the porous city

Cast the I Ching

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 19:42:06 -0700

In categories: Other

Building tidepools

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 10:22:28 -0800

I spent the last couple of years working on this. I did not end up where I expected to.
Why I started journaling, and how I wrote an app to help people do the same thing

In categories: People/Journaling

Crossing over

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 08:48:06 -0800

"When I pushed forward, I was whirled about. When I stayed in place, I sank. And so I crossed over the flood without pushing forward, without staying in place."

- Crossing over the Flood Ogha-taraṇa Sutta (SN 1:1)

In categories: People/Meditation, People/Buddhism

Wherein our protagonist becomes aware of some problems with the typical conception of free will, but like, in a humorous dialogue form

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 11:39:00 -0700

Is God a Taoist?

In categories: Philosophy

Clock graphics

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 10:44:40 -0700

from Ianto Cannon

very possibly coming to a website near you

In categories: Design/Cool, Design/Web

Detailed breakdown of different versions of New Order's "The Perfect Kiss"

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 10:44:48 -0700

from /r/NewOrder

In categories: Music

Is figuring out if the on-screen keyboard is open as easy as comparing visualViewport.height to window.innerHeight? And if so why isn't that at the top of Google results?

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 11:23:12 -0700

Is figuring out if the on-screen keyboard is open as easy as comparing visualViewport.height to window.innerHeight? And if so why isn't that at the top of Google results?

In categories: Tech/Mobile, Tech/Web

rare afx

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 18:50:01 -0800

crucial aphex blog

In categories: Music/Musicians

Are LLMs Turing-complete?

Sun, 09 Feb 2025 13:30:09 -0800

blog post that obeys Betteridge's law

If in three years LLMs have run up against a clear wall due to not being Turing complete, I'll point to this post smugly. (If that doesn't happen, I'll forget I ever mentioned this.)

In categories: Tech/AI

Social networks for Girl Scouts

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:24:59 -0800

Friend sent a link to her kid's Girl Scout Cookie sale page. The only things the kid could customize, as far as I could tell, were the profile image and a text blurb. Having worked in Trust & Safety, obviously my first thought was "how do they QC those".

Kids being organized into troops (or whatever they're called for Girl Scouts) could really simplify that - the troop leader is responsible for that. And the troop leaders are supervised by regional leaders, and so on.

Wonder if anything like that would work for social networks?

In categories: Tech/Social

2025 tech predictions from roboticist Rodney Brooks

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 15:03:08 -0800

Blog post

Saving this for reference, eg Despite some impressive lab demonstrations we have not actually seen any improvement in widely deployed robotic hands or end effectors in the last 40 years.

Just a useful corrective to the idea that this stuff is inevitable. It definitely might happen, but.

In categories: OneAcreFund

It's the motivational system

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 13:30:17 -0800

We're not going to get the kind of sophisticated behavior that people associate with intelligent beings until we get a motivational system that's at least as rich as the ... well, whatever it is that LLMs do. Putting an LLM in a loop is not going to do it. You need vedana.

In categories: Philosophy/Mind, Tech/AI

Daniel Dennett's five favorite books

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 11:37:39 -0800

Interview

In categories: Philosophy, Philosophy/Mind

World population over the next hundred years ... and prospects for the human race

Sun, 06 Oct 2024 19:36:03 -0700

Development wonk argues with doomers, lots of good stuff in here about coping with climate change,

In categories: Other/Politik, Science/Environment

Inana and Enki

Thu, 27 Jun 2024 13:38:26 -0700

Inana and Enki

You have brought with you heroism, you have brought with you power, you have brought with you wickedness, you have brought with you righteousness, you have brought with you the plundering of cities, you have brought with you making lamentations, you have brought with you rejoicing.

In categories: Arts/Poetry

The psychedelic inspiration of Hypercard

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 20:03:19 -0700

The psychedelic inspiration of Hypercard

In categories: People/Stories, Tech/MacOS, Tech/Development

The Joyce Project has a nicely annotated hypertext version of Ulysses.

Fri, 31 May 2024 10:49:08 -0700

The Joyce Project has a nicely annotated hypertext version of Ulysses.

In categories: Arts/Literature

What do police actually do?

Fri, 17 May 2024 09:55:39 -0700

According to data from LA, they spend most of their time on what they call "proactive policing", which has been shown to be ineffective and often racially motivated.

Police do not spend most time fighting crime

In categories: Other/Politik

micro.blog looks cool and if I were starting from scratch today I'd probably use it

Fri, 29 Mar 2024 00:00:54 -0700

micro.blog is a blogging platform and a social network in one (it's also very The Dream of the 90s Is Alive In Portland.)

In categories: Tech/Web, Tech/Social, People/Weblogs

The Illiad, or The Poem of Force

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 21:12:28 -0800

The true hero, the true subject, the center of the Iliad is force. Force employed by man, force that enslaves man, force before which man's flesh shrinks away. In this work, at all times, the human spirit is shown as modified by its relations with force, as swept away, blinded, by the very force it imagined it could handle, as deformed by the weight of the force it submits to. For those dreamers who considered that force, thanks to progress, would soon be a thing of the past, the Iliad could appear as an historical document; for others, whose powers of recognition are more acute and who perceive force, today as yesterday, at the very center of human history, the Iliad is the purest and the loveliest of mirrors.

and

Thus war effaces all conceptions of purpose or goal, including even its own "war aims." It effaces the very notion of war's being brought to an end. To be outside a situation so violent as this is to find it inconceivable; to be inside it is to be unable to conceive its end.

