Tweets of the month

14 Dec
RT 46 Fabulous Photos of Endeavour's Last Ever Spacewalk su.pr/19iQIY

14 Dec
font based on the style of lettering seen on cassandre posters designed by atipo. download it for free: cassannet.net

13 Dec
Last call for "flight" IR12, last call for "flight" IR12... this is one "plane" I have to catch!

13 Dec
Advent Calendar xt3.com/advent/

12 Dec
Twist of fate...?

12 Dec
I did lose a battle but hopefully not the war...

11 Dec
It's the Latency http://t.co/yjgEGj5N

9 Dec
Cold and foggy work morning. Let's hope great things come out of it...

3 Dec
Informação interessante e útil sobre o trânsito, apesar do sítio ser um pouco lento... estradas.pt

2 Dec
Listening to Quadrilha... Nice :) Thanks Ricardo H

The Ladder of Abstraction

Up and Down the Ladder of Abstraction by Bret Victor

A great article about the use of abstraction when dealing with complex problems.

Microsoft Express Mouse

Product details

How to convert Excel tables to LaTeX

Ernest 10.22.09 at 09:38

I just installed excel2latex to Excel 2007. Just put the ‘.xla’ file in any folder preferably the add-in folder under “C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\AddIns\” then open up Excel > Office Button > Excel Options > Add-ins > Go and select it from the menu that appears, or browse to the folder where you put it. That should give you a button under Add-ins in Excel which works fine. At least it works for me. I am running Win XP.

Reference: http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/09/16/four-ways-to-convert-excel-tables-to-latex/

7 things highly productive people do

7 things highly productive people do
By Ilya Pozin

1 - Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks.

2 - Stop multi-tasking

3 - Be militant about eliminating distractions.

4 - Schedule your email.

5 - Use the phone.

6 - Work on your own agenda.

7 - Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals.

Nano technology joins the battle against counterfeiting

Imagine a bill covered with microscopic holes that make it glow slightly in the light. It's tech borrowed from a butterfly, and it may soon be foiling counterfeiters around the world.

(...)

The technology was inspired by the Blue Morpho butterfly, whose brilliant blue coloration comes not from pigment but the way that tiny holes in its scales reflect light. But the tech, called Nano-Optic Technology for Enhanced Security (NOtES), is different from the Morpho butterfly's wings, and pretty much all other bio-inspired reflective optical technologies, in that it is both extraordinarily thin and functions even in dim light.

NOtES exploits an obscure area of physics to accomplish its bright and sharp display, known as plasmonics. Light waves interact with the array of nano-scale holes on a NOtES display--which are typically 100-200 nanometers in diameter--in a way that creates what are called "surface plasmons." In the words of the company, this means light "[collects] on the films surface and creates higher than expected optical outputs by creating an electromagnetic field, called surface plasmonic resonance."

Full story: Fast Company

End Users Want an "iPod"

According to Moore, before a new technology, such as RFID, can go mainstream, there must be a problem that no other technology can solve, as well as a global standard, a whole product, a critical mass of users and a gorilla that the rest of the market feels safe to embrace.

Read the full article at RFID Journal.

What is it that you value most in Christianity

Now, in a grieved voice, the Emperor addressed them [the Christians]: "(...) What is it that you value most in Christianity?"
At this, Elder John rose up like a white candle and answered quietly: "Great sovereign! What we value most in Christianity is Christ himself -- in his person. All comes from him, for we know that in him dwells all fullness of the Godhead bodily. (...)"

-- "Tale of the Anti-Christ" by Vladimir Soloviev

Monsieur Vincent

Monsieur Vincent

Also a part of Ciclo de Cinema Católico 2011

Duns Scotus

Duns Scotus

Part of Ciclo de Cinema Católico 2011
What the trailer

Heretics by G. K. Chesterton

Heretics by G. K. Chesterton

Some of the discussions in this book are outdated, but other ones are still very current.
The final chapter is the best, if you endure through the book.

The writing style of Chesterton is impressive in the entire piece. How can someone transmit such intelligence and intensity with just written words? :)

Project Gutenberg ebook
Also available for Kindle and Nook.

