@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q... I remember #TiananmenSquare vividly, especially the man who stood in front of the tanks. He was carrying what looked like two shopping bags. Very casual, but indefatigable. When the tanks tried to go around him, he moved directly in front of them again. He inspired me with his bravery and selflessness, and the tank drivers inspired me by their unwillingness to simply run him over. They gave me hope. The protest ended very badly, but I think the man and tanks will keep the memory alive and lead to a better day.

@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q... It is a grave mistake to underestimate the ruthlessness of corporate executives, especially when threatened. I have seen and experienced some pretty vile behavior, although nothing like this case. The usual mode is very quiet.

@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q... Sympathy and solidarity. It is always troubling during an earthquake when it goes on longer than you expect. I experienced many earthquakes in California and Japan. Most are about 5 to 15 seconds. I was in Tokyo when the Great Quake happened, a 9.0, in 2011. It went on for five minutes with really hard lateral movement. That same day, and for days after, there were many other smaller 6 and 7 earthquakes, some lasting up to a minute. Honestly, the ground was quivering like jello and that continued until we evacuated days later. Over 500 quakes in 5 days. I sometimes wonder if volcanic quakes feel different but I have no desire to find outs

@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q... What about procedural generation, or the quality of graphical light rendering? those are behind the scenes. I think one big next step will be AI agents driving the NPCs in games.

@nprofile1q... There is a balance. I often used both compile-time and run-time macros to provide higher level constructs — a mini-language — that matched my problem domain and let me control some optimizations. My colleague did something similar with an optimizing compiler that basically rewrote the source code (joke was it turned other people’s code into something he would have written). Bottom line: there are good technical and creative reasons to work with customized programming languages.

@nprofile1q... Yes. I think this is becoming quite common. Medical groups are providing this service through enterprise-wide medical information systems. I was grateful to be asked. I’ll just add that doctors do not like lectures from patients.

@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q... Nothing simple about it, but I bet it is far simpler than the graphic and other s/w you’ve done! But you also have dev environments, and code libraries and other accoutrement. We had some, but primitive in comparison. Maybe simple/difficult balances out. I did that work about 40 years ago. In retrospect , it feels a bit like having built a log cabin out on the prairie with hand tools.

@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q... Cross-compilation. It is not too difficult to do this in LISP. I wager you can probably find one that works great for whatever your target language may be. My colleague and I wrote one that first cross-compiled to pseudocode, from their, we could easily generate the software in a couple of other languages that projects required, main C and variants.

@nprofile1q... Me too.

Thought experiment: How is an AI puppet master different than a human oligarch puppet master?

@nprofile1q... It’s an idea hiding in plain sight, not that it is obvious but the deduction is straight forward. Personally, I believe it goes a bit deeper. Is this the nature of social development since time immemorial? What are the counter examples? Is this enclose/extract strategy a natural aspect of social association? What evolutionary advantage does it confer?

@nprofile1q... @nprofile1q... Freakin squirrels got lasers!

@nprofile1q... I drove a Ford Pinto, the “immolation special,” for years including several times across the country. That was before I knew about the dangers. I’m not worried about Teslas because we know about them now. I’m worried about the “don’t know” and “don’t know that I don’t know.”