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Ben Borgers
JumboCode plans for Head of Engineering
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Monthly Review: October This is my first monthly review. I’ll spend some time fleshing out the why and the how, and then get...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
This is my first monthly review. I’ll spend some time fleshing out the why and the how, and then get right to it. If you don’t want to read a lot of introspective Josh, stop reading. I use the word “I” dozens of times. Consider yourself warned. For a long time I have feared life...
This Space
Literature likes to hide Last December I was fortunate enough to borrow a copy of The Unmediated Vision, Geoffrey Hartman's...
over a year ago
105
over a year ago
Last December I was fortunate enough to borrow a copy of The Unmediated Vision, Geoffrey Hartman's first book, published in 1954. It is difficult to find a copy now but you can download a digital version of the book via the link. The opening chapter is a 50-page study of "Tintern...
The American Scholar
Island Royalty A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American...
7 months ago
25
7 months ago
A new biography of a Caribbean revolutionary The post Island Royalty appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
“The Vow” by Yuliya Musakovska Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Vow” by Yuliya Musakovska appeared first on The American...
4 months ago
46
4 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Vow” by Yuliya Musakovska appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Elysian
Free speech in the age of social media A discussion about misinformation, echo chambers, media spin, social trolling, and how we can create...
7 months ago
47
7 months ago
A discussion about misinformation, echo chambers, media spin, social trolling, and how we can create something better.
The American Scholar
Coming Home Craig Thompson digs up memories of farm labor and the history of ginseng The post Coming Home...
2 months ago
13
2 months ago
Craig Thompson digs up memories of farm labor and the history of ginseng The post Coming Home appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
6
a month ago
Meditations on death, Goya, and the immutability of art The post A Fight With Cudgels appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Promethean Power of Burnout "Burnout fully realised is also the decisive, exhausted moment in which we realise we cannot go on...
6 months ago
56
6 months ago
"Burnout fully realised is also the decisive, exhausted moment in which we realise we cannot go on in the same way. Not being able to go on, is always in the end, a creative act, the threshold moment of our transformation."
Ploum.net
20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 2) 20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 2) Previously in "20 years of Linux on the Deskop" : Looking...
7 months ago
16
7 months ago
20 years of Linux on the Desktop (part 2) Previously in "20 years of Linux on the Deskop" : Looking to make the perfect desktop with GNOME and Debian, a young Ploum finds himself joining a stealth project called "no-name-yet". The project is later published under the name...
Ben Borgers
Did MCAS Matter?
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
60 kHz
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Warped Side of Our Universe: A Painted Epic Poem about the Dazzling Science of Spacetime The first English use of the word space to connote the cosmic expanse appears in line 650 of Book I...
a year ago
30
a year ago
The first English use of the word space to connote the cosmic expanse appears in line 650 of Book I of Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost: “Space may produce new Worlds,” he wrote, and grow rife with them. In the centuries since Milton, who lived through the golden dawn of...
Wuthering...
Books finished in March 2023 For some reason I have been putting a monthly account of completed books on Twitter, where it is a...
over a year ago
57
over a year ago
For some reason I have been putting a monthly account of completed books on Twitter, where it is a common practice, although mostly with photographs of book stacks.  I am not sure why I have not put the lists here as well.  I guess I am not sure any of this is interesting. Soon,...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Dark is Dubious We find ourselves sitting by a heated pool in autumn temperatures at 7,200 feet. Santa Fe has been...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
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...
Josh Thompson
December 2016 Goals December 19th seems a bit late to write about December’s goals, huh? Nonetheless, I’ve had some, and...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
December 19th seems a bit late to write about December’s goals, huh? Nonetheless, I’ve had some, and I will still have them through the end of the month. I did post a review of November a few days ago. This should really be rolled into that. A “monthly review/going forward”...
Ben Borgers
Am I a Gym Bro Now?
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Marie Howe’s Stunning Hymn of Humanity, Animated "It began as an almost inaudible hum..."
a year ago
This Space
39 Books: 1998 I said I'd come back to "not writing".  A few months ago I watched Unstuck in Time, a long but...
a year ago
85
a year ago
I said I'd come back to "not writing".  A few months ago I watched Unstuck in Time, a long but captivating documentary on the life of Kurt Vonnegut and his friendship with the film's maker, Robert Weide. In his final years, Vonnegut moved to the country and stopped writing. His...
The Marginalian
The Warblers and the Wonder of Being: Loren Eiseley on Contacting the Miraculous "The time has to be right; one has to be, by chance or intention, upon the border of two worlds. And...
a year ago
35
a year ago
"The time has to be right; one has to be, by chance or intention, upon the border of two worlds. And sometimes these two borders may shift or interpenetrate and one sees the miraculous."
This Space
39 Books: Introducing a blog series In 1985, I read two books. The following year I read a lot more, and it was then I began to keep a...
a year ago
90
a year ago
In 1985, I read two books. The following year I read a lot more, and it was then I began to keep a list of each book I finished. I've kept the list ever since. In this blog series I will choose one book from each of the 39 years and write whatever occurs to me and post whatever...
The American Scholar
A Toothsome Tale Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites The post A Toothsome...
10 months ago
38
10 months ago
Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites The post A Toothsome Tale appeared first on The American Scholar.
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
11
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...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Like an Occupying Army' Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to...
4 months ago
30
4 months ago
Two unrelated situations bring poems, song lyrics and old television commercial jingles to mind, seemingly out of nowhere: on first waking in the morning and while preparing a meal in the kitchen. None is summoned. They blip to the surface like bubbles in a pond. Last weekend I...
Ben Borgers
Parking Tickets Wrapped 2024
6 months ago
Escaping Flatland
Ethos and imagination Milk Drop Coronet, an ultra-high-speed photograph of the splash of a drop of milk, Harold Edgerton,...
8 months ago
56
8 months ago
Milk Drop Coronet, an ultra-high-speed photograph of the splash of a drop of milk, Harold Edgerton, 1957
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
52
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...
The American Scholar
Bubble Girl The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American...
a year ago
33
a year ago
The kidnapping that once riveted the nation The post Bubble Girl appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 No one’s ready for this An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A...
10 months ago
10
10 months ago
An explosion from the side of an old brick building. A crashed bicycle in a city intersection. A cockroach in a box of takeout. It took less than 10 seconds to create each of these images with the Reimagine tool in the Pixel 9’s Magic Editor. They are crisp. They are in full...
The American Scholar
Katie Heller Saltoun Tenderness and grit The post Katie Heller Saltoun appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Midlife Malaise Part II It’s been an interesting year so far. Overall, I can’t overtly complain: I find my work gratifying,...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
It’s been an interesting year so far. Overall, I can’t overtly complain: I find my work gratifying, and have been fortunate to take some great trips this year both internationally (Mexico City and Kuala Lumpur), as well as some off-roading and camping locally. But there’s a...
Robert Caro
An Interview With Robert Caro and Kurt Vonnegut Kurt greeted us in his beautiful 19th century house and in his bare feet (of which more later). As...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
Kurt greeted us in his beautiful 19th century house and in his bare feet (of which more later). As the interview progressed it grew sort of
Anecdotal Evidence
'Weaknesses as Good as Other People’s Virtues' “It is not easy to write essays like Montaigne, nor Maxims in the manner of the Duke de...
3 months ago
27
3 months ago
“It is not easy to write essays like Montaigne, nor Maxims in the manner of the Duke de la Rochefoucault.”  Who could think otherwise? The two Frenchmen are masters of diametrically opposed forms. In Montaigne’s hands, an essay can afford to be expansive. In fact, expansiveness –...
Astral Codex Ten
The Innocent And The Beautiful Have No Enemy But Time ...
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'More Than One Book at a Time?' We have acquired new, smaller bedside tables. More than a third of the surface area is occupied by...
5 months ago
18
5 months ago
We have acquired new, smaller bedside tables. More than a third of the surface area is occupied by the alarm clock and a lamp, leaving less space for reading matter. All further accumulation of books and magazines will, of necessity, be vertically arranged, a single stack, which...
Naz Hamid
Operating Rules for Email Collaboration Writing, giving, and soliciting feedback via your inbox. For over 25 years, I’ve been using email to...
4 months ago
34
4 months ago
Writing, giving, and soliciting feedback via your inbox. For over 25 years, I’ve been using email to collaborate and work with people. Before there were any messaging platforms, project management tools, and hybrid tools like Slack and Discord, phone calls, Skype and email were...
The Marginalian
Grace Paley on the Countercultural Courage of Imagining Other Lives “Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real,” Iris...
11 months ago
61
11 months ago
“Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real,” Iris Murdoch wrote in her superb investigation of the parallels between art and morality. There could be no such realization without imagination, which is our only instrument for fathoming...
Ben Borgers
How Recurring Tasks in War Room Work
over a year ago
The American Scholar
The Snow Maiden Our final episode of 2018 is a send-off to the solstice The post The Snow Maiden appeared first on...
