Rouge Park

Good Friday was the warmest day in recent memory. It was fortunate then that we had chosen to go on a little adventure that day, an adventure to Rouge Park. 

It was lots of fun, here's a few pictures. 

Reproducibility in CS, Updated

Just about a year ago I linked to a study out of the University of Arizona on reproducibility in CS. I had some complaints, and later linked to a crowd-sourced effort to check the results.

It appears that the authors of this study paid some attention to the criticism, and reexamined their study. It's worth looking at the updated technical report and results, which are located at the original project homepage.

The worst search result page

Whelp. I may have found the worst search result on the internet. 

There is so much wrong here. 

Alright. Let's break this down. 

1. I searched for 'seedling'. The page responds: "No results for 'seedling'. Displaying 13 results for 'seedling'". WAT. 
2. The results are all lamps. 
3. Except for Miracle-Gro. So there's that. 
4. There are only 12 results displayed. 

They also think I'm in Vancouver. Which is about as wrong as they can be. Except, when I try to change it, it says "null" in the top left, and then thinks I searched for an empty string. 

edit: Now that I've calmed down a bit, it turns out that 13 results is actually accurate: There's also the "Know how" tab that I missed. So 13 results, 12 products, 1 pieces of 'know how'. 

A willingness to be stuck

“Many people have tried that problem,” Iwaniec said. “He’s a private guy. Nothing is rushed. If it takes him another ten years, that’s fine with him. Unless you tackle a problem that’s already solved, which is boring, or one whose solution is clear from the beginning, mostly you are stuck. But Zhang is willing to be stuck much longer.”

From The Pursuit of Beauty (via Knowing and Doing)

Sunshine!

Leaving for work in the sun! Woo!  

Journal Paper

After a long wait in the preprint queue, our journal paper on Blue Gene/Q's transactional memory system is finally available.  

Utopia 84

At the present time I think we are on the verge of discovering at last what programming languages should really be like. I look forward to seeing many responsible experiments with language design during the next few years; and my dream is that by 1984 we will see a consensus developing for a really good programming language (or, more likely, a coherent family of languages). Furthermore, I'm guessing that people will become so disenchanted with the languages they are now using -- even COBOL and FORTRAN -- that this new language, UTOPIA 84, will have a chance to take over. At present we are far from that goal, yet there are indications that such a language is very slowly taking shape.

— Structured Programming with go to Statements, Donald E. Knuth, Computing Surveys Vol 6, No. 4, December 1974.

I haven't finished this paper, but I had to share the quote. It's interesting to see how optimistic Knuth was. My reading of history is that what happened instead is that we know many good ideas, but have never solidly landed on a definitive best.

On Model View Culture

I have been a fan and (minor) supporter of Model View Culture for while. For me, it's perhaps one of the most relevant publications for this period of my life. 

The last week or so has been filled with drama. I will not recount it all, partially because I didn't follow it closely, partially because there are better sources. Here's some of what I've read: 

• My Statement, by Shanley Kane
• What it was like to co-found Model View Culture with Shanley Kane
• An Apology and Eight Other Things
• The Trouble with Heroes

There's more, I'm sure, but that's a good enough overview. Keeping in mind Leigh Alexander's advice, I'm here mostly to amplify other voices, and to say that I still support MVC as a publication.

I'll be keeping an eye out for more feminist publications in tech -- If the fallout from this is that more venues exist, it could end up being a net positive. I encourage everyone to consider supporting publications like this. Small amounts, large amounts, whatever is within your comfort zone. 

I especially encourage you to think about these things if you're a white or asian male in the tech industry: Seeing your industry reflected back at you through the mirror of outsiders can be very painful, but it's absolutely worth while.