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• The Future of Life Assurance Conference Recap

  - by [email protected]

  I recently wrote about the Life Insurance Conference held in Washington, DC last month. This week I was both an attendee and guest speaker the 13th Annual Future of Life Assurance Conference held at The Guoman Tower in London, UK. It's amazing that these two conferences were held on opposition sides of the Atlantic Ocean and addressed many of the same session topics and themes. Insurance is certainly a global industry! This year's conference was attended by many of the leading carriers and CEOs in the UK and across Europe.The sessions included a strong lineup of keynote speakers and panel discussions from carriers such as Legal & General, Skandia, Aviva, Standard Life, Friends Provident, LV=, Zurich UK, Barclays and Scottish Life. Sessions topics addressed a variety of business and regulatory issues including: Ensuring a profitable future Key priorities in regulation The future of advice The impact of the RDR on distribution Bancassurance Gaining control of the customer relationship Revitalizing product offerings In addition, Oracle speakers (Glenn Lottering and myself) led specific sessions on gearing up for Solvency II and speeding product development through adaptive rules-based systems. The main themes that played throughout many of the sessions included: change is here, focusing on customers, the current economic crisis has been challenging and the industry needs to get back to the basics and simplify - simplify - simplify. Additionally, it is clear that the UK Life & Pension markets will be going through some major changes as new RDR regulation related to advisor fees and commission and automatic enrollment are rolled out in 2012 Roger A.Soppe, CLU, LUTCF, is the Senior Director of Insurance Strategy, Oracle Insurance.

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• How to stop reducing life? [closed]

  - by SystemNetworks

  CODE Input input = gc.getInput(); int xpos = Mouse.getX(); int ypos = Mouse.getY(); emu = "Enemy Life : " + enemyLife; Life = "Your Life Is" + life; Mousepos = "X:" + xpos + "Y:" + ypos; //test test1 = "Test INT" + test1int; if(!repeatStop) { //if this button is press, the damage will add up. When //pressed fight, it would start reducing the enemy health. if(input.isKeyPressed(Input.KEY_1)) { test1int += 1; } } if((xpos>1007 &xpos<1297)&&(ypos>881 && ypos<971)) { //Fight button if(Mouse.isButtonDown(0)){ finishTurn=true; } } //fight has started if(finishTurn==true) { //this would reduce the enemy life if(floodControl1==false) { enemyLife-=test1int; } //PROBLEM: Does not stop reducing! //the below code was not successful. It did not stop it // from reducing further. if(test1int>10) { floodControl1=true; } } QUESTION: Ok now, this is what is does. When I press the key, 1, it adds up the damage to the enemy. When I press fight, It will then start to reduce the enemy's health. Now my problem is, it kept on reducing and deducting it until negative! How do I deduct it to my desired damage (My desired damage is the one when press key 1)?

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• ASP.NET application and page life cycle

  ASP.NET application and page life cycle

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• Game of life in F# with accelerator

  - by jpalmer

  I'm trying to write life in F# using accelerator v2, but for some odd reason my output isn't square despite all my arrays being square - It appears that everything but a rectangular area in the top left of the matrix is being set to false. I've got no idea how this could be happening as all my operations should treat the entire array equally. Any ideas? open Microsoft.ParallelArrays open System.Windows.Forms open System.Drawing type IPA = IntParallelArray type BPA = BoolParallelArray type PAops = ParallelArrays let RNG = new System.Random() let size = 1024 let arrinit i = Array2D.init size size (fun x y -> i) let target = new DX9Target() let threearr = new IPA(arrinit 3) let twoarr = new IPA(arrinit 2) let onearr = new IPA(arrinit 1) let zeroarr = new IPA(arrinit 0) let shifts = [|-1;-1|]::[|-1;0|]::[|-1;1|]::[|0;-1|]::[|0;1|]::[|1;-1|]::[|1;0|]::[|1;1|]::[] let progress (arr:BPA) = let sums = shifts //adds up whether a neighbor is on or not |> List.fold (fun (state:IPA) t ->PAops.Add(PAops.Cond(PAops.Rotate(arr,t),onearr,zeroarr),state)) zeroarr PAops.Or(PAops.CompareEqual(sums,threearr),PAops.And(PAops.CompareEqual(sums,twoarr),arr)) //rule for life let initrandom () = Array2D.init size size (fun x y -> if RNG.NextDouble() > 0.5 then true else false) type meform () as self= inherit Form() let mutable array = new BoolParallelArray(initrandom()) let timer = new System.Timers.Timer(1.0) //redrawing timer do base.DoubleBuffered <- true do base.Size <- Size(size,size) do timer.Elapsed.Add(fun _ -> self.Invalidate()) do timer.Start() let draw (t:Graphics) = array <- array |> progress let bmap = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(size,size) target.ToArray2D array |> Array2D.iteri (fun x y t -> if not t then bmap.SetPixel(x,y,Color.Black)) t.DrawImageUnscaled(bmap,0,0) do self.Paint.Add(fun t -> draw t.Graphics) do Application.Run(new meform())

