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[RIDGELINE] Driving the Tōkaidō Ridgeline subscribers — Hello from amidst the Toyama rush of media requests. I’ve had to say no to...
16th Jan 2025
1

[RIDGELINE] Driving the Tōkaidō

from Craig Mod — Writer + Photographer [alt+shift+b] in literature

16th Jan 2025
Ridgeline subscribers — Hello from amidst the Toyama rush of media requests. I’ve had to say no to most of them, mainly because I’ve been finishing the final final final final set of edits on the Random House edition of Things Become Other Thing. Those edits are in. The book can...
Planned Unit Design Document (work-in-progress) This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something...
1st Oct 2021
23

Planned Unit Design Document (work-in-progress)

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Oct 2021
This is a draft document, meant for circulation, will evolve with time and eventually be something we bring to the City of Golden for ratification, or whatever needs to happen to get this done in this zone. This document relates to Collateralizing Mortgages and Loans With the...
Content but Restless There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more. We have all heard...
3rd Sep 2013
21

Content but Restless

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Sep 2013
There is tension between being content with what you have, and striving for more. We have all heard the “serenity prayer”: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference. This prayer is...
Accomplishments and Achievements We’re encouraged to accomplish and achieve, yes? From birth, we pass milestones. Generally these...
2nd Jul 2014
23

Accomplishments and Achievements

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Jul 2014
We’re encouraged to accomplish and achieve, yes? From birth, we pass milestones. Generally these milestones grow in complexity as we add to our abilities - it’s been a while since I’ve been rewarded for not wetting myself - but they are usually on par with our abilities. For...
What I Read in July 2025 - books are quiet and unobtrusive, and do not try to hustle the reader In general, however, he [Louis XVI] preferred writing down his thoughts instead of uttering them by...
8th Aug 2025
1
8th Aug 2025
In general, however, he [Louis XVI] preferred writing down his thoughts instead of uttering them by word of mouth; and he was fond of reading, for books are quiet and unobtrusive, and do not try to hustle the reader. (Stefan Zweig, Marie Antoinette, 1932, p. 77 of the 1933...
[RODEN] New Japan, NYC, Soderbergh Bonanza, Too Much Movement Roden Readers — Hello from Crazy Weather Town. Is it spring? Some days it feels like it might be,...
2nd May 2026
1

[RODEN] New Japan, NYC, Soderbergh Bonanza, Too Much Movement

from Craig Mod — Writer + Photographer [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd May 2026
Roden Readers — Hello from Crazy Weather Town. Is it spring? Some days it feels like it might be, for a few milliseconds. And then other days, no. No spring for you. The floor heating was on this morning and that felt good. Soon enough the sauna will be on over the entirety of...
How to fly… like a boss I am in a quest to level up my life. Free flights is a big part of this. I’ve not gotten too many...
7th Oct 2013
27

How to fly… like a boss

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

7th Oct 2013
I am in a quest to level up my life. Free flights is a big part of this. I’ve not gotten too many of those yet, but the next best thing is free seat upgrades. I’m not talking about first class - that’s beyond me, at the moment. I’m talking about getting stuck in the back of the...
On Fables: Finishing up Antifragile I’m cleaning up some notes I wanted to jot down over the last few weeks Nassim Taleb, in...
9th Jan 2016
21

On Fables: Finishing up Antifragile

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

9th Jan 2016
I’m cleaning up some notes I wanted to jot down over the last few weeks Nassim Taleb, in Antifragile, says: The great economist Ariel Rubinstein gets the green lumber fallacy - it requires a great deal of intellect and honesty to see things that way. Rubinstein refuses to...
October 2016 Review October 2016 Review This month’s review. In another few days I’ll post the goals for November. I...
1st Nov 2016
25

October 2016 Review

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Nov 2016
October 2016 Review This month’s review. In another few days I’ll post the goals for November. I had three goals for October, as of about 12 days ago: October goals: Programming I wanted to finish a certain Rails Tutorial, and move on to the next one. This project I made zero...
Driven by Compression Progress Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and...
18th Feb 2021
28

Driven by Compression Progress

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

18th Feb 2021
Note from author: This is part of an experimental series, more-or-less based on “white papers” and academic literature, as applied to somewhat practical-ish domains. These pages serve as a brief overview of a paper, and I’ll be able to link to this paper down the road when I what...
Dizzying but Invisible Depth The following is from https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/dfydM2Cnepe, but Google+ is...
16th Jan 2021
26

Dizzying but Invisible Depth

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

16th Jan 2021
The following is from https://plus.google.com/+JeanBaptisteQueru/posts/dfydM2Cnepe, but Google+ is shutdown, so it’s not easily sharable. I’m reposting here because this is such a useful post. Dizzying but invisible depth You just went to the Google home page. Simple, isn’t...
🔗 Rick Rubin on Listening If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in...
15th Jul 2024
53

🔗 Rick Rubin on Listening

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

15th Jul 2024
If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in the experience. When the piece ends, you might be surprised by where you find yourself. You’ve been transported to another place. The place where the music lives. — Rick...
IMG_0416 Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube”...
3rd Nov 2024
47

IMG_0416

from ben-mini [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Nov 2024
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube” that allowed users to upload videos directly to YouTube from the Photos app. The feature worked… really well. In fact, YouTube reported a 1700% increase in total video uploads...
Please come up with wildly speculative futures Inside my writing philosophy.
1st Apr 2024
52

Please come up with wildly speculative futures

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Apr 2024
Inside my writing philosophy.
Sidekiq and Background Jobs for Beginners I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I...
30th Jul 2018
26

Sidekiq and Background Jobs for Beginners

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

30th Jul 2018
I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I was working on. I learned a lot. Much of it was extremely basic. Anyone who knows much at all about Sidekiq will say “oh, duh, of course that’s true”, but at the time, it wasn’t...
Book Review - Owning Your Own Shadow The shadow of the human psyche cannot be overlooked in a thorough exploration of personal...
16th Jan 2020
26

Book Review - Owning Your Own Shadow

from Blog - Anchorpointexpeditions.com [alt+shift+b] in literature

16th Jan 2020
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...
Drift Right now it is April 18 and I am walking along the steep coast at the peninsula on the Northeastern...
1st May 2025
30

Drift

from Escaping Flatland [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st May 2025
Right now it is April 18 and I am walking along the steep coast at the peninsula on the Northeastern corner of our island.
Do Not Neglect The Needful Role of the Witness Introduction Elsewhere I’ve mentioned “the role of the witness”, been sitting on this as a draft (in...
7th Jul 2025
1

Do Not Neglect The Needful Role of the Witness

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

7th Jul 2025
Introduction Elsewhere I’ve mentioned “the role of the witness”, been sitting on this as a draft (in my head) for a long time. I absolutely cannot move away from the phrasing: Do not neglect the needful role of the Witness I capitalize Witness, as this is a real “role”, and it’s...
Doomr Most of my creations can be contained within an RSS feed; Doomr cannot. You'll want to check the...
14th Feb 2024
22

Doomr

from Steven Scrawls [alt+shift+b] in literature

14th Feb 2024
Most of my creations can be contained within an RSS feed; Doomr cannot. You'll want to check the website for this one.
✏️ This Is What We Have To Lose Yesterday felt defeating with the damning report that our climate has indeed moved unfortunately...
10th Aug 2021
19

✏️ This Is What We Have To Lose

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

10th Aug 2021
Yesterday felt defeating with the damning report that our climate has indeed moved unfortunately forward into severity and decline. It’s too late for some aspects but not too late to avoid some of the worst aspects. The fires, the smoke, and the record-high temperatures that...
The world reveals itself to those who travel by foot Nothing was as scary as we thought, and everything was weirder and more friendly.
6th May 2026
1

The world reveals itself to those who travel by foot

from Escaping Flatland [alt+shift+b] in literature

6th May 2026
Nothing was as scary as we thought, and everything was weirder and more friendly.
✏️ Ernie Is Our Co-Pilot Hello. You’re receiving this long-dormant-now-re-reawakaned newsletter because at some point in the...
25th Sep 2021
17

✏️ Ernie Is Our Co-Pilot

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

25th Sep 2021
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...
How Github monopoly is destroying the open source ecosystem How Github monopoly is destroying the open source ecosystem I teach a course called "Open Source...
5th Jan 2026
1

