Today is “Pi” day!
(Picture courtesy Wikimedia)
Today (2010-03-14) Pi Day. As ardent geeks, let us celebrate the enigmatic number representing the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle = 22/7 or 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445………………………….!
Today is also Albert Einstein’s birthday! What a great coincidence!
It is said that the true “randomness” of pi’s digits is yet to be proven.
Facts about PI (from Joy of Pi)
- Geometry: Half the circumference of a circle with a radius of 1 is exactly pi
- Record for calculation: 2.7 trillion digits (by Fabrice Bellard, December 2009)
- Record for memorization: 67,890 digits (by Chao Lu, 2005)
- How random? There are no occurences of the sequence 123456 in the first million digits of pi
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Linux is Not Windows!
Who said it is? But it is not a rhetorical question.
It is true that many to whom desktop computer is synonymous with Windows try to move curiously near Linux with the assumption that it is just another Operating system like windows and they expect it to be like that. More than that. “They come to Linux, expecting to find essentially a free, open-source version of Windows”, avers Dominic Humphries. That is the truth of the matter.
He has written a comprehensive article dwelling on what to expect and what not to in Linux and shapes your mindset such that your Linux experience is smooth and rewarding.
In addition, he imparts ample “gyan” (meaning knowledge in Sanskrit) on Open source, Linux and all that jazz.
A must read for all techies, non-techies and wannabes!
Link? Duh!
Here it is:
!= 
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Google gets you well-fed!
What is a satisfactory searching experience, a la a sumptuous meal!
Mmmmmm, that’s Good Search!
A little thing I picked up when I worked in a restaurant is that it’s more important that people go away thinking they’ve been well-fed than if they actually have been. A restaurant my crowd used to visit was famous for the quality of its food and the generosity of its servings. “Do you know, there was so much I just couldn’t finish” was a typical comment. I went there, and I watched what they did. First of all, they kept you waiting for ages and ages for your meal but kept you well supplied with bread. This wasn’t just plain old bread, this was fresh, crusty and delicious. While we were waiting for our meal, we’d fend off those annoying pangs of hunger with, well, we’d just tear off another piece of that fresh, wonderful bread.
The upshot inevitably was that when the meal eventually did arrive, we were all too full of that fresh, wonderful bread to actually eat it. Being full of the quality (and expensive) wine we’d been happily knocking back (while waiting for our meal and eating the wonderful, wonderful bread) everyone was quite, shall we say, expansive, at the end of the meal and were full of praise for everything. A delightful time was had by all, we clearly remembered the next day, and “Do you know, there was so much I just couldn’t finish” was a popular refrain. Well of course we couldn’t finish it – we were full of bread!
And Google – well, Google’s a bit like that too.
Hey, I bet *she* had Good Search today…
People enjoy using Google. It gives Good Search. Searchers may very well not have found the most recent, or the most in-depth, or the most comprehensive sites available, but they’ll feel like they have, and that’s what’s important. Apart from a few specialists like me, who would differ?
They may not have had the best, or the most expensive, or the most exotic feast that they ever had in their life. But they’ll come away with a full belly.
Every time. That’s the Good Search Experience.
And you only get it from Google.
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Which search engine do you use?
Search engine, you asked?
Well, err…
Ok. I use Yahoo!; I use WolframAlpha – It’s really good. Try it; I even use Bing (from the stable of Big Bad M$)…
But when I am really in need of some information, I just “Google” for it!
Habits die hard, Man!
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Is PHP a high level language?
Here is a highly insightful and succinct answer to this question from Apostolos Dountsis:
The term High Level Language refers to the higher level of abstraction from machine language. Rather than dealing with registers, memory addresses and call stacks, high-level languages deal with variables, arrays and complex arithmetic or boolean expressions. In addition, they have no opcodes that can directly compile the language into machine code, unlike low-level languages like Assembly language. Other features such as string handling routines, object-oriented language features and file input/output may also be present. In general, high-level languages make complex programming simpler, while low-level languages tend to produce more efficient code. In a high-level language, complex elements can be broken up into simpler, though still fairly complex, elements for which the language provides abstractions, keeping programmers from having to “reinvent the wheel”. Therefore, PHP is a high level language and it is completely unrelated to whether or not you use it to develop desktop applications.
PHP is a language that is used primary for web development but this does not mean that this is the only use that it can have. You can develop PHP programs that run on a console and also desktop applications with a complete GUI. For more information, check out the official site and this tutorial for a quick introduction. So, you are in the wrong, believing that it is simply a web language.
Finally, you can create web applications using PHP. You may want to have a serious look into the language and especially with the release of PHP5, sky is the limit. Remember that in any computer lanuage you can possibly do more than you think that you can.
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How much of your life is Google’d!
“It starts out as a convenience, becomes a habit, then a necessity, and finally an addiction.”
That is how Robert X.Cringley succinctly sums up the Google phenomenon!
Here is a partial list of the Google’s on line services – or staple offerings in addition to the Numero Uno status on web search (you don’t search any more, you merely Google it!):
- The ubiquitous Gmail (still Beta!)
- Online productivity suite – Docs, spreadsheets, presentations..
- Picasa web albums for storing and sharing images – may be a shade less popular than the professional looking Flickr of Yahoo!
- Blogger – that ushered in a “push-button” publishing revolution
- YouTube – the video service that has made itself a generic term for anything video; (and you are living in a “Youtube era”!)
- Orkut, the social networking app – though lagging behind Facebook and Myspace in popularity
- Google apps and labs – the production suite of geeks – Android, Gear, Ajax API’s, App engines, OpenSocial – the list is endless
- Google maps, Google Earth – mind-boggling stuff!
- Google Talk – mark my words, it will beat Skype soon!
- Adsense, the intelligent ad-inserting service that has turned blogging profitable – “pro-bloggers”, anyone!
- And Feedburner, Notebook, Calender, Reader, iGoogle, …
And when Google servers experienced a brief outage last week the sky almost fell on many addicts.
Here is Bob’s take on the perils of getting too dependent on Google, or, anyone particular service.
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Cons of going wireless
Are you bitten by the wireless bug?
Do you believe that Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are the God’s choicest blessings to the mankind?
Hold on! Wireless technology may not be a boon after all. Read about the pitfalls of going wireless. Here is alist that put it off:
- Latency
- Battery-hungry
- Unreliable
- Unencrypted
- Insecure
- Phishing-hacking-cracking-friendly
- Limitations of range and power
May be that wireless has certain applications. But beyond that it is not a universal panacea nor can it replace the good ol’ hard wire!
Read more about it on Fairfox Digitalc
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About Me
I am S.K!
Ok, what's the big deal, you may ask! But you may miss a good deal if you do not dwell deep into this web site, specially hand-crafted for you. But what about me, the person? Wait, I am not good at making things up. If you stumble upon a good-sounding résumé, please pass it on to me!
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