Author Archives: skierpage

About skierpage

As you might guess, my site is mine. My Schema.org info is at .

science: cocaine-fueled Hollywood-quantum matchup?

Posted on 2021-01-09 by skierpage

Don’t you love those Hollywood-excess parties, where Spiros Michalakis (research professor and manager of outreach at Caltech) is doing cocaine with a bunch of industry heavyweights and remarks “I have a lot of grant money from the National Science Foundation … Continue reading →

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software: NeWS as James Gosling’s best weird idea

Posted on 2020-12-29 by skierpage

Lex Fridman talked to James Gosling, famous for the Emacs editor and the Java language. At 1:47:40 he says “I’ve got this weird history of doing weird stuff.” I was fortunate to be writing documentation at Sun Microsystems in the Programming … Continue reading →

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software: video fixing is possible, but not easy

Posted on 2020-12-13 by skierpage

In your phone’s Google search bar, search for certain animal names, then tap View in 3D, then tap View in your Space. You can even take a video as you move around (and it occasionally lashes its tail). VR is … Continue reading →

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music: the best video about music

Posted on 2020-10-14 by skierpage

There are lots of music exploration and music theory videos on YouTube. “The 7 Levels of Jazz Harmony” by Adam Neely is pure joy. Even if you don’t know your E♭maj7 from a hole in the ground, even if you … Continue reading →

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skiing: rockers forever

Posted on 2020-09-03 by skierpage

I can tell I’m missing skiing in my bones when I start rolling my ankles on edge when standing still. By mid-summer I miss everything about it, even the frozen fingers, the end-of-day ache overcome for just one more run, … Continue reading →

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design: a Black Lives Matter poster

Posted on 2020-09-03 by skierpage

It is the least I could do; downloading this PDF and printing out the first three pages is the least you can do. I made it in the free and open source LibreOffice program, using the fonts Cantarell Extra Bold … Continue reading →

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Google Play Music: 18 million songs and no respect

Posted on 2020-08-23 by skierpage

I signed up for Google Play Music All Access (Google marketing managers are incompetent at naming) the week it was announced, back in the good old days when Google’s motto was “Do no evil” and every month they brought exciting … Continue reading →

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music: wondering at Stevie Wonder

Posted on 2020-08-04 by skierpage

Play Stevie Wonder’s immortal run of albums – Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness’ First Finale, Songs in the Key of Life – and you will be repeatedly floored by his artistry and talent. What brings tears of … Continue reading →

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music: Trevor Horn and the Buggles in 1979

Posted on 2020-06-29 by skierpage

I revere producers as much as musicians and songwriters. I was dimly aware of producers, starting with the mysterious “produced by Bones Howe” in big letters on the back of some record… I thought it was the Carpenters but now … Continue reading →

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computers generating art

Posted on 2020-06-19 by skierpage

First came text GPT-2 and other AI (Artificial Intelligence) Transformer models are impressive. After you hand the AI an enormous corpus of text, you give it some text and it continues, generating character after character that make up recognizable, even … Continue reading →

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