archiving on S Anand

Things I Learned - 11 Jan 2026

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This week, I learned:

Software Heritage is a non-profit that archives software. You can submit any Git repo for archival. Over 400 million projects have been archived so far.
Everything Bad Is Good For You by Steven Johnson (2005) argues that pop culture isn’t all bad. But it isn’t all good either, unlike the book’s claims. Claude
- Popular culture formats (e.g. video games, manga, soap operas, game shows) are steadily more cognitively demanding, complex.
- They provide a dopamine kick from problem-solving.
- These may have led to the Flynn Effect (rising IQs in 1990s-2000s). Or it may be due to nutrition, smaller families, education, etc.
- Action games correlate with visual-spatial skills. Strategy games correlate with memory, planning. But is it causation? It doesn’t always translate to real-world skills.
- Also, side effects are real and bad: screen-time, addiction, misinformation, etc.
The purpose of a featured image in a blog post is to help readers decide whether to read it. Share the article’s output/focus (e.g. for data stories, products). Else a visual summary (e.g. sketchnote, comic capturing the essence). Else skip. Avoid stock photos. #
NFLSavant.com has play-by-play data for NFL games.
Ten of the least well known psychology / sociology research findings. ChatGPT
- Learning styles are a myth. People might prefer visual / audio / … learning but it doesn’t help learning. Mix learning modes. NotebookLM can help.
- Casual acquaintances help find new information or jobs much more than close friends, since they’re in different social circles. Nurture weak ties. Use a relationship architect.
- Tell a lie often enough and people mistake familiarity for truth. Fact-check habitually.
- The more you see / hear something the more you like it. (Exposure effect.) Expose to good things.
- When others mess up, we blame them. When we mess up, we blame the situation. (Attribution error.) Pause before judging.
- Sometimes, rewarding people makes them like doing it less. (Overjustification effect.)
- People who know less over-estimate their knowledge. (Dunning-Kruger effect.) Habitualize calibration via feedback and tests.
- People do worse when they’re afraid their failure will reflect on their stereotype. (Stereotype threat.) Practice emotional resets.
- Higher expectations lead to better performance. (Pygmalion effect.) Engineer positive expectations.
- Benevolent sexism (e.g. protective paternalism) can be harmful too. Scan for well-meaning bias.
Liberalism => economic growth, peace and expanding rights. Also colonial violence, exclusions (women, slavery, …), and eroding community. It is vulnerable to authoritarianism (e.g. emergency powers, recessions). Since 2006, democracy has consecutively declined, reversing half the progress since WW2. But alternatives are unclear. Claude
Notes from The Periodic Table by Primo Levi.
- Pure Zinc does not dissolve easily in sulphuric acid. An impurity like Copper Sulphate pulls electrons from Zinc and offers them to Hydrogen ions, speeding up the reaction. Impurities, foreign bodies, etc. have a purpose, too.
- Discomfort = Information. Overcoming discomfort = Capability. Capability = Freedom. Therefore: Seeking discomfort (carefully, purposefully) = Building freedom.
- Simple != Easy. Simple = Clear. Clear = Actionable.
- Indifference often feels like malice.
- ⭐ Analogies have limits. (The Map is not the Territory.) When using analogies, always explore where, when and why they will break. Pay close attention near where they break.
- ⭐ Knowledge vanishes with people unless written down. Write “Do X. Because of Y. Unless Z changes.” The last two are critical.
- I could NOT have read the book without a Randall Munroe re-styling. I cried anyway.
“There’s about 300-400 that were corporate assets. One watched them all the time. These are people who in 15 years could be CEO. There’s something about them that caught your fancy when you were in a meeting… brilliant ideas that challenged your thinking… We called them “Corporate Assets” and tracked them, to make sure we game-planned them, give them the right assignments.” Indra Nooyi, The Knowledge Project
The accesskey attribute works a bit like magic. Adding an accesskey="h" on a home page link, or an accesskey="t" on a theme toggle button automatically enables keyboard shortcuts Alt+H or Alt+T to activate them. (Varies by browser and OS, but hovering shows the shortcut!)
Familiarity and recency feel like learning but they’re not. Instead: Take tests. Review (spaced repetition). Interleave learning. That’s what helps. Claude

Dilbert Browser

Fri, 11 May 2007 12:00:00 +0000

Al Donovan has created a Dilbert repository by crawling United Media’s site every day since 1996. I’ve made them a little easier to navigate. Click here to see the Dilbert Browser. Use the left and right arrow keys to see the next comic.

