4/10
4/10
overnighted with descendents of liberation fighters against hereditary parliamentarians. classroom view from whitney balcony & two edward hoppers (self, soir bleu), then house finch, five new yorkers, two reporters, one attendee asked me, "why are you doing this?" an excuse to visit north jersey, i said in my head. "this isn't new jersey transit," amtrak conductor scolded passenger who had boarded the wrong train thus trapped till philadelphia
4/3
visited rosemarie, same age as disney's snow white, the pope, and the national mah jongg league. she dreamt with frank of the five wives she could not find way back across field of upturned earth after open house tour, realty search. construction site worker gave directions & then she woke up. she never has her cell phone when she needs it. in south jersey, they're putting skittles in the water ice, leaf-blowing away golf course rain puddles
read treasure island by robert louis stevenson
the sort of man that made england terrible at sea
his wandering, guilty, and hunted life
"i wish i had put his eyes out!" cried the blind man
i'm to be a poor, crawling beggar, sponging for rum, when i might be rolling in a coach! if you had the pluck of a weevil in a biscuit you would catch them still
hungry as a hawk
for what would they risk their rascal carcases but money?
mutiny, it was plain, hung over us like a thunder-cloud
the hispaniola still lay where she had anchored; but, sure enough, there was the jolly roger - the black flag of piracy - flying from her peak
a sound in their voices which suggested rum
captain smollett made no change in his arrangements. if the mutineers succeeded in crossing the stockade, he argued, they would take possession of any unprotected loophole, and shoot us down like rats
my only plan was to take french leave
"one more step, mr. hands," said i, "and i'll blow your brains out! dead men don't bite, you know"
shiver my timbers
"very pretty wrote, to be sure; like print, i swear. your hand o' write, george? why, you was gettin' quite a leadin' man in this here crew. you'll be cap'n next, i shouldn't wonder. just oblige me with that torch again, will you? this pipe don't draw"
"we'll all swing and sun-dry for your bungling"
the thought of the money, as they drew nearer, swallowed up their previous terrors. their eyes burned in their heads; their feet grew speedier and lighter; their whole soul was bound up in that fortune, that whole lifetime of extravagance and pleasure, that lay waiting there for each of them
he hoped to seize upon the treasure, find and board the hispaniola under cover of night, cut every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had first intended, laden with crimes and riches
"so you've changed sides again"
great heaps of coin and quadrilaterals built of bars of gold
3/27
hydrate after vaccination. happy ides of march, astronomical spring. noah webster opened a book of blank pages, bold penned aardvark at the top left of the first one, and then everything else fell into place. ok so separate from my longstanding contention that rembrandt's the first recognizable human face in recorded history (metric: transported to any age of his life, i could distinguish him from a brother, i've seen enough of his selfies, from every angle, throughout his existence, i'd conversationally assert that i know what rembrandt looks like, and he's the earliest person in time with that distinction), ok so separate from that, i think albrecht dürer's first, last, only person in history who can draw hands. suddenly smiles all around :) ü (:
read..
(1) how steinbeck's adam trask went bankrupt
vast and wintry logistics
with french doors, a design launched in 2001 and known in france as the 'refrigerateur americain'
(2) penalty kicks of chess championships: rapidplay to decide tournament winners
a game built on infinities
the players must reach forty moves within the two hours on their clocks, at which point they are awarded another thirty minutes, with thirty-second increments per move
in 2013, a blindfolded carlsen took on ten harvard-educated lawyers (and amateur chess players) simultaneously, shouting out his moves, holding all ten boards with their evolving stories of 32 pieces in his head. he won all ten games
such experiences become autotelic, as the boundaries between self and activity fade
(3) gregor samsa, a traveling salesman with a different problem
(4) and you know that notion just crossed my mind
however, that jones managed to avert a potentially disastrous crash through his exceptional skill at slowing the engine and saving the lives of the passengers at the cost of his own
a devoted family man and teetotaler
he was so punctual, it was said that people set their watches by him
he raced to the tip of the pilot (cowcatcher) and braced himself on it, reaching out as far as he could to pull the frightened but unharmed girl from the rails. the event was partially spoofed in the brave engineer, in which the hero rescued a damsel from a cliche bandit
old girl's got her dancing slippers on tonight
his watch stopped at the time of impact, 3:52 a.m.
