Dots and Dashing Off


I often think, the more active your life, the less active your blog.

I have been very active...with extremely boring things. Things like: How can you get a computer to recognise when a full stop is:

(1) At the end of a sentence
(2) At the end of an ellipsis
(3) At the end of a paragraph
(4) At the end of an abbreviation like "Dr." or "Mrs."
(5) Part of an abbeviation like "C.I.A"
(6) A decimal point
(7) Something else, probably.

The answer is: It's complicated, but I've cobbled together an algorithm that gets it right 99+% of the time.

As for why I would want to do such thing...that's also complicated. And boring. Or rather, complicated and boring to listen to someone explain, strangely fascinating to figure out.

Short version: I'm doing audios of stories. The easy part is talking into a microphone. The hard part is getting your computer to guide you doing so.

But that's what a computer is, right? A tireless but extremely stupid coach.

But now, an unexpected christmas break. Because I've been rather suddenly invited to spend a week in Barcelona. By an old friend who's exactly the kind of person to impulsively book a week-long trip to Barcelona because it sounds kind of interesting somehow, and then impulsively invite a randomly chosen aquaintence to come too.

Which makes me the kind of person to go along with other people's mad impulses. And, I suppose, my own.

So, coming soon, some blogging about the trip to Barcelona that I will have just had.

In the meantime, work out the tense structure of that sentence.