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[Richard W]

Now that's odd - I am using Firefox on my computer. My first thought was that maybe the Firefox on your computer is somehow set so that it won't load unencrypted websites, but if that were true, it wouldn't load the ZBB, either.

This board has changed from using HTTP to HTTPS, presumably yet another cost borne by our board lord.

[zompist]

Now that's odd - I am using Firefox on my computer. My first thought was that maybe the Firefox on your computer is somehow set so that it won't load unencrypted websites, but if that were true, it wouldn't load the ZBB, either.

This board has changed from using HTTP to HTTPS, presumably yet another cost borne by our board lord.

I didn't notice, actually. Bluehost must have done this for all users. (I pay for hosting, of course, but there was no additional fee.)

[Richard W]

Ah, I see it is possible to certify that something is only associated with a domain, and that that has very low cost - especially if it is done by a website hosting service. I should now look into upgrading my website to HTTPS.

[Moose-tache]

I've written yet another blog post:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... n-systems/

How have I not noticed this blog before? Very fun.

[Ares Land]

HTTPS is cheaper than it used to be. It's also increasingly mandatory these days; Google is increasingly enforcing it through Chrome.

I've written yet another blog post:

https://guessishouldputthisupsomewhere. ... n-systems/

I think I both agree and disagree with you

Sometimes you need a huge, complex mass of theory to fully grasp all of the implications of a very simple concept. A few examples:

A Turing machine can be described in about a paragraph. In practice, we need a huge corpus of theoretical work, and a even larger mass of technical documentation to get to the point where you deploy an app to Kubernetes or patch a firewall, even to understand why you'd want to do one of these things.
Or chess: you can describe the rules of chess in about a paragraph. There's a considerable level of literature and additional theory you need to absorb if you want a chance at winning at the professional level (or even to win against a good amateur.)
Or math: sure, you can figure out the area under a sine curve using nothing but Euclid's axioms... But you'll get there a lot faster if you have some understanding of calculus.

Applying this to politics... Taking feminism, for instance. The basic idea is of course, deceivingly simple. Just treat women like any other human beings. But we're inheriting a millenia-old tradition of treating women as second class citizens; there's a lot of unsaid assumptions, or tiny vexations that need a lot of time to unpack (and probably some specialized jargon.)
Or left-wing politics: tou just need to look at a homeless person for a second to figure out that something's wrong with society... Figuring out how exactly it is wrong, why it is that way, where the money actually is and how we could begin to recover some of it takes a huge book. (Piketty's latest door stopper is a thousand pages long, and still leaves plenty of ground to cover)

Where I agree with you is that there's a general tendancy to accumulate stale theory with little connection to the original idea. Marxism has grown stale and dogmatic. I'm pretty sure a lot of the literature and jargon around feminism is there to sell books and intimidate followers. Libertarianism start with a simple premise about individual freedom that we all could agree with, drowns you in an indegistible mass of arguments, and concludes that white folks have a natural right to use guns to keep the minorities out of their gated communities.
The Catholic church is an interesting case; as they hold that we can arrive to the existence of god through reason alone (so far so good -- I'm not convinced by the arguments, but they make sense) and then jump straight to the 2865 paragraphs in the Catechism.

[Raphael]

Ares Land: Good points, though I still think it is important that theory, at least outside mathematics, doesn't lose sight of it's starting points, or of basic observations.

This board has changed from using HTTP to HTTPS, presumably yet another cost borne by our board lord.

I didn't notice, actually. Bluehost must have done this for all users. (I pay for hosting, of course, but there was no additional fee.)

Right now, the Board seems to exist in both an http and an https version. If you reach the Board through the link on the main zompist.com website, it's still unencrypted http, at least for me - perhaps you could change that link?

[Travis B.]

This board has changed from using HTTP to HTTPS, presumably yet another cost borne by our board lord.

I didn't notice, actually. Bluehost must have done this for all users. (I pay for hosting, of course, but there was no additional fee.)

Right now, the Board seems to exist in both an http and an https version. If you reach the Board through the link on the main zompist.com website, it's still unencrypted http, at least for me - perhaps you could change that link?

I find when I just enter "verduria.org" in the address bar and hit enter, on Chrome on Windows it goes to the HTTPS version while on Firefox on Linux it goes to the HTTP version.

[zompist]

If you reach the Board through the link on the main zompist.com website, it's still unencrypted http, at least for me - perhaps you could change that link?

Done!

[keenir]

Ares Land: Good points, though I still think it is important that theory, at least outside mathematics, doesn't lose sight of it's starting points, or of basic observations.

Basic observations, such as...?

(at least some of the 2k paragraphs where the Catholic Church is concerned, might be more of "once you accept the starting points, proceed thusly" or "this is the belief portion"...but i could very easily be wrong)

[bradrn]

I find when I just enter "verduria.org" in the address bar and hit enter, on Chrome on Windows it goes to the HTTPS version while on Firefox on Linux it goes to the HTTP version.

