Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Berkeley DB SQL

Berkeley DB SQL: "This version of Berkeley DB provides a drop-in compatible version of the SQLite lightweight relational database library, modified to use the Berkeley DB data storage engine. The resulting combined product has the familiar feel of SQLite and the robust, scalable, concurrent storage features of Berkeley DB. Combined, this represents the best-of-breed minimum footprint embedded SQL database engine."

PeteSearch: How to split up the US

PeteSearch: How to split up the US: "As I've been digging deeper into the data I've gathered on 210 million public Facebook profiles, I've been fascinated by some of the patterns that have emerged. My latest visualization shows the information by location, with connections drawn between places that share friends. For example, a lot of people in LA have friends in San Francisco, so there's a line between them."

Monday, March 29, 2010

OODA

OODA:

Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

"This diagram is also known as the decision cycle, the Boyd cycle, or the OODA cycle. It has become an important concept in business and military. According to John Boyd, decision making occurs in a cycle of observe-orient-decide-act. An entity (either an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly can get inside the opponent's decision cycle and gain a military or business advantage. "


"The key is to obscure your intentions and make them unpredictable to your opponent while you simultaneously clarify his intentions. That is, operate at a faster tempo to generate rapidly changing conditions that inhibit your opponent from adapting or reacting to those changes and that suppress or destroy his awareness. Thus, a hodgepodge of confusion and disorder occur to cause him to over- or under-react to conditions or activities that appear to be uncertain, ambiguous, or incomprehensible."

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design

Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design:

"38. Capabilities drive requirements, regardless of what the systems engineering textbooks say."

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Gary Becker: 'Basically an Optimist'—Still - WSJ.com

Gary Becker: 'Basically an Optimist'—Still - WSJ.com: "Mr. Becker explains: 'People tend to impute good motives to government. And if you assume that government officials are well meaning, then you also tend to assume that government officials always act on behalf of the greater good. People understand that entrepreneurs and investors by contrast just try to make money, not act on behalf of the greater good. And they have trouble seeing how this pursuit of profits can lift the general standard of living. The idea is too counterintuitive. So we're always up against a kind of in-built suspicion of markets. There's always a temptation to believe that markets succeed by looting the unfortunate.'"

Saturday, March 20, 2010

StackQL

StackQL: "Online SQL Management Studio for the StackOverflow Community Dataset (currently hosting the October 2009 release)"

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Not Yours To Give - Colonel Davy Crockett

Not Yours To Give - Colonel Davy Crockett:

"There are in that House many very wealthy men - men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased--a debt which could not be paid by money--and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."

The Volokh Conspiracy � Blog Archive � Does Hayek Belong in High School Economics Classes?

The Volokh Conspiracy � Blog Archive � Does Hayek Belong in High School Economics Classes?: "Josh and Easterly correctly emphasize that Hayek’s work focuses on broad issues that are of special important to students in an intro course. He wrote about the fundamental tradeoff between the market and government planning, and about the ways in which markets outperform government in conveying and using information. His classic article “The Use of Knowledge in Society” is arguably the most important on this fundamental question, and is readily accessible to nonexperts."

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Soviet Power - USSR Navy WALL CLOCK from Soviet ship / submarine

Soviet Power - USSR Navy WALL CLOCK from Soviet ship / submarine: "Naval wall clock, excellent condition (used on Soviet Navy ships and submarines). Completely working, the key is included. Original USSR item, 5-7 days movement."

Fossils: Buy Fossils, Dinosaur Bones, Plant Fossils, and other material at Treasures of the Earth.

Fossils: Buy Fossils, Dinosaur Bones, Plant Fossils, and other material at Treasures of the Earth.: "Fossilized Dino Dung
All of our specimens are from the American Southwest and are Jurassic Age ( 140 million years old) Coprolites are from Sauropods, which were dinosaurs that were large, walked on four legs, and had a very long neck and tail. They were the largest of the dinosaurs. Some Sauropods were: APATOSAURUS, BAROSAURUS, BRACHIOSAURUS, and DIPLODOCUS, to name just a few."

Saturday, March 13, 2010

YouTube - The True Cost of Public Education

YouTube - The True Cost of Public Education:
"What is the true cost of public education? According to a new study by the Cato Institute, some of the nation's largest public school districts are underreporting the true cost of government-run education programs.

