Tom Marble tmarble@identi.ca

Debian is now welcoming applicants for Outreachy and GSoC Summer 2015 http://blog.olasd.eu/2015/03/debian-welcomes-applicants-for-outreachy-and-gsoc-summer-2015/ 

I wrote this line of code:

enumFromThen a b = a : enumFromThen b ((b AMult (ANum 2)) AMinus a)

Then I typed this into ghci:

map (fmtArith mempty) [ANum 2,ANum 4..]

Out spewed an infinite list of shell arithmetic expressions, written only in terms of the provided 2 and 4, which when evaluated by a shell, will yield the even numbers 2,4,8,...

Here's the expression that generates the number 22. They get a lot longer. The expression for 42 is 212 kilobytes long.

$(((((((((((((((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2)) * 2) - ((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4)) * 2) - ((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2))) * 2) - ((((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2)) * 2) - ((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4))) * 2) - ((((((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2)) * 2) - ((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4)) * 2) - ((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2)))) * 2) - ((((((((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2)) * 2) - ((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4)) * 2) - ((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2))) * 2) - ((((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2)) * 2) - ((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4)))) * 2) - ((((((((((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2)) * 2) - ((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4)) * 2) - ((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2))) * 2) - ((((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2)) * 2) - ((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4))) * 2) - ((((((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2)) * 2) - ((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4)) * 2) - ((((((4 * 2) - 2) * 2) - 4) * 2) - ((4 * 2) - 2))))))

Ever since I first fired it up and typed [1..] into it, I've always loved generating infinite values in ghci and watching it happily print them out as they stream into being, but this is my favorite one ever.

I just donated to the !Debian @fossOPW campaign, there's a fundraising match, donations count double! http://debian.ch/opw2014/ #womenintech

We need your help to empower one more OPW intern by October 22 ♥ Please help diversity today!

Hey, I snapped that pic! :)

It seems that Girls Can be Anything When They Grow Up – Until They Start Playing with Barbie (/via @Fanta @Michael )

mmm interesting.

At home we were three girls, but we never had a Barbie. Other kind of dolls, yes, but not that one. One Barbie would be the cause of fighting among us for sure, and three Barbies were too expensive for our family in that time. Probably my parents didn't like the stereotypes that that doll introduced, anyway.

I didn't like dolls in general, my big sister liked to comb their hair and so, but I only liked to take out their arms and legs and head and put them again. Maybe they were my first tinkering activities XD

I remember me being jealous of my friends who had Barbie, though. Do you know what I liked about that doll? It was the only one that was able to bend the knees, elbows, and waist.

When I was 9, for first communion, a handheld came as present (I believe it was Eagle N Chicken) so I totally lost my (few) interest about dolls and began to tinker on that.

A bit later, an MSX (home computer yeah) and MSX magazines with pages and pages of Basic code, and a small book that explained (and drawed) very well "what is an algorithm", with an example of a robot making a cooking recipe :)

I'm so thankful to my parents for their choices of toys for us... But I still don't know how to comb my or other's hair!

First chapters of Producing OSS by Karl Fogel are also very nice (well, the whole book is nice, but for people not interested in project management, first chapters are ok for everybody).

The best compilation/bibliography that I know is here