Conceptual modeling
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It’s a week late, but I posted v0.2.0 of my essay. The first version was a record of my existing, haphazard method of analysis. This one is the beginnings of a more intentional method based on my reflections and cursory research over the past year. I expect my future research to basically follow the v0.2.0 outline.
AI field map
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I didn’t work on this except to find an app I might use for some of my results: myHistro, which lets you make timelines combined with maps. I’ll still be busy with life maintenance this week, but hopefully I can get somewhere with this project.
Futurism
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Tuesday my futurism group had a meeting about transhumanism. We weren’t at a video-watching venue, so we just talked, but beforehand in the event’s comments some of us shared some YouTube videos, and I made a playlist of those. After watching them I’ve moved Yuval Harari up on my reading list. This meeting came at a good time, because I’d been missing these topics, and having my attention turned back to them was like a refreshing breeze.
Fiction
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I finished my coworker’s novel, The Means That Make Us Strangers, an intriguing angle on a coming-of-age story. It’s set in South Carolina during the 1960s civil rights movement, but the main character isn’t exactly from there. I rate it a thoughtful page turner!
This concludes my summer reading list of loosely related fiction and memoirs on the Middle East, the military, civil rights, and/or grief. It was different from my usual reading material and very worthwhile. I’m still deciding what books to listen to next.
Video
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I caught up on Dark, which I think of as the new Lost, and I recommend it if you like complicated, mind-bending shows (keeping in mind its TV-MA rating). Thankfully it’s been renewed for its third season, and so it’ll get to finish its story, unlike The OA, unless that one gets uncancelled, which it has a moral duty to be.
Now I’m taking a break from TV shows so I can spend more time on my projects. I’ll still continue my AI movie project.
Life maintenance
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Thursday evening I had my colonoscopy prep, which was fine and gave me time to finish the conceptual modeling essay. Friday Jeremy drove me to my colonoscopy, and that was also fine. Truthfully I’m more interested in the experience of consciousness than in my colon, so for me colonoscopies are mostly about the anesthesia, and when it began kicking in, I counted the seconds to see how high I could remember getting, and I remember being surprised at reaching 100 when I expected a max of 5, though I can’t remember going through all the numbers to get there, so for all I know I’d lost the ability to count. After we left I have spotty memories of eating with Jeremy at Portillo’s and getting a movie from the library before somehow making it back to my apartment, and my mind didn’t feel normal till I woke up from a long nap.
🙄
Saturday morning I was planning to catch up on some work at the office, but after my car had sat in its parking spot for over a day, the battery decided it’d had enough and my car wasn’t going anywhere. So after wringing my hands about the best way to proceed, I called AAA, and they came and replaced the battery. It was a little annoying to have to spend money on a car I was about to replace, but the auto insurance paid me for a total loss after my accident at the beginning of July, so I’m considering the battery to be part of that amount.
Podcasts
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The futurism meeting put me in the mood for Isaac Arthur, so while I decide on a new reading project, I’m catching up on episodes from his YouTube channel–though I’m listening to the podcast version–starting from February of 2018 with the episode on colonizing Alpha Centauri. His videos are having a similar effect to the productivity and freelancing videos I was watching earlier, keeping my mind on a hopeful future during a present that feels complicated and difficult.
