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The American Scholar
Medina de Rioseco The post Medina de Rioseco appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st Jul 2026
sbensu
Default blind In a software business, it is hard to even know what is going on.
20th Sep 2024
42
20th Sep 2024
In a software business, it is hard to even know what is going on.
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[ESSAYS] My 'Rules' for Running My Membership Program Should you start a membership program? Probably not. But boy am I glad that I started mine. Today...
1st Feb 2025
1
1st Feb 2025
Should you start a membership program? Probably not. But boy am I glad that I started mine. Today (basically) marks the sixth anniversary of starting SPECIAL PROJECTS. Each year, I’ve written up everything I learned. In total, here are nearly 40,000 words on running a membership...
Naz Hamid • Journal
Quality, Maintenance & Craft We are shokunin. Last week I was in Ojai, California, for True’s Founder Camp.[1] James Freeman,...
12th Mar 2025
57
12th Mar 2025
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 Marginalian
The Feather Detective: How Roxie Laybourne Pioneered Forensic Ornithology You wouldn’t know it, looking at the tiny elderly woman in the white lab coat bent over a table in a...
1st Oct 2025
21
1st Oct 2025
You wouldn’t know it, looking at the tiny elderly woman in the white lab coat bent over a table in a halogen-lit government office, you wouldn’t know she had spent her youth doing science with her whole body: extracting herself from a deadly mudflat with stubbornness and applied...
the late review
the dark frisson of knowledge on the Wikipedian sublime
12th Jul 2025
Anecdotal Evidence
'Superintending What He Cannot Regulate' In my family we can’t get away from the “Y” chromosome. Having children is known as “going to the...
1st Jul 2025
29
1st Jul 2025
In my family we can’t get away from the “Y” chromosome. Having children is known as “going to the Y.” I have three sons, no daughters, and my brother, who died last summer, was my sole sibling. My mother had five brothers, no sisters. My father, two brothers, no sisters, etc....
This Space
The end of literature, part five "Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100...
25th Jul 2024
1
25th Jul 2024
"Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century polled from hundreds of "literary luminaries" offering ten choices each, and while it is both of those things, "parochial" is the first word that...
This Space
Twentieth anniversary post On this day in 2004, I posted the first entry on this blog.  In recent years many posts have...
25th Sep 2024
1
25th Sep 2024
On this day in 2004, I posted the first entry on this blog.  In recent years many posts have reflected on the past and present of literary blogging (it has no future) so I will not go over that waste land again except to wish more had followed the example of This Space. One of...
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...
1st Apr 2023
33
1st Apr 2023
“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
Naz Hamid • Journal
Baseline Loss What the days look like now. I buzzed my hair down today. I needed to baseline it. I still have a...
2nd Mar 2026
1
2nd Mar 2026
What the days look like now. I buzzed my hair down today. I needed to baseline it. I still have a healthy amount of hair, but it’s going. I have a semblance of vanity, but I knew from my father’s own hair loss where mine would eventually head to (hahahaha). I’m not vain enough to...
Josh Thompson
October 2016 Goals In the last year, I’ve fluctuated between writing every day for 30 days and not posting once in...
19th Oct 2016
20
19th Oct 2016
In the last year, I’ve fluctuated between writing every day for 30 days and not posting once in two months. Frankly, neither of those is good for me. I like writing because it clarifies my own thoughts. Sometimes it seems useful to others. I like to be useful (“utility” can...
Anecdotal Evidence
'So a Fool Returneth to His Folly' Grownups seldom credit children with insight into human psychology, thus treating them as smaller,...
1st Apr 2025
46
1st Apr 2025
Grownups seldom credit children with insight into human psychology, thus treating them as smaller, more annoying versions of themselves. My father had an acquaintance even he knew was a fool. By admitting such knowledge, he was violating adult solidarity. His friend's customary...
Idle Words
Let's All Wear A Mask Let's talk about masks! On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control recommended that every...
5th Apr 2020
19
5th Apr 2020
Let's talk about masks! On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control recommended that every American wear a face covering when in public. Masks will be the hot, bold look for summer. The medical evidence for the practice is overwhelming. The post-SARS countries in East...
Naz Hamid • Journal
Latent Co. is Forming An homage to the Mac Ryan Carver, Juan Pablo Zambrano, and I have formed Latent Co., a software...
2nd Dec 2025
1
2nd Dec 2025
An homage to the Mac Ryan Carver, Juan Pablo Zambrano, and I have formed Latent Co., a software company. Driven by the creative tooling we’ve cut our teeth on and drawing on our product and imaging experience, we’re making a product for Mac. Ryan and I go back a while: Typekit,...
Blog -...
Book Review - Iron John Iron John by Robert Bly is a classic book about men. It has legions of ardent fans, but I...
15th Dec 2019
38
15th Dec 2019
Iron John by Robert Bly is a classic book about men. It has legions of ardent fans, but I reluctantly admit I am not one of the more zealous. Although the book has high points – the classic story of Iron John as put down by the Grimm brothers stands out to me, as well as an...
Josh Thompson
Issues related to the city of Golden While I was biking around recently, I saw notes about an upcoming neighborhood meeting about some...
26th Jul 2021
27
26th Jul 2021
While I was biking around recently, I saw notes about an upcoming neighborhood meeting about some rezoning, a big lot in downtown Golden. I went to the meeting (Thursday, July 22) and learned a lot. Here’s the lot in question: I have ridden my bike past this property hundreds of...
Escaping Flatland
How can we rejuvenate the social fabric? ask_another_guest
8th Jul 2026
Josh Thompson
Book Notes: 'The Case Against Sugar' by Gary Taube In the last few weeks, I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes. I found it to be compelling...
12th Aug 2019
21
12th Aug 2019
In the last few weeks, I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes. I found it to be compelling (more on that in a moment) and I want to be impacted by them. I want the daily decisions that I make to be subtly influenced by this author and these books. Related but in a different...
sbensu
How to avoid breaking APIs The main trick is to design them with extension in mind so that you won't have to break them later.
16th Mar 2023
27
16th Mar 2023
The main trick is to design them with extension in mind so that you won't have to break them later.
Josh Thompson
On Money (again) Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about,...
18th Feb 2016
21
18th Feb 2016
Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about, because there are many different ways we can approach it. It’s easy to feel judged when someone does something with their money that I don’t do with mine. That all said, there...
Josh Thompson
Do Not Neglect The Needful Role of the Witness Introduction Elsewhere I’ve mentioned “the role of the witness”, been sitting on this as a draft (in...
7th Jul 2025
1
7th Jul 2025
Introduction Elsewhere I’ve mentioned “the role of the witness”, been sitting on this as a draft (in my head) for a long time. I absolutely cannot move away from the phrasing: Do not neglect the needful role of the Witness I capitalize Witness, as this is a real “role”, and it’s...
the late review
wagner's ring: believing in the stakes or: how to get ring cycle pilled
20th Nov 2024
Josh Thompson
Isometric Deadlift Holds (for Climbing!) alternative titles: yielding isometric mid-thigh pin pulls, isometric deadlift 'holds' for fun and...
