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Ben Borgers
How I Sent Texts for Assassins
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Please read Greek philosophy with me - Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, dog men, people jumping in... Greek philosophy, readalong #2. This idea got more interesting the more I thought about it, but...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
Greek philosophy, readalong #2. This idea got more interesting the more I thought about it, but had more organizational problems, plus the greater problem that I do not think of philosophy as a strength of mine.  My solution has been to convert the project into literature. Is...
The Marginalian
Comets, Orbits, and the Mystery We Are: The Enchanted Celestial Mechanics of Australian Artist Shane... “We are bathing in mystery and confusion,” Carl Sagan told his best interviewer. “That will always...
3 months ago
42
3 months ago
“We are bathing in mystery and confusion,” Carl Sagan told his best interviewer. “That will always be our destiny. The universe will always be much richer than our ability to understand it.” We have wielded our tools of reason at the mystery — theorems and telescopes, postulates...
The Elysian
Free speech in the age of social media A discussion about misinformation, echo chambers, media spin, social trolling, and how we can create...
7 months ago
47
7 months ago
A discussion about misinformation, echo chambers, media spin, social trolling, and how we can create something better.
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 376 ...
3 months ago
Ben Borgers
Apple Credit Card Rewards
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Taken For A Ride There’s a visceral reaction when the idea of an autonomous car is brought up. “No way!” “I don’t...
10 months ago
11
10 months ago
There’s a visceral reaction when the idea of an autonomous car is brought up. “No way!” “I don’t trust robots.” “How can that even be safe?” These are commonplace in the discourse of driverless vehicles. Some protestors have even placed cones on the vehicles’ sensors and cameras...
Josh Thompson
MacOS: Keyboard Shortcut to Toggle Bookmarks Bar in Firefox A few weeks ago, after Firefox Quantum came out, I decided to try making Firefox my daily browser,...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, after Firefox Quantum came out, I decided to try making Firefox my daily browser, instead of Chrome. Turns out, Firefox is great! It was a near-seamless transition, and Firefox has a much lower memory footprint, as well as features Chrome does not have, like...
This Space
"A mighty, contagious absence" The number of obituaries, tributes, backhanded compliments and overt smears in the corporate news...
a year ago
90
a year ago
The number of obituaries, tributes, backhanded compliments and overt smears in the corporate news media following the death of John Pilger reveal the state of journalism in our time. [1] Can you name one living Anglophone journalist whose loss would prompt such widespread notice?...
Josh Thompson
Sidekiq and Background Jobs for Beginners I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I was working on. I learned a lot. Much of it was extremely basic. Anyone who knows much at all about Sidekiq will say “oh, duh, of course that’s true”, but at the time, it wasn’t...
The Marginalian
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...
Josh Thompson
Tongue Ties: What, So What, What To Do “tongue tied” (my first time hearing the word, my newborn’s experience) ‘tongue tie’ was something...
a year ago
15
a year ago
“tongue tied” (my first time hearing the word, my newborn’s experience) ‘tongue tie’ was something I’d heard discussed (the little bit of fiber under a tongue) as the child we now know as Eden was incubating inside of Kristi’s womb. I didn’t think much of it then. Cut forward to...
Escaping Flatland
Caring for others At Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen, I see a passport fall out of the back pocket of a man and...
a month ago
18
a month ago
At Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen, I see a passport fall out of the back pocket of a man and immediately (at least) three strangers call out.
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...
Josh Thompson
Quotes from 'Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving', by Pete Walker I’ve found Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving to be deeply helpful. Some of you,...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I’ve found Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving to be deeply helpful. Some of you, many of you, have blessed me and cared for me in kind ways, sometimes with very little knowledge of what was going on, or why I was the way that I was. Thank you. I’ve been...
Josh Thompson
Jaywalking: What, So What, What To Do What Is “Jaywalking” authors note: This feels very draft-y. There’s two distinct perspectives I note...
a year ago
15
a year ago
What Is “Jaywalking” authors note: This feels very draft-y. There’s two distinct perspectives I note in my mind, as I write this. Some people might “believe in jaywalking” and view non-car-users as an underclass, and act in such a way that makes this belief manifestly obvious....
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
Anchoring Shards of Memory We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both The post Anchoring Shards of...
10 months ago
42
10 months ago
We don’t often associate Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler, but both The post Anchoring Shards of Memory appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid
Less Precious Social networking is about reach. It started small: your friends first, then grew outwards towards...
5 months ago
40
5 months ago
Social networking is about reach. It started small: your friends first, then grew outwards towards acquaintances and your professional life. It grew out to people who might follow you because of some shared interest, and then to complete strangers. Social media likes to tell you...
The American Scholar
“Spring” by J. R. Solonche Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Spring” by J. R. Solonche appeared first on The American...
a year ago
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 Marginalian
Befriending a Blackbird Friendship is a lifeline twined of truth and tenderness. That we extend it to each other is...
a year ago
92
a year ago
Friendship is a lifeline twined of truth and tenderness. That we extend it to each other is benediction enough. To extend it across the barrier of biology and sentience, to another creature endowed with a wholly other consciousness, partakes of the miraculous. Born in England in...
Robert Caro
An Interview With Robert Caro and Kurt Vonnegut Kurt greeted us in his beautiful 19th century house and in his bare feet (of which more later). As...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
Kurt greeted us in his beautiful 19th century house and in his bare feet (of which more later). As the interview progressed it grew sort of
Astral Codex Ten
ACX Classifieds 4/25 ...
3 months ago
The American Scholar
Bubble Girl The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American...
a year ago
33
a year ago
The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Processes Vs. Goals (or, Systems vs. Accomplishments) In this excellent article on systems vs. goals, James argues that even if you did not pursue any...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
In this excellent article on systems vs. goals, James argues that even if you did not pursue any specific goals, with the right system, you will still go a long way. This idea has been floating around my head for over a year, now, and I think it’s slowly coalescing into something...
Wuthering...
Plato's Republic - justice, fantasy and censorship - We'll ask Homer not to be angry I had ambitions to write about Plato’s Republic with some thoroughness, but I guess I will just...
over a year ago
92
over a year ago
I had ambitions to write about Plato’s Republic with some thoroughness, but I guess I will just pursue one point.  Good enough. I have been separating Socrates from Plato, an imaginative exercise based on circular criteria.  The more Socratic of the Socratic dialogues are...
The Marginalian
Living Against Time: Virginia Woolf on Reaping the “Moments of Being” That Make You Who You Are In praise of "the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light."
5 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Rivian — Pentagram A custom typeface for the American electric vehicle manufacturer reflects its spirit of innovation...
8 months ago
16
8 months ago
A custom typeface for the American electric vehicle manufacturer reflects its spirit of innovation and adventure. Söhne is the typeface du jour of late (Stripe, OpenAI/ChatGPT, Rivian prior to this, and even this very website), and its nice to see Pentagram evolve it in...
The Marginalian
Shame and the Secret Chambers of the Self: Pioneering Sociologist and Philosopher Helen Merrell Lynd... "Experiences of shame throw a flooding light on what and who we are and what the world we live in...
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 379 ...
2 months ago
The Elysian
I'd like to open a Singapore franchise please? Franchise Cities as an alternative to Charter Cities.
a year ago
The American Scholar
The Scales The post The Scales appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
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
Ben Borgers
Waking up Early
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Threaded I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time...
a year ago
10
a year ago
I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time ago. I don’t find it particularly useful, as my Twitter usage had declined long ago. Anyway, the post (and accompanying photo): “When I contemplate the idea of relocating, it’s 70°...
The Marginalian
Kafka on Friendship and the Art of Reconnection Among the paradoxes of friendship is this: All friendships of depth and durability are based on a...
8 months ago
49
8 months ago
Among the paradoxes of friendship is this: All friendships of depth and durability are based on a profound knowledge of each other, of the soul beneath the costume of personality — that lovely Celtic notion of anam cara. We bring this knowledge, this mutual understanding, to...
