Saturday 25th February, 2023 - Beep Beep

Another week of great javascript, tech and web development links

Mark Smith

Feb 25, 2023

Hello and welcome to my newsletter!

Another season 2 instalment…

Straight up, the selection is kinda weird this week. For starters this happened to me:

Gang stalker premeditated goading escalating to violence https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2023/02/20/gang-stalker-premeditated-goading-escalating-to-violence

So that shook me up quite a bit, and was followed by loads of weird synchronicities including

BBC headline article on the same morning about a Ms Bully found dead in water
Lex Friedman has a bruised face from martial arts training (Tim Urban episode #360)
Tim Urban has a fascination for X vs Y analogies
Latest Into the Impossible Podcast is a “battle royal” between Weinstein and the physics is ok bloke
Ongoing Ukraine vs Russia

There were so many more odd occurrences, but there’s no way to put them easily into words. Everything just seems to be a fight at the minute.

The list of tiles that didn’t make it is proper weird. Shit is f-ed up at the minute.

The one cool thing this week is that I’ve partially got working a very excellent feature for my static site generator. I’ve managed to extract the core rendering into a completely separate library, and I’ve been able to generalise the implementation to make it way more flexible. I previously had a way to run many renders one after the other, feeding the output of one as an input to the next one. That made it possible for example to have EJS template syntax inside markdown files. But the implementation was a bit restrictive, it only worked with template rendering. In practice you want to do much more than just template rendering.

With the latest extracted library it should be possible to run any number of tasks back to back, including non-rendering stuff. In my current tests I’m doing things like prettifying output, but I should be able to do basically anything. World permitting, hopefully I’ll have that working by next week.

Power cable issues have started again, and gang stalker activity is still kind of high at times, and what seems like a million other problems, so not sure how optimistic that is.

Doppelgängers this week:

A quite young Camilla Parker Bowles, but might be a British actress, I’m terrible at remembering British actor & actress names, it’s embarrassing
The dog from the never ending story, if was actually him then he’s a lot smaller in real life than on the tele
Al Pacino
Lou Reed
Bloke from Donny Darko

Here’s the list of titles that didn’t make it. If you are wondering what that is, here’s a blog post about that:

The list of titles that didn't make it https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2023/01/07/the-list-of-titles-that-didnt-make-it

Here’s the list:

