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• The Niantic Project: Ingress by Felicia Hajra-Lee

  Despite the current fact that the augmented reality game for Android is still in beta phase, it is amazing to see that the world of literature is already taking momentum on this 'real-life' universe. After reading 'The Alignment: Ingress' by Thomas Greanias it took only a blink of the eye to go for 'The Niantic Project: Ingress' by Felicia Hajra-Lee, too. Here is the review I posted on Amazon.com: Ingress, a parallel universe to our reality, is here. There is no doubt about this anymore... The Niantic Project, originated at the CERN collider in Geneva, Switzerland, got into focus of global players. And the game is hard; fair-play is only for the fainted ones. Felicia understands to drag the audience directly into the action of the Niantic Project and its protagonists. The novella is heavily based on the investigations posted daily on the website of Ingress. She really understands how to interweave the various clues and creates an atmosphere where it sometimes feels challenging to differentiate between fiction and reality. It all starts with 'Epiphany Night' at the Niantic Labs, the high exposure of Exotic Matter (XM) and the escape of scientist Dr. Devra Bogdanovich and 'sentinel' Roland Jarvis. Of course, a new research, or should we name it technology, like the Niantic Project has to be protected and there are multiple parties on the hunt. Throughout the various chapters Felicia introduces new potential buyers from all over the globe, gives us detailed insights on the hunters and their brutal effectiveness to finish an assignment, and manages to keep the reader in high-pitched mode thanks to a couple of turn-arounds in the overall story. Personally, I have to say that I really enjoyed reading this title. Felicia's love to details is absolutely amazing, and sometimes I was really wondering whether she would be one of the assassins. But unfortunately I also have to say that I'm not a great fan of the structural organization of the (title-less) chapters. It is fascinating to follow the ventures of Devra, Farlowe and 855 but occasionally I had to go back to previous paragraphs in order to keep track of the individual plots. Overall a great title, captivating and rich in details but simply too short. Please Fecilia, gives us more to read. As an owner of an Android smartphone or tablet, you should get yourself into the world of Ingress. Check out the Play Store to install the app. Now. ;-)

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• The First Annual Crappy Code Games

  - by Testas

  SQLBits announced some super-exciting news! A tie-up with our platinum sponsor, Fusion-io. Together we'll be running a series of events called "The Crappy Code Games" where SQL Server developers will compete to write the worst-performing code and win some very cool prizes including:   •        Gold: A hands-on, high performance flying day for two at Ultimate High plus Fusion-io flight jackets•        Silver: One day racing experience at Palmer Sports where you will drive seven different high performance cars•        Bronze: Pure Tech Racing 10 person package at PTR’s F1 racing facility includes FI tees, food and drinks. …plus iPods, Windows Mobile phones, X-box 360s, t-shirts and much more. There will be two qualifying events in Manchester on March 17th and London on March 31st, and the third qualifier as well as the grand finale will be held in the evening of Thursday April 7th at SQLBits. And if that isn’t cool enough, Fusion-io's Chief Scientist Steve Wozniak (yes, that Steve Wozniak, tech industry legend and co-founder of Apple) will be on hand in Brighton to hand out the prizes! If you'd like to take part you'll need to register, and since places are limited we recommend you do so right away. For more details and to register, go to http://www.crappycodegames.com/ The Games: In conjunction with SQL Bits, dbA-thletes (that’s you) will compete  head-to-head in one of three separate qualifying events to be held in Manchester, London and Brighton.  Four separate SQL  rounds make up the evening’s Games, and will challenge you to write code that pushes the boundaries of SQL performance.  The four events are: ?  The High Jump: Generate the highest I/O per second ?  The 100 m dash: Cumulative highest number of I/O’s in 60 seconds ?  The SSIS-athon: Load one billion row fact table in the shortest time ?  The Marathon: Generate the highest MB per second in 60 seconds

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• Java Spotlight Episode 111: Bruno Souza @brjavaman and Fabiane Nardon @fabianenardonon StoryTroop @storytroop

  - by Roger Brinkley

  Interview with Bruno Souza and Fabiane Nardon on StoryTroop. Right-click or Control-click to download this MP3 file. You can also subscribe to the Java Spotlight Podcast Feed to get the latest podcast automatically. If you use iTunes you can open iTunes and subscribe with this link:  Java Spotlight Podcast in iTunes. Show Notes News End of Puplic Updates for JDK 6 Bean Valdiation 1.1 public review approved Two key JSRs accepted in time for JavaEE7 Public_JCP EC_meeting_audio_and materials posted Devoxx UK and Devoxx France CFP open JPA 2.1 Schema Generation WebSocket, Java EE 7, and GlassFish Events Dec 3-5, jDays, Göteborg, Sweden Dec 4-6, JavaOne Latin America, Sao Paolo, Brazil Dec 14-15, IndicThreads, Pune, India JCP Spec Lead Call December on Developing a TCK JCP EC Face to Face Meeting, January 15-16, West Coast USA Feature InterviewBruno Souza is a Java Developer and Open Source Evangelist at Summa Technologies, and a Cloud Expert at ToolsCloud. Nurturing developer communities is a personal passion, and Bruno worked actively with Java, NetBeans, Open Solaris, OFBiz, and many other open source communities. As founder and coordinator of SouJava (The Java Users Society), one of the world's largest Java User Groups, Bruno leaded the expansion of the Java movement in Brazil. Founder of the Worldwide Java User Groups Community, Bruno helped the creation and organization of hundreds of JUGs worldwide. A Java Developer since the early days, Bruno participated in some of the largest Java projects in Brazil.Fabiane Nardon is a computer scientist who is passionate about creating software that will positively change the world we live in. She was the architect of the Brazilian Healthcare Information System, considered the largest JavaEE application in the world and winner of the 2005 Duke's Choice Award. She leaded several communities, including the JavaTools Community at java.net, where 800+ open source projects were born. She is a frequent speaker at conferences in Brazil and abroad, including JavaOne, OSCON, Jfokus, JustJava and more. She’s also the author of several technical articles and member of the program committee of several conferences as JavaOne, OSCON, TDC. She was chosen a Java Champion by Sun Microsystems as a recognition of her contribution to the Java ecosystem. Currently, she works as a tools expert at ToolsCloud and in companies she co-founded, where she is helping to shape new disruptive Internet based services.StoryTroop is a space where we combine multiple perspectives about a story. This creates an understanding of that story like never seen before. Pieces of a story are organized in time and space and anyone can add a different perspective.What’s Cool Geek Bike Ride at JavaOne LAD Devoxx UK (Mar 26, 27) and FR (Mar 27 - 29) CFP jFokus schedule is firming up Nashorn Blog 1,500 @JavaSpotlight Twitter followers

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• How can I tweak this A* search pathfinding algorithm to handle different terrain movement values?

