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Astral Codex Ten
Deliberative Alignment, And The Spec ...
4 months ago
Ben Borgers
Sunk Cost Chinese
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dragönsteel Inspired by heavy metal logos, 1980s role-playing games, and maybe dragons and dusty, leather-bound...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
Inspired by heavy metal logos, 1980s role-playing games, and maybe dragons and dusty, leather-bound books, Dragönsteel is our take on a modern-ish blackletter typeface. — Dan Cederholm Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Josh Thompson
Climbing in "decking range" In indoor sport climbing, as your climber progresses from the ground to the first three bolts, you...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
In indoor sport climbing, as your climber progresses from the ground to the first three bolts, you need to be ready for any situation. Here’s how to give a kick-ass lead belay when your climber is close enough to the ground they could potentially deck. This is part of a series on...
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
52
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...
The Elysian
Expanding your research "Research with me" session two.
4 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Future Web It’s idealistic and very millennial of me to reminiscence the early days of Web innocence, unbound...
5 months ago
31
5 months ago
It’s idealistic and very millennial of me to reminiscence the early days of Web innocence, unbound creativity it hosted and wonderful lack of monetisation of virtually every aspect of being online. We can’t turn back time. But, individually and collectively, we can strive for...
Anecdotal Evidence
'As a Token of Reverence or Humility' In 1993, I was assigned to write about the opening of a Buddhist “peace pagoda” in Grafton, about...
4 months ago
29
4 months ago
In 1993, I was assigned to write about the opening of a Buddhist “peace pagoda” in Grafton, about twenty miles east of Albany, N.Y. A photographer accompanied me, a Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War and decades of work at the newspaper. We parked and approached the stupa, a...
Josh Thompson
June trip to the New River Gorge The New River Gorge had beautiful weather this weekend. The forecast for the weekend was, until...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
The New River Gorge had beautiful weather this weekend. The forecast for the weekend was, until Friday, near-certain thunderstorms. Typical of the New, the weather proved unpredictable, and we had glorious sun the entire trip. I was eager to get out to the New, since my last...
The American Scholar
“Käthe Kollwitz” by Muriel Rukeyser Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Käthe Kollwitz” by Muriel Rukeyser appeared first on The...
3 months ago
28
3 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Käthe Kollwitz” by Muriel Rukeyser appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Can we create a wise & enlightened citizenry? We'll need to address cognitive biases if we want to reach Plato's ideal.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
How to never accidentally click Twitter's "Moments" again (and to block anything else on the... Do you use Twitter’s “Moments” tool, or do you just find it really annoying? Most people find it...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Do you use Twitter’s “Moments” tool, or do you just find it really annoying? Most people find it annoying. Here’s how to get rid of Twitter’s “Moments” forever: 0. Be won over to using an ad blocker on the internet. They don’t block just ads, but malicious scripts and...
The Marginalian
The Shape of Wonder: N.J. Berrill on the Universe, the Deepest Meaning of Beauty, and the Highest... "We, each of us, you and I, exhibit more of the true nature of the universe than any dead Saturn or...
10 months ago
Ben Borgers
Streaks Are Extremely Powerful
over a year ago
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
Blog -...
Book Review - Owning Your Own Shadow The shadow of the human psyche cannot be overlooked in a thorough exploration of personal...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
The shadow of the human psyche cannot be overlooked in a thorough exploration of personal development. According to the classic resource Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche, “The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Happiness Could Be Impartial for Once' Robert Chandler has rescued, through translation, much of Russian literature for the Anglophone...
5 months ago
15
5 months ago
Robert Chandler has rescued, through translation, much of Russian literature for the Anglophone world – Pushkin, Andrey Plantonov, Teffi, Lev Ozerov and Vasily Grossman, among others. Most of Chandler’s own prose I've read has been in the form of brief introductions and...
Ben Borgers
How I got scammed on Facebook Marketplace
a year ago
The American Scholar
The Patron Subjects Who were the Wertheimers, the family that sat for a dozen of John Singer Sargent’s paintings? The...
7 months ago
46
7 months ago
Who were the Wertheimers, the family that sat for a dozen of John Singer Sargent’s paintings? The post The Patron Subjects appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
A Fight With Cudgels Meditations on death, Goya, and the immutability of art The post A Fight With Cudgels appeared first...
a month ago
4
a month ago
Meditations on death, Goya, and the immutability of art The post A Fight With Cudgels appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Three Android Apps I Use Every Day (and maybe you'll use them too) I’m not here to talk about Twitter and Instagram, which… I use too much. Lets talk about things that...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I’m not here to talk about Twitter and Instagram, which… I use too much. Lets talk about things that make my life better, and might do the same for you. (If you’re an iPhone user, just Google for the iOS version of the following tools. They’re all out there) Rewire App:...
The Marginalian
Yes: William Stafford’s Poetic Calibration of Perspective "No guarantees in this life."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Lift Off The post Lift Off appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The Marginalian
Are You Living a Fairy Tale, a Novel, or a Poem? When reality fissures along the fault line of our expectations and the unwelcome happens — a death,...
11 months ago
90
11 months ago
When reality fissures along the fault line of our expectations and the unwelcome happens — a death, an abandonment, a promise broken, a kindness withheld — we tend to cope in one of two ways: We question our own sanity, assuming the outside world coherent and our response a form...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The One Who Kept VLC Free Keeping VLC free and without ads is a no-brainer. I know people focus a lot on that part but, for...
11 months ago
9
11 months ago
Keeping VLC free and without ads is a no-brainer. I know people focus a lot on that part but, for me, it’s just the way it should be and it’s not difficult for me to keep it like that. Money can restrict you. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The American Scholar
The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths The...
7 months ago
27
7 months ago
How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths The post The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Perry Bible...
Invasion The post Invasion appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
7 months ago
sbensu
Interfaces for logical migrations This post explains how you can use interfaces to make data model and database migrations easier.
a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Eat the Sun: A Blind Hero of the Resistance on Accessing the Light Within and Touching the... “There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry...
a year ago
19
a year ago
“There is only one world. Things outside only exist if you go to meet them with everything you carry in yourself. As to the things inside, you will never see them well unless you allow those outside to enter in.”
Anecdotal Evidence
'Every Word Is a World' When someone had eaten his fill and couldn’t take another bite, my maternal grandmother, born the...
2 months ago
8
2 months ago
When someone had eaten his fill and couldn’t take another bite, my maternal grandmother, born the same year as T.S. Eliot, would say, “His sufficiency is suffonsified.” I’ve never heard another person utter those words. For most of my life I assumed the fourth word in that...
The Elysian
Am I a Democrat or a Republican? The case for going label-less.
6 months ago
Ben Borgers
How Recurring Tasks in War Room Work
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
3blue1brown.elk.sh
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Better Bread Than Is Made of Wheat' Sometimes disparate things almost announce their covert similarities and linkages, in a way...
3 months ago
26
3 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 American Scholar
A Giant of a Man The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark The post A Giant...
8 months ago
39
8 months ago
The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark The post A Giant of a Man appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Emerson on the Singular Enchantment of Indian Summer (and a Better Term for This Liminal Season... "There are days... wherein the world reaches its perfection, when the air, the heavenly bodies, and...
8 months ago
Ben Borgers
Friday, January 14, 2022
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Sheep Jones Swimming below the surface The post Sheep Jones appeared first on The American Scholar.
11 months ago
Ben Borgers
gerp
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Come On, Obviously The Purpose Of A System Is Not What It Does ...
2 months ago
The Marginalian
The Double Flame: Octavio Paz on Love “Love is a bet, a wild one, placed on freedom. Not my own; the freedom of the Other… A knot made of...
over a year ago
56
over a year ago
“Love is a bet, a wild one, placed on freedom. Not my own; the freedom of the Other… A knot made of two intertwined freedoms.” We love to forget ourselves, but also to remember what we are: mortal creatures lustful of meaning, radiant with life, eternally alone and eternally...
The Marginalian
Delight Between Science and Magic: Euler’s Disk and the Sound of the Singularity One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik...
7 months ago
58
7 months ago
One afternoon in the late 1980s, sitting in the company cafeteria, aerospace engineer Joseph Bendik found himself so bored that he took a coin out of his pocket and began spinning it atop the table. In a testament to the eternal paradox of boredom and wonder as two sides of the...
The American Scholar
“The Last One” by W. S. Merwin Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Last One” by W. S. Merwin appeared first on The American...
3 weeks ago
Steven Scrawls
Against Confidence Against Confidence I hope I never make a habit of writing stuff that makes me feel confident. If my...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Against Confidence I hope I never make a habit of writing stuff that makes me feel confident. If my writing makes me feel confident, it probably has a title like “Look At My Cleverly Constructed Argument/Insight” (subtitle: “Also Look At My Pretty Words”). If I release writing...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 My Mom Taught Me But really, my mom loved to shop and I’ve inherited that skill. I’ll call it a skill because Mom...
