Dec 27, 2013

Great things and people that I discovered, learned, read, met, etc. in 2013. No particular ordering is implied. Not everything is new.

also: see the lists from 2012, 2011 and 2010

Join in on the Hacker News discussion.

Great blog posts read

Most viewed blog posts by me (20K+ viewers)

Favorite technical books discovered (and read)

10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 by Nick Montfort and others — A critical, philosophical and artistic view of a simple line of Commodore 64 BASIC code.

Computer Lib; Dream Machines by Ted Nelson — It took me ~15 years to track down a reasonably priced copy of this book, but the wait was well worth it.

The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal by Waldrop — Licklider is little known amongst modern computerists, but much of what we know about computation owes much to his mind and guidance.

Favorite non-technical books read

Earth Abides by George Stewart — My favorite entry in the family of global-pandemic-centric science fiction novels.

The Invention of Morel — A beautifully written book about an island of … I can’t say without giving away too much.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley — What can I add about this books that hasn’t been said 1000 times already. A fascinating life.

Grooks — Wonderful, poems… no… aphorisms… no… sketches… no… Grooks by Piet Hein

A Gamut of Games by Sid Sackson — The book that really kicked my recent obsession with games into high-gear.

Number of books read

a bunch

Number of books published

1 (with another due early 2014), plus a newsletter about Lispiness.

Number of books written

2

Number of papers read

≈ 20 (a very slow year for me in the paper department, sadly)

Number of papers read deeply

3

Language zoo additions

Zeder

Favorite musicians discovered

Om, Alien Sex Fiend, The Fiery Furnaces

Favorite games discovered

I’ve discovered gaming at a late age. That’s not to say that I never played games. In fact, I’ve played my share of Chess, Checkers, Go, Risk, Gin Rummy, Hearts and Uno, but for one reason or another I never expanded much further than those staple games. However, now that my kids are getting older their drive to experience games and gaming is growing… and so goes mine. Therefore, below I’ll list my favorite games found in this year of discovery.

Board games

Cannon (PDF) — A wonderful board game with simple rules and deep complexities. A 150-year game. 4

Mate — 20 cards. Perfect information. Mind games. Fun. I’m looking for people to play with via email; interested?

Hive — A game of bug-tile placement. A 150-year game.

Volcano — Not only great fun, but a beautiful game to boot. My current favorite Looney Pyramids game.

Homeworlds — An abstract game a intergalactic conquest. A 150-year game. I’m looking for people to play with via email; interested?

Card games

Super Nova — An abandoned CCG that tried to gain players at the wrong time. Reading over the rules hints at a very fun game that might one day work as a LCG.

Magic: The Gathering — As a child of RPGs and LARPs, I’m ashamed to admit that I was a snob about Magic for many years, but I’ve come to discover a very deep and fun game 20-years later. I’m a very casual player without a drive to spend spend spend and thankfully there are movements in the MtG community to support such players.

Haggis — The best two-player card game since Gin Rummy.

Favorite TV series about zombies

The Walking Dead

Favorite programming languages (or related)

Clojure, ClojureScript, Haskell, Datalog, Frink, Pure, Racket, T

Programming languages used for projects both professional and not

Clojure, ClojureScript, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, SQL, Bash, make, Datalog, Zeder

Favorite papers discovered (and read)

Still haven’t read…

Snow Crash, Spook Country, A Fire upon the Deep, Programmer avec Scheme, Norwegian Wood, The Contortionists Handbook and a boat-load of scifi

Favorite conference attended

Strange Loop

Favorite code read

Life changing technology discovered

State of plans from 2012

Pescetarianism (redux) — huge fail (again)

Ariadne (the super-secret project) — eventually became my production rules system Zeder. Huge personal success!

More concatenative — year number two of huge failure.

Participate in the PLT Games — I was only able to participate once before Zeder took over my life.

No talks unless I have code to show — I consider this a rousing success as the few talks that I gave were code-heavy and about real projects that I was working on. I will continue this principle moving forward.

Plans for 2014

Publish The Joy of Clojure, 2E

Create a card game

Create a dice game

Create a board game

Create a Looney Pyramids game

Blog about Zeder

Patagonia

No talks without code to show

Goodbye

To my friend and colleague, whom I worked with for many years and learned so much of what I know about the art of programming — you will be missed. Rest in peace.

:F