Archive for the 'Science & Geeks' category

• Inability to reason about code
• Poor understanding of the language’s programming model
• Deficient research skills / Chronically poor knowledge of the platform’s features
• Inability to comprehend pointers
• Difficulty seeing through recursion
• Inability to think in sets
• Lack of critical thinking
• Pinball Programming
• Unfamiliar with the principles of security
• Code is a mess
• Inability to determine the order of program execution
• Insufficient ability to think abstractly
• Collyer Brothers syndrome
• Dysfunctional sense of causality
• Indifference to outcomes

Source: Software Engineering Tips.

The guys at DARPA have developed a neat camera for ground surveillance of the battlefield: The ARGUS-IS (Autonomous Realtime Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance – Imaging System). This is a digital camera that can be strapped under a helicopter at a 15,000 feet altitude and provides an amazing view. Actually, not all the data (1.8 giga-pixels by 15 frames/s) is streamed down to HQ, but up to 65 independent video windows are tracked simultaneously.

ARGUS-IS

Source: Engadget.

Yes! This cat is driving a Roomba.

The larger our displays, the tougher it gets to find adequate wallpapers. NASA (through a sélection from Chamorro) comes to our resscue with these exceptionnaly beautiful high-resolution images. Our computer will have a hig-technology look even in 4000×3000 pixels.

Atlantis Space Shuttle

You can notice that these images being free of copyright will allow to produce impressive posters if you agree not to make it a commercial venture. Idea?

Sharks are amazing killing machines, very efficient predators of the seas. But they are not only that. They also have some behaviors that could be described as interesting, astonishing, amazing, curious or mind-boggling (depending on your state of mind and what you think about the interaction between sharks and divers).

May I parallel this video with a previous post where I was showing the photo of a Japanese diver putting identification marks on a giant jellyfish?

If you wonder what all those computer experts do when they assist you, the dirty secret is only a diagram away:

Become a tech support expert

You see? No expertise, just a little trick.

See what can be done with a few HP printers, a lot of free time and quite a load of imagination.

Darwin did not see this. Darwin was too shy when he published his major work “the origin of species” on November 24, 1859. The evolution is also for machines and technology and the struggle for life has a meaning.

The evolution of technology, beginning in the early stone age and evolving to the most powerfull technology of all times.

Client: SATURN
Advertising Agency: Scholz&Friends, Berlin, Germany (www.s-f.com)

Doom 2009

So, the great FPS game will be back before the end of the year 2009. Either the launch campaign started early in Nepal or the bus drivers are using their vehicles as video game weapons (the latter would explain the extraordinarily high frequency of dramatic road accidents there).

The arrival of Windows 7 also annonces the arrival of a new updated DirectX to serve the PC gamers’ community. We already knew that Vista did not have the favour of the gamers (who often stayed with Windows XP) and that had (among other things) some significant impact on DirectX 10 that required Vista. Will gamers now run to Windows 7? It’s possible, but if you want to see the real progress brought to video games (here, to the very popular Crysis FPS) by the various version of DirectX, check the video below:

There are not only creepy aliens in space (where no one can hear you scream). There are also monster-shaped galaxies.

A Spectre in the Eastern Veil

Thanks to NASA.

The ICANN started to allow non-latin alphabet to be used in the domain names to support half of the word which is actually using a non-latin alphabet (Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, etc.)

Google decided to celebrate with an anti-latin graphic to great their visitors.

Magnetic levitation is considered by some as the future of train technology. Several real trains have actually been created (the German industry has been a pioneer and is in a strong competition with Japan for the development of such MagLev trains or Magnetic Levitation trains). But did you really see how it works? It’s easy. Check this demonstration with maglev toy trains.

The tracks are made of traditional magnets and the train contain a big super-conducting magnet (cooled down by liquid nitrogen to maintain its super-conducting characteristics). Everything is relying heavily on magnetic fields. So, not surprisingly, these fields can be observed in the real train. The following video — shot on the Rokko Liner in Kobe, Japan — shows metal paper clips dancing on the stray magnetic fields of such a Maglev train, going through the floor of one of the passenger cars.

Don’t drop your credit card (or an age-old floppy disk) on the floor for fear of seeing it quickly erased.

See what happens to video game players, when a real World Rally Championship (WRC) pilot takes them to the real dirt. “Are you ready for the real thing?” Ken Block is not only a good driver, he’s trying his best to have them p…ing their pants.

Source: Autoblog.

Even the local guy does not seem too sure about it!

I’m not prone to vertigo, but I would not try it. I am happy being currently in Nepal and not in Pakistan. Wait! Here is a bridge in Nepal: