MetaFilter posts tagged with computing

Loosening up locked-down corporate IT

porn in the woods — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:40:10 -0800

Over on Slate, Farhad Manjoo writes that corporate IT ought to allow users more freedom in web browser selection and installation rights on their work computers. John C. Welch responds.

Chain reaction

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:53:18 -0800

A year before his passing at the age of 102, LSD discoverer Albert Hofmann pens a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs (who had remarked publicly about his own use of the hallucinogenic as a creative factor) asking for Jobs' support for further research into the use of LSD in psychotherapy. In the remainder of the article, Ryan Grim touches briefly on the use of LSD by scientists and computer programmers who have transformed the world through novel discoveries and inventions.

Technomadics

Ogre Lawless — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:45:59 -0800

Inspiration to do something with your holiday weekend: Steven K. Roberts is an interesting guy with a bit of a hobby problem. In 1983 his recumbent bike sported "only" a security system, lights, a CB radio and a state-of-the-art TRS80/100 laptop. Winnebikeo would eventually evolve into BEHEMOTH, the "Big Electronic Human-Energized Machine... Only Too Heavy". BEHEMOTH incorporated (amongst other things) HUD, cooling system, small Sun SPARCstation, HAM Radio, credit card verifier, bubblejet printer, hydraulic disk brakes... Eventually Roberts discovered that BEHEMOTH was developing a life of its own as he worked through trade shows and talk circuits. Feeling that bicycling still constrained one to roads and rest stops, he turned to kayaking. Of course, not much room in a kayak for modding...well, enough. Roberts has more recently turned to a number of larger vessels, including the S/V Nomadness. In between kitting out vehicles he's made a portable universal comm device for the modern era, written a bunch of tech articles and keeps up a blog on his multitudinous ongoing projects.

Verlets fluttering in the wind

Brandon Blatcher — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 19:34:52 -0800

Cloth Physics Simulation

shake shake shake

fantabulous timewaster — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 08:31:36 -0800

"The Quake-Catching Network is a collaborative initiative for developing the world's largest, low-cost strong-motion seismic network by utilizing sensors in and attached to internet-connected computers." The Economist's writeup notes that, since network communications are (sometimes) faster than the speed of sound in the earth's crust, a distributed network's observations of a temblor might reach a warning network before the quake itself reaches a traditional seismometer. This appears to be the first use of Berkeley's Open Infrastructure for Network Computing as a sensor network, rather than for number-crunching.

Radiohead's House of Cards video

hnnrs — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:49:59 -0800

Radiohead's promo for their single House of Cards was "shot" using light and laser-based scanning systems rather than cameras, with data being generated in real-time. Includes video and making of, and you can even play around with a 3D visualization of Thom Yorke's head.

You got your E.coli in my pancakes and it's AWESOME

wendell — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:12:01 -0800

Cool: Scientists have genetically tweaked bacteria to create simple computers. Scary (probably unnecessarily): They're E.coli bacteria. Funny: The bacteria are able to solve the “Burnt Pancake Problem”. Money quote: “It’s kind of like that computer in ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. It’s been working on a problem so long that by the time it comes up with an answer, everybody forgot the question.”

Writer, musician, polymath

PeterMcDermott — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:58:21 -0800

Stan Kelly-Bootle began his career as a member of the earliest wave of computer programmers, who wrote prolifically about a wide range of computing issues. Back in his home town though, he's probably best known for his contributions to a lexicon of local slang, Lern Yerself Scouse, and for his canonical and not-so-canonical contributions to the British folk repertoire. Stan's website

“An Efficient Representation for Sparse Sets”

orthogonality — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:09:40 -0800

An Efficient Representation for Sparse Sets. Or, Using Uninitialized Memory for Fun and Profit Yes, this may be of interest to only a subset of Mefites, but so are posts about niche bands. And even non-programmers should be able to appreciate how clever this is.

The Algorithm: Idiom of Modern Science

loquacious — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:19:50 -0800

The Algorithm: Idiom of Modern Science - an allegory told with iPods as Universal Machines.

Core Memory

ClanvidHorse — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:38:47 -0800

Photographer Mark Richard's very cool pictures of computing equipment: A visual survey of vintage computers. [via]

of mice and men and women

nickyskye — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 11:22:10 -0800

Nine Ways to Make Your Mouse Roar l elegantly hand painted mouse l visual mouse software l Mouser: Operate your mouse with your keyboard Supercharge Your Mouse How Computer Mice Work MouseSite, a resource for exploring the history of human computer interaction beginning with the pioneering work of Douglas Engelbart and his colleagues at Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s. First mouse (1964)

A Map of the Cat

Poolio — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 11:04:55 -0800

Richard P. Feynman { Information Junkie → PhD → Atomic Bomber → Professor/Lecturer on Physics + Mathematical Artist [DIY] + Nanotech Knowledgist → 33.3% Nobel laureate + QEDynamic Speaker + Tiny Machinist + Challenger of Conclusions + Best-Selling Writer –X– Busted [outside Tuva] → Star Trek TNG Shuttlecraft ↓ Pepsi Black/Blue ↑ U.S. Postage Stamp } ∞

The future is not clean and antiseptic

bad grammar — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 09:04:41 -0800

Slime molds may control our future computers and robots, and fungi may protect us in outer space.

