#programmers

There's a dismal sort of "anthropic" rationale for dismissing the idea that there's life anywhere else in #space other than Earth (if this IS Earth =) which goes something like this: very slight changes in such physical properties as the mass of the Sun or the range of chemical compositions found in the Solar System MAY, according to #software simulations which might very well be written by #programmers who can copy equations into software without the faintest idea of what they actually mean, have led to an alternate Earth devoid of life. Therefore, life exists nowhere but here. We're the lucky ones. If life exists elsewhere, so the rationale goes, it's got to have basically the same parameters as ours and here's where Dick Dawkins got really cute one day--he said that it's obvious the forms of Earth's biological evolution are optimal. (cont'd)

Should be widely read! I heard it on Cory Doctorow's podcast. "Hell Is Other People" "Not everyone feels this way. A subset of humanity is committed to a world where everyone else takes orders from them. We have different names for these people. We call the majority of them “toddlers,” but we call the others “bosses” or “tyrants.” " "These latter two groups ... are also among the people most excited about #AI. What’s more, the more powerful these people are, the more credulous and enthusiastic they are about AI." "Among #bosses, the most enthusiastic boosters are #tech #overlords. These #billionaires will not shut up about AI, and, tellingly, the thing they’re most excited about is the fact that AI might let them fire #programmers and replace them with #chatbots." https://locusmag.com/feature/commentary-cory-doctorow-hell-is-other-people/

The dangers of being exposed to a computer.⚠️ (Life Magazine, October 1967) https://blog.jgc.org/2026/06/the-eerie-interface-of-man-and-machine.html #computers #programmers

#UNIX is not just an OS; it is the ultimate #IDE for #programmers. Arguably the best written introductory book on UNIX programming is "The UNIX Programming Environment", Kernighan (1983). This book covers UNIX V7, but I used it with 4.2BSD. There is another jewel of a book of a similar kind, a free one to boot, by Prof. Ballesteros (King Juan Carlos University): "Introduction to Operating Systems Abstractions Using Plan 9 from Bell Labs" (2007). Prof. Ballesteros wrote this book to teach his CS students the fundamentals of good OS design. Although almost no one uses #Plan9 today, it is alive and kicking. It even runs on Raspberry Pi. Anyone interested in OSs and likes the philosophical underpinnings of UNIX should take a look at Plan 9. The other must-read book is his "Notes on the Plan 9 3ed Kernel Source" (2007). Prof. Ballesteros has many Plan 9 related publications in PDF format. https://lsub.org/books-papers/ PS—Those with a historical bent should also read Organick's "The Multics System: An Examination of Its Structure" (1980). Multix is the mother of UNIX, and Plan 9 is the grown-up UNIX.