Alabama vs. Notre Dame. The BCS championship game couldn't get much bigger.
The Crimson Tide locked up a spot in the title game in Miami on Jan. 7 with a 32-28 victory over Georgia for the Southeastern Conference championship Saturday.
Sunday's selection show is just a formality.
The hype can begin now for what could be the most-watched BCS title game since the system was implemented in 1998. It'd be hard to find two more popular programs and a more enticing matchup.
The top-ranked Fighting Irish (12-0) have won eight AP national titles ? matching Alabama for the most ? but none since 1988. They'll be playing in their first BCS championship game.
Alabama (12-1) is making its third BCS title game appearance in four years. The Crimson Tide is trying to become the first team to win back-to-back BCS titles, and three in four years.
"We created a great opportunity for ourselves," Alabama coach Nick Saban said after his Tide beat the Bulldogs at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
The Irish and Tide have played six times, though not since 1987. Notre Dame is 5-1 against 'Bama, including a 24-23 victory in the Sugar Bowl in 1973 that gave the Irish a national championship. They also played in the Orange Bowl in 1975, and the Irish won 13-11.
The buildup for this one, however, will be unmatched.
"I'm pretty sure it gets the old-heads excited, people that are in their 50s and 60s," Alabama linebacker C.J. Mosley told The Chicago Tribune. "It's going to be a historic game."
A return to glory for Brian Kelly's Fighting Irish or a dynasty for Saban's Tide? Seven straight BCS titles for the SEC or the end of a 23-year national championship drought for Notre Dame?
There will no doubt be plenty of people tuning in to find out.
The highest rated BCS championship game was Southern California, going for three straight national titles and back-to-back BCS championships, against Texas in 2006 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. That game drew a 21.7 Nielsen rating.
Alabama's BCS title win over Texas in 2010 drew a 17.17 rating, a close third behind the 17.4 Florida-Ohio State drew in 2007.
Considering Notre Dame's regular-season finale against USC had a 10.3 rating, higher than any of the BCS bowls last season other than the championship game, it's a safe to say this year's championship game has a chance to blow by the record.
The rest of the BCS lineup also fell into place on championship weekend.
No. 7 Kansas State took the Big 12's BCS bid with a 42-24 victory at home against Texas. Collin Klein ran for two touchdowns and threw for another, making a final case for the Heisman Trophy.
The Wildcats are headed to the Fiesta Bowl, and Oklahoma could give the Big 12 two BCS teams.
Earlier Saturday, the No. 12 Sooners won 24-17 at TCU to finish the regular season 10-2 and share the Big 12 title.
On Friday night, Stanford grabbed a spot in the Rose Bowl and the chances for a BCS buster decreased.
Northern Illinois' 44-37 victory in double overtime against Kent State on Friday night gave the Huskies the Mid-American Conference title, and ended the Golden Flashes' BCS hopes.
Kent State needed to move up one spot in the BCS standings to No. 16 to earn an automatic bid. Northern Illinois came into the weekend 21st in the standings. The Huskies have a chance to get into the top 16 and into the BCS, too ? but it will be tough.
Boise State is shooting to be a BCS buster again as well. The Broncos beat Nevada 27-21 to earn a share of the Mountain West title. The Broncos, who were 20th in the BCS standings, would need to break into the top 16 and finish ahead of the MAC champs.
The chances for a BCS buster improved thanks to Wisconsin, which pounded No. 14 Nebraska 70-31 in the Big Ten championship game Saturday night. The Badgers will go to the Rose Bowl for the third straight season, and the Cornhuskers, 12th in the previous BCS standings, might be in store for a long fall. That could boost the chances of Northern Illinois or Boise State.
If there is no BCS buster bid, the Sooners (10-2) look like a logical choice to be given an at-large bid. No. 15 Clemson (10-2) could also be in the mix for an at-large bid.
Oregon (11-1) and Florida (11-1) are locks to be at-large selections.
