Rising chair by Robert van Embricqs:
Pricing bot interactions
Carlos Bueno writes about a book “Computer Game Bot Turing Test”. This, he says, is: one of over 100,000 “books” “written” by a Markov chain running over random Wikipedia articles, bundled up and sold online for a ridiculous price. The publisher, Betascript, is notorious for this kind of thing. He writes that the pricing bots…
Almost all above average
This morning James Grime tweeted about a BBC News article, “‘Third of UK postcodes’ have slow broadband speeds“. This quotes Julia Stent, director of telecoms at uSwitch saying: Britain might be riding the wave of a super-fast broadband revolution, but for 49% who get less than the national average broadband speed, the wave isn’t causing…
Newcastle MathsJam February 2012 Recap
February’s MathsJam was loads of fun! We had a record attendance of 14 cheery people who just about managed to fit around the biggest table in the Charles Grey. After last month’s puzzlocalypse, which left me for over a week unable to count the toes on my feet, I wanted to have a nice relaxed…
Turing stamp issued tomorrow
As part of its Britons of Distinction Stamp Set, one of a series of special stamp sets issued this year to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Royal Mail are due to release a stamp commemorating Alan Turing tomorrow. This features the rebuilt Turing Bombe on display to visitors at Bletchley Park. Bletchley Park are offering…
Alex the parrot could count to eight
The Nature News Blog reports on a new addition to the non-human numerism literature: Even in death, the world’s most accomplished parrot continues to amaze. The final experiments involving Alex – a grey parrot (Psittacus eithacus) trained to count objects – have just been published. They show that Alex could accurately add together Arabic numerals to…
Geo by Mika Barr for Talents Design
Geo by Mika Barr for Talents Design: