1.3 not to use old
tools for new problems, scholarship requires a cybersage, digital
humanities projects, critical programming studies, plan of the
dissertation
schedule
2.1 modernism
and postmodernism, regressive subjectivity, Heideggers America,
inventing the posthuman
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKbork-journal 20141218 20141218 0 -1+ journal_2014.html The last thought is about what if I add Turing to chapter two to avoid clash as pioneer of babelization that he also used idiosyncratic programming languages.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (1) 20130912c 0 -7+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Arithmetic organ differentiated from background control organ: the architecture being proposed here not only exhibits multipurposive program and data storage but also division of functional units characteristic of industrial machinery; elementary operations are wired into the machine, and there is already acknowledgment of compromises between speed, complexity, cheapness. (1) 1.5 Inasmuch as the device is to be a computing machine there must be an arithmetic organ in it which can perform certain of the elementary arithmetic operations. (1) The operations that the machine will view as elementary are clearly those which are wired into the machine. . . . In general, the inner economy of the arithmetic unit is determined by a compromise between the desire for speed of operation a non-elementary operation will generally take a long time to perform since it is constituted of a series of orders given by the Control and the desire for simplicity, or cheapness, of the machine.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (1) 20130912d 0 -2+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Use of communication to describe human machine relationship: that the final paragraph suggests ringing a bell or flashing a light to signal to the humans that the computation is complete, or has halted (Turing), of course reflects limited capabilities of the time but also institutes a human centric locus of the interface; other theorists and science fiction writers till take up the other possibility, that humans adapt to the machines, to the extent of synaptogenesis and into the technological nonconscious of the latest Hayles. (1) 1.6 Lastly there must exist devices, the input and output organ, whereby the human operator and the machine can communicate with each other.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (1) 20131026b 0 -8+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Thus, this early document we scan to ground our understanding of terms like stored program associated with the human author (rather than the machine hardware) von Neumann originally served to document knowledge that still resided primarily in human brains and printed materials, as Kittler makes so clear in There Is No Software, by the early 1970s shepherding the thoughts expressed by the many pages describing binary arithmetic operations resided in electronic circuits and their representations, blueprints for making new circuits and for CAD language games. (1) 1.2 . . . In a special-purpose machine these instructions are an integral part of the device and constitute a part of its design structure. For an all-purpose machine it must be possible to instruct the device to carry out any computation that can be formulated in numerical terms. Hence there must be some organ capable of storing these program orders. There must, moreover, be a unit which can understand these instructions and order their execution.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (1) 20131026e 0 -8+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Note difference between special purpose and general purpose computer intertwined with semiotics, language as beyond special purpose wetware, what Nietzsche referred to as instinct. (1) 1.2 . . . In a special-purpose machine these instructions are an integral part of the device and constitute a part of its design structure. For an all-purpose machine it must be possible to instruct the device to carry out any computation that can be formulated in numerical terms. Hence there must be some organ capable of storing these program orders. There must, moreover, be a unit which can understand these instructions and order their execution.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (2) 20130131 0 -8+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Situated problems guided situated cognition of response; analysis of this problem space, not computing in general, although today a workspace of 4000 40-bit, twelve decimal precision mathematical computations is completely inadequate for the problems for which computers are designed, nor is anything like distributed network control conceivable, means that problem space now encompasses legacy, to the extent that not dead, as well as 64 bit address and timer width distributed control (Galloway protocological) computing, again not computing in general. (2) 2.3 It is reasonable at this time to build a machine that can conveniently handle problems several orders of magnitude more complex than are now handled by existing machines, electronic or electro-mechanical. We consequently plan on a fully automatic electronic storage facility of about 4,000 numbers of 40 binary digits each. This corresponds to a precision of 2-40 0.9 x 10-12, i.e. of about 12 decimal. We believe that this memory capacity exceeds the capacities required for most problems that one deals with at present by a factor of about 10.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (4) 20130912g 0 -6+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Three levels of memory as compromises between localization within working memory and responsiveness of long term memory. (4) 4.1 the availability time for a word in the memory should be 5 to 50 sec. It is equally desirable that words may be replaced with new words at about the same rate. It does not seem possible physically to achieve such a capacity. We are therefore forced to recognize the possibility of constructing a hierarchy of memories, each of which has greater capacity than the preceding but which is less quickly accessible. (4-5) One is accordingly led to consider the possibility of storing electrical charges on a dielectric plate inside a cathode-ray tube.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (9) 20130912k 0 -3+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Principle of incorporating in physical circuits only the necessary or most frequently used logical concepts, such as Accumulator. (9) The reader may remark upon our alternate spells of radicalism and conservatism in deciding upon various possible features for our mechanism. We hope, however, that he will agree, on closer inspection, that we are guided by a consistent and sound principle in judging the merits of any idea. We wish to incorporate into the machine--in the form of circuits--only such logical concepts as are either necessary to have a complete system or highly convenient because of the frequency with which they occur and the influence they exert in the relevant mathematical situations.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (29) 20130912m 0 -11+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Basic machine operations of fetch and execute, store, and input/output beyond Selectron memory. (29) 6.1 the orders for this computer are less than half as long as a forty binary digit number, and hence the orders are stored in the Selectron memory in pairs. (29) Among these orders we can immediately describe two major types: An order of the first type begins by causing the transfer of the number, which is stored at a specified memory location, from the Selectrons to the Selectron register. Next, it causes the arithmetical unit to perform some arithmetical operations on this number (usually in conjunction with another number which is already in the arithmetic unit), and to retain the resulting number in the arithmetic unit. The seonc type order causes the transfer of the number, which is held in the arithmetical unit, into the Selectron Register, and from there to a specified memory location in the Selectrons. . . . An additonal type of order consists of the transfer orders of 3.5. Further orders control the inputs and the outputs of the machine.
4 1 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (29) 20130912n 0 -5+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Decoding defined as many-to-one function table crossing dual implementations as circuitry and software running code. (29) The type of circuit we propose to use for this purpose is know as a decoding or many-one function table. (30) 6.3 each order must contain eighteen binary digits, the first twelve identifying a memory location and the remaining six specifying an operation. It can now be explained why orders are stored in the memory in pairs. Since the same memory organ is to be used in this computer for both orders and numbers, it is efficient to make the length of each about equivalent.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (30) 20130912p 0 -7+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Memory address decoder design reflected in command decoding, with strong sense of materiality of code by decoding machine operation numbers to physical circuits; clever use of error checking making connections to unused outputs. (30) The specification of the nature of the operation that is involved in an order occurs in binary form, so that another many-one or decoding function is required to decode the order. . . . Since there will not be 64 different orders, not all 64 outputs need be provided. However, it is perhaps worthwhile to connect the outputs corresponding to unused order possibilities to a checking circuit which will give an indication whenever a code word unintelligible to the control is received in the input flip-flops. (31) The twelve flip-flops operating the four function tables used in selecting a Selectron position, and the six flip-flops operating the function table used for decoding the order, are referred to as the Function Table Register, FR.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (33) 20130912r 0 -7+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Strict enforcement of separation between internal operations and those involving input or output beyond the computer; many pages of detail on control, but not as detailed as that of the arithmetic unit, admittedly only an overview. (33) 6.6 The orders which the Control understands may be divided into two groups: Those that specify operations which are performed within the computer and those that specify operations involved in getting data into and out of the computer. . . . The internal operations which have been tentatively adopted are listed in Table 1. It has already been pointed out that not all of these operations are logically basic, but that many can be programmed by means of others.
4 1 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKburks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument (41) 20130912u 0 -12+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_burks_goldstine_von_neumann-logical_design_of_electronic_computing_instrument.html Interactivity between machine and human limited to typewriter input for ad hoc data input, and a single machine instruction deployed to halt computer and notify completion by flashing a light or ringing a bell. (41) 6.8.4 . . . It is frequently very convenient to introduce data into a computation without producing a new wire. Hence it is planned to build one simple typewriter as an integral part of the computer. (41) 6.8.5 There is one further order that the Control needs to execute. There should be some means by which the computer can signal to the operator when a computation has been concluded, or when the computation has reached a previously determined point. Hence an order is needed which will tell the computer to stop and to flash a light or ring a bell.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKknuth_and_pardo-early_development_of_programming_languages (1) 20131001 0 -6+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_knuth_and_pardo-early_development_of_programming_languages.html Survey of evolution of high level programming languages based on unpublished source materials. (1) This paper surveys the evolution of high level programming languages during the first decade of computer programming activity. . . . The principal features of each contribution are illustrated; and for purposes of comparison, a particular fixed algorithm has been encoded (as far as possible) in each of the languages. This research is based primarily on unpublished source materials, and the authors hope that they have been able to compile a fairly complete picture of the early developments in this area.
4 1 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKmisa-leonardo_to_the_internet (1) 20131006f 0 -1+ progress/2011/06/notes_for_misa-leonardo_to_the_internet.html Who are Leonardos of our recent era, the technology billionaires, or anonymously dispersed in collectives? (1) Whether from the Medici family or from his numerous other courtly patrons, Leonardos career-building commissions were not as a painter, anatomist, or visionary inventor, as he is typically remembered today, but as a military engineer and architect.
4 1 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKshasha_lazere-out_of_their_minds (ix) 20131001 0 -4+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_shasha_lazere-out_of_their_minds.html Seminal thinkers of computer science worked in recent past, compelling different historical methods. (ix) In most sciences, the seminal thinkers lived in the remote past. To uncover what they did and why they did it, we must scavenge in the historical record, picking among scraps of information, trying to separate facts from mythology. (ix) Computer science is different. The mathematicians who first studied computation in its current form Alan Turing, Emil Post, and Alonzo Church did their work in the 1930s and 1940s.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKturing-computing_machinery_and_intelligence (61) 20130909d 0 -5+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_turing-computing_machinery_and_intelligence.html Visual memory has greater storage requirements than audible memory and memory for other senses. (61) As I have explained, the problem is mainly one of programming. Advances in engineering will have to be made too, but it seems unlikely that these will not be adequate for the requirements. Estimates of the storage capacity of the brain vary from 1010to 1015binary digits. I incline to the lower value and believe that only a very small fraction is used for the higher types of thinking. Most of it is probably used for the retention of visual impressions.
4 1 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKturing-computing_machinery_and_intelligence (64) 20120612 0 -2+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_turing-computing_machinery_and_intelligence.html Game centric and logocentric, indeed Anglocentric popular Zizekean fantasies ground popular beliefs and attitudes about potential of computer technology, yet Turing appeals to need for sense organs: what kind of sense organs? (64) Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess would be best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organsthat money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata (438) 20131019 0 -6+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata.html Computing machines divided into super-analog and digital devices. (438) As you probably know, the main types of computing machines existing or being discussed or planned at this moment fall into two large classes: super-analog devices and digital devices. (438) Roughly speaking, an analog calculation is one in which you look at some physical process which happens to have the same mathematical equations as the process youre interested in, and you investigate this physical process physically. You do not take the physical process which you are interested in, because that is your whole reason to calculate. You always look for something which is like it but not exactly the same thing. (439) He discussed the components of digital machines (toothed wheels, electromechanical relays, vacuum tubes, and nerve cells), the speeds of these components (including both response time and recovery time), and the need for power amplification in these components. He stressed the role of the basic logical operations (such as sensing a coincidence) in control mechanisms, including "the most elaborate control mechanism known, namely, the human nervous system.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata (442) 20131019b 0 -9+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata.html Recognition that problem of memory distorts modus operandi of early computing. (442) You may have noticed that I have already introduced one distinction, namely, the total numerical material produced in a process. The other thing which matters is how much you need simultaneously. This is probably the most vexing problem in modern computing machine technology. Its also quite a problem from the point of view of the human organism, namely, the problem of memory. (442) Hence in both the computer and the human nervous system, the dynamic part (the switching part) of the automaton is simpler than the memory. (443) He then estimated the memory capacity of an ordinary printed page to be about 20 thousand units, and remarked that this is about the memory capacity of the digital computers under consideration at that time. (443) The planning may be difficult, input and output may be cumbersome, and so on, but the main trouble is that it has a phenomenally low memory for the computing to be done. The whole technique of computing will be completely distorted by this modus operandi. (444) In comparing artificial with natural automata there is one very important thing we do not know: whether nature has ever been subject to this handicap, or whether natural organisms involve some much better memory device.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata (446) 20131019d 0 -9+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata.html References to fictitious mechanisms of McCulloch, Pitts, Turing. (446) Both of them [McCulloch and Pitts and Turing] show that their fictitious mechanisms are exactly co-extensional with formal logics; in other words, that what their automata can do can be described in logical terms and, conversely, anything which can be described rigorously in logical terms can also be done by automata. (446) Im going to describe both the work of McCulloch and Pitts and the work of Turing because they reflect two very important ways to get at the subject: the synthetic way, and the integral way. McCulloch and Pitts described structures which are built up from very simple elements, so that all you have to define axiomatically are the elements, and then their combination can be extremely complex. Turing started by axiomatically describing what the whole automaton is supposed to be, without telling what its elements are, just by describing how its supposed to function. (447) They believed that the extremely amputated, simplified, idealized object which they axiomatized possessed the essential traits of the neuron, and that all esle are incidental complications, which in a first analysis are better forgotten. (448) No matter how you formulate your conditions, you can always put a neural network in the box which will realize these conditions, which means that the generality of neural systems is exactly the same as the generality of logics. (448-449) You see that you can produce circuits which look complicated, but which are actually quite simple from the point of view of how they are synthesized and which have about the same complexity that they should have, namely, the complexity that grammar has. (449) It certainly follows that anything that you can describe in words can also be done with the neuron method. And it follows that the nerves need not be supernaturally clever or complicated.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata (451) 20131019e 0 -13+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata.html Suggestion that frequency modulation scheme more reliable than digital. (451) He then raised the question "Why has the digital notation never been used in nature, as far as we know, and why has this pulse notation been used instead?" and said that this was the kind of question he was interested in. He suggested the answer: that the frequency modulation scheme is more reliable than the digital scheme. (451) This is not the way to make a memory for the simple reason that to use a switching organ like a neuron, or six to a dozen switching organs, as you actually would have to use because of fatigue, in order to do as small a thing as remember one binary digit, is a terrible waste, because a switching organ can do vastly more than store. (452) In the McCulloch and Pitts theory the conclusion was that actual automata, properly described and axiomatized, are equivalent to formal logics. In Turings theory the conclusion is the reverse. Turing was interested in formal logics, not in automata. He was concerned to prove certain theorems about an important problem of formal logics, the so-called Entschiedungsproblem, the problem of decision. The problem is to determine, for a class of logical expressions or propositions, whether there is a mechanical method for deciding whether an expression of this class is true or false. Turings discussion of automata was really a formal, logical trick to deal with this problem in a somewhat more transparent and more consistent way than it had been dealt with before. (453) The importance of Turings research is just this: that if you construct an automaton right, then any additional requirements about the automaton can be handled by sufficiently elaborate instructions. This is true only if A is sufficiently complicated, if it has reached a certain minimum level of complexity. (454) Turing proved that there is something for which you cannot construct an automaton; namely, you cannot construct an automaton which can predict in how many steps another automaton which can solve a certain problem will actually solve it.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata (464) 20131019f 0 -6+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata.html Digitization clever trick to produce extreme precision from poor precision. (464) Digitization is just a very clever trick to produce extreme precision out of poor precision. (465) It is not surprising that this new theory of information should be like formal logics, but it is surprising that it is likely to have a lot in common with thermodynamics. (465) It is likely that you cannot define the function of an automaton, or its efficiency, without characterizing the milieu in which it works by means of statistical traits like the ones used to characterize a milieu in thermodynamics. (466) Also, it is quite clear from the practice of building computing machines that the decisive properties of computing machines involve balance: balances between the speeds of various parts, balances between the speed of one part and the sizes of other parts, even balances between the speed ratio of two parts and the sizes of other parts. I mentioned this in the case of the hierarchic structure of memory. All of these requirements look like the balance requirements one makes in thermodynamics for the sake of efficiency.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata (468) 20131109a 0 -4+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata.html Estimate of relative complexity of human nervous system compared to large computing machines of the time necessarily equivocates aspects of human thought and computation. (468) So the human nervous system is roughly a million times more complicated than these large computing machines. (468) Thus the nervous system has a million times as many components as these machines have, but each component of the machine is about 5 thousand times faster than a neuron. (470) The remarkable thing, however, is the enormous gap between the thermodynamical minimum (3 X 10-14 ergs) and the energy dissipation per binary act in the neuron (3 X 10-3 ergs). The factor here is 1011.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata (472) 20131019i 0 -8+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata.html Suggests predominance of trans-continuous alternation between digital and analog mechanisms in all forms of transduction based on unsuitability of pure analog mechanisms. (472) This whole trans-continuous alternation between digital and analog mechanisms is probably characteristic of every field. (473) Pure analog mechanisms are usually not suited for very complicated situations. The only way to handle a complicated situation with analog mechanisms is to break it up into parts and deal with the parts separately and alternately, and this is a digital trick. (473) Our artificial systems are patchworks in which we achieve desirable electrical traits at the price of mechanically unsound things. . . . And so the differences in size between artificial and natural automata are probably connected essentially with quite radical differences in materials.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata (474) 20131109b 0 -6+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata.html If every error has to be caught no organism would run for a millisecond; natural automata better suited to their milieu. (474) Its very likely that on the basis of the philosophy that every error has to be caught, explained, and corrected, a system of the complexity of the living organism would not run for a millisecond. (474-475) To apply the philosophy underlying natural automata to artificial automata we must understand complicated mechanisms better than we do, we must have more elaborate statistics about what goes wrong, and we must have much more perfect statistical information about the milieu in which a mechanism lives than we now have. (475) It makes an enormous difference whether a computing machine is designed, say, for more or less typical problems of mathematical analysis, or for number theory, or combinatorics, or for translating a text. (475) What matters is that the statistical properties of problems of mathematical analysis are reasonably well known, and as far as we know, reasonably homogeneous. (475-476) Natural automata are much better suited to their milieu than any artifacts we know. It is therefore quite possible that we are not too far from the limits of computation which can be achieved in artificial automata without really fundamental insights into a theory of information, although one should be very careful with such statements because they can sound awfully ridiculous 5 years later.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata (478) 20131019j 0 -7+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_and_organization_of_complicated_automata.html Foreshadowing self-compilers considering automata outputing things like themselves, realizing automata shifted from physical instantiation to functional specification? (478) A complete discussion of automata can be obtained only by taking a broader view of these things and considering automata which can have outputs something like themselves. . . . Draw up a list of unambiguously defined elementary parts. Imagine that there is a practically unlimited supply of these parts floating around in a large container. One can then imagine an automaton functioning in the following manner: It also is floating around in this medium; its essential activity is to pick up parts and put them together, or, if aggregates of parts are found, to take them apart.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (391-392) 20130909 0 -2+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Some observations about organization of natural organisms may be useful for constructing artificial automata. (391-392) Natural organisms are, as a rule, much more complicated and subtle, and therefore much less well understood in detail, than are artificial automata. Nevertheless, some regularities which we observe in the organization of the former may be quite instructive in our thinking and planning of the latter; and conversely, a good deal of our experiences and difficulties with our artificial automata can be to some extent projected on our interpretations of natural organisms.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (392) 20131019 0 -3+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Divide problem into functioning of individual elements and overall organization, reminiscent of Socratic analysis in Phaedrus. (392) The organisms can be viewed as made up of parts which to a certain extent are independent, elementary units. We may, therefore, to this extent, view as the first part of the problem the structure and functioning of such elementary units individually. The second part of the problem consists of understanding how these elements are organized into a whole, and how the functioning of the whole is expressed in terms of these elements.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (392) 20131019a 0 -2+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Axiomatic procedure treats elements as black boxes with well-defined outside functional characteristics. (392) Axiomatizing the behavior of the elements means this: We assume that the elements have certain well-defined, outside, functional characteristics; that is, they are to be treated as "black boxes." They are viewed as automatisms, the inner structure of which need not be disclosed, but which are assumed to react to certain unambiguously defined stimuli, by certain unambiguously defined responses.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (393) 20131019b 0 -7+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Declaration of thousand to million order of magnitude of complexity reveals fantasy boundary of early computing theories. (393) With any reasonable definition of what constitutes an element, the natural organisms are very highly complex aggregations of these elements. . . . The number of neurons in the central nervous system is somewhere of the order of 1010. We have absolutely no past experience with systems of this degree of complexity. All artificial automata made by man have numbers of parts which by any comparably schematic count are of the order 103 to 106.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (394) 20131019c 0 -4+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Highest complexity due to length of chains of events. (394) The notion of using an automaton for the purpose of computing is relatively new. While computing automata are not the most complicated artificial automata from the point of view of the end results they achieve, they do nevertheless represent the highest degree of complexity in the sense that they produce the longest chains of events determining and following each other. (394) The use of a fast computing machine is believed to be by and large justified when the computing task involves about a million multiplications or more in a sequence. (394) The simplest way to estimate this degree of complexity is, instead of counting decimal places, to count the number of places that would be required for the same precision in the binary system of notation.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (396) 20131019d 0 -11+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Analogy principle that certain ranges of numbers represented by physical quantities; usefulness tied to control of noise level, signal to noise ratio. (396) A computing machine may be based on the principle that numbers are represented by certain physical quantities. . . . Operations like addition, multiplication, and integration may then be performed by finding various natural processes which act on these quantities in the desired way. (396) The first well-integrated, large computing machine ever made was an analogy machine, V. Bushs Differential Analyzer. This machine, by the way, did the computing not with electrical currents, but with rotating disks. (396) The guiding principle without which it is impossible to reach an understanding of the situation is the classical one of all "communication theory"-the "signal to noise ratio." That is, the critical question with every analogy procedure is this: How large are the uncontrollable fluctuations of the mechanism that constitute the "noise," compared to the significant "signals" that express the numbers on which the machine operates? The usefulness of any analogy principle depends on how low it can keep the relative size of the uncontrollable fluctuations-the "noise level.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (397) 20131019e 0 -6+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Digital machine represents numbers as aggregates of digits like human decimal system; always has small round off error. (397) A digital machine works with the familiar method of representing numbers as aggregates of digits. This is, by the way, the procedure which all of us use in our individual, non-mechanical computing, where we express numbers in the decimal system. (398) What it produces when a product is called for is not that product itself, but rather the product plus a small extra term-the round-off error. This error is, of course, not a random variable like the noise in an analogy machine. It is, arithmetically, completely determined in every particular instance. Yet its mode of determination is so complicated, and its variations throughout the number of instances of its occurrence in a problem so irregular, that it usually can be treated to a high degree of approximation as a random variable.
4 1 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (398-399) 20131019f 0 -7+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Value of digital procedures in reducing computational noise level. (398-399) Thus the real importance of the digital procedure lies in its ability to reduce the computational noise level to an extent which is completely unobtainable by any other (analog) procedure. In addition, further reduction of the noise level is increasingly difficult in an analogy mechanism, and increasingly easy in a digital one. . . . This is clearly an entirely different milieu, from the point of view of the reduction of "random noise," from that of physical processes. It is here-and not in its practically ineffective absolute reliability-that the importance of the digital procedure lies.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (399) 20131019g 0 -7+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Consider living organisms as purely digital automata although mixed character admitted at level of organism as well as each neuronal element. (399) The nerve impulse seems in the main to be an all or none affair, comparable to a binary digit. . . . It is well known that there are various composite functional sequences in the organism which have to go through a variety of steps from the original stimulus to the ultimate effect, some of the steps being neural, that is, digital, and others humoral, that is, analogy. (399) It is well known that such mixed (part neural and part humoral) feedback chains can produce processes of great importance. (400) I shall consider the living organisms as if they were purely digital automata.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (401) 20131019h 0 -10+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Best to treat elements as black boxes with schematic descriptions, whether vacuum tubes or neurons. (401) By an all or none organ we should rather mean one which fulfills the following two conditions. First, it functions in the all or none manner under certain suitable operating conditions. Second, these operating conditions are the ones under which it is normally used; they represent the functionally normal state of affairs within the large organism, of which it forms a part. . . . I realize that this definition brings in rather undesirable criteria of "propriety" of "context," of "appearance" and "intention." I do not see, however, how we can avoid using them, and how we can forego counting on the employment of common sense in their application. (401) Here [in the case of the vacuum tube], too, the purely electrical phenomena are accompanied by numerous other phenomena of solid state physics, thermodynamics, mechanics [as in case of neuron]. All of these are important to understand the structure of a vacuum tube, but are best excluded from the discussion, if it is to treat the vacuum tube as a "black box" with a schematic description.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (401-402) 20131019i 0 -4+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Neuron and vacuum tube functionally equivalent representatives of relay switching organs. (401-402) The neuron, as well as the vacuum tube, viewed under the aspects discussed above, are then two instances of the same generic entity, which it is customary to call a "switching organ" or "relay organ." (The electrochemical relay is, of course, another instance.) Such an organ is defined as a "black box," which responds to a specified stimulus or combination of stimuli by an energetically independent response. (402) I shall, therefore, discuss computing machines solely from the point of view of aggregates of switching organs which are vacuum tubes.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (406) 20131019k 0 -7+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Theory of automata a chapter in formal logic; look at Out of Their Minds for how computer science has evolved since. (406) Everybody who has worked in formal logic will confirm that it is one of the technically most refractory parts of mathematics. The reason for this is that it deals with rigid, all-or-none concepts, and has very little contact with the continuous concept of the real or of the complex number, that is, with mathematical analysis. Yet analysis is the technically most successful and best elaborated part of mathematics. Thus formal logic is, by the nature of its approach, cut off from the best cultivated portions of mathematics, and forced onto the most difficult part of the mathematical terrain, into combinatorics. (406) The theory of automata, of the digital, all-or-none type, as discussed up to now, is certainly a chapter in formal logic. It would, therefore, seem that it will have to share this unattractive property of formal logic. It will have to be, from the mathematical point of view, combinatorial rather than analytical.
4 1 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (406-407) 20131019l 0 -17+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Finitude important for practical automata versus formal theory: how many steps in actual chains of reasoning? (406-407) Throughout all modern logic, the only thing that is important is whether a result can be achieved in a finite number of elementary steps or not. . . . Any finite sequence of correct steps is, as a matter of principle, as good as any other. . . . In dealing with automata, this statement must be significantly modified. In the case of an automaton the thing which matters is not only whether it can reach a certain result in a finite number of steps at all but also how many such steps are needed. There are two reasons. First, automata are constructed in order to reach certain results in certain pre-assigned durations, or at least in pre-assigned orders of magnitude of duration. Second, the componentry employed has on every individual operation a small but nevertheless non-zero probability of failing. In a sufficiently long chain of operations the cumulative effect of these individual probabilities of failure may (if unchecked) reach the order of magnitude of unity-at which point it produces, in effect, complete unreliability. (407) Thus the logic of automata will differ from the present system of formal logic in two relevant aspects. (407) 1. The actual length of "chains of reasoning," that is, of the chains of operations, will have to be considered.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (407) 20131019m 0 -10+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Importance of allowing and utilizing exceptions second key difference with formal logic. (407) 2. The operations of logic (syllogisms, conjunctions, disjunctions, negations, etc., that is, in the terminology that is customary for automata, various forms of gating, coincidence, anti-coincidence, blocking, etc., actions) will all have to be treated by procedures which allow exceptions (malfunctions) with low but non zero probabilities. . . . there are numerous indications to make us believe that this new system of formal logic will move closer to another discipline which has been little linked in the past with logic. This is thermodynamics, primarily in the form it was received from Boltzmann, and is that part of theoretical physics which comes nearest in some of its aspects to manipulating and measuring information. Its techniques are indeed much more analytical than combinatorial, which again illustrates the point that I have been trying to make above.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (408) 20131019n 0 -17+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Poor dealing with errors symptom of lack of logical theory of automata still reckoned with today; natural automata make errors inconspicuous, but must be overcautious in design of artificial ones. (408) It is unlikely that we could construct automata of a much higher complexity than the ones we now have, without possessing a very advanced and subtle theory of automata and information. A fortiori, this is inconceivable for automata of such enormous complexity as is possessed by the human central nervous system. (408) This intellectual inadequacy certainly prevents us from getting much farther than we are now. (408) A simple manifestation of this factor is our present relation to error checking. (408-409) The basic principle of dealing with malfunctions in nature is to make their effect as unimportant as possible and to apply correctives, if they are necessary at all, at leisure. In our dealings with artificial automata, on the other hand, we require an immediate diagnosis. . . . natural organisms are constructed to make errors as inconspicuous, as harmless, as possible. Artificial automata are designed to make errors as conspicuous, as disastrous, as possible. . . . With our artificial automata we are moving much more in the dark than nature appears to be with its organisms. We are, apparently, at least at present, have to be, much more "scared" by the occurrence of an isolated error and by the malfunction which must be behind it. Our behavior is clearly that of overcaution, generated by ignorance.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (410) 20131019p 0 -10+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Count versus decimal expression in signal transmission example of encoding pressure value. (410) Assume, for example, that a pressure (clearly a continuous quantity) is to be transmitted. It is well known how this trick is done. The nerve which does it still transmits nothing but individual all or none impulses. How does it [nerve] then express the continuously numerical value of pressure in terms of these impulses, that is, of digits? . . . The mechanisms which achieves this "encoding" is, therefore, essentially a frequency modulation system. (410) It is very instructive, however, that it uses a "count" rather than a "decimal expansion" (or binary expansion, etc.) method.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (410-411) 20131019q 0 -11+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Living organisms prefer counting over symbolic expression method: instance of noein versus legein; Plato says something about only humans understand abstract forms. (410-411) The counting method is certainly less efficient than the expansion method. . . . On the other hand, the counting method has a high stability and safety from error. . . . Obviously, the simplest form of achieving safety by redundancy is to use the, per se, quite unsafe digital expansion notation, but to repeat every such message several times. (411) On may, therefore, suspect that if the only demerit of the digital expansion system were its greater logical complexity, nature would not, for this reason alone, have rejected it. It is, nevertheless, true that we have nowhere an indication of its use in natural organisms.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (412) 20131019r 0 -5+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html McCulloch and Pitts model defined by singling out inputs and correlating to outputs. (412) McCulloch and Pitts have used these units to build up complicated networks which may be called formal neural networks. . . . The functioning of such a network may be defined by singling out some of the inputs of the entire system and some of its outputs, and then describing what original stimuli on the former are to cause what ultimate stimuli on the latter.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (412) 20131019s 0 -4+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Functional equivalence of what can be presented unambiguously in finite word sequence and what can be realized by formal neural network: coextensive concepts. (412) any functioning in this sense which can be defined at all logically, strictly, and unambiguously in a finite number of words can also be realized by such a formal neural network. (413) there is no difference between the possibility of describing a real or imagined mode of behavior completely and unambiguously in words, and the possibility of realizing it by a finite formal neural network. The two concepts are co extensive. A difficulty of principle embodying any mode of behavior in such a network can exist only if we are also unable to describe that behavior completely.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (413) 20131019t 0 -3+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Problems of realization of neural networks of practical size and putting into words: humanities tends to focus on logocentrism debate, for example OHCO thesis, and ignore the former. (413) Thus the remaining problems are these two. First, if a certain mode of behavior can be effected by a finite neural network, the question still remains whether that network can be realized within a practical size, specifically, whether it will fit into the physical limitations of the organism in question. Second, the question arises whether every existing mode of behavior can really be put completely and unambiguously into words.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (414) 20131019u 0 -12+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Need precise verbal description of visual analogy to fulfill computationalist paradigm; possibility that logic morphs toward neurology rather than reverse becomes humanities battleground. (414) Nobody would attempt to describe and define within any practical amount of space the general concept of analogy which dominates our interpretation of vision. . . . We are dealing here with parts of logics with which we have practically no past experience. . . . It is, therefore, not at all unlikely that it is futile to look for a precise logical concept, that is, for a precise verbal description, of "visual analogy." It is possible that the connection pattern of the visual brain itself is the simplest logical expression or definition of this principle. (414) All of this does not alter my belief that a new, essentially logical, theory is called for in order to understand high complication automata and, in particular, the central nervous system. It may be, however, that in this process logic will have to undergo a pseudomorphosis to neurology to a much greater extent than the reverse.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (415) 20131019v 0 -12+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Concept of complication never clearly formulated. (415) We are inclined to suspect in a vague way the existence of a concept of "complication." This concept and its putative properties have never been clearly formulated. We are, however, always tempted to assume that they will work in this way. When an automaton performs certain operations, they must be expected to be of a lower degree of complication than the automaton itself. . . . That is, if A can produce B, then A in some way must have contained a complete description of B. In order to make it effective, there must be, furthermore, various arrangements in A that see to it that this description is interpreted and that the constructive operations that it calls for are carried out. In this sense, it would therefore seem that a certain degenerating tendency must be expected, some decrease in complexity as one automaton makes another automaton. (415) Although this has some indefinite plausibility to it, it is in clear contradiction with the most obvious things that go on in nature. Organisms reproduce themselves, that is, they produce new organisms with no decrease in complexity.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (416) 20131019w 0 -33+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Turing theory of computing automata a way to specify complication; here is von Neumann explaining Turing machine. (416) An automaton is a "black box," which will not be described in detail but is expected to have the following attributes. It possesses a finite number of states, which need be prima facie characterized only by stating their number, say n, and by enumerating them accordingly: 1, 2, . . . n. The essential operating characteristic of the automaton consists of describing how it is caused to change its state, that is, to go over from a state i into a state j . . . As far as the machine is concerned, let the whole outside world consist of a long paper tape. . . . On each field of this strip we may or may not put a sign, say, a dot, and it is assumed that it is possible to erase as well as to write in such a dot. A field marked with a dot will be called a "1," a field unmarked with a dot will be called a "0." . . . In describing the position of the tape relative to the automaton it is assumed that one particular field of the tape is under direct inspection by the automaton, and that the automaton has the ability to move the tape forward and backward, say, by one field at a time. In specifying this, let the automaton be in the state i (= 1, . . . , n), and let it see on the tape an e (= 0, 1). It will then go over into the state j (= 0, 1, . . . , n), move the tape by p fields (p = 0, +1, -1; +1 is a move forward, -1 is a move backward), and inscribe into the new field that it sees f ( = 0, 1; inscribing 0 means erasing; inscribing 1 means putting in a dot). Specifying j, p, fas functions of i, eis then the complete definition of the functioning of such an automaton. (417) An automaton is able to "form" a certain sequence if it is possible to specify a finite length of tape, appropriately marked, so that, if this tape is fed to the automaton in question, the automaton will thereupon write the sequence on the remaining (infinite) free portion of the tape. . . . The finite, premarked, piece of tape constitutes the "instruction" of the automaton for this problem. An automaton is "universal" if any sequence that can be produced by any automaton at all can also be solved by this particular automaton.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (417-418) 20131019x 0 -9+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Turing machine operation no more mysterious than following instructions for using words from reading dictionary and grammar seems like quite a challenge after all, demonstrating ignorance of semiotics (Edwards, Golumbia). (417-418) Turing observed that a completely general description of any conceivable automaton can be (in the sense of the foregoing definition) given in a finite number of words. This description will contain certain empty passages, those referring to the functions mentioned earlier (j, p, f in terms of i, e), which specify the actual functioning of the automaton. When these empty passages are filled in, we deal with a specific automaton. As long as they are left empty, this schema represents the general definition of the general automaton. Now it becomes possible to describe an automaton which has the ability to interpret such a definition. In other words, which, when fed the functions that in the sense described above define a specific automaton, will thereupon function like the object described. The ability to do this is no more mysterious than the ability to read a dictionary and a grammar and to follow their instructions about the uses and principles of combinations of words. This automaton, which is constructed to read a description and to imitate the object described, is then the universal automaton in the sense of Turing. To make it duplicate any operation that any other automaton can perform, it suffices to furnish it with a description of the automaton in question and, in addition, with the instructions which that device have required for the operation under consideration.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (419) 20131019z 0 -10+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Derivation of theorem regarding self-reproduction by Turing machines pondered by Chun and others. (419) (a) Automaton A, which when furnished the description of any other automaton in terms of appropriate functions, will construct that entity. The description should in this case not be given in the form of a marked tape, as in Turings case, because we will not normally choose a tape as a structural element. It is quite easy, however, to describe combinations of structural elements which have all the notational properties of a tape with fields that can be marked. A description in this sense will be called an instruction and denoted by a letter I. (419) "Constructing" is to be understood in the same sense as before. . . . One need not worry about how a fixed automaton of this sort can produce others which are larger and more complex than itself. In this case the greater size and the higher complexity of the object to be constructed will be reflected in a presumably still greater size of the instructions I that have to be furnished.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (420) 20131109a 0 -5+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Arrival at self-reproduction in aggregate result E through definite chronological and logical order: Chun asks for the details of how the instructions actually work as early example of hiding vicissitudes of execution. (420) E is clearly self-reproductive. Note that no vicious circle is involved. The decisive step occurs in E, when the instruction ID, describing D, is constructed and attached to D. When the construction (the copying) of ID is called for, D exists already, and it is in no wise modified by the construction of ID. ID is simply added to form E.
4 1 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKvon_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata (421) 20131109 0 -7+ progress/1998/01/notes_for_von_neumann-theory_of_natural_and_artificial_automata.html Crude steps representing one particular in theory of automata direction based on complication. (421) All these are very crude steps in the direction of a systematic theory of automata. They represent, in addition, only one particular direction. This is, as I indicated before, the direction towards forming a rigorous concept of what constitutes "complication." . . . This fact, that complication, as well as organization, below a certain minimum level is degenerative, and beyond that level can become self- supporting and even increasing, will clearly play an important role in any future theory of the subject.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKedwards-closed_world (246) 20130901 0 -3+ progress/2013/08/notes_for_edwards-closed_world.html Practical, contingent origins of symbolic computation in programming craft and cyborg discourse, rather than determined by theoretical concerns. (246) An intellectual history might say, anachronistically, that those practical conditions simply developed the genesis of symbolic computing, a development that merely played out an inevitable conceptual logic. But in fact symbolic computation did notemerge mainly from theoretical concerns. Instead, its immediate sources lay in the practice of the programming craft, the concrete conditions of hardware, computer use, and institutional context, and the metaphors of language, brain, and mind : in other word, the discourse of the cyborg.
