Computer Science, Robotics, Electronics, etc
Physicists To Test If Universe Is A Computer Simulation
Physicists have devised a new experiment to test if the universe is a computer. A philosophical thought experiment has long held that it is more likely than not that we're living inside a machine. The theory basically goes that any civilisation which could evolve to a 'post-human' stage would almost certainly learn to run simulations on the scale of a universe.
Digital Natives 2012 z-corp powder composite and z-corp tinted binder Everyday items such as toys and a watering can are 3D scanned using a digital camera and subjected to algorithms that distort, abstract and taint them into new primordial vessel forms. In some cases only close inspection reveals traces inherited from their physical predecessors. These are then 3D printed on a z-corp printer.
Digital Natives - Matthew Plummer-Fernandez
09 avril 2013 Aujourd'hui, 24 millions de français possèdent un smartphone (1) , près d' 1 million d'applications sont disponibles et font partie de leur quotidien. Pourtant, les utilisateurs savent très peu de choses sur ce qui se passe à l'intérieur de ces " boites noires " qui contiennent de nombreuses informations personnelles et sont des ordinateurs très performants.
Voyage au cœur des smartphones et des applications mobiles avec la CNIL et Inria
Physicists Use Cloud of Rubidium Atoms as Optical Memory Device
To View a brief animation ( click link to launch mp4 ). The NIST/JQI team shows the NIST logo they stored within a vapor of rubidium atoms and three different portions of it that they were able to extract at will. Animation combines three actual images from the vapor extracted at different times. In a newly published study, researchers detail how they used a cloud of rubidium atoms as an optical memory device, showing that portions of an image written into a gradient echo memory can be individually retrieved or erased on demand, an important step toward processing a spatially multiplexed quantum signal. Talk about storing data in the cloud. Scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland have taken this to a whole new level by demonstrating that they can store visual images within quite an ethereal memory device—a thin vapor of rubidium atoms.
Controlling the Spin Polarization of Electrons in Three Dimensions
The interior bulk of a topological insulator is indeed an insulator, but electrons (spheres) move swiftly on the surface as if through a metal. They are spin-polarized, however, with their momenta (directional ribbons) and spins (arrows) locked together. Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered that the spin polarization of photoelectrons (arrowed sphere at upper right) emitted when the material is struck with high-energy photons (blue-green waves from left) is completely determined by the polarization of this incident light. (Image Chris Jozwiak, Zina Deretsky, and Berkeley Lab Creative Services Office) Scientists from the Berkeley Lab discovered that when topological insulators are hit with a laser beam, the spin polarization of the electrons they emit can be completely controlled in three dimensions.
Observing Atomic Collapse Resonances in Artificial Nuclei on Graphene
Relativistic quantum mechanics predicts that when the charge of a super-heavy atomic nucleus surpasses a certain threshold, the resulting strong Coulomb field causes an unusual "atomic collapse" state which exhibits an electron wave function component that falls toward the nucleus as well as a positron component that escapes to infinity. In graphene, where charge carriers behave as massless relativistic particles, it has been predicted that highly charged impurities should exhibit resonances corresponding to these atomic collapse states. We have observed the formation of such resonances around artificial nuclei (clusters of charged calcium dimers) fabricated on gated graphene devices via atomic manipulation with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM).
Private Attributes In the last example we created a student class which had attributes studentNumber, studentFirstName, and studentLastName. We changed the value of those attributes from the main method by accessing them directly using code "myStudent.studentNumber = 108234234". While this works fine for our simple example, it is bad practice to write code in this way. If we allow programmers to directly modify our attributes, then they could change our attributes to invalid values. For example, in UCC all student numbers are 8 or 9 digit numbers.
Getters, Setters, and Constructors - IS2216 - JAVA WIKI
Care to download and print your next pair of shoes? Without even paying for them? The Pirate Bay invite you to share their vision: a world in which footwear is stolen and printable. They’ve announced a new category called “physibles” — files describing physical objects that can be made with a 3D printer. In their imagined future you do not buy the objects you desire. You download the files and print them.
The Pirates Who Print Shoes - Modern Nerd
For those not in the know, Weka is the excellent data-mining toolkit made available by the nice folks at the University of Waikato . Weka provides a few features that are worth evaluating for your next datamining/machine learning project: Datamining workbench with strong visualization tools and data manipulation. Machine learning experiment environment - a great way to compare different ML algorithms for performance. Knowledge Flow Environment - datamining workflow engine. I haven't played with this yet, but the documentation implies that you have a simple "ETL" system that can help you create scripts to automate your file processing and learning tasks.
Thunderbolt Labs: Machine Learning on the Cheap and Easy
Why computers have two zeros: +0 and -0
Here’s a strange detail of floating point arithmetic: computers have two versions of 0: positive zero and negative zero. Most of the time the distinction between +0 and -0 doesn’t matter, but once in a while signed versions of zero come in handy. If a positive quantity underflows to zero, it becomes +0. And if a negative quantity underflows to zero, it becomes -0.
If you have an application bundled in a JAR file, you need some way to indicate which class within the JAR file is your application's entry point. You provide this information with the Main-Class header in the manifest, which has the general form: The value classname is the name of the class that is your application's entry point. Recall that the entry point is a class having a method with signature public static void main(String[] args) . After you have set the Main-Class header in the manifest, you then run the JAR file using the following form of the java command:
Setting an Application's Entry Point (The Java™ Tutorials > Deployment > Packaging Programs in JAR Files)
web development
security
electronics
Robots to take care of prisons in South Korea
It looks like South Korea is really keen on replacing the country’s workers with robotic counterparts. Earlier this year it was reported that cinema ticket sales would be handled by some robots in the country, and now it looks like robots will be taking over the jobs of prison guards in the future. Some new robots that have been developed in cooperation with the country’s justice ministry will be introduced to the prison in Pohang, southeast of Seoul in March next year. If the trial goes well, we’ll see more robots introduced in the future. Over a billion won ($850,000) was spent on development of the robotic prison guards which are supposed to enable human counterparts to focus more on rehabilitation work with offenders. The robots which will be used mainly at night will patrol the prison, looking for suspicious behavior among prisoners.Bullet Physics
The new Bullet Physics engine has been integrated into Blender and allows for rigid body physics simulations within the game engine. The engine allows objects to fall, roll, and collide with other objects in a realistic manner. It is an ongoing development process, but currently very much in a usable state. For each object that will be involved in the simulation we need to first 'clear rotation' ALT-RKEY and then Apply Scale and Rotation (CTRL-AKEY in ObjectMode) otherwise the collision will be detected incorrectly giving you odd results (ie your objects could react like an explosion occurred just by sitting on a plane, etc).Keep you cables in place Are you always losing your computer cables behind your desk when you unplug them? With this inventive and (really) cheap solution you will never have this problem again. Use these clips to secure your cables in place and never lose them again.
Best Lifehacks for Designers, Developers & Photographers
Web Scraping for your Mom « Life in the Shell
in a nutshell: This post will be a little different in nature as I’m still working on a couple hacks that will require a few more weeks of work. In the interim I’ll explain the very basics of web scraping/crawling. This is a great skill to have as it will open the doors to the limitless amounts of data from the web.Languages
Artificial Intelligence
Signs that you're a bad programmer - Software Engineering Tips
I couldn't find what the original link here was, but it wasn't there anymore, and it was labeled "Signs that you're a bad programmer". So, I replaced it with this article, which looked good. by Jun 14
You're a Bad Programmer. Embrace It.
(related). This is interesting. by Jun 14
Software
Developer
Algorithms