6 months ago
52
6 months ago
Our final episode of 2018 is a send-off to the solstice The post The Snow Maiden appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
The Arguers: A Charming Illustrated Parable about the Absurdity of Self-righteousness Perhaps the most perilous consequence of uncertain times, times that hurl us into helplessness and...
a month ago
18
a month ago
Perhaps the most perilous consequence of uncertain times, times that hurl us into helplessness and disorientation, is that they turn human beings into opinion machines. We dope our pain and confusion with false certainties that stifle the willingness to understand (the nuances of...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Long Start I am awakened by the sound of people shuffling by our camp. When I look out the side past the flap...
a year ago
15
a year ago
I am awakened by the sound of people shuffling by our camp. When I look out the side past the flap of our rooftop tent, I can see what appears to be runners or hikers. I get out and wave at them. It's mid-May of 2022, and it's a glorious morning. Then it dawns on me; it's a trail...
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
16
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...
Ben Borgers
Are My Technical Posts Worth It?
over a year ago
The Elysian
Could AI make us wise? An alternative to the internet making us stupid.
a year ago
The Marginalian
The Wild Iris: Louise Glück on the Door at the End of Your Suffering "Whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice."
a year ago
The Elysian
How WeFunder democratizes business ownership A discussion with Jonny Price, president of WeFunder.
3 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Ask Me Anything (2/2025) ...
5 months ago
Ben Borgers
Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
over a year ago
Escaping Flatland
Authenticity as dialogue John Stuart Mill, notetaking, rationality, and emotion
7 months ago
The Perry Bible...
Pop The post Pop appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
a year ago
The American Scholar
Paolo Arao Acts of devotion The post Paolo Arao appeared first on The American Scholar.
11 months ago
Ben Borgers
Reflection on Shutting Down Blocks
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Gratitude 3x/day Earlier this year, I read The Miracle Morning, which promises (paraphrasing here): If you do these...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Earlier this year, I read The Miracle Morning, which promises (paraphrasing here): If you do these seven things every morning you’ll be the most amazing person you’ve ever met. OK, it’s not exactly that bold, but it’s not far off. It wasn’t a terrible book, it had lots of good...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 367.5 ...
5 months ago
This Space
39 Books: 2013 I reread books like Aharon Appelfeld's A Table for One and Anne Atik's How It Was as if returning to...
a year ago
84
a year ago
I reread books like Aharon Appelfeld's A Table for One and Anne Atik's How It Was as if returning to a particular bench with a view of the sea. On first glance A Table for One promises only banal, coffee-table memories and reflections, and that would be almost right: Real...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Truck Camping is Here to Eat Van Life's Lunch We’re reaching the tipping point of an oversaturated custom sprinter van market. There are hundreds...
a year ago
19
a year ago
We’re reaching the tipping point of an oversaturated custom sprinter van market. There are hundreds of brands all attempting to do very similar things at scale, as if they’re late to the overbuilt expensive van party. Customer interest feels like it is swinging back to simplicity...
The Marginalian
Doris Lessing on How to Read a Book and How to Read the World Born in Iran and raised in Zimbabwe, Doris Lessing (October 22, 1919–November 17, 2013) was fourteen...
21 hours ago
2
21 hours ago
Born in Iran and raised in Zimbabwe, Doris Lessing (October 22, 1919–November 17, 2013) was fourteen when she dropped out of school and eighty-eight when she won the Nobel Prize for smelting language into keys to “the prisons we choose to live inside.” Having lived in writing for...
Josh Thompson
Cultivate Curiosity, or 'Reasons to be More Childlike' I’ve had an idea rolling around my head. I suspect that “being curious” will correlate well with...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
I’ve had an idea rolling around my head. I suspect that “being curious” will correlate well with positive outcomes in my life, on pretty much any time horizon, be it days, weeks, or decades. Curiosity feels like a tolerable antidote to boredom, though boredom in and of itself is...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in September 2023 Despite all evidence I hope to wrap up the Greek philosophy project within the next couple of...
a year ago
77
a year ago
Despite all evidence I hope to wrap up the Greek philosophy project within the next couple of weeks.  A medical deadline approaches.  That will help. As usual, I read good books.   PHILOSOPHY & SELF-HELP Letters from a Stoic (c. 60), Seneca - good timing for some...
The Marginalian
“Little Women” Author Louisa May Alcott on the Creative Rewards of Being Single "Liberty is a better husband than love."
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Thanks for This Fancy, Insect King' I once spent most of a day in an upstate New York marsh with a neuroethologist, a biologist who...
4 months ago
29
4 months ago
I once spent most of a day in an upstate New York marsh with a neuroethologist, a biologist who studies how an animal’s nervous system determines its behavior. His specialty was the order Odonata – dragonflies and damselflies. Like any journalist who’s paying attention, I got a...
The Elysian
I'd like to open a Singapore franchise please? Franchise Cities as an alternative to Charter Cities.
a year ago
This Space
Kafka's great fire The centenary of Kafka's death was marked twelve years late. His diary records it in September...
a year ago
96
a year ago
The centenary of Kafka's death was marked twelve years late. His diary records it in September 1912: This story, The Judgment, I wrote at one sitting during the night of the 22nd-23rd, from ten o'clock at night to six o'clock in the morning. I was hardly able to pull my legs...
Ben Borgers
Building an e-ink picture frame that displays an iCloud photo album
a year ago
The Elysian
Join us for a discussion about CITY STATE A literary salon discussion about autonomous governance.
3 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Smart Quotes for Smart People Good typography uses smart quotes, not dumb quotes. — Jason Santa Maria Visit original link → or...
10 months ago
26
10 months ago
Good typography uses smart quotes, not dumb quotes. — Jason Santa Maria Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The American Scholar
The Next New Thing In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before The...
a year ago
35
a year ago
In architecture, the gulf between the traditional and the modern seems wider than ever before The post The Next New Thing appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
How to Be More Alive: Hermann Hesse on Wonder and the Proper Aim of Education "While wandering down the path of wonder, I briefly escape the world of separation and enter the...
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Befriend Time: The Gospel of Pete Seeger and Nina Simone "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."
a year ago
The Marginalian
How the Sea Came to Be: An Illustrated Singsong Celebration of the Evolution of Life “Who has known the ocean? Neither you nor I, with our earth-bound senses,” Rachel Carson wrote in...
a year ago
29
a year ago
“Who has known the ocean? Neither you nor I, with our earth-bound senses,” Rachel Carson wrote in the pioneering 1937 essay that invited the human imagination into the science and splendor of the marine world for the first time — a world then more mysterious than the Moon, a...
The American Scholar
Set in Seclusion The post Set in Seclusion appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 WebGlossary.info As per the official description, “the glossary covers the major standards and concepts of the Web,...
11 months ago
11
11 months ago
As per the official description, “the glossary covers the major standards and concepts of the Web, beginning with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, accessibility, security, performance, code quality and testing, internationalization, localization, frameworks and editors and tooling. It then...
Anecdotal Evidence
'He Thrived on Giving Offense' Why did my teachers devote more class time to John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell –...
a month ago
12
a month ago
Why did my teachers devote more class time to John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell – American exemplars of the Age of Thrice-Named Writers -- than to Lord Byron? After more than half a century, I can only speculate. Literary patriotism? We spent a lot of time reading...
Ben Borgers
Work-Life Separation in College
over a year ago
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
30
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.
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
15
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...
sbensu
Industrial macros Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to...
a year ago
20
a year ago
Most industry codebases use macros, aka code-generation to solve practical problems like talking to the database.
The American Scholar
The Source The post The Source appeared first on The American Scholar.
10 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Inclusive Design Principles These Inclusive Design Principles are about putting people first. It's about designing for the needs...
10 months ago
17
10 months ago
These Inclusive Design Principles are about putting people first. It's about designing for the needs of people with permanent, temporary, situational, or changing disabilities — all of us really. Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
Wuthering...
The books I read in December 2024 - From her earliest youth she had discovered a fondness for... A different kind of month with a different category of reading. CHINA Mountain Home: The Wilderness...
6 months ago
66
6 months ago
A different kind of month with a different category of reading. CHINA Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China (5th-13th cent.), tr. David Hinton – The teenagers in The Story of the Stone play various games based on their memorization of massive amounts of...
The Marginalian
The Experience Machine: Cognitive Philosopher Andy Clark on the Power of Expectation and How the... "We are never simply seeing what’s 'really there,' stripped bare of our own anticipations or...
over a year ago
46
over a year ago
"We are never simply seeing what’s 'really there,' stripped bare of our own anticipations or insulated from our own past experiences. Instead, all human experience is part phantom — the product of deep-set predictions."
The Marginalian
Reason and Emotion: Scottish Philosopher John Macmurray on the Key to Wholeness and the Fundaments... "The emotional life is not simply a part or an aspect of human life. It is not, as we so often...
over a year ago
46
over a year ago
"The emotional life is not simply a part or an aspect of human life. It is not, as we so often think, subordinate, or subsidiary to the mind. It is the core and essence of human life. The intellect arises out of it, is rooted in it, draws its nourishment and sustenance from it."
