Ummm, sorry to put a damp cloud over the great work MIT work. But all educational material should be online for free anyway. And has no one heard of the Open University? I know its not all online and as smooth, but for many decades you can sign up to free courses and work at your own pace in your own home. MIT great work but nothing special.
Tag: science
Mark Thomas
Mark Thomas has been in the news again, and I found a good site to keep track of what he's been up to. Next time he does his tour, I will have to drag my wife along. I explained to her that he is the british equalivent to Micheal Moore.
The forums are very lively, found this one. David Blaine – Fool, fraud, and full of sh*t.
Interesting comment from Pixelchick – what about derren brown wanting somweone to load the gun so he can play russian roulette? it seems strange that these adverts coincide with blaines – are they trying to outdo each other maybe? if so perhaps we should just put them in a carpark and leave them to it…
Interesting ebooks
I was reckonmmending a student In the Beginning was the Command Line. And came across this directory of nice interesting ebooks. Will have to read some while I'm away on jury service for sure.
Oh i also spied this a while back, good faq for ebooks
Slashdotters meetup updated
Ok, I cant count this meetup, the unexpected happened. I left to go to the slashdotters meetup and got to east croydon by 1800. Great I thought, what I'll do is go via New cross gate and pop up to brick lane via the east london line. Got to New cross gate, boarded the tube and the train suddely stopped. Why? The tube driver said it was down to a signal failure. Nothing new. But no it was more serious than we all thought, and while i sat there between new cross gate and surrey queys. The choas unfolded.
I only found out later when I finally got out of the tube and got a text message from my wife. Did you get to the meetup with the power cuts? What power cut, I was thinking? Everything seemed fine, only realised now I was sitting on a tube while most of the national grid in London had gone down.
The funny thing is I was having a go at my wife about americas power outage last week. Well at least it was only 30mins here not days!
The interesting thing I found thinking about Zeldman's blog, was that the mobile phone transmitters never went down once as I was able to get a gprs connection while sitting there on the tube. I never looked at my 3g phone, but I'm sure it was all fine too.
Anyway back to the meetup as such, I was lucky because the east london line power was quickly restored and I was away, while the other lines were all down. But it was pointless because no one else made it I dont think, plus the fact I got there 1 hour late. What kinda of host am I? But come on the there was bloddy power failure! in London!
Brazilian Government Continues Push For Free Software
Seeing how I'm hosting the slashdotters meetup tomorrow, I spent a few hours reading up on the news while on the bus to and from work. This caught my attention.
Brazilian Government Continues Push For Free Software. The comments say it all, here some of the best bits
Most of us here have long known the realities of TCO and Microsoft. The only big cost with free software is in retraining staff. And retraining can be done for free – give a hungry man a can of food and he'll find a way to open it.
I guess with all the economic trouble in South America of late, governments such as that of Brazil are being forced to recognise that reality. Microsoft can probably no longer buy their way into Government contracts with 'discounts' and whatever other tactics they might use.
Farming out developement of other software has got to be cheaper than paying M$ obscene liscensing fees. Furthermore, when you hire contractors, you can get a solution which fits better than an out of the package software-suite. At the beginning, they may have to send some of that work overseas, but they will probably find local talent pretty quickly.
Seriously, lets see 'PAY LICENSES' or 'FEED PEOPLE'
Ok the argument is not always about feeding the people. Paying license fees is not what third world countries want to do. I mention this as a start because it will shift to other things other than software, eg Drugs Patents, Copyrights, etc. The West better be paying attention, because people like the RIAA say, “Why do you need bread when you can eat cake!”
Slashdotters meetup
Ok, this is it I believe. If the slashdotters meetup this Thursday doesnt pull people in, then I'm gonna start slagging off meetup and start rethinking going to them. You know what to give this the full go, I'm gonna be the host this time!
My profile: If sunny, will be sitting outside on a bench sporting a ipaq in one hand a redbull in the other 
Yellow trainers and something bright for a tshirt. If cold, look for the meetup sign or ask the bar people.
