2022⌗

23 June: Tab roundup from this week — most of these are from HN but whatever:

  1. Here is a pretty well-written gears model of some things I’ve suffered from. Here’s some ideas for tackling them. Beware the usual Reddit chuds.
  2. Here is a PL expert talking about Lisp. This makes the part of me that needs to get around to reading the rest of SICP very excited.
  3. List of drone/progressive electronic music. I originally bookmarked this for psychedelic treatments, but it hits a lot of the same points as Zimina’s list, which has been a great waypoint for getting into onkyo/EAI.
  4. A HN discussion about technical writing. I’m looking for styles to crib from that hit the sweet spot between elegant and polite; I often feel that my own style a bit too condescending. I’ve seen the same threads in others' writing as well. An interesting problem to have, for sure.
  5. Posts on elegance in text editing: One. Two. Akkartik’s blog in particular is really pretty.
  6. Applied Language is the post-collapse, anarchist tech blog I didn’t know I needed. Plus they cite Nyx Land, who largely started me down the road I’ve found myself on.
  7. I didn’t realize that That One AI Company had a blog. While I still hew jealously to my opinions on AI and state, it’s a breath of fresh air to see people with actual degrees working on the Eliezer shtick.
  8. Speaking of LessWrongers, Zac Hatfield-Dodds has a blog. “Interpretable AI” is possibly the best you can do in the area of AI safety, besides possibly “no AI at all.”
  9. Out of post-workout curiosity the other day I started wondering what was up with the really light radioelements (technetium and promethium.) This led me to the Mattauch isobar rule, which is just chef’s kiss levels of elegant. Relatedly, I also got my hands on a copy of Chemistry of the Elements, which makes my brain produce the Good Chemicals in abundance. It’s like a tome that contains all of my childhood wonder at the periodic table.
  10. Laurence Pakenham-Smith has a pretty neat blog.
  11. I understand none of this but it looks cool.

14 June: I discovered today that my morning cup of coffee was suffering because I was using water from a refrigerated Brita filter rather than water from the tap. A Prima Coffee article confirmed my suspicions.

13 June: I found out that Bill James has a blog.

4 June: Some cool thoughts on systems of measure and worldbuilding more generally over on LessWrong. I love reading about things like this. See also jan Misali telling a very long and elaborate joke about measurement.

3 June: A couple of interesting posts on Rust today:

  1. Rust is Hard, or the Misery of Mainstream Programming
  2. (async) Rust doesn’t have to be hard

My Rust knowledge isn’t where I’d like it to be, so these are mainly just bookmarks for later.

And a balanced take on effective altruism from Michael Nielsen. EA bothers me for a few reasons, but mainly I feel I have more urgent things to do with my time. I also have some philosophical issues with the AI safety folks. I’m interested in writing more about my experience with LessWrong and rationalism in general in the near future.

1 June: I was watching the Mariners documentary again. Looking at that timestamped chart, I wondered about the spike in home-run hitting in the 1880s. It turns out that that was the 1884 Chicago White Stockings, who had approximately the smallest outfield ever (the left-field pole was closer than 200 feet.) Fuck, I love baseball. It’s like a microcosm of how ridiculous humanity is.

31 May: I finished Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion. I’m probably too young to be capable of experiencing it as it was experienced when it came out, but it was a compelling read nevertheless. I found the descriptions of under-the-table abortions especially chilling in the current political climate. I also came away with a distinct appreciation for being properly medicated. Living in the 2020s does have some perks.

30 May: I found Programming in the Apocalypse to be a breath of fresh air. It’s fun to dream of a world in which the Web doesn’t permeate every corner of our lives quite like it does, in which solar-powered websites are commonplace, and perhaps in which walled gardens do not have me and my friends by the throat. It’s also reassuring to know that I can hope for steady work maintaining old systems. Writing C in 2050 sounds like fun. Writing Rust in 2050 sounds more fun.

29 May: I registered and deployed this website.