Links

1. In defense of inefficient code: Mike Croucher makes a case for working-but-not-particularly-efficient code written by practitioners in high-level languages (Matlab, Mathematica, python). As he puts it:

It comes down to this. CPU time is cheap. Very cheap. Human time, particularly specialised human time, is expensive.

and also:

In my opinion, high level programming languages such as Mathematica, MATLAB and Python have democratised scientific programming. Now, almost anyone who can think logically can turn their scientific ideas into working code. I’ve seen people who have had no formal programming training at all whip up models, get results and move on with their research. Let’s be clear here – It’s results that matter not how you coded them.

I often use these high-level languages to rapidly prototype new ideas. If and when required, it can always be translated into C++ or Fortran. Also from a practical perspective inefficient code that runs 10 times slower than highly optimized code is acceptable, if it still takes only 10 seconds to run.

2. Geeky jokes on Tanya Khovanova's Blog:

I like this one:

I just learned that 4,416,237 people got married in the US in 2010. Not to nitpick, but shouldn’t it be an even number?

Obviously, you can understand the audience she caters to from this comment.