Self-Titled

Ikkyu, the Zen master, was very clever even as a boy.  His teacher had a precious teacup, a rare antique.  Ikkyu happened to break this cup and was greatly perplexed.  Hearing the footsteps of his teacher, he held the pieces of the cup behind him.  When the master appeared, Ikkyu asked: “Why do people have to die?”

“This is natural,” explained the older man.  ”Everything has to die and has just so long to live.”

Ikkyu, producing the shattered cup, added: “It was time for your cup to die.”

From Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.

This made me laugh.  Clever kid.  I’ll try to remember this technique the next time I do something bad.

Sozan, a Chinese Zen master, was asked by a student: “What is the most valuable thing in the world?”

The master replied: “The head of a dead cat.”

“Why is the head of a dead cat the most valuable thing in the world?” inquired the student.

Sozan replied: “Because no one can name its price.”

From Zen Flesh, Zen Bones.

Apple Boss: Hey font guy, are you done yet so we can fire you?

Apple Font Guy: Err…no!  I still have to do the…um…Braille font!  Yeah, and the…um…Cherokee font!  I’ll get back to you.

I’m going to puke if I read about “the cloud” or “cloud computing” one more time. It’s become popular in the past half year but it doesn’t describe anything new. Sometimes the computer tech industry has more ridiculous fads than fashion.

I went to the Pismo fireworks show for the Fourth of July with Esther. I had never been before, but our timing was perfect. It was pretty cool, there were tons of people there, on the street near Splash and on the beach on either side of the pier. The place was pretty well lighted and there was plenty of space to sit on the beach. The fireworks were launched from the end of the pier and they seemed to explode pretty close to the ground. A few sparks seemed to almost hit the ocean before disappearing. The finale was pretty cool to watch because they showered sparks from the pier railings down to the water like a curtain of fire. There were tons of illegal fireworks too, which helped fill the gaps before and after the main show. We had barbecued earlier that afternoon, so it was a pretty good fourth. I hope everyone had fun.

The SLO heat wave has thankfully faded away. I think it’s safe to remove my lemonade IV drip now. I don’t think I could have taken another day of 100+ degree heat. It’s terrible when it’s so hot you sweat without even moving. I envy Hawaiians, you can get away with walking around in your swim suit in public all day long without drawing strange looks. I’ve always favored hot weather over cold, but I guess it’s true that it’s easier to overcome cold than heat. Fans are the greatest invention ever. I tried our AC, but apparently it just blows regular air. It’s cool at night again now. I never thought I’d welcome the cold nights here. Unsurprisingly, the coldest place I could find in SLO was the grad lab. It was about a thirty-degree difference between the lab and outside. Talk about heaven!

My house mates got back into town today from a week-long camping trip. It sounded like fun; I wish I could go camping too. It’s been so long since I’ve done the real thing with the Boy Scouts. I miss swimming in a lake, building camp fires, and exploring the country side. Maybe one day soon.

I’ve started learning a theorem proving tool to help me with my thesis.  It’s called Coq, which has got to be the most unfortunate name I can think of.  I think the creators are French, and coq means cock, as in rooster, in French.  Why rooster?  I have no idea.  Why does anyone name anything what they do?

I saw The Incredible Hulk tonight and it was pretty much what I expected: light on story, heavy on action.  The action scenes looked great, especially the scene on a campus.  The end action scene looked too CGI-ish and I kept noticing it.  I was looking forward to seeing another movie with Edward Norton in it since he’s usually good (Fight Club!), but he seemed kind of wasted on this movie.  His character, Banner, was flat and uninteresting.  He did a good job with what he had to work with, but it still left me wanting something more.  Overall a good summer action flick without a lot of depth.  (Spoiler!)  I’m interested in seeing where they go with bringing Iron Man into the mix.  (End spoiler.)

Battlestar Galactica is the best TV show I watch right now. It never fails to entertain. God I love that show. The mid-season finale had an incredible ending. I think it’s a better show than Lost, even though I consider Lost my favorite show. BSG is a remake of a TV show made decades ago, but they completely transformed it. The writing is incredible. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

From Structure And Interpretation Of Computer Programs:

In a similar way, we can regard the evaluator as a very special machine that takes as input a description of a machine. Given this input, the evaluator configures itself to emulate the machine described. For example, if we feed our evaluator the definition of factorial, the evaluator will be able to compute factorials.

From this perspective, our evaluator is seen to be a universal machine. It mimics other machines when these are described as Lisp programs. This is striking. Try to imagine an analogous evaluator for electrical circuits. This would be a circuit that takes as input a signal encoding the plans for some other circuit, such as a filter. Given this input, the circuit evaluator would then behave like a filter with the same description. Such a universal electrical circuit is almost unimaginably complex. It is remarkable that the program evaluator is a rather simple program.

I see the light! (It’s full of stars!)