An ag(e)ing hacker

ACTA as a test for democracy in Europe — 2012-02-11 02:01 Updated: 2012-02-14 13:27

The conflict couldn't be more clear. On one side you have the copyright and patent lobbies pushing for even more draconian measures against private behavior, more limitations to freedom of expression, and more power for them on top of what they already have in this war of the rich against the poor. On the other side, of course, there is the public interest. Seeing what the European Parliament does on this occasion will be a test of its worth: will another European institution bend to the pressure of rich lobbies, or will it respect its democratic mandate? Will it prove [...] Read more

I will remember John McCarthy — 2011-10-25 23:55 Updated: 2012-03-16 22:03

I've just learned that Professor John McCarthy (`http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JohnMcCarthy(computerscientist)') died two days ago on October 23, at the age of 84. He was the father of Lisp, Artificial Intelligence, Non-Monotonic Logics and Situation Calculus; and garbage collection, and time-sharing. An amusingly absent-minded brilliant mathematician and thinker with philosophical inclinations, and a technological optimist. I've loved reading his lightly sketched deep thoughts in his plain unassuming style(1), so different from the pretentious generations of big-egoed Lispers who came after him, myself included. And who even cares now if I agree with what he said one hundred percent, or not; I've never met [...] Read more

About Erdős numbers and not wanting what you have — 2011-09-22 19:41 Updated: 2011-09-25 04:49

Today at lunch with colleagues(1) we were having a very nice, relaxed conversation. At some point somebody mentioned he knew somebody who knew Erdős (`http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PaulErd%C5%91s'); so I asked him what his Erdős number (`http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91snumber') was, and he said it. Then --I think for the first time-- the thought crossed my mind that I also could already have a finite Erdős number. I've just found that in fact that's the case, and has been for several years now. My Erdős number is at most 6. For example: Paul Erdős (0) Vilmos Komornik (1) Marco Pedicini (2) Patrick [...] Read more

How I learned procedural abstraction and the wonder of science — 2011-09-19 05:06 Updated: 2012-04-14 00:04

Inspired by a happy "discovery" I made today, I've written this instead of finishing the post about identity. The abandoned tape This story began on an evening of the late Eighties when I was about 10, maybe 11. I was at some small country fair near home with my brother, five years younger than me -- which was quite a big difference back then. So, my brother found an audio cassette discarded on the ground, and wanted to take it home; it looked dirty and I remember I initially didn't want to pick it up, but I guess I wasn't [...] Read more

Things to come — 2011-09-16 15:03 Updated: 2011-11-02 04:41

I've seen from the server log that some people are looking for updates (thanks!). Since the post I'm writing now is not over yet, let me give you just an idea of what I think I will add soon: Against identity -- about the conflict between identity and culture, if you will. This will touch nationalism, sports fans, politics and religion. The World-Wide Web and the fun of programming -- Since its writing I softened a little the language of the first post: there I attacked the web, in the first version quite violently; but before using strong [...] Read more

Writing every day — 2011-09-09 01:50 Updated: 2011-09-12 08:00

I've been remembering the Latin phrase Nulla dies sine linea (no day [shall pass] without [writing] a line) for years now. Until a couple of minutes ago I was sure it was a motto by Gabriele d'Annunzio(1) (1863-1938), who despite the sheer beauty of some of his prose and poetry was quite revolting as a person -- the kind of artist that you cannot quite declare you admire without adding all sorts of qualifiers and disclaimers. Annoying but necessary. You know, it's about your reputation, and here I'm not kidding: that guy was a lot worse than just a histrionic [...] Read more

The trivialblog software — 2011-09-08 08:44 Updated: 2011-09-08 14:44

I've written the software running this blog myself, in Bash; in fact it's mostly a simple combination of GNU command-line utilities, producing completely static HTML. Texinfo renders the post source text into HTML; my scripts generate indices, links and other minor things. I will probably add a PDF export feature later. I've put together the software very quickly, for myself; the source is crude and there's no documentation, but since I guess somebody might want a copy anyway I'm publicly releasing it. trivialblog is free software, released under the GNU GPL version 3 or later. Most icons were not drawn [...] Read more

About this blog — 2011-09-08 08:44 Updated: 2011-09-20 04:24

I have rough ideas about what I'd want to write about, but I don't really know with what frequency I will touch each topic. I'm mostly interested in free software, (computer) languages and Computer Science in general, art, literature and politics; but I make no promise of staying on-topic. I will also not be necessarily "balanced", soft or cautious when expressing my opinions. This is my site (by the way I pay hosting costs myself, with my money) and as such it is the appropriate place for holding my opinions. If you want to engage in discussion with me, there's [...] Read more