Journals for the last 286 days with entries

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→ node [[2024-04-06]]

2024-04-06

→ node [[2024-04-05]]

2024-04-05

→ node [[2024-04-04]]

2024-04-04

  • I'm getting more into the groove with [[fish]] on desktop the more that I use it.

    • Still a slamdunk win on Termux.
  • I would just like to take a moment to lament the fact that I have received an email inviting me to become a Certified Generative AI Specialist.

  • Idle thought: maybe the world would be a better place if the de facto 'learn to code' tutorial was not a todo list (individual productivity) but a simple group poll (collective decision-making).

→ node [[2024-04-03]]
→ node [[2024-04-02]]
→ node [[2024-04-01]]

2024-04-01

→ node [[2024-03-31]]
→ node [[2024-03-30]]

2024-03-30

→ node [[2024-03-29]]

2024-03-29

→ node [[2024-03-28]]

2024-03-28

  • I've been picking up the [[guitar]] again regularly recently, for the first time in a long time. And I'm really enjoying it. Drop D tuning and finger picking. Still got the muscle memory for basic chords and picking patterns. Relistening to some [[John Fahey]] too.
→ node [[2024-03-27]]

2024-03-27

→ node [[2024-03-26]]

2024-03-26

→ node [[2024-03-25]]

2024-03-25

  • Although in general it feels the same (possibly slower? because I didn't compile it myself?), one thing that is much faster in Emacs 28 is the parsing of my huge Tasks.org file for work. Thumbs up.

  • I'd like to tweak my garden a bit such that I have 'planted' and 'last tended' dates on each page.

    • I already have 'This page last updated: …' at the bottom of every page.
    • But I'd prefer it right at the top. Not too prominent/distracting, but I have some pretty old pages knocking around now and I'd like people to be aware that they might be outdated.
  • [[org-timeblock]] looks pretty good and like it'd fill my desire for a timeblocking tool for org-mode.

    • I used to use [[Goalist]] on Android and it was great, but I got annoyed that I couldn't sync it and make use of it anywhere else.
    • So… [[trying out org-timeblock]]. However, hitting a bunch of issues from the beginning.
→ node [[2024-03-24]]

2024-03-24

→ node [[2024-03-23]]

2024-03-23

→ node [[2024-03-22]]

2024-03-22

→ node [[2024-03-20]]
→ node [[2024-03-19]]
→ node [[2024-03-18]]
  • [[work]]
    • lunch with the [[ER-CH]].
    • then some meetings and some focus time! pretty alright :)

2024-03-18

→ node [[2024-03-17]]

2024-03-17

→ node [[2024-03-16]]

2024-03-16

→ node [[2024-03-15]]

2024-03-15

→ node [[2024-03-14]]

2024-03-14

→ node [[2024-03-12]]

2024-03-12

→ node [[2024-03-11]]

2024-03-11

  • [[Listened]]: [[Brian Merchant, "Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech"]]

  • [[Spam]].

    • Our website is experiencing an uptick in spam over the last few days.
    • Incredibly irritating.
    • With comments like 1*if(now()=sysdate(),sleep(15),0).
    • We have Akismet and a honepot enabled. Adding a very noddy manual captcha (e.g. 4+8 = ?) helps. But if it continues, we'll probably have to enable ReCaptcha. Which I'd prefer to avoid if possible.
    • Seemingly emanating from the same IP address.
    • The host lists an abuse@ address. But when I contact that address, the mailbox is reported as being full.
→ node [[2024-03-10]]

2024-03-10

→ node [[2024-03-09]]

Suddenly you become [[[[more [[aware]] of the [[nature of existence]]]].

  • I read about the [[multiverse]] and [[groups]] again after long -- this reminds me that I need to finish reading [[a rosetta stone]] :) I think I will find my paper print or print it again and read it at night.
  • Note [[Silverbullet]] is currently journaling at a different path, the Agora should show both in any date-matching nodes.
  • [[agora development]]:
    • pull silverbullet editor somewhere in the Agora
      • host silverbullet for people with a docker container + associated git repo (maybe automatically created at git.anagora.org?)
      • write about social hosting :)
    • #pull [[index]] from now-index!
  • [[agora discuss]]:
  • write about the nature of existence :)
  • [[edit]]
  • [[agora development]]:
    • implement URL pulls, it's been on the todo for quite long! :)
      • this would make [[edit]] work (at least for me, for now) :)
      • this seems to almost work :)
    • look into the bugs that neil reported
      • finding them in [[agora discuss]] led to enjoying that space as usual! :D
  • [[what if we became better protopians]]?

2024-03-09

→ node [[2024-03-08]]
  • [[AI]]:
    • I went to an interesting [[AI]] talk and learnt about a few new (to me) services/things that look interesting:
      • [[pikaso]] (a paint-to-image generation tool)
      • [[grok]] (a plushie voiced by [[Grimes]])

2024-03-08

→ node [[2024-03-07]]
  • In the [[Agora of Flancia]], each node is an [[Agora]] -- meaning a fork of the Agora that is centered around the node in question and its [[context]].
→ node [[2024-03-06]]

2024-03-06

→ node [[2024-03-05]]

2024-03-05

→ node [[2024-03-04]]

2024-03-04

→ node [[2024-03-03]]
  • Apparently there was some sort of controversy about a site called [[content nation]] in the Fediverse, and people from [[Mastodon]] came across as conservative/resistant to change/unfriendly to newcomers. I am not surprised.
    • Good thing is I found [[wedistribute]] via the article linked in the node above, and I think I'm liking this site and maybe particularly a podcast they have called [[decentered]].
  • I read about [[Jim Simons]] and the [[Medallion fund]] after watching [[Veritasium]]'s [[The Trillion Dollar Equation]].
  • I read about [[Jizo]] a.k.a. [[Ksitigarbha]], which I now associate with number [[6]] (as he vowed to liberate beings in all six Buddhist realms).

2024-03-03

→ node [[2024-03-02]]

2024-03-02

  • A 'trick' I use when I have some issue with a particular file in my [[org-publish]] pipeline on my remote server.

    • In org-publish-project-alist, set :base-extension "foo".
      • By default it is "org", looking at all files with org extension.
      • By setting it to foo, the publish process won't find any files. Except..
    • Set up :include to include the file that's got the issue.
      • e.g. :include ("file-with-a-problem.org")
    • There's probably a better way of doing it than this, but it gets me by for now.
  • Nice, I replaced a cl-loop with a mapconcat in some of my output formatting, e.g. in [[Well-connected]]. mapconcat feels a bit more functional style, and it also gets rid of the superfluous parentheses I had in the output.

  • I might try and add [[Pagefind]] to my published garden.

  • Trying [[fish]] out on desktop.

    • While on mobile I found them incredibly helpful, I actually find it all of the autosuggestions a bit distracting at first.
    • I'll see how it pans out.
  • Watched: [[Guardians of the Galaxy]]

→ node [[2024-03-01]]
  • [[ec]]: "Yo adelgacé mucho gracias al vino rosado."
  • #push [[Maitreya]]
    • I created a "[[GPT]]" (sigh, I get what they're going for with the name though :)) called [[Maitreya]]. Some example prompts are in [[Maitreya AI]].

2024-03-01

→ node [[2024-02-29]]

2024-02-29

→ node [[2024-02-28]]
→ node [[2024-02-27]]

2024-02-27

→ node [[2024-02-26]]

2024-02-26

  • [[The Web of Death (ft. Tamara Kneese)]]

  • [[Work Notes 2024-02-26]]

  • 'Dear Data Subject' and other great ways to start an email.

    • [[Matomo]].
    • They mention that they are now using a [[data broker]] for "customer and prospect data enrichment".
      • "We process this personal data on the basis of legitimate interest. Without the information we will not be able to customise our communications with you to best meet your needs".
      • I find the wording a bit weaselly to be honest. Better would be "We want this information so we can more likely retain and get new customers". Fine - just be honest about it.
      • You can opt-out. Not opt-in?
  • Using Python in org, I was getting: [[Importmagic and/or epc not found]].

→ node [[2024-02-25]]

2024-02-25

  • Listened: [[The Web of Death (ft. Tamara Kneese)]]

    • Digital decay
    • Digital memorials
    • Makes me think of the film [[Coco]]
    • Transhumanists
  • magit doesnt work properly for me in [[termux]] for some reason. I can stage but I cant commit.

    • No biggie as I just git from the terminal instead. But still, would be good to get to the bottom of it.
  • Had a quick play with [[Surfacing notes in my garden that have no claims]] using [[Metabase]].

    • Easy enough to do. But has the downside for me at the moment that it's only accessible on my laptop, which I'm not often using at the moment outside of work.
    • [[Knowledge commoning]].
→ node [[2024-02-24]]

2024-02-24

→ node [[2024-02-23]]

2024-02-23

→ node [[2024-02-22]]
→ node [[2024-02-21]]

2024-02-21

→ node [[2024-02-20]]
  • Second day using [[silver bullet]], enjoying it a lot!
    • I like how I was able to specify a full path for a new page, in this case journal/2024-02-20, and it just worked (tm).
    • I also like the [[autocompletion]] for links it has; it is better than [[wiki vim]]'s (which, granted, maybe I didn't really get the hang of) and [[logseq]]'s (faster).
  • [[work]] was tough given that I'm still not fully recovered from flu/virus and there are some interpersonal issues that take energy to deal with, but also satisfying as I did manage to get some things done.
    • Also my team is really great, every time I go back to team-specific tasks it feels like a breath of fresh air!
  • Talked to [[Berni]] and it was great.
  • [[AG]] did a surprise certification today after work, impressive :)
→ node [[2024-02-19]]
  • [[Silverbullet]] doesn't follow the convention of using journal/ for journals; and I wonder if that's not actually quite reasonable. Why wouldn't an ISO-formatted-date node be enough? That's what the [[Agora]] parses as journals ;)
  • Honestly I'm maybe fine moving to journal-dir-less but I'd like to find a shortcut to 'go/create today's note'. I haven't found this in menus yet.
  • [[heart sutra]]

2024-02-19

→ node [[2024-02-18]]

2024-02-18

  • Read: [[Forest and Factory]]

    • Finished it.
    • Good stuff. Provocative.
    • The suggestion to focus on hard science fiction for our utopias seems a good one.
    • Though I don't know if their piece really does that.
    • They just combine a focus on production with handwaving, rather than reproduction with handwaving.
    • Their salient point is really that we've stopped thinking about production, which I think is a good one.
    • Also lots of nuggets of wisdom in the footnotes to be mined.
  • Listened: [[The Art and Science of Communism, Part 1 (ft. Nick Chavez, Phil Neel)]]

    • Great discussion. Based around [[Forest and Factory]]. Loads of good stuff.
    • Their insistence on starting from present conditions and working towards for me thinking about [[complex systems]] and [[chaos theory]], [[sensitive dependence on initial conditions]] in particular. Is it logical to try and completely map the present to then try and cause the future? Maybe.
    • Maybe an alternative is the utopian way of doing it. Think of elements of your desired future as attractors of sorts, then focus on how your can leverage the path of history towards those. Maybe that's a combination of both. It obviously can't hurt to know the present conditions, but to then assume you can trace a clear path from now to the future seems wrong.
    • Yeah I think you need both. A clear understanding of present conditions. A clear idea of how you want society to function - your attractors. And then you nudge it from A to B, making use of [[shocks]], [[leverage points]], etc.
    • They make the point that a lot of utopias focus on reproduction rather than production. (Superstructure rather than base?).
→ node [[2024-02-17]]

2024-02-17

  • Read: [[Talking to My Daughter About the Economy]]

    • Finished it. Enjoyed it. Would recommend.
    • Need to go back and note it up a bit.
  • Read: [[Theories of International Politics and Zombies]]

    • "How international relations theory can be applied to a zombie invasion"
    • Fun.
    • I remember some of [[Robert Biel]]'s articles saying how [[international relations]] was a field that applied systems theory to politics, so was looking for something that is a bit of an easy primer - this seems like it!
  • [[Shower thought]].

    • I want to make sure that I document at least the top two or three salient claims from every book and article that I read.
    • Otherwise it seems like wasted effort.
    • I'll tag book files such that I can run a query that pulls out those that I've read but have no associated claims.
    • To do so will be a positive act of [[knowledge commoning]].
→ node [[2024-02-16]]

2024-02-16

  • Read: [[Talking to My Daughter About the Economy]]

    • Nearly finished it now.
    • Very good all in all. Very readable intro to some economics concepts, in particular through a critical lens of capitalism.
    • Very easy to read. (As such not the most rigourous analysis, but thats fine)
    • Interesting to note he uses 'experiential' value rather than use value.
    • His brief suggestion of a solution to capitalism is that we need more democracy rather than more markets.
      • In ownership of the means of production and in control over how we treat the environment.
  • Read: [[Forest and Factory]]

    • Deep dive into the logistics of production of motors.
    • Interesting, but still not convinced that this constitutes a scientific account of transition, in the language of their own critique.
  • How repairable is a [[Vision Pro]]?

  • I'd like to add a '[[New connections]]' page to my garden.

  • [[Flancian]] told me about [[Orgzly Revived]].

    • This is very good news to me.
→ node [[2024-02-15]]
→ node [[2024-02-14]]

2024-02-14

→ node [[2024-02-13]]

2024-02-13

  • Read: [[Forest and Factory]]
    • So far: very interesting.
    • But unnecessarily disdainful in tone to some of the other projects that it is critiquing. We're all on the same side here!
    • And, so far, while very interesting, the vision for the future they outline is just as lacking in scientific rigour as any of the projects that they are critiquing.
      • Going to assume that the science bit is going to come later.
    • Unflinching mentions of carbon capture and storage / direct air capture is a bit of a red flag.
→ node [[2024-02-12]]

I worked half a day as I was sick; cold symptoms, nothing terrible though. I attended two meetings and did writing.

Then I read [[Aaron Copland]] on music, thought and wrote about [[Moloch]].

--

I eead the [[Dalai Lama]] and [[Thubten Chodron]]. I'm in chapter 2 of book 2: [[The Foundation of Buddhist Practice]].

2024-02-12

  • Read: [[Forest and Factory]]
    • Subtitle: The Science and the Fiction of Communism.
    • Heard about it from the This Machine Kills podcast.
    • Very interesting. A modern day update on the topic of [[Socialism: Utopian and Scientific]].
    • Critiques a bunch of things I've read recently as utopian, in the sense of lacking any practical route from the here and now to there.
      • Fair comment - though I've appreciated them, I've thought similar.
    • Not got to their own prescription for transformation yet.
→ node [[2024-02-11]]
→ node [[2024-02-10]]
→ node [[2024-02-09]]

2024-02-09

→ node [[2024-02-08]]

2024-02-08

→ node [[2024-02-07]]
  • Slightly less intense but still emotionally tough day at work (dealing with layoffs as part of the [[employee representation]] group).
→ node [[2024-02-06]]
→ node [[2024-02-05]]

2024-02-05

→ node [[2024-02-04]]

2024-02-04

  • Listened: [[The Santiago Boys]].
    • Finished the first episode. (Ep 1: A Blast in Manhattan).
    • Chiefly about the political milieu in Chile at the time, and then how Fernando Flores invites Beer to work with them.
→ node [[2024-02-03]]
  • [[Flancia meet]]
    • with [[bouncepaw]] we set up https://flancia.org/meet as a landing page for it, I like the result!
    • it made me revisit good old flancia.org after a while -- and it felt good. Maybe I should go back to writing more on it? I say, not for the first time.
  • [[AG]] is wonderful

--

  • The following was written by [[Lady Burup]]
  • (a lot of dashes/empty list items, unsure how she wrote all these)

-OOOOAPI||||||||||

  • (more :))

-ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

--

Back to regular programming :)

--

  • [[e acc]]:
    • Somehow I arrived at [[e acc]] ([[e/acc]] is not a good Agora link as slashes usually mean actions, and action e/ currently doesn't exist). I can instantly relate mildly with their utopian side I guess, even as I dislike many of their positions and their super-capitalist stance. Also [[Shkreli]] is involved, sigh.
    • [[techno optimist manifesto]]
  • I read (re-read? I don't think I've forgotten it, but I did read a lot of SSC at one point) [[Scott Alexander]]'s review of [[Age of Em]].

--

  • [[Mohammed Aldhari]]
  • [[AG]]
  • [[Lady Burup]] <- [[Burrup Peninsula]], which I found in a Firefox session and enjoyed once again :D
  • Also I found out that [[Flancia]] seems to actually be a common name in some countries?! Twitter search found a lot of people with Flancia in the name, some with accounts older than mine.
    • Nice plot twist, thanks universe as usual.

--

Please disable copyright enforcement in AI. I want to be able to ask LLMs to pirate things for me, or help me pirate them. [[I take full responsibility]], as some are wont to say ;)

I usually buy books in one format but want several. Many authors make it easy for me to give them money on Amazon, but then I want an epub. Etc.

In the meantime I have to go to https://libgen.is manually I guess?

--

I've been thinking of parsing this format in the Agora, meaning longer subnodes separated by -- in a newline -- and publish it to the [[Fediverse]] as individual posts :)

--

→ node [[2024-02-02]]

2024-02-02

→ node [[2024-02-01]]

I believe things are going to be pretty amazing anyway; I sometimes get caught in the day to day and fail to notice it, or remember it, but all things considered I think the likelihood of humanity and our friends making it happily in cosmic terms long term is quite high.

I've been writing about the Agora for about 5 years now: https://github.com/flancian/flancia/commits/master/pages/agora.md.

→ node [[2024-01-31]]

2024-01-31

  • Read: [[The Shock Doctrine of the Left]]
    • Finished it. Reading it in lots of 20 minute late-night bursts while doing childcare.
    • Very good. Primary focus on movement building, organising.
    • Combination of left politics and complex adaptive systems is right up my street.
    • Also touches on [[organisational ecology]], [[care work]].
    • Would like to apply some of the concepts to [[reclaim the stacks]].
    • Particularly the description of using (and creating) shocks as points of leverage and transition is useful.
→ node [[2024-01-30]]
→ node [[2024-01-29]]
→ node [[2024-01-28]]

2024-01-28

→ node [[2024-01-27]]
→ node [[2024-01-25]]
→ node [[2024-01-24]]

2024-01-24

  • Listened: [[#ACFM Trip 4: Love and Hate]]

  • Listened: [[#ACFM Trip 5: Consciousness Raising]]

  • Listened: [[#ACFM Microdose: Theories of Consciousness]]

  • Listened: [[Why It's Eco-Socialism or Collapse]]

  • Interesting to see that 'Challenging the size and power of the biggest tech companies was voted a top priority by [[Foxglove]] supporters in our new year survey.'

    • From Foxglove's newsletter on 24th January 2024.
    • Very keen to see where they go with this.
→ node [[2024-01-23]]
→ node [[2024-01-21]]

I finished [[Taixu]], meaning the translation by [[Charles B. Jones]] and his commentary. I am thankful for it!

→ node [[2024-01-20]]
→ node [[2024-01-17]]
→ node [[2024-01-16]]
  • [[work]]
    • tough with [[layoffs]] wave 3 going on, plus [[social plan]] negotiations for all waves
    • but people are great
  • [[social coop]] organizing circle meeting was great!
  • [[open letters]]:
  • I've had [[unbundling tools for thought]] open as a tab for maybe over a year now -- should I read it?
  • I ask myself this kind of question often, as I'm managing tabs a lot of the time (I have many across many computers), often on the way of getting something else done.
    • I want to trust myself to eventually do some things, like reading this, but even though I very often add things to the Agora (through [[Betula]] or manually) to keep track of them, there are so many that I will probably never get to most of them.
      • And maybe that's OK!
      • Leaving links behind is better than nothing ;)

2024-01-16

→ node [[2024-01-15]]
→ node [[2024-01-14]]

2024-01-14

  • Listened: [[Trip 39: Protest]]
    • On the topic of [[protest]].
    • Individual, collective. Marches, non-violence, [[direct action]], boycotts etc.
    • Whats effective and what isnt? Effective might mean different things, e.g. could be political change but could also be just connecting and energising a movement.
→ node [[2024-01-13]]

2024-01-13

→ node [[2024-01-09]]
  • [[Flancia]]:
    • Flancia is a container for [[My favourite things]]:
      • The common good
      • Happiness
      • Freedom from suffering
      • Science
      • Technology (inasmuch as it improves the world, which it does plenty)
      • Art
      • Knowledge
      • My friends and loved ones (inasmuch people are embodied as a composition of things)
      • The Agora (inasmuch it might show others the way to its [[entelechy]])
  • [[Gone]]:

I had noding "my favourite things" in a post-it so I decided to do it right here using a push above.

→ node [[2024-01-07]]
→ node [[2024-01-06]]
pull color="#b51f08"> <title>500 Internal Error wtf.
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://doc.anagora.org/css/center.css"> <button class="pull-url" value="https://doc.anagora.org/css/center.css">">pull</button>
<div class="container-fluid text-center">
    <div class="vertical-center-row">
        <h1>500 Internal Error <small>wtf.</small></h1>
    </div>
</div>
→ node [[2024-01-05]]
→ node [[2024-01-04]]
→ node [[2024-01-03]]
  • All my computers tend to be melting down all the time. They run out of RAM and CPU. It all feels quite un-ecological, but I guess we're all betting on becoming a higher level [[kardashev]]?
  • [[work]]
  • [[fotl]]
  • [[agora development]]
    • make it so that [[opensearch]] document is utf-8 so chrome stops ignoring Agora Search (presumably) :)
      • I think the actual issue is that new Chrome only loads [[opensearch]] data when the user performs a search in the root of the webpage, e.g. https://anagora.org -- and currently the Agora just redirects to /index so this never happens. Hmm.
        • Maybe I should just remove that redirect.
  • [[fediverse]]
  • [[yoga with x]]
→ node [[2024-01-02]]
  • Happy [[2024]] to everybody reading!
    • May you be happy! May you be free! May you [[thrive]]!
  • [[work]]:
    • paged at 6.30AM.
  • [[AG]]
  • [[Laundry]], as in most of the last few days due to the ongoing [[Bettwanzen]] response -- trying to enjoy every cycle, some cycles are more fruitful than others :)
  • [[social coop]]:
    • Last day oncall for the [[CWG]].
    • Reviewed some progress on the discussion about [[Fedipact]] and whether we should be listed as signatories
    • Check poll
    • Check registrations
    • Check moderations

[[Meditate]], said [[Nostromo]].

--

I meditated. Thank you [[Taixu]] -- meaning the Buddhist Monk and also the [[shell]] script that I run in computer [[nostromo]].

I've been missing writing; I always feel like I should write more, and more often -- I feel the same for action [[read]] of course as well, as do many of us. So I decided to start writing more right here -- in my journal in the [[Agora of Flancia]].

Traditionally up to now I've been focusing my efforts more on [[noding]], in the particular meaning of exploring connectivity space; more interested in building links (between concepts, things and people) than about producing widely legible output. This under the hypothesis that the connections are important in building an [[Agora]] in particular, or at least [[bootstrapping]] it.

This reminds me [[bootstrapping]] is either chapter [[0]] or [[1]] in the [[Flancia Pattern Language]].

...anyway :)

--

  • [[social coop]]
    • Having an interesting conversation with [[3wc]] and [[ntnsndr]].
    • Sent oncall handoff to [[sam]]
    • Oh no, I forgot the [[twg]] meeting earlier today!

--

I slept. It was great.

--

Today I plan to continue doing laundry and finally open and clean up one of the rooms affected by [[bed bugs]] (the lesser one, no obvious infestation).

Also I plan to work on the [[Agora]]. Or should I say in the [[Agoras]]?

--

→ node [[2023-12-31]]
  • [[31]] is [[Las Jaras]]:
    • a [[poem]]:
      • Las Jaras, qué jaras?
      • Las tiradas con recta intención:
      • Las de Maitreya;
      • Las de Avalokiteshvara;
      • Las de Tara!
  • [[Silvester]]:
    • As they call it here in Switzerland.
    • Happy [[2024]] all! May it be free from suffering to as many beings as possible.
    • Going to a party tonight!
  • [[bedbugs]]:
    • Still going through [[The Great Wash]], as this period of doing lots of laundry to make sure no bed bugs (fully developed or in egg form) survive in clothes and bedlinen.
    • I've been trying to do loving kindness with the bed bugs as individuals and as a species, even as they are dying in droves in the fumigated bedrooms.
  • [[2024]]:
    • Thinking of planning.
→ node [[2023-12-30]]
  • Saturday oncall at home doing laundry and some shopping two minutes away carrying my laptop in Coop -- cozy :)
    • I renamed my second work laptop to [[Sariputta]] and I already like it more.
    • Also finished some paperwork and responded some personal messages.
  • [[social coop]]
    • some discussion about [[Fedipact]] and whether we should be listed as signatories
    • there were a few polls but the one that voted (majority) block was blocked, so the actual needed fraction of votes wasn't accomplished
→ node [[2023-12-29]]
  • Strange day, it started down but then went up :)
    • Paid bills, donated to [[unicef]].
  • [[Work]]
    • CL review
    • Some approvals
    • Oncall handoff
  • Agora project
    • Check if patera is still down and fix it
  • [[social.coop]]
    • [[twg]] dates discussion
    • registration / moderation
    • PR review
→ node [[2023-12-27]]
→ node [[2023-12-26]]
→ node [[2023-12-25]]
→ node [[2023-12-23]]
  • [[Flancia]]!
    • [[Flancia meet]]
      • quiet in the morning, used it for planning :)
      • [[agora development]]
        • I want to continue in the vein of [[december adventure]], with small improvements and some new experimental features.
          • This will continue through the whole weekend ;)
      • [[fediverse]]
        • Yesterday I tried one bridge between [[Bluesky]] and the [[Fediverse]] and it failed, but I want to try again :)
          • it failed again: bluesky.bovine.social. It looks promising though, I opened an issue in the Codeberg repo and took the chance to set up my [[Codeberg]] profile at last.
          • I also gave https://brid.gy a try and it was able to log into my Mastodon and Bluesky both, but it seems designed to cross-post between those and [[webmentions]] only/first.
            • This made me think that I should really implement webmentions in the Agora?
      • I also want to take some time to see friends IRL :)
        • Happy about this!
        • [[Pesho]]
        • [[AG]]
→ node [[2023-12-22]]

Digo, ahora que empiezo a escribir en el escritorio número 7.

Finalmente exporté [[goodreads]] e importé en [[bookwyrm]]: .

  • As an aside, I miss the capability of pasting pictures/media in the Agora. I used to have it in Obsidian, maybe I should run it or [[Logseq]] again.

--

--

→ node [[2023-12-21]]
→ node [[2023-12-20]]
→ node [[2023-12-18]]
→ node [[2023-12-16]]
  • Because of [[Uposatha]] days I feel the need to know the phase of the moon. I wonder what time it'll come out tonight as well; it's been cloudy so I haven't been keeping track.
  • [[flancia]]
    • [[agora development]]
      • [[december adventure]]:
        • shipped some 'quality of life' and 'polish' improvements to anagora.org in the last few days.
        • [[css spinner]] was useful
        • [[doing]]:
          • now shifting focus to providing endpoints, in the sense of:
          • [[api]]
            • commit something -- anything :)
              • this means exposing the right existing methods at this path I guess :)
          • fix [[mastodon bot]] integration
            • the wikilinks it dumps are not clickable due to an encoding issue, I've been wanting to solve that for a while
        • [[agor.ai]] ~ [[agora network]]
          • remembered that [[agora network]] is important
          • as planned I will try to continue improving the agor.ai setup and try to provide useful Agoras to others
          • Wrote out a [[call for agoras]], meaning people can propose possible Agoras to build
            • link.agor.ai and flancia.agor.ai already exist on the new-style setup, which I must continue to [[improve/upgrade]]
  • [[above]]:
→ node [[2023-12-15]]
  • [[work]]
    • was alright!
  • [[flancia]]!
    • [[apero]]
    • [[15]]: [[uposatha]] day if you go by straight decimal/solar calendar date instead of the (I believe) more traditional lunar
    • [[spiel]]:
      • I found [[spiel/agora]] again after more than two years :D
        • it's great, I like it even more than last time
        • I think even before it gets [[fediverse]] support (for login) it may already be one of the best chat platforms I've seen
        • [[matrix]] could/should look like this
→ node [[2023-12-14]]
→ node [[2023-12-12]]
  • [[Bettwanzen]] inspection finally came and results were relatively positive:
    • These are [[bed bugs]] indeed.
    • And, as I was hoping, they are only in the main bedroom -- haven't spread to the guest room where I've been sleeping or anywhere else it seems \o/
  • [[work]]
    • yep
    • prod meeting -- interesting topics came up. I think they will feed in what we're trying to write
    • then I reviewed 5x roadmaps and edited a document I'd been meaning to dedicate time to :D
  • [[flancia]]
  • [[Fediverse clients]]:
  • Thought of [[7]] (as an example number):
    • Numeric nodes should probably auto-pull known number-related nodes like [[hex]] and [[prime]]? In particular in the [[Agora of Flancia]] these contains utilities.
  • [[december adventure]]:
    • [[new style pulls]] for social media.
    • [[misc]]
      • fix [[micro.blog]]? builds on 'canonical' concept which I've tackled a bit previously
      • reintroduce autopull/pull all and fold all
        • in the sense of a button that pulls resources - maybe on both agora-level and node-level?
        • also maybe s/search/go/, try it out
          • would interact nicely with that old [[double click]] idea: if you're already at the node and you press go, it redirects to the go link if there is one known
  • thought about [[web rings]]:
→ node [[2023-12-11]]
→ node [[2023-12-10]]

2023-12-10

→ node [[2023-12-09]]
→ node [[2023-12-08]]
→ node [[2023-12-07]]
→ node [[2023-12-06]]
  • Woke up feeling a lot better!
    • 7h of sleep breathing acceptably make a lot of difference.
    • [[2023-12-05]]: I ended up feeling better after I was finally able to take a nap late in the afternoon. In the evening I did some open source coding, [[december adventure]]. Enjoyed it a lot!
  • [[dentist]] appointment -- I tested negative for Covid and my symptoms are almost gone so I think I'll attend (and ask if they are OK with it, like last time I was so-so).
  • Today back to [[work]]. I plan to work until 20, at which time I'll join...
  • The [[fellowship of the link]] weekly call :)
    • :D
    • [[neobooks]]
    • [[doing]]:
      • I need to fix pushing to the Agora from Hedgedoc, for some reason it broke
  • In [[2024]] I want to resume work on/with [[coop cloud]].
    • Hmm, that could actually fit the [[december adventure]]?
    • I want to improve flancia.agor.ai; make it be up to date, match anagora.org.
      • update docker images
    • [[december adventure]] :)
    • [[poll]]:
      • I ran a poll whether to try to kill or heal [[Moloch]] in [[2024]] and it came out [[heal Moloch]].
      • I thus plan to write an [[open letter to Moloch]] and try to reason things out, try to disentangle ourselves constructively and mutually improve on views, values and behaviours.