The Marginalian
From Stardust to Sapiens: A Stunning Serenade to Our Cosmic Origins and Our Ongoing Self-Creation We were never promised any of it — this world of cottonwoods and clouds — when the Big Bang set the...
a year ago
28
a year ago
We were never promised any of it — this world of cottonwoods and clouds — when the Big Bang set the possible in motion. And yet here we are, atoms with consciousness, each of us a living improbability forged of chaos and dead stars. Children of chance, we have made ourselves into...
The American Scholar
“He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy appeared first...
a year ago
87
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy appeared first on The American Scholar.
Steven Scrawls
Doomr Most of my creations can be contained within an RSS feed; Doomr cannot. You'll want to check the...
a year ago
16
a year ago
Most of my creations can be contained within an RSS feed; Doomr cannot. You'll want to check the website for this one.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Transition Day 8: Sept 17, 2023 — It’s frigid. The first light is finally peaking over the mountains with a...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 8: Sept 17, 2023 — It’s frigid. The first light is finally peaking over the mountains with a soft orange-pink glow. We packed up most everything last night since we anticipated a cold morning. I notice the roof top tent is crusted with frost. I suspect the forecast for 39ºF...
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.
Ben Borgers
Date Picker Details
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“Defeat” by Kahlil Gibran Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Defeat” by Kahlil Gibran appeared first on The American...
8 months 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...
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
A Story for Christmas The post A Story for Christmas appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
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
Ben Borgers
Winter break project list
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Parking Tickets Wrapped 2024
6 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Take The 2025 ACX Survey ...
7 months ago
The American Scholar
Hot and Cold The post Hot and Cold appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The Perry Bible...
Turn That Frown The post Turn That Frown appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
11 months ago
This Space
This kingdom by the sea Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav von Aschenbach, when his...
over a year ago
57
over a year ago
Published in 1912, it’s about the fall of the repressed writer Gustav von Aschenbach, when his supposedly objective appreciation of a young boy’s beauty becomes sexual obsession. This is how BBC Radio 4's In Our Time sets up a discussion of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice...
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
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...
ben-mini
Root Canals and Bill Gates In Finding Nemo, there was a scene about a root canal surgery that absolutely terrified me: This...
a year ago
17
a year ago
In Finding Nemo, there was a scene about a root canal surgery that absolutely terrified me: This could just be me, but I spent a remarkable amount of my childhood worrying about root canals. Horror stories like these created a universal phobia that dentists suck and that’s...
The American Scholar
Up Close The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Cultivation As a Proficient Amateur' Perhaps the most interesting and even important person in Montaigne’s life – especially for...
a month ago
12
a month ago
Perhaps the most interesting and even important person in Montaigne’s life – especially for his readers -- was not his wife nor his friend Étienne de La Boétie, whose death in 1563 left him bereft, but Marie de Gournay (1565-1645), the model of an autodidact, who taught herself...
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The Deeper Reasons Democrats Lost In other words, the story is less a rightward shift than an anti-Trump collapse. And, more...
7 months ago
16
7 months ago
In other words, the story is less a rightward shift than an anti-Trump collapse. And, more importantly, that many people have generally exited the political process all together. I'm mostly abstaining from the many hot takes on why the election went the way it did. This may be...
Ben Borgers
New in Superadmin: styling, images, rich text
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Social skills are like any other skills Learning social skills are no different from learning cooking skills, or handstand skills. It...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Learning social skills are no different from learning cooking skills, or handstand skills. It helps to have exposure at a young age, but with time and effort, you can learn, and even master, cooking, handstands, and social skills. Why do social skills matter? Most people get...
This Space
Further in the opposite direction Modernity is supposed to be the moment when religious claims and systems of authority reveal...
a year ago
54
a year ago
Modernity is supposed to be the moment when religious claims and systems of authority reveal themselves to be human-all-too-human fictions that lack divine legitimation. Religion is supposed to wither away. But this itself...can be understood as a religious claim: the very...
This Space
39 Books: 2006 My choice for 2003 began with indecision, as I couldn't imagine writing about Robert Antelme's The...
a year ago
56
a year ago
My choice for 2003 began with indecision, as I couldn't imagine writing about Robert Antelme's The Human Race. Instead I wondered if I could say something about Timothy Hyman's Sienese Painting. While I have little or no feeling for art, I am drawn to reading about it. The book's...
Ben Borgers
“21” by Patrick Roche
over a year ago
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...
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."
The Marginalian
Audubon on Other Minds and the Secret Knowledge of Animals “In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with...
10 months ago
59
10 months ago
“In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear,” Henry Beston observed of other animals two generations before naturalist Sy Montgomery...
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....
Josh Thompson
About working remotely at Litmus with Pajamas.io A while back, I wrote a long interview for Pajamas.io, a publication around remote work. I’ve pasted...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
A while back, I wrote a long interview for Pajamas.io, a publication around remote work. I’ve pasted the entire article here below. When Josh Thompson wanted to move out to rural Colorado with his family to be closer to the mountains he loves to climb, he knew finding a company...
The Elysian
Building an operating system for Earth How we went from an architecture of collapse to a simulation for survival
5 days 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...
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...
Ben Borgers
CS 15: Data Structures
over a year ago
The American Scholar
To Catch a Sunset Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love The post To Catch a Sunset...
a year ago
62
a year ago
Reflections on allergies, anxieties, and the limits of familial love The post To Catch a Sunset appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“That Day” by Nikki Giovanni Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “That Day” by Nikki Giovanni appeared first on The American...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “That Day” by Nikki Giovanni appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Recommended Reading I’ve read many books over the years. Thousands. Here’s a few that I find myself...
a year ago
24
a year ago
I’ve read many books over the years. Thousands. Here’s a few that I find myself referencing/recommending.Periodically, I refresh this list. It’s changed over the years years. the list you are about to read is heavily reworked, based off this older list:...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Least Motion of Wonder in Himself' In 1968, my high-school English teacher loaned me the anthology of short stories she had used at...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
In 1968, my high-school English teacher loaned me the anthology of short stories she had used at Kent State University just a few years earlier. Included were the usual suspects -- Maupassant, Hemingway, Chekhov, Eudora Welty – but I read them because I knew nothing. Among the...
Ben Borgers
Why Do We Still Use Snapchat?
over a year ago
sbensu
Notes on UX and LLM integrations I analyze 8 apps (ChatGPT, Notion, Perplexity, etc.) that use or integrate LLM and try to break down...
a year ago
17
a year ago
I analyze 8 apps (ChatGPT, Notion, Perplexity, etc.) that use or integrate LLM and try to break down when and why they work well, or poorly.
The American Scholar
Jane Skafte The language of trees The post Jane Skafte appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The American Scholar
No Murder in the Mews The post No Murder in the Mews appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'And Does the Time Seem Long?' “Maurine Smith died March 8, 1919, at the age of twenty-three years. Nearly her whole life had been...
4 months ago
26
4 months ago
“Maurine Smith died March 8, 1919, at the age of twenty-three years. Nearly her whole life had been one of intense physical suffering, and she knew few of the usual felicities.”  Yvor Winters is introducing us to a poet whose name you likely have never encountered.  Smith and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Pictures and the Books That Here Surround Me'' Some five years before his death from cancer, Clive James published the poem “Change of Domicile” in...
a month ago
13
a month ago
Some five years before his death from cancer, Clive James published the poem “Change of Domicile” in one of the lesser-known literary magazines – the British Medical Journal’s Supportive and Palliative Care, the September 2014 issue. Coincidentally, that’s the month my friend...
The Marginalian
The Moon and the Yew Tree: Patti Smith Reads Sylvia Plath’s Haunting Portrait of Depression "This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary."
a year ago
The Marginalian
Beyond Either/Or: Kierkegaard on the Passion for Possibility and the Key to Resetting Relationships "Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the...
11 months ago
55
11 months ago
"Were I to wish for anything I would not wish for wealth and power, but for the passion of the possible, that eye which everywhere, ever young, ever burning, sees possibility."
The American Scholar
Masters of Horror and Magic The German folklorists who helped build a nation The post Masters of Horror and Magic appeared first...
