james choice

“a japanese art based on repairing broken objects with gold in order to make them more beautiful and valuable than before”

just so you know, it doesn’t work on broken people.

tested it myself.

a new use case for ai i recently discovered.

the other day, i started reading a classic russian novel, but it had so many different characters, and throughout the book people kept referring to them with different names and nicknames. every character had like 4 or 5 different variations of their name. just figuring out who was who took effort.

so i opened google gemini and said: “list every character in this book with all of their nicknames and alternate names, explain who they are, but absolutely do not spoil the story.”

and it actually did an amazing job. it listed all the characters with their general traits and nicknames without giving away spoilers.

now i keep the list next to me as a guide while reading, and i never get confused anymore.

an almost mystical mountain that climbers consider the mountain of mountains. most people know the himalayas, but not many know k2, the second highest mountain in the world at 8,611 meters.

i've had a special fascination with mountains ever since i was a kid. living there may be difficult, but the gifts they offer are just as beautiful. what's interesting is that every mountain has its own unique ecosystem.

as for k2, it's considered the most difficult mountain in the world to climb. there are countless climbers who attempt it knowing they could die. call it obsession, passion, or the inability to resist the thrill, but even the mountain's sharp triangular shape looks like the mountain drawings we used to make as children.

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meeting people is one thing. but after a certain age, it becomes hard to truly let someone into your life as a real friend. friendship and deep connection require shared experiences and time. there are exceptions of course, but after 30, most friendships tend to exist within certain boundaries and around certain needs. that’s why you stop feeling the need to chase or force connections with people.

when it comes to relationships and dating, clarity and directness become essential after a certain age too. unlike when you’re younger, you no longer feel the need to chase someone or prove yourself to them. only if there’s openness and clarity can something meaningful really happen.

if your goal is simply networking or building professional connections, the motivation to meet people never really ends. but for someone to truly enter your life, you have to feel that they’re genuinely special.

i read the new financial times article. in most of the world's 195 countries, fertility rates have fallen below 2.1. the article argues that smartphones, mobile internet, and social media have made people less social, less likely to date, and therefore less likely to form relationships.

in the us and uk, the first places where birth rates started falling were the same regions where 4g was introduced earliest. birth rates stayed relatively stable in the us, uk, and australia until 2007. in france and poland until 2009. in mexico and indonesia until 2012. and in ghana, nigeria, and senegal until around 2013 to 2015. these dates overlap with the mass spread of smartphones and are seen as the beginning of the shift.

in south korea, socializing among young people has declined, and the birth rate has dropped by 50% over the last 20 years. the article also mentions sexual dysfunction becoming more common among heavy social media users.

ai wasn't included in the article. but the number of people becoming completely absorbed in ai and withdrawing from real social interaction is also starting to grow. that's probably something that needs to be examined too.

there’s a song on nirvana’s 1993 album in utero called “pennyroyal tea.” it’s one of the darkest and most inward looking tracks on the record. in it, kurt cobain writes the lines: “give me a leonard cohen afterworld / so i can sigh eternally.”

that same year, during the tour for his album the future, leonard cohen played a concert in seattle. the members of nirvana attended. two generations, two different kinds of darkness, meeting in the same room.

after kurt cobain’s death in april 1994, someone told cohen about this connection. cohen responded: “i wish i could have spoken with him. at our monastery, there are young men who come close to the edge like he did. there are ways of reaching them, not psychological ways, but essential ways. i don’t think i could have changed much. it’s just one of those endless ‘if onlys.’”

cohen never positioned himself as a savior. he never claimed that his poetry, his music, or that night at the concert would necessarily change anything. but the fact that cobain wanted cohen’s songs in his afterlife, and cohen later saying “i wish i could have spoken to him,” hangs in history like the echo of a conversation that never happened.

emil michel cioran once said, “music is the refuge of souls ulcerated by happiness.” the songs these two artists left behind continue to be a refuge in our mostly futile search for happiness.

not moving on from what doesn't serves me sooner. places, people, jobs, etc.

"the one who speaks tenderly during a breakup is the one who isn't in love."

marcel proust

the internet is genuinely dying.

the reason, as discussed here, is primarily the search engines. people have stopped producing because they can no longer get their pages noticed.
social media platforms are no different. when you search on youtube, it shows 5-10 relevant results and then completely unrelated stuff. same on x. many platforms work the same way.

this is why a lot of people who actually produce quality content eventually give up. they can't get to where they want to go. there are tons of youtube channels where they've stopped making videos.

this is exactly the kind of example i was talking about, the internet dying directly, separate from bots and so on.

ai is just the icing on the cake. ais come with biases on every topic. so you can never search for the opposite side of an issue.

for example, i search "y is actually harmless" on yandex. the ai immediately says "y is actually beneficial. no." did i fucking ask you, i say, but it just keeps arguing with me.

the search results are no different. i just want to hear the opposing view on that subject. the results insistently come back saying it's beneficial, and it never lets me search clearly. all search engines are the same. the youtube search section is the same.

