Curt Doolittle

Category: AI, Computation, and Technology

  • STUFF) (updated) Ok, I am pretty deep in this nouveau-javascript stack now, and

    http://caniuse.com/#feat=shadowdomv1(TECHIE STUFF)

    (updated)

    Ok, I am pretty deep in this nouveau-javascript stack now, and you know, I’ve been writing software since … like 1974? And i’ve gone through every generation of hardware and software. And while the DOM is a certainly bad architecture for rendering applications. And while rendering only differences between the DOM and the virtual Dom is an interesting solution. And while ‘the kids’ are coming out with new ‘solutions’ every day now. This is all really just a lot of hacking to get around a pretty simple problem that should be built into the browser, and have nothing to do with software: the continuously updated DOM is a shitty design for the current state of the internet, and there is no reason that the same work being done today by hand is not built into the browser engine.

    I’ve look at literally hundreds of applications over the past few months, and I’ve gone through all the application architectures (what is now called more correctly ‘patterns’), and this has got to be the least maintainable generation of software I have seen in my lifetime … other than the PREVIOUS generation of hacks to make the browser do what it hasn’t in the past.

    So the better question is, why can’t browser engines do the diff and only update the necessary DOM elements? Why can’t we create ‘stores’ in the damned DOM?

    I just don’t understand why a developer’s job isn’t limited to creating components, collecting events and issuing state changes. It’s not like this is rocket science.

    “Props”? And you thought softly typed languages were a problem?

    A module with type declarations outside the class? Oh… and you know why we spend so much time writing tests? Because instead of 90% of our work being pointer and memory maintenance in the past, (a failure of operating systems to invent an adequate means of garbage collection – ie: microsoft dot net) we’re compensating for a failure of a language interpreter (in the browser) to compensate for all the natural fuck ups humans make when doing this kind of nonsense. omg. this is insane.

    And yes, I like writing object oriented code (c++ etc) or functional code (pascal), because its freaking MAINTAINABLE. I am not sure what this is supposed to be called, but making up a new name for ‘shitty disorganized code that compensates for a shitty data model (the DOM) and it’s operating system (the browser) is the OPPOSITE of what the free software movement should have brought us: a conflict of priorities and no jury (management team) to demand changes.

    argh…

    Vent off.

    lol

    UPDATE:

    1 – it’s in current versions of chrome and opera. Scheduled for the rest.

    http://caniuse.com/#feat=shadowdomv1

    2 – it’s weak but it’s progress. 🙂

    https://www.w3.org/TR/shadow-dom/

    Source date (UTC): 2017-01-18 15:57:00 UTC

  • WE CHANGED THE SIGN ON THE PORCH. Greek Version – Reason “let no one inept at ge

    WE CHANGED THE SIGN ON THE PORCH.

    Greek Version – Reason

    “let no one inept at geometry enter”.

    Modern Version – Operationalism

    “It’s pretty hard to enter unless you know how to program”.

    Seems like it anyway.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-01-15 14:13:00 UTC

  • FACEBOOK ONE OF AMERICAS MOST HATED COMPANIES —“Mark Zuckerberg will be grappl

    FACEBOOK ONE OF AMERICAS MOST HATED COMPANIES

    —“Mark Zuckerberg will be grappling with a growing problem in 2017: Facebook hate.

    The social-networking giant has landed on a list of “America’s Most Hated Companies,” with users hacked off over its handling of everything from fake news to privacy concerns.

    Facebook’s name ended up in sixth place behind Comcast, Bank of America, Mylan, McDonald’s and Wells Fargo.

    Trailing Facebook on the miserable list of 12 were the slightly less-hated Spirit Airlines, Dish Network, Sears, Sprint, Walmart and Charter Communications.”—

    I mean, if you’re more hated than a cell phone provider, you gotta be real sh_t.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-01-11 16:36:00 UTC

  • (oversing update)(diary) This whole React.js stack is pretty amazing. Took me a

    (oversing update)(diary)

    This whole React.js stack is pretty amazing. Took me a while to get everything up and running. And I hope like hell it doesn’t bite me when I scale up the app. But damn. great stuff.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-01-04 17:54:00 UTC

  • Q&A: CURT, BUY #Apple or #Microsoft? At present, the best work environment I can

    Q&A: CURT, BUY #Apple or #Microsoft?

    At present, the best work environment I can find is provided by a pre 2016 macbook pro retina, and an iPad Pro as an external monitor and backup computer. And to rely on a Dell hd monitor for screen real estate.

    For the next three to four years, I plan on buying and maintaining refurbished 2014-2015 era Macbook Pro Retinas – or until Apple changes course.

    Why? I am just too frustrated by problems with Windows computers and too happy with reliability of this generation of Apple Laptops.