Josh Thompson
The Housing Market Is Absolutely Insane: How To Fix It I had a brief exchange with a good friend recently: The housing market is indeed insane. This...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I had a brief exchange with a good friend recently: The housing market is indeed insane. This problem that we’re both discussing is: Unbelievable ($650,000 for a fixer upper) Oppressive (“unjustly inflicting hardship and constraint, especially on a minority or other subordinate...
Astral Codex Ten
Money Saved By Canceling Programs Does Not Immediately Flow To The Best Possible Alternative ...
5 months ago
Wuthering...
What I read in January 2025 - You must understand that truth is fiction, and fiction truth. Farewell to The Story of the Stone and a valuable browse in Chinese literature.  I’ll do it again...
5 months ago
38
5 months ago
Farewell to The Story of the Stone and a valuable browse in Chinese literature.  I’ll do it again someday. FICTION The Peony Pavilion (1598), Tang Xianzu – written up back here. The Story of the Stone, Vol. 5: The Dreamer Wakes (c. 1760), Cao Xueqin & Gao E – some notes here. ...
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: How do we create the next Renaissance? Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is: How can we fund the next Renaissance? How can we create...
a year ago
44
a year ago
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is: How can we fund the next Renaissance? How can we create a world where artists are better funded and…
ribbonfarm
Intellectual Menopause I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s...
11 months ago
27
11 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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ 2023 in the Rearview End-of-year recaps and reviews haven't been something I do. Generally, my mindset is about embracing...
a year ago
15
a year ago
End-of-year recaps and reviews haven't been something I do. Generally, my mindset is about embracing the present, with a gentle forward momentum towards what comes next. Years ago, I heard an Imam once speak about not having regrets. I took that to heart at the time and have...
Idle Words
The Lunacy of Artemis In August 2020, the New York Times asked me to write an op-ed for a special feature on...
a year ago
27
a year ago
In August 2020, the New York Times asked me to write an op-ed for a special feature on authoritarianism and democracy. They declined to publish my submission, which I am sharing here instead. A little over 51 years ago, a rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying three...
The Elysian
Hint #1 I'm publishing a new print collection in three weeks.
11 months ago
The Marginalian
The Middle Passage: A Jungian Field Guide to Finding Meaning and Transformation in Midlife "Our task at midlife is to be strong enough to relinquish the ego-urgencies of the first half and...
a year ago
sbensu
APIs as ladders APIs are hard to learn. If you think about the learning curve of your API, you can design one that...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
APIs are hard to learn. If you think about the learning curve of your API, you can design one that works for beginners, novices, and experts.
The Marginalian
Your Voice Is a Garden: Margaret Watts Hughes’s Wondrous Victorian Visualizations of Sound “I hear bravuras of birds… I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,” Walt Whitman...
11 months ago
56
11 months ago
“I hear bravuras of birds… I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,” Walt Whitman exulted in his ode to the “puzzle of puzzles” we call Being. How puzzling indeed, and how miraculous, that of the cold silence of spacetime voice emerged, in all its warm loveliness —...
The Elysian
My TEDx talk about the future of fiction And publishing.
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Learn to Type - Again Yesterday, we talked about why the Caps Lock key should be converted into a delete key. What I’ve...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
Yesterday, we talked about why the Caps Lock key should be converted into a delete key. What I’ve learned from learning Colemak Short, focused practice yields great results. When I start a timer for twenty minutes, I feel a sense of urgency, rather than defeat. Time boxing...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Happiness Could Be Impartial for Once' Robert Chandler has rescued, through translation, much of Russian literature for the Anglophone...
5 months ago
16
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...
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
16
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...
Josh Thompson
2017 In Review & Thoughts on 2018 Note: this “annual review” covers three topics. Click on one to skip to it: Looking back on...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Note: this “annual review” covers three topics. Click on one to skip to it: Looking back on 2017 thoughts on going into 2018 book recommendations from the 79 books I read last year I’ve got mixed feelings on annual reviews. I steadfastly refuse to set New Years’ resolutions, and...
Ben Borgers
I’m a Sucker for the Brand
over a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ What's Next vs. What's Now Trevor Noah is a funny, funny person. He's sharp. And during November-December 2023, he was doing a...
11 months ago
11
11 months ago
Trevor Noah is a funny, funny person. He's sharp. And during November-December 2023, he was doing a two-week stint in San Francisco on his most recent tour, Off the Record[1]. Jen and I attended his very first show of the run on November 30. The set is hilarious and the best live...
The American Scholar
Corona Chasers You never forget your first solar eclipse The post Corona Chasers appeared first on The American...
a year ago
41
a year ago
You never forget your first solar eclipse The post Corona Chasers appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
I Used All of My Meal Swipes!
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Time and the Soul: Philosopher Jacob Needleman on Our Search for Meaning "The real significance of our problem with time... is a crisis of meaning... The root of our modern...
a year ago
35
a year ago
"The real significance of our problem with time... is a crisis of meaning... The root of our modern problem with time is neither technological, sociological, economic nor psychological. It is metaphysical. It is a question of the meaning of human life itself."
Ploum.net
De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents Chers parents, chers...
3 months ago
29
3 months ago
De l’utilisation des smartphones et des tablettes chez les adolescents Chers parents, chers enseignants, chers éducateurs, Nous le savons toutes et tous, le smartphone est devenu un objet incontournable de notre quotidien, nous connectant en permanence au réseau Internet qui,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Negligible or Negative Return' A reader is pressing Ezra Pound on me again. This happens semi-annually, like visits to the dentist....
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
A reader is pressing Ezra Pound on me again. This happens semi-annually, like visits to the dentist. I find few writers as distasteful as Pound. My reasons are simple and not at all original. He was rabidly, tediously anti-Semitic and he betrayed his country. Earlier this year...
The Marginalian
Václav Havel on How to Live with Your Greatest Failure Few things in life are more devastating than to give something your all and still fail. Not the...
2 months ago
20
2 months ago
Few things in life are more devastating than to give something your all and still fail. Not the “fail better” of startup culture, not the “fail forward” of self-help, not the failure that is childhood’s fulcrum of learning, not the inspired mistakes that propel creative risk, but...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Superintending What He Cannot Regulate' In my family we can’t get away from the “Y” chromosome. Having children is known as “going to the...
2 weeks ago
10
2 weeks ago
In my family we can’t get away from the “Y” chromosome. Having children is known as “going to the Y.” I have three sons, no daughters, and my brother, who died last summer, was my sole sibling. My mother had five brothers, no sisters. My father, two brothers, no sisters, etc....
Escaping Flatland
Notes on energy and intelligence becoming cheaper In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various...
a year ago
25
a year ago
In 2015, I amused myself by training a neural network to generate poems in the style of various poets I knew and submitted the results to a fanzine.
Ben Borgers
The real reason for my multiple majors
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
How You Perceive the World
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Processes Vs. Goals (or, Systems vs. Accomplishments) In this excellent article on systems vs. goals, James argues that even if you did not pursue any...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
In this excellent article on systems vs. goals, James argues that even if you did not pursue any specific goals, with the right system, you will still go a long way. This idea has been floating around my head for over a year, now, and I think it’s slowly coalescing into something...
Ben Borgers
A Small Life Radius
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Make America Great: A Visionary Manifesto from the Woman Who Ran for President in 1872 In 1872, half a century before American women could vote, Victoria Woodhull (September 23, 1838–June...
6 months ago
62
6 months ago
In 1872, half a century before American women could vote, Victoria Woodhull (September 23, 1838–June 9, 1927) ran for President, with Frederick Douglass as her running mate. Papers declared her candidacy “a brazen imposture, to be extinguished by laughter rather than by law.”...
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...
3 months ago
48
3 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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Maripedia The print library Maripedia offers you an overview of Marimekko’s art of printmaking from the 1950s...
a year ago
13
a year ago
The print library Maripedia offers you an overview of Marimekko’s art of printmaking from the 1950s to the 2020s. Here you can identify and explore our vibrant prints, discover their designers, and enjoy the stories behind the patterns. Visit original link → or View on...
The American Scholar
“Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich appeared first on The American...
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Benchmarking a page protected by a login with Apache Benchmark I’ve been slowly working through The Complete Guide to Rails Performance. I’m taking the ideas and...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
I’ve been slowly working through The Complete Guide to Rails Performance. I’m taking the ideas and concepts from Nate’s book and working on applying the lessons to the app I work on in my day job. I had a chance to attend Nate’s workshop in Denver a few days ago, as well; while...
The Marginalian
The Proper Object of Love: Iris Murdoch on the Angst of Not Knowing Ourselves and Each Other One of the hardest things to learn in life is that the heart is a clock too fast not to break. We...
11 months ago
94
11 months ago
One of the hardest things to learn in life is that the heart is a clock too fast not to break. We lurch into loving, only to discover again and again that it takes a long time to know people, to understand people — and “understanding is love’s other name.” Even without...
