The speed, size and dependability of programming languages

Square root of x divided by zero: The speed, size and dependability of programming languages

MS Word 2010 Takes On Tex

Slashdot | MS Word 2010 Takes On TeX

    Just dug it from Slashdot. I've been using MS Word since I used computer apart from playing games and doing other things. It's quite handy, and admittedly I like MS Word 2003; I just can't stand the ribbon and resource-extensive features in MS Word 2007. On the other hand, LaTeX produces nice and sexy documents that make you cry in joys when you see your thesis/report/articles/whatever looks professional and....beautiful. Yes, beauty is one of the reasons why I support LaTeX.

    So, now MS Word 2010 is going to deal with LaTeX? Whoah. I think that it is not gonna happen in any possible way, period. Reason?

1. Beauty. As mentioned above, LaTeX produces nice looking papers, MS Word doesn't. Of course you can tweak here and there to make it better to human eyes, but you can pick up LaTeX in the same amount of time, AND you don't need to do all the settings everytime.
2. Resources: Yes, LaTeX and its packages may eat up lots of spaces, comparable to MS Word, but in terms of processing speed, I think that LaTeX wins here. You can just open a text file, type LaTeX text inside, save as .tex, compile, and get your PDF/PS. MS Word, on the other hand, needs long time to start up.
3. Supported Platform: LaTeX runs on every major OS you can think of. MS Word doesn't.

    Conclusions: LaTeX ftw!

Wolfram Alpha is live on Friday

    You know Google? The powerful and simple search engine that has invaded into the everyday lives of any single living person in this planet. Wolfram Alpha, invented by the physicist and founder of Wolfram inc. Stephen Wolfram, is a "computational knowledge engine" which rivals the search engine giant in terms of knowledge searching. It's a pretty good news to the people who search the web for their scientific work or numerical data.

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: Wolfram Alpha to Launch Friday Evening

Diablo 2 gogogo!

Due to my Ubuntu system, I have been unable to find games of good quality to play, considering the fact that I am a gamer. Having tried several games, I'm back to Diablo 2!! What a classic it is! Strangely enough I could not mount the expansion disc to install it, though the vanilla one is okay. I was forced to find a zip version which is "direct-play"able. Patched to v1.12a and used Multiple Resolution Patch, the world of Diablo 2 is so lovely~! Would find some time to hack&slash again :D

NUS Temperature Screening

    As everyone has known, swine flu (Influenza A(H1N1)) has raised to Phase 5 according to World Health Organization(WHO). To respond to that, NUS has decided to set up temperature screening stations in the campus. We need to measure our temperature daily and report to a website, and do the screening before going in any locations, e.g. Lecture Theater, offices, labs, examination halls etc...Quite tedious, but it's worth it as no one know whether swine flu loves Singapore or not. I just hope the coming screening tests are quick and efficient; Can't imagine hundreds of people packing in front of examination halls for 1 hour @_@