More Paul

I’m spending the summer working with Stan (The Man) Zdonik, making the databases course leaner, meaner, fighting machine-er. This, with my new housemate Saurya, who’s three kinds of awesome.

What I’ve been up to recently:

• I wrote a lot of code for a functional raytracer in Scheme after a flurry of enthusiasm reading The Little Schemer. My code was about as elegant as that of The Little Schemer: I pretty much implemented map a couple of dozen times in an XML parser, for example. I’m a lot better now, but am I good enough to finish something?
• Why do I keep wanting to redesign this when the content is so lame (read: infrequent)? All the sleek design in the world won’t make this interesting because there’s usually nothing here. I’ll work on that ^_^

There’s a number of books that need my attention, I hope they receive it. First, the technical books (these are waaay too many for the summer, maybe one or two):

• SICP (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, current).
• EOPL (Essentials of Programming Languages).
• HtDP (How to Design Programs).
• TAPL (Types and Programming Languages).
• CTM (Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programs).
• PLAI (Programming Languages: Application and Interpretation. Would love to revisit this awesome book).

By reading I also mean working through a fair sample of their exercises. Much of the journey to becoming a computer scientist is catching up to this web of knowledge: I’m referring to the books by their acronyms because it seems that people who’s knowledge I wish to match refer to them as central in introducing the concepts of the field.

Wish me luck, if I can get through even 3 of these before I graduate, I will be at peace (or some version of it).

Of course, I can’t entirely nerd out. Here are a few on the fiction queue:

• Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl)
• The Wavering Knife (Brian Evenson)
• Bel Canto (Ann Patchett, at the recommendation of family)
• Underground (Haruki Murakami… maybe skip? I’ve read a fair amount of this author)

I’m currently in a non-fiction, Bertrand Russel’s Why I Am Not A Christian, which is a flourless chocolate cake of rationalism. The writing is splendid, and every sentence requires thinking… maybe that’s why I’m yawning so much? I normally don’t read two books at once, but I might start since this one is hard to push through, like a Jared Diamond book. Furthermore, as in most collected writings on philosophy, there’s a lot of repetition.

That being said, its intellectually provocative: his beliefs on what it means to be a rational thinker is much more interesting and new to me than his arguments against religion, and worth the read for their presence. I also read The Scheme Programming Language, and finally get the syntax for defining macros.

There are a few other developments to write about (the end of the semester, playing Warcraft again, etc.) but I won’t burn out here. Until then, onwards to summer!

For the first time I’ve written code outside of class that’s being used by a significant number of others: the Peeper (the Paul Beep), the newest form of network co-worker terrorism.

Namely, it takes a file LilyPond notation and outputs a script that executes beep commands to play the music in the input file. We already have the Imperial March, Hedwig’s Theme from Harry Potter, Chocolate Rain, and Kalinka (better known as the Tetris Theme).

Here’s the beauty part: if you ssh into someone else’s computer and run the script remotely, it will play the script on their computer. Since Saurya wrote a script that ssh-es into every computer in a room, you can turn any space into a computer symphony.

It’s still pretty premature (it doesn’t support polyphony, and the input still has to be a pretty small subset of LilyPond notation). When its finally done I’ll upload some source. I’m currently trying to get MIDI working, since that won’t require such a ridiculous parser, and it means people can make beeps without having to transcribe to LilyPond first. In the meantime, enjoy the scripts ^_^.

Some YouTube clips I liked:

A stop-motion animation (musical!) version of the lotion scene from Silence of the Lambs:

Somewhat long, and a bit preachy to the choir (where I’m the choir), but an interesting look on what is open-minded and what isn’t:

Today was in interesting because I seemed to have a reverse-Midas Touch, where everyone associated with me had a case of “The Mondays.” Not a friend was left behind by the taint of Paul, as everyone I hung out with was beat, depressed, or full of rage. You know you’ve got a bad thing going when they don’t even know why they’re so down, but will still slam doors indiscriminately.

So I write this post a very confused man, hoping Monday doesn’t give bring more Mondays. Being around so much negativity hurts hard, and I wish all affected the best.

