Webcrumbs from November 03, 2024. See all of 2024.
Excellent pastries in and around Denver.
I got a Hearth croissant at Cafe 13 in Golden. It’s a damn good croissant.
Another great bookstore in Boulder. Smaller size, I think, unless I missed something. But great beautiful books. New books. At the west end of the Pearl Street Mall.
Bought some art prints here. Would have bought books too but I am out of space in my luggage.
Mostly new books but some used books. On the Pearl Street Mall, downtown.
Beautiful books, this shop is sensational.
Also some great chocolate bars to pickup too. Pricey.
I bought a few books here.
Somewhat idiosyncratic bookstore away from downtown.
I didn’t find somethings but was surprised to find some other things. Show up for the surprises.
I’m just remarking on the bit about why actually performing the act is important to humans.
1: A remarkably large amount of life and media is like that, we need something to have definitely performatively happened in order to move on, but all we really want most of the time is the short summary of it.
"2: Yes, horses were plowing fields 200 years later. Do you now want to be the metaphorical horses in the future? Do you think this next transition could possibly last 200 years, even if it went painfully slowly? Even the similarly slow version now, if it happened, without the feedback loops AI enables, would be more like 20 years at most, time moves a lot faster now. The idea that things in past centuries took decades or centuries, so they will again now, seems quite foolish to me even for non-AI technologies.
"1: For humans, to perform the act of demonstrating affection and support takes time and thinking. It takes awareness of the other’s needs and desires, and forming the right words and doing the right acts. It’s costly to put in that time and effort. So that is the purpose of doing it. It’s a demonstration that you value the other person enough to take the time and put in the effort which is not avoidable. If you make a substitution by have an algorithm do those things, it’s kind of cheating, or shortcutting anyway, and not a real demonstration of how much you value it. The receiver needs to be able to distinguish between the truth of the information you are conveying vs not, so skipping the performance of truth is a clear signal. Similarly it cuts both ways; if you perform your truth and the intended shrugs, well, now you know. Move on.
2: Yikes. We’re in for a ride, aren’t we? But then again, what exactly are we 1000x’ing the production of? Mined ore, widget manufacturing, stock trades? I assume it all maps onto money at some point. What of flourishing human life, how much money is that?
It’s Emily Wilson’s substack. She translated The Odyssey a few years ago.
If you can’t hear meter in English on the page, which is quite common because many people have not had enough practice reading metrical verse, just try reading it out loud (as Homer was experienced in antiquity), and you’ll hear the beat.
"I recently found a used copy of her translation of The Odyssey, and it feels weird to say this, but I’m super excited about it. Moreso than I thought I would be before picking it up.
This edition compares translations, which is super intereting.
found Emily’s newsletter via web curios.