Notices

1. psf (psf@oldbytes.space)'s status on Sunday, 19-Jun-2022 00:22:27 CEST psf

   in reply to

   Unbounded things can be endlessly novel and fascinating without ever rising to the level of being good or interesting. If you find something unbounded that you like, you can soak in it forever without thinking twice about it.

   If you find something bounded that you like, you are stuck. You will eventually run out of new material. Whenever I near the end of a great book or a great album, I have a feeling of doom because I know that soon there will be no more.

   Once you finally finish, life gets hard. You want another chapter, or another song, but there's nothing there. You're done.

   If you want more, all you can do is try to feed the obsession by replaying the hell out of what you've been given. You need to examine the old material in more and more depth and examine it from every possible angle.

   You may even be driven to create something new to feed the hunger inside you.

   • psf (psf@oldbytes.space)'s status on Sunday, 19-Jun-2022 00:22:28 CEST psf

     I've had lots of thoughts lately about bounded versus unbounded systems.

     A book is bounded; the global library system is unbounded. A CD is bounded; Spotify is unbounded. The world is effectively unbounded, and networked computer systems tend to be unbounded too.

     Many things are bigger than a human can experience, or changing faster than a human can keep up with. Many curious explorers and tinkerers are drawn to these unbounded things because they are vast, unknowable, and therefore exciting.

     But what finite, bounded things are worth exploring and tinkering with?