3rd Apr 2025
36
3rd Apr 2025
alternative titles: yielding isometric mid-thigh pin pulls, isometric deadlift 'holds' for fun and climbing Introduction A few months ago, I began some barefoot sprints up a hill at a local park, and discussed also adding heavy kettlebell swings. My back started feeling great,...
The American Scholar
Rage, Muse The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or...
1st Aug 2024
84
1st Aug 2024
The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or forgotten The post Rage, Muse appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
War Room
22nd Oct 2021
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...
24th May 2022
19
24th May 2022
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
Idea Labs! An open thread for collaborative worldbuilding Let's brainstorm the future together.
22nd Mar 2024
This Space
39 Books: 2015 In the Spring of 1997, I visited a friend in Kassel, a city in the middle of Germany, home of the...
24th May 2024
1
24th May 2024
In the Spring of 1997, I visited a friend in Kassel, a city in the middle of Germany, home of the Brothers Grimm and Franz Rosenzweig, and not very far from Weimar, hence the visit to the Goethehaus mentioned in the entry for 1989. I hadn't heard of it before and nor had my...
Josh Thompson
RailsConf Presentation: 'Junior' Developers are a Solution to Many of your Problems Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able...
21st May 2021
22
21st May 2021
Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able to help. Shoot me an email at [email protected] or book some time to talk at https://calendly.com/joshthompson/coffee. This talk is available on railsconf.org, here:...
Josh Thompson
2018 In Review & Thoughts on 2019 I find a lot of value in other people’s reviews of their years. It’s the time of year to be...
5th May 2019
34
5th May 2019
I find a lot of value in other people’s reviews of their years. It’s the time of year to be contemplative and reflective on the last 12 months, so here we are. Note to reader: I’m posting this in May, 2019. I wrote it in late December, 2018, didn’t get around to finishing it up...
ben-mini
Things to be Happy About & Perfect Software Happy to share a new project: Things to be Happy About - things.ben-mini.com. It’s a daily blog...
27th Dec 2025
1
27th Dec 2025
Happy to share a new project: Things to be Happy About - things.ben-mini.com. It’s a daily blog where I simply write five things to be happy about. Back in college, I had a tiny whiteboard outside my dorm where I did the same exercise. I also brought it to my cabin as a camp...
Josh Thompson
Denver Botanic Gardens - What, How, Why I recently got access to a delightful amenity, based on where I live. I’ve been sharing it with...
2nd Jun 2024
35
2nd Jun 2024
I recently got access to a delightful amenity, based on where I live. I’ve been sharing it with others as quickly as possible, because they too have access to it. From here on out, when I reference “botanic gardens” or “the gardens”, I’m referencing the Denver Botanic Gardens,...
The American Scholar
“The Fig Tree” by Ruth Stone Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Fig Tree” by Ruth Stone appeared first on The American...
1st Jul 2025
31
1st Jul 2025
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Fig Tree” by Ruth Stone appeared first on The American Scholar.
sbensu
Creative kernels Artists can often trace entire pieces around one idea that drives everything else.
1st Jul 2024
24
1st Jul 2024
Artists can often trace entire pieces around one idea that drives everything else.
Wuthering...
Anthony Powell's style and sensibility - Life is full of internal dramas, instantaneous and... Nicholas Jenkins – I did not register his name at all for the entire first novel, but I know it now...
22nd May 2025
1
22nd May 2025
Nicholas Jenkins – I did not register his name at all for the entire first novel, but I know it now – goes to school, gets a job in publishing, writes a novel, gets a girlfriend, gets a job as a script writer, splits with the girlfriend, and writes another novel or two, none of...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ A Simple Sophistication The weather was beautiful today. A sunny 65 degrees or so. Fresh from a shower, I headed out during...
23rd Mar 2004
37
23rd Mar 2004
The weather was beautiful today. A sunny 65 degrees or so. Fresh from a shower, I headed out during the lunch hour on foot, camera in hand and took a lot of photos during my walk. It took me straight out to the lake, an 8 minute journey. I was surprised to see that they had made...
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[RODEN] New Japan, NYC, Soderbergh Bonanza, Too Much Movement Roden Readers — Hello from Crazy Weather Town. Is it spring? Some days it feels like it might be,...
2nd May 2026
1
2nd May 2026
Roden Readers — Hello from Crazy Weather Town. Is it spring? Some days it feels like it might be, for a few milliseconds. And then other days, no. No spring for you. The floor heating was on this morning and that felt good. Soon enough the sauna will be on over the entirety of...
Salish Wolf
#5 Fritzi Horstman on Healing Childhood Trauma, Activism Through Film, and Uplifting Humanity Fritzi Horstman is a rare, beautiful individual with a selfless passion to transform lives. As a...
9th May 2020
1
9th May 2020
Fritzi Horstman is a rare, beautiful individual with a selfless passion to transform lives. As a Grammy-award winning producer for her work on the “The Defiant Ones”, Fritzi is not resting on her laurels. Nor is she coasting through Hollywood, lapping up the limelight....
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Borrego Boogie Almost a year ago, Jen and I headed south to Bishop, then a run through Death Valley, an obnoxiously...
8th Mar 2023
17
8th Mar 2023
Almost a year ago, Jen and I headed south to Bishop, then a run through Death Valley, an obnoxiously windy night in Alabama Hills, and then reset in San Diego before a good run and a few nights in Anza-Borrego desert. It's remarkable that a place this wild and surprisingly...
The Marginalian
Gary Snyder on How to Unbreak the World "What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands...
1st Feb 2025
63
1st Feb 2025
"What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands and minds."
Josh Thompson
How To Write A Letter of Recommendation for Yourself I meet regularly with early-career software developers. A few recurring meetings, 1x/week, plus...
6th Aug 2020
28
6th Aug 2020
I meet regularly with early-career software developers. A few recurring meetings, 1x/week, plus ad-hoc calls as needed with others. A question came up recently: My three-month internship is close to wrapping up. The Co-founder/CEO/lead developer of the consulting company I’m at...
Josh Thompson
Trader Joe's Parking Lot Hey Trader Joe’s, This is a bit of an open letter, inspired by a recent visit to the local Trader...
13th Dec 2023
21
13th Dec 2023
Hey Trader Joe’s, This is a bit of an open letter, inspired by a recent visit to the local Trader Joe’s. I just moved to this part of Denver, and now for the first time am living within like a 3 minute scoot of a Trader Joe’s. I know that some people like to complain about...
The Elysian
Let Cities Build Utopia—new drop! My deep dive on the future of cities is now available as a print pamphlet, digital pamphlet, and...
10th Feb 2026
1
10th Feb 2026
My deep dive on the future of cities is now available as a print pamphlet, digital pamphlet, and audio essay.
the late review
love's bad infinity tristan und isolde - in theory and at the met
24th Mar 2026
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[RIDGELINE] The Shops Atop the Canal in Toyohashi Ridgeline subscribers — Hello from Toyohashi, a city between nowhere and somewhere else. A Tōkaidō...
12th Mar 2026
1
12th Mar 2026
Ridgeline subscribers — Hello from Toyohashi, a city between nowhere and somewhere else. A Tōkaidō city I’ve walked through on my two trips back and forth between Kyoto and Tokyo. A city with a space shuttle on top of a building and the letters USA strangely emblazoned below. On...
