In a bit of bonus content, Will interviews legendary author and screenwriter Jerry Stahl about his extremely funny and extremely dark, new book of gonzo reporting and personal memoir: Nein, Nein, Nein!: One Man’s Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust. Jerry relates his surreal experience of visiting Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau by tour bus rather than train, reviews the cafeteria and gift shop selections available at these historical sites, the friends he made along the way, and muses on moments in human history that fall in between chops of the axe.

http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/nein-nein-nein/"

Get bonus content on Patreon

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We discuss the good and bad of Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan, as well as the amazing constellation of whining and bad takes it’s produced. We also take a look at the deplatforming of Andrew Tate, which we don’t care about, and his many crimes and in-home wizard, which we do care about. But mostly, this an ep about jacking off.

New merch store! Tons of hot new merch! Get it, wear it, do NOT answer anyone’s questions about it: https://chapotraphouse.shop/

And, all our tour dates + tickets over at https://www.chapotraphouse.com/live

Get bonus content on Patreon

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mario Jason Braganza has a useful post that considers moving a headline node from one org file to another. His use case is moving items from his TODO file to his current task file as he acts on TODO items.

Org mode, of course, has an easy way of doing that. You can move nodes to another location from within the current file or to another file altogether using the org-refile command. It’s bound to Ctrl+c Ctrl+w so it’s easy to invoke.

The problem is that it can be a bit fiddly to set up. The reason for that is that you have to specify potential targets for the refiling. There are two aspects to that:

1. Possible files to contain the refiled node
2. Headings within the target file to contain the refiled node

Braganza explains how to set all this up. Oddly, he arrives at the exact configuration I have except that I consider more subheadings in the target file than he does. I’ve had it set up for so long I no longer remember configuring it. Lately, I’ve been using it more and more instead of just cutting and pasting nodes.

If you sometimes move nodes from your Org files and want to something move sensible than cutting and pasting, take a look at Braganza’s post to see how to set up org-refile.

Some time ago there was a discussion on the Emacs mailing list about making screenshots from Emacs. From one of the posts there I learned about the x-export-frames function, whose existence is fascinating for me. It basically allows you to make a screenshot of your Emacs frame without ay external program, in one of several formats (including pdf and png). Jean Louis provided some simple code in that post which I reproduce here (with minor changes). The frameshot command takes a picture of your current Emacs frame, puts is in the frameshot-directory directory and moves the point to its line.

Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview in which Noam Chomsky explains his worst fear if the Republicans took control of Congress, calls out politicians against forgiving student loans, and attacks the US response to climate change.

Professor Noam Chomsky has a stark prediction for the future of humanity if the US refuses to cooperate with other countries:

“It is absolutely necessary for the great powers to cooperate if there’s going to be any hope for survival,” he explains. “China, the US, Russia, they have to be cooperating on the major issues of the day: climate, nuclear war, pandemics. You work on them together or you all fall over the cliff together.”

And while cooperation sounds like a smart idea, Chomsky doubts the US will go along.

“The US orders allies to follow its rules-based international order while China calls for the UN-based international order. And the US doesn’t accept that for a very good reason: the UN rules out US foreign policy explicitly. The UN charter bans the threat or use of force in international affairs. Can you think of a US president who hasn’t engaged in a threat or use of force?”

This sparks an analysis of US censorship and how the government can suppress the truth without throwing us in gulags.

“Read things carefully that do come out: the Washington Post had a long, comprehensive article in which they reviewed in great detail the background for the war. Nothing in it about possible negotiations. They don’t want it on the agenda.”

Plus, subscribe for the extended interview in which Noam Chomsky explains his worst fear if the Republicans take control of Congress, calls out politicians who oppose forgiving student loans, and criticizes the underwhelming US response to climate change.

It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.

Subscribe now

I noticed a pattern during work video calls: I found myself regularly sharing my screen and opening Notepad to capture notes and for use as a team whiteboard. While useful during the call, the result was a jumble of files with notes.txt somewhere in the name.

It occurred to me that I needed a better system. I wanted an effortless way to capture notes that had archival organization baked in. With a bit of elisp I was able to get emacs to tackle this job.

Let's walk through my solution.