4 1 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKengelbart-augmenting_human_intellect (95) 20130916 0 -1+ progress/2012/03/notes_for_engelbart-augmenting_human_intellect.html As Engelbart puts more succinctly in the footnote, an explicit framework-search phase preceding the research is much to be preferred; he lays out a framework, then a research program, and spends decades implementing it. (95) Before a research program can be designed to pursue such an approach intelligently, so that practical benefits might be derived within a reasonable time while also producing results of long-range significance, a conceptual framework must be searched out a framework that provides orientation as to the important factors of the system, the relationships among these factors, the types of change among the system factors that offer likely improvements in performance, and the sort of research goals and methodology that seem promising.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKengelbart-augmenting_human_intellect (96) 20120512 0 -2+ progress/2012/03/notes_for_engelbart-augmenting_human_intellect.html The initial interface and capability enhancements he recommends solve the problem noted by Licklider of speed mismatch and desk-surface display and control. (96) We see the quickest gains emerging from (1) giving the human the minute-by-minute services of a digital computer equipped with computer-driven cathode-ray-tube display, and (2) developing the new methods of thinking and working that allow the human to capitalize upon the computers help. By the same strategy, we recommend that an initial research effort develop a prototype system of this sort aimed at increasing human effectiveness in the task of computer programming.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKengelbart-augmenting_human_intellect (96-97) 20130916a 0 -8+ progress/2012/03/notes_for_engelbart-augmenting_human_intellect.html Depiction of augmented architect at working station: if only we had three-foot square screens, recalling Heim. (96-97) Let us consider an augmented architect at work. He sits at a working station that has a visual display screen some three feet on a side; this is his working surface, and is controlled by a computer (his clerk ) with which he can communicate by means of a small keyboard and various other devices. (97) With a pointer, he indicates . . . gradually the screen begins to show the work he is doing. (97) He often recalls from the clerk his working lists of specifications and considerations to refer to them, modify them, or add to them. These lists grow into an ever more detailed, interlinked structure, which represents the maturing thought behind the actual design.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKengelbart-augmenting_human_intellect (102) 20130916d 0 -5+ progress/2012/03/notes_for_engelbart-augmenting_human_intellect.html Engelbart card system, inspired by Bush, is instantiated in RDBMS. (102) It would actually seem quite feasible to develop a unit record system around cards and mechanical sorting, with automatic trail-establishment and trail-following facility, and with associated means for selective copying or data transfer, that would enable development of some very powerful methodology for everyday intellectual work. . . . The relative limitations of the mechanical equipment in providing processes which could be usefully integrated into the system would soon lead to its replacement by electronic computer equipment.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKengelbart-augmenting_human_intellect (103) 20130908 0 -7+ progress/2012/03/notes_for_engelbart-augmenting_human_intellect.html An imagined dialog with Joe, which Manovich is keen to identify as a description of new media with respect to the new behaviors, guiding us through the augmented workplace; what he just described fictionally The Mother of All Demos has examples of his using the computer system to handle little things over and over. (103) This computerized system is used over and over and over again to help me do little things where my methods and ways of handling little things are changed until, lo, theyve added up and suddenly I can do impressive new things. (104) Joe picks up the light pen, poises his other hand over the keyset, and looks at you. You didnt need the hint, but thanks anyway, and lets start rearranging and cleaning up the work space instead of just dumping more raw material into it. With closer coaching now from Joe, you start through the list of statements youve made and begin to edit, re-word, compile, and delete. Its fun - put that sentence back up here between these two - and blink, its done. (104) You reflected that this flexible cut-and-try process really did appear to match the way you seemed to develop your thoughts. Golly, you could be writing math expressions, ad copy, or a poem, with the same type of benefit.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKengelbart-augmenting_human_intellect (104) 20131029 0 -6+ progress/2012/03/notes_for_engelbart-augmenting_human_intellect.html The figure of the Initial Augmentation-Research Program has a great quote that describes the interdisciplinary approach from which dynamic media grew. (104) [Figure of Initial Augmentation-Research Program, from section IV.E] An integrated set of tools and techniques will represent an art of doing augmentation research. Although no such art exists ready-made for our use, there are many applicable or adaptable tools and techniques to be borrowed from other disciplines. Psychology, computer programming and physical technology, display technology, artificial intelligence, industrial engineering (e.g., motion and time study), management science, systems analysis, and information retrieval are some of the more likely sources.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKengelbart-augmenting_human_intellect (104-105) 20130916e 0 -6+ progress/2012/03/notes_for_engelbart-augmenting_human_intellect.html Engelbart linking types go beyond one-way hyperlinks and anticipates the discussion of link types by Landow; the light pen is replaced by the mouse as the preferred pointer device. (104-105) Joe picked out one of your sentences, and pushed the rest of the text a few lines up and down from it to isolate it. He then showed you how he could make a few strokes on the keyset to designate the type of link he wanted established, and pick the two symbol structures that were to be linked by means of the light pen. He said that most links possessed a direction, i.e., they were like an arrow pointing from one substructure to another. (105) Some good methods, plus a bit of practice, and youd be surprised how much a diagrammatic breakdown can help you to scan a complex statement and untangle it quickly.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKengelbart-augmenting_human_intellect (105) 20130916f 0 -12+ progress/2012/03/notes_for_engelbart-augmenting_human_intellect.html Engelbart later calls example of augmenting programming capability by programming improving improvement, Type C activity; must be an essential facet of critical programming studies to develop and utilize such practices. (105) [Figure of Regeneration, from Section IV.F] we would recommend turning loose a group of four to six people (or a number of such groups) to develop means that augment their own programming capability. We would recommend that their work being by developing the capability for composing and modifying simple symbol structures, in the manner pictured in Section III-B-2, and work up through a hierarchy of intermediate capabilities toward the single high-level capability that would encompass computer programming. . . . In other words, their job assignment is to develop means that will make them more effective at doing their job. (106) To help us get better comprehension of the structure of an argument, we can also call forth a schematic or graphical display. . . . When you get used to using a network representation like this, it really becomes a great help in getting the feel for the way all the different ideas and reasoning fit together that is, for the conceptual structuring.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKengelbart-augmenting_human_intellect (108) 20130916g 0 -2+ progress/2012/03/notes_for_engelbart-augmenting_human_intellect.html This reuse of taggings sounds like what we have with web pages today, although its specific form for Engelbart is Hyperscope, which sounds like Licklider symbiosis, although Engelbart did not try to include speech recognition in his preliminary research program. (108) the project now has an optical character reader that will convert our external references into machine code for us. The references are available for study in the original serial form on our screens, but any structuring and tagging done by a previous reader, or ourselves, can also be utilized.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (xiii-xiv) 20140418d 0 -9+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gates discovered writing a book much like projecting the development schedule of a large software project by a small team, noting underestimation fallacy similar to programmers underestimating scaled complexity of a large project; concludes the Foreword with admission he had to retreat to his summer cabin to finish writing, a nice touch. (xiii-xiv) The process of thinking about and writing The Road Aheadtook longer than I expected. Indeed, estimating the time it would take proved to be as difficult as projecting the development schedule of a major software project. Even with able help from Peter Rinearson and Nathan Myhrvold, this book was a major undertaking. . . . The fallacy in my thinking was similar to the one software developers often run into a project then times as long is about one hundred times more complicated to write. I should have known better. To complete the book, I had to take time off and isolate myself in my summer cabin with my PC.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (1) 20140426 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html As a child Gates enjoyed privilege of using computer terminal in late 1960s at behest of Mothers Club of his private school. (1) Letting a bunch of teenagers loose on a computer was the idea of the Mothers Club at Lakeside, the private school I attended. The mothers decided that the proceeds from a rummage sale should be used to install a terminal and buy computer time for students. Letting students use a computer in the late 1960s was a pretty amazing choice at the time in Seattle and one Ill always be grateful for.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (2) 20140426a 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Computer terminal gave kids access to apparently fun adult activity offering control with feedback. (2) We were too young to drive or to do any of the other fun-seeming adult activities, but we could give this big machine orders and it would always obey. Computers are great because when youre working with them you get immediate results that let you know if your program works.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (2) 20140426c 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Appeal to childhood play extending uses of toys as essence of creativity, leading to sort of computer revolution as his generation matured. (2) this impulse to make a toy do more is at the heart of innovative childhood play. It is also the essence of creativity. (2-3) It seems there was a whole generation of us, all over the world, who dragged that favorite toy with us into adulthood. In doing so, we caused a kind of revolution peaceful, mainly and now the computer has taken up residence in our offices and homes.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (3) 20140426d 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Prediction of next revolution being computers joining to communicate with humans and other machines; interesting use of join and revolution. (3) Now that computing is astoundingly inexpensive and computers inhabit every part of our lives, we stand at the brink of another revolution. This one will involve unprecedentedly inexpensive communication; all the computers will join together to communicate with us and for us.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (4) 20140426e 0 -1+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Recognizes his position as old guard but hopes to have learned from predecessors: does that include attempting to expand everywhere and monopolize markets? (4) Today Im much more in the position of the computer giants of the seventies, but I hope Ive learned some lessons from them.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (4) 20140426f 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gates suggests the new network computing environment will realize ideal Adam Smith invisible hand of market in new mediated way of life; contrast to Lanier critique of it as siren server oligopolies, and positions of Rushkoff and Bauerlein. (4) I witnessed the importance of compatibility in technology, of feedback, and of constant innovation. And I think we may be about to witness the realization of Adam Smiths ideal market, at last. (5) It will be more than an object you carry or an appliance you purchase. It will be your passport into a new, mediated way of life.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (5) 20140426g 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Information tools as intellect amplifying symbolic mediators with family resemblance to books; contrast to Bauerlein argument that emphasis on viewer literacy diminishes traditional literacy. (5) Informational tools are symbolic mediators that amplify the intellect rather than the muscle of their users. Youre having a mediated experience as you read this book. Were not actually in the same room, but you are still able to find out whats on my mind.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (5) 20140426h 0 -13+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html New network is not a highway, more like country lanes in sense of individualized destinations, though ultimate market is better metaphor as distance is eliminated and everything is available for trade; per Lanier, bazaar of early Internet gives way to cathedrals of top siren server destinations. (5) The term [information superhighway] was popularized by then-senator Al Gore, whose father sponsored the 1956 Federal Aid Highway Act. (5-6) The phrase suggests landscape and geography, a distance between points, and embodies the implication that you have to travel to get from one place to another. In fact, one of the most remarkable aspects of this new communications technology is that it will eliminate distance. (6) The term highway also suggests that everyone is driving and following the same route. This network is more like a lot of country lanes where everyone can look at or do whatever his individual interests suggest. . . . A different metaphor that I think comes closer to describing a log of the activities that will take place is that of the ultimate market. . . . Digital information of all kinds, not just as money, will be the new medium of exchange in this market.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (7) 20140426i 1 -9+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html New network represents radical transformation of position and juxtaposition described by Thrift. (7) (7) A new generation grows up with them, changing and humanizing them. In short, playing with them. (7) Eventually, though, men and women realized they were not just getting a new machine [with the telephone], they were learning a new kind of communication. . . . As I write, a newer form of communication electronic mail is undergoing the same sort of process: establishing its own rules and habits. (8) What had once been the iron monster became the mighty bearer of lifes best products. Again, the change in our perception was reflected in the language we used.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (7) 20140426j 1 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Like the telephone and railroad, network will change as humans play with it and new use habits emerge. (7) (7) A new generation grows up with them, changing and humanizing them. In short, playing with them. (7) Eventually, though, men and women realized they were not just getting a new machine [with the telephone], they were learning a new kind of communication.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (8-9) 20140426k 0 -9+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Philosophizes about change in fundamental knowledge by print to argue transformative potential of new network, even noting personal computers have not had a major impact on everyday life yet. (8-9) The printed word changed all that. It was the first mass medium the first time that knowledge, opinions, and experiences could be passed on in a portable, durable, and available form. . . . Literacy became an important skill that revolutionized education and altered social structures. (9) The information highway will transform our culture as dramatically as Gutenbergs press did the Middle Ages. (9) Personal computers have already altered work habits, but they havent really changed our lives much yet. When tomorrows powerful information machines are connected on the highway, people, machines, entertainment, and information services will all be accessible.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (10) 20140426l 0 -1+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Wish fulfillment by network services emphasizes access, ignoring source of interests driving exploration. (10) All of this information will be readily accessible and completely personal, because youll be able to explore whatever parts of it interest you in whatever ways and for however long you want.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (10) 20140426m 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Assuages worldwide apprehension of the little people with the confident and optimistic outlook of a great man. (10) Every day, all over the world, people are asking about the implications of the network, often with terrible apprehension. (11) Ive thought about the difficulties and find that, on balance, Im confident and optimistic. . . . I feel incredibly lucky that I am getting the chance to play a part in the beginning of an epochal change for a second time.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (11-12) 20140426n 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gates and friends were inspired by childhood exposure to DEC PDP-8, developing belief that everyone would eventually be able to use computers. (11-12) When I was in high school, it cost about $40 an hour to access a time-shared computer using a Teletype for that $40 an hour you got a slice of the computers precious attention. This seems odd today, when some people have more than one PC and think nothing of leaving them idle for most of the day. Actually, it was possible even then to own your own computer. If you could afford $18,000, Digital Equipment Corporation made the PDP-8. . . . Despite its limitations, the PDP-8 inspired us to indulge in the dream that one day millions of individuals could possess their own computers.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (12) 20140426o 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html School schedulers likely early programming projects since kids were exposed to programming at school, as I was; recounts manipulating software to put himself in class of mostly girls. (12) A bunch of us, including Paul Allen, got entry-level software programming jobs. For high school students the pay was extraordinary about $5,000 each summer, part in cash and the rest in computer time. . . . One of the programs I wrote was the one that scheduled students in classes. I surreptitiously added a few instructions and found myself nearly the only guy in a class full of girls.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (12) 20140426p 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Discovery of Intel 8008 in electronics magazine reminder that computing did not emerge autochthnonously but rather in context of consumer and hobbyist electronics market; Gates and Allen developed a machine to analyze traffic monitor data. (12) One summer day in 1972, when I was sixteen and Paul was nineteen, he showed me a ten-paragraph article buried on page 143 of Electronicsmagazine. It was announcing that a young firm named Intel had released a microprocessor chip called the 8008. (14) Paul and I wondered what we could program the 8008 to do. He called up Intel to request a manual. We were a little surprised when they actually sent him one.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (14-15) 20140426q 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Unforeseen potential of 8088 included need for software to explore new uses of cheap computing. (14-15) In the spring of 1974, Electronicsmagazine announced Intels new 8080 chip ten times the power of the 8008 inside the Traf-O-Data machine. . . . It seemed obvious to us that if a tiny chip could get so much more powerful, the end of big unwieldy machines was coming. (15) Not even the scientists at Intel saw its full potential. (15) It seemed to us people would find all kinds of new uses for computing if it was cheap. Then, software would be the key to delivering the full potential of these machines.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (17) 20140426r 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Epic narrative of development of Microsoft BASIC including simulating 8088 chip on big machine at Harvard, long hours, and self funding. (17) Undaunted, Paul studied a manual for the chip, then wrote a program that made a big computer at Harvard mimic the little Altair. This was like having a whole orchestra available and using it to play a simple duet, but it worked. (17) Some days I didnt eat or see anyone. But after five weeks, our BASIC was written and the worlds first microcomputer software company was born. In time we named it Microsoft. (18) From the start, Paul and I funded everything ourselves. Each of us had saved some money. Paul had been well paid at Honeywell, and some of the money I had came from late-night poker games in the dorm.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (18) 20140426s 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Importance of original vision of very low cost computing; compare to original vision of Stallman and other default philosophers of computing. (18) Of course, there is no simple answer, and luck played a role, but I think the most important element was our original vision. (18) We glimpsed what lay beyond that Intel 8088 chip, and then acted on it. We asked, What if computing were nearly free? . . . From the beginning we set off down a road that was headed in the right direction.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (18-19) 20140426t 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html New network computing promise of almost free communication has ignited national imagination the way space program did. (18-19) Now there is a new horizon, and the relevant question is, What if communicating were almost free? The idea of interconnecting all homes and offices to a high speed network has ignited this nations imagination as nothing has since the space program. (19) I spend a good deal of time thinking about business because I enjoy my work so much. Today, a lot of my thoughts are about the highway.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (21) 20140427 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Need to consider ways technology is changing how information is handled by humans and machines, launching brief, familiar historical narrative passing from ancient numerical manipulation through Babbage to Turing, Shannon, and von Neumann. (21) To understand why information is going to be so central, its important to know how technology is changing the ways we handle information. (22) The idea of using an instrument to manipulate numbers isnt new. (22) As early as the 1830s, he [Babbage] was drawn to the idea that information could be manipulated by a machine if the information could be converted into numbers first.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (22) 20140427a 0 -10+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Babbage conceived information processing in terms of cotton milling, adding essential notion of software to instruct how it was performed. (22) He lacked the terms we now use to refer to the parts of his machine. He called the central processor, or working guts of his machine, the mill. He referred to his machines memory as the store. Babbage imagined information being transformed the way cotton was drawn from a store (warehouse) and milled into something new. (22) It is a comprehensive set of rules a machine can be given to instruct it how to perform particular tasks. (23) For the next century mathematicians worked with the ideas Babbage had outlined and finally, by the mid-1940s, an electronic computer was built based on the principles of his Analytical Engine. . . . Three major contributors were Alan Turing, Claude Shannon, and John von Neumann.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (23) 20140427b 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Credit to Shannon for implementing Boolean logic via electrical circuits, for which Gates gives a tutorial of binary numbers using different wattage light bulbs. (23) In the late 1930s, when Claude Shannonwas still a student, he demonstrated that a machine executing logical instructions could manipulate information. His insight, the subject of his masters thesis, was about how computer circuits closed for true and open for false could perform logical operations, using the number 1 to represent true and 0 to represent false.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (26) 20140427c 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Credit ENIAC and von Neumann for stored program computer architecture. (26) ENIAC was more like an electronic calculator than a computer, but instead of representing a binary number with on and off settings on wheels the way a mechanical calculator did, it used vacuum tube switches. (27) The von Neumann architecture, as it is known today, is based on principles he articulated in 1945 including the principle that a computer could avoid cabling changes by storing instructions in its memory.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (31) 20140427d 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Data compression crucial to expanding computing capacity, but bandwidth limitations still hindering information highway; widespread fiber optic cable is the solution. (31) The information highway will use compression, but there will still have to be a great deal of bandwidth. One of the main reasons we dont already have a working highway is that there isnt sufficient bandwidth in todays communication networks for all the new applications. And tehre wont be until fiber-optic cable is brought into enough neighborhoods.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (31-32) 20140427e 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Lesson in exponential doubling using fable of grains on chessboard, applied to microprocessor evolution; compare to Kurzweil. (31-32) No experience in our everyday life prepares us for the implications of a number that doubles a great number of times exponential improvements. One way to understand it is with a fable. (33) Exponential growth, even when explained, seems like a trick.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (34) 20140427f 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Predictions and prescriptions about improvements in memory, storage, and transmission of digital data that will bring about the highway; note prediction of single wire to household versus conjunction of multiple wired and wireless interfaces, contrast between stone age knife and Ghiberti doors as commerical orientation of contemporary Internet. (34) we look toward an exotic improvement called a holographic memory, which can hold terabytes of characters in less than a cubic inch of volume. (34) At some point not far in the future, a single wire running into each home will be able to deliver all of a households digital data. (34) But we can no more imagine what the information highway will carry in twenty-five years than a Stone Age man using a crude knife could have envisioned Ghibertis Bapistery doors in Florence. Only when the highway arrives will all its possibilities be understood. However, the last twenty years of experience with digital breakthtroughs allow us to understand some of the key principles and possibilities for the future.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (35) 20140427g 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html To avoid repeating mistakes companies must understand critical factors: negative and positive spirals, initiating rather than following trends, importance of software, role of compatibility. (35) Companies investing in the highway will try to avoid repeating the mistakes made in the computer industry over the past twenty years. I think most of these mistakes can be understood by looking at a few critical factors. Among them are negative and positive spiral, the necessity of initiating rather than following trends, the importance of software as opposed to hardware, and the role of compatibility and the positive feedback it can generate.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (36) 20140427h 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Examples of Olsen and Wang as faltering visionaries at dawn of personal computer era. (36) Throughout my youth the hot computer firm was Digital Equipment, known as DEC. For twenty years its positive spiral seemed unstoppable. Ken Olsen, the companys founder, was a legendary hardware designer and hero of mine, a distant god. (37) Two decades later, Olsens vision faltered. He couldnt see the future of small desktop computers. (37) Another visionary who faltered was An Wang. (37) The kind of insight that had led him to abandon calculators could have led to success in personal computer software in the 1980s, but he failed to spot the next industry turn. Even though he developed great software, it was tied proprietarily to his word processors.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (37) 20140427i 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html IBM failed to respond to market-driven compatibility with mainframe technology; Gates urges information highway creators to recall this lesson. (37) IBM was another major company that missed technological changes at the start of the PC revolution. (38) Under the direction of young Tom, as Watsons son and successor was known, the company gambled $5 billion on the novel notion of scalable architecture all the computers in the System/360 family, no matter what size, would respond to the same set of instructions. (38) System/360 was a runaway success and made IBM the powerhouse in mainframe computers for the next thirty years. (39) Market-driven compatibility is an important lesson for the future personal-computer industry. It should also be remembered by those creating the highway. Customers choose systems that give them a choice of hardware suppliers and the widest variety of software applications.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (41) 20140427j 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Narrative of Microsoft BASIC as crucial software ingredient for early personal computers when writing software was a primary activity of hobbyists; foregrounds piracy concerns and need for copyright protection. (41) We provided BASIC for most of the early personal computers. This was the crucial software ingredient at that time, because users wrote their won applications in BASIC rather than buying packaged applications. (41) Microsofts strategy was to get computer companies such as Radio Shack to buy licenses to include our software with the personal computers they sold (like the Radio Shack TRS-80, for example) and pay us a royalty. One reason we took that approach was software piracy.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (41) 20140427k 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Concern that Internet becomes pirate paradise; did not foresee floss as key component to its growth. (41) Fortunately, today most users understand that software is protected by copyright. . . . We will have to be extremely careful to make sure the upcoming highway doesnt become a pirates paradise.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (43) 20140427l 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Importance of stock options as incentive for building small businesses. (43) Shared ownership through the stock options Microsoft offered most of its employees has been more significant and successful than anyone would have predicted. Literally billions of dollars of value have accrued to them. The practice of granting employee stock options, which has been widely and enthusiastically accepted, is one advantage the United States has that will allow it to support a disproportionate number of start-up successes, building on opportunities the forthcoming era will bring.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (44) 20140427m 0 -9+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Low cost, high volume licensing key to success of Microsoft BASIC. (44) Microsoft licensed the software at extremely low prices It was our belief that money could be made betting on volume. . . . We were very responsive to all the hardware manufacturers requests. We didnt want to give anyone a reason to look elsewhere. (44) Our strategy worked. Virtually every personal-computer manufacturer licensed a programming language from us. (44) Along the way, Microsoft BASIC became an industry software standard.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (45) 20140427n 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Importance of de facto standards evolving in the marketplace through positive spirals; compare to scholarly histories of development of network protocols emphasizing more formal, collaborative processes. (45) De facto standards often evolve in the marketplace through an economic mechanism very similar to the concept of the positive spiral that drives successful businesses, in which success reinforces success. This concept, called positive feedback, explains why de facto standards often emerge as people search for compatibility.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (46) 20140427o 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Videocassette recorder format battle as example of positive feedback emergence of de facto standard, and qualitative change in role a technology plays through quantitative change in acceptance level; compare to SCOT accounts. (46) Perhaps the most famous industry demonstration of the power of positive feedback was the videocassette-recorder format battle of the late 1970s and early 1980s. (46) Once VHS emerged as the apparent standard, in about 1983, an acceptance threshold was crossed and the use of the machines, as measured by tape sales, turned abruptly upward. (46) This is an example of how a quantitative change in the acceptance level of a new technology can lead to a qualitative change in the role the technology plays. Television is another.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (47) 20140624 2 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Use of 16 bit microprocessor changed potential of personal computer from toy to business tool; reading Gates critically as a default philosopher of computing is just taking Latour and other SCOT theorists seriously. (47) (48) Working together with the IBM design team, we promoted a plan for IBM to build one of the first personal computers to use a 16-bit microprocessor chip, the 8088. The move from 8 to 16 bits would take personal computers from hobbyist toys to high-volume business tools.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (47) 20140427p 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Account of how IBM plan to bring PC to market rapidly steered development of 16 bit DOS by a third party developer. (47) IBM wanted to bring its personal computer to market in less than a year. In order to meet this schedule it had to abandon its traditional course of doing all the hardware and software itself. (48) Working together with the IBM design team, we promoted a plan for IBM to build one of the first personal computers to use a 16-bit microprocessor chip, the 8088. The move from 8 to 16 bits would take personal computers from hobbyist toys to high-volume business tools.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (48) 20140427q 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Credit to Paterson as putative father of MS-DOS; as open design strategy, PC-DOS one of three OS choices available for IBM PC. (48) IBM, with its reputation and its decision to employ an open design that other companies could copy, had a real chance to create a new, broad standard in personal computing. We wanted to be a part of it. So we took on the operating system challenge. We bought some early work from another Seattle company and hired its top engineer, Tim Paterson. With lots of modifications the system became the Microsoft Disk Operating System, or MS-DOS. Tim became, in effect, the father of MS-DOS. (48) Few remember this now, but the original IBM PC actually shipped with a choice of three operating systems our PC-DOS, CP/M-86, and the UCSD Pascal P-system.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (49) 20140427r 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Microsoft leveraged licensing strategy that was not exclusive to IBM. (49) Our goal was not to make money directly from IBM, but to profit from licensing MS-DOS to computer companies that wanted to offer machines more or less compatible with the IBM PC. IBM could use our software for free, but it did not have an exclusive license or control of future enhancements.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (50) 20140427s 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html For PC users software became the center around which hardware was chosen. (50) The IBM standard became the platform everybody imitated. A lot of the reason was timing and its use of a 16-bit processor. (50-51) Within three years almost all the competing standards for personal computers disappeared. The only exceptions were Apples Apple II and Macintosh. . . . Although buyers of a PC might not have articulated it this way, what they were looking for was the hardware that ran the most software, and they wanted the same system the people they knew and worked with had.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (50-51) 20140427t 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gates takes credit for driving advance of graphical operating system to widen PC adoption with a simpler user interface, inspired by Xerox PARC; example of conscious technological change driven by a default philosopher of computing. (50-51) By 1983, I thought our next step should be to develop a graphical operating system. . . . In order to realize our vision, PCs had to be made easier to use not only to help existing customers, but also to attract new ones who wouldnt take the time to learn to work with a complicated interface. (51) Researchers at Xeroxs now-famous Palo Alto Research Center in California explored new paradigms for human-computer interaction. They showed that it was easier to instruct a computer if you could point at things on the screen and see pictures.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (50-51) 20140624a 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Shift in means of instructing computers by manipulating pictures rather than text must be considered in relation to side effect for humans, where Kemeny praised instructing the computer by programming. (50-51) By 1983, I thought our next step should be to develop a graphical operating system. . . . In order to realize our vision, PCs had to be made easier to use not only to help existing customers, but also to attract new ones who wouldnt take the time to learn to work with a complicated interface. (51) Researchers at Xeroxs now-famous Palo Alto Research Center in California explored new paradigms for human-computer interaction. They showed that it was easier to instruct a computer if you could point at things on the screen and see pictures.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (54) 20140427u 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Microsoft collaborated with Steve Jobs on Word and Excel for Macintosh before Windows conceived. (54) We worked closely with Apple throughout the development of the Macintosh. Steve Jobs led the Macintosh team. Working with him was really fun. Steve has an amazing intuition for engineering and design as well as an ability to motivate people that is world class. (54) We crated a word processor, Microsoft Word, and a spreadsheet, Microsoft Excel, for the Macintosh.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (54) 20140427v 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Mistake by Apple to limit OS licensing to its own hardware being repeated by telephone and cable companies. (54) Mistakes such as Apples decision to limit the sale of its operating-system software for its own hardware will be repeated often in the years ahead. Some telephone and cable companies are already talking about communicating only with the software they control.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (55) 20140427w 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gates views success of IBM in 1980s as evidence of success of market-driven, de facto standard generating capitalism. (55) Throughout the 1980s, IBM was awesome by every measure capitalism knows. In 1984, it set the record for the most money ever made by any firm in a single year--$6.6 billion of profit.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (57) 20140427x 0 -21+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Development of OS/2, OfficeVision, and PS/2 closely controlled by IBM corporate crusade to implement System Application Architecture strategy, in stark contrast to open PC standard; designed for mainframe customer and stymied by need for corporate consensus. (57) This time it wasnt like when we did MS-DOS. IBM wanted to control the standard to help its PC hardware and mainframe businesses. IBM became directly involved in the design and implementation of OS/2. (57-58) OS/2 was central to IBMs corporate software plans. It was to be the first implementation of IBMs Systems Application Architecture, which the company ultimately intended to have as a common development environment across its full line of computers from mainframe to midrange to PC. . . . IBMs extensions of OS/2 called Extended Edition included communication and database services. And it planned to build a full set of office applications to be called OfficeVision to work on top of Extended Edition. . . . The development of OfficeVision required another team of thousands. OS/2 was not just an operating system, it was part of a corporate crusade. (58) IBMs previous software projects almost never caught on with PC customers precisely because they were designed with a mainframe customer in mind. (58) IBM, with more than 300,00 employees, was also stymied by its commitment to company-wide consensus. (59) In April 1987, IBM unveiled its integrated hardware/software, which was supposed to beat back imitators. The clone-killer hardware was called PS/2 and it ran the new operating system, OS/2. (59) The PS/2s Microchannel was an elegant replacement for the connection bus in the PC AT. But it solved problems that most customers didnt have.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (60) 20140625 8 -1+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Definition of open by Gates as offering hardware and software applications choices in spite of history of monopolizing practices by his company. (60) Although the term open is used in many different ways, to me it means offering choice in hardware and software applications to the customer.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (60) 20140427y 0 -12+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html IBM lost hold on controlling PC hardware architecture through failed PS/2 Microchannel; Microsoft Windows at lower end of family strategy looked better than OS/2 at high end. (60) Customers rejected Microchannel in favor of machines with the old PC AT bus. . . . The real casualty was that IBM lost control of personal-computer architecture. Never again would they be able to move the industry singlehanded to a new design. (60) Despite a great deal of promotion from both IBM and Microsoft, customers thought OS/2 was too unwieldy and complicated. The worse OS/2 looked, the better Windows seemed. . . . We call this the family strategy.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (60) 20140427z 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Open Software Foundation promoting UNIX an attempt to standardize operating system for multiple architectures; failed to get positive feedback cycle going from committee of competing vendors the way floss later would from community of volunteers. (60) In the spring of 1988, it joined other computer makers in establishing the Open Software Foundation to promote UNIX, an operating system that had originally been developed at AT&Ts Bell Labs in 1969 but over the years had splintered into a number of versions. (61) The Open Software Foundation was the most promising of several attempts to unify UNIX and create a common software architecture that would work on various different manufacturers hardware. In theory, a unified UNIX could get a positive-feedback cycle going. But despite significant funding, it turned out to be impossible for the Open Software Foundation to mandate cooperation from a committee of vendors who were competing for each sale. (61-62) The problems of the Open Software Foundation and similar initiatives point up the difficulty of trying to impose a standard in a field in which innovation is moving rapidly and all the companies that make up the standards committee are competitors.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (62) 20140625a 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Thousands of wasted years of effort trying to deliver next generation personal computing platform by IBM and Microsoft. (62) Analysts estimate that IBM poured more than $2 billion into OS/2, OfficeVision, and related projects. If IBM and Microsoft had found a way to work together, thousands of people-years the best years of some of the best employees at both companies would not have been wasted. If OS/2 and Windows had been compatible, graphical computing would have become mainstream years sooner.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (63) 20140625b 0 -10+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Hardware advances and end of life the change driver now; prediction of new major Windows versions every two to three years, with Internet and speech recognition major draws. (63) Microsoft has to do its best to make new versions so attractive in terms of price and features that people will want to change. This is hard because a change involves a big overhead for both developers and customers. Only a major advance is able to convince enough users it is worth their while to change. With enough innovation it can be done. I expect major new generations of Windows to come along every two to three years. (64) For instance, the Internet is becoming so important that Windows will only thrive if it is clearly the best way to gain access to the Internet. . . . When speech recognition becomes genuinely reliable, this will cause another big change in operating systems.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (64) 20140625c 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Microsoft tactic of hiring managers with experience in failing companies because they are forced to be creative. (64) In recent years, Microsoft has deliberately hired a few managers with experience in failing companies. When youre failing youre forced to be creative, to dig deep and think, night and day.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (66) 20140625d 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Asynchronous communication forms offer increased variety and selection possibilities, bolstering assumption that information highway technology will make our lives easier and better; contrast to criticism by Bauerlein and others of resulting bad habits. (66) Once you make a form of communication asynchronous, you can also increase the variety and selection possibilities. (66) The highway will enable capabilities that seem magical when they are described, but represent technology at work to make our lives easier and better. (67) The information highway will make it feel as though all the intermediary machinery between you and the object of your interest has been removed.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (68) 20140625e 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Lesson about PC killer applications from Lotus 1-2-3 to combination of services predicted of the information highway; note the ordering of offerings seems inverse of current prioritization on social networking, commerce and entertainment, with the personal search for knowledge minimized. (68) Killer applications help technological advances change from curiosities into moneymaking essentials. (69) The first killer application for the original IBM PC was Lotus 1-2-3, a spreadsheet tailored to the strengths of that machine. The Apple Macintoshs killer business applications were Aldus PageMaker for designing documents to be printed, Microsoft Word for word processing, and Microsoft Excel for spreadsheets. (69) The highway will come about because of a confluence of technological advances in both communications and computers. No single advance would be able to produce the necessary killer applications. But together these will. The highway will be indispensable because it will offer a combination of information, education services, entertainment, shopping, and person-to-person communication.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (71) 20140625f 0 -9+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Viewing distance between television and computer monitor as media-specific characteristic; digital whiteboard more like television, notebooks and mobile devices more like PCs. (71) However much like a PC the set-top box becomes, there will continue to be a critical difference between the way a PC is used and a television is used: viewing distance. (72) One new form will be the digital white board: a large wall-mounted screen, perhaps an inch thick, that will take the place of todays blackboards and white boards. . . . These devices will show up first in conference rooms, then private offices and even homes. (72) Todays telephone will connect to the same networks as the PCs and TVs. Many future phones will have small, flat screens and tiny cameras. (73) Notebook computers will continue to get thinner until they are nearly the size of a tablet of paper.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (71) 20140625g 0 -9+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html While correct that mobile phones will have screens and cameras and notebook computers will approach paper tablet proportions, failed prediction that digital whiteboards will replace blackboards should be considered in terms of Heim electric writing and Hayles MSA. (71) However much like a PC the set-top box becomes, there will continue to be a critical difference between the way a PC is used and a television is used: viewing distance. (72) One new form will be the digital white board: a large wall-mounted screen, perhaps an inch thick, that will take the place of todays blackboards and white boards. . . . These devices will show up first in conference rooms, then private offices and even homes. (72) Todays telephone will connect to the same networks as the PCs and TVs. Many future phones will have small, flat screens and tiny cameras. (73) Notebook computers will continue to get thinner until they are nearly the size of a tablet of paper.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (74) 20140625h 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Wallet PC as separate information appliance subsumed in mobile phone, in which case Apple wins with the iPhone. (74) Youll be able to keep all these and more in another information appliance we call the wallet PC. (75) When wallet PCs are ubiquitous, we can eliminate the bottlenecks that now plague airport terminals, theaters, and other locations where people queue to show identification or a ticket. (75) Wallet PCs with the proper equipment will be able to tell you exactly where you are anyplace on the face of Earth. (76) In fact, I think of the wallet PC as the new Swiss Army knife.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (77) 20140625i 0 -1+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Kiosks will provide information highway and wallet PC features to the masses. (77) If you arent carrying a wallet PC, youll still have access to the highway by using kiosks some free, some requiring payment of a fee which will be found in office buildings, shopping malls, and airports in much the same spirit as drinking fountains, rest rooms, and pay phones.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (77-78) 20140625j 0 -12+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Speech and handwriting recognition still Holy Grails despite admitted optimism by Gates that generic text recognition was more feasible. (77-78) You wont necessarily have to point to make your point. Eventually well also be able to speak to our televisions, personal computers, or other information appliances. At first well have to keep to a limited vocabulary, but eventually our exchanges will become quite conversational. . . . Its much more difficult for a computer to decipher an arbitrary sentence, but in the next ten years this too will become possible. (78) I was overly optimistic about how quickly we would be able to create software that would recognize the handwriting of a broad range of people. . . . It turned out that getting a computer to recognize handwriting is as difficult as getting one to recognize speech.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (80) 20140625k 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Examples of filters, spatial navigation and agents as new knowledge tools latent in information highway. (80) Youll also be able to set up filters, which are really just standing queries. Filters will work around the clock, watching for new information that matches an interest of yours, filtering out everything else. (81) Spatial navigation, which is already being used in some software products, will let you go where the information is by enabling you to interact with a visual model of a real or make-believe world. (82) Spatial navigation can also be used for touring. If you want to see reproductions of the artwork in a museum or gallery, youll be able to walk through a visual representation, navigating among the works much as if you were physically there. (83) The last type of navigational aid, and in many ways the most useful of all, is an agent.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (80) 20140625l 2 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Account of virtual navigation through museum gallery reflects privileged, prior embodied experience; Bauerlein connects these features to tendency of dumbest generation to not look beyond its own self interests. (80) (81) Spatial navigation, which is already being used in some software products, will let you go where the information is by enabling you to interact with a visual model of a real or make-believe world. (82) Spatial navigation can also be used for touring. If you want to see reproductions of the artwork in a museum or gallery, youll be able to walk through a visual representation, navigating among the works much as if you were physically there.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (84) 20140625m 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Agents as softer software; relate to Thrift on changes senses of position and juxtaposition. (84) Agents will know how to help you partly because the computer will remember your past activities. It will be able to find patterns of use that will help it work more effectively with you. . . . I call this softer software.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (84) 20140625n 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Desire for agent to take over human functions like managing project schedules, though current versions do not remember much or reason well, and may become too annoying. (84) The computer today is like a first day assistant. It needs explicit first-day instructions all the time. (84-85) If an agent that could learn were available now, I would want it to take over certain functions for me. . . . If the built-in agent tries to be too smart and anticipates and confidently performs unrequested or undesired services, it will be annoying to users who are accustomed to having explicit control over their computers.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (85) 20140625o 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Social user interface provided by agents and softer software may be considered creepy attempts to humanize computer, but notes high degree of deference given to mechanical agents; relate Hayles on uncanny valley and Turkle on robotic moment. (85) An agent that takes on a personality provides a social user interface. (85-86) Some people, hearing about software software and social interface, find the idea of a humanized computer creepy. . . . In programs such as Microsoft Bob, they have demonstrated that people will treat mechanical agents that have personalities with a surprising degree of deference. It has also been found that users reactions differed depending on whether the agents voice was female or male.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (86) 20140625p 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Types of navigation fairly clear, and predictions that while many emergent uses will be humorous and entertaining, others will be strictly practical and serious; does not predict much yet about emergence of side of highway opposite humans, Lanier siren servers. (86) We have a fairly clear idea of what sorts of navigation well have on the highway. Its less clear what well be navigating through, but we can make some good guesses. Many applications available on the highway will be purely for fun. (87) Other applications will be strictly practical. (87) Still other applications will be completely serious.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (89-90) 20140429 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Repeating competition that shaped PC industry creating software components of information highway, but emphasizing standards for interoperability of applications such as user profiles; contention between vendors and what network layer to utilize for such purposes. (89-90) The same sort of competition that took place within the PC industry during the 1980s is taking place now to create the software components that will constitute the information highway platform. (90) To make it possible for applications to work together seamlessly, the platform will have to define a standard for user profiles so that information about user preferences can be passed from one application to another.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (91) 20140429a 0 -1+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Investors must believe new revenues comparable to cable television are possible. (91) To finance the construction, investors will have to believe new services will generate almost as much revenue again as cable television does today.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (95) 20140429c 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Web browsing software available for most machines for free, and will likely be bundled in future operating systems; the book itself is bundled with a browser on CDROM. (95) The software to browse the Web is also available for all machines, generally for free. You can Web browse using the CD that comes with this book. In the future, operating systems will integrate Internet browsing.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (95) 20140429d 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Nod to TCP/IP and Web protocols actualizing predictions about interactive books and hyperlinks made by Ted Nelson, though current culture likely viewed as quaint by future users, noting lack of security and billing system. (95) The Internets unique position arises from a number of elements. The TCP/IP protocols that define the transport level support distributed computing and scale incredibly well. The protocols that define Web browsing are extremely simple and have allowed servers to handle immense amounts of traffic reasonably well. Many of the predictions about interactive books and hyperlinks made decades ago by pioneers like Ted Nelson are coming true on the Web. (96) The current Internet lacks security and needs a billing system. Much of the Internet culture will seem as quaint to future users of the information highway as stories of wagon trains and pioneers on the Oregon Trail do to us today.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (96) 20140429e 0 -1+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Internet has always been magnet for hackers, which Gates defines negatively. (96) Because the Internet originated as a computer-science project rather than a communications utility, it has always been a magnet for hackersprogrammers who turn their talents toward mischief or malice by breaking into the computer systems of others.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (97) 20140429f 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gates fascinated by financial model allowing appearance of cheap access; pricing structure encourages use once connected since too complicated to track time and distance of individual use. (97) The financial model that allows the Internet to be so suspiciously cheap is actually one of its most interesting aspects. (98) The foundation of the Internet consists of a bunch of these leased lines connected by switching systems that route data. (99) This works because the costs are based on paying for capacity, and the pricing has simply followed. It would require a lot of technology and effort for the carriers to keep track of time and distance. Why should they bother if they can make a profit without having to? This pricing structure means that once a customer has an Internet connection there is no extra cost for extensive use, which encourages usage.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (100) 20140429h 0 -1+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Despite much free and user-generated content, believes most attractive information will be produced with profit in mind; thus development siren servers not predicted. (100) Although a great deal of information, form NASA photos to bulletin board entries donated by users, will continue to be free, I believe the most attractive information, whether Hollywood movies or encyclopedic databases, will continue to be produced with profit in mind.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (101) 20140429i 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Microsoft promoting ISDN investment by phone companies as key to increasing bandwidth; try SCOT study of ISDN versus cable adoption for broadband services. (101) ISDN was invented more than a decade ago, but without PC application demand almost no one needed it. Its amazing that phone companies invested enormous sums in switches to handle ISDN with very little idea of how it would be used. . . . We are among companies working to convince phone companies all over the world to lower these charges in order to encourage PC owners to connect, using ISDN.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (104-105) 20140429j 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html ATM predicted to the communications protocol for routing packets. (104-105) This routing of packets will be accomplished through the use of a communications protocol known as asynchronous transfer mode, or ATM (not to be confused with automatic teller machine ). It will be one of the building blocks of the information highway.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (106) 20140429k 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Predicts security will thwart government surveillance, yet applications will be extremely easy to use; post-9/11 social and political impact has altered this apparently inevitable expansion of individual freedom. (106) Soon any child old enough to use a computer will be able to transmit encoded messages that no government on earth will find easy to decipher. This is one of the profound implications of the spread of fantastic computing power. (107) Keep in mind that regardless of how complicated the system is technically, it will be extremely easy for you to use. Youll just tell your information appliance what you want it to do and it will seem to happen effortlessly.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (108) 20140429l 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Acknowledgement of need for competent security and authenticity verification introduces lesson on private/public key encryption protocols; mailbox analogy recalls Turkle concern about government surveillance during McCarthy era. (108) The world will become quite reliant on this network, so it is important that security be handled competently. You can think of the information highway as a postal network where everyone has a mailbox that is impervious to tampering and has an unbreakable lock. (109) Key encryption allows more than just privacy. It can also assure the authenticity of a document because a private key can be used to encode a message that only the public key can decode.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (113) 20140503 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Successful digital documents will offer new media specific features, redefining the term document itself as well as related terms like author, office, textbook. (113) The first digital documents to achieve widespread use will do so by offering new functionality rather than simply duplicating the older medium. (113) The exciting aspect of digital documentation is the redefinition of the document itself. (113) This will cause dramatic repercussions. We will have to rethink not only what is meant by the term document, but also by author, publisher, office, classroom, and textbook. (114) Some documents are so superior in digital form that the paper version is rarely used.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (116) 20140503a 0 -12+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Linear ordering of paper documents with redundant references will remain for narrative fiction, counter to claims of electronic literature producers and their theorists like Hayles; artistic judgment that linearity intrinsic to storytelling. (116) For as long as weve had paper documents or collection of documents, we have been ordering information linearly, with indexes, tables of contents, and cross references of various kinds to provide alternate means of navigation. . . . This redundancy was to make information easier to find. (118) Among all the types of paper documents, narrative fiction is one of the few that will not benefit from electronic organization. . . . Likewise, well continue to watch most movies from start to finish. This isnt a technological judgment it is an artistic one. Their linearity is intrinsic to the storytelling process.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (120) 20140503b 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Friction of production and distribution of paper documents reduces variety and leaves little profit for author; brief history of its reduction by development of printing press and Xerox copier tells texts and technology narrative. (120) This doesnt mean that information will be free, but the cost of distributing it will be very small. (120) By the time the consumer selects the book and the cash register rings, the profit for the author can be a pretty small piece of the pie compared to the money that goes to the physical aspect of delivering information on processed wood pulp. I like to call this the friction of distribution, because it holds back variety and dissipates money away from the author and to other people.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (120-121) 20140503c 0 -11+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Printing press taught us to read by positive feedback after generating an installed base of readers, making print a useful means of storing information; compare to development of computer use and programming. (120-121) The printing press created a mass medium because it offered low-friction duplication. . . . Until there was a real reason to create an installed base of literate people, the written word wasnt really useful as a means for storing information. Books gave literacy critical mass, so you can almost say that the printing press taught us to read. (121) The 914 copier, by making it possible to reproduce modest numbers of documents easily and inexpensively, set off an explosion in the kinds and amount of information distributed to small groups. . . . Most of these copies would never be made if the technology wasnt so cheap and easy.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (122) 20140503d 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Distribution friction of broadcast television and movies even higher than print media; lower costs of cable distribution led to channel expansion, but self publishing risks lowered by xerography and cable television incomparable to variety of Internet bulletin boards. (122) Costs are much high in broadcast television or movies, so its tougher to try something risky. (122) Cable television increased the number of programming choices, although it wasnt started with that intention. (123) The Internet is the greatest self-publishing vehicle ever. Its bulletin boards have demonstrated some of the changes that will occur when everyone has access to low-friction distribution and individuals can post messages, images, or software of their own creation. (124) Mail or telephone communications are find for a one-on-one discussion, but they are also pretty expensive if you are trying to communicate with a group. (125) Almost any topic you can name has a group communicating about it on the network.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (125) 20140503e 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Deploys same argument against software piracy for evolving great online content, calling for mechanisms for paying authors and publisher through advertisers and other new options, but per Lanier we got siren servers instead: a missed objective like Kemeny feared would happen with bungled programming instruction. (125) Significant investments will be required to develop great on-line content that will delight and excite PC users and raise the number on-line from 10 percent up to 50 percent, or even the 90 percent I believe it will become. Part of the reason this sort of investment isnt happening today is that simple mechanisms for authors and publishers to charge their users or to be paid by advertisers are just being developed.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (125-126) 20140503f 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Revenue flow to information providers will birth a new mass medium; most critics see this as opportunity for everyone, success for very few. (125-126) Over the next several years the evolution of on-line services will solve these problems and create an incentive for suppliers to furnish great material. There will be new billing options monthly subscriptions, hourly rates, charges per item accessed, and advertising payments so that more revenue flows to the information providers. Once that happens a successful new mass medium will come into existence. This might take several years and a new generation of network technology, such as ISDN and cable modems, but one way or another it will happen. When it does, it will open tremendous opportunities for authors, editors, directors every creator of intellectual property.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (126) 20140503g 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Per McLuhan and Hayles, new medium will initially contain old media, as lessons from study of CDROM development recalls for application to online content: offering interactivity is new feature TV lacks being leveraged in games, though suspension of disbelief is fragile, as Ryan discusses with more nuance. (126) Whenever a new medium is created, the first content offered is brought over from other media. (126) The development of CD-ROMs multimedia versions of audio compact discs provides some lessons that can be applied to the creation of on-line content. (127) Multimedia CD-ROMs are popular today because they offer users interactivity rather than because they have imitated TV. (127) The success of these games has encouraged authors to begin to create interactive novels and movies in which they introduce the characters and the general outline of the plot, then the reader/player makes decisions that change the outcome of the story. . . . The suspension of disbelief essential to the enjoyment of great fiction is fragile and may not hold up under the heavy-handed use of interactivity.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (128) 20140503h 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Too much effort still required for users to create multimedia content; predicts future PC developments will give amateurs same tools as professionals. (128) The technologies underlying the CD-ROM and on-line services have improved dramatically, but very few computer users are creating multimedia documents yet. Too much effort is still required. . . . PC software for editing film and creating special effects will become as commonplace as desktop-publishing software. Then the difference between professionals and amateurs will be one of talent rather than access to tools.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (129) 20140503i 0 -16+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Predicts simulation will overtake recording reality, pointing to virtual reality destinies fooling the senses, beginning with hearing and vision. (129) It will be possible for a software program to fabricate scenes that will look as real as anything created with a camera. . . . And as synthesis gets cheaper it will be used more and more: if we can bring Tyrannosaurus rex back to life, can Elvis be far behind? (130) As the fidelity of visual and audio elements improves, reality in all its aspects will be more closely simulated. This virtual reality, or VR, will allow us to go places and do things we never would be able to otherwise. (131) The software will have to figure out how to describe the look, sound, and feel of the artificial world down to the smallest detail. That might sound overwhelmingly difficult, but actually its the easy part. . . . The really hard part about VR is getting the information to convince the users senses. (131) Hearing is the easiest sense to fool; all you have to do is wear headphones. (131) Your eyes are harder to fool than your ears, but vision is still pretty straightforward to simulate. (132-133) The total amount of information a computer would have to calculate to pipe senses into the tactel suit is somewhere between one and ten times the amount required for the video display on a current PC.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (133) 20140503j 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Best descriptions of VR come from cyberpunk science fiction of Gibson, and history suggests big early market will be virtual sex, for which video porn has already proven the rule. (133) The best descriptions of VR actually come from so-called cyberpunk science fiction like that written by William Gibson. (133) If historical patterns are a guide, a big early market for advanced virtual-reality documents will be virtual sex.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (133-134) 20140627a 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Hopes for multimedia avant garde seem foiled by advance of mundane content and game realism; following Sterne, have online viewing adopted such lowered expectations? (133-134) Will the next decade bring us the [D. W.] Griffiths and [Sergei] Eisensteins of multimedia? There is every reason to think they are already tinkering with the existing technology to see what it can do and what they can do with it.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (135-136) 20140512 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Obvious that software and networks will be nervous system of organizations and encourage decentralization, whereas impact on artistic output less clear; compare to Castells and Manovich. (135-136) Software will become friendlier, and companies will base the nervous systems of their organizations on networks that reach every employee and beyond, into the world of suppliers, consultants, and customers. The result will be companies that are more effective and, often, smaller. In the longer run, as the information highway makes physical proximity to urban services less important, many businesses will decentralize and disperse their activities, and cities, like companies, may be downsized.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (137) 20140512a 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Personal computers allow small businesses to operate like larger ones. (137) We can only speculate on how an artists output might be helped, but it is quite clear that personal computers improve business processes, efficiency, and accuracy. (138) Its kind of amazing how many different tasks a small-business owner has to master. Someone runnign a small business can buy one PC and a few software packages, and she will have electronic support for all the different functions she is performning. (138) PCs do away with the huge overhead large businesses incur staying coordinated through meetings, policies, and internal processes. Electronic mail has done more for big companies than for small companies.