These aren’t polished essays or tidy aphorisms. They’re scraps I’ve carried around this month—half-heard thoughts, borrowed lines, sudden recognitions—that refused to be forgotten. Zuihitsu literally means “following the brush,” and while my version is shorter and scrappier than the classical form, the impulse feels the same: to catch what drifts across the mind before it … Continue reading Zuihitsu, 2025-12
Tag: freedom
From Axiom Engine to Deferential Realism: How Stories Generate Philosophy
A Bridge Essay I. The Pattern in Ten Stories If you've just read The Axiom Engine, you've experienced something unusual: mathematical theorems as lived constraints. The Oracle tried to predict and failed. The Arbiter tried to satisfy all axioms and collapsed. The Wanderer walked freely and discovered necessity. Each story followed the same arc: Confusion … Continue reading From Axiom Engine to Deferential Realism: How Stories Generate Philosophy
The Axiom Engine: A Phenomenology of Abstract Structures
Prologue We usually treat mathematical structures as things we look at—diagrams on a page, symbols in a line, objects to be manipulated by the intellect. But they are not objects. They are environments. They are the invisible architectures that determine what is possible, what is impossible, and what is necessary. You do not just solve … Continue reading The Axiom Engine: A Phenomenology of Abstract Structures
Constraints Liberate, Liberties Constrain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqmsQeSzMdw Interesting throughout. Main points: Build in abstractions, with symbols and functions.Counter-intuitively, abstractions make precision possible.The more expressive a language, the more ambiguous the content.Or more generally, freedom at one level implies constraints at another level.Plan for interoperability and extension, which also implies limits.As much authority is necessary, but no more.The more something can do, … Continue reading Constraints Liberate, Liberties Constrain
Revisiting the ASUS C201
Two and half years ago, I came across libreboot. I was looking for a linux laptop and came across this bit on the ASUS C201 page: "This is unlike the other current libreboot laptops (Intel based). In practise, you can (if you do without the video/wifi blobs, and replace ChromeOS with a distribution that respects … Continue reading Revisiting the ASUS C201
Sick Burn: Missing U
The difference between freedom and freedum is you. Thanks. I'll be here all week. Try the veal. Etc.
Tactical Christmas
Freedom makes a wonderful stocking stuffer. /s
It’s Easy to Be Free
It’s not how much you have. It’s the difference between what you have and what you spend. If you have more than you spend, you’re rich. If you spend more than you have, you’re not. If you live cheaply, it’s easy to be free. -Derek Sivers, "How I got rich on the other hand." Sivers.org. … Continue reading It’s Easy to Be Free
The Platform Challenge: Balancing Safety, Privacy and Freedom — Alex Stamos (DataEDGE 2019)
Openness & Discernment
"The undiscerning mind is like the root of the tree, it absorbs equally everything it touches, even the poison that would kill it."—Kung Fu (television series) Recently, I got into an online discussion where someone was trying to convince me that I should listen to some podcast that explained some current conspiracy related to the … Continue reading Openness & Discernment
The Philosopher Redefining Equality | The New Yorker
"'People now have the freedom to have crosscutting identities in different domains. At church, I’m one thing. At work, I’m something else. I’m something else at home, or with my friends. The ability not to have an identity that one carries from sphere to sphere but, rather, to be able to slip in and adopt … Continue reading The Philosopher Redefining Equality | The New Yorker
Trying is Lying
"'I wish someone had told me when I was much younger that I didn’t have to have an airtight legal case for a breakup — all I had to have was a desire to no longer be in that relationship,' she writes. 'I would have saved myself a lot of time.'" —Kelli María Korducki. "Leaving … Continue reading Trying is Lying
Freedom & Limits: The ASUS C201 with libreboot and Parabola Linux
March 2020 Update: If you wish to use an ASUS C201 as a laptop computer and usability is an important consideration along with freedom, I now recommend PrawnOS. See my March 2021 update for discussion. Unfree BIOS Software Surfing the web one day, I came across a mention of libreboot, a free software replacement for … Continue reading Freedom & Limits: The ASUS C201 with libreboot and Parabola Linux
Cogito Ergo Sum Liber
Free people think for themselves.
cafebedouin.org 