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The American Scholar
“The Vow” by Yuliya Musakovska Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Vow” by Yuliya Musakovska appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
40
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Vow” by Yuliya Musakovska appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
The Marginalian
The Dictionary Story: A Love Letter to Language Tucked Into a Delightful Fable about the Difficult... “Words belong to each other,” Virginia Woolf rasped in the only surviving recording of her voice — a...
7 months ago
42
7 months ago
“Words belong to each other,” Virginia Woolf rasped in the only surviving recording of her voice — a love letter to language as an instrument of thought and a medium of being. “Words are events, they do things, change things,” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a generation after her. To...
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On Tegmark's Mathematical Universe ...
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
Feedback pt. 2 Traditional Feedback is Explicit Feedback is the means by which any system makes changes. From the...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Traditional Feedback is Explicit Feedback is the means by which any system makes changes. From the gene pool to the swimming pool, feedback works to eliminate the insufficient and improve the sufficient. (See what I did with the “pool” thing?) Your car gives you feedback if the...
The Elysian
Maybe you need to have more fun "Fun" as essential to human flourishing.
12 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Can't Quite Recall Your Name' My first high-school reunion was postponed for a year by the COVID-19 lockdown. We met in 2021 for...
5 months ago
18
5 months ago
My first high-school reunion was postponed for a year by the COVID-19 lockdown. We met in 2021 for the fifty-first at a supper club on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland. Lake Erie was a hundred yards to the north and when conversation lagged, I could watch the ore boats moving down...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Piccalilli Front-end education for the real world. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
10 months ago
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
55
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 Marginalian
May Sarton on How to Cultivate Your Talent "A talent grows by being used, and withers if it is not used."
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Rick Rubin on Listening If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in...
11 months ago
22
11 months ago
If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in the experience. When the piece ends, you might be surprised by where you find yourself. You’ve been transported to another place. The place where the music lives. — Rick...
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...
The Marginalian
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating: An Uncommon Meditation on Presence and the Aperture of Wonder "Survival often depends on a specific focus: a relationship, a belief, or a hope balanced on the...
a year ago
Wuthering...
the calm vegetable clairvoyance of these great rooted lives - John Cowper Powys's trees -... Wolf Solent has pressed his beautiful young wife against an ash tree, presumably as a prelude to...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
Wolf Solent has pressed his beautiful young wife against an ash tree, presumably as a prelude to sex, but he begins rubbing the bark: ‘Human brains! Human knots of confusion!’ he thought.  ‘Why can’t we steal the calm vegetable clairvoyance of these great rooted lives?’ (Wolf...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 374 ...
3 months ago
The Marginalian
3 Kinds of Loneliness and 4 Kinds of Forever Loneliness is the fundamental condition of life — we are born by another, but born alone; die around...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
Loneliness is the fundamental condition of life — we are born by another, but born alone; die around others (if we are lucky and loved), but die alone; we spend our lives islanded in our one and only human experience — in these particular bodies and minds and circumstances drawn...
The American Scholar
Riding With Mr. Washington How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction The post Riding With Mr....
a year ago
32
a year ago
How my great-grandfather invented himself at the end of Reconstruction The post Riding With Mr. Washington appeared first on The American Scholar.
ben-mini
The Most Mind-Blowing Tech Moments of My Life This is a fun one. Below is a brief list of the most mind-blowing tech moments in my 27 years of...
a year ago
21
a year ago
This is a fun one. Below is a brief list of the most mind-blowing tech moments in my 27 years of life. There’s nothing too heady here- just an exercise in what might have made me get so into tech. 1. WarioWare: Twisted (2006) At my community center, waiting for my friend’s karate...
The Marginalian
Stunning Century-Old Illustrations of Tibetan Fairy Tales from the Artist Who Created Bambi Soulful art from stories that speak "to the childhood of all times and all races."
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
What is JumboCode?
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Without looking it up, what do you think? + links
8 months ago
Wuthering...
Books I Read in September 2023 Despite all evidence I hope to wrap up the Greek philosophy project within the next couple of...
a year ago
76
a year ago
Despite all evidence I hope to wrap up the Greek philosophy project within the next couple of weeks.  A medical deadline approaches.  That will help. As usual, I read good books.   PHILOSOPHY & SELF-HELP Letters from a Stoic (c. 60), Seneca - good timing for some...
Josh Thompson
Structural Holes and Good Ideas Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and academic literature, as applied to somewhat practical-ish domains. These pages serve as a brief overview of a paper, and I’ll be able to link to this paper down the road when I what...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Knowledge workers Perhaps it’s even better to acknowledge that there never were any knowledge workers. There have only...
11 months ago
10
11 months ago
Perhaps it’s even better to acknowledge that there never were any knowledge workers. There have only ever been workers. — Mandy Brown Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 When bats were wiped out, more human babies died, a study found. Here's why. Researchers find infant deaths increased after farmers used more pesticides to compensate for rise...
9 months ago
35
9 months ago
Researchers find infant deaths increased after farmers used more pesticides to compensate for rise of pests. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
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
Ben Borgers
Google Won the Kids
over a year ago
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...
This Space
39 Books: 1992 Poetry is a notable absence in my book lists. I assumed at this time that because novels excited my...
a year ago
58
a year ago
Poetry is a notable absence in my book lists. I assumed at this time that because novels excited my attention, poetry should do too. Under this assumption I bought and read Wallace Stevens' Collected Poems in this chunky Faber edition, adding an ugly plastic cover.* Many of...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Tracks of the Ancients I notice the tracks as I return from a brief scouting trip. When deciding on a campsite for the...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
I notice the tracks as I return from a brief scouting trip. When deciding on a campsite for the night, reconnaissance is necessary: one, to verify personal safety; two, to ensure picturesque views and surroundings, but distance between neighbors (if applicable); and three, to...
Astral Codex Ten
Everything-Except-Book Review Contest 2025 ...
4 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson Day 5: Sept 14, 2023 — “But you can't predict the weather, Ms. Jackson.” — Ms. Jackson, Outkast We...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 5: Sept 14, 2023 — “But you can't predict the weather, Ms. Jackson.” — Ms. Jackson, Outkast We leave Vernal, Utah, and pass through Dinosaur, Utah. It’s the tiny town that leads into one of the many routes towards Dinosaur National Monument. It’s home to some 1,500 dinosaur...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 HTML for People HTML isn’t only for people working in the tech field. It’s for anybody, the way documents are for...
8 months ago
11
8 months ago
HTML isn’t only for people working in the tech field. It’s for anybody, the way documents are for anybody. HTML is just another type of document. A very special one—the one the web is built on. — Blake Watson One of my classes in my Computer Science major in university was to...
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
44
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 Elysian
You’d still work if you didn’t have to But it would feel more like play.
11 months 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...
10 months ago
72
10 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.
This Space
A loss of problems Martin Amis' novels were among those I read when I began reading novels – one read what was being...
a year ago
22
a year ago
Martin Amis' novels were among those I read when I began reading novels – one read what was being talked about on television and in newspapers. Money was the first quickly followed by each and every one that preceded it, including the journalism in The Moronic Inferno, which I...
Anecdotal Evidence
'You There in Your Straight Row on Row' On Sunday, a friend and I, after lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant, visited Kaboom Books here...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
On Sunday, a friend and I, after lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant, visited Kaboom Books here in Houston. He left with a stack of books. I found one: Adelaide Crapsey: On the Life and Work of an American Master (Pleiades Press and Gulf Coast, 2018). I know her thanks only to...
The American Scholar
Diana Antohe Threads of memory and home The post Diana Antohe appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months 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
16
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Because the night belongs to us Day 18: Sept 27, 2023 — It’s our last full day. We extend our stay by two additional days due to my...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Day 18: Sept 27, 2023 — It’s our last full day. We extend our stay by two additional days due to my work obligations, so I need to be stationed somewhere. It’s also a good excuse to have extra family time. I have a call with Simon Collison to discuss True Ventures design work and...
The Marginalian
A Stone Is a Story: An Illustrated Love Letter to Deep Time and Earth’s Memory We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet...
a year ago
54
a year ago
We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet made a world largely by its rockiness. Rock gave us mountains and beaches, bridges and kitchen countertops, gave us the first Promethean fire that sparked civilization. A rock is...
