Binary Oasis

I admit it: I’ve long been a skeptic of the idea of dark matter.  It has been my belief (not based on much data) that dark matter is used explain away inaccuracies in cosmological theories which might otherwise be flawed.  I have viewed it like Einstein’s famous fudge factor: namely, a concept that is created to lend support to an inaccurate idea.

Nevertheless, in spite of my historical leanings, I’m willing to believe what the data suggests.  It seems that the latest data gives the strongest support yet for the existence of dark matter.  I’ve read the technical paper, and while much of the content is not within my comprehension, it does appear that the authors are intellectually honest and that they have given reasonable thought to the question “In what cases could our results be inaccurate?”

Why do we need to throw in the concept of dark matter?  It seems that our models require additional mass in the universe to fit our astronomical measurements.

What is dark matter?  I really like wikipedia’s explanation: “…dark matter refers to matter that does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation (such as light, x-rays and so on) to be detected directly, but whose presence may be inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter.”  This takes out the lowest level debates of what dark matter is comprised of.  Is it similar to the matter that we experience everyday here on earth?  Is it instead comprised primarily of neutrinos?  I’ll leave this to the astronomers to decide.

It’s strangely comforting to know that dark matter can include things such as asteroids and planets.  For some reason that gives me confidence that it is not just an idea that exists solely in the minds of theoretical physicists and astronomers.

Here are some non-contiguous quotes from the NASA press article:

“Dark matter and normal matter have been wrenched apart by the tremendous collision of two large clusters of galaxies. The discovery, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes, gives direct evidence for the existence of dark matter.”

“”A universe that’s dominated by dark stuff seems preposterous, so we wanted to test whether there were any basic flaws in our thinking,” said Doug Clowe of the University of Arizona at Tucson, and leader of the study. “These results are direct proof that dark matter exists.”"

“The hot gas in this collision was slowed by a drag force, similar to air resistance. In contrast, the dark matter was not slowed by the impact, because it does not interact directly with itself or the gas except through gravity. This produced the separation of the dark and normal matter seen in the data. If hot gas was the most massive component in the clusters, as proposed by alternative gravity theories, such a separation would not have been seen. Instead, dark matter is required.”

Finally, Science Friday discussed the latest research with a more accessible (though quite short) discussion and introduction.

Craigslist has dealt with many scams over the years, but this is the first time that I can remember being targeted.  I’m advertising a house for rent in east Phoenix (Arcadia), and I received the following inquiry:

hello,

calvary greeting  to you and your family.my name is melissa williams.i  am interested in your room and willing to be a good  and very quiet house mate.get back to me asap.

regards,

melissa.

Seems innocent enough, though she apparently didn’t read my post carefully.  After repeating some information directly to her, I got this response:

hello joel,
 thanks for your prompt response,i really
appreciate
your concern about me.

i would like to ask you some questions?

1,how big is the room?

2,is it very close to transport ?

3,hope its well furnished ?

however i will like to know
 the deposits and other utilities fee.moreso,i am
 from england,but currently based in west africa
 now
 with my mom because she works for a missionary
 school and she is posted down here,i want to move
 over to the US,Kindly get back to me ASAP with the
 deposit i need to pay because i will like to pay
 for
 the deposit before my arrival and i will like to
 year but i will like to pay the deposit first of
 all, have finished with my masters programme.I do
design visuals and i have job offers already in
 the
 US,I have my masters degree in accounting.My job
 will be based on contracts so i do not have to go
 to
 times in a week.hope you have a good day.
 .Please kindly get back to me ASAP.Hope to hear
from
 you soon.
 
melissa.

Okay, it’s a just a little odd.  I replied with some information the expected deposits.  She responded:

 hello joel,

how are you and your family?hope fine .thanks for your prompt response,i
really
 appreciate your mail and for being concerned about
 me.however i will like to inform you that i m
 willing to pay the deposit and also will asure you
 that i will take good care of the room .i have jobs
 at stake for me once i come over to the US these
 jobs are based on visual designs ,.I am ready to
 pay $1500 down as deposit to reserve the house,I
 appreciate the efforts you have made and also the
 explanation you have given.I will be arriving in the
 next two weeks,but i will let you know my exact move
 in date as soon as you recieve the deposit.I will
 like to pay the deposit because that really shows
 that i am serious about this and its secures the
 room.As regards payment my mom has a client in the
 US that owes her some money,so he will be making out
 a Check out in your name and as soon as the check
 gets to you take it to your bank or as soon as you
 cash the money orders, then i will move over and
 then hand over the remaining
 balance of the lease to you once i come over to
 meet you in person,i am always online which you can
 as well set up a yahoo messenger its free , you can
 add me to your messanger list if ,well i need the
 name as you want it to appear on the money orders
 and also the address to send the money orders to,I
would require your contact telephone number as
 well..I will expect your immediate reply.have a lovely day.
 Regards
melissa.

Now that sounded a bit suspicious to me.  I now did what I think everyone should do when confronted with an email or webpage that sounds a bit odd: I did an keyword search.

I picked out a string of 8 to 10 words in her latest email and then submitted it to Google, surrounding the entire set of words with quotes.  Sure enough, I got two hits.  Both were entries basically just like this one, though neither gave me the closure to know what the scam was.  I’m curious to know how the scam would play out, though not curious enough to lead on the scammer.  I didn’t reply, and I haven’t heard back from “Melissa.”

It’s tough these days being smart about passwords.  Most people end up using the same weak password across multiple accounts.  How can we be smarter?

• Use a strong password: Use uppercase letter, symbols, and letters in your password.
• Use different passwords at different websites: Sure, this is difficult to manage, but it is probably worthwhile provided that you have a record of the passwords.  If you do keep an electronic or paper record of your different passwords, it would be best to have them encrypted (or use a simple code if they are on paper).
• Understand that your passwords may not be encrypted on certain websites: Here’s where the industry (including the free software community) should improve.  It is almost a certainty that many of your passwords are available to webmasters on the internet servers that you access.  Keep that in mind the next time that you use the same username and password for both your bank account and your local book club’s website.

If you just signed up for hosting with GoDaddy.com, you might see this error when you try to set up the hosting account and match it with your domain name: “Please enter a valid account password. See context help for details.”  The issue?  Changes are good that you didn’t use a strong password as they define it:

Must be 7-14 characters in length.
Must contain at least one lowercase letter.
Must contain at least one uppercase letter.
Must contain at least one number.
Cannot begin with a number or symbol.
Cannot contain backslashes, colons, single quotes, double quotes, spaces, or the caret symbol (^).
Cannot contain your username.

Double-check to see if your password meets these criteria and try again.  Note in particular the somewhat odd rule for an uppercase letter.  Note also that you don’t need any special characters (which some system administrators require for a truly “strong” password).