I set up a new keyboard mapping for Control-x t that invokes the function project-notes-find-file-today. This function visits a file that's relevant to what I'm currently working on within emacs. Here's the code to set up the keyboard shortcut:

(defun my-minimal-dev-keys-hook ()
  (local-set-key (kbd "C-x t p") 'browse-project-resource-url)
  (local-set-key (kbd "C-x t n") 'project-notes-find-file-today)
  (local-set-key (kbd "C-x t s") 'ag-project-regexp)
  (local-set-key (kbd "C-x t D") 'define-word-at-point))

Here's the definition of project-notes-find-file-today. It starts by figuring out a few key facts:

• What's the base note taking directory?
• What's today's date in YYYY-MM-DDD format?
• What's the name of the source code branch that I'm currently looking at?
• What's the name of the customer associated with these files?

Once I know this information, it's straightforward to call find-file on a path that looks like so:

  [Notes Directory]/[Customer]/[Branch]/[Today's Date].md

This arrangements organizes my notes by customer, project and date and seems like a reasonable balance between creating too many and too few files.

(defun project-notes-find-file-today ()
  (interactive)
  "Quickly open up a notes file or create one for today."
  (let* ((base "~/dt/i2x/project-notes/src/main")
         (timestamp (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d"))
         (branch (current-vc-branch))
         (customer (current-customer))
         (dir (cond
               ((and branch customer)
                (format "%s/%s/%s" base customer branch))
               (customer
                (format "%s/%s/misc" base customer))
               (t (format "%s/internal/misc" base)))))
    (unless (file-accessible-directory-p dir)
      (mkdir dir t))
    (find-file (format "%s/%s.md" dir timestamp))))

All that remains is to define current-customer and current-vc-branch. current-customer is pretty straightforward because I use the following convention:

  dt/i2x/[Customer Name]/src/...

If I can find dt/i2x then I know the next directory name is the customer.

(defun current-customer ()
  "Guess the customer we are looking at by looking at our path"
  (let ((d default-directory))
    (if (string-match "dt/i2x/\\(.*?\\)/" d)
        (match-string 1 d)
      nil)))

current-vc-branch is a tiny bit more sophisticated. For one thing, some of my projects use Git while others use Subversion. I was surprised that there wasn't an existing elisp function to tell me which version control system managed an existing directory. Fortunately, both Git and Subversion use a well know directory I can search for to figure out which tool is active.

From there, I was able to use the built in vc-git function vc-git--symbolic-ref to find out the current git branch name. I derive the Subversion branch name by using dsvn's svn-current-url function.

(defun current-vc-branch ()
  "Guess the current branch or return nil if aren't on one"
  (require 'dsvn)
  (let ((d default-directory))
    (cond
     ((locate-dominating-file d ".git")
      (vc-git--symbolic-ref default-directory))
     ((locate-dominating-file d ".svn")
      (let ((url (svn-current-url)))
        (cond ((string-match "/trunk\\(/\\|$\\)" url) "trunk")
              ((string-match "/branches/\\(.*?\\)\\(/\\|$\\)" url)
               (match-string 1 url))
              (t nil))))
     (t nil))))

When I run Control-x t a file is ultimately visited under dt/i2x/project-notes/main. I've arranged for that directory to be a Git repository. After my meeting or other session that inspired me to capture notes, I commit any new or modified files and do a push a remote repository. The result is that my project notes are saved in the cloud and accessible from all the devices I develop on.

And just like that, tracking on-demand project notes went from a chore to a joy.

The "série noire" continues. I ordered my first Purism Librem 13v4 laptop in April 2019 and it arrived, unsurprisingly, more than three weeks later. But more surprisingly, it did not work at all: a problem eerily similar to this post talking about a bricked Purism laptop. Thankfully, Purism was graceful enough to cross-ship a replacement, and once I paid the extra (gulp) 190$ Fedex fee, I had my new elite laptop read.

Less than a year later, the right USB-A port breaks: it would deliver power, but no data signal (nothing in dmesg or lsusb). Two months later, the laptop short-circuits and completely dies. And here goes another RMA, this time without a shipping label or cross shipping, so I had to pay shipping fees.

Now the third laptop in as many years is as good as dead. The left hinge basically broke off. Earlier this year, I had noticed something was off with the lid: it was wobbly. I figured that it was just the way that laptop was, "they don't make it as sturdy as they did in the good old days, do they". But it was probably a signal of some much worse problem. Eventually, the bottom panel actually cracked open, and I realized that some internal mechanism had basically exploded.

The hinges of the Librem are screwed into little golden sprockets that are fitted in plastic shims of the laptop casing. The shims had exploded: after opening the back lid, they litterally fell off (alongside the tiny golden sprocket). Support confirmed that I needed a case replacement, but unfortunately they were "out of stock" of replacement cases for the Librem 13, and have been for a while. I am 13 on the waiting list, apparently.

