bzip is better than gzip if space is at a premium. There are even multi-core versions of bzip2 that are very efficient. You could also look at p7zip. If you want a really efficient compressor, try nanozip as well, although its page says it is still experimental, but it seems to be at the top of several compression benchmarks.
You have to think brand name, NASA as a brand is a big plus. They could initially have just the space-food, then they could branch out to camping food as well, where they could basically sell the food you are used to, but with the NASA brand, they would probably make more money.
The only down side I can see is that many would object to the federal government going into business, and competing against private companies. So what they could do instead is to license the NASA brand. I'm sure NASA could make some money off of this. It might reduce our taxes (although minimally). I think licensing a brand like NASA is akin to other licensing agreements the feds are already doing. As long as they don't dilute the brand, or put it on bad products, we may as well make some money off of it as it is a national resource.
"Mario's Tennis (, Mariozu Tenisu?) is a game for Nintendo's Virtual Boy video game console."
The Virtual Boy video game console provided true 3D display for its games, although in monochrome. It did not require glasses either. It had two displays one for each eye, and you had to look through a neoprene coated eyepiece to see the displays. It didn't do very well, so is not well-known. It was one of the few flops for Nintendo.
I went one better, I used a telescope to burn all sorts of things. It has a somewhat adjustable focus by using different eye pieces, and I could burn wood, and paper, and many other things on a sunny day. The telescope was readily available, so I didn't need to build anything. It was only a 2" refractor, but had plenty of power, much more than a magnifying glass, with a MUCH sharper focus. I did manage to melt metal with it as well.
I always meant to revisit these experiments with something like a 10" or larger scope. I would imagine some really high temperatures would be possible, the optics count for a lot in efficiency.
Many times the reason for a rejection of a paper like this is failure to properly control for possible anomalous conditions. If you don't have an explanation, the minimum you should do is to control for every possible other explanation. If you haven't fully tested whether the phenomenon you observe might be due to something else, then a reviewer must reject the paper.
It is equivalent to the famous Sherlock Holmes quote, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
If you haven't eliminated the impossible, you can't conclude you have found improbable physics.
Plan 1: Hack into google cloud or some other easier to hack supercomputer, or your own botnet, use that to crack credit card or bank security ==> Free money!
Plan 2: Use cheap cloud computing as your own supercomputer. If you can get $1000s for $1s it is a win for a criminal.
I know of someone who has already used cloud computing to crack wireless security for about $1 just as a proof of concept. Computing as a commodity is here, and decreasing in price, and available to all.
I know of CS programs still in the Math department today, also some in the college of business. Here at Ohio University in 1996 CS moved from Arts and Sciences to Engineering. At the time, the degree was very much still aligned to Math which it grew out of. Our university is now moving to semesters, and as part of the curriculum redesign we have moved to a curriculum much more like engineering than A&S. We still have a large math component. It is possible for our students to get a minor in math with just a couple of more math classes than we require for CS.
APL was awesome! I wrote more write-only code in APL when working for IBM than I have ever since. IBM machines had APL keyboards which worked just fine:). Seriously, APL is great for many mathematical/matrix related purposes.
That's exactly what I was thinking, Venus probes are notoriously hard to cool. Also, solar explorers, or anywhere else in the solar system where there is high heat, would be good targets for high temp electronics. With some improvement on temp and longevity this might be just what is needed. The current record for Venus is 107 minutes.
I started programming in HP Basic around 1974. Line numbers, gosub, the whole bit. I taught myself how to program from the tutorial programs included with the language. TUT01,....
As I learned how to program I learned what not to do if you want to maintain your code. I learned how to program in blocks, subroutines, etc. virtually while still using BASIC as the tool. If you didn't learn how to be systematic in your coding, you would never be able to build large programs in BASIC. By large programs I mean 1000's to 10's of thousands of lines of code. (I wrote two large programs during this time in BASIC, a chess program and a FORTRAN emulator to do arbitrary precision arithmetic, which I wrote to be able to solve diff eq's to do solar system modeling among other things).
If I had written spaghetti code I never would've been able to debug these monsters. If you are a good programmer you build your own style and mechanisms to manage the complexity. When I went to college, I learned PASCAL, and then I ported my chess program to it in just a few weeks. I loved the structure, but also felt it straightjacketed me with some of its limitations.
Now, my favorite language is LISP, but I program more in C++ as it is the language most of the students I work with know. Over the years I've programmed in more languages than I can recall.
In looking at all the languages, each has its uses. Knowing many languages lets you think in more metaphors, and styles, so you can choose the best one for the problem you encounter. You can program horribly in any language, and you can code elegantly in any language. Learning how to think about how to solve problems logically, efficiently, and elegantly is the key to being a good programmer, not the particular language you are currently using.