The Marginalian
An Illustrated Love Letter to Words and the Meaning Between Them Growing up immersed in theorems and equations, I took great comfort in the pristine clarity of...
5 months ago
40
5 months ago
Growing up immersed in theorems and equations, I took great comfort in the pristine clarity of mathematics, the way numbers, symbols, and figures each mean one thing only, with no room for interpretation — a little unit of truth, unhaunted by the chimera of meaning. I felt like I...
Ben Borgers
Is Advice Flawed?
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Afterlives of the Soul: Sister Nivedita on Love and Death "To the soul, time does not exist. Only her own great purpose exists, shining clear and steady...
over a year ago
55
over a year ago
"To the soul, time does not exist. Only her own great purpose exists, shining clear and steady through the mists before her."
Josh Thompson
Mentors and Attitude Having a mentor is equal parts “having a mentor” and “being one who can be mentored”. If I am too...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Having a mentor is equal parts “having a mentor” and “being one who can be mentored”. If I am too thick-headed to evaluate things that someone tells me and figure out how to apply that to my life, both of us are wasting our time. Having a mentor is life-changing because you have...
The Marginalian
The Importance of Trusting Yourself: Nick Cave on the Relationship Between Creativity and Faith "There is more going on than we can see or understand, and we need to find a way to lean into the...
a year ago
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
86
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Daybreak in Alabama” by Langston Hughes appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
What is JumboCode?
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
The Present You It seems most of the decisions in life are made in favor of the present you, or the future you. I...
over a year ago
12
over a year ago
It seems most of the decisions in life are made in favor of the present you, or the future you. I wish the future me could sit beside the present me, and discuss how I was going about my day. Instead, it’s a rather one-sided conversation. There are obvious choices, like food,...
ben-mini
Platform or Point Solution? A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech...
4 months ago
42
4 months ago
A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech companies are so determined to become labeled as one. My definition of a platform is a tool that allows users to define and build their own things, which can be used by other...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Martyrs of a Future World Religion' A longtime reader and fellow blogger shares with me a taste for aphoristic writing, prose that...
3 days ago
5
3 days ago
A longtime reader and fellow blogger shares with me a taste for aphoristic writing, prose that is concise, of course, but also dense with meaning and often packing a sting. Aphorisms can be marketed as such but often they appear as a functional part of a larger text. George Eliot...
This Space
"When now?" Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on...
over a year ago
76
over a year ago
Out of curiosity, I read a few novels that over the last year have received the highest praise on social media and literary podcasts, and have appeared multiple times in newspaper Books of the Year choices and on prize shortlists, and one that even won a prize. I wanted to see...
Josh Thompson
Anki and Memorization with Spaced Repetition Software This is not meant to be read in isolation. Memorization is almost useless without doing work ahead...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
This is not meant to be read in isolation. Memorization is almost useless without doing work ahead of time to grasp the material. For the full context, start with Learning how to Learn I’ve not been able to find any comprehensive guides to using Anki to learn programming, so this...
This Space
39 Books: 1995 Looking over the list of books read over a decade, it becomes clear that each book came too early or...
a year ago
57
a year ago
Looking over the list of books read over a decade, it becomes clear that each book came too early or too late, or not at all; unless, of course, not yet. Untimely medications. Of the first, Robert Pinget's Be Brave applies. Again, lightness rather than heaviness, when there was...
Wuthering...
Ovid's Metamorphoses, Canto I, "Of shapes transformde to bodies straunge" Some notes on Canto I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis (8 CE).  Just some of the things I am looking for...
a year ago
31
a year ago
Some notes on Canto I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis (8 CE).  Just some of the things I am looking for or enjoying while reading Ovid’s epic of “forms changed / into new bodies.”  (tr. Charles Martin, 2004, p. 15).  Or, per Arthur Golding (1567, p. 3 of the Paul Dry paperback) “Of...
Ben Borgers
Majoring in more
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
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...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
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 Elysian
US states should have autonomy—like EU countries All we need to change is taxation.
4 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Threaded I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time...
a year ago
10
a year ago
I penned a Thot(?!), or rather, a post on Threads, the Twitter clone that Meta released some time ago. I don’t find it particularly useful, as my Twitter usage had declined long ago. Anyway, the post (and accompanying photo): “When I contemplate the idea of relocating, it’s 70°...
The Marginalian
A Stone Is a Story: An Illustrated Love Letter to Deep Time and Earth’s Memory We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet...
a year ago
56
a year ago
We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet made a world largely by its rockiness. Rock gave us mountains and beaches, bridges and kitchen countertops, gave us the first Promethean fire that sparked civilization. A rock is...
The American Scholar
“Death Fugue” by Paul Celan Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Death Fugue” by Paul Celan appeared first on The American...
a year ago
Josh Thompson
Climbing in Cuba, 2019 A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go climbing in Cuba. Mark and Dave, walking back from...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go climbing in Cuba. Mark and Dave, walking back from climbing outside Viñales Locals crag, called “The roof of the world”. Stunning routes. because it was so hot, we spent a lot of time in this cave. Kristi and I tend to stick...
Anecdotal Evidence
'I Took Off My Hat to This Little Fool' “Is it not strange that the phantoms of a blood-stained period have so airy a grace and look with...
3 months ago
24
3 months ago
“Is it not strange that the phantoms of a blood-stained period have so airy a grace and look with so tender eyes? -- that I recall with difficulty the danger and death and horrors of the time, and without effort all that was gracious and picturesque?”  The Battle of...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the...
10 months ago
17
10 months ago
The task that generative A.I. has been most successful at is lowering our expectations, both of the things we read and of ourselves when we write anything for others to read. It is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and...
The American Scholar
The Bears The post The Bears appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
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...
3 months ago
31
3 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...
Ben Borgers
Trash Bags in the Laundry Room
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Now
6 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 371 ...
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
Krav Maga, or "Crush Balls, Gouge Eyes, and Break Bones" In the last few weeks, I have been physically attacked dozens of times. Usually the attacker was...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
In the last few weeks, I have been physically attacked dozens of times. Usually the attacker was just trying to choke me, but sometimes he was trying to throw me to the ground. After a few minutes of fighting, I would attack him. Then we’d both shake hands, say “thank you”, and...
Josh Thompson
Troubleshooting Chinese Character Sets in MySQL A while back, I picked up a bug where when a customer tried to save certain kinds of data using...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
A while back, I picked up a bug where when a customer tried to save certain kinds of data using Chinese characters, we were replacing the Chinese characters like 平仮名 with a series of ?. This will be a quick dive through how I figured out what the problem was, and then validated...
Anecdotal Evidence
'In My Hands the Morning They Find Me' Who remembers the first book he ever “read”? Qualifying quotes because I don’t mean some wordless...
2 days ago
4
2 days ago
Who remembers the first book he ever “read”? Qualifying quotes because I don’t mean some wordless board-book given to an infant by optimistic relatives. I mean the real thing, with decryptable signs on the page. I can’t remember this pivotal event, though it would change my life...
The American Scholar
What Comes Naturally The post What Comes Naturally appeared first on The American Scholar.
9 months ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again Sweet merciful Jesus, stop talking. Unless you are one of a tiny handful of businesses who know...
a year ago
15
a year ago
Sweet merciful Jesus, stop talking. Unless you are one of a tiny handful of businesses who know exactly what they're going to use AI for, you do not need AI for anything - or rather, you do not need to do anything to reap the benefits. Artificial intelligence, as it exists and is...
Josh Thompson
Learning Spanish: Conversation connectors I’m learning Spanish right now,  as I’ve mentioned. The bad news is I’ve been in some state...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I’m learning Spanish right now,  as I’ve mentioned. The bad news is I’ve been in some state of learning spanish for the better part of the last 15 years. My mom’s parents came here from Paraguay, and so she and her siblings are all native Spanish speakers, plus their spouses....
The Elysian
Metanational corporations are redesigning the world map Parag Khanna on metanational corporations and how they are opening borders, reshaping geopolitics,...
5 months ago
45
5 months ago
Parag Khanna on metanational corporations and how they are opening borders, reshaping geopolitics, and creating a world of interconnected city-states.
The Marginalian
The Great Blue Heron, Signs vs. Omens, and Our Search for Meaning One September dawn on the verge of a significant life change, sitting on my poet friend’s dock, I...
10 months ago
78
10 months ago
One September dawn on the verge of a significant life change, sitting on my poet friend’s dock, I watched a great blue heron rise slow and prehistoric through the morning mist, carrying the sky on her back. In the years since, the heron has become the closest thing I have to what...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ 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...
over a year ago
11
over a year ago
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...
Ben Borgers
Bin System
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
My all-time favorite question to ask people (and why you should ask it too) I met two people yesterday from Colorado, while in Spain. We climbed together yesterday and today,...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
I met two people yesterday from Colorado, while in Spain. We climbed together yesterday and today, and Kristi and I had dinner with them. Half way through the meal, I asked my all-time favorite question: If you could go back to twenty five year old you, and tell yourself...
