Richard Feynman and the Connection Machine (1989)(longnow.org)
longnow.org
Richard Feynman and the Connection Machine (1989)
https://longnow.org/ideas/richard-feynman-and-the-connection-machine/
20 comments
There's this stigma towards AI in certain things that I find interesting. In your case was the weirdness (the uncanny valley area) due to the AI using Feynman's voice? Would it still be weird if it used a different voice?
The AI generation in this case is a tool to convert text to voice, one of the best use cases of this technology IMO
The AI generation in this case is a tool to convert text to voice, one of the best use cases of this technology IMO
Angela Collier's video about Feynman completely changed my view of him.
I suspect nobody's legacy survives the microscope.
I generally agree with that video. But did she really need to take three hours to make her point?
She’s not known for the concision of her videos, true. The Feynman one is interesting to me because I also read the books about his exploits and enjoyed them.
As a reader I think you should be aware of the strong human tendency to THINK you know the character of the person you are reading about. But you should resist this temptation, because ultimately it will be a projection of your own making.
If you enjoy Feynman stories, go ahead. You don’t need to defend him or get caught up bro culture or alternatively you should be careful about denunciations of historical figures that are performative.
You should be clear about what your morals are and not base them on some historical character that you may not understand completely.
As a reader I think you should be aware of the strong human tendency to THINK you know the character of the person you are reading about. But you should resist this temptation, because ultimately it will be a projection of your own making.
If you enjoy Feynman stories, go ahead. You don’t need to defend him or get caught up bro culture or alternatively you should be careful about denunciations of historical figures that are performative.
You should be clear about what your morals are and not base them on some historical character that you may not understand completely.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48915709 one of the Connection Machines is in Jurassic Park. Really neat article!
banging on the door like a madman where's the clock? where's the clock we all donated money for? tell us about the clock you cowards!
Yeah.... that was a cool idea. Too bad it'll never be built.
(Supposedly they're building it in West Texas - last update in 2024)
(Supposedly they're building it in West Texas - last update in 2024)
> Since the only computer language Richard was really familiar with was Basic, he made up a parallel version of Basic in which he wrote the program and then simulated it by hand to estimate how fast it would run on the Connection Machine.
I wish I had known. I was a full time Visual Basic programmer in the '90s and a bit ashamed of it. It wasn't cool like Pascal or Delphi, scientific like Fortran, or professional like C or C++. But if I'd known if was Feynman's language I'd have bragged about it.
I wish I had known. I was a full time Visual Basic programmer in the '90s and a bit ashamed of it. It wasn't cool like Pascal or Delphi, scientific like Fortran, or professional like C or C++. But if I'd known if was Feynman's language I'd have bragged about it.
Danny Hillis was an MIT colleague of a friend of mine. Didn't know until now that Connection Machine had Darpa funding.
Star Lisp would be great for the modern heterogeneous computing landscape, and being compiled.
Can you explain this as Richard would have?
He probably would pointed out books like this,
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262192774/the-paralation-model/
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262192774/the-paralation-model/
I agree that something like *lisp would be a welcome relief from the hairball that is CUDA. while the lisp part was actually compiled, the parallel part reduced pretty 1:1 onto Paris, (the 'assembly language' designed by Steele). that was was basically a jump table into the microcode, which was just a big control word issued by (what I remember vaguely was being an amd 2900 bit slice) sequencer.
today I guess you'd translate those vector instruction into MLIR and hope for some layout and fusion.
but absolutely, you can just use tensors like normal variables. what a awful regression
today I guess you'd translate those vector instruction into MLIR and hope for some layout and fusion.
but absolutely, you can just use tensors like normal variables. what a awful regression
Written in 2017, but always a good read.
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On one hand, they were actually pretty decent simulacra and I loved hearing Feynman's voice and mannerisms; but on the other hand, they... weren't... real. What am I even listening to?
We are in for a weird future.