Full Width [alt+shift+f] Shortcuts [alt+shift+k]
Sign Up [alt+shift+s] Log In [alt+shift+l]
Top Categories > literature
#all #programming #technology #startups #history #life #science #literature #architecture #creative #design #finance #travel #comics #AI #indiehacker #cartography Muted Categories [alt+←][alt+→]
Wuthering...
Naming the garden in The Story of the Stone - the pleasures of incomprehension The older sister of Bao-yu, the boy, now a young teen, who was born with the jade stone in his...
9 months ago
61
9 months ago
The older sister of Bao-yu, the boy, now a young teen, who was born with the jade stone in his mouth, is an Imperial Concubine, a high prestige slave of the Emperor.  She is likely herself still a teen when we learn, in Chapter 16 of The Story of the Stone, that she has been...
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...
8 months ago
51
8 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Weaknesses as Good as Other People’s Virtues' “It is not easy to write essays like Montaigne, nor Maxims in the manner of the Duke de...
3 months ago
25
3 months ago
“It is not easy to write essays like Montaigne, nor Maxims in the manner of the Duke de la Rochefoucault.”  Who could think otherwise? The two Frenchmen are masters of diametrically opposed forms. In Montaigne’s hands, an essay can afford to be expansive. In fact, expansiveness –...
The Marginalian
Something in You Hungers for Clarity: Ta-Nehisi Coates on Writing “Words have more power than any one can guess; it is by words that the world’s great fight, now in...
7 months ago
64
7 months ago
“Words have more power than any one can guess; it is by words that the world’s great fight, now in these civilized times, is carried on,” Mary Shelley wrote in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars that laid the template for the colonialist power structure of the modern world, in an...
The Elysian
Please come up with wildly speculative futures Inside my writing philosophy.
a year ago
This Space
The end of literature, part five "Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100...
11 months ago
102
11 months ago
"Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century polled from hundreds of "literary luminaries" offering ten choices each, and while it is both of those things, "parochial" is the first word that...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Every Word Is a World' When someone had eaten his fill and couldn’t take another bite, my maternal grandmother, born the...
2 months ago
9
2 months ago
When someone had eaten his fill and couldn’t take another bite, my maternal grandmother, born the same year as T.S. Eliot, would say, “His sufficiency is suffonsified.” I’ve never heard another person utter those words. For most of my life I assumed the fourth word in that...
The Elysian
Founders will get much richer by exiting to employees This is how we create a wave of employee ownership.
11 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Bourdain's Blessing I’ll never forget the moment. I still walk past the jiujitsu gym, just a block over from our place...
6 months ago
29
6 months ago
I’ll never forget the moment. I still walk past the jiujitsu gym, just a block over from our place and the moment comes rushing back. I was walking our dearly departed Boxer dog, Shaun. It was 2017. It was early. The Ralph Gracie Academy occupies a long stretch of Howard Street,...
sbensu
How to avoid breaking APIs The main trick is to design them with extension in mind so that you won't have to break them later.
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
The main trick is to design them with extension in mind so that you won't have to break them later.
sbensu
The Perfectionists (book) A great book that covers the ideas and people behind modern industry.
11 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'What He Knows Who Looks Into Life and Sees' Most of my preoccupations lie elsewhere but I retain a casual interest in what used to be called...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Most of my preoccupations lie elsewhere but I retain a casual interest in what used to be called field biology. That is, the non-molecular, outside-the-laboratory practice of observing plants and animals, even in the middle of Houston. The motives are pleasure, wonder and...
The Elysian
Grassroots movements are building garden cities We're changing the aesthetic from the bottom up.
3 months ago
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
14
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...
Josh Thompson
Things That Are Surprisingly Good For The Cost (AKA How I want to build my tiny house) Working title: “My Dream Backyard House/ADU/round-one-of-building-experiment” I’m trying to build a...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Working title: “My Dream Backyard House/ADU/round-one-of-building-experiment” I’m trying to build a kinda cool, quirky, sensitive-to-supply-chain-disruption, cheap, functional, emotionally healing home in my back yard. We love to host friends and family, guests, maybe AirBnB...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The War with What He Does Not Understand' “. . . I am closer to the ‘life of the spirit’ than you are. You are talking about the right of one...
a month ago
21
a month ago
“. . . I am closer to the ‘life of the spirit’ than you are. You are talking about the right of one or another type of knowledge to exist, whereas I’m talking about peace, not rights. I want people not to see war where there isn’t any. Different branches of knowledge have always...
The American Scholar
The Power of the Common Soul Ives, music-making, and hope The post The Power of the Common Soul appeared first on The American...
10 months ago
The American Scholar
Cancer The post Cancer appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
The Marginalian
bell hooks on Love "We can never go back... We can go forward. We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until...
a year ago
41
a year ago
"We can never go back... We can go forward. We can find the love our hearts long for, but not until we let go grief about the love we lost long ago... All awakening to love is spiritual awakening."
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Piccalilli Front-end education for the real world. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
10 months ago
The American Scholar
From All Souls by Saskia Hamilton Poems read aloud, beautifully The post From <em>All Souls</em> by Saskia Hamilton appeared first on...
9 months ago
62
9 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post From <em>All Souls</em> by Saskia Hamilton appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Illustrate With Marginal Notes' I no longer write in books, a decision I made decades ago that I occasionally regret. It came...
a month ago
13
a month ago
I no longer write in books, a decision I made decades ago that I occasionally regret. It came to feel like defacement. But it’s interesting to see what attracted, delighted or puzzled my younger self. Here are the three books on my shelves most heavily underlined and...
The American Scholar
Tiger Mom At a forest preserve in India, a writer sees the world anew and learns how to focus her son’s...
4 months ago
21
4 months ago
At a forest preserve in India, a writer sees the world anew and learns how to focus her son’s restless mind The post Tiger Mom appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Climbing in "decking range" In indoor sport climbing, as your climber progresses from the ground to the first three bolts, you...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
In indoor sport climbing, as your climber progresses from the ground to the first three bolts, you need to be ready for any situation. Here’s how to give a kick-ass lead belay when your climber is close enough to the ground they could potentially deck. This is part of a series on...
The American Scholar
Indiana Absurd Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd...
a year ago
52
a year ago
Tiffany Tsao on translating a beguiling Indonesian short-story collection The post Indiana Absurd appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Stubborn Consistency [100 daily blog posts]
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Is It Worth It to Be Passive Aggressive?
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Expanding in Edale I’ve been making things in response to this place since my teens, most notably as a young visual...
12 months ago
18
12 months ago
I’ve been making things in response to this place since my teens, most notably as a young visual artist and again now, having reconnected with that wide-eyed younger version of myself. — Simon Collison Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
This Space
39 Books: 2018 In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this...
a year ago
82
a year ago
In spite of what I said yesterday about the decline in the number of novels I read each year, this year was packed with a variety: Australian, Korean, Austrian, Egyptian, German, Argentinian and, today's choice, Norwegian; that is, if variety depends on the country of origin. But...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Certain Saving Humor' “Except for a certain saving humor, I should indeed have been a full monster.”  One definition of a...
5 months ago
18
5 months ago
“Except for a certain saving humor, I should indeed have been a full monster.”  One definition of a friend is someone with whom you can share any joke or other comic effort without fear of offending him. It may not be funny – the only pertinent criterion for judging humorousness...
The Elysian
Your ideas for improving capitalism A collection of responses to my writing prompt.
8 months ago
The American Scholar
Big Rock, High Plateau The post Big Rock, High Plateau appeared first on The American Scholar.
a week ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 /now – June 8, 2024 I do the work I do for a living in no small part because I had access to an internet connection as a...
11 months ago
10
11 months ago
I do the work I do for a living in no small part because I had access to an internet connection as a teenager. That connection helped shape me and open up my world. What art, creativity, skill, and sure, economic potential, is going untapped right now in Rural America because a...
The American Scholar
“Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter appeared first on The...
11 months ago
36
11 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter 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
13
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...
What I Read in February 2025 – All human minds are in touch with a dark reservoir of our race’s... One of these books is 1,100 pages long.  It was just by chance that I read two genuinely disgusting...
