Saturday 17th January, 2022 - Ensuring the Enable Maximiser Doesn’t Destroy the Multiverse
Another week of great javascript, tech and web development links
Hello and welcome to my newsletter!
Another season 2 instalment…
Sorry it’s late, Christmas bullies made it impossible.
What is this week’s title about? I don’t really know. I’ve been going over this week’s list of titles for way too long, and I’ve already missed the publish deadline and last week had a multiverse related title and it’s sort of humorous, and you know, it might be important some day.
When you think about it a bit you very quickly get into philosophy, and morality and lots of annoying existential questions. How do you turn some stuff on, but not other stuff, without potentially shooting yourself in the foot some time in the future? Not very obvious. Of course the astute among you will have noticed the obvious corollary to this title, which is of equal importance.
Loads of interesting podcasts and links in this week’s issue. There’s a general sense of fatigue with the never-ending stream of horrendous shit, and I think some people are waking up to that. I’ve added a few light hearted links to keep things a little more bearable.
Several issues in my site migration at the minute including RSS feeds DNS resolution doing weird things, so they aren’t currently working on the new site. I’ll have to figure out how to redirect the old feeds to the new ones once that is fixed. Also Cloudflare login was broken for a few days, resulting in several confusing support tickets and a forum post with no replies. The Cloudflare forum software is awful on mobile.
The Podcast app started doing that thing again where it only selectively shows new items. I don’t want to have to re-install it again. So many strange synchronicities around Coffee, Dynasties and Skateboarding, and gang stalkers and the security guard mafia trying to direct my every move. Maybe they are just finding life tough, I get it, life is darn tough, me too. I don’t know what else to say to make it better.
I had planned to write about a cool new feature I’ve been working on for my static site generator, and I’d written a whole bit and it was going to be some respite from all the shit, upbeat and cheery, but yesterday was a complete block in every dimension culminating in an actual Santa Claus walking past and kicking me in the shin. That was after many hours of an unbelievably bad internet connection and several days of people of all walks of life, security guards, young folks, old people and others directing pretty much my every move. Literally people appearing out of nowhere and pointing me to wherever I was going at the particular moment. Often accompanied by a nasty comment. It’s insane.
It was impossible to finish the feature because although it was working in tests, in the actual production code it’s not working, there are some edge cases that are breaking everything. All the blocking and internet access made it virtually impossible to see what was going on, with github loading then not loading, then with too many tabs open it was impossible to keep track of which branch I was on, which I’d merged. Which tests past. Anyway total cluster fuck and the wrong code got deployed to production, and about 95% of the site disappeared. And though I think I got some of it back up, it’s basically still f-ed. There’s no chance I’ll be able to get it working before I send this out, and yes the newsletter is already a day late.
Have you figured out what the corollary to this week’s title is yet? It’s unbelievably appropriate.
So maybe I’ll have the new feature working by next weekend, or maybe everything will be deleted by some strangely ironic bullshit that will occur, currently it’s just darkness and horribleness.
Ok so the weekly list of titles that didn’t make it. I actually deleted a whole bunch because the entire list was just so f-ing horrible. I mean it’s still very horrible, but it was so bad that I couldn’t even read it. At some point I’m hoping the list will show signs of life returning to normality. It’s a bit of a window, terrible things and all, into what it’s like here at the minute.
Selling Arms To Both Sides (Higher Level Remix)
Selling Arms To Both Sides (Of Yourself Remix)
Polarised Glasses for Society
Pretty Polarization Machine
Designated Glasses Flipper
Society Loves Polarizatiom
Anti AI Certainty Hypocrisy
Virtual Person Collector Carnivore
Piranhas on Parade
Hate Driven Economy
Elephants playing mouse football while pretending to dance the tarantella (and publicly telling the mouse to to keep a low profile instead of ‘asking for it’)
Left handers teaching right handers to be left handers while right handers teach left handers to be left handers
L: Yes it’s like that except like this, see?
R: Yes it’s like that except like this, see?
Bootstrapping New Civilisations With Bitcoin
Bitcoin Next Level Heavy Metal
Midnight in a Piranha World
Ensuring the Enable Maximiser Doesn’t Destroy the Multiverse
Walking the Rope in A Max Rope Length Juristrictiion
Poker Playing Rope Walker Vultures
Max Rope Walk or Slavery?
Achieving Hardcore Parity
People imprison the slaves vs slaves imprison the people
Capital Life is Infinite Energy
Trust-Us-1/2-the-People-Are-Actual-Robots Network State
Speed Limit Infiniti Everywhere!