Anecdotal Evidence
'This Is My Time and Theme' “I delight sensually in Time, in its stuff and spread, in the fall of its folds, in the...
2 months ago
21
2 months ago
“I delight sensually in Time, in its stuff and spread, in the fall of its folds, in the very impalpability of its grayish gauze, in the coolness of its continuum.”  You may recognize the almost overripe prose. Ingesting so rich a diet too early in life can spoil one for plainer...
Blog -...
Book Review - King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the...
over a year ago
30
over a year ago
This book is a timeless classic that had a significant impact on deepening my understanding of the masculine. Published in 1990, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover introduces readers to the concept of mature masculine archetypes and their immature shadows. The authors, Robert...
Josh Thompson
How to Ask Questions of Experts To Gain More than Just Answers Recently, I co-led a session at Turing with Regis Boudinot, a Turing grad who works at GitLab. We...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Recently, I co-led a session at Turing with Regis Boudinot, a Turing grad who works at GitLab. We discussed two things: asking good questions having a good workflow After the session, I promised an overview of what we discussed. Here’s that overview for “Asking good questions”....
Ploum.net
La conjuration de la fierté ignorante La conjuration de la fierté ignorante Les scientifiques, les vulgarisateurs, les professeurs...
7 months ago
16
7 months ago
La conjuration de la fierté ignorante Les scientifiques, les vulgarisateurs, les professeurs consacrent leur vie à lutter contre l’ignorance. Mais l’ignorance n’est pas vraiment le problème. Ce qui est dangereux c’est lorsqu’elle se camoufle. Lorsqu’elle se transforme en...
Josh Thompson
Related to Grief & Sadness & Supremacy Introduction this post is very drafty, but has been sitting around getting longer for a few weeks...
2 months ago
18
2 months ago
Introduction this post is very drafty, but has been sitting around getting longer for a few weeks now, so I’m simply posting now and will do some more rounds of cleanup, probably. I’d started writing some of this in a letter to a friend, then noticed that, with a little...
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
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
17
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...
The Marginalian
The Art of Withstanding Abandonment: The Patience of the Penguin and How Evolution Invented Faith “Let us love this distance which is wholly woven of friendship, for those who do not love each other...
11 months ago
48
11 months ago
“Let us love this distance which is wholly woven of friendship, for those who do not love each other are not separated,” Simone Weil wrote in her soulful meditation on the paradox of closeness and separation. To be separated from a loved one — in space or in silence, by choice or...
sbensu
Vibes are music, arguments are lyrics Losing My Religion is not about religion and Arguments are not about arguments
11 months ago
The Elysian
Introducing CITY-STATE Seven writers exploring autonomous governance.
4 months ago
Blog -...
Book Review - Shots from the Hip In the fields of Taoism, herbalism, and Chinese culture, Daniel Reid is a legendary author who has...
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
In the fields of Taoism, herbalism, and Chinese culture, Daniel Reid is a legendary author who has written books that have changed the course of lives. His most recent publication is a two-book memoir entitled Shots from the Hip, a colourful account of his many exotic...
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
16
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...
The American Scholar
Luis Alvaro Sahagún Nuño Ancestral healing The post Luis Alvaro Sahagún Nuño appeared first on The American Scholar.
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
Piece by Piece The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
The following is inspired by Amy Hoy. I’ve got a secret to share: I’m working on building a product (of the digital variety) that will be so damn goodpeople will pay me $100 or more to get it.  I’ve got a lot of bits and pieces of it littered around the internet, my computer,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poetry Is Sound Before It Is Anything Else' “A word so delicious that one wishes it had cheeks, so as to kiss them.” That’s Jules...
5 months ago
29
5 months ago
“A word so delicious that one wishes it had cheeks, so as to kiss them.” That’s Jules Renard, writing in his journal in February 1888. Perhaps only a certain sort of writer, one with a musical sense who is susceptible to the pure sound of words divorced from their meaning, can...
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
32
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.
Naz Hamid
Forty-Seven I turned another year older. A collection of small moments and choices that let me be me. One...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
I turned another year older. A collection of small moments and choices that let me be me. One guidepost for each year I've been alive — some I've practiced for decades, and a few new ones. Feel out the day and go where your energy wants you to. Your energy is precious. Don’t let...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Expanding in Edale I’ve been making things in response to this place since my teens, most notably as a young visual...
a year ago
19
a year ago
I’ve been making things in response to this place since my teens, most notably as a young visual artist and again now, having reconnected with that wide-eyed younger version of myself. — Simon Collison Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
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...
a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Be More Alive: Artist and Philosopher Rockwell Kent on Breaking the Trance of Near-living The point, of course, is to make yourself alive — to feel the force of being in your sinew and your...
3 months ago
34
3 months ago
The point, of course, is to make yourself alive — to feel the force of being in your sinew and your spirit, to tremble with the beauty and the terror of it all, to breathe lungfuls of life that gasp you awake from the trance of near-living induced by the system of waste and want...
The Marginalian
Thich Nhat Hanh on True Love and the Five Rivers of Self-Knowledge “For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks… the work...
a year ago
38
a year ago
“For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks… the work for which all other work is but preparation,” Rilke wrote to his young correspondent. The great difficulty of loving arises from the great difficulty of bridging the abyss between...
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
24
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...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 364 ...
6 months ago
The Elysian
Am I an anarchist? Letters to an anarchist, part seven.
7 months ago
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
18
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...
This Space
39 Books: 1988 This is one of my most surprising discoveries in second-hand bookshop trawls in the far off days...
a year ago
45
a year ago
This is one of my most surprising discoveries in second-hand bookshop trawls in the far off days when they existed, especially because it was found in Portsmouth, not the most literary of cities despite Dickens and Conan-Doyle (or perhaps because of Dickens and Conan-Doyle)....
The Marginalian
The Countercultural Sanity of the Irrational: Pioneering Psychiatrist Otto Rank on the Blind Spots... In one crucial respect at least, the human animal does not pass the mirror test of self-knowledge:...
6 months ago
53
6 months ago
In one crucial respect at least, the human animal does not pass the mirror test of self-knowledge: We move through the world by impulse and emotion, then look back and rationalize our choices, declaring ourselves creatures of reason. Western civilization, with its structural bias...
Josh Thompson
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
19
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....
The American Scholar
Once More, Without Feeling Can a memoir be effective when it lacks any warmth? The post Once More, Without Feeling appeared...
4 months ago
18
4 months ago
Can a memoir be effective when it lacks any warmth? The post Once More, Without Feeling appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
My Office Makes Me Feel Stupid
over a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'But Man Is Not Born for Happiness' “[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and...
4 months ago
25
4 months ago
“[P]oets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.”  How did William Cowper, himself a fine and neglected poet, come to this conclusion? In a letter to Rev. John Newton, written March 15, 1784, Cowper tells his friend he has just finished reading the eight volumes of Dr....
Anecdotal Evidence
'One Passionate Note of Victory' “The dangers for the poet in addressing so composite an audience are enormous: cuteness,...
4 months ago
32
4 months ago
“The dangers for the poet in addressing so composite an audience are enormous: cuteness, coyness, archness and condescension are only the most obvious ones.”  In 1976, Anthony Hecht wrote the preface for a new edition of Walter de la Mare’s Songs of Childhood (1902). He doesn’t...
The Marginalian
The First Scientist’s Guide to Truth: Alhazen on Critical Thinking Born into a world with no clocks, telescopes, microscopes, or democracy, Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham...
a year ago
30
a year ago
Born into a world with no clocks, telescopes, microscopes, or democracy, Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham (c. 965–c. 1040), known in the West as Alhazen, began his life studying religion, but grew quickly disenchanted by its unquestioned dogmas and the way it turned people on each other with...
Ploum.net
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...
4 months ago
36
4 months ago
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...
Ben Borgers
Donating forks to the dining hall
a year ago
Josh Thompson
MacOS: Keyboard Shortcut to Toggle Bookmarks Bar in Firefox A few weeks ago, after Firefox Quantum came out, I decided to try making Firefox my daily browser,...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
A few weeks ago, after Firefox Quantum came out, I decided to try making Firefox my daily browser, instead of Chrome. Turns out, Firefox is great! It was a near-seamless transition, and Firefox has a much lower memory footprint, as well as features Chrome does not have, like...
The Marginalian
Carl Jung on Creativity The question of what it takes to create — to make something of beauty and substance that touches...
3 months ago
38
3 months ago
The question of what it takes to create — to make something of beauty and substance that touches other lives across space and time — is one of the deepest, oldest questions, perhaps because the answer to it is so unbearably simple: everything. We bring everything we are and...
Wuthering...
Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and their Stoic self-help books - I shall not be afraid when my last hour... The curious thing about Stoicism is its long-lasting survival in the self-help genre, curious at...
a year ago
80
a year ago
The curious thing about Stoicism is its long-lasting survival in the self-help genre, curious at least until I read Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic (1st C.) several years ago and discovered that it was a self-help book, one of the founding self-help books.  The Meditations of...
