Metropolis was awesome

Python 2.5: Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!

I was looking over the Changelog for the new Python 2.5 alpha release. Of particular interest was the fact that Python 2.5 finally allows you to use true absolute imports and adds an actual syntax for relative imports. Right now the importer uses an ugly mix of the two (ie, it tries relative paths first, then absolute paths) that can leave you scratching your head when you accidentally use the same name in a different place. Because it would break so many scripts to switch to absolute paths by default, in order to turn this feature on you must add to the top of your scripts: from __future__ import absolute_import. The reason that you are importing from the __future__ is because the existing functionality will be completely deprecated for the new functionality in some future version of Python (around 2.7), but I just love how it reads like you are importing features from The Future. So often when programming it would be nice to use some future functionality today, but actually write the code for it sometime tomorrow when you have the chance. There are some very weird theories of how one might use time travel to do crazy things with computing...

The OMG!! Ponies!! answer to Captcha

Personally, I hate Captchas (those Rorschach tests given when trying to subscribe or post to so many websites nowadays in order to fight spam). A person with the handle of Oli came up with a much more radical idea: The Kitten Test. Can you pick kittens out of a set of cute animals? Try it here.

Random Culture Night: The Rudyard Kipling

I just got back from the Rudyard Kipling in beautiful Old Louisville. The place was a very intimate setting for two acts of music and two acts of art. The first set of music was Ut Gret (they pronounced it: oot greet). I don't pretend to be a musicologist and am terrible about defining genres, but if I had to make a decision this group was "improvisations from the smorgasborg of culture". Pretty much every peice they played had a different genre and each member contributed an equal amount to the whole. The band's leader mainly played the flute but switched instruments amongst a digeridoo and his own voice, and some instruments I couldn't name. While every member of the group was great and seemed to have a love of their instruments, I think that I particularly enjoyed the work of the bassist, who in several songs was given the lead melody which is so often rare in music. (So often people tend to think of bass instruments as mere background to songs.) The bassist also switch back and forth between his bass and what appeared to be an electric mandolin.

Accompanying Ut Gret's first set was a group of women that performed a "fashion show of love". The group's leader, "The Goddess of Love" recited the poetry written by the other women as they each showcased costumes and dances related to their poetry (and Ut Gret improvised responses to thus). Accompanying Ut Gret's second set was a young lady doing "belly dances". According to the somewhat drunken "music reviewer" (not that I didn't believe him, it's just that I've already forgotten his name and the magazine he said he worked for) leaning on my chair, it was nothing like real ...