Why Security Questions Don't Work For Me

2007.10.20 : stream of consciousness

(originally hand written aside some lines and doodles)

words tumble onto paper like sand in hourglass hips swaying
in the sunroof of the town car dealer in the
lowest part of town, down. The wolf howls at the crab
cake looking for a milkshake fantasy and sub-machine
dream. Life flows sonic like a fountain, shouts
out the trout of the kings eye side.

Eagle eye droppers view [illegible] inside
a robot winged Satan.

Fluttering I
see nothing,
only trees,
grass
and
green

Skies lower clouds to the meadows and
the small chirping frog stammers "Rosebud"

MAA No Jutsu Club Monster Tournament 3th

With a title like that, who could resist joining this tournament?

Looks like there are 200 players registered, nearly all of them above 15 kyu. That means I'm starting off at the very bottom of the ladder, but I'm doing it more for the learning experience than anything.

The tournament will last 2 months, with a new game every 3 days. I'll update my status here with wins or losses and links to the SGF files. If you are around during any of the games, please consider logging into KGS and viewing the games live if you'd like. :)

• Game 1, 2007.10.15: amundsen [17k] (white), I won +199.5
• Game 2, 2007.10.18: Yohdrag [15k] (white), I lost -22.5
• Game 3, 2007.10.21: Nautica [15k] (black), I won +109.5
• Game 4, 2007.10.24: Nfaifa [13k] (white), I lost -76.5
• Game 5, 2007.10.27: Bye
• Game 6, 2007.10.30: babercan [12k] (white), I won +3.5
• Game 7, 2007.11.02: Bye (at RubyConf)
• Game 8, 2007.11.05, saibnymn [12k] (white), I lost -42.5
  
• Game 9, 2007.11.08, I forgot to log in :-/
• Game 10, 2007.11.11, ronyazarez [14k] (white), I won by resignation
• Game 11, 2007.11.14, Nautica [14k] (black), I won by resignation
• Game 12, 2007.11.17, I logged in too late
• Game 13, 2007.11.20, CartmanSP [11k] (black), I lost -5.5
• Game 14, 2007.11.23, Bye
• Game 15, 2007.11.26, Zardoz [10k] (white), I lost -78.5
• Game 16, 2007.11.29, Bye
• Game 17, 2007.12.02, Yohdrag [13k] (white), I lost -19.5
  

(note: opponent ranks are listed at time of game, not start of tourney)

On the cruelty of really teaching Computer Science

A number of these phenomena have been bundled under the name "Software Engineering". As economics is known as "The Miserable Science", software engineering should be known as "The Doomed Discipline", doomed because it cannot even approach its goal since its goal is self-contradictory. Software engineering, of course, presents itself as another worthy cause, but that is eyewash: if you carefully read its literature and analyse what its devotees actually do, you will discover that software engineering has accepted as its charter "How to program if you cannot.".

The popularity of its name is enough to make it suspect. In what we denote as "primitive societies", the superstition that knowing someone's true name gives you magic power over him is not unusual. We are hardly less primitive: why do we persist here in answering the telephone with the most unhelpful "hello" instead of our name?

Nor are we above the equally primitive superstition that we can gain some control over some unknown, malicious demon by calling it by a safe, familiar, and innocent name, such as "engineering". But it is totally symbolic, as one of the US computer manufacturers proved a few years ago when it hired, one night, hundreds of new "software engineers" by the simple device of elevating all its programmers to that exalting rank. So much for that term.

From a talk by E.W. Dijkstra about the difficulties behind computer science as a discipline.

Small Wins Are Beautiful

Thanks to ram for an excellent game on KGS.