Sexy Jihad

Ramanujan noticed that whole numbers can be broken into sums of smaller numbers, called partitions. The number 4, for example, contains five partitions: 4, 3+1, 2+2, 1+1+2, and 1+1+1+1.

He further realised that curious patterns - called congruences - occurred for some numbers in that the number of partitions was divisible by 5, 7, and 11. For example, the number of partitions for any number ending in 4 or 9 is divisible by 5.

“But in some sense, no one understood why you could divide the partitions of 4 or 9 into five equal groups,” says George Andrews, a mathematician at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, US. That changed in the 1940s, when physicist Freeman Dyson discovered a rule, called a “rank”, explaining the congruences for 5 and 7. That set off a concerted search for a rule that covered 11 as well - a solution called the “crank” that Andrews and colleague Frank Garvan of the University of Florida, US, helped deduce in the 1980s.

A ridiculous situation. Excerpt:

Greek prison guards are to go on strike to demand a replacement of their antiquated American-made guns.
The weapons were used by the US Cavalry in 1911 and safety experts have advised that they should not be fired.
Prison staff are now concerned about security as inmates have become wise to the faulty arsenal […]

The BBC reports that the biggest robbery attempt to date has been foiled and someone has been arrested in Israel. Excerpt:
Police in London say they have foiled one of the biggest robbery attempts seen in Britain.
The plan was to steal £220m (($423m) from the London offices of the Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui.
Computer experts are believed […]

A cool paper on honynet.org about the current state of botnets. Excerpt:
Honeypots are a well known technique for discovering the tools, tactics, and motives of attackers. In this paper we look at a special kind of threat: the individuals and organizations who run botnets. A botnet is a network of compromised machines that can be […]

Someone has written a guide on how to connect an external hard disk to your iPod. Excerpt:
What is this about?
Ultimately, I’d like to get a regular 3.5″ hard drive working with the iPod and explore what capacities it can make use of. The fact that it would be a huge unit will simply be a […]

If you have an old portable phone collecting dust, don’t throw it away, as they’re now fetching big bucks:
Yuppies are getting their revenge with the “brick” mobile phones of the 80s becoming collectable investments.
These huge fledgling mobiles may be impractical but a wave of nostalgia for those bygone days of red braces is helping values […]

The Seattle Times has an interesting story on the rise and fall of InfoSpace, and how they were able to con people out of billions:
Five years ago this week, at the height of the dot-com stock frenzy, a young Bellevue company called InfoSpace was worth more than Boeing.
Wall Street analysts hailed the startup, which promised […]

It seems that Adidas are about to release a wicked set of shoes. These things have chip and electric motor inside of them to adapt the shoe to:

The terrain you’re running on
Your weight
Your running style

It seems that the chip reads all of this data 1000 times a second and then adjusts your shoe for optimum […]

Virgin Radio is about to be the first radio station to offer services over 3G phones:
UK broadcaster Virgin Radio says it will become the first station in the world to offer radio via 3G mobiles.
The radio station, in partnership with technology firm Sydus, will broadcast on selected 2G and high-speed 3G networks.
Later this year listeners […]

A student at some high school in Winchester (US), has been arrested for writing a story about zombies shooting up his school. Apperantly, according to the police, writing a story like this constitutes planning a terrorist act. Excerpt:
A George Rogers Clark High School junior arrested Tuesday for making terrorist threats told LEX 18 News Thursday […]