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Casual Friday

Started out as Friday but became a Monday and thus the weekend became confusing. I baked a flourless cake and wept over a Sunday dinner  that felt more like Tuesday’s leftovers, like the whole leftover menu from the whole week. Why do we bother naming the days anyway — it reminds us we once had […]




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Wouldn't call that a waste of time

Wouldn't call that a waste of time



View Comic!








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Can you imagine the clipshow?

Can you imagine the clipshow?



View Comic!







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[tasty review] United Tastes of America by Gabrielle Langholtz, Jenny Bowers, and DL Acken

  Feeling a little peckish? What’s your pleasure? If you’re craving something savory, perhaps we should zip on over to Illinois for some deep dish pizza and pierogies. Something a little more substantial? Well, we could feast on chicken fried steak in Oklahoma and bison burgers in Wyoming, before topping everything off with a platter … Continue reading [tasty review] United Tastes of America by Gabrielle Langholtz, Jenny Bowers, and DL Acken




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[review + recipe] On Wings of Words by Jennifer Berne and Becca Stadtlander

  Each bird, bee, blossom, butterfly — was a source of joy and wonder for young Emily Dickinson. In this beautiful new picture book biography, aptly illustrated with a butterfly motif, we witness her singular metamorphosis from a keenly observant child into one of the most original and innovative poets in American literature. On Wings … Continue reading [review + recipe] On Wings of Words by Jennifer Berne and Becca Stadtlander




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cookie jar capers

“A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.” ~ Barbara Johnson   Did YOU take the cookies from the cookie jar? Who, me? Yes, you! Couldn’t be. Then, who?   Can’t fool me. I see crumbs on your face. ???? Don’t blame you, though. A cookie, at any time of day, always makes things … Continue reading cookie jar capers




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The Government, The Catholic Church and the prostitution in Malta

In today's The Times, you can read in an article by David Pace O’Shea, that, in general, Maltese are a helpful people, generous, hardworking, humble, careful with their money, welcoming, peaceful and unaggressive and that they love their families and, especially, their children. In the Observer’s opinion, anyone who states that he or she has all those qualities also might add the words conceited and boastful. The word humble is not the first that comes to one’s mind when reading all the other characteristics Mr. O’Shea states that Maltese in general possess. Thank God (just an expression!) that most Maltese do not consider themselves to have all those qualities (and I do not know of any other country’s citizens that would claim all these good characteristics). Since the article is written by a convinced catholic believer it might be interesting to hear his humble view, from a moral and Christian standpoint, on prostitution in Malta. Every time one passes the area around the closed Empire Stadium one can see prostitutes hanging out from windows or standing on the street offering men their services. In Malta it is allowed to buy and sell sexual services; such services are forbidden in many other EU states. One can ask how this complies with the Maltese character as described in today’s Times. The Maltese government and the Church might not officially be in favor of prostitution but they certainly do not try hard to solve the problem. Prostitution is closely connected with criminality such as trafficking and drug related crimes. There is no reason whatsoever to let young women be treated like slaves in any country and especially not in a country like Malta, which is said to be one of the most Christian in the world. It is a shame for Malta!





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Seven Sketches in Compositionality: An Invitation to Applied Category Theory

Seven Sketches in Compositionality: An Invitation to Applied Category Theory

2018 by Brendan Fong and David I. Spivak

Category theory is becoming a central hub for all of pure mathematics. It is unmatched in its ability to organize and layer abstractions, to find commonalities between structures of all sorts, and to facilitate communication between different mathematical communities. But it has also been branching out into science, informatics, and industry. We believe that it has the potential to be a major cohesive force in the world, building rigorous bridges between disparate worlds, both theoretical and practical. The motto at MIT is mens et manus, Latin for mind and hand. We believe that category theory—and pure math in general—has stayed in the realm of mind for too long; it is ripe to be brought to hand.
A very approachable but useful introduction to category theory. It avoids the Scylla and Charybdis of becoming incomprehensible after page 2 (as many academic texts do), and barely scratching the surface (as many popular texts do).




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Applied Category Theory - The Emerging Science of Compositionality

An enjoyable 25-minute introductory talk: YOW! Lambda Jam 2019 - Ken Scambler - Applied Category Theory (slides)

What do programming, quantum physics, chemistry, neuroscience, systems biology, natural language parsing, causality, network theory, game theory, dynamical systems and database theory have in common?

