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Cake day: September 23rd, 2023

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  • I made a serious attempt at using ed(1) for a few weeks. Read the book by Michael Lucas and everything. In the end, I kind of do want to see the file I’m editing, etc. But, some features, or lack of features, stuck with me. Do I need a menu item to count words in the file? That’s why we have wc -w after all. This can be said about a lot of functionality built into editors. It made me really appreciate the idea of programs that do one thing, and can be combined. But yes, in the end it was too much for me, mostly because I’m not good enough with coreutils.







  • I have noticed a pattern in myself, which I suspect could be true for others too. Namely, that I am much more likely to care about someone if the feeling is mutual. On a rational level, I can recognize that this or that person has had a bad time and deserve better, and I want to help them, but if they are hostile or indifferent to me, I kind of stop caring. And vice versa, if I feel that someone cares about me, I will care a lot about them. If this is the case for two people, it can quickly spiral either towards more mutual caring, or more mutual indifference.
    Now here’s the tricky part, how do we influence this trajectory? The only way I can think of is to care even if the other person isn’t caring back. Polarizing language can feel good, to assert yourself when you feel hurt, but… is it helpful or detrimental for the bigger picture? It’s so circular and self-reinforcing. So hard to escape.
    I get the feeling that many people argue that “well, when they start treating me right, then I will start treating them right, but until then I don’t care”, and sure, I understand that feeling. But the feeling is probably mutual.


  • In Phaedrus, Socrates talks about the invention of writing:
    “it will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.”