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Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ 2023 in the Rearview End-of-year recaps and reviews haven't been something I do. Generally, my mindset is about embracing...
a year ago
15
a year ago
End-of-year recaps and reviews haven't been something I do. Generally, my mindset is about embracing the present, with a gentle forward momentum towards what comes next. Years ago, I heard an Imam once speak about not having regrets. I took that to heart at the time and have...
Josh Thompson
Thoughts on Money from 2013 I was looking through some draft posts I have lying around, and found one from the middle of 2013....
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I was looking through some draft posts I have lying around, and found one from the middle of 2013. That’s 2.5 years ago. Reading over it, I feel satisfaction for a few reasons: Old Josh (from July 2013) wasn’t a train wreck. As soon as I think about myself in highschool and...
The Elysian
I built a castle to save the economy You're welcome.
a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Pseudonyms lets you practice agency I don’t think I would have become a writer if it wasn’t for the internet forums of the early 2000s.
11 months ago
Josh Thompson
On Cleaner Controllers A few days ago, I worked on a project that was mostly about serving up basic store data (modeled...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
A few days ago, I worked on a project that was mostly about serving up basic store data (modeled after Etsy) to an API. We had a few dozen end-points, and all responses were in JSON. Most of the action happened inside of our controllers, and as you might imagine, our routes.rb...
Ben Borgers
Read the Dang Thing Out Loud
over a year ago
This Space
"Every day I have to invoke the absent god again"* I really enjoy this YouTube channel despite my general lack of interest in films. The presenter’s...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
I really enjoy this YouTube channel despite my general lack of interest in films. The presenter’s restrained voice-over is ideal for one approaching its concerns; imagine a lullaby sung by Werner Herzog. I envy him the medium for its music, its visuals, even its potential for...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Buh-bye, Spotify I finally ditched Spotify at the end of 2024. I never loved it, and I felt extra icky about giving...
6 months ago
35
6 months ago
I finally ditched Spotify at the end of 2024. I never loved it, and I felt extra icky about giving them my money ever since they had no trouble finding $250 million for the sham supplement salesman and douchebag magnet Joe Rogan, despite their inability to promote or pay the vast...
The American Scholar
Paige Ledom Out of the ordinary The post Paige Ledom appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The Marginalian
Stunning 200-Year-Old French Illustrations of Exotic, Endangered, and Extinct Birds From peacocks to penguins, a winged menagerie of wonder.
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
2023 Annual Review It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always...
a year ago
17
a year ago
It’s that time of the year. I often enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I’ve always found value in writing my own, even as there is a few years I’ve missed, since I started the habit way back in 2015. for a long time, I did annual reviews. 2020 was late, and then for...
Ben Borgers
Hands Occupied
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ And another one Day 24: Oct 3, 2023 — I awake after a restful slumber. The sleeping conditions were damn-near...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Day 24: Oct 3, 2023 — I awake after a restful slumber. The sleeping conditions were damn-near perfect: cool overnight temperatures and stillness in the air. We went to bed with a few options for the course of today, but it’s apparent to us we should settle in for an additional...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Bolt of Inspiration Strikes Invariably' “Inspiration is perhaps merely the joy of writing: it does not precede writing.” A student and...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
“Inspiration is perhaps merely the joy of writing: it does not precede writing.” A student and aspiring fiction writer wonders why I seldom refer to “inspiration.” What is it? Do I deny its existence? Have certain writers successfully relied on it? Can he? My answer is yes and...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Image to Mesh Gradient Generate beautiful gradients from colors or from a photo. Visit original link → or View on...
10 months ago
The Marginalian
Nick Cave on the Two Pillars of a Meaningful Life "Cultivating a questioning mind, of which conversation is the chief instrument, enriches our...
a year ago
24
a year ago
"Cultivating a questioning mind, of which conversation is the chief instrument, enriches our relationship with the world."
Ben Borgers
RealMoji
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
12
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,...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dragönsteel Inspired by heavy metal logos, 1980s role-playing games, and maybe dragons and dusty, leather-bound...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Inspired by heavy metal logos, 1980s role-playing games, and maybe dragons and dusty, leather-bound books, Dragönsteel is our take on a modern-ish blackletter typeface. — Dan Cederholm Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ For our fathers Day 17: Sept 26, 2023 — Jen’s father, Michael Schuetz, passed away on Father’s Day, June 20, 2010....
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 17: Sept 26, 2023 — Jen’s father, Michael Schuetz, passed away on Father’s Day, June 20, 2010. My father, Abdul Hamid Hussain, passed away on Father’s Day, June 18, 2017. It’s another occurrence of similarity and coincidence that feels cosmic to us. Today, we’re in...
Ben Borgers
Website Like a Library
over a year ago
Naz Hamid
SXSW ’11 Memories are an interesting beast. I have certain core memories that are embedded deep in my mind....
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
Memories are an interesting beast. I have certain core memories that are embedded deep in my mind. The years I attended SXSW from 2007-2012 encompass some of those. In 2011, I shared a house with longtime partner-in-crime Scott Robbin, Jeff Skinner, and Sam Felder. We were off...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Where the Bathrooms Have No Name On Thanksgiving this year, Jen and I went on run. Since the morning and lunch were occupied by a...
a year ago
10
a year ago
On Thanksgiving this year, Jen and I went on run. Since the morning and lunch were occupied by a non-traditional set of meals, we departed for our excursion mid-afternoon. Maybe it’s age, maybe it was too much fizzy water at lunch coupled with the runner’s jogging motion but...
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: Fix Capitalism By September 30th.
10 months ago
Idle Words
The Shape of a Mars Mission This post is the second in a series. Read part one here. p {line-height:1.6em; } p.caption {...
4 months ago
37
4 months ago
This post is the second in a series. Read part one here. p {line-height:1.6em; } p.caption { margin-top:0px;padding-top:0px;margin-bottom:20px;text-align:center;} a.fnote {text-decoration:none;color:red} img {margin-bottom:0px;} “From a mathematics and trajectory...
sbensu
Math intuitions on variance This is a supplement to High Variance Management, where I build some intuition on the different...
over a year ago
22
over a year ago
This is a supplement to High Variance Management, where I build some intuition on the different probability distributions involved.
The Elysian
Join our upcoming literary salon discussions Our calendar of upcoming events.
10 months ago
Wuthering...
Thou hast devourd thy sonnes - some notes on Seneca's horror plays My Seneca reading in March: Medea, tr. Frederick Ahl The Trojan Women, tr. E. F. Watling Thyestes,...
over a year ago
92
over a year ago
My Seneca reading in March: Medea, tr. Frederick Ahl The Trojan Women, tr. E. F. Watling Thyestes, tr. Jasper Heywood Hercules Furens, tr. Heywood The Madness of Hercules, tr. Dana Gioia The plays themselves are all from the mid-1st century, perhaps written when Seneca was in...
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...
over a year ago
53
over 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...
The American Scholar
Battle Hymns Charles Ives and the Civil War The post Battle Hymns appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
The Marginalian
Between the Infinite and the Infinitesimal: A Scientist’s Search for the Fulcrum of Faith "The universe is not a place where evolution happens, it is the evolution happening. It is not a...
a year ago
53
a year ago
"The universe is not a place where evolution happens, it is the evolution happening. It is not a stage on which drama unfolds, it is the unfolding drama itself."
Ben Borgers
Giving Out Chick-fil-A on a Schedule App
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
tmrw
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
over a year ago
This Space
The Opposite Direction, a book Please use a link below to download an ebook of posts selected from over the last seven years of...
over a year ago
62
over a year ago
Please use a link below to download an ebook of posts selected from over the last seven years of this blog.  This is the second collection after This Space of Writing and the title comes from the adolescent Thomas Bernhard's phrase repeated to an official at the labour exchange...
The Marginalian
On Change and Denial "It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to...
a year ago
94
a year ago
"It’s strange to feel change coming. It’s easy to ignore. An underlying restlessness seems to accompany it like birds flocking before a storm."
Naz Hamid
Your Site Is a Home Create a home that gives you energy. In meatspace, if you’re fortunate, you likely reside somewhere....
5 months ago
38
5 months ago
Create a home that gives you energy. In meatspace, if you’re fortunate, you likely reside somewhere. How that looks varies from person-to-person. For some, they own. For others, they rent. For those who don’t subscribe to a stationary life, it may be a vehicle, van, or camper. Or...
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: What movement does the world need right now? And how do we build it?
7 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dead Simple Sites The most minimal sites on the web, curated in one place. Visit original link → or View on...
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Read During Every Possible Free Moment' A reader asks, “How did you learn to read so fast?” The answer is simple: I didn’t. I have always...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
A reader asks, “How did you learn to read so fast?” The answer is simple: I didn’t. I have always read slowly, often taking notes, which makes it even slower. This frustrated me when I was young, and I briefly contemplated enrolling in one of Evelyn Wood’s...
The Elysian
Could AI make us wise? An alternative to the internet making us stupid.
