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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
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| Thursday, December 10th, 2009 |
daemonv
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12:10p |
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jcreed
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9:28a |
140-character programs in the audio synthesis language "supercollider". http://supercollider.sourceforge.net/sc140/Some of them that I liked: #07 impressed at how much it feels like human rhythmic improvisation #11 nice ambient gamelan feel #12 upright bass party in a medieval dungeon #16 very Autechre-ish #17 hilariously spastic rawkin'-out, actually has some sense of harmonic motion between two chords #18 slightly impressed that you can fit passable footsteps and a thunderstorm in 140 characters #20 glitchy robo-cicadas are fighting for territorial rights to my brain! nice stereo separation. #22 has a bit of narrative to it, turn your headphones down, though, it gets loud more here: http://swiki.hfbk-hamburg.de:8888/MusicTechnology/899 |
| Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 |
jcreed
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6:55p |
Good lord my poor bike needed that tune-up badly. So this is what it feels like to have working brakes again! It is great. My chances of dying in traffic: much lower now. |
jcreed
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2:36p |
John Baez on the topic of constructing a topological space whose first homotopy group is the rationals Q cracks me up: Mathematicians call this general type of space a "telescope". An ordinary hand telescope - the kind that pirates use - is built from cylinders of metal that fit into each other:
A mathematician's telescope is similar - but it's built from infinitely many cylinders, and you can't collapse it, because they're attached to each other in a complicated way. This makes it really easy to spot a mathematician in a roomful of pirates.
(emphasis mine) |
daemonv
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12:10p |
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sarahtales
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3:09p |
Christmas Cookie
I call this a Christmas Cookie, but of course, it is not yet Christmas and of course it is not my present to you all! My present to you all is a short story called Nick's First Word and I have sent it off to my web designer, so it should be up some time between now and Christmas, and I hope you will enjoy it! But this is not that story. Since I put up the first chapter last month on this day, it has become Official Cookie Day, and thus you are due a cookie. I chose this bit of The Demon's Covenant because it has lots of Nick in it, and chapter one cruelly deprived those who like that sort of thing. Feedback on what sort of thing you wish for in Cookies of the Future much desired. Major, huge, world-ending spoilers for Demon's Lexicon within. ( Christmas Cookie for The Demon's Covenant ) Current Mood:  cheerfulCurrent Music: short skirt long jacket |
| Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 |
jcreed
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7:31p |
One more weird fact about Pfenning-Davies modal logic that I never noticed before: box isn't dual to diamond in the following sense: the sequent ~[]~~A |- ~~<>~A is not provable. Whereas with other connectives, even intuitionistically, if you stuff in enough negations, you get entailments like this. E.g. ~(∀ x . ~~A(x)) -||- ~~(∃ x . ~A(x)) This means that classical S4 box and diamond are generated by Pfenning-Davies box and its DeMorgan dual --- and Pfenning-Davies diamond is just some other crazy thing with its own classical dual, for all I can tell. |
leon
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2:09p |
End of term thoughts
I had my last two tutorials of the Michaelmas term today. Both of them, as expected, went reasonably well — in keeping with my observation that, this year, my biggest challenges aren’t going to be academic. After writing a total of about 55,000 words between my two tutorials this term, I’m fairly burnt out on expressing ideas in anything more than primal grunts and clauses of no greater than 140 characters, but here are some assorted end-of-term reflections:
The real danger, when studying abroad, is getting too close to too few people in too short a period of time. This is the same trap, I think, that a lot of people fall into their freshman year of college. When you’re in a new and unsettling environment, it’s easy to cling desperately to the first person who clings back. Both my freshman year at Swarthmore, and now at Oxford, those people have been the ones I’m closest to, geographically. But in practice, these friendships — with flatmates and so forth — are based on convenience rather than any kind of common interest. Sometimes, by total coincidence, they work out — see also: Caitlin and Sara from my hall freshman year at Swarthmore, who remain my closest friends at Swarthmore — but more often than not, they’re doomed to failure from the start. All things considered, this term has made me glad that I made an effort to meet Oxford students beyond the ones in my apartment complex; without them, I don’t think I’d have anyone left to talk to at this point.