No. 13 Florida State is headed to the Orange Bowl after beating Georgia Tech 21-15 in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game.
Louisville earned the Big East's BCS bid by beating Rutgers on Thursday night, 20-17.
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BCS projections
Championship game: Notre Dame vs. Alabama.
Rose Bowl: Wisconsin vs. Stanford.
Sugar Bowl: Florida vs. Oklahoma.
Orange Bowl: Florida State vs. Louisville.
Fiesta Bowl: Kansas State vs. Oregon.
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Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphdrussoap
ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2012) ? Cyber attacks that have long caused major work disruption and theft of private information are becoming more sophisticated with prolonged attacks perpetrated by organized groups. In September 2012, Bank of America, Citibank, the New York Stock Exchange, and other financial institutions were targets of attacks for more than five weeks. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned that the United States was facing the possibility of a "cyber-Pearl Harbor" and was increasingly vulnerable to foreign computer hackers who could disrupt the government, utility, transportation, and financial networks.
Key to protecting online operations is a high degree of "cyber security awareness," according to human factors/ergonomics researchers Varun Dutt, Young-Suk Ahn, and Cleotilde Gonzalez. In their Human Factors article, "Cyber Situation Awareness: Modeling Detection of Cyber Attacks With Instance-Based Learning Theory," they developed a computer model that presented 500 simulated cyber attack scenarios to gauge simulated network security analysts' ability to detect attacks characterized as either "impatient" (the threat occurs early in the attack) or "patient" (the threat comes later in the attack and is not detected promptly). Their model was able to predict the detection rates of security analysts by varying the analysts' degree of experience and risk tolerance as well as an attacker's strategy (impatient or patient attack).
The authors found that experienced, risk-averse analysts were less accurate at detecting threats in patient than in impatient attacks. "In a patient attack, when the attacker waits until the end to generate threats, the experiences in the analyst's memory that indicate an attack" are not as readily retrieved, says Dutt, which "makes it difficult to correctly detect patient attacks."
"Application of our results include the design of training tools that increase competency and the development of decision-support tools that improve defenders' on-the-job performance in detecting cyber attacks." The authors suggest that employers evaluate an analysts' risk tolerance before employment and/or manipulate tolerance levels during training to better identify threats.
As cyber warfare strategies and tactics evolve, the authors plan to further investigate the trend of drawn-out attacks and new intrusion detection software.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
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Journal Reference:
V. Dutt, Y.-S. Ahn, C. Gonzalez. Cyber Situation Awareness: Modeling Detection of Cyber Attacks With Instance-Based Learning Theory. Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2012; DOI: 10.1177/0018720812464045
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PAULSBORO, N.J. (AP) ? A signal may have been malfunctioning on a southern New Jersey bridge where a train derailed, causing a hazardous chemical to spew into the air and leading to health problems, evacuations, tricky cleanup decisions and broader questions about the condition of railway infrastructure.
The crew on the train told investigators that when they approached the bridge before 7 a.m. Friday, the signal light was red, telling them not to cross, National Transportation Safety Board chairman Deborah Hersman said Saturday. The crew found it unusual to get a red light at that hour of the day, she said.
They used a radio signal to try to change the signal to green, but it did not work, Hersman said. She said the conductor got off the train and inspected the aging bridge. When it appeared to be OK, she said, the engineer called for ? and received ? permission from a dispatcher to go through the red light and cross the bridge.
Only the two locomotives and the first five cars on the southbound train got across the bridge before seven cars derailed. Hersman said the engine was moving 8 mph before the accident ? under the 10 mph speed limit.
Hersman said investigators were trying to determine whether other train crews had had the same signal issue lately and whether the signal problems had anything to do with the accident.
Four of the derailed cars, including three that ended up partially in Mantua Creek, contained vinyl chloride, an ingredient in the common plastic PVC. A gas, vinyl chloride can induce respiratory problems, dizziness and other health effects after short-term exposure ? and liver problems and other complications after high levels of exposure over time.
