Ten commandments of PC HiFi

Funny and useful, too.

Introduction to the gamma function

Glendon Pugh's doctoral thesis is an excellent introduction to the gamma function, and, as an extra bonus, is quite well written; not like a typical thesis at all.

HP Calculator Video Contest

To celebrate the 35th anniversary of the HP-35 scientific calculator, HP is staging a DIY video contest. This should be amusing. Here's what the SFGate and geek.com have to snark about it.

Not one, but two Flatland movies

Ivars Petersen discusses two new Flatland movies in his MAA column.

“It was a sort of unfortunate concatenation of events,”

A software flaw caused the Mars orbiter failure last November:

Instead, an errant computer command five months earlier had been placed in the wrong location of the computer memory for the spacecraft. That, in effect, implanted a fatal defect in the spacecraft, disabling a safety feature to prevent the solar panels from rotating too far and mangling its ability to communicate with Earth in case of a mishap.

NY Times story here.