on happiness
2019-02-15
We live in a world where people think happiness is a condition, but it’s not; it’s a sensation. It’s momentary. So do I have little moments of happiness? Yes. Is that my general condition? No. Is that anyone’s general condition? I can’t believe that’s the case. Are there people that are generally more buoyant than I am? Yes, most people. I don’t think of myself as being unhappy, I think of myself as being morose, but it’s just natural, it’s not my circumstances so much. I can be in bad circumstances like anyone else, or I can be in good circumstances, but in general, if you broke into my apartment and I didn’t know you were there, you would not see me whistling around the house.
shame
2019-01-04
ASK POLLY: I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life
Learn to treat yourself the way a loving older parent would. Tell yourself: This reckoning serves a purpose. Your traveling served a purpose. Your moving served a purpose. You’re sitting on a pile of gold that you earned through your own hard work, you just can’t see it yet. You can’t see it because you’re blinded by your shame.
Atwood on #metoo
2018-01-15
My fundamental position is that women are human beings, with the full range of saintly and demonic behaviours this entails, including criminal ones. They’re not angels, incapable of wrongdoing. If they were, we wouldn’t need a legal system.
Nor do I believe that women are children, incapable of agency or of making moral decisions.
[…]
The #MeToo moment is a symptom of a broken legal system. All too frequently, women and other sexual-abuse complainants couldn’t get a fair hearing through institutions – including corporate structures – so they used a new tool: the internet. Stars fell from the skies. This has been very effective, and has been seen as a massive wake-up call. But what next? The legal system can be fixed, or our society could dispose of it. Institutions, corporations and workplaces can houseclean, or they can expect more stars to fall, and also a lot of asteroids.
If the legal system is bypassed because it is seen as ineffectual, what will take its place?
Margaret Atwood takes to Twitter to respond to criticism of #MeToo Globe op-ed
Programming language stuff
2018-01-04
The market for new programming languages, as I write this in 2017, is competitive but not impenetrable — but like a freshly minted Ph.D., no one seems to be sure of Perl 6’s market prospects, and like a just-turned-in dissertation, no one seems to know whether the fruit of many years’ labor is actually worth a damn.
It is now possible to glimpse a future in which all that code is written in specific C replacements with strong memory-safety properties. Go, or Rust, or Cx – any way you slice it, C’s hold is slipping.
The big break in computer languages
The largest trend driving development towards [Garbage Collection] languages haven’t reversed, and there’s no reason to expect it will. Therefore: eventually we will have GC techniques with low enough latency overhead to be usable in kernels and low-level firmware, and those will ship in language implementations. Those are the languages that will truly end C’s long reign.
a reason for not doing a Ph.D.
2018-01-04
The Career Move That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Imagine if we all just stopped believing that the only way to be an academic is to be constantly employed by a university. There—wouldn’t that make people’s lives a lot better? Let’s just do that.
Žižek
2017-12-20
These contradictions don’t show that ideology is “irrational” — the problem is exactly the opposite, that there are too many reasons supporting their views. Žižek argues that these piled-up rationalizations demonstrate that something else is going on.
Have been a Slavoj Žižek fan follower for a while. Maybe i should read one of his books soon. Ha.
The Vampire Castle
2017-12-20
The problem that the Vampires’ Castle was set up to solve is this: how do you hold immense wealth and power while also appearing as a victim, marginal and oppositional? The solution was already there – in the Christian Church.
(the comments are brutal, even by low internet standards)
“Canada Bread did not comment.”
2017-12-20
Loblaw admits to bread price-fixing scheme spanning more than 14 years
And Loblaw says it will start offering $25 gift cards on Jan. 8 to customers who declare they bought certain (as yet unnamed) breads at some of its (as yet unnamed) chains before March 1, 2015 – a gesture that the company says could cost as much as $150-million.
Dan Harmon on depression
2017-11-30
Girl Asks Rick And Morty’s Co-Author How To Cope With Depression, Does Not Expect His Response
Dark thoughts will echo off the walls of your skull, they will distort and magnify. When you open your mouth (or an anonymous journal or blog or sketchpad), these thoughts go out. They’ll be back but you gotta get em OUT. Vent them. Tap them. I know you don’t want to but try it.
