wollw's comments

> One McRefugee renting a subdivided flat in To Kwa Wan, Hung said, told volunteers that her landlord charged her HK$16 for a unit of electricity, compared to about HK$1.10 charged by the city’s two main power suppliers.

Sounds like they're trying to peg the HKD to the USD Silver Unit[1][2][3].

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coinage_Act_of_1792#Authorizat... [2]https://silverprice.org/silver-price-per-ounce.html [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Silver_Eagle

edit: I can't help but notice that 2.5g is the weight in silver of the old Liberty Disme that I pick up for about $1 (paper) when I feel like putting some silver into the local economy (used as 10c). A 'spot' of silver perhaps.

It's forced me to think a lot more about the material worth of our economy, specifically legal tender. I took a $20 Bank Note to the Coin Shop yesterday to trade ~1g of Cotton and Flax for a $1 Unit (~1oz of Silver) which I'll be tithing at Church this morning. The Nuts and Bolts of our economy started to get obscure when I got interested in Cryptocurrencies and I feel like I'm still recovering... From a certain perspective the copper traces in a Bitcoin Miner are worth more than any "coin" it produces and should sooner be melted down and turned into 1 Cent pieces so we can actually pass something that at least resembles Art around instead of just a secure Ledger.

One of the problems with this is our debt based economy. I would have ordained at one point if it weren't for the fact that having taken loans out for school means I'm ironically too poor to take a vow of poverty.

Sir Issac Newton was a virgin too, just to add some balance to things.

The main reason I brought it up is that like the Apple "Store" the OpenBSD Ports (in my case) are a curated selection of software. I do mostly use pkg_add to install, as it is recommended and takes less time, but Ports is more recognizable; I still prefer it to Apple even if I'm not inclined to install everything form source like Gentoo does. The main difference over the Arch Build System in my experience is that most (all?) of the packages are also in Ports. Arch's AUR was/is helpful but my experience with it was always sloppier and I've grown disillusioned with user maintained packages and build systems.

edit: Yes, pretty much the same idea though.

I prefer the BSD port system.

We could also honestly say he's talented and be pretty sure he weighs at least 75 pounds[1]. It occurs to me that part of the problem is the analogous thinking in the first place, but even I (someone who was planning to take a vow of poverty at one point) have to admit that monetary worth is supposed to indicate how valuable/good of a person we are in normal circumstances; it's the reason to reward. Where it loses meaning to me is where there, like sjk alluded to, isn't even money but the assumption of it. There is nothing to actually show for it as stock options, money in the bank (unless it's really a vault), even Federal Reserve Bank Notes if you want to invoke the significance of them historically as essentially checks that could be cashed for silver and gold: it's all imaginary and kind of delusional to think it is really Wealth. As a result one of the more interesting things happening in the Financial sector to me right now is the Royal Mint's introduction of Royal Mint Gold as it challenges the entire idea of Fiat Money by using blockchain tech like a deed for gold ownership. It makes me think of Gringotts.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talent_(measurement)

edit: I'm inclined to add that I view gold and silver as actually valuable in part because they're physically useful in production of at the very least Artwork, which is what a coin is. There is an interesting division in the United States between the Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that draws a line between the purification of metal and the printing of bills that carries a lot of significance: purified metals represent purity whereas printed paper money is always being thrown out and burnt as it falls apart and has little material worth. One is timeless Art in that it is an actual indication of purity and the other is a mashed up pulp of cotton and flax with ink strewn over it that absorbs our human filth (oils and such) until it falls apart.

I mentioned it in the comments of a post the other day, but the English Speaking World can at least trace this kind of thinking back to Thomas Cranmer and the Articles of Religion of the Church of England--in particular, Article XIV. Of Works of Supererogation.[1] Given the Non-Conformist origins of the Colonies (people who immigrated to get away from the Church of England in part) I have to wonder if the whole "American Dream" and its fetishization of work for work's sake (or even, as an Artist myself, Art for Art's sake) is a reaction against this. The accusations of "Amotivational Syndrome" so often levied against Cannabis use seems related too; there is nothing wrong with being content with less and, at least in my mind, it sets a good example to be satisfied with less. Less is more.

[1] http://anglicansonline.org/basics/thirty-nine_articles.html

Voluntary Works besides, over and above, God's Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety: for by them men do declare, that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required: whereas Christ saith plainly When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We are unprofitable servants.

I find something ironic about this, but of course it's unfortunately true. Until last year my "Church" experience was mostly on and off spending time at a Buddhist monastery which was more about taking part in an isolated community and retreating from the world. Wanting to find something similar I started going to the local Anglican Church and being the studious kind of person I am decided to read the Book of Common Prayer, which includes the Articles of Religion[1] and in particular Articles XIII and XIV: Of Works before Justification & Of Works of Supererogation respectively. My understanding of it is that doing more work than needed is basically a Sin. Funny that until the mid-1800s these Articles were required for University students in Britain (and before Sir Isaac Newton students were I believe required to Ordain into the Church before Graduation). Part of me wishes they would make a come back.

