Skip to main content

Home/ Advanced Concepts Team/ Group items tagged writing

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
santecarloni

Physics of writing is derived at last - physicsworld.com - 0 views

physicsworld.com/...47933

writing phy technology

shared by santecarloni on 29 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • santecarloni on 29 Nov 11
     
    While humans have been writing for at least 5000 years, we have surprisingly little understanding of the physics underlying how ink moves from pen to paper. Now, physicists in South Korea and the US have worked out a theory - backed by experiment - that suggests the ink's flow rate depends on a tug-of-war that is played out between the capillary properties of pen and paper.
tvinko

Massively collaborative mathematics : Article : Nature - 28 views

www.nature.com/...461879a.html

INF collaboration p2p

shared by tvinko on 13 Nov 09 - Cached
  • tvinko on 13 Nov 09
     
    peer-to-peer theorem-proving
  • ...14 more comments...
  • Francesco Biscani on 13 Nov 09
     
    Or: mathematicians catch up with open-source software developers :)
  • Francesco Biscani on 13 Nov 09
     
    "Similar open-source techniques could be applied in fields such as [...] computer science, where the raw materials are informational and can be freely shared online." ... or we could reach the point, unthinkable only few years ago, of being able to exchange text messages in almost real time! OMG, think of the possibilities! Seriously, does the author even browse the internet?
  • Joris _ on 14 Nov 09
     
    I do not agree with you F., you are citing out of context! Sharing messages does not make a collaboration, nor does a forum, .... You need a set of rules and a common objective. This is clearly observable in "some team", where these rules are lacking, making team work inexistent. The additional difficulties here are that it involves people that are almost strangers to each other, and the immateriality of the project. The support they are using (web, wiki) is only secondary. What they achieved is remarkable, disregarding the subject!
  • Francesco Biscani on 14 Nov 09
     
    I think we will just have to agree to disagree then :) Open source developers have been organizing themselves with emails since the early '90s, and most projects (e.g., the Linux kernel) still do not use anything else today. The Linux kernel mailing list gets around 400 messages per day, and they are managing just fine to scale as the number of contributors increases. I agree that what they achieved is remarkable, but it is more for "what" they achieved than "how". What they did does not remotely qualify as "massively" collaborative: again, many open source projects are managed collaboratively by thousands of people, and many of them are in the multi-million lines of code range. My personal opinion of why in the scientific world these open models are having so many difficulties is that the scientific community today is (globally, of course there are many exceptions) a closed, mostly conservative circle of people who are scared of changes. There is also the fact that the barrier of entry in a scientific community is very high, but I think that this should merely scale down the number of people involved and not change the community "qualitatively". I do not think that many research activities are so much more difficult than, e.g., writing an O(1) scheduler for an Operating System or writing a new balancing tree algorithm for efficiently storing files on a filesystem. Then there is the whole issue of scientific publishing, which, in its current form, is nothing more than a racket. No wonder traditional journals are scared to death by these open-science movements.
  • LeopoldS on 15 Nov 09
     
    here we go ... nice controversy! but maybe too many things mixed up together - open science journals vs traditional journals, conservatism of science community wrt programmers (to me one of the reasons for this might be the average age of both groups, which is probably more than 10 years apart ...) and then using emailing wrt other collaboration tools .... .... will have to look at the paper now more carefully ... (I am surprised to see no comment from José or Marek here :-)
  • Joris _ on 15 Nov 09
     
    My point about your initial comment is that it is simplistic to infer that emails imply collaborative work. You actually use the word "organize", what does it mean indeed. In the case of Linux, what makes the project work is the rules they set and the management style (hierachy, meritocracy, review). Mailing is just a coordination mean. In collaborations and team work, it is about rules, not only about the technology you use to potentially collaborate. Otherwise, all projects would be successful, and we would noy learn management at school! They did not write they managed the colloboration exclusively because of wikipedia and emails (or other 2.0 technology)! You are missing the part that makes it successful and remarkable as a project. On his blog the guy put a list of 12 rules for this project. None are related to emails, wikipedia, forums ... because that would be lame and your comment would make sense. Following your argumentation, the tools would be sufficient for collaboration. In the ACT, we have plenty of tools, but no team work. QED
  • LeopoldS on 15 Nov 09
     
    the question on the ACT team work is one that is coming back continuously and it always so far has boiled down to the question of how much there need and should be a team project to which everybody inthe team contributes in his / her way or how much we should leave smaller, flexible teams within the team form and progress, more following a bottom-up initiative than imposing one from top-down. At this very moment, there are at least 4 to 5 teams with their own tools and mechanisms which are active and operating within the team. - but hey, if there is a real will for one larger project of the team to which all or most members want to contribute, lets go for it .... but in my view, it should be on a convince rather than oblige basis ...
  • Dario Izzo on 15 Nov 09
     
