Fastidious Elegance

pen

How I ended up with a Lamy Aion

There are some pen brands that I seem to take to right away. Others take a more nebulous road. I have probably spent more years of my life using Montblanc pens than any other, as I received one as a generous gift when I was younger, and that one single

apl

Source Code Readability, Elegance, and Complexity

I was recently discussing my thoughts on this article: https://mathspp.com/blog/pydonts/does-elegance-matter And I thought I would speak more publicly on it. I have spoken in the past about APL's reputation for "write only" code and argued that just because you don't know how to read a

fountain pen

Fountain Pen Vocab: Attenuate

For a while I've been hunting for the right word to describe the difference between the super smooth nib grinds of the pens that I've used from Pilot and the nibs from Platinum and Sailor, both of which have feedback. Most people focus on that feedback, with the conclusion usually

co-dfns

Co-dfns support for very large arrays!

Previously, Co-dfns could only support ranks <= 4. Now, the architecture supports arbitrarily large array sizes, though this is only partially used in various primitives. See the release notes for more details. However, this is a bigger deal than it might seem, as it opens up a number of new

apl

Ken Iverson Centenary celebration, 17 Dec 2020, 19:00 EST

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ken-iverson-centenary-tickets-132578131761 Stephen Taylor of the Iverson College is putting together a celebration of the live and notation of Ken Iverson. This event is free but requires registration, so if you'd like to attend, please go to the link and register. There are a number

planner

Understanding the High Performance Planner by Brendon Burchard

A few years ago, famous personal development personality Brendon Burchard released his High Performance Planner. As popular as it is, many of the reviews seem to miss the point. The biggest fault I notice is in understanding how to use it and why it might make sense for you as

fountain pen

A little bit of Black vs. Blue Fountain Pen philosophy

I've been doing some permanent ink tests of various types of inks, and without a doubt, the black, pigmented inks are coming out decidedly on top. I've been using Platinum Carbon ink for a while because it is one of the best, most durable, enduring inks you can get. It's

productivity

Productivity Systems: Bullet Journaling

As previously noted, I tend to look for productivity systems that are total and holistic. I'm also willing to criticize them for my purposes at least on ostensibly rigorous or thorough grounds (other than "effort" or "effectiveness"). The 3 major ones I have spent the most time with are Bullet

fountain pen

In praise of Iron Gall inks for Fountain Pens

I'm a fan of permanent, archival inks. I like the idea that my work will have a degree of resilience. Within that category, there are three major types of permanent inks that you can go with right now that are fountain pen friendly: PigmentedIron gallCellulose-reactive (Noodler's Bulletproof inks)When it

dyalog

Dyalog Tooling Resources List (LambdaConf Talk 2020)

Here is a list of tooling resources that I mentioned in my recent LambdaConf 2020 talk, with links to documentation on each feature, or the like. General ResourcesYou should generally check out the following pages for a general index: Documentation CenterTools and InterfacesWebinars, cutting edge, how-to, &c.PapersMore PapersDyalog

penmanship

My Handwriting Experiment: Italic

If some of my handwritten blog entries seem to be written with a different pen and a different style, it's because I'm experimenting with a new type of handwriting, Italic. I have experience with Spencerian, Palmer, New American Cursive, and SmithHand, but I've begun finally taking the time to explore

productivity

Productivity Systems: 7 Principles of Evaluation

Handwritten VersionProductivity is a hot topic. Who knows how much time is potentially lost trying out different systems. It is fun to experiment and see what you may like, but there is just so much out there, and while some guides try to help give some idea of how they

apl

Is APL Dead?

Is APL dead? Not anymore. Changes in modern hardware, business needs, development methods, and our understanding of programming makes APL in its modern state perhaps more relevant and viable than ever before.

apl

Configuring your APL keyboard on Linux

My preferred APL keyboard setup on Linux is as follows: setxkbmap -layout us,apl -variant ,dyalog -option grp:lswitchThis will use the left-Alt key as a Mode switch key to allow you to type APL symbols by holding down Alt and hitting the correct keys. Modern Linux distributions include the

apl

Installing Dyalog APL on Nix

The following repository is a starting point for getting Dyalog APL on Nix OS. Keep in mind that at the time of this writing the repository is based on 17.0. Version 17.1 includes a much improved and streamlined download process from the following download page: https://www.dyalog.

co-dfns

The T-shirts are finally here!

It's taken me a long time to put this together, but I've finally put together a small T-shirt shop! To start with, the initial product launch is the special Co-dfns: Thesis Edition t-shirts and hoodies, in celebration of the completion of my Thesis. I know a lot of people have

keyboard

Quick follow-up observation on Corsair Keyboard

Some of you will recall that I recently had a new fastest keyboard in my life. Well, after some more time with it, I find that it is still extremely fast, but I have noticed an interesting facet of the design when working with it. I find that this keyboard

keyboard

New Fastest Keyboard

For those who don't want to read my longer post about exploring a new keyboard. I'll just post this short one. I have a new fastest keyboard, and it only took me a day  to break my previous record. At 154 WPM (and some other software is recording me at

keyboard

Changing Tunes? Linear keys for typing?

Fast typists have preferred the tactile, sometimes clicky, keyboard for a long time, but I've been thinking that maybe there's a more optimal formula out there.

apl

Writing code to be spoken

A personal favorite design element that APL allows me to explore is the "lyricality" of a given piece of code. I ask myself how much the natural language description of what a piece of code does would map directly to the code. This is a sort of discussion that simply

FnConf '19 Discount Code

I will be speaking this year at FnConf '19. Here's a discount code for those who are interested: aaron-10di$c-functional Functional Conf - Asia’s Premier Functional Programming ConferenceAsia’s Premier Functional Programming ConferenceFunctional Conf, Bengaluru, 2019

penmanship

Penmanship for the Modern Literati

The written word is too valuable, meaningful, and powerful for poor speech communicated by poor penmanship. The written word is worth the cultivation of penmanship skill. People think that they do not have time to learn and improve their penmanship, but they are wrong. As many have noted my own

martial arts

Applied Taijiquan #1: Introduction

I plan to do a series on Taijiquan and my explorations of it from the perspective of viewing the art as an authentic, martial practice. This began as a single post on Taijiquan but I realized that it was such a large topic that I could not possibly explore it

apl

LambdaConf Tree Manipulation Workshop Videos

The videos for my LambdaConf Tree Manipulation workshop are now online. I was moving through the workshop pretty quickly, and we cover a lot of different topics across a wide range of topics related to APL, so don't expect a very focused lecture or anything like that. These videos are

text editor

ALE: arcfide's line editor

ed(1) meets Emacs implemented in APL, a la Acme. ALE is a line editor that I have created because I can.