The American Scholar
A Splendor Wild and Terrifying Lost in the woods, a writer confronts the duality of nature The post A Splendor Wild and Terrifying...
2 days ago
4
2 days ago
Lost in the woods, a writer confronts the duality of nature The post A Splendor Wild and Terrifying appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Lay a foundation Yesterday I mentioned that low friction goals are an advantage over “high friction” goals. This is...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Yesterday I mentioned that low friction goals are an advantage over “high friction” goals. This is just another way of saying “easy things are easier to do than harder things”. Revelatory, I know. Similarly, I wrote a long time ago that: We tell ourselves we can’t accomplish...
This Space
"Every day I have to invoke the absent god again"* I really enjoy this YouTube channel despite my general lack of interest in films. The presenter’s...
over a year ago
54
over a year ago
I really enjoy this YouTube channel despite my general lack of interest in films. The presenter’s restrained voice-over is ideal for one approaching its concerns; imagine a lullaby sung by Werner Herzog. I envy him the medium for its music, its visuals, even its potential for...
The Marginalian
A Parliament of Owls and a Murder of Crows: How Groups of Birds Got Their Names, with Wondrous... Language is an instrument of great precision and poignancy — our best tool for telling each other...
a year ago
30
a year ago
Language is an instrument of great precision and poignancy — our best tool for telling each other what the world is and what we are, for conveying the blueness of blue and the wonder of being alive. But it is also a thing of great pliancy and creativity — a living reminder that...
Astral Codex Ten
On Priesthoods ...
6 months ago
Josh Thompson
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...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
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...
Josh Thompson
On Peeing Introduction Yes, peeing. Also called ‘pissing’, or ‘urination/urinating’. I noticed a collection of...
4 months ago
40
4 months ago
Introduction Yes, peeing. Also called ‘pissing’, or ‘urination/urinating’. I noticed a collection of thoughts emerging in my mind, tied together with a very specific theme. I was pretty grown before I had necessarily encountered any of these things, so if any of this is...
The Elysian
I built a castle to save the economy You're welcome.
a year ago
ben-mini
IMG_0416 Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube”...
8 months ago
34
8 months ago
Between 2009 and 2012, Apple iPhones and iPod Touches included a feature called “Send to YouTube” that allowed users to upload videos directly to YouTube from the Photos app. The feature worked… really well. In fact, YouTube reported a 1700% increase in total video uploads...
Josh Thompson
2019 Annual Review It’s that time of the year. I always really enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I find...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
It’s that time of the year. I always really enjoy reading other people’s annual reviews, and I find value in writing my own. Previous reviews: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 My review breaks down into a few broad categories: Travel Relationships & Community Leadville Trail...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ This Will Do Day 3: Sept 12, 2023 — The first in a series of today’s “mishaps” begins this morning. Barb, our...
a year ago
11
a year ago
Day 3: Sept 12, 2023 — The first in a series of today’s “mishaps” begins this morning. Barb, our four-pound Chihuahua, starts to whine inside our tent. We’re both occupied and can’t tend to her immediately, so by the time I get to her, I find that she’s already relieved herself....
The Marginalian
May Sarton on Generosity “Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you,” Annie Dillard wrote in her...
a year ago
24
a year ago
“Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you,” Annie Dillard wrote in her beautiful essay on generosity. “You open your safe and find ashes.” I feel this truth deeply, daily — for nearly two decades of offering these writings freely, I have lived by the...
Josh Thompson
Who inspires you, and is still alive? There are lots of dead people that we look up to. But people that are alive, and not world-wide...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
There are lots of dead people that we look up to. But people that are alive, and not world-wide famous are a bit more knowable. Some of them will even reply to tweets you send them! So, here are a few people that I follow and have received TONS of amazing wisdom from. (I...
Josh Thompson
POODR Notes: Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance (Chapter 6) I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby . These are some notes from chapter 6,...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
I’m reading through Practical Object Oriented Design in Ruby . These are some notes from chapter 6, Acquiring Behavior Through Inheritance; mostly these are for me, and they don’t intend to stand on their own. Read the book, work through chapter six, and then come back and read...
The American Scholar
“The Terrorist, He’s Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Terrorist, He’s Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska appeared...
5 months ago
50
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Terrorist, He’s Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Ideology as Anatomy How shifting ideas about women’s bodies have affected their lives The post Ideology as Anatomy...
7 months ago
29
7 months ago
How shifting ideas about women’s bodies have affected their lives The post Ideology as Anatomy appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
Let the Last Thing Be Song "When I die, I want to be sung across the threshold."
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
16
over a year ago
I’m desperately trying to work through a giant back-log of writings. Please see write it now for more. I’m spending only a few minutes on this, forgive my errors. Of late, I’ve had a lot of conversations about roundabouts. I’m basically trying to explain the ways that a mobility...
This Space
39 Books: 1990 The first book I read in the 39 years of this series was a genre thriller, and I've read only two...
a year ago
53
a year ago
The first book I read in the 39 years of this series was a genre thriller, and I've read only two more since. The second one came along this year. In 1989, I got a temporary job in the archives of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum where I met Carl Erlewyn-Lajeunesse, an...
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
19
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?
The American Scholar
Braña Curuchu The post Braña Curuchu appeared first on The American Scholar.
7 months ago
Ben Borgers
Learnings from JumboCode
over a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
The Early Christian Strategy ...
8 months ago
The Marginalian
The Parts We Live With: D.H. Lawrence and the Yearning for Living Unison "We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living,...
a year 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
15
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...
🔗 What Listening Does — An Untaught Life Skill Simply put, listening is hard; it’s work. Our minds, much like our bodies are rarely still or at...
10 months ago
12
10 months ago
Simply put, listening is hard; it’s work. Our minds, much like our bodies are rarely still or at ease — a condition that leads to listening poorly, which is one step away from equally poor thinking and decision making. — Scott Boms Visit original link → or View on nazhamid.com →
The American Scholar
“One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “One Letter” by Liu Xiaobo appeared first on The American...
a year ago
This Space
39 Books: 2021 I lived in Brighton for 30 years. One of the many painful aspects of leaving in 2021 was losing the...
a year ago
108
a year ago
I lived in Brighton for 30 years. One of the many painful aspects of leaving in 2021 was losing the many second-hand bookshops, all within walking distance. Many have closed over the years, such as Sandpiper, a remaindered bookshop in Kensington Gardens. It had a backroom in...
The American Scholar
A Forgotten Turner Classic Who was George Eyser, the one-legged German-American gymnast who astounded at the Olympic Games? The...
a year ago
43
a year ago
Who was George Eyser, the one-legged German-American gymnast who astounded at the Olympic Games? The post A Forgotten Turner Classic appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
The Fair Fields Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous...
7 months ago
27
7 months ago
Only rarely did the outside world intrude on an idyllic Connecticut childhood, but in the tumultuous 1960s, that intrusion included an encounter with evil The post The Fair Fields appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Divided Providence Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War The post Divided Providence appeared first on...
7 months ago
27
7 months ago
Faith’s pivotal role in the outcome of the Civil War The post Divided Providence appeared first on The American Scholar.
Wuthering...
Heraclitus and Empedocles - Everything flows - eyes roamed alone My rummage through the early Greek philosophers has been rewarding, but it is a strange exercise. ...
over a year ago
74
over a year ago
My rummage through the early Greek philosophers has been rewarding, but it is a strange exercise.  “Readers of this book will, I suspect, be frequently perplexed and sometimes annoyed” write Jonathan Barnes in Early Greek Philosophy, a collection with commentary of the most...
Robert Caro
A Peek Inside Robert Caro’s Home Library, Hidden Shelves and All THE WASHINGTON POST takes us inside Robert Caro’s literary collection, and shows us the most...
3 months ago
33
3 months ago
THE WASHINGTON POST takes us inside Robert Caro’s literary collection, and shows us the most precious volumes in his home library.
Josh Thompson
What Do You Do? I enjoy meeting new people. Usually, one of the first questions I’ll ask them is “What to you...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
I enjoy meeting new people. Usually, one of the first questions I’ll ask them is “What to you do?” They usually respond with their occupation, or their status in school. My follow-up question is “When you’re not doing that, what do you do?” Sometimes this is a conversational...
The Marginalian
How to Make a World: A Poem Like mathematics, the truest metaphors are not invented but discovered. In fact, they hardly feel...
a year ago
49
a year ago
Like mathematics, the truest metaphors are not invented but discovered. In fact, they hardly feel like metaphors — they feel like equations equating something previously unseen with something familiar in order to see more deeply into the nature of reality. One morning out on a...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ A day with Kim and Kyle Day 13: Sept  22, 2023 — My sister-in-law and new brother-in-law arrive at our Airbnb to spend a...
a year ago
12
a year ago
Day 13: Sept  22, 2023 — My sister-in-law and new brother-in-law arrive at our Airbnb to spend a full day with us. Leading hectic lives, they both took time off from their respective jobs to chat, drink coffee, eat food, and mostly relax. Kim and Kyle are both coffee lovers,...