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Necessity of Our Illusions: Oliver Sacks on the Mind as an Escape Artist from Reality "We need detachment... as much as we need engagement in our lives... transports that make our...
a year ago
Escaping Flatland
On the pleasure of reading private notebooks One reason I like this genre is that people censor themselves less when they are writing in private.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'For I Have Renounced Happiness' “Happiness is the search for happiness.”  I’m not so sure. My understanding is that there are no...
a month ago
15
a month ago
“Happiness is the search for happiness.”  I’m not so sure. My understanding is that there are no happy lives, only happy moments. Those moments seem to be the byproduct of right living. A life dedicated fulltime to achieving happiness is likely to be filled with respites of...
Ben Borgers
CS 15: Data Structures
over a year ago
Wuthering...
The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox - counting the pages, he was quite terrified at the number,... Di at The little white attic is chasing Don Quixote through the 18th century, so she read,...
7 months ago
51
7 months ago
Di at The little white attic is chasing Don Quixote through the 18th century, so she read, obviously, The Female Quixote (1852) by Charlotte Lennox.  I had not read it, so I trailed along. An archetypal novelistic heroine, young Arabella has had her brain addled by novels: From...
Ben Borgers
Building an e-ink picture frame that displays an iCloud photo album
a year ago
Robert Caro
Rifling Through the Archives with Legendary Historian Robert Caro SMITHSONIAN: Reams of papers, revealing how the scholar came to write his iconic biographies are...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
SMITHSONIAN: Reams of papers, revealing how the scholar came to write his iconic biographies are preserved forever in New York.
The Marginalian
Alone Together: An Illustrated Celebration of the Art of Shared Solitude “One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag lamented in her diary. “Oh comforting...
a year ago
29
a year ago
“One can never be alone enough to write,” Susan Sontag lamented in her diary. “Oh comforting solitude, how favorable thou art to original thought!” the founding father of neuroscience exulted in considering the ideal environment for creative breakthrough. All creative people,...
Blog -...
Book Review - Codependent No More With more than five million copies sold by its twenty-fifth anniversary nearly a decade ago,...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
With more than five million copies sold by its twenty-fifth anniversary nearly a decade ago, Codependent No More is a startling, powerful book that has touched the lives of so very many.
Wuthering...
the calm vegetable clairvoyance of these great rooted lives - John Cowper Powys's trees -... Wolf Solent has pressed his beautiful young wife against an ash tree, presumably as a prelude to...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
Wolf Solent has pressed his beautiful young wife against an ash tree, presumably as a prelude to sex, but he begins rubbing the bark: ‘Human brains! Human knots of confusion!’ he thought.  ‘Why can’t we steal the calm vegetable clairvoyance of these great rooted lives?’ (Wolf...
Josh Thompson
Limitations of My Own Thinking I sometimes make recommendations, or at least recount a story that has “actionable insights”....
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I sometimes make recommendations, or at least recount a story that has “actionable insights”. Anytime this happens, I start tripping over myself with warnings and qualifying statements. Here’s what would happen: I would make a recommendation (“start a side project to help get a...
Ben Borgers
I Love Email
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Injury Impedes Improvement Kristi and I have been in Colorado for three months, I’ve been climbing regularly for two, I am back...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Kristi and I have been in Colorado for three months, I’ve been climbing regularly for two, I am back in shape and it feels good. I am tempted to throw myself into climbing again. To climb every day, or maybe every other day, and finish every session with training. But here’s the...
The Elysian
Metanational corporations are redesigning the world map Parag Khanna on metanational corporations and how they are opening borders, reshaping geopolitics,...
5 months ago
45
5 months ago
Parag Khanna on metanational corporations and how they are opening borders, reshaping geopolitics, and creating a world of interconnected city-states.
The Marginalian
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside: Doris Lessing on the Antidote to Self-Righteousness and Our Best... This is the history of the world: revolutionaries turning into tyrants, leaders who claim to stand...
8 months ago
47
8 months ago
This is the history of the world: revolutionaries turning into tyrants, leaders who claim to stand with the masses turning the individuals within them on each other, stirring certainties and self-righteousness to distract from the uncomfortable unknowns, from the great open...
Wuthering...
What I Read in May 2025 – “There’s the store that’s shaped like a duck,” Franca said. First, my poor email subscribers missed some of the installments of my newsletter about Anthony...
a month ago
19
a month ago
First, my poor email subscribers missed some of the installments of my newsletter about Anthony Powell.  If this keeps happening I will have to think of something or even do something.  Here they are: A skippable piece of throat-clearing about the roman fleuve. What I think...
Wuthering...
Naming the garden in The Story of the Stone - the pleasures of incomprehension The older sister of Bao-yu, the boy, now a young teen, who was born with the jade stone in his...
9 months ago
62
9 months ago
The older sister of Bao-yu, the boy, now a young teen, who was born with the jade stone in his mouth, is an Imperial Concubine, a high prestige slave of the Emperor.  She is likely herself still a teen when we learn, in Chapter 16 of The Story of the Stone, that she has been...
sbensu
Creative kernels Artists can often trace entire pieces around one idea that drives everything else.
a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Why we ended up homeschooling “Little Sister”, Agnes Martin, 1962
3 months ago
The Marginalian
The Promethean Power of Burnout "Burnout fully realised is also the decisive, exhausted moment in which we realise we cannot go on...
6 months ago
56
6 months ago
"Burnout fully realised is also the decisive, exhausted moment in which we realise we cannot go on in the same way. Not being able to go on, is always in the end, a creative act, the threshold moment of our transformation."
The Marginalian
Gary Snyder on How to Unbreak the World "What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands...
5 months ago
48
5 months ago
"What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands and minds."
This Space
Proust regained I recommend very highly for anyone who has read or not read In Search of Lost Time Brian Nelson's...
a year ago
26
a year ago
I recommend very highly for anyone who has read or not read In Search of Lost Time Brian Nelson's The Swann Way, the first volume in a new translation of the entire novel by diverse hands, in this fine paperback from Oxford World's Classics. His translation of the chapter Swann...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Intermittent Social media fasting I have been wondering if “intermittent fasting” as a concept can be applied to “information diet.”...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
I have been wondering if “intermittent fasting” as a concept can be applied to “information diet.” It’s an idea worth exploring, and this coming week is perfect to try it out. I’m traveling for a small photo adventure and will have spotty coverage. That means I can’t reach for...
Wuthering...
Some of the difficulties of Finnegans Wake - Two dreamyums in one dromium? Yes and no error. I am too tired to write about Finnegans Wake which is a good state for writing about this dream...
2 months ago
19
2 months ago
I am too tired to write about Finnegans Wake which is a good state for writing about this dream novel where characters keep falling asleep.  “Dream” is conventional wisdom but I will note that no part of the book resembles any dream I have ever experienced or read about, although...
ribbonfarm
Storytelling — Just Add Dinosaurs In a previous part, I covered the storytelling model of Matthew Dicks, who specializes in live,...
a year ago
20
a year ago
In a previous part, I covered the storytelling model of Matthew Dicks, who specializes in live, spoken-word competitive storytelling from real life. He has a theory of stories I found deeply unsatisfying: That the essence of a story is a moment of character change where the...
The Elysian
Expanding your research "Research with me" session two.
5 months ago
The Elysian
The "letters to an anarchist" post-mortem Peter and I discuss our letter writing series.
7 months ago
Wuthering...
Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles - indeed his end / Was wonderful if ever mortal’s was Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles is one of the plays that got me excited about the entire project of...
over a year ago
74
over a year ago
Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles is one of the plays that got me excited about the entire project of reading or re-reading the complete plays.  The last surviving tragedy, even if it hardly recognizable as a tragedy, it provides a coherent ending to the tragic tradition.  It is...
The American Scholar
“Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright appeared first on The...
7 months ago
54
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Full Moon Rhyme” by Judith Wright appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Spirit of Urbanity Incarnate' Last week Nige wrote about a book previously unknown to me: The Eighteen Nineties (1913; rev....
a month ago
16
a month ago
Last week Nige wrote about a book previously unknown to me: The Eighteen Nineties (1913; rev. 1922) by Holbrook Jackson. I’ve read only Jackson’s The Anatomy of Bibliomania (1930) and browsed in some of his other book-related titles. I bought the Anatomy in 1998 from a used...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Hicks.design's Best 15 Albums A huge part of what makes a 'top album' choice is that they're usually entwined with a time and a...
a year ago
15
a year ago
A huge part of what makes a 'top album' choice is that they're usually entwined with a time and a place in our lives, a personal context that makes them so very special to us. OK Computer will forever be 'the album when I met Leigh, the love of my life'. — Jon Hicks Visit...
Ben Borgers
Website Rewrite 2
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
2016 - Biggest Lesson, Most Dangerous Books I don’t do New Years resolutions, but I like to think back on the last year. I’ll touch on two...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I don’t do New Years resolutions, but I like to think back on the last year. I’ll touch on two things: The most important thing I’ve learned this year: Tactical Silence Most dangerous books of 2016 Tactical Silence I suspect that a year from now, I’m going to look back and say...
The American Scholar
The Creator’s Code Are humans alone in their ability to make art? The post The Creator’s Code appeared first on The...
