Month: April 2003

Hundred year language

Very interesting article on <Ahref=“http://www.paulgraham.com/hundred.html”>http://www.paulgraham.com/hundred.html

, I had a wander around the site. It inspired me to want to have a go at Lisp again. Got a nice IDE at <Ahref=“http://www.ufasoft.com/lisp/”>http://www.ufasoft.com/lisp/ (freefor non-commercial use). Found an online tutorial at <Ahref=“http://grimpeur.tamu.edu/~colin/lp/node1.html”>http://grimpeur.tamu.edu/~colin/lp/node1.html.

I suspect that I do a lot of what he talks about anyway. I use recursion alot, even in Oracle PL/SQL as well as Java and I tend to write things that are reusable and stuff them in libraries, o-o just makes this easier. I love the Lisp idea of being able to write macros that change runtime behaviours. Lisp seems much easier than Ruby. Like a lot of languages I think its simplicity is what makes it so powerful. Writing a language in itself is also good because it makes it easier to understand.

It was interesting that PG puts down his success and rapid software development down to using Lisp, which gives you the power to do prototypes quickly and then get them working. Java is very low-level and the power actually comes from all of the libraries supplied with it. PL/SQL is based on Ada and starts with better constructs (from a Pascal rather than C++ heritage) and much better database binding. For me Java should be calling PL/SQL procedures, I think this would be very fast and allow you to build anything on top of the procedures. Leave the data in the database, how radical.

Ah, maybe a little project for a Lisp interpreter in Java (probably find one in 5 secs on t’internet)…

Bloody teeth, bloody forms, bloody tired

This busted tooth, driving me nuts, can’t work properly. Gum has been bleeding today for some reason, had to try hard not to wave bloody mouth around the office. Yeuch. Will look into private health insurance cover tonight to see if I can expedite the rest of it.

Form again

Oracle forms has been driving me up the wall again, even with the newer version you still have to occasionally copy/delete/recreate/paste into triggers and program units that either won’t fire or make the form disappear. Something resized some canvases slightly and it now looks wrong on the web forms. I still like it better than any Java IDE because it lets you get on with developing the software. Been having fun making an autoquery function work, had to use the when-mouse-navigate trigger rather than post-item because of the restrictions on post-item. I really like all of the inheritance stuff.

Time

Time management is a total pain in the arse, working at about 50% because of the tooth and lack of sleep, priorities won’t stay still, can’t seem to get anything done. Just apply shoulder to the wheel of dharma, as usual.

Music.

Been listening to Pearl Jam. Couldn’t get into them at first but really like the singer’s voice. Mostly Riot Act This is such a happening tailpipe of a party, like sugar the guests are so refined (Bushleager).  I like their politics as well, they’re talking about giving their stuff away and just making money from gigging and had a row with Ticketmaster over the price of tickets – can’t see the Stones doing that, can you? Had a go at Faith No More (the Real Thing) again but still can’t quite get there. Interesting note perfect cover of old Black Sabbath tune but they apparently stopped playing it because it screwed their street cred. I remember the Sabs 1st time around, being so crusty, they were my favourite band before I discovered Free and the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Baby boom

Found out today that one of my colleagues from Oracle has just had a baby. Haven’t seen her for ages and didn’t even know she was pregnant! Good news, everyone home safe and well. My mate Andy’s wife had one about a week ago as; took the opportunity to nag him about smoking, very naughty of me, but if I can give up anyone can (12 years now).

Another Oracle colleague’s wife is expecting and I emailed him how things were going, house sorted everything ready and then a pipe burst and fucked everything, all the decorating etc. etc. Not a happy bunny. If t’were me I’d get the insurance people to sort it all.

Fun

If you like radio comedy have a go at bb7 http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/ I also really enjoyed the Now Show http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/rams/sat1230.ram (this will go at the end of this week).

Blessings to you all.

Fun and misery

Teething trouble

Ah well, the tooth extraction did not go well. After my dentist had swung on it for about 20 minutes and not got anywhere (except for a groovy crackling noise in my head) it shattered. I now have the stub of a dead tooth and a bruised and sore gum. Haven’t had a lot of sleep in the last few days with the pain. Ibuprofen and paracetamol together for the first couple of days. It’s beginning to heal up. I went and bought 96 max strength ibuprofen tablets.Paracetamol is quite toxic if you overdo it so I’ve been giving them a wide berth except when the ibuprofen needed some help.

Now I have to wait until a specialist can see me to take out the remains of the tooth, probably just as it settles down again. I reckon he’ll have to cut the gum to get in and then stitch it up. Then another week of misery. Ah well. This is what we all went through as babies but can’t remember. My dharma teacher said that you should take on the pain as part of the pain of all sentient beings, and use it to help you equalise yourself with them, but then take the medicine!

Kars

My car’s in for repair so I’m driving a Ford Ka(k) courtesy car. Don’t like it, very noisy, it sounds like the bearings on the back have gone hut it’s only done 4 1/2 k. Probably just a lack of sound insulation. It will cruise on the motorway quite happily but I have to have the CD really loud just to drown out the noise. All these criticisms apart, I would probably consider something like this if I lived in London because you can never get up to more than about 20 mph anyway and their size makes parking a dream. I’d still have to have a proper car for the weekends though.

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The struggle for enlightenment

I seem to have spent the last couple of weeks tired out of my mind. I have been keeping up my buddhist practice and it has been hard. Today I had something of a breakthrough, although like all of these things it is essentially empty and you can’t break through to what isn’t there.

There is a fundamental view that we are conditioned by our ignorance of our buddha nature that causes the split between subject and object. This separation breeds fear, and the like/dislike/don’t care about the “other” which in turn breeds anger and the other mental defilements. I was fighting with my anger today (won’t go into why) and pushed hard at it. Pushing doesn’t work because if you suppress something you make it stronger so instead I imagined it being transformed into the base nature that it comprises of. The black anger was siffused with rivers of gold that changed it back into the open space behind it. So what happened? There was all of my fear hiding behind it. This was indescribably shattering and liberating, but like my teacher says, practice every day and don’t worry about what happens – the important thing is to be consistent. The practice is for the benifit of all sentient beings and if you feel better because of it then OK, but others still come first. This is why you dedicate the virtue you may have accumulated doing the practice to the benefit of others. That said, it still felt like I had been hit by a bus.

April dawns

Well, we’ve done a lot of things. Been to the Aztec exhibition at the Royal academy, very interesting, they had some serious insights into the world. Sad that their conclusions were so bloody. Did the tourist bus thing afterwards, which I’ve never done before. London is an interesting place. Had a conversation with a cabbie. Apparently central London is rubbish for secondary schools if you don’t have money. I am glad that I live in the North of England, near to beautiful Wales and its rivers.

Been getting into Pearl Jam (yeah, I know everyone else has already done this).

Bought some Sennheiser PMX60’s today. They are the neck mounted type. Very good. My old ‘phones are OK but the foam has gone and they were eating my ears. Not sure about the neck mount yet.

Competing in a kayak slalom at Marple on Sunday. 1st time I’ve ever done this, should be a laugh.

Having a tooth out tomorrow morning – not looking forward to this. Last had teeth out when I was 9 or so and it was nasty and traumatic. I remember coming round from the gas and my mum wasn’t there. I called for her and frightened my sister who wouldn’t go. I remember being sick and scared was somehow my fault because my sister wouldn’t go. Funny how these things sometimes never leave. Must be karma.

Blessings upon you all, if anyone ever reads this!