Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

Hey mate. Lovely to see you again, as always.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings but seriously fuck off.”

I was reading Being and Time by Martin Heidegger (the NAZI philosopher) but when I read the following quote I decided it was nonsense and time to stop reading:

“Temporality reveals itself as the meaning of authentic care.”

The definition of ‘gestalt‘:

  1. A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.
  2. A collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic entities that creates a unified concept, configuration or pattern which is greater than the sum of its parts (of a character, personality, or being).
  3. Shape, form.

This video about “metamodernism” is interesting: The Rise of the Meaning Economy – A major paradigm shift is coming, this will reshape life and work!. It’s about adopting Asian philosophy as a response to postmodernism in the West.

“I’m all in on everything.”

“I read Nietzsche but all I can… yeah nah but so what?”

“Just Kant.”

How do you make a room smile at you?

There’s nothing good about evil.

There’s nothing right about right.

“Postmodernism is a round hole.”

“So what is it with your meanings?”

Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

Hey mate. Thanks for having me again!

The Man Who Sold The World is my strawberry shortcake. I think this was funnier when we were drunk.

The Mole is the SI unit of substance. One mole contains exactly 6.02214076×1023 parts (atoms, molecules, ions, etc).

Apparently the Ancient Greeks considered themselves facing the past and going into the future backward, as discussed here. It’s actually a cool idea.

Speaking of the Ancient Greeks, there was one bloke Heraclitus who said:

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

Not why should I, but how can I.

We listened to Weird Fishes/Arpeggi off Radiohead’s album In Rainbows.

In networking MIMO is multiple-input and multiple-output, wherein multiple signals are used at the same time.

Supposedly safe for humans. Supposedly. Are you brimming with confidence?

An opto-isolator is an electronic component that relays a signal using light and a light sensor. The idea is to make it impossible for high voltage to cross into a low voltage part of a circuit.

The Dave Grohl song I was talking about was The Pretender from the Foo Fighters back in 2007. There’s more info here.

As I mentioned I’ve stopped squishing bugs. I’m hoping to set a good example for future AI. :P If there’s a fly walking around on my computer monitor I just let it be. I did used to squish indiscriminately.

The computers I’m dreaming about are ‘contract‘ ($42,596) and ‘vision‘ ($20,486). Now I just need a cool sixty grand.

The recording settings I use in OBS Studio are these:

John's OBS Studio settings

The other options for Recording Quality are:

  • Indistinguishable Quality, Large File Size
  • Lossless Quality, Tremendously Large File Size

You can read more about Matroska over on Wikipedia.

The word “cromulent” was a made-up word which was used on The Simpsons to mean “acceptable” or “good”. Since then it has entered the English lexicon with the same meaning. ChatGPT has a good explanation.

You mentioned Bombs Over Baghdad.

There is a concept of “information hazard“, the idea is that just by hearing it you put yourself in danger. The classic example is Roko’s basilisk, so read at your peril. :)

Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

Hey mate. Sorry for the long delay in getting this one to you, I’ve been busy!

The book I mentioned was Overprescribing Madness: What’s driving Australia’s mental health epidemic by Dr Martin Whitely. I haven’t read the whole thing yet but I think it asks important questions.

Begging the question (also known as “assuming the conclusion”) is a logical fallacy that occurs when an argument’s premises assume the truth of the conclusion. Unfortunately this is widely misunderstood and usually when people say something “begs the question” what they really mean is that something “raises the question”, which is different altogether.

We discussed Philip K. Dick, a prolific science fiction author. At least I think we did. My notes actually say “Philip L. Dick”, but my search engine has never heard of him.

When they filmed the Landspeeder in the first Star Wars movie they put Vaseline on the camera lens. Apparently the Vaseline smear was nicknamed “the force field” during editing.

Existential dread (also known as existential crisis) is some negative emotional reactions many people who think too hard about the nature of life and reality often experience when they first come to realize they are living a brief life in an absurd world. It’s a real phenomenon. Actually happens to people.

I have a note here that some people pronounce UTS as “uterus”. Uncultured swine! :)

I’m listening, how can I help?

We discussed neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), which is a fun idea, but probably bunk. I dunno. I do believe that what we say to ourselves (our inner dialog) and others does affect our reality though.

GAF = Gay As Fuck. (Let that start affecting your reality.)

I have a note here that “that’s where modernity fails, and postmodernity triumphs”, but what that was in respect to is now lost to time (unless you remember).

How many dead friends? Easily seven good friends lost to suicide.

The Northern Lights are amazing and beautiful. I suspect I will never see them live.

Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

Hey mate. I had bit of an adventure on the bus up to visit you today. The bus ran out of AdBlue and we had to stop at the depot for a new bus. On the way I struck up a conversation with a few other passengers, talking about politics and philosophy and such. During the chat my interlocutors recommended two books for me to read, being Killing for Country: A Family Story and “Hold On, Let Go”, but there were multiple results for a search for “Hold On, Let Go” so I’m not sure exactly which book was recommended.

I found DisplayPort vs. HDMI: Which Is Better? which basically says DisplayPort is better but HDMI is good anyway.

Why are you giving me the secret signal to shut up?

So “EQ” is about “emotional intelligence”. There has been a lot written on the topic, this seemed like a good primer: How Can I Improve Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?

This guy Kyle Kingsbury, a.k.a “Aphyr“, is a first rate genius and a rather wild individual into… leather, and such. He did some excellent creative writing about programmers and their craft which I’ve documented here: The Technical Interview.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

The above quote from Tolstoy gave rise to what became known as the Anna Karenina principle: a deficiency in any one of a number of factors dooms an endeavor to failure. Consequently, a successful endeavor (subject to this principle) is one for which every possible deficiency has been avoided.

You made the observation that these days our narratives are more about individuals than in the past when they were more around collectives such as nations and religions.

My comment about Leonard Cohen was that he is an apologist for decadence and immorality. Also we joked that we could rewrite his famous song as “Everybody doesn’t know”.

I have told you about this before, but I mentioned again about Musk feigning thought in an interview. Check this out. He totally pretends to think deeply about the question! It’s awful to watch, like bad acting!

The TED talk about using paper towels: How to use one paper towel | Joe Smith | TEDxConcordiaUPortland. The fun part of this talk (apart from its central thesis) is the bit where he says “Why twelve? Twelve apostles. Twelve tribes. Twelve zodiac signs. Twelve months. And the one I like best: it’s the biggest number with one syllable.”

When Kurt Cobain gets asked why he named the album Nevermind: “I don’t know. So I could brush off the question.”

I mentioned about the cool retro games console I picked up from Vinnies for $15. I tell more about this and demo it on my video blog over here: In The Lab With Jay Jay – October 31, 2023 – Uboxing of Mini Classic Game Console.

Everyone is just collecting a paycheck.

You played COLD WAR KIDS – WE USED TO VACATION for us.

I kissed the kids at noon
Then stumbled out the room
I caught a cab

Ran up a tab
On 7th and flower
Beth's recital I had to run
Missed my son's graduation

Punched the Nichols boy
For taking his seat
He gets all that anger from me
Still things could be much worse
Natural disasters on the evening news

Still things could be much worse
We still got our health
My paycheck in the mail
I promised to my wife and children
I'd never touch another drink

As long as I live
But even then
It sounds so soothing
This will blow over in time
This will all blow over in time

I'm just an honest man
Provide for me and mine
I give a check to tax-deductible
Charity organizations
Two weeks paid vacation won't
Heal the damage done

I need another one
Still things could be much worse
Natural disasters on the evening news
Still things could be much worse

We still got our health
My paycheck in the mail
I promised to my wife and children
I'd never touch another drink
As long as I live
But even then
It sounds so soothing
To mix a gin
And sink into oblivion
I promised to my wife and children
That accident
Left everyone a little shook up
But at the meetings
I felt so empty
This will blow over in time
This will all blow over in time

I will have to remember to get you some Hail Mary credit cards… with flybuys.

My favorite contemporary philosopher George Lakoff did some great work on the topic of “moral accounting” and how we conceive of that. There’s a good introduction to the ideas over here: Metaphor, Morality, and Politics.

I mentioned Raymond Chen who is a programmer from Microsoft who has a blog The Old New Thing.

