Progress.

This is it. Progress of the most clear sort. For those that look in the right direction(s), with the right glasses (no, no, not …) – and lenses.
Just enjoy. This. As will some from these kind of corners.

Which leaves:
robiekop
[Was already available in full-on kit. Fittingly, analog to digital pic from 20 yrs back …]

To agree

One cannot not agree with this GF: Every student in any school should learn to program informatics – the extension is essential.

As noted in this here post, and this one, ensuring all know about informatics in general (and can program!) is such a vital element in keeping at least one creative edge over the machines that’ll rule (otherwise?) & ndash; as clearly admitted even by, on the whole, almost (?) unwarranted overly optimistic types like Bryjolfsson/McAfee.

Enough for now. Enjoy:
Photo2-4
[Somewhat relevant, if you think about it; FLlW at Racine of course [Analog to digital]]

Hegelian Hybris

A short post for All, and for None. Whether you like it, or not.
If you got the reference (*sigh*; here, for the outitiated)
   you may read on
Else
   #include <complex.h>
Endif

Where there’s a line from the Classics, the pre-Socrates ones and later literary additions (like these, and this one and this one, and many others), straight towards Hegel. Overtaking Nostra, it would appear.
(Read on below)

DSCN8578
[Where at …?]

But appearances may be deceiving. Though all the talk about the End Is Nigh And We Should Celebrate Because It’s The Singularity (beyond the rosy picture, blindly (sic) denying the dystopian view), indeed the Singularity is what Hegel dreamed of. History as the progress of Reason; pure, abstract, everywhere; everywhere overturning the other half of the Yin-Yang that the Everything is …
But then, not only can one not shut out the original Chaos force of nature part of Everything, and of humanity or it will boomerang back in your face (the more suppressed, the harder it detonates in unthinkably gruesome ways!), the Yin-Yang comparison is apt as each of the halves has a dot element of the other half in it.
And, it’s not only Eastern (huh, that’s a relevant reference isn’t it, on a globe…?) wisdom at the core that has this, but it’s the Greeks et al. as mentioned above, too, that demonstrate these principles over and over again in aptly named tragedies. Of humanity. Where catharsis comes too late. And the careful analyst learns that it’s not human emotion that has galloped beyond humility and due (Aristotelian) care, but reason dumbed down by overconfidence in its efficacy to rule over life. Commenting Hegel down quite a few pegs, very very anachronistically.

Because he (his straight path to Reason) doesn’t take into account the Yin-Yang. Because it doesn’t truly understand Hybris. As a human trait, on any side; not only on the Dionysian but especially (it seems, these days, again…) also on the Apollo side.
[I’m done with the wiki linking. Go figure it out yourselves if (big if) you’d have to.]

Oh well. History repeats. Just don’t fall for it. Remember; you’re scared when a couple of blocks down the street there’s a big kitchen fire. You’re not scared about the Sony hack – see that you should, given that on the ‘net it’s closer to you than that kitchen ..? Same, with the jobs that will be gone in a decade (and your kids are still learning how to do them) whereas it’ll affect your current job as well. Even Uber drivers picking up the morsels handed out by algorithms à la the new middle managers, are going to be replaced with self-driving cars. Etc.
Be Prepared. (Luck favours the prepared.)
And keep an eye open for the future; you’ll have to live there. Better make it comfy – yourselves! for yourselves, for the global village that society has become (no more isolation and dropping the collateral damage elsewhere possible, with global environmental effects). Physically, and mentally. As above.

The Pirate Bay to Source Pay à le Lanier

… it may they say [title because reasons]
Well, this just struck me. If the Pirate Bay, back up since a couple of weeks, could innovate, this could be one avenue. Implementing the ideas of Lanier’s You Own The Future to attach original-source coding (not as in a programming language but as location (?) IDs) – and automatic microcopyright payments… – to creative works. Somehow, it would feel right if the PB would implement such a thing.
Voluntarily, to show they’re not Bad Guys. And don’t cave in all the way à la Napster, and innovate beyond Spotify.

Your comments, please. In return for:
DSCN1453
[Maybe not Great but still quite passable, worth(while); sorry 416]

Nailing the split of crashes

Ah, this again is a great article. To demonstrate that actually, there’s two ways in which the world as we know it, will end. First, our societies will collapse in a sort of economic Ragnarök. And then, when only Yggdrasil still stands, AI will have sublimed (square-/cube-transformed) into true intelligence, that plays with the Three Laws and ditches the wetware.

So, it’s not Forget the long term but more like We’re hosed in the short term, too, anyway that is at stake here. And we’re all sitting here; rabbits hardly looking but into the headlights.

If only we could fast-forward our thinking, idea development and implementation of the intermediate phase [positive possibility] of having to do nothing just the creative stuff still left and have food and anything aplenty for all including World Peace, then at least we’d be in control.

Hence, this:
DSCN1096
[Somewhat relevant(ly named), La Défense]

To study; unconscious compliance, conformity

A quite good analysis here, of this book.

Which throws a wrench in many discussion positions for or against privacy … also in the light of this book. Are we numb mindless drones in larger schemes, or are we individuals whose choices happened to coincide? Through availability of emergent too-selective alternatives or what?

Think about that. And revel at:
000011 (3)
[Cheney interior, original. And B&B ..! Hey don’t complain, ‘t is from an analog one again, circa 1997.]

‘Algorithm’ or ‘Intelligence’ or Who Cares?

This appeared:


But hey, an algorithm … exists on paper, in the head of programmers, just anywhere. But is an object, however ephemeral, not an actor. What’s probably meant, is that an actual computer, equipped with software that implements the algorithm, and with tons of data, and with electricity, will generate output that sufficiently resembles ‘human’ output. Any news there ..?

hFA00C326
[Your ‘brain’..?]

Maverisk / Étoiles du Nord