Amazing fun for the lingo-nerd in your life. Seen on Sinosplice.
These have been around a while on Dr. David Moser’s website, Cognitive China.
Absolutely amazing video. Turns a mostly mediocre song into an epic story. Check the shout-outs to the Tank. EVERY chiptune concert actually ends like this. P.S. We bring the party. The post on TCTD.
Igor wanted something to hate about Python. The blog post:
Python’s datetime module is one of those bits of code that tends not to do what one would expect them to do.
Michael Dehaan muses about the future of open source software. “In the future 1000 years from now, was it more important to have worked on Web App X or Database Engine Y? Neither. Because that can’t be what matters. Theory: The power of OSS tech is not in technology, it is that it crosses boundaries. It is a system, an ideal. The tech does not matter. OSS is not about software. Software is an abstract playing field in which we teach ourselves how to collaborate. One of many such fields. Maybe not even the most efficient. Computer Science is just about logic anyway. It was never about computers.” (Thanks to Paul Wise)
Money quote: “There is still the question though, how do I choose what feature to work on tomorrow that improves the world the most?
Is the answer that it is not a feature, but instead, the question, how best can I help other people to help other people to help other people?”
File under: the education system sucks, math is cool, being a nerd is awesome. The PDF is 25 pages, read at least the first four. The story on Slashdot:
Scott Aaronson recently had “A Mathematician’s Lament” [PDF], Paul Lockhardt’s indictment of K-12 math education in the US, pointed out to him and takes some time to examine the finer points. “Lockhardt says pretty much everything I’ve wanted to say about this subject since the age of twelve, and does so with the thunderous rage of an Old Testament prophet. If you like math, and more so if you think you don’t like math, I implore you to read his essay with every atom of my being. Which is not to say I don’t have a few quibbles [...] In the end, Lockhardt’s lament is subversive, angry, and radical … but if you know anything about math and anything about K-12 ‘education’ (at least in the United States), I defy you to read and find a single sentence that isn’t permeated, suffused, soaked, and encrusted with truth.”
Nerds. (Shakes head.) Source.
I am bikeshedding my own yak-shaving. This should win an award.
Thug life! Snapshot courtesy of Overheard in New York:
Large, intimidating thug: So you think you’re grown up, huh? You think you’re a man?
Small boy: (nods)
Large, intimidating thug: Then why don’t you get a job? Move out?
Small boy: Cause I love you!
Large, intimidating thug, more quietly: Well, I love you too.–Downtown A Train
Towards: the replacement of JS as an anachronistic relic? The story on LWN:
Mark Seaborn has announced an effort to put CPython into Google’s Native Client. “I have been doing some work to extend Google’s Native Client to support dynamic linking. For those who haven’t heard of it, Native Client is a sandboxing system for running a subset of x86 code. It is proposed as a way of running native code inside web apps. One of my aims has been to get CPython working in the web browser under Native Client without having to modify CPython. I recently got to the point where modules from the Python standard library are importable under Native Client, including (as a demonstration) the Sqlite extension module.“
Augmented reality! The story on Android Community:
You say augmented reality to me and I immediately start thinking virtual reality with gloves and massive headsets. That’s not really what the Layar augmented reality browser (that will be coming to the Android store soon) is about.
