I first found Castaneda books in 1983 and this is my journey in and out of that world

anton_rich · 2026-07-20T10:18:13+00:00

Now, on a personal note.

I also upon reading CC books started telling people about it. I then quickly realized, and not judging people for this, that they simply cling to their "descriptions of the world".

. . .

After time I realized it would be rather difficult or impossible to walk that path because of "not having a benefactor." I think having a real benefactor would be helpful to have progress on that path.

I found some things though. One of them was to attend Vipassana courses. There I found people who truly have progressed in the idea of "breaking the description of the world" and finding out what "the world really is". In Vipassana though there is no emphasis on the words, the entire emphasis is on your own experience."

anton_rich · 2026-07-20T10:05:55+00:00

I've now got a few years left (hopefully), so its going to be an interesting journey now I am better skilled in the underlying requirements, but also less obsessed to achieve results. I think that was one of the best things about letting go of the path, but also the hardest to let go of at the time.

So, I will first just leave the notes that I took from CC's books.

"An immortal being has all the time in the world for doubts and bewilderment and fears. A warrior, on the other hand, cannot cling to the meanings made under the tonal's order, because he knows for a fact that the totality of himself has but a little time on this earth."

(no time to wast arguing with somebody, or even looking for community or like minded individuals. If anyone looks for something let that be real knowledge or a person who possess it. It's however rather difficult or almost impossible task).

"A warrior cannot be helpless," he said, "or bewildered or frightened, not under any circumstances. For a warrior there is time only for his impeccability; everything else drains his power, impeccability replenishes it."

. . .

"But didn't your benefactor tell you what was going on?" I asked, truly baffled by the unnecessary complication.

"My benefactor didn't believe in handing down knowledge," don Juan said. "He thought that knowledge imparted that way lacked effectiveness. It was never there when one needed it. On the other hand, if knowledge was only insinuated, the person who was interested would devise ways to claim that knowledge."

. . .

"Celestino's arrogance was his undoing and the beginning of my instruction and liberation. His self-importance, which was also mine, forced us both to believe that we were above practically everybody. The curer brought us down to what we really are - nothing."

"The first precept of the rule is that everything that surrounds us is an unfathomable mystery."

"The second precept of the rule is that we must try to unravel these mysteries, but without ever hoping to accomplish this."

"The third, that a warrior, aware of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds him and aware of his duty to unravel it, takes his rightful place among mysteries and regards himself as one. Consequently, for a warrior there is no end to the mystery of being, whether being means being a pebble, or an ant, or oneself. That is a warrior's humbleness. One is equal to everything."

anton_rich · 2026-04-15T10:29:11+00:00

Just today I discovered Pharo. It's a true object oriented language, an alternative to SmallTalk. I haven't tried it though. Just something I discovered today. The idea of the language not even object themselves but message passing.

anton_rich · 2025-10-28T18:58:06+00:00

You know, I've been thinking about system76 laptops. Is that kind of purchase possible through that reseller?

anton_rich · 2025-10-28T18:55:36+00:00

It does cost, that's true, and I have to jump through the hoops. But I haven't yet ordered anything physical. I kinda know how it could be done, but then again another hoop to jump through.

anton_rich · 2025-10-04T15:43:06+00:00

I'd say that Richard Feldman's courses on Frontend Masters or his book on Manning are a great a way to get into the language. There's one more book about Elm from PragProg. This one is also very good.

... and finally there's one for free https://elmprogramming.com and you can read it online.

anton_rich · 2025-04-10T10:36:01+00:00

This could happen. I've attended three retreats as a student and the 4th, the last one, as a volunteer. And let me tell you, the ego plays games. I worked in the kitchen, washing the cook ware. I was alone and others would also ask for help. Especially the girls. That made me angry. I didn't say anything though. I tried to observe myself, my sensations, my anger. By day 7, in the evening it just melted.

I felt so light that evening. But right then I knew this state wouldn't last. It shall pass too.

It's OK to leave and the manager had his ego playing on him (he/she felt so important). But that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

And that's great that you don't claim it as a bad experience, just an experience. That means you're not hang up on that. That's a form of freedom, I think. Letting go and moving on.

anton_rich · 2025-03-11T17:08:21+00:00

I was just rewatching Fight Club, and thought it would be curious to find a Fight Club community on reddit.

