Cast the I Ching
why not In categories: Other
the porous city
Lukas Bergstrom's weblog
Latest posts
Building tidepools
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
"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
Is God a Taoist? In categories: Philosophy
Clock graphics
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"
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?
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
crucial aphex blog In categories: Music/Musicians
Are LLMs Turing-complete?
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
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…
2025 tech predictions from roboticist Rodney Brooks
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
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
Interview In categories: Philosophy , Philosophy/Mind
World population over the next hundred years ... and prospects for the human race
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
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
The psychedelic inspiration of Hypercard In categories: People/Stories , Tech/MacOS , Tech/Development
The Joyce Project has a nicely annotated hypertext version of Ulysses.
The Joyce Project has a nicely annotated hypertext version of Ulysses. In categories: Arts/Literature
What do police actually do?
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
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
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…
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.
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…
A more critical approach to Buddhist scripture
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…
Mandala system
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…
My fifty favorite albums
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 -…
The housing theory of everything
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…