If we accept the premises of the Newcomb Problem, then it's not possible to receive $1,001,000 from playing this game. But you have the choice to take both boxes, and therefore the mystery-box is empty. Once you approach the boxes to make your decision, the boxes have been determined. From this point, we know that: (A) …

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I have a minor health problem, and I'd like to look it up. Going to a corporate health clinic just results in some tests to determine which other tests they'll hand out next so that they can make a menu, and ask the patient to pick. Since I'd have to pick from a menu of tests, I may as well look things up myself now, …

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I heard a rumour once that some DNA is just along for the ride. It does nothing, but since the whole system's there to replicate, it replicates along with the rest. Maybe memetics works the same way. Maybe every language has bits of crap, lying around, not doing anything. Perhaps jokes are memetic dross, hanging around …

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Hail, traveller! The roads have been busy with everyone fleeing the Pit of the Demon King. So you're going South I see... Yes, everyone's going South to the Domain of the Shadow Lord. Well not 'everyone'. I'm going North, to the Holy Lands of Eternal Blessings, to live at the Bastion of Righteous Faith. Never heard of …

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I've used posteo.de for my email for about four years, and I recommend it. I can't say why I recommend it. It's just email. That's pretty much it. It doesn't have special features. It doesn't have problems. It's email and it costs €12 per year for 4 gigabytes of storage. Actually, it has one feature - it has no 'Spam' …

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An anti-open-source narrative has become louder lately. It doesn't say 'down with open source', it begins with 'I understand', and 'listen, we need to talk', 'we must be realistic'. Soon after (but never from the outset) 'you know what I mean, if you understand business'. People want to understand business. More than …

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Something stinks about 'social contract theory'. They way we live - the philosophers say - has the form of some contract where we relinquish the complete freedom to do just anything our bodies might do, and in return we acquire peace. This thing, where it's all chilled, and we have an understanding, is very much like a …

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Obsidian is a note-taking app with a proprietary licence. This makes it prone to the usual abusive behaviours. But I only hear good things about it: Obsidian is ultimately just a markdown editor, so you can extract all of your notes in plain text any time you want, without fear of lock-in. It sounds like the users are …

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Formal education in programming is surprisingly useless. Some people with a formal education in 'Computer Science' can tell you about set theory, but can't pick an appropriate database for a project. They can tell you when to represent a number with hex, but can't clone a repo. And worst of all, most of the …

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