Nybble Issue No. 209

N Y B B L E   M O N T H L Y   N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2009.03.31 Issue No. 209

Just how hard is it to hack into a secured wireless access point? I've heard stories about people war-driving around the block and cracking WEP keys in a matter of seconds or minutes. Intrigued, I thought I might do some research and try it myself. If you believe the YouTube videos, it's as easy as downloading the Aircrack-NG suite. Using airodump, you listen in to a particular channel and capture a bunch of WEP IVs. Then using aircrack, it reads the capture file and attempts to crack the key.

Not as easy as I thought. Apparently, not all WiFi cards can snoop. With airodump, it seems to support only HermesI/Realtek and Aironet/Atheros-based cards. I had Wireshark set to capture in promiscuous mode, but all I see are traffic to/from my laptop. Maybe the Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN doesn't support promiscuous mode. Maybe it's a driver issue. Maybe the OS doesn't allow snooping. Lots of maybes. As an alternative, I downloaded a BackTrack3 live CD. Didn't detect the built-in WiFi on my Lenovo T61. Didn't detect the Siemens SpeedStream WiFi card on the Thinkpad 600E. I give up. Might be easier to just knock on the neighbor's door and ask for the WEP/WPA key.

Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the WiFi pirates about it. Thanks.

_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Largest Prehistoric Snake on Record
* Terabit Ethernet
* Micro-USB Chargers for All
* 250 DVDs in a Quarter-Sized Device
* Sony Introduces Blu-Spec CD
* Oldest Human Hair Found
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh

_________LARGEST PREHISTORIC SNAKE ON RECORD_________
http://www.physorg.com/news152969011.html

Scientists have recovered fossils of a 60-million-year-old South American snake whose length and weight might make today's anacondas and reticulated pythons seem a bit cuter and more cuddly. Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1140 kg (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 metres (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest snake ever measured was 10 meters (33 feet) in length. The heaviest snake, a python, weighed 183 kilograms (403 pounds).

Crews led by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History discovered the fossils in the Cerrejon Coal Mine in northern Colombia, and together with lead-author Jason Head, now of the University of Toronto-Mississauga, used its size to make an estimate of Earth's temperature 58 to 60 million years ago in tropical South America. Paleontologists have long known of a rough correlation between an age's temperature and the size of its poikilotherms (cold-blooded creatures). Over geological time, as ages get warmer, so does the upper size limit on poikilotherms. Assuming the Earth today is not particularly unusual, Head and Dr. Jonathan Bloch, Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, estimated a snake of Titanoboa's size would have required an average annual temperature of 30 to 34°C (86 to 93 F) to survive. By comparison, the average yearly temperature of today's Cartagena, a Colombian coastal city, is about 28°C.

_________TERABIT ETHERNET_________
http://arstechnica.com/science/2009/02/terabit-ethernet-becomes-a-photonic-possibility/

Researchers from Australia, Denmark, and China have combined efforts to show the feasibility of terabit-per-second Ethernet over fiber-optic cables. The solution involves a photonic chip that uses laser light for switching signals, and a form of the exotic material type, chalcogenide.

Individual lasers, operated by conventional electronics, can inject dozens of 10 Gbps streams, but in terms of retrieving that multiplexed data at these very very high bit rates, beyond 40 Gbps, electronics is not fast enough. In conjunction with a Danish research organization at the Technical University of Denmark, which has been working on high-speed optical networking, CUDOS (Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems) developed a photonic integrated circuit that uses lasers and light in the same way a conventional electronic integrated circuit uses electrons and transistors.

One of the key breakthroughs researchers made wasn't so much in speed but in practicality. By using relatively traditional methods to etch a circuit out of a glassy form of a chalcogenide, arsenic trisulfide (As2S3), researchers were able to reduce the waveguide that demultiplexed an incoming signal from tens of meters down to 5 cm.

