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Josh Thompson
Monthly Review: November This is my second monthly review, and I’m hooked. I’ve thought this coming review frequently, but I...
1st Dec 2013
23
1st Dec 2013
This is my second monthly review, and I’m hooked. I’ve thought this coming review frequently, but I thought about that as I was conducting my month. This proactive review is in line with Viktor Frankl’s admonition to “live every day as if it were your second chance to live it.”...
Anecdotal Evidence
At the Bookstore I work hard to resist sentimental impulses and indulgence in nostalgia. Ours is a sentimental age,...
1st Sep 2025
28
1st Sep 2025
I work hard to resist sentimental impulses and indulgence in nostalgia. Ours is a sentimental age, and at the same time an angry, unforgiving age. One strain of sentimentality especially prevalent among the aging is a rueful, self-pitying lament for what no longer exists....
The American Scholar
Mario Ayala Research while driving The post Mario Ayala appeared first on The American Scholar.
2nd Feb 2026
1
2nd Feb 2026
Research while driving The post Mario Ayala appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'But to Divert a Fierce Banditti' The English poet William Cowper (1731-1800) suffered his first attack of mental illness – today we...
1st Dec 2025
1
1st Dec 2025
The English poet William Cowper (1731-1800) suffered his first attack of mental illness – today we would likely call it profound depression – at age thirty-two. Before then, while studying law in the Temple, Cowper dined every Thursday with friends at the Nonsense Club. He and a...
Josh Thompson
June trip to the New River Gorge The New River Gorge had beautiful weather this weekend. The forecast for the weekend was, until...
3rd Jul 2013
20
3rd Jul 2013
The New River Gorge had beautiful weather this weekend. The forecast for the weekend was, until Friday, near-certain thunderstorms. Typical of the New, the weather proved unpredictable, and we had glorious sun the entire trip. I was eager to get out to the New, since my last...
Steven Scrawls
Doomr Most of my creations can be contained within an RSS feed; Doomr cannot. You'll want to check the...
14th Feb 2024
22
14th Feb 2024
Most of my creations can be contained within an RSS feed; Doomr cannot. You'll want to check the website for this one.
ben-mini
Modality Switching Online I hate it when my dad leaves me a voicemail. Whenever I open my phone and see the pending voicemail,...
8th Jun 2024
26
8th Jun 2024
I hate it when my dad leaves me a voicemail. Whenever I open my phone and see the pending voicemail, I roll my eyes. He tends to meander. My dad’s messages can range from 40 seconds to 2 minutes. He typically wants to inform me of something, like an upcoming family event or an...
Ben Borgers
2023 in review
5th Jan 2024
Blog -...
Welcome to Anchor Point Blog I am starting this blog for one primary reason: my belief that self-discovery does not have to be...
17th Nov 2019
22
17th Nov 2019
I am starting this blog for one primary reason: my belief that self-discovery does not have to be a solo journey. Through this blog men can connect to resources that will help to enhance their personal development. Many of these resources have deeply impacted my growth, and...
Josh Thompson
I Once Worked Hard When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career...
12th Apr 2013
23
12th Apr 2013
When I began working at my first job out of college, I knew I didn’t want to spend my whole career there. I was a college graduate (that means something, right?) working at a climbing gym, part time, teaching seven-year-olds how to climb at about $10 an hour. I had no idea what I...
Blog -...
Book Review - Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant In the book Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant, author Roland Lazenby meticulously shares the...
29th Mar 2020
33
29th Mar 2020
In the book Showboat: The Life of Kobe Bryant, author Roland Lazenby meticulously shares the journey of Kobe Bryant, from ancestral influences up through his final game in the NBA. He is a clear fan of Kobe’s inarguable work ethic, but he allows readers to reinforce their...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ A Simple Sophistication The weather was beautiful today. A sunny 65 degrees or so. Fresh from a shower, I headed out during...
23rd Mar 2004
37
23rd Mar 2004
The weather was beautiful today. A sunny 65 degrees or so. Fresh from a shower, I headed out during the lunch hour on foot, camera in hand and took a lot of photos during my walk. It took me straight out to the lake, an 8 minute journey. I was surprised to see that they had made...
the late review
wagner's ring: believing in the stakes or: how to get ring cycle pilled
20th Nov 2024
Josh Thompson
A Runbook for Upgrading Your Parent's Junky Old Laptop to a Chromebook tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and...
20th Jul 2020
24
20th Jul 2020
tl;dr: I’m creating a runbook for a very specific, delicate, and potentially time-consuming and emotionally-charged operation to replace my 70-year-old newly-widowed mother-in-law's ancient desktop computer with a easy-for-me-to-manage Chromebook Update: I posted to r/ChromeOS...
This Space
A fundamental deprivation: Montevideo by Enrique Vila-Matas Perhaps all novels seek to converge on a single point.  The thought occurred to me as I read...
16th Apr 2026
1
16th Apr 2026
Perhaps all novels seek to converge on a single point.  The thought occurred to me as I read Vila-Matas' Montevideo, translated by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott. A random thought, apparently, but also the kind of thought provoked by the passion of observation, anecdote and...
The Elysian
Are Democrats too liberal? Or too conservative? We're asking the wrong questions.
3rd Dec 2024
The American Scholar
Lorena Diosdado Multifaceted Latinx identities The post Lorena Diosdado appeared first on The American Scholar.
5th May 2025
32
5th May 2025
Multifaceted Latinx identities The post Lorena Diosdado appeared first on The American Scholar.
sbensu
Incentives as selection effects When you apply a new incentive, you select for a new population that prefers the incentive.
11th Jun 2024
24
11th Jun 2024
When you apply a new incentive, you select for a new population that prefers the incentive.
Josh Thompson
Mythical Creatures: Refactoring wizard.rb Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up...
25th Jan 2020
22
25th Jan 2020
Preparing for Turing Series Index What follows is an eight-part series that will help you pick up useful information about a number of topics related to Ruby, specifically geared for students learning the Ruby programming language, as part of the Turing School’s Backend Software...
Josh Thompson
Rails Migration: When you can't add a uniqueness constraint because you already have duplicates I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for...
28th Sep 2018
24
28th Sep 2018
I get to occasionally contribute to the Wombat Security dev blog. I wrote the following for development.wombatsecurity.com. This post has been updated to reflect some lessons learned while running this migration in production. Don’t leave a column without an index at any point in...
The American Scholar
The Story of Mumbet Who was the enslaved woman whose burial site at a Berkshires cemetery draws so much reverence and...
2nd Mar 2026
1
2nd Mar 2026
Who was the enslaved woman whose burial site at a Berkshires cemetery draws so much reverence and respect? The post The Story of Mumbet appeared first on The American Scholar.
The Marginalian
John Quincy Adams on Impostor Syndrome and the True Measure of Success “You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All...
3rd Jun 2024
99
3rd Jun 2024
“You will never get any more out of life than you expect,” Bruce Lee wrote to himself. All expectation is a story of the possible. Every person lives inside a story of who they are, what they are worth, and what is possible for their life, and suffers in proportion to how...
Naz Hamid • Journal
The Weeks Percolating on design At the end of every year I start to feel it. 2024 ended on a tumultuous note....
7th Nov 2025
1
7th Nov 2025
Percolating on design At the end of every year I start to feel it. 2024 ended on a tumultuous note. I dive into introspection, combing over the last year in search of pattern and meaning. I gathered what I found at the bottom of the ocean floor, coming up for air with the...
ben-mini
The happiest I’ve ever been It was around January 2020. I became the head coach of a youth basketball team. I was a few months...
25th Feb 2026
1
25th Feb 2026
It was around January 2020. I became the head coach of a youth basketball team. I was a few months into my first job out of college, and I was feeling… empty. I couldn’t explain why, so I set out to fill the void. I built side projects, went drinking with coworkers, and got...