and then these sons of bitches set traps just to get us to accidentally click on ads.
for example, when you're scrolling reels on instagram, everything's working fine, but the moment an ad pops up, suddenly it stops scrolling. makes you click by accident.
like, my eyes automatically filter out ads. so these sons of bitches make ads on x look like regular people's tweets. or they change ad formats to throw off your visual habits.
figured i'd vent while i was at it.

internet archive says that 25% of web pages produced between 2013-23 are no longer accessible.

this is actually because of today's techno-feudalism. because of those 3-5-10 web pages that have now taken over all of social media, nobody is making new pages anymore.
even if they do, they never get noticed because of search engine favoritism.

so nobody is building alternative structures. even forum sites are dying. because the alternatives to them are also monopolistic sites.

this might lead one to think: well, instead of opening these web pages, people will turn to those monopolistic structures. not exactly, because those monopolistic structures also push certain individuals to the forefront within their own systems. so maybe the people who would actually make a real difference are giving up on producing anything. what i'm saying here actually applies to the entire economy in the world right now.

what else is this a problem for? it's a problem for ai. if ai isn't fed with current data, it loses its effectiveness. they start running out of new data to train on.

for example, many youtube channels are giving up because they can't promote themselves enough. many artists aren't making their art because they can't get their work out there. the problem here isn't that they're producing low-quality content; it's because of algorithmic favoritism. and we can generalize this to the entire economy as well.

especially in the us, creative ideas have stopped emerging. productive people have been pushed out of the economy through things like diversity initiatives and positive discrimination for women. because the system, at its simplest, is pushing out masculinity and handing out positions and titles based on certain ideologies rather than actual merit.

if you laugh together with others but cry apart from them, you are lonely.

fact 1: there isn't a single black person in the film; the only ones who could even count as black are the monkeys alongside the witch, and they represent evil anyway. for this reason, some argue that the film is racist.
fact 2: the yellow brick road that dorothy walks on is seen as the road that led farmers to washington. in fact, in some circles, oz itself symbolizes washington.
fact 3: kansas was the last state to incorporate newton's laws into its school textbooks, and it was once home to the most conservative segment of america. whether it's a coincidence that the film is set there is anyone's guess.

while studying julius caesar, i realized this man was anything but ordinary. he was a virtually unbeatable commander. he won every battle he ever fought. it's also said that he occasionally suffered from epileptic seizures.

you can see these kinds of things in leaders like him. i've also heard of leaders who, after drinking themselves into a stupor, would receive something resembling divine revelation (the inspiration of satan). these kinds of signs always indicate that they're receiving heavy support from the spiritual realm. because behind the scenes, in the metaphysical world, countless negative entities are working for them (lenin, stalin, hitler, mao, and so on should all be considered in this category).

but let's not perceive this situation like the war between the god of good and the god of evil in zoroastrianism, attributing real power to the dark side. of course, anyone who wants to can choose the dark side. the divine order grants everyone the right to choose, and there's room for everyone in this realm. and divine wisdom employs even those who choose the dark side; it puts even them to work.

for example, this world needs thieves too. even thieves fulfill their assigned roles in the divine plan. they're sent against those who deserve to have their belongings stolen. dark leaders are likewise appointed as heads of dark societies (note this carefully... those leaders didn't get there by their own genius. the sovereign appointed them. as bandit chiefs over societies that have sunk to the level of bandits...).

but no one is forced to become a thief or bandit chief or anything like that. a person, by choosing the wrong path at every crossroads in life, eventually drags themselves down to that state. the same goes for murderers, tyrants, and all the people of darkness. each of them brings themselves to that state; but divine wisdom doesn't let any of them go to waste. it employs even them as villainous characters in this game we call "the world."

rumi says in the masnavi: when you enter a turkmen camp, the dogs immediately attack you. whatever you do, don't try to fight the dogs. just call out to the owner of the dogs. those beasts that turn into lions against you become like gentle kittens with a single scolding from their owner. all it takes is for the owner to say "shoo" to them once...

of course, these aren't things that can be accomplished with the upper brain (cortex) alone. when a person comprehends these things with their heart (lower brain), no enemy remains for them in the realm. they all turn into divine agents. by calling out to the owner of the dominion (the truth), a person can instantly save themselves and find safety from any tyrant, evildoer, devil, antichrist, thief, murderer, and so on. unless divine wisdom has willed otherwise. in that case, they're obligated to be patient (still, knowing this as upper-brain knowledge isn't entirely worthless. knowledge does affect the heart, even if only slightly, and as a person works on that path, the effect begins to grow in the heart).

