### product integrals

Nice. Used one today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_integral

### death of Encarta

Here’s an interesting article about the shutting down of Encarta, the Microsoft published encyclopedia product, and implications for the media/information/publishing landscape at large.

At first, I thought it was the CD version that was being shut down, but no, it’s the online version; apparently the former, along with many Microsoft Home products (some were classics), had long been discontinued. Incidentally, I’ve used the CD product, but never the online product — I’ve been aware of it because it comes up in searches, but since it’s just the CD version put online, I’m not surprised it is meeting the same fate. It just goes to show that whatever process is driving traditional publishing into the ground is rather far along.
(Read the article)

### Is this true?

So this thing on Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy-channel_coding_theorem

could have left it at the classical statement of the theorem with bullet #1. Then it goes on to say:

2. If a probability of bit error $$p_b$$ is acceptable, rates up to $$R(p_b)$$ are achievable, where

$$R(p_b) = \frac{C}{1-H_2(p_b)}$$.

3. For any $$p_b$$, rates greater than $$R(p_b)$$ are not achievable.
(Read the article)

### Transcription: How Chinese Wikipedia fell into disarray

The evolution of the Chinese language Wikipedia follows a tortuous path. I suppose I’ve been around since the beginning, but really only to watch from the sidelines. In the beginning it was mostly mainland users who dominated in numbers, but since a year or two ago, with the on-again-off-again filtering of mainland Chinese users, the site has shifted towards more users from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere.

In recent months, some changes were made to the site with interesting implications. These changes are fairly unique to the Chinese language site but there is something to be learned from them.
(Read the article)