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Dara Alizadeh Wins E/F Semi-Final In Paris

[Written by Stephen Wright] Bermuda rower Dara Alizadeh experienced his first victory in an Olympic Games race after winning his E/F semi-final at the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium today [July 29]. Alizadeh, who competes in the men’s single sculls, claimed a comfortable win, finishing his two-kilometre race in 7min 33.38sec. The 30-year-old said he was encouraged […]




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Caribbean Grand Prix Bermuda 2020 Postponed

The 2020 NPC Worldwide Caribbean Grand Prix Bermuda has been postponed until December 4th, 2021. Ross Caesar and Dion Smith commented, “The decision to cancel the Bermuda Pro Qualifier was an enormous disappointment, a tough one, not only to the athletes, spectators, exhibitors, and professionals who were due to attend the show. “It was necessary […]




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Caribbean Grand Prix Pro Qualifier Postponed

This year’s NPC Worldwide Caribbean Grand Prix Bermuda Pro Qualifier scheduled for November 20th, 2021 has been postponed. “The decision to postpone the Bermuda Pro Qualifier was an enormous disappointment, a tough one, not only to the athletes, spectators, exhibitors, and professionals who were due to attend the show,”  a spokesperson said. “It was necessary […]




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Caribbean Grand Prix Event On March 26

Over one hundred pro hopeful bodybuilders and fitness athletes, both local and international are gearing up for this year’s Caribbean Grand Prix, to be held at the Ruth Seaton James Auditorium on Saturday, March 26th. “The competition is back after proving to be a major success in 2019 and gives athletes from anywhere in the […]




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“Marine Ecosystems Tend To Recover Well”

“Bermuda’s marine environment and its inhabitants are used to major storms, including hurricanes. There will inevitably be some acute damage as well as some ongoing negative effects in the short to medium term, but overall our marine ecosystems tend to recover well,” the Department of Environmental Protection said. Having found both a sea fan and […]




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Corals, Marine Resources In Small Island States

Foreign scientists working in small island states need to create better collaborations with local researchers and marine management entities if coral reefs, fish, and other marine resources are to be saved from irreversible degradation, according to a new opinion paper published by researchers from the Caribbean, Canada, the USA, and UK. The opinion, published last […]




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CariGenetics Executes Groundbreaking Research

CariGenetics — in partnership with The 2 Frontiers Project and BIOS — led and funded a local study that could help save coral reefs around the world which are being affected by climate change. A spokesperson said, “Since its launch last October, CariGenetics continues to conduct ground-breaking research which will have a positive impact, not […]




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Photos & Videos: Clarien Iron Kids Triathlon

The Clarien Iron Kids Triathlon took place at Clearwater Beach this weekend, with some of the island’s budding athletes in action. The junior triathlon competition offers a chance to win a $1,000 Clarien Iron Kids Bank account, and the event also has a Tiny Tots Race where little ones aged 3 to 6-years-old can take part, […]




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CariGenetics Donates To College Foundation

Bermuda College Foundation received a $100,000 donation from CariGenetics to create research and clinical genetics labs at Bermuda College. A spokesperson said, “Bermuda College Foundation [the Foundation] is pleased to announce the $100,000 donation from CariGenetics Limited [CariGenetics] to fund the renovation of two decommissioned Bermuda College [the College] classrooms into one research laboratory and […]




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St George’s Club Hotel Supports UK Charity Golf

The St. George’s Club Hotel will support a United Kingdom charity golf tournament organized by Rosemary Lockwood, the Lady Captain of Wollaton Park Golf Club in England. A spokesperson said, “The St. George’s Club Hotel has agreed to support a UK charity golf tournament being organized by a long-time Bermuda visitor Rosemary Lockwood, Lady Captain […]




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BGA To Compete In Caribbean Golf Event

The Bermuda Golf Association [BGA] will be sending a team to participate in the prestigious Caribbean Golf Association Four-Ball Championships from October 16th – 21st, 2024 at the Plantation Golf Course in Tobago, Trinidad & Tobago. A spokesperson said, “This marks the first time Bermuda has participated in the CGA Four-Ball Team Championships, following its […]




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Bermuda Start Competing In Caribbean Golf

