flâneur

Abu Zar Talib

0 followers · 3 following · 855 views

on the atlas — 36

highlights — 38

  • Importantly, probabilistic ethics does not depend on the idea that morality is ‘objective’. If morality is objective, probabilities can track our confidence in which values reflect the objective truth. If morality is subjective, probabilities can track our confidence in which values will survive our own reflection. In both cases, the basic logic is the same: we give more weight to values we find more plausible, yet we still leave room for doubt.
    An ant is drowning: here’s how to decide if you should save it | Aeon Essays
  • These questions often get blurred. Queries like ‘Do individual ants deserve moral concern?’ risk conflating the scientific question of whether ants are sentient, the ethical question of whether only sentient beings deserve moral concern, and the practical question of whether a policy of caring for ants in a particular way is achievable or sustainable. Making sound decisions requires teasing apart these questions while seeing how they interact.
    An ant is drowning: here’s how to decide if you should save it | Aeon Essays
  • The thing about grief, made visible, is that it’s made up of all the things a human can feel.
    Memory / care - by Courtney Martin - the examined family
  • This woman had had a miscarriage and she was adhering prosthetic bellies to her painfully flat belly along the same timeline that her belly would have grown should her pregnancy have remained viable. I told my brother about the dream the next morning and then said to him, “I mean, I know it was about grief, but what does it mean?” And as soon as I said those words out loud, I knew exactly what it meant: grief is so often invisible. It is the absence of a growing belly, the dying dad living in a memory care facility, the love you never had.
    Memory / care - by Courtney Martin - the examined family
  • It is strange to feel that those closest to you may not know you that well, a sensation both chilling and oddly liberating. I begin to wonder—if they knew me better if I allowed myself to be fully seen, would their presence feel as steady, or would they dissipate like vapour at dawn?
    i don’t think a lot of friends know me that well
  • I think the left’s control of our arts, culture, and ideas industries have left too many of us thinking that we can’t lose a culture war. But in the broad sense, we currently are.
    John Oliver is (Still) Part of the Problem
  • He replied that I had not to imagine t hat each limb was individually positioned and pulled by the operator during the different phases of the dance . Each movement, he said, had a centre of gravity; it was enough to govern this one po int within the figure; the limbs , which were no more than pe ndula, followed along mechanically , without any extra help, of their own accord. He added that this movement was very simple; that every time the centre of gravity is displaced in a straight line , the limbs move in curves ; and that often, when simply shaken randomly, the whole fell into a sort of r…
    Microsoft Word - Kleist On the Marionette Theatre, last.docx
  • I like being comfortable! And there is a persistent comfort in pretending like this life has happened mostly by accident.
    What are you willing to do? [from ismatu.fm]
  • I wanted to know where he thought I should direct my energies, what I should do with this insatiable hunger that burned in me for some sort of real, thoroughgoing truth. Softly, gracefully, he said: “The truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing.”
    After Psychedelics - by gabe k-s - exteroception
  • aurelius couldn't quit being emperor, and epictetus couldn't quit being a slave
    you can just do stuff - alice maz
  • One, a mechanism for acquiring the skills associated with the ‘technology of ambition’. Two, a social network of like-minded and like-skilled ambitious individuals. Three, a means to accelerate an individual’s next steps, such as providing privileged access to a set of resources or positions.
    Technology entrepreneurship and the disruption of ambition | by Matt Clifford | Entrepreneur First | Medium
  • the path of maximal interestingness is supposed to feel like fun. Not fun as in “I feel entertained” but fun as in, “this is engrossing and self-surprising, life-affirming and a little scary.”
    A funny thing about curiosity - by Henrik Karlsson
  • The world is always somehow more spacious in my memories. LEJLA KALAMUJIC
    Call me Esteban and other stories (Lejla Kalamujić) - Petrov's world
  • I remember when I was going through the dot-com boom as a founder, this one guy gave me a piece of advice that I think about: “If they’re passing a plate of cookies around, take one.”
    Capital: Ben Sun | The Generalist
  • Now, that’s not that easy to do. But a lot of seed investors lose that kind of thinking, they say, “Oh, I think long-term about the business.” Sure, but the Series A investors are thinking about the business long term, too, but they want to see proof points that show you can get there. I optimize for that, and it’s a lot easier to underwrite.
    Capital: Ben Sun | The Generalist
  • Focusing on the journey from seed to A is a much easier task – 18 to 24 months. If you do it well, you can really improve your hit rate. If you look at the data, when you get to a Series A, 60% get to a Series B, 60% of Series Bs get to a C, and 60% get to a D. It really is that clean. Unicorn rounds happen around Series D, E, or F, depending on the year. So if you want to get to a 20% unicorn hit rate from the seed, you have to have a graduation rate to the Series A of 80 to 90%.
    Capital: Ben Sun | The Generalist
  • The other thing I try to do is focus on underwriting the company’s ability to raise a Series A. Trying to predict if a company will become a unicorn 8 to 10 years out?
    Capital: Ben Sun | The Generalist
  • I realized that the most funded verticals in climate tech tended to be mere green mirrors to existing profitable sectors: electric vehicles and plant-based meats swapping in for ICE cars and livestock agriculture. These green doppelgangers might allow for a simple transition for consumers — but perhaps bring with them some mirrored environmental harms as well.
    Common Grounding - by Allison Tielking - Reboot
  • For example, traditional transformers that work only with AC can’t switch to DC without extra components. That AC-DC conversion is important because a host of technologies that aim to be a part of the cleaner energy future, including the electrolyzers that create hydrogen fuel, EV charging stations, and energy storage, all require lots of transformers, and they all need DC power. Solid-state power electronics, on the other hand, can seamlessly handle AC-DC conversions. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a power-electronic replacement for the transformer?” Divan says. “It gives you control. And, in p…
