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MorlockP's profile
ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs
ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs
ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs
@MorlockP

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ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs

@MorlockP

Two-time Prometheus award-winning hard science fiction author. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005JPPMS6  Learn how to homestead https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093BC3K1T 

Aristillus Crater, Luna
amazon.com/dp/B005JPPMS6
Joined June 2012

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    1. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

      14/ looking at the number stored in location 931, and if it's 0 next moving on to mailbox 932 and performing whatever operation is stored there, but if that first number ISN'T zero, then instead going somewhere else and etching an instruction from that location.

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    2. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

      15/ but, key thing here, is the memory is linear. Addresses get bigger and bigger. In the urbit VM, memory is a tree structure. The first memory location has two children. Each of those children has two children. Etc. So to get to a certain memory location you can't just >>

      3 replies 1 retweet 37 likes
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    3. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

      16/ start at location 0, check your notes, see "ahh, we're going to location 9 million and 6 ...let's speed walk along this row of mailboxes till we get there". Instead you start at location 0 and then take a forking path: left, left, left, right, left, right, right right...

      2 replies 0 retweets 32 likes
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    4. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

      17/ The language, the 16 opcodes, that run on this virtual machine, are called Nock. Nock is insanely difficult to program in, so Curtis wrote a higher level language ON TOP of Nock, called Hoon ... which is ALSO insanely difficult to program in.

      3 replies 1 retweet 39 likes
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    5. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

      18/ OK, we're back to the part of the thread that normal people can follow. So, we've got this new programming language called Hoon, which runs on top of a new virtual machine. So what? Well, the software is free. You can download it and run it on your windows, linux, Mac >

      1 reply 0 retweets 35 likes
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    6. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

      19/ and when you do, the software on your machine is in connection with every other person in the Urbit-verse, or, rather, the software running on THEIR machines. You can type at your local Urbit, and interact with other people and their local Urbits. These local things >>>

      1 reply 0 retweets 30 likes
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    7. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

      20/ were once called "ships", then "yachts", and after three or four renamings they are now called "planets" or "comets". A planet or a comet is a bunch of things at once:

      2 replies 0 retweets 31 likes
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    8. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

      21/ At the top level, there are 256 regions of the urbitverse. They have short names. ~zod is one. These are called galaxies. Each galaxy is owned by someone, just like ".biz" in internet domains is owned by someone. Each galaxy has 256 subdivisions, called "suns".

      2 replies 0 retweets 24 likes
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    9. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

      22/ Each sun has a name, like "~hidted". Each sun has - I think - 65,536 subdivisions called planets, each with a name like "~hidted-docfel". I think planets can be subdivided into comets? When you download urbit, you get a comet for free.

      1 reply 0 retweets 30 likes
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    10. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

      23/ OK, recap: Urbit is a virtual machine that you can download and run. A basic language runs on that VM, a more advanced (but still batshit insane) language runs on top of that language. You get a window you can type in, and an address. Some addresses are free, but >>

      1 reply 1 retweet 33 likes
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      ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

      24/ "bigger" addresses, that contain a lot of stuff in them (like how ".com" contains "http://google.com " and "http://yahoo.com ") are more expensive. Once you own an address you can sell pieces inside it to other people. So...what does this get you?

      6:11 AM - 11 Mar 2022
      • 26 Likes
      • Giacomo Terrorist Zucco 🔗⚡🥩☠️🧱 Just A Steward General Hammond JDangerously Alea Iacta Est Redacted Covfefe Anon R H O D I E zywiec
      1 reply 0 retweets 26 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          25/ Theoretically, "because this software is new and designed by a genius, it is built on theoretically awesome foundations, and thus is either bug free, or at least it won't have insane architectural flaws that need to be patched over". ALSO >>>

          2 replies 0 retweets 29 likes
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        3. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          26/ There was new marketing talking point pasted on top ~3 or so years ago "With Urbit you own your data, so you can always walk away from a social network and keep all the data you built up" However...this claims seems nonsensical to me. Like, sure, in the ideal hippy >

          1 reply 0 retweets 34 likes
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        4. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          27/ universe where everyone who ever uses Urbit is a good person, and not motivated by greed, and agrees to "don't be evil", yes. But in reality, if Urbit ever took off, and there were for profit businesses inside the urbit network...there's absolutely no reason they wouldn't

