Author: Zingblog 2

Functional Programming in Scala

Lots stuff going on these days. I mainly finished the spring cycle of work on the cars, washing and waxing and getting ‘em into the shop for routine maintenance. The only thing remaining is to get the Mustang in for an oil change and the fluids topped off. Also started mowing the lawn a week ago. All our flowers are doing really nicely and the trees are all a-blossoming. The weather has been getting up into the 70’s fairly consistently, although we’ve had our share of rainy days. Ah, spring at last.

I’ve been taking a Scala course from Coursera, taught by Martin Odersky, the language’s inventor. This is after having read a Scala book over the last few months. It’s in the second week of the class now and it’s pretty intense. The lectures and books are easy enough to understand, and in fact very illuminating and even deep. But when it comes time to the assignments it feels like starting over, between the overhead of getting set up, the strong functional programming paradigm, and the language’s wacky syntax. It’s more than just learning a new language, it’s a new way of thinking. I did some Lisp in the 90’s but now I have to unlearn all my Java knowledge. Right now the focus is on using recursive functions in place of loops. Hopefully I’m far enough the learning curve that it should get easier soon. Either that or my Java code will start getting confused.

Elixr, Part I is now on Sale

Elixr, Part I is the new EP from Buzzy Tonic, my studio project. It’s on sale now at CD Baby at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/buzzytonic4. Five great tracks show a continuing development of my style, mixing jazz, funk, prog rock, power pop and soul in a diverse and satisfying set featuring fender rhodes, saxophones, and synthesizers. Check it out, and if you feel so inclined, write a review.

While I was at it I updated my facebook page at: facebook.com/pages/Buzzy-Tonic/154441244594431. I haven’t done anything with this page in a long while, but my origami page on facebook seems to be getting a good response. So if you feel like it, go on over and give BZ a like.

Mix and Master

I just completed mix and mastering five new tracks for the forthcoming record Elixr. They are: Rocket to the Moon, Sea of Tranquility, Is It Safe to Go Outside?, Now and Forever, and Black Swan. I’m not sure if this’ll be the final order of the alum side but they do make a nice program. Soon they’ll be for sale on iTunes and CDBaby, so give ‘em a listen now for free while you have the chance!

Upcoming RELIX Shows

I hope you can come out and catch my band The RELIX one of these nights. Sure to be a good time with some awesome music. We’ve learned about twenty new songs since our last show. Spread the word!

Vintage Bar and Restaurant
Saturday April 12, 2014 9pm
171 Main St, White Plains, NY 10601
914-328-5803
www.vintagebar.net

THE FEZ
Friday May 9th 9pm
227 Summer Street, Stamford, CT – 06901
203-324-3391
www.thefez1.com

For more info see nycrelix.com

X-C

Winter continues. After several heavy snowfalls it’s been calm the last couple weeks, but still mainly bitter cold. Even now huge snowpiles linger on. Last weekend we actually had a couple days above freezing and I spent a good chunk of time outside breaking up ice to reclaim the parking spot on the street in front of our house. The parking lot at my train station is down a good dozen spots or more, between poor snow removal and people parking all over the place in response. After two or three days of parking in very sketchy spots a couple weeks back I’ve taken into going into the office earlier until spring.

Last year I didn’t go skiing at all, and this year when the conditions were best I was too busy dealing with shoveling out even think about it. When I did think about it, I was thinking I’d be lucky to get in one day before the end of the season. It’s gotten to the point where downhilling is a lot of overhead. You have to get up way too early and drive 2+ hours to get good snow, and when you’re there you spend a lot of time riding the lifts and waiting in line, just for a few runs. Although I must say a really good run can make the whole thing worth it. Still, it feels like the last few times went it was bitter cold and/or icy and not so enjoyable. With the kids in tow the cost adds up fast and they’ve grown kinda meh about it.

So this year I thought I’d get back to cross-country. I used to do x-c before I started downhilling, and over the years had some great x-c ski trips in the Adirondacks and in Yosemite. It’s much cheaper than downhill and a more relaxing vibe. I found a place called Fahnestock Winter Park. It’s not too far away, about 45 minutes up the Taconic, just a bit past Seth. By time I got a plan together Jeannie and the kids were all busy with other stuff. So I went by myself. It was just the thing I needed, a nice peaceful day in the woods. Only thing is that the conditions were icy. But now that we know it’s there we can cruise up next year any time we there’s fresh snow.