  - by user422318

  I'm creating a 2D map-based action game with similar interaction design as Diablo II. In other words, the player clicks around a map to move their player. I just finished player movement and am moving on to pathfinding. In the game, enemies should charge the player's character. There are also five different terrain types that give different movement bonuses. I want the AI to take advantage of these terrain bonuses as they try to reach the player. I was told to check out the A* search algorithm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A*_search_algorithm). I'm doing this game in HTML5 and JavaScript, and found a version in JavaScript: http://www.briangrinstead.com/blog/astar-search-algorithm-in-javascript I'm trying to figure out how to tweak it though. Below are my ideas about what I need to change. What else do I need to worry about? When I create a graph, I will need to initialize the 2D array I pass in passed on with a traversal of a map that corresponds to the different terrain types. in graph.js: "GraphNodeType" definition needs to be modified to handle the 5 terrain types. There will be no walls. in astar.js: The g and h scoring will need to be modified. How should I do this? in astar.js: isWall() should probably be removed. My game doesn't have walls. in astar.js: I'm not sure what this is. I think it indicates a node that isn't valid to be processed. When would this happen, though? At a high level, how do I change this algorithm from "oh, is there a wall there?" to "will this terrain get me to the player faster than the terrain around me?" Because of time, I'm also debating reusing my Bresenham algorithm for the enemies. Unfortunately, the different terrain movement bonuses won't be used by the AI, which will make the game suck. :/ I'd really like to have this in for the prototype, but I'm not a developer by trade nor am I a computer scientist. :D If you know of any code that does what I'm looking for, please share! Sanity check tips for this are also appreciated.

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• Juniper’s Network Connect ncsvc on Linux: “host checker failed, error 10”

  - by hfs

  I’m trying to log in to a Juniper VPN with Network Connect from a headless Linux client. I followed the instructions and used the script from http://mad-scientist.us/juniper.html. When running the script with --nogui switch the command that gets finally executed is $HOME/.juniper_networks/network_connect/ncsvc -h HOST -u USER -r REALM -f $HOME/.vpn.default.crt. I get asked for the password, a line “Connecting to…” is printed but then the programm silently stops. When adding -L 5 (most verbose logging) to the command line, these are the last messages printed to the log: dsclient.info state: kStateCacheCleaner (dsclient.cpp:280) dsclient.info --> POST /dana-na/cc/ccupdate.cgi (authenticate.cpp:162) http_connection.para Entering state_start_connection (http_connection.cpp:282) http_connection.para Entering state_continue_connection (http_connection.cpp:299) http_connection.para Entering state_ssl_connect (http_connection.cpp:468) dsssl.para SSL connect ssl=0x833e568/sd=4 connection using cipher RC4-MD5 (DSSSLSock.cpp:656) http_connection.para Returning DSHTTP_COMPLETE from state_ssl_connect (http_connection.cpp:476) DSHttp.debug state_reading_response_body - copying 0 buffered bytes (http_requester.cpp:800) DSHttp.debug state_reading_response_body - recv'd 0 bytes data (http_requester.cpp:833) dsclient.info <-- 200 (authenticate.cpp:194) dsclient.error state host checker failed, error 10 (dsclient.cpp:282) ncapp.error Failed to authenticate with IVE. Error 10 (ncsvc.cpp:197) dsncuiapi.para DsNcUiApi::~DsNcUiApi (dsncuiapi.cpp:72) What does host checker failed mean? How can I find out what it tried to check and what failed? The HostChecker Configuration Guide mentions that a $HOME/.juniper_networks/tncc.jar gets installed on Linux, but my installation contains no such file. From that I concluded that HostChecker is disabled for my VPN on Linux? Are the POST to /dana-na/cc/ccupdate.cgi and “host checker failed” connected or independent? By running the connection over a SSL proxy I found out that the POST data is status=NOTOK (Funny side note: the client of the oh-so-secure VPN does not validate the server’s SSL certificate, so is wide open to MITM attacks…). So it seems that it’s the client that closes the connection and not the server.

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• How can I copy this quote from PDF?

  - by isme

  I'm reading a PDF copy of Jerome H. Friedman's paper "Data Mining and Statistics: What's the Connection?" using Google Chrome and the Adobe Reader plugin. It contains an amusing quote that I want to copy and paste to my blog. I used the mouse to select the text of the quote and pressed CTRL + C to copy the text. The document looks like this: When I paste the text into Notepad, Stack Overflow, or anywhere else, the product is Wingdings-like gibberish: ????????????????????????|?????????|????? ?????|??????????????????????????????????????????????????|?????????????? ??????????????P????? ?????????????????????P?|?????????|?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????Þ?????????????????????????????????|???|??????????????????????????? The text should instead look like this: A difference between statisticians and computer scientists in this field seems to be that when a statistician has an idea he or she writes a paper; a computer scientist starts a company. I had to type that text out manually. This is feasible for such a small quote, but how do I actually copy what I see? Is it something unusual about the PDF, the browser, the plugin, or some combiniation of the three?

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• Output current with Teensy++ 2.0 (arduino-based hardware)

  - by omtinez

  I am working on a project with a Teensy++ 2.0 for testing, eventually the goal is to use a Teensy 2.0 (info on both available here) and mount it onto a robot R/C car along with a Raspberry Pi. I have been able to use and test one of the very cheap distance sensors that use ultrasound, which requires very little current. I was trying to power a motor, I don't know exactly what kind of motor but I assume a very low-power one which is what comes with the R/C car cheapo, but nothing is happening. When I plug the motor to GROUND and +5V it runs fine, but when I use GROUND and one of the GPIO pins then nothing happens with the motor. The same GPIO pins were tested to successfully power and run the ultrasound sensor, so the board is fine. My suspicion is that the GPIO pins don't output enough current to power the motor, but my knowledge of electronics is rather scarce (I am a computer scientist, not an electrical engineer). So please forgive me if I am asking something obvious or plain stupid, but does the board not have enough power to power the motor? If so, I could try to use a second power supply that would go straight into the motor and use the GPIO as a gate to turn that power on and off; would such thing work? Is there a better design that could be used?

