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 ICFP trip, contest report, race, etc. (23 Sep 2006 at 16:22)
The thing that chewed up all my time was my trip to ICFP 2006. For it I prepared and delivered three talks. The first two were in ML Workshop and they were called ML Grid Programming with ConCert [paper] and A Separate Compilation Extension to Standard ML [paper]. You need the Flash 8 player or later to view these, so you might need to upgrade. These are kinda straight-up research stuff, and also perhaps less exciting than usual because I was saving all my vim for my third talk. These talks went well but nothing particularly special.

All through the conference I had the odd but cool experience of being recognized by people who know my name from research or fonts or music or games or whatever. I guess these people probably see my blog so thanks! I'm sorry for not having much time to hang out more...

The third talk was the ICFP Programming Contest, which I spent weeks preparing for. The ICFP Programming Contest is a yearly open programming contest that the academic conference organizes; we organized this 9th incarnation. The contest itself, which ran July 21–24, was a huge success and the most ambitious ever in terms of its organization. You can check out the slides from the talk (again, with Flash 8 or later) but much better would be to watch the presentation video (130Mb Quicktime) that Malcolm Wallace shot. If you don't want to download 130Mb (for some reason it refuses to stream) you can check out the almost unwatchably low quality google video version. But really, go with the Quicktime. Also it's like an hour long so if you wanna fast forward to the end, my feelings won't be hurt. Isn't it a little eerie how, if you are wearing matching "Cult of the Bound Variable" logo polo shirts and conference badge and the same glasses and haircut, one can look so similar to his advisor?

That's why I usually prefer to wear brighter orange shirts in group photos because like nobody has one of those.

The conference itself was really fun. I had a good time at the talks that I was able to make it to, and a much better time talking with all the smart people—some old friends—that attended over beers and hippie west coast food. There are a lot of great breweries in Portland, my favorite of which was probably Bridgeport. I can't believe that I somehow forgot that one of my favorite American breweries, Rogue, is in Portland. I also missed out on Powell's outrageously enormous book store, so I will have to go back some day with more free time.

I did get a chance to wake up bright and early and run in the Portland Race for the Cure, which they claim to be the largest West Coast race "event" (that means that when they say 46,000 participants they are talking about the Run and Walk for the Cure and Row for the Cure and Sleep In for the Cure), but it was quite fun and a nice way to see a new city. Also, as respects my last post, I felt a little bit good about the fact that I witnessed the very front of the pack (5–10 guys) go the wrong way and have to be turned around. Hah! Those were like, pros. The only other thing to say about the race is that I think my Pittsburgh training has been helping on hills, because when we came to the one like 3.5% grade hill in the whole race I started to be a lot faster than the local like permanent press runners and that was a pretty nice feeling. There were no chip timers and I have no idea how I did really except for my own inaccurate stopwatching, so I guess I have to wait patiently for the hand-tabulated chads like in the old days.

What else? On the flight home I saw a major lightning storm from above, which was perhaps the coolest thing I've ever seen while flying. The whole sky was lighting up all over, and every once in a while a huge bolt would shoot down to the planet or occasionally upward. Highly recommended.

So now I am back in town and ready to spend some time on projects and relaxing and friends. My birthday is in four days, in fact, when I turn 27. I'm going to try to finish my entry to the KVR VST Plugin contest (prodding will help, Destroy FX fans), catch up on some reading and video games and sleep, and then ease into my thesis. Talk to you again soon!
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t		 Adhesion (adhesion.rh.rit.edu) – 09.23.06 22:04:43
Ooh, I can't wait until that plugin comes out. (prod) What's it like? (prod prod)

Also, preemptive happy birthday, fellow september-birthday-person!
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t		 Adhesion (adhesion.rh.rit.edu) – 09.23.06 22:13:57
Oh also the AAD page is in desperate need of an update, and I'm bet you're sick of me saying that.
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t		 jetfuel (c-67-160-24-246.hsd1.wa.comcast.net) – 09.23.06 22:34:07
Prod for you :D

