What are you reading?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Steven Pinker - The Stuff of Thought

Who would've thought a book about semantics to be so entertaining.

[beagle]

I finished Heart of Darkness this morning. Will be re-reading and adding to my annotations this week.

So, should he have told her? 

[Sibling Qwertyuiopasd]

I cannot comment. That's part of an ongoing investigation.

Also, I just finished Act I of Apocalypse Now. Very interesting to see what ways it draws from the novel. It's much more "Heart of Darkness set in Vietnam" rather than "Marlow goes up the Congo in a boat set in Vietnam"

[beagle]

I can't remember much about the film (well, it was thirty years ago...) except that you definitely shouldn't leave as soon as the credits start.

A combination of Conrad and The Doors ticks the boxes for me though.
Remember I liked "The End of the Tether" and "Youth" as well as H.o.D., but I nodded off with some of the longer novels.

[Sibling Qwertyuiopasd]

Yeah, my copy has Youth and Amy Foster, and some other short story about doppelgangers, I think.

I definitely want to do naked tai-chi in a motel room somewhere while listening to the Doors.

[beagle]

Don't worry, we've all been there; it's just a phase. And actually one of the saner things you can do to "The End".

[Aggie]

One of the saner things you can do naked in a motel room, for that matter.

[Swatopluk]

Looking for the squid book. Can't find it.
Need some anatomical model for the bagpipe playing squid I intend to draw (unless somebody else does for me).
Also reading a bit up on tartan for the same purpose.

[Pachyderm]

What would Sir care to know about tartan?

[Swatopluk]

How to best draw it in black and white. I fear I can't make the squid wear a kilt but maybe a plaid bonnet and definitely pipes of that style.

[beagle]

"Molesworth Rites Again" and a book on F#.

[Pachyderm]

I'm afaid, that as your question is of an artistic nature, rather than one of Scottishness, I am unable to answer it. Others on here, of a more creative bent, may be of assistance. I, alas, cannot.


Colours in the Steel, by KJ Parker

[Swatopluk]

Persian Fire (Tom Holland)

---

I have an idea for a simple tartan designer program but the only (and rather shitty) programming language I have the software at hand for is QuickBASIC and that does not run anymore under VISTAaaargh! Maybe I can put the raw code somewhere here for a sibling to apply.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

How long (and unstructured) is the code? qBasic is incredibly old and moving even to VBA* can imply a full rewrite.

*much less .NET

[Swatopluk]

Giving it some thought over the weekend it would be slightly longer but in exchange far more sophisticated than my first outline but, I think, still not more than 1 or 2 pages of code.
I think I'll put the basic (not BASIC) outline in a thread of its own once I have put it on paper.

Qbasic (aka PukeBasic) was imo crap from the start. The very olde Turbo Pascal (2.0 iirc) I learned at school was better than that and nothing beat GFA Basic at my old Atari ST 1040 combining the ease of Basic with the strict structure of Pascal. But I had to use the Q stuff at the university for the Mathematical Methods in Chemical Engineering course and for lack of an alternative (free of charge), I also used it privately despite it being crappy (if I have not mentioned that fact yet).
Later (when I was already working on my PhD) the course changed to Visual Basic and I attempted to switch.
But being that oldfashioned I simply did not get the hang of this 'object-oriented programming' and stopped trying after awhile.
((Give me procedures!)  NOT (give me crap!)) = -1