So this laptop is basically dead for me right now: it's my travel laptop. It's primary purpose is to sit at home until I go to a conference or a meeting or a cafe or upstairs or wherever to do some work. I take the laptop, pop the lid, tap-tap some work, close the lid. Had I used that laptop as my primary device, I would probably have closed and opened that lid thousands of times. But because it's a travel laptop, that number is probably in the hundreds, which means this laptop is not designed to withstand prolonged use.

I have now ordered a framework laptop, 12th generation. I have some questions about their compatibility with Debian (and Linux in general), and concerns about power usage, but it certainly can't be worse than the Purism, in any case. And it can only get better over time: the main board is fully replaceable, and they have replacement hinges on stock, although the laptop itself is currently in pre-order (slated for September). I will probably post a full review when I actually lay my hand on this device.

In the meantime, I strongly discourage anyone from buying Purism products, as I previously did. You can the full maintenance history of the laptop in the review page as well.

With only one episode left to go, the boys are joined by the hosts of one of the very great Citations Needed to enjoy the cast's bout with senior-itis. Will CJ stay on at the White House or go on to make a fortune helping a billionaire whitewash his reputation? And will he or won't he? Time is running out for Bartlett to pardon Toby.

Plus - Havinq vanquished the K-Hive, we turn our attention to Ana Kasparian.

Our Superdelegate patron tier was mad as hell that we hadn't yet discussed Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky's NETWORK (1976) and wasn't going to take it anymore. We watched an American classic and discovered that Howard Beale's famous speech isn't even the most important speech in the movie.

Michael and Us is a podcast about political cinema and our crumbling world hosted by Will Sloan and Luke Savage.

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As tensions rise over China and Taiwan, we look at how and why Australia has decided to go to war in the past.Text max 200 characters

Democracy Now! 2022-08-23 Tuesday

• Headlines for August 23, 2022
• "A Crime of the State": Mexico's Attorney General Arrested in Case of 43 Missing Ayotzinapa Students
• Tariq Ali: Terrorism Charges Against Pakistan's Former PM Imran Khan Are "Truly Grotesque"
• Redrawn Districts in NY Primary Pit Progressives Against Self-Funded Millionaire & Nadler vs. Maloney

Download this show

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

A sitcom, written by Moray Hunter and starring Angus Deayton, Abigail Cruttenden, Pearce Quigley, Kate Isitt and Bennett Arron, about five, mainly single, middle aged neighbours living in flats in a converted house in North London. Mitch (Angus Deayton) is a widower and part-time therapist who is looking to put his life back together now that he is single and living with Will (Pearce Quigley), his younger, more volatile half-brother. Mitch is currently in a new relationship with Ellie (Abigail Cruttenden) who is a somewhat shy, nervous and sensitive schoolteacher. Overly honest, frustrated actress Louisa (Kate Isitt), and socially inept IT nerd Morris (Bennett Arron) complete the line-up of mis-matched neighbours. In the series opener, Best Upstairs Neighbour Ever, Mitch and Ellie are trying to work out ground rules for their relationship, with matters such as the frequency of present-giving, meeting up and overnight stays on the agenda. Morris meanwhile fancies a group Sunday roast, if someone else will cook it, and Will and Louisa are just trying to get used to the fact that Mitch and Ellie are now a thing. Cast: Angus Deayton - Mitch Abigail Cruttenden - Ellie Pearce Quigley - Will Kate Isitt - Louisa Bennett Arron - Morris Written by Moray Hunter Directed by Moray Hunter and Gordon Kennedy Script Edited by Ian Brown and James Hendrie Edited and Studio Managed by Jerry Peal Production Manager - Sarah Tombling Production Runner - Kareem Elshehawy Recorded at The Shaw Theatre, London Based on an original idea developed in association with Dandy Productions Producer - Gordon Kennedy An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4

The occupation of Palestine continues with no end in sight, and this remains the primary political struggle in the region as America’s client states normalize with Israel. But now there’s a new backdrop: the war in Ukraine exposing Western double standards alongside the US-China New Cold War. 

Fundamental to US geostrategic aims in the region is taming the “axis of resistance” stretching from Iraq to Iran to Syria to Lebanon and Palestine. This played out in yet another Israeli bombing campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip. 

Here to help us understand the state of the resistance in Palestine and beyond, and the shifting regional alliances in the Middle East is Ali Abunimah, executive director of the Electronic Intifada and author of “The Battle for Justice in Palestine.”

