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37074177throwon A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_Jewish_culture_i...

I have to find the letter (possibly a Jewish reader can dig it out?) but I remember reading and being amused by a letter penned by Maimonides to iirc Jews in Arabian peninsula. Apparently they had written to him having heard of the paradise of tolerance in Muslim Spain and his letter poo pooing it, telling them it’s no better than their locale. I always read that letter as a sort of rabbinical wisdom on his part: he knew they wouldn’t be able to get there so he painted a dismal picture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maimonides

37074177throwon A Journey Through Spain’s Islamic History

Muslims, not Arabs. Also you are mistaken about Arabs passing Persian knowledge. Initially invading Arabs were given to destroying books. It was Muslim Persians who did most of the translation, and subsequently elaboration of the ancient world’s thinking into the Muslim civilization and from there to Europe. And yes, they wrote in Arabic just like Isaac Newton wrote Principia in Latin. And most of us now write in English, but are we Anglos?

p.s. important to amend this here to note that certainly, Muslim civilization had many towering Arab (and non-Persian non-Arab) intellects as well. In my personal opinion, the correct terminology would be Muslim and Islamic (since it certainly was that) instead of Arab or Arabic. The latter apparently is favored by European “Orientalists” but it is both incorrect and further it is divisive.

37074177throwon Types versus sets (and what about categories?) (2022)

> As a computer scientist, I don’t find it ridiculous: everything on a computer is encoded as a bit string. Let’s pursue the analogy: if we have a directory full of devotional icons in some image format, and another directory full of hardcore porn clips in some video format, it’s certainly conceivable that the exact same bit string could appear in both directories.

I found this to be careless thinking, conflating representation of thing with the thing itself.

37074177throwon The Yandex leak: How a Russian search giant uses consumer data

American (immigrant) here who happens to think this is still the very best country all things considered. Disappointed in how things have declined over the past 40 years I’ve been here but still thank God for America as far I am concerned.

Not all American super wealthy are oligarch but some are very close to the mark. Borderline cases that are concerning: Elon Musk is an American oligarch. Bill Gates is an American oligarch.

Also can someone dump 4Gs of Google’s codebase somewhere?