61–70 of 94 posts
The subtitle says Ted was the inventor of hypertext, but in the interview he credits Doug Engelbart. You can hear him say it if you listen from 4:30 to 4:45. "We thought computing would be artisanal. We did not imagine great monopolies." Even though hindsight is 20/20, I'm still surprised that the power of network effects didn't occur to him (or whoever the "we" refers to). "... artistic expression ..." Reminds me a…
> Even though hindsight is 20/20, I'm still surprised that the power of network effects didn't occur to him (or whoever the "we" refers to). To unwrap that, the “power” of great efficiencies of scale, but also “weakness” from the lack of adaptability and resilience inherent to monocultures. The jury is still out on which way the balance swings — especially because the former manifests in “typical events” while the la…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I may nominate myself, take a look at my work, why not?
After a cursory look I found it interesting. Homoiconocity of assembly language isn't something I had thought of--although I have been working on a higher level S-expression based assembly that is lowered to more concrete assembly for Scheme86 microcoded emulation. I'm no genius for sure, but even when I do sometimes find myself ahead of the curve, I fall into Hamlet's dilemma: "...Thus conscience does make cowards o…
I found no way to contact the author of this, as an example, but it's similar, except I'm making some progress: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32495133
I've largely given up on promoting my novel work here, as it never makes the front page, and none of my work ever gets any interesting comments whenever it does.
I was listening to a podcast a few years back, I think it was fortran related, and in any case, the guys talking were having fun putting their "old farts complaining about kids and their scateboards" hat on. At some point the conversation went a bit like this: - Do you know what else kids these days don't do? - What? - They don't declare all their variables at the top. - What? - Yep - They don't? - Nope - W ... where…
Being very much a kid (at heart at least), I'll wager the question: what's the case against declaring variables as you need them? Also, at the top of which scope are you supposed to declare variables, function scope, class scope, ... somewhere else?
The subtitle says Ted was the inventor of hypertext, but in the interview he credits Doug Engelbart. You can hear him say it if you listen from 4:30 to 4:45. "We thought computing would be artisanal. We did not imagine great monopolies." Even though hindsight is 20/20, I'm still surprised that the power of network effects didn't occur to him (or whoever the "we" refers to). "... artistic expression ..." Reminds me a…
Granted, the people who had the knowledge to teach said methods were probably too busy making comparative bank in private industry, or perhaps were teaching business courses. Most academics are researchers, and researchers tend to be explorers, not builders.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
After a cursory look I found it interesting. Homoiconocity of assembly language isn't something I had thought of--although I have been working on a higher level S-expression based assembly that is lowered to more concrete assembly for Scheme86 microcoded emulation. I'm no genius for sure, but even when I do sometimes find myself ahead of the curve, I fall into Hamlet's dilemma: "...Thus conscience does make cowards o…
I appreciate the praise. The base of much of my work involves removing what we currently consider to be text from computing, on both ends. An assembler with its language is inferior to my machine code development tool with an interactive interface filled with redundant information; on the other end, I don't believe we should store text as characters, and I'm currently making progress on that. I found no way to contac…
Could you briefly elaborate?
[edit]
I read the article on your HN link. I didn't quite "get it". Program text gets in the way, let's replace it with [?]. Dr. Strandh at U. of Bordeaux, et al., have argued that we shouldn't store programs as text files in an operating system--is that what you are advocating? An image based system, for example?
> none of my work ever gets any interesting comments whenever it does
Sorry for my part in that, most people don't find me interesting. :) My work doesn't get much attention either, even if someone else happens upon it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Common_Lisp/comments/ezruuc/tovero_...
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I don't know why I keep quoting Shakespeare this week, I mostly slept through the Shakespeare module in high school English, but I guess some filtered through and maybe WRT promotion on the Internet:
"Had I so lavish of my presence been, so common-hackneyed in the eyes of men, so stale and cheap to vulgar company, opinion, that did help me to the crown, had still kept loyal to possession and left me in reputeless banishment, a fellow of no mark nor likelihood." Henry IV, Part 1, Act 3, Scene 2
It seems to me like for the most part only the best connected, ruthless, garrulous, overly vocal people get their ideas heard. I've tried business development orgs (including personal connections), directly contacting relevant researchers or sources of funding, on and on. Mostly, the advice has been to throw the spaghetti on the wall (put up a Github project, e.g.) and see what sticks (yell on Twitter, try to get some users). Even one of the founders of this site had difficulty marketing his idea for a new variant of Lisp, you know.