Silicon-based chips could also be used in principle to achieve similar, but slower results, but the researchers' ultimate goal was to create fully photonic chips in the same foundries that now make CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) integrated circuits.

_________MICRO-USB CHARGERS FOR ALL________
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/17/standard_charger/

An alliance of operators and handset manufacturers has blown a substantial hole in the mobile accessories market by agreeing on a standard power charger for mobile phones. Orange, Telefonica, Vodafone, 3, AT&T, mobilkom Austria, T-Mobile, Telenor Telstra, Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, LG and Sony Ericsson have agreed a micro USB standard for all mobile phones.

It's not the first time micro USB has been proposed as a universal mobile charger. The GSMA announcement piggybacks an OMTP recommendation. OMTP is a talking-shop for operators who want to undermine the differentiation of handsets and so tilt the loyalty of consumers away from handsets. GSMA didn't say when the certified compatible charger will appear but it has set a target for 50 per cent of phones shipped in 2012 to use this charger. This might prove tough. Higher data speeds, for instance the ability to capture hi-def video on a mobile, will need a better connector than micro USB. This can be solved with two connectors.

_________250 DVDs IN A QUARTER-SIZED DEVICE_________
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/250-DVDs-in-a-Quarter-Sized-Device----Coming-Soon.html

A new technique developed by scientists at UC Berkeley and University of Massachusetts Amherst may drastically increase the ability of devices to store things. The method lets microscopic nanoscale elements precisely assemble themselves over large surfaces.

Molecules in the thin film of block copolymers - two or more chemically dissimilar polymer chains linked together - self-assemble into an extremely precise, equidistant pattern when spread out on a surface, much like a regiment of disciplined soldiers lining up in formation. For more than a decade, researchers have been trying to exploit this characteristic for use in semiconductor manufacturing, but they have been constrained because the order starts to break down as the size of the area increases. Once the formation breaks down, the individual domains cannot be read or written to, rendering them useless as a form of data storage. To overcome this size constraint, the researchers conceived of the elegantly simple solution of layering the film of block copolymers onto the surface of a commercially available sapphire crystal. When the crystal is cut at an angle - a common procedure known as a miscut - and heated to 1,300 to 1,500 degrees Centigrade (2,372 to 2,732 degrees Fahrenheit) for 24 hours, its surface reorganizes into a highly ordered pattern of sawtooth ridges that can then be used to guide the self-assembly of the block polymers. With this technique, the researchers were able to achieve defect-free arrays of nanoscopic elements with feature sizes as small as 3 nanometers, translating into densities of 10 terabits per square inch. One terabit is equal to 1 trillion bits, or 125 gigabytes.

Other research teams across the country are engaged in similar efforts to break the size barrier of self-assembled block copolymers, but this new project by the UMass Amherst-UC Berkeley scientists differs in that it does not rely upon advances in lithography to achieve its goals. An added benefit is that this technique is more environmentally friendly than photolithography, which requires the use of harsh chemicals and acids.

_________SONY INTRODUCES BLU-SPEC CD_________
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/digitalmusic/0,39029432,49301249,00.htm

Sony's new Blu-spec CD format promises better-quality CD experience without having to upgrade your CD player, employing the same technology used to author Blu-ray discs to master standard CDs.
Blu-spec CDs are written using the shorter-wavelength blue laser diodes used in Blu-ray disc production. These blue lasers are far more accurate when it comes to burning pits in the readable surface of CDs, theoretically improving final sound reproduction, due to the reduction of reading errors when the disc is spinning in typical CD players.

Not everyone is convined though. CNET points out that unlike Super Audio CD or DVD-Audio discs, Blu-Spec CDs use the standard 16-bit, 44KHz audio encoding, so you're not gaining additional sonic data. You do get "improved error correction", but the CD format already incorporates Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Coding error correction. Still, Sony is initially releasing 60 back-catalogue titles on the format, including work from The Clash, Miles Davis and ELO, some of which are available on Amazon.com now.

