Looking for the King

Looking for the King by David C. Downing

This book tells the story of two young Americans - Tom and Laura - that travel to England and meets the Inklings, a literary group including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien while research the legend of King Arthur.

The book is an interesting read. The main plot is nice but all too predictable.

The really good thing about the book is that you get to "meet" the Inklings and attend their lectures and more informal meetings at the Bird and Baby pub.

Green GPS calculates most fuel-efficient route

A new software interface reduces energy consumption in transportation systems.

Green GPS, developed by computer scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, works like general GPS navigation, except that in addition to calculating the shortest and fastest routes, it also projects the most fuel-efficient route.

Read full story.

The meaning of NASA's insignia

AI needs a reboot, experts say

Some of the founders and leading lights in the fields of artificial intelligence and cognitive science gave a harsh assessment last night of the lack of progress in AI over the last few decades.

Read the Unthinking Machines story

Chip building goes up!

Intel Increases Transistor Speed by Building Upward

(...) early transistors were built on a flat surface. But like a real estate developer building skyscrapers to get more rentable space from a plot of land, Intel is now building up.

The company has already begun making its microprocessors using a new 3-D transistor design, called a Finfet (for fin field-effect transistor), which is based around a remarkably small pillar, or fin, of silicon that rises above the surface of the chip.

(...) it expected to be able to make chips that run as much as 37 percent faster in low-voltage applications and it would be able to cut power consumption as much as 50 percent.

Read full story

e-readers in research

A study on how University of Washington students use the Kindle arrived at an interesting conclusion:

There is no e-reader that supports what we found these students doing

Read the article

Tweets of the month

Follow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uBU2CzisEQ (Easter twitter)
27 Apr

There's no place like 127.0.0.1 :)
27 Apr

New paper submitted. Now on the road again.
21 Apr

I just love the fingerlakes... could we take one home? :)
21 Apr

Something Happened Last Week in Orlando #RFIDLIVE http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/8360/1/2/
20 Apr

#IEEERFID was great, #RFIDLIVE too. Now I'm writing a new paper for another RFID conference :)
20 Apr

If anyone attending #RFIDLIVE is interested in theoretical cost estimates for RFID traceability systems, stop by room S331 tomorrow morning!
14 Apr

The poster session went pretty well. It was nice presenting my work to so many smart people :) #IEEERFID #RFIDLIVE
14 Apr

#RFIDLIVE NFC-enabled smartphones could bring a big growth to micro-payments
12 Apr

#RFIDLIVE I really liked Jack Farrell's StarBucks-enhancing technologies photo
12 Apr

RFIDJournal RFID Journal
Getting ready to open the exhibit hall @ #RFIDLIVE.
12 Apr

#RFIDLIVEQA panel question: Have you had any significant software obstacles? Did the software scale well with increasing usage?
12 Apr

#RFIDLIVE panel question: Have you had any significant software obstacles? Did the software scale well with increasing usage?
12 Apr

Attending the #RFIDLIVE panel discussion. Audience questions will be asked using twitter. Nice :)
12 Apr

#RFIDLIVE My poster about cost estimates for RFID data discovery / traceability is posted! I will show it tomorrow at 3pm in room S331 C-D!
12 Apr

At Orlando for #RFIDLIVE and IEEE RFID. Lots of exciting new things to learn!
12 Apr

30 seconds... How much can you say in 30 seconds?
12 Apr

Preparing for #RFIDLIVE
9 Apr

Working on the contents of the poster. Joana will help me with (the) style
7 Apr

@pedrocustodio Not sure football everywhere is my kind of town ;)
7 Apr

Just prototyped the cold-rainfall-pomodoro ;)
5 Apr

New York City shopping nightmare

I want to share with you a very bad shopping experience I had in New York City at Multy Electronics, 1333 Broadway, between 35th and 36th street.

Here is their business card:

*** DO NOT SHOP HERE *** DO NOT SHOP HERE ***

*** DO NOT SHOP HERE *** DO NOT SHOP HERE ***

At this shop they have all the products marked at very high prices.
After you show interest for a specific product, they start making some incredible discounts. They even tell you that you can return it if you're not satisfied.

If you give in - like I did for a small projector with "HD" definition - then you have been robbed!

Once you realize that the product doesn't work as expected - no "HD" after all - you come back to the store and they say that they don't do refunds, and that you can exchange the product only for other products. The issue is, all the other prices are largely overpriced too, so you are stuck with a lousy deal.

Also they say that you can talk to the boss that will be around tomorrow, but you figure that there is no boss and it's just a delay tactic. They know most of their customers are tourists and that they won't be around for long.

There are more reports about this store (and its twins) in the following site:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/directory/Multy-Electronics.aspx

It's unbelievable how the New York City officials do not close down on these stores...

Lesson learned (the hard way):

If something looks too good to be true, it probably is!
And if your wife tells you this, don't be stubborn!

How to get GPS coordinates out of Google Maps

This works with Google Maps is quick and easy, and does not need any add-ons.

1. Move the cursor over the spot you want coordinates for.
2. Right click and select "Directions to here" on pop-up menu.
3. Copy coordinates from "End Address": e.g. 29.199505,-90.041242
4. Paste them back into the "Search Maps" box and click to check position
and get them in DMS format: e.g. +29° 11' 58.22", -90° 2' 28.47"

Source: http://forums.gpsreview.net/viewtopic.php?t=3632

How to redirect stdout and sterr to a file in Windows

compute.bat > compute.output 2>&1

"compute.bat" is the command we are executing.
"> compute.output" redirects the console output to a file called compute.output. If ">>" was used instead, the file would be appended.
"2>&1" redirects stderr (2) to where stdout (1) is directed

Reference: StackOverflow post