The Mathematics Behind xkcd: A Conversation with Randall Munroe
MAA publications for students, professors, and anyone interested in math
Rethinking the Computer at 80
Dr. Neumann, an 80-year-old computer scientist at SRI International, is leading an effort to redesign computers and software from a “clean slate” to make them more secure.
Hasnain says:
It's always good to step back, count my blessings, realize how good life is; and realize how lucky I am to have the chance to work in the same department as Dr. Neumann and other extremely smart and wise people.
Posted on 2012-11-03T04:35:45+0000
[hep-th/0310077] A dialog on quantum gravity
arxiv.org
Hasnain says:
I'm no physicist, but this was certainly an enjoyable read. [2003, so it's a bit dated]
Posted on 2012-11-01T04:19:42+0000
The Mysterious, Mutant, Civilizing Power of Milk
To repurpose a handy metaphor, let's call two of the first Homo sapiens Adam and Eve. By the time they welcomed their firstborn, that rascal Cain, into the world, 2 million centuries of evolution had established how his infancy would play out. For the first few years of his life,...
The Island Where People Forget to Die
Unraveling the mystery of why the inhabitants of Ikaria live so long and so well.
2012 Startup School
Are you ahackerwho has thought about one day starting a startup? Have you already started it? Then you're invited to a free, one-day startup school this October 20 at Stanford. We'll have a range ofexpertsspeaking about startups from their own experience.
Most functional
This program celebrates the close connection between obfuscation and conciseness, by implementing the most concise language known, Binary Lambda Calculus (BLC).
Hasnain says:
So, not only did this guy win the international obfuscated C code contest; he won it by writing an interpreter for "implementing the most concise language known, Binary Lambda Calculus (BLC)". Need I say he's also the inventor of BLC?
Mind = blown.
Posted on 2012-10-18T03:57:59+0000
Why I Hired A Girl On Craigslist to Slap Me In The Face — And Why It Quadrupled My Productivity
Last week, I talked about the power of precommitment — I spoke of how Odysseus prevented himself from the temptation of the Sirens by tying himself to his ship mast. Precommitment is the most effective way to change behavior. Essentially, you make a promise—an irrevocable promise—to complete an acti...
Hasnain has not yet written a summary for this.
Posted on 2012-10-16T23:41:07+0000
Abstract/Bio
The Grok Project is an internal Google initiative to simplify the navigation and querying of very large program source repositories. We have designed and implemented a language-neutral, canonical representation for source code and compiler metadata. Our data production pipeline runs compiler cluster...
Hasnain says:
Really interesting talk. Too bad I heard about it fifteen minutes *after* it ended. FML.
Posted on 2012-10-11T01:10:33+0000
Oh God, Bravo's Silicon Valley Show Looks Even Worse Than We Thought Ugh Why Help
If you watch the latest promo for Bravo's Silicon Valley reality show and think, hey these entrepreneurs failed actors are just stringing together tech buzzwords, it's because that's exactly what they're doing.