deathmtn

The guitar shrieking in the intro of this Kosmovorous album has almost human qualities. Nice (more traditional) solo later on, too.

Oh, yeah, 50-minute run this morning, 13 pull-ups.

10-4-4-4-4-10.

A story from Archie Shepp:

“I asked John if he’d help me, it was about four in the morning,” Shepp recalls. “The next day, I was there at his home about 10 or 11 in the morning. When I got there, he was asleep. The story was that John would practice after the gig, even if he finished a gig at 4. I waited for him until about 1 o’clock when he got up.”

“His horn was lying on the sofa,” Shepp continues. “He got up and went right to his saxophone and began to play something that sounded like Giant Steps. He hadn’t recorded it yet, but he played it like he used to play it at the Five Spot. He played maybe 15 minutes of uninterrupted saxophone. He was a real virtuoso, John. When he finished, he asked me to play for him.”

Just wake up after playing all night, then immediately play what will become Giant Steps. Sure. Why don't we all just do this?

It’s confusing that there’s a death squad named SARS in Nigeria. The situation with inequality and corruption is not miles apart from ours, either.

36-minute run, 12 pull-ups.

I'm at Inbox 1185.

Via Erin's newsletter, an amazing collection of sound effects from the BBC. Such varied engine sounds!

As she says, the terms of use look tricky, so tread lightly.

As often happens on days with 2.5 hours of meetings, I couldn’t fit in a proper workout. 12 pull-ups.

I’ve been hearing about the leader of the British Labour Party for months via the British podcast Talking Politics. I thought they were using this person’s last name and that it was “Kiastama.”

I just saw this person’s name in writing and it turns out they were saying two words on the podcast: “Keir Starmer.”

Short run (24 minutes), 12 pull-ups.

Progress on my prototype is slow. (Partly because I'm building a component I can use for a future idea after this one fails, which is quite likely.) It is steady, though. Each day, I spend an hour on this, and each hour has yielded permanent forward progress so far. I am grateful at least for that.

Good notary public office name: The Notary Republic

Jimmy Carter in 2015:

Former President Jimmy Carter had some harsh words to say about the current state of America’s electoral process, calling the country “an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery” resulting in “nominations for president or to elect the president.”

From Czeslaw Milosz’s The Captive Mind:

Professional Ketman is reasoned thus: since I find myself in circumstances over which I have no control, and since I have but one life and that is fleeting, I should strive to do my best. I am like a crustacean attached to a crag on the bottom of the sea. Over me storms rage and huge ships sail; but my entire efllort is concentrated upon clinging to the rock, for otherwise I will be carried off by the waters and perish, leaving no trace behind. If I am a scientist I attend congresses at which I deliver reports strictly adhering to the Party line. But in the laboratory I pursue my research according to scientific methods, and in that alone lies the aim of life. If my work is successful, it matters little how it will be presented and toward whose glory. Discoveries made in the name of a disinterested search for truth are lasting, whereas the shrieks of politicians pass. I must do all they demand, they may use my name as they wish, as long as I have access to a laboratory and money for the purchase of scientific instruments.

Ketman is a concept originally from Islam. It’s the practice of carefully hiding your true motives and beliefs while publicly proclaiming support for dominant beliefs in order to avoid persecution.

I think I know a lot of people that practice professional Ketman, including myself at times. Every engineer working at Google and Facebook that keeps on supporting their companies with this labor despite know that they are part of institutions that harm people is practicing professional Ketman. “This company may be misinforming billions, but this is my chance to work on ML models at this scale, so I’m going to do what I can to meet these OKRs.”

Of course, these people have far more choice than the scientists under Stalin’s regime, which makes it particularly cowardly.