Re: [silk] Good puns

A horse walks into a bar and the bartender asks "can I help you?" The horse says "I think not" and vanishes. Those of you familiar with philosophy surely get the reference but for everyone else - I didn't explain it earlier because it would have put Descartes before the horse. -- Charles On Mon,

Re: [silk] Hot food paper towel

On Wed, 16 Jun 2021 at 3:20 am, Radhika, Y. wrote: > Hi all! > > (unnecessarily, my husband thinks) by the thought of electron transfer > between paper (has chlorine that bleaches it and formaldehyde, a known > carcinogen) and food. I'm aware of the classic example of the bat and ball > ...

Re: [silk] An anniversary

When my friend Chris Kantarjiev learned we were moving to Bangalore for a year he said I should join Silklist. So I did. Still here ten years later. (Silklist, not Bangalore. Now we're in Melbourne.) -- Charles On Sun, 20 Dec 2020, 12:36 pm Udhay Shankar N, wrote: > The first message on

Re: [silk] What are the things you splurge on that are worth the money?

Mostly I try to be a satisficer and "buy nothing new/less waste" kind of guy, but there are a couple of exceptions. Broadly speaking I'm willing to pay premium prices for food, in particular cooking supplies. Example we recently sought out "Great Ocean Road" ducks that are relatively hard to find

Re: [silk] Hello from Shreyasee

Welcome to Silk Shreyasee! Interactional economics and women's property ownership! I look forward to hearing more. I'm currently in Cleveland, thus the relatively timely reply. :) Cheers, -- Charles

Re: [silk] How do you collect and retrieve information from what you read?

> SKN: Over the years I have been getting increasingly frustrated at not > being efficient in deriving meaningful value from what I have read and > curated via notes and highlights from these readings. I wanted to get > better at retaining what I read > JJM: I'm on your same boat, but I have

Re: [silk] Recommended Reading from 2015

On Wed, 26 Feb 2020 at 10:11 am, Thaths wrote: > On Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 9:47 PM Alok Prasanna Kumar > > wrote: > > > To add to the already fantastic books on this list (in no particular > order) > > ... > > 2. India Moving: A History of Migration by Chinmay Tumbe > > > ... > > If any of you

Re: [silk] Suleimani

It will further destabilise the region and has the potential to require deployment of thousands of troops to Iraq. On Sat, 4 Jan 2020, 4:49 am Udhay Shankar N, wrote: > On Sat, Jan 4, 2020 at 2:31 PM Peter Griffin > wrote: > > What do you folks think will result from the Qassem Suleimani >

Re: [silk] The anti-bucket list

hance. On Thu, 2 Jan 2020 at 16:00, Heather Madrone wrote: > +1 > > Charles Haynes wrote on 1/2/20 9:47 AM January 2, 2020: > > The idea of an “anti-bucket list” is antithetical to my approach to > life. I > > can easily understand why someone would have a list of things the

Re: [silk] The anti-bucket list

The idea of an “anti-bucket list” is antithetical to my approach to life. I can easily understand why someone would have a list of things they want to do, but what’s the point of having a list of things you absolutely refuse to consider ever doing? I mean sure, there are things I think now that I

Re: [silk] Water storage question

No. On Sat., 17 Aug. 2019, 5:53 am Udhay Shankar N, wrote: > Are there any health concerns I should be aware of if I drink water that > has been sitting in my car for a few weeks? This is RO filtered water that > has been in a glass bottle (not a disposable plastic one) and not in direct >

Re: [silk] Random thought of the day

I debugged a problem with Google infrastructure using SSH on my phone in the early 2000's. I'd been using SSH on my phone for a while by then. These days I use mosh though. And I have a Linux distro running on my phone alongside android. It's usable but I prefer an external kbd + monitor.

