Shamatha/Zhine practitioner here. The wall staring practice described is not too unlike these. The main difference being that while practicing Zhine, I'm counting breathes.
I really want to point out that the purpose is not to concentrate so hard that focus remains. It's simply to be aware of attention drifting, and gently bring it back. Repeatedly, over time, this becomes easier and easier.
There is a sense of unwrinkling the mind that I achieve after a session. The inner voice drawing me toward the anxieties of life becomes quieter and quieter. The ability to choose to disregard thoughts and move on becomes stronger and stronger.
That seems weird. Bad Apple is up there with doom in terms of "make it run", and a few high profile-ish hackers seem to enjoy touhou stuff (drew devault off the top of my head)
Oh no, a couple thousand people, largely engaged in little more than modern conservatism, might leave the rest of us 300+ million alone for a change rather than demand fealty to their personal story and personal autonomy (fealty to which actually distracts us from our own lives); people who do nothing to assure the rest of us have food and shelter and healthcare may take their ball and go home!
How tragic.
End of the day we all have the same freedom to not care if Sergey has food shelter or lives in his car as the billionaires give themselves
End of the day we all have the ssme right to select ourselves and tell Sergey Brin "your needs aren't my problem."
None of it matters because of Tiennemen Square. Any negatives in the US, no matter how bad, will always be compared to it and never be found to be worse.
US financiers enjoy the benefits of the global dollar, and have immense political influence.
What's completely incomprehensible is that the people suffering consequences of the Triffin Dilemma double down on the US dollar as the reserve currency. If they really wanted to bring back manufacturing, jobs, and compete with China, we'd give up the dollars special status. It's amazing how easily it is to misdirect blame to immigrants, libs, etc. Absolutely wild.
> If they really wanted to bring back manufacturing, jobs, and compete with China, we'd give up the dollars special status
IIUC that was actually an explicit goal laid out in Ron Vara's book. It's obviously hard to tell where the line is between deliberate policy and mere narrative-chum for useful idiots to latch on to. But the impression I've gotten is that many of Grump's moves are in line with this goal, but fail to achieve it because the Dollar is so damn sticky (at least in the near term).
Also, the truth is that supporting manufacturing jobs to compete with China could always have been straightforwardly done by taking the surplus wealth gained by being the world reserve currency (ie being able to trade paper dollars for real goods), and directly spending it on subsidies for domestic manufacturing. But the policy over the past several decades has been instead to simply give away that wealth to Wall Street in the form of artificially low interest rates that create an asset bubble (ie the fake "fiscal responsibility" that the Republican party had been promoting)
Engage with your kids. Don't give them personal devices until they're a bit older. Monitor their usage properly with your own senses, not with "parental controls". Talk to them about what they do.
If they're minded to bypass all that then they're going to bypass any technical block you put on anyway.
Parents want another option between their child being shown harmful content on social media and signing up their child up to be a pariah because they're not allowed to use social media altogether.
What I've suggested is the alternative. What we're going to get is kids banned from social media altogether. And I'm not 100% against that because my kids didn't really use it because we introduced it gently while talking about it a lot with them.
But when I say not 100% against, maybe 75% against it. The idea of age checking operating systems and browsers I'm very much against. Ban devices in schools: fine, it's a place of learning and there are always specific rules in shared environments.
You are the person requesting others comply (on behalf of the aggregate) the onus is on you to provide this solution. The solution that was provided, specifically engaged parenting, is the appropriate response.
Nope, because it will be passed unless you come to the negotiating table in good faith. The truth is that all this resistance mean you don't get a seat at the table, will be left out of discussions and your worst fears will come to pass because you took a hard-line position.
Good luck. People who aren't willing to collaborate don't get what they want.
Now that we've gotten the ad homs out of our system, provide a solution.
I'd like the nice thing of a workable solution. The failure to do so means you get the first proposed solution - the one you obviously don't want. It's crazy to believe that despite detesting age verification, none of that vitriol can be redirected in to coming up with a workable better idea.
Frankly outside of what I wrote below (which I think mere existence is still threat factor by creation of authoritarian OS for computers) you will not get 'solution' from me (unless by that you mean age rating and voluntary enforcement by computer) because you are creating the problem - You don't want to do work but want to exert control, which is contradictory and entitled position. You are not entitled to get anything, and with amount of people with kids dwindling it is beyond me why do you think 'it is for children' will even work to begin with as popular talking point. The parental controls are the best solution, assumption otherwise makes you extremist from another’s eye.