North by Northwestern

North by Northwestern

[Thornhill is wearing sunglasses to hide his identity]
Ticket Seller: Something wrong with your eyes?
Roger Thornhill: Yes, they're sensitive to questions.

(watched it on RTP Memória)

Bakhita

Bakhita

A TV movie adaptation by RAI of the life story of Sister Josephine Bakhita.
The movie is not exactly a classic but it's nice to watch and I liked the songs too.

Tweets of the month

30 Nov
grr

29 Nov
Wounded lion back on the hunt...

29 Nov
@NunoGuerreiro cloud.delete() throws MethodNotImplementedException

28 Nov
Maybe I'm trying to solve too many things at the same time... :(

28 Nov
No time to look at this now, but very... Groovy! http://t.co/Eq9VZHx7

28 Nov
Sugestão de Teatro para este Natal: http://t.co/pCn5Yy1i Muito boa a peça... recomendo!

25 Nov
One more paper draft is ready, not as complete as I wanted, but it will have to do. More hard work ahead next week.

25 Nov
At the Civil Engineering pavilion study room. Hoping to overcome one more roadblock...

24 Nov Link Link ‏ @LinkConsulting
Novas funcionalidades na Plataforma online do Banco Alimentar tinyurl.com/6v7ogok
Retweeted by Miguel Pardal

25 Nov
Today is a "make or break" day. Let's make! :)

24 Nov
A simple advice for this work day: start with an easy task to get your productivity engine running! Then move to harder stuff!

24 Nov
Dear friends and family in the US, Happy Thanksgiving! :)

23 Nov
The Advent Conspiracy adventconspiracy.org

23 Nov
Sometimes admitting your failure is necessary to start over fresh. Good luck D!

18 Nov
PJ 20 - What a great way to start my 34th birthday! :) Thanks Jo! Always "walk with me"! ;) http://t.co/kNMU60EX

16 Nov
Headache gone now, thanks to Joana's medicine. A very "rare" mix of Coca and Cola ;) @joanappardal

15 Nov
@joanappardal asked me: Where's Wall-E? :) http://t.co/CMr0EFJQ

11 Nov
I miss teamwork...

10 Nov
A participar nas Jornadas Pedagógicas do IST sobre Boas Práticas de Docência http://t.co/kQveoFcp

8 Nov
Recalculating... :)

7 Nov
Producing Excel output using the Java Excel API http://t.co/XPsKvLvH

4 Nov
I have the "Lego" blocks, now it's time for assembly

3 Nov
debugging

Design Patterns Reference

You can find a very good reference for design patterns at the following site:
Design Patterns Quick Reference

Enjoy!

Google and Microsoft talk Artificial Intelligence

Peter Norvig, Google's director of research, and Eric Horvitz, a distinguished scientist at Microsoft Research, recently spoke jointly to an audience at the Computer History Museum in Palo Alto, California, about the promise of AI. Afterward, the pair talked with Technology Review's IT editor, Tom Simonite, about what AI can do today, and what they think it'll be capable of tomorrow.

Full article: Technology Review via ACM Tech News

This post is dedicated to Joana, of course ;)

Sovereign Keys to strengthen Public Key Infrastructure

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is proposing an extension to the current SSL chain of trust that aims to improve the security of HTTPS and other secure communication protocols.

EFF's "Sovereign Keys" (SK) specification is designed to put the control give domain owners control over the link between their domain names and their certificates after recent Certificate Authority (CA) compromises raised serious questions about the security of the entire Internet Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).

One of the main problems with the current PKI model is the lack of control over CAs and their subsidiaries. There are literally hundreds of organizations spread around the world that are allowed to issue certificates for any domain name and some of them are operated by governments that practice Internet surveillance and censorship.

Sovereign Keys was designed to solve this problem by allowing domain owners to sign CA-issued certificates with their own private keys for additional authenticity. These validated domain-certificate associations are kept on so-called timeline servers and are synchronized with mirrors that are queried by clients.

Source: Network World via ACM Tech News

El Cid

El Cid

El Cid: You will soon be a King, you must start to think like one, any man can kill, only a King can give life!

How About Better Parents?

In recent years, we’ve been treated to reams of op-ed articles about how we need better teachers in our public schools and, if only the teachers’ unions would go away, our kids would score like Singapore’s on the big international tests. There’s no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student’s achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here’s what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents. Parents more focused on their children’s education can also make a huge difference in a student’s achievement.

