Writing in a One Horse, Open Sleigh

I am currently writing a paper for the ECOOP deadline next week! (It is the academic conference for all things object, or so the web site tells me.)

Actually, you should be scolding me for taking even a small break to post! Nevertheless, I actually think the writing is going rather well. I can't say that I actually enjoy it, but at least I understand the story I want to tell and it's work that I am somewhat proud of, so I want to do a good job. Yay! The only lame part is that I will be spending almost all my remaining time in Pittsburgh working on this paper. The deadline is next Wednesday (actually, Thursday at 6am), and I leave next Friday.

Okay, well back to work for me! Let me know if anything important happens in politics or global finance that I should be aware of but am not because of my not watching TV.

That Movie 'Proof'

I know none of you guys may be wondering why I haven't been updating for a while. The answer is that I am trying to get stuff done for a paper deadline that occurs on December 19th. It's for a conference, the European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming. The main tricky thing that I've been spending all my time on is this proof, see. I am trying to develop a baby programming language that doesn't allow you to violate certain atomicity properties. To show that you can't in fact write code that violates your own invariants, I have to do this proof of soundness, and basically it's been pretty slow going for me. I will say that I have learned a ton, but it's pretty nerve-wracking to do a proof that may not actually turn out to be true.

The only kind of lame part is that the 19th is like right before I go home, and the day after our department holiday party, so basically I won't have much time to hang out around here with the cool Pittsburgh people before I go home. Sad face.

Wingdings

This weekend I am back in New Orleans for a wedding! 

A good friend of mine from high school, former band-mate and current guitarist for the band Cowboy Mouth is getting married, and so far everything has been really nice! We went out on Thursday for some last minute celelbrations of bachelorhood. Last night we had the rehersal dinner and (as I found out a little bit too late, because I was supposed to be there!) the actual wedding rehersal. But the dinner was great. It was full of toasts and great food at a restaurant called, Muriel's which is right on jackson square. The wedding starts at 3 and probably will go on the rest of the day, but it takes place at the St. Louis Cathedral, which is really kind of awesome inside and out!

Find Him/Keep Him

While sending a congratulatory email to a friend who passed her thesis proposal, GMail gave me this gem. For some reason I find it reassuring. Don't think I can articulate it.

And no, I won't apologize for the lack of posts, so there!

Kanye West Report

Yesterday on the radio I heard, for the first time, Stronger, by Kanye West. It was notable because I immediately recognized the sample as being from Daft Punk's Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, an all-around great song. I was a little bummed by the fact that it was slowed down so much, since a lot of the awesome of the original song came from the fact that it was uptempo. BUT, nonetheless, I think it's a pretty good sample to rap over, and the end product is pretty good. The only bad part? The weirdo robot harmonies when Kanye says, "That's how long I been on ya." Best part? The line, "Since O.J. had Isotoners."

Finding this on YouTube caused me to also search for the video, Diamonds from Sierra Leone. There's a funny thing about this song. When I first heard it, it was nothing but a song on a mix-tape for me. I didn't know what it was called and hadn't heard anything about it. I thought it was great, but nothing more than a fast, fun, hip-hop song. I was a little surprised to find out that this song was politically motivated, and that Kanye was getting credit for making bold, political statements. (This was right around the time that the movie Blood Diamond came out, as well, a great movie with much more substantive commentary on the diamond trade.) Why was I surprised? Well, as I originally thought and now have confirmed upon re-listening, Kanye doesn't actually say anything about the diamond trade in the song! Almost literally, the closest he gets is to say that his listeners should, "throw up their diamonds like they're bulimic." Instead, he spends most of the time talking about the fact that he was constantly doubted by the music industry, and now he has shown those people. And while it's true that the video itself is obviously about the diamond trade, well Kanye's a musician, so his video don't really count, in my eyes, as far as gaining him political points.

That being said, I guess it's weird to talk about Kanye without mentioning the recent death of his mother. Therefore I must say that I do feel sorry for him and hope he is holding up. Bottom line, Kanye makes great music, and I hope he continues to do so.

Get the most out of HeadCat with these cheat codes!!!

As some of you may have seen, Team Brazil has finally released HeadCat. Some of us were worried it might be vaporwear. Take your game to the next level with these cheat codes!

n - Add more robots to the screen.
m - Move the kitty.
. (period) - Change background.

Armed with these pro-tips, you will be an unstoppable robot, with a cat on your head.

Liberal Bias

Even though I disagree with underlying premise of Adbusters magazine, this is a pretty good-slash-entertaining article about liberalism in USA. Here's a teaser.

While it’s true that we’re still fighting against unjust wars and that there’s unfinished business on the fronts of women’s rights, civil rights, and environmental preservation, there’s no generational battle left for America’s rich kids to fight. In the sixties, college kids had to fight for their right to refuse to become bankers, soldiers, plastics executives or whatever other types of dreary establishment lifestyles their parents were demanding for them. And because they had to fight that fight, the interests of white college kids were briefly and felicitously aligned with the blacks and the migrant farm workers and the South Vietnamese, who were also victims of the same dug-in, inflexible political establishment. Long hair, tie-dye and the raised black fist all had the same general message – screw the establishment. It was a sort of Marxian perfect storm where even the children of the bourgeoisie could semi-realistically imagine themselves engaged in a class struggle.