I picked up Practical Common Lisp from the Co-op Bookshop yesterday. Looks promising.
Now all I'm waiting for is Types and Programming Languages (at the Co-op Bookshop) and a bunch of comics (at Impact Comics).
Now I have four books to read...
Plus numerous papers...
I pity my eyes.
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
Freakonomics
Freakonomics
I've read some good things about this book. Coupled with some of the articles on the book's web site, I get the feeling that perhaps not all of economics (and all economists) deserve the vehement reaction that they it (and they) sometimes receive.
Yet another book to get...
I've read some good things about this book. Coupled with some of the articles on the book's web site, I get the feeling that perhaps not all of economics (and all economists) deserve the vehement reaction that they it (and they) sometimes receive.
Yet another book to get...
Books (and Comics), Glorious Books (and Comics)
I've just got back from Tasmania (visiting my family and friends). With me, I've bought the rest of my comics collection. The first 18 volumes of Lone Wolf and Cub have certainly helped fill up my book case. When you throw in the rest of my books (novels, texts, references and popular sciences) and my CD and DVD collection, I need more shelf space. The only problem is that there is nowhere to put a book case. I suppose I'll just have to make do.
Returning to comics, I've just added 6 books to my list of things to order, which is both good ("New comics. Yay!") and bad ("Where did that $100 go?!?"). Most of them are books by Andi Watson. Looks like I'll soon have all of Watson's releases, or at least the trade paperbacks of them.
On the books front, CTM (or more completely: Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming by Peter Van Roy and Seif Haridi) has come in. I'm going to pick it up tomorrow, but it'll be a while before I can start reading it (what with the million and one things I have to do in the next week or so).
Returning to comics, I've just added 6 books to my list of things to order, which is both good ("New comics. Yay!") and bad ("Where did that $100 go?!?"). Most of them are books by Andi Watson. Looks like I'll soon have all of Watson's releases, or at least the trade paperbacks of them.
On the books front, CTM (or more completely: Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming by Peter Van Roy and Seif Haridi) has come in. I'm going to pick it up tomorrow, but it'll be a while before I can start reading it (what with the million and one things I have to do in the next week or so).
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Books, Glorious Books
One field of Computer Science I am particularly interested in is programming languages. In a probably futile attempt to speed my learning in this area, I ordered a few books from The Coop Bookshop the other day. I chose the books based on the various recommendation on the Lambda the Ultimate weblog forums (adjusted by price, availability, and recency of publishing).
After a bit of um-ing and ah-ing, I finally settled on Benjamin Pierce's Types and Programming Languages, Peter Seibel's Practical Common Lisp and Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming by Peter Van Roy and Seif Haridi.
That's a bit of $300-worth of books, so I hope to get around to reading them at some point between when they arrive (somewhere between a week and a month away, I imagine) and the end of the year.
Suggestions of other books suitable for beginners in the areas of type systems, programming language theory, and related fields are most welcome in the comments.
After a bit of um-ing and ah-ing, I finally settled on Benjamin Pierce's Types and Programming Languages, Peter Seibel's Practical Common Lisp and Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming by Peter Van Roy and Seif Haridi.
That's a bit of $300-worth of books, so I hope to get around to reading them at some point between when they arrive (somewhere between a week and a month away, I imagine) and the end of the year.
Suggestions of other books suitable for beginners in the areas of type systems, programming language theory, and related fields are most welcome in the comments.
Monday, April 11, 2005
A Comics Update
I've been busy recently, which has resulted in my neglecting this 'blog. In an attempt to make it up to all of you (on the off chance that this is actually read by someone) with this update on the comics situation.
The last time I posted on comics, I had just purchased the first volumes of Dead@17, Aria, and Remote. Since then, I've got the second Dead@17 (published by Viper Comics) book and volumes two and three of Aria (published by ADV Manga).
The Dead@17 book is great. It isn't as dark as it could be, but sometimes you're in the mood for non-gothic vampire/zombie/horror comics.
Aria is amazing. The last time I liked a cast of characters this much, I was reading about Alpha and Kokone in Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou.
I've also taken a detour from manga to "goth-y" comics with a whole raft of books:
His art is truly amazing, and the stories for the Courtney Crumrin books are excellent.