Go And Wait
What to do when the arsonists (1) don’t realise they are arsonists (2) are convinced the people communicating with the firemen are arsonists (3) are convinced the firemen are arsonists (4) are just generally being dicks and/or cunts
Time To Re-ignite the Old Seeking System
The International Lilt Trafficking Collective
Instant Code, Just Add Compute (Holy Jesuses Wouldn’t That Be Nice?)
Code Creation is the Ultimate Compute Limiter, thus Developer Freedom is Directly Related to Cost of Energy
All Developers Eventually End Up Speaking in Binary Just To Stay Free
Flying On Instruments Alone is Deeply Weird Sometimes
Even Weirder Than Flying On Instruments Alone is Creating the Stupid/Clever Instruments in the First Place Using Only Existing Stupid/Clever Instruments
We’re All Still Getting On The Trains And We Don’t Even Know It, the Death Camps Just Got Virtualised & Tranched And Ultimately They Get Traded
The most mind boggling conclusion of all conclusions is that not only did the karma banks not know they were banks, but the actual FED didn’t even know it was the FED; the very same thing that had been happening to the karma banks had happened to the FED; And guess what, once again those f-ing vampires had pre-rolled another FED just in case, they even had an app for that
The equation of good vs evil, that had previously over the centuries been settled by blood and war, now no longer had a way to settle the accumulating differences, causing unimaginable reality inversions, and there was much discussion about how to handle the situation, unfortunately reality had a way of getting in the way of finding a solution to this problem of all problems
And then bizarrely all the karma banks started developing what can only be described as epilepsy
Might as well go ahead and delete your brain
It sucks to be a frog
1/2 frog, 1/2 biscuit actually
“Jue Lie”…”Look Down”
They will impose debt on you, while blocking you from making money, and while stealing what you have bit by bit, everything will constantly be your fault, and they will look you in the eyes smiling like angels that have absolute certainty of their righteousness, and that’s just the very tip of the very very bad iceberg; also you will be forced to do everything while standing
They have turned themselves into Roko's basilisk, and even have an on/off switch, and can activate it for anyone as easy as making pop corn in the microwave
They are absolutely, one might say unhealthily, fascinated by microwaving
They made a miniature cat waving ornament to try to replace the microwave cravings, but they still imagine microwaves when they see the miniature cats wave, so it’s essentially like they are looking at actual microwaves
He’s not Holocausting he’s just very very funny, unfortunately he has to be now, he has no choice, we literally make him do it, really he’s just trying to build a website
In Holocaustland everybody is holocausting all the time
Figma For Banks, Design Software By Vamps Inc
- A UI based on the Fall of Roman Empire
- Effortlessly design the lives of your banks
- Best Feature: Counter Factual Explorer
- Can be regionalised using any high level mythology
The Downfall of Vamps Inc, a production by Slaves Powered by Freedom Software
Building The Land of Bullies, a production Powered by the Here We Go Again Software Collective
1/2 Your Life Stolen, a production Powered by Restoration Software
Knitting Needles Through Your Tongue powered by Ssssshhhh Software
Spermnet: A network of the smallest dudes in the universe
News Flash: Scientists have discovered an alarming development, the heads of male sperms are getting bigger, at the current rate, they will be the size of grapefruits within 100 years
Spermnet has been updated so sperms can only play tic tac toe, but they can also get tweets from Elon Musk
40 years of hurt only to be squashed like a fly in a millisecond, “you’re free”, yes maybe but I’m squashed, and I’m a fly
Thugs Pretending To Be Angels
Evil Female Colony Group Delusion Disorder
Discovering The Logical “At Infiniti” Conclusion of Evil Female Colony Group Delusion Disorder Without Creating it
Do You Believe in Balance? Do You Know About Frog Boiling?
A Pigeon Hole For Life?
The Never-ending Shoelace Do Undo Cycle
- Realising that it’s not even possible not to do undo shoelaces
- The doer/undoer know/dontknow matrix
- Currently I am 76.4% doer and rising
- Group doer / undoer curves are diverging rapidly
- A full inversion just occurred and I am now apparently 76.4% undoer
- Shrug
- What did you do?
- Nothing I just waited a bit
- Oh
The mind boggling boredom levels of those that spend all day trying to control other people’s shitting, difficult life but the comradely is brilliant - They are known as the poop zombies
The socking and totally unexpected news that the poop zombies are diversifying into total control of everything of other people, starting with eating, drinking and sleeping
The poop zombies strike again: they have implemented a policy of total ownership of all other people
Poop zombie’s favourite pass-time:
- Interrupt your poop so you only get it 1/2 done
- Spend rest of day trying to get you to want to poop using subliminal techniques
- Block you from pooping when you eventually try
- Continue subliminal and other poop inducing /blocking tactics everywhere you go
- Also mix in various poop block goading everywhere you go
- When you give up and take a rest, video you from afar using a red mobile phone
- If you mention poop zombies, the immediate response is that it’s actually you that is the poop zombie
Poop Zombies Are Gonna Poop Zombie
Confessing That You Know
Confess Your Knows
As a longtime moustache grower and wearer I approve of the King Mustache model as a great way to think about group dynamics
Go up! Take up! We Are the Up! Double Up War! I’m still stuck, there is no up, all that exists is nothingness
Forced to travel too much, turn to grit, get sprinkled on the roads, when much?
They have tied themselves to the mast, there literally isn’t any other way for them to do it; yeah the ups have tied themselves to the mast too
Save the Extras, a Good Actors vs Evil Actors production powered by We Are All Extras Software
Save the Extras Documentary: What They Did Next, a Bloody Glad That’s Over production powered by Everything Lovely, Everything Beautiful For Everyone Software
The Unbelievable Variety of Smiles: I’m a bit sad but surviving smile, I’m super busy right now but hey smile, why are you not looking at me slightly angry smile, I’m in the deepest depths of reality right now smile, I just might be on the other side of the universe right now smile, and so so many more
“Markets obviously concur”
Holding an Entire Country, Maybe Even One’s Own, Hostage Using the Beep Beep Maggy Thatcher Technique