How Github monopoly is destroying the open source ecosystem

from Ploum.net [alt+shift+b] in literature

5th Jan 2026
How Github monopoly is destroying the open source ecosystem I teach a course called "Open Source Strategies" at École Polytechnique de Louvain, part of the University of Louvain. As part of my course, students are required to find an open source project of their choice and make a...
Storytelling — Just Add Dinosaurs In a previous part, I covered the storytelling model of Matthew Dicks, who specializes in live,...
14th Mar 2024
28

Storytelling — Just Add Dinosaurs

from ribbonfarm [alt+shift+b] in literature

14th Mar 2024
In a previous part, I covered the storytelling model of Matthew Dicks, who specializes in live, spoken-word competitive storytelling from real life. He has a theory of stories I found deeply unsatisfying: That the essence of a story is a moment of character change where the...
Quand éclatera la bulle IA… Quand éclatera la bulle IA… Comme le souligne Ed Zitron, toute la bulle actuelle est basée sur 7 ou...
1st Nov 2025
1

Quand éclatera la bulle IA…

from Ploum.net [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Nov 2025
Quand éclatera la bulle IA… Comme le souligne Ed Zitron, toute la bulle actuelle est basée sur 7 ou 8 entreprises qui s’échangent des promesses de s’échanger des milliards d’euros lorsque tous les habitants de la planète dépenseront en moyenne 100€ par mois pour utiliser ChatGPT....
'My Mind Was Not Free From Perturbation' Dr. Johnson writes in his diary on January 1, 1774: “This year has past with so little improvement,...
1st Jan 2026
2

'My Mind Was Not Free From Perturbation'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Jan 2026
Dr. Johnson writes in his diary on January 1, 1774: “This year has past with so little improvement, that I doubt whether I have not [rather] impaired than encreased my Learning.”  It’s customary, of course, to make resolutions this time of year -- to lose weight or stop drinking...
Medina de Rioseco The post Medina de Rioseco appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st Jul 2026
1

Medina de Rioseco

from The American Scholar [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Jul 2026
The post Medina de Rioseco appeared first on The American Scholar.
MacKenzie Scott should have gotten Kindle in the divorce But she can still build the e-book future we’ve been waiting for. Here’s an open letter to the...
1st Oct 2026
1

MacKenzie Scott should have gotten Kindle in the divorce

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Oct 2026
But she can still build the e-book future we’ve been waiting for. Here’s an open letter to the author.
Our AI Midwife A guest post by Drew Housman
2nd Oct 2026
1

Our AI Midwife

from Astral Codex Ten [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Oct 2026
A guest post by Drew Housman
3rd Nov 2025
I'm crowdfunding my next book advance And sharing the earnings with readers.
2nd Mar 2025
48

I'm crowdfunding my next book advance

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Mar 2025
And sharing the earnings with readers.
George Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois - As Rhetoricke, yet workes not perswasion George Chapman’s Bussy D’Ambois (c. 1604, pub. 1607) is another play performed by one of London’s...
15 hours ago
1

George Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois - As Rhetoricke, yet workes not perswasion

from Wuthering Expectations [alt+shift+b] in literature

15 hours ago
George Chapman’s Bussy D’Ambois (c. 1604, pub. 1607) is another play performed by one of London’s boys’ companies.  It is a bloody, crazy tragedy disguised as a history, a strange blend of the static Senecan and dynamic Elizabethan play.  Chapman’s verse is allusive and compact –...
Seed Shanty The post Seed Shanty appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
2nd Oct 2026
1

Seed Shanty

from The Perry Bible Fellowship [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Oct 2026
The post Seed Shanty appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
Bubbled The post Bubbled appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
1st Mar 2025
52

Bubbled

from The Perry Bible Fellowship [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Mar 2025
The post Bubbled appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
Goodbye Offpunk, Welcome XKCDpunk! Goodbye Offpunk, Welcome XKCDpunk! For the last three years, I’ve been working on Offpunk, a...
1st Apr 2025
53

Goodbye Offpunk, Welcome XKCDpunk!

from Ploum.net [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Apr 2025
Goodbye Offpunk, Welcome XKCDpunk! For the last three years, I’ve been working on Offpunk, a command-line gemini and web browser. Offpunk.net While my initial goal was to browse the Geminisphere offline, the mission has slowly morphed into cleaning and unenshitiffying the modern...
Sticking With It A sobering chronicle of our toxic times The post Sticking With It appeared first on The American...
2nd Jun 2025
16

Sticking With It

from The American Scholar [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Jun 2025
A sobering chronicle of our toxic times The post Sticking With It appeared first on The American Scholar.
I want to love fiction I want to love fiction I want to love fiction. I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I...
14th Apr 2024
27

I want to love fiction

from Steven Scrawls [alt+shift+b] in literature

14th Apr 2024
I want to love fiction I want to love fiction. I want to love both reading and writing fiction. I want to obsess over the craft of fiction, to pore over characterization and structure, to create stories that radiate color and humanity and hope. I want fiction to be a tool for...
#11 Jen Segger on Adventure Racing, Endurance Coaching, and Pain as an Option Jen Segger has traveled the globe competing as a world-class adventure racing athlete. She has,...
2nd Jul 2020
1
2nd Jul 2020
Jen Segger has traveled the globe competing as a world-class adventure racing athlete. She has, for year after year, for nearly 2 decades, pushed her body to the extremes of what the human body is capable of enduring. And now, on the brink of 40, she is showing little sign...
Let Me Fix [some of] Your Parking Problems Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces. Today, we’ll be...
14th Jul 2023
23

Let Me Fix [some of] Your Parking Problems

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

14th Jul 2023
Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces. Today, we’ll be focusing on parking lots. Your parking lot has a job to do, and every day, every night, rain or shine, hot or cold, clear, rainy, or snowy, your parking lot does the best it can at...
✏️ The Work Is Never Done I went for a run. I’ve been running consistently for over a year and a half now. It’s a panacea for...
7th Nov 2024
31

✏️ The Work Is Never Done

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

7th Nov 2024
I went for a run. I’ve been running consistently for over a year and a half now. It’s a panacea for me. I run outside. I like to feel the cool wind on my skin, my pores open and sweating, the legs rhythmically turning over in pursuit of flow. In the beginning, I kept my head...
'Leaves Must Be Green in Spring' The Battle of Malvern Hill was fought near Richmond, Va., the capital of the Confederacy, on July 1,...
1st Jul 2026
1

'Leaves Must Be Green in Spring'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Jul 2026
The Battle of Malvern Hill was fought near Richmond, Va., the capital of the Confederacy, on July 1, 1862. Not as well remembered as Antietam or Gettysburg, it was the last of the Seven Days Battles in the Peninsula Campaign, and prompted Confederate General Daniel H. Hill to...
✏️ Forty Three On March 28th 2021, I turned 43. My second pandemic birthday, I turned 42 shortly after San...
14th Apr 2021
18

✏️ Forty Three

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

14th Apr 2021
On March 28th 2021, I turned 43. My second pandemic birthday, I turned 42 shortly after San Francisco went into lockdown. It feels like a lifetime has passed between now and then, and with a sense of deja vu, like it was yesterday. Except that I wasn't at home, and I was on the...
RailsConf Presentation: 'Junior' Developers are a Solution to Many of your Problems Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able...
21st May 2021
22
21st May 2021
Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able to help. Shoot me an email at [email protected] or book some time to talk at https://calendly.com/joshthompson/coffee. This talk is available on railsconf.org, here:...
Why Not Mars For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot...
1st Jan 2023
33

Why Not Mars

from Idle Words [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Jan 2023
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. — Richard Feynman Entrance to underground cavern on Pavonis Mons. HiRISE, 2011 The goal of this essay is to persuade you that we shouldn’t send human...
the gallery of maladies on long covid, hypochondria, and the forums
6th Nov 2025
1

the gallery of maladies

from the late review [alt+shift+b] in literature

6th Nov 2025
on long covid, hypochondria, and the forums
Have the Coffee Carve space out for opportunity. After speaking in Kuala Lumpur last week, people stayed to discuss...
9th Sep 2025
1

Have the Coffee

from Naz Hamid • Journal [alt+shift+b] in literature

9th Sep 2025
Carve space out for opportunity. After speaking in Kuala Lumpur last week, people stayed to discuss the topics we’d covered, forming a small group. Building community was a weighty topic during the event, with myself, host Shaza Hakim, and many attendees speaking to it. In this...
Beyond Curiosity I'm not sure he meant it that way. We were walking together in the shopping center. The central...
15th Jul 2025
1