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• I am not satisfied with my career and accomplished nothing in my life. what should I do now [on hold]

  - by user2906155

  After my complete my College education I got chance to work on software programming. I work on few software and now nothing make me feel good. I don't like web-programming. Can't have too much mind to play with other people in team a designer or a senior. it's totally time wasting for me. We do integration without any source code control. copy through pen drive. I write in too many language for web-programming but know nothing about any language specially. I don't like to have a BOSS. I would like to do something on my own. From last 3 year I thing I will got a better job but I am unable to get it. I am not good at Programming nor my English is native. I have a big list for pay then my salary. I have problem with nothing. my atmosphere is about illiterate people. they abuse 24 hours a day. this thing make me sick. people watch CRIME patrol my home (watching rape in TV because it's happen to someone). I do my work from home. I don't like to live in my state. All state is one of the biggest illiterate state of my country. Once I apply for a Job in China and it's look like I can get thing Job but I don't get it. My family doesn't want me to settle anywhere else. I told my family 4 time a day that I can't live in this worst situation. Everyone (including the person who I work for) tell me that you can do it only you have money. Now I really don't know how to make money. My job not allow me to work for anyone. My productivity going down since I don't learn anything new. I thing if this happen to me for next 2 year I don't have any knowledge more then a peon. I hate it. When I was in other city then I see that if I spent 7 days their all my 7 days going better. even I go for travelling in green places then I like it. but all I hate it where I work for. When I work on other city then I see my productivity are improved and I don't hate my work. I listen a song "If you don't your love what are you doing it for". I seriously don' t know what I still live here because this place gave me nothing but depression and trouble. for people I clear that I don't belong to RICH or middle class family. All I got is doing something on my own or help of someone. affording a rental place make my run on footpath. All I save in one month is just 10$ (approximately) (actually I afford some guys's education now). Can a programmer live worst life like this. I really not happy. Today is a festival in India and I don't celebrate it because I really hate myself. I want to do suicide. someone guide me how to start solving this headache

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• Laptop battery life drastically decreased compared to Windows 7

  - by Aron Rotteveel

  I am running Ubuntu 10.10 on my Dell Studio XPS 1640 and have about one hour of battery life in it, compared to about 2.5 hours running on Windows 7. This is with wireless and bluetooth on, but still, the difference seems incredible. What could be causing such a difference and is there a way to close the gap without losing core functionality? EDIT: here's some output from powertop. This is with bluetooth turned off and Wifi turned on. The output seems pretty normal to me, but as indicated, this is about 1 hour of battery life on a full battery... Wakeups-from-idle per second : 476.2 interval: 10.0s Power usage (ACPI estimate): 2.5W (1.2 hours) Top causes for wakeups: 30.0% (167.2)D chrome 21.0% (117.3) [extra timer interrupt] 13.9% ( 77.4) [kernel scheduler] Load balancing tick 3.4% ( 18.9)D xchat 7.1% ( 39.8) [iwlagn] <interrupt> 5.9% ( 32.9) AptanaStudio3 3.9% ( 21.6)D java 2.7% ( 14.9) [TLB shootdowns] <kernel IPI> 2.5% ( 14.1) docky 1.8% ( 10.0) nautilus 1.6% ( 9.0) thunderbird-bin 1.0% ( 5.5) [ahci] <interrupt> 0.9% ( 5.0) syndaemon 0.8% ( 4.3) [kernel core] hrtimer_start (tick_sched_timer) EDIT: after changing /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode to 5 (it was set to 0), wakeups seem to have decreased, although usage still seems far too high: Wakeups-from-idle per second : 263.8 interval: 10.0s Power usage (ACPI estimate): 2.6W (0.9 hours) EDIT: I seem to have discovered the main cause: I was using the open source ATI Drivers. I recently installed the official ATI drivers and laptop battery life seems to have doubled since. EDIT: last edit. The previous 'solution' of installing the official ATI drivers turns out to be a non-solution. Although it does increase battery life, my laptop resolution is maxed out at 1200x800 after a reboot. (Please note that this problem does not need answering in this question as it is a seperate case)

