A weblog about TextMate, the Universe, and Everything
I usually try to stay away for mentioning all the absurd things that various agencies are doing in the name of security, but this time I could not resist. Here’s the story. You can also find a discussion on Bruce Schneier’s blog. Effectively, a man was arrested in London for showing what can only qualify in my world as normal behavior. He was stopped and searched because:
Read the rest of this entry »
One of my favorite theorems in calculus is Riemann’s theorem on conditionally convergent series. To remind you, the theorem says that a conditionally convergent series (i.e. a series that converges only because of the presence of signs, and the cancellation that follows) can be rearranged so that it converges to our favorite real number! What is so wonderful about it is that the statement is unbelievably surprising: The same set of numbers can be made to add up to any number we want, simply by placing them in a different order! On the other hand the proof, which you can find on almost any decent Calculus book, is really not that hard. The brilliance is in figuring out that such a statement could possibly be true.
Read the rest of this entry »
Three researchers in Berkeley have just put up a paper where they describe how from an audio recording of someone typing in English for 15 minutes, one can actually recover with very good accuracy the text typed! You can read a discussion about it on Bruce Schneier’s blog.
Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve lately been listening a lot to the music of Madredeus, in particular the wonderful “o espirito da paz”. The music and lyrics of Pedro Ayes Magalhaes and the unique voice of Teresa Salgueiro are truly spellbinding. Though I have enjoyed all the songs in the album, most of the gentle and soft, my favorite is still the more energetic “O Pastor” with its amazing cello. The lyrics are so dreamy, that I could not resist reproducing their translations here. If you’ve never heard “O Pastor” before, I strongly suggest you do. You can get a taste of it from amazon.
I just finished reading a book titled “Hackers” by Steven Levy and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it! In sort, the book describes the extraordinary lives of the people that shaped the world of computing, most of the time not even realizing it.
Read the rest of this entry »