Also, having a blog that people actually read has made it a lot harder to accurately (or at least comprehensively) document my study-abroad experience. A lot of the stories I’d most like to tell and that most people probably want to hear — about British boys, for instance — are made impossible because, for whatever reason, I have a greater reluctance to blog about people who read what I write than I ever did in the United States. I’m kicking around two solutions: either I’ll resurrect my unloved but not-quite-abandoned LiveJournal and post the juicy stuff as Friends Only; or I’ll just get over myself and keep blogging without regard for possible repercussions. I’m not saying that I want to return to the dark days of my blog as some sexual tell-all, but there’s a lot that remains unsaid. Prepare yourselves.
Oh, and I saw Thom Yorke last night at the Rose and Crown. I’ve been losing my shit over this in a pretty fangirl-ish way on Twitter for the last 24 hours, but: holy crap, Thom Yorke! Next to me! In a pub! And yes, he look exactly as sleepy/drug-addled/lost in thought when you encounter him face to face.
As a closing comment: I realized last week that my column in The Phoenix about British antisemitism was actually my last column of the semester (and probably the year; I haven’t reapplied as a columnist, mostly because I don’t have very much of interest left to say). That’s definitely not the note I wanted to end my column on. Let me state, for the record, that studying at Oxford, for all its ups and downs of poorly-maintained apartments, abysmal cell phone service, lackluster friendships, dreary weather, and at times overwhelming academic stress, has been an incredible experience, and one that I’d repeat in a heartbeat. I’m immensely thankful that I’ll be here again in the spring, because one semester wouldn’t have been nearly enough. I’m beginning to think that even a year won’t be.
But for now, it’s time for a vacation from Old Blighty. The end of term couldn’t have arrived at a better moment.
Originally published at yoyoel.com. You can comment here or there. |
daemonv
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12:10p |
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| Monday, December 7th, 2009 |
jcreed
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7:50p |
Mildly frustrating day with work and stuff. Instead of complaining further about it I will tell the story of a cute small puzzle that I think I might have come across years ago, (I think in the form of Frank being skeptical of the use of HOL and impredicativity in authorization logics, because you get unexpected results, if your expectations are not carefully enough tuned to reality) but it popped up during PLClub last Friday, so I will share it with you. Suppose you're working in some System-F like language, and you try to think of Leibniz equality in a propositions-as-types way, like you want to define X = Y at type τ as eq(X,Y) = ∀ P : τ → * . P X → P Y where * is the kind "type". In plain english, for every property that X has, Y also has it. You might ask (as someone did during PLClub) hey, isn't this definition asymmetric? Shouldn't we say also that for every property that Y has, X also has it? The speaker said, ah, well, the property of not P is also a property, so we just substitute that in and we're good. I thought to myself, gosh, that's an awfully classical way of thinking about it. Since we are bein' all propositions-as-types here, isn't there a more constructive way of doing it? ( answer ) |
queendeb
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11:21p |
oh, and a happy birthday to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lucretia_borgia!
