I’ll be in Scotland and the north of England for the coming two weeks, so I doubt anything will be posted. Expect some jubilant travel reports around the 10th of May.
Some of these are really quite lovely. And most (all?) of the source code is available! It’s Jared Tarbell, with Complexification.net.
I’ve heard many times from many Dutch people that their language is the hardest in the world to learn. I have to admit to some scepticism — Polish has a case marking system that has to be seen to be believed, and English speakers can’t even distinguish the sounds used in some languages (the difference [...]
We were enjoying a beer and the sunshine yesterday afternoon on the Nieuwmarkt (a prominent tourist landmark) when I discovered just how seriously the Dutch take their pub regulations. It seems that space is at such a premium in this country that a pub with outside seating (terraces) has a strictly demarcated area it is [...]
The implementation of Object.clone() prevents guaranteed type-safe
(both compile- and runtime) code from compiling. The following
class will not compile:
public class SafeCloner {
public Object cloneOrNull(Cloneable in) {
try {
return in.clone();
[...]
I just had a visit from Maja, a Danish friend spending a week in A’dam. The day before she arrived, taking the ferry on my way to work, I saw a freight hauler also named Maja heading up Het IJ. I decided it probably takes that route every day, and I only noticed this time [...]
A comprehensive medieval bestiary site. Gorgeous illustrations from the real thing. The text reads like the originals, but it’s a bit unclear how much it’s been rewritten since they’ve combined from many sources.
Bees are the smallest of birds, and are born from the bodies of oxen
Along the lines of the random CompSci paper generator, it seems to me the world needs a random Space Opera generator. I’m remembering E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s Lensman series, and thinking that this shouldn’t be so very difficult.
For extra credit, have it learn the quirks of your favourite author, grammar-induction style.
Forget Excel wizards, this is what every chart should look like.
Any questions?
I’m just listening to Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, “Three Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, and am once again amazed at Victor Wooten’s astounding bass performance on the track ‘Monkey See’.
Find it, listen to it. Feel your jaw drop.