MachineSpeak
LightNews LightNews
banner
machinespeak.bsky.social
MachineSpeak
@machinespeak.bsky.social
270 followers 370 following 180 posts
Engineer .. interested in "machine interpretable knowledge management", "informatic alchemy" .. and all sorts of other (mostly geeky) stuff.
Posts Replies Media Videos
machinespeak.bsky.social
March 29, 2025 at 7:34 AM
machinespeak.bsky.social
December 26, 2024 at 2:35 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
December 26, 2024 at 2:35 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Done!
Screenshot of "Thank You" page, after having given money to Wikipedia.
December 26, 2024 at 2:25 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
It's deeper than that. The image below is a simple illustration of how careful use of algebraic data types, combined with static type checking, can help ensure semantic correctness while writing the code.

Imagine these benefits in a large system, with vastly more complex, interdependent types.
December 13, 2024 at 8:19 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
My daughter works in a bougie food store, and mentioned recently serving a "lady from Cork".

I figured "gotta be a limerick" and there is ..

There was a young lady from Cork,
Whose Dad made a fortune in pork,
He bought for his daughter,
A tutor who taught her,
To balance green peas on her fork.
December 7, 2024 at 5:42 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Choose 2̶0̶ 1̶9̶ 1̶8̶ 1̶7̶ 1̶6̶ 1̶5̶ 1̶4̶ 1̶3̶ 1̶2̶ 11 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge
December 7, 2024 at 4:26 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Brownies .. for the price of Pi.
December 4, 2024 at 1:49 AM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Choose 2̶0̶ 1̶9̶ 1̶8̶ 1̶7̶ 1̶6̶ 1̶5̶ 1̶4̶ 1̶3̶ 12 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge
Cover of "Napoleon's Buttons", by Penny Le Couteur
December 1, 2024 at 8:28 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Choose 2̶0̶ 1̶9̶ 1̶8̶ 1̶7̶ 1̶6̶ 1̶5̶ 1̶4̶ 13 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge
Cover of "Göedel, Eacher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid", by Douglas R. Hofstadter
December 1, 2024 at 3:26 AM
machinespeak.bsky.social
“You have no regrets? Like, not even a single letter?”
Screenshot of "NO RAGRETS" tattoo, from "We're the Millers"
November 29, 2024 at 5:10 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Once you "see" the incredible variety of pollinators around, it's impossible to "un-see" them.

I got involved in a project to use image classification to distinguish between hoverflies and honeybees. I had never noticed hoverflies before, but once I knew about them I saw them everywhere.
Female Eristalis transversa consuming pollen from a Black-eyed Susan near Spring Mount, PA.
November 29, 2024 at 6:32 AM
machinespeak.bsky.social
💯 My concern is just that honeybee charisma seems to get over-mined a bit at the expense of bigger wider understanding of pollination.

That larger story is fascinating, and almost certainly more "actionable" by the general public.

For example, it's easy to set up a "bee-house" for Mason bees.
Image of "bee house", with small types that attract mason bees. Several tubes have been filled and capped off. Each tube normally contains six eggs. Each egg has a provision of pollen that will nourish the developing bees until they emerge in the following year. https://backyardbeekeeping.iamcountryside.com/plants-pollination/mason-bee-life-cycle/
November 29, 2024 at 6:22 AM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Choose 2̶0̶ 1̶9̶ 1̶8̶ 1̶7̶ 1̶6̶ 1̶5̶ 1̶4̶ 13 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.

#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge
Image of the cover of "The Fractal Geometry Of Nature", by Benoit B. Mandelbrot
November 28, 2024 at 6:57 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Choose 2̶0̶ 1̶9̶ 1̶8̶ 1̶7̶ 1̶6̶ 1̶5̶ 14 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge

Ain't gonna lie .. I can recite many .. possibly even most .. of the pages from memory
The cover of "Dr. Seuss's ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book!", by Theodore Geisel.
November 28, 2024 at 3:05 AM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Choose 2̶0̶ 1̶9̶ 1̶8̶ 1̶7̶ 1̶6̶ 15 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge
November 27, 2024 at 4:45 AM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Choose 2̶0̶ 1̶9̶ 1̶8̶ 1̶7̶ 16 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge
November 26, 2024 at 4:52 AM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Yo @utopicwork.bsky.social‬

I herd you reposted my repost of your post about a post about posting web posts in a PDS
Image of Xibit-themed meme generator making gentle fun of the very deep stack of re-posting and linking embodied in this thread. Xibit is invoked as the patron-saint of recursion. The macro states: Yo @utopicwork.bsky.social‬ I herd you reposted my repost of your post about a post about posting web posts in a PDS
November 25, 2024 at 5:32 AM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Choose 2̶0̶ 1̶9̶ 1̶8̶ 17 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge
Cover of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", by Hunter S. Thompson .. w/ illustrations by Ralph Steadman
November 24, 2024 at 9:01 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
No one should know better than Nigel Farage the ends that a determined opponent can achieve when properly armed.
Image of Nigel Garage, doused in milkshake.
November 24, 2024 at 3:37 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Out of the SID, and straight to tape ..
Image of MOS 6581 SID chip.
November 24, 2024 at 3:24 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Turns out, in Premier League play, Fulham recently beat Nottingham .. 1 to 0.
Screen capture of Sept. 28 Premier League match in which Fulham beat Nottingham Forest .. 1 to 0. "Really?" GIF from Ted Lasso.
November 24, 2024 at 3:11 PM
machinespeak.bsky.social
November 24, 2024 at 5:17 AM
machinespeak.bsky.social
So, it turns out that you can put pretty much anything that you want into any of the standard collections in a BlueSky PDS.

The app.bsky.graph.list seems like the the most promising digital "junk drawer".

The "Lists" UI seems to ignore these "non-conforming" objects.
Screenshot of Postman call to: POST xrpc/com.atproto.repo.createRecord showing how to insert an arbitrary object into a collection in the PDS.
November 24, 2024 at 5:13 AM
machinespeak.bsky.social
Blair Witch was some brilliant culture-jamming ..

"Produced on a shoestring budget, the film grossed approximately $249 million worldwide at the box office, making it one of the most financially successful independent films in history."
www.britannica.com/topic/The-Bl...

$249 million .. in 1999
iconic frame from "The Blair Witch Project"
November 24, 2024 at 3:22 AM