I have a bad habit of posting quotes here unattributed,
most often because context doesn't matter compared to the power of the words. For example, this quote, https://thoughts.learnerpages.com/?show=cf045c64-f54f-423f-b682-52b99c7294d2, ("You may be looking at the last person in America not online") sounds so fricking good.
But it also means that I'm trusting myself to remember where the quote came from. I've been racking my brain, and I can't remember who the Last Person in America Not Online is. It's not indexed by Google (except for this page). Nothing in my browser history from that day is promising. (Except for me searching for that phrase?) Yet the quote was definitely written out online in some context. (Probably an image posted to Reddit, then?)
The Internet is a weird place.
WHY. WHY. Why can't we make software that works!! !1‽‽‽? Please! Someone explain to me! There's a bug open in MultiMC that has been open for
2 years! And there's a PR that will fix it open on Github and the maintainer won't merge it! Because they insist that it's Apple's fault and not their fault and they shouldn't have to fix their application. And I just want to be able to CLICK the BUTTON in MultiMC without the application freezing!!!!! I'm so done. I want to delete the KA Extension but Luke won't let me. Because I'm part of the problem. My code is awful garbage too! Please.
On people who watch Minecraft Youtube videos: "Many of the viewers are North American schoolchildren in the 10-13 age range, a lot of them
are behaviorally challenged, and the majority are dealing with some form of parental neglect."
42 votes, 2 awards. Posted by the moderator a subreddit about a Minecraft Youtube series.
Like, that is something you say. You can say 'most people who watch Minecraft videos are abused, autistic, children.'
I'm struggling here.
There's *always* a temptation to group files by type, and I've just never found it to be a good idea. It makes the code easy, sure, but it's
more intuitive to have files that relate to each other in the same place, rather than with files of the same type, that might have completely different content. Like you shouldn't put your images in one folder and your text in another. You should make one folder for each post, and have the images and text for that post in it.
This is an exercise. An exercise in pain. An exercise in art.
Multitasking, focused, ignoring. 2 things at once. Under stimulated. Overstimulated. Bored, lonely, scared, uncomfortable. Flying through nothing, unmoving. Unthinking. I cannot, in light of my overwhelming pride, allow myself to think other people's thoughts. I cannot listen. Two things at once. Overthinking. Slow. They're slow. They talk about nothing. The brain. Liminal. "It's not just easy." This is an exercise in pain. Conciseness. Flow. Always moving, throbbing, pushing forward. Moving where? Why can't we teleport there? Stop the beating around the brush, the repetition, the pain. The why! I want the why. I want depth, not this endless breadth. This endless, unmoving, breadth. I've run out of energy to argue, to question; I just ignore. It gets harder, but instead of moving faster, it moves slower.
“emphasising the composition of generic and reusable (pure value returning) library functions”
*reimplements Haskell in JS*
I had to see this, so you do too. Some of the worst JS I’ve ever seen. I can’t fall asleep, it’s scaring me. Why would you reimplement the Haskell standard library in JavaScript??? Are pure functions that important to you? Is partial application of function arguments worth creating a syntax for calling functions that I’ve never seen before? (It would be slightly better if you were using the ES7 `|>`.) If you care that much, allow me to point you to some excellent functional languages that compile to JS (Elm, OCaml). Ah, you say, ‘but what about when I have an infinitely long list (represented by this generator function), then the JS standard library is useless.’ Infinitely long lists aren’t a thing, I don’t care, go outside.
http://www.rosettacode.org/wiki/Determine_if_a_string_has_all_the_same_characters#JavaScript
The Count of Monte Cristo: *makes a philosophical comment*
*Paraphrase from Chapter 48: Ideology*
Villefort, the King's Attorney, responsible for overseeing the courts of France: Why do you philosophize. If I, like you, had nothing better to do, I would do something more interesting.
The Count: Do you really think you have better things to do?
Villefort, shaken: Perhaps, since you have spent so much time in countries less civilized than France, you are unfamiliar with our justice system. (Okay, Villefort is more racist in the book.)
The Count: In fact, I have made a philosophical examination of the justice systems of all the countries of the world. I find that those more primitive nations, which use the law of retaliation, do better a better job of achieving justice, as measured against the law of God. Human inventions march from complex to simple, and simplicity is always perfection. So perhaps then you will have nothing to do.
Villefort: Maybe so, but until then, I spend a lot of time studying our complicated laws.
The Count: Sure, you might know the laws of France, but I also know the laws of the Enlgish, Turkish, Japanese, and Hindu. And so I'm right in saying that you haven't done anything, since I've done so much more relative to you.
(I can't handle this book. It's all like this, you have to parse the 1800s grammar, but then it's just The Count roasting the hell out of everyone. Nothing advances the plot, it's just The Count toying with his food. It's not subtle at all.)
The Count: "I see that in spite of [your] reputation...as a superior man, you look at everything from the...most narrow view which it is possible for human understanding to embrace."
Villefort: Waht
(It keeps going. I can't! The Count is like, I'm the enlightened of God, and Villefort gets sassy with him.)
Villefort: "Excuse me if I was unaware that I should meet with a person whose knowledge so far surpasses the usual knowledge and understanding of men." It's rare for "us corrupted wretches of civilization" to get to meet someone like you.
The Count: Really, you couldn't tell I was special? I thought you were a discerning person. (That's how I paraphrased it. The text is "do you never use your eyes?")
(The Count alludes to angels here.)
Villefort: So you believe in angles of God.
The Count: Of course, I am one.
(I have to cut The Count's monologue here. If you want to read it, I'll happily send you a picture. The highlight is "What men call the chances of fate—namely ruin, change, circumstance—I have fully anticipated.")
Villefort: So then you're the only perfect person?
The Count: "No, not perfect, only impenetrable."
(It keeps going! I have to stop here. It's your loss that you don't get to hear about how The Count sold his soul to Devil to become the hand of God.)
The mere act of summarizing or omitting information can be problematic.
60 Minutes cut an interview with DeSantis in a way that has caused me to re-lose a fair amount of faith in the main-stream media.
(I really don't like PolitiFact's "If Your Time is Short," I recommend skipping down and reading both transcripts.) https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/apr/07/unpacking-edits-60-minutes-report-ron-desantis-flo. I couldn't find clips from either 60 Minutes or The Florida Channel that were free from biased analysis, but I recommend watching the full clips if you can.
The media has not learned from their poor coverage of Trump and is continuing to value a narrative over sharing facts. Please just give me the facts and let me decide for myself. I will continue to reject headlines at face value.
I think fungi are neat and we should allocate a large portion of the U.S. military budget to studying them.
I have said previously, that I would not be willing to work for the U.S. military in any capacity. I would make an exception if they paid me to study fungi.
I am re-reading but a few chapters of *The Count of Monte Cristo*. It cannot handle it, this was a mistake.
Morrel is like 'death before dishonor', and picks up a pistol to kill himself.
His son walks in, 'what horrible violence is the pistol for?'
Morrel: 'We have no money. Our debts will not be paid and the name of Morrel will be dishonored!'
His son: "You are right father; I understand you." "There is one for you and one for me—thanks!"
You can't make this stuff up. The book is fricking wild.
Ah, my nemesis, the chocolate chip cookie, has defeated me for a fourth time.
I’m being dramatic of course, they’re not bad. They’re just not flat like I want them to be. Maybe my standards are too high. But the pictures from the recipe I’m following end up with fricking pancakes, and I have these domes of cookie. Maybe my expectations are too high.
Thinking about Mr. Right (2015). Talk about a movie.
The trailer almost doesn't do it justice because it spoils everything, and it doesn't have the right pacing. It's almost Douglass-Adams-esque, in that it jumps around wildly, but it flows between pieces well. As opposed to Dirk Gently (ooof, I can't really pull in a Douglass-Adams work as my "as-opposed-to." Screw it, I mean the TV show, I haven't read the book.) which jumps around erratically, with no flow. This Thought is very difficult to parse, I'm sorry. I don't care enough to re-write it.
“They’re people who are convinced that they are too special for rules, and too smart for education. They don’t regard themselves as inhabiting the world the way other people do; they’re secret royalty, detached from society’s expectations and unfailingly outraged when faced with normal consequences for bad decisions. Society, and especially economics, is a logic puzzle where you just have to find the right set of loopholes to win the game. Rules are made to be slipped past, never stopping to consider why someone might have made those rules to start with.”
The Lisp people are all, 'There's no point writing lisp unless you're writing it in emacs'
"Common Lisp should be used with an IDE made for interactive development, otherwise you lose a key feature."
Iconic. I'll stick with the REPL for the time being
Yes I am learning lisp. Every lisp programmer acts like every other language is hell. And like, Rust has fanboys who tell you that your language is worse. The lisp people are like, 'go for it, but I would rather write it in lisp' and that sounds powerful.
Last night I started thinking about Russel's teapot again and I think I utterly confused myself. What's the point of the thought experiment?