Playing with my Wang (heh heh)

humblepigeon — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:30:32 -0800

The Wang Freestyle (warning: Google Video; part one of video). A curious footnote in the history of computing that took the desktop metaphor to new levels back in 1988. Featured sampled sound, high-res graphics, and the ability to stack documents on top of each other, the last of which is due in a certain big cat operating system later this year. Watch for how slow the system is, and the subsequent magician-like distraction techniques used by the presenter to avoid people noticing.

Donald Knuth, Computing's Philosopher King

Ethereal Bligh — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 04:34:37 -0800

“I wanted to try to capture the intelligence of the design, not just the outcome of the design.” “In 1977, [Donald] Knuth halted research on his books for what he expected to be a one-year hiatus. Instead, it took 10. Accompanied by [his wife] Jill, Knuth took design classes from Stanford art professor Matthew Kahn. Knuth, trying to train his programmer’s brain to think like an artist’s, wanted to create a program [TeX] that would understand why each stroke in a typeface would be pleasing to the eye.”—from a profile of Knuth in the Stanford Magazine (May '06). Salon calls him “computing’s philosopher king” (Sep '99). NPR’s Morning Edition interviews Knuth as “the founding artist of computer science” (Mar '05). Perhaps a MeFite somewhere has one of these? (Previously)

Quantum ain't just for leaping

revmitcz — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 01:01:14 -0800

So.. who's ready for Quantum Computing?

British Colombia-based D-Wave says they've got one and they're going to demo that sucker in Mountain View, CA on Feb 13th and then at the Telus World of Science in Vancouver, Canada on February 15th.

Quoting from TechWorld :

"Multiple quantum states exist at the same time, so every quantum bit or "qubit" in such a machine is simultaneously 0 and 1. D-Wave's prototype has only 16 qubits, but systems with hundreds of qubits would be able to process more inputs than there are atoms in the universe."

Naturally, the tech-savvy blogosphere is skeptical. But what do you think? (previously, previously)

Google Research Picks for Videos of the Year

MetaMonkey — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:55:47 -0800

Google Research Picks for Videos of the Year
Some examples: Ron Avitzur tells The Graphing Calculator Story [mefi thread], Dr. James Watson on DNA and the Brain, Steve Wozniak talks about founding Apple and Silicon Valley's boom period, Doug Lenat (of Cyc) on Computers versus Common Sense and a talk on The Archimedes Palimpsest [a little info]

Science

MetaMonkey — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 06:46:47 -0800

Free Science and Video Lectures Online A nice blog collecting science videos. The most recent post on Cognitive Computing, Consciousness, Science Philosophy and Mind Video Lectures has some hum-dingers.

Good times, good times!

Blazecock Pileon — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 07:05:13 -0800

Autodidactic goodies on a budget: Free computer books and online lectures, seminars and instructional materials from a variety of renowned institutions.

Twenty years of Macintosh

loquacious — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 11:42:55 -0800

Twenty years of Macintosh - a well done retrospect about the Apple Macintosh presented in a series of posters, annotated with excellent topical links for further reading.

I'm in iMood for a melody, I'm in iMood for a melody, I'm in iMoooooood

terrapin — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 07:27:12 -0800

Using a physiological sensor called the SenseWear by BodyMedia, researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) have created the XPod. The XPod "learns" a user's preferences, activities and even emotions, and then selects the most appropriate music to accompany any given situation. The mood ring for the new millennium.

Subverting the dominant paradigm

flabdablet — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 21:20:40 -0800

Louis Savain is the most coherent, articulate and ambitious Internet crank I've found. He's going to fix software, he's out to clean up physics, he's cracked the Da Vinci code, and he's got a discussion forum. Enjoy!

Not only do you have to water cool this thing to over clock it, you have to use WD-40 and KY in a 1:2 ratio

bigmusic — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 22:33:32 -0800

If you've always wanted to build your own computer why not do it with some tinker toys? This ought to give future archaeologists many years of discussion.

Net neutrality: Meet the winner

Postroad — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:07:57 -0800

Net neutrality: Meet the winner As Verizon Communications' executive vice president for public affairs, policy and communications, Tauke has spent the last few months embroiled in a fiery debate over Net neutrality, the concept that broadband providers must be legally required to treat all content equally.