lordleft

> (For a sense of just how long ancient Egypt thrived, writes Dolnick, consider this: “Cleopatra came at the very end of Egypt’s imperial run, 13 centuries after King Tut, 20 centuries after the golden age of Egyptian literature, 26 centuries after the Great Pyramid.” To put it in another context, the reign of Cleopatra is closer to the year 2022 than it is to when the pyramids were built.)

The scale of ancient civilization is always astounding to me.

Controversial opinion, but I think any substantive critique of postmodernism has to acknowledge the fact that the postmodernists have a point. That supposedly neutral institutions or concepts do contain biases that favor certain interests. My objection to postmodernism is that instead of arguing for a better rationality, a more self-aware rationality, it jettisons rationality, and leaves us with no cogent foundation for morality, justice, etc.

It's a truly extraordinary epic, and it propounds fascinating philosophical and religious concepts that are worth reckoning with. Also, as a non-hindu desi, it's interesting to see how many of the conceits of the Gita / Mahabharata subtly shape South Asian life.

It's been a while since I've updated my GPU (I have an RTX 2060 XC Black), so I'm out of the loop: what's the gpu market like now? I'm assuming we're seeing less fewer GPUs being purchased for crypto. Are prices normal now?

I was born in the late 80s, but I also feel nostalgic. I think it's because there was more of a sense of play in computing back in the day.

I feel a real romanticism for vintage computing.

RIP. I've always believed that there was a place for constitutional monarchy in the world. As the world hurtles forward, having a tether to the past grounds us, reminds us that we are not ahistorical, but part of a continually unfolding story.

I have yet to buy a single thing, let alone a single useful thing, with a cryptocurrency.

I also don't understand how a cryptocoin is supposed to be a rapidly accumulating asset for investment, while also being stable enough to function as a currency.

As long as these two things remain true, I remain skeptical.

Princess Mononoke is my favorite film of all time. Whisper of the Heart is a close second.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

One thing I love about Tolstoy's War and Peace is how it describes how individuals can cycle through absorbing worldviews, philosophies, causes and projects across the arc of their lives. They feel adrift, then find some great cause to push them forward, exhaust the possibilities of that cause, and find themselves disillusioned when they discovered that they have not "solved" the problem of life. This happens over and over again to some of the central characters of the novel, Prince Andrei and Pierre.

This is not to disdain projects or causes. The older I get, the more I realize that life is a continually evolving question, and the task of living philosophically is partially about living comfortably with the ambiguity that that implies.

I'm a bit worried that this will trigger some kind of move to measure productivity in increasingly crude ways -- i.e. exhaustive, invasive telemetry that tracks every mouse click and keypress.

Apart from the abstract conviction that we should not indict the cultural output of a country that is under the thrall of an oligarch, I'm a bit baffled at the notion of decrying Tolstoy of people -- a Christian anarchist who radically challenged all of the assumptions of Tsarist Russia. Basically all of the great Russian writers lived in opposition to the various incarnations of the Russian State (Tsarist Russia, USSR).

EDIT: It's clear that this is a sentiment that is coming from the emotional pressures of war. I don't blame some Ukrainians for feeling the way that they do, though I find the argument dubious and disagree with it.

Sadly, even a small, concerted group of violent actors can terrorize a society. I don't think the paramilitary core of the Nazis were a particularly large part of German Society, for example. That doesn't mean that an outright civil war would break out, but it does mean that all it takes is an organized group to upset the political balance, and disturb long respected norms.

My family is what is called St. Thomas Christian, part of a (fairly) endogamous and ancient community in South India. Though there is a lot of denomination diversity in the community these days, the most ancient denomination is Syrian Orthodox, which conducts its liturgy in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic. This language is part of my linguistic heritage, even though I only know a word here or there.

Beautiful typeface. Clear writing. Passion and humor seeping out of every page.

The author has also kindly made a web version of his book freely available:

https://craftinginterpreters.com/introduction.html

What are some alternatives to JIRA? Also, how much of the hate directed towards JIRA buried resentment towards Agile and other project management paradigms?

Is Grade Inflation really a problem at a top school? Why is it surprising that driven students at an elite institution are probably going to do well most of the time? I'd take this over moronic experiments like grade deflation at Princeton -- imagine being mandated to give only a small proportion of your students an A in, say, a Calc I class.

I'm slightly annoyed at this discourse because I went to Columbia, an institution that seemed hellbent at enforcing some vague sense of rigor at the expense of the sanity of most of its students. I certainly want to be challenged, and don't want top Universities to be glorified country clubs masquerading as academic environments, but I also think that what a defines substantive and rigorous eduction is at the highest level is actually quite hard to pin down.

A baroque space opera CPRG. Baldur's Gate, but in a sweeping interstellar setting.

Morrowind is my favorite game that I've never completed. I've started it a dozen times, devoured the lore, savored its truly unique setting, but I cannot get past some of the more outdated mechanics. Still, I love Morrowind nonetheless, which is saying something.

This is an almost breathtaking documentation site.

From Tristram Shandy:

"Well, you may take my word, that nine parts in ten of a man’s sense or his nonsense, his successes and miscarriages in this world depend upon their motions and activity, and the different tracks and trains you put them into, so that when they are once set a-going, whether right or wrong, ’tis not a half-penny matter,—away they go cluttering like hey-go mad; and by treading the same steps over and over again, they presently make a road of it, as plain and as smooth as a garden-walk, which, when they are once used to, the Devil himself sometimes shall not be able to drive them off it."

I can listen to -- or rather read -- Bourdain's takes on literally any topic (especially his expertise, the restaurant industry).

Beautiful & compelling presentation

Does anyone else always think of Socrates' Daemon?

An amazing blog that has made a lot of math more accessible to me.

I sympathize but this is still better than direct war. The alternative is what -- allow Putin to run roughshod over Ukraine and expand his capacity to imperil our security?

The irony is if we want to make war between NATO and Russia unlikely, the non-military responses to Russia need to be dramatic. I'm concerned NATO nations will bungle this. Seize oligarchic holdings. Shutdown Nord Stream 2. Make Russia a pariah state. This cannot go unpunished.

Amen. Even the best coder can write trainwrecks if given sufficiently little time and subject to enough pressure.

I’ve been using this for years for the 5e game I run. It’s surreal seeing it here but it’s a great tool

Mathematics is such a creative discipline, and so applicable to so many scenarios, but the way math is taught really obfuscates that. If I have motivation or context for why I'm learning something, I'm dramatically more likely to learn it.