This matches with an account by Bellingcat reporter Christo Grozev, who was interviewed by the Financial Times [1]:
"How does it feel, I ask, to be here in absentia? Grozev laughs. After the Russians indicted him “in absentia”, he posted a selfie video from Palm Beach, Florida, against a sunset backdrop. “I said, ‘If this is absentia, it’s a pretty great place to be.’”
"Is Austria the least safe European country? “Yes,” he replies. “While we [Bellingcat] were investigating the Austrians, they were surveilling me and I wasn’t aware of that at the time. They were doing so explicitly at the request of the Russians. That is deep penetration.”
"He says the Germans advised him not to settle in Germany. He last visited Germany in 2020 under heavy guard as a witness in the prosecution of a Russian who had assassinated a Chechen exile. “We are also investigating examples of Russian security services penetrating German political circles,” he says. “France, I would not trust them: they don’t even trust themselves. The only place in Europe I can come to safely nowadays is the UK.”
"He is still angry, however, at London’s Metropolitan Police for cancelling his and his family’s attendance at the Bafta film awards this year. “Hearing it through the grapevine was offensive,” he says. “If there is also a risk to my family, they should tell me directly.”
"Both Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, which is teeming with Russians, are off-limits, he adds. “Dubai is Vienna on the Gulf,” he says. “I have heard this warning from both the Emirates and Turkey — ‘Do not come here. We will try to protect you. We will never extradite you [to Russia]. But we can’t guarantee your safety.’”"
Grozen did his interview in the United States, where he is currently living. I suspect that the separation by the sea (English Channel for the UK and the Atlantic for the US) increases the security.
This observation made me re-interpret the motivation behind Zuckerberg's attempt to start the "metaverse."
If Meta's core business of advertising on social media becomes irrelevant, his company is in trouble. But if the company is already the leader of the technology that replaces social media—e.g. connections over VR—the company can remain a leader and keep growing.
Zuckerberg might be wrong that the "metaverse" is the next step (it absolutely feels more manufactured than a natural next step like with ChatGPT), but I see why he might want to get ahead of his core business losing its value to a new innovation—such as by releasing VR headsets and encouraging people like journalists to consider VR meetings.
In contrast, the Bard release is more reactive, rather than a release that takes the initiative to introduce a new technology.
It is an imprecise definition, but to take away more general advice, perhaps this is:
1) Be the best person you can be (and seek to find for yourself what that means, by noticing the people you admire in your life who you judge to be good people)
2) Don't pretend to be something you are not just to find a relationship or impress someone. If you followed 1), then you will be both attractive and acting in a way you feel good about, instead of being an asshole.
This generally agrees with your comment, while adding a bit with point 2) about how authenticity can be defined as "don't be something you are not, unless you genuinely want to change for yourself and yourself only."
I recommend a separate clip-on book light (or clip-on LED light) that is bright, lightweight, and USB-rechargable.
If the LED is attached to the pen, the weight (of both the battery and light) will be significant and can tire you out for long writing periods. You would also have a better experience for the light to not move too much while writing, which will happen as you move the pen along the paper.
I've had similar experiences where I didn't need any paper to plan out and write shorter articles. However, screenwriter Thomas Schnauz provided a great example of how handwriting was useful when writing scripts for Better Call Saul. He posted a photo of a cork board with dozens of pinned index cards with handwritten ideas for scenes. It looks like the cards can then be rearranged or substituted out without losing the past drafts: https://twitter.com/TomSchnauz/status/1296912710601306113/ph...
Handwriting has also been useful for taking notes where diagrams and imagery was important, such as when researching what a good user interface could look like, for a web application. You could give it a try if you decide to write an article that analyzes or incorporates a significant amount of imagery, or has a lot of parts, like a lengthy script, fictional story, or in-depth report.
For a video visualization of how this works, Brian Goulet (who runs a popular fountain pen YouTube channel) published a tutorial on cartridge cleaning and refills: https://youtu.be/QloRQWHe5Gk?t=301
Gel pens can arguably be as enjoyable to use as fountain pens, with easier refills and less to no need for maintenance. Gel pens also work on all types of paper, with no concerns about smudging due to drying.