Escaping Flatland
How I read Reading well is an endurance sport. I sometimes talk to people who want to become serious readers...
1st Oct 2025
25
1st Oct 2025
Reading well is an endurance sport. I sometimes talk to people who want to become serious readers and so pick up Kafka’s The Trial or something like that—it is about as pleasant as running a marathon untrained.
The Marginalian
Gary Snyder on How to Unbreak the World "What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands...
1st Feb 2025
63
1st Feb 2025
"What we’d hope for on the planet is creativity and sanity, conviviality, the real work of our hands and minds."
Escaping Flatland
In praise of insular groups Last spring, as we were exploring the coastline of our island, Johanna, the kids, and I crossed a...
4th May 2024
86
4th May 2024
Last spring, as we were exploring the coastline of our island, Johanna, the kids, and I crossed a meadow where two men were artificially inseminating a longhaired cow. We stopped to observe the work. When it was done, one of the men came over to where we stood by the electric...
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[RIDGELINE] Driving the Tōkaidō Ridgeline subscribers — Hello from amidst the Toyama rush of media requests. I’ve had to say no to...
16th Jan 2025
1
16th Jan 2025
Ridgeline subscribers — Hello from amidst the Toyama rush of media requests. I’ve had to say no to most of them, mainly because I’ve been finishing the final final final final set of edits on the Random House edition of Things Become Other Thing. Those edits are in. The book can...
This Space
39 Books: 2023 This is the 39th and final post of this series. As the introduction explains, I began seeking a...
1st Jun 2024
1
1st Jun 2024
This is the 39th and final post of this series. As the introduction explains, I began seeking a return to the short-form of the early days of blogging. And it started off well, with each entry written in no time, sometimes stirring up the sediment of initial enchantment. As I got...
The Marginalian
Carl Linnaeus’s Flower Clock “The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours,” the Canadian...
2nd Apr 2025
56
2nd Apr 2025
“The eternal problem of the human being is how to structure his waking hours,” the Canadian psychiatrist Eric Berne observed in his 1964 classic Games People Play. Four centuries earlier, Galileo had both combated and complicated the problem by inventing timekeeping and with it,...
Astral Codex Ten
Book Review: The Rise Of Christianity ...
12th Nov 2024
Wuthering...
Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain - He began to feel that there was some sort of special little... Dolce Bellezza hosted her 19th Japanese Literature Challenge last month.  Once I have written...
7th Feb 2026
1
7th Feb 2026
Dolce Bellezza hosted her 19th Japanese Literature Challenge last month.  Once I have written this post it will be the 54th book in this year’s event.  Amazing. The book is Yasunari Kawabata’s The Sound of the Mountain (1954, serialized 1949-54).  The sound of the mountain is a...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poor Naked Wretches, Whereso’er You Are' Aleksander Wat (1900-67) was a Polish poet and one-time Communist hounded and imprisoned by Nazis...
1st May 2025
21
1st May 2025
Aleksander Wat (1900-67) was a Polish poet and one-time Communist hounded and imprisoned by Nazis and Soviets alike. In 1964 while visiting California, he recorded lengthy conversations with fellow poet and Pole Czesław Miłosz. The transcripts were translated by Richard Lourie...
Josh Thompson
How I take notes, AKA 'Add an Index to Your Notebook' A while back, sometime in 2017, I wrote this tweet: a while ago, I read about how to keep...
4th Sep 2019
33
4th Sep 2019
A while back, sometime in 2017, I wrote this tweet: a while ago, I read about how to keep well-organized notes on a range of topics. Here's my current notebook, indexed by category: pic.twitter.com/aVsNnGPEpd — Josh Thompson (@josh_works) May 8, 2017 Since then, I occasionally...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Grandstand Grant This year: more people in photos. And more people in photos in landscapes. Cherish the times with...
19th May 2023
21
19th May 2023
This year: more people in photos. And more people in photos in landscapes. Cherish the times with friends in special places. Here, Grant in Death Valley. Read on nazhamid.com or Reply via email
Josh Thompson
Quotes from 'Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving', by Pete Walker I’ve found Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving to be deeply helpful. Some of you,...
11th Aug 2022
24
11th Aug 2022
I’ve found Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving to be deeply helpful. Some of you, many of you, have blessed me and cared for me in kind ways, sometimes with very little knowledge of what was going on, or why I was the way that I was. Thank you. I’ve been...
Escaping Flatland
The world reveals itself to those who travel by foot Nothing was as scary as we thought, and everything was weirder and more friendly.
6th May 2026
Josh Thompson
Three Ways to Decide What to be When You Grow Up Recently, I have had to explain to people what is it that I want to do. This question is difficult...
20th Dec 2012
24
20th Dec 2012
Recently, I have had to explain to people what is it that I want to do. This question is difficult to answer for two reasons. The first reason is I am not yet strongly pulled into a specific position. My ideal answer would be “I want to do X role at company Y.” Short. Concise....
Steven Scrawls
Supposedly-Deceased Intellectuals Found Living at Resort ‘Small Village’ of Supposedly-Deceased Intellectuals Found Alive, Thriving at Caribbean...
8th Aug 2024
39
8th Aug 2024
‘Small Village’ of Supposedly-Deceased Intellectuals Found Alive, Thriving at Caribbean Resort Gabriel Martinez, a 35-year-old confectioner living in the Cayman Islands, thought he was posting a simple promotional photo when he snapped a picture of his ‘cocoa-banana-surprise’ and...
Salish Wolf
Welcome to Salish Wolf Podcast In this podcast I share with you incredible stories of extraordinary endeavors that capture the...
2nd Apr 2020
1
2nd Apr 2020
In this podcast I share with you incredible stories of extraordinary endeavors that capture the magic of the human spirit. The inspiration for this podcast is a wolf named Takaya who gained global fame for living alone for nearly a decade on a tiny archipelago in the...
ribbonfarm
Imagination vs. Creativity I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with....
14th Jul 2024
45
14th Jul 2024
I like to make a distinction between imagination and creativity that you may or may not agree with. Imagination is the ability to see known possibilities as being reachable from a situation. Creativity is the ability to manufacture new possibilities out of a situation. The two...
Josh Thompson
Injury Impedes Improvement Kristi and I have been in Colorado for three months, I’ve been climbing regularly for two, I am back...
24th Sep 2014
19
24th Sep 2014
Kristi and I have been in Colorado for three months, I’ve been climbing regularly for two, I am back in shape and it feels good. I am tempted to throw myself into climbing again. To climb every day, or maybe every other day, and finish every session with training. But here’s the...
Naz Hamid • Journal
Latent Co. is Forming An homage to the Mac Ryan Carver, Juan Pablo Zambrano, and I have formed Latent Co., a software...
2nd Dec 2025
1
2nd Dec 2025
An homage to the Mac Ryan Carver, Juan Pablo Zambrano, and I have formed Latent Co., a software company. Driven by the creative tooling we’ve cut our teeth on and drawing on our product and imaging experience, we’re making a product for Mac. Ryan and I go back a while: Typekit,...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Influential Works That Are Almost Never Read' John Ruskin would have a difficult time of it in what passes for literary culture today. First, he...
20th Jan 2025
27
20th Jan 2025
John Ruskin would have a difficult time of it in what passes for literary culture today. First, he was phenomenally prolific, even by Victorian standards, and how many people would read all five volumes of Modern Painters or the idea-rich sprawl of Fors Clavigera? Second, Ruskin...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Shut Not Thy Purse-Strings' Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a...
1st Mar 2025
44
1st Mar 2025
Unlike his friends Coleridge, Hazlitt, Wordsworth and Hunt, who often made fools of themselves as a result, Charles Lamb had little interest in the momentous events of his day. About “Boney” – Napoleon Bonaparte – he wished only to know the dictator’s height, unlike Hazlitt, who...
