My name is Pedro Probst, in some places known as Rodka. I deal with the little spirits inside the computer, albeit with little control
over them. In other words… I do stuff with software.
This blog is named after Severian’s sword, from Gene Wolfe’s “The Book of the New Sun”.
Some places you can find me:
You can contact me through email. You can even use it to insult me if you’d like.
Who?
I’m a human who likes computers and I usually work professionally with machine learning. I hold a master’s degree from UFRGS, where I researched about using neural networks to learn heuristic functions and preferred operators to help solve classical planning tasks.
Generally, I’m interested in GNU/Linux and free software, AI, and procedural content generation (mostly applied to digital games).
I also have a mild stutter. It sucks. If you’re curious on how I speak, it’s similar to Donald Knuth’s speech pattern.
Finally, I never got myself tested, but I believe I’m somewhat schizoid/avoidant. Something is certainly wrong with me, but I can’t point out what. Do I consider myself smart? Not really – sometimes I get very frustrated with how dumb I can be.
software I use
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distro: arch linux
wm: xmonad
terminal emulator: alacritty
text editor: emacs / neovim
shell: zsh
file manager: lf / thunar
image viewer: nsxiv
email client: thunderbird
browser: firefox
music: tauon / ncspot
video: mpv
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Politics
I’m currently at more or less the center of the political spectrum – this certainly doesn’t mean I’m “neutral”. I’m generally what one might consider a centrist, and depending on who you’re talking with, center-left. Most importantly, I consider myself a progressive liberal. I previously called myself a “libertarian”, and for some time I was really to the far-right. All in all, nowadays I take pride in not blindly following a leftoid/rightoid ideology.
Not that it matters much since people are seemingly braindead: some leftists take me for a fascist (despite the fact that I’m pro-abortion, pro-drugs and pro-trans), while rightists think I’m a degenerate that belongs on a cross (they are mostly right about this one).
While this is obvious, I think we should be realistic about the system, democracy, and living under government while acknowledging their flaws. Below are some of my beliefs.
I believe in
- Liberalism.
- Private property.
- Reasonable gun control.
- Absolute free speech, as long as you can defeat “intolerable” ideas rationally.
- If you’re pro-abortion, which many believe to be akin to murder, I believe you have the balls for neonazis marching in your neighborhood.
- Abortion (performed before ~20-24 weeks of pregnancy).
- Legalization of drugs.
- Redistribution of wealth through e.g. (reasonable) welfare and taxing big fortunes.
- “Public” education.
- “Free” healthcare.
- Right to repair.
I am not
- Conservative.
- Religious or god-fearing.
- Socialist.
- Conspiracy-brained.
- Authoritarian.
- Politically correct.
This is important: I do not believe in intellectual property laws.
Finally, I belive partisanship and populism are poisonous to political debate and I deeply hate them. To my Brazilian readers: please rethink your values if you call yourself a “bolsonarista” or “petista/lulista”.
Remember that even your worst enemies are still human.
And after reading all of this, hopefully you won’t consider me a fascist or a communist unless you’re clinically retarded.
*tips fedora* 🤠
Philosophy
TODO. I previously wrote some lazy bullshit here, but this section needs some serious thought.
- Happiness.
- Independence.
- Via Negativa.
Spirituality
I heavily tend for physicalism. I believe that souls don’t exist, and that magic/mysticism is mostly a very elaborate LARP. We humans are probably just very complex organic machines, and way less important that we might think.
Outro
Some extra pieces of knowledge about me.
Like
randomness, camping, solitude, barter, tribalism, vocaloid, traditional roguelikes, FOSS, KISS, gardening, simplicity, tomboys and girls with really short hair, journals, weight training, the smell of incense, calabrese pizza, izakayas, monasteries, peace of mind, decentralization, freedom, otium, autumn, winter, slice of life, procedural content generation, small communities, intuition, meditation, imageboards/textboards, dreaming, daydreaming, anime, manga, PC gaming, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian, Greek, Latin, Finnish, CRTs, PS1 graphics, daily routines, saturdays, rain, mountains, Rust, C, Go, Chinese handheld consoles, Twin Peaks, The Sopranos, Kurosawa’s movies, Swans (the band), The Brave Little Abacus, caffeine, camomile
Dislike
redditors, vehicles and roads, cities, enforced equality, cardio, smartphones, proprietary software, copyright, Windows, MacOS, summer, Java, JavaScript, dramatic people, intellectualism and “intellectuals”, 90% of everything, megacorps, social media, subscription services, “intellectual” property, people that call themselves “anti-establishment”
Basically anything with “intellectual” in it is usually a façade. Return to peasantry.