Wanted: A feed module for iPhoto

While iTunes does a decent job of managing MP3 enclosures in news feeds (pod-casts), iPhoto could really do with similar functionality. I have my iBook randomly choose images from an album in my iPhoto library and it would be fantastic if I could get iPhoto to automatically download pictures from some of the fantastic sources on the 'net. Sites like Botany Photo of the Day provide some amazing images.

I'll see if I can figure out how to do this over the summer as my first piece of mac software.

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I had a quick go at knocking this up with Automator, but it didn't work very well as I can't seem to get Safari to extract the image URLs from an XML feed and most interesting sites have a bunch of junk images as well (Flickr, for example, has heaps and heaps of blank GIFs for spacing).

Amazon.com: Books: The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

Amazon.com: Books: The Structure of Evolutionary Theory

I want this book!!!

Books To Read

I've decided that I'm going to try to read everything nominated for the Booker Prize. The short list shouldn't be too much trouble (most of the books on it look interesting enough) but I imagine that there'll be a few boring books in the long list. We'll see how I go.

Music

I recently found a CD full of MP3's that a friend gave me whilst I was in England a few years ago. On it I found a bunch of songs by groups I hadn't thought about in a while. With the new songs stuck in my head, I ran out and bought the Lost Prophets' The Fake Sound of Progress and Start Something, both of which kick ass.

Next on the "to be acquired" list is Alien Ant Farm's Anthology album.

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Update: Apparently not as Ill Nĩno have a new album. I'll have to get Anthology later (when I can find it in a record shop, as there hasn't been a copy in any of the places I've looked).

Manga

I've recently (i.e. since my last post on manga) purchased a whole bunch of new manga books. Today I got The One I Love by CLAMP (Tokyopop's translation of わたし の すきなひと), which is a great little book.

I've also got a whole bunch of Viz Media books including Koko wa Greenwood (or Here is Greenwood in English), Maison Ikkoku books 1-5 (with 6-10 on order) and Hanazakari no Kimitachi e (Viz, and everyone else, call it Hana-Kimi).

I've bought so many books whilst here in Canberra that I'm going to have to get them shipped when I leave (as opposed to taking them as checked luggage on my flight home).

It seems that Western comics in the manga style are becoming popular. So much so that Tokyopop are publishing an Australian artist's book! I can't wait to see if The Dreaming is as good as it looks.

PS: The Japanese input mode on Emacs (which I used to type the hiragana above) is shit-hot. Much easier than trying to use the Japanese Kana Palette or any other input method I've tried.

New Books

Numbers, Groups and Codes (2nd ed.) by J. F. Humphreys (University of Liverpool) and M. Y. Prest (University of Manchester)
A Gentle Introduction to Category Theory - the calculational approach by Maarten M Fokkinga
Latin: First Year by Robert J. Henle
Latin Grammar by Robert J. Henle

I seem to be racking up more and more mathematical reading material. I just bought a copy of Numbers, Groups and Codes from the Co-op Bookshop and have found the first few sections surprisingly readable. I hope that the rest of the book is as good as what I've read so far.

Another mathematical work near the top of my "to read" pile is A Gentle Introduction to Category Theory (and, at some point, his Ph.D. thesis - Law and Order in Algorithmics).

I also picked up (also from the Co-op) Latin: First Year and Latin Grammar. Along with Types and Programming Languages, Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming, Practicle Common Lisp and the assorted other and papers (especially the various Haskell papers I want to read), I've got more than enough to keep me studying for most of next year).

Bodoni Tag

I'm not sure how I found this, but I did: Bodoni Tag

A cool little story, with a twist at the end.

The Evangelical Atheist - God is a Dick

The Evangelical Atheist - God is a Dick

The "God is a Dick" series by I Am over at the Evangelical Atheist is one of the best critiques of the depravity of the biblical "god" I've read.

Everyone, no matter what their delusion (or "faith", if that makes you feel better), should read these stories, if only to realise that children need to be protected from the filth in the bible.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.

I've just been looking for material on The Shadow. I've managed to find a fan novelisation of the 1994 film staring Alec Baldwin which looks promising and I already have a copy Dark Horse's book featuring The Ghost and The Shadow. I'm going to try and find the film on DVD as it was absolutely fantastic and I much prefer it to the original mythos (what I know of it).

Aggravation

I've just finished the second assignment for the data mining course I'm doing this semester. The one thing I got out of it is a strong desire to avoid R.

There is something about that language and system that just rubs me the wrong way. I have no idea how the type system (such as it is) works and any such understanding would be of little value (as it is dynamic anyway). I cannot understand how someone managed to write a libxml wrapper that is harder to use than the C library.

To make matters a little better, the ESS (Emacs Speaks Statistics) package makes editing R code and interacting with the R interpreter easy, though emacs started acting peculiarly after I installed it.

All in all, R is (in my opinion, by my standards and for my purposes) something to be avoided.