Lt. Commander Data

The Need for Speed

How do we measure the speed of a computer? Is it jusy Gigahertz or are there other ways to measure speed?  If my processor is so powerful, how come my PC is so slow!!?  In this episode we explore these questions and discuss some of the fatest computers in the world and what they are used for.  We also dive into some real time programming, low latency programming and a little bit of Formula One Racing with computers.

Lt. Commander Data

What is data?  In this episode we explore the origins of data.  We look at some of the first uses of data analysis.  We look at some of the first machines that processed data.  They were not computers!  Did you know that as early as 1890 there were machines that were automatically processing data?  We go on to talk about how does a computer recognize and organize data.  We wrap up with a dialog about how ubiquitous our data is and what rights to we have to our own data.

Hey Google do you know Siri?

In this episode we explore the world of AI.  What makes AI different from traditional code?  Where did it come from?  Who coined the term?  We take a short walk in history to discover that the Greeks conceived of intelligent machines in their mythology.  They wrote about an automaton (robot), named Talos, that roamed and protected their land that was intelligent.  In 1642, Rene Descartes discussed whether or not machine would ever be able to speak words or reason.  In the 1940s, Alan Turing created the Turning tests which became the standard to tell if a machine was indistinguishable from a human.  In 1956, John McCarthy holds a two-month inaugural conference on "Artificial Intelligence" at Dartmouth with 10 other scientists.  During this episode we go onto discuss the major milestones in modern history with AI.  Over the last 70 years there have been many ups and downs in AI.  We discuss the causes and outcomes of these periods.  We wrap up with some discussion of the future that AI will bring us.

What is Truth

Have you ever wondered how computers make decisions?  What is the process behind that?  Well there is a long history of logic behind all of that decision making.  In this episode we take a short walk down ancient history to the origins of logic and the cascading affects into the 19th and 20th centuries.  We take a close look at Boolean Algebra and the utilization of the values True and False.  We learn what a predicate is and how the operators AND, OR and NOT are used to elicit final results.  And we wrap it all up with a short spot on Fuzzy Logic.

Name that Language

In this episode we explore the many programming languages that are out there.  Who knew that there were more than 700 computer programming languages.  Some sites say that there are as many as 8,900 computer programming languages.  So, we take a look at a handful of programming language.  We try to figure out where do they come from and what are they used for.  We take a dive into compilers and interpreters, or at least the difference between the two.  We also wade in the waters of Python and Scratch.  What are their pros and cons.  This episode is not too technical, but there are some valuable nuggets to glean from the episode.  Join Bob (the Geek) and Charlotte (the Pixie) as they try to "Name that Language".