Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. For more, visit www.cmu.edu/randyslecture.

It’s very hard to know what to say, except “watch it” …

YouTube – Modular robot reassembles when kicked apart

It’s also a very good example of how concise python can be:

Annotated TinyP2P – Annotated version:
   http://www.exonsoft.com/~kochin/TinyP2P/tinyp2p.html

Original Version:

# tinyp2p.py 1.0 (documentation at http://freedom-to-tinker.com/tinyp2p.html)
import sys, os, SimpleXMLRPCServer, xmlrpclib, re, hmac # (C) 2004, E.W. Felten
ar,pw,res = (sys.argv,lambda u:hmac.new(sys.argv[1],u).hexdigest(),re.search)
pxy,xs = (xmlrpclib.ServerProxy,SimpleXMLRPCServer.SimpleXMLRPCServer)
def ls(p=""):return filter(lambda n:(p=="")or res(p,n),os.listdir(os.getcwd()))
if ar[2]!="client": # license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0
myU,prs,srv = ("http://"+ar[3]+":"+ar[4], ar[5:],lambda x:x.serve_forever())
def pr(x=[]): return ([(y in prs) or prs.append(y) for y in x] or 1) and prs
def c(n): return ((lambda f: (f.read(), f.close()))(file(n)))[0]
f=lambda p,n,a:(p==pw(myU))and(((n==0)and pr(a))or((n==1)and [ls(a)])or c(a))
def aug(u): return ((u==myU) and pr()) or pr(pxy(u).f(pw(u),0,pr([myU])))
pr() and [aug(s) for s in aug(pr()[0])]
(lambda sv:sv.register_function(f,"f") or srv(sv))(xs((ar[3],int(ar[4]))))
for url in pxy(ar[3]).f(pw(ar[3]),0,[]):
for fn in filter(lambda n:not n in ls(), (pxy(url).f(pw(url),1,ar[4]))[0]):
(lambda fi:fi.write(pxy(url).f(pw(url),2,fn)) or fi.close())(file(fn,"wc"))

It can automatically mount a Truecrypt drive or (on untrusted computers) NOT mount, or mount read-only. Plus lots of other features.

To quote

“geek.menu is a fork of the PortableApps.com Menu, adding support for
security features, internet searching capabilities, category support,
autorun apps, and much, much more. It can serve as a replacement for
the portableApps menu.”

Download from Sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=209346

The portableApps system is intended to allow you to take all the programs you usually use with you on a USB flash drive and not rely (or save setting) on the computer you’re using.

The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_(text_editor)

has a very nice 10 line summary.

This note is primarily so I can remember where to find it again :-)

The video goes from bits of metal and glass to a working radio. The subtitling is in French but that doesn’t hinder understanding, as the presentation is quite professional.

http://paillard.claude.free.fr

Inspiring …

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Peru/Arahuay

The One-Laptop-Per-Child initiative was started by Nicolas Negroponte from MIT as a way of bringing robust laptops to poor children in poor countries for less than $100 each. More details about OLPC at www.laptop.org

It starts:

The beauty of maths

A POINT OF VIEW
By Lisa Jardine

The story of an Indian clerk with an extraordinary talent for mathematics should inspire young people to see the beauty that lies in numbers.

I have been thinking recently about the way in which stories we are told when we are young shape our adult lives.

I am reading with great enjoyment a new novel entitled The Indian Clerk, by David Leavitt, based on the life of the early twentieth-century Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan …

The complete article is at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7144874.stm

Halfway down the above article, there’s an audio version (her as broadcast) – Click on the Listen button (there’s a 20 second prelude to advertise a Christmas show and then Lisa is introduced …)

Somehow the audio version seems easier to remember, not sure why …

There’s also an interesting discussion of some of his work and that of Timothy Leary in the delightfully entitled article “To Narc on One’s Self: The Head Cases of Timothy Leary and Philip K. Dick” at http://3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2006/08/discussed_timot.html

This week’s one is entitled “Black Swans and Endogenous Uncertainty”, with sections Ubiquity, Complexity Theory and Sandpiles …

Read the complete article at:

http://www.investorsinsight.com/thoughts_va.aspx?EditionID=625