Added neovim article. Syntax fixes in markdown

4 files changed, 224 insertions, 23 deletions

diff --git a/.md/thoughts/net/the-web30-people-kinda-scare-me-a-little.md b/.md/thoughts/net/the-web30-people-kinda-scare-me-a-little.md
index e69de29..3424f96 100644
--- a/.md/thoughts/net/the-web30-people-kinda-scare-me-a-little.md
+++ b/.md/thoughts/net/the-web30-people-kinda-scare-me-a-little.md
@@ -0,0 +1,163 @@
+*Note: this article discusses web 3.0 in the context I originally
+understood it, which I now understand was coined by [Gavin
+Wood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web3). I have no understanding of,
+or interest in Tim Berners-Lee's concept of the
+[Semantic Web](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web)*
+
+## We are all Satoshi
+
+Satoshi Nakamoto committed the first block to a blockchain with: "The
+Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks." A
+technology born in global financial crisis, known only among a group of
+people who liked to call themselves the "cypherpunks, Bitcoin--and the
+blockchain concept on which is was based--was a technology born from
+political turmoil and couldn't be anything but a political statement.
+
+What was that statement exactly?
+
+If you read the Bitcoin white paper, and I highly recommend you do since
+it's probably one of the best-written research papers in recent memory,
+the impression you get is somewhere between utilitarianism and utopia.
+Freedom and psuedonymity achieved through the mathematically perfect
+organization of cryptography.
+
+Without trying to re-write the white paper, the core concept can be
+described very simply. Say you have a network of random schmoes with
+computers (some people call this the "Internet," but let's not get hung
+up on jargon). You can organize these people into three main camps:
+miners, nodes, and buyers. The nodes all keep a record of all
+transactions ever made on the Bitcoin network. The miners, using
+cryptography (and therefore CPU power), check these nodes to make sure
+they're all accurate and up to date. The first miner that checks a full
+set of transactions wins the Bitcoin. The people with the Bitcoin serve
+kind of like a mint, distributing the currency to user's wallets in
+exchange for pizza, illegal drugs, but most usually: cash. The buyers
+ultimately provide the value of Bitcoin and make transactions with it
+for the nodes to update, the miners to check and so on.
+
+The best part of all this, is that unlike traditional digital payment
+like credit cards or Paypal: no corporation needs to do the bookeeping.
+Instead, any volunteer with an internet connection can store and serve
+their own copy of the book, the record of transactions Satoshi calls a
+blockchain. The idea comes directly from torrenting, where anyone with
+a link to the torrent can download a file from potentially thousands of
+others who are also serving (or seeding) the file.
+
+There is a world that Bitcoin needs for all this to operate in a neat
+way. Bitcoin demands a society of volunteers for it's book-keeping, a
+gathering of self-starters for it's mining and maintenance (preferably
+ones that don't track or scam people), and something like a national
+myth--a belief that you have *something*, and that *something* has worth.
+
+But the world that's come out of it, seems far off from that ideal to
+me.
+
+## We are the Web 3.0 people
+
+I imagine anyone reading this who happens to be part of crypto start up
+is either seething with rage at how little detail I went into or is
+completely unaware of any of that history. They also might snipe that
+Bitcoin is irrelevant nowadays. Bitcoin is becoming something
+of a "boomer" cryptocurrency now that some feel has seen better days in
+spite of the booming price. But that's all it is--an imperfect software
+hijacked into a get-rich-quick-scheme. Prophetically they hint that
+something bigger is coming.
+
+If Web 1.0 was a littering of static content left by bored users and
+Web 2.0 made the pictures move with your mouse to lull us all into
+surveillance capitalism, Web 3.0, to it's proponents, is the light at
+the end of the tunnel that will replace all those tyrannical centralized