3 months ago
37
3 months ago
One of these books is 1,100 pages long.  It was just by chance that I read two genuinely disgusting books at around the same time. FICTION A Glastonbury Romance (1932), John Cowper Powys -  I will write a bit about this beast, soon.  That line in the title is from Chapter 25,...
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
50
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:...
Josh Thompson
Thoughts on Money from 2013 I was looking through some draft posts I have lying around, and found one from the middle of 2013....
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
I was looking through some draft posts I have lying around, and found one from the middle of 2013. That’s 2.5 years ago. Reading over it, I feel satisfaction for a few reasons: Old Josh (from July 2013) wasn’t a train wreck. As soon as I think about myself in highschool and...
Ben Borgers
3blue1brown.elk.sh
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Home: An Illustrated Celebration of the Genius and Wonder of Animal Dwellings “There’s no place like home,” Dorothy sighs in The Wizard of Oz. But home is not a place — it is a...
a year ago
41
a year ago
“There’s no place like home,” Dorothy sighs in The Wizard of Oz. But home is not a place — it is a locus of longing, always haunted by our existential homelessness. “Welcome home!” a cheaply suited broker once exclaimed at me, swinging open the door to a tiny studio as my foot...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Ditch walkin' Day 11: Sept 20, 2023 — I hear footsteps and morning routines in motion. My sister-in-law and her...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Day 11: Sept 20, 2023 — I hear footsteps and morning routines in motion. My sister-in-law and her family are gearing up for work and school. I remember this flurry of activity as a kid myself — the hustle to get motivated. Jen goes upstairs to chat briefly with everyone before...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Maripedia The print library Maripedia offers you an overview of Marimekko’s art of printmaking from the 1950s...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
The print library Maripedia offers you an overview of Marimekko’s art of printmaking from the 1950s to the 2020s. Here you can identify and explore our vibrant prints, discover their designers, and enjoy the stories behind the patterns. Visit original link → or View on...
The Marginalian
Do Not Spare Yourself The only thing more dangerous than wanting to save another person — a dangerous desire too often...
6 months ago
106
6 months ago
The only thing more dangerous than wanting to save another person — a dangerous desire too often mistaken for love — is wanting to save yourself, to spare yourself the disappointment and heartbreak and loss inseparable from being a creature with hopes and longings constantly...
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
55
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...
The American Scholar
Such People The post Such People appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
Wuthering...
Jeremy Denk plays Charles Ives and Blind Tom Wiggins - a pleasing conjunction of Wuthering... More Massachusetts semi-literay adventures. Last weekend I was at Tanglewood in Lenox,...
10 months ago
60
10 months ago
More Massachusetts semi-literay adventures. Last weekend I was at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts, enjoying Jeremy Denk’s performance of insurance executive Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata (c. 1913).  It was a pleasing congruence of Wuthering Expectations themes.  I have nothing...
The Marginalian
The Poetry of Reality: Robert Louis Stevenson on What Makes Life Worth Living "The true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and...
over a year ago
68
over a year ago
"The true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing."
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Every map of China is wrong. And this is intentional… If you’ve never looked at a digital map of China, I urge you to do it now — initially, if you look...
8 months ago
39
8 months ago
If you’ve never looked at a digital map of China, I urge you to do it now — initially, if you look at the street view, it looks like any other map you’ve encountered. However, if you overlay the satellite view you can see things are out of whack. Visit original link → or View on...
Josh Thompson
Typing for Programmers If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I can press these magical little keys on this little metal box here, and make these words come out. If you’re reading these words, you don’t care how these words actually got on...
Ben Borgers
Work-Life Separation in College
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
An essay in which my friend feels stuck and I suggest relaxing some constraints The short version is that my friend, in my opinion, thinks about what he wants in a too constrained...
4 months ago
The American Scholar
Casa Gorín The post Casa Gorín appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
Josh Thompson
Piece by Piece The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product (of the digital variety) that will be so damn goodpeople will pay me $100 or more to get it.  I’ve got a lot of bits and pieces of it littered around the internet, my computer,...
Steven Scrawls
Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction What if our stories explore questions not because those...
a year ago
21
a year ago
Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction What if our stories explore questions not because those questions are interesting, but because those questions are easier to respond to than the alternatives? Trope: The Chosen One What’s the shallow, wish-fulfillment version of...
The Marginalian
The Afterlives of the Soul: Sister Nivedita on Love and Death "To the soul, time does not exist. Only her own great purpose exists, shining clear and steady...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
"To the soul, time does not exist. Only her own great purpose exists, shining clear and steady through the mists before her."
The Elysian
Hint #2 I'm publishing a new print collection in two weeks.
10 months ago
The Marginalian
God, Human, Animal, Machine: Consciousness and Our Search for Meaning in the Age of Artificial... An inquiry into the eternal enchantment of why the world exists.
over a year ago
Idle Words
Sara Huddleston on the Latino Vote in Iowa Last week I spoke with Sara Huddleston, candidate for Iowa state house in district 11 (Storm Lake)....
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
Last week I spoke with Sara Huddleston, candidate for Iowa state house in district 11 (Storm Lake). A longtime community organizer and three-term city council member, she was the first Latina elected to a city council in the state of Iowa, and would be the first Latina to serve...
The American Scholar
Good Vibrations One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound The post Good Vibrations appeared...
a year ago
45
a year ago
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound The post Good Vibrations appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Let Us Think That We Build Forever' I’ve just learned that the English poet Clive Wilmer died on March 13 at age eighty. I knew him...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
I’ve just learned that the English poet Clive Wilmer died on March 13 at age eighty. I knew him first as a friend and champion of Edgar Bowers, Thom Gunn and Dick Davis, a co-translator of the Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti, a serious reader of John Ruskin and a fine poet in his...
Blog -...
Book Review - Iron John Iron John by Robert Bly is a classic book about men. It has legions of ardent fans, but I...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
Iron John by Robert Bly is a classic book about men. It has legions of ardent fans, but I reluctantly admit I am not one of the more zealous. Although the book has high points – the classic story of Iron John as put down by the Grimm brothers stands out to me, as well as an...
Naz Hamid
Goodbye, Instagram Thanks for the memories, but good riddance. I deleted Instagram. Two days ago. The reasons are as...
4 months ago
43
4 months ago
Thanks for the memories, but good riddance. I deleted Instagram. Two days ago. The reasons are as you would expect: doomscrolling, fatigue, vapidness, and of course, all of the horrifying[1] things Meta enables. Concerning Instagram itself, the list is long. The app started...
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
44
7 months ago
Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things The post Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Nobody to Witness Its Effects Upon Me' Johnson, Boswell and friends met for dinner at the Crown and Anchor on April 12, 1776. Among...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
Johnson, Boswell and friends met for dinner at the Crown and Anchor on April 12, 1776. Among the topics of conversation was the evergreen favorite “whether drinking improved conversation and benevolence.” Sir Joshua Reynolds maintained it did. Johnson replies:   “‘No, Sir: before...
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
112
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 Marginalian
Stalactite & Stalagmite: A Brief Illustrated History of Earth and One Great Truth about Love We are always either drawing closer or drifting apart — there is no stasis in relationships. The...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
We are always either drawing closer or drifting apart — there is no stasis in relationships. The direction of movement may change over the course of a relationship, but there is no stasis. Despite our culture’s bias for the drama of cataclysm — the violent heartbreaks, the very...
The American Scholar
Who’s to Say? A bewildering take from a noted scholar of Christianity The post Who’s to Say? appeared first on The...
4 months ago
18
4 months ago
A bewildering take from a noted scholar of Christianity The post Who’s to Say? appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Participatory science makes everyone a researcher So we can study the Earth at scale.
5 days ago
The American Scholar
A Rebel to Remember Gregory P. Downs on the late Anthony E. Kaye’s groundbreaking history of Nat Turner The post A Rebel...
10 months ago
59
10 months ago
Gregory P. Downs on the late Anthony E. Kaye’s groundbreaking history of Nat Turner The post A Rebel to Remember appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
The Writing on the Wall Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery The post The...
