Post a Comment On: A Nod to Nothing

A few things I've read recently...

A Search Engine for Programming Language Syntax Is a Pretty Good Idea https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/4xam5d/a-search-engine-for-programming-language-syntax-is-a-pretty-good-idea
Not as interesting as I'd hoped.  A comparison of Googling to code versus yet another code-specific search engine (SyntaxDB).  Conclusion: Google works pretty well.


Introduction to Neural Networks https://medium.com/binary-maths/introduction-to-neural-networks-ead8ec1dc4dd
Neurons, sigmoid functions, and image cleaning.  Not as good as some things I've read and a little heavy on the math if you're not from that side of things.  Real examples, however.  I like the Tensorflow cat and purse example found elsewhere better - you can really see the layering of work in the API.


The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/opinion/sunday/artificial-intelligence-economic-inequality.html
Comes to the same conclusions as an earlier article I read.  Jobs that involve servicing each other are going to become highly important as computers eliminate other jobs.  E.g. social welfare jobs.  Touches on minimal income, the have and have-not gap, and other aspects that are common between AI impact writing at the moment.  I was intrigued by the topic of AI-driven colonialism.  That's sort of crazy and almost dystopic in idea; that countries without the income or population to create self-sustaining AI-driven economies might need to sell themselves, almost like a country-sized asset, to patrons like the US or China. You can squint and see the utopic version of that where countries without good assets gain minimal living standards and participate in a global service (each other) economy.  You can not squint and see where it might go down a morlocks slash 1984-population as an asset slash neo-english-virtual-colonialism-two-superpower dystopic path.  Interesting times.


Starting With Blockchain Chaincode Using Golang https://dzone.com/articles/starting-with-blockchain-chaincode-using-golang
I want to try this one with the examples because it looks pretty straight forward, but I'm going to do the Pluralsight class instead.


The ultimate 3500-word guide in plain English to understand Blockchain https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blockchain-absolute-beginners-mohit-mamoria
Absolutely excellent article.  He does a great job of explaining blockchain for n00bs.  I'm going to use this and the Pluralsight class to create a presentation for my team.