#computing

Major Windows 11 Update Coming 26 September; Here’s What’s New #22h2 #ai #ai&robotics #apps #computing #copilot #features #improvements #microsoft #update #windows11

https://www.lowyat.net/2023/307893/major-windows-11-update-26-sept-2023/

Razer Unveils Lamborghini Edition Of Blade 16 Laptop #blade16 #computer #computing #gaming #lamborghini #laptop #laptops #razer

https://www.lowyat.net/2023/307866/razer-lamborghini-edition-blade-16/

Hey all, I'm kasesag (he/they)! 👋

This is my new introduction post. I decided to return after having a small break.

I'm a 20-year-old, and I was always interested in science and #computing stuff since the early days. I'm an avid #Linux :tux:​ user since 2018, and have been daily driving #Fedora :fedora_linux:​. I prefer to use #FOSS stuff and deeply care about user freedom and human rights.

I'm keen on #Rust :rust:​, #embedded, #MobileLinux & #Programming overall. A recent example of that is my ongoing work towards bringing #postmarketOS :postmarketos:​ to Huawei P20 Lite (Kirin 659a). This is also what I love talking about with people, I'm even able to ramble about it for the entire day :D

Apart from that, I'm also vegetarian, and gay. I have diagnosed autism spectrum disorder, which I've been dealing with my whole life.

Check out my website If you want to DM me in other places: https://kasesag.me

#introduction #introductions

Microsoft Officially Introduces Surface Laptop Studio 2, Laptop Go 3 #computer #computing #laptop #laptopgo3 #laptops #laptopstudio2 #microsoft #surface

https://www.lowyat.net/2023/307795/microsoft-surface-laptop-studio-2-laptop-go-3/

#VCFMW 18 - Pickups, channel donations, and neat finds (oh my!) https://youtu.be/Dydy9OPSAJA #retro #vintage #computing

Don"t miss this!! On Sept 27 at 10-11 am PDT /1-2 pm EDT Christoph Becker will discuss the role of computing in sustainability, and what has to change @ACM @sigcas - online & free. but registration is required. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sigcas-wip-insolvent-how-to-reorient-computing-for-just-sustainability-tickets-633954273297 #InsolventBook #sustainability #computing #JustSustanability

It's possible to fuse critical perspectives with work in computer science, showing new and fruitful directions for computing professionals and researchers to pursue.

Tom Kilburn was a mathematician and computer scientist, who was involved in the development of the Manchester Computers - the early computers of the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s.
He is remembered , as the co-inventor behind the Manchester Baby, the world's first stored-program computer. Tom and his team also contributed to the Atlas computer which in 1962 was claimed to be the fastest computer in the world.

BBC interview from 1981

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ2EBw7AgZY

#Computing #History

What’s next for the world’s fastest supercomputers https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/09/21/1079909/whats-next-for-the-worlds-fastest-supercomputers/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Computing #WhatsNextinTech

…You might already know about this, but https://h-node.org is a project by the @fsf that helps people to identify #computers that they can use.

It can be pretty tricky to find #hardware that is #ethical but by running a basic command and checking the peripherals listed by their Vendor and Product IDs (that look like "[3fc2:001b]") one can often quickly identify if a device will be suited to them, as #FreedomSoftware Enjoyers.

@gabriel #hNode #ethicalHardware #computing #ethicalComputing

What’s next for the world’s fastest supercomputers - MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series looks across industries, trends, and technolo... - https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/09/21/1079909/whats-next-for-the-worlds-fastest-supercomputers/ #whatsnextintech #computing

** Accurate ***

#IT #ITjobs #ITPeople #computing

I like #lowlevel #computing in #theory, but #practice is another story.

#programming

Genuine but naive question: do beautiful printers exist?

I don’t mean “can you find something attractive in common printers?” because you probably can but I don’t care to try.

I mean: are there any printers that’ve been subject to the same aesthetic care as, say, the iMac?

(I don’t care if you hate the iMac. Use your own example, then.)

