Random Note #356470
(reviving an old draft) Twitter (and all hyper-popular social media) has really emotional content. People almost never have a calm discussion. Indeed, it is as if they've been whipped until it c…
People
27 posts
Air Pods
(I have always been reluctant to wear them while walking around -- love them at home or in office, though)…
Ancient languages
Something that everyone with a bit of a linguist within them, or with an interest in etymology, will love:…
Foreign policy makes no sense
I found this interview with Jake Sullivan: You may skip the first fifteen minutes. There is also an accompanying transcript: https://www.cfr.org/event/leslie-h-gelb-memorial-event-common-sense-and-s…
On the ails and aims and means of education
Surely a controversial take :-) (But I tend to agree)…
On Madness
From an article in the Tablet: Entire nations can go insane. Here’s a way to test if we’re headed that way: Watch five minutes of TikTok—anything related to politics, beauty tips, or social justice.…
Costs of war
Amid the recent spate of numbers being thrown around (a few hundred million dollars for these weapons, forty billion dollars for some more stuff), I was casting around for "how to put these numbe…
Makers of Pizza
I went to pick up a pizza yesterday, which we sometimes order from this place that's about a ten-minute walk away. As I was waiting to pick it up and pay for it, I was able to see how the pizza w…
"Happy" social networks
Inspired by my recent micro.blog experience, some thoughts on the right way to have social networks without all the depression and unhappiness that are endemic to them today. Interactions * Disall…
An inspiring unix-er
An obituary of Lorinda Cherry, someone I wouldn't normally have heard about. In these years, Cherry recalls, the potential of the computer had barely been tapped, and if asked what she did for a…
"On Cyberspace"
Warning: From 1995 (25 years ago!) Today the term "cyberspace" sounds silly (perhaps "internet culture" comes closest) but here's a 10-min clip of Neil Postman talking about i…
Space, science, progress, hope
We were eating in a cafe that had a 50s-60s theme and had this front page of the LA Times from 1961 on the day Alan Shepard became the first American in space. I didn't do a good job of taking th…