    It is, though, indicative that some of the team member do not see all the collaboration and team work happening around them. We always leave the small and agile sub-teams to form and organize themselves spontaneously, but clearly this method leaves out some people (be it for their own personal attitude or be it for pure chance) For those cases which we could think to provide the possibility to participate in an alternative, more structured, team work where we actually manage the hierachy, meritocracy and perform the project review (to use Joris words).
  • Joris _ on 15 Nov 09
     
    I am, and was, involved in "collaboration" but I can say from experience that we are mostly a sum of individuals. In the end, it is always one or two individuals doing the job, and other waiting. Sometimes even, some people don't do what they are supposed to do, so nothing happens ... this could not be defined as team work. Don't get me wrong, this is the dynamic of the team and I am OK with it ... in the end it is less work for me :) team = 3 members or more. I am personally not looking for a 15 member team work, and it is not what I meant. Anyway, this is not exactly the subject of the paper.
  • tvinko on 15 Nov 09
     
    My opinion about this is that a research team, like the ACT, is a group of _people_ and not only brains. What I mean is that people have feelings, hate, anger, envy, sympathy, love, etc about the others. Unfortunately(?), this could lead to situations, where, in theory, a group of brains could work together, but not the same group of people. As far as I am concerned, this happened many times during my ACT period. And this is happening now with me in Delft, where I have the chance to be in an even more international group than the ACT. I do efficient collaborations with those people who are "close" to me not only in scientific interest, but also in some private sense. And I have people around me who have interesting topics and they might need my help and knowledge, but somehow, it just does not work. Simply lack of sympathy. You know what I mean, don't you? About the article: there is nothing new, indeed. However, why it worked: only brains and not the people worked together on a very specific problem. Plus maybe they were motivated by the idea of e-collaboration. No revolution.
  • Francesco Biscani on 15 Nov 09
     
    Joris, maybe I made myself not clear enough, but my point was only tangentially related to the tools. Indeed, it is the original article mention of "development of new online tools" which prompted my reply about emails. Let me try to say it more clearly: my point is that what they accomplished is nothing new methodologically (i.e., online collaboration of a loosely knit group of people), it is something that has been done countless times before. Do you think that now that it is mathematicians who are doing it makes it somehow special or different? Personally, I don't. You should come over to some mailing lists of mathematical open-source software (e.g., SAGE, Pari, ...), there's plenty of online collaborative research going on there :) I also disagree that, as you say, "in the case of Linux, what makes the project work is the rules they set and the management style (hierachy, meritocracy, review)". First of all I think the main engine of any collaboration like this is the objective, i.e., wanting to get something done. Rules emerge from self-organization later on, and they may be completely different from project to project, ranging from almost anarchy to BDFL (benevolent dictator for life) style. Given this kind of variety that can be observed in open-source projects today, I am very skeptical that any kind of management rule can be said to be universal (and I am pretty sure that the overwhelming majority of project organizers never went to any "management school"). Then there is the social aspect that Tamas mentions above. From my personal experience, communities that put technical merit above everything else tend to remain very small and generally become irrelevant. The ability to work and collaborate with others is the main asset the a participant of a community can bring. I've seen many times on the Linux kernel mailing list contributions deemed "technically superior" being disregarded and not considered for inclusion in the kernel because it was clear that
  • pacome delva on 18 Nov 09
     
