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I like this, but need more detail in my log and have too many things in a given day to have them all on a line. Had the following idea, and will try it out at some point. Call it calendar.md

Use calendar.txt format and method with the following changes:

1) Use markdown, with a top level heading of Calendar (so inclusion is easier) and the portion

2) Use :tag: instead of +tag. Tags can be run together (:tag:tag2:). This helps with Org mode compatibility

3) Third level heading for each event in day, following same format as calendar.txt

4) text under heading is for notes about the event

5) Searching and seeing info on event in day, or summary about day is no longer easy with grep. This is the biggest drawback from not using calendar.txt. Overcome by writing a tool mgrep that is specifically designed to search markdown files in a Markdown aware way (search headings or specific level of headings, show all headings under matching heading or just one level under, show all content under matching headings, search text and show either lines or section text is in optionally along with ancestry of headings).

6) Create CalendarMDMode, minor mode designed to facilitate calendar.md use and editing within Emacs, requires OrgMode, things like shortcuts for new date, new event, in-editor use of mgrep, etc.

7) Attempt to add CalendarMD support to Helix, which is my daily notes editor, using the as-yet unlanded Scheme based plugin system (see https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/8675 )


I especially like your 'mgrep', please do write it!

I have considered similar tools that make use of MarkDown syntax, I feel that there are many tools waiting to be written here.


I think mdq [1], which was recently on HN somewhere, fits this.

[1] https://github.com/yshavit/mdq


Mdq seems just what I've been looking for. I have yet to test it.

Based on documentation, you can mdq for the chapter whose heading is "## Foobar"; or extract all lists in chapter "### Xyzzy".

Thanks, abound!

Update: mdq discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43152704


A company can produce software that is two of fast to make, good, or cheap to make. A publicly traded company seems legally obligated to not choose good, because fiduciary responsibility is interpreted as what's good for short term gain.


I suspect this is because of a continuing rise in the percentage of home sales representing home purchase as an investment by an investor instead of purchase for habitation, but I have no citable research to back that up at the moment.


In your opinion, how far out are we from an AI agent that is usable as a daily driver (i.e., does not have the flaws in Operator, or other common flaws)?


I called myself a Semiotics Engineer for 4 years, but the title didn't catch. I did domain analysis, logical model creation, concrete model creation in XML/OWL/KML, model review and improvement, semantic reasoning-based system design/implementation, and message system design/implementation. This was before the rise of ML.


What's your take on LLMs ? I ask you to comment on any aspect, whatever you think is the most interesting from a semiotician's perspective.


Everyone who is familiar with Baudrillard goes "simulacrum!" whenever they encounter LLM output. LLM output is after all a pure chain of symbols that is extremely far removed from a connection with ground truth reality.


I'm not sure it's that direct of a connection.

There's something to be said about the structuralist part of it: using large amounts of text as a rule set to return a semblance of truth seems to be a structuralist's wet dream.

It's like drawing the map for the king: the real is being represented by reducing a huge number of data points to a mixture of randomness and hard rules that pretend to be real.

At the very least it's a form of hyperreality as far as I understand it.


Indeed this is what I was aiming at, however the concern for (a semblance of) truth seems rooted in a view that locates meaning in what signs refer to. This view feels incomplete when faced with a dyadic model where the relationship between signifier and signified takes precedence over reference. The notion of simulacrum only emerges in a technical culture that has elevated 'reality' to a special status. After all, what is 'reality' in technical systems if not itself a simulacrum? Hilbert's program, symbolic AI, rule systems, ontologies, the semantic web - they all struggled to capture reality as a whole precisely because they tried to grasp it through formal objects claiming universal scope via the machinery of said formalisms.


What does that have to do with LLMs?


The structuralist unsuccessfully tried to find similarities between different symbol systems in different cultures. They were convinced they could come up with some sort of formula of how a culture can be categorized and in what development state it is.

Fundamentally it's about language. What does a word or a sentence represent? How do you go from a spoken or written text to something that is meaningful to you if it's presented to you?

This intermediating process of communication is highly complicated and fraught with misconceptions which lead to lots of fuzzy logic being applied by your brain when trying to understand something.

The stuff that's happening between hearing or reading something and you actually taking it in as something meaningful is a vast space which is as of yet unexplored and gives a lot of room for speculation. This is what Beaudrillard (and others) tried to describe and analyze.

And it has nothing to do with math. Math is a whole other story and won't solve the problem for you because it's a different kind of medium (or text if you will). Math sits between you and the other while language is something in yourself, so to speak.