          2 replies 0 retweets 32 likes
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        5. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          28/ build services exactly the way they're built now: you connect to the service, you do things, the service stores a ton of data about you and your actions IN THE SERVICE'S MEMORY / DISK ...and then when you want to walk away and chant "in Urbit the data belongs to users" >

          2 replies 0 retweets 37 likes
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        6. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          29/ The service (remember, in urbit), just laughs at you. They stored the data on their disk, in their urbit. It's not in your urbit. ~Amazon-nocsub-mobdex laughs at you so does ~Facebook-labtyl-fapmer

          1 reply 1 retweet 42 likes
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        7. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          30/ OK, I need to do some work now. I will continue this thread later today, perhaps, with critiques I have. If anyone has questions on what I've written so far, please respond to this tweet, and I'll try to answer later.

          6 replies 0 retweets 40 likes
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        8. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs Retweeted Philip Monk

          31/ Phillip, as you know, I was employed by Tlon for 18 months (one 6 mo contract, a yr off, then back for a 12 mo contract) and I heard the view expressed internally by multiple people "documentation should be bad, so that normies can't understand".https://twitter.com/pcmonk/status/1502307438023757829 …

          ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs added,

          Philip Monk @pcmonk
          Reminder that everyone who says this is making it up. I've been a part of the project for 8 years and have never seen anyone do anything intentionally to make things harder to understand (With the arguable exception of true==0) https://twitter.com/MorlockP/status/1502280882383695876?t=OIq_9owprmy772ryylWViA …
          Show this thread
          3 replies 3 retweets 58 likes
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        9. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          32/ The exact phrasing was something like "It's good that the wall is so hard to scale, so that only the best smartest people can make it inside. I don't want the normies to be able to understand. This should only be for the elite."

          4 replies 1 retweet 38 likes
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        10. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs Retweeted Philip Monk

          33/ /shrug How many documentation people have quit Tlon because their attempts to make things accessible conflicted with Curtis' dictates to only explain it One Way? At least two, I believe. >>>https://twitter.com/pcmonk/status/1502314551735304193 …

          ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs added,

          Philip Monk @pcmonk
          I've heard this a handful of times from people new to the project, but it's always been shot down, and has certainly never made its way to code or docs. Or maybe they just hide it from me... https://twitter.com/MorlockP/status/1502309589739573258?t=26GA_6b4iJGgvOyz9qsE0g …
          Show this thread
          2 replies 1 retweet 34 likes
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        11. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          34/ I actually started writing a book to explain Urbit to normies, modeled on Kernigan & Ritchie's "The C Programming Language". Curtis was excited about this (about 3 yrs back, IIRC?) but then got upset when he read a draft of the first 5 chapters "I was explaining it wrong"

          1 reply 1 retweet 41 likes
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        12. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          35/ ...so that's when I got disgusted and gave up on the project. So re @pcmonk 's quote "it has never made its way to the docs". It's exactly the reverse - no attempt to make things comprehensible has made its way to the docs. Maybe not intentional obfuscation, but >

          2 replies 0 retweets 30 likes
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        13. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          36/ intentional refusal to de-obfuscate / explain things in a way that 2 or 3 different docs guys wanted to, in order to reach normie users / coders.

          1 reply 0 retweets 30 likes
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        14. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          37/ Docs (at least as of 2-3 years ago; I admin that I have not checked since then) suffer from three problems: (a) a severe lack of organization. As anyone who has read Molds essays knows, Curtis loves discursive digressions. Essay on type theory shoehorned into docs on vars

          2 replies 0 retweets 31 likes
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        15. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          38/ (b) Obscure naming. The team (i.e. Curtis) was in love w 4 letter words (Tlon, Hook, Nock) and extended this to EVERYTHING. Which led to active anti-intuitive names like "gate", "wing", "door". Also, team (Curtis) rejected 90% correct analogies. >>>

          1 reply 0 retweets 39 likes
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        16. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          39/ e.g. Hoon has a concept of a chunk of code, that does a thing, based on input data, and this chunk of code is named. Is this a "function", a "procedure", something like that? NO!!! DO NOT CALL IT THAT. It differs in some subtle ways from a function, so don't call it that.

