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307 lines
15 KiB
Markdown
307 lines
15 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Bel-Marduk
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date: 2013-06-04
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techne: :done
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episteme: :log
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---
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(Wait what? words? I need to write about stuff we did? *Again*? Didn’t I
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just… oh well. Fetch me the logs, I’ll docum.. wait, it says there I
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mostly did Japanese grammar practice, which I can’t meaningfully talk
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about yet, loads of boring-to-talk-about [deliberate
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practice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_%28learning_method%29#Deliberate_practice),
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and work, which I bet I’m not even allowed to talk about because we
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pretend we’re relevant to the industry? Ok, so can I post a manifesto
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then? I have a draft and need to get some of this anger out of… no? What
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about metaphys.. also no?
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Listen, Mister. I know you had the best of intentions with this “write
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about stuff you did because you like explaining stuff, which helps you
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actually do stuff”, but we have some better tools now, if you haven’t
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noticed, and while this works well for conceptual stuff, most skills are
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actually pretty hard to talk about in a meaningful way and learning them
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doesn’t really leave neat piles of notes that can be trivially converted
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into posts, so now you’re making me do *extra* work here. Can’t we go
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back to “deconstruct texts” and stuff? That’s at least
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fun.[^back]
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Yes I know the rules, I *wrote* them, but even Kant would agree that
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some rules can be broken somet.. ok yes he wouldn’t, but you know what I
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mean! Look, your paranoia isn’t helping me either! You’re so worried
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about distant effects of your actions, you’re not letting me talk about
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topics before you’re sure they’re fully under your control, but you’re
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still making me adhere to rules that were written under the assumptions
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that just documenting whatever happens is way awesome, so don’t you see
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the problem here? A lesson? What lesson could you possibly try to teach
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me here?
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“Sources of validation”?
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I see. Yeah that’s really clever of you. So if I don’t break the rule,
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I’ll have to find *something* to write about even though I don’t have
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anything ready yet. Yeah, I get how this extra work is great for your
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complicated plans. But if I just break it? What th.. whoa, that’s a big
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graph. That’s *all* conn.. even th.. whoa. Sheesh man, you’re quite the
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magician, you know that? Yes I know I joked about how I’m doing acausal
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magic when I wrote the rules. I didn’t expect you *meant* that bit! So
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if I don’t follow the rules, all.. *that*.. collapses? Well, that’s a
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pretty [double bind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind) you set
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up there. Listen,
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[Watzlawick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Watzlawick)’s books
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weren’t *instructions* how to mess people up. I don’t care that it
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works! Don’t
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[melon](http://www.koanicsoul.com/blog/2012/06/27/how-to-manifest-whatever-you-want/)
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me! There are nicer ways to get what you want. I hate when you cloud
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your incentives with magic talk and convoluted narratives. What do you
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mean that’s the point?
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So it’s actually a triple bind? For all three possible modes of response
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- [loser, clueless,
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sociopath](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/) - you’ve
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set up a demand that transparently subverts it, and is in conflict with
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the other two modes. The loser narrative is unbelievable because I can
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see the strings, the clueless reward is nonsense because I see you
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printing that toy money, the sociopath power doesn’t work because I’m
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afraid what using it will do to me. If I use any option anyway, you
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still win, and if I transcend their limitations, you also win.
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You’re quite the evil fuck, you know that?
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…
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…so what now?)
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---
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What’s the saying? If you don’t know what to do, go meta. So I’ll just
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document one of my recent Beeminding changes.
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Starting on 2013-02-28, I redesigned several things: I’ve started to
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switch from open-ended time-based goals to finite task-based goals,
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broken my big “do useful stuff” goal into smaller sub-goals, and begun
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to add percentile feedback.
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I explained some of the goal organization [over on
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Reddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/beeminder/comments/1e2duf/muflaxs_beeminder/c9wcevw),
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relevant quote:
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> I used to just track “productive hours / day” so I don’t sit on my ass
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> too much, but I started to substitute more fun projects for everything
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> else, so I recently broke that up into various independent groups of
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> goals: “science”, “guitar”, “code”, “polyglottery” and “job” (ugh). I
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> still track the total too, but that’s more of a nuclear option (with
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> the big 90\$ pledge) and I haven’t settled on a good daily goal yet.
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> If I’m too harsh on any one goal, it’s more likely I just decide it’s
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> not worth it and fail even though I still have plenty of time to meet
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> it.
