Technobabble

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Prof. James Anderson at the University of Utah have conducted a study about computer monitor sizes/number and the impact on productivity. Their findings: " People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. There is an upper limit, however: Productivity dropped off again when people used a 26-inch screen. " Time to shop for some computer monitors in the name of productivity. Technorati Tags: monitor , productivity

In the American system of writing dates, today is 3/14 (March 14th) which is the approximation of π to two digits 3.14. It's therefore celebrated as π Day . Happy π Day! The media is buzzing with the annual outpouring of π math and trivia and here's some good stuff: BBC has a good introduction to π in history and culture. Watch an applet compute the value of π using Buffon's Needle Problem . For those interested in numerical computation, here are some ways to compute the value of π . One of the ways is using the series expansion for arctan(x): If you're mesmerized by continued fractions, here are some continued fractions that represent π . One that particularly looks "nice" is this one: Technorati Tags: math , π

A former Google employee - Hans Cardinal - has apparently vented about Google's recruiting practices and the way things are inside in Google. I'm not surprised though, especially about this statement: "... most of the new hires work on ads. Maintenance. Bug fixes." This is inevitable in a large company that has a well-established product. Technorati Tags: google , recruiting

Blizzplanet has screenshots of the Zerg from the upcoming Starcraft 2 . Very detailed and I must say that the visuals are more gory than the original Starcraft. Some of the sights are going to send shivers down the spines of Terrans and the Protoss. En Taro Adun! Technorati Tags: starcraft , zerg

Here's a description of the internet from the New York Times as part of an obituary to Gary Gygax , the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons . If you understand most of this without a Google search or Wikipedia browsing, consider yourself an internet geek. (Click on the image if you are unable to see the whole thing.) Technorati Tags: dragons , dungeons , humor , internet

A while back, I had a post about SI Prefixes . XKCD now has a humorous take on SI Prefixes: Technorati Tags: humor , si , standards