Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
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Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
AI Native IDEs for Code, Engineering, Science
Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
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This past Saturday, Susan and Oliver from Ziggeo organized the third New York City Videohackday. Turnout was terrific with over 100 participants and 18 teams submitting a project. The format of a one-day event works well and appears to attract a more diverse group of participants.
I gave a brief opening talk describing what it means to hack, which I characterized in this context as
To rapidly build an inelegant but effective solution to a problem, often using tools and parts in ways other than intended
An example of an epic hardware hack are the CO2 Scrubbers built during the Apollo 13 rescue mission, which I think covers all the points of my definition
The teams that did really well were the ones that headed the advice to pick something small and to focus on building something working (at the expense of polish). There were some great fun hacks including one that made emoji fly like fireworks from a running video based on content!
In retrospect I should have stated the bullet about making things work even more clearly: always start with the hard bits – get the API calls you need working, then write simply glue code and work on the UI last. Why? Because the UI can take time and if you build a UI first but it isn’t hooked up to anything, well then you don’t really have a hack. Without a UI you can always still demo your hack from the command line!
This past Saturday, Susan and Oliver from Ziggeo organized the third New York City Videohackday. Turnout was terrific with over 100 participants and 18 teams submitting a project. The format of a one-day event works well and appears to attract a more diverse group of participants.
I gave a brief opening talk describing what it means to hack, which I characterized in this context as
To rapidly build an inelegant but effective solution to a problem, often using tools and parts in ways other than intended
An example of an epic hardware hack are the CO2 Scrubbers built during the Apollo 13 rescue mission, which I think covers all the points of my definition
The teams that did really well were the ones that headed the advice to pick something small and to focus on building something working (at the expense of polish). There were some great fun hacks including one that made emoji fly like fireworks from a running video based on content!
In retrospect I should have stated the bullet about making things work even more clearly: always start with the hard bits – get the API calls you need working, then write simply glue code and work on the UI last. Why? Because the UI can take time and if you build a UI first but it isn’t hooked up to anything, well then you don’t really have a hack. Without a UI you can always still demo your hack from the command line!
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