11.30.08
Experience Supports Lebedev’s Pyramid
As presented before by Alcides Fonseca and some others, my experience also supports the Lebedev’s Pyramid:
Lebedev Pyramid
11.25.08
The Presentation that sets New Standards
In October 1958, John McCarthy published one in a series of reports about his then ongoing effort for designing a new programming language that would be especially suited for achieving artificial intelligence. That report was the first one to use the name LISP for this new programming language. 50 years later, Lisp is still in use. This year we are celebrating Lisp’s 50th birthday.
Lisp was fifty last month. Happy Birthday!
Most importantly, Guy Steele and Richard Gabriel did a presentation that sets a new standard on presentations. Funny, provocative, original, concise and bright!!! A must see… a must re-see…
If one day I manage to do something similar, I will feel accomplished! Congratulations to the speakers!
11.24.08
Want a new vagina for Christmas?
First, if you really came here because you really want a new vagina for Christmas, let me start by telling you how hypocrite you are! So, you want a new vagina for the celebration of the birth of your Lord Jesus Christ that should supposedly teach you how to be humble and love yourself like you were made?
For all the others just interested on what I have to say regarding vaginae [yes, this seems to be the plural of 'vagina'] and Christmas, move on! :)
The number of labiaplasties seemed to have doubled in the UK between 2002 and 2007. Protesters are already doing their job and you can also get some statistics there so let me avoid the statistics and go straight to the subject at hand.
Nowadays, women seem to get shallower and shallower (not in the vaginal sense)! It’s the ginourmous heels, the practically naked standard of dressing, the excessive makeup, the false lips, the false boobs, the false bum… Now they also have false vaginae???
Come on, you must be kidding me! Obviously you can say that it’s your body and you can do whatever you want with it but note that doing whatever you want goes both ways. If women prefer heels to comfortable shoes, excessive makeup instead of their natural clean selves, botox lips instead of their own, silicone boobs instead of their natural ones, etc, etc… I have the right to tell them straight in the face how idiots they are! They prefer to change themselves, even when there’s the risk of damage. Among all the changes there’s risk of facial paralysis, scaring, loss of feeling, pain, bone damage, etc. Fewer and fewer women seem to favour their own personalities, trying instead to use a mask to look better. But what’s better? Women like this tend to get the kind of attention from a very specific male type. And often they get what they asked for and they rarely find an happy ending, but still… they move forward trying to find ways to improve. Well, I thought it would never get to the point of labiaplasties, but it seems I was wrong!
Note, however, that the case of labiaplasties seem different than most other issues, like high heels. Using high heels, even though it screws your feet and most likely provokes pain and uncomfortable walking, is known to be ‘fashionable’ and ’sexy’ [although I disagree but that's not the point]. High heels are seen by everybody. You want to look good and attract the attention of those around you. Now, with vaginal surgery, whose attention are you trying to attract? There are not many possibilities here… either you are a slut and you need to impress a man every night or you’re just trying to impress your boyfriend with a new vagina, but if your boyfriend loves you more, or even just supports your decision of undergoing a surgery to change your vagina because it might look better then he’s more of an idiot than you are… dump him… otherwise you risk losing him to a better vagina…
And remember, no matter how good your vagina is, there’s always a better one in the nearest corner! Remember : use your brain always and your vagina sometimes!
A Music to Wake up…
When I taught Lisp in Portugal, I used to pass this song to my students in their 1st year to get them in the mood… Lets hope this gets you into the mood also and find some time to look at this language! :)
11.18.08
Fortune of The Day
The Lord of the Lambdas
Data and procedures and the values they amass,
Higher-order functions to combine and mix and match,
Objects with their local state, the messages they pass,
A property, a package, the control point for a catch–
In the Lambda Order they are all first-class.
One Thing to name them all, One Thing to define them,
One Thing to place them in environments and bind them,
In the Lambda Order they are all first-class.– Abelson et al., The Revised Revised Report on Scheme
11.15.08
In England every night is Halloween
Even though this post is based on my experience in Southampton, I doubt it is different in the rest of England. In fact, elsewhere might be worse but I can’t see how.
I have to say I rarely go out at night for a drink or even more rarely dancing (in this case rarely means never), however, I have my share of knowing the night in Southampton.
One day [I do remember it quite well as it was the first, however, images which unfortunately I keep with me, where harvested from the Southampton nights from the last couple of years] I left home at night in search for a place to have an expresso (gosh, I was a “Portuguese in England”) somewhere, just to find out that no pubs sell coffee (or in general, warm drinks) past 6pm. I also found out that contrary to my belief Portuguese teenage girls were not the sluts I thought they were. Because if they were, I had no word to describe english teenage girls. As such, I have to upgrade Portuguese teenage girl status and promote english teenage girls to their new rank.
Throughout my stay in Southampton (already in its third year) my night outs, lately for night running, I could only confirm this fact. Girls basically undress to go to the pubs or clubs, at a temperature that might scratch the zero degrees to have [a lot of] drinks and who knows what else. Never had I seen teenagers shaking on the street due to the cold, undressed and standing on their extremely high and shaky high heels, with enough make up that would make anyone wonder how much they spent on it.
Linus Torvalds blogs that in the US, in Halloween:
… pre-teen girls dress up (or rather, down) as sluts, because it’s the one night of the year when it’s cute to look like a under-age hooker.
In the UK, it’s hooker-night, and consequently Halloween, every single day! Never was I so worried about the raising of a child in this country. Never was I so worried about what kind of education do English parents provide kids that dress like this every single night.
Never was I so worried about not having a word to describe these girls… because hookers from where I come from, are paid!
11.13.08
Fortune of the Day
Violent, Irrational, Intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: organized religion ought to have a great deal on its conscience.
– God is Not Great, C. Hitchens [the emphasis is from the original]
Fortune of the Day
Unix Commands for Sex – If you’re not doing it right, try this…
gawk; grep; unzip; touch; strip; init, uncompress, gasp; finger; find, route, whereis, which, mount; fsck; nice, more; yes; gasp; umount; head, halt, renice, restore, touch, whereis, which, route, mount, more, yes, gasp, umount, expand, ping, make clean; sleep
