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Stanford Engineering's Center for Turbulence Research (CTR) has set a new record in computational science by successfully using a supercomputer with more than one million computing cores to solve a complex fluid dynamics problem—the prediction of noise generated by a supersonic jet engine. Notorious big computers: Mo cores, mo problems.
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I believe one of the debates that is going on inside of Microsoft is how, and if, they should release Office 2013 Professional, Enterprise, or Office 365 for Windows RT. This is a far more complicated question than most observers would give it credit for. It’s not that it is hard to do, it is that it may not meet customer expectations while creating a long-term support (and migration) headache. Just on the support front it commits Microsoft to up to a decade of support for what is likely an interim offering (more on that later). And it commits them to new releases of desktop Office for a while on Windows RT as well. It also raises questions about more generally opening the desktop on Windows RT, which is something that is counter-strategic. Tablets and related mobile devices need a new kind of mail client. Can Outlook solve that problem?
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Pushing privacy is a good way to carve out a competitive niche against Google et al, as by definition they can never compete on privacy. I get that. But what I found most compelling is DDG’s strong vision of a crowdsourced network of plugins giving broader search coverage by tying an army of vertical data suppliers into their search framework. For example, there's a specialized Lego plugin for searching against a complete Lego database.... It will be fascinating to see how these forces play out. But for now let’s see how DuckDuckGo implements their search engine magic. Gabriel Weinberg explains what ingredients are used to make DuckDuckGo go. Some assembly required.
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In 1981, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was shocked by the announcement of the IBM PC which threatened to steal market share from their high end systems, aka the VAX and PDP-11. One year later (1982), they responded with a “three pronged approach” which included... The Rainbow 100... DEC’s direct response to the IBM (aka IBM PC killer). It offered to run DOS, but also it had a Z-80 (found on Tandy machines and very popular at that times) to allow it to run CP/M (another wanna be from similarly named Digital Research. At last it had a VT100 terminal mode, so it could connect to big VAX systems. Why the "best of both worlds" Surface may have a hard time beating Apple's iPad.
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If you’re a geek of a certain age, a good portion of your childhood probably revolved around sitting too close to the TV, clutching a plastic safety cone-colored hand gun and blasting waterfowl out of a pixilated sky in Duck Hunt (also, trying to blow that dog’s head off when he laughed at you). The Duck Hunt gun, officially called the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Zapper, seems downright primitive next to the Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Kinect, but in the late 80s, it filled plenty of young heads with wonder. How did that thing work? Score... a direct hit!
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So then why doesn't it work with LCD TVs?
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Due the refresh rate[^]
You already knew that, didn't you
(yes|no|maybe)*
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That's what I thought. But the explanation given in the blog entry doesn't seem to support that. Ergo, I think the blog entry is wrong.
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Mhm... rather not very precise
(yes|no|maybe)*
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That was bleedingly obvious, you'd see a flashing white rectangle on a black background (or the otherway around). You could hold the thing against the screen and cheat it.
Wout
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Google Inc., which says it gets about 1,400 requests a month from U.S. authorities for users’ e- mails and documents, is organizing an effort to press for limits on government access to digital communications. The company has been talking to advocacy groups and companies about joining a lobbying effort to change the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act.... Google officials say changes in the law are needed to prevent law enforcement from obtaining certain e-mails and other content without search warrants, and to give documents stored on cloud services the same legal protections as paper documents stored in a desk drawer. It’s critical that we start to have the same rights in the online world that we do in the offline world.
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Lotus Development Corp. sold its first copy of 1-2-3 for DOS on Jan. 26, 1983, and it never looked back. Every single number-cruncher I knew at the time couldn't wait to part with the princely sum of $495 for the product -- on top of the price of the PC, typically $3,000 to $5,000. To this day, I believe Lotus 1-2-3, all by itself, started the Microsoft-Intel architecture hegemony. It was that good. Who needs spreadsheets when we've got a perfectly good Fortran... Oh, nevermind.
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To actually call yourself a software engineer you need to take into account a few aspects of what an engineer should do. Typing code into a code editor or text editor is not what a Software Engineer is paid to do. At least, it is not the primary reason this profession exists. Yes, part of the job is to write code in any number of languages and platforms... it is more then writing code, it is about writing tests, and making sure the code you do type works as designed and can be easily maintained. What's the most important part of the job (besides showing up)?
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There they sat, in front of a machine no more soulful than a hair dryer, a machine they knew intellectually was just a collection of electrical pulses and metal, and yet they paused. And while eventually every participant killed the robot, it took them time to intellectually override their emotional queasiness — in the case of a helpful cat robot, around 35 seconds before they were able to complete the switching-off procedure. How long does it take you to switch off your stereo? Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?
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I don't understand what's going on here?
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What don't you understand?
Director of Content Development, The Code Project
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The 'test subjects' were instructed to interact with the robot and evaluate the robots performance on a task.
If the robot made too many mistakes, they were instructed to make it switch himself off.
What they didn't knew is that the robot would then beg the user not to shut him off because that would erase his memory and he would "die".
The actual test was to see whether they feel empathy towards the AI.
If so, they would at least hesitate before shutting it down.
.
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As you shall see below, the evolution of video game consoles is indeed intriguing. Did you know that there were more than 70 different consoles to date? And did you know that there was a peak era of video arcade game when Nintendo and Sega were fiercely pitting against each other with their revolutionary consoles? If you are amazed by such facts, then I guarantee that this entry will excite you even further with the bits and pieces of fascinating historical facts across the video game consoles timeline. How many of these have you played?
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On Thursday I wrote a piece about MacWrite and MacPaint, two pieces of software that influenced much if not all the software that followed. There are many other examples of seminal software products. In most cases, the products are not the first of its kind, as MacWrite was not the first word processor, but for whatever reason, put enough of the pieces together to lead the way to the future. It's not always obvious in the moment, but with the benefit of hindsight we can see. Tell us what early software inspired your career as a coder.
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Tic Tac Toe -- when I was growing up in the 70s there was a computer at the Boston Museum of Science that played it.
Also Merlin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(game)[^]
Seriously, I didn't use computers until I started to learn to code in 1983. I'm a developer, not a user.
modified 28-Jan-13 19:07pm.
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Patent trolling is based upon deficiencies in a critical but underdeveloped area of the law. The faster we drive these cases to verdict—and through appeal, and also get legislative reform on track—the faster our economy will be competitive in this critical area. We're competing with other economies that are not burdened with this type of litigation. China doesn't have this, South Korea doesn't have this, Europe doesn't have this. It's game over for a patent troll that sued nearly 50 big retailers.
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Removing the experience of working with things from everyday life hasn’t just deskilled us; it has demoralized us. Modern knowledge workers are just as alienated from their labor as any other assembly line worker; the gradual substitution of process for judgment is only “progress” if pride in one’s work and connection with one’s peers is left out of the equation.... skilled trades are not only better paid and steadier occupations these days than most so-called “knowledge work”, they also demand more intellectually, and more personally rewarding. Building with web technologies is perhaps today's most accessible DIY movement. Let's keep it growing.
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