new log

content/references/references.mkd

@@ -103,6 +103,7 @@
 [Cula-Malunkyovada Sutra]: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html
 [Fake Sky]: http://computationaltheology.blogspot.com/2012/05/superintelligent-solution-to-fermi.html
 [Basic Laws of Human Stupidity]: http://www.searchlores.org/realicra/basiclawsofhumanstupidity.htm
+[Price Reading List]: http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/study_list.htm
 
 <!-- onion -->
 [onion horoscope]: http://www.theonion.com/articles/your-horoscopes-week-of-january-10-2012,27001/
@@ -226,6 +227,10 @@
 [Introduction to Bayesian Statistics]: http://libgen.info/view.php?id=12067
 [The Attention Revolution]: http://www.amazon.com/Attention-Revolution-Unlocking-Power-Focused/dp/0861712765
 [Data Analysis - A Bayesian Tutorial]: http://libgen.info/view.php?id=259687
+[Pre-Nicene New Testament]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Pre-Nicene-New-Testament-Fifty-four/dp/1560851945
+[After Virtue]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Virtue
+[Thinking, Fast and Slow]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow
+[The Christ-Myth Theory And Its Problems]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Christ-Myth-Theory-Problems-ebook/dp/B00771ZPZA
 
 <!-- internal links -->
 [main]: http://muflax.com

content/references/videos.mkd

@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
 [Samsara Talk]: http://arobuddhism.org/audio-teachings/samsara-suffering-and-suspicion-the-path-to-endless-enjoyment.html
 [Schmidhuber Creativity]: http://vimeo.com/7441291
 [Shinzen Young]: http://www.youtube.com/user/expandcontract
-[Somuncu]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9qciD3sy2w
+[Somuncu]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfeCNh2eI58
 [Unicorn Magic]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqvRrKcEhD4
 [Using Neuroscience for Spiritual Practice]: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1030598948823323439
 [Wasting The Dawn]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7PhrPbyIsE

content_daily/log/61.mkd

@@ -1,13 +1,30 @@
 ---
-title: Watch Me Learn
+title: Acapella
 date: 2012-06-25
-techne: :wip
+techne: :done
 episteme: :log
 ---
 
-And because I'm feeling lazy today, I don't want to actually describe my card design. So I recorded a video of a full typical review session instead. Watch me use Anki like every day <del>on the toilet</del>, uhh, <del>while waiting for code to compile</del>, no, uh... between study sessions. Right, that's the story I'm going with.
+Finished the French and Japanese version of the MCD cards, improved it all a bit and updated my Anki decks. The French translations suck somewhat, but then, *everything* in French sucks somewhat. (*Zing*.)
 
-(The sound sucks and the loading times are slightly unusual due to the recording app. It's also a bit long, merely because I couldn't be bothered to pre-select interesting cards or edit the video. If you're reading this, you probably already have an unhealthy obsession with minutiae of my life, so that should be fine.)
+I'll do a demonstration tomorrow, likely. (Mostly because I've already done all of today's reviews.)
 
-<%= youtube("") %>
+Also finally caught up with my reading notes and converted them all into Anki cards.
 
+---
+
+I've started reading Robert M. Price's [The Christ-Myth Theory And Its Problems][], mostly in the hope of getting a complete overview of his main arguments.
+
+<% skip do %>
+Price is my favorite[^fav] New Testament scholar, but his main problem is that he has *hundreds* of live hypotheses flying around, all fascinating, but it's all spread out over a huge amounts of talks, podcasts and a [humongous reading list][Price Reading List]. Now, I'm an obsessive bible nerd and I've listened to literally hundreds of hours of Price's podcast and read many of his books, and I'll be working myself through his reading list as soon as I can read Latin and Greek, but one good collection of at least the Jesus material would be cool. (I'm also really excited about his upcoming book on Paul.)
+
+[^fav]: Ok, Richard Carrier is pretty neat too. Carrier is better at analytical thought (*much* better), but Price gets the tropes and Christian way of thinking. They complement each other perfectly.
+
+Right now, the best recommendation is the [Pre-Nicene New Testament][], Price's attempt to reconstruct all of the early Christian texts and their layers of redaction. It's an amazing book and I think a really cool way to present his arguments. "If I'm right, then the original texts must have looked roughly like this", and it turns out, these reconstructions make a lot of sense, are all plausible and match the evidence. Once you've seen them, it's really obvious how the whole historization process went and why the canon looks the way it does. You can't unsee the Jesus myth afterwards.
+
+But still, it's got 1200+ pages, and a neat summary of all major hypotheses would be very useful.
+
+Once I'm done with it (this week likely, review then), I'll either read something science-y ([Thinking, Fast and Slow][], maybe) or MacIntyre's [After Virtue][]. I've listened to a talk about some of his ideas and found them fascinating enough that I might just jump in. MacIntyre is *the* leading virtue ethicist and that's the meta-ethical branch of theories I'd really love to understand *much* better. (He's also another Catholic convert and Thomist. Just sayin'.)
+
+If I get stuck, I'll just switch to one of the dozen or so half-finished books on my list. Oh well.
+<% end %>