Source: NYTimes.com

PJ 20

Pearl Jam 20 soundtrack

What a great way to start my 34th birthday! :)
Thanks Jo! Always "walk with me"! ;)

"
I feel your love
I feel your strong love
I feel the patience
Of unconditional love
I feel the strength
I feel your faith in me
I'll never let you down no matter what you do
If you just walk with me and let me walk with you
I'm on this journey
I don't wanna walk alone
Walk with me
"

Computer Programming for Children

New and more sophisticated tools are changing the way that the next generation learns to program computers. Children can now create elaborate scenes and games without the cryptic commands that were once the only way to tell computers what to do. The most talented children can also use some of the sophisticated tools normally used by professional programmers, because the tools are now often easy enough for someone to pick up with only a few months of study.

Source: NYTimes.com

Amazon Price Check

Amazon Price Check, an Android app that allows a customer to check how much a product costs at Amazon.com.

This can be considered a mainstream Internet of Things application. Watch out for many more in the coming years, as the borders between physical and virtual world become more blurred...

Heidi

Heidi

Klara Sesemann: Isn't Heidi the funniest little thing? I'm so glad she's going to stay.
Andrews, the Butler: Is she?
Klara Sesemann: Yes, but she doesn't know it. The poor dear thinks she's going home today. But she'll be happier here, don't you think? And I'll have some new dresses made for her.

Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang

Nanny McPhee Returns

Mrs. Docherty: You seem to have forgotten the way she works. When you need her but do not want her, then she must stay. When you want her, but no longer need her, then she has to go. I know from personal experience.

Tony Blair's 10 dos and don'ts for religion and democracy

Tony Blair, CNN.com Belief Blog, 2011-11-11

1. DO have democracy-friendly religion and religion-friendly democracies.

2. DON’T think you understand democracy if you think it’s only about elections: it’s about a culture and mindset which includes freedom of thought, freedom of expression, political and religious pluralism, and human rights.

3. DO maintain equality of treatment for different religions within the law as a core element of the secular state.

4. DON’T duck difficult conflicts involving religious and secular ideas: discuss them openly.

5. DON’T rush to legislation to solve religious conflict; instead seek first to resolve it by discussion and accommodations.

6. DON’T allow religious schools to opt out of the same national standards and core curriculum that you expect of everyone else.

7. DO listen to religious voices on social, political and economic issues, and allow people to justify their views on explicitly religious grounds if they want.

8. DO insist on religious leaders making their case by reasoned argument not by bald assertion or authoritarian claims. Insist on that for atheists and secular leaders too.

9. DO NOT allow religious voices to have dominance in the public sphere if they cannot achieve majority support through democratic means.

10. DO ensure, whether the overwhelming democratic choice is either an atheist state or one dominant religion, that the voices of religious minorities and those who have no faith are protected.

Remember that none of us are qualified to state with certainty the will of God – so humility, openness to others, and interfaith dialogue are all essential for a healthy society.

Tackling a test in an infinite loop

I had a bug that was causing a unit test to go in an infinite loop. Gradle would not print any output from the test because the standard output stream is captured to a test report.

To debug I used the following two techniques:

1 - I accessed the actual standard output, bypassing Gradle's redirection for this specific situation (this is usually not a good idea):

    PrintStream actualStdout = new PrintStream(
        new FileOutputStream(FileDescriptor.out))
    actualStdout.println("test message")

2 - I placed a pause inside the loop that was not stopping to be able to read the messages and make sense of them in human timescale (1000 milliseconds = 1 second).

    Thread.sleep(1000)
 

Gradle flatDir repository

Q:
"
For a Gradle flatDir repository, is it looking for a local filesystem that is built up like Maven (pom's etc)..
or is it just looking for jar files in a folder called lib?
"

repositories {
flatDir name: 'localRepository', dirs: 'lib'
}


A:
"
As you assume it just looks for jars/wars/whatever in the 'lib' folder. It resolves versions by looking at the version number in the filename. for instance:
myveryownjar-1.2.0.jar
spring-2.5.6.jar
"

"
Pretty much. For each dependency that you declare in the build script, Gradle will look for a corresponding file in the 'lib' directory. For example, for a dependency on 'junit:junit:4.7', Gradle would look for
lib/junit-4.7.jar or lib/junit.jar. It assumes there are no transitive dependencies.
"

Adapted from http://gradle.1045684.n5.nabble.com/Flat-Dir-repositories-td1431519.html

Groovy and Gradle

The next generation of Java and Ant (+Maven): Groovy and Gradle.

