Glimpses of the websurfing habits of a computer science professor, obsessive crafter, occasional gamer, and all around geek
I have been hearing good things about SpamOracle from a friend, and I think it’s cool that it uses a Baysian classification algorithm to learn what is spam given your particular e-mail patterns. Even more cool is that it’s compatable with unix-based e-mail and procmail, which I already have set up. This may be my next computer maintanance project.
The Kasparov-Deep Junior chess match ended in a draw yesterday after Kasparov forced the draw in the final game to avoid losing to the computer. Overall, Kasparov and Deep Junior each only won one game a piece in the six game match. There’s coverage at the World Chess Federation, of course. They even have online animation of all of the games; I recommend ignoring the applet running on that page and clicking through to the individual match you want at the top of the page to get an interface where you can step through play-by-play. ChessBase also carries a lot … Continue reading Kasparov-Deep Junior Draw
This page’s sidebar images were taken near my house during the long cold snap we had during the end of January; I’ve put together a larger (in number and size) collection of my favorite images from my visit to Cascadilla Creek.
I recently received a copy of the Special 30th Anniversay Edition School House Rock! DVD, and it’s every bit as fun as you would expect. I had no idea they had made forty-six songs, but they’re all here, along with nifty extra features and a new video and everything. My favorites are “Interjections!” and “I’m Just a Bill!”. But I noticed something odd in one of my other favorites, “A Noun Is A Person, Place or Thing”. Check out their rendering of Chubby Checker I’ve included here. Is it just me, or is there something off with that image?
The key to a good personality quiz is to make the questions as entertaining as the potential results. The always funny BBspot offers up Which OS Are You?, and I’ll admit that my enjoyment of it doubled when they were on-the-ball enough to peg me as HP-UX, the only old-time unix variant included. Wheee! [via PCJM] If that isn’t enough fun for you, go scan the features archive for their reviews of movie trailers – one of my favorite parts of their site.
For those who are claiming NASA accomplishes nothing of value besides being a sort of “extreme-science” for thrillseeking nerds, I suggest you visit Space Research at NASA’s Office of Biological and Physical Research (a huge list of technical articles about research out of NASA with nice summaries) or NASA’s Earth Science page. I commented in a private forum earlier today that even beyond these results, I have no problem if we haven’t seen the fruit of all of this research yet. Arguments against funding pure research when people are suffering are as old as government, as are the arguments for. … Continue reading Science in Space
If I thought I was disturbed when, around about Thanksgiving this year, I heard John Madden rambling about some Turducken abomination, I am even more disturbed that you can see upclose-and-personal Turducken photos, from someone who ordered one off the internet and actually served it to their friends. (Of course you can order Turducken off the internet….) [via Anita LOL]
So far, the best on-line coverage I’ve found of the Columbia tragedy is at Spaceflight Now. They are updating continually on their Mission Status Center page, and you can read back through their coverage of the entire mission and the reaserch being done. [via Eatonweb]
I detest the media. The Columbia destruction is a tragedy for both the astronaut’s families and everyone at NASA associated with the project. I am sure that nobody there is feeling relief that Bush said we will continue space exploration, as the pundits started saying after he spoke. I can’t imagine they are feeling anything but grief over the loss of their teammates lives and the failure of the mission, and agonizing over whether there is anything they could have done to have prevented it. I hope that people’s thoughts and prayers go out to them as well. The loss … Continue reading Columbia still a tragedy