Programming Agenda for vacation

A. Build some nominal familiarity with image processing in python - so that I am able to automate feedback logic based on inputs from a camera. Proof of concept: Track a ball that is thrown across a screen

http://scikit-image.org/docs/dev/auto_examples/

B. Built familiarity with python's plotting capability on a map:

http://matplotlib.org/basemap/users/geography.html

C. General Audio Stuff in Python

http://friture.org/

D. More interesting python stuff

http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/#scikit-image

Approximate Computation etc.

A lot of real-world applications don't need high accuracy computation - because they are meant for human consumption, and the human brain is an excellent pattern-interpolating/extrapolating machine. Researchers at Purdue have realized that doing this on hardware allows certain parts of the chip to run at lower voltage, thus prolonging battery life.

There is an alternate view that this can be done by software rather than hardware. (e.g. using explicit methods of integration of rate equations rather than more accurate and stable implicit schemes, etc.)

Looks like our minds won't know the difference when our devices perform a little bit of cheating. And we can use this to vastly speed up our processors / improve battery life.

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Colorado Plateau Geology

Let's start off the sharing with a fascinating article on the Colorado plateau.

http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/education/foos/plateau.pdf

Very fascinating. Also has a nice little picture which discusses the age of various sedimentary rock formations in places such as the Grand canyon and the like..

What is this blog about?

The grand idea of this blog is to capture all rigorously reviewed information that I find interesting in one place.

The goal is to shift some of the content that I share on Facebook onto this blog.  Blogs are open to the public and are open for Google to index; Facebook is essentially a walled garden - which is for all intents and purposes unsearchable. (Facebook does not see the revenue in letting me search for posts that are years old, so it just does not offer that service).

Further, the goal is to sort of restrict this blog to purely academic topics - and opinions deduced thereof. Generous use will be made of tags, images, hyperlinks, search magnet terms and the like. Opinions will also be proffered by yours truly - and comments are welcome either on facebook or on the (heavily moderated) comments section of this blog.

The archaeopteryx was actually an avian dinosaur that was losing its ability to fly? That stuff belongs here. Some group in Switzerland managed to stick carbon nanotubes in a copper block increasing its thermal conductivity? That's the stuff I want here.

Arvind Kejriwal said something about corruption? Take that shit to facebook!