8 months ago
57
8 months ago
Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery The post The Writing on the Wall appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Tiny Habits take 2 Dr. BJ Fogg runs Tiny Habits, a one-week course on building new habits. Since most of what we do is...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Dr. BJ Fogg runs Tiny Habits, a one-week course on building new habits. Since most of what we do is governed by habits, it is reasonable to study how to build new ones, or replace bad ones. I have done his course before, and had success. I have been reading Freewith Kristi and...
This Space
39 Books: 2006 My choice for 2003 began with indecision, as I couldn't imagine writing about Robert Antelme's The...
a year ago
55
a year ago
My choice for 2003 began with indecision, as I couldn't imagine writing about Robert Antelme's The Human Race. Instead I wondered if I could say something about Timothy Hyman's Sienese Painting. While I have little or no feeling for art, I am drawn to reading about it. The book's...
sbensu
The birth of a (pseudo) currency A dozen pseudo-currencies were issued in Argentina in 2002. How did that work? And why are they...
a year ago
18
a year ago
A dozen pseudo-currencies were issued in Argentina in 2002. How did that work? And why are they coming back in 2024?
Astral Codex Ten
Links For April 2025 ...
2 months ago
The Elysian
Three classic utopian novels—now collectibles More than 100 years ago, three thinkers imagined what a utopian future might look like in the year...
10 months ago
61
10 months ago
More than 100 years ago, three thinkers imagined what a utopian future might look like in the year 2000. Now, their novels are available as a collectible set.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Carrying On, Backing Out, Moving on But to my original remark, I’m backing out of Meta Corporation platforms. Maybe that’s all I mean....
7 months ago
20
7 months ago
But to my original remark, I’m backing out of Meta Corporation platforms. Maybe that’s all I mean. It’s the election, of course, and its campaigns. It’s the devolution of news and journalism and the rise of manipulative and untruthful media. It’s all kinds of things. Lies and...
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
21
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...
ribbonfarm
Ribbonfarm is Retiring After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I’ve...
9 months ago
29
9 months ago
After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I’ve decided to officially fully retire this blog. The ribbonfarm.com domain and all links will remain active, but there will be no new content after November 13th, 2024, which happens to be...
Ben Borgers
Couch Guy
over a year ago
This Space
Atheism of the novel "Here it comes: the information dumping..." From section 237, page 185 of Ellis Sharp's latest...
over a year ago
52
over a year ago
"Here it comes: the information dumping..." From section 237, page 185 of Ellis Sharp's latest novel, the part that is commentary on his attempt to destroy a commercially successful novel emulating "the style that The Guardian liked and promoted": The narrator is a young...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Truck Camping is Here to Eat Van Life's Lunch We’re reaching the tipping point of an oversaturated custom sprinter van market. There are hundreds...
11 months ago
17
11 months ago
We’re reaching the tipping point of an oversaturated custom sprinter van market. There are hundreds of brands all attempting to do very similar things at scale, as if they’re late to the overbuilt expensive van party. Customer interest feels like it is swinging back to simplicity...
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
12
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...
The Elysian
I'm not going to have kids to save the economy Not on my list of reasons to have children.
a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Love Yourself and How to Love Another: A Playful and Poignant Vintage Illustrated Fable about... The great problem of consciousness is that all it knows is itself, and only dimly. We can override...
7 months ago
45
7 months ago
The great problem of consciousness is that all it knows is itself, and only dimly. We can override this elemental self-reference only with constant vigilance, reminding ourselves again and again as we forget over and over how difficult it is — how nigh impossible — to know what...
The Marginalian
The Pleasure of Being Left Alone "An exquisite peace obtains: a drowsy, golden peace, flowing honey-sweet over my dwelling, soaking...
a year ago
85
a year ago
"An exquisite peace obtains: a drowsy, golden peace, flowing honey-sweet over my dwelling, soaking it, dripping like music from the walls... A peace for gods; a divine emptiness."
This Space
39 Books: 2012 Of all the books in this series, this was the one I most wanted to write about and also the one I...
a year ago
99
a year ago
Of all the books in this series, this was the one I most wanted to write about and also the one I knew would be impossible to write about, at least in a couple of distracted hours. Imagine this: through mathematical calculation, close reading and literary detective work, a...
The American Scholar
The Next New Thing In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before The...
a year ago
34
a year ago
In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before The post The Next New Thing appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Blessed to be Sick Yesterday, I wrote about reducing work hours to less than 40 hours a week. Yesterday, I was...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Yesterday, I wrote about reducing work hours to less than 40 hours a week. Yesterday, I was struggling to be engaged in my work. I was easily distracted, and didn’t feel very efficient during the day. Once I identified the tasks I needed to complete before I could walk away from...
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On POSIWID ...
2 months ago
Ben Borgers
Girl Talk: All Day
over a year ago
The American Scholar
For Want of Touch The astonishing breadth of our passions The post For Want of Touch appeared first on The American...
10 months ago
58
10 months ago
The astonishing breadth of our passions The post For Want of Touch appeared first on The American Scholar.
ribbonfarm
Protocol Entrepreneurship I’m running the Summer of Protocols program for the Ethereum Foundation again this year. Here is the...
a year ago
15
a year ago
I’m running the Summer of Protocols program for the Ethereum Foundation again this year. Here is the Call for Applications. I’d appreciate any help getting it in front of the right candidates. The core of it is what we’re calling Protocol Improvement Grants (PIGs): 90k for a team...
The Marginalian
Winnicott on the Qualities of a Healthy Mind and a Healthy Relationship "A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and yet...
10 months ago
70
10 months ago
"A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and yet accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of another person; also to allow the other person to do the same to us."
Astral Codex Ten
Testing AI's GeoGuessr Genius Seeing a world in a grain of sand
2 months ago
Ben Borgers
How I got scammed on Facebook Marketplace
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Planning my week
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Of Stars, Seagulls, and Love: Loren Eiseley on the First and Final Truth of Life Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people,...
11 months ago
77
11 months ago
Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people, and yet all personal love is but a fractal of a larger universal love. Some call it God. I call it wonder. Dante called it “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.”...
Josh Thompson
How To Take Back Your Attention On The Internet with uBlock note: this page has 17Mb of gifs and images. I don’t really want to take the time to manually trim...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
note: this page has 17Mb of gifs and images. I don’t really want to take the time to manually trim the gifs from >3Mb/each to <1Mb each, so I didn’t. If you’re on mobile, or trying to conserve data, you might want to come back to this one later. I value my attention and focus. I...
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...
10 months ago
9
10 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
On Priesthoods ...
6 months ago
Ben Borgers
RealMoji
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Two novels titled Attila - Maximal words striving to breach an angel I will write about two newly published translations of Spanish novels that comprise an amusing stunt...
2 months ago
15
2 months ago
I will write about two newly published translations of Spanish novels that comprise an amusing stunt by Open Letter Books.  They are Attila by Aliocha Coll (1991) and Attila by Javier Serena (2014), both translated by Katie Whittemore.  Coll’s Attila is a Finnegans...
The American Scholar
“Sakura Park” by Rachel Wetzsteon Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Sakura Park” by Rachel Wetzsteon appeared first on The...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Sakura Park” by Rachel Wetzsteon appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
O Sweet Spontaneous: E.E. Cummings’s Love-Poem to Earth and the Glory of Spring The ultimate anthem of resistance to the assaults on life.
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“I Have Had My Vision” Three prompts The post “I Have Had My Vision” appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Susceptible to Education' I grew up fetishizing a university education. I knew no one in my family or in my working-class...
2 weeks ago
12
2 weeks ago
I grew up fetishizing a university education. I knew no one in my family or in my working-class neighborhood who had “gone to college,” as the common phrase had it. In my experience, that status was confined to doctors and teachers. My father was a high-school dropout....
Escaping Flatland
Without looking it up, what do you think? + links
8 months ago
Ploum.net
La fin d’un monde ? La fin d’un monde ? La fin de nos souvenirs Nous sommes envahis d’IA. Bien plus que vous ne le...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
La fin d’un monde ? La fin de nos souvenirs Nous sommes envahis d’IA. Bien plus que vous ne le pensez. Chaque fois que votre téléphone prend une photo, ce n’est pas la réalité qui s’affiche, mais une reconstruction « probable » de ce que vous avez envie de voir. C’est la raison...
