This article is about using large language models (LLMs) to write code, but gets there indirectly. First it talks about what makes things, such as programming and maths, hard and what doesn’t via a couple of historical things. Next, I will expand on complexity – how much is baked into some activity, and how much … Continue reading Whetstone of Witte, complexity and programming
Category: History
Dividing using subtraction
In this article I will go into a way of dividing that’s possibly unusual – repeated subtraction, with some doubling along the way. It’s related to other articles I’ve already done: Multiplying using doubling, halving and adding Multiplying using doubling, halving and adding 2 First, I’ll go into how we get division if we do … Continue reading Dividing using subtraction
Multiplying using halving, doubling and summing – part 2
This article is a follow-up to a previous article on multiplying by halving, doubling and adding. In this article I go through another way of approaching the same idea, that my wife showed me. This article, like the previous one, will switch between Roman numerals and Arabic numerals. I learned this on a counting cloth … Continue reading Multiplying using halving, doubling and summing – part 2
Palimpsests ancient and modern
This is a kind of follow-up article to a previous article about pairs ancient and modern for security. That article discussed how pairs help with security in old physical documents and objects, and also in modern electronic ones. This article goes into palimpsests and other ways of partially erasing things, for old physical things and … Continue reading Palimpsests ancient and modern
Arts and humanities in computing
You might work in software because you just like to build cool things. I understand this, and I also like to geek out about things like balanced trees and coupling and cohesion. However, you're probably building something to solve a problem for someone, rather than just building for the sake of it. Whose problem are … Continue reading Arts and humanities in computing
The lives and marriages of Henry VIII and his wives
Recently a historian friend of mine put some data on Facebook about Henry VIII of England and his wives. It showed how old the women were when they married him, how old when they died and how old he was when he married them. It provoked a reaction in me that has happened before with … Continue reading The lives and marriages of Henry VIII and his wives
Generative AI and skills
There has been a lot in tech news and opinion recently about what generative AI will or won’t do, such as take away jobs from programmers and testers. I’ve had a long enough career in software to be able to put generative AI in a bigger context, which I think helps to understand some of … Continue reading Generative AI and skills
Pairs ancient and modern for security
I was struck recently by how often pairs crop up in things to do with security, and for how long this has been true. I’ll go into two similar old techniques to do with documents – indenture and chirograph, and an old pair-based object (the split tally) and then two things enabled by the current … Continue reading Pairs ancient and modern for security
Representing numbers
I’ve recently been doing more maths than usual using Roman numerals, which has got me thinking about the relationship between how numbers are represented and how easy it is for them to do different jobs for us. I’ll go into a few representations below, and their good and bad points. I won’t talk about floating … Continue reading Representing numbers
Multiplying using halving, doubling and summing
I was introduced to an interesting way of multiplying two numbers (integers greater than 0) recently, at a Tudor re-enactment at Kentwell Hall. It took me a while to realise what was going on behind the scenes, at least in terms of things I already understood. As it also made me think in a new … Continue reading Multiplying using halving, doubling and summing
Random Tech Thoughts 