The accident ripped a hole inside one of the tankers, causing the gas to escape.
More than 70 people went to an emergency room Friday, none of them with life-threatening injuries.
A handful of nearby homes were evacuated briefly Friday, but residents were allowed to return hours later after some of the chemical dissipated into the air and the rest turned into a solid and settled back into the tanker.
Friday evening, however, residents in an area of about 12 blocks were ordered evacuated.
State Assemblyman John Burzichelli, a former Paulsboro mayor serving as an emergency management spokesman, said the chemical levels spiked as the temperatures dropped and the breeze died down Friday evening so that gas escaping the tanker lingered nearby longer.
Conrail, the owner of the tracks, put up residents in 106 hotel rooms Friday night.
Residents said they were told to be ready to stay away from their homes for three days, and possibly longer.
Some said they had tough nights away from pets, who were taken to an animal shelter. Others were frustrated with the late call to get out and not having much time to pack.
"We were not told until they knocked on our door," said Diamond Veney, who was holding her sleeping 1-year-old son, Tamir.
She said her family was given just 30 minutes to get out Friday evening.
Many of the displaced residents were being moved from hotel to hotel on Saturday. For some, the shift meant heading to a place that accepts pets.
On Saturday, crews moved some of the train cars around and brought in empty tankers to be used to store vinyl chlorine.
The NTSB's Hersman said investigators normally spend about a week documenting sites of accidents like this one. But she said it could take longer in this case because they will not go back to the site until it's declared safe. It was not clear when that may happen.
In the meantime, she said, NTSB staff was focusing on reviewing records, interviewing witnesses and other tasks that do not require being on site. She said the board is also pursuing details of how the bridge was rebuilt after a coal train derailed there in 2009.
Hersman also said investigators wanted to learn if the tidal surge from Superstorm Sandy may have caused problems at the bridge. Though it's in one of the parts of New Jersey least impacted by the storm, she said there may have been an effect.
Officials, meanwhile, were still considering how and when to move the remaining chemical from the ruptured car.
Even without all details of the accident determined, New Jersey state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat whose district includes Paulsboro, said it pointed to a bigger problem: An aging railroad infrastructure.
He said the 200-foot span at the center of this derailment originally went up in 1873. He said that accidents can happen anywhere, but "you have to make sure, at least, the infrastructure is as safe as it could be."
He said that because federal regulators oversee most freight rail issues, it's up to the federal government to push for, and perhaps pay for, upgrades.
Recent state and federal funding commitments totaling $28 million to improve rail infrastructure have not included the Paulsboro bridge, he said.
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Follow Mulvihill at http://www.twitter.com/geoffmulvihill
We are very proud to announce that MoMA has acquired a selection of 14 video games, the seedbed for an initial wish list of about 40 to be acquired in the near future, as well as for a new category of artworks in MoMA?s collection that we hope will grow in the future. This initial group, which we will install for your delight in the Museum?s Philip Johnson Galleries in March 2013, features:
Over the next few years, we would like to complete this initial selection with Spacewar! (1962), an assortment of games for the Magnavox Odyssey console (1972), Pong (1972), Snake (originally designed in the 1970s; Nokia phone version dates from 1997), Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), Zork (1979), Tempest (1981), Donkey Kong (1981), Yars? Revenge (1982), M.U.L.E. (1983), Core War (1984), Marble Madness (1984), Super Mario Bros. (1985), The Legend of Zelda (1986), NetHack (1987), Street Fighter II (1991), Chrono Trigger (1995), Super Mario 64 (1996), Grim Fandango (1998), Animal Crossing (2001), and Minecraft (2011).