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• New i7 is slower than old Core 2 Duo? Why? (BIOS programming)

  - by DrChase

  I've always wondered why the companies who make BIOS' either have terrible engineering psychologists or none at all. But without wasting your time further with random speculative questions, my real question is as follows: Why does my new computer run slower than my old computer? Old Computer: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU @ 3.0 Ghz (stock) 4GB OCZ DDR2 800 RAM Wolfdale E8400 mb nVidia GeForce 8600 GT New Computer: Intel Core i7 920 @ ~3.2 Ghz 6 GB OCZ DDR3 1066 RAM EVGA x58 SLI LE motherboard nVidia GeForce GTX 275 Vista x64 Home Premium on both. "Run slower" is defined as: - poorer FPS performance in the same games, applications - takes longer to start up - general desktop usage (checking email, opening up files, running exe's) is noticeably slower At first I thought I must've not set something up in the BIOS or something. But I have no idea how to set anything in the bios except for "Dummy O.C.", which brought me to ~3.2 Ghz. But beyond that I have no idea. I've been reading stuff about "ram timing" and voltages and the like but I really have no idea about that stuff. I'm a psychologist who has a basic understanding in building his own computers, not a computer scientist. Can someone give me some wisdom that might guide me to the reason my new computer is worse than my older one? I'm sorry if this is a bad question, or not appropriate to SO. I'm just pretty frustrated now and you all have helped me in the past so I figured I'd give it a shot. Thanks for your time.

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• This Week in Geek History: Gmail Goes Public, Deep Blue Wins at Chess, and the Birth of Thomas Edison

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Every week we bring you a snapshot of the week in Geek History. This week we’re taking a peek at the public release of Gmail, the first time a computer won against a chess champion, and the birth of prolific inventor Thomas Edison. Gmail Goes Public It’s hard to believe that Gmail has only been around for seven years and that for the first three years of its life it was invite only. In 2007 Gmail dropped the invite only requirement (although they would hold onto the “beta” tag for another two years) and opened its doors for anyone to grab a username @gmail. For what seemed like an entire epoch in internet history Gmail had the slickest web-based email around with constant innovations and features rolling out from Gmail Labs. Only in the last year or so have major overhauls at competitors like Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail brought other services up to speed. Can’t stand reading a Week in Geek History entry without a random fact? Here you go: gmail.com was originally owned by the Garfield franchise and ran a service that delivered Garfield comics to your email inbox. No, we’re not kidding. Deep Blue Proves Itself a Chess Master Deep Blue was a super computer constructed by IBM with the sole purpose of winning chess matches. In 2011 with the all seeing eye of Google and the amazing computational abilities of engines like Wolfram Alpha we simply take powerful computers immersed in our daily lives for granted. The 1996 match against reigning world chest champion Garry Kasparov where in Deep Blue held its own, but ultimately lost, in a  4-2 match shook a lot of people up. What did it mean if something that was considered such an elegant and quintessentially human endeavor such as chess was so easy for a machine? A series of upgrades helped Deep Blue outright win a match against Kasparov in 1997 (seen in the photo above). After the win Deep Blue was retired and disassembled. Parts of Deep Blue are housed in the National Museum of History and the Computer History Museum. Birth of Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most prolific inventors in history and holds an astounding 1,093 US Patents. He is responsible for outright inventing or greatly refining major innovations in the history of world culture including the phonograph, the movie camera, the carbon microphone used in nearly every telephone well into the 1980s, batteries for electric cars (a notion we’d take over a century to take seriously), voting machines, and of course his enormous contribution to electric distribution systems. Despite the role of scientist and inventor being largely unglamorous, Thomas Edison and his tumultuous relationship with fellow inventor Nikola Tesla have been fodder for everything from books, to comics, to movies, and video games. Other Notable Moments from This Week in Geek History Although we only shine the spotlight on three interesting facts a week in our Geek History column, that doesn’t mean we don’t have space to highlight a few more in passing. This week in Geek History: 1971 – Apollo 14 returns to Earth after third Lunar mission. 1974 – Birth of Robot Chicken creator Seth Green. 1986 – Death of Dune creator Frank Herbert. Goodnight Dune. 1997 – Simpsons becomes longest running animated show on television. Have an interesting bit of geek trivia to share? Shoot us an email to [email protected] with “history” in the subject line and we’ll be sure to add it to our list of trivia. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC Here’s a Super Simple Trick to Defeating Fake Anti-Virus Malware How to Change the Default Application for Android Tasks Stop Believing TV’s Lies: The Real Truth About "Enhancing" Images The How-To Geek Valentine’s Day Gift Guide Inspire Geek Love with These Hilarious Geek Valentines RGB? CMYK? Alpha? What Are Image Channels and What Do They Mean? Clean Up Google Calendar’s Interface in Chrome and Iron The Rise and Fall of Kramerica? [Seinfeld Video] GNOME Shell 3 Live CDs for OpenSUSE and Fedora Available for Testing Picplz Offers Special FX, Sharing, and Backup of Your Smartphone Pics BUILD! An Epic LEGO Stop Motion Film [VIDEO] The Lingering Glow of Sunset over a Winter Landscape Wallpaper

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• Developer Training – Importance and Significance – Part 1

  - by pinaldave

  Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 Can anyone remember their final day of schooling?  This is probably a silly question because – of course you can!  Many people mark this as the most exciting, happiest day of their life.  It marks the end of testing, the end of following rules set by teachers, and the beginning of finally being able to earn money and work in your chosen field. Beginning in Real World However, many former-students will be disappointed to find out that once they become employees, learning is not over.  Many companies are discovering the importance and benefits to training their employees.  You can breathe a sigh of relief, though, because much for this kind of training there are not usually tests! We often think that we go to school for our younger years so that we do all our learning all at once, and then for the rest of our lives we use that knowledge.  But in so many cases, but especially for developers, the opposite is true.  It takes many years of schools to learn the basics of a field, and then our careers are spent learning to become experts. For this, and so many other reasons, training is very important.  Example one: developer training leads to better employees.  A company is only as good as the people it employs, and one way to ensure that you have employed the right candidate is through training.  Training can take a regular “stone” and polish it into a “diamond.”  Employees who have been well-trained will be better at their jobs and produce a better product. Most Expensive Resource Did you know that one of the most expensive operating costs for any company is not buying goods, or advertising, but its employees – especially having to hire new employees.  Bringing in new people, getting them up to speed, and providing them with perks to attract them to a company is a huge cost for companies.  So employee retention – keep the employees you already have, and keeping them happy – is incredibly important from a business aspect.  And research shows that a well-trained employee is a happy employee.  They feel more confident in their job, happier with their position, and more cared-about – and therefore less likely to leave in search of a better job.  Employee training leads to better retention. Good Moral On the subject of keeping employees happy in order to keep them at a company, the complement to that research shows that happier employees are more efficient and overall better at their jobs.  You don’t have to be a scientist to figure out why this is true.  An employee who feel that his company cares about him and his educational future will work harder for the company.  He or she will put in that extra hour during the busy season that makes all the difference in the end.  Good morale is good for the company. If good morale is better for the company, you know that it goes hand-in-hand with something even better – better efficiency.  An employee who is well trained obviously knows more about their job and all the technical aspects.  That means when a problem crops up – and they inevitably do – this employee will be well-equipped to deal with that problem with fewer problems, and no need to go searching for help from higher up.  When employees are well trained, companies run more smoothly. A Better Product Of course, all of these “pros” for employee training are leading up to the one thing that companies truly care about – a better product.  We have shown that employees who have been trained to be competitive in the market are happier at the company, they are more efficient, and their morale is better.  The overall result is that the company’s product – whether it is a database, piece of equipment, or even a physical good – is better.  And a better product will always be more competitive on the market. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Developer Training, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• WebCenter Marketing and Upcoming Events