_________OLDEST HUMAN HAIR FOUND_________
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090206-oldest-hair-hyenas.html

The oldest known human hairs could be the strands discovered in fossil hyena poop found in a South African cave. Researchers discovered the rock-hard hyena dung near the Sterkfontein caves, where many early human ancestor fossils have been found.

Each white, round fossil turd, or coprolite, is roughly 0.8 inch (2 centimeters) across. They were found embedded in sediments 195,000 to 257,000 years old. Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9,000-year-old Chilean mummy. The sizes and shapes of the coprolites and their location suggest they came from brown hyenas, which still live in the region's caves today.

Backwell and her colleagues used tweezers to extract 40 fossilized hairs resembling glass needles from one of the hyena coprolites. Scanning-electron-microscope images revealed wavy bands of scales on the hairs—a pattern typical of modern primates, with human hair being the closest match.

_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
IYHY.com - Make It Mobile
http://www.iyhy.com/
Converts website to text-only

Zamzar
http://www.zamzar.com/
Free online file conversion

Font Generator
http://www.yourfonts.com/
Make your own handwriting fonts for free

OwnerIQ
http://owneriq.net/
Search for user manuals online

_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
How long is three shakes of a lamb's tail? Where can I get a lamb that's been calibrated against the international atomic clock?

_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important.
~ Lisa Hoffman

_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
Should you slurp when you eat your noodles?
Dining etiquette in Japan is tricky. It is considered extremely impolite to pour one's own drink when eating with others you pour your companion's drink and your companion pours yours. On the other hand, it is considered normal and nonoffensive to make loud slurping sounds when eating noodles in Japan.
Source: Arcamax Trivia

_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
At the end of a particularly severe winter, we removed the protective covers from our cabin cruiser and found that the weight of the snow had broken the windshield. I drove to the local glass shop, where I paid $110 for a replacement.
The owner asked if I'd like them to install it, but I said I could handle it myself.
I managed to climb up the ladder to the deck before dropping the glass. Sheepishly I returned to the shop. The owner showed no emotion as he cut the second glass.
When I saw another $110 charge, I said, "I thought I might get a break on the second piece of glass."
"I did give you a break," he replied.
"How so?" I asked.
"I didn't laugh, did I?" he answered.

That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.

Movie 2009.03.30 - Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Feel good comedy movie with a bit of everything for everyone. Some drama, a bit of action, a little romance, lots of fun. Hypoglycemic mall cop Paul Blart is ditched by his wife, so he devotes all his time to his security job and his daughter. He trains rookie Veck who later turns out to be a robbery gang leader. With his inside information about the workings of the shops, he instructs his gang to steal the credit card codes from the shops. With the whole mall locked down (a la Die Hard), it's up to Paul Blart to stop the bad guys.

Will Paul Blart be able to outsmart the robbers? Can he win back the respect of his daughter? Will he rescue the damsel in distress and win her affection? Will he pass out again (from lack of sugar) at the critical moment?

Movie 2009.03.29 - Knowing

Nicolas Cage in another thinking man's(?) movie. He comes across a piece of paper from 50 years ago with a long string of random numbers. One look at the sheet of paper and he figures out that they are actually dates of calamities and disasters, location in longitude and latitude and number of victims. The numbers eventually trail off, and he's convinced that it's the end of the world and everyone will be killed in a global catastrophe. With this conclusion, he goes off in search for the author's daughter, in hopes that that she might shed some light on the final prediction. He eventually locates the lady and her daughter, and was more convinced that the end is near. In the meantime, there are a group of mysterious characters stalking his son and the woman's daughter.

So the Sun is about to give off these giant solar flares that will kill off all living things on earth (even cockroaches). The solution? ALIENS! This bunch of aliens comes to Earth to pick up the boy and the girl (and some bunnies). Once the doomsday event is over, they'll bring back the pair to repopulate the world. (Note the reference to the rabbits.)