there are no clearly authentic photographs of the famous wreck in existence
as his engine is badly in disrepair he crashes from a bridge, dies and goes to heaven. there st. peter wants him to break a strike of celestial musicians
(5) offline large language models and hackernews thread
local llms are the only future worth living in
the biggest benefits for me are the uncensored models. i'm pretty kinky so the regular models tend to shut me out way too much, they all enforce this prudish victorian mentality that seems to be prevalent in the us but not where i live. censored models are just unusable to me which includes all the hosted models. it's just so annoying. and of course privacy
i've always talked out loud through problems anyway, throw a bt earbud on and you'll look slightly less deranged
learning to use these speech-to-text systems will be a new kind of literacy
as a daily user of all the latest openai/claude models for the last few years, i'm amazed at how good llama3.1 is - all running locally, privately, with zero connection to the web. how did i not know about this?!
local llms are the future, it's like having your own private google running locally
come join us on reddit's /r/localllama. great community for local llms
you can get diverse low quality data from the web, but for diverse high quality data the organic content is exhausted. the only way is to generate it, and you can maintain a good distribution by structured randomness. for example just sample 5 random words from the dictionary and ask the model to compose a piece of text from them. it will be more diverse than web text
and then when it comes time for the test, i end up hallucinating answers too
you missed the part where this is slow as hell
lightning in a bottle
i'm not sure why anybody would respect that licence term, given the whole field rests on the rapacious misappropriation of other people's intellectual property
oh damn guess i am so uninformed
(6) caravaggio has never been more universally loved than he is today
the scowling pilate, caught in the coils of roman law, leans over the parapet of his palace, visibly racked by doubt, the tousled hair peeking out from his velvet cap suggesting an official so confused he can no longer bother with his personal appearance
we, caught in the position of the crowd gathered beneath the governor's window, are the ones who are called upon to shout either "crucify him!" or "let him go!" - not the jews, not the romans, no one but ourselves
(7) pop-up private schools created to capture the government money
in new orleans in 1960 when six-year-old ruby bridges enrolled at the william frantz elementary school..each day ruby withstood the screaming of angry white parents at the schoolhouse doors
the term "school choice" was so closely associated with resistance to the brown decision
(8) the person whose mind is being fracked
the most reliable way to draw someone in, even if the content on offer doesn't particularly appeal to them, is by creating the impression that other people are talking about them
they can simply throw a million little interruptions at us, track which ones grab our attention, and then repeat those
we overestimate the value of information and underestimate the value of attention
(9) how the leopard got his spots and other just so stories by rudyard kipling
he baked it and he baked it till it was all done brown and smelt most sentimental. but just as he was going to eat it there came down to the beach from the altogether uninhabited interior one rhinoceros with a horn on his nose, two piggy eyes, and few manners
'for goodness' sake,' said the leopard at tea-time, 'let us wait till it gets dark. this day-light hunting is a perfect scandal'
and the little girl-daughter said, 'he was round and he was flat; and his eyes grew upon stalks; and he walked sideways like this; and he was covered with strong armour upon his back'
these nine hundred and ninety-nine queens who vex me
slay me with mirth
3/20
read congo by michael crichton
for bob gottlieb
something struck him lightly in the chest. at first he thought it was an insect but, glancing down at his khaki shirt, he saw a spot of red, and a fleshy bit of red fruit rolled down his shirt to the muddy ground. the damned monkeys were throwing berries. he bent over to pick it up. and then he realized that it was not a piece of fruit at all. it was a human eyeball, crushed and slippery in his fingers, pinkish white with a shred of white optic nerve still attached at the back
elliot's publications were modest and temperate; his progress with amy was well documented; he showed no interest in publicity, and was not among those researchers who took their apes on the carson or the griffin show
within ten years, there will be a custody case involving a language-using primate, and the ape will be in the witness-box
the congo was not navigable beyond the first set of rapids, two hundred miles inland (at what was once leopoldville, and is now kinshasa)
amy squatted by the mirror, happily making a mess of her face. she grinned at her smart image, then applied lipstick to her teeth
the rain forests of the world had traditionally frustrated remote-sensing technology
in the developing field of pattern-recognition computer programs, so-called B-8 problems were the most difficult; whole teams of researchers had devoted years to trying to teach computers the difference between "B" and "8" - precisely because the difference was so obvious
"something happens to the man who discovers a new species of animal," wrote lady elizabeth forstmann in 1879..sir antony forstmann died of gambling debts and syphilis in 1880
the apprenticeship of young ben franklin, printer, was not so different from the apprenticeship of young chimpanzee, termite fisher
bent over their equipment, talking quietly and in general behaving as if they had all the time in the world
without photographs, videotapes, sound recordings, or the skeleton of a gray gorilla
3/13
drew: internet celebrities $2,000
ken: in 2021 a statue of this late gorilla appeared opposite wall street's charging bull statue. andrew!