The Caribbean Golf Association Four-Ball Championships commenced at the Plantation Golf Course in Tobago, Trinidad & Tobago. In the mid-amateur men’s division, Bermuda pair Eric West and Jonathan James lead after day one with a score of 1-under par. Mark Ray and Roger Brangman are tied as leaders in the senior men’s division, also at […]




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Swan’s Charity 5K Race Set For Oct 20

The Swan’s Charity 5K race is set to take place on Sunday, October 20 at John Smith’s Bay, supporting the Crossroads Warriors Community Club. A spokesperson said, “This weekend is the Swan’s Charity 5K race – Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. This race runs along the scenic route of South Shore and Harrington Sound Road, starting […]




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Watson & Beaulieu Win Swan’s Charity 5K

Domico Watson and Marielle Beaulieu raced to victory 2024 Swan’s Charity 5K race this weekend. Watson secured his second victory of the season with a winning time of 18:16. Tim Price followed closely, finishing second with a time of 18:43, while Kwame Curling took third place with a time of 18:59. In the women’s division, […]




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Photos & Video: Various Aircraft Visit Bermuda

At least four different types of aircraft were captured departing from Bermuda this week, including a Lockheed WP-3D Orion, a US Air Force Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules, a Cavok Air Antonov An-12B, and a BermudAir aircraft. For our past coverage of military aircraft on the island, click here. Related Stories Photos & Video: Military Aircraft […]




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Reminder: Marine Turtles Are A Protected Species

Following a video circulating showing a person hanging on to a turtle, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources [DENR] reminded the public that marine turtles are afforded protection under the Protected Species Act 2003. A Government spokesperson said, “The Department of Environment and Natural Resources [DENR] wishes to remind the public that marine turtles […]




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Collie Buddz Nominated In Caribbean Awards

Collie Buddz has been nominated for Album of the Year [Reggae] at the 2024 Caribbean Music Awards, with his album “Take It Easy”. The organisation said “The complete list of nominees for the ‘Caribbean Music Awards’ 2024 is: Album of the Year [Reggae] Buju Banton – Born For Greatness Collie Buddz – Take It Easy […]




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Minister Extends Condolences To Bari Family

Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Sport Owen Darrell paid tribute to the late Tony Bari. Minister Darrell said, “On behalf of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Sport, we offer our heartfelt condolences to the family and loved ones of Mr. Tony Bari. “Mr. Bari’s captivating jazz, big band, and rhythm and blues performances of […]




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Review: Pastoral-Parishioners’ Anniversary

[Written by Dale Butler] The fifth Pastoral-Parishioners’ Anniversary took place on the grounds of the Christ Anglican Church, Devonshire, on Saturday, September 21, 2024 at 6.00pm with a very appetizing dinner by Kenny’s Kitchen and water donated by John Barritt & Son Limited; an exceptional night of entertainment followed. The tent, lighting, and stage backdrop […]




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OBA & PLP On Caricom Membership & More

“Beyond a general feel-good, this Government doesn’t seem to know why it is even joining Caricom,” Opposition Leader Jarion Richardson said, while the PLP said “instead of being distracted by the OBA’s fearmongering, the PLP is focused on building a fairer Bermuda for Bermudians.” OBA Statement Mr Richardson said, “This Government continues to force Bermudians […]




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Two Vehicle Collision In Southampton Parish

There has been a two vehicle road traffic collision involving a motorcar and a motorcycle in the area of Barnes Corner in Southampton Parish. A police spokesperson said, “There has been a two vehicle road traffic collision involving a motorcar and a motorcycle in the area of Barnes Corner, Southampton Parish. “Details are limited at […]




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Motorcycle Collision In Hamilton Parish

[Updated] “There has been a serious road traffic collision involving two motorcycles on Blue Hole Hill, Hamilton Parish,” the police said this evening [Nov 7]. “The roadway is currently closed, with traffic being diverted through the Grotto Bay compound. Motorists heading into or out of the east end are encouraged to delay their departure, if possible […]




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Aliana King Featured In Marie Claire Article