so i got a friend request on the fb and i responded as usual (as i do when the person looks ok, anyway) explaining that unless one introduces oneself or reminds me how i know them i do not friend them... ( here's the letter he wrote me back )lol. so i friended him. because he is (seemingly) not trying to date me or be creepy or tag me in some anti-semitic mural somewhere... so here i am back in real life in the rah-el and how is channukah already upon me??? gah. much to do engagements a wedding 7brachot for new years... yeah. life. you know i love it. Current Mood:  artisticCurrent Music: genius mix |
daemonv
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12:10p |
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| Sunday, December 6th, 2009 |
recsrainbow
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8:47p |
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recsrainbow
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12:44p |
[New Site] nemo_recs
Site name: nemo_recs Site URL(s): http://community.livejournal.com/nemo_recsReccer(s): nemo_rIntro: Fandom recs, fanfic primarily, but also art/mixes/vids/meta/misc. Mainly slash, but het/gen/femslash may appear. Multi fandom, mainly British and American TV, (mostly scifi and fantasy), some films and books (again primarily scifi/fantasy) Fandom List: So far I've recced: alias, batman (nolan-verse), bsg, btvs, dark angel, dollhouse, firefly, HP, heroes, kiss kiss bang bang, merlin, P&P, spooks, star trek xi, SGU, sunshine, SPN, the oc, the vampire diaries, veronica mars |
daemonv
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12:10p |
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| Saturday, December 5th, 2009 |
jcreed
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4:17p |
Since it's the weekend, I'm chipping away at the backlog of not-immediately-work research ideas. Do I know how to have fun or what? Woo? I finally wrote up "Focusing as Token-Passing", because it seemed to be important to clarify those ideas before moving on to the modal logic stuff I wanted to say, since understanding the innards of pfenning-davies box (resp. diamond, circle) seems to depend on really understanding the downshift (resp. upshift, [and again for circle also] upshift) contained within it. It is a "theorems for cheap" sort of paper. Given "microfocused" connectives q⊗ and q⊸ (for an an atomic proposition q) whose right and left rules respectively demand the atom be in the context right now you can simulate all of focusing inside linear logic. Then you can prove all the theorems you want (cut-elim and identity for the focusing logic, completeness of focusing) and you can prove them internally by splicing together easy-to-prove propositional equivalence derivations. The real point is that even if the translations are a little involved, the proof is O(n) big in the number of connectives because it is modular, rather than O(n 2) big, like other proofs that consider how different connectives interact. It also implements the ordered asynchronous context used in focusing without having any ordered contexts in the host language, by doing a little destination-passing trick. I think of it as a sequel to " Focalizing Linear Logic in Itself". The main difference is that I don't sweep the asynchronous stuff under the rug here: the entire machinery of focusing can be faithfully simulated with token-passing. Also it's just a little bit less sloppy of a paper all around I think. Turned out to be 13 pages even while I was trying not to be particularly unterse about it. Still not an unreadable length, I hope. I would super-appreciate comments. Especially if you think you should be able to make sense out of it because of the material (and really, I think this is anyone who knows linear logic and a is at least a little familiar with focusing) but are unable to because of the quality of the writing. |
daemonv
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12:10p |
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| Friday, December 4th, 2009 |
recsrainbow
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1:23p |
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sorenlundi
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3:38p |
Craft Show Tomorrow
I will be selling Octopus Friends, sweatervests and comics tomorrow at I Made It. I was going to post a flyer but for some reason it doesn't seem to be working, so it's at the Union Project, 801 N. Negley Ave, from noon to 5. It's also my birthday, so stop by and say hello. |
daemonv
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12:10p |
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sarahtales
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2:23p |
Let Us Talk About Piracy
Sadly, I am not talking about movie pirates of the Errol-Flynn-Johnny-Depp-you-can-buckle-m y-swash-any-day-if-you-know-what-I'm-say ing variety, or historical pirates of the Grainne the Irish queen of the seas type, otherwise known for bonding with Queen Elizabeth and delivering the immortal break-up line: 'Honey, back from the war already? So many things have happened since you were away! Like, I divorced you. And, this is my castle now!' Nor am I talking about mermaids who take to a life of crime, swimming the high seas delivering the ultimatum 'Your money or your lives!' Today Ally Carter the Wise was on twitter talking about internet piracy, and it reminded me of Ally's Post About Internet Piracy, which is one of the best posts she or anyone else has ever made. It explains what book piracy is, and why it is a Terrible Idea. And it offers the fact there is an obvious alternative - Merpirates of the World, go to your merlibrary! There are other alternatives: there are perfectly legal ebooks one can buy. When travelling, I have got into ebooks myself, though I still love the paper kind best. And there's borrowing books from friends. Libraries will take note of books taken out, and buy the next one. Ebooks mean sales for the