week 28

Still writing grants. Trying to avoid phrases like “My research will heal the sick and save the unbelievers” and “in accordance with the prophecy”. This is harder than you think.

– Got the new David Byrne / St. Vincent record, and it’s so Talking Heads, it really is. Maybe less African rhythms and more brass band, but a fine record just the same.
– Also obtained the complete string quartets of Benjamin Britten, of which No.3 is the runaway winner.
– Did a draft of the third part of DREAM | CITY, totally not sure about it.
– Bret Victor on how to teach programming. I don’t totally agree with him (I’m pretty sure that typing remains the best way to unambiguously tell a computer what to do), but he makes about a billion good points besides.
– Why are animated gifs still around? It’s 2012, and the only ubiquitous video format is the .gif. How did this happen?