Josh Thompson
`Medusa` mythical creature: part 1 Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
14
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...
The Elysian
Could AI make us wise? An alternative to the internet making us stupid.
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Spring Meetups Everywhere 2025 - Call For Organizers ...
4 months ago
The American Scholar
Kyung Kim Far over the misty mountains The post Kyung Kim appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
Josh Thompson
A Small Goal is Better than a Grand Plan We all have grand plans. Who’s future projection of themselves goes something like this: “One day,...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
We all have grand plans. Who’s future projection of themselves goes something like this: “One day, when I’m rich (goal one), location independent (goal two), and married to a fabulous woman (goal three), I will travel the world (goal four) while exploring my hobby of ___ (goal...
The Marginalian
A Lighthouse for Dark Times This is the elemental speaking: It is during phase transition — when the temperature and pressure of...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
This is the elemental speaking: It is during phase transition — when the temperature and pressure of a system go beyond what the system can withstand and matter changes from one state to another — that the system is most pliant, most possible. This chaos of particles that...
The American Scholar
“The Fig Tree” by Ruth Stone Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Fig Tree” by Ruth Stone appeared first on The American...
a week ago
Josh Thompson
On Friction warning. self-indulgeant diatribe coming. I generally try to avoid these, but it’s my website, and I...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
warning. self-indulgeant diatribe coming. I generally try to avoid these, but it’s my website, and I can write what I want. We’re rapidly approaching the end of the year, and I’ve got a few dozen ideas rolling around my head that I want to solidify my thoughts on. One of the...
The Marginalian
Wherever You Are, Stop What You’re Doing Nothing magnifies life — in the proper sense of the word, rooted in the Latin for “to make greater,...
6 months ago
75
6 months ago
Nothing magnifies life — in the proper sense of the word, rooted in the Latin for “to make greater, to glorify” — more than the act of noticing its details, and nothing sanctifies it more: Kneeling to look at a lichen is a devotional act. We bless our own lives by recognizing and...
Ben Borgers
App Identity
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Website Rewrite 2
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
How /swipes Works
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poetry That Nobody Nowadays Reads' Once I patronized a library book sale where volumes were sold not by age, condition, whether...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Once I patronized a library book sale where volumes were sold not by age, condition, whether paperback or hard cover, and certainly not by literary worth but by weight. On the table by the exit was a scale, the flat-topped sort associated with butcher shops. The arrangement was a...
The American Scholar
A Forgotten Turner Classic Who was George Eyser, the one-legged German-American gymnast who astounded at the Olympic Games? The...
a year ago
42
a year ago
Who was George Eyser, the one-legged German-American gymnast who astounded at the Olympic Games? The post A Forgotten Turner Classic appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Customer Rewards Programs
over a year ago
The Marginalian
What It’s Like to Be an Owl: The Strange Science of Seeing with Sound “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals,” the great nature...
a year ago
31
a year ago
“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals,” the great nature writer Henry Beston wrote in his lovely century-old meditation on otherness and the web of life. “In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted...
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...
12 months ago
15
12 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...
Josh Thompson
Notes on the movie Frozen, which I dislike, and Suzume, which is excellent Introduction part of a longer series of drafts about the novel experience of being a parent, to...
4 months ago
35
4 months ago
Introduction part of a longer series of drafts about the novel experience of being a parent, to someone currently best defined as ‘a young child’. I once wrote a lot about my experiences of things, then took a break, and drafted this blog post on a few pages of yellow legal pad,...
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
17
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Alpha Optimization Polartec Alpha was designed to be a batting insulation, encapsulated between two shells. Alpha...
8 months ago
11
8 months ago
Polartec Alpha was designed to be a batting insulation, encapsulated between two shells. Alpha Direct was designed as an inner lining, to be sewn to an outer shell. The cottage industry was smart to build these as stand alone garments because that allowed it to be used as a...
Ben Borgers
Preschooler > AI
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Falling into Place I recently started a job with Litmus. A key component of this job search for me was that it be 100%...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I recently started a job with Litmus. A key component of this job search for me was that it be 100% remote. At my last job, I worked remote regularly, at least one day a week, but the rest of the week, I was in the office. Remote work is becoming established around the world,...
The American Scholar
Imperfecta Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the...
a year ago
77
a year ago
Her brother’s disease leads a writer to challenge how we conceive of human abnormality in the emerging era of gene editing The post Imperfecta appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
The Importance of Being Different A travel writer’s education The post The Importance of Being Different appeared first on The...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Listserv
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“The Jester’s Magma” The post “The Jester’s Magma” appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Astral Codex Ten
Misophonia: Beyond Sensory Sensitivity ...
3 months ago
The Elysian
Deep-research an article with me A six-week workshop for writers.
5 months ago
The Marginalian
Anne Morrow Lindbergh on Embracing Change in Relationships and the Key Pattern for Nourishing Love "All living relationships are in process of change, of expansion, and must perpetually be building...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
On “Incrementally Correct Personal Websites”
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know Don't give your true love a partridge, turtledoves, or (especially) French hens
6 months ago
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
11
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...
Josh Thompson
Typing in Colemac 2.0 I want to learn to type in Colemak, but I’m afraid to try to invest twenty hours in it. That’s a...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I want to learn to type in Colemak, but I’m afraid to try to invest twenty hours in it. That’s a long commitment, and I’m afraid I would not follow through, and feel like it was a failure, because I didn’t allot enough time, nor reach a desired level of skill. My hope is that as...
The Marginalian
Love Anyway You know that the price of life is death, that the price of love is loss, and still you watch the...
a year ago
92
a year ago
You know that the price of life is death, that the price of love is loss, and still you watch the golden afternoon light fall on a face you love, knowing that the light will soon fade, knowing that the loving face too will one day fade to indifference or bone, and you love anyway...
The Marginalian
How You Relate to Anything Is How You Relate to Everything: Reclaiming the Spirit of the Christmas... Because life is a cosmos of connection, because to be alive is to be in relationship with the world,...
6 months ago
61
6 months ago
Because life is a cosmos of connection, because to be alive is to be in relationship with the world, because (in the immortal words of John Muir) “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe,” how we relate to anything is how...
Steven Scrawls
Space to Play Space to Play I remember childhood as the slow advance of a great laboring Seriousness. When I was...
4 months ago
34
4 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...
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
32
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."
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Should Never Mention It' Spoken by a man after my own heart:  “You must grant me a dispensation for saying any thing, whether...
a week ago
55
a week ago
Spoken by a man after my own heart:  “You must grant me a dispensation for saying any thing, whether it be sense or nonsense, upon the subject of politics. It is truly a matter in which I am so little interested, that, were it not that it sometimes serves me for a theme when I...
Josh Thompson
On Money (again) Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about,...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about, because there are many different ways we can approach it. It’s easy to feel judged when someone does something with their money that I don’t do with mine. That all said, there...
The Marginalian
Some Thoughts about the Ocean and the Universe How to bear the gravity of being.
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Job Hunting Recommendations for Early-Career Software Developers I’ve distilled a number of conversations into this post. Some of it is specific to getting a remote...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I’ve distilled a number of conversations into this post. Some of it is specific to getting a remote job and working remotely, but all of it is applicable for any kind of software-related role. It’s probably applicable to non-software roles, but this is where most of my exprience...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 378.5 ...
2 months ago
The Elysian
Who's qualified to save the world? Two climate dystopias on unlikeable saviors.
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Resilience By Design Every morning I read about a situation that pushes us further away from what we've come to know or...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Every morning I read about a situation that pushes us further away from what we've come to know or expect. With that comes the question of how our evolving reality affects product design, particularly for those who practice it. While some tech companies are seizing opportunities...
The Marginalian
Carl Linnaeus’s Flower Clock “The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours,” the Canadian...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
“The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours,” the Canadian psychiatrist Eric Berne observed in his 1964 classic Games People Play. Four centuries earlier, Galileo had both combated and complicated the problem by inventing timekeeping and with it,...
The American Scholar
“Snake” by D. H. Lawrence Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Snake” by D. H. Lawrence appeared first on The American...
9 months ago
The Elysian
Suggestion Box This is where to leave ideas for my We Should Own The Economy project.