The American Scholar
“Dead Man’s Hand” The post “Dead Man’s Hand” appeared first on The American Scholar.
4th Aug 2025
Ben Borgers
Winter break project list [2024]
21st Dec 2024
The American Scholar
Leashed The post Leashed appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st Oct 2025
Josh Thompson
Turing Prep Chapter 4: Arrays, Hashes, and Nested Collections Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
9th Jun 2019
25
9th Jun 2019
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...
Ben Borgers
Good Software Has a Clear Geography
1st Feb 2022
This Space
No safe landing A review of A Winter in Zürau and Partita by Gabriel Josipovici   Gabriel Josipovici has said that...
5th Oct 2024
1
5th Oct 2024
A review of A Winter in Zürau and Partita by Gabriel Josipovici   Gabriel Josipovici has said that as a critic he is conservative but as a novelist he is radical. The second claim may not be controversial but the first will come as a surprise to those who remember what he said...
the late review
whatever it takes on monomania
17th Feb 2026
Steven Scrawls
Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction What if our stories explore questions not because those...
20th Mar 2024
29
20th Mar 2024
Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction What if our stories explore questions not because those questions are interesting, but because those questions are easier to respond to than the alternatives? Trope: The Chosen One What’s the shallow, wish-fulfillment version of...
Josh Thompson
Rails Migration: When you can't add a uniqueness constraint because you already have duplicates I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for...
28th Sep 2018
24
28th Sep 2018
I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for development.wombatsecurity.com. This post has been updated to reflect some lessons learned while running this migration in production. Don’t leave a column without an index at any point in...
Wuthering...
What I Read in February 2026 – Mouek mouek mouek… Ma-a-a-a… Ma-aa-a… said Saha I am almost on my way to London.  Some Shakespearian and Not Shakespearian activities are on the...
1st Mar 2026
1
1st Mar 2026
I am almost on my way to London.  Some Shakespearian and Not Shakespearian activities are on the schedule. My reading, before this trip, was again  very British.   THE WAR OF THE POETS Antonio and Mellida (1599?) & Antonio's Revenge (1600?), John Marston – A remarkable pair of...
Naz Hamid • Journal
Craft Is Not Culture A time, a place, and humans. Let’s take a moment to consider the font, Instrument Serif. Created by...
24th May 2026
2
24th May 2026
A time, a place, and humans. Let’s take a moment to consider the font, Instrument Serif. Created by the Portland-based design agency Instrument for their own use — along with Instrument Sans — they open-sourced it on GitHub, where it made its way to Google Fonts, in a generous...
This Space
Reading, forgetting When John Updike read À la recherche du temps perdu after having read Scott-Moncrieff's translation,...
10th Sep 2025
1
10th Sep 2025
When John Updike read À la recherche du temps perdu after having read Scott-Moncrieff's translation, he was surprised to find Proust less Proustian, the epithet we associate with flowery prose blossoming over prodigious sentences proliferating clause within clause. While I cannot...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Amasa 25K, My First Trail Race Two years ago, I broke my elbow. A year ago, I put cycling on hold due to discomfort on the bike and...
29th May 2024
22
29th May 2024
Two years ago, I broke my elbow. A year ago, I put cycling on hold due to discomfort on the bike and soon after started running as a cardio and endurance-based complement to my longstanding passion for rock climbing. Trail running and ultras have captured my attention in recent...
Idle Words
The Shape of a Mars Mission This post is the second in a series. Read part one here. p {line-height:1.6em; } p.caption {...
20th Feb 2025
54
20th Feb 2025
This post is the second in a series. Read part one here. p {line-height:1.6em; } p.caption { margin-top:0px;padding-top:0px;margin-bottom:20px;text-align:center;} a.fnote {text-decoration:none;color:red} img {margin-bottom:0px;} “From a mathematics and trajectory...
Josh Thompson
Fred Roger's Method For Writing Scripts Someone said: People think this is silly, but read about Fred rogers’ method for writing a script...
30th Sep 2020
28
30th Sep 2020
Someone said: People think this is silly, but read about Fred rogers’ method for writing a script for his show. The rules aren’t fully applicable to presentations, but the attention to detail and to the Interpretation of the audience is. Don’t use any words carelessly. I...
Idle Words
Effective Political Giving With less than two months left before the election, this is an explainer for the politically...
3rd Sep 2020
19
3rd Sep 2020
With less than two months left before the election, this is an explainer for the politically panicked. You're anxious, you feel the need to do something, and you have a little money to spare. Who should you give it to? My goal here is not to sell you on specific candidates...
Ben Borgers
AI is an impediment to learning web development
21st Jul 2024
Anecdotal Evidence
'Leaves Must Be Green in Spring' The Battle of Malvern Hill was fought near Richmond, Va., the capital of the Confederacy, on July 1,...
1st Jul 2026
1
1st Jul 2026
The Battle of Malvern Hill was fought near Richmond, Va., the capital of the Confederacy, on July 1, 1862. Not as well remembered as Antietam or Gettysburg, it was the last of the Seven Days Battles in the Peninsula Campaign, and prompted Confederate General Daniel H. Hill to...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 What price? If anything, as the well gets poisoned by their own outputs, large language models may well end up...
6th Oct 2024
21
6th Oct 2024
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ This Is What We Have To Lose Yesterday felt defeating with the damning report that our climate has indeed moved unfortunately...
10th Aug 2021
19
10th Aug 2021
Yesterday felt defeating with the damning report that our climate has indeed moved unfortunately forward into severity and decline. It’s too late for some aspects but not too late to avoid some of the worst aspects. The fires, the smoke, and the record-high temperatures that...
sbensu
Hiring from Big Tech Some brief notes about the subject
30th Mar 2024
The Marginalian
The One Hundred Milliseconds Between the World and You: Oliver Sacks on Perception “If the doors of perception were cleansed,” William Blake wrote, “everything would appear to man as...
2nd Jun 2025
30
2nd Jun 2025
“If the doors of perception were cleansed,” William Blake wrote, “everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” But we are finite creatures, in time and in space, and there is a limit to how much reality we can bear — evolution gave us consciousness so that we may sieve the...
Josh Thompson
Dizzying but Invisible Depth The following is from https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/dfydM2Cnepe, but Google+ is...
16th Jan 2021
26
16th Jan 2021
The following is from https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/dfydM2Cnepe, but Google+ is shutdown, so it’s not easily sharable. I’m reposting here because this is such a useful post. Dizzying but invisible depth You just went to the Google home page. Simple, isn’t...
Naz Hamid • Journal
Different Think I don't write about Apple. I had to this time. It started with a magazine ad. A musician I admired...
5th Aug 2025
1
5th Aug 2025
I don't write about Apple. I had to this time. It started with a magazine ad. A musician I admired was pictured: Henry Rollins, looking as he does, in black, shorts, tattoos visible and holding a computer. An Apple Powerbook. He appears with Terry Ellis from Imago Records,...
Josh Thompson
Accomplishments and Achievements We’re encouraged to accomplish and achieve, yes? From birth, we pass milestones. Generally these...
2nd Jul 2014
23
2nd Jul 2014
We’re encouraged to accomplish and achieve, yes? From birth, we pass milestones. Generally these milestones grow in complexity as we add to our abilities - it’s been a while since I’ve been rewarded for not wetting myself - but they are usually on par with our abilities. For...
