Daily-Notes

The preference for signals vs state driven rendering make good sense. But it seems that the advances coming with React Compiler give us the same advantages without new libraries or code changes (i.e. automatic memoization and avoiding unnecessary rendering in parts of tree where no state is accessed).

The term for the idea that AI could improve itself indefinitely is “recursive self-improvement” or RSI.

A related term for technology having achieved RSI is “Artificial General Intelligence” or AGI.

RSI’s impossibility stems from epistemological limits (no self-bootstrapping without grounding), computational bounds (diminishing returns, uncomputability), and philosophical subjectivity (“improvement” as human-relative, not machine-quantifiable). For instance, if “the good” is an abstraction requiring nuanced values, pure recursion can’t capture it without human-like qualia or external input.

Science may be described as the art of systematic oversimplification.

Karl Popper

Since the building of all the universe is perfect and is created by the wisdom creator, nothing arises in the universe in which one cannot see the sense of some maximum or minimum.

L. Euler

Authentication proves who you are (usually by means of some password or token). Authorization proves what you can do. An http 401 error is for the former and an http 403 is for the latter. Note the confusion of terms. http 401s are named Unauthorized while they really mean not authenticated.

The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance, and make it its own object.

Locke

The great benefit of computer sequencers is that they remove the issue of skill, and replace it with the issue of judgement. With Cubase or Photoshop, anybody can actually do anything, and you can make stuff that sounds very much like stuff you’d hear on the radio, or looks very much like anything you see in magazines. So the question becomes not whether you can do it or not, because any drudge can do it if they’re prepared to sit in front of the computer for a few days, the question then is, ‘Of all the things you can now do, which do you choose to do?‘

Brian Eno via this blog post connecting the thought to AI

I have been doing Math Academy lessons for a couple weeks now. I tested into Foundations I at about 80% complete so will be done with that course in a couple more weeks. I suppose a whole course could take me about 6 months. So I probably have a few years of work ahead if I go the route of Foundations II and III, then Methods of Proof, then Discrete Mathetmatics. (Or another path to ML or Probability and Statistics… img. The gamification, repetition on the student’s weak areas, and “dependency tree” for the order of learning are impressive. I’ll re-evalautae a few months later, but I could see this being a better way to learn than the classroom setting simply because it’s so targeted at the individual’s weaknesses (and still exercises the strengths as well). On the flip side, nothing can replace learning through dialogue - dialogue which is allowed to meander to and from related ideas. If I had to design a Math class today I’d think MA could be the basis of homework/exercises which some kind of face-to-face Q&A or seminar or traditional lessons at a certain frequency. Still, for me, it’s a perfect way to get some schooling in the gaps of my day.

TIL about csvkit which has a number of CLI tools for working with CSVs. The cool thing I’m after is csvjoin which merges two CSVs on a common column (like a sql join).

I am active in as true and high a sense in my unconscious operations, as in what are properly called my volitions. If this were not so, moral character could attach only to those acts which are performed after deliberation, which is not true. The real moral character of the man is determined, almost solely, by his spontaneous operations, the unconscious motions of his soul.

Brownson

Today I:

Fixed my led light on my microphone mute button (which caused me all kinds of confusion during meetings)
Added wluma to serve mainly as a reminder that my privacy shutter is open [edit] I removed wluma several days later because it wasn’t very good. Brightness levels jumped all over the place and app window switching slowed because it spiked in CPU usage for window switching.

Today I am trying out the Cookie Store API which is a relatively new addition to browsers. It’s quite easy to use and has some slick features like the ability to subscribe to changes on the cookie. Am presently having trouble with storing a cookie that has semi-colons so either have to encode or find a new delimiter for the thing I’m storing.