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (139) 20140512b 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Examples of spreadsheets, and predictions of high quality graphics three-dimensional graphics, speech recognition, and networking present benefits of PCs and the information highway reminiscent of Theuth of Phaedrus since Gates is planning to implement his visions. (139) When the first electronic spreadsheets appeared in 1978, they were a vast improvement over paper and pencil. What they made possible was putting formulas behind each element in a table of data. These formulas could refer to other elements of the table. Any change in one value would immediately affect the other cells. (139) Increases in computer speed will soon allow PCs to display very high quality three-dimensional graphics. These will permit us to show data in a more effective way than todays two-dimensional presentations. Other advances will make it easy to explore databases by posing questions orally. (141) Over the next few years, as speech recognition, social interfaces, and connections to the information highway are incorporated into core applications, I think individuals and companies will find the productivity enhancements these improved applications will bring extremely attractive.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (142) 20140512c 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Email in use internally at Microsoft since early 1980s, but there are concerns of security and privacy over external networks. (142) At Microsoft, because were in the technology business, we began using electronic communication early. We installed our first e-mail system in the early 1980s. (145) You can get a message to almost anyone who has a PC and a modem, although for certain communications privacy is a problem because transmissions across the Internet are not very secure.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (145) 20140512d 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Appeals to unforeseen uses of electronic mail like paying bills, scheduling meetings, and exchanging documents, although still difficult to ask questions and dispute charges asynchronously. (145) Future advances in electronic mail will streamline lots of activities we may not even realize are inefficient. For example, think about how you pay bills. (145) When a bill comes in, the device will show your payment history. If you want to inquire about the bill, youll do it asynchronously at your convenience by sending e-mail: Hey how come this charge is so high? (148) It will also be easier to schedule meetings because software wil handle it. (148) Clients will expect their lawyers, dentists, accountants, and other professionals to be able to schedule appointments and exchange documents electronically.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (149) 20140512e 0 -11+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Videoconferencing and synchronous sharing have not matured as quickly as predicted, although we are accustomed to watching video meetings; assumes people more attentive if they know they are on camera, side communications will be easier, and unwritten rules will be forced to be made more explicit with network mediation. (149) The meetings they schedule will more and more often be conducted electronically, using shared-screen videoconferencing. . . . Geographically distant collaborators will be able to work together in rich ways. This is synchronous or real-time sharing, which means that the computer screens will keep up with the people using them. (149) Were already accustomed to watching video meetings. (149-150) Such meetings will become very popular because they save time and money and are often more productive than audio-only phone conferences or even fact-to-face meetings, because people seem to be more attentive if they know they are on-camera. (150-151) How will people whisper, roll their eyes at a tedious speaker, or pass notes? Actually, clandestine communication will be simpler at a video meeting because the network will facilitate individual communications on the side. Meetings have always had unwritten rules, but when the network is mediating videoconferences, some rules will have to become explicit.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (152) 20140512g 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Future jobs will specify in office and out of office hours, and use of part time labor by customer service organizations will expand; cell phone and Internet use at work loosens boundaries inside the office. (152) A decade form now, advertisements for many jobs will list how many hours a week of work are expected and how many of those hours, if any, are inside hours at a designated location such as an office. Some jobs will require that the employee already have a PC so he can work at home. Customer-service organizations will be able to use part-time labor very easily. (152) An employee in an office is assumed to be working the whole time, but the same employee working at home might be credited (perhaps at a different rate) only for the time he or she is actually performing work.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (153) 20140512h 0 -11+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Reengineering boundaries inside workplace, next between suppliers and customers, as Castells, Spinuzzi, Boltanski and Chiapello studied. (153) A single office or cubicle could serve several people whose inside hours were staggered or irregular. . . . Wherever a worker logged on, his or her familiar office surroundings could follow, courtesy of digital white boards and the information highway. (153) To date, most reengineering has focused on moving information inside the company in new ways. The next movement will be to redefine the boundary between the company and its customers and suppliers. (153) E-mail is a powerful force for flattening the hierarchies common to large companies. If communications systems are good enough, companies dont need as many levels of management. (154) As technology makes it easier for a business to find and collaborate with outside expertise, a huge and competitive market for consultants will arise. (154) Lots of companies will eventually be far smaller because using the information highway will make it easy to find and work with outside resources.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (155) 20140512i 0 -10+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Allow escape for the privileged from social problems of crowded urban areas; despite predicted savings, positive feedback cycle encouraging rural living may not scale, and would affect urban tax base, aggravating woes. (155) Geographic dispersion will affect much more than corporate structure. Many of todays major social problems have arisen because the population has been crowded into urban areas. (155) For those who have a connection ot it, the highway will substantially reduce the drawbacks of living outside a big city. (155) This could set off a positive-feedback cycle, encouraging rural living. (156) If the average office worker in any major city stayed home one or two days a week, the decreases in gasoline consumption, air pollution, and traffic congestion would be significant. The net effect, however, is hard to foresee. If those who moved out of cities were mostly the affluent knowledge workers, the urban tax base would be reduced. This would aggravate the inner citys woes and encourage other affluent people to leave. But at the same time, the urban infrastructure might be less heavily loaded. Rents would fall, creating opportunities for a better standard of living for some of those remaining in the cities.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (157-158) 20140514 0 -11+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Ideal markets realized by electronic information exchange, expected that the network will function as impartial middleman creating a heaven for shoppers; contrast to Lanier assessment that the systems have been designed to advantage siren servers. (157-158) A few markets are already working fairly close to Smiths ideal. Investors buying and selling currency and certain other commodities participate in efficient electronic markets that provide nearly complete instantaneous information about worldwide supply, demand, and prices. Everyone gets pretty much the same deal because news about all offers, bids, and transactions speeds across wires to trading desks everywhere. (158) The information highway will extend the electronic marketplace and make it the ultimate go-between, the universal middleman. . . . This will carry us into a new world of low-friction, low-overhead capitalism, in which market information will be plentiful and transaction costs low. It will be a shoppers heaven. (160) Youll be able to examine product reviews in search of less biased information. (160) If youre thinking of doing business with a company or buying a product, youll be able to check what others say about it.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (161) 20140514a 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Alludes to cultural segmentation and standardization through evolving netiquette, though still frontier mentality in 1995; need more sophisticated regulation mechanisms. (161) Already, a network etiquette, or netiquette, is evolving. As the information highway becomes societys town square, we will come to expect it to conform to our cultures mores. There are vast cultural differences around the world, so the highway will be divided into different parts, some dedicated to various cultures, and some specified for global usage. So far, a frontier mentality has prevailed, and participants in electronic forums have been known to lapse into behavior that is antisocial and even illegal. (162) We need a more sophisticated process to gather consensus opinions without depending on the Attorney Generals Consumer Complaints Division to act as a filter. We will have to find some way to force people to turn their volume down so the highway doesnt become an amplifier for libel or slander or an outlet for venting irritation. (162) Politicians are already wrestling with the question of when an on-line service should be treated as a common carrier and when it should be treated as a publisher.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (164) 20140514b 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Predicts need for sales consultants as binding between advice and sales diminishes. (164) If you cant find exactly the advice you need on the highway, you will be able to hire a knowledgeable sales consultant, for five minutes or an afternoon, via videoconference. She will help you choose products, which your computer will then buy for you from the cheapest reliable source. (164) I expect the traditional binding together of advice and sales to be much less prevalent, because although the advice appears free to the customer, it is paid for by the stores and services that offer it. This cost then gets added on to the price of the goods. Stores that are charging more because they offer advice will have increasing difficulty competing with the discounters who will operate on the information highway.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (165) 20140514d 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Product placement and unobtrusively buying opportunities; compare to recently announced Amazon phone. (165) In the future, companies may pay not only to have their products on-screen, but also to make them available for you to buy. You will have the option of inquiring about any image you see. This will be another choice the highway will make available unobtrusively.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (166) 20140514e 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Manufacturing will embrace just in time customization and delivery will be big business. (166) Customization will become an important way for a manufacturer to add value. (167) Delivering goods ordered over the highway will become a big business. There will be amazing competition, and as volume becomes enormous, delivery will get very inexpensive and fast.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (169) 20140514g 0 -1+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Crucial that individuals have access to their profile information, and access by third parties are regulated: exactly what we do not have under siren server oligopolies. (169) Needless to say, there will be lots of controversy and negotiation about who can get access to your profile information.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (173) 20140514h 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Overly optimistic about email filtering; incentives to look at advertising as response to automated message filtering. (173) You wont be drowned by the deluge of unimportant information because youll use software to filter incoming advertising and other extraneous messages and spend your valuable time looking at those messages that interest you. Most people will block e-mail ads except for those about product areas of particular concern. One way for the advertiser to capture your attention will be to offer a small amount of money a nickel or a dollar, perhaps if you will look at an ad.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (175) 20140514i 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Innovations in licensing intellectual property and releasing content. (175) The information highway will enable innovations in the way that intellectual property, such as music and software, is licensed. (175) This personal, lifetime buyout of rights is similar to what we do today when we buy a music disc or tape, or book, except that there is no physical medium involved. (177) On the information highway various release windows for content will almost certainly be tried. (177-178) The transferability of information will be another big pricing issue. . . . If the average buyer lent his or her albums and books frequently, fewer would be sold and prices would be higher.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (178) 20140514j 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Roles of middlemen and physical travel for meetings will erode. (178) Efficient electronic markets area going to change a lot more than just the ratio of renting to buying for entertainment. Almost any person or business that serves as a middleman will feel the heat of electronic competition. (179) Videoconferences of all sorts will increasingly become alternatives to having to drive or fly to a meeting.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (181) 20140514k 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Direct consumer access to financial markets will increase volume of transactions; asserts Microsoft will not become a bank or store. (181) Financial services companies will still thrive. The basic economics of the industry will change, but the volume of transactions will skyrocket as the information highway gives the average consumer direct access to financial markets. (182) When I prognosticate about the future changes in an industry, people often wonder if Microsoft plans to go into that field. Microsofts competence is in building great software products and the information services that go with them. We will not become a bank or a store.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (182-183) 20140514l 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Optimistic employment outlook based on tasks undone and new tasks engendered by the information highway, but not considering transformation and effects of the spirit of capitalism. (182-183) There is a nearly infinite number of tasks left undone in services, education, and urban affairs, to say nothing of the workforce the highway itself will require. So this new efficiency will create all softs of exciting employment opportunities.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (183) 20140514m 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Victorious capitalism is the best constructed economic system, and the information highway will magnify its advantages: Adam Smith would be pleased, and consumers will enjoy the benefits. (183) Capitalism, demonstrably the greatest of the constructed economic systems, has in the past decade clearly proved its advantages over the alternative systems. The information highway will magnify those advantages. It will allow those who produce goods to see, a lot more efficiently than ever before, what buyers want, and will allow potential consumers to buy those goods more efficiently. Adam Smith would be pleased. More important, consumers everywhere will enjoy the benefits.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (184) 20140515 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Privileged experience offers examples of education humanizing education. (184) Some fear that technology will dehumanize formal education. But anyone who has seen kids working together around a computer, the way my friends and I first did in 1968, or watched exchanges between students in classrooms separated by oceans, knows that technology can humanize the educational environment.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (185) 20140515a 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gardner argues for multiple methods to accommodate every kind of learner: contrast to Bauerlein assessment of failure of technologically enhanced classrooms to yield improvements. (185) [Howard] Gardnerrecommends that schools be filled with apprenticeships, projects, and technologies so that every kind of learner can be accommodated. We will discover all sorts of different approaches to teaching because the highways tools will make it easy to try various methods and to measure their effectiveness.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (185) 20140515d 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Emphatic that technology will not replace roles of teachers, administrators, parents, or students; contrast to arguments about effects of new spirit of capitalism and formation of projective city. (185) There is an often-expressed fear that technology will replace teachers. I can say emphatically and unequivocally, IT WONT. The information highway wont replace or devalue any of the human educational talent needed for the challenges ahead: committed teachers, creative administrators, involved parents, and, of course, diligent students.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (185-186) 20140515e 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Assumed procedural enthymeme that using the Internet will encourage children to discover and exploit their native talents regardless of social and familial environment. (185-186) In time, this access will help spread educational and personal opportunities even to students who arent fortunate enough to enjoy the best schools or the greatest family support. It will encourage a child to make the most of his or her native talents. (187) Classroom learning will include multimedia presentations, and homework will involve exploring electronic documents as much as textbooks, perhaps even more. Students will be encouraged to pursue areas of particular interest, and it will be easy for them to do so. Each pupil will be able to have his own question answered simultaneously with the other students queries. A class will spend part of a day at a personal computer exploring information individually or in groups.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (187) 20140515f 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Positive feedback effect on education by increasing education workforce, sharing materials, and rewarding best practices. (187) As innovation has improved the standard of living, there has always been an increase in the portion of the workforce dedicated to education. (188) The network will enable teachers to share lessons and materials, so that the best educational practices can spread. (189) Corporations wanting to help with education could provide recognition and cash awards to teachers whose materials are making a difference.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (190) 20140515g 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Educational software systems will keep better records to reveal individual needs, and teachers will have more time and energy to meet those needs once relieved of tedious paperwork. (190) Teachers will be able to keep a cumulative record of a students work, which can be reviewed at any time or shared with other instructors. (190) Special software programs will help summarize information on the skills, progress, interests, and expectations of students. Once teachers have enough information on a student and are relieved of a lot of tedious paperwork, they will have more energy and time to meet the revealed individual needs of that student.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (191) 20140515h 0 -1+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Parents can help kids by teaching them the software they use at work, a great marketing strategy for Microsoft. (191) Parents may also help their children at school by teaching them to use the software they use in their work.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (195) 20140515i 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Despite prior emphatic denial, social interfaces will become substitutes for search, dialogue, and coaching; compare to primers in Stephenson Diamond Age. (195) Computers with social interfaces will figure out how to present information so that it is customized for the particular user. Many educational software programs will have distinct personalities, and the student and the computer will get to know each other. . . . The machine, like a good human teacher, wont give in to a child who has lopsided interests. Instead it will use the childs predilections to teach a broader curriculum. (195) Children with learning disabilities will be particularly well served.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (195) 20140515j 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Believes attitude toward tests will change through self-quizzing, for those students who care to do so. (195) Another benefit of computer aided learning will be the way many students come to view tests. (196) The interactive network will allow students to quiz themselves anytime, in a risk-free environment. . . . There should be less apprehension about formal tests and fewer surprises, because ongoing self-quizzing will give each student a better sense of where he or she stands.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (197) 20140515k 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Prelude to gamefication. (197) Its easier to create an addictive game than it is to expose a child to a world of information in an appealing way. (197) However, as textbook budgets and parental spending shift to interactive material, there will be thousands of new software companies working with teachers to create entertainment-quality interactive learning materials.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (198) 20140515m 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Choice among materials and types of schooling. (198) The highway will allow new methods of teaching and much more choice. Quality curriculums can be created with government funding and made available for free. Private vendors will compete to enhance the free material. The new vendors might be other public schools; public-school teachers or retired teachers going into business for themselves; or some privately run, highway-based school service programing wanting to prove its capabilities. (198) The highway will also make home schooling easier.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (198) 20140515n 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Learning with computer springboard for learning away from computer promotes role of teacher as coach. (198) Learning with a computer will be a springboard for learning away from the computer. (198) Successful teachers will act as coaches, partners, creative outlets, and communications bridges to the world.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (199) 20140515o 0 -11+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Use of simulations and models combines gamefication with education particularly well with science topics; eventually VR rooms. (199) The teaching of science lends itself particularly well to using models. . . . SimLife, a popular software program, simulates evolution, so kids get to experience the process instead of just getting facts about it. . . . Maxis Software, the publisher of SimLife, also produces another program, SimCity, which lets you design a city with all of its interrelated systems, such as roads and public transportation. (199) When science is made more interesting in these ways, it should appeal to a broader set of students. (200) Im sure that at some point schools will have virtual-reality equipment or maybe even VR rooms, the way some now have music rooms and theaters to allow students to explore a place, an object, or a subject in this engrossing, interactive way.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (200) 20140515p 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Asserts technology will not isolate students by giving examples of successes in collaborative learning, email, learning circles, ignoring majority experience that Bauerlein and Turkle highlight of forms of collaboration that are at best being alone together; he makes the assumption that what happens in most creative classrooms using technology foreshadows eventual norms. (200) Technology will not, however, isolate students. One of the most important education experiences is collaboration. In some of the worlds most creative classrooms, computers and communications networks are already beginning to change the conventional relationships among students themselves, and between students and teachers, by facilitating collaborative learning. (201) College students everywhere already understand the joys of e-mail, both for educational purposes and to keep in touch inexpensively with family and friends, including high school friends who have gone to other universities. (202) Many classrooms, in different states and countries, are already linking up in what are sometimes called learning circles.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (203) 20140515q 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Opportunities for unofficial students to seek lifelong learning, altering focus of education from institution to individual, as described by Boltanski and Chiapello of the projective city. (203) The highways educational possibilities will also be open to the worlds unofficial students. People anywhere will be able to take the best courses taught by great teachers. The highway will make adult education, including job training and career-enhancement courses, more readily available. (204) Whatever problems direct access to unlimited information may cause, the benefits it will bring will more than compensate. I enjoyed school but I pursued by strongest interests outside the classroom. I can only imagine how access to this much information would have changed my own school experience. The highway will alter the focus of education from the institution to the individual. The ultimate goal will be changed from getting a diploma to enjoying lifelong learning.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (206) 20140519a 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html True the geographically distant people can communicate with more ease, for example virtual dating practiced by Gates and online games; does not consider lowered expectations when in person that Turkle and Rushkoff call being alone together. (206) The new communications capabilities will make it far easier than it is today to stay in touch with friends and relatives who are geographically distant. . . . In the future this sort of virtual dating will be better because the movie watching could be combined with a videoconference. (207) Friendships formed across the network will lead naturally to getting together in person.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (207-208) 20140519b 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Example of Warren Buffet warming to the highway to play bridge is definitely an outlier. (207-208) He [Buffet] wasnt interested until he found out he could play bridge with friends all over the country through an on-line service. . . . Despite the fact that he had studiously stayed away from technoogy and technology investing, once he tried the computer, he was hooked.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (208) 20140519c 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Predictions about explosion in online gaming, interactive television game shows, gambling, interest communities no matter how specific. (208) I think on-line computer-game playing will catch on in a big way. (208) TV game shows will evolve to a new level when viewer feedback is added. (208) Gambling is going to be another way to play on the highway. (210) On the information highway there will be applications to help you find people and information that intersect with your interests, no matter how specific.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (211) 20140519d 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Online communities. (211) You wont be overwhelmed by the number of choices of communities any more than you are now by the telephone system. Youll look for a group that interests you in general, and then youll search through it for the small segment you want to join. I can imagine the administration of every municipality, for example, becoming the focus of an electronic community. (211) As on-line communities grow in importance, they will increasingly be where people will turn to find out what the public is really thinking.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (212) 20140519e 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Concerns about access to more information than overseers desire. (212) Its not just medical researchers who will be affected by so much access to information. One of the biggest concerns is parents having to contend with children who can find out about almost anything they want to, right from a home information appliance.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (212-213) 20140519f 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Belief that more choices come with more information, and less face-to-face visits do not isolate us; believes we will have better control over access to our attention by others by explicitly indicating allowable interruptions. (212-213) On balance, the advantages will greatly outweigh the problems. The more information there is available, the more choices we will have. . . . We may visit face-to-face less often than we did a century ago because we can pick up the telephone, but this doesnt mean we have become isolated. (213) In the future, when you will be able to work anywhere, reach anyone from anywhere, and be reached anywhere, you will be able to determine easily who and what can intrude. By explicitly indicating allowable interruptions, you will be able to reestablish your home or anywhere you choose as your sanctuary.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (213) 20140519g 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Lots of overhead implicit in regulating interruptions that have not come to fruition yet, habituating us to being always on instead, per Rushkoff. (213) Incoming communications will be tagged by source and type for instance, ads, greetings, inquiries, publications, work-related documents, or bills. Youll set explicit delivery policies. Youll decide who can make your phone ring during dinner, who can reach you in your car, or when youre on vacation, and which kinds of calls or messages are worth waking you for in the middle of the night.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (217) 20140519i 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Electronic pin will allow house computers to track movement of occupants; array of monitors foreshadows Manovich big data displays. (217) First thing, as you come in, youll be presented with an electronic pin to clip to your clothes. This pin will connect you to the electronic services of the house. (218) Recessed into the east wall will be twenty-four video monitors, each with a 40-inch picture tube, stacked four high and six across. These monitors will work cooperatively to display large images for artistic, entertainment, or business purposes. (218) The electronic pin you wear will tell the house who and where you are, and the house will use this information to try to meet and even anticipate your needs all as unobtrusively as possible. Someday, instead of needing the pin, it might be possible to have a camera system with visual recognition capabilities, but thats beyond current technology.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (221) 20140519j 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Combining traditions of unobtrusive service and treatment based on possession of symbolic objects. (221) A house that tracks its occupants in order to meet their particular needs combines two traditions. The first is the tradition of unobtrusive service, and the other is that an object we carry entitles us to be treated in a certain way.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (221-222) 20140519k 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gates does not expect robots in widespread consumer use beyond intelligent toys; evident that his philosophy of robotics assumes computationally intensive representational processing, contra later Clark and Chalmers. (221-222) I am certainly not preparing for that, because I think it will be many decades before robots are practical. The only ones I expect to see in widespread use soon are intelligent toys. . . . The reason I doubt intelligent robots will provide much help in actual housework in the foreseeable future is that it takes a great deal of visual intelligence and dexterity to prepare food or change diapers.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (222) 20140519l 0 -9+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Instrumentation in Gates house that tracks and remembers user preferences, and tallies all sorts of things, will become substrate of information highway. (222) This sort of instrumentation can provide significant energy savings. . . . Energy-demand management can save a lot of money and help the environment by reducing peak loads. (223) A house that tries to guess what you want has to be right often enough that you dont get annoyed by miscalculations. (223) In fact, the house will remember everything it learns about your preferences. (223) When we are all on the information highway, the same sort of instrumentation will be used to count and keep track of all sorts of things, and the tallies will be published for anyone who cares to pay attention. (224) Counts of crime reports, campaign contributions by area, and almost any other kind of public or potentially public information will be ours for the asking.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (224) 20140519m 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gates company Corbis building archive of digital images; believes easy access to reproductions will not reduce interest in experiencing real works, but misses convergence of interest on mundane images popular on social media networks that Bauerlein decries. (224) A few years ago I started a small company, now called Corbis, in order to build a unique and comprehensive digital archive of images of all types. (225) I believe quality images will be in great demand on the highway. (225) Although some of the images will be of artworks, that doesnt mean I believe that reproductions are as good as the originals. Theres nothing like seeing the real work. I believe that easy-to-browse image databases will get more people interested in both graphic and photographic art. (226) Exposure to the reproductions is likely to increase rather than diminish reverence for real art and encourage more people to get out to museums and galleries.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (228) 20140520 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Need widespread broadband access to create large market that drives investments. (228) The investments will be driven by faith that the market will be large. Neither the full highway nor the market will exist until a broadband network has been brought to most homes and businesses. (228) The public itself cant know, because it hasnt had experience with video-capable interactive networks and applications. . . . My view is that the highway wont be a sudden, revolutionary creation but that the Internet, along with evolution in the PC and PC software, will guide us step by step to the full system.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (230) 20140520a 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Trials will determine what applications will appeal to the public and become killer apps of the Internet; does not mention porn. (230) These forthcoming trials will give companies the opportunity to look for the equivalents of the spreadsheet unexpected killer applications and services that will capture the imagination of consumers and build a financial case for rolling out the highway. Its almost impossible to guess what applications will or wont appeal to the public. Customers needs and desires are so personal. . . . For instance, I hope to be able to use the highway to stay up-to-date on medical advances.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (231) 20140520b 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Entrepreneurship and market-driven decisions will shape development of information highway as it did the personal computer industry. (231) Entrepreneurship will play a major role in shaping the development of the information highway, the same way it shaped the personal-computer business. Only a handful of companies that made mainframe software managed the transition to personal computers. Most successes came from little start-ups, run by people who were open to new possibilities. (231) The good news is that people learn from both the successes and the failures, and the net result is rapid progress. (231) By letting the marketplace decide which companies and approaches win and which lose, many paths are explored simultaneously.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (232) 20140520c 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Deregulations of communications needed; look at successes and failures of PTT monopolies in other countries, as Abbate does. (232) Federal regulations currently prevent cable and phone companies from offering a general-purpose network that would put them in competition with each other. The first thing most governments have to do to help the highway start is to deregulate communications. (233) Outside the United States, matters are complicated by the fact that in many countries the regulated monopolies have been agencies owned by the government itself.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (234) 20140520d 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Philosophical position do not legislate compatibility for computing technology because it is so dynamic. (234) One area its clear government should stay out of is compatibility. Some have suggested that governments set standards for networks, to guarantee that they interoperate. (234) In the world of computing, technology is so dynamic that any company should be able to come out with whatever new product it wants and let the market decide if it has made the right set of trade-offs.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (235-236) 20140520e 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Advantage of Singapore population density and focus on infrastructure, with admission that cultural maintenance requires mechanisms besides censorship. (235-236) In Singapore, the population density and political focus on infrastructure makes it certain that this nation will be a leader. . . . He [Lee Kuan Yew] said Singapore recognizes that in the future it will have to rely on methods other than censorship to maintain a culture that sacrifices some Western-style freedom in exchange for a strong sense of community.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (236) 20140520f 0 -9+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html China wishes to enter information highway while maintaining control, foreshadowing mass data collection and surveillance practices. (236) In China, however, the government seems to believe it can have it both ways. . . . Wu said Beijing will adopt unspecified management measures to control inflows of data on all telecommunications services as they evolve in China. . . . He may not understand that to implement full Internet access and maintain censorship, you would almost have to have someone looking over the shoulder of every user.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (236) 20140520g 0 -6+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html France Minitel has already stimulated interest with online systems, Germany lowered ISDN prices, and PC penetration higher in Nordic countries than in the US, whereas Japanese adoption hindered by character set and entrenched word processing machine business. (236) In France, the pioneering on-line service, Minitel, has fostered a community of information publishers and stimulated broad familiarity with on-line systems in general. (236) In Germany, Deutsche Telekom lowered the price of ISDN service dramatically in 1995. This has led to a significant increase in the number of users connecting personal computers. (236) The level of PC penetration in business is even higher in the Nordic countries than in the United States. (236-237) The use of personal computers in businesses, schools, and homes is significantly less widespread in Japan than in other developed countries. This is partly because of the difficulty of entering kanjii characters on a keyboard, but also because of Japans large and entrenched market for dedicated word-processing machines.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (237) 20140521 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html South Korea has large percentage of PCs going into homes, where Gates sees a lucrative market. (237) In South Korea, although significantly fewer PCs per capita are being sold than in the United States, more than 25 percent of the machines are going into homes. This statistic demonstrates how countries with a strong family structure that put great emphasis on getting ahead by educating children will be fertile ground for products that provide educational advantages.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (237) 20140521a 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html New Zealand success with privatized phone company shows value of open telecommunications market; praise for procompetition regulations and concern about government sponsored boondoggles like Japanese Hi-Vision TV project, but no credit to government sponsorship of Arpanet and TCP/IP. (237) New Zealand has the most open telecommunications market in the world, and its newly privatized phoen company has set an example of how effective privatization can be. (238) No taxpayer money will be needed to build the highway in industrialized countries with pro-competition regulations. (238) A government bootstrap could, in principle, cause an information highway to be built sooner than might happen otherwise, but the very real possibility of an unattractive outcome has to be considered carefully. Such a country might end up with a boondoggle, white-elephant information highway built by engineers out of touch with the rapid pace of technological development. (238) Something like this happened in Japan with the Hi-Vision high-definition television project.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (241) 20140521b 0 -3+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Expects ISDN adoption to outpace broadband cable solutions; ambitions of both go beyond providing access. (241) The opportunity to provide ISDN to PC users will provide new revenues to phone companies that want to bring the price levels down to establish a mass market. I expect ISDN adoption to get off to a faster start than PC cable modes. (241) The ambitions of cable and phone companies go well beyond simply providing a pipe for bits.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (243) 20140521c 0 -4+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Other providers include railroad companies, satellites, and ground-based wireless. (243) Cable and phone industries will be the primary, but not the only, competitors to provide the network. Railroad companies in Japan, for example, recognize that the rights-of-way they have for their tracks would be ideal for long fiber-optic cable runs. (244) Teledisc, a company that my friend, cellular telephone pioneer Craig McCaw, and I have invested in, is working on overcoming the limits of satellite technology by using a large number of low-orbit satellites. (244) Another rapidly advancing technology is ground-based wireless communication.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (245) 20140521d 0 -11+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Use generic PCs to do the work coordinating network services and spawn new devices like set-top boxes; did not foresee floss as viable software solution. (245) Software companies naturally see their product as the answer. Software is so inexpensive to duplicate that substituting it for costly hardware reduces system costs. Another competition is shaping up to supply the software platforms that will run tehse servers. (245-246) At Microsoft, our only hammer is software. We expect that the highways intelligence will be evenly divided between servers and information appliances. . . . Our approach is to make the coordination of the highway a software problem and then use the highest-volume (and therefore cheapest) computers to do the work the same ones used in the PC industry. (246) We believe tools and applications available on the PC today can be used to build new applications. For instance, we think set-top boxes should be able to run most of the CD-ROM titles for PCs that will appear over the next decade.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (247) 20140521e 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Market will influence user interface, funding mechanisms, and technical aspects of network design. (247) The are open questions such as to what extent these platforms will share a personality or user interface. (247) There are other, similar decisions awaiting judgment of the marketplace. For instance, will advertising play a large role in underwriting information and entertainment, or will customers pay directly for most services? (247) The market will also influence technical aspects of network design. Most experts believe that the interactive network will use asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), but today ATM costs too much to use.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (248) 20140521f 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Skeptical of corporate mergers because most businesses have a core competency; alliances preferred. (248) I have always believed businesses that concentrate on a very few core competencies will do the best. (248) Beware! Mergers that are attempts to bring all aspects of highway expertise into one organization should be viewed skeptically. (249) We believe in alliances and are eager to participate in them. Our core mission, however, is to build a number of software components for the information highway.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (256) 20140524g 0 -10+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Requirement of mostly free computing has led to siren server oligopolies according to Lanier; Gates points to shift from other traditional sources of information and entertainment. (256) However, personal computer are still too expensive for most people. Before the information highway can become fully integrated into society, it must be available to virtually every citizen, not just the elite, but this does not mean that every citizen has to have an information appliance in his home. (256) Eventually the costs of computing and communications will be so low, and the competitive environment so open, that much of the entertainment and information offered on the highway will cost very little. Advertising income will allow a lot of content to be free. However, most service providers, whether they are rock bands or consulting engineers or book publishers, will still ask that users make a payment. (256-257) A large portion of the money you will spend on highway services you spend today for the same services in other forms. . . . Most of the money that now goes to local telephone service, long-distance service, and cable television will be available to spend on the highway.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (260) 20140524l 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Example of unfair tax burden on the wealthy for using public services applied to universal service doctrine for media access in rural areas. (260) Through the income tax and other taxes, people with high incomes pay more for roads, schools, the army, and every other government facility than the average person does. It cost me more than $100 million last year to get those services because I paid a significant capital gains tax after selling some Microsoft shares. (260) We should expect heated debate about whether the government should subsidize connections to rural areas, or impose regulations that cause urban users to subsidize rural ones. The precedent for this is a doctrine known as universal service, which was created to subsidize rural mail, phone, and electrical services in the United States. It dictates a single price for the delivery of a letter, a phone call, or electrical power regardless of where you live. (260) There was no equivalent policy for the delivery of newspapers or radio or television reception. (261) Because many people will find the combination of rural lifestyle and urban information attractive, network companies will have an incentive to run fiber-optic lines to high-income remote areas.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (264) 20140524p 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gates proposes speed bumps as voluntary resistance to VR addiction for those becoming Weizenbaum computer bums or robotic moment. (264) If you were to find yourself escaping into these attractive worlds too often, or for too long, and began to be worried about it, you could try to deny yourself entertainment by telling the system, No matter what password I give, dont let me play any more than half an hour of games a day. (264) Speed bumps help a lot with behavior that tends to generate day-after regrets. . . . Frankly, Im not too concerned about the world whiling away its hours on the information highway. At worst, I expect, it will be like playing video games or gambling. Support groups will convene to help abusers who want to modify their behavior.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (264) 20140524q 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html More concerned about cryptographic vulnerabilities and sloppy security leading to digital disasters than dumbing down society through habitual Internet use. (264) A more serious concern than individual overindulgence is the vulnerability that could result from societys heavy reliance on the highway. (265) A complete failure of the information highway is worth worrying about. Because the system will be thoroughly decentralized, any single outage is unlikely to have a widespread effect. . . . One area of vulnerability is the systems reliance on cryptography the mathematical locks that keep information safe. (265) Sloppiness is the main reason computer security gets breached.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (265-266) 20140524r 0 -5+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html A potential weapon of math destruction is a breakthrough in factoring large prime numbers; no backup technique ready to deploy. (265-266) The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers. . . . We have to ensure that if any particular encryption technique proves fallible, there is a way to make an immediate transition to an alternative technique.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (266) 20140524s 0 -7+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Concern for loss of privacy by correlating disparate data repositories. (266) Loss of privacy is another major concern about the highway. . . . The scattered nature of information protects your privacy in an informal way, but when the repositories are all connected together on the highway, it will be possible to use computers to correlate it. Credit data could be linked with employment records and sales transaction records to construct an intrusively accurate picture of your personal activities. (266) The potential problem is abuse, not the mere existence of information.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (268) 20140524t 0 -8+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gates find complete life documentation chilling, but does provide digital alibi; black box data recorders and cameras everywhere. (268) I find the prospect of documented lives a little chilling, but some people will warm to the idea. One reason for documenting a life will be defensive. We can think of the wallet PC as an alibi machine, because encrypted digital signatures will guarantee an unforgeable alibi against false accusations. (268) This sort of record wont affect just the police. . . . I can imagine proposals that every automobile, including yours and mine, be outfitted not only with a recorder but also with a transmitter that identifies the car and its location a future license plate.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (269) 20140524u 0 -14+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Pervasive surveillance unremarkable: to other critics this is a major concern, but Gates is a proponent of accepting the tradeoff of lost anonymity and privacy in exchange for increased security, foreseeing 9/11 aftermath. (269) In a world that is increasingly instrumented, we could reach the point where cameras record most of what goes on in public. (269) The prospect of so many cameras, always watching, might have distressed us fifty years ago, as it did George Orwell. But today they are unremarkable. . . . Within a decade, computers will be able to scan video records very inexpensively looking for a particular person or activity. (269-270) Almost everyone is willing to accept some restrictions in exchange for a sense of security. . . . It might take only a few more incidents like the bombing in Oklahoma City within the borders of the United States for attitudes toward strong privacy protection to shift. What today seems like digital Big Brother might one day become the norm if the alternative is being left to the mercy of terrorists and criminals. I am not advocating either position technology will enable society to make a political decision.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (270) 20140524v 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Believes governments will be unable to tap or decrypt everyday personal computer data; ironic statement following NSA revelations by Snowden. (270) Encryption-technology software, which anyone can download from the Internet, can transform a PC into a virtually unbreakable code machine. (270) No policy decision will be able to restore the tapping capabilities governments had in the past.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (272) 20140524x 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Defense of representative government model for middleman value add, whose performance can be better monitored via the information highway. (272) There is a place in governance for representatives middlemen to add value. (272) Instead of being given photos and sound bites, voters will be able to get a much more direct sense of what their representatives are doing and how theyre voting.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (275) 20140629a 0 -2+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Greatest benefits will be technological applications to education. (275) As I suggested in chapter 9, the greatest benefits will come from the application of technology to education formal and informal. To help facilitate this in a small way, my portion of the proceeds from this book will go to support teachers who are incorporating computers into their classrooms.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKgates-road_ahead (276) 20140629d 6 -1+ progress/2014/04/notes_for_gates-road_ahead.html Gates wants everyone to discuss technology in order to guide it, not just technologists. (276) (276) Its important that both the good and bad points of the technological advances be discussed broadly so that society as a whole, rather than just technologists, can guide its direction.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (26) 20130223 0 -5+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Changing attitude to value of direct access and time-sharing through spending time programming; Licklider prescient in potential for amplifying range of human intelligence through symbiosis with computers. (26) The appreciation of time-sharing was directly proportional to the amount of direct access one had to the computer. And usually that meant that the more you programmed, the better you understood the value of direct access. (27) Licklider was far more than just a computer enthusiast, however. For several years, he had been touting a radical and visionary notion: that computers werent just adding machines. Computers had the potential to act as extensions of the whole human being, as tools that could amplify the range of human intelligence and expand the reach our our analytical powers.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (42) 20130223a 0 -4+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Book gives evidence that origins of Internet in interoperability and communication of Tayler and Herzfeld, not so much as to sustain nuclear attack. (42) If the network idea worked, Taylor told Herzfeld, it would be possible for computers from different manufacturers to connect, and the problem of choosing computers would be greatly diminished. Herzfeld was so taken with that possibility that those arguments alone might have been enough to convince him. But there was another advantage, centering on the question of reliability. It might be possible to connect computers in a network redundantly, so that if one line went down a message could take another path.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (44) 20130223b 0 -15+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Peer collaboration among networked resources; ATT not interested. (44) But the networking idea marked a significant departure from time-sharing. . . . The idea of one computer reaching out to tap resources inside another, as peers in a collaborative organization, represented the most advanced conception yet to emerge from Lickliders vision. (48) Even before his first day at ARPA, Roberts had a rudimentary outline of the computer network figured out. Then, and for years afterward as the project grew, Roberts drew meticulous network diagrams, sketching out where the data lines should go, and the number of hops between nodes. (51) AT&T, of course, had absolute hegemony when it came to the telephone network. But the systematic conveyance of information predated Ma Bell by at least a few thousand years. (51) The telegraph was a classic early example of what is called a store-and-forward network. (52) There was almost no way to bring radical new technology into the Bell System to coexist with the old. . . . Not surprisingly, then, in the early 1960s, when ARPA began exploring an entirely new way of transmitting information, AT&T wanted no part of it.
4 1 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (59-60) 20130223c 0 -5+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Baran, who did think about nuclear survivability of networks, proposed distributed network diagram, message blocks, and adaptive routing. (59-60) Barans second big idea was still more revolutionary. Fracture the messages too. By dividing each message into parts, you could flood the network with what he called message blocks, all racing over different paths to their destination. Upon their arrival, a receiving computer would reassemble the message bits into readable form. (61) What Baran envisioned was a network of unmanned switches, or nodes stand-alone computers, essentially that routed messages by employing what he called a self-learning policy at each node, without need for a central, and possibly vulnerable, control point.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (66) 20130223d 0 -10+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Davies motivated by matching network to characteristics of new computer-generated data traffic patterns. (66) The motivation that led Davies to conceive of a packet-switching network had nothing to do with the military concerns that had driven Baran. . . . The irregular, bursty characteristics of computer-generated data traffic did not fit well with the uniform channel capacity of the telephone system. Matching the network design to the new types of data traffic became his main motivation. (67) Davies choice of the word packet was very deliberate. . . .
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (73) 20130223f 0 -2+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Subnetworks with identical nodes leaving internetworking to what became the router and gateway devices. (73) The way Clark explained it, the solution was obvious: a subnetwork with small, identical nodes, all interconnected. (74) Clarks idea was to spare the hosts that extra burden and build a network of identical, nonshared computers dedicated to routing.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (131-132) 20130223j 0 -9+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Importance of unauthorized software tools by Kahn. (131-132) Heart scotched Kahns suggestion that they use a simulation. Heart hated to see his programming team spend time on simulations or on writing anything but operational code. They were already becoming distracted by something else he disliked building software tools. . . . So no one ever asked; they just did it, building tools when they thought it was the right thing to do, regardless of what Heart thought. This was software they would eventually need when the time came to test the system. All were customized pieces of programming, specifically designed for the ARPA project.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (139) 20130223k 0 -4+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Thrill of understanding power of loop to control execution of lengthy sequence with a few instructions underscores special feature of code empowering autonomous machines. (139) I remember being thrilled when I finally understood the concept of a loop, [Steve] Crockerrecalled, which enabled the computer to proceed with a very lengthy sequence of operations with only a relatively few instructions. (139) He majored in math but soon got hooked on serious computing. (143) The host-to-IMP interface had to be built from scratch each time a new site was established around a different computer model. Later, sites using the same model could purchase copies of the custom interface.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (144-145) 20130223l 0 -8+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html RFC initiated by Crocker set precedent for open cooperative means of evolving technical standards of protocological society (Galloway). (144-145) The language of the RFC was warm and welcoming. The idea was to promote cooperation, not ego. The fact that Crocker kept his ego out of the first RFC set the style and inspired others to follow suit in the hundreds of friendly and cooperative RFCs that followed. . . . For years afterward (and to this day) RFCs have been the principal means of open expression in the computer networking community, the accepted way of recommending, reviewing, and adopting new technical standards. (145) The RFC, a simple mechanism for distributing documentation open to anybody, had what Crocker described as a first-order effect on the speed at which ideas were disseminated, and on spreading the networking culture.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (145-146) 20130223m 0 -3+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Comparison between manuscript flyleaf (original Greek protocol) and packet header. (145-146) They very word protocol found its way into the language of computer networking based on the need for collective agreement among network users. For a long time the word has been used for the etiquette of diplomacy and for certain diplomatic agreements. But in ancient Greek, protokollonmeant the first leaf of a volume, a flyleaf attached to the top of a papyrus scroll that contained a synopsis of the manuscript, its authentification, and the date.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (146-147) 20130223n 0 -15+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Platform orientation shifting from mainframe master-slave hegemony to peers called for development of protocols; protocols like two-by-four of standardized, distributed construction the goal of Network Working Group. (146-147) The computers themselves were extremely egocentric devices. The typical mainframe of the period behaved as if it were the only computer in the universe. . . . Everything connected to the main computer performed a specific task, and each peripheral device was presumed to be ready at all times for a fetch-my-slippers type of command. (In computer parlance, this relationship is known as master-slave communication.) . . . The goal in devising the host-to-host protocol was to get the mainframe machines talking as peers, so that either side could initiate a simple dialogue and the other would be ready to respond with at least an acknowledgment of the other machines existence. (147) The computer equivalent of a two-by-four was what the Network Working Groupwas trying to invent. (147) The protocol design philosophy adopted by the NWG broke ground for what came to be widely accepted as the layered approach to protocols. (147) The job of the lower layer was simply to move generic unidentified bits, regardless of what the bits might define. (148) As the talks grew more focused, it was decided that the first two applications should be for remote log-ins and file transfers.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (154) 20130223o 0 -5+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Irony that first network program as a dumb terminal explained by observation that new technologies are typically promoted for their ability to do things we already understand, their content being other technologies. (154) There is no small irony in the fact that the first program used over the network was one that made the distant computer masquerade as a terminal. All that work to get two computers talking to each other and they ended up in the very same master-slave situation the network was supposed to eliminate. Then again, technological advances often begin with attempts to do something familiar. Researchers build trust in new technology by demonstrating that we can use it to do things we understand. (156-157) After another year of meetings and several dozen RFCs, in the summer of 1970 the group reemerged with a preliminary version of a protocol for basic, unadorned host-to-host communications.
4 1 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (164) 20130223q 0 -4+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Watchdog timer example of cybernetic self-corrective behavior. (164) Hearts team had designed the IMPs to run unattended as much as possible, bestowing on the IMPs the ability to restart by themselves after a power failure or crash. The watchdog timerwas the crucial component that triggered self-corrective measures in the IMPs. (168-169) One of the NCCs primary tasks was to issue software upgrades and reload IMP operating programs when necessary. The operators used a cleverly cooperative scheme by which every IMP downloaded the software from a neighbor.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (183) 20130223r 0 -7+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Remote computer chat between PARRY and Doctor. (183) Just a few weeks before the ICCC demonstration, PARRY indeed met the Doctor for an unusual conversation over the ARPANET, in an experiment orchestrated at UCLA. It perhaps marked the origin, in the truest sense, of all computer chat. There was no human intervention in the dialogue. PARRY was running at Stanfords artificial-intelligence lab, the Doctor was running on a machine at BBN, and at UCLA their input and output were cross-connected through the ARPANET, while the operators sat back and watched. (185-186) The ICCC demonstration did more to establish the viability of packet-switching than anything else before it. As a result, the ARPANET community gained a much larger sense of itself, its technology, and the resources at its disposal. For computer makers, there was the realization that a market might emerge.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (194) 20130223s 0 -4+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html E-mail as favorite hack of new network and element in evolution of management style. (194) Typically, Roberts would leave experts on the topic at hand, who in turn bounced the questions off their graduate students. Twenty-four hours and a flurry of e-mail later, the problem had usually been solved several times over. The way Larry worked was the quintessential argument in favor of a computer network, Lukasik said. (197) But because the struggle over e-mail standards was one of the first sources of real tension in the community, it stood out.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (205) 20130223t 0 -4+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Brain change through use of Vittal e-mail programs (Hayles synaptogenesis). (205) [John] Vittals MSG and his ANSWER command made him a legendary figure in e-mail circles. It was because of Vittal that we all assimilated network mail into our spinal cords, recalled Brian Reid. (205) More than just a great hack, MSG was the best proof to date that on the ARPANET rules might get made, but they certainly didnt prevail. Proclamations of officialness didnt further the Net nearly so much as throwing technology out onto the Net to see what worked.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (213) 20130223u 0 -3+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Misguided proposal for hybrid electronic message system by Carter administration. (213) By 1979, President Carter was supporting a post office proposal to offer a limited kind of electronic message service to the nation. The hybrid scheme worked more like a telegram service than a start-of-the-art electronic communication system. (213) The USPS, like AT&T earlier, never really broke free of the mindset guarding its traditional business, probably because both were monopolistic entities.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (215) 20130223v 0 -3+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html New cultural reference points developing in e-mail communities. (215) In many ways the ARPANET communitys basic values were traditional free speech, equal access, personal privacy. However, e-mail also was uninhibiting, creating reference points entirely its own, a virtual society, with manners, values, and acceptable behaviors the practice of flaming for example strange to the rest of the world. (215) The acidic attacks and level of haranguing unique to on-line communication, unacceptably asocial in any other context, was oddly normative on the ARPANET.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (247-248) 20130303 0 -1+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html TCP/IP developed in collaborative community of emerging protocological society where standards are discovered versus mandated (including open documentation, UNIX operating system, and Ethernet); OSI in bureaucratic committees of disciplinary society (proprietary, closed models). (247-248) Cerf and others argued that TCP/IP couldnt have been invented anywhere but in the collaborative research world, which was precisely what made it so successful, while a camel like OSI couldnt have been invented anywhere but in a thousand committees.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (253) 20130224a 0 -3+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Hierarchical tree-branching structure of domain name system becomes critical topic for Galloway. (253) Tree-branching was the guiding metaphor. Each address would have a hierarchical structure. From the trunk to the branches, and outward to the leaves, every address would include levels of information representing a progression, a smaller, more specific part of the network address.
4 1 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (254) 20130224b 0 -4+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Discovery of standards rather than decree as model for technological change. (254) By virtue of its quiet momentum, TCP/IP had prevailed over the official OSI standard. Its success provided an object lesson in technology and how it advances. Standards should be discovered, not decreed, said one computer scientist in the TCP/IP faction. (256) By the end of 1989, the ARPANET was gone.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (258) 20130224 0 -8+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Aspects of control society internet dividual influenced and reflected in personal styles of male participants featured in the book; noting attitude of releasing early and often while designing self correcting error tolerance represents risk taking profile that may be different from other styles, such as making fewer releases or that method of testing boundaries mentioned with respect to Tetris game playing studies. (258) The Net of the 1970s had long since been supplanted by something at once more sophisticated and more unwieldy. Yet in dozens of ways, the Net of 1994 still reflected the personalities and proclivities of those who built it. Larry Roberts kept laying pieces of the foundation to the great big rambling house that became the Internet. Frank Hearts pragmatic attitude toward technical invention build it, throw it out on the Net, and fix it if it breaks permeated Net sensibility for years afterward. Openness in the protocol process started with Steve Crockers first RFC for the Network Working Group, and continued into the Internet. While at DARPA, Bob Kahn made a conspicuous choice to maintain openness. Vint Cert gave the Net its civility. And the creators of the Net still ran the Internet Society and attended meetings of the Internet Engineering Task Force.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late (263) 20130303a 0 -8+ progress/2013/02/notes_for_hafner_lyon-where_wizards_stay_up_late.html Easy to engage in critical analysis of male concentration and harder to keep in mind that Imps are the logical predecessor to routers, not bothering to wonder whether students ought to stay them closely, and that money can be made both servicing the innards and using it for marketing other wares, which opens the space beyond this small set of initiators who were lucky to participate so directly. (263) The multiple paternity claims to the Internet (not only had each man been there at the start but each had made a contribution that he considered immeasurable) came out most noticeably that afternoon during a group interview with the Associated Press. . . . How about women? asked the reported, perhaps to break the silence. Are there any female pioneers? More silence.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (3) 20130930 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Definition of symbiosis as two different organisms living in intimate, beneficial union; surprising to think he was not familiar with Licklider using this term as well, instead quoting Wells and Huxley. (3) H. G. Wells and Julian Huxley in their book The Science of Lifedefine symbiosis as two organisms of different kinds living in intimate union and to the benefit of both.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (6) 20131103c 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Review of Von Neumann proposals: fully electronic, binary number system, internal memory, stored program, universal computer. (6) Von Neumann proposed that once should be able to store a set of instructions within the internal memory of the machine so that the computer could go from step to step by consulting its own memory without waiting for human interference. Such a set of instructions is now known as a program, and the ability to program computers has been the single major breakthrough that differentiates a modern computer from an old-fashioned business machine. (6) Of course all the electronic components that von Neumann proposed some twenty-five years ago are now hopelessly out of date, but even the most complex modern machine is based on the principles that he outlined at that time. He was a prophet in predicting the impact of modern computers, but even he underestimated the rapid growth of electronic technology and therefore failed to anticipate the incredible increase in computing power and the impact that the computer would have within a generation.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (15) 20130307a 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Important differentiating features of computers are speed of operations and size of addressable memory; reliability assumed although earlier forms were so unreliable as to preclude increasing speed or memory extent; speed, addressability and ultimate capacity are contours of computer species alien phenomenology. (15) Reliability of electronic components has improved even more rapidly than the size and speed of machines, so that the probability of a single error in an entire day of operations is much smaller today than it was fifteen years ago.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (17) 20130307b 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Would relieve criticism if a future version of an otherwise exemplary work dealt with putative but hopefully harmless male bias. (17) One cant help reaching the conclusion that it is more efficient to use a human being as the computers partner than to spend many years trying to teach the computer a talent for which it is not well suited. (17) We seem to be able to do it through mysterious processes of association that no one has duplicated on a computer. (18) Men also have mysterious talents which are vaguely described as intuition and creativity.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (18) 20130307c 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Familiar differentiation of human tasks and machine tasks misses opportunity of computers to monitor themselves noted by Hafner and Lyon. (18) Man should decide the best use of computers. Man should set the goals and tell the computer how to work toward them. It is best for man to monitor the work of the computer so that he may use his powers of intuition and evaluation to guide it in its work.