#computing #computer #printer #printing #printers #office #hardware

Modern #computing comprises interactive, computational, transactional, and raw signal workloads. But all modern computers run on OSs derived from the 1960s timesharing systems, which are designed for interactive workloads. Given today's complex and varied computing needs, it is time to reconsider our Linux/Windows obsession, both in office desktops and cloud servers.

• Interactive workloads (desktop apps, webtop apps) should use a timesharing system, like Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, or Windows.
• Computational workloads (deep neural network trainings, weather simulations) should use a batch processing system, like a modern reincarnation of OS/360.
• Transactional workloads (stock exchanges, bank ATMs) should use a real-time, resilient system, like Erlang BEAM or an RTOS.
• Raw signal workloads (DSP, DIP) should use bare-metal, embedded runtime without an OS.

CBI Image of the Day:

The IBM 5100, one of the first portable computers, combined a typewriter-like electronic keyboard, a 10-keypad for data entry, a 1024-character display, a processing unit with up to 64K positions of main storage, and a tape cartridge for storing data. (1975).

#technology #computer #computing #ibm #tech #science #history #sociology

@histodons
@sociology

Mark Guzdial is here today to talk to us about Broadening Participation in Computing by Moving Away from Computer Science!
#computing #CSed

Another shoutout, the popular retro tech video maker @janbeta is now publishing on PeerTube at:

➡️ @jan_beta

If your server can't see the videos yet, you can view them directly at:

➡️ https://makertube.net/a/jan_beta/videos

#FeaturedPeerTubers #RetroComputing #ComputingHistory #RetroTech #Computing #Tech #Technology #8Bit #16Bit #Commodore #C64 #Amiga #Electronics

This isn't even all of the people with B names in my upcoming book for O'Reilly, Hacker Culture: A to Z. Preorder now! Will be available in paperback and eBook this November! #hackers #Computing

https://www.amazon.com/Hacker-Culture-Fundamentals-Cybersecurity-Hacking/dp/1098145674
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/hacker-culture-a/9781098145668/

70 years ago, the first magnetic core memory (16 kB) was installed in the MIT Project Whirlwind computer for real time aircraft tracking. Its benefits included greater reliability and faster access times than vacuum tube memory. It became the dominant random access memory (RAM) technology over the next two decades, until it was replaced by semiconductor RAM technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic-core_memory#:~:text=The%20first%20core%20memory%20of%2032

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Project_Whirlwind_-_core_memory,_circa_1951_-_detail_1.JPG#/media/File:Project_Whirlwind_-_core_memory,_circa_1951_-_detail_1.JPG

#computinghistory #computing

Impressed by this 2022 National Academies report on fostering responsible #computing research.

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/26507/fostering-responsible-computing-research-foundations-and-practices

The textbook I've inherited for my fall class is underwhelming, but resources like this are helping me go beyond "what would Kant say?" exercises.

DNA based computer can run 100 billion different programs!

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2391747-dna-based-computer-can-run-100-billion-different-programs/

#TechNews #computing #compsci #programming #hardware #software

Migrating to the cloud transforms business https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/09/15/1078111/migrating-to-the-cloud-transforms-business/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Computing #sponsored

The University of Bristol will host a new national supercomputer named after Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

#GoodNews #Bristol #University #SuperComputer #Computing

https://www.bristol247.com/news-and-features/news/uk-most-powerful-supercomputer-coming-bristol/

#ITByte: #Cloud #Computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user.

Understand about the cloud computing terminologies and cloud computing models.

https://knowledgezone.co.in/trends/explorer?topic=Cloud-Computing

Core i9-14900KF benchmarked vs. other recent chips
#CPU #computing #PC
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/core-i9-14900kf-beats-ryzen-9-7950x3d-core-i9-13900ks-in-geekbench-6

HP Spectre Fold Unveiled As Thinnest Foldable Laptop; Coming To Malaysia Soon #computer #computing #foldable #hp #laptop #laptops #pc #spectrefold

https://www.lowyat.net/2023/307391/hp-spectre-fold-malaysia-sirim/

Migrating to the cloud transforms business - In 2017, BP took on a cloud-first approach that committed to building any new hardwa... - https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/09/15/1078111/migrating-to-the-cloud-transforms-business/ #computing #sponsored

FPGA Runs IBM 5151 MDA Display:
https://hackaday.com/2023/09/13/fpga-runs-ibm-5151-mda-display/
#computer #graphics #display #5151 #PC #computing #history #FPGA #upcycle

Por cierto FELIZ DIA DEL PROGRAMADOR A TODOS LOS PROGRAMADORES/AS
.
.
.
.