10 months ago
11
10 months ago
But really, my mom loved to shop and I’ve inherited that skill. I’ll call it a skill because Mom knew quality. She loved things made by hand. By real people. Things that were made well and lasted. — Dan Cederholm Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Anecdotal Evidence
'Is It Beautiful? What Does It Mean?' Erica Light takes after her mother, the late poet Helen Pinkerton, in her thoughtfulness and...
4 months ago
25
4 months ago
Erica Light takes after her mother, the late poet Helen Pinkerton, in her thoughtfulness and generosity. She has sent me a box of books, including four collections of poems by R.L. Barth: Looking for Peace (1981), Simonides in Vietnam (1990), Small Arms Fire (1994) and Reading...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Full of the Little Obscurities' “A man may profess to understand the President of the United States, but he seldom alleges, even...
2 weeks ago
11
2 weeks ago
“A man may profess to understand the President of the United States, but he seldom alleges, even to himself, that he understands his own wife.”  Anecdotal Evidence attracts an admirably knowledgeable set of readers, mostly proud amateurs like its author. As best I can judge,...
The Elysian
You can collect CITY STATE now The digital and print editions are now available.
2 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Piccalilli Front-end education for the real world. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
10 months ago
The Marginalian
On Wanting to Change: Adam Phillips on Our Capacity for Transformation "There is no description of a life without an account of the changes that are possible within it."
a year ago
Josh Thompson
About Roundabouts I’m desperately trying to work through a giant back-log of writings. Please see write it now for...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I’m desperately trying to work through a giant back-log of writings. Please see write it now for more. I’m spending only a few minutes on this, forgive my errors. Of late, I’ve had a lot of conversations about roundabouts. I’m basically trying to explain the ways that a mobility...
The Elysian
Who's qualified to save the world? Two climate dystopias on unlikeable saviors.
a year ago
The Marginalian
Sundogs and the Sacred Geometry of Wonder: The Science of the Atmospheric Phenomenon That Inspired... Notes on the eternal dialogue between art and science in our yearning to know reality.
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Edward Abbey on How to Live and How to Die: Immortal Wisdom from the Park Ranger Who Inspired... The summer after graduating high school, knowing he would face conscription into the military as...
4 months ago
44
4 months ago
The summer after graduating high school, knowing he would face conscription into the military as soon as his eighteenth birthday arrived, Edward Abbey (January 29, 1927–March 14, 1989) set out to get to know the land he was being asked to die for. He hitchhiked and hopped freight...
Josh Thompson
Benefits of helplessness The last few days were rough, strangely enough. I live in beautiful Golden, Colorado with my best...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
The last few days were rough, strangely enough. I live in beautiful Golden, Colorado with my best friend (who I happen to be married to), and I’ve got a pretty cool job to boot. That’s the “big three”, right? (Relationships, work, location.) Yep. Except from Thursday through...
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
Josh Thompson
Barefoot Sprinting Up a Grassy Hill, & Kettlebell Swings Introduction A few months ago, maybe in November, certainly by December, I began this ‘barefoot...
3 months ago
42
3 months ago
Introduction A few months ago, maybe in November, certainly by December, I began this ‘barefoot sprinting up grassy hills’ thing I’m going about to talk about in detail below. Shortly after I started, I began making use of the kettlebells I’d usually ignored at the gym(s) I have...
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
7
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...
Ben Borgers
The TikTok Peer Group
over a year ago
The American Scholar
“how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers appeared first on The...
7 months ago
52
7 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “how i got ovah” by Carolyn Rodgers appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
After the Fallout On jellyfish babies, my father’s pain, and the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific The post...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
On jellyfish babies, my father’s pain, and the legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific The post After the Fallout appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
A summary of what I wrote in 2024 A man sets out to draw the world.
6 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
4
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.
Josh Thompson
Redefining Success It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I thought about writing something here almost every day, but here is why I didn’t: I want to produce “content” that is helpful and relevant to those who might read it. I felt like nothing I...
The Elysian
If you have a social mission, go into business An interview with Frederick Freundlich about working at Mondragon, participating in a cooperative,...
4 months ago
30
4 months ago
An interview with Frederick Freundlich about working at Mondragon, participating in a cooperative, and building social companies.
The Elysian
Further reading on employee ownership My notes from the margins of my research.
10 months ago
The Marginalian
Archives of Joy: Reflections on Animals and the Nature of Being An invitation to "a certain, forgotten way of seeing the world" and an exultation at "earthly life,...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
An invitation to "a certain, forgotten way of seeing the world" and an exultation at "earthly life, with its duration so short it obliges us to surpass ourselves."
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Foursquare Open Source Places: A new foundational dataset for the geospatial community It is reasonable to ask, why a company like Foursquare who has spent years building a proprietary...
7 months ago
20
7 months ago
It is reasonable to ask, why a company like Foursquare who has spent years building a proprietary dataset would freely open a layer of that data to the community. So reasonable in fact that many of my colleagues thought I had lost my mind when I shared the news that we would be...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Different Faces, Formats All the Same' In Osip Mandelstam: A Biography, Ralph Dutli describes a chance meeting in March 1934 on...
a month ago
15
a month 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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Pebble Is a Perfect Creature' My nephew has introduced me to the practice of “pebbling,” not to be confused with “stoning.” Sorry...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
My nephew has introduced me to the practice of “pebbling,” not to be confused with “stoning.” Sorry to say the psychologists and sociologists got their hands on it first, but there’s nothing new about so simple a human gesture. The word is adopted from the courtship rituals of...
The American Scholar
Lindsey Weber Relationships that define us The post Lindsey Weber appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
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
54
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...
Ploum.net
L’urgence de soutenir l’énergie du libre L’urgence de soutenir l’énergie du libre Éditorial rédigé pour le Lama déchaîné n°9, l’hebdomadaire...
6 months ago
14
6 months ago
L’urgence de soutenir l’énergie du libre Éditorial rédigé pour le Lama déchaîné n°9, l’hebdomadaire réalisé par l’April afin d’alerter sur la précarité financière de l’association. J’étais limité à 300 mots. Pour un bavard comme moi, c’est un exercice très difficile ! (il est...
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
111
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...
The Marginalian
The Art of Allowing Change: Neurobiologist Susan R. Barry’s Moving Correspondence with Oliver Sacks... There is a thought experiment known as Mary’s Room, brilliant and haunting, about the abyss between...
a year ago
36
a year ago
There is a thought experiment known as Mary’s Room, brilliant and haunting, about the abyss between felt experience and our mental models of it, about the nature of knowledge, the mystery of consciousness, and the irreducibility of aliveness: Living in a black-and-white chamber,...
Wuthering...
Metamorphoses, cantos 7 through 10 - more Heroides, more gore, more of everything - What meen my... Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing.  Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which...
a year ago
111
a year ago
Metamorphoses is fluid, quick, and ever-changing.  Let’s look at cantos VII through X, which have their share of famous stories, stories famous, or as famous as they are, because of Metamorphoses.  Venus and Adonis, Baucis and Philemon, Orpheus and Eurydice, Pygmalion.  Icarus –...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Susceptible to Education' I grew up fetishizing a university education. I knew no one in my family or in my working-class...
a week ago
10
a week ago
I grew up fetishizing a university education. I knew no one in my family or in my working-class neighborhood who had “gone to college,” as the common phrase had it. In my experience, that status was confined to doctors and teachers. My father was a high-school dropout....
Josh Thompson
62 lessons learned after one year of full-time travel Kristi and I put together a non-comprehensive list of things we’ve learned while traveling full-time...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Kristi and I put together a non-comprehensive list of things we’ve learned while traveling full-time last year.  Samples: Kristi 1. Josh and I are such a good team, and we balance each other.  We’ve figured out our strengths and how to contribute to our successes together. It’s...
The Marginalian
The Majesty and Mystery of Night Migration, in a Stunning Poem Turned to Music “Night, when words fade and things come alive,” Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote...
a year ago
21
a year ago
“Night, when words fade and things come alive,” Little Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in his love letter to the hours of darkness, composed while flying alone over the Sahara Desert. No aliveness animates the nocturne with more grandeur than the migration of birds....
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
14
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...
The American Scholar
“Snake” by D. H. Lawrence Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Snake” by D. H. Lawrence appeared first on The American...
9 months ago
Ben Borgers
What is JumboCode?
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Lucretius brings to light in Latin verse the dark discoveries of the Greeks During the Hellenistic period, Epicureanism and Stoicism replaced Plato and Aristotle as the...
a year ago
27
a year ago
During the Hellenistic period, Epicureanism and Stoicism replaced Plato and Aristotle as the dominant philosophical movements (Plato would make a big comeback; Aristotle would have to wait for the great Arabic philosophers).  Both movements were popular in the Roman Republic as...
