Some have posted about the new scripting class; I won't link to them in case Some People are watching this, but you know who you are. Here's what I have to say about all this.

I receive lots of seemingly random hate messages from RPL about Java, and how it pales in comparison to gawk. This went to the point of an exchange with Doug Lea (whose book on concurrency patterns in Java is IMHO a must-read, but 102 students didn't like it all that much), who sided with me on why Java continues to be a good language to teach foundational programming and CS principles.

The idea of "server-side state" and transactions against such state is really what server-side scripting is all about, and there are various ways to get that done. One way is to use Java and Servlets, or one can use CGI and almost anything to do the "business logic", including gawk.

Two years ago I had two strong students each try his hand at implementing a journal management system. We designed the database together, and one tried it with Servlets while the other used .NET. The .NET implementation was completed well before the Servlet version. The main reason for this was that the .NET environment is integrated better with SQL and web-based tools. On the Java/Servlet side, apache has to agree to do mysql, mysql has to be set up. It's all possible but a lot more trouble.

i write this because when the scripting "class" was proposed, I felt they should use .NET because of the interest in the business sector, the strength of the implementation, and the ease of its use for a class like 363.

If the class had concepts, what would those be? My list would include concurrency control (always one of my favorites), security, fault tolerance, state-representation (in a connection-less environment).

I have to go off now and guest lecture in CS 507 and I find myself very nervous about this. I haven't spoken theory in a few years. The last time I taught 507 was 1993 (I think). Good thing that theory doesn't change much.

The latest issue of The American Organist features a beautiful picture of an incredible organ just installed at the Disney Concert Hall in LA. Here is an interview about the organ with its designer, Manuel Rosales, and you can find some pictures of the hall and organ here .

Organists are saying the organ the "french fry" design. The pipes that appear to be scattered around the instrument are curved, and actually speak (they're not just facade). A scaled-down model of the instrument can be seen here, but the TAO picture is better. I'll try to get it scanned in or find it on the net.

The organ has around 6K pipes, including a Llamarada division, featuring a "Trompeta de Los Angeles" stop.

The Blast has its last in-season game Monday night against the Hornets. I'd link to the Hornets' page but it hasn't been updated in about a year. Although we've clinched our spot in the playoffs, we still want to beat the Hornets. They're in the division above us, but haven't done so well there.

As always I'll be glad to take students who come to the game out to get something to eat afterwards. The game is at 9:45 at Kirkwood. Our page, linked above, shows the game and links to directions to the rink.

I nearly drove off the road laughing (DOTRL) yesterday when I heard this piece on NPR. It seems that some German violinists are suing for more pay because they play more notes per concert than, say, the trumpet or oboe does. They are actually serious about this, and they already earn one of the highest salaries paid for orchestral players anywhere in the world.

Using the following reasoning, one could suggest they deserve less pay. Take a given line of music from an orchestral score, and assess its value in dollars to the overall effect of the piece. (Let's call this Outcomes Based Assement for orchestras.) Having calculated the price or worth of a line of music, which could include by the way how many notes are played in that line, divide that figure by the number of players hired to play the line and that's what each player earns.

For a given line of music, you'll find more violins per note playing that line than you'll ever find oboes. Clearly, one oboe player can do the job of, say, 20 violins or so.

While watching Sci Fi channel the other night, and reaching my curfew, I was watching the front end of the movie Project Viper. Since I didn't get to see the end, I ordered it on netflix, and the jacket description is worth posting:

It was created to live on Mars. Now it's loose on Earth. V.I.P.E.R., the bioengineered brainchild of Dr. Nancy Burnham (Theresa Russell), is genetically and electronically programmed to transform the hostile environment of Mars into a livable, earthlike environment. But the launch of V.I.P.E.R. on the space shuttle goes awry. On its first mission to the red planet, the mutant beast acquires a taste for human flesh....

Who can resist?

Not satisfied with entering the playoffs on a mathematical technicality, the Blast beat the Phantoms this week to secure a place in the C-level playoffs.

Tonight, at 8PM in Graham Chapel, Thomas Murray will present a concert of organ music that was once played on the now Wanamaker organ. That organ, in abbreviated form of only 10,000 pipes, was played daily at the World's Fair here in 1904. Since it moved to Philadelphia and was installed in what is now a Lord and Taylor store, over 18,000 additional pipes were added. The composer featured tonight is Guilmant, a french composer, who himself played the great organ at our world's fair.

Yesterday at noon I had a pie thrown in my face. Actually, it was more pushed into my face than thrown, but the overall effect was the same.

How did this come to pass?

