i am a professional time waster

[nibot]

To-do list for this weekend:

* Eat frozen custard by the lake
* Get a guidebook to Mexico and the Copper Canyon from the public library
* Sit on the grass in the shade in a sunny park, and read Claude Shannon's thesis
* Get some MDF, paint it, and finish up my neon project

Amazon has a deal where, if you sign up for their credit card, they give you $30 off your first amazon.com purchase (≥$30) with it. What should I get? A delightful gift basket of Dover Classics in Mathematical Physics (aka textbooks)? (Sadly, I think they may have caught onto my previous scheme, which was to register as an "affiliate" and then earn a 15% commission on books I recommended to myself.) Seriously, I'd enjoy some book recommendations. (And for the same, I recommend you befriend fourmilab_books.)

I updated my list of possible courses for next term with a partial textbook list.

I got my federal tax refund today. w00t! I haven't bothered to do my state taxes yet (for New York and California). It turns out you can get a four-month extension via a point-and-click interface in New York, and you don't have to do anything in California. The procrastinator in me rejoices! (is there any other part?)

Comments

[nibot.livejournal.com]

I see you have "Basic Category Theory for Computer Scientists" on your list... I imagine you probably saw my reference to the book? Anyway—I found the book pretty unsatisfying. Admittedly I only paged through it.

Self-Organizing Maps by Teuvo Kohonen

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Very cool stuff.

Plan 9

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Have you read the Plan 9 papers? I think you might find them very interesting.

Re: Plan 9

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Bump those papers up on your reading list—they'll change your life!

You're in an OS class right now, right? The Plan 9 papers will be ever more apropos.

I have two plan9-related quotes at http://xcf.berkeley.edu/~tobin/ that are kind of amusing.

Re: Plan 9

[nibot.livejournal.com]

I don't think my OS class mentioned any extant OS. (-:

http://www-inst.cs.berkeley.edu/~cs162/lectures.shtml

I actually had it from the same guy that's teaching it now (Prof. Smith). He was incredibly boring and I stopped going to lectures.

I think an intro OS class is necessarily about the projects.

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it must have warmed up. You're talking about SHADE and frozen custard!

[nibot.livejournal.com]

At least it looks warm.