Why did you say six months?
He's coming.
This matters. This is important. Why did you say six months?
Why did you say five minutes?

Encroaching Rust

It's been too long since I studied set theory.

I was wondering why my code was confused.  Either Python implemented certain set operators backwards, or I'd done something wrong.

Turns out to be the latter:

the relative complement of A in B [is] also known as the set-theoretic difference of B and A

Python implements an operator for set differences, rather than complements.  The results are identical, but the order of the operands is reversed.  Or if the order of the operands isn't reversed, the results are...  Let's just say, unexpected.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Summer Theologica

I'm running way behind on this one - it's been a hectic month, developing new systems, putting out forest fires, cruising the Aegean - but I have enough tracks together now to at least put up an early, incomplete relase.

Another reason for delay is that Summer Theologica has expanded into a double album, which wasn't at all as planned.  I'll outline the tracks first, then paste in links as the files get uploaded to the server.

You can find our other recent works at SemiAutumnatic and Winter Collection.  Part four of our tenth-anniversary collection, Unsprung, is scheduled to be released next month, if I can persuade the girls to get back into the studio.

Update: 14 tracks uploaded and ready to go.

Update: 4 more tracks - Gödel's Dilemma, Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll.

Update: And two more, which I think will be all for tonight: Laplace's Demon and Russell's Teapot.  Who knew that Bertrand Russell could get funky?

Updte: Two more tracks - Socrates' Method and Hume's Problem.  Nearly done!  There will be a third disc at some point with studio sessions of the live recordings and some remixes.  I'm also going to move a couple of tracks around...  Well, you'll see.

Update: Uploaded the closing tracks of discs 1 & 2: Anak Krakatau and Thera, respectively.

Update: All tracks and mixes uploaded.  Done!  That leaves me, oh, a whole day to get the next album out...


Disc 1

Side A - Islands of the Sun

1. Kiribati
2. Vanuatu
3. Tuvalu
4. Tahiti

Side B - Ontological Arguments

5. Anselm's Canon
6. Descartes' Devil
7. Pascal's Wager
8. Gödel's Dilemma

Side C - False Friends

9. Romanzo
10. Embarazada
11. Jubilación

Side D - Ashes to Ashes

12. Anak Krakatau


Disc 2

Side A - Islands of the Moon (with Axiolotl)

Recorded live at the Daedalus Cafe, Santorini, August 2009.

1. Samos
2. Icaria
3. Santorini
4. Antikythera

Side B - Argumentative Ontologies

5. Socrates' Method
6. Hume's Problem
7. Laplace's Demon
8. Russell's Teapot

Side C - False Prophets

9. Sex
10. Drugs
11. Rock & Roll

Side D - Dust to Dust

12. Thera


Disc 3 - Extras

Side A - Alternatives

1. Samos (studio mix)
2. Icaria (studio mix)
3. Santorini (studio mix)
4. Antikythera (studio mix)
5. Thera (studio mix)

Side B - Aftermath

6. Longing
7. Loss

Side C - Intercession

8. Euclid's Fifth
9. Tale of the Moth-Eaten Binky

more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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The Daily Bleh

Had a power glitch here at Pixy Labs, and my UPS helpfully responded by dropping dead on the spot.

I also discovered that one of the drives in Pepper, my anime storage box, has failed.  But it might have failed previously and the box only noticed when I rebooted.

It's RAID-5, so the data is safe for now, but there doesn't seem to be any way to rebuild the array.  So I have to back up 2.4TB, replace the drive, and restore that 2.4TB.

Ick.

Do I even have 2.4TB of space to do a backup?

Hmm...  Yes, in fact.  Okay, good.  Off we go then!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Damn You, Speed Of Light

I'm testing a new application I've developed at my day job, which takes key parts of the load off our old application.  ("Old" in social network / Web 2.x terms, i.e. more than three months.) 

I've optimised the hell out of the new system, and it's really efficient, on both the small and large scale of things.  It can handle 100,000 simultaneous users, and it responds to user requests in under 100 microseconds.

But the development server is in Dallas, and I'm in Sydney, so it still feels slow.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:32 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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There's A What Of What?!

There isn't a Kekko Kamen live action film.

There are ten Kekko Kamen live action films.

Oh, Japan, you've done it again.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Peas, Corn, and Baby Carrots

And a 12 oz. rump steak marinated in red wine and garlic.

Damn.  If I'd bought some of those little potato puffs as well, life would be perfect.  Fattening, but perfect.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:33 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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I Still Aten't Dead

But busy.

My day job involves stitching together social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube into a cohesive and accessible whole.  Last Thursday (and continuing on into the weekend) that whole got DDoSed.  The application providers responded by raising defences, and the combination of the attacks and the defences led to our cohesive and accessible whole decohering and inaccessibilising, and to my having to glue it all back together at several successive 4AMs.

Which general sequence of events is not unfamilar to me, of course.

Somewhere in there I got to go out and see Coraline, which is nicely animated but doesn't hold a lot of surprises if you've read the book, and to lay down rough cuts of the first four tracks of Summer Theologica.  I'm pushing ahead with my ambitious tenth-anniversary schedule of four albums in four months, and damn the torpedoes.

Normality will resume as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:16 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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