Submission + - Interesting PDEs (johndcook.com)
lee1 writes: Surprisingly many nonlinear partial differential equations of real interest have closed-form solutions.
Submission Summary: 1 pending, 90 declined, 32 accepted (123 total, 26.02% accepted)
Submission + - SPAM: Review of _Practical Julia_ on LWN
lee1 writes: “A recent book by LWN guest author Lee Phillips provides a nice introduction to the Julia programming language. Practical Julia does more than that, however. As its subtitle ("A Hands-On Introduction for Scientific Minds") implies, the book focuses on bringing Julia to scientists, rather than programmers, which gives it something of a different feel from most other books of this sort.”
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Submission + - The Apple curl security incident 12604
lee1 writes: I started to sour on MacOS about 20 years ago when I discovered that they had, without notice, substituted their own, nonstandard version of the readline library for the one that the rest of the unix-like world was using. This broke gnuplot and a lot of other free software. The creator of curl, Daniel Stenberg, writes about how Apple is still breaking things, this time with serious security and privacy implications: https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/20...
1 http://gnuplot.info/
2 https://curl.se/
1 http://gnuplot.info/
2 https://curl.se/
Submission + - Too much math? (newscientist.com)
lee1 writes: Physicist Roland Ennos promotes his new book (which looks interesting) with an article in New Scientist about over-reliance on mathematics in physics. I don’t think he’s made his point convincingly, but the article contains several interesting historical tidbits.
1 Ennos, Roland (2023) ‘The Science of Spin’. Available from: https://www.simonandschuster.c...
1 Ennos, Roland (2023) ‘The Science of Spin’. Available from: https://www.simonandschuster.c...
Submission + - gnuplot 6 released
lee1 writes: Gnuplot 6.0 was released in December. This article surveys the new features, including filled contours in 3D, adaptive plotting resolution, watchpoints, clipping of surfaces, pie charts, and new syntax for conditionals.
https://lwn.net/Articles/96100...
1 http://gnuplot.info/
https://lwn.net/Articles/96100...
1 http://gnuplot.info/
Submission + - Julia v1.10: Performance, a new parser, and more (lwn.net)
lee1 writes: The new year arrived bearing a new version of Julia, a general-purpose, open-source programming language with a focus on high-performance scientific computing. Some of Julia's unusual features are Lisp-inspired metaprogramming, the ability to examine compiled representations of code in the REPL or in a "reactive notebook", an advanced type and dispatch system, and a sophisticated, built-in package manager. Version 1.10 brings big increases in speed and developer convenience, especially improvements in code precompilation and loading times. It also features a new parser written in Julia.
Submission + - Gopher, Gemini, and the Rise of the Small Internet 2
lee1 writes: The danger and irritations of the modern web have unleashed a movement dedicated to creating a safer and simpler alternative. The old Gopher network and the new Gemini protocol have emerged as building blocks for this new "small Internet."
Submission + - The PermaTab Web Browser 3
lee1 writes: The UHI human interaction research group has been intensively studying a pervasive problem facing users of the web: the problem of tabs. How to organize them, preserve them, keep track of them. We have carefully considered the pros and cons of various approaches offered by different browsers, and by extensions: tab trees, second rows of tabs, vertical tabs, 3D tabs, musical tabs, you name it.
None of them were good enough.
None of them were good enough.
Submission + - Doing symbolic math with SymPy (lwn.net)
lee1 writes: On November 29, version 1.7 of SymPy was released. SymPy is a Python library that performs symbolic mathematical manipulations. Like others of its kind, it can solve algebraic and differential equations, simplify expressions, apply trigonometric identities, differentiate, integrate, and knows things about sets, manifolds, tensors, and many other mathematical objects.
Submission + - A new release for GNU Octave (lwn.net)
lee1 writes: On November 26, version 6.1 of [GNU Octave][@GNUOctave], a language and environment for numerical computing, was released. There are several new features and enhancements in the new version, including improvements to graphics output, better communication with web services, and over 40 new functions.
We will take a look at where Octave fits into the
landscape of numerical tools for scientists and engineers, and recount some of its long history.
We will take a look at where Octave fits into the
landscape of numerical tools for scientists and engineers, and recount some of its long history.
Submission + - Mutt v.2 released: why you should use it (lwn.net)
lee1 writes: Those who are unfamiliar with Mutt will learn about a different way to deal with the daily chore of wrangling their inboxes; while Mutt experts may discover some new sides to an old friend. As might be guessed, version2.0 brings several enhancements to Mutt’s interface, configurability, and convenience.
Submission + - Conundrums of Classical Physics (arstechnica.com)
lee1 writes: Classical physics remains a vibrant arena of active research. Its foundations and the fundamental problems posed by several of its subfields still engage the imaginations of thousands of physicists throughout the world. And like all areas in active development, it attracts contention and controversy to this very day.
Submission + - Has Lockeed Martin Solved the Energy Problem? (lee-phillips.org) 1
lee1 writes: "Lockeed’s Charles Chase has created a bit of excitement by claiming that the Skunkworks team is on the verge of solving the world’s energy problem with a new type of fusion device. We are not provided very many details — it is cylindrical, and the plasma is heated by RF. Apparently it works because the imposed magnetic confinement field is very clever. Unfortunately, the history of clever fusion ideas is littered with the corpses of magnetic field configurations that were almost perfect, except for one little hole."
Submission + - Photoshop Goes Open Source (computerhistory.org)
lee1 writes: "Where by 'Photoshop' I mean version 1.0.1, released for the Macintosh in 1990, and where by 'open source' I mean downloadable without charge if you execute the "Computer History Museum Software License Agreement". This would seem to make it open source, free as in beer, but not quite free as in speech — but I'm no expert. About 75% of the code is in Pascal, 15% is in 68000 assembler language, and the rest is data. The article features interesting screenshots of Photoshop running on an ancient black and white Macintosh — where by 'black and white' I do not mean greyscale. Much of the interface has not changed. There is also a code assessment by the 'Chief Scientist for Software Engineering at IBM Research Almaden' who admires the almost entirely uncommented code greatly, saying 'This is the kind of code I aspire to write.'"
Submission + - Microsoft's Creepy Retail Experience (lee-phillips.org) 1
lee1 writes: "The author peers into a Microsoft store and spies a sea of Microsoft employees, vastly outnumbering the few customers. Later, he notices an animated crowd of civilians surrounding a Microsoft display. But it's not the product that they're excited about."