There are still some improvements required but these tools represent major steps forward in programmer productivity.

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth

[recognizing Mt. Vesuvius behind them]
Trevor: If your mother asks you where you went this weekend, tell her your uncle took you to Italy.

Tweets of the month

28 Oct
Testing gradle gradle.org

28 Oct
New day, new morning light, new ideas?

27 Oct
If it doesn't work on paper it also doesn't work on code :(

26 Oct
It's raining cats and dogs (and I think some rabbits too) in Lisbon

20 Oct Semana Informática Semana Informática ‏ @sinfo_ist
Um dos oradores da SINFO acabou de ser revelado! Richard Stallman vem a portugal, e ao instituto superior técnico! on.fb.me/q3QZmW
Retweeted by Miguel Pardal

21 Oct
My work-in-progress folder is now art-in-progress, thanks to Joana and Vincent

21 Oct
Trying the get-fit clear-mind Pomodoro (yet another)

20 Oct
Playing (abstraction) "games" for metamodeling

18 Oct
Anda para aí um Nazgul que me começa a aborrecer seriamente... :/

14 Oct
É nas horas difíceis que se vê de que fibra somos feitos. Vamos a isto: arregaçar as mangas e trabalhar mais e melhor! pic.twitter.com/o5juQd2D

13 Oct
One of the few nice things about this extended summer is that we can go to Surf and enjoy a refreshing ice cream.

13 Oct
Writing use cases to help keep solution focus on end users

7 Oct
Sometimes life feels like a game of Lemmings pingus.seul.org/welcome.html

6 Oct
Thesis moving forward again after some wise advice from Joana and Dr. Whiteboard

4 Oct
Early morning start today :)

3 Oct
Updating my LinkedIn account

3 Oct
"Despertar da sua tibieza os corações adormecidos"

Welcome Tiago!

Welcome dear nephew! :)

Leatherheads

Leatherheads

Lexie Littleton: Being the slickest operator in Duluth is sort of like being the world's tallest midget, if you ask me!
Jimmy 'Dodge' Connelly: You know, it's too bad we are so much alike, otherwise we would have gotten along perfectly!
Lexie Littleton: I'll live.
Jimmy 'Dodge' Connelly: Alone!

Very weak movie. Uninteresting and not funny.

The Adventures of Tintin

The Adventures of Tintin

[in a plane]
Captain Haddock: You do know what you're doing, right?
Tintin: Relax. I interviewed a pilot once!

Java list tricks

Most of the times the simplest way to traverse a list in Java is to use an Iterator.

If your List is a LinkedList, then you can also use a descendingIterator.

For more list-specific methods, there is ListIterator, that can move forward and backward among other things.

Mona Lisa Smile

Mona Lisa Smile

Katherine Watson: Look beyond the paint. Let us try to open our minds to a new idea.

Researchers crack XML Encryption

German researchers have demonstrated a technique for breaking the encryption widely used to secure data in online transactions, which they say “poses a serious and truly practical security threat on all currently used implementations of XML Encryption.”

The attack is able to recover 160 bytes of plain-text message in 10 seconds and decrypt larger amounts of data at the same pace, the researchers said.

Although the attack, described in a paper delivered last week at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Chicago, was directed against the XML Encryption standard, it exploits weaknesses in the cipher-block chaining (CBC) mode of operation that is commonly used with many cryptographic algorithms. This makes it likely it could be used against non-XML implementations as well.

Source: XML Encryption cracked, exposing real threat to online transactions

The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers

Not recommended. Only "positive" points: no knowledge of history, physics or brain required :)

Art in progress

My work-in-progress folder is now art-in-progress, thanks to Joana and Vincent :)

I hope it will be a source of inspiration.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Indeed a classic. Recommended. Be prepared to question yourself and your choices in life.

