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The Marginalian
We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt, the Power of Defiant Goodwill, and the Art of... "It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most...
a year ago
31
a year ago
"It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most bleak, that the determination to think like a human being, creatively, courageously, and complicatedly, matters the most."
The American Scholar
Raspberry Heaven A yearly back-yard harvest opens a door to the divine The post Raspberry Heaven appeared first on...
3 months ago
10
3 months ago
A yearly back-yard harvest opens a door to the divine The post Raspberry Heaven appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Indiana Absurd Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd...
a year ago
50
a year ago
Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
A measuring device that tells me what is interesting + links
8 months ago
Escaping Flatland
Pseudonyms lets you practice agency I don’t think I would have become a writer if it wasn’t for the internet forums of the early 2000s.
9 months ago
Josh Thompson
Five Days to Inbox Zero: How to Get Control of your Email Email is a constant in our lives, yet it can be so overwhelming that it becomes almost 100%...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Email is a constant in our lives, yet it can be so overwhelming that it becomes almost 100% ineffective. I discussed with a friend the other day why they should switch from Yahoo to Gmail, and how to reduce the useless emails they receive. Below is how I suggested they move from...
Robert Caro
Alone on the Desert Her Dream Fades A lack of basic infrastructure forced a 74‒year-old widow to carry a water bucket a mile-and-a-half...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
A lack of basic infrastructure forced a 74‒year-old widow to carry a water bucket a mile-and-a-half back to her tiny shack.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The cost of fueling my body I’ve become a bit obsessed with how much it costs to fuel my body during the working hours. — Dave...
10 months ago
8
10 months ago
I’ve become a bit obsessed with how much it costs to fuel my body during the working hours. — Dave Rupert Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Josh Thompson
Structural Holes and Good Ideas Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and academic literature, as applied to somewhat practical-ish domains. These pages serve as a brief overview of a paper, and I’ll be able to link to this paper down the road when I what...
The American Scholar
Riding With Mr. Washington How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction The post Riding With Mr....
9 months ago
47
9 months ago
How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction The post Riding With Mr. Washington appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Maybe you need to have more fun "Fun" as essential to human flourishing.
11 months ago
Josh Thompson
Habits, Milestones, and Climbing Since April 9th, I have spent exactly 70 minutes training for climbing. Prior to April 27th, I have...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Since April 9th, I have spent exactly 70 minutes training for climbing. Prior to April 27th, I have climbed exactly seven times in the last five months. I just spent two days at the New River Gorge and exceeded my expectations, considering my almost half-year hiatus from regular...
The Marginalian
The One Hundred Milliseconds Between the World and You: Oliver Sacks on Perception “If the doors of perception were cleansed,” William Blake wrote, “everything would appear to man as...
2 weeks ago
7
2 weeks ago
“If the doors of perception were cleansed,” William Blake wrote, “everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” But we are finite creatures, in time and in space, and there is a limit to how much reality we can bear — evolution gave us consciousness so that we may sieve the...
The Marginalian
The Art of the Sacred Pause and Despair as a Catalyst of Regeneration Just as there are transitional times in the life of the world — dark periods of disorientation...
5 months ago
39
5 months ago
Just as there are transitional times in the life of the world — dark periods of disorientation between two world systems, periods in which humanity loses the ability to comprehend itself and collapses into chaos in order to rebuild itself around a new organizing principle — there...
Astral Codex Ten
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2025 - Call For Organizers ...
3 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'And For It Does So Dearly Pay' Some wartime casualties are time-released. Death is deferred. In his new collection, That Mad...
a month ago
18
a month ago
Some wartime casualties are time-released. Death is deferred. In his new collection, That Mad Game (Scienter Press, 2025), R.L. Barth devotes three poems to a civilian, the war correspondent Albert W. Vinson, who wrote about him leading a patrol of Marines in Vietnam in 1968. The...
The Marginalian
Moonlight and the Magic of the Unnecessary Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how...
a year ago
78
a year ago
Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how improbably lucky we are, each of its craters a monument of the odds we prevailed against to exist, a reliquary of the violent collisions that forged our rocky planet lush with life...
The Elysian
The future according to artists The Parisianer 2050's project to imagine the future in art.
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The Art of Taking It Slow Petersen believes that the bike industry’s focus on racing—along with ‘competition and a pervasive...
8 months ago
19
8 months ago
Petersen believes that the bike industry’s focus on racing—along with ‘competition and a pervasive addiction to technology’—has had a poisonous influence on cycling culture. He dislikes the widespread marketing to recreational riders of spandex kits, squirty energy gels, and...
Ploum.net
L’urgence de soutenir l’énergie du libre L’urgence de soutenir l’énergie du libre Éditorial rédigé pour le Lama déchaîné n°9, l’hebdomadaire...
6 months ago
12
6 months ago
L’urgence de soutenir l’énergie du libre Éditorial rédigé pour le Lama déchaîné n°9, l’hebdomadaire réalisé par l’April afin d’alerter sur la précarité financière de l’association. J’étais limité à 300 mots. Pour un bavard comme moi, c’est un exercice très difficile ! (il est...
Escaping Flatland
How I write essays Notes on process
6 months ago
The Marginalian
Sentimentality and Being Mortal: Poet Mark Doty on the Passionate Fragility of Our Attachments How beautiful and unbearable that only one of each exists — each lover, each child, each dog; that...
a year ago
32
a year ago
How beautiful and unbearable that only one of each exists — each lover, each child, each dog; that this particular chance-constellation of atoms has never before existed and will never again recur in the history of the universe. The fact of each such singularity is a wonder...
The Elysian
Idea Labs! An open thread for collaborative worldbuilding Let's brainstorm the future together.
a year ago
The Elysian
Hint #3 I'm publishing a new print collection in one week.
9 months ago
The American Scholar
Lingua Obscura Laura Spinney on the spread of Proto-Indo-European The post Lingua Obscura appeared first on The...
3 weeks ago
9
3 weeks ago
Laura Spinney on the spread of Proto-Indo-European The post Lingua Obscura appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh Sorry, you can only get drugs when there's a drug shortage.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
New Year, Old Year The post New Year, Old Year appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The American Scholar
Family/History David Levering Lewis digs into his own origin story The post Family/History appeared first on The...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
David Levering Lewis digs into his own origin story The post Family/History appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Wolf Solent and A Glastonbury Romance - Both the two great forces pouring forth from the... Last summer I read John Cowper Powys’s novel Wolf Solent (1929) and recently I read A Glastonbury...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
Last summer I read John Cowper Powys’s novel Wolf Solent (1929) and recently I read A Glastonbury Romance (1932), not his first novels but the first that anyone noticed.  Wolf Solent is a plump 600 pages, and Glastonbury a monstrous 1,100.  Powys was 56 when the first was...
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Brought Us This Far' Self-knowledge is fine but some things are best left unexamined. “Why do you read so many books?” a...
3 days ago
3
3 days ago
Self-knowledge is fine but some things are best left unexamined. “Why do you read so many books?” a reader asks. His assumption, never directly articulated, is that reading is compensation for the absence of something far more important. I suppose people have been facing...
The American Scholar
Electrons That Bind The molecule at the center of everything The post Electrons That Bind appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
11
3 months ago
The molecule at the center of everything The post Electrons That Bind appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Nick Cave on the Two Pillars of a Meaningful Life "Cultivating a questioning mind, of which conversation is the chief instrument, enriches our...
a year ago
22
a year ago
"Cultivating a questioning mind, of which conversation is the chief instrument, enriches our relationship with the world."
Josh Thompson
Wrapping my head around local politics 001 Warning: Buzzwords ahead about millennials.* As a millennial, I want to “get involved” in my “local...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Warning: Buzzwords ahead about millennials.* As a millennial, I want to “get involved” in my “local community”, and don’t know the best way to “mobilize my resources”. vomit. I hate admitting that. But I still want to figure out if it is possible for me (little old me) to do...
The American Scholar
Muscle Memory Michael Joseph Gross on the importance of strength, past and present The post Muscle Memory appeared...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
Michael Joseph Gross on the importance of strength, past and present The post Muscle Memory appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Change The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for the better, and sometimes its for the worse. I don’t know if there’s always a difference. Recently, Kristi and I have seen lots of change; I’d say its for the better, but it’s not...
The Marginalian
There Was a Shadow: A Lyrical Illustrated Celebration of the Changing Light, in the World and in the... “Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty,” Junichiro Tanizaki wrote in the 1933 Japanese...
11 months ago
57
11 months ago
“Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty,” Junichiro Tanizaki wrote in the 1933 Japanese classic In Praise of Shadows. As a physical phenomenon, shadows are one of the most beguiling phenomena of nature, emissaries of the entwined history of light and consciousness; as...
