Rosenbrock’s Banana Function
In mathematical optimization, Rosenbrock’s Banana Function is a non-convex function used as a test problem for optimization algorithms.
This function is often used to test performance of optimization algorithms. The global minimum is inside a long, narrow, parabolic shaped flat valley. To find the valley is trivial, however to converge to the global minimum is difficult.
It is defined by
f(x, y) = (1 – x)^2 + 100(y – x^2)^2
It has a global minimum at (x, y) = (1, 1) where f(x, y) = 0. A different coefficient of the second term is sometimes given, but this does not affect the position of the global minimum.
Rosenbrock 's Banana Function
White Castle Building No. 8
White Castle Building Number 8 is a White Castle restaurant building in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was one of the few prefabricated, portable buildings built by the chain, and is presently operated as a jewelry store.
The building, measuring only 28 feet by 28 feet, has had three different locations in Minneapolis. The restaurant was originally located at 616 Washington Avenue Southeast near the University of Minnesota campus in the Stadium Village neighborhood in 1936. In 1950, the building was moved to 329 Central Avenue Southeast when the owner of the Washington Avenue property refused to renew the lease. In 1983, White Castle officials opened a new, larger restaurant a few blocks away from the Central Avenue location.
In order to save a piece of the city's architectural history, the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission found a buyer willing to relocate the structure and save it from demolition. The building is now located at 3252 Lyndale Avenue South, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
via White Castle Building No. 8 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Cloud Factory
The Cloud Factory is an affectionate euphemism for a boiler plant which billows steam from below its twin stacks in The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, the 1988 debut novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer Michael Chabon. Bellefield Boiler Plant, the actual name of the facility, is located in Junction Hollow (affectionately known as “The Lost Neighborhood” also in Chabon’s book) behind Carnegie Mellon University in the Oakland district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Built in 1907 to provide steam heat for the Carnegie, it was designed in the Romanesque Revival style by the architectural firm Longfellow, Alden, and Harlow. One of the smoke stacks measures 150 feet and the other more than 200 feet. The plant has burned both coal and natural gas but will cease using coal on July 1, 2009. Its steam system expanded in the 1930s to service the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning. Today it pumps heat to most of the major buildings in Oakland. It is owned by a consortium made up of the University of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Carnegie Mellon University, the Carnegie, the City of Pittsburgh, and the Pittsburgh Public Schools.
Mount CD ISO image in Windows XP without Daemon Tools/Alcohol 120
Here’s a small but unsupported tool from Microsoft to let you mount ISO images. The included readme file is pretty good, and it worked just fine for me.