In high school in 1974 our district (8 schools) used an HP access timesharing system. It ran the BASIC language. I was able to write a very short program that would cause the system to crash. Having discovered this bug in the system, I was able to bring down the entire district's computers at will. I had discovered this capability while exploring a new feature of BASIC. Fortunately for them, I was ethical and informed my teacher who at first didn't believe the exploit until I demonstrated it in front of her. We then contacted HP, gave them the code, and they came up with a patch within a couple of months. I'm not sure if anyone at HP can confirm this at this point.
I am sure that there are probably earlier exploits as well.
And as a side note, I was also a PLATO author in 1975 and greatly enjoyed working on that system.
The problem has been fixed, it was interference by some bolts.
"Late Saturday, the space station's commander, Jeffrey Williams, reported that bolts seemed to be causing the interference. He removed all eight bolts, saying the clearance would be tight but that the cover likely would fit. It did, with some coaxing Sunday."
My wife (she's an engineer, not quite a nerd), loves our roomba. I work in robotics, but she is much more into the roomba than I am. I guess it depends on the person.
Crashed on my mac:) In any case, when emacs crashed for me it was well below the available memory limits on my machine. Not sure why it crashed though.
I entirely disagree, depending on your definition of "smart." A program can be "smarter" than its smartest programmer in a particular field. For example, I can program a computer to play chess better than I can. I can program a computer to solve algebraic and calculus problems I'd never be able to tackle, and I am a good mathematician. I can foresee a program that can drive a car better than I can (smoother, fewer accidents, better gas mileage, etc.). Already there are programs that fly airplanes as good or better than fallible human pilots, or their programmers (who may not be able to fly at all). There are even adaptive algorithms that can cope with the loss of part of a wing, an engine, etc. very well (> human performance).
Even early AI showed that a program could diagnose diseases better than any given physician.
All of these are examples of programs "smarter" than their programmers. In the case of disease diagnosis, I doubt any of the programmers could do even a poor job at the task the program was good at.
What about hybrid cars, and electric vehicles? They have automatic transmission and achieve among the top fuel efficiencies. Would it even make sense for a prius to have a manual transmission?
Two books to look at Cormen et. al Intro to Algorithms, and Bentley's Programming Pearls. The second is more practical, the former is used in many CS Algorithms courses.
Slashdot Mirror
Emacs dired mode can delete any file.
Please get the name of the university correct.
bzip is better than gzip if space is at a premium. There are even multi-core versions of bzip2 that are very efficient. You could also look at p7zip. If you want a really efficient compressor, try nanozip as well, although its page says it is still experimental, but it seems to be at the top of several compression benchmarks.
You have to think brand name, NASA as a brand is a big plus. They could initially have just the space-food, then they could branch out to camping food as well, where they could basically sell the food you are used to, but with the NASA brand, they would probably make more money.
The only down side I can see is that many would object to the federal government going into business, and competing against private companies. So what they could do instead is to license the NASA brand. I'm sure NASA could make some money off of this. It might reduce our taxes (although minimally). I think licensing a brand like NASA is akin to other licensing agreements the feds are already doing. As long as they don't dilute the brand, or put it on bad products, we may as well make some money off of it as it is a national resource.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario's_Tennis
"Mario's Tennis (, Mariozu Tenisu?) is a game for Nintendo's Virtual Boy video game console."
The Virtual Boy video game console provided true 3D display for its games, although in monochrome. It did not require glasses either. It had two displays one for each eye, and you had to look through a neoprene coated eyepiece to see the displays. It didn't do very well, so is not well-known. It was one of the few flops for Nintendo.
I went one better, I used a telescope to burn all sorts of things. It has a somewhat adjustable focus by using different eye pieces, and I could burn wood, and paper, and many other things on a sunny day. The telescope was readily available, so I didn't need to build anything. It was only a 2" refractor, but had plenty of power, much more than a magnifying glass, with a MUCH sharper focus. I did manage to melt metal with it as well.
I always meant to revisit these experiments with something like a 10" or larger scope. I would imagine some really high temperatures would be possible, the optics count for a lot in efficiency.
Many times the reason for a rejection of a paper like this is failure to properly control for possible anomalous conditions. If you don't have an explanation, the minimum you should do is to control for every possible other explanation. If you haven't fully tested whether the phenomenon you observe might be due to something else, then a reviewer must reject the paper.
It is equivalent to the famous Sherlock Holmes quote, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
If you haven't eliminated the impossible, you can't conclude you have found improbable physics.
If you are a criminal:
Plan 1: Hack into google cloud or some other easier to hack supercomputer, or your own botnet, use that to crack credit card or bank security ==> Free money!
Plan 2: Use cheap cloud computing as your own supercomputer. If you can get $1000s for $1s it is a win for a criminal.
I know of someone who has already used cloud computing to crack wireless security for about $1 just as a proof of concept.
Computing as a commodity is here, and decreasing in price, and available to all.
Fusce google quis translate Latine loquuntur. Mathematics ut omnia faciliora.