          4 replies 0 retweets 37 likes
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        17. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          40/ When I started writing a book on programming Hoon there was a very strong disagreement - the stance from the top was "if we call it a function, OR EVEN COMPARE IT TO A FUNCTION, people will be lulled into a false sense of security...so call it a "battery" so that

          1 reply 0 retweets 33 likes
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        18. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          41/ ...people will be INTENTIONALLY confused, and will have to approach Hoon from first principles. It is GOOD that they have no basis to compare things.

          1 reply 0 retweets 31 likes
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        19. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          42/ I ran a small tutorial group off site, and a dozen people followed EXACTLY when I explained "the 'battery' is a library of functions. The 'sample' is the arguments that are passed into the function. The 'context' is like the Windows registry, or the unix env vars"

          1 reply 0 retweets 36 likes
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        20. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          43/ a "core" is a library + some data for it to operate on. If a library has just one function in it, it's called a "gate". etc etc etc It took me MONTHS to decode these things ... and once I got it...it was all so simple. Bad docs / an insular culture kept me in the dark.

          1 reply 0 retweets 47 likes
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        21. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          44/ ...which gets me to (c) all the docs are circular / self-referential. It's ok to introduce new concepts with new names ... but you need to make a directional acyclical graph of concepts Good: animal - moves, respirates mammal - subtype of animal w hair dog - nice mammal

          1 reply 1 retweet 34 likes
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        22. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          45/ bad: hoon - a core core - battery + payload battery - left arm of core payload - sample + context sample - left arm of payload context - right arm of payload Note also that the definitions in the Hoon docs confuse two different things: concept and implementation

          1 reply 0 retweets 31 likes
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        23. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          46/ Explaining concepts is useful. Explaining implementation is useful. But they are distinct things, and the explanation of the two things should be kept separate. If a conversation is about the hot water heater and where in the house it's located, the context >>>

          1 reply 1 retweet 30 likes
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        24. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          47/ of the question "wait, it's in the basement? What's a 'basement' ?" wants an answer "a utility space located inside a house" and NOT "formed from cinderblocks with mortar binding". Both are useful, but, again, they need to be segregated.

          2 replies 1 retweet 36 likes
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        25. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          48/ So anyway, once I finally made the break through to understand Hoon ... it really wasn't remotely that complicated. It had like 1 new concept, and 30 new words for old concepts ... and there was absolutely no reason that I could not have understood it all in 4 hours.

          3 replies 3 retweets 39 likes
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        26. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          49/ And so basically a month of my life, and a huge amount of anxiety (bc I was doing contract work, and felt guilty and dumb for not getting up to speed ASAP) was caused by ... intentionally terrible docs. I'm still angry, now that I think about it again.

          3 replies 2 retweets 58 likes
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        27. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs Retweeted ROGUEWEALTH  📯

          50/ Because of the intentionally obfuscated / actively harmful docs, I can't recommend it. If the docs were not malevolent, I'd say "maybe, yes, to enjoy stretching your brain a bit". There's no ROI in the marketplace.https://twitter.com/ROGUEWEALTH/status/1502322704426455044 …

          ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs added,

          ROGUEWEALTH  📯 @ROGUEWEALTH
          Replying to @MorlockP
          Does it make sense to consider this a viable project to learn?
          2 replies 0 retweets 38 likes
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        28. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          51/ So, that was a lot of negative. On some positive (about the Hoon language): I do find a bunch of the experiments that Curtis did to be quite interesting, and there is a sort of artistic cohesiveness and simpleness to it that I appreciate. With good docs, I'd like it!

          1 reply 0 retweets 32 likes
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        29. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          52/ Nock is an interesting experiment in a minimal virtual machine, and I respect it for what it is. Hoon, OTOH, is a terrible language. There's the old quote "it is original and good...but what is original is not good, and what is good is not original." There's some of that

          1 reply 0 retweets 38 likes
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        30. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          53/ Every other programming language in the word uses keywords like "if", "then", "else", "try", "catch", etc. if you see code like if a==1 then print "equal" else print "unequal" end even a non-coder can figure this out.

          1 reply 0 retweets 26 likes
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        31. ⓘ Dogs don't have thumbs‏ @MorlockP Mar 11

          54/ Hoon does not use keywords. It uses an innovation - every thing that would be a keyword in a standard language is a "rune" (a two character sequence).

          3 replies 0 retweets 24 likes
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