Are video games art? They sure are, but they are also design, and a design approach is what we chose for this new foray into this universe. The games are selected as outstanding examples of interaction design?a field that MoMA has already explored and collected extensively, and one of the most important and oft-discussed expressions of contemporary design creativity. Our criteria, therefore, emphasize not only the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, but also the many other aspects?from the elegance of the code to the design of the player?s behavior?that pertain to interaction design. In order to develop an even stronger curatorial stance, over the past year and a half we have sought the advice of scholars, digital conservation and legal experts, historians, and critics, all of whom helped us refine not only the criteria and the wish list, but also the issues of acquisition, display, and conservation of digital artifacts that are made even more complex by the games? interactive nature. This acquisition allows the Museum to study, preserve, and exhibit video games as part of its Architecture and Design collection.
As with all other design objects in MoMA?s collection, from posters to chairs to cars to fonts, curators seek a combination of historical and cultural relevance, aesthetic expression, functional and structural soundness, innovative approaches to technology and behavior, and a successful synthesis of materials and techniques in achieving the goal set by the initial program. This is as true for a stool or a helicopter as it is for an interface or a video game, in which the programming language takes the place of the wood or plastics, and the quality of the interaction translates in the digital world what the synthesis of form and function represent in the physical one. Because of the tight filter we apply to any category of objects in MoMA?s collection, our selection does not include some immensely popular video games that might have seemed like no-brainers to video game historians.
Tetris. 1984. Alexey Pajitnov
Among the central interaction design traits that we have privileged are:
Behavior The scenarios, rules, stimuli, incentives, and narratives envisioned by the designers come alive in the behaviors they encourage and elicit from the players, whether individual or social. A purposefully designed video game can be used to train and educate, to induce emotions, to test new experiences, or to question the way things are and envision how they might be. Game controllers are extensions and enablers of behaviors, providing in some cases (i.e. Marble Madness) an uncanny level of tactility.
Aesthetics Visual intention is an important consideration, especially when it comes to the selection of design for an art museum collection. As in other forms of design, formal elegance has different manifestations that vary according to the technology available. The dry and pixilated grace of early games like M.U.L.E. and Tempest can thus be compared to the fluid seamlessness of flOw and vib-ribbon. Just like in the real world, particularly inventive and innovative designers have excelled at using technology?s limitations to enhance a game?s identity?for instance in Yars? Revenge.
Space The space in which the game exists and evolves?built with code rather than brick and mortar?is an architecture that is planned, designed, and constructed according to a precise program, sometimes pushing technology to its limits in order to create brand new degrees of expressive and spatial freedom. As in reality, this space can be occupied individually or in groups. Unlike physical constructs, however, video games can defy spatial logic and gravity, and provide brand new experiences like teleportation and ubiquity.
Time How long is the experience? Is it a quick five minutes, as in Passage? Or will it entail several painstaking years of bliss, as in Dwarf Fortress? And whose time is it anyway, the real world?s or the game?s own, as in Animal Crossing? Interaction design is quintessentially dynamic, and the way in which the dimension of time is expressed and?incorporated?into the game?through linear or multi-level progressions, burning time crushing obstacles and seeking rewards and goals, or simply wasting it?is a crucial design choice.
flOw. 2006. Jenova Chen and Nick Clark of thatgamecompany
After which (games), came what?what is a museum to acquire? Working with MoMA?s digital conservation team on a protocol, we have determined that the?first step is to obtain copies of the games? original?software format?(e.g. cartridges or discs) and hardware?(e.g. consoles or computers) whenever possible. In order to be able to preserve the games, we should always try to acquire the?source code in the language in which it was written, so as to be able to translate it in the future, should the original technology become obsolete. This is not an easy feat, though many companies may already have emulations or other digital assets for both display and archival purposes, which we should also acquire. In addition, we request any corroborating technical documentation, and possibly an annotated report of the code by the original designer or programmer. Writing code is a creative and personal process. Interviewing the designers at the time of acquisition and asking for comments and notes on their work makes preservation and future emulation easier, and also helps with exhibition content and future research in this field. Last, but not least, we work out the complex?rights situation?MoMA?s General Counsel is in deep negotiations with the publishers.