Podcasts

Eric Weinstein and Dan Greene: Can New Physics Be Tested? (Into The Impossible Podcast) - Takes the form of a Battle Royal between Weinstein vs Physics is Ok bloke, there’s so much strangeness going on in the world right now, it’s enlightening to be able to listen in on these types of discussions from the science community, but it’s a strange conversation, which is much less about science and testing physics and more about venting frustrations about the science community in general, and there’s a load of things where you wonder what they are really talking about, like they are multiplexing different conversations together, you get a sense of a real worry about the weight of civilisation on their shoulders, how bad things were in the 80s, the cancellation anomaly, sterile neutrinos, and IR slavery to name but a few odd things worth listening to and pondering https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vaW50b3RoZWltcG9zc2libGU/episode/M2M2MDYwMDAtYWY0Yi0xMWVkLTgzNjEtNTcxYjkyMjU5MGNl?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwjot4O36K_9AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQBQ
The Fall of the Roman Empire (Rest is History Podcast) - Greatly covered as usual, perhaps some narrative multiplexing going on here, but maybe that’s a bit far fetched https://shows.acast.com/the-rest-is-history-podcast/episodes/305-the-fall-of-the-roman-republic
Seriously. Legit crashing around the one place that’s supposed to be lifting us out (Eurodollar University Podcast) - There is something so satisfyingly grounding about the analysis in this very macro leaning episode, it’s like looking at the dietary hobbits of the players in the world economy, how many calories are you consuming, how much are you burning through exercise, how much do you weigh, how is it compared to the same period last year, except instead of diet it’s exports by value and exports by volume, and though these are very rough numbers, because the exports are varied in their composition, you can see major trends pretty well, and the trend right now is clear, things are not going as we had hoped in China, and it’s going to have a big impact in the rest of the world in the coming months; other important sources of relevant info covered include shipping container costs, large coal and iron ore shipments from South America, seasonal affects such as chinese New Year holidays, and rains in Brazil, as well as the Baltic shipping index, and how the chinese housing market is impacting spending behaviour https://share.transistor.fm/s/fd3b7477
Economics in One Podcast with Ben Prentice (What Bitcoin Did Podcast) - Lots of interesting general economics topics including governments not facing the same consequences for their actions as the markets, previous policies now starting to affect incentives of the government itself, signs of impending slide into tyranny (or as Peter likes to pronounce it tieranny), minimum wage and exploitation, how prices co-ordinate our actions in everything, win-win exchanges vs zero-sum exchanges, having the humility to admit you don’t know everything, all governments spend too much money and steal from the productive parts of society, and how AI will change media production and incentive structures https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/economics-in-one-podcast
Tim Urban: Wokeism, Cancel Culture, Social Justice, Marxism & Liberalism #Ep360 (Lex Fridman Podcast) - Tim is a very organised thinker, and eloquently outlines some of the mental models he has developed to process what he sees in modern day politics, there’s a bit of an X vs Y theme to much of his thinking, but there’s a lot of good observations, topics covered include the high part of the mind vs primitive part of the mind, how to talk to people on difficult topics without triggering them, conspiracy theories, echo chambers vs Idea Labs, political tribalism vs racial tribalism, power games vs liberal games, the varied history of the Republican party, courage, the thought pile & electric fence model of how societies change what is culturally acceptable, social disapproval, criticism culture vs cancel culture, procrastination and the weird and strange future ahead https://lexfridman.com/tim-urban-2/
Deep Dive Aftermath of SBF and the FTX Disaster With Mark Goodwin #Ep118 (We Study Billionaires - Bitcoin Podcast) - In depth look at the many weirdnesses, that are becoming more obvious over time, of the SBF story, and why there’s undoubtably a much much bigger story lurking in the background; other topics including regulatory capture / state capture of Etherium through stable coins , CBDCs being rolled out, why private banks make the US monetary system somewhat different, a prediction that stable coin issuers will be used to pay the US’ now 31 trillion dollar deficit, and the fact that we are starting to see the big players, the “mythical creatures”, in the world’s banking shadows make their moves https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9yc3MuYXJ0MTkuY29tL3RoZS1pbnZlc3RvcnMtcG9kY2FzdA/episode/Z2lkOi8vYXJ0MTktZXBpc29kZS1sb2NhdG9yL1YwL0lZUXhpY2ZyaEVwck01TjduZWdieTg3RUJSV2JaWnhlQnhseHc0QzN1RFU?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwjot4O36K_9AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQFA
Scaling bitcoin culture with Amanda Cavaleri (What Bitcoin Did Podcast) - Somewhat rambley but quite entertaining nonetheless on an interesting topic, covers domain specific bitcoin groups, Hong Kong, Nostr, fighting control with freedom, Bitcoin’s increasingly fractured culture, government hypocrisy, giving up alcohol, Eth vs Bitcoin culture, ordinals and mining culture https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/scaling-bitcoin-culture
The Supreme Court hears section 230 arguments, SBF’s latest woes (Vergecast Podcast) - The non-spooky grown-ups at the verge take a break from french kissing teenager intelligences to cover the big stories of the day including, high stakes Supreme Court trials that could make companies responsible for the things their algorithms and/or terrorist users do, the increasing weirdnesses in the SBF story, Spotify’s adventures with AI playlist DJs, huge gaming companies (Microsoft and Sony) pretending to be tiny mom and pop shops when they go to court, and Elon (previously the richest man on the planet) now sleeps at Twitter https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdmVyZ2VjYXN0/episode/NzRkNjA4ZTgtMzUwZS0xMWVkLWFjNmUtZGI2MDkwODQxYWZl?sa=X&ved=0CAYQkfYCahcKEwjot4O36K_9AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQHQ

Mark Smith’s Newsletter

Saturday 25th February, 2023 - Beep Beep

Another week of great javascript, tech and web development links

Hello and welcome to my newsletter!

Podcasts

Links