8 months ago
35
8 months ago
The German folklorists who helped build a nation The post Masters of Horror and Magic appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
Kafka's great fire The centenary of Kafka's death was marked twelve years late. His diary records it in September...
a year ago
96
a year ago
The centenary of Kafka's death was marked twelve years late. His diary records it in September 1912: This story, The Judgment, I wrote at one sitting during the night of the 22nd-23rd, from ten o'clock at night to six o'clock in the morning. I was hardly able to pull my legs...
Josh Thompson
What I've learned from cooking in 36 kitchens in the last year Since we’ve been on the road full-time for the last year, Kristi and I have prepared meals for...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Since we’ve been on the road full-time for the last year, Kristi and I have prepared meals for (usually) ourselves and (sometimes) others in 36 (!!!) kitchens. Sometimes we’ve used a kitchen for just one night, sometimes it’s every night for two months. Needless to say, we’ve...
The Marginalian
The Art of Befriending Time and Change: Debbie Millman’s Illustrated Love Letter to Gardening as a... You may or may not find the meaning of life while pacing a flower bed, but each time you plunge your...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
You may or may not find the meaning of life while pacing a flower bed, but each time you plunge your bare hands into the hummus of the Earth and run your fingers through the roots of something that hungers for the sun, you are resisting the dying of the light and saying “yes” to...
The Marginalian
Consciousness, Artificial Intelligence, and Our Search for Meaning: Oliver Sacks on ChatGPT, 30... "We are not incoherent, a bundle of sensations, but a self, rising from experience, continually...
over a year ago
73
over a year ago
"We are not incoherent, a bundle of sensations, but a self, rising from experience, continually growing and revised... Through experience, education, art, and life, we teach our brains to become unique. We learn to be individuals. This is a neurological learning as well as a...
Josh Thompson
Write It Now The original post note from October 5, 2021: This was typed up/published in about 20 minutes, took...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
The original post note from October 5, 2021: This was typed up/published in about 20 minutes, took 2x as long as I wish it had. I could make it 10x better with another hour of work, but I only have 20 minutes. I’m a fan of “conceptual frameworks” This concept has been important...
The American Scholar
The Diagnostician of Despair Why Rousseau believed that Enlightenment values would lead us to ruin The post The Diagnostician of...
7 months ago
75
7 months ago
Why Rousseau believed that Enlightenment values would lead us to ruin The post The Diagnostician of Despair appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 When bats were wiped out, more human babies died, a study found. Here's why. Researchers find infant deaths increased after farmers used more pesticides to compensate for rise...
10 months ago
38
10 months ago
Researchers find infant deaths increased after farmers used more pesticides to compensate for rise of pests. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The Marginalian
The Wild Iris: Louise Glück on the Door at the End of Your Suffering "Whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice."
a year ago
sbensu
Twitter's Sith and Jedi In Star Wars, hate gives the Sith power from the dark side of the Force beyond what the Jedi can...
a year ago
16
a year ago
In Star Wars, hate gives the Sith power from the dark side of the Force beyond what the Jedi can reach. But when they lean into hate, they lose their soul to it. Twitter offers the same bargain as the Force.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Biblioteca Vasconselos In the Buenavista neighborhood resides this impressive library that spans 409,000 sq ft, designed by...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
In the Buenavista neighborhood resides this impressive library that spans 409,000 sq ft, designed by Mexican architects Alberto Kalach and Juan Palomar. Adored by those that appreciate architecture, and those looking for Instagram fodder, the space feels like you’re in the...
This Space
39 Books: 1997 I found this ghastly 60-page Grove Press hardback edition in a second-hand bookshop, its large...
a year ago
85
a year ago
I found this ghastly 60-page Grove Press hardback edition in a second-hand bookshop, its large typeface and generous spacing very similar to Beckett's late works (Barbara Bray, Beckett's translator, also translated this). Such productions are rare now, and perhaps were when it...
Astral Codex Ten
Links For December 2024 ...
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'What a Delight in Being a Discoverer!' The library catalogue said Walter Savage Landor’s Poems, the 1964 Centaur Press edition selected and...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
The library catalogue said Walter Savage Landor’s Poems, the 1964 Centaur Press edition selected and introduced by Geoffrey Grigson, had not been checked out by another patron (hardly surprising) and should be on the shelf. I couldn’t find it. Not a good sign. That could mean the...
The American Scholar
Maximalisma A professor endeavors to separate treasure from trash—before her children have to do it for her The...
4 months ago
14
4 months ago
A professor endeavors to separate treasure from trash—before her children have to do it for her The post Maximalisma appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating: An Uncommon Meditation on Presence and the Aperture of Wonder "Survival often depends on a specific focus: a relationship, a belief, or a hope balanced on the...
a year ago
The Marginalian
Some Blessings to Begin with It is good, I feel, to begin a new year, or a new day, with a little reservoir of gladness. Here are...
6 months ago
58
6 months ago
It is good, I feel, to begin a new year, or a new day, with a little reservoir of gladness. Here are some gladnesses I have gathered, and two new bird divinations I have made, as a conscious way of consecrating our days with the blessed fact that we weren’t promised any of this —...
Ben Borgers
War Room — using the native date picker
over a year ago
The Elysian
How much of the planet should we harm for our comfort? Becky Chambers’ gentle sci-fi on the right amount of carbon, AC, airplanes, and yachts.
a week ago
Astral Codex Ten
OpenAI Nonprofit Buyout: Much More Than You Wanted To Know ...
4 months ago
The Marginalian
Miss Leoparda: A Painted Parable of the Third Way and How to Change the World When told that there are only two options on the table and when both are limiting, most people,...
4 months ago
31
4 months ago
When told that there are only two options on the table and when both are limiting, most people, conditioned by the option dispensary we call society, will choose the lesser of the two limitations. Some will try to find a third option to put on the table; they may or may not...
The Marginalian
Roxane Gay on Loving vs. Being in Love and the Mark of a Soul Mate "It isn’t perfect, not at all. It doesn’t need to be. It is, simply, what fills you up."
a year ago
The Marginalian
May Sarton on How to Cultivate Your Talent "A talent grows by being used, and withers if it is not used."
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Canyon and the Meaning of Life Anything you polish with attention will become a mirror. Anything to which you give yourself fully,...
3 days ago
4
3 days ago
Anything you polish with attention will become a mirror. Anything to which you give yourself fully, vest all your strength and risk all your vulnerability, will return you to your life annealed, magnified, both unselved and more deeply yourself. It can be a garden, or a desert,...
The Marginalian
On Giving Up: Adam Phillips on Knowing What You Want, the Art of Self-Revision, and the Courage to... "Not being able to give up is not to be able to allow for loss, for vulnerability; not to be able to...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
year 1
over a year ago
sbensu
Enterprise sales meets product development What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide...
a year ago
17
a year ago
What I’ve learned from selling enterprises while developing a new product. This is less of a guide and more of a cautionary tale.
Josh Thompson
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,...
Josh Thompson
A 40 Hour Work Week Business Insider posted an article on why we have a 40 hour work week. The author blames big...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Business Insider posted an article on why we have a 40 hour work week. The author blames big business for why we’ve not dropped below 40 hours per week. He thinks that if America became less consumer-driven, our economy would collapse. He’s got the wrong starting assumptions...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Without Any Hope of Fame or Money' Friends and relatives, people whose judgment I actually trust, have urged me to move Anecdotal...
a week ago
10
a week ago
Friends and relatives, people whose judgment I actually trust, have urged me to move Anecdotal Evidence from Blogger to Substack and I don’t understand why. All I need is a place to write, the “platform” is of no importance. I’d do this in a notebook, like in the old days,...
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'All of Time is Cut in Two—Before and After' Rhina Espaillat writes the sonnet “How Like a Winter . . .” (And After All: Poems, 2018) in...
a month ago
15
a month ago
Rhina Espaillat writes the sonnet “How Like a Winter . . .” (And After All: Poems, 2018) in response to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 17:  “So Shakespeare describes absence. Yes—but no, since every winter ends, gentling to spring’s tentative yellows, then the green and blue and bolder...
