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> Everyone is building the same thing, funded by the same people, using the same words. Where are the independent thinkers?
> [JP] said a name: Folk Computer. In New York.
Who are ... building the same thing as Bret. So where are these independent thinkers?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Deep, paradigm-shifting research often needs decades of deep thought and experimentation, which will not yield weekly, monthly or even annual demonstrations of usefulness to customers or shareholders. She writes as a VC (I think?) where her job is to allocate capital for shorter-term "useful" (read: profitable) outcomes.
correct, here about my firm - 2nd quarter of being alive and it's just me https://motiveforce.ai/
Now if something is profitable is a whole different thing.
This reads like Dynamicland is no longer a thing. Their website seems to end in 2024. Anyone have any idea what Bret Victor is up to these days?
Yes sadly it’s no longer a thing, Bret is not a fan of LLMs. I’m trying to find a “director” to his “creative” someone who can help raise money and energize him. I don’t even know Bret personally but I want to see what comes next. Share if you know people oana@motiveforce.ai
I do not get the "against usefulness" portion. The article still discusses the projects she deems "useless" in relation to their future potential usefulness.
Against "only immediate/certain usefulness".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
correct, here about my firm - 2nd quarter of being alive and it's just me https://motiveforce.ai/
My point is that something is not useless if it has the potential for future use. I would, for example, not call the example in the article (in any stage of its development) useless because it has the potential. Same for any possible paradigm-changing work. If it is proven (in the strictes sense) to not work, then it could be deemed useless. Now if something is profitable is a whole different thing.
Almost every endeavour has non-zero potential future utility - even as a counterexample or lesson to learn from. I think that definition of "useful" is probably too broad to make an argument against, and so not a useful definition.
> ...two researchers who worked at Dynamicland, Bret Victor’s lab in Oakland. > Everyone is building the same thing, funded by the same people, using the same words. Where are the independent thinkers? > [JP] said a name: Folk Computer. In New York. Who are ... building the same thing as Bret. So where are these independent thinkers?
Been building about 20 interconnected pieces of a new software stack designed to help humanity.
Most VCs wouldn’t fund it.
Most investors wouldn’t understand it.
They prefer small apps. YC’s startups used to be called “feature, not a startup”.
Now with AI it has become easier — the work I and my small team that I’ve been paying for 10 years has been greatly accelerated.
But still. Most people on HN will just deride it. Few would look deeply. Here, I will share a link:
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Deep, paradigm-shifting research often needs decades of deep thought and experimentation, which will not yield weekly, monthly or even annual demonstrations of usefulness to customers or shareholders. She writes as a VC (I think?) where her job is to allocate capital for shorter-term "useful" (read: profitable) outcomes.
correct, here about my firm - 2nd quarter of being alive and it's just me https://motiveforce.ai/
And you have spotted the early stage opposrtunity most VCs fail to fund: paradigm shifting work often looks like infrastructure, very broad and general-purpose. It can eventually lead to trillions of dollars in wealth creation (the Web, Linux, smart contracts, etc) but the first movers may capture 5% of the ecosystem’s value. For a VC, that’s a bigger bet that can change the world a lot more than, say, the next short term memecoin sold to the greater fool for 50x or hype app dumped on the market for 100x.
Paradigm work has always run on patrons. A new paradigm is useless at the beginning, by definition, so markets have nothing to price. The first personal computers were toys. So was the early internet. The people who fund this stage are buying a position in the future before anyone can price it.
Well, some of us are drawn to this world-changing work (Vint Cerf who’s retiring this week, Linus Torvalds, Tim Berners-Lee, Vitalik Buterin, Jimmy Wales, Igor Sysoev etc etc) and it runs most of the Internet. But, will it get funded?
Here’s mine:
Yeah, you just need a complicated setup of machinery that observes the room and multiple conventions on content tagging, etc.
That intro makes me want to cry, because she's describing what the hope was for augmented reality before Zuck and Tim and every web developer looking for the next step on their career ladder stuck their grubby hands into its chest and squeezed its aorta shut. AR wasn't floating screens. It wasn't hackneyed VR. It was digital bits and bobs integrated into your physical space, onto your physical objects. You know, augm…
Glad to hear I was able to spark some emotion. I’d love to chat oana@motiveforce.ai
So instead of overlaying and augmenting the room the user already has mapped to functions i propose first extending the room which can be done via 2 projectors and passive 3D more easily and will offload all spatial senses to a new area (z all far aquarium like) that a user can see as something added and new and not something breaking his current status quo.
A large second virtual room on the wall to work with is around 1000€ for 2 projectors, silver screen and some lenses. Growing new neurons has an "aha" effect on the user while forcing him to rewrite them will leave them with pain and force a defensive reflex - you don't want that while proposing new concepts!
If you like overlaying stuff a passive 3DTV somewhere in the room or on your desk can do a floating object easily for under 300€ (z all near) while not messing with more than this small experimental area of the room. Black backgrounds work great.
This allows the user to smoothly transition from his used-to workflow to a more integrated one all while just wearing 10g set of glasses - while we wait for affordable AR glasses.
Skipping this part breaks the users known working toolset - you can do so maybe (if ever) AFTER he gets comfortable with the new toolset. Better analogy: Imagine being a teacher and i propose a camera that will turn what you write on the whiteboard into an animated explanation (graph visualization of your formula). Now your whiteboard still works! Nothing is broken. Maybe for stuff you already now the extension works just fine and your students see the graph immediately on ANOTHER screen area. That's great and added value. Because even if you didn't learn some syntax your whiteboard will always work as before and you can just draw the graph yourself or turn the second screen off then go on with your life and continue the lesson.
Now maybe if you got comfortable with that you will allow the second area screen on the whiteboard itself next to your drawn formulas (or typehinting them even;) ). But not during learning how it works.