7 months ago
26
7 months ago
Are humans alone in their ability to make art? The post The Creator’s Code appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared...
a year ago
64
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“The Frog Prince” by Stevie Smith Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Frog Prince” by Stevie Smith appeared first on The...
5 months ago
40
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Frog Prince” by Stevie Smith appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
What Happened To NAEP Scores? ...
4 months ago
ribbonfarm
Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes I started reading Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes while I was in Istanbul last...
a year ago
22
a year ago
I started reading Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes while I was in Istanbul last November and finally finished it last week. It’s a really solid and absorbing book, and far too dense and rich with detail to zip through, which is why I read it a dozen or so pages...
Ben Borgers
Heart Reacts
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
November 2016 Review Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. This is naval-gaze-ish. I feel I owe you...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. This is naval-gaze-ish. I feel I owe you this warning. My November goals were an extension of October’s goals. I feel comfortable with long-term unchanging goals. They were: Deepen my knowledge of front-end web...
The American Scholar
“The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley appeared...
10 months ago
63
10 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Poet’s Occasional Alternative” by Grace Paley appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
The Brain Can Observe Itself
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
New in Superadmin: styling, images, rich text
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Václav Havel on How to Live with Your Greatest Failure Few things in life are more devastating than to give something your all and still fail. Not the...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
Few things in life are more devastating than to give something your all and still fail. Not the “fail better” of startup culture, not the “fail forward” of self-help, not the failure that is childhood’s fulcrum of learning, not the inspired mistakes that propel creative risk, but...
The American Scholar
Turning the World to Powder Jay Owens on the tiny particles that float through our lives The post Turning the World to Powder...
a year ago
75
a year ago
Jay Owens on the tiny particles that float through our lives The post Turning the World to Powder appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: 2017 The list of books piles up, thirty-three now, and I'm reading fewer and fewer novels. Not through...
a year ago
63
a year ago
The list of books piles up, thirty-three now, and I'm reading fewer and fewer novels. Not through choice, but so little of what's new appeals. Instead, this year I read and reread books like Peter Handke's To Duration and Once Again for Thucydides, both of which escape helpful...
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
18
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 archives.design A digital archive of graphic design related items that are available on the Internet Archives. Visit...
11 months ago
11
11 months ago
A digital archive of graphic design related items that are available on the Internet Archives. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Escaping Flatland
6 lessons I learned working at an art gallery On agency, doing value-aligned work, and making your job fun
8 months ago
Josh Thompson
Becoming an Early Riser Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.  -The man no child likes to...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.  -The man no child likes to hear about when being awoken by their parents Getting out of bed is a struggle. I’ve spent the better part of twenty four years setting my alarm as late as possible so I could have...
The Elysian
Will you explain anarchism to me? Letters to an anarchist, part one.
8 months ago
This Space
The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard I began reading The Morning Star without any prior knowledge of the contents, just as I had begun...
over a year ago
77
over a year ago
I began reading The Morning Star without any prior knowledge of the contents, just as I had begun reading every other book of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s since receiving an ARC of the first volume of My Struggle long before he shone above us like the morning star in this novel. This...
Astral Codex Ten
ACX Classifieds 4/25 ...
3 months ago
Ben Borgers
Draft Now, Publish Later
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Tour of D3 for Clueless Folk Like Me D3 stands for Data Driven Documents, and it’s the coolest thing ever. Check out a few...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
D3 stands for Data Driven Documents, and it’s the coolest thing ever. Check out a few examples: Animated, interactive curves(dynamic) OMG Particles II(dynamic) simple map of the us(static) <= very little code Radial Dendrogram(static) circle wave(dynamic) Force-directed...
The Marginalian
Of Stars, Seagulls, and Love: Loren Eiseley on the First and Final Truth of Life Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people,...
11 months ago
77
11 months ago
Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people, and yet all personal love is but a fractal of a larger universal love. Some call it God. I call it wonder. Dante called it “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.”...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Rest Is Silence' Here I pause to remember a forgotten poet who remembered a slightly less forgotten poet – a reminder...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
Here I pause to remember a forgotten poet who remembered a slightly less forgotten poet – a reminder that all of us are eminently forgettable, regardless of our purported virtues. Walter de la Mare died on June 22, 1956, at age eighty-three. The journal Poetry assigned William...
ribbonfarm
Truth-Seeking Modes Been on a Venn diagram kick lately, since being primed to think in Venns by Harris campaign. This...
11 months ago
26
11 months ago
Been on a Venn diagram kick lately, since being primed to think in Venns by Harris campaign. This one summarizes an idea I’ve long been noodling on: The healthiest way to relate to a truth-seeking impulse is as an infinite game, where the goal is to continue playing, not arrive...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Spiritual Situation of Our Age' “Balzac is one of the most shameless traders in stereotype among the great nineteenth-century...
2 months ago
8
2 months ago
“Balzac is one of the most shameless traders in stereotype among the great nineteenth-century novelists. As a result, there are passages in his books that many of us today have to read in the spirit of camp as resounding expressions of the kitsch of his era.”  I’ve read so little...
This Space
Favourite books 2021 If such things matter, and they don't, my book of the year is Peter Holm Jensen’s The Moment. As I...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
If such things matter, and they don't, my book of the year is Peter Holm Jensen’s The Moment. As I wrote in April, it’s one in which the writer seeks “a modest, self-effacing place within the intersection of time and eternity” and can be read again and again for this reason, as...
Wuthering...
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr's La plus secrète mémoire des hommes - one of his objectives was to be original... La plus secrète mémoire des hommes (2021) by Senegalese novelist Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, published in...
a year ago
93
a year ago
La plus secrète mémoire des hommes (2021) by Senegalese novelist Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, published in English as The Most Secret History of Men (2023), is the first imitation of Roberto Bolaño I have seen outside of Latin American literature.  Many reviews note that Sarr’s novel is...
The American Scholar
Ups and Downs The post Ups and Downs appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
The American Scholar
The Most Famous Unknown Artist David Sheff puts Yoko Ono in the spotlight The post The Most Famous Unknown Artist appeared first on...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
David Sheff puts Yoko Ono in the spotlight The post The Most Famous Unknown Artist appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
The TikTok Peer Group
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Illdefined Success is Unattainable We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting. If it doesn’t...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
We all probably have a few projects floating around our head, but they seem daunting. If it doesn’t seem daunting, it’s not much of a project, and you should either ramp it up until it’s daunting, or discard it. So - we have a daunting project. Now what? If you’re like me, you’ll...
Josh Thompson
The Violence of God and the Hermeneutics of Paul Sometimes I (Josh) want to share around certain academic works. Sometimes its a PDF that I want...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
Sometimes I (Josh) want to share around certain academic works. Sometimes its a PDF that I want someone to download and read, sometimes it’s text from a book I’ve read, and cannot otherwise get a sharable format of. So, I laboriously take photos of pages, use an optical character...
Ben Borgers
The Magic of the Common Room
over a year ago
The Marginalian
A Tender Illustrated Celebration of the Many Languages of Love That one mind can reach out from its lonely cave of bone and touch another, express its joys and...
a year ago
35
a year ago
That one mind can reach out from its lonely cave of bone and touch another, express its joys and sorrows to another — this is the great miracle of being alive together. The object of human communication is not the exchange of information but the exchange of understanding. If we...
Wuthering...
Two poisonous Tanizaki novels, Naomi and Quicksand - the same as a fruit that I’d cultivated myself Two Junichiro Tanizaki novels from the 1920s for Japanese Literature Month over at Dolce...
5 months ago
59
5 months ago
Two Junichiro Tanizaki novels from the 1920s for Japanese Literature Month over at Dolce Bellezza.  Always interesting to see what people are reading.  Thanks as usual.  18th edition! The two novels I read, Naomi (1924) and Quicksand (1928-30), are closely related.  Both...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Re-entry This past Friday on April 16th, I awoke early and decided to go wait in line for my first vaccine...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
This past Friday on April 16th, I awoke early and decided to go wait in line for my first vaccine shot at SF Gen (as it’s locally known — you may know it better as Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital). I became eligible when San Francisco opened up vaccines to those 16 and...
Ben Borgers
Apple Credit Card Rewards
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Book Notes: 'Why We Get Fat' by Gary Taube I recently read Why We Get Fat, by Gary Taubes. I read it shortly after reading The Case Against...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
I recently read Why We Get Fat, by Gary Taubes. I read it shortly after reading The Case Against Sugar. My notes and a write-up on The Case Against Sugar As I explained in that post, I find it helpful to do a ‘deep dive’ on some of the books I want to be deeply influenced by. For...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Following Pages Are Frankly Bookish' If you're familiar with Andrew Lang (1844-1912) at all, it’s likely as a collector of folk and fairy...
2 months ago
18
2 months ago
If you're familiar with Andrew Lang (1844-1912) at all, it’s likely as a collector of folk and fairy tales. I remember as a kid reading some of his twelve “Coloured” Fairy Books. He was also a prolific poet and critic, though that work is largely forgotten. He remains best known...