#programming #vtuber #coding #vscode #vroid #vtuberES #python #java #javascript #otaku #otakubinary #binary #computing #programmersday #DiaDelprogramador

New word:

/fost/ - the feeling of being lost or without a clear path as a result of sticking to #FOSS principles of #computing. "I couldn't find an ethical firmware for that device and now I'm fost." "There are so many ways to do it but don't get fost."

#wordsmithing

@ukscone Computing still exists online. It started as BCS members journal but extended to all in UK IT by '80's, history of publishers on Wiki. Just possible that current publishers can search archives for journalists/editors, but probably too many changes in management for personal contacts.

https://www.computing.co.uk/contact

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computing_(magazine)

#uk #Computing

Dafydd Owen-Newns Joshua Robertson Matěj Hejda Antonio Hurtado.. Photonic Spiking Neural Networks with Highly Efficient Training Protocols for Ultrafast Neuromorphic Computing Systems. Intell Comput. 2023:2;0031. DOI: https://doi.org/10.34133/icomputing.0031 #OpenAccess #OA #Research #Article #Science #Photonics #Physics #Computer #Computing #Neural #Intelligence #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #NeuralNetworks #Academia #Academic #Academics @science

The Quantum Hype Bubble Is About To Burst - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBLVtCYHVO8 #quantum #computing

How software that tracks covid variants could protect us against future outbreaks - Yatish Turakhia is one of MIT Technology Review’s 2023 Innovators Under 35. 

When cov... - https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/09/12/1078357/yatish-turakhia-covid-variants-tracing/ #computing #tr352023

Today was an awesome day. I got to deal with #budget stuff, #strategy stuff, #computing stuff, #HALO stuff, and then I got to go home and work out.

Oh, and we resumed the @SNOLAB seminar series today after a late summer break, featuring Prof. Reina Maruyama (#Yale University) discussing how to resolve the long-standing results of the #DAMALIBRA experiment ... with an awesome global #SodiumIodide #DarkMatter program!

Magnetic whirls pave the way for energy-efficient #computing: Researchers @uni_mainz_eng, @UniKonstanz and @TohokuUniPR increase the diffusion of #skyrmions by a factor of 10 / #spintronics #antiferromagnet #physics @spin_plus_x @NatureComms
https://nachrichten.idw-online.de/2023/09/11/magnetic-whirls-pave-the-way-for-energy-efficient-computing

Magnetic whirls pave the way for energy-efficient #computing: Researchers @uni_mainz_eng, @UniKonstanz and @TohokuUniPR increase the diffusion of #skyrmions by a factor of 10 / #spintronics #antiferromagnet #physics @spin_plus_x @NatureComms
https://nachrichten.idw-online.de/2023/09/11/magnetic-whirls-pave-the-way-for-energy-efficient-computing

Mit magnetischen Wirbeln zu energiesparenden Computern: Forschende @uni_mainz, @UniKonstanz & @TohokuUniPR konnten Diffusion von #Skyrmionen auf das Zehnfache steigern / #Informationsverarbeitung #Computing #Spintronik #Antiferromagnet @spin_plus_x
https://nachrichten.idw-online.de/2023/09/11/mit-magnetischen-wirbeln-zu-energiesparenden-computern

So when was the decision made to set the maximum width of browser scroll bars to like 2 pixels?