Ecosystem Supremacy
Entrapment Driven Economy
Blame Safe Optimal
Every Physical Movement (including Speech) is Now War
De-escalating from “Every Physical Movement (including Speech) is Now War”
11 Dimensional Chess Fatigue
The Secret 111-Dimensional Chess Wall Streeters Doth Protest a Little Too Much
Fuck Your Super Computers
Only Maximiser in the Village
[A-Z]TV
The Rest is JRR Tolkien
Force Feeding Meatballs: Not Very Romantic
Fans that capture stars, that are stars that refuse to be captured, while saying they have been captured when it’s abundantly clear they haven’t and are repeatedly throwing themselves under the bus, and think that’s totally OK and won’t lead to the end of the multiverse
People that try to capture you and when you don’t let them, they complain you are capturing them and then fall to the ground and roll around clutching their leg in apparent agony, and other higher level patterns that are essentially reducible to that
We know what you want to do and we are going to force feed you how to do it, and if you have a neutrino out of place you are the most evil person in all the multiverses
Foreigners enslaving fellow foreigners in far away lands
Countries that use COVID to enslave foreigners
Podcasters that put out an air of being an angel, that use their podcast as a front for a stalker gang to bully people that they capture
Freelance stalker gangs that find what podcasts you are subscribed to and make it seem like the podcasters are the leaders of their stalker gang
People who vastly vastly vastly underestimate how unfathomably evil some humans are, and what’s more, those some people often think they are good, and the people who speak out about it often get blamed for being the most evil people in all the multiverses
The banality of unfathomably evil people, often in groups, who think they are actually quite good, even while laughing maniacally in unison
The banality of game theory optimal
The podcast industrial complex
A ray of pure evil is approaching our universe, that’s how today feels to me, it’s like Evil Corp has released a new set of secret tools that are being used to turn everything into darkness, I know it’s a bit dramatic but f-ed up synchronicities and gang stalker incidents are off the charts for me right now
Penultimate passive aggressive taunt: People who ask for it while telling you to stop e.g. someone mouthing the word stop (while looking disappointed in you) while holding up their hand to receive a throw
Timeshare Sovereignties
The Max Flexibility Human Language Encoder
They Don’t Know We Are Elephants If We All Hold Our Breath Together And Other Ridiculousnesses That Work For a Time Simply Because They Are So Ridiculous
Are We in A Ridiculousness Bubble?
The trick is to be so unfathomably evil that anybody that speaks out gets squashed by the masses immediately for being a crackpot
Today’s unfathomably evil is tomorrow’s boring banality
Being unfathomably evil is no longer worth the effort
We Are Past Peak Evil
Our Giant Poly Zero
They Want Our Progress But They Don’t Want Us
Tea w/NoTeaBag, Progress w/NoYou, Cake w/NoCake
Do They Know It’s Cake w/NoCake?
Obfuscation Through Abstraction
Bob Martin’s Absolute Monarchy Clean Code Clean Coder: Computer Scientists Overseeing Other Computer Scientists, No Separation of Power No Problem, Because Infinite Problems Actually Isn’t a Problem (YMMV), Your Kids Are Going To Love it, see infinitely long neutrino small print for details - “Remember I am an Ankle so I must be a nice person, in fact I have at least 6 ankles, and that’s just my left leg”
Default foreigner interaction updated to “We don’t believe you” + SLAP
Default foreigner interaction mode set to “Always overload then say look at the crazy foreigner when things go weird”
People that say whistleblowers are “bluffing”, and then use their data to renovate their already unfathomably evil and secret mouse trap making it even more unfathomably evil
People that see everyone around them as playing a game of game theory optimal poker simply cannot compute what a whistleblower is, instead seeing them as “bluffing”
Everything you do is now a poker move, good luck, especially with introspection
For some people life literally is Texas hold ‘em poker, every action/movement/happening is simply another move which is evaluated against game theory optimal estimates, which are always wrong because, they themselves are moves in the game which screws up their estimates
Texas Hold ‘Em Everything People Don’t Delete Themselves So They Are Always Wrong, And the More They Try The Worse It Gets
Non Optimal Play Can Actually Be More Optimal
Turning off the Poker Maximizer Machine
Maybe Tough to Grock for Life-is-Poker People: Game Theory Optimal Ceases To Be Optimal When You Aren’t Playing Poker
Destruction Optimal vs Making Optimal
A maker optimal, a destructor optimal and a neutrino walk into a bar…a lot of time passes…the end of the multiverse occurs
Laughing Maniacly Together
Podcasts
