«What is past is prologue; study the past.»
-Anon.
«Things that are fun are intrinsically worth doing;
you don't have to justify doing them.»
-Alan Kay
It should become readily apparent, as you journey through this
document, that I have more than a curious interest in the past. If
nostalgia can be defined as "a fantasy that never takes place; one
that maintains itself by not being fulfilled" then I am not the
nostalgic sort; I prefer to do more than reminisce.
What is past does, by no means mitigate my interest in the future. I
enjoy reading SF novels (I have a
preference for hard-core sci-fi over esoteric fantasy-fiction), I did
enjoy watching Star Trek re-runs (I've
stopped waching watching television altogether, now) and make the
claim that the greatest motion-picture to date is Kubrick's
2001: A Space Odyssey.
«No great artist ever sees things as they
really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.»
-Oscar
Wilde
«The real artist has no pride.»
-LvB
I like to claim that I'm really an artist (but not a real artist),
and that my interest in hacking is just
a hobby (no one's paid me for my art, though); I do enjoy
both equally. My approach in designing and coding software tends to
be rather more artistic than scientific (Knuth Titled his
lessons of wisdom The Art of Computer Programming not
The Science of Computer Programming).
People have always had rather favourable comments about my art and until recently, not much comment on
my hacks. Things have changed.
Not only did an engineer at Sun
comment favourably on my abacus applet, but
it also won an
honourable mention in the first Java programming
contest. The applet has also been featured in Hooked On Java
and is soon to be featured in 3 more books.
I have also been receiving favourable comments on my latest free app,
xmotd, so perhaps, I'm improving with age.
« Zen mind is not Zen mind. That is, if you are
attached to Zen mind, then you have a problem, and your way is very
narrow. Throwing away Zen mind is correct Zen mind. Only keep the
question, "What is the best way of helping other people?"»
-A
very wise Zen master
«Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire
that gave to mortals, a means to mighty ends»
-Aeschylus
«People make a mistake who think that my art has
come easily to me...There is not a famous master whose music I have
not studied over and over. »
-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
I'm currently working on the Axon Project. Sorry, but I can't say any
more because I signed enough NDAs to choke a small mammal, which is
why I write free software as a form of redemption...
...Given that the road to redemption is long and arduous, I still
have a ways to go 'til complete redemption; this is a list
of some my software that will accompany me on my journey:
-
xabacus
(simulation of a Chinese abacus including a "teach-me" mode). I can
claim that xabacus was the first-ever application posted to Usenet
(comp.sources.x) from Ryerson (this was a big deal,
at the time; our connection to the Internet was a tenuous UUCP
link). xabacus was to have been the first of many programs
preserving ancient computing
machinery.
- xep (a 2-hour hack that
can be used to monitor ethernet-packet traffic load)
- xsecure
(a transparent screen-locker which I ported from X10 to X11R4 to
work with xfishtank (written by Eric Bina, one of the
developers of xmosiac))
-
xmotd a message-of-the-day browser for X (the very
first release was a half-hour coding hack done just before the
start of the school year so the department could make announcements
to students); this is my most recently (Aug. 1994) posted (to
comp.sources.x) client; the latest version is 1.13 beta.
javacus
(simulation of a Chinese abacus) implemented as a Java applet.
My plan was to write and release one new, free application every
year, but xmotd has now been evolving for two years, and I have
received several good ideas for extending it, so it's going to be
some time before I can undertake a new project (I'm aiming for
something whimsical and frivolous; I've written far too much serious
software).
Books recently read...
...and recommended:
- A Journey Through Economic Time, John Kenneth Galbraith
- Fire Upon The Deep, Vernor Vinge
- Essential Zen, Kazuaki Tanahashi and Tensho David Schnider
- The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson (he of Snow
Crash fame)
- Penguin 60's, published on the occasion of Penguin's 60th
anniversary (I purchased the complete set of 60, and the
following is a growing selection of my favourites):
- Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, J. M. Barrie
- The Wife of Bath and Other Canterbury Tales,
Geoffrey Chaucer [****]
- Lamb to the Slaughter and other Stories, Roald
Dahl [***]
- The Overcoat and The Nose, Nikolai Gogol [****]
- Aesop's Fables, V. S. Vernon Jones (trans)
- Truckstop and Other Lake Woebegone Stories,
Garrison Keillor [****]
- Bartleby and the Lightning-rod Man, Herman Melville [****]
«I have seen the future/And brother let me tell
you, it is murder»
-Leonard Cohen
Something I look forward to doing, is writing and illustrating
children's books; the economy of words, and the simple beauty of the
illustrations, is what I find appealing about wanting to try it.
«So maybe I will never reach that wonderful
time of wisdom and maturity when I know the answers to all the
questions that continue to worry me. But maybe just to go on asking
them is enough.»
-Frederik Pohl, _The Annals of the
Heechee_
«O was an oyster
who lived in his shell
When
people left him alone
he felt perfectly well.»
-Edward
Lear
Last modified: Sat Feb 24 12:25:50 EST 1996