The Elysian
120 million employee-owners in one generation We have a moonshot opportunity to make the bottom half way richer. Here’s how we take it.
a month ago
The American Scholar
Look Out! Why did it take so long to protect The post Look Out! appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
Wuthering...
Reading The Peony Pavilion with the teens in The Story of the Stone - That garden is a vast and... The teens living in the garden in the YA romantasy The Story of the Stone spend a lot of time...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
The teens living in the garden in the YA romantasy The Story of the Stone spend a lot of time reading forbidden books, much older YA romantasys.  These books are all famous classical Chinese plays.  Cao Xueqin gives a couple of chapters early on to their reading, including a list...
Wuthering...
My cancer - "It can’t be true! It can’t, but it is." Liver cancer.  That was a surprise.  I knew something was wrong, but I was not expecting that. Since...
a year ago
28
a year ago
Liver cancer.  That was a surprise.  I knew something was wrong, but I was not expecting that. Since the diagnosis last summer, since it was known for a fact that I had something serious, things have moved fast.  It has been like boarding a train.  Once in motion there is no way...
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
59
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
Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, and with Fangs: The Alchemy of Unrequited Love and the Story Behind... This essay is adapted from the nineteenth chapter of my book Figuring. In the first autumn of her...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
This essay is adapted from the nineteenth chapter of my book Figuring. In the first autumn of her thirties, Emily Dickinson wrote to her confidante and eventual editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson: I had a terror — since September — I could tell to none, and so I sing, as the Boy...
The Marginalian
An Antidote to the Anxiety About Imperfection: Parenting Advice from Mister Rogers "It’s part of being human to fall short of that total acceptance and ultimate understanding — and...
over a year ago
The Elysian
Who's qualified to save the world? Two climate dystopias on unlikeable saviors.
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Was a Good Moment of Remembrance' Out of the aether after twenty-six years came an email from Mikhail Iossel: “Greetings -- and...
2 months ago
8
2 months ago
Out of the aether after twenty-six years came an email from Mikhail Iossel: “Greetings -- and apologies for writing out of that metaphoric nowhere.” In May 1999, Mikhail was a writer-in-residence at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., and I was a reporter for that city’s...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dead Simple Sites The most minimal sites on the web, curated in one place. Visit original link → or View on...
a year ago
The American Scholar
Birthday Boy The post Birthday Boy appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
This Space
Dead Souls by Sam Riviere Even before one begins reading Sam Riviere’s first novel there is despondency as one registers that...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
Even before one begins reading Sam Riviere’s first novel there is despondency as one registers that the title is a duplication of the English translation of Nikolai Gogol’s Мёртвые души, the novel in which a character seeks to buy dead serfs from their owners but who have yet to...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 366.666 ...
5 months ago
The Perry Bible...
0 Percent Chance The post 0 Percent Chance appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
3 months ago
Josh Thompson
POODR Notes: Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance (Chapter 6) I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby . These are some notes from chapter 6,...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby . These are some notes from chapter 6, Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance; mostly these are for me, and they don’t intend to stand on their own. Read the book, work through chapter six, and then come back and read...
The Marginalian
The Strength to Remember and the Strength to Forget: James Baldwin on What Makes a Hero “Let everything happen to you,” wrote Rilke, “Beauty and terror.” It is not easy, this simple...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
“Let everything happen to you,” wrote Rilke, “Beauty and terror.” It is not easy, this simple surrender. The courage and vulnerability it takes make it nothing less than an act of heroism. Most of our cowardices and cruelties, most of the suffering we endure and inflict, stem...
Escaping Flatland
Life update + open thread and a few fragments of essays
a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Can we scale cultures that support learning? new essay in Asterisk
9 months ago
The American Scholar
The Redoubtable Bull Shark Reflecting on one of nature’s most dangerous predators The post The Redoubtable Bull Shark appeared...
a year ago
54
a year ago
Reflecting on one of nature’s most dangerous predators The post The Redoubtable Bull Shark appeared first on The American Scholar.
ribbonfarm
There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm I’m a little late to the party, but I just finished the wonderfully imaginative There Is No...
a year ago
22
a year ago
I’m a little late to the party, but I just finished the wonderfully imaginative There Is No Antimemetics Division (2020) by qntm. The premise is that our world is full of things with antimemetic properties. An antimeme is “an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by...
Josh Thompson
November 2016 Goals November 2016 Goals Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish....
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
November 2016 Goals Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish. I feel I owe you this warning. My November goals are an extension of my October goals. October was good ( October review) - I made progress on two of three projects, and one of...
The Marginalian
Bunny & Tree: A Tender Wordless Parable of Friendship and the Improbable Saviors That Make Life... Traversing the landscape of life on the wings of trust.
a year ago
The Marginalian
Terror, Tenderness, and the Paradoxes of Human Nature: How a Marmoset Saved Leonard and Virginia... The most discomposing thing about people capable of monstrous acts is that they too enjoy art, they...
a year ago
44
a year ago
The most discomposing thing about people capable of monstrous acts is that they too enjoy art, they too read to their children, they too can be moved to tears by music. The dissident poet Joseph Brodsky captured this as he contemplated the greatest antidote to evil, observing...
The American Scholar
“Spring” by J. R. Solonche Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Spring” by J. R. Solonche appeared first on The American...
a year ago
Wuthering...
"Socrates gone mad" - my hero Diogenes the Cynic He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing else, and was a sarcastic pain in the...
a year ago
27
a year ago
He lived in a jar, owned a staff and a cloak and nothing else, and was a sarcastic pain in the ass.  He took the example of Socrates to its limit.  Plato is the one who called him “Socrates gone mad,” but in a sense he is just the logical result of thinking through how Socrates...
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
57
10 months ago
The astonishing breadth of our passions The post For Want of Touch appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
21
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
Ploum.net
Pérenniser ma numérique éphémérité Pérenniser ma numérique éphémérité J’écris mon journal personnel à la machine à écrire. De simples...
7 months ago
14
7 months ago
Pérenniser ma numérique éphémérité J’écris mon journal personnel à la machine à écrire. De simples feuilles de papier que je fais relier chaque année et dont le contenu n’est nulle part en ligne. Pourtant, j’ai le sentiment que ce contenu a beaucoup plus de chances d’être un jour...
The Marginalian
The Power of a Thin Skin "To be thin-skinned is to feel keenly, to perceive things that might go unseen, unnoticed, that...
a year ago
27
a year ago
"To be thin-skinned is to feel keenly, to perceive things that might go unseen, unnoticed, that others might prefer not to notice."
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Marginalia: Search Engine This is an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to...
7 months ago
19
7 months ago
This is an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. More like this, please. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The Marginalian
Edward Abbey on How to Live and How to Die: Immortal Wisdom from the Park Ranger Who Inspired... The summer after graduating high school, knowing he would face conscription into the military as...
4 months ago
43
4 months ago
The summer after graduating high school, knowing he would face conscription into the military as soon as his eighteenth birthday arrived, Edward Abbey (January 29, 1927–March 14, 1989) set out to get to know the land he was being asked to die for. He hitchhiked and hopped freight...
The Marginalian
A Republic of the Sensitive: E.M. Forster on the Personal and Political Power of Empaths and the... "I believe in... an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to...
8 months ago
47
8 months ago
"I believe in... an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between them when they meet."
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On POSIWID ...
2 months ago
The American Scholar
From Las Cosas Nuevas by Ennio Moltedo The post From <em>Las Cosas Nuevas</em> by Ennio Moltedo appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
How to Move Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Kristi and I are moving to Colorado in July. We’ve taken three broad steps to make this move happen: We both are in process with new jobs I just started working remotely for Litmus, which means I can seamlessly transition to Colorado this summer. Kristi spent a few days last week...
Josh Thompson
Use an Alarm to Go to Bed Ironically, this is about going to bed early. See, it’s 10:40p, and I’m getting up tomorrow at 6:00....
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Ironically, this is about going to bed early. See, it’s 10:40p, and I’m getting up tomorrow at 6:00. So I’m looking at about 7 hours of sleep. This is perfect. But, that is only if I’m asleep in the next twenty minutes. I know how long it takes to get ready to leave in the...
