Perhaps TI calculators don't make sense anymore, but I consider my TI-85 (purchased in 1994) to be one of the best investments I've ever made. This calculator got me through undergrad, two Masters in Engineering, and has been used in every job. The calculator is still functioning and gets used on a weekly basis because It's really much faster for small calculations/basic arithmetic than R or Excel.

And then there's the countless hours I spent playing Tetris and Drug Wars on it when I was supposed to be paying attention to class.

Iris scanners have been fooled - in a laboratory setting - by using synthetic iris images:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/reverse-engineering-iris-scans/all/

That said, it's still considered to be one of the best performing biometric modalities.

we already know where the documents came from: bradley manning (with some help from lady gaga)

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/leak/

i agree, the description of the algorithm is too vague to really understand what is going on.

30 seconds of googling turned up this brief lecture on compressed sensing. written for undergrads, "the prerequisites for understanding this lecture note material are linear algebra, basic optimization, and basic probability."
http://dsp.rice.edu/sites/dsp.rice.edu/files/cs/baraniukCSlecture07.pdf

side note: rich baraniuk was one of the best professors i had in undergrad

just turn your keyboard upside down and shake

i was one of several undergrads working with rich baranuik on connexions back in 2000. i don't know how much has changed since then, but the philosophy behind the idea really intrigued me.

the goal is to create stand-alone "modules" of information, typically short and on a single topic. these are then placed in a repository from which anyone else can mix and match to create their own course. another appealing aspect was that courses no longer had to be linear, but could bounce around as the instructor saw fit.

connexions also works to separate content from design, which allows an author to focus on content creation without having to worry about presentation.

I agree that stuff like this should be free since it is, after all, subsidized by our tax dollars.

But you're mistaken if you think it costs them nothing to make available to you these electronic documents. They have to (1) buy and maintain servers and storage, (2) pay the people to install and maintain that hardware, and (3) pay for electricity and cooling.

Then you haven't heard what's going on in Miami:

In Miami, a causeway in the middle of Biscayne Bay has become home to one of the county's least desirable populations: sex offenders.

What began a few years ago as a stopgap solution has become de facto public policy. For sex offenders with few resources who want to stay in Miami, there's just one option: an encampment of tents and shacks on the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

The encampment got started a few years ago, when Miami-Dade County, like other communities across the country, adopted an ordinance banning sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of anywhere that children gather.

from NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104150499

When I worked at Micron Technology in Boise, ID, we had a volunteer program that would go into the classroom to teach about basic circuits. Using a breadboard, transistors and a few LEDs the kids received a fun, hands-on introduction to electronics. I participated a few times and had a lot of fun, especially since the company was paying for a day out of the office. And, as far as I know, the teacher just had to call up and request the electronics lab. Worth a shot?

you need to have enough launch vehicles to maintain your second strike capability, without which it might be advantageous for your adversary to strike first. so the question is: are 500 launch vehicles enough to (1) survive the initial attack and (2) successfully hit back with enough force that deterrence is still credible?

from observation of the geeks i know, they like to do the following: swing dance, rock climbing, ultimate frisbee, road biking/cycling. sometimes girls do these things too