    Transformer Shortage Crisis: Can New Engineering Solve It? - IEEE Spectrum
  • The worst and most damaging routines might be the repeated things we say to ourselves about the impossibility of any other life than this life, than this routine, which we then repeat routinely to a bored world, a world which unfortunately, has heard it all before and which is glad to turn away from our cynicism.
    Routine - David Whyte
  • I drink my coffee at the same time by the same window every morning to appreciate the tiny miraculous nature of its taste or contemplate the extraordinary nature of my changing daily realities, or I drink it feeling besieged, I drink it hurriedly, not quite ever fully present but also not wanting the ritual to end, my precious time alone about to end too soon, my own set time but a time set against the world’s besieging time.
    Routine - David Whyte
  • In the human imagination the invisible seems to seek us personally asking to find it a visible expression. The invisible in a human life is understood as a sleeping singularity, about to become alive through multiples of itself: like a seed holds invisibility within its single skin, holding everything that will grow and shape its many branches against a future sky.
    Invisible - David Whyte
  • Transitions are the pivotal moments in our lives when we can bring our entire being to bear.
    The Story About Yourself You Need To Forget
  • ‘One true self’ is a comforting story, because it helps us see our future just as we see our past: when looking back on our years, we tell ourselves one narrative that connects all the dots and decision points. Similarly, we look into the future and feel the need to fulfill the story of one version of our self.‘One true self’ is like the idea of finding your one soulmate. If there’s only one life for me that I could possibly be happy in, the chances I ever discover that are incredibly low—why not give up now!
    The Story About Yourself You Need To Forget
  • The walls of our house were supposed to be white. But I never remember them being white. At first they were grey. Then they turned black from all the coal dust.
    In the Rain, in the Cold, in the Dark by Ángel Di María | The Players’ Tribune
  • “It’s awful, but… it’s also interesting. I wish I could hear all about it. I know you don’t have the energy to tell me about it, but I wish you could because this moment matters. It’s a piece of your story, as terrible as it is.”
    'I'm Overwhelmed With Grief!' - by Heather Havrilesky
  • State-of-the-art for CDR in India (Indicated TRLs are country-specific).
    India's pathway to net zero by 2070: status, challenges, and way forward - IOPscience
  • BESS, CSP, and PSP appear to be most scalable and cost-effective technologies necessitating investment and thoughtful policy formulation.
    India's pathway to net zero by 2070: status, challenges, and way forward - IOPscience
  • Vexing questions shadow the jubilant homecoming. What does it mean for art works to “go back” to a country that didn’t exist when they were taken? Can they have any meaning for a population alienated from their history? Or do they risk becoming mere tools of state propaganda?
    Mati Diop and the Cinema of Impossible Returns | The New Yorker
  • the situation with time is much the same as with money. The most dangerous way to lose time is not to spend it having fun, but to spend it doing fake work
    How to Lose Time and Money
  • How should we create things? The word “should” isn’t quite right, since there’s no correct way to be creative; still, when you’re actually creating something, you have to answer the question definitively for yourself, with some urgency. It’s not just about getting to a desired result. Your methods have an ethics to them, too.
    How Should We Create Things? | The New Yorker
  • I suppose I’m living through the nothingness now.
    these are the days - beauty and terror
  • We’re learning a different kind of love, and that any love, in practice, isn’t exactly what was sold to us.
    these are the days - beauty and terror
  • Like pruning a bonsai, sometimes I remove things that no longer resonate. What lives on are perennially interesting and memorable. The oldest branches evoke vibes and eras that I think are worth remembering and learning from. I didn’t have a plan behind it, besides striving to express myself by combining and imitating the things I liked. I definitely didn’t think I’d be scrolling through these images a decade later.
    11 Years of Inspiration
  • Differentiators: Make sure the value-based selling motion underscores the unique differentiators (define these internally first). Simple calculations: Don’t make it overly complicated — focus on a few key metrics. Current state vs. future state: Include an analysis of their current state (i.e., what will the prospect do without this product, and how can this product improve it?). Demonstrate value: Articulate a business case that can be proved out in a trial or POC (e.g., “You take X hours and Y people, we can decrease by Z% and your net result will be X”).
    Three go-to-market tactics every founder needs to thrive in today’s market | TechCrunch
  • The first red flag is that the company is expressing what it will spend the money on as percentages. That makes sense, to a degree, for how you plan your internal budgets. But as an investor, I want to know that the company is focusing on activities that fulfill that third objective: raising funds. That means that in effect, a startup needs to think two funding rounds ahead when raising money: what you need to raise for this round, and the amount you will need for the next round, which will probably happen between 18 and 24 months from now. The problem I see with this slide is that it’s not cl…
    Never express your ‘use of funds’ slide as percentages | TechCrunch
  • Typically, you’re going to want to include product, traction, market validation and key hire milestones. Product — What product milestones do you need to hit in order to raise the next tranche of money? In particular, this includes beta or full product launches, major feature sets in the product pipeline or integrations with partners. Traction — What business metrics do you need to achieve in order to raise more money? How many units do you have to sell, how many subscribers do you need, how many customers do you want? Other metrics may also be helpful here — your net promoter score (NPS), mon…
    The one slide 95% of founders get wrong when fundraising | TechCrunch
  • And except in domains with big penalties for making mistakes, it's often better not to aim for perfection initially. In software, especially, it usually works best to get something in front of users as soon as it has a quantum of utility, and then see what they do with it. Perfectionism is often an excuse for procrastination, and in any case your initial model of users is always inaccurate, even if you're one of them.
    Do Things that Don't Scale