Re: [silk] The Demise Of The Dollar

On Sat, 1 Jun 2019 at 18:48, Srini RamaKrishnan wrote: > You seem to be taking a very literal approach, which I'm afraid misses much > of the picture. Let me spell it out a little more. > When you said "The US Dollar is backed by the might of the scariest military in the world. It may not be

Re: [silk] The Demise Of The Dollar

If your thesis that a country's currency's value was a function of the strength of its military then we should see a clear correlation between strong countries and strong currencies, and weak countries and weak currencies. But we don't, instead currencies values are correlated with the economic

Re: [silk] The Demise Of The Dollar

Surely I don't have to point out that when Teddy Roosevelt was president the USA was still on the gold standard, so his remarks are completely irrelevant to modern currency markets. -- Charles On Fri., 31 May 2019, 7:04 pm Srini RamaKrishnan, wrote: > On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 1:13 AM Char

Re: [silk] The Demise Of The Dollar

The US Dollar is backed by "the full faith and credit of the US Government" of which the military is only a part. Much more relevant to the value of the dollar is the strength of the US economy, the trustworthiness of the US central bank, and the willingness of the US government to pay honor the

Re: [silk] War on Science?

On Tue, 5 Feb 2019 at 03:23, Srini RamaKrishnan wrote: Things like vaccination are tricky because they are not strictly science. > Science is repeatable, and things that don't work on everyone the same > don't strictly deserve the label of science. What? That's not right. It's perfectly

Re: [silk] War on Science?

On Mon, 4 Feb 2019 at 00:23, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: As for crowd diseases being benign and immunity, I'd suggest looking at > either whooping cough or polio for counter examples. Or German measles > (rubella) - which, if a pregnant woman contracts it, is mild for her, but > can and will

Re: [silk] War on Science?

On Sat, 2 Feb 2019 at 14:23, Srini RamaKrishnan wrote: The goal of applied science is not the truth. Since world war 1 the goal of > "science" has been subverted to find applications that can be monetized: > this can be called technology or engineering but not science. > So you're saying the

Re: [silk] War on Science?

I was about to say that I'm very much reminded of Linus Pauling, when he mentioned that he's a disciple of Linus Pauling. It's quite sad when a respected intellect in one field thinks that makes them an expert in unrelated fields and then promulgates nonsense like Pauling did. -- Charles On

Re: [silk] Steganography: This clever AI hid data from its creators to cheat at its appointed task

On Thu, 3 Jan 2019 at 14:40, Hariharan Rahul wrote: > I don't have much to say about the other discussion but the article really > got my teeth on edge, because of the tabloidy anthropomorphization of > something much simpler - "the loss function wasn't regularized properly > leading to

Re: [silk] it may not be well-done; is it becoming rare?

On Thu, 3 Jan 2019 at 19:08, Thaths wrote: > On Fri, Jan 4, 2019 at 9:47 AM Dave Long wrote: > > > > These days I think [email] is mostly used by us old fogies. > > Fair enough, but what, pray tell, do all those non-old-fogies use to > > convey thoughts that are too long for social media

Re: [silk] Steganography: This clever AI hid data from its creators to cheat at its appointed task

On Wed., 2 Jan. 2019, 3:48 am Srini RamaKrishnan, wrote: > On Wed, Jan 2, 2019, 12:13 AM Charles Haynes wrote: > > > > > > > Again, not true. Who is this "we" you're generalizing about? The people > who > > built AlphaZero did it for the learnings in

Re: [silk] Steganography: This clever AI hid data from its creators to cheat at its appointed task

On Tue, 1 Jan 2019 at 13:32, Srini RamaKrishnan wrote: > On Tue, Jan 1, 2019, 9:59 PM Charles Haynes > > On Tue., 1 Jan. 2019, 1:11 am Srini RamaKrishnan wrote: > > > > > Monkey see, monkey do. AI only learns from the behavior of humans > > > > > >

Re: [silk] Steganography: This clever AI hid data from its creators to cheat at its appointed task

On Tue., 1 Jan. 2019, 1:11 am Srini RamaKrishnan Monkey see, monkey do. AI only learns from the behavior of humans > This is not true. Specifically AlphaZero learns from the rules of the game, and playing (randomly at first) against itself. GANs (like the one in the article) do not learn from

Re: [silk] A question for bloggers

I'm using WP because I also tend to be photo heavy. Instagram is ok but I also like longer form writing and Instagram doesn't suit my style there. Too ephemeral, and I hate the 1:1 aspect ratio requirement. WP is meeting my needs at the moment. -- Charles On Fri., 26 Oct. 2018, 8:50 pm José

Re: [silk] My thoughts on old age

On Wed., 24 Oct. 2018, 10:48 pm Bruce A. Metcalf, wrote: > On 10/24/2018 09:45 PM, Deepa Mohan wrote: > > > I wonder how many people on this list are in their sixties? > > Well, me for one, and I've been considering the thoughts posted to this > thread with some care. > Me too, but I haven't

Re: [silk] How much time do you spend cooking?