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• XNA for life!

  - by George Clingerman

  Or until my arm falls off at least…. I’ve been meaning to get a new tattoo for quite a while. And I wanted it to be geeky and to represent some memorable milestone in my life. So I was thinking, mulling over some various ideas, sketching some things out. And then it hit me. XNA. Specifically the XNA logo. It’s super geeky (so geeky I’ll probably have to explain to 90% of the people that say it what it even means) and I’m not sure that anything has been so memorable and made such a change in my life as XNA. Cheesy but true. When the XNA framework came out, thing started happening quickly. I stumbled into a geek community and started going to code camps, MSDN events, code-a-thons. I got an XNA MVP award. Met huge geek idols in my life (like Rory Blyth and Scott Hanselman) and just really started getting integrated into this fantastic development community. Then to add to all of that I became part of this fantastic XNA community. It’s really just been one of the best things to ever happen to me and I’m having the time of my life right now. So sure, it’s permanent. Sure Microsoft could cancel XNA, rebrand it to Flimmer Flammer or some other name. Sure my arms are going to be wrinkly and flabby when I’m older and for sure I’m going to have to explain to people over and over again just what in the world “xna” means. But you know what, every time I look at that tattoo and every time I’m telling somebody what xna means, I’m going to remember all these awesome things that have happened to me. All the tremendous things I’m seeing people do with the XNA framework and more importantly all the stories and friendships I’ve formed in the XNA community. And I think that deserves a little permanent recognition.

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• Korea&rsquo;s Anti Abortion / Pro Life Movement

  - by Randy Walker

  The South Korean government is in dire straits.  The national birth rate continues to decline and as the population grows older, there aren’t enough children being born to support the country long term.  The social issues of post Korean War are coming back to haunt the empowered nation.  Being torn apart by the Korean War (nicknamed the forgotten war in America) and with a nation facing starvation, South Korea allowed hundreds of thousands of their children to be adopted abroad.  This has created a problem of epidemic proportions, essentially devaluing life in Korea and child rearing. In an effort to encourage birth rates, the government encouraged their workers to go home early and procreate by turning off the lights in buildings.  Something unknown to me, was the illegalization of abortion except in special cases. According to the this article, http://joongangdaily.joins.com it’s working.  Abortions are down and women are being encouraged to give birth.  However the flip side is illegal risky abortions are on the rise, with potential back alley abortions looming.  But with a nation facing it’s potential implosion, it has to continue it’s efforts to encourage mothers to give birth. Many of the issues that America has faced is in stark contrast to South Korea.  Abortion has been a generally accepted procedure for some time.  If you’ll recall, I mentioned South Korea devalued their children.  But the nation’s problems lie so much deeper.  Being an Asian nation, saving “face” is an important aspect of life.  And being an unwed mother disgraces the family.  Living as a single mother in South Korea is a difficult life.  Most married mothers stay at home to take care of the children.  Being a shunned single mother that has a hard time getting a job (because you are a single mother) and affording child care isn’t like life in America. If we in the states suddenly faced a birthrate crisis, what would the U.S. government do?

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• How to Switch from 4G LTE to 3G on the New iPad to Save Battery Life

  - by The Geek

  Whether you live somewhere without 4G coverage, you live in a bad coverage zone, or you just want to conserve some battery life, it’s extremely simple to disable 4G / LTE on the new 3rd generation iPad and switch to 3G instead, which uses less battery life. Note: We’ve not done formal testing yet to figure out how much battery life you might save, but there’s no question that 4G LTE technology uses a lot more battery overall, and it’s useful to know that you can disable it. Make Your Own Windows 8 Start Button with Zero Memory Usage Reader Request: How To Repair Blurry Photos HTG Explains: What Can You Find in an Email Header?