Josh Thompson
June trip to the New River Gorge The New River Gorge had beautiful weather this weekend. The forecast for the weekend was, until...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
The New River Gorge had beautiful weather this weekend. The forecast for the weekend was, until Friday, near-certain thunderstorms. Typical of the New, the weather proved unpredictable, and we had glorious sun the entire trip. I was eager to get out to the New, since my last...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Four Years Gone My father passed away four years ago, on June 18. It was the day that Father's Day fell on that...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
My father passed away four years ago, on June 18. It was the day that Father's Day fell on that year. My father-in-law, Jen's dad, passed away 11 years ago on June 20th, on that respective year. It's a strange cosmic sign but not uncommon for our relationship where many signs and...
Josh Thompson
I Once Worked Hard When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career there. I was a college graduate (that means something, right?) working at a climbing gym, part time, teaching seven-year-olds how to climb at about $10 an hour. I had no idea what I...
Josh Thompson
Twenties vs. Thirties (from a feeling-behind-the-curve 27 year old.) Some months ago I found a very encouraging article, comparing one’s twenties to one’s thirties. I’ve...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Some months ago I found a very encouraging article, comparing one’s twenties to one’s thirties. I’ve scoured everywhere that I stick notes and interesting reads, and cannot, for the life of me, find the article. The internet is littered with tons of fluff pieces talking about sex...
Josh Thompson
How to Move Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move happen: We both are in process with new jobs I just started working remotely for Litmus, which means I can seamlessly transition to Colorado this summer. Kristi spent a few days last week...
Steven Scrawls
Word Rot Word Rot Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever face will have been...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Word Rot Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever face will have been faced in some form by someone who came before you. That person may have already shared the story of that challenge, and that story might have melded with other tales to form collective...
This Space
39 Books: 2022 "Hölderlin...asked only that we accept silence as the one meaningful syllable in the...
a year ago
97
a year ago
"Hölderlin...asked only that we accept silence as the one meaningful syllable in the universe." This line from Paul Stubbs' remarkable essay collection The Return to Silence is not an epigram to Marjorie Perloff's Infrathin: An Experiment in Micropoetics, but it might have...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Make Her Smile and Keep Her in Their Game' A friend called to chat while driving to Dallas to visit her mother. My friend is my age. Her mother...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
A friend called to chat while driving to Dallas to visit her mother. My friend is my age. Her mother is ninety-six years old. She lives on her own and only recently, after falling, did she agree to start using a cane. I’m not sure anyone is prepared to get old (or not get old)....
The American Scholar
Laura S. Lewis Welding trash into treasure The post Laura S. Lewis appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Read During Every Possible Free Moment' A reader asks, “How did you learn to read so fast?” The answer is simple: I didn’t. I have always...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
A reader asks, “How did you learn to read so fast?” The answer is simple: I didn’t. I have always read slowly, often taking notes, which makes it even slower. This frustrated me when I was young, and I briefly contemplated enrolling in one of Evelyn Wood’s...
The American Scholar
The Sound of the Picturesque Charles Ives and the Visual The post The Sound of the Picturesque appeared first on The American...
9 months ago
Josh Thompson
Workflow for developers (AKA My current tools) I’m a huge fan of “a good workflow”. Makes you think better. This is still under construction, but...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
I’m a huge fan of “a good workflow”. Makes you think better. This is still under construction, but I’m fleshing out all the tools, tidbits, and other things that serve me well every day as I build my skills as a developer. It will always be a work in progress, but will hopefully...
Anecdotal Evidence
"This, Books Can Do . . ." At age ten I attended the grand opening of the new public library in Parma Heights, Ohio, within...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
At age ten I attended the grand opening of the new public library in Parma Heights, Ohio, within easy walking distance of our house. Next door was Yorktown Lanes, the bowling alley dedicated two years earlier. Across the road was the municipal swimming pool where my mother had...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 No one’s ready for this An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A...
9 months ago
8
9 months ago
An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A cockroach in a box of takeout. It took less than 10 seconds to create each of these images with the Reimagine tool in the Pixel 9’s Magic Editor. They are crisp. They are in full...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 356.5 ...
6 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Absence of Her Voice From that Concord' “There are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: he may be considered as...
a month ago
23
a month ago
“There are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: he may be considered as a storyteller, as a teacher, and as an enchanter. A major writer combines these three – storyteller, teacher, enchanter – but it is the enchanter in him that predominates and makes him...
The Elysian
We're writing a better future into existence A media collective imagining the future of nation-states, capitalism, and humanity.
5 months ago
Josh Thompson
Circles of Influence I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write about, or you’ve hit a block, write about something that angers you. This is easy. I could write about any number of things that we’ve all read in a newspaper, and get good and angry...
The Marginalian
Favorite Books of 2023 To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of...
a year ago
33
a year ago
To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of the questions that live in you and the reckonings that keep you up at night. While the literature of the present comprises only a tiny fraction of my own reading, here are a...
Wuthering...
Preface to notes on the first four novels of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time In France, at the Lyon public library, I was surprised to bump into so many romans fleuves, whatever...
a month ago
15
a month ago
In France, at the Lyon public library, I was surprised to bump into so many romans fleuves, whatever those are.  They were notable on the shelf because these long series of novels are now published in monumental, highly visible, omnibus editions.  The library assumes that...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Is Substack so Bad? All those readers that Substack shows you as a positive thing on your dashboard are worth very...
5 months ago
21
5 months ago
All those readers that Substack shows you as a positive thing on your dashboard are worth very little. Upon leaving Substack authors have found that users acquired via the Substack recommendation engine have higher churn than organic growth and are less likely to open your...
This Space
39 Books: 1987 From two books in the first year of reading and twenty-four in the second, I read eighty-six in the...
a year ago
42
a year ago
From two books in the first year of reading and twenty-four in the second, I read eighty-six in the third, including a lot more non-fiction. This was due to cycling to libraries in adjacent towns where the selection was wider. One of them had my first non-novel choice: this...
The American Scholar
Paige Ledom Out of the ordinary The post Paige Ledom appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
The American Scholar
Sheep Jones Swimming below the surface The post Sheep Jones appeared first on The American Scholar.
11 months ago
Josh Thompson
Quotes from 'Spare the Child' Introduction Here’s quotes from Spare the Child: The Religeous Roots of Punishment and the...
4 months ago
21
4 months ago
Introduction Here’s quotes from Spare the Child: The Religeous Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse, by Philip Greven. It was written in 1989, same year I was born, 35 years ago as of 2025. It’s sometimes nice to be able to share quotes with people....
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Spiritual Situation of Our Age' “Balzac is one of the most shameless traders in stereotype among the great nineteenth-century...
a month ago
5
a month ago
“Balzac is one of the most shameless traders in stereotype among the great nineteenth-century novelists. As a result, there are passages in his books that many of us today have to read in the spirit of camp as resounding expressions of the kitsch of his era.”  I’ve read so little...
The Perry Bible...
Turn That Frown The post Turn That Frown appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
10 months ago
The Marginalian
The Countercultural Sanity of the Irrational: Pioneering Psychiatrist Otto Rank on the Blind Spots... In one crucial respect at least, the human animal does not pass the mirror test of self-knowledge:...
5 months ago
45
5 months ago
In one crucial respect at least, the human animal does not pass the mirror test of self-knowledge: We move through the world by impulse and emotion, then look back and rationalize our choices, declaring ourselves creatures of reason. Western civilization, with its structural bias...
sbensu
There Is No Antimemetics Division Notes on the book.
8 months ago
Wuthering...
Paradoxes and epistemology - early Greek philosophy as conceptual innovation - "Zeno argues... The conceptual innovation of Thales that we identify as the birth of philosophy quickly spun off...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
The conceptual innovation of Thales that we identify as the birth of philosophy quickly spun off other conceptual innovations.  A real conceptual innovation does not require a book or even an argument.  You say there are many gods?  But what if there were one? Or none? ...
The Marginalian
A Glow in the Consciousness: The Continuous Creative Act of Seeing Clearly "Simply to look on anything... with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain...
a year ago
47
a year ago
"Simply to look on anything... with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain of being in the vastness of non-being."
Escaping Flatland
Having a shit blog has made me feel abundant From Giacometti’s sketch book
9 months ago
This Space
39 Books: 2019 So much for this blog being labelled "the best resource in English on European modernist...
a year ago
87
a year ago
So much for this blog being labelled "the best resource in English on European modernist literature": this year's choice is a collection of lectures delivered in the early 1960s at the University of Zürich, published in English translation in 1970, with this edition being...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Utterly Intoxicated by His Affection' Montaigne’s charming opening to his essay “Of the Education of Children”: “I have never seen a...
a month ago
14
a month ago
Montaigne’s charming opening to his essay “Of the Education of Children”: “I have never seen a father who failed to claim his son, however mangy or hunchbacked he was. Not that he does not perceive his defect, unless he is utterly intoxicated by his affection; but the fact...
