Michael Will 🍁
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scidata.ca
Michael Will 🍁
@scidata.ca
computation from first principles 0101

FORTH PROLOG GOFAI RISC-V HPC Spaceflight Astronomy
Zebrafish SciFi CitSci Archaeology Anthropology Psychohistory

Website: www.scidata.ca
Discussion: worthdefending.blogspot.com
GOFAI Forum: gofai.discourse.group
With the crazy jump in RAM prices, the #RetroComputing community might do well to make adapters for using old memory in new computers, if that's possible.

#Legacy #RAM #DRAM
January 11, 2026 at 11:51 PM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
🥳 Major milestone for the 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Scottish Dark Sky Observatory: architectural designs are now public and isn't she a beauty! Two 5m 🔭domes, observing deck, solar-panelled planetarium, exhibition area & cafe.
Fingers crossed that planning permission gets approved!
ℹ️: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
📷: arpl
January 11, 2026 at 9:51 AM
In the early 1980s, ordinary citizens had access to real computing. Ubiquitous computational thinking was within our grasp. But sadly, the world fell into decades of sifting eye candy, and eventually became a wasteland of zombified slopchuggers.

Alas, what might have been.

gofai.discourse.group
January 7, 2026 at 4:51 PM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
A mini setup on the bench today, I needed to do some PET stuff and my main bench is full of a different project.
One of the first batch of SD2PETs (2019).
The first Mini PET (2020).
The first Deluxe Keyboard (2020).
Definitely not the first mini LCD from Amazon (2024).
All still working nicely.
January 7, 2026 at 9:53 AM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
I miss when the OS was a self-contained tool rather than an internet service. We had to manually configure the date and time, which was a small trade off in exchange for the independence.
January 6, 2026 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
HP-41C calculator from 1979
January 1, 2026 at 10:26 PM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
Making progress with my port of #PerilousSwamp to Tree Forth on #Minstrel4. #retrogaming
December 26, 2025 at 10:27 PM
Modern A.I. research bifurcates into generative and sensorimotor. The latter is often a euphemism for #GOFAI that transforms gauche into chic and minimizes the eye-rolls I get at klatches and seminars (attending, not speaking).

#AI
December 31, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Moby-Dick - the most important allegory in American literature. Still vibrant, still poignant, still scary.

#Anthro
December 6, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
kind of obsessed with this custom binding for Moby dick by Susan and Chaim Ebanks at Exeter Bookbinders
December 4, 2025 at 2:05 PM
#Ensloppification - the tsunami of machine-generated garbage that now substitutes for real content and craftsmanship.
November 28, 2025 at 3:40 PM
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxkj...
I don't give a hoot about what people have to say
I'm laughin' as I'm analyzed

#Toronto
The Kings - This Beat Goes On/Switchin' to Glide
YouTube video by thekingsarehere
www.youtube.com
November 20, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
Canada has announced an additional $528.5 million investment in ESA programmes at #CM25.
www.canada.ca/en/space-age...
Canada Deepens Space Ties with Europe Through Historic Investment - Canada.ca
Today, at the SpaceBound 2025 Conference, the Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, made the historic announcement ...
www.canada.ca
November 19, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
Doing a bit more experimenting with ZX81 #Forth multitasking on #Minstrel4th. Combined several example programs from user manual to make a real-time clock. A must-have for a personal computer in 2025! #retrogaming
November 17, 2025 at 7:55 PM
We have two rabbits. We don't call them that or even bunnies. We call them shnummies.

#namesforpets
November 15, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
Wonder why this scene looks so familiar...
#WildlifeWednesday 🐦🐕
November 5, 2025 at 6:57 AM
“One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis or heroic his imagination, is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him.”
- Thomas Schelling

#ComputationalThinking #Serendipity #Diversity
November 4, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
Beautiful remembrance of Brian Cantwell Smith, from Faculty of Information, University of Toronto: ischool.utoronto.ca/news/obituar...
Obituary: Brian Cantwell Smith (1950 to 2025) - Faculty of Information
Former dean wove philosophy and computation into a lifelong inquiry into the human dimensions of intelligence, judgment, and meaning Born into a prominent Canadian family known for both its intellectu...
ischool.utoronto.ca
November 4, 2025 at 12:52 AM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
What if one model could realistically predict the economy of an entire country? The entire world? A month-long working group, co-organized by SFI External Professor @doynefarmer.bsky.social, made the case that agent-based models may bring this vision to life:
Agent-based models move into the economic mainstream
In the 1980s and ’90s, SFI played laboratory to a promising new method known as agent-based modeling. In ensuing decades, agent-based models (ABMs) proliferated across many fields, including economics...
www.santafe.edu
October 28, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
We're looking for a postdoc for our new project on forecasting technological change - more details below
JOB OPPORTUNITY: Post Doctoral Research Associate in the Economics of Technological Change (2yr) ➵ https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/vacancies
Join the @oxmartinschool.bsky.social Prog. on Forecasting Technological Change, led by @francoislafond.bsky.social , @doynefarmer.bsky.social & @maxroser.bsky.social
November 3, 2025 at 3:48 PM
"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes"
- Edsger W. Dijkstra

#ComputationalThinking #DistributedComputing #HPC
November 1, 2025 at 12:06 AM
@realgdt.bsky.social FRANKENSTEIN stays true to the original theme: Artificial Intelligence is a very, very double-edged sword. Not simply a scientific achievement, but a doorway into a new reality. A fictional epic tale that rivals Darwin's great idea in importance. Mary Shelley was a visionary.
October 28, 2025 at 8:47 PM
"A physician without a knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician" - Hippocrates

#Romanticism vs #Science
October 27, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by Michael Will 🍁
NASA Citizen Scientist Michiharu Hyogo is featured in this article about authors of Zooniverse publications. He's a citizen scientist on the Disk Detective and Backyard Worlds projects, & he wrote a first-author paper. #astronomy @royalastrosoc.bsky.social academic.oup.com/astrogeo/art...
People power in action
Zooniverse is a platform enabling citizen scientists to contribute to research, and it may just form the foundations of a new scientific community
academic.oup.com
October 27, 2025 at 4:03 PM