The American Scholar
Overconsumed Adam Minter on what happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard The post...
7 months ago
46
7 months ago
Adam Minter on what happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard The post Overconsumed appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Change The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for the better, and sometimes its for the worse. I don’t know if there’s always a difference. Recently, Kristi and I have seen lots of change; I’d say its for the better, but it’s not...
The Marginalian
Octavio Paz on Freedom "Without freedom, what we call a person does not exist."
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Denver Botanic Gardens - What, How, Why I recently got access to a delightful amenity, based on where I live. I’ve been sharing it with...
a year ago
20
a year ago
I recently got access to a delightful amenity, based on where I live. I’ve been sharing it with others as quickly as possible, because they too have access to it. From here on out, when I reference “botanic gardens” or “the gardens”, I’m referencing the Denver Botanic Gardens,...
The American Scholar
A Toothsome Tale Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites The post A Toothsome...
10 months ago
38
10 months ago
Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites The post A Toothsome Tale appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Fanaticisms and Factiousnesses Too' “History is not some past from which we are cut off. We are merely at its forward edge as it...
2 months ago
24
2 months ago
“History is not some past from which we are cut off. We are merely at its forward edge as it unrolls. And only if one is without historical feeling at all can one think of the intellectual fads and fashions of one’s own time as a ‘habitation everlasting.’ We may feel that at...
Ben Borgers
College CS Classes Are Tragically Dull
over a year ago
The Marginalian
We Are the Music, We Are the Spark: Pioneering Biologist Ernest Everett Just on What Makes Life... "Life is exquisitely a time-thing, like music."
a year ago
Wuthering...
Preface to notes on the first four novels of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time In France, at the Lyon public library, I was surprised to bump into so many romans fleuves, whatever...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
In France, at the Lyon public library, I was surprised to bump into so many romans fleuves, whatever those are.  They were notable on the shelf because these long series of novels are now published in monumental, highly visible, omnibus editions.  The library assumes that...
ben-mini
The Inner Game of Tennis I just finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey. Originally published in 1974, the...
9 months ago
32
9 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
'The Soul None Dare Forgive' You know what you’re in for just by reading the title and acknowledging the author: “A Love Song in...
5 months ago
29
5 months ago
You know what you’re in for just by reading the title and acknowledging the author: “A Love Song in the Modern Taste” (1733) by Jonathan Swift. For once, the excremental stuff is absent. The poem amounts to a catalog of clichés about love, a sort of anti-Valentine’s Day card....
Ben Borgers
5 Weeks Left
over a year ago
Ploum.net
Dédicace à Trolls & Vélo et magie cycliste Dédicace à Trolls & Vélo et magie cycliste Je serai ce samedi 19 avril à Mons au festival Trolls &...
3 months ago
27
3 months ago
Dédicace à Trolls & Vélo et magie cycliste Je serai ce samedi 19 avril à Mons au festival Trolls & Légende en dédicace au stand PVH. La star de la table sera sans conteste Sara Schneider, autrice fantasy de la saga des enfants d’Aliel et qui est toute auréolée du Prix SFFF Suisse...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 My Mom Taught Me But really, my mom loved to shop and I’ve inherited that skill. I’ll call it a skill because Mom...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
But really, my mom loved to shop and I’ve inherited that skill. I’ll call it a skill because Mom knew quality. She loved things made by hand. By real people. Things that were made well and lasted. — Dan Cederholm Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The American Scholar
Bards Behind Bars Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on...
a year ago
36
a year ago
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Going for Gold Joshua Prager on a forgotten Olympic gymnast whose 1904 record still hasn’t been beaten The post...
11 months ago
56
11 months ago
Joshua Prager on a forgotten Olympic gymnast whose 1904 record still hasn’t been beaten The post Going for Gold appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Camouflage The post Camouflage appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The Elysian
My TEDx talk about the future of fiction And publishing.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Letter to Two Climbers (Part 1) Hello! We met recently. (I gave Justin tape after he cut his toe and didn’t have a bandaid.) You and...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Hello! We met recently. (I gave Justin tape after he cut his toe and didn’t have a bandaid.) You and your partner were climbing a route near me and my partner. One of you (I’ll call Charles, because he had a British accent) was trying  so hard to figure out some moves high above...
Josh Thompson
Load Testing your app with Siege Last time, I dug into using Apache Benchmark to do performance testing on a page that requires...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Last time, I dug into using Apache Benchmark to do performance testing on a page that requires authentication to access. Today, we’ll figure out how to use siege to visit many unique URLs on our page, and to get benchmarks on that process. I’ll next figure out performance...
The Elysian
The Cooperatist Manifesto that inspired Mondragon Father José María Arizmendiarrieta didn’t just imagine a better economic system, he built it.
9 months ago
Ben Borgers
I want to use all of my ridiculously many meal swipes
over a year ago
This Space
Blood Knowledge by Kirsty Gunn "A novel is a kind of lazy way of writing a short story, a short story a lazy way of writing a poem"...
7 months ago
67
7 months ago
"A novel is a kind of lazy way of writing a short story, a short story a lazy way of writing a poem" said Muriel Spark, adding by explanation: "The longer they become, the more they seem to lose value". We might wonder then if the most value is to be found in the shortest novels,...
The Marginalian
Kafka’s Creative Block and the Four Psychological Hindrances That Keep the Talented from Manifesting... The most paradoxical thing about creative work is that it is both a way in and a way out, that it...
9 months ago
60
9 months ago
The most paradoxical thing about creative work is that it is both a way in and a way out, that it plunges you into the depths of your being and at the same time takes you out of yourself. Writing is the best instrument I have for metabolizing my experience and clarifying my own...
Astral Codex Ten
Indulge Your Internet Addiction By Reading About Internet Addiction ...
7 months ago
The Marginalian
The Afterlives of the Soul: Sister Nivedita on Love and Death "To the soul, time does not exist. Only her own great purpose exists, shining clear and steady...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
"To the soul, time does not exist. Only her own great purpose exists, shining clear and steady through the mists before her."
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Great Euthanasia' I can’t think of another poet who wrote so often or so amusingly about death as Thomas Disch. I once...
2 weeks ago
10
2 weeks ago
I can’t think of another poet who wrote so often or so amusingly about death as Thomas Disch. I once tried tallying his death-themed poems and lost count. Here’s a sample: “How to Behave When Dead,” “Symbols of Love and Death,” “In Defense of Forest Lawn,” “At the Tomb of the...
The American Scholar
Amy Wetsch Life, magnified The post Amy Wetsch appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
The American Scholar
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden appeared first on The...
a month ago
23
a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Maybe "Now" Is Not the Right Time Recently I deleted a bunch of old notes I had in Evernote. Some of the notes were almost immediately...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Recently I deleted a bunch of old notes I had in Evernote. Some of the notes were almost immediately unneeded, like old receipts and confirmations.  Much of the rest was notes related to goals (“Checklist to move out of MD Apartment”, “Planning trip to Buenos Aires”) or to...
Ben Borgers
A Design Improvement for Our Communal Showers
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Two Souls Within: Hermann Hesse on the Dual Life of the Creative Spirit "Like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a...
a year ago
28
a year ago
"Like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all who see it as something eternal and as a...
The American Scholar
We Contain Multitudes Why do so few of us exercise the many talents with which we are born? The post We Contain Multitudes...
a month ago
5
a month ago
Why do so few of us exercise the many talents with which we are born? The post We Contain Multitudes appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ploum.net
De la soumission au technofascisme religieux De la soumission au technofascisme religieux Les générateurs de code stupide Sur Mastodon, David...
5 months ago
30
5 months ago
De la soumission au technofascisme religieux Les générateurs de code stupide Sur Mastodon, David Chisnall fait le point sur une année d’utilisation de GitHub Copilot pour coder. Et le résultat est clair : si, au début, il a l’impression de gagner du temps en devant moins taper...
The Marginalian
Wonder Beyond Why: The Majesty and Mystery of the Birds-of-Paradise “To go all the way from a clone of archaebacteria, in just 3.7 billion years, to the B-Minor Mass...
a year ago
35
a year ago
“To go all the way from a clone of archaebacteria, in just 3.7 billion years, to the B-Minor Mass and the Late Quartets, deserves a better technical term for the record than randomness,” the poetic scientist Lewis Thomas wrote in his forgotten masterpiece of perspective. This is...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ This Is What We Have To Lose Yesterday felt defeating with the damning report that our climate has indeed moved unfortunately...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Yesterday felt defeating with the damning report that our climate has indeed moved unfortunately forward into severity and decline. It’s too late for some aspects but not too late to avoid some of the worst aspects. The fires, the smoke, and the record-high temperatures that...
The Marginalian
What We Look for When We Are Looking: John Steinbeck on Wonder and the Relational Nature of the... Searching for "that principle which keys us deeply into the pattern of all life."
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
You Can Keep Having An Opinion Even When The Government Also Has It ...