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I’ve toned down some of the time-based goals because I found “do stuff
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for 20 minutes” not very motivating. There’s no sense of progress and “4
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hours” looks so large, I often didn’t even try to tackle it even when I
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had plenty of time left. Instead, I’ve begun to convert everything into
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a TODO list using org-mode. So for example, I’ve just turned every
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chapter / unit of a textbook into one todo item, which feels much more
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actionable and is done. (Also wrote [a simple
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script](https://github.com/muflax/scripts/blob/master/beeminder/beeminder_org_todo.rb)
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that updates Beeminder goals accordingly.[^org])
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So far this seems to be more productive, but I’ve not been doing it for
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very long. I tried a simple Bayesian comparison of a before/after
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dataset, mostly to figure out how R work. I just wanted to use
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[BEST](http://www.indiana.edu/~kruschke/BEST/), but the normality of
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“useful hours/day” turned out very low, meaning the data doesn’t seem to
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fit a normal distribution very well. After looking at a basic histogram:
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<%= image("fume_histogram.png", "Fume Histogram") %>
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I saw why. While this looks reasonably Poisson-y, I still don’t
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understand the underlying assumptions and methods very well, so even
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though I could hack together a simple version of “I put numbers into
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this magic box and look at these funny graphs it gave me!”, that
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wouldn’t be particularly useful.
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However, I just plugged my “total useful hours / day” into a simple
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Beeminder “weight gain” graph (so that I can track (and then raise) my
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fluctuating average), and you can still see two improvements (the first
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time I broke stuff down at the end of March, and the second slope when I
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transitioned to tasks):
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<%= image("fumeavg_graph.png", "Fume Average Graph") %>
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(Note that this is zoomed in and cuts off some \>6h outliers. The points
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are “total useful time” for each day as logged with my time-tracking
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tool, the thin line is a (slightly lagging) average.)
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I’m also trying to use this graph and a simple percentile number in
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[fume](https://github.com/muflax/fume) to implement [Seth’s percentile
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feedback](http://blog.sethroberts.net/2011/05/01/percentile-feedback-and-productivity/),
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so instead of just seeing “I did 1.2 hours of useful stuff today”, I
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also see how good that is compared to the last week.
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I’m not sure yet if it actually works in terms of increasing my
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productive time (not enough data), but at least it’s more motivating and
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I’ve made significant progress on several projects due to the tiny todos
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that feel more like “one more turn” instead of “fix ALL the things!”.
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---
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I got annoyed with Dropbox mangling my data and so thought, hey my
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`~/spoiler` directory (i.e. all my notes, todo lists and drafts) is
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already a (huge) git repository with auto-commit, so I could just use
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some git solution to sync that between machines. Then all the stuff in
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Dropbox is either read-only (public shares) or written by only one
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machine ever (phone -\> desktop) and I won’t have sync issues anymore.
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Shouldn’t be hard, right?
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What I considered:
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1. Use git-annex. Long-term that’s fine, but currently the assistant
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ignores the `.gitignore` (wtf?!) and I’m beginning to develop a
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deep-seated hatred against all Haskell
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programmers.[^haskell]
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2. Sparkleshare is, quote, “an Open Source collaboration and sharing
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tool that is designed to keep things simple and to stay out of your
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way”. It’s also written in C\#. Good joke. Is funny. I laugh.
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3. dvcs-autosync is similar, but “takes a more minimalistic approach”.
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Which includes no documentation, limited directory awareness and,
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best of all, *requires a central repository*. It has *“distributed”
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in its fucking name*. Who’d be so dement.. oh, guy uses Arch Linux.
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I’m now convinced every Archer is clinically insane.[^arch]
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So there isn’t any good tool yet. Well, I could turn one of those
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(probably dvcs-autosync) into something usable, but ain’t nobody got
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time for that. So it’s back to my cronjob’d commit-and-pull-everything
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solution until git-annex’ assistant stops sucking. (Nonetheless, I still
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put “use dvcs-autosync to auto-commit based on inotify and insta-push
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via git hook” on my todo, in case I *do* got time for that.)
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Sigh.
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---
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You know what’s really annoying? Hair feedback time.
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So I wanna do this totally awesome undercut thingie[^hipster],
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but it will take me months, if not a full year until some parts have
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grown enough that I can pull it off, and until then I can’t do
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*shit*.[^drunk] I just practice a bit by doing regular
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maintenance, but how am I supposed to level up my self-sustaining
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fabulousness if I can make maybe 1-2 big decisions *per year* and
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mistakes might require rollbacks so large, you gonna have to wait months
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just to *repeat* them?
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On the plus side, while I was going through
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[http://fuckyeahundercuts.tumblr.com](http://fuckyeahundercuts.tumblr.com),
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I felt - for the first time in my life - a sense of fear of being
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outdated, that by the time this “just long enough to poke me in the eye”
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mess has grown into something that can unambiguously blow in the wind
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and has enough surface area for a dozen Hello Kitty hair bows, that by
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then fashion will have moved on and I’ll look so wannabe 90’s, I might
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as well buy a fedora.
