Basic Clojure Setup - Part 1: Installing Clojure

http://yusupov.com/blog/2009/basic-clojure-setup-part-1/

These series of posts describe how I setup Clojure development environment on my system. Even though these instructions are geared towards Mac users, they should work for other Unix-like systems with small (if any) changes. I hope it saves some time to anyone new to Clojure.

baseJS: A Mobile JavaScript Framework : Paul Armstrong Designs

A JavaScript Framework for iPhone developers:

http://paularmstrongdesigns.com/weblog/basejs-a-mobile-javascript-framework

Bill Clementson's Blog: iPhone App Development Notes

http://bc.tech.coop/blog/090429.html

Standard order for adjectives

Interesting tidbit on a rule of English that I had never noticed...

http://blogs.csmonitor.com/verbal_energy/2007/05/rules_no_one_te.html

Wendalyn Nichols, editor of Copy Editor, responded, "There is indeed a standard order for adjectives, and you'll find it described in dictionaries and textbooks for learners of English as a second language."

Ms. Nichols reproduced a version of a chart showing a hierarchy of modifiers: determiner, quality, size, age, color, origin, material. She gives some examples: a colorful new silk scarf; that silver Japanese car. I've just been looking over a couple of other such charts, and I find that the hierarchy they list goes like this:

Opinion :: size :: age :: shape :: color :: origin :: material :: purpose.

Not all noun phrases have adjectives from each of these columns. But this is the order they should be in. Thus "little old lady" or "angry young man" are set phrases in the language that illustrate the idiomatic order. "Little" (size) comes before "old" (age). And "angry" is an example of what the charts call an opinion adjective – one of the modifiers that seem less essential than those referring to age or origin, for instance.

Spokane to detonate squirrels tearing up parks

"Caddy Shack" in Spokane...

http://www.katu.com/outdoors/news/42963927.html

The Finch Arboretum is being overrun by ground squirrels, and Spokane Parks and Recreation is bringing in some special artillery.

The agency is using a special machine called the Rodenator Pro to detonate some of the estimated 100 to 150 squirrels tearing up the grounds.

The Rodenator Pro pumps propane and oxygen into the tunnels of squirrels, then sends an electric spark that causes an explosion. The shock waves kill the squirrels and collapse their tunnels - but in a humane way, the agency said.

I hope they invite Bill Murray to push the plunger.

Paglia responds to my complaint about "enormity"

It's an honor to have my letter printed, even if Camille Paglia disagrees with my point on the proper usage of "enormity".  Apparently, many Salon readers are on my side.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/04/08/bow/index3.html

You wrote: "Two weeks after my return, I am still trying to process the enormity of my experience in Salvador, which was staggering on every level."

I understand that usage is subject to change, but I feel a duty to my old English teacher, Fr. McFadden, SJ, to use "enormity" with the traditional sense of "great wickedness or evil." I hope that you will agree that the standard definition of "enormity" is worth preserving. The president has been misusing that word for a while, and I fear that without the help of respected writers, it may soon be lost.

Steve Miner

Well, I certainly got an earful from Salon readers about this one! I appreciate the grammar protests from everyone who wrote in. But I honestly have never accepted that sharp distinction in English. In French, one can use enormité in either sense, and it seems to me a very useful duality. I was certainly signaling that the carnival in Salvador had both a physical and a spiritual dimension; neither "immensity" nor "enormousness" (which other readers suggested) would have been quite right.

From the swaying top of Daniela Mercury's cruising trio elétrico, I was reminded of many things -- Wordsworth's sonnet about sleeping London at dawn as a "mighty heart" and Baudelaire's spooky poem about beauty as a goddess-like stone sphinx with bruising breasts. With apologies to irate English teachers everywhere, "enormity" with a French twist really nails it!

Wednesday at the Masters

Lisa's friend graciously gave us tickets for Wednesday practice round at the Masters. I was wearing my TW hat and my Stanford Alumni shirt. We got there early and were lucky enough to follow Tiger for a few holes. As Tiger walked by I shouted "Go Stanford" and he replied "All Right". We didn't have to time to chat, but it was nice to get a response.



This was Lisa's first time at Augusta National so we spend most of the morning walking around and enjoying the beautiful surroundings.

We saw a number of famous players, but perhaps the highlight was Gary Player (age 73), playing in his record 52nd Masters. He had previously announced that this would be his last time as a competitor. He had a fun time with the crowd. He's a great ambassador for the game.

We didn't get to see much of the Par 3 Contest because the crowd was so large. We had to get home to take care of the dogs anyway. I watched the end on TV and got to see Gary Player make his last shot on number Nine. It would have been a hole-in-one except he had dropped one in the water on his first tee shot, so it was actually a par, the hard way.

Joe Hewitt: Three20 project

via daringfireball.net...

Open Source classes for iPhone developers

http://joehewitt.com/post/the-three20-project/

BSG Is Over

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWIwNzkyMmZkZTc0Y2NiZDAyZDkyNDkzYWIyZTVhMjg=

In fact, going by the series finale, Ron Moore is the sci-fi equivalent of a creationist. God is in every gap. Every unexplained detail can be explained by the fact that God says so. In theology, there's an argument somewhere in there. But in screenwriting such deus ex machina punting is letting writer's block substitute as demiurge. 

Now let me be clear when I say that I actually like the idea of turning to religion and, for want of a better word, the supernatural. But it still needs to make sense. [...] Ron Moore [...] thinks letting actors explore their characters and work out morality tales [...] makes for more compelling television. I think that what made the first couple seasons so great is that he was able to contain or restrain this tendency within the larger storyline. Once that blew up, the show squandered its greatness.

I thought the first two seasons of BSG were great.  I didn't particularly like the third, but I figured the writers' strike had caused a lot of problems, and I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.  I watched this season without much enthusiasm.  The only thing that kept me going was that I wanted to see how they would wrap everything up.  Let's just say I was unsatisfied with the Starbuck explanation.  She should have been a replicant created by the last great computer left on the old Earth, who had to sacrifice his own power source to save Starbuck's soul with some sort of human cloning mechanism.  Work in some of that old-time prophesy to connect it back to the Colonial Gods.  The musical stuff was fine, but that could have been the computer's universal programming language.  Everybody together: "I'd like to teach the world to sing..."

It's totally crazy to think that you can get thousands of people to return to the stone age in search of a better way of life.  Maybe Ron Moore is channeling Al Gore and the Global Warming alarmists, but I'm not buying it.  Would it have been so difficult to let a few hippies follow Apollo in going native while the rest of them conquered some unpopulated continent?  Then maybe their ship could have accidently exploded leaving only a handful of Colonials to mix with the proto-humans.  Similar result, but with a slightly more tragic and understandable ending.

Oh yeah, the Chief should have been shot by a Cylon when he choked the other one during the resurrection technology seance.  It didn't make sense for him to survive and become the first King of Scotland or whatever.

‘Star Trek’ Fans Put Kirk’s Command Chair in Their Homes

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/garden/19trek.html?_r=1

Serious Trekkies have long fashioned copies of their favorite costumes and props, and, back in the '70s and '80s, a few even put together homemade knockoffs of the captain's chair, using reference materials like the "Starfleet Technical Manual" and "U.S.S. Enterprise Bridge Blueprints."

But lately fans like Mr. Veazie have been building or buying more sophisticated versions of the command module from which James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner, ordered "Ahead, warp factor six." Moreover, they are making them the centerpiece of their homes, thus conquering what is for them a final frontier of domestic décor.

Not sure my wife would approve.  Maybe for my office?