Computer tools for buddies

Amongst a novena of virtual life savers on computers (under Windows XP or seven of course, everything is great with MacOS or Linux), we have the following. If you just want to pick one, pick Everything! Friends keep on thanking me for that.

• file finding via Everything, a ligth-weight freeware to find files and directories with wildcards or regular expressions (then you can easily disable Windows *.* indexing and save hassle, space and time). It revolutionized my way of naming AND storing files (project management, bibliographic references files, mainly)
• USB port cleaning with DriveCleanup when after some use, your usb keys and drives do not mount nicely
• stuff and idea organizing via mindmapping software, for instance FreeMind or FreePlane
• task organizing and GTD (getting things done) via ToDO list
• note taking (simple and yet, simple) via The Guide, or maybe TreeSheet
• word synonyming via Wordnet
• communicating via Skype on usb key (its install is forbidden on my work laptop): copy some new Skype.exe file (from any local installation) to any directory (SkypePortable) on your USB Drive; in that directory create a directory named "Data", above create a file (with a text pad like context or notepad++) called "skype.bat" with command line "skype.exe /datapath:"Data" /removable", that you can launch instead of skype.exe (7zip archive here for Skype version 5.9.0.114). For DIY versions: http://www.gruups.com/usbskype/ or Skype Portable or TheUberOverLord Formally Install Skype to USB Drive Only
• security via Keypass, (open source version), to keep and propose password for management, 
• podcasting via Ziepod (or Juice).

That's my Xmas gift for virtual life friends, for what it's worth. Update from The turn of a friendly card - Train numbering trick. What else?

Chuck Norris keyboard fact

In a long lasting trend of jokes on popular antonyms, Chuck Norris facts as well as Car Friedrich Gauss facts (The greatest mathematician since antiquity or Gauss facts thus far, see Carl Friedrich Gauss Facts), i would like to share this chuck-norris-keyboard-fact (shared on Facebook or Twitter):

Chuck Norris just sucks. If he were as smart and strong it's claimed, he'd just come here and slam my head on the keyboard asdmsdfvmwefjkmasd [space] [space] [space] [space] [space] 

Okay, i haven't posted nothing for a month, let's be serious for a while. :

ChucK: audio programming language  (Strongly-timed, Concurrent, and On-the-fly Audio Programming Language)
ChucK is a new (and developing) audio programming language for real-time synthesis, composition, performance, and now, analysis - fully supported on MacOS X, Windows, and Linux. ChucK presents a new time-based, concurrent programming model that's highly precise and expressive (we call this strongly-timed), as well as dynamic control rates, and the ability to add and modify code on-the-fly. In addition, ChucK supports MIDI, OSC, HID device, and multi-channel audio. It's fun and easy to learn, and offers composers, researchers, and performers a powerful programming tool for building and experimenting with complex audio synthesis/analysis programs, and real-time interactive control.

with something to do with keyboards...

And now for something completely different:

(Johann) Carl Friedrich Gauss is radical (with respect to the "roots", as in Jimmy Cliff's Roots radical) in signal processing for many reasons, and mainly for the possible invention of what is known today as the FFT or Fast Fourier transform (Cooley–Tukey FFT algorithm). You may just quote wikipedia:

This algorithm, including its recursive application, was invented around 1805 by Carl Friedrich Gauss, who used it to interpolate the trajectories of the asteroids Pallas and Juno, but his work was not widely recognized (being published only posthumously and in neo-Latin).[1][2] Gauss did not analyze the asymptotic computational time, however. Various limited forms were also rediscovered several times throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.

or refer to Gauss and the history of the fast Fourier transform, by Michael T. Heideman, Don H. Johnson and C. Sidney Burrus as appeared behind paywalls Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Volume 34, Number 3, 265-277, DOI: 10.1007/BF00348431 or IEEE Acoustics, speech and signal processing Magazine, October 1984. A downloadable copy can be found here. The FFT has profound applied connections with early oil industry: some say (though i am not able to provide an online reference yet) that FFT algorithms were known to oil  industry years before Cooley and Tukey's (1965), and they did not even bother patent it (because patents are a way to disclose, and sometimes secret is just simpler for protecting). Other early insights on connections between electrical engineering and geophysics are to be found in Oral-History with Enders Robinson who states two main problems, related to some (yet unknown) inverse problem equation:

Gauss primes

They followed the new group, but they were also very concerned with their own special problems. Their problem was 1)to collect data, then 2) produce a map of where to drill the oil well.

So what about an even stronger Gauss fact? Well, Gauss can beat Stalin, Poutin AND  Medvedev. As read on
За нормальное распределение (in french, Images des mathématiques La loi normale de Gauss s’invite dans les manifs. Carl Friedrich Gauss depicted with goat's horns? No way, since Gauss is often described as the fox of mathematics, for his abilities to hide his (mathematical proofs') tracks on the sand (or snow) with his tail.

Abel said, `He is like the fox, who effaces his tracks in the sand with his tail'. Gauss, in defense of his style, said, `no self-respecting architect leaves the scaffolding in place after completing the building'.

Quoted in Startribune:

"Obviously, he doesn't agree with Gauss," one commenter wrote disdainfully, referring to pioneering mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, who lived 200 years ago. Disenchanted Russians argue that United Russia's reported election results are so improbable as to violate Gauss' groundbreaking work on statistics.

One slogan: "we beleive in Gauss, not in Churov". Vladimir Churov is the president of Central Election Commission of Russia, but apparently breeches the central limit theorem. So as Stalin used to say: Gauss, how many divisions? Let's look at Gauss integers (left image). Chuck Norris vs. Gauss? Battle's ongoing.

Update on Pixel shaker (aka Frédéric Morain-Nicolier): Carl Gauss strongly refuted Chuck Norris conjecture (get a snapshot now, this infringes standard arithmetics) that 1550 < 6450. A century before.