October 20, 2009
Seen on LWN. Source.
"By making GHC and the Linux build system meet in the middle we can have modules that are type safe and garbage collected. Using the copy of GHC modified for the House operating system as a base, it turns out to be relatively simple to make the modifications necessary to generate object files for the Kernel environment." This leads to code which looks like:
hello = newCString "hello" >>= printk >> return 0
This is followed by 86 comments about C++, matrix math, and other minutiae.
October 20, 2009
Seen on CNN. The article.
"I started talking about 21st century skills and wanting to prepare our kids in math and science, especially our low-income and ethnic minority students," Ursetta said. "We’ve been doing schools the same way in this nation for 150 years, so if we don’t step up, then nothing is going to change." … She immediately started "pulling together a group of teachers to sit down with a blank sheet of paper and ask how you would do a school differently."
The main takeaway ideas seem to be: teacher autonomy, math-and-science focus. It’s kind of cool to see people working to revive the public school system.
October 20, 2009
From Sumana, an article about The September Issue.
Coddington calls herself a romantic. She loves old gardens and 1920s styles. And she remembers what got shot for a previous issue but didn’t run, and notices when Wintour cuts a few spreads from the coming issue that represent USD$50,000 worth of work. She must know that she works for an enormous, ridiculous edifice. She must know that it’s unsustainable, that her art form requires resources that only monarchies and this historically anomalous corporate media system can bring to bear. Anna and Coddington and Condé Nast are in a symbiosis to perpetuate a grand, dying art.
"High fashion" is a niche, like opera, regimented gardens, country dancing, &c., and getting niche-ier. Wintour says fashion is about what’s next; does she know? The September Issue doesn’t say.
It’s been said that fashion is about the future of what people are going to wear, even if it’s only ideas that get taken up into the mainstream; is that so? It sure does seem like a strange place to hang out if you can tell what’s next.