SimCity 2000. 1994. Will Wright for Maxis, now part of Electronic Arts, Inc
Of course, what we acquire depends on each game, how it is best represented, and how it will be shown in the galleries. If the duration of the game is short enough, the game itself could be made playable in its entirety. For instance, visitors were able to play Passage in its entirety in MoMA?s Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects?exhibition not only because it took a mere five minutes, but also because the narrative and message of the game required the player to engage with it for the full length.
For games that take longer to play, but still require interaction for full appreciation, an interactive demonstration, in which the game can be played for a limited amount of time, will be the answer. In concert with programmers and designers, we will devise a way to play a game for a limited time and enable visitors to experience the game firsthand, without frustrations.
With older games for which the original cartridges may be too fragile or hard to find, we will offer an interactive emulation?a programmer will translate the original code, which was designed for a specific platform, into new code that will create the same effect on a newer computer.
In other cases, when the game is too complex or too time consuming to be experienced as an interactive display in the galleries, we will create a video akin to a demo, in which the concept and characters of the game are laid out.
Finally, some of the games we have acquired (for instance Dwarf Fortress and EVE Online) take years and millions of people to manifest fully. To convey their experience, we will work with players and designers to create guided tours of these alternate worlds, so the visitor can begin to appreciate the extent and possibilities of the complex gameplay.
The team behind this acquisition stars MoMA Architecture and Design insiders Kate Carmody and Paul Galloway, but in preparing this research we have sought the advice of numerous people. We could not have done it without their contributions, and thank them wholeheartedly for their generosity, enthusiasm, and time. We will distinguish between RL (you know it, Real Life) and ML (MoMA Life). RL: Jamin Warren and Ryan Kuo of Kill Screen?magazine; design philosopher and game author extraordinaire Kevin Slavin; and Chris Romero of the graduate program in museum studies at New York University. ML: Natalia Calvocoressi, Juliet Kinchin, Aidan O?Connor, and Mia Curran in Architecture and Design; in Graphics, Samuel Sherman; in Audio Visual, Aaron Louis, Mike Gibbons, Lucas Gonzalez, Aaron Harrow and Bjorn Quenemoen; in Information Technology, Matias Pacheco, Ryan Correira, and David Garfinkel; in Digital Media, Allegra Burnette, Shannon Darrough, David Hart, John Halderman, Spencer Kiser, and Dan Phiffer; in Conservation, Glenn Wharton and Peter Oleksik; in General Counsel, Henry Lanman; in Drawings, Christian Rattemeyer; at MoMA PS1, Peter Eleey; in Film, Rajendra Roy, Laurence Kardish, and Josh Siegel; in Media and Performance Art, Barbara London; and in Education, Calder Zwicky.??
We also extend our great thanks to the game companies and designers who donated these important works to MoMA. Without their brave, forward-thinking participation, this project would not have been possible. A great thank you to Tarn Adams, CCP, ?ric Chahi, Cyan Worlds, Electronic Arts, NAMCO BANDAI, NanaOn-Sha, Jason Rohrer, Adam Saltsman, Sony Computer Entertainment, The Tetris Company, thatgamecompany, Valve, and Will Wright.?
Myst. 1993. Rand Miller and Robyn Miller of Cyan Worlds
OS X: Soulver is an awesome calculator app that lets you write out your math problem with words, list, and other real language to get a real, useful answer without confusing equations.
We've talked about Soulver once before, and it really is a cool way to solve real life math problems that require lists, real units of measurement, and other elements in English that you don't want to forget. It's usually $20, but this weekend it's on sale for 50% off. So, if you've been looking for an easier calculator to help you solve real life problems, now's a good time to check it out (and if you're on Windows, check out OpalCalc for something similar).
OS X: Soulver is an awesome calculator app that lets you write out your math problem with words, list, and other real language to get a real, useful answer without confusing equations.