Also September birthdays are the win; I barely have one.
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t		 Anonymous (c-71-235-60-138.hsd1.ct.comcast.net) – 09.23.06 22:49:53
Kudos and good for you, hard work recognized.
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t		 Tom 7 (c-24-131-65-110.hsd1.pa.comcast.net) – 09.24.06 07:57:46
AAD gets a rewrite, soon!
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t		 Tom 7 (c-24-131-65-110.hsd1.pa.comcast.net) – 09.24.06 08:22:14
And actually, plugin contest entries are supposed to be secret until judging, and if I don't finish (quite possible) I wouldn't want to raise false hopes!
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t		 5dots (c-69-143-163-149.hsd1.va.comcast.net) – 09.24.06 11:47:06
Prod for the plugin - I love DFX plugins a lot!
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t		 Sophia (c-24-218-59-245.hsd1.ma.comcast.net) – 09.24.06 21:55:32
Hey that second flash thingy doesn't have any pictures! For real, no pictures at all! But the third one has lots and moving ones and stuff and so makes up for it I guess. Sounds like you had a lovely trip and conference, I'm glad to hear.

p.s. - Prod.
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t		 Tom (h-72-244-70-25.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 09.25.06 10:28:33
Yeah, the second one is the boringest... I didn't want to Tomify it because I'm not the first author and I didn't want to make unwelcome light of others' work. (Instead I spent all my energy making slide technology for coloring bullet points and SML code, a bug in which you can see if you go backwards through the slides..)
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t		 Anonymous (c-71-235-60-138.hsd1.ct.comcast.net) – 09.25.06 18:45:52
What font do you use in these slides? I like it.
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t		 Tom (h-72-244-70-25.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 09.25.06 23:54:24
The first two use Trebuchet MS. The second uses Franklin Gothic Medium, a new favorite.
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t		 jetfuel (porygon.omnigroup.com) – 09.26.06 12:11:31
Oh also... I thought I'd never know the reason for your last.fm name. Now I do. :D
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t		 Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 09.26.06 14:05:47
The question is, which came first, the alias or the clothing?
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t		 Max (dssstudentsxp.deans.wesleyan.edu) – 09.27.06 11:37:12
Hey, don't you owe us another Airport Series level now?
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t		 Kirima (1.88.79.83.cust.bluewin.ch) – 09.27.06 12:14:16
Happy Birthday!!!
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t		 Tom (h-72-244-70-25.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 09.27.06 18:25:44
I do, Max... actually I am quite behind on those. I have some unfinished ones from last summer, even.
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t		 Kirima (188-143.1-85.cust.bluewin.ch) – 09.27.06 20:57:56
And a big hug
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t		 Tom (h-72-244-70-25.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 09.27.06 23:36:41
Thank you Kirima!
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t		 Pikaphreak (adsl-70-130-201-199.dsl.stlsmo.swbell.net) – 09.29.06 00:47:51
Happy late birthday, Tom 7!
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t		 Anonymous (241.90.78.83.cust.bluewin.ch) – 09.29.06 22:33:55
You've promised something for the next month, I'm curious! September will be over in about a few hours, so I'm really curious.

Hope you've had a wonderful 27th?!
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t		 Anonymous (241.90.78.83.cust.bluewin.ch) – 09.29.06 22:40:38
I'm looking forward for some next airport, would you please upload it very soon, I'm kind of sick of those beginner levels.
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t		 Anonymous (241.90.78.83.cust.bluewin.ch) – 09.29.06 22:42:03
I'm Kirima, not "Anonymous".
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t		 Tom 7 (h-66-167-250-10.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 09.30.06 10:56:04
I meant in October, sorry! That's when I'll finally have some time for projects like escape again. I did start working on it though. There's no need for surprises: The first project is putting the solution manager inside the bookmark system, which will make it easy to do things like edit a solution that you download to make it faster, or zoom out or scroll while watching a solution, or whatever.

The second project is a new level browser to let us tame the enormous collection of levels.

I too would like to play some more Major League levels...! Anyone?
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t		 Max (c-24-2-139-110.hsd1.ct.comcast.net) – 10.01.06 23:24:05
Jungle Fever?
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t		 Anonymous (static-66-225-153-161.ptr.terago.ca) – 10.02.06 09:59:47
Thanks for the post... I was searching for the results (as per languages used, etc.) with no luck. Thanks for the great link to the presentation. It was excellent!

Thanks!
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t		 Tom 7 (pool-151-201-127-205.pitt.east.verizon.net) – 10.02.06 10:26:13
I mean levels that don't make me want to die, Max.

Anon: We're going to set up a results page soon!
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t		 Kirima (72.116.62.81.cust.bluewin.ch) – 10.04.06 18:51:51
Jungle Fever is not as bad as you might think!

Major League levels would be wonderful, I' love to see more of them. I've tried to edit them, but oh my God...
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t		 Tom 7 (h-66-167-250-10.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 10.04.06 21:17:22
Kirima, practice makes perfect!
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