I can't decide if they are not making many good movies any more, or if I have just lost much of my interest in movies.

Felt a small earthquake. Everything is in flux.

Yet another hour of my life spent thinking about the two envelopes paradox.

Two envelopes problem - Wikipedia

In honor of the German constitution, let's work hard to ensure that every German politician who supported the lockdowns, mask mandates or vaccine mandates will be voted out and never hold public office again.

Auf Grund gesetzt

Das Grundgesetz wird 75 Jahre alt. Der Bundespräsident ruft Bürger auf, die Verfassung zu schützen. Was darf Satire eigentlich?

Missed the 75th birthday of the German constitution yesterday, which apparently was celebrated with all the trappings of a police state: "A total of about 1,000 police officers were deployed in and around the government district of Berlin on Thursday, a spokeswoman said, in order to police the state ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of Germany's constitution."

MSN

Crypto and AI are opposite forces. AI exploits the availability of computing power to generate an ocean of content, which holds within itself the ocean of content that was the internet prior to the advent of AI, which in turn held within itself the ocean of content that humans had generated prior to the arrival of the internet. Crypto, by contrast, exploits the phenomenon of uncomputability. It is founded on what no computer, including no AI system, can efficiently compute. Crypto can thus, for example, be used to wall off content that is particularly precious from the reach of AI. Crypto can also be used to mark off human identities, authenticate genuine human voices and clearly differentiate them from the ocean of content generated by AI.

Is there a way to format text when writing notes? Italics, boldface, bullet points, lists, etc.?

How can I turn off auto-translate in Amethyst?

This sounds about right: "In Germany [...] we do not have ordinary democracy. Rather, we have “defensive democracy,” where you can only disagree with establishment politicians up to a point. The line of transgression is drawn by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution ..."

German Interior Minister places responsibility for political violence with the AfD and a general “contempt for politics,” in the latest attempt to characterise free expression as somehow criminal

What is happening to us is not even secret.

Having used social media for a couple of days, it's dawning on me that some of the dumber pathologies of the woke era actually reflect distorted expectations cultivated by people through their social media use. In particular, the idea of "safe spaces" simply mirrors the ability to restrict access to online spaces through blocking / muting participants, and demanding such safe spaces reflects a desire to carry this ability over into offline physical life. Similarly, the idea of "trigger warnings" (e.g. on university lectures) reflects a desire to implement in offline life an analogue of click-through content warnings on social media posts or websites. And "deplatforming" is the most obvious, reflecting a desire to control people's access to places where they can speak publicly in the same way in which people's access to online platforms can be restricted. There is something very lazy and childish about the desire to carry these impoverished structures that are really just reflections of computer user interface design into offline life and to restrict offline human interactions to such structures with which one is familiar. It reveals an embarrassing lack of education, experience, and life competence, which is of course why it draws such ridicule.

In Amethyst, what's the meaning of the bar graph icon with a number next to it at the bottom right of a note?

North Carolina lawmakers are trying to repeal a 2020 law that permitted the wearing of face masks in public. Interestingly, the article indicates that the pre-pandemic restrictions against public masking were put into place in the 1950s to limit Ku Klux Klan activity. There is probably greater justification for laws that prohibit public masking than for laws that require it. However, I would argue that both types of laws are ultimately unconstitutional on first amendment grounds. Choosing to cover one's face, and choosing not to do so, can both be expressive conduct that a person may engage in for any number of reasons, including importantly to convey political messages. Requiring people to mask against their will was an odious illegal policy that amounted to compelled speech. But requiring people to refrain from masking also restricts a person's ability to engage in expressive conduct (be it political or otherwise), and the interest in protecting speech and self-expression seems to me to greatly outweigh whatever interest the state may have had in limiting Klan activity or other public safety concerns. Ideally, all code sections that deal with public masking should simply be repealed.

MSN

I took a look at OpenAI's website to see what they have to say about "AI safety". The writing is vague and repetitive, and the concerns expressed are generally pretty amorphous. It rather feels like the AI safety talk is being used as a marketing ploy to exeggerate the significance of the product. Elevator safety seems like a more pressing problem. View quoted note →

Associated Press piece on the helicopter crash in Iran, with what feels like slightly odd attempts to frame its moral import: "The incident comes as Iran [...] launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel last month and has enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Iran has also faced years of mass protests against its Shiite theocracy over an ailing economy and women’s rights ..." The article also floats a narrative regarding the cause: "Iran flies a variety of helicopters in the country, but international sanctions make it difficult to obtain parts for them. Its military air fleet also largely dates back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution." Not sure what to make of this.

AP News

Iran's president and foreign minister die in helicopter crash at moment of high tensions in Mideast

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and several other officials were found dead on Monday, hours after their helicopt...

By the way, if anyone is interested in memorization techniques and, in particular, #flashcards, please let me know - this is one of my favorite topics. I've used flashcards extensively to study Japanese and have more recently been experimenting with them to learn some math. Just like going to the gym changes the shape of your body, so working with flaschards changes the shape of your brain, in ways that can be really quite amazing.

I couple of months ago I attended a conference where they talked a lot about "AI safety". Nobofy bothered to explain what exactly is supposed to be *dangerous* about AI. When you ask them, they tell you that they are not worried about a "Terminator" scenario (that would be silly). But if it is not that, then what is it? Does someone know?

On the persecution of (left-wing) political dissidents in Germany from the 1950s through the 1970s. This history is consistent with the behavior of the German judiciary during the recent lockdowns. I used to think that freedom of speech and opinion in post-war Germany were essentially protected to the same degree as in the United States. It has become painfully clear that this is not at all the case (and apparently never was). Through lack of commitment to these freedoms, German institutions make themselves an easy target for those who question their legitimacy.

Über die Kontinuität der Verfolgung Andersdenkender in Deutschland

Allgemein bekannt ist, dass in der Vergangenheit Kritiker der Obrigkeit verfolgt wurden. Über den Radikalenerlass.

Walking through a small street in Tokyo. Not crowded but not empty. People are returning from work, walking quietly. Contemplative.

On noStrudel, how do I refer to a public key without tagging the person? The public key seems to get turned into a link automatically. Maybe there is some kind of escape character that prevents it from being linkified?

Is noStrudel noticeably faster than the other web clients?