there  could  be  snakes  in  here

My main output was to teach you 500 strange words . I got cross about the prestige of certain knowledge workers . I collated some skits . I tried to predict what would happen this year . I reflected on what I did wrong in school . I wrote about the difference between knowing (the password, the algorithm) and grokking . I wrote about the perception of value and dissed phenomenology again . I wrote about how unrealistic realistic art is . I made analogies between my philosophy and the ancients' . I reviewed Robin Hanson's grand book, Geoff Dyer's nonbook, and Ted Chiang's sculptures . I estimated how many lives the media thinks certain kinds of lives are worth . I estimated how many hours I have spent on maths . I wrote a poem about the north . I wrote a poem about nationhood . I made a joke ranking of mathematics students . I wrote about how it feels to grok statistical learning for the first time . I wrote about the compleat scientist . I wrote about Nazi nuclear...

psycho-boom (心理热潮) (n.): recent rapid, enthusiastic import of psychiatric concepts and treatments in China. Excellent stuff. Except, unfortunately, psychoanalysis has stolen a march on the cognitive/biological approach, and is enjoying a lucrative afterlife, following its much-deserved death in the West. American psychoanalytic institutes often have trouble finding willing patients; Chinese programs have the opposite problem. When Beijing University held a series of lectures on Carl Jung a few years ago, it could admit only a quarter of the people who wanted to attend. scènes à faire (legal n.): something too simple or cliched to be copyrightable. e.g. rooftop showdown, the millenial whoop. to get winstoned (underground UK v.): to cut one's septum on one of the new plastic £10 notes, which have Churchill's face on them. bomb (underground UK n.): a paper case to deliver powder to the stomach. sac (chess v.): to sacrifice Quadrila...

exercise intolerance (medical n.): Collapsing after minor physical effort. Marker of severe heart disease or CFS. Might this be a less-heralded advantage of doing regular exercise: a canary in the mine? degan (n.): death-free vegan; vegan who will eat cultured meat. Coined here , no traction yet. degen (thieves' cant n.): sword capacity discipline (airline n.): Overbooking, downsizing, outsourcing, just-in-time arrivals. Using fewer planes to maintain prices, while enforcing this monopoly with state violence if necessary. plasmon (physics n.): the quantum of plasma oscillation; the as-if smallest unit of change in the free electron gas. exciton (condensed matter n.): Way of describing a paired electron/ electron hole as if they were a particle. First-ever unambigious sighting, the other day . goniometer (physics n.): Device for measuring or creating precise angles psychrometrics (engineering): the study of gas-vapor mixes...

[work in progress] NOVELS The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) Tales of Earthsea (1998). Tehanu (1990). The Farthest Shore (1972). A Wizard of Earthsea (1968). Sometimes described as most suitable for children, but I read it at 26 and felt no deficiency of tone or . The Dispossessed (1979). Lathe of Heaven (1971). Grand psychedelic indictment of utilitarianism. Endorsement of psychoanalysis and Daoist woo. I don't care, it's amazing. The Other Wind (2001). The Tombs of Atuan (1970). STORIES Things or The End (1970). Beautiful study of apocalypse and mass psychosis. Planting an apple-tree. I gasped. Romance: 5/5. The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas (1973). Intuition pump for utilitarianism. Details about this toy society are added one by one, and your mood darkens. She condemns it but not loudly. I'm afraid I think she is a coward, but I appreciate her clarity. If you walk away from Omelas you must believe in banning...

reversal (medical n.): the eventual withdrawal of a treatment used without sufficient evidence, when it is found to be null or harmful. There must soon be a reversal on heart stents to relieve pain following a shocking null result ; millions of invasive surgeries, presumably hundreds of deaths. booter (retrocomputing n.): 1) software executed at boot, from a bootable disk, not through an OS. Some early games did this, remarkably. 2) Web service that will thoroughly DDoS your target for a few bucks. The record-breaking attack on Krebs was through one of these. assurance contract (economics n.): Legal instrument for decentralised funding of public goods. Think Kickstarter for climate change, roads, and schools. pilpul (Hebrew n.): pepper; sharp analysis. The method used by scholars to resolve contradictions in the Talmud or different halakhic judgments. See also retconning, logic-chopping, splitting hairs, red herring. arruginat...