Because the future has just started
There will come a point — I don’t know when — after which everyone you know will have a direct brain interface to the Cloud. We will all have instant and effortless access to all human knowledge That moment will mark a kind of transition in the human species.
How do we know when that moment has arrived? I think it will be precisely when the very idea of trivia contests will seem absurd.
Troll Hunters: The best thing ever to come out of Netflix.
Is that too controversial?
I have been battling bureaucracy in the place where I work. It has not been pleasant.
I am gaining a new appreciation for the power of bureaucracy. In particular, for the power of systems that are designed around rules for the sake of saying “see, we have rules”, without regard to the fact that reality does not conform to rules and real people are not interchangeable bodies or countable heads.
Unfortunately, knowing that does not help in battling the bureaucracy. It just helps me be even more motivated to overcome it in the end.
Today, in 1066, was the beginning of the Norman conquest. The Battle of Hastings, the one that started it all, began on October 14.
Today is also the day in history — in the year 1322 ā- when Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeated King Edward II of England.
It is not clear whether, through the long lens of history, the second event was as momentous as the first. But I am including it anyway.
Why? Because I really really enjoy saying “Robert the Bruce”.
I have been attending the UIST (User Interface Software and Technology) conference, which is entirely virtual and on-line this year. I was just now attending the breakout rooms where students at various universities are showing their latest research demos.
In one breakout room the students showed their current work, and then explained what they intended to do for future work. I realized that the future approach they were describing could not work, because it would be mechanically unstable.
So I told them a better way to do it, talking it through with them step by step. The students thanked me, and I left the breakout room.
So now I am wondering — am I a collaborator?
There’s a wondrous sense of elation
That comes from the act of creation.
But even when we’re at our best
The body will still need its rest.
Should I push through while I am inspired,
Or take a break when I’m too tired?
Fatigue might be sapping my thunder
But I am too busy coding to wonder.
Still, taking a break could be fun.
I will get to that, soon as I’m done.
Sometimes I will write some software that is the realization of a very simple idea. I will spend perhaps a few days on it, polish it up, and be very happy with it.
What I have is something that tries to do only one thing. But it does that one thing very well. There is a kind of poetry to it.
But then I will be tempted to get ambitious. “As long as I’m doing this thing well,” I say to myself, “why not add that other capability?”
Soon I am adding capabilities right and left, and my once simple little software gem starts to turn into Dr. Frankenstein’s creature. It does all sorts of things, but it no longer has a clear purpose. The poetry of it is gone.
I’ve been getting better at resisting the temptation to keep building things to the point where I kill the poetry. I think it’s a skill you develop over time.
Adrian posted a great comment on my post from yesterday about Recording Dreams. At some point he said:
“I have a few old memories that, to this day, Iām uncertain if they really happened or were part of a dream. If I could search an archive of my dreams (or even just summaries of them), I might be able to learn which were real and which were imagined.”
It occurs to me that if a technology were developed that allowed you to access an archive of your dreams, that technology would also be capable of searching through your actual memories.
When that capability gets developed it will be very popular, and Google will provide a handy shortcut for it. You will be able to search for all sorts of topics in your dreams and memories, and cross-reference your dreams with your real memories. That could be useful for all sorts of things.
Especially if you start dreaming about what you discovered in your dreams. To find out whether you have been having dreams about your searches through your dreams, you can just do another Google search. The fun never ends.
You will also be able to access everyone else’s dreams and memories, but only if you are an advertiser. š
If you had a way to record your dreams so you could play them back later like a movie, would you?
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t.
Over time I’ve developed a particular technique for giving coding assignments to my computer science students.
When it’s time to give the students a coding assignment, I first implement the assignment myself, going from the course notes that I wrote for them in the most recent lectures. Then I decide which parts of the code I think they should be responsible for.
Depending on how advanced the students are, I can give them more or less of the code to do. For the parts that I’m not expecting them to implement, I just leave in my own code.
Then I add comments describing the parts I want them to implement, which turns that part of the code into a kind of step by step algorithm. Finally, I remove all of the code that I wrote for those parts.
It’s a kind of reverse engineering approach to building coding assignments. And it seems to work really well.