Ben Borgers
Customer Rewards Programs
over a year ago
The American Scholar
All in Your Head
The post All in Your Head appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
The post All in Your Head appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Does Not Make a Nice Old Man'
A friend who
is a great admirer of Thomas Carlyle sent me an excerpt from a letter the Scotsman...
9 months ago
A friend who
is a great admirer of Thomas Carlyle sent me an excerpt from a letter the Scotsman wrote to his mother on September 12, 1843:
“I spent a
forenoon with Jeffery who is very thin and fretful I think; being at any rate
weakly, he is much annoyed at present by a hurt on...
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...
3 weeks 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.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shitcan the Sass'
George
Turberville writes in his epilogue to Epitaphes, Epigrams, Songs and Sonets (1567):
“I write...
6 months ago
George
Turberville writes in his epilogue to Epitaphes, Epigrams, Songs and Sonets (1567):
“I write but of familiar stuffe because my stile is lowe.” Today we call him a
master of the “plain style,” the opposite of ornate poeticizing, along with his
contemporaries George...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Whole Sky Seems to Turn Into Rain'
The storm
was brief and fierce. Wind pushed the rain horizontally, like an airborne
river. The tops...
7 months ago
The storm
was brief and fierce. Wind pushed the rain horizontally, like an airborne
river. The tops of newly planted trees touched the ground. Yard and street filled
with branches, leaves and pine cones. A block away, an oak cracked and fell,
blocking the street. We lost power at...
Josh Thompson
Playing Pranks
My wife played a brilliant prank on me today, as she does every year. Here’s a partial...
over a year ago
My wife played a brilliant prank on me today, as she does every year. Here’s a partial list:
Convincing me that I was about to eat a slice of carrot cake; it was a sponge covered with toothpaste. I bit into it.
Convincing me that she had, in anger and frustration, cut off almost...
Josh Thompson
Lay a foundation
Yesterday I mentioned that
low friction goals are an advantage over “high friction” goals.
This is...
over a year ago
Yesterday I mentioned that
low friction goals are an advantage over “high friction” goals.
This is just another way of saying “easy things are easier to do than harder things”. Revelatory, I know.
Similarly,
I wrote a long time ago that:
We tell ourselves we can’t accomplish...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Never Has a Man Deserved a Reputation Less'
My middle
son, a Marine Corps officer at Quantico, asked last week if I would interested
in “working...
a year ago
My middle
son, a Marine Corps officer at Quantico, asked last week if I would interested
in “working through Wittgenstein” with him. Of course, so we met online on Sunday
for ninety minutes and read propositions 1 and 2 of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I first read the book...
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Is a Rite of Finitude'
Most of
Richard Wilbur’s poetry I read retrospectively, in books, long after it was
written and...
7 months ago
Most of
Richard Wilbur’s poetry I read retrospectively, in books, long after it was
written and first published in magazines. One exception I remember is “All That Is,” which appeared in the May 13, 1985 issue of The New Yorker. I had mostly stopped reading the magazine by...
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Canto I, "Of shapes transformde to bodies straunge"
Some notes on Canto I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis (8 CE). Just some of the things I am looking for...
a year ago
Some notes on Canto I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis (8 CE). Just some of the things I am looking for or
enjoying while reading Ovid’s epic of “forms changed / into new bodies.” (tr. Charles Martin, 2004, p. 15). Or, per Arthur Golding (1567, p. 3 of the
Paul Dry paperback) “Of...
The Marginalian
What Rises from the Ruins: Katherine Anne Porter on the Power of the Artist and the Function of Art...
"We understand very little of what is happening to us at any given moment."
a year ago
"We understand very little of what is happening to us at any given moment."
The Marginalian
The Importance of Trusting Yourself: Nick Cave on the Relationship Between Creativity and Faith
"There is more going on than we can see or understand, and we need to find a way to lean into the...
a year ago
"There is more going on than we can see or understand, and we need to find a way to lean into the mystery of things."
The Marginalian
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” Brought to Life in a Spanish Flashmob of 100 Musicians
A touchingly human reminder of our capacity for ecstasy, transcendence, and collective felicity.
a year ago
A touchingly human reminder of our capacity for ecstasy, transcendence, and collective felicity.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Our Lives Are Permanently Unfinished Projects'
“My
bookshelves, like my writings, are haunted by the ghosts of influences past,
all remembered with...
11 months ago
“My
bookshelves, like my writings, are haunted by the ghosts of influences past,
all remembered with great tenderness, much as one recalls an old flame from
college days: Whitney Balliett, Edmund Wilson, William F. Buckley, Jr., A. J.
Liebling, Somerset Maugham, Diana Trilling,...
Wuthering...
Daryl Hine's Ovid's Heroines - I, who could a dragon hypnotize
An anti-Valentine’s Day book now, Ovid’s Heroides
(25-16 BCE, somewhere in there), a collection of...
10 months ago
An anti-Valentine’s Day book now, Ovid’s Heroides
(25-16 BCE, somewhere in there), a collection of fictional letters in verse written
by mythical heroines to their no-good boyfriends and husbands. Many end in suicide. Dido castigating Aeneas, Phaedra mourning...
The Marginalian
Albert Camus on Writing and the Importance of Stubbornness in Creative Work
"There is no greatness without a little stubbornness... Works of art are not born in flashes of...
a year ago
"There is no greatness without a little stubbornness... Works of art are not born in flashes of inspiration but in a daily fidelity."
Astral Codex Ten
The Innocent And The Beautiful Have No Enemy But Time
...
a week ago
Josh Thompson
Quitting the shallow for the deep
Deep work over shallow
TL;DR: I’m off social media, but want to keep a functioning Twitter URL. So,...
over a year ago
Deep work over shallow
TL;DR: I’m off social media, but want to keep a functioning Twitter URL. So, it redirects here.
This year’s “best book I’ve read” label might go to Cal Newport’s Deep Work.
Here’s the gist:
One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming...
Josh Thompson
Corollas and U-Hauls
These last few posts have a theme. We moved. I’m writing about it a lot because I thought about it a...
over a year ago
These last few posts have a theme. We moved. I’m writing about it a lot because I thought about it a lot, and a lot of work went into it.
When moving across the country, you have a few options. You could higher a moving company, who comes and boxes up your house, packs a truck,...
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
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...
This Space
39 Books: 1994
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of...
7 months ago
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of philosophy in the series. Many will say it is not a book of philosophy at all. That would explain why I gorged on Nick Land's The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and...
Ben Borgers
The Code That Keeps Me Alive
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Brief, Dry, Almost Colorless Account '
The Polish
writer Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (1919-2000) --
Gulag survivor, co-founder of Kultura
and...
a year ago
The Polish
writer Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (1919-2000) --
Gulag survivor, co-founder of Kultura
and author of A World Apart: Imprisonment
in a Soviet Labor Camp During World War II (1951) – has sent me back to
Varlam Shalamov and his Kolyma stories. Herling-Grudziński in 1971...
Josh Thompson
Collateralizing Mortgages and Loans With the Present Value of Rent Flow
this is a draft document, it pairs with this Planned Unit Development application draft...
over a year ago
this is a draft document, it pairs with this Planned Unit Development application draft document
Inspiration comes from many places, but most strongly it draws heavily from Order Without Design. I’ve quoted in depth two pages below, but there is many other sections of the book...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Author Who Inspires Such Perennial Affection'
“This
impossibly erudite, overbearing, tender, and anguished man lived in a perpetual
state of...
a week ago
“This
impossibly erudite, overbearing, tender, and anguished man lived in a perpetual
state of dissatisfaction with himself which only disciplined labor could allay
but never completely still.”
In their moral
and emotional complexity, certain lives resemble the finest novels –...
Josh Thompson
Depression
I’m starting to write more regularly these days. For a long time, I’ve hardly written anything, or...
over a year ago
I’m starting to write more regularly these days. For a long time, I’ve hardly written anything, or only written when external circumstances required me to write something. For example, when I give a talk, I always create a page to “support” the talk, that I can link to in slides,...
Josh Thompson
Why I Eat Bacon Every Day (And You Should Too)
note: as of late 2017, I’ve rolled over to a mostly vegetarian diet. I still love meat, but don’t...
over a year ago
note: as of late 2017, I’ve rolled over to a mostly vegetarian diet. I still love meat, but don’t feel comfortable eating it, for ethical reasons. I still believe that, on a whole, bacon is good for you, and I still eat veggies and many eggs every day. I just don’t eat bacon or...
Blog -...
Book Review - The Island Within
With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no
beginning and no end,...
over a year ago
With The Island Within, Nelson has crafted a flawless narrative that has no
beginning and no end, and perhaps, to the unmindful, no meaning. To those
who remain anchored emerges buried treasure from every line. I kept being
drawn back in, not as an addiction, but, as I...
The American Scholar
In Reprise: Next, Line Please
A new poetry prompt for players new and old
The post In Reprise: Next, Line Please appeared first on...
a month ago
A new poetry prompt for players new and old
The post In Reprise: Next, Line Please appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
2 months ago
There is a lovely liminality to autumn — this threshold time between the centripetal exuberance of summer and the season for tending to the inner garden, as Rilke wrote of winter. Autumn is a living metaphor for the necessary losses that shape our human lives: What falls away...
