Monthly Archives: December 2013

Mickey on Magit

Posted on 2013-12-11 by jcs

As many of you know, I’m a long time user of Magit and really like it. I’m not, however, a power user and haven’t bothered to learn all the details. It’s hard to find documentation that describes how you go … Continue reading →

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The Importance of Mathematical Literacy

Posted on 2013-12-10 by jcs

The other day, I saw this amusing posting on Headlines from a Mathematically Literate World. I chuckled and moved on but then I read an article saying that American students had slipped to 26th place in world-wide mathematics test results … Continue reading →

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Stacking the Deck

Posted on 2013-12-09 by jcs

Just when I thought the surveillance establishment couldn’t get more Orwellian or that I couldn’t get more cynical, I came across this story. Here in the U.S. we have the infamous no-fly list. It’s right out of Kafka: no one … Continue reading →

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SSL and the NSA

Posted on 2013-12-08 by jcs

If you’re a crypto-nerd or even have a passing interest, you might enjoy Matthew Green‘s post speculating on how the NSA breaks SSL. We know, courtesy of Edward Snowden’s leaked documents, that they’ve had some sort of success with SSL … Continue reading →

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Why Python Replaced Scheme in MIT’s Undergraduate CS Course

Posted on 2013-12-07 by jcs

If you who have spent anytime at all on Irreal, you know that I’m a huge fan of SICP (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs) the seminal work by Gerry Sussman and Hal Abelson that was used for years in … Continue reading →

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Spies and Other Cartoons

Posted on 2013-12-06 by jcs

Those of a certain age will remember spy vs. spy, a cartoon in Mad Magazine dating from 1961 but extant to this day (here’s an example of the original by Antonio Prohías). I haven’t thought of the cartoon in years … Continue reading →

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SBCL 1.1.14 Is Out

Posted on 2013-12-05 by jcs

The excellent developers of Steel Bank Common Lisp have posted the latest release of the system. It compiled, passed the extended tests, and installed without issue on both my iMac and MacBook Pro. This release has a bunch of enhancements, … Continue reading →

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Working with Images in Emacs

Posted on 2013-12-04 by jcs

Over at Bytopia, Alex has a beautiful post on using Emacs to work with images. Alex is trying to train an OCR classifier to recognize characters from grocery store receipts. He started by scanning 4 or 5 receipts and breaking … Continue reading →

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House Members Press Boehner on NSA

Posted on 2013-12-03 by jcs

In a bit of good news, The Hill is reporting that U.S. House of Representatives members are pressing Speaker of the House John Boehner to allow a vote on reining in the NSA. If the members don’t get their vote, … Continue reading →

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Hyphenating Word Phrases

Posted on 2013-12-02 by jcs

Some word phrases should be hyphenated. For example, you should write “an end-to-end solution” rather than “end to end solution.”1 If you’re like me, you almost always forget about the hyphenation initially and just type “end to end” without stopping … Continue reading →

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