Okay, it's a "Blog"
Thursday, June 8, 2006
Little Languages Blog.
Together with Tobias Wrigstad, who has recently become Dr Tobias Wrigstad under my supervision, I have begun blogging about Domain Specific Languages, in particular, DSLs implemented in Ruby. This may well lead our research into new territory. In any case, it'll be fun. The blog is located at littlelanguages.net.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Technology: to help or to hinder.
A short question (as I'm not blogging): If the aim of technology is to help not to hinder, why is it that so many enabling technologies are disabling? I'm thinking XML, XSLT, ... basically anything produced by the W3C, Ant, Maven, anything that assumes that XML is a human readable format, Java. Admittedly, these technologies are all computer technologies which are out of the hands of computer users (generally). So I pose the question: If technology is supposed to make life easier, why aren't we computer professionals and academics doing what we can to apply it to what we do? Why are we adopting standards that are arcane from the moment of their conception? Why are we not investing effort to make our jobs easier?
Thursday, March 2, 2006
2006: Year of the Not-blog.
Not sure why, but I'm just not into blogging this year. I am wearing a shirt which says "stor stark", if that's any consolation.
Monday, January 9, 2006
First Entry of a New Year.
Probably a lot to say, but not really much time to say it. It was very nice to be back in Australia and the weather was fantastic. I visited the family, walked up the mountain, bushwalked, canyoned, played golf (better than ever before), went to the beach and watched loads of cricket on the TV. Now I'm back, and struggling to get into my routine. Presently I'm writing my talk for FOOL and will depart the country in 2 days for Charleston, South Carolina to present it. I'm still jetlagged, and expect to remain so for at least another two week due to the upcoming travel.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Last Entry of the year.
I've been rather busy of late, so again I'll give a bullet-point summary of what's been going on or what will go on shortly:
- Just about to submit a nice paper to ECOOP 2006, coauthored with Sophia Drossopoulou, James Noble and Tobias Wrigstad. This has taken most of make time over the last few weeks. I'm glad that it's in good shape. The title is still not finalised, but it's about a new programming language design called "Tribe".
- Was invited to speak at FOOL 2006 in Charleston, South Carolina (where Rhett Butler came from). This is a big honour. I'll spend my vacation thinking about what to talk about and then writing the talk.
- I'm going on vacation to Australia to visit my family and old friends. I'll be away from December 13 until January 4. During this time, I'll be enjoying warm weather, Australian beer, cricket on TV and all the other good things in life (and finished work I didn't finish).
- My student Tobias Wrigstad gave me the first complete draft of his thesis. I need to read it, suggest corrections, and then approve it. (All in my vacation.) Well done T-man.
Friday, November 25, 2005
London.
I'm off to London for the weekend to visit Sophia. We'll have a very secret meeting and do as many proofs as we can manage in two days. It'll be good to see her and London again, but I can't say that devoting my weekend to soundness and completeness proofs is the smartest use of time. But it's something required to keep me alive as an academic. Papers. Fame. Grants.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Middle Name.
For those of you wondering what my middle name is, having noticed that "G" is my middle initial, I will gladly let you know. It's "Gable". I'm not all that fond of it, but my parents were big fans of Clark Gable. Thus my whole name is David Gable Clarke. If you include my confirmation names, which is ridiculous, then I'm David Gable Eddy Max Clarke. But you can call me Rhett.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Rather Busy.
Recent things that have happened or are happening:
- A laugh-a-minute going-away dinner in an African restaurant in Amsterdam. Goodbye Juan. Goodbye Leon.
- Algorithmic subtyping: are we decidable?
- Partial insanity through frustration at myself
- Hangover from Bulgarian party.
- Slow progress in grant proposal writing.
- Bruised ribs but better times from go-karting.
- Certain personal milestones achieved.
- New personal milestones immediately set.
- Too many films watched.
- Going to London for the weekend (to work).
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Australia in the World Cup Finals.
Not that I care too much for soccer, but I do care for Australia. The lads beat Uruguay and made it into the World Cup Finals. This is the second time ever. The first time in a long time. Well done lads. I'll be home in a month to congratulate you.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
A day like any other.
I do.
Monday, November 14, 2005
The Joy of Friends (or don't give students your mobile number)
A sign that a friend holds you dearly is when they call you at some ungodly hour of the morning to say something like this:
Hi Dave. It's Mick. I'm in Brisbane and I'm pissed.For me, this is one of the highest form of endearment (well, one of the top 10).
