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All-Over-Everywhere.post
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All-Over-Everywhere.post
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;;;;;
title: All Over Everywhere
tags: Hardware, Linkpost, Personal, Programming
date: 2009-04-02 20:31:30
format: html
;;;;;
This week has ended up being pretty nice, if off the wall. Teresa and I were getting locked into an apartment over at the <a href="http://aventineatashford.com/">Aventine at Ashford</a>. I'm also beginning to dig into Financial Aid applications for 2009-2010 and preparing for all the schoolwork I've got to do in April. Oh, and before I beat you with them I might as well warn you that <em>this is another linkpost</em>.<br><br>I'm planning on doing some hacking with a friend this weekend and was looking at data structures on Wikipedia, primarily <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radix_tree">Radix Trees</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefix_tree">Tries</a>(Prefix Trees).<br><br>Looking at which languages had libraries already, I found that Haskell's ByteString-Trie was written by a fellow named wren ng thorton. I chased a few links and stumbled on wren's livejournal where I read<a href="http://winterkoninkje.livejournal.com/55848.html"> my favorite thing</a> since the Minimal Social Compact. I may not be smart enough to follow every thread in there but I'm smart enough to know that his thoughts resonate and I wish wren the best of success. I really enjoyed <a href="http://winterkoninkje.livejournal.com/58607.html">Objects are a Big Pile of Fail</a> too but for different reasons.<br><br>Speaking of Haskell, Conal Elliott's blog hosted a really good discussion on <a href="http://conal.net/blog/posts/notions-of-purity-in-haskell/">what portability means in terms of semantics</a>, <a href="http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/glasgow-haskell-users/2009-April/017008.html">GHC 6.10.2 was released</a> and the <a href="http://projects.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-platform/2009-April/date.html">Haskell-Platform Mailing List</a> put out a call for volunteers to help Duncan and Dons et al help get it out the door. You can say a lot of things about that language but you can't say it doesn't have momentum. Mmmm.<br><br>That other language I'm fond of has had some fun developments recently. It's not a huge deal necessarily but there's an interesting article by Slava Pestov on <a href="http://factor-language.blogspot.com/2009/04/sup-dawg-we-heard-you-like-smalltalk-so.html">implementing a SmallTalk front end to Factor's VM</a>. That's good fun.<br><br>Yesterday was eventful. I fixed some drywall and got a book in the mail. I'm rather excited about it. Its called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building-Principles/dp/0262640686/ref=ed_oe_p">The Elements of Computing Systems</a> and between the book and <a href="http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/">companion web site</a> (see: <a href="http://www1.idc.ac.il/tecs/plan.html">study plan</a>), you'll build a computer from top to bottom out of NAND gates. A minimal Operating System implemented in a High Level Language, implemented on a VM, implemented on an Assembler, implemented on Machine Code, implemented on a specific Computer Architecture, implemented from Chips and Gates on whatever substrate proves suitable. Beneath that, of course, is Physics.<br><br>Also, it's been a long time since I was regularly checking Anandtech but when Anand keeps kicking out awesome articles about <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3535&p=1">SSDs</a> and <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3469&p=1">the development of breakthrough graphics products</a> I've gotta keep checking in for more. Keep it up, Anand! He's also managed to turn me into an OCZ Vertex fanboy.<br><br>Last but not least, it's important that somebody tell the Music Industry (and the Content Industry as a whole, actually) to bug off but <a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/harvard-p2p-lawyer-file-swapping-is-fair-use--no-really.ars">I'm not sure that Charlie Nesson would be my first choice for the job</a>. That said, it's important that somebody is trying to do it and I at least appreciate his goal of turning Copyright into a matter which people actually think about. <a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/03/billion-dollar-charlie-vs-the-riaa.ars">We'll see what happens</a>.