I also happened across, I don't normally look at monthly comics, the first issue of Death Jr. written by Gary Whitta with art by Ted Naifeh (published by Image). It has an interesting story with a new take of some old favourites such as Pandora (of Pandora's Box fame) and the Grim Reaper and his family (with the son as the main character).
Another two recent purchases are Emily & the Intergalactic Lemonade Stand (Ian Smith and Tyson Smith, published by AmazeInk, a division of Slave Labor Graphics) and Daisy Kutter: The Last Train (Kazu Kibuishi, published by Viper Comics). The former is a rather cute story about a girl, her robot, her quest to make enough money for a pony and the opposition they face. Though a little childish in places (probably by design), it has some genuinely funny moments. The latter is a brilliant western-with-robots.
I also made the mistake of buying the first volume of Hopeless Savages (by Jen van Meter, Christine Norrie and Chynna Clugston-Major, published by Oni Press). I felt let down by what could have been a great book. The story seemed contrived, and the dialogue seemed to be a fairly obvious attempt at imbibing the book with "punk". One of the children used a lot of made up words which grated tremendously. Overall, the concept was nice, the story was O.K., the art was quite nice, but the book seemed censored and perhaps a little "dumbed-down".
On the whole, I'm really happy with the books I've bought, which is a good thing considering how much money I've spent on comics lately (more than $350 in the last couple of months).
The last time I posted on comics, I had just purchased the first volumes of Dead@17, Aria, and Remote. Since then, I've got the second Dead@17 (published by Viper Comics) book and volumes two and three of Aria (published by ADV Manga).
The Dead@17 book is great. It isn't as dark as it could be, but sometimes you're in the mood for non-gothic vampire/zombie/horror comics.
Aria is amazing. The last time I liked a cast of characters this much, I was reading about Alpha and Kokone in Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou.
I've also taken a detour from manga to "goth-y" comics with a whole raft of books:
- Nightmares & Fairy Tales (published by Slave Labor Graphics) written by Serena Valentino with art by FSc.
- Gloom Cookie (volumes one, two and three, also from Slave Labor Graphics) written by Serena Valentino and a number of artists. I especially like Ted Naifeh's art in volume one and the story of volume three.
- Courtney Crumrin and the Coven of Mystics (volume two) and Courtney Crumrin in the Twilight Kingdom (volume three) written and drawn by Ted Naifeh and published by Oni Press.
His art is truly amazing, and the stories for the Courtney Crumrin books are excellent.
I also happened across, I don't normally look at monthly comics, the first issue of Death Jr. written by Gary Whitta with art by Ted Naifeh (published by Image). It has an interesting story with a new take of some old favourites such as Pandora (of Pandora's Box fame) and the Grim Reaper and his family (with the son as the main character).
Another two recent purchases are Emily & the Intergalactic Lemonade Stand (Ian Smith and Tyson Smith, published by AmazeInk, a division of Slave Labor Graphics) and Daisy Kutter: The Last Train (Kazu Kibuishi, published by Viper Comics). The former is a rather cute story about a girl, her robot, her quest to make enough money for a pony and the opposition they face. Though a little childish in places (probably by design), it has some genuinely funny moments. The latter is a brilliant western-with-robots.
I also made the mistake of buying the first volume of Hopeless Savages (by Jen van Meter, Christine Norrie and Chynna Clugston-Major, published by Oni Press). I felt let down by what could have been a great book. The story seemed contrived, and the dialogue seemed to be a fairly obvious attempt at imbibing the book with "punk". One of the children used a lot of made up words which grated tremendously. Overall, the concept was nice, the story was O.K., the art was quite nice, but the book seemed censored and perhaps a little "dumbed-down".
On the whole, I'm really happy with the books I've bought, which is a good thing considering how much money I've spent on comics lately (more than $350 in the last couple of months).
Dirt Cheap
Dirt Cheap by Elisabeth Wynhausen
I've just finished reading Dirt Cheap, a book detailing the author's attempt to live on the minimum wage. A well written and engaging book, it has reinforced exactly how revolting Australia (and Australians) are. Some of the statistics included (and referenced in the end notes) are truly disturbing:
An enthralling book that I would recommend to anyone with an ounce of humanity, or the ability to see beyond the next fiscal year or federal election.
I've just finished reading Dirt Cheap, a book detailing the author's attempt to live on the minimum wage. A well written and engaging book, it has reinforced exactly how revolting Australia (and Australians) are. Some of the statistics included (and referenced in the end notes) are truly disturbing:
- Not only does Australia have the third highest quality of life, but also the third highest percentage of people living below the poverty line.