The SEAS students set a contest so that the department's bin that collected the most cash would cause that department to be pied. I volunteered for the pieing long ago, because usually somebody puts in a big check for the administration to cause them to receive the honor. Somebody forgot to do that this year, so the CS[E] department "won" and the CS profs (Cindy Grimm, Bill Smart, Keith Bennett, Ken Goldman, and yours truly) were treated to a pie in the probiscus yesterday.

The real clincher is that the raffle tickets to earn the right to "throw" the pie were only 50 cents! Come on, aren't we worth more than that?? Also I was told not to avoid the pie. I think a little bobbing and weaving would make the whole event more fun. Ducking especially should be encouraged, depending on who is behind the prof.

While some of you are having fun in Miami and other warm spots, I am stuck here over Spring break because my kids' Spring break doesn't coincide with my own. It's not even close.

We have kids in Ladue public school and also at our Temple for preschool, and even they have separate Spring breaks.

What kind of break is this?

I wish the schools, including Wash U, would get together and decide just when Spring break should be, so that we all can have a nice break. This problem doesn't happen at Winter because everybody agrees to have break between Christmas and New Year's. I guses I wouldn't mind if they picked holy week or some other recognizable week for Spring break just so we can all have break together.

I'm sure everyone has seen the news that Martha Stewart has been convicted of acting on insider information, saving herself some $50K by selling ImClone stock before the rest of us could know of its plunge following an FDA decision. The St Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the sentence might be softened to the point of "home confinement".

This I don't get.

She's walking free until sentencing and I'm sure she will appeal. The Post reports that a guy who admitted he did the same thing as Martha is serving 7 years in prison. What kind of justice is it that would put him in jail and perhaps leave Martha Stewart confined to her mansion. Maybe the judge would insist she stay in just one of her nicely appointed rooms?

We're missing a big opportunity here -- for the incarcerated as well as for the ImClone queen. Just think of the good Martha could do in prison. Adding zest to that bread and water meal; putting a new look on cinder blocks; what every cellmate wants for Purim. With the prison population growing, Martha is missing a compelling business opportunity here.

I was treated today to a lecture by Ann Coulter in our University's Assembly Series. Ms. Coulter claims to represent conservatively minded folks, and she spent a good deal of her talk lampooning liberal thoughts and ideals. I could post at length, but here are the interesting parts; I will conclude with some logic absent from her talk.

First, after her introduction, one person remained standing and continued clapping for some 4 minutes until a policeperson escorted him out of the building. Ms. Coulter was obvoiusly rattled by this, and managed to insult him and all liberals (who by implication were like him) during her talk. At the end, she allowed some questions and answers. Students were a bit nervous asking questions, but the intrepid did attempt to engage her. Instead of responding with logic to the students' questions, she would insult the student because of the student's views and just leave things at that. "Believe me because you are an inferior person" was the gist of her argument.

The very last question raised had to do with the conservative party's view of gay marriages. The question was why unions of any sex that form a family aren't considered family-fostering by conservatives. Ms. Coulter's response was that it was this person's burden to prove to her and everyone that 3000 years of mixed-sex marriage-thinking was wrong. Did we need to convince her that slavery was wrong, or that women without the right to vote was wrong?

Since she didn't present logic, here is some to prove that gay marriages are OK. To appease the conservatives, and since according to Ann Coulter I live in a Christian country, I will use not only the constitution but also the bible for my axioms.

• Axiom: Men (m) and women (w) are created equal. Thus we have
  m = w
  
• Axiom: Be fruilful and multiply. Multiplying the above equation on both sides by m or w obtains:
  m x w = w x w
  and
  m x m = w x m
  
• By transitivity of equality we obtain:
  m x m = w x m = w x w
  

We've had a motion in the Faculty Assembly and now a resolution from EnCouncil, so I want to go on record as in favor of faculty producing syllabi, grading formulae, and other course information for the classes we teach.

Yes, I voted against the motion brought to the Faculty Assembly because it would have put into the course catalog something we (the FA) had no power to enforce.

But I am strongly in favor of faculty doing these things, and I do them myself. Why should we these things? We have to figure out anyway what we are going to teach and how we are going to grade. Doing that kind of planning up-front can simplify planning the rest of the course. One might as well make public just what one will cover in a course. I don't see the harm.

Some won't want to bother with this; some will lack the tool experience or support to put such material on the web. But it can be handed out on paper if necessary and will give the illiusion, if not the substance, that the prof has figured out how the course will go for the semester.

I just flew to and from Princeton to work on the CS GRE. The plane was very small, 3 seats across the plane, with an aisle splitting 1 seat from the other 2. On the way back to STL, we must have had a new flight attendant. She kept reading the announcements from a piece of paper, something like:

Your luggage can be found in the baggage-claim area

She gave a new interpretation to the banter, and made it her own.

They served the smallest package of pretzel-like food I've vern seen, about 2 inches by 2 inches square.

Yes St Louis, we have been officially de-hubbed.