[1] http://anglicansonline.org/basics/thirty-nine_articles.html

  XIV. Of Works of Supererogation.
  Voluntary Works besides, over and above, God's Commandments, which they call Works of Supererogation,
  cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety: for by them men do declare,
  that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do,
  but that they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required:
  whereas Christ saith plainly When ye have done all that are commanded to you,
  say, We are unprofitable servants.

We need to start planning cities and towns in terms of foot traffic and stop assuming the need for other forms of transportation.

As someone with an formal education in Art despite a background in Tech, I'm growing more and more disillusioned with currencies beyond actual Legal Tender... I almost agree with the 1792 Mint Act's attachment of a death sentence to the devaluing of our coins (silver and gold in particular). Money is at best Artwork and even then it's only by devaluing it that it gets passed around like it's nothing. What is Bitcoin's value other than a secure means of Bank transfer again? It just seems like a means of reinforcing what from a religious context would be called Simony. Show me the Money.

I would think that's part of the reason he shouldn't be fired. What difference should it make to anyone mature enough to do business with?

A Response: "After Alan Luo" [http://imgur.com/fmt1Kib]

Being an Artist with a background in technology I can't help but appreciate this differently than I believe intended. I've been thinking a lot recently about the boundries of what is and isn't art in regards to technology (up to and including the division of Arts and Sciences at the Academic level) and feel like I need to say something about the use of the word Art here.

To me, the Art is your unique contribution to the Art World, which is always the aspect of the work the Artist puts their heart into the most. Unless someone really picks up this tool as their medium of choice and makes true Art with it, the Art to see here will always be the code Alan Luo has writen. Code is poetry and deserves every bit as much respect as forms of it like concrete poetry, where things like indentation matter. It just kind of irks me to see Art get demeaned by people I would consider Artists if they reframed their work.

    So, time vs money is a rich persons dilemma.

It's also a monk or nun's dilemma and a motivating factor in ordination for some.

You can also create automata with video by treating it as a three dimensional world. I did a bit of messing around with this a few months ago[1] and created some examples. The only one I can still find that is interesting is probably this one: http://gfycat.com/SelfreliantUnequaledAmericanindianhorse (Forgive the source material.)

Of course it's hard to look at all of a video at once, so you only see slices of the actual world...

[1] https://github.com/Wollw/Video-Automata

I'm an artist (well, a student really) with an interest in mathematics and computer science abstractions. I like to create work related to and inspired by technology. Given how important these fields of knowledge have become I believe that creating artwork from them is an important way to reflect on the state of contemporary society. I guess I do consider myself a bit of a hacker (I design my own circuit boards and write my own software for my projects), but I'm not really affiliated with the tech community outside of the internet and mostly hang out with other artists.

edit: I guess it kind of goes without saying, but what I get out of HN in particular is a combination of keeping my foot in technology and reading interesting news.

Thanks.

I guess I should expand on my previous comment...

Despite what that github page says about not having any reason for making these sculptures, I'm currently thinking of them as a way to highlight the kinds of concepts and technology that our computer-saturated world relies on to operate. Of course the obvious audience is people who already have an understanding of computer science, but by making them aesthetically pleasing I hope to expose people who aren't interested in algorithms to some of the algorithms that influence or make up the technology they rely on. They're intended to be shown in a gallery space, but now that I have space to show in they're more than 500 miles away from me; hopefully I'll put a show together later this year.

I'm more interested in the visual aesthetic, but I've built a few sculptures[1] visualizing algorithms. It's something I'm hoping to expand on when I have more time and resources. I'd write a bit more about them, but I'm on my phone getting ready for work.

[1] http://wollw.github.io/Cellular-Polymaton

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N_smOznDDJs

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vbtvAQLDcrs

Those interested in a positive take on 3-D might be interested in reading Thomas Elsaesser's paper, "The “Return” of 3-D: On Some of the Logics and Genealogies of the Image in the Twenty-First Century"[1]. One of his examples is the movie Coraline which uses 3-D "not in order to emphasis depth, but to construct spaces that do not follow the rules of perspective and introduce slight anomalies into it." I haven't seen the movie myself, and my only experience with modern 3-D movies is going cross-eyed watching YouTube trailers, but dismissing 3-D outright seems premature to me.

[1] http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/uploads/pdf/Elsaesser.pd...

I experimented a bit more and found if I put it before my "syntax on" and color scheme setup lines it doesn't work, but if I put it after them the fix works. Raticide's comment clued me in.