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Flood Fill vs. The Magic Circle

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Re: Flood Fill vs. The Magic Circle

#31

Post by staticshock »

munificent wrote: post #13
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #4

Overall, I love this essay. However, the entire argument hinges on one assertion, buried about halfway through: > Robots are improving fast, but I do not believe that this cute fellow will be stuffing envelopes or affixing stamps anytime soon. Is this correct? I don't feel qualified to say. But if it's wrong... well, then there's a missing pixel in the magic circle, and flood fill will make the whole thing unrecogniz…

I also love this essay, but I think there's a much larger, scarier breach in the magic circle. We humans consume information on the Internet, it changes our ideas, and those ideas directly inform our very physical and material behavior. We ourselves are essentially 3D printers for our thoughts, running 24/7. Flashmobs, scenic spots that get overrun with tourists after an Instagram post goes viral, teens eating tide p…

> the death of Payton Isabella Leutner

she's alive, so "attempted murder" would be more appropriate.

i really enjoyed the "we are 3D printers for our thoughts" framing!

Re: Flood Fill vs. The Magic Circle

#32

Post by lemoing »

enricozb wrote: post #30
lemoing wrote: post #23

I’ve taken the last year off from software engineering and have worked a mix of jobs that primarily exist outside the magic circle of the internet. I think one thing that surprised me was just how little computers were used; there was some basic scheduling and retail management software, but the meat of the job was in the real world. Not only that, but most of the community was similar: their jobs were based in the p…

What sorts of jobs, out of curiosity?

I worked at a family-owned bike shop, at a fancy hotel as a valet/porter, and picked up a few shifts at breweries/events. I’ll be jumping back into software in a few months but it’s been a refreshing year of doing something different.

Re: Flood Fill vs. The Magic Circle

#33

Post by lordgrenville »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #16

Does anyone know how this works? I wanted a way to track letters sent via First Class mail. USPS doesn’t provide this directly, a la parcel tracking, but it does scan those letters — all of them — and the data is available, but you have to wire everything up yourself, jumping through a few hoops along the way.

I asked AI and it found me this repo: https://github.com/1997cui/envelope

The linked site has a nice FAQ section: https://envelopetracker.com/intro

Re: Flood Fill vs. The Magic Circle

#34

Post by program_whiz »

foota wrote: post #22

I've been having much the same thoughts. What will work look like, say, 10 years from now? I'm beginning to think that we might have all the knowledge worker type jobs largely filled, or filled with significantly less workers, (hopefully) more free time for everyone, and the remaining people working in more physical positions. In many ways, I think this is probably better for society than the opposite, since in gener…

It will only in the same way computers and machines that automated past work such as farming and textiles has created lots of free time for today's workers.

Re: Flood Fill vs. The Magic Circle

#35

Post by munificent »

staticshock wrote: post #31
munificent wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also love this essay, but I think there's a much larger, scarier breach in the magic circle. We humans consume information on the Internet, it changes our ideas, and those ideas directly inform our very physical and material behavior. We ourselves are essentially 3D printers for our thoughts, running 24/7. Flashmobs, scenic spots that get overrun with tourists after an Instagram post goes viral, teens eating tide p…

> the death of Payton Isabella Leutner she's alive, so "attempted murder" would be more appropriate. i really enjoyed the "we are 3D printers for our thoughts" framing!

Sorry, misremembered the detail on that one!

Re: Flood Fill vs. The Magic Circle

#36

Post by aaronbrethorst »

lordgrenville wrote: post #33
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #16

Does anyone know how this works? I wanted a way to track letters sent via First Class mail. USPS doesn’t provide this directly, a la parcel tracking, but it does scan those letters — all of them — and the data is available, but you have to wire everything up yourself, jumping through a few hoops along the way.

I asked AI and it found me this repo: https://github.com/1997cui/envelope The linked site has a nice FAQ section: https://envelopetracker.com/intro

thanks! :)

Re: Flood Fill vs. The Magic Circle

#37

Post by dandellion »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #6
dandellion wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-driving looks like a much easier problem, it has gotten a massive amount of investment in the last decade, and it's not fully solved yet. Compared to that your 20 years estimate sounds way too optimistic.

I don't think driving looks easier than untangling. You can untangle nice and slow with little outside involvement. When it comes to self-driving at 25mph without traffic, it pretty much is a solved problem.

> When it comes to self-driving at 25mph without traffic, it pretty much is a solved problem.

So is untangling an untangled sewing machine. Did you pick the worse possible example on purpose?

Re: Flood Fill vs. The Magic Circle

#38

Post by Dylan16807 »

dandellion wrote: post #37
Dylan16807 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think driving looks easier than untangling. You can untangle nice and slow with little outside involvement. When it comes to self-driving at 25mph without traffic, it pretty much is a solved problem.

> When it comes to self-driving at 25mph without traffic, it pretty much is a solved problem. So is untangling an untangled sewing machine. Did you pick the worse possible example on purpose?

You seem to have missed why I said that. Let me try to reword.

Being able to go as slow as you want with no outside interference makes most problems a lot easier.

It's not an analogy, it's literal. Untangling has that huge huge benefit, self-driving doesn't.

It's the low-pressure version of self-driving that potentially looks like an easier problem. And that version is solved, so that undermines the argument of "this easier thing isn't solved after tons of effort, so what makes you think your thing would get solved in 20 years".

High-pressure self-driving doesn't look like it's easier than untangling. So it being unsolved isn't really evidence for anything.

Re: Flood Fill vs. The Magic Circle

#39

Post by mtneglZ »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #4

Overall, I love this essay. However, the entire argument hinges on one assertion, buried about halfway through: > Robots are improving fast, but I do not believe that this cute fellow will be stuffing envelopes or affixing stamps anytime soon. Is this correct? I don't feel qualified to say. But if it's wrong... well, then there's a missing pixel in the magic circle, and flood fill will make the whole thing unrecogniz…

I have worked with automation robots for over 15 years in manufacturing. Robust robots have only one degree of freedom, robust robots aren't very useful. Useful robots have two or three degrees of freedom, useful robots breakdown all the time from use and need a pit crew to repair them. I'm sure the use of robotic automation is about to explode, but robotics are limited.
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