neelk

MMORPG for learning math

2007-03-29T01:35:49Z

Hippasus is MMORPG designed to teach players math; the magic system for the game is based on solving mathematical problems.

Amazing Historical Narrative

2007-03-08T18:21:43Z

So, my friend Jonathan Walton pointed me to this amazing book on Google Book Search. I'll quote him about it:

Right after the Taiping Rebellion, a former British officer named Augustus Lindley wrote what is basically a pulp version of his (possibly fictional or exaggerated memoirs) of fighting on the side of the Taiping against the British and French forces. It's called Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh, The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution, Including a Narrative of the Author's Personal Adventures By Lin-Le [Lindley's Chinese Name], Formerly Honorary Officer, Chung-Wang's Guards; Special Agent of the Ti-Ping General-in-Chief; and Late Commander of the "Loyal and Faithful Auxiliary Legion." While Lindley clearly is a product of his time, and his narrative is far from perfect, he gives an amazingly enlightened account of the situation in China and the people he supposedly met. While also FIGHTING RIVER PIRATES! And RUNNING SUPPLIES INTO BESIEGED NANJING! And WINNING THE LOVE OF A PORTUGUESE LADY!

Periodic table of the LEGOs

2007-01-23T20:20:32Z

Random math burbling

2007-01-12T03:39:26Z

I talked to John today, and realized that my denotational semantics for my little language makes no sense. I'm only half-annoyed by this, because it means that I'll have to learn domain theory properly in order to fix it, and to learn domain theory I need to get comfortable with category theory, because domain theory is a PITA without the language of categories to keep things well-organized. And category theory is something I've been telling myself I should properly learn for, er, ever since I first started here.

As an additional motivation, I talked with jcreed last night, and he showed me his incredibly cool explanation of all possible logical connectives (except conjunction and disjunction). It is clearly begging for a treatment using the language of operads, which means that he is cooking up a way to integrate the judgmental approach to defining logics with the categorical. Since these are the only two methods I know to keep myself from designing broken logics, having some way of sanity checking in both directions would be very keen. It would also mean that I could write a paper that only jcreed, John Baez, and Jean-Yves Girard could understand, which would be awesome (if damaging to future career prospects).

Also, a picture of a smiling baby for that sad and tiny minority of people who don't care about formal logic:

The Science Creative Quarterly: A Dialogue with Sarah, Aged 3

2007-01-04T02:33:17Z

In which is it shown that if your dad is a chemistry professor, asking "Why?" can be ~~dangerous~~ awesome.

Hamster generated music

2006-10-27T20:18:04Z

neelk @ 2006-10-19T22:11:00

2006-10-20T02:22:13Z

I think I've written the most polymorphic non-toy two-line ML program ever.

val cross : (('a -> 'b -> 'c) -> 'd -> 'e -> 'f) ->
            (('g -> 'h -> 'i) -> 'j -> 'b -> 'c) ->
            ('a -> 'g -> 'h -> 'i) -> 
            'e -> 'd -> 'j -> 'f

Here's the definition:

let cross outer inner f init xs ys =
  outer (fun x acc -> inner (fun y acc -> f x y acc) ys acc) xs init

It encapsulates a nested iteration over two arbitrary collections. The first two arguments are folds over two different datatypes, the third and forth arguments are the step function and initial argument, and the last two are the two collections. I am tempted to try and generalize this so it's a combinator that lets you iterate over an arbitrary number of collections, but that seems over the top -- I've already got 10 polymorphic arguments!

Book meme

2006-08-20T19:57:05Z

Via Jim Henley, a book meme:

One book that changed your life: Without question, that would be Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. This book literally changed how I saw the world -- for days after I read it, angles were askew and colors were different, because everything I looked at I saw through the new frames of reference Ellison had created.
One book you have read more than once: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Harold Bloom, in his book Genius, kind of hints that he's glad that Austen died young, because otherwise she might have ended a greater writer than Shakespeare, and that would have broken his brain.
One book that made you laugh: Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest. An alternate history where every word Shakespeare wrote was literally true, to the point that all the aristocrats in the book spoke in iambic pentameter.
One book that made you cry: Ian Buruma's Bad Elements, especially the chapter on Singapore. When I read Havel's The Power of the Powerless, Havel's honest grocer is a balding Chinese man named Chia Thye Poh.
One book you wish had been written: I wish Austen had finished Sanditon.
One book you wish had never been written: This is tough. Maybe Marx's Capital. Pre-Marxist socialists (cf. The Ego and Its Own) were usually a lot weirder, wilder and more interesting than post, and it's really too bad that interesting socialist thought was pretty much confined to the anarchists for a really long time.
One book you are currently reading: Jean-Yves Girard's The Blind Spot. I really have to understand what Girard is doing with logic.