content_daily/log/62.mkd

@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+---
+title: Watch Me Learn
+date: 2012-06-27
+techne: :wip
+episteme: :log
+---
+
+Let's talk about language learning.
+
+My main criticism of Khatzu's [All Japanese All The Time][AJATT] a couple of years ago was, well, alright I get the ideas and meta-points, but how do you *do* this exactly?
+
+Like, on a typical day, what is it you actually do? Attitudes are nice and all, but I'd like to know a little bit more than that, you know.[^do]
+
+[^do]:
+<% skip do %>
+Which is why I always liked hardcore vipassana. "Sit on your ass, pay attention to your breath until it goes away." is an actual instruction. It's lacking, sure, but at least it's *there*. I *still* don't really know what many Mahayana traditions actually *do*.
+<% end %>
+
+So here's my answer. There are three things, besides meta-activities like writing tools, that I actually do.
+
+1. Watch TV.
+2. Read texts.
+3. Do Anki cards.
+
+1) is obvious. You put on the TV, *don't* use English subtitles you bloody savage you, but only native subtitles (or none), and watch. That's it. Wellu ok, in the beginning this is extremely frustrating. I still remember my hardcore immersion phase where I did *everything* in Japanese all day, and after watching *a whole season* of a funny show and *not understanding a single word*, you are bound to get a bit frustrated.
+
+But I don't think this is what Khatz even meant, but he wasn't very clear about activities, so it was my best guess. Anyway, 1) is really simple to do, but not very profitable in the beginning.
+
+2) is exactly like 1), only more so. You can use parallel texts etc. to make it a bit easier to get started, and rely on good dictionaries and whatnot, but in the end, until you're already somewhat fluent, it will mostly be frustrating unless you have the motivation to live on the little scraps of meaning you can just barely extract.
+
+So alright, 1) and 2) are easy to do for post-intermediates, but how do you get there? Assuming you don't have Michel Thomas' corpse in your closet, or some secret cabal of polyglots to design some decent course for you, you'll do Anki cards.
+
+And because I'm feeling lazy today, I don't want to actually describe my card design. I'm going to write this up a bit more in a blog post eventually. I've actually written the first half of it already, and took some screenshots and so on, so what's really missing is just a description of the tools I use to generate the cards. Well, maybe once my Latin skills are up a level or two, as a proof that this stuff works.
+
+For now, I've recorded a video of a complete typical review session instead. Watch me use Anki like every day <del>on the toilet</del>, uhh, <del>while waiting for code to compile</del>, no, uh... between study sessions. Right, that's the story I'm going with.
+
+(The sound sucks and there are some minor loading issues due to the recording app.)
+
+It's also a bit long, merely because I couldn't be bothered to pre-select interesting cards or edit the video. If you're reading this, you probably already have an unhealthy obsession with minutiae of my life, so that should be fine. I'll highlight important cards in the upcoming post.
+
+<%= youtube("") %>
+
+But some notes anyway.
+
+1. I do all editing on the desktop and almost all reviews on my phone. It's just more convenient that way.
+
+2. New cards are optional and the limit is more of an upper bound to prevent review explosions.
+
+3. The wiping motion is card suspension. I delete all suspended cards every few weeks or so.