Beyond Curiosity

from Naz Hamid • Journal [alt+shift+b] in literature

15th Jul 2025
I'm not sure he meant it that way. We were walking together in the shopping center. The central escalators made you loop around on the floor on the short side to proceed to the next set. As we neared the ground floor, headed to the food court sub-level, my father posited a...
Reading challenging books with kids is fun and probably useful I was looking through my diary from the summer of 2020 and found this entry about Maud, then three...
2nd Apr 2024
53

Reading challenging books with kids is fun and probably useful

from Escaping Flatland [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Apr 2024
I was looking through my diary from the summer of 2020 and found this entry about Maud, then three years old, in late toddlerhood. 25th of July 2020. I was doing the dishes. Maud came in. “I have looked a little in books,” she said.
39 Books: 2015 In the Spring of 1997, I visited a friend in Kassel, a city in the middle of Germany, home of the...
24th May 2024
1

39 Books: 2015

from This Space [alt+shift+b] in literature

24th May 2024
In the Spring of 1997, I visited a friend in Kassel, a city in the middle of Germany, home of the Brothers Grimm and Franz Rosenzweig, and not very far from Weimar, hence the visit to the Goethehaus mentioned in the entry for 1989. I hadn't heard of it before and nor had my...
4th May 2026
1

Open Thread 432

from Astral Codex Ten [alt+shift+b] in literature

4th May 2026
...
On Cleaner Controllers A few days ago, I worked on a project that was mostly about serving up basic store data (modeled...
9th May 2017
19

On Cleaner Controllers

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

9th May 2017
A few days ago, I worked on a project that was mostly about serving up basic store data (modeled after Etsy) to an API. We had a few dozen end-points, and all responses were in JSON. Most of the action happened inside of our controllers, and as you might imagine, our routes.rb...
Most of Life The post Most of Life appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st Apr 2026
1

Most of Life

from The American Scholar [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Apr 2026
The post Most of Life appeared first on The American Scholar.
On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle The premise of this multi-volume novel is simple: a modern-day French woman called Tara finds...
9th Jun 2025
1

On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle

from This Space [alt+shift+b] in literature

9th Jun 2025
The premise of this multi-volume novel is simple: a modern-day French woman called Tara finds herself stuck inside the eighteenth day of a November. The nineteenth never appears. On the 121st iteration of the same day she begins to write by describing the sounds made by her...
Change your MAC address with a shell script For a while, I’ve had notes from Change or Spoof a MAC Address in Windows or OS X saved, so if I am...
18th Dec 2019
27

Change your MAC address with a shell script

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

18th Dec 2019
For a while, I’ve had notes from Change or Spoof a MAC Address in Windows or OS X saved, so if I am using a wifi connection that limits me to thirty minutes or an hour or whatever, I can “spoof” a new MAC address, and when I re-connect to the wifi, the access point thinks I’m on...
1st Jun 2022
The Universe in Verse Book "We need science to help us meet reality on its own terms, and we need poetry to help us broaden and...
1st May 2024
52

The Universe in Verse Book

from The Marginalian [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st May 2024
"We need science to help us meet reality on its own terms, and we need poetry to help us broaden and deepen the terms on which we meet ourselves and each other. At the crossing point of the two we may find a way of clarifying our experience and of sanctifying it."
Platform or Point Solution? A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech...
8th Mar 2025
62

Platform or Point Solution?

from ben-mini [alt+shift+b] in literature

8th Mar 2025
A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech companies are so determined to become labeled as one. My definition of a platform is a tool that allows users to define and build their own things, which can be used by other...
'Give Thanks for All Things' “It is the province of poems to make some order in the world, but poets can’t afford to forget...
1st Mar 2026
1

'Give Thanks for All Things'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Mar 2026
“It is the province of poems to make some order in the world, but poets can’t afford to forget that there is a reality of things which survives all orders great and small. Things are. The cow is there. No poetry can have any strength unless it continually bashes itself against...
Upgrade your job So, apparently I send a lot of email about people trying to get cool jobs. Here’s yet another email...
30th Oct 2015
21

Upgrade your job

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

30th Oct 2015
So, apparently I send a lot of email about people trying to get cool jobs. Here’s yet another email I sent to a friend, recorded here.  Hi [redacted], First I want to highlight is that flexible/remote jobs are just like normal jobs, but more people want them, so the companies...
How I take notes, AKA 'Add an Index to Your Notebook' A while back, sometime in 2017, I wrote this tweet: a while ago, I read about how to keep...
4th Sep 2019
33

How I take notes, AKA 'Add an Index to Your Notebook'

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

4th Sep 2019
A while back, sometime in 2017, I wrote this tweet: a while ago, I read about how to keep well-organized notes on a range of topics. Here's my current notebook, indexed by category: pic.twitter.com/aVsNnGPEpd — Josh Thompson (@josh_works) May 8, 2017 Since then, I occasionally...
Book Review - Dancing Naked in the Mind Field Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is...
26th Jun 2021
49

Book Review - Dancing Naked in the Mind Field

from Blog - Anchorpointexpeditions.com [alt+shift+b] in literature

26th Jun 2021
Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, the autobiography of Kary Mullis, published in 1998, is reminiscent of another Nobel Prize winning autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!. Dr. Mullis and Dr. Feynman had a great deal in common, including their incomprehensible...
Idea Labs! An open thread for collaborative worldbuilding Let's brainstorm the future together.
22nd Mar 2024
58

Idea Labs! An open thread for collaborative worldbuilding

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

22nd Mar 2024
Let's brainstorm the future together.
[RIDGELINE] Kazunori Hamana in Apartamento Ridgeline subscribers — Man, it was fun talking with Kazunori Hamana back in January. He’s lived a...
12th Jul 2026
1

[RIDGELINE] Kazunori Hamana in Apartamento

from Craig Mod — Writer + Photographer [alt+shift+b] in literature

12th Jul 2026
Ridgeline subscribers — Man, it was fun talking with Kazunori Hamana back in January. He’s lived a bizarre life, seemingly one without a roadmap, though I suspect his laid-back, subtly-goatee’d vibes belie a cunning streak. He was welcoming and rough-edged in a disarming way. He...
Pry Tips and Tricks the following is cross-posted from development.wombatsecurity.com. I wrote about some handy extra...
7th May 2018
20

Pry Tips and Tricks

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

7th May 2018
the following is cross-posted from development.wombatsecurity.com. I wrote about some handy extra features I’ve found using Pry much of my day. I joined the Wombat team a few months ago, and have been working on the threatsim product. We had a bit of a bug backlog, and myself and...
`ls` command to show directory contents I like to use the tree command on my local machine when trying to peek into the structure and...
3rd Oct 2018
23

`ls` command to show directory contents

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Oct 2018
I like to use the tree command on my local machine when trying to peek into the structure and contents of a given directory. tree -L 2 will [L]ist recursively everything [2] levels deep from your current directory. The output is nicely formatted like this: > tree -L 2 . ├──...
Demonstration Junction Repair on Downing in Denver I was out and about by scooter a recent warm january saturday evening. Earlier in the week a few...
9th Dec 2025
1

Demonstration Junction Repair on Downing in Denver

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

9th Dec 2025
I was out and about by scooter a recent warm january saturday evening. Earlier in the week a few companies had been operating drilling equipment in the area. I’m not sure what they were doing, but they were scattered all about the neighborhood. The work was done, but traffic...
Love and the Sacred "I did not know what love was until I encountered one that kept opening and opening and opening."
3rd Jan 2024
89

Love and the Sacred

from The Marginalian [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Jan 2024
"I did not know what love was until I encountered one that kept opening and opening and opening."
Blood Flow Restriction with Tyler old draft, publishing, needs polish. Me: Sport climber, decade+, of and on a few different times...
16th Feb 2019
1

Blood Flow Restriction with Tyler

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

16th Feb 2019
old draft, publishing, needs polish. Me: Sport climber, decade+, of and on a few different times over the years. Educate myself, train as effectively and safely as I can. I’m 30, and wanna hit some significant climbing goals by 40, and a big part of that is getting stronger,...
William James on Love "If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms...
3rd Apr 2024
62

William James on Love

from The Marginalian [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Apr 2024
"If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value of the creature loved."
What I Read in May 2025 – “There’s the store that’s shaped like a duck,” Franca said. First, my poor email subscribers missed some of the installments of my newsletter about Anthony...
2nd Jun 2025
1
2nd Jun 2025
First, my poor email subscribers missed some of the installments of my newsletter about Anthony Powell.  If this keeps happening I will have to think of something or even do something.  Here they are: A skippable piece of throat-clearing about the roman fleuve. What I think...
Writing Prompt: Design the future of the internet! Participate in our next essay collection and print pamphlet.
2nd Jan 2026
2

Writing Prompt: Design the future of the internet!

