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Francesco Biscani

Apple's Mistake - 5 views

www.paulgraham.com/apple.html

shared by Francesco Biscani on 16 Jun 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Francesco Biscani on 16 Jun 10
     
    Nice opinion piece.
  • LeopoldS on 16 Jun 10
     
    nice indeed .... especially like: "They make such great stuff, but they're such assholes. Do I really want to support this company? Should Apple care what people like me think? What difference does it make if they alienate a small minority of their users? There are a couple reasons they should care. One is that these users are the people they want as employees. If your company seems evil, the best programmers won't work for you. That hurt Microsoft a lot starting in the 90s. Programmers started to feel sheepish about working there. It seemed like selling out. When people from Microsoft were talking to other programmers and they mentioned where they worked, there were a lot of self-deprecating jokes about having gone over to the dark side. But the real problem for Microsoft wasn't the embarrassment of the people they hired. It was the people they never got. And you know who got them? Google and Apple. If Microsoft was the Empire, they were the Rebel Alliance. And it's largely because they got more of the best people that Google and Apple are doing so much better than Microsoft today. Why are programmers so fussy about their employers' morals? Partly because they can afford to be. The best programmers can work wherever they want. They don't have to work for a company they have qualms about. But the other reason programmers are fussy, I think, is that evil begets stupidity. An organization that wins by exercising power starts to lose the ability to win by doing better work. And it's not fun for a smart person to work in a place where the best ideas aren't the ones that win."
  • Ma Ru on 16 Jun 10
     
    Poor programmers can complain, but they will keep developing applications for iPhone as long as their bosses will tell them to do so... From my experience in mobile software development I assure you it's not the pain of the programmer that dictates what is done, but the customer's demand. Even though like this the quality of applications is somewhat worse than it could be, clients won't complain as they have no reference point. And things will stay as they are: apple censoring the applications, clients paying for stuff that "sometimes just does not work" (it's normal, isn't it??), and programmers complaining, but obediently making iPhone apps...
jmlloren

Exotic matter : Insight : Nature - 5 views

www.nature.com/...index.html

nan phy

shared by jmlloren on 03 Aug 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • jmlloren on 03 Aug 10
     
    Trends in materials and condensed matter. Check out the topological insulators. amazing field.
  • ...12 more comments...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 03 Aug 10
     
    Aparently very interesting, will it survive the short hype? Relevant work describing mirror charges of topological insulators and the classical boundary conditions were done by Ismo and Ari. But the two communities don't know each other and so they are never cited. Also a way to produce new things...
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    Thanks for noticing! Indeed, I had no idea that Ari (don't know Ismo) was involved in the field. Was it before Kane's proposal or more recently? What I mostly like is that semiconductors are good candidates for 3D TI, however I got lost in the quantum field jargon. Yesterday, I got a headache trying to follow the Majorana fermions, the merons, skyrnions, axions, and so on. Luzi, are all these things familiar to you?
  • Luzi Bergamin on 04 Aug 10
     
    Ismo Lindell described in the early 90's the mirror charge of what is now called topological insulator. He says that similar results were obtained already at the beginning of the 20th century... Ismo Lindell and Ari Sihvola in the recent years discussed engineering aspects of PEMCs (perfect electro-megnetic conductors,) which are more or less classical analogues of topological insulators. Fundamental aspects of PEMCs are well knwon in high-energy physics for a long time, recent works are mainly due to Friedrich Hehl and Yuri Obukhov. All these works are purely classical, so there is no charge quantisation, no considerations of electron spin etc. About Majorana fermions: yes, I spent several years of research on that topic. Axions: a topological state, of course, trivial :-) Also merons and skyrnions are topological states, but I'm less familiar with them.
  • LeopoldS on 04 Aug 10
     
    "Non-Abelian systems1, 2 contain composite particles that are neither fermions nor bosons and have a quantum statistics that is far richer than that offered by the fermion-boson dichotomy. The presence of such quasiparticles manifests itself in two remarkable ways. First, it leads to a degeneracy of the ground state that is not based on simple symmetry considerations and is robust against perturbations and interactions with the environment. Second, an interchange of two quasiparticles does not merely multiply the wavefunction by a sign, as is the case for fermions and bosons. Rather, it takes the system from one ground state to another. If a series of interchanges is made, the final state of the system will depend on the order in which these interchanges are being carried out, in sharp contrast to what happens when similar operations are performed on identical fermions or bosons." wow, this paper by Stern reads really weired ... any of you ever looked into this?
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    C'mon Leopold, it's as trivial as the topological states, AKA axions! Regarding the question, not me!
  • LeopoldS on 04 Aug 10
     
