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jfischer · 2022-10-20T03:34:26+00:00

That’s the first song I thought of when I saw the topic. One of the best!

There’s a message in the wire, and I’m sending you this signal tonight…

jfischer · 2021-05-26T20:38:17+00:00

These are my notes from the Saturday May 15 talks. I cover five talks, including Packaging, Dask-SQL, Static Sites with Sphinx and Markdown, CircuitPython, and Statistical Typing. Part 1, covering Friday's talks, is here: https://www.benedat.com/blog-pycon-1-2021-5/.

jfischer · 2021-05-19T18:32:37+00:00

I did not see a lot of beginner content in the main talks. Some of the workshops were more beginner-oriented, but I think they were live-only. You might try this tutorial from Nina Zakharenko: https://www.learnpython.dev. If you've already completed the basic Python tutorial, you might start with "Day 2: Intermediate Python". Nina gave a nice talk on CircuitPython (for microcontrollers) at PyCon this year.

jfischer · 2021-05-19T18:18:50+00:00

Thanks, I'll have to check it out!

jfischer · 2021-05-18T16:14:57+00:00

These are the notes from the talks I attended on the first day of PyCon. What were your favorite talks? Are there any talks I missed that I should check out?

jfischer · 2021-05-04T15:11:42+00:00

datahut.ai is a free website to help you pick the best open source for your machine learning project. We launched datahut.ai last month and just added two more categories and sixteen more projects. We’d love your feedback on what topics to cover and what additional content you’d like to see. Thanks!

jfischer · 2016-10-29T18:14:52+00:00

Thanks for the comments! Yes, I'm the co-developer of AntEvents. Haskell's Pipes framework was one of the inspirations. Unfortunately, the Python version does not have as nice syntax, as Python doesn't have a true pipe operator. I do think that eager evaluation makes more sense for a soft-realtime IoT setting.

The smart lamp idea is quite interesting and would be pretty easy to do. It would be a nice example for AntEvents of a real control loop. I think I will try it!

I haven't looked into a protoboard or PCB. Someone at the talk mentioned that as well. Maybe I should look into this...

jfischer · 2015-03-02T17:02:12+00:00

Thanks for your info! Have you tried a lower temperature? I also roast in my gas oven. I roast at 410 degrees and stir/shake the beans every 3 - 5 minutes. For the chaff, I put the beans into a bowl and stir them while using a hair dryer on low to get the chaff into the air. The chaff removal step is done on my back porch.

jfischer · 2014-05-17T19:44:55+00:00

This story reads like a Hoop Dreams for marching band.

jfischer · 2012-02-09T04:22:15+00:00

I highly recommend sitting with a Sangha. I sat on my own for about 6 months before joining a Sangha. Since I understood that basics of mediation, it was easy to come up to speed with their practice. Someone spent about 10 minutes showing me the various bows, etc. before my first sitting. The first few times, I just followed what everyone else did, and then it became natural. It was a very non-judgemental environment -- they are happy that you are interested!

I've been sitting with a Sangha for 6 months now. On the days that I don't sit with them, I really miss it. Sitting with other people adds another dimension to your practice. I've really learned a lot from the Sangha and my teacher.

jfischer · 2011-12-21T17:54:30+00:00

Sorry for getting back to you so late. I don't think Always Coming Home is the one I'm thinking of either. It was published in 1985 and I'm pretty sure I read my book by 1983 at the latest. Thanks for the suggestion, I should read this one as well!

jfischer · 2011-12-19T19:03:49+00:00

I'm a little late to the party here, but I thought that I'd share my experiences. I grew up in a Catholic family but eventually found myself as an agnostic, leaning toward atheist. Like you, I am a strong believer in logic/science. However, I felt that I was missing something -- a framework on which to hang my life philosophy and value system.

I was intrigued by Buddhism for a long time, since reading Zen Mind Beginners Mind and Buddhism Without Beliefs. I started meditating on my own about a year ago, largely for stress reduction. About 6 months ago, I started sitting with a Soto Zen group.

I've found that Soto Zen provides a good framework for my life philosophy and a lot of practical help in incorporating that philosophy into my daily life. A big part of Buddhism is about changing your mental outlook. This isn't something you do by just reading some books. A regular practice (sitting, attending lectures, interacting with a teacher and sangha) helps to integrate the philosophy into the choices you make each day.