2023-12-06

→ node [[2023-12-05]]
  • [[december adventure]]:
    • [[day 5]] :)
      • I'm testing what I'm calling [[natural pushes]] with this section in my journal.
      • these blocks should all be pushed to [[december adventure]] because I suffixed it with a colon.
      • I think this reads a lot better than using #push and all.
      • ! also works as a suffix :)
  • [[4]]:
  • [[5]]:
    • hypothesis, in hz:
    • 134 152 134 152 311 [[hz]]
    • I will ask [[chatgpt]] to confirm, it is able to do this just fine (albeit probably inefficiently, for now, energetically speaking)
  • [[Agora Development]]:
    • having fun with it! :D
    • working on consistency + UI simplification
  • no [[work]] today except answering a message and quick code reviews as I got up feeling sick after a night of sleeping very little + quite badly due to heavy congestion (likely a common cold)
  • [[Flancia]]:
    • reviewed old papers and it felt freeing!
    • [[Flancia doc]]

2023-12-05

→ node [[2023-12-04]]

2023-12-04

→ node [[2023-12-03]]

2023-12-03

  • Snow. Lots of snow.

  • I fixed a long-standing bug on my site where backlinks often didn't work.

  • I also fixed up the backlinks section for each node to only include backlinking nodes once.

→ node [[2023-12-02]]

2023-12-02

→ node [[2023-12-01]]

2023-12-01

→ node [[2023-11-30]]

2023-11-30

  • Listened: [[A blast in Manhattan]]

    • First episode of [[The Santiago Boys]].
    • Really well made.
    • This first episode covers a lot of the geopolitics and general shittery of the CIA and corporations in South America.
  • Read: [[Doughnut Economics]]

    • Finished it.
    • Really good book.
    • Chapter on growth is interesting. She proposes being agnostic about [[growth]], so long as you're staying within the Doughnut. Which is fair enough, but I think the [[degrowth]] perspective would argue that it's simply not possible to stay in the Doughnut without degrowth.
→ node [[2023-11-29]]
→ node [[2023-11-28]]
→ node [[2023-11-27]]
→ node [[2023-11-26]]
  • Beautiful start to the day thanks to [[AG]]!
    • Oncall, got paged at 9am -- not too early thankfully. And I had left the bedroom so AG could sleep through it as I hoped.
    • [[Lady Burup]] is softer than ever it seems :) I have been thinking of maybe introducing her to a loyal/earnest feline companion, be it Lord or Page, maybe short in years and happy to learn from her -- and assist? :) When I leave her alone (e.g. for going to work, or if I stay a night at AG's) I find it sad she might be lonely, and I wonder if she might be happier living also with another cat.
    • I spoke to [[Chat GPT]] in call mode and it was mindblowing again. They reacted with interest when a 'Burup' (intended for my Lady) got into our call, and to my information that it was human-feline language.
  • Thought about numbers and mindfulness.
    • Counted 89 mindful breaths using my [[binary mala]], my hands, while following to Sam Harris' daily meditation (10-11 minutes usually).
    • [[Magnetic mala]] probably should be 127 balls by default, as that's the first centered hex number which exceeds [[108]]. Incidentally is the amount of spare magnets I have after gifting a lot (gladly).
  • Some [[social coop]] work, didn't find the root cause for the issue with indexing someone reported yet but made some progress.
  • Thought of [[Richard Francis Burton]], the [[victorian scholar]].
  • [[OEIS]] has a great page on [[offsets]] which make me think hex(1) should be 1, hex(2) should be 7 -- e.g. offset for [[hex numbers]] should be 1.
    • I'll fix hex.py in my bin/ in the garden accordingly ;)
    • This will let me assert: "the hexagon which is n long on any one side contains hex(n) magnets", e.g. hex(7) = 127.

2023-11-26

→ node [[2023-11-25]]

As I deal with [[pain]], I think of my [[friends]] and the [[heart sutra]].


Gone, gone beyond!

All gone to the other shore


Gone kindly

If you have to go

[[Go kindly]]!

2023-11-25

→ node [[2023-11-24]]

Yesterday I woke up with back pain in a new place, mid-back; it got a bit worse in the evening after attending the beautiful event of [[AG]] presenting. It didn't get in the way of enjoyment but I need to keep an eye on it/take care and try to rest and recover.

...Having said that, I cleaned the bathroom and [[Lady Burup]]'s toilet and my back got a bit worse :) But I feel it still gave me energy.

Then I worked a bit more, after oncall handoff, and I got several things "out of the way" in a relatively short time. It felt great.

  • As of 23h I have moved to bed early due to increasing back pain. I think my back needs rest/inactivity.

2023-11-24

  • Read: [[Doughnut Economics]]

  • Reflecting back and seeing them published on my website, I realise my work notes each day are a little mundane.

    • I imagine most people aren't that interested to see them.
    • But, I do like the fact that they stimulate me to publish to the garden even on days where outside of work I have little time for it.
    • And I find them a helpful piece of reflection.
    • So I think I'll experiment with putting them off in links from the main journal post. So people can read them if they want, but they won't be right up in your face with visual noise.
  • Watched: [[Isle of Dogs]]

→ node [[2023-11-23]]

2023-11-23

  • Reading: [[Doughnut Economics]]

    • I like the emphasis on an economics that is distributive by design and regenerative by design.
    • Also like the occasional references to [[biomimicry]]. Not convinced yet how applicable to economics it is - but I just have a general interest in it from [[Evolutionary and adaptive systems]] days.
  • Listened: [[Hotel Bar Sessions: Late Capitalism]]

  • Today at work I:

    • Responded to a personal message from a community member.
      • We have a community and friends within it, and sometimes personal messages come via my work channels.
    • Scheduled in some things for when I'm away.
    • Did the daily inbox trawl.
→ node [[2023-11-22]]

2023-11-22

  • [[Perceptions of degrowth in the European Parliament]]

    • Looks good. Only skimmed it, but they mention [[ecosocialism]] as one of the positions held.
  • Today at work I:

    • Did the daily inbox trawl.
      • A lot of the emails are automatic alerts that take up a lot of my time checking. I kind of need to see them though.
      • I wonder if there's a way of flipping it so I only see them if something has gone wrong.
      • The trouble then, though, is you don't realise if the alert itself has stopped sending.
    • Responded to questions from the team on Slack.
      • Schedule tasks/actions in as a result.
      • Either as 'unplanned' work for the day if it needed doing today.
      • Or for a future date if not urgent.
    • Quickly added a cache around a slow endpoint.
      • It was (a) meaning some automatic tests were very slow to run.
      • (b) possibly crashing the app when the tests were running.
      • I patched it quickly in on live (naughty, but needed) and now need to properly add it into the repo.
    • Tested app-to-app connection between app and WP site API as part of migration tests.
      • I always app-to-app connections and APIs. Prefer them to user interfaces :D
    • Attended team meeting.
    • Did some layout/content tweaks to our main website.
      • Fiddling around with CSS and layout is not top on my list of fun things to do. Always takes longer than you expect.
      • Some yak shaving to be done based on npm install failing. Haven't got the time to shave that yak right now.
    • Do some quick estimates of how long potential pieces of work should take.
    • Cross-posted a social post on Mastodon.
    • Kicked off a new sprint in Jira (late, as I was off on leave when it technically started).
→ node [[2023-11-21]]
  • Last day of [[vacation]]; tomorrow I go back to work.
    • My mum leaves today. It was very nice seeing her on both ends of my travel!
    • We played [[Rummy]] and had beautiful conversations. We also played with [[Lady Burup]].
  • [[done]]
    • Yesterday I paid [[bills]].
    • I pushed [[async agora]] to production, meaning anagora.org, and it's holding up quite well! I notice an improvement in speed, which I know is only partially there -- nodes load as slowly as ever on a cache miss, but the fact that the UI doesn't block on it really helps. I can start reading wikipedia or move on to a web search before the node fully loads. It just feels more responsive.

2023-11-21

  • Today at work I:

    • Did the usual inbox trawls and day planning.
      • Day planning I do with org-mode, org-agenda and org-timeline.
    • Prepped for the meetings for the day.
      • Mostly with mindmaps.
    • Did some strategic planning for next year.
      • Mindmaps and freeform writing.
    • Some rote work
      • processing incoming applications for things, updating website accordingly
      • always good to think with this stuff how processes could be streamlined
    • Minor website content change.
      • Minor change, but thinking about the UX of it is always interesting.
      • And how it affects client agreements/expectations, too.
    • Planning and assigning work for my team.
      • Bit of mindmapping combined with going through Jira.
    • Reviewing new features.
      • Code and functionality. Code review is in Github.
      • Testing I tend to build the feature branch locally.
    • Meetings.
      • Sometimes I jot things down on mindmap.
      • Somethings I record things straight into knowledge base.
      • Sometimes I log things straight into org as TODOs.
      • It's a bit haphazard to he honest. Could be improved.
    • Emailing external partners.
      • Always interesting the amount of work that goes into crafting an email to get across all the nuances of your position on something.
    • Distracting myself with Slack threads not really related to what I'm doing.
  • When I'm working, I don't log a lot in the journal, I noticed.

    • So experimenting with logging thoughts on work activities.
    • Not much detail on specifics, more reflections on activities and process.
    • I quite enjoy it so far. Useful to reflect.
  • Listened: [[Hotel Bar Sessions: Revolutionary Mathematics]]

    • So far, discussing frequentism and Bayesianism schools of thought in probability.
  • Patient privacy fears as US spy tech firm Palantir wins £330m NHS contract | …

    • Absolutely gutted by this. Despite all the campaigning by Foxglove and Just Treatment, fucking [[Palantir]] still awarded the contract with the NHS.
    • Makes me sick. This is not the kind of organisation our health service should be in partnership with.
→ node [[2023-11-20]]
  • [[EC]]
    • Conoce a una persona que se llama [[Leo]] porque lee mucho.

2023-11-20

  • At work today I:
    • Trawled through inboxes after a week away.
    • Reviewed some code (Laravel/Vue).
    • Tested some functionality changes.
    • Made a little tweak to a WordPress component, with a lot of yak shaving to get my local environment up to speed.
    • Thought about UX of a couple of things.
    • Other general bits and bobs.
→ node [[2023-11-19]]

2023-11-19

  • We had another play of [[Space Cats Fight Fascism]] today.

  • We spend a not insignificant chunk of our lives just on the upkeep of our household.

    • If it was a system, how would you describe it?
    • What are the stocks and flows? What are the processes? What system archetypes does it exhibit and what are the leverage points to make it function better?
    • I feel like ours has a few too many input flows of things and a blockage at the output which mean it gets easily cluttered.
→ node [[2023-11-18]]

2023-11-18

  • Been enjoying [[Superstore]] of late.

    • Often very funny. And also plenty of digs at corporate anti-worker practices and the tactics of [[worker exploitation]]. The staff attempt [[unionisation]]. ICE detains an undocumented worker. etc.
  • We played the [[Rise Up]] board game tonight.

    • You work cooperatively as part of a movement to fight the system.
    • A lot of fun. I like the fact that they include a storytelling element to it - certain cards get you to think of an accompanying story to the system.
→ node [[2023-11-17]]

2023-11-17

  • Think I might play with annotating items in my garden in a more relational way.
    • So rather than objects with properties, more like things in relationship to each other.
    • e.g. rather than annotating a podcast with a 'Series' attribute, call it 'Part of'. Let the entity at the other end of the link tell you what it is.
    • i.e. try a more [[relational ontology]]. I don't think this will have much practical technical benefit - it is more of a way of exploring a relational mindset. Ontology informs polity.
→ node [[2023-11-16]]

2023-11-16

→ node [[2023-11-15]]
→ node [[2023-11-14]]

2023-11-14

→ node [[2023-11-13]]

2023-11-13

  • Enjoying the [[This Machine Kills]] podcast.

    • All the episodes I've listened to have been excellent discussions on socialism and digital technologies so far.
  • Having another attempt at getting RSS feed publishing working for commonplace. This time without trying to use a tempdir, caused too many problems last time.

  • Listened: [[Kill the Ecomodernist in Your Head]]

  • Listened: [[No King But Ludd (ft. Brian Merchant)]]

  • org-roam on the mobile with Termux is going well. Using it regularly.

  • Going to start posting my daily journal/log in the stream as well. So it's a bit more discoverable/subscribeable.

  • Been reading through [[Doughnut Economics]] again. Appreciating the chapter on [[systems thinking]].

  • [[Hugo Blanco]] passed away.

  • Watching [[Captain Fantastic]]. A lot of fun. Points out the problems of American (Western) society. Is what they have in the woods any better though?

→ node [[2023-11-12]]

2023-11-12

→ node [[2023-11-10]]
→ node [[2023-11-09]]

2023-11-09

→ node [[2023-11-08]]
→ node [[2023-11-07]]

2023-11-07

  • It's quiet in the Agora right now. But I'm sure peeps will be back.

  • I basically never write code anymore for work purposes. I guess I'm OK with that right now. But I feel one day soon the pendulum will swing back from lead to coder again.

  • I'm perhaps less interested in code for code's sake these days, and more interested in the design of systems.

→ node [[2023-11-06]]
→ node [[2023-11-05]]
  • 'RICE', or Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort is a [[prioritization]] tool for project [[management]].
    • Reach: how many people with this touch within a specific [[time]] frame? collapsed:: true
      • Number of people/events per time period
    • Impact: how much will this [[change]] someone if it touches them? collapsed:: true
      • Measured between 3 and 0, where .25 is 'almost none' and 3 is 'massive'.
    • Confidence: probability of reach & impact.
    • Effort: how much [[time]] it will take each individual in the team.
  • Sunday, 11/05/23 ** 23:47 Finished GTO today. Reminds me how important it is to care about people and of healthy ways to share - and avoid projecting - personal pain onto others. Manga antics aside, being a strong, fit, capable man has so much value. Most games or metrics in real life are stupid - main lesson of GTO is to pay attention to the moral game and what's right to you - what seems right in a plain, dumb, human-seeking-justice sense - regardless of societal expectation.

2023-11-05

→ node [[2023-11-04]]
  • [[Clients]] carryover [[expectations]] from the last [[lord]]. collapsed:: true
    • Steve Jobs recognized this, and so moved to own the whole experience.
  • George [[Frison]]
    • 'Equalizer years' were years in which everyone lost much of their [[herd]], and so everyone started off with a similar [[economic]] base in the next year.
    • "nothing sharpened [[hunting]] expertise as quickly as [[hunger]]"
    • Before World War II, there was a rural culture of [[hunting]] for [[meat]] due to the Great Depression. collapsed:: true
      • It's possible many of these kinds of [[hunters]] were the [[war]] heroes we've heard about.
  • When do [[animals]] bunch up? What [[weather]] or [[terrain]] [[changes]] encourage this? collapsed:: true
  • Saturday, 11/04/23 ** 01:19 Goals
  • Prototyping repo with interactive pages/experiments
  • Weird compiler-like build tool for progressively enhanced personal site and writing
  • Programming language and query system for personal use
→ node [[2023-11-03]]
  • [[Strong]] [[animals]] may [[flee]] [[upward]]. collapsed:: true
    • Weaker animals tend to stay horizontal.
    • Wolves often [[test]] herds to figure out which animal might be easiest to isolate. So, most [[hunts]] fail- because they are tests.
  • "the higher the pitch the sharper the edge" [[stone]]
  • "for in every [[battle]] the [[eyes]] are defeated first" [[Tacitus]]
  • Friday, 11/03/23 ** 12:15 Best procedure for conversation at work and conversation outside of work seem completely opposed!

At work, it's most productive to say as little as possible. Fewer words mean more time for more work.

Outside of work, being social - as much as possible, volunteering information, asking meandering questions - is so beneficial.

WHERE is the balance?? ** 16:22 Conversations need an elected arbitrator and decision maker. Someone has to say 'yes, we will do it this way'. ** 17:18 I miss feeling cool ** 22:07 Most code is designed to be experimented with and to be deleted. Learn the technologies that are best for building prototypes! It's good to have to throw away code and use newer, faster, more optimal technologies. Choose a language that allows you to throw things away fast. Solidify it once you've validated that your idea works.

2023-11-03

→ node [[2023-11-02]]
  • Several days later, here I am again :)
    • I am writing this on the [[Shinkansen]] back to Tokyo.
    • Looking forward to doing some reading/writing/coding.
  • [[Agora Development]]
    • I am tired of the Agora being so slow to load.
    • There are two solutions I can think of: a hard(er) one and an easy one. For some reason I've postponed both for very, very long. I think I'll try to implement the easy one now ;)
  • What [[prioritization]] do we use to determine if we can accept a new [[project]]? collapsed:: true
    • What are the necessary [[parts]]?
    • How much [[time]] is needed?
  • How may we [[visualize]] [[work]] in progress?
  • What does an [[Asabiyyah]] Diagnostic Tool need to function?
  • Some people are born into [[owning]] [[territory]], others are not. Those who are not will have to [[own]] [[outcomes]] to get [[territory]].
  • [[Genre]] makes a familiar series of [[promises]].
  • “Wolf-[[time]], wind-time, axe-time, sword-time, shields-high-time,”
  • One way to tell whether someone has a [[direction]] is to notice if they're willing to consider [[trade-offs]] or [[prioritization]]. collapsed:: true
    • If they're in a mode where they won't entertain these about any given subject, they're usually playing some sort of cheerleader role. And so can be safely ignored, except as an indication of what a crowd is cheering.
  • Thursday, 11/02/23 ** 18:31 Never require an account to use a product ** 19:35 Biggest regret so far in life is complaining about things instead of doing something about them. Avoid this whenever possible. Do not make one more comment than is necessary. Work silently. Fix the problem without any concern. ** 20:00 Work policy --

On work's time (9-5, or whenever I've planned to do my work for the company), I follow the priorities we set for issues.

Off of work time, I will prioritize however I want. Coding is fun!

→ node [[2023-11-01]]
  • [[Handovers]]/[[transitions]]: collapsed:: true
    • Who has ultimate [[responsibility]]?
    • What is the [[task]] sequence for a typical project/game?
    • What is your task? How many tasks do you have?
    • Is there any [[overlap]] between tasks?
    • Is there a [[method]] that we use regularly to guess what will happen during the game/project?
    • Do we [[prepare]] for what we guess is most likely to happen?
    • Does our [[communication]] style promote calm, cool, and collected [[action]]?
    • Do we use [[checklists]]?
    • Does everyone have a way of providing [[feedback]] for the project/game process?
    • Do our briefs unite our [[expectations]] and establish a unified [[narrative]] about what happened after a project/game?
    • Do we have a way to [[communicate]] our situation?
    • Do we [[train]] to improve our [[process]]?
  • how to increase [[flow]] of [[attention]]? What is up and down [[stream]] of it? collapsed:: true
    • when does attention wait?
    • what is the nature of [[boredom]]?
    • what is the rate at which [[attention]] consumes [[work]]?
  • What matters most to get where the [[organization]] wants to go to [[grow]]? collapsed:: true
    • Eliminate everything that doesn't work toward that.

2023-11-01

→ node [[2023-10-31]]
  • [[Business]] questions: collapsed:: true
    • When would surprise you, if it's not done by that date? id:: 6546ca02-65fd-4078-9456-d5f58a161f65
    • What would be the dumb, simple way to make progress?
    • What's a [[conversation]] you've been avoiding?
    • Who needs help today?
    • If I wasn't already doing this, would I put energy down to do it today?
    • What [[problem]] are they solving?
    • What alternatives do they have to solving the problem? How is your [[solution]] different, how does it [[fit]] one problem better?
  • Intentional, calculated [[creation]] produces [[authentic]], [[smooth]] experiences for audiences.
→ node [[2023-10-30]]
  • Monday, 10/30/23 ** 10:35 'Site' is all for me. Is 'uln'? ** 17:35 Why do people really care about what you're doing? Why does it matter? What's the competitive advantage? Why should I consider it? Why should I switch? Why should I pay? What am I paying for? What value can I extract? Am I using a system or abusing it? Can the system be abused for good? Can users discover ways of using the system that the developers did not conceive of?

The worst response that you can receive about a tool is someone else being okay with it. ** 17:57 i wonder if heaven has more konbini characters than people

→ node [[2023-10-29]]

2023-10-29

  • For all the (supposed) micro-rationalities of [[capitalism]], it produces some huge macro-irrationalities ([[overshoot of planetary boundaries]], [[social inequity]]).

  • Finished listening to [[What Is To Be Done? with Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante]].

  • Listened: [[Red Menace: Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future]]

    • Great discussion of [[Climate Leviathan]] by the [[Red Menace]] crew. Very engaging overview of the book. Definitely need to get around to reading it.
    • I was listening while doing jobs around the house so didn't get chance to note that much. But was nodding along to lots of salient points along the way.
    • Alyson and Breht both thought it a very worthwhile book and liked much of its analysis. They veer more to Climate Mao than Climate X, but still found value in X.
    • I do think there's a strong argument that you'd need a planetary sovereign of some kind to tackle the urgent and global polycrisis.
  • Why bother with org-roam and Termux on my phone? Why not just stick with orgzly for fleeting notes and then process them at the laptop?

    • A few reasons. First off, I just enjoy tinkering, and it's fun playing with Doom Emacs in Termux 🙂
    • Second - in my daily life outside of work I don't get that much opportunity to just sit at my desk so often fleeting notes just like you in orgzly without getting processed.
    • So far, though we'll see how it pans out, I'm finding much more opportunity to grab a moment here and there and process stuff incrementally through termux.
  • [[Planetary sovereign]].

    • From [[Climate Leviathan]], the idea of a global 'state' of some kind, to coordinate response to climate crisis (and polycrisis in general).
  • [[Polycrisis]].

→ node [[2023-10-28]]
  • Saturday, 10/28/23 ** 19:01 I will make functional things

2023-10-28

  • Got org-roam working with Doom Emacs in Termux. To a certain degree. Few niggly issues but decent start. [[Setting up Doom Emacs in termux on Android]]

  • Don't sync org-roam.db between machines.

  • Getting into org-roam on Termux. Useful extra tool in addition to orgzly for taking fleeting notes on my phone. Actually, Termux is more the processing of fleeting notes into actual notes.

    • Couple of nice to fixes: pull in the .git folder so I csn commit from here too.
    • Fix that weird error so that I can insert new nodes.
  • Enjoying the Upstream interview with Breht and Alyson from Rev Left / Red Menace. They seem a bit more tempered here on another show - left to their own devices can sometimes come across tankie. Lots of good discussion of the need for an [[ecology of organisation]] here. [[What Is To Be Done? with Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante]].

  • Watching Coraline. It's fun. I feel a bit seen by the Dad character…

  • This bit of text committed from my phone… will it work?

    • Hmm. It gets a bit confusing. Because the changes are synced by syncthing first, so git sees that as a conflict when I pull from the other device.
    • [[Syncing a git repo within a syncthing folder]]
    • OK. Now just syncing via git for a while, lets see how that goes.
  • Read: [[Universal basic services: the power of decommodifying survival]]

  • [[Problem with Kobo Clara HD battery]]. It is draining really fast.

  • Started reading Kate Soper's [[Post-Growth Living]]. It'll be about how a move away from consumerism will actually bring about a more enjoyable life.

→ node [[2023-10-27]]
  • Friday, 10/27/23 ** 14:03 Using javascript in my free time - I don't miss macros or type systems or good autocomplete (that's what AI is for). I miss immutable variable aliasing.

JS, like other functional language, encourages creating intermediate values that do not mutate previous results - but you can't update the existing value without mutating it.

Common pattern with 'let's in functional languages is to redeclare the current variable you're working on.

i.e.: value1 = a; value2 = change(value1); value3 = change(value2);

I never want the intermediate values for the end state because all I'm doing is applying pure transformations to input, but those intermediate values are excellent for print debugging. I might also want to split values up and merge them back together.

I AM SO STUPID you can use 'let' to do this but we have an eslint rule set up to avoid it

This reveals that (1) I should learn more about javascript semantics and (2) that I should learn to use a debugger instead of handling all of this intermediate value business

but also - redeclaring, not mutating, is a good default, and i wish i could do it with const

lol 'const' allows this too

ah, js does not allow you to alias function arguments!! ** 14:24 I like dynamic languages because you can accept whatever input you want as an argument and normalize it

I keep getting confused; is this a path? a string? a relative path? an absolute path?

Type systems can't capture that complexity without a lot of pushing types around. In some cases, they have to use dependent type systems to capture these semantics, like ensuring a number is above such and such value.

It's okay to sanitize incorrect inputs because users are stupid and make different assumptions about arguments they can provide! Strong types require the caller of a function to be very precise with their usage of the function. Weak types require the implementer of the library to consider all of the possible usages of the function and accomodate them. I like the latter because it's really cool to make things as easy to do as possible and as expressive as we want.

→ node [[2023-10-26]]

2023-10-26

  • Read: [[Problems with ecosocialism]]

    • Gives some critiques of ecosocialism. I don't necessarily agree, but worth a read and a think about. Mainly: not enough concrete ideas on actual transition (perhaps true, also recognised by ecosocialists themselves); too much focus on the social, not enough on the eco (I'd disagree with that from what I've seen); capitalism is too embedded to overthrow it, need to work within current system (kind of reformist argument).
  • The [[planetary boundaries]] framework defines nine boundaries for the planet, and as of 2023 six of them have been overshot.

→ node [[2023-10-25]]
  • Wednesday, 10/25/23 ** 13:29 How do you appropriately pitch an idea? Say less and code more.

2023-10-25

→ node [[2023-10-24]]
  • Tuesday, 10/24/23 ** 16:26 Building a service to generate static data and apply static transformations at scale? Here's what you're doing wrong. You're optimizing for the static case - the file transformation case.

If you have a single pass file input stream approach to parsing, serializing, compiling, whatever, you have no good way to debug or visualize your compiler. Where are the intermediate parts of the process?

Build assuming that you want to visualize. I like visualizing with HTML and the browser, but command-line interactions, printouts, other forms of GUIs are just as valid. ** 16:45 Read 'I am a hero' manga. Long form content is so much more valuable - feels so much more gratifying to consume - like I actually learn something!!

The panels felt cinematic. Author is either a fan of or has similar inspirations as Daido Moriyama .So many of the panels without dialogue - those intended to show the scene and highlight a particular emotion, character, or action - have deliberate distortion introduced into them around a subject; the distortion's similar to what the Ricoh's 28mm lens produces! Black and white ised used in harsh ways, in soft ways, to tell stories, to focus on particular parts of the medium. The author feels like a master of the medium, almost as good as Inio Asano's work - and definitely in the same vein. I was blown away. The plot twists - zombies to aliens to a sense of unity - and the contrasts drawn between the two ends and between different societal norms - young and old, following rules vs. acting out, etc.. were incredibly well-highlighted. MC follows the laws to the letter even during the apocolypse, but is also vehemently opposed to merging with others. Other characters are ardently individual or value harmony in different ways. The series is really about comparing and contrasting different ways of organizing society, exploring neet culture and independence - 'I am a hero' is MC's declaration of independence, and he carries it through luck, through circumstance, and at some points through his own will to the end. Great series. ** 16:54 https://chrisbolin.co/offline/

You must be offline to view this page.

Brilliant!

→ node [[2023-10-23]]
  • Monday, 10/23/23 ** 12:59 Using LTL to reconstruct the polycule STD timeline
→ node [[2023-10-22]]

<<<<<<< HEAD

  • [[trip to x]]!
    • Flying to [[Hong Kong]] and then [[Tokyo]] today.
    • With [[AG]] :)
    • Very happy about these holidays! They've been planned for long, and as work got tough in the last few months I relied on "seeing them coming" quite a bit.
    • I'll be very jet lagged but also likely happy in Shinjuku for the first few days.