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...
22nd Dec 2024
98
22nd Dec 2024
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...
Escaping Flatland
An essay in which my friend feels stuck and I suggest relaxing some constraints The short version is that my friend, in my opinion, thinks about what he wants in a too constrained...
5th Mar 2025
Steven Scrawls
Not As Giants Love Not As Giants Love Short story, ~2000 words A week ago, when I asked you if you still loved me, I...
4th Jul 2024
40
4th Jul 2024
Not As Giants Love Short story, ~2000 words A week ago, when I asked you if you still loved me, I thought the most painful thing you could’ve said was no. I don’t know if you remember, but when you said “Of course I still love you” and asked if I still loved you, I started to...
Idle Words
New Martian Writing If you've enjoyed my writing about space over the years, I invite you to subscribe to my new...
26th Mar 2026
1
26th Mar 2026
If you've enjoyed my writing about space over the years, I invite you to subscribe to my new substack newsletter, titled 'Mars for the Rest of Us', where I've been posting weekly essays on topics around Mars exploration. Here are two recent free posts: Musk on Mars: a...
Naz Hamid • Journal
Write Like a Human Collaborative writing is rewarding. In the past few months, I’ve been writing a lot. Not as much...
13th Jul 2026
4
13th Jul 2026
Collaborative writing is rewarding. In the past few months, I’ve been writing a lot. Not as much here, but for Aphera. Between our newsletter, blog, direct email feedback, and social media networks, I might spin up a draft and then bounce it off Ryan and Juan, or we volley it...
Astral Codex Ten
The Colors Of Her Coat ...
1st Apr 2025
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[RODEN] Summer Heatray Days Roden Readers — Hello from the swelterdome, the Cape O‘ Temperature Oppression, a.k.a. the Kanto...
1st Aug 2025
1
1st Aug 2025
Roden Readers — Hello from the swelterdome, the Cape O‘ Temperature Oppression, a.k.a. the Kanto area of Japan in July / August. It is so spectacularly, consistently hot that it’s hard to overstate just how bananas this heat is, how all consumingly present and manic it feels....
Josh Thompson
Practicing with Polylines This is a first pass at trying to do something interesting (repeatedly) with the same base...
10th Sep 2024
39
10th Sep 2024
This is a first pass at trying to do something interesting (repeatedly) with the same base primative, in this case, a “polyline”. Read the rest of this post, understand what we’re going for, then go to part 2: get your own polyline from strava. It’s not trivial to get, but its...
The Marginalian
Vision of the Womb and Vision of the Brain: H.D. on the Two Kinds of Seeing and the Key to Over-mind... “One must be a seer, make oneself a seer,” Arthur Rimbaud wrote, “by a long, gigantic and rational...
2nd Jul 2025
36
2nd Jul 2025
“One must be a seer, make oneself a seer,” Arthur Rimbaud wrote, “by a long, gigantic and rational derangement of all the senses.” As more and more of our senses are being amputated by the blade of our image-centric culture, reducing the vast and delicate sensorium of human...
Ploum.net
I Don’t Have a Smartphone… I Don’t Have a Smartphone… …or, at least, I wish I didn’t. "I don’t have a smartphone," is what I...
2 weeks ago
2
2 weeks ago
I Don’t Have a Smartphone… …or, at least, I wish I didn’t. "I don’t have a smartphone," is what I tell people and professionals nowadays. This allows me to cut the crap about companies insisting that I install their app or restaurants wishing that I scan a QR code to access their...
Anecdotal Evidence
'But to Divert a Fierce Banditti' The English poet William Cowper (1731-1800) suffered his first attack of mental illness – today we...
1st Dec 2025
1
1st Dec 2025
The English poet William Cowper (1731-1800) suffered his first attack of mental illness – today we would likely call it profound depression – at age thirty-two. Before then, while studying law in the Temple, Cowper dined every Thursday with friends at the Nonsense Club. He and a...
The American Scholar
Inside Man A young reporter’s devastating exposé of the amoral elite The post Inside Man appeared first on The...
1st Jun 2026
1
1st Jun 2026
A young reporter’s devastating exposé of the amoral elite The post Inside Man appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Mind in the Machine: John von Neumann, the Inception of AI, and the Limits of Logic "Something very small, so tiny and insignificant as to be almost invisible in its origin, can...
2nd Dec 2023
37
2nd Dec 2023
"Something very small, so tiny and insignificant as to be almost invisible in its origin, can nonetheless open up a new and radiant perspective, because through it a higher order of being is trying to express itself."
The Elysian
Mondragon as the new City-State This cooperative could be its own country.
3rd Sep 2024
The Marginalian
From the Labor Camp to the Pantheon of Literature: How Dostoyevsky Became a Writer "I have nothing, except for certain, and perhaps very minor, literary abilities."
1st Sep 2024
Josh Thompson
Bollards: Why & What author’s note: it’s always fun to see your own stuff on the Hacker News front page! This very post...
30th Apr 2024
29
30th Apr 2024
author’s note: it’s always fun to see your own stuff on the Hacker News front page! This very post sparked >450 comments worth of conversation! I didn’t even know this got posted until days later! What are bollards The what and the why in a single image: The what and why in a...
Escaping Flatland
Thoughts on agency If anyone is in the mood for a video call, I would like to get a few of you together on Saturday at...
12th Jun 2024
106
12th Jun 2024
If anyone is in the mood for a video call, I would like to get a few of you together on Saturday at 6 pm CET (9 am PST). Like last time, I’ll prepare a few questions (probably relating to today’s post since that is top of mind) but mostly we’ll just talk about whatever comes up....
The American Scholar
New Year, Old Year The post New Year, Old Year appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st Jan 2025
Josh Thompson
Waking Up Early, Part 3 I’ve written about my attempts to wake up early before. Most recently, I promised to take a sleep...
2nd Aug 2013
25
2nd Aug 2013
I’ve written about my attempts to wake up early before. Most recently, I promised to take a sleep log, to track trends. Fortunately, I did not intend to try to wake up early, because I didn’t. Here’s what I learned in the last three weeks: Benadryl messes with your ability to...
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...
13th May 2021
18
13th May 2021
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...
ben-mini
Claude is kicking ChatGPT’s butt (in one thing) Back in high school, I remember receiving an email for a study guide from a friend. Instead of the...
15th Jul 2025
1
15th Jul 2025
Back in high school, I remember receiving an email for a study guide from a friend. Instead of the PDF coming attached, it was a link to a site called Dropbox. Upon opening the file, you create an account. From there you’re introduced to a feature stack that went well beyond any...
Josh Thompson
On Cleaner Controllers A few days ago, I worked on a project that was mostly about serving up basic store data (modeled...
9th May 2017
19
9th May 2017
A few days ago, I worked on a project that was mostly about serving up basic store data (modeled after Etsy) to an API. We had a few dozen end-points, and all responses were in JSON. Most of the action happened inside of our controllers, and as you might imagine, our routes.rb...
the late review
bride and sister, be to your brother sentimental incest in Die Walküre
3rd Apr 2025
The Elysian
Maybe an exowomb is better than pregnancy The Pod Generation’s near-future satire pits nature against technology. Which is the better curator?