The Marginalian
Necessary Losses: The Life-Shaping Art of Letting Go "We cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate...
a year ago
52
a year ago
"We cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate people, responsible people, connected people, reflective people without some losing and leaving and letting go."
Anecdotal Evidence
'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...
Astral Codex Ten
Indulge Your Internet Addiction By Reading About Internet Addiction ...
7 months ago
The Marginalian
From the Labor Camp to the Pantheon of Literature: How Dostoyevsky Became a Writer "I have nothing, except for certain, and perhaps very minor, literary abilities."
10 months ago
The American Scholar
Who’s to Say? A bewildering take from a noted scholar of Christianity The post Who’s to Say? appeared first on The...
4 months ago
19
4 months ago
A bewildering take from a noted scholar of Christianity The post Who’s to Say? appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“The Nakedness of Woman” The post “The Nakedness of Woman” appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Ben Borgers
r/AskReddit
over a year 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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 What Listening Does — An Untaught Life Skill Simply put, listening is hard; it’s work. Our minds, much like our bodies are rarely still or at...
10 months ago
12
10 months ago
Simply put, listening is hard; it’s work. Our minds, much like our bodies are rarely still or at ease — a condition that leads to listening poorly, which is one step away from equally poor thinking and decision making. — Scott Boms Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The Marginalian
How We Become Ourselves: Erik Erikson’s 8 Stages of Human Development It never ceases to stagger that some stroke of chance in the early history of the universe set into...
9 months ago
77
9 months ago
It never ceases to stagger that some stroke of chance in the early history of the universe set into motion the Rube Goldberg machine of events that turned atoms born in the first stars into you — into this temporary clump of borrowed stardust that, for the brief interlude between...
Josh Thompson
My Good Friends (Who Don't Know Me) Rumor has it you become like those you spend time with. Or “birds of a feather flock together”, or...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Rumor has it you become like those you spend time with. Or “birds of a feather flock together”, or “you are what you eat”. Maybe that last one was Hannibal Lector, having an old friend for dinner. Anyway, the person that you are is influenced by the people you spend time with....
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 380 ...
2 months ago
The Marginalian
Something in You Hungers for Clarity: Ta-Nehisi Coates on Writing “Words have more power than any one can guess; it is by words that the world’s great fight, now in...
7 months ago
66
7 months ago
“Words have more power than any one can guess; it is by words that the world’s great fight, now in these civilized times, is carried on,” Mary Shelley wrote in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars that laid the template for the colonialist power structure of the modern world, in an...
Astral Codex Ten
How To Stop Worrying And Learn To Love Lynn's National IQ Estimates ...
6 months ago
The Elysian
US states should have autonomy—like EU countries All we need to change is taxation.
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
On Minimalism I reluctantly call myself a minimalist. I’d prefer to call myself an “enoughalist”. This reluctance...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
I reluctantly call myself a minimalist. I’d prefer to call myself an “enoughalist”. This reluctance is because I think the label brings in a bunch of connotations that I don’t like. Our apartment never looked like this. Source: home-designing.com What is Minimalism? a removal or...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ I'm sorry, Ms. Jackson Day 5: Sept 14, 2023 — “But you can't predict the weather, Ms. Jackson.” — Ms. Jackson, Outkast We...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 5: Sept 14, 2023 — “But you can't predict the weather, Ms. Jackson.” — Ms. Jackson, Outkast We leave Vernal, Utah, and pass through Dinosaur, Utah. It’s the tiny town that leads into one of the many routes towards Dinosaur National Monument. It’s home to some 1,500 dinosaur...
The Marginalian
An Almanac of Birds: Divinations for Uncertain Days I have found that the surest way of seeing the wondrous in something ordinary, something previously...
11 months ago
65
11 months ago
I have found that the surest way of seeing the wondrous in something ordinary, something previously underappreciated, is coming to love someone who loves it. As we enter each other’s worlds in love — whatever its shape or species — we double our way of seeing, broaden our way of...
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Stairway to the Sun We had come across Teotihuacán in research around the less city-type things to see in Mexico City,...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
We had come across Teotihuacán in research around the less city-type things to see in Mexico City, and a recommendation from a friend also backed it up. We undertook our first AirBnB Experience with Hugo & Gabriel, a well-reviewed brother duo who grew up not too far from the...
Steven Scrawls
Stone Hands Reaching Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself...
a year ago
19
a year ago
Stone Hands Reaching I’m told the statue is right in front of me, so I reach out and find myself touching a stone forearm. It’s cold, of course, and it’s coarser than skin, but tracing along the arms is enough to bring back memories of being comforted, of being held, when I was a...
The Elysian
Substack could create the future of books Here’s how that could look.
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Lovely Lightness of Spirit' My understanding of “deliquescing” goes back to high-school chemistry: a solid melts or becomes...
5 months ago
19
5 months ago
My understanding of “deliquescing” goes back to high-school chemistry: a solid melts or becomes liquid by absorbing moisture from the air. Kay Ryan uses the word in an unexpectedly metaphorical way in her review of This Craft of Verse (2002), a transcript of the lectures Jorge...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 356 ...
8 months ago
The Marginalian
After Love: Maxine Kumin’s Stunning Poem About Eros as a Portal to Unselfing It is one of the hardest things in life — discerning where we end and the rest of the world begins,...
a year ago
26
a year ago
It is one of the hardest things in life — discerning where we end and the rest of the world begins, negotiating the permeable boundary between self and other, all the while longing for its dissolution, longing to be set free from the prison of ourselves. That is why we cherish...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again Sweet merciful Jesus, stop talking. Unless you are one of a tiny handful of businesses who know...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Sweet merciful Jesus, stop talking. Unless you are one of a tiny handful of businesses who know exactly what they're going to use AI for, you do not need AI for anything - or rather, you do not need to do anything to reap the benefits. Artificial intelligence, as it exists and is...
The Marginalian
How to Be More Alive: Hermann Hesse on Wonder and the Proper Aim of Education "While wandering down the path of wonder, I briefly escape the world of separation and enter the...
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Books I read in January 2024 - as long, indeed, as this book, which hardly anyone will read by... The best book I read was Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which will also be the best thing I read in...
a year ago
81
a year ago
The best book I read was Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which will also be the best thing I read in February.  I gotta catch up on my posts. One big book down, and as a result my list of January books is more sensible. TRAVEL, let’s call it Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941), Rebecca...
The Marginalian
But We Had Music: Nick Cave Reads an Animated Poem about Black Holes, Eternity, and How to Bear Our... How, knowing that even the universe is dying, do we bear our lives? Most readily, through...
a year ago
74
a year ago
How, knowing that even the universe is dying, do we bear our lives? Most readily, through friendship, through connection, through co-creating the world we want to live in for the brief time we have together on this lonely, perfect planet. The seventh annual Universe in Verse — a...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Fear is the mind-killer Day 21: Sept 30, 2023 — I open the tent flap and pop my head out. The view is indeed as impressive...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 21: Sept 30, 2023 — I open the tent flap and pop my head out. The view is indeed as impressive as the previous night’s moonlit scene hinted at. The mesa we’re camped on overlooks an expansive valley, and a glistening river snakes along the canyon floor. This was worth the...
Wuthering...
The Bacchae by Euripides - O gods, I see the greatest grief there is. Reading Euripides chronologically, it would be fair to think that however ingenious and inventive...
over a year ago
67
over a year ago
Reading Euripides chronologically, it would be fair to think that however ingenious and inventive Euripides was, he did not write a play quite at the level of Agamemnon or Oedipus the King, at least until his brief exile in Macedon, where he wrote The Bacchae just before his...
The American Scholar
Crystal Ball The post Crystal Ball appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Delicate, Invisible Web You Wove' Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou,...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou, the mungabey, abound In the dark jungle of a mango grove . . .”   I might have guessed Kipling or some forgotten Georgian poet. Perhaps it’s a verse omitted by Eliot from Old Possum’s Book of...
The Marginalian
Do Not Spare Yourself The only thing more dangerous than wanting to save another person — a dangerous desire too often...
6 months ago
107
6 months ago
The only thing more dangerous than wanting to save another person — a dangerous desire too often mistaken for love — is wanting to save yourself, to spare yourself the disappointment and heartbreak and loss inseparable from being a creature with hopes and longings constantly...