andrew: whooo issss ...... [sighs and exhales in frustration]
ken: oh how soon we forget. drew!
drew: who is harambe?
ken:
that's right, and the last clue in internet celebrities: forbes said
the memes featuring this feline are full of "existential angst" &
"nihlism" andrew!
andrew: who is grumpy cat
ken: grumpy cat is correct! cat are you grumpy you didn't get that one?
'm ripping up basil and couldn't be happier. tilapia tastes like empty set, a protein canvass. all vores wonder which links in food chain max delicious?
read buddenbrooks by thomas mann
"that's right, tilda. work and pray. tony ought to take a pattern from you; she's far too likely to be saucy and idle"
a tiny house in an alley off john street, where there lived an old woman who did a tiny trade in worsted dolls; they would ring the bell and, when the old dame appeared, inquire with deceptive courtesy, if herr and frau spittoon were at home - and then run away screaming with laughter. all these ragamuffinly tricks tony buddenbrook was guilty of
such a wooing as this she had never imagined
"i'll tell you something: i've a skeleton in my room at gottingen - a whole set of bones, you know, held together by wire. i've put an old policeman's uniform on it. ha, ha! isn't that great? but don't say anything to my father about it"
she did not answer, she did not look at him, but moved nearer to him on the sand-heap, and morten kissed her slowly and solemnly on the mouth. then they stared in different directions across the sand, and both felt furiously embarrassed
with two steps he was at the door, tore it open, and shouted down the corridor in a voice that would have outroared the wildest seas
his wart was powdered
"what do these men want? a lot of uneducated rowdies who see a chance for a bit of a scrimmage"
"you would do well, sir, to leave the good name of my house to me. i do not need to throw my money in the nearest ditch in order to show how good my credit is"
the dowry, which was whispered into my ear that first evening, contributed to my feeling. i love her: but it crowns my happiness and pride to think that when she becomes mine, our firm will at the same time gain a very considerable increase of capital
clara's gaze is dark and solemn and severe, and she sometimes lifts her hand to a head that always seems to ache. but they have brought a splendid present to the buddenbrooks: a huge brown bear stuffed in a standing position. a relative of the pastor's shot him somewhere in the heart of russia, and now he stands below in the vestibule with a card-tray between his paws
she leaned over and began to count the prune-pits on her brother's dessert-plate: tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor - finishing triumphantly with "senator" when she came to the last
"if it is really tuberculosis, one may as well give up hope"
and thus began tony buddenbrook's third marriage
punctuated by the silly tootling of the piccolo
he had composed a melody which was just the same read forward or backward, and based upon it a fugue which was to be played "crab-fashion"
"that's enough, tony," the senator said softly. "please don't put such ideas into the child's head"
all his contemporaries were either scrofulous or full of "evil humours"
the story of johnny thunderstorm, "those fellows drank swedish punch just like water"
christian came back to his brother's character and cited examples of thomas's egotism - painful anecdotes out of the distant past, which he, christian, had never forgotten, but carried about with him to feed his bitterness. and the senator retorted with scorn and with threats which he regretted a moment later. gerda leaned her head on her hand and watched them, with an expression in her eyes impossible to read. frau permaneder repeated over and over again, in her despair: "and mother lying there in the next room!"
