ebjaas_2022

It's the nature of most types of volunteering work. If you sign up to be the conductor of your local choir, you have the same thing. People start expecting you to do stuff. If you're going to be in that role, as ploxiln says, you need to be OK with that part of it. You have to be OK with the thanklessness of the task, and you have to seek your rewards elsewhere. Still, I feel very sorry for zloirock, and I hope that he gets some kind of compensation for his work, at least enough to get his life back together.

It's a person who applies engineering principles to the design and implementation of software. It's about the "rigidity" of the methods that are used to construct the software. If the software is just cobbled together, it's not "engineered".

I had a colleague some years ago, who consistently said 'add hook' instead of 'ad hoc'. I never had the heart to correct him.

Usually it does have all the information, it just isn't able to put it all together. If you for instance ask it to name the female tennis players who have won the Wimbledon tennis tournament twice, but not more than twice, it will give you a plausible list of names, but at least half of the names on the list will be wrong.

If you then ask it to tell you more about one of the players that has been wrongly named, it will actually be able to tell you the correct number of Wimbledon wins for that player. It does know the facts. It just doesn't know how to put the facts together into new useful knowledge.

That's a prediction you'll make only if you're not a programmer yourself. The entire purpose of a programming language, as opposed to a natural language, is to be able to communicate precise intent to a computer. A programming language is designed to be able to communicate precise intent, and a natural language isn't.

Even if you could, you would not want to use natural language to instruct a computer. You don't want the AI, or the computer, to guess your intent.

44200 hits on Google, for that particular misspelling.

Dave Cutler is, seemingly, a good example of this. If you have not read it, I recommend the book Show Stopper! by G. Pascal Zachary, about the development of Microsoft Windows NT under his leadership.

I don't agree with this article. I write hundreds of lines of notes each day, as a part of my coding and work routine. I do it all digitally, in Visual Studio Code, as pure text. I think, as long as you can write fluently on a keyboard, and as long as the writing and typing itself does not steal CPU cycles from your brain while you're doing it, it works just as well as handwritten notes, and, I would wager, probably even better, as you're able to write quite a bit faster on a keyboard than you are when you're writing with a pen.

As for the "slowness" of the writing being a point in itself, I don't think that's true. I achieve the same by editing my text as I write it, pondering over my wording, to make sure that I communicate (to myself, mind you) the precise intent that I'm going for.

I think the fondness for handwriting is mostly based on romantic notions, for lack of better words, predicated by our closeness in time to a period where handwriting was much more common. We think of it as the "original" way of writing, and the most "pure" way of writing. Personally I think jotting down text notes on a keyboard is just as "pure", and I don't really think that there are any extra qualities associated with handwriting, as far as learning and retaining information goes.

I think you just have to make yourself do it for a prolonged period of time, all the while making sure that you do not overexert yourself. Make it pleasant on every occasion, and lower the intensity once it starts feeling like a struggle. There are theories on how long it takes to establish a new habit. The numbers may vary, but I'd say if you can keep at it for around three months, it should be possible, for anyone really, to establish regular exercise as a habit that you both enjoy and look forward to, rather than something that you dread or put off.

> rather than on the finding and promotion of undiscovered geniuses.

There's a catch in it as well, which is that you cannot really identify a genius up-front. A genius is, by definition, someone who thinks differently. A lot of people think differently. But the thing with the genius is that he thinks differently and correctly. The latter part won't be obvious until after the fact.

When Alex Ferguson started out as a Manchester United manager he probably already was a genius, but it wasn't obvious until many years later.

Same with Sergey Brin and Larry Page. They probably had a genius vision for the company right from the start. But it's only in retrospect that we recognize that it was, in fact, a genius vision.

Finding a genius is, I think, almost by definition, impossible.

Software development is inherently hard, and many software developers suffer from impostor syndrome. It's easy, within software development, to start doubting your own work, because there are so infinitely many ways of solving each and every problem. You're never quite sure if your way of solving it is the best, or if it's even any good. It all floats in the air, sort of. I think that's why we're vulnerable to criticism of it.

How did it affect you?

> most of the hard problems were solved in 1960 to 1980

Yes, if you're talking about sorting algorithms and similar. But there are, of course, still many, many even harder problems waiting to be solved. Harder, because they are compound, and more complex. There's still need for top talent. But it's true that most "ordinary" businesses do not need those types of programmers.

> abandoning engineer culture in craft of software development

I think it's just a function of the rapid growth our field has seen over the past few years. With 'everyone' becoming software developers, and new frameworks being launched every day, it's just hard to promote long term planning and the following of sound engineering principles. With the current rate of change, software is seen as 'disposable', promoting more of a hacker culture, and less of an engineering culture.