Something about how God doesn't exist because we can't prove Him to exist with science. But I thought the teapot thing was supposed to be an atheist position. But it only serves to prove that there are questions that science can't answer. I don't know, I don't get it.
At some point I convinced myself that wanting to have a relationship with women is misogynist.
Like, if the interest is one-sided, then that's more than just awkward, I've actually been sexist. A little like https://xkcd.com/642/, but not just for random girls on public transport, but also for literally anyone. They have a right to professionalism and if I try to bring my personal life into the conversation, I've violated that right. I guess I've only talked to 4 girls in-person in the last year, but that's mostly due to COVID.
On the flip side, if I try to start a romantic relationship with someone that I've known longer than 3 months, then I'm scared of https://xkcd.com/513. Man xkcd is too accurate with these things.
"Am I ready for love? Or maybe just a best friend, should there be a difference, do you have instructions?" -Turning Out, AJR
People don't understand that I have executive functioning issues. I cannot do anything except on impulse. I'm terrified of making a mistake.
I think this is my whole generation, but I don't want to project. Everyone is all, "sign up" for whatever. Like, that's an extra click, my odds of doing whatever you're inviting me to do have decreased by 90%.
I can't take it. I'm just broken. I can't imagine social interaction at all.
'Well actually, the number of children in cages has gone down significantly during Biden's presidency.'
'The two party system is fundamentally flawed. The only person that can bring real change is Bernie, which why I voted for him.'
'The US has always been right-wing.'
'Nothing ever changes'
You’re trying to prove all toads are frogs? Idiot. Don’t you know that Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem states that under any system of
formal logical complex enough to prove toads are frogs will also include paradox? Logic is dead. Help by establishing a societal system for punishing people abusing toads.
Matthias's programming language of the day is [ReScript](https://rescript-lang.org), a language that compiles into Javascript, but is
designed to encourage functional paradigms. It's strictly typed, and places an even greater value on type-safety than TypeScript. Much like Rust, it's designed to be similar to common, modern languages, while still being compiled and taking advantages of the safety that results. (It's of course garbage collected, since it compiles to JS.) Syntax is similar to JS. Prominently, all primitive variables are constants; if you want a mutable value you have to wrap it in an object. It encourages pure functions, doesn't have any `null` or `undefined` types, and (in most cases) can infer types without needing type annotations. Because of compiler time optimizations, it boasts faster run times and smaller source files than comparable JS. The compiler is written in OCaml.
Here's a weird idea I've had for a bit. It's hard to describe, but imagine a browser that supported plugins for other file types.
I say it's hard to describe, because if you remove HTML as a first class citizen, i.e., HTML support is also a plugin, then what I'm describing is really an operating system.
So imagine this operating system, that looks just like a browser—it has an address bar and tabs and that's about it. No other "applications." Not just a tabbed window manger, because the address bar is also super important here.
In browsers today, you type a link to an HTML page in the address bar, and it opens. And you enter a link to an image, and it opens. Browsers can open PDFs, images, html, sometimes folders, and plaintext. But that's it, as far as I know.
What if you had a browser that supported those file types by default, but also supported plugins to open and edit other types of files. Websites already send a Content-Type header that the browser uses to decide what type of content it is. What if I could register a plugin for a different Content-Type, like text/markdown, and then the browser could use this to open markdown files and read them.
This removes the need for browsers to focus on making everything. It really separates the "browser" as a loader for these file types from the "browser engine" that parses HTML and runs javascript. Because the second task has become so daunting, it's really impossible to write a browser. But there's still a lot of room for improvement with the first problem. Why can my browser open all these file types, but not edit them? Obviously, PDF editing is out-of-scope for browsers today, but why then can I open a PDF file? I can open a folder from my SSD in my browser, but the item listing hasn't been touched in 10 years, it looks like. In 2021 markdown is a super common format, but markdown didn't exist when the browsers were being written, so it's not supported. And today, the browser makers are worrying about other things. If they let someone else write a markdown render, it would make the browser better.
I could probably achieve a similar effect by using Atom with a browser plugin. Atom's vast array of plugins for different files is one of the inspirations for this idea. Or a tabbed window manager, like I mentioned. But those miss the idea of an address bar. It would be cool if I could type in the same box, "https://apple.com" and get a webpage or "file:///bin/zsh" to get a shell.
