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Friday, July 10, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Go Support for Android proposal - this could be very cool!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N3XyVkAP8nmWjASz8L_OjjnjVKxgeVBjIsTr5qIUcA4/edit
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1N3XyVkAP8nmWjASz8L_OjjnjVKxgeVBjIsTr5qIUcA4/edit
Monday, August 6, 2012
Friday, January 21, 2011
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Oldest Rock
Nature Geosci. doi:10.1038/ngeo941
(2010)
The Solar System just got a little
older. New information from a
chondritic meteorite — a rocky
artefact from the Solar System’s
earliest days — puts the age of the
Solar System at about 4.5682 billion
years, between 0.3 million and 1.9 million
years older than previous estimates.
Published in Nature, 26th August 2010.
(2010)
The Solar System just got a little
older. New information from a
chondritic meteorite — a rocky
artefact from the Solar System’s
earliest days — puts the age of the
Solar System at about 4.5682 billion
years, between 0.3 million and 1.9 million
years older than previous estimates.
Published in Nature, 26th August 2010.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
What is an Amplitude in Quantum Electrodynamics (QED)?
After looking at some Richard Feynman material on QED I'm putting down some thoughts on amplitudes so that (a) I remember and (b) I remember - yes, I did type that twice.
An amplitude can be described as a line on a plane. The line can be of any particular length and angle on that plane. We can use an amplitude to get the probability of an event - to do this we simply square the amplitude, i.e.:
probability = (ampl)^2
QED is concerned with and can be summarised at a very high level by the following 3 points:
(more to follow - it's 3am after all ..)
An amplitude can be described as a line on a plane. The line can be of any particular length and angle on that plane. We can use an amplitude to get the probability of an event - to do this we simply square the amplitude, i.e.:
probability = (ampl)^2
QED is concerned with and can be summarised at a very high level by the following 3 points:
- the probability that an electron goes from place to place
- the probability that a photon goes from place to place
- the probability that an electron will 'emit' a photon
(more to follow - it's 3am after all ..)
My Notes on Why Agile Works..
After watching Martin Fowler's talk in France I decided to condense the important points from the talk in my own word so that they are easy to remember:
- we have moved from predictive planning (waterfall) to adaptive planning - because most requirements are NOT static, therefore massive amounts of up-front analysis and planning are doomed to failure (developers have known this for years when having to look at unrealistic project plans)
- the more traditional fixed type of processes can and often do stifle people and stop them working effectively
- there has been a shift from people following processes to the process following and adapting to the people - it's now a people-driven process
- we are moving to evolutionary design
- it's common that organisations decide to follow agile methods to manage the project but the design of the software is not designed for change - it has been noticed that this is particularly a problem with followers of SCRUM
- feedback loops are central to Agile
- Agile methods are much more effective when combined with XP practices such as pair programming, TDD, continuous integration etc. This approach combines a flexible agile project management methodology with software that has been designed for change - loose coupling of components for example
- it's very important when starting and Agile approach to first get the quality of the software under control. Implement unit tests linked to the build and get quick feedback in case of regression test failures.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Pourquoi, pas comment - Martin Fowler, Thoughtworks
An interesting talk on why Agile works including some of it's history, by Martin Fowler and Neal Ford of ThoughtWorks:
Friday, July 16, 2010
Richard Feynman - Ways of Thinking
What can I say.. he's the great Richard Feynman, I'll be forever in awe of him:
The Great Richard Feynman - NZ Lecture
Richard Feynman's final lecture in New Zealand. I'm not afraid to say he's one of my heroes. See the lecture here.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
Congratulations to C
The C programming language has returned to the No.1 spot for April 2010, leaving Java in second place and C++ in 3rd. Although this has happened for a number of reasons, it still shows the popularity and power of C. It's been over 35 years since C was developed at AT&T Bell Labs by Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan and others and yet it's still here as strong as ever.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still a big Java fan and have been using it commercially since 1997 but I always have a soft spot for C as it's the first commercial programming language I used and I still believe has the most power and flexibility.
Here is the TIOBE list for April 2010.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still a big Java fan and have been using it commercially since 1997 but I always have a soft spot for C as it's the first commercial programming language I used and I still believe has the most power and flexibility.
Here is the TIOBE list for April 2010.
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Unweaving the Rainbow, by Richard Dawkins
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively outnumbers the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.