Eggplant.place

212d

#softwareEngineering #computerScience #programming #commonLisp #history #essay #reading of Whither Original Thought #transcript from @kentpitman
https://screwlisp.small-web.org/show/kmp-whither-original-thought/
with a link to its beginning in the interview.

I chose to hand-transcribe it to remove (and probably introduce) discontinuities.

A central theme is the tyrannies of programming libraries and the question of having exhaustive knowledge of your increasingly numerous dead forebearers.

Read it yourself (and/or listen finally).

Edited 212d ago

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1y

English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing died #OTD in 1954.

During World War II, he played a crucial role in deciphering the Enigma code used by the German military, significantly contributing to the Allied war effort. In his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," he proposed the famous Turing Test as a criterion for determining whether a machine can exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from that of a human.

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

#computerscience #lgbtq

Alan Turing (1912-1954) in 1936 at Princeton University.

A monochrome image of a well-dressed gentleman wearing a suit, exuding elegance and sophistication.

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"Computing Machinery and Intelligence" is a seminal paper written by Alan Turing on the topic of artificial intelligence. The paper, published in 1950 in Mind, was the first to introduce his concept of what is now known as the Turing test to the general public.

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Edited 1y ago

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1y

The Love Letter Generator That Foretold ChatGPT.

Alan Turing and Christopher Strachey created a ground-breaking computer program that allowed them to express affection vicariously when so doing publicly, as gay men, was criminal.

By: Patricia Fancher. via @JSTOR_Daily

https://daily.jstor.org/the-love-letter-generator-that-foretold-chatgpt/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Lit%20Hub%20Weekly:%20June%2027%2C%202024&utm_term=lithub_master_list

#science #technology #computerscience

A demonstration of the memory drum of the Manchester Electronic Computer, Moston, Manchester, February 1955 Getty

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1y

Margaret Hamilton Recalls Her Life as a Programming Pioneer.

The pioneering software engineer who helped send men to the moon recalls her decades of innovation in a newly published video conversation. by David Cassel via @thenewstack

https://thenewstack.io/nasa-programming-legend-margaret-hamilton-gives-rare-interview/

#computerprogramming #computerscience #womeninscience

Hamilton during her time as lead Apollo flight software designer
NASA -http://www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/scientists.html

Margaret Hamilton, lead Apollo flight software engineer, in the Apollo Command Module.

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1y

If you're a software engineer and interested in East Asian languages (so-called #CJK), check out the “CJK computer science terms comparison” I edited!

https://cjk-compsci-terms.netlify.app/

#Sinosphere #computerscience #電腦科學 #コンピュータ科学 #전산학

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37d

#lispyGopherClimate Sunday morning in Europe with #lisp # live @kentpitman

Going over proto #emacs, #cref, #lispm #computerScience #softwareEngineering #GUI history ! Ask questions in #lisp on #irc now please !

https://toobnix.org/w/gXLXQqxf5MYg1NDF2Ua6oA 15 minutes to live.

#Archive: https://toobnix.org/w/jWdWsrBLCFkFQYrfzbzCR8

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Edited 37d ago

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9d

I'm thinking I'll get myself a copy of Samuel Butler's Erewhon. It's on Project Gutenberg but lately I've been acquiring paper books and this seems like a good one to have in hard copy. I feel vaguely embarrassed that I've never read it, given how closely it relates to what I've researched in computer science (evolutionary algorithms and artificial life) and what I spend my time thinking about these days (clarifying why I believe machines cannot be alive or intelligent in the way we usually mean these words).

Apparently Giles Deleuze and Felix Guatarri were influenced by this book and Butler's other writings on machine life. The Butlerian Jihad of Dune is possibly named after him (so far haven't found a definitive statement of this, though a very similar event happens in Erewhon). Even Alan Turing references it. Butler, in turn, was heavily influenced by Darwin's On the Origin of Species. So there is a fascinating confluence around this book.

Without spoiling it, does anyone have thoughts about Erewhon?

#Erewhon #Butler #fiction #SciFi #ScienceFiction #evolution #MachineIntelligence #AI #ArtificialLife #ComputerScience #EvolutionaryBiology

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24d

Massive compute power applied to massive data sets can produce outcomes that are worse at the task they’re (ostensibly) intended for than much simpler, easier to understand, less wasteful, and less intrusive data-light methods. It requires an extreme form of bias to believe that big compute + big data is always better.

#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #tech #dev #DataScience #science #ComputerScience #EcologicalRationality

Edited 24d ago

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1y

"We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves."

(Notes on the Analytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage)

~Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852)

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

#computerscience #womeninSTEM

Watercolour portrait of Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, c. 1840, possibly by Alfred Edward Chalon

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1y

American admiral and computer scientist, (designed COBOL) Grace Hopper was born #OTD in 1906.

She created the first compiler, the A-0 System, in 1952. She was also one of the first programmers on the Harvard Mark I computer. Hopper popularized the term "debugging" in computing after discovering an actual moth causing a malfunction in the Mark II computer.

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

#computerscience #mathematics #womeninStem

Commodore Grace M. Hopper, USN (covered).

