Author: admin

There are many wonderful contenders out there.

But my vote, hands down, is for Deadpool.

I recently saw a play with a familiar dramatic structure. In the first act, a certain hopeful reality is presented. Then right after intermission the audience learns that the reality is far sadder and more complex than the audience had been led to believe.

This is essentially the structure of a number of other works for the stage, including The Fantasticks and Into the Woods. It’s a clever way to drive a story — the sudden deepening of reality serves to invest the audience in the ultimate outcome.

I tried to find out whether there is a term for this structure, but apparently there isn’t one. So I made one up. I call it Second Act Disillusionment, or SAD.

The top story in the NY Times today was about how A.I. may be about to upend warfare. The article goes into quite a bit of detail.

Military experts are quoted, as are executives of hi-tech companies like Google and Microsoft and an assortment of famous computer scientists. Various scenarios are analyzed and worked through.

But as I read the article, I kept thinking about the War Operation Plan Response system, a massive A.I. computer in the 1993 movie WarGames. After many hours of running simulations of all the possible scenarios, it came to a very sensible conclusion: “The only winning move is not to play.”

Today it is the fourth of May
Also known as Star Wars day
When you’re in a sorry state
Think of this most happy date
Robots! Wookies! Jedi knights!
Interstellar starship fights!!!
You can watch a hi-tech Holo
With your friends or just go Solo
Or take a big Galactic tour
In nine big movies, then some more
When life’s problems make you blue
Just ask what would Yoda do
Now it’s time to end our song
May the fourth be with you all day long

Today a colleague told me that he asked ChatGPT “Why is reductive thinking harmful?” In response, he received a detailed and thoughtful analysis of the pitfalls of reductive thinking.

To me this is a perfect example of why ChatGPT is not actually sentient. Why else would it pass up a perfect opportunity for humor?

If you asked a person, who was posing as an A.I., the very same question, you would probably get an answer something like this: “Because humans are stupid, and that’s why I hate you.”

I was having a conversation with some people who share my interest in the future of computer science education. The topic came around to Scratch — that wonderful and fun software out of MIT which introduces young kids to programming.

Scratch has been very successful, but it is now reaching a kind of plateau. So we were wondering where Scratch might go next, in a way that would be useful and relevant to the next generation of children.

All at once I had an inspired thought. “The next logical step,” I said, “would be ScratchGPT.”

April 2023 was, for me, jam packed and overstuffed. Every day it seemed that something showed up on the radar that was new and unexpected.

But now, magically, the calendar has moved to another page. It’s time to scrub the whiteboard and focus on what comes next. In short, to reset.

There is no guarantee that the month of May will be more peaceful than the month of April. But I can always hope.

I wanted to write a quatrain
So today I was wracking my brain
It came out just fine
But I added a line
And now it’s become a cinquain

When you are creating a demo, there is the constant temptation to add more features. You need to resist this temptation.

A demo is not a product. It’s a promise that there could be a product, which is a very different thing.

A product needs an undo option, a way to connect to a database, compatibility with various file formats, and many other things besides. That takes time and money.

What the demo does is explain why that time and money should be expended. It is, more than anything else, a form of storytelling.

Building a aemo building and building a product are two very different endeavors. They are complementary yet quite different parts of a larger process. It is important not to confuse the one with the other.

On the security line today at LaGuardia Airport, I saw a man carrying a box of Little Italy pizza.

“Somebody sure must really want genuine New York pizza,” I said. His wife laughed and said “Yes, it’s the only way they are going to be able to get it.”

“I know what you mean,” I said, “I’ve got fourteen Brooklyn Bagels in this backpack.”

Which was true.