Medley Interlisp Project, by Larry Masinter et al.

I haven't been blogging -- most of my focus has been on Medley Interlisp.

Tell me what you think!

 

 A year and a half into the project, I'm still having fun at Interlisp.Org.

Check out our Annual Report.

One of my favorite hacks: On April 1 some spring in the late 70s I changed the site GREET file (which everyone used) to use "Screen Melt" as a screen saver. No one was amused.

Restoring Medley Interlisp: running well on modern systems

at Interlisp.org

and on GitHub (and see issue list)

It's great to work with old friends, as if 30 years hadn't passed. 

We have a lispcore@googlegroups.com and interlisp@googlegroups.com mailing lists and weekly zoom calls.

Using old code feels like driving a vintage car. The quirks are more noticeable. I'm hoping we can smooth some of the rough edges of using it on different platforms and also bringing up some of the applications built in Interlisp. 

Shown running on a $60 Raspberry Pi (lower left) about 50 times faster than a 1982 Dorado.

The Office of the Future: the Officeless Office

The office of future is becoming clear: it's "no office location". The economics of that is clear
(Economist video via YouTube)
Keeping expensive real estate and wasting time commuting to an office in a big building, to do a job on the off chance you might bump into someone is a waste

The Xerox Star system was a cornerstone of the vision of "the office of the future" but the next step after getting rid of paper is getting rid of "the office" completely.

The Epidemiology of Bad Ideas

Lately there's been a lot of discussion about Section 230 and the responsibility (if there is) of the distributor of user opinions. But this discussion is misdirected.

The problem the Internet brings is that it allows for unfettered spread of bad ideas and lies (attributable to some combination of stupidity and malice).

Think of a bad idea like a virus, fact checking and filtering like testing and quarantine, and Twitter and Facebook postings like mass spreading events. From that perspective, what we need is the equivalent  of washing hands and social distancing.

 Any site distributing an idea, a post, a share to more than N people should add some social distance -- a time delay (depending on reach), fact checking, annotating the post or adding a click-through.... sufficient filtering/delay to flatten the curve. How much of their business model depends on posts going viral QUICKLY?

Recently, Carol tried to read me an article about the latest outrageous behavior. But I protested: I'd developed antibodies that protect me from the awfulness.  By continued exposure, nothing was that bad anymore, we had all seen more. And there are teams of people all working full time developing new outrageous things.

So bad ideas spread like viruses. Some people are able to develop a defense, through outrage. The epidemic is spread by "news" organizations and social media as contagious in thought as a mass event is for the virus.

Facebook and Twitter and Google and other social media sites need to implement thought-social distancing to reduce R(0) of a bad idea.

Facebook's ads promoting CDC would be OK if it weren't for the corruption of CDC management by the wave of bad ideas, spread by immune-compromised  individuals (don't recognize ideas as bad) and allowed unchecked by those who exhibit no symptoms (outrage).

Building Going-Remote.Info

In a sort of frenetic panic, I started  the Covid-19 community group at W3C, with the idea of working together with others to help people "Going Remote". It seemed like an ]area that required people to jump in without a lot of guidance.

But the community group didn't quite jell because we didn't really agree on the scope of work.

So after considering lots of possibilities I decided to put up a stake for https://Going-Remote.info as a web site/wiki/discussion forum.  This is old fashioned but I think it will appeal to the  kind of community I think we can build.

Log into https://Going-Remote.info and check it out.

W3C: CoVid-19 Remote Meet, Work, Class Community Group created

In the face of the covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions, lots of meetings, schools, other kinds of events are trying to "go virtual". To help people understand their choices and other concerns, we started a "community group" at W3C.

Inviting experts in the current state of usable technology for remote meetings, classes, work from home, etc. to help put together best practices documents for the transition.


From the announcement:

The CoVid-19 Remote Meet, Work, Class Community Group has been launched:
http://www.w3.org/community/covid-19/

A clearinghouse for experience and guidelines for people who are suddenly called to avoid travel or meetings, work-at-home or do classes online. Focus on current capabilities and future needs.

To join:
http://www.w3.org/community/covid-19/join

If you do not have one already, you will need a W3C account to join:
http://www.w3.org/accounts/request

This is a community initiative. W3C's hosting of this group does not imply endorsement of the activities.

The group must now choose a chair:
http://www.w3.org/community/about/faq/#how-do-we-choose-a-chair

For more information about getting started in the new group, see:
http://www.w3.org/community/about/faq/#how-do-we-get-started-in-a-new-group

and good practice for running a group:
http://www.w3.org/community/about/good-practice-for-running-a-group/

We invite you to share news of this new group in social media and other channels.