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 Marginalian
Of Wonder, the Courage of Uncertainty, and How to Hear Your Soul: The Best of The Marginalian 2023 Hindsight is our finest instrument for discerning the patterns of our lives. To look back on a year...
a year ago
27
a year ago
Hindsight is our finest instrument for discerning the patterns of our lives. To look back on a year of reading, a year of writing, is to discover a secret map of the mind, revealing the landscape of living — after all, how we spend our thoughts is how we spend our lives. In...
The Elysian
The rich are controlling our government Ok but what can we do about it?
7 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Cure Death With the Rub of a Dock Leaf' The Irish poet Michael Longley died on Wednesday at the age of eighty-five. I’ve read him sparsely...
5 months ago
19
5 months ago
The Irish poet Michael Longley died on Wednesday at the age of eighty-five. I’ve read him sparsely but recall a devotion to the natural world and to World War I, in which his father fought. Here is “Glossary” (The Candlelight Master, 2020):   “I meet my father in the glossary Who...
The American Scholar
Such People The post Such People appeared first on The American Scholar.
5 months ago
The Marginalian
The Art of Befriending Time and Change: Debbie Millman’s Illustrated Love Letter to Gardening as a... You may or may not find the meaning of life while pacing a flower bed, but each time you plunge your...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
You may or may not find the meaning of life while pacing a flower bed, but each time you plunge your bare hands into the hummus of the Earth and run your fingers through the roots of something that hungers for the sun, you are resisting the dying of the light and saying “yes” to...
Josh Thompson
Hidden Damages of the Introvert vs. Extrovert "debate" Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Chances are good an answer pops to your mind. Of course you’re...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Chances are good an answer pops to your mind. Of course you’re right! You’ve taken internet tests! You’ve read Buzzfeed articles describing one aptitude or the other, and you feel like they speak to you! Stop. Right now. You’re speaking lies...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Road to Mesa Good morning, light. I awoke early this morning, perched on a mesa cliff-side, surrounded by low...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Good morning, light. I awoke early this morning, perched on a mesa cliff-side, surrounded by low foliage, cow patties galore, and a few skeletons and carcasses of younger cattle that couldn’t survive the path of migration that was next to our camp. Everyone else was still mildly...
Josh Thompson
Wrapping my head around local politics 001 Warning: Buzzwords ahead about millennials.* As a millennial, I want to “get involved” in my “local...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Warning: Buzzwords ahead about millennials.* As a millennial, I want to “get involved” in my “local community”, and don’t know the best way to “mobilize my resources”. vomit. I hate admitting that. But I still want to figure out if it is possible for me (little old me) to do...
The American Scholar
Who’s to Say? A bewildering take from a noted scholar of Christianity The post Who’s to Say? appeared first on The...
4 months ago
19
4 months ago
A bewildering take from a noted scholar of Christianity The post Who’s to Say? appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Caprock Adventures worth the silence The post Caprock appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
sbensu
Breaking changes in JSON APIs A collection of common breaking changes to JSON APIs for you to keep in mind as you design.
over a year ago
The Elysian
Founders will get much richer by exiting to employees This is how we create a wave of employee ownership.
11 months ago
The American Scholar
A Rebel to Remember Gregory P. Downs on the late Anthony E. Kaye’s groundbreaking history of Nat Turner The post A Rebel...
10 months ago
60
10 months ago
Gregory P. Downs on the late Anthony E. Kaye’s groundbreaking history of Nat Turner The post A Rebel to Remember appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
ACX Classifieds 4/25 ...
3 months ago
Wuthering...
But the Moon rescues others as they swim from below - a glance at the essays and dialogues of... The great ragged Greek philosophy readalong ends with Plutarch, famous for his extraordinary...
a year ago
29
a year ago
The great ragged Greek philosophy readalong ends with Plutarch, famous for his extraordinary Parallel Lives but also the innovative author of a large mass of essays and dialogues which picked up the title Moralia (late 1st C.) along the way.  Plutarch was hardly an original...
Josh Thompson
Boulder Ruby Group meetup notes Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App Boulder Ruby Group Monthly...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Move Slow and Improve Things: Performance Improvement in a Rails App Boulder Ruby Group Monthly Meetup @Recurly Offices, Feb 13, 2018 Slides are available here on Dropbox Git Push, Git Paid Here’s the “Git Push, Git Paid” t-shirt I mentioned: Thoughtbot designed these, and it...
Wuthering...
Books I Read in August 2023 As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted to more important things.  Plenty of...
a year ago
426
a year ago
As I suspected my energy for writing in August was diverted to more important things.  Plenty of energy to read, though. With a respite in September, I should soon be able to write a bit on the Greek philosophers I have been reading.  The Cynics, Epicureans, and Stoics work...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 This site goes up to Eleventy. That’s why I started playing with Eleventy. Eleventy’s a static site generator created by my friend...
a year ago
11
a year ago
That’s why I started playing with Eleventy. Eleventy’s a static site generator created by my friend and colleague Zach Leatherman. I am very late to this particular party, of course: tons of very cool people have been playing with Eleventy, and doing terrifically exciting things...
Ben Borgers
RealMoji
over a year ago
Wuthering...
What I Read in February 2025 – All human minds are in touch with a dark reservoir of our race’s... One of these books is 1,100 pages long.  It was just by chance that I read two genuinely disgusting...
4 months ago
37
4 months ago
One of these books is 1,100 pages long.  It was just by chance that I read two genuinely disgusting books at around the same time. FICTION A Glastonbury Romance (1932), John Cowper Powys -  I will write a bit about this beast, soon.  That line in the title is from Chapter 25,...
Josh Thompson
A New Old Financial Product I’m going to weave together talk of land value, and financing, and some of the primitives1 around...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
I’m going to weave together talk of land value, and financing, and some of the primitives1 around financial products. How much would you pay for a box that lives in your mailbox and delivers $1000 on the first of every month? Would you pay at least $5000, if you felt really...
The Marginalian
To Be a Person: Jane Hirshfield’s Playful and Poignant Poem About Bearing Our Human Condition "To be a person may be possible then, after all."
a year ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Even Belles Lettres Legitimate As Prayer' In the “Prologue” to his 1962 prose collection The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden borrows a conceit...
4 months ago
29
4 months ago
In the “Prologue” to his 1962 prose collection The Dyer’s Hand, W.H. Auden borrows a conceit from Lewis Carroll and divides all writers – “except the supreme masters who transcend all systems of classification” – into Alices and Mabels. In Alice in Wonderland, the title...
Escaping Flatland
Almost everyone I’ve met would be well-served thinking more about what to focus on Including me
a year ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Resilience By Design Every morning I read about a situation that pushes us further away from what we've come to know or...
over a year ago
13
over a year ago
Every morning I read about a situation that pushes us further away from what we've come to know or expect. With that comes the question of how our evolving reality affects product design, particularly for those who practice it. While some tech companies are seizing opportunities...
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
65
a year ago
Following Robert Frost into the depths The post A Terrifying Delight appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 367 ...
5 months ago
Ben Borgers
Planning my week
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Facts about the Moon: Dorianne Laux’s Stunning Poem about Bearing Our Human Losses When Even the... “Hearing the rising tide,” Rachel Carson wrote in her poetic meditation on the ocean and the meaning...
a year ago
95
a year ago
“Hearing the rising tide,” Rachel Carson wrote in her poetic meditation on the ocean and the meaning of life, “there are echoes of past and future: of the flow of time, obliterating yet containing all that has gone before… of the stream of life, flowing as inexorably as any ocean...
Josh Thompson
Depression I’m starting to write more regularly these days. For a long time, I’ve hardly written anything, or...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I’m starting to write more regularly these days. For a long time, I’ve hardly written anything, or only written when external circumstances required me to write something. For example, when I give a talk, I always create a page to “support” the talk, that I can link to in slides,...
The Marginalian
Bertrand Russell on the Salve for Our Modern Helplessness and Overwhelm "A way of life cannot be successful so long as it is a mere intellectual conviction. It must be...
a year ago
26
a year ago
"A way of life cannot be successful so long as it is a mere intellectual conviction. It must be deeply felt, deeply believed, dominant even in dreams."
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Phone As Disruptive My phone doesn't follow me everywhere. It occupies the last place I left it. This happens when I...
10 months ago
15
10 months ago
My phone doesn't follow me everywhere. It occupies the last place I left it. This happens when I leave to go for a run, sometimes when I run errands, and often hours go by without it. This is occurring more and more. It feels light. I feel light. The literal weight of the phone...
sbensu
Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union Notes from reading the book by Zubok
a year ago
Josh Thompson
The advantage of low friction goals If you have a project, make it easy to take small steps. I’m trying to publish something every day...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
If you have a project, make it easy to take small steps. I’m trying to publish something every day for a month. Normally, I would sit down at my computer, open a text editor, write something, the copy it into Squarespace, and customize the post from there. “Customization”...
