Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

"The term “open source” quickly became associated with ideas and arguments based only on practical values, such as making or having powerful, reliable software."

Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

Heuristic for feelings

On Disliking Poetry

Reading through the article, a question came to me: how important was poetry in my development? Did it modify my mental model at all? My first instinctive answers were: 1) not important, and 2) very little.

Let me expand on that a bit more. I actually took a poetry class in college, but in terms of shaping my thoughts it was overshadowed completely by other things. To name just a few of what those other things were: comparative lit, critical theory, analysis, modern and contemporary Chinese film and literature.

In the normal course of life encounters with poetry, I once purchased a book of poetry back in college. The book was unrelated to any class. I remember flipping through a few pages then promptly went back to reading the LRB; it was long form essays that modified my beliefs more than anything else, then or now.


Searching through my blog archives, I can count a relatively few, but not unimportant instances, in which I noted down poetry. Reading through the list of poems [1] again, I tried to pin down what significance poetry might been of to me: poetry functioned as a heuristic for feelings/sentiments. Longing, love, loneliness, sorrow: feelings in all their permutations mapped to a singular expression, if only for a few moments and within a few words.

In exploring and expressing more complicated ideas, it is not clear whether poetry is the proper function. Unless it is relaying an idea so permeated that poetry loses its evocativeness.

[1]:

Let go your earthly tether

On and on the Great River rolls, racing east. Of proud and gallant heroes its white-tops leave no trace, As right and wrong, pride and fall turn all at once unreal.

And you are as God made you, beautiful; And you are as God made you, unexpected"

In dreadful deeds fearless


Recital is the unsophisticated assassination of poetry


Inviting Writers to Drink

Drunk in Autumn Woods

Erinnerung an die Marie A.

Sorrowing, as water streams without interruption

I offer something more with these thoughts, which only you will notice.

Sorrow is hushed into peace in my heart like the evening among the silent trees

"Then Amnon... said to her, 'Get up and get out!'"

Mad Max: Fury Road

A fantastic movie. I never imagined Charlize Theron as an action hero, but I can't imagine her not being one after watching her performance in 'Fury Road'.

The movie covers and expands on all the thematic elements that made the Road Warrior exceptional: it's no longer mankind versus just the desert, but the wasteland - one visited by surreal sand storms, populated by not just outcasts, but the dispossessed.

Nature is constantly changing, like the wind

A Breath of Fresh Air [3.01]

    Zaheer: Have you ever read the poetry of the great airbending Guru, Lahima?
    Guard: What?
    Zaheer: Guru Lahima lived 4000 years ago in the Northern Air Temple. It is said that he unlocked the secrets of weightlessness and became untethered from the earth, living his final 40 years without ever touching the ground.
    Guard: Is that how you plan to escape, with something you picked up from an old airbender childrens story?
    Zaheer: Like all great children's tales, it contains truth within the myth. Lahima once wrote, "Instinct is a lie told by a fearful body, hoping to be wrong."
    Guard: What's that supposed to mean?
    Zaheer: It means, that when you base your expectations only on what you see, you blind yourself to the possibilities of a new reality.

Modern Irish Literature

"Ireland has less of a tradition of literary realism than England, though for an English critic to say so may require a degree of diplomacy. It may sound like saying that Ireland is deficient in realism in the same way that a nation might be deficient in hospitality or human rights. This is because realism is one of those terms which can be both normative and descriptive, like ‘nature’ or ‘culture’. It can mean, neutrally, the kind of art which aims for verisimilitude, or it can mean one which succeeds in penetrating to the truth of how things are. Realism can refer to the representational mode of an art form, or to its cognitive effect... ‘Realistic’ is a value term, whereas ‘realist’ is not, or not necessarily."

 Running out of Soil

Not every experience is singular

When I think about my writing, what comes to mind is not writing enough. This has the disadvantage of leaving too many unspoken assumptions.

I did not mention many things. Fortunately, they're no longer important. Not every experience is singular.

Ladies of the woods

Merit? What an obscene notion

“Working-class students are more likely to enter college with the notion that the purpose of higher education is learning in the classrooms, and invest their time and energy accordingly...”

Why ‘pedigree’ students get the best jobs


Merit? What an obscene notion! Everyone knows what truly counts is the divine right of kings.

For, although

... the thing with the Davis-Raab approach to civil liberties is that the critique has no organising principle. Other than heady and misty invocations of Magna Carta, it does not see the need for any overall legal framework that enables the citizen to rely on their rights against state power.

For, although there can be sincere, powerful and passionate criticism of individual proposals, there is also a dislike of the legal instruments such as the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights that can check government abuse in any systemic way. Such Tory civil libertarianism wants the benefits of a libertarian approach to policy in certain (usually populist) cases without the means of placing such libertarianism on a sustainable basis.

Tories and civil liberties: the fascinating appointment of Dominic Raab

The Tides of Destiny

Last part from Jamie Salisbury, Beyond and Above

Telling other people's kids to not go to college

One advantage of living in a place (i.e. the U.S.) that has economic and social institutions that enable the country to operate near the technological frontier is not having to listen to such nonsense:

Singapore Wants Kids to Skip College

I wonder what John Rawls have to say about clamping down on attainment of education. I imagine that he would say that this is not a sign of a well organized society. Why wouldn't a society spend more time create more jobs that people actually want, instead of just telling people to "work hard" (as if the person saying it is the only one doing so). Even if it was meant to be reassurance, it's bloody rude to tell people not to send their kids to college.

Unless there are genuine education alternatives to college, to which I'm sure there are. In fact that is a subject of much debate in the U.S. But it seems to me that the tone and intent of the original... "encouragement" seem far from trying to build credible alternatives that lead to better quality of life than just telling people to work as manual laborers, of which I'm sure exclude those esteemed people giving the encouragement in the first place.

It's also stated quite clearly that there is a skill mismatch from education to the configuration of the country's economy. Well, the U.S. has a similar problem, but that's because it cannot get enough number of qualified people to do high paying work. It makes wonder whether it is the dirigism coming home to roost.  Keeping a diversified economy is a good idea, but selecting exactly what those sectors are is probably not. What is considered a diversified economy even ten years ago is probably no longer true today. Keeping to them is to maintain a static vision of the future.

Domain specific language

What if consciousness is an emergent property whose domain specific language we have yet to uncover/develop?