  - by rituchhibber

  Events: Events: Date Event Name Location/Country October 30, 2012 ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter Webcast November 1, 2012 Paper Burying Your HR Processes? Dig Your Way Out With Oracle WebCenter! Webcast November 15, 2012 Social Business Thought Leader Webcast: Three Ways to Fix Your Broken Organization, featuring Christian Finn Webcast Marketing: Marketing: WebCenter Sites Sales eVite:Embrace the Base: Create an Exceptional Online Customer Experience with Oracle WebCenter Sites Directs recipients to the Connected Customer Experience Resource Center to see the latest demos, analyst reports, and customer webcasts promoting WebCenter Sites. For more information Click  here. WebCenter Social Business Thought Leaders Series: Digital Darwinism: How Brands Can Survive the Rapid Evolution of Society and TechnologyBrian Solis, Altimeter Group digital analyst and futuristDecember 13, 2012 10am PDTRegistration available soon, find other content from this speaker here. Webcast: WebCenter Sites for Applications: Disconnected Online Customer Experience? Connect it with Oracle WebCenter November 8, 2012  eVite | Registration Page WebCenter in Action Customer & Partner webcast series: Started earlier in FY13, a new webcast series featuring WebCenter customer deployments that are executed by a partner.The next webcast in the series will be November 14th:Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety Lowers Customer Service Costs with Oracle WebCenter Click here to learn more. OnDemand Webcast: ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenterComplex documents must be created, assembled, reviewed, and tracked. To avoid fragmented, chaotic information processes, organizations must adopt an integrated set of strategies, standards, best practices, and technologies for managing information. Attend this webcast to learn how Oracle WebCenter has allowed ResCare to: solve content lifecycle challenges, reduce compliance and business risks and increase adoption of intranet as primary business communication tool. On-Demand Assets Date Event Name Location/Country On Demand Avoid Social Media Fatigue - Learn the 9 C’s of Customer Engagement, featuring Ray Wang, Principal Analyst and CEO, Constellation Research Webcast On Demand WebCenter in Action Series: Hitachi Data Systems Improves Global Web Experience with Oracle WebCenter, presented by Hitachi Data Systems and Lingotek. Webcast On Demand Managing Social Relationships for the Enterprise, featuring Jeremiah Owyang, Industry Analyst, Altimeter Group and Reggie Bradford, Vice President, Oracle Webcast On Demand Oracle’s Vision for the Social-Enabled Enterprise, presented by Mark Hurd, Thomas Kurian and Reggie Bradford Webcast On Demand WebCenter in Action Series: Qualcomm Provides a Seamless Experience for Customers with Oracle WebCenter, presented by Qualcomm and Keste. Webcast On Demand Social Business Thought Leaders Series: 6 Counterintuitive Best Practices for Social Collaboration Adoption, featuring John Brunswick, Oracle. Webcast On Demand Oracle WebCenter Connects Patients and Researchers in Cancer Control Mission, presented by Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and App-Systems Webcast On Demand Oracle WebCenter: Modernize, Aggregate and Extend Your Portals Webcast On Demand Top 10 Technology Trends Driving Business Innovation, featuring Andy Mulholland, CTO, Capgemini Webcast On Demand Ancestry.com Helps Families Uncover History with Oracl e WebCenter Webcast On Demand Organic Business Networks: Doing Business in a Hyper-Connected World, featuring Mike Fauscette, GVP, IDC Webcast On Demand Social Business and Innovation, featuring John Mancini, President, AIIM Webcast On Demand Do More with Oracle WebCenter: Expand Beyond Web Experience Management Webcast On Demand Race Against the Machine, featuring Andrew McAfee, author and principal scientist at MIT Webcast On Demand Introducing Oracle WebCenter Sites 11gR1: Transforming the Online Experience Webcast On Demand Mobile is the New Face of Engagement, featuring Ted Schadler, Vice President & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research Inc Webcast Analyst Report: IDC Research: Oracle Debuts New Release of Oracle WebCenter Sites.

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• Big Data – Basics of Big Data Analytics – Day 18 of 21

  - by Pinal Dave

  In yesterday’s blog post we learned the importance of the various components in Big Data Story. In this article we will understand what are the various analytics tasks we try to achieve with the Big Data and the list of the important tools in Big Data Story. When you have plenty of the data around you what is the first thing which comes to your mind? “What do all these data means?” Exactly – the same thought comes to my mind as well. I always wanted to know what all the data means and what meaningful information I can receive out of it. Most of the Big Data projects are built to retrieve various intelligence all this data contains within it. Let us take example of Facebook. When I look at my friends list of Facebook, I always want to ask many questions such as - On which date my maximum friends have a birthday? What is the most favorite film of my most of the friends so I can talk about it and engage them? What is the most liked placed to travel my friends? Which is the most disliked cousin for my friends in India and USA so when they travel, I do not take them there. There are many more questions I can think of. This illustrates that how important it is to have analysis of Big Data. Here are few of the kind of analysis listed which you can use with Big Data. Slicing and Dicing: This means breaking down your data into smaller set and understanding them one set at a time. This also helps to present various information in a variety of different user digestible ways. For example if you have data related to movies, you can use different slide and dice data in various formats like actors, movie length etc. Real Time Monitoring: This is very crucial in social media when there are any events happening and you wanted to measure the impact at the time when the event is happening. For example, if you are using twitter when there is a football match, you can watch what fans are talking about football match on twitter when the event is happening. Anomaly Predication and Modeling: If the business is running normal it is alright but if there are signs of trouble, everyone wants to know them early on the hand. Big Data analysis of various patterns can be very much helpful to predict future. Though it may not be always accurate but certain hints and signals can be very helpful. For example, lots of data can help conclude that if there is lots of rain it can increase the sell of umbrella. Text and Unstructured Data Analysis: unstructured data are now getting norm in the new world and they are a big part of the Big Data revolution. It is very important that we Extract, Transform and Load the unstructured data and make meaningful data out of it. For example, analysis of lots of images, one can predict that people like to use certain colors in certain months in their cloths. Big Data Analytics Solutions There are many different Big Data Analystics Solutions out in the market. It is impossible to list all of them so I will list a few of them over here. Tableau – This has to be one of the most popular visualization tools out in the big data market. SAS – A high performance analytics and infrastructure company IBM and Oracle – They have a range of tools for Big Data Analysis Tomorrow In tomorrow’s blog post we will discuss about very important components of the Big Data Ecosystem – Data Scientist. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

