Finance and Haskell

Lately, I feel more and more interested in finance. I mean the whole story: reading articles and books about investment science, math for finance, trading systems, portfolio optimization, the stock market, accounting etc. Very fascinating stuff.

At the same time I am experimenting with Haskell, the canonical pure functional programming language. Thanks to the beta chapters of the Real World Haskell book I was able to finally 'get it'. Haskell is elegant, powerful and surprisingly pragmatic.

I am working on a hobby project that combines these new passions of mine. The codename of the project is 'Greed' ;-)

Links #5

1. The Atari ST - A great inside view on the birth of the Atari ST. The first (and most loved) computer I have owned.
2. John Carmack on id Tech 6, Ray Tracing, Consoles, Physics and more - Call this hubris, but I do not agree with the master. Ray tracing (better: physically accurate lighting instead of crude approximations like rasterization) is (better: should be) the future. Kudos to Intel for aggressively pursuing the dream.
3. Comprehensive Comprehensions - Another great paper from THE functional programming duo. I hear an implementation will be included in GHC 6.10.
   

Nokia morph

From time to time, we see concept gadgets that offer a glimpse of the future. The following video, presenting Nokia Morph, goes many steps further. This gadget utilizes (future) advances in Nanotechnology, Solar power, electronics etc. while combining unmatched imagination with practicality. Not to mention the irresistible beauty of this thing. Form truly meets function here. Utterly impressive.

New cut of Nitro

As you may know, I am the main developer behind the Nitro Web Application Framework. Nitro is almost a 3 year project now, and sadly it seems to have reached a dead end. The code base is unnecessarily complex and not documented while former active developers have switched to competitive frameworks due to my pathetic efforts to nurture the community.

For quite some time now, I am evaluating the situation and the limited success of the project. I have compiled a list of reasons of 'what went wrong'. This list, will be the topic of a future post, a ...postmortem if you will. That's right, the forthcoming Nitro/Og 0.50.0 release will be the last release of the project as it is.

I 'll still use 0.50.0 for my current projects, after all it's a flexible and robust framework that works great for me. In parallel, I am designing a prototype for a new cut of Nitro, this time implemented on JavaScript (and a little bit of Java) with quite different design decisions and methodology. The new Nitro (tentatively called N2) will incorporate everything I learned about programming for the Web and the management of open source communities over the last 3 years.

More details on this new project will be the topic of yet another post, so stay tuned ;-)

Switching Blog engine (again!)

Some time ago, following a friend's advice I decided to test-drive MediaTemple's Grid-Server offering (well, I admit, I was influenced by the strong marketing buzz around this hosting solution). I quickly realized that it was nothing more than a normal virtual server without root access. Disappointed, I turned my attention to other solutions (eventually I settled down with Amazon EC2, and I am extremely happy, more about this marvelous service in another post).

During my short experimentation with the Grid-Server I installed Wordpress. When I saw the administration interface it was love at first sight. This is the most user friendly and intuitive application I have ever used (well, if you don't consider gmail, that is ;-)). I immediately moved my Blog from the custom coded Flare Blog system (based on Nitro) to this great CMS software.

I was so happy with my new Blog, that I forgot that I was paying 20$/mo for a 'dedicated' server used almost exclusively to host a Wordpress blog. Nah, time to switch to one of these public Blog services, I said to myself. Wordpress.com was the obvious candidate. However, after a quick investigation I came to the conclusion that the free version is kind of restricting (no HTML edit?).

I decided to try Blogger.com. Even though it is considerably less intuitive than Wordpress (and certainly not as elegant), it allows me to use my domain name, create multiple blogs attached to the same Google account and I can edit the HTML template. I decided to accept it's shortcomings and give it a try. So I created two blogs, the one you are reading at the moment and a new greek version. This blog will contain mainly technical (geeky) posts, the greek one will contain general, life-related ramblings. You can find my old blog here. Let's see how this will work out...

UPDATE: I added some articles from the old blog.

Links #4

I am spending ridiculous amounts of time reading. I read everything (books, newsletters, blogs you name it). I especially enjoy reading magazines though. The following list provides links to 3 of my favorite publications:

1. Edge: Quite simply the best Computer Games magazine there is. I collect Edge issues since 1994 and I consider this collection as one of my most valuable possessions. A lot of other magazines try to imitative Edge's authoritative style, but some things cannot really be copied. Utterly brilliant!
2. Wired: I am sure most of the readers of this blog are familiar with Wired. For the rest let me just say that if you are interested in the latest developments in Technology, Business and Design or the latest achievements of the Human Mind, you should be a subscriber. Unmissable!
3. Linux Format: Not quite in the same league as the aforementioned publications, LF provides an enjoyable reading experience anyway. This magazine reminds me of the great ST Format / Amiga Format magazines I passionatelly read when I was younger. As they say, you cannot beat nostalgia. Lovable!

Make yourself a favor, go to the nearest newsstand and buy an issue of these great publications now!

Links #3

The latest developments in processor technology are always fascinating so here comes a collection of links for your pleasure:

1. Power6: The next generation of IBM's processor architecture (that ...powers among other things all the 3 game consoles)
2. Niagara2: Second generation of Sun's massively multi-threaded and power-friendly chip.
3. PA Semi: The new kid on the block!