    just looked up the wikipedia entry on axions .... at least they have some creativity in names giving: "In supersymmetric theories the axion has both a scalar and a fermionic superpartner. The fermionic superpartner of the axion is called the axino, the scalar superpartner is called the saxion. In some models, the saxion is the dilaton. They are all bundled up in a chiral superfield. The axino has been predicted to be the lightest supersymmetric particle in such a model.[24] In part due to this property, it is considered a candidate for the composition of dark matter.[25]"
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    Thank's Leopold. Sorry Luzi for being ironic concerning the triviality of the axions. Now, Leo confirmed me that indeed is a trivial matter. I have problems with models where EVERYTHING is involved.
  • Luzi Bergamin on 04 Aug 10
     
    Well, that's the theory of everything, isn't it?? Seriously: I don't think that theoretically there is a lot of new stuff here. Topological aspects of (non-Abelian) theories became extremely popular in the context of string theory. The reason is very simple: topological theories are much simpler than "normal" and since string theory anyway is far too complicated to be solved, people just consider purely topological theories, then claiming that this has something to do with the real world, which of course is plainly wrong. So what I think is new about these topological insulators are the claims that one can actually fabricate a material which more or less accurately mimics a topological theory and that these materials are of practical use. Still, they are a little bit the poor man's version of the topological theories fundamental physicists like to look at since electrdynamics is an Abelian theory.
  • jmlloren on 04 Aug 10
     
    I have the feeling, not the knowledge, that you are right. However, I think that the implications of this light quantum field effects are great. The fact of being able to sustain two currents polarized in spin is a technological breakthrough.
  • LeopoldS on 04 Aug 10
     
    not sure how much I can contribute to your apparently educated debate here but if I remember well from my work for the master, these non-Abelian theories were all but "simple" as Luzi puts it ... and from a different perspective: to me the whole thing of being able to describe such non-Abelian systems nicely indicates that they should in one way or another also have some appearance in Nature (would be very surprised if not) - though this is of course no argument that makes string theory any better or closer to what Luzi called reality ....
  • Luzi Bergamin on 04 Aug 10
     
    Well, electrodynamics remains an Abelian theory. From the theoretical point of view this is less interesting than non-Abelian ones, since in 4D the fibre bundle of a U(1) theory is trivial (great buzz words, eh!) But in topological insulators the point of view is slightly different since one always has the insulator (topological theory), its surrounding (propagating theory) and most importantly the interface between the two. This is a new situation that people from field and string theory were not really interested in.
  • Dario Izzo on 04 Aug 10
     
    guys... how would you explain this to your gran mothers?
  • jmlloren on 05 Aug 10
  • LeopoldS on 07 Aug 10
     
    *you* tried *your* best .... ??
Luís F. Simões

Image evolution - 5 views

alteredqualia.com/...evolve

image evolution AI fun

shared by Luís F. Simões on 09 Sep 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Luís F. Simões on 09 Sep 10
     
    A very simple, but very creative application of evolution! Try it with your images. You can read about the first implementation of this kind here: http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/08/12/09/0238252.shtml
Luís F. Simões

Timelapse video of asteroid discoveries in our solar system from 1980-2010 (watch in 10... - 5 views

www.youtube.com/watch

asteroid detection solar system WISE

shared by Luís F. Simões on 13 Sep 10 - No Cached
Joris _ liked it
  • Ma Ru on 14 Sep 10
     
    Nice... Now I have a lame question: after you have discovered ~500k asteroids, all moving (I assume more or less) chaotically in that asteroid belt, how do you tell one from another?
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Joris _ on 14 Sep 10
     
    hmm, not very chaotic indeed - laws of Kepler plus some perturbations.
  • Ma Ru on 15 Sep 10
     
    That's what I thought but when presented as a green "goo" in the video, it appears rather unordered... so I guess this is just an impression evoked by a not-to-scale presentation?
  • Francesco Biscani on 19 Sep 10
     
    It depends... orbits can be chaotic if the orbital period is in a resonance with Jupiter, although such orbits are not stable. Such configurations tend to get disrupted pretty quickly (in cosmic terms :P) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkwood_gap
LeopoldS