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• Battery life decreased after upgrade to 11.04

  - by bruno077

  After upgrading from Ubuntu 10.10, my battery life has decreased dramatically. There was a bug in Ubuntu 10.10 where the Load Balancing Tick and Kworker would interrupt and wake-up the cpu too much, and this wasn't normal. I applied a gnome-power-manager fix back then, following this question, which leads to this bug report, and battery life increased to 3.5 hours. I'm getting around two hours of battery-life in Natty, and calling Intel's powertop reveals that this bug is back. Is there a fix for Natty yet? I have a Core 2 Duo ULV, Thinkpad Edge 13

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• Fans are noisy and battery life is low

  - by Igor Ryzhov

  I worked on Windows 8 previosly and I never had problems: my laptop was quiet and battery life was about 5-6 hours without charge. Then I installed Ubuntu 12.10 and my problems started: now fans are always on and have very strong noise and battery life shortened to 1-1.5 hour! How can I solve this problem? UPD: Full specifications: http://www.onyougo.co.uk/samsung-700z5a-s01ru-notebooks-laptops-features_pi1492384e2

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• The Birth and Life of a Disk Galaxy [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  In this video, rendered over a million CPU hours by the Pleiades supercomputer at NASA’s Ames Research Center, we see the birth and life of a massive disk galaxy. Computer Model Shows a Disk Galaxy’s Life History [via Geeks Are Sexy] HTG Explains: Why It’s Good That Your Computer’s RAM Is Full 10 Awesome Improvements For Desktop Users in Windows 8 How To Play DVDs on Windows 8

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• CRM On Demand Disconnected Mobile Sales for Life Sciences (iSales) is available

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  The much awaited CRMOD Disconnected Mobile Sales for Life Sciences (iSales) is now available! Oracle CRM On Demand Disconnected Mobile Sales for Life Sciences provides a flexible CRM solution for the iPad platform. It provides world-class productivity for pharmaceutical sales in disconnected and connected environments. Take a look at the Product Data Sheet and contact your local CRM onDemand sales representative for further information.

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• Dell Vostro 3500 battery life remaining missing from Windows 8?

  - by Misha

  On Windows 7 a Vostro 3500 laptop shows the battery life remaining, while on Windows 8 this information appears to be missing. The percentage is still available, but the life remaining is missing. How is battery life remaining calculated and does this require some level of driver support? Is it a standardized interface? Does anybody know which driver is responsible for handling this feature? I want to force the old Windows 7 driver, but I don't know which driver does battery remaining.

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• SQL SERVER – What is Page Life Expectancy (PLE) Counter

  - by pinaldave

  During performance tuning consultation there are plenty of counters and values, I often come across. Today we will quickly talk about Page Life Expectancy counter, which is commonly known as PLE as well. You can find the value of the PLE by running following query. SELECT [object_name], [counter_name], [cntr_value] FROM sys.dm_os_performance_counters WHERE [object_name] LIKE '%Manager%' AND [counter_name] = 'Page life expectancy' The recommended value of the PLE counter is 300 seconds. I have seen on busy system this value to be as low as even 45 seconds and on unused system as high as 1250 seconds. Page Life Expectancy is number of seconds a page will stay in the buffer pool without references. In simple words, if your page stays longer in the buffer pool (area of the memory cache) your PLE is higher, leading to higher performance as every time request comes there are chances it may find its data in the cache itself instead of going to hard drive to read the data. Now check your system and post back what is this counter value for you during various time of the day. Is this counter any way relates to performance issues for your system? Note: There are various other counters which are important to discuss during the performance tuning and this counter is not everything. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Optimization, SQL Performance, SQL Query, SQL Scripts, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

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• Oracle Announces Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity 9.4

