Month: March 2025

Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.

• • Kerala (the part of India most interesting to me)
  • I only understand about 5%, but I still find it interesting (theoretical physics)

An illustration from the internet.

A quote.

“If you accept that non-citizens have no right to due process, you are accepting that citizens have no right to due process. All the government has to do is claim that you are not a citizen; without due process you have no chance to prove the contrary.” – Timothy Snyder

Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.

• What are Harberger taxes?
• Another “DOGE isn’t doing enough” rant thoughtful essay

An illustration from the internet.

A quote.

“How do you make software? It’s so simple. You start with a block of bytes, and carve away everything that’s not software.” – internet person

Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.

• New OPSEC threat model just dropped: “Am I a moron?”
• Dyspareunia

An illustration from the internet.

A quote.

“It is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. I personally prefer a liberal dictator to a democratic government lacking in liberalism.” – Hayek

Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.

• On agnetology
• H-Mart paean (Trung Phan is awesome blogger)

An illustration from the internet.

A thought – my own thought.

“In my darkest moments, I feel that I am becoming an accelerationist. I think: go ahead, burn Social Security to the ground! Take the VA and Medicare down too, while you’re at it! Let’s see if we can get into a hot war with Canada or Europe; let’s raze the entire country…”

Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.

• The Zvi on recent, viral, AI-written fiction
• Useful reporting about the intersection of crypto and drumpism
• The new Utsonomiya tram (宇都宮ライトレール)

An illustration from the internet (a few months late, sorry).

(Transcription and translation: 혹시 파트너 소개팅방 관심있으세요? / 내란수괴 윤석열은 퇴진하라 / 퇴진하라 … Are you interested in “partner blind date rooms” [sex chat]? / The coup-leader, [President] Yoon Seok-yeol, must resign / resign)

A quote.

“Ignorance is rarely an accident. It operates with precision, lurking in classrooms where history is selectively taught, in courtrooms where justice bends under the weight of wilfull blindness, and in cabinets of power where silence is often the most strategic policy. It is not simply the absence of knowledge but the calculated absence of knowledge, forged to serve particular ends.” – Colin W P Lewis

Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.

• Memecoin grift: from Milei to Melania
• Veganism is a first world luxury

An illustration from the internet.

A quote.

“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs). The most improper job of any man is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.

• Inflammation implicated in major depression (not yet replicated)
• Fiction on the theme of Common Lisp [A programming language]

An illustration from the internet.

A quote.

“[S]o far as we approve of monarchy, in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.” – Thomas Paine in Common Sense

Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.

• Sushi in Ukraine
• Dinkytown: much has changed, but the Espresso Royale Cafe is still there (I basically lived in that cafe in the late 1980s)

An illustration from the internet.

A quote.

“There is no escape. If you will not have rules, you will have rulers.” – Professor Ransom, in CS Lewis’ That Hideous Strength.

Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.

• An ode to skype
• The why of pi

An illustration from the internet.

A quote.

“The bad news is that America is falling apart, but the good news, now that they are our enemies, is that America is falling apart. They are weakening as a force in the world every day. They are crashing their own economy. They are creating a cost of living crisis within their own borders. They have destroyed their civil service in the name of what may amount to as little as $5bn in savings. They are dismantling their scientific community. They are dismantling their education system. They have fatally wounded the FBI and the CIA. They are gutting their national institutions one by one. In terms of self-mutilating policy decisions, they are up to about a Brexit a week at this point.” – Stephen Marche, Canadian writer

I stopped doing this “links” thing back at the beginning of January, when I learned I’d be traveling to Queensland for much of the month. And then, since getting back, and the subsequent trip to Portland, and feeling overwhelmed by caregiving and running the store, I’ve simply been unmotivated to resume. But I haven’t stopped looking at the internet, so there are still things worth putting into these links features – I just have to motivate to post them. So here’s a resumption – we’ll see how long it lasts.

Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.

• • Best website evar – a perfect synopsis of pop culture over the last 40 years
  • Short fiction about the universe, and Lisp [computer programming language]

An illustration from the internet. Graffiti seen in Calgary.

A quote.

“The president is not our teacher, our tutor, guide or ruler. He does not command us; we command him. We serve neither him nor his vision. It is not his job or his prerogative to redefine custom, law, and beliefs; to appropriate industries; to seize the country, as it were, by the shoulders or by the throat so as to impose by force of theatrical charisma his justice upon 300 million others. It is neither his job nor his prerogative to shift the power of decision away from them, and to him and the acolytes of his choosing.” – Mike Pence (!)