4 1 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (21) 20130307d 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Although not referencing Licklider worth checking whether Licklider believed or was cognizant of the potential of time sharing to radically transform the human computer symbiosis as he conceived it, by greatly impacting communication between humans and machines. (21) During the 1960s a fundamental change occurred in the relationship of man to computer. This new relationship is known technically as time sharing. . . . It is only through this new development that a true symbiotic relationship between man and computers is possible.
4 1 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (22) 20130307e 0 -9+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Curious that inefficiency of batch processing from human point of view mirrored in relationship between teachers and students, relationships between the same species. (22) The shortcoming of batch processing is the simple fact that most computer runs do not result in the solution to a problem, but in the detection of errors or in the printing of completely wrong answers. . . . However, if each such trial run delayed the user by twenty-four hours, it typically took two or three weeks for him to produce a correct program. . . . While batch processing is completely efficient from the point of view of keeping the machine busy at all times, it is most inefficient from the human point of view.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (23) 20131103 0 -5+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Perceived affordance of having individual access to a computer recapitulates benefits of private reading. (23) What he would like is to have a computer of his own, which he can use privately at his own convenience, correcting his ten to twenty errors in one session and not quitting until he has obtained his results. (23) In a time-sharing system a hundred individuals all use the same computer at the same time, in complete privacy, and enjoy the illusion that the computers sole purpose is to help them. The goal is accomplished by using the tremendous differential in speed between the computer and man to allow the computer to process simultaneously a hundred different requests. The result is great efficiency in computer use, with a vastly different effect on human beings. An accidental but all important by-product of time sharing is man-machine communication.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (24) 20130307f 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Compare this discussion of the workings of an actual computer to instrument of Burks, Goldstine and von Neumann or ARPANET by Hafner and Lyon: both are more concrete then Turing beyond the interlocutor obfuscating interface; the DTSS diagram shows many user terminals sharing a communications computer, which alone (rather than each individual user, as in the IMP network design) connects to the central processor and high-speed memory, whereas input and output peripherals and bulk memory fill out the Burks, Goldstine and von Neumann model. (24) The terminal is linked to the computation center through an ordinary telephone line and therefore its location is irrelevant.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (28) 20130307h 0 -9+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Affordance now taken for granted of having third party applications ready at hand so they do not have to be programmed by the user may have covered over entry to direct participation in formation of problem solving space to participation in selection of arranged options where the control programs are not directly modified by any of the library users. (28) Most of the bulk memory, however, is available for the storage of user programs. . . . In addition, the bulk memory has available a large collection of library programs which any user may call upon to solve a variety of standard problems. . . . This brings a variety of mathematical techniques within the grasp of a user who would not have been able to write these programs himself.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (29) 20130307i 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Kemeny ranks learnability of BASIC over FORTRAN over machine language; natural machine language is the overly predetermined but more importantly unthinkable for which Ong resists, and would likely dismiss FORTRAN as well, but higher level languages like C++ may be on par with other second languages. (29) Built into computers is a language known as machine language. It is a natural language for an electronic computer since each instruction corresponds to simple electronic circuitry, but it is most unnatural for a human being to learn.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (30) 20130307k 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Machine language for few, FORTRAN for many, BASIC for everyone college educated now via user interfaces removes requirement to learn how to program in order to usefully use (the reason Turkle shifted from studying learning programming by the small population that did so to general use by orders of magnitude larger populations), rendering programming competence no longer a required component of intelligent human being. (30) While the availability of FORTRAN extended computer usage from a handful of experts to thousands of scientific users, we at Dartmouth envisaged the possibility of millions of people writing their own computer programs. Therefore, we decided to design a new computer language that would be accessible to typical college students. This is how the language called BASIC was created.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (30) 20130307l 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Boast that Dartmouth freshmen can begin programming after listening to a few lectures and reading a short manual. (30) Dartmouth freshmen listen to two one-hour lectures and then read a short manual. Before the end of the first week of the course, the typical student is able to write at least one usable program. (30-31) Each student, during a ten-week term, must write four text programs entirely on his own and work on them until they are errorless. . . .
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (32) 20130307m 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Privacy to make mistakes key to learning, which is why so many learned at home as my prior interview data suggests: imagine contests like achieving results of ten week university term or initial week training session applied to language of your choice. (32) This psychological factor is of overwhelming importance. While many students could have mastered computers even without this guaranteed privacy, most faculty members would have refused to expose themselves to the embarrassment of publicly committing hundreds of mistakes before they became experts.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (33) 20130307n 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Amusing to think where this measure would be expressed now that the capitalist market pervades everyday computer use. (33) It is not surprising that the departments of mathematics, natural sciences, and engineering are all heavy users of the computation center. More unexpectedly, however, the heaviest users are actually the students in business administration and some of the social sciences.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (33) 20130307o 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Freedom zero to run software for any reason in the program library environment considered like human library with further freedoms due to nondestructive nature, up to the point that too many resources are being used. (33) Just as any student may go in and browse the library, or check out any book he wishes without asking for permission or explaining why he wants that particular book, he may use the computation center without asking permission or explaining why he is running a particular program.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (34) 20130307p 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Opportunities for big humanities as faculty quickly adapted to using computers by outsourcing implementation to underlings. (34) A large number of undergraduate and graduate students have lucrative computer-programming assistantships in which they help faculty members on research projects. (34) The computer library contains a wide variety of games, most of them written by students.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (35) 20130307q 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Fear of embarrassment of not knowing how to use absent digital natives, who play lots of locally modified games available in the library, a sort of local culture surrounding DTSS rather than discrete physical human communication spaces and places. (35) But, more importantly, for many inexperienced users the opportunity of playing games against a computer is a major factor in removing psychological blocks that frighten the average human being away from free use of machines.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (37) 20130307r 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Networked human team with single computer only a dream; today realized with networks of humans and computers in LANs and global Internet. (37) A number of educational uses of this multiteletype hookup, such as business games and small group experiments, have been considered, but so far we have only the vaguest impressions as to the full power of a team consisting of several human beings and a computer.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (41) 20130307s 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Scale of resources available for general use on DTSS dwarfs anything proposed by von Neumann, although even its multiteletype hookup today exceeded many orders of magnitude by Internet capabilities, yet still abysally short of UTM: the materiality of code is expansive. (41) Nearly 20 million words are reserved for copies of all systems programs, for the library programs, for the user catalogs, and for large data bases. That leaves more than 40 million words for user programs.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (42) 20130307t 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Ambiguous ordering of executive system as it seems from a real time, time sharing perspective editing, listing and saving as user commands beyond ordinary execution would be more important: perhaps the other direction makes sense only in terms of gross CPU time spent doing everything; then again, it matters how many programs were typically executing, for users spent most of their time editing them; they were not constantly running along with them they way things do now in the distributed application world with which we communicate. (42) The executive system carried out about one command per second, most of which fell into the following categories, given in order of importance: 1. Execute the program 2. Create a new program or retrieve an old one 3. Save a program 4. Give me a listing of my program 5. Perform an editorial function.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (42) 20130307v 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html The ubiquitous mobile device fulfills prediction, although what is not stated is that nontrivial cost ranges will exist nonetheless, in part because his prediction that government would spend more on programming education turned out to be wrong. (42) But anyone can acquire a private terminal in his home, and an hour of terminal time a day, at the cost of maintaining a luxury car. Within the next two decades the price will undoubtedly come downto a level which will make computer terminals in the home quite common.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (46-47) 20130307x 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Human struggle to grasp machine perspective, which Bogost calls alien phenomenology. (46-47) If the reader will now substitute computers for human beings, human beings for the more intelligent creatures and reduce the time scale by a million, he will understand the computers point of view about time sharing.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (57) 20130310 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Makes explicit philosophical pronouncement that we can question or put on the back burner to move forward with working code rather than social critique, is socialism required to achieve utopia where most people program, also being subsumed by floss (this will toward more government spending to maximize extent of everyone working code). (57) I would like to see a fundamental change in philosophy on the part of both government and business. Both should be willing to spend more to make life better and easier for everyone. Indeed, this will be a major theme throughout the remainder of this book. Only when such a philosophy is adopted generally can we look forward to a time when the average human being will look at the computer as a friend rather than a foe.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (64) 20130310b 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Interesting design constraint differentiating phenomena that can occur in the heart of the CPU versus at a distance, based on the real time requirements of the nanosecond process cycle. (64) Light travels one foot in a nanosecond. Therefore a computer that is to have a basic cycle time of one nanosecond must be able to send the signal from any point in the machine to any other point without traveling more than a foot.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (66) 20130310c 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Today this is the basic home computer whose price is at an all time low, setting up multiplied dissemination for beyond college students envisioned by Kemeny half a century ago. (66) I see absolutely no reason why a very reliable computer terminal could not be manufactured to see for the price of a black-and-white television set. This will be necessary if computers are to be brought into the home.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (74) 20130310f 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Shifted expectation that instructors would develop their own programs for teaching, perhaps echoing past assumption they would publish their own textbooks. (74) Given such a large time-sharing system CAI [Computer-Aided Instruction] will be as good as the instructors program can make it.
4 1 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (74) 20130310g 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html That we have swallowed this dual assumption today points to the subsumption of human intellect into collective consciousness entangled with the machines: recall prior arguments about material specific advantages of spiral bound manuals and other forms of programming instruction noted by critical code studies theorists (Montfort et al). (74) These are, first, that the computer is a very expensive substitute for a book, and, second, that it is a very poor substitute for a teacher.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (87) 20130313a 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Instead of this library, which includes a fee, we got the commercial Internet: is this an aspect of how we have unintentionally subverted better intentions for the human computer symbiosis, as here they problems of storage, search, transmission; also consider Janz on problems using search for philosophical questions. (87) Once information is stored in machine-readable form, and a substantial time-sharing system is made part of the automated library, the entire problem of searching for relevant information takes on a new dimension. For the first time there would be hope that the scholar who is interested in the available knowledge on a specialized topic could systematically search all the available literature and find the items that are useful for his work.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (90) 20130313b 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Continuous film photographic storage like Bush Memex that will likely be digitized foreshadowing media convergence; at least store abstracts (metadata) in machine-readable forms in high speed memory. (90) If the miniaturized images were stored on a medium that is physically similar to the magnetic tape used with modern computers, the 1000 volumes could then be stored on approximately 150 feet of tape, which can be positioned by existing devices to any one of the thousand volumes in just a few seconds.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (92) 20130313c 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Instead of a conversational partner we got big business advertisement driven search. (92) Considerable research will have to be devoted to the question of how such a conversational mode program can be written and how one can impart enough intelligence to the computer to enable it to be a truly efficient partner in search.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (94-95) 20130313d 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html On demand printing exactly what has happened though many more storage locations of copies due to abundance of secondary storage and bandwidth: recall importance of designing network to accommodate new transmission patterns unpredictably arising with digital technologies but originally noticed to be bursty, high download small upload quantities. (94-95) Instead of publishing books and articles in large editions, most copies of which are never read, one copy of an article could be filed in the national library (or one in each branch library) and additional copies printed when somebody actually expressed an interest in reading the article.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (97) 20130314a 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Better measure of readership feedback for authors. (97) Since there would be a user fee imposed for each transmission, part of the fee could be turned back to the author in the form of royalties. (This system would be similar to that of paying royalties for phonograph records used in broadcasting.) A not insignificant benefit from this procedure would be the fact that authors would get an accurate picture of how much their work is read.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (98) 20130314b 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Fear of dangers inherent in single federal national library today more likely actualized by corporate codes (Lessig). (98) Without proper safeguards, a national reference library operated by the federal government could become a dangerous weapon for the suppression of undesirable knowledge.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (103) 20130316 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Disadvantage of costly reprogramming batch processing systems because they were not designed and originally programmed under new programming styles emerging with time-sharing systems, anticipating uses of computers performed by popular applications with diminished programming requirements nearing conversational or button pressing ease of user interfaces, focusing on symbiosis rather than default system perspective or programmer convenience (Norman DOET). (103) But they were not designed for research purposes, and one of the greatest disadvantages of a batch-processing systemis the fact that reprogramming it is so time-consuming and costly.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (104) 20130413 0 -12+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html The discovery of this fact of new affordances advantaging time-sharing over batch, and the free open source option over proprietary, changes digital humanities research along with rest of built environment and humans multiple times. (104) Once the data are in convenient form, even if none of the existing programs will do the job, in a time-sharing system it is not difficult to write a new program to carry out a particular research project. . . . This conversion process will change student records from a bookkeeping system into a management information system. (105) [Herbert] Simons thesis is that a good information system should provide us, not with as much information as possible, but with the least information that servers our need. (105) The purpose of a well-designed management information system is not to provide a great volume of information. The job of the computer is to store this great amount of information and to provide summaries to management as they are requested or when the computer spots certain danger signals that the management has asked to have monitored. . . . The computer should also be able to provide summary information in any form requested, not simply in the form that some computer programmer thought would be convenient.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (107) 20130413a 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Collaboration between manager and programmer and desire for flexible design avoiding obsolescence and inviting future extension. (107) This requires that the management explain to the system designer the kind of information desired and the form in which it needs to be supplied. It also requires that the designer have sufficient imagination not to be bound entirely by the needs of the present day but to devise a system that is flexible enough for future needs.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (108) 20130413b 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Modeling by programming. (108) What top management needs for long-range planning and effective decision-making is a model of the operation of the company. By a model I mean a theoretical description of how the company functions. This may consist of a set of formulas, or it could be in the form of a computer program. (110) The difficulty in constructing such a model is not a shortcoming of computers, or the problem of writing a sufficiently sophisticated program, but our lack of understanding of how an institution operates.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (110-111) 20130413c 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Origins of data-driven organizational modeling replacing intuitive misconceptions (Forrester); symbiote optimal when computers provide summary information for humans to make value judgments. (110-111) [Jay] Forresterhas demonstrated conclusively that intuition is a very poor substitute for a thorough understanding of the operation of a complex social system. (111) Therefore the value judgments must be left up to human beings, but in the future these can be made after knowing all the relevant facts and all the consequences, both short range and long range, or a proposed course of action.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (114-115) 20130413d 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Anticipates the symbiote will mostly constitute communication, which requires less processing capacity than raw computation, although network protocols replace assumptions of slow character rate transmissions of readable text like personalized newspapers. (114-115) The vast majority of users on DTSS will use 4 seconds or less of computing time in a 15-to-20-minute session. Even that is too high an average figure, since once there are millions of customers, the applications are likely to be heavily oriented toward communication rather than computation. (115) But can the cost be brought down to a level at which the average home can afford to have a terminal? (116) I therefore visualize nine regional centers initially, each with twenty processors, serving a total of three million customers. (116) There is certainly an advantage in having more than one, since competition can improve the quality of service. On the other hand, having as many as ten national networks would confuse the average user and make each network less useful to him.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (119) 20130413e 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Combination cultural and technical convention dividing television screen newspaper into frames becomes new basis for writing as example of intertwined technogenesis and synaptogenesis induced from habitual use (Hayles). (119) Many terminals now have a display screen similar to a television screen. These can show roughly five paragraphs, or about one-third of a column of newsprint. Let us call such a unit a frame. Reporters would write their stories in frames. (119) I estimate that all the news in the daily New York Timescould be contained in five hundred frames. (120) I would estimate that they typical reader would be interested in some twenty news stories a day and would want to look at one, two, or three frames for each one.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (121) 20130413f 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Predicted roles of advertisements and network providers half correct; instead of separate networks like television networks, global Internet more like highway and telephone systems. (121) The computer network would charge the user for various services and could pay a royalty to the Timesfor each access by a user. . . . If that did not suffice, the newspaper retrieval program could be so written that between frames it presented ads. However, I would then hope that by paying an extra fee I would have the option of eliminating all advertisements.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (124-125) 20130413g 0 -5+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Stereotypical middle class family roles maintained and reinforeced while transformed by home terminals; suggests male and female roles may reverse but does not elaborate on how or why. (124-125) Mother can do most of her shopping through a computer terminal. . . . If by 1990 the roles of man and woman have been completely reversed, the computer terminal will be equally happy to work out business problems for mother and to help father with his shopping and housework.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (125) 20130413h 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Predicts Turkle alone together and passive recreation; enforces orderly, lawful social activities of docile bodies. (125) Children will find the home terminal an immeasurable asset in doing homework. . . . After he or she completes all homework assignments, the computer terminal can serve as a major resource for recreation. Not only will the computer play a wide variety of games with the user but it can monitor multiperson games with each player sitting in his own home.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (126) 20131103i 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Acknowledges inability to predict future uses. (126) My list is likely to be deficient precisely because all these suggestions are already within the realm of possibility. I have made no provision for a multiplicity of new applications that will become reality within the next generation.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (132) 20130413j 0 -10+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Controllable randomness becomes rational concept for simulation, transitioning from purely negative connotations in 10 PRINT. (132) A great advantage of a computer simulation model is the fact that chance events can be built into it. . . . The computer model will then produce such accidents with the right frequency but at totally unpredictable random moments, just the way they actually occur. (133-134) Some excellent examples of the use of computer models for social planning are found in the work of Jay Forrester. . . . Such problems are ideal illustrations for the main theme of the book that man working in partnership with a computer can achieve vastly more than either can achieve on his own.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (134) 20130413k 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Social analyst bridges specific disciplines and technical knowledge for research design, echoed in digital humanities; compare to McGann poiesis as theory and Applen McDaniel theorist practitioner. (134) I see the need for the development of a new type of professional, one who might perhaps be called a social analyst.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (136) 20130413l 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Examples of computerized simulation and control tasks impossible for humans to accomplish alone is strongest argument for fostering symbiosis. (136) Due to certain unpredictable forces in such a chain reaction, the control must be done with split-second accuracy in order to sustain the chain reaction but prevent a nuclear explosion. No human being could possibly carry out this task, but a human-designed computer system handles it with great efficiency. Similarly, the control of traffic is beyond the capabilities of even a large number of police since they could never evaluate the total pattern fast enough to take effective action.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (138) 20130413m 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Proposed national development agency aiming for portable, reusable solutions: what happened is the story of modern technological society; compare to development of FLOSS. (138) The federal agency could insist that all systems developed under its auspices would be usable on the hardware of any computer manufacturer that is willing to meet a few federally set standards. The program could be written in one of several generally accepted computer languages and use simple conventions to tie in with computer memories and control devices.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (140) 20130413n 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Compare this theoretical vision of an information society to Castells. (140) It is my thesis that the traditional role of cities as centers of manufacture and trade has changed to a role in which the primary purpose of cities is as a center for the collection and exchange of information and the carrying out of paper transactions. Perhaps the most dramatic example is the stock market.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (141) 20130413o 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Failed prediction that ubiquitous use of videophones and transformation of employment patterns. (141) I predict that a dramatic effect on the pattern of employment and location of offices will come about by the widespread use of video telephones. . . . We could still see each others facial expressions, establish rapport, and share written documents or pictures, without having to leave our homes or offices. (141) A second major reason for going to the office is the fact that that is where the files are.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (141-142) 20130413p 0 -8+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Failed prediction that human assistants would continue to serve knowledge workers due to ease of use of technological systems and migration of duties. (141-142) That leaves only the last consideration, that of being where ones secretary and assistants are. . . . But I will still find it more pleasant and more efficient to give my request to a human secretary who knows the peculiarities of the system rather than to battle with it myself. (142) As long as that office is equipped with several video-phones and terminals giving access to one or more national computer networks, its exact location is irrelevant. (143) It is my conviction that if the need for millions of people to rush in and out of the city every working day is removed, we would be well on our way to a solution of urban problems. What exactly would be the role of the central city?
4 1 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKkemeny-man_and_computer (144) 20130413q 0 -9+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_kemeny-man_and_computer.html Compare symbiotic evolution to Hayles. (144) Given the rate of human reproduction, a century is much too short a period for the usual forces of evolution and natural selection to bring about a significant change. Our best hope therefore lies in a new kind of evolutionary process which I have called symbiotic evolution. (144) The existence of computer-communication networks will enable human beings at widely separated locations to function as a team. The vast capabilities of computer memories will enable use to make effective use of the explosion of human information and knowledge. (144-145) However, this evolutionary development is only possible if man is willing to make drastic changes in his life style and in his conception of his own goals. . . . Since it is unlikely that any educational system can provide a training that will see us through a lifetime, we may have to devise a system in which learning continues throughout ones productive life.
4 1 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKlevy-insanely_great (39) 20140113 0 -9+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_levy-insanely_great.html Engelbart felt it was logical windows based systems would take over the computing world, despite failure of Augment. (39) Windows are really quite profound. Using them implicitly reshapes our relationship to information itself. (46) By the time I wound up in Engelbarts pathetic cubicle in 1983, his creation, now dubbed Augment, was one of several office-automation systems Tymshare offered. . . . He talked as if his system, not the evolutions of it like the Lisa and the upcoming Macintosh, was going to take over the world. It was logical to him that is should. Here, he seemed to say, just watch.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKmanovich-software_takes_command (94) 20130824d 0 -6+ progress/2012/03/notes_for_manovich-software_takes_command.html Kay like Kemeny does philosophy of programming. (94) This democratization of software development was at the core of Kays vision. Kay was particularly concerned with how to structure programming tools in such a way that would make development of media software possible for ordinary users. (94) This means that the idea that a new medium gradually finds its own language cannot apply to computer media. If this were true it would go against the very definition of a modern digital computer. This theoretical argument is supported by practice. The history of computer media so far has not been about arriving at some standardized language as, for instance, happened with cinema but rather about the gradual expansion of uses, techniques, and possibilities.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKpapert-mindstorms (viii) 20101212 0 -4+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_papert-mindstorms.html Go back to Plato relating different types of rhetoric to different types of souls, with computer as Proteus machine satisfying a wider range. (viii) My thesis could be summarized as: What the gears cannot do the computer might. The computer is the Proteus of machines. Its essence is its universality, its power to simulate. Because it can take on a thousand forms and can serve a thousand functions, it can appeal to a thousand tastes.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKpapert-mindstorms (3) 20131007 0 -1+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_papert-mindstorms.html How computers may affect the way people think and learn borders texts and technology studies territories, such as examining reciprocal relationship with tutor texts, manuals, and other documentation. (3) I shall be talking about how computers may affect the way people think and learn.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKpapert-mindstorms (5) 20130909 0 -3+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_papert-mindstorms.html His theory is to reverse trend of computer programming the child and let children learn mastery and intimate contact with intellectual tradition by programming. (5) In many schools today, the phrase computer-aided instruction means making the computer teach the child. One might say the computer is being used to programthe child. In my vision, the child programs the computerand, in doing so, both acquires a sense of mastery over a piece of the most modern and powerful technology and establishes an intimate contact with some of the deepest ideas from science, from mathematics, and from the art of intellectual model building.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (56) 20131012e 0 -3+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Open is weaker criterion than free because licensing agreements vary in what can be done with it. (56) The official definition of open source software, as published by the Open Source Initiative, is very close to our definition of free software; however, it is a little looser in some respects, and they have accepted a few licenses that we consider unacceptably restrictive of the users. However, the obvious meaning for the expression open source software is You can look at the source code. This is a much weaker criterion than free software; it includes free software, but also includes semi-free programs such as Xv, and even some proprietary programs, including Qt under its original license (before the QPL).
4 1 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (57) 20131012f 0 -5+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Must learn to appreciate value of freedom above practical advantage, treating freedom as key criterion in selecting which software to use and how to use it. (57) Sooner or later these users will be invited to switch back to proprietary software for some practical advantage. Countless companies seek to offer such temptation, and why would users decline? Only if they have learned to value the freedom free software gives them, for its own sake. It is up to us to spread this idea and in order to do that, we have to talk about freedom. A certain amount of the keep quiet approach to business can be useful for the community, but we must have plenty of freedom talk too.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (102) 20131012j 0 -4+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Danger of software patents because large corporations cross-license to avoid patent disputes, making it harder for small companies to compete or even take a claim to court for fear of countersuit. (102) The mega-corporations avoid, for the most part, the harm of the patent system; they see mainly the good side. That is why they want to have software patents: they are the ones who will benefit from it. But if you are a small inventor or work for a small company, the small company will not be able to do this. They try.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (122) 20131012l 0 -2+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Software should be free because material harm has concomitant psychosocial harm: from obstruction by restrictions on distribution and modification include fewer people using, inability to adapt or fix, unable to learn or base new work upon it. (122) Each level of material harm has a concomitant form of psychosocial harm. This refers to the effect that peoples decisions have on their subsequent feelings, attitudes, and predispositions.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (123) 20131012n 0 -1+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Software should be free because social cohesion damaged by licenses prohibiting sharing something useful and good with neighbors; equivocating sharing with attacking ships leads to cynicism or denial in programmers knowing most users will not be allowed to use their work. (123) Signing a typical software license agreement means betraying your neighbor: I promise to deprive my neighbor of this program so that I can have a copy for myself.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (125) 20131012o 0 -7+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Software should be free because of psychosocial harm to spirit of self-reliance because knowledgeable users cannot fix problems themselves due to lack of access to source code: recipe example for reducing salt content. (125) The system programmers at the AI Lab were capable of fixing such problems, probably as capable as the original authors of the program. Xerox was uninterested in fixing them, and chose to prevent us, so we were forced to accept the problems. They were never fixed. (125) Most good programmers have experienced this frustration. The bank could afford to solve the problem by writing a new program from scratch, but a typical user, no matter how skilled, can only give up. (125) Giving up causes psychosocial harm to the spirit of self-reliance. It is demoralizing to live in a house that you cannot rearrange to suit your needs.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (126) 20131012p 0 -10+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Software should be free because otherwise education and innovation restricted to corporate boundaries, similar to harm to spirit of scientific cooperation when too few papers are published to repeat experiments. (126) In any intellectual field, one can reach greater heights by standing on the shoulders of others. But that is no longer generally allowed in the software field you can only stand on the shoulders of the other people in your own company. (126) The associated psychosocial harm affects the spirit of scientific cooperation, which used to be so strong that scientists would cooperate when their countries were at war. In this spirit, Japanese oceanographers abandoning their lab on an island in the Pacific carefully preserved their work for the invading U.S. Marines, and left a note asking them to take good care of it. (126) Conflict for profit has destroyed what international conflict spared. Nowadays scientists in many fields dont publish enough in their papers to enable others to replicate the experiment. They public only enough to let readers marvel at how much they were able to do. This is certainly true in computer science, where the source code for the programs reported on is usually secret.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (126) 20131108a 3 -4+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Irony in comparing deliberate preservation of Japanese oceanographic lab by invading US Marines to capitalist businesses by Nazis noted by Black. (126) In this spirit, Japanese oceanographers abandoning their lab on an island in the Pacific carefully preserved their work for the invading U.S. Marines, and left a note asking them to take good care of it. (126) Conflict for profit has destroyed what international conflict spared.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (136) 20131012q 0 -4+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Copyright considered a trade off between natural right to make copies and benefit of more material being published; compare to Lessig. (136) This changing context changes the way copyright law works. You see, copyright law no longer acts as an industrial regulation; it is now a draconian restriction on a general public. It used to be a restriction on publishers for the sake of authors. Now, for practical purposes, its a restriction on a public for the sake of publishers.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (137) 20131012r 0 -2+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Losing freedoms from age of printing press including lending to friends, borrowing from library, selling to a used bookstore, and anonymity related to transactions. (137) The reason is that e-books are the opportunity to take away some of the residual freedoms that readers of printed books have always had and still have the freedom, for instance, to lend a book to your friend, to borrow it from the public library, or sell a copy to a used bookstore, or buy a copy anonymously without putting a record in the database of who bought that particular book. And maybe even the right to read it twice.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (138) 20131012s 0 -20+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html US using same methods as Soviets: watching copying equipment, harsh punishments, informers, collective responsibility, propaganda, using robot guards; Lessig code is law. (138) However, the U.S. is not the first country to make a priority of this [preventing forbidden copying like the DeCSS algorithm]. The Soviet Union treated it as very important. There, unauthorized copying and redistribution was known as Samizdat, and to stamp it out, they developed a series of methods: First, guards watching every piece of copying equipment to check what people were copying to prevent forbidden copying. Second, harsh punishments for anyone caught doing forbidden copying you could be sent to Siberia. Third, soliciting informers, asking everyone to rat on their neighbors and coworkers to the information police. Fourth, collective responsibility. . . . And, fifth, propaganda, starting in childhood, to convince everyone that only a horrible enemy of the people would ever do this forbidden copying. (138) The U.S. is using all these measures now. First, guards watching copying equipment. Well, in copy stores, they have human guards to check what you copy. But human guards to watch what you copy in your computer would be too expensive; human labor is too expensive. So they have robot guards. Thats the purpose of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (148) 20131012t 0 -5+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html When arguing for free licenses, distinguish between functional works such as computer software and non-functional works such as personal thoughts and entertainment. (148) But for non-functional works, one thing doesnt substitute for another. Lets look at a functional kind of work say, a word processor. Well, if somebody makes a free word processor, you can use that; you dont need the non-free word processor. But I wouldnt say that one free song substitutes for all the non-free songs or that one free novel substitutes for all the non-free novels. For those kinds of works, its different.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (177-178) 20131012w 0 -3+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Freedom issue does not arise for 90 percent of software development, which is used solely in house. (177-178) If theres only one user, and that user owns the rights, theres no problem. That user is free to do all these things. So, in effect, any custom program that was developed by one company for use in-house is free software, as long as they have the sense to insist on getting the source code and all the rights.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (214) 20070614 0 0+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Stallman differentiates freedom as a criterion (moral value, ethic) from mere practicality, and makes the point that there is a gap in documentation because of restrictive licenses of publishers like Oreilly: obviously manuals are open, although perhaps from a source perspective the printed manual is like object code; surely a profitable printing enterprise can exist where efficiency and economy of scale allows for FOS licenses to govern documentation as well. (214)
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKstallman-free_software_free_society (214) 20130614 0 0+ progress/2007/06/notes_for_stallman-free_software_free_society.html Noted in previous readings or from experience of meeting him that Stallman seems ambivalent on the need to make all texts free like all software, not just texts containing software program language source code; interpreting this phenomenon in terms of philosophical concepts that the former are destined to be ultimately consumed by humans, the latter by machines, about whose thoughts humans cannot fully grasp and should therefore not prejudice, suggested a deep ethic of respect for otherness of machine intelligence in not restricting usage through four freedoms. (214)
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKtorvalds-just_for_fun (ix) 20131025 0 -5+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_torvalds-just_for_fun.html Acknowledgment that revolutionaries get stuck with telling their story when what they caused is significant. (ix) Not only was it the most common operating system running server computers dishing out all the content on the World Wide Web, but its very development model an intricate web of its own, encompassing hundreds of thousands of volunteer computer programmers had grown to become the largest collaborative project in the history of the world. (x) Revolutionaries arent born. Revolutions cant be planned. Revolutions cant be managed. Revolutions happen.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKtorvalds-just_for_fun (xviii) 20131025a 1 -5+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_torvalds-just_for_fun.html Linus version of Maslow hierarchy of needs reduced to survival, social order, entertainment; recalling the desire of a tenured professor at the pinnacle of his career only seeking laughter and applause. (xviii) It wont give your life any meaning, but it tells you whats going to happen. There are three things that have meaning for life. They are the motivational factors for everything in your life for anything that you do or any living thing does: The first is survival, the second is social order, and the third is entertainment. Everything in life progresses in that order. And there is nothing after entertainment.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKtorvalds-just_for_fun (7) 20131024b 2 -4+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_torvalds-just_for_fun.html Commodore VIC-20 ready-made personal computer that was immediately ready to program, and without other applications, affording learning programming. (7) You just plugged it into the TV and turned it on, and there it sat, with a big all-caps READY at the top of the screen and a big blinking cursor just waiting for you to do something. (7) The big problem was that there really wasnt that much to do no the thing. Especially early on, when the infrastructure for commercial programs hadnt yet started to materialize. The only thing you could really do was to program it in BASIC.
4 1 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKtorvalds-just_for_fun (7-8) 20131025b 0 -4+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_torvalds-just_for_fun.html Quintessential early PC experience typing in programs from manuals without really knowing what they did, experiencing ability to make changes to the behavior of the program. (7-8) And I started reading the manuals for the computer, typing in the example programs. There were examples of simple games that you could program yourself. If you did it right you would up with a guy that walked across the screen, in bad graphics, and then you could change it and make the guy walk across the screen in different colors. You could just do that.
4 1 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (242-244) 20131108d 0 -1+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Allusion to goal of automatic programming, ease of use, and trustworthiness in unnamed university planning paper. (242-244) [quoting unnamed planning paper by director of major university computer laboratory] The importance of the role stems, as has been noted, from the fact that the computer has been incorporating itself, and will surely continue to incorporate itself, into most of the functions that are fundamental to the support, protection, and development of our society.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKbork-journal 20140625 20140625b 6 -29+ journal_2014.html Watch lost Steve Jobs interview by Cringley and think it belongs in scope of dissertation analysis; the whole thing could be injected into chapter four. Note quasi scientific confirmation that fantasy tone generator was real. Jobs describes once in an epoch blue boxing pranks inspiring computer design philosophy. Built terminal and Apple one as two projects with Wozniak. Good description of printed circuit board whose affordances permitted daring experiments, funded by their microbus and other object back. Ambitions for Apple two color graphics by Woz and supplying software hobbyists ready to program units by Jobs. Fantastic booth at West Coast Computer Fair where it debuted after retired Markele joined could also be place to play a game that can be thought in a special way at the point all copyrights expire for the content supplying its run time engine. Recall the tapoc software can regulate appearance or concealment of programmed quotation by adjusting its relevance. Jobs suggests everyone in the country learns to program because like going to law school it teaches you to think; views computer science as a liberal art, taking a course learning to program. Blinded by graphical user interface over networked desktops made obvious all computers would use such interfaces. Discusses mistakes companies use trying to replicate past successes at larger scale by emphasizing process over content; group of employees largely from HP missed content understanding produced Lisa, which was mismatch for image of company selling affordable units. Macintosh team on mission from God to save Apple reinventing everything from manufacturing with automated facility. Spent four years building one targeted at 2500 instead of desired 1000 dollars, better than failure Gates notes of IBM OS/2 project. Claims Scully has disease of mistakenly thinking ninety percent of great projects are inspiring idea, failing to consider thousands of concepts that must be kept together to get what you want, the low cost, high performance, artistically designed humanist machine. Passionate teamwork like polishing rocks getting beautiful stones from ordinary materials. Difference between average and best software is fifty to one where ten to twenty to one for most other things, making self policing pockets of A players rejecting all lower talents. Do not have to baby egos of people who know they are really good, so saying their work is shit a corrective gesture because the work is not good enough for the goals of the team. Interviewer wants to know how and why desktop publishing chosen, which became killer app, a term used by Gates. Claims Macintosh team also envisioned networked office ahead of its time when desktop publishing should have been adequate focus, leading to departure in 1985 for which Jobs blames Scully and second guesses his wisdom in hiring him, unable to run a two billion dollar company handle contraction of PC marketplace though good business survival sense from working at Pepsi. Apple on glideslope to die that is not reversible at time of interview because Apple stood still watching Microsoft catch up, its differentiation eroding, its research and development efforts failing to understand how to move things forward and create new products. Claims Microsoft orbit benefited from Saturn five booster IBM working together to create new opportunities for themselves, now dominating PC space by transferring programs initially developed for Macintosh. The problem with Microsoft is they have no taste in a big way, not thinking of original ideas or bringing much culture into their product like proportionally spaced fonts from corporate fine arts appreciation; they make third rate products with no spirit, they are very pedestrian, making spiritless customers, perhaps implying making the species dumber concluding Microsoft is just McDonalds, though a nod to Misa is deserved for deeper analysis of this stereotypical metaphor base. Declares software infiltrating everything we do, giving example of MCI billing software beating AT&T initiatives as perspective of big person of projective city. Mentions perfecting use of object oriented technology allowing Apple to build software ten times faster. Computer metamorphizing into communication device prediction matching Gates; asserts the web will be seen as the defining technology, social moment for computing. Remembers example of human on bicycle beating condor in bodily efficiency transporting itself as inspiration, feeling himself at exactly the right place to nudge vector of human progress in the right direction. Shameless about stealing great ideas; liberal arts air attitude brought in by Macintosh team members who were the best in their fields besides being computer scientists: musicians, artists, hippies. Remembering the sixties happened in the early seventies, we can decide not to have left the happening of the eighties. Believes people who want spirit of artists rather than kings can be put into products, products people will admit they love, which they would not say about ordinary consumer objects.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKfuller-software_studies (209) 20130923h 0 -8+ progress/2011/10/notes_for_fuller-software_studies.html Perl: intentional engagement with modernism and postmodernism by Wall in programming language design, intended to allow more degrees of freedom; relevant to critical code studies and critical programming. (209) Programming with Perl emphasizes material conditions, which evokes how N. Katherine Hayles, in Writing Machines, stresses materiality in relation to writing. (210) In the lecture, Perl, the first postmodern computer language, Larry Wall is keen to point out that modernist culture was based on or rather than and, something he says that postmodern culture reverses. (210-211) In claiming AND has higher precedence than OR does, Wall is focusing on the eclecticism of Perl and how algorithms can be expressed in multiple ways that express the style of the programmer. . . . The suggestion is that Perl is not only useful on a practical level but that it also holds the potential to reveal some of the contradictions and antagonisms associated with the production of software.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKgolumbia-cultural_logic_of_computation (86-87) 20131031c 0 -15+ progress/2013/08/notes_for_golumbia-cultural_logic_of_computation.html Weaver Machine Translation of Languages ignore prior linguistics and begins with his own private memorandum on translation; compare to Burks, Goldstine, von Neumann claim that it would take us too far afield to start from first principles. (86-87) In a pathbreaking 1955 volume, Machine Translation of Languages(Locke and Booth 1955), Weaverand the editors completely avoid all discussion of prior analysis of language and formal systems, as if these fields had simply appeared ex nihilowith the development of computers. . . . Like some computationalists today, Weaver locates himself in a specifically Christian eschatological tradition, and posits computers as a redemptive technology that can put human beings back into the prelapsarian harmony from which we have fallen. (87) In an historical introduction provided by the editors, the history of MT begins abruptly in 1946, as if questions of the formal nature of language had never been addressed before. . . . The book itself begins with Weavers famous, (until-them) privately circulated memorandum of 1949, here published as Translation, and was circulated among many computer scientists of the time who dissented from its conclusions even then. (88-89) The most famous part of Weavers memorandum suggests that MT is a project similar to cryptanalysis, one of the other primary uses for wartime computing. . . . Neither Enigma nor the Bombe could translate; instead, they performed properly algorithmic operations on strings of codes, so that human interpreters could have access to the underlying natural language.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKkernighan_ritchie-c_programming_language (ix) 20131001 0 -5+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_kernighan_ritchie-c_programming_language.html Economy of expression, modern flow control and data structures, rich set of operators key features of C. (ix) C is a general-purpose programming language which features economy of expression, modern flow control and data structures, and a rich set of operators. . . . its absence of restrictions and its generality make it more convenient and effective for many tasks than supposedly more powerful languages.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKshneiderman-direct_manipulation (489) 20131019a 0 -8+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_shneiderman-direct_manipulation.html Video games easy to learn by analogy when commands are physical actions, and lessons from games can be transferred to office applications; compare to Gee. (489) Because their fields of action are abstractions of reality, these games are easily understood learning is by analogy. (490) The commands are physical actions, such as button presses, joystick motions, or know rotations, whose results appear immediately on the screen. . . . Error messages are unnecessary because the results of actions are so obvious and easily reversed. These principles can be applied to office automation, personal computing, and other interactive environments. (490) Game players compete with the system, but application-system users apparently prefer a strong internal locus of control, which gives them the sense of being in charge.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKshneiderman-direct_manipulation (491) 20131019b 0 -5+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_shneiderman-direct_manipulation.html Driving automobile as quintessence of direct manipulation. (491) Driving an automobile is my favorite example of direct manipulation. . . . Imagine trying to turn by issuing a LEFT 30 DEGREES command and then issuing another command to check your position, but this is the operational level of many office automation tools today.
4 1 3 (+) [-6+]mCQKshneiderman-direct_manipulation (491) 20131019c 0 -2+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_shneiderman-direct_manipulation.html Xerox Star office automation user interface examples of direct manipulation, graphical versus command driven. (491) Designers of advanced office automation systems have used direct manipulation principles. The Xerox Star offers sophisticated text formating options, graphics, multiple fonts, and a rapid, high-resolution, cursor-based user interface.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKshneiderman-direct_manipulation (492) 20131019d 0 -6+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_shneiderman-direct_manipulation.html Further examples of Hatfield WYSIWYG, Nelson virtuality. (492) What you see is what you get, is a phrase used by Don Hatfield of IBM and others to describe the general approach. . . . The display should indicate a complete image of what the current status is, what errors have occurred, and what actions are appropriate, according to Thimbleby. Another imaginative observer of interactive system designs, Ted Nelson, has noticed user excitement over interfaces constructed by what he calls the principle of virtuality - a representation of reality that can be manipulated.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKshneiderman-direct_manipulation (492) 20131019e 0 -3+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_shneiderman-direct_manipulation.html Problem solving and learning depend on suitable representation, such as Papert Logo mathematical microworld. (492) Another perspective on direct manipulation comes from psychology literature on problem solving. It shows that suitable representation of problems are crucial to solution finding and to learning. (493) Paperts Logo language creates a mathematical microworld in which the principles of geometry are visible.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKshneiderman-direct_manipulation (494) 20131019g 0 -7+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_shneiderman-direct_manipulation.html Syntactic/semantic model of user behavior based on kinds of knowledge in long-term memory: syntactic volatile, acquired through rote memorization, semantic memorable, acquired through explanation, analogy, example, hierarchically structured in matrix of concepts. (494) My own understanding of direct manipulation was facilitated by considering the syntactic/semantic model of user behavior. (494) The basic idea is that there are two kinds of knowledge in long-term memory: syntactic and semantic. (494) This knowledge is arbitrary and therefore acquired by rote memorization. Syntactic knowledge is volatile in memory and easily forgotten unless frequently used. (494) The concepts or functionality semantic knowledge are hierarchically structured from low-level functions to higher level concepts. (495) Semantic knowledge, which is acquired through general explanation, analogy, and example, is easily anchored to familiar concepts and is therefore stable in memory. The command formulation process in the syntactic/semantic model proceeds from the users perception of the task in the high-level problem domain to the decomposition into multiple, lower level semantic operations and the conversion into a set of commands.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKshneiderman-direct_manipulation (495) 20131019h 0 -3+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_shneiderman-direct_manipulation.html Training manuals should be written based on semantic learning principles. (495) The syntactic/semantic model suggests that training manuals should be written from the more familiar, high-level, problem domain viewpoint. The titles of sections should describe problem domain operations that the user deals with regularly. Then the details of the commands used to accomplish the task can be presented, and finally, the actual syntax can be shown.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKshneiderman-direct_manipulation (495) 20131019i 0 -7+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_shneiderman-direct_manipulation.html Semantic learning explains success of direct manipulation versus difficulty of mathematics and programming. (495) The success of direct manipulation is understandable in the context of the syntactic/semantic model. The object of interest is displayed so that actions are directly in the high-level problem domain. There is little need for decomposition into multiple commands with a complex syntactic form. On the contrary, each command produces a comprehensible action in the problem domain that is immediately visible. The closeness of the problem domain to the command action reduces operator problem-solving load and stress. (495) Since mathematics and programming require abstract thinking, they are difficult for children, and a greater effort must be made to link the symbolic representation to the actual object. Direct manipulation is an attempt to bring activity to the concrete operational stage or even to the preoperational stage, thus making some tasks easier for children and adults.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKshneiderman-direct_manipulation (496) 20131019j 0 -4+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_shneiderman-direct_manipulation.html Trick is appropriate representation of reality, especially when no physical parallel. (496) The trick in creating a direct manipulation system is to come up with an appropriate representation or model of reality. (497) It is possible to apply direct manipulation to environments for which there is no obvious physical parallel. (497) Direct manipulation has the power to attract users because it is comprehensible, natural, rapid, and even enjoyable. If actions are simple, reversibility ensured, and retention easy, then anxiety recedes and satisfaction flows in.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (vii-viii) 20131010 0 -5+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Claims to be a computer scientist turned philosopher, working in language research. (vii-viii) Having spent more than twenty-five years working in the trenches of practicing computer science, in a long-term effort to develop an empirically responsible theory of computation, I had never met such a logically pure entity, never met such a lapidary individual thing. . . . By and large, or so at least my experience suggests, the world is an unruly place much messier than reigning ontological and scientific myths would lead one to suspect.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (viii) 20131108 0 -3+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Conception of object in science and analytic philosophy resembles manicured garden more so than grimy ice flow taught from decades programming. (viii) And for better or worse but mostly, I believe, for worse the conception of object that has been enshrined in present-day science and analytic philosophy, with its presumptive underlying precision and clarity, is more reminiscent of fastidiously cropped hedge rows, carefully weeded rose gardens, and individually labeled decorative trees, then it is of the endless and rough arctic plain, or of a million-ton iceberg midwifed with a deafening crack and splintering spray from a grimy 10,000-year-old ice flow. (ix) Neither discovered, nor in any simple sense merely constructed, gardens, in order to to be gardens, must be cared for, tended even loved. What more could one ask for, by way of ontological moral?