they went through the suite of rooms into the hall, singing in a subdued way the first stanza of "o evergreen"
"no one may go in. papa is making his will"
"sit down! one moment!" shrieked the voice of an old woman. it was josephus, who sat in his shining cage at the end of the room and regarded him sidewise out of his venomous little eyes
a volume of edgar allan poe's tales inside his bible
3/6
consider self early interneteer, matthew considers me candide. joe "i hate being unconscious" frigiola, anthony "my friend who likes vinegar" damico. crossing thirtieth street, streetlight lamppost base cover wide open, circuitry exposed: laura extended finger toward it like mike's adam, said zzzzap
2/27
2/20
read the body keeps the score: brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma by bessel van der kolk
pockmarked with the impacts of their fists on the drywall
chronic vigilance for and sensitivity to threat
the patients spoke of being sexually abused as children. this was puzzling, as the standard textbook of psychiatry at the time stated that incest was extremely rare in the united states, occurring about once in every million women. given that there were only about one hundred million women living in the united states, i wondered how forty seven, almost half of them, had found their way to my office in the basement of the hospital
the greatest sources of our suffering are the lies well tell ourselves
the first chief resident in psychopharmacology
most treatment studies of ptsd find a significant placebo effect
you observe a lot by watching -yogi berra
the earlier technology of measuring brain chemicals like serotonin or norepinephrine had enabled scientists to look at what fueled neural activity, which is a bit like trying to understand a car's engine by studying gasoline. neuroimaging made it possible to see inside the engine
trauma is preverbal
most survivors..come up with..their "cover story"..some explanation for their symptoms and behavior for public consumption
life is about rhythm. we vibrate, our hearts are pumping blood. we are a rhythm machine, that's what we are. -mickey hart
in my experience, patients who cut themselves or pick at their skin..are seldom suicidal but are trying to make themselves feel better in the only way they know how
penguins are stoic
the periadqueductal gray, which generates startle
as we enter the world, we scream to announce our presence
in the warp and woof of our brain circuitry
to this day, after twenty years and four subsequent revisions, the dsm and the entire system based on it fail victims of child abuse and neglect - just as they ignored the plight of veterans before ptsd was introduced back in 1980
the gravest and most costly public health issue in the united states: child abuse
children who develop in the context of ongoing danger, maltreatment and disrupted caregiving systems are being ill served by the current diagnostic systems..an average of 3-8 co-morbid disorders. the continued practice of applying multiple distinct co-morbid diagnoses to traumatized children has grave consequences: it defies parsimony
seventy percent of prisoners in california spent time in foster care
all soldiers with psychiatric problems were to be given a single diagnosis of "nydn" (not yet diagnosed, nervous). in november 1917 the general staff denied charles samuel myers, who ran four field hospitals for wounded soldiers, permission to submit a paper on shell shock to the british medical journal
ten weeks of yoga practice markedly reduced the ptsd symptoms of patients who had failed to respond to any medication or to any other treatment
our attachment bonds are our greatest protection against threat..studies conducted during world war ii in england showed that children who lived in london during the blitz and were sent away to the countryside for protection against german bombing raids fared much worse than children who remained with their parents and endured nights in bomb shelters and frightening images of destroyed buildings and dead people
the object of writing is to write to yourself
chronic childhood abuse causes very different mental and biological adaptations than discrete traumatic events in adulthood
my stern calvinistic parents
most grown-ups who were brutalized as children carry a smoldering rage
to this day the major services of the u.s. military spend liberally on their marching bands
the essence of trauma is feeling godforsaken, cut off from the human race
2/13
present did you just text that to a random person and other pennsylvania polkas at the south philly chapter of the whistle pig appreciation society. what's your favorite movie to watch on groundhog day eve? mine's groundhog day 10k years for bill murray, party hosts only re-played film thrice. how deep does this rodent borough go? do they celebrate groundhog day eve in dc? zipping up floppy groundhog onesie: everyone looks good in it laura baked dirt cake, ben mc'd frank yankovic & renn miked two times too in heaven there is no beer / that's why we drink it here...la la la la la la
2/6