TITLE: Things I've Been Reading
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: March 15, 2020  9:35 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:
 This was a weird week.  It started with preparations for spring break
 and an eye on the news.  It turned almost immediately into
 preparations for at least two weeks of online courses and a campus on
 partial hiatus.  Of course, we don't know how the COVID-19 outbreak
 will develop over the next three weeks, so we may be facing the
 remaining seven weeks of spring semester online, with students at a
 distance.

 Here are three pieces that helped me get through the week.

<B>Even If You Believe</B>

 From
<A HREF="https://blog.cloudflare.com/when-bloom-filters-dont-bloom/">
   When Bloom Filters Don't Bloom</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Advanced data structures are very interesting, but beware.  Modern
 computers require cache-optimized algorithms.  When working with
 large datasets that do not fit in L3, prefer optimizing for a
 reduced number of loads over optimizing the amount of memory used.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 I've always liked the Bloom filter.  It seems such an elegant idea.
 But then I've never used one in a setting where performance mattered.
 It still surprises me how well current architectures and compilers
 optimize performance for us in ways that our own efforts can only
 frustrate.  The article is also worth reading for its link to
<A HREF="https://hur.st/bloomfilter/">
   a nice visualization</A>
 of the interplay among the parameters of a Bloom Filter.  That will
 make a good project in a future class.

<B>Even If You Don't Believe</B>

 From
<A HREF="https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/slavoj-žižek-on-his-stubborn-attachment-to-communism-ep-84-bonus-8e568bd62423">
   one of Tyler Cowen's long interviews</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Niels Bohr had a horseshoe at his country house across the entrance
 door, a superstitious item, and a friend asked him, "Why do you have
 it there?  Aren't you a scientist?  Do you believe in it?"  You know
 what was Bohr's answer?  "Of course I don't believe in it, but I have
 it there because I was told that it works, even if you don't believe
 in it."
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

You don't have to believe in good luck to have good luck.

<B>You Gotta Believe</B>

 From Larry Tesler's
<A HREF="http://www.nomodes.com/pub_manual.html">
   annotated manual for the PUB document compiler</A>:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 In 1970, I became disillusioned with the slow pace of artificial
 intelligence research.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 The commentary on the manual is like a mini-memoir.  Tesler writes
 that he went back to the Stanford AI lab in the spring of 1971.
 John McCarthy sent him to work with Les Earnest, the lab's chief
 administrator, who had an idea for a "document compiler", a
 l&aacute; RUNOFF, for technical manuals.  Tesler had bigger ideas,
 but he implemented PUB as a learning exercise.  Soon PUB had users,
 who identified shortcomings that were in sync with Tesler's own
 ideas.

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 The solution I favored was what we would now call a WYSIWYG
 interactive text editing and page layout system.  I felt that,
 if the effect of any change was immediately apparent, users
 would feel more in control.  I soon left Stanford to pursue my
 dream at Xerox PARC (1973-80) and Apple Computer (1980-1997).
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 Thus began the shift to desktop publishing.  And here I sit, in
 2020, editing this post using emacs.
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