+software corps with user-owned and user-operated *de*centralized means
+of communicating and commerce. To the libertarian: it's the end of the
+Fed, the end of big government crony capitalism, and something like the
+start of *Wealth of Nations*. To the marxist: it's the working class
+owning entirely the means of commerce on the Internet organized
+bureaucratically as open-source projects tend to become.
+
+Gavin Wood, the coiner of the term Web 3.0 as I understand it, had this
+to say back in 2014:
+
+```
+WIRED: What's your handy elevator definition of Web3?
+
+“Less trust, more truth.”
+
+WIRED: What does “less trust” mean?
+
+I have a particular meaning of trust that’s essentially faith. It's the
+belief that something will happen, that the world will work in a certain
+way, without any real evidence or rational arguments as to why it will
+do that. So we want less of that, and we want more truth--which what I
+really mean is a greater reason to believe that our expectations will be
+met.
+
+WIRED: It sounds like you're saying "less blind faith, more credible
+trustworthiness."
+
+Yes and no. I think trust in itself is actually just a bad thing all
+around. Trust implies that you are you're placing some sort of authority
+in somebody else, or in some organization, and they will be able to use
+this authority in some arbitrary way. As soon as it becomes credible
+trust, it's not really trust anymore. There is a mechanism, a
+rationale, an argument, a logical mechanism--whatever--but in my mind,
+it's not trust.
+```
+
+On the surface there's no way this doesn't seem wonderful. There are few
+people I imagine who would argue that blind-faith in authority is a good
+thing. And to our inner anarchist: should *anyone* really rule over us
+anyway.
+
+But I don't question the idealism of the Web 3.0 people, or that they
+really believe they are making the world a freer more efficient place.
+What I question is: does blockchain technology, as described by
+Nakamoto and as expanded on by many others, actually achieve these
+ends? And will the people at large, who ultimately are left the task to
+run this Web 3.0 as volunteers, actually fall in line with the ideal the
+software developers see so clearly expressed in code.
+
+## We do not forgive. We do not forget.
+
+### China's Social Credit System
+
+### The digital dollar
+
+### A data mining society
+
+Many of the Web 3.0 people would agree with the often quoted point
+against social media companies: "we own our data so they should pay
+us." The sentiment fits perfectly into the Web 3.0 agenda. Enter
+steemit, a crypto-powered Twitter/Facebook like web front where you can
+write articles, make articles, like other's work, and get paid for it
+all! ...
+
+Brave is attempting a similar kind of project with their Basic Attention
+Token (BAT), which rewards users of the browser for watching sponsored
+ads. ...
+
+## We would like you to play
+
+At the core of the ideology of Web 3.0, I can't help but feel a strong
+urge--particularly from software-minded people--to gamify society. Write
+the article to get your coins. Read the book to gain XP. Gain XP to get
+more visibility for your articles, and get even more coins.
+
+## We will all be Satoshi
+
+The identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, a name intentionally chosen since it
+is parallel to the English "John Doe," is still unknown as of this
+writing. But Wikipedia has a surprisingly complete set of references on
+what we *do* know.
+
+...
+
+Most interesting to me is the case of Len Sassaman, which I caught in
+earlier revisions of the article, but was removed due to lack of a
+source.
+
+## Do we want this?
+
+## References
+
+1. https://www.wired.com/story/web3-gavin-wood-interview/
+2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto#Possible_identities
diff --git a/.md/thoughts/society/as-a-conservatively-liberal-fascist-anarchist.md b/.md/thoughts/society/as-a-conservatively-liberal-fascist-anarchist.md
index 3749b95..0577aa6 100644
--- a/.md/thoughts/society/as-a-conservatively-liberal-fascist-anarchist.md
+++ b/.md/thoughts/society/as-a-conservatively-liberal-fascist-anarchist.md
@@ -15,4 +15,25 @@
 ### Fascists
 