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Jan 2026
Participate in our next essay collection and print pamphlet.
3rd Nov 2025
✏️ Grantland Day 22: Oct 1, 2023 — As we suspect, the weather reports prove wildly inaccurate. At 8,000 feet,...
1st Oct 2023
19

✏️ Grantland

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Oct 2023
Day 22: Oct 1, 2023 — As we suspect, the weather reports prove wildly inaccurate. At 8,000 feet, we’re subject to alpine weather rules. Meaning, isolated storms can cycle in at anytime, and they do. Lightning flashes, thunder cracks. We sleep in fits and starts. I remove the...
✏️ Dissocial Media I've been writing in my real handwritten journal in recent weeks that I've felt the weight of social...
1st Aug 2023
21

✏️ Dissocial Media

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Aug 2023
I've been writing in my real handwritten journal in recent weeks that I've felt the weight of social networks. And the manipulation and behavior patterning it's designed to do. I worked for a softer social network for almost two years and while we weren't as abhorrent as the huge...
A Messy Mix The post A Messy Mix appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st May 2024
64

A Messy Mix

from The American Scholar [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st May 2024
The post A Messy Mix appeared first on The American Scholar.
Invasion of the Universe I wonder how many of those of us who write exclusively on literature and read only novels, poetry,...
14th May 2026
1

Invasion of the Universe

from This Space [alt+shift+b] in literature

14th May 2026
I wonder how many of those of us who write exclusively on literature and read only novels, poetry, literary criticism and occasionally into related subjects, have an otherwise unaccountable curiosity with another beyond the literary horizon. Many, I imagine. I'm not talking about...
Social Development > Self-Development We need one much more than the other.
1st Jan 2025
72

Social Development > Self-Development

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Jan 2025
We need one much more than the other.
How To Write A Letter of Recommendation for Yourself I meet regularly with early-career software developers. A few recurring meetings, 1x/week, plus...
6th Aug 2020
28

How To Write A Letter of Recommendation for Yourself

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

6th Aug 2020
I meet regularly with early-career software developers. A few recurring meetings, 1x/week, plus ad-hoc calls as needed with others. A question came up recently: My three-month internship is close to wrapping up. The Co-founder/CEO/lead developer of the consulting company I’m at...
A fundamental deprivation: Montevideo by Enrique Vila-Matas Perhaps all novels seek to converge on a single point.  The thought occurred to me as I read...
16th Apr 2026
1

A fundamental deprivation: Montevideo by Enrique Vila-Matas

from This Space [alt+shift+b] in literature

16th Apr 2026
Perhaps all novels seek to converge on a single point.  The thought occurred to me as I read Vila-Matas' Montevideo, translated by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott. A random thought, apparently, but also the kind of thought provoked by the passion of observation, anecdote and...
SF Zine Fest 2026 The antithesis of slop. It's been a few years since I'd attended the SF Zine Fest. Friend Scott Boms...
7th Sep 2026
1

SF Zine Fest 2026

from Naz Hamid • Journal [alt+shift+b] in literature

7th Sep 2026
The antithesis of slop. It's been a few years since I'd attended the SF Zine Fest. Friend Scott Boms had a table with his Matter Editions wares, and it's a 10-minute walk from home, so Jen and I had to go. Held at The Hibernia, it was a treat to actually go into this historic...
A mighty contagious absence, part two On submission and resistance to AI-generated literature   To great writers, finished works weigh...
26th May 2025
1

A mighty contagious absence, part two

from This Space [alt+shift+b] in literature

26th May 2025
On submission and resistance to AI-generated literature   To great writers, finished works weigh lighter than those fragments on which they work throughout their lives. For only the more feeble and distracted take an inimitable pleasure in conclusions, feeling themselves...
The Feather Detective: How Roxie Laybourne Pioneered Forensic Ornithology You wouldn’t know it, looking at the tiny elderly woman in the white lab coat bent over a table in a...
1st Oct 2025
21

The Feather Detective: How Roxie Laybourne Pioneered Forensic Ornithology

from The Marginalian [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Oct 2025
You wouldn’t know it, looking at the tiny elderly woman in the white lab coat bent over a table in a halogen-lit government office, you wouldn’t know she had spent her youth doing science with her whole body: extracting herself from a deadly mudflat with stubbornness and applied...
Anthony Powell's style and sensibility - Life is full of internal dramas, instantaneous and... Nicholas Jenkins – I did not register his name at all for the entire first novel, but I know it now...
22nd May 2025
1
22nd May 2025
Nicholas Jenkins – I did not register his name at all for the entire first novel, but I know it now – goes to school, gets a job in publishing, writes a novel, gets a girlfriend, gets a job as a script writer, splits with the girlfriend, and writes another novel or two, none of...
Reading, ignorance The papacy, people say, counts in centuries, and perhaps never even thinks of counting, because its...
23rd Jun 2026
1

Reading, ignorance

from This Space [alt+shift+b] in literature

23rd Jun 2026
The papacy, people say, counts in centuries, and perhaps never even thinks of counting, because its goal is eternity.1   It has been a pleasure every few months to buy the latest volume in the new translation of À la recherche du temps perdu. I've now read the third, by Peter...
[RIDGELINE] A Few London Strolls Ridgeline subscribers — For the last ten days I’ve been walking around London. Mostly in a little...
8th Sep 2026
2

[RIDGELINE] A Few London Strolls

from Craig Mod — Writer + Photographer [alt+shift+b] in literature

8th Sep 2026
Ridgeline subscribers — For the last ten days I’ve been walking around London. Mostly in a little corner of it in the northeast part of the city. But can you even call a part a “corner” when the city extends in every direction without stopping? Whatever you call it, I’ve been in...
the mirror-self an obsession
12th Dec 2025
2

the mirror-self

from the late review [alt+shift+b] in literature

12th Dec 2025
an obsession
✏️ Midlife Malaise The past few days have felt heavy. In a weird headspace, floating in the middle of space between a...
8th Jun 2023
19

✏️ Midlife Malaise

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

8th Jun 2023
The past few days have felt heavy. In a weird headspace, floating in the middle of space between a destination or goal, or rather, a state I aspire to, but seeing a road ahead of which the length is unknown. It feels like a lot of things have been taken, removed, or no longer...
✏️ The New Design A few times a week, we get emails from students and young designers looking for an internship or...
21st May 2013
18

✏️ The New Design

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

21st May 2013
A few times a week, we get emails from students and young designers looking for an internship or full-time opportunities at the studio. We’re not quite ready in terms of needing outside help, so these are unsolicited inquiries. We don’t make any mention of not accepting them as...
1st Jun 2025
Circles of Influence I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write...
5th Mar 2016
20

Circles of Influence

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

5th Mar 2016
I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write about, or you’ve hit a block, write about something that angers you. This is easy. I could write about any number of things that we’ve all read in a newspaper, and get good and angry...
2020 Annual Review please note: i’m publishing this far after it was drafted, which was in January 2021. It’s being...
27th Jun 2022
26

2020 Annual Review

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

27th Jun 2022
please note: i’m publishing this far after it was drafted, which was in January 2021. It’s being published in June 2022 - I’m trying to back-fill ‘annual reviews’, I never finished this one or published it, until now. Is it even possible to mention a 2020 review without somehow...
Creative kernels Artists can often trace entire pieces around one idea that drives everything else.
1st Jul 2024
24

Creative kernels

from sbensu [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Jul 2024
Artists can often trace entire pieces around one idea that drives everything else.
Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction In Part 1, I examined a few common tropes in...
6th Jun 2024
27

Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction

from Steven Scrawls [alt+shift+b] in literature

6th Jun 2024
Easy Questions, Part 2: Delusional Desires in Fiction In Part 1, I examined a few common tropes in stories and suggested that some stories might explore certain questions not because those questions are interesting, but because engaging with those questions allows the story to...
Practicing with Polylines This is a first pass at trying to do something interesting (repeatedly) with the same base...
10th Sep 2024
39

Practicing with Polylines

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

10th Sep 2024
This is a first pass at trying to do something interesting (repeatedly) with the same base primative, in this case, a “polyline”. Read the rest of this post, understand what we’re going for, then go to part 2: get your own polyline from strava. It’s not trivial to get, but its...
A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept The following is recounted on  Quora, from a lecture by Stanford professor John Ousterhout (he’s in...
26th Jun 2015
22

