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Escape the algorithm

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  • Brave is an independent search engine

    This interview with a Brave Search designer explains why Brave Search is different from competitors like Google and DuckDuckGo. Brave Search is privacy first, and it is not built on top of search engines like Bing or Google (DuckDuckGo is built on Bing Search, for example).

    Brave Search is not yet 100% independent either, but it can be, and it would continue to work even if all other search engines disappeared.

    I’m not sure what to do with this information, other than noting that it’s unusual to have a search engine that doesn’t rely on the big tech companies.

  • How you can become a better reader

    In his essay “How I Read,” Rob Anderson offers advice on reading better and more deeply, which it’s important because “You can tell the difference between a smart person who reads and a smart person who doesn’t by how they express ideas, the references they make, and the chains of logic they follow.”

    How does he read? First, he considers TV, movies and podcasts as supplements to deep learning which help him retain information – not the deep learning itself. He sets aside time to read, doesn’t commit to every book he reads, and finds time to fit reading throughout his day.

    There are a lot of good nuggets here if you’re looking to change your reading habits.

  • You should write – here’s why

    You should write, not because it makes you rich or brings you site traffic. You should write because it enriches you. When you write, you generate questions, you pursue interesting curiosities, and you engage with that information. This process makes you a different person:

    That’s the promise: you will live more curiously if you write. You will become a scientist, if not of the natural world than of whatever world you care about. More of that world will pop alive. You will see more when you look at it.

    What an excellent piece of advice. The full thing is here.

  • Nerd subcultures are dying and here’s why

    Grognardia argues that nerd subcultures, which used to be hard to access, have been transformed into brands to be marketed and have thus lost their nerd appeal:

    Nerd subcultures were once genuinely weird – offputting, insular, and proudly obscure. They were difficult to access and defiantly uncool and that very inaccessibility acted as a crucible, forging originality and independence. But the rise of the Internet, and especially social media. has flattened all subcultures.

    He suggests a solution: Seek out content that isn’t optimized for algorithms and existing IP. More at grognardia.

  • Now I know the artist behind those iconic illustrations in DND basic

    It wasn’t Erol Otis (he designed the cover). It was John Dee, who came from a comics background and thus drew lean, muscular heroes and heroines. And as this article points out, he drew halflings really well:

    Jeff liked to show Halflings in actions other than picking pockets or running scared.  His Halflings were fighters first and thieves second, more inspired by the rules of Basic D&D than Advanced, and therefore came off as a more valuable addition to a party.

    As a guy who loved the illustrations in the red book, this is a neat fact.

  • How a myth gets created

    History tells us that the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer threw a woman down the stairs in a fit of anger that his thinking was interrupted when she insisted on talking in the hallway outside his door. The story is used repeatedly to help us understand Schopenhauer’s character.

    The problem is, it’s not true. So how did it become accepted knowledge? This article traces the story from its origin, to its development, and finally to its acceptance as canon.

    Schopenhauer lived a long time ago, this story is of interest mainly to people who follow philosophy. For modern readers, what’s interesting is how a dishonest myth gets shaped, which we can certainly apply to stories in our own times. More here.

  • Try this to make better hiring decisions

    Daniel Kahneman wrote Thinking Fast and Slow, a foundational text about the various ways humans make decisions. This post summarizes a few of his strategies for improving thinking. One stood out, because I think it would apply to better hiring decisions:

    Delay Your Intuition: At 22, Kahneman redesigned the Israeli army’s interview system. The old way relied on gut feelings about recruits, and it failed badly. His fix: make interviewers score six specific traits separately, write each score down, then after completing all six scores, close their eyes and give an overall intuition. The interviewers revolted. “You’re turning us into robots,” one complained. But when they tested the new system, it worked dramatically better. That “close your eyes” instruction survived in the Israeli military for 50 years. Most people form an impression in seconds and spend the rest of their time confirming it. The best wait for all the information before letting their intuition speak.

    Read the whole thing here.

  • How to organize YouTube for maximum sanity

    YouTube is algorithmic whirlpool, sucking you into endless low-quality videos of Minecraft YouTubers, conspiracy theories and productivity gurus that leave you scrolling. Before you know it, you’ve learned nothing except the easiest way to mine diamond ore. You’ve given away your precious life essence to advertisers and gained nothing in return.

    There is a much better way to use YouTube and it involves shutting off the algorithm. At first, it feels weird. But once you get used to it, you’ll find that you’re consuming less mindless content and instead watching high-quality, 45 minute history videos of the city where you live that you always wanted to watch but were too busy learning about diamond ore.

    I loved the new landing page. It’s the feature I never knew I needed. I have been happily living without a YouTube suggestion feed for years now. That big fat “Your watch history is off” is a serene, quiet greeting awaiting me whenever I open the app, a reminder that I am in control, that nothing will be pushed into my face without my explicit request.

    The full YouTube system is here; I use it and can confirm it works.

  • Why you should not listen to this song

    Today I worked a 13 hour day, got yelled at, dealt with office politics and the worst part of my day was the Uber home. The driver was playing a flute rendition of Unchained Melody.

    I love Unchained Melody. It’s a song about love that endures over decades. It’s very catchy. It is awful, in a penetrating way, as flute music.

    Don’t google this.

  • Eerie: Was this comedian’s entire backstory invented?

    If you’re unaware, there’s a new conspiracy theory moving around the Internet that Roy Jay, an eccentric 1980s comedian, never existed. According to the theory, our memories have been manipulated by AI, so that we believe his existence, making it a deliberate Mandela effect.

