Mandelbrot Maps: Now on Android!

My student Alasdair Corbett has produced a version for Android of the Mandelbrot Maps application developed by him and several of my students. There are other Mandelbrot apps, but no others let you see the relation between Mandelbrot and Julia curves in real time. Check it out!

Propositions as Sessions

I've just released a draft paper. Comments welcome!

Continuing a line of work by Abramsky (1994), by Bellin and Scott (1994), and by Caires and Pfenning (2010), among others, this paper presents CP, a calculus in which propositions of classical linear logic correspond to session types. Continuing a line of work by Honda (1993), by Honda, Kubo, and Vasconcelos (1998), and by Gay and Vasconcelos (2010), among others, this paper presents GV, a linear functional language with session types, and presents a translation from GV into CP. The translation formalises for the first time a connection between a standard presentation of session types and linear logic, and shows how a modification to the standard presentation yield a language free from deadlock, where deadlock freedom follows from the correspondence to linear logic

Act now, or the NHS will be gone forever

Selected tweets from Ben Goldacre (of Bad Science fame):

that's from today's BMJ http://bit.ly/y0f4nM To be clear: the LibDems are voting for a bill to reduce NHS care and charge for services.

Today's #NHSbill technical must-read: it provides a legal basis to reduce care + charge for services bit.ly/y0f4nM

36 LibDem MPs on twitter who can vote against the disastrous #NHSbill. Here are their names. http://bit.ly/AlTfqx pls RT

It's quite clever. They're changing the law to make very bad things possible, but not planning to use it *yet* #NHSbill http://bit.ly/wT0Jdi

i feel a bit like, if you're not going to bother to help yourselves, nobody else should be arsed. seriously: what are you thinking?

The fact that every LibDem MP doesn't have 1,000 people turning up to their surgeries, camping and pooing on their lawn, is a shame to u all

The dismantling of the NHS, in front of your faces, is going to change your world in 10, 20 years. you've done nothing. bit.ly/wT0Jdi

i just feel like the #NHSbill is a real turning point in my disillusionment at the nation, rather than our politicians.

i'm writing all your names down, and the ones who do nothing about the #NHSbill today are banned from whining in 2028.

CS2013 draft is out! Now it's your turn to comment.

Dan Grossman writes,

I just posted at http://wp.acm.org/sigplaneducationboard/ information on the ACM/IEEE-CS CS2013 Computer Science Curricula Report, the document that includes the Programming Languages Knowledge Area written by the SIGPLAN Education Board. From now until July 15, anyone can comment on any part of the report using an online system linked from http://cs2013.org. Active and hopefully positive participation from the SIGPLAN community would be most welcome, both constructive suggestions and comments on what is new that you like.

Comments from the programming language community have been important in the past, so do take a look and leave your mark.

Your chance to save the NHS

The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, and the Royal College of GPs publicly oppose the government's NHS reforms. A focused campaign can convince the Conservatives and Lib Dems that pressing ahead will cost them the next election. 38 Degrees aims to put up billboards in London and in key Conservative and Lib Dem constituencies. I've contributed. Now is your chance.

WOW! Over 15,000 of us have donated over £200,000 so far this week. Huge billboards will be going up in 150 locations across London on Monday morning.

If another 5,000 of us donate by Monday, we can take the ads to high streets across the UK. Imagine the extra pressure when billboards appear in 50 of the most marginal Lib Dem and Conservative constituencies. Not to mention those of Andrew Lansley, Nick Clegg and David Cameron!

David Cameron is trying to ride it out. He knows his plans for the NHS are a disaster. [1] But after more than a year of phoney listening exercises, aggressive spin and backroom deals, he thinks abandoning the plan now would simply be too embarrassing.

But there’s one thing that politicians care about more than saving face: saving their jobs. At the moment, Cameron is gambling that it’s best to force through the changes - then hope that it doesn’t cost him too many votes later on. We can shift this calculation by proving to Cameron that the NHS is already an election issue, and a losing one for his party if they refuse to listen.

Elections for the Mayor of London are fast approaching. Cameron desperately wants the Conservatives to win. Together, we can buy billboards all over the city, on the very streets where Cameron bought billboards promising the NHS would be safe with him. The adverts can warn potential Conservative voters that most doctors and nurses think the changes will make our NHS worse.

Sometimes 38 Degrees members come together to pay for things which otherwise only big companies and political parties can afford. Earlier thousands of us chipped in to hire a crack legal team: their report made the front page of The Observer. This helped force Lansley to back away from plans to scrap his legal duty to provide our health service. Now we can take one big, bold message to the voters Cameron cares about most.

38 Degrees - Donate to buy NHS billboard ads

Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle

Bret Victor - Inventing on Principle from CUSEC on Vimeo.

This video by Bret Victor, inventor of the Alligator Game, in its first half presents the best interactive programming environment I have seen, and in its second argues that the best technology emerges from ethical principles. Both halves blew me away. Watch it and change your life.

If you're not paying for it, you're the product

Oink oink. Thanks to Jeremy Gibbons for alerting me to this new meme. Its history is here.

QCon

Speaking at QCon London Fri 9 Mar. Looking forward to meeting non-academic FPers. £100 discount with code WADL100!

Constellations

Best stage direction ever: 'An indented rule stands for a change of universe'. From Constellations, sold out at the Royal Court.

Keep that wheel a-turning

I heard the following from my brother-in-law (pictured). Reminds me of recent developments in higher education all too well.

William Brown
Traditional Woodcraft song arr. by Stan Kelly © 1961 Heathside Music

Well, a nice young man was William Brown,
He worked for a wage in Liverpool town,
He worked from six till eight at night,
Turning a wheel from left to right.

Chorus:
Keep that wheel a-turning, keep that wheel a-turning
Keep that wheel a-turning and do a little more each day.

One day the boss to William came
And said, "Look here, young what's your name,
"We're not content with what you do,
"Work a little harder or out you go."

So William turned and made her run
Three times roung in the time of one,
He turned so hard he soon was made
The Lord High Turner of his trade.

William turned with the same sweet smile,
The goods he made grew such a pile;
They filled the room and the room next door
And overflowed to the basement floor.

The nation heard of the wondrous tale,
His picture appeared in the Sketch and the Mail;
The railways ran excursions down,
And all to look at William Brown.

But sad the sequel is to tell;
He turned out more than the boss could sell;
The market slumped and the price went down,
Seven more days and they sacked young Brown.

The moral of the tale is plain to tell:
If you wanna lose yer job, just werk like HELL!