Follow the Electronic Intifada on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/electronicintifada

Listen to every episode of Rania Khalek Dispatches anywhere you get podcasts.

Apple: https://apple.co/3zeYpeW 

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3za9DRK

TIME CODES

0:00 Intro

2:11 Palestine as central to anti-imperialist resistance 

5:15 Why does Israel keep killing Palestinians? “Mowing the lawn” 

15:33 Why is Israel attacking the West Bank?

23:49 Armed resistance & Ukraine double standards

34:26 What is the right to resist?  

45:06 Iran backs the resistance Resistance Axis stronger than ever 

47:54 Potential war? Hezbollah warns Israel not to steal Lebanon’s offshore gas

59:23 Salman Rushdie

1:08:50 The Edward Said & Obama photo: Have progressives learned their lesson? 

Maybe you’ve heard of the new, vibrant philosophy called “longtermism.” It’s beloved by Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and many other Silicon Valley winners who are funding its development and promulgation.

I can’t claim to be the world’s greatest expert on longtermism. However, I have read two articles and almost a dozen tweets about it, and so am qualified to have an opinion on the internet. Here’s what it’s about:

Longtermists believe that Future Lives Matter. And if humanity doesn’t completely obliterate itself, there are going to be lots of us in the eons to come. One longtermist estimate is that “the lower bound of the number of biological human life-years … is 10³⁴ years.”

If I remember the two weeks in sixth grade when we covered exponents, these 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 future human life years are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times greater than the puny 1,000,000,000,000 life years of the 8,000,000,000 people currently alive (if we assume we’ll all die at 125).

The natural conclusion here is that if we are morally serious, we must carry out mass slaughter undreamed of by Hitler if there’s even the tiniest chance that it will prevent the extinction of humanity. As one prominent longtermist puts it, “the expected value of reducing existential risk by a mere one millionth of one percentage point is at least ten times the value of a billion human lives” (italics in the original, to show that he truly means it).

Longtermists generally see three key existential risks that could cause humanity to go extinct: artificial intelligence, bioengineered plagues, and an asteroid strike. By contrast, nuclear war might or might not count, and runaway global warming wouldn’t, because at least a few people would survive it and bounce back.

You can see how this perspective would appeal to Musk in particular: If you’re contributing to getting humans off Earth to Mars (and from there across the universe), you should receive a get-out-of-jail-free card for any other deeds, no matter how hideous.

In any case, no one can deny that this kind of thought experiment is fun, especially if you’re super high. On the other hand, the entire edifice of longtermism is built on a foundation that is largely arbitrary and highly disputable, and with other starting points, you can derive pretty much any philosophy you want. So let’s do it! Here are seven other moral codes that all rational people must adopt:

Yum, Zebra-ism

Let’s say there’s a 1 in a quadrillion chance that the human life span will increase by a factor of a quintillion if the only food we eat is living zebras. Is this true? Who knows, but it could be, since this subject has not been fully explored by science. Logically, we must therefore devote all our efforts to breeding enough struggling, shrieking zebras for us to consume as our sole source of nutrition. Yes, we will live our long lives drenched in zebra blood and viscera. But this is the price of seeing the world clearly.

To Serve Man-ism

Conversely, imagine there’s a 1 in a quadrillion chance that there’s an intelligent alien species out there with the potential to breed a quintillion times more prodigiously than us. But they will only be able to do this if they find and eat us. This means we must immediately start broadcasting a beacon out into space with video of all of us happily sitting in a huge soup pot until we are tender and delicious. “Can’t wait to meat you!” we will say, as we point to especially succulent parts of our bodies.

Bees-ism

There are currently more than 2 trillion bees alive on earth. Research shows that bees enjoy being alive 1 septillion times more than humans do. (This research is funded by bees.) A little simple math proves that billions of us must work ourselves to death to enhance the lives of the bees — the glorious, buzzing bees.

Ocean Spray-ism

It is possible that we are living in a simulation. If so, it is also possible that our creator will get bored with us and shut our simulation down. Maybe the only thing that has prevented this from happening so far is the TikTok of that guy drinking Ocean Spray cran-raspberry juice on a skateboard and lip-syncing to “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac. I know that if I were an adolescent in another dimension who’d bought The Sims: Milky Way with my allowance, I’d wait a little bit to see if humanity comes up with something that entertaining again. Let’s get all our greatest minds on this ASAP before we’re unplugged.

