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  Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

The physicist Niels Bohr once defined an expert as “a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” Bohr’s quip summarizes one of the essential lessons of learning, which is that people learn how to get it right by getting it wrong again and again. Education isn’t magic. Education is the wisdom wrung from failure. A new study, forthcoming in Psychological Science, and led by Jason Moser at Michigan State University, expands on this ...

   Learn,Speed,Reason,Analysis     2012-02-24 05:04:46

  4 Technologies That Impact You (Without Your Knowledge)

Our world to day is so driven by technology that it’s easy to stay on top of the major changes and developments. We know when there’s a major new innovation in personal electronics; we know that the 5G network is rolling out this year; we track the progress of smart cars, learning thermostats, and interactive home speakers. We even tend to care about how major tech companies around the world are performing! However, as “plugged in” as we all seem to be to the world of tec...

   AI,DATA ANALYTICS,IOT     2020-04-16 06:35:54

  The faster-than-fast Fourier transform

The Fourier transform is one of the most fundamental concepts in the information sciences. It’s a method for representing an irregular signal — such as the voltage fluctuations in the wire that connects an MP3 player to a loudspeaker — as a combination of pure frequencies. It’s universal in signal processing, but it can also be used to compress image and audio files, solve differential equations and price stock options, among other things.The reason the Fourier...

   FFT,Fast fourier transform,MIT,Compression     2012-01-19 09:59:09

  Making Computer Science a Requirement?

This US News article points out a growing interest among colleges and universities to make basic computer science a required course for all students. Georgia Tech already does this. The article points out that universities not normally considered to be science/technology-heavy are leaning this way too: Every student at Montclair State University in New Jersey must complete a computer science in order to graduate. For most students, that course is Introduction for Computer Appl...

   Computer science,Requirement,CS     2012-04-05 11:33:04

  Siri in Practice

Some quick comments on using Siri in practice—for things other than asking it to open the pod bay doors. Siri’s voice recognition is very impressive, and the scope of what it understands is very good given the difficulty of what it’s doing. But it has a lot of trouble with certain sorts of names—Irish names, for example, which often are not written as pronounced. For example there are a lot of people in Ireland named “Aoife”—it’s a very popul...

   Siri,Apple,Practice,Artificial Intelligence,AI     2011-10-15 15:01:13

  Techies: Let's Not Forget Brain Hacking

A close-up of a jellyfish

Description automatically generated with low confidence Credit: SergeyNivens via Canva The world of cyber security never fails to surprise us with bolder and more sophisticated cyber-attacks and...

   HACKING     2022-02-03 21:43:11

  Will We Need Teachers Or Algorithms?

Editor’s note: This is Part III of a guest post written by legendary Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures. In Part I, he laid the groundwork by describing how artificial intelligence is a combination of human and computer capabilities In Part II, he discussed how software and mobile technologies can augment and even replace doctors. Now, in Part III, he talks about how technology will sweep through education. In my last post, I ...

   Teacher,Algorithm,Development     2012-01-16 10:17:45

  What can we do about Facebook?

Around 4 years ago, we have posted an article Is Facebook becoming Tencent like? to analyze the strategy Facebook adopted to build its technology empire at that time. Today, we would continue this discussion since the story seems not end there. Facebook is still on the way of copying others. The latest victim being copied is Snapchat where lots of its new features have been copied by Instagram -- an app owned by Facebook. This has helped Instagram acquired lots of active users, especi...

   FACEBOOK,OPINION,SNAPCHAT,NEWS     2017-08-11 10:39:37

  Why I love Common Lisp and hate Java

“Common what?” is a common reply I get when I mention Common Lisp. Perhaps rightly so, since Common Lisp is not all that common these days. Developed in the sixties, it is one of the oldest programming languages out there. In its heydays it was used mostly for Artificial Intelligence research at MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon and the like, and therefore has a lingering association with AI. People not in AI shy away from Lisp. Common Lisp is a powerful and versatile program...

   Lisp,Java,Comparison,Common Lisp     2012-01-30 05:48:16

  In praise of impractical programming

Although it’s become a cultural mainstay now, I still remember when I first saw that thick book — the one with the wizard on the cover — about a school for magic where wonders are easily conjured by those who know the proper spells. Of course, I’m talking about the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. There was that other book with the spells, but the “Wizard Book” sincerely claimed to teach magic. For the past few years, I’ve been ...

   Impractical Programming,Structure,Scheme,Practical     2011-12-05 12:28:58