Josh Thompson
Ethan Magnass' sermons from Grace Anglican Church in Grove City, PA I’ve been recommending a collection of sermons to many people recently. I’ve listened to each of...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I’ve been recommending a collection of sermons to many people recently. I’ve listened to each of these sermons quite a few times. They’re worth your time. Ethan Magness is the rector at Grace Anglican Church in Grove City, PA. Sermon Series on Joseph Grace Anglican Church podcast...
Ben Borgers
I Keep Rewriting My Personal Website
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
When writing, look at what you are trying to describe more than at your words 9 reflections
a month ago
The Elysian
How would anarchist societies protect themselves? Letters to an anarchist, part three.
7 months ago
Josh Thompson
MySQL concatenation and casting I recently set up my environment for working through SQL for Mere Mortals. I’ll record some...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
I recently set up my environment for working through SQL for Mere Mortals. I’ll record some interested tidbits here as I go. Chapter 5: Concatenation without the || operator I use MySQL at work, and MySQL doesn’t support the || operator for string concatenation. So, in the book,...
sbensu
Semantic gaps Swedish has a specific word for each of the four grandparents: mormor, morfar, farmor, farfar....
a year ago
15
a year ago
Swedish has a specific word for each of the four grandparents: mormor, morfar, farmor, farfar. English doesn’t. So when you mention your 'grandma' to a Swede, they are left wondering 'which grandma?' even if it is not relevant to the story. That is a semantic gap.
The Marginalian
What It’s Like to Be an Owl: The Strange Science of Seeing with Sound “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals,” the great nature...
a year ago
31
a year ago
“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals,” the great nature writer Henry Beston wrote in his lovely century-old meditation on otherness and the web of life. “In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted...
The Marginalian
The Lost Drop: An Illustrated Celebration of the Wonder of the Water Cycle and the Interconnected... I remember when I first learned about the water cycle, about how it makes of our planet a living...
a year ago
55
a year ago
I remember when I first learned about the water cycle, about how it makes of our planet a living world and binds the fate of every molecule to that of every other. I remember feeling in my child-bones the profound interconnectedness of life as I realized I was breathing the...
The Marginalian
From Cells to Souls: The Poetic Science of How the Brain Became The making of our densely networked crucible of thought and tenderness.
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Enrique Allen It was in a warm, cozy room post-talk at the second Brooklyn Beta in 2011 when I was either...
7 months ago
19
7 months ago
It was in a warm, cozy room post-talk at the second Brooklyn Beta in 2011 when I was either introduced to or started chatting with Enrique Allen and Ben Blumenrose. They had just started Designer Fund or were on the precipice of it. I was pleasantly taken aback by how energetic...
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
25
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...
Josh Thompson
The Power Broker, Chapter 30: Robert Moses and Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the Mayors”. The chapter is about Moses’ relationship with all of the mayors of NYC that overlapped with Moses’ “rule” over NYC. This excerpt covers just one of the mayors’ overlap...
The Marginalian
A Glow in the Consciousness: The Continuous Creative Act of Seeing Clearly "Simply to look on anything... with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain...
a year ago
48
a year ago
"Simply to look on anything... with the love that penetrates to its essence, is to widen the domain of being in the vastness of non-being."
The Marginalian
The Majesty of Mountains and the Mountains of the Mind Mountains are some of our best metaphors for the mind and for the spirit, but they are also living...
a month ago
8
a month ago
Mountains are some of our best metaphors for the mind and for the spirit, but they are also living entities, sovereign and staggering. I remember the first time I saw a mountain from an airplane — forests miniaturized to moss, rivers to capillaries, the Earth crumpled like a...
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
55
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Viva Las Vegas Day 25: Oct 4, 2023 — Today’s 8:30 a.m. Zoom motivates us awake. I’m fortunate to be able to work...
a year ago
14
a year ago
Day 25: Oct 4, 2023 — Today’s 8:30 a.m. Zoom motivates us awake. I’m fortunate to be able to work from the road, though it does require some planning and commitment. Planning in being present with reliable cell service, and commitment in doing the work I’m paid to do and to...
The Marginalian
The Work of Art: Inside the Creative Process of Beloved Artists, Poets, Musicians, and Other Makes... “The true artist,” Beethoven wrote in his touching letter of advice to a young girl aspiring to be...
a year ago
50
a year ago
“The true artist,” Beethoven wrote in his touching letter of advice to a young girl aspiring to be an artist, “is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.” The choreographer Martha Graham called this particular shade of...
The Marginalian
John Gardner on the Key to Self-Renewal Across Life and the Art of Making Rather Than Finding... "The potentialities you develop to the full come as the result of an interplay between you and...
a year ago
Ben Borgers
Recording Screencasts
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Covid Test Instructions
over a year ago
This Space
The opposite direction The arrival of Douglas Robertson’s new translation of Thomas Bernhard’s Die Billigesser in a compact...
over a year ago
50
over a year ago
The arrival of Douglas Robertson’s new translation of Thomas Bernhard’s Die Billigesser in a compact paperback from Spurl Editions came just as I had given up hope of ever discussing what I believed had long fascinated me about a feature of Bernhard's prose-texts. A fascination...
The Marginalian
A Taste of How It Feels to Be Free: Pioneering Psychoanalyst Karen Horney on Our Inner Conflicts,... "The most comprehensive formulation of therapeutic goals is the striving for wholeheartedness: to be...
over a year ago
75
over a year ago
"The most comprehensive formulation of therapeutic goals is the striving for wholeheartedness: to be without pretense, to be emotionally sincere, to be able to put the whole of oneself into one’s feelings, one’s work, one’s beliefs. It can be approximated only to the extent that...
The American Scholar
“That Day” by Nikki Giovanni Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “That Day” by Nikki Giovanni appeared first on The American...
a month ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Nothing Bad About It A year ago, Jen and I made an overland run from the south end of Anza-Borrego to the northern end....
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
A year ago, Jen and I made an overland run from the south end of Anza-Borrego to the northern end. On the last night in Hawk Canyon, a super windy night made for less than ideal sleep. We ended up closing up the tent and sleeping in the front seats. Thankfully, the seats in a...
Wuthering...
Anthony Powell's style and sensibility - Life is full of internal dramas, instantaneous and... Nicholas Jenkins – I did not register his name at all for the entire first novel, but I know it now...
a month ago
23
a month ago
Nicholas Jenkins – I did not register his name at all for the entire first novel, but I know it now – goes to school, gets a job in publishing, writes a novel, gets a girlfriend, gets a job as a script writer, splits with the girlfriend, and writes another novel or two, none of...
Ben Borgers
A Small Life Radius
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
An Open Letter about Golden 2022-06-15 Update I wrote this document the first time in a very small number of minutes, three...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
2022-06-15 Update I wrote this document the first time in a very small number of minutes, three weeks ago, on my way out the door on a particularly busy day. I follow “write it now”. I’ve gotten to discuss this letter with a few different people, because I mentioned it in email....
The American Scholar
Up Close The post Up Close appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
The Marginalian
On Love: Saint Paul and the Egret Among the myriad things that didn’t have to exist — music, minds, the meadow lark — none is more...
5 months ago
51
5 months ago
Among the myriad things that didn’t have to exist — music, minds, the meadow lark — none is more symphonic, more defiant of logic, more capable of winging existence with life than love. Biologically, we could have done without it, could have spent the eons fertilizing cells...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 357 ...
7 months ago
ben-mini
Commoditize Your Complements To the man who coined the phrase, “nothing in life is free”… have you been on GitHub...
10 months ago
28
10 months ago
To the man who coined the phrase, “nothing in life is free”… have you been on GitHub lately? Open-source is software that anyone can freely view, use, modify, and share because its code is publicly available on sites like Github and Huggingface. My last coding project alone was...
ribbonfarm
Imagination vs. Creativity I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with....
11 months ago
29
11 months ago
I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with. Imagination is the ability to see known possibilities as being reachable from a situation. Creativity is the ability to manufacture new possibilities out of a situation. The two...
This Space
The disaster of writing: My Weil by Lars Iyer "When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone...
a year ago
35
a year ago
"When a plane crashes, a bomb explodes, a city floods or a pandemic begins, Lucy Easthope's phone starts to ring" says the blurb to her recent book subtitled Stories of Love, Loss and Hope from an Expert in Disaster, and goes on to report rapturous praise from critics and...
The American Scholar
Survival Situation The debate over evolution and its discoverer The post Survival Situation appeared first on The...
a year ago
40
a year ago
The debate over evolution and its discoverer The post Survival Situation appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Two poisonous Tanizaki novels, Naomi and Quicksand - the same as a fruit that I’d cultivated myself Two Junichiro Tanizaki novels from the 1920s for Japanese Literature Month over at Dolce...