Given you have Moroccan chickpeas, I recommend this Moroccan chickpeas recipe "Kalinté". We had it in Chefchaouen and loved it. (I also recommend socca if you haven't already tried it.) https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/tangier-street-bread-kalinte On Tue., 4 Sep. 2018, 10:00 pm Heather

Re: [silk] How much time do you spend cooking?

Since we've been travelling I've been cooking less. So maybe 90 min / week. Most of that is 15 min / day making coffee every morning (hand grinding for two people, brewing by hand, cleaning up). Back when I was cooking more regularly, I'd estimate 8 hours a week, including shopping, prep, cooking,

Re: [silk] Building intelligent machines with casual reasoning

lly reason about P(A|B) without knowing P(A) or P(B). On Thu., 23 Aug. 2018, 9:43 am Charles Haynes, wrote: > You mention Bayesian statistics as a thing like Pearls causality maths > that's too complex.for most people and so hasn't caught on. I'd argue the > exact opposite.

Re: [silk] Building intelligent machines with casual reasoning

You mention Bayesian statistics as a thing like Pearls causality maths that's too complex.for most people and so hasn't caught on. I'd argue the exact opposite. Bayesian statistics ARE complicated but the first time I saw them my reaction was Oh My God this is going to change everything about how

Re: [silk] Building intelligent machines with casual reasoning

Pearl has been spruiking his causality formalisms for years, but they don't seem to have caught on despite widespread dissemiy of the ideas. I've read them and my reaction was "hm, interesting" rather than "oh! I see how this could be useful" Anyone else have opinions on why his ideas haven't

Re: [silk] When was the last time you changed your opinion on something?

Either I don't change my mind very often or I don't notice when I do, but two things do come to mind, one trivial, one less trivial. Which is which is up to you. :) 1) I used to think Rothko was way overhyped. I didn't get why anyone cared. Then I went to the Tate Modern's Rothko room. I think I

Re: [silk] Ashim - An Introduction

I lived in Jo'burg (and visited Rwanda) for a while. I mostly used taxis which were cheap and plentiful. This was a few years ago so uber was not yet a thing in za. On Mon., 6 Nov. 2017, 6:15 pm Ashim D'Silva, wrote: > Thanks Ingrid, exactly what I was hoping to hear,

Re: [silk] Few MacOS questions [was: What's your primary computing device?]

would that be under MacOS - I mean, virtual desktops, ram disk, > > > lots of windows? > > > > > > > Haha. [...] > > Haha? Oh my. > > On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 03:42:23AM +, Charles Haynes wrote: > > > > You didn't include virtual mach

Re: [silk] Kids and porn

I've got a number (three is a number, right?) of friends here in Australia that are women working as producers of feminist porn. Certainly there is a huge amount of problematic media that promulgate unhealthy attitudes about women, including in porn, but I would say that's a systematic and

Re: [silk] Kids and porn

On Tue., 5 Sep. 2017, 3:39 am Heather Madrone <heat...@madrone.com> wrote: > Charles Haynes wrote: > > Given that "porn addiction" isn't any kind of scientific thing I would be > > extremely surprised at any scientifix studies at all linking it to > anything. >

Re: [silk] Kids and porn

Given that "porn addiction" isn't any kind of scientific thing I would be extremely surprised at any scientifix studies at all linking it to anything. -- Charles On Mon., 4 Sep. 2017, 6:56 pm Nikhil Mehra <nikhil.mehra...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 4 September 2017 at 05

Re: [silk] Kids and porn

As far as I know there is no scientific evidence that viewing porn is harmful. Lots of anecdote, lots of "it's obvious that..." but no data. So what's the (supposed) problem? -- Charles On Sun., 3 Sep. 2017, 10:35 pm Ingrid wrote: > > > On 03-Sep-2017, at 9:50 AM,

Re: [silk] Searching in google is a result of prior synapse - true or false ?

