treebeard
2yr ago
I second this, also Hyperbolica. While Hyperbolica is a fairly simple and short adventure game and wouldn't be interesting without its gimmick, its gimmick is that it takes place in a 3d hyperbolic world (and one area in spherical geometry). Not some top down tessellation like Hyperrogue, but with an actual first person perspective walking around in hyperbolic space. While Hyperrogue is a much more interesting (and challenging) game as far as the gameplay is concerned and probably requires more technical understanding of the properties of hyperbolic geometry to solve its puzzles, I think Hyperbolica does a better job of actually getting someone to experience hyperbolic (and spherical) geometry, rather than just having an abstract understanding of its properties.
treebeard
2yr ago
It can be pretty wild to hear an ancient text describe a present trend seemingly very well. In the same vein, check out Plato’s Republic on how democratic liberty and equality yield the tyrannical soul
treebeard
2yr ago
Just nitpicking a little bit, but Matthew 5:21-22 says:
"21 You have heard that it was said to the ancient ones: 'You shall not murder, he who murders will be subject to judgment'. 22 But I say unto you, Everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment, and he who says to his brother 'raca!' will be subject to the Sanhedrin and he who says 'fool!' will be subject to the fire of Gehenna".
In context it seems clear that this text is meant to generalize the commandment against murder to acting angry and contemptuous, which if unchecked and allowed to fully come to fruition, will end in murder. It's pretty obviously not intended to be a literal rule about a specific word. In fact, Jesus himself in the end of the same speech in Matthew 7 describes those who hear his words but do not heed them as being like 'a foolish man, who built his house on the sand'.
treebeard
2yr ago
FWIW some non native speakers can understand and read and sometimes even write English perfectly without being able to speak it well. My master's degree, which I did somewhere in Europe, was in English and got a lot of international students and I've been surprised by this phenomenon a couple of times.
I remember meeting a Ukrainian guy in my program who really struggled having even a basic conversation in English when I first met him, the pronunciation and the grammar were absolutely atrocious, I figured he was going to fail the courses and wondered how he had been allowed in with such poor English. When I was trying to help him with some stuff we communicated a bit via email and to my surprise his emails were written in flawless English. He never struggled writing papers in English and got his degree without any problems (and by the end of it his conversational English was much much better).
Another example from this time was an Indian guy who I could speak with in English without any problems, but he kept making weird grammatical mistakes, both in speaking and in writing. Despite his seeming lack of English skills, he could understand complicated English in an academic context without any problems. There were some issues with poor grammar when writing papers, but again, he got his degree without too much problems.
I understand hydrogen is more difficult to store than regular gas but is it difficult enough that it's ridiculous to store at gas stations? FWIW, there are already some gas stations with hydrogen in Europe Here's a map and I know there are some hydrogen buses being used as well in public transportation. Maybe it will turn out to be too impractical or to expensive to scale it up to the point where everybody rides hydrogen cars or something. I don't know enough about it to tell you how successful these initiatives have been so far, but there are some serious initiatives which currently implement hydrogen as fuel for motor vehicles, both public transport and for private use.
treebeard
2yr ago
Do you think western European cities are particularly dirty of unsafe? I live in a western European city and I've been to central European cities, albeit not specifically in Poland, and I didn't really notice a difference in cleanliness nor did I feel more or less safe to be honest. To test my impression from my own travels, I've looked at google street view at a couple of random places in Warsaw and Berlin and I can't really tell a difference between the cleanliness to be honest.
If you look at e.g. homicide rates there also isn't an obvious difference between Poland and western EU countries. Almost all of Europe has a very low homicide rate and whatever fluctuations there are within Europe do not line up with immigration. So I'm also very doubtful that western EU is significantly less safe compared to Poland.
treebeard
2yr ago
Yeah I think this is a common thing! Coming from the Netherlands, I've heard people from Eastern Europe complain about the cold here. I was confused at first like "bro wtf, it's like -20C right now where you are from, how on earth are you cold here?!", but yeah, if you don't go outside too much and you crank up that thermostat indoors, I guess the Netherlands is effectively colder in the winter.
Likewise, I've experienced the opposite going to Norway in the winter. Everywhere inside was uncomfortably warm and stuffy for me. I prefer a bit of fresh air and 19C indoor temperatures all day.... But I guess that's harder to manage when it's -25C outside, compared to when it's 5C.
