20220307

2022 03 07

I want to write a piece called “The Case Against Alan Kay” in which I don’t intend to have a legitimate case that I sincerely believe against him, but rather an exploration of this thought of mine that maybe the only reason PARC/ARPA community seems so interesting is because they just happened to be at the right time/right place for the explosion of computer technology. The reason I want to do this is to really understand what made that community special. It’s like searching for a counterexample when proving a theorem - you need to take the adversarial approach to understand the weaknesses of an idea; in this case the idea being that there was something unique about that community that enable them to produce what they did. I think doing so would be really valuable to understand the good factors of the community as well as they things that maybe they did just happen to be at the right time/right place for. I hear this idea that “computing research hasn’t left the 60s” and I want to find out if that’s because there was nothing really new to find, or we really did get entrenched as lose the supposed magic of that time. Alan Kay is such a lovely person to listen to so it does feel a bit tough to go against him, but you must question those you admire in the pursuit of what is true!

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Daily Listening

Listened mostly to a playlist that a friend put together for me. Surprising how someone can have such similar tastes to you and you have not heard most of the artists they have shared! Goes to show how big the musical world is.

Daily Reading

The Mysterious Island: Ok, Mr. Verne refuses to give up the secret that easily so we will have to wait a few more chapters it seems 😤