3 months ago
This Space
The withdrawal of the novel We are subjected to that which does not exist        Simone Weil When an old friend who...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
We are subjected to that which does not exist        Simone Weil When an old friend who has drunk deep from the puddle of the New Atheism complained on social media that religious people believe things that are “inventions, fairy stories, not real, made up", I was...
Wuthering...
Ferdowsi's Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings - No one has any knowledge of those first days... My little Persian literature syllabus in March was built on Aboloqasem Ferdowsi’s gigantic epic...
a year ago
101
a year ago
My little Persian literature syllabus in March was built on Aboloqasem Ferdowsi’s gigantic epic Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (1010), a slender 850 pages in Dick Davis’s 2006 prose (mostly) translation.  He added another 100 pages to the 2016 edition, whether filling out...
Wuthering...
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes - Octopus tunnyfish dogfish and skate The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was performed in 392 BCE, thirteen years after The Frogs.  In the interval many things had changed.  Athens had been conquered; democracy was overthrown but restored; one endless war ended...
Josh Thompson
About working remotely at Litmus with Pajamas.io A while back, I wrote a long interview for Pajamas.io, a publication around remote work. I’ve pasted...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
A while back, I wrote a long interview for Pajamas.io, a publication around remote work. I’ve pasted the entire article here below. When Josh Thompson wanted to move out to rural Colorado with his family to be closer to the mountains he loves to climb, he knew finding a company...
Astral Codex Ten
Friendly And Hostile Analogies For Taste ...
7 months ago
Josh Thompson
Why schedule something that doesn't exist? The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow. Then, I left the...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow. Then, I left the room for a bit. I didn’t have anything to say. Or, I didn’t think I did. Yet, all over my computer, and in various list trackers and note-taking apps, I’ve got dozens of ideas to...
Josh Thompson
Deliberate Practice in Programming with Avdi Grimm and the Rake gem I’ve had the concept of Deliberate Practice stuck in my head for a while. I want to improve at...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I’ve had the concept of Deliberate Practice stuck in my head for a while. I want to improve at things (all the things!) in general, but writing and reading code, specifically. Writing and reading code is germane to my primary occupation (software developer) and drives most of my...
The American Scholar
Above the River of Your Longing Two new prompts The post Above the River of Your Longing appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The American Scholar
“He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy appeared first...
a year ago
86
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Octavia Butler’s Advice on Writing "No matter how tired you get, no matter how you feel like you can’t possibly do this, somehow you...
a year ago
The Marginalian
Kafka’s Creative Block and the Four Psychological Hindrances That Keep the Talented from Manifesting... The most paradoxical thing about creative work is that it is both a way in and a way out, that it...
8 months ago
59
8 months ago
The most paradoxical thing about creative work is that it is both a way in and a way out, that it plunges you into the depths of your being and at the same time takes you out of yourself. Writing is the best instrument I have for metabolizing my experience and clarifying my own...
Escaping Flatland
Advice for a friend who wants to start a blog What’s odd about you is what’s interesting.
5 months ago
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
17
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...
The Marginalian
The Majesty and Mystery of Night Migration, in a Stunning Poem Turned to Music “Night, when words fade and things come alive,” Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote...
a year ago
21
a year ago
“Night, when words fade and things come alive,” Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in his love letter to the hours of darkness, composed while flying alone over the Sahara Desert. No aliveness animates the nocturne with more grandeur than the migration of birds....
Wuthering...
Books I Read in August 2023 As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted to more important things.  Plenty of...
a year ago
425
a year ago
As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted to more important things.  Plenty of energy to read, though. With a respite in September, I should soon be able to write a bit on the Greek philosophers I have been reading.  The Cynics, Epicureans, and Stoics work...
The Elysian
It’s time for Thomas Jefferson's village-states His small, democratic communities would revive and defend our republic.
3 months ago
Josh Thompson
Waking Up Early 2.0 A few months ago, I wrote about waking up early. I tracked my progress for almost a month, and most...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
A few months ago, I wrote about waking up early. I tracked my progress for almost a month, and most of the days I woke up between 4:45 and 6:00. My “must be up by” time is 7:30a, so waking up more than an hour and a half early counts as a huge win. From mid-may until June 7, I...
Josh Thompson
Setting up Application Performance Monitoring in DataDog in your Rails App When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work through things in excruciating detail. You might find this to be a little too in-depth, or you might appreciate the detail. Either way, if you want a step-by-step guide, this should do...
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...
3 months ago
26
3 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Bolt of Inspiration Strikes Invariably' “Inspiration is perhaps merely the joy of writing: it does not precede writing.” A student and...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
“Inspiration is perhaps merely the joy of writing: it does not precede writing.” A student and aspiring fiction writer wonders why I seldom refer to “inspiration.” What is it? Do I deny its existence? Have certain writers successfully relied on it? Can he? My answer is yes and...
The American Scholar
Bitten The post Bitten appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Everything that turned out well in my life followed the same design process The context is smarter than you.
11 months ago
Josh Thompson
Constraints Constraints are USUALLY seen in a negative light. Google defines it as: a limitation or...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Constraints are USUALLY seen in a negative light. Google defines it as: a limitation or restriction Here’s some example constraints that we find in the world around us, which we often view as an annoyance or frustration: I have to be to work by 9a I have to get up at 7a I have...
Ben Borgers
Publishing my Fall 2022 class notes
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Forgiveness Shortly after I began the year with some blessings, a friend sent me Lucille Clifton’s spare,...
5 months ago
74
5 months ago
Shortly after I began the year with some blessings, a friend sent me Lucille Clifton’s spare, splendid poem “blessing the boats.” We had met at a poetry workshop and shared a resolution to write more poetry in the coming year, so we began taking turns each week choosing a line...
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
14
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
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden appeared first on The...
a month ago
21
a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Optimizing Kiwi for scale
over a year ago
The Marginalian
17 Life-Learnings from 17 Years of The Marginalian The Marginalian was born on October 23, 2006, under an outgrown name, to an outgrown self that feels...
a year ago
61
a year ago
The Marginalian was born on October 23, 2006, under an outgrown name, to an outgrown self that feels to me now almost like a different species of consciousness. (It can only be so — if we don’t continually outgrow ourselves, if we don’t wince a little at our former ideas, ideals,...
Josh Thompson
"Cooking" is so much more I’ve long wanted to get better at cooking. I eat a lot of food, and would like to enjoy it. I’ve...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I’ve long wanted to get better at cooking. I eat a lot of food, and would like to enjoy it. I’ve gotten to a point where I am comfortable following a recipe, and I bet you normally are fine following a recipe too. To follow a recipe, you must have two things. These two things...
sbensu
Vibes are music, arguments are lyrics Losing My Religion is not about religion and Arguments are not about arguments
11 months ago
Wuthering...
The Story of the Stone, volume 3 - melodrama, drinking games, and "a convocation of bees and... I am two-thirds through Cao Xueqin’s enormous The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), volume 3 of the...
7 months ago
59
7 months ago
I am two-thirds through Cao Xueqin’s enormous The Story of the Stone (c. 1760), volume 3 of the David Hawkes translation, and the next twenty chapters have arrived at the library so I had better write this chunk up. In this big middle section a number of minor or even...
The Elysian
Democracy should happen online A Guest Lecture with Margo Loor, co-founder of the Estonian participatory democracy platform Citizen...
4 weeks ago
Wuthering...
there is no wisdom in me; and that is true enough - what is knowledge? - Theaetetus and Parmenides The epistemological crisis of Greek philosophy has surprised me.  The early attempts to...
over a year ago
59
over a year ago
The epistemological crisis of Greek philosophy has surprised me.  The early attempts to systematically understand, without the help of the revealed truth of religion, difficult concepts like existence and virtue led, almost immediately, to the question of whether anyone can...
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
17
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...
Ben Borgers
Getir Colors
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Who Would I Be Off My Meds Can weaning oneself off pharmaceuticals ease the cycle of perpetual suffering? The post Who Would I...