Simply put the idea of computer for you is "a tool" for another it is extension of memory and mouth - you don't get control any of that, ever. There is no 'vitriol' - there is only rightful anger that you crossed of boundary of acceptable speech by another person. The most basic thing that you must get right before you start to advocate for change, is "what is my Overton window - and what is the other person's one", because thinking of workable solution works only when people windows cross to begin with - and they do not have to because sometimes you do not have the ability to have both freedom and control. And you should clearly know that for some freedom is more important than control.
The failure to do so means you get the first proposed solution - yes I agree, the first solution is by definition the status quo before the 'now' solution.
There are times that you have to accept: there is no middle ground, other than the ground you stand upon.
"Provide a solution." "can be redirected in to coming up with a workable better idea." Did you entertain the thought that there is no better 'workable' idea than status quo?
You want to control the user - kid, and not control the user i.e adult, you also want parent to not bother. That is impossible. Either parent have to do active part, other (because by definition kid already is - since the age is already available to whatever malware will be running on device) people will be harmed by surveillance or we keep status quo. Classical choice triangle.
The only "rational" (still for me this seems like possible trojan horse) way would be to actively enforce existence of "for-child OS" on company controlled OSes, and use something like Secure Boot if parent SO DESIRES (with caveat 5 ).
0. (short version) Effectively this would mean buy separate device for kids or learn how to do it. And it would fundamentally be bound to device not user,
1. by enforcing main key to be Owner's (Parent) and signing the OS developer key with the main key for purpose of OS boot (start) - so that OS 'provider' can sign kid-friendly OS version with that developer key. (you probably could ease that with vendor key - but still requires possibility of changing the key which leads to
2. then lock the UEFI by password... that still require knowledge about the tech - unless you get password in device box [then again parents have to exercise some parenting and not give device with the box], and don't start about phones - they would require UEFI and Secure Boot available for user first - not just manufacturer.
3. and you would HAVE TO (this bit is especially trojan otherwise) enforce every OS manufacturer and vendor that provide ones for kids to always provide the non-kid version (and support it!) - so that it would not create de facto surveillance OS/PC. Let me guess this is impossible for you Americans.
4. Then app developers can sign apps for kids with the OS developer key that is FOR the kid variant - otherwise will not run (in that scenario 'kid-OS' only).
5. you would have to limit it for kids devices ONLY so you would have to reverse "ID check in bar" to confirm the existence of kid instead of adult (during buying the OS/device) - otherwise again trojan horse (because of commonality of solutions).
If you find this version 'workable' please have it - but for me it seems contradictory to desire of not bothering parents. *From my perspective this is effectively parental controls on steroids*. This is exceptionally similar to attestation except it has opt out for people who actively kept the password, no IDs, and no 'sending age over wire'. This will help exactly zero to stop spread of some files if parents give a kid in class for-adult phone/pc unless you enforce signing every file by kid-OS and not opening unsigned files - congratulations your kid would be using OS approved by north Korea! - do you start to see the issue with 'workable' ideas? They inevitably flow to surveillance and autocratic tech.
This is anyway probably faulty in something I did not thought about.
You're reaching for legally mandated solutions. Why can't this be one?
"Choose to be a good parent, vs legally mandated spyware". Why not "legality mandated be a good parent"? This would solve a lot of other problems too. Like, all those people who hand wring "oh we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas! It's not working! Whatever could work in aggregate?!" people who don't actually parent can be trained to parent, and if they refuse they face consequences.
> If they're minded to bypass all that then they're going to bypass any technical block you put on anyway
School bans have been effective because the entire friend group is taken off at once. That network effect is important. We need a real solution for keeping kids off social media—there is too much popular will for this not to happen. The debate is realistically around how.
How much supporters agree is void point unless you are making Wunschkonzert - wish-concert, it is how much the decliners and reality disagree that is the most serious problem. You either operate on "We don't like, we disagree, we disagree and will not accept, we disagree so much that we will vote on People more volatile then current U.S one to make the point" - If you start to operate in third and worse the fourth then no agreement will solve this issue. And you started from proposition that is so outright insane that you may as well count many in third view.
The workable alternative is no bill. These age surveillance bills are designed specifically to indemnify service providers (and, specifically, Facebook) when they inevitably try to harm your child, on the basis of "well the phone OS said he's over 18 so we can do whatever we want to him".
Imagine: Websites over a certain number of users must publish content-suitability tags. Preinstalled operating systems over a certain marketshare must include software that can filter on said content-suitability tags, which can be enabled during the initial setup process. When parental controls are enabled, websites without tags "fail closed" and don't display. The open web continues to exist, and the long tails of sites, operating systems, and devices stay completely unaffected.