Cato Education Analyst Adam B. Schaeffer explains that the nations five largest metro areas and the District of Columbia are blurring the numbers on education costs. On average, per-pupil spending in these areas is 44 percent higher than officially reported. Districts on average spent nearly $18,000 per student and yet claimed to spend just $12,500 last year."

The Volokh Conspiracy

The Volokh Conspiracy:
"For the past year or so one of the more enjoyable and enlightening television programs I’ve stumbled across is Dale Alsop’s “G.K. Chesterton, The Apostle of Common Sense” on EWTN (the Catholic television network). I note it now because according to what has been showing up on my dvr over the past few weeks it appears that the fifth season has finished running and they are currently running repeats starting with the first season."

Friday, March 12, 2010

sampledoc tutorial — sampledoc v1.0 documentation

sampledoc tutorial — sampledoc v1.0 documentation: "This is a tutorial introduction to quickly get you up and running with your own sphinx documentation system. We’ll cover installing sphinx, customizing the look and feel, using custom extensions for embedding plots, inheritance diagrams, syntax highlighted ipython sessions and more. If you follow along the tutorial, you’ll start with nothing and end up with this site – it’s the bootstrapping documentation tutorial that writes itself!"

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Kitchen Stadium :: Your source for all things Iron Chef!

Kitchen Stadium :: Your source for all things Iron Chef!: "Below is the Iron Chef Soundtrack. Each song is in MP3 format, and was ripped from either the Backdraft soundtrack or the television show itself by the webmaster. Most of the songs used in the show come from the Backdraft soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. This site does not claim ownership of the Backdraft soundtrack or any songs used in the Iron Chef show."

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

E.W. Dijkstra Archive: The end of Computing Science? (EWD1304)

E.W. Dijkstra Archive: The end of Computing Science? (EWD1304): "'The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay.'

Sir Antony Hoare, 1980"

Talk:Edsger W. Dijkstra - Wikiquote

Talk:Edsger W. Dijkstra - Wikiquote:

"I don't know how many of you have ever met Dijkstra, but you probably know that arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras." - Alan Kay

Talk:Edsger W. Dijkstra - Wikiquote

Talk:Edsger W. Dijkstra - Wikiquote:

Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability

Found this quote: "The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity." by C.A.R. Hoare, in "The Emperor's Old Clothes" (1980 ACM Turing Award Lecture). Maybe E.W.Dijkstra said something to the same effect, if anyone knows for sure, please identify article/location? Then this: some quotes are under "Attributed", but with EWDxxx source mentioned. May I suggest: if you know the exact source, then check that source, quote EXACT, and move it to "Verified"? Leave it under "Attributed" only when you don't know where it came from. Alwin Henseler

This page refers to EWD498 as the source of this quote, but it doesn't appear anywhere in that document. If you look at the PDF version, it's just not there. Also, a search through Google Books shows the quote missing, as well. Vocaro 01:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
After further research, I believe this quote should be attributed to Hoare, not Dijkstra. Hamilton Richards of the Dijkstra Arhive dug up the following information:
If you use the EWD Archive's "advanced search" feature to look for "simplicity reliability" with Proximity set to "sentence", you find six matches: 1304, 619, 1175, 1041, 448, and 1284 (498 also shows up, because the search index hasn't been updated since I corrected 498).
In 1304, "The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity." is attributed to Tony Hoare.
In 619, the terms appear in "the 1975 Los Angeles Conference on Software Reliability, where C.A.R.Hoare stated emphatically, that for reliability simplicity is an absolute prerequisite."
In 1175, Dijkstra writes "computing science has very convincingly shown that simplicity is a necessary precondition for reliability".
In 1041, "the computing science community has agreed that simplicity is an essential ingredient of reliability."
In 448, Dijkstra quotes Hoare again, "reliability can only be achieved by the utmost simplicity".
In 1284: 'for the sake of reliability and intellectual control we have to keep the design simple".
Since so many of these quotes refer to Hoare, I think he is the true source of the quote.
I don't know of a searchable Hoare web site analogous to the Dijkstra archive, but the quote in EWD 1304 comes from Hoare's Turing Award lecture, "The Emperor's Old Clothes." Originally published in Communications of the ACM, 24(2), 75-83 (February 1981), the article is reprinted as Chapter 1 of C.A.R.Hoare and C.B.Jones, Essays in Computing Science (Prentice Hall, 1989), and the quote appears on page 15.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Turn an FM Transmitter into a Micro Pirate Radio - Wired How-To Wiki