As functional programmers, we know how useful category theory can be for our work - or perhaps how abstruse and distant it can seem. What is less well known is that applying category theory to the real world is an exciting field of study that has really taken off in just the last few years. It turns out that we share something big with other fields and industries - we want to make big things out of little things without everything going to hell! The key is compositionality, the central idea of category theory.

Previously: Seven Sketches in Compositionality: An Invitation to Applied Category Theory.

(via Brian McKenna)




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Applications of Blockchain to Programming Language Theory

Let's talk about Blockchain. Goal is to use this forum topic to highlight its usefulness to programming language theory and practice. If you're familiar with existing research efforts, please share them here. In addition, feel free to generate ideas for how Blockchain could improve languages and developer productivity.

As one tasty example: Blockchain helps to formalize thinking about mutual knowledge and common knowledge, and potentially think about sharing intergalactic computing power through vast distributed computing fabrics. If we can design contracts in such a way that maximizes the usage of mutual knowledge while minimizing common knowledge to situations where you have to "prove your collateral", third-party transactions could eliminate a lot of back office burden. But, there might be benefits in other areas of computer science from such research, as well.

Some language researchers, like Mark S. Miller, have always dreamed of Agoric and the Decades-Long Quest for Secure Smart Contracts.

Some may also be aware that verification of smart contracts is an important research area, because of the notorious theft of purse via logic bug in an Ethereum smart contract.






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Zero Notebook 2: Caitlin

.


Here on the inside cover of the Zero Notebook is a first glimpse of Caitlin. It's a photograph of a young Russian doctor and, although it misrepresents Caitlin's ethnicity entirely, it does capture her innate seriousness. Added to which are birds in flight, because flight is in her nature, and a miniature of a painting by Lucian Freud. This last was included for its lack of glossy magazine glamor but also, with a touch of irony, because I knew that the novel would be going deep into Carl Jung territory.


And what, you ask, does it mean . . .?

It doesn't. The page is a first, fumbling-in-the-darkness attempt to find the heart and soul of the novel.


Above: Second image. Eight to go.


*




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A reminder: How to stimulate the appetite of a medical leech

The 1996 Ig Nobel Prize for biology was awarded to Anders Barheim and Hogne Sandvik of the University of Bergen, Norway, for their tasty and tasteful report, “Effect of Ale, Garlic, and Soured Cream on the Appetite of Leeches.” Recently, Bradley Allff, writing in Atlas Obscura, looked at the role medical leeches sometimes play in medicine in the USA. […]




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Recent Progress in Automatic Sarcasm Detection

‘Sentiment mining’ – i.e. trying to gauge the Public’s attitude towards an institution, product, firm (etc. etc.) though automatic analysis of Social Media posts (etc. etc.) is now considered an essential tool for market researchers and ‘reputation managers’. But there are problems. One of which is sarcasm. Given its prevalence, serious errors can be introduced […]




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Photo Catalog Woes

I find myself incredibly frustrated with Adobe products again. I don’t know why it’s so hard to make sorting and tagging software that just works, although I suppose having over 465,000 photos may stretch the limits of any software. But … Continue reading




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French (near) homonyms – "calembours pourris"

[h/t Stephan Hurtubise]  




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"Be careful of the truth"

Two years on, and still my favourite Chinese mistranslation…. pic.twitter.com/0EHeQjybeB — Antiokhos in the East (@AntiokhosE) May 6, 2020   How did it happen? There's no problem with "xiǎoxīn 小心"; it just means "be careful [of]; pay heed to". The problem comes with the second half of the warning, where luòshí 落石 ("falling rocks") is […]



  • Lost in translation
  • Signs

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Communication formats

Today's xkcd: Mouseover title: "DOWNSIDES: Adobe people may periodically email your newsroom to ask you to call it an 'Adobe® PDF document,' but they'll reverse course once they learn how sarcastically you can pronounce the registered trademark symbol." My own pet peeve, speaking of how normal humans choose to communicate, is people who send an […]



  • Linguistics in the comics




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The Caffeine Traces Give the Car About 100 More Horsepower

The tail light cover used to be a plastic Folgers can. I know because the label is still on it.



  • coffe
  • car-repairs-tail-lights


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High-Tech Car Repair Co.




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The last exorcism and case 39 review

Today I watched two movies The Last Exorcism and Case 39. Here are my thoughts and review of both movies.