Ben Borgers
October 5th, 1582
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
60 kHz
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Customer Success: American Airlines Case Study Continuing the theme of “what the heck do I do for work”, I’m writing about Customer Success as I...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Continuing the theme of “what the heck do I do for work”, I’m writing about Customer Success as I see it. My words are my own, I don’t speak for the industry as a whole, or even for Litmus. I’m just trying to sharpen my own thinking. Last time, I argued that customer success is...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dungeons & Dragons taught me how to write alt text I don’t remember the issue number, or the original author. However, I do remember it was from an...
11 months ago
11
11 months ago
I don’t remember the issue number, or the original author. However, I do remember it was from an advice column. The problem was the person who was running the game wanting to enliven his descriptions, as they felt like their narration was both boring and confusing. The advice for...
Anecdotal Evidence
'His Work Must Be Perfect' How do we reconcile the saddest of English writers being at the same time among the wittiest?...
a week ago
10
a week ago
How do we reconcile the saddest of English writers being at the same time among the wittiest? And when I say “saddest,” I don’t mean depressed or suicidal; rather, wistful, ever aware of human ephemerality, calibrating his words until they attain the precise edge of irony he...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 364 ...
6 months ago
The Elysian
What my cooperative media ecosystem could look like My vision for a federated nation of independent writer states.
6 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 373 ...
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
Migrating my Jekyll site to Netlify Troubleshooting Netilify deploy Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Troubleshooting Netilify deploy Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in like 10 minutes, so my primary site, josh.works, should take maybe 20, right? I’m a few hours deep. Here’s what I get when Netlify tries to build: I should have done the following...
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...
Ben Borgers
Instagram’s Lifespan
over a year ago
The Elysian
How WeFunder democratizes business ownership A discussion with Jonny Price, president of WeFunder.
3 months ago
The Elysian
Introducing CITY-STATE Seven writers exploring autonomous governance.
4 months ago
This Space
Ultimate things: The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka Although we are unmusical, we have a tradition of singing     Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse...
over a year ago
56
over a year ago
Although we are unmusical, we have a tradition of singing     Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk The first reason to celebrate Shelley Frisch’s new translation into English of Kafka’s short prose written in the village of Zürau, now Siřem in the Czech Republic, is that...
The American Scholar
Our Pets, Our Plates In defense of the furred and the hoofed The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American...
a year ago
98
a year ago
In defense of the furred and the hoofed The post Our Pets, Our Plates appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
Atheism of the novel "Here it comes: the information dumping..." From section 237, page 185 of Ellis Sharp's latest...
over a year ago
53
over a year ago
"Here it comes: the information dumping..." From section 237, page 185 of Ellis Sharp's latest novel, the part that is commentary on his attempt to destroy a commercially successful novel emulating "the style that The Guardian liked and promoted": The narrator is a young...
This Space
39 Books in one For anyone interested (you there in the phone box), here's a PDF of the 39 Books series. 39 Books:...
a year ago
113
a year ago
For anyone interested (you there in the phone box), here's a PDF of the 39 Books series. 39 Books: PDF As the introduction explained, the books were chosen from those on my books-read lists that I hadn't written about before. I thought it might be instructive to contrast the...
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On Lynn And IQ ...
6 months ago
Wuthering...
The best books of 2023, in a sense - "Aren't you tired of reading?" Last January seems even more distant than usual at this time of year.  It will likely not...
a year ago
32
a year ago
Last January seems even more distant than usual at this time of year.  It will likely not surprise anyone that 2023 now comes with a strong feeling of Before and After.  So I will indulge in the “facetious and silly” exercise of identifying the best books I read in 2023.  Sorting...
The American Scholar
What’s Not to Like? On similes, good and bad The post What’s Not to Like? appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Blog -...
Welcome to Anchor Point Blog I am starting this blog for one primary reason: my belief that self-discovery does not have to be...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I am starting this blog for one primary reason: my belief that self-discovery does not have to be a solo journey. Through this blog men can connect to resources that will help to enhance their personal development. Many of these resources have deeply impacted my growth, and...
The Marginalian
Any Common Desolation "You may have to break your heart, but it isn’t nothing to know even one moment alive."
4 months ago
Ben Borgers
Giving Out Chick-fil-A on a Schedule App
over a year ago
This Space
39 Books: 1985 The first novel I read was Twice Shy by Dick Francis, reportedly the Queen Mother's favourite...
a year ago
83
a year ago
The first novel I read was Twice Shy by Dick Francis, reportedly the Queen Mother's favourite novelist (which tells you all you need to know about the intellectual energies of British Royal Family). It was the hardback edition below and tells the story of an Olympic champion...
Astral Codex Ten
Links For January 2025 ...
6 months ago
The Marginalian
Terror, Tenderness, and the Paradoxes of Human Nature: How a Marmoset Saved Leonard and Virginia... The most discomposing thing about people capable of monstrous acts is that they too enjoy art, they...
a year ago
49
a year ago
The most discomposing thing about people capable of monstrous acts is that they too enjoy art, they too read to their children, they too can be moved to tears by music. The dissident poet Joseph Brodsky captured this as he contemplated the greatest antidote to evil, observing...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Album Whale While we appreciate Apple Music and Spotify suggesting new music for us, we miss the good ol’ days...
8 months ago
17
8 months ago
While we appreciate Apple Music and Spotify suggesting new music for us, we miss the good ol’ days when recommendations came from friends. In those days of yore, we had to think about which albums we’d recommend, and what those albums say about us. Each album came with a personal...
This Space
The end of literature, part three On the evening of December 12th, 2019 a numbed grief descended over the land, and has lain there...
over a year ago
49
over a year ago
On the evening of December 12th, 2019 a numbed grief descended over the land, and has lain there ever since. At that time a mild alternative to barbarism was being put to death. Back in 2015 when, against all odds, a lifelong socialist and campaigner against racism and...
The Elysian
You’d still work if you didn’t have to But it would feel more like play.
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Different Faces, Formats All the Same' In Osip Mandelstam: A Biography, Ralph Dutli describes a chance meeting in March 1934 on...
2 months ago
17
2 months ago
In Osip Mandelstam: A Biography, Ralph Dutli describes a chance meeting in March 1934 on Tverskoy Boulevard in Moscow between Boris Pasternak and Mandelstam, who recited to his friend the now-famous poem known as the “Stalin Epigram.” Mandelstam never wrote down the poem but...
Ben Borgers
Punctuation
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Refactoring practice: Get rid of `attr_accessors` in `ogre.rb` in 2 minutes Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Josh Thompson
POODR Notes: Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance (Chapter 6) I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby . These are some notes from chapter 6,...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby . These are some notes from chapter 6, Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance; mostly these are for me, and they don’t intend to stand on their own. Read the book, work through chapter six, and then come back and read...
The Marginalian
The Humanistic Philosopher and Psychologist Erich Fromm on Love and the Meaning of Respect "Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and knowledge of...
a year ago
88
a year ago
"Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and knowledge of the beloved person, love deteriorates into domination and possessiveness."
Wuthering...
What has happened to me may well be a good thing - the death of Socrates Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, the extended version of the death of Socrates.  These texts,...
over a year ago
63
over a year ago
Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, the extended version of the death of Socrates.  These texts, especially the last three, are a large part of the fame of Socrates, the reason he is an exemplar of the wise man to this day.  He asked annoying questions, he rejected material...
This Space
“Can there be a pure narrative?” The question opening Maurice Blanchot’s essay The Experience of Proust* has always drawn me back,...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
The question opening Maurice Blanchot’s essay The Experience of Proust* has always drawn me back, not to secure a yes or a no, but to keep the question of pure narrative open in its initial uncertainty, perhaps, rather, in its impossibility, as it appears to make reading and...
Ben Borgers
Tuesday, January 18, 2022
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.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Chockfull of Love, Crammed With Bright Thoughts' Several years have passed since I last entered a bookstore selling new books, such as Barnes and...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
Several years have passed since I last entered a bookstore selling new books, such as Barnes and Noble or the late Borders. Long ago they stopped feeling like home and a visit usually turned out to be a waste of time. Serendipitous discovery was rare. The portion of the goods on...
