jonjacky

20 ms·

1. 211.▲
   by jonjacky 3y ago

   ... given the right resources, the effort to get from zero up to basic competency in a topic is actually fairly miniscule, compared with the effort needed to become an expert. On that note, see also Very Short Introductions from Oxford Un
2. 212.▲
   by jonjacky 3y ago

   "... it is one thing to say, 'The self is an illusion' and quite another to confess, 'I am an illusion' ..." -- Charlie Heunemann in a review of the book The Ego Trick by Julian Baggini
3. 213.▲
   by jonjacky 3y ago

   Here are John McCarthy's own answers to this question, from 1980, about 20 years after he invented Lisp: The Survival of LISP http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/lisp20th/node2.html He describes 15 innovations
4. 214.▲
   by jonjacky 3y ago

   Seconding this. I recently re-read this and was impressed how pertinent it still is, especially on AI. Weizenbaum wrote the original AI chat program, Eliza, almost sixty years ago.
5. 215.▲
   by jonjacky 3y ago

   It is notable that TLA+ is the most frequently used notation/method on the front page, followed by Alloy. It seems this has been the case for several (many?) years. Both notations/methods were invented in the 1990s, both were in
6. 216.▲
   by jonjacky 3y ago

   > During the mid 20th century there was a lot of that going on. In the 1970s, students at Cal State LA called it Cal Concrete.
7. 217.▲
   by jonjacky 3y ago

   There are a few consulting companies that specialize in this. For example Galois [1], with offices in several US cities. In the UK there is (or was) Praxis [2]. (I have never worked with either, I have just heard of them). 1. https:&#x2F
8. 218.▲
   by jonjacky 3y ago

   For years in the 1960s, every catalog from Edmund Scientific featured something called the Spilhaus Space Clock. This article doesn't mention it, but it must have been by the same guy.
9. 219.▲
   by jonjacky 3y ago

   contrarian visionaries ... held steadfastly to a vision of the world based on their own unique set of values The archtype has to be Ted Nelson [1]. He is frequently discussed on HN [2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki&#x
10. 220.▲
    by jonjacky 3y ago

    So this has nothing to do with the Plan 9 Rio windowing system? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_(windowing_system)
11. 221.▲
    by jonjacky 3y ago

    (2009) - The linked page says 2020 at the bottom, but this apparently identical page[1] says 2009. 1. https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs140/projects/pintos/pintos_...
12. 222.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    the author decided to bury the reader under obscure and occult references to make them feel stupid The author lays on a banquet of fascinating, hilarious, and horrifying episodes to astonish and entertain the reader, and maybe inform them
13. 223.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    I think it is notable that I read it when it came out fifty years ago, and haven't re-read it since, but I still remember many scenes vividly - I remember parts of it much better than most books I read back then, or in the years since
14. 224.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    This unsigned essay is at the web site of the well-known mathematician Tim Gowers, but I couldn't find any link to it via his home page [1], which does link to many other fascinating things. 1. https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk&#x
15. 225.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    Previously here, 2020, 154 comments: Ask HN: Computer Science/History Books? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22692281 A few more here, 2022, 5 comments with about 10 suggestions Ask HN: Where to learn about comput
16. 226.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    The Whole Earth Review [1] No. 44 Dec 1984/Jan 1985 was a theme issue "Computers as Poison"[2], filled with articles critical of the still rather new personal computers. This was notable because the Review was a continuati
17. 227.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    There is the more recent CogNos/NopSys [1,2] "an evolution of the SqueakNOS project" "a Smalltalk virtual machine running on bare x86 hardware", but that project has also been inactive for several years. 1. https:&
18. 228.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    The most helpful content here is the "list of the 52 most important lessons in PAIP" near the end. Despite the title of the book, many of these lessons are not just about AI, or even particularly about symbolic programming or Lisp
19. 229.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    A recent response, another comic in the same style [1]: "Leah Elliot documents how over the last decade, Google's browser has become a threat to user privacy and the democratic process itself. With her meticulous rearrangement of
20. 230.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    Not just tech industry people. The prolific, Pulitzer prize winning novelist Richard Powers [1] learned to program on PLATO and worked as a programmer before quitting to write full-time. His novel The Gold Bug Variations [2] is set at a
21. 231.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    Seconding Cosmicomics . "Each story takes a scientific "fact" ... and builds an imaginative story around it." [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicomics
22. 232.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    The 2017 book The Friendly Orange Glow is a history of Plato. Here are HN comments on a review of the book in Nature https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15784052
23. 233.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    Alloy, mostly used for modeling and analysis but see the program verification section about halfway down this very long page: https://alloytools.org/citations/case-studies.html Linked at the top of that page is a book
24. 234.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    I see this is from Andreas Kling, the creator of SerenityOS.
25. 235.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    (1974). This helped launch interest in logic programming and Prolog.
26. 236.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    Thanks for making this. I saw it back then and thought it hit the nail on the head. It still does -- if you hadn't put (2012) readers would think it was made today.
27. 237.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    von Foerster, Maturana, and Brun were all active in cybernetics and early computing - see their Wikipedia articles. So it is surprising/disappointing that this document - which is apparently a sort of catalog of advice and helpful info
28. 238.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    This looks very impressive! I am surprised not to see more points and comments -- this kind of project often gets more attention here. Get this: The “OS” of the computer itself is Python. It’s not running something else with a shell on t
29. 239.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    The original Futurist Manifesto (1909) [1] is indeed over-the-top and out-there. Much more about them in Wikipedia [2]. I don't see the connection between those original Futurists and the linked Futurist Programming article, mayb
30. 240.▲
    by jonjacky 4y ago

    The Common Lisp standard was completed in 1994.