Category: bookmarks

Teaching Chess for The New York Times

~ cafebedouin

Mr. Naroditsky is intent on making sure that readers of his Times column feel as if they are getting something out of it, just as he does on his social media channels.

“I feel like that’s my God-given responsibility,” he said, laughing. “I’ve resisted the pull of using clickbait and appealing video titles. However entertaining it is, I also want it to be instructive.”

The emphasis is on learning and building interest in the game.

“I also want the readers to feel like they couldn’t just go online and search for that puzzle,” he added. “I really want them to feel like this enriched their day, whether they’re beginners or advanced players.”

To emphasize the fact that he speaks to players of all levels, Mr. Naroditsky said that his favorite quote about chess was one best known as an Italian proverb but most likely traceable to a 1629 collection of writings by John Boys, who was the Dean of Canterbury in England:

“At the end of the game, both the king and the pawn go into the same box.”

https://www.nytimes.com/spotlight/chess-puzzles

Deckless

~ cafebedouin

deckless.app is a web-based tool that transforms plain text into presentation slides instantly. Key features include:

  • Markdown to Slides: Convert Markdown text into visually appealing slides.
  • Live Preview: See your slides update in real-time as you edit your Markdown.
  • Canvas Grid: Organize and navigate your slides using a flexible canvas grid.

Ideal for:

  • Developers who prefer Markdown for note-taking and documentation.
  • Presenters seeking a faster alternative to traditional presentation software.
  • Anyone who needs to quickly create and share presentations from text.

Deckless offers a streamlined workflow, allowing users to focus on content rather than design, making presentation creation faster and more efficient.

Together Estranged

~ cafebedouin

“Together Estranged, Inc. provides free support services to adults estranged from family members.

We meet the needs of estranged folx both before they’ve advanced into full estrangement, during the process and long after as well. We also assist people as they explore which stage of estrangement is best suited for them, how to establish appropriate boundaries, self-care and support and navigating school and estrangement.

—https://www.togetherestranged.org/about-us

I have written about family estrangement previously.

Readow.ai

~ cafebedouin

“Write the title of the book you last read and liked. You can also enter just any book you like.
The more titles you add to the list, the more our recommendations will match your preferences.”

—https://readow.ai/

Artificial intelligence offering book recommendations. All that is needed is a CSV file upload, Good reads API, or similar. It would be great to be able to input a list and both the books to read first, as well as surface the books that should be on the list but aren’t on it.

The ABC of Contemporary Capital by David Harvey

~ cafebedouin
1 of 13 Presentations on the ideas of Marxism.

“As a part of this course, I’m sharing rough drafts of pieces of a manuscript I am working on, a sort of textbook on Marx’s political economy.

I’m experimenting with crowd sourcing the revision process.” 

http://davidharvey.org/2022/01/new-course-the-abc-of-contemporary-capital/

I’ve talked about Hypothes.is for annotating in the past. I haven’t watched this particularly series, but I have read some of Harvey’s books and have found them useful. Bookmarking for later.

Sudowrite: Writing with Artificial Intelligence

~ cafebedouin

Robin Sloan described a process for “writing with the machine” back in 2016 that I tried in 2019. The interesting part of doing it yourself is that you could select the corpus that the A.I. was trained on and get writing in that style of subspecialty. But, it took a bit of work to set-up correctly, and these text generative models have gotten a lot better with GPT and other efforts.

So, if you have never tried writing with A.I., and it will likely become a standard feature in word processors and text editors within five years or so, you can try Sudowrite, which makes the whole process easy to set-up and try out.

Batshit Times

~ cafebedouin

“At BATSHIT TIMES, we showcase artists, activists, and scientists challenging contemporary society’s geopolitical, technocratic, hypersurveilled, megacybernetwork nightmare.

We critique the chaos, dissimulation, and fragmentation of our times through visual projects, films, essays, and articles on emerging experimental art forms and science practices.

Currently on the third issue. The first issue is available as a free PDF download.