A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

26th Jun 2015
The following is recounted on  Quora, from a lecture by Stanford professor John Ousterhout (he’s in the Computer Science department): Here’s today’s thought for the weekend.  A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of Y-intercept.   [Laughter] So at a mathematical level this is...
#94 Jay St. Charles on Project Quiver Jay St. Charles is a legendary bowyer based in Fall City, Washington. While he was born into the...
7th Sep 2026
1

#94 Jay St. Charles on Project Quiver

from Salish Wolf [alt+shift+b] in literature

7th Sep 2026
Jay St. Charles is a legendary bowyer based in Fall City, Washington. While he was born into the world of archery and grew up in his father’s archery shop, Jay eventually became a master bowyer, carving bows under the brand of Pacific Yew Longbows. He lives on a small...
Let's read the Terra Ignota series together Our summer reading is Ada Palmer's feat of utopian worldbuilding.
3rd Jul 2024
108

Let's read the Terra Ignota series together

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Jul 2024
Our summer reading is Ada Palmer's feat of utopian worldbuilding.
Quotes from 'Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving', by Pete Walker I’ve found Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving to be deeply helpful. Some of you,...
11th Aug 2022
24

Quotes from 'Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving', by Pete Walker

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

11th Aug 2022
I’ve found Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving to be deeply helpful. Some of you, many of you, have blessed me and cared for me in kind ways, sometimes with very little knowledge of what was going on, or why I was the way that I was. Thank you. I’ve been...
🔗 What price? If anything, as the well gets poisoned by their own outputs, large language models may well end up...
6th Oct 2024
21

🔗 What price?

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

6th Oct 2024
If anything, as the well gets poisoned by their own outputs, large language models may well end up eating their own slop and getting their own version of mad cow disease. So this might be as good as they’re ever going to get. — Jeremy Keith I use AI. Not particularly for...
Modality Switching Online I hate it when my dad leaves me a voicemail. Whenever I open my phone and see the pending voicemail,...
8th Jun 2024
26

Modality Switching Online

from ben-mini [alt+shift+b] in literature

8th Jun 2024
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...
Training for climbing (progress update) I am at the end of my second iteration of climbing training, and this is how it went and what I...
3rd Jun 2013
27

Training for climbing (progress update)

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Jun 2013
I am at the end of my second iteration of climbing training, and this is how it went and what I learned: I completed the workout twelve times, but I took a twelve-day break between workout eleven and twelve. I first skipped a workout because I had ripped skin open on one of my...
H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know Don't give your true love a partridge, turtledoves, or (especially) French hens
1st Jan 2025
48

H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

from Astral Codex Ten [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Jan 2025
Don't give your true love a partridge, turtledoves, or (especially) French hens
An essay in which my friend feels stuck and I suggest relaxing some constraints The short version is that my friend, in my opinion, thinks about what he wants in a too constrained...
5th Mar 2025
52

An essay in which my friend feels stuck and I suggest relaxing some constraints

from Escaping Flatland [alt+shift+b] in literature

5th Mar 2025
The short version is that my friend, in my opinion, thinks about what he wants in a too constrained way.
Baseline Loss What the days look like now. I buzzed my hair down today. I needed to baseline it. I still have a...
2nd Mar 2026
1

Baseline Loss

from Naz Hamid • Journal [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Mar 2026
What the days look like now. I buzzed my hair down today. I needed to baseline it. I still have a healthy amount of hair, but it’s going. I have a semblance of vanity, but I knew from my father’s own hair loss where mine would eventually head to (hahahaha). I’m not vain enough to...
What I Read in September 2025 – A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme My writing on Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great plays has been hampered by an apparent...
7th Oct 2025
1

What I Read in September 2025 – A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme

from Wuthering Expectations [alt+shift+b] in literature

7th Oct 2025
My writing on Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great plays has been hampered by an apparent post-France short circuit in my ability to write.  So I will put up some easier posts to remind myself how to write. I had two major projects this month, one ongoing, one returned to...
Ralph Roister Doister, among the first regular English comedies - Then to our recorder with... Ralph Roister Doister (written c. 1550, published 1567) once had the distinction of being the first...
2nd Sep 2025
1
2nd Sep 2025
Ralph Roister Doister (written c. 1550, published 1567) once had the distinction of being the first comedy in English.  Please see this 1911 edition of the play calling it “the first regular English comedy.”  I do not know what 19th century critics meant by “regular” but this...
A Retrospective on Seven Months at Turing Collection of thoughts on Turing It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software...
8th Aug 2017
19

A Retrospective on Seven Months at Turing

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

8th Aug 2017
Collection of thoughts on Turing It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software engineering program, and it’s been a journey. In no particular order, I’m throwing down thoughts in three general categories: What went well What didn’t go well What I might have...
From the Labor Camp to the Pantheon of Literature: How Dostoyevsky Became a Writer "I have nothing, except for certain, and perhaps very minor, literary abilities."
1st Sep 2024
86
1st Sep 2024
"I have nothing, except for certain, and perhaps very minor, literary abilities."
My Taipei Quarantine Part of what brought me to Taiwan was bureaucratic thrill seeking. Few other countries had gone...
26th Apr 2022
29

My Taipei Quarantine

from Idle Words [alt+shift+b] in literature

26th Apr 2022
Part of what brought me to Taiwan was bureaucratic thrill seeking. Few other countries had gone from “just hop on a plane” to North Korean levels of inaccessibility as fast as Taiwan, and like a cat that paws at a door just because it's closed, I wanted in. The country was...
Trader Joe's Parking Lot Hey Trader Joe’s, This is a bit of an open letter, inspired by a recent visit to the local Trader...
13th Dec 2023
21

Trader Joe's Parking Lot

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

13th Dec 2023
Hey Trader Joe’s, This is a bit of an open letter, inspired by a recent visit to the local Trader Joe’s. I just moved to this part of Denver, and now for the first time am living within like a 3 minute scoot of a Trader Joe’s. I know that some people like to complain about...
Consciousness, Artificial Intelligence, and Our Search for Meaning: Oliver Sacks on ChatGPT, 30... "We are not incoherent, a bundle of sensations, but a self, rising from experience, continually...
2nd May 2023
86
2nd May 2023
"We are not incoherent, a bundle of sensations, but a self, rising from experience, continually growing and revised... Through experience, education, art, and life, we teach our brains to become unique. We learn to be individuals. This is a neurological learning as well as a...
✏️ Boy Meets Girl At the request of my much loyal readership (I’m looking at you Lacey), the story of how I came to be...
26th Oct 2004
17

✏️ Boy Meets Girl

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

26th Oct 2004
At the request of my much loyal readership (I’m looking at you Lacey), the story of how I came to be with girl seems to be of interest. I know, I know. I disappear for a bit from writing and then I return smitten, enamoured and very much exploring a journey I’m quite glad to be...
'Poor Naked Wretches, Whereso’er You Are' Aleksander Wat (1900-67) was a Polish poet and one-time Communist hounded and imprisoned by Nazis...
1st May 2025
21

'Poor Naked Wretches, Whereso’er You Are'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st May 2025
Aleksander Wat (1900-67) was a Polish poet and one-time Communist hounded and imprisoned by Nazis and Soviets alike. In 1964 while visiting California, he recorded lengthy conversations with fellow poet and Pole Czesław Miłosz. The transcripts were translated by Richard Lourie...
'To Mold Clay, Fashion Men From It' Certain writers lay claim to a piece of geography. Think of Cavafy’s Alexandria and William...
1st Jun 2026
1

'To Mold Clay, Fashion Men From It'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Jun 2026
Certain writers lay claim to a piece of geography. Think of Cavafy’s Alexandria and William Kennedy’s Albany. Outsiders may visit but the deed is ironclad. When I hear something in the news about the Caucasus, that often-contested band of mountains between the Black Sea and the...
Why schedule something that doesn't exist? The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow. Then, I left the...
5th May 2016
22

Why schedule something that doesn't exist?