2 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
With This Character's Death, The Thread Of Prophecy Is Severed RIP Pope Francis and a particularly interesting apocalyptic prophecy
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
Overcome (some) barriers in work with this magic phrase You’re sending an email to your boss about some decision point you’re facing. How should you word...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
You’re sending an email to your boss about some decision point you’re facing. How should you word it? Compare this wording: Let me know if my criteria are sound, or if you have any concerns. I’d like to get started as soon as possible. To this wording: Unless I hear otherwise,...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in July 2023 How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month, but I promise I had a good excuse. ...
a year ago
82
a year ago
How embarrassing that I did not write a thing this month, but I promise I had a good excuse.  Posts on Cynicism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism will appear this month, I swear, or at least hope.  My eventual excuse this month will be, I am afraid, even better. Still, I...
Ploum.net
De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents Chers parents, chers...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents Chers parents, chers enseignants, chers éducateurs, Nous le savons toutes et tous, le smartphone est devenu un objet incontournable de notre quotidien, nous connectant en permanence au réseau Internet qui,...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ 11,218 feet We roll into Rico, Colorado, parking in front of the local post office. It’s rustic. Cute....
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
We roll into Rico, Colorado, parking in front of the local post office. It’s rustic. Cute. Mountain-town vibes are abundant. Like a peacock, the foliage on the drive from Cortez is in full plumage. During the drive, neither Jen nor I, and even Grant, can’t not marvel at the...
The Marginalian
A Heron’s Antidote to Fear of Death They didn’t imagine it, the dying dinosaurs, that they would grow wings and become birds, become the...
7 months ago
48
7 months ago
They didn’t imagine it, the dying dinosaurs, that they would grow wings and become birds, become the laboratory in which evolution invented dreams and the cathedral in which it invented faith. “There is grandeur in this view of life,” Darwin consoled himself as his beloved...
Ben Borgers
I’m a Sucker for the Brand
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Island Royalty A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
25
7 months ago
A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Stubborn Art of Turning Suffering into Strength: Václav Havel’s Extraordinary Letters from... “I have got to make everything that has happened to me good for me,” Oscar Wilde wrote from prison....
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
“I have got to make everything that has happened to me good for me,” Oscar Wilde wrote from prison. “There is not a single degradation of the body which I must not try and make into a spiritualising of the soul.” The cruel kindness of life is that our sturdiest fulcrum of...
The Marginalian
19-year-old Simone de Beauvoir’s Resolutions for a Life Worth Living We move through the world feeling inevitable, and yet we are the flotsam of otherwise — how many...
5 months ago
49
5 months ago
We move through the world feeling inevitable, and yet we are the flotsam of otherwise — how many other ways the atoms could have fallen between the Big Bang and this body, how many other ways this life could have forked at every littlest choice we ever made. But while chance...
The Marginalian
The Whole of It Because we are creatures made of time, what we call suffering is at bottom a warping of time, a form...
a month ago
14
a month ago
Because we are creatures made of time, what we call suffering is at bottom a warping of time, a form of living against it and not with it — the pain of loss, aching for what has been and no longer is; the pain of longing, aching for what could be but is not yet and may never be;...
Ben Borgers
Publishing Class Notes
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Because the night belongs to us Day 18: Sept 27, 2023 — It’s our last full day. We extend our stay by two additional days due to my...
a year ago
17
a year ago
Day 18: Sept 27, 2023 — It’s our last full day. We extend our stay by two additional days due to my work obligations, so I need to be stationed somewhere. It’s also a good excuse to have extra family time. I have a call with Simon Collison to discuss True Ventures design work and...
Josh Thompson
Learn to Type - Again Yesterday, we talked about why the Caps Lock key should be converted into a delete key. What I’ve...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
Yesterday, we talked about why the Caps Lock key should be converted into a delete key. What I’ve learned from learning Colemak Short, focused practice yields great results. When I start a timer for twenty minutes, I feel a sense of urgency, rather than defeat. Time boxing...
Josh Thompson
On Money (again) Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about,...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Recently I posted thoughts about money I’d written from back in 2013.  Money is hard to write about, because there are many different ways we can approach it. It’s easy to feel judged when someone does something with their money that I don’t do with mine. That all said, there...
The Marginalian
The Countercultural Sanity of the Irrational: Pioneering Psychiatrist Otto Rank on the Blind Spots... In one crucial respect at least, the human animal does not pass the mirror test of self-knowledge:...
6 months ago
53
6 months ago
In one crucial respect at least, the human animal does not pass the mirror test of self-knowledge: We move through the world by impulse and emotion, then look back and rationalize our choices, declaring ourselves creatures of reason. Western civilization, with its structural bias...
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
16
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 American Scholar
Jeremy Spoke in Class Today On guns, MTV, Stephen King, and the nightmare from which we cannot awake The post Jeremy Spoke in...
a month ago
11
a month ago
On guns, MTV, Stephen King, and the nightmare from which we cannot awake The post Jeremy Spoke in Class Today appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes - Octopus tunnyfish dogfish and skate The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
The Assemblywomen by Aristophanes – or The Parliament of Women, or several other titles – was performed in 392 BCE, thirteen years after The Frogs.  In the interval many things had changed.  Athens had been conquered; democracy was overthrown but restored; one endless war ended...
Ben Borgers
Cheating on Field Notes
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Girl Talk: All Day
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
On Hitting Small(er) People this has been hard for me to write, has been sitting in one draft form or another for months....
5 months ago
37
5 months ago
this has been hard for me to write, has been sitting in one draft form or another for months. Finally getting it off the ‘drafts’ list, but only reluctantly. This is far too long for even me to try to read in a single sitting, especially on my phone, so it might be too long for...
The American Scholar
The Next New Thing In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before The...
a year ago
48
a year ago
In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before The post The Next New Thing appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
The Murderer as Everyman Arthur Fleck’s rise and fall The post The Murderer as Everyman appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
The Marginalian
Silence, Solitude, and the Art of Surrender: Pico Iyer on Finding the World in a Benedictine... "Such a simple revolution: Yesterday I thought myself at the center of the world. Now the world...
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
''T is But the Graves That Stay' “Above the town of Frankfort, on the top of the steep bluff of the Kentucky River, is a burial-place...
a month ago
15
a month ago
“Above the town of Frankfort, on the top of the steep bluff of the Kentucky River, is a burial-place where lie the bones of many heroes, sons the Commonwealth has lovingly gathered in one fold. It is a beautiful site for this simple Valhalla, with its wide outlook over the noble...
The Marginalian
Wonder-Sighting on Planet Earth: The Space Telescope Eye of the Scallop Inside Earth's most alien vision.
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Bronze, Silver, Gold
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The Quiet Power of Car-Free Neighborhoods Don’t just take my word for it. Researchers have found that about half of urban noise is...
10 months ago
13
10 months ago
Don’t just take my word for it. Researchers have found that about half of urban noise is attributable to motor vehicles. In some places the share is higher, such as in Toronto, where traffic produces about 60% of the background din. And silencing that cacophony can lead to...
The Marginalian
Lichens and the Meaning of Life "We are lichens on a grand scale."
over a year ago
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
16
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 —...
Escaping Flatland
On limitations that hide in your blindspot and how to find them
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Quick Dive into React As usual, this is a work in progress. At a high level, I’m familiarizing myself with Phoenix/Elixir,...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
As usual, this is a work in progress. At a high level, I’m familiarizing myself with Phoenix/Elixir, and need to sharpen my React knowledge along the way. After working through part 1 of a slack clone in Elixir/Phoenix tutorial, I ran into some errors getting the React app up and...
Jim Nielsen’s Blog
Sanding UI One of the ways I like to do development is to build something, click around a ton, make tweaks,...
10 months ago
72
10 months ago
One of the ways I like to do development is to build something, click around a ton, make tweaks, click around more, more tweaks, more clicks, etc., until I finally consider it done. The clicking around a ton is the important part. If it’s a page transition, that means going back...
Wuthering...
Books finished in March 2023 For some reason I have been putting a monthly account of completed books on Twitter, where it is a...
over a year ago
57
over a year ago
For some reason I have been putting a monthly account of completed books on Twitter, where it is a common practice, although mostly with photographs of book stacks.  I am not sure why I have not put the lists here as well.  I guess I am not sure any of this is interesting. Soon,...
This Space
39 Books: 2007 When I chose the book for 2007, the constraint of the 39 Books series presented a problem: how can I...
a year ago
98
a year ago
When I chose the book for 2007, the constraint of the 39 Books series presented a problem: how can I write about a 350-page novel last read 17 years ago without taking several days to reread it? Answer: not at all, so I started reading. What good fortune! How well Hugo Wilcken...