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More fun facts from "Programming the 80386", Crawford and Gelsinger (chief architect and designer of the 386 respectively), 1987, pp. 1-2 "The 4004 was quickly enhanced to the 8008. These devices, very trivial by today's standards, were novel but hardly taken seriously as computers of any worth...In 1978 the third generation was introduced--the 8086. This marked the beginning of microprocessors as 'real' computers...…
I think that's a pretty Intel centric view of things. Well before 1978 there were the 6502 (1975, MOS Technology) and the 6800 (1974, Motorola). Those were very much 'real' computers compared to the 8008.
I would also argue that the 8008 was a real computer. The ENIAC was the first "real" computer (in the sense of general purpose, digital), with its ~.005 MIPS (integer add/sub) vs. the 8008 at ~0.05 MIPS, and was a bit larger and more difficult to program. I wrote programs on a 6502-based Apple years before the IBM PC appeared. I guess that was a phantom computer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I appreciate the praise. The base of much of my work involves removing what we currently consider to be text from computing, on both ends. An assembler with its language is inferior to my machine code development tool with an interactive interface filled with redundant information; on the other end, I don't believe we should store text as characters, and I'm currently making progress on that. I found no way to contac…
> I don't believe we should store text as characters Could you briefly elaborate? [edit] I read the article on your HN link. I didn't quite "get it". Program text gets in the way, let's replace it with [?]. Dr. Strandh at U. of Bordeaux, et al., have argued that we shouldn't store programs as text files in an operating system--is that what you are advocating? An image based system, for example? > none of my work ever…
This is my current progress: http://verisimilitudes.net/2022-06-13
However, that was somewhat a waste of time, so I also wrote this reflection on it: http://verisimilitudes.net/2022-06-17
> Sorry for my part in that, most people don't find me interesting.
I didn't intend the remark as an insult.
It's interesting to mention Shakespeare so much. I'm reading The Merchant of Venice lately.
> It seems to me like for the most part only the best connected, ruthless, garrulous, overly vocal people get their ideas heard.
Yes.
> I've tried business development orgs (including personal connections), directly contacting relevant researchers or sources of funding, on and on.
I tried contacting VPRI and similar organizations, but to silence.
If this interests you I recommend "What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry" by John Markoff and "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" by the BBC and Adam Curtis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Dormouse_Said https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_o...
> How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry .. and how it didn't. Confessing I haven't actually read the book, but I've certainly read reviews & other articles about it. Hippies did not build the Internet. Or the personal computer industry. They were around and some jumped on it early, but it's clickbait to say they built it. The TV series "Halt and Catch Fire" is actually a better picture…
'shaped': determine the nature of; have a great influence on
"his childhood was shaped by a loving relationship with his elder brother"
'built': past and past participle of build.
'build': construct (something) by putting parts or material together
"the ironworks were built in 1736"
Or in the context of the topic, in the early 60's Silicon Valley engineers began experimenting with LSD, Eastern philosophy and Science Fiction and their influence shaped views of what was possible with microchip tech and information theory.
I've heard this rejoinder before that 'hippies' didn't build the internet, as if anyone who knew anything said that. It seems mostly driven by disdain for boomer hippies (who were probably the parents of those saying it)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being very much a kid (at heart at least), I'll wager the question: what's the case against declaring variables as you need them? Also, at the top of which scope are you supposed to declare variables, function scope, class scope, ... somewhere else?
I won't make the case against but I will make the case for declaring them at the top. Think of a recipe letting you know that you need eggs and flour before telling you how to mix it. It lets you get all of your ingredients on the counter before you go reading the instructions. Having the variables up front lets you prepare your mind for the state before reasoning about the code.