Wuthering...
The Frogs by Aristophanes - Brilliant! Brilliant! Wish I knew what you were talking about! The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play.  It was performed in what now look like the waning...
over a year ago
52
over a year ago
The Frogs by Aristophanes is this week’s play.  It was performed in what now look like the waning days of Athens, just before their conquest by Sparta, and in particular the last days of Athenian tragedy, with Euripides and Sophocles both recently dead.  In what may be the most...
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...
The American Scholar
“Muse Circe Reclaims Her Lucre” Five new prompts The post “Muse Circe Reclaims Her Lucre” appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Is Not Writing a Poem' Cultural Amnesia (2007) ranks among the most enduringly entertaining books published in this...
5 months ago
16
5 months ago
Cultural Amnesia (2007) ranks among the most enduringly entertaining books published in this still-young century. The late Clive James read books like a scholar and wrote about them like an impossibly gifted teenager – that is, with shameless enthusiasm. He was never too cool to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Yes, I'm Perfectly All Right' Had I been more clever or alert I might have heard and recorded my brother’s last words before he...
3 months ago
149
3 months ago
Had I been more clever or alert I might have heard and recorded my brother’s last words before he died last August in hospice. A reader asks about this, and I admit I blew it. For the last week or so of his life, Ken was unconscious, occasionally moaning when the nurses shifted...
The Marginalian
What Rises from the Ruins: Katherine Anne Porter on the Power of the Artist and the Function of Art... "We understand very little of what is happening to us at any given moment."
a year ago
This Space
Wall by Jen Craig “This novel gives the reader one of the best depictions of thinking in fiction that I have read in a...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
“This novel gives the reader one of the best depictions of thinking in fiction that I have read in a long time” – Talking Big "... combines exactitude and vagueness, immediacy and distance, to approximate how scatty, worm-like human thought might be represented on the page" – The...
Wuthering...
Two novels titled Attila - Maximal words striving to breach an angel I will write about two newly published translations of Spanish novels that comprise an amusing stunt...
2 months ago
17
2 months ago
I will write about two newly published translations of Spanish novels that comprise an amusing stunt by Open Letter Books.  They are Attila by Aliocha Coll (1991) and Attila by Javier Serena (2014), both translated by Katie Whittemore.  Coll’s Attila is a Finnegans...
Anecdotal Evidence
'We Are Not So Full of Evil As of Inanity' Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and...
3 months ago
36
3 months ago
Montaigne devotes a brief essay to a pair of pre-Socratic Greek thinkers, “Of Democritus and Heraclitus.” The former is reputed to have been a misanthrope, perhaps a melancholic. The latter was known as “the laughing philosopher.”  The essayist begins by weighing the importance...
The American Scholar
Dottie Lo Bue House and home The post Dottie Lo Bue appeared first on The American Scholar.
8 months ago
This Space
39 Books: 1995 Looking over the list of books read over a decade, it becomes clear that each book came too early or...
a year ago
57
a year ago
Looking over the list of books read over a decade, it becomes clear that each book came too early or too late, or not at all; unless, of course, not yet. Untimely medications. Of the first, Robert Pinget's Be Brave applies. Again, lightness rather than heaviness, when there was...
The American Scholar
Kyung Kim Far over the misty mountains The post Kyung Kim appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Alpha Optimization Polartec Alpha was designed to be a batting insulation, encapsulated between two shells. Alpha...
8 months ago
12
8 months ago
Polartec Alpha was designed to be a batting insulation, encapsulated between two shells. Alpha Direct was designed as an inner lining, to be sewn to an outer shell. The cottage industry was smart to build these as stand alone garments because that allowed it to be used as a...
This Space
The disaster of writing: My Weil by Lars Iyer "When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone...
a year ago
37
a year ago
"When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone starts to ring" says the blurb to her recent book subtitled Stories of Love, Loss and Hope from an Expert in Disaster, and goes on to report rapturous praise from critics and...
Josh Thompson
Who inspires you, and is still alive? There are lots of dead people that we look up to. But people that are alive, and not world-wide...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
There are lots of dead people that we look up to. But people that are alive, and not world-wide famous are a bit more knowable. Some of them will even reply to tweets you send them! So, here are a few people that I follow and have received TONS of amazing wisdom from. (I...
Astral Codex Ten
My Takeaways From AI 2027 ...
3 months ago
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.
Ben Borgers
My Office Makes Me Feel Stupid
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Three Things Enchanted Him …” by Anna Akhmatova appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Feels Like Coming Home The wonders of the coastal redwood The post Feels Like Coming Home appeared first on The American...
10 months ago
40
10 months ago
The wonders of the coastal redwood The post Feels Like Coming Home appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid
Quality, Maintenance & Craft We are shokunin. Last week I was in Ojai, California, for True’s Founder Camp.[1] James Freeman,...
4 months ago
37
4 months ago
We are shokunin. Last week I was in Ojai, California, for True’s Founder Camp.[1] James Freeman, founder of Blue Bottle Coffee was in conversation with Jeff Veen, and one of the attendees asked him: “How do you maintain such high quality?” Freeman answers, “‘Maintaining’ is a...
The Marginalian
Albert Camus on How to Live Whole in a Broken World Born into a World War to live through another, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) died...
a year ago
71
a year ago
Born into a World War to live through another, Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) died in a car crash with an unused train ticket to the same destination in his pocket. Just three years earlier, he had become the second-youngest laureate of the Nobel Prize, awarded...
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,...
Astral Codex Ten
1DaySooner's Trump II Health Policy Proposals ...
5 months ago
The American Scholar
Bathing Badasses Vicki Valosik gets submerged in the history of synchronized swimming The post Bathing Badasses...
a year ago
61
a year ago
Vicki Valosik gets submerged in the history of synchronized swimming The post Bathing Badasses appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Magic Men The post Magic Men appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
The American Scholar
Writer on Board The cruise story from Twain to Shteyngart The post Writer on Board appeared first on The American...
10 months ago
55
10 months ago
The cruise story from Twain to Shteyngart The post Writer on Board appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
This Space
39 Books: 2005 Four years later, browsing in Waterstones, I picked a book from a table and read "What will we do to...
a year ago
99
a year ago
Four years later, browsing in Waterstones, I picked a book from a table and read "What will we do to disappear?" – the epigram to Enrique Vila-Matas's novel Montano's Malady. It's a line taken from Maurice Blanchot's Infinite Conversation, so I had to buy it. Later that year,...
The American Scholar
Burned The post Burned appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
ribbonfarm
Bangalore Meetup Report Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal...
a year ago
19
a year ago
Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal for organizing. I think this is the first meetup I’ve done since the last Refactor Camp in 2019. It was kinda last minute, which is why I only posted on Substack rather than here...
Escaping Flatland
Almost everyone I’ve met would be well-served thinking more about what to focus on Including me
a year ago
The American Scholar
Others Too many people in the world isn’t the problem—people are the problem The post Others appeared first...
10 months ago
58
10 months ago
Too many people in the world isn’t the problem—people are the problem The post Others appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
I'm traveling the world to study utopia An update about my life and artistic process.
a year ago
Wuthering...
Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz - What I wanted now was the adventure of being... Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to...
over a year ago
62
over a year ago
Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to me because of its unusual use of the Pre-Socratic philosophers.  This is a domestic novel, a fine example of, borrowing from Trollope, the way we live now (or, to me, the way they...
The American Scholar
Camouflage The post Camouflage appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 How to Tip With More Confidence Welcome to the new normal in tipping: being put on the spot to leave a gratuity in situations you...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Welcome to the new normal in tipping: being put on the spot to leave a gratuity in situations you never used to be. It can be confusing and frustrating—not to mention guilt-inducing—especially if there are prying eyes behind you in line watching what you select on the...