Bermudian model Aliana King has been featured once again, this time gracing the pages of a Marie Claire article exploring spring beauty trends. Ms. King has also appeared in a number of other campaigns for well-known brands, including Charlotte Tillbury, David Yurman, SKKN, FREDDY WR.UP, Nordstrom x Nike [NxN], Skims, Redken, L’Oréal, Aveda, Garnier, Maybelline, and Allure, as well as style magazines […]




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Clarien Acquires Omnium Group Of Companies

Clarien Bank Limited has signed an agreement to acquire Omnium Trust Company Limited [Omnium Trust] and Omnium Corporate Services Limited [Omnium Corporate Services], a boutique practice offering quality trust and corporate administration services. A spokesperson said, “The terms of the acquisition, which strengthens Clarien’s aspiration to be Best Wealth Manager in Bermuda, are private and […]




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Minister Attends CTA Caribbean Week In NY

Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport Owen Darrell recently attended Caribbean Week hosted by the Caribbean Tourism Organisation [CTO] in New York from June 16 – 21, 2024. A Government spokesperson said, “This year’s event at the InterContinental New York Times Square, marked the organisation’s 35th anniversary. It brought together the region’s finest tourism representatives […]




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Minister Attending Caribbean Tourism Conference

Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Sport Owen Darrell is attending the Caribbean Tourism Organisation’s conference in the Cayman Islands. A Government spokesperson said, “The contribution of tourism to Bermuda’s economy and aggressively promoting the island as a business and leisure destination are some of the topics of focus when the Minister of Tourism, Culture and […]




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Charity Golf Tournament To Be Held On Friday

The Wollaton Park Captains Charity Open is set to be held on Friday [Sept 13], with proceeds to benefit cancer-related charities. A spokesperson said, “For more than a century, Bermuda’s biggest fans have been our repeat visitors who have fallen in love with our beloved country. “Ever wonder what motivates a person[s] or families to […]




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Trump a podivný sen libertariánských miliardářů o vlastních královstvích

Během předvolební kampaně Donalda Trumpa se pozornost soustředila především na jeho kontroverzní výroky a soudní stíhání. Daleko zajímavější pohled ale skýtá volební program zveřejněný na Trumpových osobních stránkách. Nejenže napovídá, kdo za jeho kampaní stál, ale také, po čem šedé eminence v jejím pozadí touží. Pokud se například naplní sliby vizionářské sekce Kvantový skok, mohou v USA brzy vzniknout samosprávné městské mikrostáty ovládané autoritářskými miliardáři. V programu Donalda Trumpa pro ně existuje hezké jméno Freedom Cities – Města svobody.




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Ve věku 76 let zemřela bývalá ministryně spravedlnosti Marie Benešová

Ve věku 76 let zemřela bývalá ministryně spravedlnosti a místopředsedkyně sociální demokracie Marie Benešová. České televizi to potvrdila někdejší ústecká hejtmanka Jana Vaňhová, o úmrtí advokátky na síti X informoval také předseda Rady ČTK David Soukup. Benešová se ministryní spravedlnosti stala ve vládě Jiřího Rusnoka od července 2013 do ledna 2014, a potom znovu ve vládě Andreje Babiše od dubna 2019 do prosince 2021, tehdy už ale jako nestranička za hnutí ANO.




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Planet Earith: Great White Egret, Ardea alba

Another heron at RSPB Ouse Fen (Earith). There were 4 or 5 flying around. This is the Great White Egret, Ardea alba. It’s about the size of a Grey Heron, but white. Quite a rarity in the UK, until maybe about 10 years ago, but like Little Egret, Cattle Egret, Glossy Ibis, and various other … Continue reading "Planet Earith: Great White Egret, Ardea alba"




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Antifa Black Lives Matter is a totalitarian political movement to overthrow a capitalistic free market and free society

Elected Republicans, almost all of them, are in no hurry to stop the disorder. They appear to believe what we're watching is a version of the Rodney King riots from 1992. People saw an upsetting video on the internet, they're angry, and that's understandable. But they'll calm down soon, and we can get back to cutting capital gains taxes and sanctioning Bashar al- Assad. That's their view of it. They are wrong. This is not a momentary civil disturbance. This is a serious and highly organized political movement. It is not superficial. It is deep and profound. It has vast ambitions. It is insidious; it will grow. Its goal is to end liberal democracy and challenge Western civilization itself. This is an ideological movement. The ideas that fuel it have incubated for decades on college campuses. We paid for all of it, by the way. The rest of us were so thrilled that our kids got into Duke that we decided to ignore what Duke was actually teaching them and are continuing to send big checks. That was a mistake. It was one of the greatest mistakes we've ever made. Continue reading