I feel like i missed an important meeting 10 years ago

#computing #ux

Had absolutely no idea #OpenAFS was going to have to re-license #AFS from Transarc/IBM? #tech #bigBlue #computing

Without research, based on what you know now:
--
#timezones #world #countries #computing #programming #time #quiz #trivia

Acer Swift Edge 16 Lands In Malaysia; Starts From RM3,999 #acer #aspires #aspires27 #aspires32 #availability #computing #desktop #laptops #malaysia #price #specifications #specs #swiftedge16

https://www.lowyat.net/2023/306989/acer-swift-edge-16-malaysia-launch/

CBI Image of the Day:

Nancy Gradwell, left, and Bradley Johnson, 8th graders at Philadelphia's Wagner Jr High, listen intently as Mrs, Phyllis Eggleston,
mathematics teacher, explains how to use an IBM 1050 terminal to help solve homework problems, 1966.

@histodons
@sociology
@anthropology
#technology #tech #gender #education #africanamericans #math #computing #computer #history #sociology #anthropology #science #mathematics #stem

Interesting move. I do not consider this to be good news.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/09/zap-atari-acquires-beloved-retro-homebrew-vendor-atariage/

#Atari #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #forums #forum #onlinecommunities #vintagecomputers #computing #A8 #AtariST

nice article on Spectrum yesterday, about the popularity of Python and how it might just become the lingua franca of computing

"How Python Swallowed the World"
🔗 https://spectrum.ieee.org/python
#programming #computing #software

Meanwhile at Barnes 'n' Nobel in DC.

#Amiga #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #computing #tech #magazines #books #DC

Excellent retrocomputing video here:

https://youtu.be/ZbaptQh2AM4

#SKALA #chernobyl #vintage #computing

Due to a mistake on my part, I have come into possession of a spare #VPS until January '24. I don't have any use for it and thought about donating the #computing power to a good cause. I have already set up a #Tor Snowflake proxy. Do you have any other ideas on what to do with it?

I have basic #selfhosting experience, but won't be able to put any ongoing effort into whatever is running on the machine. Also, no illegal stuff, obvs.

Dear #computing #history #datahoard bubble:

I am looking for the original advertisement of either Google Docs or potentially Google Chromebooks, strongly believing it's the former.

It was an ad in which someone wrote some words while walking counterclockwise through an office setup, destroying several laptops and showing that the written words had already been synced to the next device about to be used and destroyed.

Edit 2: thanks @HeNeArXn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm-Vnx58UYo !

and then a dude appears saying that he's the "Full Stack" Star which is willing to receive less pay than the average IT dudes...

#IT #fullstack #programmers #computing #itindustry #programming #developers

LoL 😂️
or when there's an ISO 27001 auditing in one week.. 😝️

#cybersecurity #informationsecurity #IT #computing

I see it is once again time to Google my own published work to remember the details of how to do something. #computing #java

One of my favorite podcasts is THE ADVENT OF COMPUTING

There's so much info, so many stories and interesting people, so many could've been possibilities, etc. Just straight up fascinating history, and very well researched.
#computer #computing #history #podcast

https://adventofcomputing.com/

The beautiful complexity of the US radio spectrum https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/08/23/1077686/radio-spectrum-visualized/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Computing #computing

It's possible that adding an extra IDC10 and then creating a breakout board wired for both CGA and MDA might help someone using my TTL video adapter - so I did it. #apple #macintosh #retro #vintage #computing

Supongo que todos sabéis que los primeros ordenadores eran máquinas monstruosas con muy poquita capacidad de cálculo y de funcionamiento más mecánico pero de dimensiones estratosféricas, máquinas enormes que ocupaban habitaciones enteras, o incluso casas. Supongo que menos sabréis que a veces en esas máquinas enormes que operaban de forma mecánica con relés electromagnéticos o tarjetas perforadas se colaban cucarachas, escarabajos, polillas y otros bichos que interferían en los mecanismos y hacían que la ejecución de tareas de repente dieran errores de funcionamiento.

De ahí viene que se diga cuando un programa da errores que tiene un bug ("bicho" en inglés) y que al proceso de depuración de código se le llame "debugging".

Foto: Ordenador electromagnético Harvard Mark II de 1947 que se cree que fue el primero en dar errores al colarse un insecto, en concreto una polilla.
#nuncateacostarássinsaberunacosamás #computing #Informática

After a pleasant 10 months on the broad fediscience.org Mastodon instance, I've decided to move to this ACM server devoted to computing.

