Notices by raganwald 🍓 (raganwald@social.bau-ha.us)

@Sir_Osis_of_Liver Duct tape is absolutely used to seal ducts. So I call it duct tape.

Meanwhile, in photography, film, and video, gaffers use that tape to manage wires and lighting and what-not. So they call it "gaffer tape."

Therefore, if a duck uses tape, it's duck tape. And there is a Duck brand of tape, and that must be duck tape. But if a duck, who is employed as a gaffer, uses tape on a duct, we will have an etymological crisis.

"Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it."—Dr. Alan J. Perlis, "Perlisisms: Epigrams in Programming" (1982)

A long time ago, I created .andand, a kind of Elvis operator for Ruby. It solved the problem of trying to invoke methods on objects that were `nil`, especially when chaining methods.

But I wasn't a genius removing the complexity of variables that might be objects, or might be nil. I was suffering it and trying to manage my suffering.

👇🏽

The "genius" move is to architect your code in such a way that the number of places where a variable might be nil is extremely low. The "genius" move is to consider using patterns like "null object" if you really do need to be explicit about something not being real.

So much of programming is like this: We build up libraries of patterns to manage and sanitize problems rather than lifting our point of view and removing the problems.

👇🏽

p.s. The above observation explains what I like about TypeScript, hated about Java, and liked about C++ "back in the day."

A good type system is a tool we can use to manage things like "what is the set of legal values for this parameter," or, "who can and who cannot modify this object."

You _can_ just document the types to get the compiler to compile. But you can also refactor them to remove complexity. That is a powerful argument for not just using types, but embracing type-first thinking.

👇🏽

@raccoon @dan613 @mekkaokereke

Thriller the song arrived just as Video was Killing the Radio Star. "Thriller" wasn't just a sing with a video, it had pretensions of being a short film that happened to be a pop musical.

One of Toronto's popular discos of the era literally closed, renovated, and reopened with synchronized video projection, and "Thriller" was the first tune where they showed it off.

Thriller was part of a new wave of pop where the video was as important as the song.

@pluralistic

"A moat doesn't just keep your competitors out, it traps your customers within."

If you remember this with a chuckle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf5iwGZNY_Q

The punk on the bus is Kirk Thatcher. Wonder what he's been up to?

@aral It is a "place of interest symbol," but also so much more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looped_square

"The search for AI is the search for a better slave."
—@cstross

Tech bros watch Blade Runner, and immediately set about trying to become the next Dr. Eldon Tyrell.

@rodhilton

I am not a psychologist, just a random person with an 🐘🎺 but...

I have read quite a few accounts of exchanges like this, and there seems to be a power dynamic undercurrent. I don't believe Musk is trying to optimize production or cut costs. I believe those are pretexts for exercising power over people more educated, intelligent, and capable.

I believe the entire point of almost all of his interactions with engineers is, "You may think you're smart, but I'm the boss."

Nothing to see here, just the business media promoting the idea that operating in grey areas to circumvent regulation and aviation safety is "outsmarting the feds."

Not much different than shipping full self-driving that doesn't work properly. Are they outsmarting all those regulations holding innovation and progress back? Or are they a new generation of carnival barkers selling vehicles that will get people killed?

The current iteration of GenAI strikes me as a near-perfect artefact of a post-truth society. It doesn't know anything about the truth, merely what seems to resemble what has been written somewhere. GenAI is the "Many people are saying" of tech.

More and more of our lives are becoming subject to post-truth. Just wait until regulatory agencies are taken out back and shot. What will be a safe product? It will be "up to the public to decide," not bureaucrats with their tests and standards!

👇🏽

"You are in a twisty little maze of corporate documentation, all alike."

https://dice.camp/@evilhat/113210659360456284

🎩 @darkuncle

@RuthMalan

Glib, but has been a useful framing for me:

"Impostor syndrome is where we compare our blooper reel to everyone else's highlights."

So many toots and blog posts and pod casts and op-eds about why the American Media both sides everything and never calls Trump out for his word salad and basically cowers before the Nazis promoting and normalizing their talking points.

So few pointing out that if the owner class owns the companies that employ the journalists, there is a simple and succinct explanation for their behaviour that doesn't rely on them all having the same lack of spine at the exact same time in the exact same way.

Were I a political pundit, I'd write an opus about how American Conservatives came to be dominated by men who are so undeniably weak and desperate for attention that they bend and kiss Trump's ring after he abuses them.

Are they desperate for his validation? Were they told to kneel by their donors?

Americans need to know what happened to "The Party of the Strong." How did it come to be represented by perpetually thirsty incels like Elon Musk?

@aral

Humans are the pinnacle of life on Earth, as objectively determined by every single metric humans have devised to rank the worthiness of life.

Steve Jobs loved the metaphor “A bicycle for the mind.” So do I. It’s redolent with implications, all of them positive. It speaks to leveraging the power we already have.

And then there’s AI. At no time has AI ever promised to leverage my creativity or intellect. Above and beyond my objective misgivings…It doesn’t capture my imagination. It doesn’t motivate me. It simply feels like… “Dig where the money is right now.”

What paucity of human ambition.

👨🎨 Clement Mok

Corporations absolutely should be allowed to venue-shop for the lowest taxes, the most compliant judiciary, and the employment regulations most friendly to their profit margins.

Women, on the other hand, should be jailed should they choose to cross state lines in pursuit of body autonomy.

If only someone would explain this to me…

https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

America is getting closer and closer to jailing women who travel for body autonomy:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/texas-sues-records-women-abortions-b2608856.html