Tootfinder

from my link log —
A simple ray tracer written in the meson.build language.
https://github.com/annacrombie/meson-raytracer
saved 2023-11-19 https://

Since it was relevant to a discussion I just had on here and is something most people probably haven't thought about much (unless you've taken one of a handful of philosophy classes), I thought I'd try to lay out a key piece of Descartes' Meditations (#philosophy

Whatever the expectations for the July 7-8 NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey,
the geopolitical situation favors Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan so heavily that he is all but guaranteed to emerge the winner
—if NATO summits can have winners at all.
In the wake of the disastrous Iran war,
both the timing and the venue are highly auspicious.
Donald Trump told reporters that he was coming to Ankara solely for Erdogan
—another small, symbolic victory.
The…

Erdogan Has Laid a Trap in Ankara
No matter what happens at the NATO summit, the Turkish strongman wins.

One thing that really annoys me as a cyclist and as a walker is, when a cyclist approaches from behind and trys to pass..
Next to a street with traffic,
with wind,
with a voice volume that's more like a shy cat.
And THEN getting angry if I don't give the space to pass!
Guys, you - are - NOT - audible!! And I have really good hearing!!
Either
- shout as if it's about your life or
- buy a simple bell (magic!)
- live with the fact t…

I’m not sure what sets us up to have better LMSes, but I don’t think institutions building them in-house is a viable answer.
One long-successful direction I like that has been gaining ground of late is course-specific web sites. I’m cheering the rise of static site generators, and hoping they continue to creep outside the confines of the techiest among us. A course site is not an LMS, but moving course •content• mostly out of the LMS simplifies the problem considerably!
/end

Ask why, and know the answers are unsatisfying and contingent. It made sense at the time. Because we didn't understand yet. Because changing it would certainly break something else and we didn't know what yet and didn't have time to understand it. Yet.
Computers can be understood. Everything that is going on can be peeked at, prodded at, taken apart to know what is going on. Inside every complex system are simpler parts. The complexity comes from the combination of them, not mystery.
I cannot emphasize that enough. Just because you don't know, or nobody you know knows why something is how it is does not mean it is unknowable.

I had a weird dream where I was talking to someone at some kind of ceremony, I think a funeral, where I had timidly painted my face with clay as part of some ritual. This person was talking about how far society has come while our brains have not caught up.
Imagine if your ancient cave dwelling ancestors were dropped into this world of cars, office hours, budgets, climate change, and AI. They would be absolutely freaking out and struggling to understand things all the time... Just like you are now.
Society teaches us to suppress these emotions. You're supposed to be OK with giant metal boxes flying around you in rumbling stampedes, but you feel it in unexplained anxiety. You're supposed to just fit your life into tight little bounds that ignore weather and season, but you feel it in more unexplained anxiety and depression. We are all part of something so big and complicated we can't make sense of it, we cannot possibly comprehend it all, it is simply too much to fully grasp the implications of our individual actions within global capitalism. Should we be surprised by our urge to simply destroy it, by the anger and desire to simply "smash" something far more complex than can be met with simple violence?
Some part of my brain was trying to remind me to be compassionate to myself. Perhaps that reminder can be useful to you as well.

RE: https://flipboard.com/@cbcnews/canada-1akomc2pz/-/a-y07zm2wGSTuMgOEJTVI_Jg:a:107108217-/0
I wrote to the office of the Mayor last week on that shameful behaviour.
The answer I got was super weird …

Punk is the way.
"...stop wasting time, energy, and emotions inside the gigantic, vacant '80s malls all social networks have become."
https://brilliantcrank.com/punk-is-the-way/?ref=brilliantcrank-newsletter

Punk is the way.
Though I know the answer already, my mind sometimes wanders and then wonders if the world is ever going to feel normal again. And the answer is always "nope." There's simply too much change happening all at once and there's no way we're coming out of this with a reset

The States That Will Not Be Commanded
There is a class of human experience that answers to no direct order. You cannot tell yourself to fall asleep. The instruction arrives at a locked door. Sleep refuses the simple transaction of command and execution. Instead, it assembles itself once certain conditions are present, and those conditions include, strangely enough, the act of picturing yourself already inside the state you are trying to enter.

The States That Will Not Be Commanded | David Boles, Blogs
There is a class of human experience that answers to no direct order. You cannot tell yourself to fall asleep. The instruction arrives at a locked door. Sleep refuses the simple transaction of comm…