The movie is not too bad. Right amount of suspense and frights. The action sequences are pretty good, too. However, I think using aliens as a resolution is pretty lame.

Franchising & Business Opportunities Expo

Got some free tickets to the Franchising & Business Opportunities Expo at Sydney Exhibition Centre. Attendance was pretty good. Must be the global economic crisis. In these uncertain times, people are on the lookout for plan B. Oven cleaning, lawn moving, blind/curtain cleaning, coffee shop, vending machines, bookkeeping, cookies and ice cream, fruit juices, muffins, etc.

Sydney Ute Hire

Moving day today. Instead of trying to cram the bed(s) and mattresses and cabinet into the Zafira and making multiple trips, we decided to just rent a ute. You can normally rent one from most petrol stations. The one across the villa is charging $40 for a minimum of two hours. We went with that because of proximity. You write down your personal details and put up a bond just in case something happens to the ute. The clerk brings you to the ute, shows you that the tank is full, and makes a round of inspection with you. And off you go.

I thought of asking the guy if he can reduce the time/fee. Good thing I didn't, as two hours is just right. Loading up the ute already took almost an hour, not to mention the unloading part. Then there's the travel time from the petrol station to home to unit and back to the station. I returned the key, and the guy asked if I had refilled the tank. I go, Huh? Do I have to? It's just a few kilometers. Anyway, I filled up the tank, and paid for a few dollars worth of petrol to make the guy happy.

Movie 2009.03.20: Watchmen

I'm sure this is a very exciting movie for long-time Watchmen fans, but I have to say it doesn't do much for a newbie like me. I mean, I do get the story. I understand the inter-relationships among the superheroes and their complications, but that's just about it. Movie is set in an alternate USA, where superheroes and villains walk amongst the common people. Richard Nixon just won his 5th straight term in 1985, and he enacts the Keene Act, which outlawed superheroes forever.

So we have this group of superheroes called the Watchmen. They hang up their costumes and go about their normal lives. One night, Eddie Blade a.k.a. The Comedian gets killed by a mysterious character. Rorschach reckons somebody is out to get them, so he visits his old pals to investigate. To make a long story short, they eventually figured out that Ozymandias is behind all this. The world is on the brink of a nuclear war, and Ozymandias' master plan is to blow up major cities across the world and put the blame on Dr. Manhattan. Millions were killed, but hey, it actually worked. World leaders put aside their differences and goes on the hunt for Dr. Manhattan, who has since teleported to a different part of the universe.

Movie 2009.03.13 - Death Note

Premise sounds interesting, but the movie/plot is not well-developed. This is vigilantism - Japanese manga style. University student Light Yagami comes across a Death Note dropped by a shinigami called Ryuk. Light starts to discover the Death Note's special power. By writing a person's name in the notebook and describing how the person dies, the notebook will make it so. With the Death Note, Light starts his quest to rid Japan and the world of all crime and evil.

With so many sudden and unexplained deaths among criminals, the International Police Organization starts an investigation, with Light's father as lead. They also got this eccentric youngster called L to help them. With the investigators closing in, Kira (Light's pseudonym) starts killing them off one by one. He even killed off his own girlfriend in a elaborate setup to draw attention away from him. And cut. Time for a sequel.

Movie 2009.03.12 - Emmas Glück (a.k.a. Emma's Bliss)

The leading lady for this movie, Jördis Triebel, is being billed as Germany's Amelie, so the movie must be good, right? Not bad, but not what I expected. True, Emma lives in a pig farm, but you wouldn't expect Amelie to play with a cute pig, then slit its throat when it least expected it, would you?

Anyway, story is about Max, a used car salesman, who finds out he has terminal pancreatic cancer. He steals his boss' ill-gotten wealth and was caught red-handed. With his boss giving chase, Max intentionally drives the Jaguar off the road and crashes downhill. Emma hears the commotion, and saves Max from the wreckage. Seeing the huge pile of money, she takes it and burns the car. Love develops between the two, and even after Max finds out that Emma took the money, he later forgives her. Instead of using the money for his hospitalization, he uses it to pay off all her debts.