The bill under discussion is being pushed by Facebook purely to absolve themselves of liability. The information flow is completely backwards. Its design actually removes control from parents (websites are responsible for making the decision, so whether a given site is suitable for your kid is made by corporate attorneys), and puts assumed liability on parents (eg "you're negligent for letting your kid access a browser that doesn't broadcast their age").
(I'm a parent but thankfully not yet at the stage where I have to navigate this issue)
> I vehemently insist on the right of my fellow humans to smoke.
You still have the right to bodily autonomy. What sellers don't have is the right to sell something that kills their clients and has obvious consequences en mass.
Just grow your own tobacco, cure it, process it, and roll your own cigarettes. Think of it like building your own Linux distro. You always had that ability, but didn't exercise it. Now you can.
An important caveat I would argue is that your fellow citizens' bodily autonomy gives them the right to prevent you from smoking if it would cause them to breath in the toxic, addictive and carcinogenic smoke you would be producing secondhand.
Can you really end up as a passive smoking addict? If your usual source of secondhand smoke goes away for a while, I suppose you start awkwardly crashing the smoke breaks of strangers.
In the mid-1990s I attended a convention, and on the first morning, I grabbed a blueberry muffin as a snack. The coastal summertime weather was pleasant, without much wind. It was an hour-long wait or more. The line was outdoors and serpentine, so there were people on all sides.
I was sitting down and eating the muffin, while a dude was standing in front of me, chatting and smoking a cigarette, and mostly holding the lit cigarette behind his back and in front of my face.
I believe that “No Smoking” signs were posted around the convention center. There were no ashtrays anywhere. So as I finished eating, I had the wrapper in my hand: a thick oven-safe wax paper. So wrapped up my fingers, took aim, and snatched the cigarette away, cherry and all, snuffing it with the wrapper.
The smoker guy was surprised and gave me a dirty look. He didn’t light another. I mentioned it later to my friends, who said that I deserved to get punched.
I know one who did that, and from that I suspect very few will ever do it. They are a natural pesticide and the natural variation you get can be very unpleasant.
But at least many birds and other animals will definitively not touch it twice, as well most insects, and you can always use it as an pesticide if one decided that smoking it is not that great.
Do you think property rights exist in reality? This quality of naturalness is tricky for me to get to grips with, but property rights are very basic, so they surely are part of the universe, right?
The point of this question is that I own my clothes, but the government does not own the tobacco. Unless you think the government owns everything.
Show me the thermometer-equivalent that measures ownership.
Ownership is a fabrication of human mind. If it was part of the universe we would be able to devise an instrument that mesures it. We've done a very good job of reifiying it and telling people that it's part of the natural order, but humans are very very good at constructing ontologies and forgetting they are the authors.
Acting like "well we're not banning it, we're just regulating it to the point that it's a non starter for 99.99% of people effectively acomplishing the same thing" isn't a ban is just calling people stupid with extra steps.
I've summarized Supreme Court cases into Broadway musicals. The thing about memory is that novel input increases retention. So now I know about grouse hunting and explosives that fall off trains and their constitutional implications.
Another was a set of songs that helped me emotionally regulate on the drive home after couples therapy. The lyrics contained grounding exercises that helped maintain awareness and presence and contained mindfulness practices.
Both did their job, but they were also music for utility, not necessarily for artistic enjoyment. So it's not entirely an apples to apples comparison.
turning class notes into songs for study purposes sounds like genius. never wouldve thought of it, but i could definately see value. catchy 1950's style radio commercials advertising highlights of case law to remember for an exam coming up.
You can educate people, but the effect isnt necessarily that it reduces any effect. Education allows failures to be diverted to failures of educators or failures of students. It draws attention away from the manufacturers and if we view education as having a purpose synonymous with what it does, education is VERY, effective at diverting responsibility away from manufacturers.
- To run with "heavy quantization" (16 bits -> 8): "8xH100", giving us $200K upfront and $4/h.
- To run truly "locally"--i.e. in a house instead of a data center--you'd need four 4090s, one of the most powerful consumer GPUs available. Even that would clock in around $15k for the cards alone and ~$0.22/h for the electricity (in the US).
Truly an insane industry. This is a good reminder of why datacenter capex from since 2023 has eclipsed the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program, and the US interstate system combined...
I really want to point out that the purpose is not to concentrate so hard that focus remains. It's simply to be aware of attention drifting, and gently bring it back. Repeatedly, over time, this becomes easier and easier.
There is a sense of unwrinkling the mind that I achieve after a session. The inner voice drawing me toward the anxieties of life becomes quieter and quieter. The ability to choose to disregard thoughts and move on becomes stronger and stronger.
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