4 months ago
23
4 months ago
Can weaning oneself off pharmaceuticals ease the cycle of perpetual suffering? The post Who Would I Be Off My Meds appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Books finished in April 2023 I continue the practice of posting a list as a substitute for real writing. Coming soon: a long...
over a year ago
87
over a year ago
I continue the practice of posting a list as a substitute for real writing. Coming soon: a long overdue loot at Seneca's plays, a glance at Gide's Counterfeiters, and some messing around with Plato's Republic. If I did not write in April, I at least read: GREEK PHILOSOPHY The...
Josh Thompson
2016 - Biggest Lesson, Most Dangerous Books I don’t do New Years resolutions, but I like to think back on the last year. I’ll touch on two...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I don’t do New Years resolutions, but I like to think back on the last year. I’ll touch on two things: The most important thing I’ve learned this year: Tactical Silence Most dangerous books of 2016 Tactical Silence I suspect that a year from now, I’m going to look back and say...
The American Scholar
“Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared...
a year ago
63
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Louise Erdrich on the Deepest Meaning of Resistance "Resist loss of the miraculous by lowering your standards for what constitutes a miracle. It is all...
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'People Who Just Love the Proximity of Books' Left in a hefty anthology titled The Faber Book of War Poetry (ed. Kenneth Baker, 1996) was...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
Left in a hefty anthology titled The Faber Book of War Poetry (ed. Kenneth Baker, 1996) was a postcard from O’Gara & Wilson, Ltd. Booksellers in Chicago. More than forty years ago I visited that shop near the University of Chicago and purchased a partial set of Conrad for a...
Astral Codex Ten
Links For December 2024 ...
6 months ago
The American Scholar
Riding With Mr. Washington How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction The post Riding With Mr....
10 months ago
49
10 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.
Naz Hamid
Less Precious Social networking is about reach. It started small: your friends first, then grew outwards towards...
5 months ago
39
5 months ago
Social networking is about reach. It started small: your friends first, then grew outwards towards acquaintances and your professional life. It grew out to people who might follow you because of some shared interest, and then to complete strangers. Social media likes to tell you...
The American Scholar
American Horror Story Jeremy Dauber on our obsession with fear The post American Horror Story appeared first on The...
8 months ago
40
8 months ago
Jeremy Dauber on our obsession with fear The post American Horror Story appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Prison And Crime: Much More Than You Wanted To Know ...
7 months ago
The American Scholar
No Murder in the Mews The post No Murder in the Mews appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 weeks ago
The Elysian
Week 3: The dream pitch
a year ago
The American Scholar
Nights at the Opera Long before he wrote his masterly novels, Stendhal was transformed by the power of music The post...
11 months ago
73
11 months ago
Long before he wrote his masterly novels, Stendhal was transformed by the power of music The post Nights at the Opera appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Our Pets, Our Plates In defense of the furred and the hoofed The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American...
a year ago
97
a year ago
In defense of the furred and the hoofed The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Books I Read in October 2023 The five-day hospital stay breaking the month in half is likely invisible to anyone but me, but that...
a year ago
100
a year ago
The five-day hospital stay breaking the month in half is likely invisible to anyone but me, but that is why the fiction list is so mystery-heavy, and for that matter so long.  Many of these books, the post-surgery group, are not just short but light, well-suited for the invalid's...
The American Scholar
Lindsey Weber Relationships that define us The post Lindsey Weber appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
The Elysian
Who should control AI? Nonprofits aren't our only option.
a month ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Forty Three On March 28th 2021, I turned 43. My second pandemic birthday, I turned 42 shortly after San...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
On March 28th 2021, I turned 43. My second pandemic birthday, I turned 42 shortly after San Francisco went into lockdown. It feels like a lifetime has passed between now and then, and with a sense of deja vu, like it was yesterday. Except that I wasn't at home, and I was on the...
The Marginalian
Why Bats Shouldn’t Exist: The Limits of Knowledge, the Pitfalls of Prediction, and the Triumph of... Prediction is the sharpest tool the human animal has devised — the chisel with which we sculpted...
4 hours ago
1
4 hours ago
Prediction is the sharpest tool the human animal has devised — the chisel with which we sculpted survival out of chance, the fulcrum by which we lifted civilization out of survival. Among the greatest gifts of the imagination, that crowning curio of consciousness, is our ability...
The Elysian
How Silicon Valley got rich And how everyone else can get rich too.
a month ago
Ben Borgers
It's Fun to Do Things with Care
over a year ago
Steven Scrawls
Not As Giants Love Not As Giants Love Short story, ~2000 words A week ago, when I asked you if you still loved me, I...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Not As Giants Love Short story, ~2000 words A week ago, when I asked you if you still loved me, I thought the most painful thing you could’ve said was no. I don’t know if you remember, but when you said “Of course I still love you” and asked if I still loved you, I started to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Death, Indeed, Continually Hovers About Us' A high-school friend writes to ask what I remember of May 4, 1970. We would graduate in a month and...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
A high-school friend writes to ask what I remember of May 4, 1970. We would graduate in a month and go to university in the fall. The fear and excitement of that symbolic step toward adulthood was blunted by the killing of four students by Ohio National Guardsmen at Kent State...
Ploum.net
La colère de l’écrivain La colère de l’écrivain RAPPEL: je serai à Louvain-la-Neuve mardi 10 décembre à 19h à La Page...
7 months ago
14
7 months ago
La colère de l’écrivain RAPPEL: je serai à Louvain-la-Neuve mardi 10 décembre à 19h à La Page d’Après pour ma dernière rencontre de l’année. Rencontre Littéraire Bikepunk avec Ploum (mobilizon.fr) Comme je l’explique dans la suite de ce billet, le succès de Bikepunk a pris le...
Anecdotal Evidence
'At a Quarter a Tome' I owe a significant chunk of my education to the existence of paperback books. By “education” I...
4 weeks ago
20
4 weeks ago
I owe a significant chunk of my education to the existence of paperback books. By “education” I don’t mean what I pretended to do while in the company of professors, though many of them assigned books published in soft covers. I mean self-assigned literature, beginning as a kid...
Ben Borgers
Donating forks to the dining hall
a year ago
Wuthering...
Books Read in May 2024 – Some are certainly knowing what they are meaning, some are certainly not... A month without writing anything.  Plenty of reading, though. FICTIONS The Autobiography of an...
a year ago
94
a year ago
A month without writing anything.  Plenty of reading, though. FICTIONS The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912), James Weldon Johnson The Making of Americans (1925), Gertrude Stein – read over the course of months.  The quotation up above is from p. 783.  I will write about...
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
97
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.
The American Scholar
“water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The...
9 months ago
56
9 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Gerald R. Gill Papers
over 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
57
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 archives.design A digital archive of graphic design related items that are available on the Internet Archives. Visit...
11 months ago
10
11 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 →
The Elysian
Social Development > Self-Development We need one much more than the other.
6 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Image to Mesh Gradient Generate beautiful gradients from colors or from a photo. Visit original link → or View on...
10 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Hello windiness, my old friend Day 10: Sept 19, 2023 — It isn’t the first time. In fact, this is the fourth occurrence. At twelve...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 10: Sept 19, 2023 — It isn’t the first time. In fact, this is the fourth occurrence. At twelve minutes past midnight, wide awake and with the tent swaying like a rough flight, we make the call. We move downstairs into the rig. The culprit is always our dear friend (or...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Smart Quotes for Smart People Good typography uses smart quotes, not dumb quotes. — Jason Santa Maria Visit original link → or...
10 months ago
24
10 months ago
Good typography uses smart quotes, not dumb quotes. — Jason Santa Maria Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ All good things... Day 27: Oct 6, 2023 — As I drift off to sleep, I smell fire. I drowsily brush this off, equating it...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 27: Oct 6, 2023 — As I drift off to sleep, I smell fire. I drowsily brush this off, equating it to a possible nearby camper who ignores “No campfire” signs. The tent flap remains open, allowing for ventilation and for keeping overnight condensation to a minimum. In the middle...
This Space
Books of the year 2024 In order of being read. Giorgio Agamben – What I saw, heard, learned… One night, along Venice’s...
6 months ago
93
6 months ago
In order of being read. Giorgio Agamben – What I saw, heard, learned… One night, along Venice’s Zattere, watching the putrid water lap at the city’s foundations, I saw that we exist solely in the intermittence of our being, and that what we call I is just a shadow...
