Sam Gentle.com
I've been thinking recently about the XKCD sandboxing cycle – briefly, that we seem to repeatedly come up with new container technologies that isolate systems from each other for security, and then new networking systems that join them back together for flexibility and convenience. I'd like to take a broader view. Fundamentally, security is about dividing actions into two sets: things you should…
When organising your behaviour to achieve a goal, there are two equal and opposite skills: composing and improvising. Composing means making decisions as early as possible. You anticipate the outcome you want, figure out the paths to that outcome, and construct a plan for getting there. You're making decisions at the point of maximum influence: with more time, your decisions can compound for…
There's a kind of argument that starts with one person saying something like "social media companies should ban disinformation", and the other saying "but once you start banning speech who knows what it will include". Then the first person says "well I know what it will include: things that aren't true", the second says "ah, but what is true?" and the prophecy is complete . This looks like a…
You know that old trick for finding your way out of a maze? You keep your left hand touching the wall the whole time, leading you to follow a series of left turns that will, inevitably, bring you to the exit. It's a fascinatingly simple algorithm, and an interesting way to understand it is as a kind of depth-first search. A depth-first search is one way of exploring a space where, each time you…
One of the strangest things about video games is the way they encourage you to take the longest path. Most games have some system of progression: a storyline, levels, or a map you move through methodically. However, there are also many things to explore in each area, and when you move on you probably won't return to them. To get the most out of the game, you actually want to avoid winning for as…
Technology is meant to be a tool to enable us. To a tool-using species, tools are meant to fade into the background, to disappear and become extensions of our minds. But our technology often seems to be very insistent that it stays in the forefront of our attention. Worse, it often disobeys us, places restrictions upon us, or acts in ways that subtly disrespect or disempower us. Why? Modern…
I've been thinking about global catastrophes lately, for obvious reasons. An interesting thing to notice is the way that the global machinery of production and trade acts, much like a biological organism, at multiple layers of redundancy. A common misconception is that hearts tend to fail by stopping, as per the classic hospital flatline scene where the defibrillator magically shocks a dead person…
I used to think I was okay at making plans, until I met people who are good at making plans, which led me to conclude that I am, in fact, bad at making plans. An important difference I've noticed is in how we build plans on top of one another. If a friend knows you are working until 3pm, they might suggest having coffee at 3:30pm. This is really one plan (coffee at 3:30) stacked on another (work…
Lately I've been noticing how easy it is to become attached to incidentals. These are the things in your life that exist to serve some other purpose but aren't, of themselves, important. Incidentals are good! They support and implement a purpose by carrying its consequences forward into all the different parts of your life. There are many different purposes that could justify the same incidental.…
It seems like a very strange phrase, self-empathy. Empathy is when you connect with someone's feelings or share their mental state. You, well... are yourself. How could you not experience self-empathy? The problem is that we aren't only one self. Our future feelings aren't feelings: they're predictions. Our past feelings aren't feelings: they're memories. Who we are changes over time, and our…
I've come to realise recently that a lot of the things I call distractions are really better thought of as diversions . Both are things that you do instead of what you intended. The difference is: why? What makes them more compelling than your original goal? A distraction is compelling because it's different. You watch TV instead of studying because studying is hard and mentally taxing, while TV…
There's a certain mode of being, I think of it as seeking , motivated not by the joy of the moment, or the satisfaction of achievement, but by the thrill of the chase. It's easy to tell the difference: what happens on that fateful day when you finally get what you want? The hedonist says, "this is just like every day." The achiever says, "this is a wonderful day and I feel proud of what I have…
The first time I saw him was at base camp. I had been preparing for months, of course. Ropes, axe, crampons, provisions, oxygen. He had... well, a jacket, at least. He looked like he was going for a winter stroll in the city. He asked if I was going to climb. I said yes. He said he'd catch up with me later. I laughed. The second time was just as reality began to set in. The climb was difficult,…
I've noticed that it's easier for me to start things than to keep working on existing things, and much easier to do either of those than to finish things. In a sense, this is so obvious as to be boring: of course starting things is easier than finishing them! But, actually, why is that? In a sense, it's actually pretty counterintuitive. If your life's passion is to fill jars with marbles, the…
I want to be a poet. There, I said it. — A friend from high school, circa 2001 The human is a curious being. Possessed of all knowledge, instantly present everywhere at all times, able to observe everything and communicate with everyone. It is not delighted by this; it is tired. Its voice, once rich and melodic, draws down to a few notes: wry humour, detached observation, and sarcastic rebuke. Its…
A few years ago, I wrote a post called What changes? , which included this pretty revealing observation: "Let's say you have an enormous mountain of things to do. Now you finish one thing. What changes? You still have a mountain." It was part of an argument that meaningful transitions are good for motivation. I still basically agree with that, but I now see it as trying to make the best of some…
I've been watching a bunch of musicians on Youtube lately. I've found it surprisingly familiar, despite my lack of any serious musical background. I think it's because of the way music so explicitly embraces the idea of technical creativity. As an art, music is particularly technical. Unlike visual art, it never really had a representational phase; nobody comes up to a guitarist and says "hey, can…
Never believe that anti‐Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti‐Semites have the right to play. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew I think part of my problem is comedy…
One of the silliest terms in all of software development has to be the "sprint". It's an Agile concept intended to evoke a steady, sustainable release cycle by analogy to an all-out push to get over a line. Of course, if you take it literally you're Doing Agile Wrong, but perhaps it would be easier to do right if the words meant what they said. But forget Agile, let's talk about sprinting. The…
What does it mean to be an expert at something? Is it different from just being good at it? How can you tell if you are or aren't? And is it just a bourgeois construction designed to maintain the iron grip of privilege over the values of society? These extremely specific questions have been on my mind, in part because the process of gaining expertise has been mostly invisible to me. Sure, I used…