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Bret Victor: Seeing Spaces [video]

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Re: Bret Victor: Seeing Spaces [video]

#71

Post by joshdance »

greggman wrote: post #36

I love Bret Victor's talks, blog posts, etc. They're super inspiring. 2 things came to mind though. 1. It seems, possibly, the exact wrong time to make rooms with giant displays. With things like Google Glass and Oculus Rift as first gen (2nd?) VR/AR you could project all of that info virtually and cheaply and be able to have all the visualization he describes wherever you are, not just at a makerspace that only a fe…

I think it would be some sort of teaching the system what good it. Let's say you are making his little robot. You want it to follow the light. So you pick a variable (light sensor reading) and optimize for a certain setting or direction (this reading as high as possible). The tool track that reading over the course of each try and picks the "best" one. This will have complexities of course. Do you want the highest single reading, or the highest mean or median over the course of the test? etc. But definitely solvable as he states. We managed to build 3d printers and space shuttles, we can build tools like this.

Re: Bret Victor: Seeing Spaces [video]

#72

Post by vilterp »

faceyspacey wrote: post #45
faceyspacey wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it blows my mind is how little of what he's put forth has led to others creating startups out of them. ...what blows my mind more though is he keeps giving talks and hasn't open sourced any of his software on github, like he said he would. i doubt he's working on some big product that puts all his software to use. it's all going to waste and could have helped propel the visions he's set forth. it makes zero sense.

yea fellas, i know this, and it's great. love light table, etc, etc. you're talking to someone who's read every single character on his site several times over. He needs to release his damn code. He could be many times more helpful that way. nobody's saying his talks and research isn't profoundly meaningful--but he could be more so if he released with the code. It's very hard to do a lot of the things he's hinted at.…

Yeah, I actually agree. Him just open sourcing the Stop Drawing Dead Fish tool for instance would move things forward a lot -- just to see how the internal data structures & algos work.

Re: Bret Victor: Seeing Spaces [video]

#73

Post by dcre »

greggman wrote: post #36

I love Bret Victor's talks, blog posts, etc. They're super inspiring. 2 things came to mind though. 1. It seems, possibly, the exact wrong time to make rooms with giant displays. With things like Google Glass and Oculus Rift as first gen (2nd?) VR/AR you could project all of that info virtually and cheaply and be able to have all the visualization he describes wherever you are, not just at a makerspace that only a fe…

I don't think he was saying that the computer itself decides what the best setting is, but rather that it tests a range of options (given by the user) and presents the results in aggregate (using reductions specified by the user) so that the user can more easily make the decision.

This specification of the ranges also solves the problem of optimizing multiple parameters simultaneously — people usually begin with hunches about what the optima are, which significantly limits the number of possibilities the system will have to test.

Re: Bret Victor: Seeing Spaces [video]

#74

Post by endergen »

rtkwe wrote: post #69
greggman wrote: post #36

I love Bret Victor's talks, blog posts, etc. They're super inspiring. 2 things came to mind though. 1. It seems, possibly, the exact wrong time to make rooms with giant displays. With things like Google Glass and Oculus Rift as first gen (2nd?) VR/AR you could project all of that info virtually and cheaply and be able to have all the visualization he describes wherever you are, not just at a makerspace that only a fe…

There are two big problems that I see with the current generation of VR goggles for applications like this. The first is bandwidth, the Oculus's screen had too low of a resolution for densely packed information and text, this may have been solved in the latest but I haven't seen it in person. Google Glass has the problem because of it's really small size, trying to access and manipulate much information on that inter…

The new Oculus and the consumer version are high enough resolution for text rendering. Though obviously artifacts of rendering them in 3D if anything but screen aligned and pixel snapped.

Additionally there are already plans for a front facing camera (that could do pass throug), because of the being blind part and the potential for hand/peripheral tracking in addition to augmented reality.

Bonus: I hope they just go all out and make/purchase custom hardware tech for structure.io/project tango structured light real time 3d scanning. Would be so cool!

