friday updates!

[alexr_rwx]

I tweaked my back (again) -- perhaps taking up kung fu when I thought I was "pretty much better" from a unicycle-related muscle-pull-thing was not the best idea. I'll be back up and rolling pretty soon; I took the day semi-off for being horizontal and the application of ice.

I've been to visit the chiropractor twice; she seems really helpful, except I'm not totally sure I believe in this metric of judging how well my back is aligned by checking where my blind spots are. Actually, I'm doubtful for two reasons. First, the idea that back-alignment has a direct relationship with blind spots seems suspect. I asked, and she said something about a particular brain section that I should remember, and that having to do with integrating sensory input. Which, okay, maybe that's how it works. IANAN. Granting that there's something useful and measurable there -- the experiment that she uses to judge where my blind spots actually are is pretty suspect, in that she moves a pencil along a sheet of paper and has me report when I can see it again, asking me to focus on a dot in the middle of the sheet of paper. I can see where the previous marks were, it's hard to know exactly when something comes into focus if you're trying to look at something else (did it really come into focus, or did my eye dart over to look at the moving pencil tip?), and I can tell she's slowing down the pencil when it's getting towards the area she expects me to report.

That aside -- she pops my back right into place, helpfully diagnosed me as having an irritated disk, and suggested that I take some time to lay flat and apply ice. And that sitting in chairs is not a great idea for me right now, and that walking is probably preferable to cycling, what with the bent-over bicycle posture.

I'll be fine real soon :) Kung fu dudes, watch out.

Lindsey lindseykuper is finishing up her last day at work before Summer Vacation, as I blog, and she's coming to hang out in Atlanta for a while, hooray! We're going to do the ICFP programming contest in a few weekends, so ICFP dudes and dudettes had best watch out. We've been Scheming, and we're not afraid to map/reduce. Although we will probably not MapReduce.

And this weekend, Martin samarin and Lauryn yourusername and I are popping (gently, in my case) to Valdosta to visit that Andrew sault character.

OK. That's all I've got. I should write about learning R and futzing with my OLPC over on that other blog.

Comments

[jes5199.livejournal.com]

maybe you should MapReduce, that might give you a chance against my EC2-fu

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

There's a pun in there about yelling "hadoop-ken!" when doing an open-source MapReduce in a martial-arts context, but I'm having trouble phrasing it.

(One wonders if there's bindings for Hadoop or something like it for Scheme? ... that could be really natural.)

[lindseykuper]

It doesn't look like EC2 will really help after all.

I would say, "Some of us prefer not to buy our way up the rankings", but I'd totally be setting leadsynth up to say "Yes, Lindsey prefers to sleep her way up instead."

[jes5199.livejournal.com]

I still believe that massively parallel processes will be useful.

[sstrickl.livejournal.com]

Whoo, Scheming!

What do y'all do y'all's Scheming in, anyway?

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

Lindsey likes DrScheme; I typically use mzscheme with the cmuscheme mode in Emacs.

How about you? What would you recommend, O Stevie?

[sstrickl.livejournal.com]

I eat my own dog food :)

Though I'm an Emacs jockey outside of it, I do tend to use DrScheme for my PLT hacking. Some of the features (Check Syntax, the Macro Stepper, etc.) make it a godsend when they're needed. I resisted at first, but I guess by now I've been assimilated!

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

When I was doing stuff in Common Lisp, I got used to Emacs-with-SLIME -- but yeah! There's all of these DrScheme features that I should be learning and using...

[lindseykuper]

I would say it's more like "Lindsey tolerates DrScheme because it's better for Scheme than her usual crack, but pretty soon she's going to have to grow up and remember how to Emacs again."

[falun.livejournal.com]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ICFP!

I'm totally ready to compete this year (and by ready I mean I know that this thing exists). (Though I have no hope of actually competing, just want to hone my functional-fu.)

Also, very sorry to hear about your back problems, they suck =(

[deepdistraction.livejournal.com]

My husband used to have neck AND back problems. Then we found out about http://www.teeterhangups.com/home.html Problem solved. He uses it at least once a day. I use it occasionally--whenever I feel slightly misalligned. Keith says it's the best $300 he ever spent.

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

That's a fantastic idea. My dad has one of those inversion racks that mounts to a door frame hanging around, but I don't think he ever uses it...

[lindseykuper]

I never told you about my dad's inversion table?! You would love that thing! That's it! We need to go visit my parents.

[(Anonymous)]

His chiropractor recommended it, and Keith has not needed the services of the chiropractor since! Before we made the purchase, we saw one in a Relax the Back store in Chicago, but the proprietress did not let us try it out (she had been sued recently when a customer claimed to have hurt himself with one in her store). Later we were able to try one in a bicycle shop in Dubuque. The guys in that shop were able to answer all our questions because they ALL used the demonstration model in the shop so frequently. Keith then bought one online. He has used it as often as 3 times per day--on arising, on getting home from work, and just before bedtime. Set up, it takes up about a 54" x 28" chunk of floor space and is about 5 feet high. It can be compacted into a smaller but taller space if you want to put it away for awhile (like in a closet) but it's nice to leave it set up all the time if you have the space. That way, it's very convenient to use. He purchased an F7000 model--not sure if they still make that one. If you get one, make sure to get the optional "corner feet" (http://www.teeterhangups.com/products/corner_feet.html) They add stability and make it easy to use the inversion table on even relatively slick surfaces like hardwood floors. Hope this helps!

[kdgalla.livejournal.com]

Totally serious question:
Kung Fu? No kidding?

[oniugnip.livejournal.com]

Yeah! It's not terribly different from tae kwon do, in the grand scheme of things -- you mentioned getting into that a while ago? ...

[kdgalla.livejournal.com]

I've heard karate and tae kwon do classes everywhere but I've just never heard of kung-fu classes being taught. I'm only a white belt in tae kwon do but there seem to be two principles that govern every move I've seen so far.
1. Don't let the other guy hit you.
2. Every move is like a whip.

Every move begins with a defensive prepare called a chamber, and then the actual hit is very fast and you return to that chamber or a chamber for another move. Actually the chamber is not just about defense but also aim and adding power to the move. I don't enough about the other martial arts to compare them. These concepts may be universal.