Ben Borgers
My Guilt for Useless Things
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Andrey Platonov's "Soul" - the universal happiness of the unhappy I read Andrey Platonov’s novel Chevengur (1929) not too long ago and the collection of stories Soul...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
I read Andrey Platonov’s novel Chevengur (1929) not too long ago and the collection of stories Soul (1935-46) last month.  Here we will have some notes.  These are the Robert and Elizabeth Chandler translations (four additional translators assist with Soul).  Those dates are for...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Departure Mono Departure Mono is a monospaced pixel font with a lo-fi technical vibe. Visit original link → or View...
10 months ago
11
10 months ago
Departure Mono is a monospaced pixel font with a lo-fi technical vibe. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The Marginalian
Raising Hare: The Moving Story of How a Helpless Creature Helped a Workaholic Wake Up from the... Narrow the aperture of your attention enough to take in any one thing fully, and it becomes a portal...
a month ago
15
a month ago
Narrow the aperture of your attention enough to take in any one thing fully, and it becomes a portal to everything. Anneal that attention enough so that you see whatever and whoever is before you free from expectation, unfiltered through your fantasies or needs, and it becomes...
The Marginalian
Uncaging the Bird in the Mind: William Henry Hudson and the Gift of the Ruin of Your Best Laid Plans “The mind is its own place, and in it self can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n,” wrote...
a week ago
11
a week ago
“The mind is its own place, and in it self can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n,” wrote Milton in Paradise Lost. Because the mind (which may in the end be a full-body phenomenon) is the cup that lifts the world to our lips to be tasted — a taste we call reality — it is...
The Marginalian
Against Self-Improvement: Adam Phillips on the Danger of Treating Ourselves as Pathological Patients... "So much depends on what we can make of what happens to us."
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
My Good Friends (Who Don't Know Me) Rumor has it you become like those you spend time with. Or “birds of a feather flock together”, or...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Rumor has it you become like those you spend time with. Or “birds of a feather flock together”, or “you are what you eat”. Maybe that last one was Hannibal Lector, having an old friend for dinner. Anyway, the person that you are is influenced by the people you spend time with....
Josh Thompson
Quotes from 'Spare the Child' Introduction Here’s quotes from Spare the Child: The Religeous Roots of Punishment and the...
5 months ago
24
5 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....
Ben Borgers
Why I Love Tailwind CSS
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Emerson on the Singular Enchantment of Indian Summer (and a Better Term for This Liminal Season... "There are days... wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the air, the heavenly bodies, and...
8 months ago
Josh Thompson
On Cleaner Controllers A few days ago, I worked on a project that was mostly about serving up basic store data (modeled...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
A few days ago, I worked on a project that was mostly about serving up basic store data (modeled after Etsy) to an API. We had a few dozen end-points, and all responses were in JSON. Most of the action happened inside of our controllers, and as you might imagine, our routes.rb...
The American Scholar
Terra Do Queixo The post Terra Do Queixo appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
What’s Not to Like? On similes, good and bad The post What’s Not to Like? appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Wuthering...
A draft Elizabethan Not Shakespeare syllabus In case yesterday’s invitation was a bit abstract, here is my current sense of a twenty-play...
a month ago
13
a month ago
In case yesterday’s invitation was a bit abstract, here is my current sense of a twenty-play Elizabethan Not Shakespeare syllabus that I would like to investigate beginning next fall.  I’ve read twelve of them. Please note that almost every date below should be preceded by “c.” ...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 A Less Rigorous Version of Friendship All of this is fine, but I’m less interested in this rigorous version of friendship than I am in a...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
All of this is fine, but I’m less interested in this rigorous version of friendship than I am in a softer, more accepting friendship that has more in common with caregiving. I am all too aware of my flaws; I don’t really need my friends to remind me of them. Rather than demand I...
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
22
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
The Elysian
Do we still want the future desired by the past? Why three socialist utopian novels are still relevant 100 years later.
9 months ago
Josh Thompson
Climbing in Cuba, 2019 A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go climbing in Cuba. Mark and Dave, walking back from...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go climbing in Cuba. Mark and Dave, walking back from climbing outside Viñales Locals crag, called “The roof of the world”. Stunning routes. because it was so hot, we spent a lot of time in this cave. Kristi and I tend to stick...
The Marginalian
On Play The necessities of survival make our lives livable, but everything that makes them worth living...
3 months ago
30
3 months ago
The necessities of survival make our lives livable, but everything that makes them worth living partakes of the art of the unnecessary: beauty (the cave was no warmer or safer for our paintings, and what about the bowerbird?), love (how easily we could propagate our genes without...
Astral Codex Ten
The Twins Join The Linguistic-Symbolic Order ...
2 months ago
sbensu
Enterprise sales meets product development What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide...
a year ago
16
a year ago
What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide and more of a cautionary tale.
Josh Thompson
Social skills are like any other skills Learning social skills are no different from learning cooking skills, or handstand skills. It...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Learning social skills are no different from learning cooking skills, or handstand skills. It helps to have exposure at a young age, but with time and effort, you can learn, and even master, cooking, handstands, and social skills. Why do social skills matter? Most people get...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Phone As Disruptive My phone doesn't follow me everywhere. It occupies the last place I left it. This happens when I...
10 months ago
14
10 months ago
My phone doesn't follow me everywhere. It occupies the last place I left it. This happens when I leave to go for a run, sometimes when I run errands, and often hours go by without it. This is occurring more and more. It feels light. I feel light. The literal weight of the phone...
The Marginalian
To Be a Person: Jane Hirshfield’s Playful and Poignant Poem About Bearing Our Human Condition "To be a person may be possible then, after all."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Hometown Heroes What if the goal is not to make it out of the neighborhood? The post Hometown Heroes appeared first...
a year ago
42
a year ago
What if the goal is not to make it out of the neighborhood? The post Hometown Heroes appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ We're not in Kansas anymore Day 20: Sept 29, 2023 — Alyssa and Craig take us to Post Coffee for a farewell coffee and tea. I...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 20: Sept 29, 2023 — Alyssa and Craig take us to Post Coffee for a farewell coffee and tea. I try to pay, but Craig literally holds me in place while Alyssa sneaks in with a credit card. We linger in the sun over drinks, and like most departures, say goodbye with the hopes...
Josh Thompson
Recommended Reading I’ve read many books over the years. Thousands. Here’s a few that I find myself...
a year ago
23
a year ago
I’ve read many books over the years. Thousands. Here’s a few that I find myself referencing/recommending.Periodically, I refresh this list. It’s changed over the years years. the list you are about to read is heavily reworked, based off this older list:...
The Marginalian
Love and Fear: A Stunning 17th-Century Poem About How to Live with the Transcendent Terror of Love "Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back."
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Three Android Apps I Use Every Day (and maybe you'll use them too) I’m not here to talk about Twitter and Instagram, which… I use too much. Lets talk about things that...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I’m not here to talk about Twitter and Instagram, which… I use too much. Lets talk about things that make my life better, and might do the same for you. (If you’re an iPhone user, just Google for the iOS version of the following tools. They’re all out there) Rewire App:...
Ben Borgers
Music at 20%
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Two Souls Within: Hermann Hesse on the Dual Life of the Creative Spirit "Like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a...
a year ago
27
a year ago
"Like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all who see it as something eternal and as a...
Josh Thompson
Illdefined Success is Unattainable We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting. If it doesn’t...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting. If it doesn’t seem daunting, it’s not much of a project, and you should either ramp it up until it’s daunting, or discard it. So - we have a daunting project. Now what? If you’re like me, you’ll...
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
15
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
“The Overture” The post “The Overture” appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Ben Borgers
Not Developer Enough
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Transcendent Brain: The Poetic Physicist Alan Lightman on Spirituality for the Science-Spirited A largehearted invitation to "stand on the precipice between the known and the unknown, without...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
A largehearted invitation to "stand on the precipice between the known and the unknown, without fear, without anxiety, but instead with awe and wonder at this strange and beautiful cosmos we find ourselves in."
The Marginalian
On Change and Denial "It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to...
a year ago
94
a year ago
"It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to accompany it like birds flocking before a storm."
