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In which I reveal the extent of my creative visualisation and you all vomit - Tactical Ninja Oct. 8th, 2013 08:57 am - In which I reveal the extent of my creative visualisation and you all vomit So Dr Wheel is learning Haskell. Haskell is a functional language* that has long been the realm of academics and boffins, and apparently it's quite hard to get your head around for the average programmer.

Me: So are you learning Haskell for the geek cred?
Him: Yes. And the chicks.
Me: Are there Haskell groupies? I could be a Haskell groupie! What do Haskell groupies dress like? Like this? *indicates clothing*
Him: Hmm... more like Lara Croft.

(this is the bit where he asked me to put in a disclaimer that he's not trying to discourage women from entering the tech field through his joking about how I should dress like Lara Croft if I want to be his groupie)

* I'm told that there's a spectrum of functional languages, and that Haskell is out on the extreme end of the spectrum in the same sort of way that if you go far enough into theoretical mathematics you end up in philosophy. So in Haskell, you're not telling the machine what to do, you're [hippie voice] creating an environment in which the compiler can interpret instructions contextually [/hippie voice]. Or something. Kind of like sending your kid to Montessori school...

I am having ongoing discussions with a couple of pairs of blackbirds at the moment. There's one pair in the front garden and one in the back, and they appear to be nesting. They think that all my digging is a fantastic service and they would like to subscribe to my newsletter. I think they should damn well stop scratching my plants up. We have reached an impasse.

I have a large brain and opposable thumbs, and I reckon I'm smarter than the average blackbird. They have the advantage of being there all the time, so they can more or less do whatever they want for most of the day. Hmm..

I've noticed that they mostly only scratch around in the first few days after I dig over the soil, when the things they after are still near the surface. After that they settle down and only do a bit of it. So instead of digging over the soil and planting in the same day, it's in my seedlings' best interests for me to dig it over a few days in advance of planting. Then the blackbirds can have their lash at it and my plants have a better chance. Win!

So with this in mind, I spent an hour digging last night, first turfing and then digging over the area behind the shed that will need to be ready by Saturday for the seedlings that are going great guns in the shed. Vis: Turns out this bit has been a garden before, since the soil is lovely and also I dug up a number of bricks and rocks thats been used for various purposes and then just left in there. The 'wall' around my terrace vegie garden is now complete. I'm a bit bummed that I didn't finish the digging over, but Dr Wheel came home and I was hungry so I'll have half an hour or so of digging tonight and then the blackbirds can go nuts while I steeple my fingers gleefully and think about how clever I am.


I did a bit of template-making for Cullen last night, and in the course of it I spent a lot of time looking at my reference pics trying to work out how the breastplate/jerkin arrangement works. I figured it out and now I'm more confident about putting it together (after a brief foray into What The Fuck Have I Taken On OMG This Is Hard-Ville). However, something weird also happened. I remember this from when I used to do photorealist portraits. Looking that intensely at someone, measuring their various body parameters and inspecting their details, is a really intimate thing to do.

With costuming, I'm not just looking at their size and shape, I'm also trying to work out what bit of clothing they'd put on first, and visualising how they'd look wearing just that, what goes under the bits you can see, and how the clothes would feel on their body. So basically, I'm spending a lot of time picturing him naked. O.o And watching him get dressed and undressed in my head. And its.. well, he's hot. Nuff said.

Yes I am having bizarre fantasies about an imaginary videogame character based on my extremely close inspection of his pixellated wee body and my vivid imagination. Bite me.

I don't even like Templars. Wut.

PS Monaco font totally looks like Comic Sans.
Tags: cullen ur hot k?, haskell groupies unite, me vs blackbirds in the thunderditch
(18 comments | Leave a comment)


I have never messed around with Haskell, and I would also never insist nerd groupies should dress like video game characters, but reading this does make me want to loook Haskell up, and it also makes me wonder what you'd look like in a Lara Croft outfit!@
I would look like Generic Woman in Singlet and Combat Boots.

This is why nobody's ever going to pay me to make a Lara Croft cosplay - it's just too easy. ;-)

And I like dressing like videogame characters, so that should probably be included as part of the backstory. The idea of me being a geek groupie is probably the most incongruous part of this actually... ;-)

But yes. Haskell does sound interesting.
I forgot to mention that you entry's title is the best subject line I've seen in a while! :)
;-) Thank you, I do my best.
I haven't done Haskell since uni but I remember it blowing my poor little OO addled mind=)

I remember some truly trippy things to do with recursion but I've forgotten all the actual details *sigh* there goes my chance with the Lara Croft-alikes...

What would SQL groupies look like, I wonder...
I have always pictured SQL groupies looking like teddy bears with glasses.

I might be lying, I had actually never considered it before now. But that's what I think they'd look like.
It is definitely food for thought

Dear Tatjna (you once posted about pronouncing, etc., but I've long forgot it.)

I love this post, including you guys' comments! I just recommended it on my blog -- http://devifemme.livejournal.com/1407402.html

Hugz, Justine
Aww, thank you, I'm glad you find it entertaining. ;-)
Oh, you're entirely welcome! Your writing goes well beyond "entertaining," sweetie. Teasing your friend about becoming a "Haskell groupie" illuminates the prevailing academic trendiness of our day. The search for "cred" affects us all.

And I appreciated the serious remarks on "functional languages" as a macro-tool, etc. Pretty cutting-edge, I'd say.

I once looked at a bit of Haskell, went 'wut?', and carried on hacking some Perl.
From what I've heard, this is a common response. ;-)

I am no kind of a programmer, but I suspect I'd probably like Haskell if I took the time to learn it. But learning it is hard.
Can all programming languages be categorised against educational institutions?

- VB: pre-school
- Perl - Summerhill
- Ada - military school
I think they should be! Sadly, I don't know any languages well enough to fit them to a school. I suspect others here do though..
Haha, tell Dr Wheel that as a woman entering tech, I don't feel he was bro'ing out there in the slightest. :D
It's all about the delivery. ;-)
So you have been doing Templates for Templars?
Heh. Yep, I am. ;-)

Last night I made the world's tiniest pauldron out of cardboard.