Best discouragement ever!

2006-07-21T19:31:16Z

"Those both sound like excellent subjects for postdoctoral research."

-- John

The Arch-Nemesis of Productivity

2006-06-26T18:29:08Z

Air Torture - fly direct to torture chambers around the world

2006-06-20T17:52:04Z

It's a website for a new AI campaign against extraordinary rendition.

Brazil!

2006-05-11T22:00:15Z

Security issue kills domestic spying inquiry - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com

WASHINGTON - The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.

Death by Chocolate

2006-04-14T17:39:32Z

A must have for the ultimate dinner party, this exploding chocolate bomb is a celebration centrepiece that will keep your guests intrigued until the final countdown. Such a talking piece deserves to be the centre of attention. And once discharged the quality dark chocolate shell and contents provide ongoing entertainment.

neelk @ 2006-03-06T13:12:00

2006-03-06T18:14:51Z

I try not to swear, but WHAT THE FUCK!?

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

For the angry chef

2006-01-18T17:09:14Z

For the angry chef:

!

2006-01-01T16:35:59Z

Swords into ploughshares..!

2005-11-30T04:10:49Z

A charity which purchases weapons in Sierra Leone, and then donates them to blacksmiths who reforge them into farm implements!

neelk @ 2005-11-14T13:44:00

2005-11-14T18:44:36Z

Pigdog Journal (Dining At The Deathwave Grill) -- A Bright Future for Narcissistic Cannibals

Every first-year biology student is familiar with the stories of
researchers keeping animal tissue alive and growing in test tubes, but
until now growing meat this way was slow and costly. The Dutch
Senter/Novem Institute has allotted a two million euro subsidy for a
project to cultivate pork meat out of pig stem cells, hoping that with
research and experimentation that the process will become cheap enough
for people to grow their own meat.

neelk @ 2005-08-24T16:29:00

2005-08-24T20:59:32Z

I just got out of an advisor meeting, and each time he asked about some potential complexity I told him about the trick I was using to avoid the issue entirely. At the end, he told me in a surprised tone that it was THREE bullets I had dodged[*], and then he went on to suggest that he would be impressed and disappointed if I managed to get everything working without confronting and beating some deep, fundamental issue.

I left with the weirdest feeling of pride I have ever felt. I guess I've internalized more of the engineer/hacker mentality than I thought -- I find simple solutions more satisfying than virtuoso performances (assuming both work, of course). But he's probably more right than me in the long run -- part of the job of a researcher is to add to the toolbox, not just to use it.

([*] IIRC, he wanted to know about the coherence of my semantics of assertions; if I needed a fixed point semantics for recursion; and whether I needed to define a contextual equivalence to set up my equality relation.)

Gas Thief Escapes on Tricycle

2005-08-17T18:05:43Z

Dog Nurses Tiger Cubs in China

2005-08-14T22:16:33Z

Lawn furniture...

2005-07-16T19:41:24Z

...made from actual lawns.

Power armor!

2005-06-09T01:23:05Z

"Humans may be able to mutate into supermen in the near future," said Yoshiyuki Sankai, professor and engineer at Tsukuba University who led the project.

Dance, robot, dance!

2005-06-08T19:55:20Z

The world's first ballroom-dancing robot is set to take to the floor for its first public performance this week at the World Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan.

Zorro and Isabelle Allende

2005-05-22T21:24:45Z

Isabelle Allende has written a Zorro novel. I think this is pure awesomeness. My brother, who is even more of a connosieur of trash adventure fiction and high literature than me, is probably going to be like three-hundred-and-seventeen times more squee! than me. :)

Isabelle Allende

Zorro