I had a dream that I was in a forest of metals trees that were Queen songs. There was a snake, and I grabbed the snake behind
the head, like you're supposed to, and the snake was also ranked bedwars all star player nohuh. And my grip slipped, and the snake scooted forward and was able to turn its head like 90º, but couldn't quite bite me. But I was worried that if I brought my other hand over, it would be able to bite me, and I couldn't, like adjust my grip to where I was holding it safely again without my other hand. So I'm just squeezing this snake behind the neck, pretty hard, because I don't want it to slip out. I considered just squeezing super hard and trying to kill it, to be safe, but that's very against the morals of the recreational snake hunting club that I'm in. Because if you kill all the snakes then you can't catch them anymore. And then I woke up.
I really value consistency. Even though I wasn't watching Bill Wutrz in 2014, it makes me happy that I can go back and find his videos from
then and they're the same as they are now. It makes me feel better about saying that I like him or his content. I trust that his content accurately reflects what he wants to be making, as opposed to just trends, and makes me optimistic that he will continue making similar content in the future.
Anyways, watch this:
https://youtu.be/TgZH9s788mQ
When you're a kid, there's this distinction between things that happen to your body as a result of the passage of time (growing)
and things that happen as a result of your actions. There's a weird period from 25-45 where your body doesn't really change except for as a result of your action. And then you start seeing changes as a result of the passage of time again. But we don't call that growing, we call it aging or something.
GEB is just like, ‘let’s imagine a computer with words of 36 bits.’ I’m so confused. Why not 32?
“When a computer program is running, it can be viewed on a number of levels. On each level, the description is given in the language of computer science, which makes all the descriptions similar in some ways to each other...” 287
My problems:
I don't have enough time.
I'm not an artist.
My nails are too long.
I'm not a good enough writer.
I haven't read the material.
I don't have enough time.
My parters don't share my vision.
I really fricking want to be wierd. And in some ways, I'm sure everybody does, and I tell myself that I need to keep myself together and act
normal because everyone else does. But also, I go on Omegle and I say weird things, and they disconnect instantly. In a safe, anonymous environment, I can't think of people being weird. Like, I just want to scream gibberish and do a handstand and throw things. Does no one else?
When I say all software is bad, I don’t mean that every software responses poorly to good input.
Making software that responds to good input is easy. Making software that does exactly what you want is easy. But there are so few softwares that do everything well. That respond well to all inputs.
I think that ties to Godel’s Theorem, but I haven’t finished GEB yet.
I can render my markdown on the client side, where it takes 1.5 seconds, or on the server, where it takes 3 seconds. I hate this.
The issue is the images that I’m in-lining take forever to render as text on the client, and HTML layout has to finish before JS can run. So I was going to move it to the server, but the Python markdown library is just slow, to no one’s surprise. All software is bad, and anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you software.
The thing about analyzing AJR is that they have such a broad range, that there's "doesn't sound like other AJR songs" and there's
"doesn't sound like AJR" and they are completely different things. "Ordinaryish People" has sounds that I've literally never heard before. It doesn't sound like anything else. But it sounds like AJR, because what other band is going to give a dubstep remix of the Blue Man Group's unconventional acoustic instruments.
I love #cat-v because someone comes in trying to start a conversation with a Stallman petition, and everyone ignores them.
They are clowning on me for using plan9 utilities. I this person wants me to use the full OS or bust.
I ask for help, and they're like, 'that's how it's supposed to work.'
People say having two dads wouldn't be that bad. But I had a dream last night that I was sitting with my family and my dad came up to the
door from the backyard, so I let him in. And then I realized that my dad already was in the room. I went to the kitchen and got a knife. And we just kind of sat there calmly, but with the tension of knowing that I was going to have to stab one of them and if I guessed wrong my whole family would die. It was pretty terrifying, would not recommend.
Matthias's guide to getting started with Blaseball!
0. Decide you want to. Blaseball is a simulation where fake teams, with randomly generated players with made-up names play each other. You interact with Blaseball as a fan, watching games through a minimalistic text format. In addition to the rules of B*seball, there are lots of twists that Blaseball adds. For example, last season, one of my team's pitchers became a terrible batter, before they were killed a few games later. The value in Blaseball comes from being able to interact with other fans, much like being a fan of a normal sports team, but more exciting. Blaseball games are played every hour, Mon-Fri, with a postseason on Saturday, and elections on Sunday. This ensures that there's never a null moment, and there's always something weird going on to talk about.
1. You're convinced? Let's go. Head to https://www.blaseball.com and create an account. Then pick a team. I'm a big fan of picking teams with no information other than the name.