I'm a professor in software engineering at TU Delft, The Netherlands. I'm a member of ACM SIGSOFT, and presently chair of the steering committee of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE).

Looking forward to interacting with you!

#SoftwareEngineering #TUDelft #Computing #Introduction

https://cpu.land/

A neat "book" i came across courtesy of @itsfoss.
"Putting the 'YOU' in CPU" explains how a CPU works, how computers run programs, and the basics of these wonderful devices that have taken over our life, in simple (ish) terms.

For anyone that wants to know HOW computers do what they do, this is a great place to start, and it's free, readable on the website, on GitHub, or as a downloaded PDF.

#itsfoss #book #education #knowledge #CPU #computing

The future of open source is still very much in flux https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/08/17/1077498/future-open-source/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Computing #computing

Multiplayer on PC back in the days:
- Null modem direct connection.
- Modem
- LAN (IP or IPX)
- On the interwebz.
- Personal server, look, you can download the server software there!
- Shared install, so you can do LAN games with your friends for free.

Now:
- LAN? Na mate, internet only, and you have to use our own servers, btw they will shutdown next year for the next release. Don't forget to have a fiber optic connection or you will lag.

#Gaming #Computing #Multiplayer

Me whenever I fix a simple issue on my computer by rebooting:

#Computing

Random photo from the computer room today.

#Apple #Lisa #iPod #Mac #vintageApple #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #vintagecomputers #tech #photos #mouse #computing #techhistory

This is a really fascinating story and illustrates so much about modern science (and I guess maths)

#science #maths #STEM #computing

https://mastodon.social/@laurahelmuth/110894213329113086

"Dr Sue Sentance, Director of our Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, shares what she learned on a recent visit in Malaysia to understand more about the approach taken to computing education in the state of Sarawak."

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/computing-education-primary-schools-sarawak-malaysia/

#RaspberryPi #Education #Malaysia #Sarawak #Technology #Computing #Makers

Lessons from maintainers of the World’s Most Critical #Software 👇️🧑‍💻️

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/lessons-from-maintainers-of-the-worlds-most-critical-software

#opensource #computing #tech #developing #coding

This is a great addendum in the Science magazine for replacing the Turing test for AI models with a "Weizenbaum test":

"Rather than a test of intelligence [like Turing test], a Weizenbaum test would assess the public value of AI technologies, evaluating them according to their real-world implications rather than their proponents’ claims."

https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adk0176

Weizenbaum's questions to make such an assessment in the Bulletin of Atomic scientists seems to be apt not just for AI, but all of technology.

#AI #HistoryOfAI #Computing #Critique #Technology #Ideology #ManVsMachine #MIT #Weizenbaum

Craziness. On our trip to Memphis last week, we wandered into this quaint little boutique in midtown called The Wren's Nest. My wife and daughter set about trying on French dresses and such, while I wandered about idly, trying to entertain myself.

As I poked about the shelves, I came upon a display of four extreme-level custom keyboards and I've never found such an out of place treasure, completely out of the blue!

I re-enact my surprise encounter in this short video. Enjoy. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T255z2y2en4

The owner's son put these together, apparently, including an also awesome board at the POS system on the back desk.

Amazing keyboards!

#keyboards #mechanicalkeyboards #keyswitches #geek #computing #typing #hardware #memphis #video #cherrymx #topre #Leopold

Happy 46th birthday to the TRS-80, an iconic computer that was released on this day in 1977!

As one of the pioneering microcomputers, it played a significant role in shaping the early personal computer era.

#Ad #Coloured #TRS80 #TandyRadioShack80 #RetroComputing #VintageComputers #Microcomputers #PersonalComputers #ComputerHistory #RetroTech #OldComputers #TechNostalgia #8BitComputers #Z80 #BASIC #Computing #History #Nostalgia #RadioShack

I already have some future ideas to bring this computer into a more usable state, due to the floppy drive not booting software, but for now I'll just appreciate how lovely it is and how lucky I am!