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Then I remember no one cares and I go back to Pinterest.
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---
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A mini-review of the newest [Crusader Kings
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II](http://www.crusaderkings.com/) DLC, [The Old
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Gods](http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/crusader-kings-ii-the-old-gods).
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It adds a new start in 867, the year Rurik decided that Russian brides
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are just the best and he’s gonna grab himself some in
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Novgorod[^rape], and more importantly, before the spread of
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Christianity into the East. I’ve always wanted to play before the
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*Ostsiedlung*, so I just jumped right into Lusatia and decided that
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minority status isn’t good enough for us
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[Sorbs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbs), we’re gonna carve
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ourselves a kingdom in the midst of Vikings, Poles, invading nomads, and
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worst of all, Bavarians.
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The new raid mechanics are a beautiful addition. At first, I was just
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assembling little hunting parties from time to time because I thought
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that it was my duty as a Pagan to pillage, but by picking vulnerable
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Christian provinces too busy with bigger assholes than me, I had quickly
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transformed my fiscal policy into “whatever the Christians can’t
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defend”. Greater Poland acting up because it thinks it should own
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Silesia? Better “borrow” some money from the cities to the south.
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Vikings landed again? Let’s make it Nürnberg’s problem and buy some
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mercenaries with their gold. Once I realized I can finance the majority
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of my armies with ransom money, I couldn’t help but start blasting Death
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Metal and cheer the burning of churches. The Christians might worship a
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pathetic god, but at least their coffers come back from the dead year
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after year, ready for another harvest.
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The fascinating thing is how this high lasted for some time until some
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even bigger Pagan decided I would make a nice addition to their
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ever-growing list of vassals, and I realized I ain’t got no Divine Right
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of Kings, I just got a big axe, and after the last succession crisis of
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6 sons (did I mention those concubines?), I was exhausted and without
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friends, and maybe all those saints I gladly turned into martyrs
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might’ve been on to something and I should’ve taken up the Axe of the
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Apostles instead. But even though the March of Progress might be against
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me, and even though stability and order win in the long run and I got
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neither, at least for a few decades I was feared by all and when death
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inevitably comes, I won’t have any regrets.
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My sons, though, are fucked.
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<%= image("yolo.jpg", "#yolo") %>
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[^back]:
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But seriously, I don’t always like to shoe-horn fragments, cool
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links and “omg they didn’t just write that” parts into logs. I know
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people use their FB or G+ for that, but I don’t like either site
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(because at least one of them is probably run by actual soul-eating
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vampires).
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I wonder if I should start a tumblr. While I don’t have angry
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opinions about gender yet, I am confused about my personal identity,
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sexuality, hair style and species. I would like to regularly reblog
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[sassy
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pugs](https://gs1.wac.edgecastcdn.net/8019B6/data.tumblr.com/390eb27ac775f1db1a416ca9172c28aa/tumblr_mnqtmuomAa1r8hf8lo1_400.gif)
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and summarize complex arguments with a reaction.gif, but I’m not
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sure if I’m ready to become a 15-year-old girl full-time.
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There needs to be a place that is kinda in-between FB and tumblr. A
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fumblr, if you will.
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[^org]:
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Beeminder has native Trello integration, which is probably a good
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alternative if you’re not already familiar with org-mode. Still,
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Trello doesn’t have nested items and can’t be used offline, so
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that’s somewhat annoying.
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[^haskell]:
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Seriously, Haskell has a worse dependency hell than the ARM code I
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maintain *which still uses gcc 2.95*. Oh, I need to update a minor
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library from `x.y.3` to `x.y.4`? *Every single Haskell program ever*
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on my machine is now broken. I hate academics.
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[^arch]:
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Sometimes I feel like ranting about Arch, but then I remember
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*pacman doesn’t even have versioned packages* and I don’t think any
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more needs to be said about it. At least the
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[suckless](http://suckless.org/) guys make great trolls and
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occasionally write cool projects. Arch just seems to rot the mind
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with cargo cult minimalism.
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[^hipster]:
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Look, I have strong opinions about the metaphysics and epistemology
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of 19th century Dutch theologians. It’s pretty much mandatory that I
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either look like Skrillex or an 80’s bum. Which isn’t mutually
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exclusive, fortunately.
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[^drunk]:
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I expect to get drunk sometime this week, do it anyway, freak out,
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complain on Twitter, then love my decisiveness and use the
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experience as yet another guilt token later, admonishing myself why
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I can’t be as awesome as I used to be. That’s how I usually get
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stuff done I have issues about.
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[^rape]:
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As [mrout on
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Reddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/CrusaderKings/comments/1f9519/the_concubine_system_is_awesome/ca7zp8l)
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said, “Hey Japan! This is how you do a rape game without being weird
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about it.”.
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