The comments on the youtube video seem to suggest that this song is actually serious and not a parody, unless everybody in the comments is doing a great job of keeping up kayfabe or something.... I understand it's a song and they are using hyperbole in a lot of the statements in a sort "fuck it we'll just double down on all the dumb shit we're accused of" type of way, but I genuinely can't fathom a song containing the lyric "everyone's a fascist till they're all controlled" not being a parody. As in, if somebody made a song with that line as a parody to ridicule antifascists I wouldn't have thought it funny because it would seem too blunt to me.....
EDIT: It is actually a parody ridiculing the left. I quickly skimmed through a few comments on the vid and didn't see anything immediately indicating it was being interpreted as a parody (stuff like 'they don't want people to wake up, so they can keep controlling them' is something which can be said by both tribes), but having skimmed through some more comments due to the replies I got, it is indeed ridiculing the left. I'm not exactly honoring my username having been a bit too hasty here......
treebeard
2yr ago
I don't support the use of strategies like apps that automatically cut off your access during certain times of the day. Nietzsche once said something to the effect of, "only the weak man wants to pluck out his eyes to avoid looking at lustful things". It's a sentiment I agree with. Any solution that "forces" you to reduce browsing time is just putting a band-aid over the problem. The goal is to fundamentally reconfigure your desires and dispositions so they're more naturally aligned with your actual goals.
While your post in general is very relatable to me, I don't think I agree with this point. I don't care particularly about whether or not to use these specific tools you mention, but rather I object to the underlying idea of the statement. I think setting rules for yourself and limiting your exposure to 'temptations' is a key element in building healthier habits. I agree the end goal should be to reconfigure your desires and dispositions to something better, but I think strictly and systemically adhering to rules you set yourself to limit your exposure to the internet is a useful tool in changing those desires and dispositions. The desires and dispositions, to some extent, follow the habits in my experience, and less so the other way around.
I don't think it is any more complex than Amazon simply throwing money at a franchise which is universally known so that it is very likely to draw a large viewership and then producing some generic uninspired series which postures as part of the universally known franchise while pandering to whatever Amazon thinks is the current zeitgeist. On the level of the people who actually produce and write the series there may be some conscious ideological commitment, but on the corporate level where the decision to make this series was actually made, I doubt it is more than just pure indifference to franchise itself and a simple desire to make money.
Also, it is pretty ironic that a multinational tech giant is working with Tolkien material, when Tolkien himself was a bit of a Luddite and a localist.
treebeard
2yr ago
I am currently reading 'Aristotle's Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundation of Physical and Biological Science' by Edward Feser. It basically argues that modern science implies Aristotelian metaphysics, rather than the mechanistic worldview which has become dominant in the West since the 18th century.
I don't really know what to expect from this book to be honest. I came across Edward Feser's blog some time ago and enjoyed some of the stuff he wrote and bought this book on a whim because the subject interests me. So far I'm in the first chapter where he outlines Aristotelian metaphysics, going into Hylemorphism and all that jazz, and he does a fairly good job of explaining some pretty abstract stuff. So far I'm enjoying the book but I a still have to get to the core part where he probably starts arguing for some more controversial stuff.
treebeard
2yr ago
I think you are going to have a hard time finding this. I have a fairly high amount of experience with different denominations in my country, mostly Protestant, but also a bit of Catholic and even a little bit of Orthodox and I've never really seen both elements in the same service. Typically people who like chanting and incense abhor rock concert-esque church services, and the people who enjoy rock concert-esque services think traditional liturgical elements make the church weird and boring and that it will scare away the youth.
I have encountered churches that have these two types of services, but as separate services. For example, I know about an Anglican church that has fairly traditional liturgies in the morning (they have a priest with some Anglo-Catholic leanings), and a 'youth service' in the evening which has more of a rock concert-esque vibe going on. But I've never seen both things happen in the same service.
I think it is mostly a seasonal thing. Living on the continent in similarish climatological conditions to London, I can't count the mosquitoes here in summer and I think Europe has mostly had an extremely mild autumn so far, otherwise you might not have seen any at all this time of year. Also, even before they freeze to death, insects don't thrive too well in colder temperatures, so they will be more sluggish in autumn if they're still around. It might not ever get as bad as India, but in summer there will be way more mosquitoes and they will be way more active.
Also, in my experience folks coming from closer to the equator mostly start getting miserable this time of year as the days grow shorter and the weather gets mostly cold, wet and windy all the time. So it's nice to hear you've found something positive about the colder seasons!
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