July 31, 2008
Useful
I put my K'Nex pieces to work. A drink stand.
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July 30, 2008
Within Reason
He'll draw anything for $2
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Scary
Japanese Vending Machine Robot
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July 29, 2008
Quote
Apart from God every activity is merely a passing whiff of insignificance.
– Alfred North Whitehead
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July 28, 2008
If You've Ever Wondered
What things look like to the color-blind
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You Have Blue/Red Glasses, No?
Mars Arctic in 3D from Phoenix — 3D is still pretty neat
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July 27, 2008
Remember
Word from the paladin (me).
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July 26, 2008
far lands
where the wire ends, the bare metal tastes the dry, musty air
this is the end of wondering, here in the far lands, beyond light
but carry you the star that led you here, pocketfuls of fire
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July 25, 2008
Seizure Warning
Old photos animated as to appear 3 dimensional
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For You in the Field
Top 10 Concepts That Every Software Engineer Should Know
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July 24, 2008
Striving
I’m still discovering new and strange things on the project, now. I dip in and out of implementation phase, writing Lisp code here and there, and scribbling in my notebook the ways of information. Perhaps I have not as yet touched the splendid simplicity I had written about. It seems closer now, the goal to finish a core that does something. High hopes here. In other news, the mom has started setting me up with random Korean women again, and Bob thinks that I should try online dating, which worked out for him so well. I am skeptical. In other news, the birthday was OK, went out to dinner and watched Adaptation with the brother & his girlfriend. Still rolling along, striving to be meaningful. And there you go.
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July 23, 2008
Insight
How blind salamanders make nonsense of creationists' claims
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I'm Skeptical
The Google Way of Science
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July 22, 2008
Happy Birthday to Me
Funny, I don't feel 39. I still have some teenage angst left over.
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July 21, 2008
Quote
It is ironic that, although fundamentalists are implacably opposed to liberalism, their extreme reaction shows the same weakness. They, too, stress the leap of faith and make irrationality almost a principle, dismissing the serious questions of seeking modern men as intellectual smoke-screens or diversions to conceal deeper personal problems. All this masks a desperate intellectual insecurity, barely disguised by the surrounding hedge of taboos to preserve purity. The strident intolerance of much guilt-driven evangelism betrays the same insecurity. In these circles, much that is taught has to be unlearned in the wider school of life, and it is not surprising that universities are littered with dropouts from such groups. Their non-rational, subjective faith is cruelly punctured by varsity-level questions, and many manage to survive only by resorting to a severely schizophrenic faith which they hold to be true religiously but not intellectually, historically, or scientifically.
– Os Guinness
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July 20, 2008
Ahem
xkcd saying something or other about certain fields of study.
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Here's a Find
Apple I BASIC — now if I only had an emulator
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July 19, 2008
Take 3
One thing about New York: yes, we are hardened by the city, but I notice that this being so, that if one shows a small consideration, since we are so used to everyone being so busy on their way, that we are much that much more appreciative of the smallest of gestures. And I do feel myself that, that I am being hardened by these streets, the concrete and glass, the attitude(s). What did the “Sunscreen Song” recommend? That one live in New York City once in a life, but to leave before it makes you too hard? Where should that threshold be? Perhaps when one forgets himself, and is ingrained so perfectly in the ’City’s limits....
As far as the project goes, I recently reached the place where it just started happening. The things that were popping up: different than before, they were as if to solve themselves. At given points, I just began to write code. Organic, natural. I believe I am building a powerful paradigm. There are times when I even think the idea is happening in spite of me, that I am merely hindrance to the dream, which merely happens to have no other means of being built. I wrote at the bottom of the page, “on the cusp of a splendid simplicity”, whereupon I later hit upon the idea of organization in terms of purpose. I dip in and out of implementation mode, out into a little more design, a little into theory, but it’s really there, right now. Good, good stuff.
I’ve been going out recently. (I would say “going out more” but any is more with me.) My brother is still in town, and I had dinner with my friend Chris, whom I haven’t seen in over a year. I gave him a Marcus Aurelius Denarius, and he was sufficiently impressed. It seems that the consensus is that I go out with other women, if not forget Eun Hye altogether. Perhaps it will happen as a matter of course, but no one is to say what tomorrow will bring. Anyway, I have several forces working for me in this regard, and I imagine things might get interesting. If they aren’t already. But this is life, and we must count it all joy. No matter how the heart breaks, that to experience at all is a wonder, a magical thing. That’s easy to forget.
In which things happen, and I am taken by them.
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July 18, 2008
Warning: Language
But so, so funny, at least to me
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Doug Should Appreciate This
Then we'll grab a bite at 404 Not Found
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July 17, 2008
Metacloud
Word cloud from the first 15 days of July here, using Wordle.