I'm afraid I cannot answer you because the language you are using isn't close enough to how I express myself for me to be able to either feel confident in what you're asking, or to know how to phrase a response that would communicate my intent in a way that would successfully convey that intent to

Re: [silk] CAT5 vs CAT5E vs CAT6 cable for home

I'm curious, what gigE devices do you have connected to your home network? I use 5ghz WiFi for everything. Including streaming large media files. But I am not streaming 4k video. Only 1080p. -- Charles On Wed, 7 Jun 2017 at 17:05 gabin kattukaran wrote: > On 7 June 2017

Re: [silk] Conspiracy Theory for the day...

my post was to stimulate > thought/discussion on a topic that I found interesting. No offence meant > (and none taken). :) > > Cheers, > Nani > > On Tue, Feb 28, 2017 at 4:05 PM, Charles Haynes <charles.hay...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > The first question to ask

Re: [silk] Conspiracy Theory for the day...

The first question to ask anyone with a wild new theory is - what would it take to falsify your hypothesis? What evidence would convince you it was false? -- Charles On Mon, 27 Feb 2017 at 22:04 Nani wrote: > Slow Monday... figured this is as good a time as any to get folks

Re: [silk] In praise of slowness

> the above probably doesn't apply to the typical intelligent, multi-dimensional silk lister. Hah. It especially applies to people who think it doesn't apply to them. I found when I first started "slowing down" that my partner and I, as much as we love and are devoted to one another, need a

Re: [silk] In praise of slowness

Your goals sound similar to mine, I too stopped working as a full time salaried employee and became a consultant. That does give you control over your time, and allows you to slow down your life, but only if you commit yourself to that. It's all too easy to let clients soak up all of your time.

Re: [silk] Request - Recommended reading list / songs for a 5-month old baby girl

hp?sourceid=chrome-instant=1=2=UTF-8#q=lending%20libraries%20in%20bangalore=ls:-1,lf_od:-1,lf_oh:-1,lf:1,lf_ui:3,lf_pqs:EAE=1=0=12950140,77638673,5288=lcl=7502844426495328141 > > Deepa. > > > On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 11:03 AM, Charles Haynes > <charles.hay...@gmail.com> wrote:

Re: [silk] Request - Recommended reading list / songs for a 5-month old baby girl

en around for 30+ years > unless they closed down, I haven't borrowed anything from them recently so > I hope they're still there > > Google + a website says yes they are > > --srs > > > On 30-Dec-2016, at 9:59 AM, Charles Haynes <charles.hay...@gmail.com> > wrote:

Re: [silk] Request - Recommended reading list / songs for a 5-month old baby girl

Suresh, For future reference, could you please share the lending libraries of Bangalore? That was one of the things we (especially Debbie) missed the most about our time there - we were used to easily findable and accessible public libraries, and couldn't find such in Bangalore. -- Charles On

Re: [silk] Mysore Masala Dosa in Bangalore

+1 to Vidyarthi Bhavan. Had a dosa here in Melbourne just yesterday, it was soggy and they FOLDED it. This place did have "mysore masala dosa" on the menu but I am unwilling to try it just to report back what they put in it. -- Charles On Fri., 9 Dec. 2016, 9:22 pm Namitha Jagadeesh,

Re: [silk] Things that are worth the money

Well in theory acquiring knowledge and skills doesn't impact the "scales" in practice it's possible to become attached to acquiring knowledge and skills in a "grasping" way too. To acquire them for the sake of having them, to satisfy a craving. I've been doing that with digital media, and I may

Re: [silk] Things that are worth the money

My partner Debbie and I have 30kg of stuff. Each. That's it. (Ok, right this minute we're actually living in a house! With housemates! So we've bought a few more "things" that we will leave behind when we leave, but the general rule remains.) So every single thing we own must satisfy one or both

Re: [silk] Bump in the road, or end of the road?

"any task that can be well defined is inherently capable of being automated" Why do you believe this? Math is littered with well defined unsolved problems. Just because you can define it doesn't mean it's even possible, much less automatable. It's certainly possible that we will automate

Re: [silk] Headspace and similar meditation "services"

I agree with Thaths unsurprisingly. Debbie and I use one of the simple timer/tracker apps (insight timer) and it's working well for us, but anything that gets you into a regular practice is good. I wish I had a way to tell the app "add to the duration every " like "10 seconds per day" or "one

Re: [silk] Immortality Begins at Forty

Oh my goodness that young person is absorbed in so much crap that doesn't matter. On Tue, 10 May 2016 at 13:33 Shenoy N wrote: > I quite enjoyed reading it. Self wankery, without doubt, as Thaths > correctly diagnoses it, but lots of terrific quotes, worthy of inclusion >

