[geeks] Interesting: hardware security token for PayPal

[wa2egp at att.net]

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at verizon.net>
>
> >From: "Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm at mendelson.com>
> >Date: 2007/04/04 Wed AM 10:50:38 CDT
> >To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
> >Subject: Re: [geeks] Interesting: hardware security token for PayPal
> 
> <snip>
> 
> >When he was in 7th grade, my son Paul did a sicence fair project, all by
> >himself, where he wrote a basic program to track the random number
> >generator in Microsoft basic. In order to finish it in reasonable time,
> >using a 12mHz 80286 PC he tracked three digits of significance. 
> >
> >He produced a nice set of posters showing his results, how quickly it 
> repeated
> >itself and so on. Since his project was not mentored (done by an adult),
> >it was not flashy and eye catching. Although similar work had recently 
> >been awarded a PhD. at MIT, in his elementry school, it did not even
> >receive an honerable mention.  
> 
> Yeah, but if your son used Powerpoint to develop the slides to explain his 
> presentation, the teachers would have been impressed ;^) (That is how it is 
> in NJ these days anyway... Seriously, why do we need to have projectors in 
> each classromm for grades 7 -> 12?)
> 
> Lionel

I just had to chuckle.  I've been involved in science fairs for years and,
unfortunately, the "flashiest" project wins (too many times) regardless of 
whether it's actually good science or not.  I remember one grammer school
project that was really well done but a total fabrication (the student
admitted to it the next year when she was attending my school).  Then again,
the judges are volunteers and you get what you pay for....

Bob