keeping simple

Category: Uncategorized

  • IEEE’s war on science

    I dropped my subscription to the IEEE “Digital Library” because I found that if I strayed from a very narrow range of  areas, the IEEE wanted ridiculous fees for access to papers. For example, despite a subscription to the digital library, I was not entitled to papers in power engineering. Now I find that the…

  • Mathematics education needs probability and art

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhMKmovNjvc&w=427&h=352] I agree with this but really, basic ideas of calc are simple and could be taught easily early on too. Found here. But this paper is also good and even though I don’t agree with it 100%, I think it is a brilliant diagnosis A musician wakes from a terrible nightmare. In his dream…

  • Process algebra (updated)

    See Process algebra and automata theory

  • OS design

    Working on a “process algebra” post, I had to look up previous posts on microkernels where I wrote this: Information hiding is only good design when the hidden information is not needed by the software it is hidden from! If you hide information that you need to share you’re just wasting time. A great example…

  • Recursion and state

    Despite some deep results, algebraic automata theory has fallen out of favor in theoretical computer science. Reasons include the disciplines failings such as a love of over-generality, weak mathematical background of people working on “formal methods”, and gap between theoreticians and engineers. But perhaps the key reason is that traditional state machine presentations in terms…

  • The ultimate snarky geeky Sun FAIL post

    Well, it seems our friends at Sun have decided that their Spicetm Enhanced brains are completely sufficient to create an entirely new – but far simpler, mind you – module system for the JDK.  Mark “I’m just a simple Guild Navigator” Reinhold has spent a number of blog posts doing the electronic equivalent of the…

  • SGI assets to Rackable – the mighty have fallen

    SGI has filed for banruptcy and Rackable has bid $25M for the assets – which through the miracle of bankruptcy law can now be peeled off from the debts. SGI is partly one of the victims of the Itanium (or the “Itanic” as it was known to the cynical), but it certainly was not Intel’s…

  • Power Systems Reliability Challenges

    It is becoming more common for fire ants to build nests in pad mounted equipment. Their nesting materials can cause short circuits, the ants can eat away at conductor insulation, and they make equipment maintenance a challenge. from Power System Reliability, by Richard Brown, in the Electric Power Engineering Handbook The subdued poetry of engineering…

  • Happy Birthday to Emmy Noether

    March 23.  So much for you, Larry Summers, mere economist.

  • Satyam explodes

    WSJ: Satyam Computer Services Ltd. Chairman B. Ramalinga Raju Wednesday resigned admitting to falsifying company accounts and inflating revenue and profit figures over several years, sending the company’s shares plunging 78%. In a letter to the company’s board, which was released to the Bombay Stock Exchange, Raju said that Satyam had inflated its operating profit…