The Marginalian
Trust, Betrayal, and the Nexus of Mathematics and Morality: The Prisoner’s Dilemma Animated
Illuminating the pitfalls of the mind in felt and gingerbread.
a year ago
Illuminating the pitfalls of the mind in felt and gingerbread.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Ordinary, Helpless, Moody Human Talk'
Long ago I came
to accept that certain writers will never be enjoyed by certain readers. I’m...
a year ago
Long ago I came
to accept that certain writers will never be enjoyed by certain readers. I’m no
matchmaker and don’t have the soul of a proselytizer. I resent people telling
me what I ought to like. On Wednesday two young missionaries came to the front
door. One launched his...
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: Fix Capitalism
By September 30th.
3 months ago
Ben Borgers
A Design Improvement for Our Communal Showers
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Reflection on Shutting Down Blocks
over a year ago
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...
7 months 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...
sbensu
Designing for support teams
Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from...
10 months ago
Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from consumer software. Here are some things to keep in mind.
This Space
39 Books: 1988
This is one of my most surprising discoveries in second-hand bookshop trawls in the far off days...
7 months ago
This is one of my most surprising discoveries in second-hand bookshop trawls in the far off days when they existed, especially because it was found in Portsmouth, not the most literary of cities despite Dickens and Conan-Doyle (or perhaps because of Dickens and Conan-Doyle)....
Escaping Flatland
Writing while walking
We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books.
3 months ago
We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Passions and Perturbations of the Mind'
In his Dictionary (1755), Dr. Johnson illustrates
fifteen words with citations from Robert Burton’s...
11 months ago
In his Dictionary (1755), Dr. Johnson illustrates
fifteen words with citations from Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621): addle, colly, costard, doter, to filch, to fleer, giddyheaded, griper, hotspur, to macerate, muckhill, mutter, oligarchy, quacksalver
and squalor....
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...
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
'We Live Missing Something'
Four years
late, I’ve read Gary Saul Morson’s “Poet of Loneliness,” his review of Fifty-Two Stories...
8 months ago
Four years
late, I’ve read Gary Saul Morson’s “Poet of Loneliness,” his review of Fifty-Two Stories (Knopf, 2020), a
Chekhov translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. I ordered the
collection early in the COVID-19 lockdown and will always associate it with the
other...
ben-mini
The Inner Game of Tennis
I just finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey. Originally published in 1974, the...
2 months ago
I just finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey. Originally published in 1974, the book explores how the thoughts of an athlete affect their game. It’s lauded as being at the forefront of what we now call “sports psychology”. Although my competitive sports days...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Just to Sweeten the Cup'
“It is to be
remembered,” Ford Madox Ford writes in The
March of Literature (1939), “that a passage...
a week ago
“It is to be
remembered,” Ford Madox Ford writes in The
March of Literature (1939), “that a passage of good prose is a work of art
absolute in itself and with no more dependence on its contents than is a fugue
of Bach, a minuet of Mozart, or the writing for piano of...
The American Scholar
Bards Behind Bars
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison
The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on...
6 months ago
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison
The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on The American Scholar.
ribbonfarm
Stack Map of the World
I’ve been buried neck deep in work stuff this week, but I did find time to make this stack diagram...
8 months ago
I’ve been buried neck deep in work stuff this week, but I did find time to make this stack diagram of the world, inspired by the xkcd Dependency cartoon. Randall Munroe draws better than me, but in my favor, I use more colors. Did you know most of the high-purity quartz needed...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Essence of Good Talk'
A longtime reader
of this blog stopped by the house on Saturday, we talked and the...
a year ago
A longtime reader
of this blog stopped by the house on Saturday, we talked and the afternoon
evaporated. Neither of us brought a script. “Improvisation is the essence of
good talk,” writes Max Beerbohm in “Lytton Strachey” (1943). “Heaven defend us
from the talker who doles out...
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
Collection of thoughts on Turing
It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software engineering program, and it’s been a journey.
In no particular order, I’m throwing down thoughts in three general categories:
What went well
What didn’t go well
What I might have...
The Marginalian
No One You Love Is Ever Dead: Hemingway on the Most Devastating of Losses and the Meaning of Life
"We must live it, now, a day at a time and be very careful not to hurt each other."
7 months ago
"We must live it, now, a day at a time and be very careful not to hurt each other."
Escaping Flatland
Authenticity as dialogue
John Stuart Mill, notetaking, rationality, and emotion
3 weeks ago
John Stuart Mill, notetaking, rationality, and emotion
Josh Thompson
Setting up Application Performance Monitoring in DataDog in your Rails App
When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work...
over a year ago
When I write guides to things, I write them first and foremost for myself, and I tend to work through things in excruciating detail. You might find this to be a little too in-depth, or you might appreciate the detail. Either way, if you want a step-by-step guide, this should do...
The American Scholar
Thoreau’s Pencils
How might a newly discovered
The post Thoreau’s Pencils appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
How might a newly discovered
The post Thoreau’s Pencils appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
2 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...
This Space
No safe landing
A review of A Winter in Zürau and Partita by Gabriel Josipovici
Gabriel Josipovici has said that...
2 months ago
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...
Josh Thompson
Back in the Saddle
There’s a point in time when after spending a few weeks or months working on one project/goal, your...
over a year ago
There’s a point in time when after spending a few weeks or months working on one project/goal, your ability to switch tasks to another project diminishes.
There’s plenty of evidence that humans can’t multi-task, and those who try just end up doing a lot of things poorly.
On the...
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...
8 months ago
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.
Anecdotal Evidence
'What American Beauty Should Be'
An old
friend called and reminded me of the September almost forty years ago when we
hiked along...
3 months ago
An old
friend called and reminded me of the September almost forty years ago when we
hiked along Otter Creek in southern Vermont near Dorset. Often we hiked in Otter Creek, which is filled with granite
boulders. It was less hiking than climbing horizontally. Between the stones...
The Elysian
Your ideas for improving capitalism
A collection of responses to my writing prompt.
2 months ago
A collection of responses to my writing prompt.
Ben Borgers
I’m a Sucker for the Brand
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Crisply, Pithily, and, Very Often, Cruelly'
Tom Disch on
Turner Cassity: “A poet so
consistently epigrammatic can be dismissed, by those...
5 months ago
Tom Disch on
Turner Cassity: “A poet so
consistently epigrammatic can be dismissed, by those incapable themselves of
wit, as unserious, as though to be serious one must always be in a fog. Cassity
never writes a poem without knowing exactly what he means to say—crisply,
pithily,...
Ben Borgers
The Day Should End at 3am
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
The Present You
It seems most of the decisions in life are made in favor of the
present you, or the
future you. I...
over a year ago
It seems most of the decisions in life are made in favor of the
present you, or the
future you. I wish the future me could sit beside the present me, and discuss how I was going about my day. Instead, it’s a rather one-sided conversation.
There are obvious choices, like food,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Humour Is Reason Itself'
The saddest
man I know wishes more than anything to be thought of as a comedian, a
jokester, the...
4 days ago
The saddest
man I know wishes more than anything to be thought of as a comedian, a
jokester, the reliably funny guy at the party. The sadness derives from his
inability to say or do anything even modestly amusing. People will laugh aloud at
something he says out of pity and an...
The Marginalian
Leonard Cohen on the Antidote to Anger and the Meaning of Resistance
One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do...
5 months ago
One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do it in our personal lives and we do it in our political lives. We are living through a time of uncommon helplessness and uncertainty, touching every aspect of our lives, and in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Energy in Things Shone Through Their Shapes'
Some
fugitive thinkers among us long for order in a manner almost nostalgic:
“I envied
those past...
a month ago
Some
fugitive thinkers among us long for order in a manner almost nostalgic:
“I envied
those past ages of the world
When, as I
thought, the energy in things
Shone
through their shapes, when sun and moon no less
Than tree or
stone or star or human face
Were seen
but as fantastic...
sbensu
Industrial macros
Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to...
6 months ago
Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to the database.
Anecdotal Evidence
'They Will Leave Behind Trenches'
“You wouldn’t
give up utopia it was too nourishing seductive / For mommy’s boys the heirs of
fortune...
a month ago
“You wouldn’t
give up utopia it was too nourishing seductive / For mommy’s boys the heirs of
fortune heirs / To the bloody myths of the twentieth city.”
Today is the
centenary of Polish poet and essayist Zbigniew Herbert. The
Anglophone world has been fortunate. Herbert’s poems...
The Marginalian
Maira Kalman on How to Live with Remorse and Make of It a Portal of Creative Vitality
Each time we have tried to elevate ourselves above the other animals by claiming singular possession...
10 months ago
Each time we have tried to elevate ourselves above the other animals by claiming singular possession of some faculty, we have been humbled otherwise: Language, it turns out, is not ours alone, nor is the use of tools, nor is music. Elephants grieve, octopuses remember and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Where Its Masters’ Love Is'
The late
D.G. Myers and I once talked about the tendency to pigeonhole writers according
to some...
6 months ago
The late
D.G. Myers and I once talked about the tendency to pigeonhole writers according
to some aspect of their subject matter. Melville is your
go-to cetology guy and Edith Wharton took care of sleds. Or, as Nabokov said of
Hemingway’s books: “something about bells, balls and...
Escaping Flatland
After AI beat them, professional Go players got better and more creative
For many decades, it seemed professional Go players had reached a hard limit on how well it is...
11 months ago
For many decades, it seemed professional Go players had reached a hard limit on how well it is possible to play. Then AI beat them.