5 months ago
54
5 months ago
Two Junichiro Tanizaki novels from the 1920s for Japanese Literature Month over at Dolce Bellezza.  Always interesting to see what people are reading.  Thanks as usual.  18th edition! The two novels I read, Naomi (1924) and Quicksand (1928-30), are closely related.  Both...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 We Need More Than Fewer, Better Things Given this understanding of benefits and harms, then, the mantra of “fewer, better things” carries...
11 months ago
17
11 months ago
Given this understanding of benefits and harms, then, the mantra of “fewer, better things” carries an implied equivalence between better and longer. But I’m pretty sure that my nonexistent grandchildren aren’t looking forward to inheriting my inexpensive plastic garbage can,...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Is Substack so Bad? All those readers that Substack shows you as a positive thing on your dashboard are worth very...
6 months ago
22
6 months ago
All those readers that Substack shows you as a positive thing on your dashboard are worth very little. Upon leaving Substack authors have found that users acquired via the Substack recommendation engine have higher churn than organic growth and are less likely to open your...
The American Scholar
In the Mushroom True foraging isn’t the domain of the weekend warrior; it’s serious, serious business The post In...
7 months ago
29
7 months ago
True foraging isn’t the domain of the weekend warrior; it’s serious, serious business The post In the Mushroom appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Books I read in October 2024 - the old, care-free days of Wuthering Heights I should do one of these “what I read” bits before October becomes too distant. I should also...
7 months ago
51
7 months ago
I should do one of these “what I read” bits before October becomes too distant. I should also mention my health.  A little over a year ago a surgeon of genius removed a cancerous tumor from my liver, taking much of my liver along with it.  My recovery went well, and my liver grew...
The Marginalian
The Work of Wonder: Phillip Glass on Art, Science, and the Most Important Quality of a Visionary Epoch after epoch, we humans have tried to raise ourselves above other animals with distinctions...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Epoch after epoch, we humans have tried to raise ourselves above other animals with distinctions that have turned out false — consciousness is not ours alone, nor is grief, nor is play. If there is anything singular about us, it is our capacity to be wonder-smitten by the world...
The Marginalian
Wherever You Are, Stop What You’re Doing Nothing magnifies life — in the proper sense of the word, rooted in the Latin for “to make greater,...
6 months ago
74
6 months ago
Nothing magnifies life — in the proper sense of the word, rooted in the Latin for “to make greater, to glorify” — more than the act of noticing its details, and nothing sanctifies it more: Kneeling to look at a lichen is a devotional act. We bless our own lives by recognizing and...
The American Scholar
A Stronger Spine The post A Stronger Spine appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The Elysian
Will you explain anarchism to me? Letters to an anarchist, part one.
8 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 378 ...
2 months ago
The Elysian
Digital nomads could create network states Here's how.
2 months ago
Ben Borgers
Optimizing Kiwi for scale
over a year ago
The American Scholar
The Writing on the Wall Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery The post The...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery The post The Writing on the Wall appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
A grassroots political party for the middle The Forward Party, citizen's assemblies, and a creating better independence movement in the US.
6 months ago
Ben Borgers
Planning my week
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Grantland Day 22: Oct 1, 2023 — As we suspect, the weather reports prove wildly inaccurate. At 8,000 feet,...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 22: Oct 1, 2023 — As we suspect, the weather reports prove wildly inaccurate. At 8,000 feet, we’re subject to alpine weather rules. Meaning, isolated storms can cycle in at anytime, and they do. Lightning flashes, thunder cracks. We sleep in fits and starts. I remove the...
Astral Codex Ten
The Innocent And The Beautiful Have No Enemy But Time ...
6 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 368 ...
4 months ago
The American Scholar
Magic Men The post Magic Men appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
The American Scholar
Betsy, Mary, and Trish The post Betsy, Mary, and Trish appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
This Space
39 Books: 2014 One could say that Mallarmé, through an extraordinary effort of asceticism, opened an abyss in...
a year ago
90
a year ago
One could say that Mallarmé, through an extraordinary effort of asceticism, opened an abyss in himself where his awareness, instead of losing itself, survives and grasps its solitude in a desperate clarity. This is from The Silence of Mallarmé, an essay in Blanchot's first...
The Marginalian
Moonlight and the Magic of the Unnecessary Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how...
a year ago
81
a year ago
Every night, for every human being that ever was and ever will be, the Moon rises to remind us how improbably lucky we are, each of its craters a monument of the odds we prevailed against to exist, a reliquary of the violent collisions that forged our rocky planet lush with life...
Wuthering...
Books I read in September 2024 - Boring books had their origin in boring readers My reading took an interesting Russian turn that I will write about, soon, tomorrow, there, I said...
9 months ago
74
9 months ago
My reading took an interesting Russian turn that I will write about, soon, tomorrow, there, I said it out loud so maybe I will really do it. November is Norwegian month at Dolce Bellezza.  I will be joining her by reading at least the first novel, The Other Name (2019), of Jon...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 361 ...
6 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
32
a year ago
The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
LeetCode: Words From Characters, and Benchmarking Solutions I recently worked through a LeetCode problem. The first run was pretty brutal. It took (what felt...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I recently worked through a LeetCode problem. The first run was pretty brutal. It took (what felt like) forever, and I was not content with my solution. Even better, it passed the test cases given while building the solution, but failed on submission. So, once I fixed it so it...
The Marginalian
Milan Kundera on the Power of Coincidences and the Musicality of How Chance Composes Our Lives "Human lives... are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a...
a year ago
21
a year ago
"Human lives... are composed like music. Guided by his sense of beauty, an individual transforms a fortuitous occurrence... into a motif, which then assumes a permanent place in the composition of the individual's life."
The American Scholar
“Defeat” by Kahlil Gibran Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Defeat” by Kahlil Gibran appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
Josh Thompson
Primitive Obsession & Exceptional Values I’ve been working through Avdi Grimes’ Mastering the Object Oriented Mindset course. One of the...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I’ve been working through Avdi Grimes’ Mastering the Object Oriented Mindset course. One of the topics was using “whole values”, instead of being “primative obsessed”. The example Avdi gave was clear as day. He used a course with a duration attribute to show the...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Hello windiness, my old friend Day 10: Sept 19, 2023 — It isn’t the first time. In fact, this is the fourth occurrence. At twelve...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 10: Sept 19, 2023 — It isn’t the first time. In fact, this is the fourth occurrence. At twelve minutes past midnight, wide awake and with the tent swaying like a rough flight, we make the call. We move downstairs into the rig. The culprit is always our dear friend (or...
ribbonfarm
Storytelling — Just Add Dinosaurs In a previous part, I covered the storytelling model of Matthew Dicks, who specializes in live,...
a year ago
18
a year ago
In a previous part, I covered the storytelling model of Matthew Dicks, who specializes in live, spoken-word competitive storytelling from real life. He has a theory of stories I found deeply unsatisfying: That the essence of a story is a moment of character change where the...
The American Scholar
The Baritone as Democrat How Lawrence Tibbett prophesied the Metropolitan Opera crisis of today The post The Baritone as...
7 months ago
55
7 months ago
How Lawrence Tibbett prophesied the Metropolitan Opera crisis of today The post The Baritone as Democrat appeared first on The American Scholar.
Idle Words
J.D. Scholten on Coronavirus in Iowa On Sunday I spoke by video chat with my friend J.D. Scholten, who is running for Congress in Iowa's...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
On Sunday I spoke by video chat with my friend J.D. Scholten, who is running for Congress in Iowa's 4th district. J.D. is a retired baseball player who rose to national prominence in 2018, when he came within three points of unseating Steve King in what had until then been...
The American Scholar
Savory or Apples? The post Savory or Apples? appeared first on The American Scholar.
2 months ago
The Elysian
Hint #1 I'm publishing a new print collection in three weeks.
10 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Among Those Who Read There is Great Variety' Writing is famously the most narcissistic of professions, even worse than acting or being a...
a month ago
17
a month ago
Writing is famously the most narcissistic of professions, even worse than acting or being a politician. We’re forever carrying on about ourselves and our precious insights, like the kid in class who raises his hand and goes “Ooh! Ooh!” each time the teacher asks a question....
The Marginalian
How Emotions Are Made "Emotions are not reactions to the world; they are your constructions of the world."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Dust and Shadows' Here I encounter yet again the bothersome issue of major vs. minor writers. When “minor” is used as...
3 months ago
26
3 months ago
Here I encounter yet again the bothersome issue of major vs. minor writers. When “minor” is used as a purely dismissive judgment, beware. There are minor writers who write beautifully and earn our respect and even love – Max Beerbohm is the first who comes to mind – and...
The American Scholar
Bards Behind Bars Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on...
11 months ago
56
11 months ago
Reading Sartre aloud inside a maximum-security prison The post Bards Behind Bars appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Agent 37 The post Agent 37 appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
ribbonfarm
Intellectual Menopause I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s...
10 months ago
25
10 months ago
I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s Systemantics, and it naturally stuck in my brain given I’m pushing 50 and getting predictably angsty about it. The phrase conjures up visions of a phenomenon much more profound and unfunny...
