dsandler.org

Archive for November, 2003

9:21 p.m. — Richard Keil of Bloomberg News leaned across the aisle, shoved aside his I-Pod headset and grinned as he said: “The President of the United States is AWOL, and we’re with him. The ultimate road trip.”

Drudge has the unedited notes of Washington Post reporter Mike Allen during the recent Presidential trip to Baghdad. (The Washington Post ran a news article and a polished, edited “behind-the-scenes” account by Mike Allen.)

As my niece would say, “Windy! Windy!” There’s a wind advisory in effect until the morning — at Clover Airfield the winds are N20 gusting to 30 MPH. I had to move my lawn chairs and potted plant to a leeward side of the house!

Via λ the Ultimate: Why Functional Programming Matters. A wonderful paper (despite its age) touching on lazy evaluation, functional programming patterns, and uses as examples numerical differentiation and alpha-beta pruning. Abstract:

As software becomes more and more complex, it is more and more important to structure it well. Well-structured software is easy to write, easy to debug, and provides a collection of modules that can be re-used to reduce future programming costs. Conventional languages place conceptual limits on the way problems can be modularised. Functional languages push those limits back. In this paper we show that two features of functional languages in particular, higher-order functions and lazy evaluation, can contribute greatly to modularity. As examples, we manipulate lists and trees, program several numerical algorithms, and implement the alpha-beta heuristic (an algorithm from Artificial Intelligence used in game-playing programs). Since modularity is the key to successful programming, functional languages are vitally important to the real world.
Oh, man. I thought that the Turkey-flavored Jones soda was fictitious. Well, apparently, it’s real.
McSweeney’s: Inaugural Speeches From Our Action Heroes. He-Man, Jem, Lion-O, and Optimus Prime graciously accept the reins of the country. “Thank you and God bless. Thundercats Ho!”
“To make a long story short, don’t go to Fry’s unless you want to spend like five hundred dollars you don’t actually have.” —Penny-Arcade’s Tycho, who until recently was unacquainted with Fry’s Electronics.
“Usability without innovation represents failure. Innovation without usability merely means we aren’t done yet.” [via djslim]
The Web-standards compliant retooling of Slashdot. This has the beginnings of a fascinating case study in going from HTML3+ cruft to XHTML/CSS elegance.

Paul Krugman’s new book, The Great Unraveling, has a different subheading in the UK—“From Boom To Bust in Three Scandalous Years”—than in the US—“Losing Our Way in the New Century”. (There’s also a surfeit of ‘L’ in the European version.) But if that weren’t enough to convince you that the marketing message is a little different on opposite sides of the pond, take a look at the dust jackets (UK on the left, USA on the right … or did you not need the hint?):

Linkspew.Toxoplasmosis worse than we thought … “The Hebrew Hammer” has its own website (also: IMDb entry; my Hebrew Hammer entry from a year ago; Beth saw it at the Jewish Film Festival in Boston and enjoyed it) … tomorrow’s front-page Salon story is all about “Opus” … the Strong Bad Sings CD is now available … Jones Soda Co. launches Turkey & Gravy flavored soda (I’m pretty sure this is a joke—I think) … seriously, what is it with the British and their gay royalty scandals? … a very good trend continues with Midway Arcade Treasures, available in December for GameCube (classic Gauntlet anyone? Marble Madness?).

subscribe to dsandler.org

  •  
  • for faster updates, subscribe with FeedTree

mac software made on premises

toastycode.com: toasty software for the mac pyrotheque: a new (old) fireworks screensaver for the mac
Cuckoo—the bell tolls for your Mac.

twitter/dsandler [RSS]

    loading…

elsewhere

highlights

between the couch cushions

strongly connected

  • erinmak is not to be trifled with
  • pixelknave says moof when upside-down
  • dave is dangerous
  • rod is one groovy mother
  • adam is googling us all
  • amar is not really a pirate
  • angi sees little blue dots
  • harbinger lets you know it's coming
  • jason looks like an idiot in that hat
  • jeff is keeping austin weird
  • regan seems to tolerate jason
  • emann will not abide your IM-speak
  • jim is a stranger in ein anderes Land
  • liscio is pronounced "lee-show"
  • darryl has no need of identifying objects
  • friends as they appear on dsandler.org
  • sportsgirl reports…on all the pro courts

Search

Recent

Archives

dsandler.org is Dan Sandler's website and notebook.

Powered by WordPress and here's why.