Josh Thompson
Accomplishments and Achievements We’re encouraged to accomplish and achieve, yes? From birth, we pass milestones. Generally these...
2nd Jul 2014
23
2nd Jul 2014
We’re encouraged to accomplish and achieve, yes? From birth, we pass milestones. Generally these milestones grow in complexity as we add to our abilities - it’s been a while since I’ve been rewarded for not wetting myself - but they are usually on par with our abilities. For...
Ben Borgers
War Room — using the native date picker
13th Feb 2023
ben-mini
The Inner Game of Tennis I just finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey. Originally published in 1974, the...
12th Oct 2024
45
12th Oct 2024
I just finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey. Originally published in 1974, the book explores how the thoughts of an athlete affect their game. It’s lauded as being at the forefront of what we now call “sports psychology”. Although my competitive sports days...
The Marginalian
William James on the Most Vital Understanding for Successful Relationships "Neither the whole of truth nor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer."
2nd Jun 2023
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[RIDGELINE] Talking While Walking the Camino Francés in Spain Ridgeline subscribers — Heeeeeeellllloooooooo to the many many many many new subscribers who came...
14th Apr 2025
1
14th Apr 2025
Ridgeline subscribers — Heeeeeeellllloooooooo to the many many many many new subscribers who came from the Tim Pod(s). Welcome. I’m Craig, and this is Ridgeline (my newsletter focused on walking (Roden, the other newsletter is more general)), which is supposed to be a weekly...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 What price? If anything, as the well gets poisoned by their own outputs, large language models may well end up...
6th Oct 2024
21
6th Oct 2024
If anything, as the well gets poisoned by their own outputs, large language models may well end up eating their own slop and getting their own version of mad cow disease. So this might be as good as they’re ever going to get. — Jeremy Keith I use AI. Not particularly for...
Josh Thompson
Circles of Influence I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write...
5th Mar 2016
20
5th Mar 2016
I was listening to a podcast today, where they said if you have problems knowing what to write about, or you’ve hit a block, write about something that angers you. This is easy. I could write about any number of things that we’ve all read in a newspaper, and get good and angry...
Ben Borgers
3blue1brown.elk.sh
1st May 2022
ben-mini
Stealing is a Skill I’m slowly developing my own list of advice: have a creative mindset, embrace radical transparency,...
24th Jun 2026
1
24th Jun 2026
I’m slowly developing my own list of advice: have a creative mindset, embrace radical transparency, and write down what makes you happy. I’d like to add one more to the list: stealing is a skill! Stealing is good for the soul. If done well, you will be able to build value at...
Astral Codex Ten
Nicholas Decker In Hell ...
2 weeks ago
Josh Thompson
Blood Flow Restriction with Tyler old draft, publishing, needs polish. Me: Sport climber, decade+, of and on a few different times...
16th Feb 2019
1
16th Feb 2019
old draft, publishing, needs polish. Me: Sport climber, decade+, of and on a few different times over the years. Educate myself, train as effectively and safely as I can. I’m 30, and wanna hit some significant climbing goals by 40, and a big part of that is getting stronger,...
Escaping Flatland
Everything that turned out well in my life followed the same design process The context is smarter than you.
5th Aug 2024
ben-mini
Claude is kicking ChatGPT’s butt (in one thing) Back in high school, I remember receiving an email for a study guide from a friend. Instead of the...
15th Jul 2025
1
15th Jul 2025
Back in high school, I remember receiving an email for a study guide from a friend. Instead of the PDF coming attached, it was a link to a site called Dropbox. Upon opening the file, you create an account. From there you’re introduced to a feature stack that went well beyond any...
Ben Borgers
The morning of graduation
21st May 2025
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[RODEN] Hark, a Book Appears! Roden Readers — Howdy! From the sky! En route to NYC! I’m Craig Mod and this is Roden, a newsletter...
2nd May 2025
1
2nd May 2025
Roden Readers — Howdy! From the sky! En route to NYC! I’m Craig Mod and this is Roden, a newsletter sent via magic tubes. Since returning from Spain I’ve been in full-bore April Pod Mode, recording a dozen+ interviews and working on a bunch of essays for various publications in...
Blog -...
Book Review - The Surrender Experiment With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this...
6th Apr 2020
39
6th Apr 2020
With the book The Surrender Experiment, author Michael (Mickey) Singer, gives us a gift. In this eloquently penned biography of his “journey into life’s perfection”, he demonstrates the beauty that life can provide for us when we are not solely guided by our logical,...
sbensu
How to: friction logs Friction logs are a technique to improve your own products and understand others. You use the...
12th Dec 2023
30
12th Dec 2023
Friction logs are a technique to improve your own products and understand others. You use the produdct the way a real user would and write down every single moment you experience some form of negative emotion.
the late review
obligatory one month without social media on my phone substack essay (contrarian edition) it didn't change my life
27th Jul 2026
ben-mini
Nucleus Nouns Consider the “nouns” the live inside an app of your choice: You can spend hours building a list for...
10th Apr 2026
2
10th Apr 2026
Consider the “nouns” the live inside an app of your choice: You can spend hours building a list for just one app. But the more interesting exercise is weighting the nouns by impact in the app- considering which ones have the most “gravity” from the eyes of the user: You quickly...
Anecdotal Evidence
'So a Fool Returneth to His Folly' Grownups seldom credit children with insight into human psychology, thus treating them as smaller,...
1st Apr 2025
46
1st Apr 2025
Grownups seldom credit children with insight into human psychology, thus treating them as smaller, more annoying versions of themselves. My father had an acquaintance even he knew was a fool. By admitting such knowledge, he was violating adult solidarity. His friend's customary...
ribbonfarm
There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm I’m a little late to the party, but I just finished the wonderfully imaginative There Is No...
3rd May 2024
36
3rd May 2024
I’m a little late to the party, but I just finished the wonderfully imaginative There Is No Antimemetics Division (2020) by qntm. The premise is that our world is full of things with antimemetic properties. An antimeme is “an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by...
The Marginalian
The One Hundred Milliseconds Between the World and You: Oliver Sacks on Perception “If the doors of perception were cleansed,” William Blake wrote, “everything would appear to man as...
2nd Jun 2025
30
2nd Jun 2025
“If the doors of perception were cleansed,” William Blake wrote, “everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” But we are finite creatures, in time and in space, and there is a limit to how much reality we can bear — evolution gave us consciousness so that we may sieve the...
The Marginalian
The Cosmogony of You We live in a state of perpetual dissociation from the almost unbearable wonder of being alive....
1st Dec 2024
64
1st Dec 2024
We live in a state of perpetual dissociation from the almost unbearable wonder of being alive. Wonder is always an edge state, its edge so sharp it threatens to rupture the mundane and sever us from what we mistake for reality — the TV, the townhouse, the trauma narrative. If we...
Josh Thompson
Maybe "Now" Is Not the Right Time Recently I deleted a bunch of old notes I had in Evernote. Some of the notes were almost immediately...
19th Jul 2015
25
19th Jul 2015
Recently I deleted a bunch of old notes I had in Evernote. Some of the notes were almost immediately unneeded, like old receipts and confirmations.  Much of the rest was notes related to goals (“Checklist to move out of MD Apartment”, “Planning trip to Buenos Aires”) or to...
Escaping Flatland
Morning ritual + reading recommendations
1st Feb 2024
Anecdotal Evidence
'Give Thanks for All Things' “It is the province of poems to make some order in the world, but poets can’t afford to forget...
1st Mar 2026
1
1st Mar 2026
“It is the province of poems to make some order in the world, but poets can’t afford to forget that there is a reality of things which survives all orders great and small. Things are. The cow is there. No poetry can have any strength unless it continually bashes itself against...
