Great things and people that I discovered, learned, read, met, etc.
in 2022. No particular ordering is implied. Not everything is new.
also: see the lists from 2021,
2020,
2019,
2018,
2017,
2016,
2015,
2014,
2013,
2012,
2011
and 2010
I’m releasing this year’s post early due to upcoming travel, so
please hold off creating great works for me to discover until the new
year!
Great posts | articles |
talks read/watched
- Early
Artificial Intelligence Projects - Prompted by a discussion
with Will Byrd I decided too look deeper at the early history of AI and
trace it forward in hopes of finding topics and research that fell out
of favor and why. This article was mildly useful for that agenda but it
is a decent survey of the AI field.
- Kathleen Sully, the
Vanished Novelist - Brad Bigelow talks about the
long-forgotten British novelist Kathleen Sully including a fantastic
rundown of most of her books with an attempt to learn why she faded from
the public consciousness. The post motivated me to look into Sully’s
fiction more and I have a queue of her fiction waiting for me.
- Predicting
the tide with an analog computer made from Lego - The idea
of minimalist computing devices is taken to the next level by Pepijn de
Vos wherein he discusses a device made from Lego that implements Sir
William Thomson’s tide predicting approach.
- Magic
Realm epic review - Magic Realm is a game steeped in
nostalgia for me. The game is common considered one of the most
complicated (and fiddly) tabletop board games ever devised. While that
may be true to a degree, learning the game is helped by knowing someone
who already knows the game to teach you. The Anomalous Host attempts to
be that person for the world and while jumping in to the game may still
require effort, they do a great job of spreading the joy of Magic
Realm.
- The
‘Shamanification’ of the Tech CEO - This post may have the
grossest string of English words to ever have been concatenated. That
said, Manvir Singh does a good job of sketching the techniques that
modern tech CEOs use to project an otherness and an outsider nature in
similar ways to the shamans of past. Singh’s research on shamanism is
fascinating and he’s very vocal about what he’s looking at and thinking about.
and is well-worth a follow.
- ZX81 Goes
Nuclear - Controlling a Nuclear Power Plant - John Newcombe runs through
the retro use of the ZX81 as the control center for a nuclear power
plant, and even emulates the power plant! A chunk of Uranium-238 makes a
surprise appearance.
- The
Eeriness of the English Countryside - Robert Macfarlane
does a masterful job of expressing the motivating forces of the English
countryside on the great works of the weird and eerie.
- How
Aphex Twin made Selected Ambient Works 85-92 - This post
mostly discusses the gear used by Richard D. James to create his seminal
electronic album but touches on and links to additional articles on the
techniques used as well. As a kid I would have killed for James’ rig –
and still might.
Most viewed blog posts by me
- The
one about Lisp interactivity - I wrote about what makes the
Lisp development experience different than a more common workflow such
as when using Java.
- 1OO
- An ongoing research project to identify (and eventually read) 100
non-mainstream and quirky object-oriented books – and a few
papers.
- Quirkeys
- An ongoing project to run through the quirky computing books in
the my personal library. I’ve scaled way back on my Twitter posting so
this series is on pause until I can find another medium to use moving
forward.
Favorite technical
books discovered (and read)
- HP-71
Forth ROM Owner Manual by HP - Describes the form and
use of the HP-71 Forth programming system. This is as dry a manual as
they come but it does serve as an interesting specification of a
kernel-forth outline. This book is a bit difficult to find at a
reasonable price, but something like Forth
- A Text and Reference or Forth
Fundamentals: Language Glossary might be passable
stand-ins.
- CLU
Reference Manual by Barbara Liskov, et al. - CLU is an
interesting entry in the proto-OO language landscape and pioneered many
of the features in the 1970s that I used extensively in the
1990s.
- The
“Compulator” Book Building Super Calculators & Mini Computer
Hardware With Calculator Chips by Robert Haviland - A
shining example of a “Compulator” is the HP
9100A which was loved
by Woz and possibly the first personal computer. The book touches on
this interesting branch on the history of computing by discussing, at a
very high level, the architectures of such machines. Sadly, there is
very little in the book that would help one build their own compulator.
The relevance of this book has long since passed, but its spirit lives
on in the modern maker culture and SBC-centric projects found all over
the WWW.
Favorite non-technical books
read
- The
Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen - This entry is a bit
of a cheat because I read it many years ago when I was a teenager and
either forgot most of it or (more likely) didn’t appreciate the
intricacies at the time. The story follows Lucian, a doomed author who’s
gradual slide to ultimate demise forms the basis of the story. Machen
does a great job of maintaining the central mystery, that being the
roots of Lucian’s degeneracy. Was he touched by the fae, or is he
irrevocably broken? The descriptions of the scenery are amazing and have
prompted me to adopt a new term into my lexicon: Machenesque. If you
like the works of Algernon
Blackwood, Oscar Wilde’s The
Picture of Dorian Gray, or J.K. Huysmans’ Against
Nature then I think you’ll like Hill of Dreams.
