why that new type of camera which will be based on that new sensor will be much more cheaper than 3D camera which we can by now a days
because the single-pixel detectors cost "a few pounds" compared to current systems, which cost "thousands".
I’ve found a short article about historic web pages.
ReplyDeleteHere is the link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22652675
It’s not a big deal but if BBC has decided to write about that, than why I wouldn’t write about it.
CERN decided to search for the very first web page published online. They found something dated 1991. The problem is that the data is not complete. Part of it is stored as an encrypted backup and the password has been forgotten. :)
The text presented in the very first web page has scrambled word. It is a consequence of presentation during which the creator showed the live editing capabilities.
Regarding the forgotten password problem. CERN has a huge processing capabilities so in my opinion they will recover the goods sooner o later even if they would need to apply brute force attacks on the encrypted data.