[FRIAM] Where Metaphors (and Elephants and Spatulai) go to die?

[glen]

I think it's satire. Like the best satire, it can be difficult to tell whether or not it *is* satire. But if you look at their Success Reports, contributed by Profit First, Definitely Real Corp, Taxoptimal Inc, etc. even if they actually accept money to "liberate" software, there's quite a bit of tongue in cheek there.

As to your question - have we achieved declarative software? I think the answer is mostly Yes. There are some caveats. But if you don't really care what's "inside" the software and only care whether it "just works", then yes. But if you want the code to be "clean", "efficient", or any part of FAIR+, then not really. Plus, the ability to *read* code is more important than its ever been in my career ... which is good for me because I was always better at reading it than writing it anyway.

The essence of the satire is that there are some of us tech bros who seem enthralled by the hype. Some of us are reactionary luddites. And some of us are in between, trying to take advantage, cafeteria style, wherever we can.

I mostly posted it in analogy to written works like Dave's and Eric's books ... and as a booster to Marcus' point about AI "reading" as opposed to "copying".

On 3/25/26 12:24 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> Hey, Glen, for some reason, I read https://malus.sh/blog.html <https://malus.sh/blog.html> .  What do you think of it?  Is it really that easy to write code from specifications?  And by the way, do you know what malus means in Latin: Apple. Are these folks planning to conquer the earth?  Nick
> 
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2026 at 9:22 AM glen <gepropella at gmail.com <mailto:gepropella at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     https://malus.sh/blog.html <https://malus.sh/blog.html>
> 
>     "Thank you for the thousands of unpaid hours."
> 
> 
>     On 3/23/26 2:39 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>      > Except it didn’t copy it, it read it.
>      >
>      > *From: *Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> on behalf of Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm <mailto:profwest at fastmail.fm>>
>      > *Date: *Monday, March 23, 2026 at 1:38 PM
>      > *To: *friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>      > *Subject: *Re: [FRIAM] Where Metaphors (and Elephants and Spatulai) go to die?
>      >
>      > try anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com <http://anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com>
>      >
>      > deadline to tile is the 30th
>      >
>      > davew
>      >
>      > On Mon, Mar 23, 2026, at 10:00 AM, Santafe wrote:
>      >
>      >     I’m curious, Dave,
>      >
>      >     I have been receiving a lot of emails to join in various class actions against Anthropic as well, for a book I have through MIT press.
>      >
>      >     Since the emails are coming from several putative plainants, I was unsure how many of these are actually opportunistic scams.  Do you know of a watchdog on this topic?  I have been too clutter-minded to go after checking it.
>      >
>      >     Thanks,
>      >
>      >     Eric
>      >
>      >         On Mar 23, 2026, at 8:23, Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm <mailto:profwest at fastmail.fm>> wrote:
>      >
>      >         or - out of the blue - pay you for it. I am supposed to get a $3,000 check from Anthropic next month because they used my book, among 1000,000 others probably, to train Claude.
>      >
>      >         davew
>      >
>      >         On Sun, Mar 22, 2026, at 9:52 PM, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>      >
>      >             Never throw away a book; never throw away any thing u have written until  u have written a better vsn or  published it.  U can never tell when the world will come knock for ur thghts.
>      >
>      >             Nicholas S. Thompson
>      >
>      >             Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
>      >
>      >             Clark University
>      >
>      > nthompson at clarku.edu <mailto:nthompson at clarku.edu> <mailto:nthompson at clarku.edu <mailto:nthompson at clarku.edu>>
>      >
>      > https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson&c=E,1,uAt4_y_a0SsM6BS15TC9BhHaKQtI_0KWEX2jBmQPdwZTAy-mqvu4tQ4WGaXJ8AwyySoUBkCLGh2py1TjnRErWWK6pgdRJhbC4QW_pLJy9y6x&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson&c=E,1,uAt4_y_a0SsM6BS15TC9BhHaKQtI_0KWEX2jBmQPdwZTAy-mqvu4tQ4WGaXJ8AwyySoUBkCLGh2py1TjnRErWWK6pgdRJhbC4QW_pLJy9y6x&typo=1>>
>      >
>      > https://substack.com/@monist <https://substack.com/@monist> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fsubstack.com%2f%40monist&c=E,1,VSsFBTkBTJbN8ThACF8NmijxwOrcRwvMPELcVljc6I3LnjWIPjeTBxuHccuggJf83aRsc97zGCV-9Vo-67jfy1DO9xALe5csDWxrvUm_E40mw8QDsn1cgji3owg,&typo=1 <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fsubstack.com%2f%40monist&c=E,1,VSsFBTkBTJbN8ThACF8NmijxwOrcRwvMPELcVljc6I3LnjWIPjeTBxuHccuggJf83aRsc97zGCV-9Vo-67jfy1DO9xALe5csDWxrvUm_E40mw8QDsn1cgji3owg,&typo=1>>
>      >
>      >             On Sun, Mar 22, 2026 at 8:45 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com> <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com>>> wrote:
>      >
>      >                 Nick -
>      >
>      >                 > I would like to see it.  Resend. .
>      >
>      >                 If I didn't post it, I deleted it...
>      >
>      >                 My compulsions are equal parts composing such and deciding it is totally
>      >
>      >                 irrelevant to the conversation and deleting it.
>      >
>      >                 Yes, George is equal parts mind-reader and sycophant.  Very
>      >
>      >                 seductive/crazy-making combination?
>      >
> 
> 


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