- One in five families is jobless, including more than 660,000 children
An enthralling book that I would recommend to anyone with an ounce of humanity, or the ability to see beyond the next fiscal year or federal election.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Another interesting post on LtU
programmatic nature of subatomic make up | Lambda the Ultimate
All that I can say is: what the fuck? One day, I hope to understand this post and its implications. One day...
All that I can say is: what the fuck? One day, I hope to understand this post and its implications. One day...
Monday, April 04, 2005
RFC4042: UTF-9 and UTF-18 Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
RFC4042: UTF-9 and UTF-18 Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode
I can't tell if this is an April Fools RFC (the probable status) or a genuine proposal that has been misunderstood. It is certainly a far cry from the HTCPCP (Hyper-Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol) RFCs of yore. If nothing else, a nine-bit encoding is an interesting exercise.
I can't tell if this is an April Fools RFC (the probable status) or a genuine proposal that has been misunderstood. It is certainly a far cry from the HTCPCP (Hyper-Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol) RFCs of yore. If nothing else, a nine-bit encoding is an interesting exercise.
Branching Time Temporal Logic
Deciding branching time logic
We've been looking at temporal logics for the last couple of lectures in Software Quality Management which has lead me to think a bit about the semantics of CTL (Computation-time Temporal Logic), primarily because they weren't spelt out in the lectures and the first page of results from Google Scholar didn't look promising.
CTL is a logic used to reason about the characteristics of programmes over time. As such it needs to be able to analyse a particular "run" (i.e. a linear sequence of states). It must also be able to deal with the non-determinism present in many programmes. To do this it must be able to handle branching of the successor relation, i.e. a state having multiple possible successors.
CTL has 4 modal operators: A ("for all paths"), E ("for some path"), F ("sometime") and G ("always"). These four operators are always used in pairs: AF, AG, EF and EG. The AG operator is equivalent to a □ (the box or "necessary" operator) and the EF operator is equivalent to a ◇ (the diamond or "possible" operator).
After a bit of thought, I think I've nearly got the semantics worked out in my head. At interpretation of CTL would be a Kripke frame (some worlds and a relation on them) and a valuation function (giving the truth values for formulæ at worlds). The relation R is irreflexive and non-transitive. The modal operators that handle the branching (A and E) are interpreted with R. The linear-temporal modal operators (F and G) are interpreted with the reflexive and transitive closure of R.
This is the point I have reached. Having written this, I don't think I've fully understood the implications of F and G being linear. I'll need to go through it again. On the plus, this might be useful for my thesis: all I need to do is try to find a natural-looking way to find the correct semantics for CTL, whatever they may be, using counter-models for intended theorems of CTL. It is a fun exercise in any case.
We've been looking at temporal logics for the last couple of lectures in Software Quality Management which has lead me to think a bit about the semantics of CTL (Computation-time Temporal Logic), primarily because they weren't spelt out in the lectures and the first page of results from Google Scholar didn't look promising.
CTL is a logic used to reason about the characteristics of programmes over time. As such it needs to be able to analyse a particular "run" (i.e. a linear sequence of states). It must also be able to deal with the non-determinism present in many programmes. To do this it must be able to handle branching of the successor relation, i.e. a state having multiple possible successors.
CTL has 4 modal operators: A ("for all paths"), E ("for some path"), F ("sometime") and G ("always"). These four operators are always used in pairs: AF, AG, EF and EG. The AG operator is equivalent to a □ (the box or "necessary" operator) and the EF operator is equivalent to a ◇ (the diamond or "possible" operator).
After a bit of thought, I think I've nearly got the semantics worked out in my head. At interpretation of CTL would be a Kripke frame (some worlds and a relation on them) and a valuation function (giving the truth values for formulæ at worlds). The relation R is irreflexive and non-transitive. The modal operators that handle the branching (A and E) are interpreted with R. The linear-temporal modal operators (F and G) are interpreted with the reflexive and transitive closure of R.
This is the point I have reached. Having written this, I don't think I've fully understood the implications of F and G being linear. I'll need to go through it again. On the plus, this might be useful for my thesis: all I need to do is try to find a natural-looking way to find the correct semantics for CTL, whatever they may be, using counter-models for intended theorems of CTL. It is a fun exercise in any case.
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