Archive

Page 43 of 95

The Future Of Internet, Is Self Hosted

The author reflects on the evolving ad industry and proposes that we can regain control over our online experience by using simple, self‑hosted tools—RSS‑like feeds and web scrapers—to feed a local server with content we choose. He describes how a lightweight software agent can crawl the Internet 24/7, filter articles into categories, and deliver updates without relying on AI or third‑party analytics, while still allowing us to opt‑in for ads, notifications, or alerts. Finally he encourages readers to learn Linux on single‑board computers, build their own agents, and take back ownership of their data.

Merry Squirrels

The author reflects on a recent Christmas when they gave bags of peanuts to nearby squirrels—only to see them quickly burying and retrieving their treasures—and on this year’s attempt to hand‑feed them, which ended in a whimsical “metaphysical” mishap as the nuts vanished. They describe playful moments such as feeding from an “enormous box of emergency pandemic trail mix,” joking about selling squirrels like kittens, and even noting a lone peanut left at a fire hydrant that might be a gift or threat. Amid these anecdotes they admit a drunken squirrel in a “crab‑able” tree seems to hate them, yet the narrative ends on a hopeful note: squirrels remind us of dance, play, and the simple joy of holidays.

The Marvels Of Potato Programming

I write small holiday scripts with Greasemonkey (or Tampermonkey) to extend browsers, turning UserScripts into a bridge between my web‑based OS and external APIs; after experimenting with simple P5.js sketches like a screensaver I built a lightweight terminal that emits command events onto an OS event bus, letting a single script control many functions via HTTP requests or network messages—an approach that turns a basic “Potato” program into a versatile code base linking browser add‑ons, Android APIs and web services.

Infinite Dreams; Or, Programming Is Special Because It Has No Limits

Each time we start a new program or lesson, we encounter an endless array of possibilities; the post celebrates this infinite creative space, noting that while industry patterns exist, forging your own path can reveal undiscovered routes. It highlights how small changes—like event listeners with wildcard strings or browser file‑upload features that allow directory selection—can unlock powerful automation and new applications. In sum, programming remains a “Wild Wild West” of invention where even the tiniest tweak opens up a universe of possibilities.

The World And Peace

The author reflects on humanity’s origins as violent apes, links criminality to social neglect, criticizes political greed and war-making, and proposes self‑education schools to raise global wisdom for peace.

Art Changes Lives

The post argues that the key to becoming a successful artist is learning to trace your first drawings—whether by hand or using tools like Krita’s reference overlay or a wall projector—and then practicing until you no longer need to repeat it. By tracing, you study form and develop “head space” for creative thinking; persistence in this practice gives you confidence and helps you feel at home with art. The writer claims that once you master the simple act of tracing, you’ll be drawn into the muses of all art forms—painting, poetry, music, etc.—and that art is an internal gift rooted in your heart, bone, and sinew. In short, tracing is the first step toward mastery; from there comes confidence, creativity, and a lifelong love of art.

No One Can Tell You Which Books To Pick, It Is Tradition

The post encourages us to actively seek out non‑fiction books as a source of growth, noting that these works are meant to be heard and felt, not merely read, and that study guides can help unlock their deeper meanings; it stresses the importance of personal uniqueness on the “scale of genius,” and how we must carry meaningful tasks forward, whether for ourselves or for lasting contributions to the world, while also embracing challenges such as hiking the Appalachian Trail to break free from indoctrination; it reminds us that self‑care means not just following others but rising and transcending, especially for those in difficult neighborhoods, and urges us to keep mind and body healthy—avoiding long barber‑shop stays, drugs, and alcohol—while maintaining a strong connection with our elder selves, whose wisdom can be tapped at any time.

The Theft Of Genius; Or, On The Mind Of Our World

The post argues that true genius is an inner faculty that cannot be measured by tests, but must be cultivated through reflection and experience; it is often suppressed by poverty, ignorance, and ruling elites, which leads to a mental impoverishment that hampers growth. The author laments how modern education has become a commercial enterprise that merely projects an illusion of learning, thereby perpetuating the theft of genius across generations. To break this cycle, one must actively seek out revered books, listen to the wisdom of past lives, and stand on the shoulders of giants, thus unlocking one's inherited knowledge and enabling creative feats that elevate both oneself and others.

Fifteen Strange But True Facts About Animals That You Will Wish You Didn't Know

Before humanity’s first moon landing, we supposedly brought back an angry raccoon; geese prefer to walk across streets hoping for treats, while skunks unknowingly spray perfume as affection; sparrows are deemed the most intellectual birds, and opossums boast bushiest tails they shave for style. Pigeons were the first animals to profit from religion, coyotes are often loving rather than scary, and ducks rush because humans found them tasty. Hunters find deer easy prey thanks to mud‑and‑beer scents; seagulls enjoy beach tickles, chipmunks helped create early microchips with their nimble fingers; hawks appear bored and try to look scary, squirrels once fought knights by sneaking into armor; owls clear bowels before rain, and humans—animals too—write poems that aren’t always true.

