GMoromisato

I know it's just me, but whenever I see "AI was used" it sounds like "a word processor was used" back in the 80s.

I remember all those poorly designed but laser-printed papers with clashing typefaces and ugly clip art. But look at where we are now: the word processor didn't destroy graphic design--it made it more visible and thus more important.

AI is the same thing. This specific creation (Neo Radar) is actually very cool, but we all know there is lots of AI slop out there. That's what happens when a new, powerful tool suddenly appears. But as people learn to use AI, we will wonder how we could have lived without it. I'm never going back to pre-AI days, if I can help it.

So don't worry--things will be better in a decade or so--I mean, assuming we haven't all ascended in the Singularity or been turned into batteries by ASI.

The problem is that there's no guarantee that extraction errors will always end up as outliers. Instead, outliers are merely the errors that are easiest to find.

<Insert bullet-ridden bomber image here>

I know I'm a weirdo, but I've been posting under my own name since the 90s.

I guess I always figured that nobody gives a shit who I am.

If someone were to ask me, which I notice they're not, I'd say uni-context is just another word for "globalization". Specifically, the globalization caused by technological change, including the internet, but also standard container shipping.

Social networks are globalized. Being captain of your high school football team used to be special, but now it's nothing, when people are comparing themselves against Nobel-prize winning teenagers.

Almost all professional jobs are globalized. Software companies sell globally; financial companies sell globally; drug companies sell globally. That means the most talented professional can charge whatever they want because they can generate profits from a massive market.

But non-college-educated workers are left out. They can only get local jobs, which (a) don't pay as well, and (b) get competition from immigrants. This is exactly how Trump got in the White House and how so many right-wing parties rose across Europe. It's why Brexit happened.

Globalization is even the cause of enshittification. When your market is local, the opinion of your customers is important, and a good reputation allows you to expand to new regions. But when your market is global, you can only grow by extracting more value from existing customers.

Maybe you've never been in a codebase that overloads the comma operator.

That's fair, but I was responding to the claim that you don't need to make a trade off. If that were true, then Haskell would be much more popular.

Clearly there's a trade off or else everyone would just use Haskell.

I agree with you. Though I wonder if the divide is more about the size of the program. I've got a couple of large (>100K LoC) solo projects and I like using C++ because it is much easier to catch bugs at compile time.

Static typing is a huge advantage in refactoring, and if you don't refactor a large program as it grows, you end up with a mess.

Of course you feel this way. You just finished reading SICP or maybe you binged PG essays last weekend. But eventually you'll read Simon Peyton Jones and start screaming about functional programming and algebraic type systems. Then, if you're lucky, you'll get a real job and realize that languages are just a tiny part of software engineering.

I'm excited for you to experience that journey.

Haskell is currently at #18 in LangPop: https://langpop.com/rankings

Almost by definition that implies that it makes some trade-offs that turn off lots of programmers. Still more popular than Lisp, though.

I agree that the new UX is confusing and ill-designed.

A UI is supposed to help the user develop a mental model for what's happening under the covers. But what's happening when you switch from ChatGPT Work to ChatGPT Codex? If I switch it while in an existing session, nothing seems to happen. Does that mean it did nothing? If so, why let the user switch it at all.

When I switch it in the new conversation state, the help text changes from "What should we build?" to "What should we get done?". As near as I can tell, the switch gives me access to different sets of tools. But does that mean that some tools are not available in both modes? Why? Why not let the agent access all tools and pick the one based on context? Why are you forcing me to choose up front? And what happens if I choose poorly?

I get that OpenAI is moving fast, but I feels like a single round of usability testing might have helped.

That's a great essay--thanks.

And you have a good point. Maybe it's a weakness in the metaphor if one can see it either way.

I fundamentally believe that there is no perfect language, instead one merely chooses a set of trade-offs. What's interesting about Lisp is that it is simultaneously well-respected and yet not widely used in productions (compared to C, C++, Python, JavaScript, and even Rust).

It's almost like Lisp chose a particularly extreme set of trade-offs that yield great power but also repel large swathes of programmers. I think PG might say that it repels dumb programmers, but maybe not.

Maybe machine language is the formless chaos and Lisp is the purest manifestation of order. All other languages are points in between.

Programming is in tension between the Light Side and the Dark Side.

The Light Side is about preventing the programmer from making mistakes: Get rid of go-tos! Add static types! Do not allow a bug to be expressible. The Dark Side is about giving power to the programmer: Macros? Obviously. Operator overloading? Self-modifying code? Multi-line reg-exps? Go to town!

The Light Side knows programmers are flawed and imposes constraints. The Dark Side trusts programmers with power. Neither side is correct all of the time, and a good programmer learns both.

Lisp is interesting in that it is clearly Dark Side programming (the programmer can do anything) but it's still admired by Light Side programmers. Maybe there's something about the simplicity of the language that makes it seem platonic--almost incorruptible. Or maybe Lisp is so pure that it embodies both Light Side and Dark Side, like a god that spawned the programming universe.

Agreed. In addition, the purpose of games is to entertain players, not to provide jobs for developers.

Agreed!

Both sides said that "America sucks right now". I think Trump said "Let's go back to when America was great" whereas liberals said, "America was never great, so we need to keep changing."

