What’s Math Good for? The Story of Statistics
June 4th, 2007Every once in a while, when national testing takes place you can hear hundreds and hundreds of students complaining about the inutility of math. And to be honest, unless you plan in being a math teacher or develop a career in the research field, math won’t be something you can’t live without. However, there is something about math that even the most firm advocate would question: the polysemantics of math statistics. Yes, you heard me correctly. For what is math truly good for, if not statistics and the recurrent data it provides?
Math statistics is wider than you can actually imagine. Now don’t expect me to talk about its branches and formulas: that won’t be your favorite subject, for sure. But to actually assert its relevance it might be useful to hint at a few domains where statistics actually makes the difference. So, let’s take bets for instance. You might be one of those persons who are looking forward to get to a horse race and place a bet. Well, big surprise, it all works on the basis of math statistics: you take into consideration all the horses, multiply the number with the winning probability and divide it to three. And there you have it, your successful number.
What is more, in order to use statistics for your own cause you will certainly need to know at least the basics in math. Don’t expect success and winning just to pop out of nowhere. No, no! It’s all the result of laborious and strenuous math calculus and binomial probability. So, keep in mind: math is not only the formula-filled science you have to take in high school, but, most importantly, it is the standard measurement for each and every domain in the world. Whether, statistics accounts for birth rates, minority groups, population, fees or life expectancy it will always be the fittest way to know how the world stands at a given time.
How Important Aesthetics Is - the Revolution of Industrial Design
June 4th, 2007As marketing departments have carved their ways throughout centuries, they have created multiple solutions to embellish and build products in strict dependence to customers’ tastes. That is why the product market now depends strongly on industrial design and its sub-branches. Yes, having your customers satisfied not only with the utilities of the products but also with its looks is nowadays vital. Who would possibly buy a vase, for instance just because it is functional if it doesn’t appeal to the eye? Nobody, trust me, because every single potential client is hunting appearance.
Industrial design has enforced its benefits in multiple domains: cars manufacture, bag design, containers and cans, you name it. It has in fact grown so productive that people have become addicted to it. Take the case of lunch containers. For those who have to take their food to work, workers, students or doctors, companies designed boxes and drink containers with images that represent an entire history of American container lunch. And it is all for the best! The “Taking America to Lunch” collection has caught the interest and, not at all surprisingly, there were thousands of requests for such products the very next day the exhibition took place.
But industrial design is not at all reduced to a few domains. On the contrary, it touched (and left a mark) the sphere of furniture, window and carpet design, in such a way that market competition became truly fierce. It also penetrated the domain of computers, front entrances, kitchen appliances and watches, all to give products, apart from the basic utility feature a shade of beauty and interestingness.
This way, industrial design has managed to become a separate branch of industry and marketing programs, in fact, a necessary one. And if you come to think about the fact that fashion and design nowadays are occupying top positions, industrial design is really important.
SWT versus Swing
May 21st, 2007Many Java developers fear to adopt a solution based on SWT, because of the possibility of losing the portability of Java applications and because of the necessity of generating different installations for each client platform.
Swing is only available in platforms that support J2SE, Windows systems (except CE), Unix (including Linux) and Mac OS. SWT is available in the same platforms, which is facilitated by its nature of free software. But SWT goes further, supporting Windows CE / Pocket PC with J2ME systems. In fact, it’s even easier to get an updated version of SWT than an updated Swing version, because in many platforms J2SE was not updated since version 1.3.0.
Another advantage of SWT is that Swing manages allocation and releasing of native resources in a transparent but inefficient way. SWT waits the application to do this management. The greater control and efficiency of manual releasing makes SWT lighter than Swing, especially in applications that run for a long period of time.
Obsessed about Your Weight? Easy Steps to Fight Pounds with the Fitness Ally
May 21st, 2007Which woman can raise her hand and solemnly swear that she has never worried about her weight or that she has never considered taking up fitness classes? The lucky ones who can do this are very few, surely enough. For the rest, fitness is by far the best ally possible. Endless low-calorie diets, jogging or starving to death are well-known nightmares women usually go through on the way towards beauty. But if you are truly willing to lose the unwanted weight and get into shape, you will know that fitness is the most appropriate solution for you.
You don’t have to panic about muscular pains to follow invariably after physic exercising. No worry about this! Fitness has come a long way! Nowadays fitness techniques don’t ask you to spend half your mornings on the bicycle or stretching ‘till the bones hurt, on the contrary, they are short, very effective sessions which make your body work with every inch. And what is more, after such a session you will feel freshened up and not dieing to take a shower and go to bed.