Hint: translate.google.com
I know of CS programs still in the Math department today, also some in the college of business. Here at Ohio University in 1996 CS moved from Arts and Sciences to Engineering. At the time, the degree was very much still aligned to Math which it grew out of. Our university is now moving to semesters, and as part of the curriculum redesign we have moved to a curriculum much more like engineering than A&S. We still have a large math component. It is possible for our students to get a minor in math with just a couple of more math classes than we require for CS.
APL was awesome! I wrote more write-only code in APL when working for IBM than I have ever since. IBM machines had APL keyboards which worked just fine :). Seriously, APL is great for many mathematical/matrix related purposes.
That's exactly what I was thinking, Venus probes are notoriously hard to cool. Also, solar explorers, or anywhere else in the solar system where there is high heat, would be good targets for high temp electronics. With some improvement on temp and longevity this might be just what is needed. The current record for Venus is 107 minutes.
APNEWS has just posted an article saying Apple has reversed its decision on the censoring.
See: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20100615/D9GBTQFO3.html
I started programming in HP Basic around 1974. Line numbers, gosub, the whole bit. I taught myself how to program from the tutorial programs included with the language. TUT01, ....
As I learned how to program I learned what not to do if you want to maintain your code. I learned how to program in blocks, subroutines, etc. virtually while still using BASIC as the tool. If you didn't learn how to be systematic in your coding, you would never be able to build large programs in BASIC. By large programs I mean 1000's to 10's of thousands of lines of code. (I wrote two large programs during this time in BASIC, a chess program and a FORTRAN emulator to do arbitrary precision arithmetic, which I wrote to be able to solve diff eq's to do solar system modeling among other things).
If I had written spaghetti code I never would've been able to debug these monsters. If you are a good programmer you build your own style and mechanisms to manage the complexity. When I went to college, I learned PASCAL, and then I ported my chess program to it in just a few weeks. I loved the structure, but also felt it straightjacketed me with some of its limitations.
Now, my favorite language is LISP, but I program more in C++ as it is the language most of the students I work with know. Over the years I've programmed in more languages than I can recall.
In looking at all the languages, each has its uses. Knowing many languages lets you think in more metaphors, and styles, so you can choose the best one for the problem you encounter. You can program horribly in any language, and you can code elegantly in any language. Learning how to think about how to solve problems logically, efficiently, and elegantly is the key to being a good programmer, not the particular language you are currently using.
In high school in 1974 our district (8 schools) used an HP access timesharing system. It ran the BASIC language. I was able to write a very short program that would cause the system to crash. Having discovered this bug in the system, I was able to bring down the entire district's computers at will. I had discovered this capability while exploring a new feature of BASIC. Fortunately for them, I was ethical and informed my teacher who at first didn't believe the exploit until I demonstrated it in front of her. We then contacted HP, gave them the code, and they came up with a patch within a couple of months. I'm not sure if anyone at HP can confirm this at this point.
I am sure that there are probably earlier exploits as well.
And as a side note, I was also a PLATO author in 1975 and greatly enjoyed working on that system.
The problem has been fixed, it was interference by some bolts.
"Late Saturday, the space station's commander, Jeffrey Williams, reported that bolts seemed to be causing the interference. He removed all eight bolts, saying the clearance would be tight but that the cover likely would fit. It did, with some coaxing Sunday."
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20100214/D9DS3UOO1.html
Wouldn't that depend on what else you got with it? Perhaps a romantic getaway after you turn it on to clean while you are away?
I like gifts that go together to tell a story, or set a mood.
My wife (she's an engineer, not quite a nerd), loves our roomba. I work in robotics, but she is much more into the roomba than I am. I guess it depends on the person.
Perhaps I need to get an iPad to calculate this -- lol
Crashed on my mac :) In any case, when emacs crashed for me it was well below the available memory limits on my machine. Not sure why it crashed though.
I just tried calculating log(500!) and it crashed emacs! Arbitrary precision up to its internal limits.
There's a difference?
I entirely disagree, depending on your definition of "smart." A program can be "smarter" than its smartest programmer in a particular field. For example, I can program a computer to play chess better than I can. I can program a computer to solve algebraic and calculus problems I'd never be able to tackle, and I am a good mathematician. I can foresee a program that can drive a car better than I can (smoother, fewer accidents, better gas mileage, etc.). Already there are programs that fly airplanes as good or better than fallible human pilots, or their programmers (who may not be able to fly at all). There are even adaptive algorithms that can cope with the loss of part of a wing, an engine, etc. very well (> human performance).
Even early AI showed that a program could diagnose diseases better than any given physician.
All of these are examples of programs "smarter" than their programmers. In the case of disease diagnosis, I doubt any of the programmers could do even a poor job at the task the program was good at.
What about hybrid cars, and electric vehicles? They have automatic transmission and achieve among the top fuel efficiencies. Would it even make sense for a prius to have a manual transmission?
Two books to look at Cormen et. al Intro to Algorithms, and Bentley's Programming Pearls. The second is more practical, the former is used in many CS Algorithms courses.