Unarchived

Hello faithful reader! I was recently reading the bible and ruminating on Genesis. In Genesis 22, you have Abraham offering Isaac for a sacrifice. At the end of the chapter, a concubine is mentioned: Reumah. The first few times I read this, I thought this was Abraham's concubine; it felt like a bit of a betrayal of Sarah. This seemed further compounded by the fact the next time she's mentioned is her burial. I will have to confirm - but the internet seems to think this was not Abraham's concubine. Perhaps this was God's will - having two children from whom would come many nations was enough. However, the main item I wanted to mention was Sarah's gravesite. Abraham ultimately bought a small cave, and a field, for about $100,000 (400 shekels) [ link ]. I find this interesting for several reasons. The first - that Abraham pays for a burial site. I'm not sure if this was because he didn't want his wife buried on his own land or that perhaps his culture preferred

Hello faithful reader! I'm building a card game and one of the cards is that of a frog. I was struck by how easy it is to be in the territory of the unknown when we repeat words. Say a word 1000 times - and somewhere in the middle, it can feel weird on one's tongue. It even has a label:  Semantic satiation . On a related note, you can change its spelling - and potentially be newly inspired! -: frustration :- I hereby share the reality that, the day after I posted about giving space for creativity: I didn't. And I was beset with no inspiration. An excellent, gentle reminder that many, many lessons, once learned, need to be refreshed. Giving yourself the space to fail, and not quit, is priceless. -: pondering :- One of the things I'm fascinated by is our inability to genuinely see and know reality. We certainly have sensory experiences and memories. But to know what IS real we almost always need at least one other person: One person to corroborate/confirm the gathered dat

Hello faithful reader! I wanted a centralized location for my musings. The hardest challenge was naming! So many abandoned blogs with cool names. Reminds me of a frequently stolen (mis)quote: There are only two hard things in Computer Science: naming things. [ attribution ] -: school :- I started taking classes again today. I'm a functioning adult, pay bills, have a family. And on some level it's like I'm in high-school again. Being on this side of it - it's actually a pleasant awkwardness -: pondering :- I watched a YouTube video on creativity - John Cleese on Creativity [ link ]. My favorite part was the reminder to leave space to be creative. Whether writing a novel, or solving a difficult problem, we need to give ourselves time. In our modern instant-feedback society, it is a good reminder to trust the process. -: idea :- Given the notion of probabilistic circuitry, I wonder if it would be possible to use machine learning to design or build a circuit that could dra