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Antifa and Black Lives Matter are the Democratic Party’s blackshirts and brownshirts to strengthen and protect our totalitarian fascist state

Democratic politicians don't fear the mob. Notice that? Why? Because they don't need to. They control the mob. The mob operates with their permission. These are their foot soldiers. This is their militia. Continue reading




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Glenn Greenwald says that the Democratic Party, NSA, CIA, Neocons, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, mainstream media have united to impose an authoritarian government of censorship and suppression of information

The CIA from the very first days of the Trump administration, even before he was inaugurated, devoted themselves to sabotaging the administration because Donald Trump questioned just a few of their pieties. And that can't be done in Washington. Whoever does that must be destroyed. And so the CIA and the Deep State operatives became heroes of the liberal left, the people who support the Democratic party. They're now in a full union with the neocons, the Bush Cheney operatives, the CIA, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street. That is the union of power along with mainstream media outlets that are fully behind the Democratic party, which is likely to at least take over one branch of government, if not all of them, with the coming election, and that is a very alarming proposition because they're authoritarian, they believe in censorship, and they believe in suppression of information that exposes them in any kind of a critical light. Continue reading




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Команда Ferrari подписала контракт с крупным спонсором

Команда Ferrari объявила о подписании многолетнего контракта с технологическим гигантом IBM.




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Хэмилтон: Переход в Ferrari – это риск, но я люблю рисковать

Из новой книги "Внутри Mercedes F1" мы уже цитировали откровения Тото Вольффа о Льюисе Хэмилтоне, но, разумеется, не менее любопытно узнать, в чём автору признавался семикратный чемпион мира...




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Фредерик Вассёр: Хэмилтон приходит в Ferrari побеждать

Льюису Хэмилтону осталось провести три Гран При в составе Mercedes, после чего сотрудничество семикратного чемпиона мира с командой из Брэкли завершится. Руководитель Ferrari Фредерик Вассёр поделился некоторыми деталями о ходе переговоров о контракте.




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Выступление Бермана в Бразилии создало проблему Ferrari

Оливер Берман принял участие в Гран При Сан-Паулу, заменив за рулём Haas приболевшего Кевина Магнуссена. Британский гонщик уверенно провёл спринт и гонку, но выступление Оливера в Бразилии создало проблему для команды Ferrari.





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Board Game Review: Lost Cities Roll & Write (A Comparison to the Original Lost Cities)

I really love the card game Lost Cities, designed by Reiner Knizia. When my husband Christopher and I were first getting to know each other, we used to meet up at Starbucks sometimes and play games. Lost Cities was one of our frequent picks. It’s a head to head, two player game in which both players are trying to outscore each other by laying down ascending runs of card suits on a small board between the two of them. There’s a theme laid over the mechanism (completing expeditions in the lost world) but it’s basically pasted on and so that is the last we will speak of it. So there we were, newly in love, eyeing each other across the table, smiling and flirting, and doing our best to beat one another at Lost Cities. It was awesome. And now, with the roll & write genre having made an impressive rebound a few years ago (let’s not forget the mechanism has actually been around since the 50s with Yatzee), Knizia has ported his award winning game Lost Cities  into this format, releasing Lost Cities Roll & Write  in 2021. 

You can play the new Lost Cities  with up to 5 players, but in an ode to our romantic beginnings, Christopher and I played it exclusively with one another in successive matches.  The components are compact, lacking the pretty illustrations of the original game, and few in number – the rule book, a scorepad, three pentagonal trapezohedron dice (that’s 10 sided dice for the uninitiated), and three 6 sided custom dice with color suit symbols. Oh, and some pencils. That’s it. We could have played on an even smaller Starbucks table if we had this back in our dating days.

The cards from the original game (wager cards and numbered cards 2 to 10, in five different suits) have been translated into dice roll results. On each turn, one player rolls all the dice and chooses one of the six sided dice to represent the suit and one of the ten sided dice to represent the number. A zero on the number die can represent either zero (mimicking the wager card from the original game which serves as a multiplier for the total score in the selected suit) or ten (mimicking the highest card in each suit).

In place of the tableau built up on a central board, each player tracks the progress of wager and number cards they’ve collected for each suit in color coded columns on their individual score sheet. Wager cards have been transformed into little circular boxes to be marked off from a suit column when rolled, while the numbered cards from the original game have expanded to include the number 1 and are recorded as numbers written manually in the square boxes running up each column. Whereas in the original game, only cards higher than the last card played in a suit were permitted to be played on subsequent turns by the same player, in Lost Cities Roll & Write, numbers that are higher than or equal to the last number recorded for a suit may be written into the column after future dice rolls. Expanding beyond the concepts from the original game, Knizia has included artifact icons on select spaces in each column and when those spaces are filled by a player, they may fill in one of the jars in the artifact column. Likewise, he’s included arrow icons on select spaces and when those spaces are filled by a player, they may fill in the next box in one of their suit columns with the number from the previous box in the column – note that it does not have to be the same column in which the arrow was filled.  There’s also a column for filling in dice shapes to represent rolls where a player could not or did not want to use any of the dice results. The latter column is particularly tricky to manage effectively, as it provides a similar point progression as the rest of the columns (negative scores for the first 3 boxes filled and then positive score for the rest) up until the last box in the column. If you color in that box, your score for the dice shapes column drops from 70 to 0. The bonus points awarded in the original game (20 points for laying down at least 8 cards in a suit) have been implemented in Lost Cities Roll & Write  for each column (including the artifact and dice shape columns) as a 20 point bonus to the player who is the first to fill in 7 boxes in the column on the scorepad. The roll & write game ends when either both players have filled in the dice shapes column completely or all eight columns have passed the bonus point marker. In our experience, the completed dice shapes column is a much more common trigger.

I’ve played a ton of roll & write games over the past few years. Some are instant objects of adoration, while others are infuriating piles of poo (I’m looking at you Imperial Settlers R&W). Lost Cities Roll & Write is fantastic; a great addition to the genre. Knizia did an excellent job of translating the feel of the original game into the new mechanism. The iconography is clean and easy to read and the game can be taught and played in less than a half hour. And of course, it takes up very little table real estate, making it perfect for travel or tight spaces (when traveling as a passenger, simply roll the dice into the box cover). If you twisted my arm and forced me to choose between Lost Cities or Lost Cities Roll & Write, I’d be forced to pick the original, but only because of the lovely artwork on the cards and the sentimental value I have attached to the game after my love and I played it in our early days. But who would go around doing such arm twisting? Nobody. Therefore, with a retail price point under $15 for each of these, unless you’re down to your last $15, I recommend you pick up both. Play the card game with someone you love when you have a little more table space. Play the roll & write anywhere, with up to four additional friends. 

-------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Kosmos
Players: 2-5 (We played with 2)
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): about 20 minutes per game
Game type: roll & write, dice rolling

Rating:

Rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.



  • board game reviews
  • dice rolling games
  • Kosmos
  • roll and write

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Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Submarine for Sea Ghouls

In the latest episode of their intrepid podcast, Ken and Robin talk Sense Trouble, fatbergs, William Stephenson, and doomsday predictor Albert Porta.




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Taiwan Mandarin vs. Mainland Mandarin

In recent weeks and months, we've been having many posts and comments about Taiwanese language.  Today's post is quite different:  it's all about the difference between Mandarin as spoken on the mainland and as spoken on Taiwan. "Words of Influence: PRC terms and Taiwanese identity", by Karen Huang, Taiwan Insight (8 November 2024) What is […]




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Scott L. Burson: Comparison: FSet vs. Sycamore

[BULLETIN: Quicklisp now has the latest version of FSet.]

Sycamore, primarily by Neil Dantam, is a functional collections library that is built around the same weight-balanced binary tree data structure (with leaf vectors) that FSet uses.  While the README on that page comments briefly on the differences between Sycamore and FSet, I don't feel that it does FSet justice.  Here is my analysis.

Dantam claims that his library is 30% to 50% faster than FSet on common operations.  While I haven't done comprehensive micro-benchmarking, a couple of quick tests indicates that this claim is plausible.  A look through the internals of the implementation confirms that it is clean and tight, and I must commend him.  There may be some techniques in here that I could usefully borrow.

Most of the performance difference is necessitated by two design choices that were made differently in the two libraries.  One of these Dantam mentions in his comparison: FSet's use of a single, global ordering relation implemented as a CLOS generic function, vs. Sycamore's more standard choice of requiring a comparison function to be supplied when a collection is created.  The other one he doesn't mention: the fact that FSet supports a notion of equivalent-but-unequal values, which are values that are incomparable — there's no way, or at least no obvious way, to say which is less than the other, and yet we want to treat them as unequal.  The simplest example is the integer 1 and the single-float 1.0, which have equal numerical values (and cl:= returns true on them), but which are nonetheless not eql.  (I have a previous blog post that goes into a lot more detail about equality and comparison.)  Since Sycamore expects the user-supplied comparison function to return an integer that is negative, zero, or positive to indicate the ordering of its arguments, there's no encoding for the equivalent-but-unequal case, nor is there any of the code that would be required to handle that case.

Both of these decisions were driven by my goal for the FSet project.  I didn't just want to provide a functional collections library that could be called occasionally when one had a specific need for such a data structure.  My ambition was much grander: to make functional collections into a reasonable default choice for the vast majority of programming situations.  I wanted FSet users (including, of course, myself) to be able to use functional collections freely, with very little extra effort or thought.  While Lisp by itself reaches a little bit in this direction — lists can certainly be used functionally — lists used as functional collections run into severe time complexity problems as those collections get large.  I wanted the FSet collections to be as convenient and well-supported as lists, but without the time complexity issues.

— Or rather, I wanted them to be even more convenient than lists.  Before writing FSet, I had spent years working in a little-known proprietary language called Refine, which happened to be implemented on top of Common Lisp, so it was not unusual to switch between the two languages.  And I had noticed something.  In contrast to CL, with its several different predefined equality predicates and with its functions that take :test arguments to specify which one to use, Refine has a single notiion of equality.  The value space is cleanly divided between immutable types, which are compared by value — along with numbers, these include strings, sets, maps, and seqs — and mutable objects, which are always compared by identity.  And it worked!  I found I did not miss the ability to specify an equality predicate when performing an operation such as "union".  It was just never needed.  Get equality right at the language level, and the problem goes away.

Although FSet's compare generic function isn't just for equality — it also defines an ordering that is used by the binary trees — I thought it would probably turn out to be the case that a single global ordering, implemented as a generic function and therefore extensible, would be fine the vast majority of the time.  I think experience has borne this out.  And just as you can mix types in Lisp lists — say, numbers and symbols — without further thought, so you can have any combination of types in an FSet set, effortlessly.  (A project I'm currently working on actually takes considerable advantage of this capability.)

As for supporting equivalent-but-unequal values, this desideratum flows directly from the principle of least astonishment.  While it might not be too surprising for a set or map implementation to fail distinguish the integer 1 from the float 1.0, it certainly would be very surprising, and almost certainly a source of bugs in a compiler that used it, for it to fail to distinguish two uninterned symbols with the same name.  (I saw a macro expansion recently that contained two distinct symbols that both printed as #:NEW.  It happens.)  A compiler using Sycamore for a map on symbols would have to supply a comparison function that accounted for this; it couldn't just compare the package name and symbol name.  (You'd have to do something like keep a weak hash table mapping symbols to integers, assigned in the order in which the comparison function encountered them.  It's doable, but FSet protects you from this madness.)

Along with those deep semantic design choices, I've spent a lot of time on developing a wide and featureful API for FSet (an effort that's ongoing).  FSet has many features that Sycamore lacks, including:

  • seqs, a binary-tree sequence implementation that holds arbitrary Lisp objects (Sycamore ropes hold only characters, which is certainly an important special case, but why restrict ourselves?)
  • default values for maps and seqs (the value to return when the key is outside the domain is associated with the collection, not supplied at the call site; this turns out to be a significant convenience)
  • generic functions that operate on both lists and FSet collections, to shadow the CL builtins
  • the powerful map-union and map-intersection operations (I'll blog about these in the future)
  • more ways to iterate over the collections (the FSet tutorial has a good summary, about 3/4 of the way down)
  • speaking of the tutorial, FSet has lots more documentation

Let me digress slightly to give an example of how FSet makes programming more elegant and convenient.  Joe Marshall just put up a blog post comparing Go(lang) with Common Lisp, which is worth a read on its own; I'm just going to grab a code snippet from there to show a little bit of what programming with FSet is like.  Here's Joe's code:

 (defun collate (items &key (key #'identity) (test #'eql) (merger (merge-adjoin #'eql)) (default nil))
   (let ((table (make-hash-table :test test)))
     (dolist (item items table)
       (let ((k (funcall key item)))
         (setf (gethash k table) (funcall merger (gethash k table default) item))))))

 (defun merge-adjoin (test)
   (lambda (collection item)
     (adjoin item collection :test test)))

And here's what I would write using FSet:

 (defun collate (items &key (key #'identity))
   (let ((result (map :default (set))))
     (dolist (item items result)
       (includef (@ result (funcall key item)) item))))

(Well, I would probably move result outside the dolist form to make it clearer what the return value is, but let's go with Joe's stylistic choice here.)

For those who haven't used FSet: the form (map :default (set)) creates a map whose default is the empty set, meaning that lookups on that map will return the empty set if the key is not in the map.  This saves the includef form from having to handle that possibility.

My version makes assumptions, it's true, about how you want to collect the items with a given key; it doesn't give you other choices.  It could, but what would be the point?  It's already using a general set with better time complexity than lists, and saving you from having to write anything like merge-adjoin.  The extensible global equivalence relation means you're not going to need to supply a :test either.

I think the FSet-enhanced code is cleaner, more elegant, and therefore clearer than the plain-CL version.  Don't you agree?  Maybe you wouldn't say it's a huge improvement, okay, but it's a small example; in a larger codebase, I would argue, these small improvements add up.

* * * * *

To summarize: if you just want a library you can call in a few places for specific purposes, Sycamore might work better for you (but think hard if you're writing a comparator for symbols).  FSet can certainly be used that way, but it can be much more.  If you want to see one way in which Common Lisp can be made into a better language, without giving up anything that we love about it, I urge you to give FSet a try.

FSet has changed the way I write Lisp programs.  — an FSet user

(UPDATE: the magnitude of the performance difference between FSet and Sycamore surprised me, and inspired me to do some profiling of FSet.  It turned out that I could get a 20% speedup on one micro-benchmark simply by adding some inline declarations.  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa; I should have done this years ago.   With that change, the generic function overhead appears to be the only significant cause of the remaining ~20% performance difference.  I tried creating a Sycamore set using a thin wrapper around fset:compare, and the resulting performance was very similar to that of FSet with its new inlines.)




ari

"Dragons of Paris" and the Role of Time in the Mongolian Wizard Series

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The kind people at Reactor Magazine have posted my two latest Mongolian Wizard stories, one yesterday and the other today. Thursday's "Halcyon Afternoon" took place during a rare moment of peace for Franz-Karl Ritter. But in today's "Dragons of Paris," it's warfare as usual. 

Time has always been a little tricky in this series. The first story was clearly set in the Nineteenth Century but, though only a few years have passed, the series has now reached what is recognizably World War I. Mostly this occurred for reasons explained in "The Phantom in the Maze" and "Murder in the Spook House." (And which I anticipate giving me increasing difficulties in writing the next ten stories.) But also, in a more literary background sense, I wanted to cover the transition from a way of life now alien to us to something more modern, if not contemporary. 

So time may get a bit more slippery in the future. That's if, of course, the stories go in the direction I intend. Sometimes the fiction has its own ideas where it wants to go and the author can only follow along meekly in its wake.

You can read the story here. Or just go to the ezine and poke around. It's a good place to poke around.


Above: The illustration is by Dave Palumbo. I'm grateful for that.


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