Download ebook

Wikipedia PDF

Wikipedia has a new very cool feature:

If you notice on the left side menu, you can now download as PDF or even create a book!
Very useful! I just downloaded a couple of article to read on my Kindle.

Steve Jobs RIP

This morning started with sad news: Steve Jobs died.

Rest In Peace Steve Jobs.

Red Herring

Red herring is an idiomatic expression referring to the rhetorical or literary tactic of diverting attention away from an item of significance. For example, in mystery fiction, where the identity of a criminal is being sought, an innocent party may be purposefully cast in a guilty light by the author through the employment of deceptive clues, false emphasis, "loaded" words or other descriptive tricks of the trade. The reader's suspicions are thus misdirected, allowing the true culprit to go (temporarily at least) undetected. A false protagonist is another example of a red herring.

More about Red Herring idiomatic expression.

Trust Me, I'm an "Engineer"

http://9gag.com/gag/305093

Selecting the optimal programming language

There are many programming languages to choose from, and it's a personal choice for many--you might just pick your favorite, or you might choose the one with the best performance figures. Sometimes, however, other factors are just as important as performance. In this article, learn how to analyze the relevant factors when selecting a programming language. A few project scenarios are outlined to illustrate different variables in your myriad choices.

Source: IBM Developer Works

Tweets of the month

Action points are set. Go CP, go! You have a MSc to finish!
30 Sep

Finished two paper reviews. Too bad I had to recommend their rejection... :(
30 Sep

Today I've been reworking the cost model.
23 Sep

I've produced valid XML data files. Now I have some work to do with an in-memory representation. Tomorrow.
22 Sep

Eclipse still sucks. Just lost 30 minutes with a stupid refresh bug! I just had to delete the workspace and import the project to fix it!
22 Sep

DTD hacking... it has been a while :)
22 Sep

De vuelta al trabajo, lleno de energía
5 Sep

Asus U41SV-WX111V

A good combination of capabilities, weight (~ 2 Kg) and price

More information: http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/U41SV/

Screen capture

Screen captures are useful for most computer users. You might need to show a screen to someone for help, or to include a computer screen in a report, or just to keep a hard record of something you saw in your computer.

In Windows you can capture the screen using the "Print Screen" key. Just press it and then you can paste the image into any program capable of handling graphics. Also, if you want to capture just the active window, use "Alt" + "Print Screen".

If you want to automate the screen capture task or have additional control, I strongly recommend the Greenshot tool. It's very simple and very effective. And it's also open-source and free!

Also, since Vista, Windows also includes a snipping tool.

To complete the topic of screen capture, I also use the ScreenGrab Firefox extension. It's especially useful if you want to capture a complete web page, without having to scroll the window.

Relation vs Relationship

When should you use "relation" and when should you use "relationship" ?

A relationship is a close friendship between two people, especially one involving romantic feelings.
Relationship can be used in two other ways. It can describe two things and the way in which they are connected.
It can also describe close ties between people or groups of people and the way they feel and behave towards each other.

Relation also describes the link between people, groups or countries and the way they behave towards each other. In this sense there is very little difference between relations and relationship.
Most of the differences are context specific in this sense. For example, we talk about diplomatic relations and race relations, not diplomatic relationships or race relationships.
Your relations are also members of your family. Your blood relations are the people who are related to you by birth, not through marriage. If you say that they are your own flesh and blood, you are emphasizing that they are members of your own family.

Examples and more information available at source article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv235.shtml

Student advice

My (unsolicited) advice to all students: let the first week of the year be the first week of study.

Get a calendar, set the deadlines, and find ways to spread the effort across the weeks. This will change the game from "trying to pass" to "trying to ace" courses.

Good work!

More PDF Hacking

I've been using the pdftk tool to make command-line changes to PDF files since December 2010.

Here are a few more useful examples:

:: Add a stamp image to an existing PDF file
pdftk MyDoc.pdf stamp Stamp.pdf MyStampedDoc.pdf

:: Extract pages from a PDF file
pdftk MyDoc.pdf cat 1-2 output Pages1and2ofMyDoc.pdf

:: Split select pages from multiple PDFs into a new document
pdftk A=one.pdf B=two.pdf cat A1-7 B1-5 A8 output combined.pdf

Feel free to share more useful commands in the comments section!