Josh Thompson
Pry-ing into a Stack Trace I was recently working on a feature, committed what I thought was clean code, and started getting...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I was recently working on a feature, committed what I thought was clean code, and started getting errors. I git stashed, and re-ran my tests, and still got errors. Here’s the full stacktrace: > b ruby -Itest test/models/model_name_redacted_test.rb -n=/errors/ # Running tests...
The Marginalian
Miss Leoparda: A Painted Parable of the Third Way and How to Change the World When told that there are only two options on the table and when both are limiting, most people,...
4 months ago
29
4 months ago
When told that there are only two options on the table and when both are limiting, most people, conditioned by the option dispensary we call society, will choose the lesser of the two limitations. Some will try to find a third option to put on the table; they may or may not...
Escaping Flatland
How I write essays Notes on process
7 months ago
Ben Borgers
New in Superadmin: styling, images, rich text
over a year ago
Ploum.net
20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 2) 20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 2) Previously in "20 years of Linux on the Deskop" : Looking...
6 months ago
15
6 months ago
20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 2) Previously in "20 years of Linux on the Deskop" : Looking to make the perfect desktop with GNOME and Debian, a young Ploum finds himself joining a stealth project called "no-name-yet". The project is later published under the name...
The Marginalian
The Unphotographable: Richard Adams on the Singular Magic of Autumn There is a lovely liminality to autumn — this threshold time between the centripetal exuberance of...
9 months ago
35
9 months ago
There is a lovely liminality to autumn — this threshold time between the centripetal exuberance of summer and the season for tending to the inner garden, as Rilke wrote of winter. Autumn is a living metaphor for the necessary losses that shape our human lives: What falls away...
The Elysian
Every company should be owned by its employees Central States Manufacturing as a model for employee-ownership.
11 months ago
Josh Thompson
Practicing with Polylines This is a first pass at trying to do something interesting (repeatedly) with the same base...
10 months ago
26
10 months ago
This is a first pass at trying to do something interesting (repeatedly) with the same base primative, in this case, a “polyline”. Read the rest of this post, understand what we’re going for, then go to part 2: get your own polyline from strava. It’s not trivial to get, but its...
Josh Thompson
STOP YELLING ON THE INTERNET, or, A Better Use for the Caps Lock Key My current project is to learn to type using an alternative keyboard layout called Colemak. QWERTY...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
My current project is to learn to type using an alternative keyboard layout called Colemak. QWERTY has problems. Here are a few, shamelessly borrowed from Colemak.com It places very rare letters in the best positions, so your fingers have to move a lot more. It suffers from a...
This Space
39 Books: 1985 The first novel I read was Twice Shy by Dick Francis, reportedly the Queen Mother's favourite...
a year ago
82
a year ago
The first novel I read was Twice Shy by Dick Francis, reportedly the Queen Mother's favourite novelist (which tells you all you need to know about the intellectual energies of British Royal Family). It was the hardback edition below and tells the story of an Olympic champion...
The Elysian
Multi-country civilizations are good, actually A vibe shift in favor of annexation would be counterproductive 🌏
3 months ago
Ben Borgers
Twitter Not Found
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Doing Nothing Is Everything An areligious writer finds peace in a Benedictine monastery The post Doing Nothing Is Everything...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
An areligious writer finds peace in a Benedictine monastery The post Doing Nothing Is Everything appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is Still So Much I Do Not Know' I have encountered the neologism “egowriting” used to describe -- with approval -- such genres as...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
I have encountered the neologism “egowriting” used to describe -- with approval -- such genres as memoirs, diaries, journals, letters, blog posts, commonplace books, notebooks and essays--almost anything. In other words, a broad collection of forms in which the author and his...
The Marginalian
The Shape of Wonder: N.J. Berrill on the Universe, the Deepest Meaning of Beauty, and the Highest... "We, each of us, you and I, exhibit more of the true nature of the universe than any dead Saturn or...
10 months ago
This Space
Favourite books 2020 Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
Every time Dennis Cooper posts his favorite (sic) fiction and non-fiction of the year, it alone exceeds the number of books I'm able to read in a year let alone the number from which it was presumably narrowed down. This is why I suggested a couple of years ago such pages choose...
The Marginalian
Ursula K. Le Guin on Change, Menopause as Rebirth, and the Civilizational Value of Elders "Into the space ship, Granny."
a year ago
ben-mini
Platform or Point Solution? A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech...
4 months ago
41
4 months ago
A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech companies are so determined to become labeled as one. My definition of a platform is a tool that allows users to define and build their own things, which can be used by other...
Blog -...
Book Review - Zen in the Art of Archery Zen in the Art of Archery is described by John Stevens in his book Zen Bow, Zen Arrow as likely...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Zen in the Art of Archery is described by John Stevens in his book Zen Bow, Zen Arrow as likely being the most popular book about Japanese culture and martial arts ever. This is a bold statement I cannot contest, having read only three other books about Zen: the...
The Marginalian
How We Become Ourselves: Erik Erikson’s 8 Stages of Human Development It never ceases to stagger that some stroke of chance in the early history of the universe set into...
9 months ago
77
9 months ago
It never ceases to stagger that some stroke of chance in the early history of the universe set into motion the Rube Goldberg machine of events that turned atoms born in the first stars into you — into this temporary clump of borrowed stardust that, for the brief interlude between...
The Marginalian
How to Make America Great: A Visionary Manifesto from the Woman Who Ran for President in 1872 In 1872, half a century before American women could vote, Victoria Woodhull (September 23, 1838–June...
5 months ago
60
5 months ago
In 1872, half a century before American women could vote, Victoria Woodhull (September 23, 1838–June 9, 1927) ran for President, with Frederick Douglass as her running mate. Papers declared her candidacy “a brazen imposture, to be extinguished by laughter rather than by law.”...
The Marginalian
Eunice Newton Foote and the Birth of Climate Science: The Forgotten Woman Who Discovered the... On an anonymous desk in a spartan classroom of the pioneering Troy Female Seminary, a teenage girl...
a year ago
19
a year ago
On an anonymous desk in a spartan classroom of the pioneering Troy Female Seminary, a teenage girl with blue-grey eyes and an oceanic mind is bent over an astronomy book, preparing to revolutionize our understanding of the planet. The year is 1836. No university anywhere in the...
Steven Scrawls
"Progress" “Progress” The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched) answers to questions...
a year ago
18
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...
The Marginalian
Beautiful Bacteria: Mesmerizing Photomicroscopy of Earth’s Oldest Life-forms For as long as humans have been alive, we have mistaken the limits of our sense-perception for the...
8 months ago
62
8 months ago
For as long as humans have been alive, we have mistaken the limits of our sense-perception for the full extent of reality — thinking our galaxy the only one, because that was as far as we could see; thinking life impossible below 300 fathoms, because that was as far as we could...
The Elysian
A self-governing forest Terra0 thinks nature should become economically independent.
2 weeks ago
Astral Codex Ten
Claude Fights Back ...
6 months ago
Ben Borgers
Half a Slice of Apple Pie
over a year ago
The American Scholar
A Portrait of the Scholar The life of Ireland’s towering literary figure became a work of art in its own right The post A...
a month ago
8
a month ago
The life of Ireland’s towering literary figure became a work of art in its own right The post A Portrait of the Scholar appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Perry Bible...
Pop The post Pop appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
a year ago
This Space
Drowning is Fine by Darren Allen For reasons unclear to me at the time I re-read several novels by Aharon Appelfeld, the author born...
over a year ago
56
over a year ago
For reasons unclear to me at the time I re-read several novels by Aharon Appelfeld, the author born in 1932 to a German-speaking Jewish family in what was also Paul Celan’s hometown, Czernowitz, then in Romania, now in Ukraine, and who wrote exclusively in Hebrew after he had...
Escaping Flatland
A funny thing about curiosity Following your curiosity, you can bring something new and beautiful into the world as a gift to...
5 months ago
54
5 months ago
Following your curiosity, you can bring something new and beautiful into the world as a gift to others. But to go there you have to do things that others will think stupid and embarrassing.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Apple Maps on the web launches in beta Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access...
11 months ago
23
11 months ago
Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly from their browser. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
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...
9 months ago
20
9 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...