alankay1

12 ms·

61.
by alankay1 9y ago
I think they are going to post these. But I also think that essay "The Power of the Context" is available online. Did you even try to type this into Google? I just did and the pdf seems to be the first hit ...
62.
by alankay1 9y ago
It didn't actually, but in this case the computer allows things cleaner than biology. We could have gone a lot farther in making the interior of an object a real object space rather than what we did. Years later we did try that, and it
63.
by alankay1 9y ago
Very much in the same spirit as I thought about it back in the 60s. I don't think I invented "Object-oriented" but more or less "noticed" what was really powerful about just making everything from complete computers
64.
by alankay1 9y ago
But is Google spending money on the fruitful ideas? Pick something you care about that is good for people and see what happens when you take it out and then bring it back.
65.
by alankay1 9y ago
Please do email -- I don't even bark much, and bite not at all.
66.
by alankay1 9y ago
The difference between "provocative" and "rude" is probably in the eyes of the beholders. As I alluded, the main job of giving a talk -- whether university or elsewhere -- is to help all wake up, including the speaker!
67.
by alankay1 9y ago
This is a really good question! It partly has to do with the "pink-plane/blue-plane" idea (shown in lecture II and in lots of talks I've given) that I adapted from Arthur Koestler's terrific book "Act of Creati
68.
by alankay1 9y ago
I was specifically invited to talk about "invention vs innovation" and about making "an industry vs a company" -- that wasn't clear in the syllabus. However, just to make you feel better (I hope), I did do a startup
69.
by alankay1 9y ago
I said "either my talk is not interesting, or you (the audience) is not interesting, or both. Please try to disabuse me of the latter". Please try to be more diligent about what you are complaining about. It's clear that I di
70.
by alankay1 10y ago
There's a branch of Y Combinator -- YC Research -- that has set up a number of non-profit R&D organizations
71.
by alankay1 10y ago
PARC happened because of the added "D" which made it impossible for the agency to find open ended "problem finding" research. I don't know of funding since then -- or today -- that is on a reasonable scale and of th
72.
by alankay1 10y ago
This is a key point to be made -- especially about the kind of research that ARPA/PARC did. We built all of ideas in quantity both in order to use them ourselves, and as the only good way to validate them. This involves teams, and -- f
73.
by alankay1 10y ago
And of most of the participants at ARPA-IPTO and PARC. "Dealers of Lightning" was too much of the "hero's journey" trope, and also very confusing in sequence (even to those of us who were there). Both books missed h
74.
by alankay1 10y ago
This is one of those stories that has distorted over time. "Dealer" was a weekly meeting for many purposes, the main one was to provide a vehicle for coordination, planning, communication without having to set up a management stru
75.
by alankay1 10y ago
Bob fully embraced the deeply romantic "ARPA Dream" of personal computing and pervasive networking. His true genius was in being able to "lead by getting others to lead and cooperate" via total commitment, enormous confi
76.
by alankay1 10y ago
Nope
77.
by alankay1 10y ago
It isn't similar, either to PARC or to ARPA-IPTO (before the "D"). It was that "D" that caused PARC to happen, because of the qualitative change in what "Advances Research Projects" were supposed to mean.
78.
by alankay1 10y ago
Not the same crew or dynamic ...
79.
by alankay1 10y ago
This is overdrawn and misses the process and the intent. They weren't staged, they were not "designed to train their people", etc. It was part of the larger ARPA community to learn how to argue to illuminate rather than merel
80.
by alankay1 10y ago
Let me encourage you to be both. Butler is one of the most amazing people I've met and had the great pleasure of working in the same environment with him for many years. I also think that all of us who were there would not want to try
81.
by alankay1 10y ago
This is one of the most important points
82.
by alankay1 10y ago
Almost correct. The first laser printers were not the Dover but SLOT by Gary Starkweather at PARC, which was made on top of a 3600 (much faster engine) in the very early 70s, and its connection to the Ethernet EARS a little later (by Ron Ri
83.
by alankay1 10y ago
It's worth noting that the meanings of a number of very important words have changed over the last 500 years -- sometimes enlarged, sometimes really changing, including: true/false, fact, theory, explanation, believe, logic, etc.
84.
by alankay1 10y ago
Exactly ...
85.
by alankay1 10y ago
In the early 90s, on two separate occasions, I was offered "3 Altos" for just a few dollars (one batch was from Stanford that had been using them for printer servers, and I don't remember where the second batch came from). O
86.
by alankay1 10y ago
The subsequent sentences are also there for disclaimers and subsetting. The first sentence model is too weak for real writing.
87.
by alankay1 10y ago
I don't take notes. (It's worth pondering whether taking notes is really an aid to internal remembering...) In any case, what I was trying to point out was that it could be the case that we actually remember almost everything, but
88.
by alankay1 10y ago
Here is something for all to ponder. Remember when someone switched the TV channel into the middle of a movie you haven't seen for 20 years. How long did it take for you to recognize the movie? And how often did you have a good sense o
89.
by alankay1 10y ago
Good point! (Cog Psych shows that we don't really multi-task.) I've always been partial to beds and couches for reading ... and especially in the very early mornings ...
90.
by alankay1 10y ago
I think these are good advice. A few additions and complements: What seemed to work for me: 1. I started reading very early in life, and like early sports and music learning, I think this made a difference. 2. Most recall and understanding

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