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Micro-posting in July

July 30, 2019

Here is the monthly newsletter from the Micro blog.

2019-07-01: Yesterday I started watching Morden i Sandhamn. Looks good so far.
2019-07-01: 6 ways to declare JavaScript functions. #javascript
2019-07-01: Advanced Data Structures.
2019-07-02: (N)vim annoys me too. WTF with the working directory and the way we twist ourselves to close a single buffer?! Time to go back to Morden i Sandhamn, or I guess so.
2019-07-02:   Joan As Police Woman, To Survive.
2019-07-02: I stopped posting a while ago but Twitter starts to annoy me beyond the limit. It’s probably time to take a break.

2019-07-02: Last week I discovered an interesting side-effect, or bug to put it simply, in Emacs/LSP (I’m using Doom Emacs but I don’t think it is relevant here). The LSP package has a nice utility to show code outline in a sidebar (much like the goold old imenu-sidebar that was once available in Doom Emacs). Together with NerdTree (or Treemacs if it suits you better), you get the same look’n feel as what’s available in VS Code or Atom. Now, what if I tell you that once I activate the LSP package, you get code outline for free in all other modes, including Lisp or Racket? #emacs
2019-07-02: Computer Intensive Statistics, by Luke Tierney. #rstats
2019-07-02: Decoded: GNU coreutils.
2019-07-02: Karatsuba multiplication in SBCL. #lisp
2019-07-03: Text-only version of R5RS. Very handy for browsing right into your preferred text editor. #scheme
2019-07-04: Yet another blog full of nice code and great explanations. Check the associated Gihub repo as well.
2019-07-04: First blog I found where the author is interested both in R and Racket. #rstats #racket
2019-07-04: Topology and data. (via John D Cook)
2019-07-05: Euler’s constant: Euler’s work and modern developments. #arxiv
2019-07-06: I’m too busy focusing on Racket at the moment, but today I learned that next to Hy there’s Ale. #lisp
2019-07-06: Thanks to John Cook, I ended up re-reading programming in the twenty-first century, and a few other articles written by James Hague.
2019-07-06: So you think you know C?
2019-07-07:   P.J. Harvey, The Peel Sessions 1991–2004.
2019-07-07: About to start watching John Wick 2 with my son.
2019-07-07: Nice account of Kimura’s contribution to molecular population genetics (via Vince Buffalo).
2019-07-07: My Lisp Experiences and the Development of GNU Emacs. Whether you like the guy (or what his public interventions have become) or not, this is an interesting read for those interested in the road to Lisp. #lisp
2019-07-08: Best way I found to mimic R’s rle function is this nice little piece of code (in Racket; credit to Chris Jester-Young):scheme(define (bagify lst)(foldl (lambda (key ht)(hash-update ht key add1 0))#hash() lst))
2019-07-08: Now, it’s probably time to go watch Taken (once again).
2019-07-08: TIL about the brewsci/bio tap for Homebrew. #bioinformatics
2019-07-08: Generator in common lisp. #lisp
2019-07-08: Lisp for The Modern Web. #lisp
2019-07-08: Scripting in Haskell and PureScript. Because why not?! The joy of FPs at the command-line…
2019-07-09:   Patti Smith, Horses.
2019-07-09: Euler problem 14 is all about Collatz numbers. I am aware of Atabey Kaygun’s posts, but I found a nice implementation in Scheme on SO today.
2019-07-09: I’m all in LSP stuff at the moment, but maybe I should give it a try: An interface to communicate with Jupyter kernels. #emacs
2019-07-09: The temperatures are milder this week and yet I have 10/6 BP. Thanks for the medication! However, I should note that I am no longer stressed in the evening because of–you know–things to do urgently at the last minute. Because I no longer care, above all.
2019-07-09: Better Than Floating Point? on HN today. The comments are also full of extra links on FP computation.
2019-07-09: C in four functions. See also Let’s Build a Compiler. #clang