2nd Jul 2025
30
2nd Jul 2025
The Pod Generation’s near-future satire pits nature against technology. Which is the better curator?
The Marginalian
The Sunflower and the Soul: Wendell Berry on the Collaborative Nature of the Universe and the Cure... "We are not the authors of ourselves. That we are not is a religious perception, but it is also a...
1st Jul 2024
99
1st Jul 2024
"We are not the authors of ourselves. That we are not is a religious perception, but it is also a biological and a social one. Each of us has had many authors, and each of us is engaged, for better or worse, in that same authorship. We could say that the human race is a great...
The American Scholar
Sticking With It A sobering chronicle of our toxic times The post Sticking With It appeared first on The American...
2nd Jun 2025
16
2nd Jun 2025
A sobering chronicle of our toxic times The post Sticking With It appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
3rd Oct 2018
23
3rd Oct 2018
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 . ├──...
Josh Thompson
2023 Annual Review It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always...
27th Jan 2024
24
27th Jan 2024
It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always found value in writing my own, even as there is a few years I’ve missed, since I started the habit way back in 2015. for a long time, I did annual reviews. 2020 was late, and then for...
Escaping Flatland
On having more interesting ideas, pt. 2 Cutlery designed by Salvador Dalí
11th Aug 2026
Astral Codex Ten
"All Lawful Use": Much More Than You Wanted To Know ...
1st Mar 2026
This Space
The crisis of narration and the future of the novel, part two Byung-Chul Han says in The Crisis of Narration that modernity "is animated by a belief in progress"...
6th Nov 2025
1
6th Nov 2025
Byung-Chul Han says in The Crisis of Narration that modernity "is animated by a belief in progress" and its narratives "radiate an aura because the future is a phenomenon of distance". This is evident in our reverence for the monuments of modernism, a reverence formed by wonder...
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...
15th Jul 2024
53
15th Jul 2024
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...
Ben Borgers
Thursday, January 13, 2022
13th Jan 2022
Wuthering...
What I Read in May 2026 – “These stories appeal to my sense of humor as well as my taste for formal... NOT SHAKESPEARE Poems and a Defence of Ryme (1592-1605), Samuel Daniel – Author of the “Delia”...
4th Jun 2026
1
4th Jun 2026
NOT SHAKESPEARE Poems and a Defence of Ryme (1592-1605), Samuel Daniel – Author of the “Delia” sequence of fifty sonnets, a genuine sequence, with for example lines ending one poem and beginning the next.  For some reason Thomas Campion, a writer of the most beautiful songs,...
The Elysian
Cities should own their land—like Vienna and Amsterdam Land autonomy beats governance autonomy every time.
2nd Mar 2026
Salish Wolf
Welcome to Salish Wolf Podcast In this podcast I share with you incredible stories of extraordinary endeavors that capture the...
2nd Apr 2020
1
2nd Apr 2020
In this podcast I share with you incredible stories of extraordinary endeavors that capture the magic of the human spirit. The inspiration for this podcast is a wolf named Takaya who gained global fame for living alone for nearly a decade on a tiny archipelago in the...
Josh Thompson
The Power Broker, Chapter 30: Robert Moses and Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the...
5th Aug 2023
24
5th Aug 2023
Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the Mayors”. The chapter is about Moses’ relationship with all of the mayors of NYC that overlapped with Moses’ “rule” over NYC. This excerpt covers just one of the mayors’ overlap...
The Marginalian
Blink Twice to Quell a Quasar: Carl Sagan on Superstition Growing up in Bulgaria, in a city teeming in stray dogs and cars, I was deeply distressed by the...
4th Aug 2025
31
4th Aug 2025
Growing up in Bulgaria, in a city teeming in stray dogs and cars, I was deeply distressed by the sight of each dead animal in the streets between home and school — deaths I could not prevent and could not bear. To cope with the aching helplessness, I developed a private...
ben-mini
Nucleus Nouns Consider the “nouns” the live inside an app of your choice: You can spend hours building a list for...
10th Apr 2026
2
10th Apr 2026
Consider the “nouns” the live inside an app of your choice: You can spend hours building a list for just one app. But the more interesting exercise is weighting the nouns by impact in the app- considering which ones have the most “gravity” from the eyes of the user: You quickly...
sbensu
Risk-takers decide faster Unsurprising connection between risk and speed.
5th Nov 2024
Astral Codex Ten
H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know Don't give your true love a partridge, turtledoves, or (especially) French hens
1st Jan 2025
The Marginalian
States of Possession: Erich Neumann on Creativity, the Unconscious, and the Psychology of... There are things in life that come over you sudden as a flash flood, total as an eclipse — the great...
2nd May 2025
43
2nd May 2025
There are things in life that come over you sudden as a flash flood, total as an eclipse — the great loves, the great creative passions, the great urges to conquer a mountain or a theorem. They can feel like an alien invasion, like the immense hand of some imperative has seized...
Wuthering...
What I Read in June 2025 - A life of agony was all for naught. My summer plan was to read, short, easy books, and I almost succeeded.  I read short, difficult...
3rd Jul 2025
1
3rd Jul 2025
My summer plan was to read, short, easy books, and I almost succeeded.  I read short, difficult books in French, and accidentally read several grim, sad, violent books, alongside some playful nonsense.   FICTION The Field of Life and Death (1935), Xiao Hong – For example.  Ninety...
ben-mini
Building FirstMover I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly...
14th Sep 2024
29
14th Sep 2024
I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly all of them pointed me to StreetEasy, the Zillow-owned NYC real estate search platform. Some of my more Type-A friends gave me extra helpful advice: Narrow your search to 2-4...
The American Scholar
Jane Skafte The language of trees The post Jane Skafte appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st Jul 2024
87
1st Jul 2024
The language of trees The post Jane Skafte appeared first on The American Scholar.
sbensu
Payments vs Transfers Transfer means to move money but payment means "exchanging goods or services". A payment system has...
4th Feb 2023
40
4th Feb 2023
Transfer means to move money but payment means "exchanging goods or services". A payment system has a lot more requirements than a transfer system and I rarely see the crypto ecosystem acknowledge these when building "payment" products.
Josh Thompson
Training for climbing (progress update) I am at the end of my second iteration of climbing training, and this is how it went and what I...
3rd Jun 2013
27
3rd Jun 2013
I am at the end of my second iteration of climbing training, and this is how it went and what I learned: I completed the workout twelve times, but I took a twelve-day break between workout eleven and twelve. I first skipped a workout because I had ripped skin open on one of my...
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...
8th Mar 2025
62
8th Mar 2025
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 Elysian
Humanity from the perspective of robots Talking points for our literary salon next week.
1st May 2024
Ben Borgers
Stickies: Spatial note-taking
2nd Apr 2023
The Elysian
It's obvious why we hate social media We need better internet platforms. We're already building them.
1st Apr 2026
The Perry Bible...
Artist The post Artist appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
21st Jan 2026
Escaping Flatland
Reading challenging books with kids is fun and probably useful I was looking through my diary from the summer of 2020 and found this entry about Maud, then three...