2. Join the official [Blaseball Discord](https://discord.gg/3uFgJhu). Read the rules and all that jazz, find your new team in #choose-your-team, and click it. This gives you access to your team's channels. Introduce yourself, this is your new family. Each team runs their channels slightly differently. For example, most teams have a watch-party-channel for discussing on-going games, but I don't know what the name will be for your team. The Discord is the best resource for up-to-date answers to your questions. Remember, no one else knows what's going on either.
3. As I'm writing this, we're on season 14 of Blaseball, there's a lot of history to get caught up on. I recommend [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQHBzZzaxzI) video for a recap of the first 8 seasons' lore. It's not perfectly up to date, but that shouldn't matter, because no Blaseball re-cap can be, the game just moves too fast. There's an official recap video [here](https://youtu.be/diAHuUV2Meg), that covers through season 11. It was out of date before it was even posted.
4. Watch a Blaseball game. During the season, games are played on the hour, and usually last around 30mins. You can check the [Place Bets](https://www.blaseball.com/upcoming) page for a countdown to the next game. Find where the other fans of your team are watching the on-going games, and cheer a bit.
5. Get to know your players. While watching a game and browsing the Discord for your team, see which players they talk about. The Blaseball Wiki (https://blaseball.wiki, there used to be a Fandom wiki but we don't use that anymore) is lore-based. It has background on every player, like physical descriptions and pronouns. It's put together by fans, through lore chats in the Discord (don't just edit it).
6. Ask your team about mechanics. Blaseball mechanics, like what does Flooding do? or what is the Ego+ perk, are things you can ask about. While they might be mentioned on the Wiki, the Wiki is primarily lore, and our understanding of mechanics is imperfect and changes quickly.
7. Set up your income. This is done on the official Blaseball website in the form of begging, betting, buying snacks, and idoling. The best money-making scheme is re-balanced every season. You don't have to Idol players on your team, and some players have serious perks. Right now, buying slushies is the best, but that's something you can ask about Discord.
8. Explore Blaseball in other ways! Want more background videos? Search Blaseball on Youtube. Want more lore than the Wiki gives? Seach Blaseball on AO3. Want to stay up to without reading message history in Discord? Start following your team on Twitter. Want more interesting live play-by-play? Find someone hosting Blaseball watch parties on Twitch. Blaseball is what you make of it!
I'm not going to look up an explanation for lyrics of "Cyclops Rock." There's probably a metaphor or a reference but I don't want to know.
"I taught you how to cyclops rock, and then you turn around and break my heart. You waste my cyclops time and mess up my cyclops mind" -Cyclops Rock, They Might Be Giants.
Blaseball removes the illusion that sports are interesting to watch because of the skill of the players.
Every so often in a sports game, there will be a moment that exists outside of what the score is or what team wins or loses. If you're watching a basketball game, and a player just full on slugs another guy across the face, you feel that, beyond the 2-pt technical foul. If you're watching a baseball game live with your friends, and your pitcher pitches a perfect inning, in that moment, the score of the game doesn't matter.
In Blaseball, if you have the best pitcher in the league, and she gets some stars sucked out of her, it doesn't matter that she's still pretty good. There's a narrative arc.
Blaseball is about those moments.
There's a complex idea that needs fleshing out, don't take it at surface level, but it has occurred to me that part of growing up is
realizing the things you imagine you wanted aren't necessary in the way you thought. Like, you can satisfy your desire for x with a small amount and it's not as black and white as a child sees it.
The child never buys themself candy. The child imagines that they would buy themselves candy at every opportunity. The child asks the adult why they don't have candy. The adult replies, 'oh, candy isn't healthy' or whatever. But that's not the real reason the adult doesn't buy candy. The child also knows candy is unhealthy. *In saying this, the adult has invalidated the child's desire.* But the adult has bought themselves candy before. I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this.
My idea is that if you give a child unlimited money to spend on candy, they would end up with less candy than they originally imagined or intended. And I don't know if that's true. If it is true, it has serious ramifications, because it implies that "childhood" is inherently characterized by longing for what you can't have (as opposed to say, age, or personality).
I had a good day today, I unicycled some, I watched some good Youtube videos. The weather was nice, I'm not in pain. But at several points I had the opportunity to be productive, and could not find the strength or energy to do anything.
I begin to understand why retirees live so idly.
The problem with the internet is that they will continue to bash people that don't agree with them so long as those people disagree.
I'm all for trying to convince people, but once you've made your case and I'm on your side, I don't enjoy listening to you repeatedly insult everyone who's not on your side. "Welcome to the club" "What do you do here?" "Well mostly we sit around insulting everyone who isn't in the club" "Why?" "For not being in the club"