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• Announcing Oracle Knowledge 8.5: Even Superheroes Need Upgrades

  - by Richard Lefebvre

  It’s no secret that we like Iron Man here at Oracle. We've certainly got stuff in common: one of the world’s largest technology companies and one of the world’s strongest technology-driven superheroes. If you've seen the recent Iron Man movies, you might have even noticed some of our servers sitting in Tony Stark’s lab. Heck, our CEO made a cameo appearance in one of the movies. Yeah, we’re fans. Especially as Iron Man is a regular guy with some amazing technology – like us. But Like all great things even Superheroes need upgrades, whether it’s their suit, their car or their spacestation. Oracle certainly has its share of advanced technology.  For example, Oracle acquired InQuira in 2011 after years of watching the company advance the science of Knowledge Management.  And it was some extremely super technology.  At that time, Forrester’s Kate Leggett wrote about it in ‘Standalone Knowledge Management Is Dead With Oracle's Announcement To Acquire InQuira’ saying ‘Knowledge, accessible via web self-service or agent UIs, is a critical customer service component for industries fielding repetitive questions about policies, procedures, products, and solutions.’  One short sentence that amounts to a very tall order.  Since the acquisition our KM scientists have been hard at work in their labs. Today Oracle announced its first major knowledge management release since its acquisition of InQuira: Oracle Knowledge 8.5. We’ve put a massively-upgraded supersuit on our KM solution because we still have bad guys to fight. And we are very proud to say that we went way beyond our original plans. So what, exactly, did we do in Oracle Knowledge 8.5? We did what any high-tech super-scientist would do. We made Oracle Knowledge smarter, stronger and faster. First, we gave Oracle Knowledge a stronger heart: Certified on Oracle technologies, including Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Business Intelligence, Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. Huge scaling and performance improvements. Then we gave it a better reach: Improved iConnect functionality that delivers contextualized knowledge directly into CRM applications. Better content acquisition support across disparate sources. Enhanced Language Support including Natural Language search support for 16 Languages. Enhanced Keyword Search for 23 authoring languages, as well as enhanced out-of-the-box industry ontologies covering 14 languages. And finally we made Oracle Knowledge ridiculously smarter: Improved Natural Language Search and a new Contextual Answer Delivery that understands the true intent of each inquiry to deliver the best possible answers. AnswerFlow for Guided Navigation & Answer Delivery, a new application for guided troubleshooting and answer delivery. Knowledge Analytics standardized on Oracle’s Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. Knowledge Analytics Dashboards optimized search and content creation through targeted, actionable insights. A new three-level language model "Global - Language - Locale" that provides an improved search experience for organizations with a global footprint. We believe that Oracle Knowledge 8.5 is the most sophisticated KM solution in existence today and we’ve worked very hard to help it fulfill the promise of KM: empowering customers and employees with deep insights wherever they need them. We hope you agree it’s a suit worth wearing. We are continuing to invest in Knowledge Management as it continues to be especially relevant today with the enterprise push for peer collaboration, crowd-sourced wisdom, agile innovation, social interaction channels, applied real-time analytics, and personalization. In fact, we believe that Knowledge Management is a critical part of the Customer Experience portfolio for success. From empowering employee’s, to empowering customers, to gaining the insights from interactions across all channels, businesses today cannot efficiently scale their efforts, strengthen their customer relationships or achieve their growth goals without a solid Knowledge Management foundation to build from. And like every good superhero saga, we’re not even close to being finished. Next we are taking Oracle Knowledge into the Cloud. Yes, we’re thinking what you’re thinking: ROCKET BOOTS! Stay tuned for the next adventure… By Nav Chakravarti, Vice-President, Product Management, CRM Knowledge and previously the CTO of InQuira, a knowledge management company acquired by Oracle in 2011

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• Announcing Oracle Knowledge 8.5: Even Superheroes Need Upgrades

  - by Chris Warner

  It’s no secret that we like Iron Man here at Oracle. We've certainly got stuff in common: one of the world’s largest technology companies and one of the world’s strongest technology-driven superheroes. If you've seen the recent Iron Man movies, you might have even noticed some of our servers sitting in Tony Stark’s lab. Heck, our CEO made a cameo appearance in one of the movies. Yeah, we’re fans. Especially as Iron Man is a regular guy with some amazing technology – like us. But Like all great things even Superheroes need upgrades, whether it’s their suit, their car or their spacestation. Oracle certainly has its share of advanced technology.  For example, Oracle acquired InQuira in 2011 after years of watching the company advance the science of Knowledge Management.  And it was some extremely super technology.  At that time, Forrester’s Kate Leggett wrote about it in ‘Standalone Knowledge Management Is Dead With Oracle's Announcement To Acquire InQuira’ saying ‘Knowledge, accessible via web self-service or agent UIs, is a critical customer service component for industries fielding repetitive questions about policies, procedures, products, and solutions.’  One short sentence that amounts to a very tall order.  Since the acquisition our KM scientists have been hard at work in their labs. Today Oracle announced its first major knowledge management release since its acquisition of InQuira: Oracle Knowledge 8.5. We’ve put a massively-upgraded supersuit on our KM solution because we still have bad guys to fight. And we are very proud to say that we went way beyond our original plans. So what, exactly, did we do in Oracle Knowledge 8.5? We did what any high-tech super-scientist would do. We made Oracle Knowledge smarter, stronger and faster. First, we gave Oracle Knowledge a stronger heart: Certified on Oracle technologies, including Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Business Intelligence, Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. Huge scaling and performance improvements. Then we gave it a better reach: Improved iConnect functionality that delivers contextualized knowledge directly into CRM applications. Better content acquisition support across disparate sources. Enhanced Language Support including Natural Language search support for 16 Languages. Enhanced Keyword Search for 23 authoring languages, as well as enhanced out-of-the-box industry ontologies covering 14 languages. And finally we made Oracle Knowledge ridiculously smarter: Improved Natural Language Search and a new Contextual Answer Delivery that understands the true intent of each inquiry to deliver the best possible answers. AnswerFlow for Guided Navigation & Answer Delivery, a new application for guided troubleshooting and answer delivery. Knowledge Analytics standardized on Oracle’s Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. Knowledge Analytics Dashboards optimized search and content creation through targeted, actionable insights. A new three-level language model "Global - Language - Locale" that provides an improved search experience for organizations with a global footprint. We believe that Oracle Knowledge 8.5 is the most sophisticated KM solution in existence today and we’ve worked very hard to help it fulfill the promise of KM: empowering customers and employees with deep insights wherever they need them. We hope you agree it’s a suit worth wearing. We are continuing to invest in Knowledge Management as it continues to be especially relevant today with the enterprise push for peer collaboration, crowd-sourced wisdom, agile innovation, social interaction channels, applied real-time analytics, and personalization. In fact, we believe that Knowledge Management is a critical part of the Customer Experience portfolio for success. From empowering employee’s, to empowering customers, to gaining the insights from interactions across all channels, businesses today cannot efficiently scale their efforts, strengthen their customer relationships or achieve their growth goals without a solid Knowledge Management foundation to build from. And like every good superhero saga, we’re not even close to being finished. Next we are taking Oracle Knowledge into the Cloud. Yes, we’re thinking what you’re thinking: ROCKET BOOTS! Stay tuned for the next adventure… By Nav Chakravarti, Vice-President, Product Management, CRM Knowledge and previously the CTO of InQuira, a knowledge management company acquired by Oracle in 2011. 