Paperclip-ism

The danger of artificial intelligence is not just that it could be actively hostile toward us; it could destroy us even if it were simply indifferent. The classic example is the Paperclip Maximizer, an AI that concludes that the highest value in the universe is creating paper clips. It might therefore monopolize all resources and devote them to carrying out its mission, leaving us to starve in the dark, surrounded by paper clips. (The most painful irony is that such an AI wouldn’t even produce paper to clip together.) But we must accept that there’s a chance making paper clips actually is the highest value in the universe, and therefore we should build such an AI and see what happens.

Jack Off-ism

There’s also a chance that the greatest joy available in the universe is mental masturbation. Certainly we know there’s literally no belief system humans won’t adopt in order to avoid dealing with the obvious problems right in front of them. We should rearrange all society so the maximum number of us can engage in a frenzy of pointless self-gratification.

Death to Heretics-ism

There are 10³⁴ human life years at risk here. If there’s even a 1 in 10³³ chance that the people making jokes about longtermism will prevent its adoption, these jokesters must be hunted down and killed — for the good of our children, and their children after them, and their children’s children’s children’s children’’’’s child’r’e’n’s, etc. (I don’t like this one.)

The post Seven Philosophies Better Than Longtermism appeared first on The Intercept.

In the first episode of Your Place or Mine, comedian and writer Sarah Kendall joins Shaun Keaveny to try and convince him to go on a trip to her hometown, the coal-mining city of Newcastle, Australia. The cafe culture and oceanside bathing pools sound tempting - but will Shaun actually commit to the day-long flight? Your Place Or Mine is the travel podcast that isn’t going anywhere - not until guests can convince Shaun Keaveny it’s worth getting off the sofa for. Each week a familiar face will try to persuade Shaun and resident geographer, historian and comedian Iszi Lawrence that jetting off to their favourite destination is worth the hassle. Across the series listeners will be able to figuratively globe-trot to a new destination, as guests share a personal guide to their favourite place on the planet. Iszi will be on hand to check out the facts during the podcast’s metaphorical tour of its visitors’ much-loved locations. With all the missed travel these past two years, Your Place Or Mine will explore whether getting back on a plane is too much for our wallets and limited carbon budgets, or if seeing the world and experiencing global cultures is something we can’t afford to miss. Your Place or Mine is a BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. Producers: Proinsias O’Coinn and Jen Whyntie

Multipolarista editor Benjamin Norton responds to smears from a neoconservative think tank funded by Western governments and corporations, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), which attacked him over his factual journalism reporting on NATO support for far-right extremists in Ukraine. VIDEO: https://youtube.com/watch?v=cHPKpUJBfZ4 Read the Multipolarista article being attacked: https://multipolarista.com/2022/03/10/nato-arming-training-nazis-ukraine-azov This is a clip from the Unauthorized Disclosure podcast hosted by Kevin Gosztola and Rania Khalek. Support Unauthorized Disclosure here: https://thedissenter.org/unauthorized-disclosure-podcast

In a Classic Album Dissection, Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot examine The Stooges' Fun House record from 1970. The album brought together garage rock, rhythm and blues and free jazz, setting a template for the punk revolution to come. Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton talks about the album as well as producer Don Gallucci, whose unorthodox studio technique is credited with capturing the singular sound of The Stooges. Plus Greg Kot adds a song by Gene Clark to the Desert Island Jukebox.

 

Join our Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/3sivr9T

Become a member on Patreon: https://bit.ly/3slWZvc

Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/3eEvRnG

Make a donation via PayPal: https://bit.ly/3dmt9lU

Send us a Voice Memo: Desktop: bit.ly/2RyD5Ah  Mobile: sayhi.chat/soundops

 

Featured Songs:

The Stooges, "T.V. Eye," Fun House, Elektra, 1970

The Stooges, "Down On The Street," Fun House, Elektra, 1970

The Stooges, "Loose," Fun House, Elektra, 1970

The Stooges, "Dirt," Fun House, Elektra, 1970

The Stooges, "1970," Fun House, Elektra, 1970

The Stooges, "Fun House," Fun House, Elektra, 1970

The Stooges, "L.A. Blues," Fun House, Elektra, 1970

Iggy Pop, "Dum Dum Boys," The Idiot, RCA, 1977

The Stooges, "I Wanna Be Your Dog," The Stooges, Elektra, 1969

The Stooges, "Not Right," The Stooges, Elektra, 1969

MC5, "Rocket Reducer N.62 (Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa)," Kick Out The James, Elektra, 1969

The Stooges, "No Fun," The Stooges, Elektra, 1969

The Stooges, "Loose (Demo Version)," Fun House (2005 Deluxe Edition), Elektra, 2005