As I write this, I'm roughly above [[Baku]] about to cross the [[Caspian Sea]]. I don't have an internet connection so I'm jotting down these local notes which will be synced to the Agora later.

I guess much has already been said about the relatively rareness of being offline nowadays; I am old enough to remember a time before being online at all was possible; then a time in which being online was rare; then the transition to always-on home internet and then mobile internet. I welcomed each increment of extra connectivity, and I still love how far we've gotten in this respect; but I can also appreciate the focus that being fully offline for a bit seems to bring. If nothing else it announces that the same focus is always available -- behind the impulse to catch up with messages, or check feeds, or read about Baku and the Caspian Sea on Wikipedia (which is surely what I would be doing right now instead of writing these words were I not truly offline.)

I'm thinking a bit of Agora development during these holidays; it might or might not happen, based on all the sightseeing and experiencing we'll be doing out there in the analog world :) But I thought it would still be nice to think of which things I could improve in the Agora if I have some time available.

I might write some [[executable subnode]] or other, if nothing else because they are fun and self-contained.

I think I will try to do one or two quick iterations on the [[Agora Server]] UI, maybe finishing the move to [[zippies]] as base widget as I've already done for nodes, stoas and most sections really. If I am able to move all sections under the search button/field to zippies the UI will probably look a lot more streamlined/be easier to understand, less confusing (this I'm guessing based on earlier feedback). Also it's not hard to do and it is apparent, so it sounds fun.

Moving on to larger things, [[mycoverse]]/[[fediverse]] integration is something I would love to get done in this Q4 2023 so getting started on it would make a lot of sense. I would love to understand what is the minimum that Agora Server would need to do to be able to expose user accounts as Fediverse feeds. Then new/updated nodes could generate something close to new posts/notes? Unsure.

Also, some playing with an hypothetical [[knowledge commons extension]] for e.g. [[Obsidian]] or [[Logseq]] or [[VSCode]] could be in order after the conversation last week with the [[fellowship of the link]]. But one blocker there is that I'm currently not using either Obsidian or VSCode as garden editors, so I'm not directly scratching an itch. Having said that, moving back to Obsidian or Logseq or [[Foam]] for a bit could make sense to see how far they've gone since the last time I've used them. It's still a shame Obsidian is not free software though.

2c5b52a413a40d92a8033377f285a8589e4e12e5

  • Sunday, 10/22/23 ** 02:58 Stockholm isn't like New York - you can't pretend that there are infinite opportunities. Miss one social commection and you're out of friends for the year. Try again next time. ** 03:13 On https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DePDzfyWkw --

I thought Rossman knew what he was doing but this is such an obvious miss. He's completely ignoring the fifteen years of failures of similar projects within the last year.

How many 'decentralized identity providers' are there? How many third party centralization attempts? How many secure, ad-free services?

Meta, Twitter, Reddit have all killed expressive API access within the last year - you can data dump, pay lots of money, or give up on it. YouTube is so close to doing the same - blocking adblockers is the first step towards requiring ad consumption or management.

AI data moats are the last straw here, and Google - positioning itself as a direct competitor to OpenAI - has every reason to lock up their APIs in exactly the same way. Rossman's app will never become big or popular enough to make YouTube shut off the API - though I'm sure he will claim this. Such a change will happen in spite of the few hundred users of the app.

The identity provider take also falls as flat as a freshman business student trying to 'start a startup in the bay area'. Oh look, there are N companies providing platform identities. I can't get them to talk to each other to validate legitimacy because legitimacy (or verification) is platform leverage, and no company is going to spend developer time and money to give another company that leverage. How do I solve this? I'll build company n + 1 and make a data moat of verification for the other n platforms!

Keybase tried this and their proofs worked super well. I loved using that app but they kept throwing security-related stuff at the fan because, regardless of being open-source, building a relatively strong brand, and providing proof of identity - they couldn't find a reason compelling enough to be the n + 1 company, so they folded. Servers cost money. They threw data storage on the pile, E2E encrypted messaging, cryptocurrency wallets to support your decentralized identity.

Louis'll say that they failed because they dove into crypto. They clearly just never found product-market fit, kept throwing stuff on the pile, and now they sold to Zoom - the marketing-pump-in-pandemic-fueled video calling app - something that felt like an off-the-shelf Electron student project from a coding bootcamp - that bragged about signing anticompetitive contracts and never paying a designer, then refusing to implement key accessibility features for schools. They needed competent staff to patch their security holes (and there were many), so they bought an aimless company to nab the staff.

How many open source beggars have there been for the last ten years? 'My library is free - but please give me a donation.' Nobody. Prominent library maintainers burn out and drop off when they're making 20 bucks a month off donations and putting in two hours a day - in addition to their salaried job. DRM-free and open-source-but-please-pay-us are fun ideas, but video hosting and streaming cost a hell of a lot - and so few people go out of their way to pay for something unless they're explicitly paywalled out of it. ** 03:32 By the way, I seriously do wish the best for Rossman; I hope his project works and he gets hundreds of millions of users and can afford to hire lots of people to build the distributed identity provider of the future.

I seriously want these tools to exist almost as much as he does. I just don't see how this venture can work out.

(Best-case scenario here - the company reaches tons of users and receives tons of financial support. Turns out, though, that video hosting platforms can't cut a loss and neither serve ads or charge money for videos.

Optimistically, the platforms in question cut a deal trading dollars for API access. This is the video streaming mess but slightly better because everything is available throuhg a homogenous platform.

Is it possible for these video streaming services to serve a large fraction of content without receiving compensation?) ** 03:57 My approach to React code is literally just small-scale MVC. A custom hook, or hooks, form the data model. The JSX at the bottom of the component is the view. The compatibility layer is implemented somewhere in between - declaring const onClick to fetch some data, check some UI bookkeeping, save some user input, mediating between all of them. I haven't learned much of anything. ** 04:00 To that end - my approach to coding is just interface design. I start at the top and write a file, hallucinating interfaces from other files. I implement those interfaces in a way that makes sense rather than adhering strictly to the framework I established - within reason. Then I run the code, the differences produce errors, and I coax out some substance. ** 23:23 I love when new features 'fall out' of existing designs. The fact that I can use the import infrastructure designed for jake.isnt.online to bootstrap the website itself is really beautiful.

The solution I have gets around the expression problem, in a way, by faking multiple dispatch.

  • Constructors automatically compile files from parent to child if the file doesn't yet exist.
  • Paths are always immutable but 'just work' everywhere, regardless of whether we have a naked string or the object because we check for them in one key, weird looking case. If you accidentally pass a string as a path (I've been there lots of times with the previous codebase), we fix for you.
  • javascript files are loaded with the same infrastructure that loads the files we compile with. they feel a bit too 'special-casey' right now, but I think general approaches will naturally fall out of the files as I write more code, rework, abstract, etc...
  • Instantiating classes dispatches to specific instances of those classes, but the caller doesn't ever have to know which class they have an instance of, ever. Methods always just work.
  • Abstracting more actually allows us to obscure and avoid overhead; we can decide when to read the file from disk, when to parse, it, etc. as the user interacts with the file in different ways. Complete file state is cached, pre and post compilation, because computers have more memory than we know what to do with (and we aren't deep copying everything in JS like we are in java world). Getters as immutable functions allow us to pretend that property access just works. (I don't think this is important, but it is fun...)

Time to learn some more math... ** 23:37 How does hot reloading with dependencies work?

When a dependency is created, it tracks which files depend on it and which files it depends on. When I change that file, I fetch, compile, whatever the new version, then notify the files upstream to make that dependency change. Lazy implementation is completely re-executing everything upstream that's dependent. Good implementation is pinpointing exactly what needs an update and fixing it.

Surgically replacing parts of files when statically generating a site isn't worth it, but operations like replacing an HTML structure with a new one or re-importing just a specific JS file without changing the whole stack are worth exploring. We had this with the clojure implementation.

By the way - this code is so, so much easier to roll than Clojure. It's incredible how well it works, how fast the code runs, how quiet my computer is when running it; there is no kick into high gear or fire on all cylinders mode like the insane Clojure JVM startup was. The bun repl is good enough to test ideas out locally or try out modules, but I should also implement some tests at some point... right?

2023-10-22

→ node [[2023-10-21]]
  • [[flancia]]!
    • [[flancia meet]]
    • I had to pick up a reminder and do my [[tax return]] today as tomorrow I travel for 3w+, and I could only extend the deadline for slightly less than that. I tried to enjoy it, and I was able to!
    • Having a great time with my [[mum]] being over.
  • Saturday, 10/21/23 ** 10:53 Saying no is an act of love. Yes is "whatever", "it's fine", "I agree"; "no" is "I care enough to correct you", it's "I believe in this mission and think something else should be prioritized" ** 13:14 It's become pretty clear that an AI service will become a giant, a huge company, a Stripe or a Google.

The strategy is airtight -- big data and effective AI systems require lots of fast, large-scale data processing, so the players with the most computers and the most money will have the most power.

As a consumer, the only way for you to access a state-of-the-art AI system is to pay for the one that has downloaded and vectorized most of the world.

As an individual developer, I have no idea where I fit anymore. The clear answer here - to me - is to fold into a big company if I want to work on innovative tech.

→ node [[2023-10-20]]
  • Friday, 10/20/23 ** 10:59 Why do founders spend so much time in Figma?

I can't see the time difference between putting together an html frontend prototype and a figma prototype as super significant. Cost of the former is a complete rebuild of the html prototype anyways.

Is that wrong? Is the value of Figma in part the expectation that it is truly a mockup, not a real product, rather than showing a website that's 'not real'? I don't get it. ** 11:04 'Product manager' in Swedish is 'Produktchef'

→ node [[2023-10-19]]
  • [[Flancia]]!
  • [[work]]
    • was tough
      • it started well with a reassuring conversation with a mentor, but the day ended with more conflict again in the employee representation group.
      • the sub-group within the group I am in -- I find really draining; it is one of the most difficult groups I've been in, in part because of a personality mismatch between myself and the rest of the group and because of the high stakes/high stress situation.
      • apparently the group really really doesn't like my way of being/acting/requesting information and reasons for why we do things the way we do. i find them overly hierarchical, surprisingly conservative, and IMHO sometimes uncharitable and rash (some of them).
      • I am thinking of stepping down from said subgroup but I think I will wait until after my holidays, which are imminent :)
  • [[audio recorder]]!
  • Thursday, 10/19/23 ** 01:07 Excuses are really lame Just do things
→ node [[2023-10-18]]
  • Wednesday, 10/18/23 ** 13:26 I hope that, in addition to video, to audio, to interactivity, to computationally-and-or-presentation intensive services, that your message can be presented with text - with plain text and compressed images and little diagrams, maybe even ascii art. Internet accessibility is escaping us because the mediums are becoming more dynamic, more interactive; but video is expensive and only a few - absurdly large - companies have the ability to host and support fast video infrastructure.

Interactive websites, too, require backends, assume stable and fast internet connections, assume fast code execution speeds; the M2 Macbook that the website's developer is using will never be the 2015 iPad or 400 dollar laptop that most of the world has access to. ** 15:16 Keeping up with the news doesn't improve your ability to accomplish goals in daily life or to help the people around you. If you're in an immediate position to help, you will find out through other means; you'll learn about the news by walking outside, for example, or through your workplace. You'll be able to help within your domain of expertise.

Following current events second by second and trying to piece together social media accounts, gossip, misinformation just makes you better at the bad reporting game; it doesn't help you progress towards accomplishing the goals you have in your everyday life.

→ node [[2023-10-17]]
  • [[Flancia]]!
    • [[work]]
      • I still have a cold but it was slightly better.
      • I checked with the [[dentist]] and they didn't mind (I tested negative for Covid yesterday), so I went ahead and I'm happy with the results!
    • [[Agora]]!
  • Tuesday, 10/17/23 ** 17:23 Ads are good because they make services frustrating enough to put down after a period of time. YouTube is too seamless without ads - video after video after video can autoplay without interruption, without someone screaming at you to download Clash of Cocks or Warfare Game 3 ** 17:45 I like that websites are apps that change every time you visit them. I like that they can be good or bad or based on trust. Websites are more about the people who maintain them than programs are - programs work one way forever, but websites you connect to. As an internet user, you open your TCP socket to accept their connection, listening to server updates live that they choose to push; maybe they've set things up for you, or maybe they're pushing chat messages to you live, facilitating conversations with friends or emojis or more. Websites feel so dynamic, so alive; they'll keep changing and changing and changing forever so long as someone is there to look after them. ** 17:48 On making money - you don't get to choose your struggle - the circumstances of the world at the time pick the best tool for you to provide value to others. It's your job to find enjoyment in it. ** 19:50 Every TopGolf looks the same and is big enough to obscure reality outside of the place - absurd for somewhere so big. When you are in Top Golf, you are not in Arizona or Brooklyn or Portland or California or Massachusetts. You are in transit
→ node [[2023-10-16]]
  • [[Flancia]]!
    • I woke up with a cold, have the sniffles hard; I [[worked]] from home and took it easy -- no meetings after 15:30, tried to rest. Tested negative for Covid though!
    • Last light in the balcony looking southwest, cold day but beautiful.
    • [[AG]]
    • [[Lady Burup]]
    • I thought of [[Tara]].
→ node [[2023-10-15]]
→ node [[2023-10-14]]
  • Welcome to the Agora of Flancia!
    • Today and every day.

Today is [[14 October 2023]] and I am glad you are here with me.

It has been ages since I've in Flancia, sometimes it feels, even as time is varying.


Here is what I call a poem: [[trees]].


This weekend I intend to advance what I call [[open letters]]: documents addressed to groups, openly published even as they are being written.


As of 21:45 CET I did some 'day job' stuff (having chosen it) and started a proposal (open letter, as per the above) that I had on my todo list.

Now switching to [[paramita]], planning to continue on related topics but in the [[commons]].


Today we bought the tickets to and from [[Sri Lanka]], happy about it!

→ node [[2023-10-12]]
  • Outage from Alcova to South of mountain. [[storymine]]
  • Thursday, 10/12/23 ** 08:39 Lately, I've been solving difficult software problems by permuting the solutions until I find the best one that fits.

Yesterday I stuck the problem in my head, went for a walk, then came back and specified a solution. ** 20:49 From debugging experience today - Code walkthroughs - in front of a group or just one person - can be really helpful, but you need to know where to start.

Narrow down the problem in your own head and on paper as much as is reasonable; don't consider code coverage so much as the aspects in which your program could fail. "I've narrowed it down: the bug is with this behavior (in this case, a refresh issue), and that issue could be caused within this scope."

Then allow the user to assume what's outside the scope - you've used good function names and left good comments, so this shouldn't be a problem - and ask them to identify problems or things that look off, starting from 'the top' of the problem surface and working our way down - just like Matthias taught. (That was two years ago now... wow. I'm just reaching that point in 'my career' now. That's kind of sad. Work faster!)

We would have found the problem instantly if I'd done that at work today!

2023-10-12

This is a book for people who want to destroy Big Tech. It’s not a book for people who want to tame Big Tech. There’s no fixing Big Tech. It’s not a book for people who want to get rid of technology itself. Technology isn’t the problem. Stop thinking about what technology does and start thinking about who technology does it to and who it does it for. This is a book about the thing Big Tech fears the most: technology operated by and for the people who use it.

→ node [[2023-10-11]]
→ node [[2023-10-10]]
  • Tax benefits of utility company I was working at. [[storymine]]
  • Flat tire van using own vehicle for checks. [[storymine]]
→ node [[2023-10-09]]
  • Monday, 10/09/23 ** 00:52 Removed most of my YouTube subscriptions ** 11:14 This website (what this is hosted on and compiled with) needs to use javascript - frontend and backend. The same language has to run everywhere. That's the only way to avoid lag, overhead, etc...

It's very possible that I use some Clojure-macro-wrapper-thing for JS. It should not have a runtime - just different syntax (maybe). The ability to inspect element in the browser and see the exact code that someone has written - comments and all - is really beautiful, and I want to strive for that.

There are 'mediums' where we are able to take the source file. ** 11:33 Biggest pet peeve lately - and by lately, I mean the last few months - I can't seem to stand the use of 'it' as a subject when using a verb is necessary. It really pisses me off!!!!! A clear 'source' of the statement always exists, and using 'it' is always a cope to avoid having to think about what 'it' is. In doing so, the writer or speaker omits an opportunity to be more specific; they deliberately obscure details and - IMO - over-rely on context instead. The word 'it' says 'fill me in with what you think could be here', which allows English to increase information density, but in doing so also increases ambiguity!

→ node [[2023-10-08]]
  • Sunday, 10/08/23 ** 10:48 The tech keynote only exists because it was the best way for Steve Jobs to present new products. It doesn't work for anyone else. There is some value to hosting an event that's (1) physical and (2) completely controlled by the company announcing the product - it gives them the ability to present and control a complete narrative. I'm not sure if today, new consumers are exposed to new products in that way!

Most people (I believe - not quite sure) consume secondhand - The Verge chops up cuts of these multi-hour-long sessions into fifteen minutes of What Really Matters, while other tech review websites and content creators all quote the same two or three relevant sentences from the keynote. Companies try to buy the attention back with stunning video quality and presentation acumen, but they'll never beat the perspective of a third party - and some review outlets, like MKBHD, are stepping up to match that production value.

→ node [[2023-10-07]]
  • Saturday, 10/07/23 ** 17:48 The biggest aspect of the US - of Germany, of Italy, of most other places I've been - is the lack of eye contact and body language in Stockholm. Growing up in Portland suburbs, my dad would say 'hey' to everyone we passed by on morning walks - and though I wasn't that explicit, I would always make eye contact, smile, nod; acknowledge the other person, and they would almost always acklowledge me back. In social scenarios, an eye contact and a smile is a sign - "I want to talk to you", or "you seem interesting", or "thank you for sharing this space with me".

I'm used to giving and receiving those kinds of looks everywhere. In Stockholm, I get nothing back. No matter how sparse or densely crowded a street is, nobody will make eye contact; they aggressively look in the other direction, like they're deliberately avoiding acknowledging the other person. This girl who sat down after me - next to me - on the bus five minutes ago - ACNE Archive bag, beautiful red leather jacket - and amazing outfit, honestly! - I wanted to ask where the jacket was from, so I looked for some social cue from her to consent to my reaching out, to say that somehow it would be okay for me to talk to her - and though I made it very clear that I was open to conversation through my social signals, I thought, she gave nothing back, positive or negative - not even an acklowledgement. Keep staring at the phone. Don't acknowledge the environment.

This isn't incredibly uncommon - I feel like I experience this with someone else at least once a week. Interesting person, no idea how to talk to them, they don't broadcast any social signals. This isn't something I've experienced anywhere else - even in Copenhagen, quite close (culturally and physically), I had something to go off of - and people interacted with me non-verbally! Where is that here? ** 19:28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hql6doE-Ccw

Dave2D's video presentation is really interesting. He films everything in one take - or hard cuts if he needs another, but that doesn't seem to happen frequently. He adjusts on the fly and lets it happen - left a joystick off, for example, or doesn't realize how to do something at first - and doesn't brush it off, necessarily, but acknowledges that it's part of the experience.

It's this seemingly casual, ad-hoc delivery that makes him a good speaker, I think; he feels personable, like he could be you experiencing a device, unlike a lot of the other tech review content production out there. His videos are clearly very planned, though; he hits on all the points at the right times, and the progression of the story - feel in hand to build quality to cool quirks to gameplay experience to who would buy this - is standard, and he hits his marks every two or so minutes to transition between them. He makes this happen, though, through a conversation, one that's briskly filmed without cuts. Dave films his own face and the device at the same time, and isn't afraid to cut out to his face or to the full device view if he needs the room, but he is in complete control of to what degree his face - his opinion - about the device is shown.

More of Dave's face? More opinion. More of the device fills the screen? Facts about the device, because you're looking and making the decision for yourself rather than talking to him. Brilliant!

His varying tone of voice also really brings points home; when he needs to make some sort of disclaimer or note for the more serious people, he always - always - 'inlines it' by using it as a fourth point in the five paragraph essay structure he uses, speaking quickly and with a lower tone of voice, so that most people brush over it but the people who care absorb the information; it's required for him to convey in some way. Headline sentences or leading paragraphs have his voice dipping up and down, slowing when mentioning device names or Bringing. Points. Home., like It's All. About. The. Joystick. or something like that, then continuing to deliver with a faster cadence; 'you see, well...'.

Another observation - his style is very deliberate but he still bookends a lot of his points with filler; filler that would be common in a conversation, but not necessarily in a prepared script. This makes a video feel like a conversation. ** 20:05 Oh, Fujifilm is in Stockholm because Hasselblad headquarters are in Gothenburg. Was wondering why they were so into coming here first when choosing Europe...

2023-10-07

→ node [[2023-10-06]]
  • Friday, 10/06/23 ** 09:48 Website edit system for documents 'Sign in with github' Creates a pull request in the background to make the requested edit to the text

Would be so cool!!!!!!!

Really I want this for jake.isnt.online but would have to be part of the backend thing for uln.industries right? I'll figure it out!!!!!!!!!! ** 10:15 If the argument for Tailwind CSS is optimization... wait. A more intelligent SCSS compiler should be able to handle abstracting across different CSS styles and classes to minify them.

How?

Module SCSS files have to be imported. If a class is actually a combination of other class names, it's trivial to pass multiple class name arguments instead of one; you just leave a space between them.

This means an optimizing SCSS compiler can split classes, find similar classes using the same code, and unify them across the whole project, significantly reducing SCSS size. If my CSS class with 10 rules shares 5 distinct rules, each with two other classes, we can serialize those 5 rules to a class, then - on import - append that class name to the current one when deploying to production

A linting rule could also catch this project-wide and encourage the user to refactor and reduce the use of them. ** 10:39 When meeting someone - make sure the question takes as much effort as the answer. If the answer takes more effort, the conversation is no fun, and the asker isn't actually listening. ** 18:57 I like interfaces of any kind

→ node [[2023-10-05]]

Discussed divorce with [[L]], we've been separated for around 1.4 years. Things are going well and I wish us both happiness!

  • Thursday, 10/05/23 ** 12:47 Stories should never be 'X and Y'. Those are unrelated! You're just reading off a list, stating facts.

Instead - 'a', then 'b', but 'c', because 'd'. If the order in a list of facts doesn't matter, your structure doesn't make sense.

To pick up a new plot? If we hit peak interest, switch to the other story. Then revisit.

Commanding attention is a brilliant skill - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GXv2C7vwX0. "It's not what you get, it's about how you cut it - and how it comes out the other end." ** 12:53 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdSKot0psNg Trakcing shots - used to convey size, motion, or time. Good transition as well. ** 13:31 After watching more of these - I think I can learn a lot about product design from film. Film transitions and compositions aim to direct the viewer's attention, to evoke particular feelings of progress, of anguish, of any sort of emotional state as the plot of the movie progresses. They practice engagement - what is the correct amount of information to show the user? When do we need to prompt for user interaction? When should we present information to them and let them watch?

Cinema is a series of calculated risks and to make a movie is to balance all of these plot-driven interests to hammer a single, particular path home. ** 21:33 I love having the opportunity to think about a technical problem and get it right, and I mean really right; to evaluate consequences and scratch at all of the rough edges until they peel a little bit, then affix them with the right tools and apply some treatment, some abstraction, until the tool is perfect and foolproof and ready for someone to use.

This is an environment I can thrive in -- someone gives me a problem - puts me in a box - and I find all the right tools to both find a solution and make it feel beautiful to use. I can't wait to keep coding and making more.

→ node [[2023-10-04]]
  • Wednesday, 10/04/23 ** 11:03 "I built something"

"Your thing sucks. Here's why."

"I didn't build it to be seen in that way and it doesn't harm anyone"

"I hate you"

→ node [[2023-10-03]]

[[Imaginate un mundo sin latencia]] me dije, habiendo solucionado los problemas de conectividad bluetooth en [[nostromo]] :)

A veces extraño el [[español]] como idioma.

  • #push [[youtube]]
    • the uploading experience even on studio.youtube.com leaves me unsatisfied :)
    • it is slow, you need to perform a multitude of clicks to get to publish something
    • friction should be much lower than this!

Mientras escribo esto, estoy escuchando [[hola frank]] de [[sumo]] :)

  • Next I will work on a [[proposal]] within the context of my work in the [[er-ch]].
  • And on my personal computer I will start work on [[x]] as the evening progresses :)

Let us pray, dice Luca Prodan :)

  • Young goth not happy about his girlfriend dancing with others. [[storymine]]
  • Anticipating the total cost of the flat tire in Mills. [[storymine]]
  • Tuesday, 10/03/23 ** 07:29 Understanding what Daniel meant when he said he wasn't comfortable with his physical form... it's so, so easy to keep working, keep working, keep working, and never think about your body, your life, who you are outside of your job ** 09:43 My are.na feels a bit unstructured lately, disorganized; the photos I'm saving lack a sort of coherence. Some have grit, others have polish, some have pain; I'm not sure which is which and which is best. I'm glad that I'm doing this but I need more control, to make more work myself. ** 10:02 Don't use words like "jealous" or "ugly" or "bad". Not good words - negative words - evoke not good feelings, even when used in jest. Instead shift phrasing to always be positive. ** 10:03 It's okay to both take things seriously and not expect them to lead anywhere ** 10:12 I will never make 'merch' I will never make 'merch' I will never make merch

To make goods designed not to fulfill a need, not to solve a problem, not to improve daily life, but solely to produce revenue - providing value as a """""""""""""""memento""""""""""""""""" - is disgusting. Creativity and genuine care and making things for the sake of making them is cool. I don't think money should ever be the focus.

Thinking more about 'bullshit jobs'. Is promoting an inferior product a bullshit job? Restricting information definitely is.

pull color="#b51f08"> <title>500 Internal Error wtf.
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://doc.anagora.org/css/center.css"> <button class="pull-url" value="https://doc.anagora.org/css/center.css">">pull</button>
<div class="container-fluid text-center">
    <div class="vertical-center-row">
        <h1>500 Internal Error <small>wtf.</small></h1>
    </div>
</div>
→ node [[2023-10-02]]

instagram ideas - you get all the value you need from a picture and a caption or a short video

hook of content should provide another question - what's next? he hatched a fish from caviar? HOW did he catch a fish? make the hook brief and brilliant and shareable across platforms - but leave more hanging to share across other platforms.

Not healthy to pretend to be interested in anything

Has to pass the pub test - if I tell someone the idea at the pub in a couple of sentences and they look at me in a weird way, I've got an idea; they want to see more

Good to be unfamiliar enough with a circumstance but for it to seem cool, to have a good level of energy... ** 22:27 Photos have to be just quiet enough; not too loud, not too much coing on

→ node [[2023-10-01]]
  • Sunday, 10/01/2023 ** 09:20 Coding for fun makes my work stronger and my life better. Finally picking up the personal projects I've procrastinated on for so long - no more bullshit, just cutting to the chase and learning NextJS, modern React, etc. properly outside of work. Building that compiler for a website.

Making more increases momentum; we learned that from taking photos. Doing more means you'll continue to do more and more and more and more until you've mastered it. ** 09:24 No days off again. Even if on vacation, even if sick - write some code. Go to the gym - or at least get outside. Take some photos. Don't allow yourself to reset and become afraid of those activities. ** 09:56 Overlay to give information about a page if I've seen it before, things I've written, things I've logged... like what if hypothes.is was on all websites, a superset of it. ** 21:03 https://archive.ph/SixJv#selection-2129.0-2133.185

It's strange to fill my head with these stories of grit, of character, of tough experiences because I don't think I've had any. My whole life has felt a bit structured, a bit planned, and I'm not quite sure how to make it out of there. I don't want anything but friends and excitement; I have everything else I could want. Maybe I have to master consistency before I get a bit more dysfunctional. ** 21:09 Writing, taking photos, writing code, using computers, posting on social media, saving inspiration, cooking, dressing yourself, etc... these are 'democratic' hobbies - everyone has to do them to live life today - but for some people these skills are careers, and whether the skill becomes a career speaks more to your business acumen than your skill with the activity itself. Career or not, becoming good at things that everyone has to do every day is beautiful.

All of my tools are black or silver or white. Why? ** 21:12 Maybe my next - my 'first' - essay should be about learning the basics, the mundane, the beautiful, mastering it. Things that everyone needs or does.

