Long time since I've written anything useful here (18 bn years, according to some estimates!)
Anyway, Python 2.5-final has been released. Go get it. Also, while you're at it, Firfox 2.0-beta has been out for some time now. Get that as well!
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Again Movie List
This is it. And I've not added a few films that I have with less-than-DVD quality, like PotC:DMC or Crank.
Cheers!
Cheers!
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Playful Pluto
As you probably know, a 10th planet (called UB313, or Xena) was discovered (not too) recently in our very own Solar System, but beyond Pluto. The reason that it has evaded our eyes till now is that its orbit forms quite an angle with the rest of the planets (with the first 8 at least, since Pluto's orbit is not aligned with us either.)
Actually lots of stuff are discovered beyond Pluto everyday, but the important thing about UB313 is that it's slightly larger than Pluto!
The discussion whether Pluto itself should be considered a planet has been going on for some time now. There are many things wrong with Pluto (or at least irregular) :
First, it has a very large (relatively) satellite, named Charon (pronounced kay-ron) with a diameter more than half of the diameter of Pluto, and a mass about 1/9 of that of Pluto. This ratio of mass causes the center of rotation of the Pluto-Charon system to be somewhere outside of both of them. Therefore, neither of them revolves around the other.
As a comparison, the mass of Earth's Moon is 1/80th of the mass of the Earth. This means that the center of rotation of the Earth-Moon system is 1/80th of the way along the line that connects their centers. Since this distance is ~400'000km, and Earth is the bigger object here, this point would be at about 400'000/80 (or 5000) km from the center of the earth. Again, as you all know Earth's radius is ~6300km, so the center of the Earth-Moon system is well inside the Earth, and Moon undoubtedly revolves around us. Also, have in mind that Moon is really big relative to Earth compared to other planet's satellites.
Let's go back to Pluto now. The second thing about Pluto is it's orbit. Not only it forms an angle with the plain that all other planets' orbits more or less lie on, it's a longer ellipse than typical for other planets. The orbit is so far from a circle that during a portion of its year, Pluto actually gets nearer to Sun than Neptune!
The third issue with Pluto is its size. Pluto is the smallest of all the 9 planets. It's diameter (2300km) is far smaller than Mercury's (4900km,) the second small planet in the Solar System. What's more annoying is that Pluto is actually smaller than Triton (Neptune's moon,) Titan (Saturn's,) Callisto, Europa, Ganymede and Io (all Jupiter's) and even our very own Moon! (It might be interesting to know that Ganymede and Titan are even larger than Mercury, but who dares touch Mercury?)
And now this UB313 business. That's why last month (August 2006) the International Astronomical Union changed the definition of "planet" so that it no longer included Pluto or UB313. They are called "dwarf planets" now and I think Ceres (a 1000-km asteroid!) and Charon are included in the definition. Of course, this redefinition, like any other radical change, is the subject of heavy controversy.
In any case, for now, the Solar System has 8 planets!
Actually lots of stuff are discovered beyond Pluto everyday, but the important thing about UB313 is that it's slightly larger than Pluto!
The discussion whether Pluto itself should be considered a planet has been going on for some time now. There are many things wrong with Pluto (or at least irregular) :
First, it has a very large (relatively) satellite, named Charon (pronounced kay-ron) with a diameter more than half of the diameter of Pluto, and a mass about 1/9 of that of Pluto. This ratio of mass causes the center of rotation of the Pluto-Charon system to be somewhere outside of both of them. Therefore, neither of them revolves around the other.
As a comparison, the mass of Earth's Moon is 1/80th of the mass of the Earth. This means that the center of rotation of the Earth-Moon system is 1/80th of the way along the line that connects their centers. Since this distance is ~400'000km, and Earth is the bigger object here, this point would be at about 400'000/80 (or 5000) km from the center of the earth. Again, as you all know Earth's radius is ~6300km, so the center of the Earth-Moon system is well inside the Earth, and Moon undoubtedly revolves around us. Also, have in mind that Moon is really big relative to Earth compared to other planet's satellites.