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (3) 20131010a 0 -4+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Introduces philosophy of presence operating in middle distance between naive realism and pure constructivism. (3) This book introduces a new metaphysics a philosophy of presencethat aims to steer a path between the Scylla of na ve realism and the Charybdis of pure constructivism. (3-4) Fundamental to the view is a claim that objects, properties, practice, and politics indeed everything ontological live in what is called the middle distance: an intermediate realm between a proximal though ultimately ineffable connection, reminiscent of the familiar physical bumping and shoving of the world, and a more remote disconnection, a form of unbridgeable separation that lies at the root of abstraction and of the partial (and painful) subject-object divide. No sense attends to the idea of complete connection or complete disconnection; limit idealizations are outmoded. Yet an essential interplay of patterns of partial connection and partial disconnection restless figures of separation and engagement is shown to under lie a single notion taken to unify representation and ontology: that of a subjects registrationof the world.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (5) 20131108a 0 -13+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Criteria for theory of computation are empirical and conceptual, doing justice to contemporary computational practice and providing foundation to cognitivism, computation in the wild. (5) For more than twenty-five years I have been striving to develop an adequate and comprehensive theory of computation, one able to meet two essential criteria: 1. Empirical: It must do justice to computational practice (e.g., be capable of explaining Microsoft Word including for reasons that will emerge, the program itself, its construction, maintenance, and use); and 2. Conceptual: It must provide a tenable foundation for the computational theory of mind the thesis, sometimes known as cognitivism, that underlies artificial intelligence and cognitive science. (6) By the same token, I reject all proposals that assume that computation can be defined. By my lights, an adequate theory must make a substantive empirical claim about what I call computation in the wild: that eruptive body of practices, techniques, networks, machines, and behavior that has so palpably revolutionized late-twentieth-century life. (6-7) In my view, that is, cognitivism holds that people manifest, or exemplify, or are, or can be explained by, or can be illuminatingly understood in terms of, whatever properties it is that characterize some identifiable species of the genus exemplified by computation-in-the-wild. . . . The cognitive revolution is fueled, both directly and indirectly, by an embodied and enthusiastically endorsed, but as-yet largely tacit, intuition based on many years of practical computational experience. (8) Not only do these writers make a hypothetical statement about people, that they are physical, formal, or explicit symbol manipulators, respectively; they do so by making a hypothetical statement about computers, that they are in some essential or illuminating way characterizable in the same way.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (8) 20131010b 0 -11+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html No construal of computation meets either the empirical or conceptual criterion. (8) That, then, constitutes what I will call the computational project: to formulate a true and satisfying theory of computation that honors these two criteria. Needless to say, neither criterion is easy to meet. Elsewhere, I report on a study of half a dozen reigning construals of computation, with reference to both criteria---formal symbol manipulation, automata theory, information processing, digital state machines, recursion theory, Turing machines, the theory of effective computability, complexity theory, the assumptions underlying programming language semantics, and the like and argue, in brief, that each fails on both counts. (9-11) The most celebrated difficulties have to do with semantics. It is widely recognized that computation is in one way or another a symbolic or representational or information-based or semantical i.e., as philosophers would say, an intentional phenomenon. . . . The only compelling reason to suppose that we (or minds or intelligence) might be computers stems from the fact that we, too, deal with representations, symbols, meaning, information, and the like.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (22-23) 20131010c 0 -5+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Difference between computer science and philosophy texts; this is the former. (22-23) This book may look like philosophy, but do not be fooled. . . . I was less interested, this time around, in developing watertight arguments than in introducing a new territory a territory that I believe is worth exploring on its own merit.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (27-28) 20131010d 0 -11+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Questions for philosophy of computing, if the overall term survives. (27-28) The first set of ontological problems that a theorist of computation encounters has to do with the nature of computation itself with the kind and character of the workaday entities of professional computational practice. What are programs, for example, really: and how do they different from data structures? What is an implementation level? What is an abstraction boundary? What is the relation between hardwareand software(the mind/body problem for machines)? In what ways are interpreters, compilers, and emulatorsalike, and in what ways different? Are virtual machinesphysical or abstract? What exactly is state? What are the identity conditions on functions, algorithms, programs,andimplementations? What is the difference between an effectand a side effect? How do computer, computation,and computabilityrelate?
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (33-34) 20130905 0 -11+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Binary models of semantics misses tripartite program, process, subject matter domains such that emphasis on one pair or the other generates different sets of philosophical problems. (33-34) Unfortunately, in my opinion, the uncritical attempt to fit computation into this [linguistic/abstract] typology has obscured, rather than illuminated, the true nature of the computational situation. The fundamental problem stems from the fact that the paradigmatic computational situation involves at least three types of entity, not just two. The situation is caricatured in figure 1-1, which discriminates among: (i) a program, of the sort that might be edited with a text editor; (ii) the processor computationto which that program gives rise, upon being executed; and (iii) some (often external) domainor subject matterthat the computation is about. Three objects naturally give rise to three binary relations, of which I will take two to be of primary importance: the program-processrelation, labeled in the diagram; and the process-subject matterrelation, labeled . (34) If you adopt the simple binary model, you are forced either to ignore or to elide one of these distinctions, and (usually) thereby to conflate two of the three fundamental types of entity. In cognitive science and the philosophy of mind and more generally, I think, in disciplines surrounding computer science it is the distinction between program and process that is elided. This leads people to adopt two very familiar views: (i) that computation is fundamentally syntactic (like manipulation of structures that are in some essential sense like written tokens); and that it can therefore be adequately characterized using concepts that were developed for written languages, such as a simple type/token distinction, a notion of (lexical) constituent, etc.; and (ii) that semantics refers to the relation between computation (the conflation of program and process) and the world in which that computation is embedded. Theoretical computer science, however, takes the opposite tack: it focuses on the program-process relation , not so much eliding as setting aside the process-subject matter relation. As a result, computer scientists view programs, not processes, as syntactic, but treat computation itself abstractly; and, more seriously, take the word semantics to refer to the program-process relation ( ), not to that between process and subject matter ( ). (35) The fact that cognitive science treats computations not just as concrete but as syntactic has misled a generation of philosophers into thinking that all standard architectures von Neumann machines, Lisp, just about everything except connectionist networks involve the explicit manipulation of formal symbols.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (35-36) 20131010e 0 -2+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Eliding programs and process prevents noticing ontological shift towards more intrinsically dynamic ontologies, in addition to Chun sourcery. (35-36) Perhaps the most unfortunate consequence of the adoption of the traditional binary semantic model, however, has been in outsiders tendency to elide programand process, and thereby to miss an extraordinarily important ontological shift in focus at the heart of computer science. This is a very deeply entrenched change away from treating the world in terms of static entities instantiating properties and standing in relation, and towards a view that is much more intrinsically dynamic and active.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (37) 20131010f 0 -6+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Example of critical programming studies done by Smith on 2-Lisp. (37) In 1981, as something of a design exercise, I developed a programming language called 2-Lisp, with the explicit aim of exhibiting within the context of a programming language a degree of semantical clarity about these very semantical issues. More particularly, I identified two different semantical relationships: one, approximately in the diagram, between external expressions and internal computational structures that I called impressions (i.e., using the word impression to designate processingredients); and another, approximately , between those impressions and such external, Platonic entities as sets, numbers, and functions. (38-40) First [moral], all three domains relevant to a computation program, process, and semantic domain (task domain, domain of interpretation)--must be recognized by an adequate theory of computation as first class realms in their own right. Moreover, they should also be classified with properties they actually exhibit, rather than classified metaphorically, with properties lifted from a merely analogous domain.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (40-41) 20131010g 0 -7+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Type-coercive style like Heideggerian breakdow views representational objects only becoming visible contextually in contestation: relate to early versus late binding (Rosenberg)? (40-41) It was soon clear that what was wanted, even if I did not at the time know how to provide it, was a way of allowing distinctions to be made on the fly, as appropriate to the circumstances, in something of a type-coercive style and also, tellingly, in a manner reminiscent of Heideggerian breakdown. Representational objects needed to become visible only when the use of them ceased to be transparent. Reason, moreover, argued against the conceit of ever being able to make allnecessary distinctions in advance i.e., against the presumption that the original designer could foresee the finest-grain distinction anyone would ever need, and thus supply the rest through a series of partitions or equivalence classes. Rather, what was required was a sense of identity that would support dynamic, on-the-fly problem-specifc or task-specific differentiation including differentiation according to distinctions that had not even been imagined at a prior, safe, detached, design time. (41) It was sobering, moreover, to encounter this moral (which many social theorists would argue for in much more complex settings) even in such simple arithmetic cases as essential arithmetic calculation allegedly the paradigmatic case of formal symbol manipulation construal of computation.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (42) 20131010h 0 -2+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Nature of ontology itself at stake in study of representational nature of computation. (42) The representational nature of computation implies something very strong: that it is not just the ontology of computation that is at stake; it is the nature of ontology itself. (44) Rather, I am concerned with the more general ontological assumptions that control the categories in terms of which these details are formulated (categories like object, property, relation, and wave); and higher-order properties of those properties, having for example to do with issues of negation, parameterization, instantiation, etc.
4 1 3 (+) [-6+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (44) 20131010i 0 -3+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Designers of object-oriented languages, knowledge representation, database design, network designers involved in ontological research. (44) To make this concrete, consider the exploding interest, both theoretical and practical, in the development of object-oriented languages. Even if not advertised as such, this turn of events has led computer science squarely into the business of doing research in ontology. (44) coding up the details of task-specific domains is the job of usersof object-oriented languages, not their designers.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (44-45) 20131108b 0 -5+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Computer scientists wrapped up in metaphysical questions about mereology, object identity, type/token distinctions, identity criteria, and so on because it is really the task of users to explore details of task-specific domains. (44-45) As a result, computer scientists have ended up having to face all sorts of unabashedly metaphysical questions: about the nature of mereology(part/whole relations); about whether or not object identity within a system crosses different levels of abstraction or implementation, relevant to questions of theoretic reduction; about the nature of type/token distinctions; about individuation criteria, including the establishing of identity, for example in self-organizing systems; about the nature of parameterization; about the similarities and differences among sets, classes, and types; and so on and so forth. Nor are object-oriented system designers the only people involved in these issues; currently they are just the most visible. The same questions have been under investigation for decades by developers of knowledge representation schemes, data base designers, people worrying about strongly typed languages, and the rest. More recently they have been taken up anew by network designers wrestling with the relations among identifiers, names, references, locations, handles, etc., on the World Wide Web.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (45) 20131010j 0 -4+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Failure of traditional ontological categories. (45) Perhaps the most interesting thing about this ontological effort, moreover, has been the ways in which it has failed. The problem is that, upon encounter with real-world problems, it is hard for practitioners to avoid realizing that such traditional ontological categories as discrete countable objects, clear and precise categories, and other products of received ontological myth, are both too brittle and too restrictive. (47) In part, it is increasingly recognized not only that the represented categories have context-dependent meanings, but that the question of what the categories are can only be answered dynamically, within the settings in which the computational systems are deployed. This presses for a kind of representational flexibility that current object-oriented systems lack.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (48 footnote 24) 20131010k 0 -3+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Example of EMACS as supporting multiple simultaneous takes on character buffer. (48 footnote 24) Note that EMACS, a popular text and programming editor, derives much of its power from supporting multiple simultaneous takes on the string of characters in its buffer, in just the way suggested in the text. One command can view the buffer as a Lisp program definition; another, as a linear sequence of characters; another, as bracketed or parenthesized region. In order to support these multiple simultaneous views, EMACS in effect lets go of its parse of the buffer after every single keystroke, and re-parses all over again the next time a key is struck possibly with respect to a wholly different grammar.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (50) 20131010l 0 -2+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Inscription error of ontological assumptions onto computational systems, then reading back as if empirical discoveries. (50) It is a phenomenon that I will in general call an inscription error: a tendency for a theorist or observer, first, to write or project or impose or inscribe a set of ontological assumptions onto a computational system (onto the system itself, onto the task domain, onto the relation between the two, and so forth), and then, second, to read those assumptions or their consequences back off the system, as if that constituted an independent empirical discovery or theoretical result. (53) The justification for assigning different kinds of content to a system, that is, is vulnerable to the ways in which we (perhaps unwittingly) individuate the system itself.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (53) 20131010m 0 -4+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Inscription error example of Coke can collecting robot. (53) A similar example is provided by analyses of conditions under which a system is able to reidentify a given object as being the same as one it saw before, rather than being a new one of the same type e.g., the sort of argument that would be used to support the conclusion that the system is capable of particular, not just generic, reference. Again, this is worth going through slowly, because the moral only emerges from the details.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (66) 20131010n 0 -6+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Argument for critical programming studies: actually build and modify, not just understand how to build. (66) But it want to assert something stronger: that it is intellectually essential not just that we understandhow to build them, but that we actuallybuild and modify and use them because of the fact that, in so building and modifying and using, we become enmeshed with them in a participatory fashion, in a way that both transcends and also grounds the representational attitudes we bear towards them. (67) The point is easier to see in our case. How wetake the world to be to consist of objects, properties, and relations, or of other things, or whatever cannot depend on how we take our minds or brainsto be, since most of us do not take our minds or brains to be any way at all. (68) Somehow or other and this I take to be the most important and difficult task facing the cognitive sciences it must be possible to have determinate representational content, i.e., for there to be a fact of the matter as to how the world is represented, without that analysis depending on anyway of taking the internal structures in the mind that does the analysis.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (72) 20131010o 0 -14+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Cannot avoid materiality and locatedness of code, nor importance of participatory engagement, physical embodiment, after investigating computation in the wild. (72) First, it turns out that issues of physical embodiment are essential. . . . It is a theory of the flow of effect, in other words and as such, even though it is not so advertised, is probably the best candidate yet for a scientific theory of causality. (72-73) Second, fitting in which this essential materiality and locatedness is perhaps the most ramifying consequence of investigating computation in the wild: the recognition that computers are inextricably involved in their subject matters. . . . Experience, in any intuitively recognizable form, is too passive or receptive a category to do justice to the sorts of activity that computers engender. . . . In the end one can only conclude that any semantical theory adequate to practice will have to be a full-blooded theory of participatory engagement, not just of reasoning or representation, or even of perception, action, and experience.
4 1 3 (+) [-4+]mCQKsmith-on_the_origin_of_objects (73-74) 20131010p 0 -7+ progress/2013/09/notes_for_smith-on_the_origin_of_objects.html Computation is not a subject matter, so no philosophies of computing: replace with social construction of intentional artifacts. (73-74) For present purposes, however, both these results pale in importance compared with a third and final lesson: Computation is not a subject matter. . . . Computers turn out in the end to be rather like cars: objects of inestimable social and political and economic and personal importance, but not the focus of enduring scientific or intellectual inquiry. (75) Rather, what computers are, I now believe, and what the considerable and impressive body of practice associated with them amounts to, is neither more nor less than the full-fledged social construction and development of intentional artifacts. That means that the range of experience and skills that have been developed within computer science remarkably complex and far-reaching, if still inadequately articulated is best understood as practical, synthetic, raw material for no less than full theories of semantics and ontology.
4 1 3 (+) [-6+]mCQKstroustrup-design_and_evolution_of_cpp (iii) 20131001 0 -7+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_stroustrup-design_and_evolution_of_cpp.html Purports to be philosophical in sense of explaining design and evolution of C++, immediately dispelling notion of technological determinism by appealing to social context and iterative development. (iii) Traditional books about programming and programming languages explain whata language is and how to use it. However, many people are also curious about whya language is the way it is and how it came to be that way. . . . It explains how C++ evolved from its first design to the language in use today. It describes the key problems, design aims, language ideas, and constraints that shaped C++, and how they changed over time.
select Chapter, Heading, SubHeading, InterstitialSequence, RelevanceLevel, TextName, PositionStart, TimestampBookmarkExtra, CitationOffset, CitationSentences, Path, Lexia from Notes where Chapter=4 and (Heading=0 or Heading=1) and ((RelevanceLevel=0 or RelevanceLevel>2) and RelevanceLevel<10) and (InterstitialSequence=0 or InterstitialSequence=100) order by Heading, SubHeading, InterstitialSequence desc, TextName, cast((trim(leading '(' from substring_index(PositionStart, '-', 1))) as unsigned)
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKbusa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities (xvii-xviii) 20140913 0 -14+ progress/2014/09/notes_for_busa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities.html Posthumous project of artificial intelligence based on cleverness of human intelligence programmed and built into machines; living writing. (xvii-xviii) At the moment, I am trying to get another project under way, which will obviously be posthumous, the first steps of which will consist in addiing to the morphological encoding of each single separate word of the Thomistic lexicon (in all there are 150,000, including all the particles, such as et, non, etc.), the codes that express its syntax (i.e., its direct elementary syntactic correlations) within each single phrase in which it occurs. This project is called Lessico Tomistico Biculturale(LTB). Only a computer census of the syntactic correlations can document what concepts the author wanted to express with that word. Of a list of syntactic correlations, the conceptual translation can thus be given in modern languages. . . . To give one example, in the mind of St. Thomas ratio seminalismeant then what today we call genetic programming. Obviously, St. Thomas did not know of either DNA or genes, because at the time microscopes did not exist, but he had well understood that something had to perform their functions.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKbusa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities (xvii-xviii) 20140913b 0 -14+ progress/2014/09/notes_for_busa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities.html The project Busa describes imagines and instantiates forms of that the ancients called, imagining test by LTB apparatus, living writing. (xvii-xviii) At the moment, I am trying to get another project under way, which will obviously be posthumous, the first steps of which will consist in addiing to the morphological encoding of each single separate word of the Thomistic lexicon (in all there are 150,000, including all the particles, such as et, non, etc.), the codes that express its syntax (i.e., its direct elementary syntactic correlations) within each single phrase in which it occurs. This project is called Lessico Tomistico Biculturale(LTB). Only a computer census of the syntactic correlations can document what concepts the author wanted to express with that word. Of a list of syntactic correlations, the conceptual translation can thus be given in modern languages. . . . To give one example, in the mind of St. Thomas ratio seminalismeant then what today we call genetic programming. Obviously, St. Thomas did not know of either DNA or genes, because at the time microscopes did not exist, but he had well understood that something had to perform their functions.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKbusa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities (xx-xxi) 20140913e 0 -3+ progress/2014/09/notes_for_busa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities.html Programs for Latin can be extended to all languages, forming as network effect universal collective language imagined as AntiBabel; notes phonetic script scope does not include ideogram or pictogram based languages, and I wonder if they therefore include procedural machine languages. (xx-xxi) These thoughts have formed gradually in my mind over the years, starting from the realization that my programs for Latin, which I always wanted broken up from monofunctional use, could be applied with the same operative philosophy to more than twenty other languages (all in a phonetic script), even those that do not descend from Latin, such as Arabic and Hebrew, which are written from right to left. I had only to transfer elements from one table to another, changing the length of fields, or adding a field. (However, I cannot say anything about languages written ideograms or pictorgrams.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKbusa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities (xviii) 20140914f 0 -7+ progress/2014/09/notes_for_busa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities.html Riddles and gaps in the state of the art leading to his ultimate project include mother tongue epistemology, universal language grammar function, and implementation of living writing by operating upon both natural human and machine languages, as well as engineering philosophy problems of generating real virtualities. (xviii) This third sort of informatics was the first to come into being, with the Index Thomisticusproject, in 1949. . . . First, everyone knows how to use his own mother tongue, but no one can know how, i.e., no one can explain the rules and no one can list all the words of the lexicon that he uses (the active lexicon) nor of that which he understands but never uses (the passive lexicon).
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKbusa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities (xix) 20140914o 0 -3+ progress/2014/09/notes_for_busa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities.html Not worth trying to build shows material conditions of code; the surprisingly forgotten fact that cathedral builders and users had limits too. (xix) Unfortunately, in 1966, as a result of the Alpac Report, the Pentagon cut off all funding. This was not because computers at that time did not have sufficient memory capability or speed of access, but precisely because the information on the categories and their linguistic correspondences furnished by the various branches of philology were not sufficient for the purpose. The machine required greater depth and more complex information about our ways of thinking and modes of expression!
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKbusa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities (xx) 20140914w 0 -4+ progress/2014/09/notes_for_busa-perspectives_on_digital_humanities.html AntiBabel system employs as part what is primary programming method employed by Boltanksi and Chiapello to respond to humanities questioning employing Index Thomisticus algorithms. (xx) I suggest that care of, for example, the European Union for every principal language . . . there should be extracted is integral lexicological system (with the help of the instruments tested in the Index Thomisticus).
4 2 1 (+) [-7+]mCQKedwards-closed_world (169-170) 20130830a 0 -5+ progress/2013/08/notes_for_edwards-closed_world.html Jacky on computer languages encouraging programming styles reflecting subject positions. (169-170) Computer scientist Jonathan Jackyhas observed that each computer language tends to encourage a particular programming style, as do subcultures associated with each one. . . . The ongoing invention and spread of new computer languages is a symptom of the search not only for convenience of interaction, but for styles of thinking subject positionscongenial to different kinds of users and their projects.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKfuller-behind_the_blip (15) 20130921a 0 -10+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_fuller-behind_the_blip.html Identifies accounts by programmers for insights into understanding software as culture, collected by Lammers and others. (15) Another pre-existing area that offers insights for an understanding of software as culture is the tradition of accounts of their work by programmers. (15) These accounts of programming are somewhat at odds with the idealist tendencies in computing. . . . But more crucially, they are a direct route to the cultural backbone of classical idealism. . . . Access to and understanding of this beauty is allowed only to those souls that are themselves beautiful.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKgolumbia-cultural_logic_of_computation (186) 20130819 0 -3+ progress/2013/08/notes_for_golumbia-cultural_logic_of_computation.html Structural identification between programmer and power elite sets up majoritarian, white male capitalist image thriving on mastery. (186) For the power elite, the laboring body of the corporation is itself a kind of computer (and in many ways a literal computer) over which he or shee exerts nearly the same pleasurable mastery the programmer experiences in front of the computer. In this sense, and this conclusion can be only speculative, there is a structural identification between programmer and power elite that largely serves the elites ends. (186-187) power is shared through the provision of a device, the computer, that provides a kind of illusion of social power in its structural proffering of relational power.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKharaway-simians_cyborgs_women (213) 20130923t 0 -2+ progress/2009/04/notes_for_haraway-simians_cyborgs_women.html Winograd and Flores doctrine of interdependence and situated preunderstandings. (213) Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores (1986) joint work on Understanding Computers and Cognitionis particularly suggestive for thinking about the potentials for cultural/scientific/political contestation over the technologies of representation and embodiment of difference within immunological discourse, whose object of knowledge is a kind of artificial intelligence/language/communication system of the biological body. (213) Drawing on Heidegger, Gadamer, Maturana, and others, Winograd and Flores develop a doctrine of interdependence of interpreter and interpreted, which are not discrete and independent entities.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKhayles-my_mother_was_a_computer (118) 20130930c 0 -5+ progress/2011/12/notes_for_hayles-my_mother_was_a_computer.html Stephenson as programmer and open source advocate writing science fiction, deliberate and unconscious. (118) With an impressive background as a computer programmer, Stephenson does not employ the ubiquitous Windows or even Macintosh but interfaces with the computer through a Unix-based operating system. . . . Following this line of thought, we can assume that the clash of operating systems including all that it implies about the nefarious corporate practices of Microsoft, the capitalistic greed that underlies its ruthless business practices, and the resistance to these practices by open source communities, particularly Unix and the related Linux penetrated deeply into the electronic structure of this text [Cryptonomicon] in physical and material ways.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKhayles-my_mother_was_a_computer (124) 20130930e 0 -5+ progress/2011/12/notes_for_hayles-my_mother_was_a_computer.html Compare analysis of Stephenson Cryptonomicon to Kittler on code. (124) He comments that its become evident to me when I looked into the history of computers that they had this intimate relationship with cryptography going back a long way. . . . Command Line, which as we have seen can be considered the nonfictional companion to Cryptonomicon, offers valuable insights into the conjunction between writing novels and writing code insights that are essential to explicating the next phase of the dialectical transformation.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKheim-electric_language (244-245) 20130324 0 -9+ progress/2008/09/notes_for_heim-electric_language.html Compare as clustering stickies on whiteboard practice described in Dreaming in Code. (244-245) Using a large sheet of paper and a pen or pencil, the writer gathers related ideas around a central notion. . . . Unlike outlining, clustering does not aim to establish an order or subordination of ideas. . . .The graphically haphazard quality of clustering is essential, for it preserves the sense of personal expression apart from any need to communicate the thoughts or present them publicly.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKhockey-history_of_humanities_computing (4) 20140913e 0 -5+ progress/2014/09/notes_for_hockey-history_of_humanities_computing.html Rudimentary hypertextual features advertised as Latin cum hypertextibus; user guide in Latin, English, Italian. (4) His team attempted to write some computer software to deal with this and, eventually, the lemmatization of all 11 million words was completed in a semi-automatic way with human beings dealing with word forms that the program could not handle. . . . A CD ROM of the Aquinas material appeared in 1992 that incorporated some hypertextual features ( cum hypertextibus ) (Busa 1992) and was accompanied by a user guide in Latin, English, and Italian.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (1) 20131002 0 -11+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Inspiration of Microsoft Press publisher noting lack of in depth, personal studies of programmers. (1) The idea for this series of interviews with notable programmers of our time originated with Min S. Yee, the publisher of Microsoft Press. . . . He noticed parallels between the work of the writer and that of the programmers. . . . When Yee looked in bookstores, he discovered innumerable how to books about programming, but a dearth of information that presented the experiences, approaches, and philosophies of software designers in a personal, in-depth manner. So Microsoft Press decided to look into the minds and personalities behind the software.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (1) 20131002b 0 -2+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Are timeless matters philosophy in the context of technology studies, comparing to Stroustrup introduction? (1) The purpose of each interview was not to interrogate the programmer about secret projects or gather opinions about day-to-day developments within the software industry. Instead, we aimed to discuss timeless matters that often get overlooked in this hectic, fast-paced industry.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (1) 20131002c 0 -2+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Compare to Plutarch Lives and other works in this genre like Out of Their Minds. (1) In the interviews, I tried to ask all the programmers a common set of questions to provide a framework by which the interviews could later be read and compared. (2) We gave them the opportunity to rework the interview, so that it expressed exactly what they meant.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (2) 20131002d 0 -1+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Programming style glimpsed when thoughts written down: back to Turkle, Nietzsche, Deleuze, and cultural studies. (2) In addition, we asked each programmer to provide us with samples of his work either a piece of code, a program, some sketches or doodles of program designs to provide our readers with a glimpse of the programmers style when he puts his thoughts down on paper.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (3) 20131104 0 -7+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Apparent white male American hegemony behind the software notable for software, code, and programming studies. (3) We have included a range of ages and experiences from the older, well-established programmers in their forties who first set off the microcomputer revolution, to the younger, energetic, less traditional thinkers who are intent upon taking the computer revolution far beyond the boundaries we know today. . . . Yet there is no doubt that the programmers featured in this book are exceptional and offer intriguing insights into the creative process of programming and the variety of personalities and experiences within the computer industry. (3) While the intent of the interviews was to discuss the programmer at work, what has come along with the interviews is an informal history of the software industry, as told by some of the major participants involved. The order of the book roughly reflects the history of the industry.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (3) 20131002h 0 -1+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html This is why not to include mediocre; but now there is the long tail. (3) We have included a range of ages and experiences from the older, well-established programmers in their forties who first set off the microcomputer revolution, to the younger, energetic, less traditional thinkers who are intent upon taking the computer revolution far beyond the boundaries we know today.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (3) 20131104a 5 -2+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html This view of the software industry that imagines it started with the personal computer fits Campbell-Kelly observation that microcomputer-based software industry arose from different basis. (3) (3) While the intent of the interviews was to discuss the programmer at work, what has come along with the interviews is an informal history of the software industry, as told by some of the major participants involved. The order of the book roughly reflects the history of the industry.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (8) 20131002j 0 -4+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Simonyi: compare to Kittler not Floridi point that Turing loved binary coding. (8) It was a Russian-made computer, a Ural II. It had only 4K of memory, a 40-bit floating point, and 20-bit operations. The computer was programmed totally in octal absolute [no assembler]. I wrote thousands of lines of code in octal absolute.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (8) 20131002k 0 -4+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Simonyi: shared enthrallment with programming with Gates, but on Ural II instead of Altair; everyone can, and should, remember when they first learned programming, and what influenced their style. (8) The Ural II was exactly like a personal computer because it was just you and the machine and no one else. With 4K of memory and the slow speed, it was very similar to the Altair, which was introduced in 1974. The excitement I experienced with the Ural II in 1964 was the same kind of excitement that Bill Gates experienced with the Altair in 1974. (10) I had two influences an engineer in Hungary and the computer I worked on in Denmark.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (10) 20130123 0 -7+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Simonyi: designed by Naur of BNF, the Algol compiler machine language listings served as Heim huge writing areas whose materiality as printed paper pages gave a place to write out the Algol semantics; this aspect of the function of texts associated with learning programming I had not considered when contemplating the Apple and Timex Sinclair manuals. (10) The Danish computer also had an incredible influence on me. At that time, I had probably the worlds best Algol compiler, called Gier Algol. Before I went to Denmark, I had complete listings of the compiler, which I had studied inside and out. It was all written in machine language, so it was both a lesson in machine-language programming and an aesthetically beautiful way of thinking about a compilation process. It was designed by Peter Naur. (10) If you scan backwards they become backward references, which are easy to resolve. Just by looking at a program in a new way, what formerly might have been rather difficult to solve becomes easy to solve.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (13) 20131002m 0 -4+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Simonyi: Joke implicit in Hungarian notation. (13) The joke is that the program looks so unreadable, it might as well be written in Hungarian. But its a set of conventions that controls the naming of all quantities in the program. (14) Hungarian is a way of almost automatically creating a name from the properties of the named quantity. Very similar to the idea of calling people Taylor if they were tailors and Smyth if they were blacksmiths.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (15) 20131002o 0 -4+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Simonyi: style of doodling, designing data structures, then code writes itself, likely considered proto object oriented. (15) The first step in programming is imagining. Just making it crystal clear in my mind what is going to happen. In this initial stage, I use paper and pencil. I just doodle, I dont write code.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (15) 20131002p 0 -7+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Simonyi: teaching style of learning style writing code accomplishing directed goals. (15) The knowledge of the best algorithms is the science, and the imagining of the structure is the art. The details of algorithms, writing efficient lines of code to implement transformations on those structures, is the trade aspect of programming. (16) First, it was easier for me to work in this incredibly high-level language, essentially programming these people. Second, the really learned to program much better than if I had finished it and given them the listing and said, Study this program. They learned it because they wrote it. (18) Programmers get a couple of books on their first day here. One of them, called How to Solve It, is by George Polya, the mathematician.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (19) 20131002q 0 -3+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Simonyi: sees no major changes in programming practices ever. (19) I dont know that the sixth or the thirty-second generation will do something really drastically different or that great. (19) I have always worried that when these claimed incredible new benefits come, we will lose all the old ones. The it becomes a kind of trade-off situation where you have to see if you are better off.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (22) 20131002s 0 -2+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Simonyi: hopefully they are doing incredible stuff together in retirement for benefit of everyone, for example using free software licenses like GPL. (22) It would be great to be able to work with all these guys, but we are business competitors. I think we could do incredible stuff together.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (28) 20131002t 0 -3+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Lampson: importance of combining logical reasoning and experimental sciences or humanities in service of programming. (28) From mathematics, you learn logical reasoning. You also learn what it means to prove something as well as how to handle abstract essentials. From an experimental science such as physics, or from the humanities, you learn how to make connections in the real world by applying these abstractions.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (33) 20131002u 0 -4+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Lampson: style of precisely defining interfaces. (33) The most important goal is to define as precisely as possible the interfaces between the system and the rest of the world, as well as the interfaces between the major parts of the systems as well. (33) Programmers often lose sight of the fact that the problems in building software systems arise because what they are trying to do is just too hard. They believe the computer is a universal engine that can do anything. Its very easy to be seduced into the proposition that a group of one or five or ten or fifty or a thousand programmers can make the computer do anything.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (38) 20131002w 0 -9+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Lampson: not worth universal learning literacy in a single language. (38) To hell with computer literacy. Its absolutely ridiculous. Study mathematics. Lean to think. Read. Write. These things are of more enduring value. Learn how to prove theorems: A lot of evidence has accumulated over the centuries that suggests this skill is transferable to many other things. To study only BASIC programming is absurd.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (38) 20131002x 0 -4+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Lampson: programming as giving computer instructions, which is equivocable to using spreadsheets and other cultural software, versus creative programming. (38) If programming just means giving the computer instructions, I think everybody will do that at some level. Most business people operate a spreadsheet and thats programming in some sense. I think youll see more of that. Creative programming is another matter.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (47) 20131104c 0 -3+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Warnock: writing programs like writing books: must be willing to scrap bad parts, borrow from others. (47) Its very important that a programmer be able to look at a piece of code like a bad chapter of a book and scrap it without looking back. (47) Also, never make an assumption that you know something somebody else doesnt know. (47) Its a matter of picking and choosing from that smorgasbord to make a good menu, so to speak, to do a given task.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (54) 20131002z 0 -3+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Warnock: programs reflect the organization in which they are written. (54) I once heard that any programs you write reflect the organization in which you work. (55) The best mathematics of computation was done before the advent of computers. Mathematicians laid much of the groundwork of what could and couldnt be done in computers.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (59) 20131003 0 -6+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Killdall: style of drawing data structures and program operations before writing code; automotive transmission mechanical gearwork (Papert); fast edit, execute, debug cycles for iterative improvement; few written comments in favor of well-written code; spontaneous coding from written description of algorithms; concise and efficient ALGOL philosophy. (59) Programs are like mechanical devices; the way one piece of code works with another is very similar to the way one gear meshes with another gear. Building code is a little like building a transmission. (60) This whole process of iterative improvement requires speed, so for me at least, its very important to have fast edit, execute, and debug cycles. (60) But a friend of mine had this FORTRAN statement card, showed it to me, and told me it was going to be a really big thing. I became so intrigued I had to get into it. So I took an assembly-language programming course and FORTRAN right after that, and I was hooked.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (63) 20131003a 0 -7+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Kildall: Admits ALGOL philosophy entrenched from spending considerable time studying and modifying the Baur compiler, evidence of important selection of tutor texts and need for long habituation and deep, active study of them in critical programming studies; pick up with Ratliff parser creation as precondition of machine intelligence. (63) Im very pragmatic. I like to build programs that are fast and small, and use clear, concise algorithms. I learned that style from the early Burroughs 5500, a very advanced machine for the day, which was based upon the ALGOL philosophy of block-structured languages. The ALGOL compiler was probably one of the nicest pieces of code to come out at that time. I spent hours trying to fix and change the compiler. Working with it so closely affected the way I think about programming and had a profound influence on my style. Fortunately, the ALGOL philosophy became the basis for design of popular languages like Pascal and C, so the style works for me.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (65-66) 20131003b 0 -5+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Kildall: admits impact of doing systems programming on these preferences, suggesting graphics programmers may develop others, also religious connotations. (65-66) They form a tight-knit community, hold to certain beliefs, and follow certain rules in their programming. Its like a church with a programming language for a Bible. (67) Ultimately the problem is that we, as a society, took the big computers that we understood and applied their underlying architectures, languages, and concepts to the development of microcomputers. As we move toward using computers as controllers, we will find that communication between processors will become more important than the processes they are carrying out. Then we will be forced to change the way we code.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (73) 20131003c 0 -5+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Gates: style of thorough ideation first, most like Turkle hard mastery; simplicity, rule based. (73) You have to simulate in your mind how the programs going to work, and you have to have a complete grasp of how the various pieces of the program work together. The finest pieces of software are those where one individual has a complete sense of exactly how the program works. (75) Some people just jump in and start coding, and others think it all through before they sit down, but I think youd find that the programmers who sit down and code at the beginning are only using that as a scratch pad. Its whats going on in their heads thats most important. (78) One sign of very good programs is that even internally they follow that philosophy of simplicity.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (83) 20131003e 0 -3+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Gates: hermeneutic code study reveals competency. (83) I still think that one of the finest tests of programming ability is to had the programmer about 30 pages of code and see how quickly he can read through and understand it. (83) If you ever talk to a great programmer, youll find he knows his tools like an artist knows his paintbrushes. Its amazing to see how much great programmers have in common in the way they developed how they got their feedback, and how they developed such a refined sense of discipline about whats sloppy and whats not sloppy.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (95) 20131003f 0 -2+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Page: style of prioritizing end user, setting goal and executing with tunnel vision, C, single mind design, not hiding technology from user, high productivity over high control, working solutions trump conforming with ideals of computer science. (95) In designing PFS, I stumbled over an odd software design principle: Complicated programs are far easier to write than straightforward programs the exact opposite of what youd expect. Its easy to write complicated programs because you reflect the complexity back onto the user; you force the user to make all the hard decisions.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (95) 20131003g 0 -2+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Page: complicated programs easier to write because complexity projected onto user like difficult to read technical or philosophical texts. (95) In designing PFS, I stumbled over an odd software design principle: Complicated programs are far easier to write than straightforward programs the exact opposite of what youd expect. Its easy to write complicated programs because you reflect the complexity back onto the user; you force the user to make all the hard decisions.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (96) 20131003h 0 -3+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Page: prefers compiled C over interpreted Pascal and BASIC. (96) Were switching to C as we develop new versions because it is a better development language than Pascal. (96) The Pascal was interpreted, which meant its performance left a whole lot to be desired. And once the program was finished, it was extremely slow, so I isolated all of the areas where the performance bottlenecks occurred and recoded those in Assembly language.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (116) 20131003j 0 -16+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Ratliff: style of open-ended toolmaker, enough planning to get to next step, which is reached emotionally and intuitively; ideal modules are all page length, equally distributed hierarchy; alphabetizing, few comments; enjoys challenge over addressing social needs. (116) dBASE caught peoples imaginations because its very open-ended. The way Ive programmed all my life is as a toolmaker. (118) So now, programming is much more evolutionary, when before it was sort of a big bang. (119) Im the kind of programmer who likes to do some planning, but I dont plan everything out in infinite detail. I have an idea of what the goal is, but the real job is to find out what the next step is to get toward that goal. I try to do the minimum that will get me one step further. . . . Its not mathematically defined. Its emotionally and intuitively defined. (120) The ideal module should be a page long. . . . Part of the elegance, and the balance, is that at a certain level, in this layer-cake hierarchy of a program, all the modules should be about the same weight, same size, same duty, and same functionality.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (124) 20130124 0 -4+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Ratliff: arriving from Kildall articulating preconditions of creating human programmers, parser building software embodies goal Gates and other identify of code generated code generation permitting large scale programming operations to continue to be performed replacing repetitive coding previously performed by masses of clueless programmers doing menial repetitive object definitions akin to setting parameters in run time dynamic configuration required for the software to run as precondition of emergent distributed local and world network planetary machine intelligence; thus we should not be surprised that the community building sense of social machines have been working us all along. (124) You have some little spark, and then you keep tacking other capabilities onto it. When that euphoria fades and you have to start coding, it gets tough. (126) My goal is to write neat software, programs that are challenging. Its not my mission to solve social needs, but that can be another nice outcome for software.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (132) 20131003k 0 -3+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Bricklin: style of cultivating a garden of software that meets his needs; laying out data structure and human interface. (132) As Bricklin says, his intent is not to run a ranch or tend a farm, but to cultivate a garden of software, just like a garden in the backyard; one that is sufficient to meet his needs and from which he can gain pleasure and satisfaction. (139) To me, the most important part of a program is laying out the data structure. You also have to know what the human interface is going to be like.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (159) 20131003m 0 -3+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Frankston: style of code that is easy to pick up and modify. (159) Ive had people say that its easier to pick up my code, and I really do write it so people can pick it up. Also, I write so I can pick up the code and make local changes without worrying too much about the effect. The comments are mainly to warn about surprises.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKlammers-programmers_at_work (167) 20131003n 0 -15+ progress/2012/04/notes_for_lammers-programmers_at_work.html Sachs: style of rapid iterations starting with basic working unit; visualizing then writing automatic; avoids immutable third party tools. (167) Thats how Ive always done things when I work by myself. I get the program up so that it just begins to work, and then I add features to it. (169) Math is too hard. I can do mathematics up to the point where I stop being able to visualize the problem. When it gets abstract, I cant do it. (169) Once you get a certain level of experience, you go from the idea to the program without even thinking about all the intermediate steps; the process becomes automatic. (171) First, I start out with a basic program framework, which I keep adding to. Also, I try not to use many fancy features in a language or a program. . . . I dont like using any tools or programs I didnt write myself or that I dont have some control over. That way if I dont like some part, I can change it. As a rule, I like to keep programs simple. (172) Im not a particularly creative person; my real skill is taking ideas and integrating them to make a nice package.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (664) 20131019 0 -3+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Habitat on-line simulated world many-participant environment a new media form. (664) The system we developed can support a population of thousands of users in a single shared cyberspace. Habitat presents its users with a real-time animated view into an on-line simulated world in which users can communicate, play games, go on adventures, fall in love, get married, get divorced, start businesses, found religions, wage wars, protest against them, and experiment with self-government. (664) At the core of our vision is the idea that cyberspace is necessarily a many-participant environment.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (665) 20131019a 0 -7+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Habitat inspired by computer hacker science fiction Vinge True Names, originally C64 front end with avatars representing players. (665) Habitat was inspired by a long tradition of computer hacker science fiction, notably Vernor Vinges story, True Names (1981), as well as many fond childhood memories of games of make-believe, more recent memories of role-playing games and the like, and numerous other influences too thoroughly blended to pinpoint. To this we added a dash of silliness, a touch of cyberpunk (Gibson 1985, Sterling 1986), and a predilection for object-oriented programming (Abelson and Sussman 1985). (665) The initial incarnation of Habitat uses a Commodore 64 for the frontend. . . . The players are represented by animated figures that we call Avatars.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (667) 20131019c 0 -3+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Bandwidth scarcity lessened by aim of communicating human behaviors that can be abstracted; theorists like Hayles who examine differences between inscription and incorporation would disagree. (667) Even in a more technically advanced network, however, bandwidth remains scarce in the sense that economists use the term: available carrying capacity is not unlimited. (667) However, the most significant part of what wewish to be communicating are human behaviors. These, fortunately, can be represented quite compactly, provided we adopt a relatively abstract, high-level description that deals with behavioral concepts directly.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (667) 20131019d 0 -3+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Object-oriented representation essential to fit user conceptual model of virtual world; interactions based on functional models. (667) the basic objects from which you build the system should correspond more or less to the objects in the users conceptual model of the virtual world, that is, people, places, and artifacts. (667) The description of a place in a virtual world should be in terms of what is there rather than what it looks like. Interactions between objects should be described by functional models rather than by physical ones.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (667-668) 20131019e 0 -6+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Define cyberspace in terms of configuration and behavior of objects abstracts implementation tied to specific, fleeting technologies. (667-668) The presentation level and the conceptual level cannot (and should not) be totallyisolated from each other. However, defining a cyberspace in terms of the configuration and behavior of objects, rather than their presentation, enables us to span a vast range of computational and display capabilities among the participants in a system. . . . this approach covers the ground between systems already obsolete and ones that are as yet gleams in their designers eyes.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (668-669) 20131019f 0 -8+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Criticism of ISO reference model is their ethnographic contribution. (668-669) We have two main quarrels with the ISO model: first, it partitions the general data communications problem in a way that is a poor match for the needs of a cyberspace system; second, and more important, we think that the model itself is an active source of confusion because it focuses the attention of system designers on the wrong set of issues and thus leads them to spend their time solving the wrong set of problems. We know because this happened to us. Presentation and Application are simply the wrong abstractions for the higher levels of a cyberspace communications protocol. A Presentation protocol presumes that at least some characteristics of the display are embedded in the protocol. . . . an Application protocol presumes a degree of foreknowledge of the message environment that is incompatible with the sort of dynamically evolving object systems we envision.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (669) 20131019h 0 -2+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html World building can lead to a discussion of Brooks and working as a programmer in corporate America thinks the subject of the thought. (669) Initially, we were our own worst enemies in this undertaking, victims of a way of thinking to which all engineers are dangerously susceptible. This way of thinking is characterized by the conceit that all things may be planned in advance and then directly implemented according to the plans detailed specification.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (670) 20131019i 0 -3+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Reject detailed central planning. (670) Places whose value lies in their uniqueness, or at least in their differentiation from the places around them, need to be crafted by hand. This is an incredibly labor-intensive and time-consuming process. Furthermore, even very imaginative people are limited in the range of variation that they can produce, especially if they are working in a virgin environment uninfluenced by the works and reactions of other designers.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (671) 20131019j 0 -2+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Game designer versus cruise director on ocean voyage. (671) We were to be like the cruise director on an ocean voyage, but it turned out we were still thinking like game designers. (671) Again and again we found that activities based on often unconscious assumptions about player behavior had completely unexpected outcomes (when they were not simply outright failures).
