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Dynamicland 2024

dynamicland.org

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Re: Dynamicland 2024

#41

Post by skadamat »

azeirah wrote: post #29
modeless wrote: post #19

Very cool. I do believe physical embodiment of computers is the future and the current screen/GUI paradigm will decline, but the embodiment will be different. The physically embodied computer of the future will be a humanoid robot, and we will interact with it the same way we do with humans: by gesturing and speaking. There will always be a place for screens, just as there is still a place for books, but we will have…

Despite appearances, dynamicland isn't about any particular paradigm on its own. It's a set of values and a way of looking at media that come together to create computer-literate communities and even culture. This is obviously a bit vague, especially if you look at all the things they're doing with the cameras and the projectors and the dots and all that. There's nothing stopping anyone "running" dynamicland on anyth…

Hopefully my cooking analogy helps a tiny bit? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41448649

Similar a bit to Maggie Appleton's barefoot developers vibe too: https://maggieappleton.com/home-cooked-software

Re: Dynamicland 2024

#42

Post by Juliate »

dingnuts wrote: post #36
reaperman wrote: post #26

I assume this hasn't been "released" yet, but still thought I'd ask if the source code for the operating system (or "computing environment", in Dynamicland-speak) is available anywhere and also if there yet exists any DIY hardware guides for building your own to play with at my own location (far from the Oakland/Berkeley Dynamicland facility). I believe the FAQ confirms that this is not possible at the moment: > Wher…

>In the short term, additional spaces will be started by people who have contributed significantly to an existing space and have internalized the culture and its values there's something ominous, weird, and sort of damning about being protective of your "culture and values" in this way and to this extent. If Dynamicland offered a truly novel computing paradigm, it should be one that is accessible by other cultures. I…

> there's something [...] about being protective of your "culture and values" in this way and to this extent

Yes, AND it may also be because it's kind of innovation in the open, before it's really ready or that all the critical angles are fixed, and they might not want spoil specifics they would like to make flourish and present to the whole world, and see them ... let's say half-assed, or misunderstood enough that it does not "jell".

In the end, it will be embraced in some way. But it's understandable that they have a specific idea in mind.

See it as a trailer for a movie where post-prod is not yet fully done, perhaps.

Re: Dynamicland 2024

#43

Post by abeppu »

I think the overall idea here is really cool. But ... to me the idea of printing stanzas of code onto paper and then putting them on a board so they can be OCRed back into text and then re-parsed seems circuitous. Like as a demonstration that in principle you can work this way on code as well as on more spatially-native concepts, it seems fine, but is that actually the best way for all kinds of work? Or can we acknowledge that this makes more sense for some things than for others?

Re: Dynamicland 2024

#44

Post by bsimpson »

For those unfamiliar, the founder is Bret Victor. He made a name for himself working on human interfaces at Apple in the Steve Jobs iPad era. In 2012, he gave a couple of influential talks: Inventing on Principle, and Stop Drawing Dead Fish.

Bret's take on being a visionary/futurist is fascinating. He imagines the near-future world he wants to live in, prototypes enough of it to write a talk about, and gives the talk with the hopes that someone in the audience will be inspired to make it a reality. He gives ideas away with the hope that he'll be paid back with a world where those ideas have been realized.

https://worrydream.com/

Re: Dynamicland 2024

#45

Post by azeirah »

dingnuts wrote: post #36
reaperman wrote: post #26

I assume this hasn't been "released" yet, but still thought I'd ask if the source code for the operating system (or "computing environment", in Dynamicland-speak) is available anywhere and also if there yet exists any DIY hardware guides for building your own to play with at my own location (far from the Oakland/Berkeley Dynamicland facility). I believe the FAQ confirms that this is not possible at the moment: > Wher…

>In the short term, additional spaces will be started by people who have contributed significantly to an existing space and have internalized the culture and its values there's something ominous, weird, and sort of damning about being protective of your "culture and values" in this way and to this extent. If Dynamicland offered a truly novel computing paradigm, it should be one that is accessible by other cultures. I…

Yes-ish, I somewhat agree with your critique. I think it's a temporary measure though.

It is very America-centric and that's very sad to me.