Fast forward to the last scene where Emma and Max are enjoying a nice day under a tree. She takes out the hidden knife, and you can guess the rest. I guess it's better to go quick and blissful, rather than slow and painful.

Movie 2009.03.10 - The Combination

Tonight is a toss-up between The Combination and Watchmen. I heard from the the news that The Combination was actually banned by Greater Union earlier after a wave of violence erupted among patrons during screenings at Parramatta and Liverpool. The Lebanese-Australian movie was shot in the western suburbs and talks about racism and violence among the white and Middle Eastern youth.

The moment we entered the cinema, a burly guy took a look at our tickets and escorted us to our seats. Neat - half the time our seats would usually be taken over by some other people. A group of rowdy ladies behind us were chatting up a couple of guys beside us. Apparently, they don't know each other, but they were still talking quite loudly that the burly guy had to tell them to pipe down. Funny, this never happens when I watch classical concerts at the Opera House.

Anyway, the movie revolves about Charlie and his life inside/outside school. To protect himself from bullies, he joins a group composed of Lebanese toughies and one Chinese student. The leader of the gang is a drug pusher and Charlie follows his lead for some easy money. When his brother John (who was just released from prison) finds out, he freaks out and flushes down the goods. Druglord Ibo roughs up Charlie and tells him to come up with the money, or else. To save his brother, John decides to go back to boxing and pays off Ibo - not before he insults him and his bodyguard first.

Happy ending? No. Ibo can't tolerate insubordination so he guns down Charlie. John packs heat to avenge his brother and defend the family honor. The mother and grandmother give their blessing, while his Aussie wife looks on incredulously. In the end, she knows he needs to do what he needs to do, so she lets him go. John find Ibo and punches him to a pulp to the delight of Ibo's neighbors (instead of shooting him). Let's just hope Ibo learns his lesson and moves to a different suburb.

Dinner is fried rice and deep fried flounder at Canton Noodle House.

House Wine

Discovered StripGenerator today. It's an online service and you use it to create comic strips. There are other comic-strip creators out there, like Bitstrips and stripcreator, but I like this one better. Simple and effective.

The Couch, the TV Stand, and the Not-So-TV Stand

Went to Parramatta to pick up the Freedom couch and the small TV stand. The couch was longer than I thought and the TV stand much heavier than I expected. Fortunately, we were able to cram the couch inside the Zafira. The frame was literally centimeters away from the headrest. No hard braking, please.

Had lunch at Se Joung (right outside Woolworths Campsie). Just the starters are enough to make me mildly full. The barbequed scotch fillet and chicken fillet are very good. Back at the unit, we set up the couch and TV stand we picked up earlier. Assembled the Besta TV stand, which is not going to be a TV stand.

Christening in Plumpton

Went to Plumpton for Lana's christening. WHQ is the official godmother, which makes me the unofficial godfather. The event is pretty low-key. Just the parents and Lana, the godparents (and their partners), and a couple of friends. And the officiating priest, of course.

Back at Ropes Crossing, the grandparents are still busy preparing the feast for the guests. I only sampled half of the foods on offer, and I got full already - fried spring rolls, crispy pata, fried chicken, fruit salad, puto, etc. Spend the rest of the afternoon talking with the hosts and watching Foxtel. People started leaving around 4pm, so we followed suit.

Dropped by Ikea to see what good stuff we could buy. Saw this nice walnut-effect Besta TV stand that WHQ liked. We won't be using it as a TV stand though. Since we're just a stone's throw from AS, we passed by Liberty Grove to give her a visit. Over fried spring rolls, we went through the musical program for the wedding and the married lives of some friends. It's true that marriage is not the answer. It's a question. And you'll probably find the rest of your life figuring out the answer. Some will think that they've learned their lesson, and that the second time around will be better. Maybe so, maybe not. Some might think that as long as the couple has a strong religious foundation, things will work themselves out in the long run. Maybe so, maybe not. As I always say, you never know a person until you've seen him/her angry.