The American Scholar
Bubble Girl The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American...
a year ago
30
a year ago
The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Stereotypes and the City What to make of HBO’s attempts to diversify an iconic show? The post Stereotypes and the City...
a year ago
39
a year ago
What to make of HBO’s attempts to diversify an iconic show? The post Stereotypes and the City appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Gamelan Music
over a year ago
Idle Words
Why Not Mars For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. — Richard Feynman Entrance to underground cavern on Pavonis Mons. HiRISE, 2011 The goal of this essay is to persuade you that we shouldn’t send human...
The American Scholar
“how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers appeared first on The...
6 months ago
51
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Trash Bags in the Laundry Room
over a year ago
This Space
Favourite books 2022 This selection does not include those books I enjoyed, that asinine dilution poured into innumerable...
over a year ago
73
over a year ago
This selection does not include those books I enjoyed, that asinine dilution poured into innumerable books of the year lists, though I enjoyed those not included in this selection. Jon Fosse – Septology Thomas Bernhard – The Rest is Slander "we are concealing a secret, a secret...
Ben Borgers
Daily Habits
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Some Blessings to Begin with It is good, I feel, to begin a new year, or a new day, with a little reservoir of gladness. Here are...
5 months ago
52
5 months ago
It is good, I feel, to begin a new year, or a new day, with a little reservoir of gladness. Here are some gladnesses I have gathered, and two new bird divinations I have made, as a conscious way of consecrating our days with the blessed fact that we weren’t promised any of this —...
The Marginalian
The Paradox of Free Will The neuroscience, physics, and philosophy of freedom in a universe of fixed laws.
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Redefining Success It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought about writing something here almost every day, but here is why I didn’t: I want to produce “content” that is helpful and relevant to those who might read it. I felt like nothing I...
Ben Borgers
It Does Have to Be Every Day
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Threaded I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time...
a year ago
8
a year ago
I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time ago. I don’t find it particularly useful, as my Twitter usage had declined long ago. Anyway, the post (and accompanying photo): “When I contemplate the idea of relocating, it’s 70°...
The American Scholar
“The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on...
12 months ago
95
12 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Octavio Paz on Freedom "Without freedom, what we call a person does not exist."
a year ago
This Space
39 Books: 2004 Bought for an eye-watering £13 in the LRB Bookshop three months before this blog began, Once Again...
a year ago
55
a year ago
Bought for an eye-watering £13 in the LRB Bookshop three months before this blog began, Once Again for Thucydides is another example in this series of how a book of under 100 pages can be worth as much as any number of maximalist breeze blocks. But do I really want to make such...
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: Fix Capitalism By September 30th.
9 months ago
Ben Borgers
Now
5 months ago
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: How do we create the next Renaissance? Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is: How can we fund the next Renaissance? How can we create...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is: How can we fund the next Renaissance? How can we create a world where artists are better funded and…
Ben Borgers
Thinking in Silence
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Plato's Symposium - philosophy as realist fiction - pick up something to tickle your nose with, and... Philosophy makes me nervous, so I will begin my squib about Plato’s Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) with...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
Philosophy makes me nervous, so I will begin my squib about Plato’s Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE) with an anxiety-deflating observation:  Symposium is fiction, a long story.  It is fiction in that at least some of it is invented, but mostly in that it uses the techniques of fiction:...
ribbonfarm
History is More Like Science Fiction Than Fantasy I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I...
a year ago
18
a year ago
I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I visited the city (on Kindle, so I didn’t realize when I started that it’s 600 pages plus another 250 odd notes). It’s dense and absorbing and I’ll probably do a reflections post...
The Elysian
Let's read the Terra Ignota series together Our summer reading is Ada Palmer's feat of utopian worldbuilding.
11 months ago
Ben Borgers
Late Night Sprints
over a year ago
Steven Scrawls
Stone Hands Reaching Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself touching a stone forearm. It’s cold, of course, and it’s coarser than skin, but tracing along the arms is enough to bring back memories of being comforted, of being held, when I was a...
The Elysian
How many hours a week do you (actually) spend on your salary job? I can’t find any statistics about this (because how would you?), but most of the people I know who...
11 months ago
82
11 months ago
I can’t find any statistics about this (because how would you?), but most of the people I know who work salary jobs work significantly fewer tha…
This Space
Further in the opposite direction Modernity is supposed to be the moment when religious claims and systems of authority reveal...
a year ago
51
a year ago
Modernity is supposed to be the moment when religious claims and systems of authority reveal themselves to be human-all-too-human fictions that lack divine legitimation. Religion is supposed to wither away. But this itself...can be understood as a religious claim: the very...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 371.5 ...
3 months ago
The Marginalian
The Parts We Live With: D.H. Lawrence and the Yearning for Living Unison "We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living,...
a year ago
The American Scholar
Survival Situation The debate over evolution and its discoverer The post Survival Situation appeared first on The...
a year ago
38
a year ago
The debate over evolution and its discoverer The post Survival Situation appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
A Heron’s Antidote to Fear of Death They didn’t imagine it, the dying dinosaurs, that they would grow wings and become birds, become the...
6 months ago
44
6 months ago
They didn’t imagine it, the dying dinosaurs, that they would grow wings and become birds, become the laboratory in which evolution invented dreams and the cathedral in which it invented faith. “There is grandeur in this view of life,” Darwin consoled himself as his beloved...
Josh Thompson
On Fables: Finishing up Antifragile I’m cleaning up some notes I wanted to jot down over the last few weeks Nassim Taleb, in...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I’m cleaning up some notes I wanted to jot down over the last few weeks Nassim Taleb, in Antifragile, says: The great economist Ariel Rubinstein gets the green lumber fallacy - it requires a great deal of intellect and honesty to see things that way. Rubinstein refuses to...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Balancing Tools and Culture A few weeks ago, a timely project at work rallied almost everyone to be “all hands on deck.” My...
a year ago
11
a year ago
A few weeks ago, a timely project at work rallied almost everyone to be “all hands on deck.” My immediate team uses Slack, having transitioned away from another longstanding project management platform [1]. The larger team has used this platform for years, and it contains a...
The Marginalian
The Whole of It Because we are creatures made of time, what we call suffering is at bottom a warping of time, a form...
14 hours ago
2
14 hours ago
Because we are creatures made of time, what we call suffering is at bottom a warping of time, a form of living against it and not with it — the pain of loss, aching for what has been and no longer is; the pain of longing, aching for what could be but is not yet and may never be;...
Escaping Flatland
Living 80 years, you can have 8 lives Highlights from the cutting room floor, pt. 2
6 months ago
Steven Scrawls
Space to Play Space to Play I remember childhood as the slow advance of a great laboring Seriousness. When I was...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
Space to Play I remember childhood as the slow advance of a great laboring Seriousness. When I was in middle school, an awareness began to settle on me that great beings known as “colleges” watched from afar; by high school I understood that I ought to order my life to be...
Ben Borgers
Basecamp Talks to You
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Tracks of the Ancients I notice the tracks as I return from a brief scouting trip. When deciding on a campsite for the...
over a year ago
8
over a year ago
I notice the tracks as I return from a brief scouting trip. When deciding on a campsite for the night, reconnaissance is necessary: one, to verify personal safety; two, to ensure picturesque views and surroundings, but distance between neighbors (if applicable); and three, to...
The American Scholar
The Redoubtable Bull Shark Reflecting on one of nature’s most dangerous predators The post The Redoubtable Bull Shark appeared...
a year ago
51
a year ago
Reflecting on one of nature’s most dangerous predators The post The Redoubtable Bull Shark appeared first on The American Scholar.
Blog -...
Book Review - Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant In the book Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant, author Roland Lazenby meticulously shares the...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
In the book Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant, author Roland Lazenby meticulously shares the journey of Kobe Bryant, from ancestral influences up through his final game in the NBA. He is a clear fan of Kobe’s inarguable work ethic, but he allows readers to reinforce their...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ A Working Trust It’s the basis of relationships. The particular spectrum of any engagement relies on it, and it’s...
8 months ago
9
8 months ago
It’s the basis of relationships. The particular spectrum of any engagement relies on it, and it’s also the hardest thing at times to discern. Time can allay the fear, or reveal its presence. Piper Haywood: The more time passes, the more I think that establishing relationships, or...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Your Point Is to Be Incomplete, Fugitive, Incidental.” “And I very much like your love of pleasure, and your humour and malice: it is so delightful to live...
3 weeks ago
9
3 weeks ago
“And I very much like your love of pleasure, and your humour and malice: it is so delightful to live in a world that is full of pictures, and incidental divertissements, and amiable absurdities. Why shouldn’t things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we...