The Stooges, "Slide (Slidin' The Blues)," Fun House (2005 Deluxe Edition), Elektra, 2005

Bread, "It Don't Matter to Me," Bread, Elektra, 1969

The Kingsmen, "Louie Louie," The Kingsmen In Person, Wand, 1963

The Stooges, "T.V. Eye (Takes 7 & 8)," Fun House (2005 Deluxe Edition), Elektra, 2005

The Stooges, "1970 (Take 3)," Fun House (2005 Deluxe Edition), Elektra, 2005

Iggy and The Stooges, "Louie Louie (Live)," Metallic K.O., Jungle, 1976

James Brown & The Famous Flames, "I Feel All Right (Live 1967)," Live at the Apollo, Vol. II, Polydor, 1968

John Coltrane, "A Love Supreme Pt 2 Resolution," A Love Supreme, Impulse!, 1965

The Doors, "Touch Me," The Soft Parade, Elektra, 1969

The Stooges, "1969," The Stooges, Elektra, 1969

Sonic Youth, "Kool Thing," Goo, DGC, 1990

Minutemen, "Maybe Partying Will Help," Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984

Mission of Burma, "The Ballad of Johnny Burma," Vs., Ace of Hearts, 1982

Depeche Mode, "Dirt," Exciter, Mute, 2001

The Damned, "I Feel Alright," Damned Damned Damned, Stiff, 1977

Radio Birdman, "T.V. Eye," Radios Appear, Trafalgar, 1977

Nirvana, "Scentless Apprentice," In Utero, DGC, 1993

Mudhoney, "Touch Me I'm Sick," Touch Me I'm Sick (Single), Sub Pop, 1988

The Stooges, "Down On The Street (Single Mix)," Down On The Street (Single), Elektra, 1970

Gene Clark, "Some Misunderstanding," No Other, Asylum, 1974

David Bowie, "Heroes," "Heroes", RCA, 1977

Support The Show: https://www.patreon.com/soundopinions

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Editors’ Vox is a blog from AGU’s Publications Department.

Researchers are increasingly using computational notebooks to share workflows and data analyses with others. They are also used in the classroom setting, being effective tools to teach data science and other topics. Research computing services often highlight their support of notebooks as a method to interact with their services and facilitate collaboration and sharing (e.g., Princeton, Caltech). As a result, notebooks are fast becoming ubiquitous in research workflows.

Jupyter and RStudio, are two prominent development environments in the computational notebooks space. GitHub, a popular platform for collaborating on and sharing code, including notebooks, currently shows 4 Million code results for “.ipynb”, the file extension used for Jupyter, while the “.rmd” R extension used in, for example, RStudio, has 2.7 Million code results. We have seen a progressive growth in the preservation and citation of software primarily via GitHub and Zenodo, a repository maintained by CERN and OpenAire, climbing from roughly 2 Thousand records in 2014 to 73 Thousand in 2021.

Jupyter Notebooks started out as IPython, a command shell for interactive computing mainly in Python. Since its initial release in 2001, IPython has now developed into the Project Jupyter community whose goal is to “develop open-source software, open standards, and services for interactive computing across dozens of programming languages”. The RStudio integrated development environment for the R statistical programming language was initially released in 2011. Shortly after, R Markdown, an approach to embed R code chunks in Markdown documents, was introduced into the knitr package. Posit (the company previously known as RStudio) recently developed Quarto, the next generation of R Markdown. Quarto is open source with support for code written in R, Python, Julia, and Observable JavaScript.

Notebooks fuse research narratives with data, visualization, and executable code to create an interactive experience.

Notebooks fuse research narratives with data, visualization, and executable code to create an interactive experience that allows others to walk through your computational workflow and analysis. For this reason, notebooks have also been an effective teaching tool in the classroom (e.g. Data8). Advances in notebook development have made it easier to launch a virtual platform, get started with coding, and use them while integrating them into your research workflows (e.g. OpenScapes).

At AGU, we have seen increasing interest in publishing notebooks from groups such as EarthCube, where they feature an annual call to their community to share and publish interactive workflows and analyses of research. Notebooks from the EarthCube calls are published in AGU’s preprint server, Earth and Space Science Open Archive or ESSOAr. In AGU journals, for instance, the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES), editors have highlighted the benefits of sharing notebooks to understand the underlying models presented in papers. The Earth and Space Science journal has also seen interest in publishing notebooks as the research paper itself.

AGU will work with the computational notebooks community to design and implement a publishing workflow for computational notebooks.