Let's go back to Pluto now. The second thing about Pluto is it's orbit. Not only it forms an angle with the plain that all other planets' orbits more or less lie on, it's a longer ellipse than typical for other planets. The orbit is so far from a circle that during a portion of its year, Pluto actually gets nearer to Sun than Neptune!
The third issue with Pluto is its size. Pluto is the smallest of all the 9 planets. It's diameter (2300km) is far smaller than Mercury's (4900km,) the second small planet in the Solar System. What's more annoying is that Pluto is actually smaller than Triton (Neptune's moon,) Titan (Saturn's,) Callisto, Europa, Ganymede and Io (all Jupiter's) and even our very own Moon! (It might be interesting to know that Ganymede and Titan are even larger than Mercury, but who dares touch Mercury?)
And now this UB313 business. That's why last month (August 2006) the International Astronomical Union changed the definition of "planet" so that it no longer included Pluto or UB313. They are called "dwarf planets" now and I think Ceres (a 1000-km asteroid!) and Charon are included in the definition. Of course, this redefinition, like any other radical change, is the subject of heavy controversy.
In any case, for now, the Solar System has 8 planets!
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
A Miserable Failure!
Go to google, and search for "Failure" or "Miserable Failure". Unless you're feeling lucky, look what the first hit is! A really miserable failure!
This is no bug, like you'd imagine at first. It's simply a biproduct of the Google page-rank system. I don't really know how it works, but here's an explanation on the official Google blog.
Good job to those who've done this anyway!
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Chat Rooms in KOPCS
I've just uploaded the new KOPCS build 1335, and the most notable feature added is a chatroom.
I have used a simple AJAX-based model (that's not a good name, because I don't use XML) which is lightweight, but could have been better. I use JSON for data transport formatting, which is way simpler to work with, especially in JavaScript.
The chat room still leaves many features to be desired, but it's functional and usable. The first thing that I'm going to add (in a few weeks!) is a "who's here" list. If anybody is interested in the source code for KOPCS, I can provide it.
See ya!
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Requiem For a Dream
I just finished watching it, and it's either the best film in the world, or the worst one. After you see this movie, you may hate it for the rest of your days, but you won't be able to forget it, if you really watch it.
I don't know how to describe it. It's about real life and it's frightening. If you want to see a disturbing film (who doesn't!) see this one.
On top of that, the sound track is... stupendous! I've had heard the track before, and even knew it was the soundtrack for this movie, but in the context, it just takes you to another place. It's black and dark and bloody magic.
I don't think I will ever watch it again (unless I get my hands on a better copy!) but you really don't need to watch it over and over to get what it tries to tell you. If you are a film critic or student, sure you have to watch it more times, but I'm neither, and the one time is enough.
I don't know how to describe it. It's about real life and it's frightening. If you want to see a disturbing film (who doesn't!) see this one.
On top of that, the sound track is... stupendous! I've had heard the track before, and even knew it was the soundtrack for this movie, but in the context, it just takes you to another place. It's black and dark and bloody magic.
I don't think I will ever watch it again (unless I get my hands on a better copy!) but you really don't need to watch it over and over to get what it tries to tell you. If you are a film critic or student, sure you have to watch it more times, but I'm neither, and the one time is enough.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Change in KOPCS Judgment Model
For those people who might be interested, I'm going to write a fully automatic, no-supervision-required online programming contest judge to integrate with KOPCS.
We had the first full-scale KOPCS-based contest today (rather, yesterday) and while the supervised judgment script worked well enough, I realized the inherent limitation of supervised judgment. This kind of judgement is not bad, it's just limited.
The first step in AJK (working title) is going to be writing a jail or sandbox or whatever for executing user programs in. Since I know no way for writing it portable, I'm gonna focus on Linux. I'm going to write this sandbox in C++, but I may use Python for the rest, or I may just write everything in C++.
After that, I'll just have to figure out a way to implement a simple but flexible queueing scheme, to allow for all the different situations that arise in a programming contest (for example, KOPCS in its current form, does not provide a way for changing only the input or output of a problem after it's set.)
Updated Movie List
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