The Marginalian
The Fairy Tale Tree Creativity is at bottom the combinatorial work of memory and imagination. All of our impressions,...
a year ago
41
a year ago
Creativity is at bottom the combinatorial work of memory and imagination. All of our impressions, influences, and experiences — every sight we have ever seen, every book read, every landscape walked, every love loved — become seeds for ideas we later combine and recombine,...
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
19
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
Love's Executioner (book) Countertransference applies to regular conversation.
7 months ago
Josh Thompson
`Medusa` mythical creature: part 2 Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
over a year ago
14
over a year ago
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Josh Thompson
Build a Personal Website in Jekyll - A Detailed Guide For First-Timers You’re a turing student, in the backend program. You know Ruby, you wanna start blogging, but...
over a year ago
15
over a year ago
You’re a turing student, in the backend program. You know Ruby, you wanna start blogging, but everyone who says go start a blog Seems to also think you have 10 hours (or 20 hours? or 2 hours? how long does this take) to sit around dealing with setting up a personal website. Lets...
Wuthering...
Thou hast devourd thy sonnes - some notes on Seneca's horror plays My Seneca reading in March: Medea, tr. Frederick Ahl The Trojan Women, tr. E. F. Watling Thyestes,...
over a year ago
92
over a year ago
My Seneca reading in March: Medea, tr. Frederick Ahl The Trojan Women, tr. E. F. Watling Thyestes, tr. Jasper Heywood Hercules Furens, tr. Heywood The Madness of Hercules, tr. Dana Gioia The plays themselves are all from the mid-1st century, perhaps written when Seneca was in...
Ben Borgers
I Keep Rewriting My Personal Website
over a year ago
Wuthering...
Disturbances in the Field by Lynne Sharon Schwartz - What I wanted now was the adventure of being... Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to...
over a year ago
62
over a year ago
Disturbances in the Field (1983) by Lynne Sharon Schwartz.  Rohan Maitzen recommended the novel to me because of its unusual use of the Pre-Socratic philosophers.  This is a domestic novel, a fine example of, borrowing from Trollope, the way we live now (or, to me, the way they...
The American Scholar
Changing the Lens Exploding the Canon, Episode 5 (Finale) The post Changing the Lens appeared first on The American...
a year ago
86
a year ago
Exploding the Canon, Episode 5 (Finale) The post Changing the Lens appeared first on The American Scholar.
Escaping Flatland
The hare vaguely impressionistic reflections about what I've been up to + links to stuff I've enjoyed...
3 weeks ago
20
3 weeks ago
vaguely impressionistic reflections about what I've been up to + links to stuff I've enjoyed recently
The American Scholar
A Story for Christmas The post A Story for Christmas appeared first on The American Scholar.
6 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'The Delicate, Invisible Web You Wove' Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou,...
4 months ago
27
4 months ago
Who wrote this about whose poetry?:  “For here the water buffalo may rove, The kinkajou, the mungabey, abound In the dark jungle of a mango grove . . .”   I might have guessed Kipling or some forgotten Georgian poet. Perhaps it’s a verse omitted by Eliot from Old Possum’s Book of...
The Marginalian
Shame and the Secret Chambers of the Self: Pioneering Sociologist and Philosopher Helen Merrell Lynd... "Experiences of shame throw a flooding light on what and who we are and what the world we live in...
a year ago
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
76
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...
Josh Thompson
An announcement, and a teaser (for you rock climbers) Here’s a clip from a video I shot today.  Can you guess what’s coming? (This is all going to happen...
over a year ago
17
over a year ago
Here’s a clip from a video I shot today.  Can you guess what’s coming? (This is all going to happen on The Climber’s Guide) (Warning to mobile users: big gif) In case you didn’t guess, or you guessed wrong… I’m shooting tons of video for a course. It’s going to be awesome. It’s...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Intermittent Social media fasting I have been wondering if “intermittent fasting” as a concept can be applied to “information diet.”...
11 months ago
12
11 months ago
I have been wondering if “intermittent fasting” as a concept can be applied to “information diet.” It’s an idea worth exploring, and this coming week is perfect to try it out. I’m traveling for a small photo adventure and will have spotty coverage. That means I can’t reach for...
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
15
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...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Is this the slow decline of the Apple 'cult'? Meanwhile, I drive a Kia, I like Kia, and I’ll probably default to looking at a Kia the next time...
11 months ago
19
11 months ago
Meanwhile, I drive a Kia, I like Kia, and I’ll probably default to looking at a Kia the next time I’m in the market for a car, but I don’t know anything at all about the company’s executives and I don’t think about their product line beyond my own personal car. I’m certainly not...
Ben Borgers
Pictures as Memories
over a year ago
The Marginalian
How to Apologize: Reflections on Forgiveness, Self-Forgiveness, and the Paradox of Doing the Right... "It's permitted to receive solace for whatever you did or didn't do, pitiful, beautiful human."
a year ago
Astral Codex Ten
Highlights From The Comments On Lynn And IQ ...
6 months ago
The Elysian
We can terraform the Earth—not just Mars If we can revive a dead planet, we can revive our own.
a month ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ On Racism On May 31, 2020, I wrote these words (on Instagram) days after George Floyd was killed: I am a brown...
over a year ago
10
over a year ago
On May 31, 2020, I wrote these words (on Instagram) days after George Floyd was killed: I am a brown person. I am an immigrant. I am Southeast Asian. I am Malaysian. And I am an American. I’m a third culture kid. I came to the States at 19, alone. I’ve lived here for 22+ years,...
Wuthering...
Sōseki's Kokoro and two Tanizaki genre exercises - I resolved that I must live my life as if I were... It is the 16th year of Dolce Bellezza’s remarkable Japanese Literature Challenge – in the old days...
over a year ago
51
over a year ago
It is the 16th year of Dolce Bellezza’s remarkable Japanese Literature Challenge – in the old days for some reason we “challenged” people to read – which reminded me, as it often has, that I have never read anything by Natsumi Sōseki, the earliest of the greatest 20th century...
Anecdotal Evidence
'A Glass Filled With a Supersaturate Solution' “[S]he is one of the few truly compelling stylists now at work. Her voice is authoritative,...
2 months ago
10
2 months ago
“[S]he is one of the few truly compelling stylists now at work. Her voice is authoritative, confident, unfussy, exacting. She is never overtly confessional, which sets her apart from many poets writing since the Romantics. She makes rare company.”  And isn’t that what we look for...
The Marginalian
Loving the Tree of Life: Annie Dillard on How to Bear Your Mortality "We live and move by splitting the light of the present, as a canoe’s bow parts water."
over a year ago
The Marginalian
The Science of Tears and the Art of Crying: An Illustrated Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Deepest... “All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in...
8 months ago
57
8 months ago
“All the poems of our lives are not yet made. We hear them crying to us,” Muriel Rukeyser writes in her timeless ode to the power of poetry. “Cry, heart, but never break,” entreats one of my favorite children’s books — which, at their best, are always philosophies for living. It...
The American Scholar
Chris Combs Surveillance state The post Chris Combs appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
Escaping Flatland
I went looking for friends, see what I found Of all the ways this blog have changed my life, the most exciting was in December 2021 when I wrote...
3 days ago
8
3 days ago
Of all the ways this blog have changed my life, the most exciting was in December 2021 when I wrote a post about Ivan Illich that ended up, to my utter astonishment, to get read by almost a hundred people.
Josh Thompson
On Boldness In Climbing Climb boldly. I’ve tried to write about this many times, and have thousands of words scattered...
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
Climb boldly. I’ve tried to write about this many times, and have thousands of words scattered across my computer about this topic. I always felt like I wasn’t communicating it quite right. I wasn’t happy with it. So I said “screw it, I’ll explain it like I would if I were...
Josh Thompson
Notes on, and quotes from: The Politics of Jesus (Yoder, 1972, 1994) As I’ve done many times before, compiling some notes about some long quotes from some books. In the...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
As I’ve done many times before, compiling some notes about some long quotes from some books. In the modern world, we’re loath to read long, complicated passeges of text. I hope to get some of you to eventually order your own copy of The Politics of Jesus. On my website you can...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 The moral bankruptcy of Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz In venture capital, you are what you fund. Andreessen and Horowitz understand this, even embody it....
12 months ago
13
12 months ago
In venture capital, you are what you fund. Andreessen and Horowitz understand this, even embody it. But they aren’t just funding the issues they discuss on their podcast; they are funding Trump and Vance. That means those donations are anti-abortion, anti-immigration, and...
The American Scholar
“Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared...
a year ago
64
a year ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens appeared first on The American Scholar.
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Dungeons & Dragons taught me how to write alt text I don’t remember the issue number, or the original author. However, I do remember it was from an...
11 months ago
11
11 months ago
I don’t remember the issue number, or the original author. However, I do remember it was from an advice column. The problem was the person who was running the game wanting to enliven his descriptions, as they felt like their narration was both boring and confusing. The advice for...