Future | Timeline | Technology | Predictions | Events | 2010 | 2012 | 2015 | 2020 | 205... - 5 views

www.futuretimeline.net/...2010-2019.htm

BIO technology phy space science fun

shared by LeopoldS on 08 Nov 10 - Cached
  • LeopoldS on 08 Nov 10
     
    nice source of inspiration ....
Joris _

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics - New Horizons Challenge - 5 views

www.aiaa.org/content.cfm

shared by Joris _ on 16 Nov 10 - No Cached
Juxi Leitner liked it
  • Joris _ on 16 Nov 10
     
    the ACT should participate, a least someone in it, ...
  • LeopoldS on 16 Nov 10
     
    seems as if they are lacking ideas ?? :-) and honestly: "The Grand Prize Winner will be announced 6 January and will receive $500 plus a one year, on-line subscription to the AIAA Journal of their choice. Two runner-up winners will each receive $250 and a one year, on-line subscription to the AIAA Journal of their choice." ... :-)
santecarloni

Anthony Atala on growing new organs | Video on TED.com - 5 views

www.ted.com/...organs_engineering_tissue.html

innovation biology organs

shared by santecarloni on 21 Dec 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • santecarloni on 21 Dec 10
     
    for the unbelievers... :)
Luís F. Simões

20 predictions for the next 25 years | guardian.co.uk - 5 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...25-predictions-25-years

future politics economy BIO health energy advertising neuroscience BMI physics PHY dark_matter planck food biotechnology nanotechnology game internet privacy environment biodiversity transport religion entertainment population climate_change crisis

shared by Luís F. Simões on 06 Jan 11 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Giusi Schiavone on 06 Jan 11
     
    the 10th is interesting, connected with our crowdsourcing experiments with the spacegame
Joris _

Video: Seagull Robot Takes Off And Flies On Its Own, Just Like the Real Thing | Popular... - 5 views

www.popsci.com/...akes-and-flies-just-real-thing

robot technology innovation

shared by Joris _ on 28 Mar 11 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Joris _ on 28 Mar 11
     
    Awesome, they managed. (this is a different deal as the micro ones )
  • ...3 more comments...
  • pacome delva on 29 Mar 11
     
    haha, just what they need in holland ;) anyway this is impressive !
  • LeopoldS on 31 Mar 11
     
    really nice - must not be that easy to control, correct?
  • Joris _ on 03 Apr 11
     
    when we tried (http://cas.ensmp.fr/~petit/site-oiseau-np/main.htm good old time :) ) the kinematic and mechanics were the big issues.
  • LeopoldS on 04 Apr 11
     
    this looks like a very nice project back in 2005 ...
  • Ma Ru on 05 Apr 11
     
    Does it also attack people to capture their fish & chips like those beasts we have here in St. Ives?
santecarloni

Even Robots Can Be Heroes - ScienceNOW - 5 views

news.sciencemag.org/...even-robots-can-be-heroes.html

robots AI

shared by santecarloni on 05 May 11 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • santecarloni on 05 May 11
     
    "Computer simulations of tiny robots with rudimentary nervous systems show that, over hundreds of generations, these virtual machines evolve altruistic behaviors"
  • Luís F. Simões on 06 May 11
     
    I have lost track of all the artificial life/evolutionary computing studies showing the evolution of cooperation/altruism. I don't understand why all the big fuss about this latest one.
Luís F. Simões

Coding for Outer Space - A Programming Contest | Google Lunar X PRIZE - 1 views

www.googlelunarxprize.org/...er-space-a-programming-contest

programming competition

shared by Luís F. Simões on 24 May 11 - No Cached
LeopoldS and Joris _ liked it
  • This weekend, programmers from all over Europe will be gearing up to compete in the 5'th Catalysts Coding Coding Contest (CCC'11). This year, the theme is Astronautics.
  • The competition is also open to online participants.
  • Individuals or teams of up to three people will be given a series of challenging problems that must be solved as quickly as possible.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • As a contestant, you must conceive of a proper solution and produce the correct output in order to advance to the next level. How you get there is completely up to you. You may use any computational means at your disposal.
  • Online contestants will not be eligible for prizes – they compete for glory alone.
  • LeopoldS on 25 May 11
     
    who is interested in following this a bit closer?
andreiaries

Solar Sinter melts sand into 3D-printed glass (Wired UK) - 5 views

www.wired.co.uk/...solar-sinter

technology 3D-printed

shared by andreiaries on 27 Jun 11 - No Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • andreiaries on 27 Jun 11
     
    "When in the desert he came up with the idea to use the two dominating features in the desert -- the sun and the sand -- in his next project.". I wonder where we should send him next.
  • Ma Ru on 27 Jun 11
     
