Author: Ibrahim

“the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”

Video

In this video, an extract from an interview, Richard P. Feynman speaks about the difference between knowing the name of something and actually knowing it.

Tip: WordPress & Footnotes

Standard

To make linked footnotes [1], add the following (in text mode) just before your footnotes:

</pre>
<h4 id="footnotes">Footnotes</h4>
<pre>

Now you need to link each footnote number in the text by using the link of your post and suffixing it (after the /) with

#footnotes

To see an example hover your cursor over or click any linked number in the text and notice how the url of the post changes. It’s a manual labor but I think it’s sometimes worth it.

Footnotes

[1] Creating Footnotes in WP https://lorelle.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/creating-footnotes-in-wordpress/

Tip: WordPress & LaTeX

Standard

WordPress is known to support \LaTeX like

i\hbar\frac{\partial}{\partial t}\left|\Psi(t)\right>=H\left|\Psi(t)\right>

To embed equations using \LaTeX precede your \LaTeX code with “latex” and sandwich this with $ as follows [1][2]:

$latex your-latex-code$

To change the size precede the last $ sign with &s=2 like this:

$latex your-latex-code&s=2$

where 2 is the size which could be any number (as far as I know). For example, the Schrödinger equation above is of size 2. It was generated using:

$latex i\hbar\frac{\partial}{\partial t}\left|\Psi(t)\right>=H\left|\Psi(t)\right>&s=2$

Footnotes

[1] LaTeX in WP http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2007/02/17/math-for-the-masses/
[2] WP Support http://en.support.wordpress.com/latex/

Working backward to solve problems

Standard

A while ago I stumbled on Farnam Street blog [1] somehow and I am glad I’ve followed this blog. It puts forth really interesting ideas based on the readings of the author. He attempts to “master the best of what other people have already figured out”.

Recently, Shane the author, shared a post [2] with a TED talk on inversion [3]. The summary of the talk is as follows

Imagine where you want to be someday. Now, how did you get there? Retrograde analysis is a style of problem solving where you work backwards from the endgame you want. It can help you win at chess — or solve a problem in real life. At TEDYouth 2012, chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley delves into his favorite strategy.

Continue reading

Installing Promethean ActivInspire Software On Ubuntu 12.04 or 13.04

Standard

To install the Promethean Activboard Driver and ActivInspire Software On Ubuntu 12.04 or 13.04 follow the steps below:
Note: Please note that Promethean supports only 32 bit Ubuntu systems. I have not tested it for 64 bit systems.

sudo apt-get install libjpeg62

From the Ubuntu Software Center add the following repository in “Other Sources”:

deb http://activsoftware.co.uk/linux/repos/ubuntu precise oss non-oss

Back in a terminal run:

wget http://www.activsoftware.co.uk/linux/repos/Promethean.asc && sudo apt-key add Promethean.asc

then

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install activinspire activtools activdriver

Now logout and login again and try running Activinspire.