Ploum.net
Ne venez pas dire que vous n’étiez pas prévenus… Ne venez pas dire que vous n’étiez pas prévenus… …c’est juste que vous pensiez ne pas être...
20th Jan 2025
31
20th Jan 2025
Ne venez pas dire que vous n’étiez pas prévenus… …c’est juste que vous pensiez ne pas être concernés Depuis des décennies, je fais partie de ces gens qui tentent d’alerter sur les terrifiantes possibilités qu’offre l’aveuglement technologique dans lequel nous sommes plongés. Je...
Escaping Flatland
A list of books and essays that I love I’m purposefully not looking at my bookshelf to make sure I only pick books that I’ve thought about...
4th Nov 2025
11
4th Nov 2025
I’m purposefully not looking at my bookshelf to make sure I only pick books that I’ve thought about so much that they immediately occur to me.
Ben Borgers
just surf
23rd Jul 2026
Escaping Flatland
Days are enormous + personal update and reading recommendations
1st Apr 2026
Idle Words
Alyse Galvin on Coronavirus in Alaska Last week I spoke by video chat with Alyse Galvin, who is running for Congress in Alaska's sole,...
24th Jun 2020
17
24th Jun 2020
Last week I spoke by video chat with Alyse Galvin, who is running for Congress in Alaska's sole, enormous Congressional district in a rematch against Don Young, the longest-serving member of Congress. Young, who just turned 87, is a notorious figure in state and national...
Josh Thompson
Why schedule something that doesn't exist? The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow. Then, I left the...
5th May 2016
22
5th May 2016
The first thing I did when making this post is I set it to be published tomorrow. Then, I left the room for a bit. I didn’t have anything to say. Or, I didn’t think I did. Yet, all over my computer, and in various list trackers and note-taking apps, I’ve got dozens of ideas to...
The Elysian
Let's read the Terra Ignota series together Our summer reading is Ada Palmer's feat of utopian worldbuilding.
3rd Jul 2024
Blog -...
Book Review - Owning Your Own Shadow The shadow of the human psyche cannot be overlooked in a thorough exploration of personal...
16th Jan 2020
26
16th Jan 2020
The shadow of the human psyche cannot be overlooked in a thorough exploration of personal development. According to the classic resource Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche, “The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into...
Josh Thompson
Migrating my Jekyll site to Netlify Troubleshooting Netilify deploy Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in...
26th Sep 2021
23
26th Sep 2021
Troubleshooting Netilify deploy Ugggh I moved intermediateruby.com to Netlify a few months ago in like 10 minutes, so my primary site, josh.works, should take maybe 20, right? I’m a few hours deep. Here’s what I get when Netlify tries to build: I should have done the following...
ben-mini
What’s Preventing Us from Building a Beautiful Product? I just finished listening to Lenny’s conversation with Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear, about what...
5th Feb 2025
55
5th Feb 2025
I just finished listening to Lenny’s conversation with Nan Yu, Head of Product at Linear, about what it takes to build a great SaaS product. Like many SaaS apps, the Kibu team and I have taken inspiration from Linear. But as we plan our roadmap and implement new solutions, I ask...
The American Scholar
Jane Skafte The language of trees The post Jane Skafte appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st Jul 2024
87
1st Jul 2024
The language of trees The post Jane Skafte appeared first on The American Scholar.
This Space
A measure of forever For me, fiction is a space of plainness and excess.             Amina Cain When TS Eliot read...
3rd Mar 2025
1
3rd Mar 2025
For me, fiction is a space of plainness and excess.             Amina Cain When TS Eliot read Dante for the first time, he noted a discrepancy between his enjoyment and his understanding, leading to the famous claim that "genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood"....
Josh Thompson
The How and Why of BlockValue I wrote the following post, and built the application in question, in 2017, in my “end of Turing”...
14th Sep 2017
23
14th Sep 2017
I wrote the following post, and built the application in question, in 2017, in my “end of Turing” project, before I’d ever been hired as a software developer. I really enjoyed the app that I built, and I keep wanting to get around to cleaning it up and making it work again. Maybe...
Josh Thompson
Array divergence in Ruby Lets say you have a list of valid items, and you want to run another array against it, and pull out...
2nd Feb 2018
22
2nd Feb 2018
Lets say you have a list of valid items, and you want to run another array against it, and pull out the items that don’t match. You don’t want to iterate through all of the items in one array, calling other_array.include?(item). (That’s computationally expensive) valid_people =...
Escaping Flatland
Self-help for cocoons and what's on my mind
7th Mar 2024
The Elysian
Your visions for the next Renaissance From our May writing prompt.
1st Aug 2024
Escaping Flatland
Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself and bloom When people talk about the value of paying attention and slowing down, they often make it sound...
4th Sep 2025
105
4th Sep 2025
When people talk about the value of paying attention and slowing down, they often make it sound prudish and monk-like. But we shouldn’t forget how interesting and overpoweringly pleasurable sustained attention can be.
Josh Thompson
A Retrospective on Seven Months at Turing Collection of thoughts on Turing It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software...
8th Aug 2017
19
8th Aug 2017
Collection of thoughts on Turing It’s the last week of Turing. I went through the backend software engineering program, and it’s been a journey. In no particular order, I’m throwing down thoughts in three general categories: What went well What didn’t go well What I might have...
Astral Codex Ten
H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know Don't give your true love a partridge, turtledoves, or (especially) French hens
1st Jan 2025
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...
26th Oct 2004
17
26th Oct 2004
At the request of my much loyal readership (I’m looking at you Lacey), the story of how I came to be with girl seems to be of interest. I know, I know. I disappear for a bit from writing and then I return smitten, enamoured and very much exploring a journey I’m quite glad to be...
Naz Hamid • Journal
Beyond Curiosity I'm not sure he meant it that way. We were walking together in the shopping center. The central...
15th Jul 2025
1
15th Jul 2025
I'm not sure he meant it that way. We were walking together in the shopping center. The central escalators made you loop around on the floor on the short side to proceed to the next set. As we neared the ground floor, headed to the food court sub-level, my father posited a...
Idle Words
Effective Political Giving With less than two months left before the election, this is an explainer for the politically...
3rd Sep 2020
19
3rd Sep 2020
With less than two months left before the election, this is an explainer for the politically panicked. You're anxious, you feel the need to do something, and you have a little money to spare. Who should you give it to? My goal here is not to sell you on specific candidates...
Ploum.net
Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on? Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on? In January 2025, I became aware...
4th Dec 2025
1
4th Dec 2025
Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on? In January 2025, I became aware that there was a real problem with Pixelfed, the "Instagram inspired Fediverse client". The problem is threatening the whole Fediverse. As Pixelfed received a lot of media...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Ernie Is Our Co-Pilot Hello. You’re receiving this long-dormant-now-re-reawakaned newsletter because at some point in the...
25th Sep 2021
17
25th Sep 2021
Hello. You’re receiving this long-dormant-now-re-reawakaned newsletter because at some point in the past you subscribed. (Thank you, by the way.) Back then, I was writing about some nexus of travels abroad, personal or professional news, and technology-ish topics. There are some...
Salish Wolf
#9 Luke Gifford on the Hero’s Journey, Shadow Work, and Childhood Trauma Occasionally a person enters my life who I know almost instantly is going to have a profound...
8th Jun 2020
1
8th Jun 2020
Occasionally a person enters my life who I know almost instantly is going to have a profound impact on my personal journey. My guest in this episode, Luke Gifford, is one of those people. From our ‘non-chance’ encounter almost 2 years ago at a personal growth event, we...
Josh Thompson
RailsConf Presentation: 'Junior' Developers are a Solution to Many of your Problems Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able...