    hey, just catched up the discussion. For me what is very new is mainly the framework where this collaborative (open) work is applied. I haven't seen this kind of working openly in any other field of academic research (except for the Boinc type project which are very different, because relying on non specialists for the work to be done). This raise several problems, and mainly the one of the credit, which has not really been solved as I read in the wiki (is an article is written, who writes it, what are the names on the paper). They chose to refer to the project, and not to the individual researchers, as a temporary solution... It is not so surprising for me that this type of work has been first done in the domain of mathematics. Perhaps I have an ideal view of this community but it seems that the result obtained is more important than who obtained it... In many areas of research this is not the case, and one reason is how the research is financed. To obtain money you need to have (scientific) credit, and to have credit you need to have papers with your name on it... so this model of research does not fit in my opinion with the way research is governed. Anyway we had a discussion on the Ariadnet on how to use it, and one idea was to do this kind of collaborative research; idea that was quickly abandoned...
  • Francesco Biscani on 18 Nov 09
     
    I don't really see much the problem with giving credit. It is not the first time a group of researchers collectively take credit for a result under a group umbrella, e.g., see Nicolas Bourbaki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbaki Again, if the research process is completely transparent and publicly accessible there's no way to fake contributions or to give undue credit, and one could cite without problems a group paper in his/her CV, research grant application, etc.
  • pacome delva on 18 Nov 09
     
    Well my point was more that it could be a problem with how the actual system works. Let say you want a grant or a position, then the jury will count the number of papers with you as a first author, and the other papers (at least in France)... and look at the impact factor of these journals. Then you would have to set up a rule for classifying the authors (endless and pointless discussions), and give an impact factor to the group...?
  • tvinko on 18 Nov 09
     
    it seems that i should visit you guys at estec... :-)
  • LeopoldS on 18 Nov 09
     
    urgently!! btw: we will have the ACT christmas dinner on the 9th in the evening ... are you coming?
Tobias Seidl

Office of Research Integrity - 0 views

ori.hhs.gov/...plagiarism

Plagiarism

shared by Tobias Seidl on 14 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Tobias Seidl on 14 Aug 09
     
    Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing
ESA ACT

The Realities of Writing Technical Books | MacResearch - 0 views

www.macresearch.org/lities-writing-technical-books

knowledge book

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    A short FAQ on what you can expect if you do write a book
Ma Ru

I know at least *some* of you will like it... - 13 views

www.nerdtests.com/ft_nq.php

fun inf phy science

shared by Ma Ru on 29 Mar 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Ma Ru on 29 Mar 10
     
  • ...9 more comments...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 29 Mar 10
     
    Shit!! I only got 79, should have lied better...
  • Ma Ru on 29 Mar 10
     
    My score was obtained with *sincere* answers, don't cheat!
  • pacome delva on 30 Mar 10
     
    ouah, 80...! didn't think i was so nerd...!
  • Ma Ru on 30 Mar 10
     
    Dario, Francesco, we're waiting for your scores... are you afraid of the truth??
  • nikolas smyrlakis on 31 Mar 10
     
    hmm "Low Ranking Nerd. Definitely a nerd but low on the totem pole of nerds." , as of a score of 66
  • LeopoldS on 02 Apr 10
  • Dario Izzo on 02 Apr 10
     
    I am disappointed!!!!! Shame on me.......
  • Francesco Biscani on 02 Apr 10
     
    Sigh
  • LeopoldS on 02 Apr 10
     
    wow!
  • Francesco Biscani on 02 Apr 10
     
    My girlfriend... She must be an archaeological nerd...
  • Ma Ru on 03 Apr 10
     
    Great Scott, Leo! Honest answers?? I was kinda expecting Francesco's score, but this...
Thijs Versloot

Getting rid of corporate email - 1 views

www.wired.com/...-memo-hell-designing-work-flow

working methods email

shared by Thijs Versloot on 19 May 14 - No Cached
  • Thijs Versloot on 19 May 14
     
    Now something on working methods... More than anything else Box does, Notes seems to embody the philosophy that in business, you never write for the sake of writing. You write to share with people. After all, memos were never meant to be ends in themselves-just the means.
LeopoldS

Physicists twist water into knots : Nature News & Comment - 3 views

www.nature.com/...twist-water-into-knots-1.12534

mathematics

shared by LeopoldS on 01 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 01 Apr 13
     
    More than a century after the idea was first floated, physicists have finally figured out how to tie water in knots in the laboratory. The gnarly feat, described today in Nature Physics1, paves the way for scientists to experimentally study twists and turns in a range of phenomena - ionized gases like that of the Sun's outer atmosphere, superconductive materials, liquid crystals and quantum fields that describe elementary particles.

