Gould had a pronounced aversion to what he termed “hedonistic” approaches to piano repertoire, performance, and music generally. For him, “hedonism” in this sense denoted a superficial theatricality, something to which he felt Mozart, for example, became increasingly susceptible later in his career. He associated this drift toward hedonism with the emergence of a cult of showmanship and gratuitous virtuosity on the concert platform in the 19th century and later. The institution of the public concert, he felt, degenerated into the “blood sport” with which he struggled, and which he ultimately rejected.

…

Gould believed that the institution of the public concert was an anachronism and a “force of evil”, leading to his early retirement from concert performance. He argued that public performance devolved into a sort of competition, with a non-empathetic audience mostly attendant to the possibility of the performer erring or failing critical expectation; and that such performances produced unexceptional interpretations because of the limitations of live music. He set forth this doctrine, half in jest, in “GPAADAK”, the Gould Plan for the Abolition of Applause and Demonstrations of All Kinds.

From the Wikipedia article on Glenn Gould.

From the Wikipedia article on the Mosuo ethnic group in China:

In Mosuo culture, a myth describes that long ago, dogs had life spans of 60 years while humans had life spans of thirteen years. Humans felt their life span was too short, so they traded it with the dogs in exchange for paying homage to them.

From “British logistics in the Falklands War” on Wikipedia:

The Argentine government did not wish to “repatriate” its dead, as it considered that they were already in Argentina. Many were not identified, and were buried with the inscription “Argentine soldier known unto God.”

1960s-era encryption systems often included a punched card reader for loading keys. The mechanism would automatically cut the card in half when the card was removed, preventing its reuse.

From “Securing Record Communications: The TSEC/KW-26” via “Stream cipher attacks” on Wikipedia.

From the Wikipedia article on Hattori Hanzo:

He died at the age of 54 or 55 in 1597. There are three theories about his death. One asserts that he was assassinated by a rival Samurai, the pirate Fūma Kotarō. After Hanzo tracked him down to the Inland Sea, Kotarō lured him and his men into a small channel and used oil to set the channel on fire. The second theory is that Hanzo became a monk in Edo where he lived out the rest of his days until he died of illness. The third theory is that he died because of illness and it was a natural death.

I am Culgi, who has been chosen by Inana for his attractiveness.
…
Because I am a powerful man who enjoys using his thighs, I, Culgi, the mighty king, superior to all, strengthened the roads, put in order the highways of the Land.
…
So that my name should be established for distant days and never fall into oblivion, so that my praise should be uttered throughout the Land, and my glory should be proclaimed in the foreign lands, I, the fast runner, summoned my strength and, to prove my speed, my heart prompted me to make a return journey from Nibru to brick-built Urim as if it were only the distance of a double-hour.
— A praise poem of Shulgi (Shulgi A)

Sumerians didn’t skip leg day or cardio.

If a function is only called from a single place, consider inlining it. – John Carmack

From John Carmack on Inlined Code on Jonathan Blow’s blog.

From my all-time favorite README:

“I don’t feel like killing you anymore,” offers Bond. “I’m having far too much fun discussing macros with you. If I kill you, I’ll have to start over.”

Via Alma, a programming language by Carl Mäsak.

Was lazy and made some cornbread from boxed mix today. Threw in half a bag of frozen corn as well, remembering Sweet Tomatoes, and it turned out great!

Fetch is hard work! 🐶

Favorite hojicha I’ve had so far. Was so good it single-handed convinced me to try different more hojicha instead of my usual teas. teashop.uogashi-meicha.co.jp/products/…

conda singlehandedly takes up 85% of my zsh startup time (170 ms out of 200 ms)!!! Used:

for i in $(seq 1 10); do time zsh -i -c exit; done

to check. Switching to micromamba now…

Just found Superkey by Ryan Hanson. I’d already been using Rectangle Pro by him for window management. Type text and it’ll find it & click it, in any open app in macOS. Going to see if it sticks but it’s an interesting concept executed well. Love how macOS has so many indie apps.

Hypothesis: as ∫prestige of institution dt → 1, P(grifter at institution) → 1. But p never reaches 1; grifters are clever enough to realize they need some non-grifters to launder their reputations. Thus always to the institutions of creative destruction—sic semper institutis!

Waiting for the clock to hit 5pm… 🐶

Hopefully my last Vim TIL for a while: embedded Lua in Vimscript in Neovim wasn’t working. nvim-treesitter + this in ~/.config/nvim/after/queries/vim/injections.scm works:

; extends
(lua_statement
  (script
    (body) @injection.content)
  (#set! injection.language "lua"))

Vim TIL:

:Inspect() tells you the highlighting group of the text under the cursor; useful for creating color schemes. ZZ is the same as :x; writes & closes the current file/window. :verbose set foo tells you who last set the variable foo; useful for debugging.

Currently reading The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. Absolutely love it so far. 📚

Serious dog. 🐶

I’d definitely rather have a pretty car than an ugly one. But I’d never say “what a striking Mercedes SUV, I have to get that in the background of my photo!!” (cf. clothes, houses, …) Cars are ugliness-minimized, not beauty-maximized.

Finally looked up how to get Fastmail to automatically add (not accept) calendar invites. By default it only does this for contacts. Go to Settings > Calendars > Calendar options > Invitations then set “For messages from” to “Anyone.” Now if they could just fix their spam problem…

Sad fire hydrant :’( In San Francisco.

Creative heated outdoor seating. In Incline Village, near Lake Tahoe. 🗺️

Isuien Garden in Nara uses these cute rocks to mark closed paths. 🗺️

Currently reading: A Hero Born by Jin Yong 📚

🐶 selfie