Weight lifting, moving in slow motion or music aerobics, you name it, are all available and ready to take up new members. Just think of the many benefits of fitness: fat-burning, faster-working metabolism, loss of cholesterol, decrease of heart stress and lots and lots of relaxation! What stops you from joining a class right away? Surely enough, the fitness program works tight with a soft regime, as it would be practically pointless to swallow up a whole cheese pizza and then work out for twenty minutes.
Fitness is all about determination and wanting to keep your body healthy and gorgeous. And, it is common sense, once you have that great body you were dreaming about, your spirit is very likely to improve and be invaded by a feeling of happiness. So, what are you waiting for?
Does the Future Society Belong to Robots?
May 21st, 2007The image that most of us have on robots comes, in the first place, from movies such as ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Star Trek’, but also from the images of the boring assembling lines of the Japanese automobiles. The contrast between these two points of view, between these two images has produced a certain disappointment among the people as concerning robotics. This view is completely justified, right? After all these years of technological progress, we still don’t have any robots to which we can talk to and which could help us with the house work. This way, we totally exclude from the equation the robots that can fight in the wars or robots that can fly spaceships or do other things that the robots do in the science-fiction movies.
But reality contradicts both images. It is true that we do not have robots to which we could talk, but we have nonetheless robots that have successfully participated to extremely complicated surgical interventions. It is also true that we don’t have robots as soldiers, but the American army is one of the greatest investors in robotics. There have been created robots that can efficiently contribute to human life savings. Take for instance the example of the famous robot that was sent to inspect Chernobyl.
It would be a bit naïve of us to expect robotics to start from zero and reach in a relatively short time (about five decades since the first functional prototypes) to performances comparable to the human ones. Although still far from the dreams of the pioneers in the field, robotics brings us each day a bit closer to these dreams, and this progress is accelerating every day. At least many specialists in robotics have ambitious and optimist plans.
How Industrial Can A Design Be?
May 21st, 2007Think of what draws your attention when we talk about a product. Is it its shape? Its color? Its suppleness? Its simplicity? Now also think of the fact that what looks good must also be functional and have a special, particular type of comfort. There are some things that maybe come into your mind when you’re looking at a product, at machinery. How accessible are the buttons and the accessories during the practice? Why do the handles have that particular shape? Is that machine suitable for all the body shapes and weights of the users?
Industrial design gathers a team that is part of a careful and inventive world where form and functionality are combined in order to create the best machines. Take for example the fitness items. You can see that they are specially designed to fit and to satisfy any type of user, and what matters the most is their shape and degree of comfort.
The industrial design is a major, essential component in all the stages of the development process of a certain product. The industrial design accompanies this process from the very beginning when the initial idea is born. The industrial designers are meant to work close to the engineers, to all the persons implicated in the process of creation and of development of a product. What you see is the finite product that hides beneath its surface the collaboration of hundreds of people, it encompasses the talent and the hard-work of a handful of professionals.
An important trait of the creative industrial design is that it finds inspiration in everything, in the line of a piece of furniture, in the supple shapes of a bottle, or even in the body shape of the celebrities. These market trends and pop cultural elements help the industrial designers to establish a unique, functional view on the manner in which the products look like.
Biology Facts: 5 Reasons Why You Should not Keep Some Plants inside Your Apartment
May 21st, 2007Who doesn’t like plants in their apartments or houses? They are a tranquility oasis, make your rooms livelier and improve your feeling good. But what do you do when plants have a taste for meat? No need to worry! If you are larger than a common insect (and you probably are) carnivorous plants can do you no harm, as they only consume ants, beetles, mosquitoes or spiders. Apparently biology also shares a weird part, making the beautiful elements a bit dangerous.
If you wonder if these biology children – the carnivorous plants- need any special treatment you will be surprised to learn that they act just as the other plants (though they may require more attention than a cactus does). You will need to place them in sunlit places, care for them with water and soil, talk to them and make sure their leaves don’t rot in the flower pot. The good news about carnivorous plants is that they can even help you get rid of some of the annoying mosquito guests of house flies. While feeding, these biology miracles are actually doing you a favor and this is definitely a pro.
There are more than six hundred species of carnivorous plants in the world and this means the choice is vast. If biology show us that plants feel bet when in a natural habitat, that doesn’t necessarily mean they cannot grow inside an apartment. As long as you provide them with the proper utilities, you could easily exhibit your exotic biology collection to any guest. The most beautiful apartment carnivorous plants are considered to be: the Venus flytrap, Sundews and North American Pitcher.