Josh Thompson
VCR's debug_logger and `git diff` I recently added the vcr gem to one of our repositories, and was adding tests for an external...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
I recently added the vcr gem to one of our repositories, and was adding tests for an external API. One of my tests was passing, and I wanted to commit the VCR cassette, along with the test/code that went with it. I had thought I’d rebuilt the VCR cassette a few minutes before,...
Ben Borgers
Monday, January 17, 2022
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Let Us Compare Mythologies Exploding the Canon, Episode 4 The post Let Us Compare Mythologies appeared first on The American...
a year ago
The Elysian
Grassroots movements are building garden cities We're changing the aesthetic from the bottom up.
3 months ago
Josh Thompson
Isometric Deadlift Holds (for Climbing!) alternative titles: yielding isometric mid-thigh pin pulls, isometric deadlift 'holds' for fun and...
3 months ago
15
3 months ago
alternative titles: yielding isometric mid-thigh pin pulls, isometric deadlift 'holds' for fun and climbing Introduction A few months ago, I began some barefoot sprints up a hill at a local park, and discussed also adding heavy kettlebell swings. My back started feeling great,...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 363.5 ...
6 months ago
Josh Thompson
RailsConf Presentation: 'Junior' Developers are a Solution to Many of your Problems Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able to help. Shoot me an email at joshthompson@hey.com or book some time to talk at https://calendly.com/joshthompson/coffee. This talk is available on railsconf.org, here:...
The American Scholar
Star Trek: Discovery The post <em>Star Trek: Discovery</em> appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
ribbonfarm
Storytelling — Philosophical Stakes Via the latest issue of Simon de la Rouviere’s excellent Scenes with Simon newsletter, I found a...
a year ago
18
a year ago
Via the latest issue of Simon de la Rouviere’s excellent Scenes with Simon newsletter, I found a video on good endings by Michael Arndt, screenwriter of Little Miss Sunshine, that basically answers the question I explored in Just Add Dinosaurs, where I argued that Matthew Dicks’...
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Cantos II and III - or just III, it turns out - And Cole and Swift, and little... A month ago I wrote about the first Canto of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  Now I will move through the...
a year ago
37
a year ago
A month ago I wrote about the first Canto of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  Now I will move through the Cantos two or three at a time, just leafing through the books, really, with luck getting at what Ovid is doing.  Cantos II and III today. Ovid established his cosmology and created...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 372.5 ...
4 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Refreshed His Senses, Heart, and Head' If I had been in the house all day reading during a long Ohio winter, invariably my mother would...
2 months ago
34
2 months ago
If I had been in the house all day reading during a long Ohio winter, invariably my mother would say, “Go outside and blow the stink off.” My parents took a kid reading as a reproach, something unnatural and probably unhealthy – one more reason for me to be secretive. When I was...
The Marginalian
An Illustrated Field Guide to the Science and Wonder of the Clouds Clouds drift ephemeral across the dome of this world, carrying eternity — condensing molecules that...
a year ago
72
a year ago
Clouds drift ephemeral across the dome of this world, carrying eternity — condensing molecules that animated the first breath of life, coursing with electric charges that will power the last thought. To me, a cloud will always be a spell against indifference — a little bloom of...
Josh Thompson
Save hundreds by being willing to spend $20 When you pack for a trip, you pack “just in case” items, right? Things that in a certain situation...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
When you pack for a trip, you pack “just in case” items, right? Things that in a certain situation would be priceless. Think “umbrella” or “underpants”. But then you think of all the possible situations you might encounter, and you’ll find your “just in case” items quickly...
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ This Will Do Day 3: Sept 12, 2023 — The first in a series of today’s “mishaps” begins this morning. Barb, our...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 3: Sept 12, 2023 — The first in a series of today’s “mishaps” begins this morning. Barb, our four-pound Chihuahua, starts to whine inside our tent. We’re both occupied and can’t tend to her immediately, so by the time I get to her, I find that she’s already relieved herself....
The American Scholar
Teach the Conflicts It’s natural—and right—to foster The post Teach the Conflicts appeared first on The American...
10 months ago
74
10 months ago
It’s natural—and right—to foster The post Teach the Conflicts appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
The unbearable necessity of being online On loving and loathing the internet as an artist and why we need to be here anyway.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
My Thoughts on Eric Weinstein's Thoughts on Pia Kalani's Thoughts Context for two sentances It’s August 8, 2020. The news is full of coronavirus, schools, employment,...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Context for two sentances It’s August 8, 2020. The news is full of coronavirus, schools, employment, police brutality, a vaccine, elections, so much politics, China, Tik-Tok, the Twitter-dm-hack-bitcoin-scam-or-was-it-dm-content hack happened. Tiger King, Cheer, Filthy Rich are...
The Elysian
A self-governing forest Terra0 thinks nature should become economically independent.
3 weeks ago
The American Scholar
Diana Antohe Threads of memory and home The post Diana Antohe appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
Josh Thompson
Simplify, simplify, simplify Kristi and I stumbled upon the realization that we’ve become minimalists. And it is exciting. We...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Kristi and I stumbled upon the realization that we’ve become minimalists. And it is exciting. We live in a one-bedroom apartment. It is spacious, for a one-bedroom, but compared to anything larger than a one-bedroom apartment, it is small. We managed to pack it full of stuff in...
Josh Thompson
Cancel Your Cable. Seriously. No one likes to waste money, right? There are two things that are even worse to...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
No one likes to waste money, right? There are two things that are even worse to waste. Time Energy Money can be earned, and if more is needed, you can spend less or earn more. Energy is what you need to bring ideas to fruition. Unlimited time with no energy gets you nowhere, as...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ I'm damn near eighty! Day 14: Sept 23, 2023 — It’s been a number of years since we’ve attended a wedding. In addition to...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 14: Sept 23, 2023 — It’s been a number of years since we’ve attended a wedding. In addition to seeing the immediate family, we’re invited to Jen’s cousin’s wedding, which by proxy includes spending time with extended family. Even counting the lost pandemic years, I haven’t...
The American Scholar
“Faustina, or, Rock Roses” by Elizabeth Bishop Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Faustina, or, Rock Roses” by Elizabeth Bishop appeared first...
5 months ago
30
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Faustina, or, Rock Roses” by Elizabeth Bishop appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
How to Ask Questions of Experts To Gain More than Just Answers Recently, I co-led a session at Turing with Regis Boudinot, a Turing grad who works at GitLab. We...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Recently, I co-led a session at Turing with Regis Boudinot, a Turing grad who works at GitLab. We discussed two things: asking good questions having a good workflow After the session, I promised an overview of what we discussed. Here’s that overview for “Asking good questions”....
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 What price? If anything, as the well gets poisoned by their own outputs, large language models may well end up...
9 months ago
14
9 months ago
If anything, as the well gets poisoned by their own outputs, large language models may well end up eating their own slop and getting their own version of mad cow disease. So this might be as good as they’re ever going to get. — Jeremy Keith I use AI. Not particularly for...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Better Bread Than Is Made of Wheat' Sometimes disparate things almost announce their covert similarities and linkages, in a way...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
Sometimes disparate things almost announce their covert similarities and linkages, in a way Aristotle would have understood, and it makes good sense to combine them. I was looking for something in The Poet’s Tongue, the anthology compiled by W.H. Auden and the schoolmaster John...
The Marginalian
Carl Jung on Creativity The question of what it takes to create — to make something of beauty and substance that touches...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
The question of what it takes to create — to make something of beauty and substance that touches other lives across space and time — is one of the deepest, oldest questions, perhaps because the answer to it is so unbearably simple: everything. We bring everything we are and...
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...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 368 ...
5 months ago
Josh Thompson
November 2016 Goals November 2016 Goals Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish....
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
November 2016 Goals Note to the reader: The words that follow are all about me. Very naval-gaze-ish. I feel I owe you this warning. My November goals are an extension of my October goals. October was good ( October review) - I made progress on two of three projects, and one of...
Escaping Flatland
The third chair I remembered my loneliness; I felt it with a defencelessness that I had denied myself at the time....
a year ago
36
a year ago
I remembered my loneliness; I felt it with a defencelessness that I had denied myself at the time. The feeling that writing was impossible; that I would never find a place in the world that felt like home; that no one except my wife would ever care about me, about the things that...
