July 16, 2004
gridbaglayout
This one is a classic.
If you're on a mac and can spare 200 bucks you can try out these guys for a more pleasant UI building experience.
July 10, 2004
singularity
A couple of days ago slashdot had an article with a link to a short story by Vernor Vinge. I read the story and I liked it. Having never heard of Vernor Vinge before, I got curious and I googled him.
His paper about a technological singularity is interesting and thought-provoking. It is now more than ten years old. I think we can say for sure that one part of his prediction is correct: the singularity won't happen before 2005. The upper bound of 2030 for its arrival sounds very ambitious. From my point of view as an outsider and observer of the field of AI it looks like progress is slow and the problems to solve really hard.
That's not to say that it won't happen. Eventually (in the far more distant future) we will get there.
Quote:
Shortly after, the human era will be ended.
I don't know about that. If we learn how to build a superhuman intelligence we probably learn enough about thinking and mind processes that we can build in emotions ("rules") that let it coexist with us. Maybe we could build parent-child emotions into it, after all humans would be the parents of that little monster. Or we could build in cuteness feelings, humans could become the Pandas of the superhuman world, regarded as cute and worth protecting by the superhuman intelligence. In a way that would make for a much funnier plot than what I'm afraid "I, Robot" the movie will serve us.
July 05, 2004
golf cart parade
We spent the Fourth of July on Catalina Island, a mediterranean paradise off the coast of Los Angeles, about an hour away with a ferry from Long Beach. There are very few cars on the island, everybody uses golf carts, so the Fourth of July parade was a parade of golf carts.
Here are some snapshots.