- Fifty
Forgotten Books by R.B. Russell - Russell’s book
appears to be a list of interesting books on the surface but he does a
great job of weaving the discussions into an autobiographical account.
If you enjoy books about books, especially those in the vein of the
works of Michael
Dirda and Nicholas
Basbanes then this one is worth checking out.
- The
Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography by A.J.A.
Symons - Frederick Rolfe (aka Baron Corvo) is the author of the
masterpiece work of fiction Hadrian
the Seventh. He died an early and ignominious death in 1913 but not
before publishing a handful of unique and unusual books. However, his
greatest creations were the web of lies and misdeeds that defined his
short and brutal life. Symons’ work is not a traditional biography and
indeed he often inserts himself and those who knew Rolfe into the
narrative as he describes his efforts to learn more about this troubled
author. This is among the best books that I’ve read in the past
10-years. If you enjoy this book then you might also enjoy the works of
Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo) himself, my favorite and his most famous
being Hadrian
the Seventh, the story of a scorned minor priest who becomes Pope
and what he does thereafter.
- The Van
Roon by J.C.
Snaith - Snaith is a long-forgotten cricketer and author in
varying genres into who’s ouevre I have decided to dive. The Van Roon is
a simple but satisfying Dickens-esque drama about a miserly antiques
seller and his upstart assistant with an eye for value and his
downtrodden niece. The story proceeds briskly and along the paths that
you may expect. You wouldn’t classify this book among the great works,
but I enjoyed it and look forward to reading more by the author. Snaith’s
availability on Project Gutenberg is growing steadily. It’s
difficult to pin down the genre that Snaith operated in, but if you like
the works of Charles
Dickens or the book Riceyman
Steps by Arnold Bennett then you might also like The Van
Roon.
- The Story
of Mary MacLane by Mary MacLane - The book is
an early example of a confessional diary and provides a fascinating
portrait of a young libertine living an isolated life in Butte around
the turn of the century. In addition to vividly describing the proper
way to eat an olive, Mary MacLane also talks about her undying love for
Satan. She spends many pages pining over the dark lord and promising to
wait for his return so that they may then marry. Honestly, her love for
Satan is quite sweet, and the best advise that one can take from this
gem is that you should try and find yourself someone who loves you like
she loves Old Nick. The book is a quick read and worth a look if any of
what I said seems appealing.
Number of books written or
published
0
Number of programming
languages designed
0.5 & 0.5
Favorite musicians /
albums discovered
- All
the Pretty Little Horses by Current 93 - While exploring
the works of Thomas Ligotti I came across his collaborations with David
Tibet’s Current 93. Tibet is a fascinating character in his own right
but I’ll hold off talking about him here. Instead, I streamed all of
Current 93’s albums over the past year and landed on this gem, which
seems to be inspired in large part by Ligotti’s work.
- Birth
of Violence by Chelsea Wolfe - Continuing my metal-studies
I came across the fantastic Chelsea Wolfe and have enjoyed nearly
everything that I’ve heard. Her heavy riffs and haunting voice make for
something special.
Favorite
show about cosmic horror with a fair share of Jamesian ghost
stories
The
Cabinet of Curiousities
Favorite films discovered
- A Taste of
Honey by - I started down the kitchen sink drama path
and immediately hit what may be the pinnacle of the genre. The story
follows Jo, a teenage girl who becomes pregnant after a one-night stand
and the repercussions thereof. The film is well-oriented and beautifully
acted – you can feel the disappointments of the characters spilling from
the screen.
- Sisters
by Brian De Palma - This film was recommended by Jennifer Myers (who
happens to have a great podcast Quiet Little Horrors) and it
hit the bullseye. The film follows Danielle (Margot Kidder) who may or
may not have a twin sister. The film does a great job of sustaining the
ambiguity of reality and the tension of the plot throughout. A re-watch
is required.x
Favorite podcasts
- Decoding
the Gurus - Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne
discuss and analyze the modern public intellectual sense-making guru
culture. They very often dissect the rhetorical techniques and verbal
sleights of hand of prominent meme-fueled charlatans.
- The Art of Darkness - Kevin
Kautzman and Brad Kelly look at the underbelly of the creative process
and what it takes, and takes out of the creators, to create something
significant and lasting.