    Lord Kelvin proposed that atoms were knotted "vortex rings" - which are essentially like tornado bent into closed loops and knotted around themselves, as Daniel Lathrop and Barbara Brawn-Cinani write in an accompanying commentary. In Kelvin's vision, the fluid was the theoretical 'aether' then thought to pervade all of space. Each type of atom would be represented by a different knot.

    Related stories
    Solar magnetism twists braids of superheated gas
    Electron microscopy gets twisted
    Topological insulators: Star material
    More related stories
    Kelvin's interpretation of the periodic table never went anywhere, but his ideas led to the blossoming of the mathematical theory of knots, part of the field of topology. Meanwhile, scientists also have come to realize that knots have a key role in a host of physical processes.
Nicholas Lan

Kerbal Space Program | Media - 2 views

kerbalspaceprogram.com/media.php

fun space education

shared by Nicholas Lan on 24 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • Nicholas Lan on 24 Apr 14
     
    what seems to be an impressively detailed space game
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Ma Ru on 27 Apr 14
     
    Yeah... 2011 called with the greetings. However, there was quite an interesting news about KSP recently... Perhaps it's been ACT's small failure to spot this opportunity? Considering we wrote space missions games ourselves...
  • johannessimon81 on 27 Apr 14
     
    This guy actually makes very detailed video tutorials about how to master the orbital dynamics in Kerbal. I think the level of detail (and sometimes realism) is quite impressive: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxzC4EngIsMrPmbm6Nxvb-A
  • Thijs Versloot on 28 Apr 14
     
    I will have to try this definitely, looks like a lot of fun.. I also saw some crazy 'Insane Rocket Division' videos.. :)
  • Dario Izzo on 02 May 14
     
    @Marek: true, old news. But "opportunity"? For what? The games we write are always games with a scientific purpose (not training not educational) Kerbal Space programme is cool, but it is a game just like Microsoft Flight Simulator (but less accurate). Having ESA mission simulated in it is also cool but is it what we should or could do? Even more is it want we want to do? My personal opinion: No-No-No
  • Ma Ru on 07 May 14
     
    > The games we write are always games with a scientific purpose (not training not educational) I'd say investigating how to get the crowd may be an important part of "science of crowdsourcing". So, an obvious example would be comparing how many participants the original ACT space mission game attracted versus a variant implemented in Kerbal and why. Easily made and easily publishable I think. But that's just an obvious example I can give on the spot. I think there is more potential than that, so would not dismiss the idea so definitively. But then, correct me if I'm wrong, social sciences are still not represented in the ACT... Perhaps an idea to revive during the upcoming retreat? ;-)
  • Nicholas Lan on 08 May 14
     
    it's on sale on steam til tomorrow by the way if anyone's interested
LeopoldS

Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations | Oxford Martin School - 0 views

www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/commission

future foresight economics policy

shared by LeopoldS on 27 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 27 Oct 13
     
    high profile authors writing about long-term challenges and opportunities ...
Joris _

Elon Musk: SpaceX signs "biggest" commercial launch deal ever - The Write Stuff - Orlan... - 0 views

blogs.orlandosentinel.com/...mmercial-launch-deal-ever.html

launcher spacex

shared by Joris _ on 17 Jun 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • ore than half of his company’s manifest of about 30 launches are purely commercial
  • His statement challenges critics of private space companies whom have maintained that there is not enough commercial business to support them
  • lower launch costs for the government
Francesco Biscani

STLport: An Interview with A. Stepanov - 2 views

www.stlport.org/...StepanovUSA.html

computer science

shared by Francesco Biscani on 23 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Generic programming is a programming method that is based in finding the most abstract representations of efficient algorithms.
  • I spent several months programming in Java.
  • for the first time in my life programming in a new language did not bring me new insights
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • it has no intellectual value whatsoever
  • Java is clearly an example of a money oriented programming (MOP).
  • Francesco Biscani on 23 Mar 10
     
    One of the authors of the STL (C++'s Standard Template Library) explains generic programming and slams Java.
  • ...6 more comments...
  • Ma Ru on 24 Mar 10
     