The American Scholar
No Murder in the Mews The post No Murder in the Mews appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Brewed and baked Day 12: Sept 21, 2023 — I am predictable when visiting a reasonably sized city. I look for coffee, a...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 12: Sept 21, 2023 — I am predictable when visiting a reasonably sized city. I look for coffee, a juice / smoothie shop, a natural foods store, a sourdough bakery, and a decent restaurant that serves up clean and fresh fare or some local delicacy. St. Louis fortunately checks...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Ditch walkin' Day 11: Sept 20, 2023 — I hear footsteps and morning routines in motion. My sister-in-law and her...
a year ago
13
a year ago
Day 11: Sept 20, 2023 — I hear footsteps and morning routines in motion. My sister-in-law and her family are gearing up for work and school. I remember this flurry of activity as a kid myself — the hustle to get motivated. Jen goes upstairs to chat briefly with everyone before...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ A Simple Sophistication The weather was beautiful today. A sunny 65 degrees or so. Fresh from a shower, I headed out during...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
The weather was beautiful today. A sunny 65 degrees or so. Fresh from a shower, I headed out during the lunch hour on foot, camera in hand and took a lot of photos during my walk. It took me straight out to the lake, an 8 minute journey. I was surprised to see that they had made...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Neglected By-ways' Thomas Parker is a longtime reader and frequent commenter on this blog. On Monday’s post he recalled...
3 weeks ago
12
3 weeks ago
Thomas Parker is a longtime reader and frequent commenter on this blog. On Monday’s post he recalled a passage he thought may have been the work of George Saintsbury. Unable to track it down for attribution, he quoted from uncertain memory: “Nothing pains me more than the...
ben-mini
Platform or Point Solution? A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech companies are so determined to become labeled as one. My definition of a platform is a tool that allows users to define and build their own things, which can be used by other...
Steven Scrawls
The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview Longtime fans of popular EDM “angststep”...
a year ago
28
a year ago
The Controversial Aftermath of the 777Linguine Interview Longtime fans of popular EDM “angststep” artist 777Linguine are “shocked” and “betrayed” after his polarizing statements yesterday that his latest album, NOMORETEARS2CRY, was written and recorded in a time of “profound...
Robert Caro
Robert Caro on the Art of Biography I was never interested in writing biographies merely to tell the lives of famous men. From the first...
over a year ago
30
over a year ago
I was never interested in writing biographies merely to tell the lives of famous men. From the first time I thought of becoming a biographer
The Elysian
Maybe villages are our future—not cities Italy's Matera as a case study for revitalizing small governments and creating a future of...
3 months ago
35
3 months ago
Italy's Matera as a case study for revitalizing small governments and creating a future of interconnected villages.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Some Temperamental Undercurrent' We squabble and seethe about it but our tastes in literature – and other realms, like food and...
19 hours ago
2
19 hours ago
We squabble and seethe about it but our tastes in literature – and other realms, like food and music -- ultimately remain mysterious. It has taken me a lifetime to accept this realization. You are not a cretin for enjoying the work of Norman Mailer or Toni Morrison, though I find...
The Marginalian
Everything Is Happening All the Time: Legendary Physicist John Archibald Wheeler on Death and the... “To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier,” Walt Whitman writes in the prime of...
9 months ago
38
9 months ago
“To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier,” Walt Whitman writes in the prime of life. “What happens when you get to the end of things?” four-year-old Johnny in Ohio asks his mother from the bathtub while Whitman’s borrowed atoms are becoming young grass in a...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 I’m a commis in a Chinese restaurant kitchen, this is what I do I’m a 23-year-old Chinese Singaporean woman. After graduating culinary school in 2016, I started as...
10 months ago
13
10 months ago
I’m a 23-year-old Chinese Singaporean woman. After graduating culinary school in 2016, I started as a commis (also known as 马王, or minion) in a Chinese restaurant kitchen along Orchard road. This is a description of my everyday work, in English, written for friends and family who...
Escaping Flatland
A greeting They think it was a monk at the Monastery of St Alban in Trier, present-day Germany. On Christmas...
a year ago
32
a year ago
They think it was a monk at the Monastery of St Alban in Trier, present-day Germany. On Christmas day, sometime in the 1570s, he was out walking when he came upon a rose that had, in the blistering cold, put forth a flower. It was a hellebore, a winter rose. Moved by the...
This Space
More and less: Veilchenfeld by Gert Hofmann Gert Hofmann's Veilchenfeld is the latest of his novels to be published in English translation, and...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
Gert Hofmann's Veilchenfeld is the latest of his novels to be published in English translation, and the first translated by Eric Mace-Tessler. Tom Conaghan at Review31 has given it an appreciative review, recognising that Hofmann's presentation of a civilisation's descent into...
The Elysian
Should we create more US states? Inside the growing movement to redraw state lines, and why it might be better for liberals and...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
Inside the growing movement to redraw state lines, and why it might be better for liberals and conservatives alike.
Ben Borgers
School But Online
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Books I read in December 2023 - No one’s worse than you, she says Lots of short fantasy fiction this month, perhaps everything in the first section except the May...
a year ago
51
a year ago
Lots of short fantasy fiction this month, perhaps everything in the first section except the May Sarton novel and Eugene O’Neill play, balanced by a complementary pair of Holocaust memoirs. NOVELS, STORIES & A PLAY Ocean of Story, Vol. 1 (11th cent.),  Somadeva, tr. C. H....
Anecdotal Evidence
'They Will Never Seem Boring' “And my final advice is to try, every week or so, to learn something by heart. A surprising amount...
4 months ago
33
4 months ago
“And my final advice is to try, every week or so, to learn something by heart. A surprising amount will remain in the memory, and more and more as you train it; and then, as you walk or work or sit in the subway, you will have something more than daily trivialities to occupy your...
Escaping Flatland
The hare vaguely impressionistic reflections about what I've been up to + links to stuff I've enjoyed...
3 weeks ago
20
3 weeks ago
vaguely impressionistic reflections about what I've been up to + links to stuff I've enjoyed recently
Naz Hamid
Hustle to Flow A meditation on entering flow state. A snack beckons. I stand up and head a few feet away to the...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
A meditation on entering flow state. A snack beckons. I stand up and head a few feet away to the kitchen area. A hojicha latte is on my mind, and also a bite. My brain is at operational capacity, and I am in a flow state. The metabolic need feels high, and I need to keep my...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Illumination of the Past' Despite the repellant spectacle of Allen Ginsburg, poetry as a career is not a guarantee of fame and...
5 months ago
30
5 months ago
Despite the repellant spectacle of Allen Ginsburg, poetry as a career is not a guarantee of fame and fortune. One of our finest recent poets, Herbert Morris, is forgotten and was hardly remembered even during his life. He published six collections between 1978 and 2000 and died...
Wuthering...
Paradoxes and epistemology - early Greek philosophy as conceptual innovation - "Zeno argues... The conceptual innovation of Thales that we identify as the birth of philosophy quickly spun off...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
The conceptual innovation of Thales that we identify as the birth of philosophy quickly spun off other conceptual innovations.  A real conceptual innovation does not require a book or even an argument.  You say there are many gods?  But what if there were one? Or none? ...
The Marginalian
A Stone Is a Story: An Illustrated Love Letter to Deep Time and Earth’s Memory We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet...
a year ago
56
a year ago
We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet made a world largely by its rockiness. Rock gave us mountains and beaches, bridges and kitchen countertops, gave us the first Promethean fire that sparked civilization. A rock is...
The Marginalian
We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt, the Power of Defiant Goodwill, and the Art of... "It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most...
a year ago
35
a year ago
"It is when the experience of powerlessness is at its most acute, when history seems at its most bleak, that the determination to think like a human being, creatively, courageously, and complicatedly, matters the most."
Wuthering...
What I Read in April 2025 – Have we cherished expectations? I should make that the new official slogan of the blog.  It is from p. 614 of Finnegans Wake, one of...
2 months ago
26
2 months ago
I should make that the new official slogan of the blog.  It is from p. 614 of Finnegans Wake, one of the books I recently read. FICTION The Sword in the Stone (1938), T. H. White – I for some reason did not read this as a youth.  It is wonderful, full of anachronism and parody...
Ben Borgers
Things Go Downhill After We Leave
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Louise Erdrich on the Deepest Meaning of Resistance "Resist loss of the miraculous by lowering your standards for what constitutes a miracle. It is all...
8 months ago
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...
a year ago
53
a year 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
“One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo appeared first on The American...
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 375 ...
3 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Absence of Her Voice From that Concord' “There are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: he may be considered as...
2 months ago
30
2 months ago
“There are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: he may be considered as a storyteller, as a teacher, and as an enchanter. A major writer combines these three – storyteller, teacher, enchanter – but it is the enchanter in him that predominates and makes him...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Mundango Mundago is a game about enjoying the small things in life. Each day you get a brand new board of...
8 months ago
18
8 months ago
Mundago is a game about enjoying the small things in life. Each day you get a brand new board of activities you can pursue. Your board is yours. Your friends' boards will be different. Tap items to check them off as you complete them. — Dave Rupery Thanks for a little bit of joy,...
Steven Scrawls
Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction In Part 1, I examined a few common tropes in...
a year ago
19
a year ago
Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction In Part 1, I examined a few common tropes in stories and suggested that some stories might explore certain questions not because those questions are interesting, but because engaging with those questions allows the story to...