what am i trying to say?
there are no enemies...
so no grudges, no hatred, no anger toward anyone...
no quarreling...
no fighting...
think for a moment, who are you fighting against...
(these are matters of the heart. whatever needs to be done outwardly is done. for example, the person whose belongings are stolen feels these things inwardly; but still, to uphold the rights of the outer world, they file a report with the police).
conclusion: there are only divine agents. they're all just carrying out their duties. the divine order unleashes them upon those who deserve it, as a punishment...
even devils and antichrists are like this...
(note: the fact that they're agents and appointed doesn't mean they're innocent or that they won't face wrath. let's not fall into mistaken understandings).

after becoming chancellor of germany, he survived 44 assassination attempts or plots, large and small. hitler was guarded by an eight-man personal protection team, a 50,000-person ss security regiment, and a thousand palace guards. these attempts failed by chance, poor planning, or reasons that remain uncertain. some of the most notable:

one plot involved placing a bomb on hitler’s plane. by 1943, germany’s heavy losses on the eastern front created widespread frustration in the public and strong opposition to hitler inside the military. major general hans oster in military intelligence had despised hitler from the beginning and searched for a chance to act. colonel von tresckow volunteered to carry out the plan, but they first needed to lure hitler to smolensk, a city near the front. field marshal von kluge agreed to issue the invitation. tresckow originally planned to shoot hitler during an inspection meal, but von kluge objected, saying such a killing would dishonor the army and ruin its reputation. they instead created a time-delayed bomb hidden in a liquor bottle and had hitler’s aide, heinz brandt, carry it as a gift. the bomb was powerful enough to split the plane apart midair and make the death appear accidental. however, it never detonated. the cold conditions inside the aircraft may have prevented it from activating, but even after landing the device remained inert. the failure was never fully explained. tresckow later took his own life to avoid arrest, and oster was eventually executed for his role.

another attempt came from georg elser, a carpenter who viewed hitler as a dangerous warmonger and wanted to stop him before a world war began. in 1938, elser stole gunpowder from army supply depots and traveled to the burgerbraukeller beer hall in munich, where hitler had delivered speeches early in his political career. elser hid inside the building at night and constructed a concealed chamber in the speaker’s platform to hold a time-delayed bomb. on the day of the speech, hitler left earlier than usual because of weather conditions affecting his travel schedule. thirteen minutes after he departed, the bomb exploded, killing eight people and injuring sixty-three. elser was captured while trying to flee to switzerland, tortured, and later imprisoned in a concentration camp. he survived for several years but was executed in 1945 on hitler’s personal orders as germany faced defeat.

a third attempt came from maurice bavaud, a 22-year-old devout catholic angered by hitler’s harsh treatment of the church and rumors that he intended to replace christianity with a racial, nationalist belief system. to get close to hitler, bavaud read mein kampf and dressed to blend in as a nazi sympathizer. he attempted to approach hitler at his mountain residence, but guards turned him away. he then traveled to munich for an annual parade where hitler would appear in an open motorcade. armed with a small pistol, he positioned himself to fire at close range. however, when the crowd raised their arms in salute, his view was blocked, he panicked, and he fled. while trying to stow away on a train to france, he was caught, interrogated, and executed by guillotine at ploetzensee prison in 1941.

the most famous attempt was operation valkyrie. by 1944, most of germany’s military leadership believed the war was lost. soldiers at the front described death as relief compared to continued fighting. many senior officers believed hitler had to be removed so peace could be negotiated with western powers while germany continued resisting the soviet union. colonel claus von stauffenberg, who had lost an eye and a hand in battle, volunteered to plant a bomb during a meeting at hitler’s wolf’s lair headquarters. stauffenberg placed a briefcase containing explosives near hitler and left under a prepared excuse. the bomb exploded, killing four and injuring twenty, but hitler survived with minor wounds and partial hearing loss because the meeting table had been moved, redirecting the blast. the conspirators were quickly arrested, put in show trials, and executed. stauffenberg himself was killed by firing squad the same day by general fromm, who hoped to hide his own knowledge of the plot. hitler then spoke to the nation by radio, claiming destiny had protected him. his rule continued until he died by taking cyanide the following year.

the man who skied down everest.

for the first time in history, a climber reached 8,848 meters without supplemental oxygen, carrying skis on his back, and then skied back down the mountain — the polish mountaineer andrzej bargiel.

andrzej bargiel has become the first person to climb mount everest without supplemental oxygen and then ski back down to base camp, also without oxygen.

after roughly 16 hours climbing through the high-altitude “death zone” (above 8,000 meters, where oxygen levels are dangerously low), bargiel reached the summit of the highest mountain in the world, clipped into his skis, and began his descent via the south col route.

that night, he stopped to rest at camp ii. the summit ridge and the hillary step had taken longer than expected, and descending in darkness would have been too risky. the next morning, guided by drone footage piloted by his brother bartek, he navigated the dangerous khumbu icefall and reached base camp safely — officially becoming the first person in history to summit everest and ski down without supplemental oxygen.

the footage is unbelievable. the cinematography is gorgeous. and the fact that drones were able to operate above 8,000 meters and capture 4k shots like this is on another level entirely.