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RFC 3514 “evil bit” header flag to the rescue: https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3514/

It seems like a simplified prisoners’ dilemma: it’s missing the negative weight if everybody presses red.

“The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies.”

The Aenid, Virgil, Dryden translation.

Multi-paragraph quotation repeats the opening quote in every paragraph, but closes the quote only once.[0]

Traffic signs repeat after every intersection, similarly.

It's a great help in recovering the "parser state" in my mind.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_marks_in_English#Quo...

"I think this was a powerful lesson on the dangers of AI. Which by the way means 'love' in Chinese."

Elon Tusk, Rick and Morty, S4E4: https://youtu.be/xQHCz9ZZorA?t=129

I was curious, and you’re right. It would be Cargo Culting then, if we believed the ritual actually had an effect on Pratchett in the afterlife.

Does “saying the name lest he be forgotten” classify as Cargo Cult?

Urbit, is this you?

It’s neat. I wonder if someone attempted detecting a graph coloring problem to replace it with a constant.

Plot twist: this universe (planet) was created in order to reverse engineer what the prompt of the previous one was.

Agree.

cargo-culting Stack Overflow

What do you mean by this? I understand “cargo-culting” as building false idols, e.g. wooden headphones and runways to attract airplanes that never come.

Valid. Maybe something can be learned from using them more frequently, either by the maker or by the user.

“The office according to The Office” by Venkatesh Rao has the “clueless” act as gatekeepers between “sociopaths” and “losers”:

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

“The Datasaurus Dozen”:

https://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2017/05/the-datasaurus-...

Would the license help to prevent an AI training on the example code?

Your blog reminded me of “Linear RPG”: you run along a line to collect XP. It’s a flash game.

https://sophiehoulden.com/games/thelinearrpg/

Reminds me of Aftertext, which uses backward references to apply markup to earlier parts of the data.

Think about how this could be done recursively, and how scoping could work to avoid spaghetti markup.

Aftertext: https://breckyunits.com/aftertext.html

I do the same. Doing HR’s job is not my job. And yet, some how I do. If I rated any satisfaction metric below 80% my manager’s manager would have him talk to me; there would be flogging until morale improves. It seems all a game of Emperor’s New Clothes.

If your mitochondria have bird DNA and your nucleus has bird DNA, then you’re a bird.

There’s an easier way. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) that only and rarely is observed in Japanese can extend human lifespan greatly. Flip a single base pair. This seems the most promising first step for genetically engineering humans.

Yes. Afaik from Nick Lane’s “Oxygen” the Cytochrome Oxidase made from the mitochondrial DNA have to match the Cytochrome C made from nuclear DNA. Even slight mismatch seems to lower mitochondrial performance and is a problem why heteroplasmy (mixing of mitochondria from father and mother) seems to be selected-out.

Reminds me of Urbit. Maybe a HURD server, too.

I see the mountain of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” coming into view.

The approach replaces Confluence instruction pages with semi-interactive walkthroughs (the conscious side).

The other side is test automation: it starts with a big ball of overfitted Xpaths and undocumented steps. Those get re-discovered every time the application changes (the subconscious side).

Hopefully, we reach the summit where we can execute quickly and still know how we got there and why.

Thank you. I used to fancy MFFAM for it’s seeming cleverness. But tobacco taxing basically does the same. And you could literally pave a road with its residue of good intentions. We’d all be hosting CSAM and pour the revenue into government programmes, but we don’t, because we know it to be more effective to prevent damage than trying to fix it afterwards.

Link to examples: https://gitlab.com/rosie-pattern-language/rosie/-/blob/maste...

“Please describe your greatest weakness“

I memorized to reply with “I have a weakness for Italian pasta.”

Even though you may be tempted to reply with “You fight like a cow.”

The strategy is as simple as it is disturbing: rewarding screen time with financial incentives.

This is just work in IT.

The book I have at hand is called "成语故事 Geschichten von chinesischen Sprichwörtern". It's parallel German and Chinese. ISBN 978-7-119-06018-7 Published by CBT China Book Trading GmbH www.cbt-chinabook.de

You recognized it. Tamarian does exactly that.

There's a subclass of 成语 the sense of which you can't even guess at unless you know the story:

- 塞翁失马 (Sai Weng Shi Ma) - Old man loses horse; a 5-fold story of riches-to-rags-to-riches-to-rags-to-riches = life is unpredictable

- 自相矛盾 (Zi Xiang Mao Dun) - Resemble spear and shield = unstoppable force meets indestructible object

The latter is so common that 矛盾 (Mao Dun) is the dictionary entry for "contradiction" in Chinese and Japanese.

Because 矛盾 is so common, the story 自相矛盾 (=etymology) gets taught only later to native speakers. Similarly, consider the surprising etymology of word "rob", deriving from "robe" [1].

Consider also: - "Seven at One Blow" [2] = bamboozle

This proverb everyone knows, yet nobody uses it. It only cumbersomely embeds in a sentence; "bamboozle" is briefer. But 成语 do easily embed in Chinese or any phrase does in Tamarian.

1: https://www.etymonline.com/word/robe 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brave_Little_Tailor

Brevity is key for words that aid thinking.

Consider Chinese 成语 (Chengyu) [1] or Japanese 四字熟語 (Yo Ji Juku Go) [2]: - 指桑骂槐 (Zhi Sang Ma Huai) - Pulling the shoots to make the rice grow = helicoptering - 拔苗助长 (Ba Miao Zhu Zhang) - Point at the mulberry tree to curse the locust tree = deflective criticism

These condense a whole story with moral lesson in them, and they facilitate recall of that concept. The trick is omission of everything but 4 characters from the whole story. Sometimes they're just an enumeration:

- 柴米油盐 （Chai Mi You Yan) Firewood, Rice, Oil, Salt = essential things for everyday life - 都道府県 (To Dou Fu Ken) all 4 types of Jap. prefecture = everywhere

I think brevity is key for words that aim at aiding thinking. All languages allow composition; consider "Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher". But only if the word is short, can you quickly cast your thought into its form (as if speaking) and proceed to compose it with the next thought. You do this until your individual mental capacity runs out.

It's also very important that others know the concept. I find myself often refer to "that scene in Wolf of Wallstreet where Belfort _really safely_ drives his Lamborghini home"[3] to express "power is nothing without control". I wish there was a briefer word for it yet.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yojijukugo 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1huYsSOYlVo

Related: South-pointing chariot, 5th century BC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South-pointing_chariot