Josh Thompson
Daily Exercise - Russian Kettlebells Exercise. It makes most people either cringe or salivate. Those of you who love exercising for the...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Exercise. It makes most people either cringe or salivate. Those of you who love exercising for the sake of exercising - you can stop reading now. This information is probably not relevant to you. Those of you who don’t like to exercise, but know you really should exercise...
The Marginalian
Poetic Ecology and the Biology of Wonder "The real disconnect is not between our human nature and all the other beings; it is between our...
a year ago
86
a year ago
"The real disconnect is not between our human nature and all the other beings; it is between our image of our nature and our real nature."
The American Scholar
The Birthmark The post The Birthmark appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Ben Borgers
Personal Software
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Archives of Joy: Reflections on Animals and the Nature of Being An invitation to "a certain, forgotten way of seeing the world" and an exultation at "earthly life,...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
An invitation to "a certain, forgotten way of seeing the world" and an exultation at "earthly life, with its duration so short it obliges us to surpass ourselves."
The American Scholar
The Writer in the Family The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary...
7 months ago
27
7 months ago
The fiction of E. L. Doctorow gave a young man hope of connecting his father and his literary hero The post The Writer in the Family appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'It Brought Us This Far' Self-knowledge is fine but some things are best left unexamined. “Why do you read so many books?” a...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Self-knowledge is fine but some things are best left unexamined. “Why do you read so many books?” a reader asks. His assumption, never directly articulated, is that reading is compensation for the absence of something far more important. I suppose people have been facing...
The Marginalian
Insomnia and the Secret Life of Ideas: Kafka on the Relationship Between Sleeplessness and... Where we go when we go to sleep and why we go there is one of the great mysteries of the mind. Why...
4 months ago
43
4 months ago
Where we go when we go to sleep and why we go there is one of the great mysteries of the mind. Why the mind at times refuses to go there, despite the pleading and bargaining of its conscious owner, is a greater mystery still. We know that ever since REM evolved in the bird brain,...
Astral Codex Ten
Against The Generalized Anti-Caution Argument ...
7 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Defeats Most Proofs Of God's Existence ...
4 months ago
The American Scholar
Good Vibrations One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound The post Good Vibrations appeared...
a year ago
46
a year ago
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound The post Good Vibrations appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Verse 31 from Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore Poems read aloud, beautifully The post Verse 31 from <em>Gitanjali</em> by Rabindranath Tagore...
3 weeks ago
17
3 weeks ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post Verse 31 from <em>Gitanjali</em> by Rabindranath Tagore appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 We Need More Than Fewer, Better Things Given this understanding of benefits and harms, then, the mantra of “fewer, better things” carries...
11 months ago
19
11 months ago
Given this understanding of benefits and harms, then, the mantra of “fewer, better things” carries an implied equivalence between better and longer. But I’m pretty sure that my nonexistent grandchildren aren’t looking forward to inheriting my inexpensive plastic garbage can,...
The Marginalian
A Shelter in Time: John Berger on the Power of Music "Songs are like rivers: each follows its own course, yet all flow to the sea, from which everything...
over a year ago
This Space
39 Books: 2019 So much for this blog being labelled "the best resource in English on European modernist...
a year ago
93
a year ago
So much for this blog being labelled "the best resource in English on European modernist literature": this year's choice is a collection of lectures delivered in the early 1960s at the University of Zürich, published in English translation in 1970, with this edition being...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Apple Maps on the web launches in beta Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access...
12 months ago
25
12 months ago
Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly from their browser. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Ben Borgers
War Room “Bib”
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Kinship and Contradictions Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity The post Kinship and Contradictions appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
How to Miss Loved Ones Better: The Psychology of Waiting and Withstanding Absence On "the capacity to bear frustration without turning against one’s needy self, or against the person...
10 months ago
Ben Borgers
A Small Life Radius
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Seminal Crime of the 20th Century' Some years ago I happened on an account of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination that read like a...
2 weeks ago
10
2 weeks ago
Some years ago I happened on an account of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination that read like a coroner’s report. The author described in minute medical detail what happened after John Wilkes Booth pulled the trigger – the blood, bone fragments, tissue damage in the president’s...
The Marginalian
Swan Sky: A Bittersweet Vintage Japanese Meditation on Love, Loss, and the Eternal Consolations of... To me, what makes the majestic migration of birds so moving is that it is a living spell against...
a year ago
93
a year ago
To me, what makes the majestic migration of birds so moving is that it is a living spell against abandonment. No one is leaving and no one is being left in this unison of movement along a vector of common purpose. It is the only instance I know of a transition that is not a...
The Marginalian
The Bird in the Heart: Terry Tempest Williams on the Paradox of Transformation and How to Live with... "We can change, evolve, and transform our own conditioning. We can choose to move like water rather...
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Ruby Tutorial 001 I’m playing with Michael Hartl’s Learn Enough Ruby book. I’ll throw basic things I learn along the...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I’m playing with Michael Hartl’s Learn Enough Ruby book. I’ll throw basic things I learn along the way on here. A good starting point is using your command line. I use iTerm2 for my terminal instead of the default Terminal installation. To get up and running in your terminal,...
The American Scholar
“After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” by Emily Dickinson Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” by Emily Dickinson...
4 months ago
30
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” by Emily Dickinson appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 364.5 ...
6 months ago
The American Scholar
Coming Home Craig Thompson digs up memories of farm labor and the history of ginseng The post Coming Home...
2 months ago
13
2 months ago
Craig Thompson digs up memories of farm labor and the history of ginseng The post Coming Home appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
Take a part of the world that you love and give it your care Edward Weston, Armco Steel, Ohio, 1922
3 months ago
Josh Thompson
Boulder Ruby Group meetup notes Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App Boulder Ruby Group Monthly...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App Boulder Ruby Group Monthly Meetup @Recurly Offices, Feb 13, 2018 Slides are available here on Dropbox Git Push, Git Paid Here’s the “Git Push, Git Paid” t-shirt I mentioned: Thoughtbot designed these, and it...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Lonely Funeral of Your Speech' Francis Bacon’s death might have been scripted by Monty Python. It’s certainly the most unlikely...
5 months ago
17
5 months ago
Francis Bacon’s death might have been scripted by Monty Python. It’s certainly the most unlikely in the history of English literature, at least as reported by the not-always-reliable John Aubrey. It’s absurd but if true it helps beatify the author of The Advancement of Learning...
The American Scholar
Queen of the Night Leigh Ann Henion embraces the creatures that light up the dark The post Queen of the Night appeared...
10 months ago
71
10 months ago
Leigh Ann Henion embraces the creatures that light up the dark The post Queen of the Night appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Such as It Is The post Such as It Is appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Ben Borgers
My Guilt for Useless Things
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
There’s No Personal Space in College
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
You Might Be Right, But Shut Up
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Books Which Can Be Read Again and Again' “The great bulk of the world’s prose fiction, contemporary and past, does not wear well. Almost all...
a month ago
21
a month ago
“The great bulk of the world’s prose fiction, contemporary and past, does not wear well. Almost all of it is soon forgotten and of those books which survive the wear of time, only a few withstand the effects of time on the reader himself. Out of all the novels ever written there...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Nobody to Witness Its Effects Upon Me' Johnson, Boswell and friends met for dinner at the Crown and Anchor on April 12, 1776. Among...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
Johnson, Boswell and friends met for dinner at the Crown and Anchor on April 12, 1776. Among the topics of conversation was the evergreen favorite “whether drinking improved conversation and benevolence.” Sir Joshua Reynolds maintained it did. Johnson replies:   “‘No, Sir: before...
Ben Borgers
The Content Machine
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Did MCAS Matter?
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Up Close The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
Wuthering...
Stein's style - Mostly no one will be wanting to listen, I am certain Not many find it interesting this way I am realizing every one, not any I am just now hearing, and...
a year ago
106
a year ago
Not many find it interesting this way I am realizing every one, not any I am just now hearing, and it is so completely an important thing, it is a complete thing in understanding, I am going on writing, I am going on now with a description of all whom Alfred Hersland came to know...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ There's a Tarantula In Our Room “Err, I just saw a head poke out.” “What?” “I think there’s a rat or mouse in our...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
“Err, I just saw a head poke out.” “What?” “I think there’s a rat or mouse in our room.” “Where?” “Near your bags. I saw a head.” Gingerly and slowly, I tiptoe over to my pile of bags, just a few feet away and peer around them. I see nothing, and my bags are leaning against an...
sbensu
Industrial macros Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to the database.
The Marginalian
Moonlight and the Magic of the Unnecessary Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how...
a year ago
83
a year ago
Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how improbably lucky we are, each of its craters a monument of the odds we prevailed against to exist, a reliquary of the violent collisions that forged our rocky planet lush with life...
The Marginalian
Are You Living a Fairy Tale, a Novel, or a Poem? When reality fissures along the fault line of our expectations and the unwelcome happens — a death,...
12 months ago
91
12 months ago
When reality fissures along the fault line of our expectations and the unwelcome happens — a death, an abandonment, a promise broken, a kindness withheld — we tend to cope in one of two ways: We question our own sanity, assuming the outside world coherent and our response a form...
