Finally have some time to think about the past weeks.
Michel Foucault: I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it? What is true for writing and for love relationships is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don’t know where it will end.
Surprise is a gift of life.
Giles Deleuze (1925-1995): Europe owes its Jews an infinite debt that Europe has not even begun to pay. Instead, an innocent people is being made to pay — the Palestinians. (from his book: Two regimes of madness)
Throughout the campus protests over Gaza, liberal leaders in the United States and Europe have repeatedly failed to maintain liberal values when they are challenged from within.
Steve Albini (1962-2024): WHENEVER I TALK TO A BAND who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end, holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed.
Nobody can see what’s printed on the contract. It’s too far away, and besides, the shit stench is making everybody’s eyes water. The lackey shouts to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit. Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there’s only one contestant left. He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says, “Actually, I think you need a little more development. Swim it again, please. Backstroke.”
And he does, of course. (The problem with music, December 1993)
Compete for survival or what?
Another finding this week is the VM and compiler of c4 - C in four functions. It is a vm, a compiler, an interpreter and all in one. Need to read the code and understand it. It is so dense. After that, think about how to use it for blinking.
Another thing to note that JLCPCB is censoring the graphics on the PCB. As a manufacturer, it should not do that. But the power to do that must be good for them. The PCB I am making is a Kite with a poem by Refaat Alareer (1979-2023).