published
updated
Something a little different today. I wrote a little script to fetch my 15 most recently read articles from Wallabag. Hopefully this will feed into my eventual Logs section that I have been planning đ. You can see the script here
Latley I've made it part of my morning routine to read some articles while I drink my coffee and bask in the sunlight (though there seems to be less and less of it everyday around these parts). I read them on my Onyx Note Boox Note (god that is a mouthful of a name), and I really love this device. Even though I have been collecting articles in Wallabag since 2017, I never really read them. Reading on my phone or computer wasn't a pleasant experience and if I picked out my Kindle Kobo I may as well read a book. Having an 11" e-ink device was game changing. Textbooks, articles and note taking that required diagrams are now all a palms reach away.
Anyways, on to the recently reads. These are in descending order of when I read them. Most recent at the top. I shouldn't have to explain that lmao.
Burning Memories: Rethinking Digital Archives Amid Loss | Backchannel
A small tale on the nature of archiving digitally and physically. Short, sweet and largely unremarkable given history's endless forward march.
Science has outgrown the human mind and its limited capacities â Ahmed Alkhateeb | Aeon Ideas
An interesting idea on how to automate research and science. Using Francis Bacon's original algorithm to automate science sounds fairly reasonable. One of the things it left me to ponder is whether all algorithms can in fact be automated. I can't think of a counter-example so, perhaps?
Actualism and Actual Freedom Guide
I found this while digging through the Neuron example website. I don't know much about it (namely whether it is a cult or not) but it sounds like it would be up my alley. Cautionously exploring this.
Digitizing Our Lives - Nomadic Research Labs
Another story of archiving. This individiual has accumulated many devices to convert old, unreliable and breaking formats into the shiny reliable cough formats of the future. They are now offering this as a freelance service.
Anil Dash is one of the few people I look up to in the tech industry. This 2012 post was sort of a rollercoaster for me. On one hand, some of the things he talks about here pose a great challenge and others are obvious. A worthy ready if you're interested in not selling your soul to the mythos of Silicon Valley or "disruption".
The wired brain: How not to talk about an AI-powered future
Another post from a long time ago. (I've been reverse sorting my reading these past few days) Basically it could be summarized by don't anthromorphize AI. Nothing particularly novel here, but worthwhile to point out.
Regulation of the Internet of Things
Bruce Schneier is a legendary security researcher and prolific blogger. Here he makes the case that government regulation is unavoidable in the case of IoT. I largely agree with him.
Modern Myths: Mundane Enchantment and Creating Ghosts
I loved this piece. It's about how due to the ubiquity of technology it appears how Ghosts and Enchantment have all but disappeared. It also provides tools to view mysticism in our modern age. Highly recommended to others that are still searching for magic.
An interview with The University of Warwickâs Andrew Oswald who proved the fairly obvious fact that advertising makes us unhappy. I didn't need to be convinced of this but it's nice that people are looking into it.
Why Cypherpunk Witches Love Bitcoin - Nze News
I saved this because I didn't imagine there would be a link between Bitcoin and the Occult, but here we are. Basically it's because mainstream financial services tend to cut out those selling occult services. Taking control of your destiny is a powerful idea that obviously links these two otherwise totally seperate fields. Cool to see.
I'm not sure who this is, but I saw it while scrolling feeds. It's a lovely list of useful advice for a young'n like me. (Even though all advice can only be a reflection of that who gives it) Some choice ones:
- Gratitude will unlock all other virtues and is something you can get better at.
- Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them, they are waiting for you to send them an email, they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.
- Trust me: There is no âthemâ.
- Perhaps the most counter-intuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others, the more youâll get. Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.
- Art is in what you leave out.
- Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist you donât have to ignore all the many problems we create; you just have to imagine improving our capacity to solve problems.
We Need a New Science of Progress
My initial reaction to this was much more eye-rolling than I'm sure the author intended. My problem was they take for granted what progress is, that it is in fact desirable, and should be optimized. Regardless, I do agree with the author that organizing a field of study around the optimization of others seems like a good idea. I have conflicting ideas with the author about what that would mean however.
One of the less horrible of the many dystopian futures visited by the Time Traveller
Apparently Nature publishes short stories? I had no idea. This is a lovely short story about exactly what the title says it is. I'd recommended it to those interested in sci-fi.
Josh's tale on trying to convert some encrypted music he bought on iTunes from 2005 to be playable today. Yes, the music he bought can no longer be played (outside of iTunes, which he no longer uses). I already knew DRM was bad, and his adventure in trying to get the songs he owns to work was just another reminder why I try my best to avoid DRM of all kinds, and almost exclusively run FOSS software.
Regarding why software is so bad
A must read for anybody even tangentially a part of the technology industry. Garbados is an excellent writer (and a lovely human) and this short post perfectly elucidates why the industry sucks. It's also written in a beautiful way.