non-Dhamma, but useful

  https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-bed-that-saved-me-from-the-taliban?utm_source=pocket-newtab ‘The Bed That Saved Me From the Taliban’ In 2018, Greek pilot Vasileios Vasileiou checked into a luxury hilltop hotel in Kabul that was popular among foreign visitors. Then Taliban gunmen stormed it, killing at least 40 people. Vasileios explains how he survived. BBC News     Vasileios Vasileiou _105194479_img-20181206-wa0000.jpg I had decided to go for dinner early - at six o'clock - with my friend, another pilot called Michael Poulikakos. It was the first time in the three or four months that I had been coming to the Intercontinental that I'd done this - usually I had dinner at around 8.30pm. _105195384_img-20181211-wa0021.jpg Vasileios Vasileiou and Michael Poulikakos worked for Afghan airline Kam Air. We finished dinner about 7.30pm and then I went up to my room - room 522 - on the top floor, to make some calls. At 8.47 p.m. I was on the phone to Athens when I heard a ...

It's Time for an RSS Revival (excerpt from: https://www.wired.com/story/rss-readers-feedly-inoreader-old-reader/) BRIAN BARRETT GEAR 03.30.2018 08:00 AM After years of letting algorithms make up our minds for us, the time is right to go back to basics. Image may contain Cone Logo Symbol and Trademark EMILY WAITE THE MODERN WEB contains no shortage of horrors, from ubiquitous ad trackers to all-consuming platforms to YouTube comments, generally. Unfortunately, there's no panacea for what ails this internet we've built. But anyone weary of black-box algorithms controlling what you see online at least has a respite, one that's been there all along but has often gone ignored. Tired of Twitter? Facebook fatigued? It's time to head back to RSS. For many of you, that means finding a replacement for Digg Reader, which went the way of the ghost this month. Or maybe you haven't used RSS since five years ago, when Google Reader, the beloved firehose of news headlines got t...

I wish they taught us this as kids in our history books. What was for me one of the the most boring subjects in school, is actually one of the most interesting if history books actually reported what and why things happened in reality. From an opinion piece in washington post: George and Martha Washington enslaved 300 people. Let’s start with their names. from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-and-martha-washington-enslaved-300-people-lets-start-with-their-names/2020/06/26/d3f7c362-b7e7-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab In this portrait, George Washington (1732–1799) is shown standing on a bluff above the Hudson River with his enslaved personal servant, William Lee, on horseback behind him. In this portrait, George Washington (1732–1799) is shown standing on a bluff above the Hudson River with his enslaved personal servant, William Lee, on horseback behind him. (John Trumbull/The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection) Image without a caption Opini...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/03/12/pete-davidson-made-joke-snl-about-catholic-church-now-officials-are-demanding-an-apology/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c3ae54016187 excerpt: March 12 at 1:04 PM Not everyone was laughing about Pete Davidson’s joke on last weekend’s episode of “Saturday Night Live.” The comedian opened his appearance on the faux-news “Weekend Update” segment with a line that drew some titters and stunned “oooooohs” from the audience: “This guy is a monster and he should go to jail forever,” Davidson said, referring to R&B singer R. Kelly, who has been accused of sexually abusing young women. “But if you support the Catholic Church, isn’t that like the same thing as being an R. Kelly fan? I don’t really see the difference, except for one’s music is significantly better.” Definitely not amused was the Catholic Church’s Diocese of Brooklyn, which on Monday released a lengthy statement condemning the joke and seeki...

(advice from a friend) The traditional persona of an accomplished and reliable informer is one who is restrained and almost stoic when it comes to passing off judgments, especially those overarching generalizations about a person rather than on the individual points, on justifiable or unjustifiable grounds. I'm not saying that any naming-name critique is bad. But there's a way to do it so that no personal spite is detected. More skillfully, the critique can come across as humorous, good natured, and savage at the same time. I'm far from knowing how to do this properly. But I'm comfortable with a certain academic approach to critiquing. Some scholars are very good at it in that they can do this without being pedantic and without sounding too journalistic. Their normative, prescriptive judgments come across clearly, and what is right and wrong are clearly demarcated. But this is all done without giving people the impression that they're denigrating any one, especial...

Munger has talked about incentive bias related to two clients his father (an attorney) had:     Grant McFayden — McFayden owned a Ford dealership and was a brilliant man of enormous charm and integrity and who made excellent decisions.     Mr X — Mr. X (Munger leaves out his name) was a blowhard, overreaching, pompous, difficult man. Charlie, when he was 14, asked his dad why he did so much work for Mr. X, the blowhard, instead of doing more work for wonderful men like McFayden. Charlies says his father told him:     “Grant McFayden treats his employees right, his customers right, and his problems right. If he gets involved with a psychotic, he quickly walks over to where the psychotic is and works out an exit as fast as he can. Therefore, Grant McFayden doesn’t have enough remunerative law business to keep you in Coca-Cola. But Mr. X is a walking minefield of wonderful legal business.” Translation: lawyers have a much stronger financial incentiv...