When learning computer languages, order matters a lot, and I think I got lucky by learning them in roughly the best possible order.

Just like a linguistic ladder, it's better to take many small steps than a couple of big steps.

bash

Bash is a great first language because you can start instantly, and do regular things …

I feel that the i3-gaps window manager perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. If you haven't read it, I won't repeat it, but perhaps this will make sense anyway.

For a perfectly Romantic desktop environment, we have the classic Mac (and please picture every stereotype you think …

'Organizers', 'wikis', 'note-taking apps', et c. - these apps are mostly Markdown with an attached GUI. Today, I'm trying each of them out for twenty minutes apiece.

AnyType

• Site: anytype.io
• Size: 383 MB
• AnyType comes encrypted, meaning you can't easily grab the raw markdown notes and stick them in a Git, or do much …

I feel an unstated agreement among disparate civil society that one shouldn't preach. Breaching the preaching rule quickly looks like hypocrisy, because everyone has more work to do on themselves.

Easier Said than Done

Someone - usually young - preaching about veganism, trans-rights, the effects of aeroplanes on …

I once met a man who, having talked to some FOSS-enthusiast, felt moved, and told me he was sure to use 'free' software, but not that 'open source', software. His attempts, of course, would be futile, because the words refer to the same software.

The Free Software Foundation (could they not at least have called …

My favourite wikipedia article is called List of Missions to Venus.

Nowadays we're all amazed that astronomers can send a rocket out, and expect it to fly around the planet three times, nip round the moon, change trajectory while passing Jupiter, and land on some asteroid like a cautious butterfly, so it can send …

Shopping

If you ask Google what to buy, it wants to show you the products from companies which have paid it the most, or products that it owns, such as Google's Office suite.

Friends & Activities

Someone posts up an event - skating, clubbing, or gardening - whatever it is, the algorithm correctly detects that this …

Soft Serve is a git server for the command line. You can see the maintainers' version here, with ssh:

1ssh git.charm.sh

It looks like this:

 1
 2   Soft Serve 
 3
 4  • Repositories    About
 5
 6  ┃ Bubble Tea …

Deep Space 9, Season 6, Episode 9 - 'Statistical Probabilities'

This episode introduces the ridiculous notion that clever people can predict the future with clever Maths, and it's very special.

Most sci-fi relies on now-but-later ideas of how the world works, and fancy special effects, to entertain. This episode didn't …

I find it bizarre how similar all schooling is, and how few alternatives people have tried.

Of course some experiments exist, such as Summer Hill, run by Neil, which famously did not demand that pupils attend any classes, and showed why children would attend classes anyway. And of course different schools exist - …