Software programmers need random number generators. For this purpose, they often use functions with outputs that appear random. Gerstmann has a nice post about Better C++ Pseudo Random Number Generator. He investigates the following generator: uint32_t xorshift(uint64_t *m_seed) { uint64_t result = *m_seed * 0xd989bcacc137dcd5ull; *m_seed ^=... Read more

A dot (or scalar) product is a fairly simple operation that simply sums the many products: float sum = 0; for (size_t i = 0; i < len; i++) { sum += x1 * x2; } return sum; It is nevertheless tremendously important. You know these... Read more

If you had to design a new database system optimized for the hardware we have today, how would you do it? And what is the new hardware you should care about? This was the topic of a seminar I attended last week in Germany at Dagstuhl. Here... Read more