The American Scholar
On Book August Wilson’s play just hit the big screen, but even greater rewards await on the page The post On...
7 months ago
50
7 months ago
August Wilson’s play just hit the big screen, but even greater rewards await on the page The post On Book appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle The premise of this multi-volume novel is simple: a modern-day French woman called Tara finds...
3 weeks ago
14
3 weeks ago
The premise of this multi-volume novel is simple: a modern-day French woman called Tara finds herself stuck inside the eighteenth day of a November. The nineteenth never appears. On the 121st iteration of the same day she begins to write by describing the sounds made by her...
The American Scholar
A Terrifying Delight Following Robert Frost into the depths The post A Terrifying Delight appeared first on The American...
a year ago
63
a year ago
Following Robert Frost into the depths The post A Terrifying Delight appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: How do we create the next Renaissance? Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is: How can we fund the next Renaissance? How can we create...
a year ago
42
a year ago
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is: How can we fund the next Renaissance? How can we create a world where artists are better funded and…
Josh Thompson
So you want to work remotely... Josh’s “rules” for getting a sweet remote job A few weeks ago, I met a fantastic guy who is...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Josh’s “rules” for getting a sweet remote job A few weeks ago, I met a fantastic guy who is contemplating next steps for work. He is great at what he does, and is thinking about what direction to go in his life. He’s young, and thought working remotely sounded pretty cool. I...
The Elysian
US states should have autonomy—like EU countries All we need to change is taxation.
3 months ago
Josh Thompson
Overcome (some) barriers in work with this magic phrase You’re sending an email to your boss about some decision point you’re facing. How should you word...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
You’re sending an email to your boss about some decision point you’re facing. How should you word it? Compare this wording: Let me know if my criteria are sound, or if you have any concerns. I’d like to get started as soon as possible. To this wording: Unless I hear otherwise,...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Grandstanding I love this moment of moments. Jen, Grant, and Ryan doing their own thing. The Grandstand in Death...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
I love this moment of moments. Jen, Grant, and Ryan doing their own thing. The Grandstand in Death Valley is an astonishing playa, and worth every single moment. Read on nazhamid.com or Reply via email
The Marginalian
The Half Room of Living and Loving When I can’t sleep, I read children’s books. One night, I discovered In the Half Room (public...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
When I can’t sleep, I read children’s books. One night, I discovered In the Half Room (public library) by Carson Ellis in my tsundoku — an impressionistic invitation into a world where only half of everything exists. Leafing through this quietly delightful treasure, I had a flash...
The Elysian
Yes, it can be profitable to sell print magazines and books Collectable print projects don't have to be an expensive vanity project.
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
Daily Exercise - Russian Kettlebells Exercise. It makes most people either cringe or salivate. Those of you who love exercising for the...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Exercise. It makes most people either cringe or salivate. Those of you who love exercising for the sake of exercising - you can stop reading now. This information is probably not relevant to you. Those of you who don’t like to exercise, but know you really should exercise...
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
26
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...
The Marginalian
“Little Women” Author Louisa May Alcott on the Creative Rewards of Being Single "Liberty is a better husband than love."
a year ago
Wuthering...
Philoctetes by Sophocles - Let me suffer what I must suffer Philoctetes by Sophocles (409 BCE), performed when the author was 87, which is perhaps why he is in...
over a year ago
60
over a year ago
Philoctetes by Sophocles (409 BCE), performed when the author was 87, which is perhaps why he is in a mood of reconciliation and healing.  Literal healing.  Philoctetes possesses the bow of Hercules.  Either the bow, or Philoctetes himself, or both – prophecies are ambiguous...
Josh Thompson
Letter to Two Climbers (Part 1) Hello! We met recently. (I gave Justin tape after he cut his toe and didn’t have a bandaid.) You and...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Hello! We met recently. (I gave Justin tape after he cut his toe and didn’t have a bandaid.) You and your partner were climbing a route near me and my partner. One of you (I’ll call Charles, because he had a British accent) was trying  so hard to figure out some moves high above...
Robert Caro
‘The Power Broker’ Is Finally Getting a Digital Edition. What Took So Long? Caro’s mammoth study of the urban planner Robert Moses is coming out as an e-book on the 50th...
3 months ago
15
3 months ago
Caro’s mammoth study of the urban planner Robert Moses is coming out as an e-book on the 50th anniversary of the biography’s publication.
The Marginalian
The Paradise Notebooks: A Poet and a Geologist’s Love Letter to Life Lensed Through a Mountain "Each world bears all the worlds we might find within it. If you understand one outcropping of...
a year ago
98
a year ago
"Each world bears all the worlds we might find within it. If you understand one outcropping of stone, or one wildflower, or one hummingbird — if we see our way along the tracery of cause and effect, the mystery of change and recreation — then we are led to everything we see, and...
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.
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...
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...
8 months ago
35
8 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...
Idle Words
Why Not Mars For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. — Richard Feynman Entrance to underground cavern on Pavonis Mons. HiRISE, 2011 The goal of this essay is to persuade you that we shouldn’t send human...
The American Scholar
Bony Ramirez Beautiful parasites The post Bony Ramirez appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Mirrored Malaysia After almost three years apart due to the pandemic, we were heartwarmingly reunited with my family...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
After almost three years apart due to the pandemic, we were heartwarmingly reunited with my family in August of 2022. It was an intense and dense ten days, spending almost all waking hours together: talking, eating, and watching the time go by as fast as it would arrive. I...
Josh Thompson
Primitive Obsession & Exceptional Values I’ve been working through Avdi Grimes’ Mastering the Object Oriented Mindset course. One of the...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I’ve been working through Avdi Grimes’ Mastering the Object Oriented Mindset course. One of the topics was using “whole values”, instead of being “primative obsessed”. The example Avdi gave was clear as day. He used a course with a duration attribute to show the...
Astral Codex Ten
Links For February 2025 ...
4 months ago
Steven Scrawls
I want to love fiction I want to love fiction I want to love fiction. I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I...
a year ago
18
a year ago
I want to love fiction I want to love fiction. I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I want to obsess over the craft of fiction, to pore over characterization and structure, to create stories that radiate color and humanity and hope. I want fiction to be a tool for...
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Cantos II and III - or just III, it turns out - And Cole and Swift, and little... A month ago I wrote about the first Canto of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  Now I will move through the...
a year ago
36
a year ago
A month ago I wrote about the first Canto of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  Now I will move through the Cantos two or three at a time, just leafing through the books, really, with luck getting at what Ovid is doing.  Cantos II and III today. Ovid established his cosmology and created...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Double Rainbow All the Way Day 1: Apr 14, 2024 — “That’s not rain, that’s snow!” And it is. Fat raindrops transform into plump...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 1: Apr 14, 2024 — “That’s not rain, that’s snow!” And it is. Fat raindrops transform into plump disintegrating flakes on the windshield as we continue our ascent into Tehachapi and before we negotiate the namesake pass. The temperature display in the rig reads 36°F and is...
The American Scholar
“The Overture” The post “The Overture” appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
An announcement, and a teaser (for you rock climbers) Here’s a clip from a video I shot today.  Can you guess what’s coming? (This is all going to happen...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Here’s a clip from a video I shot today.  Can you guess what’s coming? (This is all going to happen on The Climber’s Guide) (Warning to mobile users: big gif) In case you didn’t guess, or you guessed wrong… I’m shooting tons of video for a course. It’s going to be awesome. It’s...
Wuthering...
Orestes by Euripides - And what had seemed so right, / as soon as done, became / evil, monstrous,... I want to invite anyone interested to join me in reading Aristotle’s Poetics, the foundation of...
over a year ago
64
over a year ago
I want to invite anyone interested to join me in reading Aristotle’s Poetics, the foundation of Western literary criticism, influential to the present day and bizarrely dominant, almost sacred, for centuries.  I hope to write about it at the end of the month, having just reread...
The American Scholar
Mortal Coils We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable The post Mortal Coils appeared first on The American...
10 months ago
43
10 months ago
We aren’t alone in facing the inevitable The post Mortal Coils appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Lessons From Harlem A white blues player’s streetside education The post Lessons From Harlem appeared first on The...