21st May 2021
22
21st May 2021
Did this talk resonate and you want to implement some of the ideas at your company? I might be able to help. Shoot me an email at [email protected] or book some time to talk at https://calendly.com/joshthompson/coffee. This talk is available on railsconf.org, here:...
Wuthering...
What I Read in May 2026 – “These stories appeal to my sense of humor as well as my taste for formal... NOT SHAKESPEARE Poems and a Defence of Ryme (1592-1605), Samuel Daniel – Author of the “Delia”...
4th Jun 2026
1
4th Jun 2026
NOT SHAKESPEARE Poems and a Defence of Ryme (1592-1605), Samuel Daniel – Author of the “Delia” sequence of fifty sonnets, a genuine sequence, with for example lines ending one poem and beginning the next.  For some reason Thomas Campion, a writer of the most beautiful songs,...
Astral Codex Ten
Writing For The AIs ...
3rd Nov 2025
Josh Thompson
The Power Broker, Chapter 30: Robert Moses and Mayor Vincent R. Impellitteri Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the...
5th Aug 2023
24
5th Aug 2023
Note from Josh: The following is an excerpt of chapter 34 of the Power Broker, called “Moses and the Mayors”. The chapter is about Moses’ relationship with all of the mayors of NYC that overlapped with Moses’ “rule” over NYC. This excerpt covers just one of the mayors’ overlap...
The Elysian
My TEDx talk about the future of fiction And publishing.
16th Jun 2024
Josh Thompson
Let Me Fix [some of] Your Parking Problems Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces. Today, we’ll be...
14th Jul 2023
23
14th Jul 2023
Hi there! I’m Josh, and I’m your local neighborhood advocate for overlooked spaces. Today, we’ll be focusing on parking lots. Your parking lot has a job to do, and every day, every night, rain or shine, hot or cold, clear, rainy, or snowy, your parking lot does the best it can at...
Wuthering...
What I Read in September 2025 – A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme My writing on Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great plays has been hampered by an apparent...
7th Oct 2025
1
7th Oct 2025
My writing on Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great plays has been hampered by an apparent post-France short circuit in my ability to write.  So I will put up some easier posts to remind myself how to write. I had two major projects this month, one ongoing, one returned to...
Escaping Flatland
Being creative requires taking risks When children learn to draw, they tend to make more and more interesting images for several years...
7th Jan 2026
1
7th Jan 2026
When children learn to draw, they tend to make more and more interesting images for several years until around age five, when they learn to be boring.
Escaping Flatland
A measuring device that tells me what is interesting + links
2nd Oct 2024
The American Scholar
“The Fig Tree” by Ruth Stone Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Fig Tree” by Ruth Stone appeared first on The American...
1st Jul 2025
31
1st Jul 2025
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Fig Tree” by Ruth Stone appeared first on The American Scholar.
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 371 ...
3rd Mar 2025
The American Scholar
Most of Life The post Most of Life appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st Apr 2026
Idle Words
Protests and Power In August 2020, the New York Times asked me to write an op-ed for a special feature on...
4th Oct 2020
19
4th Oct 2020
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. When the George Floyd protests began to spread nationally in the summer of 2020, I...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Now Reopen for Business California re-opened on Tuesday and literally overnight, it feels like everything changed. And it...
17th Jun 2021
20
17th Jun 2021
California re-opened on Tuesday and literally overnight, it feels like everything changed. And it has. The streets are busy again, clear voices can be heard all over, and people are emerging from their cocoons at their pace. It feels like whiplash: going from riding with one...
The American Scholar
A Messy Mix The post A Messy Mix appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st May 2024
The American Scholar
We Are the Borg Is the convergence of human and machine really upon us? The post We Are the Borg appeared first on...
3rd Jun 2024
36
3rd Jun 2024
Is the convergence of human and machine really upon us? The post We Are the Borg appeared first on The American Scholar.
sbensu
Creative kernels Artists can often trace entire pieces around one idea that drives everything else.
1st Jul 2024
24
1st Jul 2024
Artists can often trace entire pieces around one idea that drives everything else.
sbensu
Notes on UX and LLM integrations I analyze 8 apps (ChatGPT, Notion, Perplexity, etc.) that use or integrate LLM and try to break down...
1st Jan 2024
24
1st Jan 2024
I analyze 8 apps (ChatGPT, Notion, Perplexity, etc.) that use or integrate LLM and try to break down when and why they work well, or poorly.
The Perry Bible...
Please The post Please appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
26th Jul 2024
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[RIDGELINE] A (Very) Short Walk With Rich Roll Ridgeline subscribers — For years, Kevin Kelly and I have been inviting (to no avail) Rich Roll on...
4th Jun 2025
1
4th Jun 2025
Ridgeline subscribers — For years, Kevin Kelly and I have been inviting (to no avail) Rich Roll on Walk and Talks. So it was with great delight that about a month ago, I (Craig Mod, author of this newsletter, Ridgeline; thanks for subscribing) flew out to LA to go on the Rich...
The Perry Bible...
Bubbled The post Bubbled appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
1st Mar 2025
This Space
This Space of Writing ten years on Today in 2015 my blog-collection This Space of Writing was published as a book. An ideal Christmas...
11th Dec 2025
1
11th Dec 2025
Today in 2015 my blog-collection This Space of Writing was published as a book. An ideal Christmas gift. Not a happy memory to be honest; an editor would have made it a better book. However, I can't fault the cover design, and I was lucky to have Flowerville's permission to use...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The New Design A few times a week, we get emails from students and young designers looking for an internship or...
21st May 2013
18
21st May 2013
A few times a week, we get emails from students and young designers looking for an internship or full-time opportunities at the studio. We’re not quite ready in terms of needing outside help, so these are unsolicited inquiries. We don’t make any mention of not accepting them as...
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...
1st Jan 2018
21
1st Jan 2018
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...
Escaping Flatland
Some relationships deepen when you tell the truth and some end I asked people to send me stories about situations where they had done what felt right to them, even...
11th Mar 2026
1
11th Mar 2026
I asked people to send me stories about situations where they had done what felt right to them, even though they feared social pushback.
The American Scholar
The Stolen Lines The post The Stolen Lines appeared first on The American Scholar.
1st Sep 2025
The Elysian
Idea Labs! An open thread for collaborative worldbuilding Let's brainstorm the future together.
22nd Mar 2024
Escaping Flatland
If you're facing a complicated decision, your first job isn't to find a solution, but to understand... Some housekeeping:
18th Aug 2025
Josh Thompson
Change The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for...
30th Jun 2014
23
30th Jun 2014
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or something like that. Sometimes change is for the better, and sometimes its for the worse. I don’t know if there’s always a difference. Recently, Kristi and I have seen lots of change; I’d say its for the better, but it’s not...
Josh Thompson
How to fly… like a boss I am in a quest to level up my life. Free flights is a big part of this. I’ve not gotten too many...
7th Oct 2013
27
7th Oct 2013
I am in a quest to level up my life. Free flights is a big part of this. I’ve not gotten too many of those yet, but the next best thing is free seat upgrades. I’m not talking about first class - that’s beyond me, at the moment. I’m talking about getting stuck in the back of the...
Astral Codex Ten
Chip Off The Old Block ...
1st Jul 2026
Wuthering...
Ralph Roister Doister, among the first regular English comedies - Then to our recorder with... Ralph Roister Doister (written c. 1550, published 1567) once had the distinction of being the first...
2nd Sep 2025
1
2nd Sep 2025
Ralph Roister Doister (written c. 1550, published 1567) once had the distinction of being the first comedy in English.  Please see this 1911 edition of the play calling it “the first regular English comedy.”  I do not know what 19th century critics meant by “regular” but this...
Escaping Flatland
Relationships are coevolutionary loops Looking for Alice, part 3
31st Oct 2023
Josh Thompson
About Roundabouts I’m desperately trying to work through a giant back-log of writings. Please see write it now for...