Re: [silk] The Need for Guaranteed Basic Income or why Kiran is worried sick

You misspelled makaʻāinana (ʻokina not ` backtick, and you missed a kahakō) You're welcome. -- Charles (haole not makaʻāinana) On Mon, 2 May 2016 at 23:22 Dave Long wrote: > > http://theappendix.net/issues/2014/4/the-history-of-mana-how-an- > >

Re: [silk] Luck Matters More Than You Might Think

Strongly agree. I'm smart, but my success, such as it is, is more luck than skill. That said - luck favors the prepared, and "the more I practice, the luckier I get." -- Charles On Tue, 19 Apr 2016 at 11:18 Udhay Shankar N wrote: > This strikes a chord. I work with early

Re: [silk] intro

Hi Maia. Nice to see you step out of the shadows. :) I'll be interested to see if anyone tries to explain what Silklist is about. -- Charles On Tue, 5 Jan 2016 at 22:10 maia sauren wrote: > hello all. i've been lurking for a few months. still not entirely sure what > this

Re: [silk] Not quite your dad's cup of tea

Heather there were a few studies out of the USSR that seemed to show an effect but they have not been replicated and so are considered at best inconclusive, could it have been one of them? I'd be interested in any more recent study. Distilled water is standard on US Navy ships and there have been

Re: [silk] Not quite your dad's cup of tea

I believe water treated with reverse osmosis may be better for you especially if the local water is suspect or hard and at worst does no harm. I think any concerns come from the realm of magical thinking. "It's a process I don't understand and it seems like magic. Maybe it has other magically bad

Re: [silk] The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

How can we enable incremental improvements in privacy and security? My impression of security software development has been that there's a very "all or nothing" attitude. If your software has any weakness it's viewed as worthless, even if it's an improvement over the current state of software in

Re: [silk] Bay area meet-up?

Will you go out for Authentic Mexican Food™? -- Charles On 21 October 2015 at 18:10, Venkat Mangudi - Silk wrote: > Anyone interested in one? Say 29th Oct? > > Venkat >

Re: [silk] Indo-Mexican fusion restaurants and recipes

You and I should do a Mexican-Indian fusion dinner some time. I'll probably be in Sydney sometime in the next month or so, or next time you're in Melbourne... -- Charles On 21 October 2015 at 18:07, Thaths wrote: > On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 6:02 PM Thaths

Re: [silk] Indo-Mexican fusion restaurants and recipes

Dal Makni made with black beans, cumin, and cilantro. Channa masala made with mexican spices Cochinta pibil made with kokam and tumeric Just off the top of my head. ;) On 21 October 2015 at 11:44, Thaths wrote: > Inspired by the biography of M.N.Roy for the last couple of

Re: [silk] Indo-Mexican fusion restaurants and recipes

Habanero bills itself as "Tex-Mex" which, while potentially delicious, is not "Mexican." (It does, however look relatively authentically Tex-Mex. The proof is in the eating, anyone can write a menu.) Chinita does not look especially Mexican either. The menu looks pretty generic. "Mexican" food is

[silk] Peter G Neumman explains "the Zipf mystery"

Statistical Metalinguistics and Zipf/Pareto/Mandelbrot I frequently see cryptic references to the magic of Zipf or Pareto or Mandelbrot, with reference to linguistic and other structures, and sometimes in the context of 80-20 rules relating to almost

Re: [silk] The Name of the Road

On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 11:12 PM, Lahar Appaiah wrote: > Surely one of these places can be called The Island of the Day Before? > > On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 3:21 PM, Dave Long wrote: > > > I once lived in a town where referring to landmarks by what had

Re: [silk] The Name of the Road

On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 1:33 PM, James Bonilla wrote: > Native populations often significantly reshaped landscapes and areas. > For sure. For example it's quite suggestive that large marsupials in Australia became extinct around the time that humans first arrived. >

Re: [silk] The Name of the Road

Oops s/if morality is a criterion/if morality were a criterion/ I'm mortified that I misused the subjunctive. Please forgive, -- Charles

Re: [silk] What does success mean?

Save all sentient beings, overcome all imperfection, completely know the Dharma, attain enlightenment. -- Charles

Re: [silk] Fwd: Wine tasting is bullshit. Here's why.