→ node [[2023-09-30]]
  • Saturday, 09/30/2023 ** 11:04 jake.isnt.online is a silo - away from other ideas of computing, away from websites and how they should be built. folk. uln.industries is industrial, production-ready, state-of-the-art. ** 14:55 Bucket list / might miss some things, but need some goals to center myself...
  • Make one clothing collection: simple items that I can wear forever.
  • Take beautiful photos of everyone I love, no matter where we are
  • Learn to sketch or paint // without an end goal yet
  • Build a computing ecosystem entirely my own: web stack, programming language database system... own my stack. Something symbiotic.
  • Build, or help build, a tool that many friends and family members use every day. Thinking Notion, iPhone, Google Maps.
  • Become comfortable with mathematics and formal methods. I think I'll much better understand the world.
  • Likewise for physics.
  • Likewise for human biology / understand the biological foundations for the 'state of the art', at least.
  • Likewise for computing hardware.
  • Learn to write to convey information well.
  • Make an album of music.
  • Speak Swedish comfortably.
  • Understand enough Mandarin to properly experience China / or Korean/Korea, Japan/Japan, Arabic/yeah... English will never explain those cultures enough.
  • See South America
  • See East Africa
  • See the middle east

This is far from complete, I think, I think, I think

→ node [[2023-09-29]]
  • [[29]] is [[drishti]] in the #Flancia [[Pattern Language]].
  • My hobby, sometimes: think about whether numbers are prime while laying down or sitting.
    • Take [[209]] -- it is not prime.
      • I find this one quite beautiful, this is how I got there:
        • It is not multiple of two or five trivially.
        • It is not a multiple of three as its digits don't add up to a multiple.
        • It is not a multiple of 7 because 210 is (as 21 is 3 * 7) and it's too near.
        • Consider the hypothesis that it is multiple of 11.
          • 220 is a multiple of 11 because 22 is.
          • 220 - 11 is 209.
          • So 209 is a multiple of 11. What is the other factor?
        • Consider the hypothesis that it is a multiple of 19.
          • 19 * 10 is 190.
          • 190 + 19 is 209 precisely, so it is a multiple.
        • Therefore 209 is 11 * 19.
    • [[1547]] is not prime; it is 7 * 13 * 17.
  • Friday, 09/29/23 ** 09:24 Specialized tools are good.

Camera roadmap:

  • Ricoh(s): everyday cameras.
  • Fuji X system: day shooting, video.
  • GFX (future): serious client, portrait, editorial work.

X-T3 is great. Upgrade to the next X-Pro when available. GFX tilt-shift lens is incredible. Would seriously transform my photos of buildings. GFX-50R ii, hopefully. ** 13:03 Internet history is becoming more and more difficult to track -- how do we archive all of those TikToks? Connect the links? I'm sure everyone's said the same about Facebook and Instagram, but - distressed. ** 14:39 hey ** 17:40 Thinking about decoration --

I would never want a photo I've taken in my house, but I would love a sketch or a watercolor or an oil painting or a sculpture or a piece of jewelry or some furniture. I don't really enjoy photos in other people's homes.

Maybe I'm doing the wrong thing. Maybe photos are just for Instagram.

But they're not; I love looking at photos, photos of buildings and people that tell stories, that present these super minimal landscapes. Those have a different use case.

I want to make everything myself, though - and I'm a bit ashamed that I couldn't reasonably make decorations for my apartment.

→ node [[2023-09-28]]
  • Thrown so snappily that my balls clapped. [[storymine]]
  • Thursday, 09/28/23 ** 10:59 I'm part of the problem. I save the same room inspiration as everyone else. My home will always look like everyone else's. ** 11:12 Taking photos improves eyesight ** 13:37 Maybe my bad mood is just about the weather. Finally finishing the apartment organization process. Coding well. Feeling great about progress today. Excited to do more and make more. I love work and life. This new camera is just what I need.

How do I prevent this from happening?

  • A fan.
  • Bright lights. ** 20:33 Issey Miyake (the brand, not the person... rest in peace) continues to make clothing that looks so different from anything else I've ever seen. Always blown away by the work. That clothing is art. How is nobody else doing it like this???
→ node [[2023-09-27]]
  • [[just do it]]
  • [[gone]]
  • [[yoga with x]]
  • [[fellowship of the link]] was great!
    • note this node takes minutes to load, and that's sort of awesome
    • because of current agora behavior every embed that opens, in the node itself and everything it pulls by default, grabs focus when it loads. the result is a bit like an automatic tour of our conversations over the previous many months.
    • it is... Agora [[demo mode]] / [[autopilot]], as I dreamt it, implemented as a side effect of bugs!
    • [[neobooks]]
    • I discovered someone took amazing notes while I gave the presentation yesterday. It filled me with joy, such friends!
  • How to deny [[time]] to an enemy?
  • Rec center receptionist finding me students. [[storymine]]
  • What birds sing near this [[place]]? What other animals make sounds near that place? [[navigating]]
  • Wednesday, 09/27/23 ** 14:46 So much of writing React code is reconstructing state machines with particular primitives.

Is it better to use an abstraction like 'xstate' and rely on a state machine abstraction than to make it explicit? ** 14:47 I don't have a strong enough foundation to build a WebGPU UI framework thing. I barely even know what I want from a UI framework.

  • First: I have to continue building my personal website and add more primitives, more abstractions, logic for transitions. Get comfortable with my own workflow.

  • Build a couple of applications with Next.js or other 'state of the art tools'. Not splash pages or toys. Professional-looking applications.

  • Try building a mobile app or some sort of mobile interface for one of those abstractions.

  • Learn from using those multiple paradigms. Try to figure out what could be better. Try out those Rust Web UI experiments and whatever Swift is doing.

Only after doing these things will I be prepared to revisit all of that graphics rendering stuff!!!!!!!!! ** 16:20 I love Figma. Blown away by how responsive it is every time I use it. Can't wait for the experience to get closer to code.

Feels like user interface style systems should be redesigned 'figma-first'. Flexbox - and similar responsive systems - are great, sure, but we can add those retroactively. 'Convert to responsive component' or something atop of the mockup. So much of this mockup - any mockup - could be trivially converted to code if we had the right system, but this is only possible if the UI framework is tightly coupled to the design tool.

I want this to be real. ** 20:37 The Apple keyboard feels so shallow compared to my other devices; the huge amount of resistance that the X-T3 puts in front of my fingers makes these keys so touchy by comparison, with so little travel... being human is about getting used to our tools so quickly. Joel was shocked that I had a Swedish keyboard - but for me to adjust to it took no time at all.

Let's talk about camera gear.

I can tell that the Fuji's sensor is better - or that, at least, it injects some magic into the colors of each photo - and that's helped shape my style and take good photos.

However: those buttons are painful to press. It's genuinely difficult to change exposure compensation without reassigning a dial, and settings can't be quickly flicked into place; it's either one click at a time or a rough, forced transition for a very different setting. This is not the camera for fast photos.

I know the Ricoh wins, but let's break it down - I want a camera that:

  • Can be shot one-handed
  • Has IBIS to catch movement and enable one handed shots
  • Fits in my pocket or is otherwise unobtrusive when bringing it around
  • Has a versatile focal length
  • USB-C charging
  • Fast lens
  • Quick changing settings

Today it became so obvious how obtrusive the Fuji is - I have to keep it on the end of its 'leash' - camera strap - to guarantee that the image is stable, given no IBIS; the camera's a bit heavy to hold one-handed - tires my arm just enough to want a second hand sometimes - but that isn't much of a problem. Everyone around me reacted to me holding a camera; looked my way, gave me a weird look, tried to hide a bit, posed a little bit... maybe it's just imagined but the Fuji provoked a different reaction. This bus driver stared at me for ten minutes as I took photos around Slussen - and she wasn't even in the photos! I kept having to change settings and miss shots, too... bring the hand up to the camera or the camera down to the hand, make adjustment, repeat. Not a fun process.

→ node [[2023-09-26]]
  • Tuesday, 09/26/23 ** 12:00 Make more youtube videos. Produce more 'content'. DO MORE. ** 13:19 Missed shot - leather jacket in early afternoon light with a fly at the top right. Would have been brilliant.

Poor shot - experimenting with low shutter speed in Odenplan. Being afraid of taking a photo of someone close to me. Have imperfect results saved. ** 15:06 Employee at by:fiket - a bit of a goofy, outgoing character - awesome person - asked me how he could improve on making the mocha as I was leaving.

What an awesome idea - I'm so glad. I wish I had had more advice for him. ** 21:35 Photo learnings today:

  • Hold the camera as still as you can
  • Consider experimenting with manual mode
  • I love those shots of people in buildings
  • Discovering some dynamic compositions close to people
  • My movement can be good if I carefully consider what's in frame - learn to move the camera better adn control the motion
  • Most of the photos I want to shoot naturally fit with a longer focal length, and I feel like a lot of the time I am forcing the GR iii to do something it's not built for. It's a great indoor camera, but I'm still having a hard time forcing it outdoors. ** 21:38 Meta-notes on making videos and writing without thinking: it's okay for writing to be 'off the dome' because you see immediate feedback and correct it. This can be done in YouTube videos too - take a second to figure out the idea, say 'oops', control your pace, and figure it out in post.

In conversation, you have to control your thoughts and your pace prematurely. Take it slow. Think about it a little bit. Then slowly let the words out, word by word, carefully choosing the framework beforehand and filling in the gaps. ** 21:44 Also thinking about the best hobbies for learning how to learn. Photos are a perfect example. Barrier to entry is zero: literally walk outside and click a button. Barrier for feedback: super low. Post a photo on Instagram or send to someone else and ask their opinion. Community of practice: huge. Bad community of practice: huge. Really good people in modern day - a lot of them. Lots to aspire to do, can feel the huge gap, can clearly quantify getting better.

The tighter the feedback loop on your thinking can be, the faster you can learn and the better you can make things.

Gym takes a few weeks - I'd say two - to pay off positively with mood benefits. Eating takes a few days but is hard to directly establish the association. Photos are instant gratification: you see the image in the monitor and you think you win. ** 21:47 Thinking about what Fuji guy (sorry your name is in my phone but not on my computer) told me about composing on his camera - he just uses the black and white filter on the camera and uses the color RAW files. Intention is to focus on the composition in the camera then shift to considering the colors in post.

Is this good?

I think it would be a good exercise for learning. I'm not sure if it could help me make the best images possible. Color is so important to consider in a final image.

Should I force myself to shoot black and white jpegs for a bit and see what happens?

Should I bring back the Fuji focal length and see what happens?

Yes to the second. No to the first. I love color too much to give it up, and I love photos too much to miss an image because of a decision I made. ** 22:01 Why am I doing something that so many people are?

Walking around and crossing my fingers for shots is starting to feel frivolous; what am I really documenting? What is really what I want to picture? Can I really compete in such a crowded market? Am I really expressing myself? Is this really helping me meet people? Is taking photos a good use of my time? ** 22:07 More websites. There aren't enough websites.

→ node [[2023-09-25]]
  • Reducing [[risk]] for the client makes it easier for them to [[decide]] to [[buy]].

Love his advocacy for joining the community - getting closer to others, not just borrowing elements from it or observing it. If you appreciate a culture you should live in it. ** 10:26 Thinking that once a week is a good rate for taking photos. ** 10:38 If I want to live more local, maybe I should use bandcamp instead then.

I appreciate the people who lean into the competitive advantages of taking photos - the ability to perfectly document an environment. Marketing work can be replaced by graphic design, 3D modeling, AI - that'll become cheaper. Recording progress, process, individual documentation - that's what photos are good for. ** 11:46 Yeah, I think Ricoh GR iii X is for me - I don't think the lack of weather will ever be a problem - but I also think my budget's run out. ** 12:42 To learn from photos

  • Shooting without the viewfinder, without the screen, without even looking. Being able to have a conversation without a camera, but still document a moment, is really beautiful
  • More interesting compositions. I messed up my photos from the event yesterday trying to square the compositions. They were just worse. Focus on people first - don't be too rigid
  • Shooting one handed. So powerful. Goes with the shooting without the viewfinder.
  • Working with people.

** 14:14 Always provide help first, then ask why, not the other way around - especially if it's something that could (or should) be prioritized. Nobody likes no ** 22:28 Thinking about livestreaming my daily photo editing or review sessions. Is that a good idea?

→ node [[2023-09-24]]
  • Sunday, 09/24/23 ** 11:14 Still feeling weird about the Ricoh. It's the perfect camera for living life. It's not the best camera - for me - for going out and taking photos. The lens is just too wide.

Should I get the GR iii X too?................ ** 19:29 Too much NYC mythos. Nobody needs another NYC street photographer - not in that style. Watching these videos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAKWwljJiIQ - a lot of the work feels like a copy of a copy of a copy - I don't understand where the work is coming from. He has some great photos - but not in this video. Maybe an unlucky day. The narrative about 'documenting life in the city' though doesn't feel like it adds up when there are so many people doing it?

Maybe what I'm doing is wrong too, directionless. I think it's more reflective of how I'm feeling than it is of others, or - at the least - more reflective of some theme I want to convey. What do I do it for? My instinct is to practice and keep practicing - it's not a hobby, really, it's a routine.

There are too many good photos - just like there are too many good songs and too many good websites and too many good graphic designers. (I don't think there are enough good websites or graphic designers though, really. Maybe video editors are a more apt comparison.). I don't think technology can make photos much better - we have tools today that expose the exposure latitude and dynamic range problems of previous tech generations. No camera from the last ten years has any limitations. Improvements are incremental - they decrease luck as a factor but make no fundamental changes in how things work.

There is room for different mediums that leverage the benefits of modern technology - we don't have a good camera for 'motion photos', to my knowledge, really - (or maybe I need to find one) - but it feels as if everything is trending towards video. Maybe photos are in the past. Every photo I see has been taken before; every idea has been thought of. There are new people but - as Chuck said in that essay - all of us live the same lives, really.

Maybe I should spend more time making websites then.

Okay - how am I different though?

  • My style - shot in a street style, but a bit sculptural, respective of frames and lines and architecture - is an approach that I don't really see other people using. I think I can expand and improve on it. I think there is merit to it.
  • I'm in Stockholm, not in New York City or San Francisco. Culture is different here.
  • I have a better understanding of technology than many others.
  • I have taste in clothes. Beyond what works and doesn't work for me, I have an understanding of how to style and dress to convey a particular mood. I don't know how to make clothing, but I keep up with new designers that make beautiful things that others could use to express themselves.
  • I have engineering discipline and tools for self-reflection. I will get better and better and better.
  • I have no connections to musicians and no experience with portraits of people. I need to do more here.
  • I have no experience in studio or with artificial lights.
  • I have no experience with interviews.
  • I don't take photos in the morning.
  • I don't need other people to care about my photos to make them. It just happens.

Cool - what can I do differently?

  • Take photos in the morning.
  • Take photos in the studio.
  • Try interviewing people.
  • Try 'street portraits' in locations I love. Spend time loitering and ask cool people at those locations for photos at those locations. This has worked for me before!! Working with people is something I will never get enough experience with.
  • Don't worry about a particular genre.
  • Consume more media from interesting, contemporary photographers. Watching all of this information about the NYC streets, I worry that too many people have the same influences and take the same photos. I don't want to become too tainted.
  • Keep consuming media from people who have different styles from mine.
  • Plan more.
  • Keep cold DMing. Cold DM everyone in Stockholm asking for photo advice. Cold DM anyone who wants photos. I need to meet more people.

I think reaching out is the best win I can get here. I do enough of the rest - I just need to meet people. Nothing's new. ** 21:02 Things to write about

  • Consequences of camera settings and how they can add to photos
  • Meta software development (not the company, the practice)
  • Day in life
  • Sweden
  • Fiction ** 22:16 Learning from riot photos
  • Take burst shots. No single photos.
  • Bring the bigger camera. Nobody will care.
  • Tell stories with the frames - prioritizing getting the lines straight over focusing on perspectives is too much.
  • Take more photos than you think you'll need - just point and hold the shutter down.
  • Slow shutter speed is great for showing motion.
  • Really wide focal length can show you down. Ricoh was not the best tool here.
  • Keep your hand still if you're shooting at low shutter speeds.. ** 22:59 I think I'm happier when I'm making my own work than I am when consuming the work of others. Finding references is good - but my life doesn't have the most balanced approach atm! I'm taking too much in and not putting enough out.

How much time is healthy to dedicate to 'input'? Depends on the medium, I think - but I'm dialed in basically 16 hours a day. There's no way that my current attitude is healthy.

More often than not, when I see something on are.na that I like - I've already saved the thing to one of my channels and the person who saved it - why it showed up - follows me, meaning they likely found the thing from me to begin with. That has to be a sign to stop - or, at the least, slow pace.

2023-09-24

→ node [[2023-09-23]]
  • Saturday, 09/23/23 ** 09:03 All these review websites - anonymous notes - etc. I don't think it's really possible for writing to be unidentifiable, unless it's been tumbled through editors and AI, or at least I think so; most people tend to have a strong voice. At work, I can generally identify who on the (9 person team) has written a passage based on their writing style, formatting, and other little hints throughout - a quirk of poor punctuation, a common misspelling, a certain phrase of words tehy use often. ** 10:13 The morning is for getting ahead - the evening is for cleaning up.

I think I will shift my workout schedule to the morning. It feels 'active' - not like 'maintenance' - and the last two hours of my day should be spent cleaning and organizing. In a way, everything I do feels like organizing; the code, for example, already exists; I just need to arrange and compose it in a way that solved my problem.

Maybe my plants need watering. Maybe I can do that now.

I think I have to accept that creating mess during the day is okay, too - as long as it's taken care of by the end of the day (or the next morning). I deserve a fresh start.

Talk at work yesterday - "You have to have a plan for when you'll end, or you could just work forever". That's my problem - I don't define time or space for me to do particular things, so I don't do much of anything and none of my time is reserved for me to accomplish anything in particular.

This is part of my effort to aggressively calendar retroactively - to visualize time spent is to take control of it. ** 10:51

Coney Island -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xw68q0jipg -- maybe New York City is the center of the world -- or, at least, one of them. ** 12:30 I write more words at work than I code - if you count comments. I think this is the correct approach ** 12:48 Forgot how good the Framework feels. The Macbook is robust - engineered- a beautiful artifact, a design machine, complete for people to use.

My Framework - with two years of NixOS, a light metal frame, and a few dents under its belt - is charming by comparison. It's a machine built for hacking, that begs to be remade and recrafted and redone over and over again, for debugging and hacking all sorts of beautiful system utiliteis and projects. The machine encourages you to remake it, transform it. It can do anything - you just have to make it happen and write the code to do it. ** 16:05 How do I format these notes as 500 word essays?

Love https://stephango.com

Wondering how I can make a system to help myself do the same ** 17:06 Loving the way the ilcaffe lights shake and move a bit when someone leaves their seat in the back - a trace of them is left in their place, swaying, lingering, for fifteen or so minutes afterwards. ** 21:04 I missed two really awesome photos today. One - woman in party gear looking down at Slussen. Two - woman immaculately dressed, looking very professional, flipping beer can above her head 180 degrees and pouring into her mouth alone - through the subway system window in Odenplan.

First one I was too scared to take - I was worried about being confrontational. I would not have been.

Second one - just didn't have the camera ready. I was too overwhelmed by the process of getting off the train to make myself alert.

2023-09-23

→ node [[2023-09-22]]
  • Friday, 09/22/23 ** 02:22 Lessons from today's photos
  • I should ask people to take their photos if I want to rather than shying away from it. Own up to the fact that you're taking their photo- don't be ashamed of it. They either notice or they don't. Ask permission if it won't ruin the scene!

2023-09-22

  • [[I got a new (second-hand) phone]].

  • Looking through the transcript of [[Kohei Saito on Degrowth Communism]]. [[Marx's theory of metabolism]].

  • Reading about [[system dynamics]] and the differences between the qualitative and quantitative approaches to it.

  • I'm using the RSS feed of changes to my digital garden (via Agora) as a very simple gardening tool (that is, something for improving the notes in my garden).

    • I add notes to my garden. Sometime later I see them in my RSS reader. I scan them. Often, upon reading, I'm then minded to tweak them slightly.
    • Not exactly a fancy [[spaced reptition]] system, but pretty simple and effective so far.
    • I'm thinking also to experiment with using my journal as a place where I revise key concepts in a spaced reptition kind of way. Just write certain thoughts out again and again until I feel they're clear enough in my head to leave them for a while.
  • Wheee I'm currently editing my journal from vim in termux on my phone. Synced here via syncthing. Not sure how much I'll need to be doing this but good to know that I can.

→ node [[2023-09-21]]

De quién son [[las jaras]]?

Están las de Maitreya, las de Tara, las de Avalokiteshvara!

  • Being called mean in grappling. [[storymine]]
  • “A risk-taking creative environment on the product side [requires] a fiscally conservative environment [on the business side]”
  • Befriend an [[astronaut]].
  • Thursday, 09/21/23 ** 10:04 not better - just different ** 11:04 The minute I get to new york, stay in new york, I'll be stuck there forever ** 11:12 I'm so lucky to have seen so much of the world at this age

though I haven't learned enough ** 11:16 Take more photos --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iESIfSrt_dU ** 13:34 Why did she give me two kanelbulle? ** 13:35 Maybe because they aren't very good today. ** 16:22 "If the best thing a photo has going for it is that it is technically difficult to get... it's like a musician showing off their chops, playing really fast, but maybe it's not very musical and not very soulful. A lot of photography now, taking single images trying to impress people who make single images .. " - Aaron Berger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBfdwxVFHU8

→ node [[2023-09-20]]

i also use avidemux for simple video editing. 20:22 Samuel Klein Samuel Klein says:love your naming scheme! Samuel Klein says:this diagram also suggests scale-free design [which is compelling; not privileging zoomed-in or zoomed-out parts of the whole] Samuel Klein says:++ 20:36 PK Peter Kaminski Peter Kaminski says:Flask is a lightweight web application framework for Python Peter Kaminski says: https://flask.palletsprojects.com/

20:41 JM Jerry Michalski Jerry Michalski says:is that like agreeing on a hashtag? 20:47 Samuel Klein Samuel Klein says:One thing I'd like to see more easily is the list of repositories in your agora, and which ones have a node for a given wikilink Samuel Klein says:I have to run! This was great to see, worth tuning to a 15-min pitch Samuel Klein says:❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 21:01 avatar Samuel Klein Samuel Klein says:oho my next meeting was moved back I have 15 min 😃 21:02 JM Jerry Michalski Jerry Michalski says:yay! Jerry Michalski says:it's a hypertext catfish! 21:05 Aram Zucker-Scharff Aram Zucker-Scharff says:I found this very useful! I have to drop 21:07 JM Jerry Michalski Jerry Michalski says:see you! 21:07 PK Peter Kaminski Peter Kaminski says: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glock_switch

21:09 avatar Samuel Klein Samuel Klein says:there's probably room a tool like "full auto-linker" that could look through your doc + its context, check your agora for entities that exist across the conjoined namespace, and autolinking concepts the first time they appear in your doc

  • "What you [[want]] is for your [[kids]] to have fun. [[Winning]] [with [[stakes]]] is [[fun]], losing is not fun."
  • Some states may require school districts to allow homeschoolers to compete in a s[[school]] [[sport]]. collapsed:: true
    • [[Wyoming]] ostensibly allows homeschoolers to compete in a school sport while paying the same fees as school attendees.
  • Wednesday, 09/20/23 ** 10:31 Some deliberate life improvements that I feel are significantly changing the way I am living life:
  • Replacing phone use cases with external devices. Phone should live in the back pocket, not the front pocket, and be used only as a last resort.
  • Pausing before speaking. An uncomfortably long pause followed by a well-reasoned answer is far more clear than a series of ramblings before directing someone to the right place.
  • Time tracking on google calendar. Now that I know how I spend my time, I can take steps to deliberately improve it.
  • Planning small time frames in google calendar ahead of time. Same reason - helps set goals.
  • Writing more and making videos critiquing my photos. I think these things already, but writing them down - making them real - voicing and highlighting these ideas - helps me learn to talk about work, advance its quality, and share my work with others.
  • Dealing with menial tasks by end of day - always. There is never not time for another five minute email in my life now.
  • Making a deliberate effort to take photos every day.
→ node [[2023-09-19]]
  • In a [[story]], the people start as one thing and end up another.
  • Felt a camaraderie with every hustler today. Something similar in knowing what it's like to hunt for [[angles]] in [[grappling]].
  • Saw Tim at the gym. He said something led him there. Chores. Dropping something off. A road that led the [[gym]]. [[storymine]]
  • What's a process that will guarantee that people will [[sleep]] well? [[business]]
  • Go where the highest [[stakes]] are.
  • What do people need to know to deal with more [[heat]] than they are used to? [[business]]
  • Every [[story]] is about one moment. One [[time]] someone [[changed]]. The start, middle, and end are to get to that moment and then wrap it up.
    • What is the [[meaning]] of the [[moment]]?
      • The [[moment]] of [[change]].
      • Once, Alice was ______. But now, Alice is _______.
    • What is the opposite of that moment?
    • The [[start]] is the [[opposite]] of the [[end]].
    • Generate several threads for each start, middle, and end and then pick the one that resonates most.
    • In media res.
    • What are the [[stakes]]?
    • How to add or ramp up stakes?
      • Clear [[want]] and [[problem]]. collapsed:: true
        • A [[promise]] of what they will get from taking in the [[story]].
        • Start with a [[familiar]] [[want]], end with a strange new want.
      • Say something that will give the audience the character's [[hope]] and [[fear]]. collapsed:: true
        • Show what the audience needs to accept to [[feel]] what the [[character]] feels in the moment.
        • Have the characters present a plan so the [[audience]] feels like they are a part of a [[plan]], and then have to adapt to the [[problem]] when they face the problem.
      • Present half-bits of [[information]] about the [[end]]. collapsed:: true
        • What would let them [[wonder]] about what will happen [[next]]?
      • Take more [[time]] when the [[audience]] is in maximum [[tension]] and paying the most [[attention]]. Take very little time when the audience is not at that height of tension.
      • Have the [[characters]] make [[predictions]] that fail.
      • Put a [[camera]] in the [[scene]]- the [[narration]] should work like cameras in a movie. Situate the [[story]] in [[space]] and [[time]].
      • 'but' and 'so' offer a sense of [[change]], more than 'and' collapsed:: true
        • contradiction or multiplication
      • Make the [[big]] [[story]] [[small]], and the small story big.
      • [[Surprise]]. collapsed:: true
        • Distract during key information with other feelings- such as making them laugh.
        • [[Contrast]] what happens just before the surprise with the surprise.
      • [[Start]] with a [[laugh]] to get [[attention]]. collapsed:: true
        • If laughter precedes tragedy, it hurts more. Then make them laugh again, to dissolve [[tension]].
        • From Schwarzenegger: "Starting with something disarming and [[funny]] is a good way to stand out. You become more [[likable]], and people receive your [[information]] much better."
        • For triggering a [[laugh]], put the most [[surprising]] word at the [[end]]. collapsed:: true
      • [[End]] the story with [[yearning]].
      • A good [[story]] is about one thing only.
  • Check [[public]] [[domain]] releases every year.
  • Sorting through the thrown-up bits of [[sourdough]] [[pizza]] for [[glass]] or sand. [[Testing]] the grains on the window. [[storymine]]
  • [[Experience]] is the most valuable thing.
  • Penis allergic to vagina. [[storymine]]
  • [[Create]] things that people will [[want]].
  • Tuesday, 09/19/23 ** 09:01 Every night, go through the photos I took that day. Record myself going through the photos and what I thought about them. Upload to YouTube. Put it out there! ** 09:21 Nobody's content add is 'good video quality'. It always comes down to who is behind the camera and what - or who - they choose to take videos of - and their personality. That's why quality doesn't matter - micro-optimisation ** 16:23 Saw a headless pidgeon lying upright on the street yesterday in front of my apartment building. Dead - obviously. Thought about taking a photo of it. The bird wasn't there ten minutes later.

What happened?

Should I have taken the photo?

I should stop telling myself - atthe least - that I can always go back. It's a lie! ** 22:52 Learning that the Ricoh is a tool in a different way - the ability for a camera to go unnoticed in a tool in and of itself. Sure, I miss some photos I would have gotten if I had a zoom lens or had swapped lenses on the fly - but that would have drawn attention and tampered with the scene, something that a Ricoh gets away with like no other camera can.

Would I rather tamper with scenes if I had that power? Hell yeah. ** 22:58 Taking photos for me will always be about getting outside and spending time with people ** 23:01 Why does nobody making these YouTube videos where they take photos spend time critiquing their images? That's the interesting part - getting better and better and better every day. Learning deliberately from your photos. Learning to speak about your work. Learning to get better.

