madacoo

That last approach would go down very well in some British offices.

Firefox's reading mode solved this problem for me.

I'm currently in Hong Kong (planning to leave in December). Honestly if you want to come as a tourist I can't see you'll face any problems. Just be sensible and you'll be safe.

Unless you don't want to fund the economy of Hong Kong through tourism because you disagree with politics of its government and China. In which case, fair enough, really. I'm avoiding pro-China companies as much as possible myself. Although obviously the necessities of living do get a little in the way of that.

He's following the German philsophical tradition of verbosity for its sake. But there is a small kernal of ideas that can be distilled from his work that academics generally agree are there and original enough for the time to be worth consideration. Interpretations vary wildly, of course, but that has almost as much to do with academia as it does Heidegger.

> The book was a refutation of the distinction between mind and body, and all the fallacies that follow. “I think, therefore I am” was, in Heidegger’s reckoning, a “naive supposition”, an anthropocentric conceit that went all the way back to Plato. Humans cannot be imagined either outside or prior to the world into which they are “thrown” – a bed of land, language, tradition, history and more. Heidegger believed that only once this embeddedness, this “Being-there” (Dasein) in the world, is recognised can it be restored to its fullest, most authentic form, and the “forgetfulness of Being”, “the homelessness of man” and “the Fallenness of the world” overcome.

I actually don't see that "cogito ergo sum" and Heidegger's "thrown-ness" are so contradictory. Descarte wanted to find a claim irrefutable by logic on which to found his subsequent thought. And he did. The fact he went on from there to separate mind and body in a way that Heidegger's thrownn-ness doesn't require doesn't mean the ideas aren't compatible.

The problem with Descarte's thought is not the first but second therefore: I think therefore I am therefore my mind is separate from my body.

I think the claim that Dasein has to do with Nazism would need to be demonstrated. I think for any idea it is reasonable to assume it doesn't have anything to do with Nazism until demonstrated otherwise. Dasein's throwness, so far as I can see, doesn't have anything to do with Nazism.

Of course there is always the possibility for any idea that it leads to death camps. But it is rather hard to exhaustively explore the consequences of anything.

It could well be, however, that having an affilation with Nazism increases the likelihood that your ideas lead to death camps. Although even that ought to be deomnstrated rather than assumed.

> his philosophy in the eyes of academia and the public has garnered more scrutiny simply because of his ties

I think this probably is indeed the case. Although I would argue the value of an idea should be entirely detached from who had it, and be a function only of its usefulness, beauty and other significant attributes.

Of course if a Nazi has an idea we might then argue it becomes less beautiful because of that.

Are you suggesting that concepts like Dasein's thrown-ness into the world, the readiness-to-hand of tools, and other Heideggerian ideas, which have nothing to do with Nazism, should now be subject to suspicion on account of their originator's political affiliations?

We might be in the middle ages of software development. Think of the way European cities grew naturally versus the grid structures of American cities. Perhaps in the future the art of software development will have progressed to the point where creating a new application results in nice, square lines of code that are perfectly navigable.

I wonder if, at that point, we'll wax nostalgic about the way software used to grow organically. Ahhh, to lose myself once more in the meandering spaghetti of yesteryear...

I'd argue that the importance of a literary work does not end at the reader. If the work changes the reader's world view and changes their behaviour, then it could in turn effect the way they interact with others.

Just being in the same room as someone who has understood Dante's Inferno, for example, might well have effects that alter the course of your life.

Proving this would be another thing entirely, however.

To become Zen you must first delete Zen.

Something that works well for me is disabling javascript and making use of Firefox's read mode. Tends to let me get straight to the content in a legible way without much of the cruft getting in the way.

> you’d never hear someone say that brain surgery is ‘fun’

Surgery is cutting an incredibly complex meaty system apart and then sowing it back together. I don't believe for a second that there isn't anyone who finds that fun.

Probably a terrible idea to tell the patient that though.

Given the choice between a brain surgeon who gets a similar kind of enjoyment from it is as I do coding, and one who finds the whole thing tedious and uninteresting, I'd prefer my chances with the former.

Although I'd hope they are a much better surgeon than I am a coder.

Just because something is fun doesn't mean it is trivial.

Yes, children have thrived for millions of years without either.

Have you completely removed all influence of screens?

Personally admist the uncertainty about what effects screens have on children I oscillate between a hard entrenched but probably superstitious belief they rot brains, and excitement about the educational opportunities they provide.

Some of the discussions I have had with my daughter about YouTube/kid shows have been absolutely delightful and have proved to me that there is a positive side to it.

I'm very wary about both quantity and quality of screen time though. It is just very difficult to know where or what those limits should be without being entitely arbitrary about it.

Would it be reasonable to define the real me as simply the perpetually mutating sum of all those things?

"They're just things that we've used" means the same thing, if that helps.

Spatula, pot, spoon, bowl.

Those are things that we have used [today to make and eat soup].

For some reason, particularly round my parts, 'that' is often swapped for 'what', e.g. "Places what I've gone to."

Thanks for sharing this.

I found it difficult to parse the initial couple of lines because I was constantly attempting to read by attaching meaning to the spellings: "Eye halve" is a bit frightening in that sense. But then I realised I can read the text as sounds and almost ignore the spellings. Listening to what the sounds made in my head allowed for a much faster pace of comprehension because I didn't have to keep correcting myself.

This poem demonstrated for me that it is possible to read and listen simultaneously, and that I don't usually do that. It seems that it would probably add to the experience of other poems to read them in this manner.

> let's just call it ECMAScript and be done with it

Okay.

Preferably vim but sometimes Geany, and maybe notepad++ in a pinch.

The sheer vastness of possibilities it creates. It's fascinating how literally incomprehensible degrees of complexity can be derived from NAND gates.

I imagine it is not distinct from the way a biologist, or even anyone considering a flower or bug or life in any form, might marvel at how simple cells (not that they are as simple as a NAND gate) can generate such diverse functionality.

I've never formally studied computer science so my knowledge is fairly simplistic as of yet, but currently I am fascinated by the way computation can aid the expression of geometric patterns. I recently learned about the epicycloid and have enjoyed exploring various algorithms for generating patterns with them.

> You can’t ignore that and not properly equip your kids for those interactions

I agree. Big question: what are the best methods for doing so?

I agree the advice in the article is to avoid "I am a ..." but given that seems somewhat impossible and the advice is to avoid this construct in order to prevent a kind of 'dumbness' as described by the article, I was wondering if it would be sufficient to avoid 'non-verb-ifiable' nouns in order to achieve the desired outcome: prevention of dumbness. I should have made that aspect of my comment clearer.

I wonder if it would be sufficient to restrict nouns that you use to assert your identity to those which can be 'verbified': I am a juggler because I juggle; I am a programmer because I program; I am a writer because I write.

Those particular nouns seem to be inherently less likely to cause partisan behaviour that nouns that can't be as easily 'verbified': I am British because I Brit; I am not Christian because I don't Christ.

I suppose a simpler way of saying this would be to restrict your sense of identity to things you do over things you believe. Although I'm not at all certain that this would actually serve to avoid the kind of 'dumbness' the author describes.