luke_smiths_blog 

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (1y ago)

Lindypress Bug Fix
Just a brief note that for the past couple of days, you might’ve been unable to buy books on LindyPress.net if you are in the United States, Canada or Australia (which is a lot of you). This has now been fixed, so you can place your orders now!

The issue was that there was a silent API update that kept addresses from validating states and provinces. Note that if your order placed, it’s all okay, this is only for people for whom the site would not let place an order.
… ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (1y ago)

I’ll visit South-East Europe (Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Constantinople) this Summer
I’ll be in south eastern Europe this summer (of 2023) in late June and early July.

Specific plans are still in the air, but I’ll be visiting Greece, Albania, Montenegro and possibly the European side of Turkey.
I’ll also be in Kosovo, and while I know I have some fans in Serbia, I’m not sure I can cross into Serbia proper easily since the US accepts Kosovo as independent, but I believe that being there would be a … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (1y ago)

Consciousness and Materialism

Hume’s Parallel

David Hume has often been quoted for his “Is” vs. “Ought” distinction.
The argument is that fact and morality are two different domains, and from no accumulation of statements of fact alone can we ever jump to a statement of morality.

We can say statements of fact such as:

  1. To be murdered is potentially painful.
  2. To be murdered is irreversible.
  3. Murder causes social dysfunction.
  4. Etc. …

By merely my collecting these, we haven’t proven that _M … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (1y ago)

Why I Won’t Go to Restaurants in 2023

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I’ve decided after some consideration to not go to restaurants at all in 2023.
You can call this a New Year’s Resolution.
It’ll require at least some sacrifice, pain, annoyance to myself and perhaps others, but I’m going to stick by it and I think it will have a good effect.

Restaurants are a drastically over-used creature comfort of … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (1y ago)

Retiring My Fiat Donation Portal
I’ve decided to retire my fiat donation portal at donate.lukesmith.xyz, where people could donate to me via debit and credit cards.
This will happen by the end of this calendar year.

It’s more in keeping with my principles of free software, self-ownership and everything else to only allow cryptocurrency donations.
This also is a subtle nudge to people who want to donate in streams to get into Bitcoin and Monero, as opposed to using fiat o … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (1y ago)

Blockchain Blasphemy and the Technological Antichrist

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There’s a meme YouTube video by Leonardo of Biz ( here) where the villainous Bogs refer to their desire to attain something called “The Akashic Records” using blockchain technology.

This random aside not just shows the attention to detail Leonardo gives what would otherwise be silly videos, but articulates something deep … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (1y ago)

‘Based’ Paganism vs. Christianity
I’ve been meaning to write about Paganism recently. I will frame it as a response to an email I received within the past day or so:

Hey Luke,

First off, I would like to thank you for all your efforts in making everything
you know accessible to everyone. You have exposed me to some of the most
thought-provoking people on the internet and Varg is one of them. I was
wondering if you can write an article or make a video on what you think about
Varg’s Paganism in r … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (1y ago)

Minimizing Liabilities Is Making It
The default way to look at financial “independence” nowadays is to think that means “making a lot of money.”
That’s understandable.

But then you see stuff like this:

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Or this:

Image

It takes until 30 for a person to be as rich as they were when they were born. (And this is average net worth, … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (1y ago)

The hardest technical solutions are right in front of your face.
Nassim Taleb had this old anecdote of the sheer absurdity that while the suitcase and other bags had existed for lifetimes, it was only in the 1990’s that people had the idea to put wheels on the things so they didn’t have to haul them around airports all day with their strength.

It reminds you of the fact that while children in the Incan Empire did indeed have some toys with wheels, apparently no one thought to use the wheel to make a simple … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (1y ago)

Based.Cooking has become more grandma-usable.
Over the past month, I’ve taken some off-time to tinker with
Based.Cooking, the cooking site I/we made a year or so
ago as a proof of concept for a simple and unintrusive recipe website. There
have been over 250 recipes submitted, but the hobbled-together static site
generator originally used proved unable to keep up and with all the
submissions, there was a big issue of content organization.

There have been two big changes. Firstly, I port … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (2y ago)

Monerotopia Presentation and Website News
Just a note that within two hours (11AM NY time), my edited Monerotopia presentation with slides and all will be premiering here on the Monero Talk channel on YouTube.

I did already do an extended commentary and explanation of my talk here on my PeerTube channel, and I might put this an the edited talk onto my YouTube channel if I feel like it. You shou … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (2y ago)

Important notes for LARBS users
Two notes for LARBS users:

  1. Xorg went through some updates last week that changed how it calculates dots-per-inch (DPI) on screens. There’s a chance that you might update and find your font extra large or small. If so, you can just manually addxrandr --dpi 96 to the beginning of your xprofile to set the DPI to the typical 96 (or whatever number looks best).
  2. I have no switched new installs of LARBS from using Pulseaudio to Pipewire as an … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (2y ago)

Obscenities are symptoms of weak minds.
Over the past few years, I made the decision to totally cut obscenities out from my speech. You might actually be able to find recordings of me cursing four or five years ago, but as of now, I really stand by my decision.

Obscenities are the linguistic equivalent of an trashy emaciated person entirely decked in tattoos, smoking cigarettes and wearing a shirt with nudity on it. They’ll defend what they do on the idea that it’s someone “their right,” or “e … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (2y ago)

Every Web Browser Absolutely Sucks.
The title explains it all, you don’t even have to read.

There are no good, even passable web browsers. None. Not a single one even comes close.

The weird thing is this: making a good browser should be easy! Among the existing web browsers, you could assemble all the parts necessary for a passable (if not perfect) browser. No one has ever bothered to do this, instead, people assembled 90% good stuff and 10% junk.

Here I will list:

  1. Featu … ⌘ Read more

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luke_smiths_blog
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 (2y ago)

Bringing back old-school web pins and buttons
Back in the not-quite-as-bad-old-days (at least as far back as the 90’s), every good website had a small “ad” gif that fans of the site could use as a colorful link. These are called “buttons” or sometimes “pins.”

You can see sites that collect these internet artifacts (both the good ones and boring ones) here and here.

Most people would have **do … ⌘ Read more

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