You know it's election year when...

babbleon posted a link to a critique of FairTax (HR 25). It's kind of stretching for arguments in much of it, IMO, and utterly glosses over the actual meat, which is unfortunate. This is a sufficiently complex topic that it's easy to obfuscate, and I think that's what that write-up does, sadly.

I was going to post it as a comment in your journal, b, but *cough* it exceeded the maximum comment length. Shocker, eh?

( Peer review and criticism are *great*, but they need to be *quality* review and criticism... )

You know it's election year when...

babbleon posted a link to a critique of FairTax (HR 25). It's kind of stretching for arguments in much of it, IMO, and utterly glosses over the actual meat, which is unfortunate. This is a sufficiently complex topic that it's easy to obfuscate, and I think that's what that write-up does, sadly.

I was going to post it as a comment in your journal, b, but *cough* it exceeded the maximum comment length. Shocker, eh?

( Peer review and criticism are *great*, but they need to be *quality* review and criticism... )

Sweet.

I hadn't heard about this project:

Batman: Gotham Knight. An animated anthology of six vignettes, done by six anime teams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oW71WB254M

Sweet.

I hadn't heard about this project:

Batman: Gotham Knight. An animated anthology of six vignettes, done by six anime teams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oW71WB254M

On frustrations...

I had an epiphany the other night regarding my research: it's hard. (So I'm slow to catch on.) When I see the full blown solution, end to end, in my head, and can see how it would strongly affect disparate realms of software production, from education to tools to governance, it's hard to remind myself that even though the small 'detail' I'm currently working on is just a detail in the larger tapestry, it doesn't mean it's trivial. I've been setting my expectations for myself, my schedules, and presenting same to others to set their expectations from, based on the assumption that 'it's just a detail'. These 'details' are still primary research... just because they're not the overarching solution doesn't mean they're not relevant, and worthy of attention and publication.

Last night it hit me what I've actually been writing (and re-writing, and re-re-writing, and re-re-re-... oy) all these years: a suite of semantic compilers. I'm compiling to semantics, not machine code. No wonder it's a pain in the ass... I'm writing a freaking *compiler*, and having to manipulate compiler internals that weren't designed for this direction of abstraction. If you look in gcc, edg, javac, etc, they try to strip out the semantics to make it as close to machine code as possible, and I'm having to reverse that, and then *extend* it further up the abstraction chain. This is exactly the opposite direction of a traditional compiler and while it has strong similarities with other static analysis tools, it's comprehensive in ways they're usually not. The final form is appropriate for all sorts of direct, fast, immediate analysis that has to be done ad hoc with the other tools... what previously were complex algorithms, are now simple queries.

*deep breath*

Perception -> expectation -> frustration.

The first link just changed for the first time since I started this project 10 years ago. I'm surrounded by riches of original research, and have been ignoring them in favor of the largest level goal. It doesn't help that I keep adding at that end too.

Edit: If I were ever to do the annoying auto-music/MySpace page thing, I do believe this would have to be the clip: It's just too perfect.

On frustrations...

I had an epiphany the other night regarding my research: it's hard. (So I'm slow to catch on.) When I see the full blown solution, end to end, in my head, and can see how it would strongly affect disparate realms of software production, from education to tools to governance, it's hard to remind myself that even though the small 'detail' I'm currently working on is just a detail in the larger tapestry, it doesn't mean it's trivial. I've been setting my expectations for myself, my schedules, and presenting same to others to set their expectations from, based on the assumption that 'it's just a detail'. These 'details' are still primary research... just because they're not the overarching solution doesn't mean they're not relevant, and worthy of attention and publication.

Last night it hit me what I've actually been writing (and re-writing, and re-re-writing, and re-re-re-... oy) all these years: a suite of semantic compilers. I'm compiling to semantics, not machine code. No wonder it's a pain in the ass... I'm writing a freaking *compiler*, and having to manipulate compiler internals that weren't designed for this direction of abstraction. If you look in gcc, edg, javac, etc, they try to strip out the semantics to make it as close to machine code as possible, and I'm having to reverse that, and then *extend* it further up the abstraction chain. This is exactly the opposite direction of a traditional compiler and while it has strong similarities with other static analysis tools, it's comprehensive in ways they're usually not. The final form is appropriate for all sorts of direct, fast, immediate analysis that has to be done ad hoc with the other tools... what previously were complex algorithms, are now simple queries.

*deep breath*

Perception -> expectation -> frustration.

The first link just changed for the first time since I started this project 10 years ago. I'm surrounded by riches of original research, and have been ignoring them in favor of the largest level goal. It doesn't help that I keep adding at that end too.

Edit: If I were ever to do the annoying auto-music/MySpace page thing, I do believe this would have to be the clip: It's just too perfect.

I've figured it out...

( This year's Torchwood theme is... )

I've figured it out...

( This year's Torchwood theme is... )