14 OCT 2013 by ideonexus
Our Algorithms Must Continue Evolving
Actually, if cloud algorithms ever seem to come to rest and need little tending, that should be taken as a danger sign. In that eventuality, stasis would be an indication that people have allowed themselves to be overly defined and guided by old software and have stopped changing, or to put it another way, have stopped living fully. Living languages ought to require continued examples from living people in order for automated translation services to stay up to date. If the cloud has learned a... 1 
notes
notesIf our translation algorithms become fixed, that means our language has become fixed.
31 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
COBOL as a Programming Language
I worked with COBOL near the end of my last contract and found aspects of it fascinating compared to today's languages. Everything is about structures that map directly to the bits on disk, with fine grain control on precision and data types. But then the language reads as a series of macros where you don't have to remember the low level details: do this to this, put this here, if this do that.
It's also a terribly difficult language to parse because it was designed for ease of use by humans...Folksonomies: history computer science
Folksonomies: history computer science
1 notes
notesComment captures what's interesting about it historically, how early programmers needed algorithms to handle all the bit-switching.
25 JUN 2013 by ideonexus
How Math Books Are Like Poetry Books
If you pick up a textbook on poetry and thumb the pages, you will see poems interspersed between explanations, explanations that English professors will call prose. Prose differs from poetry in that it is a major subcategory of how language is used.
Prose encompasses all the normal uses: novels, texts,
newspapers, magazines, letter writing, and such. But poetry is different! Poetry is a highly charged telescopic (and sometimes rhythmic) use of the English language, which is employed to simul...Folksonomies: mathematics poetry
Folksonomies: mathematics poetry
1 notes
notesAn intermix of algebra/verse and prose explanations.
26 APR 2013 by ideonexus
Examples of How Language Affects Cognition
Most questions of whether and how language shapes thought start with the simple observation that languages differ from one another. And a lot! Let's take a (very) hypothetical example. Suppose you want to say, "Bush read Chomsky's latest book." Let's focus on just the verb, "read." To say this sentence in English, we have to mark the verb for tense; in this case, we have to pronounce it like "red" and not like "reed." In Indonesian you need not (in fact, you can't) alter the verb to mark tens... 1 notes
notesExamples of how languages differ between cultures in their constructs, how those constructs affect the way the speaker thinks about things, and how teaching a person a new language can alter the way they think.
12 APR 2013 by ideonexus
All Models are Wrong, but some models are useful
As the statistician George E. P. Box wrote, “All models are wrong, but some models are useful.”90 What he meant by that is that all models are simplifications of the universe, as they must necessarily be. As another mathematician said, “The best model of a cat is a cat.”91 Everything else is leaving out some sort of detail. How pertinent that detail might be will depend on exactly what problem we’re trying to solve and on how precise an answer we require.
Nor are statistical models...
1 All models are simplifications of the universe, this includes language as a form of modeling.
31 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Children Have an Innate Ability to Learn Language
The fact that all normal children acquire essentially comparable grammars of great complexity with remarkable rapidity suggests that human beings are somehow specially designed to do this, with data-handling or 'hypothesis-formulating' ability of unknown character and complexity.Folksonomies: language
Folksonomies: language
1 notes
notesThe complexity and variability of languages and the adeptness of children to learn them means there must be a part of the brain programmed for language.
15 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
Science and Technology Dictate our Language
Science and technology multiply around us. To an increasing extent they dictate the languages in which we speak and think. Either we use those languages, or we remain mute. 1 notes
notesEither keep up with science and technology or lose your voice.
21 APR 2011 by ideonexus
Bernie Cosell on Java
Java didn't feel right. My old reflexes hit me. Java struck me as too authoritarian. Thats one of the reasons why I mentioned that Perl felt so good, because it's got the safety and the checks but it is so damn multidimensioned that the artist part of me has a lot of free board to express things early and to think about the right way do things. I have some freedom.
When I first messed with Java—^this was /vhen it was little baby language, of course—I said, "Oh, this is just another one...Folksonomies: programming coding
Folksonomies: programming coding
1 notes
notesDescribing his first impressions of it as authoritarian and designed for not-so-good programmers.
14 FEB 2011 by ideonexus
"Kill Your Darlings" in Computer Science
George Malamidis taught me something about code attachment a few years ago: You always gain by allowing someone to show you an alternative solution. If someone wants to solve a problem in a different way, there are several gains to be had. If their way is inferior, you have an opportunity to mentor a team-mate. If their way is equally elegant, you've gained another solution, or point of view that may be superior in the future. If their way is superior you learn something new and the codebase ...Folksonomies: computer programming computer science
Folksonomies: computer programming computer science
1 The "Kill Your Darlings" concepts applies not only to writing, but to code, frameworks, and languages as well; although, the concept has more to do with opening up the world to improved versions of these things.