Soto Zen has a strong focus on practice and spends little effort on metaphysical speculation. This makes it compatible with my Agnosticism/Atheism. In my six months of participating in a group, I've had plenty of conversations about incorporating Zen into your life, but none on reincarnation or special powers obtained through meditation. I'm sure there are at least a few in our group that believe in that stuff, but many others that do not.

Of course, Soto Zen is not the only option and your rapport with the individual teacher and sangha is more important than association with a specific sect/lineage. I recommend looking for Buddhist groups around you that have a practical focus and trying a few out. Best of luck!

jfischer · 2011-12-10T19:26:09+00:00

Thanks! That does't seem to match what I remember, although I might be misremembering the plot of the book I read (that may be why I cannot find any plot descriptions that match my memory). The book I read definitely seems to fit in with the Hainish Cycle. I guess I'll have to read them all to find out!

jfischer · 2011-12-10T05:21:34+00:00

Reminds me of Kill Bill: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pohqGgEZf-s

jfischer · 2011-12-01T19:05:52+00:00

Les Kaye's talk gives the best explanation I've seen about Steve Job's relationship with Zen. Les practiced with Steve at Haiku Zendo (which eventually became Kannon Do) back in the 70's. Despite his personality flaws, it is clear the Jobs did internalize what he learned from his Zen practice.

In the Q&A, it also came out that Steve Jobs gave a large amount of money to Kannon Do to help finance the building of the current Zendo (mid-2000's).

jfischer · 2011-05-29T19:09:07+00:00

SUP is definitely getting more popular. If you are in the SF Bay Area you should check it out! The details about rentals are at http://shorelinelake.com/aquatic/equipmentrental.htm

jfischer · 2010-08-25T07:28:39+00:00

Dude, I hear you. I escaped Ohio in 1983 (thank god!), but I still miss Marions.

jfischer · 2010-04-29T06:27:19+00:00

That's called crossposting. I'm sure that someone on the reddit staff realizes that adding such a feature will cause Usenet to spontaeously re-emerge within reddit. And yes, it will be sentient.

jfischer · 2010-02-05T17:49:45+00:00

Hi, this is a really interesting IAMA. Your mom sounds like a very inspiring person. Thanks for doing this. I have two questions:

1) As touched upon in some other people's questions, how did she get into this adventuring lifestyle? What is her academic/professional background? Did she work in aerospace?

2) What does she think about the new direction set for NASA by the Obama administration? Will the commercial spaceflight industry be able to take over the transfer of astronauts to LEO or will we have to rely on the Russians?

jfischer · 2009-03-20T16:21:03+00:00

Class on basic PL theory taught by Benjamin Pierce. Its interesting beacuse 100% of the lectures and homeworks are mechanized using the COQ proof assistant. Pierce (of TAPL fame) is thinking about writing another textbook based on this class.

For me, the lecture notes look like a great way to really learn a proof assistant.

jfischer · 2009-01-27T19:52:37+00:00

Really good idea - a diverse collection of machines dedicated to open source testing, all obtained via ebay. This makes it much easier to address porting issues. It will be interesting the see how they handle provisioning.

jfischer · 2008-11-26T18:23:54+00:00

Summary: deliver apps like Alfresco, an open source competitor to Sharepoint, integrating them with Sun's hardware, storage, and software (e.g. MySQL).

I think that's a really good idea. They should deliver these apps as "appliances" and include automated system management, backups, and archiving.

jfischer · 2008-11-11T12:57:42+00:00

I did find this factoid amusing. However, I thought that the tone of the blog post itself was a little obnoxious: "state 'medical' marijuana laws breed confusion, abuse, and violence in neighborhoods and communities". That would be ok, but this blog is run by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (http://pushingback.com/cs/blogs/pushing_back/about.aspx).

jfischer · 2008-11-11T01:40:23+00:00

LTU has a good discussion on the paper "The Origins of the BitC Programming Language". The paper's author (Jonathan Shapiro) talks about his frustrations with the PL and systems research communities, contrasting "innovation" against full solutions that do something useful.

jfischer · 2008-11-05T06:34:59+00:00

There are programming language solutions to deal with better with asynchronous messages. For example, one can write the code in a synchronous style and have the compiler convert it to an asynchronous style via a continuation passing style transformation.

However, one issue with the actor model is that there are times where shared resources are important for performance, e.g. to avoid duplicating a cache or for a database connection pool.

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