Josh Thompson
Setting up for 'SQL Queries for Mere Mortals' This tweet is from… a while ago. Turns out I didn’t dig into this book, because the pace at Turing...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
This tweet is from… a while ago. Turns out I didn’t dig into this book, because the pace at Turing didn’t allow for a few weeks of thinking just about SQL. yes, I'm digging into sql to better my AR skills, and ultimately whatever I need to use next. pic.twitter.com/UhjyGKv1FQ —...
The Marginalian
What It Takes to Grow: Pioneering Psychoanalyst Karen Horney on the Key to Self-Realization "Self-knowledge... is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous...
over a year ago
107
over a year ago
"Self-knowledge... is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous growth. In this sense, to work at ourselves becomes not only the prime moral obligation, but... the prime moral privilege."
The Perry Bible...
Us The post Us appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
8 months ago
The American Scholar
Queen of the Night Leigh Ann Henion embraces the creatures that light up the dark The post Queen of the Night appeared...
9 months ago
66
9 months ago
Leigh Ann Henion embraces the creatures that light up the dark The post Queen of the Night appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
How to Wake Up Early An understanding of sleep, and attempts to wake up early (Read Part Two, and Part Three) My...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
An understanding of sleep, and attempts to wake up early (Read Part Two, and Part Three) My understanding of sleep has evolved. When I was born, I spent most of my time asleep (if I recall correctly…) and gradually spent less and less time sleeping, until I was down to about...
The American Scholar
“Sakura Park” by Rachel Wetzsteon Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Sakura Park” by Rachel Wetzsteon appeared first on The...
23 hours ago
2
23 hours ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Sakura Park” by Rachel Wetzsteon appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Majesty of Mountains and the Mountains of the Mind Mountains are some of our best metaphors for the mind and for the spirit, but they are also living...
2 weeks ago
5
2 weeks ago
Mountains are some of our best metaphors for the mind and for the spirit, but they are also living entities, sovereign and staggering. I remember the first time I saw a mountain from an airplane — forests miniaturized to moss, rivers to capillaries, the Earth crumpled like a...
The Marginalian
May Sarton on the Art of Living Alone "The people we love are built into us."
over a year ago
This Space
The Opposite Direction, a book Please use a link below to download an ebook of posts selected from over the last seven years of...
over a year ago
58
over a year ago
Please use a link below to download an ebook of posts selected from over the last seven years of this blog.  This is the second collection after This Space of Writing and the title comes from the adolescent Thomas Bernhard's phrase repeated to an official at the labour exchange...
The Elysian
Week 6: Examples of Pitches
a year ago
Robert Caro
An Interview With Robert Caro and Kurt Vonnegut Kurt greeted us in his beautiful 19th century house and in his bare feet (of which more later). As...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Kurt greeted us in his beautiful 19th century house and in his bare feet (of which more later). As the interview progressed it grew sort of
Josh Thompson
Array divergence in Ruby Lets say you have a list of valid items, and you want to run another array against it, and pull out...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Lets say you have a list of valid items, and you want to run another array against it, and pull out the items that don’t match. You don’t want to iterate through all of the items in one array, calling other_array.include?(item). (That’s computationally expensive) valid_people =...
The Marginalian
Meeting the Muse at the Edge of the Light: Poet Gary Snyder on Craftsmanship vs. Creative Force It is tempting, because we make everything we make with everything we are, to take our creative...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
It is tempting, because we make everything we make with everything we are, to take our creative potency for a personal merit. It is also tempting when we find ourselves suddenly impotent, as all artists regularly do, to blame the block on a fickle muse and rue ourselves abandoned...
Idle Words
J.D. Scholten on Coronavirus in Iowa On Sunday I spoke by video chat with my friend J.D. Scholten, who is running for Congress in Iowa's...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
On Sunday I spoke by video chat with my friend J.D. Scholten, who is running for Congress in Iowa's 4th district. J.D. is a retired baseball player who rose to national prominence in 2018, when he came within three points of unseating Steve King in what had until then been...
This Space
Kevin Hart and the outside There are two reasons why listening to Kevin Hart's interview on the Hermitix podcast, and reading...
a year ago
85
a year ago
There are two reasons why listening to Kevin Hart's interview on the Hermitix podcast, and reading his new collection and The Dark Gaze for the second time, has helped me to recognise what I have forgotten, missed, misconstrued or misunderstood in Maurice Blanchot's writing or,...
The American Scholar
Braña Curuchu The post Braña Curuchu appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
The American Scholar
Revenants The post Revenants appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Wuthering...
The appeal of Septology as religious fiction - the urge, inexplicably, to pray - because it helps!... Septology is a stream-of-consciousness novel throughout, a mix of sentence fragments, unconventional...
7 months ago
46
7 months ago
Septology is a stream-of-consciousness novel throughout, a mix of sentence fragments, unconventional punctuation, and temporal shifts, meaning the painter Asle is sometimes thinking about the present and sometimes about the past.  These are all old moves, old techniques.  I was a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Unforgiving and Bearish' “The writer has little control over personal temperament, none over the historical moment, and is...
3 months ago
27
3 months ago
“The writer has little control over personal temperament, none over the historical moment, and is only partly in charge of his or her own aesthetic.”  Of the three points made by English novelist Julian Barnes, the first is dubious, the second and third inarguably true. To say...
The American Scholar
Lindsey Weber Relationships that define us The post Lindsey Weber appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
“A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on...
7 months ago
53
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Platonov's Chevengur - “But communism’s about to set in... Why am I finding everything so hard?” Another remarkable Russian novel finally made it into English last year, Andrey Platonov’s...
2 months ago
31
2 months ago
Another remarkable Russian novel finally made it into English last year, Andrey Platonov’s Chevengur, written in 1929 but not published until 1972, in Paris. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler have been translating Platonov for decades now, and this novel and the apparatus...
Josh Thompson
Resources for People with Jobs RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those waking hours when you’re not at work thinking about how to improve the hours that you are working. Often, improving your work means you can improve your work conditions and...
The American Scholar
Betsy, Mary, and Trish The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Notes from 'Why We Sleep' I first read Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams about two years ago. It...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I first read Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams about two years ago. It immediately led me to prioritize sleep over almost everything else. Most of us don’t get enough sleep, and are worse for it. Usually when the topic of sleep comes up, I say Hey, there’s...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Among Those Who Read There is Great Variety' Writing is famously the most narcissistic of professions, even worse than acting or being a...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Writing is famously the most narcissistic of professions, even worse than acting or being a politician. We’re forever carrying on about ourselves and our precious insights, like the kid in class who raises his hand and goes “Ooh! Ooh!” each time the teacher asks a question....
Ben Borgers
Software Seems Resilient
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 archives.design A digital archive of graphic design related items that are available on the Internet Archives. Visit...
10 months ago
8
10 months ago
A digital archive of graphic design related items that are available on the Internet Archives. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
sbensu
Incentives as selection effects When you apply a new incentive, you select for a new population that prefers the incentive.
a year ago
Wuthering...
My cancer - "It can’t be true! It can’t, but it is." Liver cancer.  That was a surprise.  I knew something was wrong, but I was not expecting that. Since...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Liver cancer.  That was a surprise.  I knew something was wrong, but I was not expecting that. Since the diagnosis last summer, since it was known for a fact that I had something serious, things have moved fast.  It has been like boarding a train.  Once in motion there is no way...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Things Become Other Things — by Craig Mod The absolute best place to buy TBOT's Random House edition is from your local bookshop. Go in, tell...
6 months ago
23
6 months ago
The absolute best place to buy TBOT's Random House edition is from your local bookshop. Go in, tell ’em you're looking for this book by this guy named Craig Mod. Regale them with your excitement about said book. Do you think this is going to be a great book? Say, ‘I think this is...
The Marginalian
Marie Howe’s Stunning Hymn of Humanity, Animated "It began as an almost inaudible hum..."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Thoreau’s Pencils How might a newly discovered The post Thoreau’s Pencils appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
Ploum.net
À la recherche de la déconnexion parfaite À la recherche de la déconnexion parfaite Une rétrospective de ma quête de concentration Une...
4 months ago
33
4 months ago
À la recherche de la déconnexion parfaite Une rétrospective de ma quête de concentration Une première déconnexion À la fin de l’année 2018, épuisé par la promotion de la compagne Ulule de mon livre « Les aventures d’Aristide, le lapin cosmonaute » et prenant conscience de mon...
The Marginalian
How to Triumph Over the Challenges of the Creative Life: Audubon’s Antidote to Despair We move through the world as surfaces shimmering with the visibilia of our accomplishments, the...