    This is not true, but the longer, more interesting answer is that it’s increasingly possible with digital technology. Current technology can mass overwrite data and we would never know about it.

    Now that we’ve essentially offloaded our cultural memory onto the cloud, how can we tell if anything we didn’t directly experience really happened? Are the dates on some YouTube videos enough proof for you? Are the comments on forums that seem to be from real people enough evidence? What do you do with the vague feeling that it just isn’t right?

    Some conspiracies are meaningless; this one offers an early chance to think about how to deal with new technologies. There is an excellent write up here.

  • Why should we be kind to each other?

    Lots of reasons, but the biggest one is that being around people and dealing with their various hang ups is part of being human, and we forget that at our own peril. But also because when you smile at the world, the world smiles back.

    The author chose to become kind after a lifetime of bullying, which led them to believe they liked people even more, and I can’t help but detect it’s also because they know what it’s like to not be wanted, and want to stop that from happening to someone else.

    The author laments the cultural shift giving people permission to walk away from difficult people and relationships, partly because the destination is to safe, unexamined worlds filled with AI and artificial experiences.

    I had to decide to like people. My life didn’t make me do it by default. It was something I had to think about, and choose to do. I’m not being clumsy in my choice of words here, by the way: I think that liking someone, or a group of people, or the concept of humanity, is something you do. It’s an active choice.

    There’s a lot to learn in this piece, about bullying, about becoming kind, and about deterring what relationship we want with technology. Read it all here.

  • Could a world without screens happen again?

    The author thinks we could eventually move away from screens completely, which would be welcome relief to parents, internet addicts and office workers alike. The shift will be due to advances in computing which remove the screen entirely.

    Increasingly, I envision a world without phones or tablets or computers. A world defined by a more immersive, primarily hands-free technological experience. A future where our children will view screens the way most of us view cigarettes. “You used to look at a screen all day?” they’ll say. “Do you know how bad that is for you?”

    I’m not convinced, though the idea of returning to a world without screens completely— at least one which gives us the freedom to focus on each other a bit more — sounds appealing. The link includes technologies the author thinks could lead to this breakthrough.

  • What if the kids are alright?

    What if the kids are alright?

    considering all the content i consume about society’s rapid decline, it’s consistently disorienting to put the phone down, step outside, and look at how little has changed since my childhood.

    And more:

    we have spent roughly equal amounts of time letting strangers on the internet tell us what the world is like as we have actually experiencing the world on our own

    From the comments:

    I think we’re starting to see this—people setting fire to “permission mindsets” with extreme prejudice. And seeing “if it bleeds, it leads” bad news for what it is—junk food that doesn’t belong in a healthful information diet.

  • Five Lessons from History

    The point is that the more specific a lesson of history is, the less relevant it becomes. That doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant. But the most important lessons from history are things that are so fundamental to the behaviors of so many people that they’re likely to apply to you and situations you’ll face in your own lifetime.

    These five lessons that explain the world are worth absorbing, because you see them everywhere. More here.

  • Why it’s nearly impossible to buy an original Bob Ross painting

    During his lifetime, Ross produced tens of thousands of paintings. Yet, only a handful of his works have popped up for sale in recent years. When they do appear, they often fetch $10k+ and attract dozens of bids.

    Major auction houses — Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips — have no Bob Ross sales history. Craigslist draws a goose egg. A scan of eBay only turns up 3 sales in the last 6 months, 2 of which are of dubious origin.

    Now I want a Bob Ross painting. More here.

  • Entrepreneurship changed the way I think

    What I intend to describe here are some unexpected changes I have noticed in my life, outlook, and general cognition. It is not a surprise that changes occurred – using your brain for new things helps it grow, but the specifics are interesting at least to me. I know some of these changes have been observed in other founders, with whom I now form an unexpectedly close bond. Founders can pick founders from across a room.

    More here.

  • rich kid memes & the online culture of the 1 percent

    what i stumbled upon wasn’t just a collection of silly memes; it was a masterclass on the language of the ultra-wealthy. under a thick veil of irony, these memes revealed which brands, restaurants, events, and even career choices were deemed cool (more often, uncool) by rich kids around the globe.

    More on the embedded language of memes here.

  • How to like everything more

    I believe enjoyment is a skill that anyone can improve at. I learned out of necessity: my childhood was unpleasant, and as a coping mechanism, I tried to love, hard, the passably pleasant moments….In my experience, high-level enjoyment, like a sport, is composed of many interlocking micro-skills that must be trained individually, but which reinforce each other. 

    Learn some techniques for appreciating culture here.

  • New York police could deploy mesh net-firing counter-drone system for safer skies

    The system, upon detecting a small hostile drone, autonomously launches a small, hyper-fast interceptor drone that detects and tracks approaching hostile drones and “locks on” to them using proprietary advanced AI vision

    The intercepting Raider drone follows the target, incapacitates the hostile drone using a mesh net and a parachute to safely lower it to the ground. The whole process, including detection, deployment, tracking and capturing the hostile drone is fully automated removing the need for a human pilot.

    The future is here; more at the link.

  • LLMs as amplifiers, not assistants

    Since ChatGPT, the “assistant” frame has dominated how we think about LLMs. Under this frame, AI is a helpful person-like entity which helpfully completes tasks for humans.

    In this post, I’ll argue for training AI to act as an “amplifier.” This new frame could help us sidestep some potential alignment problems, tethering the AI’s behavior more closely to human actions in the real world and reducing undefined “gaps” in the AI’s specification from which dangerous behaviors could emerge.

    Read more here about different ways of thinking.