dr_dshiv

1. Translating 1000s of NeoLatin, Chinese and Sanskrit books for the first time

At the Embassy of the Free Mind in Amsterdam, we’ve created https://SourceLibrary.org, a collection of over 15,000 translations of Renaissance and premodern books in NeoLatin, Chinese, Sanskrit, etc. There are a lot of beautiful books to look at — and you can use it with Claude code. API keys available: https://SourceLibrary.org/developers.

2. Replicating the design patterns of contemporary AI services

I’ve created a web app, desktop application and API for organizations needing European hardware and data protections. It’s a nice interface on top of Scaleway in France, so low carbon too. See https://makemode.eu

Support, feedback or even participation on these projects is very welcome.

Great technique, thanks for sharing

“Machine psychology” sticks with me. So Asimov.

All the models used are shown with each page of translation and each book has a whole data provenance treatment.

You can add it up!

Yes, this is designed with historians and librarians from the Embassy of the Free Mind (https://embassyofthefreemind.com) in Amsterdam, stewards of the collection of the Biblioteca Philosophica Hermetica

Please share with historian friends. I’m not great at socials or fundraising but this was really designed to support humanists. It can give DOIs for the versions of the translated books, which means they can be quoted and cited in academic papers.

Tip: Try it in Claude or Claude code (even better)! Just point it towards the source library. It can find quotes and evidence on any topic of interest. Or try the librarian — our source-grounded research agent https://sourcelibrary.org/librarian

Thanks for the feedback, I’ll fix the timeline.

https://SourceLibrary.org has about 16,000 rare books translated — most for the first time. 50,000 books archived (will be translated when we have $$ for it). More tokens than English Wikipedia and about .75 petabytes.

Not sure if we will qualify for a bounty, but happy to share! Btw, we are looking for funding from small or large donors who want to help us translate the Renaissance…

The first person to deal with this may have been Cornelis Drebbel in 1610 when he deployed the first submarine. With 4 oarsmen submerged in a leaky wooden sub, they’d have too much co2 and too little oxygen. Somehow they were able to stay for hours at a time.

Robert Boyle describes Drebbel’s use of a “chymical liquor” to refresh the air.

“Paracelſus, indeed, tells us, that "as the ſtomach concocts the aliment, "and makes part of it uſeful to the body, rejecting the other; ſo the "lungs conſume part of the air, and reject the reſt." Whence, according to him, we may ſuppoſe a little vital quinteſſence in the air, which ſerves to refresh and reſtore our vital ſpirits; for which purpoſe, the groſſer, and far greater part of the air, being unſerviceable, it is not ſtrange that an animal ſhould inceſſantly require fresh air. This opinion, indeed, is not abſurd; but it requires to be explain'd and prov'd: beſides, ſome objections may be made to it, from what has been already argued againſt the transmutation of air, into vital ſpirits. Nor is it probable, that the bare want of the generation of the uſual quantity of vital ſpirits, for leſs than one minute, ſhould be able to kill a lively animal, without the help of any external violence. And, upon this ſuppoſition, Cornelius Drebell, is affirm'd, by many credible perſons, to have contrived a veſſel to be row'd under water: for Drebell conceiv'd, that it is not the whole body of the air, but a certain ſpirituous part of it, that fits it for reſpiration; which being ſpent, the remaining groſſer body of the air, is unable to cheriſh the vital flame reſiding in the heart. So that, beſides the mechanical contrivance of his boat, he had a chymical liquor, which, by unſtopping the veſſel wherein it was contain'd, the fumes of it would ſpeedily reſtore to the air, foul'd by reſpiration, ſuch a proportion of vital parts, as would make it again fit for that office; and having made it my buſineſs to learn this ſtrange liquor, his relations conſtantly affirm'd, that Drebell would never diſcloſe it, but to one perſon, who himſelf told me what it was.“

https://sourcelibrary.org/book/philosophical-works-vol-2-boy...

Binaries are executed by machines but are not yet understandable by machines. (Now that we live in an era where machines can understand, imperfectly, like us)

From Della Portia’s 1560 Natural Magic— a description of explosive kites, kites for lofting animals and the prediction of human flight: https://sourcelibrary.org/book/natural-magic-or-on-the-mirac...

If it is helpful, I produced a collection of translated books documenting previous physical unrolling efforts: https://sourcelibrary.org/collections/herculaneum-papyri

This may be interesting if you are curious about what Philodemos wrote — or how previous generations of scholars approached the work.

Great work everyone!

Didn’t it take them like 2 days to build the first one?

Data transparency and copyright does not constitute “ethics.”

Sir, I would suggest that if Europe fails to be economically competitive, the downstream implications on European society will produce much worse outcomes than (for instance) data transparency…

Doing things with ethical intentions does not necessarily produce outcomes that are beneficial for society at large.

There is something north of 8% OCR error rates.. that will hurt model quality!

How do you use it?

I used to write detailed prompts. Now I find the benefits of strategic ambiguity — rather than speaking imperatively, I emphasize my vision and then Claude can often figure out a method.

This doesn’t always work better. But often enough.

It’s like our exocortex

Cybernetics is a precursor to AI and has a different intellectual tradition. Is it a long lost alternative name for AI? Kind of. I mean, if you look at how Sutton and Norvig define AI systems, it’s just goal directed agents with sensors and actuators.

That said, yes, they are different fields and traditions. Cybernetics is much broader, because it studies feedback control systems in natural/biological phenomena as well as the design of artificially intelligent systems.

Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics was based on automated killing — which he beautifully disavowed in peacetime [1]. Which historically is one of the main reasons we think about “Artificial Intelligence” instead of cybernetics (Wiener kind of pissed off the defense dept).

[1] “A Scientist Rebels,” 1947 http://lanl-the-back-story.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-scientist-...

Just like an old chat. Start fresh without so much accumulated contextual baggage.

Ya, but “doit” is 2x more efficient

Can it be replaced with good references and an interesting portfolio?

Check out https://quantumvibecoding.org if you want to run some circuits via Claude or codex.

See the Foundation for Public Code: https://www.publiccode.net/

Interesting that some acacia produce nicotine and dmt..

“1 hour, full power” is the dream. Something where I could get those last things done in the evening without disrupting my sleep.

Chemically possible? Why not?

It would be great if they could improve upon it.

I find nicotine to be an underperforming chemical, despite its popularity. A bit more of a cognitive kick would be nice. Know what I mean?

> Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, told POLITICO after emerging from a closed-door briefing from Anthropic on Mythos earlier this month that the AI tool was able to break into his bank account with ease…

> The United Kingdom’s AI Security Institute, which tested both Mythos and GPT-5.5, found that Mythos can fully take over a corporate network in six out of 10 attempts. GPT-5.5 could do the same in three out of 10 tries.

1 in 100 would be enough?

Don’t you technically leave the nation when you enter an embassy?

Anyone ever understand how the Gemini cli could be so bad even though Gemini 3 was so good?