 Even worse the never-ending sects of sects of the modern left is
-the empty category of fascism, which even Orwell in 195X bemoaned:
\ No newline at end of file
+the empty category of fascism, which even Orwell in 195X bemoaned:
+
+## Synthesis
+
+I see no contradiction between these streams of thought as they all
+operate within me in the following way:
+
+- I am a liberal as I believe in freedom of action of the individual,
+  and I see no reason to deny anyone their own happiness (or pleasure)
+  unless it harms it another. People are generally all capable all
+  things held equal and we should strive to assist the less capable and
+  less fortunate.
+- I am a conservative since I see no reason to subvert or abandon most
+  of the social structures we've created over time: including family,
+  local community, and the sense of citizenship (to both nation and to
+  the world). Tradition and ritual has it's place in the world, even if
+  the ways we indulge in those past times change.
+- I am an anarchist as I believe no one rules above me and there is no
+  need to preserve any social or government structure that cannot
+  justify itself. Without governing yourself, you can't talk about
+  governing the rest of the world.
+- I am a fascist in
diff --git a/.md/thoughts/syntax/my-worst-habit.md b/.md/thoughts/syntax/my-worst-habit.md
index 2f760e1..ab89ddf 100644
--- a/.md/thoughts/syntax/my-worst-habit.md
+++ b/.md/thoughts/syntax/my-worst-habit.md
@@ -39,18 +39,26 @@ men take these noxious substances and go into convulsive states. Their
 twitchings and mutterings are thought to have prophetic significance.")
 ```
 
-This is the only example I know that dares to put parentheses within
-parentheses, unless we're counting math textbooks. In a way it works,
-since if information is ever *superfluous*, the history of sailors
-getting high on nutmeg fits that bill. An academic reader might easily
-pick up on that, but to everyone else, I think a full paragraph of text
-in parentheses signals the reader to scroll down in the hopes that the
-story continues.
+This is the only example I know that dares to put parentheses *and* a
+long quote within parentheses, unless we're counting math textbooks.
+In a way it works, since if information is ever *superfluous*, the
+history of sailors getting high on nutmeg fits that bill. A careful
+reader might easily pick up on that, but to everyone else, I think a
+full paragraph of text in parentheses signals the reader to scroll
+down in the hopes that the story continues.
 
 But just in case you think I'm just picking on William S.
-Burroughs, here's an example I regrettably wrote to a ... recently:
+Burroughs, here's an example I regrettably wrote to a coworker
+recently with some details removed:
 
-...
+```
+[...] As a precaution, I did review $NOBODY's recent
+$THING_I_WAS_ASKED_TO_REVIEW (if you would like a detailed report on
+that, I can pull that together for you).
+```
+
+Somehow, I managed to take the *one* point worth emphasizing (an entire
+sentence at that!) and *de*-emphasized it.
 
 It's a habit I can't break. So please, if you are a caring reader, do
 complain when I overuse parentheses. I deserve it.
diff --git a/.md/thoughts/syntax/random-python-idiosyncrasies.md b/.md/thoughts/syntax/random-python-idiosyncrasies.md
index be3f1f8..22e9e25 100644
--- a/.md/thoughts/syntax/random-python-idiosyncrasies.md
+++ b/.md/thoughts/syntax/random-python-idiosyncrasies.md
@@ -1,16 +1,24 @@
 # Coding Style Guide
 
 The purpose of this document is twofold:
+
 1) To ensure that anyone who might like to make my code better understands
-    why I write python the way I do
-2) to ensure *I* adhere to my own style because I'm terribly inconsistent
+   why I write python the way I do
+2) To ensure *I* adhere to my own style because I'm terribly inconsistent
 
 Being terribly inconsistent, the guidelines are not set in stone and if
 you have a good argument for doing things a particular, I don't really care.
 
 *BUT* first and foremost, *code must comply with PEP8 first*. This is easy
-to automate. I like coala since it's friendly but there' plenty of advanced
-linters out there.
+to automate. I like [black](https://pypi.org/project/black/) since it's
+easy to use but there' plenty of advanced linters out there.
+
+I usually invoke it like this to turn off forcing double quotes and
+force the line length to 72:
+
+```bash
+black -S -l 72 file.py
+```
 
 That aside, I have the following idiosyncracies:
 
@@ -21,7 +29,7 @@ why not?
 
 Like so:
 
-```code
+```python
 string = "This is a phrase"
 word = "word"
 cur_char = 'a'
@@ -33,7 +41,7 @@ dictionary = { 'key'  "1245dqw3w431", 'return': newline }
 The only exception is for strings with quotes in them (anything to avoid
 escapes, really)
 
-```code
+```python
 quoted_string = (
     '"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretsky"'
     ' - Michael Scott'
@@ -45,7 +53,8 @@ That brings me to my next point.
 ## 2) Long strings belong in parentheses
 
 As in:
-```code
+
+```python
 longboi = (
     "This is a really long string usefull when making help menus. Be\n"
     "sure to leave s space at the end of each line, or add a new line\n"
@@ -55,7 +64,7 @@ longboi = (
 )
 ```
 
-## 3) Tabs are four spaces and spaces are *ALWAYS* prefered to tabs
+## 3) Tabs are four spaces and spaces are *ALWAYS* preferred to tabs
 
 Again, see PEP8.
 
@@ -63,19 +72,19 @@ Again, see PEP8.
 
 It's a pain to read:
 
-```code
+```python
 1/(2*sqrt(pi))*exp(x**2)
 ```
 
 Do this
 
-```code
+```python
 1 / (2 * sqrt(pi)) * exp(x ** 2)
 ```
 
 The same goes for logic operators
 
-```code
+```python
 true & false ^ true
 ```
 
@@ -85,7 +94,7 @@ This is python. Unless there's a compatibility thing (like a library's
 code was written that way, or it matches an API variable), snake_case
 is preferred.
 
-```code
+```python
 user_input = int(input()) # variable
 MAX_INPUT = 1000 # constant
 def judge_input(_input, _max): # function
@@ -99,7 +108,7 @@ class Input_Judger: # a class
 
 Example exception:
 
-```code
+```python
 # this doesn't actually work, but you get the idea
 r = requests.get("www.debian.org")
 pageSize = r.json()['pageSize'] # camel case ok