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Hundred Words for the Word Brother'
One of the
stranger events recounted by Montaigne:
“[I]f I must
bring myself into this, a brother...
a month ago
One of the
stranger events recounted by Montaigne:
“[I]f I must
bring myself into this, a brother of mine, [Arnaud, Lord of] Saint-Martin,
twenty-three years old, who had already given pretty good proof of his valor, while
playing tennis was struck by a ball a little above the...
Escaping Flatland
The third chair
I remembered my loneliness; I felt it with a defencelessness that I had denied myself at the time....
10 months ago
I remembered my loneliness; I felt it with a defencelessness that I had denied myself at the time. The feeling that writing was impossible; that I would never find a place in the world that felt like home; that no one except my wife would ever care about me, about the things that...
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...
over a year ago
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Neither Angels Nor Devils'
A favorite
story about Dr. Johnson reminded me of something the late critic John Simon had
written...
10 months ago
A favorite
story about Dr. Johnson reminded me of something the late critic John Simon had
written on his blog five years ago. In a post titled “Curse Words,” abbreviated
by Simon throughout as “CW,” he reviews profanity as used in various settings
and languages, including Croat,...
Ben Borgers
Doubly Parasocial Relationships
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“The Testimony of J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Fiction” by Ai
The post “The Testimony of J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Fiction” by Ai appeared first on The American...
a month ago
The post “The Testimony of J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Fiction” by Ai appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Is the Andy Warhol of Art'
Guy
Davenport was our Johnny Appleseed of culture. He was an academic who published
in Harper’s and...
6 months ago
Guy
Davenport was our Johnny Appleseed of culture. He was an academic who published
in Harper’s and the Journal of the American Institute of Architects;
Life magazine and Art News; National Review and Inquiry.
He sowed allusions without regard for pretentious pieties. He loved...
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...
7 months ago
"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."
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...
over a year ago
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...
The Marginalian
Dead Stars: Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s Stunning Love Poem to Life
"We’ve come this far, survived this much. What would happen if we decided to survive more? To love...
a year ago
"We’ve come this far, survived this much. What would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?"
Anecdotal Evidence
'Wisdom As a Kind of Courtesy'
“[A]
reverence for the natural world, and a conviction that intelligent sanity is
both more...
a year ago
“[A]
reverence for the natural world, and a conviction that intelligent sanity is
both more difficult than unreflective complacency and more interesting than
madness.”
That’s how
the poet Dick Davis characterized the concerns of Janet Lewis and her husband Yvor
Winters in his...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Was Only Coming True'
In the final
year of his life, Clive James published a book-length poem, The River in the Sky...
a year ago
In the final
year of his life, Clive James published a book-length poem, The River in the Sky (2018), a dying man’s
last fling. The title refers to the Japanese phrase for the Milky Way. It’s
mostly autobiography, a book of well-rehearsed memories, largely unstructured, much
of...
Wuthering...
Please read Greek philosophy with me - Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, dog men, people jumping in...
Greek philosophy, readalong #2.
This idea got more interesting the more I thought about it, but...
a year ago
Greek philosophy, readalong #2.
This idea got more interesting the more I thought about it, but had more organizational problems, plus the greater problem that I do not think of philosophy as a strength of mine. My solution has been to convert the project into literature.
Is...
This Space
39 Books: 2023
This is the 39th and final post of this series. As the introduction explains, I began seeking a...
6 months ago
This is the 39th and final post of this series. As the introduction explains, I began seeking a return to the short-form of the early days of blogging. And it started off well, with each entry written in no time, sometimes stirring up the sediment of initial enchantment. As I got...
The Marginalian
The Experience Machine: Cognitive Philosopher Andy Clark on the Power of Expectation and How the...
"We are never simply seeing what’s 'really there,' stripped bare of our own anticipations or...
a year ago
"We are never simply seeing what’s 'really there,' stripped bare of our own anticipations or insulated from our own past experiences. Instead, all human experience is part phantom — the product of deep-set predictions."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Known to All But Themselves'
Suddenly,
there’s nothing shameful about ignorance. I mean personally, not as an indictment
of the...
5 months ago
Suddenly,
there’s nothing shameful about ignorance. I mean personally, not as an indictment
of the bigger culture. There’s so much I don’t know or understand, and that
knowledge of my ignorance no longer bothers me very much. I still like learning
things but there was a time when...
The Marginalian
A Parliament of Owls and a Murder of Crows: How Groups of Birds Got Their Names, with Wondrous...
Language is an instrument of great precision and poignancy — our best tool for telling each other...
11 months ago
Language is an instrument of great precision and poignancy — our best tool for telling each other what the world is and what we are, for conveying the blueness of blue and the wonder of being alive. But it is also a thing of great pliancy and creativity — a living reminder that...
Josh Thompson
Full Copy of 'The Atlanta Zone Plan' from 1922
A Warning and a Request
In a moment, you will read the full text of a 1922 marketing pamphlet. This...
over a year ago
A Warning and a Request
In a moment, you will read the full text of a 1922 marketing pamphlet. This document is an important thread to understanding some very large political problems facing the world today, specifically housing, affordability, the growing wealth gap, and...
The Perry Bible...
Invasion
The post Invasion appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
a month ago
The post Invasion appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
sbensu
The battlefield where arguments fight
A lot of speech is about convincing others of what type of arguments have merit
10 months ago
A lot of speech is about convincing others of what type of arguments have merit
Astral Codex Ten
Take The 2025 ACX Survey
...
2 days ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Entertain As Well As Illuminate'
“Here’s a
thought: literary criticism ought to entertain as well as illuminate.”
Bracing
words to...
a year ago
“Here’s a
thought: literary criticism ought to entertain as well as illuminate.”
Bracing
words to encounter while writing a book review. The writer is the poet
David Mason. Quoted is the opening sentence of his review/essay “Two Poet-Critics,” devoted to Clive James and John...
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."
a year ago
Soulful art from stories that speak "to the childhood of all times and all races."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Nothing Makes a Man More Reverent'
I have never thought of reading as a “hobby.” I
put the word in quotes because I sense a patronizing...
3 weeks ago
I have never thought of reading as a “hobby.” I
put the word in quotes because I sense a patronizing tinge to the word. A hobby
is a lesser pastime than a job, something frivolous, a “leisure activity” that
most people in the past couldn’t afford because they had to earn a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'What She or He Ought to Know'
In a
typically mordant essay, “A Great Fog Over the Past,” Peter Hitchens cites “Spanish Waters,” a...
4 months ago
In a
typically mordant essay, “A Great Fog Over the Past,” Peter Hitchens cites “Spanish Waters,” a poem by John Masefield, one of the first poets I claimed as my own
when a boy, years before Eliot and Yeats. The poem’s “decrepit beggar,” as Hitchens
puts it, “knows where the...
The Elysian
Elysian gatherings around the world
Picnic with me in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and San Francisco.
4 days ago
Picnic with me in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and San Francisco.
The American Scholar
Poco a Poco
The post Poco a Poco appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
The post Poco a Poco appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Sidekiq and Background Jobs for Beginners
I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I...
over a year ago
I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I was working on.
I learned a lot. Much of it was extremely basic. Anyone who knows much at all about Sidekiq will say “oh, duh, of course that’s true”, but at the time, it wasn’t...
The Marginalian
In the Dark: A Lyrical Illustrated Invitation to Find the Light Behind the Fear
The mind is a camera obscura constantly trying to render an image of reality on the back wall of...
a year ago
The mind is a camera obscura constantly trying to render an image of reality on the back wall of consciousness through the pinhole of awareness, its aperture narrowed by our selective attention, honed on our hopes and fears. In consequence, the projection we see inside the dark...
The American Scholar
Look Out!
Why did it take so long to protect
The post Look Out! appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Why did it take so long to protect
The post Look Out! appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Liked to Hold Ideas Up to the Light'
The single most
influential book in my life, the one that with time altered the way I think, not...
11 months ago
The single most
influential book in my life, the one that with time altered the way I think, not just what I think, is Guy’s Davenport’s The Geography of the Imagination (North
Point Press, 1981). I bought it that year in a lesbian bookstore in Manhattan. Over
the previous decade...
The American Scholar
Magic Men
The post Magic Men appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 weeks ago
The post Magic Men appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
6 months ago
“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
Necessary Losses: The Life-Shaping Art of Letting Go
"We cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate...
a year ago
"We cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate people, responsible people, connected people, reflective people without some losing and leaving and letting go."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Always Singular, and Never Trite or Vulgar'
“He was
never seen to be transported with Mirth, or dejected with Sadness; always
Chearful, but...
a year ago
“He was
never seen to be transported with Mirth, or dejected with Sadness; always
Chearful, but rarely Merry, at any sensible Rate, seldom heard to break a Jest;
and when he did, he would be apt to blush at the Levity of it: His Gravity was
Natural and without Affectation.”
The...
Wuthering...
The Nicomachean Ethics - moderate Aristotle - clarity within the limits of the subject matter
I will borrow the quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean
Ethics I found on p. 186 of Gary Paul...
a year ago
I will borrow the quotation from Aristotle’s Nicomachean
Ethics I found on p. 186 of Gary Paul Morson’s extraordinary new study of
the ethics if Russian literature:
Our discussion will be adequate if it achieves clarity
within the limits of the subject matter.
For precision...
The Marginalian
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: Uncommonly Lovely Invented Words for What We Feel but Cannot Name
"Despite what dictionaries would have us believe, this world is still mostly undefined."