Star City Trophies Lunch

Been a while since we went to Trophies Food Court for lunch. That's because it's been a while since GDG got a $50 voucher from Star City. He used to get a lot of vouchers from the establishment, but not anymore. Maybe he's not gambling as much.

We noticed that there's a promo ongoing called Cash Lab. Basically, you swipe your Total Rewards membership card at one of the promo kiosks to get a raffle ticket for the draw of the day. If you're lucky enough, you get an instant prize that you claim on stage. If you're feeling lucky, you can pull a lever for a chance to double your prize. My instant prize is a $10 free bet. A pull of the lever made it $20.

Today must be our lucky day. GDG forgot to bring his membership card, so the Trophies staff swiped her card when we placed our food order. Turns out the staff discount is 50%, so effectively we got all our food for half-price. We ordered BBQ pork, roast pork, fried pork chop noodle, Caesar's salad, Greek salad, spring rolls, and black forest cake for everyone. All for only $44 (at 50% off). We didn't even use up the voucher. Had to pack away the eight spring rolls because we're too full already.

Nybble Issue No. 208

N Y B B L E   M O N T H L Y   N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2009.03.02 Issue No. 208

Be very careful of what you write online. They say on the Internet, no one knows if you're a dog. Even if you're a dog, whatever you write or post is searchable and archived, and you never know if and when it'll come back to bite you. Heck, I search for my name, and a few posts that I made 10 years ago on a Linux sysadmin forum is still out there.

I was going through my blog stats and looking through the keywords that point to my blog. Mostly, it's my Xbox hacking guide, or the DIY Halloween costume, or the Singapore chicken rice recipe. Today I found a hit on my Fotoexpression article, coming from feblog.com. Fotoexpression is the name of the photography service that I'll be using soon, and feblog.com is their blog site. So apparently, these guys regularly trawl the Internet looking for references to their company.

Fortunately, I didn't write anything negative about them, or else who knows what might happen to my photos.

Like I said, be careful about what you write out there. All your posts are belong to us.

Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the bloggers about it. Thanks.

_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Cellular Army Attacks Cancer
* Wireless Internet using Visible Light
* Coffee Reduces Alzheimer's Risk
* Smallest Writing in History
* World's First Flying Car
* Cheap, Super Efficient Light LEDs
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh

_________CELLULAR ARMY ATTACKS CANCER_________
http://snipurl.com/cw676 [www_newscientist_com]

Implants that sit in the body and reprogram a person's immune cells could be used to treat a range of infectious diseases and even cancer. In a trial on mice with an aggressive melanoma that usually kills within 25 days, the new treatment saved 90% of the group.

Their breakthrough involves implanting cylinders of an FDA-approved biodegradable polymer into the body. The implants release a particular variety of the cell-signaling molecules called cytokines - a sort of molecular perfume that is irresistible to a certain kind of immune-system messenger cell. These dendritic cells are attracted into the pores of Mooney's implant, where they are exposed to antigens -the molecular signatures of the cancer, bacterium or virus being treated - and a danger-signal chemical derived from bacterial DNA. This alert signal makes the dendritic cells flee to the nearest lymph node, where they meet up with the immune system's "killer" T-cells and program them to hunt down the invading cells.

In tests, the researchers implanted cylinders with a diameter of 8.5 millimetres into mice and two weeks later injected the animals with highly aggressive melanoma cells. Mice implanted with 'blanks' - cylinders lacking any chemical additives - developed large tumours within 18 days and had to be euthanised. However, 90% of the mice given the full treatment were cured.

