Category: Science

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The great aquarium cleaning dilemma: should you be removing or replacing water?

Everybody that owns an aquarium probably came across this decision at one point. The water is filthy and needs to be replaced. All you have is a jar. And you ask yourself: should you be emptying the aquarium first, adding new water later on, or should you be replacing filthy water with clean water? The first choice seems more rational, but sometimes you can't fully empty the aquarium (e.g. you have fish), and you need to do more runs since you're not taking water both ways. The other option seems interesting since you're efficient both ways, but at the same time you're taking back fresh water mixed in the aquarium. So, what should you do?

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written 19:44 CET on chronolog
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Can you believe Watson got the question about Slovenia wrong on Jeopardy?

Slovenia made it to the spotlight again, for the first time after the soccer world cup (when Slovenia was trending topic on Twitter and top search on Google). This time, it happened because IBM's supercomputer Watson competed against human champions in the famous TV show Jeopardy. IBM's computers are known to destroy people in various challenges, Deep Blue beat the world champion Garry Kasparov in a chess tournament in 1997. But chess is simple for computers to play, because it is pure logic and mathematics – the capability of a player is determined by the number of operations and actions it can calculate in advance. But a quiz is a totally different story, where the biggest challenge is semantics – understanding the meaning of words.

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written 8:33 CET on chronolog
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Why Web 2.0 is so important

The influence the Internet is having on our every day lives is reaching almost unimaginable levels. The extent of the information revolution can only be compared to inventions of speaking, writing and printing in the past, which are all major achievements that allowed new ways of sharing thoughts and ideas between people. Web 2.0 is the next step of this information (r)evolution, and to understand why it's so important, we have to observe all the significant applications it represents (according to Wikipedia). This will hopefully give us a better insight into the potential they bring to our personal and professional lives, besides their impact on the whole humanity which we still perhaps don't fully comprehend.

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written 21:10 CET on chronolog
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How mini-feed and other streams revolutionized IT

Web 2.0 brought us a lot of interesting things, approaches and solutions, so it's hard to imagine how we ever managed without it. Most of us are half addicted to floating around in cyberspace, looking at what people are doing and talking to everybody at once. It is a little social revolution that we are witnessing, and it doesn't seem it will end soon. Web 2.0 changed our everyday lives, but for an IT expert such as myself, these new concepts also have a big influence on other sciences and in our case, they will change management, organization and corporate IT forever.

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written 17:59 CET on chronolog
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An approach to statistics and data analysis

When information systems evolve, they become greedier for both operational and advanced strategic statistics and data analysis. This need is a part of a natural evolution. The more data you have, the higher potential for extracting information you have. Looking at business environments using IT platforms, that's what analytics are actually all about - getting useful information from usually bad data. It turns out the task of analytical reporting is not so complex as it seems, but you definitely need a set of different skills / people to make it work.

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written 21:32 CET on chronolog
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At least we have the Discovery channel

I think television is bad. Besides making you a brainless zombie, watching without thinking, it channels all the bad things on this world into the little box in the living room. Of course, there are also positive broadcasts, but they are still heavily overwhelmed by the negative. The news brings mostly bad news, making mass paranoia and hysteria. Reality shows are making the youth confused and are building a wannabe society. Sure, there are a few interesting series going on, a few good movies, but otherwise, it sucks. Thank god for the Discovery channel.

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written 21:14 CET on chronolog
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