I have spoken some more

Yesterday I joined the ranks of the wikipedians. I can see this becoming a big timesink, as many of the articles on programming languages and related topics suuuuuuuck. Example: "Dynamic variable scoping is when you scope a variable in a programming language by replacing the existing variable of that name with a new variable temporarily, for instance for the duration of a function call. " First of all, no it's not. Second, the word "scope" is linked to an article which (correctly, I think) gives no indication of what the word would mean when used as a verb in this way. Third of all, no, that's really not what it means. Not at all. Not to pick on whoever wrote that, but in my expert opinion it's a totally false statement. Sorry.

If the few contributions I've made so far do not elicit huge negative reaction, Dynamic Scoping will feel my wrath.

Wanted

Wanted: a free library for linear algebra including eigenvectors, or for statistics including principal component analysis, written in SML or in a .NET language.

Elissa is frustrated by the confusing output of freely available PCA tools.

She is also frustrated by the fact that lab politics is forcing her to give a talk on Friday that she hasn't prepared, but there's nothing I can do about that.