MacBook Air 2011

More information: http://www.apple.com/macbookair/

First citywide energy audit

An energy audit – an assessment of how well a home holds in its heat or cooling – typically takes hours for just one house. But MIT Professor Sanjay Sarma’s new method can conduct an energy audit of a building in only seconds. His team uses special heat-sensitive cameras mounted on a car.

(Image Credit: Long Phan)

Source: EarthSky

Install Windows ISO using a USB flash drive

Microsoft has released a tool to burn a Windows disc image to a DVD or, more interesting, to a USB flash drive. However, when I tried to use it, it complained that it did not change the boot record. So, I had to use a tool called bootsect.exe to create the boot sector, with the following command: bootsect.exe /nt60 o:

Samsung series 9 notebook

More information: http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/laptops/NP900X3A-A03US

De vuelta al trabajo

"De vuelta al trabajo, lleno de energía." - Back to work, filled with (Spanish) energy!

Lots of work ahead in the following months. It will be hard, but it will be worth it!

Tweets of the month

What to learn AI with Peter Norvig? ai-class.com
10 Aug

Back to work, resting from the holidays ;)
8 Aug

Modern-ism

Source: DisOriention book

--

This is the last of a fourteen-part series of posts about ideologies - the "Isms".

The images and texts are taken from the DisOrientation book - How to go to College without losing your mind - web site.

This post series is dedicated to my good friend Miguel Oliveira Panão.

Super 8

Super 8

The Smurfs

The Smurfs

Captain America

Captain America

Marx-ism

Source: DisOriention book

American-ism

Source: DisOriention book

Internet time machine

A team of computer scientists at the Los Alamos Research Library in New Mexico and Old Dominion University (ODU) in Virginia has written a technical specification that embeds the concept of time into Internet applications. The specification is part of the team’s proposed information framework, known as Memento, which creates an application that allows the version control of Web pages, databases and other online information sources.

Source: Government Computer News via ACM Tech News

Internet's memory effects quantified in computer study

Psychology experiments showed that people presented with difficult questions began to think of computers.

When participants knew that facts would be available on a computer later, they had poor recall of answers but enhanced recall of where they were stored.

The researchers say the internet acts as a "transactive memory" that we depend upon to remember for us.

Lead author Betsy Sparrow of Columbia University said that transactive memory "is an idea that there are external memory sources - really storage places that exist in other people".

Source: BBC News via ACM Tech News

Using 'cloud' servers to heat homes

Microsoft has published a research paper that proposes installing servers used for cloud computing into homes and businesses, instead of in vast data centers. The idea being, that because such servers generate so much heat, why not use them to heat homes, instead of wasting even more energy by cooling the air in centralized locations.

Source: PhysOrg via ACM Tech News

The Glorious Folly

The Glorious Folly by Louis de Wohl

This book is a sequel to The Spear and it covers the time span of the life of Saul of Tarsus a.k.a. Saint Paul. Despite this, St. Paul is not the main character in the book, Cassius Longinus is. The book is a good read, but not so good as The Spear .

Sometimes we think if we lived in the time of Jesus it would be so much easier to believe in Him. However, from De Wohls' depiction of the period, it is clear to me that faith and freedom play the same crucial role as today.

Cornell computers spot 'opinion spam'

If you read online reviews before purchasing a product or service, you may not always be reading the truth. Review sites are becoming targets for "opinion spam" -- phony positive reviews created by sellers to help sell their products, or negative reviews meant to downgrade competitors.

The bad news: Human beings are lousy at identifying deceptive reviews. The good news: Cornell researchers are developing computer software that's pretty good at it. In a test on 800 reviews of Chicago hotels, a computer was able to pick out deceptive reviews with almost 90 percent accuracy. In the process, the researchers discovered an intriguing correspondence between the linguistic structure of deceptive reviews and fiction writing.

Source: Cornell News via ACM Tech News

Robots Threaten Jobs

Amid all the job losses of the Great Recession, there is one category of worker that the economic disruption has been good for: nonhumans.

From self-service checkout lines at the supermarket to industrial robots armed with saws and taught to carve up animal carcasses in slaughter-houses, these ever-more-intelligent machines are now not just assisting workers but actually kicking them out of their jobs.