  - by helen.pitts(at)oracle.com

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Today's global insurers require the ability to provide higher levels of service and quickly bring to market life insurance and annuity products that not only help them stand out from the competition, but also stay current with local legislation. To succeed, they require agile and flexible core systems that enable them to meet the unique localization requirements of the markets in which they operate, whether in North America, Asia Pacific or the Pan-European Region. The release of Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity 9.4, announced today, helps insurers meet this need with expanded international market capabilities that enable them to reduce risk and profitably compete wherever their business takes them. It offers expanded multi-language along with unit-linked product and fund processing capabilities that enable regional and global insurers to rapidly configure and deliver localized products – along with providing better service for end users through a single policy admin solution. Key enhancements include: Kanji/Kana language support, pre-defined content, and imperial date processing for the Japanese market New localization flexibility for configuring and managing international mailing addresses along with regional variations for client information Enhanced capability to calculate unit-linked pricing and valuation, in addition to market-based processing and pre-configured unit linked content Expanded role-based security and masking capability to further protect sensitive customer data Enhanced capability to restrict processing specified activities based on time of day and user role, reducing exposure to market timing risks Further capability to eliminate duplicate client records, helping to reduce underwriting risks and enhance servicing through a single view of the client "The ability to leverage a single, rules-driven policy administration system for multiple global operation centers can help insurers realize significant improvements in speed to market, customer service, compliance with regional regulations, and consolidation efforts,” noted Celent's Craig Weber, senior vice president, Insurance. “We believe such initiatives are necessary to help the industry address service and distribution imperatives." Helping our customers meet these mission-critical business imperatives is a key objective for Oracle Insurance. Active, ongoing dialogue with our customers is an important part of the process to help understand how our solutions are and can continue to help them achieve success in the marketplace. I had the opportunity to meet with several of our insurance customers at the Oracle Insurance Policy Administration Client Advisory Board meeting last week in Philadelphia, Penn. (View photos on the Oracle Insurance Facebook page.)   It was a great forum for Oracle Insurance and our clients. Discussion centered on the latest business and IT trends, with opportunities to learn more about the latest release of Oracle Insurance Policy Administration for Life and Annuity and other Oracle Insurance solutions such as data warehousing / business intelligence, while exchanging best practices for product innovation and servicing customers and sales channels. Helen Pitts is senior product marketing manager for Oracle Insurance's life and annuities solutions.

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• Don't Forget To Enjoy Life

  - by Justin

  I have a pretty clear stance on posting personal information in my blogs. I tend to avoid it almost instinctively. Part of that is because I am a somewhat private person. And the other is because I know how easy it is for personal information to be gathered and collected from sources such as blogs. So, this has remained a tech only blog for me. I've only posted topics mostly related to issues I have encountered at work. In a way this blog is a 'bookmark' for me. If I post something here and run into the issue again it allows me to refer back to a convenient place where the 'fix' is documented in a way that I understand. But today, I am posting something that speaks to everyone. Something PERSONAL. Honestly, I expect this entry to receive zero views. But if nothing else, I can come back to this blog one day when I'm having a bad day or something and run across this post. And I will be reminded... DON'T FORGET TO ENJOY LIFE. Say this to yourself out loud, right now. People, we can get caught up in some rather mundane details as we trek through life. It's so easy to lose track of what really matters that it should be no surprise to find yourself reading something like this and thinking to yourself 'Yeah. You are right, man. Some of this crap I'm clinging on to right now is so small in the grand scheme of things'. I have no reservation, no shame, in saying that I am more often than not caught up in the ever evolving world of 'shit that does not matter'. When you work in technology, you are surrounded by deadlines, upgrades, new versions, support 'end of life', etc. And by time you get done with your 8 hours you go home and put in a few more because you are STILL CAUGHT UP in the things you dealt with at work all day. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR. DO YOUR FAMILY AND FRIEND A FAVOR. When you are done for the day, and you drive home, get those work-related things out of your head before you pull into the driveway. If you are still thinking on them when you park the car, leave the engine running, close your eyes and take a deep breath. If you believe in God, pray. If you don't then meditate for a second with the INTENTION of letting go of the day and becoming the 'real you'. You may have forgotten who the real you is so I'll remind you.... THE REAL YOU IS THAT GUY OR GAL THAT LAUGHS, LOVES, AND LIVES. Be the real you as often as possible. If you can't do it during your 9 - 5, do it at home. YOUR RELATIONSHIPS AND YOUR PERSONAL HAPPINESS DEPEND ON IT. I am going to make you a promise right now. If you do what I've just said, your days will be longer and your joy will be exponential. I can't explain why I know this to be true. But I do know it. And if you are there reading this right now, you know it is true too. We both know it is true because it COMES FROM WITHIN EVERY MAN, WOMAN and CHILD. We are born into love and happiness. Lets not fade away into the darkness so easily found in this world. Lets keep the flame burning. The flame of passion. Passion for LIFE. Peace be with you.

