Final board state of my first 19x19 game, still one of my closest. We both forgot to take the open point at P11. The pandemic hobby I’m proudest of is learning how to play Go. I knew that it’s the East Asian analogue of chess, and I knew that Google’s AlphaGo program finally beat the top pros a few years ago, but I didn’t even know the rules until summer 2020.
The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis. How do we make Catholic churches more welcoming?
I’m especially conscious of the problem as it relates to family seating. When I was single, I was easily distracted by seeing a family all in a pew together; I jumped to thinking of them as closed in on themselves, unapproachable. Now that I sit with my family, I still feel exactly the same thing, but from the other side: I feel closed in on my own pew, less able to approach the people around me.
Dear Sebastian,
In response to your letter, I’m starting this blog.
I didn’t actually coin the term California Rationalists; I found it in Alexi Sargeant’s 2018 writeup of the community in Plough, which I ran across in the wake of the NYT-SlateStarCodex affair. But I agree with all the conclusions you draw from my use of the term. Communities are best grounded in a physical place, and the Internet should contribute positively to our local relationships as well as our virtual ones.