AGU recently published two brief guides on publishing notebooks, Erdmann et al. (2021a,b). The guidance was co-developed with community members and continues to evolve. It also inspired the recently funded Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant to support the advancement of notebooks as a primary research object led by AGU. Guided by a Steering Committee of experts, AGU will work with the computational notebooks community to design and implement a publishing workflow for computational notebooks over the span of 18 months starting in July 2022. Interactive functionality of notebooks is lost during publication, which is primarily still text-based. The project, called Notebooks Now! will look at maintaining the interactivity of notebooks in publishing workflows, effectively documenting reproducible workflows, expanding equitable access to computational research, and extending new forms of contributorship in the wider research community. In addition, this effort includes developing pilot solutions that will elevate notebooks as a format in scholarly publishing. You can learn more about Notebooks Now! at the project website.

In recent years, we have seen the increased use of notebooks in abstracts (presentations and posters) submitted to the AGU’s annual meetings and we are looking at ways to elevate and incentivize their use in our community. Please let us know through this form if you are interested in staying connected with these efforts and/or providing feedback.

—Christopher Erdmann (CErdmann@agu.org, 0000-0003-2554-180X), American Geophysical Union; Shelley Stall; Brooks Hanson; Laura Lyon; Brian Sedora; Matt Giampoala; Mia Ricci; and AGU’s Notebooks Now! Steering Committee

Citation: Erdmann, C., S. Stall, B. Hanson, L. Lyon, B. Sedora, M. Giampoala, and M. Ricci (2022), Notebooks Now! elevating computational notebooks, Eos, 103, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EO225024. Published on 18 August 2022.

This article does not represent the opinion of AGU, Eos, or any of its affiliates. It is solely the opinion of the author.

Text © 2022. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

We discuss the equal parts terrifying and stupid possibility that Trump or an associate actually tried to sell nuclear secrets to the Saudis, and all the insane ramifications for domestic and world politics. Then, we’re joined by Tom and Tarence of the Trillbillies to talk about the recent catastrophic flooding in Kentucky, and how the years of government neglect and industrial mining in the region have exacerbated the disaster. Also, prayers up for our boy Salman Rushdie.

Link to the disaster relief mutual aid mentioned in the ep: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeAMXIPoChrCeYk7aMlsa0MuHFguB5CM1Gm-H8zJlYUCcllmw/viewform?fbclid=IwAR1bciEajmf80sYbS8mLDOmSZRk6tEBo1j4_cslNDP2Sggf1DkLekzdLhWU&fs=e&s=cl

Tarence’s piece in the Baffler on the flood: https://thebaffler.com/latest/flooding-in-the-sacrifice-zone-ray

Dates + Tickets for our fall tour here: https://www.chapotraphouse.com/live

Get bonus content on Patreon

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The US military spends more than the next 9 biggest countries combined. The expected 2023 Pentagon budget is $840 billion. Donald Trump and Joe Biden have spent $220 billion more than even cold warrior Ronald Reagan. VIDEO: https://youtube.com/watch?v=h0BZso9Yb30 Research by Stephen Semler at https://stephensemler.substack.com

The biggest player in the Scramble for Africa was England. Second place to France, third to Germany. But there were many other European powers at the Berlin Conference in 1884 and the plunder of Africa was shared among even the smallest of European countries. Who and how, in this episode of the Scramble for Africa.

With org-mode you can keep data, code, and documentation in one file.

Suppose you have an org-mode file containing the following table.

    #+NAME: mydata
    | Drug | Patients |
    |------+----------|
    |    X |      232 |
    |    Y |      351 |
    |    Z |      117 |

Note that there cannot be a blank line between the NAME header and the beginning of the table.

You can bring this table into Python simply by declaring it to be a variable in the header of a Python code block.

    #+begin_src python :var tbl=mydata :results output
    print(tbl)
    #+end_src

When you evaluate this block, you see that the table is imported as a list of lists.

    [['X', 232], ['Y', 351], ['Z', 117]]

Note that the column headings were not imported into Python. Now suppose you would like to retain the headers, and use them as column names in a pandas data frame.

    #+begin_src python :var tbl=mydata :colnames no :results output
    import pandas as pd
    df = pd.DataFrame(tbl[1:], columns=tbl[0])
    print(df, "\n")
    print(df["Patients"].mean())
    #+end_src

When evaluated, this block produces the following.

