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Does anyone know what happened to HARC ? It was announced in May 2016, with Alan Kay's involvement and Bret Victor's: http://blog.ycombinator.com/harc/ http:/

by chubot 9y ago

Does anyone know what happened to HARC ? It was announced in May 2016, with Alan Kay's involvement and Bret Victor's: http://blog.ycombinator.com/harc/ http://blog.ycombinator.com/harc/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11679680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11679680 In September "eleVR" said it was leaving YC research: http://elevr.com/elevr-leaving-ycr/ http://elevr.com/elevr-leaving-ycr/ I presume these e-mail excerpts are inspired by the end of HARC too? What happened? In the thread about first year reports a couple months ago, someone suspects that funding has ended too. Also, Bret Victor's work and name are conspicuously missing from the first year reports. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15564072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15564072 https://harc.ycr.org/reports/ https://harc.ycr.org/reports/

ontouchstart 9y ago
> Unfortunately, a combination of forces in the world make nonprofit long-term research a tough sell right now. It doesn’t matter how good we are at what we do. Everyone is overextended trying to solve all the world’s problems at once, and we’re in the unpopular space of being neither for-profit nor directly and immediately philanthropic. http://elevr.com/elevr-leaving-ycr/ http://elevr.com/elevr-leaving-ycr/
- chubot 9y ago
  I read that (and linked it), but I'm more interested in YC's side of the story. How long do they commit to funding for? How do they evaluate when to continue funding? What do they consider "success"? A year and change is incredibly short for basic research. If at the outset you only planned for a year of funding, then you can't expect any results. It's almost wasted money. So I think that something happened to make them discontinue the funding.
j_s 9y ago
Discussion of September "leaving" announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15162957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15162957
ontouchstart 9y ago
Thanks for the link by @j_s, I found following insightful comment by you (@chubot): > The misleading thing about Linux is that it IS IN FACT a big idea -- it's just not a technological idea. We already knew how to write monolithic kernels. But the real innovation is the software development process. The fact that thousands of programmers can ship a working kernel with little coordination is amazing. That Linus wrote git is not an accident; he's an expert in software collaboration and evolution. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15164092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15164092 From your comment, I think the funding and development process of these post Bell Lab/PARC research projects might need a paradigm change from technology idea oriented to social development oriented due to the reality of our highly networked social environment (the dream of Licklider). If we read the CRAZY eleVR thread as a tree/forest, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15162957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15162957 We can see that how much misunderstanding of each other exists in our tech community. There are much deeper social development problems to be solved than simple VC or philanthropy funding. @vihart was right saying > HN. You're a weird place. It is a more fundamental problem that vihart and gang can’t solve. And that would be an opportunity at another meta level. Think what Lick would do.
- chubot 9y ago
  Thanks, glad you got something out of the comment. You have a point that, ironically, the success of Licklider's vision may have changed the nature of collaboration for the worse in some ways. It's been a huge net positive, in that humanity as a whole is more productive, but there are things that have been lost. (Or maybe another way to look at it is that Licklider/Engelbart's vision has been watered down, and you could solve these communication problems with better software design.) Another example I recall is that Rob Pike said that Bell Labs was a wonderful environment because everyone had to physically sit in the same room, huddled around big shared computers. There is a natural exchange of ideas in that environment, which leads to big research breakthroughs. When Ethernet and personal workstations came around, suddenly you could sit at your desk and close the door and put your headphones on. I personally noticed that irony at my own job. Often people would be talking more to people in a remote office than the person sitting next to them. And sometimes people would chat electronically with someone in their own office -- e.g. if they didn't want to take off your headphones or disturb other officemates! I also wonder what a new model for funding basic research looks like. It seems like YCombinator would be a logical entity to fund such research, but as far as I can tell, it was a failed experiment. And I think there is some danger in longing for the "golden age". I was reminded in reading the "Dream Machine" that a lot of it was driven by fear of the Soviets (Sputnik, etc.). And I also wonder if what made it work back then is no longer present, for better or worse.

by chubot 9y ago

ontouchstart 9y ago

> Unfortunately, a combination of forces in the world make nonprofit long-term research a tough sell right now. It doesn’t matter how good we are at what we do. Everyone is overextended trying to solve all the world’s problems at once, and we’re in the unpopular space of being neither for-profit nor directly and immediately philanthropic. http://elevr.com/elevr-leaving-ycr/ http://elevr.com/elevr-leaving-ycr/

chubot 9y ago
I read that (and linked it), but I'm more interested in YC's side of the story. How long do they commit to funding for? How do they evaluate when to continue funding? What do they consider "success"? A year and change is incredibly short for basic research. If at the outset you only planned for a year of funding, then you can't expect any results. It's almost wasted money. So I think that something happened to make them discontinue the funding.

j_s 9y ago

Discussion of September "leaving" announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15162957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15162957

ontouchstart 9y ago

Thanks for the link by @j_s, I found following insightful comment by you (@chubot): > The misleading thing about Linux is that it IS IN FACT a big idea -- it's just not a technological idea. We already knew how to write monolithic kernels. But the real innovation is the software development process. The fact that thousands of programmers can ship a working kernel with little coordination is amazing. That Linus wrote git is not an accident; he's an expert in software collaboration and evolution. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15164092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15164092 From your comment, I think the funding and development process of these post Bell Lab/PARC research projects might need a paradigm change from technology idea oriented to social development oriented due to the reality of our highly networked social environment (the dream of Licklider). If we read the CRAZY eleVR thread as a tree/forest, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15162957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15162957 We can see that how much misunderstanding of each other exists in our tech community. There are much deeper social development problems to be solved than simple VC or philanthropy funding. @vihart was right saying > HN. You're a weird place. It is a more fundamental problem that vihart and gang can’t solve. And that would be an opportunity at another meta level. Think what Lick would do.

chubot 9y ago
Thanks, glad you got something out of the comment. You have a point that, ironically, the success of Licklider's vision may have changed the nature of collaboration for the worse in some ways. It's been a huge net positive, in that humanity as a whole is more productive, but there are things that have been lost. (Or maybe another way to look at it is that Licklider/Engelbart's vision has been watered down, and you could solve these communication problems with better software design.) Another example I recall is that Rob Pike said that Bell Labs was a wonderful environment because everyone had to physically sit in the same room, huddled around big shared computers. There is a natural exchange of ideas in that environment, which leads to big research breakthroughs. When Ethernet and personal workstations came around, suddenly you could sit at your desk and close the door and put your headphones on. I personally noticed that irony at my own job. Often people would be talking more to people in a remote office than the person sitting next to them. And sometimes people would chat electronically with someone in their own office -- e.g. if they didn't want to take off your headphones or disturb other officemates! I also wonder what a new model for funding basic research looks like. It seems like YCombinator would be a logical entity to fund such research, but as far as I can tell, it was a failed experiment. And I think there is some danger in longing for the "golden age". I was reminded in reading the "Dream Machine" that a lot of it was driven by fear of the Soviets (Sputnik, etc.). And I also wonder if what made it work back then is no longer present, for better or worse.