Automation isn’t just affecting factory workers, either. Some law firms now use artificial intelligence software to scan and read mountains of legal documents, work that previously was performed by highly paid human lawyers.

Source: The Daily Beast

Scient-ism

Source: DisOriention book

Tweets of the month

You live, you learn
19 Jul

Writing a thesis progress report for last year and planning the next.
13 Jul

I think I made a conceptual breakthrough today in my PhD... Let's see how it holds up tomorrow in written form.
12 Jul

NASA RT The countdown has entered a 45-minute hold at T-9 minutes. There are no technical concerns and at this time weather is “go.”
8 Jul

Space Shuttle Atlantis is go for launch in 5 hours, if the weather holds up nasa.gov/shuttle/
8 Jul

"Tem sido bom viver estes tempos felizes e difíceis, porque uma vida boa não é uma boa vida." -- RIP Maria José Nogueira Pinto
7 Jul

Great lunch today. Good company!
7 Jul

Femin-ism

Source: DisOriention book

Cynic-ism

Source: DisOriention book

Consumer-ism

Source: DisOriention book

Computer learns language by playing games

In 2009, at the annual meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), researchers in the lab of Regina Barzilay, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering, took the best-paper award for a system that generated scripts for installing a piece of software on a Windows computer by reviewing instructions posted on Microsoft’s help site. At this year’s ACL meeting, Barzilay, her graduate student S. R. K. Branavan and David Silver of University College London applied a similar approach to a more complicated problem: learning to play “Civilization,” a computer game in which the player guides the development of a city into an empire across centuries of human history. When the researchers augmented a machine-learning system so that it could use a player’s manual to guide the development of a game-playing strategy, its rate of victory jumped from 46 percent to 79 percent.

Source: MIT News Office via ACM Tech News

Raspberry Pi, the $25 computer

David Braben has a big idea crammed into a tiny frame. He and fellow members of the British nonprofit Raspberry Pi have designed a rugged computer powerful enough to perhaps inspire a generation of future programmers, yet cheap enough that schools can hand them out free of charge.

Source: CSMonitor.com via ACM Tech News

Air Power

Researchers have discovered a way to capture and harness energy transmitted by such sources as radio and television transmitters, cell phone networks and satellite communications systems. By scavenging this ambient energy from the air around us, the technique could provide a new way to power networks of wireless sensors, microprocessors and communications chips.

“There is a large amount of electromagnetic energy all around us, but nobody has been able to tap into it,” said Manos Tentzeris, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who is leading the research. “We are using an ultra-wideband antenna that lets us exploit a variety of signals in different frequency ranges, giving us greatly increased power-gathering capability.”

Source: Georgia Tech via ACM Tech News

Improving recommendation systems

Devavrat Shah, the Jamieson Career Development Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in MIT’s Laboratory of Information and Decisions Systems, thinks that the most common approach to recommendation systems is fundamentally flawed. Shah believes that, instead of asking users to rate products on, say, a five-star scale, as Netflix and Amazon do, recommendation systems should ask users to compare products in pairs. Stitching the pairwise rankings into a master list, Shah argues, will offer a more accurate representation of consumers’ preferences.

Source: MIT News Office via ACM Tech News

Utilitarian-ism

Source: DisOriention book

Anti-Catholic-ism

Source: DisOriention book

World's data will grow 50 times

In 2011 alone, 1.8 zettabytes (or 1.8 trillion gigabytes) of data will be created, the equivalent to every U.S. citizen writing 3 tweets per minute for 26,976 years. And over the next decade, the number of servers managing the world's data stores will grow by ten times.

Interestingly, the amount of data people create by writing email messages, taking photos, and downloading music and movies is minuscule compared to the amount of data being created about them, the EMC-sponsored study found.

The IDC study predicts that overall data will grow by 50 times by 2020, driven in large part by more embedded systems such as sensors in clothing, medical devices and structures like buildings and bridges.

