An essay by Neal Stephenson: "In the Beginning was the Command Line"

Commencement speaker Bill Nye at RPI!

Geeks: Linus doesn't mince words.

Are they using DataMap/MapX?

[The 21 demographic variables] are weighted and pumped into a formula that produces color-coded maps. An Excel spreadsheet breaks down the likelihood of murders, robberies and other crimes in the area relative to a national and state average.

Stallman blasts the APSL. Apparently, modifiers of the APSL code must give rights and changes back to Apple, but Apple doesn't have to give its changes back to the community.

"It is Apple's hope that MacOS X will be seen as a kinder, gentler Linux that just costs a few hundred dollars more."

Product placement in math books? Does it matter that McGraw-Hill didn't take any money?

The FABULOUS kingdom of GAY animals!

from Godling's Glossary, by Dave Krieger:

Pi.

1. The Greek letter P or p, corresponding to the roman p.
2. A number, represented by said letter, expressing the ratio of the circumference of a perfect circle to its diameter. The value of pi has been calculated to many millions of decimal places, to no readily apparent purpose: no perfect circles or spheres exist in nature, since matter is composed of atoms and therefore lumpy, not smooth. Nature herself sometimes takes to rounding off the more extreme decimals of numbers when they get sufficiently small, as Prof. Heisenberg has pointed out. However, the continued extension of pi provides a harmless exercise of computer power which would otherwise be misused playing Quake or surfing pointless web sites.

Celebrate Pi on 3/14 at 1:59pm.

Collect them all!

Stanley Kubrick dies.

My car is now legally registered in California. Even with an appointment, it took pretty much all morning. Bleah. I had a flyer which listed everything I needed to get done to register my out-of-state vehicle. Unfortunately, it failed to mention that I needed a smog check done first. The smog check registered zero (that's "0", my friends), but because there's no CA Emissions sticker on it, California felt the need to ding me for $300. Arrrgh!

Music of the last couple of weeks (besides the funk classic below) has been Bach. Some of his pieces are just astonishing. Every time I listen to them, I hear something new and wonderful. I am particularly enamored of Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. I feel like I'm flying...

A great recording is one suggested to me by by Marcel (Bach-Malloch: The Art of Fuguing). It's so lively and playful.

I've also been listening to Wendy Carlos' interpretations of Bach. Again, I like the life and energy she seems to pump into the music. No whiny violins here; Carlos' orchestra is the synthesizer. (She did the scores for A Clockwork Orange, Tron, and The Shining). Ms. Carlos is an astonishing person. Check out her web site.

Ninja Jesus, Ninja Jesus, Ninja Jesus
How you be so bad?
Ninja Jesus, Ninja Jesus, Ninja Jesus
Dontcha make him mad
Ninja Jesus, Ninja Jesus, Ninja Jesus
NINJA JESUS
(and I’m not crossin’ him for nothin!)