On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 5:10 AM, Vinayak Hegde vinay...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, May 9, 2013 at 8:09 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: We've had (parts of) this discussion here before, but this is worth a read. Especially interested in Charles' response to this one. Udhay

Re: [silk] The Jade Helm conspiracy

If you liked that, you owe it to yourself to read Molly Ivins. Here are a few choice quotes: “As they say around the Texas Legislature, if you can't drink their whiskey, screw their women, take their money, and vote against 'em anyway, you don't belong in office.” ― Molly Ivins

Re: [silk] Is any industry actually profitable?

By that token, it's clear that the marginal costs of adding human beings to the planet outweigh the benefits. -- Charles On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 3:42 PM, Rajesh Mehar rajeshme...@gmail.com wrote: But to be fair, one needs to note that neither do balance sheets capture social

Re: [silk] The least random number

When we were about to move to Bangalore in 2007 Chris Kantarjiev said we had to join this list. -- Charles On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 8:12 PM, Biju Chacko biju.cha...@gmail.com wrote: Jace suggested I join silk some time in 2001 I guess. I remember some epic threads those days. Things are very

Re: [silk] best indian whisky and rum ?

On Tue, Dec 9, 2014 at 5:37 PM, Mahesh Murthy mahesh.mur...@gmail.com wrote: If you have a friend in the Armed Forces who has access to a CSD canteen, I am told Sulas are available for close to Rs. 100 a bottle. Quite ridiculously cheap for nice stuff. Seems about right for stuff that isn't

Re: [silk] What book changed your mind?

Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama by Daniel Goleman As a rationalist and skeptic, I had been extremely suspicious of woo woo claims about meditation, but I was interested is Dan Goleman's research into meditation and stress and I was intrigued by the scientific

Re: [silk] Podcasts with transcripts

I 3 99% Invisible. You should treat yourself to the audio, Roman Mars has a great voice. -- Charles On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 2:07 PM, Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com wrote: I recently began reading the transcripts for audio podcasts for these: 1. Roman Mars podcasts:

Re: [silk] Podcasts with transcripts

Ah then I'm happy they make transcripts available because the content is awesome! -- Charles On Nov 13, 2014 4:54 PM, Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 10:13 AM, Charles Haynes charles.hay...@gmail.com wrote: I 3 99% Invisible. You should treat yourself

Re: [silk] Books and libraries

I keep all my books in epub, but have considered getting a Kindle device. Calibre will convert to un-DRMed Kindle format if you're willing to do a bit of work. Last time I looked it was also possible to put an epub reader on a rooted Kindle if you want to go that route. On the other hand, those

Re: [silk] Long Now's Manual for Civilization Lists

I wonder how many of the books will be in Chinese. They say they aren't limiting nominations to english, but selection bias and subsequent voting bias will be huge. -- Charles On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 2:55 PM, skn s...@skn.fastmail.fm wrote: Long Now Foundation has a very interesting project -

Re: [silk] USA West Coast restaurant recommendations

Danese's list is great! I'd only add that Tartine and Aziza are don't miss Tartine is usually the first place I visit after getting off the plane, (and you know I lived there for 20 years) Besides Delfina if you get to the East Bay I recommend Pizzaiolo. Good pizza was one of the things I missed

Re: [silk] Written vs. spoken version

On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 1:27 PM, Rajesh Mehar rajeshme...@gmail.com wrote: The little I know of the simplified Chinese character set is that it is a set of 2 dozen or so pictograms that are then combined with each other to get other pictograms for other sounds. Could anyone else elaborate

Re: [silk] Written vs. spoken version

You're welcome - and to fix a bad sentence above one of my favorite examples of why trying to represent Chinese phonetically is nearly impossible is the poem... which means it's also a great example of the disconnect between written and spoken Chinese languages. Famously in the past sometimes

Re: [silk] Any thoughts on the subject?

