Comment Tau marathon bib (Score 2) 241
I managed to get bib # tau for a marathon last year. Gave the timekeeper fits.
Comment Re:Bah. e is better than them all (Score 5, Funny) 241
Then, when somebody wants to argue that twice e is actually a better constant, we can say
"2e or not 2e, that is the question."
Fake IPad 2s Made of Clay Sold At Canadian Stores 265
SpuriousLogic writes in with a link to a story about some Canadian consumers who thought they were getting an iPad 2 but instead got the makings of the world's oldest tablets. "As many as 10 fake iPad 2s, all made of slabs of modeling clay, were recently sold at electronic stores in Vancouver, British Columbia. Best Buy and Future Shop have launched investigations into how the scam was pulled off. The tablet computers, like most Apple products, are known for their sleek and simple designs. But there's no mistaking the iPad for one of the world's oldest 'tablet devices.' Still, most electronic products cannot be returned to stores. For the the stores and customers to be fooled by the clay replacements, the thieves must have successfully weighed out the clay portions and resealed the original Apple packaging. Future Shop spokesman Elliott Chun told CTV that individuals bought the iPads with cash, replaced them with the model clay, then returned the packages to the stores. The returned fakes were restocked on the shelve and sold to new, unwitting customers."
Americans Favor Moratorium On New Nuclear Reactors 964
An anonymous reader writes "While a drop in public support for nuclear power would be expected after an incident like the Fukushima reactor crisis, the nuclear disaster in Japan has triggered a much stronger response among Americans. When Japan — the nation that President Obama held up as an example of safe nuclear power being used on a large-scale basis — is unable to effectively control its considerable downside, Americans are understandably leery about the same technology being used even more extensively in this nation. And safety concerns about the existing nuclear plants also deserve serious attention."
Nexus S Beats iPhone 4 In 'Real World' Web Browsing Tests 260
bongey writes "In a series of measured real-world web load tests, the Android-based Nexus S phone spanked the iPhone 4. The Android phone and iPhone 4 median load times were 2.144s and 3.254s respectively. The sample size was 45,000 page loads, across 1000 web sites. It also follows rumors that Apple is intentionally slowing down web apps to make their native apps more favorable."
Comment Not new (Score 1) 117
This was being done at MIT 10 years ago.
http://people.csail.mit.edu/rweiss/
http://people.csail.mit.edu/rweiss/
Comment BeOS (Score 3, Interesting) 312
Left out of that history is the branch that almost happened: for quite a while the smart money was that Apple would buy Be, Inc. and use BeOS as the basis for their future OSes. More than a few developers (myself included) based their business models on this happening.
Comment !exponential search speedup (Score 1) 112
Grover's search algorithm gives only a quadratic speedup.
Two-Photon Walk a Giant Leap For Quantum Computing 112
ElectricSteve writes "Research conducted at the University of Bristol means a number of quantum computing algorithms may soon be able to execute calculations of a complexity far beyond what today's computers allow us to do. The breakthrough involves the use of a specially designed optical chip to perform what's known as a 'quantum walk' with two particles ... and it suggests the era of quantum computing may be approaching faster than the scientific establishment had predicted. A random walk – a mathematical concept with useful applications in computer science – is the trajectory of an object taking successive steps in a random direction, be it over a line (with only two possible directions) or over a multi-dimensional space. A quantum walk is the same concept, but translated to the world of quantum computing, a field in which randomness plays a central role. Quantum walks form an essential part of many of the algorithms that make this new kind of computation so promising, including search algorithms that will perform exponentially faster than the ones we use today."
YouTube Explains Where HTML5 Video Fails 426
awjr writes "YouTube have pretty much come down on the side of Flash having major issues with the lack of features that the HTML5 <video> tag has and may never have."
Comment "This fits me perfectly as a Java programmer," (Score 3, Interesting) 109
Exactly. That was the big problem I had with the book: it's written for Java programmers. I am intrigued by the language, but I would much prefer a book that treats the language on its own terms.
Obama Outlines Bold Space Policy ... But No Moon
455
The Bad Astronomer writes "In front of a mostly enthusiastic audience at NASA's Kennedy Space Center today, President Obama outlined a bold, new space policy. It's a change from his previous policy; the Constellation rockets are still dead, but a new heavy-lift rocket system is funded. He specifically talked of manned asteroid and Mars missions, but also stated there would be no return to the Moon. This is a major step in the right direction, but still needs some tweaking."
Comment Re:chess and go aren't np-hard, but they are also (Score 1) 322
It's on my list...
Comment Re:chess and go aren't np-hard, but they are also (Score 4, Interesting) 322
I'll mention it to my publisher, but honestly it would lose a lot without all the color figures.
The book is based on my Ph.D. thesis, which you can download for free:
Comment Re:I don't get why... (Score 1) 322
The reason that fun games tend to be NP-hard (or harder) is that if a game's "physics" supports interesting constructions requiring complex reasoning to solve, then probably that same physics can be used to build computational gadgets, which is how you show hardness of the generalized version. This quality expresses itself even on small, fixed-size board.