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• What Counts For a DBA – Depth

  - by Louis Davidson

  SQL Server offers very simple interfaces to many of its features. Most people could open up SSMS, connect to a server, write a simple query and see the results. Even several of the core DBA tasks are deceptively straightforward. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to perform a basic database backup or run a trace (even using the newfangled Extended Events!). However, appearances can be deceptive, and often times it is really important that a DBA understands not just the basics of how to perform a task, but why we do a task, and how that task works. As an analogy, consider a child walking into a darkened room. Most would know that they need to turn on the light, and how to do it, so they flick the switch. But what happens if light fails to shine forth. Most would immediately tell you that you need to consider changing the light bulb. So you hop in the car and take them to the local home store and instruct them to buy a replacement. Confronted with a 40 foot display of light bulbs, how will they decide which of the hundreds of types of bulbs, of different types, fittings, shapes, colors, power and efficiency ratings, is the right choice? Obviously the main lesson the child is going to learn this day is how to use their cell phone as a flashlight so they don’t have to ask for help the next time. Likewise, when the metaphorical toddlers who use your database server have issues, they will instinctively know something is wrong, and may even have some idea what caused it, but will have no depth of knowledge to figure out the right solution. That is where the DBA comes in and attempts to save the day. However, when one looks beneath the shiny UI, SQL Server has its own “40 foot display of light bulbs”, in the form of the tremendous number of tools and the often-bewildering amount of information they can present to the DBA, to help us find issues. Unfortunately, resorting to guesswork, to trying different “bulbs” over and over, hoping to stumble on the answer. This is where the right depth of knowledge goes a long way. If we need to write a SELECT statement, then knowing the syntax and where to find the data is not enough. Knowledge of indexes and query plans is essential. Without it, we might hit on a query that “works”, but we are basically still a user, not a programmer, because we have no real control over our platform. Is that level of knowledge deep enough? Probably not, since knowledge of the underlying metadata and structures would be very useful in helping us make sense of any query plan. Understanding the structure of an index makes the “key lookup” operator not sound like what you do when someone tapes your car key to the ceiling. So is even this level of understanding deep enough? Do we need to understand the memory architecture used to process the query? It might be a comforting level of knowledge, and will doubtless come in handy at some point, but is not strictly necessary in most cases. Beyond that lies (more or less) full knowledge of SQL language and the intricacies of every step the SQL Server engine takes to process our query. My personal theory is that, as a professional, our knowledge of a given task should extend, at a minimum, one level deeper than is strictly necessary to perform the task. Anything deeper can be left to the ridiculously smart, or obsessive, or both. As an example. tasked with storing an integer value between 0 and 99999999, it’s essential that I know that choosing an Integer over Decimal(8,0) will likely offer performance benefits. It is then useful that I also understand the value of adding a CHECK constraint, to make sure the values are valid to the desired range; and comforting that I know a little about the underlying processors, registers and computer math. Anything further, I leave to the likes of Joe Chang, whose recent blog post on the topic offers depth by the bucketful!  

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• R and version control for the solo data analyst

  - by Jeromy Anglim

  Many data analysts that I respect use version control. For example: http://github.com/hadley/ See comments on http://permut.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/revision-control-statistics-bleg/ However, I'm evaluating whether adopting a version control system such as git would be worthwhile. A brief overview: I'm a social scientist who uses R to analyse data for research publications. I don't currently produce R packages. My R code for a project typically includes a few thousand lines of code for data input, cleaning, manipulation, analyses, and output generation. Publications are typically written using LaTeX. With regards to version control there are many benefits which I have read about, yet they seem to be less relevant to the solo data analyst. Backup: I have a backup system already in place. Forking and rewinding: I've never felt the need to do this, but I can see how it could be useful (e.g., you are preparing multiple journal articles based on the same dataset; you are preparing a report that is updated monthly, etc) Collaboration: Most of the time I am analysing data myself, thus, I woudln't get the collaboration benefits of version control. There are also several potential costs involved with adopting version control: Time to evaluate and learn a version control system A possible increase in complexity over my current file management system However, I still have the feeling that I'm missing something. General guides on version control seem to be addressed more towards computer scientists than data analysts. Thus, specifically in relation to data analysts in circumstances similar to those listed above: Is version control worth the effort? What are the main pros and cons of adopting version control? What is a good strategy for getting started with version control for data analysis with R (e.g., examples, workflow ideas, software, links to guides)?

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• Best ways to teach a beginner to program?