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...
This Space
The end of literature, part five "Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100...
11 months ago
104
11 months ago
"Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century polled from hundreds of "literary luminaries" offering ten choices each, and while it is both of those things, "parochial" is the first word that...
Ben Borgers
Projects
9 months ago
Wuthering...
Thanks and praise to celebrate the happiness of this great event – the end of the Greek play... I am quoting the end of Alcestis by Euripides, his early whatever it is, not a tragedy, not a satyr...
over a year ago
78
over a year ago
I am quoting the end of Alcestis by Euripides, his early whatever it is, not a tragedy, not a satyr play, not a comedy.  Admetos has won back his wife and the play is at its end, so he declares “a feast of thanks and praise” (tr. Arrowsmith), which is what I want to do.  If we...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A New Past' Robert Conquest writing thirty-one years ago:  “Literature is the expression of our whole past, of...
4 days ago
6
4 days ago
Robert Conquest writing thirty-one years ago:  “Literature is the expression of our whole past, of our whole context in life and time – and not only ours. Anatole France said that the word pleurer (to cry, to weep) in French is different from the same sort of word in every other...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Liquid Gold Hi, this is Weightshifting, a newsletter by Naz Hamid and Jen Schuetz, primarily about vehicular...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Hi, this is Weightshifting, a newsletter by Naz Hamid and Jen Schuetz, primarily about vehicular travel and exploring the American West. This is season 2, en route from San Francisco to St. Louis. Our primary reason is to visit Jen’s family and attend a wedding. Our secondary...
The American Scholar
The Epic Viking Saga of the Everyday Eleanor Barraclough on the ordinary people of Norse history The post The Epic Viking Saga of the...
5 months ago
42
5 months ago
Eleanor Barraclough on the ordinary people of Norse history The post The Epic Viking Saga of the Everyday appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Kate Sessions and the Devotion to Delight: The Forgotten Woman Who Covered California with Trees and... In May 1941, next to news of the Nazi savagely bombing London, The Los Angeles Times published a...
a year ago
76
a year ago
In May 1941, next to news of the Nazi savagely bombing London, The Los Angeles Times published a memorial profile of “California’s Mother of Gardens” — a hopeful antidote to the undoing of the human world, celebrating the woman who covered Southern California with the loveliest...
Wuthering...
Sōseki's Kokoro and two Tanizaki genre exercises - I resolved that I must live my life as if I were... It is the 16th year of Dolce Bellezza’s remarkable Japanese Literature Challenge – in the old days...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
It is the 16th year of Dolce Bellezza’s remarkable Japanese Literature Challenge – in the old days for some reason we “challenged” people to read – which reminded me, as it often has, that I have never read anything by Natsumi Sōseki, the earliest of the greatest 20th century...
The Marginalian
Grace Paley on the Countercultural Courage of Imagining Other Lives “Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real,” Iris...
11 months ago
61
11 months ago
“Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real,” Iris Murdoch wrote in her superb investigation of the parallels between art and morality. There could be no such realization without imagination, which is our only instrument for fathoming...
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'One Passionate Note of Victory' “The dangers for the poet in addressing so composite an audience are enormous: cuteness,...
4 months ago
32
4 months ago
“The dangers for the poet in addressing so composite an audience are enormous: cuteness, coyness, archness and condescension are only the most obvious ones.”  In 1976, Anthony Hecht wrote the preface for a new edition of Walter de la Mare’s Songs of Childhood (1902). He doesn’t...
Wuthering...
The Best Books of 2024 For the last year and a half I read short books, mostly, which was psychologically satisfying and...
a year ago
61
a year ago
For the last year and a half I read short books, mostly, which was psychologically satisfying and anyway necessary to fit the available energy and concentration.  Now, though, back on my feet, I hope, I am ready to read long books again. Long, and I mean it, like Rebecca West’s...
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
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 367 ...
5 months ago
Josh Thompson
OK, some new books Yesterday, I proclaimed “ No new books”. I spent a lot of time today thinking about that...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Yesterday, I proclaimed “ No new books”. I spent a lot of time today thinking about that proclamation. Do I really want to limit myself to just the books that I’ve already picked for myself? Yes. Maybe. There’s a kind of book I don’t want to read any more of. That’s the “get...
The American Scholar
Three Poems The post Three Poems appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
The American Scholar
Reasons for Living The post Reasons for Living appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Wuthering...
Planning next year's readalong opportunities - Greek philosophy and Roman plays If only I had another idea as good as reading all the Greek plays in order.  But I do have ideas. ...
over a year ago
73
over a year ago
If only I had another idea as good as reading all the Greek plays in order.  But I do have ideas. 1. Roman plays.  Up to five Roman playwrights have survived: the comedians Plautus and Terence and the tragedian Seneca, along with two plays under his name that were likely...
The American Scholar
Spring 2025 The post Spring 2025 appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
The American Scholar
When True Crime Became All Too Real How my family survived a harrowing home invasion The post When True Crime Became All Too Real...
a month ago
6
a month ago
How my family survived a harrowing home invasion The post When True Crime Became All Too Real appeared first on The American Scholar.
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...
sbensu
When coordination pays off Stories about Stripe Link where we have to do a lot of upfront coordination but it was worth it.
9 months ago
The Marginalian
The Wound Is the Gift: David Whyte on the Relationship Between Anxiety and Intimacy "Intimacy is presence magnified by our vulnerability, magnified by increasing proximity to the fear...
7 months ago
The American Scholar
“water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The...
9 months ago
57
9 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “water sign woman” by Lucille Clifton appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
39 Books: 1994 Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of...
a year ago
99
a year ago
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of philosophy in the series. Many will say it is not a book of philosophy at all. That would explain why I gorged on Nick Land's The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and...
Wuthering...
Read and To Read, in 2024 and 2025 What did I read in 2024? The best book I read last year was Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE).  Best...
6 months ago
72
6 months ago
What did I read in 2024? The best book I read last year was Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE).  Best books, really, in translations by Arthur Golding and Charles Martin.  My “best book of the year” answer will never be interesting.  America’s librarian Nancy Pearl asked, somewhere on...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 High Desert Road Map From Morongo Valley to 29 Palms, there’s plenty to explore. Here are a few of our favorite...
a year ago
18
a year ago
From Morongo Valley to 29 Palms, there’s plenty to explore. Here are a few of our favorite places. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
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."
The Marginalian
Change, Presence, and the Imperative of Self-Renewal: Existential Lessons from Islands “No man is an island,” John Donne wrote in his timeless ode to our shared human experience. And yet...
5 months ago
55
5 months ago
“No man is an island,” John Donne wrote in his timeless ode to our shared human experience. And yet each of us is a chance event islanded in time; in each of us there is an island of solitude so private and remote that it renders even love — this best means we have of reaching...
Ben Borgers
5 Pages a Day
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Prototyping an AI-powered note-taking app
over a year ago
The Elysian
My TEDx talk about the future of fiction And publishing.
a year ago
The Elysian
The "letters to an anarchist" post-mortem Peter and I discuss our letter writing series.
7 months ago
Wuthering...
Some lesser works of Sōseki and Tanizaki - deep in the earth directly beneath Lady Kikyō’s toilet Dolce Bellezza is running her 17th Japanese Literature Challenge.  Amazing, well done, etc. I read...
a year ago
40
a year ago
Dolce Bellezza is running her 17th Japanese Literature Challenge.  Amazing, well done, etc. I read some short works for it, which I will pile up here: three short works by Natsume Sōseki, collected in a Tuttle volume that looks like it is titled Ten Nights of Dream Hearing...
Josh Thompson
RailsConf CFP Outline I’m pitching some ideas for RailsConf. I only heard about it a few days ago (oops) so this is a bit...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
I’m pitching some ideas for RailsConf. I only heard about it a few days ago (oops) so this is a bit rushed: Idea 1: “Junior” Developers are the Solution to Many of Your Problems Abstract: Our industry telegraphs: “We don’t want (or know how to handle) ‘Jr. Devs’.” Jr. Devs, or as...
Ben Borgers
IKEA Backpack
over a year ago