Overseas Dollar Providers Are Not Providing Dollars To Americans (Eurodollar University Podcast) - There’s something important outlined in this episode, unfortunately because of my lack of familiarity with these concepts, I’m unable to completely get the dynamics, I also think Jeff could improve his explanations somewhat, I’m not exactly sure what the issue is, it’s like he jumps around in levels of abstraction too much, nevertheless he’s seeing something that is important, it’s the hidden side of the monetary system, the things that are being hidden by a sort of collective reality distortion field, so much so that a dynamic can be passed off as it’s exact opposite; you make the sequence of events just long enough that it’s too difficult to follow, then you can literally flip the description and nobody notices, could be nefarious or maybe just people exploiting the particularities of the extremes of the system https://share.transistor.fm/s/17ebd69b
SBF Arrested And Charged - Tue 12/13 (Techmeme Ride Home) - SBF roundup and the current outside tech view of Elon Musk https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYXJ0MTkuY29tL3RlY2htZW1lLXJpZGVob21l/episode/Z2lkOi8vYXJ0MTktZXBpc29kZS1sb2NhdG9yL1YwLzFsV0RMRGdtX05NcDZsUlQ1Qm5fQUlkdjhNVG40Ny0yYnE5VmxCbXRxNjg?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiYyYiHroD8AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQEQ
JD Pinkus from Butthole Surfers and Melvins, returns to the Show Ep433 (Turned Out a Punk) - Both very underground bands that were on my radar back in the day, even though I wouldn’t say I was a fan per se, pretty good chance I saw them at a festival at some stage; great interview and wander through the often haphazard band life of times gone by, really sounds like the dudes from Changelog Podcast that I can never tell apart, what a strange and difficult to navigate world we live in https://audioboom.com/posts/8212537-jd-pinkus-from-butthole-surfers-and-melvins-returns-to-the-show
Jay Bhattacharya: Follow Science, Not Scientists (Into the Impossible Podcast) - Unbelievably similar sounding to regular guest and common sense talker Eric Weinstein, some interesting questions about science and politics covered, thought provoking episode, I was left with the thought that if not only are the people at the top so far in the distance as to be essentially in a different universe, but that they can do that in multiple simultaneous incarnations, what chance do the people at the bottom have that can’t even get clean clothes to wear, being called goliaths themselves by the goliath’s that seek to squash them further, all while saying they are helping them? Such a divide can’t possibly be healthy, it’s sickening, it’s perversion maximus, which will only be surpassed by the ants winning, which being in an infinite universe, will at some stage happen, then where will we be? No doubt it will turn out that the ants have to have multiple incarnations just to compete, which will make it even more worse at the bottom as we all do all our homeworks and our own, and that’s probably why the goliaths are in different universes, because they’ve consumed all the energy in their original universe doing 1111 dimensional homeworks, and reading other people’s private notes so they can make alphabet song jokes https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vaW50b3RoZWltcG9zc2libGU/episode/ODBjMWU3Y2EtN2JlYi0xMWVkLTk0MDktYWJiM2JhMjEzODU0?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwiYyYiHroD8AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQIg
Endless Hertz (20000 Hz Podcast) - Light hearted and fun sound clip based game show special episode, if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed with Shit World TM, then this is the podcast episode to listen to for a few minutes of respite https://www.20k.org/episodes/endlesshertz
Coffeezilla: SBF, FTX, Fraud, Fake Gurus, Money, Fame and Power (Lex Fridman Podcast) - Lots to like about this episode, I think my favourite thing is the different approaches these two have, Coffeezilla is very matter of fact, things are obvious and x leads to y leads to z, while Lex is more about exploring the subtleties and nuance, both very important approaches that work well together; I feel generally society seems to get trapped in only one approach which leads to huge everything-is-now-flipped moments as an enormous ignored iceberg suddenly becomes visible, even though it was sitting there in plain sight all along, this happens with huge frequency, once you see it, you realise not only is it constantly happening, but a lot of people knowingly take advantage of this dynamic, which leads to bad outcomes ultimately for most of us https://lexfridman.com/coffeezilla
Banks Aren’t What You think They Are (Eurodollar University Podcast) - I though this was quite a good description of what a modern bank does as compared to what the general perception that the general public thinks banks do in the modern world https://share.transistor.fm/s/a719b3fa