Pentel Energel refills are very smooth, much more so than Pilot G7 cartridges (but not water-resistant). Zebra Sarasa refills are almost as smooth (and are water-resistant, which can be useful if you get caught in the rain).
I use both gel pens and fountain pens, with gel pens for quick notes and writing while on transit. I could comfortably get by with only gel pens—many people have, as I've seen forum posts by former mathematics and physics students who posted photographs of dozens of refills used up over their degrees. I still prefer fountain pens when I'm at a desk, though it's a pleasant luxury for the smoothness—any significant strain when handwriting for many pages went away when upgrading to higher-end gel pens.
This reminds me of how Harvard's CS50 course by Professor David Malan, which is an introduction to programming and computer science. In one of the first lectures, Prof. Malan shows what happens when there is an error [0] when trying to run code in C.
He jokes that he thinks there are "more errors than code [he] wrote," and goes through them with a positive attitude. Throughout the course, he is also aware and openly talks & jokes about the limitations of C as a programming language, then discusses workarounds. Any feelings of frustrations due to errors are then blunted quite a bit, because of prior exposure in the lectures.
It's remarkable how the tone is quite similar. Perhaps Prof. Malan is the rough equivalent of Bob Ross for programming today.
This is an interesting quote, though Keller's response appears to be framed in the context of business and/or self-help books: more explicitly, books Keller read "for interest," rather than books about technical subjects.
His response (immediately before much of your quote) was: "They spend all this time highlighting and analyzing. I read for interest, right? What I really remember is that people have to write 250-page books, because that's like a publisher rule. It doesn't matter if you have 50 pages of ideas, or 500, but you can tell pretty fast. I've read some really good books that are only 50 pages, because that's all they had. You can also read 50 pages, and you think, ‘wow, it's really great!’, but then the next 50 pages is the same shit. Then you realize it’s just been fleshed out – at that point I wish they just published a shorter book."
That doesn't sound like books that take more effort to really understand (e.g. Plato's works). In more technical subjects, such as mathematics textbooks, would it really be possible for most students to thoroughly understand the subject by just reading, without note-taking or at the very least, trying the practice problems? There is certainly value in note-taking for subjects and books worth thoroughly understanding, even accounting for edge cases where students can learn complex subjects just by reading, without writing.
To add an example of a brilliant person who operated in a different way via heavy note-taking, philosopher Mortimer J. Adler advocated for note-taking for books that are important to study, after doing an initial read deliberately without note-taking (called "superficial reading").
He wrote a book about it—"How to Read a Book," published in 1940—which was summarized by the Farnam Street blog: https://fs.blog/how-to-read-a-book/
It looks like there may be a typo with the estimated year of deployment in Ontario: the estimate is likely for 2028, not 2018.
The article was published on July 11, 2022, but opens with: "Saskatchewan and Ontario have each chosen GE-Hitachi as the supplier of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), which could be deployed in the Prairie province by the 2030s and in Ontario by 2018." Then, the article concludes with: "GEH and Ontario plan to construct up to four 300 MWe small module reactors, with the first coming online by 2028."
A separate source by The Canadian Press [0] also reflects an estimate of 2028 for Ontario: "The governments of Ontario, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Alberta have put forward a nuclear plan that they say will transition them toward cleaner energy. The provinces’ energy ministers agreed today to a joint plan for small modular reactors, with the first 300-megawatt plant to be built in Darlington, Ont., by 2028."
The submitted article also discusses how a limiting factor is time rather than availability of simulators.
The author wrote: "The paper I published in 2019 summarized my findings, which were dismaying. The small subset of trainees who succeeded in learning the skills of robotic surgery did so for one of three reasons: They specialized in robotics at the expense of everything else, they spent any spare minutes doing simulator programs and watching YouTube videos, or they ended up in situations where they performed surgeries with little supervision, struggling with procedures that were at the edge of their capabilities. I call all these practices “shadow learning,” as they all bucked the norms of medical education to some extent. I’ll explain each tactic in more detail.
"Residents who engaged in “premature specialization” would begin, often in medical school and sometimes earlier, to give short shrift to other subjects or their personal lives so they could get robotics experience. Often, they sought out research projects or found mentors who would give them access. Losing out on generalist education about medicine or surgery may have repercussions for trainees. Most obviously, there are situations where surgeons must turn off the robots and open up the patient for a hands-on approach. [...] My data strongly suggest that residents who prematurely specialize in robotics will not be adequately prepared to handle such situations."