Source: Computerworld

Tweets of the month

I've been invited to Google Plus! ansonalex.com/technology/how… Nice!
30 Jun

Dieta Real: "Tomar o pequeno almoço como um Rei, o almoço como um Príncipe, e o jantar como um Mendigo"
28 Jun

Thanks to my dear @joanappardal and her typesetting tips, the paper is looking much better now! No more loose paragraphs!
27 Jun

Back to work. Adjusting the "camera" for a paper camera-ready version that is due today :)
27 Jun

Inbox zero!
20 Jun

"Nothing changes, until you do." 4.bp.blogspot.com/-E6vyDZvnERM/T…
17 Jun

Algum Informático está interessado em desenvolvimento Unix e SQL? Pode ser recém licenciado ou ter até 2 anos de experiência #emprego
16 Jun

Tonight we saw the Lunar Eclipse and the International Space Station blazing the sky #eclipse #iss
16 Jun

Pentecost really happened today, a little later than usual, but full of Grace as always
14 Jun

Today I'm working at Taguspark. It had been a while...
9 Jun

MIT's 150th Birthday (and 10th Reunion) photos flickr.com/photos/thechiz…
8 Jun

Mãos à obra, Portugal!
6 Jun

As eleições estão à porta. É muito importante votar! E bem! :) Para evitar problemas técnicos consultar: http://www.portaldoeleitor.pt/
3 Jun

Should I translate 'key escrow' by 'caução de chave' or by 'depósito de chave'?
2 Jun

Checking a technical detail in the EPCIS standard specification
2 Jun

A osga dos livros... :/

Click and focus

With an innovative camera due out later this year from a company called Lytro, photographers will have one less excuse for having missed that perfect shot.

Lytro's camera produces files where a user can click on an area to bring it into focus.

Source: NYTimes.com

Programming in a post-Basic world

For years, the lingua franca for desktop computers was the Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, a.k.a. BASIC. Essentially every PC had it, and just about anyone could learn to program with it, even in a rudimentary way.

Those days are gone -- Microsoft stopped including Basic with its operating system after Windows 95, a corporate spokesperson confirms. Consequently, today's desktop computers have no built-in general-purpose programming language to entice the curious.

What now?

Source: Computerworld

Multi-Cultural-ism

Source: DisOriention book

IBM's new future: Quantum computing - Computerworld

IBM is marking its 100th anniversary by celebrating its record in technology innovation. It created dynamic RAM, the disk drive and the magnetic strips used on credit cards, among many other inventions. It is one of the most inventive companies in the world.

But the computing industry is moving to a new future as disruptive and as radical as the era that began with the introduction of silicon chips, and that future is quantum computing. These are systems that use the behavior of subatomic particles to conduct calculations now performed with transistors on a chip.

This future may be anywhere from 10 to 20 or more years away. But if the potential of quantum computing is fully realized, it may trigger a development rush in chip and hardware design reminiscent of what Silicon Valley experienced decades ago.

Source: Computerworld

New tools to help objects to communicate via the Net

Increasingly, the things people use on a daily basis can be connected to the Internet. Norwegian researchers are working to ensure that the Internet of Things operates as efficiently as possible.

A group of Norwegian researchers have been addressing this issue. In the research project Infrastructure for Integrated Services (ISIS) they have created a platform for developing and distributing applications for the Internet of Things. The platform encompasses a programming tool for developers, called Arctis and the website ISIS Store for downloading applications.

Source: The Research Council of Norway

Progressiv-ism

Source: DisOriention book

Taking Email Etiquette to the Next Level

When working with others in the office, most know it is better to approach a colleague who is relaxed and drinking a cup of coffee versus a frazzled co-worker buried under a pile of paperwork.

Unfortunately, email doesn’t offer users the same social cues – until now.

Georgia Tech Assistant Professor of Computing Eric Gilbert has developed software called courteous.ly, a service that shows current user email loads in real-time.

“I think we’re really good at the etiquette part when we have the cues that allow us to be polite,” said Gilbert, a faculty member in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing. “Courteous.ly helps manage expectations and lets people choose to send mail when it’s best for you.”

Available for download, courteous.ly currently works with Google-based email, such as Gmail, which is used by 160 million people worldwide. Roughly 3 million businesses also use Google-hosted mail. Signing up for courteous.ly is as easy as entering your email address and verifying a few links.

Source: Georgia Tech via ACM Tech News

Hedon-ism

Source: DisOriention book