140 karma · joined July 1, 2013
— The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work: t/c (Vintage International) by Alain De Botton https://a.co/1CjMq1u
Whenever you’re called on to make up your mind,
and you’re hampered by not having any,
best way to solve the dilemma, you’ll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No—not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you’re passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you’re hoping.
> When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the town; and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot remain with pleasure at home.[139][#201908302349]
This quote is often summarized roughly as: "all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." (i.e. the title of this post). Taken out of context, this would seem to suggest (to me) a belief that if we could simply meditate and avoid external distractions (a commission in the army, conversation, games, Pascal suggests), we might find happiness.
However, a reading of the full passage reveals that "on further consideration" he thinks the reason for this is that if we were to sit with our thoughts, the "natural poverty of our feeble and mortal condition" would drive us to despair.
He thinks that someone who truly understands the human condition would do everything they could to avoid sitting alone with their thoughts ("there is nothing they leave undone in seeking turmoil") . We seek diversion because if we didn't have any distraction, we would end up dwelling on the miserable human condition (selfish, pre-occupied with self-gratification, sensitive to the opinion of others, judgmental, etc. - basically, 'sinful').
In the end, he suggests that we should look for happiness externally, in God, which he then talks about a lot.
[#201908302349]: Blaise Pascal (1958): _Pascal's Pensées_, New York: E.P. Dutton.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Take-Smart-Notes-Nonfiction-ebook...
https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/
https://luhmann.surge.sh/communicating-with-slip-boxes
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NfdHG6oHBJ8Qxc26s/the-zettel...
[0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NfdHG6oHBJ8Qxc26s/the-zettel...
It translates well to a digital medium. The general idea is a collection of granular information (notes) interconnected in a non-hierarchical way using tags.
[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NfdHG6oHBJ8Qxc26s/the-zettel...
You can deeply nest Autolayout frames.
It's an iOS app that (among many other awesome things) tracks 250+ satellites - and can send a notification before they pass over your location[1].
19.32b (on black)
1.09w (on white)
> Thinking Fast and Slow is my runner-up for “book most overrated by investors” (with Klarman’s Margin of Safety the champion.) People who pitch this book as “required reading” simply haven’t read broadly enough about cognitive biases: while the content is certainly useful and I don’t take anything away from Kahneman as a researcher, his writing/communication/worldview leave much to be desired, and the same lessons can be learned far more effectively and enjoyably via a variety of other books (many of which are suggested below).
http://www.askeladdencapital.com/daniel-kahnemans-thinking-f...
We’re all just building CRUD apps."
> Like to get a font to use in your app, you need to pay $5,000+ for any decent looking font.
There are many high quality open source fonts available. For example:
http://www.latofonts.com/lato-free-fonts/
Many foundries such as Grilli Type have free trials (https://www.grillitype.com/free_trials) and reasonable pricing for very high quality typefaces (https://www.grillitype.com/shops/gt-america <$1k for desktop + web)
Instead of pirating typefaces, please see:
https://typographica.org/on-typography/my-favorite-font-sour...
Many foundries also offer trial versions of their typefaces. For example:
https://www.grillitype.com/free_trials
If you don't want to pay for a typeface, there are many very good open source options available. For example:
https://standardebooks.org/contribute/
Improve it then.
Do you have a reference for this? Interested to read more (game theoretic basis specifically).