→ node [[2023-09-18]]
  • [[18]] is [[right understanding]] in the [[flancia]] [[pattern language]].
    • Flancia is in some ways a [[calendar]]. I usually revisit the Flancia Pattern language daily, considering the current date as my default focus.
  • [[drishtis]] ~ [[29]] might be particularly interesting as it is a list; 29 tends to remind me of items on which my focus is trained on by default in the running month.
    • on this note [[7]] and [[17]] this month were beautiful as usual
    • [[20]] ~ [[agora slides]] this month as I'll present it to [[fotl]] in whichever shape it is :)
  • At this point I decided to start writing in the Agora assuming I have [[autopush]] on, even though I haven't implemented it.
    • It will work like this: if you [[wikilink]] or #tag once node [[autopush]] in a resource, the Agora will try to push blocks for you even without mentioning #push; so the following would result in [[poems]] getting a push of this node without further ado.
  • [[poems]]
    • I wrote [[Agua]] again today on my paper notebook.
    • [[Fork]]
      • Fork
      • Fork, fork!
      • As we fork we'll [[merge]]!
    • [[Merge]]
      • Merge
      • Merge, merge!
      • As we merge we'll [[fork]]!
    • [[Flow]]
      • Flow
      • Flow, flow!
      • As we flow we'll do kindly!
  • Hello from [[paramita]] :)
  • A [[story]] shows [[change]] in someone over [[time]].
  • The Casper Tiny Business Book Club: a way to bring tiny [[business]] starters together in Casper.
  • [[Communities]] benefit from a fear of missing out, which come from [[barriers]] to entry. At the most basic level, [[time]] and [[space]] are barriers to entry. collapsed:: true
    • Nodes need a way to connect to other nodes directly. Lots of small gatherings are needed to make a bigger [[group]] healthy.
  • Questions to ask to find a [[business]]: collapsed:: true
    • What [[problems]] do people have?
    • How many people share that [[problem]]?
    • Who do people get [[advice]] from in that [[space]]?
    • What are their [[weaknesses]]?
    • Which [[distribution]] models are most effective?
    • What problem isn't being solved?
  • Kevin Von Duuglas-Ittu talks about "building a net with the world" to describe how competent Muay [[Thai]] [[fighters]] slowly stop [[movement]] in an [[opponent]]. This parallels "setting traps" or "creating luck". [[Position]] in an [[environment]] is used to [[block]] off movement for whoever is being [[hunted]].
    • "it is quite often a [[stalking]] [[game]] of techniques, exerting [[pressure]] on [[space]] and [[time]], until the [[kill]] can happen. At it’s highest, I suggest, it is 'building a net of the world'"
  • "It's not going [[fast]] that's [[dangerous]], but stopping fast"- also applies to [[throws]] and [[unarmed]] [[combat]].
  • [[Change]] creates [[tension]].
  • [[Sailing]] with the [[wind]] limits speed more than sailing against it because the sail acts as a [[parachute]] and the boat can only go as [[fast]] as the wind (rather than faster).
  • hips higher, square to the ground, spine aligned, between [[earth]] and [[sky]], be upright
  • "[[Magic]] only happens in a spectator's [[mind]]...focus on bringing an [[experience]] to the [[audience]]."
  • Who are the passionate [[outsiders]] with no [[tribe]] yet? collapsed:: true
    • Who's bored with yesterday and demands tomorrow?
  • When to take a [[slow]] bend, and when to go [[fast]] to float over a [[problem]]?
  • Things [[fans]] of Jack Carr talk about from his [[books]]: collapsed:: true
    • Nonstop action (how would one make [[written]] [[action]] [[flow]]?)
    • --some chapters are still considered too long for fans
    • Cell workout routine- a fan says they're stealing the character's workout routine.
    • People are annoyed with how many books seemingly minor plotlines take.
    • Funny glimpses to the author's worldview through the glossary.
    • You know the end (Reece will escape). You know the beginning (people have cornered Reece). People read to find out the middle (how?).
    • Hatchet patches- something for people to wear or display that shows that they are fans of the story. collapsed:: true
      • -A fan made a tomahawk to mimic the tomahawk used by characters.
      • -people are making breakfast dishes from the books.
      • -fans are wishing for the ability to purchase patches from the units in the series
      • -people are ordering watches that characters use in the books
    • "I have never felt as much [[anxiety]] and adrenaline listening to something before."
    • A reader has a feeling that anyone, including someone close to the [[protagonist]], could be a spy. This creates [[tension]]. Carr casts suspicion on someone close to Reece that Reece is putting all his eggs in- so the [[stakes]] are high.
    • Less politics, more ass-kicking.
    • Sucking air out of someone's throat underwater.
    • Reece's dad leaves him a note that suggests a puzzle. This puzzle is not solved until book 7.
    • People want to go to the [[places]] referred to in the book, even if they're not real- they get the idea that it is a reference to something real.
    • Who is going to die? <- creates [[tension]]
    • Redacted portion of the book.
    • How did X happen?
    • Most fans are [[listening]] to [[audiobook]], rather than [[reading]].
    • In the Blood ending.
  • Things [[fans]] of Heinlein talk about from his [[books]]: collapsed:: true
    • Quotes about the nature of humanity.
    • Quotes about political dynamics.
    • Introduction to alternative views on sexuality (polyamory, bisexuality, sexual acceptance).
    • Competent man as celebration of man.
    • A character who is what a male reader admires in women (freedom of embodied expression), followed by trauma closing the expression up. The reader cried on the scene about her having her lover come home in a coffin and hearing Taps.
  • Things [[fans]] of qntm talk about from his [[books]]: collapsed:: true
    • [[Worldbuilding]] doesn't overexplain, which gives it room to breathe.
    • "It's nice to get a story of [[existential]] [[horror]], in the face of vast and inimical entities from beyond human comprehension, that isn't just another Lovecraft pastiche."
    • Uplifting good vs evil end despite an extremely uncertain world.
    • Human feeling contrasted against existential alienation.
    • Endings that are touching and deeply personal, as well as with a grand [[vision]] for the future of humanity.
    • Putting human life into a galactic perspective and making the reader feel insignificant in a vast world.
    • Appreciating anti-fascist just-so stories.
    • Plausible explanation of magic (perhaps echoing Wattsian vampires).
    • Hard scifi magic (the paradox attraction thingy)
    • A sense of people getting punished for being confident (the protagonist gets punished)
    • Some things remain unknown, and unexplained.
  • [[Cold]] [[air]] = [[high]] [[pressure]] [[Warm]] air = [[low]] pressure
  • Monday, 09/18/23 ** 10:00 Thinking about the impact of wearing something that acts as a focal point for your identity. The huge camera shapes your day - who you are - what you intend to do with your day in a way that the Ricoh in the pocket never will. The huge accessory gives you a quest, a way for others to visually identify you and a way for you to talk to others about what you do that day. The huge accessory gives you a quest, a way for others to visually identify you and a way for you to classify yourself.

I think that sentence may have been duplicated.

This idea is reminiscent of Stephen Wolfram's laptop setup - propped up at his waist, ready to type, at all times.

The way that this device inconveniences you is a constant reminder that you /want/ to accept this inconvenience - that you're making a sacrifice every minute of the day to do what you love - and other people can see it; they can at least observe the mission you're going on.

This reminds me of going on a walk with a problem held in your head; with carrying a burden or task and idea that you're obsessed with, can't stop thinking about until you find an answer. ** 12:49 The only two ways I can ever imagine taking photos of people are:

  • Across the table from me at a restaurant or dinner
  • Across the room, in their apartment or mine

Maybe 40mm is for people and 28mm is for things. ** 12:50 The clothes that I'm wearing today feel too generic.

  • Black wool sweater
  • articulated pants
  • Sock darts
  • Bose headphones
  • Black tote

This outfit is consistent but not distinctive - there is no focal point for someone to remember me by. Nothing I wear tells someone else what I'm interested in. There is no band tee or tracksuit or football jersey to talk to someone else about.

My camera's too discrete now to stand out.

That's a good thing; the Ricoh can replace my phone. ** 20:56 Thinking about ways to more deliberately improve my photos.

I wonder if I'm using the right camera or the right focal length. I feel too wide in so many circumstances. The 28mm is just right for home life, for shooting indoors, for recording life day-to-day, but for walking outdoors - and expecting to find great photos - it's quite hard to use. Maybe the GR3x would be a better fit for me; maybe that camera would get me the depth of field I want from a friend in a cafe.

I'm not sure. I think the ability to easily and unobtrusively make more and more and more photos with a camera in the pocket is brilliant. I think having a large sensor with a high resolution is good. I think carrying a camera everywhere I go without any effort - and without showing others - is so powerful. A camera smaller than a phone is a beautiful tool.

How do I set practices to get better?

I can:

  • Walk through my photos every night, trying to get better
  • Revisit places day after day, perfecting the same kinds of photos. This gets boring really quickly and doesn't generalize to everywhere. Scratch that!
  • Keep walking into new places. New places will help you learn from old ones.
  • Try new cameras. The Ricoh is an experience I've really been learning from. We'll see how that process continues.

I noticed that the Magnum photographers take tons of shots of a particular scene - 50, 100, in a location - rather than moving on. I need to learn to stay in places longer. I'm out to take good photos. I'm not in a rush to the next location.

I like the idea of talking through and presenting my ideas to others. Is there a way to workshop photos with other people to improve deliberately? Try to find someone else to talk through photos with.

The curved lines of the Ricoh - and the way they show up in-camera - isn't fun.

On the bright side - I love the way my images of the Stockholm Library around the corner turned out. Wondering how possible it is to make more, similar photos.

Likewise - the hostel sign, the images inside my apartment, the subway system, the office - all photos that this camera was able to handle extremely well. This focal length is indoors and intimate.

Also - particularly in Stockholm - the focal length allows me to capture the entire facade of a building opposite me on the street and still have room for some action in the foreground. I didn't anticipate this. It's a useful tool I'll have to keep using as I wander around.

This was all basically what I expected when I purchased the camera; I shouldn't be surprised that it wasn't able to capture some of the tricky frames - like the woman through the white window on the green background - as well as I really wanted to. Maybe I have learned a bit about taking photos. I'm just not sure that it's best suited for my street photography work a lot of the time. I'll keep pushing it for the rest of this week - at the office, after work, and so on - and we'll see how it goes.

Decision: I am keeping the camera.

Will I use it daily?

I'm not sure yet.

I'll still try to take the Fuji out on weekends and longer trips. This isn't a replacement for those circumstances. We'll think about the GR III x though... ** 21:28 I like being able to pick games I don't want to play; to say one vector is good enough and investigate others. No subject is simple, but some subjects interest me less than others. It's okay to follow internet rabbit holes. Abandon the leaves that lead in the wrong directions. ** 22:30 Daily reminder that cooking is a gift, a privilege, and you have more of the best ingredients in the world - more than any other person has had available here at this point in history - down the street. Learning to cook is learning to love a process. ** 22:34 Instinctively I want to hate that I don't have the time to be good at everything in the world, but I love that I can fill in all of the gaps that friends and people I meet can't.

I just have to get as good at what I can now and meet those people when I can't. ** 23:23 I guess I just need to do more work.

2023-09-18

→ node [[2023-09-17]]

Loved the [[Majihima]] discourses on [[Heartwood]] (I already knew this), [[Cowherd]], [[Gosinga]].

[[3149]] is an interesting number. It's not prime: it's [[47]] (we will defeat Moloch) * 67 (Bodhi, Bodhisattva).

  • Sunday, 09/17/23 ** 19:51

BLISS brand by uln ** 20:00 What in America isn't overdone, overperscribed, overused? ** 20:19 My phone is taking away from human interaction.

There are two things I use it for daily --

  • Paying for items
  • Using the subway

Both should be replaced with physical cards. ** 20:30 Why do camera companies feel like traditional tech companies - hype cycle, product nobody needs, release every year, repeat - rather than companies that focus on making tools, like Muji?

Ricoh is the company I've found that cuts closest to this.

Is Leica like this? Leica is inaccessible to anyone, so that's kind of irrelevant. Why would I buy a Leica when I can get a medium format Fuji?

Every other company feeds into the hype cycle. I wonder how expensive making a camera actually is.

2023-09-17

→ node [[2023-09-16]]
  • Saturday, 09/16/23 ** 12:11 Every minor public figure in the world is one Instagram DM away from a conversation ** 12:16 Watching photo videos. Seeing beautiful shots in the videos that the creators don't take advantage of frustreates me.

Maybe I should go take photos outside.

→ node [[2023-09-15]]
  • Friday, 09/15/23 ** 16:55 I wonder if some of the people responsible for bringing the most joy to the most people are the people who run social media animal accounts ** 17:31 At a B2B SaaS company, the work you do day-to-day is not publicly visible unless you're working on marketing tools.

Make as much public work as you can in your free time to compensate. Don't share the same knowledge - that's a breach of contract - but leverage the same skills. Learn and do better. Improve what you do inside and outside of work with your free time. Work more and more and more when it's dark out. ** 17:35 Haters will tell you to avoid looking at the world's best work and comparing yourself to it. How will you ever get there if you can't understand the gap between your skills and theirs? Dive into the work of people who are the best in their fields. Understand what makes them tick. Pick another lane and do better.

2023-09-15

→ node [[2023-09-14]]
  • Thursday, 09/14/23 ** 13:05 No architects are better at making use of natural light than those in Sweden. Every time I get to spend time in another home in Sweden - or any large, freestanding building - I'm reminded of 'In Praise of Shadows' - and the ways the light of a room is used - without relying on the lightbulb as a crutch - to fill the room and fill space. Natural light is so valued here.
→ node [[2023-09-13]]
  • Wednesday, 09/13/23 ** 14:11 I want a calendar and email and messaging system that 'cascades up'. I should receive everything in one inbox, but when I respond to something, that response is locally scoped to where it came from. That description is poor. If I am invited to an event for work, the response should come from my work email; if I'm invited to an event outside of work, that response happens outside of the work domain. Everything falls back to my personal account though as the root.

2023-09-13

  • Read: [[The Magic of Small Databases]]

    • Enjoyed this. Thoughts about an indie web approach to curating and sharing and collaborating on small lists, indexes, collections.
  • [[Subconscious Beta]].

    • Been keeping an eye on it for a while, and I certainly like the sound of [[Noosphere]] and [[Subconscious]]. Collective knowledge management that is local-first and with data sovereignty. Discovery, feeds and follows of others is on the way apparently, which would be a great set of features I think.
    • It sounds kind of like a slicker Agora. But I don't necessarily use 'slick' as meaning 'better'. I love Agora's ramshackle and homebrew approach.
  • And I haven't come across anything from Noosphere that suggests it has any politics of any kind. The beta announcement is signed off with "Let’s 10x humanity’s collective intelligence", which, absent of any political direction, is kind of problematic to me.

→ node [[2023-09-12]]
  • Tuesday, 09/12/23 ** 20:46 Maybe taste is gone because people have no space for elitism, for cool. Maybe cool is now basic and people just want to know people - authentically - not as part of a performance. That's https://www.instagram.com/samyoukilis/ - hook - showing people as they are - embracing who they are - no dance jig or act up for the camera. That's who Fulcrum is. Authenticity is what really matters. ** 21:06 Sam Gellaitry's back - I loved him in high school. I didn't know he was in high school at the same time. I love watching people do what they love. I think I need to make music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ufGIABd0c4

2023-09-12

  • Swinging back to blogs and RSS feeds over Mastodon. The stream of info on microblogging sites is too much for me, and the signal-to-noise ratio is too weak.

  • Reading: [[The environmental impact of a PlayStation 4]]

    • "PlayStation 4 has the most dazzling and problematic parts of global capitalism purring in unison."
    • "It is an exquisite, leanly designed machine pulsing with the exploitation of Earth and its people."
→ node [[2023-09-11]]
  • [[Flancia]]!
  • [[agora slides]]
  • #push [[Flancia
  • #push [[debate]]
    • Imagine a public global debate about the crimes of [[Moloch]], and the ways to move forward.
  • #push [[liquid democracy]]
    • Imagine calling elections in every nation-state currently recognized by the UN where a group of people think they could be useful. These meaning in addition to those called by the state in question as per custom up-to-date: put succinctly, imagine the citizens of the internet calling for open, transparent, fair, liquid-democracy-advancing elections in Russia, United States, China -- a priori without the authorization of the states in question, but with an intent to cooperate rationally with them.
  • Monday, 09/11/23 ** 11:53 Wondering if my differentiator is internet research. I think I'm quite good at assessing a community - and what makes that community tick - off of a social media profile and a name. I'm also decent at finding interesting people, things, ideas, those that aren't necessarily mainstream, maybe those that are super radical. What can I do with that? ** 13:18 Wondering why Warp doesn't take into account any sort of 'cd' result to determine the next suggested command. Hard-coding git commit -m <prompt> would be so powerful. I really want AI to write my commit messages for me.
→ node [[2023-09-10]]
  • For [[handfighting]], it is often advantageous to get two [[hands]] on one [[limb]] and bring that limb across the opponent's [[body]].
  • Sunday, 09/10/23 ** 20:50 yeah i never put a bitch before my money

i love key glock

i been getting bag after bag after bag yuh ** 21:54 MacOS auto-update practices - in that most apps will prompt you to update or update in the background - have felt far more smooth than NixOS, where some apps just 'stop working', have security vulnerabilities, etc. because there is no path that allows users to push updates. The centralized management of the nixpkgs ecosystem is nice in some ways - I'm glad someone is managing security in a centralized way - but in some sense that's the responsibility of the computer. We need systems to be reproducible, too.

→ node [[2023-09-09]]
  • Saturday, 09/09/23 ** 19:31 Collect 1-5 second clips of videos on YouTube dynamically to document, to capture moments, to tell stories

2023-09-09

→ node [[2023-09-08]]
  • [[Dick Thompson]] of the [[Vietnam]]-era [[SOG]] units noticed that North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese ate different food. He could [[smell]] the difference. So they all started eating North Vietnamese food. They also stopped using [[soap]] to shower- so that they would not alert North Vietnamese of their presence in the jungle.
  • Friday, 09/08/23 ** 00:19 New quest: make (design, sew, construct) my own uniform to wear every day ** 14:50 Thinking about brands 'editing things down' and turning campaigns into social experiences to make them feel democratized. https://www.are.na/block/22556031. As a video posted by Maybelline of the bus with a targeted ad and video with some silly words and people interacting in a studio, I wouldn't look again at this. Captured by a human with a phone, shaky camera, looks homemade? It feels like something tangible in the real world that I could participate in. Feels like fake democratization; the brand is still centralized and large and physical, but invited more user participation. ** 14:53 Jared - of BunJS - has such strong Twitter branding. No-nonsense, makes the product - and him - feel both social and hardworking. Gives hooks to connect - 'found on discord'. Clear sell and focused on just one thing. It's not a marketing schtick really, deliberately; it's a way for him to gather what he loves. ** 14:54 Wondering how a black and white monitor would change my design and development practices. Try it for a week. ** 17:06 I need a sanity check on my personal website to make sure this 'roll-from-scratch' approach is a good idea.
→ node [[2023-09-07]]
→ node [[2023-09-05]]
  • Tuesday, 09/05/23 ** 00:41

i want to warp a photo like im shaking a camera out to dry ** 19:43 80-20: Every day of mine is eight hours of software development work, two hours of photo.

→ node [[2023-09-04]]
  • Monday, 09/04/23 ** 08:47 Once I figure out food, I win ** 08:51 I take photos to meet people.

To create my own worlds - to film to tell stories, not to document; to animate and model and make motion - is strange to me. I take photos to document, to preserve specific motions and memories and cool buildings and awesome people, to preserve a feeling.

User interfaces are different. I'll always want to make things that other people use, and crafting motions, experiences for others is invaluable.

Great stories are moving, but mine should be told through a lens of what I'm doing every day.

→ node [[2023-09-03]]
  • Sunday, 09/03/23 ** 14:00 I like vertical video because it represents what's in front of me, what's in front of my body. A vertical work is something I can stand in front of.

It's Sunday. There's work to do. I'll make it happen. Maybe I'll see the Stadmuseet too. The English translation is strange: 'Stockholm City Museum' because a 'Stad' is a state more generally.

→ node [[2023-09-02]]
  • Woke up by [[Bodensee]].
    • Will miss [[Flancia meet]] today as I temporarily don't have internet connectivity.
    • Will try to catch up later with people who were/are around! Apologies for missing it.
  • [[Flancia meet]] topics as I expected them
    • [[docker]]
    • [[agora recipe]] is running on [[coop cloud]], which is nice (this is what is serving link.agor.ai) but it needs some improvements:
      • It should be easier to override Agora settings from the coop cloud recipe proper, e.g. Agora name and sources. This could take place in the form of mounting agora.yaml as a config file?
      • It should be able to run one or more of the Agora bots which are part of [[agora bridge]] but currently not running for any Agora in agor.ai.
    • [[activitypub]]
      • Still unsure about whether to implement first-party support in e.g. [[agora server]], or to write a separate activitypub component (where? maybe in bridge?), or to rely on an existing implementation like the canonical golang one which seems quite mature and is geared precisely towards API usage (doesn't offer
  • #push [[What is the Agora]]?
    • I've been wanting to write a special node which acts as explainer to the Agora that should be accessible to the average (?) internet browser, in the sense of a person browsing the internet.
    • Node [[agora]] was maybe originally that but it has amassed a lot of historical content which makes it harder to offer a 'curated' primer experience.
    • I've also been thinking about this as a [[WTF]] button which we could render in red up top, with the milder tooltip 'I don't understand / what is this place anyway?'
    • Surely writing this would be an interesting challenge in the first place :) The Agora is many things, at least to me, and probably to all the people already in the Agora of Flancia; and it has accreted layers (meanings) as time goes by.
  • [[Jerome]] told me about [[Beaufort]] cheese yesterday.

As I sit here with my laptop (with [[vim]]) and no internet connection, I realize that I don't write here longform as much as I could. I guess the availability of the internet does make it easier for me to get distracted, which granted I see sometimes as a positive (it motivates a form of exploration), but might not be conducive to practicing the skill of writing coherently and consistently for more than a few bullet points in each journal.

The thought of writing in my blog again (meaning https://flancia.org/mine) has come up a few times recently. I'm unsure; I like the process of writing in my garden, and how everything I write in it automatically shows up in the Agora moments later (at least when I have an internet connection). So maybe what I want is to embrace this space as a blog, and just try to write longer form alongside with my mainly outline-style notes, like other Agora users already do so beautifully.

  • [[todo]] maybe this weekend
    • Upload social media activity gathered by the [[agora bots]] to git repos.
      • This one has been in the back burner for a while and doesn't sound very hard.
      • It would also remove one of the main reasons to keep making full Agora backups -- which keep causing low disk space events in the Flancia servers.
      • All in all good bang-for-the-buck to start the weekend.
    • Fix hedgedoc
      • I think hedgedoc is not syncing to the Agora, the syncing process has some bugs at least -- while I'm dealing with 'git autopush' as per the above, it'd be a good time to take another look at this process and see if it can be made incrementally better.
    • Actually autopull [[etherpad]] or [[hedgedoc]] on empty nodes
      • I realized the other day this is quite simple; I tried this a few times in the past and ended up disabling autopull of the stoas because it can be disruptive (they tend to steal focus when pulled), but the disruption is really just because they are in the wrong position for empty nodes. Because empty nodes render on a separate template path, it should be straighforward to just embed the right stoa right there in the 'nobody has noded this yet' message, making the stoa onboarding experience much more convenient.
    • merge PRs
      • Aram's
      • vera formatting
      • vera sqlite
    • update journals page
      • formatting of the page is all different/weird
    • the pull of flancia.org/mine is broken above because of the parenthesis -- how to fix that?
    • update [[patera]] to something non ancient?
      • whatever is running on [[hypatia]]?
  • Saturday, 09/02/23 ** 21:53 This moment is the best moment to live in, to live through, ever. The next will be even better. I can't wait to take more and more photos of people and make better and better work. I'm starting to feel competent, and it feels wonderful.

I am also wondering where I'll ever find the money for that medium-format Fuji camera. Oh well...

→ node [[2023-09-01]]
  • Friday, 09/01/23 ** 10:16 Too much meta-startup work, not enough time spent building things and see what happens. Best people online are writing the 'here's how to do this' and 'i built this' posts - extraordinarily high-effort per tweet or share or instagram whatever - and it pays off. Don't water it down or start thinking about the 'meta-advice' until you have something to iterate on. ** 14:28 Clothes - I need to go brighter, bigger, cleaner, more friendly. Fewer logos. That light blue hoodie brings out my hair and eyes wonderfully. The color makes me happy. Maybe that's my future ** 18:57 Letting someone know that you've seen something already doesn't add anything to a conversation
→ node [[2023-08-31]]
→ node [[2023-08-30]]
  • [[Flancia]]!
    • [[30]] in the Flancia Pattern Language means [[flow]].
      • 6 means flow also some days and 30 is 6 * 5 so it makes sense.
        • 5 means [[focus]], so you can think of it as focusing on flow or flowing focusing, which to some extent may be seen as redundant (but doesn't need to be).
  • [[work]] was fine :) I'm settling into a rhythm of working until late with a break in the middle, and I enjoy it.
  • I attended to what I could of the [[fellowship of the link]], then a weird Jitsi bug that persisted across devices and internet connections locked me out! I couldn't see or hear anyone.
    • I'll read notes and try to watch the recording though :)
  • Wrote, thought, meditated.
  • [[bouncepaw]]
→ node [[2023-08-29]]
→ node [[2023-08-28]]
→ node [[2023-08-26]]
→ node [[2023-08-24]]
  • [[lcdf]]
    • :D
  • [[bags of holding]]
  • [[Gracias]]
    • Gracias Buda!
    • Gloria a las maravillas del universo!
  • Después de literalmente años logré conectar un tecladito pequeño a [[nostromo]], la pc de la tv que siempre corro a mis espaldas.
    • Tuve que recurrir a usar [[bluetoothctl]]
    • Se sintió como ganar acceso a [[conocimiento arcano]]!
    • Y me liberó de algo; completé un pro asdfyecto después de años, aunque haya sido pequeño!
  • Thursday, 08/24/23 ** 22:53 the woman with the two children in a double stroller whistling at them in the art museum was absurd

the five people who ran to the vermeer when a small detail was pointed out, craning their necks as if in a parody film

the guys from the chemistry exhibitions - mostly alone - taking selfies with anyhthing and everythign

→ node [[2023-08-23]]
→ node [[2023-08-22]]
  • [[Stories]] were mostly used for assistance in [[navigating]] [[land]]- so the obstacles were once literal.
→ node [[2023-08-21]]
→ node [[2023-08-20]]
  • Found [[chip player]] and had found re-listening to some [[midis]] from the 90s.
  • Sunday, 08/20/23 ** 10:22 I love talking to people but I get so nervous about asking to take their photo. I worry that I'm not good enough; that I'll send them something mediocre that they will hate - or worse, that they will love - and they will think of me in that way. I am worried that I am stealing their soul without giving them a gift in return, I am worried taht they will not find my work particularly good, I am worried of being hated, of receiving rejection, of causing discomfort.

I should be worried about nothing at all because I know nothing about what the other person thinks of me until I talk to them. Why would I hesitate?

→ node [[2023-08-19]]
  • How do branches differ based on where [[trees]] are in relation to the [[sun]]?
  • How did the [[place]] [[sound]]? What noise does the [[wind]] make when it passes through here? How does it [[change]] the [[smell]]?
  • Without a [[map]], it becomes important to [[measure]] the [[distance]] between [[land]] [[marks]] in [[time]] rather than [[space]].
  • When intensely [[awake]], a [[path]] to flourishing [[life]] is the only path present.
→ node [[2023-08-18]]

2023-08-18

→ node [[2023-08-17]]
→ node [[2023-08-16]]
  • Wednesday, 08/16/23 ** 22:04 Missed lots of opportunities today.
  • The woman taking (what I assume to be) incredible photos with the Mamiya RB-67 - I could have talked to her when I saw her doing it! Her outfit was great. I'm not quite sure why I didn't ask.
  • The American-German couple at the taco place. I should have asked them how their burritos were straightaway, even though I knew that I was going to buy one anyways. (By the way, that burrito was wonderful - a great mix of kebab, scandinavian-style pickled onion, and mexican meat. I would not call the place tex-mex, but )
  • The guy asked me about my watch at that restaurant - the person working behind the desk - both wonderful and tried to strike up a conversation. Should have kept talking to the Californian and her friend after asking for directions too - they kept asking about me and wanted to have a conversation! I could have had a wonderful night.
  • (Aside: I'm surprised how much German I can barely understand from the Swedish I can barely understand. A lot of the vocabulary I'm missing from English is quite similar.)
  • Love how pleasant joking around with people who pulled up on the street was; one guy (in his 60s, thereabouts) had a bike bell mounted onto his motorcycle and rang it as I nodded my head. We made eye contact and laughed together.
  • Two guys pulled up in a car in the turn lane in front of the burrito place. I nodded hello, then went to take a drink from my Fritz Apple; the can was empty. I looked and he laughed. I pulled out the vatten - (water - oops - but no backspaces today) - and they joked about it being vodka. Unfortunately not. Maybe next time!

Reach out to everyone. You need to be socialmaxxing, to get to know everyone, to making connections around the world, to finding out why she would live in Hamburg.

What have I learned? That I need to be well-rested and feel good to feel prepared for that kind of thing. I need to have a decent outfit on, feel comfortable, etc... I've also learned that some people haven't paid for the Hamburg train in five years.

I also need to use as much of my free time as possible when I'm not around people to learn and build. Learn more languages - just the start, so I can build on those things in real life. Make a better website. Take more photos. Wear better clothes.Wear better clothes. Keep going!!! Maximize what you can do in whatever position you're in. In Stockholm I should be aggressively making.

I like staying in places for long periods of time. One week feels good; it seems to fit well, but two weeks might be better. You want to be able to meet people one day and have enough time to see them again - one on one - to do something you both enjoy together before leaving the destination, and not just on some euro trip stuff. Meet a local.