    Arts project with implications for space science... Awesome! Note how this guy is dressed in the middle of an Egyptian desert, lol...
nikolas smyrlakis

Quantum Levitation Video - YouTube - 5 views

www.youtube.com/watch

shared by nikolas smyrlakis on 19 Oct 11 - No Cached
pacome delva liked it
  • nikolas smyrlakis on 19 Oct 11
     
    impressive for us non-physicists
santecarloni

How Likely Is a Runaway Greenhouse Effect on Earth? - Technology Review - 1 views

www.technologyreview.com/...27495

climate BIO Science

shared by santecarloni on 13 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • santecarloni on 13 Jan 12
     
    Sometime in the last few billion years, disaster struck one of Earth's nearest neighbours. Planetary geologists think there is good evidence that Venus was the victim of a runaway greenhouse effect which turned the planet into the boiling hell we see today. A similar catastrophe is almost certain to strike Earth in about 2 billion years, as the Sun increases in luminosity.
  • LeopoldS on 14 Jan 12
     
    the actual paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.1593 just wondering if their conclusion that the long term solution is to change the orbit of Earth is really the ultimate wisdom ...
Luís F. Simões

The Spray-On Antenna That Boosts Reception Using Zero Power - 1 views

gizmodo.com/...sts-reception-using-zero-power

antenna

shared by Luís F. Simões on 22 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Speaking at Google's new "Solve for X" event, Rhett Spencer from military technology firm Chamtech explained how the company has developed an aerosol spray that paints an antenna onto any surface, boosting local wireless reception without using any extra power.
  • the aerosol coats a surface with thousands of nanocapacitors. They somehow align themselves and act as a wireless antenna.
  • Luís F. Simões on 22 Feb 12
  • Luís F. Simões on 22 Feb 12
     
    random idea: how about using this thing as the "pheromone" to be by released by robots in a swarm... Recognizing an area as being of interest, for some reason, would lead to more "pheromones" being released there. This would in turn attract other robots to the area, by virtue of having also maximization of connectivity to the rest of the swarm as part of the navigation algorithm.
  • LeopoldS on 25 Feb 12
     
    If this works as they claim this would be really interesting. Still no clue how they might be able to make this work though! Anybody?
Luís F. Simões

Barabasi, A.-L. (2012). The network takeover. Nat Phys, 8(1), 14-16. - 1 views

www.nature.com/...nphys2188.html

complex_networks complex_systems networks

shared by Luís F. Simões on 29 Feb 12 - No Cached
LeopoldS and Dario Izzo liked it
  • Reductionism, as a paradigm, is expired, and complexity, as a field, is tired. Data-based mathematical models of complex systems are offering a fresh perspective, rapidly developing into a new discipline: network science.
Vincent C

Fly into Solar Radiation Storm (First ACT member into space !) - 1 views

science.nasa.gov/...19apr_camilla

Solar radiation storm nasa

shared by Vincent C on 25 Apr 12 - No Cached
LeopoldS and pandomilla liked it
  • Vincent C on 25 Apr 12
     
    " This isn't Camilla's first adventure. The chicken has also flown on a NASA T-38 training jet, traveled onboard a helium balloon to the stratosphere over Louisiana, visited the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, and visited hundreds of elementary students in classrooms around the country. " Pretty impressive Camilla ! Congratulations :)
pandomilla

Uncoiling the cucumber's enigma - 1 views

www.eurekalert.org/...hu-utc083012.php

shared by pandomilla on 31 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • pandomilla on 31 Aug 12
     
    Captivated by a strange coiling behavior in the grasping tendrils of the cucumber plant, researchers at Harvard University have characterized a new type of spring that is soft when pulled gently and stiff when pulled strongly. Instead of unwinding to a flat ribbon under stress, as an untwisted coil normally would, the cucumber's tendrils actually coil further.
  • pandomilla on 31 Aug 12
     
    ...interesting discovery that can add something to my ongoing Ariadna...
  • pandomilla on 31 Aug 12
     
    And here you have the paper published today on Science http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6098/1087.full
santecarloni

Magic: the Gathering is Turing Complete - 1 views

www.toothycat.net/...index.html

magic gathering science FUN

shared by santecarloni on 13 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 16 Sep 12
     
    so happy that the times of ACT magic are over ... or are they?
  • Luís F. Simões on 16 Sep 12
     
    of course not !!!! :) The ACT Magic nights are alive and well, and getting crazier all the time. And I'm happy to say, no blood has been spilled yet... though at times we've come close :).
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