8 months ago
"Despite what dictionaries would have us believe, this world is still mostly undefined."
Josh Thompson
Setting up for 'SQL Queries for Mere Mortals'
This tweet is from… a while ago. Turns out I didn’t dig into this book, because the pace at Turing...
over a year ago
This tweet is from… a while ago. Turns out I didn’t dig into this book, because the pace at Turing didn’t allow for a few weeks of thinking just about SQL.
yes, I'm digging into sql to better my AR skills, and ultimately whatever I need to use next. pic.twitter.com/UhjyGKv1FQ
—...
The Marginalian
The Ant, the Grasshopper, and the Antidote to the Cult of More: A Lovely Vintage Illustrated Poem...
“Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily...
a year ago
“Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily Dickinson lamented in a love letter. In his splendid short poem about the secret of happiness, Kurt Vonnegut exposed the taproot of our modern suffering as the gnawing sense that what we...
Josh Thompson
Taking the Plunge with Colemak
This entire post is written in
Colemak.
I am aiming to write at least 100 words, and this is...
over a year ago
This entire post is written in
Colemak.
I am aiming to write at least 100 words, and this is certainly harder than copying someone else’s words.
I have completed a few hours of dedicated practice, and it is quite possible that I am jumping the gun, and will quickly revert to...
Escaping Flatland
Without looking it up, what do you think?
+ links
2 months ago
The American Scholar
This Woman’s Work
Susannah Gibson opens the parlor doors on 18th-century feminism
The post This Woman’s Work appeared...
2 months ago
Susannah Gibson opens the parlor doors on 18th-century feminism
The post This Woman’s Work appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Am Breathing--Still'
R.L. Barth
is preparing a chapbook of poems titled Ghost Story for a publisher. One of its sections,...
11 months ago
R.L. Barth
is preparing a chapbook of poems titled Ghost Story for a publisher. One of its sections, “Snowfall in
Vietnam: Poems/Maxims,” consists of ten one-line, five-syllable poems and
accompanying titles, some of which are longer than the poems. Their extreme...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Echo of a Song a Stranger Sang'
I’m reminded
of my age only when someone holds a door open for me (That’s my job!) or performs some...
2 months ago
I’m reminded
of my age only when someone holds a door open for me (That’s my job!) or performs some other courtesy. I was returning to
my car from the university library, carrying a canvas tote bag of books, walking with the aid of my cane, as usual, when a
young man asked if he...
sbensu
Lieutenants are the limiting reagent
Why don't software companies ship more products? Why do they move more slowly as they grow? What do...
a year ago
Why don't software companies ship more products? Why do they move more slowly as they grow? What do we mean when we say "this company lacks focus"?
This Space
Books of the year 2024
In order of being read.
Giorgio Agamben – What I saw, heard, learned…
One night, along Venice’s...
a week ago
In order of being read.
Giorgio Agamben – What I saw, heard, learned…
One night, along Venice’s Zattere, watching the putrid water lap at the city’s foundations, I saw that we exist solely in the intermittence of our being, and that what we call I is just a shadow...
Josh Thompson
How to never accidentally click Twitter's "Moments" again (and to block anything else on the...
Do you use Twitter’s “Moments” tool, or do you just find it really annoying?
Most people find it...
over a year ago
Do you use Twitter’s “Moments” tool, or do you just find it really annoying?
Most people find it annoying. Here’s how to get rid of Twitter’s “Moments” forever:
0. Be won over to using an ad blocker on the internet.
They don’t block just ads, but malicious scripts and...
Ben Borgers
Is It Worth It to Be Passive Aggressive?
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Fond of Books and Fond of Reading'
A friend has
loaned me his copy of Maurice Baring’s Have You Anything to Declare? (1936),
subtitled...
8 months ago
A friend has
loaned me his copy of Maurice Baring’s Have You Anything to Declare? (1936),
subtitled A Note Book with Commentaries. This
is the 1950 edition published by William Heinemann and comes with an indecipherable
pencil inscription on the front end paper that may be...
The Marginalian
Delight Between Science and Magic: Euler’s Disk and the Sound of the Singularity
One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik...
3 weeks ago
One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik found himself so bored that he took a coin out of his pocket and began spinning it atop the table. In a testament to the eternal paradox of boredom and wonder as two sides of the...
The Marginalian
Of Wonder, the Courage of Uncertainty, and How to Hear Your Soul: The Best of The Marginalian 2023
Hindsight is our finest instrument for discerning the patterns of our lives. To look back on a year...
12 months ago
Hindsight is our finest instrument for discerning the patterns of our lives. To look back on a year of reading, a year of writing, is to discover a secret map of the mind, revealing the landscape of living — after all, how we spend our thoughts is how we spend our lives. In...
The American Scholar
Ideology as Anatomy
How shifting ideas about women’s bodies have affected their lives
The post Ideology as Anatomy...
2 weeks ago
How shifting ideas about women’s bodies have affected their lives
The post Ideology as Anatomy appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Where They Grind the Grain of Thought'
Let me sing
the praises of Miss Milly, Miss McClain, Miss Esson, Miss Shaker, Miss Martin,
Miss...
a year ago
Let me sing
the praises of Miss Milly, Miss McClain, Miss Esson, Miss Shaker, Miss Martin,
Miss Rose, Miss Whistler – my teachers, K-6, at Pearl Road Elementary School.
Most were young and pretty, more like big sisters than mothers. On the
television in Miss Shaker’s class we...
This Space
39 Books: 1990
The first book I read in the 39 years of this series was a genre thriller, and I've read only two...
7 months ago
The first book I read in the 39 years of this series was a genre thriller, and I've read only two more since. The second one came along this year. In 1989, I got a temporary job in the archives of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum where I met Carl Erlewyn-Lajeunesse, an...
Idle Words
The Lunacy of Artemis
In August 2020, the New York Times asked me to write an op-ed for a special feature on...
7 months ago
In August 2020, the New York Times asked me to write an op-ed for a special feature on authoritarianism and democracy. They declined to publish my submission, which I am sharing here instead.
A little over 51 years ago, a rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying three...
The Marginalian
Little Black Hole: A Tender Cosmic Fable About How to Live with Loss
Right this minute, people are making plans, making promises and poems, while at the center of our...
a year ago
Right this minute, people are making plans, making promises and poems, while at the center of our galaxy a black hole with the mass of four billion suns screams its open-mouth kiss of oblivion. Someday it will swallow every atom that ever touched us and every datum we ever...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Dictionary of Dead Words'
How to
account for the enduring appeal of clichés? Why do we snub the riches of our language?...
a year ago
How to
account for the enduring appeal of clichés? Why do we snub the riches of our language? I’ve
always supposed it was laziness or the absence of imagination. Why work hard at
writing or speaking when a ready-made word, phrase or thought shows up automatically
like pain with a...
The Marginalian
Louise Erdrich on the Deepest Meaning of Resistance
"Resist loss of the miraculous by lowering your standards for what constitutes a miracle. It is all...
a month ago
"Resist loss of the miraculous by lowering your standards for what constitutes a miracle. It is all a fucking miracle."
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Balance Sheet of Conscience'
“Strange as this
may sound, as soon as I saw the first Soviet airplanes on September 17, 1939, I
had...
a year ago
“Strange as this
may sound, as soon as I saw the first Soviet airplanes on September 17, 1939, I
had no doubt at all that I’d end up in a camp, and yet I wasn’t much interested
in them. Could I have been wearied in advance, by the monotony and dullness of
mass atrocities?”
That...
The Marginalian
Cordyceps, the Carpenter Ant, and the Boundaries of the Self: The Strange Science of Zombie Fungi
"It is likely that fungi have been manipulating animal minds for much of the time that there have...
9 months ago
"It is likely that fungi have been manipulating animal minds for much of the time that there have been minds to manipulate."
This Space
This kingdom by the sea
Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav
von Aschenbach, when his...
a year ago
Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav
von Aschenbach, when his supposedly objective appreciation of a young
boy’s beauty becomes sexual obsession.
This is how BBC Radio 4's In Our Time sets up a discussion of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice...
Anecdotal Evidence
'For My Small Ailments'
Empathy, in
some quarters, is becoming quite fashionable. Clearly, my doctor has been...
10 months ago
Empathy, in
some quarters, is becoming quite fashionable. Clearly, my doctor has been benefiting
from professional development. When he enters the examination room we shake
hands, he moves a chair to face me and sits almost knee-to-knee. This is to
eliminate any suggestion of...
Josh Thompson
VCR's debug_logger and `git diff`
I recently added the vcr gem to one of our repositories, and was adding tests for an external...
over a year ago
I recently added the vcr gem to one of our repositories, and was adding tests for an external API.
One of my tests was passing, and I wanted to commit the VCR cassette, along with the test/code that went with it.
I had thought I’d rebuilt the VCR cassette a few minutes before,...
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
"To be thin-skinned is to feel keenly, to perceive things that might go unseen, unnoticed, that others might prefer not to notice."
The Marginalian
Blue Glass
Not long after writing about the bowerbird’s enchantment in blue, I walked out of my house and...
11 months ago
Not long after writing about the bowerbird’s enchantment in blue, I walked out of my house and gasped at the sight of what looked like two extraordinary jewels sparkling on a bed of yellow leaves, right there on the sidewalk — chunks of cobalt glass, much larger than what a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Maintaining a Stable and Orderly Civilization'
On the same
day I removed all the books from one of the bookcases, dusted the shelves...