The author also listed examples of accessible simulators, notably one that uses virtual reality: "In the past five years, there has been an explosion of apps and programs that enable digital rehearsal for surgical training (including both robotic techniques and others). Some, like Level EX and Orthobullets, offer quick games to learn anatomy or basic surgical moves. Others take an immersive approach, leveraging recent developments in virtual reality like the Oculus headset. One such VR system is Osso VR, which offers a curriculum of clinically accurate procedures that a trainee can practice in any location with a headset and Wi-Fi."
I'm curious to learn more about the main advantages of the da Vinci machines in certain contexts, over 'straight-stick' surgery.
The article's author, who is a roboticist rather than a surgeon, paints a picture where robotic surgery does not have a clear advantage over straight-stick surgery due to a lack of training: "In fact, a recent survey of 50 randomized control trials that compared robotic surgery to conventional and laparoscopic surgeries found that outcomes were comparable, and robotic surgeries were actually a bit slower. From my perspective, focusing on education, it’s something of a miracle that outcomes aren’t worse, given that residents are going to their first jobs without the necessary experience. "
To learn from an alternative perspective, what might be an example of a patient condition or objective where robotic surgery may have a meaningful advantage over conventional surgery?
His full reasoning wasn't reported on by Quanta, but an article in 2017 noted that faculty from the University of Michigan invited him to transfer after hearing his talk on his proof of Read's conjecture.
From the older article [0]: "Soon after he posted his proof of Read’s conjecture, the University of Michigan invited Huh to give a talk on his result. On December 3, 2010, he addressed a room full of many of the same mathematicians who had rejected his graduate school application a year earlier. By this point Huh’s talent was becoming evident to other mathematicians. Jesse Kass was a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics at Michigan at the time. Just before Huh’s visit, a senior faculty member encouraged Kass to watch the talk because '30 years from now you can tell your grandchildren you saw Huh speak before he got famous,' recalled Kass, who’s now a professor at the University of South Carolina.
"Huh’s lecture did not disappoint.
"'The talk was somehow very polished and very clear; it just went to the right points. It’s a bit unusual for a beginning graduate student to give such clean talks,' said Mircea Mustaţă, a mathematician at Michigan.
"Following his talk, the Michigan faculty invited Huh to transfer, which he did in 2011. By that point he’d learned that Read’s conjecture was a special case of a larger and more significant problem — the Rota conjecture.""
"How does it feel, I ask, to be here in absentia? Grozev laughs. After the Russians indicted him “in absentia”, he posted a selfie video from Palm Beach, Florida, against a sunset backdrop. “I said, ‘If this is absentia, it’s a pretty great place to be.’”
"Is Austria the least safe European country? “Yes,” he replies. “While we [Bellingcat] were investigating the Austrians, they were surveilling me and I wasn’t aware of that at the time. They were doing so explicitly at the request of the Russians. That is deep penetration.”
"He says the Germans advised him not to settle in Germany. He last visited Germany in 2020 under heavy guard as a witness in the prosecution of a Russian who had assassinated a Chechen exile. “We are also investigating examples of Russian security services penetrating German political circles,” he says. “France, I would not trust them: they don’t even trust themselves. The only place in Europe I can come to safely nowadays is the UK.”
"He is still angry, however, at London’s Metropolitan Police for cancelling his and his family’s attendance at the Bafta film awards this year. “Hearing it through the grapevine was offensive,” he says. “If there is also a risk to my family, they should tell me directly.”
"Both Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, which is teeming with Russians, are off-limits, he adds. “Dubai is Vienna on the Gulf,” he says. “I have heard this warning from both the Emirates and Turkey — ‘Do not come here. We will try to protect you. We will never extradite you [to Russia]. But we can’t guarantee your safety.’”"
Grozen did his interview in the United States, where he is currently living. I suspect that the separation by the sea (English Channel for the UK and the Atlantic for the US) increases the security.
[1] (Paywalled) https://www.ft.com/content/03f220e1-6a7e-4850-bf4e-4b0f521d8...