Biology counts thousands of plant species and it would be virtually impossible to manage to care for all of them. But since most of them are within reach why not try and give nature a helping hand and “adopt” at least one? Not only will this make the plant live longer, but it would probably make you feel better about yourself! So get started!
Introduction to J2ME
May 21st, 2007J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) is the environment of development for mobile or portable devices, as cell phones and palmtops. As Java language is very popular, the adaptation to J2ME is not complicated. So, many kinds of applications have been created for those devices, as games and schedules. Companies have won with that because, since their devices have a JVM (Java Virtual Machine), it’s possible to implement applications in every device, being hardware capacity the only limit.
J2ME platform contains configurations and libraries made especially to work in portable devices. Thus, developer has a better facility to handle with the limitations of processing and memory, for example. An example of this is the configuration called CLDC (Connected Limited Device Configuration), destined to devices with very limited hardware resources, as 16 bits processors and 512 KB memories. This configuration contains a JVM and a basic set of libraries that allows Java application to work in devices with those characteristics.
Traveling - The Ultimate Luxury?
April 11th, 2007Traveling is, without any doubt on most people’s top favorite list when it comes to spending their free time and holidays. But unfortunately, traveling is not always the most affordable action one can make. Considering the fact that traveling actually is a typically summer activity, an activity is supposed to relax and reduce one’s daily stress that is a result of the busy modern world, work and worries. But since the financial part can never be ignored, how can one relax if having to face that fact that, when traveling, money seem to fade away rapidly?
Nowadays, tourism is a top business, that is for sure. And most definitely, it will never go out of business. But it seems that more and more five stars hotels are being constructed and less and less cheap, affordable hotels are raised up. Why? Simply because charging thousands of dollars per night seems more profitable than charging less a dinner at a modest restaurant, even if we are talking about extra expensive services and the entire high class package that defines a five star hotel. Furthermore, a five star hotel can not be surrounded by cheap shops that sell standard merchandise or by fast food restaurants. Instead of these, classy hotels are surrounded by high class restaurants and high class designer shops.
If talking about traveling itself and not about the actual vacation, it must be admitted that the transportation possibilities are varied and somehow manage to satisfy all types of budgets. Simply the fact that the low cost airline companies manage to sell out their tickets in no time shows the consumer’s desires for the most affordable ways of visiting new places.
Traveling is enjoyable, that is for sure. But traveling is less enjoyable when worries like money come up in the picture. With fewer possibilities for modest people with modest incomes, yet with extra possibilities for high, even over the top incomes, traveling and tourism might start in a new direction, in a more luxurious, fancy and classy one.
Traveler’s Guide to Notodden, Norway
April 11th, 2007When traveling to Norway, why simply limit to visiting Oslo and Bergen? Norway is a charming place, full of history and amazing natural sights. And you can find such great attractions in Notodden, for example. Notodden is located in the Telemark region, which is placed in the South-East of Norway.
Notodden is mostly famous for its popular music festivals, especially blues festivals, but there are several places to visit that shouldn’t be missed when traveling in this region. And one of these places is the Heddal Stavkyrkje, an old and impressive church that dates from the 13th century. What is so special about this church is the fact that it is the oldest wooden church that can be found in Norway. Once you are inside the church, you can admire the carved throne and the detailed wall paintings – and since you are in that area, you should pay a visit to the Heddal Rural Museum, which is located right near the stave church.
What can you see in the Heddal Bygdetun Museum? You can admire a wide collection of village houses that are specific to the Telemark region. Some of them present very specific decorative elements, such as the Ramberg one, while some are genuine storehouses, such as Sem houses.
Another appealing sight in Notodden is the Industrial History Collection, a collection which presents pictures, equipment and various pieces belonging to the powerful energy and oil company Norsk Hydro, which was founded in Notodden at the beginning of the 20th century. the most popular items from this collection include Birkeland's electric canon, Theodor Kittilsen's Notodden drawings and the Svelgfoss waterfall.
If you are interested in visiting some natural beauties, as well, then you should focus your attention on the Telemark Canal, a canal between Skien and Dalen. You can find a great lake and many rivers, a wild nature and impressive fields – and these are the main reasons why the Telemark Canal is a top European traveling destination.
So now you must have enough reasons to include Notodden on your next traveling destinations list. Enjoy!