BenRoudenis.com

Rockyou.com is a website where users can develop apps to use on social networking sites. Last December, a hacker gained access to all of Rockyou’s members’ usernames, email addresses and passwords (which had been stored in plain, unencrypted text) and posted the passwords to the Internet. Given that many people use the same username and password for all of their online dealings, such as banking, the results could have been disastrous. Fortunately, the perpetrator seemed to be mainly interested in exposing Rockyou’s insufficient security, as they didn’t post the usernames or emails.

Imperva analyzed the hacked data, and compiled their findings in the Consumer Password Worst Practices report. Of the 32 million passwords involved, the ten most common were:

• 123456
• 12345
• 123456789
• Password
• iloveyou
• princess
• rockyou
• 1234567
• 12345678
• abc123

It was found that almost half of the members used names, slang words, proper words, or trivial passwords such as consecutive digits, or adjacent keys on the keyboard.

The ten worst passwords on the web, and why you really should read this article [Gizmag]

With a median family income under $30,000 and unemployment rate at a whopping 27 percent, Detroit is in need of help. While most residents are not so worried about the condition of the city, one of the few remaining millionaires is trying to transform Detroit from Motor City to an Urban Farm.

John Hantz has come up with a plan to develop farm pods on the vacant land in Detroit, which isn’t that expensive. Each of these pods will utilize the latest in green farming techniques like compost-heating greenhouses and hydroponic systems.

Each of these pods will have their own residential frontage, and food would be grown there to prevent transportation from distant cities. Hantz is willing to put up the $30 million required to start the project, once he gets concessions from the Detroit city government.

Millionaire plans to transform Detroit into an urban farm [Ecofriend]

Stanford University researchers aren’t stopping at paper when it comes to exploring how carbon nanotubes can be used to create thin, flexible batteries. They’ve moved on from paper and ink to cotton and polyester. Looking at combining carbon nanotubes and fabrics, the research team is bringing us closer to having wearable electronics and conductive fabrics.

The work, published in Nano Letters, expands on the science behind lightweight, flexible, and wearable electronics. Think about that cool turn signal jacket for cyclists that uses conductive thread and to make LED lights flash with just a touch of the hand to the sleeve. And all those concept designs for clothing that charges a device while you walk are a little less futuristic.

The researchers state that “with an extremely simple “dipping and drying” process using single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) ink” the fabric is turned into highly conductive textiles.

Nanotechnology Turning Your Cotton T-Shirt and Polyester Pants Into Batteries [TreeHugger]

The shortage of IPv4 addresses has reached a critical stage, according to the registries that allocate internet numbers around the world.

The Number Resource Organization (NRO), which represents the registries, said on Tuesday that less than 10 percent of all IPv4 addresses remain available, threatening the future network operations of all businesses and organisations unless ISPs and businesses step up their migration to IPv6.

“The limited IPv4 addresses will not allow us enough resources to achieve the ambitions we all hold for global internet access,” NRO chairman Axel Pawlik said in a statement on Tuesday. “The deployment of IPv6 is a key infrastructure development that will enable the network to support the billions of people and devices that will connect in the coming years.”

However, where previous estimates had IPv4 addresses running out in 2011, it now appears addresses are more likely to be depleted in 2012, Pawlik told ZDNet UK. “That is based on the current growth rate, but there might be big allocation requests coming up — you never know,” he said.

IPv4 addresses: Less than 10pc still available [ZDNet UK]

Enter a URL for any page on the web, and PDFmyURL.com will turn it into a PDF.  Easy enough.

Convert and save pdf from any webpage for free [PDFmyURL.com]

The Tunebug Shake is an ultra-portable sound generator that can be connected to iPods, MP3 players or mobile phones or used wirelessly using Bluetooth®. When mounted on a bike, skate or snowboard helmet, the Shake creates a surround sound experience.

Tunebug’s patented SurfaceSound Technology lets sound waves pass through the surfaces it rests on turning many surfaces into a flat panel speaker.

Shake – Portable SurfaceSound Speaker [Tunebug]

Read Erik Verlinde ‘s paper “On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton,” where he explains gravity as an entropic force.  Here is the abstract:

Starting from first principles and general assumptions Newton’s law of gravitation is shown to arise naturally and unavoidably in a theory in which space is emergent through a holographic scenario. Gravity is explained as an entropic force caused by changes in the information associated with the positions of material bodies. A relativistic generalization of the presented arguments directly leads to the Einstein equations. When space is emergent even Newton’s law of inertia needs to be explained. The equivalence principle leads us to conclude that it is actually this law of inertia whose origin is entropic.

On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton [arxiv.org]

Read the full paper here:

On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton (pdf)
Author: Erik Verlinde

On January 5, the National Weather Service changed the criteria for severe thunderstorms by upping the minimum size hail from ¾ to 1 inch—quarter size. The wind threshold—50 knots, or 58 mph—remains the same.

The reason for the change, according to a statement issued by the Fire and Public Weather Services Branch of the NWS, is that research reveals “significant damage” doesn’t occur from hail smaller than an inch. Hailstones the size of quarters or larger are the ones most destructive to cars, homes, buildings, and crops.

Over the years, and particularly in the Plains states, the statement reads, “the frequency of severe thunderstorm warnings issued for penny-size and nickel-size hail might have desensitized the public to take protective action during a severe thunderstorm warning.” Too many warnings for events that were not damaging garnered complaints and made the warnings somewhat meaningless.

NWS Increases Severe Hail Threshold [The Front Page]

This is my favorite speech from my favorite author. Here is an excerpt:

I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

Take 15 minutes and read the entire speech here.

Aliens Cause Global Warming [MichaelCrichton.com]

Although it’s name suggests perhaps even grander capabilities, Windows enthusiasts are excited over the discovery of a hidden “GodMode” feature that lets users access all of the operating system’s control panels from within a single folder.

By creating a new folder in Windows 7 and renaming it with a certain text string at the end, users are able to have a single place to do everything from changing the look of the mouse pointer to making a new hard-drive partition.

The trick is also said to work in Windows Vista, although some are warning that although it works fine in 32-bit versions of Vista, it can cause 64-bit versions of that operating system to crash.

To enter “GodMode,” one need only create a new folder and then rename the folder to the following:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

Once that is done, the folder’s icon will change to resemble a control panel and will contain dozens of control options.

Understanding Windows 7′s ‘GodMode’ [cnet news]