James S. Davis - This image was released by the United States Navy with the ID DN-SC-84-05971 (next).

In the image, she is typically seen wearing her formal cover (hat) as part of her Navy attire. Her uniform signifies her rank and achievements within the U.S. Navy.

This photo captures Hopper during her later career, highlighting her as a trailblazer both in the military and in computer science. Her demeanor in such photos often radiates professionalism, intelligence, and a sense of authority, aligned with her significant contributions to both fields.

The photo's mention of a Navy ID (DN-SC-84-05971) confirms its origin from official Navy archives, further cementing its historical significance.

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Log book showing the "bug" found caught in a Mark II relay

Courtesy of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, VA., 1988. - U.S. Naval Historical Center Online Library

The logbook entry showing the "bug" found in a Mark II relay is a historically significant document that records one of the earliest uses of the term "debugging" in computing. This artifact is a handwritten log from Grace Hopper's team, dated September 9, 1947, and includes a physical moth taped to the page. The moth was discovered in one of the electromechanical relays of the Harvard Mark II computer, causing a malfunction.

The entry humorously notes the discovery as the "first actual case of bug being found," combining technical documentation with Hopper's wit. This event became a legendary anecdote in the history of computing and popularized the term "debugging," which has since become standard terminology in software development.

The logbook, preserved courtesy of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, is an enduring symbol of the origins of modern computer science and the challenges faced by pioneers like Hopper and her team.

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Edited 1y ago

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1y

Jean Sammet: An Accidental Computer Programmer

The IBM programming language specialist helped develop Cobol in 1959

By Amanda Davis

https://spectrum.ieee.org/jean-sammet-accidental-computer-programmer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_E._Sammet

#computerscience #computerprogramming #womeninStem

Jean E. Sammet (March 23, 1928 – May 20, 2017) was an American computer scientist who developed the FORMAC programming language in 1962. She was also one of the developers of the influential COBOL programming language.

She received her B.A. in Mathematics from Mount Holyoke College in 1948 and her M.A. in Mathematics from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1949. She received an honorary D.Sc. from Mount Holyoke College in 1978.

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302d

Beware of academic "papers" about LLMs, especially on arXiv. The signal-to-noise ratio is alarmingly low, especially relative to other subdisciplines of computer science: https://wandering.shop/@xgranade/114055293092825449

#AI #GenAI #LLM #AcademicPublishing #arXiv #ComputerScience

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302d

I was listening to an interview with Tabish Khair about his book Literature Against Fundamentalism, and I was struck by the suggestion that ahistorical readings of texts are in essence fundamentalist (dogmatic) readings. It put a word to a disturbing tendency in computer science to ignore its own past--not to mention the histories of the areas in which it is applied--that has always deeply bothered me. There are quite a few fundamentalist computer scientists, unfortunately.

#ComputerScience #Science

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203d

#lispyGopherClimate #softwareEngineering #computerScience #lisp (every Wednesday 0UTC = Tuesday night in Americas)
#peertube #podcast #archive
https://communitymedia.video/w/gVRxvMKmdoAwHHJxrcJi5c

#climateCrisis #haiku from @kentpitman

https://screwlisp.small-web.org/
#commonLisp + #gnuplot
#McCLIM #hurkle #gameDev #retrospective so far

@amszmidt sets me straight about the #loopFacility yet again

@vnikolov points out we can read comp.lang.lisp

Join in in #lambdaMOO as always!

Lispygophershow

(Halloween poster; the grizzled gopher stands in front of the green lisp-alien with a pumpkin on its head.

Wednesday 0UTC
anonradio.net

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raw per-day climate data from Christchurch in 1980 gnuplotted (with lisp!)

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A tour of features being used to turn a "cli" common lisp class into a very GUI game. The game bit is a bit clumsy to expose some of the odder automatic features. In front of an emacs window + repl of the blog article it comes from.

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Edited 203d ago

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195d

#softwareEngineering #computerScience #programming #lisp #commonLisp #interview #macro #discussion with historical notes-

https://screwlisp.small-web.org/show/Vassil-Nikolov-Kent-Pitman-assertables-compilation-declare/

My quick notes on the downloadable interview discussion with @vnikolov and @kentpitman About Vassil's assertables classed toggleable assertion macro design.

Provokes lots of fascinating historical notes from Kent about what the ANSI CL and earlier standardisations were doing and had in mind.

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196d

#computerScience #engineering #commonLisp #show #live #lispyGopherClimate https://communitymedia.video/w/uBZexonyfvFkX92JTps4n3

#climateCrisis #haiku @kentpitman

We have @vnikolov talking about common lisp and type checking macros

+:
We do not have incredible artist @shizamura who has her fourth #scifi comic volume finished being funded or something (?) https://sarilho.net/en/ (if you speak english and not portuguese).
She promises to record something about semantics for us in the future.

#lambdaMOO live chat

LISPY GOPHER SHOW
The gopher and lisp alien are flanked by two red-skinned demons carrying radio equipment through flooded wreckage. The lisp alien's hand-nose holds a microphone. #UNIX_SURREALISM by @prahou@merveilles.town
anonradio.net
000UTC Wednesdays

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Edited 196d ago

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