Archive for the ‘computer science’ Category
Social Networking Groups
July 12th, 2010
Google researcher Paul Adams posted a thoughtful presentation critiquing how social networking sites currently model relationships and groups. Executive-summary-summary: poorly.
Hatetris
April 11th, 2010
Hatetris: Like Tetris, but the game will always give you the worst possible piece. So, exactly like Tetris.
Content-Aware Fill
March 25th, 2010
I don’t know which dark god Adobe sold their collective souls to to make this work, but I think they got a good deal for them.
Unrelated P.S.: It looks like a team of researchers at Caltech just cured cancer. FYI.
On Finishing Books
March 16th, 2010
I just finished W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, which all things considered is a pretty good book, despite my occasional furious claims to the contrary.1 I started it sometime around October, read most of it, and then put it aside. I just finished the last hundred-odd pages a few minutes ago. This seems to be a pattern — I start a book really enthusiastically, then get a little bored or distracted and put it down for awhile. Eventually I get so tired of seeing it sitting in my queue, shamefully reminding me of my miniscule attention span, that I just plant myself down on the couch and force myself to finish it. The satisfaction of finishing the book outweighs the grueling completion process.
This isn’t usually the case, of course. Only for certain books. I’m pretty sure I’d hate reading if this was the normal situation.
Note that the concept of book-graphing has been explored before, which reminds me: I want the book equivalent of a pedometer, so I can settle this graph thing once and for all. Then I want to correlate information about the structure, genre and subject matter of the book with the pace at which I read it.
If I worked at Amazon, I would be spying on customers’ Kindle usage and mining that data so hard.
1 No chapters? Really? Why would you do that, Sebald? I demand discrete chunks.
Hoody-hoo!
March 11th, 2010
So apart from sheer laziness (and the fact that it’s spring break, so I’ve been reading like a book a day, which is awesome) there’s no particular reason that I haven’t been posting for the last couple weeks. I’ve intended to write some stuff about the ways in which English is different in Montreal, or about a certain Dutch artist that builds mechanical animals, and I’m still going to, but that’s kinda been overshadowed by the fact that I HAVE A FUTURE NOW SINCE I JUST GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL WOOOOO. Specifically, the MS in Computer Science at William & Mary. No news yet on funding/assistantships, though that should be coming in a few weeks, and I still need to wait for any other offers, but damn. Before long, one way or another, I’ll actually have a place in the fabric of society again.
Assuming they didn’t make some sort of clerical error; I’m sure I’ll be neurotically obsessing over that possibility for the next two years.
Artificial Flight and Other Myths
February 16th, 2010
a reasoned examination of A.F. by top birds
Dresden Codak’s written another excellent piece of satire.
Strong A.F., as it is defined by researchers, is any artificial flier that is capable of passing the Tern Test (developed by A.F. pioneer Alan Tern), which involves convincing an average bird that the artificial flier is in fact a flying bird.
An Obfuscated Christmas
December 24th, 2009
Compile and run this C code for a cheerful holiday message.
#include <stdio.h>
main(t,_,a)
char *a;
{
return!0<t?t<3?main(-79,-13,a+main(-87,1-_,main(-86,0,a+1)+a)):
1,t<_?main(t+1,_,a):3,main(-94,-27+t,a)&&t==2?_<13?
main(2,_+1,"%s %d %d\n"):9:16:t<0?t<-72?main(_,t,
"@n'+,#'/*{}w+/w#cdnr/+,{}r/*de}+,/*{*+,/w{%+,/w#q#n+,/#{l+,/n{n+,/+#n+,/#\
;#q#n+,/+k#;*+,/'r :'d*'3,}{w+K w'K:'+}e#';dq#'l \
q#'+d'K#!/+k#;q#'r}eKK#}w'r}eKK{nl]'/#;#q#n'){)#}w'){){nl]'/+#n';d}rw' i;#\
){nl]!/n{n#'; r{#w'r nc{nl]'/#{l,+'K {rw' iK{;[{nl]'/w#q#n'wk nw' \
iwk{KK{nl]!/w{%'l##w#' i; :{nl]'/*{q#'ld;r'}{nlwb!/*de}'c \
;;{nl'-{}rw]'/+,}##'*}#nc,',#nw]'/+kd'+e}+;#'rdq#w! nr'/ ') }+}{rl#'{n' ')# \
}'+}##(!!/")
:t<-50?_==*a?putchar(31[a]):main(-65,_,a+1):main((*a=='/')+t,_,a+1) :0<t?main(2,2,"%s"):*a=='/'||main(0,main(-61,*a, "!ek;dc i@bK'(q)-[w]*%n+r3#l,{}:\nuwloca-O;m .vpbks,fxntdCeghiry"),a+1); }
Thanks, researchers at Bell Labs circa 1998!
Computing in the Real World
November 19th, 2009
Anyone who thought the Minority Report computer was cool should watch Pranav Mistry’s TED talk and gape in awe. The world is going to be a very strange place within a very short time.
SheevaPlug
October 12th, 2009
This is a tiny computer. If anyone would like to buy me a few, that would be OK.
[insert obligatory Beowulf cluster joke]