The team thinks modified versions of the material could be effective against a range of cancers and infectious diseases. These might also help reprogram the immune system to combat autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, caused by immune cells destroying insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

_________WIRELESS INTERNET USING VISIBLE LIGHT_________
http://snipurl.com/cw68a [www_sctimes_com]

Inventor John Pederson says visible-light embedded wireless data communication is the next step in the evolution of wireless communications, one that will expand the possibilities in phone and computer use. The connection provides Web access with almost no wiring, better security and with speeds more than eight times faster than cable.

Pederson is unveiling the technology on his 50th birthday at an invitation-only reception at Apollo High School. Pederson graduated from the school in 1977 and has tested some of his projects there. Pederson hopes this one takes off in the form of better cell phone and computer communications. Pederson said the opportunities are endless, and he probably hasn't even considered them all. It could provide real time Global Positioning System tracking to allow governments to inventory and track property. Cell phones and laptops could be used on airplanes because this wireless technology would not interfere with navigation systems. Because light does not travel through walls, cell phones and government and banking information would be more secure. Pederson said he already has spoken to federal Homeland Security officials about possible uses.

The LVX System, as it is called, requires just the plug-in for the box that catches the signal from the chip in the LED light and sends it into the computer. The box is slightly bigger than a deck of cards. To use the technology, cities and states would have to install LED lights with the specialized chips on poles along roadways. Companies that make phones and computers would have to buy the software the Pederson's company provides and install it in laptops. Cellular telephone makers would have to make phones designed to work with light LED lights.

_________COFFEE REDUCES ALZHEIMER'S RISK________
http://snipurl.com/cw6az [news_theage_com_au]

Middle-aged people who drink moderate amounts of coffee significantly reduce their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, a study by Finnish and Swedish researchers showed. The study, which was also conducted in cooperation with the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki, was based on repeated interviews with 1,409 people in Finland over more than two decades. They were first asked about their coffee-drinking habits when they were in their 50s and their memory functions were tested again in 1998, when they were between 65 and 79 years of age. A total of 61 people had by then developed dementia, 48 of whom had Alzheimer's, the researchers said.

It's unclear how moderate coffee drinking helped delay or avoid the onset of dementia, but coffee is known to contain strong antioxidants, which are known to counter Alzheimer's. Some studies have also shown that coffee helps protects the nerve system, which can also protect against dementia. The research showed "insignificant" benefits to drinking more than five cups of coffee a day when it came to protecting against dementia.

_________SMALLEST WRITING IN HISTORY_________
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2009/january28/small-012809.html

Stanford researchers have reclaimed bragging rights for creating the world's smallest writing, a distinction the university first gained in 1985 and lost in 1990. The researchers encoded the letters "S" and "U" (as in Stanford University) within the interference patterns formed by quantum electron waves on the surface of a sliver of copper. The wave patterns even project a tiny hologram of the data, which can be viewed with a powerful microscope. How small is the writing? The letters in the words are assembled from subatomic sized bits as small as 0.3 nanometers, or roughly one third of a billionth of a meter.

Working in a vibration-proof basement lab in the Varian Physics Building, Manoharan and Moon began their writing project with a scanning tunneling microscope, a device that not only sees objects at a very small scale but also can be used to move around individual atoms. The Stanford team used it to drag single carbon monoxide molecules into a desired pattern on a copper chip the size of a fingernail. By altering the arrangement of the molecules, the researchers can create different waveforms, effectively encoding information for later retrieval (using electronic quantum holography).

The true significance of the work lies in storing more information in less space. The assumption has been that basically the ultimate limit is when one atom represents one bit, and then there's no more room—in other words, that it's impossible to scale down below the level of atoms. In Stanford's experiment, the researchers have stored some 35 bits per electron to encode each letter. And they've written the letters so small that the bits that comprise them are subatomic in size. So one bit per atom is no longer the limit for information density.

_________CHEAP, SUPER-EFFICIENT LED LIGHTS_________
http://snipurl.com/cw6be [www_newscientist_com]

UK materials scientists have discovered a cheaper way to produce LED bulbs, which are three times as efficient as fluorescent lamps. Although the ultimate dominance of LED lights has long been predicted, the expense of the super-efficient technology has made the timescale uncertain.