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20 Ways You Can Increase Your Website Traffic

When it comes to ways you can increase traffic to your website there are dozens if not hundreds of ways to get more traffic. Depending on your website, the content or products you’re trying to get viewed, and the amount of time you can invest each day on your site, not all of those hundreds or ways are going to be as effective. You also want to avoid anything that could be considered “Black Hat SEO” as these types of tricks to increase your traffic may work in the short term, but get your website kicked out of search engine rankings.




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Why Trust Rank Is Important And What You Can Do To Get It

Every SEO and web expert out there and their dog will tell you how important Google page rank is to your site and how it can help your site rank well in search engine listings. One thing you might not have heard about is trust rank. It’s important to understand what this seo tool is, and to start making changes now because this is the direction Google is looking at taking.




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Crap Comments - How You Can Hurt Your Site By Leaving Bad Comments

Leaving comments on blogs and websites. It doesn’t matter if the site is a “do follow” or not, building links through comments can help get the word out about your site. Comments are also a good indicator if you’re doing something right and can give you great feedback. Of course in a perfect world every comment would be a good one, the reality is that at some point your going to get bad comments or comment vomit if you will. Self centered crap that’s there to only advertise their site, bash yours, and all other types of garbage that adds nothing of value.




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Can You Have Too Much Content (blog post)

I was recently asked this question “If I add content to my blog too fast does that mean Google will penalize my blog?” Google won’t penalize your website for adding a lot of content fast; in fact it’s the complete opposite. If you add content everyday to your blog or website it actually helps............




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SEO Scams To Avoid

There are literally countless companies promising you top ranking for your niche, thousands of hits, and the ability to make you lots of money quickly. Sound too good to be true, chances are it is. There are thousands of SEO scammers out there peddling B.S and false promises in order to do one thing PART YOU WITH YOUR MONEY. These companies don’t care if it hurts your website and how well it could rank in the search engines. They don’t care if their hurting your business, they just want your cash and are willing to lie to get it............................... The reality is that SEO is not a get quick rich scheme; it takes hard work, lots of good content, patience, link building, and time to see results. This isn’t to say that all SEO companies are con artists out to rip you off; there are plenty of good ones.




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50 Things You Can Do To Get Traffic To Your Website

Traffic, if you have a website or a blog you want to get website traffic and as much of it as possible. It doesn’t matter if your site is to make money, to connect with others, for a business, or display your love for all things kittens, if you’re a site owner you want traffic. So how do you go about getting website traffic? Here is a list I put together of 100 different things you can do to get traffic to your website. These aren’t in any particular order of importance and not all of them will work for each site the same way. Some sites will have better results with some of these options then others..................




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8 Ways You Can Speed Up Internet Explorer

Nobody likes a slow internet browser; frankly it’s a royal pain in the ass. We have better things to do then sitting around waiting for a page to load only to stair at a blank page. When it comes to slow internet browsers Internet Explorer has a history of being slow and clunky even with the best connection possible. Even their latest update Internet Explorer 9 is still much slower then browsers like Google Chrome or Firefox............




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Google Plus Scams And Myths

The internet is buzzing with talk about Google plus. Go onto sites like Yahoo Answers and people are constantly asking for an invite onto this new social network. So it’s no surprise that there is a growing number of scammers looking to make a fast buck. There’s also a good deal of misinformation about Google plus. Hopefully this post will squash a few of them and give you a little better picture of this new site, and how to avoid some of the scams surrounding it..........




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A Typical Email Scam To Avoid (Blog Post)

I get scam emails all the time, all claiming that I have untold riches waiting for me. All I need to do is fill out a simple form with either my credit card or social security information or simply send them a cheque to “release my money” It’s hard to imagine that anyone would buy into these scams, but they wouldn’t keep doing them if there wasn’t some poor sucker out there buying into it.




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50 Web Directories You Can Submit Your Website To

Back in the day if you wanted your website or blog to get indexed fast by the search engines, you would submit it to website directories. Are they still worth submitting to today? For the most part yes. Submitting your site to website directories can still be an effective way at building back links that’ll help you rank higher in search results and should be part of your overall SEO strategy. This is especially true for new websites and blogs were getting back links from other webmasters can be difficult..........................




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Duplicate Content And What You Can Do To Stop It (Blog Post)

The other day while going through my analytics I noticed a referral hit from a blog I’d never heard about. Often when I get referrals from sites I’ve never heard of I like to check them out to see what their about. What I found though was a blog that was copying word for word some of my older posts...............