>>> What these programs really showed was that there's a subset of natural language that's a formal language. Don't take this as any fanboy stuff, but pg is still good at putting big thoughts in small sentences. Its a sort of mental zip function. Also this is why I still type into google things like 'rubik solve how-to' instead of my daughter doing "show me how to solve a rubiks cube"
What I Worked On
261–270 of 421 posts
Re: What I Worked On
#262Re: What I Worked On
#263So a weird thing is happening today. When I was a kid, like Paul, I had to beg my parents to get me a computer ie. spend money on it. Once I got it, I couldn't stop using it and hacking and figuring things out. Kids these days... :) have everything, I made sure my kids have all good equipment, they have good instruction but they are kind of not interested it all. If they do something, this is more to please me, as th…
Another commenter already identified the meat of the problem; you were restricted access to computers, whereas your children are not. Here is an article about that exact conundrum, on the concept of "antagonistic learning": https://medium.com/@ThingMaker/educ-103-antagonistic-learnin... If you DM me, I will be happy to send you a list of similar essays that explore the concept of learning and teaching and why it's do…
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Re: What I Worked On
#264> during the first year of grad school I realized that AI, as practiced at the time, was a hoax. I had a similar realization during grad school about a lot of the popular topics at the time (early 2000s). I even used to call them "the hoaxes of computer science". Things like grid computing or formal methods of software engineering had a lot of resources behind them, but nobody was able to use the results. Instead, ve…
> the hoaxes of computer science
Without the benefit of hindsight we can't tell which of these building blocks will become the next paradigm. I think your expectation that progress should be a direct line where every step gets you closer is mistaken. It's often guided by a very subjective feeling of interesting-ness which cannot be formalized.
Re: What I Worked On
#265So a weird thing is happening today. When I was a kid, like Paul, I had to beg my parents to get me a computer ie. spend money on it. Once I got it, I couldn't stop using it and hacking and figuring things out. Kids these days... :) have everything, I made sure my kids have all good equipment, they have good instruction but they are kind of not interested it all. If they do something, this is more to please me, as th…
Prevent your success from spoiling your kids. Your kids probably are not jealous of anything they see because you provide them anything they want. I think a parent should think and figure out how to create a challenging environment for their kids. Not just artificial challenge like games. Real challenge that will shape(and I think improve) their personality. I'm not a parent so I can't give concrete advise, just shar…
I agree in that constraints can make for creativity, but as a parent, it is very very difficult to create that environment.
Re: What I Worked On
#266Very inspiring essay.
But:
> This was the closest thing I've had to a normal job, and I hereby apologize to my boss and coworkers, because I was a bad employee. ... Toward the end of the year I spent much of my time surreptitiously working on On Lisp, which I had by this time gotten a contract to publish.
Looks like he really was a bad employee. Not sure yet what conclusions I should draw from this.
Re: What I Worked On
#267So a weird thing is happening today. When I was a kid, like Paul, I had to beg my parents to get me a computer ie. spend money on it. Once I got it, I couldn't stop using it and hacking and figuring things out. Kids these days... :) have everything, I made sure my kids have all good equipment, they have good instruction but they are kind of not interested it all. If they do something, this is more to please me, as th…
I have the same problem. One thing to try to get them to do is build their own Roblox game with you or maybe build some compute machines inside Minecraft. My kids also want to make their own you tube channel so I look at it as broadcasting experience, story telling, and they also Facetime with their friends while playing so they get socialization as well.
Another idea is to take them on a trip with no electronics and internet. Camping or a cabin. Maybe with another family or friends so the kids can play together. That way they can see life without roblox and youtube and the change in scenery helps with that.
The pandemic has made this a little harder to do though.
Re: What I Worked On
#268This piece feels very long and navel-gazey and sorely in need of an editor. I miss the essays where Paul Graham gets to the point.
Re: What I Worked On
#269This is a good essay. It's interesting to contrast it with some of the psychological/self-help literature around being your "true self", where the true self is fluid and amorphous and avoids being rigidly defined. Or with Drew Houston's commmencement address [1] - "That little voice in my head was telling me where to go, and the whole time I was telling it to shut up so I could get back to work. Sometimes that little…
> So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
Equally plausible is that we only write quotations from the people whose dots serendipitously connected.
Re: What I Worked On
#270[deleted]