> I can "literally" see how people think about software when reading source code and pull requests (I say literally because these things are... objects I can manipulate in my mind? it's hard to describe, and it took me a while to realize not everybody sees it this way).

I think you're right.

The impression I get when I talk to an autistic person, or when I cooperate with him on a problem, is that he sees my thoughts and my ideas as "entities" within his own mind. This rhymes with what you say, that you perceive it as if other people's thought patterns are "objects that you can manipulate in your mind".

My subjective experience is that the autistic person will "dive into himself" to find the answer to who I am, in a given situation, while the non-autistic person will look outwards. It's as if the non-autistic person processes me in real time, using a massive parallel social GPU in his head, while the autistic person, instead, consults massive internal lookup tables to try and derive the same information.

I think the difference is fundamental. It has to do with the very "shelf system" in our brains; the way that we have stored information about the world, and made sense of it, since we were small kids. It's not something that we can change as adults, I think.

100% agree. The most important point is to make exercise enjoyable; the more it feels like a chore, the more you will not be getting out there doing it.

> What I don't know how to handle (as evidenced by some comments here) is when to divulge how much I study / what fields I have a lot of experience in. I never understood where the boundary is between people thinking you are a know-it-all and arrogant, and thinking you are an idiot.

I think the thing to understand, is that non-autistics are very, very particular about the difference between what's inside their own mind, and what's inside your mind. Even on a topic that you may know "everything" about, you still know nothing about what the other person knows about the same subject. Everything on the right side of the below drawing (assuming that you're the one on the left) is in the dark to you, or close to it. And, likewise, everything on your side is in the dark to the other person.

  |   O                                                           O   |
  | ----- ( inner landscape (fact) ) ( inner landscape (fact) ) ----- |
  |   |                                                           |   |
  |  / \                                                         / \  |

The process of discussion, as seen from the non-autistic person's point of view, is to let you peek into their mind, and to let you see what they know (or don't know) about the topic that's being discussed. And they expect you to let them peek into your mind, and to let them see what you know about the subject. What they are very particular about is that their facts (about the subject at hand) are their facts, and your facts are your facts. Their mental model is to try and align their own thoughts about the subject at hand with your thoughts about the subject. Their goal is for both of you to "see" each others minds, and to bring them into sync, on the topic at hand. It's a process of alignment of two minds, on a particular topic.

  |   O                                O   |
  | ----- ( inner landscape (fact) ) ----- |
  |   |                                |   |
  |  / \                              / \  |

The autistic person, instead, has a tendency to think that when he has studied everything that there is to know about a subject it allows him to not consider the contents of the other person's mind, because the contents "should" be the same. This is what's considered as "arrogant" by the non-autistic counterpart. To him, when you do this - and I will stress this, even if you know everything there is to know in the world about a particular subject - it's a transgression. To him it's as if you disregard the existence of the contents of his mind. He wants you, and expects you, to consider the contents of his mind, even in the case where it's blank on a particular subject.

What non-autistic persons react to, usually, is the blurring of the line between what's inside their mind, and what's inside your mind. When you see it as if you're just communicating the objective facts of the situation, and "divulging how much you've studied the topic", they view it as a transgression, and as a side-stepping of the natural process of "alignment of minds".

Finally, since your user name has a sort of Nordic ring to it, I will disclose a related poem by the Norwegian poet Haldis Moren Vesaas (if you're not Nordic, just disregard it):

  ORD OVER GRIND

  Du går fram til mi inste grind
  og eg går òg fram til di.
  Innanfor den er kvar av oss einsam,
  og det skal vi alltid bli.

  Aldri trenge seg lenger fram,
  var lova som gjaldt oss to.
  Anten vi møttest titt eller sjeldan
  var møtet tillit og ro.

  Står du der ikkje ein dag eg kjem
  fell det meg lett å snu
  når eg har stått litt og sett mot huset
  og tenkt på at der bur du.

  Så lenge eg veit du vil kome iblant
  som no over knastrande grus
  og smile glad når du ser meg stå her,
  skal eg ha ein heim i mitt hus.

It's my personal experience from interacting with people who are on the spectrum. I generally find it very difficult to make sense of the communication that I have with people who are autistic, especially socially, and especially if I'm close to them. To me it's as if everything is backwards, sort of. But I've come to realize that they also see it in the same way. They also perceive their own communication with non-autistic persons as being backwards. They perceive it as if there's something important that the non-autistic person "does not get". And I perceive it as if there's something important that the autistic person "does not get". The model that I've described above is the only way that I can make sense of it all.