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July 16, 2008
Very Cool
10 Amazing Light Graffiti Artists and Photographers
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Inevitable
DEFENDER of the favicon
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July 15, 2008
elementary
science must not say why the heart must break
elementary pain cannot be deconstructed into simpler parts
(is hope so small the very dream of it forgets its desire?)
time the angel that sifts through memories’ disintegration
dust the currency of the afterlife, oblivion stir
(is love so noble it would die forever from the world?)
we halt in the knowledge that we are the hands of the secret
wondering at the pretend that dangles our hearts
(is life so meaningless as to release all gravity from us?)
nowhere do we whisper so low that death will hear
if to here we got, tomorrow may be slow enough to catch
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July 14, 2008
More Useful Info
13 Things Your Waiter Won't Tell You
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Flash Entertainment
This is sand — make mandalas and such
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July 13, 2008
The Best So Far
This is the best I've done against GNU Go so far, only lost by 25. I've lost by as much as almost ten times that, so this is progress. (I'm black, if you didn't surmise.)
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July 12, 2008
Quote
Faith is rest, not toil. It is the giving up all the former weary efforts to do or feel something good, in order to induce God to love and pardon; and the calm reception of the truth so long rejected, that God is not waiting for any such inducements, but loves and pardons of His own goodwill, and is showing that goodwill to any sinner who will come to Him on such a footing, casting away his own poor performances or goodnesses, and relying implicitly upon the free love of Him who so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.
– Horatius Bonar
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July 11, 2008
Photo Day #1
Translucent creatures of the deep
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Photo Day #2
The world's first web server
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July 10, 2008
Hey
Woke up in time to go to mass on Sunday, and played a bunch of Go games. Even at my crappy skill level, I began to see the limitations of the GNU Go program I’m playing (not to say I won, though, having lost every game). Just to say the level of play that exists leaves much to be desired. At about 5am I tried to go to sleep, but kept thinking of work related stuff, and by 6am I gave up and began to do a little implementation. Did get a few utility functions written, but not anything in the main loop. Then Tuesday, I was thrown off rhythm again: my brother came to town. Oh, well. We’ll see if we can get some more stuff written soon. Cheers.
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July 9, 2008
Amazing
A radio made from a single nanotube
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Nice Little Map
A guide to Marvel's Manhattan
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July 8, 2008
More Wheat Pennies
2500 of them. Yes. A lot.
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July 7, 2008
a study in minding
amber fields of wheat in my imaginary wandering
i have never been here before, wonder what the skies portend
for in each moment the seed for the next, soon to open
the potential for fire in the sticks, more if a spark is in the eye
i shall fly away if i cannot decide what all this means
in my mind’s eye, i stand for a season, past the harvest
i arrive back at the beginning, as if time, too, were imaginary
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July 6, 2008
Fantastic
Origami of D&D creatures
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I Guess Not
Refutation of the recent "proof" of Riemann.
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July 5, 2008
Light and Darkness
I have designed a thing of beauty. I think. There’s a nagging sensation that I’ve missed something. Perhaps it’s normal when venturing into unknown territory, that there was something you could have done better — you can’t know what paths were missed, since NO ONE has ever been there before. But in any case, I have written the high-level algorithm that I will be detailing out into Lisp code by-and-by, perhaps after the holiday weekend. Or maybe sometime sooner, if I cannot keep myself away from it. So things are good there, it would seem; perhaps I might even take care of that nagging feeling. Hooray for everything.
I actually went out July 3rd, in the evening. My friend Pavel’s birthday. I gave him a 2008 State Quarters Proof Set, a Lord of the Rings bookmark (with Ring of Power), and a 1923 Peace Dollar. He seemed pleased. He texted me that he had a blast that night. I left sort of early, at around 11; I had had very little sleep, actually, the night before, and I was a bit tired after drinking alcohol. We did the no-re-bang thing, though it was a Japanese place, and they called it karaoke, even though it was not something where you went up on stage. I did get a good rendition of Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” off, and I was content with that. Things good there, too, it would seem.
But no word from Eun Hye, and it has been a month since she last contacted me. She hasn’t been by to visit this blog, either. One can only wonder how she’s doing; perhaps she’s just having a tough time of things. I admit, I despair a little, and the thought that it might be over (again) confuses me as it did before, but who knows what tomorrow brings? My father wants me to plan a big trip to Korea in November to look for a wife, as it were, but I don’t know what he’s thinking, really. Even (and I guess it’s in the realm of possibility, however far) if I were to find someone, I’d still be going back to America. But anyway, I rekindle in myself every day the embers of hope. Remembering when I had it all.
In which there is a light: and I try to walk in it.
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July 3, 2008
Quantum World
Ghost imaging accomplished
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Truly?
A proof of the Riemann Hypothesis?
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July 2, 2008
Yes, I'm Really Playing with Them
These are three of a long string of creations using my K'Nex pieces. The bottom uses a ball as the third wheel. The one at the right is more or less traditional, but the "guns" at the rear swivel back when not "in use". The top one is upside down, if you notice, something I tried to get funky with.
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July 1, 2008
Public
Your online profile tells a lot about you
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Heh
Want to Write a Compiler? Just Read These Two Papers.
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