Biomaterials

Ok, I used to be a little skeptical of the whole "let's imitate nature to make better materials" thing, then I met someone who'd done work in materials, and worked with those sorts of projects. Now I'm very skeptical. But this article about squid beaks is cool. Although that's probably just because I like squid.

How theorists save lives

From xkcd.

See how useful us theorists are?

Or harmless or something.

Arthur C. Clarke Dies.

Not that this is news to anyone, but Arthur C. Clarke just passed away. The New York Times obituary is as good as any. Gygax and now Clarke, March is not being kind to geekdom.

If Version Control Systems were Airlines

Just saw this article on If Version Control Systems were Airlines, and enjoyed it. Though I will state for the record that I understood Darcs' theory of patches on first reading (perhaps unsurprising as I use the physics theory it's modeled on professionally).

Idiotic stuff about the Patent Reform Act

The Patent Reform Act will harm the U.S. technology industryOh great. Stupid merchantilist logic being used to defend the patent system. "It's bad for foreigners, it must be good for us". But then I also buy these products, and lose out if they're more expensive.

And honestly, if some jackass patents the french fry, and sues McDonald's... That's just abuse of the patent system. That lawsuit does nobody (besides the lawyers) any good. When I deliberately don't enforce (or publicize) a patent so that people can get good and dependent on it before suing... how does that do the economy as a whole any good? Transparency is good for the economy. Grrmph.

Physicists Successfully Store and Retrieve Nothing

I have to look up a copy of the actual article from Phys Rev Lett, but this is incredibly cool: Physicists Successfully Store and Retrieve Nothing

Basially, it seems to me the researchers managed to create a stationary excited vaccum state. The article describes it about as well as I can (especially since I haven't read the paper yet, and my quantum electrodynamics kung-fu isn't all that strong), so you should probably read that, but... Wow.

Hygienic Macros, Embedded Languages, and Lisps

So I've been writing (common) lisp code the last couple weeks in my spare time (or some of my spare time), and was thinking about the language, and realized why I never really liked Scheme's hygienic macros. The macro system is basically it's own little embedded (turing complete, as it turns out) language. So when you decide "hey, I need a macro" you need to mentally switch to a new language. You've been writing various list-manipulation code with first, rest, do, whatever tools you like, and all of a sudden... you're using a new, different language to .... manipulate lists. And it's not a trivial/easy language. Loop is a special little language embedded in Lisp, but pretty straightforward. Who really can't guess what (loop for i from 1 to 10 summing i) does? (Actually, it's a fairly cobol-like language, on reflection, funny given how much I like loop, and mock cobol ;)