ozymandias
18 Apr 2021
by Percy Shelley I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose
on buying a farm
17 Apr 2021
cato the elder (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Elder) on buying a farm from de agricultura (https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cato/De_Agricultura/A*.html) When you are
wealth distribution
13 Apr 2021
let’s return to a recurring fixture in the startup/tech space, paul graham. previously I noted (https://plantimals.org/posts/how-you-know/) the idea of building up a mental model of some worthy
beksinski
12 Apr 2021
I find myself returning to the theme of dreams and dreaming. when I come across art that has this quality it arrests my attention and I feel obliged to let it sink in. for example, my recent post ex
ceramic
11 Apr 2021
we live in a time great innovation in distributed systems. bitcoin, ethereum, IPFS, and many others worth tracking. self-sovereign identity (SSI)
ex oblivione by hp lovecraft
10 Apr 2021
trying to communicate the ultimate subjective experience, dreams, is a worthy goal. to that end, I reproduce here a short story by hp lovecraft, which has entered the public domain. for more of these
feed friday: 1729
9 Apr 2021
1729 is ramanujan’s number (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_%28number%29). 1729 is now also the name of Balaji S. Srinivasan (https://balajis.com/)’s new project
diffusion limited aggregation
8 Apr 2021
some algorithms have an attraction. beyond the straightforward utility of providing a measurable solution to a highly defined problem, some of them are satisfying analogs of natural processes, or
ipfs pinning service api
7 Apr 2021
I still owe you a detailed introduction to IPFS, as promised in my post centralized fragility (https://plantimals.org/posts/centralized-fragility/), and that is on its way. in the mean time, for
the revelations begin
6 Apr 2021
I discovered the works of erik hoel (https://www.erikphoel.com/writing.html), specifically his article “will the bitcoin bubble pop? or will it envelope us all?” which I wrote about previously
six spotted tiger beetle
5 Apr 2021
I spotted this beast yesterday and was able to approach close enough to take a picture of it eating something. if you can identify the prey, please let me know. it looks like an ant or a spider, but
phase changes
4 Apr 2021
pattern language entry: phase change the organization of matter progresses through a series of changes depending upon the temperature and pressure present. these changes are through a series of
360 experiments
3 Apr 2021
I’ve been tinkering with VR after getting an oculus quest 2 for christmas. I’ve previously mentioned using the aframe (https://plantimals.org/posts/a-frame/) library to spin up basic content
feed friday: schneier on security
2 Apr 2021
this week’s feed friday is bruce schneier’s blog: website: https://www.schneier.com/ (https://www.schneier.com/) feed: https://www.schneier.com/feed/atom/ (https://www.schneier.com/feed/atom/)
mountains of possibility
1 Apr 2021
sometimes twitter brings fodder for interesting conversation. I’m down on centralized social media a lot lately, but I’ve enjoyed it over the last 11 years, and still occasionally get some
samizdat
31 Mar 2021
get started fast with IPFS. self-publish a markdown document that renders into html and is hosted on the inter-planetary file system by pinata.cloud. link a domain name to it. access it via gateways.
networking
30 Mar 2021
the concept of networking gets thrown around a lot. I think the importance of it is often lost in the throw-away phraseology. it is not an accident that this word also applies to other things.
pater patriæ by h l mencken
29 Mar 2021
originally published in 1918, this work of H L Mencken is in the public domain If George Washington were alive today, what a shining mark he would be for the whole camorra of uplifters,
century books
28 Mar 2021
the phrase it’s better to read 100 books 10 times than 1,000 books once is stuck in my imagination. for every book I read I use a 3x5 card as a bookmark and note on it when I started and when I
the sovereign individual
27 Mar 2021
I enjoy using the imagery of Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception (https://www.amazon.com/Doors-Perception-Heaven-Hell/dp/0061729078?tag=plantimals-20) line describing every human group as a
feed friday: the vance crowe podcast
26 Mar 2021
I’ve known vance since 2012 when we crossed paths at a startup weekend here in st.louis. we are so different that we’re almost identical. we’ve been throwing lit matches into the bog of culture
the momentous dichotomy
25 Mar 2021
david deutsch has boomed through the skies of my memesphere on numerous occasions, but never in way that caused me to pause long enough to take on his ideas. but this time, something is different.
shaun newman
24 Mar 2021
on Monday I had a conversation with Shaun Newman (https://www.shaunnewmanpodcast.com/), which he recorded and published on this wednesday’s episode of The Shaun Newman Podcast
reverse memory palace
23 Mar 2021
the memory palace, or method of loci, is a procedure for committing a sequence of details, points to make in a speech for example, to memory such that they can be recalled when delivering the speech.