6 months ago
On the same
day I removed all the books from one of the bookcases, dusted the shelves and
reorganized the volumes, one of our cats leaped into an open cupboard in the
kitchen. One of the four pegs supporting the middle shelf was missing and Trane’s
weight tipped it enough so a...
Josh Thompson
About Roundabouts
I’m desperately trying to work through a giant back-log of writings. Please see write it now for...
over a year ago
I’m desperately trying to work through a giant back-log of writings. Please see write it now for more. I’m spending only a few minutes on this, forgive my errors.
Of late, I’ve had a lot of conversations about roundabouts. I’m basically trying to explain the ways that a mobility...
The Elysian
Please come up with wildly speculative futures
Inside my writing philosophy.
8 months ago
Inside my writing philosophy.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Books in the Running Brooks'
One of my
favorite literary analogies:
“The work of
a correct and regular writer is a garden...
11 months ago
One of my
favorite literary analogies:
“The work of
a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently
planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers; the composition of
Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower
in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Someone Who Could Never Be a Peasant'
I first
encountered Robert Alter in 1970 in the issue of TriQuarterly devoted to Vladimir Nabokov,...
3 months ago
I first
encountered Robert Alter in 1970 in the issue of TriQuarterly devoted to Vladimir Nabokov, already one of my
favorite writers. Alter’s contribution was “Invitation
to a Beheading: Nabokov and the Art of Politics,” which Nabokov later described
as “practically flawless.” A...
Josh Thompson
Five Days to Inbox Zero: How to Get Control of your Email
Email is a constant in our lives, yet it can be so overwhelming that it becomes almost 100%...
over a year ago
Email is a constant in our lives, yet it can be so overwhelming that it becomes almost 100% ineffective.
I discussed with a friend the other day why they should switch from Yahoo to Gmail, and how to reduce the useless emails they receive. Below is how I suggested they move from...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Not More Respected, Though Less Loved'
In the late
summer and autumn of 1773, Johnson and Boswell visited Scotland, the latter’s...
a year ago
In the late
summer and autumn of 1773, Johnson and Boswell visited Scotland, the latter’s birthplace
and the butt of many jokes by the former. The journey lasted eighty-three days
and both men published books recounting their adventures. Johnson’s A Journey to the Western Islands...
The American Scholar
Ground Truth
A story of dirt, dollars, and death
The post Ground Truth appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
A story of dirt, dollars, and death
The post Ground Truth appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Uses of the Erotic: Audre Lorde on the Relationship Between Eros, Creativity, and Power
"There is, for me, no difference between writing a good poem and moving into sunlight against the...
a year ago
"There is, for me, no difference between writing a good poem and moving into sunlight against the body of a woman I love."
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Troublesome Error, a Pernicious Foppery''
Let’s be
grateful to our troubled age for making it necessary to revive such formerly dormant
words...
7 months ago
Let’s be
grateful to our troubled age for making it necessary to revive such formerly dormant
words as cant and foppery, so as to avoid the more precise
but less polite bullshit. For foppery, the OED offers among its definitions “foolishness, imbecility,
stupidity, folly.” It’s...
The American Scholar
The Given Child
To what lengths would a mother go to ensure her family’s survival in a remote Himalayan village?
The...
6 months ago
To what lengths would a mother go to ensure her family’s survival in a remote Himalayan village?
The post The Given Child appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
3 months ago
Ives, music-making, and hope
The post The Power of the Common Soul appeared first on The American Scholar.
sbensu
Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union
Notes from reading the book by Zubok
10 months ago
Notes from reading the book by Zubok
sbensu
Risk-takers decide faster
Unsurprising connection between risk and speed.
a month ago
Unsurprising connection between risk and speed.
sbensu
The person behind the idea
When reading, it is worth understanding the kind of person authors are.
2 weeks ago
When reading, it is worth understanding the kind of person authors are.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Harbinger of a Song Greater Still'
“I went to
him very late each night, and he read many of the poems to me or discussed them
with me...
a year ago
“I went to
him very late each night, and he read many of the poems to me or discussed them
with me till the early hours of the morning. The tears often ran down his face
as he read, without the slightest apparent consciousness of them on his part.
The pathos and grandeur of these...
The Marginalian
How to Have Enough: Wendell Berry on Creativity and Love
“Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily...
a week ago
“Enough is so vast a sweetness, I suppose it never occurs, only pathetic counterfeits,” Emily Dickinson sighed in one of her love letters to Susan an epoch before Kurt Vonnegut, in a short and lovely poem, distilled happiness to the knowledge that you have enough. It is not an...
The American Scholar
“I Have Had My Vision”
Three prompts
The post “I Have Had My Vision” appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Three prompts
The post “I Have Had My Vision” appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Writer on Board
The cruise story from Twain to Shteyngart
The post Writer on Board appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
The cruise story from Twain to Shteyngart
The post Writer on Board appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Doris: A Watercolor Serenade to the Courage of Authenticity and the Art of Connection
“There is no insurmountable solitude,” Pablo Neruda asserted in his stirring Nobel Prize acceptance...
a year ago
“There is no insurmountable solitude,” Pablo Neruda asserted in his stirring Nobel Prize acceptance speech. “All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The World Has Always Seemed to Me So Various'
I dropped
out of university after my junior year in 1973 and didn’t return to campus to
complete my...
3 months ago
I dropped
out of university after my junior year in 1973 and didn’t return to campus to
complete my B.A. in English until 2003. The lack of a degree never got in the
way of working for almost a quarter-century as a newspaper reporter. I suspect
a degree in most non-STEM...
Josh Thompson
How To Procfile: Run Just a Single Process
Lets say you’ve got something like this in your Procfile:
web: PORT=3000...
over a year ago
Lets say you’ve got something like this in your Procfile:
web: PORT=3000 RAILS_ENV=development bundle exec puma -C ./config/puma_development.rb -e development
devlog: tail -f ./log/development.log
mailcatcher: ruby -rbundler/setup -e...
Wuthering...
The sophists and their rehabilitation - they clearly cause the ruin and corruption of their...
I have been pursuing the sophists, the great antagonists of Socrates and Plato. Minimized for...
a year ago
I have been pursuing the sophists, the great antagonists of Socrates and Plato. Minimized for centuries in the history of philosophy as, following Plato (but not Socrates), hucksters, they, or some of them, are now taken seriously as an intermediate step between the cosmological...
Josh Thompson
$150 Custom-Made Standing Desk
My desk/our kitchen table
Standing desks are
all the
rage. (I’m still waiting for
walking desks...
over a year ago
My desk/our kitchen table
Standing desks are
all the
rage. (I’m still waiting for
walking desks to catch up.)
Kristi and I outfitted our space with reclaimed furniture from Craigslist (also known as “cheap”), so we wanted to keep it going with a desk. My setup at our kitchen...
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is No Nothingness'
Once asked
about politics in a symposium portentously titled “The Writer’s Situation,”...
4 months ago
Once asked
about politics in a symposium portentously titled “The Writer’s Situation,” J.V.
Cunningham replied:
“You can
write on politics or not. I do not. But is politics meant here? Or is it,
rather, ideology? The latter is religious, not political, though religion...
The Marginalian
Thank You, Everything: An Illustrated Love Letter to the World
We forget that none of this had to exist — that we weren’t owed mountains and music by the universe....
a week ago
We forget that none of this had to exist — that we weren’t owed mountains and music by the universe. And maybe we have to forget — or we would be too stupefied with gratitude for every raindrop and every eyelash to get through the daily tasks punctuating the unbidden wonder of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Books, Books, Books'
The name I remembered
but not what he had written, which is hardly unusual when the writer...
a year ago
The name I remembered
but not what he had written, which is hardly unusual when the writer in
question was first encountered in childhood and his readability hasn’t survived
into adulthood. Very young children pay attention to the work, not its author.
In this case, “Wynken,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Living Through Radical Change'
Ten years
ago, Joseph Epstein wrote to his friend Frederic Raphael:
“I have
myself long ago put...
8 months ago
Ten years
ago, Joseph Epstein wrote to his friend Frederic Raphael:
“I have
myself long ago put aside any thought about writing an autobiography. . . .
When I became, almost without conscious decision, a bookish and a scribbling
man, the larger sense of adventure went out of my...
Josh Thompson
Notes from 'Why We Sleep'
I first read Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams about two years ago. It...
over a year ago
I first read Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams about two years ago. It immediately led me to prioritize sleep over almost everything else.
Most of us don’t get enough sleep, and are worse for it. Usually when the topic of sleep comes up, I say
Hey, there’s...
The American Scholar
Masters of Horror and Magic
The German folklorists who helped build a nation
The post Masters of Horror and Magic appeared first...
a month ago
The German folklorists who helped build a nation
The post Masters of Horror and Magic appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Trash Bags in the Laundry Room
over a year ago
The Elysian
I'm traveling the world to study utopia
An update about my life and artistic process.
6 months ago
An update about my life and artistic process.
Josh Thompson
Don't Focus on the Present
If you accept the premise that training
cycles are the method by which you will improve your...
over a year ago
If you accept the premise that training
cycles are the method by which you will improve your climbing, you
should be able to focus less on the day-by-day fluctuation in your performance.
At least, I should be able to, since I accept that premise. Yet I still struggle to not be...
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
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...
This Space
39 Books: 2000
In 1998 my friend John Harris mentioned that he was travelling to the US so I asked if he could pick...