I mentioned that experts (to the extent they even exist) usually know the boundaries of their subject, as in they have an idea of its full extent. In contrast non-experts are still trying to get a grip on the boundaries and extent of the subject, and there are still a lot of grey areas for them which they haven’t yet seen beyond.

Jordan Peterson. Conservative. Weirdo. Yuck.

You don’t have to eat everything on your plate! If there was too much food on your plate it was wasted when it was cooked and served, not when you didn’t eat it! If you want to be moral and less wasteful with your food stop the waste by not cooking or serving food which you don’t need, or save what you didn’t eat for later.

Mark Osborne of Happy Product, Inc. fame made this landmark video: MORE.

You said that in life we have to do things which are bigger than us. And I agree.

Mo Gawdat is an important contemporary intellectual (author, speaker, etc). He used to work for big tech companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Google. He came up with the equation for happiness: “happiness is greater than or equal to your perception of the events in your life, minus your expectation of how life should behave.” He has made a lot of videos about the challenges we will face with AI which you can find on his website www.mogawdat.com. Two of his recent books include Solve For Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy and Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World. If you only have time for one of Mo’s video this one is a good one: Mo Gawdat: AI Today, Tomorrow and How You Can Save Our World (Nordic Business Forum 2023).

I mentioned the Curse of knowledge.

T-shirts:

  • I know you’ve got reasons, they’re just wrong
  • I grew up without a t-shirt
  • I grew up without a television, which is why I’m better than everyone else
  • <3

Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

Reading counts as productivity but 100% reading is problematic.

“Raise your words, not your voice. It’s rain that grows flowers not thunder.” — Rumi

Johann Hari wrote Chasing the Scream and recorded this famous TED Talk: Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong. We also discussed Hari’s other book Stolen Focus.

I did a quick search for pop3 email migration for iphone which suggests you can’t salvage POP3 email from an iPhone. I find that surprising. I’ve emailed a mate to see if this is true or not. Stand by.

As promised my keyboard unboxing video: In The Lab With Jay Jay – October 31, 2023 – Uboxing of FILCO Majestouch 2SS Edition 104-key and tenkeyless keyboards.

The USB HDMI adapters I have are these ones: 4K Audio Video Capture Card USB 3.0 HDMI Video Capture Device for Live Streaming. They have HDMI in and both USB and HDMI out. Which means you can have my old Forty7 AVerMedia BU110 ExtremeCap UVC, Multi-Colour, I will bring it next time I see you.

I found Dr Peter Brain on the web.

Economists talk about normative and positive.

Here is the article about organizational structure The Tyranny of Structurelessness and the article about bureaucracy Inside Bureaucracy.

I am one day closer to being the man I will ultimately be. (A dead man!)

Checkout Last Splash, a 1993 album from The Breeders with the fan favorite Cannonball. “I’m the last splash!”

We mentioned No Surprises by Radio Head.

My hard core dancing video is here: jj5 feels hardcore!. Let me know if it doesn’t play for you and I will find the original.

The video about suicide is here: “Why Do People Die By Suicide” – Lecture by Thomas E. Joiner, Ph.D..

I found Outkast – SpottieOttieDopaliscious but YouTube won’t let me watch it because of my ad blocker.

John Perkins has a new version of his book out: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 3rd Edition.

Check out Mr Inbetween.

I found There She Goes, My Beautiful World by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

And the last thing I have in my phone is: “Who beautiful?? It’s an ugly word” — and I have no idea what that means, I suspect I was quite drunk by that point. :P

Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

The famous quote about learning is:

Tell me and I forget,
teach me and I remember,
involve me and I learn.

…but its genesis is complicated.

The word for what subjective conscious experience is like is “Qualia.

The famous song Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles goes like this:

Ah, look at all the lonely people...
Ah, look at all the lonely people...

Eleanor Rigby,
Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,
Lives in a dream;
Waits at the window,
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door;
Who is it for?

All the lonely people...
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people...
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie,
Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear,
No one comes near;
Look at him working,
Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there;
What does he care?

All the lonely people...
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people...
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people...
Ah, look at all the lonely people...

Eleanor Rigby,
Died in the church and was buried along with her name,
Nobody came;
Father McKenzie,
Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave,
No one was saved.

All the lonely people (ah, look at all the lonely people)...
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people (ah, look at all the lonely people)...
Where do they all belong?

