Andy Weir (writer)
Andrew Taylor Weir (born June 16, 1972) is an American novelist and former computer programmer. His 2011 novel '' The Martian'' was adapted into the 2015 film of the same name directed by Ridley Scott. He received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2016 and his 2021 novel '' Project Hail Mary'' was a finalist for the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Early life Weir was raised in Milpitas, California. His father, John Weir, was a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories, and his mother was an electrical engineer. He was an only child, and his parents divorced when he was eight. Weir grew up reading classic science fiction such as the works of Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. At the age of 15, he began working as a computer programmer for Sandia. After high school, Weir studied computer science at the University of California, San Diego, though he did not graduate. He worked as a programmer for several software companies, including AOL, Palm, MobileIron, an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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:Template:Infobox Writer/doc
Infobox writer may be used to summarize information about a person who is a writer/author (includes screenwriters). If the writer-specific fields here are not needed, consider using the more general ; other infoboxes there can be found in :People and person infobox templates. This template may also be used as a module (or sub-template) of ; see WikiProject Infoboxes/embed for guidance on such usage. Syntax The infobox may be added by pasting the template as shown below into an article. All fields are optional. Any unused parameter names can be left blank or omitted. Parameters Please remove any parameters from an article's infobox that are unlikely to be used. All parameters are optional. Unless otherwise specified, if a parameter has multiple values, they should be comma-separated using the template: : which produces: : , language= If any of the individual values contain commas already, add to use semi-colons as separators: : which produces: : , ps ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sandia National Laboratories
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), also known as Sandia, is one of three research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Headquartered in Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it has a second principal facility next to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and a test facility in Waimea, Kauai, Hawaii. Sandia is owned by the U.S. federal government but privately managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International. Established in 1949, SNL is a "multimission laboratory" with the primary goal of advancing U.S. national security by developing various science-based technologies. Its work spans roughly 70 areas of activity, including nuclear deterrence, arms control, nonproliferation, hazardous waste disposal, and climate change. Sandia hosts a wide variety of research initiatives, incl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mad Scientist
The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly ambitious, taboo or hubristic nature of their experiments. As a motif in fiction, the mad scientist may be villainous (evil genius) or antagonistic, benign, or neutral; may be insane, eccentric, or clumsy; and often works with fictional technology or fails to recognise or value common human objections to attempting to play God. Some may have benevolent intentions, even if their actions are dangerous or questionable, which can make them accidental antagonists. History Prototypes The prototypical fictional mad scientist was Victor Frankenstein, creator of his eponymous monster, who made his first appearance in 1818, in the novel ''Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus'' by Mary Shelley. Though the novel's title character, Victor Frankenst ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Casey And Andy
''Casey and Andy'' (stylised as ''Casey & Andy'', or simply ''C&A'') is a webcomic series written and illustrated by Andy Weir. Following the adventures of two mad scientists (fictionalized versions of Weir himself and his best friend Casey Grimm) and of their friends and acquaintances (such as writer Jenn Brozek), it was typically updated three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays throughout the early 2000s, primarily with a gag-a-comic format, including ongoing storylines and running gags. The comic has a strong flavor of science and history fact, often from obscure sources, as well as featuring strong parallels between Weir's and Grimm's actual lives and the events in the comic. Some strips are inspired by then-current events, such as with the ''Opportunity'' mission to Mars, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2004 United States presidential election. The strip was turned made into a roleplaying game titled '' GURPS Casey and Andy'' for the GURPS system by ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. The newspaper is published in the broadsheet format and online. The ''Journal'' has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. The ''Journal'' is regarded as a newspaper of record, particularly in terms of business and financial news. The newspaper has won 38 Pulitzer Prizes, the most recent in 2019. ''The Wall Street Journal'' is one of the largest newspapers in the United States by circulation, with a circulation of about 2.834million copies (including nearly 1,829,000 digital sales) compared with ''USA Today''s 1.7million. The ''Journal'' publishes the luxury news and lifestyle magazine ' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tides Of Darkness
''Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness'' is a fantasy real-time strategy computer game developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released for DOS in 1995 and Mac OS in 1996 by Blizzard's parent, Davidson & Associates. A sequel to '' Warcraft: Orcs & Humans'', the game was met with positive reviews and won most of the major PC gaming awards in 1996. In 1996, Blizzard released an expansion pack, '' Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal'', for DOS and Mac OS, and a compilation, ''Warcraft II: The Dark Saga'', for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. The Battle.net edition, released in 1999, included ''Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal'', provided Blizzard's online gaming service, and replaced the MS-DOS version with a Windows one. In ''Warcraft II'', as in many real-time strategy (RTS) games, players collect ''resources'' to produce buildings and units in order to defeat an opponent in combat. Players gain access to more advanced units upon construction of ''tech'' buildings and research. The ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles: Michael Morhaime, Frank Pearce and Allen Adham. The company originally concentrated on the creation of game ports for other studios' games before beginning development of their own software in 1993 with games like ''Rock n' Roll Racing'' and ''The Lost Vikings''. In 1993, the company became Chaos Studios, Inc., and eventually Blizzard Entertainment after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates. Shortly thereafter, Blizzard released '' Warcraft: Orcs & Humans''. Since then, Blizzard Entertainment has created several ''Warcraft'' sequels, including highly influential massively multiplayer online role-playing game ''World of Warcraft'' in 2004, as well as three other multi-million s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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MobileIron
MobileIron Inc. was an American software company that provided unified endpoint and enterprise mobility management (EMM) for mobile devices, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA). The company announced in September 2020 it was being acquired by Ivanti. History The company was founded in 2007 by Ajay Mishra and Suresh Batchu and was headquartered in Mountain View, California. MobileIron was an early pioneer in mobile security and management for smartphones and tablet computers, such as iPhone, iPad, Android, and earlier mobile devices such as Symbian and Windows Phone. During the five year period from 2009 to 2013, MobileIron was mentioned in trade press. It had its initial public offering (IPO) in 2014 on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol MOBL. After its share price fell from $9 at the time of the IPO to below $4 in early 2016, the company's founding CEO Bob Tinker was replaced by Barry Mainz as CEO, but remained on the company's board of directors. Simon Biddiscombe was app ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Palm (PDA)
Palm was a line of personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones developed by California-based Palm, Inc., originally called Palm Computing, Inc. Palm devices are often remembered as "the first wildly popular handheld computers," responsible for ushering in the smartphone era. The first Palm device, the PalmPilot 1000, was released in 1996 and proved to be popular. It led a growing market for portable computing devices where previous attempts such as Apple's Newton failed or others like Hewlett-Packard's 200LX only serving a niche target market. Most of Palm's PDAs and mobile phones ran the in-house Palm OS software which was later also licensed to other OEMs. A few devices ran on Microsoft's Windows Mobile. In 2009 Palm OS's successor webOS was released, first shipping with the Palm Pre. In 2011 Hewlett-Packard discontinued the Palm brand and started releasing new devices under the HP brand, but discontinued its hardware later that same year. In 2018, a San Francisco ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Computer Science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical disciplines (including the design and implementation of Computer architecture, hardware and Computer programming, software). Computer science is generally considered an area of research, academic research and distinct from computer programming. Algorithms and data structures are central to computer science. The theory of computation concerns abstract models of computation and general classes of computational problem, problems that can be solved using them. The fields of cryptography and computer security involve studying the means for secure communication and for preventing Vulnerability (computing), security vulnerabilities. Computer graphics (computer science), Computer graphics and computational geometry address the generation of images. Progr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Skepticality
''Skepticality'' is the official podcast of The Skeptics Society's ''Skeptic'' magazine. Beginning in May 2005, the podcast explores rational thought, skeptical ideas, and famous myths from around the world and throughout history. Each episode is an audio magazine featuring regular segments by contributors who are specialized in specific areas of critical thought followed by featured content which is usually in the form of an interview with a researcher, author, or individual who is helping promote skeptical thought and/or science in an effective way. It has featured interviews with James Randi, and scientists, such as authors and astronomers Phil Plait and Neil deGrasse Tyson, Greg Graffin from '' Bad Religion'', Adam Savage from the ''MythBusters'', songwriter Jill Sobule, author Ann Druyan and science communicator Bill Nye. ''Skepticality'' is co-hosted by Derek Colanduno and "Swoopy" Robynn McCarthy. The last released episode is from 28 August 2019. History The concep ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Programmer
A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates computer software or applications by providing a specific programming language to the computer. Most programmers have extensive computing and coding experience in many varieties of programming languages and platforms, such as Structured Query Language (SQL), Perl, Extensible Markup Language (XML), PHP, HTML, C, C++ and Java. A programmer's most often-used computer language (e.g., Assembly, C, C++, C#, JavaScript, Lisp, Python, Java, etc.) may be prefixed to the aforementioned terms. Some who work with web programming languages may also prefix their titles with ''web''. Terminology There is no industry-wide standard terminology, so "programmer" and "software engineer" might refer to the same role at different companies. Most typically, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |