purplecat | May. 6th, 2012

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May. 6th, 2012

Tom Baker again. I am beginning to suspect my random number generator is more pseudo than random.

I was tempted to start this review with some joke about going from the sublime to the ridiculous but I've actually always had a soft spot for The Horns of Nimon. I don't really know enough about the evolution of fandom opinion, or even current thought about the story, but my suspicion is that a lot of the dislike stems from a sense that "Doctor Who is Serious SF, dammit!" and one thing The Horns of Nimon is making no pretence to be is serious.

( More under the cut )

At the end of the day, as long as you are not expecting something that is taking itself particularly seriously, there is nothing particularly terrible about The Horns of Nimon. It's the kind of Who story it is easy to laugh at, but it's clearly inviting you to laugh at it and if you can't see that then you are sort of missing the point. At the same time it has a good enough story to hold the interest for the 100 minutes or so it takes to play out. I remain somewhat mystified by the vilification it meets with in some quarters.

Crossposts: http://louisedennis.livejournal.com/206770.html

100 Current Papers in Artificial Intelligence, Automated Reasoning and Agent Programming. Number 2

Jacob M. Howe and Andy King, A Pearl on SAT and SMT Solving in Prolog, Theoretical Computer Science Volume 435, 1 June 2012, Pages 43–55.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2011.03.031
Open Access: Available from Kent School of Computing Publication Index: http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/pubs/2012/3136/index.html

I'm not sure quite how the terminology of a programming pearl arose. It denotes a neat, elegant or otherwise illuminating solution to some programming problem. In this case the programming pearl shows how a solver for a certain sort of logic can be programmed up in only 22 lines of of the Prolog Programming language.

( Details under the Cut )

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The Randomizer: The Horns of Nimon
A Pearl on SAT and SMT Solving in Prolog

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