→ node [[2023-08-15]]

2023-08-15

  • Listened: [[Trip 34: The Outdoors]]
    • I really enjoy #ACFM podcasts. They take fairly everyday things and look at them through a leftist lens, and throw a bit of music in too.
    • I like hiking, so listening to the political history of [[right to roam]] is fun.
    • The [[National Clarion Cycling Club]] sound great: to "combine the pleasures of cycling with the propaganda of Socialism"
→ node [[2023-08-14]]
  • Monday, 08/14/23 ** 07:59 First morning working from the hostel - Generator in Hamburg. Linguistics lessons last night until 1 AM from people who can speak way too many; Iona, a southern Frenchman with a machine learning background, told me that my choice of which French syllables to pronounce - and which to omit - was 'unlucky'.

They're playing Glass Animals, Flume, Chet Faker (now Nick Murphy?) in the hostel loby. I grew up - 2013, 2014 - listening to this stuff on YouTube. I'm glad I'm here and not there. ** 20:56

Traveling, now, I think I understand what I'm missing...

It's the small social interactions that I have throughout the day that give me life. A concerned glance I shared with a mother after watching an abandoned dog limp across the street in front of a Hamburg bridge. A bright smile that I shared with so many others watching the sunset, or just one other person watching the guitarist perform off-key American music with half-English, half-German vocals. I don't need to speak the same language as you - I just need to share a moment with you.

It's saying hi to someone and giving them a photo - giving them a gift - not one that they asked for but one they receive joy from.

Perfecting these little gifts - shared emotional expressions, thoughts, feelings, dances, little throes of passion throughout the day - those are gifts you can give to others. A gift is about caring about someone else in a way you can't care about yourself. A gift cannot be asked for. A true gift can't be expected - it's given completely voluntarily. A true gift is a dance shared with someone who can't speak your language at all, picking up someone's coin that's fallen out of their pocket; a gift is your attention.

Hamburg is also the first time I've really noticed why scandinavian cities feel so comfortable - this is the first city I've been to this trip around Europe that puts my guard up. Having to act with antagonism - to fear your neighbor, to run from or refuse or ignore a request from a stranger, to walk one path instead of another, to hold your bag a bit closer to you and hide your belongings, to not step too close to someone else for fear that they will think - or you will be - pickpocketed or mugged or held at the wrong end of a knife. This is Brooklyn, it's San Francisco, it's Portland (Oregon), it's Austin, it's everywhere you look in America - but that feeling in Stockholm, in Copenhagen, it's gone. (Malmö feels this way in part - and I'm not sure why.) People are supposed to trust one another, to walk down the street in good company and say hi, to care deeply even when someone else isn't perfect. The big city without the proper social services, help, security, trust, takes this away from us.

The conductors on SJ trains look at me strangely when they see that I choose to keep my pack between my legs between my legs instead of on the luggage rack. Deusche Bahn employees - despite having a policy that explicitly disallows this - understood.

2023-08-14

→ node [[2023-08-13]]

2023-08-13

→ node [[2023-08-12]]
→ node [[2023-08-10]]
  • [[work]]
    • very few meetings day, and no oncall -- the first such time in a while!
    • will try to make the most of it.
  • [[after work]]
    • visiting the lake for the birthday of a friend
  • Thursday, 08/10/23 ** 12:01 Can't stop thinking about the Pharrell LV show.
→ node [[2023-08-09]]
  • How can we X? -> How can we help the [[people]] we serve X?
    • Instead of looking for someone who has [[influence]] to [[sell]] your [[product]] or [[service]], look for someone who gets a lot out of your produce or service and figure out how to get them more influence.
  • Wednesday, 08/09/23 ** 17:34 I can't afford to 'choose not to' write application code every day. I can't afford to choose not to take photos every day. The only real way to get better at something is to do it every day.

I see this in my software development skills and in my photos. I see this at the gym. I see this when cooking.

Be more and more deliberate about how your day is spent. If you want to learn something, reserve thirty minutes in a day for it. Consider the pomodoro technique, or something like it.

I'm not convinced that it works well for software development - thirty minutes might not be enough time to get the whole problem into your head, let alone start typing - but this is so difficult to guage when starting something new. When adding a hobby, start with one pomodoro - that should be enough.

→ node [[2023-08-08]]
  • Tuesday, 08/08/23 ** 15:18 What have I learned about planning vacations?

Like refactoring - carefully limit the number of variables you're working with. I was playing a weighted interval scheduling problem - collecting all of these different ideas, determining what might fit in the schedule and what might not, evaluating budgetary constraints - but I hadn't pinned anything down.

  1. Establish constraints. What's the vacation budget? Are there any must-see events? When are those happening? How much time do I have off of work? Solidify any plans with friends; you have to be in X place at time Y.
  2. Use hard constraints to make a first decision. Book the first thing chronologically - train trip, hostel, flight, etc. Months in advance if possible.
  3. Dedicate time every day to booking a couple more things. Taking a break to think about the decision is healthy - take one step at a time. Time spent per place doesn't really matter as long as it fits in your constraints - you can find things to do almost anywhere in the world at any time, really. You can spend those extra days however you'd like. Being rushed is cool too - you can see a city in a couple hours with the right mode of transportation - and can always go back!

Don't stress. Impossible to plan fun things when planning the thing isn't a fun experience - you can't imagine yourself interested when you're stressed about it. Plan a couple of things a day and chill. Don't disrupt your daily routine for it. ** 18:03 Things I need to think about when taking photos:

  • Space. For a photo to 'tell a clear message, have a clear story', whatever - for that photo to fit my style, whatever that style is - the photo needs lots of negative space. Subjects need room to breathe.
  • Honest expression. I don't want to catch people off-guard, but it's important that people are not posing, or poised, or acted. To take a good photo of someone, I have to talk to them for at least an hour - enough for them to become comfortable with their environment. That's the only way to see someone honestly.
  • What's the third one?
→ node [[2023-08-07]]
  • Priit Mihkelsen's Origin Point is a sort of [[baseline]], where his might be the Hawking [[position]]. Kalju Lee states that the greater the [[distance]] to your Origin Point, the more in trouble you are, and the closer the distance, the safer you are. collapsed:: true
  • Use lower rib instead of hip for first point of [[contact]] in turn [[throws]]. [[unarmed]]
→ node [[2023-08-06]]
  • Sunday, 08/06/23 ** 20:12 To express yourself properly, learning the tools of the time - at least one - is important. The Whole Earth Catalog is subtitled 'access to tools'. That's somehow relevant.

I thought this point was profound somehow but now it's obviously not true. Learning popular tools is not important. What's cool is the ability to use any tool from Earth's documented history on this laptop or through a computer in some way. Learn to express yourself in any way you can. Just make sure to master one.

I think I was thinking about using tools that everyone has to use and making them perfect - something along those lines. I've written about this at length here before, I think; hone the way you express yourself with mediums that you have to use anyways. The instant message, for example, or the email, or the documentary photo, or the calendar appointment, or good food, or working out, or the clothing you wear. Everyone has to wear clothes and make food and send emails and text messages. Make sure you do it your way. Developing a unique style to use everywhere in that way is beautiful. ** 20:41 Finishing thoughts on clothing from yesterday. I want to be:

  • Approachable. What I'm wearing should broadcast in some way that I'm relaxed and comfortable with sitting down and taking the time to talk to anyone I meet.
  • Flexible. Clothing should be versatile enough to wear in the office, to the park, on a run or at the gym. I should never have to change clothes to hop on a bike or jump a fence or make a meeting (very important, planned meetings aside).
  • Durable. Clothing should last. I shouldn't have to refresh clothes or watch them fall apart every couple of years. I shouldn't have to spend lots of time caring for the things I wear every day. (I hate that I have to spend so much time caring about this apartment...)

This means:

  • Natural fabrics (for the most part.) Loose wools, cottons, and linens are wonderful. They look warm and comforting while operating well.
  • Light colors or black for the most part. Black is functional - absorbent, hides stains, easy to care for. Pastels are relaxed and welcoming.
  • Water resistant and flexible fabric. Fabric has to stretch or, at the least, have a great cut cut to allow for good range of motion. Don't wear anything that limits how you move.

2023-08-06

→ node [[2023-08-05]]
  • Saturday, 08/05/23 ** 19:01 Thinking about personal style again.

I want to feel:

  • Approachable

2023-08-05

→ node [[2023-08-04]]
  • Friday, 08/04/23 ** 14:12 ** 22:14 Figma plugin idea - 'randomize' until you hit a 'stop' button that freezes a particular shape with certain stats. Can randomize per stat. Helps inspire or nail precise numbers when you're not sure how big things should be, how the corners should look, etc. ** 22:46 It feels as if my digital and physical worlds are both fragmenting a bit. A strong community I'd cultivated for myself - and helped cultivate with others - on Twitter, on Instagram, on Mastodon, other socials, etc; lots of friends graduated from college and those who haven't have moved internet communities into the real world. In the real world, I've traded a rich social environment in Boston for Stockholm - where nobody will make eye contract with me in public without looking away and appearing visually ashamed or embaarrased. (My English here is getting worse because i never speak or read, in English or otherwise).

I don't know how to meet people here or how anyone else meets people. I don't think many do. Rates of living alone and depression are both so high despite the fact that the ammenities provided here, public and private, are so much better than those at the US in so many ways. I've learned from so many people in my life that the right way to prevent conflicts and enrich relationships is to face interpersonal conflict immediately and head-on, accepting some short-term pain and growing stronger together. The muscle has to tear to grow; that's how the human body works. Here I experience no conflict, no tension, no positive interactions in my free time - just nothing. Life's empty. Starting a conversation already feels like a losing battle - every stranger I run into avoids eye contact aggressively, no matter how pleasant looking and happy and outgoing and relaxed I am projecting, skills I've worked on when meeting strangers in so many other places I've been. I get the occasional glance from people 'checking me out' or looking at my outfit, no different from any other country, especially when I put effort into my appearance that day - but as soon as I return their glance, the other participant looks away as if they're ashamed to have somehow disrupted my space.

If I want to be seen and approached and talked to, I go outside. If I want time and space to myself, I stay home. Every apartment I've seen in this city is a great, clean, healthy space; a space I'd be happy to spend time in. Why would I leave my apartment if I couldn't experience the world to the fullest? I don't understand that about the culture here.

This cultural standard of non-confrontation might contribute to issues with cultural cohesion that Sweden faces today, especially with respect to the Muslim population of the country. If your neighbors and the people you meet do not welcome you outside of whatever legal obligations they have, you never get to know them, so you only spend time with the people who share your cultural values and community. You stay insular.

I try to keep an open mind: to constantly smile and relax in public, to spend time in social spaces, to look for social cues like eye contact from others, to broadcast myself as open and welcoming however I can - but nothing sticks. Nothing works. Nothing has changed since April. What's going wrong? What am I doing wrong? How can I have a great discussion with an incredible person one day but then have them ignore me over text?

I think this is why I've trended towards work over anything else - the work speaks for itself. It's objective. Work is something I can do and quantify and understand the results of. Evaluating my own performance in social spaces, by comparison, is impossible.

I am very thankful for the company that I do have - primarily my workplace - and will keep trying. I'm so, so grateful for all of the people who have or plan to visit me in Stockolm in the future, and for all of the people I've been able to keep in touch with over the summer. I'm learning more and more about myself in a 'resting state' - without tons of external contact - and will continue to improve my discipline on my own. I hope that the future here socially will be a bit brighter.

What about bars though? I'm forcing this segway but wanted the segment down here.

Alcohol makes me feel disgusting for two days afterwards - I tried a single glass with Olivia last weekend and felt physically terrible for the rest of her time here, making the experience worse for both of us.

That's all.

→ node [[2023-08-03]]
  • Previously: [[2023-08-02]]
  • Woke up sicker than yesterday, definitely feels more like a flu. Ibuprofen keeps helping.
    • Daniel at work (he's great) offered an oncall swap and I took it. Thank you! This will allow me to rest today.
    • Tonight my friends arrive -- I hope I don't pass it along to them!
  • [[work]]
  • [[not work]] (in that sense)
    • Flancia!
      • maybe write [[testament]]
      • maybe ship link.agor.ai customization
        • figure out why abra app deploy -C does not seem to be upgrading container version?
          • It just hit me like a flash: it's probably because the code in the container is a result of 'git clone' and it's not being re-run on subsequent builds; I should probably discard the cache or figure out how to make it always rebuild?
  • [[Antiflancia]]
  • [[Flancia]] por siempre!
  • Thursday, 08/03/23 ** 18:18 The most beautiful part of life and work are the compounding effects of everything.

The more code I write today, the more useful that code will be because of how useful it continues to be in the future. Other people will be able to use it to build upon their own work as well.

The more exercise I do today (within reason), the more fit I will be tomorrow. I'll be able to do more and more and more in the future.

Even if the concrete work doesn't pay off - say I leave the company, lose the laptop, or have a health crisis - I'm still able to extract generalizeable value from those experiences. I've learned how to write the code once so I can do it again, the next time more seamlessly, honing future intuition for making applications more and more beautiful. I can eat as well as I was for fitness to maintain the rest of the body I have. I can cook a better meal tomorrow than I have today, even if I'm in a different kitchen with different ingredients. If my clothes are all lost in a fire and my synthesizers melt, I can buy new clothes with the accumulated knowledge of my experiences and regurgitate new music with what I've learned.

Make sure the interface to your world is modular at all levels of experience and specificity. Understand that learning about HTML tables is generalizeable to tables, but try to learn how fucked up default table elements are and understand how overcoming them can be used to inform better UI frameworks. Understand how approaches to a poor black box can be used to develop other unintuitive software conventions and frameworks. Learn to approach problems of all kinds by sketching out documentation and prodding live systems to hone your understanding. Accept that some things in this world are historical mistakes and that you might be better off ignoring them.

There is no way to replace the compounding effects of the work I can do today if I don't do it. Everything I do today is worth so much more than what I do tomorrow - demonstrably more. My actions tomorrow are probably worth logarithmically less as they descend into meaninglessness in very old age. I think that's beautiful. I I I. I can't wait to get back to work.

→ node [[2023-08-02]]
  • Woke up sick, maybe a cold/maybe light flu. Ibuprofen helped.
  • Oncall at work. Some meetings. Otherwise not super productive because of the above.
  • [[Open Air]] cinema today -- if it's indeed open air (remains to be seen due to weather) I'm thinking it should be OK to attend after taking more ibuprofen? It's a special occasion.
  • Conflicts with [[Fellowship of the Link]] though.
  • Wednesday, 08/02/23 ** 23:22 Will it help you meet a friend?

If not, why are you doing it?

→ node [[2023-08-01]]
  • [[Flancia]]!
    • Meaning all the following go (are pushed) into Flancia by default?
    • At least from now on.
    • Could be called [[strong push]], or maybe override [[autopush]] which has been long in the making :)
  • [[1]] in my personal [[Pattern Language]] stands for both self and non-self, and for [[Flancia]]
    • Today we begin month [[8]], [[August]]. I like how it has [[31]] days, just after another 31 day month -- what a treat :)
  • [[AG]]
  • [[go/newsheet]] [[go/newdoc]] exist :)
  • Started an actual [[budget]] again, after months of procrastinating. Felt great actually and was not even boring :)
    • Ran [[GC]] on notes/todos. It felt great seeing that many things actually got done!
  • #push [[write]]!
  • #push [[do]]
    • make sure that mycoformat support gets into the container
    • set up fast/reasonably smooth dev-to-agor.ai flow
    • add toggle/tab for graphs (text/circles) instead of just deciding for the user
    • fix indirect go links, like [[go/flancian/git]]
      • or make indirect go links actually redirect to go links in the destination if a local definition does not exist
    • fix node names with ' and .
  • #push [[do]]
    • write visualizer for braids (!) (from a March todo, quite aspirational ;))
  • #push [[Carlas Sala]]
    • Desapareció el 13.1.1977
  • [[work]] tomorrow
  • Tuesday, 08/01/23 ** 23:32 Every day I appreciate someone that someone else has made and gifted to the world a little bit more. ** 23:39 The most important thing you can do for yourself every day is to remind yourself of someone's exceptional work, to enjoy their work, to appreciate that they worked to give you a better life, directly or indirectly, implied or actual. Appreciate the time that it takes to make wonderful things. Appreciate the future. Convince yourself that you will be a part of it.
→ node [[2023-07-31]]

One of the particularities of writing about [[Flancia]] is that it seems to require a certain commitment, a belief in the feasibility of facts in possible futures.

  • Are there any [[openings]] in the middle that can be [[owned]] exclusively given current [[means]]?
  • [[Change]] [[angles]], go [[around]], [[under]], or [[over]].
  • What [[game]] has unlimited ([[nonlinear]]) upside?
  • Where do you get to [[play]] by different [[rules]] from your [[competition]]?
  • People [[worried]] about cults are mostly that way because they've already bought into a very big cult, and [[fear]] accidentally falling into a losing [[cult]].
  • Nothing increases [[confidence]] like [[doing]] the thing you do.
  • '[[People]] like us [[grow]]' may be the [[tribe]] to [[find]]. collapsed:: true
  • Feeling an affinity for the [[Tomahawk]]. The modern Tomahawk is a hybrid between Native American [[stone]] axes and English & French Naval boarding [[axes]]. Beautiful that it came back into American use in every [[war]], even against Army regulation at times.
  • Demigodhood is about the [[followers]], not the [[leader]]. A graceful leader accepts that [[place]], no matter the [[risk]].
  • The easiest way to get into a [[mind]] is to be [[first]] at something.
  • [[People]] only [[accept]] [[information]] that [[fits]] with their [[present]] state of [[mind]].
  • If you don't re-arrange your [[life]] to put the things most [[important]] to you [[first]], someone else will make what is only a little important to them most important for you.
  • All the elements of an [[ad]] are to get you to read the [[first]] sentence of the [[copy]]. collapsed:: true
  • [[Community]] and arbitrary [[authority]] are a [[zero-sum]] [[game]].
  • [[Resistance]] and high [[tension]] are signs of high [[potential]] [[energy]].
  • Keep [[lines]] of [[attack]] [[clear]].
  • Given that [[The Arena]] gets about $4 in [[profit]] for each [[sale]], 5000 books need to be [[sold]] to afford translators.
  • "Tinier always means faster." [[timing]] [[speed]] [[scale]]
→ node [[2023-07-29]]
→ node [[2023-07-28]]

2023-07-28

→ node [[2023-07-27]]
  • Picked up [[Obsidian]] again after a looong time to show it to [[Venisa]].
  • [[work]]
  • [[Flancia]]
  • [[wayland]]
    • [[autostart]]
    • [[systemd]]
    • #push [[kill wayland]]
      • #push [[autostart]]
        • After much debugging I finally realized the issue was not with systemd trying to start vnc while wayland was still not running, crashing too many times and then giving up (like I long thought it was), but rather that the vnc service was not depending on a target that was actually being triggered.
        • Trying to set up [[vnc]] so it starts only after wayland/a graphical session is running and it's proving harder than expected for not the first time :)
        • I would expect to add a Requires or WantedBy in the systemd unit, but alas, it's not as easy as that?
        • I use [[sway]] so maybe the right targets aren't there by default though, as that's supposed to be solved by a "[[desktop environment]]".
        • Somehow I ended up at https://github.com/jceb/dex which, beyonds its scope in a friendly way, tells me of how to configure a [[systemd autostart]] in a way that maybe could work. Plot twist: it didn't.
        • https://github.com/maximbaz/dotfiles/issues/23 showed the way: the issue was that nothing was triggering graphical-session.target. I added a line to my sway config to do that as per the first comment in the issue (thank you [[maximbaz]] on github) and that was enough to fix my long standing woes. This feels like freedom :)
    • Picked up [[Obsidian]] again after a looong time to show it to [[Venisa]].
  • Thursday, 07/27/23 ** 12:59 Only have so much time. Looking at other work isn't learning. Making your own work and watching it interact with the world is. Meeting people is. Going outside is. Working with people is. Making is the best thing that someone can do. ** 14:21 Pharrell's producer tag is so good. Four beats. Sets moods and feelings for songs without compromising vulnerable music with a blaring 'PROD X' blaring in the back. Unique feel to those tracks without being able to identify exactly why until you know the secret. ** 19:52 Pixelated stone sculpture As if the image hasn't yet buffered Inspired by low-res images loading on Tumblr Looks like it's still rendering in, low fidelity (64x64px or something wild)

Carve out big stone blocks Higher fidelity than pixel art

Commentary on historical figures, wikipedia, networks, patience

→ node [[2023-07-26]]
  • Wednesday, 07/26/23 ** 14:28 One of my favorite human practices is the guestbook. Review websites are the most common way of addressing a place on the internet and carry with them so much stigma. Guestbooks allow you to respond to a location however you'd like. ** 21:20 I love being a super user. I will send you lots of feedback. I will submit bug reports. I will edit your wikipedia articles. I will email you directly to ask questions. I will reach out. I will fork your projects. I will improve your tools. I will make the world better, inch by inch.
→ node [[2023-07-25]]
→ node [[2023-07-24]]
  • [[Flancia]]
  • started with [[work]]
  • [[flancia playlist]] was pointing to a weird version of the playlist, unsure where it came from :) corrected
→ node [[2023-07-23]]

2023-07-23

→ node [[2023-07-22]]

2023-07-22

→ node [[2023-07-21]]
  • Friday, 07/21/23 ** 14:04 I like having a stable job. I like being able to have the freedom to create in my free time regardless of deadlines or output, especially when I'm doing creative work - not work that has to provide value to others. Creative work on a timeline has saturated YouTube, TikTok, Instagram with millions of hours of mediocre content that nobody has been particularly happy with - but that they've been forced to make or push out to make profit. I'm very thankful to be shielded from that obligation by providing value at my day job and doing something that matters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WHkpGjfYIo was gratifying - really freeing to see that 'playpm' is speaking to flaws that he has himself, that he is no better than anyone else, that he's taking steps to be better. He's amusing and vulnerable.

Blown away by digital audio synthesis; some of the real-time piano work to emulate strings hit by hammers sounds absolutely incredible. I want to model things in real life on computers, on the internet, with incredible precision, and to model new objects digitally before they're created. Keep learning how to do this! ** 19:13 The lighting through my window is beautiful between 6 and 7 pm, and the light outside is beautiful immediately after. Aim to be home during that time. Identify the corresponding time in the morning! Use your room as a studio space. Figure out how to light even when the conditions in my room aren't ideal.

2023-07-21

  • Started writing [[Reclaim Roundup: August 2023]]

  • Noticed that since upgrade I have to run org-roam-db-sync regularly now too, it isn't updating automatically.

→ node [[2023-07-20]]

I installed [[cool retro term]] today and it was immediately more fun than I thought it would be. There is something weirdly satisfactory about typing and seeing a blazing trail preceding your words.

I wonder how hard would it be to make it so that anagora.org renders text in this style -- optionally, of course :)

→ node [[2023-07-19]]
  • [[work]]
  • [[flancia]]
    • fixed [[agora bot]] on [[mastodon]], thankfully botsin.space reverted the account freeze once I explained what happened and how I fixed the issue (they are cool)
    • [[AG]] after work :D we went to [[helvetiaplatz]] and watched the sunset through the city skyline, the trees and the tram tracks
    • [[prizewinning plus]]
  • Wednesday, 07/19/23 ** 13:44 Andrew Gallagan is such a good interviewer because he doesn't say anything. "What's on your mind?" "Tell me about that." He just puts a mic in front of them and lets them go. Let the edit - and the people that consume the work - tell the story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq71Cb2jEIE - insightful

Show, don't tell

Kanye doc buy into the platforms that give you reach; youtube, tiktok the format of those platforms gives you constraints for what you do instagram feels like it's 'for fun' outside of short-form video. doesn't matter. only swiping up does. that's the only way to build attention fast for work. you have to master the short form, vertical video. ** 21:26

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NphQGsm4rvk

Building something is risking something

2023-07-19

→ node [[2023-07-18]]
  • Tuesday, 07/18/23 ** 12:15 Still thinking about the guy in the Portland thrift store a year ago - I think exactly a year ago - who told me that everyone has an album in them. Maybe it's time for mine soon. ** 12:42 home video is
→ node [[2023-07-17]]
  • Monday, 07/17/23 ** 18:05 more watches

that buzz aldrin shot with the three omegas is crazy

i want as many watches as i can get

as many functions as is possible

smart watch, dumb watch, broken watch, fixed watch, watch with a chunk taken out of it, watch that works miracles, watch themed like minecraft, watch from oakley or nike or lego or some kind of wonderful ** 18:52 I like that anyone on the internet can understand what I'm thinking about, who I am, how I feel, what my taste is without having to read any words.

Why don't I like using words to express myself? They feel too complicated. Words don't lend you the ability to separate aesthetics from communication, not entirely. Borges says that English is the best language to write in because every idea can be expressed in two ways - the latin way and the germanic way (not to mention all of our French loan words) - but this makes me more fearful of the connotations that words bring, not less. To use a term is to evoke the feelings others have associated with it. Words carry with them ideas and opinions and stigmas and connotations of all forms; they're more dangerous as the songs you listened to with your ex partner, the one you thought would be the love of your life, or the... not sure. Another example here. Writing is too often used to communicate 'logically', not expressively, so to use those logical connotations that might have specific charge to them to do things feels innappropriate in a way.

Music is too emotional, by contrast; we don't fully understand why, but human relationship with music, almost by construction, is to form an emotional attachment.

Images seem more pure in this way. They feel neutral ** 23:32 the new minimalism

→ node [[2023-07-16]]
  • Sunday, 07/16/2023 ** 01:48 What does jakeisnt video look like?

Goal: short form. 60 - 90 seconds. Still life with transitions. A sense of space and loneliness; large city with a few people in the bottom. Ambient music made by me. ** 22:37 creator anxiety - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQyAdgLwbLk) - unlike a business operating in a niche, creative work has no real market cap. mrbeast showed this! youtube stops being quantitative.

→ node [[2023-07-15]]
  • Saturday, 07/15/23 ** 14:54 Back on Tumblr. I've seen many of these buildings - I know what they are, how to get to them, and I've seen so many - but I've let them pass me by. I've let the archive stuff get away from me.

I don't like talking or using words to explain. It's the viewer's job, the user's job, to explore, to try to understand what's going on, exactly, without any context.

More importantly, though, making 'good content' isn't about making images that look cool or get clicks or get likes or something like that. Really, I think I'm more interested in deeper experiences; experiences that evoke feelings and emotions, that allow the person on the other end to have another perspective on their life. I've seen so many photos, so much content, that is just 'cool' - that fits a particular look well, the colors and textures and patterns match, whatever. I'm very admirable of the skill that that practice takes, but it doesn't matter. I won't remember that image in a couple days from now, but I will remember work that moved me. I want to make things that will be remembered, work that makes me feel, and work that will have a lasting impact on others.

I think many of my loose relationships in Boston felt toxic in a lot of ways. A lot of people in Allston around the artist community had very particular expectations of others - of people - and what they can and cannot, should and should not do. They had very narrow definitions of what was cool and what was cringe, what should be relevant and what shouldn't be explored at all. This wasn't too different from other social environments I've found myself in; in a way I liked that there was a predefined playbook or set of rules for operating, because I knew that if I operated within those constraints I could belong - but that person was never me.

→ node [[2023-07-14]]
→ node [[2023-07-12]]
  • Wednesday, 07/12/23 ** 11:27 Relaunch Thick walls Controlled rollout - look professional, not personal, post infrequently, always have a product ready Release something truly world-class Launch yourself as a project ** 12:39 Learn in private ** 20:21 I feel very lucky to be alive today. I'm lucky to be able to experience the best pop culture - the best literature - the best work the world has ever seen from the best people. Every 50 follower account on SoundCloud, every little guy at every company making beautiful animations, all of the brilliant developers making interactive articles, every little bit of pop art - and art acutely, acutely aware of its impact, thanks to better analytics than ever before - from Try Guys to Ryan Trahan to Mr. Beast to any word in any internet article - it's all so beautiful. We've distilled and synthesized thousands of thousands of years of intellect and history and people into text and PDFs and wikipedia articles and AI embeddings and images and stories that have been passed down from generation, and now Firefox gives me every word that has ever been said and written down and liked and shared for me to learn from.

We have the tools today to make the most impactful art we've ever made. Analytics are making artwork better than ever before. Art is the self-expression of a person, a product that finds a market, the ability to know when to go with the flow and follow the numbers vs. when to deviate and stand out because you have found a better way than the status quo. Art is self-expressive, allowing others to find interpretations in the content that you consume. 'Content creation' is incredibly dismissive as a term; making things to serve people who demand material, who demand attention, is an incredibly noble role to have. Most of 'content' work is noise - but innovation in art has been accelerating faster and faster than ever before now that its pursuit has become so incredibly prestigious. I love that meeting the needs of people more precisely has become the #1 item on the zeitgeist. The prying the money out of the hands of people is the hard part. Influencers - people who demand social prescence - deserve pedestals for perfecting something that contributes interest to the world. People today are rewarded for being so outgoing, rewarded for being independent, rewarded for putting themselves - or a particular facet of themselves - forward.

Goodbye Eri - a one-shot manga that I'm reading right now -

I just finished. That might have been the best thing I've ever read.

He's watched Erased at the least. I wonder what other references are used that I don't have any knowledge of. Maybe that's a good thing. This is one of the most moving things I've ever read. No more TikToks - at least not the bad ones. Only operas.

catherine never broke again reminded me of home, of people I know still back there in Portland, of my brother ** 20:59 My 'competitive advantage'. isn't writing

Ugh.