5th Mar 2022
25
5th Mar 2022
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...
Ploum.net
Une vie sans notifications Une vie sans notifications Переведено на русский Wandering Thinker Avertissement : Cet article...
2nd Sep 2025
1
2nd Sep 2025
Une vie sans notifications Переведено на русский Wandering Thinker Avertissement : Cet article parle de mon expérience avec le Mudita Kompakt, mais, n’étant pas lié à cette firme, je ne répondrai à aucune question concernant cet appareil ni le Hisense A5. Tout ce que j’ai à dire...
Josh Thompson
Load Testing your app with Siege Last time, I dug into using Apache Benchmark to do performance testing on a page that requires...
2nd Jul 2019
24
2nd Jul 2019
Last time, I dug into using Apache Benchmark to do performance testing on a page that requires authentication to access. Today, we’ll figure out how to use siege to visit many unique URLs on our page, and to get benchmarks on that process. I’ll next figure out performance...
Wuthering...
What I Read in June 2026 – I don’t know, that’s all words, never wake, all words, there’s nothing... Oh right, I can pretend I am writing something.  Some notes on books I read in the distant...
22nd Jul 2026
1
22nd Jul 2026
Oh right, I can pretend I am writing something.  Some notes on books I read in the distant past. NOT SHAKESPEARE The Dutch Courtesan (1604), John Marston – Discussed long ago. Poems (1594-1612), George Chapman – A superb, innovative poet, somehow an Ovidian and an...
Idle Words
My Taipei Quarantine Part of what brought me to Taiwan was bureaucratic thrill seeking. Few other countries had gone...
26th Apr 2022
29
26th Apr 2022
Part of what brought me to Taiwan was bureaucratic thrill seeking. Few other countries had gone from “just hop on a plane” to North Korean levels of inaccessibility as fast as Taiwan, and like a cat that paws at a door just because it's closed, I wanted in. The country was...
Josh Thompson
December Review, January Goals This is a follow-up from last month’s goals 1. Deepen Knowledge of Back-end Development I finished...
5th Jan 2017
24
5th Jan 2017
This is a follow-up from last month’s goals 1. Deepen Knowledge of Back-end Development I finished OverTheWire’s Bandit series, except the last lesson, which didn’t make sense. (It does now! Turns out login shells and “regular” shells are different. I’ll take another spin at it...
The Elysian
Writing Prompt: Design the future of the internet! Participate in our next essay collection and print pamphlet.
2nd Jan 2026
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ I Don't Have Facebook I don’t have an account with the big blue F. It’s 2015. The social network is almost 11 years old....
15th Jan 2015
19
15th Jan 2015
I don’t have an account with the big blue F. It’s 2015. The social network is almost 11 years old. It’s remarkable — over a decade in existence and, mostly, still going strong. I read about it a lot. I have friends who work there. I have been recruited and asked by the same...
Naz Hamid • Journal
Modus Operandi My operating rules and way of living. This is a m.o. (mo) page, or modus operandi page. It lists out...
14th Apr 2025
62
14th Apr 2025
My operating rules and way of living. This is a m.o. (mo) page, or modus operandi page. It lists out the way I approach my life and the rules I apply to it to thrive. This is a living document and will be added to as more comes to mind, or as I develop new ones. It is mirrored at...
Josh Thompson
On Fables: Finishing up Antifragile I’m cleaning up some notes I wanted to jot down over the last few weeks Nassim Taleb, in...
9th Jan 2016
21
9th Jan 2016
I’m cleaning up some notes I wanted to jot down over the last few weeks Nassim Taleb, in Antifragile, says: The great economist Ariel Rubinstein gets the green lumber fallacy - it requires a great deal of intellect and honesty to see things that way. Rubinstein refuses to...
the late review
AI and Internet Hygiene we are going to have to re-learn how to use the computer
1st Oct 2024
Escaping Flatland
On mentors What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have...
8th Nov 2023
35
8th Nov 2023
What is it that motivates someone to take on someone and help them grow? Why do some learners have that privilege?
sbensu
Payments vs Transfers Transfer means to move money but payment means "exchanging goods or services". A payment system has...
4th Feb 2023
40
4th Feb 2023
Transfer means to move money but payment means "exchanging goods or services". A payment system has a lot more requirements than a transfer system and I rarely see the crypto ecosystem acknowledge these when building "payment" products.
Ploum.net
La première Madame Pipi de l’espace profond La première Madame Pipi de l’espace profond Outre la première victoire au Tour de France d’Eddy...
3rd Apr 2026
1
3rd Apr 2026
La première Madame Pipi de l’espace profond Outre la première victoire au Tour de France d’Eddy Merckx, 1969 fut une année qui marqua trois événements très importants. 1. Le premier homme sur la Lune Deux de ces événements ont encore aujourd’hui un impact quotidien dans votre...
Ploum.net
Qucocoma Philippe Samyn ? Qucocoma Philippe Samyn ? J’apprends avec tristesse le décès de l’architecte Philippe Samyn, un...
1st Jun 2026
1
1st Jun 2026
Qucocoma Philippe Samyn ? J’apprends avec tristesse le décès de l’architecte Philippe Samyn, un esprit incroyable aux idées fulgurantes avec qui j’ai eu de longues et passionnantes discussions. Philippe Samyn - Wikipédia (fr.wikipedia.org) Car l’architecture était pour lui une...
The Marginalian
Octavia Butler on Religion and the Spirituality of Symbiosis "On many levels, we wind up being strengthened by what we join, or what joins us, as well as by what...
2nd Nov 2023
35
2nd Nov 2023
"On many levels, we wind up being strengthened by what we join, or what joins us, as well as by what we combat."
Josh Thompson
The Violence of God and the Hermeneutics of Paul Sometimes I (Josh) want to share around certain academic works. Sometimes its a PDF that I want...
8th Aug 2021
32
8th Aug 2021
Sometimes I (Josh) want to share around certain academic works. Sometimes its a PDF that I want someone to download and read, sometimes it’s text from a book I’ve read, and cannot otherwise get a sharable format of. So, I laboriously take photos of pages, use an optical character...
This Space
Reading, forgetting When John Updike read À la recherche du temps perdu after having read Scott-Moncrieff's translation,...
10th Sep 2025
1
10th Sep 2025
When John Updike read À la recherche du temps perdu after having read Scott-Moncrieff's translation, he was surprised to find Proust less Proustian, the epithet we associate with flowery prose blossoming over prodigious sentences proliferating clause within clause. While I cannot...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
🔗 Rick Rubin on Listening If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in...
15th Jul 2024
53
15th Jul 2024
If it’s music you’re listening to, consider closing your eyes. You may find yourself getting lost in the experience. When the piece ends, you might be surprised by where you find yourself. You’ve been transported to another place. The place where the music lives. — Rick...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Those Little Cracklings of Mirth and Folly' Who is being described and who is doing the describing: “His prose is the model of the middle style;...
1st May 2026
1
1st May 2026
Who is being described and who is doing the describing: “His prose is the model of the middle style; on grave subjects not formal, on light occasions not grovelling; pure without scrupulosity, and exact without apparent elaboration; always equable, and always easy, without...
Josh Thompson
Sidekiq and Background Jobs for Beginners I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I...
30th Jul 2018
26
30th Jul 2018
I’ve recently had to learn more about background jobs (using Sidekiq, specifically) for some bugs I was working on. I learned a lot. Much of it was extremely basic. Anyone who knows much at all about Sidekiq will say “oh, duh, of course that’s true”, but at the time, it wasn’t...