Re: Bret Victor: Seeing Spaces [video]

#75

Post by tel »

saint-loup wrote: post #59
tsunamifury wrote: post #11

I think software engineer and the fundamentals of coding have always had a bias towards those who can conceptualize ideas in the abstract, then build with the assumptions that those concepts are happening regardless of their ability to see them. This is fine, except that it limits those who need to tinker in order to find out how those concepts work. When the elements are visually recognizable and physically manipula…

I think there's an important misconception about Victor's works and ideas. Augmenting human intellect is not only about visualization, it's about gathering and merging symbolic, interactive and visual representations in a single tool. He brought this point in this conference†, quoting research from Jerome Bruner ††. He shows the example of an electric circuit. Increasing some value on a resistance and seeing the chan…

This is also a huge concept in Mindstorms, a book sharing many of the same goals as Victor, a stated influence. Here the idea is to expose children to tools for thought ambivalent to their form. Papert's experience is part visual and part formal linguistic—he built LOGO.

Re: Bret Victor: Seeing Spaces [video]

#77

Post by noblethrasher »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #66
nathell wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily; that depends on one's particular arrangements. I, for example, get paid approximately mid-month, so I start out indebted to the company each month and the balance gradually shifts over time.

I believe only the USA pays bi-monthly; elsewhere you usually only get paid monthly.

I'm an exempt employee in the US and get paid monthly. The classified employees at my organization get paid weekly.

Re: Bret Victor: Seeing Spaces [video]

#78

Post by Glench »

faceyspacey wrote: post #48
spyder wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/worrydream/Tangle

tangle is really old, and his least innovative stuff at this point. it hardly counts my friend. Bret needs to stop teasing us. At least deliver the code for the one he said he would put on github. I think it's very obvious what needs to happen to software development right now. I'm straightup doing it--my startup is making come to life much of what Bret put forth in Javascript, where it should exist (on the web, not…

Have you tried asking yourself why Bret would not want to open source his demos? Can you think of any other reasons that don't pre-suppose he is "arrogant"?

Re: Bret Victor: Seeing Spaces [video]

#79

Post by loup-vaillant »

gkya wrote: post #70
sambeau wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

he got out of it (salary ... This is an argument I've heard many employers use that is factually incorrect. Every month, employees freely give their time to a company. The company is in debt to the employee. At the end of that month there is a financial reckoning and the debt is repaid. The moment the employee comes to work the following day the company is debt to the employee again. I cannot stress this enough - for…

Is this your own opinion, or is there some books/articles/etc. backing it? I'm asking this because this stance you depict seems really correct and I'd like to find out more on it if possible.

There are exceptions, but most people are indeed paid like this, at the end of the month (or the end of the week). But this is more an outlook than a hard fact.

Another outlook is, the employee should count herself lucky to be authorized to work for a company. The company provide money to the employee, which means it feeds her. If it didn't the employee would have to find another benevolent corporation, or starve. Now there is still the occasional maverick who tries to start her own business, but mostly, employees rely on companies to eat.

Yet another outlook is, the company don't feed the employee. The customers of the company feed the employee. Which is why the customer is king: piss him off, and you won't see him again. Do that too much, and you your employees will starve. It will be your fault, and maybe the fault of some of your employees. It's certainly not the fault of the customer, who has every right to choose what to consume.

I personally find these three views (the one you awnsered to, an the two I mentioned) a bit extreme. But they're not strawmen either. Some people really do believe that. In my opinion, this is the sign of a deep problem. I don't know what exactly, but something is off with the current customer/employer/employee arrangement.

Re: Bret Victor: Seeing Spaces [video]

#80

Post by faceyspacey »

Glench wrote: post #78
faceyspacey wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tangle is really old, and his least innovative stuff at this point. it hardly counts my friend. Bret needs to stop teasing us. At least deliver the code for the one he said he would put on github. I think it's very obvious what needs to happen to software development right now. I'm straightup doing it--my startup is making come to life much of what Bret put forth in Javascript, where it should exist (on the web, not…

Have you tried asking yourself why Bret would not want to open source his demos? Can you think of any other reasons that don't pre-suppose he is "arrogant"?

Yea no good ones. He's OCD and not happy with his code. He has a lame philosophy that we must make it on our own and shouldn't have help, ie that providing the code will detract from it. ..he's the one saying he would. I get the sense he's just disorganized and all over the place, hyper focused with his latest discovery du jour. ie there is no grand plan. I used to hope he was buildin a commercial company but I just doubt he is. I want answers. If u people weren't so busy kissing his ass u would do. I love Bret Victor--I'm holding him accountable to the greatness he is.
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