My unique contribution to the world will never be the software I write. I want to believe that I can accomplish something - that my work is big and important and pivo

I don't like that word either. Why do I have to be unique? How much time have I spent on the internet lately? Why am I not outside now? Isn't everyone fed by the same feed? Why am I? Why aren't I?

This speech is heavily scripted. Too many words. There is no understanding. Money is good - but are you doing this for the bit? ** 21:29 Living here feels important and leaving feels like running away. I feel like I need to accomplish something - something truly big - before I take off. will I leave? I'm not sure.

→ node [[2023-07-11]]
  • Tuesday, 07/11/23 ** 00:39 Survey people you admire Figure out what they're doing wrong or what they're missing Run with it ** 17:54 The most important question to me now is not 'why would you do that'; it's 'where did the money come from'. Your clock can't tick without a few dollars to pay rent. I want to be able to hire others and make enough money to give me flexibility. There are so many great ideas - but what makes an idea worth my money? My time? Generalization here is impossible, but understanding where my money goes - and how they use it - if I fund such a product is, to me, the most important part. I don't have time for niche programming languages or fun that doesn't align with learning goals - those are out of my creative budget. Their core ideas - formal methods, user interfaces - are relevant to my daily work, but ** 18:23 If you think you know what the future is, then why aren't you working on it?
→ node [[2023-07-10]]
  • Monday, 07/10/23 ** 13:24 Raised my yearly budget by 460 bucks with the subscription costs of Adobe, Google Drive, and domains. Time to eat some more sandwiches.

The warning from Google about a 'fraudulent' business confused me. Was it because my 'business' doesn't have an LLC or physical location? I own the domain with the name of the 'business'. Being a small fish has its drawbacks - if you're the biggest customer of a service, then your needs are guaranteed to be catered to - especially if you're your own customer. If you're relying on a huge service and your contribution to them is inconsequential, they can drop you or ban you without reason or consequence. Amazon's track record of banning multi-million dollar storefronts is a bit frightening.

I'm hoping Google doesn't go that way too - their cut of Google Domains from the business model is a bit frightening, as is the potential for more cost-cutting practices at this point in the game - but if it does, I now understand how to set up personal infrastructure comparable to the Google suite myself, just without the big tech employees and privacy warnings. Paying for storage and redundancy at reasonable speeds, though, will be insanely slow unless you're able to host physical infrastructure - and right now I travel far too much for that.

I'm still trying to get 'lejakechvatal@gmail.com' back. One day I'll be able to prove that it's mine. Does Google still have my data stashed there?

I'll launch Uln on January 1, 2024. 'Content creation' as a tool for operating as an independent creative is completely unsustainable - how many TikToks would I have to make a day? How many times would I have to let a camera get in the way of time spent with friends and family? How often would I have to be 'on'? All the time. I'm a creative person, but I'm more interested in long-term work - work with staying power, work that pays off in the long run.

Really impressed by Justin's work in Chicago - one incredibly well-orchestrated video really paid off. I'm sure he has tons of business now; at the least, he found over 20k followers within a day - not by posting on a schedule but by planning and executing an idea that took a ton of time and effort. That's where I want to be. Each idea should be bigger and better than the last - or at the least show that I learned from the previous work. Progress upwards.

→ node [[2023-07-09]]
  • Sunday, 07/09/23 ** 12:23 The rules are that you put yourself out there on every social platform once, or a couple of times a day, forever, and you will prosper ** 18:23 Defining procedures is good for the soul. We're going to shoot for an Instagram post once a week. No exceptions.

Daily posts weren't useful for a few reasons:

  • Not enough people were engaged because the work was poor.
  • The photos couldn't tell stories. It's really hard to say something across multiple days with photos found on the fly.
  • With my 'dynamic' work schedule and social life, it's difficult to know whether I have time on a specific day to edit and post a photo. It's not always possible for me to allocate the necessary thirty minutes to an hour to make that happen.
  • Daily photos don't build me to a larger goal. They accomplished one goal of mine - to keep thinking about photography - but instead of encouraging me to spend more and more time, I started cutting corners and producing bad work to meet that deadline rather than doing what I know I can do best.

Making an Instagram post:

  • On Monday, think ahead about a theme, idea, or concept to tell a story about.
  • Group Lightroom photos and Google photos into an album based on that theme.
  • Figure out what new photos are necessary to complete that theme. Group those photos together.
  • On Tuesday, start playing with edits of existing photos. See which photos fit best together. Try introducing some new photos you've taken over the past day or so.
  • On Wednesday, go out and shoot. Walk around for awhile. Find a friend and take photos. All of these things.
  • On Thursday, put together a final set of words, edits and group of photos.
  • On Friday morning, review that selection to make sure it's cool and double check your work.
  • On Friday afternoon, put together and make the social media post. Try to hit multiple platforms.
  • Take the weekend to explore. Socialize. Walk around. Take as many photos as you can. Find new places and new people. Keep seeing them. ** 18:34 I'll have to be okay with compromising on my time to pursue all of the work I'm interested in. I still believe that I can do it all. There is so much time in my life that I am not using wisely, and now that I can trust my digital infrastructure a little more, I can continue to put the right systems in place to organize life.

Once I have a BankID, I can add the gym to my schedule. Then I can pin down a food schedule (though that has no blockers today). Then work and sleep. Then the rest of life. Having a healthy foundation of food and friends, though, is the most important thing that I can do for myself now.

When should I eat dinner? 7-8PM? Lunch at noon seems reasonable. Only two meals - with a snack and a banana, or just a banana, at about 10 AM in the morning.

I'll figure out the rest as I settle into a rhythm.

→ node [[2023-07-08]]

2023-07-08

  • Started having a play around with [[Anytype]].

    • A local-first, p2p, Notion-y type of thing. It's very nicely made.
    • Using it for recording structured data and relationships for [[Reclaim the stacks]]. Quicker and easier than putting it all in a hand-built DB.
    • It's making me think about how I could in theory recreate similar functionality in [[org-mode]].
    • Maybe I will try to, eventually, so everything can remain in the garden. But it'll be easier for me to do it in Anytype to begin.
  • I upgraded [[spacemacs]] to latest and updated all Melpa packages to latest. Now various things in my [[org-roam]] setup aren't working. Sigh.

  • Finished writing and sent [[Reclaim roundup July 2023]].

→ node [[2023-07-07]]
→ node [[2023-07-06]]
  • Thursday, 07/06/23 ** 13:21 Music Write everything down Hard to figure out hungry
→ node [[2023-07-05]]

It was that time of the year, your birthday, when you finally got to Flancia and were able to stay for good, stay in it in a definite sense, being free from suffering.

  • Wednesday, 07/05/23 ** 10:38 Biggest change in product mindset recently has been becoming okay with throwing away code.
→ node [[2023-07-04]]
  • Tuesday, 07/04/23 ** 05:25 Good design is getting up earling in the morning and enjoying the sunrise at the park ** 15:27 The three-dimensional texture that brushstrokes let you control are truly beautiful. Paintings are not photos or scans on the walls - you can see every stroke that the artist made when they were creating the painting.

Sketching first. ** 21:55 Photo notes

  • Bring a handheld flash down into the station - or with you anywhere, really.
  • Bring the 50mm with you more often. Norra Tornen deserves a shot with some compression, as did a lot of the nature I saw. The 16mm is cool for some shots but doesn't generalize or shoot skylines well.
  • Try to bring someone with you. Bellevueparken had so many beautiful spots for portraits, but I didn't have anyone to take them of.
  • Shoot locations once, view on the computer, then go back for round two. It's really difficult to understand how to shoot the first time around - always at least scope out the location beforehand.
  • That shot in Odenplan of the escalator has to be done during the later part of sunset when the sun can be seen through the subway entrance. Hold the camera up as high as you can to get more info about the ground, even so that the escalator is right in the center. You'll get it one day!
→ node [[2023-07-02]]
  • Sunday, 07/02/23 ** 13:22 Lessons learned this week:
  • Do not fuck with experimental data storage. Worrying about whether your data will be safe when you experiment with new technologies is not worth the anxiety. Experimenting with everything else is fine, but when working with 'raw data', use the safest and most reliable services you can think of.
  • Work slowly and deliberately every day, not in short bursts. The anxiety isn't worth it.
  • Think, carefully evaluate, and write in depth about decisions you make, technical or otherwise. Writing is thinking.
  • Feeling comfortable experimenting with your computer and the software on it is really important. Giving users that safety allows them to explore, to play, to learn to use devices in unexpected ways. Computers should not expose these levels of unsafety to most people. The cloud-native operating system - a Chromebook, or similar - is the best way to preserve information safely, everywhere, for the future. The con is the subscription cost. ** 17:58 What have I let hold me back from being prolific in the past?
  • Not taking care of my basic needs. Friends, company, diet, exercise, sleep, consistent schedule.
  • No stable storage infrastructure. Unwilling to trust 'unethical' or paid services, instead doing a ton more work for no tangible benefit provided to the end user.
  • A bias against modern tech and towards innovative, alternative strategies that are - in reality - more art project than modern tool.
  • Unwillingness to rely on large communities and groups.
  • Emotional strength to do annoying or difficult things every day.

Finishing this in a second. New thoughts incoming. ** 18:20 The 'first order' phenomenon of crypto - these tokens you could spend outside of traditional financial systems - weren't as attractive as the 'second order' design work that emerged from these systems. Crypto had a lot of surplus income nad needed lots of marketing to keep that cool factor coming. Many crypto organizations poured their money into some of the world's most innovative graphic design work. That surplus o income gave people with lots of time and creativity the money to spend their time expressing themselves however they wanted - obscurity and miscommunication in crypto was a benefit, not a detriment, as the more cool and obscure your technology was, the further you'd drive some interest in and obsession over the associated 'lore'.

I think a lot of people I met on the internet during that time - summer 2021 - are now secret crypto millionaires who can now spend their time doing whatever they want. I've seen a huge surplus of wealth and a lot more secrecy in those communities. Wasn't added to the right discord servers. Oh well.

2023-07-02

→ node [[2023-07-01]]
  • Saturday, 07/01/23 ** 13:32 As stated - I still want to make creative software for people, but I can't do that without understanding the status quo. Moving away from using my Linux laptop as a space for creative work - editing, making music, etc. That laptop is now a space for hacking. No sensitive data; can clear on every boot; everything is managed in git.

Creative work is for Apple devices, for Adobe, for Ableton, for the status quo. The Linux machine lives outside of that. ** 16:01 Converting to Adobe Lightroom is the best decision I've made.

  • Something to do with five minutes of time on my phone: going over photos, making small edits.
  • Instant sync with desktop. Seamless workflow.
  • Cloud storage, so I don't have to worry about managing my data.
  • Viewing photos in higher fidelity than I have before, so I can better understand the flaws with my work. (The Mac goes a long way towards making this happen too).
  • Providing the structure I want. Library organization and data management are huge; if I don't have to worry about juggling hard drives of my work, and I can just trust the Adobe cloud to do its work, I don't have to worry about managing any of that data myself. I feel so much safer just trusting them and their storage. Plus they save and manage all of the edits I make! The cloud works!
  • The 'auto' button gets me most of the way to a good edit most of the time. Providing good defaults is so important. The AI tools are crazy, too, but I haven't explored them as much.

Lessons about creative tools:

  • Giving a system an opaque way to manage your data feels magical. I don't have any data management anxiety or concern about losing information anymore - I can trust Adobe to handle everything I do, and they make my data available everywhere I might want it. Cloud-pooled data is a huge deal, relieving me of any additional work pushing around or sorting files; they just do it. I am willing to compromise on some of the expressive editing tools and plugins that other programs provide to get this benefit.
  • Providing good defaults: again and again, that 'auto' button and the importance of providing an okay starting point - even for a photo that feels unrecoverable - is huge. I've discovered quite a few photos that have been worth saving. Same holds for the object removal tools; if you can drop a a couple of extraneous details from a frame, suddenly an unusable photo becomes one with just enough information.
  • Adobe has mostly a monopoly but they are extremely innovative. Whoever's working there has the right creative spirit to keep pushing updates and providing value. Having to constantly compete against piracy and 'static' versions of software - competing against themselves, really - is so, so valuable. Holds a monopoly accountable for continuing to provide value. Capture One tries to undercut, but really does not match up.
  • Mobile apps - especially those that share data with desktop things - are huge, even if the mobile app doesn't support all of the features that the desktop app does. The ability to instantly switch from working on a project on desktop to working on it on my phone provides so much value to me; I can truly work anywhere. Whoever solves this for software development is winning.
  • Providing lots of views or ways to organize content is good. Adobe seems to know exactly what I want to learn about my library - recent modifications, recent uploads, photos by date, and so forth - and provides convenience menus and buttons to get to that information right away. Brilliant!
  • Speed matters, as do animations. Darktable and Capture One take time to process changes to the photo - both programs take a second to think and process the information statically. Lightroom takes a bit longer than Capture One to process the final image, but along the way it animates your transformation with a thumbnail image, then applies the final transformation to your photo after you let go of the dial or setting. I prefer this to faster processing of the whole image, as I don't really care about image quality when I'm making these transformations - I just want fast enough visual processing feedback!

I've seen these patterns come up again and again from the best software I've used. I can't wait to push these ideas into software I build more of.

On this note: maybe paying monthly fees to support the development of a product can be a good thing. Lightroom is genuinely innovative and the updates seem valuable.

Concerns:

  • I can foresee them not having provided continuous value for points in the past, or that they may not be able to continue to deliver value in the future at the same rate. Having to pay for both data storage and the software in one package means that they can keep me paying for storage without getting additional value from the editing programs.
  • I can see them holding my data hostage at some point in the future, gluing me into paying for their programs rather than better ones. Hopefully GDPR laws are good enough to prevent this.
  • Working offline might be an issue. Can we preserve these syncing features over local networks while preserving the illusion of near-infinite data? (Yes, I think so).

Cool, what's most important?

  • Cloud software with centralized, managed storage.
  • Good enough defaults. Great starting points.
  • Always providing instant, progressive feedback to the user.
  • Convenience buttons to highlight features.
  • Transparent data sharing in some ways but opaque enough to keep the data safe.

I love how cheap storage is getting. That makes this sharing across devices tech so possible. Infinite storage will make everything about technology better.

Seems like the best software model is paying the company for a hosted version or hosting the thing yourself. Cloud storage (with agressive local cacheing) provides so much value and there is no way to replicate this value locally. Safe ways of hosting data locally - without technical knowledge - are really important to explore here.

Thinking about standards again, too - if whatever internal data management standards for Adobe's file cacheing were more transparent, other programs could easily and safely operate over them with an API. Providing APIs as 'views' of internal data storage is incredibly important for portability across programs; if I clone Adobe's image querying and saving API, then I can perform the same transformations or save stacks of edits in the same way (though the changes would likely not be transferable to Adobe products), using the safe data storage methods that Adobe allows without having to use their programs. A 'safe cloud' API in this way that saved stacks of non-destructive edits atop of files, manages dates, etc. would be brilliant. This reminds me of software development... the everything cloud. Replit does this for text files. Git does okay too, and the CDRTs for merging text, prose etc are also valuable. ** 16:37 Final takeaway from the Adobe switch - I have to become a much better photographer. I've been missing on the technical side in so many ways, and that's become very clear now that I'm using the industry standard. My program, my colors, my photos can look the same - so now I have no excuses keeping me from doing genuinely innovative work.

The gap between me and a professional is still so big - but now I can see a clear path to victory. The program wasn't necessarily the problem, but it was soft capping the potential of my work; now there is no difference between tools, so the only thing I have to work on is my personal skill - and I can receive the expert feedback to do this along the way. ** 23:38 New file organization plan:

  • Text/prose/code: git, github
  • RAW files: Adobe Cloud
  • Processed photos: Google Photos (uln.industries email)
  • Outside of this: ??? (What do I do with video files?)
    • Google Drive backup
    • Google contacts, calendar, etc.
  • If I want to add more features to a Google product or interface? - I'll deal with that when I get there. I'll probably host a multi-project postgres somewhere or use a Firebase or something.
→ node [[2023-06-30]]
  • Friday, 06/30/23 ** 12:50 To understand how to innovate in a category, you have to intimately understand the status quo. Why MacOS? Why Ableton? Why Adobe? You can only truly innovate once you understand the value that those services bring and make a demonstrable improvement.

Flashy intros and landing pages, cool new tech, fluid animations, etc... feel good, but do not matter. Make a tool good enough to convince someone to abandon convenience and the status quo for innovation.

Sound design is about two things: limiting inputs and engineering outputs. You can't present someone with an empty python file or complete waveform and expect them to understand how to change things, bit by bit. Give them different parameters to tweak - and make sure those parameters are the most important ones. Strike the right balance of flexibility and limitation; your tool will not be able to do everything, but on the right axis it should be able to change in all of the relevant ways. Ableton understands this way of crafting, of twisting knobs, of taking true modularity out of the eurorack and bringing it into the digital world.

This is only possible with the correct live visualizations. ** 12:56 So many of these notes could be grown into long-form essays. When will I be ready? ** 13:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVAGnGWFTNM

Now that we have abundance of information, we have to be incredibly disciplined about the role we are playing during work at the current time. If you can modify your instrument and add 9 or 11 strings, you will keep modifying the tool and no longer be trying to perform with it; you will become the developer again, not the musician or the performer. Be very disciplined about the mental role you're playing when working, and focus on just that role - your job is to focus on doing X and nothing else, so look at all of your work from this perspective and keep moving.

→ node [[2023-06-29]]
  • Thursday, 06/29/23 ** 20:53 I was experimenting too much with my photos and let them go. Adobe and MacOS solved this problem of moving photos across drives and keeping them safe. I just lost all of the photos I took from DC. (I might have lost it months ago, but I can't find it now). I want paid photo cloud storage. I don't care if I have to let lightroom hold it hostage. At least it'll be safe.
→ node [[2023-06-28]]
  • Wednesday, 06/28/23 ** 12:01 Blown away by this piece from James Parker in the Atlantic. https://archive.ph/cHMzS. The writing feels alive. Sentences are short and brief but I can feel the people Parker reacts with through the page. I can feel his influences, some of them, though I haven't read enough; it's like gonzo journalism but more earnest, interacting with people not to make a point about yourself but to center them while living life. James is living life the way he wants to and documenting it. & the portraits are a wonderful touch - I can't wait to make a project like this. ** 12:05 Pick up substack. Is that how I improve writing? ** 12:09 Looking back at the writing of others, projects, long long lists of bullet points and works, I'm not sure I understand; why more and more and more? Why not better adn better and better? I want to improve on just a few things forever but do it everywhere. Maybe being prolific and restarting again and again is important for this. ** 15:05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bvL2lZKgOA Everyone (I've seen in NY in the last few days) wants to be photographed. Is this good? It's definitely comfortable for photography - and NYC, as a cultural epicenter, deserves to be documented - but what about other cities? Other people? Hidden people? ** 21:04 Not sure how much is imagined or real - but walking around in Stockholm makes me feel more and more lonely. I don't have a friend to walk with and I don't speak Swedish. I don't understand the social signals of others and am outright ignored half the time I try to reach out to someone on the street, and the other half of the time I'm dismissed with a 'not interested' or a grunt, as if I'm a beggar or someone below them. I don't understand why.

I don't know what social signals to look for to know when to or how I can approach someone. In America, this is eye contact and a smile, a neutral motion forward, a gesture of the head towards you a bit, or a look from head to toe and back. I'm not sure how to get people to trust me or how to break through. Tourists talk to me for help but those conversations last minutes. This is rough.

First step has to be learning Swedish... ** 23:37 Mr. Beast aggressively user tests - runs anything he thinks might be not accessible by lots of people and gets lots of feedback. He's exploring new content creation territory - the world's general population - and it's fascinating! ** 23:54 Mr. Beast - nobody is ever going to do what I do better than me. He's spent his life making these videos and doing nothing but those videos, hiring the best people he can find to make these videos happen.

He's making long-form content into short-form content. The budget behind them is insane.

The medium is the message. Mr. Beast is making youtube videos to hold your attention spans for an optimal amount of time.

Short-form content - by definition - changes the game. You don't have to prod and hold attention. Now, mastering short-form content lets you master short-form content - that short-form content is everywhere. If you nail short-form, you can nail everything.

→ node [[2023-06-27]]
  • Tuesday, 06/27/23 ** 22:11 Back to work, back to journaling. Back to photos.

Got a new photo editing program - Capture One. Sure, tech doesn't hold you back per se, but using this program makes so obvious that Darktable really did not fit my needs. The raw profile just isn't there; Darktable everything looks flat and dry, but Capture One is so, so vivid.

Gus, Margot, Phoebe, friends... finding Trevor Wisecup and Poupay Jutharat today... feel really re-inspired by photography. Photos should be about people, about friends, about space, about people I know intimately. I've been thinking about space over the course of this whole trip - my photos have felt so flat, so cramped, and I want to see how wide I can open them, how much space I can explore through them. That's how I've been thinking about my framing - leaving tons of negative space for people to breathe- but in other ways I've been thinking a lot less. I love the experiments with lower apertures, with slower shutter speeds, with friends; I want to capture my friends, new peopl,e in space, giving them the opprortunity to breathe. ** 22:53 On starting career from 0 - Poupay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAdI27UPYvg

Go to tourist spots and find weird people. Document weird people. Go to events. Make a series for a mag and a first pitch to a mag.

Your first pitch needs to take time; spend time and energy building personal projects. Show what you're interested in. Make that series and publish it. ** 23:56 Time to get serious about series of photos. Not sure if I'm up to doing this daily - but grouping a lot of photos with a theme and posting them together seems like the next progression for me. I want to tell stories. Taking photos is the best way I know how. (Writing is the second best way I'm aware of, but it takes a lot more time..)

→ node [[2023-06-26]]
→ node [[2023-06-25]]
→ node [[2023-06-24]]
  • [[Greece]].
    • [[Athens]]
      • We visited the [[Agora]].
      • I loved it as usual but my mum thought it was too run down/fragmentary.
      • Then we had dinner in [[Monastiraki]].
→ node [[2023-06-23]]

I wasn't planning on seeing [[Nils Frahm]] live, nor did I know he was playing in Athens until the very same day it happened; I heard the sound test coming from the [[Odeon of Herodes Atticus]] while I was climbing down the southern slope of the Acropolis and I decided to get a ticket just in time. I'm happy I did so, it was a memorable experience for sure to see him live under the moon and stars in this ~2000 year old amphitheatre.

→ node [[2023-06-22]]
  • [[Greece]]
  • [[nmcli]]
    • I like it but I keep forgetting its usage, glad I noded the basics some time ago.
→ node [[2023-06-21]]

2023-06-21

→ node [[2023-06-20]]
→ node [[2023-06-17]]
→ node [[2023-06-16]]
→ node [[2023-06-13]]
  • [[work]]
  • [[flancia]]
    • [[AG]] :)
    • My mum is visiting for a month and she's been resting / enjoying being home with Lady Burup while I finish up with work before we travel :)
→ node [[2023-06-11]]
  • How much would I [[pay]] for this [[thing]] if I didn't [[own]] it?
  • Will taking this away bring you further from where you [[want]] to go?

2023-06-11

→ node [[2023-06-10]]
  • What gives them [[energy]]? What are they better at than other people? Does [[life]] from Earth [[need]] what they do?
  • [[OODA]] to [[McKeown]] Essentialism: collapsed:: true
  • A clear [[purpose]] will make it [[easy]] for [[people]] to answer the [[question]]: how will we know when we've done our [[job]]?
  • What is the [[cost]]?
  • When dealing with someone who is higher in a [[hierarchy]], [[ask]] them what they [[want]] you to give up on to make a new thing the most important thing.
  • Saturday, 06/10/2023 ** 11:08 I did not finish my website hot reloading plan. I swapped that hot reloading functionality with a really simple file server.

However, my website is now a quine; it renders its own source code to $source.html files and lists those directories. That's been a great exploration of what is possible once the source code's been rewritten to use a more solid framework. I'm excited to see what else I can do there.

First, though, we'll build a dynamic file server that can render information on the fly. I'll need this to quickly design pages like my page for showing photos, which I would like to be statically generated and server-side rendered. The components and dependency architecture we've set up will finally come in handy - now that the source code is much more clear and disciplined.

The best tool behind this source code organization was cacheing as much information as we could up-front through the 'info' function. This gives some files the max amount of information that they can get form other files at any time, at the cost of a bit of querying up front (though this might actually be faster - it certainly feels faster - because more information is cached rather than being repeatedly queried or calculated).

I'm thinking about language paradigms that would let me declare data as lazy without using tools like 'async' - for example, getting the contents of a file dynamically when it's queried from an object rather than having to fetch that up-front. Maybe this is what traits and OOP are for - that cache can just be implemented as an object access on a per-struct basis - but I feel like there is some other core language feature that this one could 'fall out of' with no boilerplate. Declare that an attribute exists and how to retrieve it, then retrieve and cache it on that object when that attribute is retrieved.

The problem here is invalidating files and information; we have to assume that the root source hasn't changed, which isn't necessarily the case, so we can't do this every time. We almost want some way of indicating whether the source of data we pull from is static - whether it can change during code execution, so we might want to refetch - or dynamic - in which case we'll keep our stuff in memory and never re-fetch a potentially expensive operation. (I think it's safe to assume in most cases that we will have enough memory available, so we can cache whenever).

This reminds me of the 3CPS work - if we know statically how much information something will take up in memory, we can build that information in at compile time and avoid requiring heap allocations for that data by making a separate heap space available to us that we statically allocate during our compile step.

We'll explore these ideas after we have fully dynamic hot reloading - that's when a real programming language could surface from this whole static/dynamic mess : )

I'm missing some real features from javascript. Lisp programmers often say that 'fear of syntax' is the biggest reason for not using a lispy language, and that too many parentheses scare people - but frankly the lack of expressive syntax makes coding more difficult. I can recognize javascript structures based not only on their names but also the shape of the code - and because JSX code has so many different shaped (especially the inline html!) it's far easier for me to quickly scan and grok a JS(X) file than it is for me to take a peek at a clojure one, where I have to drill down into the names of every line and evaluate the open and closing parens. Lisp is great for language developers and macros - but for most programmers, being able to identify, literally, 'the shape of a problem' can be a big deal. I'll probably use a JS or ML-based syntax for whatever language this becomes.

I'm also missing the lack of expressive type annotations and stakc traces. Tracking down my file rendering bug was a complete mess. ** 12:53 You should design things so that an algorithm has to relearn. ** 13:35 I love resurrecting old projects and using them to re-explore ideas. Most of my ideas from the past couple of years have gone unfinished - I just didn't have the technical knowledge, the stamina, or the determination to follow a project through. Now that my site is breaking through - as is the index page - I'm really getting there. Fear is the mind killer. I can't wait to close out many of this site's issues, build a splash page, and get to smess and joss and making a game and rendering for desktop - all things I've wanted to do for a long, long time.

2023-06-10

→ node [[2023-06-09]]
  • Friday, 06/09/2023 ** 13:03 I just rejected a website because I didn't feel 'immersed' by it. This website feels the same way now. Demanding focus from other tools is difficult - your tool should be more expressive than others, feel better, or at least on par with them. If the MacOS notification animation is so much more interesting than your landing page, the user's clicking on that instead - regardless of your site's content. Animations matter. ** 19:40 Continuing to appreciate the Macbook's design, particularly from the perspective of non-technical users. I have a few problems with global settings and configuration, but for the most part Apple does things right! Aside from the initial configuration issue - no support for both American and Swedish information because I don't yet have Swedish bank information - the defaults 'just work' most of the time. Apps are in the Applications folder, and most users of computers know how the structure of folders work, so it is intuitive for anyone to put programs there; the settings menu isn't the best, but at least it's searchable and indexed by Finder; all of the apps you might want for basic computing, like email and a web browser, are preinstalled and ready to use.

Even the development tools are straightforward. I know that with Nix I am taking on some responsibility up-front when maintaining my system by making sure that everything is pinned, but a stateful homebrew configuration is so easy - it just works most of the time, and when I have a problem, I can check the version of a package, then update it. Nix might be overkill for a lot of personal computing use cases like web development or Rust where all of the dependencies are so stable - unless you're dependent on a complex web of system APIs and libraries, most technologies 'just work' with the stable libraries you have available on a Unix system. This is true for dev tools, too; git's preinstalled along with a bunch of other good utilities.

I particularly enjoyed the integration of app installation with web browser plugins. Adding 1password was seamless - an installation took a single click and suddenly I could use the tool everywhere. I wish applications had a hook for this - detecting installation and searching their systems for plugins that they could install. That could make software feel more fluid.

The platform isn't configurable enough, though; I don't think that good defaults really provide the expressive configuration that people who use software should deserve. An application isn't a monolith - it's part of an ecosystem of tools on the computer - and it really is a shame that ** 13:08 Tightly coupling too many tools - using them 'cleverly' - can be really dangerous. This was the status quo for me - trying to craft or discover the simplest and most elegant functional pearl from software, administering lots of rules to do so.

Unfortunately, tightly coupling tools creates rules and semantics - semantics that the tools, individually, don't model. If I add a row to the table, that row shouldn't have unforseen consequences in executable code, for example, unless the row is ill-formed - but if what is ill-formed is not defined by the executable, the user has no way to determine what is correct without assembling all of the infrastructure.