The American Scholar
A Terrifying Delight Following Robert Frost into the depths The post A Terrifying Delight appeared first on The American...
a year ago
64
a year ago
Following Robert Frost into the depths The post A Terrifying Delight appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Practical Mysticism: Evelyn Underhill’s Stunning Century-Old Manifesto for Secular Transcendence and... "Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels;...
over a year ago
92
over a year ago
"Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin of experience, and ignore their merely symbolic character, the infinite gradation of values which they misrepresent."
Wuthering...
How Ivan Bunin and Vasily Grossman spent the war - He was in the countryside then for the last time... Without planning it I recently read three books by Russian writers from three different strands of...
9 months ago
48
9 months ago
Without planning it I recently read three books by Russian writers from three different strands of Russian literature: Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur (1929 /1972, tr. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler) in the Gogolian and Dostoyevskian strand, Ivan Bunin’s Dark Avenues (1943/1946)...
Josh Thompson
How to take payments via Stripe on a Static Site I’ve had rolling around my head an idea of selling small how-to guides and resources. Things that I...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I’ve had rolling around my head an idea of selling small how-to guides and resources. Things that I wish existed, but have never been able to find. For example, I’ve read a bunch of books that talk about good Object-Oriented design, or refactoring code, or writing better tests....
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
49
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...
Astral Codex Ten
Lives Of The Rationalist Saints ...
4 months ago
Ben Borgers
Twitter Not Found
over a year ago
The American Scholar
Turning the World to Powder Jay Owens on the tiny particles that float through our lives The post Turning the World to Powder...
a year ago
73
a year ago
Jay Owens on the tiny particles that float through our lives The post Turning the World to Powder appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Human Scale: Oliver Sacks on How to Save Humanity from Itself "...or there will be genocide, atomic bombs, and we'll all perish and take the planet with us."
a year ago
Josh Thompson
2015: The year I didn't think much? I generally think that if I write what I am thinking about, I can think about it a lot better....
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I generally think that if I write what I am thinking about, I can think about it a lot better. Writing has a clarifying effect (or is it affect?) on thought.  If that’s the case, I just didn’t think much in 2015: I wrote about 45 things in 2013 and 2014. I wrote 8 in 2015. I’m...
The Marginalian
Don’t Waste Your Greening Life-Force: Hildegard’s Prophetic Enchanted Ecology The year is 1174. Gravity, oxygen, and electricity have not been discovered. Clocks, calculus, and...
6 months ago
49
6 months ago
The year is 1174. Gravity, oxygen, and electricity have not been discovered. Clocks, calculus, and the printing press have not been invented. Earth is the center of the universe, encircled by heavenly bodies whose motions are ministered by angels. Most people never live past...
Anecdotal Evidence
'There Is Still So Much I Do Not Know' I have encountered the neologism “egowriting” used to describe -- with approval -- such genres as...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
I have encountered the neologism “egowriting” used to describe -- with approval -- such genres as memoirs, diaries, journals, letters, blog posts, commonplace books, notebooks and essays--almost anything. In other words, a broad collection of forms in which the author and his...
Escaping Flatland
On shortcuts and longcuts There’s this design heuristic that if people cut across the grass, you should pave the shortcut they...
a year ago
80
a year ago
There’s this design heuristic that if people cut across the grass, you should pave the shortcut they make. This gives the path a lovely human fit. But sometimes you want to do the opposite. You want to design ways to get people to take a longer path, a longcut, so they can see or...
ben-mini
What’s Preventing Us from Building a Beautiful Product? I just finished listening to Lenny’s conversation with Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear, about what...
5 months ago
36
5 months ago
I just finished listening to Lenny’s conversation with Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear, about what it takes to build a great SaaS product. Like many SaaS apps, the Kibu team and I have taken inspiration from Linear. But as we plan our roadmap and implement new solutions, I ask...
Josh Thompson
An Intro to Customer Success Customer Success - what is it? When I tell people I work in “Customer Success”, they immediately...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Customer Success - what is it? When I tell people I work in “Customer Success”, they immediately think I do either Customer Support, or sales. In a way, they are correct. I do both. Today, and more in the future, I’ll dig deep into this particular industry. A traditional...
The Marginalian
Eunice Newton Foote and the Birth of Climate Science: The Forgotten Woman Who Discovered the... On an anonymous desk in a spartan classroom of the pioneering Troy Female Seminary, a teenage girl...
a year ago
19
a year ago
On an anonymous desk in a spartan classroom of the pioneering Troy Female Seminary, a teenage girl with blue-grey eyes and an oceanic mind is bent over an astronomy book, preparing to revolutionize our understanding of the planet. The year is 1836. No university anywhere in the...
Ben Borgers
Reading with RSS
over a year ago
The Elysian
Week 6: Examples of Pitches
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ There's been an accident Day 26: Oct 5, 2023 — About three miles in the distance, we spot a huge dirt plume. It originates on...
a year ago
10
a year ago
Day 26: Oct 5, 2023 — About three miles in the distance, we spot a huge dirt plume. It originates on the left side of the road then whiplashes to the right side. We’re accustomed to these airborne dust trails from off-road rigs traveling at speed in the sand. We just assume...
Ben Borgers
Batching
over a year ago
The American Scholar
The Bears The post The Bears appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Ben Borgers
Prototyping an AI-powered note-taking app
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Carl Jung on Creativity The question of what it takes to create — to make something of beauty and substance that touches...
2 months ago
32
2 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...
ribbonfarm
Harberger Tax It’s always nice to see trails of thought connect up. An idea I first encountered and really liked...
a year ago
21
a year ago
It’s always nice to see trails of thought connect up. An idea I first encountered and really liked in a 2014 Steve Randy Waldman (interfluidity) post has apparently since acquired a name and a more extended provenance. Waldman’s post, Tax price, not value, presents the idea as a...
Josh Thompson
Make Hard Things Easier by Removing Friction Friction resists movement. Lots of things count as (negative) friction. Anything that consumes...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Friction resists movement. Lots of things count as (negative) friction. Anything that consumes resources (time, energy, money, physical goods.) Anything that causes negative feelings (shame, doubt, guilt, fear.) Anything that could have a downside (losing money, respect, your...
The American Scholar
Cobi Moules Landscapes of queer joy The post Cobi Moules appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 months ago
Ben Borgers
Professorship Bias
over a year ago
The Marginalian
May Sarton on the Art of Living Alone "The people we love are built into us."
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Alpha Optimization Polartec Alpha was designed to be a batting insulation, encapsulated between two shells. Alpha...
8 months ago
11
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...
Josh Thompson
Maybe "Now" Is Not the Right Time Recently I deleted a bunch of old notes I had in Evernote. Some of the notes were almost immediately...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Recently I deleted a bunch of old notes I had in Evernote. Some of the notes were almost immediately unneeded, like old receipts and confirmations.  Much of the rest was notes related to goals (“Checklist to move out of MD Apartment”, “Planning trip to Buenos Aires”) or to...
The Marginalian
3 Kinds of Loneliness and 4 Kinds of Forever Loneliness is the fundamental condition of life — we are born by another, but born alone; die around...
2 months ago
27
2 months ago
Loneliness is the fundamental condition of life — we are born by another, but born alone; die around others (if we are lucky and loved), but die alone; we spend our lives islanded in our one and only human experience — in these particular bodies and minds and circumstances drawn...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Knowledge workers Perhaps it’s even better to acknowledge that there never were any knowledge workers. There have only...
11 months ago
10
11 months ago
Perhaps it’s even better to acknowledge that there never were any knowledge workers. There have only ever been workers. — Mandy Brown Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The American Scholar
Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things The post Fiction, Fakery, and Factory...
7 months ago
43
7 months ago
Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things The post Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Give it 30 days Do you have any big audacious goal you want to accomplish? If you think back to Jan 1, 2016, what...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Do you have any big audacious goal you want to accomplish? If you think back to Jan 1, 2016, what were your goals? Lose weight/get in shape Make more money/start budgeting Learn a language Learn a skill Read more Stop doing something (smoking, drinking) Statistically, all of...
The Marginalian
Poetry as Prayer: The Great Russian Poet Marina Tsvetaeva on Reclaiming the Divine "In our age, to have the courage for direct speech to God (for prayer) we must either not know what...
12 months ago
The Marginalian
Grace Against Gravity and the Physics of Vulnerability: How Birds Fly and Why They Flock in a V... “What we see from the air is so simple and beautiful,” Georgia O’Keeffe wrote after her first...
7 months ago
45
7 months ago
“What we see from the air is so simple and beautiful,” Georgia O’Keeffe wrote after her first airplane flight, “I cannot help feeling that it would do something wonderful for the human race — rid it of much smallness and pettiness if more people flew.” I am writing this aboard an...
Wuthering...