2nd Apr 2024
53
2nd Apr 2024
I was looking through my diary from the summer of 2020 and found this entry about Maud, then three years old, in late toddlerhood. 25th of July 2020. I was doing the dishes. Maud came in. “I have looked a little in books,” she said.
ribbonfarm
Storytelling — Just Add Dinosaurs In a previous part, I covered the storytelling model of Matthew Dicks, who specializes in live,...
14th Mar 2024
28
14th Mar 2024
In a previous part, I covered the storytelling model of Matthew Dicks, who specializes in live, spoken-word competitive storytelling from real life. He has a theory of stories I found deeply unsatisfying: That the essence of a story is a moment of character change where the...
The Perry Bible...
Bubbled The post Bubbled appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
1st Mar 2025
Josh Thompson
HTTParty and to_json I was having some trouble debugging an HTTParty POST request. A few tools that were useful to...
12th Mar 2019
22
12th Mar 2019
I was having some trouble debugging an HTTParty POST request. A few tools that were useful to me: post DEBUG info to STDOUT netcat to listen to HTTP requests locally I had this code: options = { headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json", authorization: "Bearer...
Escaping Flatland
Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself and bloom When people talk about the value of paying attention and slowing down, they often make it sound...
4th Sep 2025
105
4th Sep 2025
When people talk about the value of paying attention and slowing down, they often make it sound prudish and monk-like. But we shouldn’t forget how interesting and overpoweringly pleasurable sustained attention can be.
Naz Hamid • Journal
SF Zine Fest 2026 The antithesis of slop. It's been a few years since I'd attended the SF Zine Fest. Friend Scott Boms...
a week ago
1
a week ago
The antithesis of slop. It's been a few years since I'd attended the SF Zine Fest. Friend Scott Boms had a table with his Matter Editions wares, and it's a 10-minute walk from home, so Jen and I had to go. Held at The Hibernia, it was a treat to actually go into this historic...
Josh Thompson
Load Testing your app with Siege Last time, I dug into using Apache Benchmark to do performance testing on a page that requires...
2nd Jul 2019
24
2nd Jul 2019
Last time, I dug into using Apache Benchmark to do performance testing on a page that requires authentication to access. Today, we’ll figure out how to use siege to visit many unique URLs on our page, and to get benchmarks on that process. I’ll next figure out performance...
Blog -...
Book Review - Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant In the book Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant, author Roland Lazenby meticulously shares the...
29th Mar 2020
33
29th Mar 2020
In the book Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant, author Roland Lazenby meticulously shares the journey of Kobe Bryant, from ancestral influences up through his final game in the NBA. He is a clear fan of Kobe’s inarguable work ethic, but he allows readers to reinforce their...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 445 ...
3rd Aug 2026
Salish Wolf
#94 Jay St. Charles on Project Quiver Jay St. Charles is a legendary bowyer based in Fall City, Washington. While he was born into the...
a week ago
1
a week ago
Jay St. Charles is a legendary bowyer based in Fall City, Washington. While he was born into the world of archery and grew up in his father’s archery shop, Jay eventually became a master bowyer, carving bows under the brand of Pacific Yew Longbows. He lives on a small...
the late review
some thoughts on siegfried a very normal essay somewhat about wagner's ring cycle
3rd Jan 2025
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Follow vs. Block In the beginning, you followed someone to see their content in your feed. Now, you block someone to...
2nd Jan 2024
20
2nd Jan 2024
In the beginning, you followed someone to see their content in your feed. Now, you block someone to remove them from your feed. That’s the price of an endless algorithmic feed designed to keep you in-app or on-platform, entertained, and eventually (if not already) monetized. A...
Josh Thompson
Change The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for...
30th Jun 2014
23
30th Jun 2014
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for the better, and sometimes its for the worse. I don’t know if there’s always a difference. Recently, Kristi and I have seen lots of change; I’d say its for the better, but it’s not...
the late review
the gallery of maladies on long covid, hypochondria, and the forums
6th Nov 2025
Naz Hamid • Journal
Have the Coffee Carve space out for opportunity. After speaking in Kuala Lumpur last week, people stayed to discuss...
9th Sep 2025
1
9th Sep 2025
Carve space out for opportunity. After speaking in Kuala Lumpur last week, people stayed to discuss the topics we’d covered, forming a small group. Building community was a weighty topic during the event, with myself, host Shaza Hakim, and many attendees speaking to it. In this...
Josh Thompson
Let Me Fix [some of] Your Parking Problems Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces. Today, we’ll be...
14th Jul 2023
23
14th Jul 2023
Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces. Today, we’ll be focusing on parking lots. Your parking lot has a job to do, and every day, every night, rain or shine, hot or cold, clear, rainy, or snowy, your parking lot does the best it can at...
The Marginalian
The Ecstasy of Eternity: Richard Jefferies on Time and Self-Transcendence This is the great paradox: that human life, lived between the time of starlings and the time of...
2nd Mar 2024
53
2nd Mar 2024
This is the great paradox: that human life, lived between the time of starlings and the time of stars, is made meaningful entirely inside the self, but the self is a mirage of the mind, a figment of cohesion that makes the chaos and transience bearable. A few times a lifetime, if...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Now Reopen for Business California re-opened on Tuesday and literally overnight, it feels like everything changed. And it...
17th Jun 2021
20
17th Jun 2021
California re-opened on Tuesday and literally overnight, it feels like everything changed. And it has. The streets are busy again, clear voices can be heard all over, and people are emerging from their cocoons at their pace. It feels like whiplash: going from riding with one...
sbensu
Incentives as selection effects When you apply a new incentive, you select for a new population that prefers the incentive.
11th Jun 2024
24
11th Jun 2024
When you apply a new incentive, you select for a new population that prefers the incentive.
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...
2nd Nov 2023
35
2nd Nov 2023
"On many levels, we wind up being strengthened by what we join, or what joins us, as well as by what we combat."
Salish Wolf
#50 Jake Roussos on Play, Smiling, and Empowering Children Jake Roussos is on a mission to help people live their best lives by living his best. Early on he...
5th Oct 2023
1
5th Oct 2023
Jake Roussos is on a mission to help people live their best lives by living his best. Early on he found a powerful tool that was available to him wherever he went and in any interaction: his smile. Since then, he has been positively impacting others through the simple...
The Elysian
Metanational corporations are redesigning the world map Parag Khanna on metanational corporations and how they are opening borders, reshaping geopolitics,...
2nd Feb 2025
58
2nd Feb 2025
Parag Khanna on metanational corporations and how they are opening borders, reshaping geopolitics, and creating a world of interconnected city-states.
Ben Borgers
Recording Screencasts
1st Jun 2022
Idle Words
Sara Huddleston on the Latino Vote in Iowa Last week I spoke with Sara Huddleston, candidate for Iowa state house in district 11 (Storm Lake)....
8th Aug 2020
18
8th Aug 2020
Last week I spoke with Sara Huddleston, candidate for Iowa state house in district 11 (Storm Lake). A longtime community organizer and three-term city council member, she was the first Latina elected to a city council in the state of Iowa, and would be the first Latina to serve...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Biblioteca Vasconselos In the Buenavista neighborhood resides this impressive library that spans 409,000 sq ft, designed by...