#computing #retrocomputing

@MurphysLaw @honze_net

VI users trying to return to the terminal.

#programming #computing #vi #linux

This is a brilliant essay by @Mer__edith … You should definitely read it if you are interested in the history of computing vis-a-vis racism and labor! https://logicmag.io/supa-dupa-skies/origin-stories-plantations-computers-and-industrial-control/ #race #plantation #computing #babbage #slavery #capitalism

What could post-collapse #computing be?

I wrote this a while ago, but it's getting increasingly relevant.

The thin connections that underpin the #semiconductor industry are too fragile to withstand an era of #ClimateDisaster and #war, of rationing of energy and resources, of widespread #famine, of international suspicion, and of unprecedented #migration away from coastal areas and newly forming deserts.

In such a world, chip manufacturing will be reduced to a trickle.
https://msteenhagen.medium.com/what-could-post-collapse-computing-be-5711a9aa6111

Coda:

Reading these excerpts on Weizenbaum's "no human being could ever fully understand another human being", I am reminded of a paragraph from the great anthropologist David Graeber's less read work, "Lost People" that states this quite stunningly:

"If it is really true... that what makes us human is above all our capacity to make history, and if history consists of actions that could not have been predicted be­forehand, then that would mean that the fundamental measure of our human­ity lies in what we cannot know about each other. To recognize another person as human would then be to recognize the limits of one's possible knowledge of them. Their humanity is inseparable from their capacity to surprise us."

For too long, in the name of science and technology, for mostly nefarious and monetary purposes, the naysayers have insisted on making machines out of humans, and rendered them soulless and disenchanted. It's time to put the soul of value back into humans.

8/8

#AI #HistoryOfAI #Computing #Critique #Technology #Ideology #ManVsMachine #MIT #Weizenbaum

He seems to have been on the mark with respect to climate change:

"The later Weizenbaum was increasingly pessimistic about the future, much more so than he had been in the 1970s. Climate change terrified him. Still, he held out hope for the possibility of radical change. As he put it in a January 2008 article for Süddeutsche Zeitung: “The belief that science and technology will save the Earth from the effects of climate breakdown is misleading. Nothing will save our children and grandchildren from an Earthly hell. Unless: we organise resistance against the greed of global capitalism.”"
  
7/8

#AI #HistoryOfAI #Computing #Critique #Technology #Ideology #ManVsMachine #MIT #Weizenbaum

Human agency, the ability to make history, and usher progress:

"Just as the bomber pilot “is not responsible for burned children because he never sees their village”, Weizenbaum wrote, software afforded generals and executives a comparable degree of psychological distance from the suffering they caused."

"... Bound by an algorithmic logic, software lacked the flexibility and the freedom of human judgment. This helps explain the conservative impulse at the heart of computation. Historically, the computer arrived “just in time”, Weizenbaum wrote. But in time for what? “In time to save – and save very nearly intact, indeed, to entrench and stabilise – social and political structures that otherwise might have been either radically renovated or allowed to totter under the demands that were sure to be made on them.” "

This is an absolutely wonderful synthesis of status quo, the relegation of agency and willful denial of responsibility by replacing humans with technologies and that has only intensified.

As the author notes later:
"Weizenbaum was always less concerned by AI as a technology than by AI as an ideology – that is, in the belief that a computer can and should be made to do everything that a human being can do. This ideology is alive and well. It may even be stronger than it was in Weizenbaum’s day."

What is this "ideology"? It goes something like what the political philosopher Slavoj Žižek wrote: “they know it, but they are doing it anyway”, which he riffs from Marx who wrote of the capitalists, "they do not know it, but they are doing it". Marx himself was riffing on Jesus (from Luke):"Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they're doing".

6/8

#AI #HistoryOfAI #Computing #Critique #Technology #Ideology #ManVsMachine #MIT #Weizenbaum

Values, decisions, judgements: are they fit for optimization?

