timelets

timelets @ 2025-09-04T14:55:00

2025-09-04T21:55:52Z

comments

timelets @ 2025-03-05T21:01:00

2025-03-06T05:17:53Z

In the US, the media is often called the fourth branch of the government. Why? Because in a republic, the people between elections don't have any direct control over the three official branches of the government (executive, legislative, judicial), while the media serves as the only real-time public feedback/control channel. Today, the fourth branch of the government is not the traditional media, but a mix of podcasts, social influencers, blogs, etc. During the Biden term, the Democrats managed to lose control over that new media. There’s nobody like Joe Rogan on their side now. This means that the Democrats not only lost control over the three official branches of the government after the elections, but also that there’s no way for them to provide key inputs into the in-between-elections feedback/control system now. To me, this is the essence of the Democrats' current predicament. There are no thought leaders among them who could go on, e.g. the Joe Rogan show, and credibly represent the dissatisfied population. They could go to Ezra Kline or Jon Stuart, but that wouldn't move the needle. Maybe AOC could go on a Joe Rogan tour. Or Bill Mahr. The Democrats need to take a page from Trump's playbook and flood the zone.

comments

Categorical Algebra with Segal Conditions

2025-02-18T19:48:37Z

Among other things, the ant solution to the grain sorting problem given to Psyche by Aphrodite can be modeled as a replacement of an Inert with an Active. The same applies to the Trasnsformer solution of the translation problem, etc.

upd. the Odysseus solution to the Sirens problem also fits the pattern

comments

timelets @ 2024-12-04T22:53:00

2024-12-05T06:56:38Z

https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.02394

Need to play with the idea. We can probably glue together narratives as graphs.

upd: The Algebra of Open and Interconnected Systems.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.05382

comments

timelets @ 2023-11-14T18:14:00

2023-11-15T02:22:04Z

He[Ricoeur] derives this initial ethical understanding of institution from Arendt’s concept of “power in common” that is contrasted with domination (“power over”) and that is realised by a plurality of people acting in concert. ...

Because acting in concert with unknown third parties needs time to unfold, institutions are needed. Institutions thereby provide the neces- sary temporal dimension for the power in common to endure, which lies at the basis of any political community. ( Read more... )

--- Reijers, Coeckelbergh. Narrative and Technology Ethics.

In this respect, good institutions bridge time, i.e. form social infrastructure the same water reservoirs form physical infrastructure. Need to find a related quote from Hegel that good judges/courts represent infinity.

comments

timelets @ 2023-11-10T20:46:00

2023-11-11T04:49:36Z

Very often it is impossible to find any originator for an idea generated during discussion and critique. Its meaning changes repeatedly; it is adapted and be- comes common property. Accordingly it achieves a superindividual value, and becomes an axiom, a guideline for thinking.

--- Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and development of a scientific fact.

Similar to Robert Noyce's account of his invention of the IC.

comments

timelets @ 2023-10-31T21:38:00

2023-11-01T04:53:30Z

Truth is not "relative" and certainly not "subjective" in the popular sense of the word. It is always, or almost always, completely determined within a thought style.
...
Truth is not a convention, but rather (1) in historical perspective, an event in the history of thought, (2) in its contemporary context, stylized thought constraint.

--- Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and development of a scientific fact.

The relationship to thought constraint sounds interesting. Also, we can probably model it as a topos of dynamical systems.

comments

timelets @ 2023-03-02T22:02:00

2023-03-03T06:03:57Z

Smuggling in the Kan extension for dummies.

comments

timelets @ 2022-12-24T22:08:00

2022-12-25T06:15:22Z

I think I'm getting the hang of the Kan extension concept. For example, the future, at least in technology, seems to be a left Kan extension, while the past and the present would be the right one. This is just an initial idea I and sill need to develop a proof with specific examples, using the system model.

In the meantime, I"m hoping to finish the first draft of the book by the end of this year. It looks quite doable because I'm already halfway through the Cinderella part, which should be next to last.

comments

timelets @ 2022-06-30T01:15:00

2022-06-30T08:19:13Z

“The telos is responsible for what as matter and what as aspect are together co-responsible for the sacrificial vessel.”

Heidegger, quoted from Dusek, Val, Scharff, Robert C. “Philosophy of Technology.”

s: p -> e
t: p -> e

telos, i.e. c:

p -> c
e -> c

Within the scope of a given telos, elements (causes) can be modeled as a slice category. This probably means that an algebra on the telos would be a co-slice cat.

comments

Nabokov vs Tolstoy

2022-06-28T20:35:22Z

All unhappy Little Red Riding Hoods are alike, but every happy LRHH is happy in their own way.

