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The DBC of CS

April 13, 2005 /

Social engineering at its finest: SCIgen uses a context-free grammar to generate comp sci papers entirely too much like those from which I’ve been expected to learn for the past two years. It’s a little scary how good the results are. I was able to read the entire abstract of my personal paper while nodding my head, although the first clause of the introduction (“Unified metamorphic methodologies have led to many unfortunate advances”) broke the spell.

Oh, right, the social engineering part is that they got one of their generated papers accepted to a conference. Well-played, humans who probably remember daylight!

The Kill Satan With Music Mix

April 8, 2005 /

Mix CD post. You’ve been warned. Also, this is actually version 1.1; I’m using 1.0 right now, but there are a couple of songs (Marilyn Manson and Rob D) that I need to cut out.

  1. Maroon 5 – Harder To Breathe
  2. Jimmy Eat World – Bleed American
  3. Jimmy Eat World – A Praise Chorus
  4. Lunatic Calm – Leave You Far Behind
  5. Pearl Jam – Do The Evolution
  6. Foo Fighters – All My Life
  7. Rob Zombie – Dragula (Hot Rod Herman mix)
  8. Beastie Boys – Sabotage
  9. The Prodigy – Smack My Bitch Up
  10. Lo Fidelity Allstars – Battleflag
  11. Propellerheads – Spybreak

As far as I can tell, this works equally well on straight through or shuffle. The only constants are that the Maroon 5 song must be first, because it doesn’t fit anywhere else, and the Foo Fighters song must be sixth, because that’s about when I decide I should give up running forever and go home and get fat. There is no song in the world as good at making you run as “All My Life.”

If you think this is interesting, let me know; if I get a few requests I’ll post the mp3s.

Running post

April 8, 2005 /

You’ve been warned.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that I have a bad ankle–more specifically, chronic tendonitis, on the right. This is maddening because up until now, I’ve been able to overcome my physical defects by either waiting or just trying harder (see asthma, bad hair, being underheight, being underweight, being overweight, et al). I mean, even with myopia, I could at least squint without making the condition worse. Not so the gimp!

In an effort to prove that all of the above is untrue, I’ve actually been running more often recently, and surprised myself on Wednesday by hitting a Schrodinger Point. I always turn around after the fourth song on the Kill Satan With Music mix; since it takes longer to come back than to go out, this ensures a solid thirty-five-minute run. Normally I hit that mark before reaching an easily recognizable corner in Old Louisville, but last time I hit the corner first with an easy minute left.

That’s encouraging, and I want to see if I can repeat it, so I’m going to try again today. For the first time ever, I’ll be wearing my new ankle brace.

Oh, yeah, I should post the Kill Satan With Music mix when I get back.

Update 1930 hrs: To nobody’s surprise, I couldn’t! Repeat it. But the ankle brace did help.

April 7, 2005 /

On a less happy note, I had been wondering for a while why almost all of Rebecca Borgstrom’s protagonists are brave children in great danger. I suppose her column today is an answer of sorts.