2019-07-09: The Implementation of Functional Programming Languages.
2019-07-09: The Riemann Hypothesis Says 5040 is the Last. #math
2019-07-10:   Jack DeJohnette, Ravi Coltrane & Matt Garisson, In Movement.
2019-07-10: > It’s about impossible to avoid using a modern browser, but the experience can be made more bearable.> Living without the modern browser
2019-07-10: Fast primitive based math library. #clojure
2019-07-10: How to capitalize on a priori contrasts in linear (mixed) models: A tutorial. #arxiv #rstats
2019-07-11:   Anouar Brahem, The Astounding Eyes of Rita.
2019-07-11: Dive into Deep Learning: An interactive deep learning book with code, math, and discussions. (Github)
2019-07-11: Lectures in Discrete Mathematics.
2019-07-11: Victor Mono is a free programming font with semi-connected cursive italics and symbol ligatures. It looks like a solid alternative to Iosevska (which I use in my terminal) or Fira (which I no longer use except for slidedeck).
2019-07-12:   Patti Smith, Wave.
2019-07-12: Explanation of combinators for the working man.
2019-07-12: Why I haven’t jumped ship from Common Lisp to Racket (just yet). #lisp
2019-07-12: pysradb: A package for fetching metadata and downloading data from SRA. #python #bioinformatics
2019-07-14: I bookmarked Modern Statistics for Modern Biology (Susan Holmes, Wolfgang Huber) a while ago, and upon skimming at it again I believe it’s a really good introduction for biologists, full of nice illustrations and examples.
2019-07-14: I no longer attend conference, and it’s a shame since (ninth RacketCon) looks so promising. #racket
2019-07-14: Okay, I just had to downgrade my current Python config since python-language-server does not play well with jedi>0.14. #python #emacs
2019-07-15:   Tindersticks, Waiting for the Moon.
2019-07-15: And we are done with John Wick (1 and 2) and Taken (1, 2, and 3). What’s next?
2019-07-15: OMG. How many new languages are yet to expect in the next few years?!
2019-07-15: D3 Documentation on Observable.
2019-07-15: Elements of Programming, by Alexander Stepanov and Paul McJones. (via HN)
2019-07-16: A collection of open and indie Mac, iOS, and web apps that help promote the open web. Nice to see so many free apps for the Mac. I learned that there even exists a dedicated editor for Hugo websites.
2019-07-16: Keeping away from Twitter was quite a nice idea. Instead of spending one hour browsing my TL everyday, I settled for a few minutes here and there, without any bookmarks. As a result, I read three books in three days, listen to some good vinyles in the morning, and I immersed myself in old books on algorithms and data structures. BTW we just started watching Chernobyl.
2019-07-16: Easy Parsing with Parser Combinators.
2019-07-16: MLJ.jl: A Julia machine learning framework. I still haven’t decided whether I should look into Julia more seriously after 5 years…
2019-07-16: Rebuilding Racket on Chez Scheme (Experience Report) (PDF, 14 pp.). #racket
2019-07-16: Why I (as of June 22 2019) think Haskell is the best general purpose language. For me, Haskell remains hard, even if switching to stack saved me form all those Go I used once in a while. #haskell
2019-07-16: Writing a Ph.D. thesis with Org Mode. See also the associated blog post. #emacs
2019-07-16: ebib: A BibTeX database manager for Emacs. It bears some resemblance with what org-ref and ivy-bibyex offer actually, but it may something to try in the future, if only to simply remove unnecessary dependencies with Helm. #emacs
2019-07-17:   Beirut, The Flying Club Cup.
2019-07-17: > Racket is a great Lisp, but it’s also an acceptable Python. Sometimes you really can have it all.» – Racket is an acceptable Python.
2019-07-17: My life has just become a poem where I unroll rhymes of side effects, one after the other. Today it is hyperkalemia that won the day.
2019-07-17: The Rust compiler is just some kind of magic!