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• Life Cycle Navigator?

  - by C.W.Holeman II

  In many environments the file system directory structure and naming conventions attempt to allow one to use a file manager to navigate the life cycle of a document. This overloading of functions makes it difficult for users to handle the complexity. A file browser is a tool that lets the user navigate among files located in a directory structure to find a specific file. Whereas, when given a specific file, a life cycle navigator is a tool that lets the user navigate its life cycle from source to published copy and across versions. Does a Life Cycle Navigator exit? I see a user pointing at an object: Left mouse button displays the document Right mouse button has a Life Cycle Navigator (LCN) The LCN displays a tree for a specific document within a file manger, for example: Published 3.2 Current 3.1 3.0 +2.x +1.x +Archived +All Source Draft 3.2 Current 3.1 3.0 +2.x +1.x +Archived +All +Work Flow +Properties Or from a command line: $ lcn x.pdf --open_source_document | my_favorite_editor $ lcn x.pdf --show_published_version_info $ lcn x.pdf --show_previous_publish_versions_info See also, Life Cycle Navigator.

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• SmoothLife Is a Super Smooth Version of Conway’s Game of Life [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  What happens if you change cellular automaton program Game of Life to use floating point values instead of integers? You end up with SmoothLife, a fluid and organic growth simulator. SmoothLife is a family of rules created by Stephan Rafler. It was designed as a continuous version of Conway’s Game of Life – using floating point values instead of integers. This rule is SmoothLifeL which supports many interesting phenomena such as gliders that can travel in any direction, rotating pairs of gliders, wickstretchers and the appearance of elastic tension in the ‘cords’ that join the blobs. You can check out the paper outlining how SmoothLife works here and then grab the source code to run your own simulation here. [via Boing Boing] HTG Explains: What is the Windows Page File and Should You Disable It? How To Get a Better Wireless Signal and Reduce Wireless Network Interference How To Troubleshoot Internet Connection Problems

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• On Life and TechEd&hellip;

  - by MOSSLover

  I haven’t been writing here I know.  I am very sorry, but I am just too busy trying to make my personal life just as good as my SharePoint life.  So I was at TechEd again helping with the hands on labs, but I had a very long couple of weeks.  I will have a long week again.  I started out going to my friend, Randy Walker’s, wedding and I ended up at my grandmother’s condo in Fort Lauderdale.  It was a very trying week.  I had to drive 5 1/2 hours to the wedding from St. Louis and back.  So Randy is an awesome person.  He is a great guy and he was the first person ever to nominate me for MVP.  I knew it probably wasn’t going anywhere, but it was the thought that count.  I met Randy in 2008 at Tulsa Techfest.  We had fun jamming out to Rockband.  I knew he was good people back then.  He has let me vent and I have let him vent over countless personal problems.  He has always been a great friend.  So it was a no brainer when I decided to go to his wedding no matter how much driving or stress or lack of sleep it was worth it.  I am incredibly happy for him to finally find a diamond amongst a lot of coal.  To take part in his celebration was so awesome.  I thank him again for letting me participate in this ceremony. Now after Randy’s wedding I drove 5 1/2 hours landed in St. Louis, fed a cat an asthma pill hidden in wet cat food, and slept for 4 hours.  I immediately saw my best friend who dropped me off at the airport and proceeded to TechEd.  I slept 1 hour on each flight, then ended up working a 3 hour shift at TechEd.  The rest of the week was a haze of connecting with people and sleeping very little.  I got to see my friend Tasha and her husband Casey plus a billion other people.  It was a great week and then I got a call from my grandmother.  It turns out her husband was admitted to the hospital. My grandparents on my dad's side have been divorced since the 60s, which means I never got to see them together.  I always felt like they never cliqued.  When I was a kid we would always spend half our time in Chicago at grandma’s and half our time at grandpa’s houses.  We would hang out with my grandpa’s wife Bobbi and my grandma’s husband Leo.  My cousin’s always called Leo by Pappa and my brother and I would use Leo.  My cousins lived in Chicago up until my cousin Gavi was born then they moved to Philadelphia.  I remember complaining to my dad that we never visited anywhere cool just Chicago and Kansas City.  I also remember Leo teaching me and my brother, Sam, how to climb a tree and play tennis on the back of the apartment wall.  My grandfather’s was kind of stuffy and boring, but we always enjoyed my grandmother’s.  She had games and Disney Movies and toys.  Leo always made it a ton of fun to visit.  I’m not sure a lot of people knew this fact, but when I was 16 years old I saw my grandfather on my mother’s side slowly die of congestive heart failure in a nursing home.  When I was 18 I saw my grandmother on my mother’s side slowly die of an infection over a 30 day period.  I hate hospitals and I hate nursing homes, but sometimes you have to suck in your gut and be strong.  I tried to do that this weekend and I hope I did an ok job.  I really hope things get better, but if they don’t I really appreciate everything he has given me in life.  I am a terrible tennis player and I haven’t climbed a tree in ages, but they both encouraged me when encouragement from my parents was lacking.  It was Father’s Day today and I have to at least pay tribute to Leo Morris, because he has been a good person to me all my life.  Technorati Tags: TechEd,Grandparents,Father's Day

