Why I wrote fx

I used to always run my blog via a static site generator. For people unfamiliar with this, it essentially means that you modify files locally and then send these files to a static site hoster like GitHub Pages or Cloudflare. This worked fine but it wasn't very fast. Uploading a blogpost would take me a few minutes. I would need to modify the files locally, verify that it looked good, and then send them to the server.

The alternative was to setup Wordpress, but somehow that didn't feel good to me. Wordpress servers always felt too bloated. I just wanted exactly the things I needed and nothing more. No plugins. No styling options. No intricate menu's. Social media doesn't have those things either. On social media sites like X/Twitter, you can only made a profile banner and add posts. And it works. Isn't this what writing is about anyway? You write articles/blogs/letters/memos, or whatever you want to call it and publish it. Social media is widely used so it must work.

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Grading Historians

I've listened to many podcasts with historians over the years and I just realized one thing that my favorite historians all have in common: you can just watch/listen to a talk from years ago and it will still feel accurate.

You basically can't hear which year it currently is. Great historians talk about long lasting and persistent phenomena instead of ephemeral ones.

Misinformation

There is this common narrative that social media promotes misinformation since you can end up in a bubble. But non-social media also doesn’t have to be correct, does it? So then it’s about which of the two publishes more misinformation? It probably depends on what bubble you might end up in.

At least you could say bubbles are more diverse. One person can be inside one bubble and another in another so for society overall they might cancel out? Or maybe new ideas might start to arise?

Maybe the argument should be that mass (social) media may lead to misinformation since both correct and incorrect messages would be amplified.

Never again

After World War II, people introduced the phrase "never again". Never again should the whole world fight a war against each other. Never again should Germany, Japan, and Italy attempt to get rid of people from other countries. Or as Elie Wiesel wrote: "Never again' becomes more than a slogan: It's a prayer, a promise, a vow ... never again the glorification of base, ugly, dark violence."

As a thought experiment, how can we ensure that this never happens again? "territorial integrity" seems to me like a great start. Allowing nations (read: groups of people) defend their border to me seems to go a long way in protecting people from each other. Sovereignty also plays an important role. It ensures that people are allowed to rule themselves. What is the point of a fixed border if someone else makes decisions for you?

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Maybe podcasts, YouTubers, and individual producers are more beneficial to society than some institution that says things. An individual can be held accountable and thus needs to show integrity. For example, which companies are more integer generally, founder-led or institutions?

Harsh Dwivendi on the Windsurf Sale

Harsh Dwivedi:

Windsurf sold for $3 Billion
Cursor now valued at $9 Billion

Windsurf bought by OpenAI
OpenAI is an existing investor of Cursor

Both are VSCode forks
VSCode is owned by Microsoft

The large Dutch pension fund ABP achieved an annual return of about 6% over the last 20 years, according to https://www.abp.nl/over-abp/duurzaam-en-verantwoord-beleggen/beleggingsresultaten. The S&P 500 had a 10.392% return (dividends invested) over 20 years, according to https://tradethatswing.com/average-historical-stock-market-returns-for-sp-500-5-year-up-to-150-year-averages/.

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Publishing a Snap Package

I'm trying to get jas (just an installer) published in the snap package registry for a few weeks now. This is how the process is going so far.

According to the docs, I can just register a new snap and publish it. So in a fresh Ubuntu 24.04, I ran:

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt install neovim

$ sudo snap install snapcraft --classic

$ git clone https://github.com/rikhuijzer/jas.git

$ mv pkg/snapcraft.yaml .

$ snapcraft # installs LXD at first run

$ sudo apt install gnome-keyring

$ snapcraft login

$ snapcraft register jas

$ snapcraft upload --release=edge jas_0.2.0_amd64.snap
Store operation failed:
- resource-not-found: Snap not found for name=jas
Full execution log: '/root/.local/state/snapcraft/log/snapcraft-20250408-093243.551840.log'

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Kyle Chan: "BYD Mexico plant: BYD’s plans for building a new EV plant in Mexico were put on hold after Trump got re-elected. Then suddenly in March, China’s Ministry of Commerce jumped ahead and withheld approval for BYD’s Mexico plant, arguing that BYD’s technology might get “leaked” to the US (which doesn’t make any sense given the many BYD plants popping up all over the world). [...]

One explanation for this pattern of actions is a battle over symbolic control. Rather than getting hit by a ban by the other side, it looks like you have more control when you jump ahead and implement the ban first yourself. It’s like the classic line: 'You can’t fire me—I quit.'"

Arvind Narayanan: “AI is helpful despite being error-prone if it is faster to verify the output than it is to do the work yourself.”