You can read all about the sociosexual behaviour of bonobos. There’s a lot to know! lol. In a similar vein there is xkcd Drama (people are complicated!).

You mentioned the “boredom of plenty” but I wasn’t able to find any more information on this. But I did find this interesting article: Boredom is not the enemy. Here’s how to make it work for you.

You mentioned the Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. documentary, I will try to find a copy and some time to check it out.

You mentioned Sling Blade, not sure how that one came up.

I mentioned Confessions of an Economic Hitman, looks like there is a new version out. False economics, threats, bribes, extortion, debt, deception, coups, assassinations, unbridled military power, etc.

I think me doing a philosophy section on my YouTube channel is probably an idea that only seems like a good idea when you’re drunk. :P

Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

I said I found a microscope cheaper on AliExpress than on Amazon, but actually I was wrong about that. In fact I found it cheaper on eBay ($333.29) than Amazon ($733.42). Nevertheless, my point stands. It pays to shop around!

I mentioned my video jj5 feels hardcore!. Let me know if that doesn’t play for you, I think I have the original kicking around somewhere… If this video doesn’t make you happy, nothing will… :)

You told me about Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends.

The I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-satire lawyer/jailer thing I mentioned is documented here: Um, America?

The academic accident I referred to was in The Hardware Lottery by Sara Hooker published in August 2020. In the essay the author says “risk adverse”. Of course the idiomatic expression she is aiming at is “risk averse” and she just got it horribly wrong. Not once, but twice. As I said, for a professional academic ignorance at this scale is… unbecoming.

My comment about academic whinging was: “There’s nothing more sleep inducing than a pompous academic having a whinge.” (If I could refer you to section three of the policy document, subsection five, article three A, there is a discrepancy regarding some thing I do not give a shit about…)

I mentioned How It Works (girls suck at math!)

The full quote is: “‘Why?’ is a stupid boring question to which all honest answers are a deception of the mind.” — John Elliot V

I mentioned Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. I will bring you your copy next time I see you. :) In the mean time you might enjoy: Rick Rubin: Legendary Music Producer | Lex Fridman Podcast #275.

Don’t forget to send me the name of the Sony headphones you recommend.

The LCD Soundsystem you mentioned was You Wanted A Hit. Classic.

Let’s not forget: It doesn’t have to be a bad thing!

Also, let’s not forget: everything you do is indelibly wrought in space and time. (No pressure.)

Also: hope is not a strategy. (Although some do not agree)

What is the difference between hope and faith?

Hope:

  • To wish for a particular event that one considers possible.
  • To have confidence; trust.
  • To desire and consider possible: synonym: expect.

Faith:

  • The assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition or statement for which there is not complete evidence; belief in general.
  • Specifically Firm belief based upon confidence in the authority and veracity of another, rather than upon one’s own knowledge, reason, or judgment; earnest and trustful confidence: as, to have faith in the testimony of a witness; to have faith in a friend.
  • In a more restricted sense: In theology, spiritual perception of the invisible objects of religious veneration; a belief founded on such spiritual perception.

Serendipity and The Three Princes of Serendip.

I have a note about “deesterous”, but I have no idea what that means. What were we talking about? I think I wrote it down phonentically, but the search engine is telling me “dexterous”, but that is not it.

Also we were talking about “flapping around in affluence”. What was that all about? Lost to time?

We discussed the Spectacle. More reading may be required, particularly of Jean Baudrillard.

The string theory guy is Michio Kaku. I’m worried he might be a crank. Or maybe he is brilliant. Who could say. I watched a video of him recently: Michio Kaku | Quantum Supremacy | Talks at Google.

AI and the paperclip problem is described here. The problem is if you design an AI to make paperclips it might destroy civilization. Because, to begin with, it might sense that humans might try to turn it off, which would impede its ability to create paperclips, so it wipes out humanity and uses the atoms of our bodies to make paperclips… I mean, it is *very good* at making paperclips.

We mentioned Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star. Classic. On the web here.

The Chillout Sessions began back in 2001. They don’t make ’em like they used to.

The concept of enshittification is explained by Cory Doctorow in Tiktok’s enshittification.

