Anarres

Part of my work is researching ways to parse printed language. It can be very interesting but difficult to get a basic understanding of the techniques involved. Recently, I came across an excellent book called “Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing”. I am currently only to chapter 6 but I can say it is well worth the money. I am working through the book implementing the techniques in Lisp. I will be posting Chapter 5 as soon as I work out a few bugs and get it packaged nicely.

You see, what we’re after is to remind ourselves that we didn’t come to Anarres for safety, but for freedom. If we must all agree, all work together, we’re no better than a machine. If an individual can’t work in solidarity with his fellows, it’s his duty to work alone. His duty and his right. We have been denying people that right. We’ve been saying, more and more often, you must work with the others, you must accept the rule of the majority. But any rule is tyranny. The duty of the individual is to accept no rule, to be the initiator of his own acts, to be responsible. Only if he does so will the society live, and change, and adapt, and survive. We are not subjects of a State founded upon law, but members of a society formed upon revolution. Revolution is our obligation: our hope of evolution. The Revolution is in the individual spirit, or it is nowhere. It is for all, or it is nothing. If it is seen as having any end, it will never truly begin. We can’t stop here. We must go on. We must take the risks.

—Shevek, page 296

The above quote is from the book “The Dispossessed” by Ursula LeGuin. I think it sums up my view about the responsibility that each individual has in society to do things they believe in regardless of the masses and to be responsible for having done such things. I think those of us in the Lisp community need to continue down this path– some of us need to get back on it. Lisp should continue to lead innovation– other languages/technologies should always be playing catch-up– that should be our goal. We will have moments of porting ideas and technologies to Lisp to keep it attractive– I have ported several image libraries to Lisp that I will be releasing to the wild by January. Let’s not stay to focused on that, though; let’s make sure we continue to be innovative with Lisp itself and not just applications. More advocacy to come, in many ways….