All posts by keith

Samuel Morse–Inventors Series 2

Samuel Morse
Samuel Morse

Samuel Morse invented the telegraph, which was patented on June 20, 1840. He held patents for several other electromagnetic improvements, and was a fine artist as well. His political views were a non starter for me. He advocated for slavery, and was anti-immigration, among other things, but he did have some shining accomplishments in spite of that.
Here’s his Wikipedia article.

Lloyd Augustus Hall–Inventors Series 1

Lloyd Hall
Lloyd Hall

Born today (or the 20th, or 21st depends on where you look) Lloyd Augustus Hall. African American scientist who amassed 59 patents in food preservation.
Not much online about him, but here’s the Wikipedia article.
It was, also hard to find a picture. The drawing is from the first of only 2 that I found. Both are real small, and look like they come from some kind of yearbook, or company thing.
Couple more links:
African American Scientists Page
Web Archive of Inventor. org page

Money and Work Unchained by Charles Hugh Smith

Great book. I was a little slow getting into it, but it panned out well. You can read from the blurb below what it’s about, so if you’re into economics, interested in the why nots of Universal Basic Income, want to know how we can change our relationship to money and work, this is a good book for that.


[showbookcover isbn=”B077S8PJ5Y” action=”amazon”]

The current conventional-wisdom view of our soon-to-be future is rose-tinted: automation will free millions of people from the drudgery of work, then by taxing the robots doing all the work, we can pay everyone Universal Basic Income (UBI), enabling a life of leisure and artistic pursuit for all. The result: A future of Universal Happiness.
But is this accurate? Is this what UBI is actually capable of doing?
More importantly, is this what we want?
And even more importantly: will this “future” be our best future? Will it account for and manage the practicalities of work, money and automation, given the limits of endless growth on a finite planet?
Money and Work Unchained drags the now-popular concept of Universal Basic Income (UBI) from the shadows of Pundit blather into a harsh, illuminating light, and in doing so presents an entirely new view of the future that upends our conventional understanding of work and money.
This book lays out a practical pathway that realigns work, money and human fulfillment into a sustainable system that sheds the inequalities and injustices of the status quo in favor of a human-scale way of living

How to Do What You Love

Paul Graham writes about doing what you love.

Some quotes from it, and how hard it actually can be, even if you don’t have to work at something else. (Which is a flaw with Universal Basic Income, which I’ll get into sometime.)

Another test you can use is: always produce. For example, if you have a day job you don’t take seriously because you plan to be a novelist, are you producing? Are you writing pages of fiction, however bad? As long as you’re producing, you’ll know you’re not merely using the hazy vision of the grand novel you plan to write one day as an opiate. The view of it will be obstructed by the all too palpably flawed one you’re actually writing.
….
Most people would say, I’d take that problem. Give me a million dollars and I’ll figure out what to do. But it’s harder than it looks. Constraints give your life shape. Remove them and most people have no idea what to do: look at what happens to those who win lotteries or inherit money. Much as everyone thinks they want financial security, the happiest people are not those who have it, but those who like what they do. So a plan that promises freedom at the expense of knowing what to do with it may not be as good as it seems.

Dex Day

Tired and Grumpy
So today is Saturday, and I had my Dexamethazone yesterday. I was awake at 3AM, up at 4, and have been wanting to bite people’s heads off all day. Hate it. Worst day in a while, I think the Revlimid might tone it down, but I’m off that for a week.

Why Unschoolers Grow Up to Be Entrepreneurs


This article at Foundation for Economic Education has a great explanation. Not surprisingly it’s because they don’t have their creativity and individuality stultified by a government school that glorifies conformity and order, and discourages thinking for yourself.
From the article:

As the American entrepreneur and author, Jim Rohn, once said: “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.” While all of us can benefit from his advice, unschoolers have a great head start.

15 minutes of work…

Today was 15 minutes of work, and an hour of rest. Rinse. Repeat. (More or less.) This is the last week of my 5th round of chemo, and the Revlimid has got me tired over the last 3 days. Blergh. Luckily I have two more doses of it, and then a week off.
Tired

The Testament of James (Case Files of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens)–Vin Suprynowicz

This was a fun book. I read it in one day (mostly because I was super early for doctor/infusion appointment, whoops, so I had time, and stayed up a little late to finish it.) It’s a fast read, great plot, great characters, etc. I’ve got the second one in my wishlist at Amazon already


[showbookcover isbn=”B00RNI9UVW” action=”amazon”]

The manager of Books on Benefit has died under mysterious circumstances, and one of the rarest books in the world is missing — if it ever existed at all.
Did James the Just, oldest surviving brother of Jesus of Nazareth, write a book about the suppressed secrets of his brother’s ministry, and the plan to help him survive the crucifixion? The number of strange characters descending on the scene, determined to lay hands on the missing volume, indicate powerful forces believe it exists — and are hell-bent on making sure The Testament of James never sees the light of day.
Aided only by a small band of College Hill misfits, can the unorthodox methods of Matthew Hunter, tracer of lost books, find the Testament in time to keep the Forces of Darkness from condemning the Western World to yet another long, dismal night of ignorance and repression?