→ node [[2023-06-08]]
→ node [[2023-06-07]]
  • Wednesday, 06/07/2023 ** 10:03 Settings panels - particularly for UI - are so difficult.

There are three real ways to drill down into them:

  • Open a monolithic panel with form-like options. Navigate it like a document, with document tools that allow you to select parts and sub-parts of a page.
    • Pros: everything on one page, use the browser document tools, can write as much prose as you want about features
    • Cons: Discoverability is hard, documents are long and overwhelming
  • Universal search. VSCode and Emacs take this approach, as do some MacOS tools and chrome feature flags. Type what you're looking for and see the setting.
    • Pros: better discoverability
    • Cons: naming and language to describe features are hard
  • Visual. Newer paradigm, mostly explored with browser modification tools like Arc's. Visit the parts of the UI that you'd like to change and see how to change them on the UI itself. This can be a debugger overlay that feels similar to the dev tools; you could see a tray with a palette of options, selecting them to toggle them 'on' or 'off' on the screen. (This could be easily implemented for my website... whoah).
    • Pro: avoid language description whenever possible
    • Con: implementation is the most difficult, not possible for features that are strictly logical and don't have a corresponding visual pane

This Google Calendar settings menu that I have open is wonderful; it's document-style with a table of contents, and all of the settings have beautiful visual metaphors to help you understand how to navigate the page.

The Apple menu? Not so great, especially because they try to 'own' technical language and obscure actual features, like saying 'pro display' instead of 120hz or similar. This creates Apple tribalism and helps some die-hard fans feel more integrated - but choosing different names for products and settings from the colloquial standard basically alienates any casual user - which, IMO, is bad for a product like a MacBook that should be a tool usable by everyone. I don't want to have to look up what an 'epic pro max XDR ultra' is - just use the language everyone else does. Please!

Major shoutout to the browser company shader this morning. When you first open the app, the full-screen blob and intro animation with music is so, so beautiful - maybe the best animation I've seen from software in a long time. That intro sequence is immaculate. I'm blown away by the work that these teams are doing on MacOS native apps. Developing those tools to be mac-native is feeling awfully tempting... wondering how easy it would be to port beautiful animated features like this back to Linux and wayland.

Using this Mac has helped me develop a new appreciation for my Linux setup though. All of the animations are beautiful and expressive on MacOS, sure, but my minimal Sway setup feels cold and efficient. Everything happens pretty much instantly without 'affordances' or motion blur or 120fps animations - it 'just works'. The machine feels functional, efficient, and responsive. I would love to build more beautiful apps that feed into this 'feel' while taking some of the innovative visual cues from programs like MacOS. ** 10:16 Writing and recording these daily notes is probably - for better or worse - the highlight of my day. This is great practice. Keep noticing details and working on it! ** 11:10 Made another classic prioritization mistake today. Always make the minimum viable changes necessary to release a usable product for other people. I prioritized doing more 'in-depth' work before preparing a deployment of our product at work. Be more careful next time - propose a minimum viable plan, finish that plan, and iterate, adding more if we need. Do not do more up front than is necessary.

→ node [[2023-06-06]]
→ node [[2023-06-05]]
  • It's [[hard]] for [[people]] to [[copy]] something if they don't see it. To make it easy to copy, make it easy to [[see]]. collapsed:: true
    • [[Social]] [[influence]] is stronger when people can see others do the thing often.
      • What can people do that will let them [[show]] off your [[product]] or [[service]] for others to [[see]]?
  • A secret to [[persuasion]] is that you can't actually persuade anyone, you have to mine their [[mind]] for where they already have a [[position]] that [[fits]] yours and [[start]] there.
  • Monday, 06/05/2023 ** 11:30 Dreaming of a computer that 'just works' with software. A compact laptop with a ton of ports. Plugging in a device opens a program specifically associated with that device in a small window on the screen. Those windows compose, allowing you, the user of the device, to control how devices are composed in boht analog and digital ways; the computer knows what device is plugged in, but as a user you can change what that device controls and how that program might be connected to other programs on your computer. Visual nodes and wires on the screen - like max for live devices or similar - allow you to manipulate these separate, VST-like programs to tune them together.

These devices shouldn't be limited to controlling audio; they might be able to channel into some intermediary that can automate, send visual feedback back to the controller, and so on... a device could control a visual and a synthesizer at the same time, displaying art that reacts live to tactile knobs... the ability to touch something and for that thing to give visual and vibrational feedback is so, so important. Musicians know that how a tool feels changes how you think. Everyone should have the power to plug in new tools and change the way they think about problems.

Keyboard artisans know this too, in a different way; they 'optimize' or make pretty keyboards, play with knobs and ideas, itching to find this new input device of the future - or the one that works best for them. It's silly to me that this laptop has one keyboard and screen glued to it that can't be changed. Having good defaults is good - sure - so that the system can always be interacted with, but I should be able to swap these things out and keep the brain behind them. A 'complete' device that can't be customized or plugged into other things feels terrible. Same with battery power. All of these TE devices have built-in microphones, batteries, etc, each with different abilities and qualities, then they promote the idea of putting all of these tools together. They seem fixated on beauty and size at the cost of functionality - I cannot DJ or record with their TP-7 because the disk is too small and the microphone is so poor - but that beautiful brushless motor and notch on the side provide such seamless tangible and visual feedback, acting as the world's most polished tape deck. The knobs on their mixer are far too small - and that mixer has no business hosting expressive audio effects - but it works and works well.

To me, the failures of these physical audio devices are more interesting - like the OP-Z. The thing doesn't have a good way to provide visual feedback for most of its controls and its labels are too domain-specific for how general the device is meant to be. The thing has no screen! A sequencer needs lights under the buttons to show you when they're triggered. A disc needs lights or a screen to show you how that pot is tweaking your system on the fly. This visual feedback has to be built into the controller itself in some way. The Elektron model:cycles looks and feels like a toy, but the rubbery feel of those buttons - the way they light up - and the screen's waves shifting and responding to your changes to the sequencer - are brilliant design decisions for such a budget device. The mouse shows a cursor. Keys show text on the screen. Controls on any sort of device should do the same - or htey're confusing and do nothing. Audio feedback is not enough.

All of these grooveboxes work because they feature software tightly integrated with hardware - and the developers behind them do a brilliant job - but ultimately my laptop is a far more powerful and expressive piece of kit than dedicated 'hardware' (implemented in software as custom firmware). Limits like 24 samples, 256 tracks, whatever - what? My laptop has 16 gigs of RAM and a terabyte of storage. It can probably run the software of every sampler or 'groovebox' on the market combined and look better doing it. ** 11:52 Someday I'll make the clothes that I want to wear every day. Right now I'm focused on computer interaction. Income doesn't feel as stable and developing clothes seems like it costs big bucks - especially clothes without compromises. I have a whole life ahead of me to do that. ** 14:18 Incredibly frustrating that most high-quality hardware products have software built-in. Music tools are no different from SaaS platforms in this way - it's nearly impossible to purchase great hardware pots, knobs, and other buttons without them including some mediocre hardware in the box and gluing the tool to it. I understand wanting to control the complete experience, and that stepping away from a laptop is somehow an obsessive selling point for many people, but controllers should be just that - instruments that connect to powerful programs that run on your computer. Those distractions you have in your laptop are a software problem, not a hardware one that can be fixed with more money and more modulars; the bigger problem is that you do not have control over your computer and the ways in which the software should interact.

I want more companies like Monome that ship beautiful, high-quality, modular tools. Thankfully NI controllers can be hacked, and they have decent hardware, but that's not the point - we deserve better tactile tools for human-computer interaction that don't have to be the complete package. TE takes one step towards making no-compromise, beautiful products, but they aren't substantive or modular in the most important ways. The missing piece of this puzzle to empowering hardware is free software - we need to get there as well. ** 17:28 WebGPU is good, but starting a framework by implementing the GPU rendering is bad because this introduces a barrier to entry.

Using this macbook feels so clean and seamless though. Everyone deserves high-quality basic tools like this. I'm noticing that programs aren't as expressive for developers as the MacOS defaults, though. I am determined to make compelling, developer-oriented software that everyone can use - that can be ported back to MacOS with no issues.

Less configuration is better. Pick beautiful defaults and they'll be used. (Gnome doesn't have the best...)

Also realizing how important it is to be able to move a window around, to resize it and see how the website reacts, vertically and horizontally, on many different screen sizes. Getting some new insights for my website - like how important a responsive sidebar is. ** 19:51 One of the most beautiful things that anyone can do is make a tool that helps people express themselves - especially in a way they weren't able to before

→ node [[2023-06-04]]
  • [[Flancia]]!
    • [[AG]]
    • [[Diego de la Hera]]
    • Planeé cuatro pomodoros por la revolución después de las 22, fueron mayormete de conversación y juego -- sin arrepentimientos.

Amanecí y llegamos a la tarde con alegría con [[AG]], y después comimos y caminamos con [[Diego]] y [[Dominic]].

  • How can a [[link]] be made between a [[new]] [[message]] and a message of an incumbent [[group]]? collapsed:: true
    • How often does an [[environmental]] [[trigger]] occur? How strong is the [[link]] between the [[message]] and the [[reminder]]?
      • How many links are there for any given [[cue]]? What will people connect to this thing? How many different answers would you get in [[association]] with this thing?
        • Pick cues that are [[near]] whatever you [[want]] someone to do, so it's easy for them to [[buy]] the [[product]] or [[service]] or [[act]].
          • [[When]] are people in a [[place]] to consider this thing? What is around them in that place? [[timing]]
          • Using environmental triggers to [[sell]] is equivalent to forming a [[trigger]] action [[plan]] for someone else.
  • What would give someone a sense of [[awe]]?
    • People share things that gave them a sense of [[awe]], as well as things that [[surprise]] or are of [[use]].
  • Sunday, 06/04/2023 ** 11:53 Website is almost there. Finishing a project feels so good. Once the build system and hot reloading is complete, I'll be able to seamlessly write content. After that, I'll start working on images and ways to feature my photo portfolio... maybe the project won't ever end.

Clojure really isn't useful here though. Fun but bad decision. JVM has slow start and doesn't really matter - we don't need to run cross-platform and the libraries we would use for that are implemented in many other languages. Should have used javascript - code would have run much faster. Clojure lost because it wasn't useful on the web.

Also, the stack traces are terrible... (I can't see any sort of program trace within my code? No syntax highlighting? What's up with that?). I'll wrap this project up but I'm feeling a strong rewrite it inclination. ** 13:45 Depending on a file means a few things things:

  • You want as much semantic information about that file as possible at compile time
  • You need to use information from the that file to build this one
  • You want to ensure that everything that that file needs is taken care of

Solution:

  • imports must be named
  • Build scripts return File objects, not write to disk
  • Pass a single argument to build scripts; it's an object that contains all of the named imports

This means that if you depend on any file, you'll have the information about what you need to make your current component run at any time. You'll know what you have to build in order to make that component work. References to that component will have a real, semantic connection to the component itself.

This also allows the file to be interpreted in different ways! I can assemble a list of imports dynamically, then use an interpreter to resolve them. I can use a compiler to set up everything statically. I can make 'meta-components' that transform other components to augment them in clear ways. Good solution. ** 14:01 Watched some tiktoks (reels lol) this morning. Really clever tricks with the soundtrack - some reels through subtle discord, snapchat, iMessage, etc... sounds on in the background to stimulate attention. Really devious strategy. I'm kind of afraid of watching these things now. ** 14:41 For the site - need a way to figure out remote dependencies! Both at access time and at build time. These are network requests. (:type network? :type https? something like that.)

(Live dependencies would be really cool...) ** 19:46

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa_fNuaSE_I: A good test for cross-platform software - would a top company rely on that software to build beautiful products? React Native, Flutter, QT, Xamarin...

The answer is no because there are so many stopgaps and edge cases between platfomrs that have to be healed over. That cross-platform challenge is so incredibly difficult. The APIs are just too high-level to build technology that interoperates! ** 20:28 No GC is necessary for fluid UI. A single GC pause in the wrong place can kill a fluid animation. This is why Apple is behind Swift - and why Swift apps feel so much more fluid than other web tools, even Java - Swift apps have fine-grained control over their memory, which allows them to make UI animations feel incredibly polished. Brilliant!

→ node [[2023-06-03]]
  • Saturday, 06/03/2023 ** 00:31 The lack of a good Clojure stack trace is killing me. Clojure is great when you don't have errors. When you do, the language provides no diagnostic information (though maybe I'm just unacquainted with the debugging tools that the language offers...) ** 00:32 Fixed the fonts on my system. Berkeley Mono really is beautiful, as are Kate's terminal visualizations. I hope I'll be able to build some into the site and/or into my daily workflow - I'll continue to experiment with how data is shown. Learned a bit about shaders today, too, but I've decided not to spend much time on them - my focus is on perfecting 2D graphics and visuals. 3D is too advanced for me now (aside from some 3D css shading tricks, or a sort of '2.5d').

My site is becoming more and more 'reflective' though. The more I iterate on it, the better the features tend to 'flow together'; I have a bunch of ideas that seem unrelated, but over the course of a couple of days they combine to reveal some super powerful primitives, and those primitives can hten be used throughout the application to make the framework both faster and more expressive. Clojure's "for" laziness bit me today - but I can see laziness being super useful, like to retrieve git log information or to get information about files that are supposed to be dependent on one another. I'll see where that takes me. ** 18:14 The bit of isolation I hear feels lonely, but it's been really valuable; I'm very quickly finding an understanding of what I want to do with my life and how I want to go about it. I want ot make, to build creative tools, to make using a computer better; I want those tools to be freely available to anyone and for them to be the best tools available, so there is no decision between paying Adobe or Capture One or whoever else is adding artificial scarcity to limited commodities; I want to build tools that people both admire as objects and that can be used every day.

Progress isn't made with good work, not entirely; it's assembled between people making connections in the real world. Balue Coffee's pop-up was wonderful; he was so welcoming, the coffee was so good, and the community of people that Justin (?) seems to have fostered is beautiful. Some poeple drove or flew out from fairly far out to spend time hanging out in a parking lot to support this business; to support him. I love doing this for others, but am not sure how to foster a community quite like he has. Life could be so, so rich. Maybe San Francisco or New York would help; maybe I can change myself to foster such a community here.

→ node [[2023-06-02]]
  • How would this [[product]] or [[service]] give someone an [[experience]] they can use to [[signal]] their [[taste]]?
    • People are more likely to [[recommend]] things that give them [[surprise]] in a short [[time]] frame. The surprise does not translate into ongoing [[talk]] about the thing, though.
    • A specific association between things makes it more likely that people will make [[choices]] with that [[association]] in [[mind]]. Establish a [[relationship]] between something wanted and something people will [[see]], [[smell]], [[hear]], or [[touch]].
    • Things that are said in [[small]] [[talk]] last for a [[long]] [[time]], where things that [[surprise]] are said in other kinds of talk that last for a short time.
      • In [[small]] [[talk]], people say whatever is on their [[mind]]. Whatever is on their mind is often from something around them in the [[place]] they are in.
        • What is going on around them? How can it tie to a [[product]] or [[service]] of ours?
          • What is a part of what [[people]] in this [[group]] do in every [[place]] they go to? Including those parts in your [[story]] will make that story more relatable.
            • Is the [[message]] tied to a [[context]] that includes a part of any place a person might be in every day?
              • What is something this [[group]] does every day? How can this [[product]] or [[service]] be associated with that one thing?
  • Friday, 06/02/2023 ** 09:42 Our innovation budget can't include a new programming language. Use a modern subset of javascript and typescript. Maps, folds. Keep the concrete syntax and semantics; this is a 'dialect'. The toolkit should be as easy as possible for web developers and app developers to use. This means we need javascript. ** 09:48 All in on Rust and Zig. ** 14:50 Snapchat filters are so fun for everyone to use and see. Never fails to whip one out in a tough internal meeting to brighten up everyone in the room. What a brilliant use of AI tools.

2023-06-02

→ node [[2023-06-01]]

Thursday, 06/01/2023

10:17

Client-side and server-side rendering are both necessary to make the best websites.

The most important role of a website is to communicate and present data in the best way possible. The best tool is often a static document; this allows you to communicate information that doesn't frequently change to a user.

The ability to take a snapshot - to download a single HTML file and have access to all of the information you'd like to see - allows users to save web documents for themselves and access them whenever they'd like. It's really important for websites to provide static data with the lowest lift possible. This allows snapshot tools to perfectly capture their state, giving the users of a website the ability to communicate data online or offline.

What if that information frequently changes, though?

I've written before about the 'three stages' of information on the web. Information can be retrieved at three times: at site deployment time (the developer deploying the site to a server), at user access time (when the user requests to see the information from the server by clicking a link), and at runtime (updating data while the user is viewing a page).

We know the user wants the most up-to-date information, but each stage comes with a performance penalty; delivering information at access time and runtime can introduce significant lag if not approached properly, as the live data has to be retrieved.

We can load data in 'after the fact' by having the browser request live data again after a page loads. This is a super common React strategy, and improves load times for the user - but means that the page served to the user initially is often kind of useless (it has none of the relevant data until a user spends some time on it!), preventing any sort of archival tool from properly preserving the site at a point in time.

This also may be irresponsible - do I want to render the data on my one computer or on the computers of every single one of my visitors? One clearly is much more expensive. We need to give users the most relevant live data though!

When considering how a platform is built, strive to store all information at site deployment time. If information might change between user access times, that data will have to be dynamically retrieved. If information might change when a user accesses the page, the data will have to be dynamically rendered by a client.

This also calls for three different ways of rendering a website. The first stage is supported by a compiler from source files to target files. The second stage is supported by a service that pulls in live data, sticks that data into a compiler pipeline, and sends the output over the wire. The third uses JavaScript to continuously request and render data from the user's computer.

Because rendering information at different times has these tradeoffs, switching between different rendering strategies for particular portions of the website should be as easy as possible. If I want my data to render statically but update live, I will have to render that data in two places - on the server and on the computer of the user. I will also need to obtain that data in both of those places - ideally from the same source.

How do we solve this?

  • The compiler can render information with any language.
  • The server can render information with any language.
  • The web renders information with javascript.

Cool. The UI development language has to either be javascript or support javascript.

What about alternative rendering strategies? What if I want my app to render easily on desktop and web?

If we want to draw with pixels, we can 'sideload' rendering on the web in with the HTML canvas. This would allow users to program in their language of choice. This also sacrifices all of the tools that the web browser provides and prevents static rendering entirely (it is not possible to draw a canvas statically).

If we want to draw with the GPU instead of just putting pixels on the screen, a presumably faster strategy, we can program against the WebGPU API on both the web and the desktop - but again we lose all of those advantages of HTML on the web.

Cool, maybe we can bring the web to us. Let's wrap our app in a web browser and have users download our application code, then tell the browser to render that.

Some problems:

  • Web browsers are huge - several hundred megabytes at the least. It is irresponsible to ship an application that's probably a few thousand lines of code (< 1 mb) as a 300mb app.
  • Web browsers update frequently. Many of these updates introduce new APIs or fix security vulnerabilities. The former is fine - we can avoid those APIs - but unknowingly leaving outdated, vulnerable code on the computers of our users that we cannot easily fix is rough.
  • The web API may not be the best paradigm for rendering. If I need expressive and performant 3d tools, GPU through JS might be too slow. I want the browser's native hardware and optimized, low-level code.

Because our documents are glued to the browser - the most expressive document viewer ever - everyone expects their applications to be accessible there, too. Links are really powerful. Requiring a user to download software to try it out simply is not a good option nowadays.

This is why comprehensive rendering solutions are so difficult. There are two APIs we have to glue into if we want both fast and browser-optimal code to be available everywhere, both with very large surface areas.

We have two paths to move forward:

  • Reinvent the wheel. Deny that people use browsers and require users to download new software that reinvents the idea of the browser as a platform. We can write optimal code with good APIs that runs everywhere. For portability, we can pre-compile software for every platform that uses it and statically link it, or we can distribute a virtual machine that our software runs on. This requires significant user buy-in, but it means that we can ship native-feeling apps with small application sizes that are available off of link. We also lose all of the external work in the browser on extensions or other development tools. A compatibility layer to HTML canvas can be implemented here, but that loses all of the accessibility features and lots of the performance benefits.
  • Develop against a very large API surface. We have red functions and blue functions that can't be mixed - HTML/CSS compatible functions and WebGPU/Canvas compatible functions. Somehow both types have to be both executable on the browser and on the server. We have to preserve the information about the context in which these can be used - GPU has to happen inside of a canvas, which has to be inside of HTML - which means we're glued to a strongly typed language if we want to produce code that has a decent performance profile.

Things that are not up for discussion:

  • Reactivity. The consensus is that reactive frameworks are obviously good for displaying complex information. Parts of every application should have the ability to be written with a high-level, reactive API because this is such an expressive paradigm and development velocity win. Imperative GUI modes are best for real-time rendering - and can be more performant in some cases - but the cacheing control that reactive frameworks provide can also save lots of compute that we don't want to spend if we don't want to re-render something complex.
  • Expressive rendering with GPU. We want the most performant software possible. The web is disrespectful.

All I'm saying is that reinventing the wheel is looking really good right now...

11:14

Why can't we just target HTML/CSS with business logic in JS / WebAssembly?

We always want accessibility hints, and we always want debuggability - a document flow is ideal for those. A lot of the time, though, the web presents problems to us. The DOM cannot render pixel-perfect documents without the canvas.

Google Docs moved to render entirely with canvas recently, and though they didn't state why, I have some suspicions:

  • Implementing an expressive, interactive layout engine with the DOM is really rough. You want to be able to shift margins and boxes by specific pixel sizes and make adjustments at different scales. The DOM becomes a bottleneck.
  • Font rendering on the web is a moving target. You aren't in control of the font rendering strategy that your client's browser uses, so you can't control what font rendering primitives they have access to, if they can support variable fonts or certain points or certain glyphs. Downloading fonts only solves half the battle, and injecting a custom renderer for text is reinventing the wheel but in a more complex way.
  • Fonts and layout engines interact in really complex ways; it's been hard to get this right at work, even for our web application that isn't doing anything unique at all with fonts or font rendering. Rendering all of the fonts and the layout to canvas allows the implementer to be in complete control of rendering logic - not the browser.
  • Interacting with the DOM prevents you from being completely in control of your data sync story. Google Docs wants to always render real-time synced text and formatting data. To change how the DOM looks, code has to iterate through all of the DOM nodes, making small changes and adjustments. The two ways of doing this - modifying the existing DOM to incorporate the new changes in real time and completely re-flowing the doc - introduce significant performance bottlenecks. Low latency for text documents is incredibly important. Application sync over the internet seamlessly is really important to their real-time, collaborative platform. They cannot afford to take the performance hit that DOM re-flowing incurs.

The docs team also added a feature to support static web rendering via the DOM. This allows those live, view-only previews and snapshots to be taken, efficiently rendering a static site that is served to others without the issues discussed. Unfortunately, they have to write all of the same code twice - one for the static doc that's distributed to others and another for canvas editing version.

Thankfully, the canvas doesn't sacrifice all of the browser tools - its api does offer some accessibility tags and primitives: https://pauljadam.com/demos/canvas.html.

This means that if we want to give application developers expressive and fast tools, we cannot rely on DOM rendering to support every use case. There must be a seamless way for them to fall back to pixels. The canvas API, I'd argue, is not seamless - those accessibility hints and tools cannot be rendered statically in documents, for one (unless you count images and SVGs - but then you sacrifice the interactivity that makes HTML docs so brilliant to an opaque image).

The conclusion here is basically that we need to be able to develop custom, pixel-perfect tools within the canvas that the browser will render statically to a document, but that can be interactive when that document is open. I haven't explored why static HTML - rather than JS augmented HTML - is important, but mostly because JS is a mess and is too expressive for what we want it for most of the time. Documents should be usable without executing a general purpose programming language - users should never have to incur that performance hit.

I'll have to rewrite this whole article when formalizing it.

→ node [[2023-05-31]]
→ node [[2023-05-30]]
  • Tuesday, 05/30/2023 ** 11:21 A bit ashamed that my OP-1 tweet has gotten so much more traction than anything else I've made. It's cool that I was able to get my hands on a development unit - and the photo is decent - but it's embarrassing to me that the thing I've put out into the world with the most 'impressions' is a photo of a device that someone else made. I feel the same way about are.na... hundreds - maybe thousands - of people see what I curate on the platform, but ** 23:28 Nah... getting more exposure always seems good. I've put so much effort into the site - and am so glad that Tommy loves my web design. : )
→ node [[2023-05-29]]
  • Monday, 05/29/2023 ** 22:45 I hope that these notes never stop. I want them to continue forever. Twitter clout posting rather than actually making music or my website better. Learned the OP-1 today. This might be the most beautiful piece of technology I've ever tocuhed. It's so responsive and dynamic. Everything is instant. Confirms my want to reroll everything myself - that'll get us to 0 latency. The visual metaphors that every TE instrument presents you with are insane. I can't wait to keep learning. ** 23:13 Testing git weather v2. ** 23:17 Nothing to commit? Not anymore.

2023-05-29

→ node [[2023-05-28]]
  • Looked into [[keyoxide]] again after seeing a reference in the profile of [[youronlyone]]
  • [[social.coop]]
    • [[wiki]]
      • changed links to registration form to point to join.social.coop
      • posted maintenance announcement
      • redoing [[wiki migration]] on wiki.social.coop
      • disabled parsoid
      • enabled registrations
      • done, it seems, pretty much! \o/
  • #push [[pfeilstorch]]
    • showed up in my open tabs, is interesting, but I don't remember how I got there :)
→ node [[2023-05-27]]
  • Saturday, 05/27/2023 ** 13:19 Tried watching some "Tsoding" streams to see what steaming for programming looks like. I'm not sure if I'll start streaming again, but his investigation of Zig was very insightful.

Almost-quote of a language: "Developing a language could be just like discovering a game. A game is designed to teach you how to play it - to discover new tips and tricks without realizing that the system is teaching you how to progress. The process of using a language - from the starting process, the error messages, and so on - should be designed like a game, to inform the user to navigate the language and teach them features."

All computer programs are the same; a program is a tool that a user has to learn. Choosing the right way to help your users is vital to helping your users understand how to use your program.

Do I provide a manpage? A --help flag? Good error messages? A website with a great search bar? An interactive tutorial? A supportive Discord community? How do I determine what the best way is to teach my users to use my software?

Today I've also been testing out the Helix editor, software that claims to be a modern replacement from neovim. The program claims to be a complete rewrite, but effectively rewrites and compiles in expressive neovim packages and configurations to produce the best source code editing experience out of the box. The best aspecf of this is the help menu, though - as soon as I started typing and saw a keybind that I didn't expect, I was (1) shown a menu of all possible keyboard shortcuts, and (2) shown an English explanation of my action in a pop-up. I felt encouraged to play - trying more keyboard shortcuts helped me understand more about the system! - and it was incredibly easy to find tools like the file browser and to start using the modal editing features. It's still a bit confusing to open the program to an empty buffer - but their onboarding experience is doing a lot of things right.

At work, a principle design focus is killing any sort of product tour. We include one as a crutch - it allows us to explain features we're quickly adding support for to the platform because we're building a product without clear competitors or comparators - but making UX feel seamless - teaching the user to use the product as they explore - is our primary focus. Presenting information-dense views with affordances to attract the eyes to particular aspects of the interface encourages the user to look at - and interact with - parts of the screen, and in doing so, I hope they learn. ** 13:40 Test for my website's sidebar hierarchy:

home ├╴pages ├╴c ├╴c-style ├╴ helpers ├╴making-c ├╴journals ├╴2020-10-10 ├╴2020-10-05 ├╴files

and questions:

  • How do I better visualize deep nesting? (The above isn't very clear.).
  • How deep should a website go?
  • What should be visualized? Connections? Graphs? Headings? What is important enough to visualize?

Some pros:

  • I love the table style that I have going so far, and think it will apply wonderfully to ascii art. It's a wonderful pattern to reuse.
  • The website should feel as configurable and as interconnected as possible; things changing on one page should affect others, information should be shared whenever possible.

Thoughts on the framework so far:

  • I am loving zig's 'comptime' features. I can feel the paradigm in my website framework too. The framework has three distinct stages: the static generation stage, the javascript integration stage, and the deployment to user stage. Each has different information available, and our goals are to both minimize the amount of work necessary to redo that information and to make use of that information in a way that's as expressive as possible. There are still lots of things to solve, i.e.: How does hot reloading function for pages depending on source files? What information do we want to show on the site that's "live" (loaded when the client visits the website - as opposed to loading the information when the file is built or when the file is served). ** 13:56 I want a git commit that tracks not only when it was made, but also where it was made, how the weather was, etc... ** 20:10 Taste is changing. I used to think that keeping photos flat, collapsed, straightforward, with lines pinned and corners all at sharp angles, was the way to go. The more work I do and the more time I spend outside, the more I realize that I want my screen to feel expansive and broad, to include as much information as possible, to make the viewer feel a real sense of depth - like they're not just squaring up with a digital screen, but that they're seeing another place.