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Submission + - NYT: It's the End of Computer Programming as We Know It

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Writing for the masses in It's the End of Computer Programming as We Know It. (And I Feel Fine.), NY Times opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo explains that while A.I. might not spell the end of programming ("the world will still need people with advanced coding skills"), it could mark the beginning of a new kind of programming — "one that doesn’t require us to learn code but instead transforms human-language instructions into software."

"Wasn’t coding supposed to be one of the can’t-miss careers of the digital age?," Manjoo asks. "In the decades since I puttered around with my [ZX] Spectrum, computer programming grew from a nerdy hobby into a vocational near-imperative, the one skill to acquire to survive technological dislocation, no matter how absurd or callous-sounding the advice. Joe Biden to coal miners: Learn to code! Twitter trolls to laid-off journalists: Learn to code! Tim Cook to French kids: Apprenez à programmer! Programming might still be a worthwhile skill to learn, if only as an intellectual exercise, but it would have been silly to think of it as an endeavor insulated from the very automation it was enabling. Over much of the history of computing, coding has been on a path toward increasing simplicity."

In closing, Manjoo notes that A.I. has alleviated one of his worries (one shared by President Obama): "I’ve tried to introduce my two kids to programming the way my dad did for me, but both found it a snooze. Their disinterest in coding has been one of my disappointments as a father, not to mention a source of anxiety that they could be out of step with the future. (I live in Silicon Valley, where kids seem to learn to code before they learn to read.) But now I’m a bit less worried. By the time they’re looking for careers, coding might be as antiquated as my first PC."

Btw, there are lots of comments — 700+ and counting — on Manjoo's column from programming types and others on whether reports of programming's death are greatly exaggerated.

Submission + - Earliest evidence of horseback riding found in 'eastern cowboys' (science.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: About 5300 years ago, people from the steppes of modern-day Russia and Ukraine expanded rapidly across Eurasia. Within a few centuries these “Yamnaya” left a lasting genetic mark on populations from central Europe to the Caspian Sea. Today, archaeologists call them “eastern cowboys” for their livestock herding and highly mobile lifestyle.

But one part of the classic cowboy picture was missing: horseback riding. Although cattle bones and sturdy wagons have been found in Yamnaya sites, horse bones are scarce, and most archaeologists assumed people did not start to ride horses until at least 1000 years later.

In a new study, presented today in Science Advances, researchers say they’ve found the earliest evidence of horseback riding not in the bones of ancient horses, but in their Yamnaya riders. As part of a research project on the Yamnaya expansion, Martin Trautmann, an anthropologist at Helsinki, and colleagues looked at more than 50 skeletons excavated from grave mounds in Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria—the western frontier of Yamnaya expansion. The Yamnaya were well-fed, healthy, and tall; the chemical composition of their bones showed protein-rich diets consistent with herding cattle and sheep. But the skeletons showed signs of distinctive wear and tear.

Many had compression of the vertebrae, which can result from time spent absorbing jarring bumps while seated. They also showed thick spots on the thigh bone consistent with lots of time spent in a crouched position. Healed injuries—broken collarbones, fractured foot bones, and cracked vertebrae—matched the kinds of damage a kicking horse might inflict, or what sports medicine doctors today see in riders thrown from their horses.

One Yamnaya man, buried around 2700 B.C.E. in what is today Romania, had all the bone alterations routinely seen in horse riders, plus spinal damage from a hard fall “on his backside,” the authors write. “In a medieval population, it would have been clear this guy was a horse rider,” they say. “As so often in archaeology, the coolest finds are the ones you’re not looking for.”

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