Miscellaneous and Useless Information
James Lin’s infrequently updated blog
A few years ago, I first learned of the Reason programming language, which is an alternate syntax to OCaml that more closely resembles JavaScript. Through a compiler called BuckleScript, Reason could also target JavaScript. But later, BuckleScript was rebranded as ReScript and introduced its own somewhat different syntax, essentially becoming its own programming language. It …
Continue reading “Updating Reason and ReScript in Wikipedia”
Here is an incredibly inspiring story about a homeless boy in Uganda who grew up to be a child advocate in the U.S., who has fostered 47 kids and adopted 3 more, and the man who changed his life.
I think my knowledge of computer history is decent, yet only now am I learning about Stephanie Shirley, a pioneer in the tech industry who started a software company in 1962 employing mostly women working part-time at home. Way ahead of her time 🫡
Marcin Wichary has done it again. He has written a wonderful essay on the Gorton font, a font you probably have never heard of but “probably saw earlier today.” As I read it, I realized I had been noticing it my whole life subconsciously, and the words using it always felt important, since it was …
This holiday season, I learned that the melody of the Christmas carol “Carol of the Bells” is from a Ukrainian New Year’s song called “Shchedryk” (Щедрик), first arranged in the early 1900s, which in turn is based on a traditional Ukrainian folk melody. Here is “Shchedryk” sung in its original Ukrainian: Happy New Year everyone …
Continue reading “Carol of the Bells in its original Ukrainian”
I’ve joked with my friends that I want to get into building hand-crafted, artisan software. Then Lian Proven of The Register makes the case for it, such as higher quality and being more attuned to a specific group’s needs. I can think of a few examples of folks making hand-crafted software:
I’m a bit too young to have watched (or certainly understood) the sitcom Taxi, but I remember the opening theme song vividly. Here is Bob James, who wrote the song, performing it with his jazz trio at age 82. (Sometimes the YouTube algorithm is good for something!)
Last night, I watched Yang Liping’s interpretation of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring at Stanford. Totally stunning and definitely worth watching. We also enjoyed her conversation with Thomas Mullaney (Stanford professor of history and East Asian languages and cultures) — like him, I didn’t fully understand what I saw but it set off my brain in …
I love this collection of free online creativity tools, from drawing and music to creative coding.
A salute to Thomas Kurtz, who created BASIC with John Kemeny in 1964. BASIC was my first programming language, and I stuck with it long enough to graduate to QuickBASIC, without GOTOs or line numbers. In fact, I first really got structured programming in QuickBASIC.