LLM's try to gather meaning from text stochastically. This is not the way we gather meaning as humans and in a sense this is not how communication works in the real.

But Beaudrillard (and others) reasoned that we left the real and live in hyperreality. The most famous example of his is Disney World: As soon as it existed it started to infuse itself into our everyday lives. The simulation of a fantasy world (the real existing Disney World theme park) has started to become real outside of it but not rooted in reality (it became a simulacrum): it is an emulation of reality. In that sense it is virtual. It's like virtual reality in the real world, it's a fantasy you can touch (and that can be sold and be molded to be sold more successfully).

The idea of sociability in social media is another example: it does not exist in the real sense, it is mediated by technology. Its origins are hinted at by using terminology of social interactions but in the end it's a transactional empty sort of sociability which promotes attention seeking and fast, easily digested pieces of symbolism over actual interactions. And more and more this kind of "new" sociability becomes part of our actual social lives.


That collection of skills is still valuable.


This is fascinating work and sounds a little like the research my daughter says she wants to study (she's only a sophomore at UMBC right now, though). She hopes to get an internship in the summer of her junior year. She is interested in plant biology and bioengineering.

If I understand correctly, plants have RNA - would this mean new RNA-based lifeforms could also be found within plants?


There are no RNA-based lifeforms. All known life is DNA based but uses RNA internally. The earliest common ancestor of all life was DNA based, LUCA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor

There is a hypothesis that once upon a time life passed though an RNA only stage without DNA and proteins. RNA world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world


I like to view it that we're all RNA-based lifeforms. Operationally: DNA, RNA, or other are just a vehicles which hold our information.

This podcast RadioLab with Carl Zimmer (11m) I think captures the essence of the idea near perfectly: https://radiolab.org/podcast/creation-translation


The premise of TFA is that we're treating viruses and virus-like things as a class of lifeform. There are RNA viruses, and these obelisk things are also RNA-based. Presumably that's what OP is asking about with regard to RNA-based lifeforms.


> There are no RNA-based lifeforms.

There are viruses that have entirely RNA-based lifecycle (even using RNA-dependent RNA polymerase). Our very favorite COVID virus is one of them.


There was the Locker project by Jeremie Miller (XMPP), but it failed to gain traction and I think he pivoted into a more small scale commercial effort with it IIRC. The telehash protocol of Locker was extremely interesting.


Nice UX, fairly intuitive. Good work!


Dunno if this is intended, but it zooms in slightly when I add an item and the trash / delete button is slightly off-screen. iOS 17.6.1.

I like it. I’d prefer if tapping the bullet to mark as done worked with one tap rather than selecting the item and having to tap again. Bookmarking to check back and see how things develop. Nice work.


Thanks A lot


Not sure what you see, but besides the BLUE and bright grey text, nothing else is readable for me. The darkgray on black I have to highlight to read.


Thanks A Lot!


Kudos for creating this. However, as others have said, the HTTP/1.1 protocol is most of what is needed.

I do think there is room for improvement though. Not in the conceptual or logical HTTP/1.1 protocol, but in the physical over-the-wire implementation. I'd like to see a version of HTTP/1.1 designed to work with CBORS as the main over-the-wire format, possibly including support for CBORS over COAP.


"everyone is assumed to be acting in good faith". Right. I think that when it comes to network service security the old adage told to my father by an Irish Catholic priest applies: "Bill, once you understand that most people are just no damn good, then you'll be fine".

Or, in the words of the NSA, "Trust, but verify".

I agree that HTTPS is bad though, as it is used. We only do one-sided TLS, not mutual. Most people don't verify the server's cert by looking at it. Most apps don't encrypt messages before they go over TLS. In a more secure world a proxy with stateful packet inspection would not be possible.

As is often the case, the problem isn't technical (or at least not mainly technical). Employers, governments, and ISPs want proxies that inspect traffic, either for CYA or to increase budgets by increasing situational awareness. For governments, situational awareness increases wins by enabling them to catch people they deem bad actors. For employers and governments, increased SA means a decreased chance of leaks and people not doing what they're supposed to do with their time. For ISPs, it means they can monitor the traffic and restrict certain things (like video streaming, or running a server from home) to increase profit.

I can think of at least one potential solution. Still, it requires a technically savvy public, a patient public, and money: Open Source phones in everyone's hands, circles of trust, distributed freenet with data passed E2E encrypted via gossip protocol when two phones get near enough for Bluetooth data transmission (figure 50m roughly) where both phones are within some N degrees of separation via circles of trust. However, this mean's getting/sending data is asynchronous with long delays and no guarantees.


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