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (671) 20131019k 0 -1+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Alternative design approach based on evolutionary and market principles; compare to Suchman plans and situation actions. (671) Indeed, the challenges posed by large systems in general are prompting some researchers to question the centralized, planning-dominated attitude that we have criticized here, and to propose alternative approaches based on evolutionary and market principles.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (672) 20131019l 0 -3+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Anarchists and statists; evolve governments rather than coding default one, as there will never be perfectly coded spaces (Kitchin and Dodge). (672) It was clear, however, that there are two basic camps: anarchists and statists. This division of characters and world views is an issue that will need to be addressed by future cyberspace architects. However, our view remains that a virtual world need not be set up with a default government, but can instead evolve one as needed.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (672-673) 20131019m 0 -9+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Cyberspace designers and operators inhabit infrastructure and experiential levels; cannot trust users access to infrastructure. (672-673) Designers and operators of a cyberspace system must inhabit two levels of virtuality at once. The first we call the infrastructure level, the level of implementation, where the laws that govern reality have their genesis. The second we call the experiential level, which is what the users see and interact with. It is important that there not be leakage between these two levels. . . . When we exhort cyberspace system designers to give control to the users, we mean control at the experiential level. When we say that you cant trust anyone, we mean that you cant trust them with access to the infrastructure level.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (673) 20131019n 0 -8+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Delving into internals such as by disassembling machine code allows players to develop cheats and affordances beyond coming to understand overt procedural rhetorics. (673) If, however, a computer game involves multiple players, then delving into the programs internals can enable one to truly cheat, in the sense that one gains an unfair advantage over the other players, an advantage moreover of which they may be unaware. Habitat is such a multiplayer game. When we were designing the software, our prime directive was The backend shall not assume the validity of anything a player computer tells it. . . . Would anyone go to the trouble of disassembling and studying 100K or so of incredibly tight and bizarrely threaded 6502 machine code just to tinker? As it turns out, the answer is yes.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (674) 20131019o 0 -4+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Example of killing Death as difficult negotiations between experiential and infrastructural levels to work within the system. (674) Wherever possible, things that can be done within the framework of the experiential level should be. (674) One of the goals of a next generation Habitat-like system ought to be to permit far greater creative involvement by the participants without requiring them to ascend to full-fledged guruhood to do so. (675) Operating within the participants world model produced a very satisfactory result. On the other hand, taking what seemed like the expedient course, which involved violating the world model, provoked upset and dismay.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (675) 20131019p 0 -4+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Development and expansion by users future direction, as is done in Second Life. (675) However, the line of development most interesting to us is to expand on the idea of making the development and expansion of the world itself part of the users sphere of control. (675) The backend is a communications and processing bottleneck that will not withstand growth above too large a size. While we can support tens of thousands of users with this model, it is not really feasible to support millions. (676) The second fertile area of investigation involves user configuration of the world itself.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKmorningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat (676) 20131019q 0 -4+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_morningstar_farmer-lucasfilms_habitat.html Managing cyberspace unlike single-user application or conventional online service; more like governing a nation, leading to agoric evolutionary approach rather than centralized socialistic one, as if liberalism through natural selection (Malabou). (676) managing a cyberspace world is not like managing the world inside a single-user application or even a conventional online service. Instead, it is more like governing an actual nation. Cyberspace architects will benefit from study of the principles of sociology and economics as much as from the principles of computer science. We advocate an agoric, evolutionary approach to world building rather than a centralized, socialistic one.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKmurray-hamlet_on_the_holodeck (57) 20131006h 0 -8+ progress/2008/11/notes_for_murray-hamlet_on_the_holodeck.html Storyspace hypertext system by Bolter and Smith designed for writing narrative as linked text blocks; look for programmer perspective. (57) The literary publisher Eastgate Systems distinguishes its products from both pornographic Web soaps and games by calling them serious hypertext. The pioneering work in this genre is Michael Joyces Afternoon(1987), written in the Storyspace hypertext system, which he codesigned with Jay David Bolter and John Smith specifically for the purpose of writing narrative as a set of linked text blocks. (58) But to the postmodern writer, confusion is not a bug but a feature. In the jargon of the postmodern critics, Joyce is intentionally problematizing our expectations of storytelling, challenging us to construct our own text from the fragments he has provided. . . . The architectural playfulness of Afternoon, its construction as a series of discrete lexia linked by overlapping paths, and the poetic shaping of its individual lexia mark it as the first narrative to lay claim to the digital environment as a home for serious literature in new formats.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKnegroponte-soft_architecture_machines (355) 20131019a 0 -6+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_negroponte-soft_architecture_machines.html HUNCH sketch recognition defines three models from computer viewpoint including reflection: what I think that you think I think of you is important. (355) Following some work with Gordon Pask, we proposed in HUNCH An Experiment in Sketch Recognition (Negroponte, Groisser, and Taggart, 1972) that man-computer interactions should be supported by three levels of model. From the computers point of view, these include (1) its model of you, (2) its model of your model of it, and (3) its model of your model of its model of you. (355) In human relations, what I think you think that I think of you is as important as (and can be more important than) what I really think of you. I suspect that forthcoming research will reveal that this model is crucial to learning about people on a person-to-person level. This is because a deep acquaintance can be described as a state of convergence between this third level of model and the first. When your model of my model of your model of me is almost a replica of your model of me, we can say that you know me: in terms of a human relationship, that we have reached a level of confidence and trust.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKnegroponte-soft_architecture_machines (361) 20131019d 0 -3+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_negroponte-soft_architecture_machines.html Design amplifier as interim step to wizard machine. (361) Before I begin I feel obliged to tell you that The Architecture Machine Group has worked very sporadically and without much success on this problem. The notion of a design amplifieris new and might provide an interim step between the present and the wizard machine, the surrogate human. (361) As such, let us consider aspects of a design amplifier in terms of a somewhat dual existence: the benevolent educator and the thirstingstudent, all in one.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKnegroponte-soft_architecture_machines (361) 20131019e 0 -2+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_negroponte-soft_architecture_machines.html Child treats computer as automatic student (Papert). (361) In brief, their [Papert and his colleagues] theory is that computer-aided instruction should be treated as the amplification and enlightening of the processes of learning and thinking themselves, rather than merely presenting and drilling specific subject matter. To achieve this, the computer is treated, in some sense, as an automatic student by the child.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKnegroponte-soft_architecture_machines (363) 20131019g 0 -2+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_negroponte-soft_architecture_machines.html Network of design amplifiers a form of human-computer symbiosis beyond what Licklider imagined, as is the following plan recognition experiment. (363) The general scheme would be a network of many (one per person) design amplifiers working in concert with a variety of larger host machines, machines that could direct questions to other amplifiers or could answer those related to more global matters. An advantage of this layout is the opportunity, hitherto impossible, for personal negotiations within a regulatory framework that could capitalize upon the special-case amenities that are important to me and are available for negotiation.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKnegroponte-soft_architecture_machines (363) 20131019h 0 -5+ progress/2013/10/notes_for_negroponte-soft_architecture_machines.html Experiment of outputing problem specification after inputing physical description through recognition. (363) A typical exercise in computer-aided design is the generation of two- three-dimensional layouts from a set of well-specified constraints and criteria. . . . This section considers an experiment that seeks to do the reverse: input of a physical description (through recognition rather than specification) and output of problem specification.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKryan-beyond_myth_and_metaphor (607-608) 20131108 0 -11+ progress/2012/03/notes_for_ryan-beyond_myth_and_metaphor.html Compare Bernstein to Bricklin garden of software. (607-608) Narrative will have to learn to share the spotlight with other types of sensory data; to accept a subordinate role, as in games, or limit itself to certain plot types. Conversely, the medium will have to give up some of its fluidity to allow narrative meaning to solidify in the mind of the reader. . . . To borrow a metaphor from Mark Bernstein of Eastgate Systems (1998), the compromise between being lost in the wilderness and being sucked onto the freeway is to be invited into a garden with many carefully designed paths. . . . This combination of designed space and serendipitous discovery, mapped trails and surprise attractions, contained area and expanding vista make the garden look much bigger than it really is. This may be the closest one gets to the mythical Aleph, without entering a jungle where narrative meaning chokes in the brambles of uncontrollable multiplicity.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (13) 20131009b 0 -2+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Technological advance will raise real wages unless scarcity of capital causes rising interest rates. (13) In sum: so long as the rate of interest remains constant, an advance in technology can only produce a rising level of real wages.The only route through which technological advance could lower real wages would be by increasing the capital coefficient (the added cost being compensated by a large decline in the labor coefficient), thereby creating a scarcity of capital and pushing interest rates sharply upward.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (25) 20131009c 0 -3+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Human symbiosis with machines more profitable than with horses; however, machines will not abandon humans. (25) The mean, limited in number, found that they could earn higher real wages in symbiosis with machines than in symbiosis with horses, and they abandoned their old friends for the new. So long as the supply of computers responds to market forces and they do not impose birth control on themselves they will be in no position similarly to abandon man. The rewards of technological progress will still be his, not theirs.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (28) 20131009d 0 -3+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Picture society after new equilibrium settled. (28) First of all, we must predict what is likely to happen to the job of the individual manager, and to the activity of management in the individual organization. Changes in these patterns will have secondary effects on the occupational profile in the economy as a whole. Our task is to picture the society after it has made all these secondary adjustments and settled down to its new equilibrium.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (30) 20130413 0 -4+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Learning deeper understanding of complex information processing and skills to write programs are causes of change, such as thinking devices; the trend will not reach programmer kings any more than the invention of writing created scribal kings. (30) The new knowledge consists in a fundamental understanding of the processes of thinking and learning or to use a more neutral term, of complex information processing. We can now write programs for electronic computers that enable these devices to think and learn. (30) Within the very near future much less than twenty-five years we shall have the technical capability of substituting machines for any and all human functions in organizations. Within the same period, we shall have acquired an extensive and empirically tested theory of human cognitive processes and their interaction with human emotions, attitudes, and values.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (38) 20131009e 0 -3+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Human advantage retained in use of brain as flexible, general-purpose problem-solving device, flexible use of sensory organs and hands, and use of legs, whereas competitive advantage as energy machine diminished; note Darwinian emphasis on flexibility that Malabou critiques. (38) Thus, mans comparative advantage in energy production has been greatly reduced in most situations to the point where he is no longer a significant source of power in our economy. He has been supplanted also in performing many relatively simple and repetitive eye-brain-hand sequences. He has retained his greatest comparative advantage in: (1) the use of his brain as a flexible general-purpose problem-solving device, (2) the flexible use of his sensory organs and hands and (3) the use of his legs, on rough terrain as well as smooth to make this general-purpose sensing-thinking-manipulating system available wherever it is needed.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (47) 20131009g 0 -2+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Managers supervise and solve well-structured and ill-structured problems; prediction that middle management activities will be completely automated and the workforce diminished. (47) Managers are largely concerned with supervising, with solving well-structured problems, and with solving ill-structured problems. (47) But there is reason to believe that the kinds of activities that now characterize middle management will be more completely automated than the others, and hence will come to have a somewhat smaller part in the whole management picture.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (48-49) 20131009h 0 -4+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Failed prediction of extinction of programming occupation by self-programming techniques, although at the interface level human knowledge requirements to use computers has diminished. (48-49) Similarly, we can dismiss the notion that computer programmers will become a powerful elite in the automated corporation. It is far more likely that the programming occupation will become extinct (through the further development of self-programming techniques) than that it will become all-powerful. More and more, computers will program themselves; and direction will be given to computers through the mediation of compiling systems that will be completely neutral so far as content of the decision rules is concerned. Moreover, the task of communicating with computers will become less and less technical as computers come by means of computing techniques closer and closer to handling the irregularities of natural language.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (50) 20131009i 0 -1+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Predictions resembling Marxist utopia as automation proceeds: developing human science, alternatives to work and production as social goals, reformulating place in universe. (50) Three of them in particular, I think, are going to receive a great deal of attention as automation proceeds: developing a science of man, finding alternatives for work and production as basic goals for society, and reformulating mans view of his place in the universe.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (51) 20131009j 0 -1+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Expects rapid advances in teaching and dealing with human maladjustment, as if the human remains static in the process of technological advance. (51) We may expect very rapid advances in the effectiveness and efficiency of our techniques of teaching and our techniques for dealing with human maladjustment.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (66) 20131009k 0 -3+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Use of training and planned experience to improve nonprogrammed organizational decision making. (66) The processes of learning have been as mysterious as the processes of problem solving. But improvement there is. We are thus able, in a crude way, to use training and planned experience as a means for improving nonprogrammed decision making in organizations.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (69) 20131009m 0 -1+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Operations research extends management decision-making techniques developed for military needs to natural scientists. (69) Operations research is a movement that, emerging out of the military needs of World War II, has brought the decision-making problems of management within the range of interests of large numbers of natural scientists and, particularly, of mathematicians and statisticians.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (72) 20131009n 0 -2+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Program for making decisions by applying four steps of management decisions leads to mathematicians aphasia, pretending the problem was always the simplified abstraction reached so that the program can be executed: point made by Hayles concerning cybernetics; does this contribute to our becoming stupid? (72) This leads to an ailment that might be called mathematicians aphasia. The victim abstracts the original problem until the mathematical intractabilities have been removed (and all semblance of reality lost), solves the new simplified program, and then pretends that this was the problem he wanted to solve all along.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (77) 20131009p 0 -1+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Revisit human problem solving techniques for poorly structured tasks; AI based on heuristics rather than grand algorithms (Edwards, Golumbia). (77) Nevertheless, when we run out of ideas for handling poorly structured problem-solving tasks, it seems plausible to examine more closely the processes used by humans who have handled such tasks not always efficiently, to be sure for several millennia.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (81) 20131009q 0 -2+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Assumption that human thinking is governed by programs that are like machine programs leads to computational model of mind and belief that computer programs can be written to simulate human thought. (81) In solving problems, human thinking is governed by programs that organize myriads of simple information processes or symbol manipulating processes if you like into orderly, complex sequences that are responsive to and adaptive to the task environment and the clues that are extracted from that environment as the sequences unfold. Since programs of the same kind can be written for computers, these programs can be used to describe and simulate human thinking.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (82-83) 20131009r 0 -3+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html General Problem Solver uses complex structures of familiar simple elements to solve problems, putatively modeling how the mind works by buying into assumption that simple elements are mental programs. (82-83) The secret of problem solving is that there is no secret. It is accomplished through complex structures of familiar simple elements. The proof is that we can simulate it, using no more than those simple elements as the building blocks of our programs.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (92) 20131009s 0 -2+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Prospect of building aids to human thinking based on understanding of human thinking. (92) All of these aids to human thinking, and many others, were devised without understanding the process they aided the thought process itself. The prospect before us now is that we shall understand that process.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (97) 20131009t 0 -7+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Desire for principle of moderation from Berlyne work on curiosity: interest of people and rats thrives in zones of manageable complexity, problems comprehensible in deep structure but unfamiliar in detail; thus, routine can be a welcome refuge. (97) Routine is a welcome refuge from the trackless forests of unfamiliar problem solving. (97-98) The work on curiosity of Berlyneand others suggests that some kind of principle of moderation applies. People (and rats) find the most interest in situations that are neither completely strange nor entirely known. . . . The pleasure that the good professional experiences in his work is not simply a pleasure in handling difficult matters; it is a pleasure in using skillfully a well-stocked kit of well-designed tools to handle problems that are comprehensible in their deep structure but unfamiliar in their detail.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (99-100) 20131009u 0 -4+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Need for hierarchy in complex systems: appear in evolutionary processes and require less information transmission among their parts. (99-100) 1. Among possible systems of a given size and complexity, hierarchical systems, composed of subsystems, are the most likely to appear through evolutionary processes. (100) 2. Among systems of a given size and complexity, hierarchical systems require much less information transmission among their parts than do other types of systems.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (102-103) 20131009v 0 -2+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Before emergence of distributed control as an organizational design, option is how far to decentralize. (102-103) But centralizing and decentralizing are not genuine alternatives for organizations. The question is not whether we shall decentralized, but how far we shall decentralize.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (106) 20131009w 0 -1+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Need for infrequent outside intervention in high speed data-processing systems; intervention takes form of system design and programming, away from operations, as reflected in development of timesharing systems. (106) Since processing steps in an automated data-processing system are executed in a thousandth or even millionth of a second, the whole system must be organized on a flow basis with infrequent intervention from outside.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKsimon-shape_of_automation (108) 20131009x 0 -1+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_simon-shape_of_automation.html Expect managerial jobs to shift toward rationalization and impersonalization; note predominant role of spreadsheet model of business highlighted by Golumbia. (108) If a couple of terms are desired to characterize the direction of change we may expect in the managers job, I would propose rationalization and impersonalization.
4 2 1 (+) [-5+]mCQKturkle-inner_history_of_devices (133-34) 20130909 0 -10+ progress/2010/08/notes_for_turkle-inner_history_of_devices.html Weizenbaum identifying category of compulsive programmers. (133-34) In 1976, MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum warned about an emerging category of compulsive programmers. . . . Weizenbaum sees this pathology as having significant similarities to compulsive gambling. Each has the driving force of megalomaniac fantasies of omnipotence. . . . Or, as Andrew Ross argues, hackers like dropout students of the 1960s and the punks of the 1970s were the 1980s public example of moral maladjustment.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKullman-close_to_the_machine (39-40) 20131014 0 -10+ progress/2012/05/notes_for_ullman-close_to_the_machine.html Animal responses and lgorithmic lovemaking. (39-40) For Brian was giving me a gesture so bizarre, so inappropriate, that to this day I can hardly believe what I saw. His head was thrown back, his eyes were half closed. He sniffed at the air once, twice, three times. Then he actually snorted. Though Im sure Id never seen anything like it in the whole of my life, I only needed to be a primate to understand its meaning: Brian wanted to fuck me. (49) His lovemaking was tantric, algorithmic. I once thought that love could not be programmed, but now I wondered. This sex was formulaic, had steps and positions and durations, all tried and perfected, like a martial arts kata or a well-debugged program. My own role in it was like a user-exit subroutine, an odd branch where anything might happen but from which we must return, tracing back to the mainline procedure. (50-51) The new breed of entrepreneur: Net landlord.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKullman-close_to_the_machine (78) 20131014a 0 -5+ progress/2012/05/notes_for_ullman-close_to_the_machine.html Human spreadsheet relationship is one of informing. (78) In the relationship between human and computer that underlies the spreadsheet, the human is the repository of knowledge, the smart agent, the active party. . . . It is the end user who creates information, who gives formto data, who informsthe spreadsheet.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKullman-close_to_the_machine (78) 20131014b 0 -7+ progress/2012/05/notes_for_ullman-close_to_the_machine.html She notes the comparison of Internet to the library, with the absence of librarian role in searching. (78) The relationship between person and machine is completely reversed on the Internet. The Net is the knowledge repository, and the user can only search it. (80) I begin to wonder if there isnt something in computer systems that is like a suburban development. Both take places real, particular places and turn them into anyplace. (82) Something similar happened with the AIDS project. Despite the idealism of the programmers, the good intentions of my clients staff, the hard work of the users, what we created in the end was not the system of care we set out to build. In the end, what we created was only a system.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKullman-close_to_the_machine (84) 20131014c 0 -3+ progress/2012/05/notes_for_ullman-close_to_the_machine.html Compare to von Neumann analysis of the differences between natural and artificial automata. (84) I tried to warn her that the machine cannot keep rounded edges; that its dumb, declarative nature could not comprehend the small, chaotic accommodations to reality which kept human systems running. (89) Many years and clients later, this greed for more data, and more again, had become a commonplace. It had become institutionalized as a good feature of computer systems.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKullman-close_to_the_machine (101) 20131108 0 -7+ progress/2012/05/notes_for_ullman-close_to_the_machine.html State of perpetual learning by maintaining posture of ignorant humility. (101) Ive managed to stay in a perpetual state of learning only by maintaining what I think of as a posture of ignorant humility. (107) So I never did hear the older one explain how you get used to it after a while, how it becomes normal to discard your certainty and hunker down into the newest thing, how it is no fun but there is a certain perverse satisfaction in reorienting your brain at a right angle to its previous position. And there, lost, you go ahead anyway. And there, somehow, you make it run. (110) The corollary of constant change is ignorance. This is not often talked about: we computer experts barely know what were doing. (110) Over the years, the horrifying knowledge of ignorant expertise became normal, a kind of background level of anxiety that only occasionally blossomed into outright fear.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKullman-close_to_the_machine (101) 20131014d 0 -6+ progress/2012/05/notes_for_ullman-close_to_the_machine.html Dedicated serial monogamist; hard on emotions, good profile for technology. (101) This process of remembering technologies is a little like trying to remember all your lovers: you have to root around in the past and wonder. Lets see. Have I missed anybody? In some ways, my personal life has made me uniquely suited to the technical life. Im a dedicated serial monogamistlong periods of intense engagement punctuated by times of great restlessness and searching. As hard as this may be on the emotions, it is a good profile for technology.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKullman-close_to_the_machine (115) 20120615 0 -1+ progress/2012/05/notes_for_ullman-close_to_the_machine.html Value of historical computing experience could be for philosophizing, which is what she is doing with this book. (115) But all this history had to be worth something, I felt, There had to be some threads, some concepts, some themes that transcended the details, something in computing that made it worth being alive for more than thirty-five years.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKullman-close_to_the_machine (117) 20130909a 0 -5+ progress/2012/05/notes_for_ullman-close_to_the_machine.html At least for custom, special purpose software like automation systems, nobody understands an old one; is it not the same for discourse systems, at least in the humanities? (117) The preciousness of an old system is axiomatic. The longer the system has been running, the greater the number of programmers who have worked on it, the less any one person understands it. As years pass and untold numbers of programmers and analysts come and go, the system takes on a life of its own. It runs. That is its claim to existence: it does useful work.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKullman-close_to_the_machine (126-127) 20130909b 0 -6+ progress/2012/05/notes_for_ullman-close_to_the_machine.html Virtual as living in the not-quite-here-ness of the machine and its software; compare to other ontological formulations. (126-127) The word virtual no longer roams freely in the English language, however. It has been captured by computers. To say virtual means living in the not-quite-here-ness of the machine and its software.The word retains the sense of the missing, the not real. But somehow this not-ness has become a good thing. To be ephemerally existent, to float in some indefinable plane now known as cyberspace thats supposed to be grand.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKullman-close_to_the_machine (145) 20130909c 0 -5+ progress/2012/05/notes_for_ullman-close_to_the_machine.html Meeting in the online village easy connection to recent Turkle. (145) He had his home in the postmodern village: the workplace, the last place where your position in the order of things is still known, where people must put up with you on a regular basis, over a long period of time, and you with them. Families scatter, marriages end, yet the office and the factory have hung on a bit longer as staple human gathering places. Maybe this is why the decline of industrial work and the downsizing of corporations have produced such anxiety: the final village is dissolving, and those of us without real jobs or fakes where will we meet each other now? (145) On line, I suppose. As virtualized creatures swimming along in private pools of time.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKullman-close_to_the_machine (178-179) 20131014f 0 -3+ progress/2012/05/notes_for_ullman-close_to_the_machine.html Lost track of number of lovers. (178-179) I could no longer count the number of lovers Id had. I could only remember the time when, with great surprise, Id realized that the number of men and women had become about equal. After that, Id let go of the ordinals, the list of names, in sequence, and what remained was a flickering serial memory of making love, and the constant amazement at how different it was with every single person.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (ix) 20130709 0 -3+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Computer as metaphor to understand the human. (ix) But a major point of this book is precisely that we, all of us, have made the world too much into a computer, and that this remaking of the world in the image of the computer started long before there were any electronic computers. Now that we have computers, it becomes somewhat easier to see this imaginative transformation we have worked on the world. Now we can use the computer itself that is the idea of the computer as a metaphor to help us understand what we have done and are doing.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (12) 20130709a 0 -11+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html From juridicial to logical basis of spiritual cosmology and rationality. (12) But at bottom, no matter how it may be disguised by technological jargon, the question is whether or not every aspect of human thought is reducible to a logical formalism, or, to put it into the modern idiom, whether or not human thought is entirely computable. That question has, in one form or another, engaged thinkers in all ages. Man has always striven for principles that could organize and give sense and meaning to his existence. But before modern science fathered the technologies that reified and concretized its otherwise abstract systems, the systems of thought that defined mans place in the universe were fundamentally juridicial. . . . The spiritual cosmologies engendered by modern science, on the other hand, are infected with the germ of logical necessity. (13) I would argue that, however intelligent machines may be made to be, there are some acts of thought that oughtto be attempted only by humans. One socially significant question I thus intend to raise is over the proper place of computers in the social order. But, as we shall see, the issue transcends computers in that it must ultimately deal with logicalityitself quite apart from whether logicality is encoded in computer programs or not.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (17-18) 20130710 0 -11+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Tools also have pedagogical function; symbol of activity, model for reproduction, script for reenactment of skill. (17-18) His tools, whatever their primary practical function, are necessarily also pedagogical instruments. They are then part of the stuff out of which man fashions his imaginative reconstruction of the world. (18) They symbolize the activities they enable, i.e., their own use. . . . A tool is also a model for its own reproduction and a script for the reenactment of the skill it symbolizes. (19) But devices and machines, perhaps known to (and certainly owned and operated by) only a relatively few members of society, have often influenced the self-image of its individual members and the world-image of the society as a whole quite as profoundly as have widely used hand tools. (20) Many machines are functional additions to the human body, virtually prostheses.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (24) 20130710a 0 -9+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Clock as autonomous machine rather than prosthesis (Mumford). (24) The clock is clearly not a prosthetic machine; it extends neither mans muscle nor his senses. It is an autonomous machine. (24) An autonomous machineis one that, once started, runs by itself on the basis of an internalized model of some aspect of the real world. (25) The various states of this model were given names and thus reified. And the whole collection of them superimposed itself on the existing world and changed it, just as much as a cataclysmic rearrangement of its geography or climate might have changed it. . . . It is important to realize that this newly created reality was and remains an impoverished version of the older one, for it rests on a rejection of those direct experiences that formed the basis for, and indeed constituted, the old reality.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (30) 20130710b 0 -10+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html We ignore the possibility of different responses than computerization that may have occurred in telling the history of technological advance; Forrester focused on inability to act as impetus to build SAGE. (30) The inability to act which, as [J. W.] Forresterpoints out, provided the incentive to augment or replace the low-internal-speed human organizations with computers, might in some other historical situation have been an incentive for modifying the task to be accomplished, perhaps doing away with it altogether, or for restructuring the human organizations whose inherent limitations were, after all, seen as the root of the trouble. . . . But the computer was used to build, in the words of one air force colonel, a servomechanism spread out over an area comparable to the whole American continent, that is, the SAGE air-defense system. (31) An enormous acceleration of social invention, had it begun then, would now seem to us as natural a consequence of mans predicament in that time as does the flood of technological invention and innovation that was actually stimulated. (31) The computer, then, was used to conserve Americas social and political institutions. It buttressed them and immunized them, at least temporarily, against enormous pressures for change.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (33-34) 20130710c 0 -9+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Automation of tab rooms with computers compared to mere substitution of horses by steam engines; transformation awaited its application to operations research and systems analysis. (33-34) Still, business used the early computers to simply automate its tab rooms, i.e., to perform exactly the earlier operations, only now automatically and, presumably, more efficiently. The crucial transition, from the business computer as a mere substitute for work-horse tab machines to its present status as a versatile information engine, began when the power of the computer was projected onto the framework already established by operations research and systems analysis. (34-35) It is important to understand very clearly that strengthening a particular technique putting muscles on it contributes nothing to its validity. . . . If astrology is nonsense, then computerized astrology is just as surely nonsense.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (42) 20131010a 0 -8+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Effective procedure set of state-transition rules telling player precisely how to behave from moment to moment, allowing treatment of formal language as game. (42) The laws embodied by a machine that interacts with the real world must perforce to be a subset of the laws governing the real world. (44) A crucial property that the set of rules of any game must have is that they be complete and consistent. (45) Using this terminology, we may characterize the rules of an abstract game as state-transition rules. (46) Such a set of rules that is, a set of rules which tells a player precisely how to behave from one moment to the next is called an effective procedure. (48) The problem that thus arises would be solved if there were a single inherently unambiguous language in which we could and would write all effective procedures. (50) A formal language is a game. That is not a mere metaphor but a statement asserting a formal correspondence. But if that statement is true, we should, when talking about a language, be able to easily move back and forth between a game-like vocabulary and a corresponding language-like vocabulary.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (62) 20130711a 0 -6+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Importance of constructing universal machines; example of a Turing-machine like game using toilet paper, white and black stones, and a die. (62) Turing proved that a universal Turing machine exists by showing how to construct one. (63) Turing answered that question as well: a Turing machine can be built to realize any process that could naturally be called an effective procedure. (64) Such a way of knowing is very weak. We do not say we know a city, let alone that we understand it, solely on the basis of having a detailed map of it. Apart from that, if we understand the language in which a procedure is written well enough to be able to explicate its transformation rules, we probably understand what rules stated in that language tell us to do. (67) Leaving to one side everything having to do with formally undecidable questions, interminable procedures, and defective procedures, the unavoidable question confronts us: Are all decisionmaking processes that humans employ reducible to effective procedures and hence amenable to machine computation?
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (96) 20130711b 0 -5+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Importance of conditional branching for autonomous behavior. (96) The ability of computers to execute conditional-branch instructions i.e., to modify the flow of control of their programs as a function of the outcome of tests on intermediate results of their own computations is one of their most crucial properties, for every effective procedure can be reduced to a series of nothing but commands (i.e., statements of the form do this and do that ) interlaced with conditional-branch instructions.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (103) 20131108a 0 -9+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Programmers sense power of computer by their ability to program it to do things, even if they do not know how it works. (103) If todays programmers are largely unaware of the detailed structures of the physical machines they are using, of their languages, and of the translators that manipulate their programs, then they must also be largely ignorant of many of the arguments I have made here, particularly of those arguments concerning the universality of computers and the nature of effective procedures. How then do these programmers come to sense the power of the computer? (103-104) Their conviction that, so to say, the computer can do anything i.e., their correct intuition that the languages available to them are, in some nontrivial sense, universal comes largely from their impression that they can program any procedure they thoroughly understand. That impression, in turn, is based on their experience of the power of subroutines and of the reducibility of complex decision processes to hierarchies of binary (i.e., two-way branching) choices. (105) The computer programmers sense of power derives largely from his conviction that this instructions will be obeyed unconditionally and that, given his ability to build arbitrarily large program structures, there is no limit to at least the size of the problems he can solve.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (107-108) 20130723 0 -6+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Only partial understanding is needed to program, being experimental like writing; myth of depth (consider against Turkle). (107-108) The idea that a person can write a program that embodies anything he thoroughly understands is at least equally problematical. . . . In effect, we all constantly use subroutines whose input-output behavior we believe we know, but whose details we need not and rarely do think about. To understand something sufficiently well to be able to program it for a computer does not mean to understand it to its ultimate depth.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (115) 20130711c 0 -4+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Power corrupts; any surprise that there is a typographic error in this key part of the book? (115) One would have to be astonished if Lord Actons observation that power corrupts were not to apply in an environment in which omnipotence is so easily achievable. It does apply. And the corruption evoked by the computer programmers omnipotence manifests itself in a form that is instructive in a domain far larger [(sic)] that the immediate environment of the computer. To understand it, we will have to take a look at a mental disorder that, while actually very old, appears to have been transformed by the computer into a new genus: the compulsion to program.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (118) 20130724 0 -8+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Hacker viewed as possessing technique but not knowledge, pleasurelessly driven like a compulsive gambler; compare to Turkle bricoleur versus hard mastery programming styles. (118) I have already said that the compulsive programmer, or hacker as he calls himself, is usually a superb technician. It seems therefore that he is not without skill as the definition would have it. But the definition fits in the deeper sense that the hacker is without definite purpose : he cannot set before himself a clearly defined long-term goal and a plan for achieving it, for he has only technique, not knowledge. (119) But since there is no general theory of the whole system, the system itself can be only a more or less chaotic aggregate of subsystems whose influence one one anothers behavior is discoverable only piecemeal and by experiment. (120) His apparently devoted efforts to improve and promote his own creation are really an assault on it, an assault whose only consequence can be to renew his struggle with the computer. (121) The compulsive programmer is driven; there is little spontaneity in how he behaves; and he finds no pleasure in the fulfillment of his nominal wishes. He seeks reassurance from the computer, not pleasure. The closest parallel we can find to this sort of psychopathology is in the relentless, pleasureless drive for reassurance that characterizes the life of the compulsive gambler.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (127) 20131010c 0 -4+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Huxley drunk looking for keys under lamplight applied to computational cognitive science. (127) Science can proceed only by simplifying reality. The first step in its process of simplification is abstraction. And abstraction means leaving out of account all those empirical data which do not fit the particular conceptual framework within which science at the moment happens to be working, which, in other words, are not illuminated by the light of the particular lamp under which science happens to be looking for keys. Aldous Huxleyremarked on this matter with considerable clarity.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (136-137) 20131010d 0 -8+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Chomsky hypothesis that human degrees of freedom imposed by genetic endowment: universal grammar projective description of mind. (136-137) In fact, Chomskys most profoundly significant working hypothesis is that mans genetic endowment gives him a set of highly specialized abilities and imposes on him a corresponding set of restrictions which, taken together, determine the number and kinds of degrees of freedom that govern and delimit all human language development. (137) Chomskys hypothesis is, to put it another way, that the rules of such a universal grammar would constitute a kind of projective description of important aspects of the human mind. (139) Clearly, Simons and Newells ambition is taken seriously both by powerful U.S. government agencies and by a significant sector of the scientific community. (140) A theory is first of all a text, hence a concatenation of the symbols of some alphabet. But it is a symbolic construction in a deeper sense as well; the very terms that a theory employs are symbols which, to paraphrase Abraham Kaplan, grope for their denotation in the real world or else cease to be symbolic. (142) One use of a theory, then, is that it prepares the conceptual categories within which the theoretician and the practitioner will ask his questions and design his experiments.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (143) 20130712a 0 -12+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Models based on theories can figure things out, giving agency to texts; a computer program can be both theory and model, giving preferred status to writing programs to investigate even humanities questions. (143) Of course, a theory cannot figure out anything. It is, after all, merely a text. But we can often build a model on the basis of a theory. And there are models which can, in an entirely nontrivial sense, figure things out. (144-145) Computers make possible an entirely new relationship between theories and models. . . . The point is precisely that computers do interprettexts given to them, in other words, that texts determine computers behavior. . . .
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (150) 20130712b 0 -10+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Models also have properties of their own not shared by what they model. (150) The problem associated with the question of what is and what is not essential cuts the other way as well. A model is, after all, a different object from what it models. It therefore has properties not shared by its counterpart. (152) Computer models have, as we have seen, some advantages over theories stated in natural language. But the latter have the advantage that patching is hard to conceal. If a theory written in natural language is, in fact, a set of patches and patches on patches, its lack of structure will be evident in its very composition. Although a computer program similarly constructed may reveal its impoverished structure to a trained reader, this kind of fault cannot be so easily seen in the programs performance. A programs performance, therefore, does not alone constitute an adequate validation of it as theory. (152) Computer programs tend to reveal their errors, especially their lack of consistency, quickly and sharply. And, in skilled hands, computer modeling provides a quick feedback that can have a truly therapeutic effect precisely because of its immediacy.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (159) 20131010e 0 -2+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Computer as number cruncher valorizes analytic techniques over the ideas they enable to explore (George Miller). (159) Yet the folk wisdom that perceives the computer as a basically trivial instrument rests on an accurate insight: the computer, used as a number-cruncher (that is, merely as a fast numerical calculator, and it is so used especially in the behavioral sciences), has often, as George Millerhas also pointed out, put muscles on analytic techniques that are more powerful than the ideas those techniques enable one to explore. (160) We can say in anticipation that the power of a metaphor to yield new insights, depends largely on the richness of the contextual frameworks it fuses, on their potential mutual resonance.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (164) 20130712c 0 -7+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Performance, simulation, and theory modes of AI work are often conflated, for example Newell and Simon General Problem Solver. (164) Workers in AI tend to think of themselves as working in one of two modes, often called performance modeand simulation mode. (165) A third mode of operation should perhaps be mentioned in this context: theory mode. (167-168) The modern literature on problem solving is punctuated by two important books, George Polyas How to Solve Itand Newells and Simons Human Problem Solving. . . . Heuristics are thus not algorithms, not effective procedures; they are plausible ways of attacking specific problems.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (169) 20131010f 0 -7+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Protocol taking that is basis of Newell and Simon exemplifies information-processing psychology but not neurophysiology. (169) Protocol taking, that is, watching other people solve problems, became virtually a hallmark of Newell and Simons procedure. (170) Information-processing psychologyis, however, notinformation-processing neurophysiology. (171) The most ambitious information-processing system that has been built for the purpose of studying human problem-solving behavior as Newell and Simons General Problem Solver(GPS). (174) It is the information-processing theory of man which concerns us here, not GPS as such. And we are concerned with that theory precisely because it, in one variation or another, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, underlies almost all the new information-processing psychology and constitutes virtually a dogma for the artificial-intelligence community. (176) It is precisely this unwarranted claim to universality that demotes their use of the computer, computing systems, programs, etc., from the status of a scientific theory to that of a metaphor.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (178-179) 20130712d 0 -11+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Access to external world and acculturation of general vocabulary is key. (178-179) [quoting Newell and Simon] Due account must be taken of the limitations of GPSs access to the external world. The initial part of the explicit instructions to GPS have been acquired long ago by the human in building up his general vocabulary. This [information] has to be spelled out to GPS. There, precisely, is where the question is begged. For the real question is, what happens to the whole man as he builds his general vocabulary? How is his perception of what a problem is shaped by the experiences that are an integral part of his acquisition of his vocabulary? How do these experiences shape his perception of what objects, operators, differences, goals, etc., are relevant to any problems he may be facing? And so on. No theory that sidesteps such questions can possibly be a theory of human problem solving. (180) But the point is precisely that the perversion we might well say perversion of everyday thought by the computer metaphor has turned every problem into a technical problem to which the methods here discussed are thought to be appropriate.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (185) 20131010g 0 -4+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Example of the house blew it versus blue it reflects internalized English grammar. (185) We all have some criteria, an internalized grammar of the English language, that allow us to tell that the string of words The house blue it is ungrammatical. That is a purely syntactic judgment. On the other hand, we recognize that the sentence The house blew it is grammatical, even though we may have some difficulty deciding what it means, that is, how to understand it. We say we understand it only when we have been able to construct a story within which it makes sense, that is, when we can point to some contextual framework within which the sentence has a meaning, perhaps even an obvious meaning.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (192) 20131010h 0 -8+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Schank theory proposes specific underlying mechanisms for analyzing natural language utterances. (192) What I wish to emphasize here is that [Roger C.] Schanks theory proposes a formal structure for the conceptual bases underlying linguistic utterances, that it proposes specific mechanisms (algorithms) for basing predictions on such conceptual structures, and that it proposes formal rules for analyzing natural-language utterances and for converting them into the conceptual bases. (196) Newell, Simon, Schank, and Winograd simply mistake the nature of the problems they believe themselves to be solving. As if they were benighted artisans of the seventeenth century, they present general theories that are really only virtually empty heuristic slogans, and then claim to have verified these theories by constructing models that do perform some tasks, but in a way that fails to give insight into general principles. . . . The most important and far-reaching effect of this failure is that researchers in artificial intelligence constantly delude themselves into believing that the reason any particular system has not come close to realizing AIs grand vision is always to be found in the limitations of the specific systems program.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (197) 20130720 0 -9+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Philosophical reduction to two questions for AI: formalizability of conceptual bases underlying linguistic understanding, impact of appropriateness of objectives for humans versus machines for understanding. (197) There are then, two questions that must ultimately be confronted. First, are the conceptual bases that underlie linguistic understanding entirely formalizable, even in principle, as Schank suggests and as most workers in AI believe? Second, are there ideas that, as I suggested, no machines will ever understand because they relate to objectives that are inappropriate for machines? (198) The fact that these questions have become important at all is indicative of the depth to which the information-processing metaphor has penetrated both the academic and the popular mind. (200) But what is most important in both instances is that the theories be convertible to computer programs. (200) At best, what we see here is another example of the drunkards search. A theory purports to describe the conceptual structures that underlie all human language understanding. But the only conceptual structures it admits as legitimate are those that can be represented in the form of computer-manipulatable data structures. These are then simply pronounced to constitute all the conceptual structures that underlie all of human thought.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (202) 20130721 0 -3+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Alternate reasonable grand goal for AI of individual life extension via machinery in line with media convergence and virtual reality dystopia of The Matrix. (202) Both Simon and Schank have thus given expression to the deepest and most grandiose fantasy that motivates work on artificial intelligence, which is nothing less than to build a machine on the model of man, a robot that is to have its childhood, to learn language as a child does, to gain its knowledge of the world by sensing the world through its own organs, and ultimately to contemplate the whole domain of human thought. (203) I shall argue that an organism is defined, in large part, by the problems it faces. Man faces problems no machine could possibly be made to face.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (204) 20130727 0 -5+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Equivocation with success and intellectual abilities measurable by IQ is large scale social prejudice. (204) The trouble with I.Q. Testing is not that it is entirely spurious, but that it is incomplete. It measures certain intellectual abilities that large, politically dominant segments of western European societies have elevated to the very stuff of human worth and hence to the sine qua nonof success. (205) Yet forms of the idea that intelligence is measurable along an absolute scale, hence that intelligences are comparable, have deeply penetrated current thought.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (208-209) 20130721b 0 -12+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Importance of embodiment for humans for ground of experience grounding interests as well as for interpersonal communication. (208-209) Second, it is not obvious that all human knowledge is encodable in information structures, however complex. . . . There are, in other words, some things humans know by virtue of having a human body. (209) Third . . . there are some things people come to know only as a consequence of having been treated as human beings by other human beings. (209) The human use of language manifests human memory. And that is a quite different thing than the store of the computer, which has been anthropomorphized into memory. The former gives rise to hopes and fears, for example.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (210) 20130721c 0 -5+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Socializability of both humans and machines seems to entail there must be fundamental differences as between any set of organic species, for example losing paradise of infancy, although Berry ethic of being a good stream seems to instantiate the machine perspective (Erikson catastrophe). (210) If both machines and humans are socializable, then we must ask in what way the socialization of the human must necessarily be different from that of the machine. (210) Every organism is socialized by the process of dealing with problems that confront it. The very biological properties that differentiate one species from another also determine that each species will confront problems different from those faced by any other. Every species will, if only for that reason, be socialized differently. (211) A catastrophe, to use Erik Eriksons expression for it, that every human being must experience is his personal recapitulation of the biblical story of paradise.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (214) 20130721e 0 -4+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Logic is only small component of ordinary human thinking, extending by intuition into embodiment beyond the monolithic CPU paradigm, an argument supported by brain hemisphere studies. (214) There is, however, still another assumption that information-processing modelers of man make that may be false, and whose denial severely undermines their program: that there exists one and only one class of information processes, and that every member of that class is reducible to the kind of information processes exemplified by such systems as GPS and Schank-like language-understanding formalisms. Yet every human being has the impression that he thinks at least as much by intuition, hunch, and other such informal means as he does systematically, that is by means such as logic. (214) Within the last decade or so, however, neurological evidence has begun to accumulate that suggests there may be a scientific basis of the folk wisdom. (218-219) We learn from the testimony of hundreds of creative people, as well as from our own introspection, that the human creative act always involves the conscious interpretation of messages coming from the unconscious, the shifting of ideas from the left hand to the right, in [Jerome] Bruners phrase.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (221) 20130721f 0 -8+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Whole man, whole poking fun at Simon ant getting intelligence from complexity of environment also applying to humans, mysterious spectacle much richer than reduced equivalence in computable logic; dares to invoke unconscious and infant socialization as example of human ability computers cannot simulate, and admits default to Whitehead fallacy of misplaced concreteness. (221) Even calculating reason compels the belief that we must stand in awe of the mysterious spectacle that is the whole man I would even add, that is the whole ant. (222) The lesson here is rather that the part of the human mind which communicates to us in rational and scientific terms is itself an instrument that disturbs what it observes, particularly its voiceless partner, the unconscious, between which and our conscious selves it mediates. (222) We are capable of listening with the third ear, of sensing living truth that is truth beyond any standards of provability. It is thatkind of understanding, and the kind of intelligence that is derived from it, which I claim is beyond the abilities of computers to simulate. (222-223) But gradually, even slyly, our own minds become infected with what A. N. Whiteheadcalled the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. We come to believe that these theoretical terms are ultimately interpretable as observations, that in the visible future we will have ingenious instruments capaable of measuring the objects to which these terms refer.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (227) 20130721g 0 -5+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Shifts to ethical stance against giving computers tasks demanding wisdom. (227) There have been may debates on Computers and Mind. What I conclude here is that the relevant issues are neither technological nor even mathematical; they are ethical. They cannot be settled by asking questions beginning with can. The limits of the applicability of computers are ultimately statable only in terms of oughts. What emerges as the most elementary insight is that, since we do not now have any ways of making computers wise, we ought not now to give computers tasks that demand wisdom.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (229) 20130721h 0 -13+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Likely disagree with this statement that there are no marketable AI results today; examples of DENTRAL and MACSYMA best he can muster. (229) With few exceptions, there have been no results, from over twenty years of artificial-intelligence research, that have found their way into industry generally or into the computer industry in particular. (229) Two exceptions are the remarkable programs DENTRAL and MACSYMA that exist at Stanford University and at M.I.T., respectively. (229-230) DENTRAL interprets outputs of mass spectrometers, instruments used for analyses of chemical molecules. In ordinary practice, chemists in postdoctoral training are employed to deduce the chemical structures of molecules given to this instrument from the so-called mass spectra it produces. . . . Stated in general terms, then, DENTRAL is a program that analyzes mass spectra and produces descriptions of the structures of molecules that, with very high probability, gave rise to these spectra. The programs competence equals or exceeds that of human chemists in analyzing certain classes of organic molecules. (230-231) MACSYMA is, by current standards, an enormously large program for doing symbolic mathematical manipulations.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (232) 20130721i 0 -6+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Heuristic basis of AI and other programs appeals to ad hoc construction by groups of individuals over long periods; compare to software products like automation systems. (232) But most existing programs, and especially the largest and most important ones, are not theory-based in this way. They are heuristic, not necessarily in the sense that they employ heuristic methods internally, but in that their construction is based on rules of thumb, stratagems that appear to work under most foreseen circumstances, and on other ad hoc mechanisms that are added to them from time to time. (232) What is much more important, however, is that almost all the very large computer programs in daily use in industry, in government, and in the universities are of this type as well. These gigantic computer systems have usually been put together (one cannot always use the word designed ) by teams of programmers, whose work is often spread over many years. By the time these systems come into use, most of the original programmers have left or turned their attention to other pursuits. It is precisely when such systems begin to be used that their inner workings can no longer be understood by any single person or by a small team of individuals.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (232) 20131108c 0 -8+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Misattribution that programmer understands every detail of the processes embodied by programs realized by Wiener. (232) Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, foretold this phenomenon in a remarkably prescient article published almost fifteen years ago. (233) What Norbert Wiener described as a possibility has long since become reality. The reasons for this appear to be almost impossible for the layman to understand or accept. His misconcpetion of what computers are, of what they do, and of how they do what they do is attributable in part to the pervasiveness of the mechanistic metaphor and the depth to which it has penetrated the unconscious of our entire culture. . . . To him [Minsky] computers and computer programs are mechanical in the same simple sense as steam engines and automobile transmissions.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (234) 20130721j 0 -2+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Legal/bureaucratic view of program formulation appeals to vicissitudes of execution, although lay person believes programmers know every detail and theoretical bases: knowledge is much more sparse and brittle (MacKenzie). (234) Program formulation is thus rather more like the creation of a bureaucracy than like the construction of a machine of the kind Lord Kelvin may have understood. (235) It is undoubtedly this kind of trust that Minsky urges us to invest in complex artificial-intelligence programs that grow in effectiveness but which come to be beyond our understanding.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (236-237) 20130721k 0 -9+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Legitimation of knowledge base of programs that are not understood by their users; fallacy of misplaced concreteness? (236-237) Our societys growing reliance on computer systems that were initially intended to help people make analyses and decisions, but which have long since both surpassed the understanding of their users and become indispensable to them, is a very serious development. . . . And their growth and the increasing reliance placed on them is then accompanied by an increasing legitimation of their knowledge base. (237) Professor Philip Morrison of M.I.T. wrote a poignant parable on this theme [of seismological world map based only on data collected after 1961 that was digitized].
