The Life of Aaron Swartz
If you’re not a geek you may not have heard who Aaron Swartz is, or that he recently killed himself. If you are a geek, you haven’t heard much else since it happened a few days ago. Most the blogosphere is alive talking about his death. I want to talk about his life. Aaron was a very smart geek. He won the ArsDigita Prize in 2000, when he was 12 [...]
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I Choose Everything
I’ve spent a lot of time considering not only what should go on this site, but also what I should focus on in my life. I like a lot of different things. I obviously spend a lot of time thinking about psychology and spirituality, which I write about here. Most people don’t realize I’m also an artist, a professional software developer, a math enthusiast, an entrepreneur, an improv comedian, and [...]
The Herd and Changing the World
I’m forced to listen to pop music almost everyday thanks to the predictable tastes of the 13 year old girl I live with. The thing about pop music is that it’s palatable in the same sense candy is palatable. Most people love candy because it stimulates our animal brains; I don’t like candy that much, but it’s difficult to find candy that’s actively disgusting. That candy contains no nutritional value [...]
Birth Defects and Superpowers
Nate has a secret birth defect that seriously impacts his life. He’s lived in fear of being found out since he was a preteen, and it preoccupies his mind when he’s with his girlfriend. He was with that girlfriend of his for two and a half years before finally working up the nerve to tell her about his issue because he was afraid he would lose her when she found [...]
When the World Ends
The world ending today on December 21st, 2012 reminds me of one of my favorite songs, called “H.” Western culture is steeped in Abrahamic cosmology, and one fundamental difference between the universe of God, the Father, and that of say, Brahman or Buddha, is that it only flows one direction. God created the things, the things did stuff, then God came back and everyone died or lived forever or whatever. [...]
Welcoming the Rain
Meru is a rural region of Kenya about three and a half hours outside of Nairobi, the capitol. When my woman was growing up in Meru in the 70s, picking coffee and going to primary school, she walked places instead of driving. Very few people had cars, and the roads were all dirt anyway. Sometimes she knew it was going to rain while she was walking, and she started walking [...]
On Needs and Violence
Shut the Fuck Up The cat’s litter box is stinky, and she’s sick of it. She’d asked her boyfriend to clean the thing, but he just didn’t do it enough. Plus when he did do it, he didn’t do it with soap and water or anything, so it continued to smell. So the argument started when she told him the litter box was making the room smell because he wasn’t [...]
How to Get Over Grief
I was 21 years old when my dad killed himself. Dad had left after a big fight with my mom. I had been talking to my mom for the whole week he’d been missing, and that morning was no different. I had to hang up with her to go to class, and I called her back afterward to keep her mind busy while we figured out where dad was driving [...]
Highlights and Humans
1. When you look at a sphere that’s glossy, you normally see a white point of light, called the highlight. You can measure the highlight. You can see that it’s white, not, say, purple. You can say that it’s half an inch tall, and three quarters of an inch wide, and roughly oval shaped. These are empirical, verifiable, undeniable truths. When you move, the highlight moves with you, and from [...]
Chickens of the Southern Wild
My woman brought me to see Beasts of the Southern Wild yesterday, which is a really interesting and gripping movie. Very minor spoilers ahead. A guy in the movie was preparing for a hurricane. He was running around in his yard trying to catch one of his chickens, to put her in a coop and bring her somewhere safe. He wasn’t making it easy, he was chasing after her, yelling [...]
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How I retired at age 25
When I was younger I pulled some ballsy moves, trying to get rich young. My goal was to be rich enough to do whatever I wanted to do by the time I was 25. Back then I planned to fight my way to the top of the ladder, and sky dive from the ladder’s lofty heights into retirement, riding a golden parachute. Instead I was left out to dry by [...]
Achievement Porn
Hacker News pointed me to an article recently called “Addicted to Fake Achievement“. That article is about video games, but this one isn’t. The thesis of that article is that some games (it mentions Role Playing Games) don’t actually require skill, just time. You start with a weak character and perform some task that’s almost too easy to fail. You’re rewarded by gaining access to another task that is also [...]