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Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

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Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#901

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look here: https://tekkie.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/sicp-what-is-meant-b...

Your blog looks very interesting. You should share some links of it here on hackernews!

Thanks. I share it wherever I think it will add to the discussion.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#902

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look here: https://tekkie.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/sicp-what-is-meant-b...

Data, and the entirety of human understanding and knowledge derived from recording, measurement and analysis of data, predates computing, so I don't see the relevance of these recent, programming-centric notions in a discussion of its value.

This kind of gets into philosophy, but a metaphor I came up with for thinking about this (another phrase for it is "thought experiment") is:

If I speak something to a rock, what is it to the rock? Is it "signal," or "data"?

Making the concept a little more interesting, what if I resonate the rock with a sound frequency? What is that to the rock? Is that "signal," or "data"?

Up until the Rosetta Stone was found, Egyptian hieroglyphs were indecipherable. Could data be gathered from them, nevertheless? Sure. Researchers could determine what pigments were used, and/or what tools were used to create them, but they couldn't understand the messages. It wasn't "data" up to that point. It was "noise."

I hope I am not giving the impression that I am a postmodernist who is out here saying, "Data is meaningless." That's not what I'm saying. I am saying meaning is not self-evident from signal. The concept of data requires the ability to interpret signal for meaning to be acquired.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#903

I think you are subscribing to an incorrect and unhelpful use of the word trigger. Did you mean "upset", "annoy", "inconvenience", or "anger", perhaps?

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11943951 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#904
post #457

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AS someone that read at least one book per day if not more since the age of 6, yes it is possible. I can read between 100 to 200 page per hour, depending of the book. You reach a storage and money problem fast (Ebook are a savior nowadays). And you tend to have multiple books open at the same time. How does it work? There are several strategy. First i read fast. Experience and training make you read really fast. Seco…

> In a fiction book, it is not unusual for me to not read a chapter or two because i know what will happen inside. This is ridiculous. It doesn't count as reading if you skip whole chapters.

Well to be honest if it is badly written and contain nothing of interest...

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#905
post #471
post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AS someone that read at least one book per day if not more since the age of 6, yes it is possible. I can read between 100 to 200 page per hour, depending of the book. You reach a storage and money problem fast (Ebook are a savior nowadays). And you tend to have multiple books open at the same time. How does it work? There are several strategy. First i read fast. Experience and training make you read really fast. Seco…

What motivates you? Do you ever apply the knowledge you've gotten this way (do you even care)?

Multiple things. First it is something i like.

Secondly, it is the only way i can absorb information in a way that works. Talks, video, podcast, etc are too slow for me. It lacks a good throughput of information and meaning. Which means i tend to just drop or complete what the speaker is telling.

About applying knowledge : yes everyday, in my life. Once you hit a good amount of knowledge and have a nice way to filter it, think about it and deal with it, thngs become nice. Understanding a problem come faster. You can draw link between different situations or use ideas from other field into yours.

Knowledge is rarely lost.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#906
post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AS someone that read at least one book per day if not more since the age of 6, yes it is possible. I can read between 100 to 200 page per hour, depending of the book. You reach a storage and money problem fast (Ebook are a savior nowadays). And you tend to have multiple books open at the same time. How does it work? There are several strategy. First i read fast. Experience and training make you read really fast. Seco…

Thanks. What type of training did you do? I'm not keen on skipping chapters! Do you do the same with non-fiction? Another question - how do you keep track of what you've read? (would be happy to hear from others esp. Alan on the same topic)

as a training... i read. That is all. I begun when i was 5. Never stopped. So i nearly always was like that. The more you read the more you train your brain to read. And your mind to understand how to deal with knowledge and information. Filter it, classify it, absorb it, apply it.

For non fiction, yes it happens. Lot of book sjust repeat the same thing over and over again. When you begin to read a chapter and can complete what will be said in the next 20 pages just from your understanding of the whole situation, reading it is a loss of time. And it would make me be bored and get down from "The Zone".

I keep track in my brain. I have the advantage of being able to always remember if i have read something by just looking at the backcover and the first lines. I still have to forget a book i read. I can not remmeber all the technicalities of course but far enough to know if i read it before or not.

I reread the books i really like or need when needed anyway. Mainly during vacations.

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#908
post #887

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The question is whether a "message" has enough "stuff" to reify into a real process (so it can help interpretation and negotiation) or whether the receiver has to do all the work (and thus perhaps has to know too much for graceful scaling of the system).

I know I'm stuck in a box here. The other way around would be: - what if we cant send processes instead of messages? - what are we missing? - which things cannot be done? Pretty much what we have nowadays. I find it hard to understand how sending processes (assuming they're not only objects but the context in which they live) help scaling the system. Which example are you thinking of, that i cannot because I'm lackin…

How would we communicate with an alien civilization? How would we establish a common frame of reference from which to establish a communication protocol. Think along those lines...

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#909

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't be turtles all the way down, so maybe set theory?

A good question isn't it? For parallel ideas and situation, take a look at Lincos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincos_(artificial_language)

Thank you! I started to think on those lines too thanks to the Carl Sagan's Contact novel. That was the first thing that came to mind.

Now the question is, what if there are "objects" more advanced than others and what if advanced-object sends a message concealing an trojan horse? I think this question was also brought up in the novel/movie too...

I think this is a real life and practical show stopper to develop this concept...

Re: Alan Kay has agreed to do an AMA today

#910

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the idea is to always send the interpreter, along with the data? They should always travel together? Interesting. But, practically, the interpreter would need to be written in such a way that it works on all target systems. The world isn't set up for that, although it should be. Hm, I now realize your point about HTML being idiotic. It should be a description, along with instructions for parsing and displaying it…

TCP/IP is "written in such a way that it works on all target systems". This partially worked because it was early, partly because it is small and simple, partly because it doesn't try to define structures on the actual messages, but only minimal ones on the "envelopes". And partly because of the "/" which does not force a single theory. This -- and the Parc PUP "internet" which preceded it and influenced it -- are ex…

Would some kind of IDL not be enough to allow meanings to be sent?
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