"For Weizenbaum, judgment involves choices that are guided by values. These values are acquired through the course of our life experience and are necessarily qualitative: they cannot be captured in code. Calculation, by contrast, is quantitative. It uses a technical calculus to arrive at a decision. Computers are only capable of calculation, not judgment. This is because they are not human, which is to say, they do not have a human history – they were not born to mothers, they did not have a childhood, they do not inhabit human bodies or possess a human psyche with a human unconscious – and so do not have the basis from which to form values."

"(It would be a “monstrous obscenity”, Weizenbaum wrote, to let a computer perform the functions of a judge in a legal setting or a psychiatrist in a clinical one.)"

This is as succinct an argument to make for why we should not be making value judgements that humans are "meat machines" or "biological automata" or just a "bag of neurons" with a body attached, or the urge to suggest that we are neither special or unique since every trait that a human possesses is now replicable by a machine. The one word is VALUE and that's quite a loaded word!

5/8

#AI #HistoryOfAI #Computing #Critique #Technology #Ideology #ManVsMachine #MIT #Weizenbaum

What differentiates humans from machines, the question at the heart of "human intelligence" and Weizenbaum's:

"In 1976, Weizenbaum published his magnum opus: Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation... The book is indeed overwhelming. It is a chaotic barrage of often brilliant thoughts about computers. A glimpse at the index reveals the range of Weizenbaum’s interlocutors: not only colleagues like Minsky and McCarthy but the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, the critical theorist Max Horkheimer, and the experimental playwright Eugène Ionesco."

"The book has two major arguments. First: there is a difference between man and machine. Second: there are certain tasks which computers ought not be made to do, independent of whether computers can be made to do them. The book’s subtitle – From Judgment to Calculation – offers a clue as to how these two statements fit together."

4/8

#AI #HistoryOfAI #Computing #Critique #Technology #Ideology #ManVsMachine #MIT #Weizenbaum

Weizenbaum and what he saw as necessary political action:

"Weizenbaum supported the action [MIT students protests of 1969] and became strongly affected by the political dynamism of the time. “It wasn’t until the merger of the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, and MIT’s role in weapons development that I became critical,” he later explained in an interview. “And once I started thinking along those lines, I couldn’t stop.”

"... MIT was receiving more money from the Pentagon than any other university in the country. Its labs pursued a number of projects designed for Vietnam... Project MAC – under whose auspices Weizenbaum had created Eliza – had been funded since its inception by the Pentagon... wrestled with this complicity, he found that his colleagues, for the most part, didn’t care about the purposes to which their research might be put. If we don’t do it, they told him, somebody else will. Or: scientists don’t make policy, leave that to the politicians. Weizenbaum was again reminded of the scientists in Nazi Germany who insisted that their work had nothing to do with politics... Consumed by a sense of responsibility, Weizenbaum dedicated himself to the anti-war movement... Where possible, he used his status at MIT to undermine the university’s opposition to student activism. After students occupied the president’s office in 1970, Weizenbaum served on the disciplinary committee. According to his daughter Miriam, he insisted on a strict adherence to due process, thereby dragging out the proceedings as long as possible so that students could graduate with their degrees."

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#AI #HistoryOfAI #Computing #Critique #Technology #Ideology #ManVsMachine #MIT #Weizenbaum

Weizenbaum vs what he termed the "Artificial Intellgentsia":

"Minsky was bullish and provocative; one of his favourite gambits was to declare the human brain nothing but a “meat machine” whose functions could be reproduced, or even surpassed, by human-made machines. Weizenbaum disliked him from the start... Weizenbaum’s trouble with Minsky, and with the AI community as a whole, came down to a fundamental disagreement about the nature of the human condition."

"... he [Weizenbaum] argued that no computer could ever fully understand a human being. Then he went one step further: no human being could ever fully understand another human being. Everyone is formed by a unique collection of life experiences that we carry around with us, he argued, and this inheritance places limits on our ability to comprehend one another. We can use language to communicate, but the same words conjure different associations for different people – and some things can’t be communicated at all. “There is an ultimate privacy about each of us that absolutely precludes full communication of any of our ideas to the universe outside ourselves,” Weizenbaum wrote."  