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[RIDGELINE] A Few London Strolls Ridgeline subscribers — For the last ten days I’ve been walking around London. Mostly in a little...
a week ago
2
a week ago
Ridgeline subscribers — For the last ten days I’ve been walking around London. Mostly in a little corner of it in the northeast part of the city. But can you even call a part a “corner” when the city extends in every direction without stopping? Whatever you call it, I’ve been in...
ribbonfarm
History is More Like Science Fiction Than Fantasy I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I...
2nd Apr 2024
33
2nd Apr 2024
I’ve been slow-reading Bettany Hughes’ Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities for months now, ever since I visited the city (on Kindle, so I didn’t realize when I started that it’s 600 pages plus another 250 odd notes). It’s dense and absorbing and I’ll probably do a reflections post...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Either Very Gravely Gay or Very Gaily Grave' “Lend me—lend me some disguise; / I will tell prodigious lies; / All who care for what I say /...
1st Apr 2026
1
1st Apr 2026
“Lend me—lend me some disguise; / I will tell prodigious lies; / All who care for what I say / Shall be April Fools to-day!”  This sounds like our understanding of April Fools’ Day as kids. Low-cost, nothing elaborate, just walk up behind a guy and scream “Your pants are on...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ The Work Is Never Done I went for a run. I’ve been running consistently for over a year and a half now. It’s a panacea for...
7th Nov 2024
31
7th Nov 2024
I went for a run. I’ve been running consistently for over a year and a half now. It’s a panacea for me. I run outside. I like to feel the cool wind on my skin, my pores open and sweating, the legs rhythmically turning over in pursuit of flow. In the beginning, I kept my head...
Josh Thompson
Five Days to Inbox Zero: How to Get Control of your Email Email is a constant in our lives, yet it can be so overwhelming that it becomes almost 100%...
7th Feb 2014
24
7th Feb 2014
Email is a constant in our lives, yet it can be so overwhelming that it becomes almost 100% ineffective. I discussed with a friend the other day why they should switch from Yahoo to Gmail, and how to reduce the useless emails they receive. Below is how I suggested they move from...
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...
8th Mar 2025
62
8th Mar 2025
A while back, I wrote a post titled “What is a Platform?”. I defined what a platform is and why tech companies are so determined to become labeled as one. My definition of a platform is a tool that allows users to define and build their own things, which can be used by other...
This Space
A mighty contagious absence, part two On submission and resistance to AI-generated literature   To great writers, finished works weigh...
26th May 2025
1
26th May 2025
On submission and resistance to AI-generated literature   To great writers, finished works weigh lighter than those fragments on which they work throughout their lives. For only the more feeble and distracted take an inimitable pleasure in conclusions, feeling themselves...
The Perry Bible...
Artist The post Artist appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
21st Jan 2026
ribbonfarm
Bangalore Meetup Report Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal...
6th Jun 2024
27
6th Jun 2024
Did a ribbonfarm meetup in Bangalore last night, the first ever in India. Thanks to Abhishek Agarwal for organizing. I think this is the first meetup I’ve done since the last Refactor Camp in 2019. It was kinda last minute, which is why I only posted on Substack rather than here...
The American Scholar
The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths The...
2nd Dec 2024
37
2nd Dec 2024
How a classic paean to the honest virtues of a Maine fisherman obscured several ugly truths The post The Brahmin and His Imaginary Friend appeared first on The American Scholar.
ben-mini
Making My SQL Skills Obsolete Quick Update: I updated my domain to ben-mini.com! All old URLs and the RSS feed under...
22nd Dec 2024
98
22nd Dec 2024
Quick Update: I updated my domain to ben-mini.com! All old URLs and the RSS feed under ben-mini.github.io will automatically redirect, so no changes are needed on your end. By far, the most useful LLM app I’ve made is the Kibu Schema God: I try not to make my posts too...
The American Scholar
On Returning The post On Returning appeared first on The American Scholar.
a week ago
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ On a Low and a High A few days separate us from our time at Canyon of the Ancients and our last camp from this fall...
14th Apr 2022
19
14th Apr 2022
A few days separate us from our time at Canyon of the Ancients and our last camp from this fall trip. After a mangled tale of an ER (mis)visit and a return for refuge at Sage Canyon (this time camping just outside the Workshop Loft — thank you, Grant, for the use of your bathroom...
Escaping Flatland
Socratic dialogue with kids I’m simply trying to understand how she thinks. When she answers in a way that does not match my...
7th Dec 2023
42
7th Dec 2023
I’m simply trying to understand how she thinks. When she answers in a way that does not match my understanding—that is interesting to me.
sbensu
Love's Executioner (book) Countertransference applies to regular conversation.
1st Dec 2024
The Marginalian
On Looking: Poet Lia Purpura on the Art of Noticing “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands...
4th Sep 2025
47
4th Sep 2025
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way,” William Blake wrote in his most spirited letter. “As a man is, so he sees.” Because how we look at the world shapes the world we see, every act of noticing is an act...
Steven Scrawls
Sunday Scrawl #1: Learning Not to Know Sunday Scrawl #1: Learning Not to Know When my parents sat me down in the living room the night...
30th Nov 2025
2
30th Nov 2025
Sunday Scrawl #1: Learning Not to Know When my parents sat me down in the living room the night before I was supposed to leave for college, I thought they were going to tell me they were getting a divorce. At the time, it was the most terrifying upheaval I could imagine. Instead,...
The Marginalian
The Moon and the Yew Tree: Patti Smith Reads Sylvia Plath’s Haunting Portrait of Depression "This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary."
4th Sep 2023
Escaping Flatland
Ethos and imagination Milk Drop Coronet, an ultra-high-speed photograph of the splash of a drop of milk, Harold Edgerton,...
4th Nov 2024
66
4th Nov 2024
Milk Drop Coronet, an ultra-high-speed photograph of the splash of a drop of milk, Harold Edgerton, 1957
Ploum.net
Un manifeste Offpunk Un manifeste Offpunk Ce texte est une traduction en français du Offpunk Manifesto rédigé par Arlon...
3rd Aug 2026
1
3rd Aug 2026
Un manifeste Offpunk Ce texte est une traduction en français du Offpunk Manifesto rédigé par Arlon de Serra Grande et que j’ai co-signé An Offpunk Manifesto (English version) Versão em português La révolution ne sera pas numérique Alors que l’hyperconnexion apparait comme le...
Josh Thompson
Quotes from 'Spare the Child' Introduction Here’s quotes from Spare the Child: The Religeous Roots of Punishment and the...
1st Feb 2025
40
1st Feb 2025
Introduction Here’s quotes from Spare the Child: The Religeous Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse, by Philip Greven. It was written in 1989, same year I was born, 35 years ago as of 2025. It’s sometimes nice to be able to share quotes with people....
Anecdotal Evidence
'My Mind Was Not Free From Perturbation' Dr. Johnson writes in his diary on January 1, 1774: “This year has past with so little improvement,...
1st Jan 2026
2
1st Jan 2026
Dr. Johnson writes in his diary on January 1, 1774: “This year has past with so little improvement, that I doubt whether I have not [rather] impaired than encreased my Learning.”  It’s customary, of course, to make resolutions this time of year -- to lose weight or stop drinking...
the late review
love's bad infinity tristan und isolde - in theory and at the met
24th Mar 2026
Josh Thompson
Movies I went out of my way to watch Introduction I’ve long liked to accrue certain lists of things I like within certain categories. to...
22nd Oct 2025
1
22nd Oct 2025
Introduction I’ve long liked to accrue certain lists of things I like within certain categories. to list appreciable books invites a similar list for movies and movie-like things. It feels strange to list all of these movies like this, in some ways, especially the first two...
Josh Thompson
Playing Pranks My wife played a brilliant prank on me today, as she does every year. Here’s a partial...
1st Apr 2014
22
1st Apr 2014
My wife played a brilliant prank on me today, as she does every year. Here’s a partial list: Convincing me that I was about to eat a slice of carrot cake; it was a sponge covered with toothpaste. I bit into it. Convincing me that she had, in anger and frustration, cut off almost...
