PaulGrahamRaven

PaulGrahamRaven, 3 months ago to random

The dominant emotion the 14th of February engenders in me these days is a colossal pity for copywriters, many of whom I must assume are just as embarrassed by the tripe they're paid to put out at this time of year as I am on their behalf.

PaulGrahamRaven, 3 months ago to random

Malmö, 8am, Tuesday 27th February:

MediaEvolution are launching the book which is the result of their latest community foresight cycle (on #futures of digital work), which contains five fictions by yours truly!

Why not come along if you're in the area? I'll be reading from one of the stories, experts will be pontificating... and if I know the Media Evolution crew, there'll be good coffee and pastries.

See you there?

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/seminar-and-book-launch-futures-of-digital-work-tickets-773631571857?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

PaulGrahamRaven, 4 months ago to general

a general atmosphere in which a particular conclusion seems undeniable

https://www.velcro-city.co.uk/a-general-atmosphere-in-which-a-particular-conclusion-seems-undeniable/

#General #Philosophy #Politics #Worldbuilding

PaulGrahamRaven, 4 months ago to random

And as if to underscore the topic of that last retoot, here's an email in my inbox about World Futures day, for which organisations that really should know better (Association of Professional Futurists, World Futures Studies Federation) are co-sponsors with transhumanoid-legitimising shill operations Humanity Plus and the Lifeboat Foundation.

PaulGrahamRaven, 4 months ago to random

OK, I have a new and very special loathing for people who have decided they're going to start calling that service "Chattie G". Take a fucking look at yourself, will you?

PaulGrahamRaven, 4 months ago to random

@fragmad Watched a handful of Hainbach on your recommendation last night; what a delightful chap. An unexpected sweet spot between "earnest German nerd" and "so laid back you could put a carpet on him".

PaulGrahamRaven, 4 months ago to random

That thing where the next person on your "follow up" list actually follows up with you, just a day before you were going to follow up with them. Lovely.

PaulGrahamRaven, 4 months ago to random

Holy shit, I just discovered that a person can create Obsidian internal links to specific lines of a PDF document which is already in the same vault.

This is, for my particular research and writing practice, a significant and powerful discovery.

PaulGrahamRaven, 4 months ago to random

So, can someone teach me how I might get involved in some small-scale short-selling of stocks?

If I've understood it right, a) the stock market thrives on irrational sentiment, b) the tech bubble is at the huffing-balloons-and-groping stage of the party, c) shorting stocks which subsequently tank real hard can make you some money, and d) shorting stocks contributes to the sort of sentiment that makes them tank.

If I have understood this right, I think my duty as a citizen of earth is clear.

PaulGrahamRaven, 5 months ago to random

Day 8 of renovations upstairs. Quite what there can be left of the fabric of that apartment to which powertools have not been enthusiastically applied is quite beyond me, but apparently they've found some!

PaulGrahamRaven, 5 months ago to random

Email from Dropbox about the new tables function in Dropbox Paper. 🤔

I don't do predictions (especially not about the future, har har har) but I'm pretty confident that 2024 is going to be a year in which a whole lot of initially very different-seeming apps decide to try to become something like Obsidian. Big firms with dull, reliable products have seen the rabid enthusiasm that Obsidian engenders in some users and decided "we'll have some of that"; like the "AI" thing, it's a quest for vibes.

PaulGrahamRaven, 5 months ago to random

New year, new policy of replying to venue and promoter newsletter emails with a request to link to something other than F*cebook event pages, because otherwise I'm honestly just not gonna bother trying to find out anything more about that show that otherwise looked like something I might attend.

Probably futile and quixotic, but hey, have you seen my life to date, hmmm?

PaulGrahamRaven, 5 months ago to random

Anyone here able to help a brother out with what is presumably a very simple REGEX query for someone who knows what they're doing, but a nightmare for someone who doesn't?

I have a long old string in which colons (:) appear in various places. Colons which follow immediately after a letter, number or symbol character, I want to get rid of; colons which follow a whitespace character, I want to keep.

So, selecting for colons immediately after anything other than a whitespace.

HOW????!

PaulGrahamRaven, 5 months ago to random

With the acknowledgement that it's likely a very small demographic, I doubt I will ever be able to parse the moral calculus of people who are revolted by the idea of eating animal products, but totally fine with splicing animal genes into soybeans, or with fully industrialised production of proteins a la Monbiot's bizarre new "solution".

PaulGrahamRaven, 5 months ago to random

We are literally one day into the new year, and already there is a new renovation project ongoing in my trappa: crash bang wallop, the sound of Schumpetarian "creative destruction" in its most commonplace manifestation, and probably the only one that has any sustained economic impact, i.e. propping a shonky and wasteful industry devoted to keeping the landfills growing.

#grumble

PaulGrahamRaven, 5 months ago to random

It's bad enough when the dishwasher breaks; for the dishwasher to break immediately after a routine cleaning of the filters &c. just feels like some sort of cosmic insult.

(I think I've got it working again, though I want to see if it'll complete a cycle on empty before I start patting myself on the back too much.)

PaulGrahamRaven, 5 months ago to random

Look, I understand the imperatives of academic journal production, and also the way in which scholarship is supposed to remain a broad church where ideas can be tested &c &c... but for fuck's sake, Futures, is this really the time to be publishing yet another retread of the "Mars as spatial fix for Terran development and innovation stagnation" argument? Granted this one's rather better written than they usually are, but it's the same tired argument, time and time again.

PaulGrahamRaven, 6 months ago to random

RESEARCH QUERY, MEDIUM URGENT

Does anyone on the 'don have a good professional eye on the recently announced EU regulations for "AI", and in particular how said regs (intend to) deal (or not) with its use in e.g. border control and immigration? If so, it would be really great if I could speak (or email) with you over the next few days.

(Please boost this if you think you might have a follower who could help out.)

PaulGrahamRaven, 6 months ago to lacabine

Seeing that the hashtag #MardiPatisserie is apparently trending (for Mastodon-centric values of the variable "trending"), the part of me that spent ten years in Sheffield is now trying to reverse engineer an anecdote about someone getting very stroppy about a croissant on West Street

PaulGrahamRaven, 6 months ago to random

Yo, @dymaxion -- are you aware of any good (and not-too-technical) work on data (gathering, structure, formatting, management) as pertaining to migration that you could point me toward? Or of someone better suited to answer that question than yourself?

PaulGrahamRaven, 6 months ago to random

Your periodic reminder.

(It's ten years now, I think, because I ganked this version a year or so ago.)

PaulGrahamRaven, 6 months ago to random

22NOV23 / accessions

https://www.velcro-city.co.uk/22nov23-accessions/

#Accessions

PaulGrahamRaven, 6 months ago to random

Now getting "try our new AI features!" emails from Notion, which has confirmed my decision to commit to Obsidian was the right move.

PaulGrahamRaven, 6 months ago to random

That thing where on of the biggest local players in your field proudly announces a forthcoming talk by one of the OG TESCREAL eugenicist people, and you scrub them off your list of potential sources of work.

There are many exceptions, but the futures field more broadly still has a serious ethics deficit.

PaulGrahamRaven, 6 months ago to random

In the name of holding oneself accountable for one's own crazy plans by way of making them partially and tentatively public:

One of my projects for 2024 is a monthly podcast on worldbuilding, and the interstitial zone where science fiction, (social) futuring and speculative/critical design overlap.

I've already got three folk who work and/or wander that zone who've agreed to take part, which is a pretty good start! But I'd like to know who you think I should be talking to.