nabokov
22 Mar 2021
I lifted this quote from here (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/217044-just-as-the-universal-family-of-gifted-writers-transcends-national): Just as the universal family of gifted writers transcends
hierarchical thought
21 Mar 2021
working memory limits us to the number of concrete details we can hold in our minds at any one time. depending on the type of detail, the consensus is somewhere between 4 and 10, usually quoted at 7.
dagon
20 Mar 2021
by HP Lovecraft from the public domain I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone
feed friday: cal newport
19 Mar 2021
welcome to the second installment of feed friday. this week’s subject crosses the streams with both a blog and a podcast feed. he also has several books, appearances on other podcasts, etc. cal
how you know
18 Mar 2021
Paul Graham is the founder of Y-combinator (https://www.ycombinator.com/) and someone I enjoy checking in on over the years. there are some writers who have a consistent enough subject matter and
digital commonwealth
17 Mar 2021
I am always looking for sources of novel thinking. so if you have some you think I would like, send it to me. I read an article describing a theory of dreams, which is extended to explain
moderation in infrastructure
16 Mar 2021
the balkanization of the internet has been discussed for decades, but it may finally be upon us. the highly centralized public cloud providers are caught in the dilemma of how to handle their
works
15 Mar 2021
in order to make the various projects I’ve accumulated over the years more accessible, I’ve linked to them from a single page, accessible from the front page of plantimals.org
a-frame
14 Mar 2021
another day another fascinating javascript library. as much as it pains me to say it, there’s definitely a pattern here. virtual reality has been five years away from mainstream adoption for 25
mermaid.js
14 Mar 2021
markdown (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) is a wonderful technology. so I was excited when a colleague told me there was a markdown language for graphs. mermaid
attention
13 Mar 2021
attention is your bandwidth for changing the universe @plantimals (nostr:note1dy6m89lwmdm3rvd8m59x7devgw6jj03wthepp4mst2mqxax58eys2ye9hs) human attention is the most valuable quantity yet known to
feed friday: the jim rutt show
12 Mar 2021
no traditions like new traditions. introducing: feed friday, in which I introduce an RSS feed that I follow and suggest why readers might also be interested in following. the feed could be any kind
long-form content
11 Mar 2021
when I use the term “long-form content”, I am referring to writing, and sometimes to podcasting, which takes the time to develop an idea, to establish with the consumer of the content a rapport,
tinukajazojipodi
10 Mar 2021
a few years ago my daughter asked the question “what is programming?” she was quite young at the time, and heard me referencing the skill for one reason or another. so rather than just explain
centralized fragility
9 Mar 2021
without realizing it, we have added a layer to phone numbers. most people don’t remember the digits of other people’s numbers anymore, and some of us struggle even to remember our own at times,
really simple syndication
8 Mar 2021
I am immediately distrustful of claims made of simplicity or honesty. usually these properties are self-evident. truly simple or honest people/ideas don’t need to be labeled as such. but
fractal localism
6 Mar 2021
The best way to summarize Fractal Localism … is by its opposite: abstract universalism. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Principia Politica Principia Politica is a nascent work (available in draft form
gardener vs gardened
5 Mar 2021
concerns over internet centralization have been present since before it was released to the public. some of those concerns proved to be hyperbolic, some have been prophetic. AOL was once criticized
character
9 Jun 2020
he does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the universe has in store for him - doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. for we carry our fate with us, and it carries
timefulness
26 May 2020
the Long Now Foundation (http://longnow.org/), a worthy subject in itself, brought Marcia Bjornerud’s book Timefulness to my attention. I was immediately interested by the prospect of reading a
logistic landscapes
13 May 2020
the logistic landscapes are a series of images captured from the logistic map bifurcation diagram. the diagram is generated as a sequence of vertical slices of the diagram rendered by a custom
collected wisdoms
9 Feb 2020
He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the universe has in store for him - doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us, and it carries
we carry our fate
8 Feb 2020
He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the universe has in store for him - doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us, and it carries
bridge of chaos
7 Feb 2020
A snapshot from the logistic map, in the neighborhood of r = (3.65,3.7).
textures
22 Sep 2019
460 mya 6 ya
Rob Long
21 Sep 2019
tilt-shift st.louis introduction I live in St.Louis, Missouri, where I am focused on industrial genomics (the organization of large-scale datasets for biotechnology), distributed systems, web3, RSS,