4 months ago
12
4 months ago
A white blues player’s streetside education The post Lessons From Harlem appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
You Might Be Right, But Shut Up
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
How to think in writing Part 1: The thought behind the thought
a year ago
The Marginalian
Jealousy and Its Antidote: Pioneering Psychiatrist Leslie Farber on the Tangled Psychology of Our... "Every jealous person knows jealousy to be a brutally degrading experience and resists with all his...
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
What problem should you be working on now? How to filter problems worth solving from problems worth quitting?
a month ago
The American Scholar
Moondance Experience the marvel that is The post Moondance appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
The Marginalian
There Was a Shadow: A Lyrical Illustrated Celebration of the Changing Light, in the World and in the... “Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty,” Junichiro Tanizaki wrote in the 1933 Japanese...
a year ago
58
a year ago
“Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty,” Junichiro Tanizaki wrote in the 1933 Japanese classic In Praise of Shadows. As a physical phenomenon, shadows are one of the most beguiling phenomena of nature, emissaries of the entwined history of light and consciousness; as...
The American Scholar
The One Who Got Away The post The One Who Got Away appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
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...
9 months ago
Josh Thompson
Quotes from 'Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving', by Pete Walker I’ve found Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving to be deeply helpful. Some of you,...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I’ve found Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving to be deeply helpful. Some of you, many of you, have blessed me and cared for me in kind ways, sometimes with very little knowledge of what was going on, or why I was the way that I was. Thank you. I’ve been...
Blog -...
Book Review - Dancing Naked in the Mind Field Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is reminiscent of another Nobel Prize winning autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!. Dr. Mullis and Dr. Feynman had a great deal in common, including their incomprehensible...
Ben Borgers
Information Distribution
over a year ago
The Elysian
You can collect CITY STATE now The digital and print editions are now available.
2 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Something Irrepressibly Celebratory' A longtime reader of Anecdotal Evidence has commented on my March 1 post:  “One of my...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
A longtime reader of Anecdotal Evidence has commented on my March 1 post:  “One of my worst apprehensions about my son’s college education came true in his freshman English class. The professor brought up Lamb only to highlight something he said that would strike modern...
Blog -...
Book Review - Shots from the Hip In the fields of Taoism, herbalism, and Chinese culture, Daniel Reid is a legendary author who has...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
In the fields of Taoism, herbalism, and Chinese culture, Daniel Reid is a legendary author who has written books that have changed the course of lives. His most recent publication is a two-book memoir entitled Shots from the Hip, a colourful account of his many exotic...
The American Scholar
Under a Spell Everlasting Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, published a century ago, tells of a world unable to free itself from...
7 months ago
43
7 months ago
Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain, published a century ago, tells of a world unable to free itself from the cataclysm of war The post Under a Spell Everlasting appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 High Desert Road Map From Morongo Valley to 29 Palms, there’s plenty to explore. Here are a few of our favorite...
11 months ago
16
11 months ago
From Morongo Valley to 29 Palms, there’s plenty to explore. Here are a few of our favorite places. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Things Which Make a Life of Ease' R.L. Barth, our finest living epigrammist (admittedly, not a vast job description), has sent me his...
a month ago
13
a month ago
R.L. Barth, our finest living epigrammist (admittedly, not a vast job description), has sent me his translation of a well-known epigram by Martial, the Roman master of the pithy form. Bob found it among his papers and doesn’t remember making it. “[T]ranslating something [Ben]...
The American Scholar
Lift Off The post Lift Off appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The Marginalian
A Spell Against Stagnation: John O’Donohue on Beginnings "Our very life here depends directly on continuous acts of beginning."
a year ago
The Marginalian
Comet & Star: A Cosmic Fable about the Rhythms and Consolations of Friendship People pass through our lives and change us, tilting our orbit with their own. Sometimes, if the...
8 months ago
62
8 months ago
People pass through our lives and change us, tilting our orbit with their own. Sometimes, if the common gravitational center is strong enough, they return, they stay. Sometimes they travel on. But they change us all the same. The great consolation of the cosmic order is the...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Alpha Optimization Polartec Alpha was designed to be a batting insulation, encapsulated between two shells. Alpha...
8 months ago
10
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The Myth of “Do What You Love” The most striking point, to me, from Tokumitsu’s book is how easily the myth of ’do what you love’...
10 months ago
11
10 months ago
The most striking point, to me, from Tokumitsu’s book is how easily the myth of ’do what you love’ cracks when you press on it. The underlying message of such a myth, she writes, is that ‘each individual’s specialness will guide him or her to work that he or she enjoys and that...
The American Scholar
The Murderer as Everyman Arthur Fleck’s rise and fall The post The Murderer as Everyman appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
The American Scholar
“Snow” by Louis MacNeice Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Snow” by Louis MacNeice appeared first on The American...
6 months ago
The Marginalian
The Middle Passage: A Jungian Field Guide to Finding Meaning and Transformation in Midlife "Our task at midlife is to be strong enough to relinquish the ego-urgencies of the first half and...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poetry Is Sound Before It Is Anything Else' “A word so delicious that one wishes it had cheeks, so as to kiss them.” That’s Jules...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
“A word so delicious that one wishes it had cheeks, so as to kiss them.” That’s Jules Renard, writing in his journal in February 1888. Perhaps only a certain sort of writer, one with a musical sense who is susceptible to the pure sound of words divorced from their meaning, can...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Following Pages Are Frankly Bookish' If you're familiar with Andrew Lang (1844-1912) at all, it’s likely as a collector of folk and fairy...
a month ago
15
a month ago
If you're familiar with Andrew Lang (1844-1912) at all, it’s likely as a collector of folk and fairy tales. I remember as a kid reading some of his twelve “Coloured” Fairy Books. He was also a prolific poet and critic, though that work is largely forgotten. He remains best known...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Think, to Read, to Meditate, to React' Often, I think of the late Adam Zagajewski urging young poets – and by extension, the rest of us --...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
Often, I think of the late Adam Zagajewski urging young poets – and by extension, the rest of us -- to “read everything.” The suggestion is not dictatorial. The Pole even admits he is a “chaotic reader,” as most of us are. I’ve never been systematic about much of anything...
The Marginalian
How to Be a Stone: Three Poems for Trusting Time If you want to befriend time — which is how you come to befriend life — turn to stone. Climb a...
a week ago
12
a week ago
If you want to befriend time — which is how you come to befriend life — turn to stone. Climb a mountain and listen to the conversation between eons encoded in each stripe of rock. Walk a beach and comb your fingers through the golden dust that was once a mountain. Pick up a...
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
56
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.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Seattle The heat was rising in Northern California and Oregon with the advent of an appropriately named heat...
11 months ago
11
11 months ago
The heat was rising in Northern California and Oregon with the advent of an appropriately named heat dome raising temperatures into the triple digits. Jen and I found ourselves driving further north to visit Seattle. We’d been camping with our friend Grant in the Mount Shasta...
Wuthering...
Languages and literature - Finnegans Wake becomes unbeurrable from age More keys.  As Anna Livia Plurabelle says or thinks or dreams at the very end of Finnegans...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
More keys.  As Anna Livia Plurabelle says or thinks or dreams at the very end of Finnegans Wake, “The keys to.”  She is falling asleep so she unfortunately does not finish the sentence.  Some keys to the Wake: languages, literature, and themes. Languages In “Pierre Menard, Author...
The Marginalian
The Majesty of Mountains and the Mountains of the Mind Mountains are some of our best metaphors for the mind and for the spirit, but they are also living...
a month ago
8
a month ago
Mountains are some of our best metaphors for the mind and for the spirit, but they are also living entities, sovereign and staggering. I remember the first time I saw a mountain from an airplane — forests miniaturized to moss, rivers to capillaries, the Earth crumpled like a...
The American Scholar
Raspberry Heaven A yearly back-yard harvest opens a door to the divine The post Raspberry Heaven appeared first on...
4 months ago
11
4 months ago
A yearly back-yard harvest opens a door to the divine The post Raspberry Heaven appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
3 months ago
38
3 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...
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
85
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 American Scholar
Paradise Reclaimed Olivia Laing on the dark histories and utopian dreams of the flower bed The post Paradise Reclaimed...
