Steppenwolf By Herman Hesse. It's remarkable how a fictional character written by someone a century ago can resonate so deeply with a modern person. But then again, that's a common thread amongst great literature. I recommend this book to anyone struggling with loneliness or feeling like they haven't found their footing in this world.
“Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at everything else.”
Great recommendation. I think the magic for me is that you begin to read a strange narrative of characters in 1920s Germany. It is a tall tale of alienation.
SPOLIER ALERT - Then, slowly, and in the end, convincingly, you come to know he is writing about you the reader. That is a miracle of writing and time and space.
P.S. I think Catcher in the Rye also does that, if you are late teen, but is a far inferior work, and does not bear reading if you are past 20.
Not sure how I feel about the on-going vanishing of efforts to create The Glass Bead Game as a computer interface/programming methodology.
I want it to be something workable which helps folks in their use of computers, but the more I work with node programming interfaces and so forth, the more I worry that the fact that there is no universally agreed-upon answer to the question:
>What does an algorithm look like?
and that such systems are strongly-bounded complexity-wise by screen size, that they simply aren't workable beyond small/toy problems and educational usage, i.e., Blockly.
Narcissus and Goldmund is great. It feels like he's re-approaching themes from Siddhartha, but that notion of paths taken is worth exploring again and again.
Agreed! There is definitely overlap between the three books but my recollection of Siddhartha and N&G is that Hesse dwelled more into how hedonic pleasure corrodes the soul. On a side note, you'll get along well with Doestevesky's Brothers Karamazov if you found N&G affecting.
GBG has that dream-like Kafkaesque frustration of having a concrete objective, but not be able to achieve it, even though it should be simple and tangible.
However, in GBG it is all meta: the game is unspecified, the objective is unspecified, the adorable miraculous winning play is unspecified. It is meta-Kafka, which is incredibly doubly frustrating...
SPOLIER ALERT: then, slowly, awkwardly, painfully, a realization creeps over you - GBG is life.
I like Hesse and I like Steppenwolf even though neither is my favorite -- but there is a fragment in Steppenwolf that I will never forget, that I have used often, and that anchors the love side of my love-hate relationship with the German language:
"...um im Gasthaus [...] das zu trinken, was trinkende Männer nach einer alten Konvention »ein Gläschen Wein« nennen."
English: in order to drink in the pub that which drinking men, according to an old convention, call "a little glass of wine."
I built a Chess app called SpicyChess(https://spicychess.com) that has a training component which leverages spaced repetition and strict time constraint to increase your pattern recognition ability for tactical motifs. SpicyChess also allows you to "bookmark" a puzzle for review later on. The philosophy behind the training regiment is inspired by the following two books which have been very helpful in improving my game: reading Rapid Chess Improvement, The Woodpecker Method.
I actually built an app(spicychess.com) that's loosely modelled after the Anki flashcard method; You're given 10 minutes to solve a puzzle on your first attempt. On every subsequent attempt you're given half the time to solve the puzzle, until your 6th attempt where you're given 30 seconds to solve the puzzle. Repetition combined with strict time constraint has been shown to massively improve one's ability to spot tactics, and thereby increase one's rating, especially at the below 2000 level. You can also bookmark puzzles for future review (:
I built a Chess training app called SpicyChess(https://spicychess.com) that leverages spaced repetition and strict time constraint to increase your pattern recognition ability for tactical motifs. SpicyChess also allows you to "bookmark" a puzzle for review later on.
It's not the most interesting tech I built but it's the most recent one and checks the features wish-list I've had when using other tactics training apps.
Hi! You should have ten minutes to solve a puzzle on your first "loop". Once you finish solving all puzzles in a given loop, you will have 5 minutes on your next attempt. I'm curious if you're actually seeing 15 seconds ?
Another issue are two bugs:
On this particular quizz, the solution is simply wrong. I can not make reference for that simple because there is no ref number. So only FEN:
8/p2r1p1k/1p2pQpp/2qr4/5P2/1P2P2R/P5PP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1
(Screenshot in the link above)
The app said the solution was not Rxh6+, but it IS.
The other issue is when you click on the magnifier icon, it will land on a wrong puzzle (at least on this particular puzzle). So I think your data has at least some problems. A report button would be useful.
Thank you so much for the screenshots; they really helped. If you refresh the page the countdown time should be fixed but I'm very curious about the loop number that you're seeing on the /train page ? Does it say: Loop 1 of 6 ?
I see your point but individuals living their sovereign lives isn't the issue; the issue is if Facebook keeps kindling the fires of division a day could come where we're knocking at the gates of a civil war. Is that too hyperbolic ? I don't know but if asking people in California what they think of Texas/Florida and vice-versa is a litmus test, perhaps some concern is in order.
The division seems to me leading more to a breakup of the united states, into smaller countries. If one believes in democracy, and local democratic will. Why would that necessarily be bad. The country is filled with red states on the inside, and blue states on the outside. Doesn't seem like the people in the middle are getting the kind of government they vote for. And the people in the blue states have to temper down their liberal pro socialism policies that have served them so well in big cities, to help them stop crime and end homelessness that don't necessarily apply on the inside.
Take gun control. If you live in the middle of nowhere, the police are hours away from helping you. Owning a gun is your only realistic means of self defence.
There is a certain argument that both the red states and the blue states are wrong (perhaps on different issues) and that the best governing would a combination or compromise (which is what most people actually seem to want, given especially that all states are mostly purple).
But that kind of compromise is exactly what Facebook's algorithms are designed to ensure doesn't happen---nobody is gloriously excited about compromise.
There are still some southern states that have massive poverty. The union did not serve them well. I can see how they would be better off on their own. Hawaii as well. And its not just about poverty. Hawaiians would like to regain control over their culture, tourism levels, and so on. King of your castle. Even if your castle is just a shack. Counts for a lot. Also cities like Chicago and Detroit experienced huge declines, because of trade with China, that mostly benefits California. I can see how they would like their own policies on trade.
I'm sure there were people walking around saying that in 1775. Yet Greater good prevailed, and US got its independence from Britain. Since its a Democratic Union, I hope it can be dissolved in a democratic way. Is the worry that each state would have fight to get independence?
I am not a fan of histotical analogies like that. One very likely outcome of a U.S breakup is a global economic depression. Another one is Chinese hegemony. I am not a fan of either. Sure, it might work out alright. But it might not.
Facebook is repeatedly banning politicians in a political party. Denying them a voice.
Abraham Lincoln was not even on the ballot in several states. That did not go well.
Politicians yelling at each other is a sausage factory, but good in that it keeps them busy. It’s alarming when a large portion of the population feels they no longer have any voice whatsoever.
Now a big difference these days is that government surveillance is so incredibly tight that any one wanting to start unapproved trouble will be hunted down quickly.
“Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at everything else.”
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