Our World, In Greatness

The post argues that humanity is one family whose unity is fractured by poverty, which in turn hinders true education; without this learning we fail to agree on anything, allowing wars and nuclear weapons while neglecting the homeless. It stresses that real schooling is lifelong growth through books—stories of great beings across generations—which we must narrate, comprehend, and act upon so our collective knowledge becomes an operating system of perception, choice, and experience; only by becoming “great beings” who inherit and synthesize this wisdom can we repair the world and make it ever more beautiful.

Swinging Weights; Or On Exercise Music And Lifting

The author argues that a successful workout hinges on the right music: a bass‑heavy, rhythmically tight track that pulls you into a “warrior trance,” allowing each lift to sync with one beat of the song. He recommends using portable headphones (e.g., TFCard Headphones) and building a playlist of energetic dance or electro‑swing tracks—starting with slower songs like Alan Walker’s “Alone” and moving to high‑intensity interval tunes such as “Dance Monkey.” Rest should be brief (about 25 seconds) between sets, after which you switch to a new track. He stresses the importance of staying in rhythm, wearing gloves for confidence, and consistently adding fresh songs to keep the trance alive throughout your training session.

Thinking Outside Windows, Where Developer Experience And Power User Experience Is One And The Same

The post proposes a new way to build web‑based virtual desktops by treating full‑screen windows as independent “desktop” environments, rather than just document layouts. It argues that designers should let users hit F11 and enter a power‑user mode where icons launch separate desktop instances, keeping windows open for future work instead of closing them. The author then links this UI concept to functional programming techniques: middleware stacks in Express or Koa can be visualized as connected functions, with each function represented by a window on the virtual desktop and linked by SVG lines. By treating functions as modular components that share context, developers can build programs visually, test them, and allow community‑driven upgrades—all while keeping the overall structure simple and avoiding the clutter of traditional document‑based web design.

The Algorithm

I was navigating an industrial area when I made a right turn that seemed perfect to me as a programmer, yet the car behind followed too quickly and also turned in haste. The whole episode highlighted the contrast between algorithmic precision—where every move is calculated—and ordinary driving habits, where people often make decisions on instinct rather than calculation. As we maneuvered through successive turns, I felt like an NPC learning the right-hand rule while my follower’s timing and confidence reflected a non‑programmer’s approach. The scene ended with us both arriving at the same road after a series of algorithmic turns, leaving me to wave off that we had “tested an algorithm” together.

A Glance At Speculative Thinking; Or, A Thought For Oumuamua

The post is an informal reflection on speculative thinking in science and culture, beginning with a light‑hearted example from Seth Shostak and moving through anecdotes of radio building, cold fusion, and movie scenes that illustrate how ideas can spread like cults. It cites the 1989 Cold Fusion announcement to show the need for peer review and reproducibility, then gives personal stories of psychic readings, fairy tales, and radio‑static dreams to underscore how unverified beliefs flourish. The author discusses ufology as a pre‑religious phenomenon that can launch new cults, and brings in Jill Tarter’s SETI remarks and Carl Sagan’s “Contact” reference to argue that UFO enthusiasm is an art form that inspires questions, inventions, and poems. Finally, the piece speculates on Oumuamua as possibly a starship or interstellar monument, suggesting it might carry signals or a plaque to announce humanity’s presence, and ends by noting how rocks traveling between Earth and Mars could spread life‑building chemicals across the universe.

My Education Is A Spectacular Disaster

After reflecting on his school experiences and self‑education mishaps, the author introduces **Oumuamua**, a lightweight in‑memory database inspired by CouchDB and EventSourcing that stores every revision of each document using GUIDs and alphabetical merging to resolve conflicts. He explains how the project arose from experimenting with Redis, Memcache, RedBeanPHP, and PouchDB, and describes its design: automatic document IDs, versioning without mutexes, and a simple table‑like classification scheme. The post concludes by noting his iterative learning process and how Oumuamua embodies reliable, conflict‑free data persistence for browser applications.

High School And Future Generations

Ineffective schooling—characterized by uninspired teachers and fragmented lessons—has left many learners with little real knowledge; the text argues that true learning must come from self‑directed study, creative culture, and a global shift toward intellectual curiosity, so that generations can build schools of genuine education, achieve personal greatness, and ultimately overcome poverty, crime, and war.