11 months ago
66
11 months ago
Olivia Laing on the dark histories and utopian dreams of the flower bed The post Paradise Reclaimed appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Pry Tips and Tricks the following is cross-posted from development.wombatsecurity.com. I wrote about some handy extra...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
the following is cross-posted from development.wombatsecurity.com. I wrote about some handy extra features I’ve found using Pry much of my day. I joined the Wombat team a few months ago, and have been working on the threatsim product. We had a bit of a bug backlog, and myself and...
The Marginalian
Yellow Butterfly: A Moving Wordless Story About War, Hope, and Keeping the Light Alive In his little-known correspondence with Freud about war and human nature, Einstein observed that...
a year ago
21
a year ago
In his little-known correspondence with Freud about war and human nature, Einstein observed that every great moral and spiritual leader in the history of our civilization has shared “the great goal of the internal and external liberation of man* from the evils of war” as Freud...
The American Scholar
Coming Home Craig Thompson digs up memories of farm labor and the history of ginseng The post Coming Home...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
Craig Thompson digs up memories of farm labor and the history of ginseng The post Coming Home appeared first on The American Scholar.
Blog -...
Book Review - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the masculine. Published in 1990, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover introduces readers to the concept of mature masculine archetypes and their immature shadows. The authors, Robert...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dragönsteel Inspired by heavy metal logos, 1980s role-playing games, and maybe dragons and dusty, leather-bound...
11 months ago
11
11 months ago
Inspired by heavy metal logos, 1980s role-playing games, and maybe dragons and dusty, leather-bound books, Dragönsteel is our take on a modern-ish blackletter typeface. — Dan Cederholm Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The Elysian
How WeFunder democratizes business ownership A discussion with Jonny Price, president of WeFunder.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
Teach the Conflicts It’s natural—and right—to foster The post Teach the Conflicts appeared first on The American...
9 months ago
72
9 months ago
It’s natural—and right—to foster The post Teach the Conflicts appeared first on The American Scholar.
sbensu
There Is No Antimemetics Division Notes on the book.
9 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Your Point Is to Be Incomplete, Fugitive, Incidental.” “And I very much like your love of pleasure, and your humour and malice: it is so delightful to live...
a month ago
16
a month ago
“And I very much like your love of pleasure, and your humour and malice: it is so delightful to live in a world that is full of pictures, and incidental divertissements, and amiable absurdities. Why shouldn’t things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we...
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Filters Our guard is up. Our filters are activated. Our default mode is suspicion. — Jeremy Keith Visit...
10 months ago
10
10 months ago
Our guard is up. Our filters are activated. Our default mode is suspicion. — Jeremy Keith Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Ben Borgers
60 kHz
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
Compatible Observations of Great Men Andrew Taylor on Charles Montagu Doughty, author of Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888): “He appealed...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Andrew Taylor on Charles Montagu Doughty, author of Travels in Arabia Deserta (1888): “He appealed instinctively to the past, against what he saw as the corruption of language, manners and morality of his own time, but Travels in Arabia Deserta is not backward-looking for its own...
Josh Thompson
The Millionaire Next Door I’m struggling to know what to write about The Millionaire Next Door. It’s got many wonderful...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I’m struggling to know what to write about The Millionaire Next Door. It’s got many wonderful traits, and I strongly recommend that you read it (I wouldn’t mention it otherwise) but it’s got some flaws. I’m afraid if I focus on the flaws, I’ll turn people off from it that might...
The American Scholar
Three Poems The post Three Poems appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
The Marginalian
We Are the Music, We Are the Spark: Pioneering Biologist Ernest Everett Just on What Makes Life... "Life is exquisitely a time-thing, like music."
a year ago
sbensu
APIs as ladders APIs are hard to learn. If you think about the learning curve of your API, you can design one that...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
APIs are hard to learn. If you think about the learning curve of your API, you can design one that works for beginners, novices, and experts.
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...
ben-mini
Making My SQL Skills Obsolete Quick Update: I updated my domain to ben-mini.com! All old URLs and the RSS feed under...
6 months ago
78
6 months ago
Quick Update: I updated my domain to ben-mini.com! All old URLs and the RSS feed under ben-mini.github.io will automatically redirect, so no changes are needed on your end. By far, the most useful LLM app I’ve made is the Kibu Schema God: I try not to make my posts too...
Astral Codex Ten
How To Stop Worrying And Learn To Love Lynn's National IQ Estimates ...
5 months ago
Ploum.net
La conjuration de la fierté ignorante La conjuration de la fierté ignorante Les scientifiques, les vulgarisateurs, les professeurs...
7 months ago
14
7 months ago
La conjuration de la fierté ignorante Les scientifiques, les vulgarisateurs, les professeurs consacrent leur vie à lutter contre l’ignorance. Mais l’ignorance n’est pas vraiment le problème. Ce qui est dangereux c’est lorsqu’elle se camoufle. Lorsqu’elle se transforme en...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Ledge Itself Invents the Leap' Good hearts try to talk us out of phobias. After all, people are naïve about the powers of...
6 days ago
5
6 days ago
Good hearts try to talk us out of phobias. After all, people are naïve about the powers of rationalism: “Explain it, and it goes away.” As a kid I fell for that, almost literally, when I tried to muscle my way with sheer will power past the Terminal Tower in downtown...
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
48
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.
Astral Codex Ten
Can You Hate Everyone In Rome? ...
6 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 360 ...
6 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Tag, you're it Tagged by Scott and Luke and in thoughtful return, I’m answering the Blog Questions Challenge here....
5 months ago
46
5 months ago
Tagged by Scott and Luke and in thoughtful return, I’m answering the Blog Questions Challenge here. Some of these answers may overlap with the answers I gave Manu for his People & Blogs series, so I’ll do my best to do something a bit different. Please visit Manu’s P&B site...
The Marginalian
How to Love the World More: George Saunders on the Courage of Uncertainty "In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often...
over a year ago
86
over a year ago
"In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often slanted) information, where certainty is often mistaken for power, what a relief it is to be in the company of someone confident enough to stay unsure (that is, perpetually curious)."
Josh Thompson
Make Hard Things Easier by Removing Friction Friction resists movement. Lots of things count as (negative) friction. Anything that consumes...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Friction resists movement. Lots of things count as (negative) friction. Anything that consumes resources (time, energy, money, physical goods.) Anything that causes negative feelings (shame, doubt, guilt, fear.) Anything that could have a downside (losing money, respect, your...
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....
Josh Thompson
An Open Letter about Golden 2022-06-15 Update I wrote this document the first time in a very small number of minutes, three...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
2022-06-15 Update I wrote this document the first time in a very small number of minutes, three weeks ago, on my way out the door on a particularly busy day. I follow “write it now”. I’ve gotten to discuss this letter with a few different people, because I mentioned it in email....
The Elysian
This Chinese philosopher reformed politics in one generation Mòzǐ replaced his corrupt government with a humanist one.
6 months ago
The Marginalian
What Makes a Compassionate World: Sophie de Grouchy’s Visionary 18th-Century Appeal to Parents and... The morning after the 2016 presidential election, I awoke to terrifying flashbacks of my childhood...
a year ago
60
a year ago
The morning after the 2016 presidential election, I awoke to terrifying flashbacks of my childhood under a totalitarian dictatorship. Desperate for assurance that the future need not hold the total moral collapse of democracy, I reached out to my eldest friend for perspective....
The Marginalian
The Art of Allowing Change: Neurobiologist Susan R. Barry’s Moving Correspondence with Oliver Sacks... There is a thought experiment known as Mary’s Room, brilliant and haunting, about the abyss between...
a year ago
36
a year ago
There is a thought experiment known as Mary’s Room, brilliant and haunting, about the abyss between felt experience and our mental models of it, about the nature of knowledge, the mystery of consciousness, and the irreducibility of aliveness: Living in a black-and-white chamber,...
Wuthering...
Many of Plato's early Socratic dialogues - It was quite lovely. I’ve been enjoying Plato’s dialogues recently.  I’d read some of them before, at university or...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
I’ve been enjoying Plato’s dialogues recently.  I’d read some of them before, at university or during my last Greek phase 25 years ago, and this time I hope to read almost all of them. I will make some notes on them in a few posts.  Give them a tag if nothing else, and make some...
