Read faster, can you?

Many of my friends read, be it novels, technical documents, research papers, whatever. The 6 tips mentioned in this article, "Double Your Reading Rate" by Scott H. Young might help you to improve your reading skills. Here I jot down the points for my own reference, please refer to his article for more detailed explanation on each point.

1. Remember, Reading is Not Linear
2. Stop Subvocalizing
3. Practice Reading
4. Use a Pointer
5. Eliminate Distractions
6. Find Your Motivation

I especially like the idea of "Stop Subvocalizing".

Does distance really make hearts grow fonder?

I doubt it.

Father of Fortran, John Backus dies

Although I have never used Fortran before, I heard quite a lot about it from my friends in the engineering fields. Fortran, short for Formula Translation, is a programming language invented in 1950s, but still widely used in today's modern computing world. It is also the first high-level programming language ever created.

Prior to Fortran, computers had to be meticulously "hand-coded" -- programmed in the raw strings of digits that triggered actions inside the machine. [Technology, CNN.com]

The creator of Fortran, John Backus, who also invented Backus-Naur Form(BNF), died at the age of 82. BNF is a way of formally describing the syntax/grammar of computer languages. These two inventions have a great impact of today's IT world.

It is sad to know a great person like that has left us (_ _ )

Rest in Peace.

Microsoft exec said...

If You're Going To Steal Software, Steal From Us

According to this article from InformationWeek, this is how Microsoft business group president Jeff Raikes thinks about software piracy. I kind of agree with him. Without software piracy, Microsoft wouldn't have their large market share that they are having today in poorer countries. Once the users got accustomed to their products, it would be much easier to sell their products later on when the users get richer and want less troubles(pirated software comes with legal copies of viruses, worms sometimes :P).

Yeah, steal from them, since there is nothing to steal from the open source world.

So, what is software piracy really bad for? The open source world! With cheap commercial products being available at a price of a lunch, no one(except those with a conscience) would even care to use the open source products which might come at the same price. So, who is the actual victim of software piracy? I will leave the answer to you.

I couldn't believe I saw snow in March!

Yeah, it is still snowing outside.

I am in my room now. Came back to home quite "early" today after having some chit-chat and poker games with my friends in Gusto(a restaurant), on the way back we saw snow falling from the sky! How amazing! Come on this is already March. It hasn't snowed in March since I came to Japan 6 years ago(or at least I haven't seen it before). The weather is strange this year... Hope that the real spring comes on time and we can see the Sakura bloom soon.

Ok, I've gotta go.

To those who joined the poker games, Otsukaresama and Have a good rest :-)

MIT course material went public

If you are in the technology world, you must have heard of MIT, the world famous academic institute of technology. Now they are kind enough to publish the materials they use in all their courses online. Feel free to browse around and discover what you might have missed in your own studies :-)

Video of the fastest car in the world

Somebody might wonder that I should be working around this time and shouldn't have the time to write in blog. Well, I was having my lunch when I saw this clip and I am still having my lunch when I am writing this post :P

Although I am not much into cars but some of my friends are. Just want to share with them this video of the fastest car in the world running at its highest speed. Even the camera didn't manage to catch it properly. Enjoy.

Wow! Wow! Wow! This is just so cool!

Come on you have to read this! This is just so amazing!

New Technique Stores Data in Bacteria

Artificial DNA with encoded information can be added to the genome of common bacteria, thus preserving the data... According to researchers, up to 100 bits of data can be attached to each organism. Scientists successfully encoded and attached the phrase "e=mc2 1905" to the DNA of bacillus subtilis, a common soil bacteria.

I wonder if your antivirus software would accidentally kills them? (^ ^)

Save the world while you chat!!!

Hi everybody, now(or later) you can tell your boss that you are helping the world when s/he complains that you chat too much!



* This currently only works in the US.

It is pretty difficult to explain what it is about, so I will leave it for you to find out. This post just serves as a reminder for myself if I happen to forget the URL :P

Tata.