    "Java is clearly an example of a money oriented programming (MOP)." Exactly. And for the industry it's the money that matters. Whatever mathematicians think about it.
  • Joris _ on 24 Mar 10
     
    It is actually a good thing that it is "MOP" (even though I do not agree with this term): that is what makes it inter-operable, light and easy to learn. There is no point in writing fancy codes, if it does not bring anything to the end-user, but only for geeks to discuss incomprehensible things in forums. Anyway, I am pretty sure we can find a Java guy slamming C++ ;)
  • Francesco Biscani on 24 Mar 10
     
    Personally, I never understood what the point of Java is, given that: 1) I do not know of any developer (maybe Marek?) that uses it for intellectual pleasure/curiosity/fun whatever, given the possibility of choice - this to me speaks loudly on the objective qualities of the language more than any industrial-corporate marketing bullshit (for the record, I argue that Python is more interoperable, lighter and easier to learn than Java - which is why, e.g., Google is using it heavily); 2) I have used a software developed in Java maybe a total of 5 times on any computer/laptop I owned over 15 years. I cannot name of one single Java project that I find necessary or even useful; for my usage of computers, Java could disappear overnight without even noticing. Then of course one can argue as much as one wants about the "industry choosing Java", to which I would counterargue with examples of industry doing stupid things and making absurd choices. But I suppose it would be a kind of pointless discussion, so I'll just stop here :)
  • Joris _ on 24 Mar 10
     
    "At Google, python is one of the 3 "official languages" alongside with C++ and Java". Java runs everywhere (the byte code itself) that is I think the only reason it became famous. Python, I guess, is more heavy if it were to run on your web browser! I think every language has its pros and cons, but I agree Java is not the answer to everything... Java is used in MATLAB, some web applications, mobile phones apps, ... I would be a bit in trouble if it were to disappear today :(
  • Dario Izzo on 24 Mar 10
     
    I personally do not believe in interoperability :)
  • Ma Ru on 24 Mar 10
     
    Well, I bet you'd notice an overnight disappearance of java, because half of the internet would vanish... J2EE technologies are just omnipresent there... I'd rather not even *think* about developing a web application/webservice/web-whatever in standard C++... is it actually possible?? Perhaps with some weird Microsoft solutions... I bet your bank online services are written in Java. Certainly not in PHP+MySQL :) Industry has chosen Java not because of industrial-corporate marketing bullshit, but because of economics... it enables you develop robustly, reliably, error-prone, modular, well integrated etc... software. And the costs? Well, using java technologies you can set-up enterprise-quality web application servers, get a fully featured development environment (which is better than ANY C/C++/whatever development environment I've EVER seen) at the cost of exactly 0 (zero!) USD/GBP/EUR... Since many years now, the central issue in software development is not implementing algorithms, it's building applications. And that's where Java outperforms many other technologies. The final remark, because I may be mistakenly taken for an apostle of Java or something... I love the idea of generic programming, C++ is my favourite programming language (and I used to read Stroustroup before sleep), at leisure time I write programs in Python... But if I were to start a software development company, then, apart from some very niche applications like computer games, it most probably would use Java as main technology.
  • Francesco Biscani on 24 Mar 10
     
    "I'd rather not even *think* about developing a web application/webservice/web-whatever in standard C++... is it actually possible?? Perhaps with some weird Microsoft solutions... I bet your bank online services are written in Java. Certainly not in PHP+MySQL :)" Doing in C++ would be awesomely crazy, I agree :) But as I see it there are lots of huge websites that operate on PHP, see for instance Facebook. For the banks and the enterprise market, as a general rule I tend to take with a grain of salt whatever spin comes out from them; in the end behind every corporate IT decision there is a little smurf just trying to survive and have the back covered :) As they used to say in the old times, "No one ever got fired for buying IBM". "Industry has chosen Java not because of industrial-corporate marketing bullshit, but because of economics... it enables you develop robustly, reliably, error-prone, modular, well integrated etc... software. And the costs? Well, using java technologies you can set-up enterprise-quality web application servers, get a fully featured development environment (which is better than ANY C/C++/whatever development environment I've EVER seen) at the cost of exactly 0 (zero!) USD/GBP/EUR... Since many years now, the central issue in software development is not implementing algorithms, it's building applications. And that's where Java outperforms many other technologies." Apart from the IDE considerations (on which I cannot comment, since I'm not a IDE user myself), I do not see how Java beats the competition in this regard (again, Python and the huge software ecosystem surrounding it). My impression is that Java's success is mostly due to Sun pushing it like there is no tomorrow and bundling it with their hardware business.
  • Joris _ on 24 Mar 10
     
