Democrats are now more likely than Republicans to say the government is doing very or fairly well in reducing the threat of terrorism. Fully 84% of Democrats give the government positive ratings compared with 64% of Republicans.

During the Bush administration, the partisan gap was reversed. In February 2008, 84% of Republicans and 57% of Democrats expressed positive views of the government's anti-terror efforts; the partisan differences were even larger (46 points) in January 2007.

There also have been partisan shifts in other attitudes and perceptions related to terrorism. Currently, 50% of Republicans mostly credit luck, rather than effective government policies (37% of Republicans), for why there has not been another attack since 2001. Among Democrats, 44% say it is mostly because of government policies while about as many (35%) say it is because the country has been lucky so far.

In August 2006, a majority of Republicans (58%) said the United States had not suffered another terror attack mostly because of government policies, while 54% of Democrats said this was mostly because of luck.

Continued Positive Marks for Government Anti-Terror Efforts - Pew Research Center

This is a very entertaining analysis of 99 problems from a lawyer's perspective. The most abrasive observation (albeit correct) is this one:

Cops are trained to ask for consent, and almost everyone gives it. Consent is useful for them because voluntary consent renders moot any other problems that might arise with the search (for example, a later determination that the officer lacked probable cause). Furthermore, awareness of the right to refuse is not a prerequisite to a voluntary consent to search. A suspect who thinks he has no choice can nonetheless give voluntary consent as a matter of law.

The use of the word voluntary in the preceding sentence strains the language.

JAY-Z’S 99 PROBLEMS, VERSE 2: A CLOSE READING WITH FOURTH AMENDMENT GUIDANCE FOR COPS AND PERPS

Data compression reduces the number of bytes contained in a file or data stream by removing redundant information. CRIME forces a web browser to compress and encrypt requests that contain attacker-controlled data that is combined with the cookie secret. If one of the requests produces fewer encrypted network packets, that's an indication there's more redundancy in the request, and hence the attacker data and the secret data have more information in common. CRIME algorithms decrypt the session cookies by guessing their contents byte by byte. The attacks don't require any browser plugins, and the use of JavaScript isn't necessary, although it does make the brute-force attack faster.

Good observation!

Crack in Internet’s foundation of trust allows HTTPS session hijacking | Ars Technica

Right now, if the cops want to read my e-mail, it’s pretty trivial for them to do so. All they have to do is ask my online e-mail provider. But a new bill set to be introduced Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee by its chair, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), seems to stand the best chance of finally changing that situation and giving e-mail stored on remote servers the same privacy protections as e-mail stored on one's home computer.

Cops might finally need a warrant to read your Gmail | Ars Technica

The first time Peter Thiel spoke at YC he drew a Venn diagram that illustrates the situation perfectly. He drew two intersecting circles, one labelled "seems like a bad idea" and the other "is a good idea." The intersection is the sweet spot for startups.

Black Swan Farming

The paper is deliberately provocative and suggests not just that economic growth was a one-time thing centred on 1750-2050, but also that because there was no growth before 1750, there might conceivably be no growth after 2050 or 2100. The process of innovation may be battering its head against the wall of diminishing returns.

Is US economic growth over? | vox

This project was conceived from an interest in Radio Astronomy, Particle physics and a discussion at a Dorkbot Meeting about a number of different project ideas I've had. The one idea that seemed to strike the most interest was a Cosmic Ray Detector.

The main aim of these projects is to develop detectors that are easy to build, low cost (relativelly speaking) and has some kind of usable output to graph, visualise or sonify. Note that in many cases here I'll be using components and materials not necessarily the most ideal for the purpose, making use of what is available or what I can scrounge including surplus or hacked equipment.

Please note, this group of projects are not intended to achieve any significant scientific outcome, other than creating interesting displays that clearly demonstrate the harmless natural radiation and interstellar high energy particles that are around us and pass through us everyday.

They have really nice displays at CERN that show cosmic rays zapping across a TV sized screen. I thought it would make a really cool decoration but apparently they are difficult to construct.

Cosmic Ray Detector | Hardware Hacking

We shot the first Werner Brandes scene at a Chinese restaurant. I am on a date with Mary McDonnell’s character, Liz, who is secretly recording me, trying to get me to say several key words that will enable her team to disarm a voice-activated security system and break into my laboratory. Phil's first piece of direction to me was "Stephen, feel free to do anything you want to make Mary laugh." Dangerous words. It set the tone for the rest of the shoot. I played with my food. I made up lines (including one about pounding chicken breasts in the kitchen during our second date). I can't remember having so much fun on a movie.

Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Ben Kingsley, Dan Aykroyd: What it was like shooting the movie Sneakers. - Slate Magazine

The findings, which are the fruit of an immense federal project involving 440 scientists from 32 laboratories around the world, will have immediate applications for understanding how alterations in the non-gene parts of DNA contribute to human diseases, which may in turn lead to new drugs.

Way to go Dr. Nanochick!

Far From ‘Junk,’ DNA Dark Matter Proves Crucial to Health - NYTimes.com

A team of security researchers from Oxford, UC Berkeley, and the University of Geneva say that they were able to deduce digits of PIN numbers, birth months, areas of residence and other personal information by presenting 30 headset-wearing subjects with images of ATM machines, debit cards, maps, people, and random numbers in a series of experiments. The paper, titled “On the Feasibility of Side-Channel Attacks with Brain Computer Interfaces,” represents the first major attempt to uncover potential security risks in the use of the headsets.

Researchers Hack Brainwaves to Reveal PINs, Other Personal Data | Threat Level | Wired.com