I mentioned about Musk feigning thought in an interview I watched recently. Check this out. He totally pretends to think deeply about the question! It’s awful to watch, like bad acting!

I mentioned the video game Descent. I remember playing it back in the nineties, it was so cool! I think there is Descent, Descent II, and Decent 3. Apparently I can get them all on Steam. Gonna try that. Want to get myself a good joystick to go with them, maybe this Logitech G 4021846 H.O.T.A.S. RGB Throttle and Stick Controller X56.

You asked what brings me joy, it is this:

Love you brother. Can’t wait to see you again soon. <3

Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

Lately I’ve been learning about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I would recommend you take the time to listen to Lex Fridman interview Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

I read RFK Jr’s new book: The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health. He is obviously deeply paranoid, and I’m not sure what truth he has.

Check out He Huang on Australia’s Got Talent 2022. So funny.

Steve the super villain says Switch to Linux.

The Sex Pistols song about abortion is Bodies.

The guy behind Designing the Mind is Ryan Bush, who I believe is from North Carolina, USA.

Recently I read The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. It’s about a wise man being questioned about various topics by the villagers in a village. It’s good! It’s full of good quotes, but one favorite was from the beginning:

“But as he descended the hill, a sadness came upon him, and he thought in his heart: How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city. Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret? Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache. It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.”

The book about positive thinking that I read recently is Magic Words and How to Use Them. It’s short and cheap and I would recommend it, if you can find some time for more reading! Here’s a quote from its philosophy chapter which is in the back of the book:

And now, we move on to the most exquisitely beautiful aspect of telling a positive story. Remember, the thinking mind’s job is to speak, comment, categorise and judge. And it does so every second that it is active. So, when we think about the world, we are always judging or categorising it. But, here’s the thing: reality, true reality, contains no judgement. Reality contains no opinions, no right and wrong. Reality just is. Judgement and categorisation are functions only of the thinking mind. All notions of good and bad, right and wrong, wanted and unwanted, are created by the thinking mind. All categories and concepts—even those we use for apparently physical objects like tables and chairs—do not exist in the outside world. If reality just is, it follows that it cannot be categorised or judged in any truthful or accurate way by the mind. This means all judgments, all categories, and all stories, positive and negative must be, to a certain extent, false. Yes, that’s right! All stories are false. However, it does seem to me that positive stories are truer than negative ones.

As I mentioned I recently read Man’s Search For Meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust. I suppose everyone should read this book, but it’s liable to make one sad. :( In the first half of the book Viktor Frankl describes his experience in Auschwitz. In the second half of the book he explains his theory of Logotherapy: which is “founded upon the belief that striving to find meaning in life is the primary, most powerful motivating and driving force in humans.” Here are two quotes from Viktor Frankl we should send to the Human “Resources” department:

“Since Kant, European thought has succeeded in making clear statements about the true dignity of human beings: Kant himself, in the second formulation of his categorical imperative, said that everything has its value, but man has his dignity – a human being should never become a means to an end. But already in the economic system of the last few decades, most working people had been turned into mere means, degraded to become mere tools for economic life. It was no longer work that was the means to an end, a means for life or indeed a food for life – rather it was a man and his life, his vital energy, his ‘man-power’, that became this means to an end.”

And:

“Under the influence of a world which no longer recognized the value of human life and human dignity, which had robbed man of his will and had made him an object to be exterminated (having planned, however, to make full use of him first—to the last ounce of his physical resources)—under this influence the personal ego finally suffered a loss of values.”

Here ChatGPT explains Linear vs. Switched Mode power supplies. Basically linear supplies are built with transformers and have nice clean output but are expensive and inefficient (they lose energy to heat); whereas switched mode supplies are built with transistors and are cheaper to make and more energy efficient, but their output can be slightly noisy due to the high-frequency switching.

A bridge rectifier is four rectifying diodes connected together and used to convert AC voltage into DC. There’s a good explanation about how these work over here: Full Wave Bridge Rectifier + Capacitor filters + half wave rectifier.

We discussed Severance the TV series. I should check that out.

I found a transcription of Revelations by Bill Hicks, which ends with:

“Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real.”
Just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn’t matter because: It’s just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here’s what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defences each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.

We should remember we don’t want to be “amplifying a bullshit signal and making a shit sandwich”.

