The Truth About AI: A Secular Ghost Story https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/12/20/the-truth-about-ai-a-secular-ghost-story/

The Climate Event That Helped Create ‘Frankenstein’ and the Bicycle https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/10/25/year-without-summer/

Today is Christmas Eve. Celebrate with Christmas Adam.

Today is Christmas Eve. Celebrate by casting elaborate home-made gifts into the roiling surf & watching them be smashed against the rocks by the wrath of Neptune.

Every once in a while I’m reminded that Cory Doctorow is a brilliant & deep thinker. This interview is one of those times: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/15/first-days-better-nations.html

The Intelligent Organization, PART I Stafford BEER // Javier Livas - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7COX-b3HK50

Don Knuth - Constraint Based Composition - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_1a6bHGQGo

Building composable abstractions - Eric Normand - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJIUoaIvD20

TempleOS | Down the Rabbit Hole - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCgoxQCf5Jg

Hack.lu 2018 LT: GNUNet: You Broke The Internet? Let’s Make A GNU One! - sva - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CdHfySAPas

How ‘90s Cybersex Pioneers Looked for Action and Found Community https://gizmodo.com/how-90s-cybersex-pioneers-looked-for-action-and-found-c-1831079932

Search https://qz.com/1501725/polyamorous-sex-is-the-most-quietly-revolutionary-political-weapon-in-the-united-states/

Band name of the day: rat nausea

Band name of the day: urgent lumps

Spotify’s ‘release radar’ seems to use artist name instead of artist ID, which is annoying now that there are mediocre french soundcloud rappers named Devo and Rush

Dissecting Log Horizon: The Great, The Good, The Okay 1st Arc [Pt. 2] - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljDzKKp7S5s

Peer to Peer Routing http://ctvr.tcd.ie/undergrad/4ba2.05/group6/index.html

The Rhizome - A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ2rJWwXilw

If ‘Fist of Christmas’ was a real movie, I’d probably watch it. http://aiweirdness.com/post/181322590522/a-very-special-christmas-movie-courtesy-of-a

Timothy May, early advocate of internet privacy, dies - SFChronicle.com https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Timothy-May-early-advocate-of-internet-privacy-13485790.php

Angus Scrimm looks like a guy whose name is fucking Angus Scrimm

I’d love to see Trigger do a Geobreeders series. The premise had so much potential: a multi-generational war between chuunibyos with computer sigils and shape-shifting cats made of radio waves who live on the internet.

EBN - GW1 part 2, Ground War - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHMT6iNb-UU

EBN - GW1 part 1, Air War - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI6XErLBrkA

What are the aethyric ramifications of a live Joe Bob marathon on the solstice? I imagine it must be really fucking up the ley lines.

Experiential Vs. Contemplative Media - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNvoG4qYPuk

Why Does Britain Still Have A Queen? | Philosophy Tube - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2W7P3wGBI8

Bad idea of the day: autonomous self-driving solar-powered vending machines

Periodic reminder that cash is more anonymous than bitcoin (because the serial numbers of bills are not recorded with every transaction). If you want to really be anonymous, do all your buying in quarters, from venting machines

Periodic reminder that even Tim May thought bitcoin hype was out of control: https://www.coindesk.com/enough-with-the-ico-me-so-horny-get-rich-quick-lambo-crypto

Playing with P2P protocols and Firefox http://andregarzia.com/2018/12/playing-with-p2p-protocols-and-firefox.html

I don’t buy this at all. All the political radicals I know have incredibly elaborate meta-cognition and constantly-shifting meta-justifications, because you don’t become radical without curiosity. https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/12/radicals-dont-evaluate-their-mistakes-very-effectively/

Recommended whole-web text replacement: s/man/mom/

If you find yourself mentally replying to the title of an article before the text actually loads, maybe close it, because you’re probably being fucked with.

Free software and the revolt against transactionality https://medium.com/@/free-software-and-the-revolt-against-transactionality-3a44a1b7f96d?source=friends_link&sk=dcc51b815d020b5fb50852ed6844922a

Video games are political. Here’s how they can be progressive | Games | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/aug/13/video-games-are-political-heres-how-they-can-be-progressive

It’s Time For Games To Own Their Politics https://kotaku.com/it-s-time-for-games-to-own-their-politics-1827320727

Elon Musk is the first influencer CEO - The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/21/18150813/elon-musk-influencer-ceo-social-media-tesla-spacex

Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » Lecture notes! Intro to Quantum Information Science https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3943

Topology of Numbers http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/TN/TNpage.html

If it doesn’t work properly with javascript turned off, it’s not really a website. If it doesn’t work properly with css turned off, it’s not really a website. If it doesn’t work properly in a text-only environment, it’s not really a website.

Ambient Cruelty “ Real Life https://reallifemag.com/ambient-cruelty/

I Used The Web For A Day With JavaScript Turned Off “ Smashing Magazine https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/using-the-web-with-javascript-turned-off/

I Used The Web For A Day With Just A Keyboard “ Smashing Magazine https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/07/web-with-just-a-keyboard/

I Used The Web For A Day Using A Screen Reader “ Smashing Magazine https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/12/voiceover-screen-reader-web-apps/

Facebook workers are the only people who can hold the company accountable. https://slate.com/technology/2018/12/facebook-workers-privacy-violation.html

Bad idea of the day: set your terminal font to Brand New Roman before starting to code

Why Your iPhone Selfies Don’t Look Like Your Face - The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/your-iphone-selfies-dont-look-like-your-face/578353/

Bowie Knives, Concealed Rifles, and Caning Charles Sumner https://longreads.com/2018/12/17/bowie-knives-concealed-rifles-and-caning-charles-sumner/

Star Wars is Really a Cautionary Tale About Devoting All Technological Advancements to Death | Tor.com https://www.tor.com/2018/12/17/star-wars-is-really-a-cautionary-tale-about-devoting-all-technological-advancements-to-death/