Assistant professor Metin Sitti at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh developed a little robot that can run over water. The professor looked to nature for his inspiration, in particular to the basilisk lizard, which creates little air pockets as it slaps the water with its feet. He created both two-legged and four-legged robotic lizards that can scurry across the water surface at .8 m/sec (that’s almost 3 feet per second). Pretty cool! Here’s the link to the Discovery News article.
Yearly Archives: 2006
Women applaud no-men, pink-striped metro cars
In Brazil, women have finally gotten their wish: pink-striped, women-only metro cars. Apparently, there’s a lot of groping and feeling going on in Brazil (shame on you, fellow men!) and it’s so bad they lobbied for women-only cars. Now they’ve got them. The article mentions how women themselves will police the cars, to make sure no men get aboard. They can call on police if needed to evict unruly men. Here’s the link to the article.
m.Lee Prints
Today’s Blog of Note from Blogger is m.Lee Prints. Marissa – that’s the artist’s name – focuses almost exclusively on woodcut printmaking, and the results are beautiful! Have a look at her site, you’ll like it!
Little Swee' Pea
Today on Refrederator: Little Swee’ Pea. A trademark of the Zukor cartoons were the multi-layered backgrounds that moved at different speeds, creating the impression of 3-dimensionality. Some of the Popeye cartoons use them, this one included, and all of the Betty Boop cartoons feature them as a mainstay. Have a look and see for yourselves!
Too many passwords equals less security
Found an article on CNET News which details a survey done in Britain. It showed that there is a directly proportional relationship between the number of passwords one has to remember for work, and the number of unauthorized accesses on the company’s networks. Here’s the link to the CNET article.
Having been a director of IT twice in my career, this is a no-brainer to me. And here’s another thing I’ve found: the more inane the password rules are, the easier you’ll make it for your users to write their passwords down on a sticky note, which they’ll store either right on the screen, under their keyboard, or in the top desk drawer. If you’re going to use passwords, you need to strike the RIGHT balance between password security and real-world usability. Sadly, many companies fail in this area.
Seems the way to go is single sign-on, with added proximity devices if needed.
Raoul Pop 