2019-07-17: Hierarchical generalized additive models in ecology: an introduction with mgcv. #rstats
2019-07-17: Human Genome Assembly in 100 Minutes. #bioinformatics
2019-07-17: Julia’s Efficient Algorithm for Subtyping Unions and Covariant Tuples (PDF, 15 pp.).
2019-07-17: Lisp and Haskell. #lisp
2019-07-17: OCaml Scientific Computing. #ocaml
2019-07-18:   Bill Fay, Who is the Sender?.
2019-07-18: If Racket shares the beauty of Lisp and Python, it may even get ride of parenthesis in the near future. #racket
2019-07-18: What a wonderful work on SICP on Eli Bendersky’s website. #lisp #clojure
2019-07-18: Identification of hidden population structure in time-scaled phylogenies. #bioinformatics
2019-07-18: What’s coming in Python 3.8. #python
2019-07-19:   Arno, Human Incognito.
2019-07-19: Finally, maybe GitHub Actions is a viable alternative to Travis CI.
2019-07-19: Here’s a funny problem that you may probably know if you read Douglas Hofstadter’s wonderful book, Gödel, Escher, Bach. You are given a small alphabet, which consists in the letters M, U and I, and a set of four rules, where x and y denote any string:- xI to xIU: append U at the end of a string that ends with I;- Mx to Mxx: append the string after M a second time;- xIIIy to xUy: replace III with U;- xUUy to xy: remove UU.Let’s start with the string MI. The goal is to convert this string to MU using those rules, that you can reuse at will. I can’t remember where I saw this problem mentioned on the internet. There is no solution to this problem, but I keep thinking of this gorgeous book each time I see some mention of Hofstadter’s puzzles.
2019-07-19: Hot off the kitchen:

2019-07-19: I know dark mode isn’t for coders or writers, but let that not stop looking at the following Emacs instance when they run in GUI or Terminal:

Brighter UI, better contrast for comments, and less buggy major mode (LSP, Racket, SLY, especially–but don’t what could potentially be the issue when running in Terminal). #emacs
2019-07-19: I’m tired, unable to complete anything, and and always looking the other way. It’s probably time to put this computer on standby. Let’s go watch Morden i Sandhamn, Season 2.
2019-07-19: If you like pv and wants a tool that can be launched afterwards, then try progress, the Coreutils Progress Viewer. BTW, it’s available via Homebrew.
2019-07-19: A Differentiable Programming System to Bridge Machine Learning and Scientific Computing. #arxiv #julia
2019-07-19: Dropbox silently installs new file manager app on users’ systems. That’s a shame as I always thought of Dropbox as a reliable and solid alternative to iCloud or other backup/sync toolchains. I removed all my folder long ago, and I no longer make any use of my 15+ Go free space, but the recent issues with Dropbox are appalling. Let’s hope they will find a good compromise like when decided to update their TOS and then bring a step backward.
2019-07-19: Herbie: Find and fix floating-point problems. #racket
2019-07-19: Mathematica/Mathics tutorial for the First Course in Applied Differential Equations.
2019-07-19: deta: Functional Database Mapping. #racket
2019-07-20:   Micah P. Hinson, And the Pioneer Saboteurs.
2019-07-20: After some Euler problems in Lisp, Rosalind exercises in Python, and several tracks on Exercism, I should probably give a try to: H-99: Ninety-Nine Haskell Problems. #haskell
2019-07-20: Personally, I stand by From Python to Numpy, but go check NumPy resources if you’re looking for additional resources. #python
2019-07-20: TIL about m-expr, which were supplanted by s-expr in Lisp languages. Still, they are a core part of Mathematica noawadays.
2019-07-20: While I believe I’m still recoevring from the last episode of hyperkaliemia, my blood pressure seems ok, even if I feel a lot tired, at least more than usual. But as we have to be positive, let’s face it: it’s not too hot yet, I’m having a glass of white wine and enjoying a pleasant breeze, as I did yesterday.

