I've never seen the term "shadow libraries" mentioned in this blog post before. I had heard of Sci-Hub. But, I'm not a scientist, and I have never needed to access it. But, I does make me wonder. Open Question: How does one balance how copyright helps to foster an environment where people conduct research and … Continue reading Shadow Libraries: Library Genesis, ZLibrary & Sci-Hub
Category: writing
Our Technology Sickness—and How to Heal It
"Because of the digital revolution, our lives are being transformed by three grand bargains. The intellectual bargain: we have more knowledge but less capacity to concentrate and focus. The social bargain: we are much more available but much less attentive. And most importantly, the emotional bargain: we are much more connected, but much less empathetic. … Continue reading Our Technology Sickness—and How to Heal It
Custom, Off-The-Shelf or DIY
Quality and custom work is expensive, but it can be tailored perfectly to your needs.Off-the-shelf is cheaper, but a pretty good fit for the typical use case.Adapting an off-the-shelf product costs less than custom but it will never be a perfect fit.Do-It-Yourself, if you want to do it well, is going to take up much … Continue reading Custom, Off-The-Shelf or DIY
Those That Leave Arizona
"Arizona Department of Corrections Director David Shinn said Arizona communities would “collapse” without cheap prison labor, during testimony before the Joint Legislative Budget Committee Thursday."-Jimmy Jenkins, "Arizona communities would 'collapse' without cheap prison labor, Corrections director says." azcentral.com. July 14, 2022 Reminds me of Ursula K. Le Guin's story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Let's … Continue reading Those That Leave Arizona
Eclipse Phase 2E Bundle & After The Fall
"Agent! This all-new Eclipse Phase 2E Bundle presents the 2019 Second Edition of Eclipse Phase, the tabletop science fiction roleplaying game of transhuman survival from Posthuman Studios. After losing Earth in a war with AIs, transhumanity disperses throughout the Solar System and beyond, struggling to survive. In a typical Eclipse Phase game, characters belong to Firewall, a secret cross-faction organization that protects … Continue reading Eclipse Phase 2E Bundle & After The Fall
The Corruption of Apology
"True apologies are precious. They’re a secular process of remediation, drawing on moral intuitions shared by many religious traditions. They encourage membership in one’s moral community because they are fundamentally relational: They heal the bond between wrongdoer and wronged. By temporarily humbling the perpetrator and vindicating the victim, they pave the way for both sides to make up. Apologies … Continue reading The Corruption of Apology
Forer Statements As Updates And Affirmations
"The Forer Effect is a trick used by astrologers, psychics, and social psychologists...What statements show a Forer effect? Wikipedia just says they should be vague and somewhat positive. Can we do better?......Or you could phrase them as affirmations, or arguments for self-compassion...- Scott Alexander, "Forer Statements As Updates And Affirmations." astralcodexten.substack.com. July 26, 2022 I found the concept … Continue reading Forer Statements As Updates And Affirmations
Doubting Uncle
"“The dead don’t stay where they are buried. . . . You may meet the dead anywhere.” ......Treated (as some adults do treat children) as if he is older than his years...Here is a grievous portrait, grievous most of all in its unforgetting attention; grievous most of all in its kindness. This is what a … Continue reading Doubting Uncle
Scam World
"Despite growing out of the 2008 financial crisis, Bitcoin has led to the creation of a faster, leaner and crueler crisis of its own, an unregulated hellscape where the elites have found yet another way to get rich off of the backs of regular people’s money. Whatever “noble” goals Bitcoin and cryptocurrency allegedly has or … Continue reading Scam World
The Invitation to Critique
"To build a prototype and expose it to critique is to make yourself very vulnerable...But you invite people in because you know that you can’t do the thing you want to do without their honest response......By contrast, Davey worked very hard on restoring that little Norfolk church, but he also sought help of every kind … Continue reading The Invitation to Critique
The Maintenance Race by Stewart Brand
"‘My rule is, a new boat every day’. His years at sea had taught him that if you don’t fix something when you first see it beginning to fail, it is very likely to finish failing just when it is the most dangerous and the hardest to deal with, such as in the midst of … Continue reading The Maintenance Race by Stewart Brand
Abortion Pill Demand Is Driving an Underground Network
To Aiken, the international abortion pill market feels resilient because it is beyond the purview of any one country’s authorities. “If someone’s based outside of the country, it is unclear how to exactly force them to comply with the law in another jurisdiction,” she says. “It's not clear what folks who are very motivated to … Continue reading Abortion Pill Demand Is Driving an Underground Network
How to Admit You’re Wrong
Related to yesterday's post, where the ideas are of a piece: "Kathryn Schulz loosely defines being wrong “as a deviation from external reality, or an internal upheaval in what we believe” — with the caveat that wrongness is too vast to fit neatly into either category.......“We’re highly motivated to reduce that uncertainty,” Fetterman says. “Oftentimes, … Continue reading How to Admit You’re Wrong
The Free Energy Principle, Minimizing Surprise
"The concept of free energy itself comes from physics, which means it’s difficult to explain precisely without wading into mathematical formulas. In a sense that’s what makes it powerful: It isn’t a merely rhetorical concept. It’s a measurable quantity that can be modeled, using much the same math that Friston has used to interpret brain … Continue reading The Free Energy Principle, Minimizing Surprise
cafebedouin.org 