From sinfest.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever
Three gods A, B, and C are called, in some order, True, False, and Random. True always speaks truly, False always speaks falsely, but whether Random speaks truly or falsely is a completely random matter. Your task is to determine the identities of A, B, and C by asking three yes-no questions; each question must be put to exactly one god. The gods understand English, but will answer all questions in their own language, in which the words for yes and no are 'da' and 'ja', in some order. You do not know which word means which.
Details here (don't cheat!)
Monday, October 13, 2008
Real Transformer: The F-35B
Via Gizmodo, more details there.
The one depicted is the X-35 [the prototype that won the contract for the Joint Strike Fighter and became the F-35]. I don’t know who posted it on YouTube, but the level of NDA’s was substantial where we were not even allowed to showcase it on our demo reel.
The above looks like CGI though (not real footage), unlike the one below:
According to a friend, the problem with the vertical takeoff is exhaust. The engine tends to stall since there's no oxygen to draw in, so they need special absorbing landing pads.
Black Silicon Discovery: Digital Photography, Night Vision, Solar Cells, etc. Improved
With the accidental discovery of "black silicon," Harvard physicists may have very well changed the digital photography, solar power and night vision industries forever. What is black silicon, you say? Well, it's just as it sounds. Black silicon. It's what this revolutionary new material does that's important, starting with light sensitivity. Early indications show black silicon is 100 to 500 times more sensitive to light than a traditional silicon wafer.
To create the special silicon, Harvard physicist Eric Mazur shined a super powerful laser onto a silicon wafer. The laser's output briefly matches all the energy produced by the sun falling onto the Earth's entire surface at a given moment in time. To spice the experiment up, he also had researchers apply sulfur hexafluoride, which the semiconductor industry uses to make etchings in silicon for circuitry. Seriously, he did this just for kicks and to secure more funding for an old project.
“I got tired of metals and was worrying that my Army funding would dry up,” he said. “I wrote the new direction into a research proposal without thinking much about it — I just wrote it in; I don’t know why," he said.
The new experiment made the silicon black to the naked eye. Under an electron microscope, however, the dark sheen was revealed to be thousands, if not millions, of tiny spikes. As we said above, those spikes had an amazing effect on the light sensitivity of the wafer. Mazur said the material also absorbs about twice as much visible light as traditional silicon, and can detect infrared light that is invisible to today's silicon detectors.
Black Silicon at Gizmodo
Friday, October 10, 2008
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
McCain Refuses to Shake Hands With Obama
I guess this makes sense in a world where you "refuse to sit down and face your enemies without preconditions"? Well... here is a "sit down" with rules and I'd say some pre-conditions as well... Then McCain acts like a child without manners? Shameful.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
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