Laptops getting hotter… time to cool them down

As this article clearly suggests, the laptops these days have so much processing power that they are no longer “lap-tops” anymore. The heat has to go somewhere, and it tends to move towards the cooler area, according to a certain law of Thermodynamics, to the user’s lap. Wow. I used to think the problem was only with my laptop. But it looks like the problem is more widespread than I initially suspected. So now these two researchers from the University of Virginia take an aim at this problem and toward laying the scientific groundwork that will facilitate more and more research in this area.

Folks, don’t forget the problem of dwindling battery lives, especially if the laptop happens to have a nice graphics card and Windows Vista. It’s not that the research has “still a long way to go” when it comes to keeping laptops cool and extending batteries lives, it’s just that the research in these areas has to keep up with the corresponding research in the chip speeds… come on, folks. You got work to do!

Free online courses from Stanford

After MIT, Stanford has done it too – they are providing 10 free online courses for free, accessible via YouTube, iTunes, MP4 and the like. These courses included a Programming Methodology course, a Programming Abstractions course, and a Programming Paradigms course – which cover basic programming techniques in Java and C++. Oh, and that’s not all. There are two more courses of special interest to Natural Language Processing researchers – an NLP course by Christopher Manning and a Machine Learning course by Andrew Ng. All the courses are quite interesting, energetic, and easy to follow…

As an aside, take a look at some of the Linux themes on this website – I find these to be especially aesthetic and appealing…

Too much work at your tech job? Here’s a new credo for you…

So, yet another list of how we computer folks can improve our lives… let’s tackle the points one by one. Telecommuting… as much as I like the idea of showing your boss your face as often as possible, this point actually makes sense. Save gas, save time, save money on eating out (you can cook while your big program is running at home), and just report to your boss your progress and meet with her once/twice a weak. Not a bad deal, now that I think about it. Ok. So far so good. Making regular local and remote updates. Good idea. Using keyboard shortcuts as much as you can instead of always reaching for the mouse. Good idea. Ergonomic, and stylish as if you were Tony Stark working with Jarvis on your Ironman suit (Ok, maybe you’re not moving 3D images with your hands, but it does look like you’re a computer genius from a Hollywood movie rather than an average user if you use the keyboard rather than the mouse.) Keeping track of your calories for free? Who doesn’t want that? About managing email – I personally like to manage mine in a slightly different way, but I think that’s subjective.

Hmm, I think this much analysis is enough and proves that the article is readable. Now to actually follow through with it, that’s a completely different story…