The Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures not only explains all sorts of theoretical subjects in programming, it also lists implementations.
Found through a couple of skips after looking up Schwartzian Transform on Wikipedia, which Gaal mentioned.
Month: November 2005
Categories
Adventures in Plumbing
The worst damage the burglary caused, besides taking the laptop and hard drive of much TV, and beyond making me jump up when I lay in bed on the edge of sleep and the neighbours make an undexpected noise, is that when the burglar came in through the bathroom window, he/she cracked the pipe connecting the toilet’s Niagra (I don’t know what the real English term is, this is what Israelis use, and furriners can probably guess what part of a toilet’s flushing aparatus gets that name) to the toilet itself.
Perhaps this should be classified in the Too Much Information! department, but I can get pretty anxious about having a working toilet.
I discovered this damage very late Thursday night; On Friday I couldn’t be bothered finding a plumber (I called one, and he slammed the phone because it was too late in the day). I made do by wrapping the cracked pipe with clingfilm and shreds of a torn up plastic bag. This, remarkably, proved a pretty good temporary measure.
Yesterday I went to Ace, a big hardware store, but they didn’t stock the part. So this morning I went to the Givatayim Industrial Park at Quorazim St., and they had the part, and also a helpful staff, one of whom explained to me exactly how to do the repair. 35 shekels for the pipe, 10 more for a rubber plug I didn’t eventually need. And I was going to call a plumber. Also (thank Suz) I had the hacksaw needed to saw the pipe to fit. So first think on getting home, I took apart the toilet, replaced the pipe and put it together again, in working order. Sometimes, I amaze myself.
The bathroom is filthy, though (nothing to do with the repairs, really, except that I added a rich sprinkling of sawed toilet pipe dust to the rich and varied dust layers already adorning the floor. For a moment, I considered cleaning, but sanity prevailed, and I went to bask in the glory of my triumph, make some pasta and watch some Deadwood.
Categories
Perry Bible Fellowship and Swamp Thing
The Perry Bible Fellowship is a cool webcomic by . Don’t remember seeing all of them before. (link from some list of the greatest Internet moments
.
Also, completely unrelated as is my want, Mike Sterling’s Ten Favorite Scary Swamp Thing Moments [via LMG]. See also this follow-up, and The Least Scary Swamp Thing Moment.
Categories
GM-less roleplaying
Just thinking out loud here.
There are several problems with GM-less playing, the first one being that reality is everyone’s bitch.
This means that people tend to be either too abusive of it, or too timid to mess with it.
De Profundis talks about the sort of game where anyone can introduce facts, and how this is tends to cycle into self-collapsing loops where one player will introduce something, say a threat, and the other will negate or deflate it. So you don’t get story and rising tension.
Star, Moon and Cross has rotating GMs, player input into the setting, players playing NPCs, etc. It uses Tarot cards.
A system for GM-less or everyone-GMing play needs to do several things, I think (I’m trying to define the goals before coming up with a system):
First, provide obstacles – difficulty, drama, etc. I think my main motive here is to take it out of my hands as GM to generate tension. Sweat out the dice instead… The idea is that the system forces (well, encourages) the group to set up real challenges.
Second, reward a player who takes up the GMing role for doing GMish things that are neccessary (generating setting, challenges, story).
Third, discourage abuse of GMing power (to benefit your own character – hosing other characters is actually part of the GMish job).
Fourth, enforce rotation of GMing roles/actions (provide some rule to keep the spotlight circulating).
Fifth, motivate the group to cooperatively make things harder for their characters (ties into the first and second point).
Via my mum, and the British Council: Man or machine? How should future exploration of the Solar system proceed, with astronauts or robots? (lecture at HEMDA – Centre for science education).
Man or machine? How should future exploration of the Solar system proceed, with astronauts or robots?
The UK science community is currently debating whether it should sign up to the ESA Aurora programme of manned space flight. In the past, the UK has worked entirely with robots, such as the ill-fated Beagle 2 lander on Mars, but is there a strong case for promoting human exploration? Would a new generation of human explorers help to inspire children to study science, maths and technology in schools, as happened with the Apollo programme in the US? Can a robot ever replace a human? Do the safety limitations of human exploration restrict the advance of scientific discovery? Or should we look at a compromise, where man and machine work together?
Dr Paul Roche, Director of a robotic telescope project (the Faulkes Telescopes) based at the School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University, will discuss the issue of robots versus human exploration.
Thursday, November 24th, 19:00-21:00; The event is free but places are limited. Please book early. (Where is it and how to get there)