Michael Ax: LinkLog

Codeweavers runs Office without Windows

"It is a huge job. Windows contains 15,000 function calls, each of which takes a day to write," White said. "We essentially have to implement everything that has not been done, so if there is a DLL Microsoft has that WINE doesn't have, we have to implement that DLL. It took us nine months just to make that happen," White explained.

what a neto quantification!

New Scientist Neural network 'in-jokes' could pass secrets "Synchronised neural networks jump to the same conclusion, given the same limited information."

i forgot that neural networks entrain to be each other's mirror, but using them as a function to get encryption keys seems like a bad excuse for an article. what's the point? it's one of a million ways of working with secret keys.

Study: Watching TV Increases Teen, Adult Aggression (washingtonpost.com): ""the correlation between violent media and aggression is larger than the effect that wearing a condom has on decreasing the risk of HIV. It's larger than the correlation between exposure to lead and decreased IQ levels in kids. It's larger than the effects of exposure to asbestos. It's larger than the effect of second-hand smoke on cancer.""

Yahoo! News - As the Web Matures, Fun Is Hard to Find

"We lost our sense of wonder," he said. "The Web is old hat."

Just 11 years after it was born and about 6 years after it became popular, the Web has lost its luster. Many who once raved about surfing from address to address on the Web now lump site-seeing with other online chores, like checking the In box.

so much for the web-as-fun perspective :)

Loss hits you between the eyes

The brain region in question, the medial frontal cortex, or MFC, is part of the limbic system, which produces our emotions. It is finally being linked to how we make decisions - by looking sideways at how somewhat obsessive thoughts may be arising and affecting our behaviour.

Greeks were slaves to the beat

Mathematical methods like the ones now widely used to analyse texts, and for the spotting of plagiarism show that Greek poets had more rhythm than the Romans :)

GameBoys cause of physical mutation

Mercury News | 03/23/2002 | Thumbs are the new fingers for GameBoy youth

"Discovering that the younger generation has taken to using thumbs in a completely different way and are instinctively using thumbs where the rest of us are using our index fingers is particularly interesting.''

written documentation still an admission of failure

Volume Control Knob Turns Heads

"People see it on someone's desk, glowing and pulsing, and they've got to know what it is," he said. "We get people saying, 'It's incredibly useless, I use it every day.'"

Catch of the Day: "This very uncertainty can be modeled, apparently. Entelos' data system uses a grammar that allows the description of just what's known about drugs, chemical pathways, and their effects on organ systems.
The "top-down" multivariate, nonlinear simulation is quite different from modeling, say, an airplane wing, in which a more complete understanding of mechanics and physics drives a bottom-up construction of the simulated universe.
Plugging this incomplete, and often contradictory information about biology and drugs into the system yields results that are surprisingly accurate, CEO James Karis says. Entelos has made two clinical predictions regarding asthma drugs, both of which were later verified in the field."

Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam It's clear from the opening day of Spamcon -- the anti-spam conference occurring here this week -- that there are dedicated spam-fighters out in the world. But it's also clear that they're fighting a losing battle, trying to plug a river with their fingertips.