Same with me. I mostly use Firefox so this is a bit annoying.

[zompist]

Or chess: you can describe the rules of chess in about a paragraph. There's a considerable level of literature and additional theory you need to absorb if you want a chance at winning at the professional level (or even to win against a good amateur.)

Or linguistics...

I can see it both ways. E.g., can you get up to speed with modern syntax with just one book? I'd say so, since I've written such a book.

* An actual syntax professor might disagree. After all, they've read not one book but a thousand, and they're aware of a huge mass of details a beginner is not. A good professor, like the one I had, will not try to intimidate beginners and will encourage them to join the debate... but equally, will make you read before you smart off.
* I couldn't explain modern syntax with less than one book. It really is pretty complex, and part of the point is the sheer number of facts that have been discovered in half a century. The tendency to dismiss a whole field because you don't like something in Chapter Two is close to crankery.

When it comes to politics... well, half of politics is history. No political system is created from first principles in a lab. They're movements located in history, they react to events and to other factions, and a lot of what they say doesn't make sense if you don't know the history. Which at this point is long.

My personal weakness is political manifestos. They're often well-meaning, designed with a whole bunch of people's input, and intend to communicate a position fluently to outsiders. But partly because of the process that made them, they're generally unreadable.

[zompist]

I find when I just enter "verduria.org" in the address bar and hit enter, on Chrome on Windows it goes to the HTTPS version while on Firefox on Linux it goes to the HTTP version.

I think that's between you and your browser.

But wouldn't using a bookmark solve this for you?

[Raphael]

If you reach the Board through the link on the main zompist.com website, it's still unencrypted http, at least for me - perhaps you could change that link?

Done!

Thank you!

When it comes to politics... well, half of politics is history. No political system is created from first principles in a lab. They're movements located in history, they react to events and to other factions, and a lot of what they say doesn't make sense if you don't know the history. Which at this point is long.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with learning about political history. It's even possible that my problems with political and philosophical theory are due to the fact that I came to politics through history rather than philosophy or theory. (About the only political thinker I read who might be described as a political theorist is Machiavelli, and that was mainly because I had read somewhere that he was pretty misanthropic, and I was going through a misanthropic teenager phase myself at the time.)

That said, if a political movement has a specific position that makes perfect sense against the background of the movement's history and historical origin, IMO that doesn't mean that I have an obligation to agree with that particular position, even if I usually agree with the movement in question.

[Frislander]

I suppose if anyone's been wondering where I've been recently, well I finally have some news - having completed my master's at SOAS and had a few months aimless wondering/wandering, I managed to land a PhD position with funding at the University of Surrey in the field of historical morphology. Obvious this means I'm probably not going to be super active here over the next 3 years, but I'm at least doing something purposeful and getting money for it which is an improvement on before.

[Travis B.]

I suppose if anyone's been wondering where I've been recently, well I finally have some news - having completed my master's at SOAS and had a few months aimless wondering/wandering, I managed to land a PhD position with funding at the University of Surrey in the field of historical morphology. Obvious this means I'm probably not going to be super active here over the next 3 years, but I'm at least doing something purposeful and getting money for it which is an improvement on before.

Good to see you back, though, even if you are going to be rather busy in the near future!

[keenir]

I suppose if anyone's been wondering where I've been recently, well I finally have some news - having completed my master's at SOAS and had a few months aimless wondering/wandering, I managed to land a PhD position with funding at the University of Surrey in the field of historical morphology. Obvious this means I'm probably not going to be super active here over the next 3 years, but I'm at least doing something purposeful and getting money for it which is an improvement on before.

Excellent news. kudos

[Richard W]

All I had to do was to request my web host to get me the free certificates from Let's Encrypt, and my website became accessible via HTTPS. Next hurdle will be in nearly 13 weeks, when the current ones expire, at least according to Wikipedia. I think it likely that they will automatically be renewed for me.

[malloc]

I always assumed that the word "starling" referred to the light spots on dark plumage resembling stars in the night sky. But wiktionary suggests that it derives instead from an Indo-European root that already referred to the bird.

[Richard W]

But wiktionary suggests that it derives instead from an Indo-European root that already referred to the bird.

Unhappily, that entry (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/st%C3%A6r#Etymology_1) is littered with missing and lying links. Not all the lies can be removed by logging in and selecting your preferences to indicate missing section links.

[Vardelm]

I suppose if anyone's been wondering where I've been recently, well I finally have some news - having completed my master's at SOAS and had a few months aimless wondering/wandering, I managed to land a PhD position with funding at the University of Surrey in the field of historical morphology. Obvious this means I'm probably not going to be super active here over the next 3 years, but I'm at least doing something purposeful and getting money for it which is an improvement on before.

CONGRATS!