The Marginalian
Octavia Butler on Religion and the Spirituality of Symbiosis "On many levels, we wind up being strengthened by what we join, or what joins us, as well as by what...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Doubly Parasocial Relationships
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Grow Up: Nick Cave’s Life-Advice to a 13-Year-Old "Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world... Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a...
over a year ago
75
over a year ago
"Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world... Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a regular basis, so that getting awed is habitual and becomes a state of being."
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Midlife Malaise The past few days have felt heavy. In a weird headspace, floating in the middle of space between a...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
The past few days have felt heavy. In a weird headspace, floating in the middle of space between a destination or goal, or rather, a state I aspire to, but seeing a road ahead of which the length is unknown. It feels like a lot of things have been taken, removed, or no longer...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Bad Apple Artworks Everything you see here is made by myself by hand. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 369 ...
4 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 355.5 ...
7 months ago
This Space
Favourite books 2022 This selection does not include those books I enjoyed, that asinine dilution poured into innumerable...
over a year ago
75
over a year ago
This selection does not include those books I enjoyed, that asinine dilution poured into innumerable books of the year lists, though I enjoyed those not included in this selection. Jon Fosse – Septology Thomas Bernhard – The Rest is Slander "we are concealing a secret, a secret...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Balancing Tools and Culture A few weeks ago, a timely project at work rallied almost everyone to be “all hands on deck.” My...
a year ago
11
a year ago
A few weeks ago, a timely project at work rallied almost everyone to be “all hands on deck.” My immediate team uses Slack, having transitioned away from another longstanding project management platform [1]. The larger team has used this platform for years, and it contains a...
Ben Borgers
“you have a lack of deadlines”
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Road Hunting Sometimes I look at past images and marvel at what’s there. In this case, the marvel came from the...
over a year ago
9
over a year ago
Sometimes I look at past images and marvel at what’s there. In this case, the marvel came from the fact that we (Jen, Grant, and Ryan) drove this trail after we spent the night from where this was taken. Read on nazhamid.com or Reply via email
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
30
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
Greg Ito The life cycle of a candle The post Greg Ito appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 days ago
Naz Hamid
Quality, Maintenance & Craft We are shokunin. Last week I was in Ojai, California, for True’s Founder Camp.[1] James Freeman,...
3 months ago
35
3 months ago
We are shokunin. Last week I was in Ojai, California, for True’s Founder Camp.[1] James Freeman, founder of Blue Bottle Coffee was in conversation with Jeff Veen, and one of the attendees asked him: “How do you maintain such high quality?” Freeman answers, “‘Maintaining’ is a...
The American Scholar
Camouflage The post Camouflage appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Simplify, simplify, simplify Kristi and I stumbled upon the realization that we’ve become minimalists. And it is exciting. We...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Kristi and I stumbled upon the realization that we’ve become minimalists. And it is exciting. We live in a one-bedroom apartment. It is spacious, for a one-bedroom, but compared to anything larger than a one-bedroom apartment, it is small. We managed to pack it full of stuff in...
Ben Borgers
Sunk Cost Chinese
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
A Retrospective on Seven Months at Turing Collection of thoughts on Turing It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
Collection of thoughts on Turing It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software engineering program, and it’s been a journey. In no particular order, I’m throwing down thoughts in three general categories: What went well What didn’t go well What I might have...
This Space
The Lascaux Notebooks by Jean-Luc Champerret Lascaux, a placename standing for the abyssal revelation of the cave paintings discovered there...
over a year ago
74
over a year ago
Lascaux, a placename standing for the abyssal revelation of the cave paintings discovered there after millennia in darkness, and Notebooks, suggesting a private endeavour, preparation, a work to come. While neither is secret as such, neither was meant for the light. Two intrigues...
The Elysian
I’d rather have an investor than a publishing contract In pursuit of a better book deal (and record deal and podcast deal...)
a year ago
The Marginalian
Any Common Desolation "You may have to break your heart, but it isn’t nothing to know even one moment alive."
3 months ago
The Marginalian
Nature’s Oldest Mandolin: The Poetic Science of How Cicadas Sing “The use of music,” Richard Powers wrote, “is to remind us how short a time we have a body” — a...
a year ago
88
a year ago
“The use of music,” Richard Powers wrote, “is to remind us how short a time we have a body” — a truth nowhere more bittersweet than in the creature whose body is the oldest unchanged musical instrument on Earth: a tiny mandolin silent for most of its existence, then sonorous with...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ IRL Day 6: Sept 15 2023 Longmont, CO & Boulder, CO — I’ve known Gino Zahnd via the internet for a long,...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Day 6: Sept 15 2023 Longmont, CO & Boulder, CO — I’ve known Gino Zahnd via the internet for a long, long time now. We’ve never met in person, but our design and cycling circles overlap, and we share many mutual friends. We started chatting regularly during the pandemic, and I...
The Marginalian
The Art of the Sacred Pause and Despair as a Catalyst of Regeneration Just as there are transitional times in the life of the world — dark periods of disorientation...
6 months ago
41
6 months ago
Just as there are transitional times in the life of the world — dark periods of disorientation between two world systems, periods in which humanity loses the ability to comprehend itself and collapses into chaos in order to rebuild itself around a new organizing principle — there...
This Space
Proust regained I recommend very highly for anyone who has read or not read In Search of Lost Time Brian Nelson's...
a year ago
24
a year ago
I recommend very highly for anyone who has read or not read In Search of Lost Time Brian Nelson's The Swann Way, the first volume in a new translation of the entire novel by diverse hands, in this fine paperback from Oxford World's Classics. His translation of the chapter Swann...
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On AI Geoguessr ...
a month ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Living Well as a Practice Quality is my third focus area, extending beyond just food choices. I’m being more intentional about...
6 months ago
19
6 months ago
Quality is my third focus area, extending beyond just food choices. I’m being more intentional about the media I consume and the things I bring into my life. This means fewer impulse purchases, more thoughtful choices about what I read and watch, and a general shift toward...
The Elysian
“Friends” as the ideal community The one where communes aren't the answer.
a year ago
The American Scholar
Celebrating an American Icon The post Celebrating an American Icon appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
Ben Borgers
Music at 20%
over a year ago
Wuthering...
What has happened to me may well be a good thing - the death of Socrates Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, the extended version of the death of Socrates.  These texts,...
over a year ago
61
over a year ago
Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, the extended version of the death of Socrates.  These texts, especially the last three, are a large part of the fame of Socrates, the reason he is an exemplar of the wise man to this day.  He asked annoying questions, he rejected material...
sbensu
On becoming a person (book) It reframes therapy as a relationship instead of a treatment.
7 months ago
Josh Thompson
Resources for People with Jobs RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
RESOURCES FOR PEOPLE WITH JOBS You spend most of your waking hours at work. So, spend a few of those waking hours when you’re not at work thinking about how to improve the hours that you are working. Often, improving your work means you can improve your work conditions and...
The American Scholar
Island Royalty A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
24
7 months ago
A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Upgrade your job So, apparently I send a lot of email about people trying to get cool jobs. Here’s yet another email...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
So, apparently I send a lot of email about people trying to get cool jobs. Here’s yet another email I sent to a friend, recorded here.  Hi [redacted], First I want to highlight is that flexible/remote jobs are just like normal jobs, but more people want them, so the companies...
The Elysian
Democrats Need a Mamdani-Type to Win If you're still talking about his rent freeze and grocery policies, you're missing the point.
a week ago
Josh Thompson
Mythical Creatures: Refactoring wizard.rb 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
Am I an anarchist? Letters to an anarchist, part seven.
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Intensely and Permanently Interested in Literature' Another request for a reading list from a young reader. Any reply will be incomplete and...
5 months ago
22
5 months ago
Another request for a reading list from a young reader. Any reply will be incomplete and risk discouraging aspiring literati. The only infallible inducement to literature is personal pleasure, a notoriously subjective criterion. I love Gibbon and Doughty, and you may find them...
Josh Thompson
Be a little better at personal email The next bunch of posts will be me “clearing out the drawers” of notes I have scattered across my...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
The next bunch of posts will be me “clearing out the drawers” of notes I have scattered across my phone, computer, and brain. There is no unifying theme to what will be written here. Three recommendations to email better TL;DR Email should usually be as short as possible. More of...
