Monday, April 30, 2007

GEB Reading Schedule

Here's the schedule I've come up with for reading and discussing GEB. Page numbers refer to the 20th-anniversary Edition. You can also add the google calendar.

2007-05-14 Introduction (30 pages)
2007-05-21 Chapter 1-3 (49 pages)
2007-05-28 Chapter 4 (45 pages)
2007-06-04 Chapter 5 (31 pages)
2007-06-11 Chapter 6-7 (46 pages)
2007-06-18 Chapter 8-9 (81 pages)
2007-06-25 Chapter 10 (52 pages)
2007-07-02 Chapter 11-12 (69 pages)
2007-07-09 Chapter 13 (32 pages)
2007-07-16 Chapter 14-15 (57 pages)
2007-07-23 Chapter 16 (64 pages)
2007-07-30 Chapter 17 (35 pages)
2007-08-06 Chapter 18 (47 pages)
2007-08-13 Chapter 19 (43 pages)
2007-08-20 Chapter 20 (58 pages)

Monday, April 23, 2007

GSoC 07 Book Club Selection: GEB

It's been a week, and the clear winner of the poll is Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Amazon) , henceforth known as GEB. In the preface to the 20th anniversary edition, the author describes GEB as "a very personal attempt to say how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter."

If you don't already have a copy, you still have at least a couple of weeks before we start. I'm presently working on a discussion schedule, and input is appreciated. One proposal made by Martin Harrigan is to read two chapters per week (for a total of 10 weeks). I think he's almost got it, but I'm thinking I'll spread out the longer chapters to take full advantage of the 12-15 weeks we have available (depending on the start date).

Update: Because of finals, I'm not going to get to this until Wednesday, sorry for the wait.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

GSoC Book Club Poll

Update: The poll has ended. View the results.

Summer Reading

I am addicted to books. Rather, I am addicted to collecting them--I've never actually found time to read one. This summer, I'm going to make time. Here are some ideas:
Update: Is there interest in a GSoC 07 Book Club? We would choose one or more books (depending on length), read, and discuss. If you're interested or have book suggestions, please leave a comment.

Update 2: Please vote in the poll.

Google Summer of Code 2007 with SymPy

My project proposal Python as a Symbolic Graphing Calculator with SymPy, PIL, and PyOpenGL has been accepted for Google Summer of Code 2007 under the patronage of the Python Software Foundation!

I'll be working with Ondrej Certik, who started the SymPy project, a CAS for Python. I wanted to contribute to the SymPy project for several reasons. Most importantly, I love Python. Even when I'm coding C#, C++, or Java I usually end up metaprogramming in Python much of the time. Secondly, I am a math student. SymPy is useful to me already, and it's only in version 0.3. I don't think I'm the only one who is unsatisfied with other CAS offerings. I think SymPy has a lot of potential, and I'm glad to be part of the team.

Once I get school over with, this project will have my full attention. I'll be updating the blog with my progress and anything interesting I find along the way. I'll also be writing about other summer projects, including my summer reading. More on this soon.