- Sonic
Symbolism - Artist Björk and guests discuss the times
and trials around the creation of her musical output. You need not like
Björk (I do) to enjoy the creative insights that she drops every
episode.
Favorite games discovered
2022 was an exceedingly slow tabletop gaming year for me.
- Forth - I
mostly spent my time going through the 79 and 83 standards in for the
purpose of noodling about kernel-forths and the like. I’ve started on a
basic implementation of my own version but have gotten side-tracked by
interesting meta considerations.
- Joy
- Concurrent to the Forth studies I’ve gone back to looking at its
more functional cousin Joy. Much of the same meta-considerations have
gotten in the way but I found it much easier to spike a PoC for Joy.
I’ve been playing around with the idea of local binding via some sort of
stack destructuring but haven’t fleshed out the edge-cases yet. More to
come (hopefully).
- Clojure - 2022 marks the
13th year as a full-time Clojure programmer
and the 1st year as a full-time Clojure core developer.
- ClojureScript -
Less-so now than when I was consulting full-time but I occasionally
dig into explore the implications of changes to Clojure on
CLJS.
- Datalog - The Datomic
flavor of Datalog is the flavor of choice for database access, be it
in-process or in the cloud.
- Babashka -
I’ve used it a few times to throw together a few useful Clojure
scripts like data generation and the like. It’s good fun and now a part
of my programming utility belt.
Pharo, Squeak, & Smalltalk - All
of my exploration in various Smalltalks next year will focus on the
development/debug/deployment confluence that’s uniquely Smalltalk and
how the paradigm compares with a more Lisp-like
paradigm.
Favorite papers discovered
(and read)
Here are a few that I enjoyed in 2022.
Still haven’t read…
I Ching, A Fire upon the Deep, Don Quixote, and a
boat-load of sci-fi
Favorite technical
conference attended
No conferences again this year.
Favorite code read
- Iota - An
old project that missed my radar years ago. Implements an Io to JS compiler. There are some
interesting tricks even while the project was never fully
completed.
- IchigoLisp
- A LISP 1.5 compatible language written in webassembly.
- PlanckForth -
A Forth bootstrapped in a hand-crafted ELF binary. As retro as it
gets and a good lesson in the primitives needed to bootstrap a
Forth.
Life-changing technology
“discovered”
- isfdb
- Internet Speculative Fiction DB
State of plans from 2021
- Help get 1-2 Clojure releases out the door - Clojure
1.11.0 and 1.11.1 both went out the door and version 1.12.0 is in the
works.
- Read Finnegans Wake - Complete. What is it about? No
idea.
- Stay on the Forth way for hobby endeavors - Having fun
exploring and may one day have a usable system.
- Build a Lisperati1000 - No
progress made on this.
- Continue making progress on my calculator project - A
have a good portion of the software written with a fake key matrix on
the front. Lots more to do.
Plans for 2023
- Help get 1-2 Clojure releases out the door - Clojure 1.12.0
for certain and hopefully another release of a different breed
altogether – time will tell
- Write a gigantic post about cyberpunk. - research
underway
- Post more about REPLs - “The
one about Lisp interactivity” was a start
- Reboot the effort of writing and publishing a paper - I
have some promising avenues to explore and hopefully share
- Play more baseball - I’ve been a spectator for too
long
2023 Tech Radar
People
who inspired me in 2022 (in no particular order)
Yuki, Keita, Shota, Craig Andera, Carin Meier, Justin Gehtland, Rich
Hickey, Nick Bentley, Paula Gearon, Zeeshan Lakhani, Brian Goetz, David
Nolen, Jeb Beich, Paul Greenhill, Kristin Looney, Andy Looney, Kurt
Christensen, Samm Deighan, David Chelimsky, Chas Emerick, Stacey Abrams,
Paul deGrandis, Nada Amin, Michiel Borkent, Alvaro Videla, Slava Pestov,
Yoko Harada, Mike Fikes, Dan De Aguiar, Christian Romney, Russ Olsen,
Alex Miller, Adam Friedman, Tracie Harris, Alan Kay, Janet A. Carr,
Warren Ellis, Naoko Higashide, Zach Tellman, Nate Prawdzik, JF Martel,
Phil Ford, Nate Hayden, Sean Ross, Tim Good, Chris Redinger, Steve
Jensen, Jordan Miller, Tim Ewald, Stu Halloway, Jack Rusher, Michael
Berstein, Benoît Fleury, Rafael Ferreira, Robert Randolph, Joe Lane,
Pedro Matiello, Jarrod Taylor, Jaret Binford, John Cooper, Conrad
Barski, Amabel Holland, Ben Kamphaus.
Onward to 2023!
:F