Josh Thompson
Why I use a Kindle Amazon’s e-reader is extremely functional. Most reasons to not use one focus either on practical...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
Amazon’s e-reader is extremely functional. Most reasons to not use one focus either on practical issues (depending on something with a battery) or on aesthetic reasons. These are valid issues, of course, but these pale in comparison to the many, many reasons to use a...
Josh Thompson
Winter on Two Pairs of Socks We’re minimalists, mostly. We try to not have a bunch of stuff. This naturally extends to the...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
We’re minimalists, mostly. We try to not have a bunch of stuff. This naturally extends to the wardrobe. I’ll cover more about what we wear another time, but for now, I want to give you an idea. With the right socks, you can go an entire winter with just two pairs of socks. You...
Astral Codex Ten
Book Review: The Rise Of Christianity ...
8 months ago
The Marginalian
The Power of Being a Heretic: The Forgotten Visionary Jane Ellen Harrison on Critical Thinking,... "If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of...
over a year ago
47
over a year ago
"If we are to be true and worthy heretics, we need not only new heads, but new hearts, and, most of all, that new emotional imagination... begotten of enlarged sympathies and a more sensitive habit of feeling."
The Elysian
One essay could change the future Please support a better media ecosystem.
9 months ago
The Marginalian
Walt Whitman on Owning Your Life At the bottom of the abyss between us is the hard fact that to be a person, a particular person, is...
3 months ago
39
3 months ago
At the bottom of the abyss between us is the hard fact that to be a person, a particular person, is so profoundly different from what any other person can suppose. This is why one of the hardest learnings in life is that you cannot love — or scold, or coax, or palter — anyone out...
The Elysian
What my cooperative media ecosystem could look like My vision for a federated nation of independent writer states.
6 months ago
The American Scholar
“Sakura Park” by Rachel Wetzsteon Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Sakura Park” by Rachel Wetzsteon appeared first on The...
a month ago
15
a month ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Sakura Park” by Rachel Wetzsteon appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Something About the Sky: Rachel Carson’s Lost Serenade to the Science of the Clouds, Found and... A version of this essay appeared in The New York Times Book Review. A cloud is a spell against...
a year ago
83
a year ago
A version of this essay appeared in The New York Times Book Review. A cloud is a spell against indifference, an emblem of the water cycle that makes this planet a living world capable of trees and tenderness, a great cosmic gasp at the improbability that such a world exists, that...
Astral Codex Ten
Everything-Except-Book Review Contest 2025 ...
4 months ago
This Space
The criticism of Lessons, the lessons of criticism I give thanks to Ryan Ruby for his review of Lessons, Ian McEwan’s latest novel. It brings to our...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
I give thanks to Ryan Ruby for his review of Lessons, Ian McEwan’s latest novel. It brings to our attention that rare thing, joy of joys, a novel telling the story of a life remarkably similar to the author’s own set against the backdrop of recent history. Ruby shows how the...
This Space
At home he’s a tourist: The Moment by Peter Holm Jensen Such a modest, self-effacing title, barely relieved by the blanched map on the cover. In everyday...
over a year ago
75
over a year ago
Such a modest, self-effacing title, barely relieved by the blanched map on the cover. In everyday speech, a word or two is usually added to supplement the weedy noun: people say “At this moment in time”, which is when I ask: can a moment be in anything else; a moment in lampposts...
The Marginalian
How to Bear Your Loneliness: Grounding Wisdom from the Great Buddhist Teacher Pema Chödrön "We are cheating ourselves when we run away from the ambiguity of loneliness."
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Marlana Stoddard Hayes Hope blooms The post Marlana Stoddard Hayes appeared first on The American Scholar.
11 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ No One Above the Law "Malaysia." I stood up, and maybe one or two other people did too. It wasn't like the large groups...
9 months ago
10
9 months ago
"Malaysia." I stood up, and maybe one or two other people did too. It wasn't like the large groups of newly minted American citizens from other countries announced, such as China, India, or the Philippines. But it was a moment I was proud of, and when my country of origin was...
The American Scholar
Stephanie Santana Preserving family history The post Stephanie Santana appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
The Elysian
I'm not going to have kids to save the economy Not on my list of reasons to have children.
a year ago
The 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...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “A Prayer for My Daughter” by W. B. Yeats appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
12
over a year ago
2022-06-15 Update I wrote this document the first time in a very small number of minutes, three weeks ago, on my way out the door on a particularly busy day. I follow “write it now”. I’ve gotten to discuss this letter with a few different people, because I mentioned it in email....
The Marginalian
Starlings and the Magic of Murmurations: A Stunning Watercolor Celebration of One of Earth’s Living... Biking back to my rented cottage from CERN one autumn evening, having descended into the underworld...
a year ago
46
a year ago
Biking back to my rented cottage from CERN one autumn evening, having descended into the underworld of matter for a visit to the world’s largest high-energy particle collider, a sight stopped me up short on the shore of Lake Geneva: In the orange sky over the orange water, a...
The Elysian
Maybe you need to have more fun "Fun" as essential to human flourishing.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Three Android Apps I Use Every Day (and maybe you'll use them too) I’m not here to talk about Twitter and Instagram, which… I use too much. Lets talk about things that...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I’m not here to talk about Twitter and Instagram, which… I use too much. Lets talk about things that make my life better, and might do the same for you. (If you’re an iPhone user, just Google for the iOS version of the following tools. They’re all out there) Rewire App:...
Josh Thompson
Planned Unit Design Document (work-in-progress) This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something we bring to the City of Golden for ratification, or whatever needs to happen to get this done in this zone. This document relates to Collateralizing Mortgages and Loans With the...
Josh Thompson
Cheap fix to night-time teeth grinding A few years ago, I found out I grind me teeth at night. Kristi says it sounds like I’m chewing...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
A few years ago, I found out I grind me teeth at night. Kristi says it sounds like I’m chewing marbles. Others who grind their teeth give themselves headaches, or wake themselves up at night. You can’t really stop yourself from grinding your teeth, since you’re asleep. You can...
Josh Thompson
Waking Up Early, Part 3 I’ve written about my attempts to wake up early before. Most recently, I promised to take a sleep...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
I’ve written about my attempts to wake up early before. Most recently, I promised to take a sleep log, to track trends. Fortunately, I did not intend to try to wake up early, because I didn’t. Here’s what I learned in the last three weeks: Benadryl messes with your ability to...
The American Scholar
Above the River of Your Longing Two new prompts The post Above the River of Your Longing appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
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...
a year ago
98
a year 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...
Josh Thompson
Cones, Coning, and Fixing Junctions, And How And Why “Traffic Cones and Junction Fixes: A DIY Guide” ? this is very drafty This post is probably best...
3 months ago
43
3 months ago
“Traffic Cones and Junction Fixes: A DIY Guide” ? this is very drafty This post is probably best viewed on desktop, with some links opening new tabs, viewed, closed, and then this post returned to. There’s a lot of videos farther down, some of them are tiktoks (sorry) and some of...
The Marginalian
Why Bats Shouldn’t Exist: The Limits of Knowledge, the Pitfalls of Prediction, and the Triumph of... Prediction is the sharpest tool the human animal has devised — the chisel with which we sculpted...
a week ago
12
a week ago
Prediction is the sharpest tool the human animal has devised — the chisel with which we sculpted survival out of chance, the fulcrum by which we lifted civilization out of survival. Among the greatest gifts of the imagination, that crowning curio of consciousness, is our ability...
Steven Scrawls
"Progress" “Progress” The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched) answers to questions...
a year ago
19
a year ago
“Progress” The following tables are my (opinionated, minimally researched) answers to questions about a curated version of Wikipedia’s list of most-visited websites (see Notes for details). I invite you to follow along, issue your own snap judgments, and come to your own...
The Marginalian
The Secret Life of Chocolate: Oliver Sacks on the Cultural and Natural History of Cacao Without chocolate, life would be a mistake — not a paraphrasing of Nietzsche he would have easily...
a year ago
45
a year ago
Without chocolate, life would be a mistake — not a paraphrasing of Nietzsche he would have easily envisioned, for he was a toddler in Germany when a British chocolatier created the first modern version of what we now think of as chocolate: a paste of sugar, chocolate liquor, and...
Ploum.net
The Engagement Rehab The Engagement Rehab I’ve written extensively, in French, about my quest to break my "connection...
4 months ago
31
4 months ago
The Engagement Rehab I’ve written extensively, in French, about my quest to break my "connection addiction" by doing what I called "disconnections". At first, it was only doing three months without major news media and social networks. Then I tried to do one full year where I...
Josh Thompson
Driven by Compression Progress Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and academic literature, as applied to somewhat practical-ish domains. These pages serve as a brief overview of a paper, and I’ll be able to link to this paper down the road when I what...
The Marginalian
What It Takes to Grow: Pioneering Psychoanalyst Karen Horney on the Key to Self-Realization "Self-knowledge... is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous...
over a year ago
112
over a year ago
"Self-knowledge... is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous growth. In this sense, to work at ourselves becomes not only the prime moral obligation, but... the prime moral privilege."