Vulgate (Latin): Matthew Chapter 5
1 Videns autem Jesus turbas, ascendit in montem...
or, roughly (my translation):
Jesus, however, seeing the crowd/mob/political disturbance went up on
the mountain...
The word “turba” per my paper dictionary tends towards a crowd that is politically disturbed. It can also mean an eddy (water) or a child’s spinning top. Per https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/turba#Latin it means…
Latin flash cards are not what they were in 1983: https://latinlexicon.org. It’s got a thing where you can pop in a sentence (say, one form Cicro or random #Latin conversations on twitter (yes, they exist)), and you can click on the words (yellow above), it shows you all the possible words that particular inflected word might be and then offers to build flash cards for you…complete with citations/examples from the literature….
I’ve been listening to “The History of Rome” podcast recently. There is nothing new under the sun: Plagues (er, “pandemics”), riots, xenophobia, wars, greed, ambition, and political factions.
It’s filling in a lot of gaps and details for me. I would recommend if you’re interested in history. Today’s basic problems are not new.
Figure 1: Life-Size Lego Roman Soldier, Lego Store, Rome, 2019
Post 22 #100DaysToOffload https://100daystooffload.com/
Here are some developments in late 70s and early 80s where I started to become aware/involved in “Online” things that eventually evolved into today’s Social Media: Modems1, BBS systems, TOPS-20 Bulletin Boards, Usenet News and the birth of CompuServe.
Figure 1: Desktop Dial-up
Post 21 #100DaysToOffload https://100daystooffload.com/
The opinions expressed in this [FOO] are mine, and not those of my employer. In fact, they may not even be mine. I may have changed my mind. I may have grown beyond a particular opinion. I may be trolling you. I may be engaging in Socratic dialog to tear down your beliefs. I may be tearing down my own beliefs. γνῶθι σεαυτόν!
This the first in a series of articles where I do a brain dump pf something like 40 years experience with “social media” of various forms: Dial-up BBSs, Fidonet, Usenet, IRC, CompuServe, AOL, Slashdot, Sourceforge, blogspot, Facebook, Jabber, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Mastadon “…we didn’t start the fire (flame-war?)…” OK, maybe we did.
I hope this is useful, or at least interesting. It may wind up just being a mix of introspection, hubris or narcissism, it may be part of working up the nerve to quit Twitter as I quit Facebook in 2016, maybe I’ll even work up the nerve to go cold turkey as tychi is doing.
Figure 1: RS-232 pin-outs
Post 20 of #100DaysToOffload https://100daystooffload.com/
If you ever thought to yourself, “Gee, Emacs Org mode is a great outlining and authoring tool, and I wish there were a powerful and simple way use it to publish static websites on github or in S3 buckets, I wish my blog could look as slick ast https://eludom.github.io/” your’re in luck, All but the simple part. Here are some of the references I used.
Post 19 of #100DaysToOffload https://100daystooffload.com/
You learn things when you read original sources for yourself.
I recently picked up a copy of Plato’s allegory of “The Cave”. I had known some of the highlights of the story before, the shadows on the wall, prisoners thinking that the shadows were reality, since that’s all they ever knew, of one prisoner being taken out to see the sun and seeing the true light, coming back down and trying to, literally, enlighten his fellows, and being thought crazy.
Figure 1: Shadows on the wall
I recently picked up reader of samples of important ancient texts that I’ve had for a LONG time and read excerpts from Socrates Apology. Short version: Oracle of Delphi “Socrates is the wisest man” Socrates Nice hypothesis, Apollo, you may be a god, but let’s test it…. Socrates Seeks out “The Wise” of his day, Politicians, Poets, Artisans … questions them … has them all expose themselves as blithering idiots. Socrates OK, “The Wise” are all blithering idiots.
So, when life turns uncertain you have two choices. Cling to things that seem to add stability and certainty, i.e. try to “stay safe”, or embrace the uncertainty, live now, carpe diem, and do things would seem to be fulfilling now. I’m choosing the latter. At 58, in the middle of a pandemic and social unrest, I’m moving to a startup. The following are notes from a friend who has been playing the silicon valley startup game for a few decades.