2nd Jan 2021
32
2nd Jan 2021
In the Buenavista neighborhood resides this impressive library that spans 409,000 sq ft, designed by Mexican architects Alberto Kalach and Juan Palomar. Adored by those that appreciate architecture, and those looking for Instagram fodder, the space feels like you’re in the...
Ben Borgers
An underbaked GPT-Codex-5.3-Spark review
14th Feb 2026
The Elysian
Even Christopher Nolan prefers 70mm film With all the technology in the world, sometimes the more beautiful thing is less of it.
4th Aug 2026
1
4th Aug 2026
With all the technology in the world, sometimes the more beautiful thing is less of it.
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...
1st Jun 2025
38
1st Jun 2025
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 Marginalian
The Universe in Verse Book "We need science to help us meet reality on its own terms, and we need poetry to help us broaden and...
1st May 2024
52
1st May 2024
"We need science to help us meet reality on its own terms, and we need poetry to help us broaden and deepen the terms on which we meet ourselves and each other. At the crossing point of the two we may find a way of clarifying our experience and of sanctifying it."
Steven Scrawls
Word Rot Word Rot Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever face will have been...
12th Dec 2023
23
12th Dec 2023
Word Rot Unless you are extraordinarily unfortunate, every problem you ever face will have been faced in some form by someone who came before you. That person may have already shared the story of that challenge, and that story might have melded with other tales to form collective...
Wuthering...
Thomas Heywood's early melodrama A Woman Killed by Kindness - I’ll say you wept, I’ll swear you made... I have called Thomas Dekker and Henry Chettle hacks, but Thomas Heywood was the greatest hack of the...
2nd May 2026
1
2nd May 2026
I have called Thomas Dekker and Henry Chettle hacks, but Thomas Heywood was the greatest hack of the Age of Shakespeare, having “an entire hand or at least the main finger” in “two hundred and twenty” (!) plays (Three Elizabethan Domestic Tragedies, p. 38).  He is more like a...
Ploum.net
Quand éclatera la bulle IA… Quand éclatera la bulle IA… Comme le souligne Ed Zitron, toute la bulle actuelle est basée sur 7 ou...
1st Nov 2025
1
1st Nov 2025
Quand éclatera la bulle IA… Comme le souligne Ed Zitron, toute la bulle actuelle est basée sur 7 ou 8 entreprises qui s’échangent des promesses de s’échanger des milliards d’euros lorsque tous les habitants de la planète dépenseront en moyenne 100€ par mois pour utiliser ChatGPT....
Escaping Flatland
In praise of insular groups Last spring, as we were exploring the coastline of our island, Johanna, the kids, and I crossed a...
4th May 2024
86
4th May 2024
Last spring, as we were exploring the coastline of our island, Johanna, the kids, and I crossed a meadow where two men were artificially inseminating a longhaired cow. We stopped to observe the work. When it was done, one of the men came over to where we stood by the electric...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Dark is Dubious We find ourselves sitting by a heated pool in autumn temperatures at 7,200 feet. Santa Fe has been...
1st Oct 2021
20
1st Oct 2021
We find ourselves sitting by a heated pool in autumn temperatures at 7,200 feet. Santa Fe has been home for two nights, where we luxuriated in a king-size bed with our own pillows (we don’t leave home without them). How We Got Here Since the last missive, we parted ways with...
Escaping Flatland
How I read Reading well is an endurance sport. I sometimes talk to people who want to become serious readers...
1st Oct 2025
25
1st Oct 2025
Reading well is an endurance sport. I sometimes talk to people who want to become serious readers and so pick up Kafka’s The Trial or something like that—it is about as pleasant as running a marathon untrained.
Jim Nielsen’s Blog
Sanding UI One of the ways I like to do development is to build something, click around a ton, make tweaks,...
3rd Sep 2024
86
3rd Sep 2024
One of the ways I like to do development is to build something, click around a ton, make tweaks, click around more, more tweaks, more clicks, etc., until I finally consider it done. The clicking around a ton is the important part. If it’s a page transition, that means going back...
Wuthering...
Ralph Roister Doister, among the first regular English comedies - Then to our recorder with... Ralph Roister Doister (written c. 1550, published 1567) once had the distinction of being the first...
2nd Sep 2025
1
2nd Sep 2025
Ralph Roister Doister (written c. 1550, published 1567) once had the distinction of being the first comedy in English.  Please see this 1911 edition of the play calling it “the first regular English comedy.”  I do not know what 19th century critics meant by “regular” but this...
Josh Thompson
Migrating my Jekyll site to Netlify Troubleshooting Netilify deploy Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in...
26th Sep 2021
23
26th Sep 2021
Troubleshooting Netilify deploy Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in like 10 minutes, so my primary site, josh.works, should take maybe 20, right? I’m a few hours deep. Here’s what I get when Netlify tries to build: I should have done the following...
This Space
Left on the Shelf My old and very good friend Mark Thwaite has taken over at the Left on the Shelf bookshop, so if...
7th Feb 2026
1
7th Feb 2026
My old and very good friend Mark Thwaite has taken over at the Left on the Shelf bookshop, so if you're at all interested in any of the subjects listed in the poster below, please consider subscribing to his newsletter, checking out the listings on Abebooks, and the offers on...
Josh Thompson
Trip Report: New River Gorge Kristi and I are spending a few weeks in Fayetteville, WV, home of the New River Gorge. There’s...
13th Sep 2015
21
13th Sep 2015
Kristi and I are spending a few weeks in Fayetteville, WV, home of the New River Gorge. There’s fantastic climbing here. I climbed with good friends, and was absolutely humbled by how strong they all are. (My defense, at least for the next few weeks, is that I’ve not climbed...
Astral Codex Ten
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2026: Times & Places ...
1st Apr 2026
the late review
obligatory one month without social media on my phone substack essay (contrarian edition) it didn't change my life
27th Jul 2026
The Marginalian
John Quincy Adams on Impostor Syndrome and the True Measure of Success “You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All...
3rd Jun 2024
99
3rd Jun 2024
“You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All expectation is a story of the possible. Every person lives inside a story of who they are, what they are worth, and what is possible for their life, and suffers in proportion to how...
The Marginalian
Youth and Age: Kahlil Gibran on the Art of Becoming A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of "the great aloneness which knows not what...
4th Apr 2023
94
4th Apr 2023
A roadmap to the fulfilled belonging on the other side of "the great aloneness which knows not what is far and what is near, nor what is small nor great."
ben-mini
Commoditize Your Complements To the man who coined the phrase, “nothing in life is free”… have you been on GitHub...
16th Aug 2024
47
16th Aug 2024
To the man who coined the phrase, “nothing in life is free”… have you been on GitHub lately? Open-source is software that anyone can freely view, use, modify, and share because its code is publicly available on sites like Github and Huggingface. My last coding project alone was...
Ben Borgers
Tufts Meal Plan Wrapped
2nd Mar 2024
Josh Thompson
October 2016 Review October 2016 Review This month’s review. In another few days I’ll post the goals for November. I...
1st Nov 2016
25
1st Nov 2016
October 2016 Review This month’s review. In another few days I’ll post the goals for November. I had three goals for October, as of about 12 days ago: October goals: Programming I wanted to finish a certain Rails Tutorial, and move on to the next one. This project I made zero...