I think Bret is a bit hesitant to share the stuff before people understand what it is, to prevent the same problem that happened when Jobs visited PARC and walked away with the idea of "we need to build computers with the desktop metaphor", without understanding at all that it was always meant to be about authoring and sharing, not about the visual metaphors.

Regardless, I hope to see more actual standalone instances/offshoots of dynamicland.

Re: Dynamicland 2024

#46

Post by bsimpson »

abeppu wrote: post #43

I think the overall idea here is really cool. But ... to me the idea of printing stanzas of code onto paper and then putting them on a board so they can be OCRed back into text and then re-parsed seems circuitous. Like as a demonstration that in principle you can work this way on code as well as on more spatially-native concepts, it seems fine, but is that actually the best way for all kinds of work? Or can we acknow…

It's not OCR. Those colored dots along the periphery are fiducials. They're how Realtalk recognizes a program.

Every object that you can interact with in Realtalk has a unique set of fiducials. When the camera sees one, it looks up its behavior and projects it accordingly.

Re: Dynamicland 2024

#47

Post by modeless »

bsimpson wrote: post #46
abeppu wrote: post #43

I think the overall idea here is really cool. But ... to me the idea of printing stanzas of code onto paper and then putting them on a board so they can be OCRed back into text and then re-parsed seems circuitous. Like as a demonstration that in principle you can work this way on code as well as on more spatially-native concepts, it seems fine, but is that actually the best way for all kinds of work? Or can we acknow…

It's not OCR. Those colored dots along the periphery are fiducials. They're how Realtalk recognizes a program. Every object that you can interact with in Realtalk has a unique set of fiducials. When the camera sees one, it looks up its behavior and projects it accordingly.

So if you physically copy and paste code, or edit it with a pen, that won't work, right? The embodiment feels superficial.

Re: Dynamicland 2024

#48

Post by breck »

bsimpson wrote: post #39

I had the good fortune of taking a field trip there in 2018. The video is a very good overview of the project. One interesting artifact of "the real world simulates itself" is version control. At Dynamicland, each version of a program is a sheet of paper (with a unique set of fiducials along the edges). If you want to edit a program, you grab a keyboard and point it at the program. A text editor comes up; you make yo…

> with a unique set of fiducials along the edges

I suspect each piece of paper, if examined with a good enough camera, has a unique fingerprint, like a snowflake, and perhaps this could be used in the future for an "Isomer Addressed Filesystem". In other words, all pieces of paper ship with a UUID already, woven into their atoms.

Re: Dynamicland 2024

#49

Post by sigmonsays »

bsimpson wrote: post #44

For those unfamiliar, the founder is Bret Victor. He made a name for himself working on human interfaces at Apple in the Steve Jobs iPad era. In 2012, he gave a couple of influential talks: Inventing on Principle, and Stop Drawing Dead Fish. Bret's take on being a visionary/futurist is fascinating. He imagines the near-future world he wants to live in, prototypes enough of it to write a talk about, and gives the talk…

that approach seems so off... i'm curious how it's justified.

like countless hundreds of quotes on execution vs ideas, here is one: "Ideas don’t make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does."

anyways, i'm gonna spend a little more time this evening to really dig in.

Re: Dynamicland 2024

#50

Post by whywhywhywhy »

Victor's previous work has all been huge inspirations to me, but after many years of this project that I initially was hyped for there are just some big red flags to me that this isn't the way forward really or even a good use of his talent.

Big talk about solving the worlds problems out in the room and not on the phone I agree with in sentiment but I feel all that big talk falls completely flat on it's face when the project you're pouring money and most importantly time only exists in one space and only benefits a small group of academics and then that issue being gushed over as if its a benefit when really it just means you're not actually building in the real world at all you're building a fake thing in a fake world for the 0.01% of people to larp with.

Think the world of computing could greatly benefit from Brett but almost in his success it means he'll just be able to play pretend in the world of "non-profit"/academia meaning the output will be citations + grants not value and there will be no real benefit to computing from that work.

Maybe I'd feel different if the intro video ended with a repo and a list of hardware to build your own Dynamicland, I almost think the fact it doesn't is a tactic for the project to never have to really prove its value...

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