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Boris Rarden

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Boris Rarden last won the day on July 2 2020

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  1. Adrian, I'm re-reading Atlas Shrugged for the third time, 10 years since my previous reading. I found that she repeats the same point a lot upon my first reading, and perhaps the second reading, but I don't find it anymore. The repeating is necessary, to make it more convincing and dramatic. To stress the importance of the point. You know, the principle that altruism is evil can be summarized in one sentence, but it's the role of fiction to put the principle in as many concrete terms as possible, making the reader to discover it for himself. It's the principle of "show, don't tell." By the way, do you find "War and Peace" as repeating the same point many times? Rereading Atlas Shrugged for the third time, I'm dumbfounded by this book. It's remarkable on so many levels. For one, it is cross genre, it defines categorization. Is it a science fiction, a romance novel, a detective story, a self-help book, a philosophical treatise, a political satire, a prophecy, an action adventure, a poetic hymn (like the Greek myths)? Second, many books are spoiled if you know the ending, or if you know the hidden secret. But, this book reveals a secondary meaning and depth only if you know what's coming at the end. You say that the dialog is not as developed: the dialog is ingenious because every sentence is first understood as metaphorical, while on a repeated reading (once you know the secret), it's read as literal! She hid things in plain sight.
  2. I work outdoors in city parks. I wanted to do this for a long time, but it came handy during Covid. Before Covid I used to go to the public library to work, but now I can't do that. Once it got warmer in the Spring, I began going outside, with a table setup. I'm able to carry all this gear on a bicycle, or by car with a wagon cart for the last mile. Besides the gear, I take lunch with me and plenty of hot tea to keep me warm if it gets cold. (Working in a standing position is warmer.) The biggest challenge that remains is an unlimited and affordable LTE mobile plan. I have an article on Medium that documents it in more detail. It's linked from my homepage.
  3. I have learned a few good points from Charles Tew. I have particularly enjoyed his review of Jordan Peterson. Thanks, Charles.
  4. In the introduction to the Objectivist Forum series, Ayn Rand wrote that Objectivism is a closed philosophy. Apparently David Kelley didn't read this, because he was surprised to learn from Peikoff that Objectivism is a closed philosophy. Here's what Ayn Rand said at the end of that introduction: Therefore, the moment you begin to promote a venue for Libertarian ideas (which means that indirectly you are making these statements), then you can't put everything under the rubric of Objectivism. There needs to be a separating line, that is made clear to the audience, of which ideas are Objectivism, and which are not. But this doesn't happen in David Kelley's conferences. They present all sorts of speakers there, and it would not be clear to he laymen audience which ideas are Ayn Rand's and which are of the speaker.
  5. Nice find, thanks. I am a bit surprised, to hear this from Seinfeld. I think he and Larry David make jokes about the desire to be selfish, but I didn't think they are fully on the side of selfishness.
  6. I think that now your require several cups a day to stay well for the reasons outlined in my article, described fully in the reference How Stuff Works article. The fact that you may sleep like a baby while consuming a lot of coffee may mean that reacts to coffee and induced adrenaline better than an average person, however, the essence of the biological process described still happens. Or would you say that as a result of coffee your pupils don't dilate, blood veins are not shrinking and adrenaline is not released ? I doubt that, but I am sure that there can be an easily administered and conclusive test that you can do, after you drink coffee. For pupils, just look at the mirror. For blood veins, maybe measure the blood pressure. I'm not a medic, just thinking logically.
  7. Is the world continuous ? I mean, is there say a distance of length 2*Pi actually ? I'm thinking here of the circle with radius of 1 meter, whose perimeter mathematically is 2*Pi. If the smallest unit of length is Plank's distance 'h', then are we to assume that the circle as is actually "pixelated" ? Could the smallest amount of matter be 'h', but we could still think of half of 'h' ? Suppose that you answer "yes", distance is discreet, in steps of 'h'. What about 'time' ? Does this also imply that we can not think of continuous time, because time is only a record of movement of objects? Zeno's paradoxes in fact criticize both views of continuity and discreetness of time. Quote from http://cerebro.xu.edu/math/math147/02f/zeno/zenonotes.html
  8. I have written an article against coffee. http://rarden.blogspot.ca/2011/10/addiction.html
  9. Hello, I am a developer of the website Propster.me, mentioned here already. This is a separate post to tell you about a feature I called bitcookies. It is a kind of ad-hoc invite code that does not require posting a url. You can use to publicly give money (tips) to people on forums. It is described here: https://propster.me/...kie/forums.html Thanks, Boris
  10. Hello, I have recorded these musicians on the street. Many of them I don't know how to contact, but I know where they (used-to) play. Maybe some of you have seen them. I have created public tip jars for them. If we can collect a good amount of money in them, it will be worth the effort to find these people and deliver it. https://propster.me/...utube.com/watch More street musicians: https://propster.me/...rummer ensemble How many times have you walked by a street musician, and wish you could give him props in a better way than a quarter? Propster is exactly like that, it is money + social. I sometimes give to good street musicians $5, and once I gave a $20. But it would be much better if 100 people would give 20 cents, because it creates advertising and these 100 will bring a thousand. I have received thousands of likes on these youtube videos, if everyone gave a little something it would be some real money and motivation for these musicians not to take a 9-to-5 but produce more wonderful music. Boris
  11. Computer Generated Music does not mean that there is no places for humans in music. It just makes music even more creative and accessible, and makes finding new ideas more frequent. Every musical genre is a simple idea developed further by people, but finding that idea is the hard part.
  12. Tell your Vancouver buddies about objectivism-Vancouver meetup
  13. I have started a meetup group in Vancouver Canada: Meetup.com/objectivism-vancouver looking forward to new members. We got 17 now.
  14. Steven Wolfram surprises us again, this time with Computer Generated Music. Note: At the following link you will also see a tip jar toolbar from Propster.me. I am the creator of that website. If you like what Wolfram did, leave a tip in a public tipjar, and Propster will deliver the tips to Wolfram. https://propster.me/v/0c84kdj/tones.wolfram.com
  15. To some extend that is already in the FAQ, but I will add to it what you have said as well. Thanks for the input. You are right that a person may refuse to collect the money for some reason, and the balance can be greater than a dollar.
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