John
Jowett's Computing Links
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The people in the category performance-oriented on the
contrary, do not at all strive for perfection. Instead they have a need to
achieve performance immediately. Such performance leaves no time for
intellectual curiosity. Instead, techniques already known to them must be
applied to solve problems. To these people, failure is a disaster whose sole
feature is to harm instant performance. Similarly, learning represents the
possibility of failure and must thus be avoided if possible. To the people in
this category, knowledge in other people also represents a threat. As long as
everybody around them use tools, techniques, and methods that they themselves
know, they can count on outperforming these other people. But when the people
around them start learning different, perhaps better, ways, they must defend
themselves. Other people having other knowledge might require learning to
keep up with performance, and learning, as we pointed out, increases the risk
of failure. One possibility for these people is to discredit other people's
knowledge. If done well, it would eliminate the need for the extra effort to
learn, which would fit very well with their objectives. Robert Strandh, The psychology of learning |
As I wrote
many years ago at the very beginning of the debate about computers, a
computer is just a glorified pencil. Einstein once said "my pencil is
cleverer than I". What he meant could perhaps be put thus: armed with a
pencil, we can be more than twice as clever as we are without. Armed with a
computer (a typical World 3 object), we can perhaps be more than a
hundred times as clever as we are without; and with improving computers there
need not be an upper limit to this.
Karl Popper, The Self and
Its Brain, p. 208 |
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The
Brain Rot
Dialogue |
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It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all
copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we
should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise
opposite is the case, Civilization advances by extending the number of
important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.
Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle--they are strictly
limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at
decisive moments.
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Ideas are beginning to appear for equation transformers, which
will rearrange the relationship expressed by an equation in accordance with
strict and rather advanced logic. Progress is inhibited by the
exceedingly crude way in which mathematicians express their
relationships. They employ a symbolism which grew like Topsy and has
little consistency; a strange fact in that most logical field. A new symbolism, probably positional, must apparently precede the reduction of mathematical transformations to machine processes. Vannevar
Bush, July 1945 |
Twistclaimer: I have assembled this page to collect links that I find useful in my work. It reflects the tools I find myself using as well as my personal choices and preferences. The fact that a link appears here should not be construed as an endorsement of a product: it is equally likely to be there to help me solve frequent problems with it.
You may also be interested in other collections available from my Home Page.
Accelerator Physics Programs
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TEAPOT
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Mathematica
Useful sites
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Visual Mathematics |
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Principia Consulting Does
anyone know what happened to this site? |
David Park's
Mathematica Page |
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Word
and MathType
- MathType for
is the best way I know for getting traditional-style,
professional-quality, automatically numbered and cross-referenced maths in
Word. The same "equations" can be be pasted
into Powerpoint and other programs (including LaTeX).
- If you don't have MathType, try Creating
Equations With Microsoft Word (University of Waterloo), Equation Editor Tips
& Tricks
- Another option is to create TraditionalForm expressions
in the Mathematica Front End, do Copy-As-Metafile and paste them into
Word.
- Microsoft
Word MVP FAQ Site
Spreadsheets
- FAQ on
spreadsheets Frequently asked questions about spreadsheets, culled
from newsgroups like comp.apps.spreadsheets
.
- JWalk & Associates: The Spreadsheet
Page
Windows
- Microsoft
- ZD mags , ZD Net
Software Library
- Windows 2000 and NT
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- How
to make Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) files from any Windows
application, if you still need to.
Notes,
hints and tips from me
A private collection of rough
notes, hints and tips that I have jotted down somewhat randomly. Many are
only useful in CERN. No guarantees of anything concerning this material!
Legacy
Computing:
Rexx
and Kedit
- The Rexx Language and Rexx Frequently
Asked Questions.
I used this programming language on various systems in the past, notably for writing "scripts" on IBM VM/CMS and Unix systems. - comp.lang.rexx
newsgroup
- Kedit is the plain text editor I use most
(it uses Rexx for macros).
LaTeX
No-one
under 35 years of age should have heard of LaTeX. Old-timers like me used
it in the 1980s and early 90s when it was the best thing around. Computer
technology has advanced since then. However sometimes one is obliged to
use it by certain publishers, so here is what I think is still most
important to know about LaTeX:
- It is possible to format mathematics properly in LaTeX
- if you are prepared to invest time and devote a significant fraction of
your brain to learning the rules. Very few LaTeX users ever do these
things so the results tend to be pretty awful. Use MathType to
write the LaTeX code for your formulas - it will do a much better job,
much more quickly and efficiently, than most LaTeX users.
- If you haven't got MathType and you really can't get
it, then at least try TeXAide.
- Spend 2 hours reading
the LaTeX book BEFORE you starting modifying that example file your
friend gave you.
- If your friend's example
file contains any of the following strings, then DON'T touch it with a
bargepole:
\centerline \hskip \vskip \def \it \bf
\par (2 occurrences allowed/1000 lines of file)
because that proves the file has been passed on through a chain of people who never read the book, very probably since before LaTeX was invented.
- The Unix
Pestilence (a useful reference despite the name and mildly immoderate
tone).
- UNIX history
(explains a lot, scroll your browser window to the right!)
- Why people
use it and a trial session
to get the flavour before and after X-windows.
- Information
for experts.
- The Rexx Language made Unix
usable for me, for a while.
- Most of the things you might think you need shell
scripts for can be done with Mathematica.
- Despite what they tell you, there is a reasonable plain text editor for
Unix. Here "reasonable" means you will have some of your
brain left for other things.
CERN Computing Environment
- General page on Computing at CERN , Consulting service, Computer News Letters.
- Search CERN Computing
services
- Mail Service
- CERN AFS User's
Guide, Recovering
Files from AFS Backups
- PostScript tools (from CNL 214)
TOPDRAWER
- I used to use TOPDRAWER a lot for making
"scientific" plots. A Windows version is still available here.
General Computing Sources
Historical Computing
- If you are
want to know which computer you should use, try
reading Umberto Eco on
the subject. He
does not discuss U**x but it's obvious enough where it fits in the scheme.
- A Beginner's Guide to
Effective Email .
- Why Edit
Electronically?
- The
Web as foreseen in July 1945 (the article "As We May Think"
by Vannevar Bush)