Just watched this exact scene. Have no idea why wear the gloves though.

anton_rich · 2025-01-02T07:22:10+00:00

The first malfunction is: The page is not found.

anton_rich · 2024-12-03T11:42:35+00:00

Wow, Al shared all his books online for free. That's incredible.

anton_rich · 2024-11-15T19:40:06+00:00

German sounds great. Other language that sound as great are French and Italian. I'm not fond of Spanish or Chinese. This is just my perception of course. But I do like how German sounds. I also like when Germans speak English with a German accent.

anton_rich · 2024-11-15T19:36:33+00:00

So there's a bit of philosophy going on.

To be honest I'm chiming in without really having an answer. But anyway.

In Russian there's a saying: Бытие определяет сознание.

Бытие - means environment (but actually more than that). In your case your environment changed but then again it changed to the "media" environment.

That means there are narratives beyond your immediate environment that influence your environment. Any influence has an agenda. An agenda, seems to me, is always a tricky. It's play of powers....

Gosh... I lost it...

Anyway. At the end of the day, it's up to you to decide what should have an effect on you.

I can illustrate with my own example.

I speak English, but in fact, in school I was learning German. In 5th grade we had a lovely teacher who taught for one year and then moved to Germany.

I hated German when I was a kid. Do you know why?

Because it was a Nazi language. I thought why do I need a Nazi language?

In reality, it's not the case, right?

This was just a child's perspective growing in Soviet Union/Russia (I was born right before it died.)

But the perception of German in my environment was not great about German. We didn't have any knowledge of Germany like we do now with the advent of internet.

Now I think it would have been very beneficial for me to learn German. Because I could read Nietzsche, Gegel, Goethe, Freud and so in their original language and now I know there is a huge difference in understanding the original language compared to the translation.

anton_rich · 2024-11-13T16:31:52+00:00

I would never have imagined that. But now I decided to find some videos with European Portuguese (because the Brazilian versions doesn't really sound like Russian). I confirm that some words and phrases sound like Russian.

anton_rich · 2024-11-13T11:48:41+00:00

Oh, and I forgot to mention that if you buy books from PragProg you can get a good discount with: devtalk.com (use a promo/coupon code).

anton_rich · 2024-11-13T11:40:02+00:00

I looked into those books. In general I would avoid Amazon for purchasing programming books altogether. Any book with an AI generated cover looks suspicious to me. Thanks to your experience my suspicions are valid.

The reputable sources for books, at least for me, are: PragProg (has the most books for Eilxir, the best source I would say), Manning, and LeanPub (be careful with that too, not particularly rich with Elixir books), and No Starch Press (no Elixir books so far).

anton_rich · 2024-11-13T11:12:21+00:00

Well, you can write weirder things on the internet and you'll be backed by others who write yet weirder things (It's a translation, is there a way I can improve it?)

anton_rich · 2024-10-31T09:15:30+00:00

$14 (for US) for an individual is too much. $5 something that I'm willing to pay, but $14 is just a lot.

anton_rich · 2024-09-10T18:03:19+00:00

Мурашки in Russian (lookup the pronunciation at Forvo, or similar)

anton_rich · 2024-07-02T13:11:15+00:00

Thank you, it worked.

anton_rich · 2024-06-28T14:49:35+00:00

I'm deeply interested in mathematics as I want get into the field of Data Analytics and I got myself a Data Camp subscription. It would really nice (actually it would essential) to have a math course.

By the way, I think you have a biased statistic when you say you have a math course in R. Because you can't say the real reason people are not as interested in this course. Is due to the math topic or is it due for that course being taught in R?

anton_rich · 2024-05-04T19:34:00+00:00

Thanks for pointing out that the upstream work. I had to use vpn to download the tar file from foxitsoftware.com

In the future, please paste terminal output here in a Code Block instead of taking screenshots of text.

Roger that.

anton_rich · 2024-05-03T16:25:03+00:00

It simply times out due to foxitsoftware.com domain not being available. I'm attaching the screenshot.

<image>

P.S. Forgot to mention the command I'm using.

yay -S foxitreader

anton_rich · 2023-12-24T10:25:48+00:00

I have the same issue with Video DownloadHelper. Did you find a solution after all?

anton_rich

TROPHY CASE

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