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Archive for December, 2008
Gjødselbiller
3“Etter at gjødselbillen har gravd redet og lagt eggene sine henter den en kule av dyreekskrementer fra en haug i nærheten for å tette igjen inngangen. Hvis denne gjødselkulen blir fjernet mens billen flytter den, fortsetter bare billen, og mimer at den tetter inngangen med den ikke-eksisterende gjødselkulen, uten å legge merke til at den er borte. Evolusjon har bygget inn en antakelse i billens oppførsel, og når den den ikke holder blir resultatet mislykket.”
Fra boken min om kunstig intelligens.
Naturen er fascinerende… 
Wikibooks, now also for us who like physical books
2In “just” 19 days I’ll have completed my last exam for this semester and I can travel home for a nice, quiet Christmas with my family. As usual, I’ll travel by train, which takes 16-17 hours each way. Partly because it’s cheap (25 EUR), but most of all because it’s very comfortable and is a nice way to “stress down” after an intense exam period. As usual I’ll pack plenty of books and an iPhone with all the podcast episodes I have postponed listening to.
Among the new books I’ll bring there will also be at least one wikibook. Yes, a real, physical wikibook.
You see, I have been using the x86 disassembly wikibook quite often, and recently I read that there were a “a collection for print-on-demand publishing from PediaPress” available for the book. Being curious, I had to click the link to see what that actually meant…
It turns out that PediaPress will print a copy of a wikibook for a very fair price. It can even be your own compilation of parts of books (and Wikipedia support is coming, according to their webpage). Printing and shipping of the book (200 pages) to Norway was a little over 10 EUR.
I’m now sitting with three printed wikibooks in front of me, and the quality of the printed book are very good. Needless to say, I’m very happy. They even donate a portion of the proceeds to the Wikimedia Foundation (though, they don’t say how much).
Shiny new books
Okteta is of course mentioned