maroonblazer

Islam contains a lot of contradictions and ambiguities within its scriptures (as does Christianity and Judaism). E.g. gender roles and justice can elicit competing interpretations among scholars of Islam. Not to mention the wide diversity within Islam - Sunni, Shia, Sufi, and other branches with differing doctrines.

Having been raised Catholic, then rejecting Christianity upon being confirmed in the Church and surveying the world's religions, I've found the Buddhist tradition to give the most satisfying and complete answers about these questions, with a minimum of contradiction. In truth Buddhism is less a religion and more a philosophy, which resonates with my 21st century sceptical self.

All that to say, I wouldn't put too much stock in 'the newest' religion, but rather consider that some group of people answered these questions when they were first considered, long ago. To my mind the Buddhists accomplished that feat.

Great piece, beautifully written.

For others who, at first glance, assumed the publication was some kind of magazine dedicated to woodworking, it is not. From their 'About' page:

Immaterial Incorporated (aka Cabinet) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) art and culture organization founded in 1999. By operating with the most expansive and inclusive definition of “culture” possible, one that includes both the quotidian and the extraordinary, Cabinet aims to foster curiosity about the world we have made and inhabit. We believe that curiosity is the very basis of ethics insofar as a deeper understanding of our social and material cultures encourages us both to be better custodians of the world and at the same time allows us to imagine it otherwise.

Sure, a couple I've come across:

"Potentiality" - this view argues that regardless of whether the fetus is a person, it has the potential to become a person, and thus inherits some moral consideration.

"Value of Human Life" - the argument that human life - at any stage of development - has intrinsic value and thus should be protected.

The strongest arguments against abortion don't hinge on whether the fetus is a person. The question of abortion ultimately boils down to whose rights we privilege: those of the mother, or the fetus?

Yeah, along with John von Neumann. I frequently mention those two whenever the icebreaker question "What persons, living or dead, would you most like to have a meal with?"

I'm nearly always met with "Who..??"

>It’s a feature, not a bug, of capitalism.

It's not a feature of capitalism - we've had capitalism without sending manufacturing overseas for decades. Rather, it's a feature of globalization, which is a tactic that isn't specific to capitalism.

Congrats on the project. I like the layout/design. At first glance it looks intuitive and very approachable. Nice work.

I spent much too long looking for a "Record" button. Is the idea that you're supposed to 'draw' your ideas? I have a MIDI keyboard connected to my MBP, but Signal didn't seem to recognize it.

I'm a hobbyist musician and nearly always sketch out ideas by playing them into the DAW. Only after I've roughed out the idea do I get surgical with editing tools like those on display here. Of course to each his own.

Do I take this to mean that instead of running 5K at a relatively steady pace, I should instead break it up into several walk-short burst run-walk cycles?

This review in The Atlantic does a good job of critiquing Gladwell's 'Tipping Point' ideas, including those in his latest book.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/revenge...

I’m not the target audience for lithub.com and have heard of, but never read, Lapham’s Quarterly. However, this was a great read. The writing is top-notch, but what else would you expect from a mentee of the editor of Harper’s magazine?

Buddhism explores these ideas too.

For a modern approach to this mindset I highly recommend "Seeing That Frees" by Rob Burbea.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/08772fe1-564c-4a95-9a5d-...

Love this! Nice work.

The analogy isn't quite right. The conductor and director spend days collaborating with the symphony and the actors/crew. Parent's example is them literally prompting - via a creative brief - the artist or agency.

Congrats on shipping!

I enjoyed your write up, and was surprised to read that it was built in Godot, which I'd only ever considered for games, but of course it makes sense that games are simply a kind of app.

Love that you employ the circle of 5ths in the keyboard, whereas a more naive approach might've been to just ascend stepwise from C.

Any plans for an iOS version? Does Godot make it easy to port to other platforms?

I think that's exactly right.

When I began studying jazz drumming I was working from a DVD by John Riley. At one point he makes this statement about what it means to be 'gifted' at drumming (but it applies to anything).