Please read the Roman plays with me (although not all of them) - Plautus, Terence, Seneca Roman plays, a sampling, readalong #1. Fresh off the Greek plays, I want to revisit some of the...
over a year ago
79
over a year ago
Roman plays, a sampling, readalong #1. Fresh off the Greek plays, I want to revisit some of the surviving Roman plays to remind myself what they are like.  Twenty-six comedies and ten tragedies have survived.  I read about half of them long ago and plan to reread fewer than...
Ben Borgers
I Miss Google Classroom
over a year ago
The Elysian
Humanity from the perspective of robots Talking points for our literary salon next week.
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Familiar is Friendly Day 2: Sept 11, 2023 — The dulcet tones of a calm lake lapping at a shoreline finally awaken me. I...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 2: Sept 11, 2023 — The dulcet tones of a calm lake lapping at a shoreline finally awaken me. I didn’t sleep well. Our dog, Barbara, was a little unsettled, and I spent the early part of bedtime tending to her specific Chihuahua needs. Despite the cool overnight temperatures,...
Ben Borgers
Make sure your university events are actually interesting
4 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Meetups Everywhere Spring 2025: Times & Places ...
3 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
"Deros And The Ur-Abduction" In Asterisk ...
3 months ago
The Marginalian
The Rigor of Angels: Human Nature and the Nature of Reality "What we are striving for lies inside us; we find ourselves in the world and the world in...
a year ago
The American Scholar
“Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on...
a year ago
84
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
William James on the Most Vital Understanding for Successful Relationships "Neither the whole of truth nor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer."
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
First Name Usernames
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Value of Being Wrong: Lewis Thomas on Generative Mistakes In praise of our "property of error, spontaneous, uncontrolled, and rich in possibilities."
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 377 ...
2 months ago
ribbonfarm
Covid and Noun-Memory Effects Ever since I got a bout of Covid a couple of years ago (late 2022), I’ve noticed memory problems of...
a year ago
26
a year ago
Ever since I got a bout of Covid a couple of years ago (late 2022), I’ve noticed memory problems of a very specific sort: Difficulty remembering names. Especially people names, but also other sorts of proper nouns. This is especially marked when it comes to remembering names of...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Poet Is a Noble Creature' “. . . I am under the necessity of appearing as an ancient and more or less venerable figure; others...
5 months ago
19
5 months ago
“. . . I am under the necessity of appearing as an ancient and more or less venerable figure; others may come in aeroplanes, but I arrive on a boneshaker; others may give a demonstration with electric stoves, but I freeze over my doleful brazier. Side-whiskers should have been...
sbensu
Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union Notes from reading the book by Zubok
a year ago
ben-mini
The Most Mind-Blowing Tech Moments of My Life This is a fun one. Below is a brief list of the most mind-blowing tech moments in my 27 years of...
a year ago
21
a year ago
This is a fun one. Below is a brief list of the most mind-blowing tech moments in my 27 years of life. There’s nothing too heady here- just an exercise in what might have made me get so into tech. 1. WarioWare: Twisted (2006) At my community center, waiting for my friend’s karate...
sbensu
Language thought-orientation You can tell a lot from somebody based on their speech patterns
5 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Apple Maps on the web launches in beta Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access...
11 months ago
22
11 months ago
Today, Apple Maps on the web is available in public beta, allowing users around the world to access Maps directly from their browser. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Josh Thompson
Typing for Programmers If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I can press these magical little keys on this little metal box here, and make these words come out. If you’re reading these words, you don’t care how these words actually got on...
ben-mini
Making My SQL Skills Obsolete Quick Update: I updated my domain to ben-mini.com! All old URLs and the RSS feed under...
6 months ago
78
6 months ago
Quick Update: I updated my domain to ben-mini.com! All old URLs and the RSS feed under ben-mini.github.io will automatically redirect, so no changes are needed on your end. By far, the most useful LLM app I’ve made is the Kibu Schema God: I try not to make my posts too...
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
34
8 months ago
The German folklorists who helped build a nation The post Masters of Horror and Magic appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
The Making of Americans as conceptual art - I have already made several diagrams Sometime I will be able to make a diagram.  I have already made several diagrams.  I will sometime...
a year ago
107
a year ago
Sometime I will be able to make a diagram.  I have already made several diagrams.  I will sometime make a complete diagram and that will be a very long book...  (580) I am going to write about The Making of Americans as conceptual art, art where how it is made is a central part...
The American Scholar
Thoreau’s Pencils How might a newly discovered The post Thoreau’s Pencils appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
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
17
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...
Ben Borgers
I Love Email
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Favorite Children’s Books of 2023 Tender and poetic reckonings with friendship, fear, love, solitude, black holes, deep time, and the...
a year ago
33
a year ago
Tender and poetic reckonings with friendship, fear, love, solitude, black holes, deep time, and the interconnectedness of life.
The American Scholar
Ask Already The post Ask Already appeared first on The American Scholar.
a month ago
Steven Scrawls
The Firefly Artist The Firefly Artist Note: it’s a metaphor. I’m not calling for mass firefly imprisonment. Two hours...
a year ago
18
a year ago
The Firefly Artist Note: it’s a metaphor. I’m not calling for mass firefly imprisonment. Two hours after dusk, a crowd gathered by the dozens, by the hundreds, to see the firefly artist’s yearly performance. They spread out blankets in the clearing, sharing snacks by the light of...
Ben Borgers
Class Council: “Brutally Honest”
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Avoid a car accident with a $3 tool TL;DR: Buy a blind spot mirror for your car. They are $2, and can keep you from getting in an...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
TL;DR: Buy a blind spot mirror for your car. They are $2, and can keep you from getting in an accident. Not a lot of people have them, though they’re awesome. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how to make driving safer. Step 1 to making driving safer is “don’t...
Ben Borgers
College CS Classes Are Tragically Dull
over a year ago
The American Scholar
From All Souls by Saskia Hamilton Poems read aloud, beautifully The post From <em>All Souls</em> by Saskia Hamilton appeared first on...
9 months ago
61
9 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post From <em>All Souls</em> by Saskia Hamilton appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid
Modus Operandi My operating rules and way of living. This is a m.o. (mo) page, or modus operandi page. It lists out...
2 months ago
45
2 months ago
My operating rules and way of living. This is a m.o. (mo) page, or modus operandi page. It lists out the way I approach my life and the rules I apply to it to thrive. This is a living document and will be added to as more comes to mind, or as I develop new ones. It is mirrored at...
Josh Thompson
Falling into Place I recently started a job with Litmus. A key component of this job search for me was that it be 100%...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
I recently started a job with Litmus. A key component of this job search for me was that it be 100% remote. At my last job, I worked remote regularly, at least one day a week, but the rest of the week, I was in the office. Remote work is becoming established around the world,...
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 American Scholar
The Rascal of Pont-Aven Reassessing a renowned painter’s troubling life The post The Rascal of Pont-Aven appeared first on...
a month ago
7
a month ago
Reassessing a renowned painter’s troubling life The post The Rascal of Pont-Aven appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Type of Feeling Type Foundry Type of Feeling is a type foundry specializing in creating bespoke typefaces for brands. We offer a...
10 months ago
24
10 months ago
Type of Feeling is a type foundry specializing in creating bespoke typefaces for brands. We offer a select retail collection and custom typography services that are inspired by a range of feelings. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Josh Thompson
Three Levels of Competence Raise your hand if you’d like to be better at climbing. Yeah. Me too. I’ve spent an unusual amount...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Raise your hand if you’d like to be better at climbing. Yeah. Me too. I’ve spent an unusual amount of time working with beginners, to help them improve at climbing. I’ve also worked a lot with (what I would consider to be) intermediate climbers, so can get better. I’ve certainly...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Eva Decker Eva Decker is a designer engineer who likes playing piano and writing CSS. Currently living in NYC...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
Eva Decker is a designer engineer who likes playing piano and writing CSS. Currently living in NYC with Samwise. — Eva Decker Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Josh Thompson
Recommended Reading I like to read, and I often recommend books to others. I used to have a very different list of...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
I like to read, and I often recommend books to others. I used to have a very different list of recommended books, but they come and go with time. This list is sorta ‘older’, circa 2021. 1 A newer/different list is available here These are a collection of books that come up in...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Being Hired to Care One of the biggest mistakes that I see people make as they start to dip their toes into advising is...
10 months ago
12
10 months ago
One of the biggest mistakes that I see people make as they start to dip their toes into advising is try to anchor their work to specific deliverables. Doing this is bad for a number of reasons, but the primary one is that when you’re being brought on as an advisor, you’re not...
Escaping Flatland
A summary of what I wrote in 2023 In 2023, I published 37 essays. I’ve spent the better part of the morning going through it all to...
a year ago
27
a year ago
In 2023, I published 37 essays. I’ve spent the better part of the morning going through it all to see what the themes were—it is quite surprising to notice what emerges when you allow yourself to follow your curiosity and intuition for a full year. I wrote a summary of the...