    OK, I think there is a bit of everything, wrong and right, but you have to acknowledge that Python is not always the simplest. For info, Facebook uses Java (if you upload picture for instance), and PHP is very limited. So definitely, in company, engineers like you and me select the language, it is not a marketing or political thing. And in the case of fb, they come up with the conclusion that PHP, and Java don't do everything but complement each other. As you say Python as many things around, but it might be too much for simple applications. Otherwise, I would seriously be interested by a study of how to implement a Python-like system on-board spacecrafts and what are the advantages over mixing C, Ada and Java.
Joris _

What the strange persistence of rockets can teach us about innovation. - 5 views

www.slate.com/...all

technology innovation space politic MAD

shared by Joris _ on 04 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Joris _ on 04 Feb 11
     
    If I could write, this is exactly what I would write about rocket, GO, and so on... :) "we are decadent and tired. But none of the bright young up-and-coming economies seem to be interested in anything besides aping what the United States and the USSR did years ago. We may, in other words, need to look beyond strictly U.S.-centric explanations for such failures of imagination and initiative. ... Those are places we need to go if we are not to end up as the Ottoman Empire of the 21st century, and yet in spite of all of the lip service that is paid to innovation in such areas, it frequently seems as though we are trapped in a collective stasis." "But those who do concern themselves with the formal regulation of "technology" might wish to worry less about possible negative effects of innovation and more about the damage being done to our environment and our prosperity by the mid-20th-century technologies that no sane and responsible person would propose today, but in which we remain trapped by mysterious and ineffable forces."
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Ma Ru on 04 Feb 11
     
    Very interesting, though I'm amused how the author tends to (subconsciously?) shift the blame to non-US dictators :-) Suggestion that in absence of cold war US might have abandoned HB and ICBM programmes is ridiculous.
  • Luís F. Simões on 04 Feb 11
     
    Interesting, this was written by Neal Stephenson ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson#Works ). Great article indeed. The videos of the event from which this arose might be equally interesting: Here Be Dragons: Governing a Technologically Uncertain Future http://newamerica.net/events/2011/here_be_dragons "To employ a commonly used metaphor, our current proficiency in rocket-building is the result of a hill-climbing approach; we started at one place on the technological landscape-which must be considered a random pick, given that it was chosen for dubious reasons by a maniac-and climbed the hill from there, looking for small steps that could be taken to increase the size and efficiency of the device."
  • Joris _ on 04 Feb 11
     
    You know Luis, when I read this quote, I could help thinking about GO, which would be kind of ironic considering the context but not far from what happens in the field :p
  • LeopoldS on 05 Feb 11
     
    Fantastic!!!
  • LeopoldS on 05 Feb 11
     
    Would have been nice if it were historically more accurate and less polemic / superficial
  • pacome delva on 14 Feb 11
     
    mmmh... the wheel is also an old invention... there is an idea behind but this article is not very deepfull, and I really don't think the problem is with innovation and lack of creative young people !!! look at what is done in the financial sector...
ESA ACT

Can You Write a Better Slogan for NASA? - Wired Blogs - 0 views

blog.wired.com/...can-you-write-a.html

NASA Fun

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    Wired Blog's comment on this issue...
ESA ACT

Gobby - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/Gobby

INF CollaborativeWork collaboration linux editor web2.0 software

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    maybe a good tool for collaborative writing of latex docs as duscussed (LS)
ESA ACT

Genetic Programming: Evolution of Mona Lisa « Roger Alsing Weblog - 0 views

rogeralsing.com/...ramming-evolution-of-mona-lisa

AI INF

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    The best post of Slashdot: "Genetic Algorithms are like the AI equivalent of text editors... everybody has spent a weekend writing one at some point."
ESA ACT

O3Spaces Workplace | The way to extend OpenOffice.org | Document Management and Collabo... - 0 views

www.o3spaces.com

INF CollaborativeWork collaboration web2.0

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    I would propose that we test this as an alternative to collaborative writing on wiki or google docs? what you think? LS
jcunha

