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What's missing here is that I grok the concepts but I am ammillion miles away from having the tools, the setup, the basal how-to to appreciate how hard this was

What's missing here is that I grok the concepts but I am ammillion miles away from having the tools, the setup, the basal how-to to appreciate how hard this was I am always banging on about software is a new form of literacy and I love and encourage any attempt to get kids coding, but there is a huge gap of "maker" style hands on availability - more libraries with "maker" areas, more encouragement The UK supposedly has a large software gaming industry now because of things like BBC micro and the cottage industries that sprang up in the early eighties I conjecture that a similar industry of light-medium hardware will spring out of building sufficient open access and just letting creative people find entirely new ways to build. In short, me wanna try that, and I am egotistical enough to believe everyone else will too

larodi 3y ago
Software is as much a form of literacy as being able to compose music. It is at best a form of art, which does not make it literacy. Several points: Reading code solely does not make you good expert in it. Literacy is needed in any area, while artisans can go without software and still produce. Software is about logic, literacy is about conveying meaning. Knowing how to code does not at all teach you how to communicate.
- lifeisstillgood 3y ago
  >>> Reading code solely does not make you good expert in it. Neither does reading words. Literacy is not just reading - but it's a big component. Reading a book on cooking does not make one a chef. Reading the code in a toyota robot won't make you a kanban focused floor manager. >>> Literacy is needed in any area, while artisans can go without software and still produce. My argument is that so much of the world is going to be eaten by software that being illiterate will put you at enormous disadvantages. Not every part of work will be software-replaced, but so much of the surrounding "B-work" will be that, I don't know, an artisan bricklayer can still do their work well if they are illiterate but they will be disadvantaged "in life", from invoicing to whatsapp messages. >>> Software is about logic, literacy is about conveying meaning. Straight nope to that. More and more software is encoding meaning and enforcing that meaning. Unless we are talking about evoking emotions - and even then let me introduce you to some edges of the gaming community. >>> Knowing how to code does not at all teach you how to communicate. I think pretty much every software list of advise since 1980s has included something along the lines of "learn to write english better"
  - larodi 3y ago
    No it’s not gonna be eaten. Reality is too deep and to complex to be reasonably well embedded onless embeddings size is infinite. For all else - where pure algo runs, this only fills in small holes in the Swiss cheese fabric of reality.

larodi 3y ago

Software is as much a form of literacy as being able to compose music. It is at best a form of art, which does not make it literacy. Several points: Reading code solely does not make you good expert in it. Literacy is needed in any area, while artisans can go without software and still produce. Software is about logic, literacy is about conveying meaning. Knowing how to code does not at all teach you how to communicate.

lifeisstillgood 3y ago
>>> Reading code solely does not make you good expert in it. Neither does reading words. Literacy is not just reading - but it's a big component. Reading a book on cooking does not make one a chef. Reading the code in a toyota robot won't make you a kanban focused floor manager. >>> Literacy is needed in any area, while artisans can go without software and still produce. My argument is that so much of the world is going to be eaten by software that being illiterate will put you at enormous disadvantages. Not every part of work will be software-replaced, but so much of the surrounding "B-work" will be that, I don't know, an artisan bricklayer can still do their work well if they are illiterate but they will be disadvantaged "in life", from invoicing to whatsapp messages. >>> Software is about logic, literacy is about conveying meaning. Straight nope to that. More and more software is encoding meaning and enforcing that meaning. Unless we are talking about evoking emotions - and even then let me introduce you to some edges of the gaming community. >>> Knowing how to code does not at all teach you how to communicate. I think pretty much every software list of advise since 1980s has included something along the lines of "learn to write english better"
- larodi 3y ago
  No it’s not gonna be eaten. Reality is too deep and to complex to be reasonably well embedded onless embeddings size is infinite. For all else - where pure algo runs, this only fills in small holes in the Swiss cheese fabric of reality.