On Sun, Jul 13, 2014 at 3:12 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote: All reality is mental perception. That's what you think... When the earth was flat, it was, when everyone started to believe it was not, it was not. This is what prompted me to comment. If everyone believed the

Re: [silk] Scientists find treatment to kill every kind of cancer tumor

So many breathless announcements of treatments that work in vitro, or in animal studies, and are never heard from again. Wake me up after human trials. [From Science] Cancer researcher Tyler Jacks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge says that although the new study is

Re: [silk] Easily forgotten phrases

On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 2:16 PM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 7:36 PM, Charles Haynes charles.hay...@gmail.com wrote: With respect to Fermi Problem two things. First MIT is offering Street-Fighting Math http://www.edx.org/course/mitx/mitx-6-sfmx-street

Re: [silk] Easily forgotten phrases

On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 12:06 AM, Charles Haynes charles.hay...@gmail.comwrote: the fuel efficiency of a car is often expressed as litres of petrol per 100km, right? litres of petrol per 100km is length^3/length = length^2. What is the real world significance of this area? It's the area

Re: [silk] Easily forgotten phrases

Just recently I was having trouble recalling the word scalded with respect to milk (I was making yoghurt.) But I have a solution that works better for me than Evernote. I asked my amanuensis. What's the term for heating up milk just below boiling? Scald? Thanks! You're welcome. Hm. Maybe I

Re: [silk] Easily forgotten phrases

With respect to Fermi Problem two things. First MIT is offering Street-Fighting Math http://www.edx.org/course/mitx/mitx-6-sfmx-street-fighting-math-1501: Teaches, as the antidote to rigor mortis, the art of educated guessing and opportunistic problem solving. as a MOOC (free!) starting in March.

Re: [silk] The march of technology

Or you could hypothesize that farming became popular for some reason other than the happiness of the farmers. -- Charles

Re: [silk] The march of technology

Actually there's quite a lot of information about the transition from hunter-gatherer to pastoral/agrarian. Besides the Encyclopedia Brittanica article Udhay cited, there are both scholarly and popular writings on the subject. I find them fascinating, especially the parts where they explain

Re: [silk] The march of technology

, Charles Haynes charles.hay...@gmail.com wrote: Actually there's quite a lot of information about the transition from hunter-gatherer to pastoral/agrarian. Besides the Encyclopedia Brittanica article Udhay cited, there are both scholarly and popular writings on the subject. I find them

Re: [silk] The march of technology

A look at population numbers would say yes. But then quality of life indicators - and not just material quality, but indicators that take into account mental illness, loneliness, depression and so on give a very mixed reading. By most metrics, hunter-gatherers are the happiest. So I blame

Re: [silk] have your reading habits changed?

For DRM, remove it. For bitrot, I have settled on ePub format which is basically just zipped HTML. I'm hopeful it will be relatively slow to rot. -- Charles

Re: [silk] have your reading habits changed?

BTW regardless of whether you prefer ebooks or paper books, I suggest goodreads.com for keeping track of your I'd like to read this list and crowdsourcing suggestions of new stuff to read. -- Charles On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Sharat Satyanarayana sharat.satyanaray...@gmail.com wrote:

Re: [silk] have your reading habits changed?

I convert all my books to ePub format and host them on a Linode instance so that I have them all anywhere I have internet connectivity. Given our peripatetic lifestyle it's a convenient way to access our library (though honestly the whole library fits on on 16gb micro-sd card) -- Charles On

Re: [silk] Fwd: Wine tasting is bullshit. Here's why.

I used to think Rothko was pretentious bullshit. Then I went to the Tate Modern and sat in their Rothko room. I didn't want to leave. -- Charles

Re: [silk] Fwd: Wine tasting is bullshit. Here's why.

I've always tried to aim a little higher than not actively painful when choosing my tipples. I realize I may be privileged in this regard. -- Charles

Re: [silk] Have music downloads hit their peak, with streaming taking over?

My experience has been that neither streaming nor downloading are all that common in most of Africa. The most common distribution mechanism for digital media are small shops that sell digital content to be loaded on a BYO micro SD card (for phones.) Bandwidth is too expensive and unreliable for

Re: [silk] Fwd: Wine tasting is bullshit. Here's why.

There is also the reverse snobbery effect, which the wine tastings I describe actually encourage. It's the joy of finding a cheap wine that you really enjoy that you think tastes better than the expensive wines that other people are overpaying for. It requires a certain strength of will, and it is

Re: [silk] Fwd: Wine tasting is bullshit. Here's why.

at 8:09 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote: On 10/05/13 10-May-2013;4:05 pm, Charles Haynes wrote: The wine tasting I have consistently advocated is personal double-blind vertical or horizontal tastings with a ringer. Here's a counterpoint of sorts. I find it interesting, although I

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