Turn an FM Transmitter into a Micro Pirate Radio - Wired How-To Wiki: "With a soldering iron and a cheapo FM transmitter — the kind used to play an iPod through a car radio — you can transform your humble Honda into a Radio Free Civic that can broadcast your tunes up to ... 100 feet"

Orchestra Col 1: A Royalty Free Music Collection

Orchestra Col 1: A Royalty Free Music Collection: "10 full length tracks of full on orchestral film music to use in your blockbuster projects. Make any intense scene you have on film seem 10x more intense with this music behind it."

Free Music Loops, Free Sound Effects

Free Music Loops, Free Sound Effects: "You can download and use these free music loops in any any commercial multimedia project but you cannot:
• re-sell individually or as a collection or as a ringtone
• post on a website for download as we are doing here
• mix into your own music and then redistribute it as your own."

TV Lift - Linear Actuators, Linear Motors, Micro motors, Electric Motors

TV Lift - Linear Actuators, Linear Motors, Micro motors, Electric Motors:

"Firgelli is now offering a TV Lift mechanisms. These TV Lift systems are a Plug and Play system, with up to 36' stroke height (big enough for TV’s up to 60”, adjustable height with remote control, ideal for Plasma TV Lift /pop up monitor TV Lifts etc"

Sunday, March 07, 2010

rst2pdf - Project Hosting on Google Code

rst2pdf - Project Hosting on Google Code: "The usual way of creating PDF from reStructuredText is by going through LaTeX. This tool provides an alternative by producing PDF directly using the ReportLab library."

Laws vs Journalism vs Sausage making. Go for the Sausage! � DaTechguy's Blog

Laws vs Journalism vs Sausage making. Go for the Sausage! � DaTechguy's Blog: "How bad have things gotten? Bad enough that when you compare journalism to sausage-making, people write in to defend sausage-makers!

That was seven years ago. Elsewhere that statement has been made over and over again by people who have never seen sausage made. Today we are going to Solve that Problem"

Saturday, March 06, 2010

This is Real Art

This is Real Art: "Astra.
Documentary films.
Seven films for the satellite operator
Astra, covering everything you
need to know about the operation
of a satellite. The films will be
used for education and marketing."

Friday, March 05, 2010

"Can you get cp to give a progress bar like wget?" � lamby

"Can you get cp to give a progress bar like wget?" � lamby:

% cp_p /mnt/raid/pub/iso/debian/debian-2.2r4potato-i386-netinst.iso /dev/null
76% [===========================================> ]

Politics-Oriented Software Development || kuro5hin.org

Politics-Oriented Software Development || kuro5hin.org: "A developer rarely benefits from the failure of his project. There are exceptions, such improving your resum�by choosing bleeding-edge technology that may also cripple the project. However, few developers escape the consequences: they may be stuck maintaining an inadequate system long after the project manager has moved on to better things."

Gism Butter � Blog Archive � The 11 Rules of Happiness

Gism Butter � Blog Archive � The 11 Rules of Happiness: "Anyway, I am about to hit the age of 2^5. That’s my penultimate power of two. Wow. I guess I am now old enough to impart wisdom. I’m happy. I guess that means I can give advice on being happy."

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Monday, March 01, 2010

20 Fresh Sets of Free Icons for Web Designers | Freebies

20 Fresh Sets of Free Icons for Web Designers | Freebies: "We love finding and sharing freebies with our readers, especially icons. We do this so you can focus on doing what’s important, instead of spending all your time searching the internet. In this article, we’ve rounded up 20 sets of freshly created free icons. If you don’t have an immediate need for them, I’m sure you can find a place for them in your icon library."

MIT OpenCourseWare | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | 6.189 A Gentle Introduction to Programming Using Python, January (IAP) 2008 | Home

MIT OpenCourseWare | Electrical Engineering and Computer Science | 6.189 A Gentle Introduction to Programming Using Python, January (IAP) 2008 | Home: "This course will provide a gentle introduction to programming using Python™ for highly motivated students with little or no prior experience in programming computers. The course will focus on planning and organizing programs, as well as the grammar of the Python programming language. Lectures will be interactive featuring in-class exercises with lots of support from the course staff."