7 months ago
In 1998 my friend John Harris mentioned that he was travelling to the US so I asked if he could pick up a copy of the new translation of Peter Handke's My Year in the No-man's Bay, not available over here. He was the first to tell me about this new website called Amazon. This is...
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...
7 months ago
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 Weimer, hence the visit to the Goethehaus mentioned in the entry for 1989. I hadn't heard of it before and nor had my...
The Marginalian
Awakened Cosmos: Poetry as Spiritual Practice
"Poetry is the cosmos awakened to itself."
9 months ago
"Poetry is the cosmos awakened to itself."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Read a Little, Listen to a Little Music'
“To tend the
world: read a little, listen to a little music.”
I was slow
to warm to the late Adam...
a year ago
“To tend the
world: read a little, listen to a little music.”
I was slow
to warm to the late Adam Zagajewski. I still prefer his essays to his poems,
which often seem sentimental and formless, as though he demanded too little of
himself when writing poetry. Only in the five...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Richly, Sometimes Dreamily, Melodic'
A friend has
given me an unexpected gift: a first American edition of Poems for Children (Henry Holt...
9 months ago
A friend has
given me an unexpected gift: a first American edition of Poems for Children (Henry Holt and Co., 1930), with a printed note
before the title page:
“Three
hundred copies of ‘Poems for Children’ have been specially printed and bound,
and have been signed by the...
The Marginalian
The Double Flame: Octavio Paz on Love
“Love is a bet, a wild one, placed on freedom. Not my own; the freedom of the Other… A knot made of...
a year ago
“Love is a bet, a wild one, placed on freedom. Not my own; the freedom of the Other… A knot made of two intertwined freedoms.” We love to forget ourselves, but also to remember what we are: mortal creatures lustful of meaning, radiant with life, eternally alone and eternally...
The Marginalian
How to Befriend Time: The Gospel of Pete Seeger and Nina Simone
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."
a year ago
"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."
Josh Thompson
STOP YELLING ON THE INTERNET, or, A Better Use for the Caps Lock Key
My current project is to learn to type using an alternative keyboard layout called Colemak.
QWERTY...
over a year ago
My current project is to learn to type using an alternative keyboard layout called Colemak.
QWERTY has problems. Here are a few, shamelessly borrowed from
Colemak.com
It places very rare letters in the best positions, so your fingers have to move a lot more.
It suffers from a...
The Marginalian
Kinship in the Light of Conscience: Peter Kropotkin on the Crucial Difference Between Love,...
“Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Whitman wrote in what may be the most elemental...
3 months ago
“Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Whitman wrote in what may be the most elemental definition of solidarity — this tender recognition of our interdependence and fundamental kinship, deeper than sympathy, wider than love. Half a century after Whitman’s atomic...
The Marginalian
The Merger Self, the Seeker Self, and the Lifelong Challenge of Balancing Intimacy and Independence
Each time I see a sparrow inside an airport, I am seized with tenderness for the bird, for living so...
8 months ago
Each time I see a sparrow inside an airport, I am seized with tenderness for the bird, for living so acutely and concretely a paradox that haunts our human lives in myriad guises — the difficulty of discerning comfort from entrapment, freedom from peril. It is a paradox rooted in...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Nothingness Is Our Need'
One of R.L.
Barth’s sisters-in-law found a tote bag containing poems and drafts in a
cupboard, most...
6 months ago
One of R.L.
Barth’s sisters-in-law found a tote bag containing poems and drafts in a
cupboard, most dating back to his time at Stanford in the late
nineteen-seventies. He found epigrams (his trademark form as a poet) and some Martial
translations. The bag also held “one fugitive...
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
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
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
"On many levels, we wind up being strengthened by what we join, or what joins us, as well as by what we combat."
sbensu
Everybody is the main character
People are motivated and engaged with the work only if they feel in charge of their own destiny....
a year ago
People are motivated and engaged with the work only if they feel in charge of their own destiny. Make it clear to them that they are!
Ben Borgers
The Redemption Arc Is Coming
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How the Octopus Came to Earth: Stunning 19th-Century French Chromolithographs of Cephalopods
The art-science that captured the wonder of some of "the most brilliant productions of Nature."
a year ago
The art-science that captured the wonder of some of "the most brilliant productions of Nature."
sbensu
Math intuitions on variance
This is a supplement to High Variance Management, where I build some intuition on the different...
a year ago
This is a supplement to High Variance Management, where I build some intuition on the different probability distributions involved.
Josh Thompson
2018 Reading Review & Recommendations
I read many books in 2018. I’m listing them out here, along with recommendations. Here’s the...
over a year ago
I read many books in 2018. I’m listing them out here, along with recommendations. Here’s the recommendation “key”:
👍 = I recommend this book. (This metric is intentionally fuzzy.)
😔 = This book influenced my mental model of the world/reality/myself
🏢 = Book topic is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Comfort, Solace, Inspiration'
“A few
books, however,” writes Michael Dirda, “become lifelong companions, works we
regularly turn...
a year ago
“A few
books, however,” writes Michael Dirda, “become lifelong companions, works we
regularly turn to for comfort, solace, inspiration.” The reviewer identifies a slightly
different category, “the books we find ourselves crazy about and hope to
revisit someday,” as distinguished,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'An Expression of Blatant Despotism'
Two female
acquaintances have recently endured divorce, and their lives are measurably
improved. The...
11 months ago
Two female
acquaintances have recently endured divorce, and their lives are measurably
improved. The woman I know better, whose wedding and reception we attended, was
married to a thuggish prison guard of a husband. You wouldn’t know it, looking
at him. Handsome, well-dressed and...
Robert Caro
Alone on the Desert Her Dream Fades
A lack of basic infrastructure forced a 74‒year-old widow to carry a water bucket a mile-and-a-half...
a year ago
A lack of basic infrastructure forced a 74‒year-old widow to carry a water bucket a mile-and-a-half back to her tiny shack.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Possible Verdicts Are Five'
As binary
thinking -- a rush to judgment about books, food, our fellow humans and just
about...
a year ago
As binary
thinking -- a rush to judgment about books, food, our fellow humans and just
about everything else -- becomes harsher and more fashionable, interesting
conversation withers. Have you noticed how
quickly people dismiss a subject before it has been pondered and probed?...
The American Scholar
The Writing on the Wall
Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery
The post The...
2 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.
This Space
The Opposite Direction, a book
Please use a link below to download an ebook of posts selected from over the last seven years of...
a year ago
Please use a link below to download an ebook of posts selected from over the last seven years of this blog.
This is the second collection after This Space of Writing and the title comes from the adolescent Thomas Bernhard's phrase repeated to an official at the labour exchange...
The American Scholar
Overconsumed
Adam Minter on what happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard
The post...
3 weeks ago
Adam Minter on what happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard
The post Overconsumed appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: 1992
Poetry is a notable absence in my book lists. I assumed at this time that because novels excited my...
7 months 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...
The Marginalian
Winnicott on the Qualities of a Healthy Mind and a Healthy Relationship
"A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and yet...
4 months ago
"A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and yet accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of another person; also to allow the other person to do the same to us."
Josh Thompson
Exploring source code via Griddler and Griddler-Mailgun
Proofpoint had a two-day “hack day” recently. My coworker John and I teamed up on a cool little...
over a year ago
Proofpoint had a two-day “hack day” recently. My coworker John and I teamed up on a cool little feature. I’ll give some context in a moment, but this post isn’t about the hack day, or email - it’s about exploring source code.
Here’s the context:
In my day-to-day, I work on a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Companionable Room'
I had a
minor problem with the university library’s catalog. When I requested two books
stored...
11 months ago
I had a
minor problem with the university library’s catalog. When I requested two books
stored off-site in the Library Service Center I got this message: “No items can
fulfill the submitted request.” That made no sense and I couldn’t figure out a
way around the roadblock, so I...
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
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....
Josh Thompson
Bootstrapping streetcars in Golden
I was describing this two or three stage plan to a friend the other day. They almost understood it,...
over a year ago
I was describing this two or three stage plan to a friend the other day. They almost understood it, but since they don’t live in Golden, and have not spent a lot of their life nerding out on “urban mobility infrastructure”, they didn’t quite get it.
Since I’m trying to write...
Anecdotal Evidence
'All These Jolts of Beauty'
Once I
interviewed a mycologist who, before his lecture, removed a yellow mushroom
from an oak tree...
a month ago
Once I
interviewed a mycologist who, before his lecture, removed a yellow mushroom
from an oak tree in front of the hall where he was speaking and munched on it
while he spoke. A few years later the writer Paul Metcalf, author of Genoa (1965), swore me to secrecy before
revealing...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Profoundly Bitter Lesson'
My friend
Moshe Vardi is a computer scientist at Rice University, the Karen Ostrum...
a year ago
My friend
Moshe Vardi is a computer scientist at Rice University, the Karen Ostrum George
Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering. He has published
an essay, “A Moral Rot at Rice University”:
“I was well
aware that antisemitism is alive and well in the US,...
The Marginalian
Favorite Books of 2023
To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of...
a year ago
To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of the questions that live in you and the reckonings that keep you up at night. While the literature of the present comprises only a tiny fraction of my own reading, here are a...
The American Scholar
To Catch a Sunset
Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love
The post To Catch a Sunset...
5 months ago
Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love
The post To Catch a Sunset appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Jon Fosse's Septology - art "can only say something while keeping silent about what it actually...