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (238) 20130721l 0 -9+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Annihilation of historical memory by elimination of data that is not already digitized in standard formats: compare to Ong on destruction of oral cultures. (238) The computer has thus begun to be an instrument for the destruction of history. For when society legitimates only those data that are in one standard format and that can easily be told to the machine, then history, memory itself, is annihilated. (239) Modern technological rationalizations of war, diplomacy, politics, and commerce (such as computer games) have an even more insidious effect on the making of policy. . . . The enormous computer systems in the Pentagon and their counterparts elsewhere in our culture have, in a very real sense, no authors. Thus they do not admit of any questions of right or wrong, of justice, or of any theory with which one can agree or disagree. They provide no basis on which what the machine says can be challenged.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (240) 20130721m 0 -11+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Despite tranquilizing myths of inevitability and Fromm escape from freedom, there are actors who are obliged to master programming and control of computers; good evidence that philosophy of computing and programming occurred in focus on debugging, yet couches human intentions as a problem of technique. (240) One would expect that large numbers of individuals, living in a society in which anonymous, hence irresponsible, forces formulate the large questions of the day and circumscribe the range of possible answers, would experience a kind of impotence and fall victim to mindless rage. . . . Yet an alternative response is also very pervasive; as seen from one perspective, it appears to be resignation, but from another perspective it is what Erich Fromm long ago called escape from freedom. (241) Today even the most highly placed managers represent themselves as innocent victims of a technology for which they accept no responsibility and which they do not even pretend to understand. . . . The myth of technological and political and social inevitability is a powerful tranquilizer of the conscience. Its service is to remove responsibility from the shoulders of everyone who truly believes in it.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (242-244) 20131010i 0 -22+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Allusion to goal of automatic programming, ease of use, and trustworthiness in unnamed university planning paper. (242-244) [quoting unnamed planning paper by director of major university computer laboratory] The importance of the role stems, as has been noted, from the fact that the computer has been incorporating itself, and will surely continue to incorporate itself, into most of the functions that are fundamental to the support, protection, and development of our society. Even now, there is no turning back, and in a few years it will be clear that we are as vitally dependent upon the informational processing of our computers as upon the growth of grain in the field and the flow of fuel from the well. . . . Nevertheless, debugging should be in the focus of the research effort undertaken to master programming. The reason is that research on debugging will yield insight into many problems in the formulation and expression of human intention. . . . Once we understand human intentions, itself a technical problem, all else is technique. . . . Eventually, if the effort is successful, the model becomes the automatic programmer. . . . The convergence of direction . . . involves making computers not only easy to use but, as has been stressed here, trustworthy.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (249) 20130721n 0 -4+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Reason reduced to domination of things, man, and nature; links to Nietzsche, Heidegger and Kittler. (249) But these systems are simple in a deeper, and more important sense as well. They have reduced reason itself to only its role in the domination of things, man, and, finally, nature. (250) In the process of adapting ourselves to these systems, we, even the admirals among us, have castrated not only ourselves (that is, resigned ourselves to impotence), but our very language as well. For now language has become merely another tool, all concepts, ideas, images that artists and writers cannot paraphrase into computer-comprehensible language have lost their function and their potency.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (251-252) 20130721o 0 -4+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html All social problems treated as technical problems, exemplified by Vietnam war; link to Golumbia, Edwards, procedural rhetoric and videogame criticism. (251-252) When every problem on the international scene is seen by the best and brightest problem solvers as being a mere technical problem, wars like the Viet Nam war become truly inevitable. The recognition of genuinely conflicting but legitimate interests of coexisting societies and such recognition is surely a precondition of conflict resolution or accommodation is rendered impossible from the outset. Instead, the simplest criteria are used to detect differences, to search for means to reduce these differences, and finally to apply operators to present objects in order to transform them into desired objects. It is, in fact, entirely reasonable, if reason means instrumental reason, to apply American military force, B-52s, napalm, and all the rest, to communist-dominated Viet Nam (clearly an undesirable object ), as the operator to transform it into a desirable object, namely, a country serving American interests.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (252) 20130721p 0 -6+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Computers as fetish and concrete form of Horkheimer eclipse of reason. (252) Horkheimer, long before computers became a fetish and gave concrete form to the eclipse of reason, gave us the needed perspective. (255) The alternative to the kind of rationality that sees the solution to world problems in psychotechnology is not mindlessness. It is reason restored to human dignity, to authenticity, to self-esteem, and to individual autonomy. (257) On the other hand, it may be that religion was not addictive at all. Had it been, perhaps God would not have died and the new rationality would not have won out over grace. But instrumental reason, triumphant technique, and unbridled science are addictive.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (259) 20131108e 0 -2+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Biofeedback movement as proto-bioengineering, stripping power of choice. (259) The now ascendant biofeedback movement may be the penultimate act in the drama separating man from nature; man no longer even senses himself, his body, directly, but only through pointer readings, flashing lights, and buzzing sounds produced by instruments attached to him as speedometers are attached to automobiles. (259) Power is nothing if it is not the power to choose.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (260) 20130722 0 -7+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Routinely do things with computer technology like morally questionable experiments, such as violent video games and pornography; treating everything as an object puts our souls at peril. (260) Is not the overriding obligation on men, including men of science, to exempt life itself from the madness of treating everything as an object, a sufficient reason, and one that does not even have to be spoken? (261) Our time prides itself on having finally achieved the freedom from censorship for which libertarians in all ages have struggled. . . . But, on closer examination, this victory too can be seen as an Orwellian triumph of an even higher ignorance: what we have gained is a new conformism, which permits us to say anything that can be said in the functional languages of instrumental reason, but forbids us to allude to what Ionesco called the living truth. (261) If that is so, then those who censor their own speech do so, to use an outmoded expression, at the peril of their souls.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (262) 20130722a 0 -8+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Attack on human spirit by reduction to functional language, and making decisions that lock future generations into particular technological forms (Stallman on cloud computing). (262) These responsibilities are especially grave since future generations cannot advocate their own cause now. We are all their trustees. (263) [Marc J.] Robertschose to illustrate that scientific hypotheses are not value free by citing the values enter into the scientists choice to tolerate or not to tolerate the potential cost of being wrong. (265) There simply is a responsibility it cannot be wished away to decide which problems are more important or interesting or whatever than others. Every specific society must constantly find ways to meet that responsibility. The question here is how, in an open society, these ways are to be found; are they to be dictated by, say, the military establishment, or are they to be open to debate among citizens and scientists? (265) A central question of knowledge, once won, is its validation; but what we now see in almost all fields, especially in the branches of computer science we have been discussing, is that the validation of scientific knowledge has been reduced to the display of technological wonders.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (266) 20130722b 0 -5+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Counter dehumanization by social engineering by appealing to personal judgment intrinsic worth; try to get a machine to do this. (266) The individual is dehumanizedwhenever he is treated as less than a whole person. The various forms of human and social engineering we have discussed here do just that, in that they circumvent all human contexts, especially those that give real meaning to human language. (267) This is not an argument for solipsism, nor is it a counsel for every man to live only for himself. But it does argue that every man must live for himself first. For only by experiencing his own intrinsic worth, a worth utterly independent of his use as an instrument, can he come to know those self-transcendent ends that ultimately confer on him his identity and that are the only ultimate validators of human knowledge.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (267) 20130722c 0 -17+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Strong philosophy of computing and programming positions: no morally repugnant projects, but obscene and irreversible applications should be avoided; the animal experiments and robotic moment have happened. (267) This spirit dictates that I must exhibit some of my own decisions about what I may and may not do in computer science. (268) There is, in my view, no project in computer science as such that is morally repugnant and that I would advise students or colleagues to avoid. (268) There are, however, two kinds of computer applications that either ought not be undertaken at all, or, if they are contemplated, should be approached with utmost caution. (268-269) The first kind I would call simply obscene. . . . The proposal I have mentioned, that an animals visual system and brain be coupled to computers, is an example. (269-270) I would put all projects that propose to substitute a computer system for a human function that involves interpersonal respect, understanding, and love in the same category. . . . The point is (Simon and Colby to the contrary notwithstanding) that there are some human functions for which computers oughtnot to be substituted. It has nothing to do with what computers can or cannot be made to do. Respect, understanding, and love are not technical problems. (270) The second kind of computer application that ought to be avoided, or at least not undertaken without very careful forethought, is that which can easily be seen to have irreversible and not entirely foreseeable side effects. If, in addition, such an application cannot be shown to meet a pressing human need that cannot readily be met in any other way, then it ought not to be pursued.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (270) 20130722d 0 -10+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Interesting choice of speech recognition as an application to avoid (contrary to Licklider); either too expensive or will lead to surveillance state. (270) The example I wish to cite here is that of the automatic recognition of human speech. (271) But here we have to remember that the problem is so enormous that only the largest possible computers will ever be able to manage it. (271) This project then represents, in the eyes of its chief sponsor, a long step toward a fully automated battlefield. (271-272) But such listening machines, could they be made, will make monitoring of voice communication very much easier than it now is. Perhaps the only reason that there is very little government surveillance of telephone conversations in many countries of the world is that such surveillance takes so much manpower. . . . As a citizen I ask, why should my government spend approximately 2.5 million dollars a year (as it now does) on this project?
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (275-276) 20130722e 0 -4+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Do computer games and simulations distance or rather permit empathy? (275-276) A second lesson is this. These men were able to give the counsel they gave because they were operating at an enormous psychological distance from the people who would be maimed and killed by the weapons systems that would result form the ideas they communicated to their sponsors. The lesson, therefore, is that the scientist and technologist must, by acts of will and of the imagination, actively strive to reduce such psychological distances, to counter the forces that tend to remove him from the consequences of his actions. (276) When instrumental reason is the sole guide to action, the acts it justifies are robbed of their inherent meanings and thus exist in an ethical vacuum.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKweizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason (276) 20130729 0 -20+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_weizenbaum-computer_power_and_human_reason.html Civil courage in small contexts of governmentality, especially teachers of computer science; good entry point for critical programming, obligation of the university to do more than train. (276) It is a widely held but a grievously mistaken belief that civil courage finds exercise only in the context of world-shaking events. To the contrary, its most arduous exercise is often in those small contexts in which the challenge is to overcome the fears induced by petty concerns over career, over our relationships to those who appear to have power over us, over whatever may disturb the tranquility of our mundane existence. (276) And, because this book is, after all, about computers, let that call be heard mainly by teachers of computer science. (277) He must teach the limitations of his tools as well as their power. (277) Almost anyone with a reasonably orderly mind can become a fairly good programmer with just a little instruction and practice. . . . Immature students are therefore easily misled into believing that they have truly mastered a craft of immense power and of great importance when, in fact, they have learned only its rudiments and nothing substantive at all. (278) When such students have completed their studies, they are rather like people who have somehow become eloquent in some foreign language, but who, when they attempt to write something in that language, find they have literally nothing of their own to say. (278) The function of a university cannot be to simply offer prospective students a catalog of skills from which to choose. . . . Surely the university should look upon each of its citizens, students and faculty alike, first of all as human beings in search of what else to all it?--truth, and hence in search of themselves. (278) Just because so much of a computer-science curriculum is concerned with the craft of computation, it is perhaps easy for the teacher of computer science to fall into the habit of merely training. (279) Finally, the teacher of computer science is himself subject to the enormous temptation to be arrogant because his knowledge is somehow harder than that of his humanist colleagues. (280) Without the courage to confront ones inner as well as ones outer worlds, such wholeness is impossible to achieve. Instrumental reason alone cannot lead to it.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (198) 20131019 0 -4+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html AI based on bureaucratic subject, guided by shallow research drawn from rationalism and logical empiricism. (198) But its shortcomings are far more mundane: we have not yet been able to construct a machine with even a modicum of common sense or one that can converse on everyday topics in ordinary language. (199) The basic philosophy that has guided the research is shallow and inadequate had has not received sufficient scrutiny. It is drawn from the traditions of rationalism and logical empiricism but has taken a novel turn away from its predecessors. (199) I will argue that artificial intelligence as now conceived is limited to a very particular kind of intelligence: one that can usefully be likened to bureaucracy in its rigidity, obtuseness, and inability to adapt to changing circumstances.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (199) 20131019a 0 -7+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Mathematical modeling replaced with symbolic emphasis, but still simplification. (199) Although Descartes himself did not believe that reason could be achieved through mechanical devices, his understanding laid the groundwork for the symbol-processing machines of the modern age. (200) The first decades of computing emphasized the application of numerical techniques. . . . The mathematization of experience required simplifications that made the computer results accurate as they might be with respect to the models meaningless in the world. (200) The developers of artificial intelligence have rejected traditional mathematical modeling in favor of an emphasis on symbolic, rather than numerical, formalisms.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (201) 20131019b 0 -4+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html AI goals of explaining human mental processes as mechanical devices and creating intelligent tools. (201) In building models of mind, there are two distinct but complementary goals. On the one hand is the quest to explain human mental processes as ordinary mechanical devices. On the other hand is the drive to create intelligent tools machines that apply intelligence to serve some purpose, regardless of how closely they mimic the details of human intelligence. (201) Researchers such as Newell and Simon (two other founding fathers of artificial intelligence) have sought precise and scientifically testable theories of more modest scope than Minsky suggests.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (203) 20131019c 0 -4+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html AI abandoned certainty and truth, building patchwork of micro-truths and employing methodologies that are merely heuristically adequate. (203) Artificial intelligence has abandoned the quest for certainty and truth. The new patchwork rationalism is built on mounds of micro-truths gleaned through commonsense introspection, ad hoc programming, and so-called knowledge acquisition techniques for interviewing experts. (203) The artificial intelligence methodology does not demand a logically correct answer but one that works sufficiently often to be heuristically adequate. (203) Minsky places the blame for lack of success in explaining ordinary reasoning on the rigidity of logic and does not raise the more fundamental questions about the nature of all symbolic representations and of formal (though possibly nonlogical ) systems of rules for manipulating them.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (204) 20131019d 0 -7+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Intelligence identified with rule-governed symbol-manipulating device, with representation as the essential link. (204) The fundamental principle is the identification of intelligence with the functioning of a rule-governed symbol-manipulating device. (204) The essential link is representationthe encoding of the relevant aspect of the world. . . . Complete and systematic symbolic representation is crucial to the paradigm. The rules followed by the machine can deal only with the symbols, not their interpretations.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (204) 20131019e 0 -3+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Simon satisficing supplanted optimizing decision theories for adequate plans of action. (204) He [Simon] supplanted decision theories based on optimization with a theory of satisficing- effectively using finite decision-making resources to come up with adequate, but not necessarily optimal, plans of action. (206) The cognitive modeler does not build an overall model of the systems performance on a task but designs the individual rules in the hope that appropriate behavior will emerge from their interaction. (206) Minsky makes explicit this assumption that intelligence will emerge from computational interactions among a plethora of small pieces.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (207) 20131019f 0 -1+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Belief in emergent intelligence from computational interactions; agents as subroutines slips to society of homunculi. (207) With a simple might indeed become versatile, we have slipped from a technically feasible but limited notion of agents as subroutines to an impressionistic description of a society of homunculi, conversing with one another in ordinary language.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (209) 20131019h 0 -2+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Expert systems for managing processes too complex or rapid for unassisted humans are brittle. (209) Applied AI is widely seen as a means of managing processes that have grown too complex or too rapid for unassisted humans. (209) It is a commonplace in the field to describe expert systems as brittle - able to operate only within a narrow range of situations.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (210) 20131019i 0 -4+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Heidegger and phenomenologist challenge to patchwork rationalism: readiness-to-hand versus present-to-hand, decontextualized representation is blind; compare to Suchman and Gee. (210) The hope of patchwork rationalism is that with a sufficiently large body of rules, the thought-through spots will successfully interpolate to the wastelands in between. (210) To say that all of the worlds knowledge could be explicitly articulated in anysymbolic form computational or not), we must assume the possibility or reducing all forms of tacit knowledge (skills, intuition, etc.) to explicit facts and rules. Heideggerand other phenomenologists have challenged this, and many of the strongest criticisms of artificial intelligence are based on the phenomenological analysis of human understanding as a readiness-to-hand of action in the world, rather than as the manipulation of present-to-hand representations.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (212) 20131019j 0 -2+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Restricted domain required for successful AI; explicit facts always fit within cultural orientation. (212) The most successful artificial intelligence programs have operated in the detached puzzlelike domains of board games and technical analysis, not those demanding understanding of human lives, motivations, and social interaction. (213) Every explicit representation of knowledge bears within it a background of cultural orientation that does not appear as explicit claims but is manifest in the very terms in which the facts are expressed and in the judgment of what constitutes a fact.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (213) 20121127 0 -1+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Comparison between AI techniques and bureaucracy by Lee consonant with other theorists, notably Foucault, from whom the dominant organizational characteristic of the epoch is bureaucratization, even for the conception of the mind, subjectivity, consciousness. (213) [Quoting Lee A Bureaucracy of Intelligence ] Stated simply, the techniques of artificial intelligence are to the mind what bureaucracy is to human social interaction.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (214) 20131019k 0 -2+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Problem of client satisfaction mismatch between decontextualized application of rules and human interpretation of symbols appearing in them. (214) Indeed, systems based on symbol manipulation exhibit the rigidities of bureaucracies and are most problematic in dealing with client satisfaction - the mismatch between the decontextualized application of rules and the human interpretation of the symbols that appear in them. (214) The I just follow the rules of the bureaucratic clerk has its direct analogue in Thats what the knowledge base says.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (215) 20131019m 0 -5+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Turkle connectionist emergent intelligence different than Minksy emergent intelligence. (215) In this work, each computing element (analogous to a neuron) operates on simple general principles, and intelligence emerges from the evolving patterns of interaction. (215-216) Connectionism is one manifestation of what Turklecalls emergent AI. The fundamental intuition guiding this work is that cognitive structure in organisms emerges through learning and experience, not through explicit representation and programming. The problems of blindness and domain limitation described above need not apply to a system that has developed through situated experience. (216) Connectionism, like its parent cognitive theory, must be placed in the category of brash unproved hypotheses, which have not really begun to deal with the complexities of mind and whose current explanatory power is extremely limited.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (216-217) 20131019n 0 -9+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html AI assumes mind linguistic down to microscopic level: drawing on hermeneutic and phenomenological philosophies of language, and speech act philosophy, lead to emphasis on embodiment, situatedness, context, social aspects of world creation through language. (216-217) The computer is a physical embodiment of the symbolic calculations envisaged by Hobbes and Liebniz. As such, it is really not a thinking machine, but a language machine. The very notion of symbol system is inherently linguistic, and what we duplicate in our programs with their rules and propositions is really a form of verbal argument, not the workings of mind. . . . artificial intelligence has operated with the faith that mind is linguistic down to the microscopic level. (217) We begin with some fundamental questions about what language is and how it works. In this, we draw on work in hermeneutics (the study of interpretation) and phenomenology, as developed by Heidegger and Gadamer, along with the concepts of language action developed from the later works of Wittgensteinthrough the speech act philosophyof Austin, Searle, and Habermas.
4 2 1 (+) [-6+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (217) 20131019p 0 -1+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Insights of hermeneutic constructivism are that people create world through language, which is always interpreted in tacitly understood background. (217) Two guiding principles emerge: (1) people create their world through language; and (2) language is always interpreted in a tacitly understood background.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (218-219) 20131019q 0 -12+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Suggests Heim computer as component objectives including medical reference, language structure detection, tracking associations like cookies and other web tracking technologies. (218-219) We are already beginning to see a movement away from the early vision of computers replacing human experts. . . . The rules can be thought of as constituting an automated textbook, which can access and logically combine entries that are relevant to a particular case. The goal is to suggest and justify possibilities a doctor might not otherwise have considered. (219) Another opportunity for design is in the regularities of the structure of language use. . . . The theory of such conversations has been develpoed as the basis for a computer program called The Coordinator, which is used for facilitating and organizing computer-message conversations in an organization. (219-220) Rather than seeing the computer as working with objectified refined knowledge, it can serve as a way of keeping track of how the representations emerge from interpretations: who created them in what context and where to look for clarification.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd-thinking_machines (220) 20131019r 0 -2+ progress/2011/02/notes_for_winograd-thinking_machines.html Questioning engages projection of human image onto machine then back onto human; in AI tradition, language activity onto symbolic manipulations of machine, then back into human mind as language of thought. (220) In asking this kind of question, we engage in a kind of projection understanding humanity by projecting an image of ourselves onto the machine and the image of the machine back onto ourselves. In the tradition of artificial intelligence, we project an image of our language activity onto the symbolic manipulations of the machine, then project that back onto the full human mind.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd_flores-using_computers (552) 20131019 0 -6+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_winograd_flores-using_computers.html Ontological designing has practical impact on artifacts as well as for humanities inquiry. (552) The most important designing is ontological. . . . In creating new artifacts, equipment, buildings, and organizational structures, it attempts to specify in advance how and where breakdowns will show up in our everyday practices and in the tools we use, opening up new spaces in which we can work and play. (552) The concluding sections of this chapter will discuss the ontical-ontological significance of design how our tools are part of the background in which we can ask what it is to be human.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd_flores-using_computers (553) 20131019a 0 -7+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_winograd_flores-using_computers.html Readiness-to-hand sought in ontologically clean language design. (553) Phenomenologically, you are driving down the road, not operating controls. The long evolution of the design of automobiles has led to this readiness-to-hand. It is not achieved by having a car communicate like a person, but by providing the right coupling between the driver and action in the relevant domain (motion down the road). In designing computer tools, the task is harder but the issues are the same. (553) The programmer designs the languages that creates the world in which the user operates. This language can be ontologically clean or it can be a jumble of related domains. A clearly and consciously organized ontology is the basis for the kind of simplicity that makes systems usable.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd_flores-using_computers (553) 20131019b 0 -3+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_winograd_flores-using_computers.html Anticipation of breakdown crucial in system design. (553) A breakdown reveals the nexus of relations necessary for us to accomplish our task. This creates a clear objective for design to anticipate the forms of breakdown and provide a space of possibilities of action when they occur. (554) In designing computer systems and the domains they generate, we must anticipate the range of occurrences that go outside the normal functioning and provide means both to understand them and to act.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd_flores-using_computers (555) 20131019d 0 -4+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_winograd_flores-using_computers.html Conversational structure of business organization linked to regular patterns of triggering and breakdown: creating tools means designing new conversations and connections; link to Spinuzzi weaving and splicing net work. (555) When a change is made, the most significant innovation is the modification of the conversation structure, not the mechanical means by which the conversation is carried out (e.g., a computer system versus a manual one based on forms). In making such changes we alter the overall pattern of conversation, introducing new possibilities or better anticipating breakdowns in the previously existing ones.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd_flores-using_computers (556) 20131109 0 -6+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_winograd_flores-using_computers.html Design should not attempt to be formal and fully covering, instead as additions and changes to network of equipment that includes people (Kitchin and Dodge). (556) No methodology can guarantee that all such possibilities will be found, but a careful analysis of the conversation structure can help reveal conversations with a potential for expansion. In designing computer-based devices, we are not in the position of creating a formal- system that covers the functioning of the organization and the people within it. . . . Instead we design additions and changes to the network of equipment (some of it computer-based) within which people work.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd_flores-using_computers (556) 20131109a 0 -3+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_winograd_flores-using_computers.html Space of potential breakdown and action basis of present-at-hand world of objects; software development cycles between design to experience. (556) But even in these sedimented cases, it is important to recognize that ultimately the present-at-hand world of objects is always based on the breakdown of action. (556) This grounding of description in action pervades all attempts to formalize the world into a linguistic structure of objects, properties, and events. This also leads us to the recognition that the development of any computer-based system will have to proceed in a cycle from design to experience and back again.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd_flores-using_computers (558) 20131019f 0 -10+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_winograd_flores-using_computers.html Effective tools created when computers applied appropriately to systematic domains like finance, word processing, and profession-oriented domains. (558) Computers are wonderful devices for the rule-governed manipulation of formal representations, and there are many areas of human endeavor in which such manipulation are crucial. In applying computers appropriately to systematic domains we develop effective tools. (558) One of the most obvious is the numbers representing financial entities and transactions. . . . Another widespread example is word processing. (559) A profession-oriented domain makes explicit aspects of the work that are relevant to computer-aided tools and can be general enough to handle a wide range of what is done within a profession, in contrast to the very specialized domains generated in the design of a particular computer system. A systematic domain is a structured formal representation that deals with things the professional already knows how to work with, providing for precise and unambiguous description and manipulation. The critical issue is its correspondence to a domain that is ready-to-hand for those who will use it.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd_flores-using_computers (559) 20131109d 0 -4+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_winograd_flores-using_computers.html Communication a process of commitment and interpretation, not transmitting symbols. (559) Communication is not a process of transmitting information or symbols, but one of commitment and interpretation. A human society operates through the expression of request and promises among its members. There is a systematic domain relevant to the structure of this network of commitments: a domain of conversation for action that can be represented and manipulated in the computer. (559) In all situations where systematic domains are applicable, a central (and often difficult) task is to characterize the precise form and relevance of the domain within a broader orientation.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd_flores-using_computers (560) 20131019g 0 -2+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_winograd_flores-using_computers.html New devices or systematic domains can create new ways of being; limit of phenomenology and need for degree experimentation conducted by Derrida, Ulmer, OGorman. (560) There is a circularity here: the world determines what we can do and what we do determines our world. The creation of a new device or systematic domain can have far-reaching significance it can create new ways of being that previously did not exist and a framework for actions that would not have previously made sense.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd_flores-using_computers (560) 20131019i 0 -3+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_winograd_flores-using_computers.html Machine coaching for new possibilities for interpretation and action. (560) On the other hand, where there is a danger that is an opportunity. We can create computer systems whose use leads to better domains of interpretation. The machine can convey a kind of coaching in which new possibilities for interpretation and action emerge.
4 2 1 (+) [-4+]mCQKwinograd_flores-using_computers (561) 20131019j 0 -3+ progress/2012/06/notes_for_winograd_flores-using_computers.html Recognition that unknown, unpredictable changes triggered by our actions prevent objective, external observation; work revealing also a source of concealment, such as Heideggerian Enframing. (561) Our actions are the perturbations that trigger the changes, but the nature of those changes is not open to our prediction or control. We cannot even be fully aware of the transformation that is taking place: as carriers of a tradition we cannot be objective observers of it. Our continuing work toward revealing it is at the same time a source of concealment.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKbork-journal 20130324 20130324 0 -4+ journal_2013.html Notes from Rosenbergs Dreaming in Codechallenge notion that C++ is the most philosophical programming language due to importance of late binding. Important for differentiating critical programming from critical code studies is the emphasis placed on the need for informal communication among programmers, epitomized by the vending machines at some university, now occurring on web sites and blogs. This narrative space extends beyond source code comments, which CCS dwells upon. Also the interesting question of whether Chandler failed as an open source project simply because it did not accept much input from community participants, or the more pessimistic conclusion that the many eyes bazaar method fails to escape the software time tar pit, needs to be complemented with consideration of the overall absence robust communities that may be different after a generation of hobbyist and casual programmers arise.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKbork-journal 20130415 20130415 2 -2+ journal_2013.html The other thing Brooks teaches concerns respecting the separate scopes of upper management system architect and implementers; the former, a necessary few, establish the overall architectural plan, while the latter, who enjoy the pleasures of coding against requirements, instantiate it with working code. Both aptitudes exist within programming worlds but seem to be necessarily absent in negotiated interface performances of humans with machines.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKbrooks-mythical_man_month (46) 20130912 0 -1+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_brooks-mythical_man_month.html Unapologetic about control of architectural specification by a small group, aristocracy, versus majority of implementors; similar arguments made in Dreaming in Code but also complicates analysis of free software open source bazaar ethic. (46) The design of an implementation, given an architecture, requires and allows as much design creativity, as many new ideas, and as much technical brilliance as the design of the external specifications.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKbrooks-mythical_man_month (49-50) 20130912a 0 -4+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_brooks-mythical_man_month.html Value of consistent design philosophy is conceptual integrity; integral systems take less time to build. (49-50) Conceptual integrity does require that a system reflect a single philosophy and that the specification as seen by the user flow from a few minds. Because of the real division of labor into architecture, implementation, and realization, however, this does not imply that a system so designed will take longer to build. Experience shows the opposite, that the integral system goes together faster and takes less time to test. In effect, a widespread horizontal division of labor has been sharply reduced by a vertical division of labor, and the result is radically simplified communications and improved conceptual integrity.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKbrooks-mythical_man_month (100) 20130912e 0 -3+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_brooks-mythical_man_month.html Holistic, user oriented attitude crucial characteristics of programming manager. (100) All during implementation, the system architects must maintain continual vigilance to ensure continued system integrity. Beyond this policing mechanism, however, lies the matter of attitude of the implementers themselves. Fostering a total-system, user-oriented attitude may well be the most important function of the programming manager.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKbrooks-mythical_man_month (111) 20130912f 0 -2+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_brooks-mythical_man_month.html Social aspect of technological unconscious includes very shape of systems reflecting organizational communication structures, from primitive workshops to networks; contemplate this supposition that programming systems reflect the communication structures of the organizations creating them with respect to individual projects as an obvious passage into programming style. (111) Who: organization chart.This becomes intertwined with the interface specification, as Conways Law predicts: Organizations which design systems are constrained to produce systems which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKbrooks-mythical_man_month (284) 20130421 0 -2+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_brooks-mythical_man_month.html Foresees but does not name the emergence of the free, open source option, whole operating systems built from these components, in a programming platform statement anticipating floss; metaprogramming is the organizational discipline appropriate to range over configuration of personal operating environments, with unreflective consumption at the other pole. (284) Radically better software robustness and productivity are to be had only by moving up a level, and making programs by the composition of modules, or objects. An especially promising trend is the use of mass-market packages as the platformson which richer and more customized products are built.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKbrooks-mythical_man_month (285) 20130422 1 -5+ progress/2013/04/notes_for_brooks-mythical_man_month.html Where metaprogramming descends back into interface, user has option to become less intellectually challenged as to have to consider how these things constituting thought are arranged. (285) Building Hypercard stacks, Excel templates, or MiniCad functions is sometimes called metaprogramming, the construction of a new layer that customizes function for a subset of a packages users. . . . while we have been waiting to see an effective market in C++ classes develop, a market in reusable metaprograms has grown up unremardked.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKdumit-picturing_personhood (11) 20101105 0 -2+ progress/2010/11/notes_for_dumit-picturing_personhood.html Imagine doing virtual community diagram with the microcomputer through present FOSS communities. (11) The field of an ethnographic study of images must include, then, not only their biographies but also what can be called their virtual community. By using the term virtual community, I am borrowing Alecquere Stones notion of communities that include technologies as vital participants.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (xiv) 20131101a 0 -4+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Linus views evolutionary progress through basic motivational categories if survival, social life, entertainment; entertainment is intrinsically interesting and challenging, related to manageable complexity and other terms developed by Gee, Turkle. (xiv) Linuss Law says that all of our motivations fall into three basic categories. More important, progress is about going through these very same things as phases in a process of evolution, a matter of passing from one category to the next. The categories, in order, are survival, social life, and entertainment. (xv) Entertainment is something intrinsically interesting and challenging.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (xvii) 20131101b 0 -3+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html To the hacker computer is itself entertainment as well as platform providing entertainment; contrast to television, videogames and books. (xvii) But to the hacker a computer is also entertainment. Not the games, not the pretty pictures on the Net. The computer itself is entertainment.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (6) 20131101c 0 -3+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Raymond hacker passion corresponds to Torvalds entertainment for dedication to an activity that is intrinsically interesting, inspiring and joyous, comparable to Plato passion for philosophy. (6) In summing up hacker activitys spirit, [Eric] Raymonduses the word passion, which corresponds to Torvarldss entertainment, as he defined it in the Prologue. But Raymonds term is perhaps even more apt because, even though both words have associations that are not meant in this context, passionconveys more intuitively than entertainmentthe three levels described above the dedication to an activity that is intrinsically interesting, inspiring, and joyous. (6) The attitude of passionate intellectual inquiry received similar expression nearly 2,500 years ago when Plato, founder of the first academy, said of philosophy, Like light flashing forth when a fire is kindled, it is born in the soul and straightaway nourishes itself (Letter 7.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (7) 20131101d 0 -3+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html General challenge to Protestant work ethic, Baxter calling, whose precursor is monastery rather than academy. (7) We are discussing a general social challenge that calls into question the Protestant work ethic that has long governed our lives and still maintains a powerful hold on us. (9) [Richard] Baxter sums up this attitude by referring to labor as a calling, a good expression of the three core attitudes of the Protestant work ethic: work must be seen as an end in itself, at work one must do ones part as well as possible, and work must be regarded as a duty, which must be done because it must be done. (9) While the hacker work ethics precursor is in the academy, Weber says that the Protestant ethics only history precursor is in the monastery.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (18) 20131101f 0 -6+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Hacker purpose of life is Sunday rather than Friday; the work week is not a toilsome means to an end. (18) In this sense, one could say that for hackers the purpose of life is closer to Sunday than to Friday. . . . Hackers want to realize their passions, and they are ready to accept that the pursuit even of interesting tasks may not always be unmitigated bliss. (19) Theres a different between being permanently joyless and having found a passion in life for the realization of which one is also willing to take on less joyful but nonetheless necessary parts.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (20) 20131101g 0 -5+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Spirit of capitalism arose out of attitude that time is money; Protestant ethic optimization of time now applied to shorter units (Weber and Castells). (20) This free relation to time has always been typical of hackers, who appreciate an individualistic rhythm of life. (20) The spirit of capitalism arose out of this attitude toward time. (21) When we think about the network societys dominant relation to time, it is obvious that even though our new economy differs in many other respects from the old industrial capitalism, it largely follows the precepts of the Protestant ethic in regard to the optimization of time. Now, even shorter units of time are money. [Manuel] Castellsaptly speaks about the network societys trend of time compression.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (23) 20131101h 0 -2+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Clark law of continuous acceleration; competition based on promise of delivering future to consumers faster than competitors. (23) [Jim] Clarks law of continuous acceleration compels technological products to be release faster and faster. (23) Time compression has now proceeded to a point where technological and economic competition consists of promising the future to arrive at the consumer faster than it would by the competitors mediation.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (24) 20131101i 0 -7+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Network model encourages project-based employment. (24) Network enterprises concentrate on their core skills and forge networks according to their changing needs with subcontractors and consultants. . . . The network model makes it possible for an enterprise to employ only the personnel required for the projects of the moment, which means that in the new economy the real employers are not the enterprises per se but the projects between or within them. (24) Second, operations in the network society are speeded up by optimization of processes. (25) And third, automation, already familiar from industrial society, is still important.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (26) 20131101p 0 -3+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Fridayization of Sunday removing playfulness from play leaving optimized leisure time invites Horkheimer and Adorno in addition to Rybczynski. (26) First, playfulness was removed from work, then playfulness was removed from play, and what is left is optimized leisure time. In his book Waiting for the Weekend, Witold Rybczynski provides a good example of the change: People used to play tennis; now they work on their backhand. (27) In an optimized life, leisure time assumes the patterns of work time.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (29) 20131101j 0 -3+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Work-centered organization of time another Protestant work ethic demand, strengthened by flexibility ethic and helped by mobile technologies, so we are constantly on call reacting to all situations as if urgent; compare to Malabou. (29) In addition to the work-centered optimizationof time, the Protestant ethic also means the work-centered organizationof time. (30) In fact, the dominant development in the information economy seems to be that flexibility is leading to the strengthening of work-centeredness. (32) The paradox is that the highest technology brings us easily to the lowest level of survival life, in which we are constantly on call, reacting to urgent situations.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (32-33) 20131101k 0 -5+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Hacker flextime combines activities less rigidly, leveraging technology so humans can lead less machinelike lives: Sundayization of Friday. (32-33) In the hacker version of flextime, different areas of life, such as work, family, friends, hobbites, et cetera, are combined less rigidly, so that work is not always at the center of the map. . . . The hacker view is that the use of machines for the optimization and flexibility of time should lead to a life for human beings that is less machinelike less optimized and routine.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (33-34) 20131101l 0 -6+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Comparison of hacker flextime to Platonic skhole of academics, able to organize ones own time. (33-34) Plato defined the academic relation to time by saying that a free person has skhole, that is plenty of time. When he talks, he talks in peace and quiet, and his time is his own (Theaetetus172d). But skholedid not mean just having time but also a certain relation to time: a person living an academic life could organize ones time oneself the person could combine work and leisure in the way that he wanted. Even though a free person could commit to doing certain works, no one else owned his time. Not having this charge of ones time askholia--was associated with the state of imprisonment (slavery). (35) This is because the workers of our time no longer enjoy the same freedom to manager their own time a cobbler or shepherd enjoyed in the dark Middle Ages.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (35) 20131101m 0 -2+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Monastery Office Hours still influential in information economy; tie in Foucault disciplinarism since absent from bibliography. (35) Only in monasteries was activity tied to the clock, so, once again, the Protestant ethics historical precedent can be found in the monastery. (36-37) Despite its new technology, the information economy is still predominantly based on Office Hours, with no place for individual variations.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (39) 20131101n 0 -2+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Contradiction between need for creativity and inability to be creative in information economy under fixed regimens and work-time supervision. (39) The pragmatic message is that the information economys most important source of productivity is creativity, and it is not possible to create interesting things in a constant hurry or in a regulated manner from nine to five. (39) The culture of work-time supervision is a culture that regards grown-up persons as too immature to be in charge of their lives.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKhimanen-hacker_ethic (40) 20131101o 0 -3+ progress/2013/11/notes_for_himanen-hacker_ethic.html Hacker anti-authoritarianism and respect for the individual lauded by Raymond often inconsistent with results of creative work as noted by Golumbia, Winner, and others. (40) Hackers have always respected the individual. They have always been anti-authoritarian. Raymond defines the hacker position: The authoritarian attitude has to be fought wherever you find it, lest it smother you and other hackers.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKmackenzie-cutting_code (126) 20130804a 0 -16+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_mackenzie-cutting_code.html Parallels to Latour Aramis study; infusion of ambient theories of project management. (126) We could regard this talk about Forge process as part of a parasitic quality management discourse, a symptom of Forges localized microvision of modernity. Latour (1996) suggests a different view: . . . it plays the same essential role that strategic doctrines play in the conduct of wars. . . . Writing a projects history also means writing the history of the ambient theories about project management. (113) (126) Forge process was heavily infused with ambient theories of project management. (127) The phases, steps and stages for implementing RAMOSS were an important way in which people at Forge projected what RAMOSS would be. . . . New software developers, eager to begin cutting code when they arrived, instead started by learning about Forge process, and as they took on the modeling skills and practiced documentation, they became part of that process. (127-128) The collaborative craftwork(Suchman and Trigg 1992, 173) of producing the documents, specifications, architectures and class diagrams required by Forge process did not move RAMOSS effortlessly or evenly.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKmackenzie-cutting_code (132) 20130805a 0 -9+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_mackenzie-cutting_code.html Contrary to early software industry where everything was written from scratch, now imported protocols, standards, and branded components proliferate to create inner space inhabited by software developers, leading to notion of code as collective imagining. (132) Thus developers inscribe internal boundaries in the system that derived less form technical, operational or geographical problems than from a vision of flexibility and configurability attached to imported protocols, models and architectures. These imported models, architectures and protocols, moreover, are subject to fashion, are evaluated as cool or uncool, and can therefore be seen as bearers of contemporary collective imaginings of flexible, configurable and intercommunicating code processes from outside the process. . . . These imported protocols and standards arrive via electronic journal and periodical articles and thick computer books published by OReilly or Addison Wesley. In addition, imported standards and protocols flow in and out via software modules used as prefabricated components of the systems. (132) [quoting Bowker and Star] Infrastructure is now the great inner space(319). In a vital sense, the protocols, models, code patterns and standards in RAMOSS crystallize an inner space inhabited by software developers.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKmackenzie-cutting_code (156) 20130805b 0 -5+ progress/2013/07/notes_for_mackenzie-cutting_code.html Pair programming forfeits autonomy of individual programmer and foregrounds dialogue. (156) These changes in the workplace setup generated a great amount of talk about code and coding. Usually programming and software development are seen as solitary and cerebral rather than oral. (157) Without an articulation of how the system works, programmers cannot code as a pair. By this simple measure, XP attaches talking and intersubjective communication to programming. (159) Small knots, kinks or hitches that snag the execution of code loops in the XP process are not just problems to be ironed out.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKraymond-cathedral_and_bazaar (x) 20141026 0 -1+ progress/2014/10/notes_for_raymond-cathedral_and_bazaar.html Less freedom and slower innovation the outcome of legally restricted access to knowledge entailed by non free software licenses. (x) Legally restricting access to knowledge of the infrastructure that our society increasingly relies on (via the proprietary binary-only software licenses our industry historically has used) results in less freedom and slower innovation.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKraymond-cathedral_and_bazaar (1) 20141026a 0 -5+ progress/2014/10/notes_for_raymond-cathedral_and_bazaar.html Tremendous implications of understanding how to build better, more reliable software bases arguments favoring free, open source software. (1) The most obvious answer to this question [why you should care] is that computer software is an increasingly critical factor in the world economy and in the strategic calculations of businesses. . . . I will simply point out that any significant advance in our understanding of how to build better-quality, more reliable software has tremendous implications that are growing more tremendous by the day.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKraymond-cathedral_and_bazaar (2) 20141026c 0 -1+ progress/2014/10/notes_for_raymond-cathedral_and_bazaar.html Conception of hacker as enthusiast tinkerer who pursue open source ideas. (2) The idea of open source has been pursued, realized, and cherished over those thirty years by a vigorous tribe who proudly call themselves hackers --not as the term is now abused by journalists to mean a computer criminal, but in its true and original sense of an enthusiast, an artist, a tinkerer, a problem solver, an expert.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (19) 20131009b 0 -8+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Tantalizing prospects of open source development methodology to repeal Brooks Law. (19) The open source software development methodologyfrom which [Mitch] Kapors foundation took its name simply did not exist in the days of The Mythical Man-Month. And more than any other development since then, open source has tantalized the programming world with the prospect of repealing Brookss Law. (21) The software concepts that united computings isolated archipelagoes into one global network arose not in the offices of profit-seeking entrepreneurs but from the publish-and-share mind-set of idealistic researchers working in universities and publicly sponsored research centers. (21) That world an environment of geekish enthusiasms and cooperative ideals experienced a sort of waking to self-consciousness in the 1990s. . . . The took their inspiration and tools from two central figures: Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (21-22) 20131009c 0 -5+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Kernel as focal core of digital brain; GNU brain stem? (21-22) Stallmanand his cohorts labored for years in relative obscurity trying to build the pieces of GNU a project to create a free version of the Unix operating system that predominated in university computing centers. . . . [Torvalds] Linux provided GNU with the central component it was missing, the operating systems kernel, the focal core of the digital brain.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (25) 20131009e 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Raymond suggests network-powered open peer review breaks Brooks paradox, but not notable for bringing new products to users faster. (25) Raymondargued that this new style of network-powered open peer review had broken the back of Frederick Brookss cruel paradox. (27) The new bazaars of the open source movement have changed computing in many ways, but they are not notable for bringing new products to users any faster than the old cathedral builders did. (30) Part of the difference, [Michael] Toyfelt, lay in Chandlers novelty. It was not a rewrite like so many open source projects; it had grand ambitions.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (30) 20131009f 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Toy and Herzfeld grand ambitions to execute Chandler project using best open source practices. (30) At OSAF meetings [Andy] Herzfelds voice was the most consistent in pushing the developers to stop designing and start coding or at least to start coding without waiting for the ground to cool.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (45) 20131009j 0 -7+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Engelbart bootstrapping coevolution of human and machine (Kemeny; Hayles). (45) Unlike later computer innovators who elevated the term usability to a mantra, Engelbart didnt place a lot of faith in making tools simple to learn. . . . His vision was of coevolution between man and machine: The machine would change its human user, improving his ability to work, even as the human user was constantly improving the machine. (46) This tension between ease and power, convenience and subtlety, marks every stage of the subsequent history of software. (46) Mitch Kapor always cited Engelbart as one of his inspirations, and Agenda was in a sense a descendant of NLS.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (47) 20131009k 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Epic struggles of actual programming work ignored by proponents; see page 58 for statement about materiality of code. (47) The picture of digital progress that so many ardent boosters paint ignores the painful record of actual programmers epic struggles to bend brittle code into functional shape.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (49) 20131009l 0 -15+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Disaster stories in both government and private industry, documented in 1995 CHAOS Report. (49) But dont jump to the conclusion that government is the problem here; the record in private industry offers little solace. The corporate landscape is littered with disaster stories, too. . . . Through details differ, the pattern is depressingly repetitive: Moving targets. Fluctuating goals. Unrealistic schedules. Missed deadlines. Ballooning costs. Despair. Chaos. (50) In 1995, a Massachusetts-based consulting firm called the Standish Group released a study of software project failures that it called the CHAOS Report. (50) Whatever progress the industry has made, more than two-thirds of the time it is still failing to deliver. (51) In fact, though, there is an entire software disaster genre; there are shelves of books with titles like Software Runawaysand Death Marchthat chronicle the failures of one star-crossed project after another.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (54) 20131009n 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Invokes Gramsci calling for pessimism of intellect, optimism of will as epitomized in software creators. (54) If you want to change the world, the Italian radical Antonio Gramscifamously declared, you need pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will. Todays software creators are improbable heirs to that binary mind-set.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (58) 20130317 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Materiality of code as situated constraints manifest in implications of early design choices of languages and technologies (Ramsay), evidenced by long history of struggles in software development. (58) That paradox kicks in at the earliest stages of a programming project when a team is picking the angle of attack and choosing what languages and technologies to use. These decisions about the foundations of a piece of software, which might appear at first to be lightweight and reversible, turn out to have all the gravity and consequence of poured concrete. (59) One use case for the OSAF project that emerged early on, and would keep reappearing, was organizing a big personal music collection.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (59) 20131009o 0 -5+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Hitching ride on existing code is a style, as attempted for OSAF with RDF. (59) You could model just about anything in a simple three-part format that looked something like the subject-verb-object arrangement of a simple English sentence: <this> <has-relationship-with> <that> Then they discovered that the answer theyd come up with had already been outlined and at least partially implemented by researchers led by Tim Berners-Lee, the scientist who had invented the World Wide Web a dozen years before. Berners-Lee had a dream he called the Semantic Web, an upgraded version of the existing Web that relied on smarter and more complex representations of data. The Semantic Web would be built on a technical foundation called RDF, for Resource Description Framework. RDF stores all information in triples --statements in three parts that declare relationships between things. (60) There was no need to reinvent the RDF wheel; maybe OSAF could just hitch a ride on it.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (80) 20131009s 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Version tracking systems necessary condition for open source development. (80) Version tracking systems like CVS had made it possible for far-flung groups of programmers to work simultaneously on the same code base without stepping on one anothers toes; they had made open source development possible.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (85-86) 20131009t 0 -7+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Applications based on individual computers, old applications guys, versus Internet based as programming styles; direct comparison to collaborative work in composition and digital media. (85-86) Kapor knew that, like Hertzfeld and John Anderson, he was an old applications guy, as he put it. He had always worked with programs that computer users ran individually on their own computers. But Chandler was going to be different: Sharing data over a network was central to its promise. Montulli and Totic offered the perspective of programmers who had spent nearly a decade creating software that depended on the Internet for its critical functions. (88) And he knew just what they needed: a system for object persistence. Rather than store Chandlers data in the RDF subject-verb-object triple format, Anderson wanted the programs data and Python code stored together as objects (in the object-oriented programming sense of the term) that Chandlers coders could easily grab, manipulate, and save again. (93) In the time it would take OSAFs programmers to study ZODB, figure out whether it suited their purposes, and tinker with it to get it to fit, Totic figures, they could build their own object persistence code directly on top of Berkeley DB.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (93) 20131009u 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Build, buy, or borrow archetypal trilemma of software reuse: Postmodern Programmers Noble and Biddle Lego Hypothesis. (93) Andersons Ive found the perfect solution versus Totics We could do it ourselves just as easily : Here, once more, was the archetypal dilemma of software reuse. Build or borrow?
