The Science Thread

The end of time is fixed.

Alas, I was hoping for a story on the inevitable collision of our universe's membrane with that of another universe

Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile

I also saw that one, and it's a good one.
But I disagree that it's impossible to have an unbeatable voting system. It's just that it would require a whole lot of effort and a huge financial cost and willingness to invest into hardcore security, like PKI to guarantee cryptographic proof of every vote's origin (not necessarily of the identity of the voter, since it needs to be anonymous) , secure channels to ensure tamper-proofing of the requests sent from each voting station. Or as a last measure, why not have a completely separate network that's off the grid. Since DDoS attacks would also be a possibility.

And his arguments that you'd have to trust software audits kind of falls short. The way it's done now you have to trust a lot more people. The people at the voting booths, the people transporting them, the people counting them. And in countries where corruption is rampant, I doubt they have any real audits on the process. At least I'm pretty sure that's the situation here in Romania.

I don't know, but I hardly believe the current voting process is anything close to being able to trust it.

Found another interesting video on this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izddjAp_N4I

I haven't thought it very thoroughly, but what he's sayings sounds ok, at least better than the current process. I imagine the QRCode stores the configuration between question order and the receipt which has the actual vote, which gets scanned. And it also serves as an identifier for your vote.
And as long as you get a random QRCode they won't trace the vote back to you, as long as you keep the receipt secret. Sounds better than what we, in my country have, imo.

And the auditing being able to be done by everyone would make sure this doesn't go unnoticed. Of course, that begs the question what should happen if votes do go missing, or issues appear. There would have to be serious consequences for the people in charge of the process. And also people would have to be properly trained in this electoral process. And have support lines for this, lines where you submit issues, etc. And the whole deal. Jesus, I imagine this would be a nightmare to manage. But, still better than the "i drop my vote in there, and have no idea what's going on next, maybe I don't even care, and have no way to check on it, ". Anyway, that's just one example. I'm sure if they'd put their minds to it, the best crypto-analysts, cryptographers and security experts could design something feasible. If the interests were there to do this. But there probably is no such interest to keep elections honest

What Is The Speed of Dark?

How Old Can We Get?

This one is old. Maybe you saw it already.
But seeing your thread, I decided to share this short TED presentation.
It is interesting.
Free Energy & The Future Of Nanotechnology

Will We Ever Run Out of New Music?

New Horizons Spots Small Moons Orbiting Pluto

Some cool Earth Science in this article about the discovery of the Oldest Piece of Earth.

Scientists say the crystal's chemistry -- specifically, the ratio of oxygen isotopes within it -- suggests that the temperatures on Earth 4.4 billion years ago would have supported liquid water

First Exoplanet Found in a Quadruple Star System

http://www.latimes.com/science/scien…04-story.html#

Biologists Plead for Restraint on Technique to Alter DNA

Can we travel faster than the speed of light.

NASA's Spitzer Spots Planet Deep Within Our Galaxy

First Pluto-Charon Color Image from New Horizons

I've got a question for y'all and this seems an appropriate place to ask.

We've got scads of electro-magnetic signals flying around these days. TV, radio, cell phones, wireless internet, GPS, remote controls--we're getting bombarded by transmitted energy all day every day.

So my question is this- does this represent a new input on human physiology or does it amount to roundoff error compared to natural inputs like sunlight and the Earth's magnetic field?

It's partially laziness, but I'm not sure where I'd start gathering information if I was properly motivated.

It's one of my concerns too. Excessive use of cellphones was found to correlate with an increase in brain cancer. Study came out of Sweden and was before the widespread use of ear phones. A friend at work developed brain cancer and she was previously always on the phone.

There are people calling this "electro-smog" already.
Scientists usually don't believe them that such a thing would exist.

Well, FWIW, here's my chain of thought…

If we accept that there are a lot more loons out there these days (as in, people with serious mental/behavioral pathology, not just people with stupid opinions), there should be some sort of cause. So, in traditional engineering fashion, I ask, "What's changed?" Well, all this wave energy we're throwing into the atmosphere is new and getting worse all the time. What is radiation poisoning but exposure to massive amounts of wave energy? So, are we basically slowly screwing up our brains with all the signals running around the air?

I'm not really looking for a tinfoil hat moment here, nor am I looking for an award because I'm sure this isn't an original thought. The fact that there hasn't been an ungodly uproar tells me that someone has already determined that all the shit we're putting in the air is just noise in the system energy-wise, but I'm wondering if someone here might have some genuine insight just because I'm curious.

Flyte a levitating lightbulb
I know this is a KS campaign, but it's pretty exciting.

Why would you want to have a floating lightbulb??