On this day

September 20th

RDF site summaries

September 20

…more commonly, Really Simple Syndication (RSS). If you don’t yet know what RSS is: RSS is a calm technology.

Introducing a quarter-century-old technology as if it were novel might seem a little strange. But despite the syndication format’s cult following, most internet users have never heard of it. That’s unfortunate, because RSS provides everyday internet users with an easy way to organize all of their online-content consumption—news media, blogs, YouTube channels, even search results for favorite terms—in one place, curated by the user, not an algorithm. The answer to our relatively recent social-media woes has been sitting there all along.

~ Yair Rosenberg from, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/social-media-algorithms-twitter-meta-rss-reader/673282/

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Of course, the real problem is that we’ve all had the idea that “newer is better” broadcast at us for years. The Amish don’t eschew all technology; rather, they’re very particular and intentional about what technology they adopt. The Luddites didn’t want to smash and rollback all technology; they were technically skilled workers who thrived via technology, but who had a specific bone to pick about a new technology.

In recent decades we’ve been fire-hose, continuously fed the idea of techno-optimism… except without the really critical part: one can’t simply hew to, “technology is good.” Technology is nothing more than a tool. There are excellent tools, poor tools, and all tools can be used for good or evil. It’s the consideration we put into our decision to adopt or eschew a technology that matters most.

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Learning to see

September 20, 2022

Most people to this day think of [the sciences and the arts] as so radically different from each other. But I want to posit a different way to look at it. It comes from what I think is a fundamental misunderstanding of art on the part of most people. Because they think of art as learning to draw or learning a certain kind of self-expression. But in fact, what artists do is they learn to see.

~ Ed Catmull

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Our sense of what’s possible

September 20, 2022

The people we’re surrounded by limit or expand our sense of what is possible.

~ Brett McKay from, https://www.artofmanliness.com/people/relationships/sunday-firesides-relationships-over-willpower/

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That’s a perfect turn of phrase from McKay. I love to find myself exposed to new people; those moments where I think, “that’s interesting!” are like single-serving sized friends (with hat tip to Chuck Palahniuk).

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Take a moment

September 20, 2021

Wherever you go, there you are. But I think Marcus Aurelius’s two-millenia-old version is better. The tranquility is to be found within.

What I like—if you ask me, which I know you didn’t—about going to the beach is the very fact that precious few of my normal behaviors are even possible. The photo above was taken just after sunrise, (that’s the Atlantic Ocean,) during a micro-getaway to a beach campsite. It was hot; cool enough to sleep though. It was vault toilets and cold showers in semi-enclosed stalls with no electricity, (I mean no lighting for the “bathrooms” and “showers”,) and there were plenty of biting bugs in the campsite and on the beach. Everything takes longer when camping; “bathing” and changing and preparing meals and even trying to do a little bit of morning mediation and reading. There’s nothing to do either. You can sit at the camp site or sit at the beach or go for a walk.

And all of that is exactly the point. Is exactly the thing I like about going to the beach. When I go there, there I am and there is nothing else.

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The honeybee conjecture

September 20, 2020

More than 2,000 years ago, Marcus Terentius Varro, a roman citizen, proposed an answer, which ever since has been called “The Honeybee Conjecture.” He thought that if we better understood, there would be an elegant reason for what we see. “The Honeybee Conjecture” is an example of mathematics unlocking a mystery of nature.

~ Shane Parrish from, https://fs.blog/2013/05/what-is-it-about-bees-and-hexagons/

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Every once in a while, you will have the chance to be alive when a multi-thousand-year old mystery is solved. Humans are awesome. Mathematics for the win. *drops mic*

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How bad are things?

September 20, 2018

I think about all of the miserable people in my psychiatric clinic. Then I multiply by ten psychiatrists in my clinic. Then I multiply by ten similarly-sized clinics in my city. Then I multiply by a thousand such cities in the United States. Then I multiply by hundreds of countries in the world, and by that time my brain has mercifully stopped being able to visualize what that signifies.

~ Scott Alexander from, http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/12/24/how-bad-are-things/

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The really interesting part of the article is where he whipped up a random “person” generator and fed it the best-estimate percentages of various problems. (Chance of drug addiction, chance of certain psychosis, etc.) He then generated a bunch of random people and, as is to be expected when the percentage chance for problems is low, he got a significant number of people who are “no problems.”

…and then he sketches (from his own direct experience) several types—not specific examples, but a type of person whom he sees many examples of—who fit into the “no problems” bucket of the “random person generator.” The take-away is that, yes, things are VERY bad.

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Meditate upon death to motivate yourself

September 20, 2016

This blind spot in our perception is why we confidently tell ourselves that we’ll start that business, lose the weight, repair our relationship, get organized…in a few weeks or a few months, because then we’ll have more time. It’s an illusion. It’s a self-deception that allows us to soothe the pangs of our unfulfilled desires with the panacea that now is not the right time. The mirage of the time-filled future can string a man along until he’s 80, has one foot in the grave, and realizes that the expanse of time he imagined would open never appeared.

~ Brett McKay from, https://www.artofmanliness.com/2011/03/20/what-man-understands-that-he-is-dying-daily-this-is-your-life/

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§2 – One thousand ways to read a book

September 20, 2015

(Part 7 of 37 in series, Study inspired by Pakour & Art du Déplacement by V. Thibault)

Here Thibault draws an analogy from how one reads a book. The obvious way is to read straight through from front to back. But he points out, just as there are alternatives with a book, there are alternatives with how we view and interact with our environment.

I’ve said many times – this isn’t my idea but I’ve forgotten where I picked it up – that one aspect of Parkour is realizing that the obstacle IS the path. Things in the environment which once were “obstacles” become “options.” Things which others would never consider interacting with draw my attention and suggest ways to interact. As my curiosity developed, I literally began to see my environment differently.

Aside: One of my favorite Parkour jokes is that I’ve converted my ADD from “Attention Deficit Disorded” to “Art Du Déplacement”. (That’s the French name for what we call Parkour.) But I’ve subsequently been diagnosed with late onset “Obstacle Attraction Disorder” (OAD).

Here, there is a railing. Why, really, may I not walk upon it? Many of the reasons for staying off are internal: I may fall; I have poor balance; I’m afraid. The rest of the reasons are based on other people’s internal fears projected out into the environment: People think, “I may fall, therefore you may fall.” And so we encounter people yelling, “Get down from there you’ll hurt yourself!”

Aside: Here’s my opinion on liability issues. Railings, as an example, are clearly not intended to be walked on. So I’m implicitly accepting the risk of my falling off the railing. Further, I’m also implicitly accepting the responsibility to repair the railing if I break it.

Through Parkour, I slowly discovered all of these internal reasons which I’d never noticed, let alone attempted to address, which were holding me back! Not simply holding me back in the context of some particular obstacle. (After all, I could simply walk around that wall!) But rather, all those internal reasons were holding me back in the context of my entire life. I realized that climbing stairs was no longer trivial. Touching my toes was no longer trivial. Climb a tree? …no more. Live a full life, sleep well, run? Nope, nope, nope. As a human being, I have a birthright to move (with a hat tip to Ido Portal), and to interact physically with my environment.

(Spoiler: I also have a birthright to interact physically with my fellow humans, but that’s another section in Thibault’s book.)

So Thibault’s section 2 seems trivial at first glance, but actually speaks to a very deep, and fundamentally important idea.

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