Worse, it was easy for some liberals to slide from "America was never great" to "and it's the fault of [white people|cis people|males]"

I'm not endorsing any of those views--I just think that's how some people perceived it.

That's a different argument.

You agree that space data centers are physically possible, but you just don't think they will be economical (i.e., cheaper than terrestrial data centers). Is that right?

I don't know if they will be economical. But that will depend on a whole bunch of questions that nobody knows the answer to: How will the demand for AI grow? How much will opposition to terrestrial data centers increase the price? How cheaply can SpaceX launch mass? How cheaply can SpaceX build data center satelliters?

Maybe you know all those answers. If so, I envy your stock portfolio.

I'm not sure I get it. Obviously, computers can work in space--a Starlink satellite is basically a computer with a radio attached. Satellites use radiators for cooling without violating any laws of physics.

I assume you think that SpaceX will never be able to build/deploy a radiator big enough? But that's not a physics/thermodynamics question, that's an engineering question. And I think SpaceX has some pretty good engineers.

Help me out and tell me how you can be so sure it will never work.

They're just quoting it but typo'ed the >

I was confused at first too.

And that's my point: Your answers are far more interesting than Ian Bogost's throwaway assertion that America just wasn't ambitious enough and that aircraft engineering peaked with the 747.

Ironically, it's this ritual self-flagellation that helped elect Trump.

Normies lost faith in the media partly because they were seen as not really loving America. And if you don't trust the media, then it's a lot easier to believe Trump's lies.

What I find silly is the certainty that critics have that SpaceX will fail.

No one can predict the future, and it's absolutely possible that orbital datacenters will fail (either for technology or business reasons).

But:

1. Without a time machine, we cannot be certain.

2. If forced to choose, I would rather root for their success and be wrong than root for their failure and be right.

You should read the book, if you're interested. From the book (p.84):

"Time and time again there appears in print the logical but false assumption that Boeing took its losing military C-5 bid and revamped it as the commercial 747. In fact, the 747 would be an entirely original design that owes nothing to the C-5."

That said, in the same chapter he talks about how GE developed a high-bypass turbofan engine for the C-5 and it was only because they had such an engine that the 747 became possible.

But really my only point is that you should read the book if you're interested.

Just off the top of my head, I can come up with a dozen American accomplishments that would have blown the minds of 747 engineers:

The Internet

Hubble Space Telescope

Google

Deep Blue beating Kasparov

iPhone

Human Genome Project

F-22/B-2/F-35 stealth tech

Falcon Heavy dual booster landings

Waymo

Starship live re-entry video via Starlink

ChatGPT

B-52 still flying

I agree with you, and I would have expected Ian Bogost to take a more holistic view.

Talking about why, for example, Boeing never build a larger passenger airplane, or why the Concorde is no longer flying, would actually make for an interesting analysis of technology and business.

Why did the progression from the Wright brothers to the 747 not continue for the next fifty years? The answer has to do with physics and economics rather than lack of American ambition or excellence.

I'm curious about this--wouldn't one expect more engines to be safer?

Unless having more engines increases the chance of certain kinds of accidents? Like maybe the chance of an engine failure damaging the hull goes up with more engines?

Not questioning the justification--I do believe it--I'm just curious about the details.

Oh, you misunderstand--I'm not arguing anything. What planes you love in the confines of your own mind is none of my business. It's a free country!

I'm just sharing my love of the 747, since that's what the article is about.

Someday, when they write a glowing retrospective of the Il-62, I promise not to post about how it's one of the ugliest jets I've seen.

If this is truly on your bucket list, you should be able to pull it off.

I just asked my favorite stochastic parrot to find the cheapest flight from SFO on a 747 to anywhere. It found a one-way flight on Lufthansa for $500. If you can, I'd encourage you to spring for a business class flight on the top deck (probably $4000 one-way).

Of course, none of the airplanes you listed are still flying passengers today. That is why I will always love the 747.

Anyone interested should read Joe Sutter's book, 747. Sutter was the lead engineer for the development of the 747 and he has some awesome stories.

One interesting story is that Juan Trippe (CEO of PanAm) wanted Boeing to create a double-decker airplane. He was enamored with the idea of "ocean liners" cruising the sky. But Sutter (and other engineers) knew that it would be impossible to create what he wanted, so instead they proposed a wide-body aircraft (10 seats across). Nevertheless, Trippe insisted on a double-decker design.

The engineers then created two cabin mockups. One for a double decker, which was basically two narrow-body cabins stacked on top of each other. The other was the wide-body of the 747. Once Trippe saw the trade off, he realized that the spacious cabin of the 747 was the way to go.

But even then, when he saw the second level where the pilots go, he insisted on putting passengers up there too.

I've had the good fortune to fly on the top deck of the 747. I highly recommend it.

Would you rather be a waiter in America or Brazil?

The average waiter in America makes $40K per year, compared to $9K per year for a Brazilian water (adjusted for PPP).

Brazil does not have any of the labor-saving tech that we're complaining about because they don't need it--labor is cheap.

Let's say a restaurant in America got rid of its tech and instead hired more waiters. Would each waiter get paid more or less? Obviously, each waiter would get paid less. The restaurant still makes the same amount of money, so the same amount of money is divided among more people. Mathematically, each waiter will make less money with less tech.

So if you really want waitstaff to be well-paid, you should want more automation, not less.