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

5th May 2016
The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow. Then, I left the room for a bit. I didn’t have anything to say. Or, I didn’t think I did. Yet, all over my computer, and in various list trackers and note-taking apps, I’ve got dozens of ideas to...
When coordination pays off Stories about Stripe Link where we have to do a lot of upfront coordination but it was worth it.
6th Oct 2024
38

When coordination pays off

from sbensu [alt+shift+b] in literature

6th Oct 2024
Stories about Stripe Link where we have to do a lot of upfront coordination but it was worth it.
How to: friction logs Friction logs are a technique to improve your own products and understand others. You use the...
12th Dec 2023
30

How to: friction logs

from sbensu [alt+shift+b] in literature

12th Dec 2023
Friction logs are a technique to improve your own products and understand others. You use the produdct the way a real user would and write down every single moment you experience some form of negative emotion.
Some relationships deepen when you tell the truth and some end I asked people to send me stories about situations where they had done what felt right to them, even...
11th Mar 2026
1

Some relationships deepen when you tell the truth and some end

from Escaping Flatland [alt+shift+b] in literature

11th Mar 2026
I asked people to send me stories about situations where they had done what felt right to them, even though they feared social pushback.
Three Ways to Decide What to be When You Grow Up Recently, I have had to explain to people what is it that I want to do. This question is difficult...
20th Dec 2012
24

Three Ways to Decide What to be When You Grow Up

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

20th Dec 2012
Recently, I have had to explain to people what is it that I want to do. This question is difficult to answer for two reasons. The first reason is I am not yet strongly pulled into a specific position. My ideal answer would be “I want to do X role at company Y.” Short. Concise....
3rd Oct 2026
History is More Like Science Fiction Than Fantasy I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I...
2nd Apr 2024
33

History is More Like Science Fiction Than Fantasy

from ribbonfarm [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Apr 2024
I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I visited the city (on Kindle, so I didn’t realize when I started that it’s 600 pages plus another 250 odd notes). It’s dense and absorbing and I’ll probably do a reflections post...
The Porcupine Dilemma: Schopenhauer’s Parable about Negotiating the Optimal Distance in Love This is the supreme challenge of intimacy — how to reconcile the aching yearning for closeness with...
3rd Aug 2023
76
3rd Aug 2023
This is the supreme challenge of intimacy — how to reconcile the aching yearning for closeness with the painful pressures of actually being close, how to forge a bond tight enough to feel the warmth of connection but spacious enough to feel free. Kahlil Gibran knew this when he...
1st May 2022
Imagination vs. Creativity I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with....
14th Jul 2024
45

Imagination vs. Creativity

from ribbonfarm [alt+shift+b] in literature

14th Jul 2024
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...
2018 In Review & Thoughts on 2019 I find a lot of value in other people’s reviews of their years. It’s the time of year to be...
5th May 2019
34

2018 In Review & Thoughts on 2019

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

5th May 2019
I find a lot of value in other people’s reviews of their years. It’s the time of year to be contemplative and reflective on the last 12 months, so here we are. Note to reader: I’m posting this in May, 2019. I wrote it in late December, 2018, didn’t get around to finishing it up...
People are too big to fit inside our heads Notes on relationships, conversation, Dostoevsky, and Bakhtin
2nd Jun 2026
2

People are too big to fit inside our heads

from Escaping Flatland [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Jun 2026
Notes on relationships, conversation, Dostoevsky, and Bakhtin
Socratic dialogue with kids I’m simply trying to understand how she thinks. When she answers in a way that does not match my...
7th Dec 2023
42

Socratic dialogue with kids

from Escaping Flatland [alt+shift+b] in literature

7th Dec 2023
I’m simply trying to understand how she thinks. When she answers in a way that does not match my understanding—that is interesting to me.
Book Review - The Surrender Experiment With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this...
6th Apr 2020
39

Book Review - The Surrender Experiment

from Blog - Anchorpointexpeditions.com [alt+shift+b] in literature

6th Apr 2020
With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this eloquently penned biography of his “journey into life’s perfection”, he demonstrates the beauty that life can provide for us when we are not solely guided by our logical,...
If we fix the phone, we fix society Here's how I would redesign it.
22nd Sep 2026
3

If we fix the phone, we fix society

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

22nd Sep 2026
Here's how I would redesign it.
✏️ Liquid Gold Hi, this is Weightshifting, a newsletter by Naz Hamid and Jen Schuetz, primarily about vehicular...
10th Sep 2023
17

✏️ Liquid Gold

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

10th Sep 2023
Hi, this is Weightshifting, a newsletter by Naz Hamid and Jen Schuetz, primarily about vehicular travel and exploring the American West. This is season 2, en route from San Francisco to St. Louis. Our primary reason is to visit Jen’s family and attend a wedding. Our secondary...
I Once Worked Hard When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career...
12th Apr 2013
23

I Once Worked Hard

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

12th Apr 2013
When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career there. I was a college graduate (that means something, right?) working at a climbing gym, part time, teaching seven-year-olds how to climb at about $10 an hour. I had no idea what I...
On mentors What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have...
8th Nov 2023
35

On mentors

from Escaping Flatland [alt+shift+b] in literature

8th Nov 2023
What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have that privilege?
20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 3) 20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 3) Previously in "20 years of Linux on the Deskop": After...
8th Mar 2025
51

20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 3)

from Ploum.net [alt+shift+b] in literature

8th Mar 2025
20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 3) Previously in "20 years of Linux on the Deskop": After contributing to the launch of Ubuntu as the "perfect Linux desktop", Ploum realises that Ubuntu is drifting away from both Debian and GNOME. But something else is about to shake the...
Humanity from the perspective of robots Talking points for our literary salon next week.
1st May 2024
90

Humanity from the perspective of robots

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st May 2024
Talking points for our literary salon next week.
De la décadence technologique et des luddites technophiles De la décadence technologique et des luddites technophiles La valeur de texte brut Thierry s’essaie...
6th Feb 2025
44

De la décadence technologique et des luddites technophiles

from Ploum.net [alt+shift+b] in literature

6th Feb 2025
De la décadence technologique et des luddites technophiles La valeur de texte brut Thierry s’essaie à publier son blog sur le réseau Gemini, mais a du mal avec le format minimaliste. Qui est justement pour moi la meilleure partie du protocole Gemini. La low-tech peut-elle...
Book Notes: 'The Case Against Sugar' by Gary Taube In the last few weeks, I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes. I found it to be compelling...
12th Aug 2019
21

Book Notes: 'The Case Against Sugar' by Gary Taube

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

12th Aug 2019
In the last few weeks, I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes. I found it to be compelling (more on that in a moment) and I want to be impacted by them. I want the daily decisions that I make to be subtly influenced by this author and these books. Related but in a different...
The Stolen Lines The post The Stolen Lines appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st Sep 2025
41

The Stolen Lines

from The American Scholar [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Sep 2025
The post The Stolen Lines appeared first on The American Scholar.
5th Jan 2024
I Don’t Have a Smartphone… I Don’t Have a Smartphone… …or, at least, I wish I didn’t. "I don’t have a smartphone," is what I...
2nd Sep 2026
2

I Don’t Have a Smartphone…

from Ploum.net [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Sep 2026
I Don’t Have a Smartphone… …or, at least, I wish I didn’t. "I don’t have a smartphone," is what I tell people and professionals nowadays. This allows me to cut the crap about companies insisting that I install their app or restaurants wishing that I scan a QR code to access their...
Cities should own their land—like Vienna and Amsterdam Land autonomy beats governance autonomy every time.
2nd Mar 2026
1

Cities should own their land—like Vienna and Amsterdam

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Mar 2026
Land autonomy beats governance autonomy every time.
Fade to Blue Redesigning as a method of interrogation. Okay, okay, okay. I did it again. Sometimes you design a...
24th Jun 2026
1

Fade to Blue

from Naz Hamid • Journal [alt+shift+b] in literature

24th Jun 2026
Redesigning as a method of interrogation. Okay, okay, okay. I did it again. Sometimes you design a thing, or redesign it, or evolve it, and you think you're there. But this unsettling feeling sinks in, and you think: “I’m not happy with this. What’s the problem?” Friggin'...
3rd Oct 2024
108

Yes, Taylor Swift is just as genius as Mary Shelley

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Oct 2024
The video from our live event.
✏️ The Amasa 25K, My First Trail Race Two years ago, I broke my elbow. A year ago, I put cycling on hold due to discomfort on the bike and...
29th May 2024
22

✏️ The Amasa 25K, My First Trail Race

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

29th May 2024
Two years ago, I broke my elbow. A year ago, I put cycling on hold due to discomfort on the bike and soon after started running as a cardio and endurance-based complement to my longstanding passion for rock climbing. Trail running and ultras have captured my attention in recent...
bride and sister, be to your brother sentimental incest in Die Walküre
3rd Apr 2025
1

bride and sister, be to your brother

from the late review [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Apr 2025
sentimental incest in Die Walküre
Bangalore Meetup Report Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal...
6th Jun 2024
27