Instead of working…

• I’m in a D&D group this year, playing a steady game for the first time since Middle School (in High School my games were isolated, fun incidents). I really missed it; it helps that my group and DM are a steady stream of fun. Fourth edition is a handsomely lame ruleset, and when I make my first campaign there will be blood on the rulebooks for all the modifications that need to be made.
• I made my first animation for MU123 (Composition for Sound and Image), a short 60 second piece called Blappy. I’ll soon get a Flash player up, and hopefully also include my first assignment, where I scored an existing animation.
• I’m spending the summer in Providence again. Tell me if you’re in town!
• I’m really starting to get a hang of vim, and editing text on anything else seems like a chore. Since using XMonad, Vimperator, and vim, I don’t think I want to ever use a mouse again. Still, on occasions when I type on a keyboard that isn’t my own, I feel a familiar pain creeping upon me…

I’m reading Blink now, and so far its pretty good. Very reminiscent of Stumbling on Happiness, though not quite so glue-ey yet. I recommend Stumbling, but this one… I’ll get back to you on it.

Altogether, a lame post, but it’s a start.

After disappearing for a while, I’ve decided to come back. Every time I’ve resolved to be more present (post more, make more art, code more…) it’s always ended in something between admirable or complete failure, so I don’t know how long this will last.

I meant to redesign since forever, but lost my gumption halfway and was too proud to use a neatly packaged design. I caved: this cute little theme was designed by someone else, and will fill in until I get cool enough to hit the tablet again. Like most stopgaps, it will probably end up staying for far longer than I expect. But hey, there are worse things.

(some) Changes: I joined Twitter (as SrPablo), and am now a twat. I’ve been making pies, both for myself and as a ploy to get people to come to my house (apple, pecan, and banana cream). I dropped calculus and am having a hard enough time with a 3-class semester (this time I can’t blame Theatre). As in last semester, life is in shambles, but by gritting my teeth and finding beauty I get by. My sister is recovering very, very beautifully (I saw her eyes for the first time since October this week), and we feel much more at ease than before.

What got be out of my online rut? This little photo exhibit, on circus folk. It reminded me a lot of Mutant(s), which was a really stellar book.

One-sentence book reviews!

• Welcome to the Monkey House (Vonnegut) - Excellent, he’s much better at shorts than novels and earns his reputation in these (though a bit male-centric… it is the 50’s).
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Diaz) - Also effin’ beautiful, much easier if you’re a nerd who speaks Spanish, lovely without.
• The Reasoned Schemer (Friedman, Byrd, Kiselyov) - A much, much harder chew than the other Little books, but oh-so-worth it, especially the final 3 chapters.

I got a camcorder a few weeks ago, and intend to use it for vlogging, since I feel more comfortable speaking rather than writing (and feel like my meaning gets across more directly).

And that’s that. Here’s hoping I keep posting!

Classes this semester:

• Music 122: Interactive Installation: The last core class for my Music degree, this promises to be fun. Installation is a challenging medium, and it’s been far too long since I’ve played with my media.
• Music 123: Sound and Image Composition: An elective for the Music degree, but more importantly a great opportunity to be working with a visiting professor. My first assignment is to score an animation!
• Math 10: Intro Calculus, Part II: The “Part II” is more accurate than I’d like it to be, I tried taking this as a fifth class last year, and gave up a few weeks into this. This isn’t even a graduation requirement, its a concentration prerequisite. It’s kind of pathetic that I suck so hard at calculus, though I frequently tell myself (truthfully!) this is more to do with lack of practice and formal education than intelligence (we didn’t go that deep into calculus in IB Math Methods 5 years ago).
• CS 151: Introduction to Cryptography and Computer Security: The only class that isn’t strictly a requirement, and also the most fun one. The professor is an absolute theory-head, which comforts me to no end. She also has a great knack for picking good textbooks: Introduction to Modern Cryptography has been very readable so far, and not for lack of content.

I’m a bit restless now: I have this urge to do more math, more music, more web design, and more programming. There’s nothing as great as clearing some brush, and I wanna clear, dammit.

Some things I’d like to do:

• Programming: I want to program some programs. I do a lot of things for classes and a few toy programs here and there, but I haven’t yet built something whole. I’d like to do this with a functional language as well, as this ties into the second part:
• I want to program in multiple paradigms (I hate that word). I would like to be good enough with logic programming to be able to use it when a problem merits it. I would like to use functional solutions to problems that are benefited by them. Imperative programming is the best tool for a number of jobs, but not all of them, and I’ve been spoiled by knowledge that makes Java programming a chore. Ignorance was bliss.
• We saw some work from a once-local group EBN in my Installation class and I thought hot damn! I’d love to do that! And I would. I want to fill people’s lives with beautiful, beautiful noise.
• Finally, I want to know more math and logic. I got a bunch of weird looks in the CIT when I declared that there’s something fundamentally sexy about truth. And there is! It. Is. Sexy.

Finally, more YouTube videos…