The Iliad, or The Poem of Force, by Simone Weil

In categories: Arts/Poetry, Arts/Literature

I'd like to be able to play my library of mp3s without opening the laptop, but when I think about using a phone or tablet with some kind of iTunes-like interface (Microsoft Access for music!) I get depressed.

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 11:14:56 -0800

I'd like to be able to play my library of mp3s without opening the laptop, but when I think about using a phone or tablet with some kind of iTunes-like interface (Microsoft Access for music!) I get depressed.

There's gotta be a better way. Somewhere at the intersection of existing public curation a la Discogs (genre/style assignments, album lists), a hypothetical Wikipedia/Allmusic mashup, and a kind of conceptual theme library that overlays different viewpoints on music history and how artists relate to each other ... and ideally a visual experience to match. I've always thought that an ideal music player would actually transform the entire music player, and perhaps your surrounding environment, to match the music being played. A grotty punk club. A swank hotel bar. Coincidentally Apple's Vision Pro comes out this year.

In categories: Music/Mp3s, Design, Tech/Audio

A more critical approach to Buddhist scripture

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 15:45:30 -0800

Rigorous scholarship on Buddhist scripture is way behind e.g. study of the Bible. Tons of great, bracingly unorthodox stuff on this blog.

I do have preferred interpretations of the texts I read. However, the aim here would not be to defend or promote my particular view. Rather I wish to create a resource for those who read and think about Buddhist scripture. I'm trying to pitch this a the level of educated Buddhist readers and university undergraduates studying Buddhism or comparative religion. I hope it will be generally useful to anyone who wants to go beyond passively consuming Buddhist ideology when they read Buddhist scripture.

Jayarava - Prolegomenon on the Interpretation of Buddhist Scripture: Introduction

In categories: People/Buddhism

Mandala system

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 21:40:09 -0800

Maṇḍala is a Sanskrit word meaning 'circle'. The mandala is a model for describing the patterns of diffuse political power distributed among Mueang or Kedatuan (principalities) in medieval Southeast Asian history, when local power was more important than the central leadership ... the overlord-tributary relationship was not necessarily exclusive. A state in border areas might pay tribute to two or three stronger powers. The tributary ruler could then play the stronger powers against one another to minimize interference by either one, while for the major powers the tributaries served as a buffer zone to prevent direct conflict between them.

Mandala (political model)

In categories: Other/History, Other/Politik, Travel/KingdomofSiam

My fifty favorite albums

Sun, 10 Sep 2023 17:21:54 -0700

People were sharing their fifty favorite albums on an ancient music forum I hang out on. Here in no particular order:

Tricky - Maxinquaye
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
Bjork - Homogenic
Black Dog - Bytes
Joni Mitchell - Hejira
Talking Heads - Remain In Light
Stevie Wonder - Talking Book
KLF - Chill Out
Orb - Orbus Terrarum
Wire - 154
Fever Ray s/t
Aphex Twin - ... I Care Because You Do
Steely Dan - Can't Buy A Thrill
David Bowie - Low
Prince - Sign O The Times
Autechre - Chiastic Slide
Human League - Dare
Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
Michael Mayer - Fabric 13
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
Passengers - Original Soundtracks 1
Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner
Wu-Tang Clan - Return To The 36 Chambers
Kate Bush - Aerial
Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
DJ Shadow - Endtroducing ...
Roxy Music - Avalon
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Aphex Twin - Richard D James Album
Luomo - Vocalcity
Underworld - Oblivion With Bells
Amon Tobin - Supermodified
Marsen Jules - Lazy Sunday Funerals
woob - 1194
Lord Of The Decks Vol 2
The Books - The Lemon Of Pink
Pantha Du Prince - This Bliss
Stars Of The Lid - Gravitational Pull Vs The Desire For An Aquatic Life
Cut Copy - Fabriclive.29
Interchill - Magnetic Blue (label comp)
Biosphere - Cirque
Orbital - Snivilisation
Piekoz - Narrativestructurez
Oneohtrix Point Never - R+7
Kompakt Total 3
Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
The Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole
Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

In categories: Music

The housing theory of everything

Tue, 16 May 2023 19:38:06 -0700

Try listing every problem the Western world has at the moment. Along with Covid, you might include slow growth, climate change, poor health, financial instability, economic inequality, and falling fertility. These longer-term trends contribute to a sense of malaise that many of us feel about our societies. They may seem loosely related, but there is one big thing that makes them all worse. That thing is a shortage of housing: too few homes being built where people want to live. And if we fix those shortages, we will help to solve many of the other, seemingly unrelated problems that we face as well.

The housing theory of everything

In categories: Commerce/RealEstate, Other/Politik