Bangalore Meetup Report

from ribbonfarm [alt+shift+b] in literature

6th Jun 2024
Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal for organizing. I think this is the first meetup I’ve done since the last Refactor Camp in 2019. It was kinda last minute, which is why I only posted on Substack rather than here...
Load Testing your app with Siege Last time, I dug into using Apache Benchmark to do performance testing on a page that requires...
2nd Jul 2019
24

Load Testing your app with Siege

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Jul 2019
Last time, I dug into using Apache Benchmark to do performance testing on a page that requires authentication to access. Today, we’ll figure out how to use siege to visit many unique URLs on our page, and to get benchmarks on that process. I’ll next figure out performance...
✏️ Borrego Boogie Almost a year ago, Jen and I headed south to Bishop, then a run through Death Valley, an obnoxiously...
8th Mar 2023
17

✏️ Borrego Boogie

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

8th Mar 2023
Almost a year ago, Jen and I headed south to Bishop, then a run through Death Valley, an obnoxiously windy night in Alabama Hills, and then reset in San Diego before a good run and a few nights in Anza-Borrego desert. It's remarkable that a place this wild and surprisingly...
'Try to Make Something New' Almost the only thing I ever write down so I don’t forget it is the grocery list. Sporadically I...
1st Feb 2026
1

'Try to Make Something New'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Feb 2026
Almost the only thing I ever write down so I don’t forget it is the grocery list. Sporadically I kept a diary when younger but each time the essential tedium of recording quotidian events defeated me. I discovered that most of my own life, the practical stuff that consumes so...
John Quincy Adams on Impostor Syndrome and the True Measure of Success “You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All...
3rd Jun 2024
99

John Quincy Adams on Impostor Syndrome and the True Measure of Success

from The Marginalian [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Jun 2024
“You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All expectation is a story of the possible. Every person lives inside a story of who they are, what they are worth, and what is possible for their life, and suffers in proportion to how...
The Sunflower and the Soul: Wendell Berry on the Collaborative Nature of the Universe and the Cure... "We are not the authors of ourselves. That we are not is a religious perception, but it is also a...
1st Jul 2024
99
1st Jul 2024
"We are not the authors of ourselves. That we are not is a religious perception, but it is also a biological and a social one. Each of us has had many authors, and each of us is engaged, for better or worse, in that same authorship. We could say that the human race is a great...
28th Jan 2026
1

my enemy, the leitmotif

from the late review [alt+shift+b] in literature

28th Jan 2026
a missive
Inside Man A young reporter’s devastating exposé of the amoral elite The post Inside Man appeared first on The...
1st Jun 2026
1

Inside Man

from The American Scholar [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Jun 2026
A young reporter’s devastating exposé of the amoral elite The post Inside Man appeared first on The American Scholar.
On Looking: Poet Lia Purpura on the Art of Noticing “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands...
4th Sep 2025
47

On Looking: Poet Lia Purpura on the Art of Noticing

from The Marginalian [alt+shift+b] in literature

4th Sep 2025
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way,” William Blake wrote in his most spirited letter. “As a man is, so he sees.” Because how we look at the world shapes the world we see, every act of noticing is an act...
the hairshirt doldrums on having a brain injury
6th Mar 2025
1

the hairshirt doldrums

from the late review [alt+shift+b] in literature

6th Mar 2025
on having a brain injury
Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself and bloom When people talk about the value of paying attention and slowing down, they often make it sound...
4th Sep 2025
105
4th Sep 2025
When people talk about the value of paying attention and slowing down, they often make it sound prudish and monk-like. But we shouldn’t forget how interesting and overpoweringly pleasurable sustained attention can be.
Mythical Creatures: Refactoring wizard.rb Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
25th Jan 2020
22

Mythical Creatures: Refactoring wizard.rb

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

25th Jan 2020
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Octavia Butler on Religion and the Spirituality of Symbiosis "On many levels, we wind up being strengthened by what we join, or what joins us, as well as by what...
2nd Nov 2023
35

Octavia Butler on Religion and the Spirituality of Symbiosis

from The Marginalian [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Nov 2023
"On many levels, we wind up being strengthened by what we join, or what joins us, as well as by what we combat."
✏️ The Dark is Dubious We find ourselves sitting by a heated pool in autumn temperatures at 7,200 feet. Santa Fe has been...
1st Oct 2021
20

✏️ The Dark is Dubious

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Oct 2021
We find ourselves sitting by a heated pool in autumn temperatures at 7,200 feet. Santa Fe has been home for two nights, where we luxuriated in a king-size bed with our own pillows (we don’t leave home without them). How We Got Here Since the last missive, we parted ways with...
Gary Snyder on How to Unbreak the World "What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands...
1st Feb 2025
63

Gary Snyder on How to Unbreak the World

from The Marginalian [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Feb 2025
"What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands and minds."
Creating a global safety net without nation-states A Guest Lecture featuring Sondre Rasch, co-founder and CEO of SafetyWing.
3rd Jun 2025
38

Creating a global safety net without nation-states

from The Elysian [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Jun 2025
A Guest Lecture featuring Sondre Rasch, co-founder and CEO of SafetyWing.
Ribbonfarm is Retiring After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I’ve...
11th Oct 2024
46

Ribbonfarm is Retiring

from ribbonfarm [alt+shift+b] in literature

11th Oct 2024
After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I’ve decided to officially fully retire this blog. The ribbonfarm.com domain and all links will remain active, but there will be no new content after November 13th, 2024, which happens to be...
Building FirstMover I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly...
14th Sep 2024
29

Building FirstMover

from ben-mini [alt+shift+b] in literature

14th Sep 2024
I had one month to find a place to live in Manhattan. I reached out to friends for tips, and nearly all of them pointed me to StreetEasy, the Zillow-owned NYC real estate search platform. Some of my more Type-A friends gave me extra helpful advice: Narrow your search to 2-4...
Designing for support teams Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from...
5th Feb 2024
23

Designing for support teams

from sbensu [alt+shift+b] in literature

5th Feb 2024
Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from consumer software. Here are some things to keep in mind.
22nd Oct 2021
Jane Skafte The language of trees The post Jane Skafte appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st Jul 2024
87

Jane Skafte

from The American Scholar [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Jul 2024
The language of trees The post Jane Skafte appeared first on The American Scholar.
On Rdio Rdio comes out of beta, and what a glorious service it is. Music is a huge part of many people’s...
8th Jun 2010
1

On Rdio

from Naz Hamid • Journal [alt+shift+b] in literature

8th Jun 2010
Rdio comes out of beta, and what a glorious service it is. Music is a huge part of many people’s lives. It seems odd that music is essentially sounds and noises put together to form something that transcends its individual parts. Music, even in its simplest form is a whole, made...
What I Read in February 2026 – Mouek mouek mouek… Ma-a-a-a… Ma-aa-a… said Saha I am almost on my way to London.  Some Shakespearian and Not Shakespearian activities are on the...
1st Mar 2026
1

What I Read in February 2026 – Mouek mouek mouek… Ma-a-a-a… Ma-aa-a… said Saha

from Wuthering Expectations [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Mar 2026
I am almost on my way to London.  Some Shakespearian and Not Shakespearian activities are on the schedule. My reading, before this trip, was again  very British.   THE WAR OF THE POETS Antonio and Mellida (1599?) & Antonio's Revenge (1600?), John Marston – A remarkable pair of...
Blink Twice to Quell a Quasar: Carl Sagan on Superstition Growing up in Bulgaria, in a city teeming in stray dogs and cars, I was deeply distressed by the...
4th Aug 2025
31

Blink Twice to Quell a Quasar: Carl Sagan on Superstition

from The Marginalian [alt+shift+b] in literature

4th Aug 2025
Growing up in Bulgaria, in a city teeming in stray dogs and cars, I was deeply distressed by the sight of each dead animal in the streets between home and school — deaths I could not prevent and could not bear. To cope with the aching helplessness, I developed a private...
Playing with the HTTP send/response cycle in Ruby, without Faraday ("HTTP Yeah You Know Me" project) As part of the HTTP Server project. First, I’m working through Practicing Ruby’s “Implementing an...
7th Apr 2017
35
7th Apr 2017
As part of the HTTP Server project. First, I’m working through Practicing Ruby’s “Implementing an HTTP File Server” for general practice and understanding. I’m going to use Postman to capture traffic and try to replicate some of the things the guides reference. Lastly, I just...
On Not Consuming Animals Or Viewing Them As Exploitable This is such a draft, but I wanted to get it written so I could point to this big compendium of...
3rd Aug 2026
1