Expanded Penrose Tessellations with Robots

Believe it or not we had two more snow days this week! On Thursday I broke my snowblower clearing out 15” or wet, heavy stuff. Thursday night was had more snow and Friday it turned to rain, and then more snow for a slushy and mess. Oy! Well the weekend came and some sunshine, and a chance to get caught up on my rest. And the Olympics are on. I never really get into the summer games very much, but I do enjoy the winter games. In any event, I’m sure everyone is looking forward to spring.

My origami friends Brian and Beth are going to be getting together at a maker event next week, where they will have access to a large cutting machine. Brian asked me if I could provide a cutter-ready file of the crease pattern for one of my Penrose tessellations. When I worked on this before, folding by hand, I did the first three expansions, creation patterns with 10, 35 and 70 cells. With the prospect of the machine doing the scoring, larger tessellations become feasible. I created CP’s for the next two expansions, which come out to 105 and 175 tiles. These numbers are really interesting, because they are all multiples of 5 and 7. 2 x 5 =10, 5 x 7 =35, 2 x 5 x 7 =70, 3 x 5 x 7 =105, and 5 x 5 x 7 =175. You’d expect five, but it’s very strange how seven figures prominently as well.

As for the CPs, I was able to dispense with all the landmarks and only include creases that appear in the final model. This ought to make the folding go much faster as well as providing a cleaner appearance. In addition, I shortened all the line segments so that the intersections don’t get scored, to avoid weakening the paper. Lastly, I color coded the creases so that the facets are blue, the ridges between the are red, and the creases for collapsing the intersections are grey. This was fairly time consuming, an unexpected but fun little project. Good for waiting for the snow to melt and watching the Olympics. Having worked the CP out to 175 I think I’m done with this for a while. If you’re an origami person with access to a cutting machine and are interested in trying one of the patterns, please feel free to contact me. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to seeing how Brian and Beth’s experiment comes out.

Cover Up

Great news! my book, Origami Animal Sculptures has gone to print. Last week was a flurry of even-more-minor corrections and finally approvals. The publisher sent my comps of the final cover including the back and the return flaps for the dust jackets. I finally got to read the endorsement blurbs from fellow origami artists John Montroll and Marc Kirschenbaum. I sent out the requests months ago. Thanks very much for your kind words, John and Marc. Also the back cover looks really great with thumbnails of the models taken from Bob’s photos.

Music Site Update: Elixr

Back from xmas break. Had a brief trip upstate to visit family and friends. Heavy weather driving both ways. Great to see everyone and glad the everyone is doing well. My dad got eye surgery and for the first time in my life doesn’t need to wear glasses anymore. Discovered the Hamburg Brew Pub.

The new year is off to a cold and snowy start. Last night we had a foot of snow, canceling my band practice. Both the kids had no school today, extending our xmas break. Took a good hour and change to shovel out, even with Lizzy’s help. Luckily the snowblower started right up after not being used for almost a year.

I’ve been updating the music section of my web site at zingman.com/music. I’ve added a link for The Relix, and added links to the new tracks on the Buzzy Third page, Is It Safe to Go Outside? and Black Swan, which prettty much bring me up to an album side. I changed the working title of the third Buzzy Tonic record to Elixr. It’s an anagram of Relix and also a play on the whole Buzzy Tonic theme.

I also came up with a logo, which makes a much better place holder for the eventual album cover than what I had before. This particular task has been on my todo list for a whole year; indeed made a sketch last xmas vacation. Constructing something like this in the computer is extremely tedious for me, so instead I drew it by hand and traced over in sharpie to get the right combination of precision and looseness. This is a technique I used a lot in college when I was studying design and architecture. Then I scanned it and played around with filters in photoshop until I caem up with something I liked. It’s been a long time since I used photoshop this way. I was able to achieve a rich look buy building up lots of layers of effects with varying transparency, a lot you’d build up layers using paint.

Even though I like how it turned out the colors don’t particularly match what I had going on the BZ3 page. Like I said it’s a placeholder for the eventual album cover, so I’ll continue to play with it. Meanwhile enjoy!

Stumped

Well it finally happened. The electric company came and cut down our sick elm tree the week before Xmas. First time they came around the left the main trunk standing with the major limbs. Next time they came they cut all that down but left a ten-foot high stump and a huge jumble of logs all over the front yard. Apparently the trunk is so massive they need a special machine – basically a combi crane and saw – to hold it while they cut it down. Supposedly they’re coming back this week to finish the job and haul away the wood. Meanwhile our yard is a mess, but in an interesting way. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone. If anyone wants some wood for free, come and get it.