2025-05-23
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[[Bookmarked]]:
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Review of The Commune Form: The Transformation of Everyday Life by Kristin Ross
- tags: [[Paris Commune]]. [[Communes]].
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Review of Josh Simons’ Book "Algorithms for the People – Democracy in the Age of AI"
- tags: [[digital ecosocialism]]. [[AI]]. [[Algorithms]].
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Beyond the New Municipalism: Towards Post‐Capitalist Territorial Sovereignty in the Case of Hernani Burujabe
- tags: [[new municipalism]]. [[Post-capitalism]]. [[Territorial sovereignty]].
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Techno-feudalism or Platform Capitalism? Conceptualising the Digital Society
- tags: [[platform capitalism]]. [[technofeudalism]].
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Review of The Commune Form: The Transformation of Everyday Life by Kristin Ross
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Read: [[Another Now]]
- Hmm, take back my original comment a bit (see [[2025-05-18]]).
- It’s taken a turn into pretty dry dialogue as a vehicle for exposition of the ideas. Earlier on it felt a bit more… dynamic.
- Still, the ideas are interesting nonetheless.
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Read: [[Techno-feudalism or Platform Capitalism? Conceptualising the Digital Society]]
- Good look at various claims that current Big Tech platforms have ‘killed’ capitalism and turned it into something worse ([[technofeudalism]], [[vectoralism]], etc).
- [[Jeremy Gilbert]]‘s opinion is no, it’s still capitalism, rather a new ‘[[regime of accumulation]]‘ - i.e. [[platform capitalism]].
- Fine. But it all strikes me as a bit internal nitpicking. Does it actually help us do anything about it?
- I think the argument would be, yes, you kind of need to understand precisely what it is in order to counter it.
- Maybe.
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Today was a good day!
- Lots happened at work, some of which I dreaded to some small degree without noticing it, most of which went fine and some of which I enjoyed.
- And then the evening back home with [[Lady Burup]] was beautiful.
- Did [[paperwork]] for the divorce and such, which felt freeing.
- In the morning I met [[Eduardo Alberto]] who will do a deep cleaning of my home soon; it’s the first time since I move (I self-clean, and I’m a pretty good "Pareto" cleaner, but don’t do deep very well).
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I thought of:
- [[magnets]] and [[angular momentum]]
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[[Open Letter to Lex Fridman]]
- motivated by his (to me overdue) conversation with [[Max Tegmark]], who I realized today is very aware about [[Moloch]]!
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[[Open letters]] in general:
- I’ve decided, or realized (or both), that one of the reasons I tend to under perform when writing letters is… because I don’t dedicate enough time to it, as in actually planning for it and making time.
- I decided to set a "soft deadline" of [[August 15th]] for writing to Lex, given that it’s his birthday! We’re both from 1983.
- That made me look Max Tegmark’s birthday as well and it was recently, on [[May 5th]]. He’s from 1967 so I’ll associate him with 67 (currently meaning also: light and Amitabha).
2025-05-21
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I like magnets — some [[ideas]]:
- [[magnetic computing]]
- [[magnetic 3d printing]]
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[[magnetic assists]]
- In general magnetism seems like an amazing way to transfer momentum?
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[[magnetic gears]]
- As in the little devices I’ve built
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Today (actually yesterday) I saw a great video on the [[principle of least action]] and it blew my mind a bit. It also introduced me to diffraction grating effects — which I had heard about but hadn’t grokked/seen demonstrated.
- The fact that angular momentum is quantized… wow. Also it introduced me to [[diffraction gratings]], which I had heard of only in passing.
- And angular momentum has the same unit as action: Joule-second.
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This all made me think also of…
- Could you use diffraction gratings at astronomic scales to see into the past? E.g. by making visible light from a star that has taken a longer (slower) path to get to us.
- The effect that makes lights ‘stretch out’ in one direction in some mediums, like water (think of night lights reflected on a lake) or… the effect that is apparent in my chrome kitchen countertop that is quite something and I sometimes call the [[rainbow folding]]). I’m unsure if these are really related but something about the discussion about the paths that light can take made me think of it.
- All in all I really enjoy thinking about [[physics]] as of late.
- -> [[Action principles]] and [[Lagrangian]] are both interesting over at Wikipedia.
- Noding from work after a while! I spend a lot of time here writing but for obvious reasons I don’t tend to write in the Agora while at it. Still, I would like to take up the habit again of writing more journals so I thought I’d give it a shot.
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I met [[Stapelberg]] for lunch as we often do on Mondays and it was great.
- I heard of an upcoming [[nix hackathon]] from him.
- Now I have a bunch of meetings upcoming; more than planned (as it tends to happen). I’ll try to make the most of it, and still protect enough time blocks that I can do what I intended to get done during the workday (without going too late into the night).
2025-05-18
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[[Read]]: [[Another Now]]
- Fiction by [[Yanis Varoufakis]]. Really enjoying it so far. The plot is obviously a bit forced, a vehicle just to share his political ideas. But it’s a fun way to explore those ideas.
- The 80s and [[Thatcherism]]. [[Miners’ strike]]. [[Wapping dispute]].