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#AI #HistoryOfAI #Computing #Critique #Technology #Ideology #ManVsMachine #MIT #Weizenbaum

A must read longform on the pioneer of AI chatbot who became AI's main and earliest detractors, Joseph Weizenbaum (of ELIZA fame here at MIT) by Ben Tarnoff!

Weizenbaum's was a lone voice in the 1970s, and many of his views are as apt now as they were then. Almost the entire article is chock full of quotes, and so here is a thread with quotes and a few of my thoughts interspersed.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/25/joseph-weizenbaum-inventor-eliza-chatbot-turned-against-artificial-intelligence-ai

"There is so much in Weizenbaum’s thinking that is urgently relevant now. Perhaps his most fundamental heresy was the belief that the computer revolution, which Weizenbaum not only lived through but centrally participated in, was actually a counter-revolution."

I too had my early training in computer science, and have come to see it increasingly as counter-revolutionary not even delivering on its promises of economic productivity (topic for another day). With my expertise in neural networks, I should be riding atop the current wave of AI to the bank, instead, I mostly see it as a land of false promises mediated by dangerous levels of silicon valley mythmaking.

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#AI #HistoryOfAI #Computing #Critique #Technology #Ideology #ManVsMachine #MIT #Weizenbaum

Years ago my Uncle had a small handheld computer, I remember it had small strips you fed it that were for saving and loading programs. The disks where probably 1/4" by 2-3" long. The device itself was probably a little smaller than a Switch and was very calculator like.

I want to say it was a Texas Instruments but not positive and maybe an advanced calculator?

Any one recall what these were?

#computing #retrocomputing #texasinstruments #retro #retrotech #retrocomputers

After having watched a Computer Chronicles special on Gary Kildall, I find it hard to believe that there is not a single book out there to dive deeper into the history of this fascinating guy and all the things he brought to life. The only thing so far is a fragment of a memoir he wrote before his death. So noone ever considered this a topic worth writing about, even in the 80s and 90s? Consider me flabbergasted.
#retrocomputing #computerhistory #computerhistoriker #computing

@Mnaudin
Surely, even by the most naive brute force, you only need to check values from about 31 to 99?
That going to take like a gazillionth of second on any modern computer. :-)
#maths #computing

Microsoft is working on a new computer technology called the Analog Iterative Machine, which uses light and electrons instead of transistors to process data.

This technology has the potential to greatly improve computing power and solve difficult optimization problems more effectively.

Furthermore, they have also released an online service that provides an AIM simulator for partners to explore the possibilities of this new computing approach.

#computing #innovation

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/unlocking-the-future-of-computing-the-analog-iterative-machines-lightning-fast-approach-to-optimization/?ranMID=24542&ranEAID=kXQk6*ivFEQ&ranSiteID=kXQk6.ivFEQ-AktUK5V5S_E5taf7pjCuaA&epi=kXQk6.ivFEQ-AktUK5V5S_E5taf7pjCuaA&irgwc=1&OCID=AIDcmm549zy227_aff_7593_1243925&tduid=%28ir__bxshnp3ls0kfbxu30q6bzrpknf2xeh69hcvcwoh000%29%287593%29%281243925%29%28kXQk6.ivFEQ-AktUK5V5S_E5taf7pjCuaA%29%28%29&irclickid=_bxshnp3ls0kfbxu30q6bzrpknf2xeh69hcvcwoh000

How to really add personality to a boring home language assistent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO-DWWFolPw&t=1091s

#maker #computing #diy #robots #echo #amazon

From qubits to quantum superposition: How quantum computers work

#QuantumComputing #QuantumPhysics #QuantumMechanics #HowThingsWork #Computing
https://www.newscientist.com/video/2360808-from-qubits-to-quantum-superposition-how-quantum-computers-work/

Happy birthday to trailblazing American computer scientist Frances Elizabeth Allen (1932 – 2020) who made foundational contributions to optimizing compilers, optimizing programs and parallel computing. She was the first woman to become an IBM Fellow, where she worked from 1957 to 2002 and as an emeritus fellow afterwards. She was the first woman to win the Turing Prize.

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#printmaking #womenInSTEM #histSTM #computing #MastoArt #mathematician #sciart #compsci