society | Et Cetera

5 Jul

The Future Written Word

The year is 2072. The written word is everywhere, and AI authors most of it. Human authorship is not unknown, but it is an art now, not a skill. A writer is like the artisan, who works with woods...
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24 May

Power in Miniature: Algorithmic Tools in an AI World

(If you just want to see the code in action, jump down to the bottom). This post is shorter than I intended it to be, because I kept wrestling with it and in the end decided that for...
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1 Aug

Chess, the Daily Crossword, Abstraction, and the Progress of Society

Oreo, ahi, Ani, ore, aloe, Erie, area, idol, arena, odd, der, una, ural, oboe, B-team. There, I’ve solved a third of tomorrow’s crossword puzzle for you. Or the next day’s. Pick a day. * * * There’s a...
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7 Oct

An Open Letter to Online Services

Dear [Generic Online Service], I value your existence. Without Dropbox, I wouldn’t have been able to print out that resume last-minute before my interview. Without Grooveshark, my hours spent coding would be much more tedious. Without...
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1 Aug

Tangling with Open-Source

Right now, I’m breathing a sigh of relief. I’m letting many weeks of pent-up frustration slip away. And at the same time, I’m realizing how glad I am to have encountered the uniquely enlightening source of that frustration. I...
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