Congratulations and thanks! I’m enjoying the epub edition from Lulu:

“People writing Lisp code to do old-style AI are engaged in a creative act of discovery, an attempt to understand… To discover requires a different sort of language, and it requires a different approach, captured well by the writer Joan Didion:

I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.
–Joan Didion, “Why I Write”

Richard P. Gabriel
Foreword

#lisp

A great angle for telling the history of Lisp.

Is the ebook DRM-free?

“Those who cannot remember the past are destined to repeat it”

I’m not sure we should enshrine LISP into Claude Code, even though I once wrote LISP that flew in a cruise missile, and several “expert systems” for critical applications, it seems likely the “AI”s might choose LISP to enable the singularity.

Emacs and LISP - Live it, love it, remember it!

#OpaVertelt

Once had a discussion with a fellow student about what would be the most powerful programming language.

He thought it was Forth.

I asked him which would be easier to program (taking e.g. Lisp as the other contender):
A Forth interpreter in Lisp, or
a Lisp interpreter in Forth.

You can guess who 'won'.

I am looking for to reading your book, The Genius of #Lisp.

Sorry to ask a trivial question here (but maybe others would like to know), I'm on the Kobo site to buy the ePub version of your book, but I'd like to confirm I can read it without their poor Kobo Reader app.

Otherwise, I'd love to send you the money directly...

Hmm. The Amazon blurb mutters about ELIZA, but ELIZA wasn't written in Lisp, it was written in MAD_SLIP. My reading of the original paper was that Joe W. essentially reinvented Lisp.

By the time I arrived at MIT (1972), Joel Moses' introductory CS/programming course was taught in Lisp (and was so good, I got a gig in the Mathlab group by passing a Lisp test), and the AI Lab's PDP-6 had a version of Eliza that was probably rewritten in Lisp.

Common Lisp story.

The time, 1987. The place: the 5th generation group in NEC's research lab in Tokyo. We (me and the locals) were frantically programming Common Lisp, me using GLSteele's manual, the locals using the Japanese translation. Every time there'd be a GLS-style joke (which said manual is seriously dense of), I'd check the Japanese translation, and every time, the translation completely missed the point and was complete gibberish.

Humor is hard. GLS humor, even harder.

Exciting!

Also promotion and sales is a noble task. You've created something important, sell it with pride! I am in business and even there, so many people avoid sales. It's not as difficult as people think. Take the bold step of making first contact (I don't know exactly what distribution looks like in books, but presumably conferences, media etc.) And then persist. It's not one and done. Keep trying to get through to your target. Be creative.

Good luck.

"""
Persona’s exposed code compares your selfie to watchlist photos using facial recognition, screens you against 14 categories of adverse media from mentions of terrorism to espionage, and tags reports with codenames from active intelligence programs consisting of public-private partnerships to combat online child exploitative material, cannabis trafficking, fentanyl trafficking, romance fraud, money laundering, and illegal wildlife trade.

Once a user verifies their identity with Persona, the software performs 269 distinct verification checks and scours the internet and government sources for potential matches...
"""

So to keep kids safe from online predators, we're willing to *horribly* invade their privacy and sell all their data to predators? I see the system is working as intended 😮‍💨

Ah yes, "let us protect children by scanning their faces". What could possibly be wrong??? 🤡

“the software ‘flags you as a “suspicious entity” based on your face alone’ …”

Yay! Phrenology 2.0!

and meanwhile the Australian government is claiming credit for protecting children by standing up to social media companies to force them to use this kind of tech.

I’m sure the pressure is in the opposite direction.

This level of centralisation of data is so so dangerous. Putting all our eggs in one basket digitally makes for a very inviting target, but this sort of infrastructure also concentrates power.

Knowledge is power, and this level of control can easily calcify our political systems and eat away at democracy.

One of the many reasons to be against #ageverification software

It gives the wrong people & companies tons of data, often #biometric ones

Therefore we transfers #power exactly the wrong people & #corporations

And as we can know latest since #Edwardsnowden companies do share data with governments

The cornerstone of the #chinese #surveillance #state is #realnameregistration

Don't give #biometrics to #evilcorp, especially not for cheap thrills

Do not hand data to #fascists

#resist

just don't use #discord and refuse to #ID as a matter of principle!

infosec.space/@kkarhan/1161142…