Cory Doctorow has a great piece entitled The Coming War on General Purpose Computation that rides right along this "because obsolescence isn't working".

In the words of Stephen King -

Write with the door closed. Edit with it open.

You have fallen in love with your writing. More than that, you have become enamored with the process, not the product. The where and how is up to you, cowboy; do what you want to do. But stop fetishizing over it.

Do you know what an asymptote is? It's that thing you never reach. It sounds like you've already made two attempts at finding it, and are now digging in for a third round. How do you know when it's done?

- See, I know it's done when I realize I'm adding shit for me, not for anyone else reading it. And I stopped doing that a long f'ing time ago. So I know it's done when I've edited it once.

The rest of this shit is process, and it's tedious process at that. "cafes or study rooms?" You write where you are. I wrote 60 pages of a screenplay on the flight from Narita to San Francisco once. My choices aren't your choices and your choices need to be personal, reasonable and repeatable. You're asking the equivalent of "how do you take your coffee? For I wish to drink coffee the way other writers do so that I may be a writer."

You wanna know how to really knock this one out of the park?

WRITE SOMETHING ELSE.

Now go back and edit this. Got anything to add? No? It was done already. Yes? Well, you wouldn't have gotten there if you kept remixing it.

Just write. All else is artifice.

Hi,

Thanks for your interesting comments.

Colonizing the galaxy is actually not that impractical. Colonizing several or all galaxies is harder though. See this recent paper for the math:

Armstrong, Stuart, and Anders Sandberg. 2013. “Eternity in Six Hours: Intergalactic Spreading of Intelligent Life and Sharpening the Fermi Paradox.” Acta Astronautica 89 (August): 1–13. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2013.04.002. http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Arm...

It's an interesting question to pose, what telltale clues could you infer from a binary star system that would suggest there is life on it.

Indeed, that is the main challenge here.

I suppose when analyzing the metabolism of these binary star systems you would want to look for something that looked more like an engine and less like a firework to truly determine if there is life out there.

Interesting suggestion. For more info, you can have a look at this news item about black holes in binary systems: "How black holes change gear", http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120607142254.ht... What do you think? Astrophysical or astrobiological phenomenon?

I also wrote a short working paper summarizing a metabolic argument for the existence of starivores:

Vidal, C. 2013. “Starivore Extraterrestrials? Interacting Binary Stars as Macroscopic Metabolic Systems.” Working Paper. http://student.vub.ac.be/~clvidal/writings/Vidal-Starivore-B....

Best, Clément Vidal.

Pffft. I call BS on that poll, not just because it's Salon (though that is usually sufficient) but because it doesn't make any sense.

On the other hand, maybe it's 'startup math' - if a second person signs up in Delaware, then Obamacare has doubled in value to the state of Delaware...

_XC

The London Eye:

I love these challenges! I'm in the middle of exams so I don't really have time to go out and shoot specifically for them, but it's nice to finally show off those pictures that otherwise would have stayed trapped in my computer forever :)

album

Straight up.

Nice! I wish polaroids weren't so expensive, my camera is just lying around collecting dust.

Near the echangeur Turcot?

Yes, that's it.

I'm in France! It's been a week so far and I'll be here for 10 more (crazy to write that out).

c'est merveilleux !

My PI asked me to fill out everyone's financial conflict of interest forms today. I said no. She respected that. Everything still not submitted to IRB since those need to be done as well as some other paperwork. I may never start on my thesis at this point.

Went to Squamish for rock climbing for the first time ever and am immediately in love. Unfortunately, one of my other learned loves from this year, Index WA, has nearly burnt to the ground with 5% containment of a very large fire that has totally shutdown one of the E-W highways. I am absolutely loving rock climbing and the people I've ran into at those two places in particular.

Got lunch with kleinbl00 recently, finally, three years too late!

I think I'm going down to Portland to see Pavement on Friday?

I have an easy, generally non-stressful life.

And I am spending my days frustrated and angry and snippy.

This is a problem.

I'm working on it...

It asks questions about investments and things like that. I don't know what the investment patterns or ownership stakes in non-public companies of the 8 other people on my team are. She wanted me to fill them out and just unilaterally say no. I don't know/can't be sure that no is the answer for everyone else. So I said no. She is sure everyone's answer is no. But I won't fill that out for other people. Not ethical and probably not legal, won't do it.

Funeral of a wonderful, hopeful and passionate cousin today. She died far too young, too quickly and left behind too many. If you do anything today, show someone you are there for them because one day you might not.

Been keeping really busy, hanging with people every night to avoid thinking about my recent breakup. So far, it’s been good and lots of fun. I’m more concerned about my ex that seemed to be lying on his phone in the dark with a gout flare up with none of his burning man laundry done when I passed by to drop off car keys 2 days ago. I also hope he gets his shit together and I don’t have to be the bad guy kicking him out on the street come end of October.

Toronto this weekend for my sisters tea party baby shower.

Training my replacement at work - it’s tedious AF because it’s lots of different platforms, exceptions and particularities of people, admin work bs. She’s not the quickest and need to be repeated things a few times, but is also personable and has a good attitude. She’ll figure it out in time. I’m just not sure I can hang everything over in the 12 more days I have left.

I was discussing Patagonia with a friend just yesterday, and pointing out that the shareholder capitalism of Milton Friedman that seemed so obvious in the '80s has been made lie in no small part by Patagonia and other companies that have followed their lead.

I read David Gelles' The Man Who Broke Capitalism last month. He starts out his book by pointing out that "stakeholder capitalism" wasn't invented at the World Economic Forum last week (as Klaus Schwab would have you believe but that it was the prevailing market sentiment prior to Herbert Hoover and the rise of fascism in Europe.

I've come around to the idea that "shareholder capitalism" is just a clever way to externalize everything that doesn't make you money, and "stakeholder capitalism" is just a clever way to ensure you pay the proper taxes on your enterprise. I think there will be laws passed - and soon - that provide incentives for Patagonia's method of business and penalize Jack Welch's.

("The Man Who Broke Capitalism" dunks so hard on AB InBev)

Aren't you guys in your mid-20s? What's he doing getting gout at that age?