Here is a fun comic from SMBC about consciousness:
SMBC comic about consciousness

The Desiderata is a beautiful poem.

The track is Cannonball by The Breeders. So good! Crash! I’m the last splash!

Everyone should read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance once in their life. It’s a book about “quality” and what it means.

The video editor I have been using is Kdenlive. So far so good but I don’t really know how to use it yet. Soon I’m gonna try making a time-lapse video with some footage of a tedious process, wherein I cleaned up and tested my whole 5% resistor stock.

And here is the photo of most of the networking in the lab:
Four network switches with coloured cables

It was lovely to see you, as always. Let’s do it again some time. :)

Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

I found OWC Docks & Hubs. This Thunderbolt 3 Dock looks pretty good.

The stomping kitties video I mentioned is Rathergood – Communist Kittens sing Tanz Mit Laibach by Laibach but unfortunately it’s been taken down for copyright reasons. :(

There are some notes about uniforms on Wikipedia, there are also a bunch of books on the topic of the history of uniforms over on Amazon.

I found a preview for Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. Might try and grab it on iTunes some time.

The Foo Fighters track that I said I thought was pretty good was The Pretender. But on listening to it again now it’s not about what I thought it was about when I thought it was pretty good! :P

The expression jamais vu is a sense of unfamiliarity with, or of never having experienced or seen before, something that should be familiar. Like when you walk into your bedroom and have the feeling like you’re seeing it for the first time.

The Prisoner’s dilemma is an interesting thought experiment from game theory.

Never forget Hits from the Bong from Cypress Hill.

The quote about how to fly from Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything is:

“The Guide says there is an art to flying”, said Ford, “or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”

I’m gonna put The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy in Five Parts on my wish list.

Also there is quite a lot of material on the subject of psychological boundaries.

Homework

This is a part of the homework feature of my blog, which is an ongoing conversation with my mate S.F.

Maybe start with The Circle, because it’s short, and I think it’s cool.

A TED talk from Sal Khan, the founder and CEO of Khan Academy: The amazing AI super tutor for students and teachers.

The Hardware Lottery, a paper about AI processing systems, contains the quote:

Perhaps more troubling is how far away we are from the type of intelligence humans demonstrate. Human brains despite their complexity remain extremely energy efficient. Our brain has over 85 billion neurons but runs on the energy equivalent of an electric shaver. While deep neural networks may be scalable, it may be prohibitively expensive to do so in a regime of comparable intelligence to humans. An apt metaphor is that we appear to be trying to build a ladder to the moon.

The concern with the efficiency of human brains is maybe they will be used as an AI platform? :( I hope not!

Also the author of The Hardware Lottery uses the phrase “risk adverse” twice in their paper, which is just so annoying.

The Chinese curse is: May you live in interesting times.

This is kind of hilarious: Laws of Computing. It’s a good example of one of those things where you’re not sure if it’s genius or quackery. :) (Hint: it’s quackery!) But it is good fun, and the author makes some allusions to the difference between Western and Eastern perspectives.

So the Time Cube is described as: “a pseudoscientific personal web page, founded in 1997 by the self-proclaimed “wisest man on earth,” Otis Eugene “Gene” Ray.” You can find a version of it online over here: https://timecube.2enp.com/.

The tildeverse is a loose collection of websites. I have an account on tilde.club over here: tilde.club/~jj5.

We were talking about Bluesky and I mentioned this article: Bluesky’s user safety situation.

Comedy for the ages:

An old classic: Nirvana – Oh Me (Live On MTV Unplugged, 1993 / Unedited).

The motto of the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland (3 SCOTS) is an infantry battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland: “No One Provokes Me with Impunity” — Bad ass!

I forget how this one came up, but wow: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – “Jubilee Street” (Official Uncensored Music Video).

I have purchased this one, but have not read it yet: The Courage to be Disliked: The Japanese phenomenon that shows you how to free yourself, change your life and achieve real happiness.

I tried to find the quote from the person who said “I write tshirts” for a living. It was in some movie, but I forget which one.

If you have some time you might enjoy some of my essays:

If you like Nine Inch Nails and anime, you will love this: Anime Music Video NIN The Becoming Lain, Akira & Ghost In The Shell.