8 months ago
71
8 months ago
We move through the world as surfaces shimmering with the visibilia of our accomplishments, the undertow of our suffering invisible to passers-by. The selective collective memory we call history contributes to this willful blindness, obscuring the tremendous personal cost behind...
The Marginalian
What It’s Like to Be a Falcon: The Peregrine as a Portal to a Way of Seeing and a State of Being "You cannot know what freedom means till you have seen a peregrine loosed into the warm spring sky...
a year ago
90
a year ago
"You cannot know what freedom means till you have seen a peregrine loosed into the warm spring sky to roam at will through all the far provinces of light."
Ben Borgers
Saturday, January 15, 2022
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Like an Occupying Army' Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to mind, seemingly out of nowhere: on first waking in the morning and while preparing a meal in the kitchen. None is summoned. They blip to the surface like bubbles in a pond. Last weekend I...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Long Start I am awakened by the sound of people shuffling by our camp. When I look out the side past the flap...
a year ago
12
a year ago
I am awakened by the sound of people shuffling by our camp. When I look out the side past the flap of our rooftop tent, I can see what appears to be runners or hikers. I get out and wave at them. It's mid-May of 2022, and it's a glorious morning. Then it dawns on me; it's a trail...
The American Scholar
A Blast of a Time The scientific underpinnings of Armageddon The post A Blast of a Time appeared first on The American...
2 weeks ago
2
2 weeks ago
The scientific underpinnings of Armageddon The post A Blast of a Time appeared first on The American Scholar.
Blog -...
Book Review - Dancing Naked in the Mind Field Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is reminiscent of another Nobel Prize winning autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!. Dr. Mullis and Dr. Feynman had a great deal in common, including their incomprehensible...
Astral Codex Ten
OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know ...
3 months ago
Ben Borgers
A Small Life Radius
over a year ago
The Elysian
If you have a social mission, go into business An interview with Frederick Freundlich about working at Mondragon, participating in a cooperative,...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
An interview with Frederick Freundlich about working at Mondragon, participating in a cooperative, and building social companies.
sbensu
Risk-takers decide faster Unsurprising connection between risk and speed.
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Thrived on Giving Offense' Why did my teachers devote more class time to John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell –...
a week ago
6
a week ago
Why did my teachers devote more class time to John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell – American exemplars of the Age of Thrice-Named Writers -- than to Lord Byron? After more than half a century, I can only speculate. Literary patriotism? We spent a lot of time reading...
This Space
39 Books: 1997 I found this ghastly 60-page Grove Press hardback edition in a second-hand bookshop, its large...
a year ago
80
a year ago
I found this ghastly 60-page Grove Press hardback edition in a second-hand bookshop, its large typeface and generous spacing very similar to Beckett's late works (Barbara Bray, Beckett's translator, also translated this). Such productions are rare now, and perhaps were when it...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Soliloquy for Two' The ideally named English neurologist Russell Brain died in 1966 but his textbook, Brain’s Diseases...
a month ago
6
a month ago
The ideally named English neurologist Russell Brain died in 1966 but his textbook, Brain’s Diseases of the Nervous System (1933), remains in print. The Royal College of Physicians has called it “the standard British textbook on his subject.” Brain was also a poet and...
Josh Thompson
Ethan Magnass' sermons from Grace Anglican Church in Grove City, PA I’ve been recommending a collection of sermons to many people recently. I’ve listened to each of...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I’ve been recommending a collection of sermons to many people recently. I’ve listened to each of these sermons quite a few times. They’re worth your time. Ethan Magness is the rector at Grace Anglican Church in Grove City, PA. Sermon Series on Joseph Grace Anglican Church podcast...
Ben Borgers
Streaks Are Extremely Powerful
over a year ago
The American Scholar
American Horror Story Jeremy Dauber on our obsession with fear The post American Horror Story appeared first on The...
7 months ago
39
7 months ago
Jeremy Dauber on our obsession with fear The post American Horror Story appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Bards Behind Bars Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Nothing Bad About It A year ago, Jen and I made an overland run from the south end of Anza-Borrego to the northern end....
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
A year ago, Jen and I made an overland run from the south end of Anza-Borrego to the northern end. On the last night in Hawk Canyon, a super windy night made for less than ideal sleep. We ended up closing up the tent and sleeping in the front seats. Thankfully, the seats in a...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 375.5 ...
2 months ago
Steven Scrawls
"Progress" “Progress” The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched) answers to questions...
a year ago
15
a year ago
“Progress” The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched) answers to questions about a curated version of Wikipedia’s list of most-visited websites (see Notes for details). I invite you to follow along, issue your own snap judgments, and come to your own...
Ben Borgers
School But Online
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Keepers of the Old Ways Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive The post Keepers of the Old Ways...
5 months ago
53
5 months ago
Eliot Stein on the people keeping cultural traditions alive The post Keepers of the Old Ways appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
One Year Ago Email
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Don’t Waste Your Greening Life-Force: Hildegard’s Prophetic Enchanted Ecology The year is 1174. Gravity, oxygen, and electricity have not been discovered. Clocks, calculus, and...
5 months ago
47
5 months ago
The year is 1174. Gravity, oxygen, and electricity have not been discovered. Clocks, calculus, and the printing press have not been invented. Earth is the center of the universe, encircled by heavenly bodies whose motions are ministered by angels. Most people never live past...
Wuthering...
Books finished in March 2023 For some reason I have been putting a monthly account of completed books on Twitter, where it is a...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
For some reason I have been putting a monthly account of completed books on Twitter, where it is a common practice, although mostly with photographs of book stacks.  I am not sure why I have not put the lists here as well.  I guess I am not sure any of this is interesting. Soon,...
Escaping Flatland
A greeting They think it was a monk at the Monastery of St Alban in Trier, present-day Germany. On Christmas...
a year ago
29
a year ago
They think it was a monk at the Monastery of St Alban in Trier, present-day Germany. On Christmas day, sometime in the 1570s, he was out walking when he came upon a rose that had, in the blistering cold, put forth a flower. It was a hellebore, a winter rose. Moved by the...
The Marginalian
Everything Is Happening All the Time: Legendary Physicist John Archibald Wheeler on Death and the... “To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier,” Walt Whitman writes in the prime of...
8 months ago
34
8 months ago
“To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier,” Walt Whitman writes in the prime of life. “What happens when you get to the end of things?” four-year-old Johnny in Ohio asks his mother from the bathtub while Whitman’s borrowed atoms are becoming young grass in a...
Ben Borgers
Designing Posters for Humans
over a year ago
sbensu
Payments vs Transfers Transfer means to move money but payment means "exchanging goods or services". A payment system has...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
Transfer means to move money but payment means "exchanging goods or services". A payment system has a lot more requirements than a transfer system and I rarely see the crypto ecosystem acknowledge these when building "payment" products.
The Marginalian
Stunning Century-Old Illustrations of Tibetan Fairy Tales from the Artist Who Created Bambi Soulful art from stories that speak "to the childhood of all times and all races."
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Write Less Say More I recently read a short piece about using software to improve your own writing. To paraphrase one...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I recently read a short piece about using software to improve your own writing. To paraphrase one of the suggestions: “do away with weasel words, the passive voice, adverbs, cliches.”  I’m adding “complex sentences” to the list. Out of curiosity, I looked through things that...
ribbonfarm
Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War, We read an interesting paper today (ht Sachin Benny with an assist from ChatGPT) in the Yak...
a year ago
14
a year ago
We read an interesting paper today (ht Sachin Benny with an assist from ChatGPT) in the Yak Collective weekly governance study group (Fridays at 9 AM Pacific). Sons of the Soil, Migrants, and Civil War, by James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin (World Development, V 39, No. 2,...
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On Prison ...
6 months ago
The Elysian
Asia and the future of the nation state A discussion with Benjamin Perry.
7 months ago
The American Scholar
“The Nakedness of Woman” The post “The Nakedness of Woman” appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The American Scholar
Esteban Cabeza de Baca History witnessed, from the picket lines The post Esteban Cabeza de Baca appeared first on The...
a year ago
79
a year ago
History witnessed, from the picket lines The post Esteban Cabeza de Baca appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep Chapter 3: Moar Mythical Creatures Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, volume 2 - all agreed that this was the definitive poem on the subject of... I have continued on with The Story of the Stone, the 2,500 page 18th century Chinese novel by, or...
7 months ago
47
7 months ago
I have continued on with The Story of the Stone, the 2,500 page 18th century Chinese novel by, or mostly by, Cao Xueqin.  Here I will write about the second volume of the David Hawkes translation, The Crab-flower Club.  Last time, after reading the first fifth of the novel, I...
The Elysian
How can the economy work better for us? An interview with Kathryn Anne Edwards.