- [[Anarcho-syndicalism]].
- I started this Saturday earlier than usual by waking up at 9am and going to a 10am event in my neighborhood about urban planning :) It was pretty interesting!
- Then did some shopping, meditated and now (as of around midday) I’m starting the day in earnest; drinking [[gyokuro]] and planning the day.
- I hope to [[flow]] all day!
2025-05-17
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Finished [[Platform Capitalism]] (audiobook).
- I’ll need to give it another listen, as not all of it went in - listening while distracted.
- But seemed good. A lot more academic than [[Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism?]]. The latter was more engaging, but (maybe?) less rigorous. I appreciate this book’s succinctness.
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Some things that stuck out from this listen:
- It has a good historical overview of where platforms came from and how they came to dominate.
- It has a useful typology of platforms.
- Platforms primarily gain their advantages from data.
- Trying to force platform capitalists to respect privacy is impossible - it’s part of their DNA.
- Over time platforms try to control the whole stack.
- Over time, platforms slowly converge to offering the same services.
- There’s a tiny bit at the end on possible ways to counter platform dominance. Very small, but worth noting.
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[[Public platforms]].
2025-05-14
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[[platform capitalism]].
- It’s all about the [[data]].
2025-05-10
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Learned about [[chezmoi]] from [[Flancian]]‘s note about it yesterday.
- Looks good and something that would be handy to me in principle.
- I’m currently keeping my dotfiles just in a git repo.
- However, it also looks like a new thing to learn and set up. So it’ll have to wait for now. But good to know about.
- It looks like people are using it with Termux successfully, so that’s useful.
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Learned of the existence of the native [[Linux Terminal app for Android]].
- h/t: https://github.com/orgzly-revived/orgzly-android-revived/discussions/562
- However, it don’t believe it will ever be available for my Pixel 5a.
- So I’ll be sticking with [[Termux]].
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[[Bookmarked]]:
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I just resolved all [[chezmoi]] conflicts in [[paramita]] and it felt a bit like glory honestly. I also cleaned up the repository in a variety of ways. It took about 20 minutes and it felt very freeing.
- I then launched [[nvim]] and it worked after being broken in this machine still; all my modules got auto-installed immediately and it felt like living in the future, which of course I do in many ways being very privileged (and remembering [[William Gibson]]…).
- And of course I spoke just a little too soon, somehow Markdown mode in [[wikivim]] is not quite perfect for some reason :)
2025-05-09
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[[Bookmarked]]:
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What will the new world order look like? Fractures Session 1
- and https://nextcloud.tni.org/s/XkYotZHmzGXfd2m
- [[geopolitics]]. [[Imperialism]]. [[China]]. [[United States]].
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WEBINAR: Engineering the Cloud Commons: Tackling Monopoly Control of Critical Digital Infrastructure — Open Markets Institute
- tags: [[Cloud computing]]. [[Cloud commons]].
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Challenging corporate power | Ethical Consumer
- tags: [[Corporate power]].
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Where is our clothing made? | Ethical Consumer
- tags: [[Clothing]]. [[supply chains]].
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What will the new world order look like? Fractures Session 1
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En [[Sevilla]]!
- Para la [[Feria de Sevilla]] con [[BA]].
- Mientras escribo esto, estoy leyendo [[Zelazny]] en una cafetería cerca del departamento donde me estoy quedando.
- Naturalmente empecé a escribir en Español de nuevo después de usarlo más algunos días acá y antes en [[Granada]].
2025-05-06
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[[Bookmarked]]:
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We’ve been watching [[Andor]].
- It’s very good.
2025-05-04
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[[Tweaking Doom Emacs to use SPC SPC]].
- Much nicer than SPC-: on a phone.
- [[My Doom Emacs config]].
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We shouldn’t focus so heavily on recycling.
- ‘We’ meaning society, and here specifically the UK. But probably other countries too.
- [[The UK should not focus so heavily on recycling]].
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We should put more focus higher up the waste hierarchy.
2025-05-03
- A potted history of [[My usage of GNU/Linux over the years]].
- [[2025-05-01]]: [[International Workers Day]] was nice, although I didn’t sleep very well and I had to pack/do things in the house to prepare for travel so I left the festivities relatively early in the afternoon after attending with friends.
- As I write this I’m in the [[Zürich airport]] waiting to board my flight to Málaga for a week in southern Spain.
- Worked today, essentially half day as I had to get a small surgical intervention — a mole that was growing fast on my face for some reason. Had to send it for biopsy but the doctor said it looked benign.
- Then I met my friend [[June]].
- And then came back home to my [[Lady Burup]]!
2025-04-30
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As predicted, I couldn’t make the first teach-in of the [[Fractures: Internationalist teach-ins]] series.
- The topic was "What will the new world order look like?"
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l4/l5 [[dorsomedial]] [[discus hernia]]:
- is what I have, or had 7-8 years ago, although I’ve since recovered from symptoms and no longer live with pain.
2025-04-29
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I signed up for the [[Fractures: Internationalist teach-ins]] webinar series by [[Transnational Institute]].
- It looks good.
