LATEST BLOG POSTS

I’ve committed to picking up at least three pieces of litter from the northwest corner of Washington Square Park since it became overrun with fentanyl, meth, and all that results from it during the pandemic. I decided I’d keep up the sidcha until three days passed in which I couldn’t trivially find three pieces of litter, as I wrote three years ago in On when I should stop picking up[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: In the Mood for Love, directed by Wong Kar-Wai: It’s hard not to first mention this movie’s style in the qipaos, hair, make-up, ties, and music. Each dress and hairdo must have taken hours to get right each time, looked sewn-in. The word I keep coming back to for the style is: perfect. What a beautiful movie. But the movie covers more than style. Who hasn’t[…] Keep reading →

The choice to avoid depriving others of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, even though our government is not enforcing our Constitution, means choosing to pollute and deplete less, which means being more connected to nature and its rhythms. Winter is colder and darker than the rest of the year. The earth’s tilt makes it straightforward to know the darkest day of the year: the solstice, December[…] Keep reading →

I learned the concept of deadweight loss in economics class in business school. From Wikipedia: In economics, deadweight loss is the loss of societal economic welfare due to production/consumption of a good at a quantity where marginal benefit (to society) does not equal marginal cost (to society). Here is a picture of the outside of a bar like probably hundreds of bars and restaurants in New York City and likely[…] Keep reading →

If you want to reach your potential simplify your life live by your values create mental freedom create more free time save money build a community of people doing similarly You can achieve all of the above more effectively with a sidcha than any other way I know. I created the sidcha concept inadvertently by creating each part, step by step. The first major step came on this day in[…] Keep reading →

In yesterday’s post about volunteering in the cold, I showed a picture of something that always reminds me of the Blues Brothers movie when the Bluesmobile falls apart: They’d taken that car through a lot and it meant something to them. It’s like it was telling them: I held myself together to give you all you needed. Note the wheels in the picture of my cart below. I’ve been using[…] Keep reading →

I try not to complain about heavy work, especially since the physical labor I do is trivial compared to people who work for a living and I just finished One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, though I’m talking about volunteering, not work for pay. Still, over the past few days a few things conspired to make volunteering with delivering surplus food to give away to people who can[…] Keep reading →

Artificial intelligence is just the latest instance of a technology that, by polluting and depleting, deprive people of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. People think of the perks it might bring them despite violating the Constitution. So they convince themselves that it will actually benefit those it hurts. They can’t say exactly how, but they think if we just use more of it, it will somehow[…] Keep reading →

I’ve meant to start developing a view for a while but I keep not starting because I haven’t fully developed it. I’m going to bite the bullet and write a few ideas down, not yet complete and coherent. Sorry if it ends up confusing. When the internet was starting to become mainstream, say the 1990s, people looked forward to it democratizing communication compared to the press and broadcast since anyone[…] Keep reading →