I also note that the author of the original post describes himself as being more "holistic" in his approach to problem solving, than his non-autistic co-workers. He has the belief that he "sees the whole picture", while the other non-autistic person "sees only half of it".

What autistic people fail to recognize, in my mind, is that it does not matter if you've read 50 books about a topic. Even if you have, you still only own "half of the reality" in a meeting with another person about a topic. You still have to take his world view into account, even if you've read 50 books. You cannot "own" or "control" the reality, or the facts, of a situation, no matter how much you know about it. In a meeting with another person you always own only half of the reality.

Repost of an earlier comment I made, on a different thread:

I think the difference is that an autistic person will see reality like this:

  |   O                                O   |
  | ----- ( inner landscape (fact) ) ----- |
  |   |                                |   |
  |  / \                              / \  |

While the non-autistic person will see it like this:

  |   O                                                           O   |
  | ----- ( inner landscape (fact) ) ( inner landscape (fact) ) ----- |
  |   |                                                           |   |
  |  / \                                                         / \  |

The non-autistic person will always assume that there are two inner landscapes at play, in any given social situation, two versions of reality, if you will, and two sets of facts. And they will assume that the other person sees it in the same way: They will assume that the other person also allows for two versions of reality, and two sets of facts.

The autistic person will, instead, view it as if there is one big unified shared reality between him and the other person, and one true fact, in any given situation. He will also assume that the other person sees it in the same way as himself.

The "double empathy problem" is that neither of them can see how the other person views the world. The non-autistic person cannot comprehend that the autistic person sees a single shared reality, and a single fact. Likewise, the autistic person cannot comprehend that the non-autistic person sees two different realities and two sets of facts.

I agree. They're pretty in the same way as fractals are pretty, but still boring and bland.

I would not have any of the ones that I've seen this far on my wall, or as my blog icons.

Beautiful!

What is the most common attack vector to fear? I thought maybe auto-run had been disabled by default, in most modern versions of Windows, for the past 10-15 years at least.

I think the difference is that an autistic person will see reality like this:

  |   O                                  O   |
  | -----  ( inner landscape (fact) )  ----- |
  |   |                                  |   |
  |  / \                                / \  |

While the non-autistic person will see it like this:

  |   O                                                            O   |
  | -----  ( inner landscape (fact) ) ( inner landscape (fact) ) ----- |
  |   |                                                            |   |
  |  / \                                                          / \  |

The non-autistic person will always assume that there are two inner landscapes at play, in any given social situation, two versions of reality, if you will, and two sets of facts. And they will assume that the other person sees it in the same way: They will assume that the other person also allows for two versions of reality, and two sets of facts.

The autistic person will, instead, view it as if there is one big unified shared reality between him and the other person, and one true fact, in any given situation. He will also assume that the other person sees it in the same way as himself.

The "double empathy problem" is that neither of them can see how the other person views the world. The non-autistic person cannot comprehend that the autistic person sees a single shared reality, and a single fact. Likewise, the autistic person cannot comprehend that the non-autistic person sees two different realities and two sets of facts.

It seems that this should be a feature of the software too. You should be able to tell the software where your camera is, and you should be able to tell it to move the picture of the talking person (or a person that you select, manually) closest to the camera, always.

That might be true. But I think a good reader, such as a news anchor or a voice actor, will know where to put the emphasis and the pauses, in order to help the listener along. It's value-adding. I think most people who do it professionally will have this capacity.

You can hear that the human readers place emphasis based upon an understanding of the meaning of the text that they're reading, and also based upon an understanding of the humans at the receiving end. It seeps through that they're human. The AI generated samples are good, but they're bland in comparison. The human emphasized words are typically not emphasized in the AI generated samples.

There are still finger based services online.

For instance:

  finger new_york@graph.no

Which will give you:

  [graph.no]
                    -= Meteogram for New York, United States =-
   'C                                                                   Rain (mm)
   21                     ===
   20###               ===   ===
   19   ###   =========         ======
   18      ===                        ---
   17                                    ---
   16                                       ---
   15                                          ---
   14                                             ------
   13                                                   ------      ---
   12                    |  |  |                              ------    1 mm
     _10_11_12_13_14_15_16_17_18_19_20 21 22 23 17/05 02 03 04 05_06_07 Hour

     S SE SE SE SE  S  S  S SW SW SW  W  W  W  W  W  W  W  W  W  W

I'm not sure about good short poems. A short poem is so condensed, that it allows the reader to project his own meaning into the text, even when there was no meaning to begin with (which, arguably, is the case with all current AI generated poetry).

I think a short AI generated poem can be perceived as good, because of this. I still hope that I would not be tricked by it myself.