Define "Compiler"

This definition of "compiler" must rank as the BEST of the possible wrong answers. Written by a student in a introductory Computer Science course.


"A compiler's primary function is to compile, organize the compilation, and go right back to compiling. It compiles basically only those things that requre to be compiled, ignoring things that should not be compiled. The main way a compiler compiles, is to compile the things to be compiled until the compilation is complete."

Music made to measure from nature's proteins

Music made to measure from nature's proteins
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11775

The "notes" available are the 20 natural amino acids from which all proteins are constructed. The basic concept is simple: assign each amino acid to a different musical note, so leucine could be middle C on the piano, for example, serine could be D, and so on till all 20 have their own note.

To create a musical score based on a specific protein, simply go through the entire amino acid sequence of the protein and transcribe the amino acids into notes.

NewScientist.com is the world's leading online science and technology news service, with a global network of award-winning journalists. Visit www.newscientist.com now for constantly updated and authoritative reporting that's both fast and fascinating.

Blackberry service disruption

As you no doubt know, the Blackberry network went down recently. Here at work, we've gotten numerous emails from the IT department telling us about it.

One of my co-workers has a fine sense of humor, and he put together an email that looked just like the ones that the IT department sends out. (same graphics, same font, etc.)

Below is the text that he put in his spoofed email notification:

=====

We are temporarily experiencing a disruption in our ability to notify you of disruption of Blackberry services. When this disruption disruption is no longer disrupting our ability to disrupt you from using your Blackberry, we will notify you of the end of the disruption disruption disruption. This is the end of this disruption. For now.

If you still experience problems or have any questions, please don't call us, we'll call you. Assuming your Blackberry is not disrupted.

Thank you for your cooperation

Google announces free in-home wireless broadband service

Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.

http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html

Beer Launching Fridge

Hey all you Guys...

How many times has this happened to you?

You get home from a hard day of work, flop on the couch, flip on the TV and shout, "Honey, get me a beer."

If you're lucky, there's no response. If you're unlucky, the requested beer is delivered to your head.

Well, duck no longer, guys... THERE'S A BEER LAUNCHING REFRIGERATOR!

http://www.duke.edu/~jwc13/beerlauncher.html

PC World says farewell to floppy

news article:

The time has come to bid farewell to one of the PC's more stalwart friends - the floppy disk.

Computing superstore PC World said it will no longer sell the storage devices, affectionately known as floppies, once existing stock runs out.

New storage systems, coupled with a need to store more than the 1.44 megabytes of data held by a standard floppy, have led to its demise.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6314251.stm

As for me, there will always be room in my life for the floppy disk... right next to my 8-track tapes.

More Moore

from Today's Papers:

Intel's new chip design means that Moore's Law, which posits that chips double their computing power every two years, will continue to be true, refuting skeptics who believed that engineers had recently hit a wall in making them any more powerful.

Silicon Valley's hometown paper, the San Jose Mercury News, quotes the eponymous Moore himself saying that the development "marks the biggest change in transistor technology" since the 1960s.

But what does this mean for the electronics consumer? The best the Times can do is that it will make it easier "for cellphones to play video at length -- a demanding digital task -- with less battery drain."

Moore's Law is the empirical observation made in 1965 that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit for minimum component cost doubles every 24 months. It is attributed to Gordon E. Moore, a co-founder of Intel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

"Cramming more components onto integrated circuits", Electronics Magazine 19 April 1965