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Currently reading: The Rise and Decline of Nations by Mancur Olson 📚
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Finished reading: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy 📚
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Indirect utilitarianism states that not everything is a moral question. You will not maximise happiness, Mill says, by maximising utility, but by attaching yourself to projects, people, and activities. Utility is a guiding principle for society, not a way of assessing everything we do in our lives. Get something to do, someone to love, something to enjoy, and you will become happy. Utility is not the one-and-only moral decider.
EA and moral hygiene on the Ruffian by Henry Oliver.
This quote chimes with what Viktor Frankl said: life asks you the question. Experiences, relationships, creative works and suffering. It is you that lives in this world, and you that has to respond.
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Interesting article relating “Five days in class with ChatGPT” via Marginal Revolution.
I now know non-technical folk who are using ChatGPT as a prompt to brainstorm business plans.
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Product recommendation: Karcher OC3 Portable Pressure Washer. Good for cleaning bikes, and muddy prams.
Get the extension tube for additional water sources.
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Went to Indaba Cafe Bar yesterday afternoon. It’s a small Spanish cafe in the middle of Newington. We had a late afternoon glass of wine and olives. Worth a stop!
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We had the first EdinburghJS event of the year last night. It was a great turnout - remembering that this time last year we had just one attendee (due to Covid restrictions!).
I’m looking forward to building this community in 2023.
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🍿 Watched The Imitation Game
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Reading “Theory building and software development”, with a point on software documentation that I think needs exploring:
www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/theo…
Most internal documentation only begins to make sense to a developer after they’ve developed an internal mental model of how it all hangs together. Most code documentation becomes useful after you have built the theory in your mind, not before. It operates as a mnemonic for what you already know, not as a tool for learning.
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Stephen Bush in the FT arguing for increased technical literacy:
Even in the UK, a country that is fairly maths-resistant, there is a general belief that everyone ought to leave school able to do basic arithmetic. But we think nothing of the fact that the average politician is simply not equipped to act either as a commissioner of technological services or as a regulator. Nor do we seem especially exercised by the fact that the average voter leaves school without the ability or the knowhow to really understand debates about the basic fundamentals of computer code.
I think that people often assume a learned helplessness or a prideful ignorance when it comes to code and technology. We are missing opportunities because of this.
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🍿 Watched All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
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An excellent article on accessibility and inclusion:
Why is it about their including or not including us? Why is it never about us and whether or not we include them?
Here, the Protactile interpreter operated as my friend’s partner, making subjective yet vital contributions. When he found her dismissal of COVID-19 odd, he pressed her on the topic. An ASL interpreter would never have done that, unless they allowed their instincts to overrule their training.