On Not Consuming Animals Or Viewing Them As Exploitable

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

3rd Aug 2026
This is such a draft, but I wanted to get it written so I could point to this big compendium of things related to “now I eat/consume plants and not animals”, or “i went vegan recently, here’s some observations”. I ‘went vegan’ a few months ago, as of when I began drafting this...
Please The post Please appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
26th Jul 2024
26

Please

from The Perry Bible Fellowship [alt+shift+b] in literature

26th Jul 2024
The post Please appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
The end of literature, part five "Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100...
25th Jul 2024
1

The end of literature, part five

from This Space [alt+shift+b] in literature

25th Jul 2024
"Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century polled from hundreds of "literary luminaries" offering ten choices each, and while it is both of those things, "parochial" is the first word that...
'All He'd Read and Learned' Eccentricity in books is a tricky quality. It can be charming and inspire lifelong devotion. Take...
1st Aug 2026
2

'All He'd Read and Learned'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Aug 2026
Eccentricity in books is a tricky quality. It can be charming and inspire lifelong devotion. Take Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, a book I discovered in my freshman year. I redundantly keep three copies on the shelves nearest my desk. Tristram Shandy is another...
Reading, detachment In an in-between time in which nothing begins or ends, in which blank patience takes the place of...
28th Aug 2025
1

Reading, detachment

from This Space [alt+shift+b] in literature

28th Aug 2025
In an in-between time in which nothing begins or ends, in which blank patience takes the place of activity, I picked two books from my shelves stubbornly remote from utility, lacking the intimacy of possession, and a third in which I had never read a key section. The first was...
The AI Pascal’s Wager The AI Pascal’s Wager Should you accept contributions generated by LLMs in your Open Source...
1st Oct 2026
1

The AI Pascal’s Wager

from Ploum.net [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Oct 2026
The AI Pascal’s Wager Should you accept contributions generated by LLMs in your Open Source project? Let’s put aside for a moment all the ethical/ecological/societal considerations about the use of generated code (also known as "slop" if you don’t like it and "vibecode" if you...
The Cosmogony of You We live in a state of perpetual dissociation from the almost unbearable wonder of being alive....
1st Dec 2024
64

The Cosmogony of You

from The Marginalian [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Dec 2024
We live in a state of perpetual dissociation from the almost unbearable wonder of being alive. Wonder is always an edge state, its edge so sharp it threatens to rupture the mundane and sever us from what we mistake for reality — the TV, the townhouse, the trauma narrative. If we...
✏️ Notes at 45 As I sit squarely in my mid-40s, I’ve gained valuable perspectives, learnings, and understandings....
12th Apr 2023
17

✏️ Notes at 45

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

12th Apr 2023
As I sit squarely in my mid-40s, I’ve gained valuable perspectives, learnings, and understandings. Here are some of them: People > things. In our current society, the deepening pit of materialism, capitalism, and an insatiable desire for more has become all-consuming. However,...
Good Vibrations One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound The post Good Vibrations appeared...
15th Apr 2024
56

Good Vibrations

from The American Scholar [alt+shift+b] in literature

15th Apr 2024
One eccentric’s desert landmark allows visitors to bathe in sound The post Good Vibrations appeared first on The American Scholar.
✏️ Biblioteca Vasconselos In the Buenavista neighborhood resides this impressive library that spans 409,000 sq ft, designed by...
2nd Jan 2021
32

✏️ Biblioteca Vasconselos

from Naz Hamid — Journal + Links [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Jan 2021
In the Buenavista neighborhood resides this impressive library that spans 409,000 sq ft, designed by Mexican architects Alberto Kalach and Juan Palomar. Adored by those that appreciate architecture, and those looking for Instagram fodder, the space feels like you’re in the...
Offpunk 3.0 "A Community is Born" Release Offpunk 3.0 "A Community is Born" Release For the last four years, I’ve been developing Offpunk, a...
9th Feb 2026
1

Offpunk 3.0 "A Community is Born" Release

from Ploum.net [alt+shift+b] in literature

9th Feb 2026
Offpunk 3.0 "A Community is Born" Release For the last four years, I’ve been developing Offpunk, a command-line Web, Gemini, and Gopher browser that allows you to work offline. And I’ve just released version 3.0. It is probably not for everyone, but I use it every single day. I...
"A delicate mix of chess... and bear wrestling" Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer...
2nd Nov 2014
20

"A delicate mix of chess... and bear wrestling"

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Nov 2014
Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer to sport as “lead” climbing from here on out. Sorry, trad climbers). If someone is enjoying top roping, (or bouldering) why should they take on the work of learning to lead climb,...
Nucleus Nouns Consider the “nouns” the live inside an app of your choice: You can spend hours building a list for...
10th Apr 2026
2

Nucleus Nouns

from ben-mini [alt+shift+b] in literature

10th Apr 2026
Consider the “nouns” the live inside an app of your choice: You can spend hours building a list for just one app. But the more interesting exercise is weighting the nouns by impact in the app- considering which ones have the most “gravity” from the eyes of the user: You quickly...
Latent Co. is Forming An homage to the Mac Ryan Carver, Juan Pablo Zambrano, and I have formed Latent Co., a software...
2nd Dec 2025
1

Latent Co. is Forming

from Naz Hamid • Journal [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Dec 2025
An homage to the Mac Ryan Carver, Juan Pablo Zambrano, and I have formed Latent Co., a software company. Driven by the creative tooling we’ve cut our teeth on and drawing on our product and imaging experience, we’re making a product for Mac. Ryan and I go back a while: Typekit,...
The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths The...
2nd Dec 2024
37

The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend

from The American Scholar [alt+shift+b] in literature

2nd Dec 2024
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.
Why Your Belayer is Keeping You from Climbing Hard(er) Since climbing regularly again (!!!), I’ve observed lots of belaying in the gym. I can’t walk up to...
1st Oct 2014
25

Why Your Belayer is Keeping You from Climbing Hard(er)

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Oct 2014
Since climbing regularly again (!!!), I’ve observed lots of belaying in the gym. I can’t walk up to a stranger and say “Excuse me, sir, I noticed that your poor belaying is totally crippling your climber’s ability to try hard, and actively eliminating any hope you had of...
'The Things Which Make a Life of Ease' R.L. Barth, our finest living epigrammist (admittedly, not a vast job description), has sent me his...
1st Jun 2025
38

'The Things Which Make a Life of Ease'

from Anecdotal Evidence [alt+shift+b] in literature

1st Jun 2025
R.L. Barth, our finest living epigrammist (admittedly, not a vast job description), has sent me his translation of a well-known epigram by Martial, the Roman master of the pithy form. Bob found it among his papers and doesn’t remember making it. “[T]ranslating something [Ben]...
What I Read in July 2026 – Some links found verbal form, others remained mere promises, mist, soft... Soon I will put up a fall schedule for my plunge back into non-Shakespearian plays, from say 1604 to...
14th Aug 2026
2
14th Aug 2026
Soon I will put up a fall schedule for my plunge back into non-Shakespearian plays, from say 1604 to 1614, an exciting stretch.  Middleton, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher will dominate.   SHAKESPEAREAN The Adventures of Lady Egeria (1585), W. C. – Half tedious, half confounding,...
On Learning As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the...
5th Jun 2017
20

On Learning

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

5th Jun 2017
As a student at Turing, I’ve recently been thinking about learning how to learn, specifically in the context of software development. I am a bit hyperactive when it comes to trying to learn new things. Over the years, I’ve done plenty of ineffective learning, and at least a...
The How and Why of BlockValue I wrote the following post, and built the application in question, in 2017, in my “end of Turing”...
14th Sep 2017
23

The How and Why of BlockValue

from Josh Thompson [alt+shift+b] in literature

14th Sep 2017
I wrote the following post, and built the application in question, in 2017, in my “end of Turing” project, before I’d ever been hired as a software developer. I really enjoyed the app that I built, and I keep wanting to get around to cleaning it up and making it work again. Maybe...
The crisis of narration and the future of the novel, part two Byung-Chul Han says in The Crisis of Narration that modernity "is animated by a belief in progress"...
6th Nov 2025
1

The crisis of narration and the future of the novel, part two

from This Space [alt+shift+b] in literature

6th Nov 2025
Byung-Chul Han says in The Crisis of Narration that modernity "is animated by a belief in progress" and its narratives "radiate an aura because the future is a phenomenon of distance". This is evident in our reverence for the monuments of modernism, a reverence formed by wonder...
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