which one do u think is the best OS now!

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Be fast....be a Dvoraker....

Now, for all the programmers, there should be a common quality among them, which is, faster coding capability then normal people..

But still we r not yet a Dvoraker..

lets get in to the description ..

There are two popular types of keyboards [the main weapon of a programmer]. The all time favorite QWERTY
ant the myChoice, Dvorak.

what is QWERTY keyboard layout!!

well. its the keyboard thay we use generally.

it was designed for the typewriters..
the early typewrites had a problem if subsequent keys were pressed very quick.
they couldn't recognize them that fast, causing errors. So, the QWERTY type keyboard was invented by Christopher Sholes.

So the most frequent keys were kept apart from each other, which improved the efficiency of the typewriter but not the typist.

But it somehow became the most popular convention of keyboard layout.

what is Dvorak keyboard layout!!

this is the layout which was designed to improve the efficiency of the typist not the typewriter.
Dvorak layout keeps the most important keys on the middle row. The mid importance keys on the top row and the list important keys on the bottom row [approximately].
In the middle row, the vowels are placed on the left side and the most important consonants on the right.
So, a Dvorak typist would keep his fingers on the middle row. this provides a faster typing speed compared to QWERTY.

Lets look at the statistics..

topic                                  QWERTY                                         DVAROK

keystrokes                           32%                                                    70%
in middle row

keystrokes                            52%                                                   22%
in top row

keystrokes
in bottom row                       16%                                                   8%

finger movement                   30Km/Day                                         15Km/day

user friendliness                   takes time to get used to                      very quick to get
                                                                                                      used to..

============================================================

almost all computers supports DVAROK today by default. MaCs use DVAROK.
many great programmers [Bram Cohen(inventor of BitTorrent), Matt Mullenweg(lead developper of WordPress), Barbara Blackburn(world's fastest typist)]

it is a good practice/choice for efficient coders who take less time to think then to type.
most importantly,.. it was a nobel work.. It deserves respect..



                                                      

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Cognitive Computing

It is not very unrealistic to imagine a child asking for a brain instead of a PC now. Even more, a child may even ask for a non-pirated MIND operating system preinstalled in it. I mean, look at the world now, PCs processing graphics more realistically than….. reality. Mobile phones are becoming smart phones, as if they are regularly going through crash courses or something. Even the digital sensors sense better than me. I used to visit places with a tour guide, but now a GPS phone or PDA out-smarted the guides. Countless examples exist. But where did they come from!! The brain of course!

Scientists have been working to decode the algorithms of brain for so many years. All of the today’s technologies are the result of reverse engineering the Brain and engineering the Mind. Our brain has this indefinable capability to simulate a cognitive reality in time-space-object dimensional frame by interpreting the inter-relativity of touch, vision, audition, taste, smell and the previous records of the database running on some neuro-synaptic SQL server [called the 6th sense].

So we need to find a way to build a brain, as cheaply an quickly possible, People at the IBM, Almaden Research Centre, are already on to it, so that they could build one, before their child asks for one.

So what is Cognitive computing!!

Cognitive Computing is an intersection of the sets of neuroscience, supercomputing and nanotechnology. It is the very subset holding the algorithms of MIND.

Research shows, that a cognitive computing device [BLUE GENE/L, for now] equivalent to a simple rat’s brain will need 1.06GB/sec ip/op/node data communication speed, 91.8TF computation power with 32,768 CPUs and 8TB of RAM.

The interesting part is, IBM did it. They have this simulation of a simple brain. But the downside is, there is no MIND. Also, if we look in to the power consumption scenario, the simulation consumes 0.5MW of power compared to a rat’s brain consuming only 20mW.

So, the real deal is still far away. But acknowledging the current technological progression rate, it is imagined that may be, in the year 2018 somewhere on earth a successful brain simulation will be possible. Now, at least there is a better strength in hope. Future will be cognitive. Time will promote the recognition.