  - by Justin Standard

  Original Question I am currently engaged in teaching my brother to program. He is a total beginner, but very smart. (And he actually wants to learn). I've noticed that some of our sessions have gotten bogged down in minor details, and I don't feel I've been very organized. (But the answers to this post have helped a lot.) What can I do better to teach him effectively? Is there a logical order that I can use to run through concept by concept? Are there complexities I should avoid till later? The language we are working with is Python, but advice in any language is welcome. How to Help If you have good ones please add the following in your answer: Beginner Exercises and Project Ideas Resources for teaching beginners Screencasts / blog posts / free e-books Print books that are good for beginners Please describe the resource with a link to it so I can take a look. I want everyone to know that I have definitely been using some of these ideas. Your submissions will be aggregated in this post. Online Resources for teaching beginners: A Gentle Introduction to Programming Using Python How to Think Like a Computer Scientist Alice: a 3d program for beginners Scratch (A system to develop programming skills) How To Design Programs Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs Learn To Program Robert Read's How To Be a Programmer Microsoft XNA Spawning the Next Generation of Hackers COMP1917 Higher Computing lectures by Richard Buckland (requires iTunes) Dive into Python Python Wikibook Project Euler - sample problems (mostly mathematical) pygame - an easy python library for creating games Create Your Own Games With Python ebook Foundations of Programming for a next step beyond basics. Squeak by Example Recommended Print Books for teaching beginners Accelerated C++ Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner Code by Charles Petzold

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• Equivalent of typedef in C#

  - by Matthew Scharley

  Is there a typedef equivalent in C#, or someway to get some sort of similar behaviour? I've done some googling, but everywhere I look seems to be negative. Currently I have a situation similar to the following: class GenericClass<T> { public event EventHandler<EventData> MyEvent; public class EventData : EventArgs { /* snip */ } // ... snip } Now, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this can very quickly lead to alot of typing (appologies for the horrible pun) when trying to implement a handler for that event. It'd end up being something like this: GenericClass<int> gcInt = new GenericClass<int>; gcInt.MyEvent += new EventHandler<GenericClass<int>.EventData>(gcInt_MyEvent); // ... private void gcInt_MyEvent(object sender, GenericClass<int>.EventData e) { throw new NotImplementedException(); } Except, in my case, I was already using a complex type, not just an int. It'd be nice if it was possible to simplify this a little... Edit: ie. perhaps typedefing the EventHandler instead of needing to redefine it to get similar behaviour.

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• What programming languages do the top tier Universities teach?

  - by Simucal

  I'm constantly being inundated with articles and people talking about how most of today's Universities are nothing more than Java vocational schools churning out mediocre programmer after mediocre programmer. Our very own Joel Spolsky has his famous article, "The Perils of Java Schools." Similarly, Alan Kay, a famous Computer Scientist (and SO member) has said this in the past: "I fear — as far as I can tell — that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training." - Alan Kay (link) If the languages being taught by the schools are considered such a contributing factor to the quality of the school's program then I'm curious what languages do the "top-tier" computer science schools teach (MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, etc)? If the average school is performing so poorly due in large part the languages (or lack of) that they teach then what languages do the supposed "good" cs programs teach that differentiate them? If you can, provide the name of the school you attended, followed by a list of the languages they use throughout their coursework. Edit: Shog-9 asks why I don't get this information directly from the schools websites themselves. I would, but many schools websites don't discuss the languages they use in their class descriptions. Quite a few will say, "using high-level languages we will...", without elaborating on which languages they use. So, we should be able to get a pretty accurate list of languages taught at various well known institutions from the various SO members who have attended at them.

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• Python doctest error

  - by user74283

  Hi I recently started experimenting with python currently reading "Think like a computer scientist: Learning python v2nd edition" I have been having some trouble with doctest. I use a windows 7 machine and Eclipse IDE with pydev. My question is when i run the script below i get the error below. Said script is below the the error message Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users\shaytac\PythonProjects\test.py", line 21, in doctest.testmod() File "C:\Python26\lib\doctest.py", line 1829, in testmod for test in finder.find(m, name, globs=globs, extraglobs=extraglobs): File "C:\Python26\lib\doctest.py", line 852, in find self._find(tests, obj, name, module, source_lines, globs, {}) File "C:\Python26\lib\doctest.py", line 906, in _find globs, seen) File "C:\Python26\lib\doctest.py", line 894, in _find test = self._get_test(obj, name, module, globs, source_lines) File "C:\Python26\lib\doctest.py", line 978, in _get_test filename, lineno) File "C:\Python26\lib\doctest.py", line 597, in get_doctest return DocTest(self.get_examples(string, name), globs, File "C:\Python26\lib\doctest.py", line 611, in get_examples return [x for x in self.parse(string, name) File "C:\Python26\lib\doctest.py", line 573, in parse self._parse_example(m, name, lineno) File "C:\Python26\lib\doctest.py", line 631, in _parse_example self._check_prompt_blank(source_lines, indent, name, lineno) File "C:\Python26\lib\doctest.py", line 718, in _check_prompt_blank line[indent:indent+3], line)) ValueError: line 2 of the docstring for main.compare lacks blank after : 'compare(5, 4) ' def compare(a, b): """ >>>compare(5, 4) 1 >>>compare(7, 7) 0 >>>compare(2, 3) -1 >>>compare(42, 1) 1 """ if a > b : return 1 if a == b : return 0 if a < b : return -1 if __name__ == '__main__': import doctest doctest.testmod()

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• Help me avoid a resonance cascade.

  - by SLC

  Hi, my name is Dr. Kleiner, and I'm a senior scientist working at the Black Mesa Research Facility. I've just finished compiling my code to analyse a large unknown sample we've come across. Unfortunately, there were 19 build errors and 42 warnings, but I've been told the experiment must go ahead. Time is critical, we've already got one of our newest employees who is suiting up as I type this to complete the experiment. I really need some help. Can you think of anything last minute to stop a potential resonance cascade? Someone has hidden my glasses again... Anyway, I hope I never see a resonance cascade, and definitely don't want to create one. It's my lunch break in 5 minutes, and my casserole is already in the microwave ready. Please, give me some advice. If it helps I wrote all of the code to analyse the sample and activate the sampler machine in BASIC. Edit: Oh god! They're everywhere! Send assista

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• Database frontend for multiple db engines

  - by xeroxed_yeti

  Hey Stackoverflow, yeah it's spring and a lot of things happens to me... Also changing some software things at my computer, because suddenly everything seems to be boring after starting my laptop. I even changed my wallpaper!!! Besides I'm looking for a new database frontend and after using google with serveral queries I didn't find the right software. You have to know, my laptop and me are very very special :) I'm looking for a database frontend which should have following features can access PostgreSQL and MySQL databases can handle schemata overs a nice sql query tool supports an import and export functionality (something like tab separated text files) it for free looks awesome - every time when a college come to my office he must get the feeling: oh boy, this man really knows his job and should get more money! At the moment I used phpmyadmin, phppgadmin, pgadminIII, mysqladmin and dbVisualizer. Furthermore I was a big fan of the aqua datastudio until it became commercial. This tools offers a great variety of functionalities which can simplify programmes live. However, now you have to buy a license...I'm a scientist and money for software is limited =) So it's my first time (question) here at stackoverflow please be cheerful :)

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• How to implement Horner's scheme for multivariate polynomials?