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• Real life example of an agile game development process

  - by Ken

  I'm trying to learn about applying agile methodologies to game development. But seems to be impossible to find real life examples. What I am looking for are things like; Initial user stories Final user stories (complete, covering the entire game requirements) Acceptance criteria Task list Sprint backlogs (before and after each sprint) The agile books seem to have some limited examples, many of which seem contrived. In this era of open source software, there must be an documented example of the process applied to a game that is publicly available. I am asking specifically about games because they are so different from normal applications. Regular applications are built to all users to complete specific tasks in order to get stuff done(book a room, print a report etc). People play games for much less tangible reasons, so I think the process is significantly different. [it doesn't have to be scrum, it could be any process, just needs to be a real life example game and be reasonably complete]

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• Managing accounts on a private website for a real-life community

  - by Smudge

  Hey Pro Webmasters, I'm looking at setting-up a walled-in website for a real-life community of people, and I was wondering if anyone has any experience with managing member accounts for this kind of thing. Some conditions that must be met: This community has a set list of real-life members, each of whom would be eligible for one account on the website. We don't expect or require that they all sign-up. It is purely opt-in, but we anticipate that many of them would be interested in the services we are setting up. Some of the community members emails are known, but some of them have fallen off the grid over the years, so ideally there would be a way for them to get back in touch with us through the public-facing side of the site. (And we'd want to manually verify the identity of anyone who does so). Their names are known, and for similar projects in the past we have assigned usernames derived from their real-life names. This time, however, we are open to other approaches, such as letting them specify their own username or getting rid of usernames entirely. The specific web technology we will use (e.g. Drupal, Joomla, etc) is not really our concern right now -- I am more interested in how this can be approached in the abstract. Our database already includes the full member roster, so we can email many of them generated links to a page where they can create an account. (And internally we can require that these accounts be paired with a known member). Should we have them specify their own usernames, or are we fine letting them use their registered email address to log-in? Are there any paradigms for walled-in community portals that help address security issues if, for example, one of their email accounts is compromised? We don't anticipate attempted break-ins being much of a threat, because nothing about this community is high-profile, but we do want to address security concerns. In addition, we want to make the sign-up process as painless for the members as possible, especially given the fact that we can't just make sign-ups open to anyone. I'm interested to hear your thoughts and suggestions! Thanks!

