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Comment MicroCal Origin (Pro) (Score 1) 332

by sazim (#42902931) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Spreadsheet With Decent Programming Language?

For all my scientific spreadsheeting purposes since 1995 or so, I have used Origin http://www.originlab.com/ . One problem is that it's only for MS Windows and doesn't run entirely correctly under Wine.

Regarding in-built programming support, it started with a in-built interpreter for their own c-style scripting language "LabTalk" (it is still present in the Origin), but they now also implement a c-compiler of some sort (which I don't use much).

I have found that it is very much a case of "the correct tool for the job". Origin is absolutely brilliant for processing large datasets and the graphing is fast and intuitive, but it is terrible for doing business-style spreadsheeting (such as storing student grades etc), for which I use LibreOffice or MS Excel.
Image

Woman Trademarks Name and Threatens Sites Using It 273

Posted by samzenpus from the keep-my-name-out-of-your-mouth dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Be careful mentioning Dr. Ann De Wees Allen. She's made it clear that she's trademarked her name and using it is 'illegal... without prior written permission.' She even lists out the names of offenders and shows you the cease-and-desist letter she sends them. And, especially don't copy any of the text on her website, because she's using a bit of javascript that will warn you 'Copyright Protect!' if you right click on a link."
Operating Systems

Extreme Memory Oversubscription For VMs 129

Posted by Soulskill from the eXtreme-virtualization dept.
Laxitive writes "Virtualization systems currently have a pretty easy time oversubscribing CPUs (running lots of VMs on a few CPUs), but have had a very hard time oversubscribing memory. GridCentric, a virtualization startup, just posted on their blog a video demoing the creation of 16 one-gigabyte desktop VMs (running X) on a computer with just 5 gigs of RAM. The blog post includes a good explanation of how this is accomplished, along with a description of how it's different from the major approaches being used today (memory ballooning, VMWare's page sharing, etc.). Their method is based on a combination of lightweight VM cloning (sort of like fork() for VMs) and on-demand paging. Seems like the 'other half' of resource oversubscription for VMs might finally be here."
Science

Aussie Scientists Find Coconut-Carrying Octopus 205

Posted by timothy from the concealed-carry-in-australian-waters dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from an AP report: "Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. ... 'I was gobsmacked,' said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods. 'I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh.'"
Image

Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight 140

Posted by samzenpus from the a-jetwing-and-a-prayer dept.
Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."

Comment Re:Excel is a horrible tool (Score 1) 303

by sazim (#25227263) Attached to: Advanced Excel for Scientific Data Analysis

I agree. As an academic scientist, I use Excel for all "Business Type" requirements, such as storing student grades and doing basic calculations. Excel is terrible for scientific analysis, especially of large datasets. For rigorous analysis of massive datasets I either code my own routines in Fortran or I use Microcal Origin and its associated scripting languages. So Origin is great for analysis and data visualisation, but is not good for storing student grades etc. The lesson: select and use the tool appropriate to the task.

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APL is a write-only language. I can write programs in APL, but I can't read any of them. -- Roy Keir

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