4 months ago
Ben Borgers
Three People Talking
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Work of Wonder: Phillip Glass on Art, Science, and the Most Important Quality of a Visionary Epoch after epoch, we humans have tried to raise ourselves above other animals with distinctions...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Epoch after epoch, we humans have tried to raise ourselves above other animals with distinctions that have turned out false — consciousness is not ours alone, nor is grief, nor is play. If there is anything singular about us, it is our capacity to be wonder-smitten by the world...
The American Scholar
The Shipping News Ian Kumekawa tells the story of the global economy in one barge The post The Shipping News appeared...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Ian Kumekawa tells the story of the global economy in one barge The post The Shipping News appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Whole Messages in Slack I use Slack at work. And used it in Turing. And am in a few programming-related Slack groups. (Ahoy,...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I use Slack at work. And used it in Turing. And am in a few programming-related Slack groups. (Ahoy, #DenverDevs). My last job, I used Slack. The job before that, I got the whole company on Slack. I’ve used it for years. Slack delivers value to me, and induces little anxiety, and...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Fear is the mind-killer Day 21: Sept 30, 2023 — I open the tent flap and pop my head out. The view is indeed as impressive...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Day 21: Sept 30, 2023 — I open the tent flap and pop my head out. The view is indeed as impressive as the previous night’s moonlit scene hinted at. The mesa we’re camped on overlooks an expansive valley, and a glistening river snakes along the canyon floor. This was worth the...
The Marginalian
Let Your Heart Be Broken "The miracle is that we rise again out of suffering... The miracle is that we create ourselves...
over a year ago
76
over a year ago
"The miracle is that we rise again out of suffering... The miracle is that we create ourselves anew."
The Marginalian
Gary Snyder on How to Unbreak the World "What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands...
4 months ago
44
4 months ago
"What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands and minds."
Josh Thompson
Cheap fix to night-time teeth grinding A few years ago, I found out I grind me teeth at night. Kristi says it sounds like I’m chewing...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
A few years ago, I found out I grind me teeth at night. Kristi says it sounds like I’m chewing marbles. Others who grind their teeth give themselves headaches, or wake themselves up at night. You can’t really stop yourself from grinding your teeth, since you’re asleep. You can...
The American Scholar
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden appeared first on The...
4 weeks ago
12
4 weeks ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
College CS Classes Are Tragically Dull
over a year ago
This Space
Proust regained I recommend very highly for anyone who has read or not read In Search of Lost Time Brian Nelson's...
a year ago
24
a year ago
I recommend very highly for anyone who has read or not read In Search of Lost Time Brian Nelson's The Swann Way, the first volume in a new translation of the entire novel by diverse hands, in this fine paperback from Oxford World's Classics. His translation of the chapter Swann...
The Marginalian
Obsidian and the Birds: An Odyssey of Wonder from the Aztecs to the Quantum World A recent visit to Teotihuacán — the ancient Mesoamerican city in present-day Mexico, built by...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
A recent visit to Teotihuacán — the ancient Mesoamerican city in present-day Mexico, built by earlier cultures around 600 BCE and later rediscovered by the Aztecs — left me wonder-smitten by the see-saw of our search for truth and our search for meaning, by a peculiar confluence...
The American Scholar
Turning the World to Powder Jay Owens on the tiny particles that float through our lives The post Turning the World to Powder...
11 months ago
70
11 months ago
Jay Owens on the tiny particles that float through our lives The post Turning the World to Powder appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
US states should have autonomy—like EU countries All we need to change is taxation.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
“Guests” by Celia Thaxter  Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Guests” by Celia Thaxter  appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Hicks.design's Best 15 Albums A huge part of what makes a 'top album' choice is that they're usually entwined with a time and a...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
A huge part of what makes a 'top album' choice is that they're usually entwined with a time and a place in our lives, a personal context that makes them so very special to us. OK Computer will forever be 'the album when I met Leigh, the love of my life'. — Jon Hicks Visit...
The Marginalian
Reworldling Humanity: E.B. White’s Magnificent 1943 Response to a Politician Who Wanted to Make the... On September 11, 1943, E.B. White (July 11, 1899–October 1, 1985) reported on the pages of The New...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
On September 11, 1943, E.B. White (July 11, 1899–October 1, 1985) reported on the pages of The New Yorker that Clarence Buddhington Kelland — a writer prolific and popular in his lifetime, now forgotten, onetime executive director of the Republican National Committee, described...
Ben Borgers
Sunday, January 16, 2022
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Date Picker Details
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Is a Genial Companion' Tess Lewis has translated one of Montaigne’s early essays, “Of Pedantry” (c. 1572-78), in which the...
a month ago
5
a month ago
Tess Lewis has translated one of Montaigne’s early essays, “Of Pedantry” (c. 1572-78), in which the Frenchman issues one caution and, mid-paragraph, seems to reverse himself:  “I would be inclined to conclude that just as plants are suffocated with too much moisture and...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 359.5 ...
6 months ago
The Marginalian
Between Mathematics and the Miraculous: The Stunning Pendulum Drawings of Swiss Healer and Artist... Emma Kunz (May 23, 1892–January 16, 1963) was forty-six and the world was aflame with war when she...
a year ago
83
a year ago
Emma Kunz (May 23, 1892–January 16, 1963) was forty-six and the world was aflame with war when she became an artist. She had worked at a knitting factory and as a housekeeper. She had written poetry, publishing a collection titled Life in the interlude between the two World Wars....
Ben Borgers
Driving School Corruption
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Tessa G. O’Brien Expansiveness and wonder The post Tessa G. O’Brien appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 weeks ago
Josh Thompson
Book Notes: 'Why We Get Fat' by Gary Taube I recently read Why We Get Fat, by Gary Taubes. I read it shortly after reading The Case Against...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I recently read Why We Get Fat, by Gary Taubes. I read it shortly after reading The Case Against Sugar. My notes and a write-up on The Case Against Sugar As I explained in that post, I find it helpful to do a ‘deep dive’ on some of the books I want to be deeply influenced by. For...
The Marginalian
How to Befriend Time: The Gospel of Pete Seeger and Nina Simone "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'But They Are Very Bad Poems' Eugenio Montale speaking with an interviewer, American poet W.S. Di Piero, in 1973:  “Political...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
Eugenio Montale speaking with an interviewer, American poet W.S. Di Piero, in 1973:  “Political ideas are best expressed in prose. Why should we express political ideas in such an abstruse language as poetry? If I were to write against the war in Viet Nam, I would write in prose,...
Astral Codex Ten
Model City Monday 2/3/25 Things fall apart
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Conception of Life As an Enchanted State' On summer mornings in the mid-nineteen-sixties, I would follow the path behind our house through a...
3 weeks ago
9
3 weeks ago
On summer mornings in the mid-nineteen-sixties, I would follow the path behind our house through a growth of poplars and sassafras to the place where the white oaks and tulip trees took over. The path ended at the top of the hill where we went sledding in winter. Most mornings...
The Elysian
One essay could change the future Please support a better media ecosystem.
7 months ago
The American Scholar
The Murderer as Everyman Arthur Fleck’s rise and fall The post The Murderer as Everyman appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
Josh Thompson
A Retrospective on Seven Months at Turing Collection of thoughts on Turing It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
Collection of thoughts on Turing It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software engineering program, and it’s been a journey. In no particular order, I’m throwing down thoughts in three general categories: What went well What didn’t go well What I might have...
The Marginalian
Nothing: The Illustrated Story of How John Cage Revolutionized Music Through Silence "We make our lives by what we love."
a year ago
sbensu
Lieutenants are the limiting reagent Why don't software companies ship more products? Why do they move more slowly as they grow? What do...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Why don't software companies ship more products? Why do they move more slowly as they grow? What do we mean when we say "this company lacks focus"?
The Elysian
Week 4: One pitch several places
a year ago
Blog -...
Book Review - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the masculine. Published in 1990, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover introduces readers to the concept of mature masculine archetypes and their immature shadows. The authors, Robert...
The Marginalian
The Great Blind Spot of Science and the Art of Asking the Complex Question the Only Answer to Which... “Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you,” says the Skin Horse — a stuffed toy...
7 months ago
51
7 months ago
“Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you,” says the Skin Horse — a stuffed toy brought to life by a child’s love — in The Velveteen Rabbit. Great children’s books are works of philosophy in disguise; this is a fundamental question: In a reality of matter,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shut Not Thy Purse-Strings' Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a result, Charles Lamb had little interest in the momentous events of his day. About “Boney” – Napoleon Bonaparte – he wished only to know the dictator’s height, unlike Hazlitt, who...
