Psyberspace

Joel on Software – The Law of Leaky Abstractions

One reason the law of leaky abstractions is problematic is that it means that abstractions do not really simplify our lives as much as they were meant to. When I’m training someone to be a C programmer, it would be nice if I never had to teach them about char*’s and pointer arithmetic. It would be nice if I could go straight to STL strings. But one day they’ll write the code “foo” “bar”, and truly bizarre things will happen, and then I’ll have to stop and teach them all about char*’s anyway. Or one day they’ll be trying to call a Windows API function that is documented as having an OUT LPTSTR argument and they won’t be able to understand how to call it until they learn about char*’s, and pointers, and Unicode, and wchar_t’s, and the TCHAR header files, and all that stuff that leaks up.

A really easy to read and clear article abour many complex things, including the reason why the world can keep getting worse.

Smart Mobs –

The core of this idea is the belief that, if the rules are tweaked the right way, technology companies in the next five years will have brought to market the equipment that will make the notion of electromagnetic-spectrum scarcity, a fundamental issue of telecom economics, seem quaint.

Equipment makers would create devices that would intelligently navigate through the congested airwaves

Via Howard, who got it from Larry…

HCI International 2003 10th International Conference on Human – Computer Interaction

Conference in Charleston, April 2003

The conference will explore the ways in which science and clinical practice can inform and contribute to each other and will look at the implications of recent research in other disciplines for our work with our patients. Analytical psychologists and psychoanalysts will exchange papers and responses, which will be complemented by workshops.

Participants will receive a certificate of attendance which can be used for Continuing Professional Development purposes.

WORKSHOPS

The Journal invites workshop proposals on a relevant theme (400-600 words) from those interested. These must be submitted to The Journal of Analytical Psychology by 31st January 2003.

Walking

What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will walk? I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea.

I did it, eventually today I went out for a walk!

Scoop

Transcription of Arundhati Roy reading and
Ms. Roy and Howard Zinn in conversation
Lensic Performing Arts Center
Santa Fe, New Mexico
18 September 2002

Wired News: Diamonds? Who Cares? Give Me HDTV

The study confirmed that women like digital toys just as much as men, who are generally believed to be the main purchasers of electronic gear in the home, said a CEA spokesman.

ikosmos: Content and Context

Throughout his works, Wilber shows how the great wisdom traditions of the past, in all cultures, painted a consistent picture of the chain or cosmic hierarchy.

Looks like Ken Wilbur is into hierarchy of being. Chain is an interesting word here… chained to our place in the hierarchy. Obviously heroic to break those chains.

Techne & Psyche
Dolores Brien has been weblogging again… great little essays, especially the one on George Gilder.

As a public intellectual George Gilder is on a par with Newt Gingrich but he’s interesting because he exemplifies two dominant strains characterisic of our technoscientific culture. First, he is only among the most recent, in that long tradition going back to the Middle Ages, to give a religious significance to scientific discovery and technological innovation. As David Noble notes in The Religion of Technology, they are driven, despite their apparent worldliness, “by distant dreams, spiritual yearnings for supernatural redemption.” Second, his writings and speeches expose that inclination beginning as far back as the Greeks to see in the principles governing the most significant or defining technologies of the time as the same principles by which every other aspect of human life is governed.