Jon Fosse’s Septology (2019-21) is a long
stream-of-consciousness novel about a Norwegian painter...
a month ago
Jon Fosse’s Septology (2019-21) is a long
stream-of-consciousness novel about a Norwegian painter trying to understand
one of his paintings. Each of the novel’s
seven sections begins with Asle looking at the painting:
AND I SEE MYSELF STANDING and looking at the picture...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in April 2024 - this irritation passes over into patient completed understanding
Grinding away at Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans
(1925), a genuine monster. “As I...
7 months ago
Grinding away at Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans
(1925), a genuine monster. “As I was
saying it is often irritating to listen to the repeating they are doing, always
then that one has it as being to love repeating that is the whole history of
each one, such a one has it...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Gleams Like a Warm Homestead Light'
Here is
epigram 1.33 by Marcus Valerius Martialis (c. 38-102 A.D.), better known in
English as...
2 months ago
Here is
epigram 1.33 by Marcus Valerius Martialis (c. 38-102 A.D.), better known in
English as Martial:
“In private
she mourns not the late-lamented;
If someone’s
by, her tears leap forth on call.
Sorrow, my
dear, is not so easily rented.
They are
true tears that without witness...
The Marginalian
The Broadest Portal to Joy
"Despite every single lie to the contrary, despite every single action born of that lie — we are in...
a year ago
"Despite every single lie to the contrary, despite every single action born of that lie — we are in the midst of rhizomatic care that extends in every direction, spatially, temporally, spiritually."
Anecdotal Evidence
'Smart Dinner Jacket and Patent Leather Pumps'
I was never
strictly a crime reporter but several times I covered the cops-and-courts beat,
which...
a year ago
I was never
strictly a crime reporter but several times I covered the cops-and-courts beat,
which was more genteel and less interesting than it sounds. Reading the police
blotter each morning or scanning new filings in the county clerk’s office left this
reporter feeling less...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Feel With Melancholy Wonder'
I was
introduced to the poet, critic and editor Stanley Burnshaw (1906-2005) in the mid-Seventies
by...
5 months ago
I was
introduced to the poet, critic and editor Stanley Burnshaw (1906-2005) in the mid-Seventies
by Edward Dahlberg, a difficult man who furthered my education. Collected in Epitaphs for Our Time: The Letters of Edward
Dahlberg (George Braziller, 1967) are five letters to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'If the Nation Is to Be Saved From This Menace'
“To the
thinking man there are few things more disturbing than the realization that we
are becoming...
10 months ago
“To the
thinking man there are few things more disturbing than the realization that we
are becoming a nation of minor poets.”
P.G.
Wodehouse is being kind. He wrote “The Alarming Spread of Poetry” in 1916 when
the blight was fresh and perhaps still reversible. His Exhibit A is...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Taste for Strolling in Cemeteries'
Just
as most of the people we encounter across a lifetime mean nothing to us and
will not...
a year ago
Just
as most of the people we encounter across a lifetime mean nothing to us and
will not even
linger in memory, as they stir neither distaste nor devotion, so it is with
books and writers. Had I been one of those desperately obsessive readers who
records every title read, I...
ben-mini
IMG_0416
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube”...
a month ago
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube” that allowed users to upload videos directly to YouTube from the Photos app.
The feature worked… really well. In fact, YouTube reported a 1700% increase in total video uploads...
The Marginalian
Thunder, Bells, and Silence: The Eclipse that Went Extinct
What was it like for Martha, the endling of her species, to die alone at the Cincinnati Zoo that...
6 months ago
What was it like for Martha, the endling of her species, to die alone at the Cincinnati Zoo that late-summer day in 1914, all the other passenger pigeons gone from the face of the Earth, having once filled its skies with an immensity of beating wings, so many that John James...
The American Scholar
“Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared...
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Lichens and the Meaning of Life
"We are lichens on a grand scale."
a year ago
"We are lichens on a grand scale."
Wuthering...
Metamorphoses, Books XI to XV - The whole of it flows
I had better finish up Ovid’s Metamorphoses before I
forget what was in it. It is full of
memorable...
8 months ago
I had better finish up Ovid’s Metamorphoses before I
forget what was in it. It is full of
memorable things, but I have limits.
Books XI through XV, the last five, in this post.
Book X ended with the songs of Orpheus, so he has to begin
Book XI with Orpheus’s gruesome death,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Uneven, Irregular, and Multiform Movement'
“There are
readers—and I am one of them—whose reading is rather like a series...
2 months ago
“There are
readers—and I am one of them—whose reading is rather like a series of
intoxications.”
Driving while
reading is discouraged. Once, in Bellevue, Wash., while stopped at a red light,
I was intoxicated by the book propped against the wheel until a cop pulled up, rolled...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Superior Graduate School'
When I was permitted, starting at age eleven, to ride the CTS
bus into downtown Cleveland and spend...
a year ago
When I was permitted, starting at age eleven, to ride the CTS
bus into downtown Cleveland and spend the day as I wished, with money earned from
a paper route and an erratically dispensed allowance, it was always a bookish
outing. The bus let me off on Public Square near...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Kind of Masochism Afoot in Modern Aesthetics'
“Is there a
kind of masochism afoot in modern aesthetics whereby the leaden and the dull
acquire...
5 months ago
“Is there a
kind of masochism afoot in modern aesthetics whereby the leaden and the dull
acquire significance simply because the beaten spirit would seem to claim more
seriousness than a more robust struggle with the exigencies of things?”
This
elegantly crafted question, at...
sbensu
Enterprise sales meets product development
What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide...
10 months ago
What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide and more of a cautionary tale.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Whole Poem Becomes Molten with Activity'
I’m in debt
to anthologies for much of my education. When you’re young and hungry and
everything is...
a year ago
I’m in debt
to anthologies for much of my education. When you’re young and hungry and
everything is new, such collections are like well-stocked cafeterias. You push
your tray down the line and sample what looks good. Once seated, if a friend
recommends a dish you avoided, you can...
The American Scholar
Chris Combs
Surveillance state
The post Chris Combs appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Surveillance state
The post Chris Combs appeared first on The American Scholar.
Steven Scrawls
Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction
Easy Questions, Part 1:
Introduction
What if our stories explore questions not because those...
9 months ago
Easy Questions, Part 1:
Introduction
What if our stories explore questions not because those questions are
interesting, but because those questions are easier to respond to than
the alternatives?
Trope: The Chosen One
What’s the shallow, wish-fulfillment version of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Aesthetically They Are Still Delightful'
“Early
Ellington records are like vintage cars. They are not as he or anyone else
would make them...
7 months ago
“Early
Ellington records are like vintage cars. They are not as he or anyone else
would make them nowadays, but historically they are still important and
aesthetically they are still delightful.”
Let's not confine Philip
Larkin’s conclusion exclusively to Duke Ellington’s
early...
Josh Thompson
My terminal setup
note: this is a draft. Please ping me in slack/email with questions, spots where this is unclear....
over a year ago
note: this is a draft. Please ping me in slack/email with questions, spots where this is unclear. I’ll answer your question, and update this post.
Here’s some quick notes on how I have my terminal setup.
First, I use Zsh. If you’re on a new Macbook Pro, you also are using...
The American Scholar
Bridges
The post Bridges appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
The post Bridges appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter appeared first on The...
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “Stick the Landing” by David Gewanter appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Current Self and Going to Libraries
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Managed Heart: Emotional Labor and the Psychological Cost of Ambivalence
What are you unwilling to feel? This is one of the most brutal, most clarifying questions in life,...
a month ago
What are you unwilling to feel? This is one of the most brutal, most clarifying questions in life, answering which requires great courage and great vulnerability. Out of that unwillingness arises the greatest inner tension of the heart: that between what we wish we felt and what...
Ben Borgers
I Used All of My Meal Swipes!
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“The Answering Machine” by Linda Pastan
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Answering Machine” by Linda Pastan appeared first on The...
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Answering Machine” by Linda Pastan appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
The best books of 2023, in a sense - "Aren't you tired of reading?"
Last January seems even more distant than usual at this time
of year. It will likely not...
11 months ago
Last January seems even more distant than usual at this time
of year. It will likely not surprise
anyone that 2023 now comes with a strong feeling of Before and After. So I will indulge in the “facetious and silly”
exercise of identifying the best books I read in 2023. Sorting...
The Marginalian
The Lost Drop: An Illustrated Celebration of the Wonder of the Water Cycle and the Interconnected...
I remember when I first learned about the water cycle, about how it makes of our planet a living...
a year ago
I remember when I first learned about the water cycle, about how it makes of our planet a living world and binds the fate of every molecule to that of every other. I remember feeling in my child-bones the profound interconnectedness of life as I realized I was breathing the...
The American Scholar
For Want of Touch
The astonishing breadth of our passions
The post For Want of Touch appeared first on The American...
3 months ago
The astonishing breadth of our passions
The post For Want of Touch appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on...
a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Caprock
Adventures worth the silence
The post Caprock appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
Adventures worth the silence
The post Caprock appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'As a Whole It Is a Gallimaufry'
“[O]ne is
tempted—though it might be dangerous—to maintain that the best books in the
world were...
9 months ago
“[O]ne is
tempted—though it might be dangerous—to maintain that the best books in the
world were written chiefly for pleasure and with an after-hope to please.”
Things get
sticky when you start plumbing a writer’s intentions. Let’s just say that a dwindling
species of serious...
