This change was inspired by a conversation with Arteum Bochevarov, who is also working on expanding Pythonica. Hopefully we can merge our versions together.

Pythonica is a symbolic evaluation program written in Python. It’s loosely based off of Mathematica and is a really good start. It’s missing a lot and it’s weak in other areas, but it’s still fun to play around with and can be extended.

Anyway, over the last couple of days I’ve been updating it a bit (replacing uses of the regex module with re, removing some deprecated uses of the string module, etc) and improving it. I’ve implemented some new functions (Sin/Cos/Tan/ASin/ACos/ATan/Rad2Deg/Deg2Rad), added a couple of default symbols (pi and e), and fixed some bugs (for example, Sin[pi/4] used to produce Sin[pi,4] instead of Sin[Divide[pi,4]]). At some point I’m probably going to start re-writing some of the internals to support some things Joe suggests on his page.

Anyway, Pythonica is pretty cool and a decent example of Python code. If you like Python, you should check it out.

Colloquy

Colloquy is a Mac OS X IRC client. It’s not as powerful as some others, notably X-Chat Aqua, but it’s the only one that’s actually well-designed from a UI standpoint (it looks like an Aqua IRC client should look). Colloquy is also really nice from a code standpoint. For instance, the way it does Styles. It has several different styles, and they all look fairly different. The way it’s done is everything is rendered in a WebView using Safari’s WebKit. It translates the IRC traffic into an XML log and uses XSLT to translate the log into an XHTML document and renders that in the WebView. For new messages it uses JavaScript to append the message to the end of the document. This makes it really flexible and really powerful. Here’s a screenshot of my favorite style, called Meinzer:

For comparison, here’s a screenshot of the Standard style:

And BTW, new messages in Standard fade in. It’s really nice.

So anyway, this is a really nice-looking client and it’s being actively developed. Just recently the core was switched to irssi from Firetalk which will let a lot more features be added. And just a few days ago I was set as an official developer for the project, in return for all the code I donated. It’s a lot of fun, as my work is actively tested by a core group of people that hang out on #colloquy on Freenode and any work I do makes life better for me as I use the app. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun coding before.

Markdown

Just yesterday I downloaded a cool script called Markdown. It’s a really nice way of typing text that automatically gets translated into XHTML when you post to your Movable Type blog. It also works when called from the BBEdit Unix Filters menu. And there’s a downloadable service called Humane Text that you can call using the Mac OS X Services menu that translates between text and XHTML using Markdown and html2text.

This post was, of course, written using Markdown. It really makes it very pleasant to type and is supported in ecto’s Preview functionality.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This is a really good movie. I just saw it recently. If you don’t know, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a Jim Carrey movie about somebody who just broke up with his girlfriend and goes to a clinic-like business to have all his memories about his ex erased. However, halfway through the process he decides he doesn’t want them erased after all but is powerless to do anything about it. I highly recommend it.

On the topic of movies, I really want to see Hellboy.

Python coding

If you’ve talked to me about coding, you’ve probably heard me lament about how I love Python but I never get a chance to code with it. Well, one of my classes this term, CS2223 (Algorithms) has programming projects. Granted, the projects aren’t terribly great, but the flip side is the language isn’t specified so you can use whatever you want, as long as it compiles on the CCC machines. So, for these projects, I’m using Python! So the projects suck, but at least I get to use Python ;)

Splurge Purchases

My dormmate Pete works at Radio Shack. He’s making a lot of money there. On a whim, today I trailed him to work so I could see if they had anything I wanted. As it turns out, they did, but I didn’t know I wanted them until Pete told me I did ;) I bought 2 things (3 if you count batteries, for the low low price of $5 for a 12-pack of AA’s since they were mislabeled and Pete insisted on selling them to me for that price. For comparison, a 4-pack costs $4 and a 12-pack usually costs $9):

• A really nice pair of headphones.

  These headphones are Sennheiser headphones (model HD 497). They cost $69 and are completely worth it. They fit really comfortably, they sound great, and they look decent. They’re the best pair of headphones I’ve ever used. With it, I’m hearing instruments in Jekyll & Hyde that I never heard before! It’s great!

• A pair of expensive walkie talkies (sorry, two-way radio)

  These are Motorola Talkabout two-way radios, model T5950. They cost $99. They’re probably not worth it, but I’m a sucker for neat gadgets. And these do everything you could want in a two-way radio. They’re very durable, they have 22 channels, they have 99 interference eliminator codes (a lot more than the standard 38), they can get a weather broadcast so you can hear the current weather in your area, they have a range of up to 5 miles, and they’re just damn cool.

With these 2 (sorry, 3) purchases, I spent $180 and Pete earned, I believe, $9 on commission. That’s pretty nice for him just chatting with me for 10 minutes about all the cool stuff they have in that store. The two-way radios may be a but gratuitous, but these headphones are really great, so I’m glad I bought them.

Well, that’s about it

I don’t really have anything else to talk about. I’ll try and update somewhat regularly from here on.

The other facet of my script is anything accessed from inside that directory is funnelled through the script, i.e. the script is given the filename and it opens it and gets the content-type and outputs the contents of the file. The point of this, of course, is for the templating system, but for now it’s just for fun.

If you want to try it, just go here.