All happy Cinderellas are alike, but every unhappy Cinderella is unhappy in their own way.

Basically, it's a Kan extension problem/solution.

comments

timelets @ 2022-03-16T19:55:00

2022-03-17T03:13:13Z

Let's suspending our moral judgement for a minute.
( Read more... )

comments

timelets @ 2022-02-20T20:10:00

2022-02-21T04:16:24Z

Before I forget,

s: P -> D;
t: P -> D;
j: P -> D;
a1: P -> C;
a2; D -> C.

F: C -> Ω (quantity type functor).

C can be thought of as J2BD.

In a simplest case, P = D; therefore, the model collapses to P -> C and becomes a choice problem wrt f: X -> P, wherein X -> C and P -> C are given.

comments

The Federal Reserve

2021-08-17T20:21:37Z

Speaking of Afghanistan, if the US government withdrew its support for the banking system during even a relatively mild crisis, the system would collapse within days.

comments

timelets @ 2021-08-15T16:17:00

2021-08-15T23:23:34Z

Interesting.

-- Reyes, et. al., Generic figures and their glueings. 2004.

( Read more... )

comments

timelets @ 2021-02-17T22:25:00

2021-02-18T06:31:30Z

Несколько месяцев бился с моделью, и ничего не получалось. А вчера утром, проснулся, после очередного просмотра видео по ТК, с более-менее работающей идеей.

За день довел ее до ума, и все сошлось! Вечером обсудил с соавтором по зоому и ... надо книгу писать про волка и трех поросят, Золушку и Принца, Красную Шапочку и охотников, Одиссея, Сирен и прочих Стивов Джобсов.

comments

timelets @ 2020-12-27T21:05:00

2020-12-28T05:12:38Z

PROP. III. An emotion, which is a passion, ceases to be a passion, as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea thereof.

Proof.—

An emotion, 
          which is a passion, 
                      is a confused idea 

(by the general Def. of the Emotions). 

If, therefore, 
             we form a clear 
                     and distinct idea 
                             of a given emotion, 
that idea 
         will only be distinguished 
                                from the emotion, 
in so far as 
          it is referred 
                       to the mind only, 
                                       by reason 
(II. xxi., and note); 

therefore (III. iii.), 
                   the emotion will cease to be 
                                           a passion. Q.E.D.

Corollary—

An emotion therefore becomes 
more under our control, 
and the mind 
is less passive 
in respect to it, 
in proportion 
as it is more 
known to us.

--- Spinoza, The Ethics, Part V, Prop III.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm#chap05

comments

timelets @ 2020-10-25T22:44:00

2020-10-26T05:50:04Z

( Read more... )

We may easily proceed
               thus to infinity, 
                                  and conceive 
             
the whole of nature 
                     as one individual,

whose parts,
that is, 
            all bodies, 
                        vary in infinite ways, 
without any change 
                     in the individual 
                                      as a whole.

-- Spinoza, The Ethics, Part II, Lemma VII, Note.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm#chap02

comments

timelets @ 2020-10-23T16:34:00

2020-10-23T23:37:09Z

This is really clever:

CO2, a substance found in the breath in large amounts, spreads easily in the atmosphere, so changes in the CO2 concentration are a useful indicator to identify how closed and crowded the space is.

For that reason, the Japan Society for Occupational Health states the CO2 level of 1,000 ppm or lower suggests the room is well ventilated based on the building hygiene control law and other criteria.

Under its recommendation, a room with a reading of higher than 3,500 ppm has an extremely bad ventilation capability, so the facility should not be used as a countermeasure against the novel coronavirus.
..
The measured CO2 concentration is combined with data on the population density and degree of noise, allowing whether the space boasts the three-Cs settings to be determined.

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13832094

comments

timelets @ 2020-10-11T23:21:00

2020-10-12T06:22:56Z

The wolf is an equalizer.

Also, "work and play don't mix". A x B -> ∅

comments

timelets @ 2020-10-01T08:38:00

2020-10-01T15:40:09Z

The U.S. has tried—and failed—over the past 15 years to build a system to share such information in a crisis. When the pandemic started, nothing like it existed. The limited and inconsistent access to data has been a major impediment to providing hospital care during the pandemic, according to interviews with industry and government officials and thousands of internal documents and emails.

