Today marks the return of school from that one week hiatus. Oh, what a hiatus it was. Today’s class was Automata Theory. It is actually the 2nd favorite of my classes thus far. We have been covering context-free languages. For our purposes, lets just say Context-free languages (or CFL) is a language (similar to English or French) that follows a strict set of rules. I’ll use English as an example to explain CFLs.
So a language is a set of rules, right? In English, you must have a noun and a verb in a sentence. See, thats a language rule! Its honestly not too hard. So when you have a strict set of rules, you form an official language. Imagine all those tricks and rules you learned in English class (assuming you’re American/British). All those rules merged together form an official language. Woop! OK, now we have a language but how do we use it? Easy! Each CFL has an official alphabet. In English, we use the letters (both upper- and lower-case) a through z. Obvious enough, I hope. So we then take a string of letters in the alphabet and put them together. We take that sentence (or technical term, word) and test it against the CFL rules. In this case, we have to check each set of words to see if they exist in the dictionary. If that test holds up, we must ensure all grammar rules are fulfilled. Only when we know no violations exist, can we confirm the sentence is part of the language. You do this every day! You easily, and subconsciously, check for sentence errors as you read or talk.
Now lets say you’re a computer person like me. Every programming language is presented as a CFL. They have a very long list of rules. The alphabet is set and mostly consists of English letters. When you compile/interpret the code, the compiler/interpreter checks your word (or line of code) against all the language rules. Then it either says “Oh no! Error!” or “OK, next line.” until you’re all done. So the existence of CFL’s allow you to read my blog everyday. Thank you CFL. Thank you.
In other news, DVice reported on a very cool new stovetop by Fisher & Paykel the other day. Just take a look:
You only get three burners. Fisher & Paykel said in their press release, people normally only use 2.1 burners anyways so you should be fine. This inline fashion allows for safer and easier stove use. Normally the burners are submerged in the glass stove top, like the middle one above. This makes it quite easy to clean. When you’re ready to use them, a button pops up the controls and burners. The heat is indicated by a set of LEDs. Just a reminder, LEDs require very little electrical power. Oh, and the burners use a new patented technology that evenly disperses heat throughout the pan. So no more regional food burnage. Who knows, maybe you’ll be a better cook for using it. This quite sexy yet functional stove top is unfortunately still in testing phases so it won’t be out for a little while. More, here or the official press release.