2019-07-20: A Deeper Understanding of Clojure CLI Tools. I often fire up clj to play with small Clojure snippets, so this definitely is something to keep in my bookmarks even if it is still project-based. #clojure
2019-07-20: History and effective use of Vim. #vim
2019-07-20: History of Lisp, by John McCarthy (1979). #lisp
2019-07-20: PostgreSQL Exercises: Clean and instructive web site to test your knowledge of Postgres. #database
2019-07-21: Here is a nice introduction to computer science and (X)HTML processing using Racket. #racket
2019-07-21: Yesterday wa watched The Transporter. Two more to go.
2019-07-21: A Retrospective on Paradigms of AI Programming, by Peter Norvig. See the review on Eli Bendersky’s website. #lisp
2019-07-21: SICP Logic Programming: A Clojure implementation of the logic programming language described in Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. #clojure
2019-07-21: Topological Data Analysis (PDF, 42 pp.), by Larry Wasserman.
2019-07-21: py4cl: Call python from Common Lisp. #python #lisp
2019-07-22:   ECM: Keith Jarrett.
2019-07-22: Here are two interesting static site generator that look like good alternatives to Hugo: Nikola and Middleman.
2019-07-22: Interesting read. Two Years With Emacs as a CEO (and now CTO). #emacs
2019-07-22: Last episode of the triptych tonight: The Transporter.
2019-07-22: OMG I just opened Twitter in Safari (I’m mostly reading tweets from an iPhone), and… It’s just unusable. Ok, bye for now!
2019-07-22: TIL about develop, the Apple tech journal from the 90’s. Feat. article: The Power of Macintosh Common Lisp, by Ruben Kleiman. (via Rainer Joswig)
2019-07-22: The new status bar in iTerm is astonishing!

2019-07-22: A Tour of the Data Ecosystem in Julia. #julia
2019-07-22: Embeddable lisp interpreter written in C. #lisp
2019-07-22: Scientific computing with Rust. #rust
2019-07-22: Scientific computing: a Rust adventure. #rust
2019-07-23: Switching to Idle for a few days–weather’s too hot, sorry! In the meantime, go check Lisp, the Universe and Everything, and wish me luck with the next Euler problems. Cheers
2019-07-27: Got a little update to the Macbook yesterday! Three years already, and still as valiant as ever:

2019-07-27: Great resources: Statistical Rethinking with brms, ggplot2, and the tidyverse. And I think we have to resign ourselves to seeing all the new R tutorials using almost only the tidyverse! #rstats
2019-07-27: The last few days were very, very hot! I don’t remember breathing such hot air in my life. It’s all in the past now, but I’m not about to forget it. A little memory of my last lunch:

2019-07-27: We are back with some fresh news from Github: Fast polynomial arithmetic in Haskell.
2019-07-27: Visualizing and exploring sorting algorithms in two dimensions with Ink. (via HN)
2019-07-27: scikit-allel: Explore and analyse genetic variation. Back in 2010, we were using R and the snpMatrix package but it looks like Python now comes with good utilities too. #python
2019-07-28: https://ask.clojure.org is a dedicated Stack Overflow for #clojure.
2019-07-28: > The longer you spend in these ecosystems, the more machine learning systems can optimize themselves against user preferences. – This Is How You’re Being Manipulated.
2019-07-28: Starting soon…

2019-07-28: Client-side web programming in Haskell: A retrospective. #haskell
2019-07-28: Did Functional Programming get it wrong?
2019-07-28: Discrete Differential Geometry: An Applied Introduction (PDF, 169 pp.). (via HN)
2019-07-28: Why Category Theory Matters.
2019-07-29: I should have added this one to my previous arXiv review: On the variability of regression shrinkage methods for clinical prediction models: simulation study on predictive performance.
2019-07-29: To my son, of course… Generating castles for Minecraft™ using Haskell.

See Also

» Micro-posting in June » Micro-posting in May » Micro-posting in April » Micro-posting in March » One year micro-blogging