hypertexthero

Tim Bray doesn’t trust it, either: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2024/11/15/Not-Blues...

I try to do one of the above at a time, and not all at once, though it can be difficult :-D Life’s not so long and I’m interested in lots of things.

Jack-of-all-trades, master of none here, which can be useful, too!

Has worked for me.

It’s boring and difficult at first, but clears sinuses, gives energy, and a good endorphin mood boost to start the day.

A 20–40 minute fast walk is good, too.

In the beginning of the day, don’t look at phone or computer. Avoid news especially, and instead write thoughts, draw something, work on a song, make something, anything. Don’t let day get sucked away with things that can’t be controlled.

Excercise every day with “scientific 7 minute workout”. Also 20–40 minute walks or 100 basketball jump-shots.

Draw daily, even a 5 minute drawing.

Write daily, even for 5 minutes.

Publish first original song, publish first EP. Learn a new song or practice one or two from existing set. Keep learning piano by learning songs you like: https://hypertexthero.com/piano/

Write postcards to people.

Set up a weekly “office hours” livestream to help people with design or technical computer issues.

The Snowman, 1982, with original introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjMNtEKHURU

> The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you’ve cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become an incredibly destructive force in our society. You can be better, and this is going to be your legacy if you’re not careful.

—Steve Jobs, in a 2010 conversation with Rupert Murdoch.

Maybe only distantly related to this, but thought it worth sharing that when I visited Seattle for the first time this year I caught a show by a band called La Cerca at Central Saloon and loved their song “Echolocation”, with ethereal sounding guitars, including the bass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NYeqA2Kve8

> One of the great paradoxes of education is that only when one knows something deeply can one recognize how little one actually knows. The superficial knowledge of vague generalities is a curse of education—the target of Pope’s “a little learning is a dangerous thing.” Alexander Pope suggests that if you are to drink from the springs of knowledge, you will experience the paradox that:

>> . . . shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, >> And drinking largely sobers us again.

> Print, cut, fold, staple. Drop off at a little library, big library, bus stop, coffee shop, laundromat, workplace, dentist's office, the mailbox of your crush...

“Hope produces space and time?”

The longer I live the more I appreciate Kurt Gödel’s proof that we can never know everything about the universe.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-godels-proof-works-202007...

Thanks for the info and ideas! I’ll look these up.

I’m excited for the future with solar, battery, and really most electronic technology becoming cheaper and simpler.

They can’t.

Need to have the day job and try to do something in the night, or vice versa.

We need a basic income.

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=basic+income

Also worth thinking about whether you want to be in the bridge of a ship with lots of other people on board, prefer working in a different deck like Engineering, or flying your own light shuttle craft about!

From a commencement speech by a young person called Grant Sanderson:

> Influence is not distributed uniformly in the population and I for one would feel a lot more comfortable if it was you who were at the helm guiding this crazy ship that we're all riding.

> If you step into the next chapter of life with an implacable focus on adding values to others, you're more likely to be the ones at the helm.

> If you recognize that action precedes motivation, you're more likely to be at the helm.

> And if you ask what's possible now that wasn't 10 years ago, you're more likely to be at the helm.

> If you appreciate just how much power you have to shape the lives of the generation that follows you, you're more likely to be at the helm.

> And if you remain adaptable to a changing world, treating passion not as a destination but as a fuel, following not dreams but opportunities, you're more likely to be at the helm.

— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3I3kAg2J7w

— https://www.3blue1brown.com/about

And this interview at Slashdot:

> Please, don’t spend your late teens or early twenties in front of your computer at a startup. If you’re a young person, I think the very best thing you could do is get together with a group of friends and commit to a one year experiment in which the substantial part of your life will be focused on discovery and not be dedicated to wage work – however that looks for you. Get an instrument, learn three chords, and go on tour; find a derelict boat and cross an ocean; hitchhike to Alaska; build a fleet of dirigibles; construct a UAV that will engage with the emerging local police UAVs; whatever – but make it count.

— Moxie Marlinspike https://interviews.slashdot.org/story/11/12/19/179256/moxie-...