This Again? Thu 12/15 (Techmeme Ride Home) - Brian gives us his views on the endless Musk situation, personally I don’t mind at all if Brian chooses not to follow every move of the story, I listen to the show because I like Brian’s take on tech and if he’s seeing more interesting stuff elsewhere, by all means do that, but also I think people should stop giving Elon such a hard time, he should be able to post just like everybody else, if you don’t like it, don’t read it, they forced him to buy the company at a stupid price and now he has to be the bad guy to save the company, the shareholders have been very bad stewards of this incredibly important web property many of us participate in; I’m sure Brian will cover the bits he finds news-worthy https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYXJ0MTkuY29tL3RlY2htZW1lLXJpZGVob21l/episode/Z2lkOi8vYXJ0MTktZXBpc29kZS1sb2NhdG9yL1YwL213cmpRR0l0MlB5Mk9QMTV6TXdVVFQtd1YzeEVlRlc2U1JTNkdtdWtjLWc?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiYyYiHroD8AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQEQ
How to Hold a Grudge (More Than a Feeling Podcast) - I liked this somewhat alternative take on what grudges are, it’s a different interpretation to the norm which aims to help you process difficult situations, and is distinct to say revenge, which I heard recently aptly described as something like “taking poison thinking it’s going to hurt the other person”, i.e. dumb https://www.tenpercent.com/mtaf-podcast-episodes/grudges
Bitcoin as a Pioneering Species w/Brandon Quitem (What Bitcoin Did Podcast) - I honestly don’t fucking remember what exactly this was about, but it was pretty darn good coverage of the bitcoin ecosystem, Brandon obviously knows his stuff, he is clearly a Matt Odell clone so that might have something to do with it; in any case a spiritual entity with interesting choices in surnames, worth the listen https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/bitcoin-is-a-pioneer-species
Denmark: The Great Escape (The Rest is History Podcast) - Another in their World Cup series, that’s not actually about football, this story is somewhat uncharacteristically upbeat and cheery, a story of humans helping other humans in difficult times, definitely worth listening to if you’re feeling a bit down in the dumps tired of the present moments endless horribleness fest https://shows.acast.com/the-rest-is-history-podcast/episodes/284-denmark-the-great-escape
Why Do People Love Horror Movies? (No Stupid Questions Podcast) - Hot sauce Dynasty https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-do-people-love-horror-movies
Links
NASA’s Artemis I Orion capsule splashes down in the Pacific Ocean https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/11/23503957/nasa-artemis-i-mission-orion-splashdown
AI unmasks anonymous chess players, posing privacy risks https://www.science.org/content/article/ai-unmasks-anonymous-chess-players-posing-privacy-risks
Ask HN: If I get locked out of everything, please try to help me - You read this thread and realise how vulnerable we all are when things go really bad, there aren’t any great solutions to these problems yet https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33963269
Two temperate Earth-mass planets orbiting the nearby star GJ1002 - J G did you say? what are the chances? It’s not doing much for my trust in science and institutions https://arxiv.org/search/astro-ph?searchtype=author&query=Osorio%2C+M+R+Z
All of this will stop if I'm not here - Meghan. - “to just constantly be picked at by these vultures” - I can relate, it’s horrible, at least my name isn’t Mark Meghanhim that really would be bloody awful; actually I’m totally used to her name, doesn’t bother me in the slightest, I hope they are both OK https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63983062
Farewell, Building in Public - It’s kind of sad to read this piece, but seems to be a reality experienced by many, building in public starts to become impractical as your project grows https://www.coryzue.com/writing/building-in-private
How to rebuild social media on top of RSS - Oh so many failed reboots over the years, hoping this time it takes off, they were great times; here’s to hoping I can fix my new sites broken RSS feeds, something really weird happening with the DNS
https://tfos.co/p/rebuild-social-media
The many lies of Sam Bankman-Fried - This story has all the standout signals of mass polarisation, it’s a massive pile-on, everybody is 10 billion % certain of everything, even though just a few weeks ago everyone was basically certain in the opposite direction; still it’s terrible what’s happened to all the regular folks that lost money https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/13/23507361/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-alameda-cftc-complaint-lies
JavaScript APIs You Don’t Know About https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/09/javascript-api-guide
Tao of Node - Design, Architecture & Best Practices https://alexkondov.com/tao-of-node
That’s all from me…
Best reguards,
Mark
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