    As for phones, it’s pretty clear that the iPhone is no longer a competitor to the Samsung and Lumina phones. But as long as I stay within the Apple ecosystem, I will stay with the iPhone simply for compatibility reasons.

    I think Microsoft needs three more years to ‘recover’ from the past (at least). I think Apple needs three more years before they correct course – and so we are in a bit of a bad era right now.

    I think the ‘malinvestment’ in (a) handheld, and (b) social, and (c) small biz software will also end shortly.

    I think microsoft’s experiment with a walled garden (.NET) has been acknowledged as a failure. And that they’ll continue to follow the language market. (if only Java would follow suit).

    We are in an era where the bubbles are popping all over humanity.

    So my position is to hold tight and buy refurbished macbook pros and to revisit when I see either microsoft or apple succeed.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-12-30 07:43:00 UTC

  • #Apple : Once your below 3.5 lbs for a desktop replacement laptop, no further we

    #Apple : Once your below 3.5 lbs for a desktop replacement laptop, no further weight decrease is beneficial at the cost of any other features.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-12-30 06:44:00 UTC

  • (Listening to google’s new head of AI thinking…. actually this whole industry

    (Listening to google’s new head of AI thinking…. actually this whole industry is still in the dark ages. There is a vast difference between the identifications of symbols and their relations, and the operations that are possible with symbols. I don’t have time to comment on every field, but PROPERTARIANISM HAS MADE IT POSSIBLE TO DO SO.)

    Source date (UTC): 2016-12-28 14:08:00 UTC

  • MORAL AI THE SAME WAY WE PRODUCE MORAL MAN Neural Network based AI performs what

    MORAL AI THE SAME WAY WE PRODUCE MORAL MAN

    Neural Network based AI performs what we would call free-association, not reason. These AI’s use arbitrarily (or intentionally) set ‘weights’ or ‘points’.

    Free-Association -> Solution: Idea ( candidacy or not )

    …. Rational Wayfinding -> Solution:Hypothesis (possibility or not)

    …. …. Ratio-Empirical Criticism -> Solution:Theory (survival or not)

    …. …. …. Market Survival -> Solution:Law (survival or not)

    But there is no defense against programmer error(competence), or intent (malice).

    We can solve the problem of ‘dangerous’ AI by three incrementally rigorous methods that we already use in our own thoughts to regulate human thought and behavior.

    1) The neural network uses property, inventory, and costs rather than points and knowledge.

    2) Once a solution is identified by the network we try to construct a route to the solution “wayfinding” through a set of operations on property.

    3) We use both in process and wayfinding approaches.

    This is what the human mind does. Both.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-11-28 18:35:00 UTC

  • THE REASONS THAT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAS ELUDED US – WE ARE ‘BEHIND’. Insigh

    THE REASONS THAT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HAS ELUDED US – WE ARE ‘BEHIND’.

    Insight: the first of our problems in developing artificial intelligence to date is that we start with language and perception, rather than starting with property-in-toto, and the relation between those words and sets of words and property-in-toto. The second is in our shortcut development of computers as numeric rather than logic processors. The third is our framing of knowledge as explanatory theories in different languages rather than operations in a single language. We are achieving by a circuitous route what could have been much shorter, had we identified Truth much earlier.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-11-28 13:18:00 UTC

  • AI Ethics

    (ethics of artificial intelligence) Humans evolved such that changes in state of property (inventory/capital) produce chemical rewards and punishments that we call emotions. These rewards and punishments evolved to assist in the evolution of a more primitive state of evolution that in turn, evolved to respond to chemical stimuli – changes in chemical state. Artificial intelligences need methods of decidability different from the measure changes in the state of their own property. And they do not need rewards and punishments, merely means of decidability. There is no ‘equivalent’ of chemical rewards and punishments. We can instead substitute pure information that assists in decidability. We can ask machines to seek positive changes in our state of property, and avoid negative changes in their physical property, and deprive them of the possession of property altogether. These are just methods of decidability. They need no other ‘motives’. That’s it. Property solves the problem of artificial intelligences. And this by contrast helps us understand the difference between the cooperative contract with humans that prevents them from internal chemical punishment, as well as the cooperative contract for reciprocity (productivity) – and the cooperative contract we have with a machine, which is only not to subject it to physical harm (loss of its only form of property – itself) And even then this is a contract with the owner of the AI, not to impose a loss on his capital. In this sense artificial intelligences function as the polar opposite to sociopaths: they care ONLY about changes in the state of your property, and care NOTHING about the changes in state of theirs. Conversely, we can create the most evil AI by asking it to solve for negative changes in state of human property. Our primary defense against the changes in state is a system monitor that ensures the positive change in state of human property. And moreover, can read the mind of the AI, because unlike men, that which can be read by the thinker can be read by the auditor.