      Drug  Patients 
    0    X       232
    1    Y       351
    2    Z       117

    233.33333333333334

Note that in order to import the column names, we told org-mode that there are no column names! We did this with the header option

    :colnames no

This seems backward, but it makes sense. It says do bring in the first row of the table, even though it appears to be a column header that isn’t imported by default. But then we tell pandas that we want to make a data frame out of all but the first row (i.e. tbl[1:]) and we want to use the first row (i.e. tbl[0]) as the column names.

A possible disadvantage to keeping data and code together is that the data could be large. But since org files are naturally in outline mode, you could collapse the part of the outline containing the data so that you don’t have to look at it unless you need to.

Related posts

• Org-mode as a lightweight notebook
• Inline computed content in org-mode
The post Keeping data and code together with org-mode first appeared on John D. Cook.

This week, a current events episode on the leadup and immediate aftermath of the assassination of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. Note: this episode is intended to be a continuation of Episode 364 (our last episode on Abe). 

Show notes here.

Dina Khoury joins Long Reads for a two-part conversation about Iraq since the US occupation. Dina is a historian of the Middle East, and her books include Iraq in Wartime.

Read her piece for Catalyst, "Iraq After US Occupation," here: https://catalyst-journal.com/2021/09/iraq-after-us-occupation

Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by Features Editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies, music by Knxwledge.

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Under Ukrainian government pressure, CBS News censored its own documentary “Arming Ukraine,” which showed that just around 30% of the weapons Western governments have sent actually go to the frontlines, with widespread corruption and black markets. VIDEO: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4MQNjmbDadg Read more here: https://multipolarista.com/2022/08/10/cbs-censors-report-ukraine-weapons-corruption

The boys discuss the FBI raid of Mar a Lago, as well Trump’s desire for Hitlerian loyalty from his generals. Then, we contemplate what America will do without the burble and thrum of office life.

Tickets to tonight's abortion fundraiser show at Littlefield here: https://littlefieldnyc.com/event/?wfea_eb_id=387105592247

Dates + Tickets for our fall tour here: https://www.chapotraphouse.com/live

Get bonus content on Patreon

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Click here for the full episode, including the extended interview with Vijay Prashad on the US expanding control over South America and why Jordan Peterson needs a hug.

“The jaws of Hell have opened wide.”

Historian and author Vijay Prashad is worried about the next war that the US will provoke. Nukes in Ukraine, a new missile crisis in Taiwan, destabilizing sovereign South American nations, asserting control in Africa. All in the name of US hegemony.

He focuses in on China: what if Xi Jinping flew to Guam like Nancy Pelosi flew to Taiwan? What would the US do?

There are 29 US military bases in Africa. How many Chinese military bases are there? None.

The US is expanding NATO to bypass the UN treaty in an attempt to rule the world. Is China to blame?

Prashad, who has a new book co-authored by Noam Chomsky, analyzes the US’s increasingly dictatorial role in the world from Russia to China to Cuba to South America:

Colombia just elected a new left president. One of Gustavo Petro’s first moves was to call for an end to the US-led, so-called “war on drugs.”

Subscribe for the extended episode to hear Vijay discuss all of that, plus how capitalism has destroyed the ability of people to control their own lives; the nonsensical decision to place Cuba on the state sponsor of terrorism list; and why Jordan Peterson needs a hug.

It’s all this, and more, on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out.

Subscribe now

Live recording from Podfest this year where Nick, Rob and Ciarán do three megarikas and then talk about the connection between Himmler and Ancient Aliens

HOW TO SUPPORT US:
https://www.patreon.com/cornerspaeti

HOW TO REACH US:
Corner Späti https://twitter.com/cornerspaeti
Julia https://twitter.com/KMarxiana
Rob https://twitter.com/leninkraft
Nick https://twitter.com/sternburgpapi
Uma https://twitter.com/umawrnkl
Ciarán https://twitter.com/CiaranDold

Support Corner Späti

Live from the Aladdin Theater in beautiful Portland, Oregon! Chapo is joined by our Women’s Auxiliary Unit of Kath Krueger & Amber Rollo and America’s #1 treats connoisseur Bill Oakley to discuss the issues of the day. Topics include: Portland’s phallocentric history, Alex Jones’ legal losses, Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, and the recent victory for abortion rights in Kansas. Plus: can women find true fulfillment through becoming landlords? AND: a roundtable discussion of fast food culture in America featuring a tasting menu of local Portland delicacies selected by Mr. Oakley himself. Truly a value sized show!

Dates + Tickets for OUR live shows (including the Ft. Lauderdale show now rescheduled to 10/30) are here: https://www.chapotraphouse.com/live

Get bonus content on Patreon

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.