Finally learning piano and drums after playing guitars for years. Thinking of own musical voice for first song, EP, and album. Made this chords poster to help: https://hypertexthero.com/piano/

Working on a default home.html page for my web browser with most used links, note pad, drawing pad, and forms for quickly creating posts for static sites that I’ll publish shortly. It would be nice if Firefox let you define a custom page for new tabs as well as new windows, instead of only Blank Page and Firefox Home (Default).

Usually have the relationship between work and play in mind, and how many of my favorite games have elements of compounding interest in rogue lite game modes where a little bit goes a long way with saved progression.

Harvesting four varieties of potatoes planted in the garden earlier in the year. Thankful to be able to work outdoors listening to the wind and nature.

Thinking about the difficult, important work of nurses and caretakers while helping to manage care for an elderly relative.

Thanks for the links!

I’d love a display that let me pick the color or picture showing on the screen when it is off, or maybe it’s the wrong question and power-efficient things with solar panels directing sun energy to batteries that keep them going on all the time is the way.

I remember those silver-gray displays in old calculators fondly, and love the word “transflective”!

Thanks for the Daylight Computer link!

Thanks for the detailed reply.

I imagine a black back on the screen improves contrast when it is on, as well.

Guess I’ll throw a nice colored cloth over the screen when it is off for now :)

Is there a video game that is particularly complementary to one of the Culture novels?

Is the original this one?

https://archive.org/details/HandTools1944/page/n87/mode/2up

Excellent, thank you!

Setting this up on a PC and Mac to transfer files back and forth.

There’s an XKCD for this, too: https://xkcd.com/949/

One of the linked music examples, “occultation” by Pure Code, is beautiful ambient music.

Friends are family you can choose, I’ve heard, and I agree!

Got around 82 by cheating a bit and looking at some old pages on my site.

My favorite recent discovery is <details> - a native show/hide/spoiler toggle: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/de...

These are the ones I don’t remember ever using:

data - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/da...

dialog - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/di...

hgroup - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/hg...

progress - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/pr...

ruby - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ru...

s - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/s

samp - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/sa...

template - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/te...

track - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/tr...

u - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/u

var - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/va...

wbr - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/wb...

Yes!

And lowercase letters are easier to read than ALL CAPITALIZED LETTERS IN A HORIZONTAL LINE OF TEXT.

Justified text is the same thing, but vertically. Your eye reaches the end of the line, and the next one is likely slightly longer or shorter, so it is easier for your eyes to find the next line instead of reading the same line over again, and also easier to see the whole shape of a particular paragraph you want to refer to later.

I do like well-hyphenated justified paragraphs in print, that also let you fit more words per page. But even there, I prefer the organic, non-uniform look of ragged text.

Good list, though here comes my Hacker News-style pesky comment:

Justified text on a screen is a feature that makes my eyes and brain hurt.

Ragged text is much easier to read. Uneven and beautiful, like a plant whose details you rest your eyes upon as you observe, rather than a uniform concrete structure where vision is lost.

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

┬─┬ノ( º _ ºノ)

See also James Somers’ essay I Should Have Loved Biology: https://jsomers.net/i-should-have-loved-biology/

…and Feynman’s criticism of rote memorization in education systems: https://enlightenedidiot.net/random/feynman-on-brazilian-edu...

> And the new factor comes into being, when one sees, when the mind realises totally that the observer is the observed, when that realisation takes place there is a release of energy which is new, which will go beyond 'what is'.

—Jiddu Krishanmurti, Public talk in Rome, 1973 October 28.

https://www.krishnamurti.org/transcript/when-the-mind-realis...

This is all way above my understanding, but:

Recently I’ve been playing Arma Reforger with friends online on a dedicated server, and when driving vehicles the collision physics are off, especially when driving fast, making the whole scene “teleport” forward, with frames lost and the vehicle reappearing in unexpected positions.

I wonder if this is related to this type of code. The game is technically out of early access, but there’s lots to be added still on the roadmap.

Wonderful story and amazing work, but yes, please define any acronyms the first time they appear in any piece of writing! (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

:-D