He says the 'gift' is less about a physical attribute, and more about a disposition or temperament. I.e., you're so passionate about something that you're willing to spend countless hours, days, years learning to do something you can't do, simply because you find that process the most enjoyable.

I appreciated that perspective so much I snipped it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ist7xECbDh0

Presumably Sony is sitting on decades worth of code for each of the PlayStation architectures. How long before they're training their own models and making those available to their studios' developers?

Agree. This is where doing a little research can pay off handsomely. The first time I listened to Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring", I didn't 'get it'. But people in the know held it in very high esteem, so I gave it a few more listens, and eventually it opened up for me. It's now one of my favorite pieces of classical music. If I'd given up after 10 minutes I would've missed out.

>To my understanding, there are currently three of these: Łukasz Langa - the individual who implemented my ban from the Python Discourse forum

Go on...

Disagree. For people who don't fall into the groups I described, I think there's merit to pushing past the psychological hurdles and putting yourself out there in the 'real world'. Most people who fit into this category catastrophize the anticipated negative outcome or otherwise mistakenly imagine that they'll always be rejected. Most people who take the risk are surprised to find this is almost never the case.

This is encouraging news for people who, unlike most of those normals or near-normals implicitly referred to here in the comments, suffer from horrific disfigurement or debilitating psychological issues that make engaging with the 'real world' next to impossible.

And of course from a Buddhist perspective the self is an illusion, making all this 'self-worth' chasing akin to tilting at windmills.

The description of the game sounds really interesting. Is there anything like it on the market today?

> You choose to be either the US or the USSR (In a one-player game, the computer takes the other side. You can also play against a friend.) In brief, you decide whether to support or undermine the governments of each of 60 countries; you can send economic or military aid to either government or rebel forces, conduct covert operations to destabilize unfriendly regimes, apply diplomatic pressure, sign treaties, station troops. The object is to increase your sphere of influence and international prestige-at your opponent's expense-while avoiding nuclear war, in which both sides lose. The dynamics of the game consist of challenging your opponent's moves; at every step the other side takes you can choose to send a diplomatic protest, which can expand into a full-scale crisis. Your opponent has the same opportunity. It's a grand global game of "chicken," played for the highest stakes possible.

I've become convinced that, in the end, no one really teaches you anything, you end up teaching yourself. That phrasing is a bit hyperbolic. It's more accurate to say a good teacher only gets you 50%, 60%, maybe 70% of the way there, and it's up to you to get you to 100%.

To be able to truly learn any given concept means being capable of answering a practically infinite number of different questions about that topic. The process of teaching is essentially trying to uncover which questions the student can't answer. The challenge, of course, is that the student doesn't know what questions they can't answer, because the questions haven't occurred to them. That is, until they start testing themselves, to see if they really do understand the concept.

Problem sets in textbooks are the canonical way of addressing this teaching challenge, but there are only so many pages in a textbook, and there are other concepts that need to be taught, so the scope of the problem sets are necessarily finite.

How many times have you nailed all the problems in a book, only to discover that there was some aspect of the topic you didn't understand, despite getting all the right answers?

There's a long history of visual art being created in the service of god worship. Musical art too. Much of Bach's oeuvre is in service to the god of the Protestant church.

Unlikely, given we have people running for high office in the U.S. saying similar things, and it has nearly zero impact on their likelihood to win the election.

A pithy little saying I learned when just starting out in my career:

"What you say, and what you do, says nothing about me, and everything about you."

This is the very next sentence, so it is a little odd that "hence the title" comes before, and not after, "...using something called self attention."

My take is these are nitpicks though. I can't count the number of podcasts I've listened to where the subject is my area of expertise and I find mistakes or misinterpretations at the margins, where basically 90% or more of the content is accurate.

This is fantastic.

My only qualm is in "browse" mode, I wish the clips were slightly longer. Or that holding down the mouse/trackpad kept playing the clip. As of now, and unless I'm doing it wrong, the clips are so short you only get the vaguest sense of their content.

That aside, really great work.

And this one, for Maxell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk71h2CQ_xM

‘Art is never finished, only abandoned’ - Leonardo Da Vinci