'Superman memory crystal' that could store 360TB of data forever | ExtremeTech - 0 views

www.extremetech.com/...that-could-store-360tb-of-data

technology 5D PHY memory TB

shared by jcunha on 22 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • jcunha on 22 Feb 16
     
    A new so called 5D data storage that could potentially survive for billions of years. The research consists of nanostructured glass that can record digital data in five dimensions using femtosecond laser writing.
  • ...2 more comments...
  • jcunha on 22 Feb 16
     
    Very scarce scientific info available.. I'm very curious to see a bit more in future. From https://spie.org/PWL/conferencedetails/laser-micro-nanoprocessing I made a back of envelop calc: for 20 nm spaced, each laser spot in 5D encryption encodes 3 bits (it seemed to me) written in 3 planes, to obtain the claimed 360TB disk one needs very roughly 6000mm2, which does not complain with the dimensions shown in video. Only with larger number of planes (order of magnitude higher) it could be.. Also, at current commercial trends NAND Flash and HDD allow for 1000 Gb/in2. This means a 360 TB could hypothetically fit in 1800mm2.
  • Alexander Wittig on 22 Feb 16
     
    I had the same issue with the numbers when I saw the announcement a few days back (https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2016/02/5d-data-storage-update.page). It doesn't seem to add up. Plus, the examples they show are super low amounts of data (the bible probably fits on a few 1.44 MB floppy disk). As for the comparison with NAND and HDD, I think the main argument for their crystal is that it is supposedly more durable. HDDs are chronically bad at long term storage, and also NAND as far as I know needs to be refreshed frequently.
  • jcunha on 23 Feb 16
     
    Yes Alex, indeed, the durability is the point I think they highlight and focus on (besides the fact the abstract says something as the extrapolated decay time being comparable to the age of the Universe..). Indeed memories face problems with retention time. Most of the disks retain the information up to 10 years. When enterprises want to store data for longer times than this they use... yeah, magnetic tapes :-). Check a interesting article about magnetic tape market revival here http://www.information-age.com/technology/data-centre-and-it-infrastructure/123458854/rise-fall-and-re-rise-magnetic-tape I compared for fun, to have one idea of what we were talking about. I am also very curious so see the writing and reading times in this new memory :)
  • joergmueller on 23 Feb 16
     
    But how can glass store the information so long? Glass is not even solid?!
Luzi Bergamin

First circuit breaker for high voltage direct current - 2 views

new.abb.com/hvdc-grid

technology phy

shared by Luzi Bergamin on 13 Nov 12 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Luzi Bergamin on 13 Nov 12
     
    Doesn't really sound sexy, but this is of utmost importance for next generation grids for renewable energy.
  • LeopoldS on 13 Nov 12
     
    I agree on the significance indeed - a small boost also for my favourite Desertec project ... Though their language is a bit too "grandiose": "ABB has successfully designed and developed a hybrid DC breaker after years of research, functional testing and simulation in the R&D laboratories. This breaker is a breakthrough that solves a technical challenge that has been unresolved for over a hundred years and was perhaps one the main influencers in the 'war of currents' outcome. The 'hybrid' breaker combines mechanical and power electronics switching that enables it to interrupt power flows equivalent to the output of a nuclear power station within 5 milliseconds - that's as fast as a honey bee takes per flap of its wing - and more than 30 times faster than the reaction time of an Olympic 100-meter medalist to react to the starter's gun! But its not just about speed. The challenge was to do it 'ultra-fast' with minimal operational losses and this has been achieved by combining advanced ultrafast mechanical actuators with our inhouse semiconductor IGBT valve technologies or power electronics (watch video: Hybrid HVDC Breaker - How does it work). In terms of significance, this breaker is a 'game changer'. It removes a significant stumbling block in the development of HVDC transmission grids where planning can start now. These grids will enable interconnection and load balancing between HVDC power superhighways integrating renewables and transporting bulk power across long distances with minimal losses. DC grids will enable sharing of resources like lines and converter stations that provides reliability and redundancy in a power network in an economically viable manner with minimal losses. ABB's new Hybrid HVDC breaker, in simple terms will enable the transmission system to maintain power flow even if there is a fault on one of the lines. This is a major achievement for the global R&D team in ABB who have worked for years on the challeng
johannessimon81

