Right, I think it only covers personal information: companies can only collect what they need to run their service, users can request to see their data etc. I don’t think it applies to comments and posts.

This might be due to the fact that I’m not a native speaker and I encountered this phrase at a later date, but people saying “it’s all but xyz” to mean “it’s xyz” really gets on my nerves. I get it, “it’s all but complete” means that virtually all the conditions are met for it to be complete, but I find it so annoying for some reason.

“The task is all but impossible” registers as ‘it’s not impossible, it’s everything else: possible’, so the fact that it means the opposite of that makes my brain twitch.

A colleague lent me a book with various yoga poses a few weeks ago and it has massively improved how I feel. Currently I’m working on digitizing it by creating an application where you can choose a pose, and it will be shown on your screen. I never made gui apps with GTK before, so it’s a nice learning experience.

This might just be the thing that makes me learn Rust

When people had analogue technology (radio/phonograph) there was no solid concept of the universe being a simulation

I’d argue that Neoplatonism is very close to the idea of the world being a simulation. “The One” is a creative power that made all things, itself being beyond existing. That neatly corresponds to the idea of a machine simulating us, as it itself is not simulated, but simulates.

Even Plato can be seen in that light. There exists a world of perfect forms, and this is but a projection = There is a reality the simulation is based on and computed. Our souls know everything in their pure states outside the bodies = The class is on the same level as all other data until you instantiate it.

Of course nobody talked about computers, but the general idea was there. The simulation theory could be seen as just fleshing out the technical details, but the architecture was there for a while. Not that I necessarily agree with either, I just think that the simulation theory is not really a new concept in its core.

I made an account

I generally wait more than a month for things to arrive, be it random stuff from aliexpress or books from bookdepository (may it rest in peace), blackwells or kennys. It’s kinda the norm here, and we don’t think much of it.

Assimil courses, fsi courses, language transfer, Clozemaster (app), Pimsleur.

I second this. I did the Greek course and it was absolutely phenomenal.

You have a space in your URL btw.

Assimil courses are always a good choice

It creates such a calming atmosphere. The grey sky during the day, the darkness setting earlier and the white sky far into the evening when it’s snowing is so therapeutic for me for some reason. It gets me in a state where it’s enough just to be alive.

And the biting cold is such a pleasant sensation, especially when going for a run. And there are no mosquitos. Winter is all I like manfested in nature.

I have the opposite situation, I had to willingly stop myself from typing :w while using Word. And I installed the vim extension in vscode, which leads to me typing :w when using someone else’s setup.

Same. Instant in the morning and a normal one with grounding beans in the afternoon.

You might be interested in Clozemaster for language learning. It has collections of most frequent words where you get a sentence with a word missing that you have to input. That way you just get blasted with hundreds and thousands of sentences in your target language.

It’s long been thought the only reason there’s been no WWIII is because countries that don’t necessarily like each other have created mutually beneficial trade deals together.

And then Russia decided to go to war regardless. I’m not sure whether this has shown us that war prevention based on mutual trade is an illusion, or that Russian economic difficulties prove that it works. Maybe time will tell, but in any case I’m not sure the dead will be happy that Russia’s economy will suffer.

I mean, it makes perfect sense that you’re not going to start a war for economic reasons if it’s worse than just trade, but what happens when someone decides that they want war for reasons other than economic. For example, country A has a lot of people with their main nationality in the bordering countries, and someone stirrs up nationalist sentiments and they want their country to ecompass all regions where their nationals live, regardless of economic benefits/drawbacks.

Two texts by Seneca: “On the shortness of life” and “On Providence”. The first one made me rethink the idea of “productivity” and the second one made me better at handling bad situations. But at the time I still felt crushed below the weight of a meaningless world, and then I read “The myth of Sisyphus” by Camus and my mind was blown. It was such an inovative way to deal with a world that doesn’t answer back.

Also “Discourses” of Epictetus. If there ever was a book that was simple, elegant, and usable right away for a better life, this is it. I’d recommend this to everyone.

It’s hard to single out specific works of Plato to stand on their own, I find the most value to be gained by having an overview of his whole philosophy, but “Protagoras” is my favourite dialogue, as it introduces some essential questions as to why are we so careless when taking care of our minds, and how nobody does bad things willingly (which is often repeated by Epictetus). Also the “Apology” is essential because it shows the basic thoughts that guided the greatest philosopher in the west.

The basic idea behind it blew my mind when I heard about it at school the first time, but my god did I struggle to read it. I went statement by statement and only moved to the next if I felt comfortable with the previous one, and gave up eventually. Now that I think about it, it might be helpful to just read through the whole thing and then read it again in chunks, and then again in statements.

Democracy is very weak and that’s why it takes so much to keep it at place. One autocratic leader is enough to break it. We saw it in Germany before the war

It wasn’t “one autocratic leader” who broke democracy in Weimar Germany. Most of the judges, civil servants, parties and people were not happy with the transition from the German empire. Democracy breaks when nobody cares about it anymore. For Germany, this was most evident in the Prussian coup, when the state illegaly replaced the Prussian government, and nothing happened in response. This was taken to court and Prussia did have some success with it, but generally the deed was done. Imagine that during the next US elections it gets decided that California voted for the Republicans, and that goes through without much fuss. That is what causes democracies to fall, apathetic people and institutions, especially the latter. It’s the institutions that stand guard, like in 2019 when the Supreme Court declared Boris Johnson’s suspension of the parliament unlawful.

That’s not to say that democracy isn’t weakening globally, it’s just that this idea that Germany became a dictatorship because this one charismatic leader came and broke democracy is wrong. The Nazis, while not irrelevant in any sense, were not the main driving force behind Weimar Germany before 1933. The very reason Hitler became a chancellor was because the unelected conservative government thought that they could easily control him. The erosion of democracies happens in the institutions and people’s will, the autocratic leader just strikes the final blow.

They make me feel better in general, always, don’t really know why. There’s something cathartic in dark songs and tragic stories. Maybe it makes me more familiar with negative stuff, so it doesn’t pile up over time and then collapse suddenly. Then again, I don’t think I can name 10 songs I listen to often that are happy or positive in any way, so it might be just something I’m attracted to.

Special shout out to Dark Funeral with their songs When I’m Gone, Unchain My Soul, and the very direct My Funeral. These may seem distasteful on their own, but I find them quite calming and relaxing with the music.

While others I just find beautiful, that’s it. Like Wintersun - Land of Snow and Sorrow and Lamb of God - Embers

I held a carrot in my left hand, and tried to cut it along its length with a knife in my right. As I pushed with my right hand, and pulled with my left, the carrot split in two in the middle and one end of it went straight under my fingernail. It hurt.

From that day onwards I cut carrots like a normal human being.