Comments

anonymous 22 May 2007 11:26 am: Awesome. How did you do this?
Amit 17 Dec 2014 7:30 am: Hey Anand, The link doesnt seem to be working anymore (or, at least, its point to C&H, which I just don’t mind, but remembered your Dilbert browser but could not find it anymore).

Burned CDs last only 2-5 years

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 12:00:00 +0000

Burned CDs last only 2-5 years.

Calvin and Hobbes index - 900602

Tue, 27 Dec 2005 12:00:00 +0000

My Calvin and Hobbes index is current up to June 1990.

Comments

Sathya 28 Dec 2005 3:23 am: Are you manually typing all these stuff ? Ammadiyov … why dont u outsource such stuff :-)
S Anand 28 Dec 2005 8:04 am: Whom to? :-)
ritzkini 28 Dec 2005 8:32 am: !!! :O all by yourself !!?? crazy about C&H,eh ?
S Anand 28 Dec 2005 10:55 am: Completely. And I’m not the only one I know either!
vikram 29 Dec 2005 12:03 am: wow awesome man! i’m crazy about C&H too. great work man. :)
Sathya 30 Dec 2005 3:25 am: Now you know whom to outsource to ;-P
S Anand 30 Dec 2005 10:43 am: Hey, my index vanished!
S Anand 30 Dec 2005 10:24 pm: It’s back.
Madhu 5 Jan 2006 7:57 am: Did you try the Calvin Hobbes entire collection for their 20th Anniversary. Its about 5k in India.
S Anand 5 Jan 2006 6:00 pm: Very tempting!
Anonymous 9 Jan 2006 8:07 am: i have an internet link to the complete c&h, let me know if you would like iy
S Anand 10 Jan 2006 9:08 am: Is it in text? I’d really like the complete Calvin in TEXT.
S Anand 11 Jan 2006 11:16 am: Calvin theme subjects.
Madhu 18 Jan 2006 9:53 am: Let me help you with this. I will work on Calvin and Hobbes backwards from 31-12-95 and see where I can reach
S Anand 18 Jan 2006 10:52 am: Thanks, Madhu! That’ll be wonderful. Someone else I know in Germany working backwards from 31-12-95. How about if you take it forward from 01-01-93?
JustSomebody 3 Apr 2010 5:17 am: Excuse me, but I think this strip search is broken. For some reason, it only has comics up to July 31, 1988. All the other comics aren’t showing and the text is replaced with jibberish.
S Anand 3 Apr 2010 8:02 am: Yes – thanks for pointing this out. Fixed it now.
The Calvin and Hobbes search Takedown | s-anand.net 21 May 2010 12:02 pm (pingback): […] bit puzzled, but just added it to my list of eccentricities and carried on. I was halfway there in 2005, pushed further in 2006, and with some help, I managed to finally complete […]

Using gmail for backup

Wed, 04 Aug 2004 12:00:00 +0000

Interesting idea to use gmail for backup.

The Memory Hole

Mon, 09 Dec 2002 12:00:00 +0000

“The Memory Hole exists to preserve and spread material that is in danger of being lost, is hard to find, or is not widely known.” via RobotWisdom

2002 Mumbai Bloggers meet photos mirror

Tue, 08 Oct 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Amrita has mirrored pictures of the Mumbai Bloggers’ Meet. Since she has no bandwidth restrictions, please visit that site.

Changes to Project Gutenberg

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Project Gutenberg explains some proposed changes in answer to a question on Slashdot.

Against digitization

Thu, 21 Mar 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Powerful thoughts against digitization. And since these days I need an excuse to justify the amount of paper I’m using, this article helps ease my conscience.

Why your digital data could disappear one day

Mon, 18 Feb 2002 12:00:00 +0000

A good article on why your digital data could one day disappear. Digital, when you think about it, is far less permanent than paper.

Archive of the Web

Tue, 02 Oct 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Archive of the Web. And of Sep 11.