author just like real books. Borrowing books from friends is awesome, because it gives you a chance to talk about books with your friends, which makes everyone like books better, and because the friend's reaction will be to buy the author's other books. I love loaning people books: I have been known to force them on people. I matchmake people with books. I only have space on my shelves for all my books because I keep them in circulation. I loaned my flatmate the Durham Lass some Kelley Armstrong books, and now she buys every Kelley Armstrong book the day it comes out. I loaned Cassandra Clare's City of Bones to a friend this week and the next day she called me in the bookshop asking for the title of the sequel. With illegal downloads, zillions of people can do it, not just the few people even I can loan books to. And if someone reads an illegal download, instead of thinking 'Gosh. Sarah will want this back. I will buy a copy. Or, I will buy the sequel, because I want it right now!' They think, 'Gosh. I sure will illegally download the next one.' Meanwhile the author starves to death. Readers are sad and puzzled that there is never a next one. I like stuff being on the internet for free. I think fanfiction is generally awesome. I love the side stories to Kelley Armstrong's Darkest Powers series she writes in chloe_saunders. I write free companion stories to my books myself here. What is the difference between those things and illegal copies of one's book on the internet? It is the difference between giving someone a present and having someone break your window and steal your TV. It is absolutely horrible for anyone's book to get stolen. No matter whether they are J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer: one still shouldn't do it. The fact that half of Stephenie Meyer's fifth book got stolen and put on the internet unedited gives me horrors and chills, and nobody in the whole world could blame her for not being able to write the rest. For a debut writer, the whole thing is very traumatic because a) it is one's very first time and it is a terrible shock, b) you are in a fragile state of mental health anyway and c) with a first book your career is in its most shaky state possible since you are a total unknown and bad sales can kill said career dead in the water, like a innocent murdered mermaid. And so a personal tale. Before my book was ever published, someone got hold of an Advance Reader's Copy and made it available for download on the internet. That sucked. I got it taken down. It kept happening. Way more than was normal for a debut book, because I'd had a blog on the internet for years, and some people had decided they didn't like me, or wanted me punished for something or other, or just knew who I was and decided they would like to read the book - for free, please. There was a group of people who kept putting it up, with the avowed intention of ruining my career. This not liking me/wishing to punish me for, uh, no crimes that I can remember committing was also the cause for my email getting hacked into and all my emails deleted, and my blog getting deleted, a few days before my book was published. This is obviously terrible behaviour. Not liking me is quite fair. I am not the World's Most Perfect Person. But when you do not like someone because they, say, ran over your puppy by accident, the proper thing to do is sue them for irresponsible driving. It is not to punch them in the face and steal their purse. Book piracy in a widespread sense is like that. Doesn't matter if you don't like the author: it is not okay to steal someone's purse because they're being a jerk. Doesn't matter if you'd really like to read the book: it is not okay to steal someone's purse even if it's a really nice purse. Obviously people who download my book illegally in order to upset me are not going to be stopped by the news I am upset. In fact, they are more likely to look at their day's To-Do List, smile and write a big tick next to No. 1, Upset Sarah, and proceed on to No. 2, Do The Laundry. This post is written for those who didn't think about it much, or thought it was okay, well, because... I've seen people write recommendations for books, and put up illegal download links. I've seen people saying they really wanted to read a book, and someone else saying 'Oh, it's great!' and passing along an illegal e-copy. Do think: think about the author crying enough tears to provide housing for a gang of merpirates (I did) and about, you know, the way illegal downloads is no way to get new books in the long run. It is not okay. Not even for mermaids! Not ever. Current Mood:  sadCurrent Music: you're the love i wanna be in |
| Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 |
jcreed
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4:51p |
Distinctly less crummy day. Had a good project meeting. Talked about this type system for differential privacy a bit, and Benjamin's questions cleared up a few things that were fuzzy about it to me before. Discovered I did not lose one of my gloves. Went to a talk by a consummate engineer dude from Berkeley about power monitoring in buildings, and electrical power consumption in general, and how awful (desktop) computers tend to be at idle power consumption compared to, say, printers, which are actually very good about it. |
daemonv
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12:10p |
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qatar
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7:51p |
HE PASSED!
Congratulations to my brilliant, incredible husband, Justin Carlson, Ph.D.! |
| Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 |
jcreed
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6:22p |
Having a crummy sort of day. Brain not with the thinking, awful headache, shitty weather, and my laptop power supply died. Fortunately I found the old one, which still kind of works, but it is held together by tape. |
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