Gallium nitride (GaN) LEDs have many advantages over compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and incandescent bulbs. They switch on instantly, with no gradual warm-up, and can burn for an average of 100,000 hours before they need replacing - 10 times as long as fluorescent lamps and some 130 times as long as an incandescent bulb. The cost of production has kept the LEDs far from homes and offices, however. Gallium nitride cannot be grown on silicon like other solid-state electronic components because it shrinks at twice the rate of silicon as it cools. Researchers from the University of Cambridge included layers of aluminium gallium nitride in their LED design. These layers shrink at a much slower rate during cooling and help to counteract the fast-shrinkage of pure gallium nitride.
A 15-centimetre silicon wafer costs just $15 and can accommodate 150,000 LEDs making the cost per unit tiny. That levels the playing field with CFLs, which many people only ever saw as a stopgap solution to the lighting problem. Researchers say LED bulbs based on this new material could be commercially available within five years.

_________WORLD'S FIRST FLYING CAR_________
http://snipurl.com/cw6c3 [business_timesonline_co_uk]

The world's first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air very soon. If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months' time. Its manufacturer says it is easy to keep and run since it uses normal unleaded fuel and will fit into a garage.

The Transition, developed by former Nasa engineers, is powered by the same 100bhp engine on the ground and in the air. Terrafugia claims it will be able to fly up to 500 miles on a single tank of petrol at a cruising speed of 115mph. Up to now, however, it has been tested only on roads at up to 90mph. The company had already received 40 orders, despite an expected retail price of $200,000 (£132,000). For an airplane that's very reasonable, but for a car that's very much at the high end.

There are still one or two drawbacks. Getting insurance may be a little tricky and finding somewhere to take off may not be straightforward: the only place in the US in which it is legal to take off from a road is Alaska.

_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
Usniff
http://usniff.com/
Torrent aggregator like Pizzatorrent and Speckly.

Torrent2exe
http://www.torrent2exe.com/
Convert your torrents into stand-alone exe files

LCD TV Buying Guide
http://www.lcdtvbuyingguide.com/

Plasma TV Buying Guide
http://www.plasmatvbuyingguide.com/

_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
If I follow the instructions on my toothpaste tube, which say "for best results squeeze tube from the bottom and flatten it as you go up," will this give me whiter teeth and fresher breath?

_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
If I know what love is, it is because of you.
~ Herman Hesse

_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
What part of your belt is a keeper?
The loop on a belt that holds the loose end is called a "keeper."
Source: Arcamax Trivia

_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
Three tourists climbed up the tower with London's Big Ben and decided to throw their watches off the top, run down the stairs and try to catch them before they hit the ground. The first tourist threw his watch but heard it crash before he had taken three steps. the second threw his watch and made only two steps before hearing his watch shatter. The third tourist threw his watch off the tower, went down the stairs, bought a snack at a shop up the street and walked slowly back to Big Ben in time to catch the watch." How did you do that?" asked one of his friends.

"My watch is 20 minutes slow."

That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.

Becoming One

Part two of the Becoming One marriage preparation course at St. Michael's Lane Cove. Unlike the Thursday night session which runs from 7pm to 10pm, this one's from 11am till 6pm. Lunch is not included. WHQ and I had to drive to the town centre to get our lunch.

Spent most of the day watching videos of real-life couples arguing, analyzing what they did wrong, and discussing how they can improve. Later in the afternoon, we had a lady talk to us about family planning, then a priest talk about the marriage sacrament.

Have to say I expected more from the course, considering the amount of money we paid, but it's not too bad. Learned a few important things on keeping a positive outlook, not jumping to conclusions, learning to empathize, focusing on the issue and not on the person, etc. Have to say I now know a lot more about birth control methods.