Abstract: Tag systems are described. Tag systems are more useful for analyzing modular programs than Turing tapes are. Tag systems with multiple queues can describe OOP objects. With these systems we can look at the faults in the use of modern OOP.Emil Post introduced a notation for computation as general as Turing's well before Turing did. ( Read more... )

Gameability happens when a social player is asked to make a decision as to what he wants and that decision is not necessarily the best for achieving its stated goal. If voting for B will make A win, any supporter of A should vote for B. In fact, frankly, the ballot is clearly mislabelled. Mislabelling is one problem with any gameable system ( Read more... )

I want an input mapping language. This idea has played at my mind for a while, but it's closer now than before to existing. My weird continuous language of months ago was an early attempt. Here are some thoughts ( Read more... )

I've been thinking about rating systems. Some sites have simple up/down systems where you can vote a link up one point or down one point; and if you think it's high enough already, you can leave it. Many websites use averages of votes on a scale; the problem here is that when you have enough people voting, it's always in your favor to vote 1 or ( Read more... )

Made a maté cola; I can't carbonate my own water and I didn't want to commit my efforts to a syrup, so I chose maté for steeping in club soda. Flavored with cassia oil, lemon oil, vanilla extract, almond extract, nutmeg, caraway, ginger; sweetened. Pleasant, not at all chalky (no caramel, no acid). Brief time expenditure. Worthwhile.

This has been around for a while; if you haven't seen it, see it. http://www.strandbeest.com/animaris%20rhinoceros%20transport_en.html . There's a movie.

To make a language better than c++ is not hard. c++ conveniently skirts most usefulness, has a lot of notational overhead, and is rather difficult to write smart compilers for. Most of the work it saves the programmer is the easy human work; the hard work, better left to a computer, it dumps on him.

( c++ rant )

The new version of MS Office will have "graphical command tabs" that try to anticipate what a user wants. This is, they say, instead of menus and toolbars. It will be a truer type of Hell than Gehenna.

I don't believe in intellectual property. The analogy is nonsense. Still, anyone with a slightly practical mind can see that authors and makers of works need some manner of authority over it. But that's precisely it: they need authority, not ownership. Ownership is one form of authority, and rather an extreme one.

( Essay )

Revoke their broadcasting licenses. All of them. Now ( Read more... )