Great article. Modern C++ has come a really long way. I think lots of people have no idea about the newer features of the standard library and how much they minimize footguns.
That itself a distinctly modern framing. For many ancients, there was no such division; the way one lived was deeply entangled with the social contract. For example, there are religious sects that dictate specific political arrangements.
As for the diversity you speak of, I think it can be plausibly argued that many utopian conceptions of life really reduce to utilitarianism or hedonism. Diversity manifests in having different options for pleasure or utility. For a lot of people, that's inadequate.
I happen to be a philosophical liberal, and do not wish to live under a theocracy. Nonetheless, I think the fact that many of the highest aspirations of liberal philosophy amount to "having a good time" is a great risk that must be reckoned with, for it can undo the entire liberal project.
This reminds me of the thought of Isaiah Berlin, political philosopher and historian of ideas; utopian philosophies often conclude that there if there is a "right" way to live, i.e. a maximally rational way of life, then utopia will consist of everyone converging on this lifestyle. For a certain type of person, this monistic vision of life annihilates pluralism, optionality, and genuine diversity. Berlin himself espoused value pluralism, the idea that there are an infinite number of fundamental human values and ideals for which once can be deeply committed but can also be at conflict and mutually exclusive with one another.
I will never not find this kind of project incredibly impressive. It’s interesting to think that Linux, after all, is really just the kernel — and yet getting that work done paved the way to getting an open source version of Unix installed on billions of machines. Great stuff!
I love Linux, and I use it daily for software development and gaming, but I am often exasperated by the Linux community. There's a strange combination of newbie-friendliness combined with gaslighting; if you're completely new, you'll get tons of enthusiastic help, but the moment you experience genuine frustration, you're castigated or told that your preferences are inherently wrong. I think that many hardcore Linux users don't get that some people will never grok the command line, or do not intrinsically enjoy tinkering with their OS. Luckily, I do, but I am hesitant to recommend a Linux box to just anyone.
St. Paul (and his translators) are responsible for some of the most evocative turns of phrase I have ever encountered in literature. From 1 Corinthians 13:
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."
This is a slight tangent, but I have not been on slashdot since the early aughts. I'm surprised that it fell into obscurity since technical forums like HN and reddit CS subreddits are thriving. Or maybe it still vibrant and I'm making assumptions?
I found this to be a pretty charming blog post & an enjoyable read. Does anyone else feel like some of the newer entries in the IBA list seem a bit contrived, maybe to promote a particular type of spirit?
The fact that Java is still a go-to language for many companies, including technically sophisticated FAANGs like Google and Amazon, speaks to its robustness and utility. It’s a great language with staying power.
I feel like an under-discussed consequence of the current administration is how deeply these choices will harm tourism. Travel is a big part of our economy. A 250 dollar fee is yet another reason to choose Europe or Asia or your own country over the US.
Is this not the same trickle down mantra that has been pushed across developed countries for decades and has only widened the gap between rich and poor? In the US, where this line was pursued since the 80s, real wages for most Americans have stagnated while the top 20% have seen their wealth increase astronomically. Merely improving the regulatory and investment climate for a country does not magically benefit most citizens in a society -- thoughtful taxation is one to correct that.
I just saw this today and was shocked; I have disabled notifications for many apps because they sent an errant ad in-between more necessary messages.
I personally would love it if Apple would allow for some kind of filtering of 'offers' vs substantive notifications across iOS, but this gives me less hope of that ever happening.
The English Civil War feels like a dress rehearsal for the upheavals of the late 18th century. Many of the impulses of the American and French Revolutions are there, in germinal form. Egalitarianism, freedom of thought, even the see-sawing from monarchy to republic to monarchy again (America excluded). It is criminally undertaught in US schools (from my anecdotal experience) even though it explains much of context the founders were working within. Excellent & illuminating article.
Isn't that the point of the article? That the colloquial meaning of HDR is quite overloaded, and when people complain about HDR, they mean bad tone-mapping? I say this as someone as close to totally ignorant about photography as you can get; I personally thought the article was pretty spectacular.
"... Or that kãla, Time and Death, should be derived from the Sanskrit kãl, ‘to calculate or enumerate’—related to the Latin kalendarium, ‘account book’, the English calendar—imparting, it seemed to me, onto that word the suggestive notion that at the end of all our calculations comes Death. Almost as if kãla did not simply mean Time, but had built into it the idea of its passage, the count of days, as it were."
Galileo's treatment by the Church was abominable, but it's often forgotten that the Church not only drew the lines of permissible thought, but also served as the primary vehicle for advancing and enabling the life of the mind through its patronage of the university system. It was not merely an oppressor, nor just a benevolent enabler; it was somehow both.
At the very least, not allowing apps to MENTION the fact that you can purchase items outside an app is ridiculously anti-competitive.
The truth is that we would never accept this behavior on a traditional desktop OS, but we've tolerated it in the context of iOS. I think that's arbitrary and I hope this ruling sticks.
Even if you bounce off of Vim or modern implementations like Nvim, it's worth learning the bindings. Once you get used to them, you will never go back.
I am a (non-catholic) Christian and I loved Pope Francis, for all the hate he won from traditionalists. He really seemed Christ-like, in his deep concern for the marginalized and poor. He never ceased to emphasize Jesus' saving power and good news. May he rest in peace and may he be with our Lord.
I'm not a mathematician so please feel free to correct me...but wouldn't there still be an opportunity for humans to try to understand why a proof solved by a machine is true? Or are you afraid that the culture of mathematics will shift towards being impatient about this sorts of questions?
Big fan of Agnes Callard, and ofc, Socrates. I know many people dislike philosophy because they consider it to be a form of intellectual gymnastics, but at its best it's almost spiritual activity, a concern with the whole purpose of life, a desire to not live as an unthinking automaton, impelled by instinct or social pressure. Socrates is the ultimate and prototypical embodiment of this, a refusal to take anything at its word, a man who interrogated the deepest things and pointed us to the abundant fruits of a life of inquiry.