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• Managing accounts on a private website for a real-life community

  - by Smudge

  I'm looking at setting-up a walled-in website for a real-life community of people, and I was wondering if anyone has any experience with managing member accounts for this kind of thing. Some conditions that must be met: This community has a set list of real-life members, each of whom would be eligible for one account on the website. We don't expect or require that they all sign-up. It is purely opt-in, but we anticipate that many of them would be interested in the services we are setting up. Some of the community members emails are known, but some of them have fallen off the grid over the years, so ideally there would be a way for them to get back in touch with us through the public-facing side of the site. (And we'd want to manually verify the identity of anyone who does so). Their names are known, and for similar projects in the past we have assigned usernames derived from their real-life names. This time, however, we are open to other approaches, such as letting them specify their own username or getting rid of usernames entirely. The specific web technology we will use (e.g. Drupal, Joomla, etc) is not really our concern right now -- I am more interested in how this can be approached in the abstract. Our database already includes the full member roster, so we can email many of them generated links to a page where they can create an account. (And internally we can require that these accounts be paired with a known member). Should we have them specify their own usernames, or are we fine letting them use their registered email address to log-in? Are there any paradigms for walled-in community portals that help address security issues if, for example, one of their email accounts is compromised? We don't anticipate attempted break-ins being much of a threat, because nothing about this community is high-profile, but we do want to address security concerns. In addition, we want to make the sign-up process as painless for the members as possible, especially given the fact that we can't just make sign-ups open to anyone. I'm interested to hear your thoughts and suggestions! Thanks!

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• What are unique aspects of a software Lifecycle of an attack/tool on a software vulnerability?

  - by David Kaczynski

  At my local university, there is a small student computing club of about 20 students. The club has several small teams with specific areas of focus, such as mobile development, robotics, game development, and hacking / security. I am introducing some basic agile development concepts to a couple of the teams, such as user stories, estimating complexity of tasks, and continuous integration for version control and automated builds/testing. I am familiar with some basic development life-cycles, such as waterfall, spiral, RUP, agile, etc., but I am wondering if there is such a thing as a software development life-cycle for hacking / breaching security. Surely, hackers are writing computer code, but what is the life-cycle of that code? I don't think that they would be too concerned with maintenance, as once the breach has been found and patched, the code that exploited that breach is useless. I imagine the life-cycle would be something like: Find gap in security Exploit gap in security Procure payload Utilize payload What kind of differences (if any) are there for the development life-cycle of software when the purpose of the product is to breach security?

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• Reflections on Life

  - by MOSSLover

  I haven’t written a blog post in a while.  I understand there is blog neglect going on, but there is a lot going on in my life.  I am trying really hard to embrace the change and roll with everything thrown my way.  I had a really hard year it was not my best and it was not my worst.  I cannot say it was entirely hard, because January 1st I received the MVP Award.  If you know me you know the three things that happened starting in August, but if you really know me it was miserable for a substantial period of time prior to August.  There was some personal life issues I neglected to deal with that came into a headway.  Anyway I’d like to think that as of today I am doing much better.  I finally went to Paris and London.  I found out I love Paris and Nottingham.  I think that London is something I need to visit a few more times.  I would love to go back to the UK and France.  I think I’d love to live overseas someday, but not anytime soon. The past few weeks were like a whirlwind experience.  I felt like I had been sitting around for months just waiting for this trip and the big move.  Maybe it was something I was waiting to do for several years.  I needed a big change.  I needed to get unstuck.  I feel like August, however horrible it was, helped me get to the point where I am somewhere happy.  For at least two years I have been miserable outside of my work (community and otherwise).  I was just downright unhappy.  One of my coworkers said that my tweets were just horrible this past year.  Depressing might I add.  I agree they were incredibly depressing for the past several years.  But things are on an upturn.  I decided a month or so ago that I was going to do all the things I have wanted to do without looking back.  So I dove into this trip and into this move to NYC head first.  I was scared for a bit and I didn’t think it would come through.  Everyone friend-wise and coworker-wise has helped me accomplish this great feat.  I am now a New Yorker and as of January 1st 100% living in the city. Thank you for those who have checked up on me.  Thank you for those who listened to all my problems and continue to do so.  Thank you to everyone who has helped me through this really terrible time.  You guys mean the world to me.  You are my friends.  Some of you I have not met and some of you I barely know.  I have been to a lot of events where people just walked up to me and asked me if I was doing ok.  I will continue to keep moving forward one foot in front of the other.  If I ever get so down again please remind me about this year.  I hope to see you all in the upcoming year as I attend more events.  Have a good night or a good morning or a good afternoon.  I will catch you all later. Technorati Tags: Life,2011,Disaster Year,Happinness

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