181–190 of 231 posts
Unfortunately it's true. I just heard back from Peter Norvig, who says "He died peacefully in his sleep last night."
In response to the skepticism being expressed, I've just had a message from Wendy Grossman saying: "... his daughter phoned me. I'm the ultimate source for the wikipedia entry."
Looks like someone has been doing "original research" on Wikipedia again.
I, Colin D Wright, hereby state that my colleague,
Wendy M Grossman, personally sent me a message stating
explicitly that she had been phoned personally by the
daughter of John McCarthy and told of his death.
Here lies a Lisper / Uninterned from this mortal package / Yet not gc'd / While we retain pointers to his memory
What a pity. I sense a black bar coming. The last few weeks have been terrible, one icon after another has fallen. What is different from other fields is that computing is still a young enough field that almost all of its luminaries except for the earliest ones are still alive. I fear the avalanche has only barely begun, and at some point the frequency of these will become high enough that either we will stop to noti…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's how any species gets to iterate. The old have to die off to make room for the young.
Right, but if there is actually any selection for aging and death in organisms (maybe there is, I'm not sure), it's not useful anymore. There's a lot of evidence that there's no longer genetic selection acting on the human population, and it's therefore no longer true that our children should be genetically superior.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks like someone has been doing "original research" on Wikipedia again.
I'm not sure what you're sayimg or implyimg here, but it feels like an insult directed either at me or at Wendy, I'm not sure which. So let me state this a little more clearly. I, Colin D Wright, hereby state that my colleague, Wendy M Grossman, personally sent me a message stating explicitly that she had been phoned personally by the daughter of John McCarthy and told of his death. Now, in what way does that involve…
Thank you John, RIP
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks like someone has been doing "original research" on Wikipedia again.
I'm not sure what you're sayimg or implyimg here, but it feels like an insult directed either at me or at Wendy, I'm not sure which. So let me state this a little more clearly. I, Colin D Wright, hereby state that my colleague, Wendy M Grossman, personally sent me a message stating explicitly that she had been phoned personally by the daughter of John McCarthy and told of his death. Now, in what way does that involve…
This is one of the more controversial and often debated Wikipedia rules.
"If computers of the kind I have advocated become the computers of the future, then computing may someday be organized as a public utility just as the telephone system is a public utility... The computer utility could become the basis of a new and important industry." — John McCarthy (speaking at the MIT Centennial in 1961). It's been pointed out that McCarthy used the term "utility" rather than "cloud", but many of…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, but if there is actually any selection for aging and death in organisms (maybe there is, I'm not sure), it's not useful anymore. There's a lot of evidence that there's no longer genetic selection acting on the human population, and it's therefore no longer true that our children should be genetically superior.
Maybe not genetically superior, but certainly culturally stronger. Old people have old ways of thinking.
There are people who resist change and disapprove of all viewpoints other their own, but I doubt it's an age thing. I see a lot of young people opposing gay marriages for instance.