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Perceptual filtering
Our brain filters its sensory input, limiting the amount of information it has to categorize and act upon at any given moment. Most of the time, this is necessary for the preservation of sanity. But this also robs us of the incredible chaotic meaningless world that exists outside of humanity. What does it mean to truly experience? Is there a difference between perception and experience?
Posted at 09:39PM Apr 22, 2009 by Andrey Vyetchnost in Personal | Comments[0]
Oh Internet, how you cheer me up
I read roughly the following on the Internet, and had a chuckle:
"One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in a closed system will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it."
Posted at 06:12PM Mar 29, 2009 by Andrey Vyetchnost in Personal | Comments[0]
Will artificial intelligence have a property of sanity?
Is it going to be guaranteed that AI will be sane? Is artificial intelligence possible independently of artificial emotion? What is sanity? Will AI be subject to Darwinism?
Posted at 03:06PM Mar 25, 2009 by Andrey Vyetchnost in Personal | Comments[0]
How do humans create truth?
By agreement, that's how. The same way knowledge is shared. One of my friends thinks that there's actually no such thing as truth, because it's essentially reduced to an individual's perceptual reality. And we all know that it's impossible to directly transfer or even just consistently map perceptual phenomena from one organism to another. She's pretty awesome for thinking like this. I wish more people questioned truth.
This isn't necessary a proposition in favor of solipsism, as much as it is a proposition in favor of analogy.
Posted at 04:01PM Mar 19, 2009 by Andrey Vyetchnost in Personal | Comments[0]
Architects, read this.
97 things every software architect should know.
Posted at 10:02AM Feb 18, 2009 by Andrey Vyetchnost in Personal | Comments[0]
Input validation.
Learn to live it.
A wise man once said "Trust but verify". This applies 100% to Web2.0, otherwise known as "read-write web". I see applications today, which let themselves be broken, by allowing users to perform arbitrary input. I happen to think that's obscene. The most recent example I saw, was a social networking and collaboration app, which allowed users to edit contents of pages such that they won't display. Not deleting them, mind you, but simply adding certain content to them which made them unservable as far as the app was concerned. This goes to show that if you're going to decide to let users write whatever they want into your app, you better also make sure that whatever they write, won't break the app. It's a very simple concept known to better programmers as "input validation". And simple though it may seem, it's also almost entirely ignored. Why am I making this claim with such certainty? Well, because the first three of top ten web app security flaws, according to OWASP, are a direct result of ignoring input validation.
Posted at 02:31PM Feb 13, 2009 by Andrey Vyetchnost in Personal | Comments[0]
Science is a kind of communication
Science doesn't exist independently of humans communicating in terms of formal systems. Formality is required for precision and expressiveness not found in natural languages.
Posted at 09:46AM Feb 04, 2009 by Andrey Vyetchnost in Personal | Comments[0]
Sketchup, "open work"
I was pointed to this today. It's cool.
Also, the new "open work" space in MPK16 is pretty cool.
Posted at 12:43PM Jan 28, 2009 by Andrey Vyetchnost in Personal | Comments[0]
Ionic channel "icebergs"
As seen in this great neural networks book.
Page 30:
"In the protoplasm of the cell, ionic channels are produced and replaced continually. They attach themselves to those regions of the neurons where they are needed and can move laterally in the membrane, like icebergs in the sea. The regions of increased neural sensitivity to the production of action potentials are thus changing continuously according to experience."
Posted at 01:23PM Jan 27, 2009 by Andrey Vyetchnost in Personal | Comments[0]
A couple of great C.A.R. Hoare quotes
I came across this yesterday. It still rings amazingly true, after all these years.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult. It demands the same skill, devotion, insight, and even inspiration as the discovery of the simple physical laws which underlie the complex phenomena of nature."
And this, talking about PL/I
"At first I hoped that such a technically unsound project would collapse but I soon realized it was doomed to success. Almost anything in software can be implemented, sold, and even used given enough determination. There is nothing a mere scientist can say that will stand against the flood of a hundred million dollars. But there is one quality that cannot be purchased in this way — and that is reliability. The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich find most hard to pay."
Posted at 09:05AM Jan 22, 2009 by Andrey Vyetchnost in Personal | Comments[0]
Hello, world.
So, this is what it feels like to have one of these... I caved in. I have resisted long enough. I am now officially a part of the herd. I have a blog. :)
Posted at 02:37PM Aug 28, 2008 by Andrey Vyetchnost in Personal | Comments[1]
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