Escaping Flatland
On shortcuts and longcuts
There’s this design heuristic that if people cut across the grass, you should pave the shortcut they...
7 months ago
There’s this design heuristic that if people cut across the grass, you should pave the shortcut they make. This gives the path a lovely human fit. But sometimes you want to do the opposite. You want to design ways to get people to take a longer path, a longcut, so they can see or...
The American Scholar
Martha Foley’s Granddaughters
What the esteemed literary editor never knew about the life of her troubled son, David Burnett
The...
5 months ago
What the esteemed literary editor never knew about the life of her troubled son, David Burnett
The post Martha Foley’s Granddaughters appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
How to Own Your Human-Heartedness: Alan Watts on the Confucian Concept of Jen and the Dangers of...
"Trust in human nature is acceptance of the good-and-bad of it, and it is hard to trust those who do...
a year ago
"Trust in human nature is acceptance of the good-and-bad of it, and it is hard to trust those who do not admit their own weakness."
The American Scholar
American Modernism’s Lost Boy-King
The late, great Paul Auster on Stephen Crane
The post American Modernism’s Lost Boy-King appeared...
7 months ago
The late, great Paul Auster on Stephen Crane
The post American Modernism’s Lost Boy-King appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
The Scales
The post The Scales appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The post The Scales appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Week 7: Boost your essays all over the internet
8 months ago
Josh Thompson
October 2016 Review
October 2016 Review
This month’s review. In another few days I’ll post the goals for November.
I...
over a year ago
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...
The American Scholar
“The Pulley” by George Herbert
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Pulley” by George Herbert appeared first on The American...
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “The Pulley” by George Herbert appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Am I an anarchist?
Letters to an anarchist, part seven.
a month ago
Letters to an anarchist, part seven.
The Elysian
Your alternatives to democracy
Entries to the March writing prompt.
8 months ago
Entries to the March writing prompt.
Anecdotal Evidence
'For the Ordinary Educated Man'
I’ve read
most of Robert Conquest’s books – history, poetry, fiction – and here is the
sole passage...
5 months ago
I’ve read
most of Robert Conquest’s books – history, poetry, fiction – and here is the
sole passage I have almost committed to memory:
“Literature
exists for the ordinary educated man, and any literature that actively requires
enormous training can be at best of only peripheral...
The American Scholar
“How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson appeared...
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “How Happy Is the Little Stone” by Emily Dickinson appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Stood There and Stared at Silence, Silent Too'
St. Augustine
observes of St. Ambrose in Book VI, Chapter 3 of his Confessions:
“When he...
10 months ago
St. Augustine
observes of St. Ambrose in Book VI, Chapter 3 of his Confessions:
“When he was
reading, his eyes ran over the page and his heart perceived the sense, but his
voice and tongue were silent. . . . Very often when we were there, we saw him
silently reading and never...
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...
6 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully
The post “He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
First pass with Elixir/Phoenix
I’m digging into Elixir and Phoenix. I’m working through this tutorial to cloning Slack.
The...
over a year ago
I’m digging into Elixir and Phoenix. I’m working through this tutorial to cloning Slack.
The tutorial author says
At the time of writing, I have ~1 week experience with Phoenix. Similar to Rubber Ducky Debugging, I am writing this blog post to force myself to think differently...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Craft Is Perfected Attention'
The
campiness can get a little thick when the poet/publisher/photographer Jonathan
Williams...
a year ago
The
campiness can get a little thick when the poet/publisher/photographer Jonathan
Williams (1929-2008) is in the neighborhood, but he’s always festive, the sort
of fellow you could hire to turn around tedious parties or staff meetings. A
reader says she is enjoying Williams’...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Friends They May Become To-morrow'
“New books
can have few associations. They may reach us on the best deckle-edged Whatman
paper, in...
2 weeks ago
“New books
can have few associations. They may reach us on the best deckle-edged Whatman
paper, in the newest types of famous presses, with backs of embossed vellum,
with tasteful tasselled strings,--and yet be no more to us than the constrained
and uneasy acquaintances of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'. . . Or That He Did Not'
Some of us
enjoy footnotes and other annotations. Thoughtful, non-Kinbotean notes accompanying
older...
6 months ago
Some of us
enjoy footnotes and other annotations. Thoughtful, non-Kinbotean notes accompanying
older texts can identify historical figures and help us decipher obsolete words. As
Joyce advised in the Wake: “Wipe your
glosses with what you know.” My preference with Shakespeare...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Make Memory Speak so Volubly'
A reader
shares with me her first reading of two books she knows I value highly. First,...
a year ago
A reader
shares with me her first reading of two books she knows I value highly. First, Kipling’s
Kim: “I was
twelve. I was very interested in ‘spiritual’ things. It was the Beatles and the
Maharishi, you know. I got it from the library and it was love at first sight.
I...
Escaping Flatland
On mentors
What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have...
a year ago
What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have that privilege?
Anecdotal Evidence
'Every Departure Destroys a Class of Sympathies'
As a boy I
was spared most deaths. I've read of people who lose parents, siblings and close
friends...
5 months ago
As a boy I
was spared most deaths. I've read of people who lose parents, siblings and close
friends when young, and wonder how they adapt to unprecedented loss. They have
nothing to compare it to. The death that hit me hardest was President Kennedy’s,
a month after my eleventh...
Josh Thompson
Denver.rb meetup notes
Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App
Denver.rb Monthly Meetup...
over a year ago
Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App
Denver.rb Monthly Meetup @WeWork, Feb 12, 2018
We talked about performance profiling!
Here’s the slides, on Dropbox
I’m working on going deeper on the topic of Rails performance. I’ve got a lot more on the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Worked His Weaponed Wit'
A reader is
displeased: “Oh my aren’t you witty?” He/she was offended by something I had written a...
a year ago
A reader is
displeased: “Oh my aren’t you witty?” He/she was offended by something I had written a long time ago about Robert Bly. Granted, criticizing Bly is like
shooting fish in the bathtub with a bazooka. I was a little ashamed of myself
but that passed. My consolation is...
Josh Thompson
Continuous Glucose Monitors: Why & What
This is a story and explanation about why I sometimes wear a glucose monitor. It’s visible on the...
7 months ago
This is a story and explanation about why I sometimes wear a glucose monitor. It’s visible on the rear of my upper arm, usually sparks a question or two, I’ve usually stumbled through a response, now I can simply pass this page along to anyone who asks.
Since maybe 2018, every...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poets Who Are Plain and Gladsome'
Being or
pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite
ruses...
9 months ago
Being or
pretending to be a philistine is great fun. It was one of Philip Larkin’s favorite
ruses (“Books are a load of crap”). It’s certain to rile the pompous and
pretentious, so all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the sputtering. I’ve
happened on a first-rate anthology of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'You Have to Read the Words'
“Tolstoy was
so much better than any other writer who ever lived that you couldn’t even
remotely...
2 months ago
“Tolstoy was
so much better than any other writer who ever lived that you couldn’t even
remotely compare anyone to him.”
I first read
War and Peace in the eighth grade in
a paperback abridgement. I remember reading it in science class, half-heartedly
hiding the book behind the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Single Line of Calm'
Judged
solely as a liquid asset, the most valuable book I ever held was a history of
Argentina...
2 weeks ago
Judged
solely as a liquid asset, the most valuable book I ever held was a history of
Argentina borrowed from the public library in Schenectady, N.Y. At home I discovered
the previous reader had marked his place with a twenty-dollar bill. I returned
the book but not the cash. It...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Silent Conversation'
“To talk and
dispute are more the practices of the Platonic school than to read and
meditate....
10 months ago
“To talk and
dispute are more the practices of the Platonic school than to read and
meditate. Talkative men seldom read. This is among the few truths which appear
the more strange the more we reflect upon them. For what is reading but silent conversation?”
This passage
is...
Wuthering...
The endlessly adaptable plays of Plautus - I’ll make it into a comedy with some tragedy mixed in
The plays of Plautus are the foundation of Western comedy. That they are based on the plays of...
a year ago
The plays of Plautus are the foundation of Western comedy. That they are based on the plays of Menander and the other Greek New Comedy writers was irrelevant, since all of those texts were soon lost. Plautus (and his successor Terence) carried the stage traditions, the...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Carry on With the Business of the Day'
Beware of “nature
poetry.” It tends to be not about nature but the poet and his self-regarding...
4 months ago
Beware of “nature
poetry.” It tends to be not about nature but the poet and his self-regarding epiphanies.
Perhaps our finest nature poet is Yvor Winters. A basic understanding of
biology is useful in discouraging pantheism and other forms of fashionable nature
mysticism.
We...
Josh Thompson
Learning Spanish: Conversation connectors
I’m learning Spanish right now,
as I’ve mentioned. The bad news is I’ve been in some state...
over a year ago
I’m learning Spanish right now,
as I’ve mentioned. The bad news is I’ve been in some state of
learning spanish for the better part of the last 15 years. My mom’s parents came here from Paraguay, and so she and her siblings are all native Spanish speakers, plus their spouses....
Josh Thompson
Tiny Habits take 2
Dr. BJ Fogg runs
Tiny Habits, a one-week course on building new habits.
Since most of what we do is...
over a year ago
Dr. BJ Fogg runs
Tiny Habits, a one-week course on building new habits.
Since most of what we do is governed by habits, it is reasonable to study how to build new ones, or replace bad ones.
I
have done his course before, and had success. I have been reading
Freewith Kristi and...
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