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (97) 20131009w 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Cox superdistribution failed hope for automated market of reliable software components discussed by Larry Constantine in Peopleware Papers. (97) [Brad] Coxhoped that superdistributionwould create incentives for the evolution of a bustling automated market for reliable software components, but once more, his ideas did not catch on. (97) Larry Constantine, author of a popular column in the 1990s called The Peopleware Papers, offered one pragmatic explanation for why programmers did not flock to Coxs ideas. (98) The twin revolutions of open source development and the Internet have certainly begun to change that habit [of wanting to program everything]. Google has shortened the process of finding things to a duration that even the programmers two-minute-and-twenty-seven-second attention span can handle.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (100) 20131009y 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Acronym yahoo as well as reference to Swift, who is often invoked by digital humanities theorists. (100) When two Stanford grad students started up Yahoo! In 1994, the name was a smart-alecky acronym for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. (102) Here is one of the paradoxes of the reusable software dream that programmers keep rediscovering: There is almost always somethingyou can pull off the shelf that will satisfy many of your needs.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (111) 20131009z 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Lore of cowboy coders who are heroes to programmers, nightmares to managers. (111) There are decades of lore in the software industry about the cowboy coder, the programmer who resists rules, prefers solitude, and likes to work on the edge. To a lot of managers, cowboy coders are a nightmare; to a lot of programmers, they are heroes.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (112) 20131010 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Items and attributes as basic object models; item at heart of Chandler data model. (112) The heart of Chandlers data model would, they reaffirmed, be the item. (113) The difference between a more object-oriented item approach and RDFs attribute-based technique, the developers sometimes said, was like the difference between realms of physics: Items were like atoms; attributes were like subatomic particles.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (120) 20131010a 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Software management always dealing with slider-like adjusts to cost, schedule, features, quality. (120) But a manager gets to site down at the console and move those sliders around only if a project is organized enough to respond predictably to decisions about cost and schedule and features or quality. (125) On his personal weblog he [Toy] interrogated himself about his liberal Christian faith, and on the new blog he started at OSAF [Blogotomy], he posted thoughts on the process of managing programmers.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (126-127) 20131010b 0 -10+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Irony that writing software resistant to measurement, leading to management techniques like SWAG and MBWA (Humphrey, Brooks). (126-127) One great irony in the management of software projects is that despite the digital precision of the materials programmers work with, the enterprise of writing software is uniquely resistant to measurement. . . . There is no reliable relationship between the volume of code produced and the state of completion of a program, its quality, or its ultimate value to a user. (128) Most software managers, well aware of these difficulties, end up improvising. There is a list of what needs to be done, subdivided into a series of tasks, and there is some method of keeping track of which of those tasks is (more or less) completed. Fully aware of the perils and paradoxes of software time, the manager will still expect individual programmers to try to estimate or at least SWAG (take a Silly, Wild-Assed Guess)--how long each remaining task will take. (129) But MBWA, as the tech industrys acronym-mongers soon dubbed the idea, doesnt translate well to the software realm: The work is simply not visible to the wandering managerial eye. No one has expressed this difficulty with more matter-of-fact precision than Watts Humphreya high priest of software management who led the IBM software team in the 1960s after Frederick Brookss departure, and then went on to found the Software Engineering Institute at Cargnegie-Mellon and to father a whole alphabet soups worth of software development methodologies.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (138) 20131010f 0 -8+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Alexander Pattern Language basis for attempts to apply approach to programming like Portland Pattern Repository wiki started by Cunningham; promise of wiki for web-based collaboration as substitute for official project management tool. (138) [Christopher] Alexanders book A Pattern Languagederived a sort of grammar of construction by observing common elements or patterns in successful buildings. The software pattern-language people aimed to apply the same approach to programming. (139) Cunninghams pioneering wiki, the Portland Pattern Repository, grew over a decade to about thirty thousand pages. It inspired a whole wiki movement. . . . Wikis seemed to offer a quick-and-dirty shortcut to the promised land of Web-based collaboration.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (142) 20131010g 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Early use of Bugzilla for coordination shifted to OSAF developing their own tracking tool, a common stage in growth of many projects and organizations. (142) For six months Bugzilla remained OSAFs official project management tool, but as willingness to use it grew increasingly sporadic, Morgan Sagen began working on a homegrown Status Manager for the team a Web-based tool that would streamline the process for entering tasks and viewing them sorted by person, by project, by time, and by status. (142) In software management, coordination is not an afterthought or an ancillary matter; it is the heart of the work, and deciding what tools and methods to use can make or break a project.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (147) 20131010h 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Edge cases involve concepts alien to nonprogrammers that constitute much of the digital minutiae concealed by end-user application interface. (147) Creating end-user application software software intended for use by mere mortals means anticipating myriad combinations of human actions and machine reactions. (148) They spend the bulk of their working hours wrestling with digital minutiae, and their reflexes have already been trained in the customs of the systems they build. Concepts they take for granted are often entirely alien to nonprogrammers; users assumptions may well be foreign to them. (148) Programmers call these edge cases, and they are often where bugs hide.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (149) 20131010i 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Kapor software design manifesto invokes ancient Roman Vitruvius design principles of firmness, commodity, delight. (149) In 1990, at the PC Forum gathering of computer industry luminaries, Kapor first delivered the text of his Software Design Manifesto. (149) Reaching back to ancient Rome, Kapor proposed applying to software the architecture theorist Vitruviuss principles of good design: firmness sound structure, no bugs; commodity-- A program should be suitable for the purposes for which it was intended ; delight-- The experience of using the program should be a pleasurable one.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (158) 20131010j 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Data-driven CPIA a second order stored program concept, encapsulating program blocks in the same data repository as the user data; see discussion of late binding. (158) The program would store its blocks as data in the Chandler repository itself. This data-driven design would theoretically make it easier to change the behavior of a block; instead of writing new program code, you could just make and store a change in the data. (158) CPIA[Chandler Presentation and Interaction Architecture] was a specific instance of the Lego Land dream of reusable software parts.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (161) 20131010k 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Big-bang integration versus continuous integration for distributed changes to shared source code. (161) Most projects today embrace the idea of continuous integration: The programmers always keep their latest code checked in to the main trunk of the code tree, and everyone is responsible for making sure that their new additions havent thrown a spanner into the works. Later on, OSAF would end up achieving a higher level of continuous integration, but for 0.2 the process was more like what software-development analysts call big-bang integration : all the programmers try to integrate their code at the end, and everything breaks.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (165) 20131010l 0 -9+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html David Allen GTD philosophy guiding design of Chandler as trusted system. (165) Soon after starting work as OSAF, [Mimi] Yin attended a daylong seminar given by David Allen, a productivity coach whose book Getting Things Donewas establishing near-cult status among programmers. . . . But Yin was the person at OSAF who would take a systematic look at how the ideas of GTD might help shape Chandler. (165) GTD proposes that we can stop feeling overwhelmed by our stuff and take charge of it by creating a trusted system --on paper or digitally, it doesnt matter. (165-166) If you can do what needs to be done in two minutes or less, Allen advises, just do it. Otherwise, decide if its something to file, discard, defer, or classify as part of a particular project with a next action. (166) Older stuff would recede off the top of the screen into a storage area; deferred and future-scheduled items would get moved out of view at the bottom of the screen; and everything that needed to be processed would await the users attention in the centre.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (168) 20131010m 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Hertzfeld withdrew energy from OSAF to start folklore-dot-org, a tool combining blog and wiki enabling groups to share stories; any relation to folkvine? (168) As Hertzfeld withdrew some energy from OSAF in the latter part of 2003, he began a new project of his own: At a Web site called Folklore.org, he built a little software tool that borrowed aspects of both blogs and wikis to enable groups to contribute and share stories.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (173) 20131010n 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Early history of Chandler revealed disappointing pace fitting norm of other software projects. (173) In the annals of software history, Chandlers disappointing pace is not the exception but the norm. (174) Yet even if you took Torvalds advice even if you started small, kept your ambitions in check, thought about details, and never, everdreamed of the big picture even then, Torvalds said, you shouldnt plan on making fast progress.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (176) 20131010o 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Multiple platform automated test system linked to Tinderbox status indicator. (176) The three sentinel computers send the output of their tests to a program called Tinderbox, which publishes the results to a Web page with three graphs that constantly display the current state of the build. (180) Writing the spec, a document that lays out copiously detailed instructions for the programmer, is a necessary step in any software building enterprise where the ultimate user of the product is not the same person as the programmer. (185) A city may not be a tree, as Alexander said, but nearly every computer program today really isa tree a hierarchical structure of lines of code. (185) The tree is the informal name for the directory of source code where developers check in their work.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (186) 20131010p 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Kapor forcing function revealed by sketching overall design, from which focal points for decisions emerge; most challenging demand of software development is communicating abstractions unambiguously. (186) The simple act of sketching what this view would contain and show, and what it wouldnt, became a focal point for decisions what Kapor liked to call a forcing function.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (188) 20131010q 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Story of Denman MacBasic failure that led to AppleScript. (188) [Donn] Denman kept working on MacBasic, but before it was ready, Microsoft had released its own Macintosh-based Basic one that the Apple programmers felt was inferior and poorly integrated with the Macs new design. Meanwhile, Apples deal with Microsoft to license the Basic that ran on the Apple II was up for renewal. In return for a new license, which Bill Gates knew Apple badly wanted, Microsoft demanded that Apple shut down Denmans MacBasic.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (189) 20131010s 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Ontological problems in computational worlds of kind-ness of ambiguous item, which challenges assumptions of fixed variable typing and early binding, objects addressed by stamping. (189) Like the human bodys undifferentiated stem cells, notes would begin life with the potential to grow in different directions. This design aimed to liberate the basic act of entering information into the program from the imprisoning silos. It also made room for Yins proposed solution to the item mutability problem: The mechanism users would employ to specify the kind-ness of an item would be called stamping.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (192) 20131010t 0 -5+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Contrast between forgiving flexibility of human languages and hazards of descriptive ambiguity in software development such as namespace clashes. (192) Human language is more forgiving: One word can mean more than one thing. This flexibility provides a deep well of nuance and beauty; it is a foundation of poetry. But it leads only to trouble when you are trying to build software. As OSAFs developers struggled to transform the innovations in Chandler, such as stamping, from sketch to functioning code, they repeatedly found themselves tripped up by ambiguity. Over and over they would end up using the same words to describe different things.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (195) 20131010u 0 -9+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Iconic presence of whiteboards for temporary visualization of incorporeal, invisible elements beyond windows and text of UI. (195) Beyond the windows and text of a user interface, most elements of software are incorporeal and invisible. There is nothing to point to. So talking about them is unexpectedly difficult. This is one reason the whiteboard is such an iconic presence in any space where software is labored over; it provides a canvas for laying out the abstract processes of a complex program in ways that allow people to point to what theyre talking about. (196) Carefully chosen names avoid the confusion of namespace clashes or collisions --the use of a term means one thing in one context but something else in another. . . . Names that meant one thing when the programmers work began end up meaning something different once a thousand bugs have been fixed.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (198) 20131010w 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Communicating abstractions unambiguously most challenging software development demand. (198) Communicating abstractions unambiguously from programmer to machine, for programmer to programmer, and from program to user is the single most challenging demand of software development. (200) They devised a new concept called the mix-in kind. A mix-in kind defined a set of attributes associated with a kind; for a task they might include Priority and Done Status.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (211) 20131010z 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Programmers bring prior enthusiasms and expertise to new problems, which can lead to mismatches as well as free ride on hobbyhorses: example of Dusseault work on WebDAV at IETF. (211) At the IETF, Dusseault involved in work on a new standard called WebDAV (for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning), an extension to the basic protocol of the Web that, as its official Web site explains, allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote Web servers. (213) WebDAV works by extending HTTP the protocol that Web servers and browsers use to talk to each other adding new commands that allow users to edit files on a remote server. (213-214) Programmers always bring their preexisting enthusiasms and expertise to a new problem. At worst this can lead to mismatches of the when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail variety; at best it means that when you bring new people into a project, you get a free ride on their hobbyhorses.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (214) 20131011 0 -7+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Kapor imagined user empowerment means server-free environment. (214) [quoting Kapor] My and OSAFs original position was, electricity is good, therefore everyone should have their own power plant. Unconsciously, I always imagined that user empowerment somehow meant a server-free or server-light environment. (214-215) [quoting Kapor] So many of the people who are though leaders in open source value freedom and initiative, and those values have been very tied up with this American frontier myth of self-sufficiency. . . . it turns out that the reality of open source and the Internet is much more collaborative than the narrow libertarian P2P ethic.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (226) 20131011a 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Stickies on whiteboard planning tool, compare to Heim clustering, often reenating archetypical struggle between product and development managers. (226) She [] clears the left third of the long whiteboard at the front of the room and draws four vertical columns on it, labeled 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7. Then she draws two more horizontal lines, dividing the columns into top, middle, and bottom, corresponding to each of OSAFs three development groups apps, services, and repository.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (240) 20131011b 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Structured programming methods revealed code organization easier than organizing people and their work. (240) Structured programmingoffered its recommendations from a defensive crouch, trying to protect fallible programmers from their own flaws. (241) It turned out that improving how you organize code was a cakewalk compared with improving how you organize people and their work.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (243) 20131011c 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Humphrey Capability Maturity Model measurement of quality of software development organizations. (243) Humphreys success at enforcing schedule discipline at IBM stood on two principles: Plans were mandatory. And plans had to be realistic. (244) At SEI, Humphrey and his colleagues created the Capability Maturity Model(CMM) as a kind of yardstick for judging the quality of software development organizations.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (245) 20131011d 0 -9+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Team Software Processes and Personal Software Processes criticize autocratic management styles by encouraging organization and self-management by individuals and small teams, inspired by Deming. (245) TSP [Team Software Processes] and PSP [Personal Software Processes] criticize autocratic management styles and encourage individual developers and small teams to seize control of their own destiny by taking responsibility for planning and quality control, sharing information, and dynamically rebalancing their workloads as needs change. (246) The CMM, TSP, and PSP all drew inspiration from the ideas of manufacturing quality expert W. Edwards Deming, who argued that quality should not be an afterthought but ought to be built into every stage of a production process. In software this means the CMM is hostile to the code and fix tradition, where programmers produce bug-filled products, testers find bugs, and then programmers go back and fix them. (246) But the CMM and its related methodologies have yet to make a major dent in the world of business software or desktop computing in the United States. (247) In practice, fix bugs first works fine until the people who are waiting for the finished product grow impatient. Then the principle falls by they wayside in a scramble to deliver working, if imperfect, code. (248) While counting bugs is plainly a valuable exercise its better than notcounting them it tends to throw critical system failures and picayune flaws into the same bucket. It also ends up encouraging programmers to perfect existing products rather than build new things.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (250) 20131011e 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Cunningham and Beck software patterns movement recorded experiences as narratives for solving particular problems rather than coming up with best practices; compare to heuristic modeling in AI. (250) The software patterns movement, whose leaders included wiki inventor Ward Cunningham and a programmer named Kent Beck, imagined a new kind of lifeline for them, a less prescriptive approach to software methodology. Instead of laying down fixed principles of best practices, they recorded their experiences in brief narratives. Faced with this kind of problem, they would say, weve found this pattern of programming to be useful.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (250) 20131011f 0 -5+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Claim of patterns movement that physical act of moving index cards helped with software design. (250) For instance, to tame the complexity of object-oriented coding, Cunningham and Beck proposed that programmers design a new program by laying out index cards one per software object on a table. . . . We were surprised at the value of physically moving the cards around.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (251) 20131011g 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Waterfall approach the typical project model of 1970s. (251) For decades the organization of the typical project followed the waterfall model. The waterfall approach the label first surfaced in 1970 divided a project into an orderly sequence of discrete phases, like requirements definition, design, implementation, integration, testing, and deployment.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (251) 20131011h 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Boehm mid-1980s spiral model of iterations of mini-waterfalls allows for more feedback. (251) The waterfall model gradually acquired the bad reputation it deserved. In the mid-eighties, [Barry] Boehmdefined an alternative known as the spiral model, which broke development down to iterations of six months to two years mini-waterfalls dedicated to producing working code faster and allowing feedback from use of the resulting partially completed product to guide the next iteration.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (251) 20131011i 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Rapid Application Development methodology popular in 1990s emphasizes quick prototyping, aggressive cycles, reliance on computerized tools to handle mundane tasks. (251) In the nineties, the software industrys methodology devotees adopted the banner of Rapid Application Development(RAD), which promised to speed up the delivery of finished software through quick prototyping, more aggressive iteration cycles, and reliance on new tools that let the computer itself handle some of programmings more mundane tasks.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (252) 20131011j 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Agile Software Development values individuals and interactions over processes, working software over documentation, customer collaboration over contracts, responding over following plans. (252) The meeting found a more virile name for the movement Agile Software Developmentand produced a manifesto that reads in its entirety: We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactionsover processes and tools Working softwareover comprehensive documentation Customer collaborationover contract negotiation Responding to changeover following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (253) 20131011k 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Extreme Programming pushes accepted methods to their limits, breaking projects down into narratives developers explain solution to customer feature requests. (253) But Extreme Programmings label mostly refers to the way it adopts a set of widely accepted methods and then pushes them to their limits. (253) It mandated breaking projects down into stories. Each story represents a feature request that the customer lays out for the developers in a narrative that explains what the program should do.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (256) 20131011l 0 -19+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Spolsky skeptical of Big-M methodologies, comparing that kind of software development to fast food production; twelve question Joel Test for rating organizations. (256) [Joel] Spolskyis highly skeptical of what he calls Big-M methodologies. . . . Its pretty obvious to me that a talented chef is not going to be happy making burgers at McDonalds, precisely because of McDonalds rules. (257-258) The Joel Test asks the following dozen questions: Do you use source control? Can you make build in one step? Do you make daily builds? Do you have a bug database? Do fix bugs before writing new code? Do you have an up-to-date schedule? Do have a spec? Do programmers have quiet working conditions? Do you use the best tools money can buy? Do you have testers? Do new candidates write code during their interview? Do you do hallway usability testing? A score of 12 is perfect, Spolsky wrote, 11 is tolerable, but 10 or lower and youve got serious problems. The truth is that most software organizations are running with a score of 2 or 3, and they need serious help, because companies like Microsoft run at 12 full-time.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (260) 20131011m 0 -11+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Rare success, when it does occur, often by-product of restraint; high praise for 37 Signals development pragmatic minimalism methods. (260) Very often, in those rare cases, success is a by-product of iron-willed restraint a choice firmly made and vociferously reasserted at every challenge to limit a projects scope. Where you find software success stories, you invariably find people who are good at saying no. . . . Either way, the perspective is less small is beautiful than big is dangerous. (262) Just as 37 Signals had extracted the Rails framework from the Basecamp code, it extracted a design philosophy from the Basecamp experience, encoded in a handy series of aphorisms: Less software. Say no by default. Find the right people. Dont build a half-assed product, build half a product. These are buzz phrases designed for quick consumption via presentation slides, but together they constitute a coherent approach to software development call it pragmatic minimalism.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (263) 20131011n 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Google method of small, ad hoc project teams working tight deadlines producing narrowly focused Web-based products, incrementally improved based on feedback and field experience, coupled with decree to spend 20 percent of time on personal projects. (263) Small teams assembled ad hoc for each new project, worked on tight deadlines, and rolled out narrowly focused Web-based products, which they then improved incrementally based on user feedback and field experience. Google also told its programmers to devote one-fifth of their work time to personal projects.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (264) 20131011o 0 -14+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Carr argues, following Fukuyama end of history, that software history is over and just a matter of perfecting heavyweight methodologies; compare to early dreams of automatic programming. (264) Like Francis Fukuyama, the Hegelian philosopher who famously declared the end of history when the Berlin wall fell and the Soviet Union imploded, [Nicholas] Carrargued, essentially, that software history is over, done. We know what software is, what it does, and how to deploy it in the business world, so there is nothing left but to dot the is and bring on the heavyweight methodologies to perfect it. (265) But of all the capital goods in which businesses invest large sums, software is uniquely mutable. . . . And so every piece of software that gets used changed as people decide they want to adapt it for some new purpose. (266) If you believe that we already know everything we want from software, then its natural to believe that with enough hard work and planning, we can perfect it and thats where we should place our energies. Dont even think about new features and novel ideas; focus everyones energies on whittling down every products bug list until we can say, for the first time in history, that most software is in great shape. (267-268) Software development is often compared to the construction industry, but the analogy breaks down in one respect. . . . Therefore, once somebody has written a program that does what you need it to do, its always cheaper to buy that software than build something from scratch.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (268) 20131011p 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Rosenberg contributes a law confounding Carr: software is easy to make, except when you want it to do something new, with corollary that the only software worth making does something new. (268) Since every write about software sooner or later ends up offering a law under his own name, the time has come for me, with all due humility, to present Rosenbergs Law: Software is easy to make, except when you want it to do something new. And then, of course, there is a corollary: The only software thats worth making is software that does something new.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (274) 20131011q 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html 1968 NATO software engineering conference prescient of next four decades of software development subjects and controversies, deserving study like the Macy Conferences. (274) The two 130-page reports of the NATO software engineering conferences foreshadow virtually all the subjects, ideas, and controversies that have occupied the software field through four subsequent decades.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (275) 20131011r 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Etymology of engineer invokes ingeniousness and making things skillfully along with modern sense of applying scientific principles. (275) Engineering is often defined as the application of scientific principles to serve human needs. But it also brings creativity to bear on those scientific principles, dragging them out of pristine abstraction into the compromised universe of our frustrations and wants. The word derives (via a detour through medieval French) from the same Latin root that gave us ingeniousand refers to the ability to make things skillfully. (277) If we could only discover dependable principles by which software operates, we could transcend the overpowering complexity of todays Rube Goldberg-style programs and engineer our way out of the mire of software time.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (278) 20131011t 0 -8+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Simonyi Intentional Software applying WYSIWYG to act of programming itself; compare to Lammers. (278) For years [Charles] Simonyiled research at Microsoft into a field called intentional programming. In 2002, he left the company that had made him a billionaire and funded a new venture, Intentional Software, with the goal of transforming that research into a real-world product. (279) Simonyi wants to give these subject matter experts a set of tools they can use to explain their intentions and needs in a structured way that the computer can understand. . . . That set of definitions, that model, is then fed into a generator program that spits out the end-product software. (280) As a young man, Simonyi led the development of Bravo, the first word processing program that functioned in what programmers now call WYSIWYG fashion (for what you see is what you get, pronounced wizzy wig ).
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (280) 20131011u 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Concern that Intentional Software demand nonprogrammer experts will have to create machine-readable models in absence of natural, flexible communication, raising old problem of natural language processing. (280) Simonyis Intentional Software is, in a way, an attempt to apply the WYSIWYG principle to the act of programming itself. But Simonyis enthusiastic descriptions of the brave new software world his invention will shape leave a central question unanswered: Will Intentional Software give the subject matter experts a flexible way to express their needs directly to the machine or will it demand that nonprogrammer experts submit themselves to the yoke of creating an ultra-detailed, machine-readable model?
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (281-282) 20131011v 0 -9+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Compare leaky abstractions to problems with text encoding (McGann on OHCO hypothesis). (281-282) In an essay titled The Law of Leaky Abstractions, Joel Spolsky wrote, All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree are leaky. . . . For programmers it means that new tools and ideas that bundle up some bit of low-level computing complexity and package it in a new, easier-to-manipulate abstraction are great, but only until they break. Then all that hidden complexity leaks back into their work. (284) For a programmer the lesson might be that stacks of turtles, or layers of abstractions, dont respond well to the failure of even one small part. They are, to use a word that is very popular among the software worlds malcontents, brittle. When stressed, they dont bend, they break.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (285-286) 20131108 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html In place of late binding or other language improvements, most programmers remain in thrall of compile cycle. (285-286) Instead, todays programmers remain in the thrall of the compile cycle. . . . You had to wait thirty or even sixty seconds for the program to launch before you could see the results of a change in the code. Those seconds added up to a lot of waiting time.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (286-287) 20131011x 0 -8+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Kay historical analogy to building pyramids brick by brick: does not scale. (286-287) Kay loves to use historical analogies when he talks about software. . . . Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves. (287) You can build big things this way, Kay says, but it doesnt scale. (288) Kay maintains that the software discipline today is actually somewhere in its Middle Ages-- We dont have to build pyramids, we can build Gothic cathedrals, bigger structures with less material --but that the commercial software world remains stuck in pyramid mode. (288) Ultimately, he says, we need to stop writing software and learn how to grow it instead.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (288) 20131011y 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Growing software instead of writing it; Kay version of OOP as bundling code and data together. (288) Kays original vision for object-oriented programmingwas grander than just the idea of organizing code into reusable routines, which the software industry ultimately embraced. Kay-style OOP aimed for a total rethinking of one foundation of our software universe: todays near-universal separation of program from data, procedural code from stored information. Instead, imagine a system in which the information and the code needed to interpret or manipulate it travel together in one bundle, like a cell traveling with its packet of DNA. (289) Bundling procedures and data in cell-like portable objects isnt on most programmers agendas.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (290-291) 20131012 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html For Backus and Lanier the von Neumann stored program architecture has become concretized as if an act of God. (290-291) Programming, [John] Backusargued, had grown out of the ideas of John von Neumann, the mathematician who, at the dawn of computing in the 1940s, devised the basic structure of the stored program of sequentially executed instructions. But those ideas had become a straightjacket. (291) [Jaron] Laniersays that we have fallen into the trap of thinking of arbitrary inventions in computing as acts of God.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (290) 20131011z 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Squeak is open source incarnation of Smalltalk targeted for children to discover new development methods. (290) Among other things, for the last decade he has labored on Squeak, a latter-day, open source incarnation of Smalltak for children. Since we are still trying to discover the basic of software engineering, Kays logic goes, lets give the next generation a taste of alternatives.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (292) 20131012a 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Lanier argues computing models of protocol period derived from problems of communications, and need to be supplanted by phenotropic interaction of surfaces, which sounds more like Deleuze and Guatarri body without organs. (292) [quoting Lanier 2003 essay on problem of Gordian software ] Some things in the foundations of computer science are fundamentally askew, Lanier concluded, and proceeded to trace those problems back to the metaphor of the electrical communications devices that were in use at the dawn of computing. Those devices all centered on the sending of signals down wires or, later, thorugh the ether: telegraph, telephone, radio, and TV. All software systems since, from the first modest machine-language routines to the teeming vastness of todays Internet, have been simulations of vast tangles of telegraph wires. Signals travel down these wires according to protocols that sender and receiver have agreed upon in advance. (293) Why not build software around the same principle of pattern recognition that human beings use to interface with reality? (293) When you de-emphasize protocols and pay attention to patterns on surfaces, you enter into a world of approximation rather than perfection, Lanier wrote.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (296-297) 20131012d 0 -8+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Brooks says give up looking for silver bullet; Sussman claims new engineering principles are needed. (296-297) Frederick Brooks tells us to give up hunting for a silver bullet: Softwares complexity is not a removable quality but an essential property. Still, he leaves room for incremental progress mad stepwise, at great effort. (297) Others hold on to the dream of fundamental reform or revolution. MIT compute scientist Gerald Jay Sussmanwrote: Computer science is need deep trouble. . . . We need a new set of engineering principles that can be applied to effectively build flexible, robust, evolvable, and efficient systems.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (297) 20131012e 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Parnas 1985 essays among great documents of software history lacks attention to these controversies. (297) One of the great documents of software history is a brief set of essays by David Lorge Parnaspublished in 1985. The drab title, Software Aspects of Strategic Defensive Systems, offers no hint of the controversy that birthed it. (298) If thinking things out in the order that the computer will execute them is how programmers work, yet doing so is ultimately beyond their capability, how is it that we end up with any working software at all?
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (298) 20131012f 0 -5+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Programming is writing, symbolic cognition. (298) People write programs. . . . Despite the fields infatuation with metaphors like architecture and bridge-building and its dabbling in alternative models from biology or physics, the act of programming today remains an act of writing of typing character after character, word after word, line after line.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (299) 20131012g 0 -14+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Why not study great works and the artists who made them, following Gabriel; especially given difficulty leading programmers like Joy have at writing books, clear invitation for texts and technology methodologies. (299) Bill Joyis one of the leading programmers of his generation; he wrote much of the free Berkely version of Unix, devised some of the critical underpinnings of the early Internet, and helped create Java. After leaving Sun Microsystems, which he cofounded, he attempted to write a book. But in 2003 he told the New York Timesthat he was putting the project aside. It was one thing to write a complier to interpret or the computer to execute; writing for other people was simply too hard. (299) Yet the programming field could learn much from the writing world, argues Richard Gabriel, a veteran of Lisp and object-oriented programming worlds who is now a Distinguished Engineer at Sun. . . . They study great works of poetry. Do we do that in our software engineering disciplines? No. You dont look at the source code for great pieces of software. (300) But a bigger reason, Gabriel argues, is that much of the software in use today cant be studied; its code is locked away for commercial reasons. (Unsurprisingly, Gabriel is a believer in the open source movement.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (300) 20131012h 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Gabriel feels software developers not challenged to present their work for peer criticism as much as literary writers and poets. (300) He discovered that we ask more work of students who want to become writers and poets than of those who aim to become software developers: They must study with mentors, they must present their work for regular criticism by peers in workshops, and theyre expected to labor over multiple revisions of the same work.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (301) 20131012j 0 -7+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Knuth emphasizing art of programming, readability for others over science clear implication for humanities study. (301) You can find significant evidence supporting such a conclusion in the life and work of Donald Knuthprogrammer, teacher, and author of a series of books that are widely viewed as the bibles of his profession. (302) Knuth chose to name his books The Art of Computer Programming not The Science of Computer Programming. (304) His work on TeX and Metafont led Knuth to draw precisely the opposite conclusion from Bill Joy: Writing software is much more difficult than writing books, he declared. (305) As a landmark author who also devoted a decade to tackling and solving a fiendish practical problem in software, Knuth is probably better qualified than any other living human being to compare the relative difficulties of writing books and writing code. (306) Knuths proposal emphasizes writing code that is comprehensible to human beings, under the thinking that sooner or later programmers other than the author will need to understand it, and that such code will end up being better structured, too. (307) Well-commented code is one hallmark of good programming practice; it shows that you care what youre doing, and it is considerate to those who will come after you to fix your bugs. But comments also serve as a kind of back channel for programmer-to-programmer communication and even occasionally as a competitive arena or an outlet for silliness.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (312) 20131012l 0 -1+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Design based on imagining mental model users would develop, in context of Yin evaluating Chandler dashboard views, anticipating synaptogenesis. (312) Yin started from ideas about how users would want to organize their workflows; the developers began by imagining the mental model the user would develop about the programs functions.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (314) 20131012m 0 -7+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Programming style influenced by deep experience with Java appeared deficient to a Python expert, result of a fellow expert doing code study. (314) After spending some time studying Chandlers code base, [Phillip J.] Ebyposted to his blog a lengthy entry titled Python Is Not Java. (314) There followed a long list of technical recommendations for how to use Python like a true Pythonista rather than a newbie. (316) His point was undeniable that key Chandler developers, no matter how much coding they had under their belts, were Python newbies who simply werent taking full advantage of the languages features and were sometimes tripping over them instead. (317) Once more Eby turned to his blog to report on his work. He described the process he adopted to create Spike: He had borrowed a method from Extreme Programming called test-driven development, in which programmers write the test that evaluates the success of a program function beforethey write the function itself. Then, at every stage of work, they can be sure that their code still works and does what was originally intended.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (318) 20131012n 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Relative simplicity of server side versus client facing development because of diminished concern for user needs and edge cases arising from unpredictable actions by users. (318) It helped that Cosmo employed only one developer; that meant it didnt have to pay a lot of coordination costs. But it was also true that writing server software has always had certain advantages compared with writing software for users. A server is a program that deals almost entirely with other programs and machines; it rarely needs to communicate directly with human beings. And when it does, the human being it needs to talk to when it is being initially configured, for instance, or when it hits a snag is usually a pro, a system administrator or programmer who is already fluent in the servers own dialect.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (322) 20131108a 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Open source projects largely managed by women despite stereotypes and reality of commercial software development. (322) Not by design but maybe not entirely coincidentally, it had become an open source project largely managed by women. (322) Efforts to explain the disparity risk both invoking stereotypes and profaning sacred cows. But the most thoughtful students of the matter point out the social bias against women tends to trump all other factors. (322) Today, to walk into the management meeting of a software project and encounter a group of female faces is still an exotic experience.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (328) 20131012p 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Does recognition of design problems for dealing with recurring events reveal something about philosophical assumptions behind the Chandler project: likewise, Kay felt McCarthys elegant definitions of eval and apply functions for Lisp reverberate with the essence of the language or programming itself. (328) Alan Kay likes to point to McCarthys half-age of code at the bottom of page 13 of the Lisp 1.5 manual and praise it as the Maxwells equations of computing --concentrated, elegant statements that distilled the fields fundamental principles just as James Clerk Maxwells four equations had laid out the essential workings of electricity and magnetism at the dawn of the machine age. One the page that Kay cited, which provides definitions of two functions named eval and apply, McCarthy essentially described Lisp in itself. This, Kay says, is the whole world of programming in a few lines that I can put my hand over. (330) It turns out the the dream of an automatic program verifier --a program that could examine any other program and determine whether that program provides the correct output for any given input is doomed to remain a dream. The question is undecidable.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (331) 20131012q 0 -6+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Douglas Hofstadters Law: it always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadters Law. (331) In planning my project I had failed to take into account Hofstadters Law, the recursive principle to which Douglas Hofstadterattached his name: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadters Law. (332) But writing open source code for three years was not the same thing as building an open source community. As Chandler 0.6 neared completion, Ted Leung sent Mitch Kapor a report assessing OSAFs successes and failures in its open source efforts. He found that of approximately 4,400 total bugs logged in Bugzilla to date, around 100 had been filed by people outside OSAF. And there had been only a handful of actual code contributions from outsiders.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (337) 20131012s 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Alan Cooper, creator of Visual Basic, details software industry sins in The Inmates are Running the Asylum, the primary one being not understanding what it means to be done, hence anxiety of open-ended tasks noted by David Allen. (337) In 1999, Alan Coopera software developer who created much of the Visual Basic programming language in the early nineties and is now a prominent software design advocate published a fierce book titled The Inmates are Running the Asylumthat provides a rap sheet of the software industrys sins. In it Cooper wrote, Software development lacks one key element an understanding of what it means to be Done. (337) But there is another consequence of software developments halting problem, one that is less pragmatic than existential. David Allen, the Getting Things Doneguru, talked about the gnawing sense of anxiety suffered by knowledge workers who face mountains of open-ended tasks.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (349) 20131012v 0 -4+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Prospect of perfection dissolves when information systems touch human beings free will and unpredictability (Lanier), making software engineering different from bridge building. (349) Ultimately, information systems only give value when they touch human beings, Jaron Lanier says. And when they do touch human beings, the prospect of perfection dissolves. (349) Softwares essential difficulty, then, is the tool that human free will and unpredictability exact on technological progress. (352) As the projects first big-splash Long Bet, Kapor wagered $20,000 (all winnings earmarked for worthy nonprofit institutions) that by 2029 no computer or machine intelligence will have passed the Turing Test.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (352) 20131012w 0 -3+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Kurzweil believes acceleration of technology enhancements related to computing power, storage capacity, network speed point toward critical moment when human brain is technologically emulated. (352) [Ray] Kurzweils belief in a machine that could ace the Turing Test was one part of his larger creed that human history was about to be kicked into overdrive by the exponential acceleration of Moores Law and a host of other similar skyward-climbing curves. As the repeated doublings of computational power, storage capacity, and network speed start to work their magic, and the price of all that power continues to drop, according to Kurzweil, we will reach a critical moment when we can technologically emulate the human brain, reverse-engineering our own organic processors in computer hardware and software. At the same time, biotechnology and its handmaiden, nonotechnology, will be increasing their powers at an equally explosive rate.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKrosenberg-dreaming_in_code (353) 20131012x 0 -2+ progress/2013/03/notes_for_rosenberg-dreaming_in_code.html Kurzweil singularity in late 2020s will radically transform human experience; what becomes of the human side of the symbiosis, will we be dreaming in code or merely overdetermined by it? (353) Kurzweil predicts that artificial intelligence will induce a singularity in human history. When it rolls out, something in the late 2020s, an artificial intelligences passing of the Turing Test will be a mere footnote to this singularitys impact which will be, he says, to generate a radical transformation of the reality of human experience by the 2040s.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (1) 20131208 0 -2+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Look at software development from the wrong place to learn about place in the knowledge economy; relate to work of Janz. (1) I will try to show in this book that we have much to gain from looking at software development in this somewhat unlikely place, and more generally, from looking at high-tech work in wrong places. By doing so, we can learn a lot about placeand its persisting importance in todays knowledge economy.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (4) 20131208c 0 -3+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Examine behavior and motivations of software developers in periphery places to better understand position of Silicon Vally. (4) To understand the truly exceptional position of centers such as Silicon Valley, perhaps it helps to spend some time contemplating the periphery. What do software developers doin such places? Why do they do it?
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (4) 20131215a 0 -1+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Reverse notion of fluidity of technical knowledge and study how it moves in space. (4) Instead of assuming that technical knowledge is naturally fluid and trying to understand what barriers keep software development so concentrated, I take the concentration as a given and seek to understand how the practice of software development moves in space at all, investigating the work that is needed to establish this practice in new places.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (5) 20131215b 0 -1+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html How do practices move? (5) Focusing on activities, and especially on systemsof activities, makes it easy to see why the practice of software development would cluster in a handful of places, since it helps us recognize the many different pieces that would need to be put together to re-create the practice in a new place.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (6) 20131215c 0 -26+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Key themes: Giddens process of disembedding and reembedding, cumulative and parallel nature of reproduction process, diasporic situation of peripheral practitioners, complex relation between individual and collective efforts reproducing foreign practices, interaction between cultural and economic layers, and paying attention to actors reflexive understanding of the world. (6) My discussion of practice in place focuses on several themes. The first is the process of disembeddingand reembedding(Giddens 1991) involved in its reproduction across space: people engaged in a practice that is based somewhere else often have to reassemble the practice around imported elements, substituting for missing pieces what happens to be available. . . . The second theme is the cumulative and parallel nature of the reproduction process. I look at the local practice of Brazilian software developers as a partial reproduction of the American software practice. . . . Third is the theme of a diasporic situation of the peripheral practitioners, who engage simultaneously in two cultures: the local mainstream culture and the globalizing world of the practice. . . . Closely related ot this is the complex relation between individual and collective efforts of reproducing foreign practice. . . . The fourth theme is the interaction between the cultural and economic layers of the practice, and the need to look at the two simultaneously, considering the situations when one of those layers is present and the other is missing. Finally, I stress the importance of paying attention to actors reflexive understanding of the world, the possible futures they can imagine individually and collectively, and the factors that influence this imagination (Giddens 1979; Appadurai 1996). (7-8) While I do not see this centralization as a puzzle per se, I do believe that there are many explanations that are wrong and self-serving and that such explanations may themselves contribute to the persistence of centralization. (7) I also intend to show how such peripheral work contributes to the continued dominance of remote centers. . . . By fixing their gaze solidly on foreign technology and investing efforts into making it work locally, peripheral developers often deny to local projects the attention that such projects may need.
4 2 2 (+) [-5+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (9) 20131215e 0 -10+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Emphasis on floss as reliant on global, computer-mediated interaction, yet reflexive of global influence of American hacking culture, involving complex negotiations of culture, language and geography. (9) The book focuses disproportionately on a specific form of software practice known as open source or free software development. (9-10) Such communities are also remarkably dispersed and rely predominantly on computer-mediated interaction, with members often having little idea where on the planet other participants happen to be. At the same time, however, the geographic concentration of those communities rivals that of the software industry, with rare projects that originate in wrong places often quickly moving their centers to the West Coast of the United States. The global culture of such communities is based largely on the hacking culture that originally developed in American universities. . . . As I will try to show, participation in open source projects involves a complex negotiation of culture, language, and geography, and is often harderthan engaging in other forms of software practice, since it requires morefluency in foreign culture and demands moreof the resources that may be hard to find in places like Rio de Janeiro. (10) On a more abstract level, open source development also simply represents a newway of developing software, and thus highlights the challenge of keeping up with the evolving practice based far away what we could call synchronization work. Looking at how Rio developers respond to this challenge may therefore help us understand how people engaged in other worlds of practice respond to changes that take place in those worlds.
4 2 2 (+) [-5+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (10) 20131215f 0 -9+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Lua is a programming language developed in Rio that is gaining global popularity and reflects contradictions of little local use and primacy of English in its user community. (10) Several chapters of the book look closely at a particular open source project that would be unusual by most measures: Lua, a programming language developed in Rio de Janeiro that has recently gained substantial global popularity around the world in particular, among software companies based in California. (10) Lua is the only entrant into this exclusive club [of programming languages] from a developing country. (10-11) Luas position in Brazil, however, presents us with an even larger puzzle. Almost no local communities make use of Lua in their products. Luas large and active community interacts primarily in English. . . . Luas global success has so far done little to rescue Rio de Janiero from its position as a wrong place for developing software.
4 2 2 (+) [-5+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (14) 20131215h 0 -4+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Discovery of cultural biases against talking about technology; seen as reflecting conflicts between local and global communities. (14) Talking about work, he explained, was simply not considered cool in Rio young men are expected to talk about soccer and women, not computers. He assured me that my other interviewees did talk about technology with friends, and that I just had to know how to ask. As I soon came to realize, small differences in wording and intonations did indeed affect greatly the interviewees readiness to talk about talking about technology. (15) I came to see those contradictions as reflecting the underlying conflicts between their commitments to the local place and to the global (but often also quite foreign) technological practice.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (15) 20131215i 0 -1+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Fieldwork focused on Lua and Kepler then typical Java applications for local clients. (15) I then decided to dedicate half of the second phase of my fieldwork to Lua and Kepler, reserving the other half for a study of a more typical case some company building custom web applications for local clients, using Java.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (15-16) 20131215j 0 -5+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Difficulty of seeing all the work going into a software project. (15-16) I soon confirmed my suspicions that mere physical observation does not go very far when studying software work: one mostly gets to see people staring at their screens, typing, and occasionally swearing. . . . Without literally looking at the developers monitors over their shoulders, both at work and at home, and keeping track of their solitary work, private emails, and instant messenger conversations, cell phone calls, and face-to-face chats, one can hardly see all the work that goes into the creation of a software project.
4 2 2 (+) [-5+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (16) 20131215k 0 -3+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Active participation of researcher began by writing wiki in Kepler to help developers and collect interview data, presenting an explicit method of studying software work as active participant observation; contrast to in situ yet detached method of Rosenberg. (16) After we went through a number of options for wiki software, I made a fateful decision to write my own wiki in Kepler, which was after all a platform for developing web applications such as wikis. (16) I found in such active participation an answer to many of the problems of studying software work that troubled me at first. While no method can reconstruct the project in its entirety, active participantobservation provided me with a partial solution: a situated and integrated picture that weaved together someprivate emails and instant messenger conversations, somelate night conversations over pizza, and quite a few hours alone in front of the monitor making sense of debug traces.
4 2 2 (+) [-5+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (16) 20131215l 0 -3+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Compares virtual ethnography to Nardi study of World of Warcraft; both virtual approaches involve deep and continuing participation by the researcher. (16) (footnote 12) In this way, my work combined elements of traditional (though multisited) in situ ethnography with what could be seen as a case of virtual ethnography, drawing on many online interactions. In this sense, my fieldwork had nontrivial similarities, for example, to Nardis (2010) study of World of Warcraft. (17) Faced with this choice, I decided to get involved seriously.
4 2 2 (+) [-4+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (17) 20131215m 0 -1+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Virtual projects create opportunity and perhaps obligation for ethnographer to maintain commitment to project. (17) Virtual projects done over the Internet create an opportunity and in the view of some members an obligation for the ethnographer to maintain commitment to the project through continued remote participation.
4 2 2 (+) [-6+]mCQKtakhteyev-coding_places (111) 20131231a 0 -2+ progress/2013/12/notes_for_takhteyev-coding_places.html Software development transformed by Internet access; effect in Brazil compares by some deformation to US periphery of local concentration of power and creative source of software, Silicon Valley and later centers in the United States. (111) In 1992, Rio and Brazil became connected to the Internet, a new computer network that was rapidly growing in popularity around the world. Access to the Internet enabled real-time access to the World Wide Web, transforming the practice of software development.
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