Mathematicians Predict the Future With Data From the Past - 6 views

www.wired.com/...cliodynamics-peter-turchin

INF science

shared by johannessimon81 on 10 Apr 13 - No Cached
LeopoldS and Dario Izzo liked it
  • johannessimon81 on 10 Apr 13
     
    Asimov's Foundation meets ACT's Tipping Point Prediction?
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Dario Izzo on 12 Apr 13
     
    Good luck to them!!
  • Luzi Bergamin on 12 Apr 13
     
    "Mathematicians Predict the Future With Data From the Past". GREAT! And physicists probably predict the past with data from the future?!? "scientists and mathematicians analyze history in the hopes of finding patterns they can then use to predict the future". Big deal! That's what any scientist does anyway... "cliodynamics"!? Give me a break!
  • LeopoldS on 16 Apr 13
     
    still, some interesting thoughts in there ... "Then you have the 50-year cycles of violence. Turchin describes these as the building up and then the release of pressure. Each time, social inequality creeps up over the decades, then reaches a breaking point. Reforms are made, but over time, those reforms are reversed, leading back to a state of increasing social inequality. The graph above shows how regular these spikes are - though there's one missing in the early 19th century, which Turchin attributes to the relative prosperity that characterized the time. He also notes that the severity of the spikes can vary depending on how governments respond to the problem. Turchin says that the United States was in a pre-revolutionary state in the 1910s, but there was a steep drop-off in violence after the 1920s because of the progressive era. The governing class made decisions to reign in corporations and allowed workers to air grievances. These policies reduced the pressure, he says, and prevented revolution. The United Kingdom was also able to avoid revolution through reforms in the 19th century, according to Turchin. But the most common way for these things to resolve themselves is through violence. Turchin takes pains to emphasize that the cycles are not the result of iron-clad rules of history, but of feedback loops - just like in ecology. "In a predator-prey cycle, such as mice and weasels or hares and lynx, the reason why populations go through periodic booms and busts has nothing to do with any external clocks," he writes. "As mice become abundant, weasels breed like crazy and multiply. Then they eat down most of the mice and starve to death themselves, at which point the few surviving mice begin breeding like crazy and the cycle repeats." There are competing theories as well. A group of researchers at the New England Complex Systems Institute - who practice a discipline called econophysics - have built their own model of political violence and
  • Luzi Bergamin on 17 Apr 13
     
    It's not the scientific activity described in the article that is uninteresting, on the contrary! But the way it is described is just a bad joke. Once again the results itself are seemingly not sexy enough and thus something is sold as the big revolution, though it's just the application of the oldest scientific principles in a slightly different way than used before.
santecarloni

The Higgs, Boltzmann Brains, and Monkeys Typing Hamlet | The Crux | Discover Magazine - 7 views

blogs.discovermagazine.com/...ains-and-monkeys-typing-hamlet

science space

shared by santecarloni on 01 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • santecarloni on 01 Nov 12
     
    good luck with this....
  • ...3 more comments...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 01 Nov 12
     
    Nice article, actually! It summarizes in "human readable format" why and how too many cosmologists and string theorists just went bozo...
  • pacome delva on 13 Nov 12
     
    really ! this article should go for the ignobels ! http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3778 I wonder which substance theorists are taking... I will avoid...! but really this is very preoccupating: "complex structures will occasionally emerge from the vacuum as quantum fluctuations, at a small but nonzero rate per unit spacetime volume. An intelligent observer, like a human, could be one such structure." Is this a new alternative to Darwinism...??? a support to creationism ?? How can a physicist can write such non-sense ?
  • pacome delva on 13 Nov 12
     
    and this is published in PRD !!!
  • Luzi Bergamin on 13 Nov 12
     
    In 1996 Sokal hoaxed sociologists with his famous nonsense text on political implications of quantum gravity. Can one play a similar game with "researchers" on Boltzmann brains, multiverses, string landscapes or similar? I doubt, this is just reality satire that can't be topped.
  • LeopoldS on 13 Nov 12
     
    Poor Boltzmann ...
1 - 20 of 54 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page