This weekend a friend of mine, we'll call him T-man to preserve his anonymity, SMSed me to tell me that he'd found my perfect match. Apparently she belly dances, and breeds and kills chickens. But if that's perfection, one can hardly argue with it. The only problem with this news, received at 2:30am Sunday morning, is that both the girl and the message come from Stockholm.
Tragic News
I'm going to Australia in a month's time. (This is not the tragic news.) I checked the cricket schedules for the time that I'll be there. (Not yet.) In years past, the boxing day test match typically was played in Sydney. (No, this isn't it.) Unfortunately, this year it will be played in Melbourne. This means that I may not get to see live cricket when I go back to Australia. This is a tragedy.
Greatest Evils in the World Today
Based on my rather sketchy following of current events, it seems that the greatest evils in the world today are Terrorism and Violation of Copyright. Sony has decided to start using mild forms of the former to prevent the latter, as this article outlines. Naturally, I use "terrorism" in its modern sense, that is, loosely.
Tuesday, November 8, 2005
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The White Stripes
I saw concerts from these two bands over the last week and promised to say something about them. BRMC were fantastic. Their voices were true, and they produced a massive wall of sound with just a few people, mostly two plus a drummer, but sometimes their friend Spike helped out. I am now a huge BRMC fan.
Jack White is an impressive guitarist and singer, albeit in no way conventional in either respect. His simply rocked his way across the red and white stage with such showmanship that I was just plain stunned. I'm very glad that I saw the White Stripes, even though it was at a horrible venue (Heineken Music Hall), but since the band is so big, I doubt that it would be even possible these days to see them at a smaller venue. I won't say much about Meg White: she tapped out simple beats on the drums, sang poorly, but did manage to look cute for the entire show.
Wednesday, November 2, 2005
FMCO
Not writing anything here because I'm attending FMCO, here at CWI. There's an interesting collection of talks. I was The White Stripes on Monday and will see Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (BRMC) tomorrow evening. Hopefully I'll have time to say something about them afterwards.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Java vs Ruby
Normally I program in Java. Reolite is written in Java. Recently, I learnt Ruby. Now Java seems primitive and verbose. And the problem isn't types. It's fucking iterators and the lack of blocks. Java, why do you mock me?
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Rant Deleted
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama states that "anything which contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned." As a practicing academic, I am rarely required to provide either. This is my source of spiritual crisis.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Frustration
The most frustrating feeling I know, when I'm frustrated with myself,
is the one I get when I'm standing, say, at the bus stop and somebody
I'd really like to talk to comes and stands next to me (not for the first
time, but, hey, it's a bus stop with few destinations), and I say
nothing. I say nothing in the most obvious manner possible.
Let's not forget who we are talking about here (and I mean me, not
the other person). I have given presentations in Australia, Singapore,
England, USA, Germany, Hungary, Cyprus and Iran, so I know how to
talk in high pressure situations.
(Though, admittedly, I wanted to get out of every single one of them.)
So why can I not talk to someone at the bus stop.
Why?
Word-level Dislexia
I just discovered that the actress who's name I thought was Robin Penn Wright is actually called Robin Wright Penn. This word level dislexia often occurs, and goes unchecked for years. It was funny to hear her name said out loud and then realise my mistake. I wonder who else's name is messed up in my head.
Reolite Released (Some Explanation)
Reolite is the first publically available implementation of the coordination model Reo. It is implemented in Java and runs on a single machine. Reolite enables one to build connectors, plug them together, send data through them, and generally do most of the things described in the Reo paper. As the release is at present only version 0.0.3, there are probably quite some bugs and other deficiencies to iron out. But it runs and you can play with it if you want. I'd certainly love to hear about your experiences, your complains, your bugs and bug fixes, and even your extensions. So please, download it today and get hacking.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Reolite Released
See here.
Friday, October 7, 2005
Iranorama
Thursday, October 6, 2005
Third Photoset from Iran
This is my final photoset from Iran. It consists of the best of my photos and it ought to be of more general interest than the other two photosets, which were tailored towards the conference participants.
Second Photoset from Iran
The second photoset from Iran, perhaps only of interest to the participants is available. One more set will follow.
Wednesday, October 5, 2005
First Photoset from Iran (fsen)
The first photoset from Iran, tailored to the foreigners attending the FSEN05 workshop, is available. More will follow soon.
Tuesday, October 4, 2005
Back from Iran
I've returned safely from an awesome trip to Iran. I met loads of friendly, hospitable, indeed, great people. I'll say more when I'm not so tired, and will post photos on my Flickr page, too.