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[ESSAYS] The Seventh Year of Running my Membership Program Hello there. I’m Craig Mod. And we just entered Year Eight of my SPECIAL PROJECTS membership...
4th Feb 2026
1
4th Feb 2026
Hello there. I’m Craig Mod. And we just entered Year Eight of my SPECIAL PROJECTS membership program. Time passes, things get done. Here we are with seven giant years under our belt. Seven of the biggest years of my life, by far. Much of it, thanks to this membership program....
This Space
On the Calculation of Volume 1 by Solvej Balle The premise of this multi-volume novel is simple: a modern-day French woman called Tara finds...
9th Jun 2025
1
9th Jun 2025
The premise of this multi-volume novel is simple: a modern-day French woman called Tara finds herself stuck inside the eighteenth day of a November. The nineteenth never appears. On the 121st iteration of the same day she begins to write by describing the sounds made by her...
Astral Codex Ten
Model City Monday 2/3/25 Things fall apart
3rd Feb 2025
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...
5th May 2019
34
5th May 2019
I find a lot of value in other people’s reviews of their years. It’s the time of year to be contemplative and reflective on the last 12 months, so here we are. Note to reader: I’m posting this in May, 2019. I wrote it in late December, 2018, didn’t get around to finishing it up...
Josh Thompson
On Friction warning. self-indulgeant diatribe coming. I generally try to avoid these, but it’s my website, and I...
20th Dec 2017
22
20th Dec 2017
warning. self-indulgeant diatribe coming. I generally try to avoid these, but it’s my website, and I can write what I want. We’re rapidly approaching the end of the year, and I’ve got a few dozen ideas rolling around my head that I want to solidify my thoughts on. One of the...
Astral Codex Ten
Open Thread 410 ...
1st Dec 2025
Craig Mod — Writer +...
[RODEN] Summer Heatray Days Roden Readers — Hello from the swelterdome, the Cape O‘ Temperature Oppression, a.k.a. the Kanto...
1st Aug 2025
1
1st Aug 2025
Roden Readers — Hello from the swelterdome, the Cape O‘ Temperature Oppression, a.k.a. the Kanto area of Japan in July / August. It is so spectacularly, consistently hot that it’s hard to overstate just how bananas this heat is, how all consumingly present and manic it feels....
Salish Wolf
#5 Fritzi Horstman on Healing Childhood Trauma, Activism Through Film, and Uplifting Humanity Fritzi Horstman is a rare, beautiful individual with a selfless passion to transform lives. As a...
9th May 2020
1
9th May 2020
Fritzi Horstman is a rare, beautiful individual with a selfless passion to transform lives. As a Grammy-award winning producer for her work on the “The Defiant Ones”, Fritzi is not resting on her laurels. Nor is she coasting through Hollywood, lapping up the limelight....
Josh Thompson
"A delicate mix of chess... and bear wrestling" Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer...
2nd Nov 2014
20
2nd Nov 2014
Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself needing to break down “why” of sport climbing (I’ll refer to sport as “lead” climbing from here on out. Sorry, trad climbers). If someone is enjoying top roping, (or bouldering) why should they take on the work of learning to lead climb,...
Escaping Flatland
Things that connect us to ourselves, and things that don't + recommendations
6th Feb 2026
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...
12th Aug 2019
21
12th Aug 2019
In the last few weeks, I read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes. I found it to be compelling (more on that in a moment) and I want to be impacted by them. I want the daily decisions that I make to be subtly influenced by this author and these books. Related but in a different...
The Marginalian
The Feather Detective: How Roxie Laybourne Pioneered Forensic Ornithology You wouldn’t know it, looking at the tiny elderly woman in the white lab coat bent over a table in a...
1st Oct 2025
21
1st Oct 2025
You wouldn’t know it, looking at the tiny elderly woman in the white lab coat bent over a table in a halogen-lit government office, you wouldn’t know she had spent her youth doing science with her whole body: extracting herself from a deadly mudflat with stubbornness and applied...
sbensu
Designing for support teams Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from...
5th Feb 2024
23
5th Feb 2024
Support agents spend their entire lives using the same software. Their needs are very different from consumer software. Here are some things to keep in mind.
sbensu
The Perfectionists (book) A great book that covers the ideas and people behind modern industry.
1st Aug 2024
Steven Scrawls
Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction What if our stories explore questions not because those...
20th Mar 2024
29
20th Mar 2024
Easy Questions, Part 1: Introduction What if our stories explore questions not because those questions are interesting, but because those questions are easier to respond to than the alternatives? Trope: The Chosen One What’s the shallow, wish-fulfillment version of...
This Space
Twentieth anniversary post On this day in 2004, I posted the first entry on this blog.  In recent years many posts have...
25th Sep 2024
1
25th Sep 2024
On this day in 2004, I posted the first entry on this blog.  In recent years many posts have reflected on the past and present of literary blogging (it has no future) so I will not go over that waste land again except to wish more had followed the example of This Space. One of...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ A Second Shot It sunk in. Both the needle and the fact that life had indeed changed. I turned to my left and...
13th May 2021
18
13th May 2021
It sunk in. Both the needle and the fact that life had indeed changed. I turned to my left and looked at her. She, the same Black woman who had administered the first, and this time I tucked her name away into my memory, having forgotten it in the excitement and overwhelming...
ribbonfarm
Intellectual Menopause I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s...
16th Aug 2024
38
16th Aug 2024
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...
Josh Thompson
How To Write A Letter of Recommendation for Yourself I meet regularly with early-career software developers. A few recurring meetings, 1x/week, plus...
6th Aug 2020
28
6th Aug 2020
I meet regularly with early-career software developers. A few recurring meetings, 1x/week, plus ad-hoc calls as needed with others. A question came up recently: My three-month internship is close to wrapping up. The Co-founder/CEO/lead developer of the consulting company I’m at...
The Marginalian
Blink Twice to Quell a Quasar: Carl Sagan on Superstition Growing up in Bulgaria, in a city teeming in stray dogs and cars, I was deeply distressed by the...
4th Aug 2025
31
4th Aug 2025
Growing up in Bulgaria, in a city teeming in stray dogs and cars, I was deeply distressed by the sight of each dead animal in the streets between home and school — deaths I could not prevent and could not bear. To cope with the aching helplessness, I developed a private...
Josh Thompson
Barefoot Sprinting Up a Grassy Hill, & Kettlebell Swings Introduction A few months ago, maybe in November, certainly by December, I began this ‘barefoot...
12th Mar 2025
68
12th Mar 2025
Introduction A few months ago, maybe in November, certainly by December, I began this ‘barefoot sprinting up grassy hills’ thing I’m going about to talk about in detail below. Shortly after I started, I began making use of the kettlebells I’d usually ignored at the gym(s) I have...
The Elysian
Humanity from the perspective of robots Talking points for our literary salon next week.
1st May 2024
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Music That Got Me Through 2020 As time goes on, I've learned something about myself: I'm now that person — that old fogey — that...
1st Feb 2021
17
1st Feb 2021
As time goes on, I've learned something about myself: I'm now that person — that old fogey — that mumbles under their breath about the old days when music was real. That said, there are plenty of good artists (even great artists) making meaningful music today. I just have to...
The Marginalian
God, Human, Animal, Machine: Consciousness and Our Search for Meaning in the Age of Artificial... An inquiry into the eternal enchantment of why the world exists.
2nd Mar 2023
This Space
The end of literature, part five "Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100...
25th Jul 2024
1
25th Jul 2024
"Stupid" and "a marketing exercise" were the first two descriptions I saw of the New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century polled from hundreds of "literary luminaries" offering ten choices each, and while it is both of those things, "parochial" is the first word that...

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