> Stephenson explores the GUI as a metaphor in terms of the increasing interposition of abstractions between humans and the actual workings of devices (in a similar manner to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) and explains the beauty hackers feel in good-quality tools. He does this with a car analogy. He compares four operating systems, Mac OS by Apple Computer to a luxury European car, Windows by Microsoft to a station wagon, Linux to a free tank, and BeOS to a batmobile. I both love and hate Neal Stephenson. More love right now.

In the beginning was the Turing machine. Theoretical and infinite, it laid the groundwork for how we would understand the von Neumann and Harvard architectures. But there was a second beginning as well, the beginning according to Alonzo Church. He didn't have an architecture, nor would his ideas for 30 years. And because of these three men, we continue to carry the ideas of artificial intelligence from a game played by a great genius, to something that could actually be experimented with. I wonder if they would be upset to know that it was the bean counters, the statisticians, that made it possible for them.

the opinion part (to not flood the fucking channel there), comes in around what reaching a critical mass, of sorts, will do for networks like ipfs and urbit, and likewise what low-maintenance hardware and primary communications paths will do for rns. I get the impression we're getting there with ipfs, but we're not there quiiite yet. But once we're past a threshold of nodes stability to the network will become more assured, and less subject to the problem of network blind spots over time.

> don't give money to fascists way ahead of you. I don't pay taxes.

Can't help it. I love a good shitshow.

> Silver? People actually use that shitcoin?

> YAGNI: Ya ain't gonna need it > DRY: Don't repeat yourself > WET: Write everything twice > Clean code: the book they throw at you when they don't like your code style

The earth's gravitational field is stronger in your area today. Be sure to hold your phone above your head when walking between your chair and your toilet.

> be Trump > indicted > 717.5 total years in prison if convicted > convicted > biotech lab says "we can do all 717 years in 8 real hours with a drug. You'll experience every minute of the 717 years, alone, watching a world where time does not turn, left to your own thoughts." > take the drug > it works > but you're Trump > come out just as narcissistically-driven as before, but 1000 years angrier

Occasional benefit of taking my dog on walks through wide alleys; sometimes the dogs get to socialize with big ol' truckers whose companies say "no animals in the trucks"

Also something something Github can't even price Copilot accessibly for businesses.

If I'm ever in a position to give name to a scale of data storage, I'm going with "texmexabytes"

The lucky fluke view of history: It was by chance we discovered hand-axe rocks and the process of making them, it was a fluke that Christianity created the nuclear family in opposition to the tribe/clan families, it was a fluke that the Renaissance happened at all, it was a fluke that the Enlightenment wasn't snuffed out in its infancy, and it's a fluke that the internet didn't start out as a top-down DARPAnet.

an enjoyable exploration of meritocracy and aristocracy, by way of 800's european chaos due to raiding tribes at the time.

everyone's favourite potential Falling Down re-enactor, talking about a scanner that the printer company made require ink. youtube.com/watch?v=J_XiaMzzZUo

> me: fuck advertisers, fuck madison avenue, fuck all this interest in shoving shit in everyone's faces at all times all the time what the fuck > also me: ooh, Colleen did another pretty painting

> Trump: "Hey are you seeing what's happening on the television?" > The State of Georgia: "That? That's evidence of a conspiracy, an act in furtherance of the conspiracy. He's clearly a mafioso."