Good stuff, should do the trick.
Meeting up
Ok so this is something I've been meaning to blog for a while now.
I've been going to the meetups in London, and I've got mixed feelings about the whole thing. First up its very american rather than european as we bump into people all the time.
I went to 3 different meetups over last week, graphic designers in vibe bar, wifi in the media club and webdesigners which was in the best venue to date. So, quickly because its getting late…
_Graphic designers_ – no one else turned up and spent all the time asking people if they were part of the graphic designers meetup with friend dave. Left one hour later.
_Wifi_ – meet a interesting guy from india, who runs a business from there where he gets uk businesses coding done over there for a cheap. Specialises in tradional webservices. Needs designers, meeting up at college tuesday to talk about students working for him. Could be good for both parties.
Meetup was crap otherwise, left one hour later. What a silly place to have a public meetup? A private bar! Well done. Spent 10mins outside thinking of ways around the security guard.
Odd police presence afterwards though, wonder what that was all about. Will need to check bbc site later. About 3 police cars 2 bikes and a unmarked police car surrounding the media club block.
_webdesigners_ – Odd location down and around Angel station. Up 2 flights of stairs. Nice venue shame about the guys toilet, very cute bar lady. Anyway, no wireless in the area which was a shame and were going to leave about 1947, when Lucas turns up and sees the laptops on the table and I must have though, "Yep those two must be webdesigners".
Anyway, yeah we had a good old natter about everything web related and swapped email addresses 2 hours later. Cool guy from Argentina just moved over from Miami, sure I'll be seeing more of him soon, which would be good.
Theres a bloggers meetup this wednesday in Waterstones – Picadilly of all the places to have a meetup. Well at least its public and wont shut till 10pm.
I'm undecided if I'm gonna go or not.
Presentation Judo
Useful link if your ever planning a conference presentation by Mark Jason Dominus – Conference Presentation Judo
And Tufte?s presentation tips never go a miss here either. Edward R. Tufte?s Presentation Tips.
Chris moneymaker wins poker world series
Dave, alerted me to the fact that this years poker world series was won by a guy who regularly played poker on the internet. He had hardly played in real life and entered the world series only because he won a internet tournment which had cost him 40 dollars. So yeah from 40 to 2,500,000 dollars aint bad for the american bank accountant.
Some links dave sent me,
gamble.co.uk, google search for chris moneymaker and this months wired's magazine A piece of the action
The greater question I guess is how much is poker reading and how much is reading players? Most poker players upto now subscribe to reading players and cards second. What does Moneymaker's success say about this? Maybe poker is all about rounders after all.
Some interesting links I picked up about stratergy using computer ai.
The New Card Shark and
The University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group and there Java Poker Client for Windows and for Linux/OSX
Quantum Computing
Its one of those areas which I wish I had the time to look into more and more. But I never have the time…
Anyway with all talk and theorys about the matrix reloaded, questions are once again been asked about Quantum theory.
I couldnt believe one of my students had never heard of it. And somewhat compared it to Quantum leap. I knew he was messing with me.
Anyhow its kinda hard to explain, so I will supply links instead.
Basics of Quantum Theory (if there is one)
Rudiments of Quantum Theory
What is Quantum computing?
In a quantum computer, the fundamental unit of information (called a quantum bit or qubit), is not binary but rather more quaternary in nature. This qubit property arises as a direct consequence of its adherence to the laws of quantum mechanics which differ radically from the laws of classical physics.
A qubit can exist not only in a state corresponding to the logical state 0 or 1 as in a classical bit, but also in states corresponding to a blend or superposition of these classical states. In other words, a qubit can exist as a zero, a one, or simultaneously as both 0 and 1, with a numerical coefficient representing the probability for each state.
And there you have the basic understanding of Quantum computering
Once you understand the theory this is where to go for the lastest. NEW SCIENTIST'S GUIDE TO THE QUANTUM WORLD
And for a true mind fcuk…
An introduction to quantum cosmology
And for those unsure about how all this relates to the chaos theory
Chaos theory explained