DC.Ars returns with a new distributed computing challenge. Help Ars Technica's distributed computing project to a top-three finish as the
Optimal Golomb Ruler project winds down.
digg itOur team is
Ars Technica Team Beef Roast. If you've never participated in distributed computing, the
distributed.net clients are some of the easiest and most stable to use. If you are interested, please leave a comment here, or head over the the Ars Technica
Distributed Computing Arcana forum. There are three thread topics specific to this project:
Six Months to Glory or Two Months to Shame,
[TBR] Viva La Roast! (Perpetual Thread V) and
[TBR OGR] [THAWN or others] Gauntlet!. Don't feel that you need to read the entire thread - you can jump to the end (currently at
Six Months,
TBR or
Gauntlet) and ask away!
Update: We have taken third place overall. So the battle has been won, but the war is not yet over. We need to continue our current production levels to hold this position. The
Free-DC team certainly has the power to overtake us if we slip.
Book-in-a-minute Classics
Ever wanted to burn through your reading list, but always find yourself preoccupied by other tasks? We now have a solution. Book-in-a-minute Ultra-Condensed classics will leave you reeling.
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Reading Code is Like Reading the Talmud
A quick article on approaches towards reading and understanding foreign code.
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Code commenting.. your programming life's progression
This is a great blog post of value to programmers of all levels. Portrait of a Noob talks about static typing, commenting, documenting, and all items of computer code that he considers 'meta-data'.
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Europe's dinner tables are increasingly supplied by global fishing fleets, which are depleting the world's oceans.
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digg storyLabels: culture, digdug, environment, world
Fish populations have been decimated along northwest Africa's coast, fueling a surge of migrants braving the seas to reach Europe.
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digg storyLabels: culture, digdug, environment, world
Warning - creating your
own city can be very habit forming. But visiting is easy. You can visit as many cities as you want. Every city can be visited once per IP address per day. You can go more often than that, but only the first visit "counts" -- that is, it's the only one that effects the city score. Going to the
main site presents a search dialog, and also allows you to create your own city.
By default, a visit increases the population by 1 citizen. Once the population reaches 50, industry is enabled, which creates jobs. This is done by visiting $CITY.myminicity.com/ind; here's a
link for my city, and the corresponding one for the
Ars Technica city. Other options are made available as the city grows: to improve the transportation network (/tra), increase security by adding police stations (/sec), improve the environment by building parks (/env), and increase commerce (/com). If you want to help out a city, but aren't sure what they need, go to $CITY.minicity.com/xml (such as
mine :D), where you'll see a text version of the XML markup that describes the current city conditions.
So how do you get visitors? By visiting other cities and leaving a note telling them the name of your city, and any particular needs. Most active "players" will quickly return the visit in the hopes of establishing a continuing reciprocal arrangement.
So join the addiction!
Labels: culture, fun
An MIT initiative called "OpenCourseWare" makes virtually all the school's courses available online for free — lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures.
Do yourself a favor - head on over to the MIT website (
http://ocw.mit.edu) and get yerself some (electronic) book lernin'.
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digg storyLabels: digdug
This composite image shows the jet from a black hole at the center of a galaxy striking the edge of another galaxy, the first time such an interaction has been found.
Be sure to follow the link to the full story.
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