  - by gsreynolds

  Background I need to solve polynomials in multiple variables using Horner's scheme in Fortran90/95. The main reason for doing this is the increased efficiency and accuracy that occurs when using Horner's scheme to evaluate polynomials. I currently have an implementation of Horner's scheme for univariate/single variable polynomials. However, developing a function to evaluate multivariate polynomials using Horner's scheme is proving to be beyond me. An example bivariate polynomial would be: 12x^2y^2+8x^2y+6xy^2+4xy+2x+2y which would factorised to x(x(y(12y+8))+y(6y+4)+2)+2y and then evaluated for particular values of x & y. Research I've done my research and found a number of papers such as: staff.ustc.edu.cn/~xinmao/ISSAC05/pages/bulletins/articles/147/hornercorrected.pdf citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.40.8637&rep=rep1&type=pdf www.is.titech.ac.jp/~kojima/articles/B-433.pdf Problem However, I'm not a mathematician or computer scientist, so I'm having trouble with the mathematics used to convey the algorithms and ideas. As far as I can tell the basic strategy is to turn a multivariate polynomial into separate univariate polynomials and compute it that way. Can anyone help me? If anyone could help me turn the algorithms into pseudo-code that I can implement into Fortran myself, I would be very grateful.

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• How can I minimize the amount my router slows down my Internet connection speed?

  - by Lord Torgamus

  Background I'm working with what I assume is a pretty common Internet setup: a cable modem, a wireless router and a few Internet-connected devices. Lately, I've started being more demanding on my Internet connection, and noticed that using my router slows down my download speeds considerably. I just kind of dealt with it until Zune Marketplace on the Xbox 360 told me that a movie was going to take well over ten hours to download, and I just didn't want to wait that long. Good little scientist that I am, I tried to reduce the problem down to one variable. The test As a control, I turned off all the devices in the house that use wireless Internet, and unplugged all the wired devices except for the Xbox. I also power-cycled both the modem and the router. I then tried to download the movie again, and was told that it would still take over ten hours. Next, I unplugged the router, and connected the Xbox directly to the modem. The movie downloaded in just over one hour. As far as I can tell, this means that my ISP, other cable users near me, the remote servers, anything wireless-related and my machines' disk speeds can't be at fault. A similar experiment that replaced the Xbox with a wired laptop produced similar results. To me, this says "the router is responsible for things taking around ten times longer to download." My question I'd still prefer to use the router for a few reasons: it's a pain to connect and disconnect everything every time there's a big file to download direct connection to the modem isn't good for security only one machine can be connected directly to the modem at a time What can I do to have fast connection speeds while still using the router? I don't mind turning other machines off, as long as I don't have to mess with power and ethernet cables. EDIT : After asking this followup question and then this one, I installed dd-wrt on my router, and I seem to be getting higher and more consistent speeds. Perhaps more importantly, my memory use is fairly constant. I know this isn't an answer — which is why I'm not posting it as an answer — but it is how I resolved the situation, and hopefully it'll be helpful for someone.

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• 6 Interesting Facts About NASA’s Mars Rover ‘Curiosity’

  - by Gopinath

  Humans quest for exploring the surrounding planets to see whether we can live there or not is taking new shape today. NASA’s Mars probing robot, Curiosity, blasted off today on its 9 months journey to reach Mars and explore it for the possibilities of life there. Scientist says that Curiosity is one most advanced rover ever launched to probe life on other planets. Here is the launch video and some analysis by a news reporter Lets look at the 6 interesting facts about the mission 1. It’s as big as a car Curiosity is the biggest ever rover ever launched by NASA to probe life on outer planets. It’s as big as a car and almost double the size of its predecessor rover Spirit. The length of Curiosity is around 9 feet 10 inches(3 meters), width is 9 feet 1 inch (2.8 meters) and height is 7 feet (2.1 meters). 2. Powered by Plutonium – Lasts 24×7 for 23 months The earlier missions of NASA to explore Mars are powered by Solar power and that hindered capabilities of the rovers to move around when the Sun is hiding. Due to dependency of Sun the earlier rovers were not able to traverse the places where there is no Sun light. Curiosity on the other hand is equipped with a radioisotope power system that generates electricity from the heat emitted by plutonium’s radioactive decay. The plutonium weighs around 10 pounds and can generate power required for operating the rover close to 23 weeks. The best part of the new power system is, Curiosity can roam around in darkness, light and all year around. 3. Rocket powered backpack for a science fiction style landing The Curiosity is so heavy that NASA could not use parachute and balloons to air-drop the rover on the surface of Mars like it’s previous missions. They are trying out a new science fiction style air-dropping mechanism that is similar to sky crane heavy-lift helicopter. The landing of the rover begins first with entry into the Mars atmosphere protected by a heat shield. At about 6 miles to the surface, the heat shield is jettisoned and a parachute is deployed to glide the rover smoothly. When the rover touches 3 miles above the surface, the parachute is jettisoned and the eight motors rocket backpack is used for a smooth and impact free landing as shown in the image. Here is an animation created by NASA on the landing sequence. If you are interested in getting more detailed information about the landing process check this landing sequence picture available on NASA website 4. Equipped with Star Wars style laser gun Hollywood movie directors and novelist always imagined aliens coming to earth with spaceships full of laser guns and blasting the objects which comes on their way. With Curiosity the equations are going to change. It has a powerful laser gun equipped in one of it’s arms to beam laser on rocks to vaporize them. This is not part of any assault mission Curiosity is expected to carry out, the laser gun is will be used to carry out experiments to detect life and understand nature. 5. Most sophisticated laboratory powered by 10 instruments Around 10 state of art instruments are part of Curiosity rover and the these 10 instruments form a most advanced rover based lab ever built by NASA. There are instruments to cut through rocks to examine them and other instruments will search for organic compounds. Mounted cameras can study targets from a distance, arm mounted instruments can study the targets they touch. Microscopic lens attached to the arm can see and magnify tiny objects as tiny as 12.5 micro meters. 6. Rover Carrying 1.24 million names etched on silicon Early June 2009 NASA launched a campaign called “Send Your Name to Mars” and around 1.24 million people registered their names through NASA’s website. All those 1.24 million names are etched on Silicon chips mounted onto Curiosity’s deck. If you had registered your name in the campaign may be your name is going to reach Mars soon. Curiosity On Web If you wish to follow the mission here are few links to help you NASA’s Curiosity Web Page Follow Curiosity on Facebook Follow @MarsCuriosity on Twitter Artistic Gallery Image of Mars Rover Curiosity A printable sheet of Curiosity Mission [pdf] Images credit: NASA This article titled,6 Interesting Facts About NASA’s Mars Rover ‘Curiosity’, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

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