The American Scholar
“To David, About His Education” by Howard Nemerov Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “To David, About His Education” by Howard Nemerov appeared...
8 months ago
60
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “To David, About His Education” by Howard Nemerov appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Guide Him in the Real World' In 1899, Edwin Arlington Robinson read Thoreau’s Walking, a work based on an 1851 lecture...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
In 1899, Edwin Arlington Robinson read Thoreau’s Walking, a work based on an 1851 lecture published posthumously in 1862. Robinson was not impressed by his fellow New Englander. He condemned Thoreau’s “glorified world-cowardice” in a letter to his friend Daniel Gregory...
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...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Fairy Tale Tree Creativity is at bottom the combinatorial work of memory and imagination. All of our impressions,...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Creativity is at bottom the combinatorial work of memory and imagination. All of our impressions, influences, and experiences — every sight we have ever seen, every book read, every landscape walked, every love loved — become seeds for ideas we later combine and recombine,...
Josh Thompson
A Five-Hour Experiment Josh Kaufman wrote an excellent book called The First 20 Hours. In it, he carefully plots out a...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Josh Kaufman wrote an excellent book called The First 20 Hours. In it, he carefully plots out a handful of experiments to acquire a reasonable amount of skill in a new thing in twenty hours. He studied yoga, windsurfing, programming, Colemak typing, a form of Chinese chess...
This Space
"When now?" Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on...
over a year ago
74
over a year ago
Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on social media and literary podcasts, and have appeared multiple times in newspaper Books of the Year choices and on prize shortlists, and one that even won a prize. I wanted to see...
The American Scholar
Just Yesterday The post Just Yesterday appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
This Space
The disaster of writing: My Weil by Lars Iyer "When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone...
a year ago
35
a year ago
"When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone starts to ring" says the blurb to her recent book subtitled Stories of Love, Loss and Hope from an Expert in Disaster, and goes on to report rapturous praise from critics and...
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
Ben Borgers
My Office Makes Me Feel Stupid
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Wild Iris: Louise Glück on the Door at the End of Your Suffering "Whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice."
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Science of What Made You You, with a Dazzling Poem Read by David Byrne "Look at the clever things we have made out of a few building blocks — O fabulous continuum."
9 months ago
The American Scholar
Heart of Semi-Darkness A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors The post Heart of Semi-Darkness appeared first on The...
10 months ago
47
10 months ago
A writer’s delectable quest for rare flavors The post Heart of Semi-Darkness appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Week 3: The dream pitch
a year ago
The American Scholar
Cats and Dogs The post Cats and Dogs appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
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."
Josh Thompson
`ls` command to show directory contents I like to use the tree command on my local machine when trying to peek into the structure and...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I like to use the tree command on my local machine when trying to peek into the structure and contents of a given directory. tree -L 2 will [L]ist recursively everything [2] levels deep from your current directory. The output is nicely formatted like this: > tree -L 2 . ├──...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Making Icons Fresh We discussed metaphysics like… how it felt to tap them, with and without shadow. We endlessly...
9 months ago
23
9 months ago
We discussed metaphysics like… how it felt to tap them, with and without shadow. We endlessly fiddled with shadows, geometric and visual sizes, gradients, colors, border radii, and lighting concepts. Our obsession to get them just right went far beyond reason. An interesting...
Blog -...
Book Review - The Surrender Experiment With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this eloquently penned biography of his “journey into life’s perfection”, he demonstrates the beauty that life can provide for us when we are not solely guided by our logical,...
The American Scholar
Learning to Be Social What might Rousseau teach us about how to live with others? The post Learning to Be Social appeared...
4 months ago
13
4 months ago
What might Rousseau teach us about how to live with others? The post Learning to Be Social appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Prototyping an AI-powered note-taking app
over a year ago
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
66
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."
Anecdotal Evidence
'I’ve Been Setting the Table for the Dead' “Sometimes the what takes over so much that the how disappears. I think poetry works best when these...
3 weeks ago
13
3 weeks ago
“Sometimes the what takes over so much that the how disappears. I think poetry works best when these are indistinguishable, when they keep such good balance that you don't feel you're being preached to or grasping at the abstract.”  Back in the early 1990s I had a chance to meet...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Ernie Is Our Co-Pilot Hello. You’re receiving this long-dormant-now-re-reawakaned newsletter because at some point in the...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
Hello. You’re receiving this long-dormant-now-re-reawakaned newsletter because at some point in the past you subscribed. (Thank you, by the way.) Back then, I was writing about some nexus of travels abroad, personal or professional news, and technology-ish topics. There are some...
The Marginalian
Hermann Hesse on Discovering the Soul Beneath the Self and the Key to Finding Peace "Self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
I’m a Sucker for the Brand
over a year ago
This Space
The opposite direction The arrival of Douglas Robertson’s new translation of Thomas Bernhard’s Die Billigesser in a compact...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
The arrival of Douglas Robertson’s new translation of Thomas Bernhard’s Die Billigesser in a compact paperback from Spurl Editions came just as I had given up hope of ever discussing what I believed had long fascinated me about a feature of Bernhard's prose-texts. A fascination...
Ben Borgers
Website Rewrite 2
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
A summary of what I wrote in 2024 A man sets out to draw the world.
6 months ago
Robert Caro
The Power Broker Book Club The “99% Invisible Breakdown” podcast spent a year reading The Power Broker with guests Conan...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
The “99% Invisible Breakdown” podcast spent a year reading The Power Broker with guests Conan O’Brien, Robert Caro, and others.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Influential Works That Are Almost Never Read' John Ruskin would have a difficult time of it in what passes for literary culture today. First, he...
5 months ago
16
5 months ago
John Ruskin would have a difficult time of it in what passes for literary culture today. First, he was phenomenally prolific, even by Victorian standards, and how many people would read all five volumes of Modern Painters or the idea-rich sprawl of Fors Clavigera? Second, Ruskin...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 What price? If anything, as the well gets poisoned by their own outputs, large language models may well end up...
9 months ago
13
9 months ago
If anything, as the well gets poisoned by their own outputs, large language models may well end up eating their own slop and getting their own version of mad cow disease. So this might be as good as they’re ever going to get. — Jeremy Keith I use AI. Not particularly for...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Task of Doing Nothing Much at All' I’ve always thought of goofing off as one of the American fine arts, up there with western movies...
5 months ago
17
5 months ago
I’ve always thought of goofing off as one of the American fine arts, up there with western movies and jazz. In high school, I worked summers and weekends in an aluminum casting plant owned by a friend of my father. The work was hot and dirty, and we sometimes worked twelve-hour...
The American Scholar
The Most Famous Unknown Artist David Sheff puts Yoko Ono in the spotlight The post The Most Famous Unknown Artist appeared first on...
3 months ago
32
3 months ago
David Sheff puts Yoko Ono in the spotlight The post The Most Famous Unknown Artist appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
The Art of Coping In a time of anger, frustration, and anxiety, the humanities have much to teach us about how to deal...
a month ago
5
a month ago
In a time of anger, frustration, and anxiety, the humanities have much to teach us about how to deal with life The post The Art of Coping appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
The Twins Join The Linguistic-Symbolic Order ...
a month ago
The Marginalian
The Bird in the Heart: Terry Tempest Williams on the Paradox of Transformation and How to Live with... "We can change, evolve, and transform our own conditioning. We can choose to move like water rather...
a year 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...
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
31
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Fun Which Is Ebullient All Over Yours' A pun is best delivered without announcing itself as a pun. Those ungifted at wordplay tend...
5 days ago
5
5 days ago
A pun is best delivered without announcing itself as a pun. Those ungifted at wordplay tend to underline, boldface and italicize their every attempt at a pun, most of which are already feeble. Thus, the pun’s bad reputation and the ensuing groans. In contrast I love a good,...
The Elysian
Democracy should happen online A Guest Lecture with Margo Loor, co-founder of the Estonian participatory democracy platform Citizen...
3 weeks ago
The American Scholar
The Sound of the Picturesque Charles Ives and the Visual The post The Sound of the Picturesque appeared first on The American...