Programming Bytes; Or, The Terrible Mambas Doth Linger In Pairs

In this post the writer likens software bugs to “mambas”—snakes that always strike in pairs or more—and explains how a seemingly small fix can trigger a cascade of new errors. He recalls learning as a child that mambas appear together, then draws the parallel to programming: an end‑user sees a single bug, but for developers it often spawns additional ones when you patch it, just as a first mistake (e.g., a stray colon in YAML) can cause a generator crash and lead to further problems like missing audio files or IPv6 upgrades that require extra code. The post illustrates this cycle with examples of how one correction can rename directories, change timestamps, and ultimately leave the developer “mamba‑ridden,” highlighting the relentless, compounding nature of bugs in software projects.

Endurance And Such

The post argues that in many physical activities—from dancing and martial arts to shooting, fishing, key‑inserting, running, bodybuilding, poetry recitation, and even programming—repeated practice builds “body memorization” or muscle memory so that movements become automatic and can be executed without conscious thought; with enough persistent effort the body learns to adapt, making tasks easier over time.

A Workout Tutorial For The Rest Of Us: Lifting Far

The post explains how weight‑lifting can be viewed as a structured version of everyday activities such as walking or jogging for long distances, noting that astronauts rebuild muscle through hill climbs rather than heavy sets and that even very heavy people develop muscle from repeated motion; it recommends starting with light dumbbells (3–5 lb per hand), moving them to the beat of your music, adding overhead lifts, and using interval timers or audio‑editing tools like Audacity or ffmpeg to sync beats for efficient workouts; it also stresses a balanced diet rich in foods such as shredded lettuce and low in sugar, emphasizes proper rest intervals, and suggests adding shuffle‑dance movements with dumbbells while wearing a neoprene belt to keep the back ready for future sessions.

Rise, Do Not Worry That Schools Are Broken

The post argues that knowledge far outweighs any standardized system: traditional teacher‑front‑of‑many‑students setups fail, grades motivate poorly, and tests become a fantasy for teachers who think passing proves learning. It envisions self‑directed schools where students tutor each other, replace grades with monetary bonuses, and view money as an investment in the future of education—yet such schools remain vulnerable to centralization and manipulation by leaders or corporations. The author calls for a gradual worldwide rise in real education, encouraging students’ own initiatives; he critiques teachers who rely on tests, notes humans’ evolutionary tendency to accept elders’ words (and thus be indoctrinated), and suggests speaking with one’s elder self to take responsibility for learning. Programming is presented as the future language of control, while reading free narrated books and experimenting with art are recommended ways to awaken inner genius.

A Strange Way To Fix Education; Or, Teaching With Programming

The author argues that academic teachers often act more like charlatans than educators, trapped in a self‑perpetuating cycle of “fake” teaching and fabricated grades that serve institutional finances rather than learning. He proposes that computer programming can replace both teachers and grading systems by having students actively model subjects—such as simulating biological processes or orbital dynamics—to demonstrate mastery through code rather than rote exams. By turning lessons into practical programming projects (e.g., building pixel‑based geometry animations), graduates use the knowledge acquired to launch and manage startups, with profits from these ventures reinvested back into the system, thus closing a loop that rewards real application over traditional grades.

How To Enhance Your Design or Programming Portfolio

The post proposes creating a simple web‑desktop UI that relies on drag‑and‑drop to manage windows, resize and pan the desktop; this pattern is presented as an easy way for programmers to showcase design skills and add colorful projects to their portfolios, with only under a hundred lines of code needed to share mousedown/mousemove state via functional programming. It highlights how such a lightweight desktop can evolve into an app builder or store—offering users an Automator‑style UI where they can create, sell, and program actions—while designers focus on single‑column layouts that adapt smoothly from large desktop screens to mobile devices. The author concludes that this practical side project provides valuable programming practice and serves as an impressive portfolio showcase for hiring talent.

The Birds Of Programming

The poem paints a whimsical picture of programming as a journey guided by three bird‑like companions: the rubber‑duck debugger Alice, who helps you spot bugs by talking through your code; the “chicken” Malice, whose playful antics represent the unpredictable nature of causality and the occasional jello‑like confusion that can arise when things don’t line up as expected; and the goose Obo, a mischievous helper that reminds programmers to be humble, watch for off‑by‑one errors, and keep their logic tight. Together they illustrate how talking through your code (with Alice), embracing its quirks (Malice), and checking every detail (Obo) can make programming both fun and more reliable.

Purrgramming Tutorial: What Is A Variable And Beyooond!

A poetic allegory of JavaScript programming begins by inviting the reader into the world of “spaghetti” code, where variables hold both strings and numbers just as useful as winter sweaters or crispy cucumbers. It explains how objects—like a cat named Alice with a __name__ property—can be assembled, referenced, and even self‑referencing using `this`, while arrays neatly store related numbers. The tale continues with examples of rooms connected by doors to illustrate object composition, then moves on to functions as black boxes that accept arguments and return values, if‑statements that direct control flow, and loops that iterate over lists—all presented as straightforward building blocks for writing small programs. The post ends by encouraging the reader to explore tutorials and YouTube links so they can start coding their own “little programs.”