Josh Thompson
Robert Moses - The Most Important Person You've Never Heard Of this was originally posted a few years ago, republishing as a blog post as I organize an...
a year ago
18
a year ago
this was originally posted a few years ago, republishing as a blog post as I organize an increasingly large number of links and resources here. Here’s a big dumping ground for some resources on robert moses I’ve got floating around. Obviously, this has grown to an unwieldy sizy...
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...
11 months ago
13
11 months 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 Perry Bible...
Blocked The post Blocked appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
3 months ago
Josh Thompson
On Hitting Small(er) People this has been hard for me to write, has been sitting in one draft form or another for months....
5 months ago
34
5 months ago
this has been hard for me to write, has been sitting in one draft form or another for months. Finally getting it off the ‘drafts’ list, but only reluctantly. This is far too long for even me to try to read in a single sitting, especially on my phone, so it might be too long for...
The Marginalian
The Transcendent Brain: The Poetic Physicist Alan Lightman on Spirituality for the Science-Spirited A largehearted invitation to "stand on the precipice between the known and the unknown, without...
over a year ago
48
over a year ago
A largehearted invitation to "stand on the precipice between the known and the unknown, without fear, without anxiety, but instead with awe and wonder at this strange and beautiful cosmos we find ourselves in."
Ploum.net
My colleague Julius My colleague Julius Traduction en français Lazygyu의 한국어 번역 Do you know Julius? You certainly know...
6 months ago
17
6 months ago
My colleague Julius Traduction en français Lazygyu의 한국어 번역 Do you know Julius? You certainly know who I’m talking about! I met Julius at university. A measured, friendly young man. He always wore a smile on his face. What struck me about Julius, aside from his always perfectly...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Site Nonsite: Live at Delia's Third Happening Months of work went into this show, resulting in six fresh arrangements and two new songs, and I was...
10 months ago
12
10 months ago
Months of work went into this show, resulting in six fresh arrangements and two new songs, and I was unexpectedly happy with everything captured on the night. This document feels like a fitting conclusion to the first chapter of Site Nonsite. — Simon Collison A real treat for the...
Ben Borgers
Saturday, January 15, 2022
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Habits Take Preparation Kristi and I moved to Golden, Colorado. We’ve been in our new apartment for five days. I’m trying to...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
Kristi and I moved to Golden, Colorado. We’ve been in our new apartment for five days. I’m trying to quickly settle into a routine that makes sense for both of us. For example - I work for a company in Boston. While I could keep local working hours (Mountain Time) I prefer to...
Anecdotal Evidence
'To Illustrate With Marginal Notes' I no longer write in books, a decision I made decades ago that I occasionally regret. It came...
a month ago
11
a month ago
I no longer write in books, a decision I made decades ago that I occasionally regret. It came to feel like defacement. But it’s interesting to see what attracted, delighted or puzzled my younger self. Here are the three books on my shelves most heavily underlined and...
This Space
A rare sort of writer Today is Gabriel Josipovici's 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, I'll link to various posts I've...
over a year ago
79
over a year ago
Today is Gabriel Josipovici's 80th birthday. To mark the occasion, I'll link to various posts I've written over the years – after a brief interlude. I read him first in July 1988 after borrowing The Lessons of Modernism from the second floor of Portsmouth Central Library because...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Utterly Intoxicated by His Affection' Montaigne’s charming opening to his essay “Of the Education of Children”: “I have never seen a...
a month ago
16
a month ago
Montaigne’s charming opening to his essay “Of the Education of Children”: “I have never seen a father who failed to claim his son, however mangy or hunchbacked he was. Not that he does not perceive his defect, unless he is utterly intoxicated by his affection; but the fact...
The American Scholar
Adventures With Jean Striking up a friendship with an older writer meant accepting the risk of getting hurt The post...
10 months ago
41
10 months ago
Striking up a friendship with an older writer meant accepting the risk of getting hurt The post Adventures With Jean appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Poetic Science of the Ghost Pipe: Emily Dickinson and the Secret of Earth’s Most Supernatural... "That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."
a year ago
The American Scholar
Lessons in the Diplomatic Arts Notes from a musical tour of South Africa The post Lessons in the Diplomatic Arts appeared first on...
4 days ago
6
4 days ago
Notes from a musical tour of South Africa The post Lessons in the Diplomatic Arts appeared first on The American Scholar.
ben-mini
Modality Switching Online I hate it when my dad leaves me a voicemail. Whenever I open my phone and see the pending voicemail,...
a year ago
17
a year ago
I hate it when my dad leaves me a voicemail. Whenever I open my phone and see the pending voicemail, I roll my eyes. He tends to meander. My dad’s messages can range from 40 seconds to 2 minutes. He typically wants to inform me of something, like an upcoming family event or an...
The American Scholar
“He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy appeared first...
a year ago
85
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “He Asked About the Quality” by C. P. Cavafy appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Kids Are We get off the bus, our feet landing on Mission Street at the corner of 24th here in San Francisco....
7 months ago
15
7 months ago
We get off the bus, our feet landing on Mission Street at the corner of 24th here in San Francisco. Our destination is the famed La Taqueria, and despite its notoriety for the burritos they serve, we're here for tacos — because their tacos are absofuckinglutely delicious. As we...
The Elysian
I'm crowdfunding a book—we've raised $38,000 already! But writing about a better economy isn't enough, we have to build it too.
3 months ago
The Marginalian
Between the Infinite and the Infinitesimal: A Scientist’s Search for the Fulcrum of Faith "The universe is not a place where evolution happens, it is the evolution happening. It is not a...
a year ago
52
a year ago
"The universe is not a place where evolution happens, it is the evolution happening. It is not a stage on which drama unfolds, it is the unfolding drama itself."
Wuthering...
On the greatness of The Story of the Stone - it is in a vigorous, somewhat staccato style Some notes on The Story of the Stone, Volume 1: The Golden Days (c. 1760 or maybe 1792) by Cao...
9 months ago
61
9 months ago
Some notes on The Story of the Stone, Volume 1: The Golden Days (c. 1760 or maybe 1792) by Cao Xueqin, the first of the five volumes of the Penguin edition of the greatest Chinese novel. I don’t like writing about a book before I have finished it, but in a sense I did finish a...
Ben Borgers
Website Rewrite
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
How To Stop Worrying And Learn To Love Lynn's National IQ Estimates ...
5 months ago
The Marginalian
Wonder Beyond Why: The Majesty and Mystery of the Birds-of-Paradise “To go all the way from a clone of archaebacteria, in just 3.7 billion years, to the B-Minor Mass...
a year ago
33
a year ago
“To go all the way from a clone of archaebacteria, in just 3.7 billion years, to the B-Minor Mass and the Late Quartets, deserves a better technical term for the record than randomness,” the poetic scientist Lewis Thomas wrote in his forgotten masterpiece of perspective. This is...
The Elysian
It's ok to live in a fantasyland That's the joy of being a writer.
8 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Rosebuds Are Rare As a Day in June' Fortune cookies no longer contain fortunes. Tucked inside the sugary shells are slips of paper...
4 months ago
28
4 months ago
Fortune cookies no longer contain fortunes. Tucked inside the sugary shells are slips of paper printed with platitudes. I carry one such slip in my wallet, salvaged from a forgotten meal at least a decade ago: “Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and...
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Absence of Her Voice From that Concord' “There are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: he may be considered as...
2 months ago
28
2 months ago
“There are three points of view from which a writer can be considered: he may be considered as a storyteller, as a teacher, and as an enchanter. A major writer combines these three – storyteller, teacher, enchanter – but it is the enchanter in him that predominates and makes him...
Naz Hamid
Quality, Maintenance & Craft We are shokunin. Last week I was in Ojai, California, for True’s Founder Camp.[1] James Freeman,...
3 months ago
35
3 months ago
We are shokunin. Last week I was in Ojai, California, for True’s Founder Camp.[1] James Freeman, founder of Blue Bottle Coffee was in conversation with Jeff Veen, and one of the attendees asked him: “How do you maintain such high quality?” Freeman answers, “‘Maintaining’ is a...
Naz Hamid
Less Precious Social networking is about reach. It started small: your friends first, then grew outwards towards...
4 months ago
38
4 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
The Sound of the Picturesque Charles Ives and the Visual The post The Sound of the Picturesque appeared first on The American...
10 months ago
Josh Thompson
Taking the Plunge with Colemak This entire post is written in Colemak. I am aiming to write at least 100 words, and this is...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
This entire post is written in Colemak. I am aiming to write at least 100 words, and this is certainly harder than copying someone else’s words. I have completed a few hours of dedicated practice, and it is quite possible that I am jumping the gun, and will quickly revert to...
The American Scholar
“Piano Fire” by Claudia Emerson Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Piano Fire” by Claudia Emerson appeared first on The...
