Question

Of the following sorting algorithms, which has a running time that is LEAST dependent on the initial ordering of the input?

(A) Insertion sort
(B) Quicksort
(C) Merge sort
(D) Selection sort
(E) Shellsort

The 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

These are some winners I like :)
Some people may think it's silly but actually I think it's very creative.

MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years.
REFERENCE: "Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?", Donald L. Unger, Arthritis and Rheumatism, vol. 41, no. 5, 1998, pp. 949-50.

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
REFERENCE: "Exploring Stock Managers' Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production," Catherine Bertenshaw [Douglas] and Peter Rowlinson, Anthrozoos, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2009, pp. 59-69.

PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don't tip over.
REFERENCE: "Fetal Load and the Evolution of Lumbar Lordosis in Bipedal Hominins," Katherine K. Whitcome, Liza J. Shapiro & Daniel E. Lieberman, Nature, vol. 450, 1075-1078

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of gas masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.
REFERENCE: U.S. patent # 7255627, granted August 14, 2007 for a “Garment Device Convertible to One or More Facemasks.”

Super robot

Robotics company called Boston Dynamics brought out a video of their robot named BIGDOG. As you can see in the video, the robot has 4 legs looking like human's one and it doesn't turn over even though it is kicked by someone or placed on very slippy ground. The robot looks hard working and serious about his job.

PEPSI SHISO

PEPSI brought out its new beverage in Japan. It's named PEPSI SHISO. SHISO is Japanese basil. I bought it today and took a sip... and took a picture of it. It seems that PEPSI sometimes sold unique taste beverage for a limited time only such as PEPSI Cucumber and PEPSI Blue Hawaii although I didn't know them. I think Japanese people like things for a limited time only. In addition, they like things which are limited to a certain area. There are many locally limited version of KitKat for example. You can get many types of KitKat in Japan. Friend of mine from the U.S. always buy unique type of snacks which you cannot get in the U.S when she finds it. Anyway you can experience this new type of beverage from PEPSI in Japan.

Project Natal for XBOX 360

Microsoft brought out its new technology called Project Natal that is actually marker-less motion capture system. As you can see in this video, it is just amazing. Based on estimated human's pose, a computer can respond in a different way. XBOX is a video game machine but this technology can be used other than game obviously. For example, human-computer interface, security, gesture recognition , remote control and so on. My analysis of this technology is the following. First, I believe they don't use 2D camera but 3D camera so that foreground of the user can be extracted easily. In addition, depth information is really helpful to estimate 3D pose because different poses can create same silhouette. Second, the program is run on a workstation, not on the XBOX so far. Third, it cannot estimate all of the possible poses because human body's articulation is really complicated. However, likely poses can be specified and most of the case, it is sufficient. Forth, I think it cannot do full pose estimation unless the user is facing to the camera. Handling a rotation is really difficult. I know that in this video they show a game of skateboarding. In that case, I think poses are limited in a certain range. For some games, necessary poses are limited so task become easier. Finally, I believe the user has to wear tight clothes. If the user wear a skirt or ample clothes, it fails to estimate poses correctly. Now I realized that I wrote about negative things of this system but let me make my point clear. This is just amazing technology and might change our lives. I welcome any comment for my analysis.

TED sixth sense technology from MIT Medai Lab

I didn't know much about what TED is but the a technology shown in this video is very fun. A MIT student in the media lab came up with a new human computer interaction system called "sixth sense." The idea is wearing a device consisting of a projector and a webcam and a cellphone. The cellphone is used to get information from the internet and the webcam is used to recognize finger gesture of a person wearing this device and get a digital image of scene in front of the person. The Projector is used to project a variety of things such as characters, images, buttons and so on. The webcam also recognize the image projected. My favorite use of this system is creating a watch on user's wrist and erasing it by finger gesture. The technology used in this system is not particularly new. However, creating and showing a novel concept deserves applause, I think. And I re-realized the importance of the way to show our ideas. Design is also an important factor, I think. That's MIT.

Darth Vader

I am a fan of star wars as many men are. My favorite character is Darth Vader. Actually, all star wars series describe his life, from birth to death. So, he is a true main character from the first one to the last one. I heard that George Lucas was inspired by a Japanese samurai armor. When it comes to Light Saver, which is a Jedi's sword, I guess it was inspired by a samurai sword. And I like the Imperial March, which is a theme song of Darth Vader. Whenever I listen to it, it starts sticking my ear. I think it is one of the best film musics ever created.