This Space
The way of arrival Two intellectual memoirs dominated my reading over Spring, three if WG Sebald's Silent Catastrophes...
8th Jul 2025
1
8th Jul 2025
Two intellectual memoirs dominated my reading over Spring, three if WG Sebald's Silent Catastrophes can be included given that its analysis of the careers of various Austrian writers illuminates Sebald's own literary trajectory.1 Peter Brown's Journeys of a Mind: A Life in...
The Perry Bible...
Big Fish The post Big Fish appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
3rd Jul 2026
Escaping Flatland
On agency Or, how to handle being sentenced to freedom, and handle it effectively, and authentically, and...
7th Jul 2025
47
7th Jul 2025
Or, how to handle being sentenced to freedom, and handle it effectively, and authentically, and responsibly
the late review
AI and Internet Hygiene we are going to have to re-learn how to use the computer
1st Oct 2024
The Marginalian
The Cosmogony of You We live in a state of perpetual dissociation from the almost unbearable wonder of being alive....
1st Dec 2024
64
1st Dec 2024
We live in a state of perpetual dissociation from the almost unbearable wonder of being alive. Wonder is always an edge state, its edge so sharp it threatens to rupture the mundane and sever us from what we mistake for reality — the TV, the townhouse, the trauma narrative. If we...
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...
20th Jan 2025
27
20th Jan 2025
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...
The Elysian
We’ve raised $50,000—now I’m writing a book! My vision for the future of capitalism has been greenlit. Now let’s make it a reality.
5th May 2025
Josh Thompson
A Junction Efficiency Metric: Vehicles Per Square Meter Per Minute still sorta drafty, but also its entirely possible the point is easily apprehended, and I’m way...
13th Sep 2025
1
13th Sep 2025
still sorta drafty, but also its entirely possible the point is easily apprehended, and I’m way over-explaining Introduction Elsewhere, I’ve been referring to a ‘vehicles per square meter per minute’ calculation, when talking about junctions on mobility networks. The first place...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Substack is at it again There is no such thing as a perfect place on the internet. But it’s possible to avoid the ones that...
3rd Jan 2025
31
3rd Jan 2025
There is no such thing as a perfect place on the internet. But it’s possible to avoid the ones that aren’t even pretending to try to be better. The best time to leave Substack was a long time ago. The second best time is now. — Marisa Kabas Visit original link → or View on...
The Elysian
The TERRAFORM print pamphlet is now available—here's what we earned Plus, join our literary salon discussion this week!
4th Aug 2025
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[RODEN] A new Popup Walk, Lots of Books Roden Readers — Ahoy from Crisptown, population: Everyone in Japan. The summer is done. Thank...
2nd Sep 2025
1
2nd Sep 2025
Roden Readers — Ahoy from Crisptown, population: Everyone in Japan. The summer is done. Thank glorious gods be, the summer is done. (Mostly.) I can feel my brain starting to solidify again, returning to its natural state after three months of relentless broiled liquefaction. In...
Escaping Flatland
Morning ritual + reading recommendations
1st Feb 2024
Blog -...
Book Review - Dancing Naked in the Mind Field Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is...
26th Jun 2021
49
26th Jun 2021
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...
The Elysian
Please come up with wildly speculative futures Inside my writing philosophy.
1st Apr 2024
Ben Borgers
Trip to Germany, spring 2024
26th May 2024
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Grantland Day 22: Oct 1, 2023 — As we suspect, the weather reports prove wildly inaccurate. At 8,000 feet,...
1st Oct 2023
19
1st Oct 2023
Day 22: Oct 1, 2023 — As we suspect, the weather reports prove wildly inaccurate. At 8,000 feet, we’re subject to alpine weather rules. Meaning, isolated storms can cycle in at anytime, and they do. Lightning flashes, thunder cracks. We sleep in fits and starts. I remove the...
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...
3rd Aug 2023
76
3rd Aug 2023
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 Elysian
Are Democrats too liberal? Or too conservative? We're asking the wrong questions.
3rd Dec 2024
Josh Thompson
A Runbook for Upgrading Your Parent's Junky Old Laptop to a Chromebook tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and...
20th Jul 2020
24
20th Jul 2020
tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and emotionally-charged operation to replace my 70-year-old newly-widowed mother-in-law's ancient desktop computer with a easy-for-me-to-manage Chromebook Update: I posted to r/ChromeOS...
Ben Borgers
just surf
23rd Jul 2026
Josh Thompson
Planned Unit Design Document (work-in-progress) This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something...
1st Oct 2021
23
1st Oct 2021
This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something we bring to the City of Golden for ratification, or whatever needs to happen to get this done in this zone. This document relates to Collateralizing Mortgages and Loans With the...
Escaping Flatland
Relationships are coevolutionary loops Looking for Alice, part 3
31st Oct 2023
Steven Scrawls
Care doesn't scale Care Doesn’t Scale I met a social worker whose job was to look after four orphaned children. She’d...
24th Oct 2024
46
24th Oct 2024
Care Doesn’t Scale I met a social worker whose job was to look after four orphaned children. She’d alternate with her coworkers spending 24 hours at a time living with the kids, effectively acting as their parent. The children, unsurprisingly, had a lot of trauma and so her job...
The American Scholar
Natale Adgnot Country couture The post Natale Adgnot appeared first on The American Scholar.
3rd Nov 2025
12
3rd Nov 2025
Country couture The post Natale Adgnot appeared first on The American Scholar.
ribbonfarm
History is More Like Science Fiction Than Fantasy I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I...
2nd Apr 2024
33
2nd Apr 2024
I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I visited the city (on Kindle, so I didn’t realize when I started that it’s 600 pages plus another 250 odd notes). It’s dense and absorbing and I’ll probably do a reflections post...
Josh Thompson
Continuos Glucose Monitors (part 2) About a year ago, I wrote this post about continuous glucose monitors, that’s sorta ‘part 1’ of...
12th Mar 2026
1
12th Mar 2026
About a year ago, I wrote this post about continuous glucose monitors, that’s sorta ‘part 1’ of these two parts. Since then, and parallel to this most recent time with the sensor, I’ve encountered improvements to the ecosystem. The sensor technology is way better, as is the...
Naz Hamid • Journal
Everybody Needs a Rock A new homepage and site improvements. Looking at the Colophon from it’s last update, I mentioned...
14th Feb 2026
1
14th Feb 2026
A new homepage and site improvements. Looking at the Colophon from it’s last update, I mentioned that a refresh had happened in February 2025. A year later, another refresh has landed I wouldn’t normally write about a site update like this, but the goal of the new homepage design...
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...
3rd May 2024
36
3rd May 2024
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...
Astral Codex Ten
Model City Monday 2/3/25 Things fall apart
3rd Feb 2025
This Space
Reading, ignorance The papacy, people say, counts in centuries, and perhaps never even thinks of counting, because its...
23rd Jun 2026
1
23rd Jun 2026
The papacy, people say, counts in centuries, and perhaps never even thinks of counting, because its goal is eternity.1   It has been a pleasure every few months to buy the latest volume in the new translation of À la recherche du temps perdu. I've now read the third, by Peter...

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