2 months ago
22
2 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Piano Fire” by Claudia Emerson appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Transitioning from the Attention Era to the Automation Era This new era – the Automation Era – is marked by platforms managing the content and connections for...
7 months ago
15
7 months ago
This new era – the Automation Era – is marked by platforms managing the content and connections for you, so you can spend your attention elsewhere. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The Perry Bible...
Bubbled The post Bubbled appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
4 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Double Rainbow All the Way Day 1: Apr 14, 2024 — “That’s not rain, that’s snow!” And it is. Fat raindrops transform into plump...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 1: Apr 14, 2024 — “That’s not rain, that’s snow!” And it is. Fat raindrops transform into plump disintegrating flakes on the windshield as we continue our ascent into Tehachapi and before we negotiate the namesake pass. The temperature display in the rig reads 36°F and is...
The Marginalian
Between Mathematics and the Miraculous: The Stunning Pendulum Drawings of Swiss Healer and Artist... Emma Kunz (May 23, 1892–January 16, 1963) was forty-six and the world was aflame with war when she...
a year ago
87
a year ago
Emma Kunz (May 23, 1892–January 16, 1963) was forty-six and the world was aflame with war when she became an artist. She had worked at a knitting factory and as a housekeeper. She had written poetry, publishing a collection titled Life in the interlude between the two World Wars....
The Marginalian
Terror, Tenderness, and the Paradoxes of Human Nature: How a Marmoset Saved Leonard and Virginia... The most discomposing thing about people capable of monstrous acts is that they too enjoy art, they...
a year ago
44
a year ago
The most discomposing thing about people capable of monstrous acts is that they too enjoy art, they too read to their children, they too can be moved to tears by music. The dissident poet Joseph Brodsky captured this as he contemplated the greatest antidote to evil, observing...
The Marginalian
Fox and Bear: A Tender Modern Fable About Reversing the Anthropocene, Illustrated in Cut-Cardboard... An antidote to the civilizational compulsions that rob human nature of nature.
over a year ago
The American Scholar
A Toothsome Tale Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites The post A Toothsome...
10 months ago
37
10 months ago
Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites The post A Toothsome Tale appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Can You Recover From Months (YEARS!) of Not Climbing? A few weeks ago, I headed into the gym thinking that I felt a little off-kilter. I’d not climbed in...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, I headed into the gym thinking that I felt a little off-kilter. I’d not climbed in a week, I though, and maybe I was getting weaker or something. Turns out that wasn’t the problem - I had actually been climbing too much, and was feeling it. This is an odd...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 380 ...
2 months ago
Wuthering...
The endlessly adaptable plays of Plautus - I’ll make it into a comedy with some tragedy mixed in The plays of Plautus are the foundation of Western comedy.  That they are based on the plays of...
over a year ago
80
over a year ago
The plays of Plautus are the foundation of Western comedy.  That they are based on the plays of Menander and the other Greek New Comedy writers was irrelevant, since all of those texts were soon lost.  Plautus (and his successor Terence) carried the stage traditions, the...
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
90
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...
Wuthering...
Lucian's satires - Frankly he's a blamed nuisance The great 2nd century satirist Lucian was a great shock to me at one point, twenty-five years ago...
a year ago
29
a year ago
The great 2nd century satirist Lucian was a great shock to me at one point, twenty-five years ago when I got serious about classical literature.  I had never heard of him, partly because of the odd historical artifact where what he writes is called “Menippean satire” even though...
The Marginalian
Leonard Cohen on the Antidote to Anger and the Meaning of Resistance One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do...
11 months ago
80
11 months ago
One of the commonest and most corrosive human reflexes is to react to helplessness with anger. We do it in our personal lives and we do it in our political lives. We are living through a time of uncommon helplessness and uncertainty, touching every aspect of our lives, and in...
Josh Thompson
Bollards: Why & What author’s note: it’s always fun to see your own stuff on the Hacker News front page! This very post...
a year ago
17
a year ago
author’s note: it’s always fun to see your own stuff on the Hacker News front page! This very post sparked >450 comments worth of conversation! I didn’t even know this got posted until days later! What are bollards The what and the why in a single image: The what and why in a...
Josh Thompson
2016 - Biggest Lesson, Most Dangerous Books I don’t do New Years resolutions, but I like to think back on the last year. I’ll touch on two...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
I don’t do New Years resolutions, but I like to think back on the last year. I’ll touch on two things: The most important thing I’ve learned this year: Tactical Silence Most dangerous books of 2016 Tactical Silence I suspect that a year from now, I’m going to look back and say...
The Marginalian
Milan Kundera on Animal Rights and What True Human Goodness Really Means "True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient...
a year ago
25
a year ago
"True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power. Mankind's true mortal test, its fundamental test... consists of its attitude toward those who are at its mercy: animals."
Anecdotal Evidence
'One Passionate Note of Victory' “The dangers for the poet in addressing so composite an audience are enormous: cuteness,...
4 months ago
31
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...
Ploum.net
N’attendez pas, changez vos paradigmes ! N’attendez pas, changez vos paradigmes ! Il faut se passer de voiture pendant un certain temps pour...
3 months ago
31
3 months ago
N’attendez pas, changez vos paradigmes ! Il faut se passer de voiture pendant un certain temps pour réellement comprendre au plus profond de soi que la solution à beaucoup de nos problèmes sociétaux n’est pas une voiture électrique, mais une ville cyclable. Nous ne devons pas...
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
9
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Type Design Resources A growing, public, collaborative collection of type design resources. Everything from learning the...
8 months ago
12
8 months ago
A growing, public, collaborative collection of type design resources. Everything from learning the basics to running your own foundry. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Astral Codex Ten
It's Still Easier To Imagine The End Of The World Than The End Of Capitalism Responding to a recent essay on wealth inequality in a post-singularity economy
6 months ago
sbensu
The birth of a (pseudo) currency A dozen pseudo-currencies were issued in Argentina in 2002. How did that work? And why are they...
a year ago
17
a year ago
A dozen pseudo-currencies were issued in Argentina in 2002. How did that work? And why are they coming back in 2024?
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Soliloquy for Two' The ideally named English neurologist Russell Brain died in 1966 but his textbook, Brain’s Diseases...
2 months ago
9
2 months ago
The ideally named English neurologist Russell Brain died in 1966 but his textbook, Brain’s Diseases of the Nervous System (1933), remains in print. The Royal College of Physicians has called it “the standard British textbook on his subject.” Brain was also a poet and...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Ernie Is Our Co-Pilot Hello. You’re receiving this long-dormant-now-re-reawakaned newsletter because at some point in the...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
Hello. You’re receiving this long-dormant-now-re-reawakaned newsletter because at some point in the past you subscribed. (Thank you, by the way.) Back then, I was writing about some nexus of travels abroad, personal or professional news, and technology-ish topics. There are some...
The Marginalian
What Makes Life Alive: Vassily Grossman on Consciousness, Freedom, and Kindness “Every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life,” William Blake wrote in an era when science...
11 months ago
62
11 months ago
“Every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life,” William Blake wrote in an era when science first began raising questions with spiritual undertones: What is life? Where does it begin and end? What makes it alive? But in the epochs since, having discovered muons and...
The American Scholar
A Portrait of the Scholar The life of Ireland’s towering literary figure became a work of art in its own right The post A...
a month ago
6
a month ago
The life of Ireland’s towering literary figure became a work of art in its own right The post A Portrait of the Scholar appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
In the Lions’ Studio A new dual biography turns the lens on the towering architects of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer The post In...
4 months ago
31
4 months ago
A new dual biography turns the lens on the towering architects of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer The post In the Lions’ Studio appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Grandstand Grant This year: more people in photos. And more people in photos in landscapes. Cherish the times with...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
This year: more people in photos. And more people in photos in landscapes. Cherish the times with friends in special places. Here, Grant in Death Valley. Read on nazhamid.com or Reply via email
The American Scholar
Marlana Stoddard Hayes Hope blooms The post Marlana Stoddard Hayes appeared first on The American Scholar.
11 months ago
The Marginalian
There’s a Ghost in the Garden: A Subtle and Soulful Illustrated Fable about Memory and Mystery One of the things no one tells us as we grow up is that we will be living in a world rife with...
7 months ago
39
7 months ago
One of the things no one tells us as we grow up is that we will be living in a world rife with ghosts — all of our disappointed hopes and our outgrown dreams, all the abandoned novels and unproven theorems, all the people we used to love, all the people we used to be. A ghost is...
The Marginalian
States of Possession: Erich Neumann on Creativity, the Unconscious, and the Psychology of... There are things in life that come over you sudden as a flash flood, total as an eclipse — the great...
2 months ago
16
2 months ago
There are things in life that come over you sudden as a flash flood, total as an eclipse — the great loves, the great creative passions, the great urges to conquer a mountain or a theorem. They can feel like an alien invasion, like the immense hand of some imperative has seized...