Ben Borgers
No Dessert Challenge
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'As a Token of Reverence or Humility' In 1993, I was assigned to write about the opening of a Buddhist “peace pagoda” in Grafton, about...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
In 1993, I was assigned to write about the opening of a Buddhist “peace pagoda” in Grafton, about twenty miles east of Albany, N.Y. A photographer accompanied me, a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War and decades of work at the newspaper. We parked and approached the stupa, a...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Album Whale While we appreciate Apple Music and Spotify suggesting new music for us, we miss the good ol’ days...
7 months ago
14
7 months ago
While we appreciate Apple Music and Spotify suggesting new music for us, we miss the good ol’ days when recommendations came from friends. In those days of yore, we had to think about which albums we’d recommend, and what those albums say about us. Each album came with a personal...
Josh Thompson
A 40 Hour Work Week Business Insider posted an article on why we have a 40 hour work week. The author blames big...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Business Insider posted an article on why we have a 40 hour work week. The author blames big business for why we’ve not dropped below 40 hours per week. He thinks that if America became less consumer-driven, our economy would collapse. He’s got the wrong starting assumptions...
The American Scholar
Mortal Coils We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable The post Mortal Coils appeared first on The American...
9 months ago
41
9 months ago
We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable The post Mortal Coils appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Writing Tasks Down
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Transcending the Glass Ceiling Five women who made important contributions to 19th-century American philosophy finally get their...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
Five women who made important contributions to 19th-century American philosophy finally get their due The post Transcending the Glass Ceiling appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 How to Tip With More Confidence Welcome to the new normal in tipping: being put on the spot to leave a gratuity in situations you...
11 months ago
9
11 months ago
Welcome to the new normal in tipping: being put on the spot to leave a gratuity in situations you never used to be. It can be confusing and frustrating—not to mention guilt-inducing—especially if there are prying eyes behind you in line watching what you select on the...
The Marginalian
After Love: Maxine Kumin’s Stunning Poem About Eros as a Portal to Unselfing It is one of the hardest things in life — discerning where we end and the rest of the world begins,...
a year ago
23
a year ago
It is one of the hardest things in life — discerning where we end and the rest of the world begins, negotiating the permeable boundary between self and other, all the while longing for its dissolution, longing to be set free from the prison of ourselves. That is why we cherish...
Steven Scrawls
The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview Longtime fans of popular EDM “angststep”...
11 months ago
24
11 months ago
The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview Longtime fans of popular EDM “angststep” artist 777Linguine are “shocked” and “betrayed” after his polarizing statements yesterday that his latest album, NOMORETEARS2CRY, was written and recorded in a time of “profound...
ben-mini
Old School Business In a prior role, I experienced friction with my sales team’s leadership: They emphasized the needs...
a year ago
15
a year ago
In a prior role, I experienced friction with my sales team’s leadership: They emphasized the needs of the economic buyer and neglected the end-users. They withheld key performance indicators from prospects (i.e. pricing, number of customers, customer satisfaction). They demeaned...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Unceasingly Amused According to My Taste' Certain writers inspire profound ambivalence. We admire them for something – often style – and they...
4 months ago
17
4 months ago
Certain writers inspire profound ambivalence. We admire them for something – often style – and they let us down by writing something stupid, dull or otherwise offensive. It’s easier dealing strictly with good guys (Chekhov, for instance) and bad guys (like Louis-Ferdinand...
The Marginalian
Notes on Complexity: A Buddhist Scientist on the Murmuration of Being "You are this body, and you are these molecules, and you are these atoms, and you are these quantum...
a year ago
31
a year ago
"You are this body, and you are these molecules, and you are these atoms, and you are these quantum entities, and you are the quantum foam, and you are the energetic field of space-time, and, ultimately, you are the fundamental awareness out of which all these emerge."
Wuthering...
Metamorphoses, cantos 7 through 10 - more Heroides, more gore, more of everything - What meen my... Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing.  Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which...
a year ago
108
a year ago
Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing.  Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which have their share of famous stories, stories famous, or as famous as they are, because of Metamorphoses.  Venus and Adonis, Baucis and Philemon, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion.  Icarus –...
The Elysian
Who's qualified to save the world? Two climate dystopias on unlikeable saviors.
11 months ago
The Marginalian
200 Years of Solitude: Great Writers, Artists, and Scientists in Praise of the Creative and... There is a silence at the center of each person — an untrammeled space where the inner voice grows...
11 months ago
65
11 months ago
There is a silence at the center of each person — an untrammeled space where the inner voice grows free to speak. That space expands in solitude. To create anything — a poem, a painting, a theorem — is to find the voice in the silence that has something to say to the world. In...
Ben Borgers
The Beginning of College Sucks
over a year ago
The Elysian
A grassroots political party for the middle The Forward Party, citizen's assemblies, and a creating better independence movement in the US.
6 months ago
This Space
The enigma for criticism To this day, I can learn only from bad films. The good ones I watch in the same spirit in which I...
a year ago
53
a year ago
To this day, I can learn only from bad films. The good ones I watch in the same spirit in which I watched when I was a kid. The great ones, even when I see them many times, are just an enigma.  Werner Herzog describes a few "bad films" in his autobiography, all from his...
Ben Borgers
Why Do We Still Use Snapchat?
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Elixir/Phoenix part deux I planned on working through this tutorial for building a slack clone, but half-way through the...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I planned on working through this tutorial for building a slack clone, but half-way through the set-up instructions, after I installed Elixir and Phoenix, I took a long detour through the basic set-up guide. Built some custom routes, along with controllers/views/templates,...
The Elysian
Join us for a discussion about CITY STATE A literary salon discussion about autonomous governance.
2 months ago
This Space
More and less: Veilchenfeld by Gert Hofmann Gert Hofmann's Veilchenfeld is the latest of his novels to be published in English translation, and...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
Gert Hofmann's Veilchenfeld is the latest of his novels to be published in English translation, and the first translated by Eric Mace-Tessler. Tom Conaghan at Review31 has given it an appreciative review, recognising that Hofmann's presentation of a civilisation's descent into...
The Perry Bible...
0 Percent Chance The post 0 Percent Chance appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
3 months ago
Ben Borgers
I Love Email
over a year ago
This Space
39 Books: 2000 In 1998 my friend John Harris mentioned that he was travelling to the US so I asked if he could pick...
a year ago
85
a year ago
In 1998 my friend John Harris mentioned that he was travelling to the US so I asked if he could pick up a copy of the new translation of Peter Handke's My Year in the No-man's Bay, not available over here. He was the first to tell me about this new website called Amazon. This is...
The American Scholar
Masters of Horror and Magic The German folklorists who helped build a nation The post Masters of Horror and Magic appeared first...
7 months ago
32
7 months ago
The German folklorists who helped build a nation The post Masters of Horror and Magic appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Rails Migration: When you can't add a uniqueness constraint because you already have duplicates I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for development.wombatsecurity.com. This post has been updated to reflect some lessons learned while running this migration in production. Don’t leave a column without an index at any point in...
Escaping Flatland
Writing while walking We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books.
9 months ago
The Marginalian
George Saunders on How to Live an Unregretting Life "At the end of my life, I know I won’t be wishing I’d held more back, been less effusive, more often...
a year ago
36
a year ago
"At the end of my life, I know I won’t be wishing I’d held more back, been less effusive, more often stood on ceremony, forgiven less, spent more days oblivious to the secret wishes and fears of the people around me."
The American Scholar
Reasons for Living The post Reasons for Living appeared first on The American Scholar.
a week ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 LOW←TECH MAGAZINE This is a solar-powered website, which means it sometimes goes offline. In the same vein as the...
8 months ago
14
8 months ago
This is a solar-powered website, which means it sometimes goes offline. In the same vein as the aforementioned link (Hundred Rabbits), this online magazine (also available offline) is powered by solar. There's a beauty in committing to sustainable methods of your online footprint...
The American Scholar
Kat Wiese Taking flight The post Kat Wiese appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 How to Monetize a Blog Regardless, if this is the game, we can still be its players. Hats off to you. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Visit...
9 months ago
8
9 months ago
Regardless, if this is the game, we can still be its players. Hats off to you. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The Marginalian
Blue Is the Color of Desire: The Science, Poetry, and Wonder of the Bowerbird For all the enchantment the color blue has cast upon humanity, no animal has fallen under its spell...
a year ago
83
a year ago
For all the enchantment the color blue has cast upon humanity, no animal has fallen under its spell more hopelessly than the bowerbird, whose very survival hinges on blue. In a small clearing on the forest floor, the male weaves twigs and branches into an elaborate bower, which...
Ben Borgers
Stubborn Consistency [100 daily blog posts]
over a year ago
The Elysian
Please come up with wildly speculative futures Inside my writing philosophy.
a year ago
The American Scholar
Lorena Diosdado Multifaceted Latinx identities The post Lorena Diosdado appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Ploum.net
De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents Chers parents, chers...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents Chers parents, chers enseignants, chers éducateurs, Nous le savons toutes et tous, le smartphone est devenu un objet incontournable de notre quotidien, nous connectant en permanence au réseau Internet qui,...