- Doubtful how many I’ll be able to watch live. But hopefully can catch them on catch up.
- The [[Digital Capitalism online course]] by TNI was great. I like them.
- [[Free]]!
- [[25]] means [[Consciousness]] in the [[Flancia Pattern Language]], or ‘focus on your focus’/’be aware of your awareness’ (five squared).
- [[Work]] was fine, I did a tricky expense report (tricky because of a bug) and advanced further business travel plans. Also was oncall.
- [[Plitnyakovo]]
- I was part of the [[Bitwäscherei]]/[[SGMK]] [[Easter Hack]] this long weekend and it was great! Met interesting people, and was able to focus well on tasks I had long deferred, partly because of being surrounded by people also focused on their projects.
- Also spent Easter Sunday with friends and their family, it was very nice!
- Still noding actions in [[2025]].
2025-04-21
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OK, finally sorted out that issue I’ve had for a while: [[File error: Getting attributes, Permission denied, /run/user/1001/emacs]]
- It was because when I was logging in as the second user, I wasn’t using a full login shell.
- i.e.
su neil
when I needed to usesu - neil
.
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Windows 10 reaching end of life after 10 years is fine. Windows 11 hardware requirements not supporting a whole raft of perfectly adequate machines is NOT acceptable.
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[[TPM 2.0]]. [[Secure Boot]].
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Noding from [[bull]] again after some updates :)
- As I’m writing this I’m in [[Bitwäscherei]] enjoying the beautiful afternoon sun while I’m around people who are hacking. It’s lovely!
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Fixed [[wikivim]] on neovim :)
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Yep, even bulleted lists :)
- I can even use tab and shift-tab to indent/dedent!
- It took a few tries but now vim feels like a nice Agora noding environment again, in particular in the computer where I now have my development environment up — [[tara]].
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Yep, even bulleted lists :)
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Back again after sleep :)
- I have a nice focus day in front of me; I’ll try to get through a varied task list that I will keep partly here and partly on the back of an envelope that I intend to burn at the end of the day.
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Spoke to my mum!
- She found some books that belonged to my grandfather, [[Bargalló]].
- Liked [[፨]].
<<<<<<< HEAD
- [[Chasing Moloch]] =======
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My [[noding]] has become erratic :) In particular my journaling is less consistent than before.
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Introspecting, this seems to be because of a combination of causes (as usual):
- I have been spending time in working around computer bugs (like [[karuna]] crashing, my work keyboard being temporarily bricked by a firmware update, etc.) and working.
- I lost or temporarily misplaced my [[default environment]], meaning the computer+workspace that I prefer for noding in the absence of temporary factors like being at some other computer.
- I have been keeping mental context elsewhere, like [[snippets]] at work and physical papers around the house and the office.
- I now will try to regain consistency.
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Introspecting, this seems to be because of a combination of causes (as usual):
9d5ee8f3b77c2b49c4dd0870222d963ca17bb258
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Mi [[mamá]] me contó de la vez en que mi papá le pegó, ella hizo la denuncia en la comisaría antes de escaparse a la casa de los padres y los hijos de puta de la comisería llamaron a mi papá y le avisaron para que la fuera a buscar.
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Mi [[tío]] desapareció tres días después de que mi papá (que era de la derecha peronista) lo llevó a un embarcadero de Tigre a una reunión de montoneros.
- -> [[7 de enero de 1977]].
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Mi [[tío]] desapareció tres días después de que mi papá (que era de la derecha peronista) lo llevó a un embarcadero de Tigre a una reunión de montoneros.
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Good day at work!
- Started cycling season by biking to work, which was great :)
- Then good progress on some fronts, and a pleasant evening at home with Lady Burup and working a bit more.
- Thinking about the future in a pleasant way.
- TIL about [[Mahasthamaprapta]], one of the two attendants of [[Amida Nyorai]]/[[Amitabha]] with [[Avalokiteshvara]]! Gemini told me about them, a.k.a. [[Dashizhi]] in feminine form.
2025-04-11
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[[Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism?]]
- Describes [[Bitcoin]]‘s initial promise and excitement around it, even from those on the left as a potentially [[liberatory technology]].
- But ultimate disappointment as it became another means of capital accumulation for the already powerful.
2025-04-10
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[[Listened]]: [[platform capitalism]]
- Started it on [[libro.fm]].
- Seems like a good thematic follow on from [[Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism?]] (PC came first of course).
2025-04-09
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[[Listened]]: [[Will Trump’s tariffs tip the world into recession?]]
- Answer seems to be: possibly, yes.
- I must call the [[veterinary]] (for a checkup)
- Life goes on! I try to enjoy it.
- It was great catching up with friends more as of late, online and offline.
- Work is tough/intense but OK; I’ve been feeling productive and I’m looking forward to working more on some projects.
- -> [[next action]]
2025-04-08
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[[Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings]].
- Some hope, courtesy of [[Ursula K. Le Guin]].
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[[Listened]]: [[Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism?]]
- Varoufakis has thought out a detailed approach for an alternative future.
- Only touched on briefly here, but he has a whole other (fiction) book, Another Now, which explores it further.