9 months ago
The Marginalian
Turning to Stone: A Geologist’s Love Letter to the Wisdom of Rocks Among the great salvations of my childhood were the rocks and minerals lining the bookshelves of our...
10 months ago
67
10 months ago
Among the great salvations of my childhood were the rocks and minerals lining the bookshelves of our next door neighbor — a geologist working for the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Water. I spent long hours casting amethyst refractions on the ceiling, carving words into...
This Space
39 Books: 2010 This series has sailed into the doldrum years. Reading has become less of a headlong existential...
a year ago
85
a year ago
This series has sailed into the doldrum years. Reading has become less of a headlong existential adventure than something one does, a pastime, a hobby, something you tell a quiz show presenter how you relax: "I like to read, Brad." By this time I had given up reviewing...
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
21
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...
✏️ A Second Shot It sunk in. Both the needle and the fact that life had indeed changed. I turned to my left and...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
It sunk in. Both the needle and the fact that life had indeed changed. I turned to my left and looked at her. She, the same Black woman who had administered the first, and this time I tucked her name away into my memory, having forgotten it in the excitement and overwhelming...
The Marginalian
The Great Blind Spot of Science and the Art of Asking the Complex Question the Only Answer to Which... “Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you,” says the Skin Horse — a stuffed toy...
8 months ago
52
8 months ago
“Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you,” says the Skin Horse — a stuffed toy brought to life by a child’s love — in The Velveteen Rabbit. Great children’s books are works of philosophy in disguise; this is a fundamental question: In a reality of matter,...
Astral Codex Ten
More Drowning Children ...
3 months ago
The Marginalian
Endling: A Poem I turned the corner one afternoon to find my neighborhood grocer gone. No warning, just gone —...
a year ago
43
a year ago
I turned the corner one afternoon to find my neighborhood grocer gone. No warning, just gone — padlocked and boarded off, closed for good, a long chain of habit suddenly severed. We know that entropy drags everything toward dissolution, that life is a vector pointed at loss, but...
Wuthering...
On the greatness of The Story of the Stone - it is in a vigorous, somewhat staccato style Some notes on The Story of the Stone, Volume 1: The Golden Days (c. 1760 or maybe 1792) by Cao...
8 months ago
61
8 months ago
Some notes on The Story of the Stone, Volume 1: The Golden Days (c. 1760 or maybe 1792) by Cao Xueqin, the first of the five volumes of the Penguin edition of the greatest Chinese novel. I don’t like writing about a book before I have finished it, but in a sense I did finish a...
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...
9 months ago
Ben Borgers
Three People Talking
over a year ago
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
54
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...
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: What movement does the world need right now? And how do we build it?
7 months ago
The Marginalian
The Life of Trees: A Poem "I want to sleep and dream the life of trees, beings from the muted world..."
over a year ago
The American Scholar
As I Walked Out One Morning The post As I Walked Out One Morning appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The American Scholar
Lingua Obscura Laura Spinney on the spread of Proto-Indo-European The post Lingua Obscura appeared first on The...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Laura Spinney on the spread of Proto-Indo-European The post Lingua Obscura appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Plato's Republic - justice, fantasy and censorship - We'll ask Homer not to be angry I had ambitions to write about Plato’s Republic with some thoroughness, but I guess I will just...
over a year ago
91
over a year ago
I had ambitions to write about Plato’s Republic with some thoroughness, but I guess I will just pursue one point.  Good enough. I have been separating Socrates from Plato, an imaginative exercise based on circular criteria.  The more Socratic of the Socratic dialogues are...
Josh Thompson
The How and Why of BlockValue I wrote the following post, and built the application in question, in 2017, in my “end of Turing”...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I wrote the following post, and built the application in question, in 2017, in my “end of Turing” project, before I’d ever been hired as a software developer. I really enjoyed the app that I built, and I keep wanting to get around to cleaning it up and making it work again. Maybe...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ And another one Day 24: Oct 3, 2023 — I awake after a restful slumber. The sleeping conditions were damn-near...
a year ago
9
a year ago
Day 24: Oct 3, 2023 — I awake after a restful slumber. The sleeping conditions were damn-near perfect: cool overnight temperatures and stillness in the air. We went to bed with a few options for the course of today, but it’s apparent to us we should settle in for an additional...
Anecdotal Evidence
'When the Heart is Full . . .' “You say truly, that death is only terrible to us as it separates us from those we love, but I...
a month ago
10
a month ago
“You say truly, that death is only terrible to us as it separates us from those we love, but I really think those have the worst of it who are left by us, if we are true friends. I have felt more (I fancy) in the loss of Mr. Gay, than I shall suffer in the thought of going away...
The Elysian
Substack could create the future of books Here’s how that could look.
a year ago
Robert Caro
Anatomy of a $9 Burglary “Anatomy of a $9 Burglary” is among Caro’s best early writing. When police arrested a criminal, all...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
“Anatomy of a $9 Burglary” is among Caro’s best early writing. When police arrested a criminal, all signs indicated a simple case of burglar
The American Scholar
Star Trek: Discovery The post <em>Star Trek: Discovery</em> appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Most Noteworthy Action of Human Life' I dreamed my late brother was here in Houston, a city he never visited. He was phobic about flying...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
I dreamed my late brother was here in Houston, a city he never visited. He was phobic about flying and traveled by air only twice in his life, when very young. We were seated across from each other, on the couches by the front window. What I remember of the dream is brief, little...
The American Scholar
A Messy Mix The post A Messy Mix appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Ben Borgers
I Miss Google Classroom
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 376.5 ...
2 months ago
The Marginalian
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside: Doris Lessing on the Antidote to Self-Righteousness and Our Best... This is the history of the world: revolutionaries turning into tyrants, leaders who claim to stand...
7 months ago
45
7 months ago
This is the history of the world: revolutionaries turning into tyrants, leaders who claim to stand with the masses turning the individuals within them on each other, stirring certainties and self-righteousness to distract from the uncomfortable unknowns, from the great open...
The Marginalian
Kamau & ZuZu Find a Way: A Tender Lunar Fable about the Stubborn Courage of Prevailing Over the Odds... "But we will have to find a way to live, as people do."
10 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Four Years Gone My father passed away four years ago, on June 18. It was the day that Father's Day fell on that...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
My father passed away four years ago, on June 18. It was the day that Father's Day fell on that year. My father-in-law, Jen's dad, passed away 11 years ago on June 20th, on that respective year. It's a strange cosmic sign but not uncommon for our relationship where many signs and...
Astral Codex Ten
The Ozempocalypse Is Nigh Sorry, you can only get drugs when there's a drug shortage.
3 months ago
The American Scholar
Tunneling to Freedom In The Great Escape (1963), the true story of a harrowing breakout from a German POW camp The post...
a year ago
79
a year ago
In The Great Escape (1963), the true story of a harrowing breakout from a German POW camp The post Tunneling to Freedom appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Porcupine Dilemma: Schopenhauer’s Parable about Negotiating the Optimal Distance in Love This is the supreme challenge of intimacy — how to reconcile the aching yearning for closeness with...
a year ago
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a year ago
This is the supreme challenge of intimacy — how to reconcile the aching yearning for closeness with the painful pressures of actually being close, how to forge a bond tight enough to feel the warmth of connection but spacious enough to feel free. Kahlil Gibran knew this when he...
The Marginalian
Marie Howe’s Stunning Hymn of Humanity, Animated "It began as an almost inaudible hum..."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Jeremy Spoke in Class Today On guns, MTV, Stephen King, and the nightmare from which we cannot awake The post Jeremy Spoke in...
a month ago
7
a month ago
On guns, MTV, Stephen King, and the nightmare from which we cannot awake The post Jeremy Spoke in Class Today appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Thich Nhat Hanh on True Love and the Five Rivers of Self-Knowledge “For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks… the work...
a year ago
36
a year ago
“For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks… the work for which all other work is but preparation,” Rilke wrote to his young correspondent. The great difficulty of loving arises from the great difficulty of bridging the abyss between...
Josh Thompson
Dream Big, and Build Optionality We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
We all can dream big. I have dreams, and you probably do to. For example: Travel, location independent living, being wealthy/choosing to do work that interests you, enjoying “simple” things. The list could go on, and on, and on. But then we go right along doing all the normal...