Weeks after the coronavirus surfaced, administration officials began putting together a solution. It was riddled with mistakes and slowed by competing agency attempts to solve the problem, the interviews and documents show. Today, with some U.S. cities bracing for more cases, there is still no viable way to broadly track what’s happening inside hospitals.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hospitals-covid-surge-data-11601478409

comments

timelets @ 2020-09-07T07:51:00

2020-09-07T14:54:33Z

“...said Nestor. ... So, my plan is that Argus, Tiphys and his men dismantle the Argo into portable sections which we take overland from the eastern shore of the Propontis to the western shore of the Euxine Sea, thus circumventing the Symplegades entirely.

Phineus sprayed fruit and bread everywhere as he snorted with derisive laughter. ‘Circumventing, you say? Oh dear me, that’s a good one. Circumventing. The land between, your ‘circumventing land’ bristles with bandits, some of them only half human. They hide in the bushes, shoot arrows and wait for you to die of your wounds. You’ll never see them. For all your crew of musclebound heroes you’d be better turning for home than trying such a foolish thing. Suppose they only got ten of you – that would be ten pieces of your ship you vitally need. Circumvent that.”

--- Stephen Fry. “Heroes: Volume II of Mythos.”

comments

TIL

2020-06-05T00:18:29Z

Given the huge size of the empire, factors of distance and time determined how closely central government could control the diplomatic activities of its governors on the frontiers.
..
Yet this was not the norm.
..
Sea travel was largely seasonal and often dangerous. Probably more important, it was highly unpredictable.42 A death sentence from Caligula in Rome for the governor of Syria was three months en route, arriving twenty-seven days after news of the emperor’s death.
..
The relative reliability of land communication was the preferred option. Augustus is said to have introduced a system of runners (Suet. Aug. 49), but if it was ever implemented it was soon abandoned. The Principate relied on the imperial post (cursus publicus), a system where those with official authorization (diplomata) could requisition horses and vehicles from either private sources or official posting stations (mansiones).43 It has been estimated that the average speed of this system was about 50 miles a day, although for urgent messages it could have managed up to 160 miles a day.
...
The sometimes leisurely nature of diplomacy can be accounted for by the nature of ancient warfare. It was both seasonal, rarely being conducted in the winter, and slow-moving, ancient armies usually only moving at a speed of about 15 miles a day.46 There was often no need for diplomacy to hurry

--- Sabin, et al. The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare, V2.

The ratio of communication speed vs the underlying events is what matters the most.

comments

timelets @ 2020-05-23T11:32:00

2020-05-23T18:39:21Z

Japan's approach to controlling the spread of the virus:

[1. ]An early grassroots response to rising infections was crucial. ... experts praise the role of Japan's contact tracers, which swung into action after the first infections were found in January. The fast response was enabled by one of Japan's in-built advantages - its public health centres, which in 2018 employed more than half of 50,000 public health nurses who are experienced in infection tracing. In normal times, these nurses would be tracking down more common infections such as influenza and tuberculosis.

While countries such as the US and the UK are just beginning to hire and train contact tracers as they attempt to reopen their economies, Japan has been tracking the movement of the disease since the first handful of cases were found. These local experts focused on tackling so-called clusters, or groups of infections from a single location such as clubs or hospitals, to contain cases before they got out of
...
[2.] The early response was also boosted by an unlikely happening. Japan's battle with the virus first came to mainstream international attention with its much-criticised response to the Diamond Princess cruise ship in February that led to hundreds of infections. Still, the experience of the ship is credited with providing Japanese experts with invaluable data early in the crisis on how the virus spread, as well as catapulting it into the public consciousness.
...
[3.] Experts are also credited with creating an easy-to-understand message of avoiding what are called the "Three Cs" - closed spaces, crowded spaces and close-contact settings - rather than keeping away from others entirely.

"Social distancing may work, but it doesn't really help to continue normal social life," said Hokkaido University's Prof Suzuki. "The 'Three Cs' are a much more pragmatic approach and very effective, while having a similar effect."

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/did-japan-just-beat-the-coronavirus-without-lockdowns-or-mass-testing

comments

timelets @ 2020-01-19T08:53:00

2020-01-19T16:57:47Z

I would not want any reader to find my account confusing and obscure just because he is unfamiliar with the region, so I shall describe its natural features and their relative positions—as I intend to throughout my work, by constantly comparing and correlating unknown places with those which are familiar and long known. Since defeat in military engagements on land or at sea is usually due to geographical factors, and since knowing how an event happened is always more interesting to us than just knowing that it happened, topographical descriptions are important whatever kind of event is being talked about, and especially important for military events.

--- Polybius, The Histories.

Note the method he uses to introduce the reader to the unknown. He also emphasizes the connection between topographic layout and the process (how) that leads to a certain outcome.

comments