never could get the hang of thursdays
This would be about the point where I insert a meme and/or mention I can’t think of anything to write, which would immediately prompt me to write again. So instead, I’ll just insert a placeholder until I can work up something about leaving London behind.
I’ve been watching Daria, that’s what I’ve been doing.
A brief interlude, in which I discuss something that has, frankly, blown my mind today.
If you want to get a job in the finance world coming from IT, it would pay well to learn K, a programming language as concise as it is targeted at doing maths very damn well. To provide an example here, the following code:
(!R)@&{&/x!/:2_!x}'!R
is all that is necessary to list all the prime numbers between 1 and R, the argument to the function. Try doing that in your programming language of choice in even twice as many characters. From all I’ve heard, the interpreter is extremely fast as well
The particular application that has made this popular is KDB, a database that strikes out from the traditional RMDB-SQL world. The primer is a good introduction to K, through its query-targeted subset ‘q’. Now, pardon me while my mind tries to wrap itself around a whole new way of thinking and coding.
Now we return you to our regularly scheduled programming.
HK trip 95% confirmed – go on, what are your tips? What to see, what to do, what kind of weather, what food to eat, etc?
The many faces of Charlize Theron: Let’s compare and contrast that to, oh, any number of other starlets who look exactly the same in every movie. Changing your appearance that drastically has to be commitment to method acting if there ever was one. (accompanying article on smh)
Superbad: Teen comedy in the vein of American Pie, but with far better plot and acting. Actors almost look too young (they really supposed to be 18? Is that what 18 year olds act like, really?) Unfortunately doesn’t rise far above the genre, which doesn’t exactly help. ★★★
The Kingdom: “Syriana for dummies” is how the New York Times describes this, and it’s not far wrong. Syriana required you to pay attention in order to really patch all the plot points together, but moved glacially. The Kingdom has a straightforward trajectory, and while it gets lost in the middle a little, ticks the action-and-explosions box solidly. Passes the time of an afternoon. ★★☆
Understanding Macroeconomics (from smh)
Oh, let us not focus on this day in particular, arbitrary as it is! But for a question that came up earlier: why today? Why ‘Valentine’, purportedly a priest made Saint, for whom today is named for in the Roman Catholic Church’s feast calendar?
And so the internet provides: Wikipedia’s page on Valentine’s Day essentially states “for no good reason.”
And indeed, the tradition of sending Valentine’s cards, apparently propagated and popularised by none other than Esther Howland, stationer’s daughter, by whose name today is awarded the “Award for a Greeting Card Visionary.”
If that doesn’t send the cynicals up you, perhaps it is the profusion of Saints named Valentine, of whom, err, nothing much is known (Other than they are dead, and saints for it), would help to cement the impression.
(Secondary research is ever so easy.)
So, named after an unknown priest of ancient times, landing on the former ‘pagan’ Roman celebration of Lupercalia (when young men dressed in goat skins ran through the streets of Rome), mythologised by some unknown sources, ends up being Valentine’s Day, a celebration of love, lust, and all good things chocolatey and wrapped in pink.
Far be it for me to be cynical…
Ah well, a celebration of love, arbitrary as it may be, can only be welcomed by the romantics. Next year, mayhaps.
Top “I Hate Love” Songs: There needs to be more songs in there you could really rock out to.