Ben Borgers
Bubble Tea Snobbery
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich appeared first on The American...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Better to Have a Distinct Word for Each Sense' On Monday, March 23, [1772], I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
On Monday, March 23, [1772], I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio Dictionary.”  Dr. Johnson published the first edition of his Dictionary on April 15, 1755, two-hundred-seventy years ago. It contained some 42,000 entries and he had worked on it for...
Josh Thompson
The Power of an Audacious Goal I generally try to hedge the risks I face. I’m no daredevil, nor do I love danger, but I do love...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I generally try to hedge the risks I face. I’m no daredevil, nor do I love danger, but I do love pursuing opportunities that take me beyond my comfort zone. The funny thing about going beyond your comfort zone is that once you’ve done it once or twice, you redefine your comfort...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Merely the joy of writing' A rare and winning combination: a serious person who seldom takes himself seriously. He keeps his...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
A rare and winning combination: a serious person who seldom takes himself seriously. He keeps his ego a little off to the side, muffled, away from the business at hand. It never disappears. It grows dormant, like some cases of tuberculosis. Jules Renard is such a man and writer,...
This Space
The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard I began reading The Morning Star without any prior knowledge of the contents, just as I had begun...
over a year ago
72
over a year ago
I began reading The Morning Star without any prior knowledge of the contents, just as I had begun reading every other book of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s since receiving an ARC of the first volume of My Struggle long before he shone above us like the morning star in this novel. This...
The American Scholar
Cudillero The post Cudillero appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
Persistence Persistence. It’s worth far more than any finite sum of money. Actually, it’s worth more than an...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Persistence. It’s worth far more than any finite sum of money. Actually, it’s worth more than an unlimited amount of money, because an unlimited amount of money would complicate my life (and probably yours) far more than we can possibly imagine. Persistence. I keep trying to...
The Marginalian
Imagine Water Otherwise: Robert Macfarlane on the Personhood of Rivers and the Meaning of Aliveness “Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river,” Borges wrote in his timeless...
2 weeks ago
9
2 weeks ago
“Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river,” Borges wrote in his timeless “refutation” of time. “No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life,” Nietzsche wrote a century earlier in his directive on how to find yourself....
Ben Borgers
5% of things go wrong
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Power of Being a Heretic: The Forgotten Visionary Jane Ellen Harrison on Critical Thinking,... "If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of...
a year ago
43
a year ago
"If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of all, that new emotional imagination... begotten of enlarged sympathies and a more sensitive habit of feeling."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Livelier in Pleasant Weather' Magazines have long been fond of asking well-known writers to recommend books appropriate to...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
Magazines have long been fond of asking well-known writers to recommend books appropriate to certain times of year, usually as Christmas gifts or so-called “beach reading.” The results tend to be surprisingly conventional and unrewarding, with pleasing exceptions. Consider...
The American Scholar
Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things The post Fiction, Fakery, and Factory...
7 months ago
42
7 months ago
Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things The post Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Why I use a Kindle Amazon’s e-reader is extremely functional. Most reasons to not use one focus either on practical...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
Amazon’s e-reader is extremely functional. Most reasons to not use one focus either on practical issues (depending on something with a battery) or on aesthetic reasons. These are valid issues, of course, but these pale in comparison to the many, many reasons to use a...
Ben Borgers
Reflection on Shutting Down Blocks
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Living Against Time: Virginia Woolf on Reaping the “Moments of Being” That Make You Who You Are In praise of "the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light."
4 months ago
The Marginalian
Is Peace Possible Is Peace Possible?, originally published in 1957, is the second title in Marginalian Editions. Below...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
Is Peace Possible?, originally published in 1957, is the second title in Marginalian Editions. Below is my foreword to the new edition as it appears in on its pages. How ungenerous our culture has been in portraying science as cold, unfeeling, and aloof from the human sphere. No...
Ben Borgers
Public Radio Stories
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Books I read in January 2024 - as long, indeed, as this book, which hardly anyone will read by... The best book I read was Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which will also be the best thing I read in...
a year ago
78
a year ago
The best book I read was Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which will also be the best thing I read in February.  I gotta catch up on my posts. One big book down, and as a result my list of January books is more sensible. TRAVEL, let’s call it Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), Rebecca...
Blog -...
Book Review - Codependent No More With more than five million copies sold by its twenty-fifth anniversary nearly a decade ago,...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
With more than five million copies sold by its twenty-fifth anniversary nearly a decade ago, Codependent No More is a startling, powerful book that has touched the lives of so very many.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dungeons & Dragons taught me how to write alt text I don’t remember the issue number, or the original author. However, I do remember it was from an...
10 months ago
9
10 months ago
I don’t remember the issue number, or the original author. However, I do remember it was from an advice column. The problem was the person who was running the game wanting to enliven his descriptions, as they felt like their narration was both boring and confusing. The advice for...
Escaping Flatland
Caring for others At Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen, I see a passport fall out of the back pocket of a man and...
a week ago
8
a week ago
At Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen, I see a passport fall out of the back pocket of a man and immediately (at least) three strangers call out.
Ben Borgers
Publishing my Fall 2022 class notes
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Work-Life Separation in College
over a year ago
The Elysian
Metanational corporations are redesigning the world map Parag Khanna on metanational corporations and how they are opening borders, reshaping geopolitics,...
4 months ago
39
4 months ago
Parag Khanna on metanational corporations and how they are opening borders, reshaping geopolitics, and creating a world of interconnected city-states.
Jim Nielsen’s Blog
Sanding UI One of the ways I like to do development is to build something, click around a ton, make tweaks,...
9 months ago
67
9 months ago
One of the ways I like to do development is to build something, click around a ton, make tweaks, click around more, more tweaks, more clicks, etc., until I finally consider it done. The clicking around a ton is the important part. If it’s a page transition, that means going back...
Josh Thompson
Planned Unit Design Document (work-in-progress) This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something we bring to the City of Golden for ratification, or whatever needs to happen to get this done in this zone. This document relates to Collateralizing Mortgages and Loans With the...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Is this the slow decline of the Apple 'cult'? Meanwhile, I drive a Kia, I like Kia, and I’ll probably default to looking at a Kia the next time...
10 months ago
15
10 months ago
Meanwhile, I drive a Kia, I like Kia, and I’ll probably default to looking at a Kia the next time I’m in the market for a car, but I don’t know anything at all about the company’s executives and I don’t think about their product line beyond my own personal car. I’m certainly not...
The Marginalian
2,000 Years of Kindness From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.
over a year ago
78
over a year ago
From Marcus Aurelius to Einstein, poets and philosophers on the deepest wellspring of our humanity.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Turning the Tide: Can Kamala Harris Flip Texas Blue? Let me be clear: Texas will be blue. It’s inevitable. The only question is when? And how do we get...
10 months ago
9
10 months ago
Let me be clear: Texas will be blue. It’s inevitable. The only question is when? And how do we get there? Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
This Space
A modern heretic Literature can be defined by the sense of the imminence of a revelation which does not in fact...
over a year ago
64
over a year ago
Literature can be defined by the sense of the imminence of a revelation which does not in fact occur. I used this line, apparently from Borges, as an epigram to an essay in the early days of online writing. I can't remember what book it came from and after searching I found a...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the...
9 months ago
14
9 months ago
The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in July 2023 How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month, but I promise I had a good excuse. ...
a year ago
77
a year ago
How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month, but I promise I had a good excuse.  Posts on Cynicism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism will appear this month, I swear, or at least hope.  My eventual excuse this month will be, I am afraid, even better. Still, I...
Josh Thompson
`Medusa` mythical creature: part 2 Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Wuthering...
How Ivan Bunin and Vasily Grossman spent the war - He was in the countryside then for the last time... Without planning it I recently read three books by Russian writers from three different strands of...
8 months ago
46
8 months ago
Without planning it I recently read three books by Russian writers from three different strands of Russian literature: Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur (1929 /1972, tr. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler) in the Gogolian and Dostoyevskian strand, Ivan Bunin’s Dark Avenues (1943/1946)...
ben-mini
IMG_0416 Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube”...
7 months ago
30
7 months ago
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube” that allowed users to upload videos directly to YouTube from the Photos app. The feature worked… really well. In fact, YouTube reported a 1700% increase in total video uploads...
The American Scholar
Red Tide Warning Living on Florida’s Gulf Coast means having to coexist with pervasive and toxic algal blooms—and...
a year ago
92
a year ago
Living on Florida’s Gulf Coast means having to coexist with pervasive and toxic algal blooms—and neighbors who don’t always believe what they see The post Red Tide Warning appeared first on The American Scholar.