Curt Doolittle

Category: AI, Computation, and Technology

  • GOOGLE IS THE MOST SOCIALLY IMPORTANT COMPANY IN THE WORLD Yep. The next ‘singul

    GOOGLE IS THE MOST SOCIALLY IMPORTANT COMPANY IN THE WORLD

    Yep. The next ‘singularity’ doesn’t have to come from machines. It can come from the gradual elimination of fringe (irrational), false (contrafactual) or loaded (metaphysically biased) ideas.

    I could not have accomplished what I have in the past ten years without the internet. It would have been impossible.

    I just believe, strongly, that postmodernism on one end, islam on the other, with Buddhism somewhere in the middle, will defeat reason just as religion has defeated reason so frequently in the past.

    The only way to defeat religions is to aggressively advance science faster than dysfunctional religions can react to it.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-08 09:55:00 UTC

  • IN THE HUNTER GATHERER STAGE “It’s like pre-Sumerian civilization,” says Brad Co

    http://www.fastcompany.com/node/28121/printSOFTWARE IN THE HUNTER GATHERER STAGE

    “It’s like pre-Sumerian civilization,” says Brad Cox, who wrote the software for Steve Jobs NeXT computer and is a professor at George Mason University. “The way we build software is in the hunter-gatherer stage.”

    John Munson, a software engineer and professor of computer science at the University of Idaho, is not quite so generous. “Cave art,” he says. “It’s primitive. We supposedly teach computer science. There’s no science here at all.”

    Software may power the post-industrial world, but the creation of software remains a pre-industrial trade. According to SEI’s studies, nearly 70% of software organizations are stuck in the first two levels of SEI’s scale of sophistication: chaos, and slightly better than chaos.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-05 06:55:00 UTC

  • AWESOME TIMES 1) The product is…. utterly amazing. I love products with richne

    AWESOME TIMES

    1) The product is…. utterly amazing. I love products with richness and depth. It is …. awe inspiring to work on it. I find most software today is beautiful but mediocre – taking advantage of increases in user interfaces created by the touch experience, but not actually adding depth to any meaningful business software, which mostly is still stuck in the 90’s.

    2) I’ve had a few very useful insights over the past two months.

    a) My hunch that I could attack postmodernism via mathematics played out.

    b) What I didn’t expect is that I would further my argument on the morality of calculability (preservation of causality in monetary exchanges). I have been struggling to develop an argument with this for two years.

    c) I’ve been able to ‘correct’ the ‘calculation and incentives and property’ argument used by libertarians in the battle against socialism in order to focus us on Postmodernism now that socialism is dead.

    d) I ended up with a pretty good theory of truth. That I think is out of scope for my book but useful as a separate bit of work. If I can distill it down and it still feels like it fits, I’ll use it. But right now the book is pretty much on-topic and I don’t want to add unnecessary weight to it unless I really need to. I can see that I might when I get around to it. But right now I’m not sure.

    3) My major investment will at least survive until Christmas. lol. I had expected to lose a few million more this year. 🙂 And I’m not quite done with creating a new revenue stream yet. 🙂 lol

    4) I have wonderful friends that I love and get to share the experience of life with.

    Cheers

    Source date (UTC): 2013-09-03 09:51:00 UTC

  • (HUMOR) Two of the guys are debating some nuance of user interface and database

    (HUMOR)

    Two of the guys are debating some nuance of user interface and database design again that … frankly I can’t understand, ’cause it’s in passionate Russian.

    Vitaly has just used his finger-gun to allegorically shoot them both.

    Because this has been going on for hours. I told them “Dont ask me. It’s not a business problem. The users will not be confused either way. And my only technical requirement is that you don’t reduce our options in the future. So this isn’t my problem. It’s your problem. So solve it yourselves.”

    You like how I skated on that one? Awesome technique. lol

    You know, I reserve that level of passion for money and women. Next is cars, guns, war, and politics. Technology is a distant third place. I can get amused, interested or confused, but not excited about it. 🙂

    I love human beings. They’re awesome.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-29 07:15:00 UTC

  • THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST POWER “The more descriptive the language one chooses, the

    THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST POWER

    “The more descriptive the language one chooses, the more one can do with the data stored in that language.” – Tim Berners-Lee

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 06:30:00 UTC

  • PRINCIPLES

    http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/ARCHITECTURAL PRINCIPLES

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 06:27:00 UTC

  • ATWOOD’S LAW “Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually

    ATWOOD’S LAW

    “Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.”

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 06:27:00 UTC

  • SILLY: POSITIONS The entire staff is conducting a heated debate. It’s not over a

    SILLY: POSITIONS

    The entire staff is conducting a heated debate. It’s not over anything architectural. Anything algorithmic. Or about performance. Or durability. But over the icons that should represent Individual, Group, Role and Position, in our software.

    It’s absurd. But, its so funny I don’t want to stop it. So I send them a set of icons with sexual positions. And now I’m waiting to see who checks their email first. 🙂

    BUT SERIOUSLY

    I remember having this same conversation, at Microsoft, about the icons in Microsoft Access. And way back then, thinking, ‘there is nothing in this room with any empirical support’. And ‘how come we never have these heated discussions about things that matter?’

    Humans are fascinating creatures.

    lol

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-20 07:44:00 UTC

  • TECH STUFF Never liked Java. its just the COBOL of today. Love PHP productivity.

    TECH STUFF

    Never liked Java. its just the COBOL of today.

    Love PHP productivity. Love the entirely javascript UI. Python maybe, for more algorithmic solutions. Php for data driven solutions.

    If we weren’t so far along, I’d make the shift to from jQuery to ExtJS, and insulate Laravel entirely from the front end. And split the teams. Its too costly spread the UI, even with MVC architecture. Too unproductive.

    Senscha renders horrid UI out of the box and jQuery is the toy if aesthetes, so it looks so much better.

    But converting jQuery ideas to extJS implementations would be a better trade off at current tech levels.

    Problem (opportunity) is that OO JS programmers are rare.

    So, if anyone wants to know what skill is most valuable. I’m still in the JS camp.

    Not sure about Objective C long term. Pattern says no.

    But Java project experience is such a sorting and filtering mechanism I understand why its a good enterprise risk mitigation strategy.

    But for my money, css/js/php | python/mysql is pretty hard to argue with.

    And JS really is maturing nicely.

    One more generation of the performance race and its looking pretty good.

    Nothing terribly insightful. But what I’m not saying might be. 🙂

    Cheers

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-20 06:39:00 UTC

  • HUGS ARE GOOD. Just saw the latest UI for our product Oversing. We can’t really

    HUGS ARE GOOD.

    Just saw the latest UI for our product Oversing. We can’t really use breadcrumbs because it’s not a hierarchical model. Instead it “layers” screens so that you don’t get lost in difficult contexts.

    Say what you want. But I will never stop hugging my staff when they do stuff that awes me. 🙂 They laugh at it.

    But it works. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-13 05:01:00 UTC